Sky didn’t look convinced, but didn’t argue the point. She just gave me a grim look and nodded.
“Alright,” she said, after a moment. “But if I don’t hear from you in two minutes, I’m coming inside.”
“Fair enough,” I replied. “Keep an eye on Morgan.”
With that, I headed deeper inside the putrid house. I could tell that despite its current condition and age, this had once been a beautiful home for someone. The wooden cabinets with the filigreed carvings on the doors spoke of someone who once took loving care of this place. Someone had once made this place a home, not just a wretched trash bin that reeked of death. I wondered if those three idiots had killed the former occupants or if one of them had been related to them. I would never know, but somehow it still bothered me.
When I reached the living room, the trash was not as bad. It was obvious that they spent most of their time in this room. Along one wall were piles of personal effects, gear and weapons that they had acquired somewhere. From the look of some of it, I could tell that whoever had owned it had more expensive tastes than the three idiots. It was probably where they got the XVR pistol.
I saw several boxes of canned goods piled in one corner along with what looked to be cases of cereal. Not exactly the most forward-thinking in their supply gathering. There were several cases of bottled water along with cases and cases of different types of beer. It was obvious that they had been raiding the area for supplies. I just hoped that they had actually grabbed useful items, in addition to all of the alcohol that they could find.
There were three doors that led off of the main living room. They were all closed and were pock-marked with gouges from knives, probably ones that they had thrown at the doors, either as a game or just to be destructive. There was a fireplace in the living room that had seen recent use. Despite the smell, it was clear that they had been living in here for quite some time.
The first door that I approached was slightly ajar. It also looked like it had been hung incorrectly and the paint on the door didn’t match the surrounding doorframe. I could tell that it had been recently added to the décor of the house. Although the smell seemed worse this way, it was as good of a place as any to start my search. From the look of the hinges, it opened inward, away from me. Since it was already ajar, I kept my pistol poised to shoot and nudged it open with my foot. It creaked eerily inward, revealing a darkened hallway beyond.
My light lit up the narrow hallway revealing two doors, one on either side of the hallway, and a small bathroom at the end. I could smell the urine and excrement and almost gagged from the stench that washed over me. Permeated throughout it though, was the ever-present smell of death. My heart began to thud heavily in my ears as I edged into the darkened hallway. Something told me that I needed to be ready for anything.
I reached out and checked the door handle of the one on the left. It turned easily and made a metallic rasping sound as the handle turned and unlatched the door. It swung inward into a darkened room with only sparse lighting filtering in through the blanket that had been hung over the window. There was no furniture in the room, but it had boxes piled in separate stacks in different parts of the room.
The first stack was canned goods. I saw familiar labels that I knew would be canned pasta, soups, stews and vegetables. The next stack bore the labels of US Government issued MREs. My stomach grumbled in protest at just the thought of eating them. A large stack near the window was all easily recognizable as liquor logos. There were easily thirty cases of liquor. I was starting to glace at the fourth stack when a thumping sound from behind me made me whirl around to face the other door.
My heart was now hammering in my chest as I fought to resist the urge to shoot through the door. Sweat was running down my face in rivers, despite the coolness of the air. As I was reaching for the door handle with a trembling hand, I distinctly heard the sound again. This time my brain registered the sound and I recognized it. It was clearly the sound of a bedsprings creaking as something heavy shifted on it. There was someone inside the room.
Adjusting the grip on my pistol, I took a steadying breath and felt the tension slowly subsiding. I had to get my nerves under control if I was going to confront who or what was on the inside of this door. Exhaling softly through my nose, I prepared myself. With a sharp kick from my boot, I struck the doorknob and shattered the lock, sending the door flying open into the wall behind it. My tactical light flooded the room and revealed what secrets the darkness had held. I was wrong. I wasn’t ready for this. I doubted that anyone ever could have been.
There were three beds in the room that had been arranged against one wall so that the heads of the beds were facing away from the door. They were the old style metal framed beds with both headboard and footboard of heavy metal tubing. There was a female zombie tied to each bed. The one on the left was tied down on her back with her legs forced apart and her knees bent. The middle one was tied on her stomach with her knees drawn up beneath her and her butt pointing towards the door. The third was bent over the foot railing and had her wrists and ankles tied to the railing. They had been keeping them as sex slaves.
I was completely wrong. Nothing in my years as a soldier or a corrections officer had even remotely prepared me for this. This was beyond my most horrid imaginings of depravity and disgusting nightmares. There simply were no words for the utter revulsion and contempt I felt for those three pieces of shit that I had left dead back near the river. They had gotten off far more easily than they deserved. There was not a pit in the bowels of Hel deep enough for them, to make me happy.
After a brief bout of nausea, I leveled the pistol and shot them all in the head. I could honestly say this was the only time I had ever felt genuinely sorry for a zombie. Putting a bullet in their heads was the only thing I could really do for them, all things considered. I knew that they couldn’t know what had been done to them, but I would carry that memory with me in the darkness of my mind. It would undoubtedly haunt my dreams. The very thought made my skin crawl. Frankly, I’m glad those three assholes were dead.
