Hunting Season: A Zombie Survival Story

by Stoesen, Chris

  "Hey, get me that radio that Mr. Sellers gave me."

  I walked her through turning it on. I figured if texting and driving were bad, figuring out a strange radio and driving at night while the walking dead prowled around was even worse. We got the radio on and I walked her through setting the channel to the one he taped to the radio. That part was easy as it was already set to it.

  I grabbed the radio and pressed the talk button, "Mr. Sellers, are you on the line? Mr. Sellers?"

  I let go and just listened to the light static that was coming through. I was about to call again when I got a response.

  "Great googly moogly. Don't use names, boy. The government can track us down with that. You know better than that, boy."

  I just smiled, "Yes, sir. I'm sorry, sir. What is your handle?"

  There was another moment of silence before it was broken with, "Patriot 15."

  Daniel just laughed. Sharon looked at him as if he had lost it. What humor could there be during the apocalypse? Thinking for a minute then I laughed some more. I had created my handle. Dad wanted something nice or biblical sounding.

  "This is Angel Six Eight," was what I responded back. I was really into this band, Death Angel two years ago. They did a song about the four horsemen of the apocalypse which is found in Revelation 6:8. So I concocted that handle. It sucked, but it seemed rather appropriate at the moment.

  "Right. You sure you want to stick with that, boy? Sounds girly to me."

  Hey! It was a cool handle. Not girly at all. But I had to be polite. After all, the man was armed and just ahead of us.

  "Yes, sir. It works for me."

  "Well, don't beat around the bush, son. Why are you calling me?"

  "Sir, we have a problem. Zombies have made it into town."

  "Well, damn. It looks like they will beat the looters."

  His issue was that the zombies would beat the looters to his house? Damn, this guy really wants to shoot people.

  With a crackle, Patriot Fifteen continued, "Oh, hell. I thought we had more time. They mobilized the national guard up to block the entrances to the county. Sheriff's office joined 'em. They were supposed to make a roadblock. I guess that didn’t work out too well."

  "I think they were overrun, sir. Two deputies ran past me a bit ago. One was bitten and fell down. Hey, you are taking this zombie thing rather well. Why is that?"

  "Been listening to the radio all day. I've been tracking their movements. Remember I told you about that kid in Atlanta that I was talking to? Well, it's much worse than I thought. Hacked the air force security frequency. Dobbin's is under siege. Half of the base is taken over. They are working one runway to move personnel out to safe areas. What I have been hearing is that there isn't any such thing."

  "Uh, wow. Um, we are heading back up to my house, sir. Please don't shoot me."

  Laughter came out over the radio for a minute.

  "You got it, boy. Take it easy. Patriot Fifteen out."

  Chapter 4: Blinds

  We reached my house close to ten-thirty. With all the running around, we were both exhausted. First things first, I dialed my Dad. The call couldn’t go through. All circuits were busy. Just like Mr. Sellers had said would happen. Sharon tried her father too with the same results. We locked every door before going to the family room. Turning on the TV, we found the emergency signal on most channels. Someone forgot to tell the people at Cartoon Network about it though as Tom and Jerry were at their usual antics. It must be automatic programming that was pre-scheduled. Normal commercials played and everything. Things almost seemed normal. We kept trying other channels until we found another one broadcasting. There was a news conference starting. Then we figured out it was all channels, except Cartoon Network. A man in uniform and the president stepped up to the podium.

  "Ladies and Gentlemen. By now you know a new virus was unleashed in our country. Incidents have occurred in Colorado, Maryland, and Georgia. The virus is spreading rapidly. From what we know, the transmission of the virus is by contact with bodily fluids, with bites being the most common means. The infected become highly aggressive and will attack anyone not infected with the virus. The government is working on an antidote for the virus. Please stay in your homes and remain calm. Keep your doors locked. We believe we can get past this crisis, just as we have overcome every crisis in our nation's past. We are attempting to block borders and prevent the spread of the virus in every way possible. Good luck, God bless and stay safe."

