ZOMBIES: Chronicles of the Dead : A Zombie Novel Page 13

  "I doubt if they did it on purpose. Remember how fast this whole thing started, nobody had much time to do anything except run for their lives," I maintained. "That's what we did."

  "The horse is fine," Billy interrupted. "It's just fine."

  Then Gin added.

  "We'll never really know for sure, but animals are very resourceful and resilient. I bet right now that horse is drinking water and getting its fill of grass. One thing is for sure, he's not on this horrible river like us."

  "The river didn't seem like such a bad idea when we were in that barn honey, now did it?" I said sarcastically, reminding her of our latest close encounter with the Grim Reaper.

  "No it didn't, but I still don't have to like this river, and I don't care what you say, I'm never going to get used to this smell. This river stinks!" she snapped while holding her nose, giving her voice an adenoidal tone.

  "Well you won't have to put up with the smell on the river for too much longer. Tomorrow I'm going to break out the GPS and see exactly where we are, and how much farther it is to Vicksburg," I said, growing tired of her complaining. After all, it wasn't helping any and certainly wasn't doing anything to diminish to odor the river was emitting. But I didn't want to start an argument, things were bad enough without us fighting among ourselves. So I chose to change the subject and hoped that she would follow my lead, which she did.

  The next morning after everyone was awake; I dug through our stuff and found the GPS device that I had made sure to bring along with us. I turned the mechanism on, and was glad to see that it had held a charge and was operating with seventy-six percent of its battery life left. After making a few calculations and formulating an interim plan, I made an announcement.

  "We should be able to pick up some kind of a vehicle in Vicksburg, if not; Tallulah is just west of there fifteen miles or so down interstate twenty. Vicksburg is right on the river, and it should be a short walk into town. I can't see not being able to find something to drive in one of those towns. By my estimate we should reach Vicksburg some time tomorrow afternoon, barring any kind of delay."

  "You mean like pirates," Jacob asked.

  "Yes!" I said. "Like pirates."

  "Or like getting killed," Billy interjected.

  "Thanks for the positive input Billy," Gin said sarcastically.

  Ignoring his mother's comment, he asked.

  "Hey dad, I noticed something about the eaters. They always seem to be traveling in groups. The only one we've seen not with another eater was our neighbor Jon, and it wasn't long after he arrived at our house that Julie showed up at our patio door. Why do you think that is?"

  "I don't know, but you're right," I answered. "We've seen a couple of massive groups on the riverbanks. At the farmhouse, there was a bunch of them. Then on the way back to the boat, there was that group of four of them."

  "Two on the road on the way to launch the boat," Gin quickly divulged.

  "Don't forget the two at the boat launch standing behind the tree. I saved dad remember," Jacob proudly added.

  "Maybe it all goes back to what the CDC was saying about the virus possibly being from feral dogs. We know the eaters are afraid of water, like hydrophobia," I reminded.

  "Yeah, they're funny when they try to swim," Jacob said laughing.

  "They're not so funny when they end up in our boat, are they?" Billy fumed, recalling Jacob nearly being bitten.

  "If it is the feral dog syndrome, maybe it's like wolves, and there's some kind of pack mentality that has evolved. Whether it's pack mentality or a mutated strain of the disease, or maybe they just like each other's company. We might be able to use the group therapy thing to our advantage at some point," I mentioned.

  "How are we going to do that?" Gin asked, tilting her head to the side and raising her eyebrows.

  "I'm not sure right now honey," I answered. "But let's keep it in mind anyway; the more we know about our enemy the better we'll be able to fight them."

  Gin nodded her head in agreement.

  "We know they're afraid of water, and they like to travel in packs," she said.

  "They have pretty good hearing," Billy interjected once more.

  "They like to eat people, it's lucky for us that they're kind of slow and off balance most of the time," Jacob quipped.

  "Especially lucky for you," Billy said sarcastically, again reminding his brother of his near encounter with a gruesome death.

