Nuclear Undead: Wake the Dead

by N. J. McConnell

  Nicole asked the guys to remember to focus on protecting the animals as well as humans. She’s right. We need them for food and it seems cruel to leave them defenseless out there to fend for themselves against that many hungry creatures whose only though is tearing them to shreds and eating their flesh.

  While the men are gone on their foray, we women began unloading the two truckloads of supplies. We are employing the assembly line method. Cathy and her kids stand in the back of the trailer removing the plastic wrapping holding the contents of the skids together and then hand the packages down to us one at a time. Nicole and I had found a couple of wheelbarrows out by the barn and after they are full, we take turns wheeling them back to the large four car garage connected to the house where we help Virginia unpack and organize them so that everything could be found later.

  By the time the trailers were emptied, we ran out of room in the garage and our muscles were screaming at us, but now we have two empty trailers that will be parked along the fence line front to back to fortify the enclosure. The trucks will be reused to bring back more supplies with the trailers all used in the same manner. We have to be much more cautious now that we know that everywhere we go exposes us to more undead who would then follow us home.

  We still had a few days to get the improvements to the house completed and the fencing up, but not many The way Jason figured it, the ones we saw last night came from the nearby town, but the undead we passed in Oklahoma, Kansas and other areas will have to walk farther and because their eyes are sensitive to the light, they won’t be able to travel in the day. They are determined creatures who don’t tire, so they will eventually arrive on our doorstep and we must be ready when they get here.

  We spent time discussing our plans more this morning before the sun rose and unanimously agreed that fencing, no matter how strong, won’t be able to keep out thousands of zombies.. It’ll help to slow them down, but a horde of hungry zombies will eventually find a way to break through. This is when we came up with the idea of bringing all the semi-trailers and buses we could find to line up around the property line with a double layer around the inside structures in case they were able to breach the outer barrier. We’ll park cars on the outside of those also front to back to close any gaps.

  Jason is working out a way to electrify the chain link fence with enough voltage to knock them on their butts if they make it past the barriers and Dad is constructing homemade traps until he can find the local armory to procure heavy equipment to defend the property and the ingredients he’ll need to make improvised explosive devices. Dad is scary sometimes. He’s been doing this type of thing most of his life, minus the zombies. You wouldn’t want him as an enemy.

  The men returned in the afternoon with two more truck loads overflowing with supplies from local hardware stores. Apparently, Beau doesn’t just know how to ride horses. He can drive a semi. The man never ceases to amaze me. I can understand the connection between him and Dad better now.

  We immediately got to work switching out the ornamental doors with some that were steel ones that looked ugly as hell, but were safe. They’re the type you’d find in a manufacturing plant or a secured government facility. Instead of nailing plywood over the windows, we used long screws to drill metal plates through them on both the front and back sides. Our new home was changing from a beautiful paradise to a home under siege, but security has to be our first priority. I can’t help but wonder how the owner would react if he could see what’s happening to his home.

  We didn’t want to stop for lunch and instead kept working, but Virginia used her powers of persuasion to bully us into eating at least a sandwich and drinking some bottled water. After all, we have to eat to keep our strength up and we have to stay healthy. There’s no such thing as going to the doctor to get a prescription filled now.

  It was difficult to swallow the food after helping dispose of the zombies that died last night. The undead were beginning to decay and putrefy, so we dragged them one by one into a dirt area with no grass nearby and after pouring fuel on them, lit a match and watched them burn. I have to admit to throwing up at the aroma of burning flesh, but I wasn’t alone in my discomfort.

  While the men returned to finishing the alterations, I waited alone outside overseeing the human bonfire to make certain it didn’t get out of control. Cathy went back inside to spend time with her kids and Nicole left to look in on the horses. Just before dark, when I was confident the fire was truly out, I ambled back indoors. Virginia already had dinner prepared, but before I could eat, a shower was required. The stink of death permeated every inch of me. Although I’m ravenous, I’m not sure how much I can eat after what we’d just done. At least Nicole was nice enough to take Coco out to potty. I made a point to thank her for her thoughtfulness.

  We ate our dinner in the spacious formal dining room tonight. Everyone moved slowly and nursed sore muscles, but there was a sense of accomplishment between us. We had gotten more done than we anticipated during the day. Knowing that a zombie invasion is imminent is the ultimate motivator.

  Exhaustion permeated my very being and the pain made me want to cry, but I had first watch again, so after thanking Virginia for the delicious meal she prepared, rose to my aching feet to begin rounds. Coco shadowed my footsteps as always. Some might see her as a hindrance, but she goes with me for several reasons. One, I appreciate the companionship and we hadn’t spent much quality time together lately. Two, it’s good exercise for both of us. Three, she’s a dog who has incredible hearing and sense of smell. She’ll notice an intruder before I hear them and will let me know.

  The next two hours of guard duty dragged along. I dreamed of soaking in a tub of hot bubbles before slipping into bed, but was stuck walking back and forth through the mansion. Greg isn’t a talkative fellow and we don’t spend much time together at any rate. As soon as one of us comes back from rounds, the other begins theirs. We spend the time in between security checks on top of the house instead of inside, so I was seated on the roof scanning the building in front of me when I noticed the animals had grown silent. It’s too quiet for comfort.

