by Kirk Allmond
‘She won’t need this’; I thought to myself as I unwrapped the rubber-band and pocketed the thick wad of bills. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever need it, but a wad of cash might still have some trade value. The room smelled horrible. Even after just one day, the corpses smelled terrible, like thirty pounds of rotten hamburger.
Feeling like a badass from my easy victory, I checked through the bar, looking for interesting things. I set three unopened bottles on the bar, one bottle of grain alcohol, a Bacardi 151, and an old looking bottle of scotch. Under the bar, I found a box of match books with “Twin Peaks” underneath a pole dancer on the cover. This was a classy place. I added the match books to my pile on the bar, and headed back towards the office.
I listened at the office door, knocked with my hatchet, and waited. Hearing nothing, I opened the door and peered into the dim room. There was a large, beat up oak desk against one wall. I flipped through all the cups and trays on top looking for keys, before even trying the drawers. I found two sets, and tried the drawers in the desk. The top drawer was the only one unlocked, so I started trying keys. In the bottom left drawer, I found the handgun that I knew would be there. I read the barrel; it was a Smith and Wesson model 629- a nickel revolver with black hand-grips, and what I hoped was matching ammunition, 44 magnum. I pressed the cylinder release and emptied a round out into my hand; it was the same as those in the mostly full hundred round boxes. Replacing the round and snapping the barrel shut, I slid the weapon into my waistband, and quickly surveyed the room, but didn’t see anything else useful.
On the way out of the building, I grabbed the liquor bottles and matches off the bar, and headed out to the truck to check on Max. He was sleeping soundly in his seat, so I took the opportunity to really study him. He was so big, and yet so small. I remembered the time when he could fit in one arm, and how I used to carry him everywhere like a football. I hated leaving him here, in the truck, sleeping, but it seemed less dangerous than taking him into a building that probably had zombies in it. With all of my “Twin Peaks” loot dropped off in the back of the truck, I left the AK47, and went across the street to the hardware store, in search of a few more items needed for my plan.
As I walked across the street, I thought to myself, ‘Tookes, you idiot. You should have asked Max how many were in here,’ followed by a quick headshake and ‘what in the hell am I thinking. He’s three and a half years old.’
07. The Potomac Crossing
The hardware store looked deserted. I had a moment of terror when a zombie in the apartment upstairs saw or smelled me, and started banging on the glass. I dove behind a wood pile and watched him beat his fists against the glass, silently praying that the glass was sturdy enough to hold, and that there weren’t any others up there.
Out of morbid curiosity, and perhaps a desire to know more about these creatures, I watched for a moment. Even though I was completely hidden from view and motionless, he kept staring at me, as if he could see me through the wood. I crawled down the length of the woodpile, low on my stomach. I made it to the end of the wall of wood without making a sound, and eased my head around to look at the window. The old man-turned-zombie was still staring at the other side of the woodpile, slowly banging his fists on the window. There was blood running down the window now, and I wondered how long he would say there, banging away on the window.
With the zombie distracted by looking at my last known whereabouts, it was fairly easy to sneak up on the side of the building to the back door. The doorknob was locked, but there was no dead bolt. My family had a doorknob just like this when I was a kid. ‘Back then, if I turned really hard, the door would pop open,’ I thought, as I wrenched down on the doorknob. It was sturdier than I remembered, but ultimately gave way and didn’t make a huge amount of noise.
The door led to the store-room of the hardware shop, which was pretty much just like the rest of the place; floor to ceiling shelves, piled high with dusty old junk. To this day, I still love dusty old junk. Walking through the storage room led me to the store proper, where I headed first for the plumbing section. After searching for a minute or two, I found what I was looking for; a section of PVC pipe, end caps, glue and primer. Down a couple of rows was the paint section, where I found aluminum powder and iron oxide for mixing up metallic paints. One bag of each in hand, I needed to find one more isle of the old store. I peered around the dim room; the only light was what shone in through the dusty windows. I was looking for a hobby or toy section. BB’s, rubber cement, three bags of old army men, and model rocket igniters, and I was off to the front counter to find nine volt batteries, a lighter, and a pack of cigarettes, if I could find them.
