by Lowry, Chris
"Dad. That is a shit ton of Zombies."
"Language," Bem said before I could.
Hey, it was the end of the world but that didn't mean we couldn't be polite.
He was one hundred percent correct though. There were literally tons of zombies roaming inside the gate at Fort Knox.
The twelve foot perimeter fence was swarming with them, all circling in a mindless shuffle chasing whatever whim the wind carried along that distracted them.
They hadn't noticed us yet.
We came upon the complex but serendipity. On the railroad tracks, we approached the countryside on the outskirts of Louisville and though we couldn't see the city yet, there were signs on the side of the track letting us know to slow down.
Or at least that's what it suggested to trains of old.
As for us, we got wary.
City meant more zombies, and also more bandits, marauders and other survivors who followed cavemen rules of survival.
We happened across a sign that indicated a switch ahead that led to Fort Knox.
"For the gold," the Boy said.
I didn't know, so it sounded like a good working theory.
We stopped to switch the tracks, use the trees for a potty break, then back in to get within a half mile of the fence.
The Army, in its infinite wisdom had cleared a mile's worth of trees between the forest and the base.
This made sense if they were ever to come under attack, though no one pointed out that a speeding train would make the distance in a few seconds, and if it was loaded with TNT or gun toting enemy, the open space would do little to stop them.
I was glad for the trees.
We held back in their shadows, and the zombies inside the fence couldn't see us.
If they did, the mass of them would knock it down as they began to herd after us.
The tiny boy beside Bem whimpered.
"We should go hide," his older brother whispered.
It sounded like good advice. Keep moving, go find another base somewhere and get the map we needed.
Us versus a thousand walking dead was not good odds.
"Never tell me the odds," I muttered under my breath.
"What?" the Boy said out of the side of his mouth.
"I said we're going to fight the odds," and motioned them to follow me through the trees.
We worked around the perimeter of the fence line and it all looked whole.
And full of zombies.
Lots of rotting zombies.
Tyler caught a glint of sunlight off metal through the trees and motioned us to stop. We watched him creep forward on the tips of his toes, barely making a sound as he moved, and when he stood up he waved us an all clear.
It was a road, two lane blacktop through a shallow gulch that led up to a guard shack with a closed gate.
Lined with civilian cars.
Several hundred of all makes and models lined both sides of the roads, bumper to bumper, stretching back almost a mile along the roadway.
"Oh, that's why," said the Boy.
He pointed to a sign next to the guard shack.
It was black paint stenciled on plywood, and looked like whoever made it had been in a hurry. Drips of paint dried down the board, looking like a leaking wound.
REFUGEE CENTER
No wonder the Fort was so full.
"Bis was in a place like this?" the Boy breathed out a sigh.
I held mine in.
My little girl had been in something like this, if they made it.
Even now, she might be a Z, one of the walking dead roaming the countryside, gone from me.
Hunting for her was pointless.
The US had a population of four hundred million people and who knows how many were dead, how many were Z and how many were survivors.
Finding her would be impossible, especially if this place was like every other refugee center in America.
"We'll find her," my voice was steady.
I let the rage bubble up a little in my gut, let it fuel the fire and felt it harden my resolve.
We would.
Never tell me the odds.
"I have an idea," Tyler shouldered his rifle.
He looked up one long line of cars and down the other.
"Anyone bring marshmallows?"
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
His plan was a good one. I wish I'd thought of it.
I sent him and the Boy to escort Bem back to the rail truck with the two children so they would be safe.
"Lock it up," I instructed her. "Keep your rifle ready."
She almost rolled her eyes then stopped herself and I smiled.
"Sorry kid, it's tough to switch out of Dad mode. I know you've made it this far."
"Not just my looks," she said.
Reminding me she was a thinker. Strategic.
I'd seen her in an arena full of zombies, put there by a man who hated me. She gutted one, smeared its insides on her clothes and sat still while the others ignored her.
Sharp.
I wished I was more like her.
The five of them walked back through the woods, and I listened.
Trying to hear other threats, head cocked to one side to gauge the bird song, the insect hum, any change in volume or tempo that would indicate a threat.
Then I pulled a knife from it's sheath and got to work.
I punched holes in the gas tanks, and let the gasoline leak out of the cars onto the blacktop.
I was through twenty cars on one side when my son and Tyler came back.
"They're safe," the Boy said.
They pulled knives and we made short work of the rest of the vehicles.
After twenty minutes, we had a long line of cars that made a metal tunnel all the way to the gate, except for the last thirty feet, which the guards had kept clear.
Our movement in the roadway attracted some Z, who pressed against the gate, bending it out and bowing it forward.
More Z were drawn by the others, and the weight began to stress the metal with creaks and clangs that could be heard over the moans and grunts of the zombies.
"Not much time," Tyler commented.
I studied our work.
