“Keep ‘em safe until I get back, will ya,” Joe said to Jamie as Joe grabbed his AR-15 and what spare ammo he had left.
“After what we went through, this’ll be a piece of cake…mmm cake. I don’t suppose you could pick up a little extra food while you are out? That MRE yesterday is just not cutting it, we haven’t eaten for over 12 hours.” Jamie was a big guy with a big guy appetite.
Joe laughed and nodded, “We got plenty here from what I can gather, but I will get what extra I can, man. Get you something to eat before you fade away into some skinny ass dude I don’t recognize.”
Joe strode over to the door and checked his ammo. He was down to two full magazines as well as what remained in his weapon, which was 15 rounds. Ronnie borrowed Chris’ .45, loaded one clip, and secured two others. They were not quite out of ammo, but the supply would be dwindling quickly. Another incursion into the yard similar to the problem they had previously would spell certain disaster. They would have to come up with more creative (and quieter) ways of dealing with the undead.
Rickey sat on the edge of the couch, quietly crying, and his knees in his chest. Joe noticed his son’s distress and calmly went to him. There was no need for him to ask what was bothering him; he did not want his daddy leaving him so soon after finally being reunited. Rickey meekly looked up at his father, a few tears still streaming down his face. Joe knelt down and hugged his only child. Rickey sniffled and embraced his son. He patted him reassuringly on the back and held the frightened boy in front of him.
“Ronnie and I will be back as soon as we can. We have to go get food for Dakota, he can’t eat normal stuff like we do, bud.” Joe tried explaining in the easiest way possible. There was no sense in trying to explain to Rickey that Dakota would starve or attract more zombies from his incessant crying that would inevitably come if he was not appeased. It was not his fault, just the way that nature had made him.
Rickey looked up and made eye contact with his dad. His eyes were red and puffy from crying. “You promise to come back. You won’t be gone for a long time like you was?”
“I promise that I won’t let anything happen to me or Ronnie and we will be back so fast you won’t even notice.” Joe said, managing a weak smile. Rickey nodded in acknowledgement and wiped the tears from his face. Joe ruffled his hair and Rickey playfully batted his hand away. Safe in the fact that he had everyone under control, Joe swiftly grabbed his pack and AR-15 and signaled Ronnie that he was ready. “Hey don’t forget this.” Jamie said and reached down into his pack and procured Joe’s tomahawk. “It might come in handy.” Joe grabbed the sheathed tomahawk from Jamie and slipped it into his belt. It had come in handy before, saving his life when the ambulance had crashed back in Tazewell. Joe patted it and slowly opened the door.
The two men slipped outside and into Ronnie’s truck quietly. Joe situated himself into the passenger’s seat and rolled the window down. Ronnie fired up the engine, they pulled out of the driveway, and down the seldom-used road they now all lived on. They rode in near silence as they crept along the road at a paltry 35 mph. Joe had not given much attention to the road conditions or the few random cars that had been on the roadside. For the most part, the road was empty however. Ronnie noticed this and began to speed up some. Joe pulled his rifle back inside and rolled up the window. He looked over to Ronnie who, despite the slow speed, had a white-knuckle grip and the steering wheel and Joe could tell that he had his jaw clenched. “Hey, you doin’ okay over there?” Joe asked, noting that Ronnie seemed overly tense.
“Yeah I’m fine.” Ronnie said flatly. “Just tryin’ to concentrate is all.”
Ronnie was doing a lot more than trying to concentrate, so Joe delved a little deeper into his psyche. “You sure that’s all? You look like if I hit you, you’d shatter.”
Ronnie snapped over to Joe and then back to the road. Something was obviously tearing him apart. Joe did not have to ask what it was. Lori’s death was still heavy on him, and he had been given no time to grieve. Ronnie, on the other hand, still had not come to terms with the fact that his sister had died. He had always been an upbeat, caring person. Having his family tore away from him in such a horrible way had begun to scar him. Joe looked at him, trying to figure out and understand what he was going through, and at the same time, he did not want to let his guard down too much. That kind of thinking would get him killed, or worse, he would join the ranks of the undead. Ronnie continued to stare ahead as he drove along.
