by TW Gallier
"Can you please control your child?"
"Do you know Spooky, Sean?" Paul asked.
"Yes, and I don't envy you," I said. "But all of our lives could depend on it."
He nodded with a sigh. Poor Amy already looked harried. I really felt sorry for them. Their daughter was a handful and they were a mild-manner couple. Paul took off after Spooky, who took off running away. I looked at Amy, who was embarrassed.
"My parents would've beaten me raw," I said.
"Mine, too," she admitted reluctantly. "But it's a different time."
Paul caught his ten year old daughter, dropped to one knee, and spoke to her in harsh tones for a moment. Spooky looked sullen as she was brought back to their place in line. I thanked them and continued up the line.
It went well for the first two hours. Mike came back with warnings of zombies twice. We were able to move past those small groups silently and successfully. Hearing zombies rustling in the woods below the trail, or pounding on houses off in the distance helped to keep even the children quiet.
After two hours we came to a dirt road and followed it down the mountain. Our planned route had us on that road for just over three miles. That went well, and then we turned on a trail that looked more like a hiking trail than a game trail.
We'd been on that trail for half an hour.
"How's it going, Jenny?" I asked as I approached the front of the line. "I'm going up to Mike and find a good place we can stop to rest."
"That would be wonderful," she said. "Some of the kids really need to rest."
Actually, I thought some of the parents looked more in need than any of the children. Jenny wasn't one of them. Her sons were holding out pretty good, too.
"Here comes Mike," Greg said.
Our scout was moving quickly. My breath caught. Trouble?
"Sean, we have a pretty big group of z-bees up ahead on the trail," he said.
Oddly enough, I found Mike's and Charlie's tendency to call zombies "z-bees" annoying. It didn't shorten the word or make it easier to pronounce. But that was neither here nor there at the moment. It was the first time we'd encountered zombies actually on our trail.
Before I could respond, we heard rustling in the trees above our trail. Jenny turned and looked up and around curiously. Greg arched a brow as he looked. Mike immediately put finger to trigger and moved above us, putting himself between us and danger.
"Gunny, we have trouble," he said.
Gunfire rang out about halfway down the line, followed by screams of terror. Jenny and I looked at each other, and I saw my horror mirrored in her eyes.
Chapter 5
"Shhh," I said and pointed to the ground.
Charlie squatted next to me. I watched the rustling bushes below us. I saw a flash of different colored cloth, so more than one person was down there. The question was if they were survivors or zombies. Neither answer would bring comfort.
Nine men and women emerged onto a game trail, all covered in blood. Not survivors. They were dark, but not black. Hispanic. All were in jeans and t-shirts.
"Look at all that hair on the last Latina," Charlie whispered. "Mmm, I bet she was gorgeous before, you know."
One of the zombies had waist length brown hair, and there was a lot of it. The body underneath it was pretty impressive, too. All of the blood and gore covering her, head to toe, was a put off for me. Apparently not so much for Charlie.
I've come to understand Charlie really had the hots for Mexican girls. His eyes lit up when he saw Rosa Mixon when we first joined the community. He was so obvious her husband bristled, though I thought Rosa rather liked it. Rosa was Puerto Rican, not Mexican, and was born in Tennessee, so no sexy accent. She was a little short for my tastes, but I had to admit she was quite a beauty. Apparently Fred agreed, since they had four children.
"Rein it in, cowboy," I whispered. "That hot zombie might be willing to eat you, but not in a fun way."
"Ouch."
We couldn't get away with such humor with the families. Jenny grew up in a military family, as did I, so understood how men spoke to each other when alone. The army just made us worse. But even she would kick me if I made that joke in front of others.
We waited until the zombies were out of sight before moving. They were really good at picking up movement. I led the way along the game trail, moving swiftly and silently.
"This is just like Afghanistan," Charlie said. "Except with trees."
"Exactly, nothing like Afghanistan at all," I said, shaking my head.
