Z Strain

by SJ Morris

  Chris and Tom were already outside, loading ammunition and tow-straps into the Jeep, just in case. They finished up and we headed out to what was familiar territory for me.

  The first twenty minutes of our ride out there was pretty quiet. We only saw a few infected wandering in and out of the tree line along the road here and there. We stopped so that Tom could eliminate them and it looked like Chris marked down the location of each of them in a notebook.

  “Are you keeping track of where the infected are?”

  “Yes, I’m recording the location of each of the infected we drop. I hope that at some point we can gather them together and burn the corpses and we can use the information to know how many we have... ugh... eliminated. Dan and Troy can also use the information to see how many are clustered in certain areas. I’m assuming they can do something with the information.”

  “What is that you are recording, though? I always see you look at your watch and write something from it down.”

  “It’s the latitude and longitude of the location. My watch is actually a multipurpose tracking tool, GPS, lat and long finder, as well as a compass doohickey. Dan made them and gave one to all of us when we arrived. It lets him track where we are, as long as the satellites are still up there. I’m guessing he still has some of his privileges from when he was in the military; if not he’s still using them somehow.”

  It made me feel better that Dan and the group at home could tell where we were at all times. I just hoped that he had a few more of those fancy watches so I could strap them to my kids.

  It would be nice to be like:“Hey Dan, where are my kids?”

  “Oh, they are in the yard, see. Here are the coordinates.”

  That’s every overprotective parent’s dream tool!

  We had finally come up to the gas station I previously left with two, no longer reanimated corpses, from the night of our arrival.

  There were two cop cars pulled up to the store, with their lights still flashing.

  I was waiting to see what had happened after I left and it appeared that the authorities were certainly called, but where were they?

  I didn’t see anyone around; just the cars.

  “Hey, Chris, slow up a little. I left a little bit of a mess at this gas station the night we got to the cabin and there’recop cars out front.”

  “So, this is the one you told us about? Why do you want me to slow up? Do you want to get out and tell the police that you shot those things and have them arrest you until they figure out what to do with you? I don’t think so.”

  Chris sped up and we passed the station without another word. I hadn’t thought about what kind of trouble I could be in for what I’d done. I forgot that the rest of society still didn’t really have a clue other than people are biting each other, getting sick and trying to eat people.

  As we drove by, I still didn’t see any police or anyone else walking around and the store’s door was closed.

  I could only think that whatever happened had not ended well for the officers that responded. If they were in the store with that smell and the door closed, they were definitely not in good shape.

  I made a mental note to ask Chris to stop on the way back to see if anyone needed help since I didn’t see anyone around and I certainly wasn’t going to go inside and confess to killing anyone.

  Chris seemed either very determined on getting Troy or to be brooding angrily over something, so I wasn’t going to say anything until later.

  After a few more miles and a few more notes of locations for truly dead, infected bodies, we came to a scene, right out of a horror movie.

  There were at least thirty infected beating on what I assume was Troy’s Subaru and another dozen or so chasing after a man and a woman that were running on foot yelling and screaming away from the scene.

  Chris skidded to a stop.

  He and Tom and jumped out of the truck so fast,I didn’t even think we were in park yet.

  Tom opened fire immediately on the longer-range targets, chasing the couple from the passenger side and Chris began calmly walking towards the group of thirty firing off headshots as he went.

  I felt silly being there since I wasn’t helping at the moment, but I decided to get out and cover the rear.

  I’m glad I did since as soon as I got out I found two more infected leaving the tree line in Chris’s blind spot.

  I took out my gun, steadied myself and fired off five rounds and took out both of my targets.

  Two-out-of-five head shots weren’t too bad, considering the last time I shot a gun before this whole mess was a non-moving paper target, almost three years ago.

  Oddly enough, the paper target as I recalled was a zombie.

  Oh, the irony.

  Chris turned immediately in my direction and smiled at my handiwork.

  “Thanks. I am glad we brought you along!”

  “No problem, I got your back!”I felt like we were in a movie filled with bad one-liners.

  I checked the side over by Tom and he was clear. The group that Chris had whittled down to ten finally realized there was food just behind them that wasn’t trapped in a car and began to come at us.

  They didn’t run or walk; it was more of a power walk.

  They all seemed to have various injuries of their own that kept them from moving very quickly.

  There was some walking on badly broken legs, and we’re talking open femur fractures, broken. It was nauseating to watch the bones move in and out of the pale skin as they hobbled along.

  Others had obvious gunshot wounds with blown-off shoulders, huge blood stains, and missing clothes at center mass.

  I was looking at the oncoming group as Chris was dropping them when his rifle suddenly stopped firing.

  He ejected his empty clip and looked up at me and back to the flesh-eaters with a,‘Come on, I know you can help’look.

  I raised my gun once again, steadied myself, and began firing; picking one target at a time.

  I forgot to keep track of my bullets, though, and before I knew it, I was pulling the trigger to find that a soft click was the only response.