"Good enough for government," I said and ushered the two boys back to the end of the line of cars.
"Hey," I called after Tyler. "Lighter."
He felt in his pockets and shrugged.
"Left mine at the last campsite."
The Boy shook his head.
"I don't have one either."
Damn it.
A great plan we were about to toss because we couldn't light a fire.
"Check the cars!"
I hauled open a door and sniffed, to see if I could smell the stale stench of a smoking habit, but couldn't make out the scent of anything over the gas that puddled at our feet.
It was a hand to hand search, ripping through consoles, and dashboards, quick glances at the floorboards.
I was in car number five when the gate broke.
"Back," I screamed and waved my arms so the Z would still funnel into the tunnel.
I could hear the boys running behind me, then the sound of car doors opening and slamming as they continued the search.
I had to hop and walk backwards, keeping the Z focused on me so they wouldn't spread out into the woods.
"Found one!" the Boy shouted.
I turned and ran to him, taking the lighter from his hands, then Tyler joined us and we jogged to the end of the rows.
We waited.
The Z were coming, a tide of shambling corpses grunting, and lurching toward us.
We wouldn't get them all, but several hundred piled into the tunnel, a herd size drawn by the movement through the gate, drawn by each other.
"Now," said Tyler.
"Not yet."
They drew closer. Twenty yards. Ten.
"Now!" said the Boy.
"Everyone is a critic," I flicked the wheel on the lighter as I kneeled down to the gas puddle on t
he blacktop.
It sparked, but no fire.
"Dad!"
Tyler raised his rifle and shot the first Z as it lunged for my head.
I fell backwards, crab walking as more zombies came at us. I could only use my feet and one hand, the other thumb scratching the lighter, trying to get a flame.
The Boy added his shots to Tyler's and kept the front row of grasping hands off me.
We worked our way backwards, and the gas puddle ended.
I spun the wheel one more time and it sparked.
Flames licked up across the back of my hand and raced in a blue orange conflagration under the Z, the fire making a roaring sound as it ignited the black top.
I jumped up and danced back, shaking my hand.
The Boy sent a bullet into the head of two Z that lumbered out of the fire. Tyler picked off the ones on the front line. I pulled my pistol, ignoring the searing burn on the back of my hand as I added my shots to theirs.
We knocked down the front line, then the second, which created a tiny burning barrier of zombies that held the others back.
The flames burned through the legs, knocking more down, and dry clothes caught fire until the air was full of bar b que zombie, a cloying stench that rolled out of the tunnel of cars in a toxic fog.
Then one of the vehicles popped and exploded.
I thought we would be okay since we released the gas vapors from the tank, which is why most cars explode. It's not like it was in the movies, a violent flipping of the automobile with lots of pyrotechnics.
Just a loud whoosh and pop, followed by more black smoke that filled the space between the tress, and blocked our view of the rest of the Z at the gate.
The flames would draw even more.
Exploding cars compounded our danger, especially since we couldn't predict when they would go.
"Back to the truck," I ordered and we took off through the trees.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The truck was empty.
I pulled up short at the tree line and glared up and down the track.
"Is she ducking down?" the Boy whispered next to me.
Tyler ducked into the trees and moved further away from us. He studied the tracks, studied the truck.
I motioned the Boy down and behind a pine.
"Bem!" I called out hoping she would lift her head.
But she didn't.
"Watch."
I moved out of the pines and ran up to the side of the truck, ducked down against it. I reached over and knocked on the door with three quick slaps.
No answer.
I peeked into the windows, into the truck bed.
Empty.
Tyler stepped out of the trees and gave a low whistle.
The Boy joined me as we jogged a couple hundred feet up the tracks.
"Struggle," he said and pointed to scuff marks on the ground.
We followed it along the railroad tracks, spread out. I kept the Boy close to the forest, and angled away from Tyler in an attempt to minimize our target signatures.
The trail led us to a path in the woods.
“Scuffle,” said Tyler.
He bent down on one knee and studied the ground. The leaves were messed up in front of the truck door, the supplies missing.
“They went that way,” the Boy added.
Not to be outdone.
I checked the safety on my rifle.
“Stay close,” I growled.
There were patches of pine needles and leaves overturned leading into the woods. Bem was dragging a foot, brushing against tree bark to scrape off one side.
Smart girl.
Making it easy to follow.
The trail converged with others.
“How many?”
Tyler shrugged.
“A lot,” said the Boy.
A dozen different sets of boot prints.
They took my girl. They could have been watching us now.
“Stop,” I whispered.
We stood there like statues and I wanted to blend into the ground, the trees, anything we could hide behind.
I couldn’t tell you what set it off. It wasn’t the crack of a branch, or some other noise that stood out on the path in the forest.
