Kyler wanted to ask Jeff a million questions. Before he got a chance to spout out the first one a man appeared in the mess hall and told them it was time to roll out. It was another guy in camouflage. This one sporting a ZZ Top looking beard and long hair. The hair looked like a multiyear project, so Kyler assumed the guy must’ve been some kind of social outcast even before the Zombie apocalypse. Another thing Kyler had noticed about a lot of the people he met. There tended to be a reason they’d survived this long and that reason normally pivoted around them being loners prior to the apocalypse. There were tons of exceptions to that rule. Overall though, it was lot more likely for you to survive if you were a hillbilly living off the land than if you were a lawyer hanging out on Wall Street when everyone in the city decided to start eating each other.
Kyler wolfed down the last bit of his mystery chili before following Jeff out the door. In the parking lot the lieutenant and another man were waiting for them.
“We hump it from here.” The man next to the lieutenant said. It made sense. They needed to get to wherever the road crew had parked their vehicles. They wouldn’t have parked them too close as they wouldn’t have wanted to lead any Zombies to the outpost. Kyler wasn’t too concerned about the distance to the vehicles. It wasn’t like any solider was going to knowingly prolong the amount of time they had to walk to get somewhere.
They moved in single file silently through the thick brush until they reached the interstate. Once they’d reached the interstate, they huddled together for a few minutes to plan out the next steps. After a whispered discussion two of them began slowly moving across the highway to get the vehicle prepped for travel. Kyler figured the plan had succeeded when a large beige van pulled into the middle of the interstate and came to a halt in front of where they were all waiting in the woods.
The lieutenant popped up and jogged over to the van with his neck on a swivel as he looked in every direction at once. He was followed closely by Jeff and Kyler. They piled in the van and found seats before any Zombies managed to show up to ruin their day. The lieutenant hastened to remind them that they could be swamped by the infected at any second.
This failed to alarm either Kyler or Jeff. By now they’d both been conditioned to expect pessimism from their leaders. It was how officers liked to express themselves. The driver got them rolling down the interstate towards the camp where they’d be linking up with the rest of the team. Kyler found himself staring out the window like he was on any of a hundred road trips he’d taken in his youth. The woods rolled by looking mostly unchanged. There were the occasional wrecked cars in the ditches and medians to keep up the apocalyptic ambiance. Everyone was still sitting quietly as they drove so Kyler let himself slip off into a semi-nap. One thing he’d learned was that when you had a warm safe place to take a nap you should take advantage of it. Those opportunities didn’t come along every day.
Chapter 10: Missing Web MD
Kelly drove. She dodged stray Zombies. She exchanged paint with the old wrecks clogging up portions of the road. Mostly, she tried to think of how she was going to keep her husband from bleeding to death. She tried to come up with a path forward that would allow her to come out on the other side of this nightmare with her family still intact. She didn’t have a whole lot to work with. The only other adult they had with them was still out cold. He was another one she’d have to practice her medical skills on. Too bad she had zero medical skills. She could put a band aid over a boo boo and figure out where to stick a thermometer but that was about the extent of it. She’d recently also mastered ripping a knife out of somebodies stomach but internal bleeding and bullet removal and sewing up wounds were all adding up to her having a panic attack pretty soon.
She had no idea what to do about Tony. The only thing she could think of at this point was to get as far away from the Brotherhood as possible. Once she felt like they were a safe distance she’d have to stop to try and patch up everybody before they died. It wasn’t a great plan, but it was the plan she had. She wished this delivery van they’d hijacked had a window to the back or doors or something instead of just the metal divider. It did have the bullet holes in it from earlier so she supposed they could yell back and forth through the holes to communicate. She glanced over at Randy who was moaning and holding the wad of bandages tight to his abdomen. The bandages were bloody, but she didn’t think they were getting as soaked as they were before. She hoped that was due to his bleeding slowing down and not because he was running out of blood.
“Myriah.” Kelly called out loudly enough to get her daughters attention. A startled Myriah turned around and looked at her mom. “Can you yell though the bullet holes and try to see how Cait’s doing back there? See if you can get her to check on Tony too.”
“Caitlyn!” Myriah yelled then started having a very loud conversation with her mouth pressed up against the metal of the vans divider. Kelly was able to get the highlights of it while still focusing on her driving.
It sounded like everyone in the back was hungry, tired and needed to pee. Tony had woken up and was busy moaning and trying to get comfortable on the bare metal floor of the van. Their prisoner was still just lying there. He’d taken Kelly’s directions to heart and was keeping his mouth shut. Ali, Doreen and Zoey were all trying to sleep in a big pile on the opposite side of the van from Tony and the prisoner. They’d evidently been the reason Tony woke up in the first place. The girls had started out their naptime plans trying to use him like a giant pillow for them all to sleep on. Zoey had stepped on the bullet hole in his arm. All the girls had learned some brand-new words.
