Aftershock Zombie Series (Book 2): Breakdown (A Collection of Survivors Tales)

by Lioudis, Kristopher

  Mike was yelling at the soldier, “What the hell is going on here?!”

  The soldier stuttered, I think he was trying to explain without getting in trouble. Ian came directly to me.

  “You okay, William?”

  I told him, “Yes. I am fine. He called me a bad word and my mother said I should never let anyone get away with that.”

  Ian looked back over his shoulder at Mike and they made a face at each other. Ian and I went back to the fence for our patrol and Mike walked away with the soldier I had just beaten up.

  So, Ian said I have to stay here with Mike. Mike said he will continue to train me while Ian is gone. I will also continue to do my jobs around the compound. Mike has said that he will let me be tower guard since I am a very good shot. I told Ian not to worry, that I would make him proud. He reached out to shake my hand. I do not like people to touch me, but Ian is different. Ian is my friend, so I shook his hand. I think I did it right.

  Then Ian and the others got into their trucks and left through the gate. I started the stopwatch feature on my wristwatch to count the time he was gone.

  12

  Garett

  Mick smoothed things over the best he could after I beat the shit out of that mouthy son of a bitch. He knew well enough to leave Emma alone. That may not be totally true, because I refused to let her leave my side after that. It could have been that he wasn’t in the mood to get another ass-whooping. Aunt Amy wouldn’t let us go very far either. She told me that I had to always be on the lookout for the signal that we were out of there. I didn’t really understand why we couldn’t just leave now.

  Zoe was making lists again. That was a good sign. At least the plan wasn’t all talk. I am more than ready to move on. We have our own copy of the map now, “just in case we get separated from the rest of the group.” Our caravan had grown so much that it wasn’t a big stretch of the imagination to see that was a possibility. Grabbing stuff on the road was never a problem before, I don’t get why we suddenly have to be so cautious.

  “I am not having this conversation with you again, Garett.” Aunt Amy had a way of making me feel like I was five years old. “Winter is coming soon enough and I worry that we have gotten so used to other people taking care of some of the important things, we could end up dying of something stupid like frostbite.”

  “We each have all the snow gear you could come up with.”

  “You know what I mean, Garett. I wasn’t being entirely literal, and you know it. I swear sometimes you just like to push my buttons.” I had a way of making Aunt Amy talk like she was a teenager.

  She wasn’t my mom but ever since we left home, she might as well be. Of course, I was grateful to her, but it was hard to tell her that. Even after what happened to Hannah. There wasn’t anything that could have been done to stop us from losing her. Some days, though, I’m glad she’s gone. Not because I don’t want her around, but the world is so screwed up and scary, and she was so little. No kid should spend their childhood being chased around by monsters that want to eat you or people who want to kill you and steal your stuff.

  “Sorry,” I said, hoping not to sound sarcastic.

  “Whatever,” she snorted.

  I had obviously failed at doing so.

  She headed over towards Mick. She was always heading over to Mick, especially when I tick her off. I guess I shouldn’t be upset. He is a nice enough guy, but it has always grated my nerves that he just showed up and was able to weasel his way into being with her. Something was just too convenient about the whole thing. After what happened with that asshole over Emma, though, being with Mick might be the best thing that could have happened. The other guys in the group seemed to know enough to keep away from her out of fear that they might piss him off.

  My truck was positioned right behind the sweet ride that Mick had managed to get during our last run. It was cherry red and in perfect condition, a garage-kept beauty with intricately detailed flames running up the hood. Someone had loved her before the outbreak, but their love would never compare to the affection that Mick had for the truck. He went on and on for two full days about it being his dream ride and how in all his years, he never believed he would own a piece of machinery as fine as that one.

  I saw the draw of a tricked-out truck, but with Mick, it was borderline obsession. Aunt Amy says it’s normal but I can’t imagine allowing myself to become that attached to a vehicle. As it is, we’re lucky if we get to keep the same one for more than a few months, and it always seems to be the clunkers that make it that long. The nice vehicles are cursed. They’re too nice to exist for too long in this crappy-ass world.

