by J. W. Vohs
Jerry added, “And we have to look for water filters and bottles. In the looting after Katrina people took bottled water but overlooked the filters that could have produced hundreds of gallons of clean water. Freeze-dried food might still be around as well. Backpacks are important. Broadheads for the arrows.”
Luke spoke up, “Even target tips will work on the zombies. Mostly, just get me some arrows and I’ll figure out the rest.”
David nodded at Christy, “There’s a lawyer for you; she was writing this all down even as you were speaking it. Get it all on paper, baby?”
She nodded but didn’t look up as she put the finishing touches on the list. “I’ve got it all here. We’ll try to cross off items as we find them, but of course, we might have to fight off thousands of zombies before we can use the list!”
Jerry laughed, “Well, at least we have a starting point if the zombies will cooperate.”
Five minutes later the four fighters were watching Jim close the garage door as they backed out of the driveway, everyone anxiously peering about in every direction trying to look for zombies. The street was clear, and they quickly made their way out to the main road. Sal had told them about the pile-up to the west, but he believed that they could probably make it around the mess in the Range Rover. Two blocks away they found the crash site, which was littered with blood stains and bones but not much else.
“Jeez,” Luke whispered in horrified awe. “They stripped the corpses right down to the bone! They weren’t doing that in the first days after the virus hit.”
David offered, “Looks like if you get away after you’re bitten you turn into one of the flesh-eaters, but if they can hold you down they’re gonna eat everything. At first everyone was running off after they were bitten, but now there are more of the creatures and at least some of them are getting stronger.”
Christy declared grimly, “I hope they’re learning how to hold more people down.”
Jerry was about to agree when he saw movement outside the rear driver’s side window. “Two Z’s on our left, guys.”
They all looked in that direction to see two zombies sitting with their backs against a guardrail, a partially-eaten corpse lying in their laps. The monsters stared at the passing vehicle while they chewed but seemed perfectly content to let the Rover pass while they enjoyed their meal.
Jerry leaned forward as he lowered his window, “Slow down a bit, I need to test out David’s .22 . . .” He’d fired two perfect shots before anyone could say a word, and the two flesh eaters slumped over their last meal.
Christy was a bit unnerved by the gruesome sight. “Those bastards. Bastards! I’m gonna kill every one of those things by the time this is all over!”
David reached out and squeezed her arm, “You’ll get your chance, babe, just stay focused on getting us to Dick’s right now.”
She stared grimly ahead as she muttered, “I know, I just can’t stand the thought of those monsters anywhere near our neighborhood, or anywhere else for that matter.”
Luke spoke from the back seat, “Check out the pack on the right, down the embankment.”
They all looked over to see at least a dozen zombies surrounding a car stopped on a side road. They were pounding on the windows and scratching at the doors. Christy needed only about three seconds to make a decision. “We’re helping them.”
Jerry quietly objected, “You really don’t want to do that; we really need to stay focused on our mission!”
Christy just shook her head as she turned the Range Rover around and headed toward the surrounded car. As soon as the zombies heard and saw the new vehicle approaching they quickly began shuffling in its direction. David had pulled out a pair of binoculars he’d been keeping in the glove compartment and focused in on the side windows of the car. After a few moments he told Christy in a flat voice, “Turn around and keep going toward the sporting goods store.”
Christy started to object until David cut her off, “A young man and woman are in that car, and from the spray of blood on the inside of the windows it looks like they blew their own heads off. If you really want to see it for yourself, go ahead and pull up there, but you’ll be endangering us and everyone back at your mom and dad’s place for two dead people.”
Something in David’s tone told Christy that she had been wrong to even try this, and that he definitely wasn’t lying about the two people in the car.
“I’m sorry,” she quietly said as she shifted into reverse and quickly backed away from the approaching zombies.
David softly replied, “We won’t be able to help anyone if we don’t find the supplies we need for our trip to Indiana. We have to stay focused on our ultimate objectives.”
“David, it just isn’t in my nature to abandon people in need.”
“Mine either, and Jerry was a cop. What kind of damage has been done to his soul as he ignored all kinds of situations to save his son? Believe me, Christy, we’ll know if someone can be rescued when the time comes, but a car surrounded by a dozen zombies isn’t really an option at this point.”
Christy now had the Range Rover turned around and headed west again as she conceded, “All right. Use the GPS to navigate and I’ll drive wherever you tell me to; I won’t make any more side-trips.”
An hour later, with numerous pile-ups and other obstacles avoided or crossed, the shopping center housing Dick’s Sporting Goods had come into view. They had passed dozens of zombies on the road, and they’d seen several humans on rooftops and waving out of windows. Through it all, Christy continued on toward their objective as she’d promised. As they pulled in to the nearly empty parking lot they immediately saw that all of the front windows of the sporting goods store had been smashed, and what they could see of the interior of the building revealed clutter everywhere. They also saw a few stripped skeletons lying about, as well as a score of dead zombies on the sidewalk in front of the entrance. Several hundred yards away they could see a small pack of flesh-eaters surrounding a corpse they were feeding on, but other than that they saw no immediate threats.
