“When I first met Zach, he chopped off the head of a zombie and then spent several minutes inspecting it.” Everyone laughed again, except Wanda. Rowdy pretended not to notice, and continued. “Julie’s first words to me was I was full of shit.” There was much more laughter. “I had gone through a rough time before meeting up with the two of them. We’ve all had a rough time I suspect, but Zach has helped me out tremendously. He’s been a good friend.”
“I first met Zach and company when I was surrounded by zombies.” Big Mac said. “They came to my rescue. It was obvious Zach took a liking to me immediately. I’ve lived a lifetime with people looking at me strangely, or saying things behind my back. Zach didn’t do any such thing.”
“I haven’t gotten to know Zach as well as I’d like,” Bo said. “But, in the short time I have known him, I’ve found him to be a unique and resourceful young man.”
“I think he’s handsome.” Rhonda said sweetly.
“And a tough mother fucker.” Kelly added. Everyone laughed again.
“When I first met Zach, he was beat all to hell.” Terry said. “When I heard the whole story, I thought, wow, he’s a pretty tough kid. When I was told the story of how he got shot in the head and lived through it, I knew one thing for certain. He is a tough you-know-what.”
I smiled or chuckled at the appropriate moments, but to be honest, they were making me out to be a lot bigger than my britches. I looked over at Fred. He seemed to sense my discomfort and gave me a fatherly nod.
It was after eight when everyone left, which was far later than normal. Julie fixed Tommy a bed on the couch and he promptly fell asleep while we were talking.
“Where are we going to put him?” Julie asked.
“I can fix up a bedroom for him in the basement. The wood stove down there will keep him warm. Or, he can be bunk buddies with Joe.”
Kelly smiled in relief. “Oh, good, I thought I was going to be booted from my new bedroom.”
“Where on Earth did you find him?” Julie asked. Andie, Terry, Rowdy, and Kelly looked at me attentively. I was hoping to avoid the story until a later time, but saw no way out of it. I only omitted Tommy’s assault, and did not feel the least bit guilty about it.
“Damn, Zach.” Terry said. “If you take a disliking to someone, they sure don’t live very long.” Andie punched him in the arm. Rowdy chuckled, and then poured everyone a glass of violet colored liquid.
“It’s a fine cabaret wine.” He said. “Now you need to give a speech.” Everybody voiced their agreement and soon joined in a chorus of ‘speech, speech, speech.’ I held up my hand and they became quiet.
“There are a lot of things I can think of, but I’ll only say this. My Grandmother bought me a truck on my fifteenth birthday. As you can imagine, I was ecstatic. When I thanked her, she said, when you encounter a happy moment in your life, you should savor the moment for all it is worth, that way you’ll never forget it. This is indeed a moment to savor. I’m glad y’all are here.” I held up my glass and we toasted.
Epilogue
Even with an occasional missed shot, and people shooting at the same zombie, our kill efficiency was very high. We’d shoot them until they got to within fifty meters, then we’d hop back in our vehicles, drive another quarter of a mile away from them, and do it all over again. We’d done it four times now.
Our strategy was working, but I hoped we killed them all before we ran out of ammo. The horde had grown somewhat when we first encountered them. Stragglers seemed to be everywhere and joined in with the equivalent of zombiefied glee.
“Everyone sing out with your ammo count.” I shouted. When everyone had given their number, I did a quick mental calculation.
“Alright, we have about two thousand rounds left. Try to stay within your sectors of fire.” I ducked inside my truck and retrieved some binoculars.
“How many, do you think?” Terry asked as I handed the binoculars to Julie.
“I’m estimating a couple of hundred.” I said to all of them. “Hopefully, this will be all.” Until next time, I thought. We waited patiently for them to walk within range. Suddenly, Terry shouted.
“Hey everyone, get your kits out and do a quick field cleaning. Otherwise, we’ll start getting jams. I’ll keep watch.” I glanced at him with pride. Terry had a military mindset, which was a valuable asset for our group.
We cleaned our weapons quickly, while we waited for the slowly moving horde. I looked over at everyone’s progress and notice Kelly kept fumbling with her weapon. I reassembled mine quickly and helped with hers. I motioned for her to pull an ear plug out and asked her how she was doing. She glanced at me before focusing on her weapon.
“Alright.” She answered, but then shook her head. “Nervous as hell, I need a Xanax.”
I chuckled. “It’s a hell of a way to introduce you to zombie killing, but you’re doing good, hang in there.” I patted her shoulder. She smiled at me tentatively and put her earplug back in.
Once they were in range, it took another forty-five minutes until the last one fell. Afterward, we reloaded, gathered around, and exchanged high-fives.
“The cold slowed them down, but we still had some close calls.” Bo said.
“Yeah, this may not be a good strategy during the heat of the summer when they’re more agile.” I added. “Since we now know more about them, we may have to mount some offensive operations while it’s still cold.” I looked at Terry. “That’ll be your project, Corporal.” He grinned and gave me a mock salute.
“Mac,” I said. “First thing tomorrow, let’s get some bulldozers down here along with that tanker full of old gas. We’ll stack ‘em and have some zombie bonfires. We also want to gather up all of our brass before everyone runs over it.”
“Tomorrow is Christmas.” Julie said with a smile. “I might have a present or two for you.” I looked at everyone and shrugged.
“Maybe we can wait a day.” I said, and grinned. “I hope y’all plan on meeting at the house. The Wanda and Rhonda duo have a big Christmas Eve dinner waiting on us.”
I let Julie drive, I needed to unwind and think. As we turned south on Nolensville Pike, I looked over at a billboard near the intersection. A few days ago, I had spent a couple of hours stripping away the advertising for a new generation of mobile phone and painted my last, and possibly the most ominous rule, in bold, three-foot block letters -
Z14: THEY’RE EVOLVING.
Z14 (Zombie Rules) Page 39