  As we pulled away for our slow crawl toward the next campsite, I looked over at Emma and ran my fingers along her legs. Tracing circles on her thigh had a calming effect on me. I hadn’t realized how on edge I really was until we started to pull away and my fingers on my left hand began to ache from my grip around the steering wheel. I began to daydream about what it would feel like to finally hit the open road.

  All I had ever known of driving was the stop-and-go snail’s pace that we were forced to keep as we went from one supply run to the next. It was going to be amazing to finally be able to put the pedal all the way down to the floor for the first time ever.

  “Garett! The road!” Emma shouted, panicked, from the seat next to me.

  “Shit!” I almost rear-ended Mick’s brand-new beauty. “Sorry, Em.”

  “What were you thinking about? You really zoned out there.” She looked concerned, and slightly frightened. I guess almost smashing into the back of a pickup truck will do that to you.

  “Nothing. Just how much I want to leave this group of losers behind. I don’t know how many more times I can sit in this line of cars and drag ass down the road. We used to cover so much ground when it was just the five of us. Now, most days, I think we are just going around in a circle.”

  “Yeah,” Emma looked sadder than I had seen her in a long time.

  “You know you are one of us now, right? Aunt Amy said so.”

  “I know. I was just thinking how hard it was for just Dad and me until we found this group. I miss him. But I guess it isn’t realistic to think people will live forever anymore.”

  “Damn, Em. When did you get so cynical?”

  “Not cynical, realistic. I don’t know how much more loss I can take. So, instead of having it come up out of nowhere and catch me off guard, I decided to start expecting it. That way if any of us wake up tomorrow, I’m pleasantly surprised.”

  “Damn, Em. Just, damn.”

  The caravan was giving the signal for “All stop”. I smacked the steering wheel out of frustration. My brain couldn’t handle another day of mindlessly wandering through stores and houses looking for the next great treasure. This time had a different feel to it. The others didn’t jump out of their cars and trucks to head off on the next scouting party. It was eerily still for a few minutes.

  Mick began flashing his brake lights at me. Five fast flashes followed by a pause. Over and over again, he sent the signal. It didn’t register at first. It had been so long since we had run into trouble on the roadway. But there we were, sending the five-flash code. We had made the mistake of hitting a horde. I remembered that I was supposed to be passing the signal back.

  I put the truck in park and gave the brakes five quick pumps, then counted to five. Five quick pump and wait, pump and wait. Whoever had taken the lead this morning had made too many mistakes for all of us to get out of this mess. We were blocked in from all sides. The horde was in front of us and the caravan was lined up neatly behind us. The lead car had led us into a bottleneck, something that we usually avoided at all costs for just this reason.

  The signal had to work its way to the back, and hopefully those cars would get out of our way before we were overtaken by the massive parade of death. The hordes were growing larger by the day, like drops of water pooling with each other. They were so massive that the only chance you had was to head in the o
pposite direction as quickly and silently as possible. I was trying to do a headcount of the cars behind us when the RV that had been directly following me started to back up. I used that gap to turn my truck around and hoped that Mick would be able to follow suit.

  Shots rang out from the front of the line. The only reason they would be firing is if their car had been breached. The RV was moving as fast as old Dan could manage, but it wasn’t fast enough to get away from the hungry zombies. As soon as I saw a hole, I sped around him and tore ass away from the line of cars. This had to be our moment. Aunt Amy couldn’t expect us to try to save all those people from being overrun.

  “Hold on!” I shouted to Emma.

  The needle climbed higher on the speedometer, and my heartbeat raced to match it. Emma had the ‘oh shit’ handle in a death grip. Fifty, sixty, seventy. I rolled the windows down so I could feel the air whip through my hair.

  “Garett! Slow down! You are going to kill us!”