  "Anything we can think of that might help us fight off these monsters we need to consider, so keep thinking, and in the mean time let's sharpen our sickles, it's only a matter of hours before we get to Vicksburg and I'm sure we're not going to have time to do it there," I maintained. "We're going to need these sickles to be sharp until we can find something better if we're going to make it to Texas."

  We settled down and shared the rock that I had picked up to sharpen our sickles. The sickles had worked pretty well at the farmhouse, and we really didn't need them much sharper than they already were. Even though they were old and rusty, the farmer had maintained them well enough to be able to split a zombie's skull rather efficiently with them. But, I wanted to give everyone something to do for awhile to keep their minds occupied with something other than the smell of the river, and the memories of the horrors that we had encountered along the way.

  The rest of the day dragged sluggishly by, as did most of the days that had preceded it. All of us had a sense of joy and relief when the days ended and we could lie down and close our eyes for a few hours, and hopefully dream of more pleasant times in the past, and maybe even in the future.

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  VICKSBURG MS

  We had spent the early portion of the following day packing what we were going to carry with us into the small town of Vicksburg.

  Humans have a tendency to develop an emotional attachment to inanimate objects, and it doesn't matter what those objects are, how large or small they might be, or even how long we've owned them. The attachment can be very strong, and the detachment can be quite traumatic. Therefore, we found ourselves in a mild state of melancholia as we prepared to deal with releasing the emotional hold we had on many things we would be leaving behind.

  In my case, it was my small 15-foot utility boat I had named Morphadite. We had already left behind most of our possessions when we were forced out of our home days earlier, which made leaving my boat on the bank of the Mississippi river that much harder. Nonetheless, it would soon have to be done and there was nothing that I could do to prevent it, so I would just have to grin and bear it, and put it out of my mind as soon as possible, for there were far more pressing matters at hand.

  Shortly after 2 o'clock in the afternoon, the GPS showed Vicksburg MS less than a mile away.

  "Vicksburg is mile ahead!" I announced. "We'll be paddling to the bank; we don't want to take the chance that the noise from the motor will bring any eaters our way."

  As we rounded a large bend in the river, the two long steel-truss bridges that spanned across the water connecting Mississippi and Louisiana came into view.

  "That's Vicksburg there on the left by those bridges," I stated. "Let's start paddling!"

  The river meandered to the east about five miles before Vicksburg. Then it abruptly turned to the southwest at Vicksburg. The effect of which was that the current was somewhat stronger on the outside of the curve, resulting in an accumulation of corpses that had been ejected from the river and washed onto the bank as the river made a 45° southerly turn and began to flow southwest.

  "Great, even more dead bodies, I suppose we have to walk over them now?" Gin said with disgust.

  I didn't feel there was a need to try and rebut Gin's comment. After all, spending weeks on a river that had the smell of death constantly in the air, along with hundreds if not thousands of rotting human and sub-human bloated bodies floating all around us. Not to mention the numerous hordes of slobbering zombies intent on having us as the main course of their next meal, lining the banks of this river
from hell. We all felt the same way, so all I said in response was.

  "Let's try to get to the bank before we get to the majority of them."

  Then I paddled even harder, hoping my family would follow suit.

  The stronger river current spit us out toward the bank as it had done with the decaying carcasses already littering Vicksburg's waterfront.

  We made our way to the shore, and as the Morphadite scraped upon the sand and rocks, I jumped from the bow and pulled as hard as I could on one of the forward cleats, dragging the boat farther up onto the bank.

  "There's only a couple of bodies right here, try not to step on them when you get out of the boat!" I explained, pointing in the direction of the beached remains

  "They squish pretty easy after being marinated in the river for who knows how long."

  "I'll say, you scalped that one back by the farmhouse, and its hair stuck to your boot!" Jake said giggling.

  "I hope you find it as humorous when it happens to you," I said sarcastically as I smirked at him.

