What Zombies Fear: A Father's Quest

by Kirk Allmond

  “We’re low on fuel, we’ve been conserving propane by using the grills, but we’re down to about four days. We’ve used a lot of diesel the last few days; the big tank is down to a thousand gallons, that won’t last through the weekend at this rate.”

  “What day is it?” I asked. It was weird to have no concept of what time or even what day it was.

  “It’s Thursday, Vic.”

  “They were building that army to come get Max,” I said. “They’re not going to stop.” Acting on a hunch I asked, “When was the last time any of you saw a zombie?”

  “We killed one last Friday, six days ago,” said Leo.

  “Where are they? We haven’t killed everyone around here. We aren’t even close to that. We’ve been making a huge amount of noise, with the backhoe, with the tractors and chainsaws. We’ve had lights running all night, and been grilling food outside. We’ve made no effort to hide our location, and yet we never see zombies, why is that?” I asked. Without waiting for a response, I continued, “I believe that they’re being drawn off somewhere, and that they’re going to come at us in force. I think that whoever it was learned a lot about us at the gun club, and I’m worried that they won’t make the same mistake twice. We need to be ready. You’ve all made huge progress, but we need to be able to withstand a siege. We need stores and fuel and ammunition, and we need to think about what’s going to happen when a horde shows up at our door.”

  “Tookes, we’re doing all we can, what else would you like us to do?” asked John.

  “You guys have done more than I could have imagined. I think we need more living bodies, and that means more food, more fuel, more water, more guns and more ammunition. And we need to come up with ways to kill them that don’t use bullets.”

  Leo spoke up first, “I have a couple of ideas; Marshall has been building lines of fire. Barricades that direct walking zombies in specific directions. What if we dug pits around the property, and lined the bottoms of them with barbed pikes? Even if the dead don’t die again, they’ll be stuck. Then we can go around and end their reanimation with spears, and burn the corpses in the pits.”

  “I like it, Leo. What do you need, besides fuel to make it happen?” I asked.

  “I need someone with a chainsaw to cut down some trees out back so we can make the sticks. I’ve never used a chainsaw, and you’re in no position to do so. That means John or Marshall.”

  “I’ll be fine, but I’m not sure that I’m up for running a chainsaw. I can drive, and I can operate a tractor one armed. I’ll find some way to be useful. I’m glad it’s my left arm though, I can’t shoot worth a damn with my left hand.”

  I finished off my glass of water, and Leo refilled it on the end table. Mom handed me the bowl of chicken broth which had cooled, but was still delicious and warm. I set the spoon aside and drank the broth as quickly as I could. After about half of it, my belly was pretty full, but I kept going. I was starving, and I wasn’t going to let a little something like being full get in the way of my first food in nine days. The drawback of course, was that I hadn’t peed in days, I was low on iron, and I had very little protein in my body. As soon as I finished drinking my soup, I knew I was going to have to go.

  “Let me see if I can get up by myself.” I said, as I started to swing my legs over off the edge of the bed. My feet hit the cold wooden floor; I pushed up with my good arm and realized that my back hurt like hell. With a slight grunt, I straightened up, and started shuffling to the toilet. It amazed me how quickly one could become weak. My legs were noticeably thinner. When I got in the bathroom, I took a look at myself in the mirror. My chest was a mess of tape and gauze; my back looked about the same. My arm was taped to my chest, and then wrapped in a sling. My belly was gone. Two months of hard farm labor plus trying to save food, plus nine days without eating made for a skinny Tookes. I’m not sure I’d been that skinny since my senior year of high school. I turned around to pee, and thought, ‘Damn Tookes, you’d better sit down before you fall down.’

  I sat down on the toilet, and started toying with the fabric sling. It wasn’t doing anything with my arm taped like this. I pulled it off while I sat there, and started to un-tape my arm. Every pull of tape was murder. Between the injury itself and ripping out my chest hair, I had tears in my eyes. Eventually I had my arm free. One of the things about a broken collar bone was that they took about a month to heal. I was about a quarter of the way there. I moved my arm, forward and backward, up and down. The muscles in my chest were stiff, my shoulder was stiff. I slowly stood up, straightened my shoulders and felt my sternum crack. I held my arm against my chest and slipped the sling back over my neck. There was some pain, but overall much better than I’d expected.

