by Ricky Sides
Inside the cab of the truck, Dana laughed as she glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Shaunna relentlessly jogging along the road behind her with the lesser zombies in tow. “You just never give up, do you, bitch?” she said.
When she was 150 yards ahead of Shaunna and her remaining minions, Dana stopped the truck abruptly and grabbed her pistol. “It’s time to end this,” she said, and then she got out of the truck.
She took up a shooter’s stance and let Shaunna close the gap to within 100 yards before she began to shoot at her. Dana fired half her magazine of 9mm ammunition at the Alpha female. She could tell that she hit her multiple times, but Shaunna’s erratic movement as she ran toward her made getting a head shot too difficult for her.
Cursing as she noted that Shaunna had now closed to within fifty yards of her, Dana turned and jumped inside the truck. She dropped the pistol onto the seat beside her, put the vehicle in gear, and then she sped away. As soon as she had the truck in motion, she grabbed her pistol and placed it under her left leg so it wouldn’t fall to the floorboard again.
Back on the road behind her, Shaunna continued to jog along. As she reached the spot where Dana had parked her vehicle and exited it to fire her pistol, the Alpha female saw a large spot of antifreeze. The accident earlier had cause a leak. Shaunna associated the strong odor with Dana’s vehicle. A slight smile appeared on her face. She would be able to track the vehicle with ease. Learning to track the blood spots as she hunted the woman in the past would make doing this easier.
Shaunna turned and stared at her minions that were approaching. She had outdistanced them in her rush to reach the human she so hated. Now she waited for them to reach her. As she waited, she held Lily’s body out toward the pungent pool of antifreeze and crooned encouragement. Then, because her anizombie didn’t respond, she screamed in anger.
***
John parked his RV back inside the fence at the compound he had ordered his people to evacuate. The survivors of his group had driven the back roads, taking a circuitous route until they could link up with the major highways needed to reach their old camp. As they had entered the compound, the convoy passed the skeletal remains of Axel. He wasn’t bothered that the man had become zombie bait. After all, he had tried to draw on him.
Most of John’s best men had been killed during the struggle to defeat the people at the refuge. Jack was his most experienced remaining man. He was also the best and most loyal team leader that he’d had under his command, so Big John wasn’t concerned when he saw the man approaching him with about a dozen of the remaining marauders, many of whom Jack had led on various missions. He had expected the man to be asking for orders and trying to determine what plans he had in store for the group now.
John exited the RV and stood ready to give Jack his instructions. He had hours to ponder their next moves and he had cobbled together an interim plan of sorts. He knew the confidence of the men would be low at this point. They needed a few easy victories. Therefore, he planned to lead them on a few raids of small enclaves of survivors.
When Jack stopped in front of John, the marauder leader said, “Get a team of men together to repair the fence. We’ll stay here for a couple of days and tend our wounded, but after that, we have a few small groups to take out.”
“Okay, we’ll get the fence squared away, and then… Lookout behind you!” Jack shouted, and then he stepped to John’s right and tried to bring his rifle to bear on something behind him.
John had exited his RV without his rifle. He was drawing his pistol as he spun around to see what was approaching him from the rear, but all he saw was his camper. He didn’t see Jack swing the butt of his rifle around in a savage blow aimed for the back of his head. He felt the impact of the strike, but then everything went black.
John awoke hours later. He was tied to a post near the one that bore Axel’s remains. He knew then that he had underestimated Jack’s ambition. He had fallen for the distraction, and now he was going to pay the price for being so trusting. He struggled against his bindings, but his men had done a good job of securing him to the post.
“He’s awake, boss,” John heard a man behind him say.
“It’s about damn time,” Jack carped. John heard someone walking across the ground behind him. Then Jack stepped around and looked John in the eyes. “I guess you know what this is all about, John,” he said unapologetically.
“It looks to me like you got ambitious all of a sudden,” John said.
“Then you’re a fool. This is not something I wanted. I never wanted to be the leader. Leaders always get held responsible when their plans fail. I didn’t want that hanging over my head, but your bad judgment at the refuge left me no choice but to take over. It was that or I’d be forced to follow one of the others, and we both know I’m the most qualified man left in the group.”
John nodded. “I was expecting trouble from some of the men. I just never thought it would be you.” He shrugged and added, “I didn’t think you had the guts to do this.”
“Yeah, well, it isn’t something I wanted.” Jack paused for a moment and then he shook his head. “I know you’re not going to believe this, but one of the reasons I agreed to become the new leader was so I could help you.”
“Really? Well, I’ve got to say your idea of helping me seems pretty strange at the moment.”
“You’re still breathing. Had one of the others taken over, you’d be dead by now. I’m going to give you a chance to survive. That’s more than you gave Axel here,” Jack explained with a glimpse at the picked bones tied to the nearby post.
“I’m listening,” John said, clinching his jaw in suppressed fury because he knew that now was not the time to permit Jack to know what he was thinking.
“We’re pulling out soon. The men don’t want to stay here. They want to head out west. When we leave, I’ll stop and cut most of the ropes holding you to the post. It’ll probably take you at least ten minutes to break free after we leave. Then you should be able to survive.”