  The president was sweating profusely. The background wasn’t the normal White House press room used at other press conferences. There were no shots of the press corp in attendance. It was spooky. It was like they were broadcasting from some old emergency bunker from the cold war.

  Three separate outbreaks of the same virus and it has already spread throughout the country? Damn.

  Sharon and I looked at each other. That was perhaps the worse news conference ever. The government was abandoning the people to save themselves. We hugged on the sofa and switched back to cartoons. It didn’t take long for us to fall asleep from exhaustion before we got ideas of anything else to do. Damn, it.

  We woke with a start. Something had bumped into the house. The house was dark except for the glow coming from the TV. The picture was all snow. Apparently, cartoons aren’t set to run for more than a few hours in advance. When they had run out of programming, it dropped off the air. I grabbed a flashlight and my Glock and searched for the noise.

  Only using the flashlight to illuminate areas that were too dark to see, I made my way through the house with Sharon hot on my heels. We made it to the sunroom and spotted the problem. There was a man on the back porch just wandering around. He had the slow shuffle of the ones that were following behind the deputies last night. He to bore wounds. His wounds were way worse than the others I had seen so far. Something had chewed his face. An arm was missing at the elbow.

  I put my hand up so that Sharon wouldn’t see this freak show. I backed up slowly and turned to her and whispered.

  "Be quiet, one of those things is out there."

  Panic washed over her face. She looked as if she was about to cry or scream or both.

  "Shhh. I don't understand how they search for what they are looking for. He could be there by accident or he trailed us. We need to figure out how to get rid of him quietly."

  I couldn’t go through that room back to mine. It might spot me through the big glass doors. The blinds were open as I didn't have enough sense to close them when we got in last night. The security light was on and he was lit up as he wandered around the deck. I saw it lift its head and move it back and forth. It turned and walked towards the glass sliding doors again. Thump. It bounced right off of it again. Seeing how the glass door shook, I knew with enough tries, it could break into the house.

  I decided that I needed to work my way around to my bedroom another way. When we crossed back into the family room, I heard a soft crackle from the radio. I paused and picked it up. This thing started out as a relic. It looked like someone had mated two devices together. The markings identified it as a PRR-9 and a PRT-4. I didn't understand what they were, but they seemed to be Vietnam era military stuff. They had definitely been tampered with as some of the interfaces were replaced with much more modern stuff. I turned up the volume and pressed speak and whispered, "Hello."

  "Damn you are slow to answer, boy. Where've you been?"

  I shook my head and smiled. Good thing Mr. Sellers hadn’t changed.

  "I was asleep, sir. A zombie is on my back porch and woke me up."

  "Listen, my position has been overrun. I'm in my house. Low on ammo. I think I killed about fifty of them before I had to fall back. Did you board up that glass door yet?"

  "Uh, no. No, sir. I haven’t done that yet."

  "Well, shit. They can bust through stuff when they come in numbers. I pulled back to the roof. Here is a tip. Shoot them in the damn head. Anything else will only slow them down. It's just like in those bad Cesar R
omero movies."

  "Don't you mean George Romero?"

  "I don't give a shit if its Shirley Romeo. Just watch your ass son. Don't come over to my place. I think they will get inside sooner or later. Nothing much distracts them except other living people. They will hare off after easier prey every time. They are slow so you can out run them. With my bad hip, we are almost a tie for running. I'm on the damn roof of my house. They see me but can't seem to figure out climbing, yet."

  The delay in that yet gave me pause. Crap, if they weren’t just dumb creatures, we would be in big trouble.

  "Look here, Angel. You need to git out of that house. If you are surrounded, they will get to you, eventually. Watch your ass. They can hear and I think they can see. The way they raise their heads, I think they can smell too. They all lift their heads occasionally."

  "Smell! Hey, that is what this one did."

  Thump. That last sentence was too loud. It seemed to have gotten the zombie outside all stirred up.

  "Shit. Sorry, sir. I was too loud, and that thing smacked against the glass again. Do you think a cover scent might throw them off?"

