ZOMBIES: Chronicles of the Dead : A Zombie Novel Page 17

  "Where are we going?" Billy asked, concerned about Franks warning of marauding bands of humans.

  "Just down the street, hold on," I answered as we turned down a dark residential street two blocks from the assassins hide out.

  After passing a few houses down the gloomy street, I turned around in a driveway, pulled back up to the corner and stopped the Hummer facing the store.

  "I can see the parking lot pretty good from the here," Billy whispered, as the turret sat him a good three feet higher in the Hummer than me.

  "I can just barely see it from down here," I whispered back, as I pushed the barrel of my AK-47 out the driver's window and fired several shots into the air.

  "No need to whisper now," I yelled, firing even more shots into the air.

  "Hopefully, these shots will lure them away from the store's parking lot, that is if Frank's people will stop shooting."

  After a few minutes the assassins on the rooftop had cleared the remaining zombies, and had stopped firing their weapons, leaving only the buzzing sound of a few thousand airborne flies to attract more zombies.

  I fired several more shots into the air and now that the parking lot had fallen silent, the noise from our location was starting receive the attention of the zombies whose previous target was the big box store, but hadn't as yet made it to its parking lot.

  "Some of them are turning toward us dad, they're coming this way," Billy yelled.

  "Keep an eye out for eaters that might already be here, or that are coming from another direction, we don't want to be ambushed," I told him, this time firing my AK through the picture window of a house across the street.

  "What the hell, I might as well bust some stuff up while I'm at it." I thought to myself.

  "It looks like all of them are coming now," Billy announced loudly.

  With that, I again fired several more shots, this time into some other nearby houses, as I backed into another driveway.

  "We'll go down the back street, that way we'll bypass the eaters we drew toward us and we'll get back to your mother and Jacob unscathed," I promised, whispering once again.

  For a change the plan worked flawlessly, we drove slowly around the block and down the street that ran parallel with the zombie's route. We entered the parking lot and quickly sped to the back of the building once more, willfully committing two more felony hit and runs along the way. Two short beeps at the back door, and within seconds we were back inside the big box store.

  "You're pretty good at killing out-breakers," Mike said, as he, Sondra, Frank, and what's her name approached, leading Jacob and Gin, and a few people from their team.

  Hugging my wife, I replied. "It's one of my many gifts."

  "We've got people upfront repairing and reinforcing the barrier, and on our way back here we took a vote. We decided that if you and your family want to join us, you're more than welcome to, Frank remarked.

  "Like I said before, we've got places to go and people to see," I answered. "It'll be light soon, and we'll be on our way, but if we ever get back this way we'll be sure to stop in and say hello."

  We all knew that the odds of us ever seeing each other again were pretty slim, but it sounded good and was reminiscent of the way things used to be. So we all pretended that it was a real possibility and carried on that way until we had parted ways with the assassins.

  We spent the early hours of the morning in preparation of our departure; we used the time to organize our equipment and fill our gas tank with the generous gift of gasoline that Frank's people had siphoned out of the underground tanks that were buried beneath the gas station on their parking lot.

  The assassins even donated enough of the right caliber ammo to replenish our mini-gun half way. I didn't ask were they got the ammo, or if they were sure that they could spare it, I just accepted it and kept my mouth shut. We needed the mini-gun ammo desperately, and I wasn't about to jinx the deal by asking too many questions.

  I figured it this way, if they were stupid enough to give us their ammo, we were going to be stupid enough to take it.

  Finally, Mike and Sondra put some of what Frank called real food into a cooler, and sat it in the back of our Hummer, we were now ready to depart.

  Then an unexpected turn of events took us totally by surprise. As we were about to leave, and saying good-bye to our hosts, what's her name came sauntering up, followed by another woman about her age.

  "Remember me, I'm Megan, and this is Mary," she said, pulling a skinny red headed girl in her early twenties to her side.

  "Sure we remember you. What's your name?" I asked jokingly.

  Tilting her head and putting her hands on her hips, Megan gave me one of those looks that women give you, and without saying anything, they're saying "really".

  I couldn't help but to laugh.

  "Megan," I said. "I could never forget you."

  She smiled at me, and said. "That's kind of what I wanted to talk to you about, I wanted to ask you. Can we come with you?"

  "What? You two want to come with us?" I asked. "Why? Do you know what it's like out there?"

  "We heard you and your family are on your way to Texas, both of us have family in Texas," Megan whined, protruding her lower lip.

  "We want to be with them."

  I looked at Gin, and she had a complacent look on her face as if the decision was up to me.

  Then Jacob added.

  "We can make room, it'll be tight, but there's room."

  Stepping forward, Billy then added his opinion.

  "There are times when we could use the backup dad," he said smiling.

  I could see the sparkle in both of my boy's eyes. Billy was right, there were times when we could use the back up, but I suspected that back up was not the main reason that my two teenage boys wanted the company of two young women.

  "Mary, are you trying to tell me that you really want to leave all of this, join up with a group of people that you literally just met, and try to make it all the way deep into Texas?" I asked, wondering why these two girls were making this strange request.

