Zournal: Book 3: Scorched Earth

by R. S. Merritt

  The Zombies heard the noise too. The fury of their assault on the credit union tripled. We continued emptying clips into the wave of flesh beginning to crest over the side of the credit union. The Seals were down to sidearm as they used each shot judiciously. The helicopter flared and a basket came down. As soon as it was close, two of the adults jumped in and it started being reeled up. The third man on the roof had a machete in one hand and a hammer in the other. I snuck a quick peek over in between swapping out clips and saw that both Seals had hand weapons out as well.

  We continued to rain down fire. Our shots were danger close to the people we were trying to protect. I had sweat dripping down my forehead from the intensity of the fire fight. My whole world had descended to the scope on my rifle as I carefully cycled through each clip. Trying to knock out the most serious threats to the Seals while not placing the shots too close to them. Finally, the basket descended back down. The civilian and one of the Seals climbed in it. As it started being reeled up, the other Seal jumped and hung on to the bottom of it. Pulling himself up out of reach of the Zombies who now totally covered the roof of the credit union. The helicopter flew away from the building slowly while reeling them in, then disappeared out of view.

  “Thanks for the assist!” I had forgotten the speaker phone was still on. I grabbed it and turned the volume down. Now that the helicopter had left, we were trying to go into silent mode before the Zombies figured out where the other noise had been coming from. The Lieutenant continued, “We wouldn’t have made it if you hadn’t helped out. I know how hard it is to break silence and what pulling the trigger means for your survival chances now-a-days so we really appreciate it! I’m not even pissed that one of you shot me in the foot!”

  Whoops.

  “Sorry about the foot. It was probably Reeves. He was in the army.”

  “That explains it! Anyway, try turning your phone on and checking in every once in a while. Let us know if you need any help or see anything we should know about. We’ll be looking out for you! Big Brother out!”

  The line went dead as the Lieutenant killed the connection. Probably to go find a bandage for his foot. Or thread to reattach his toe depending on how bad it was.

  Entry 15: Inventory

  We quietly went back down the hole into the store. A lot of the Zombies had noted the sound of gunfire coming from the roof and wandered over to pound on our wall. Several of them had worked themselves around to the front of the store, where they were busy pounding on the cage out front. The plan was the same as normal. We would sit on our hands in between the shelves and be as quiet as possible until they got bored and wandered away.

  I fiddled around with the adapters that came in the box with the sat phone handset. I figured out how to hook it up to charge off of the solar charger I had. We sent Ginny up the ladder to set it out that night so it could charge the next day. Then we spent the rest of the night hoping it wouldn’t rain, since none of us had thought of that when we put it out on the roof. The sat phone was pretty ruggedized, worse case we’d need to go break into a Best Buy somewhere and try to find another solar charger.

  Other than that, we sat. We ate and drank and descended into the depths of boredom that were our lives now. I read the manual for the sat phone for the fifth time, this time with a lot more interest since we’d decided we might as well use it. The military up here seemed a lot better than those assholes we had run into in Jacksonville. I looked over at Ann who was halfway through the first aid book, again. It was going to be a long wait. On the plus side, Thomas was looking good. His skin was back to a normal color. If it wasn’t for his bound-up arm we had tried to set he’d be looking pretty normal.

  In whispers, we started planning and brainstorming for our next steps. We had been here way too long. The noise that had been generated here during the firefight had attracted so many Zombies we were wandering how long we would have to wait for them to disperse and thin out to the point where we would have a chance if we tried to make a run for it. The sat phone survived the day charging outside, we went ahead and turned it on and requested they let us know as the Zombie menace cleared out of the area. They had a satellite positioned to view the area and could tell as the area cleared out.

  We had used a lot of ammo saving the Seals. Luckily, we had been dragging around a lot of ammo. Because, you never can have enough ammo. After the firefight to save them we had gone through a large chunk of it though. We were down to a couple hundred loose bullets for the AK’s which we were spending our free time loading into clips. We still had about a thousand rounds of the .22 caliber ammo for the two .22 rifles we were carrying around. Which would be great if we ran into a bunch of Zombiefied squirrels. Otherwise, the .22 ammo was basically on par with being better than throwing rocks. We had not touched our sidearm ammo so still had a few hundred of those rounds. All the ammo was always stored and ready to go by our bugout bags. It weighed a ton and sucked to carry but leaving it behind was tantamount to grabbing a cement block and jumping off a bridge.

  We’d been in the drugstore long enough now that the endless supply of water bottles had proven themselves to be finite after all. We had literally drunk our way through a few pallets already. We did still have more water than we’d probably be able to get onto the Hay Ride before the Zombies were on top of us so I considered us good to go on water.

  Random food was everywhere. We had eaten through a lot of it though. The stuff left mostly needed water and a microwave or something along those lines to work. We’d grabbed boxes full of easy to carry food and positioned them near the front door we envisioned exiting out of to get to the Hay Ride.

