It was Michael. He was driving fast, his red Ford C-10 almost spun out of control in the driveway as he slid to a halt. The front grill and hood, including the fenders were all dented and I could see a liberal dose of blood, guts, and bits of flesh coating them. Oh, it also smelled like shit. The door opened and Michael almost fell from the cab. By then I was there grabbing him, holding him up. He, like his front grill was covered in dried blood with bits of flesh thrown in and smelled like shit. Literally!
"Man it's like another world. Like a war zone. There are swarms of zombies everywhere. You cannot get around them. You have to drive through them slowly and hope you do not damage your vehicle too badly running them over or drive too slowly then end up stuck in the bodies, or they break your windows. Oh wow, it’s bad buddy it's really bad. People are shooting them. Shooting each other. Shooting themselves. It's crazy." He stopped talking and I could see he was shaking. Becky came running out of the house full tilt. Didn't think someone that round could run that fast. I was mistaken. They went down in a heap kissing each other madly. I shook my head glad I had been standing to one side.
I gave them a minute. It did not stop. "All right you two. Don't start screwing on my front lawn. There are five kids watching from the front window damn it." I scowled. Christ we didn’t have time for this. "Guys we don't have time for this shit. I'm guessing we have to do something fast so quit screwing around. They were whispering at this point and kissing occasionally. I jacked a round in my Mossberg, the chambered round flying but I snagged it. I released the safety pointing it into the air. "Five, Four, Three," I started counting down ready to fire when I reached zero. They were actually starting to piss me off because obviously the situation couldn't be that serious if Michael was taking ten minutes to reunite with a wife he had only been gone from for a few hours and if it was that serious they were totally wasting precious time.
"No Stop!" Michael grunted and physically threw Becky off him. I knew he had a good bit of upper body strength. "Chill woman. Jesus! Jay's right we do not have time for this. We can talk later." Becky rolled over and glared at me and I smiled back. I had just relegated her common sense from silly to borderline dangerous. I made a mental note to keep an eye on her.
"If this is bad shit we need to do something now not when you two lovebirds decide to get back to reality." I growled as I re-chambered the ninth shell. I took charge. "Becky make yourself useful. Go get Michael a change of clothes and shoes. He aint coming in the house looking and smelling like that." I had noticed he was missing a shoe. There was a story there I was sure. "Bro. Get those damn clothes off now. You'll scare the hell out of the kids. I hope that shit you’re covered in isn't zombie and contagious because I'm pretty sure your wife licked half of it off your face." He grimaced and shrugged.
"I don't think so, Jay. I think most of it is the Newaygo Police Department, now pretty much deceased." He watched his wife as she took off. "Dang I'm horny too for some reason." He finished speaking and smiled. I followed his gaze. Becky was moving much slower, more of a waddle than a walk. I shook my head. Different strokes for different folks I guess. From the backside view, I had permanently changed my mind. Not even if we were the last couple on earth. Extinction for the human race.
"Are they headed this way?" I asked getting immediately to the point.
"I don't think so. Not yet, but they will be. It's only a matter of time. They are everywhere, and way more than we imagined. We also noticed their capable of house to house searches for live... food," he gagged, "They can break doors down and barriers. Just by enough of them slamming into one. Oh man, we couldn't stop them. There were too many. They're everywhere. I'm out of bullets. I bet I killed thirty or more. I ran when my ammunition was low. There were only a few of us left. We had just left Fremont and they’re everywhere." I nodded.
"Cat? By chance did you hear from her?" I asked while keeping my emotions down. Caitlin is my ex-wife. Actually, I did not love the blood sucking total bitch of a social climbing ex-wife anymore but she was the mother of my kids.
"Yeah actually we got to talk to her at the hospital. They had a radio set up communicating with Butterworth. She told me to let you know she would be staying down there for a few days helping. They have a detachment of National Guardsmen there. About two or three dozen I think, with some heavy weapons. They're trying to make a difference." I nodded at his words. "Uhm, Jay. Ahhhh, that new doctor friend of hers is there also. She told me," he held his hand to the side and twined the first two fingers together. I nodded again and sighed. Now that totally sounded like her and her list of priorities. The possibility of a richer husband trumps kids every time with a certain class of woman, or some people in general for that matter. Men pulled the same shit. I shook my head as I gave up any hope of my ex-wife showing up.
"Right!" I muttered. "Any idea how long we got?"
"Maybe a couple hours. Maybe less until we start seeing them, but a lot sooner if you fire that gun. They home in on sound and they're not far." He shuddered and started taking his clothes off. Becky had finally shown up with the new clothing and his spare tennis shoes. He changed amazingly fast for such a big guy and after kicking his bloody uniform off to the side of the driveway we went inside and I organized all the kids. Everyone started carrying things down to the basement. Michael went first with a big armload, opening the hidden door to the passageway leading to the shelter. He and two others were the only ones that knew about it. We took everything, all the food, the kid’s clothes, my clothes, and the smaller 32" LCD TV from the kid's playroom. The guns I had here in the house. All the electronics and all the ammunition except what I was carrying in loaded magazines. I started the kids on filling collapsible five-gallon water containers. I had thirty. I hoped to get them all filled. We did.
