I shrugged. “Good point. I’m sure y’all with think of something.” I was ready for them to go and indicated as much by standing and staring. They took the hint.
After they left, I cleaned up the kids while Kelly cleaned the kitchen. Frederick couldn’t keep his hands off of me and I smiled while he did things like pulling my hair and sticking his tiny fingers up my nose. Macie quietly stared at me in only a way a small child stares at big humans. I couldn’t tell if she recognized me as her father, but that was okay. I had them back and life seemed pretty good, for a change.
I realized my face was hurting because I was smiling so much. After the warm bath, I had no problem getting them bedded down and they fell asleep within minutes.
“Well, that went better than I expected,” I said. Kelly agreed. “I think I know a perfect way to end the night,” I added teasingly.
“Yeah, about that, you’re going to need to get them to sleep in their own bedroom, Dad,” she said with a grin. “Otherwise, we won’t be having much fun after dark, if you know what I mean.”
“Good point.”
I got up early and, to my surprise, the little guy was awake and staring at me. When we made eye contact, he gave me a big grin. I got him dressed, fixed the two of us a snack, left a note for Kelly, and soon we were riding along on Hank. Frederick was ecstatic and squealed in delight when Hank started walking.
The information they told me about Lamance got me thinking. Would one of my friends have survived? Nobody had actually confirmed Fred had died. Or Konya, for that matter. Kelly saw him get shot, true enough, but she didn’t stick around to see if he survived or not. I’d already been all around the homestead and never saw anything indicating Konya had crawled away. The only thing left of him was an old blood stain on the front porch. It was a large, brown stain, indicating a lot of blood loss.
“I doubt he survived,” I muttered. So, I rode over to where Fred was supposed to have been shot, which was a field where we had a large potato plot growing.
“Alright, big guy, if you’d been shot but didn’t die, what would you have done?” I looked around. Supposedly, he was in this field. If I were injured, I think I would have tried to hide, maybe crawl somewhere that offered concealment.
I looked everywhere I could think of, but I found nothing. No lone boot lying in the weeds, no skeletal remains, nothing. That could’ve meant anything. Maybe he was one of the burnt corpses, maybe coyotes dragged off the body. I simply didn’t know and it was killing me.
Unfortunately, the farm work was pressing. The fair weather this past week was causing the grass to spring to life. The cows were happy for it, and soon it would lessen my workload, but right now it was still necessary to take the tarps off another large round hay bale.
“We’re going to have a lot of hay to cut in a few months, you think you’re ready to run a tractor?” Little Frederick grunted and made some kind of unintelligible response. I grinned. “The man you were named after would have had a lot of fun hanging out with you.”
We made our way over to the old homestead at a leisure pace. The three of them were still there, sitting in some chairs in front of the house eating what appeared to be MREs. They watched expectantly as I rode up. I saw Ruth looking at the forty-five I had holstered on my belt, but she didn’t comment. I dismounted from Hank with Frederick in my arm. Before I could tether him, he walked over to the Marines to check them out, and more importantly, see if perhaps they’d share something tasty. When I set Frederick down, he started waddling over toward Major Parsons. The Major had squatted down and held his arms out expectantly. I caught my boy quickly.
“No, Frederick. That man is evil,” I said, pointing at the major, who actually looked hurt. I didn’t care.
“Don’t even think about touching him,” I warned the man. He sat back down in his chair, crestfallen.
“Enjoying the morning sunshine?” I asked the other two. They nodded. I pulled up one of the chairs and sat down. “Why are y’all still here?”
“We were just discussing the situation when you rode up,” Sergeant Smithson replied. I looked him over. He was freshly shaven again and saw me looking.
“Ruth is a master with a straight razor, you want her to give you a shave?” I grunted and shook my head.
“What’s your first name, Justin?” I asked curiously. He nodded. “Justin, what have y’all decided?”
“Nothing yet,” he replied while looking pointedly at Major Parsons. The major looked quite haggard; I hoped his balls were still sore. Their combat utilities were still grimy and I almost suggested they could use our washer, but stopped myself.
“Major, before you three head off into the wild blue yonder, I’d like to ask some more questions. Do you feel up to giving me some honest answers?” He waved his hand flippantly.
“I’ll take that as a maybe. Well, let’s see. Did you try to infect my kids to see how they’d respond?” He shook his head quickly, and then looked at the ground.
“We were going to, though.”
“You son of a bitch,” I growled. He looked up quickly.
“I vigorously objected, Zach. I kept them out of danger, you have my word on it.” He looked at me pleadingly. “I’ve, no let me rephrase that, we’ve grown quite fond of your children, Zach.”
“But you were in agreement to inject them with zombie juice though. How in the hell did you rationalize that?” He started to answer, but I cut him off and looked at the other two.
“Am I the only one who sees how warped this man’s thinking is?” They didn’t respond and refused to make eye contact. I shook my head. “Alright, since you’re so fond of them, did you administer any proper inoculations?” The major’s face lit up then.
“Oh, yes,” he responded. “The CDC had a number of vaccinations stored.” He looked around. “All of the children at the facility were inoculated. Tetanus, polio, all of the childhood diseases, they were vaccinated.”
