by Will Lemen
When I woke up, I saw Jacob at the bow of the boat aiming the .243 Steyr hunting rifle off the port side of the boat, pausing for a moment, and then slowly rotating to the starboard side, pausing again, and rotating back to the port side and back again.
“What are you doing son?” I inquired.
“I’m checking out this scope dad. You know I could take out any one of them, or all of them easily with this rifle.”
“Any or all of what son,” I asked, a bit confused.
“All of those eaters. Look at all of them!”
I sat up, looked over the side of the boat at the riverbank, and I could hardly believe my eyes.
Hundreds of zombies were standing on the bank snarling and snapping at us. Of course, we were too far away too distinctly hear their hungry growls or the clatter made by their teeth pounding against each other as they mimicked chomping down on our delicious flesh and bones, but we could clearly see their ominous presents and menacing body postures.
Some were just swaying back and forth leering at us as we slowly floated downstream past them. Others were stumbling around in a somewhat controlled frenzy as if they were going to charge into the river in pursuit of us, yet stopping short of entering the water and then quickly backing up, acting as if they were afraid of the flowing liquid. Some had walked to the edge of the river but no further, and stood there drooling as they ogled us with their minatory stares.
With the voracious appetite for flesh and brain that these undead cannibalistic abominations had exhibited in the past, along with their undaunted resolve to satisfy that hunger, it was hard to believe that something as simple as water would be enough to halt the onslaught of these horrendous monsters. However, it was all too clear that they had a deathly fear (another opportunity for a pun) of the water.
However, one thing was for sure. Almost every one of them had taken notice of us and would have attacked us if it weren't for the fact that we were at a wide part of the river and there was about fifty yards of water between them and us.
“This is very interesting,” I said, as I rested my elbow on my knee and my chin on my hand. “The CDC did say that they thought the sickness had come from feral dogs. Maybe it mutated from rabies, you know hydrophobia, the fear of water."
"Okay Jake, you want to check out that scope, let’s see if it is sighted in.”
"Okay dad, what do you what me to do?"
“Pick out one of them that’s close to the water and see if you can take out its knee. Try to get it to fall into the water," I instructed.
Jake pulled the bolt back and then slammed it forward, inserting a bullet into the chamber of the hunting rifle.
“How about the one in the yellow shirt?” Jacob asked, as he raised the rifle up and rested his cheek on the stock of the gun.
“Sure," I said. "Go for the left knee though, it's closer to the water, and you might have a better chance of knocking the eater off balance and dropping it into the water.”
“Roger that,” Jacob remarked, as he gently pressed the trigger back toward the rear of the gun.
The violent report of the rifle broke the morning silence, and the left knee of the zombie in the yellow shirt exploded.
The zombie didn’t have a chance to catch its balance. It belly flopped into the river, and it went crazy.
While flopping and flailing around, it wasn’t swimming, I don’t think it could swim, it just churned up the water floundering around and splashing violently.
After awhile it was able to find its way back onto the riverbank, accidentally I think.
Even after making it out of the water, the hydrophobic dead man continued to shake and flail his arms around for a while, sometimes shaking like a wet dog and flipping water droplets onto other zombies, which caused them to quickly move away from him and form a kind of empty aura around him.
Jacob started laughing hysterically at the comical way the zombie looked flopping around in the water, and at the antisocial way, the other zombies reacted to their wet comrade.
The shot woke up everyone in the boat. Moreover, the shock of seeing the large horde of zombies on the bank soon rendered everyone wide-awake.
“What’s going on?” Gin yelled, as she rose up quickly, startled by the gunshot.
“We’re experimenting,” Jacob said, barely able to contain himself long enough to get the words out.
“Well that thing is loud, next time give me some warning before you scare the hell out of me,” Gin replied angrily.
“Okay mom,” Jacob said, still laughing.
“What’s so funny Jake?” Billy demanded, just before he stretched his arms and yawned, a little pissed at being woken up so suddenly.
“Well, we know for sure those things don’t like water!” Jacob chuckled. “You should have seen that! Look at it trying to stand up with only one good leg. Let’s see if I can do that again.”
He raised the rife to take another shot and I quickly stopped him.
“Don’t shoot another one, it’s a waste of ammo, and besides, I think we’re drawing too much attention to ourselves. We don’t know who or what might be within earshot of us. And we don’t need any unwanted company."
“Looks like we already have some unwanted company!” Billy exclaimed.
“Yes we do,” I said, noticing that the now one-legged dead cannibal that had just crawled out of the water seemed to be trying to convince its self to go back into the water and come after us. Yet it just couldn't seem to gather enough testicular fortitude to take another dip in the river.
It was obvious that this zombie didn’t like the water and was very afraid of it, but the drive that it had to get to us, was almost as strong as its dread of the hydraulic fluid it had just crawled out of, and that scared us.
I had to ask myself, how long it would be before these things might overcome the only fear that we had seen in them since this whole zombie apocalypse thing had started, and be able to attack us in the water.
