The other Marines had come running back at the sound of the pistol going off and were trying to figure out what had happened.
“That dog attacked me! It bit me twice! I’m going to shoot it!”
Reeves, Ginny, and I all had our weapons trained on him. The Marines had us in their sites. It was turning into a Mexican standoff.
“Nobody is dying for that gay ass looking dog with the perm. Everybody put your weapons down.” The Marine in charge had returned. He was breathing hard and looked pissed. “Seriously. We don’t have time for this BS. Zombies and Koreans are headed this way right now to investigate all the noise and they will kill us. I do not want to die because dumb-ass over here got bit by a damned Golden Doodle. I am not dying over some damned Doodle!”
It did sound pretty stupid when he said it that way. I slung my rifle and started carrying stuff again. Everyone else did the same. Tim called Daisy and they walked along with us towards the four-wheelers. As we got closer the leader called out to us.
“Hurry up and get on board. We need to be up in these trees on the paths and rolling before the Koreans or the Zombies show up. We’ll probably run into a few Zombies in the woods. Do not shoot them. The noise will just bring more. We’ll handle them if we need to or just drive around them. Climb on the trailers with your stuff and let’s get out of here.”
Ann and I helped Tim and Daisy into the back of a trailer then we piled some gear around them. Ann and I jumped into another trailer and Reeves and Ginny got into another. They had six total ATV setups. They already had stuff in the backs of the trailers so it was a tight fit. I counted eight total marines with us. So far, not a single one had introduced themselves. The four-wheelers got started and we moved onto a narrow trail going through the park.
The trail was obviously not intended for dragging ATVs through with trailers on the back of them and lots of supplies tenuously stacked on top. We were going pretty slow but we were still getting jostled around pretty bad. The trailers were just plain metal trailers. When we hit a bump or a stump it was loud and uncomfortable. We kept going for about five minutes straight then our ATV stopped.
“What’s up?” I asked our driver.
“Killing stop.” The Marine said. Like that explained everything.
“I’m Steve. This is Ann.” I said to him and held out my hand. He grasped it and shook it a few times and the same with Ann.
“John. John Bower. Lance Corporal Bower if you want to get all military and stuff.” He smiled at us. “We have to stop about every five to fifteen minutes on the way back because the Zombies follows us along the trail when we cut through here and on the way back we have to stop and kill them so they don’t build up to the point where we can’t take this trail anymore.”
“Thanks John.” I said. He nodded back then some signal caught Johns attention and he had hopped back on and we were moving back down the trail.
We drove past two dead Zombies with massive head trauma. It looked like somebody had spilt each of their melons with a giant hammer. Remind me not to piss off the guy who was slinging around the sledge hammer. We continued through the park for about three hours. Stopping pretty periodically to smash in Zombie heads.
Finally, a halt was called and we helped to gas the ATVs back up and check our perimeter for Zombies. We seemed safe for now but I liked the way the Marines had two guys patrolling the line to make sure nothing snuck up on us. The leader came back and shook my hand and had us all gather around him.
“I’m Gunnery Sergeant King. I’m the one who gave the order to attack your Hummer. I thought you were Koreans since we didn’t have any assets that should have been in that area. Anyway, sorry about that. On the plus side, we’re not Koreans so we didn’t kill you. Now, tell me who you are and what you were doing in my city?”
“Hey Gunny.” I introduced everybody and we took turns shaking his hand. “We were looking to take the Interstate through the mountains and see if we could join up with the guys in Portland and help out in an anyway.”
The Gunny stared at me hard for a minute. “First of all, thanks for telling me there’s a group of special forces sitting in Portland. Maybe you could just write that on a sign and let everyone see it. I’m assuming they want that kept hush hush. No worries on me telling anybody but loose lips and all that. Second thing, I-70 doesn’t take you very far since we dynamited the mountain side to cause some avalanches. Since everyone seems to trust random people with military assignments I’ll just let you know that our current mission is to make life a pain in the ass for the Koreans around this area and keep any more from traversing this area.”
None of us said anything. What was there to say to that really?
“Ok.” The Gunny continued after he let all that sink in. “Your ride is busted so I suggest you stick with us. We’ll take you back to where we’re currently based out of. You can stay there and regroup and we can talk next steps with you. We have plenty of food and all that. Getting there is a bit dangerous as there has been a lot of Zombie activity lately and if we happen to get cornered in an alley or something that pretty much means death. If you’d rather not risk it we can let you guys off here and you can go on your merry way or you can come with us. Once you come with us and see our base we’re not going to let you leave until we don’t need that base anymore. Loose lips and all that. You’ve got about a minute to figure it out and tell me before we move out.”
The Gunny walked out of earshot to let us discuss amongst ourselves. Not a lot to discuss really.
Ginny summed it up and gave us our answer. “Let’s go with them for now. We can help here in Denver just as much as we could in Portland and it doesn’t seem like we’re getting to Portland anytime soon.”
That worked for us. I caught the Gunny’s attention.
“Hey Gunny. We’re in. We’d also like to help out with your mission while we hang out with you if that sounds good.”