It may have been the smell, the reek of unwashed bodies and hand rolled cigarettes carried on the wind. I could smell it now, faintly on the breeze. Someone had been smoking in an enclosed environment and the stench of it clung to them like body odor.
“Dad?” the Boy whispered.
I turned my head and he flicked his eyeballs in a direction off to the right.
The trees were moving.
No, it wasn’t the trees, it was men and women dressed in camo detaching themselves from the tress. It was a good pattern, good blend because standing under the shadows of the oaks and evergreens, they mixed in with the bark.
That’s what it was then.
Movement that didn’t match mother nature.
My eyes recognized it before my brain could figure it out.
Score one for natural instincts.
Not that it did us any good.
We were still surrounded as the group of nine stepped out of the forest on the path in front of and behind us. They were on both sides too.
Nine of them, muffled in thick all weather gear, heads wrapped in hoods and scarves and thick thermals that made them appear to be puffy large human shaped monsters.
There was a piece of good news though.
Only one carried a gun.
Bem’s gun.
The figure stepped out of the circle and closer to me.
“Are you the leader of this here outfit?”
It was a woman by her voice, but I could tell nothing else.Even her height was disguised by thick hiking boots that must have added another couple of inches and the hood over a beanie on her head.
“Where is she?”
The woman pointed my daughter’s gun in my direction.
“I asked you a question,” she growled back. “It’s rude not to answer.”
Leave it to the South to insist on the social niceties even after a zombie apocalypse has devastated the world.
“Sorry,” I grumbled. “Where is she, please?”
That earned a chuckle from a couple of the men, which seemed to piss her off. I wasn’t worried about getting shot.
I’ve been shot and it hurts like Hell, not an experience I want to go through again.
The only reason I wasn’t worried is because the woman wore thick gloves and her fingers couldn’t fit through the trigger guard, at least not while they were on.
“Get the boys,” she said.
The men on both sides of us jumped on the Boy and Tyler, yanking them away from the circle of the rest of them who closed in tighter around me.
I wished we were in a kung fu movie.
It was always funny to me how Jackie Chan or Bruce Lee could take on twenty men at a time, but they all fought one by one.
A giant circle of warriors would surround the hero but then totally give up their advantage by only taking him on in tiny little individual attacks. The filmmakers tried to make it look more dangerous by letting the hero block one guy, or avoid another even as a second attacked, but it just wasn’t realistic.
I’m not what you could expect from the movies about being realistic though.
In real life, a group of six guys surround you, they don’t fight one by one.
They rush in and tackle you to the ground, kick, stomp, punch, grunt.
I’m lucky they didn’t bite.
Two of them held my arms, two held my legs and the other two practiced their tap dance lessons on my rib cage, stomach and thighs.
When one decided to play field goal kicker with my head, I didn’t want to play anymore and passed out.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I woke up alone in the middle of a field.
That wasn't quite right, I thought. I had to shake my head a couple of times to clear the cobwebs.
; One of my eyes was crusted shut with something.
Blood.
I reached up to try and wipe it away, but my hands were tied behind my back.
The field was an amphitheater of some sort. I glanced left and right, but the kids weren't with me.
I tried to turn around and rough hands grabbed me, jerked me back forward to face the stage.
A large woman sat on a throne in the middle. She stared down at me with eyes that drilled into me.
I felt like a bug under a microscope the way she studied, her lips pressed together in a half snarl.
She had long red hair, bright eyes and wore hunters overalls like the rest of her men. It was a little warm for the extra layers, but smart. The bibs were thick padding and good armor against a zombie.
I made a note to scrounge up a pair for us and looked down at myself.
I could see why she thought I was a bug.
My clothes were ripped and tattered from the fight in the woods. Smoke and soot covered what I could see of my skin peeking through the tears. I’m sure it covered my face and what was left of my hair too.
Scorched, beaten and bloody.
That had to be what she saw.
"You got a name?" she asked.
"The one my mother gave me," I shot back.
She grinned and snickered.
"I'm Mags," she said. "You think you're a tough guy, don't you? I've known a lot of tough guys in my day."
She lifted a leg and draped it over the side of the chair.
There was too much room between us for me to make a lunge for her, too many unknowns at my back.
And the guys lining the stage behind her were a big reason to hold still too. A dozen or so of them, all armed with rifles, all glaring at me.
I bet they could take me down before I made it ten steps. Maybe five.
"You like my Colonels?" she asked. "They're a Kentucky tradition."
"That's a lot of chiefs," I croaked.
She smiled and nodded.
Someone grabbed my arms and lifted me up, straining my shoulder against the tight bindings strapping the wrists together.
They spun me around.
Mags was at my back. She moved to the edge of the stage and said in a soft voice.
"Lots of Indians."
The amphitheater behind me was full of people. Stands on either side packed ground to top with armed men. Some soldiers, some hunters, but all of them watching me with intense interested stares.