A Time to Kill Zombies

by Jill James

  The man looked on the verge of tears. Paul steered the questions in a new direction. “Would they come live here if we helped you protect it from the skinbags?”

  “Skinbags?”

  Paul shook his head. “Sorry, zombies. Skinbags is just what our group usually calls them.”

  “You have a group? More than these people?” The man’s face brightened up.

  “We hope we do,” he explained. “The men you saw were headed to the Ryde Hotel to be our new home and we had some friends we had to leave back in Oakley that we hope make it by river to the hotel.”

  His thoughts caught at Jack and Lila searching for Selena. He held a small flicker of hope in his heart, but his brain said they would probably never know what happened to their former commander or the lost child.

  Suz squeezed beside him, wrapping her arm around his waist. Between her on one side and Josh’s warmth on the other he felt all the support he needed.

  “If you leave, I won’t have that repel sound you’re using,” Brandon spoke up, looking sad and dejected.

  “Do you have a computer? Flash drives?”

  Brandon scratched his head, and then smiled. “Tabitha has all that stuff. She was a computer geek at the computer store, you know, the ones with their own cars. I can call her and tell her to bring one when they come.”

  Paul’s mouth dropped open and he was sure Suz’s and Josh’s did as well. “You have a phone? That works?”

  The man nodded so hard Paul thought his head would fall off his shoulders. “Billy worked for the phone company before the flu came. He helped us have phones from here to Ryde and Locke. He explained it one time, but I’ve done forgot, something about the hub is at his house and Grace works it.”

  He caught onto the one important word in that rambling speech. “You have phones to Ryde? What about the hotel?”

  Brandon nodded again and Paul’s breath caught in his throat. “Old John lives there by himself. Used to be a Young John, but he died with the flu.”

  “Will Old John be upset that our men came to the hotel to use it?” Suz asked in a whisper, her fear for Charlie and his boys plain on her face.

  The man nibbled on his lip and scratched his head again. “I don’t think so, but let’s ask him.”

  They followed Fisher into his house. It had clearly been the home of an older couple. Lace doilies covered the arms of the couches and the overstuffed, comfortable chairs. Knickknacks of porcelain farm animals covered every flat surface. Dust eddies followed in the big man’s wake, but the rest of the house was neat and tidy. With the wind off the river, dust was probably an endless battle the guy had lost.

  Brandon walked over to a phone on the wall and picked up the handset. Paul hadn’t seen a phone like that in a long time. The man tapped the hang-up bar a few times and Paul had a memory of his grandmother talking about party lines and sharing a phone with neighbors.

  “Grace, it’s Brandon. Can you get me Old John at the Ryde Hotel?”

  He turned to Paul with the phone held to his ear. “It’s ringing.”

  “John, it’s Brandon Fisher, out at the Fisher farm. Do you have some strangers there?” He looked over at Paul. “Names?”

  “Charlie Muncy and his sons, Zach and Tyler.”

  Fisher relayed the names. For a moment, there was nothing but a bunch of monotone answers to obviously John’s questions on the other end.

  “Yes.”

  “Yes.”

  “No.”

  “Not infected. Good people.”

  “Because, I say so, that’s why.”

  “Okay.”

  Brandon turned around. “He went to get your men. He had to untie them. But it’s okay now, because I told him they were friends.”

  Paul stepped up and took the phone, wondering how many men it took to take on Muncy and his boys. He was greeted with silence on the line.

  “I thought you said there was just Old John there?”

  “Yep, just him. He don’t need no one else, him being Special Forces and all.”

  He groaned as a voice came on the phone. Great, they’d have to deal with Rambo.

  “Charlie, is that you?”

  “No, this is Tyler. Dad and Zach are still tied up.” The boy’s voice held a tinge of disgust and frustration. “But the guy is untying them now. Here’s Dad.”

  “Paul, you didn’t tell me we needed Delta Force to take this hotel,” Charlie mumbled.

