“I’m not planning to go today, Sharon. We have enough supplies for a bit. But we will have to go out soon. By the way, how is Gretel holding up?”
“I’m fine,” came a voice from directly behind me. It made me jump, and that hurt my leg.
She walked around to look at me in the face.
“What happened to your leg? You didn’t get bit, did you?”
Her face was pale and her eyes were wide with terror as she looked at my leg. She knew what happened to everybody that got bit.
“No, I didn’t get bit. I opened a lock incorrectly.”
The answer visibly puzzled her. She cocked her head to the left and frowned at me trying to figure it out.
Sharon came to her rescue, “The dufus shot a lock while standing next to it. The lock shattered and pieces stuck in his leg.”
That had Gretel’s head pop back up to normal, and she nodded. “Yep, that wasn’t very smart.”
As if she knew any better. I’m getting grumpy at all the negativism being directed at me.
Sharon laid a hand on my shoulder to reassure me that there were no real mean intent behind her words. OK, I’m a pushover. I bought it hook, line and sinker.
“Sharon, lets see if we can raise anyone else on the radio. Maybe we will find some other survivors.”
She gave my shoulder a squeeze and moved out of the room to get to the radio.
The doc just looked down at me and said in a rather commanding tone, “Rest.”
Then she too walked out. Gretel just looked at me another moment then spun on her heels and left me. I was sprawled on a kitchen chair with my legs up on another chair. It wasn’t as uncomfortable as it sounds. In moments, I was back asleep.
Chapter 12: Unexpected Friends
We waited before making the next trip into town. I think it was at least six days. I’m not sure as I slept through the first two days after my injury. Few zombies stumbled through our area. The doc could exercise the horses some and Sharon and I took care of the zombies that came through with my bow or a baseball bat. The bow was much harder than I thought it would be. But when people move, their heads don’t exactly stay still. Zombies are no different. I lost about five of my arrows trying to take out a zombie that came through.
Now Sharon’s method for individual zombies was just perfect. I would make a slight noise to distract it. Sharon would wield an aluminum baseball bat and cave its skull in. I managed one kill to her four.
Finally, we made a run into town. The plan was that we would pass through the town square on the way to the grocery store about a mile outside of town. We would look for canned goods and other non-perishable items. We knew all the fresh food would be rotten and goodness knows how nasty the refrigerator and freezer cases would be with no electricity.
Sharon and I geared up. We wore our hunting clothes and a full face mask with eye protection just like we did when we went out to dispatch zombies. No sense in getting infected by splatter, right? I finished pulling my gloves on when I heard a voice call out.
“And where are you going all dressed up for Halloween?”
I turned to see Officer Jefferson sitting up on the sofa.
“He lives!” That was the best thing I could come up with. I cringed inside. I totally need to get better at snappy comebacks.
“Yes, thank you for getting me tended to. That was some good work.”
I laughed, “Don’t thank me, thank the doc. She patched you up.”
Doc McCauley had just come running into the room. She saw that Officer Jefferson was moving, and she went to his side and pushed him back down.
“You still need to rest. You lost too much blood to be trying to sit up like that.”
The officer just smiled and nodded his head. If he was upset that he was operated on by a vet, he showed no signs of it.
“We are going on a supply run. We will be back later.”
That was a rather vague answer, but you didn’t know what you would find out there. We not only needed food, we needed gas for the truck. I had put empty gas cans in the bed of the truck and an Arkansas credit card. That is a long piece of tubing you can use to siphon gas out of another vehicle with. Mine was a more professional model as it had a hand pump in the middle so you didn’t have to suck the gas out of the tank and taste gasoline for the rest of the week.
Armed with my AR and Sharon’s Ruger 10/22, we left the house in search of our supplies. We didn’t even get a mile down the road when we found three cars blocking the road. There must have been some kind of altercation as two dead people lay in the road with obvious gunshot wounds. The road was blocked with no means of going around as there was a fence on the right and trees on the left. As we studied them, we noticed that one vehicle had two zombies in the front seat. They were seat-belted in. The Georgia State Patrol would be thrilled to note that.
The airbag in the car deployed but was now a flat balloon was in front of the driving zombie. That car had several bullet holes in the passenger side windshield. The shooter had poor aim as the zombie there was mobile still. Both locked eyes on us. Their car was an old station wagon with its hood crumpled and front smashed into the side of a blue Ford Taurus. The Taurus had both driver and passenger doors open and no sign of its former occupants unless they were the two dead in the road.
The last vehicle was a rust bucket of an old pickup truck. If I had to guess, it was a nineteen-seventies vintage. It had a gun rack in the rear window which was empty. It had rear-ended the station wagon. Its drivers side door was open and no sign of the occupants.
I turned to Sharon, “We need to take out the two zombies quietly. We can’t use the baseball bat method here. But I have an idea.”
I opened the center console of the truck and pulled out my Browning Buckmark. Man, I love this pistol. It is a twenty-two just like Sharon’s rifle and had a ten round magazine. I double checked it to make sure it was loaded. I didn’t have any subsonic ammo but I think I could make it quieter.