I’d quit smoking a few years before, but today seemed like a good day to start again. I unlocked the front door of the store, let myself out, and beat feet for the truck. Max was still sleeping soundly. All in all, I’d been gone less than ten minutes, but it seemed like hours. I opened the back door of the truck and reached for my tool bag. By now it was almost dark, so I spread out my loot on the front seat and started working.
The large bags of army men were the first; I tossed all of them into the back seat, except the parachute men. Max would have fun playing with them. I emptied the six ounce bag of iron oxide powder and the two ounce bag of aluminum powder into one of the army man bags, and shook it up to thoroughly mix the two powders into the super flammable mixture called thermite. I said a silent thanks to those TV Myth guys for showing me how much “fun” thermite could be. From the tool bag I pulled out my hack saw, and cut the PVC pipe into roughly six inch segments, and glued an end cap on the end of each one. I poured the powdered metal mixture out of the army man bag, and into each of the eight capped PVC sections. Next, into the pipe was the ignition end of the model rocket starters, followed by BB’s right to the top. I bent the wires from the igniters over the side of the pipe and glued the top cap on, pinning the wires to the side of the pipe.
The next step was to coat the outside of each pipe in rubber cement, and roll it in BB’s. Each was heavier than I expected. I thought I’d be able to get away with just one parachute per pipe, but from the weight, I was going to need closer to three per pipe. I had nine parachutes total, which gave me three completed incendiary devices, and five partially done. The last step was to rubber cement a nine volt battery to the ‘tip’ of the pipe, and bend the ignition wires up and over the poles of the battery. I covered the terminals of the battery with electrical tape from my tool bag for safety until I was ready to use them.
It was now full dark, and time to put my plan into action. I woke Max up, and told him that I had to go take care of some bad men, and that he should stay here and try to go back to sleep. “Max, you might hear some loud noises, and you might be afraid, and you’ve been so brave. I need you to be brave just a little while longer. Soon enough, we’ll be back on the road, and I’m hoping to make it to Gramma’s house late, late tonight. Can you be strong for me while I go Max-Monster?”
“Yep. It’s sleeping time, Daddy. I love you. Do you have my Binky?”
“I don’t, buddy, it’s packed in your suitcase, but I promise when we get to Gramma’s house, I’ll get it out for you.”
“Okay. I love you, Dad” He said.
“I love you too, buddy, see you in a few minutes.” I tried to sound confident, but I really had no idea if this was going to work. I might end up dead, with Max out here by himself, at a strip club in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by zombies, two hours from any place he’s ever been. Failure was not an option here.
I grabbed the pack of smokes and lighter, replaced the strap on my 30.06, and stowed the AK in the truck, where I also emptied out my tool bag. I carefully loaded my tool bag with the pipes, and set off with a pocket full of bullets, my reloaded rifle and magazines, and the pistol in my vest pocket. It was a beautiful night, warm, but not too humid, and not a cloud in the sky. The full moon was rising behind me
Behind the strip club were some woods, and I knew that the
river and bridge were near there. When I got to the river, I followed it under the bridge, and across to a rocky area on the other side of the bridge. The bridge was very high; the worst flaw in my plan was making it from the shore and up the side of the mountain to the bridge itself.
I lit a cigarette, and inhaled deeply. God, how I missed smoking. One more drag, and I set my cigarette down on the rocks, turned around, and lined up one of the zombies on the bridge in my scope.
I inhaled three times, exhaled once, and said, “Candi, I’ll see you again one day. I hope that day isn’t today; I still have work to do here. I love you,” as I squeezed the trigger. I didn’t even wait to see if my shot was true before I was off and running.
