Zombie Rules

by Achord, David

  Rick was waiting for me outside. It was dark out now and the temperature was already down in the low forties. “Look here kid, I’m going to head on to the Ponderosa. Here,” He slapped a wad of money and a piece of paper with scribbles on it. “Buy everything on the list that you can find. Fill your truck up with gas and when you’re done, meet me at your new home. I threw some bungee cords, rope, and a tarp in the back of your truck so can strap everything down. You got any problems, give me a call. Got it?” I nodded my head and began scanning the list. “Oh, one more thing.” He handed me a knife. “It’s a Benchmark lock blade with a razor sharp edge. Just flip it open, hold tight, and stab repeatedly.”

  I looked at it questioningly. “Okay, I think? Do you expect me to run into trouble or something?”

  “You never know kid.” He said. “It might just be me and the fact that I live out in the country, but I sure am hearing a lot of sirens.” I had not noticed until he said something, but it seemed like I was hearing them as well. “How’re your ribs?” I shrugged. They were sore and hurt if I made any sudden movements. At least my balls were feeling better.

  “Alright, don’t be too prideful and refuse to ask for help loading from the store employees.” I nodded. He grinned at me and left without another word.

  Chapter 7 - The Death of a Thug

  Rick’s list was a little odd. Some of the items made perfect sense. Toothbrushes and toothpaste, dental floss, razor blades, toilet paper, powdered milk. Other items on the list stood out though, like tampons and Vaseline. Nevertheless, I was able to locate almost everything at the Sam’s Wholesale Store. I finished up with a few more items at a local Kroger store and went through the self-service checkout. I refused to buy the tampons, convinced that Rick was playing a joke on me. It was only a couple of sacks that I could manage, even with busted ribs. I had just gotten to my truck, lost in my own thoughts, when suddenly there was someone behind me.

  “Well, hello white boy.” I turned suddenly, which was painful. My grimace got a sadistic chuckle. “You still hurtin’ boy?” I got a good look at him then and made the recognition. It was one of Jason’s friends. Specifically, he was the center for the football team and one of the assholes who put the boots to me. It was not until I saw him in person that I made the connection. He was at least four inches shorter than me, but weighed at least a hundred pounds more. Most of it was fat, but there was muscle there as well. He looked like a retarded Troglodyte wearing a ball cap sideways. Like all retarded Troglodytes wear them.

  “I said hello. You gonna disrespect me by not answering me white boy?” He stepped closer.

  “What the hell do you want?” I demanded. There was a note of uncertainty in my voice and I had no doubt that he heard it.

  “I hear you been talking to the police.” He pronounced police ‘Po-Leese’. English grammar was not one of his strong points.

  “They came to the hospital and took a report. You should have thought of that before you attacked me.” I said as I stepped back. I believed that I could have easily outrun him, even with hurt ribs, but I was hesitant to leave my truck behind. Gunfire sounded in the distance. I wondered who was shooting who, and looked toward the sound. It was a bad move.

  He may have been fat, but he could move a short distance quickly. Before I could act, he stepped forward and punched me in the gut. I gasped and doubled over in pain. “You stupid bitch. You shouldn’t have told them po-leeses nothing. Now you gonna have to pay. Where’s that money wad I seen you with earlier, huh?” He stood over me and grabbed my wallet out of my back pocket. “Yeah, there it is. That’s some good money.” He grabbed the remaining money, a couple of hundred dollars, and threw my wallet on the ground. I was on my hands and knees now. I could hear him chuckling at me. I could also hear sirens in the distance, but I instinctively knew they were not coming to rescue me.

  “Yeah, my boy is doing that little blonde headed white girl right at this very minute I bet. You thought she was yours, didn’t you. That bitch belong to my boy, not you. You know what white boy, I think I’m gonna make you my bitch. You owe me.”

  I was crying again. That angered me. Talking about Macie angered me. Robbing me of Rick’s money angered me. Calling me his bitch, now that was downright disturbing. I looked up at him. He was rubbing his crotch and leering at me. “Yeah bitch, you gonna take care of me right now.”

