by JE Gurley
The Gray Man who had intimated the Major had a cure for the plague, the little blue vials. With such a tool for barter, some men would be willing to do anything, even sell their souls. Vince didn’t know if he was immune or not, but . . . Suddenly, it made sense to him, munies for immune. They were herding up people immune from the plague for some dark reason. If he were immune, it would be another good reason to avoid the main roads.
He had arrived in early evening the night before in the middle of a downpour. The odor of decomposing food and decaying corpses was too strong inside the store to seek shelter there, so he had chosen the minivan. His dinner had been a package of stale Twinkies that he found under the seat. The hike across the desert from Casa Grande, normally a two-day journey at most, had taken almost three, because of the inclement weather. He had holed up in a shed the first night; in an abandoned farm house the second. Caution had kept him off Interstate 8. He had seen signs of scavenging along the way, including one couple shot in their kitchen. They had not looked like zombies. Other dangers besides zombies prowled the roads.
He needed supplies, but scavengers had already ransacked most of the obvious places. Gila Bend was freer of zombies than most cities he had passed through, but breaking into private homes invited a shotgun blast from an irate homeowner, or an attack by zombies trapped inside. The rumble in his stomach told him he needed to do something quickly. He had no choice but try a house.
The first two homes were empty of zombies, homeowners and, worst of all, food. However, he got lucky in the third. The kitchen was a shambles and nothing edible remained, but entering the bedroom, he found the attic stairs pulled down. Somewhat apprehensive about what he might find, he climbed the collapsible ladder and peeked over the edge. Nothing moved as he carefully swept the entire room with his flashlight. Satisfied that he was alone, he entered the attic. Mostly the small space held dusty boxes of clothing and memorabilia, a few pieces of furniture and Christmas decorations, but to his delight, he literally stumbled over several cases of bottled water and canned goods. A few empty cans, a pile of blankets, a candle and a couple of paperback books in one corner showed someone, probably the homeowner, had taken refuge there. If the heavy dust layer accumulated on the books was any indication, the owner had not been there for some time. Maybe he or she had become a victim of the very bounty hunters Vince had seen earlier.
Grabbing a bottle of water from the open case, he quickly downed it, and then attacked a can of chicken noodle soup with his can opener with gusto, not bothering to heat it. He examined the attic space, noted the small ventilator opening that offered him a clear view outside the front of the house through the slats, and decided to remain a day or two to rest up. If the owner showed up, he would leave. He would not kill over a place to sleep. The blankets smelled faintly of men’s aftershave, reminding him that he hadn’t shaved in almost two weeks, unheard of for an NCO, but he supposed times had changed. After all, he had already discarded his uniform for blue jeans and a shirt. He had held on to his military ID just in case.
Lying in his appropriated bed, he tried to figure out how the military was using munies. If something in their blood could produce a vaccine and people with immunity were few in number, as his travels so far indicated, they became commodities for sale or barter for favors. The idea that slavery in any form had once again reared its ugly head made him wonder if the plague had been God’s vengeance on mankind after all. It was a touch of comedic irony that one of the smallest creatures on earth, and the oldest, had felled the great lumbering beast called man, just as it might have eliminated man’s ancestors’ rivals, the dinosaur.
For almost two months, he had been wandering southern Arizona, first Tucson; then on to Sierra Vista, Huachuca City and Fort Huachuca. The army base, home to 18,000 people and the Military Auxiliary Radio System, MARS, was abandoned to the dead, mostly Mexican zombies who had wandered north through Montezuma Pass in the Huachuca Mountains, part of the hundreds of thousands of refugees who had fled the bloody civil war in their own country. Without MARS, military communications would be a shambles, splintering surviving regiments across the country, cut off from any central, organized command authority. It was at Fort Huachuca he had discarded his uniform and rejoined the civilian population, what was left of it. However, he could not bear to part with his new E-6 patches and he kept them in his backpack as a memento.
