Joe’s mind immediately went to James. First, the fat bastard had left him for dead, and then had tried to finish the job once Joe had not managed to die by nearly blowing his head off later down the road. “Yeah I know exactly what you mean. Too bad useless fucks like him still manage to survive the end of the world, like cockroaches.”
Curtis released Cooper and shoved him aside. “Now that you have met our resident douchebag, I suppose you can meet some of the other people that have been holed up in here with me,” Curtis said, holding out his right arm and walking towards a small group of four people that had come outside of the airport terminal. “You met our resident asshole, Cooper. The large Bo Jackson lookin’ dude that followed me up from the gate is Amos; the other folks here are Brittany, Eric, Rodger, and JoAnn.” Curtis glanced past the group and searched for a few more souls that should have been with his people. “Did Mary and her group of nuts finally decide to hit the road? Good riddance to that cunt anyway. There are a few more in the building there, the ones I told you were sick or injured. There are four of them…”
“Actually there’s only three now, Curt. Sorry, brother,” Amos’ voice bellowed out from behind of Joe, mildly startling him.
Curtis let out an exasperated sigh at the bad news. He had obviously tried his best to take care of the people he was leading, and did not want to disappoint. Curtis hung his head and shook it slowly. “I knew that Donna wasn’t gonna make it long, but dammit I hoped I could get her help before she passed.”
Joe clapped a reassuring hand on Curtis’ shoulder. “That’s why we are here now, man. We were in the business of helping people before the world went to shit, and I don’t see any of that changing now. We will get to work as soon as we can, but for now let’s get the Humvee unloaded and see what all we have and what we are gonna need. We didn’t leave much at the train, and we can make a run back there if we have to, but it’s just extras of the things we already have.”
Joe made his introductions all around to the new group of people that he would be assisting. Brittany was a young looking girl of eighteen or nineteen perhaps, and very attractive. She had shoulder length dirty blond hair pulled into a ponytail. She wore a weathered American Eagle long sleeved shirt and jeans, complemented by a pair of Chuck Taylor’s. Eric looked to be just a few years older than Brittany, wearing jeans and a short-sleeved University of Alabama Crimson Tide t-shirt. Rodger was an elderly man in his sixties with scraggly, sparse gray hair and a large gray goatee. He looked to be about a hundred pounds overweight. JoAnn appeared to be in her late forties and reminded Joe of his mother. She wore jeans, a long sleeve shirt, glasses, and a weathered straw hat. JoAnn looked like a new-age hippie, how she survived the zombie apocalypse was beyond comprehension, but she had to have an upside for something.
Joe made his introductions for his people and got all of the able bodies he had to unload the Humvee. Curtis directed his people to assist with the unloading. Joe grabbed the largest bag of medical supplies they had and made his way to Curtis inside the terminal. Curtis had done fairly well keeping the airport guarded, but the terminal itself was not fortified at all. In the event that anything made it’s way past the gates, the floor-to-ceiling windows and the aluminum siding that made up a good portion of the terminal would not be much of a deterrent. Most of his people slept in sleeping bags or just outright on the floor, with few blankets and disposable airplane pillows. Monroe County Airport was not much for commercial traffic, but did have a few amenities of the airlines that had occupied its building. Most of the planes that came in and out of the small municipal airport were “puddle jumpers” bound for larger cities such as Birmingham and Tuscaloosa. The rich and impatient would pay unholy amounts of money not to have to drive the few hours down the road and would take the small personal jets out of the airport.
Curtis sat down his rifle and shed his vest and ball cap, placing them on a counter near the back of the terminal. He ruffled his hair after placing the hat down and turned to Joe. “We got three people left here that are sick as hell and we need to get them some kind of real help before we lose any more of ‘em. We don’t have any meds here other than the aspirin and ibuprofen that was in the first aid kit, and they have been gone for quite some time now.”