  I shined my L.E.D. flashlight into the shadowy darkness where flood lights didn’t shine, but saw nothing out of the ordinary and didn’t detect movement. Maybe I’m just being paranoid after what happened last night. I’m not sure. I sense that something’s out there, but it’s just a feeling. I’ll have to ask Greg’s opinion when he comes back up. In the meantime, I’ll just keep my eyes peeled in case something pops up.

  Greg finally arrived and completed a walk around the rooftop shining his light the same way I did, but saw nothing. He had the same feeling that something was off, but we can’t wake the others on a gut feeling. There is nothing to see or hear, but that’s one of the reasons for our misgivings. On a typical night in the countryside, you hear the croaking of frogs, the neighing of horses or other sounds of nature. Tonight, there was nothing.

  I was tempted to bring Coco upstairs and see if she could spot something we were missing, but if something was out there, she’d go ballistic and try to wiggle out of my arms to attack it. That’s bad enough on the ground, but would be disastrous from a rooftop. I had to leave her down below and depend on my puny human eyesight and hearing instead.

  Chapter Thirteen

  You Don’t Choose Your Family

  “My family and my friends are most important to me. These people are my foundation.”

  Faith Hill

  I awoke in the early morning hours to unfamiliar voices outside the house. Not knowing if they were friendly or not, I threw on my clothes, left Coco in her carrier, armed myself and slid silently into the hallway. Greg and Cathy were standing in the doorway to their room down the hall with concerned expressions. They were whispering and I couldn’t be certain what they were discussing, but from the little I overheard, I got the feeling Cathy wanted Greg to stay there with his family, but he told her he had to go.

  Seeing exchanges like this makes me glad to be si
ngle. I’ve always had difficulty with people trying to pressure me to do something I don’t want. The TV shows where a divorced wife chews out her ex-husband because his employment as a cop or soldier kept him away from home too much always pissed me off. In the plots, she knew before marriage that he did this type of work, but now is making him suffer and turning the kids against him. I suppose it’s a situation where someone gets married with the idea that they can change the other person into what they want them to be and then get angry because they didn’t succeed.

  I would advise those women to accept others as they are and take responsibility for their own lives. Grow up. An adult doesn’t need someone around every second to entertain them. They have goals in life to pursue. They don’t blame other people because they’ve made themselves miserable by wrapping their lives up in someone else’s dreams.

  Enough preaching from me. I get a little grouchy when somebody wakes me up. I get even more cranky when I don’t know if we’re in danger, then step in the hallway to hear someone’s wife whining and complaining instead of picking up a weapon to protect herself and her kids. We’re in a zombie apocalypse. There’s no room for wimps.

  With that thought, I eased down the hallway as quiet as possible, being observant of my surroundings. The farther I moved towards the living and dining rooms, the louder the voices became. Just when my hand tightened on the grip of the pistol – finger off the trigger, of course – I heard my father let out a belly laugh. That’s all I needed to hear to know that the situation was clear.

  The living room was now filled with a large group of teenagers and four adults – three women and a lone man. Virginia and Nicole were walking around the room talking with them and urging them to eat more food. This seems to be one of Virginia’s favorite things to say and you’d better eat up or she won’t stop.

  I crossed the threshold of the formal dining room where Dad’s voice was coming from. He was seated at the head of the large table next to a Hispanic man that was having a conversation with Beau. Two young men in military style fatigues were on the other side of my father, along with Pete, Jason and a black man with a herculean physique.

  “Ah, there she is!” said my Dad and patted the seat next to him, which I took after reholstering my weapon.

  I didn’t say anything. I assumed that when they decided to explain what was going on, they would and even so, I’d figure it out on my own after a while by listening to the conversations going on at the table.

  Beau finally introduced the Hispanic man as Hector and said that he was a ranch hand here, but had left to get his family and make sure they were safe. They were running late after some unexpected setbacks on the road and made it back to town after sundown. While looking for a place to hide from the undead, they bumped into the other survivors..

  The teenagers were friends from school that got together to take in the fireworks demonstration that the little town puts on each year. Some of the teachers from school and even the principal had volunteered their time to chaperone the group and afterwards, they planned a cookout. It was going to be a memorable event. They never had the chance to eat after the fireworks went off and people started turning.

  The majority of the kids and teachers were killed or changed within the first few minutes after the start of the celebration. The four teachers and remaining teens ran to the only place they felt would be safe - the high school. They attempted to block the windows and doors as much as possible and slept in the cafeteria in the middle part of the school to keep from being seen. They stayed alive by eating cans of food that were stored in the kitchen, but because it was in between semesters, the stock was low and their situation was becoming grim.

  Hector found a group from the school searching for food in a local convenience store. They were shaking the bars on the door trying to figure out how to get them off when Hector and his wife Teresa drove up and asked how they could help. He took out his tire tool and easily popped the lock so they could get in. After talking with the kids and their male chaperone while they were bagging up what they found to take back to the others still hiding in the school, he suggested they should follow him and his family to the ranch where they’d be safe and have plenty of food. It didn’t hurt that he also used hand to hand methods of disposing of the undead that tried to make dinner of the kids. Hector is bad ass.

