It took Reeves about twenty minutes and he made some pretty loud, Zombie attracting, metal banging noises but eventually he started pushing the gate and it rolled out of the way. Ann drove through the opening with me sitting on the turret ready to ignore any pain and rock and roll if needed. Thankfully there was no rock and roll needed. We drove through and decided to leave the gate open in case we needed to make a quick getaway.
The driveway wound through a field with some large trees in it. There was a cool little wooden bridge that went over a small creek. As we got closer to the estate, I was staring at the roof. I saw what I had hoped to see. There were solar panels up on top of the roof. We may be getting real lucky with this random staycation. Ann drove us into the circular driveway and parked in front of the house.
The estate or mansion or whatever you like calling big ass houses was a two-story monstrosity. There was a five-car garage with all the doors shut. The house itself looked like it was easily seven to ten thousand square feet of living space based on looking at the outside of it. Ann stayed on the guns and I stayed on the turret as Reeves got out and moved towards the front door. He tried the door knob. It didn’t turn so must be locked. He tried our standard approach of rapping on the door to see if anyone were home.
A dog started barking from inside the house. Reeves took a step back. I almost opened up with the machine gun out of surprise. We had not seen or heard many pets since this all started. I think most of the loud ones had been eaten by Zombies. The curtains beside the door moved to the side and a giant dog with a really bad perm became visible. The dog was barking at Reeves like crazy but its tail was wagging at the same time. We were being attacked by a large bipolar dog with messed up hair.
The front door opened and an old man with a shot gun stepped out and aimed the shot gun at Reeves. Reeves aimed his AK-47 at the guy, Ann was suddenly standing beside the Hummer with her pistol aimed at the guy, Ginny had magically woken up and was leveling her hunting rifle at the guy through an open window on the Hummer, and I had the fifty pointing right at him. The guy scanned around him then started talking in a loud and firm voice.
“You’re on my land, at my house. You woke up my dog. Put your weapons on the ground and turn around and leave right now and no one gets hurt.”
Dude had balls. Unfortunately, our balls were bigger and I was really excited about the solar panels. I glanced at Reeves and then started talking.
“I’m Steve. We didn’t know this was your house. How long have you been here? What’s your name?”
The guy focused on me and swung the gun in my direction to answer the questions. As soon as the gun moved Reeves jumped forward and grabbed it by the barrel and shoved it down. The guy must have pulled both triggers because a large portion of concrete chips flew out and hit the Hummer. A dust cloud temporarily obscured the old man and Reeves from our sight. Once the dust cleared, we saw that Reeves was sitting on the old guy and holding the shot gun. Both of them were covered in white powder. Reeves coughed but flashed me an Ok sign.
“Is there anyone else in the house?” I asked the man after Reeves had frisked him and let him sit-up and we gave him a bottled water to wash down the dust.
“Nope. Just me and the dog.” He looked pretty pissed that Reeves had jumped him and taken his gun.
“Ok. Is this your house? How long have you been here?” I asked him.
“Nope. This was one of my clients. He owned an IT Training company. Made a ton of money. Gave most of it away to ex-wives but kept enough to build this house. I was his CPA and played golf with him every once in a while. He was out of town when all this stuff started happening. I came out to see if he was still here and because I figured a big house with solar panels and a big fence around it may make a good getaway. Been living here ever since. Any more questions or can I get up now?”
I looked over at Ann. She shrugged. Reeves had already wandered over to open the door to the house and was busy playing with the dog. The dog itself was a large hairy monstrosity. I’d never seen one like it.
“She’s a Golden Doodle. Names Daisy. She was actually Ben’s dog. His last ex-wife bought her and then left her when she took off with Ben’s former CFO. Good trade if you ask me. I really like the dog.”
The dog in question was currently freaking out about meeting new people and jumping all over Reeves. He looked like he was in pain. I decided to let him handle that himself. I walked over to the man and held my hand out.
“I’m Steve. The beautiful woman pointing the gun at you is Ann. The domestic abuse victim in the backseat is Ginny. The guy currently getting raped by your dog is Reeves. We pulled in here just to get off the road and lick our wounds for a little while before continuing on. We don’t plan on hurting you as long as you’re cool. We would like to crash here a few days at least though.”
“Yeah. That’s fine. Especially as you have the guns and all so I don’t have much choice in the matter. Looks like it’s a hard world out there. I saw the beginning of everything but have been pretty much safe here since then. I’m dying to hear what you guys can tell me. My names Tim Miliot.”
Reeves looked up from where he was slowly winning the battle against the smiling dog. “Please tell me this place has a nice, fancy liquor cabinet? You basically just invited Steve to read our story out of his phone and I need a big glass of something to help me through hearing all that again for the tenth time. What have you been feeding this dog? Based on the breath I’m thinking rotten onions and cow shit.”