  Mary's response caught me off guard.

  "All of you are going to leave all of this, and try to make it all the way deep into Texas, aren't you?" she asked.

  "You've got a point Mary, that's exactly what we're going to do," I answered, smiling and nodding my head.

  Megan abruptly broke in.

  "So what difference will two more make?"

  Again, I looked at Gin. This time she shrugged her shoulders as if she didn't care, signaling to me that it was all right with her.

  "Okay fine, you two can go with us," I said. "But you'll have to do as I say, when I say, do you understand?"

  Not bothering to answer my question.

  "Great," Megan said. "We'll get our things."

  The two girls turned and hurried off to retrieve their belongings while Billy and Jacob hurried to make room in the Hummer for their things.

  A few minutes later Megan and Mary returned, each carrying a backpack and toting their guns. We packed their stuff and said our final goodbyes, waving to Frank and his assassins as we departed.

  We were led by Mike driving one of their fortified vehicles, he would escort us safely back to interstate twenty where we would all part company.

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  LONE STAR STATE

  After leaving Frank's group, we were across the Texas-Louisiana boarder in less than a half an hour, despite the heavy congestion on the freeway that was prevalent before we passed a highway called the Inner Loop Expressway.

  We had gone about one hundred miles into Texas. We were making good time; because there were some long stretches of highway in the middle of nowhere that weren't cluttered with wreaked cars and trucks.

  When out of the blue, Megan commented.

  "Neither one of us has relatives here in Texas."

  "What?" I asked. "What do you mean neither one of you have relatives in Texas?"

  "We just said that because we didn't
want to stay there any longer, we didn't think it was safe anymore. Frank was making some really stupid decisions, and everyone was just going along with him.

  "Like what?" Gin asked, curious to find out why the girls would want to leave what appeared to her to be a fairly safe environment, except for the occasional zombie horde surge.

  "Take you guys for instance, no offence, but Frank picked you up, didn't know anything about you, and brought you back to our compound and let you in. He didn't ask anyone's opinion; he didn't take a vote, nothing, he didn't even take your weapons away from you," Megan answered, visibly stressed. "So we'll ride with you until we get to wherever your people are in Texas, and we'll go on by ourselves from there."

  Thinking that Megan and Mary were sharper than I had first thought, I confessed to them as well.

  "Well ladies, I hate to bring you down with the facts, but we don't have any relatives in Texas either, I initially told Frank that in case we needed an excuse to leave. I noticed the same thing you did; the fact that he let us keep our guns was a huge red flag to me. Guns would have been the first thing that I would have taken away from strangers, and then any other weapons that they might have, at least until they had proved themselves not to be a threat. Frank and the rest of them have a pre-zombie-holocaust mentality; they think there's some good in everybody. That may have been true before this plague happened. I never believed it myself, but that's just me. Anyway that kind of thinking is going to get them all killed now days."

  "It was kind of weird that they let us keep our guns," Gin said.

  I looked over my shoulder at Megan.

  "Frank told me that before doomsday he was a psychologist, I think that might be his problem, Frank is just thinking too much," I told her.

  "He never told me that, I don't think he ever told anyone that. That's just great, he tells a total stranger all of his deep dark secrets, but doesn't tell his closest brothers and sisters in arms, just wonderful," she spouted.

  "All it's going to take is for one of those outsider groups to devise a plan to infiltrate their lair, Frank let's them keep their weapons, and they all find themselves waking up dead in the morning," Billy stated.

  "That's why we left son, that's why we all left," I said, agreeing whole-heartily with him.

  "We're definitely not as congenial as Frank, but we have a set of rules too," I said to the girls.

  "Jacob, show Megan and Mary our rules," I insisted.

  Jacob dug around in his pocket and pulled out a wrinkled piece of paper.

  "Here, read this," he said, handing the paper to Mary.

  "There's one more rule that's not on that paper, it's our shoot first and ask questions later rule. It goes like this. When in doubt, shoot first, and later ask yourself if it was the right thing to do," I told the girls.

  "That rule has saved us a couple of times," Gin added, nodding her head in agreement.

  Billy leaned over to Megan and looked her in the eye.

  "So don't be afraid to use it," he interjected.

  The two girls reclined in their seats and leaned against each other as they began to read and memorize our list of rules.

  "If you think of anything that you think might be useful, don't hesitate to mention it, one of those rules states share your information," I imparted to them.

  Our gas gauge read three quarters full as we continued west. We were traveling at a reduced rate of speed, not nearly as fast as the freeway was designed to handle, so we weren't in need of a fuel stop at the moment.

  However, as on any road trip, post apocalyptic or not, the call of nature will dictate certain mandatory delays.

  As we passed a road sign that informed us that a rest area was three miles ahead, Gin spoke up.

  "We need to stop up ahead, I have to use the restroom, anybody else have to go?" Gin asked, taking a poll.

  Most everyone agreed that a restroom break was indeed needed, so instead of dropping trou along the roadside, we decided to make a stop at the rest area.

