by Tim Yingling
“I don’t like that plan. We have the bike. Let’s just take it with us and get to your daughter faster. We can outrun them.”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to outrun them. I want them in front of us. Plus, we are almost out of gas. We can use that as a reason for dumping the bike.”
“So, you want to waste more time.”
“You really don’t like this do you?”
“No.”
I looked off into the distance of the east. They still weren’t coming, but they would be there soon. I was sure of it.
“I promise, if we find another motorcycle, or even a couple of bicycles, we will take them. Does that sound fair?”
She thought about it for a second. Then she pointed to the southwest. “Over there is a ranch I use to frequent. They had close to fifty horses.”
To me, that meant one thing. “So they had fifty targets for the dead then.”
Her head bobbed from side to side. “Maybe so, but they also had a fence to protect their land. I know how to get through it if we need to.”
“How far away?”
“If we go by road, it would be fifteen miles. We can probably cut well more than half that off if we go cross-country.”
“It’s settled then. We’ll hit up the ranch in the morning. Let’s go find someplace to hide out for the night.”
She nodded this time.
We barely made it a quarter mile south of the road before we heard the bikes. I turned and trotted back to where I could see the road through the trees. I wanted to make sure they would continue on their trek to the west. They didn’t disappoint. They didn’t even see the bike in the ditch. One, I don’t think they were looking for it, which leads into two. Clyde was already on another bike.
They were looking, but they didn’t see me. I stayed where I was for another five minutes. Just to make sure they wouldn’t come back this way. Kate continued on up the path. She was gone the entire time I was checking on the bikers. As I walked back up the path she came around a turn.
“I think I found someplace to hold up for a long time.”
She bounded back around the turn. I had to run to keep up with her. Once I made the turn I saw why she was so happy. The house was enormous. Three stories on top. I could even see a storm door on the side of the house. I didn’t know if that meant a full basement or not, but the doors being opened was enough for me. Not only were the storm doors open but so was the front door. That made me think maybe the house was cleared.
I approached slowly. At least I did until Kate ran past me into the house. She stood in the foyer with her arms out to her side.
“The house is cleared. I already checked it out. We are safe in here. But the most important thing I wanted to show was in the kitchen.”
I followed her through the dining room on the left of the foyer into the kitchen. I didn’t let my guard down. I couldn’t. We were in a new place. An unsafe place. The first thing I noticed entering the house was that the door wasn’t just open. The damn thing was gone. So were the windows. I don’t know what it meant, but I didn’t like it. The house was exposed.
She didn’t care. What she cared about was the pantry filled with food. I knew what she wanted, but she wasn’t going to get it. There was no way I could allow it.
“See, we can stay here until Clyde and Terry stop looking for us. We’ll be safe.”
I grunted. “Safe?”
“Yeah.”
I pointed at the window and the back door in the kitchen. “No window or doors, save for the storm doors. I haven’t seen a single door in the house either. I think this place may be a trap, Kate. I know you see all this food and drink with no one in here and automatically assume we can take it for ourselves, but that ain’t the case. Someone set all this shit up for us to come in here. They’ll wait till we go to sleep then they’ll move and take us.”
“You don’t know that.”
The voice from behind me made her scream. It only made me spin around and raise my rifle. I couldn’t blame either one of us for letting this person sneak up on us. I was talking and blocking Kate from seeing the back door.
“He’s right, missy,” the male voice said. “We mean to do bad things to you two.”
The voice belonged to a teenage boy. No more than fifteen. He wasn’t expecting what I did. Once he saw the rifle raised in his face he dropped his own weapon to raise his hands.
“Don’t shoot mister. We were just trying to get what you have.”
I kept the rifle in his face. “Kate, take his weapon.”
She did as she was told. He didn’t make a move to her. I think he was too scared by the large caliber weapon to do anything.
“Move into the kitchen, kid,” I ordered him. I used my non-firing hand to motion him in. He did. He stopped in the center waiting for me to continue. I let the rifle lower before I spoke. “You said ‘we.’ How many of you are out there?”
He spoke softly. “We have ten people here. Eight of which are hurt.”
“When you say hurt, how bad do you mean? Death hurt or broken bones?”
“Just broken bones.”
“Ernie, are you coming back?” came a young girl’s voice. A second later, she emerged in the doorway. She was younger than Ernie.
“Don’t come in here, Linny,” Ernie said to the girl.
I let my rifle drop all the way. “It’s okay, we aren’t going to hurt you guys. Take me to where you have everyone.”
I looked from the boy to the girl and back again. He nodded his head, leading me out the back of the house. A barn stood a hundred meters from the house. I didn’t see it before because the house was so big it blocked the barn. Ernie led us to the barn. He pulled the door open for me to enter. I didn’t want to because of the last barn I saw, but I did anyway.
As I entered, I slung my rifle. He wasn’t joking. There were eight others in the barn. The only two out of the ten who weren’t injured were Ernie and Linny. Not surprising, the only two kids out of the bunch. Everyone else looked to be collecting a paycheck before the world went to shit. Two of the eight looked to be collecting social security.
