Zombies! (Book 7): Still Standing

by Merritt, R. S.

  “When are you going to hand out the drugs sir?” One of the squad leaders asked. Kyler looked at the man carefully. Did he detect a hint of desperation in his tone?

  “We’ll do that before we attack. That should help any of your men who haven’t been involved in one of these operations before. Frankly it’ll help the ones of us who have been involved in these operations before. What we’re about to do isn’t going to be pretty.” Kyler said to a round of nods from the assembled men. He was disappointed that none of them challenged him on actually carrying out the mission. Then again, each of these men was focused on the fact that a bad report from Kyler could get their family back home executed. There was no way for them to win. Kyler supposed if their positions were reversed, he’d choose his own family over strangers as well.

  They set out with squad five while the other squads were getting themselves organized. The orders for no radio comms and no guns was in effect for the length of the mission. The squad moved through the woods single file with melee weapons gripped in their hands. Machetes and hammers were popular with this group. The squad leader was carrying a spear in his hand and had a couple more of the long weapons strapped to his backpack. Those may have worked well for him back home but here in the swampy land they were traversing the spears kept getting tangled in the brush and vines.

  A fine mist sprang up making visibility suck even more. Kyler and Ritz stayed in the back of the line. The squad leader was up near the front with another man running point. Running point was one of the more dangerous positions to be in. Zombies could stand still as the trees and easily be mistaken for part of the landscape until you were right on top of them. At which point they went from being a weird looking shrub to becoming a ferocious monster trying to rip your throat out. By being in the back of the pack for the bulk of the hike to the first target settlement they hoped to get the squad used to him and Ritz bringing up the rear.

  The married couple he’d let use his cabin the night before were part of squad five. They’d already awkwardly thanked him for giving them that much needed privacy. He’d even more awkwardly accepted their thanks. They seemed like a great couple. They’d told him they had three kids back home. He couldn’t think of any way around killing them. It was making him feel sick.

  A half mile from the target settlement the man on point sank to the ground in a small open space between some trees and waited for everyone to gather around. Kyler had told them to stop so they could discuss the final approach. Ritz cast a glance over at Kyler as they moved towards the group in the small opening. Butterflies started doing laps around Kyler’s stomach. He suddenly felt nauseous. He loosened the strap to his rifle in preparation for pulling it off his shoulder.

  There were multiple things that had to go right for this to work. They had to get the comm unit away from the squad leader first and foremost. If he got a message out, then it was all over. They had to figure out how to secure the man behind them. The man in the last position had always covered the squads flank. There hadn’t been a legitimate reason for Ritz and Kyler to take it away from him. They needed to get everyone on the ground on their stomachs with their hands secured behind them. Ritz had a bag of tie wraps he’d brought to bind everyone. Once bound they’d all be executed. They needed to pull it all off quietly enough to avoid attracting any Zombies or alert the nearby settlement.

  Instead of trying to take out the man in the rear position Kyler stepped to the side and let Ritz and the rear guard move into the opening ahead of him. He entered the space watching carefully as Ritz casually walked around the perimeter of the little circle. The squad leader glanced up as Ritz was walking past him and shot Ritz a quick nod. Ritz nodded back, took two more steps then brought his hatchet down right in the center of the squad leader’s head. He left the hatchet in the man’s skull and pulled his rifle up to cover the shocked group.

  Kyler was as shocked as everyone else by the sudden violence. He’d been thinking Ritz would yank off the man’s headset and knock him to the ground. Evidently Ritz didn’t play that way.

  “On your stomachs. All of you. Hands behind your backs.” Ritz commanded. Two people started to obey the command, a couple went for their weapons and the rest just stared at Ritz like he was a Sasquatch or something. Ritz stepped forward and threw a man on the ground who’d been trying to get his pistol into play.

  “On your stomachs!” Kyler shouted too loudly. He was waving his rifle around from the other side of the circle. The men going for their weapons now understood that they were surrounded. One of them jumped to his feet and ran into the woods before Kyler or Ritz could stop him. Kyler started to chase the man and another guy started to stand back up. The soldiers on the side by the bushes started to edge away as well. Ritz walked around the circle kicking them and shoving the barrel of his rifle into their faces to get them back in the circle. Kyler did the same. One man refused to be moved back and Kyler ended up slamming the hard-wooden stock of his rifle into the guy’s head.

  “That guy who ran will get to the others soon.” Ritz said. He was going from person to person using the zip ties to secure their arms behind their backs. One of the men was openly crying. Ritz handed Kyler some of the zip ties to help out. They both worked on securing the prisoners for the next couple of minutes.

  “Are you going to kill us?” The woman who’d shyly thanked Kyler for letting her and her husband use his cabin asked.

  “Were you going to kill a bunch of innocent little kids in the settlement up ahead?” Ritz asked her viciously. He was working his way up to the heinous acts he needed to commit.

  “I’m sorry what were we sup –“ The woman’s husband started to answer back. Ritz smashed the side of the man’s face with a claw hammer. The man yelped in pain. Another blow from the hammer shut him up permanently.