  "Everyone take your rifle with you, and cover each other," I said, coaching the new members of our troop as I turned onto the exit ramp.

  When we arrived at the normal parking area, I drove the Hummer over the curb and parked it about ten yards from the stone building where the restrooms where located.

  "Billy, I want you to climb into the turret and cover us, you can go in last. Jacob and I will go in first and make sure it's safe inside. All of us will use the women's restroom, that way we only have to clear one room, and the ladies will have, well, whatever ladies have in their restrooms. When we come out, you girls can go in and we'll stand guard. Billy will watch over all of us with the mini-gun."

  "Remember dad, we only have a half full belt in this gun and we need to make it last, so I'm only going to shoot a couple of bursts at a time and that's it," Billy reminded me. "Unless of course a large horde of eater's show up, then I'm going to let loose on them."

  "Then keep your AK close, and shoot them with it," I insisted, as we began to move away from the Hummer. "And stay inside the truck, don't get out, shoot if you have to, if the noise brings in a bunch of eaters, we can always leave and drop a deuce in a roadside ditch somewhere if need be."

  I entered the restroom first as planned, Jacob followed close behind me, and after checking all of the stalls, and pulling the handle of what was probably the locked door to a supply room, we determined that the restroom was safe.

  "It's clear in here, we'll be out in a minute," I called to the women.

  "Okay, but hurry up, we have to go too," Mary yelled.

  "Keep your voice down," Billy said calmly, as he scanned the area for zombies.

  After the group was relieved of their urinary and other pressures, we decided to check the information center with the hopes of finding a road map.

  Even though we had our GPS device, in our hurry to leave our home, I'd forgotten to pack the unit's charger; if we couldn't find a car charger to fit it soon, it would become useless to us.

  I pulled the Hummer up to the building with Billy again on watch in the turret; the others followed using the vehicle as cover. Again, I parked the Hummer ten or so yards from the door of the building, I stopped the truck and led our group cautiously to the front door.

  The glass door was broken along with all of the other windows, so entering the building was not a problem. However, entering the building quietly was impossible.

  The broken glass from the windows covered the floor and crunched under our feet as we walked. The maps and tourist brochures were scattered everywhere, making finding the map that we wanted a bit of a chore.

  "What do you want?" A man's voice came from behind the large semi circular counter setting in the middle of the floor. We all froze in our tracks. Only slight crunches were now heard as even the slightest movement crushed more glass under our feet, making it impossible to be completely quiet.

  "Who's there, I know you aren't any of those crazy people, they can't stand still. So who are you and what do you want?" the voice once more asked.

  "You're right, we're not the crazy people, we're just a group of people traveling through," I told him while pointing to the counter, informing our group where the man was hiding.

  "We just want one or two of your maps and we'll be on our way, if that's all right with you," I said. Trying to convince the man that he had some semblance of authority in this matter. All the while motioning to Jacob and Megan to watch each side of the counter, and to Gin and Mary to be ready in case the man decided to attack us from the middle of the counter.

  "Come on out and let us take a look at you. We won't hurt you unless you try to hurt us first," I told the man as I leveled the barrel of my AK-47 at his position.

  I did not intend to kill this man right off, or at all for that matter; however, if he made any kind of hostile moves toward me or anyone in our group, he would be dead before he hit the floor.

  From behind the counter the top of the man's head appeared, rising ever so
slowly into view.

  "I want to see your hands, put your hands on the counter," I ordered forcefully, in the style of a police officer giving commands to a suspect.

  By now, we could see the man's eyes and nose as he continued to stand up.

  "Our weapons can easily penetrate that counter you're behind," I told him.

  Still not able to see the man's hands, I was becoming impatient.

  "Put your hands on the counter," I repeated angrily, as my index finger began to tickle my rifle's trigger.

  "Okay, okay," the man said, slowly sliding both hands onto the counter as he stood all the way up.

  "Stay there and don't move," I said, as I moved toward the man, pointing the muzzle of my rifle directly at his face, just out of his reach.

  Tilting my head toward Jacob I informed the man.

  "This is my son Jacob, he's going to come around the counter and search you. If you move a hair, outside of blinking your eyes, I'm going to put a big hole in your face and blow out the back of your head. Nod your head one time if you understand," I said slowly and concise.

  The man nodded one time as ordered, and I motioned to Jacob to go around the counter and search the man, saying.

  "Check him for weapons Jake."

  The glass crunched loudly under Jacob's feet as he moved swiftly to the back of the counter.

  "He's got some stuff here on the floor," Jacob claimed, kicking the man's rifle a few feet away in one direction, and his pistol a few feet away in the opposite direction.

  Upon searching the man's person Jacob found no more weapons, so I removed the muzzle of my gun from in front of his face and asked him his name.

  "What's your name mister?"

  "Clyde, my name is Clyde," the man answered.

  "Well Clyde," I said. "Like I said before, all we want is couple of maps and you'll never see us again.

  Girls, see if you can find a road map, there should be some around here some place."