Danielle stopped singing and looked at me. "Jay, you know I'm married. I need to go home to my husband now." She pulled away and started to turn towards the door leading into the convenience store, her naked tits bouncing with the movement.
"Whoa girl, get back here. You're in no shape to go anywhere but my place, if we can even get there." I growled, turning my attention back to her and moving forward clumsily, I grabbed her arm. Bridget's weight was impeding me slightly as she still had me in a full body, death grip hug. I found I was already responding to Bridget's softness, my jeans growing a lot tighter and obviously my distaste for the smell had not affected my body's natural responses. Something about having a mind of its own briefly flitted through my head. "Besides, I don't know who's alive yet in town," I continued. "Now go get your clothes girls; it's barely above freezing outside. You'll be popsicles before we get to safety.”
Danielle stopped moving as my hand checked her progress while Bridget started crying.
"I don't want to go back in there. It’s a hundred degrees," she sobbed.
"Shhhhh," I muttered. "We just don't have time for this shit!" I rolled my eyes. "Cry later when we're naked back at my place. Right now, just focus on what I tell you. Don't move, I'll get your clothes."
I slipped through the half open door holding my breath. A wall of intense heat hit me like a poleax between the eyes. Jesus, I never knew those commercial heating and cooling units could get this hot. Squinting, I found their clothes piled together in the form of a makeshift bed. I scooped them up running back outside.
The girls then quieted, looking at me after they both got dressed. Quickly, I told them to keep their heads down and follow me out. Danielle would stay right behind holding onto my tactical vest and Bridget holding onto the back of Danielle's belt as I judged that Danielle was the drunker of the two, if that were possible. They were both shitfaced so it was not an easy thing to judge. We would single file out of here as quiet as mice. No peeps, no screams and no running off or they were dead. It took effort to pry Bridget's hands from around my waist, but we were ready to go in a moment and slowly I negotiated the interior of the store with the girls in tow. I felt the solid weight of Danielle's hand as I reached the entrance glancing back to ensure Bridget was still with us. Two young drunk sexy girls. Hell almighty! God really did love me but his love had major challenges.
Outside it was still surprisingly clear of moving undead from my earlier shooting. I had left dead bodies everywhere and they still lay on the asphalt where they had fallen. I had known only headshots would truly take them out, but the instinct to shoot center body mass was still strong and took a bit to knock the habit out of me. The head being a smaller target but definitely doable as was obvious as I surveyed all the bodies with gooey punctured heads lying everywhere. I crouched down drawing the girls with me at the double glass doors that were still half-open. I was glad the emergency generator wasn't tied into them. The swish they made opening and closing would have given us away to any of the undead that still remained in the area.
"Okay. This is the plan. We're going to run across the parking lot to that field in front of us there," I pointed. "Then we'll crawl to the next house which is empty, and then cross the street fast to my place if no one is in sight. We'll be safe there. Got it?" I whispered to them pointing as I have instructions, watching them nod in return and prepared myself for the run.
Just as I eased through the doors, two of the bastards suddenly came around the outside front corner walking fast. Damn! So much for the coast is clear, I thought. I leaned out between the glass doors and fired off my last two rounds left handed, hitting the first one in the head with my second shot, the first round having ripped through its cheek. I hit the magazine ejector on the .40 and slapped in my last magazine. Quickly thumbing the slide release in the time it took the previous magazine to hit the ground, I quickly took out the last one at eight feet, with a shot through the forehead. Her head snapped backward, her body stopping in mid power stride and collapsed before me. Whew! Fuckers! Another woman, but this one not so well endowed unfortunately. Or fortunately, depending on your point of view. Okay, so I checked them out. So sue me!
Quickly, I scooped up and pocketed the empty magazine while moving out under the awning. My head tried like hell to give me whiplash, as it rotated left and right quickly checking my surroundings. Clear so far. I beckoned the girls to follow me.
We made it. I'm not sure how, but we did. No, they did not keep their heads down. Yes, they both squealed at the bodies they had to run over. No, they did not have any kind of situational awareness and the worst part of it was they were so obviously drunk, they staggered everywhere and were hard to control. It was all I could do to keep them with me, but we made it across the street to my place in the end. They wanted to head down the driveway to the house, but I grabbed them both and shook my head motioning for silence again, in a futile hope they would actually obey and led them through the woods that surrounded my abode to the back entrance of the retreat. Next time I would also remember earplugs!
*****
The crouched figure watched through his high-powered scope as the male figure exited the Wesco convenience store and took down two more of the walkers before motioning towards the open doorway. With amazement, he saw two girls follow him as they quickly made their way across the parking lot to the scrub field next to the store, then they made a half ass attempt to disappear into the brush. He centered the crosshairs on the man's skull, his finger caressing the trigger of his Remington 700 .308 and watched as they moved through its dense mass. He shifted aim and examined each of the two women. Both were young, one cute and the other amazingly pretty even with matted hair.