Pulling the door shut, I had no intention of letting Sky and Morgan know what I had found. It left little to the imagination as to the fate that they would have suffered if they had captured us all. I’m sure that I would have joined the kid that was tied to the rock and they would have replaced the dead that were tied to the beds. Some people had absolutely zero redeeming qualities. There was no coming back from that kind of evil.
When I went back outside, I found Sky and Morgan waiting for me with apprehensive looks on their faces. Sky was nervously glancing back towards the woods, as if she was expecting to see something emerge at any moment. Whatever was making her so anxious, it was contagious. I was already starting to feel it creeping into my veins.
“What’s going on?” I asked, glancing around and returning the pistol to its holster.
“I’ve seen several deer come out of the trees and run off towards the river,” said Sky, still watching the tree line.
“Yeah,” said Morgan. “Doesn’t that usually mean that something is chasing them?”
“Yes, it does,” I said, readying my M-4. “I’ve seen deer run from the dead like that before.”
“Depending on how many there are,” said Sky, “they might be able to get through this fence.”
“My thoughts exactly,” I agreed. “Our best bet is to get the fuck out of here.”
“Won’t they just follow us?” asked Morgan.
“Then we need to find a way to either distract them or put some serious distance between us,” I said, scanning the trees with my ACOG.
“Why can’t we do both?” asked Sky.
“What have you got in mind?” I said, turning towards her.
“There’s a small dock down on the river with a pontoon boat tied to it,” she said, pointing. “We can load whatever supplies we want on it and head down river.”
“What do you want to do for a distraction?” I asked.
�
�You blew up an entire dam,” she replied. “I thought I’d leave the distraction part up to you.”
“I think I have just the thing,” I replied, smiling. “Let’s grab what supplies we want and get to that boat.”
We spent the next few minutes grabbing supplies from the house and staging them outside. I even snagged a few cases of alcohol, just in case. They could always be used to start fires or as Molotov cocktails. The occasional drink was just a bonus. Unfortunately, I didn’t find any Bushmills, but I did find a case of twelve year old Scotch. It would be a shame to turn that into Molotov’s. I had a case of vodka and a case of Everclear that was much more suited for that. I’d keep the Scotch for medicinal purposes.
By the time we had the supplies gathered, there was a small crowd of zombies at the fence, shaking it furiously as they tried to get inside. For now they were only on the side opposite where the boat dock was, but I knew that wouldn’t last. More of them were arriving by the moment. I figured that there had to be a town or a decent sized housing development nearby to warrant this many zombies. It would only be a matter of time before they came through the fence and got inside. I planned to be on the river when that happened.
I ran into the barn and started looking for tools. It didn’t take me very long to find what I was looking for on a small workbench. I snagged the side-cutters and headed back to where Sky and Morgan were waiting. I immediately started cutting a large section out of the fence that would give us a straight run to the boat dock. As soon as the opening was made, we started hauling gear down the hill and onto the boat. It took several trips to get all of it.
On our last trip, I noticed that the fence was starting to break loose from the fence posts in a section about thirty feet long where the zombies were busily shaking it. They would be pouring through the opening in a matter of minutes. It was time for us to vacate the area before it turned into a firefight. Although I didn’t doubt that we could take them all out, it would seriously deplete my ammunition supply. Although we did find several guns inside the house, there just wasn’t all that much ammo. We had come away with only about a hundred rounds for the shotgun, four more loaded magazines for the AK-47 and four full boxes of ammo for the XVR. The haul was pitifully low.
As we were running down the dock towards the boat for the last time, I could hear the chain-link fencing tearing loose from the posts. The dead were coming through. We only had a few moments before they found their way through the opening I had cut in the fence and followed us down the hill to the dock. It was time to make some noise.
“I’ll cast us off,” said Sky, already working on the mooring lines.
Without looking back, I headed over to the controls and started checking things over. There was plenty of fuel in the tank and miraculously the keys were in the ignition. I was half-expecting the battery to be dead, but it fired right up. The three idiots must have been using the boat to raid for supplies up and down the river. Giving the engine some power, I backed out into the channel. The river was up, but moving slowly because in this area it was deep and wide.
Once we were clear of the dock, I took off my pack and unpacked my Beowulf. After I had it reassembled, I loaded it and chambered a round. Then I headed over to the railing and knelt down, placing the weapon on the top rail to steady my aim.
“What are you doing?” asked Morgan.
“I thought you said it was a waste of ammo to shoot at the dead?” asked Sky.
“I’m not aiming at the dead,” I said, softly. “You might want to get down.”
“What the…?” said Sky, grabbing Morgan and diving down behind one of the seats.
“Come on baby,” I muttered, and gently took up the slack on the trigger.
Beowulf bellowed his battle-cry. The resounding boom echoed off in both directions along the river. My first round had no effect, so I fired again. On the third round, I felt the air pressure change in the split second before the explosion ripped the meth-lab apart and sent fire, smoke and debris rolling skyward. Secondary explosions shook the air as the propane tanks cooked off. In seconds, the house and barn were ablaze and the entire area had flaming debris landing all over it. Even the trees around the house were catching on fire. None of the dead escaped the conflagration. Beowulf had spoken.
