Once we had put those three on the ground the rest of the group filed out and followed us as we went slowly around the corner of the concrete barrier and started down the side street that ran down behind the plaza. One side was the plaza and the other side was the big concrete wall that separated the plaza from the street and median. Now that we had gotten away from the main herd we were looking for a place to spend the day. I angled us to the other side of the road and towards the big field.
The large field turned out to be a cemetery. Contrary to most of the Zombie movies I’d ever seen it turned out a cemetery was a pretty safe place to be. I saw nothing around but tombstones, vaults and flowers and such. We headed towards the other side of the cemetery, I was hoping there would be a street leading out of there that would take us around to some sort of isolated neighborhood or houses or something. We started moving forward and a man wearing a ton of camo junk stepped out from behind a vault and told us to freeze. He was also pointing an M-16 at us.
We instantly all were pointing various weapons right back at him. I figured he would drop his weapon when he saw that until he nodded and about eight other guys popped up, dressed the same, pointing their weapons directly at us.
The first guy to pop out, I assumed the leader, said,” Put down your weapons, we’re on a sweep for survivors and supplies and saw you coming out of the Sam’s Club and robbing the Guns and Ammo store. We’re here to help, just don’t want any accidents.”
I spoke up, “No one put down your weapons. They can’t pull the trigger any more than we can unless they want to have a couple thousand Zombies running this way from every direction. I’m pretty sure they know that already based on the fact that they’re currently uneaten.”
“Maybe you guys didn’t survive by accident.” The leader let his weapon fall onto its sling and hang off his shoulder while he walked up to me with his hand extended. “I’m Staff Sergeant Hernandez. You are currently surrounded by what is left of the group I was teaching jungle survival skills to down in the everglades. We went in for two weeks and when we came out the whole world had gone to shit.”
“I’m thinking that is going to be a pretty common story Staff Sergeant. Where you guys headed and what’s up with ambushing us?”
We heard some yelling in the distance and Hernandez, looking nervous, said, “Why don’t we continue this conversation back at our FOB. It’s starting to get light out and I don’t like being out in the light with those things.”
“Assuming FOB is a house or a base then that sounds good to us. I’m making a decision to trust you here, like five seconds ago you had us surrounded and were pointing weapons at my people though.”
Hernandez shrugged, “Shit’s a little confusing right now in case you haven’t noticed. We’ve occupied the groundkeepers house as our base for the moment. It’s big, I think they held wakes and stuff in there at some time awhile back. You guys can come with us or not. Up to you but the lights coming up and I can tell you this is the best place you’re going to find before the sun comes up unless you want to spend the day napping in the weeds.”
He made a convincing argument. He turned and headed out in the direction we had been originally moving in before they decided to ambush us. I motioned for everyone to follow but to remain on guard. We continued down the path until we came to a sharp right turn that lead to the large old timey country club looking house that I assumed Hernandez was leading us to. He had opened the door up ahead of us and we all started rolling into the cavernous living room, parlor area of the house.
It smelled like mold, which was pretty much how everything in Florida smelled once the electric powering the AC compressors went off-line. It had large windows everywhere which had the shades drawn so we’d be able to walk around during the daylight. It had a double staircase that lead to an upper level.
Hernandez walked over to us, “You guys feel free to sack out wherever you like. We’re currently short on food so hopefully you brought your own. There’s a balcony upstairs that we’ve put a ladder on so we have a guy topside with a radio who will let us now if anything is approaching the house. We have cleared the house already but feel free to take a look around. Once the sun comes up we do ask that you find a place to be quiet and commence doing so. You, lady with the kids, what’s your name?”
Brenda looked up from wiping a tiny nose, “I’m Brenda.”
“Ok Brenda, there’s an inner room over here that looks like a powder room or something. There’s some couches and mirrors and junk in there. Most important, it is pretty much sound proof so if you’d like you can hang out in that room with the kids in case they get loud.”
Brenda looked over at me, “Does that sound good Steve?”
I nodded. Brenda and Thomas and Ginny rounded up the twins and all disappeared into the powder room place. I was slightly bemused by all of them going in. Brenda went obviously because they were her kids. Ginny went to help Brenda out cause a pair of six year olds is no joke. I’m pretty sure Thomas went just because Ginny went and Thomas was pretty much in love with her. The apocalyptic love bug was definitely in the air.
Hernandez, meanwhile, looked a little annoyed that Brenda had looked to me for approval when he had asked her to use the powder room. He looked over at me, “I’m not trying to take over control or anything but this group stays alive by following my orders. You going to be cool with that?”
Reeves stood up behind me and I heard shifting as a couple of others moved to get their hands near their weapons. Ann was the one who spoke up first, “Nope, we’re not cool with that. Steve has kept our group alive through some crazy stuff and he’s a survivor all the way. We take our orders from him and not some enlisted Jarhead we just met who keeps trying to push us around.”
