by Will Lemen
However, wouldn't you just know it, there's one in every crowd. A young zombie, well, one that would have been young if he had lived long enough, who was dressed in a high school band uniform, clamped onto a rung as high as he could reach and pulled himself up, accidently putting one of his feet on the bottom rung.
Showing what seemed to be a glimmer of intellect, most likely just desperation to have us for lunch; the young flesh-ingesting maniac grasped the next rung up, and began his climb to the top.
Other zombies followed his lead, and before you could say "Zombie Apocalypse", the ladder was teeming with slobbering zombies ascending skyward.
As the young band member arrived at the pinnacle of the ladder with several flies orbiting his head, I pulled my tomahawk from my tactical vest once more, and with one vertical blow to the top of his head, I opened a three-inch gaping hole in his skull.
The zombie immediately toppled from the top of the ladder with its circling flies following close behind, flipping head over heels and slamming into five or six other zombies below him on his way down, taking them with him as he fell.
At the base of the tower the impatient horde that crowded together like sardines in a can grabbing at the rungs of the ladder, were bombarded by the bodies of the falling undead, leaving a pile of bloody twisted and mangled living corpses at the base of the water tower.
That horrific scene had no effect at all on the zombies that had not been hit by the plunging cadavers; they were driven by nothing more than hunger for our delectable tasting skin.
If anything, the pile of inhuman corpses served as a staircase at the base of the ladder, giving the determined zombies a ramp of mangled body parts that allowed them to gain access to the rungs of the ladder that were several feet higher off the ground.
One by one, more zombies climbed onto the ladder, and one by one, when they made it to our platform, our edged weapons indented their skulls, and one by one, they fell.
Occasionally one of the zombies was so intent on grabbing us, that when they reached the top, they would let go of the ladder and fall on their own.
And every once in a while, a swift boot heel to the face would aid their ten story vertical plunge to the ground without the help of my tomahawk.
"We're going to have to do this all night!" Gin announced. "This could get dicey in the dark!"
"I got us into this, and I'm going to get us out of it," I responded. "Remember the eaters that freaked out in the river when they fell into the water, and how they all crammed themselves together under the trees to avoid the rain? Let's see what happens to this bunch when they get wet."
I pulled a bottle of water from one of the backpacks and removed the cap, and as I sprinkled the water down the ladder, we watched the zombies go into their hydro-panic mode.
As they did on the river, their fear of the water caused them to forget about us, and their hunger for a moment, and flail their arms about in an attempt to avoid the liquid. As droplets of water sprinkled down on them, they dropped from the ladder like the flies that surrounded them (just another way of saying they dropped like flies), and quickly joined their twisted and squirming compadres at the base of the tower, thereby adding to the ever-growing pile of broken and disfigured corpses wallowing there.
"That works great dad," Jacob said, with a hint of hope in his voice.
"Yes honey that works great, but we only have a few bottles of water with us. Not enough to hold them off all night," Gin asserted.
"That's for sure, not nearly enough bottled water to keep them off the ladder all night long, but we do have plenty of un-bottled water," I reminded her, as I reached for my tomahawk again.
I took my tomahawk and swung it as hard as I could, piercing the skin of the water tank with the pointed end of the weapon. Upon withdrawing my tomahawk from the steel tank, a small stream of water squirted out over the ledge above the ladder and fell like rain drops over the climbing zombies.
Panic ensued once more, and one by one the remaining zombies released their grip on the ladder as they tried to escape the falling water.
The water cleared off the ladder and forced the crowd of zombies at the bottom that weren't part of the pile, to spread out in a circle around my somewhat man made waterfall.
"They're off of the ladder now, but we'll have to fight our way out if we climb down," Billy said, shaking his sickle in a threatening manner at two of the flies that still lingered near the top of the ladder.
"The water got'em off the ladder, but the situation is still grave," I said. "It seems we have two choices, we can stay up here over night and hope there's enough water in the tank to last until morning, which there probably is, and then fight our way through the eaters down there. Or, we can climb down now, fight our way out, and hope we can find some place reasonably safe to spend the night."
"We only have two or three hours at most before sundown, I don't want to be out in the open over night, that's way too dangerous," Gin said. "If we can't find some place to stay we might not make it."
"The flies might not be as active in the cool morning hours, and that will be one less thing that we have to contend with, plus we will be rested and have all day to find a vehicle if we stay up here over night, I said, stating reasons to choose one of our options.
As we weighed the pros and cons of spending the night on the tower, or making a break for it before sundown, our decision was made for us.
"Look!" Jacob yelled, as he pointed down at the zombies below.
While the zombies were preoccupied with avoiding the artificial rain that we had manufactured, and what they hoped would be their next meal (us on the water tower), the humans that had watched us climb to the top earlier were attacking the loitering horde.
"There's almost as many of them as there are eaters," Billy asserted gleefully.
"Don't get too lathered up, we could be out of the frying pan and into the fire, we don't know who these people are," I said cautiously.
"The eaters are almost all killed off," Jacob announced, as he watched the people on the ground slice their way through the remaining members of the zombie mob.