“How many kids are there?” I asked.
“Seven children under the age of eighteen,” he answered. “I hope they’re still alive,” he added.
“And none of the others were immune?” I asked. Major Parsons shook his head. “Other than the woman we had found in Kentucky, but she’s dead now.” I paused and thought a minute.
“Do you guys think anyone else at the CDC survived?” My question was met by dour expressions.
“I don’t think so, Zach,” Justin replied slowly. “But anything’s possible, I guess. By my estimation, we probably killed seventy-five percent of that invading force of those stinking things, and that wasn’t near enough.”
“The smell was ungodly,” Ruth said while wrinkling her nose.
“When we got the Humvee loaded, we had to shoot our way out. We had five hundred rounds of ammo and we used every bit of it.”
“We should still go back and check,” Major Parsons remarked. I looked at the other two as if to say, I told you so. They didn’t bother to respond.
The four of us were silent now. Frederick was very talkative and had a hell of a conversation with Hank, who in turn listened patiently while he nibbled on a patch of grass, only twitching an ear occasionally.
“How did it begin, Major?” Major Parsons looked at me somberly.
“That’s the million dollar question. It started somewhere in the Mideast. Cairo was supposed to have identified patient zero, but the information was very limited and questionable. The consensus is human-to-human contact was the way it spread, much like the flu. That’s what patient zero complained of when he was admitted, flu-like symptoms.” He held his hands up and shrugged.
“Other than that, we are still unsure of its genesis.”
“Zach?” I looked over to see Ruth staring at me. “Is there an option available for us to stay here?” It took me by surprise.
“Why would you want to stay here?”
“Because we have nowhere else to go,” she replied morosely. My first impulse was to tell them to get off of my farm, but I kept hearing
what Kelly and I had discussed the other night.
“What about your family? Where were they, Oregon?” I asked. She frowned.
“We spoke with some people who had come from Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. They advised the travel through that area was like traveling through hell.” I thought it over. In fact, I’d been thinking this over ever since they’d arrived.
“Y’all have done more traveling than I have, so I can only advise you about the immediate area. I’d not recommend downtown Nashville. A sizeable portion is underwater. What’s left has an overwhelming number of both zombies and rats. They’re everywhere. The Nolensville, La Vergne, and Smyrna areas aren’t too bad and there are very few people, but I can’t say how many zombies are running around.” I pointed south.
“Down that way is an area called College Grove and beyond that is a quaint city called Lewisburg. Lots of farmland. I’ve checked out some of it and there are plenty of farms which are vacant.
“Let’s see, as I said, downtown Nashville is nasty, Old Hickory Lake is toxic, so I can only assume the Cumberland River is as well.” I paused a moment. “I suppose I can work up a map.”
Ruth looked at Justin and he cleared his throat. “Would you be opposed to helping us out until we get on our feet?”
I stared at the three of them a moment before looking out over the farm and fixing my eyes on the mound where everyone was buried. Maybe Fred was there, maybe he wasn’t. Why I’d decided on Fred and not Konya or Terry, I didn’t know. Kelly seemed to really believe they were all dead.
I sat there staring at it for a full two minutes thinking it over. At first I was going to say I needed to talk it over with Kelly, but I already knew what she was going to say.
“I suppose so,” I finally answered.
Chapter 12 – Journal Entry: March 12th, 3 A.Z.
I finally have good news to write into this journal. My children have been returned to me. After I had escaped from my imprisonment, my captors loaded up and relocated to the CDC in Atlanta, taking my children with me. So, yesterday, three of them showed up at the farm with my kids.
They had a big story of how the CDC had been overrun by zombies and they grabbed my kids and heroically escaped. I questioned them extensively about it. They believe it was a deliberate, planned attack by the zombies. The story seems plausible, but I’m naturally suspicious.
We discussed other things, specifically their actions concerning my family and me. I’ll not take the time to write out the details. Suffice it to say, they have apologized for their actions and put the blame on poor judgement and blind obedience to orders. In addition, the three of them swear they were not in the group that had attacked my former home and murdered everyone.
They think I have naïvely accepted this explanation and have forgiven them. Not true. After talking it over with Kelly, we allowed them to stay on our farm. I have several things going on in my brain when it concerns them. Some of those ideas are forgiving in nature, others are vengeful. I’m really not sure how to proceed at the moment, but until I decide, I’d like to keep them close by where I’ll have no trouble finding them. They’ve been staying at the old homestead for the past two days and have really cleaned it up and made several repairs. They salvaged some windows from a home somewhere and replaced several of the broken ones. I must grudgingly admit, I like their incentive and I’ve decided to start including them in the farm work.
The bottom line is my kids are back where they belong, with their father. Not with a group of strangers and being used as guinea pigs. I don’t think it really hit me until the second night. After Kelly had dozed off, I sat up and watched my kids sleeping. They looked so innocent and peaceful. It had a profound effect on me and reawakened in me the belief and resolve to survive and make this world a better place for my family.
Chapter 13 – Sate
The little stinker had awakened before me, again, and he was very vocal about it. Kelly stirred, rolled over, and groaned.