A few minutes later I spotted the roof of a cabin through the trees. It was below us, so that meant there was a road down below. We listened for any activity, and then stealthily moved down to it. The cabin was small, maybe just a few rooms. No garage or sheds. I guessed it was a weekend retreat.
"It's locked up tighter than…"
"Keep it clean," I warned. "You have to get into the habit."
There was a twinkling in his eyes, so I thought he was about to unleash a long string of cuss words. It's what we did in the army. Cussed like sailors. Some were quite creative at the art of cussing.
Gunfire off in the distance stopped him. We looked to the north. I wondered if that was Jenny and the community. We were still hearing sporadic gun shots in all directions, so there were a lot of survivors out there. The shooting went silent pretty quickly, so we turned back to the cabin.
My stomach growled. I really regretted not bringing my pack. Of course, that would mean I was heavily burdened. It also meant that Jenny was responsible for my pack, and I couldn't help but think I was going to catch some grief about leaving it with her. And I couldn't really blame her. She had more than enough with two children and her own pack.
"I bet there's food inside," I said.
We circled the cabin, testing the two doors and all of the shuttered windows. It was frustrating, since anything we did to break in would cause a lot of noise. There were too many zombies in the area, so we moved on.
I headed down the road instead of going back up to the trail. The road was faster and going in the right direction. There were other homes along the road, but all had smashed in doors and windows, so we ignored them. There was a stretch of about a mile with no houses, and then we came upon a t-intersection, with the side road going up the mountain.
"You want to check out the side road?" Charlie asked.
"No. I just want to get back to the others," I said. The sound of pounding came down the road. It was pretty close, so probably just around the bend. "I think that decided it for us. Keep going straight."
"Wait," Charlie said, cocking his head. "Do you here that? Is that children crying?"
My blood went cold. I heard it. More like children screaming in terror. The pounding became more insistent.
"Into the woods," I whispered and rushed toward the sounds, but leaving the road.
We moved as quickly as we could, on full alert and weapons ready. It didn't take long to find the cabin. It was a small place, but with an attached garage and second floor. I could see two zombies on the back deck pounding on a sliding glass door. The glass seemed to be holding, so we remained hidden in the trees as we moved around to the front. Another zombie was beating and kicking the closed garage door. Two more were on the front porch, one beating on the door and the other on the window.
The front window shattered as we watched. The screaming inside intensified. I took careful aim as the zombie stepped over the window sill, and then I blew his brains out. Charlie gunned down the one at the door, and I charged in as I pulled my machete.
"Die, you stinking bastard," I cried.
The zombie at the garage door turned on me and charged without hesitation. I raced up to him, ducked under his extended hands, and swung my machete at the back of his knee. He dropped to that knee, and then struggled to stand, but failed. I moved behind him and took his head off with three whacks.
"Sloppy," Charlie said. "Are you tired or something?"
I still needed to wo
rk on my aim. Maybe I was too stressed out. The children were still screaming. Sounded like several little girls.
"Here come the other two," I said. "Machetes, because…"
"Gotta conserve ammo. Yeah, I get it," Charlie said.
The last two looked like soldiers, with high and tight haircuts and buff physiques. They weren't in uniform, but they had the look. They might've been cops before being turned. The first one went after Charlie, so I turned my full attention on the other. Charlie's zombie looked like a thirty-something black man, while mine appeared to have been an early twenties blonde guy. Both had those rage-filled eyes of the Infected. Both were covered in blood and gore.
"You've eaten your last person, z-bee," Charlie said.
I charged my target, leapt into the air, and drove both feet into his chest. Just like Captain Kirk would've done. I've always wanted to do that. We both fell to the ground, but I scrambled to my feet faster and took a savage swing at his face.
"Oh, that's disgusting," I said, after taking the top half of his head off. Clean cut. Exposed blood and brains. Killed him dead, though. "Hurry up, Charlie. Quit playing around."
"Playing around?" he cried. "You left me the goddamn mountain of a man zombie."
