Ann did something and the truck went into a spin straight out of the carnival ride that breaks and someone dies in. The one that spins around at a million miles per hour while you scream and laugh and try not to puke out the foot-long corndog you just scarfed down. I’ve always walked away from those things ok. The truck spun, we all got smashed into one another. My mind flashed to what Reeves must be going through in the back. I tried to lift my head up to see him but the centrifugal force of the spin was keeping my head smashed into Steve’s shoulder.
The sound of metal smashing into metal, glass breaking. The taste of blood in my mouth as I bit my tongue. All of us were hanging from our seatbelts and in the fog of confusion following a car crash I figured the truck must have ended up on its side. I also figured we only had about a minute to get out of there before we got swarmed and our bodies ripped apart. I started yelling for everybody to move. Steve had already taken off his seatbelt and he helped Ann and I get ours off and go through the passenger window then we all got out and climbed down.
Slid down was a more apt description. Nothing like a car crash followed by a Zombie juices slip and slide off the side of your smashed to hell ride. Reeves was laying on the pavement. I walked over to him, fearing the worse. Yep, it was the worse, he had survived and been laying there trying to think of a good joke about being thrown out of his chariot and into the street. I refuse to memorialize his ‘joke’ by documenting it in this fine piece of non-fiction. I also had a hard time actually hearing him since he had chipped a few teeth, bit off some of his tongue and had blood oozing out of various parts of his face and mouth.
Reeves got Apocalypse first aid while I waited for Steve to figure out which way we were going to run for our lives. I reached in Reeves cargo pocket and pulled out a baggie of wet wipes, I wasn’t going to waste my own, and tried to get most the blood off his face. Then I smeared bacitracin all over his face and handed him some antibiotics and pain meds. Or, I may have given him a handful of Midol. All of that probably took me fifteen seconds. We were getting pretty good at this stuff thanks to all of us constantly getting injured.
Steve had made up his mind and was yelling at us to run. I looked around and saw he was telling us to run away from the large group of Zombies charging us from down the road. That seemed like a solid plan to me. We all started running / limping quickly down the road. The Zombies getting closer every second. This plan was not going to work out for anybody except the Zombies. I looked around.
Not having time to explain what I was thinking I just yelled and pushed Reeves towards the guard rail. Ann and Steve looked over to see where we were going and followed us. I noticed Steve was half carrying Ann. She was favoring her right leg for some reason. I hoped it was just a sprain. Reeves hesitated at the guard rail. There was a long drop into a scum covered pool of standing water and beyond that was a slope going up into a bunch of briars and nastiness.
I gave Reeves a gentle nudge to get him moving. The nudge knocked him over the guard rail and into a face first belly slide into the pool of gunk. Sucked to be him. I jumped over the railing and carefully descended into the gunk as Reeves emerged. He looked upset and was yelling a bunch of stuff that sounded pretty mean and insensitive so I ignored him. I heard a couple of other splashes and saw that Steve and Ann had decided to join us. Now it was a party!
Then I heard a bunch of other splashes as some uninvited pool party crashers dropped in. Steve yelled at us to help Ann get up the hill while he covered us. He had his pistol out and was shooting the Zombies as they popped up out of the water. He was waiting since a couple of them had hurt themselves so bad in the fall there was no need for him to waste a bullet on them. Reeves scrambled up into the weeds and turned around and helped Ann up behind him. Her leg being hurt was making it hard for her to climb up the steep slope so I put both hands on her butt and pushed her up as hard as I could while Reeves pulled.
She managed to get over Reeves and disappeared into the bushes. I yelled at Steve to hurry up and scrambled up and over Reeves as well. Once I was done using him as a ladder I turned around to look down and saw Steve give his gun the dumb look we all did when we ran out of bullets. Then he shoved the gun in his pocket and turned and ran for where Reeves was waiting to act as a human ladder. The ditch was filling up with blue dudes so I yanked out my piece and started dropping them as fast as I could.
The sound of gunfire beside me clued me in that Ann had our back. Steve made it up and helped Reeves get to his feet and turn around and continue the climb out of the culvert. Steve was in the lead and I was in the rear. Turning occasionally to take pot shots at the Zombies who made it out of the ditch and were coming through the underbrush looking for us. At the top of the ditch we ended up in a little section of bushes and briars that we beat through to get to a two-lane road that was extra wide. I assumed for the trucks that must come through here all the time to unload at the warehouses we were surrounded by.
On top of the screams from behind us that were growing in volume and getting closer every second there were screams erupting from all around us. The sound of gunfire and car crashes had stirred up the proverbial hornets’ nest and we needed to either get out of dodge or out of sight as soon as possible. Steve had his AK in front of him and was trotting towards a large warehouse about a hundred yards down the road. All of us were on the lookout as the screams just kept getting louder.
It was a race now to see if we were going to find cover before the horde of Zombies found us. We had stopped trotting and were running balls out for the warehouse at this point. Reeves and Steve were basically carrying Ann who had one arm over each of their shoulders. I was providing cover fire for the team.