“You’ll leave me weapons and food?” John asked.
“I’ll leave you a knife and a pack of food and water. That’s the best I can do for you.”
“You’re going to leave me on foot?”
“Don’t push it, John. Several of the guys feel it would be much safer for us if we just outright killed you. Frankly, I’m not sure they aren’t right. A man like you, once you get your shit together again, just might get it in his head to come looking for us to settle an old score. We’d all sleep better at night if we removed any possibility of that ever happening.”
“Okay, I get your point. Just let me go now and I’ll leave in peace. I don’t want to end up like Axel there,” John said, nodding his head toward the corpse.
“No way. You’re too dangerous. Don’t worry. I’ve got a pair of guards watching over you with orders to shoot any zombies that might show up. You’re safe until we leave. After that, you’re on your own.”
John nodded his understanding. He knew the guards were also there to see to it that he didn’t escape, but he believed they would protect him from zombies if for no other reason than their own safety. Even with a fence between them and the undead, no sane man wanted to be near zombies in a feeding frenzy.
Jack left at that point without saying goodbye. John listened as a door slammed shut. A vehicle started behind him and then drove away. He knew that would be Jack, who was probably heading back to his RV to claim it as his own.
John suffered through the cold wait in silence. His head hurt from the blow Jack had administered earlier. The headache was the worst he’d ever experienced, and he had experienced several mind-numbing hangovers in his life. To take his mind off the pain, he listened to the conversation of the guards until he grew bored with their meaningless chatter, and then he started formulating plans for his immediate survival.
John had always known it was possible that his men could turn on him. He hadn’t considered it a likely possibility, because they had been
too successful as raiders for the group to want to replace him. Still, he had been realist enough to know that it could happen. Therefore, he had his men make a short trip to a nearby area and bury a cache of supplies and weapons. They had believed they were making a drop for a small group he had arranged a deal with in exchange for several cases of beer and whisky. John had gone out the next morning and returned a few hours later with the alcohol, leaving his men none the wiser. He’d claimed the men he met were paranoid and would only meet with him. In fact, John had discovered the beer and whiskey in an abandoned vehicle days prior to concocting his plan. His men believed his story and considered it an act of bravery on his part to go out and meet the group alone. He had never missed an opportunity to increase his reputation with his men, which was one of the reasons he had commanded their obedience as long as he had.
As John shivered in the cold air, he made his plans to go to that cache, which he had verified his men had buried the day he returned with the booze. As he saw it, his main problem would be transportation, but that wasn’t an insurmountable issue. There were several vehicles in the area. Finding one with a good battery might be a problem, but he would find one eventually.
Two and a half hours passed uneventfully, and then John heard the sound of engines starting in the camp. Soon, the first of the vehicles began to emerge from the compound. Most of the men inside the cars, trucks, and vans that drove past didn’t bother to look at John. The few that did look at him seemed to view him with detached disinterest, as if he were just a corpse tied to a post.
True to his word, Jack stopped John’s former RV and got out with a pack and a knife. “Cut his hands free,” Jack ordered the two guards as he dropped the pack to the ground and tossed the knife in its scabbard on top of it.
Jack drew his pistol and stared hard at John. “I decided not to take a chance on you not being able to untie yourself. I’m taking this risk for old times’ sake. Don’t make me regret it, because I will kill you.”
John nodded soberly as he felt the ropes parting behind his back. “I won’t forget your kindness,” he responded. He was careful to move slowly and make no overt hostile moves as he brought his hands around to the front of his body and began to massage them.
“What about his legs?” one of the men asked.
“He can untie himself now. It might take him a while, but he’ll free himself. It’s time for us to go,” Jack said.
John continued to massage his wrists. The pins and needles sensation was beginning to fade as he watched Jack and his remaining men get into the RV and leave. They were still in sight when he bent to the ropes that bound his legs and began working to untie the hard knots.
It took him more than ten minutes to untie his legs. He went to the pack and grabbed the knife. He then surveyed the area with a critical eye toward survival. When he was certain that there was no danger near him, he examined the contents of the pack. It contained enough food and water to last him a couple of days if he ate light and drank sparingly.
Next, John entered the camp to see if there was anything worth salvaging there. He wasn’t surprised to see that the men had left little of value, but he did find a few items that he added to his pack, such as a discarded pot he could use to boil water, and a large tarp that had a few holes in it. He cut away the damaged section of tarp and rolled up the rest. He had considered staying at the camp for a while. After all, a fence surrounded it. However, he had no way to guard it adequately. He would have to sleep, and he would be vulnerable then. Since there was no permanent shelter there, it would be impossible for a lone man to be safe in the camp. He wouldn’t attempt it even if he were armed with firearms, which he wasn’t.
His next priority was reaching the hidden cache so that he could arm himself properly. John was in top physical condition, despite the injury to his head earlier in the day. Therefore, making the three mile hike to the cache was no great feat for him. Less than two hours after he was freed from the post, John was cleaning the rifle and pistols that he had unearthed.