Joe nodded as Curtis spoke. He knew they had more than aspirin and ibuprofen, but they sounded like they were going to need something a little stronger. Antibiotics were going to be high on the list no matter what. Joe walked over to the first of the three sick that were in behind of the counter. He was an older man, possibly in his late sixties, with a horrible pallor about him and a tattered blanket pulled up to his chin. He was bald, the sweat glistening off his dome as he continued to pour sweat. His body was working overtime, trying to both heal and cool him at the same time, and a man of his age would not be able to keep that kind of pace up long.
“How long has he been like this?” Joe asked as he knelt down to the first of his patients.
“About three or four days now. He looked pretty damn sick whenever he first came here with his wife; she’s the one lying next to him. My guess is they got an early case of the flu or some kind of viral infection. Either way they haven’t looked good for the last few days. Fever, chills, insomnia, coughing, and body aches. You name it they got it. I'm afraid if we don’t get ‘em some kind of real help they are gonna end up like Donna did,” Curtis said, motioning to the covered corpse lying a few feet away from them. The bloody splotch near the forehead indicated that they had taken care to make sure she would not be reanimated.
Joe maneuvered over to the elderly woman lying next to him and placed the back of his hand against her forehead. Curtis was right; the fever was burning her up. Joe repeated the process back over to her husband with the same result. He got to his feet and addressed Curtis, hands on his sides.
“Well, we are going to need some antibiotics and a few things that we don’t have. From the looks of it is gonna have to be IV antibiotics too. We can supplement the IV stuff with regular oral antibiotics, but we are gonna have to act pretty damn quickly if we are going to get them any better,” Joe said, turning to Curtis. “It looks like we are gonna end up staying a few days as well, I hope you don’t mind us holing up in here for a bit.”
“Not at all. Your people can help us secure this place a little more and see if we can’t do something about getting us some real help, no offense.”
Joe laughed. “None taken, man, none taken. Listen, we were given some info that the Navy and Coast Guard were still out in the Gulf of Mexico before our conversation with this Marine Wyatt. We can’t get hold of them without getting closer to ‘em. If we could pull that off then we could land some small planes or at least a chopper here. We could set up some kind of waypoint for ‘em, but we gotta get hold of ‘em first. Any suggestions?”
Curtis nodded. “We get some meds and some other stuff for our sick and injured here, while we are out we take a look around and see what we can come back with. Your Humvee makes a good vehicle for making some runs with but we don’t have any other working vehicles. Everybody that got here did so on foot. I know it’s a tall order but we gotta get some more wheels, you guys are medics so I figure that an ambulance wouldn’t be a bad idea.”
Joe stood with his arms folded listening to Curtis when he realized that he had told him that there were three people that required medical attention. “Where is the third person that you said needed help?”
Curtis rubbed the back of his head and gave pause. “Well, the third one is in one of the offices over here, but I don’t think you guys are going to be of much help for her.”
“And why is that?” Joe wondered aloud.
“Well she got bit two days ago and hasn’t turned yet. She’s not sick, we just have her in quarantine to see if she’s gonna turn. So far, though, she hasn’t. I know that when you die you come back, but all the other people that I have seen that got bit died from the infection of the bite within a day or two.”
“
So maybe she’s going to soon. You really should keep an eye on her or at least post a guard or something at the door in case she does.”
Curtis let out a nervous chuckle. “I kinda doubt it brother. She ain’t sick, no symptoms, no pain, no swelling at the bite mark. I don’t know what to say, she might be immune, near as I can tell at least.”
“I don’t know of anybody that’s been immune so far dude, but I haven’t really had time to ask anyone that has got bit,” Joe hung his head, thinking about Ronnie. “We lost one of ours that got bit yesterday. He didn’t stick around to see how the other half lived.”
Curtis was about to respond when Jamie came bounding into the room. A disconcerted look passed his face, and he had his AR-15 in his hands. “You better come out and look at this, dude. I have an idea.”
Joe frowned. “An idea about what?”
“Just come look out here, I have an idea,” Jamie said, letting a sly grin slip.