  I came out of the bathroom, and started looking around for a shirt. I needed to go see what the place looked like. I found my shirt, and started for the stairs. Leo was in front of me in a flash.

  “Tookes. What do you think you’re doing?” She asked; her hand on my good shoulder.

  “I need to go see the place. I know you don’t understand, but something is coming, and it’s coming now. Where is Max? I need to check on him.”

  21. Visitors

  Downstairs in the smaller dining room I found Max, coloring in a Sesame Street coloring book. He was on the last page, having colored the entire thing.

  “Daddy!” he yelled, as he came running across the room. “I knew you would wake up!” He jumped into my arms, except I only had one arm.

  I caught him as best I was able, turning my body so he launched onto my side. I held him in my good arm, and kissed him on the cheek. “I love you, buddy. I missed you so much while I was asleep.”

  “I missed you too, Daddy, but I sat with you while you slept, and I kissed you every morning and every night at bedtime. We always give kisses at bedtime!”

  I was nearly in tears, my little boy was here, he was happy and healthy and everything was going to be alright. He had that amazing power. All the other things he could do, that feeling was the most powerful. And it had nothing to do with his encounter at the day care nearly three months ago.

  He gave me a kiss on the cheek and said, “Look what I made for you! You can’t guess what it is!” He showed me a picture that was clearly Max and I holding hands outside in a flower garden.

  “Is it a picture of a banana?” I asked.

  “No!”

  “Is it a truck?”

  “No!”

  “Is it Max and Daddy standing in the flowers?”

  “Yes!” he said excitedly.

  I heard a radio chirp in the background. “Max, can you finish coloring? I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.” I bent down and kissed him on the cheek.

  “Don’t worry, Daddy; Uncle Marshall is smarter than these guys.” Max said plainly.

  Goosebumps raised on the back of my neck. I ran, as best I could on my weak legs towards the living room. Down a hall, through the main dining room and up into the living room, where I knew I’d find my guns and the front door of the house. I grabbed my pistol and the scoped 30.06 I called Sammie, and my magazine bag, and stepped up to the windows.

  From the middle of the room I brought the rifle up to my eye and peered through the scope. There were trucks lined up on the highway by the entrance gates, nearly half a mile away. I took off up the back steps and opened the doors on the Juliet balcony, and laid down on my belly on the floor. It took me several tries to figure out how to get my left arm into position, and then several more tries to get the gun lined up. I watched through the scope as they brought some bolt cutters out of one of the truck. I’d forgotten to grab a radio, and wasn’t in any shape to get up and go get one, so I just yelled, “They’re cutting the chain on the gate! I need a radio!”

  My voice was a little louder than I intended. From right behind me Max said, “I brought your radio and the talking necklace.”

  “Oh Max, thank you buddy! You’re so smart. This might get very loud buddy; I need you to go into our room
and play. Close the door, and don’t open it unless it’s someone who lives here, okay? Can you do that?” He didn’t move, “Now Max! Go Now!” I said firmly. His bottom lip stuck out, I’ve almost never spoken sternly to him, and he walked off to our room and closed the door.

  I half rolled onto my good side, grabbed the radio and slid the throat mic around my neck. I had no idea where it came from, but it was nice, especially being one armed. I spoke into the radio “They’re cutting the chain on the gate. What’s the plan?”

  “Vic, where are you?” my brother asked.

  “I’m upstairs in the library, watching out the balcony doors.”

  “Leo and John have something planned, watch for them and move on their signal. I’m glad to hear you’re up and around. Sorry I haven’t been able to get up to see you since you woke up.”

  “No prob.” I said. “You got a lot done, I’m glad you’re here to take care of Max. I’m sorry I got myself shot and took a nine day vacation.”

  “You should be. Now shut up, watch the show, and be ready to offer support. They’re in position. I liberated your .50 cal by the way. I wish you’d grabbed some more bullets. Next time, could you try and think that through a little better?”