  There was silence for a moment. When I began to worry about the old man, he came back on, "Well, damn. That just might work. What do you have?"

  I shrugged before I realized that he couldn't see it and said, "Oh, the usual. Some Tinks, couple of brands of doe estrus, one of the new scrape drippers with the three-ounce capacity and some other things. You know, just stuff that catches your eye when you go through the hunting aisle at Bass Pro or Cabela's."

  I heard laughter from the other end of the line. Then he came back on. "Son, I think you may be on to something there. Hell, I'll check my cabinets and give something a whirl. Just keep that damn Prick handy."

  "Uh, wait, what? What do you want me to keep handy?"

  "The radio. It's a PRC-88 that I modified. The bigger one is a PRC-25 radio. We used to call them Pricks and their id numbers. So the PRC-25 would be called a Prick Twenty-five."

  "Um, I guess that makes sense. I thought you were asking something different."

  He laughed again. "I'm old, not gay. Look, surf the damn dial on the larger set. There are others out there broadcasting. Pass on what you have learned. Especially if that cover scent idea works. That could be a game changer for everyone."

  "Will do, sir. Take care."

  With that, we signed off. I spent the next twenty minutes explaining how to use the backpack radio, the Prick Twenty-Five as Mr. Sellers had called it. Making my way to the bedroom, I needed to check something out. In the corner was a bag from Cabela's. They had opened the new store north of Atlanta up interstate seventy-five. Dad took me there a week ago just to check it out. That brought up the thought again of where was Dad? He should have made it home. Unless he was caught up in all the crap going on west of town.

  I grabbed the bag and made my way back to Sharon. She had found a station and was talking to someone.

  "Who are you talking to?"

  She waved at me to shut up and kept talking, "OK, thanks, Night Rain. You stay safe. Peaches out."

  "Peaches?"

  I got this indignant look from Sharon, "Well I had to have a handle. Mine's at least as good as yours."

  I held up my hands in surrender, "Well, who was it."

  "I found a girl in Athens. The zombies have reached there too. She lives near the university and said the first of them attacked the security outside of the stadium while the Dawgs were having a game. Hey, don’t college games happen on Saturday?"

  I nodded, “But they now broadcast games on Thursday nights. The Bulldogs played tonight against Vanderbilt, I think.”

  Sharon rubbed her hands together, "Oh, that makes sense. I thought she was out of her mind or something. In no time, it was just pandemonium. No one knew what to do. She heard the hospitals were overwhelmed. The injured would come in for treatment and then attack people after they were pronounced dead. Some are being fortified by the National Guard units and may hold on. People are scared and are shooting almost anybody before figuring out what is going on. Now, she heard from someone else that this thing is spreading faster than any disease in history."

  I stared at her with an open mouth. There was no way that things were falling apart this fast. But before things got worse, we needed to solve our problem with George.

  "I know how we will get rid of George."

  Sharon's eyebrow went up, and she shook her head, "Sorry, who the hell is George?"

  "Oh, he is our zombie on the deck. I figured I should call him something. Uninvited guest seemed lame. Follow me."

  We went down the steps to the basement again and I showed her how to open the safe and told her the combination for it. I also held up some of the coats and things to see if there was anything that would fit her. We found a set of camo overalls. They were made of a heavy material treated to be waterproof. There was also some old snake boots I had outgrown. I sent her off into the bathroom to try them on. While she was gone, I rummaged around until I found our trusty Buckmark pistol. Love this little pistol. When I was younger, it looked like a German Luger. I took the pistol and rummaged for some bullets. I grabbed this box of Aguila subsonic rounds. They had twice the lead of a normal twenty-two long rifle cartridge. I then moved to the basement fridge and snagged a bottle of water. Drinking quickly, I emptied it in a hurry.

  With my now empty bottle of water, I grabbed the roll of duct tape on top of the safe. Placing the barrel into the mouth of the water bottle, I wrapped the end in duct tape. Dad would kill me if he saw me do this. He wouldn’t even put camo tape on his hunting rifles to not risk the finish. I muttered a "sorry Dad" out loud and turned around.

