The F*cked Series (Book 4): Hard

by Gleason, R. K.

  “Neither,” she says, pulling back a little. “Don’t say, I’ve got this.” Pam couldn’t remember anything ever ending well when he’d used that phrase before attempting something risky or foolish.

  The coffee’s hot, she’d warn. I got this, he’d reply, right before not being able to taste anything over the blisters in his mouth for two days.

  Do you want some help hanging the Christmas lights? Nah, I got this, Dave had replied. He hadn’t had it and fell off the roof an hour later.

  That might be too much starting fuel on the briquettes for the barbecue. Are you kidding? I got this. Pam had been right. It had indeed been too much fuel.

  “Oh, hell no. We’re flying by the seat of our pants on this one,” he tells her.

  “Goddamn it, Dave!” Pam replies, pulling her hands away.

  “Are you ready?” Ben asks, interrupting the no-win argument Dave had been led into.

  “In a sec,” Dave answers without looking away from his wife. “Are we good?” he asks her, searching her expression for agreement.

  “Yeah. We’re good,” Pam grudgingly concedes.

  “Okay,” he replies, giving her a kiss. Checking his watch, Dave saw it was approaching eleven in the morning. They needed to get going if they were going to be back before dark. Trudging through the trees and brush was going to make things slow going after they walked back down the dirt road leading to their current location. “Are you two ready?” he asks Ben and Zack.

  The decision had already been made about who would go on this expedition and who would stay. They’d agreed, after a lengthy debate, that Dave, Zack, and Ben would scout ahead, leaving the others with the vehicles to watch over their supplies and each other. At first, Brigette hadn’t been in favor of staying behind. Dave had to explain that she and Ben were the best marksmen in their group, and since this was Ben’s plan to begin with, he was definitely going along. It seemed logical she should stay with the others in case shit went awry. He’d explained it would be better for Jaxon and Braxton if their mother was here and she could keep an eye on them. They also all agreed the three of them would check in at regular intervals but had never truly defined what regular would be. They had established the ones staying behind wouldn’t radio Dave, who’d been elected to carry one of the two remaining walkie-talkies, unless something was wrong. This was to prevent any unexpected radio noise at an inopportune time. The last concession was if the three of them traveled outside of the small radio’s capacity, they’d turn around and come back.

  “What? Now you’re in a hurry?” Zack asks.

  “I know, right?” Ben chimes in. He was carrying his Mosin-Nagant, the rifle he’d used to pick off the soldiers the night before, slung to his back. It had a six-round capacity and was bolt-action rather than semi-auto, but you could practically fill it with dirt and the thing would keep firing. He had two dozen 7.62 cartridges for it in a Crown Royal bag drawn closed and tied to his belt. His pistol, the Ruger SR9 he’d aimed at Dave when he’d arrived at Mike and Lynn’s, was tucked securely in his belt and two loaded mags were in his back pocket.

  Zack was carrying his side-by-side twelve-gauge in his hand and the ten-millimeter Smith and Wesson revolver they’d taken from one of the road-pirates that had tried to run them off the road, tucked into his waistband. The partial box of rounds the driver had with him when he’d met his end, were in Zack’s jacket pocket and he had several shotgun shells in the other.

  Dave felt a little under-armed only carrying his pistol-grip, twelve-gauge pump, but there weren’t a lot of other options. The remaining weapons and the rest of the ammo were staying with the others. Since he was only packing around one firearm, he’d been elected to carry the small day pack on his back. Inside it was an extra box of shells for all the guns they were taking, except for the revolver, four bottles of water and a few granola bars. The plan was to return well before dark, but they’d probably get hungry, or at the very least thirsty before they got back. Whatever they discovered during their reconnaissance mission would dictate the family’s course of action when they returned. They’d either gather everyone up and be safely on their way. Wait for nightfall and sneak on their way under the cover of darkness. Or turn tail, running for their lives and hope to find some other route west.

  “I was waiting for you two youngsters,” Dave replies.

  “We’ve been ready,” Zack says.

