Taking It Back

by Joseph Talluto

Tommy whooped and grabbed his duffle bags, which he had stashed out of sight. Angela hugged me as she passed and climbed aboard. Charlie slapped Tommy on the back and Sarah hugged them both.

  I climbed aboard and gave Charlie the thumbs up, settling back into a lounge chair.

  “What made you decide to come with?” I asked Tommy.

  Tommy smiled. He pulled out the letter Duncan gave him. I opened it and it just said ‘Stay with John. I’ll join you later after the winter.’

  “Wouldn’t have it any other way,” I said.

  My easy cruise was short lived, as we came up to the outskirts of Joslin relatively quickly. I kept my Enfield trained on the buildings on the West while Tommy kept his on the right. Sarah and Rebecca were below with the little ones and Charlie kept the big boat moving steadily. The chain had not been replaced and I did not see anyone watching us. We heard the undisputed cry of thousands of hungry ghouls and saw many of them lining the canal, watching us drift on by. I wondered if the ghouls had finally won against the holdouts in Joslin and the city was truly dead. Given the number of Z’s we were looking at right in front of us, trying to find the answer would be deadly.

  We moved down the canal, joining the river and moving past the towns that Charlie and I previously passed. Since that visit and the one we were making, we had established communication via ham radio and had actually sent some trade envoys down. Apparently the town of Seneca had a surplus of bread products and we traded regularly for flour and wheat.

  Sarah, Rebecca and Angela took advantage of the lazy trip and the sunlight to get a little tanning in. They surprised us by disappearing into the cabin and reappearing in very slight bathing suits. Charlie nearly ran us aground as he had a hard time keeping his eyes on the river. I didn’t blame him a bit.

  Jake loved the river ride and laughed as the water slapped the side of the boat. Julia was enthralled as well and gave Tommy the fits as she repeatedly tried to jump into the river.

  We rode for a while and the sun was reflecting off the water as it started to work its way into the evening hours. The warm day had begun to cool off and a breeze from the south promised a comfortable night. By my watch, it was about three in the afternoon when we finally made it to Starved Rock. Charlie steered us closer to the monument itself, bringing the boat into a small inlet in the shadow of the Rock. Tommy volunteered to jump into the water to secure the boat, and we maneuvered the big craft up as close as we could without grounding it.

  Securing the boat and hauling off our supplies, after a brief wait for the women to gear up, we headed into the woods towards the lodge. I didn’t get the same creepy feeling I got the last time we were here, although I still walked with my rifle at the ready. Sarah let Jake walk beside her and he and Julia shared happy baby sounds as they toddled through the woods.

  We reached the first clearing and I glanced up at Starved Rock. I thought I saw a flash of tan fur in the sunlight, but I couldn’t be sure. As long as he left me and mine alone, I had no problem with a cougar in the backyard. We did see another zombie that had been chewed up by the cougar, so as long as he earned his keep, I was fine with him.

  We settled into the main lodge itself after taking a while to secure the rooms. By the time we had finished, the sun was nearly down, and the evening light cast long shadows over the countryside. I figured we would take rooms on the second floor, just in case, and use the restaurant’s kitchen for food storage and preparation. The huge common area, with its enormous wooden beams and massive central fireplace was reminiscent of a medieval hall. Just outside the main hall was the paved porch area, which overlooked the entire preserve and gave us unfettered views of Starved Rock, the Visitor Center, and Plum Island. The land dropped away just beyond the patio, falling straight down by more than fifty feet. On the east side of the lodge was a small canyon which had a waterfall not twenty yards from the lodge itself, solving our water problem and providing additional security.

  The front of the lodge was surrounded by forest, with an open parking lot area immediately outside, providing an unobstructed firing zone if needed. There was ample room for growing food and the island across the way would be perfect for livestock if we decided to keep any. In a word, the lodge and surrounding area was perfect. Standing on the patio, as the sun cast pink and red hues across the clouds in the sky, I watched as Jake walked with stumbling feet around a wrought iron gazebo likely used in the past for weddings. Sarah was with me and I wrapped an arm around her shoulders as we took in the view.