  Sharon was standing there in the boots and overalls to model them for me. She kept on her t-shirt. This wasn’t the most flattering outfit I had ever seen her wear. She looked ridiculous but it would work. Setting down the pistol with water bottle suppressor, I looked for a jacket. There were a few options. I picked the weather treated one and told her to put that on. Then grabbed a hat for her.

  "This should help. The material is thick and should prove harder for something to bite through. Also, the treatment leaves it slick. You won't be able to run fast in it, but it should help. Tuck your hair up under that hat. You don't want something grabbing it."

  What was starting out as a fun dress up for her became serious as I talked. She tucked her hair up under the hat. I grabbed my hunting stuff as well and dressed.

  "Hey, shouldn't you dress in the bathroom too?"

  I was already down to my boxers and I shrugged, "Sorry, wasn't thinking about it. I guess I should have."

  She smirked as I continued to get dressed. Now all in our 'bubba' outfits, I had another thought and went back to the safe and grabbed shooting glasses.

  "This should keep any ick out of our eyes. We can go to the garage and get cheap breath masks. That should round out our splatter gear. Come on."

  "Ick? Did you actually say, ick?"

  "Sorry, I didn’t mean to use technical terms you might not understand. Bodily fluids. Is that better?" I said in a sarcastic tone.

  Sharon just laughed at me. Well, things could be worse.

  Sharon waddled up the stairs. She was not used to such heavy clothes. But I wasn’t worried. Making our way to the garage, I stopped to look for George. He was still there wandering in circles in the light.

  In the garage, I went to the paint cabinet and got two of the white breath masks that Dad kept there for when we had to spray paint something. Then I went to the cabinet where we stored the cover scents. I started with this spray. It neutralized human odors. Sharon squealed when I first sprayed her. I shushed her and kept spraying. Then I handed her the bottle, and she hosed me down.

  Do far, so good. I wasn’t sure if that would be enough. So I grabbed a few things. First was the bottle of the Tinks that we had. I loved this stuff. It didn’t stink like old pee. It had a licorice scent to it. Then I grabbed this larger bottle of Do
e Estrus. Maybe one of these might help.

  They went back into the house and I outlined the plan.

  "Look, We will go to the basement. There is an outside door there where I'll check through the peephole to make sure it is clear. I'll sneak up on that thing with the scent blocker we used and pop George with this."

  Lifting the bottle suppressed pistol, "Stay by this door. If you don’t hear me yell clear, lock it. No matter what. Then go call Mr. Sellers and tell him I’m gone and you need an extraction."

  I smiled at that. It almost sounded like a grownup plan. Even used a fancy military sounding word with it.

  "Honey, what is with the water bottle on the end of your pistol?" She had her eyebrow cocked again and a look that just said 'what the hell are you doing?'

  I nodded. That was a reasonable question.

  "It dampens the sound of the pistol shot. A little round like a twenty-two can be suppressed with a water bottle. It's not perfect but it should work."

  She nodded her head before continuing her inquisition, "Extraction? How many times did you watch John Wayne's the Green Berets again?"

  "Hush, don't bring me down before a mission. The VC are on the wire. And all that other stuff I do not understand what it means."

  We both chuckled. She grabbed me and kissed me. I thought an explosion went off in my head. It felt so good. I wasn’t sure when she stopped. All I knew was that my head was dizzy and my heart was hammering in my chest.

  "Go on. G through with your plan. Don't you dare get yourself killed Daniel Jacob. Ya hear me? I will never forgive you for that."

  Shaking my head to pull myself together I stared blankly for a minute. Then I nodded. Damn, we would need to do that again. Well, maybe after we boarded up the glass sliding doors. I had to keep my shit together if I would survive this.

  I smiled and said, "Thanks. Let's talk about that again when I’m back in."

  She smiled too. We got to the door, and I looked out. The entry way to the basement was clear. I unlocked the door and told her again, "No matter what, lock it behind me unless you hear me yell clear."