  "Let's grab our stuff, we've got to get moving, we're burning daylight. We need to find some kind of vehicle as soon as possible, so let's get going," I quietly barked.

  We unloaded the equipment we had separated from what was to be left behind. Each of us gathered up what we had assigned ourselves to carry, toted it up the riverbank, and marched into Vicksburg.

  We had landed about a thousand feet north of a place called riverfront park, and found ourselves walking through a fairly large field. We walked south toward some buildings, and soon we were standing in the parking lot of a small business.

  "This stuff is heavier than I thought it would be! What exactly are we looking for?" Billy asked, concentrating more on his heavy load than on searching for a new mode of transportation.

  "A vehicle to start with, that's our main concern," I answered.

  "Yes, any vehicle, I'm beat already and we've only walked a few hundred yards!" Gin interrupted, puffing, as she tried to catch her breath.

  "Keep your eyes open for a sporting goods store or a gun shop or army surplus store, something like that. A National Guard armory would be great to find if we can, someplace that might have something of value to us, equipment, weapons, something like that!" I continued, ignoring the interruption by my wife.

  "Look over there!" Jacob yelled, pointing to the next parking lot. "Maybe that's the National Guard armory over there."

  "Keep your voice down, eaters will hear you!" I scolded in a low voice.

  "Sorry," Jacob said grimacing. "But look over there!"

  Jacob had pointed to a small gap between the buildings, through which we could just barely see several military vehicles in the parking lot ahead. We cautiously hurried across a street that divided two parking lots, I believe it was Lee Street, most likely named after General Robert E. Lee; after all, we were in Vicksburg.

  Across one parking lot and through the narrow spaces between the buildings we went. We crossed another road that led to a destroyed dock on the river. Something, maybe a runaway barge or a large boat, who knows what, had torn the dock from its mooring. Whatever had run into the dock had continued down the river and left it no longer operational.

  When we arrived at the location of the military vehicles, we found them abandoned; no living persons were around, just more dead bodies, a lot more dead bodies. Some of which were in uniform, some in civilian clothes.

  "This isn't an armory, but it looks like they made a stand here," I said, surveying the carnage.

  "If any of them lived through it, they're gone now," Billy responded, also surveying the death and destruction.

  "Maybe, but they left us some cool stuff, look at this!" Jacob remarked, as he climbed into a turret that was built into the roof of a discarded National Guard Hummer equipped with a Dillon Aero M134 mini-gun.

  "There's still plenty of ammunition left!" He announced, grabbing the handles of the gun and pressing the trigger.

  "It's got to be turned on first," I said.

  "It is on!" Jacob answered. "See this switch is in the on position, it should work?" He said scratching his head.

  "Whoever shot it last either got killed or ran away and left it on, it's electric, and it runs off a battery which is probably dead," I informed him. "So you might as well turn it off."

  "Yeah, dead like everything else in this world. Are we ever going to get away from this stench?" Gin asked, frowning and wrinkling up her nose.

  "Maybe it won't be so bad once we're away from populated areas, or once populated areas I should say, and remember, we're still really close to the river," I replied in answer to her question.

  Turning my attention back to the task at hand, I instructed my son.

  "Billy, see what kind of battery that mini-gun uses, maybe we can find one that's charged. Check those gas cans too, see if they're full. I'll see if they left the key in it," I said, opening the Hummer's door.

  "They're both full dad!" Billy said, informing me of his findings.

  "The keys are in it too!" I remarked happily.

  I turned the ignition key to the right and the powerful Hummer started up.

  "Looks like we found our means of travel, throw your things in."

  "Billy, you and Jake check a couple of the other trucks and see if we can use one of their batteries for the mini-gun," I ordered.

  "And watch out for eaters!" I added.

  The boys chucked their equipment into the Hummer, all except their guns and sickles, and then set out to search the other trucks.

  The boys lifted the hoods on several of the abandon trucks, checking their batteries, while Gin and I orderly packed the families supplies into our newly acquired means of travel.