The sun was bright overhead and he reached up with his free hand to tilt his leather boonie hat forward a bit more to cut off its rays from hitting his eyes. He tried shifting focus to the man again only to see that he had disappeared completely. He could end this man's pain and his hope. There was no point in living anymore, anyways. Slowly his finger tightened on the trigger easing it back while looking for the man's figure again. There he was. He obviously had some skill as the bodies littered everywhere were a testament to that, then he had dropped from sight but had reappeared because the women were all but hopeless at the craft. With a sigh, he released the trigger and decided to keep an eye on them for now. Maybe take care of them later, maybe not. Well, the day wasn't over and he had a mission to fulfill. Still plenty of light left to add a few score more to purgatory's roster. Quickly, he melted backwards through the wood line like a ghost, making no sound and little visible movement, then was gone.
*****
Chapter 1
Day 1: 0905 ET
It was a perfect fall day. Typical of Michigan this time of year at a crisp thirty-five degrees, with a slight wind out of the northwest at a steady three-four mph gusting slightly. Light fluffy clouds gently grazed the troposphere and the sun was very bright overhead as it shown down through the light blue morning sky. I turned my attention back to topping off the tank of my new Toyota Highlander, my ear tuned to the radio I had turned up while pumping, waiting for the Dean Stein program to start. There were already reports of civil unrest in many of the major cities in battleground states as the election counted down with only a few days left. Portman leading by six percent over Johnson was wonderful news to me. Not so wonderful to all those that needed the current president’s newly enacted welfare programs to continue living off the government teat. I shook my head subconsciously wishing more people could take responsibility for their own lives instead of being entirely dependent on others. I really hoped my own children did not fall into that seductive trap and was glad they were great kids and still trainable at the young ages of nine, six, and two.
Clarissa was all girl, having acquired more purses and shoes than even her mom. Her long golden hair and amber eyes surrounded by a flawless complexion of milky white skin made her a beauty even among her peers at the upper elementary. Th
ank God cheerleading was over, I thought, then sighed knowing she would very quickly find another after school program to enroll in. I just needed to get used to my afternoons and evenings being busy for the next dozen years.
Paul was, as grandpa claimed, a fart in a windstorm and all boy, tough and smart. They were all intelligent kids. Paul hated school but could do the homework when he needed too, even in the first grade. Even though he was a typical six year old, he did not really like sharing at all, or getting less attention than others did around him. Nevertheless, he was at most moments somewhat introspective, with a heart of gold. I remembered last weekend at my parents, we were out back shooting a new Ruger 10/22 .22 caliber Rifle I had purchased just for him and Clarissa. They wound up chastising each other on range safety even though they both had it right. They were each just saying it differently and through all that were great kids that fought like a brother and sister should!
Then there was little Emma, the youngest. At two years of age, she had supplanted Clarissa as being the light of my life. Always happy and smiling, her laughter and bright blue eyes with that crazy mop of curly hair filled the house all day long when I had them, except during nap time. I smiled softly to myself, thinking that even sick she was a happy little girl who loved her daddy, and boy was she sick right now. Emma had received the new flu shot ahead of many others because of my ex-wife's position as a surgeon. As usual with my family, flu shots did not go over well, which is why I never got the damn things. They always made me sick as a dog. Having received it almost three weeks ago, it was no surprise that Emma was now sick. Poor little thing, I sighed. Still, we would make her better and I was happy because I had the kids for almost a week.
The flu virus was so bad this year, schools across the nation had shut down so the children could get their vaccinations at the overwhelmed local clinics. An emergency national mandate signed by the president declared that no school would reopen until everyone had the opportunity to get their vaccinations. Emma had gotten sick right after receiving hers and the fever had been dragging on for two weeks. I will be damned if I would get the shots for my other two children. The seasonal virus was simply out of control this year.
The flu was at epidemic proportions. A sudden outbreak out of the Middle East and China, which of course quickly spread through all of Europe, then the United States, and lastly through Central America at an amazing pace. From the number of deaths reported worldwide, they were estimating a mortality rate upwards of ten percent. That almost rivaled the Black Plague in the thirteen hundreds, which had a mortality rate between thirty and sixty percent. My thought was to keep the kids at home and isolated and the flu would burn itself out like it always did, and the kids would be fine. True, a lot of deaths had been reported recently but by paying attention to the news I noticed that most were older people, retirees mostly who were doing the dying, not the young.
First reported almost two months ago, the virus was now a worldwide epidemic. There were already tens of thousands dead in Europe and Middle East but only a few hundred so far in the U.S. My ex-wife had left it to me to get them the vaccine or not. I knew for sure she would not get one. She was a descendent of South American emigrants and because of this had a deep distrust of government immunizations for solid sane reasons of course. It has been widely suspected by most western governments with some factual support that this was how many of the South American governments tested their latest military bio stuff after all. Who in their government cared if a small village or three disappeared in the deep jungle? The locals never reported these acts, of course, for fear of reprisal. At least that was the belief of your average citizen.