Tim laughed. “Yep. That dogs been eating whatever she’d able to dig up in the backyard or catch plus I’ve been sharing some of Ben’s stash with her. Ben was a bit of a hoarder. You’ve heard of the dooms day guys who like to stock up on stuff in case the end of the world comes along? He was one of them, except he was rich so his stuff is high quality. He talked about it a lot. Probably one of the reasons for the frequent divorces. Anyway, I was trying to think how to not tell you guys about it but it’ll be pretty obvious when we go in the house.”
“Thanks Tim. We’re not planning on robbing you. We didn’t know you existed until five minutes ago. If you have enough to help us out for a few days that would be awesome. If not, we can all go out and see what we can find. Maybe leave you a little better off than when we got here. For now, let’s get our stuff moved in so we can check out the liquor cabinet you were talking about.”
Entry 23: What? No Showtime???
Tim was good company. He had a very dry sense of humor and was just an all-around nice guy. He tended to talk too much but I attributed that to his not having been around people in well over a year. I didn’t really expect older, retired CPA types to be the best at social interaction anyway. More like awkward pauses and questions about the tax code. Tim was an avid reader and he had spent a good deal of time outdoors. He had some good ideas on how this could have all happened and ways to deal with some of the issues we were facing.
He also had enough food to feed ten people for about five years or so. The entire basement of this place was a huge stockpile of food and survival gear. The weapons were crap as evidently one of Bens wives had not wanted him to have any guns in the house but the food was really crazy. A lot of it was straight out of an astronaut’s lunch tray. Just add water kind of stuff but it was high quality. Tim had a working stove, television, DVD player, shower, and all kinds of other crap that we had all been dreaming of. I love renewable energy.
It was a flashback to the other home we’d briefly stayed in. The one we’d been chased out of by Zombies who showed up out of nowhere after we’d been there for a while. I explained to Tim it would very likely happen to him since the shotgun had gone off. It may take a week or two but at some point, large groups of Zombies would probably be wandering around the property. We had gone back and shut the front gate but not too sure how long that would keep them out.
Otherwise, this place was an oasis in a desert of despair. I was sitting on a leather couch with the ceiling fan going watching T
op Gun on a DVD player hooked up to a big screen TV while drinking a COLD beer. My back was slowly healing up. My neck still hurt to move. Ginny’s face still looked like she had head-butted a charging bull but she swore she felt way better. Reeves and Ann were both fine physically. I think the relaxation was good for them to though. It was giving us all a chance to get our faculties back around us. A chance to remember what it was like to be a regular human. It was wonderful. It was depressing as hell.
We all knew it was just a matter of time before we’d be back on the road. Headed towards what would probably be our deaths. None of us brought it up. Not in those first few days anyway. We all knew it would be time to start planning again soon enough.
Ginny did not touch the video game systems that were positioned on the entertainment center. It looked like Ben had all the systems and games imaginable tucked away neatly. We all knew she was remembering the time she had spent at the other house with Thomas. They had spent days in that little room with the video games. It had honestly been one of the few times I had seen both of them acting like normal, annoying teenagers. Seeing those games and remembering that weighed heavy on all of us.
Tim had listened with minimal interruption to the Zournal as I had read the first half of it out loud. I’d started getting into a lot of Thomas stuff and all that so I made up the excuse that I was getting a bit drunk so if he wanted he could read it on his own. Also, I was getting pretty drunk. Did I mention the beer was cold? Did I mention we were in one of the safest places we had been in since this started and it was chock full of food?
Tim had finished up the Zournal and handed it back to me. Then he had gone and gotten himself a beer and sat down with the rest of us. After asking if any of the rest of us wanted anything he let us know he was sorry for all of our losses. He thanked us for sharing our story with him. He said he had a hard time believing we were still alive after going through all that. He held off that night but here he came and when Top Gun ended he asked the question we’d all been avoiding.
“You guys sure you want to go rushing off to attack an army you don’t really have a chance at beating? I agree they should die for what they did. If we had some way to throw them all into the ocean I’d be the first one to pull the trigger on that plan. I like all of you though. You’re crashing my house and eating all my food and probably attracting a zillion Zombies to the place I could have safely lived out the rest of my life in but I like you.”
We all sat there quietly. I think we all agreed with him. The course we were currently on was suicide. We’d been letting a desire for vengeance map eclipse our common sense. Yes, they needed to suffer and die. Yes, we needed to be a part of that. Did we have a chance in hell of somehow killing them all without any help? No. Did any of us want to die? No. You couldn’t have survived all this crap without an insane amount of self-preservation built into your psyche.
I was on this course because Ann was dead set on it and I wasn’t going to leave her. Reeves was with us out of loyalty to the whole group. Ginny had been falling in love with Thomas and had that teenage angst thing going on. Ann had loved Thomas. She had been a second mother and a protector to Thomas. She felt guilty for the boy’s mother dying and for him dying. Neither death had been her fault and she had given them both the best chance at living. The actual Koreans who had pulled the trigger and put Thomas on the ground were dead. We’d left their bullet riddled corpses laid out on main street in Dollywood for the world to see. I assumed they had quickly become a Zombie buffet.