  About the fifth vehicle, another Hummer, Billy waved and pointed at the battery. I shifted our Hummer into first gear and slowly moved to the soon to be cannibalize truck.

  "This looks identical to the battery the Dillon uses," Billy said. "Now all we have to do is find some tools to get it out."

  "I'll look back here; these mini-guns run their batteries down pretty fast so there might be some tools close to our new gun!" I said, searching the back of our Hummer.

  "Here's the wrench they use, catch," I said, as I tossed the wrench to Billy.

  "This looks like it will work," he replied.

  Moments later Billy was lifting the battery from the now cannibalized Hummer.

  "Here Jake, put this with the mini-gun," he said, handing Jacob the salvaged battery.

  "Bring that wrench over here Billy and let's see if we can get this gun working," I said.

  Billy tossed the wrench to me.

  "Here catch dad!" he called out.

  "Thanks!" I replied, catching the tool.

  "Just one more second and we'll try to shoot this thing." I said jovially, anticipating shooting a mini-gun for the first time in my life.

  I had shot many guns up to now, in the Marine Corps I had had the opportunity to shoot grenade launchers and set off explosives, throw hand grenades, and fire various other military weapons.

  Before the "Fit hit the Shan" so to speak, I belonged to a gun club and participated in some organized shooting disciplines such as I.D.P.A. and I.P.S.C., and occasionally a three gun match at the shooting complex near Sparta, Illinois. Not to mention, once or twice a year, me and a buddy of mine liked to make the two hour drive to Sikeston Missouri, to enjoy a day shooting different makes and models of machine guns, by invitation only of course.

  There we shot anything from a Browning 1919 belt fed machine gun to a full auto Uzi, and about everything in between. However, I never got the chance to shoot a mini-gun. So even in the midst of this brave new world, I was still excited to have the opportunity to fire this weapon at last. Not to mention, I could not think of a better gun to use to defend ourselves against a hard charging horde of hungry zombies.

  "That's it, now it should work," I said, laying the wrench down by the battery.

  "Boys, get in the truc
k!" Gin said, sounding alarmed.

  "What's wrong honey, eaters?" I remarked looking around, yet seeing nothing.

  "No, I don't see any eaters, that's what's wrong. We haven't seen one eater since we left the boat. I mean there are plenty of dead ones, but none of them are walking around. All throughout this trip, we've seen eaters. The riverbanks were crawling with them most of the time, the farm yard was infested with them, but here, nothing. Something is not right!" she asserted.

  "Maybe it's just luck?" Jacob said, optimistically smiling.

  "Now days, there's no such thing as luck. We have to make our own luck. So get in the truck and let's see if this gun works," I answered.

  This time it was me that climbed into the turret. I pointed the weapon at the building adjacent to us and flipped the mini-gun's switch to the on position, and the machine began to hum. I pulled the trigger to the rear, and the six barrels of the modern Gatling gun began to spin and spit fire, tearing through the side of the sheet metal walls of the targeted structure.

  Not wanting to expend all of our ammunition on testing the gun, I quickly halted the test.

  "Seems to work," I boasted.

  "Well if there are any eaters around here, they should be on their way now," Gin softly hinted.

  "Right, so let's get out of here!" I agreed, as I climbed down from the turret and jumped off the Hummer.

  "Billy, you get on the mini-gun, same rule applies, shoot first and ask questions later," I reminded him as I climbed into the driver's seat.

  As we pulled out of the parking lot and made our way onto old U.S. 80, I handed Gin the GPS and said. "Turn it on and let's see how far it is to the Texas boarder."

  As our navigational device booted up, a sign signaling our approach to interstate twenty appeared.

  Just at that moment, a large brown dog leaped onto the hood of our vehicle snarling and barking at us on the other side of the windshield. Then another dog joined the first one on the hood of our Hummer, viciously snarling and barking, and dripping saliva as well.

  Glancing in the rearview mirror, I could see more dogs running behind our truck, twenty, maybe thirty of them.