I ignored the boy and girl for a minute. I walked up to the injured people. I first came to a woman. I looked into her eyes. They told me one thing. She wanted to die. As I moved down the line, the only set of eyes that didn’t tell me they wanted to die was the oldest man. His eyes said he was dead.
I looked back at Ernie. “What’s going on here?”
“I’m trying to keep my family alive. Giving them what I can.”
I pointed at Linny. “She your sister?”
“Yeah.”
I made it back to the first woman. “She your mom?”
He lowered his head in a nod. He knew what I knew, but didn’t know how he could help them.
“Ma’am, do you want your children to live?”
She couldn’t answer. Delirium had taken over her at some point. It showed in her features, as well as two of the others. The shock was on the others. They wouldn’t know when they turned. Hell, they probably wouldn’t even know if someone shot them.
I looked back up at Linny and Ernie. They were just kids. Linny was about the same age as Debby. I saw Debby in the girl. Ernie, being the oldest, and sanest of the group, thought he was doing the right thing. All he was doing was prolonging the inevitable. I couldn’t leave them in the barn with these people. I also couldn’t leave these people the way they were. I had to take care of this one way or another.
“Kate, take the kids outside. I’ll be out in a few minutes.”
Ernie jumped at what I said. “No! You can’t do this!”
Linny burst into tears. She turned to Kate and said, “You can’t let this happen, Aunt Kate.”
It was Kate’s turn to look scared. She had no reason too. She duped me, yes. But that was okay. I understand why she did it. I only nodded to her.
“Listen,” she said softly. “This needs to be done. Byron knows what he’s doing. He will do
it swiftly and painlessly” – I highly doubt that part – “so just follow me. We need to get things ready to go.”
That part was a bit weird. But I let it go. I had work to do.
I waited until the kids were out of the barn. Their mom finally said something to me when they were gone.
“Thank you for this.”
I nodded to her. I didn’t use my rifle. The machete was going to be just as effective. Of course, after I got done, I would have to burn the barn as well. Just to be sure.
I started with the old man. By the time I got to the kid's mother, the old man was moving again. It seemed that a machete blade to the head wasn’t enough to kill them off. Fire would have to do it.
It took me five minutes to find something in the barn I could use to dose the floor. Maneuvering around the dead was easy enough, but once I found the paint thinner it got a little harder. One thing I did find that helped a little was splashing them with the liquid. They became stunned by the action. They even moved back a bit so as not to get hit again.
With the family members dead, and the barn floor coated with something flammable, it was time for me to move out of the barn.
Kate stood ten feet away from the door with her niece and nephew beside her. They had their faces buried in her side. I didn’t say anything to them yet. I wanted to get the barn going. All I had left was a Bic lighter. I lost my matches somewhere along our trek. It was okay. I found something I could light and tossed it in. The paint thinner caught, moving quickly across the floor. When the flame made it to the zombies, they caught just as quickly. My job there was done. Now I had to take care of the kids.
Ernie turned to me and took a swing. I easily dodged it, pushing him off to the side.
“You don’t want to do this, kid,” I said to him. I didn’t want to do anything to the poor boy. He just lost most of his family. As far as I could tell, only Kate was left.
“Yes I do, you fucker.” The anger emanated from him in waves. It was like heat. I could feel it hit me as he talked.
“No, you don’t.”
“Ernest, please just calm down.”
I put my hand up to silence Kate.
“Let me take care of this.”
She nodded for me to go ahead.
“Ernie, Ernest, I need you to understand something. Your family in there was dying. I honestly think that Kate brought me here because she had to do the same to her parents, your grandparents, last night. I don’t think she could have handled doing that again today. And I don’t think she wanted you to try to handle it either.”
Nothing I said calmed Ernie. “I don’t give a fuck about that.”
“Okay then.” I turned to Kate. “We can’t stay here now. They’ll see the smoke and come for us. Obviously, you lied about knowing this area, so lead us to the ranch.”
“Okay.” She didn’t want to give any more of an answer. I don’t know why. She may have thought I was pissed at her, but I wasn’t. She did what she thought she had to do. That’s all.
She still did as she was told. Linny stayed hugged to her side. Ernie fell in behind Kate. I brought up the rear. We didn’t go back into the house for the provisions. We wouldn’t need them. Once we got to the ranch, I would be going to sleep anyway. I needed some. I would make the others do the same.
We didn’t make it but two miles before I heard the noise. We weren’t on the road. Like Kate and I planned before, we stayed in the woods. It was safer.
The motorcycles were heading to the ranch house. Hopefully, they wouldn’t be able to find our tracks walking away from the place. None of the bikers looked to be of the survival type, so they shouldn’t be able to track at all.
The bikes died down. We continued to walk. Ten minutes after the bikes were shut off, we heard them start up again. They took off in the distance. We didn’t hear them again until two hours later.
After an hour and half of walking with only silence except the soft sobs of the kids, Kate finally talked to me.
“I’m sorry I lied to you, Sarge. I thought if I told you the truth of that place you wouldn’t want to help. You would just keep going.”