After pulling on their helmets and gloves the four fighters hoisted their weapons and began gingerly stepping over the bodies of the slain zombies as they moved into the store through the smashed window-front. Beyond the area of sunlight filtering into the building they could see nothing, so they all turned on head lamps they had strapped to the outside of their helmets for this purpose. The store was a disaster area. Clothes, balls, and display tables littered the floor, and shelving units were tilted in every direction. David looked around for a moment then led them over to the backpacks and duffels. A surprising number of these items remained, and each of the fighters grabbed several of the larger bags before heading back to the gun section.
As Jim had predicted, every gun and box of ammo had been looted from the store. All of the knife display cases had been shattered and there wasn’t a blade in sight. There were also no bows or crossbows remaining, but as Luke had hoped there were several boxes of arrows lying on the shelves in the archery section. Most of the broad-heads and other tips were still on display as well. They took everything they could find and then moved on to the camping department. On their way there they passed a shelf with small radios—the type that promised communication out to twenty-five miles. All batteries had been looted from the store, but David grabbed the four remaining packages of radios and added them to his pack before moving on. The camping section had been trashed, with goods lying scattered all over the place, but there were still plenty of items lying about. Again, Jim had been right about what would be left by earlier looters.
David grabbed a dozen micro water filtering pumps and all of the extra filters. They also found dozens of packages of water purification liquids. Nalgene bottles were scattered about, and they picked up a number of the larger ones before moving toward the freeze-dried food. Somebody had worked this section over pretty well, but whoever it was seemed to have focused on jerky and food pouches with meat in them. Scores of packages of
dehydrated meals packed the hooks from which they hung, and the small group filled their bags to overflowing with the goods.
Strangely enough, the tent and sleeping bag area looked nearly pristine. Jerry picked up several high-quality, four season, family-size tents, and everyone grabbed two or three sleeping bags before heading for the door. Halfway through the store they heard Luke whistle and they all immediately froze to see what the problem was. The boy slowly set down the bags he was carrying and picked up a Cold Steel Trench Axe still in its packaging. He smiled and waved it in front of everyone before retrieving his bags and moving forward again. So far, David thought, this trip has been a rousing success.
Looking back later, they should have known that things had simply gone too perfectly up to that point. Life in the zombie world just wasn’t that easy. When they reached the place in the store where they could switch off their lights they found out where all the zombies were: between them and their vehicle. At least twenty of the flesh eaters were milling about the Range Rover, and David’s first thought was to have everyone quietly move back into the shadows of the building until he accidently kicked a metal trash can that rolled loudly across the stone floor. The zombies immediately turned toward the sound and began moaning, and he realized that there were more than twenty of the monsters out there. At least forty of the flesh-eaters now knew that humans were in the building, and every one of the creatures began shuffling in their direction.
Jerry was the first to speak, “Everybody drop your bags and head over to the wall on the right. Move!”
David was closest to the wall, and as soon as he reached it he began tossing shelves, tables, and clothing racks out of the way. Christy was only seconds behind him and she shouted, “Try to form all of this stuff into some kind of barrier.”
As Jerry and Luke came up they added their labor to the effort, and in less than a minute the small group of fighters managed to have their backs against the wall and a decent-sized pile of furniture surrounding their position. Luke was frantically screwing field tip points into the ends of some of the looted arrows, each of which he stuck back in the box with the fletching pointed upward. Just before the zombies reached the hastily constructed barrier, Jerry righted a small overturned table and shoved Luke up onto it with his supply of arrows. Then the zombies struck.
Christy drew first blood with her pistol, shooting the lead zombie in the face and dropping it on top of the pile of chairs and tables. Jerry also began firing, and three more creatures fell as the former police officer once again proved his excellent marksmanship. Then a massive zombie reared up in front of David, and he thrust his halberd toward the monster’s face. The spear-tip of the unfamiliar weapon struck the flesh-eater in the chest though, and David thought he was a goner until an arrow buried itself right through the monster’s nose and it fell across the barrier it had been trying to climb over.
Zombies were falling at a rapid pace as the intensity of the battle increased, but more kept stepping forward to replace their fallen brethren, and the humans were growing weary. Finally, the barrier they’d hastily erected was breached and they were forced back, shoulder-to-shoulder, below Luke’s perch. David had dropped the halberd and went to the short sword, knowing that he wouldn’t have room to swing the mace in such tight quarters. The fire being laid down by Jerry and Christy was simply devastating to the attacking zombies, and Luke didn’t miss with his bow once he chose a target. Finally, the pressure of the mob began to wane, and Luke shouted down, “There’s no more coming in! Just hold on until we finish off the ones that are in here.”
David managed to grab a fast-moving female that had a death-grip on Christy’s arm, and he pulled it down to the ground before burying his blade in the back of the monster’s head. Before he could stand back up he heard Luke’s new axe swish through the air, followed by a shower of black zombie blood pouring down on him. Realizing that the teen had room to swing his weapon David stayed on his knees and began pulling the creatures into Luke’s range. The blood and gore splashed all over him, but the helmet and other gear did what it was supposed to and kept the infected fluid from reaching his face or any other flesh.
