“I can do some damage,” Trouble replied, holding the pistol she always carried with her. It was a small silver gun that her dad had kept around the house for home protection. It was now her good luck charm.
“Me too,” Double replied.
“Good. Before we dip into our small arsenal, let’s use up what we have on us first,” Mike replied, looking at Fred. “Do you have anything left?”
Fred had unholstered his gun, and had already checked his supplies. “I can do some damage as well.”
“Okay, folks,” Mike replied, “Let’s light ‘em up.”
And that’s just what they did. The zombies never knew what hit them. It was like shooting undead fish in a rotten barrel as brains splattered and blood sprayed, the four of them rarely missing a clean headshot.
From the windows of the homes, survivors started popping out screens, and they too blasted away at each walking carcass. They weren’t as sure handed with their weapons as Mike and his crew, but they managed to do a lot of damage. In fact, it was their willingness to step up and help out that finally turned the tide, and when the undead horde had been cleared enough, Mike called a cease fire.
“Thanks for helping out!” Mike screamed at the homes. He heard several “Your Welcomes” and one “Anytime” as he turned back to the three people standing beside him. “Now, we need to close up the gate.”
They all looked at it, including Joy and a few of the kids who had wandered over to see what was going on. The hearse had managed to not only plow through the gate, but it traveled many feet beyond it before it died leaving a wide open space behind the car, which meant anyone or anything could waltz right in without resistance. The gate itself had been ripped free from its hinges, and thrown even further away from the car. It now lay in a twisted heap of metal in one of the yards next to a large tree starting to fill up with fall colors.
“How?” Fred asked.
“First, we need to see if Benny is still alive,” Mike replied, scanning the one level house that held their one and only welder. The home was silent, dark, and quiet, front door hanging open.
“I hope he’s okay,” Double replied, scanning the outside of the house herself. She always tried to keep hope in her heart and not give into dread and negativity, but even she was doubtful Benny was okay.
“Me too,” Mike replied, scanning the ground below him. There were a couple of zombies shambling about that could easily be dispatched. He looked from the zombies to the gate and then back towards his house.
“What’s rattling inside your skull?” Fred asked.
Mike looked at him. “I need to check on Benny. While I do that, can you go to my house and get my SUV?”
“To block the gate?” Fred asked.
“Yes, park the car long ways in front of it. There should be enough room to get the car in there even with the hearse where it is. I hope that’ll hold us for a bit until we can put up a new gate, providing Benny is still able to help,” Mike replied, scanning the small house again with the once manicured landscaping.
“What should we do?” Trouble asked, standing beside her sister, anxiously waiting to help out.
“Ground coverage,” Mike replied. “I need you guys to make sure we have a clear path. One of you watch Fred, the other eyes on me.”
They nodded.
“Mr. Beem.”
They all looked at Tommy, who Mike had rescued from a zombie filled apartment building the previous Christmas.
“Yeah, Tommy,” Mike replied, trying not to think of Tommy’s dad. Donny was one of the first zombie neighbors he had put down after getting back from his supply run.
“What happened to the guards? Why didn’t they stop the car from crashing through the gate?”
Mike looked from Tommy to one of the newly built guard stations. It looked silent and lifeless. The door was closed. He then looked at the other guard stations. They all looked exactly the same. “We need to check those out.”
“I’ll get the car and find out what happened,” Fred replied.
“Thanks,” Mike replied, turning to face the twin girls. “Double Trouble watch our backs.” He turned to face Fred. “Let’s move.”
“Good luck,” Double replied.
“We’ll need it,” Fred replied, making sure his gun was loaded. He grabbed an extra pistol from the arsenal at their feet and shoved it into his waistband next to the knife he had in a sheath attached to his belt.
Mike did the same as Fred, and then the two men made their way over to the door that led back inside the building. They descended down to the lower level, and dropped into the silent room.