“He’s just like his father,” she lamented as she sat up and stretched. “Up before the sun.” Frederick screamed out something unintelligible, causing Kelly to groan again. “He’s very loud, were you like that when you were a kid?” I chuckled and gave her a kiss.
“My grandmother said I was very quiet. I guess he takes after his mother in that respect.” I crawled out of bed. “I’ll take care of him.”
“Are the Marines joining us for breakfast?” Kelly asked.
“I assume so,” I responded. “I have a little surprise for them today.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m going to work their asses off. I’ve got a list for the major and you’re going to keep Ruth busy. Sergeant Smithson is going to help me all day.” Kelly chuckled.
“That’s good. You and Justin need some quality time together.” I frowned suddenly. That’s not what I had in mind.
Little Frederick’s morning singing, yelling, and general discourse about who knows what also succeeded in waking up his little sister. She looked at her big brother in irritation as she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. She definitely was not a morning person, much like her mother. I herded the two of them into the bathroom, where Kelly was already waiting for us.
“Any chance of hot showers tonight?” Kelly asked as she rinsed out some wash cloths.
“If we have a sunny day, the batteries will be fully charged, so I don’t see why not.”
“Awesome,” she said as she used the washrag on my back. I stood there a moment in front of the mirror and looked at myself. At six-feet, three inches and somewhere around two-twenty, my physique was lean and toned without an ounce of fat. The effects of farm fresh food and hard work was showing. I vowed to make sure my kids never lacked and grow up to be healthy and strong. Kelly tossed a towel in my face, indicating I needed to stop gawking and help dry off the kids.
“Alright, let’s get breakfast going, I’m hungry.”
“You know, after breakfast, they’ll be needing a diaper change.”
“Yeah, it’s time to potty train him,” I said, pointing to Frederick, who was inspecting our toilet and was about to stick his hand in it before Kelly grabbed him. She picked him up and handed him to me.
“Yeah, it’s way past due. You would have thought those people who claimed to be so fond of them would have taken the time to do that,” she remarked. She was right, of course. There were a lot of things they could have done differently, but I kept telling myself to focus on the here and now and said as much.
“Yeah, there’s been so much bad stuff in the past we’ll drive ourselves crazy if we dwell on it.” She then grinned. “So, why don’t you focus on the present and start by bringing some firewood inside.”
“Zach, we couldn’t help but notice this house is a little bit different than most other houses,” Ruth remarked. We had all gathered for breakfast, with the exception of Major Parsons. He was not allowed inside my house and was currently sitting in a chair outside, although Kelly had taken him a plate. “It doesn’t look like a typical home.”
“We built it about a year after,” I said. “The thought process behind its style of construction was an emphasis on strength and practicality rather than aesthetics.”
“I like the thick concrete walls,” the sergeant said.
“Designed for protection against small arms fire,” I replied. “It was a little difficult fitting windows but Fred and I figured it out.”
“Where did you find those metal shutters?” he asked.
“We fabricated them. There’s a factory in La Vergne that has a pretty good machine shop. The bad part of that is, we had to use a generator and only use one piece of machinery at a time.” I gestured around. “We’ve got a septic tank system, well water, solar power, and a fireplace, along with some other things. It’s more or less zombie proof.” But that’s about it, I thought. I didn’t show them the basement or where I had started working on creating an escape tunnel.
“Unfortunately, the insulation values aren
’t as good as a regular house. During the winter, the bedrooms get a little chilly. It’s something I need to work on.” I also didn’t tell them about all of those nights Kelly and I slept naked in front of the fireplace. Kelly gave me a subtle, knowing smile.
“Did you build it?” Justin asked.
“It was a collective effort. Fred originally lived here, who as you know was murdered in cold blood. By the way,” I casually asked while gesturing with my fork. “Fred and Konya, he was another friend, were both shot by a sniper. Who was the sniper in your unit, Sergeant?” He glanced at Ruth before looking back at me.
“All Marines receive rifle marksmanship training,” he replied warily. “Back before, we logged a lot of time on the gun range.” I shook my head in disagreement.
“Yeah, well, I’m certain this particular soldier had some formal training beyond basic rifle marksmanship.” I kept eating, but watched out of the corner of my eye while they fidgeted with their food. I didn’t mention my thoughts about one of them possibly surviving, I hadn’t even discussed it with Kelly. No need getting her hopes up for nothing.
“For a man who never served, you seem to know a lot about military doctrine.” Justin observed.
“I had two very good tutors,” I replied. They both listened attentively as I told them about Rick and Terry.
“Rick was a good teacher, even when he was drunk. He had several dozen military manuals he used to train me with,” I said, and pointed toward the bookshelves in the den. “There they are.” Ruth stood and walked to the shelves, scanning all of the books.
“This is quite a collection,” she observed and pulled out a hardback copy of poetry by Poe. “Very diverse.”
“I’ve raided a few libraries.”
“Something tells me you’ve read every one of them,” she said with a smile.
“A few of them I read more than once.” I pointed at the book she was holding. “I like that one. You can borrow it, if you want.” Sergeant Smithson joined us in the den.
Zombie Rules (Book 4): Destiny Page 10