  Something inside me snapped. My hand found the knife in my pocket. I locked the blade open, and lunged upward with a guttural yell.

  I don’t know how many times I stabbed him. It was all a blur. When it was over, he was lying on the ground dead. We had ended up in between my truck and another car. I was breathing hard and my ribs hurt like hell. I had blood all over me. I sat there on the cold asphalt beside my tormentor gasping for air. He wasn’t breathing. Thankfully my truck and the other car parked beside me kept us mostly hidden from view. I don’t know how long I sat there catching my breath. My mind was in a fog, the thinking processes going in slow motion. I did not know what to do.

  Rick. I needed to call Rick.

  The conversation went something like this. “Rick, I just stabbed a guy. I think he’s dead.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit! I’m serious Rick. I wouldn’t joke about something like this.” I quickly told him what had happened. “What do I do?”

  He drew in a deep breath and spoke sternly. “Listen to me carefully. Only answer me yes or no. Take a look around, but don’t make it obvious. Is there anyone watching you?” I peeked up over my truck and casually looked around. There was nobody within close proximity, only an older couple at the opposite end of the parking lot. They had their heads down and were hurriedly walking toward their car. I relayed this information.

  “Okay, good. Now, get those groceries and money back, and then you need to get out of there as soon as possible.” I started to ask about the police but he shut me up. “No! Listen to me. You’ve got to get out of there pronto! Now do what I said and get yourself in your truck. Don’t hang up, I’ll wait.”

  I grabbed the money out of his dead hand, grabbed the sacks of groceries, and got in my truck. After a moment I got back out of my truck and retrieved my wallet off of the cold asphalt. I looked around again, trying to make it look casual, and then got back in my truck and locked the doors. It seemed like the proper thing to do. I relayed this to Rick.

  “Alright, you’re doing good kid. Now, slowly drive away, just like you would if nothing at all happened. But, I want you to kind of keep one of your hands over your face and look up at the light poles with your eyes only. Don’t tilt your head up. Do you see any security cameras?” I looked up through my windshield. I spotted one at the far end of the parking lot near the main entrance. Rick directed me to drive away from it and choose an alternate exit.

  Rick stayed on the phone with me the entire time until I got back to the farm, talking to me and calming me. It did not help very much. I was certain at any moment there would be blue lights flashing in my rear view mirror and I would be arrested.

  But it never happened.

  Several minutes later I drove over our gateless bridge to the farm. I saw Rick waiting by the barn with the mutts. They wagged their tails appreciatively as I drove up. When I got out of the truck, Rick looked me up and down.

  “Lord Almighty. Strip all of those clothes off right here, then go get in the shower and scrub yourself down good.” I looked down and remembered that I was covered in blood. Curly kept trying to lick me and I had to push him away. I did as Rick told me without complaint.

  The shower was hot and soothing, but I could not stop shaking. My brain told me it was a natural response to the adrenalin dump, but knowing why did not alleviate any of the symptoms, nor did it calm my nerves.

  Thirty minutes later, I was showered and wearing clean clothes. Rick had a fire going. He had thrown my clothes in the fireplace, including my shoes. As they burned, they filled the house with the smell of burning rubber. He looked up at me
and handed me his ever present pint of whiskey. I tentatively took a swallow and nearly choked. He grunted and took it back.

  “I’ve got to get your truck unloaded. You feel up to a little work?” I nodded. The truth was, I hurt like hell, but I needed to do something. Rick nodded. “Under the kitchen sink there is a pair of those rubber dishwashing gloves and a big sponge. Get them and a bucket of hot water, put a little bit of bleach in it, about two cups, and wipe down every square inch of your truck, inside and out. Then we’re going to run it around in the dirt and mud and get it all dirty again.”

  “Why am I doing that?” I asked.