Finally David found no more zombies standing or crawling in front of him, and he looked up to see Jerry and Christy reloading as Luke asked, “Are you all right? I think we got ‘em all!”
David climbed to his feet and tried to wipe the blood from his visor as he looked around at the slaughterhouse that had once been a sporting goods store. Christy broke the spell by grabbing his hand and shouting, “C’mon, we gotta get out of here before more show up!”
While they were carefully climbing over the mound of corpses before them, Jerry reminded everyone to grab the bags they had dropped when they were attacked. The zombies hadn’t cared one bit about the goods being carried by the humans, and except for some muddy footprints on the fabric all of the packs seemed to be intact. When they emerged from the windows they squinted into the sunlight and looked around in all directions. More zombies were moving toward them, many more, and they began moaning with desperate hunger when they saw the living people in the parking lot.
David commanded, “Don’t panic, we’ve got time. Get everything into the back of the vehicle.”
He reached up and opened the luggage carrier Jim had attached to the roof of the Range Rover and quickly filled it with the numerous packs he had loaded in the store. When everything was stowed in the carrier he locked the latches and hurriedly jumped into the front passenger seat just as the others were slamming their doors and Christy was turning the key in the ignition. The leading zombies were only twenty feet away as the vehicle suddenly lurched forward, and now David could see that there were hundreds following the fast movers in the front of the horde. He looked over at his wife and exclaimed, “Get us home!”
Following the same route back to Christy’s parent’s house as they had taken to the shopping complex, the group had little trouble on the return trip except for the increasing number of zombies they had to run over or toss aside with the bumper. The same flesh-eaters they’d seen on the way out were still milling around the car with the dead couple inside, and finally Jerry said what none of them wanted to believe.
“I think the refugees from Cleveland have finally made it this far west.”
David asked, “Are you sure that these creatures just aren’t waking up or something? I mean, we came by here just after dawn.”
Luke answered for his father, “Look at the burnt clothing and hair on some of them, Mr. Smith. These zombies have been through fire wherever they came from.”
Christy finally added, “They’re Cleveland zombies, David, I know that they are.”
David just rubbed his eyes and mumbled, “God help us!”
By the time they made it back to Jim and Trudy’s place about seven or eight zombies that had been wandering around the neighborhood were stumbling after the Range Rover. Fortunately there weren’t any creatures close to the driveway as Christy quickly pulled in. Jim, who had been watching for them, threw open the garage door and cautioned them all to be quiet because there were a bunch of zombies in the neighborhood.
“Started seeing them not long after you left; just wandering down the street and through the lawns. Haven’t seen one live human so the flesh-eaters aren’t riled up or anything, just shuffling along like they’re taking a nice morning walk. A lot of ‘em are burned up pretty good too; I think these zombies are the ones that escaped the Cleveland fire.”
Christy replied, “Yeah, we came to the same conclusion. You guys been keeping quiet?”
“Oh yeah, but we’ll have a group outside the house now.”
David said “Well, you’re going to have to spray us down out here and disinfect us before we go inside. We got into a hell of a fight.”
Jim seemed to look them over for the first time. The blood drained from his face as he took a good, long look at his daughter and her companions. He shook his head in disbelief as he circled the gore-covered
vehicle, and his voice was filled with concern as he asked, “Is everyone alright? I mean really alright?”
They all nodded and then lined up over by the drain so Jim could turn the hose on them. He’d put his engineering skills to good use constructing a gravity powered water system in the garage fed from the rain barrels on the roof and a supplemental pulley system with buckets that could utilize water from the neighbor’s pool. Once most of the black blood and gore were off of their outer clothing the four fighters stripped down to their undergarments and were rinsed off a second time before being spot checked for any breaks in their skin. David had Jim stand over him with the hose as a makeshift shower so he could clean himself more thoroughly with laundry detergent and a stiff brush. He’d been such a mess that he wore a surgical mask over his mouth and nose and kept his eyes closed as he blindly and vigorously scrubbed all over his body. None of them knew if one could be infected without being bitten, but they all figured it was better to be safe than sorry.
Once they were reasonably clean, they went inside one-by-one to be thoroughly inspected by Vickie, wiped down with disinfectant, and finally to put on fresh clothes. Trudy and Sal prepared a lite lunch for the group, and though no one was particularly talkative, there was a palpable sense of camaraderie throughout the meal. As Sal gathered up the dishes, Jim suggested that they unload the day’s haul as quickly and quietly as possible.
Luke now had over one hundred arrows, and after watching him in combat David figured that meant over one hundred dead zombies when that bow went into action. The trench axe was also a great find, and the teen had cleaned it up and had been practicing moves with it since finishing his meal earlier than everyone else. But as far as the eventual trip to Indiana was concerned, nothing was more important than being able to generate clean water quickly; the filters were an incredible stroke of good fortune.