  “Sorry about that. Is it all cool now?”

  “Seems to be. The old man says we’re welcome now and make ourselves at home.” He groaned. “That would have been nice a couple of days ago instead of sleeping tied up on concrete. I’m not as young as I used to be.”

  Paul smiled. Charlie might moan he was old, but he was as tough as they came. He couldn’t wait to meet the one guy who took him on and won.

  “Will we see you soon?”

  “In a few days. We owe the guy here a favor and we’re going to fortify his farm before we move on.”

  “See you then, Commander.”

  The man hung up before he could correct the guy. He wasn’t the commander. That was Jack’s job. He was just the temp and he didn’t want anyone to forget that.

  * * *

  Josh stared as Paul hung up the phone. As amazed as he was with the idea of phones still working and communicating with others, he didn’t miss his husband’s grim face and his sad eyes. Paul thought he was so stoic, but he was only human like the rest of them.

  He ran his fingers through his hair and grimaced at the grimy, greasy strands. He shook his head at the long strands as well. Pretty soon he’d need to tie it back. The thought of long hair and summer around the corner had him determined to find the nearest pair of scissors. He glanced at Paul’s short buzz cut and smiled. He wasn’t willing to lose that much hair.

  A clap of hands brought him back to the present. He knew that look on Paul’s face. The man was never happier than when he was doing army shit. He groaned. Heavy digging was in his future, he just knew it.

  He’d been right. Although, most of the digging was done by Brandon and his tractor, with Paul doing the directing and Josh and Joseph doing the heavy work. By mid afternoon, they had a good start to earthworks surrounding part of the house and barn. It would take another good day to complete it around the stables as well. Fisher let the goats out once the heavy machinery was turned off.

  Josh took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his sweaty face as a truck pulled up the driveway and stopped. A young man and two young women stepped out, one carrying a bundled baby.

  Fisher rushed over to greet his friends. He and Billy, he assumed, shook hands and slapped backs. The big man hugged the woman with the baby and then he just stood and stared at the other one. Even Josh found himself staring. The woman had long brown hair down past her waist and a body that must have stopped traffic when there was traffic to stop. She could give Suz a run for her money in the looks department.

  Fisher leaned down and whispered something to her and she nodded with a blush. The guy picked her up and swung her around.

  His yells of “she said yes,” heard all around the yard.

  After a quick conversation with the two other young people, Josh noted they all nodded and smiled and looked up at the big guy. His grin was brighter than the sun heating up the dirt-filled yard. They all hugged and kissed and moved up the rest of the driveway as a group.

  Paul came over and draped an arm around his shoulders. “I’m sorry you didn’t get to have me make it all official like that, like I did with Suz.”

  Josh shrugged. “I was such a jerk back then, I probably would have said no.”

  He leaned over and kissed Josh on the cheek. “I’d like to think I could have gotten you to say yes,” his husband whispered, turning and walking away to greet the young people.

  Josh followed with a slower stride, musing that thought. Knowing Paul, he might have said yes, if he’d been asked.

  Chapter Seventee
n

  Cody, Miranda, and April

  Ran’s Journal

  RV Yard

  Last Day (fingers crossed)

  Spring, 1 AZ

  Finally! We are leaving this place and moving on. More later tonight.

  Ran rushed to shove the notebook into her backpack. The rest of the group had gathered at the gate to start on their journey. They’d gone over the plan last night. She and Michelle would protect Emily and one twin and Cody and the other twin. Seth and Teddy would be outlaying scouts. All that left was April to learn to protect and kill along the way.

  She scanned the area as she strode to the gate to make sure they were leaving nothing of survival value behind. A smile curved on her face at Cody with a baby slung to his chest, a protective hand cradling the little one’s head.

  “I expect you to have my and the little dude’s back out there,” he whispered to her.

  She kissed his lips and peeked at Jed’s sleeping face. “Looks like he is out for the count.”