His zombie was a lot larger, maybe six foot five or more. Charlie had stabbed him and sliced open his left thigh, but the zombie wasn't even limping. I watched my friend dart it, and swing at his throat. The zombie threw a hand up, blocking the machete and losing half his fingers on that hand without so much as flinching.
"He's a frigging super zombie," I said, pulled my Beretta 9mm and shot him in the back of the head. That killed the over-sized monster. "I hope there aren't any more where he came from."
It occurred to me they had more than enough time to have come up from Arnold Air Force Base down in Chattanooga, or even from Fort Benning down to the south well past Atlanta.
"Let's get those kids and bug out," I called.
I heard rustling in the woods to the south. More zombies were coming our way, attracted by the sounds of our fight. Charlie, though, hurried over to the zombie we just killed and pulled his wallet out of a back pocket.
"You're going to rob him?"
"No. Money is worthless anyway," he said. Charlie rifled through his wallet quickly. "I just wanted to see if he has a military ID. Ah ha! I knew it. He is military. Air Force sergeant."
"Okay, you win the booby prize," I said. "Can we go now?"
Rushing over to the broken front window, I hesitated going inside. Whoever was inside was already spooked. I couldn't see anyone in the living room or dining room.
"Hey. Inside. You want to come with us?" I shouted. "Decide fast, because I can hear more zombies coming."
"Who are you?" an adult male's voice answered.
"Two ex-soldiers doing the Lord's work," Charlie called, voicing dripping with frustration. "We're offering to help. Do you want it or not?"
I heard a man and woman arguing, and finally he said, "Okay, were coming out."
They came out of a side room, very hesitantly. It was a young black couple, probably early twenties. Neither of the adults was armed. They had three pre-school children, two girls and a toddler boy.
"We have three young children," the woman said. "Please don't hurt us."
"We have children, too," I said. "I'm Roger Gilley, this is Charlie Bailey. We are with nineteen families heading north to Canada. Last word we had was Canada is a safe zone from zombies."
"Zombies? You mean the Infected?" the man said.
"Yeah, 'Infected' sounds too PC for me," Charlie said. "I like zombie or z-bee."
"Let's go," I said. The sounds of running zombies was getting louder. "It's now or never."
"We're coming," the man said. "I am Quinn Jeffers, and this is my wife, Yancy."
I stepped over the window sill to straddle the window. I picked up one of the girls and handed her to Charlie, then I handed him the other two kids, before offering a hand to Yancy. Once everyone was outside, I led them up into the woods above their house. There was too much movement in every other direction.
Three steps into the woods, I waved Charlie up to lead the way. "Take point. I'll hang back and make sure we aren't followed."
Chapter 6
"Sonya, watch my boys," I said and took off towards the sounds of fighting.
Sean and Mike were racing ahead of me, one on each side of the line. The line of families twisted through the mountain forest so long the point man couldn't see the rear guard, but it was still less than fifty yards long. Personally, I thought that too stretched out.
It only took us seconds to reach the fight. Zombies had attacked from above the trail. There was a lot of screaming and crying, but at the same time I spotted four zombies impaled upon spears. The problem was no one was going in to dispatch the captured zombies.
I saw Sean's hand come back over his shoulder as he approached at a run. He smoothly pulled his Japanese sword out and hacked off a zombie head at the same time. I pulled my machete, and then noticed Mike strike down an impaled zombie with his machete.
"Hush!" Sean shouted. "Noise attracts more zombies."
Larry and Selma's fourteen year old boy, Carter, was holding one at bay, his spear thrust into the zombie's belly. The zombie was slowly pushing him backwards, arms extended for the young man's throat. So I ran up, pulled my machete, and swung at the back of the fiend's neck. He was a really tall, lanky zombie. I couldn't reach his neck, so hamstrung him instead.