In Tombstone, no mock Wyatt Earp gunfights thundered in the streets or at the OK Corral for the tourists, nor were visitors lined up for the gold mine tours of Bisbee. The further south he went, the more zombies he encountered, migrating north like herds of wildebeests. Seeing no sense in further exploration south and not wishing to cross the open expanse of Texas to the east, he backtracked, passing once again through Tucson. While foraging in a Target store, he barely escaped from a Latino gang who had claimed the store as part of their territory. Following the Santa Cruz River to Casa Grande to avoid the roads, he then headed west toward California in hopes of finding some remnants of a functioning government.
He found no signs of government, but he did see living people, individuals and small groups, moving about furtively, afraid of attracting zombies. Even homes with solar panels on the roofs showed no lights at night. People were learning that zombies flocked to light like moths. The same applied to loud noises, such as automobiles, which was the reason he had chosen walking instead of driving, and killed zombies only when necessary.
The most disturbing thing he had learned about zombies was that while most of them lacked the mentality to work together, some individuals had gathered small bands of them and ruled by the law of strength. These hunting packs cooperated, becoming much more dangerous than unorganized large groups. He had also seen one dominant male having sex with several different females. He didn’t know if female zombies could bear young, but if so, the dangers posed by such creatures increased dramatically, possibly breeding man out of existence. The sight had disgusted him so much that he had shot the dominant male mid-thrust and smiled as the rest of the pack scattered.
Vince was surprised at how easily he had gotten used to being alone. Even as a sergeant in the Air Force, his status as an NCO had placed him above the ranks and under the officers, a kind of no man’s land into which no one dared venture. He had no close friends, except perhaps Liz Mears. Whether she still lived was doubtful. He lit the candle, pulled his battered notebook from his pack and scribbled a few lines. He knew he was no Samuel Pepys, detailing London’s fall during the Great Plague of the 1660’s, but he tried to convey what he saw and what he felt into words, knowing as he wrote that no one not having experienced the horrors he had witnessed could ever understand.
Just before sunset, a series of loud calls nearby startled him. Abandoning his bed, he picked up his weapon and crept to the vent to look out. A small herd of white tail deer raced from around the corner of a house, followed by four zombies howling loudly. Suddenly, more zombies appeared from hiding and pounced on the deer as they passed. The panicked herd split up and fled in separate directions, but not before several of their number fell beneath the weight of the attacking zombies. The zombies tore into the living flesh, growling and fighting each other over scraps of meat. Vince put his hands over his ears to muffle the plaintive sounds of the deer. Only the zombie pack’s leader, a slender, dark-skinned man with long black hair, remained aloof from the melee. He squatted on the hood of a car and watched. After letting them eat their fill for a few minutes, he leaped from the hood, clubbed one male with his fists and took a haunch of meat from him, and then sauntered away with his purloined meal and three females following on his heels. The put upon male returned to the eating frenzy.
The pack ate for hours and slept where they lay, sated by their banquet, trapping Vince in the house. Any noise, any light, would call attention to him. He doubted they could get to him in his attic refuge, but the idea of a siege concerned him. Not daring even to open a can, fearing their unnaturally sensitive ears would pick it
up, Vince went to sleep hungry.
By morning, the pack had left. Nothing remained of their meal, but scattered bones, bloodstains on the street and piles of defecation. Vince sat by the vent with the morning sun shining on his face and relaxed. With needle and thread, he made repairs to his already often-repaired wardrobe. His last pair of socks was falling apart and his knobby knees poked through holes in his jeans. Soon he would need new clothes. Early on, Vince had learned to travel light, carrying only his journal, a hunting knife, one set of spare clothing, a blanket, food, ammo and his M16A1. Anything more would only slow him down.
The previous days rains had raised the humidity and the sun turned his attic refuge into a sauna. He stripped naked and lay on the floorboards in an effort to stay cool, but by midafternoon, the heat was just too much to endure. He winced at each creak of the stairs, as he lowered them to the bedroom floor. Packing as much of the water and canned goods as he could fit into his backpack, he eyed the remainder longingly. Water, especially, would be hard to find in the dry desert of western Arizona.