  We were Breaking Bad on drugs. We’d cleaned out all the first aid supplies and drugs. We had enough gummy vitamins in boxes to keep us pumped full of Vitamin A – Z for the rest of our natural lives. Assuming our natural lives in this day and age would probably only run another five years max. We would never have to worry about suffering the symptoms of a cold again. Antibiotics and painkillers went in the bug out bags and the rest of it we shoved in boxes from the back of the store.

  We felt pretty good about our supplies. We turned the sat phone on once a day with one of our heads shoved through the hole in the roof. The satellite they were using to check this area only went by once a day close enough to check out the ground. So far, it was still a Zombie Lollapalooza out there. Lt. Wilson did let us know that all the kids on the roof and the three adults had made it safely to the military base and were going to survive thanks to us calling them in. Of course, he also mentioned he was going to be walking with a limp for a bit. I had replied it was better to be walking with a limp than be rotating around a Zombies bowel. He had instantly agreed.

  The plan, such as it was, was to give the Zombies some more time to disperse. We were willing to sit here and wait another week or two if need be. Once the coast was deemed clear enough, we would open the front door, sneak as much stuff as possible into the back of the Hay Ride and drive away. We kept the plan simple since we assumed it would get all screwed up once we started trying to actually implement it. We needed the Zombies to cooperate on the first step and leave.

  Assuming we made it out of this town, the plan was to head for the highway. We had used a map taken from the rest stop to map out a route over to Tennessee. One of the sat phone updates had been that the Zombies on the highway had cleared out. Of course, they were all sitting around our building now so that was great. Ginny brought up another concern that had not occurred to the rest of us.

  “We need to hurry, if we want to make it through before it snows.” She threw this little gem out there after we had spent an hour carefully checking different routes into Tennessee. Another modern-day issue. There would not be any salt trucks driving around, or those scraper trucks. We were basically back in the stage wagon days as far as crossing the mountains went. That started a clock running on when we needed to get out of here that had not been a top of mind concern before. Nothing like a little added stress on
top of what we were already dealing with.

  We quietly got all of our supplies organized. We stacked them as close to the front doors as we could get without risk of being seen or heard. We stacked them in such a way that the most important stuff was within easy reach to get on the trailer. If we were rushed by Zombies, a lot of the latter boxes were nice to haves rather than essentials. Basically, it went, ammo, weapons, drugs, water, food, toiletries, and everything else.

  Once we had organized and talked the plan through around a thousand times, we tentatively set a ‘roll-out’ date for two weeks out and settled in to wait. I busted open a Sudoku book and after about five minutes decided Sudoku was a freakin pointless waste of time. Also, I couldn’t figure out how to do it. It was going to be a long two weeks.

  Entry 16: Keep Rollin’, Rollin’, Rollin’

  The two-week mark came and went. The Zombies had decided to hunker down in town here, or just didn’t have anywhere else to go. From watching the tractor out front we had also figured out that a handful of the Zombies were using it to sleep in at night now. We were already eating and drinking out of the boxes we had set aside to bring with us. At this point, we’d be humping ammo and nothing else.

  We knew the offer stood to get picked up in a whirly bird chariot and dropped off wherever we needed to go. We were all just worried that the ‘wherever we needed to go’ offer would wind up being back in some base. Our problem with going back to a base is we all distrusted being some there with a large group of people. That was typically a recipe for disaster now a days.

  After much talking and consideration, we decided we needed to go soon or we were going to be screwed regardless. The air was already starting to take on a chill. We were running low on supplies. We may have also have all had a pretty bad case of cabin fever. We’d been living in between aisle six and seven for so long it had started to feel permanent. I’m sure it smelled pretty rank but we were all used to it. We did take breaks to go up on the roof, but we tried to limit that to keep from making any noise the Zombies may interpret as food living here.

  For no other real reason, we opted to give it a try that night. We had already located the special pins to unlock the doors so we should be good to go there. We were going to open the doors, Ann, Reeves and I would get in the back of the wagon and kill anything sleeping back there as quickly and quietly as possible. Then we would load in as many supplies as we felt comfortable with, based on noise levels and whatever started happening around us. Reeves was then in charge of starting up the tractor and getting us out of there at high speed. We’d mapped out a fairly unobstructed route we could take while laying up on the roof looking down on the streets.

  The tractor wasn’t a race car, but it got up to a decent enough speed where we should be able to get the hell out of there. I took watch and everyone else went to sleep, to try and be as alert as possible for what was anticipated to be a pretty terrorizing mad dash to freedom.

  I woke everyone up at midnight. Everyone went to the bathroom, which was actually just a horribly disgusting collection of containers around a deep sink in the back of the store. We all reviewed the plan and made any last-minute adjustments to our psyches. Ann, Reeves and I were fixing to have to hop into the back of a trailer and kill people. They may be messed up, blue demon people who would rip into us with their teeth given half a chance but they still looked like people. I silently prayed there would not be any children in the back of the trailer. Killing adults coming at you was one thing, anytime it was a kid it was infinitesimally harder.