  His wife rolled over to try and help him. Seeing his bleeding face, she started to scream. Before Kyler could say anything, Ritz bashed her face in. The man on the ground right in front of Kyler propelled himself to his feet without using his hands and charged directly at Kyler. Kyler stepped to the side and used the stock of his rifle to knock the man to the ground. He swung the stock hard into the back of the man’s skull. He felt the crunch that told him the guy wouldn’t be getting back up. He’d felt that same crunch plenty of times finishing off Zombies.

  Another one of their prisoners was madly inch worming his way away from them. Kyler calmly walked over with a knife in his hand and stabbed the man in the side until he stopped moving. He turned and watched as Ritz beat in the heads of two more men lying bound on the ground. Both of them were yelling at the top of their lungs for help. Kyler stabbed a man who’d managed to get into a bush to try to hide from them. The man was blubbering like a baby. He kept trying to tell Kyler he was sorry, and he’d be good. He’d fight for the kids in the settlement. He was sorry. He had kids too. Kyler was sobbing himself by the time that man wasn’t moving anymore.

  A few more minutes and it was all over. Squad five had been massacred except for the one man who’d run away. Kyler and Ritz were both fine physically. Mentally Kyler doubted he’d ever be the same again.

  “What now?” Ritz asked.

  “We warn the settlement.” Kyler said emotionlessly. If they took the time to try and find the man who’d run away, then the other squads may decide to send someone to see what was going on. If the man was able to backtrack and reach the squads then the settlement would be in immediate danger. The remaining squads would be looking for them.

  There was also the fact that Kyler just couldn’t stomach the idea of any more killing right now. He’d had more than enough killing for the day. He looked over at the loose long hair framing the broken face of the bride who’d thanked him for letting them borrow his room. Such a small kindness to have granted.

  Ritz grabbed Kyler by the shoulder and shook him.

  “Snap out of it man. Let’s roll. We just made a ton of noise. Going to be Zombies galore any second now.” Ritz may be tryin
g to sound like he was in control, but Kyler had seen him pop a couple of the pills out of that hefty bag of pharmaceuticals he was carrying around. He was thinking he may need to down a couple himself.

  Chapter 26: A Short Time to Get there

  Phil sat down at the dust covered kitchen table. He cracked open the bottle of tequila he’d found and eyed the cans of SpaghettiOs lined up in front of him. He’d pulled them out of the bottom of the roach-infested pantry then compulsively cleaned the cans using an entire roll of Bounty. The cans had been covered in rat excrement and dead roaches. Just thinking about it made him want to rub the cans again. He dealt with a lot of grossness in this world on a daily basis but for some reason seeing all of that gunk on the tops of the cans of mass-produced pasta had given him a serious case of the willies. He assumed it was more about knowing the little girls were going to be eating it than anything else.

  Higgins and Gomez, the two security guards from the warehouse, walked in through the laundry room that connected the kitchen to the garage. Higgins stared at Phil polishing the top of the can of pasta with a slightly psychotic look on his face. Gomez started going through all the drawers looking for anything useful. Of extreme usefulness would be the keys to the space age looking minivan sitting out in the garage. They’d struck out at the first three houses they’d tried. They needed to hurry since the sun would be coming up soon putting an end to casual ransacking.

  Given the rush if they couldn’t get the minivan running the plan was for Higgins and Phil to head out and continue to search for a vehicle in one direction while Bryan and Gomez went the other way. Randy and Kelly would stay in the house eating the pasta that came in fun little shapes until someone found a working vehicle. Phil was going to spend the day hoping the girls never found out what the cans of pasta he’d found for them had originally been covered in. Then again, they were tough little girls. They’d probably handle it better than he had.

  “Bryan’s ready to give up on this house. He’s digging around in the garage but wants to head out in the next five minutes if the keys don’t magically appear.” Higgins told Phil. Phil just nodded and kept wiping the tops of the cans. He could hear the kids walking around upstairs. They were busy raiding the rooms up there for clean clothes. Phil and Randy had cleared the upstairs when they first got there. Randy’s eyes lighting up when he saw the house had a couple of rooms that’d obviously belonged to young girls. He knew his girls would love to snag some toys and new clothes.

  Phil put down the can he was holding and took a deep breath. It was time to go to work. He stood up and checked his weapons. Satisfied his weapons were good he walked through the musty smelling living room then bounded up the stairs. He needed to let Randy and Kelly know the rest of them were heading out. That’d mean everyone needed to come downstairs and be ready to run out of the house and jump in whatever vehicle eventually pulled up. It was going to be early morning by the time they found one which meant there were going to be infected wandering around. There wasn’t time to wait until the next night to continue the search. They were all feeling the rush now to make it to the carrier.

  Randy and Kelly brought the kids down the stairs and set up shop in the middle of the living room. They were happy the house didn’t have dead bodies lying all over it for once. Sharing a living room with a blanket covered corpse was creepy no matter how many times you’ve done it. Against all commonsense Randy had carried a giant doll house down the stairs. The girls had seen it and instantly fallen in love. It was a pretty cool doll house. Someone had spent some serious money on it. The whole thing was made of real wood with each piece of furniture carved out of real wood too.

