Zournal: Book 3: Scorched Earth

by R. S. Merritt

  The pile built up while the pills kicked in until I was no longer feeling any pain. Ann had hooked me up. I stood up and wobbled my way over to where everyone was looking out a door towards the trucks. None of the trucks were currently parked in the garage. That would have been too easy.

  “You guys figured out a plan?”

  Ann looked at me, “How is your back?”

  “Probably all screwed up but thanks to you and the miracle of modern drugs I don’t care.”

  “Ok then.” Ann looked at me for a few seconds, evaluating if maybe she had handed me a few too many pills. Deciding it didn’t matter, she went ahead and laid out the plan for me.

  “There’s a few more Zombies out there already. They’re starting to gather on the fence so we think they suspect someone is in here. We know we have a long line of them headed this way from that town we just left and they’re probably not too far behind. Once they get here, they can probably knock the fence over or at the least they’d keep us from being able to get the trucks out. Our consensus is – “She stared at me for a second. “Dude, my eyes are up here. We’re talking, pay attention.”

  My thought had wandered and evidently so had my eyes and I was too drugged out to be casual about it. I smiled guiltily and looked up at her eyes. Waggling my eyebrows to show I wasn’t sorry.

  Ann sighed, “Ok. So, since we can’t really wait we’re just going to go for it now. We’re going to try and find two trucks with full tanks. We’ll load all our crap in the back of them and then cut the locks on the fence and drive out of here. Hopefully, without too many of the Zombies outside yet. Questions, comments? Oh, you’ll be riding with me and Reeves will be driving the other one with Ginny with him. I get the drugged up wonder and the kid who breaks his arm every time we get in a fight.”

  “What about hooking up one of those car tow wagon things?”

  “We talked about doing that. Reeves has actually done it before when one of his buddies moved. He said it took them like two days and a case of beer to get it figured out. We’re opting to skip out on that. You good to walk? Your job is just going to be walking to the truck I point at and getting in and putting your seat belt on.”

  That all sounded good to me. Thomas and I positioned ourselves over by the door while Ginny and Reeves tried to work out the system used to mark the keys. Finally, they concluded there wasn’t a system they were going to be able to figure out so they just went with grabbing all the keys to try on the different trucks. Ann was staring out the window at the Zombies along the fence. She turned around and waved everyone over.

  “Ok. Reeves and Ginny, go get us two trucks and back them up by this door so we can get them loaded. Try to get ones with full tanks. These barrels are heavy but we’re going to need to load a few of them into each truck. The Zombies are going to flip out once you walk out here so Thomas and I are going to go over there and kill them through the fence if we can. Let’s go.” With that, Ann picked up one of the pointy tire changing metal rod tools and her and Thomas headed for the fence. Reeves and Ginny headed for the first truck in the line, carrying a little box filled with keys.

  I was feeling pretty useless. Whatever, we all have to be carried sometimes. That’s why it’s important to surround yourself with people who will carry you when you need it. I know I’d literally carried them all at one point or another along the way as well.

  The yells and screams from the Zombies went up to a shrill pitch as soon as the Zombies saw the people running around in the yard. There were about twelve of them out in the lot at this point and all of them immediately charged the chain link fence. Ann and Thomas jogged towards them, angling to take out the Zombies they saw as the easiest targets. Most of the Zombies stayed along the bottom of the fence. Screaming and trying to stick their bodies through the chain link.

  Four of them went up the fence. Climbing towards the barbed wire. They did not stop at the barbed wire. I watched as they pulled themselves up and across the barbed wire. There nearly nude bodies were shredded by the sharp points. I grimaced as they fell off the other side and got up to attack Ann and Thomas who were busy trying to poke the other Zombies to death through the chain link fence. It looked like they had managed to put one on the ground at least so far.

  I opened the door and screamed for them to watch out. I saw Thomas and Ginny both look up at the Zombies streaming towards them. There were only three left. One of them had landed on its head and not gotten up from the fall. The ones attacking Thomas and Ginny were pretty messed up from the fall to it looked like. They were all moving slowly due to various parts being broken. One of them was actually crawling on the ground towards them.

  Ann moved forward and clocked the first Zombie, it fell to the ground and Thomas delivered the coup de grace. Ann ignored the crawling Zombie and charged the other mobile, upright Zombie. Thomas stopped briefly to deal with the crawler, then continued forward to guard Ann’s back. She put the Zombie down and Thomas finished that one off as well. More Zombies had arrived, a few of them were already climbing over the fence. Sacrificing their own flesh and bones for the chance to bite into normal human flesh.

  A truck started up and started backing in our direction. It stopped and Ginny jumped out and yelled for me to help her get the ramp out. Her and I worked on the ramp and finally got it extended. She immediately started running supplies into the back of the truck. I went to help her, bending over to pick up one of the bolt cutters my back went into painful spasms and I decided my time would be better spent laying on the ground for a little while.

