Zombie Rules (Book 4): Destiny

by Achord, David

  “If he’s banished, I’m leaving too,” Cutter proclaimed, as if that really mattered. I didn’t bother with a response. The opening of the steel double-doors made us all look over. Justin and Ruth walked out.

  “Janet’s bitching again,” Ruth said as she sat.

  “What about this time?” Kelly asked. Ruth threw up her hands.

  “Everything in general,” she replied, to which Kelly rolled her eyes.

  “Great, dinner is going to be pleasant this evening,” she muttered sarcastically.

  “You’d be happy to see Shooter banished,” Kate accused, obviously not wanting to let it go. “Go ahead and admit it.”

  “Let me make something clear to everyone. I don’t care what the jury or Tonya decides. What I do care about is there’s something more going on here." I gestured at Cutter again. "That man knew something about you two, and Simon was willing to murder him in order to shut him up.”

  “My brother was protecting us,” Cutter maintained. Like we needed his protection, I thought.

  “What do you have against him anyway?” he asked.

  “I could name several things, but the main one is: he’s an eccedentesiast.” Cutter frowned and looked at me like I was questioning their parentage. I explained.

  “An eccedentesiast is a person who hides their true feelings behind a fake smile. You know, like the way politicians would do, back before. Hard to trust a person like that.” Cutter looked away and didn’t respond. Justin laughed.

  “Eccedentesiast, that’s a mighty big word.”

  “Oh, you should have known him a while back,” Kelly said with a grin. “He used to never speak unless he could throw in a few words with a lot of syllables.” She grabbed the rope away from me and tossed it at Zoe. “He’s gotten better though,” she said with a grin. While we were talking, Tonya stuck her head out of the door and motioned at us. All of us hurriedly walked back inside. After everyone was seated, Gus ushered the pseudo jury back into the cafeteria.

  “Has the jury reached a verdict?” Tonya asked. Rhonda, who’d sat down a microsecond before Tonya spoke, quickly stood.

  “We have a bit of a quandary - judge,” Rhonda said shakily.

  “What kind of quandary?”

  “Four of us think Shooter committed murder, and the other four think he acted in defense.”

  “In defense?” Tonya asked. “You mean self-defense?” Rhonda shook her head.

  “I mean, we mean, Shooter acted in defense of the group.” She looked around at all of us. “We all agree Shooter may have acted hastily, but some of us think he was acting in the best interests of the crew and not acting with malice.”

  “What does that mean?” Kelly whispered to me. I shrugged.

  “It means we have a hung jury.”

  Tonya heard my response and looked at me. I looked back as if to say, what now? The look on her face told me everything. She broke eye contact and looked over at the so-called jury.

  “Thank you for performing your duty,” she said, got up, and walked out of the room.

  “That was weird,” Kelly said as we drove home. “Or am I missing something?”

  “What do you think, Zach?” Janet asked.

  "It means nothing changes," I replied. In truth, I had a lot more of an opinion on the matter. When it came down to Tonya having to make a serious, tough decision regarding the fate of a person's life, she couldn't do it. It made me wonder about the next time something like this happened.

  “Nothing is going to happen to Shooter?” Kelly asked.

  “It doesn't look that way.”

  “That's bullshit,” she said. “I was right there and watched him murder that man. The world’s so fucked up.”

  “Yeah, well, what’s normal these days,” Janet quipped. She was right.

  Chapter 43 – The Delegation

  I sat and watched in amazement as Justin worked the key with seemingly effortless speed. I’d made a point of memorizing Morse code, but even so, I had a hard time keeping up. Finally, he signed off and looked over at us with a smile.

  “They just confirmed it. POTUS is sending a delegation.”

  “Wait,” True piped up. “What? Who?” The man didn’t talk a heck of a lot, but Justin’s statement had him suddenly attentive and sitting on the edge of his chair.

  “The President, he’s sending a delegation down to visit since we won’t go up there.”

