by J. D. Demers
I wasn’t sure what he was going to say next and it made me really nervous. Was he going to lash out at me? Put a bullet in me? Tell me I was now on my own? Could I even have blamed him for that?
“Why did you turn back around?” he asked in the same monotone voice.
I really didn’t think it would sound right if I told him I kept hearing my father’s voice. I mean, it wasn’t like he was really talking to me. I wasn’t going crazy or anything, but Fish may not have thought that.
“I don’t really know. I mean, I wanted to run. I was scared,” I paused a moment. “But I couldn’t leave you. Something told me to stop.”
The silence between our exchanges was killing me. I didn’t know what he was thinking, but I did know he was trying to put the right words together. Normally, Fish was direct and blunt and rarely thought before he spoke. I wasn’t sure if this meant he was really mad, or was just choosing his words carefully.
“I wouldn’t have blamed you,” he finally said. “Anyone would’ve run. I’m not saying I would have, but most would.” He rolled over, facing away from me. “You’re alright, kid.”
It took me a moment to put together what he was telling me. In the end, I realized he was saying that most people would have run, and it took a special soul to stick it out. If only he knew it wasn’t my soul that made me turn around.
“Thanks,” I whispered so low I wasn’t sure if he heard me or not.
“But,” he said, back in his gruff and condescending voice, “If you ever slap me again, I’ll rip your skinny little arm off and beat you to death with it.”
That made me smile. Leave it to Fish to turn a heartfelt moment into his normal barrage of harassment. From that point on, however, Fish never referred to me as ‘Supply’ or ‘pogue’ again. Of course, he never stopped being an asshole.
Fish didn’t say another word that night. I watched the shift change, as Jared went over and sat next to the door leading to the main part of the station. I wanted to talk to more people and find out more about what was going on, but I was also physically drained. Like Fish had said, it really doesn’t matter what’s going on. The world had gone to hell, and we were left to dwell in it.
I didn’t feel entirely that way, though. There had to be hope. Besides, we were learning new things all the time and I felt that it was important. I found it odd that DJ and his crew had yet to see zombies climb. Of course, I hadn’t until that day. I was starting to become obsessed with what those things could do.
In most movies, zombies died after a shot to the head. The real ones didn’t. Instead, they seem to be incapacitated for a short time, like a day or so. That meant that the ones I took down at Wagon Wheel Pizza would be back up and moving around tomorrow night. Of course, I had no idea why at the time, nor did I really know the time frame it took for them to reanimate, but it did mean that to clear out an area, you had to stick around and finish the job.
The fact that zombies could climb was another thing. Most shows and movies had them held up by walls and fences. Real zombies climbed that ladder in the restaurant. Real zombies could climb over counters about chest high. It took time, but they were able to figure it out.
I started to wonder if they had more brains and were more than just mindless feeding machines. They seemed to sniff the air, listen, and even test places to see if there was anything living in it. Sure, they were not rocket scientists, but it seemed some sort of intelligent instinct existed.
My final thoughts as I drifted off to sleep that night were of Boomer. I hoped he was behaving himself.
Chapter 14
The Return
April 9th Morning
Jenna woke me up the next morning. Everyone else had been up for at least an hour, eating breakfast and preparing to move out. The smell was musty in there, like that of a gym locker room. I guessed without airflow and a bunch of smelly men and one woman, the stench built up.
I got up and looked around for Fish. He was sitting in a chair near one of the garage doors. Daniel stood over him, checking out his stitch work. After he finished wrapping a fresh bandage on him, the medic came over to me.
“Fish said you had a wound I should look at,” the medic said, and looked at my arm. “Take your shirt off, and let me have a look-see.”
I almost complied, and then I remembered the bite mark on my shoulder. There was no way I was going to let anyone see that. I worried that people may have an adverse reaction to my injury. Sure, it had pretty much healed up by then, but the scar tissue still showed teeth marks.
I didn’t know the gestation period for how long it took someone to turn into a scab, and I’m sure no one else present at the time knew either. I was confident that I had fought off the infection. I could feel it, but there was no way for them to know that, and I wasn’t about to risk a bullet in the head to see if they were understanding or not. Hell, I didn’t even trust Fish enough to tell him.
“I can just roll up my sleeve. It’s pretty low on my forearm,” I told him. Hopefully he wouldn’t press the issue.
“Suit yourself,” he said, not seeing through my deception.
I rolled up my sleeve and removed the bandage. I didn’t need the medic to tell me it had a mild infection. The area was raised and reddish. Some pus also leaked out of Fish’s sloppy stitch work.
“Hmm,” he said. “Infected. Do you guys have antibiotics?”
“Some, back at our house,” I told him. “How bad is it?”
“Untreated, it could get bad,” he remarked. He pushed on the wound which caused some slight pain and forced white ooze out between the stitches. “Just clean it well, and then take some antibiotics. I can give you a couple to start you off, but keep taking them for about a week. Two or so a day.”
“Okay, thanks.” I didn’t bother telling him I had already figured out that it was infected and started taking some antibiotics.
“I’m no doctor,” he added, “but keep in mind that if it gets worse, you may have to cut out the infection.”