Kelly decided they were far enough from where they’d left the pile of dead enemy soldiers. She also recognized the exit they were passing and thought there may have been a pharmacy a couple blocks off the exit. If they could find a pharmacy or a minute clinic or something like that then they should be able to find what they needed to patch the two men up and get them back into fighting shape. Her kids had made it this far in the apocalypse which was amazing. She wasn’t about to let anything happen to them now that their mom and dad had shown up to take care of them. To keep them safe she needed their dad and Tony healed up and ready to go.
Kelly navigated down the off ramp just as the sky was starting to lighten up. It’d be daylight soon. They needed to find some sort of medical building before the sun was fully up and get settled in to spend the day. They may end up spending several days there she thought glancing over at the blood pool in her husband’s lap. How long they’d be stuck would depend on how well Tony and Randy were holding up after she got through playing doctor on them. The roads once they got off the off-ramp were a total mess. They were filled with trash and debris and a horrible smell was coming off the ground in waves.
Luckily the place she’d been thinking of was only a block off the highway. It was a decent sized pharmacy with a big sign advertising twenty-four hour a day pharmacy and a clinical service. Kelly rolled into the parking lot and killed the engines. In the dim light filtering down from the slowly brightening sky she could make out the missing front panel window in the front of the store. She assumed that meant this place had already been looted. There should hopefully still be stuff inside they could use though. Either way she couldn’t stop the sun from coming up, so she hopped down out of the van and walked over to the big hole in the storefront where the window used to be.
Heart pounding in her chest she stared into the inky darkness of the store. She didn’t hear or see anything moving around inside. That didn’t mean too much as there could’ve been fifty Zombies sleeping two aisles over and there was no guarantee she’d have known they were there. The only way to be sure was to go inside. She supposed she could wait another fifteen minutes and the sunlight may be bright enough to pierce the inky darkness inside the store. That left her and the kids exposed in the parking lot trying to drag Randy and Tony and a prisoner inside with them in the sunlight though.
Refusing to succumb to paralysis by analysis Kelly rea
ched down and picked up a mostly empty container of Gatorade. With a whispered prayer she flung it deep into the store. She got herself keyed up to sprint back to the van if she got charged by a bunch of freaks. When nothing started screaming or charging out at her she hopped through the window and did a quick round. The place had definitely been looted. There were piles of garbage everywhere. The majority of the shelves had been raked clean. She shone her small flashlight around some more as she did a quick circuit of the store. Not that it mattered at this point since they couldn’t really keep driving around in the daylight, but she was pretty confident they’d be able to find most of what they needed.
On the way back out to the van she saw a tiny figure lying on the floor. It looked like a broken baby doll. Shining her light curiously at the object she got a bad feeling in her gut. She walked over and poked it with her boot. It moved like a plastic doll but on closer inspection turned out to be the corpse of a baby. Wisps of hair clung to its tiny head. Thinking fast she grabbed some plastic bags from the counter and scooped the baby into the bag. She carried the small bag with her outside. She went around to the back of the building where she laid it down carefully on the concrete. She felt like she should do more but there was just no time.
Feeling somber she went back to the van to start herding everyone into the building. She considered untying the guard to make him carry Tony inside but decided to just leave the man tied up, so they didn’t have to worry about him trying anything. She had him start hobbling awkwardly towards the building while her and Caitlyn helped Tony into the building. She left Myriah to watch the girls and went with Caitlyn back to the van to help Randy inside. She worked with Caitlyn to get him in as carefully as possible. They had him halfway inside when they heard Myriah shriek.
“He’s got Ali!” Zoey yelled at the same time.
Kelly told Caitlyn to stay with Randy and went to investigate. At the end of the aisle where they’d left the girls Tony was sitting up staring daggers at the guard. The man had managed to find a knife somewhere and get his arms free. Now he was holding Ali by the hair with a cheap cutting knife to the little girl’s throat. The man’s eyes were wild as he stared at Kelly walking up.
“Give me the car keys and I’ll leave the girl outside!” He demanded. He pulled Ali’s hair hard enough to make her cry out. The little girls face was already covered in tears. Zoey rushed in to help her friend. The guard punched Zoey in the face hard enough to put her on the ground. Caitlyn had come down to the end of the aisle and had the M-16 aimed at the guard. He turned to put Ali between the gun and Caitlyn. When he turned Kelly charged.
Screaming like one of the Zombies they all feared she launched herself into the man’s side with both her hands latching on to the wrist that was holding the knife to Ali’s throat. They smashed into the shelves sending a bunch of random crap flying to the floor. Kelly fell to the floor wrenching at the wrist holding the knife until he let it go to strike out at her with his free hand. He started pounding on her while Ali crawled to the side and balled up clutching at her bleeding neck. Doreen was screaming and Caitlyn was running to help her mom.
The desperate prisoner timed it right. He sprang for Caitlyn right as she got close enough for him to easily get at her. He swung a fist hard into her face knocking her to the ground then started trying to pry the gun away from her. Myriah jumped on the guard’s back and started beating the hell out of him with a hammer she kept for fighting Zombies. Zombies didn’t try to defend themselves which made them much easier targets. The guard was ducking and jiving and fighting for his life. Myriah landed a few glancing blows to the back of his head causing him to give up on trying to take the gun. He stood up instead and started running for the door.