Ann started crying. Great. Now what do I say? I decided to follow my own advice and not say anything. Never say anything to a crying woman if you’d had more than one beer. That’s a rule of thumb every man should have tattooed on the inside of their eye lids. It should be printed on T-Shirts and proudly displayed in large block letters on the sides of coffee mugs. I simply held her and kept my stupid mouth shut.
Entry 24: The Path Less Taken
Ann asked me for a bottle of water. I was anxious to get away from the crying and do something for her. Especially something that would help make her stop crying, I virtually sprinted for the water. I brought her back two bottles and a couple of napkins so she could wipe away her tears. Ginny had moved to sit beside her and they were holding hands now and whispering back and forth. Not seeing any room for me I went and sat down beside Reeves. He tried to hold my hand. I hit him in the shoulder.
Ann and Ginny were now staring at us. Really. I went with staying quiet. Reeves went with asking Ann if she was Ok. He laughed a little while he said it so he lost points. The hand holding thing had been funny. I was doing my best not to crack a smile. Ann gave me a long hard look. Ginny shook her head. Tim just sat there waiting to see what we’d say in response. When it came to what we were doing next in regard to the Koreans we were all letting Ann run with the vengeance thing as long as she wanted. All of us were willing to back her up on it. Even if it meant going down in a blaze of glory in the middle of nowhere shooting at people who had no idea who we were or why we were shooting at them.
Ann took a few more minutes to get herself under control. Both her and Ginny shot Reeves and I a few extra dirty looks to make sure we understood they were pissed at us. Reeves probably thought that made it funnier but wisely kept his mouth shut. Tim brought another water and a fresh napkin over for Ann. I probably should have done that. Whoops. Ann cleared her throat and when she spoke it was with conviction.
“I don’t want any of us to die. I’m not trying to get us killed. I do want to kill those bastards for doing this to us though. I want to hurt them. They caused my sister to die then they shot my nephew down right in front of me. They tried to kidnap me and make me some kind of wife slave. I don’t think we can just go somewhere and try to live a normal life hidden away in the woods if we let those bastards take over our country. Not after what they did. I have no idea how we hurt them but I want to hurt them.”
“We all want them dead and gone.” Ginny said. “We just need to figure out how to do it without us getting hurt too bad.”
“I’d be happy with a thirty to forty percent chance at survival. If we could get a plan up in that range then hand me a flamethrower so I can barbeque some Koreans. If we’re just going to charge them head on then I’m with you guys until the end but I’d really rather we found another way to be useful. Maybe if Steve here hadn’t busted up the sat phone.” Reeves looked over at me.
“Sorry I busted up the sat phone while I was unconscious. I know what you mean though. If we could contact the Lt then he may be able to give us something useful we could do.”
“Excuse me.” We all looked over at Tim. “I read through the parts where you met the Lt and where you told him what you were doing. Seems like he did not like the idea but he did tell you to head for Portland and try to team up with the men they already had there.”
“Then you also read the part where the only way we had to communicate with them got smashed into a million pieces back in Tennessee.” I shot back, wondering where he was going with the Portland stuff. Probably trying to get us out of his house before we ate all of his food.
“If there are Seals based in Portland don’t you think they’ll notice if you guys roll up in a Hummer?”
Oh. That made a lot of sense. I wasn’t sure how big Portland was but you had to figure a military presence there meant they had surveillance posts and cameras and all that tech spread out throughout the city. Those guys were the ones on the front line for the US attempt to throw the invaders back into the ocean and hold their heads under until they stopped moving. I’d liked the part Ann had said about being able to settle down and live semi-normal lives once we had broken the backs of the attackers. That white picket fence in the wastelands of suburbia sounded pretty damn good to me.
Teaming up with the actual military would also put us in a spot where we would have access to the best weapons, the best supplies, and people who knew the best tactics. We would have access to actual intel versus going off of
what we had heard a few months ago as a vague rumor. Being the military, they would not tell us everything but anything would be more than we knew now. I wasn’t worried about them refusing our help since we’d have them get in touch with the Lt so he could tell them we were pretty useful people to have around. I also imagined they were low on personnel at this point. They could try the draft but about 95% of the people who got the letter would probably fail the physical due to being blue and psychotic and trying to eat the guy who does the physicals.
There was a good chance they’d use us as cannon fodder. Send us in as ‘lost civilians’ or whatever to try and gather intel and report back. We’d have to explain that based on what we’d seen so far, they’d kill me and Reeves and turn Ginny and Ann into breeding stock. We’d have to cross that bridge if we came to it. At the moment, I was just happy for Tim having given us something that actually resembled a plan. A plan that probably only increased our survival odds into the low teens but still better than the single digit chance we had before.
Zournal (Book 4): Reap What You Sow Page 12