  At the time he made the offer, Hector thought that Beau was the only person living here to watch over the ranch. He’s met Dad, but never thought that he could have managed to travel this far from Oklahoma. Guess he doesn’t know my dad.

  It was easy to persuade the worn out and worried teachers to bring the teens and follow along, but there was no way to fit all of them in an SUV. Following the suggestion of one of the educators, they broke into the transportation department and located keys to the new yellow buses that the school had just purchased. They were top of the line and had more options than most new cars including a surround sound stereo system and heated seats. As in most small towns, teachers in Harrison have to do double duty as bus drivers when the school is shorthanded, so it didn’t take long to get things ready to go.

  With the buses loaded up and the kids feeling warm for the first time in days, they stopped the buses at the end of the lot to fill them up from the massive tank the school keeps in the bus lot. That’s how they met the two soldiers called Sawyer and Benson. A tall black man, whose size would have made him seem intimidating if it wasn’t overshadowed by a wide dimpled smile, was already at the tank topping off a couple of troop transport vehicles.

  The soldiers followed their training and responded to the unexpected visitors by pulling their weapons and going through the routine of “drop your weapons” and “state your business” that could have gone badly if the teachers hadn’t already established their leadership with the kids and kept them in line.

  Hector dropped his weapons and stepped away from the SUV, then walked slowly and carefully towards a tall black man with a look of authority that was standing next to the soldiers. He assumed the man was in charge and therefore more stable than the young warriors. When he was allowed to speak, he explained where they came from and where they were headed.

  The soldiers ordered him to stay put, but let him put his arms down. While keeping one eye on Hector and scanning the teens and the family in the SUV, the soldiers talked the situation over with the older man, Terek, and surprised Hector by asking if they could tag along.

  Terek wasn’t in the military anymore, but had been a tough Navy Seal who retired recently to spend time reconnecting with his family. He spent so much time deployed away from home that his marriage was suffering and his children barely knew him. It had been time to go and he didn’t regret his decision not to re-up, but the timing couldn’t have been worse. He flew back home the day before the outbreak planning to surprise his family, but his wife had apparently had enough. The house was empty and the only thing left was a note attached to the refrigerator with a magnet telling him what a sorry man he was and not to contact her again.

  The soldiers were ordered by the governor to defend the town, but by the time they pulled into the city limits, there were very few humans left alive. The soldiers hadn’t been briefed on how to take the ghouls down. They kept trying to shoot them in the torsos, but the zombies didn’t seem to notice. Apparently, the dead don’t feel pain. They just kept coming and the sound of weapons firing attracted even more to their location. They were surrounded and soon to be dinner for a horde of zombies.

  At about this time, Terek was walking down the street considering ending his life since he no longer had a family and the world had gone to hell, but when he saw soldiers were trapped and needing help, he climbed onto a Harley Davidson with keys still in the ignition and revved it up to get the undead’s attention. It didn’t take much effort. Harleys are loud and powerful bikes. Zombies were naturally attracted to the sounds they make and the vibrations. About a mile from where he started his ride, Terek jumped off the bike that was s
till moving forward and hid inside of a garbage dumpster to cover his scent until the zombies passed by.

  Once the road was cleared, it took ten more minutes to work his way back to where the soldiers were now sitting behind locked doors in two troop carriers. Because Terek is a rational thinker, he filled Benson and Sawyer in on his situation and asked if they wouldn’t mind if he followed along wherever they were going. There’s safety in numbers, after all. Not long after, they met up with Hector and his group.

  It was a long drive to the ranch because the motley group had to backtrack and circle around several times to avoid hordes of zombies. The troop carriers and buses ran down the stray undead, but tried to miss them whenever possible. It’s not that they didn’t want to kill them. They did. They just didn’t want to end up with one of those things hung up in the wheels or drive shaft and then have to crawl underneath to tear it loose. That would be dangerous.

  According to what they had been told by fellow soldiers, those creatures could kill just by breaking open your skin or getting some of their bodily fluids in an open scratch. They figured that it would be best not to take a chance. Too bad they hadn’t been satisfactorily debriefed and told to shoot for the head. It would’ve been a helpful piece of information to have.

  Dad and Pete were on the roof taking their turn at guard duty when the buses and trucks slowly approached the house. Pete ran to get Beau who had agreed to stay in the main house to help protect the new arrivals. It was a temporary arrangement. He still had his own place, but until everything was secured, it would be best to have him close by.

  Beau didn’t take long to react. Even before the passengers had time to exit their vehicles, he’d already run up the stairs wearing only a t-shirt and faded blue jeans. He hadn’t even taken the time to put on boots or his usual ten gallon hat. When the men pointed out the convoy that was now on the property grounds, Beau borrowed the binoculars that Dad was using and scanned the newcomers slowly. After a moment, he turned around and with a wide grin said, “Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle!”