Fred looked around for a moment, frozen in anger, frozen in sadness. He couldn’t help it. This community was his home, his family, and now he didn’t feel at peace here. He felt violated.
“Come on, man. No use lingering. We have a job to do and the sooner we do it the better,” Mike replied, trying to keep his friend focused.
“Betsy was a good woman. Made me a batch of chocolate chip cookies one time because I fixed her fence,” Fred replied, looking at the dead body on the floor.
“She did a lot of good. She’ll be missed,” Mike replied, trying to not sound cold, trying to stay on task, as he stepped up to the door and put his ear against it.
“Anything?”
Mike grabbed the brass handle without answering and slowly opened the door, gun pointed forward. A female zombie shambled up towards him – dressed in a waitress uniform from one of the local restaurants. She had most of her right arm chewed off and was covered in filth from head to toe. Mike didn’t even hesitate. He shot the walking corpse right between the eyes, showering the ground behind her in blood.
Path clear, Mike and Fred moved outside, pausing for a second against the building in order to catch their breath and eye ball their destination. They nodded to one another, and then set off to do their appointed tasks.
+
In a two story house not far from the Refugee Center, Lisa Conswello held her daughter tight and watched Mike and Fred split and run off in separate directions. She could see her son up on the roof, so she knew he was safe and that she could put that worry away for a bit. Lisa looked from her son to her husband Donny laying with his head splattered all over the ground. She had warned him not to be a hero, but he hadn’t listened. He was a stubborn man with terrible survival skills, and it had cost him his life. She shed a small tear, held her daughter tight, a widow now, and a single mom for Tommy and his sister Penelope.
+
Mike raced down the street towards Benny’s white two room house, black combat boots smacking the ground underneath him. The gear he was wearing was slowing his pace, so he moved as fast as he could. Thankful he was at least wearing camo pants today. Their fabric was loose, cool, and comfortable.
When he reached the house, he slowed his pace, and moved up to the gate. It was hanging open, so he stepped through and made his way up the sidewalk to the porch. Two zombies (a man and a woman) on his left caught his attention. They had their arms around each other, swinging in the porch swing like lovers lost in love. He shot them both with two quick head shots before they could stand. They tumbled to the floor in a heap, and laid there unmoving side by side. Their weird zombie love thing now extinguished.
Mike turned to face the door, which was hanging open. The sun may have been shining, but it was dark inside the house. He took out his flashlight, put it into his mouth, cocked his gun, and stepped into the black.
+
Fred moved across the small park they had created in the center of the community, and it made him think of all the good times they had celebrated there (holidays, birthdays, school classes, church services, etc.). It made him sad to see the bodies of his neighbors strewn about the place, bleeding out onto the grass. Some had died as zombies, and some had died as humans unable to turn because their attackers had put a bullet into their brains. It was an act of kindness he didn’t understand. How could anyone harm another human being and
at the same time be thoughtful enough not to let them turn?
Two zombies came at Fred, shuffling and crunching through the colorful leaves lying on the ground. He shot them both without even thinking about it, and moved on to Mike’s house. He stopped when he reached it, and scanned his surroundings.
Zombies were shuffling towards him from the left and right, but they were far enough away not to cause immediate trouble. He looked from the walking corpses to Mike’s house, and saw the door was hanging open. He walked across the lawn (past the broken and busted Halloween decorations), and moved up onto the porch.
A zombie shuffled out of the house towards him, and Fred quickly dropped it down the steps. It tried to crawl back up, dragging its twisted broken legs behind it. Fred shot the zombie between the eyes ending its forward movement. He turned back to the front door, and thought he saw something inside the gloom of the house. He readied his gun, and went in to investigate.