  “I think Seth slipped them some medicine to make them sleep for a little while, but he doesn’t want Emily to know.”

  Ran caught her breath on a gasp. Didn’t most medicine say two years and above? Medicine at their early age had to be dangerous. But so was having the babies cry out in the open. Nothing about this journey was going to be easy. She stared back through the RV yard as the sun edged over the cement wall and bathed the area in a golden haze. The only thing missing was Michelle’s cat, Hope. She’d called for the kitten all morning, but been forced to acknowledge they would have to leave without it. The woman cried a few tears, but Teddy’s hugs brought a smile to her face. His whispers in her ears brought a red-hot blush to her face.

  The big man gathered them into a circle. Teddy coughed and stammered. “I know we’ve had a little too much religion lately, but I wouldn’t feel right going on a journey of this magnitude without a little prayer to the guy upstairs.”

  She grimaced. Reverend Bennett had destroyed their camp, their friends, and their lives. But one man was not all there was to God. General Peters had tried to destroy her and he was not all men either, she thought as she took and squeezed Cody’s hand. He smiled down at her as Teddy’s rich baritone wafted over them.

  “We don’t ask for much, Lord. Just help to make our difficulties doable, keep the little ones safe, and watch over us. Amen.”

  A soft echo of ‘amen’ filled the space, along with Nickie’s bark, as they squeezed hands and moved back to let Seth and Teddy open the gate for one last time. They filed through and Ran’s heart ached a little at the click of the closing gate as the men manhandled the gate into place with no one inside to push the button.

  Seth took a can of spray paint and put a large X on the metal along with the words; Not Safe. She shuddered. Would they ever be safe? What did that word even mean anymore?

  “Okay, gang. We head north to the river. My boat is tied up at the dock. At least it was the last time I saw it. The Emily awaits,” Teddy informed them.

  The consensus had been to walk to the pier, since a car would just draw the undead with them and make it impossible to get on the boat safely with the babies. Ran took her protection duties seriously and watched as Michelle did the same. She noted that the woman wasn’t the same as she had been before she faced the Reverend and almost lost her life to save Teddy. There was a toughness about her that hadn’t been there before. Along with the shorn hair, Michelle was now an official zombie hunter and kickass chick.

  She ran a hand through her own short, curly hair and came away with a wet palm. The rising sun promised another hot day, definitely too hot for spring. Shoving her machete into the holder on her belt, she grabbed a bandana and tied it across her forehead.

  A moan sounded from the gas station where she and Cody had been holed up a couple of days ago. A thunk reverberated through the still morning air as its bloody hands flung against the window. Two steps to the skinbag’s right the window had shattered and lay in glassy pieces on the ground, but the brain-dead zomb’ didn’t know it and continued to pound on the intact window in front of it over and over again.

  Ran shook her head in amusement and moved on. An unnatural silence slammed into her ringing ears. No birdcalls. No insect sounds. No voices; alive or undead. Like the calm before a storm. She snatched that thought back before it could be given voice in her head. Karma was a bitch she wasn’t willing to tangle with.

  They passed buildings so run-down they must have been abandoned before the influenza epidemic and the Z virus. Full-grown bushes grew from rain gutters and trees sprouted in the pavement to block doors and windows. No window frame was totally filled with glass; instead it lay in glittering piles on the pavement.

  A flock of small, gray birds filled the skies to break the eerie silence with their chirps as they flew, landed, and flew again from the sagging telephone wires. A few telephone poles had fallen and lay across the roadway, the wires draped across the asphalt.

  Teddy and Seth rushed to check both sides of the road. It might have been a storm. It might have been neglect. Or it might have been deliberate. Those were the options in the ZA and it was usually option number three.

  A grunt and a groan sounded from the right side of the road as the bushes shook and Teddy came back to the group with a large hand on the back of the neck of a young boy. He looked fourteen or fifteen at the most, skinny as a starved zombie and shaking from head to toe.