  “Do either of you have to go pee before we leave?” Dave asks, feeling compelled to repeat the same question he’d been asking since the boys were very young. It never failed. They couldn’t get a mile from home before one of them would start wiggling in their seats and insisting it was an emergency and no, they didn’t know they had to go before they’d left.

  The brothers looked at each other, exchanged nods and Ben says, “We’re good.”

  It took the three of them about twenty minutes to walk back along the dirt road to where the pavement started that led to Highway 114. It’d been decided this was the point they’d enter the woods to creep west. Ben spotted what looked like a narrow game trail heading that direction and led the way. Their goal was to not sound like a herd of buffalo crashing through the trees. They didn’t want to signal their location to anyone that might be in the woods, especially any of the zombies that might have escaped being flushed out by the military squads from the night before. Ben moved as quietly as possible, but the dried leaves, twigs, and assorted fallen branches, made this nearly impossible. Dave followed, attempting to place his steps in the same spots Ben had used. Zack brought up the rear, continually checking behind them for anyone, or anything, that might be sneaking up behind them.

  “Hold up a sec,” Zack whispers loudly.

  Dave spun and brought up his shotgun, prepared to fire behind them and cut down whatever Zack had seen. Ben did the same, pulling the SR9 from his waistband as he thumbed the trigger back and released the safety.

  “Jesus Christ, Dad! Don’t shoot me,” Zack blurts, holding up his hands. “I just gotta take a leak.”

  “Are you kidding?” Dave hisses.

  “No,” Zack replies. Turning his back to Dave and Ben, he starts to relieve his bladder onto the trail they’d been following.

  “Hey, asshole,” Ben says. “We might need to come back that way.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Zack asks, as his stream of urine splashes onto the ground.

  “Maybe piss off to the side of the trail,” Dave suggests.

  “Yeah, you think?” Ben adds.

  “Fine,” Zack replies, adjusting his aim so the steaming stream arced onto the brush at the side of the trail.

  “Shit,” Ben sighs, securing the SR9 and stepping to the side of the trail to fiddle with the zipper of his jeans.

  “You too?” Dave asks.

  “I didn’t have to go until Zack said something,” Ben replies as he began to spray the brush he was facing.

  “Goddamn it,” Dave whispers, suddenly feeling like his bladder was about to burst. Turning to the opposite side of the trail, he extricated Little Dave and began chuckling the moment his stream began soaking the bushes.

  “What’s so funny,” Zack asks.

  “I didn’t know this was a rain forest,” Dave chortles. The three began laughing, each making a few more sophomoric jokes centered around bodily functions, until they each finished and zipped up. Dave turned serious when he looked back the way they’d come, still able to see the spot they’d entered the woods.

  “What’s wrong?” Ben asks him.

  “I was just wondering if the zombies can find us from our scent,” Dave replies, remembering how the one in the yard of Mike and Lynn’s neighbor had sniffed the air.

  “You think?” Zack asks.

  “We could piss in the water bottles next time,” Ben suggests.

  “You mean after they’re emptied?” Zack asks.

  “Well, duh,” Ben says in way of an answer.

  “If the zombies can track us that way, it’s probably a
good idea to keep our waste contained,” Dave says, grabbing the walkie from his belt. “Home base. This is color leader. Are you there?” Dave waited a moment, but there was no response. He repeated the call two more times, sounding more urgent with each attempt. “Goddamn it!” he spat in frustration.

  “Think we should go back?” Zack asks.

  “Maybe,” Dave says, making another try to call the others.

  “Too bad you can’t send a text message on that thing,” Ben says.

  “Shut up,” Dave mutters before trying again.

  “She’s probably got the volume turned all the way down and can’t hear you calling. She does that shit with her phone all the time,” Zack says, referring to Pam’s preferred ringer setting on her cell phone the entire family deemed her, fuck you setting. In truth, it’d been Dave who’d come up with that particular description.

  “Hey babe. What’s up?” Pam’s voice says over the radio, sounding slightly out of breath.