That didn’t sound too fun to me.
I quickly took the pill he gave me and shoved a second in my pocket. He went ahead and squeezed as much pus out as he could, and then cleaned the wound for me. Afterward, he bandaged it up again with fresh gauze. I thanked him as he finished, then moved over to where Fish sat.
“So, what’s the plan?” I asked as he took boxes of ammunition out of his bag and loaded his empty magazines.
“DJ offered to take us to a new vehicle. He said we needed a ‘proper ride’,” he smirked, “I guess he took a little pleasure in telling Lt. Campbell that this morning. The LT didn’t seem too happy. I heard them arguing over when they were going to make it back to their camp.”
“You know, that Jared guy is an electrician. Maybe we could get him to come by and help us hook up the solar panels?” I tried to make it sound like a statement, but in the end, it sounded like I was asking Fish for permission. Even after everything we had gone through the day before, I still couldn’t help but be subservient to him.
He seemed to think a moment. “Maybe. These guys don’t seem too bad,” he said, as Chad walked by. “Well, most of them anyway. But we still can’t stay at that house too much longer.”
“I know,” I agreed, “but like you said, it would be nice to know how to wire those panels up for when we do move out.”
Fish nodded and started to put on his gear. I started doing the same and reloaded the two magazines I hadn’t dropped to the ground the previous day.
After that, I made a quick radio call to Judy, just to check on her and Boomer. Everything seemed fine, but she said the puppy missed me. It was nice to hear her talk. She seemed so much livelier than she had the last few days. Judy was antsy about when we would be coming back and I told her it should be in a couple of hours. She said lunch would be hot and ready when we got back.
“I noticed my bolt cutters were missing,” Fish said with an angry tone while rummaging through his pack.
“Oh yeah,” I said, smiling, “
I kinda dropped them when I was saving your life.”
He glared at me, then said, “I’ll let that one go… just that one.” I looked at him, half expecting to see a smile or something, but of course, there wasn’t one. He was serious. Guess you can never please some people.
DJ walked over to us with Jenna right behind him.
“I have to say, that’s a pretty nifty trick with the oil filters.”
“Thanks,” I said, “but it was his idea.” I nodded over to Fish.
“It already has all the right parts for a suppressor. Just need to put one through it to make it work. Good for a while before you have to change it,” Fish said, and then motioned at DJ’s AK47, specifically the long cylinder fixed to the top. “You make that yourself?”
“Yep,” DJ said, admiring his own handy work, “Just an aluminum tube with some freeze plugs and a few other parts. Works pretty good.”
“I’m not that handy,” Fish snorted. It seemed him and DJ had a connection. I won’t lie, I was a little jealous. I felt more like Fish’s annoying sidekick.
“Thanks ahead of time for taking us to secure some new transportation,” Fish continued. “Look, you’re a machinist. Maybe you can help us rig it up so that we have one of those fancy cow catchers you have on the front of your trucks. I’m willing to trade for your knowledge. We have some goods back at our camp, and from the sound of it, you could use some.”
I should have been annoyed that Fish was offering up our supplies to these guys, but instead, I was pretty happy. I liked most of them.
“I’ve got a lot on my plate back at camp, but I might be able to help you out. What do you have to trade besides food?” He seemed interested, as did I. We didn’t have much, and what we did have, I couldn’t see us parting with.
“We have a safe house on the west side of the city. Power, gates, and good security. Could be some help if you’re in a bind. Not to mention we could co-op on some runs. Even Christian,” he motioned in my direction, “can be handy in a tight spot.”
DJ didn’t seem too impressed, though. I, however, was shocked at how much Fish was throwing out there. The day before, he didn’t want me to talk about where we were living, but now, he was basically turning us into a hotel. I wondered what changed his mind.
DJ glanced back at his friends. Everyone except Chad just shrugged. Not in the approving way, but more like “Let’s talk about this later” way. Chad, however, made his feelings clear.
“Fuck that,” he said and turned around to walk towards one of the trucks.
“We haven’t met anyone in a week that was friendly. We even had a shootout with a group a few days ago.” I noticed he gave a quick glare toward the truck where Chad had just walked. “People are getting desperate to find food and shelter. How do I know you’re not setting us up?” he asked.
I felt like he was asking for the betterment of his people more than he believed we were backstabbers. I understood. The man had a family to protect, and from what they said, they had around thirty others in their camp to keep safe as well.
It was hard to believe that society would turn on itself so soon. It had been less than a month, and people were robbing and probably killing each other to survive. But I believed it. That Prepper show I watched was pretty accurate. People who survived would adapt. I’m sure plenty of the people out there that were turning into cut throats used to be good people. It’s amazing what someone will do to survive. When you and yours have to eat, and someone else has the food, there’s really only two ways to get it; make friends or take it. Fish had already run into that situation once and I wondered how long it would be until I did.
DJ said he would consider it after he talked it over with the Lieutenant and the rest of his group. Both Fish and I thought it was best to wait until we contacted him about using his machinist skills before we asked for Jared come to help us with our electrical issues. After reading the manual, though, I thought I could at least get us a good head start on the solar panels.