I raised a hand to calm everyone down. “Hernandez, you have your guys and my group is with me. I’m not sure how long we’ll be teamed up. Numbers don’t seem to help people survive out here since the more people the more likely someone makes a noise. But, you brought us to your base and you’re watching over us, literally right now, so we appreciate your help. Now, you good with the rest of us setting up in here and how would you like to handle the watch rotation?”
There was a moment of uneasy silence before Hernandez replied, “Just do what I tell you too while you’re here and everything will work out fine. We got the watch. In appreciation of us providing this sanctuary we’d appreciate if you wouldn’t mind sharing some of your food and water and ammo with us for the good of both groups.”
Hernandez was looking pissed off again. This was getting real old real fast. His men all looked like they were a bit embarrassed him but were used to following orders. I saw the powder room door open and Ginny, Thomas, the twins, and Brenda all got shoved out by two big guys who had shotguns pointed at them. Hernandez looked over at us and smiled.
“All of you please put your weapons on the ground, and then lay on the ground, faces down. We’re just going to take your weapons for your protection. If you don’t we’re going to kill those two precious children.”
“Dude, no. We’re not getting on the ground. Everyone stay still. They can’t pull a trigger or they’re dead. We drop our guard and these thugs are gonna make us slaves.” I had my pistol pointed right at Hernandez. Hernandez pulled out a machete ad moved towards the twins.
“Hey puto. I may not be able to pull the trigger but I can cut these little fu – “
I shot him in the face.
All hell broke loose in the little room as everyone started pulling triggers and diving for cover and screaming and bleeding. I managed to shoot one of the goons behind Ginny and I think Ann got the other one before they reacted and I heard a boom and a freight train hit me in the chest and I flew backwards through the air. I landed on a table and a lamp fell off and cracked me in the side of the head. Looking down at myself I had blood all over me. I tried to stand up and looked around for my pistol but I blinked and passed out.
I came to laying on a couch with wet
towels on my chest. Ann set beside me. My body hurt. A lot. I looked questioningly at Ann.
She smiled down at me and I saw that something had happened to her ear at some point in the fight as she had a wad of bloody toilet paper wrapped around it.
“You made the right choice Steve, those guys weren’t military, at least not current military, they were a bunch of losers getting transferred from one prison to another. We killed most of them but two threw down their weapons and we have them held prisoner. You took a bunch of birdshot to the chest so you’ll have all kinds of crazy scars and hurt really bad for a while but as long as it doesn’t get infected too bad you shouldn’t die.”
“How long have I been out?” I asked.
“Just a few minutes. We’re trying to figure out if we try and hole up here or run like hell. We made a lot of noise. We’re probably going to be overrun real soon. Which means you at least won’t have to worry about your chest getting infected!” Ann smiled sarcastically.
“Anyone who is hurt, which includes you, I see your ear. Give them pain pills equal to the injury and a Z-Pak. I’m thinking we need to get the hell out of here.”
I stood up very dizzily and looked around, it looked like all our people were standing, although quite a few were sporting some new and more exciting injuries and bleeding look pretty common. Then I saw Brenda, both her kids were crying and trying to hold her and talk to her. Ginny and Thomas were crying as ell and trying to pull the kids off their dead mom.
Tears welled up in my eyes too. Ann came up behind be, “As soon as the gunfire started she threw her kids on the ground and covered them with her own body.”
I started looking around and found my sword laying on the ground next to my pistol, I picked up my sword. I walked over to where Reeves had the two prisoners on the ground on their knees. I beat the first one’s head in until his brains poured out. The second one tried to get away but Reeves bashed him in the face with the stock of the M-16 he was carrying. The guy was spitting out blood and teeth and trying to say it wasn’t his fault.
I beat him to death as well. I beat him until Ann pulled me away from him. Reeves had a savage look on his face. I found out later he’d stood in the middle of the hail of lead flying in the room and methodically killed the majority of the bad guys. He’d done it quickly and efficiently. He’d had a clue that only a few of the men seemed to have what he killed “military bearing” about them.
Ann held me. “We have to get out of here. Also, don’t forget, there is still one of these guys acting as over watch up on the roof. Here’s the Walkie.”
I pressed the talk button, “Hey asshole on the roof.”
He answered, “I’m here. Que?”
“We’ve killed all your buddies down here so the rape party is cancelled for later. If you want to survive then you’re going to need to start being very useful to me. What do you see?”
A couple of seconds of dead air followed and I was wondering if he was going to answer or not.
“I see a lot of those devils headed our way. We’ve got a few minutes. They’re not coming on the run like normal though. I think maybe it wasn’t so loud that the sound carried really well. I’m on the roof and I barely heard it. They must have built houses better back in the old days. There’s a lot of them though and they’re coming from every direction. Should I come down now?”