  “Well, what do you think?” I asked, nodding to Charlie and Rebecca who were sitting on the lounge chairs watching Julia roam around. Tommy and Angela were exploring the park with an express caution about the cougar.

  “I feel like we’re in a fairy tale,” Sarah said. “We live in a manor and are surrounded by our fief. Across the river there are monsters.”

  I hadn’t considered it that way, but I thought it sounded pretty good. “You know, in the old days of this country, whoever could back up and hold a claim to land eventually was titled to it. These days, I would think the same rule applies. If you can hold it, it’s yours. I’d say unless things change dramatically, this lodge and land is ours as long as we can defend and keep it.”

  “No trouble there,” Charlie growled.

  I hoped so. My gut told me this was the place to stay, that this was the place I had been looking for. My family was safe, my friends were close, and we had what we needed to get on with our lives.

  The wind picked up suddenly, swaying the treetops and causing a rustle to pick up from the leaves. If I had been poetic, I might have thought the land was saying “Welcome home.”

  34

  We settled in relatively quickly and made several forays into Utica. The town had largely been abandoned when the Upheaval hit, so we were able to secure a decent amount of supplies. There were, of course, the usual skirmishes with zombies, but I have to say, we were getting fairly good at dealing with them. They weren’t the horrible boogeymen they were in the beginning and we treated them more like vermin to be exterminated. Large, smelly, kill-you-if-it-bites-you vermin, but vermin nonetheless.

  Tommy managed to find an old style water pump which allowed us to pull up water from the waterfall basin near the lodge. Charlie got it in his head to try and rig up a waterwheel to a generator to try and provide some low wattage power, but by fall he was still working that one out, getting mostly soaked for his trouble.

  When fall finally came, the forest was ablaze in colors, as far as we could see. Charlie and I took Sarah and Rebecca on a surprise trip to Seneca, where Josh steered us in the direction of the local minister. Charlie and I had picked up rings during one of our trips to Utica and eschewing tradition, simply told the women we were getting married. They made a half-hearted attempt to object, but once they realized we were serious, they lined up pretty quickly. After the vows were exchanged, we headed back to the lodge to break the news to the children, who really didn’t seem to care. Jake put a stuffed animal on his head and walked around the main room in celebration, at least we think that’s why he did it.

  Christmas was actually a pretty happy affair. We selected a small pine tree from our abundant supply, and decorated it with trimmings gleaned from a few of the abandoned houses. It took a few tries, because some of those people had really bad taste. Jake got some new cars and Julia got some new stuffed animals. I raided a bookstore for Sarah’s gifts, and Charlie did the same for Rebecca, except he went to a craft store. Tommy had made a run to another town, and came back with several dresses for Angela. It was almost normal, except for the cougar growls that drifted upwards from the river valley floor.

  We celebrated Jake’s second birthday around this time and since we had no idea about Julia’s birthday, we celebrated hers as well.

  Three weeks later, Charlie, Tommy and I were back in the boat, heading north. The ground was covered in snow, and ice chunks bumped into the hull every now and then. We were headed back to Leport to take part
in a massive push to clear the area of zombies. Nate and I had planned this push for months, realizing that if we moved when the zombies were frozen, we would stand that much better of a chance when the weather turned warmer. Plus, with all the towns that had survived and the communication network we had set up, we were able to coordinate a massive assault on the undead.

  As we ventured farther out, we were meeting with more people and towns that had survived the initial Upheaval. What we needed to do was to make it safe to travel and to let people get on with living, not just surviving. That was why the towns on the railroad were clearing up their counties, marking them safe as they pushed out farther. With luck, we hoped to have an area of over twelve hundred square miles cleared of the Z’s by spring. Next winter, we would do the same. A big hope was that a majority of the zombies would eventually decay to the point of uselessness within a few years.