  “He’s still alive?” he asked incredulously. Justin nodded. True leaned back in his chair. “Well, ain’t that some shit,” he muttered, causing Kelly to snicker.

  “What’s the purpose of the delegation?” I asked warily.

  “They’re calling it the reunification tour. Apparently, they’ve made contact with other pockets of survivors like ours at other cities and have brought them together.” I grunted.

  “What?” he asked.

  “I don’t know what they can offer us.”

  “When are they coming?” Kelly asked.

  “Seven days,” Justin said.

  “Great,” I said. “I suppose I’ll need to make the Gunderson clan scarce for a while.”

  “I guess I’m out of the loop,” True said. “Because I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” I inadvertently let out a long sigh and told the story. True listened closely, occasionally glancing over at Ruth and Justin.

  “Is all that true?” he asked Justin when I was through. Justin nodded somberly.

  “I’m afraid it is.”

  “That’s pretty fucked up.”

  “Yeah,” I replied quietly. “But, it’s water under the bridge.” Kelly, who was sitting beside me, gave my hand a gentle squeeze.

  “Zach, whatever your decision is, we’ll back you,” Ruth said.

  “I appreciate that,” I said and stood. Kelly stood with me. “We’re going to go home and talk about it.” We bid our goodbyes and talked in the truck on the way home.

  “Are we going to bug out?” Kelly asked as she drove.

  “I’m not sure. What do you think?”

  “I think maybe, at the very least, we should hide the children again.”

  Janet had already fed the kids so Kelly fixed a plate for the two of us. I sat at the table as the kids climbed up in my lap and vied for attention.

  “How is everyone?” Janet asked. I shrugged as I positioned the two of them on each knee and related everything. Her expression changed from joyfulness to concern as I filled them in.

  “They’ll try me for murder, Zach,” Janet said. I almost said it wouldn’t happen, but it was possible. For that matter, they might see Solonowski’s death as a murder and put me on trial as well.

  “What are we going to do?”

  “I’m going to hide these two urchins,” I said as I gave them a playful bounce. “I’ve thought about this. I’m not going to ask Kelly to hide out with them again without knowing what the hell is going on. I’m going to do it.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked. “I mean, I would think they would want to speak to you more than anyone.” Sarah was sitting at the table and was listening quietly.

  “I’ll be happy to hide the kids,” she said.

  “I will too,” Janet added. Sarah glanced at her without any outward emotion. I raised a hand to head off any possible argument.

  “Nope, I’m going to take care of it.”

  “So, you’re not going to have anything to do with this delegation?” Sarah asked.

  “Doubtful, but we’ll see.”

  “That’s a little vague,” she said. “But whatever.”

  Kelly and I were lying in bed, talking about the day’s events when there was a soft knock on the door. Kelly and I exchanged frowns and each of us sat up.

  “Come in.” The door opened slowly and Janet appeared. Kelly instinctively pulled the blankets up over her breasts.

  “I hope I’m not intruding.”

  “Are the kids okay?” I asked. She nodded.

  “They’re both asleep.” She stared at
us and I got the impression she was thinking about Kelly and me in bed together and Julie lying buried in the cold ground.

  “I think you should reconsider my offer.”

  “Why?” I asked, genuinely perplexed.

  “Because you’re the main person who got all of this started. You might have questions for them and you might be able to extract information from them that nobody else would think about.” She paused for a second. “You seem to have a knack for that.” I looked at Kelly again.

  “Thank you for the compliment,” I responded. “I want to talk it over with Kelly and maybe we’ll reach a decision tomorrow.”

  “Okay, good night.” She closed the door quietly.

  “What do you think?” I asked Kelly quietly.

  “They said they’d be here in seven days. I’m going to be ready and watching for them.”

  “Are you going to go out roaming around in your ghillie suit again?” she asked, somewhat sarcastically. I grunted.

  “If that’s what you want to call it, but I’m not going to be caught with my pants down.”