A Humvee was parked in front of the warehouse. As we ran and made more noise a small group of Koreans came out and started pointing at us. The they started pointing their weapons at us. Steve let go of Ann and her and Reeves tumbled to the ground. As the Koreans brought their weapons up and started firing Steve did not falter. On full auto, screaming his head off, lips pulled back over his teeth, he engaged.
His aim sucks but his heart is in the right place. I dropped to one knee and started sniping while he charged and kept their attention off the rest of the party. My Pampa could have told him that what he was doing was in compliance with accepted warrior doctrine. When ambushed or surprised or in a firefight against a superior enemy it often works out surprisingly well to scream your head off and charge right into it. It tends to freak the guys out who are shooting at you.
I stopped shooting when all the bad guys were laying on the ground. Looking behind us there were around twenty of the Zombies breaking out of the brush and charging with who knew how many behind them. I slung my rifle and checked to verify Reeves and Ann were back on their feet and moving forward. They were.
I started running forward. I saw Steve turn around to make sure we were ok then he collapsed to the ground. I slid to a stop beside him. He had blood all over him. Including one nasty gash on the side of his head where he had taken the round that probably knocked him out. I thought fast. Ann thought faster.
She yelled for me to stand up and keep the Zombies off her while she worked on Steve. She ordered Reeves to go get the Hummer and get it over here. Reeves took off towards the dead Koreans to claim the spoils of war and Ann dropped to her knees and started working on Steve. I stood up and started shooting Zombies.
I heard the sounds of a large automatic weapon going off and all the Zombies at the end of the street that I was shooting at started flying apart. Which would have been awesome if the reason for the Zombies flying apart had not been a second Humvee full of Koreans coming around the corner. Knowing it probably would not do any good against an up armored Humvee I went ahead and put a few rounds into the driver’s side of the windshield. The driver veered sharply to the left which exposed the gunner on the top of the car so I went ahead and took advantage of that. I think I got at least one round into him before Reeves pulled up beside us screaming for us all
to get in. The other Humvee had disappeared back behind the building for the moment. Worked for me. Out of sight, out of mind.
I stared at Reeves and it took a second but then he jumped out and helped us get Steve into the backseat. There was blood everywhere. Ann had ripped off most of his clothes searching for the source of the blood and found quite a few bullet holes in the guy. She’d wiped them off, smeared on antibiotic and thrown on field dressings. Ann limped herself into the seat with Steve. She kept working on getting the bandages on more firmly and trying to get him to swallow pills. I jumped in the driver’s seat and Reeves climbed into the turret to man the fifty-caliber gun mounted on the turret in this Humvee.
There was an explosion and a wave of concrete hit the side of our Humvee. We rocked back and forth for a minute with our ears ringing but the armor held. Reeves yelled down he was ok and asked if we could please leave now. I concurred and hit the start button on the Hummer. I started spinning us around as the other Hummer came back around the corner and started sending rounds our way. Reeves returned the favor as I floored the accelerator to get us moving in a direction that would get us someplace that was not there.
I spun us through the warehouse district. Doing my best to lose the guys who had been chasing us. I yelled back to ask Ann how Steve was when Reeves started yelling and shooting again and I saw the attack helicopter headed at us. It had swooped in to come down the street low and bold with its guns right on us. I think they hesitated to shoot as they wanted to make sure we were the right Humvee before they chewed it up with rockets. Major tactical error on their part as Reeves blew them out of the air with machine gun fire before they could get the helicopter back up high enough to be out of range.
We drove past the fiery wreckage of the helicopter and I kept speeding towards sanity. Behind us was insanity for sure. Zombies were catching on fire and melting trying to get in the helicopter at the probably dead pilots and gunners sitting in there. Reeves was busy trying to figure out how to reload the machine gun since we could still hear the other Humvee firing away off in the distance somewhere and we needed to be able to defend ourselves if we suddenly came face to face with it again. Our war on the invaders was begun. We’d gotten about eight of them. They’d knocked Steve into unconscious but that was kind of a routine thing at this point.
Ann asked me to try and find somewhere we could rest so I kept driving until I saw these crappy apartments. I liked them because the doors were solid looking and the walls a nice strong concrete block. We’d gone about five miles from where we had been doing all the shooting so I figured we were probably a safe distance. There was a large carport so I pulled the Humvee in under it to hopefully keep it from being seen by any more helicopters that may be flying around. I went with Reeves and we cleared one of the apartments around the corner for us to get into. We didn’t want to be caught sleeping too close to the Humvee in case it was found by the Koreans but wanted to be close enough to get to it if we needed to.
We carried Steve inside and set him up on the bed in the back of the apartment and helped Ann get him cleaned up, drugged up and wrapped up. We carried in all the supplies we could find in the Humvee. The former owners had been doing some looting so we got some decent stuff as far as weapons and food and water and booze. I made Reeves leave the booze in the car. I promised him he could get wasted and pass out once we got somewhere safe but right now we needed him sober.