Joe decided to drop it and try to make idle conversation on the way to the store. He finally got Ronnie talking positively when he mentioned where they might be heading once they got hold of the train. Joe was neglecting the fact that he still had no clue how they were going to get the damn thing, much less how to drive it. Joe was open to the idea but not entirely convinced by it. He also was not sure about the fuel that it would take a train to get to any destination. He had not thought the process through enough to come up with any kind of endgame. It just sounded like a good idea at the time and the more he thought about it the less likely it was going to become. Their conversation died down as they approached the outskirts of town.
The town of Rural Retreat, Virginia had a population of around 1,100 before the dead began to rise. The town now seemed nearly abandoned as Joe and Ronnie began to come into the main part of town, passing one gas station and making their way into the center of town. The grocery store they were eyeing was just a mile or so down the road. Several fires burned out of control, despite the soaking rain that had drenched the area the past few days. Houses and cars were ablaze with no one to put them out. They passed the local hardware store where another group of people was looting items such as 2x4’s and assorted equipment to apparently fortify their surroundings. Ronnie slowed down at the sight of the three men that were taking the items and putting them into the back of an old Hostess truck. The men slowed themselves and stared over to Joe and Ronnie as they continued past them. An unspoken gesture of “good luck” was exchanged as they nodded at Joe as he continued to look over at them. Joe tipped his hat, said a silent prayer for the men, and looked ahead at the grocery store as they pulled to the top of the hill and it came into view.
The grocery store looked nearly abandoned and in disarray as they approached, save for one vehicle that had backed up to the entrance of the store. Joe and Ronnie exchanged a collective double take as they pulled into the parking lot. Joe gripped his rifle tight and took a deep breath as they approached the singular vehicle and parked the truck. Joe got out and scanned the area before proceeding closer to the parked car. He relaxed the grip on his AR-15 and let it at his side. He placed his hands on his hips and looked at Ronnie. He and Ronnie both shook their heads in disbelief.
“You have got to be shitting me.” Joe uttered under his breath.
There was a military armored Humvee blocking the doorway.
CHAPTER 2
The sight of the military vehicle in front of him gave Joe both hope and dread simultaneously. The military, especially the Army and most of the ground troops, had fallen apart in less than 48 hours from the start of the incident. Panic and the usual lack of good communication had crippled the military effort to contain the plague. Even more, there had not been any indication that the military had made their way into such a small area as Rural Retreat. They would be hard pressed to try and contain the outbreaks that they had in larger areas, let alone a place that as far as anybody was concerned was given up to the dead almost immediately. The town was not worth saving in their eyes. Not that humanity was going to play part in the saving of the world as far as the military went; it was just typical triage. You saved what you could and gave up the rest instead of losing more men and possibly more equipment just to rescue a town of around a thousand people. All of these thoughts flooded into Joe’s brain as he approached the vehicle. He looked over to Ronnie who was clutching his newly made sawed off in one hand and Chris’ .45 in the other. Joe peered into the entrance to the store. He did not
see anyone or anything, but could make out the faint grunt of someone in distress.
Someone fighting for their life.
Joe quickly motioned to Ronnie to follow him inside the store. They both maneuvered around the Humvee, which was almost entirely blocking the doorway. Being especially careful not to make any unwanted noise, they worked their way inside the store. The sound of crunching glass beneath their feet gave them away as they heard a garbled voice from inside the store followed by more grunts and movement. Joe and Ronnie quickened their pace as they made their way past the checkout line and towards the sound of the commotion. Ronnie raised both guns that he had at the ready, as well did Joe, raising his AR-15 and scanning the room. They were pacing swiftly to the sound when it abruptly stopped after a sickening crunch sounded the end of the struggle. Both men stopped in their tracks as they tried to figure out where it had been coming from. Before they could react, footsteps began making their way towards them. In the low light it was difficult to see anything and their sense of hearing was betraying them in the very un-acoustic environment of the grocery store. Both men stepped on broken glass as they approached the interior of the store, giving away their position to their as-yet unseen adversary. Joe’s eyes darted back and forth trying to figure out if the person inside was friend or foe. Ronnie did the same, nervously looking left and right to discern the cause of the sounds. The long pause was a deafeningly quiet. Joe had just about given up hope when a voice broke the silence. It was not from him or Ronnie.