  The authentic real wood look meant it weighed approximately a million pounds. Some sort of weird science had doubled that weight with each step Randy took. The entire time he was carrying it down the stairs he was freaking out about the noise it’d make if he dropped it. He cussed under his breath with each backward step. He’d been in too much of a hurry to get everyone downstairs to bother removing the furniture and dolls from it. He couldn’t even shift the doll house around to get a better grip or one of the toys may spill out of it and make noise. With his luck the house had an authentic alarm system he was going to accidentally set off.

  The girls and Kelly all stood at the bottom staring up at him as he descended one stair at a time. The older girls and Kelly were freaking out about the noise it’d make if he dropped it while the little girls were just worried it’d break if he dropped it. Through some miracle he made it the whole way down with zero mishaps. The girls gathered around and helped him place the big house quietly down on the floor. The girls wasted no time diving in to play with it. They knew they couldn’t take it with them so wanted to make sure they got the full usage out of it.

  Randy collapsed on the dusty couch while Kelly and Caitlyn went to whip up the cans of pasta Phil had told them was sitting on the table. The way he’d wrinkled his nose when he said it made Randy think the cans might be dented or something. He’d asked Kelly to make sure it didn’t look, or smell spoiled before feeding it to anyone. He watched the girls quietly moving furniture around and playing. He loved seeing them doing something normal. Even if some of the ways they arranged the house were more ‘new normal’ than the way kids would’ve played before the apocalypse.

  Zoey was stacking furniture against the front door while Ali was making sure all the window blinds in the house were closed tight. Doreen was busy trying to figure out how to get the doors to lock. Randy was loving that the toy house had storm shutters on it that could actually be pulled down and closed. He’d love to find a real house for them to hide out in that had that feature. Windows were always the weak spot. He was down on his knees helping Doreen secure the shutters when Kelly and Caitlyn walked in with trays loaded down with bowls of the room temperature pasta.

  “Having fun?” Kelly asked Randy playfully.

  “Absolutely. This doll house has cooler features than our real house did. Check out these storm shutters.” He replied moving his finger to make the tiny shutters open and close.

  Kelly handed him the tray of food and sat down beside him. Caitlyn set her tray on the couch and sat down between the kids to play and eat with them. Myriah was busy reading a magazine she’d found in the teen girls room upstairs. Not that the latest fashions and heart throbs were relevant anymore. If it made her feel like a normal teen for even a few minutes, then Randy was all about her reading it anyway. Myriah noticed something moving outside the front window and got up to look.

  “I think it’s time to go.” She said a few seconds later. Her tone sounded off. Randy stood up and peeked out the window instantly recognizing where that odd tone was coming from.

  “An RV?” He questioned out loud to the room at large. He looked over at Kelly who was busy putting all the bowls back on the tray so she could take them along. Phil jogged into the room. He stopped and took in the bowls of pasta. He wrinkled his nose up at those before noticing the huge doll house in the center of the floor. He’d seen it upstairs earlier when he went up to tell them he was leaving.

  “You carried that thing down?” Phil asked smirking at Randy who nodded.

  “Can we take it with us?” Ali asked. Her eyes shining with hope. Phil crushed that hope immediately.

  “Sorry. No can-do princess. We need to get in the RV like right now. Let’s move. We’ll go through the garage then down the sidewalk to get to it. The other guys are out there right now beating down the infected who’ve shown up so far. Leave the food. You’ll want weapons in your hands.” Phil said.

  Looking like she may argue Kelly’s face registered a myriad of emotions before settling on annoyed resignation. She set the food to the side and shrugged into her pack while getting the girls lined up in the kitchen. In less than a minute from when Myriah had first noticed the giant beast of a motorhome pulling up in front of the house they were ready to leave.

  Out the garage they walked in single file past the sleek minivan t
hat’d eluded their ability to locate the keys. Walking purposefully out the open garage door they moved fast with weapons raised and ready. Phil was in the lead with a machete while Randy, Kelly, Caitlyn and Myriah all carried various other bladed and blunt weapons to protect themselves and the littles. A sidewalk took them through the front yard and straight to the open door of the RV. Higgins and Gomez were guarding the door. Bryan stood inside the door with a rifle up to his shoulder covering everyone. They’d avoid shooting any guns as long as it didn’t look like they were going to die. If the situation got out of hand Bryan would open up with the rifle and they’d deal with the repercussions later. None of them were willing to risk one of the littles getting hurt.

  Kelly ushered the children into the RV. Randy stayed outside backing up Higgins who’d run out to fend off a young infected who showed up. Randy was glad Higgins had noticed the sore covered boy first. He’d rather go up against a two-hundred-pound adrenalized Zombie than have to beat another infected child to death. Higgins had a bat in one hand and a machete in the other. He poked the crazed boy in the chest as it ran towards him with his mouth wide open. The boy spun to the side to get around the baseball bat and caught the machete Higgins swung right in its face. Higgins ripped his machete out of the boy’s head and turned to run back to the RV.