We slowly drifted down the river, past the creatures that had gathered on the riverbank, some of which tried to follow us, but the riverbank was too uneven and filled with bushes and trees, making it impossible for any of those ungainly sub-human aberrations to keep up with us for long.
Moments before we were out of sight of the horde, we heard gunshots and saw several zombies fall to the ground as their heads exploded, leaving a red cloud of mist in the air where their heads had once been.
“Someone is clearing out that group,” Gin said, as she settled back in her seat.
“With extreme prejudice I might add!” I said. "Oh well, better them than us!"
"Indeed! Way better them than us," Gin then added.
“It takes a serious high powered rifle to vaporize somebody's skull like that, and a bigger caliber than our .243 I think,” Jacob remarked.
“You're probably right, we need to be extremely vigilant,” I said. "And stay as low as we can in the boat, no reason to give someone a bigger target than need be. Whoever is thinning that horde must have seen us too; we're luck that they didn't take any pot shots at us.”
The next several hours passed without incident. Therefore, during that time, I decided that this would be a good time to come up with some rules for our survival.
“We need to think of some rules,” I said, breaking the serene silence that we were just beginning to become accustom too.
“What kind of rules?” Gin asked.
“Rules to live by, and survive by,” I answered.
“That’s not much of an answer; give us an example of one of these rules of yours,” Gin asked acting a little annoyed.
“Well,” I said. “They're not just my rules, we need to brainstorm and come up with as many ideas as we can to help us survive this holocaust.”
Putting a thoughtful look on my face, I stated.
“For example, nobody goes anywhere alone, never ever, not into the woods to take a crap, not to look for food, not for anything or for any reason. Ever! Get it?”
>
“I get it,” Jake excitedly answered. “You mean like always carry two guns on you all the time!”
Smiling, I replied. “That’s right, somebody write these down so we can go through them and sort them out when we’re done.”
“I will, anyone have a pen or pencil?” Jake asked, as he started looking through one of the backpacks we had on board the boat.
When we were franticly rushing around trying to pack things that we thought we would need on our journey, pen and paper were not high on the list. However, Jacob did manage to find a crumpled spiral notebook and a pencil at the bottom of a backpack that he used to take to school.
“Okay, I’m ready!” Jacob stated proudly.
“Did you put the first two rules down yet?” Billy asked sarcastically, shaking his head back and forth, indicating that he didn't think Jacob had.
“Oh, hold on," Jacob insisted, and moments later, he announced. "Okay I got’em,” he said, as he held up the paper for everyone to see.
“Nobody goes anywhere alone and always carry at least two guns.”
“How about always keep a gun within reach, I mean if you put your guns down when you lie down to go to sleep, you keep them close to you,” Billy added.
“That’s a good idea,” Gin said, enthusiastically for a change.
“What else?” Jacob spouted, excited about this new boredom breaking exercise.
“What about always keep a backup weapon with you? You know, a knife, or a club, or something,” Billy recommended.
“I think a club might be a little awkward for a backup weapon, but you could certainly use one as a primary weapon. I mean when a gun isn’t suitable, like when you have to be quiet and not attract a lot of attention,” I countered.
"You mean like all of the time?" Jacob wisecracked.
"Indeed, I have taught you well my son!" I wisecracked back.
As we continued down the river, we managed to compile quite a few rules, some we made up ourselves, and some we remembered from zombie movies or television shows.
We weeded out or modify the rules that probably weren’t workable in a real zombie world, and one thing was for sure, we were definitely in a real zombie world, it didn’t get any more real zombie than this.
With our list completed, we began to memorize the following rules to avoid being.......
EATEN, DISMEMBERED, DISEASED, SHOT, BITTEN, MUTILATED, or otherwise KILLED, CAPTURED or MURDERED by zombies, normal humans, insane maniacs, or other diverse mentally deranged entities etc.!
1. Watch for eaters (zombies) and rouge humans! Always assume one is near.
2. Never have less than two (2) guns on your person! Fully loaded!
3. Always, have a gun within reach, always!
4. Never, go anywhere alone, anywhere! Ever!
5. Always, carry a backup weapon, i.e., knife, hatchet, sword, bat, etc., always!
6. Always, keep a lookout on duty, day and night, all of the time, 24-7!
7. Never camp out in an open area, unless it is unavoidable, if unavoidable, refer to the first six rules!
8. Gather as much ammo as possible, check everywhere you go.
9. Look for and take, as many guns and high capacity magazines as possible, always check!
10. Take anything you think might be useful in the future, if possible.
11. Look for food and water all the time!
12. Learn as much about the enemy (eaters or non-eaters) as possible, and share the information!
13. Watch your back! Watch everybody’s back!
Of course, there is always an exception to every rule.
Take rule number 2 for instance, it sounds really nice to always have two fully loaded guns on you at all times.