“Outstanding! Mount up and get ready to move out.”
Entry 30: Swift, Silent, Deadly
The mounting up and getting ready to move out turned out to be a little longer than anticipated. Not knowing what the discussion was up in the front we sat in our trailers and waited. Ann tried to get some info out of John but he said he wasn’t sure what the holdup was either. I wondered out loud why the Gunny had us ‘mount up’ so quick if we were just going to sit here.
“Hurry up and wait dude.” John said. “It’s the way of the military. They train you in that from day one where they have you wake up at the crack of dawn and march down to the mess hall to stand in line for an hour until it opens. You think they’re going to let something like a Zombie apocalypse wipe out thousands of years of military tradition?”
That sounded about right. We waited. I was sitting there talking to Ann about how we could help out in Denver and hoping John may chime in on that when a Zombie came busting threw the tree line and threw itself at Ann. The Zombie was a large man and he knocked the whole trailer on its side hard enough to fling me and Ann out of it. The Zombie landed on Ann hard enough to knock the wind out of her. My head hit a stump and made me groggy as hell but I squatted and heaved myself onto the Zombie. I was hanging onto its neck to get the teeth away from Ann and trying to pull out a knife when John and Ginny both got to us at the same time. Both of them stuck the Zombie in critical areas of its anatomy a few times. I went on a wild bull ride but I finally felt the Zombies life force ebb.
“Get off me!” Came some muffled screaming. I realized that Ann was probably approaching the shape of a pancake with the big Zombie and myself both laying on top of her. I got up and John, Reeves and Ginny pushed the large blue corpse off Ann. A pancake covered in strawberry jam. The knife wounds had bled out of the Zombie all over Ann. She was breathing hard and wiping blood and offal off her with a disgusted look on her face. I tried to help her. She slapped my hand.
“Really? I’m covered in blood and you’re trying to grab my butt?” Ann asked with a bit of a crazed look on h
er face. I hadn’t actually meant to grab her butt. She just happened to have a bunch of ragged leaves stuck to the blood there. Zombie blood is like red glue. I wiggled my eye brows at her and tried to wipe some blood off a different area. She smacked my hand away but at least this time she gave me half a smile before she did it.
We started stacking stuff back into the trailer. Reeves and Ginny went back to theirs to mount back up for the hurry and wait portion of this exercise. About ten minutes later the order came down that we were going to have to get off the trailers and walk instead. When we asked why John said he didn’t know. He did explain that another tenet of the military was that people should walk everywhere carrying heavy shit as much as possible. The Gunny came down the line and told each of us to try and get as much critical gear on as we could for a long hike without making much noise. I asked him what was up.
“We sent a guy up ahead to check out the road and the damn thing is crawling in Zombies. Not sure why they are there but they are. We can’t go back the way we came since there are bound to be Zombies or Koreans there by now waiting to kill us. We just need to go stealth mode and hike through the woods until we find a place we can come out and get on the road. All your team can walk, right? No injuries or anything I need to know about?”
I thought about it. “We’ve all had our share of injuries but with the exception of Tim I’m pretty sure we can all walk as far as we need to. Maybe just let him carry a weapon and some water and leave the heavy crap to the rest of us.” The Gunny nodded and kept moving down the line. His plan made sense, if we turned on the four-wheelers now the noise would eventually attract the horde of Zombies. What we needed right now more than anything was complete silence. I agreed with the Gunny that the slightest noise right now could mean death.
Daisy started barking. We’re talking barking like crazy. I heard the Gunny yell at Tim to shut the dog up or he’d shoot her. We heard the barks change to muffled growls and squeaks as Tim wrapped his hands around Daisy’s muzzle to try and shut her up. She started whining pitifully. Then the Zombies came. Instead of trying to shut Daisy up we should have paid attention to our furry early warning system.
Zombies started popping up out of nowhere. I happened to be next to a trailer so I pulled two hatchets out of it. All my other weapons were strapped to me. I focused on the Zombie who was running at me with his hands stretched out to grab me. The Zombie had eyes only for me so hit the trailer with its legs and went face first into the trailer. I’d been hoping that would happen. I took a step forward and brought down the back of the hatchet hard into the back of the Zombies head. There were screams from up and down our line. I hoped most of them were from Zombies. If the numbers the Gunny had told were accurate there was no way for us to hold this line now. The horde would be on the way. We needed to be out of here.
John was waiting for orders with a look of panic on his face. I knew most these marines and sailors we had run into had spent a good portion of the apocalypse sitting on board a carrier or some other ship or sub out in the fleet. The Koreans had specifically targeted military bases and personnel with the virus so most of the military who were not deployed had been wiped out in the early days of the outbreaks. This meant we had more experience fighting the Zombies than most of the military guys we ran into. The Gunny ran back to where I was standing. I had the basis of an idea in my head.
“Yo Gunny! We can’t outrun this many of them in these woods. They’ll be on top of us any minute now coming from all directions. We need to retreat as fast as we can on these four-wheelers, go a few miles then ditch them and go on foot around the two Zombie clusters. That work?”
Gunny did not waste time or breath responding. He just started barking out orders.