Opening the glove box, I pulled out a roll of duct tape. Next, I grabbed one of the water bottles we brought with us. Removing my mask, I drank all the water. I didn’t have any tissues to stuff the water bottle with to slow down the round to sub-sonic nor did I have sub-sonic ammo. I then taped the open end of the bottle over the end of the barrel.
Sharon just looked on with eyebrows raised in unspoken questions. Finally, when I had finished making my abomination, she had to comment.
“Well, aren’t you McGuyver?”
“Hmpf!” I snorted. Really? That was the best I could do. I've got to work on my comebacks.
Replacing my mask, “Sharon, cover me.”
I stepped out of the truck and walked up to the station wagon. Closing in on the passenger door but stopped about five feet away. I ducked down to look under the vehicle. Nothing was lurking for me under the car. That was good. I heard the truck door close and turned to see Sharon climbing into the bed of the truck to get a better view to cover me. That was reassuring.
I took the next couple of steps to the station wagon. The passenger zombie was making it easy on me. It had its face pressed up against the glass of the window to bite me. I pressed the water bottle up against the glass and pulled the trigger. The pistol made a distinct loud pop but was far quieter than it would have been without the water bottle. At the point of impact, the window spider webbed. The zombie now lay motionless with its face against the window with a small hole in its forehead.
Interestingly, the second zombie wasn’t as aggressive as its partner. This one was pudgy with balding hair. In life my imagination pegged him as a henpecked husband. That led me to another thought, could the core personality of an individual be reflected in the type of zombie they were. I mean, the woman who I shot was hyper aggressive and tried to eat me through glass. The other one kind of sat there and followed me with its eyes. I moved around to the drivers side to take care of zombie number two.
As I rounded the front of the station wagon, a hand grabbed my
ankle.
“Oh, Shit!” I shouted.
One of the dead men in the road wasn’t exactly dead. It had my ankle by its left hand and was pulling its head towards me. I pointed the pistol down at the zombie and shot. I couldn’t use the sights as the water bottle obscured the site picture. The net result was I missed with four shots.
The thing dragged itself to within inches of my leg. I squatted down and placed the water bottle against its head and pulled the trigger.
Click.
My mind reeled. It was a ten shot magazine, and I had only fired five shots. I racked the slide, and a round flew out of the chamber and seated a new one. I tugged my leg and got it clear from the things jaws by another inch. It moaned in desperation as it was so close to a meal that was trying to get away. I placed the water bottle on the thing’s head again and pulled the trigger. This time a louder pop sounded off from the pistol. My fifty cent suppressor was on its last legs. Fortunately for me, the zombie gripping my leg was now double deceased. It still gripped my ankle, and I had to stand on its wrist to pry my leg away. I checked my boots. There were scratches in the leather but that was about it.
I looked at the zombie that came so close to eating me. It had a large hole in its back. Someone had shot it and paralyzed it by shooting out the spinal column. I walked to the second body and saw it had a hole in its head. That one wouldn’t cause trouble. This was good to know. John Farnam used to teach about using deadly force to stop a threat. One of his examples was to shoot the marshmallows and grapes out. By this he was referring to the spinal column. Once severed the threat would cease to be a threat. Well that was before this. It will slow them down but it won’t stop the threat. It seamed only severe head trauma would do that.
Now that my pistol no longer had a working suppressor, I pealed off the tape and threw away the bottle. I looked under each vehicle and in the bed of the truck. It was clear. Only the one zombie left in the station wagon. I didn’t want to touch that one until everything else was handled.
I returned to the truck and saw that Sharon’s face was pale white.
“Are you OK,” she managed to whisper to me.
“Yeah, it was a close call.”
“It was too close to you. I couldn’t risk hitting you. That scared me to death. Then when you shot at it and missed. I almost passed out.”
“No worries, It's all over.”
That sounded very self assured but inside I was still panicking too. Damn, that was too close for comfort. I was sweating even though it was rather cool out.
I grabbed a gas can and the Arkansas Credit card and headed back. With the pistol shoved into my waist band, I came to the station wagon and opened the flap and the gas cap. Inserting the hose down into the tank and the other end in my gas can, I squeezed the pump. After about five minutes of getting nothing, I thought this one was still running when it was in the crash and just ran out of gas. I took my tubing and went to the truck. Repeating the same process, I got about a gallon of gas before the tank went dry.
The Taurus would be trickier. I opened the drivers door and searched for the lever to pop the gas flap. At the bottom of the dashboard on the left side next to the hood release was the gas lever. I looked at the interior of the car for the first time. It was clean and neat with a briefcase laying on the passenger seat. Some businessman coming home from work, maybe?
I left the briefcase for the moment and went to get the gas out of the car. This one was much better. I filled my five gallon can to the top. I then refilled my truck with the gas we had siphoned off so far and went back and filled up the can a second time. The Taurus’ tank gave out with my can full. This was a good scavenging trip so far.
I put the gas can in the bed of my truck and used bungie cords to hold it in place. No sense in letting it fall over and spill. Then my curiosity struck again, and I went back to the Taurus. I picked up the briefcase and looked at it. The latches were locked so I would have to wait. I put the brief case in the back of the truck then returned to put the car in neutral.