  We stacked up on the door. Ginny was in charge of opening it then monitoring the situation with her and Thomas still safely inside. Thomas had recovered to the point where he was pretty good with the one arm and his trusty stair pole, but he wasn’t going to be hopping into any wagons to participate in the murder of innocents anytime soon. Speaking of which, it was time for us to put on our game faces and get to work.

  Ginny fumbled around and got the latches undone except for one that was being stubborn. We all ended up monkeying around with it before Ann finally got it figured out. It took us long enough that we’d kind of forgotten why we were standing there and had to get back into the massacring mood again. Taking a couple of breaths to get my courage up I lead the way out the door and over to the trailer. Not bothering to freak myself out by thinking about what I was doing I went ahead and clambered directly into the trailer.

  For the silent removal of whatever Zombies may be snoozing in the trailer we each had a couple of large kitchen knives, $39.99 for a set including the block to keep them in. We would sneak up on the sleeping Zombie, put the knife to their throat and plunge it in as hard as we could. This should kill them and keep them quiet. Hard to scream with a knife severing your windpipe. None of us had ever attempted anything similar before, but it was the best we could come up with so full speed ahead!

  I didn’t see any zombies at first. The trailer was covered with a thin cloth roof, so it was pretty dark inside. I moved slowly towards the front of the trailer. I stopped about halfway there once I saw what we had to deal with. There was about seven or eight Zombies in a pile at the front. They were all kind of snuggled up together every which way. It would be a game of human pick up sticks to try and take them out one by one without making any noise. I didn’t see it happening. Even if we each were able to get one down each on the first try, that left four more to go. No way we killed the first three without waking up the others. Any of them waking up and doing there screaming thing pretty much spelled the end for us. I was going to have to call the ball on this one.

  Reeves and Ann had both climbed up into the trailer and were looking at me. It was pretty obvious to both of them as well that this was not happening. I did a little twirly bird with my pointer finger and we all carefully got down from the trailer and went back to the door to the drug store. Ginny opened up and we went in and told Ginny and Thomas what we had seen. Ginny started asking questions.

  “If all five of us got up there and killed one each would that make it doable?”

  “Could we load most the stuff on the trailer before we tried killing them?”

  “Can we unhook the tractor portion and just get out of here on that instead?”

  All of those questions raised valid points. After a few minutes of hurried and hushed conversation we went with loading some of the boxes quietly in the back of the trailer, then all of us moving into kill position over the sleeping Zombies. If we each took out one Zombie fast, Reeves could haul ass to the tractor and get us moving while we took out the remaining two Zombies. After a little more discussion, we decided Reeves would go ahead and get in the front with Ginny after loading some boxes. Ann, Thomas and I would just use AKs to kill the Zombies in the back instead of trying to do the knife thing. It was going to mean a lot of noise, but we had a pretty clear shot out of town. We’d just shoot our way out.

  I don’t think any of us were filling great about the plan but none of us saw any real alternatives so we decided to go ahead and go for it. Ginny got the door open and we very quietly started placing boxes in the back of the trailer. We had Thomas up in the trailer with a nine millimeter while I carried the boxes and handed them to Ann, who was also in the back of the trailer. Thomas had his gun trained on the sleeping Zombies. Reeves and Ann were getting in position and getting ready to start the tractor. There signal was going to be the first gunshot.

  I got the first six boxes in and decided that was enough. It was awe inspiring we had gotten this many in without making any noise. I went ahead and climbed up in the trailer. Ann handed me a rifle. We walked to the back of the trailer. Reeves had made it pretty clear he did not want to get shot in the back so we got our angles and firing lanes right to start blasting away at the Zombies without killing Reeves and Ginny. Ginny had been almost as adamant about us not shooting her. They had wanted to be the ones doing the shooting but they were needed to drive the tractor.

  Standing in the back of the trailer preparing to
slaughter sleeping humans was a creepy feeling. The pile represented all types. There were two kids, a fat older man, and three women. All of them in various stages of undress, filthy and probably blue although we couldn’t tell too much in the darkness. Sleeping, you couldn’t really tell they were vicious, cannibalistic, mad people. It just looked like a bunch of people laying around. Now we needed to shoot them. For a hay truck. Life is fucked up.

  Clearing my mind, I picked out individual body chunks of my targets on the right side of the pile. Ann was doing the same with the left side of the pile. Thomas was covering us from the middle and was in charge of taking out anything moving towards us. I glanced at them to make sure they were ready. Thomas clicked his safety off.

  That tiny click managed to wake up one of the Zombies, who saw us standing there, and started screaming. Ann, Thomas and I forgot about our designated body chunks and just started laying down lead into the pile of flesh in front of us. Reeves started the tractor and floored it. All of us fell down into a pile and I saw two of our boxes fall out the back of the trailer. One of the Zombies had made it through our lead storm ad jumped on top of us, biting and scratching. Ann took the brunt of that attack as Thomas tried to get his pistol into position to shoot the Zombie without hitting either of us.