However, what if you just got finished dusting off several zombies and you haven't had time to reload, when another one or two undead homicidal cannibalistic maniacs come along with visions of having you for their breakfast, you're certainly not going to take the time to reload before you deal with the new threat unless you have no other choice.
If your gun is completely empty. Then you might reload by quickly replacing your empty magazine with a full one (provided that your weapon of choice is magazine fed, not a revolver or some such other nonsense), depending on how urgent the need to dispatch the zombies was.
Alternatively, maybe you would do what they call a "New York reload" and pull out your second gun and blast them back to hell where they belong.
On the other hand, you could say to the aggressor. Oh, please Mr. Eater, don't bite me yet, wait for me to reload my lethal weapon so I can blow your head clean off! Well you could do that, but I don't recommend it. However, if you do choose to try that option, please let me know how that works out for you.
As you can see, there seems to be several options that could be used with this scenario. Therefore, we would do our best to adhere to our rules, but we all knew that they were more like strict guidelines rather than set in stone unbreakable rules.
It took longer than I had expected to float down the tributary to the Mississippi river. I had been there before, but had always got there under power.
When we did finally enter the mighty Mississippi River, of course the current was much faster, and the river was much wider than the tributary from which we had started.
Faster was better because we would reach a warmer climate quicker, and wider was also much more desirable because we were farther away from the shore, farther away from zombies, and farther away from people that might want to take our boat, or might just want to kill us, or take our supplies, or all of the above.
One thing about the Mississippi River we hadn’t counted on, or even considered, even though we had encountered several completely dead bodies floating in the water on our way to the Mississippi.
Whether we floated or powered our boat down the river, we encountered an enormous number of bodies floating in it, more in some places, less in others. But no matter how you want to look at it, none of us had ever seen such a vast amount of death in one place prior to our journey down the Mississippi River.
Some of the many bodies floating around us were that of unfortunate ones that had been stricken by the disease and had been put down by people like us, that so far were untouched by the plague. They were killed before they had had a chance to do anyone any harm, and then their bodies were dumped into the river.
Other diseased persons that had turned into full-fledged killer zombies, and had attacked people in an attempt to devour them, had had their brains destroyed and their bodies thrown into the river as well, again by someone that was so far unaffected physically by the disease.
Many had more than likely just been murdered, and their property taken by panicked people during the first hours of the outbreak, and their bodies were dropped into the river as well.
In any case, every corpse in that river had a hole in its head that had led to the destruction of at least part of its brain, which had rendered them dead, all the way dead.
Most of the bodies had begun to rot and were hideously bloated, and many had been partially eaten, either by zombies before they entered the water, or by the fish and turtles in the river, or sometimes by both, which made them all the more repulsive.
The riverbanks were littered with bodies that had washed onto them; some were hung up on derelict boats or barges, others on outcroppings of trees that were sticking halfway out of the water, and some had just floated out of the current and been beached by the river itself.
There were hundreds rotting corpses floating in the river around us; we would see one or more, and usually more, spit out by the river at least every forty or fifty yards, and many times, they were ejected out of the river in grotesque clumps onto its banks.
Unfortunately, for us, the smell at times was overwhelmingly repugnant.
Crosswinds seemed to help a little most of the time, but when the river meandered, and the breeze blew parallel with the river, the stench of hundreds of rotting human bodies
floating around us, and on the riverbank, was almost too much to bear.
It was like the smell of road kill, only much stronger and always present. Added to that we had the unforgettable memory that was seared into our minds of the mutilated rotting bloated fish bait corpses floating all around us; so we were afforded the perfect mix of constant smells, visual effects, and psychological brain twisting, which was enough to drive any normal person totally insane.
Fortunately, I didn't consider myself to be a normal human being, with my combat experience I had seen death many times before, but never on such a vast scale as this. However, I was concerned about the effect this hideous terrain would have on my families psyche.
It's a funny thing though, about the way the human nose processes smells, if the odor is constant, after a while you get used to the stink and don’t notice it nearly as much. I believe it's called sensory adaptation, and if not for this sensory adaptation, we would have had to abandon our plan of using the river to travel, as the stench was relentless.
As for all of our fishing equipment we had with us, it was useless to us. With the river filled with dead bodies, there was no way we were going to eat any fish we pulled out of that water. They had been feeding on the zombie carcasses, and were no doubt carrying the disease in one form or another.
“Billy, we might as well throw the fishing poles overboard, along with the rest of the fishing stuff. We’re not going to eat anything that comes out of this river,” I declared.
“Okay dad," Billy replied. "There's no need to keep it, all the rivers, lakes, and ponds are probably contaminated by now too.”
“Well, even if they aren’t, we can’t take the chance. I mean how would we know whether or not there were bodies up river, or on the other side of a lake, or bodies that had sunk to the bottom and were releasing the virus into fish that had nibbled on them?
I mean hell, if we're going to eat the fish we would catch, we might as well cut to the chase and grab one of those zombie corpses floating in the river, and drag it into the boat and feast on it!"