  “Where have you been?” Dave snaps.

  “I’ve been right here,” Pam replies. “I set the walkie down in the front seat of the jeep when you guys left, remember? Anyway, I forgot to pick it back up and closed the car door without thinking about it. Braxton heard it because he and Jaxon were playing by the jeep and told me. I’ve got it now.”

  “No shit,” Dave says, making sure he hadn’t transmitted that one. He glanced at his sons to see them grinning back at him with amusement, which quickly disappeared with his scowl. Pushing the talk-button, he says, “First, after we’re done, give the radio to your mom to hold on to,” knowing his mother-in-law wouldn’t even consider setting it down and would answer immediately the next time they attempted to make contact.

  “I’ve got it,” Pam dismisses, not yet sounding annoyed by the implication she’d somehow failed in her responsibilities.

  “Please, just do it,” Dave replies.

  “I said, I’ve got it,” she insists, adding the missing element to her tone.

  “I just want to make sure the next time we call, someone answers us, like we talked about. I’ve tried to reach you like, a dozen times, but you didn’t answer. We were debating on coming back to make sure everything was okay,” Dave says, raising his voice a notch. He knew he was exaggerating the number of attempts he’d made and the consideration of their plan to return. It’d only been mentioned, and no actual debate had ever taken place.

  “I said I was sorry,” Pam says, clearly having not said those words.

  “No, you didn’t!” Dave replies, knowing his wife rarely apologized, and especially in situations where she didn’t feel like one was owed.

  “Did you need something?” Pam asks, making no effort to hide her irritation.

  “You guys need to look around and gather up all the empty plastic bottles you can find,” Dave tells her.

  “What for?” she asks.

  “To pee in,” he replies.

  “To what?” Pam blurts.

  “Look. We don’t have time to explain everything,” Dave began, knowing they did have time for an explanation but not feeling like giving one at the moment. “Just do what I asked. You can have Jaxon and Braxton help. Make it like a scavenger hunt. I don’t care. Just don’t let everyone pee around in the bushes. Keep it contained!”

  “Do you know how hard it’s going to be for Mom, Brigette, and me to pee in a bottle, out here in the woods?” she asks.

  “Just figure it out!” Dave says.

  “And what if we have to take a dump? Do you want us to try and do that in a pop-bottle?” Pam asks.

  Dave fought his impulse to tell her that’s exactly what he wanted her to do and had a rather vivid suggestion of how she could avoid the risk of missing the opening while attempting to shit into a bottle, but thought better of it. “You can bury that. Now, can you please just do this? It’ll make sense when I explain after we get back.”

  “Whatever,” Pam says dismissively.

  “Pam! Listen to me,” Dave says. “I don’t think it’s safe to be leaving our scent sprayed all over the surrounding bushes back there with you all.” There was a moment of silence on the other end, making him think he may have pushed his wife too far on this one, and she was now ignoring him.

  “You should have just said that to begin with,” she finally replies, without a hint of agitation.

  “You’re probably right,” Dave concedes.

  “Of course I’m right,” she replies. “What should I do with the bottles once they’re full, bury them?”

  “We keep them for now,” he said.

  “That’s just gross,” Pam nearly gags. Even Zack and Ben grimaced at the suggestion.

  “We might be able to use them as decoys, or a distraction or something,” Dave explains, causing his sons to nod in agreement.

  “I guess that makes sense. Anything else?” Pam asks.

  “Other than I love you, no. We’ll check back in about an hour from now,” Dave tells her. He looked at his watch to make a mental note of the time before adding, “And please make sure to give the radio to your mom to hold on to.”

  “I love you too,” Pam replies, and the radio went silent.

  “You know she’s not going to do that, right?” Zack says.

  “Probably not, but it’s worth a shot.” Dave shrugs.

  “Good idea on the bottled urine, by the way,” Ben adds.

  “Or it might be completely pointless, but…” Dave starts to say.

  “It’s better to have a bottle of urine and not need it,” Ben interrupts.