“No, stay up there and continue to tell me what you see. Lie to me or try and get down before I tell you too and we’ll kill you.”
“Bea, can you help Ginny and Thomas with the twins. Someone please put a sheet or something over Brenda as well. Reeves, can you scout around, maybe there’s a hearse or something we could all fit into. Everyone, gather your gear and take whatever else you can off the bodies of these losers.”
“Steve, come check this out.”
I went over to see what Reeves wanted me to look at. He had gone out a side door onto a carport where there two hearses parked. Both had the keys sitting in the ignitions. Reeves pointed to the dumpster and I saw it was full of bodies and random crap. Evidently we weren’t the first group they had invited back to the house. I saw movement in the room behind the carport. I went over carefully with Reeves covering me to look into the windows and saw two women were tied up in the room.
I kicked down the door and told them to wait there with Reeves.
Then I went inside and told everyone to grab their crap and head out to the hearses and load up. I grabbed Ann, “There’s two girls out there with Reeves, I’m going to assume they’ve basically been used as sex slaves by these guys we just wasted, can you take care of getting them into the hearse and make sure I’m right about them being here against their will.”
Ann kissed me, nodded and ran off in that direction. I took a second to be in extreme pain, hopefully the damn Oxy would kick in soon, I had snaked two of those. I went back outside and around to the back of the house. My radio went off, “Yo, they’re getting close and there is a lot of them. I suggest you get up the second floor, quietly get everything locked down and we try and ride it out.”
I hit the send button, “That’s what we’re doing, over. Keep feeding me the intel.”
I saw what I was looking for and grabbed two of them and ran back in the house. I poured one can of the gas all over the floor and furniture in the living room and left the other can sitting in the middle of it all. I looked around and made sure everyone was out. I ran out to the hearse and looked in it. Reeves was in the driver’s seat of the closest one and had already started it up.
Ann had taken control of the other one, I signaled for her to drive out a little bit and then told Reeves to do the same.
As soon as they pulled out my radio went off.
“I see the cars leaving. What’s the plan? Should I come down now?”
“You may want to jump asshole.”
I lit a match and threw it into the gasoline soaked couch. I turned and hauled ass to the Hearse where Reeves had the door open for me. I got in and yelled to move out. I heard what I thought was hail hitting the top of the car at first then realized the guy on the roof must be shooting at us. The side window exploded and I yelled for everyone to get low.
Entry 36: Well that took forever
Ann was driving around 30 miles per hour in front of us which seemed a bit excessive given the small road we were on but Reeves was keeping right up with her. The pain on my chest had died down to a dull throb which I assumed was due to the Oxy I had dry swallowed before setting the house on fire. Not only had I set it on fire I had managed to create a few very loud explosions as well.
As soon as the guy on the roof had opened fire we had all heard the screams of the Zombies increase a hundredfold. They streamed around the two hearses now as they rushed towards the source of the main noise which was the burning, exploding house that the gun shots had just originated from. The few who noticed that the Hearses were moving and had people in them we quickly passed as they were swept away by the hundreds of others who were intent on sprinting towards the huge pillar of fire making all the noise.
I pulled out one of our Walkies and hit the talk button, “Hey Reeves, I think I’m going to pass out pretty soon form the Oxy and the pain and everything. I say we try and find a quiet corner to park and wait for night to keep driving. The further we get from the fire the more likely they’re going to notice these hearses and attack us. You and Ann get it figured out. I’m passing out now. Over.”
“Sounds good boss.”
When I came back to it was almost nighttime again. I had evidently slept into the morning and through the whole day. After the battle in the mansion I had been the one who ended up with the worse injuries. Ann had lost a good bit of her ear lobe. The twins had lost their last parent. One of the other women with us, Jamie, had lost her ring finger on her left hand. Other than that, there was just the normal dings and bruises and cuts we had all grown used to not even noticing anymore.
The two girls we had rescued had been part of another
group that the prisoners had lured back to the house. That group had given up immediately when surrounded. They had been herded back to the house, stripped, everything valuable taken from them. There had originally been three girls who were kept as slaves. One had killed herself after having to see her dead moms body at the top of the dumpster every day in between the convicts taking turns coming out to rape and beat them.
The other two had survived but were obviously pretty traumatized. Ann tried to spend as much time with them as possible but one of them had found a bottle of Oxy and taken all the pills at once. We left her body in a ditch beside the road and focused on trying to save Chrissy, who looked to be around seventeen. She didn’t say much when we put her sisters body in the ditch after the Oxy overdose. Just stared, with tears rolling down her bruised and dirty face.
Zournal (Book 1): It All Started Page 23