ZOMBIES: Chronicles of the Dead : A Zombie Novel

by Will Lemen

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  THE GAS STATION

  We hadn't been in the Houston area very long and we had already had several harrowing experiences, and had to get lucky a couple of times to stay alive. We were beginning to understand why Clyde had told us to avoid Dallas. I think better advice might have been to avoid big cities in general.

  In the beginning, taking the river south kept us off the highways for most of our trip, which by default kept us from encountering very many non-infected humans. However, now that we were traveling mainly on the interstate highways and skirting big cities, we were bound to run into more and more living people.

  That in itself was a double-edged sword, or a flip of a coin, take your pick. Because we never knew which we might encounter, people like Frank and the Assassins willing to help you, or on the other side of the coin, there were people like the Ambushers, willing to kill you without blinking an eye just because you entered their turf.

  We had already lucked out a several times during our journey, and as we drove along, all of the sudden it looked as if we may have used up our allotment of good luck.

  Pinging sounds against the side of our truck alerted us to the newest peril that was to befall our small troop.

  "What's that?" Gin shouted.

  I knew all too well what it was, it was the same sound that we had heard just days before when we were ambushed on another section of the freeway, it was a sound that I dreaded hearing.

  "Someone's shooting at us again, just like before," I informed her. "But no road block this time, it's random gunfire from somewhere."

  "Get down boys," Gin ordered.

  "All of you get down," I yelled, slumping down across the steering wheel.

  "All we can do is keep driving and hope they don't disable the truck," Gin speculated, crouching down behind the dash.

  "There are only a couple of places that it could be coming from, either that row of trees over there, or somewhere in that group of storage buildings," I said, pointing to the two possible places that the shooter might be hiding.

  "Billy, stick your AK out your mother's window and spray both those areas," I told him, still dodging abandon vehicles on the road, which most likely helped dodge some of the gunman's bullets.

  Billy leaned over the seat and directed his mother to roll down her window. As Gin complied, Billy stuck his rifle out the window and fired it in the direction of the small cluster of buildings.

  "You probably won't hit anybody, but you might detour whoever it is from shooting at us for a minute. Shoot into those trees too," I said, pointing again to a small wooded area in the distance.

  Billy alternated his fire, several shots at the buildings, then several shots at the woods, then back to the buildings again.

  From the snipers nest our actions probably looked like a drive by shooting with no specific target in mind. More of the spray and pray method, or the accuracy through volume doctrine if you will, instead of any well-aimed precise shots.

  What seemed like a lifetime passed in just a few seconds, and the sound of bullets hitting our truck ceased.

  Remembering the prisoners and their roadblock, I slowed our truck to a crawl anticipating another blockade that I had yet to see.

  However, the road was clear as far as we could see, except of course for the usual scattered derelict vehicles and a few stray putrid smelling regenerated flesh eaters that occasionally ambled onto the roadway, putting themselves in the crosshairs of my always-willing homicidal truck bumper.

  Therefore, after a couple of hundred yards we began our normal cruising speed again. Only bothering to add three of the current road zombies to my hit and run total

  "Unfortunately, I think we're going to run into much more of that kind of thing," I said. "If we do, sooner or later one of us is going to catch a bullet."

  Gin looked at me, and I could see the confusion on her face.

  "How are we going to avoid it?" she asked, with the look of confusion on her face beginning to turn to the look of fear in her eyes.

  The stress of death around every corner every minute of every day and night, was starting to take its toll on her, and I didn't have an answer. Our situation was starting to take a toll on all of us.

  With pirates, ambushers, crazies, zombies, feral dogs, and now random people sniping at us, we needed to change our tactics and try a different approach.

  What kind of different approach? I had no idea.

  However, sometimes the more things change, the more they stay the same. And just like before the apocalypse, and to quote the greatest singer-song writer that ever lived.

  "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."

  That's exactly what happened to us, we were busy trying to make other plans, and life happened to us, apocalypse life.

  I noticed that the fuel gage had dropped well below where it had been just minutes before.

  "Something's wrong with our fuel tanks, I think we've got a leak."

  Down the road a few hundred yards farther, on a stretch of road that had a gap between wrecked vehicles, I stopped the truck to check our fuel tanks.

  "We've got a leak all right, we've got nothing but leaks in this tank," I said, pointing to several bullet holes at the bottom of the tank.

  "That's half of our gas, gone," Billy said, climbing out of the truck.

  "What's next? How far can we get on just one tank?" Gin asked.

  Looking down at the perforated fuel tank and the last reminisce of its contents dripping onto the road, I answered.

  "I don't know, but our good tank was the one that was emptying first so it's got less fuel, and with all the holes in this tank, I'm not sure it's safe to drive this truck anymore."

  Jacob climbed out of the truck, looked at the leaking fuel tank and declared.

  "We need to find another vehicle, I don't want to end up like match head!"

  "Start unloading our stuff, it looks like we're on foot again," I said with a sigh. "And make sure we bring those bolt cutters, I think we'll probably need them."