+
Mike grabbed the zombie on the right by the shirt and swung it into the zombie on his left, both of them crashed hard into the kitchen table sending Benny’s cold oatmeal and silverware flying in all directions. The bowl shattered and the silverware clanged and banged, as the zombies found their feet, instincts set to feed, and lunged and lurched towards Mike again. While they were moving towards him, Mike aimed his gun at the zombie who had snuck up from behind. He blasted it in the dead-center of its face, exploding the top portion of its head, leaving only the lower portion still intact. The zombie took a few steps backwards spewing blood like a geyser, bottom jaw and jagged broken teeth exposed to the air, finally crumbling into a heap onto the wood porch.
Mike kicked its legs out of the way and slammed the front door, just as the other two zombies reached him. He managed to get the gun up in time to shoot one of them in the head, exploding its rotten brains all over a nearby cabinet. The other zombie (wearing a muscle tee, bulky and big with steroid sized muscles), gripped Mike’s arm and went in for the fatal bite. Mike dropped the gun, and fought the zombie with one hand while reaching for his knife with the other, flash light beam bouncing crazy light and shadows all over the place as he struggled with the creature. Mike finally gripped the handle of the knife. He pulled it out of its sheath, and then rammed it into the zombie’s skull just as the discolored and yellow teeth were about to make contact with the skin on his arm. He dropped the zombie to the floor, picked up his gun, and pulled the flashlight out of his mouth. He scanned the gloom of the room with his light, and that’s when he saw something shuffling towards him down the small hallway.
Mike watched as a zombie appeared wearing one of those red devil masks. He aimed, fired, and hit the zombie right between the eyes. Its head slammed backwards, and then it fell forwards with a loud crash onto the floor. He walked over to it, raised his booted foot, and began stomping on the head until it was nothing more than a pile of bloody pulp. Feeling relieved of his anger, Mike paused for a moment to catch his breath. That’s when he heard someone breathing heavy down the hall.
+
Fred was hit broadside by a very large man. They both tumbled into the couch and over it, crashing through the coffee table, landing hard on the solid wood floor. Both men got up onto their feet and stared at one another, circling around the broken coffee table like two animals sizing each other up.
Fred was now looking at one of The Satanists, wearing that red devil mask, and biker clothes from head to toe. “What the fuck are you still doing here?”
The Satanists said nothing as he pulled out a large knife, and charged top speed towards Fred, who acted quick and stepped out of the way, tripping The Satanist as he did it. The guy in the mask tumbled hard onto the floor. Fred jumped on top of him before he could flip over. He grabbed the back of the mask, and started slamming the guy’s head into the floor, over and over again, bones in The Satanist’s face crunching and breaking, teeth flying in all directions. When the guy looked to be unconscious, Fred flipped him over onto his back. He reached down to pull off the mask, and The Satanist’s closed eyes lit up. He kicked Fred in the groin, squirmed free, and made a run for it, exiting through the open front door.
+
Mike walked down the hall, and stopped when he reached a closed door. The sound was coming from inside there. He took a breath, aimed the gun forward, and opened the hallway closet door ready for anything except for what he saw. Lying slumped against the wall, barely alive, was Benny, who was short and small wearing big round black framed glasses.
Mike knelt down beside him putting the gun away, and looked at the spot Benny was covering with his hand. Blood was running between his fingers, down his side, and pooling on the floor.
“Anything I can do?” Mike asked.
“It’s no use, Mike. I’m done for,” Benny replied, coughing out blood. “Those guys just swarmed us. One minute I’m about to have breakfast, the next I’m shot and crawling in here trying to find a place to hide.” He paused, swallowed hard, and then spit these words out. “Can you do it?”
“Do what?”
“You know. The old cliché we used to see in all those zombie shows and movies before all this became real.”
“I don’t think I can, Benny. I’ve never taken a human life.”
“You have to. I can’t do it. I don’t have the strength.”
Mike got up and walked away, taking out his gun while he walked, thinking of the instrument of death in his hands, an instrument of death that would allow him to take away everything Benny had been or was ever going to be in this world. The weight of it almost pulled him down to the floor.
“Mike, you still with me?” Benny asked, coughing out more blood.