“I don’t know how many of you there are, but my guess is two. If you are gonna try and steal the Humvee outside, I’m gonna warn you once and only once. If you try and take it, you’ll be dead before you get it started.”
Joe did not have to stop and compute who the voice belonged to like he did with the confrontation with James. He quickly lowered his weapon, breathed a sigh of relief, and released a nervous chuckle.
“Damn, for a minute there I thought it was gonna be a real threat.” A large shadowy figure moved towards them in the low light. A tall, shaved head appeared first followed by the business end of an M16A2. The figure walked up to Joe and Ronnie and released a nervous chuckle of his own. “Holy shit, three people left on earth and one of ‘em is you!” The large man in his mid-twenties approached Joe and slung his rifle over his shoulder. He stood in front of Joe and then swiftly picked him up in a bear hug. Ronnie stood in a half-amazed, half-confused state until the large man released Joe from his grip. Joe, sensing that Ronnie was completely oblivious to the man in front of him, introduced him.
“Ronnie, this is Specialist Heath, but better known by his nickname - Balboa.” Ronnie holstered his .45 and held out a nervous hand, meant for a handshake. Balboa reached his big mitt out and shook Ronnie’s hand vigorously. The six-foot two-inch frame was nearly all muscle as Ronnie got a good look at his new friend. “And now you see why he has the nickname.” Joe said, laughing. Balboa was in Joe’s squad at the Reserve unit he belonged to, and a good friend of his as well.
“What the hell were you doin’ over in the frozen foods section anyway? It sounded like you were beating the brakes off someone in there.”
“Ah, one of those damn things was in there, had to beat it back to death. It got the jump on me and I couldn’t get the rifle up to shoot it.”
After the round if introductions, Joe and Ronnie went over to the baby items in the store. While they were scrounging up the supplies for Dakota – which there were plenty, the baby items were nearly untouched – Joe and Ronnie explained the events of the last few days to Balboa. Joe grew distant as he told him of his trek across the mountain and losing two friends along the way. He also told him of why they needed the baby supplies. He told of Lori’s birth to Dakota, and her untimely demise. When Joe was exhausted on the details of his own misadventures he turned to Balboa and asked how in the hell he managed to stay alive, and get an armored Humvee, to boot.
“Well, when the helicopter went down at Mountain Empire Airport, I was at the unit in Marion doing some backed up paperwork. Since it was so close and we had people available, we contacted Smyth County Sheriff’s Office to offer assistance. They told us that they had it under control, but they were getting weird ass reports of what they thought were homeless looking people attacking random civilians. They said they might need some help with law enforcement, they told us they were severely shorthanded to deal with the problem and wanted us to assist with that instead if we could.”
Balboa picked up a box of baby formula and bottles and took them with him to Ronnie’s truck. He set the box in the bed of the truck and continued his story.
“Well, we opened the armory and armed up what few people we had there and tried to contact a bunch of other local soldiers to help. Well, by the time all of us got ready, the police were already overrun. People flocked to the reserve center and begged us to assist. We took in what people we could and shoved some concertina wire up around the front gate. When we got that finished, we talked to some of the refuges as to what the hell was really going on. Most of ‘em said something about the inmates at the prison in town had got loose and were runnin’ amok on the town.”
Balboa came back inside with Joe and Ronnie and they began to scavenge what supplies they could get from the store. Most of the meds were still intact, and they loaded up boxes of them as well as grabbing what few containers of camping fuel and gas cans were left. Balboa continued with his tale.
“There was this one guy, though, named George that kept saying that he had seen this kind of thing before, except he thought it was from TV or a movie or some shit. I asked him about it and all he did was whisper zombies. I was letting that sink in for a second and trying not to laugh my ass off when the first wave of em attacked us.”
“First wave of what?” asked Ronnie.