Just before the last zombies were dispatched, we heard.
"You on the tower, come down now!" said a man's voice through a bullhorn.
"They don't seem to be too worried about attracting eaters," Gin said. "What are we going to do?"
I looked directly into her eyes and said. "We don't have much of a choice, we have to do exactly as they say, you know they could have just shot us off this water tower."
Again, the man behind the bullhorn blasted his orders.
"You on the tower, come down now, and keep your hands away from your weapons."
"Billy, you go down first, Jacob next, I'll go third, and honey you come down last, that way if you fall I'll be under you to catch you," I said, again hoping that she wouldn't fall.
We proceeded down the ladder in the order that I had prescribed, and again Gin counted each rungs as she descended. At the bottom, a welcoming party of men and women armed to the hilt met us.
As we stumbled over the pile of dead and maimed zombies stacked at the base of the water tower, a stocky red haired man that was preoccupied with giving the others in his group orders, approached us.
"Climb over that mess, and be careful not to get bit, they're not all dead yet," he said, stomping the heel of his boot into the side of a snapping zombie's head. "Hand over your weapons and be quick about it, we don't have all day."
Four others in the group stepped forward and relieved us of all our weapons.
"The ammunition too," ordered the red headed man. "What's your name, why are you here, and what in the hell are you doing destroying my water tower?"
His total focus was now upon us, and I could tell that this man was in no mood to play games, yet there was something vaguely familiar about him, but I just could not place it.
"My name is Jack, this is my wife Gin, and these are my two sons Billy and Jacob," I told him.
The man stared at me with a steely glare and said. "Next question, what are you doing here?"
"We're just traveling through, our van broke down a ways back, and we climbed the tower to escape these eaters that you and your people just put down," I answered, with my own steely glare fixed on him.
"Why did you poke a hole in one of my water towers?" he asked, still glaring at me.
Again, I glared back at the man.
"My family and I are from the St. Louis area, we floated down the Mississippi River to Vicksburg, and along the way we found that the only thing these creatures seem to be afraid of is water."
"You should have seen the way some of them freaked out when they fell in the river," Jacob interrupted.
A seething glance from me got the message across to Jacob to just stand there and keep his mouth shut.
"So, when we found ourselves trapped up there, and the eaters somehow managed to climb the ladder, I poked a hole in the tank and that kept them from climbing up," I continued. "We didn't realize that it was your water supply."
The man didn't answer, he didn't say anything, he just stared at me, and after a while he said. "There's something about you, what was your name again?"
"Jack," I answered sharply.
The man squinted his eyes and continued to stare for a moment, and then a slight smile came to his face.
"You didn't happen to be in the Corps, did you?"
The memories came flooding back to me at that moment.
"I didn't get your name," I said, as a slight smile crossed my lips.
"Ron," he said, but you can call me Sarge.
At that instant, we both knew what was familiar about each other. Years ago we served in the military together.
"You old "Devil Dog", how have you been?" Ron asked, now grinning from ear to ear.
"I been doing all right Sarge, well until all of this started," I said, pointing to the pile of fly infested zombies at our feet.
"Give them back their weapons," Sarge ordered his men. "This guy can out shoot all of you; at least he could back when we were in the Marines."
"I'm getting a lot more practice nowadays," I said re-holstering my pistol.
"I guess we all are," Sarge added, motioning for me to follow him. Let's get the hell away from these damn flies.
"Indeed, the eaters are bad enough," I agreed, following closely behind the Sarge.
"We've got a nice little setup not far from here; it's pretty secure, and has enough room for all our people, enough room for you and your family if you'd like to join us. I can't believe we ran into each other, it's been a long time Jack, a really long time," Sarge said.
"I never would have guessed it was you at the bottom of that water tower, we didn't know what to expect when we came down," I responded, waving for Gin and my sons to keep up with us.
The former sergeant abruptly stopped, turned to me, and said. "You're damn lucky it was me at the bottom of that water tower. We've ran into people that would have killed you for your hat, hell there might be one or two of my men, or women, that would do that. After they saw you poke that hole in the tank, some of my people wanted to just shoot you off that tower and ask questions later. I told them they might miss and put more holes in the tank, even though I knew that they wouldn't miss."
"I'm glad you were so convincing, you always were a smooth talker Sarge," I admitted, nodding my head.
The sergeant briefly turned to one of his men and pointed to the hole in the water tower.
"Donny, you and Paul climb up there and plug that leak!"
He turned back to me.
"Jack, what in the hell were you thinking, climbing up that ladder in broad daylight, in full view of everything in hell's damn creation?" Sarge asked, with a very concerned look on his face.
"Must be from fatigue, we've been traveling almost from the minute the world went to shit, I guess I'm just tired, I'm not thinking straight, I've lost my edge," I answered sheepishly, still embarrassed about my mistake.
"Well, I've got to admit, you certainly do look like shit, but don't worry, I'll make sure you and your family gets some rest, and I'll keep the meaner ones under my command away from you for awhile, until they can see that you're not a complete idiot."
