by Beus, Kris
Aaron looked at me with a grin and asked, “You ready for some practice?”
Puzzled I asked, “What the hell are we going to shoot out in the middle of nowhere?”
A grim look of disappointment and a bit of embarrassment grew over his face. Then he looked me in the eye very seriously and said, “Jake we are at war and you need to be able to spot danger. I understand you are new, but take your scope and have a look around.”
Unable to see anything with the naked eye I picked my gun up and held the scope moving across the valley we were in. The valley was extremely large letting me see for a few hundred yards in all directions. I picked a spot in front of the truck, then moved the scope in the opposite direction following the tree line. There was nothing in front or to the right of us. I adjusted to see behind and to the left. As I shot the scope behind me I picked up a little bit of movement from where we entered the valley. It was impossible to tell exactly what I was looking at. Whatever was moving dodged in an out of the tree line in a chaotic fashion.
As I pulled the rifle down, I looked over at Aaron and that big grin was on his face again. He said, “Ha, I knew you were not completely useless, good job spotting them. Now we go hunting just me and you.”
These words made Jaime feel uncomfortable instantly and it was noticeable. I asked Aaron if Jaime could join us since we both were brand new to this and were both in need of training. He looked down upon her smiling face with a look of doubt.
Looking at her he said, “Well teaching a girl to hunt undead is a first for me, but since you look like it won’t bother you come on.”
With the news Jaime was ecstatic. She quickly jumped out of the truck offering to carry anything we needed. Both Aaron and I handed her our extra ammo giving her the chance to feel useful. We then set our sight up on the hill to the right. It would allow us to gain higher ground and a better angle on the targets.
As we climbed the hill Jaime and I tried staying as low as Aaron and mimicking every movement he did. The hill was not especially large, but had a very rocky floor and was covered with thick brush. Aaron moved without effort leaving us a few meters behind. He turned looking at us giving the expression, “HURRY UP”. We tried our best, but were unable to catch up without standing up and running. Reaching the top of the hill Aaron pointed us to the ground so we took cover. He looked through his scope at the three or four undead who had come out of the tree line to investigate the trucks that passed. I pulled my scope up trying to see what he saw. The undead must have been too far up to see the trucks pass and were wandering around aimlessly attempting to find their location and surprised with the lack of success.
He turned to me commanding, “You take the first shot.”
Looking through the scope was one thing, but after my run in with that hunter I really didn’t want to take a life even if it was undead. I held my gun for over a minute and my arms began shaking. Irritated Aaron said, “Put the damn gun down.”
For a minute I held my head in shame. Seeing this must have sparked something in him and he said, “I was like you once. What you see down there are people and everything in your gut is telling you not to shoot them. You are not weird or broken. Every solider I have ever trained struggled with shooting these undead especially when they could see their faces through the scope. Understand something, these people you see have been cursed. They are roaming around the road right now because they are starving. The only thing they can eat is raw flesh. Now put yourself in their shoes. Would you want to be walking through a forest starving and tearing apart every animal and man that crosses your path devouring them? Nothing to live for, but the death of something else.”
Both Jaime and I were set back with his speech. Thinking about it I really wouldn’t want to spend my life killing others for food. Day in and day out constantly seeking flesh of the living for sustenance. I turned to him and said, “I am ready.”
He nodded pulling the scope back up to his eye looking at the targets. Jaime had brought binoculars and was also watching the shot. Slowly I pulled the scope up to my eye and in my mind I thought of myself down there wandering around aimlessly. Yes I would want someone to put one in my head and with that thought I targeted the closest placing the crosshair right on the tip of his head and slowly pulled the trigger. The 300 boomed which seemed louder than it actually was since we were dead silent. As it shot my aim was knocked back by the kick. I couldn’t see what happened, but as I drew the scope back down to my target the spray of blood and headless corpse told the story.
The ones walking around couldn’t see us, but heard the shot and came running in our direction. There was now three and quickly Aaron told Jaime to pull out her pistol while he aimed and fired blowing the head off one that was in a full sprint. I reloaded taking aim, but finding it much more difficult to hit a sprinting target. Aaron could tell by my hesitation and told me to sink one in the middle of their chest. The shot rang out once again dwarfing the sound of Aaron’s 270. As I brought my gun back down the undead I shot was nowhere to be seen.
I only saw one running at us. He turned to Jaime, “Your turn.”
He stood up stepping behind her and placing the cross hairs on the beast that approached. It was easy to see she was shaken by the statement, and clumsily pulled her pistol out pointing it at the charging zombie. One shot fired from a good distance off hitting the right arm, but not slowing him down at all. Aaron whispered, “Take your time, wait until you have the head shot then slowly pull the trigger.”
Jaime had the sights pointing at the running figure. She no longer looked shaken or nervous. It was instantly apparent that Aaron was a very good teacher. The zombie got close enough to see his eyes and hear the ravage snarling echoing from his mouth. Even I hesitated somewhat, but both Jaime and Aaron stood as a rock with their weapons pointed directly at the beast. As the runner hit ten yards out Jaime pulled the trigger and the man dropped where he stood. She let out a gasp of air suggesting she had not been as calm as I thought, but still did amazingly well.