  As expected, they arrived precisely one week later. I had a concealed position and watched them with binoculars, although they were easy to spot as they drove along the state highway. They were in a rugged-looking armored military vehicle equipped with eight wheels and a large caliber machine gun mounted on top. Five gallon jerry cans were lashed down around the vehicle. It looked very formidable. I watched them as they slowly clambered up Bell Road and turned onto Nolensville Pike. From my position, I had a view down Bell Road of over a thousand meters. There was no other vehicle in sight.

  As rehearsed, Sarah and Rachel were monitoring the radio. When I called them, they caught up with them before they even made it the first block. I watched through the rifle’s scope as Rachel waved them down. They stopped and exited the vehicle. All four of them.

  Chapter 44 – Never-Ending

  They were frazzled, maybe even a little shell-shocked. The surviving four delegates identified themselves as Raymond Easting, Earl Hunter, Earl’s wife, Sheila, and Seth Kitchens. All of them were in their late twenties and wearing civilian clothes, identified themselves as Congressional aides in their past lives.

  “There were six of us originally,” Raymond said. He was what you would call an average Joe. Nothing about him particularly stood out. He was skinny, his brown hair was a little oily but freshly combed and his three-day beard growth was not particularly thick. His demeanor was pleasant enough but he spoke with one of those voices that made you think he grew up in a mansion with nannies and butlers and he only went to the finest private New England schools.

  “We started out three days ago. It was pretty slow going, as you can imagine.

  “When we got to Mount Juliet it was already late in the day, so we decided to stop, rest up, and make a fresh start in the morning.”

  “You were on I-40?” Justin asked.

  “Yes, that was our route through most of Tennessee. Gerard had shot a deer the day before, so we thought it’d be nice to grill some venison.” He looked around at all of us.

  “With the exception of an occasional zombie wandering around, we hadn’t seen a soul throughout the entire trip. We thought it was safe.”

  “What happened then?” Ruth prodded.

  “They came out of nowhere,” the one who introduced himself as Seth said. He was calmer than the other three. A lean but muscular build on a six foot frame, and he had a smooth yet authoritative tone to his voice. I scribbled furiously as he spoke. “I’d estimate the number at around three hundred, maybe a few more.” He paused and waited for me to catch up. Another one of them, Earl, chose the moment to speak.

  “The trip itself was pleasant enough, considering the condition of the roads.” He looked to be a couple of years older than the others, a few inches shorter than his companion, even leaner, with wisps of premature gray in his brown hair.

  “The location where we stopped had a scenic view and there was a nice breeze coming from the east. The venison was on the grill and the aromas were mouthwatering. It started out as a very pleasant afternoon.” He sighed heavily and his wife, a short brunette who appeared to have been sporting a lot of weight at one time, reached out and grabbed his hand.

  “I sure hate to interrupt your reverie, Earl, but I believe they want to hear about the specifics of us getting attacked.” Seth looked around. “Where was I? Oh, so there were about three hundred of them. They swarmed us from the west, right at sunset.”

  “They were running,” Earl interrupted again. “We’ve never seen them run before. Have you guys?”

  “Not anything worthy of winning the Olympics, but yeah, we’ve seen a few of them run.”

  “Yeah, these weren’t fast, but fast enough. They caught Gerard and Clyde before they could reach the safety of the vehicle. They put up a good fight and we shot as many as we could but there were too many. They overwhelmed them and ripped them apart.” Raymond shuddered.

  “Don’t get me wrong, I’d seen similar things, but it doesn’t make it any easier when you witness your friends being killed like that.”

  “What’d you do next?” I asked. Seth pointed at their military vehicle.

  “Are you familiar with one of these?” he asked. I shook my head.

  “It’s an Armored Combat Vehicle, commonly called a Stryker. They’re very sturdy, virtually indestructible against small arms fire, zombies, and things like that. When we first started out, we stayed inside it at all times and only got out when we had to answer the call of nature.” Earl again spoke up.