Finding an operable vehicle took longer. He was attempting to get a truck started when he heard the sound of an approaching engine. John smiled and stood up beside the truck. This turn of events could prove quite useful to him. He loosened his pistol in its holster and flicked the safety off his M4 carbine.
He was still standing there when a truck came into view. The truck stopped well over 200 yards away. He saw the driver’s side door open and someone emerged. John assumed the occupants would be checking him out and trying to decide what to do about his presence. He gave a friendly wave in order to lure them in closer. He needed their vehicle, so he planned to get them to stop and exit it to speak to him, if possible. If they refused to get out and he had to do so, he would attack them inside it.
John was still waving when a single shot rang out. The bullet hit him in the chest and he fell to the ground, mortally wounded. He didn’t hear the sound of the approaching truck. He was too distracted by the waves of agony washing through his body. He did see the boots of the young man who stepped up to him warily and kicked his rifle out of reach. “I’m sorry, mister, but I couldn’t take a chance of you hurting my wife and daughter,” the upset young man said.
John laughed, but his chuckle was cut short by a spasm of coughing. Blood bubbled from his mouth. “Killed by a damned kid,” John said incredulously. He had murdered dozens of people just like these three when they had stumbled across him.
Then John did a strange thing. It was out of character for him, but he was feeling his mortality and knew he had only minutes to make amends with God for the things he had done in the past. He told the man about the refuge and informed him that there was a map to the place in his coat pocket. He gave the man the map. He also explained about the cure for the parasites that caused people to become zombies. “They’ll take you and your family in, boy,” John said. He coughed up more blood and was forced to wait for his breathing to stabilize before he could add, “Don’t tell them you killed me without provocation. It was the smart thing to do, because I would have killed you and your kid, and kept your woman for a while before discarding her. Yeah, it was the smart thing to do, but the people there are fussy about such things. Tell them Big John tried to kill you and you were forced to kill me. Do you understand me, boy?”
“I do,” the young man replied.
John noted that the shakiness had left the young man’s voice. “Good. Now, I’ve made my peace with God, so you finish what you started and be on your way. Zombies will come to the sound of gunfire. They always do that. And you take my guns. You may need them before you reach the refuge.”
“I don’t get you, mister. You sound like you were once a good man.”
“Boy, you have no idea how bad I’ve been since the world went to hell. I’m hoping that by doing this for you, God will accept it as an act of penitence and maybe, just maybe, I won’t be condemned to hell. Now do what you have to do, or I swear to God, I will get up and get to your truck and put an end to that squalling kid of yours.”
The young man shot John in the head at that point. He took the weapons, backpack, and the map and stowed them in his truck. Then he searched John’s pockets and found a small book, which he opened and looked over. When he was finished, he got inside the truck with his wife. He explained what he had learned as he drove the truck.
“Do you think it was a trap?” his wife asked.
“No,” the young man replied. “I think he knew he was dying and wanted to try to make amends to God.”
“Why would he do that?” the woman asked.
“I found this in his pocket,” the husband replied by way of explanation as he dug a small book out of his own jacket pocket and handed it to his wife. “Read the inscription at the front,” he instructed her.
After the woman read the inscription, she nodded her head in understanding. “He used to be an Altar Boy. I guess it makes sense then. What I don’t get is why he went bad in the first place.”
&nb
sp; “Who knows, baby. A lot of people lost their minds after seeing the things they saw during the outbreak,” he replied.
“I know, but you said he told you he would have killed us. How does a man go from being a man of God to a cold blooded killer like that?”
Her husband thought for a moment, but then he shook his head. “I can’t answer that question, baby. I don’t even know how I went from working in a drug store earlier this year to killing a man on the highway because I thought he was a threat to you and the baby. I just did what I thought I had to do to protect you two.” He shrugged his shoulders and added, “I guess he changed same as me. Just a little at a time until he was no longer the same person.” Then he said, “I just thank God that I was right to shoot him. I could have been wrong.”
His wife was uncomfortable with this turn of the conversation, so she sought to change the subject when she asked, “So, are we going to this refuge he mentioned?”
“Yes, I think we should at least go check it out. I think I’ll know when I see it if the people there will treat us right.”
Chapter 20
Vengeance.
Dana cursed her luck as she ran down the highway. She was two miles from the truck she had been forced to abandon when it overheated and left her stranded. She knew she was getting close to the interstate, but she also knew she was too tired to keep going much longer. She had been up most of the previous night, and had left without eating this morning. She was feeling tired and weak, so when she saw a two-story house up ahead on the left, she decided to see if she could get inside it and hide from the she-devil that was on her trail.
She gained entry to the home with ease when she discovered that the owners had left it unlocked. It took her a few minutes, but she soon discovered that no one had entered the home in ages. She found a deer rifle hanging on a gun rack in the living room. There were several boxes of assorted hunting ammunition in the drawer on the bottom of the rack. “I hope you are sighted in correctly,” Dana muttered to herself as she lifted the dusty weapon off the rack. She knew how to shoot a firearm with a scope, but was not proficient at firing one with open sights.