  Thankfully, by the time I emptied my own clip, Chris had reloaded and continued taking out the approaching monsters. I looked over at Tom and he was reloading too.

  “Be right back. I’m going to go get the rest of them.”Tom said as he took off with amazing speed for a man his size.

  There were only three left chasing the couple, but it looked like they were gaining since the man and woman seemed to be getting tired of running.

  Although, they had stopped screaming, thank God. I just hoped that all the noise wasn’t going to bring every infected in the area to us.

  Of course, I was wrong. Chris had just finished off the last infected by the car when another three came from the woods from behind us. These were just recently turned because they were fast and I could still see their eyes clearly.

  They weren’t glossed over with the white film yet, which was frightening. It meant the infection was closer than I had hoped it would be only three days out.

  Their eyes were full of rage and they were snarling as they broke out into a full sprint as soon as they saw us.

  I brought up my gun, forgetting I needed to reload.

  I yelled for Chris. He turned and three silenced shots clipped the air seconds before three more bodies hit the ground, about ten feet from me.

  “Next time, reload your clip as soon as you’re out,”Chris said as he took my gun from me, pulled an extra clip from my belt and reloaded it for me.

  “I will remember that, thanks.”I felt flush because of all the adrenaline from shooting these things and because Chris had touched me by my belt.

  I was almost ashamed of how bad I wanted him to do it again and in a more intimate fashion. I rationalized with myself that a man had not touched me since my husband died over two years ago and I was also in an extremely high-stress situation. All that added together equals crazy thinking...right?

&
nbsp; Chris turned back to the one final infected that was making its way towards us.

  One last silenced shot was made and then, there were no more coming, at least, for now.

  Noticing that the street was clear of infected, I looked towards where Tom had run and didn’t see him, the couple he was trying to save, or the zombies he was trying to save them from.

  Chris looked at me and back at where Tom had run off to.

  “Aw crap,”He muttered hastily and then, he was off running, also.

  I was beginning to think that Chris could read my mind.

  I jumped back in the Jeep and pulled up to Chris, running down the road. I slowed enough so he could hop onto the foot rails and sped up to find Tom.

  We only drove a few minutes before we saw Tom walking towards the road, through a plowed field, with the couple next to him.

  They saw us pull up in front of them and stopped.

  They looked at Tom and he just smiled. You could see the relief fill their faces as they realized that they didn’t have to run anymore.

  Tom and our new friends got to the Jeep and introduced themselves as Linda and Stephen Miller. They lived on the farm that was just across the field they had crossed to get to us. They were recently overrun by the infected at their home when they were working outside to fortify doors and windows.

  They apparently had two lap dogs, Jacob and Ginger, that they refused to leave behind. They wanted to go back and get the dogs, that were like children to them.

  I understood, but I was not about to risk my neck for two dogs.

  Tom said he needed to refill his ammo from the Jeep, but that he would go with them to try and get their dogs back and any other possessions they would need.

  Then, they would be moving in with us at the cabin.

  I agreed quickly as I realized we had left Troy behind in his car with a mound of dead infected surrounding him and no cover. I did not like myself for leaving Troy behind without thinking. I was sure we were going to get back to his car just in time to see it mobbed with infected again.

  I told Tom to get what he needed quickly and reminded Chris that the person we came out here to save, we had just abandoned.

  It seemed like he hated himself for the hasty decision to run after Tom, leaving Troy, just as much as I did, by the look on his face.

  Chris and Tom loaded up on ammo again.

  Tom set out with our new friends to their home and Chris hopped back on the running boards, telling me to gun it back towards Troy.

  Surprisingly, we got back to Troy’s car and he was milling about in the trunk of his car, moving stuff into the back seat. He was trying to get at the spare tire. He looked over his shoulder at us approaching and threw his hands in the air.

  We stopped and got out so we could get yelled at. We deserved it.

  “What the hell kind of rescue was that? Thank you for getting rid of the infected, but where the hell did you two go? I thought you’d left me for good!”

  “Keep your voice down, buddy. Do you want to attract every infected to us? I’ve killed enough for one day, already.”Chris said as he walked over to Troy, motioning his hand for Troy to get out of the way.

  “No way you are touching my stuff, buddy. Everything I have in here is delicate equipment and I don’t need you breaking it.”Troy sniped back in a much quieter tone.

  “I’m Chris, by the way, one of the people that just saved your ass from this mess of ghouls that were about to rip you apart.”

  “Sorry Chris, nice to meet you in person, finally, and thanks for the ass-saving, but you still aren’t touching my stuff.”

  “I hate to break up this man-on-man love-fest, but can we get your tire changed and get out of here ASAP, please? I would like to go check on Tom and make sure that he’s okay rescuing Spot and Fido.”

  “Spot and Fido?”Troy asked.

  “It’s a long story…Well, not really, but let’s worry about your tire right now.”

  Troy seemed to finally realize whom he was talking to.

  “Oh, my goodness, Abby! It’s so nice to see you again! I almost didn’t recognize you in that getup. I can’t believe you came out here with them. Aren’t there a bunch of military guys at the cabin you could have sent for me?”