Joe looked to Curtis. “Can your supposed immune lady wait for a little while? I might need your help with this one too.”
Curtis nodded. “Yeah, sure let’s go see what’s up.”
Jamie motioned both men to follow him outside. Jamie quickened his pace as they got to the door of the terminal. The sun was nowhere to be found, although it was supposed to be high in the sky. Joe was surprised to look down at his faded watch and see that it was barely past noon in the day. Driving the train through the night and not eating any for two days had started to take some out of him. The last week of his life had consisted of running from the undead, running from the living, and just running in general. The lack of any guaranteed rest or food was not lost on him from his years of working in EMS, but at least his patients had not tried to eat him during his tenure, at least until now. The woman that Curtis had spoken of that he thought might be immune to whatever was causing the dead to rise had intrigued him, but he figured that Curtis was mistaken. Joe continued to follow Jamie outside, hitting the door in stride after him, and he immediately noticed what Jamie had been concerned with.
The chain link fence that separated the zombies from them was teeming with walkers.
“Well, this might be a blessing in disguise,” Joe said aloud to no one in particular.
“How in the hell is this a blessing?” Curtis raised an eyebrow in curiosity.
“We kill all of ‘em and make the place smell like shit and they won’t come around as long as we don’t make too much noise.”
“Well how are we gonna kill ‘em without makin’ too much noise then?” Curtis asked.
Jamie clapped Joe on the shoulder and turned him towards what he had spotted. Joe looked around for a few seconds and eyed what Jamie’s idea might be about as he saw an abundant stash of something useful.
Zombie killing kind of useful.
CHAPTER 5
“So run this by us one more time,” Curtis said as he, Jamie, Chris, and even Rickey were standing around Joe. Joe had a foolproof plan for taking care of the undead swarm that had evidently followed them up to the airport. Thankfully, the chain link fence was holding the undead at bay for the time being, but it was unclear for how long. Buffey, Ashleigh, and Lucy had taken to caring for the two elderly sick patients in the terminal. Balboa was returning to the group after he had taken the Humvee and parked it in front of the main gate and rechecked the .50 cal, making sure the massive machine gun was loaded and pointed down the road leading up to the airport. The teeming horde of zombies was restless at the sight of so many people gathered in front of them like and endless buffet. The remaining people were inside of the terminal taking care of the miscellaneous items that Joe and his people had brought to them.
“Okay guys, look,” Joe said as he knelt down and drew an outline of what he wanted in the loose gravel. “Over by the hangar there,” Joe pointed to his intended destination. “There is a pile of rebar outside that I can see from here. There is also a rebar bender lying beside of it. We take about a two-foot section of it and curl it at the end to make a handle. The end that gets cut will naturally be a little sharp, so it should be perfect for stabbing these undead fuckers right in the eye.”
Joe stood up and gauged the expressions on the faces of his cohorts. Most were scratching their heads or standing with their arms crossed, digesting the information. After a few seconds, they all met each other’s stares together and collectively shrugged. Balboa was joining the group as the speechlessness continued.
“Why do all of ya’ll look like somebody is tryin’ to guess the Final Jeopardy question?” Balboa said as he joined the conversation.
“We got a plan for all of the dead fuckers, but we gotta get workin’ fast. We need to start on it right now before more of ‘em show up. I was just trying to explain how we are gonna do that. So let’s stop fuckin’ around and get to work.” Joe looked to his cohorts and got an admirable nod from each, minus Rickey. The rest of the group went to grab sections of rebar and the cutter, especially Balboa once he was briefed on the situation. Balboa had been a tried and true U.S. Army Engineer and was very familiar with what Joe wanted to have accomplished.
Rickey stood with his hands in his pockets, not really wanting to leave his father’s side. Joe noticed that he was standing by himself once the rest of the group had left. Joe frowned at the sight of his son looking so distraught. “What’s up, dude?”