"I'd appreciate that, and thank you for not summarily killing us all, and oh yes, thank you for another emotional scar with that idiot comment," I said, trying to add a little levity to the conversation.
The sergeant turned away smiling and said. "Same old Jack, kills ya with laughter, or kills ya with his gun, but one way or another he'll kill ya."
We walked for a while talking of old times in the Marine Corps, and watching his people kill small random groups of zombies along the way.
"Well this is it Jack, what do you think of it?" Sarge asked, as we hiked across a large, formally well-manicured lawn that was now overgrown with weeds and tall grass.
The building that stood in front of me was constructed of red bricks with stone windowsills that sat ten feet above the foundation. The complex had a seven or eight foot high chain link fence surrounding most of the facility, and a parking lot that was capable of holding a couple of hundred vehicles, but only had eighty or ninety in it at that time.
"It's a YMCA building," I said. "And a fairly large one at that!"
"Large indeed," Sarge said. "We've got a swimming pool, gym, two basketball courts, and we converted one of the three hand-ball courts into a movie theater."
"Where do you get your electricity," I asked.
"Same place we get our hot water for our showers, that's the best part, we have a huge gasoline generator that runs everything that's electric, lights too," Sarge said proudly.
"Sure sounds like a sweet setup," Gin said, overhearing our conversation as she followed.
The sergeant turned around to Gin and said. "Sweet indeed little lady, sweet indeed. It would be even sweeter if we didn't have to go out into the world and collect supplies and gas and, well you know, things like that. But we're getting pretty good at gathering up stuff."
He turned back to me and said. "While we're out there, we figure we might as well do our part to bring back the world from the brink, and kill as many of those things as we possibly can, so that's what we do.
Part of our mission when we came for you was to clear out that bunch that had you trapped. We'd been watching them assemble for a couple of days before you showed up. When you climbed onto that water tower, we figured that was a good excuse to mosey over and take care of them and deal with you at the same time, you know kill two birds with one stone so to speak."
We reached the front of the sergeants stronghold where they had parked a tour bus in front of the doors, leaving about three inches of space between the bus and the building, and having to back it up a few feet to the right to gain access to the building, and then move it forward to block the doors again.
"Jack, you and your family go get cleaned up, we'll get you some clean clothes and get those filthy rags you're wearing washed and rustle you up some grub. I bet it's been awhile since you people have had a chance to take a hot shower," Sarge said smiling.
"It's been forever," I answered, smiling back at him.
"Johnny will show you around, I've got some things to take care of, I'll join back up with you at dinner, ok?" Sarge said, as if asking my permission.
"Roger that, Sarge," I answered, as we followed Johnny down the hall.
We spent the next hour taking a tour of the facility; it was almost like Johnny was trying to sell us a membership to the Y.
After we had taken a long hot shower, we were each given a plush bathrobe with a monogrammed YMCA logo embroidered on the pocket, and what seemed to be pants from a one size fits all martial art gee left over from a karate school that had used the place for their classes.
Once we were clean, dressed, and alone, Gin asked me a question.
"How well do you know this man, are we safe here, I mean, from these people?"
"From
these people, I don't know. From Sarge, let me put it this way. If it weren't for the Sarge, I wouldn't be here. He has saved my life as many times as I have saved his. I would trust my life to him anytime, as I have many times in the past, we fought together during the war. And it looks like we may fight together again during this new war," I explained, conveying my confidence in my tone.
"What about his people, he said that they're pissed about the water tower, I heard him," Billy asked, duly concerned.
"I heard that too," Jacob noted, as he admired his new bathrobe.
"He seems to be in control of the others, and there's probably nobody here that has had to do anything worse than we've had to do out there, so let's try and be nice and get along with everyone, but keep your eyes and ears open, and as usual stay on your toes. We'll decide later, whether or not we're going to stay here. Let's go find the Sarge and get something to eat, I'm starved," I answered calmly.
It wasn't long before we found Johnny, who led us to the cafeteria where Sarge and about thirty others were gathered for the evening meal.
"There you are, I'm glad to see you're still carrying at least some of your guns," the Sarge said, pointing to Jacob's carbine.
"It's a little hard to carry everything wearing these bathrobes, so we thought we would just bring our rifles," I answered, holding my AK-47 up for display.
The stocky ex-marine laughed and jested.
"Good choice Jack, we never want to bring a pistol to a rifle fight."
"Not unless we have to Sarge," I maintained. "My family has some rules, and one of them is, always have a gun within reach, so we always do, I mean unless your men take them away from us," I quipped smiling.
"Don't worry Jack, that will never happen again, ever," Sarge answered, as the smile ran away from his face. "We feel the same way, look around you, everyone has a gun whether you can see it or not. This place is as secure as it gets outside of Cheyenne Mountain anyway, we can't take the chance of one of them getting in, and us not be ready for them. All it would take is for someone to die of a heart attack during the night, and we could lose dozens before sunrise. So everyone carries a gun all of the time, just like you."