“Holy crap!” exclaimed Morgan.
“Now that is what I call a distraction!” I shouted, standing up and lowering the Beowulf.
“What do we do now?” asked Sky.
“Mark Twain,” I answered, smiling.
“What?” asked Morgan.
“We float down the river,” I replied, surveying the carnage on the shore. “Just like Huckleberry Finn.”
Chapter Four
To Each Their Own
“He who has seen and suffered much,
And knows the ways of the world,
Who has traveled’, can tell what spirit
Governs the men he meets.”
- The Havamal
We floated in silence, gently drifting in the current as it took us lazily down the river. I had throttled back the engines, and then shut them down altogether once I realized that the current was taking us where we needed to go. There was no need to waste the fuel. Who knew when the opportunity to gather more would come along? Anyplace that had facilities where you could get fuel was likely already crawling with the dead. It would be far better to conserve our fuel to make it last as long as possible, just to be safe.
Although I knew that we were going in the right direction, I couldn’t help the growing sense of dread that I felt in my heart. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I felt that each passing mile brought me closer to some unnamable dread. The words that the old man had told me over the fire were now haunting my every thought. Whatever was ahead of me, it was inevitable as the tide that we were going to meet. I was fairly certain that only one of us would survive the encounter.
The sun was sinking low in the sky when the first buildings came into view. I wasn’t sure what town it was, but it wasn’t very big. There was large numbers of the dead moving around the streets, but it wasn’t the dead that caught my eye. There was a large white sheet flapping in the breeze, suspended from the roof of what looked like a grocery store. Scrawled across the sheet in large red letters was the word “Alive.” Most of the time, that wouldn’t have drawn much more than a passing glance, but this time it got my full attention. Mainly because I could see a man standing next to it, waving his arms frantically in the air.
I briefly considered continuing on down the river as if I hadn’t seen him, but dismissed it. I decided that I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t at least try to get to him. It might be impossible to reach him, but I wouldn’t know for sure if I didn’t try. I couldn’t do any less and still look at myself in the mirror.
The dead hadn’t noticed us out on the water, since we weren’t making any noise. So long as we didn’t do anything to attract attention, it was doubtful that the zombies would give us a second glance. Not that it mattered, since they couldn’t reach us if they wanted to. However, if I could create a distraction and draw them away from the grocery store, whoever that was could climb down and make a run for the nearest dock and we could swing in and pick them up. Well, that was the theory, anyway.
I angled the rudder and guided us into shallower water. It was still ten feet or more deep, but not the truly deep part of the channel. Once I was out of the main part of the current, I nodded at Sky and she dropped the anchor. We drifted along another ten feet or so before the anchor dug in enough to catch a hold and bring us to a stop. I waited until I was sure that we were secured in place before moving on to the next part of the plan.
Reaching for my M-4, I began scanning the shoreline with my ACOG. I wasn’t entirely sure what I was looking for, but I thought something might catch my attention. The first thing that caught my eye was a large propane cylinder in the backyard of a house near the shore. It was seventy-five to a hundred meter shot with little or no wind. I knew I c
ould make the shot easily, even with a suppressed weapon. What I wasn’t certain of was if the 5.56mm round had sufficient power to punch through the steel tank. There was only one way to find out.
“You all might want to get down,” I said, glancing at the ladies.
Sky did so without hesitation. Morgan shook her head at me and smiled as she got down behind the row of seating, next to Sky.
“Here we go again,” muttered Morgan, chuckling softly. “How big will this explosion be?”
“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “If this works, it should be pretty impressive.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” sighed Morgan, crawling farther behind the seat in anticipation of what was to come.
Lying down in the prone position, I propped the weapon up with my elbow and started taking careful aim. The gentle movement of the boat was going to affect my shot, and I would have to be careful about the timing. The movement was just enough to make the shot difficult, despite the range. Under normal circumstances, a hundred meter shot was easy. This was anything but normal circumstances.
Sighting in, I started getting the feel for the timing of the shot. When I was sure I was in synch with the motion, I waited for the right moment to take the shot. If this worked, the explosion was going to be massive. I just hoped we were far enough away to escape the blast. If not, then things might get very interesting. I didn’t want to voice my concerns to Sky and Morgan. There was no sense worrying them over something I wasn’t certain of. When the sights lined up, I began taking up the slack in the trigger and waiting until the exact moment to fire.
“Fuck it,” I whispered, and took up the last of the slack.
I barely registered the suppressed cough of the weapon as it bucked gently in my hands. I tensed in anticipation of the explosion to come, but it never did. I could hear the round careen off of something solid, but I wasn’t sure what it was. I began sighting the area with the ACOG, trying to locate where the bullet had struck. There, plain to see against the white paint on the side of the tank was the streak caused by the ricochet. The M-4 didn’t have the power to punch through it.
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