To reach California, he would have to pass dangerously near Yuma. He remembered the satellite images of the hordes of zombies from Mexico, far surpassing the numbers he had encountered around Ft. Huachuca. Like migrating animals, they followed the Colorado River northwards, a line of zombies stretching two hundred miles long, killing anything in their path. By his estimate, the leading edge was only weeks away from the outskirts of Las Vegas. Any survivors remaining there would soon face an army of the undead. Yuma, surrounded by desert, would not be an easy city to bypass. Mountainous terrain to the north and an ocean of dunes to the west would force him into dangerous open country filled with marauding zombies, where every drop of water and food he could carry might be insufficient to see him through. He would follow the railroad tracks as closely as possible, using the trestle crossings over gorges and washes that would otherwise take hours to cross. It would be a dangerous journey, but not as dangerous as chancing Yuma.
Once across the Colorado River, he would have to avoid both the Salton Sea and Death Valley. That left only a narrow corridor along Interstate 8 threading through the mountains. He still did not know his final destination. At Red Rock he had heard rumors of a secret facility. Before leaving the house in which he had rested for two days, he checked all the closets and drawers and found jeans, shirts, socks and underwear close enough to his own size. His pack was full, so he threw them in a plastic bag.
On his way into Gila bend, he had passed an irrigation canal. Though the water was near freezing, he took a bar of soap from his pack, stripped naked, discarding his old, worn clothes and jumped in. The shock of the frigid water was intense but revitalizing in an insane way. He began to whoop like a kid at the swimming hole, splashing loudly. Realizing that his exuberant actions were probably not a good idea, he quickly lathered up, rubbed his body briskly to warm up and rinsed. Satisfied he was as clean as he could get before freezing; he crawled out of the canal and lay on the warm concrete bank to dry.
Even dozing, he kept one eye open for zombies, but his splashing and yelling had not drawn any. As much as he enjoyed the few minutes of solace as the warm sun caressed his body, quickly drying his skin, he realized would never reach California lying in the sun. He sat up, rummaged through his pack and pulled out his well-used Arizona map and a protein bar. Tracing his route with his finger, he decided his best chance of avoiding clusters of zombies would be to follow Interstate 8 as far as Camp Viejo and then turn north along the valley, avoiding the Fortuna Foothills. It would still place him too close to Yuma, but moving farther north added days of travel through rough country. As he chewed on the protein and contemplated alternatives, he noticed movement in the distance, three figures on bicycles. Torn between rushing to meet them eager for new faces and hiding from them, he decided to watch and wait. He picked up his weapon, crept closer to the road and watched them draw nearer, two men and a woman. They were armed, but that didn’t mean they were dangerous. However, it also didn’t mean they weren’t. He had met some seemingly innocent looking people in his travels that had shot first and asked no questions later.
He needed information, especially about the Hunters in the truck. Maybe they knew how many more there were. The three stopped their bikes and began to carry on a heated conversation. By his gestures, it appeared the younger man wanted to go into town, but the older one objected. The female acted as mediator, gently brushing her hand along the older man’s forearm to calm him. The three became so engrossed with their conversation that they failed to notice furtive movement behind a thicket of tall grass along the embankment on the opposite side of the highway.
Vince didn’t. He popped up from his hiding place, stark naked and armed. All three spotted him at the same time, raised their weapons and pointed them in his direction. Steeling himself for a bullet to the head at any moment, he raced toward them yelling,” Zombies!”
21
Jeb had had enough of bike riding and camping out under the stars. When he was younger, riding bikes and camping had been glorious, a kind of freedom. Then, like most adults, he had become accustomed to the small luxuries of life – a car, a home, a bed. Now, he remembered why he had not enjoyed hunting trips with his father. It hadn’t been the killing as much as the sleeping on the ground. His back ached and his legs protested louder with every mile they traveled. Renda seemed thrilled with riding and Mace, well Mace did everything well. Jeb bit back the tongue of his thoughts. He was being unfair to Mace. After all, Mace had spent the last six weeks teaching him the skills he needed to survive in this new, mad world. So far, he had been a good student. Leaving the comfort of Bisophere2 had not been easy on any of them, but Jeb was determined to find his wife.