  “Hell, hoss. You know why. We don’t want any of that boy’s blood and DNA on your truck. Now don’t get any false hopes, we’re not out of the woods yet. There may be witnesses and a security camera may have recorded the whole thing. But, and it is a big but, we may get by. If the police come and visit, you’re going to readily admit you were at Kroger and yes, that boy was probably one of the boys who attacked you, but you did not see him and you did not have any kind of confrontation. Got it? If they get to asking any more questions that sounds like they know you did it, you lawyer up and dummy up, okay?”

  I nodded. It seemed to make sense. He looked at me, not unkindly. “You’re thinking about what you did. You’re thinking you just murdered someone, aren’t you?” I nodded again. The shakes made a sudden reappearance. “Okay kid, let me tell you something. If you want to turn yourself in, good luck to you. I’ll write you, if this flu thing is just a passing bug that is. But, think of it like this. That boy deserved what he got. If you hadn’t of stabbed him, there’s no telling what he would have done to you. You did what you had to do. I don’t want to hear any whining about it. Right boys?” He looked at the dogs. They kind of just sat there with blank dog-like expressions. “See, the boys agree.”

  I silently assented and spent the next hour wiping down my truck. After I finished, I then drove it around the farm getting it good and dirty. I was relying on Rick’s advice. I certainly did not want to go to prison. I’m skinny, blonde headed with Nordic features, blue-eyed, and a big toothy smile. I’m fairly certain my prison buddies would change my name to Suzie and have me wearing lipstick and a short dress for my duration. Not a pleasant thought.

  On Rick’s advice I had a couple more shots of his rotgut whiskey and went to bed a short time later. I thought I would never fall asleep, but sleep did come. I awakened more than once due to nightmares. Rick and the mutts never noticed.

  Chapter 8 - Wildfire

  The police never came. Rick was right. They apparently had their hands full with another crisis. We watched the news on TV. Video footage from around the world was shown of people going crazy and attacking other people. The graphic stuff was blurred out at first, but it soon gave way to raw, uncensored footage. We watched as sick, maniacal people would launch themselves upon hapless victims, tearing at them and sinking their teeth into flesh, gnashing and gnawing. We watched as police and soldiers stood side by side shooting over and over at approaching hordes, only to be overrun by the sheer numbers. Gunshots, other than headshots, did not seem to affect them.

  We monitored blog sites, Facebook, Twitter, Jabber, Steambox, and a couple of other social network sights I had never heard of before. Rick had his Ham radio going talking to his fellow Preppers. He was in some sort of club comprised of Hamm’ers from around the world and they spoke to each other in that peculiar Ham radio operator lingo.

  Some of the items he had me buy were large maps and a box of thumbtacks with multiple colors. We hung the world map on the wall and inserted thumbtacks on the cities where outbreaks were being reported. The color coding represented the number of reports. The red thumbtack represented the highest number of reports. At the end of two days, the entire Middle East region was festooned with red. Southern Europe and most of Africa had a number of yellow. The good ole’ USA was starting to gather a number of blue tacks. I wanted to use green, like the colors on a traffic light, but Rick out voted me. He thought green would be misleading. I reminded him it was only the two of us viewing the map and I doubted there would be any confusion, but I just got a withering stare. So, blue it was. Blue of course represented minor reports.

  On the third day of this endeavor, we had all of Africa red. Most of Asia was yellow, but the reds were creeping in. Europe was completely yellow, with the red starting to creep north. Most of the cities in North and South America had blue tacks, with the exception of the major cities like Rio, New York City, and Los Angeles, which had yellow tacks. I pointed out one blue tack to Rick. “What is this one all about?” It was stuck on a spot in Antarctica.

  Rick turned away from the computer monitor and looked at it. “There is a research base down there. Fox news reported a scientist was very sick and there was trouble with bad weather keeping a rescue plane from flying down there. Since then they’ve lost radio contact with them. Probably should replace it with a red tack.” His cell phone rang. He looked at it in surprise, like he honestly thought the world had already ended and we were the last people on Earth. After a couple of rings, he answered and spoke tersely to whoever was on the other end before hanging up.