Balboa looked him straight in the eye and said, “Friggin zombies, man. A bunch had got up out the ground from the cemetery across the road by then. We didn’t see ‘em coming ‘til they were almost on top of us. By then it was too late. The civilians scattered and ran off tryin’ to get away, but they were scared shitless and most of ‘em ran right towards the damn things.”
“Why the hell didn’t y’all just mow em down if you had the armory open?” Ronnie asked. Before Balboa could reply, Joe answered the question for him.
“Because the armory just has guns and magazines, no ammo.” Joe said somberly.
“Exactly,” continued Balboa, “for the most part the rest of us fell back into the building to wait it out. They didn’t get us any ammo until the next day. Battalion somehow got a chopper down to us and dropped off a crate in the middle of the parking lot. It had a few cases of MRE’s and some medical supplies, but it was mostly ammo. 5.56mm rounds, grenades, 40 millimeter rounds, and some Ma Deuce ammo.” The three men were taking another load back to the truck when Ronnie stopped and tilted his head quizzically.
“What the hell is a Ma Deuce?” he asked.
Balboa flung back a tarp on the back of the Humvee and revealed a tripod-mounted .50 caliber machine gun. “This bad mother is a Ma Deuce, my friend.” He said, grinning sheepishly. Ronnie nearly dropped the crate of soup that he was carrying when he eyed the large, impressive-looking machine gun. All three men stood, staring at the Browning M2 .50 caliber machine gun, or more commonly known as the “Ma Deuce” in military circles. Ronnie set the crate of soup in the back of the truck and walked up to the .50 cal. He reached out, touched the barrel, and looked down at the case of ammo that was attached to it. “How many rounds did you get for this thing?”
“Not as many as I did for these bad boys,” Balboa said, opening the rear door of the Humvee and procuring an M249 SAW machine gun as well. Ronnie’s jaw officially dropped at the sight of the SAW, or Squad Automatic Weapon. The machine gun was capable of holding 200 rounds without reloading, and Balboa motioned Ronnie to the back seat of the Humvee where he had the entire back seat loaded down with ammo as well as a few M4’s, another M249, and a
box of grenades. Ronnie stared at the armament longingly for a few seconds before he began to wonder.
“How in the hell did you manage to get all of this shit? There’s enough power here to take down every zombie for a hundred miles!”
Balboa sat the M249 back into the back seat of the Humvee and closed the door. “Well by the time we got all of the ammo and supplies there were only a handful of us left. When battalion airdropped the stuff, my guess is that they expected to be arming the entire unit. Instead of arming up over a hundred soldiers, there were only four of us there to divvy up the goods. We each grabbed what we could and loaded up a couple of Humvees and took off. I was gonna head to Joe’s house cause I remembered him saying something at last year’s Annual Training that if something like this ever happened that I should head down to his house. I kind of didn’t take it seriously at the time, but I figured what the hell, what have I got to lose.”
Joe walked over to Balboa and slapped him on the back. “I’m glad someone was listening! I was worried about us running low on ammo, but I think we will be just fine now!” Joe said laughing. “We haven’t really gotten anything figured out as to what we are gonna do yet, but we were thinking about hijacking the Norfolk-Southern train that is sittin’ down by the tracks and seeing’ where we could go with it. You have any ideas?”
“I’m glad you asked. We had some of the SINCGARS set up and was trying to get as much info as we could when the chopper dropped off the supplies.” A SINCGARS was a military radio that was universally used by almost all branches of the US military as well as foreign forces. “We hailed the chopper pilot as he dropped off the crate and he said that most forces had already been overrun or never got going to begin with. The last information that battalion got was from higher ups inside Washington after the nukes had dropped. They were setting up a rally point down in the Gulf of Mexico. They said some of the Coast Guard and Navy that were stateside managed to get out to sea and were providing transport to some offshore oilrigs. They were gonna use them for temporary bases until they could rally enough troops up. Then they were gonna take back the mainland. I don’t know how much of it is true, but it is something.” Joe pondered Balboa’s information shortly and came up with an idea.
Six Feet From Hell: Books 1 - 3 Page 17