  The three of us were standing with Trevor and his band of merry men on the outskirts of Bolingbrook, a heavily populated suburb of the city. It had been bitterly cold the last two weeks which was perfect for zombie hunting. The ones we encountered were pretty much frozen, moving slowly if at all. There wasn’t the heavy snowfall yet, so we didn’t have to worry about zombies under the snow.

  I stood with my long crowbar in my hands, my faithful M1 Carbine slung over my shoulder. There were two pickup trucks waiting behind us and more waiting beyond them. My orders were simple. Eliminate the zombies, drag them outside, and mark the doors according to what was found inside the homes. F if there was salvageable food, W if there were weapons or ammo. Other items would be recovered later to be distributed as needed or sent to the towns on the river or railway.

  In a way, it was funny. There was so much stuff that we couldn’t possibly use it all. Much was going to go to waste, but I guess that was the price to be paid for a society that was consumed by consumerism. More of everything, whether we needed it or not.

  The cars were being moved to the edges of the roads and placed on their sides to form a wall. Gas was removed from the cars and added to a tanker truck that followed along. Any leftover zombies in the cars were summarily executed.

  I looked at the rows of homes with their torn and frayed white flags fluttering from mailboxes and sighed. Gonna be a long day. I thought, hefting my crowbar. I looked at Tommy and Charlie and gave the order.

  “Move out.”

  We separated into pairs and I went with Trevor. All around me was the sound of men breaking into homes and dispatching zombies. Doors were spray painted, and then the trucks fired up. In the first three homes I didn’t find any zombies, but Trevor found a decent horde of canned goods. That was the way we ran it. One would go in, check only for Z’s, while the other looked for usable goods. It was cold enough that the zombies were pretty much popsicles; some could move, albeit very slowly.

  Some homes had that broken-into look, with interesting blood sprays on the walls and ceilings. Body parts were here and there and in some homes you could almost read what happened in the way things were left. One house had a father lying in his bed with a neat hole in his forehead, the bodies of his wife and children in their beds, tied with rope and each sporting a ventilated skull as well. My guess was the family had turned and the father committed suicide after finishing them off.

  We found little in the way of arms and ammo, but we had plenty of canned and dry goods. The majority of the trucks taking supplies were laden with food items. We had no use for the vehicles we found, but we rolled them out to the end of the driveways in case we needed them.

  The day went fairly smoothly and the sun was beginning its evening decent when Trevor and I approached our last building. It was an older two story home that looked like it had been renovated before the Upheaval. I popped the door open and Trevor stepped inside. He immediately dropped from view, landing with a crash in the basement. I stepped up and saw that the floor had been removed from the front hallway, leaving only studs. Trevor had managed to fall neatly through the studs to the cellar below.

  “You okay?” I called down, trying to keep myself from laughing.

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” Trevor grumbled from below. “Just my pride…Oh, Jesus!” Trevor screamed.

  I dropped through the boards and landed heavily next to Trevor, my crowbar clanging loudly on the cement floor. I sprang up, holding the bar in front of me. The basement was dark and cluttered with only the thin light from the upstairs door and window wells providing any illumination. I could hear them shuffling in the dark and I could see what startled Trevor . I saw several pairs of glowing eyes in the darkness and as I looked further, more eyes slowly opened up. A quick count revealed at least fifteen ghouls in this basement. They were coming around corners and crawling out from under workbenches. One was even slowly rising from a large wooden box, unfolding itself. It was all in slow motion, like the worst nightmare someone could have come up with. As I looked, several more pairs of glowing eyes opened up and started to move forward in the darkness. These were just the ones I could see. Chances were, more without glowing eyes were down there as well, shuffling slowly forward, hunger driving them on and on. The noise in the basement suddenly intensified as the dead struggled forward. I had no time to wonder why so many Z’s were in this particular basement.

  I swung the crowbar viciously at the nearest one, cracking its skull and killing it.

  “You bit?” I hissed at Trevor as the eyes moved slowly forward. This basement had been relatively protected from the cold, so these zombies would be moving a little faster.