“Get these four-wheelers turned around and moving back the way we came from! Now! Go live fire now! Go live fire now!” With that he turned and pulled out his pistol and ran for his ATV. Ann was standing off to the side with her AK-47 while John maneuvered the four-wheeler back and forth on the narrow trail to get it turned around. I looked up ahead and Ginny and Reeves were covering their driver as well. I heard some sporadic shots being fired over the sound of the four-wheeler engines. I yanked out my Beretta and looked into the woods behind Ann to keep her from getting jumped.
Ann’s rifle went off twice so I figured she must have gotten one. None were coming from the other side so I snuck a look back and saw a dead little girl laying on the side of the trail. John had stopped driving and was staring at the little girl. The girls’ legs stuck out from underneath a dirty ass t-shirt. The legs were blue and veiny. The back of the girls’ head had a gaping hole in it that was bordered by blood and brain matter. I yelled at John to get the ATV turned around now. He ignored me so I went and slapped him. He stared at me with his tears running down his face but he got back to work on flipping the ATV back around.
I looked ahead of us down the trail and Reeves and Ginny were still guarding their driver. I had heard a few shots come from that direction. From up the line closer to the road the gunfire started being pretty constant. The single shots turned into multiple shots and then turned into full auto as we all heard the screams of the horde starting to surround us. I started shooting at Zombies I saw moving towards us and past us through the trees. Ann was shooting constantly. John had pulled out his weapon and was starting to shoot to.
“John! We’ll cover you! Get the wagon here turned around right now or we’re dead!” I yelled as loud as I could and he must have heard me somehow over the din. Up ahead there were some muffled explosions as grenades went off. Smoke was pouring through the woods behind us now. Ann and I jumped in the trailer as John finally got the damn thing turned around. Up ahead we saw Reeves and Ginny sitting in the trailer with their rifles pointed out on different sides of their trailer spewing gouts of flame as they fired into the surge of Zombies trying to overwhelm us before we could get out of there.
“Go! Go! Go!” I screamed as loud as I could. I saw Reeves jump out and then their trailer moved way up on the side of the trail to go around something. As I was watching him about five Zombies came at us on the side Ann was covering. She laid into them in full on auto and they went sliding to their deaths and she started swapping out her clip. I still just had a pistol out so was not ready for the ten or so Zombies coming at us on the left as about three more came through the smoke behind us and one jumped at us form the other side. I just tried to shoot as methodically as I could.
It wasn’t enough. John had pulled out to follow Reeves but had slowed down to go around the body of the girl Ann had shot earlier. He was staring down at the girl as I saw a Zombie run straight at him and take him down. The Zombie and John both went tumbling to the ground and the ATV came to a stop. I jumped out to help John and got tackled to the ground by another Zombie. That Zombies head blew up in my face as Ann put a point-blank bullet through its skull. I pushed the body off of me and looked towards John. A zombie had bit off half the guys face and was trying for more. Three or four other Zombies had crawled up and started gnawing on different parts of him. He was screaming loud. Ann went back to automatic mode on her weapon and stitched a pattern of death and through the little group of John and his attackers, putting John out as well since there was no way he was making it out alive from that.
I jumped into the driver’s seat and yanked on the throttle to get us going as fast as we could. We’d driven the ATVs super slow coming through the forest. About the same as a regular walking pace. This had been to keep the noise level down so we did not alert the Zombies we were here as well as not to bounce us out of the trailers every time we hit a stump. The plan to not be heard had obviously failed. As I started moving, Ann had jumped back into the trailer and was still firing as fast as she should reload. I saw what Reeves had driven around.
The two ATVs in the back of our little convoy were covered in feasting Zombies. Somewhere in that pile of flesh Tim was either already dead or breathing his last. I didn’t see any sign of Daisy. I got aro
und all of that as the Zombies who were not able to get at the buffet looked up and started lunging for us. Ann kept the bullets flying and I kept us on a path that bumped us all over the place but managed to get us through. I gunned the engine again and went flying around a curve in the trail then I slowed down and turned the handlebars the other way as I remembered we had to go past another pretty steep turn around a big rock.
We came around the corner and I saw that Reeves must not have remembered the big rock. Reeves was laying on the ground. The ATV front was smashed up into the big rock. Ginny was standing guard over Reeves with a determined look on her face while she kept kicking him and telling him to wake up. I slammed the brakes on and jumped out and ran to pick up Reeves. Ann had already moved to the driver’s seat on our ride. Ginny grabbed a couple boxes of ammo out of the trailer and ran to go sit down in it. Good choice.
I picked up Reeves, cussing at his insistence to continue drinking cheap beer which made him way heavier than he needed to be. Seriously, who gains weight in a freakin’ apocalypse? I hefted him up and into the trailer of our ride then climbed in with him and Ginny. Ginny was already laying down fire behind us as a few Zombies had come running down the trail. There would be a lot more on the way any second now. I almost fell out of the trailer as Ann started us going back down the path. I should have jumped on the four-wheeler behind her instead of where I was sitting now.
Zournal (Book 4): Reap What You Sow Page 16