  “Not until we’re safe, Em!” I yelled back at her, but not out of terror, more out of excitement.

  “That’ll never happen if you wrap us around a tree!” She screeched.

  Eighty, ninety, a hundred. The needle began to shake as it passed into triple digits. I pulled back off the gas and allowed the car to drift back down to a safer speed. Fifty was still far faster than I had been able to go when restricted by the rules of the preppers. Safety first. Slowly and surely. Never stop being aware of the dangers around you.

  Someone must have forgot that last one. That was how we ended up speeding away from a situation that would have been easily avoided if those steering the ship had thought enough to allow all the cars an easy exit. I had been driving for over a half an hour before I realized no one was following behind us.

  “We need to pull over and wait for Mick,” I told Emma.

  “What if they don’t come?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. They were right in front of us. We got out and I have way less driving experience than Mick. He could run circles around me.” I needed to believe they were coming.

  I pulled the truck into the parking lot of a rest stop that was reminiscent of the one we were living on the roof of when the preppers first found us. I pulled a ladder out of the back of the truck and made my way up to the rooftop. Emma followed quickly behind me, carrying her bag filled with essentials. The high ground would keep us safe if the horde was following behind us and we would be able to see the rest of our family when they made their way down the highway.

  I wasn’t sure if they would know to stop at the rest stop, so did my best to mark it for them. I parked the truck in a spot that would be easy to spot from the road. Emma and I hung towels down from the roof in hopes that they would see the familiar colors and know we were there. Mostly, I hoped they would have the same sense of nostalgia when they saw it, and hopefully that would lead them to at least check it out.

  Hours passed, and nothing. I couldn’t allow myself the thought that we lost them all. They had to be alive. As darkness fell, I looked at the stocked campsite we had on the roof and wished I could thank Aunt Amy for making me prepare for this moment. Emma and I would spend the evening warm and comfortable physically while losing it mentally. I did my best to hold it together for her but as we curled up together in the sleeping bag, a feeling of guilt set in.

  Maybe I had wished for freedom a little too hard, while never really considering what it might cost.

  13

  Ian

  Our route south took us around most of the heavily populated areas. I knew enough from my trip north with William to avoid anywhere that used to be civilization and to stick, instead, to back roads, backwoods, and bumfuck rural areas. We made surprisingly good time getting out of New Jersey. The only real contact we ran into on the way out of the state came in the form of a small group pretending to be raiders.

  We knew they were there, waiting just past a bridge abutment. I radioed back to the other two vehicles and alerted my crew. As we passed under the bridge, they came charging out from the tree line. If I had wanted to, I could have driven through them, but curiosity got the best of me and I rolled the Humvee to a stop. They drew handguns and a couple of hunting rifles on us and some scruffy looking old guy in a leather jacket made his way toward my window. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Ken stiffening and gestured for him to relax.

  “Afternoon fellas,” I said cheerfully, rolling down my window. “Lovely day for a drive. Always wanted to visit the Jersey Shore. Any of you know where I could get some salt water taffy?”

  Leather Jacket did not seem to appreciate my humor. “Who are you, where did you come from, and where are you going?”

  “That’s a lot of questions,” I replied. “Suppose I don’t feel like answering them?”

  He smiled, “Then my men will put lots of messy holes in you and your friends.”

  I shook my head. “Don’t see that happening.” I flipped the signal switch on my radio and in one smooth motion, the twelve men from the other vehicles poured into view, weapons drawn. Leather Jacket flinched. The two men in the road in front of me looked nervously from around their little toy rifles at the military hardware my guys were packing. “Look,” I said, really wanting to defuse the situation, “neither one of us wants a firefight. Even though your guys will be wiped out, I still stand to lose at least a couple of men, and I can’t have that. So get the fuck out of our way and we’ll part company. What say?”

  Leather Jacket actually seemed to ponder it for a moment, like he was weighing the odds that he would be one of the lucky few to walk away from this if it went down. Then he threw up a hand signal and his men lowered their weapons.