  "I got'em right here dad," Jacob announced, holding the bolt cutters in the air.

  On foot again, and burdened like pack mules, we lugged our supplies down the road in search of another means of transportation.

  The ammunition and water was by far the heaviest burden we had to deal with. Our guns were heavy too, but in comparison to the weight and bulk of the water and ammo, they were much easier to tote, and their slings afforded us several configurations by which we could easily carry them in different ways.

  Gin was wearing out the quickest, but we were all feeling the pain our cargo was inflicting upon us. The old military adage, "Ounces equal pounds and pounds equal pain" kept coming to mind.

  "I don't know how much further I can go like this," Gin said, stopping to readjust her backpack. "At this point, I'll take any car, truck, wagon, bike, I don't care."

  "Like always, we'll grab the first vehicle that we can get started, and worry about finding a better one later," I said, agreeing with her, and shifting my rife to my left side.

  "We better find one before someone else shoots at us," Billy added.

  We walked for the next few hours, stopping and resting each time while we checked abandon means of transportation that were not housing their former owners that were trapped and slowly decomposing inside.

  Then, when we were at the point of total exhaustion and felt we couldn't take another step, we happened upon a minivan identical to the one we used to own and had abandon at the boat launch at the beginning of our journey.

  Jacob had managed to walk slightly faster than the rest of us, was several yards ahead of the group, and arrived at the minivan first.

  "The keys are in this one!" he shouted.

  "See if it will start," I replied, without much enthusiasm or hope.

  To everyone's surprise, and relief, with one turn of the key the engine started.

  "Unlock the rear hatch," Gin said, dropping
her backpack on the ground behind the vehicle.

  We opened all of the van's doors and hurriedly tossed our supplies in.

  "How much gas does it have? Gin asked, concerned that this ride might be a short one.

  I glanced down at the gas gage and answered.

  "Not much, but enough to find a gas station, that is if we don't wreck it or get it shot out from under us!"

  Loaded up, and on four wheels again, the vigil to find a filling station began in earnest.

  One thing about the American landscape, there never seems to be a shortage of gas stations, and the Houston area was no exception. Almost immediately, Billy spotted a familiar sign in the distance advertising the price of gas on the day our normal world ended.

  "Over there, look, a gas station," he pointed out.

  "With the electric out the pumps aren't going to work, how are we going to get the gas?" Gin asked.

  "We brought that little squeeze pump with us, remember, it's in my backpack. It might take awhile, but we can pump the gas out of the underground tanks directly into the van," I answered.

  Our newly acquired vehicle's tank was almost empty, and the plan was to pump as much gas into the tank as we could, and if the gas station sold gas cans, we'd fill up one or two and take them with us.

  “The gas station is right up here, when we get there we'll have to be on the lookout for eaters, feral dogs, and feral people, and anything else that might try to kill us," I warned.

  "So be on the lookout for the usual things, right," Jacob wisecracked.

  Ignoring his remark, I continued.

  "I'll fill up the tank and the rest of you cover me. If everything goes smooth, after the gas tank is full, we'll check for gas cans and fill them too.”

  "What about using the blades? Don't we need to be quiet? Gin asked.

  "Only if there are one or two eaters, four at the most, any more than that we need to just shoot'em and find another gas station," I told her. “So, if I say shoot, you shoot, get me?” I said sternly.

  They all replied. “Yes!”

  "And you all should know by now that you don't have to wait for me to tell you to shoot, you go ahead and shoot if you have to, right?"

  Again, they all replied "Yes!"

  “And if I say shoot all of them, you shoot every damn one of them that you can, whether you think they're a threat or not, get me!”

  My family looked at me knowingly, and again, each of them replied. "Yes!"

  "Remember, head shots on the eaters, and for everyone, or everything else, any hit is a good hit. Get me?"

  The family nodded as Billy firmly tapped his rifle's drum magazine twice to insure it was locked in place.

  None of the nation's power grid was still intact by now, and there was no hope that the gas station would have electricity to run the pumps, why would it, nowhere else did.

  However, the outbreak and subsequent societal break down had happened so fast, that it was almost a sure thing that the underground tank would be able to supply us with as much fuel as we could take with us.

  We pulled into the gas station, and I parked beside the small round metal covers where the tanker trucks filled the subsurface tanks. We leaped out of the van, and everyone took their place guarding the van, and my attempted retrieval of fuel.

  Prying off the metal cover on the covert fuel well with the pointed end of my tomahawk, I quickly gained access to the much-needed gasoline below. Wasting no time, I inserted the pump hose into the tank and began to squeeze the oval rubber bulb between the two miniature pump hoses, pulling gasoline up from the buried tank. I removed the van's gas cap and replaced it with the hose that was now spewing out gas from the subterranean tank.

  Turning toward me, Jacob announced to his mother.

  "It's working mom, dad's filling the tank."

  Gin glanced at me and then at Jacob, nodded her head, and returned to her sentry duties.

  "This is going faster than I thought it would," I said, steadily pumping the bulb. "A few more minutes and we'll be done."