When the first waves of outbreak had made the news, major pharmaceutical companies in the U.S. and Europe had instantly started a crash vaccination program coupled with the combined research efforts of dozens of the major players in that industry. Somehow, they had perfected a vaccine within mere weeks. This was surprising because I always thought that biomedical immune vaccination stuff took time to figure out and make. Like months not weeks. I was suspicious of how thorough the testing phase could have been in such a short period of time and there was no way I wanted Clarissa or Paul getting cancer or something equally bad thirty years down the road from untested medicines.
Within days, they had distributed the first batch of immunizations to the armed forces, emergency and medical personnel in the developed world. A few weeks later, the next batch had inoculated the peoples of all third world countries, and the batch after that was finally hitting the clinics now in the United States and Europe. As a Surgeon, my ex-wife had been the recipient of the first batch but had given her vaccination to Emma as a precaution on the advice from co-workers. This of course resulted in a predictable adverse reaction, which was why my little princess was currently sick. Most who received it became sick, but the CDC claimed that was a normal reaction. Yeah right, which is why I won’t get one or let my other two children have one.
My ex-wife is a General Surgeon and to say her schedule was chaotic is a vast understatement. The kids stayed with me full time. She moved to Grand Rapids immediately after our divorce to be closer to her work as there was no telling at what time of day or night she would be called in and I do know it happened frequently. As a web developer, I worked out of our home, which was my home now. That was also a bone of contention between us. It wasn’t the fact that I was a programmer, but that I made as much, or perhaps more than she did, while staying at home. But what the hell, it worked out great because I had more time for the kids and boy oh boy were they daddy’s kids. The ex-wife really hated that too. Actually, she hated many things, and boy, she could be mean about them.
I was both relieved and sad when we finally broke up less than a year ago. Her in Grand Rapids near her employment at Butterworth Hospital and me in the small town of Newaygo but connected worldwide to clients via the web. All were only a Skype away.
As my second wife, she had been my last hope at a sound equal relationship with a woman vs. a relationship that was one sided in their favor. Too bad it had not worked out that way, but it did teach me that women were universal in their thinking patterns. They all have photographic memories for every slight; every bad thing that ever happened, along with every mistake you ever made going back decades before they even met you. Then, they not only will not ever let their man ever forget these things, they will also develop extreme memory loss on all the good things that ever happened in their relationship with him. Like selective dementia. For some reason God made them this way. I have my guesses as to his motives and designs but women's lib is not one of them. I look at other species in the animal kingdom and have to wonder if humans are off track, but who am I to judge his greater plan or my interpretation of it. I just hope that when my time arrives to pass into the big beyond, some sexy female angels will be there to greet me.
Emma was the only one who knew all my secrets. She was my little princess. I was safe until she learned to talk better. I supposed then I would have to start cutting back on where I take her and what I do with her around. I sighed again. There were so many things to remember as they grew up.
The kids were at home all hunkered down watching cartoons and munching out as I did my morning chores, which included my errands. The older two were watching little Emma whose fever while still high, was slowly dropping. I figured by tomorrow or the next day she would be fine. In the meantime, the kids could call whomever they wished but they had to stay in the house and away from their friends until things were cool with this outbreak. "Just normal parental protectionism kicking in," I told myself.
I stretched slightly as I leaned against the side of my charcoal grey SUV. Stretching relieved the pressure on the small of my back that the Galco Combat Storm holster created as it rode on the inside of my belt behind my jacket. My compact Beretta PX4 Storm .40 cal. sat there butt forward for a reverse draw that I personally found was the optimal setup for quickness and concealment. Having a concealed carry perm
it was worth it even with this occasional discomfort. I never went anywhere without it anymore and was careful to gas up and shop at stores that allowed concealed carry permit holders. It was a crazy world out there. It scared me sometimes thinking about it even though I knew I was more equipped than many to handle most emergencies. At least I lived in a small Michigan town like Newaygo instead of a high crime city like Grand Rapids or Detroit. I had been reliably informed that finding places in those larger cities where you could shop and carry concealed weapons were almost nonexistent. Of course, the thugs and criminals knew that also.
The Wesco pump chimed, the handle jerking as it signaled a full tank. I squeezed off another .34 cents to make it an even eighty-one dollars in total and replaced the handle as I heard Dean Stein's voice fill the air. As one of my favorite talk show hosts, Dean Stein had been around for quite some time and was just getting started on his daily diatribe of conservatism. I smiled as I wondered what Dean would talk about today. He was always wound up and crying about something, usually with good reason. Pulling the door open and sliding in behind the wheel, Dean Stein's voice came in clearly albeit a bit loudly. Quickly turning the volume down, I started the big SUV hearing the deep rumbling purr of the high performance V6 come to life. “Oh shit,” I muttered and jumped out racing in to pay for my gas. I hated it when I almost forget to do something, but hated even worse the possibility of giving up a view of the eye candy that worked my local Wesco. As always when I came in to pay they gave as good as they got to my ever-ready leers and trash talk. I really like to think I am providing a public service in these instances. I was quite positive I brightened their otherwise dull minimum wage lives.
"Hey, hey Ashley!" I hollered at the petite brunette operating the first register on my left as I dodged through the still opening sliding glass doors.
Blood, Brains and Bullets Page 2