  Troy continued to move his equipment from the trunk and Chris started working on getting the blown tire off as Troy and I talked quietly.

  “There’s Chris, Tom, and Dan that are military. Justin was with Jack at the fire department. Along with the military wives, other than the few kids, and people we found so far, yesterday and today, that’s it for military personnel. Why? Is there supposed to be more?”

  “Well, yeah. I also called a Liam Huntington, Benjamin Jackson, Ryan Owens, and Carson Whitmore.”

  “Oh no, you did not call those assholes and tell them to meet up with us did you? I was happy to not have heard from them and to not see them when we started working on the cabin. Why the hell would you call them?”Chris looked up from his tire iron with a grim face as he questioned Troy.

  “Jack told me to. I didn’t know those men, just as much as I didn't know you. I guess they got held up, or maybe worse.”

  “Or worse is what I hope for, sorry to say. That group is not one we would want back at the cabin I can tell you that much. I can’t believe that Jack would ask you to get them. I’m surprised Jack would allow them in the same state as his wife and kids, let alone the same house.”

  “What do you mean Chris? Why would Jack not want these men to help us?”I was a little angered that Chris was questioning anything my husband had done since it got us all to a safe place that we could defend and help others so far.

  “Well, these guys were on some of Jack’s special ops missions. He told me that whenever they accompanied his team on a mission that the four men would disappear about four hours before evacuation. When questioned, they always said they had another directive within the mission and couldn't share the info. Jack was always suspicious of those guys, so when I got to work with them one time and they disappeared, I followed them. They were doing some not so nice things with some not so legally-aged girls. They were given a package from the group of girls, which I suspected was their main mission. The things they did with the girls after they got their package were disgusting. It was a cross between torture and rape. They enjoyed what they did with these girls, too. I saw it on their faces. The government can be fucked up, but I’ll tell you right now, the things I watched them do was not part of any mission. I don’t know if they left the girls alive or not, because as soon as it seemed like they had their fill, I left so they wouldn’t find me. I didn't hear any gunfire, but it’s hard to hear suppressed gunfire when you are hauling ass through the jungle.”Chris threw the destroyed tire off to the side of the road as he finished his story.

  I was dumbfounded at what I just heard and to now know that these men, no these monsters, knew where we were, where our families were...

  “You don’t think they’ll come after us, do you?”

  “I certainly hope not, Abby. If so, they’re not going to get a warm welcome from me. Did Jack say why he wanted these men to be told about the cabin?”

  Troy closed his mouth finally and answered.

  “No, he just gave me a list of names and numbers to reach people at. He did make sure that those guys were not called to help with the renovations you all did last year, and that when the shit hit the fan, they were the last to be called. I didn’t really find that suspicious until now. Maybe he was thinking they would be good for hunting the infected, like hired muscle, maybe?”

  “Whatever Jack’s reasoning was, if these guys show up I would suggest that we keep a close eye on them and not let them anywhere near the girls if we let them in at all,”Chris said this and looked straight into my eyes. The anger I saw in them was palpable.

  I knew he was not only worried about keeping his daughter, my daughter, and I safe from zombies.

  He was now also worried about the horrible side
of men that knew where we were.

  Men like them were the whole reason for the underground apartments. This worried me since we had just left the cabin unattended to get Troy.

  Sure, Dan was there with Justin, but what could they do against what was possibly four or more well-armed and well-trained mercenaries? Who knows how many of their friends they told of our sanctuary if they were still alive.

  With my mind working on overdrive on all of the possibilities, I now shared in Chris’s awful hope that those men never made it through the initial outbreak and that they were all dead.

  We let the conversation die where it was and Troy moved enough of his stuff out of the trunk to get to the spare. Chris put it on very quickly.

  Just as he was finishing, we heard an explosion coming from the direction we knew Tom to be.

  Chris and I rushed to the Jeep and Chris peeled away, headed for the farmhouse as Troy tried to keep up in his car.

  As we got closer, we saw a huge plume of black smoke rising from the farmhouse in the distance.

  Tom and the couple were running through the field, away from the home, now fully engulfed in flames.

  It looked like Linda had a pet carrier in each hand and Steven was holding a carry-on sized suitcase with clothes still falling out of it.

  Tom was behind them turning towards the fire and at what I could now tell was about ten infected.

  Some infected were on fire but still jogging towards the promise of food. Chris told me to hold on and cut the wheel from the dirt driveway we were traveling on so that he could intersect our running friends.

  I was glad to see Troy stopped his car at the end of the driveway, I didn’t want to worry about trying to fix another flat after that explosion, especially since it was bound to draw every infected for miles around.

  Chris yelled at me to drive and he jumped out. I hopped into the driver’s seat as Chris ran past the couple and helped Tom take out the remaining zombies that were giving chase.

  Linda and Steven made it to the Jeep, threw their stuff in the back, and jumped in themselves.

  They were panting heavily as I handed each of them a bottle of water.