Aaron told us to keep our guns drawn just in case one was still up and moving or if more decided to join. We all reloaded and began walking towards our kills. For a moment I began feeling absolutely terrible, the shot that destroyed Caz’s head kept rewinding in my mind. After a while Aaron’s words soothed my fear of doing something wrong. As we approached the closest body Jaime had hit her mark dead on. The man was old, probably sixty five or seventy, but he ran like he was in his twenties. The bullet hit him square in the forehead ensuring he would not be getting back up. We started moving to the next body and Aaron held his hand up telling us to wait.
As he moved forward I was fearing the shot to the chest did little to cripple our enemy. We watched Aaron closely and within a second he raised his rifle and shot at the ground. Fearing what had happened we moved quickly when he waved us forward. As we came up he told us the woman I shot had been crawling.
“Even in that state they are deadly, remember one bite and you join them.”
As we looked down I saw what my blast had done. The woman was lying face down in a very lovely blue dress. There was a large hold in the back of her head from Aaron’s gun, but that was not the surprising wound. My shot went through her chest and blew a hole in her back taking a large chunk of spinal cord with it.
After staring at the wound in her back I asked Aaron, “How the hell was she able to move, I thought they needed all their organs same as us.”
He turned looking at me and said, “Yes they do, but the more time the virus has to change them the more indestructible they become. A shot through the heart can take weeks sometimes to finally finish one off. We are not sure how indestructible they come, the longest we have seen is undead carrying the virus for a month. They may become almost impossible to kill after months or years. I hope the head shot will continue to work.”
I shook my head surprised at what I saw. Everything I thought I knew about these undead was changing in front of me. They were truly the per
fect warriors. The dead had no fear, no pain, and now it looked like they were becoming indestructible. I feared at what we would find in the coming weeks and months within Freedom Rock. After a while though I remembered the Zombie outside my house who was hit by the car. Everything in its body was busted and broken, but the head. Perhaps that is the one place that must remain intact.
We continued down further and came across a young man. It was hard to tell his age with the majority of his face missing. His clothes suggest mid-twenties or perhaps early thirties. It was easy to see this one died as soon as Aaron’s bullet hit it. Finally we made it to my first shot. Aaron began chuckling a bit and muttered, “We may have to find you a smaller gun, this one’s head is completely gone.”
“I know it is a big gun, but that is why I like it. Take down anything you shoot.” I smiled as I thought about my shots. For once I was happy I had ended the misery of another human.
Chapter 14
After we were done checking our kills we began heading back to the truck. I was surprised to see the amount of ground we covered in such a short time. Julie seemed especially happy that she did well and no one died.
“Well, I think you two performed extremely well and would trust either one of you at my back. Welcome to the team.”
That was it we passed our real test and were trusted security officers with kills to our names. It may not sound like much, but both of us smiled the entire way back to the truck and for a while on the road. The only thing which ended our smile was passing a gas station and seeing multiple cars empty and dead bodies littered across the ground.
Slowly we pulled in checking every corner we could check while in the back of the trucks. The store seemed abandoned and all the cars empty, but the only way to know for sure would be to walk through it all. We left the driver in The Dozer with a nice sized pistol and a couple extra clips while the rest of us walked through the wreckage. First we checked every car out in the lot. The dead which remained on the ground were eaten to the point that no virus could bring them back. This area was the bloodiest thing I had ever seen and everyone else seemed quite disgusted as well. Everyone except for Aaron that is.
As we began going through all the cars I walked up to Aaron and asked, “How does none of this get to you?”
He looked at me with the eyes that seemed dead and said, “After war, death loses most of its surprise.”
“What were you in the marine’s?” I said just guessing hoping to learn a bit more about my new friend.
“No I was an Army sniper. I spent a lot of time taking heads of living targets. I have seen all this before. Bodies destroyed like this, but not from feeding. In the war it was IED’s that would do this kind of damage.”
As he said that his face told me in a very stern fashion to drop it. I walked back over going through some of the beds of the pickups lined up behind the gas station. This was a scavenger’s paradise. Almost every vehicle parked here was packed full of supplies. These people were just trying to stop for gas as they fled and they packed as if they wouldn’t be coming back. After we got done checking all the cars we headed into the store making sure it was safe before we started loading our trucks up.
Aaron was the first through the door. As he moved in a shot fired instantly and he dropped to the ground. We all feared he had been shot, but upon closer inspection whoever was doing the shooting inside was a terrible shot. I quickly yelled, “We are not here to hurt you!”
After yelling one of the drivers and I grabbed Aaron’s feet and dragged him outside. We then looked him over to be sure nothing hit him. He was in a bit of shock, probably expecting an undead to launch at him rather than a bullet. The man in the store shouted back, “Get out of here.”
We all looked at each other puzzled. How the hell could the owner be alive with all this chaos outside?