“I’m here, man,” Mike replied, eyes focusing in on a picture on the mantel. It was a sunny day inside that photo frame, Benny with his wife, kids, and multiple grand-kids. Where were all of them now? Ever since Mike had known him, Benny had been alone.
“I feel it starting, please, don’t let it happen,” Benny replied and then screamed, a scream Mike would hear for the rest of his life.
Mike walked back to the closet, and aimed his gun at Benny’s head.
“Thank you,” Benny replied, as he started to slip into the world of the undead.
Mike closed his eyes.
BAM!
+
Fred got up on his feet, trying to erase the pain in his mid-section, as a Zombie entered the living room. He blew its head off, and watched it fall to the floor as another Zombie appeared behind it, followed by another and another. And more were coming behind the last one that had just entered the house.
Fred got onto his feet, and shot several zombies in the head before running into the kitchen to get Mike’s keys. He grabbed the ones for the Cadillac and rushed off to the garage, shooting a couple more zombies before entering the room. He slammed the door and locked it just as the undead creatures starting thumping against the door.
Fred made his way over to the black Cadillac SUV, and stared at it for a moment. It wasn’t a machine he could see Mike ever buying, or driving for that matter, because Mike wasn’t the same man now that he was before all this happened. The Zombie Apocalypse, in Fred’s opinion anyway, had made Mike a much better person.
Fred opened the car door, and settled into the brown leather seat. He slid the key into the ignition, and cranked the machine. He let it idle for a moment as he climbed out, and walked over to the garage door. He prayed silently to himself, drew in a breath, and then lifted up the metal door. A zombie shuffled up on him, and Fred blasted it in the head. Its brains exploded and the creature tumbled to the ground.
Fred stood there a moment and eyeballed his destination, mentally checked the zombie count, and then raced back to the machine. He climbed inside, slammed it into reverse, and plowed his way out of the garage, running over multiple zombies in the process. He could hear their bodies crunching and thumping underneath the big tires as he made his way backwards down the driveway. He slid the big machine to a stop i
n the street, and pushed the gear shift into drive. He raced off towards the busted gate, knocking zombies out of the way as he drove, using the wipers to clean off the zombie debris that covered the windshield.
When he reached the opening where the gate used to be, he parked the car the way it was supposed to be parked, but suddenly realized there was an issue. The machine didn’t cover the entranceway. There were gaps on either end, maybe not enough to let a zombie in (brains just weren’t that bright), but a human with a human mind could easily figure out a way into their neighborhood.
“Shit, and double shit,” Fred replied, pounding hard on the steering wheel. When he regained his composure, he checked his gun, almost empty, but he still had the fully loaded pistol from the secret arsenal. He looked to his left, out beyond the wall, to the street that led into the neighborhood. The zombies were thinner now, but they were still coming. He hoped this make shift gate would work until they got things sorted out. He then looked back into the place he used to call home. The zombies weren’t as bad now as they were before, but there were still enough of them to cause problems. He holstered his nearly empty pistol, cocked and loaded the gun from the secret arsenal, turned off the car, and sat there in silence trying to figure out his next move.
+
Up on the roof of the Refugee Center, Double Trouble looked at the SUV sitting in front of the open gate, twinkling in the sunlight.
“Do you think he needs help?” Double asked.
“We’re supposed to stay here, ground coverage. Remember?”
“We can’t just let him sit there and get swarmed,” Double replied, looking at the zombies shuffling inside their neighborhood and beyond the wall. They were all converging on the SUV as it sat there like a sitting duck.
“I can help?”
Double Trouble turned to look at Joy, who looked more like a spinster librarian than a shooter or survivor for that matter.
“Can you handle a gun?” Double asked.
Joy picked up one of the pistols. “Mike taught me. I’ve never had reason to use the knowledge, but I think today might be a good time for it.”
The Mike Beem Chronicles: 6 Tales of Survival, Hope, and The Zombie Apocalypse Page 15