Linny peaked out at me from under Kate’s arm. Her blue eyes matched Debby’s. There would have been no way that I would have been able to pass up on helping the kids.
“Kate,” I started, “you should have just told me about this place. We would have come directly here last night. I know why you did it, and you have no reason to feel sorry. Everything is okay with us.”
“Well, I didn’t expect Ernie to come at you with the rifle. But you handled that pretty good.”
“I’m a soldier, not a monster, Kate. I don’t shoot children unless they give me a reason.”
Ernie said, “But I came at you with a rifle.”
I nodded. “Yes, you did. Although, the safety was on. You wouldn’t have been able to get a shot off even if you had a wish to do so. I bet none of you noticed that I didn’t even take the safety off my weapon.”
They shook their heads.
“Once I saw who I was dealing with, I backed off a little, Ernie. You are scared. Just like almost everyone who is still alive in this world. There are a few people out there who are not scared of what is going on.”
“Are you?”
“Yes. I am.” Ernie flinched a little at my answer. “I see you are questioning my response. You don’t know me Ernie, but your aunt does.” – he looked to Kate who nodded – “She knows that my fear comes from me not being with my family just yet. I’m scared because I don’t know what’s happened to them. A few days ago I found a cell phone. I called my wife’s number and got a disturbing message. It’s also the reason I want to hurry and get to Commerce and Pilgrim.”
Ernie stopped. Kate and Linny continued to walk. We were getting close to the ranch. I could hear the horses in the distance. There seemed to be enough healthy ones for each of us to have one to ride. He turned to me and asked, “Why didn’t you just get a car or something and use those.”
“Did you try to travel back and forth between your grandparent’s house and the house we found you at?”
“Yes.”
“Were you able to do so with a car?”
“No.”
“There’s your reason.”
Ernie was about to say something else until I silenced him. Kate came back into view. She had the same look about her as she did at the house in Virginia. Danger was about. I just had to find out where.
“They’re here,” she said.
“Who’s here?” Ernie asked.
“Do you remember my ex-boyfriend Clyde?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, he found me in all this mess and wants me back still. He’s here with eight other people. Terry is one of them.”
“Grandpa Terry?”
Kate’s eyes flashed to me.
“Is he your father?” I asked. My annoyance with her keeping secrets from me was becoming tiresome.
“Yes, he is. I’m sorry.”
I put my hand up, looking at the ground. “Save it, Kate.”
I walked up to where I could see the ranch. It was a big ranch. From a rough count, I figured the number of horses to be in the vicinity of thirty. The number of bikers I could see was only seven.
Ernie joined me, not so silently though. I grabbed him by the neck, forcing him to the ground. My movement was more silent than he ever could be. There was no way the bikers could have heard us anyway. Not only were we a good mile away from them, but the approaching bikes drowned out any noise from anywhere.
I let Ernie back up. The first thing he said was, “If we can get a couple of their bikes, then we could use those instead of horses.”
I pointed to the south. Moving along the fence line were two zombies. I shouldn’t say moving. They more like shambled along. The bikers had plenty of time to react to the zombies. They did so in classic redneck fashion by blasting away at the prey. I watched as the bikers blasted away at the zombies. Chunks of meat and bloo
d flew out of their backs and heads. They didn’t fall to the ground until one of the bikers, I couldn’t be sure but I think it was Terry, used a shotgun on the thing’s legs. The zombies fell face first on the ground. Terry led the charge (this time I was sure of it) to continue to unload on the zombies. They showed no mercy. But they also incapacitated the zombies enough to where they wouldn’t be able to move.
I looked down at Ernie. He was throwing up whatever food he had in his stomach.
“That’s the main reason I don’t want a vehicle. It will attract unwanted attention. Not only from the zombies but also from the unruly ones left in the world. Some dangerous person will hear the vehicle and move to it. Along with anyone else they have. I don’t want to have to kill living people if I don’t have to. I had to a couple of days ago and I didn’t like it. My killing days are over in my mind. But in my heart, I know I will have to kill more people.”
Through wipes of his mouth, Ernie asked, “Then why did you kill my parents, my grandparents, and my cousins?”
I sighed. I don’t think the kid will ever understand why I did what I did. All I could do is continue to explain it to him. Of course, it is only a couple of hours old for him. He is probably still grieving the loss.
“That’s called a mercy killing. Your family was in pain. They knew they were dead. You were just prolonging a life that was never going to be lived again.”
He still didn’t understand. His eyes told me that. I watched him move back into the woods to be with Kate and Linny. From where I was sitting, Kate was already setting up a camp for the night. We didn’t have that many provisions, but we did have enough for each of us to eat. That’s all we wanted.
The sun still wasn’t even close to going down. My watch told me we still had two hours of daylight left. That told me there was still two hours of the bikers doing whatever it was they were doing down there. I didn’t want to know.
Kate leaned back against a tree. She was starting to get tired. I was already there. Linny laid her head on Kate’s lap. Ernie laid on the ground. He stared at the sky through the leaves. I stayed where I could see the bikers. The smell of Ernie’s puke wasn’t becoming, but I could stomach it for the time being.