  She turned her head as Seth returned with a smaller version of the boy Teddy held. They looked at each other and started to cry, even louder at Nickie’s growl. The border collie could look vicious when he bared his teeth and growled deep in his throat.

  “We were just trying to get some food. We haven’t eaten in days. We were staying at the hotel on the corner but the groaners broke in a couple of days ago and we had to leave.”

  The men shoved them together in the middle of the road and stepped back to the group. “What do we do?” Seth asked them. “We can’t leave them at our back and I don’t trust them to take them with us.”

  The problem was solved when the taller boy pulled a knife from his boot and rushed at Seth’s back. The blade whooshed in the air as it caught the edge of his shirt and sliced open the fabric with a ripping sound. Seth turned in a whirl and his knife plunged into the boy’s stomach. Blood coated his shirt and dripped to the ground as he fell with a moan. The smaller boy pulled his own knife, held it to his throat, and sliced across it. Blood shot into the air as he fell and the knife dropped from his lifeless hand.

  Ran turned to survey their rear as she heard the groans of the newly undead. They were silenced in a moment with the sound of knives plunging into heads, a sound she would never forget as long as she lived. The eerie silence returned as even the birds fell quiet.

  * * *

  His fingers itched to join in the fight as his hand cradled little Jed’s head. The soft fuzz on top tickled Cody’s palm as the baby stirred slightly, popped a thumb in his mouth, and went back to sleep.

  He rocked his hips back and forth as he’d watched Emily and Seth do when they held the babies. It seemed to work as Jed snuggled deeper into his chest. Cody let out a small breath as the little one’s eyes stayed tightly shut.

  Looking up, he saw the fight was over before it began. The two young men were dragged to the side of the road and rolled into the ditch. His heart pounded in his chest. The boys hadn’t been much younger than he was. So young to have already turned renegade. Would he have done the same if he hadn’t been found and had a place with the group?

  He caught Ran’s glance. Never. As long as he had Ran, he would do the right thing. They didn’t have much left in this world, but they had their own set of values. Miranda needed a strong, honest man and he would do everything in his power to be that man.

  The breeze freshened and the scent of the river reached him as they trekked across the gravel parking lot to the pier. Soon they would be on a boat and he could hand off the little one
to his parents. His happy thoughts were shattered at the view beside the pier.

  The Emily sat on the bottom of the river, small wavelets lapped against the sides and over the deck. Cracks and a large hole showed where the vessel had hit the pier during rough weather, probably the big storm they’d had in January. The one where he and Ran had snuggled beneath all the covers they owned and watched the lightning and counted and waited for the thunder that rocked the trailer and rattled the windows.

  The big man cursed and kicked a pier post. The thud carried over the silent area. The groans of the undead came in waves from the weeds along the parking lot. He reached for a knife that wasn’t there and turned to find Seth, Teddy, Michelle, and Ran taking the four points with the rest of them in the center.

  He swallowed the lump in his throat. The river was in front of them and the zombs were coming out of the weeds to the left and the right. They couldn’t go back the way they’d come. He didn’t see an option until Teddy pointed back down the road they’d come and to the right and the left.

  “There are boat harbors to either side of us. Our only chance is to find another boat. Most people didn’t take to their vessels, so odds are we won’t find many skinbags once we leave this group behind.” Teddy explained as he moved up next to Ran and sent her back to his previous position.

  Seth got them moving double time since stealth was no longer an option. The jostling woke Jed and Carla and their baby cries added to the loud moans of the undead thundering in his head. He held the baby as gently as possible but there wasn’t a thing he could do for the crying.

  Their boots pounded on the asphalt as they turned down another side road and found acres of boats. A few still had their owners aboard—permanently undead. The big man passed the smaller boats until he found a likely one. The chipped and flaking paint job had been a bright blue at one time, but weather and neglect had washed most of it away.