  “Much obliged,” I said, putting the Humvee into gear. Just like that we were on our way again, barely a ten-minute rest stop. I wasn’t fool enough to believe all our encounters would play out the same way, but a win’s a win.

  We crossed into Delaware and made our way due west as soon as we were across the river. I got word that one of the trucks needed to refuel so we stopped at the next strip mall we saw. We didn’t need to check the cars scattered around. We made straight for the luncheonette at the end of the long arm of the L-shaped complex.

  Vick rigged all the diesels to run on fryer oil, we’d be good to go as long as it didn’t get too cold. And as an extra added bonus, our convoy left a fragrant trail of french fries.

  A quick scan of the area showed no immediate danger, though that didn’t mean there wasn’t any lurking behind the plate glass windows. I sent three men into the luncheonette to retrieve the oil while the rest of us tended to securing the perimeter. I told Ken to stay in the truck, he looked ecstatic at the idea.

  Most of the stores had been looted already. The electronics place looked like a bomb went off inside. I never understood that. The world is ending, what the hell are you going to do with a big screen TV or a high-end set of stereo speakers? Two guys signaled a contact in the pharmacy. I made my way over and saw three of them shuffling around the back of the store. They hadn’t seen us yet so I motioned everyone to stay to the side of the busted-out window. There was no way of knowing how many of them were milling around back there. It was too dark to get an accurate count and I didn’t want to risk a firefight and possibly draw a swarm.

  As we scanned the inside of the darkened storefront, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and turned to see a small shape disappear around the corner of the short arm of the building, moving way too fast to be one of the dead. I signaled Ranger to follow me quietly and we made our way around to an alley. An overturned dumpster lay against the far wall at the back. Whoever it was had either used the dumpster to vault over the wall into the woods, or was hiding inside it. I moved slowly down the alley with my weapon at low ready just in case. I gave a tap to the dumpster and called out softly, “We ain’t gonna hurt you kid. Come on out.”

  I stood there for a minute waiting and called out again, “Come on out. We’ve got food if you’re hungry,
water if you need it, too.” Again, I waited a minute. I didn’t want to spook the kid, especially if he was feral or something. I heard a rustling from the other side of the wall and I felt like an ass for a second. Standing here talking to a garbage can. I jumped up on the dumpster and peered over the edge and there he was. Looked like he was maybe ten or twelve, but I couldn’t be sure. He was filthy and his clothes were rags. Lucky, I saw him running earlier or I might have confused him for a dragger.

  I leaned over the edge a little and practically cooed to the kid, “Come on little one. You shouldn’t be out here by yourself. Let’s get you something to eat.” I had flashbacks to when I first met William. Only this kid didn’t have a calm, figuring-shit-out look on his face. He was blank, but like he was figuring whether to fight, fuck, hit the fence. You could still sort of see the little boy in there, but there was something else on top of it.

  All of the sudden, he grunted and lunged at me, jumping to try and slash me with a butcher knife I hadn’t even seen him holding. I jerked back and almost fell off the damn dumpster.

  Ranger called to me from the mouth of the alley, “What the fuck!? You alright?!” He started toward me at a trot and I motioned him back. I leaned back over the wall, more cautiously than last time, but the kid was gone. I scanned the woods, but couldn’t see any indication of where he went. I was about to hop the wall and go after him anyway when I heard a scream from the front of the building. Ranger turned and took off around the corner, I wasn’t far behind him.

  Steve had, for some unknown reason, decided to head into the pharmacy. Guess that’s what I get for couching it more like a suggestion than an order. At any rate, he was staggering away from the window holding his neck. Blood spurted from between his fingers, spraying Ranger as he tried to get ahold of him. Ken had jumped out of the Humvee and was trying to help Ranger get Steve on the ground. I hopped through the busted window to find the three we had seen earlier joined by four more tearing Jason apart on the floor. I let out a whistle to signal the others that it was time to haul ass.