  "Eater!" Gin said, pointing to one coming around the corner of the building.

  "I'm closer, I'll get it," Billy said, walking toward the lone zombie.

  "Whack that zomb," Jacob jeered, before looking back at me and smiling.

  "Hey, that's what those men back at the jail called them."

  "Let's stick with "Eaters", less confusion that way," I sternly suggested.

  "Okay!" Jacob replied.

  "Whack that eater Billy!" Jacob called out softly, this time using his own families slang.

  "Be careful Billy!" Gin beseeched him, as he approached the solitary zombie.

  "Thanks mom, I never would have thought of that," Billy replied sarcastically.

  Billy did as Jacob had recommended, and split the zombie's head open with one swift blow, dropping it to the ground in front of him.

  "Check the side of the building, but don't leave our sight, and be careful, remember they travel in packs," Gin ordered, reminding her son, and then scanning the area on the other side of the building for danger.

  Just then a sputtering sound came from inside the station, and the gas pumps lit up. Someone inside had started a generator. Then a shadow moved passed the front door, the door opened and a crouching woman stuck her head out and yelled.

  "That's our gas! You gonna pay for that gas?"

  Upon hearing the sound of the generator starting, Jacob and Gin moved to the other side of the van and were watching the woman from behind it. Billy was checking the side of the building for more zombies, and had the woman flanked. While I stood alone in the middle of the gas station's parking lot, the perfect easy target for someone with minimal shooting skills.

  "How much do you want for it?" I questioned.

  "Don't want no money, money ain't no good no more, we're on the barter system now," the woman answered with a thick southern drawl. "What else you got that we might want?"

  "We don't have much, a few bottles of water and a couple cans of tuna, that's about it," I answered, hoping she would let it go at that and let us leave without pushing the issue.

  "First you steal our gasoline, and then you lie to us about what you got," the woman said angrily.

  "I'm not lying, we've got next to nothing," I answered, trying to sound pathetic.

  "Next to nothing, all you standing around with those fancy looking guns, you call that nothing, and yes, I can see those two behind that van," she hollered angrily.

  In the middle of our conversation, my mind drifted away from the immediate peril I was in, and I thought.

  "Now am I to believe that I'm the only person in America that had the foresight to possess some half-way descent firearms, the only one in these United States to be vaguely prepared for an emergency of some kind? What is with this obsession everyone seems to have with my guns?"

  Snapping back to the grim reality that confronted me, I replied to the woman.

  "We can't give you our guns, traveling around out here without any firearms would be suicide," I pleaded, putting on the best whining routine I could muster, as I tried to think of a way to turn the tables on this woman.

  "That sounds like a personal problem to me," she said, garnering a smile.

  "You keep saying things like, our gas, you lied to us, and what we might want. How many of you are in there?" I asked, trying to gain some operational information.

  Before the woman could answer my question, I watched her face explode through the glass door she was kneeling behind, and then her body slumped through the hole in the door that her face had made on its way outside just moments before.

  Before I could make a move, I saw Billy pushing the front door of the building open, dragging the woman's faceless body with it.

  "It's okay everybody, she's alone in here."

  During my conversation with the woman, Billy had sneaked around to the back door of the building (in blatant disregard for our rule number 4, I might add), which the woman had left unlocked,
entered the building and shot the woman in the back of the head while I unknowingly distracted her.

  "Are you sure nobody else is in there?" I asked, thinking that maybe the woman had tried to mislead us into thinking that she wasn't alone.

  "There's only two rooms and a small hallway, I'm sure," Billy replied, as he walked toward me. "Nothing in there wasting our time over either," he added, as he pulled the siphon hose from van, and screwed on the gas cap.

  "Then let's get back on the road before something else happens," I said, as I drained the remaining fuel from our small pump onto the ground and stuffed it back into my backpack.

  "Too late honey, something else has happened!" Gin alerted, as her and Jacob came around from behind the van.

  "Look!" she said.

  I looked over at her, and she was pointing to a large group of zombies moving in our direction.

  "There must be fifty of them!" Jacob yelled, as he raised his carbine and took an aggressive stance.

  The now faceless woman in the gas station had unknowingly distracted us from the approaching danger of the large marching horde of rotting resurrected dead that was now upon us.

  "Way too many of them to fight out here in the open, and no time to climb in the van," I screamed, as three zombies were already between our vehicle and us, with a multitude of their friends close behind. "Get inside the station, hurry!"

  It was a short run to the entrance of the building, Gin and Billy got there first, then Jacob, I brought up the rear, and made it to the door at the same time as the zombie that was leading the pack did.

  I swung my elbow back and caught the revived dead man square in the temple, knocking him back just long enough for me to get inside the station. The body of the woman who Billy had killed, who's blood oozing faceless corpse was guiding the less astute zombies to our sanctum sanctorum, was propping the door open, leaving a one-foot gap which was more than enough room for any zombie (except for maybe that 400 pounder I dropped last week) to push its way through. Unfortunately for us, within seconds, that is exactly what they were trying doing.