08. Battle at the Potomac
Running back to the bridge was more like hopping from rock to rock. I jumped and leaped for all I was worth, trying not to leave any tracks in the sandy mud that made up the bank of the river. I wanted the tracks to lead them towards the rock pile. On my second hop, I heard my bullet hit home, and knew I’d hit the zombie. I heard the impact, and following collapse against the railing of the bridge. Something metal hit the bridge railing with a loud gong sound, and then two or three hops later, I heard the zombie hit the ground two hundred feet below the bridge. That was the first of many strokes of luck I would need tonight.
I made it to the underside of the bridge without being spotted. I scrambled up the oil drum sized rocks that made up the embankment, and heard the zombies looking down over the railing shouting something. I found a good hiding spot in the crook where the bridge span reconnected with the ground, and climbed up onto one of the iron beams of the bridge, hopefully out of site of the zombies as they passed. I set the tool bag on the beam in front of me, and slid along the beam out over the rocks on my belly, as if crossing the bridge on the underside. When I’d gone about twenty feet, it was roughly fifteen feet down to the huge boulders below. I pulled out the three devices with the army man parachutes attached, and gently removed the black electrical tape from the battery poles of all three and very gently set them down on the beam in front of me. The wires were only a quarter of an inch from the terminals on the battery, and I was suddenly very worried about the sanity of this plan.
Just a few seconds after I was in position and ready, I heard three zombies round the corner and start moving down the slope beside the bridge. One of them said something about checking on Samantha as they passed my location. I grinned to myself, knowing she’d left her brains on top of the bridge when her body fell to the river bank below. I’m not sure if it’s okay to be proud of a two hundred yard head shot from below on a back lit target at night, but I still brag about that shot. Picking up the first of the three devices, I let the zombies get about five feet past my spot, and lofted the first bomb down the hill. The parachutes opened well over the zombies heads, orienting the bomb battery-side down. I saw it pass about a foot in front of the first zombie, and he started to turn around right as the metal wires hit the ground, and was followed a fraction of a second later by the battery terminals hitting the wires. Nine volts of electricity shot down the wires, igniting the thermite inside the PVC pipe. The sudden, drastic increase in temperature and pressure exploded the pipe bomb, launching molten BB’s in every direction. I heard and felt several impacts the other side of the beam that I was laying on.
I couldn’t hear anything moving, and although the steel beam protected me from the worst of the blast wave, my ears were still ringing. To be safe, I tossed another pipe-grenade at roughly the same spot, this time covering my head for the explosion. Before the first bomb, I counted three zombies coming down the hill, plus the one I shot from the ground, so that left one zombie up there somewhere.
With a hope that it was the slow zombie, I put the tape back on my remaining pipe bomb, peered under the steel I-beam and saw nothing moving in the charred gore. I slid backwards along the beam until I could safely hop to the ground, and scrambled up the rocks to the edge of the bridge. As quietly as possible, I slowly crept to the edge of the bridge, and looked over onto the roadbed of the bridge, but saw nothing. I waited, watching. Cognizant of how long I’ve been away from Max, I put my hand on the pistol in my pocket, clutching my arm to my chest, attempting to make myself look wounded. I started to fake-limp up the road, when I felt a huge blow across the shoulders and was sent flying. I hit the ground, skidded across the pavement and rolled over on my belly. Even though I’d flown and skidded about ten feet, the zombie was right on top of me by the time I got to my knees. She moved so fast that she was a blur. The one on the hill earlier today was amazing, dodging bullets, but this one made that one look like a zombie from a Romero film.
She picked me up and shook me. “Where’s the child?!”
“What? What child?” I stammered, this creature could break me like a twig.
“Your son, Max. Where is he?” She yelled, shaking me some more.
I managed to get my free hand into my coat pocket, and slowly thumbed the hammer back on the revolver. I had to be careful. This had to be perfect, or else she would kill me, and find Max.
“How do you know Max’s name?” I asked.
“Just tell me where he is!” She set me down on the pavement. I was taller than she was, but somehow it felt like I was eye level with her when she was holding me off the ground.
“Max is on the beach, about two miles down the shore,” I lied “I left him sleeping in some old army blankets near a big maple tree.”