Aaron had finally recovered enough to take back control yelling inside, “Hey we are from a small town full of survivors. We are just looking for important items to take back to our people. We don’t want anything in there if it is yours.” He then adjusted his tone matching our sense of confusion, “How the hell did you live through all this out here?”
Finally the man realizing we were not out to hurt him or steal everything he owned told us to come in with our hands up so he could see were not up to trouble. Single file leaving one outside ready to come in shooting if necessary we walked into the store. The man stood behind the counter as if the zombie apocalypse was not going to stop his business. He held a twelve gage shotgun, but extremely thick glasses making it obvious why he missed Aaron. As he saw we outnumbered him and could have easily come in shooting, killing him and taking his items he set the gun down while saying, “I wasn’t here.”
Aaron continued, “So you got here after all the chaos outside?”
The old man, “Yes sir, if I would have been here them damn cannibals would have been full of buckshot.”
Aaron looked at the man closely and with seriousness and said, “If you stay here you will die. If not from the walking dead then normal people who will come and steal everything you have including your life.”
With these word the old man seemed to lose his entire confidence. He was shaking, though it was hard to tell if it was from fear or age. He finally looked at Aaron and said, “The name is Old Jim, at least that is what my friends call me.” He stuck his hand out a little warily as if still unsure of our intentions.
Aaron walked forward meeting Jim’s hand with his own, “The name is Aaron.”
The old man began smiling, as if beginning to believe we were good people and could help him out. He then asked, “So where you guys from again? Didn’t you say something about a town full of survivors?”
“Yes sir, we have over seven hundred people over at the quarry. It is about forty miles that way.” Aaron pointed down the road where we came from.
Seeing the old man’s interest in our town he immediately added, “Newcomers are always welcome, but you will be required to either work or fight.”
Old Jim looked a bit ashamed saying, “Well you seen my fighting skills. I couldn’t shoot you ten feet away with a damn shotgun. I am good with engines though. I can rebuild them from scrap if need be. I also don’t mind cleaning, cooking, or whatever else needs done if your camp is offering safety.”
Aaron looked him in the eye, “Old Jim I am sure there is a spot for you, if not I will make one.”
Seeing the kindness Aaron showed warmed the man’s face almost instantly. He told us he would need to grab some things to throw in the truck then he would show us where all the goods in the store were. As we looked around the store waiting for the old man it was very disappointing. The store had been trashed, but it didn’t seem like much made it past the cars outside. Only a couple minutes passed and Jim came flying out of the back office with the gun and a large duffle bag.
“Well this is all I need,” he said patting the bag.
Aaron walked him out to the truck then back into the store. Jim had a smirk on his face, “The store may look empty, but don’t be fooled. Follow me.”
We walked behind the counter and into the back office. He then walked straight out the back door and out into the dirt. As he walked further out into the dust he was mumbling something about being called crazy. He grabbed a shovel and began smacking it on the ground. We all sat back looking at him somewhat interested, but mostly worried that he had lost his mind. After a couple minutes of Jim walking around pounding the dirt with his shovel Aaron called out, “Jim, You ok?”
“Just give me a damn minute. I am a bit forgetful.” He snapped back at Aaron, irritated he couldn’t find what he was looking for.
After twenty minutes of Old Jim smacking dirt the entire group wanted to go. Aaron gave the ok for the group to begin loading everything from the cars into the trucks. As soon as Jim heard this he shouted, “Don’t do that you will need both trucks for what I got.”
Once again interested, we all sat back and watched the old m
an beat on the ground. He was sweating profusely and was out of breath. Some of us began asking each other if he was going to die where he stood. After another couple minutes we heard a loud ding. We all ran over interested in what he had buried. He asked for some help and we all began using our hands to uncover what he found. As we uncovered it the metal roof came into shape.
Old Jim reached down trying to pull it open, but was unsuccessful. I asked if he needed a hand. He shook his head and I stepped over beside him to give a pull. The door didn’t come easily, but unmasked a hidden tunnel. All of us stood back shocked seeing the stairway leading deep in the earth. We let the old man take the lead and all of us following closely. The cement stairs slowly lowered us into the ground. Light was limited and the air smelled as if it had been down here for years.
Reaching the bottom of the stairs we reached a concrete floor. Our team began looking around making note of the safety of this bunker. Hearing this pleased the old man, he added, “Damn right it is safe. In every direction there is three feet of solid concrete. This bunker was made for a nuclear blast, I suppose this cannibal apocalypse is close enough huh.”
The room we were in only had a little. All we saw was basic tools and materials someone would use for maintenance. We lost sight of the Old man for a couple seconds then a loud noise made us jump. The light hit our faces blinding us for a minute or so. As our sight dimmed Old Jim slowly came into view. He had a smile on his face and was standing next to a solid steel door with a punch code lock next to it.
“You ready to be amazed?” He asked still smiling.
With a look of astonishment on his face Aaron replied, “Hell yea.”
The old man slowly punched in a long code and an unlocking mechanism was triggered within the door. He grabbed the large handle and began pulling. Once again the frail little guy was not enough to open his own bunker. Seeing his struggle I stepped in and began pulling with him. The door slowly gave way showing the vault inside.