  Reeves came in and started running the barrels out and into the trucks. He must have some warehouse experience or something because he really knew how to work a dolly. I could almost see the air move when he went by pushing the large barrels out the door and up onto the ramp. Reeves paused for a second to consider me.

  “Boss, you look high as hell. Go get in the truck and get yourself buckled in. That way we won’t have to worry about you wandering off or trying to pick up anything else and making us carry you out. I’m packing all this shit on the truck and then we’re out of here. I already sent Ginny to help out Thomas and Ann by the gate. It’s getting a bit crowded on the other side of the fence. We need to hurry.”

  I was going to respond to Reeves but figured anything I may say would probably just come out weird and wrong since I was definitely buzzed out of my gourd. I headed for the door to go make myself comfortable in a truck. I was hoping we’d get out of here and I could fall asleep before the drugs wore off and the back pain kicked back in. I was pretty messed up. I got out the door and put one hand on the side of the truck and walked towards the door. The screams from the fence had grown exponentially since the last time I’d been outside.

  I carefully opened the passenger door of the truck farthest from the fence and gingerly climbed in. Seated up way high in the oversized truck I glanced over at the fence to see how that was going. It wasn’t going good. Ginny had a hatchet in one hand and a hammer in the other. She was running up and down the fence trying to smash the knees of the Zombies before they were able to make it to the top of the fence. It would have been a much more effective strategy against regular people who cared about the pain. The Zombies just shrugged off shattered kneecaps and continued dragging themselves up the fence.

  I wondered why she kept doing it until I saw what happened to the shattered knee Zombies when they drug themselves over the barbed wire and fell off the other side. The one I watched, managed to survive the ten foot fall face first into the concrete. When it tried to stand up though, it couldn’t do so thanks to Ginny’s earlier knee shattering blow from her hammer. Thomas jogged up to it and expertly jammed the metal spike into the back of the Zombies head, ending it.

  There were too many Zombies though. Some were getting stuck in the barbed wire at the top of the fence. Thrashing around as they tried to free themselves. The fence was starting to shake back and forth. Zombies were getting over quicker thanks to being able to clamber
across their fellows who made excellent meat bridges across the spiked wire. Going over their fellow Zombies also let them fall more gracefully to the other side. They were able to attack with a lot more coordination when they could control there falls better.

  I took it all in. I digested it. I opened the door and climbed down and went to find Reeves. He was running another barrel of diesel up the ramp.

  “Yo Reeves. We need to go. They’re going to be overwhelmed at the fence pretty soon. Can you go cut the lock now and let’s get the hell out of here?”

  Reeves looked down at me. Sweat was running down his face.

  “You got it boss. Get back in the truck before you fall over.”

  I turned around and blearily made my way back to the passenger seat. I fumbled around with the seat belt. Figuring it out seeming akin to a complicated calculus problem. I felt the vibrations and bang from Reeves slamming the back of the truck closed and running the ramp back up and in. Looking in the mirror, I saw him do the same thing to the other truck. He disappeared for a few seconds into the warehouse then I saw him running towards the gate with the bolt cutters.

  He stopped for a second and Thomas and Ginny both turned around and ran back to the trucks. Thomas climbed up into the middle of the truck I was in through the driver’s side door. I saw Ginny had gotten in behind the wheel on the other truck. Ginny drove her truck over to the fence where Reeves and Ann were fighting a losing battle against the Zombies coming over the fence.

  Ann broke away and sprinted back towards our truck. She climbed in on the driver’s side and honked the horn to let Reeves now we were good to go. Reeves used the bolt cutters to bash in the Zombies head as it fell onto the ground directly in front of him. Then he placed the bolt cutters against the big padlock holding the chain that was keeping most of the Zombies on the other side of the fence. Multiple Zombies were reaching through the fence trying to get at him. I saw a few headed for the top of the fence who were going to fall on him. Reeves cut the padlock and then cut the chain in a couple of places, before dropping the bolt cutters and running back to the truck Ginny had pulled up for him.

  He jumped in and slammed the door behind him as multiple Zombies started raining down over the fence and invading the yard. The Zombies quickly started scrambling up the sides of our trucks and attempting to break into the trucks. I was staring at what looked like an elderly man with a completely bruise and filth covered face. He was pounding on my window with both of his hands. I opened the door and knocked him right off the side of the truck. I started trying to shut the door and a bloody blue hand shot up from the ground and held it open. My back chose that time to start tweaking out on me.

  The truck started moving as Ann got us rolling towards the gate. I’d lost track of what was going on with the other truck since I now had a blue hand groping my lap painfully and trying to pull a teen age looking boy with long mud-coated hair and bloodshot eyes into the truck. Thomas had reached over me with his good arm and was wailing away with his new metal pike. My sword was in the back of the truck with the other equipment. I pulled out the Kabar knife I had slung on my shoulder and stabbed the things arm as hard as I could. The knife stuck in the bone but the virus possessed boy maintained his grip. Damn their insane pain thresholds!