It took almost two hours but we got it all including the spare blankets I almost forgot about. My shelter is big. I could not help myself and kept adding to it as I had time. There was room for everything, especially when Becky started neatly packing everything away. We had even grabbed most of the shelving units from the basement. Hell, we needed them. The kids were having a blast. It was like camping to them I guess. Of my three, only Emma had seen this place. The other two were thrilled. Oh, they knew it was serious. Well maybe Paul and Emma didn’t, but the rest did. They pitched in and worked hard. I locked up the house, turned off the gas, water, and flipped the main breaker. I set the alarm, which ran off battery power and was good for a week according to the manufacturer. The house was now dead.
I had run a second line from under the meter to a sub panel that fed my little underground retreat. The well was artesian and heavy in minerals, which is why I stocked up on city water, but it did pump itself, if no power was there to assist. Just slower, a lot slower like it could take all day to get twenty-gallons. Well maybe not all day but it would take awhile. The retreat only had a twenty-gallon pressure tank and an instant hot water heater for showers and cleaning up. That might be a problem. If you ran those instant heaters dry, they could burn out if the safeties ever failed. Maybe I could plumb in the sixty-gallon tank from the house if we had the time. I switched the valves to redirect the water to the retreat. You really had to dig and dig deep to find all my shit. I let Michael and Becky know the deal about lack of water and Michael and I made plans to put the larger tank in if the opportunity presented itself. We settled down and waited.
I guess most would consider my retreat large by typical retreat standards. The main room was sixty feet long and about thirty-two feet wide, but it also had many side rooms and some of those had side rooms. I had initially planned it for three or four families or refugees. Just in case. Originally, it had been the basement of an old farmhouse. Back then, in some cases farmers built their barns with basements for necessities like canned goods, grain and hides. Things like that. Only the basement foundation had remained. It was typical of old Michigan farm basements though as it had side rooms. Four small ones in fact that I had expanded to six and
then eight much larger ones. Then I got carried away and built two smaller rooms off the two end rooms. Building a retreat is a lot cheaper and easier than you think if you have something to work with. Well, relatively speaking of course. Some property, a borrowed backhoe, an old basement, $20,000 in steel, block and labor and a bit of backfill to smooth everything out with the excess dirt trucked off. You can always get rid of free fill dirt. Someone always needed to elevate his or her new dream house. It was the rage. Now it was transformed into a nice manicured back yard with lots of goodies underneath.
Miguel, a friend of mine and I had had laid block and set steel I-Beams for three weeks straight. Then backfilled and covered everything up. I was on a deadline after all. I swore him to secrecy and paid him a hefty bonus. He thought I was nuts but I had two rooms stuffed full of food. Another for tools and hardware and a weapons and gear up room, those two rooms sharing their space with tons of blankets and lanterns and other survival supplies I had accumulated. Oh, and four bedrooms, which were kinda bare right now except for blankets and pillows. I had another smaller room off one at the back end, that I called the shack. It contained my radio and communications equipment and on the opposite side a small bathroom and single shower. We had put the drainage straight out the back. My property sloped on the east side, which is the back so it worked. The septic system had to wait on one of my ex-wife's trips and I worked like a maniac to get it done but that was another story.
Right now, we had to figure out who was still alive out there. What the government was doing, and watch for any friends that made it here. The three of us sat at the long table in the shack. My little communications center in my retreat, with the shortwave turned on again and hooked to an external antenna we listened to the horror erupting around us. I pulled out a notepad and started making plans. I would be busy in the morning. I was starting to get bored.
*****
Day 2: 0930 ET
Jean was stuck again. She had woken before dawn and when the sun finally rose got her tiny shovel out and dug around the wheels until her Jeep could move forward again. Her Jeep Wrangler was four-wheel drive but the body was so low to the ground it didn’t help a whole lot. Not in these fields or woods she was currently trying to negotiate.
She opened the door and got out stretching. Dropping to the ground and a look underneath revealed the rear tires completely off the ground. A large hump of earth was under most of the underside holding them up. She felt like crying. After narrowly avoiding a National Guard roadblock and two of their patrols the previous day, getting stuck in a creek bed and having to pave her way out with rocks, and digging herself out this morning, she was now stuck again. This one looked bad for it was not just a loss of traction. The entire rear end of her Jeep was off the ground. How could she dig that out without it falling on top of her?
She slumped down and leaned against the front tire on the driver's side. She started crying, the tears cascading down her cheeks. This was so frustrating. She covered her eyes with her filthy hands and bawled. She had no idea where she even was. She was completely lost. She had no idea how her kids were doing, or even if they were still alive. There was nothing on the radio for the last few hours but FEMA announcements informing them to stay inside, or proceed to government shelters, continuously broadcasting on an endless prerecorded loop. Before that had been crazy reports she could not possibly believe. People eating each other? Insane killing mobs? Crazy talk! In addition, to top it off, her car was below empty with no idea where to get more gas. Moreover, who was this Jay?