The first day had been uneventful. They had traveled along highway 79 and cut across to Coolidge, spending the night beside the Picacho Reservoir. However, as they neared Casa Grande, they encountered zombies. Watching from a distance, Jeb was amazed and a bit disheartened to see how small packs of the creatures cooperated, hunting animals, people and even other zombies. Any living soul unwise enough to venture into the open became a target for these fast moving bands of predators. Mace stayed his hand once when he brought his rifle to bear on a zombie stalking a man attempting to break into a home. His anger melted away as Mace pointed to two zombies that had appeared from behind a building less than fifty yards from their concealed position. His shot would have given them away. He watched the man die a gruesome death, a simple matter of his life or theirs. This was one of the lessons that Mace was trying to teach him – survival. He was a slow beginner, but he was learning quickly.
They made a wide detour of Casa Grande, breaking into a house on the outskirts of town for supplies. Looters had systematically ransacked many of the houses of valuables, weapons and food, leaving little of use. In an outbuilding, Renda discovered several jars of prickly pear jam and canned tomatoes. With crackers, the find made a filling dinner. The trio tried to live off the land, saving their few meager supplies for emergencies, but scavenging proved more difficult than Jeb had thought. Twice, they received dire threats called out from homes with boarded windows and quickly retreated. The message was clear – strangers were unwelcome, the small hordes of food, closely guarded for their own use.
By the time they reached Gila Bend, 125 miles west of Tucson, Jeb was ready for a hot meal and a good night’s sleep, not to mention a long day’s rest for his saddle-weary backside. Tucson to San Diego was a little over four hundred miles, seven hours by car, about a month at the rate they were going. He figured that would give him plenty of time to grow accustomed to a sore backside, but for now, he was tired. As they approached the first exit on I-8, he stopped them.
“I don’t know about you two, but I’m done in. I say we look for some supplies and a place to rest for a day or two.”
Mace glanced over at the dead city, somehow more ominous for its ghostlike silence. “It’s too risky. Large towns have large zombie
populations.”
Mace’s reluctance irritated Jeb. It seemed that lately Mace had been vetoing all his ideas. “Risky! Every place we’ve been has been risky. We need food. We need rest. There’s nothing else for over a hundred miles.”
Feeding off Jeb’s anger, Mace raised his voice as well, “There are plenty of small towns and farms along the way. We should wait.”
Renda gently rubbed Mace’s arm to calm him down. “Quiet, you two,” she said. “Jeb’s right, Mace, but let’s discuss it somewhere other than the middle of the Interstate. We might get run over.”
Both men looked at her. Mace laughed aloud.
“You break me up. I . . .”
At that moment, he spotted a naked man running toward them waving an automatic rifle. Mace and Jeb quickly pointed their own weapons at him.
“Don’t shoot unless he aims at us,” Mace warned.
Jeb stood nervously as the man approached yelling something unintelligible. “Is he crazy?” he asked.
Suddenly, the naked man raised his weapon and fell to one knee, aiming at them. Jeb took aim, his finger on the trigger. If Mace had taught him one thing over the last couple of months, it was that hesitation could kill you. To his surprise, Mace grabbed the barrel of his rifle and pushed it down.
“Wait,” Mace said, swinging around to look behind them. “Damn!” he yelled.
The naked stranger fired. Jeb heard a grunt behind him and spun around, thinking one of his friends had been hit. What he saw filled him with horror. Six zombies had climbed the embankment behind them. Five were racing across the median toward them. One lay on the asphalt, the recipient of the wild naked man’s shot. Mace fired a quick burst and dropped two more, saw that his magazine was empty and fumbled in his pocket for a fresh one. Shaking off his fright, Jeb fired and killed a fourth. The two remaining zombies paid no heed to their fallen companions. Leaping and running at an amazing speed, at times on all fours, they made difficult targets. Renda, weaponless, rushed to her bike for the long Guan dao she had slung across the rear fender. The stranger’s gun fired once more and a fifth zombie fell and skidded to within six feet of Jeb’s feet. Mace raised his AK47 just in time to fend off the attack off the last remaining zombie. He laid his rifle across the zombie’s chest shoved the creature backwards to get a clear shot. The creature swiped at his face with its long, filthy nails and stretched its neck in an attempt to bite him.