She eyed me, and started to speak. Just as she opened her mouth, I leaned back, closed my eyes and squeezed the trigger of the revolver. The bullet exploded through the fabric of my coat. At this range, even she wasn’t fast enough to completely dodge the 44 magnum bullet, it entered through her jaw, and blew the top of her head out, splattering me with her blood. It had thick chunks in it. It felt almost gritty when I wiped my face, being careful not to get any of her blood in my mouth, nose, or eyes.
I sprinted to the truck as fast as I could. It was almost nine at night, but I had a full moon and adrenaline fueling me, plus the rush of having just killed four zombies. It was about a half mile run, I made it in five minutes. I chided myself, and promised that I would start running every day, as I sucked wind for the last two hundred yards. I rounded the corner of the bar and fell to my knees; the horror surrounding my truck was too much for me to take.
There must have been thirty zombies standing around my truck, and Max, standing on the roof. As I fell to my knees in the gravel parking lot, I brought the gun up and fired five rounds as quickly as I could, hitting two zombies in the head, before my revolver clicked dry. I reached in my cargo pants pocket and grabbed a handful of bullets, and paused when I looked up. The zombies were all just standing there, facing Max. I’d hit one three times in the back. None were moving at all. Even the two I’d shot in the head fell facing him.
“Hi, Daddy.” Max said.
09. Virginia
“Max! What’s going on?” I yelled. I stood up, continuing to load bullets into my pistol. I needed to practice loading, it was an unfamiliar movement, and took me forever to get five bullets into the cylinder. I also recognized the need for a melee weapon of some sort; it seemed silly to waste bullets on paralyzed zombies. A quick look around the parking lot yielded no 2×4's or branches or anything of use. Plan B involved walking up behind each one and shooting it downward into the top of the head. If I could get to the back of the truck, I could use the AK47, much less reloading, but then I had much less ammo for it. I started to move towards the first one, lifting my gun to its head.
“Daddy, no. They can’t hurt me.”
“Max, these are bad guys. I don’t know why they’re stopped, but they want to hurt you and we have to go!”
“These guys don’t have enough bugs, they don’t mean to hit me; she makes them.” He said.
His language skills had improved noticeably, I decided to see how far they’ve improved. “Max, what bugs? How do you know this? Who’s the one cont
rolling them?”
“Penelope is their boss. She was close to here, and she was looking for me, but I can hide from her, I’m a good hider. Her bugs are very bad. She has a lot. When I hide from her, I don’t have enough to make these guys not hit. I talked to my bugs. They tried to eat me, but they didn’t like me. They’re all dead now. Before they died, they told Penelope that I taste bad. She put the bad guys on the bridge so you would go kill them, and then they could come get me, but you didn’t do what you were supposed to. Daddy, I don’t like Penelope, she’s a mean friend.”
Max had never been taught the word ‘enemy’, the word he’d made up a year or so before to describe a bully at daycare was ‘mean-friend’. It’s a statement that summed up Max for me. Everyone is his friend, even if they’re mean. It was also his way of telling me he was still my Max, my little boy was still in there. He’d been changed, fighting off the infection that had killed everyone else, but he was still my son.
“Max monster, what are you going to do with these guys?”
“Dad, they’re not bad guys, the bugs make them do mean things. We shouldn’t kill them. I can make them walk inside.” And with that, he did. They walked to the double doors in double-file lines, and went straight in the building and sat down on the floor in a circle with their legs crossed. It reminded me of a morbid recreation of ‘circle time’ at his daycare, where all the kids would sit in a circle while the teacher read to them. I pulled the doors shut, ran to the back door of the truck where I’d dumped my tool bag out, and grabbed a hand full of zip ties and a sharpie.
I zip tied the doors closed, and wrote ‘30+ inside, building worthless, try the hardware store’, on the doors in big bold letters with a sharpie.
“Hop in your seat little man,” I said, “We’re heading for Gramma’s house!”