The last person she had talked to before her phone stopped working again had been her dad around three in the afternoon yesterday. Dad had called her back and said if they were not home and he meant the back cabin, they would be at Jay’s, a neighbor of his. She did not know this person and her dad had never talked about him much expect the briefest of details. Next property south of dads but all she remembered were woods being there. There were no houses until you went a couple hundreds more yards down the road and got to the stores. Their connection had been bad. Maybe he meant north. She had no idea but was desperately worried about her kids.
She saw something move at the edge of the field. Weakly she rubbed the tears out of her eyes trying to focus. Oh, thank God. It was a farmer. This must be his field she was stuck in so maybe he could help her. She yelled for him and waved her arms but he did not appear to notice her. She quickly gathered her feet under her and started running towards the older man. Maybe he was hard of hearing, she thought.
As she got closer, she saw what appeared to be a very old man. With really bad skin, she noticed. She slowed. Something was wrong. Oh good, he had finally noticed her but he was not responding as she thought he would. His arms were hunched up, hands forward and he was bowled over as if getting ready to fall but instead was now moving fast towards her. She came to a stop and called out again but still no response. He was still coming but making no sound. A shuffling run that was maybe what old men did she guessed. But why was he not answering her? Did he think she was hurt? Actually, he looked hurt. She could see now what she originally thought as dirt was really blood. Oh my God, what was he holding?
She screamed and turned to run. Then tripped, falling forward in the rows of raised earth knocking the breath out of her. "OH HELL NO!" She screamed again in frustration once she could breathe again. "I will not be one of those women in a horror movie. Get it together Jean." She growled under her breath getting up and realizing the farmer was almost upon her, as was the child's arm he was holding. Or, what was left of it. That explained the blood she thought. She felt herself gagging and took a brief half second to slap herself hard. "Get it together Bitch!" She berated herself as she broke into a careful run back to her car.
She vowed never to pick on the women in horror movies again. For some reason she had suddenly lost all her coordination. It was difficult to move in a straight line and all she wanted to do was throw up then wake up in the morning with everything all right in the world. She made it to her car. It took three tries to get the door open but she finally succeeded and threw herself inside slamming it behind her. Her face was still burning from the last slap so she didn't slap herself again but she couldn't help wondering if all women were like the ones in the horror movies she had made so much fun of in the past.
The farmer slammed up against her Jeep rocking it on its mound of earth. He was busy smearing blood and puss all over her driver's side window as she finally remembered to lock the doors, slamming the knobs down. She slid over to the passenger seat and crouched there pushing her belongings and packages down on the floor to make room. Looking out the front windshield, she could see more people coming out of the woods. Dozens of them and they all had that shuffling run the old man had.
Her guns! Oh my God, she finally remembered her guns. She turned reaching into the back seat and froze. Oh wow, she was so completely screwed. She was looking at the canvas cover that was all the protection three quarters of her Jeep provided. From the way her car was bouncing from just one old man she figured she had less than a minute to live because there was no way the Jeep would keep them out. She closed her eyes and briefly thought of giving up. Then took a deep breath and opened her eyes. She was finally calm. Moving with lightening quick speed she grabbed her Glock 23 and loaded one of her two clips in it. The Jeep did not have a trunk so she had left them in open view on the back seat cargo area in case the police stopped her. She grabbed her purse and dumped everything out. Then stuffed in her small wallet, two bottles of water, her cell phone, the candy bars she still had left and all the ammunition she had just purchased. It barely fit. She then slipped the purse around her neck so she wouldn’t be able to drop it. Leaning back, she tucked the spare clip in the pocket of her tight jeans. She started hyperventilating. She would have to run fast and far and needed all the oxygen she could force into her lungs. She was finally thinking straight.
She crawled in the back and with quick movements hit the four buckle
releases and most of the snap rivets holding the canvas shell down, and then grabbing her .40 in one hand, and her .22 in the other she stood straight up. The top resisted for a brief moment then snapped off the body and flew over her head landing near the farmer. She jumped straight out the back and was running fast as she could before she even hit the ground. There was no stumbling this time. No tripping and no gagging. She fired one round into the farmer hitting him in the chest then took off like a sure-footed dear, bounding across the field as fast as her tiny frame would let her. Adrenaline burned through her system as she kept breathing as fast as she could, the ditch was coming up that fronted the paved road she had left almost an hour ago. She took a running leap and almost cleared it. Okay, she stumbled but no fall and she was back up instantly running down the road away from them as her purse thumped heavily into her side with each stride.
The woods on either side of the road closed in just ahead where the pavement curved. She had come from the opposite direction so she wasn’t sure what lay beyond. She started rounding the corner and quickly came to a stop. There were hundreds coming. It was easy to identify them now. They all ran or walked the same way. Her heart was in her throat as she looked for a place to hide. She dived into the ditch on the opposite side of the road almost losing her grip on her guns and rolled over propping her elbows up. Her heart in her throat she opened fire on the nearest.
It was a losing battle. She was already into her second clip and they were almost upon her. She started crying steadily but was not letting it affect her aim. She had learned within the first few shots that only rounds to the head kept them down. Just like the reports on the radio had said. She wanted to curse herself but could only think that she would never see her children again.
Blood, Brains and Bullets Page 7