Kelly got up and ran after him. She found the guard standing at the end of the aisle with his hands up. Randy was sitting up aiming a pistol at the guy’s face. Kelly pulled a hatchet out of her own belt and swung the blunt end right into the back of the guy’s head. He dropped to the ground clutching his head in pain and she swung again.
“He dead?” Randy asked.
“Maybe?” Kelly said with a shrug. She wasn’t feeling super compassionate towards the man who’d just tried to threaten their kids with death to let him go. She supposed she did need to make sure he was dead though. She squatted down and felt for a pulse. She couldn’t figure out how to find his pulse, but she could see his chest was still rising and falling. She equated breathing with living so nodded over to Randy to let him know the moron was still alive.
“Ok. Let’s tie him back up then get the girls settled in. Then if you’re up for it how about a little surgery action for me and Tony? You ok? He didn’t hurt any of the girls too bad, did he?” Randy asked with concern. It was dawning on him his wife seemed to have enjoyed whacking the hell out of the guy’s head. That much hate had to have come from somewhere. The most obvious place it would’ve come from would have been if the guard had hurt any of the girls.
“They got knocked around some but nothing major. I need to go check on them. We should all get back in the store away from the windows and stop making any noise too. The last thing I feel like dealing with today is a bunch of Zombies trying to get in here.”
It took a little while but they eventually all got settled in the manager’s office at the back of the store. They found a closet to shove the guard in. He was tied up now to the point where he couldn’t move. There was a very real risk that parts of his body were going to start falling off due to loss of blood flow Kelly had tied him up so tight. She told him the one time he raised his voice to complain that what she really wanted to do was hit him in the head a few more times with the hatchet. That’d shut him up and he’d been quiet ever since. Kelly mused that silence could be because he’d died in the dark closet. Oh well.
Once they had everyone settled in, she’d gone back out into the store to look for supplies to try and fix up Tony and Randy. Moving silently to keep from attracting the attention of any Zombie who may be wandering by she sifted through the piles of merchandise lying on the floor. She slowly gathered together gauze, bandages hydrogen peroxide, a couple of sewing kits and a couple of lighters plus a big candle. Once she had what she thought she may need she went to the back hoping someone had already broken into the pharmacy.
The pharmacy was locked up. She didn’t see a way to get into it without generating a bunch of noise, so she ignored that issue for now. They had antibiotics and painkillers with them already so it shouldn’t be a big deal anyway. She grabbed a couple of warm bottled waters and headed back into the room.
Caitlyn and Myriah were blowing up some of the inflatable pool rafts that’d been on display in the front of the store. They were hoping the rafts would be more comfortable to sleep on than the hard floor. It’d be easier to keep the little ones quiet if they were comfortable. Kelly didn’t know how long they may be stuck here. She wanted to make sure Tony and Randy were both going to be able to rest once she sewed them up. She put all the supplies she’d gathered onto the desk in the back of the room and then stared at Randy. He sighed and walked over with the help of Myriah.
Kelly had him lie on the desk with his shirt off while she got the candle going. She had Myriah use the flame from the candle to start cleaning of all the needles. Kelly used the peroxide to clean off the skin around where Randy had been stabbed. She was happy to see the bleeding had stopped. She dumped in some more Hydrogen Peroxide to make sure everything was disinfected then she clumsily sewed the wound shut. She went over it twice to make sure the thread was in the skin good. When she was finished, she wrapped gauze around his torso to hold a few new bandages in place to absorb whatever else seeped out. She gave Randy a couple of Oxy and the first dose of the antibiotics he’d be taking. Having done as much for him as she could think of doing for the moment, she told him to go lie down and rest.
Tony was going to be a whole other story. Kelly, Myriah and Caitlyn all worked hard to get him on the table without jostling him around too m
uch. He was awake now and in decent spirits. Kelly had helped with the decent spirits by crushing up a couple of Valiums into the water she’d given him along with an Oxy and an extra dose of antibiotics. She’d given all that to him prior to starting to work on Randy. She was hoping it’d all kick in to help him get through the poking and prodding and sewing she was going to have to do on him. She hated that the majority of her medical knowledge came from watching the vet shows on Animal Planet and her addiction to the Chicago Med series. She decided not to share her background in too much detail with Tony.
“You know what you’re doing?” Tony asked. He had a big goofy grin on his face in the light from the battery powered flashlights they’d hung up off the light fixtures above the desk. The Valium must really be hitting him hard. Either that or he’d managed to self-medicate. Always a possibility with him.
“I’m going to poke around and make sure there’s not bullets or anything in your arms then we’re going to clean you up and sew you back together.” Kelly replied. She was trying to sound way more confident than she actually felt. She was still grossed out from having sewed up Randy. She briefly considered seeing if Caitlyn wanted to jump in on this one but quickly dismissed the idea knowing how squeamish her daughters were around blood. Something they’d inherited from her.
Zombies! (Book 4): Nowhere To Hide Page 8