  “I ordered a resupply of propane four days ago. They just now decided to come out. The driver is bitching about the road being blocked.” Since we no longer had a gate, we blocked the bridge with a John Deere tractor, complete with a backhoe attachment. “I’m going to move the backhoe and let him in. You keep monitoring the news, okay?” I agreed. The bridge was the only entrance to the farm. If you wanted access to the farm, you either had to fly in, swim across the fast moving creek, or drive several miles around to the back of the farm with an ATV and use wire cutters to get through the cattle fencing surrounding the farm. We had earlier agreed that the blocked roadway would at least give us time to prepare if the police showed up.

  The old homestead we were currently living in was heated by propane and the fireplace. There was a tank behind the house which needed to be filled every fall. I was wondering what exactly we were going to do next fall. It was definitely something to add on the to-do list. We had a well for water, but the pump was electrically powered. We had a generator, but it was dependent on fuel. We had a large fuel tank near the barn for all of the farm equipment, but it would not last forever. Still, all in all, Rick had gotten the farm equipped pretty decently. He had a root cellar stocked with canned goods, a barn full of tools, ammo reloading gear, and various other types of equipment. We had a smoke house, a deep creek that had fish, a chicken coop with brooding hens, and Rick had harvested from the garden just last month.

  I stood at the back door and watched the man transfer propane from his tanker into the large cylindrical tank. The name tag sewn onto his work shirt read Junior. I certainly hoped it was a nickname and not his Christian name. He was grossly overweight, which made every little movement a major effort for him filled with panting and grunting. He had to wear suspenders because I don’t think they made a belt big enough for him. I noticed Rick was keeping a fair amount of distance from him. He was also wearing a handgun in a holster attached to his belt. Junior either did not notice or did not care. We all paused in our thoughts and actions to look skyward as a sortie of military aircraft flew overhead.

  Junior pointed at them. “My brother-in-law is in one of them planes. He’s a staff sergeant in the National Guard. They got called up this morning. He wasn’t supposed to, but he sneaked a call to my sister.” He looked over at me. “You see, we’re not related by blood. He’s married to my sister, that’s what makes him my brother-in-law.” Well no-shit Junior. Thank you for the edification.

  Satisfied he had successfully bestowed some wisdom upon me, a mere child, he spit a gob of tobacco juice, some of which did not make it clear of his ample gut. He casually wiped at it with his meaty hand and looked at Rick. “He told her there was some serious shit going down. After I get off work today, we’re going to the grocery store and stock up.” He looked sombe
rly at Rick and lowered his voice. “You two should do the same.”

  Rick gave him a serious nod of acknowledgement. “Very good advice Junior. What else did your brother-in-law have to say? Did he tell you where they’re going?”

  Junior shook his head. “No, no he didn’t.” This time had the clever idea of bending forward this time. He also increased the amount of pressure between his lips which gave a higher trajectory of the spittle. He was rewarded with a clean shot. He nodded in satisfaction. I’m sure Missus Junior would have been proud.

  “But he said they had them loaded up on the planes quicker than they ever had before, and they got issued live ammunition. He said they haven’t done that since their unit got deployed to Iraq.” He wiped his mouth of leakage. “He’s a genuine war hero. Probably the only one in this whole danged county.”

  Rick was not amused. He thanked Junior and bluntly told him it was time for him to leave. Junior shrugged and waddled back to his tanker truck. Rick followed him to the road.

  I had been sitting in front of the TV for over an hour and was about to turn it off when a headline flashed declaring breaking news. I grabbed the remote and turned the volume up. Rick walked in a short time later. “The propane tank is now full. Junior is long gone, I got the backhoe across the bridge again, and we are officially on lockdown. I strung some concertina wire at the front of the bridge too. It’ll be downright difficult for anyone to just walk through. What are you watching?”

  I turned to him briefly and pointed to the TV. “They said O’Hare airport in Chicago has suspended all incoming and outgoing flights. No official reason has been given but the news woman is speculating the flu outbreak has caused a shortage of employees.”

  Rick scoffed. “Yeah, right. They didn’t say anything about zombies, but what do you bet they’ve had some attacks. Alright Einstein, what’s so important about O’Hare?”