  “We were very vigilant at first, but we became complacent, I guess you’d say.” He looked around at us. “Trust me, when you’re stuck inside one of those things for hours on end, bumping up against your friends and smelling their body odors, tempers get short.”

  “I can imagine,” Marc said. Earl looked at him and gave an uncertain smile.

  “Long story short, we started out with six good people, and this is all that is left.” He focused on a knothole on the picnic table he was sitting at for a moment and then looked around at all of us again.

  “They took us by surprise and there were simply too many of them.”

  “Did you kill all of them?” Justin asked.

  “I believe we killed a sizeable number,” Seth responded. The other three murmured their agreement.

  “But not all of them,” Justin pushed. Seth shook his head.

  “As it got dark, the ones left alive kind of faded away and left.” He looked pointedly at us. “Damned peculiar behavior, if you ask me. We waited until morning before heading out.” Cutter snorted. I looked up from my notes and waited for his derisive comment.

  “I hope you didn’t lead those damned things to our doorstep,” he remarked. I glanced sharply at him and then at Justin.

  “He makes a good point,” I conceded. Justin gave the delegation a hard stare.

  “What route did you use to get here, after the attack?” Justin demanded. Raymond looked a little uneasily now and hastened a glance at his three companions.

  “We got turned around once or twice,” Sheila replied. “But, there wasn’t anyone or anything following us.” Earl nodded in agreement with his wife.

  “Those things aren’t that smart,” he declared.

  “But, you people didn’t take any active countermeasures, now did you?” Justin rejoined. Three of them looked pointedly at Seth but didn’t respond. They probably didn’t even know what countermeasures were.

  “They’re regaining their cognitive processes,” I said. “You can’t underestimate them.” True stood suddenly, then thought better of it and sat back down.

  “What is it, True?” Justin asked.

  “Maybe it ain’t my place to say,” he said to Justin. “But we don’t need to be taking any chances. We need to go on a recon patrol ASAP.” he said. “We’ve got to find out if them things are close by.”

  “Yeah,” Justin replied. He stood as well. “
Goober, Blake, Ruth, gear up.” They nodded and hurried off. Cutter and Shooter stood.

  “We’re in,” Shooter said without being asked. Justin gave him a look before focusing on me.

  “Are you going?” he asked.

  “Not if those two are.” The two brothers glared at me but wisely remained silent.

  Justin pointed at Earl. “You’ll be driving that fine-looking car.” Earl paled as he shook his head nervously. Seth stood and stretched.

  “I’ll go,” he said. “Earl isn’t the best driver in the world.”

  After gearing up and going over the route with us, Justin led his patrol out. Ward volunteered to man the radio in case they got into trouble and needed help.

  “Alright, let’s get back to the purpose of your visit,” I said to the three remaining delegates after the patrol had left.

  “Oh, the usual horse-hockey,” Raymond said nonchalantly. “Get a census, establish lines of communications, and try to convince Zach here to come home with us.”

  “Why is that?” Jorge asked.

  “Here we go,” I retorted under my breath. Raymond heard me, but was unfazed.

  “I’m sure you all are aware of Zach and his children apparently having an immunity to the zombie virus. The President and the surviving members of Congress have been told by our scientists they believe they can create a cure, with his assistance, of course.”

  “What about the rest of us?” she asked. Raymond held his palms out.

  “Our directive is simple regarding who’s invited and who’s not.”

  “It should be, you’re the one who thought it up,” Sheila said snidely. Earl chuckled.

  “We are to evaluate all survivors we come into contact with. The benchmarks are skills, health, and most importantly, content of character. I believe all of you pass muster.”

  “You see,” Earl interjected. “We’ve created a paradigm of the best course of action for rebuilding society. We are going to attempt to recruit as many able-bodied survivors as we can, and then reestablish an agrarian and industrial base. You know, get the farms producing, the power-grid operational, the factories online, the oil refineries booming, the usual. Simply put, get the country going again.”