  “I took the whole case!”

  “Vic, always with the excuses!” Marshall said.

  “Sorry Marshall, next time there’s a zombie apocalypse, I’ll call ahead and order a pallet of ammunition. Anything else you’d like me to get?”

  John’s voice came over the radio, his Australian accent thick “Would you shut it? Do I have to do all the work here?”

  I watched the trees for any sign of wind. It was dry out and warm. Bullets would fly straight and true. It was a half-mile shot. Nine hundred yards. Thirty-two feet of bullet drop. My scope would compensate for twenty, I had to aim twelve feet above my target. Figuring the average man is just about six feet, I need to aim for his head as if he was three times taller. I made a couple practice sweeps. Line up the head on the bottom most cross in the scope. Make a note of something that is at the third cross down from the top. A rock, a line, a crack in the pavement, whatever. Adjust aim to put that pavement crack on the bottom lines of the scope. Inhale, inhale, inhale, exhale. I was ready.

  Suddenly, Leo was directly in front of them on the other side of the gate. Her mic was open, I heard her say, “Can I help you gentlemen with something?”

  I couldn’t hear the response, but Leo blurred away, behind a tree to the left. A shot rang out, and half a second later, the bolt cutters flew out of his hands. John was close to me, but far from them. Distance was hard to figure based on delay, but I’d guess he was somewhere around four hundred yards away. And if I knew John, he was using a 9mm pistol.

  I returned the scope to my aim-point on the guy at the gate, when Leo blurred back in front of him. “I would leave now if I were you. There are at least three guns trained on you right now, and as you can see, we are good shots.” She blurred again, as the response came through her microphone.

  All I heard was one word. The guy at the gate yelled, “Now!”

  I was aimed well above his head, and I saw the men start to come out of the weeds on the far side of the road first. They were in a line advancing towards our fence, three or four deep and the line was at least a hundred yards wide. When I saw them, I started my long range shooting routine. Inhale three times, exhale and squeeze, lift and slide the bolt. At this distance it was vital to remain calm, and keep my heart rate under control.

  I squeezed the trigger, and the man at the gate went down. It was nearly a second and a half between the searing pain of the rifle stock driving into my shoulder and when the man fell, the remnants of his head showering down on the road behind him. He had plenty of time to have moved, but the bullet traveled faster than the sound; he was dead before he heard the crack. The pain in my shoulder was a new twist, and an added pressure on my shooting. I was slower than normal, attempting to keep my heart rate down through the pain. These were shots I wouldn’t normally try, but what else could I do? Once the targets were moving, it was going to be too hard to lead them with a second and a half of flight time on the bullet.

  “Leo. There are at least four-hundred of them. We need to fall back. John, move to the porch. Leo, move to the left, and take out that side, I don’t want them to circle the house. Vic, nice fucking shot! Hold fire, and be ready to get to the back porch if they get around us. What do you have besides the aught-six?” Marshall was directing the battle, I had no idea where he was, but if I was a betting man, I’d say he was on the right flank with his shotgun and something nasty up his sleeve.

  “Marshall, copy on the hold fire, I have the rifle and my Sig. Low on ammo for both. Mom, do you have a radio? I’m going to need all the 30.06 you can carry, and do we have something semi-auto?” I said quietly.

  The men had covered the fence, and were advancing up the front yard. They were moving slowly and carefully. It would take them three or four minutes to walk the distance. It was uphill, through thick grass. They’d be about out of adrenaline by the time they made it to three-hundred yards from the house. They’d be getting a little shaky. We were severely outnumbered, but we had very distinct, strong advantages. We were defending our home. We were the good guys. We were protecting a child, and we were dug in. They were in unfamiliar territory, trying to take ground from a determined, super human force. The zombies had the advantage of hiding out with humans. The smart ones looked human. They sounded human. I’ve only found one way to know if they’re zombies.

  “Vic, you are in no condition to be shooting. You should be in bed. But you’re not going to listen. We have a black plastic gun with a curved clip, and a shotgun.”