Rickey looked up to his father with battle-worn eyes. Having only been nine years old at the end of the world was not an easy thing to try to comprehend, even with his amazing grasp of post-apocalyptic life in video games. The reality of it all was much shittier than just being able to turn the Xbox off whenever he got tired of seeing zombies on the screen. The problem nowadays was that the screen never was turned off; the undead were constantly pervading the world around them. Rickey shrugged with his hands in his pockets and looked back down to the ground.
“I just kinda miss playin’ my Xbox. It gets kinda boring around here, except when you guys have to run out and get supplies and then mom complains that you don’t need to be goin’ out so much,” Rickey said.
Joe knelt down and opened his arms to hug his son. Rickey shuffled over and gave his father a hug in return. For a brief few seconds, the world around Joe disappeared. He was being a father in the sense that he knew how to be, comforting his son. He did not yet know how he was going to keep the world at large away from him, but he had to try. The fence that surrounded the airport was by no means perfect for keeping out the zombies, but it was a start. Joe had all but forgotten about their original plan of getting to the Gulf Coast and was now more concerned with giving his son and family some semblance of a normal life, and if staying put for a little while was going to do that, then that is what would be done. They had been on the run for nearly a week since the world had gone to shit and not once stayed in the same place more than one night. That kind of lifestyle would not only wear on an already worn group, but would make dissention appear again much like it already had. Joe had managed to keep the unsteady peace thus far, but more problems were sure to surface now that there were more people around them and more egos to be concerned with.
Joe released his embrace from his son and stood up. Rickey held up his hand, gave his dad a high-five, and smiled. Joe returned the smile and scooted his son towards the terminal. “Go see if your mom needs any help, dude. I’ll be in here in just a little bit after me and the guys take care of our zombie problem here.”
“Get ‘em in the head, dad. Don’t have too much fun without me, though,” Rickey said.
Joe laughed at his son’s remark. “I’ll try not to, dude.”
Curtis was walking towards Joe as Rickey bounded off to the terminal. He held in his hands the contraption that had come from Joe’s imagination. The rounded piece of rebar looked like a sadistic candy cane. Curtis rolled it around in his hands as he examined it. He walked up to Joe and presented it to him. Joe smirked and grabbed the device from him. He grabbed the curved handled end of it and thrust it f
orward, mocking its actual use that he had intended for it.
“So what do ya think? Is this our new zombie slaying device or what?” Curtis smiled as he watched Joe manipulate the device.
Joe gripped the new zombie killer toy that he had and started walking towards the fence line. “Aside from curving the handle a bit more, it’s about what I had in mind, but there is only one way to find out, my friend.”
Several zombies grouped together as Joe neared the chain-link fence. They growled, snapped, and became generally agitated as he approached them. One zombie in particular caught Joe’s attention. It seemed more pissed off than the others around it, but Joe made it a point to take it out first due to the type of clothing that it was wearing. A New Orleans Saints jersey was not the best way to get on Joe’s good side, as he had been a lifelong Atlanta Falcons fan but now that was for naught. Joe gripped the rebar device tighter as he got within a foot of the fence and placed the semi-sharpened end of the rebar on the edge of the fence. He waited until the Saints zombie was in his full view and thrust the rebar forward.
“I hate the goddamned Saints!” Joe hollered as he drilled the zombie. The device did it’s job and slammed through the Saints zombie’s forehead. Missing the eye socket dead on did not seem to matter as the rebar plowed it’s way through the skull and out the other side. The Saints zombie stuttered as Joe ripped the tool back out of the creature’s head then crumpled down in front of him. Joe smiled a very self-satisfying grin as the undead menace fell down in front of him and he took aim at another one of the creatures. He jabbed the rebar forward, this time connecting with the intended eye socket. With less resistance the second time around, the tool promptly shoved the eye into the skull and through the other side. The mangled eyeball harmlessly flopped out of the back of the second zombie’s head as it too fell to the ground in a useless heap.
Six Feet From Hell: Books 1 - 3 Page 29