  “Than to need a bottle of urine and not have it,” Zack finishes for him.

  “You two make me so proud,” Dave says. “Now let’s keep moving.”

  Chapter 4

  Brooks rode in the passenger seat of the military transport vehicle without speaking. Nichols and Patel spoke little as the major’s eyes darted around the landscape as it passed by them. After they’d gotten close to Northbound 71, she’d ordered Patel to drive parallel to the freeway, keeping to side streets. Brooks figured she had a better chance of locating what she was looking for in the surrounding suburbia, rather than on the freeway. But so far, her gamble hadn’t paid off. She’d seen some civilians as they drove through neighborhoods and small business outcroppings. By their condition and lumbering gate, most of them appeared to already be infected. The ones that didn’t, were either running on foot alone, or had given away their positions from with abandoned structures. The fools had been so easily coaxed into curiosity by the rumbling engine of the MTV and were compelled to peek out from behind tattered curtains or spy on them through parted mini blinds. Sort of like the ice cream truck luring children into their yards on irst day of summer. Only these kids weren’t chasing after them and waving dollar bills in hopes of a frozen treat. They remained cautious and more than a little paranoid. Brooks dismissed the idea of conscripting any of them for her needs. They didn’t have the time to coax stragglers out of their hidey-holes to join them, only to find there were one or two of them already in Stage Two of the infection. What she needed was a larger group of uninfected survivors. A half dozen might do for now, but ten or more would be better. They had to be looking for a rescue and willing to do anything for the salvation she offered. Her thoughts were interrupted by another loud thump coming from the back of the transport.

  “What do you think they’re doing back there?” Patel asks nervously. He’d been squeezing the ring of the steering wheel tightly for the last several miles. So tightly that not only were his knuckles a deathly shade of white, it had spread to the tips of his fingers.

  “Plotting is my guess,” Nichols answers. He’d switched on his earpiece shortly after Brooks had delivered the news of what she’d seen in her mirror, to check and see if she could have been mistaken. Even after attempting voice contact with the soldiers in the back, all he’d heard was something that sounded like hogs eating from a trough. This caused his stomach to roll and he’d quickly turned the comms device off to avoid p
uking in the confined space. The thumping from the back had begun shortly after that, forcing him into another attempt at contact. That time, all he’d gotten from them were a few grunts and throaty moans, so he’d switched off his mic and pulled the earpiece from its home.

  “What I can’t figure out, is how they turned so fast. I mean, that’s not right. Is it?” Patel asks.

  “It’s probably different,” Nichols answers with a shrug.

  “Explain,” Brooks says, her attention being pulled into their conversation by Nichols’ statement.

  “Alright. I’m no epidemiologist, so this is just a guess,” Nichols says. “But I think we were just mixing a huge caldron of virusite stew back at the stadium. We had all the Stage Ones, Twos and even Threes contained together. There’s no telling how the virusite might have mutated while all of the infected were bottled up in the stadium.

  “We could have unknowingly created a whole new strain. More resilient, faster. Able to withstand more damage to the host before it’s no longer viable. God only knows what new horror we may have unleashed on the world,” he says, rubbing his face with his hands.

  “But they were all burned up in the fire, right?” Patel asks hopefully.

  “Not hardly,” Nichols answers. As if to emphasize his dread, another loud thump came from the cargo area of the MTV a moment before the big engine coughed.

  “Switching to the reserve tank,” Patel announces when the MTV’s engine coughed again.

  “Fuck,” Nichols mutters under his breath and adjusted his position in the seat again. It was next to impossible to get comfortable with the utilitarian design of the vehicle’s seats. Knowing there was probably a small horde of flesh-eaters just inches behind him wasn’t helping. “I thought you said two hundred and fifty miles.”

  “That was freeway mileage,” Patel replies with a grimace.

  “Maybe it would help if you told us exactly what you were looking for,” Nichols says to Brooks. Either she hadn’t heard him, being fixated on her search or chose to ignore his request. Either way, she remained silent.