  Thomas was hitting me more with the damn metal pole than the Zombie. The Zombie boy shifted his grip to pull himself into the truck. The second he got a firm grip on my crotch and started putting all his weight and muscle into pulling himself into the truck by my groin I lost all concern for noise discipline. Yanking out my pistol, I stuck it in the little bitches face and unloaded. Instant gratification came in the form of the pressure being released on my crotch as the demon teen fell out of the truck and rolled out of my site. Good riddance.

  I reached out and shut the door. Remembered I had left my knife in the little freaks arm. Dammit. Oh, well, it looked like we might survive this encounter so I guess I could live with losing a knife or two. We drove through the large group of Zombies that had gathered by the gate. Ginny had driven through the gate and headed North up the street. We drove through the Zombies who were chasing them and fell in behind Ginny and Reeves. I was loving this big ass truck. I was also about five seconds from falling asleep.

  “Hey Ann, I’m going to pass out for a bit. The pharmaceuticals are putting me under. If you see a drug store or supermarket or anything useful looking I say go ahead and stop and loot. We’ve got a ton of space now to carry stuff around with us.”

  Having departed that last nugget of advice, I passed out. I drifted off into unconsciousness, hoping when I woke up my back would be in much better shape. Maybe all the Zombies would have died and we’d find an ice cream store with a generator still running to.

  Entry 19: Convoy

  I woke up in pain. Which is the way I had gotten used to waking up over the last year. I looked around with the eye I didn’t have covered in an eyepatch. We appeared to be driving North up I-95. Or, at least we were on a large highway with signs saying I-95 North on them. It looked like the next town coming up was Walterboro. Walterboro had gas stations, restaurants, and other random junk according to the signs on the side of the interstate. I blinked a few times and tried to shift my body around in the seat without moving my back. That turned out to not be possible. My back tweaked on me and I moaned out loud in pain.

  “Oh god, there he goes again.” Thomas looked over at me. I smiled at him to let him know I was awake.

  “Sorry, have my moans of pain been annoying you guys?” I asked.

  “Yes.” Ann said.

  “You have no idea. It was like riding with a Zombie tied up beside me. Between the moans and the smells.” Thomas smiled at his own little humorous analogy.

  Ann reached in her pocket and pulled out some pills in a couple of little Ziploc baggies. She handed the baggie to Thomas and told him to hand me a bottle of water and one of the pills out of each bag.

  “What are you giving me?” I asked. Curious if she was fixing to put me back to sleep for another twelve hours. Maybe I could just sleep through all this Zombie Apocalypse crap.

  “Anti-inflammatory, pain killer, muscle relaxer, probably knock you back out but that’s not necessarily a bad thing to give you some time to heal. You already missed out on all the hard work. We stopped at a camping store and a supermarket and loaded up everything useful that hadn’t already been looted. You’ve been out a good eight or ten hours.”

  “How’s this thing been to drive on the roads?” I asked, in between swallowing water to wash down the pills Thomas handed me. For the first time, I noticed I was wedged into my seat pretty good with pillows and blankets. Ah. They did care!

  “Not too bad.” Ann looked over to make sure I was taking my pills. “The roads have been pretty clear. Kind of scary when we have to drive off the road to go around accidents. Feels like the whole thing is going to tip over. Otherwise, we’re high up off the road in these seats and we’re doing good on gas. Once we hit highway 26 we’re turning left to head towards the mountains.”

  Sounded good to me. I put my head back and let the convoy keep on rolling.

  Entry 20: Death and Taxes

  We hate the military again. We made it to where I-26 intersects I-95. We had been excitedly watching the signs saying we were getting closer to the exit. Reeves and Thomas had been chatting back and forth on the Walkies. It turned out the Walkie Talkie set we had ripped off out of a Toys R Us was not the most highly secure devices you could purchase.

  We were only about a mile away from the exit when a voice came on over our radio.

  “Two Penske trucks, drive forward at no more than five miles per hour and prepare to stop for inspection. This is the US government.”

  “US Government. Fuck off. This is Reeves, over.”

  Reeves sped up a bit to try and get us out of range of whoever was getting around to threatening us. Then I saw Reeves brake lights lighting up ahead of us. He rolled to a stop after parking the Penske at an ang
le. I saw him hopping down out of his truck. A man in camouflage came around the side of the truck and addressed Reeves. Two more guys in camouflage were headed around to the back of the truck. Reeves was yelling at all of them and had his AK in his hands as he was doing it.

  A couple other guys in camouflage jogged over to where we were. I hit the talk button on the Walkie.

  “Reeves, stay cool. US Government, we’re in contact with Lt Wilson out of Savannah. He is aware of our activities and has authorized us to proceed. Why are you stopping us?”

  A gloved hand smacked my window and I unlocked the door. Same thing was happening on the driver side and Ann hopped out of the truck. We were outgunned. There were about twelve military looking professionals wandering around at this point. Coolly getting us all herded together. The officer in charge was over to the side talking away on a sat phone and looking in the backs of our trucks. After a few minutes, he pushed the antenna down on the phone and walked over to us.