Our new friends, if you could call them that at this point, took us to a large, white diesel pickup with four doors. It had formerly been a painter’s work truck, and had various dings and scratches along the side and back. The previous owner was still inside, but we had little trouble taking care of him and ending his eternal misery. From there, they escorted us back to Wagon Wheel.
There was a strange sensation as we drove up to the restaurant. Fish and I had almost died there the day before, but that wasn’t what made me feel weird. I loved going there with Dave and sitting at the bar, ordering a couple of slices of their pizza and enjoying banter with the servers. That would never happen again. I was a little depressed over the thought.
The weather was nice and sunny without a cloud in the sky. That was Florida for you. But we also knew that at any time, clouds could roll in and make our day a lot more difficult.
DJ and his friends ran a diversion for us while we gathered the rest of our gear out of Fish’s old Ford Ranger. After, they radioed us saying they were going to slow crawl away to keep the zombies off of us for a little longer. We finished loading up the bed of the truck, jumped in, and drove off.
We headed back the way we came, going north then cutting back west through some urban areas. Fish said there was one more stop we had to make before we got home, and pulled into a housing development.
I was a little nervous, of course. On our way, we saw random zombies that were cooling off in the shade, but most of the trip was dead-head free. In the housing development though, we could see numerous zombies. They hid in the shade under the overhangs of the homes.
He pulled up to a house just inside the neighborhood. It was then that I saw what he was after. It was a large blue van with the logo ‘Space Coast Electric’ written on the side. Luckily, it was parked at the end of the driveway near the road.
“You read that book, right?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “Do you know what else we need?”
I hesitated a second. I had scratched off the items I was able to procure at the Radio Shack, but I had expected to go to a hardware store to get the rest. There, the equipment would be labeled and easy to find. Here, I had to go through someone’s equipment truck and figure out what was what. That didn’t seem fun.
“Seriously?” I asked, and cocked my head to the side. “Why don’t we go back to the Ace Hardware or another store?”
“We’re not going back to Ace. That scab might have gone back there. And after yesterday, do you really want to try a Home Depot or Lowes? They’re not as small as Ace, and we’re bound to run into quite a few Zulus,” he said.
His demeanor told me that there really wasn’t another option. He had already made up both of our minds. Prick.
I grabbed my notes as Fish and I both exited the truck. A few zombies were already making their way in our direction. I only counted four, but I was sure there were more that I couldn’t see yet.
Fish grabbed a sledgehammer out of the back of the truck and went to work. I noticed he wasn’t a hundred percent. His body must not have replenished all of the blood he had lost the previous day. He seemed tired as he moved from zombie to zombie, smacking them to the ground and caving in their skulls.
I moved to the back of the van and found that it was locked. The front door was locked as well, so I took out my small crowbar and smashed in the driver’s side window. Luckily, car windows were not as loud as house windows, and I didn’t seem to attract any of the zombies my way. I climbed into the back and started sifting through equipment.
To my disappointment, hardly anything was labeled. I started by grabbing things that I knew by sight, then moved to things that looked useful. I filled my pack and opened up the rear doors so I could get back in more easily. Just as the doors swung open, I caught a glimpse of a zombie who was in the middle of walking past the van.
It was an ugly son of a bitch. The right side of his face had been chewed completely off, which allowed me to see into his mouth from the side. Black ooze dripped
out of the hole where his cheek should have been. I could see his right arm through the shredded long-sleeved shirt he was wearing. It looked like someone had skinned it from shoulder to hand, displaying his muscles. The meat seemed pale and dry, not red and vibrant, but they still moved like a living person. Purplish black veins were spider webbed all over his arm, as if they had mutated the meat. Even stranger was the grey muscle structure of the arm. Almost like it had grown back in a weird, altered way. The thought of zombies growing back necessary organs and muscles was chilling.
The racket of me opening up the door drew the zombie’s attention away from Fish and he turned toward me. Luckily, I had put all the equipment I had found on the floor of the van so I could open the doors. I was able to defend myself as it lunged on top of me, slamming my back to the bed of the van. My hands were locked onto its wrists, and I pulled my knee up just in time to make a barrier between our chests. His neck wasn’t long enough to bring his mouth to my body, so he started chomping toward my arms.
I pushed my knee up with all my strength, just to keep him from getting a bite out of me. Suddenly, his head smashed sideways and he slumped over to my left. I rolled him off of me, and saw Fish lifting the sledge one more time to smash its head on the deck of the van.
I was about to thank him when he gripped the sledge with one hand, and pulled his .45 out with the other. The end of the oil filter was about three inches from my eye. I swear I almost pissed my pants right then and there.
“Are you bit?” he asked sternly.
“What… no!” I returned, flabbergasted. I instinctively started to crab-crawl toward the front of the vehicle and away from Fish.
“Show me your arms!” he commanded.
I stopped and raised my hands, twisting my arms so he could see they were clear of any bite marks.
He looked me over, eyed my arms and neck carefully, and then slowly lowered his gun. The sound of a moan could be heard to his right. He lifted the gun back up and took a shot off to the side of the van. I heard a body slump to the ground.