That’s my entry. My fingers are killing me. I don’t know how Steve has written so much into this thing. Assuming you wake up and read this Ann said to make sure I put in here that she loves you! Here’s hoping you wake up soon. This place smells bad and I’m trying not to notice the dead roaches on the floor…
Entry 8: My Turn
Ginny insists that while Steve is unconscious he’d still want us to be documenting the awesome sauce that is the apocalypse. She also insists it’s my turn because typing on this little keyboard sucks. She is right about it sucking to type on this little keyboard so I’ll be keeping this entry short and sweet. A lot like me!
Steve is looking a lot better. We’ve been hanging out in this ghetto apartment for a few days now. We’re working really hard on keeping quiet so we don’t have to worry about the place getting surrounded. If we spend too much time here it won’t matter. They always manage to find us.
We haven’t seen the Koreans since we parked and hid up in here. We do see plenty of Zombies going back and forth outside but so far none of them have shown this building any special interest. We have plenty of food and there were some random medical supplies in the Humvee on top of all the supplies I typically carry around in my bag and shoved in my pockets. I’ve kept Steve full of antibiotics and pain killers.
We dug into him the first day we were here with some knives we soaked in rubbing alcohol and made sure he did not have any pieces of bullet stuck in him anywhere. He was so out of it he did not do anything other than moan a couple of times while I dug around inside him with a sterilized butter knife. He had a couple of holes in his side where it looked like the bullets had punched right through. The more concerning wound was actually one that did not even go into his body. It looked like a bullet had grazed along his head and bounced off his skull right above his ear.
I was worried since he had already had so many concussions. There had to be a limit to the number of times someone could have a concussion before their brains got permanently scrambled. I know there had been movies about football players and boxers who ended up spending their old age stupid due to spending the prime of their lives being knocked in the head. I wasn’t too concerned about Steve since I didn’t expect us to survive long enough to have to deal with long term health issues.
I was keeping him in bed and medicated to keep him sleeping so he’d have time to recover a bit. We could actually all use the rest. My ankle still hurt when I put my full weight on it, Reeves needed an orthodontist but was going to have to settle for just having hillbilly teeth. Ginny was the only one who hadn’t added to her scar collection in the last week. Reeves had stayed off the booze but dulled the edge of his pain with pain killers on a pretty regular basis. I was pretty sure we were all going to end up addicted to pain killers but since we spent most of our time in pain I did not really see a great way around that.
I’m thinking it is time for us to start getting ready to move out so I’m going to try and get Steve to start being a lot more conscious. There aren’t enough of us to be able to carry him around so we need him up on his feet and mobile. Preferably able to shoot a gun in the general direction of the enemy. Hopefully, he’ll be back to writing in this thing for the next entry.
Ann out.
Entry 9: Here’s Johnny!
I survived. I’ve lost track of the number of head injuries I’ve gotten since this thing started. My biggest problem with them is that they leave me feeling nauseous. That and the endless brain damage jokes I have to endure.
We hung out in the apartment a few more days. We saw a helicopter fly over one of the days but other than that just random Zombie appearances. The helicopter had the Korean markings on it but Reeves said it was an American attack copter so it looked like they were taking our gear from bases and putting their markings on it. That did not bode well.
We’d also made another discovery when I woke up. The sat phone had gotten damaged to the point where it would not turn on. No way to tell if it happened during the car crashes or when I was busty providing target practice to the Koreans while Ginny took care of the actual killing. Didn’t really matter. We had lost our link to the best hope we had of making a difference in this war.
We talked about whether it still made sense to try and make it over the river and to Portland if we did not have a way to communicate with the Seals. We decided to go for it. The only alternative we really could come up with was going back and hiding. This would mean sitting out the war and we’d still have to deal with the Zombies. We all still wanted to take the offensive to the Koreans. Otherwise, we we
re basically sitting around and letting other people decide if we got to live or die and none of us were good with that approach.
As a group, we unanimously decided forward was the direction we’d keep going. Once our enemy was laying bloody and broken at our feet we’d talk about our other options. I wanted vengeance for Thomas and all the others that had been killed by the callousness of the evil regime from the other side of the world. I wanted to make the land safe again so I could settle down with Ann in peace without sleeping with my hand on a pistol and one eye open every night. I didn’t want to see any more of my friends cold and lifeless. I didn’t want to have to burn or bury any more of them.
We were running low on supplies and getting antsy in the tiny little apartment. It was also starting to stink in there. We weren’t trying to get the Zombies attention by going outside so we’d marked a room off as the latrine area and it was now officially disgusting. We were running seriously low on water which was the one thing we couldn’t live without. We had plenty of ammo and weapons though. Courtesy of the fully stocked Humvee we’d snagged from the Koreans we killed in the firefight.
Ann asked me if I felt healthy enough to move. I couldn’t see out of one eye. My side felt like it was on fire anytime something touched it. I had a headache that wasn’t going away and the Oxy wasn’t even touching. I had rashes going on that were nobody’s business. Also, I had pissed myself this morning when I sneezed. What the hell was up with that? None of this included the standard aches and pains and the fact that I was starving and thirsty.
Zournal (Book 4): Reap What You Sow Page 4