He fell to his knees after I sliced through the tendons at the back of them. The fact the zombie could still kneel boggled my mind. I had to hit him three times before I managed to sever the spinal column and kill him. By that time all four zombies were dead.
"You have to learn to be quiet even during an attack," Sean said. "All of our lives depend on it."
"We're not soldiers, Sean," I said. "We haven't been trained to face danger."
"Not our fault, Gunny," Eddy Daniels said. He was a middle-aged dot com millionaire, and his beautiful twenty-something wife nodded vigorously as she held onto him desperately. "They came out of nowhere and were on us before we could process it."
"We did our best, Sean," Brian Hooker added. "And we pretty much did what you taught us to do."
"Just with a lot of screaming," Sean said.
"Give them a break," I said. "Y'all did great."
"Jenny's right," he admitted. "No one was hurt and the zombies killed quickly. Now if we could just be a little quieter."
Mike looked at Sean, and then at me. He grinned.
"Roger's all OCD about conserving ammo, and Sean is OCD about noise discipline," he said. "Are they related?"
"Seems that way sometimes," I muttered. "What do we do with the bodies?"
"Nothing. Leave them were they fell," Sean said. "We're not undertakers."
"That seems harsh and disrespectful," Leslie Ripa said. She and her husband were ER nurses. "We should at least arrange their bodies into restful positions and cover them with branches or something."
"You do that," Mike said. "The rest of us are leaving."
That was harsh, but I kind of agreed. We haven't done anything for the zombies or mob survivors that attacked us in the last three weeks, other than roll their bodies down the side of the mountain. Why change now? Of course, the Ripa’s had always advocated for Christian burials for one and all.
"We should've never left the safety of our community," Nicole Franklin said. Her husband, Oscar, nodded in agreement, and he was one of the men who skewered a zombie successfully. "We were able to defend that site from giant mobs, so I don't know why you were so adamant we leave, Sean."
I rolled my eyes. We'd already had that argument.
"She's right," Dan Kelly said. "I vote we turn around and go back."
"I agree with Dan and Nicole," Travis said. "I never wanted to leave in the first place."
"Get back to your position in line," Sean commanded.
"You're not my boss
," Travis said. "I'm an American citizen and can do anything I want."
Okay, now I wanted to shoot him. If there was any kind of trouble or dissent, Travis had to insert himself into the middle of it.
"If anyone wants to go back, let them," Mike said. "I personally don't want a bunch lazy cowards having my back anyway. Let them go back and be slaughtered like sheep."
Nicole looked at him with horror. I kind of felt a little shocked, too. But he was right in a way.
"No, we all have to go back," Oscar said. "It'd be suicide for just a few of us to return."
"We've already voted to leave," Sean said. "There's no turning back. We're committed."
"Maybe we need new leadership," Travis said.
"Shut up and go back to your place in line, Travis," Sean said. "This is not the time or place for this shit."
"You can't talk to me like that," Travis snarled.
The barrel of his deer rifle began to rise. Mike was suddenly smashing through the line, knocking people aside, before he kicked Travis in the chest, ripped the rifle from his grasp, and thrust the barrel into Travis' face.
"I'll fucking kill your traitorous ass," Mike said.
Travis swore he wasn't doing anything. I thought Mike was right. It looked like he was going to threaten Sean with his weapon. But it could've just been our nerves. If he was going to threaten violence, he was going about it awful slowly.
Sean talked Mike into backing down. Now cowed, Travis swore he wasn't a threat to the group and would mind his own business. Sean returned his rifle, which I wasn't sure was a good idea. But Sean was in charge.
"No one's going back. We're committed," Sean said. "Anyway, our homes are probably crawling with zombies by now. Our future and only hope is Canada."
"There are a lot more zombies up ahead," Mike said. "So I'm going to lead us off this trail. We might be moving through some difficult terrain for a while. Try to keep up and be quiet."
Mike strode off toward the front of the line. Everyone looked grim. I hurried back up front, not feeling much more confidence than the others. We had to keep going. It was our only hope.