  “I don’t know!” Trevor cried. “Something got me on my ankle when I fell!”

  Inwardly, I cringed. If Trevor had been bit, he was as good as dead. I quickly looked around and didn’t see any Z’s near us. I did see a board with nails sticking out of it, so it was possible Trevor had fallen on that. I didn’t care at that point. We needed to get out of this hole. There was so much clutter and too many zombies to make a stand. They might have been slowed by the cold, but not enough.

  I hauled Trevor to his feet and yelled in his face. “You gotta get up out of here now!” I swung the crowbar at another zombie that poked its head around a box of National Geographic magazines. The crowbar impacted with the sound of an axe hitting a log and the zombie fell to the floor.

  Trevor jumped for the support beam and I swung his legs up, allowing him to hook his leg over and pull himself out of the cellar. That left me. I hooked the rounded end of the crowbar over the top of a stud and jumped up, catching two of the beams. As I swung my legs back, another zombie lurched slowly into view. I used my momentum and slammed my feet into the zombie’s chest, hurling it back over the box of magazines and crashing it to the floor at the feet of the rest of the Z’s. I swung my legs up and through the studs, hooking them over the top and pulling myself through the boards.

  I took a moment to catch my breath. I carefully balanced myself and stepped over to the threshold and open door. Trevor was outside, inspecting his leg. I knelt down and reached to retrieve my crowbar.

  The bar jerked in my hand and I fell forward, catching myself on the stud. One of the zombies had grasped the crowbar and jerked it down as I pulled it up.

  “Not bloody likely.” I growled, lifting the bar up and shoving it forward, catching the zombie in the eye and impaling it neatly. The zombie fell back, the bar making a nasty squelching sound as it exited the Z’s skull. I stood up and looked down at the group of faces staring up at me, putrid faces and decaying limbs reaching up. I reached into my pack and retrieved my kerosene bottle. Squeezing a line of fluid down over their faces and into the box of magazines, I sprayed over the studs and on the walls I could reach. I also squeezed a little on the ends of my crowbar.

  I pulled out a Strike-Anywhere match and used the grasping grooves of my SIG to light it. Tossing the match inside, I stepped back as the flames erupted and started their work. I lit both ends of my crowbar, and holding it by the middle, I wandered over to Trevor while the house behind me s
tarted to smolder and smoke.

  Trevor watched me approach with my flaming bar and smiled wryly. “You planning on joining a luau soon?”

  I grinned. “I look lousy in a grass skirt and a coconut bra. You okay?”

  Trevor nodded. “Landed on a nail. I’ll probably die of infection.”

  I turned serious. “All the same, you’re quarantined for three days. With that many zombies in that basement, one of them might have stepped on it, too.”

  Trevor turned ashen. “Didn’t think of that. Oh God…”

  “Just a precaution. Try not to think about it.”

  Trevor looked down. “John, if the worst happens, could you…?”

  Knowing what he meant, I placed a hand on his shoulder. “Yeah.”

  We finished up and headed back to the regroup point. I filled in the rest of the team and there was a lot of concern expressed for Trevor, but a lot of hope as well. He should be okay, but if he turned, it was my job to put him down.

  We moved through subdivision after subdivision, through office building and school. We killed the zombies where we found them, fought them if needed. We cleared more area than would have been possible a year ago and managed to safeguard more of the surrounding area. We had supplies to spare and were well-situated to not only survive the storm, but to actually start living as well.

  35

  Six weeks after the start of the offensive, the weather began to get warmer. I called a halt to offensive operations and we went back to our homes. I spent a week with my brother and made sure he and his were taken care of. He hadn’t taken to the training as well as I had hoped, but he was a natural at organization, so he was invaluable with all of the supplies and materials our push was bringing in. I invited him and his family back out to Starved Rock, but they wanted nothing to do with that place.

  Mike had nothing but praise for me and what I had done. He said he had never been more proud to be related to me than he was now. I didn’t know what to say. I just always did what needed to be done.