  “Thanks Mom, I’ll take it under advisement. Can you bring me the black plastic gun, every magazine you can find for it, and the box of 30.06 shells? Then go to Max, he’s in his bedroom hiding under the bed. I need him.”

  I had debated this in the back of my head for months. I wanted no part in Max knowing what this was about. I didn’t want him to see what was about to happen. He was too young. God, I just wanted him to have a childhood. If I could take out the zombies, I think the humans would fold up. If I’d heard the truth at the gun club, my memory of that interrogation was kind of fuzzy, but I had to assume that the zombies had their families, too. If I could convince them that we could free their families, maybe we had a chance. I just don’t see, even with Leo and John’s abilities, how we could win against so many without someone getting hurt. Last time was a quarter of this number of people, and I ended up shot.

  Mom came up the stairs carrying a grocery bag full of ammunition, the .22 carbine, and four magazines. Those mags were thirty rounds each, one hundred and fifty rounds in magazines, and maybe two-hundred more on top of that. I just couldn’t figure out how we had enough to win this.

  I touched the mic and spoke, “Marshall, this is not a situation we’re going to win. I don’t want to kill all these people.”

  “Tookes, every one of us will die to protect Max.” John spoke up.

  “Vic, we’re not going to die. You got shot, I understand if your nerves are raw. We can take these guys.”

  “I can’t kill humans if I don’t have to. I think I have an idea... We have at least two minutes until they’re in range. Give me that time.”

  “Okay, Vic.”

  “Right-o Tookes.”

  “I trust you, Tookes,” answered Leo.

  Mom and Max came out of Max’s room.

  “Max, I need a favor. Can you tell me with words which of those guys out there has bad bugs? I’m sorry to ask this of you, but I’m trying very hard not to hurt the people without bugs.”

  “There are lots, Daddy. They’re looking for me. Their bugs are calling for me. They’re too far away right now, but they have more bugs than me.”

  “Which ones, Max? I need to know, and I need to know right now. What color shirts are they wearing?”

  “Red shirt in the middl
e. He has the most bugs. I can’t squish them. But I can squish that bad guys.” As he spoke, a tall skinny man in blue jeans, a white button up shirt and a black jacket fell to the ground.

  “Max, I need you to cover your ears with your arms. This will be loud; I’ll squish the red shirt guy’s bugs.”

  Max covered his ears, and I lined up for a 380-yard shot. One advantage of having lived at this house, I know every inch of the property, and can make accurate distance judgments, down to the foot, all over the property. I could almost imagine yard lines like a football field. He was far enough out for the bullet to outrun the sound. I was in cover. But I needed help.

  “John, red shirt, middle. I need a bullet one foot on either side of his head the second you hear my shot.”

  “Got it, Tookes.”

  “Here goes Max. I’m sorry. Turn around and cover buddy.” He wrapped his arms up over his head, pressing them into his ears. I squeezed the trigger. Throbbing pain shot through my whole upper body, my left arm had fallen asleep. I heard two shots almost simultaneously from below and left of me. Three bullets sped towards the lead zombie. One heading for his forehead and one on each side. Whichever way he dodged, he would be hit. I worked the bolt and fired once more, this time at the leader’s groin, covering myself in case he dodged straight down trying to duck the bullets.

  All four bullets flew true. Just before they struck home, the zombie turned into smoke, and reappeared about six feet in front of his original spot.

  “Oh Shit. Upgrades!” I said into the mic. “Marshall, he can teleport, and he’s fast! He teleported through the bullets!”

  “Max, is there any way for me to tell which ones are bad guys?” I asked.

  “You just have to look.”

  “They look the same to me,” I said.

  “Look closer, Daddy,” Max said.

  I concentrated. Nothing. I focused my brain, searching for anything different. The way they moved, looked, anything. I focused on my own mind, searching for anything. I needed to be able tell them apart. I had to. I couldn’t kill all those humans, the species needed them, but more than that, I’m not sure my conscience could handle killing that many people. That many families further torn apart, not by zombies, but by my actions.