Pushing on the hood, I backed the Taurus out of the way and to the side of the road against a tree. I did the same with the truck and pushed it half off the road until it hit a tree. The station wagon would be an issue. I moved behind it and kicked a hole in the wooden fence so it could fit through. It was lined up with the way the vehicle was facing.
I ran back to my truck and got behind the wheel. Shanon got in beside me. We buckled our seat belts, and I crept forward until my bumper touched the station wagon. The zombie just stared straight at us. I wondered what, if anything, it was thinking. My imagination had him thanking me for killing his nagging wife. I almost laughed out loud. I wouldn’t dare say that to Shanon. She would be worried about me.
I then pressed the gas until I got both vehicles moving and shoved the station wagon through the hole I made. It took a bit of doing. I think the station wagon was in park. Once out of the way, I backed up and proceeded through the tight hole I had made. The truck bounced over the two dead bodies in the road but was smooth sailing after that.
In a few minutes, we were back in town.
Chapter 13: Knights
There are people in your life who lack the skills to survive in the real world. Or at least what we used to know as the real world. But this new existence changes things. Marty Feldman was one of my friends in elementary school. By middle school, he had gotten heavy into dungeons and dragons. I played with him some but I was more interested in hunting, fishing and girls by the end of middle school. Marty got deeper into it and joined the Society for Creative Anachronism. They dressed up as knights and had mock sword fights and such. That didn’t get him the type of attention you want in high school.
I remember our sophomore year, a senior on the wrestling team challenged him to a fight. Marty showed up in armor. While the team laughed at him, no one tried to hit him. The boy was no idiot.
In something like the zombie apocalypse, I assumed he would be one of the first to die. He would try to be a hero and realize that he isn’t a level fifteen paladin as the zombies munch on him. He also lived in town and as far as I knew, the town was overrun early on.
We pulled into town and saw a crowd at the base of an apartment building. It was a three story structure faced in brick with the front doors barricaded. The lower windows were as well. Yet on the roof of this building an action was playing itself out that was a scene from a world of fantasy. A figure in armor and wielding a sword and shield was fighting zombies. Sharon and I looked on in amazement as the figure neatly dispatched a zombie's head from its shoulders and kicked it off of the roof, onto its brethren below.
This line figure was battling at least a dozen of the creatures on the roof. I had to help him. I put the truck in park and eased open the back window. Thus far, the crowd at the base of the building hadn’t seemed to notice us. Taking Shanon's twenty-two, I aimed at the zombies at the back of the group engaging the noble knight. Three shots later, there were three less than before but the young hero had dispatched at least that many himself.
I hesitated to shoot at any more as they were too close to him. The zombies at the base of the building now noticed us. The shooting gave us away. I handed the rifle back to Sharon and drove. The sound of another body hitting the ground, refocused the zombies back off of us. I drove around the square to the other side to watch the knight finish the last two zombies on the roof with him.
The hero took off his helmet and waived to us. I could spot Marty's grinning face. It was still marked with acne and his hair was tied back into a short ponytail. His red hair was like a beacon. He waived and pointed to the back of the building. I held up a hand with a thumb up to him.
Sharon wasted no time and had rolled down her window and fired on the crowd in front of the apartment building. She was getting to be a good shot. Zombies were dropping left and right to her fire. But they also advanced on us.
I drove again to get some distance. Sharon rolled up the window, and we kept
moving. My thought was to drive in a big circle to get back to the building I saw the knight upon.
“Do you know who that was, Sharon?”
“No, who was that guy? He was incredible. He fought them off with a sword!”
“That, my dear, was the one and only Marty Feldman. He…”
“That was Marty? No way! The guy who wore the t-shirt with the dice on it and tried to ask out a cheerleader by saying, ‘Do you want to see my 17th Level Paladin?’”
"Er, yeah. That’s Marty."
“But he was more Conan than pocket protector up there. That was incredible.”
“Well, he seems to have been practicing. Let’s see if we can get over there near him.”
We drove a loop around town. It wasn’t as direct a route as I would have thought as some side streets were clogged with abandoned cars. One had a car riddled with bullet holes and set on fire. The fire had long since burned out. No way through that way. We made it to the back of his building and shut off the engine. From a second floor window, a head appeared. It wore a steel helmet.
“Daniel? Is that you?”
“Good sir knight, may we call upon your good services?”
I couldn’t help myself but use a voice I had when we used to play Dungeons and Dragons. Marty laughed. Sharon looked at me as if I was a nut.
“I barricaded all the bottom floor rooms. The only way in or out is the fire escape. So far these bastards haven’t shown me they can climb anything other than stairs.”
“How did all of those undead end up on the roof with you?”
“I had them trapped in the stair wells and have been releasing them a couple at a time on the roof to dispatch and get out of here. The last group got bigger than I thought. Thanks for shooting some of them. I’m not sure I could have survived all of them.”
“Hell, you seemed to have things well under control.”
“Let me come down to you. That way you won’t get trapped here. I can always make my way back. What are you doing in town?”
Hunting Season: A Zombie Survival Story Page 9