by Smith, S. L.
“I get why they weren’t answering the radio,” Isherwood said as he emerged from the homemade turret of the Jeep.
Justin was grumbling complaints as he and Patrick also emerged from the holes in the roofs of their vehicles. “Dang, man. I was not emotionally prepared for this tonight. A bath, yes – another blood bath, no.”
Isherwood was still managing to reach the steering wheel horn with his long legs. He couldn’t see through the crowd of zombies to inside the fence. The mass was just too thick. “I bet Sara and our wives are just inside the fence, working the line with knives.”
“Yeah,” Patrick said. “The ‘dead’ zombies are starting to pile up. If the mound gets much higher the zombies will just walk right over the fence.” He was starting to panic, Justin and Isherwood could hear it in his voice.
“Patrick, how’s your ammo supply?” Isherwood asked to distract his friend. He bet that Sara was fighting those things and was too busy to answer their radio calls. She probably also thought that the surest, fastest way to get the men home was to not answer the radio.
“It’s not good.” Patrick answered. “My .22s are almost completely out, and I’m betting Justin’s automatics are pretty well spent.”
“I’ve probably got the best supply,” Isherwood answered, passing a package of 500 .22 caliber rounds to each of them. “Let’s turn on our lights. This could go past sunset. And let’s build a wall of dead across Main Street, what d’you say? It could prove useful. If not, Jerry’s tractor can just bulldoze them into a bonfire.”
Justin and Patrick didn’t answer, but immediately disappeared back into their vehicles to turn on their headlamps. “Okay, where do you want to draw the line?” Patrick asked, when he re-emerged from Old Blue’s turret. “From Roy’s Jewelry Shop straight across to whatever that building is called. It’s pretty close to us, maybe only twenty yards, but we shouldn’t miss even in the dark and I think we’re pretty solid inside our trucks.”
“Wouldn’t mind having the Humvee just now, though.” Justin said and then added. “Good plan. I like it.”
“Still, I’m glad our families have access to those National Guard vehicles. Though I’m pretty much freaking out – it doesn’t look like those creeps have yet gotten around the back side. If they needed to get out, they could’ve and still could. Let’s do this, though. Nobody messes with my family.”
Their arrival and incessant honking was doing the trick. They were beginning to turn heads. It still took another two or three minutes for the first zombies to reach the twenty yard line they had marked out in their minds. By that time, Justin had begun taking long range shots. “What?” He said indignantly, “My finger was getting itchy.”
“It’s cool, dude. It’ll help them hustle. Just don’t drop them along the fence.”
“No where close to the fence, please.” Isherwood said with irritation. “The only bad part about this plan is that the backstop for our bullets isn’t far off from our families. A ricochet could be really bad. In fact,” he said reaching down to grab a radio. “Hey, can someone pick up a radio, please? We’re here and we’re drawing them our way, but we need y’all to hide, so they’ll lose interest in you, and take cover indoors, so our bullets don’t accidentally hit you. Over? Click-shhh.”
A second later the radio hummed to life. “About time y’all showed up!” Isherwood was relieved to hear Sara’s voice on the other end. He let out a long breath he hadn’t even realized he was holding. “The fences are solid. Robert, on those instructions. Click-shhh.”
Isherwood looked puzzled, and then started laughing. “Oh! You mean ‘Roger’ – like Roger Workman. Good. Love you, love to all. Over and out. Click-shhh.”
“Man,” Patrick said. “I didn’t realize how complacent I’d become with their safety. That ends tonight,” he said. Isherwood was glad to see the Patrick’s changed effect and that he was responding with renewed energy and not resignation. He was actually more worried about Justin, who seemed to be remaining on the sarcastic side of his personality with very few ripples of change. He was also worried about his family being distracted and alone with Vanessa and her boy, who were both still unknowns as mental health went. He pushed all this out of his mind for now. It was time for shooting.
They divided up the road into left, middle, and right, though Justin was eating up the middle right, as well. “Oh, dang.” Patrick said, pulling the trigger. “That was Ms. Mary Allen. She taught in the elementary.”
“Well, buddy. She’s coming after your kids now.” Justin replied.
“She was, anyway.” Patrick answered.
The line of bodies didn’t really start stacking up until they had downed around thirty or so zombies. After that, it became easier. The line of corpses became clearer, and the zombies slowed significantly as they staggering from the even road and started stumbling. It became more difficult when they fell, because they fell out of sight of the scopes. They quickly learned to sweep left and right at crawl, stoop, and full upright heights.
As the sun began setting behind the growing mound of corpses, the light from the truck headlamps began playing tricks with the zombie’s eyes. Sometimes the eyes would glow red. “I’ve gotta a pinko,” Justin shouted over the bursts of gunfire. “Like an albino bunny.”
“Whoa!” Isherwood shouted.
“I know, right?” Justin said laughing with a screech.
“No, not that,” Isherwood answered. “I’ve got some zeds at my jeep.” The other two stopped firing and looked down and around them in surprise. There weren’t many, but, sure enough, they were getting flanked. “Patrick,” Isherwood said. “You stay on the church crowd. Justin, can you cover up New Roads Street and I’ll get the things behind us?”
They were parked in a ‘T’ intersection. Main Street crossed through and New Roads Street ended in a parking lot to the side of Roy’s Jewelry Shop. The parking lot continued back dropping off sharply into sort of a driveway-alley that led down to the riverfront. The parking lot was on Isherwood’s side and there was no z-action on that side.
“Sure, boss,” Justin answered gruffly, imitating some kind of bruiser character from a mobster movie. “Hey, try starting lines like we got in front of us, okay? We’ll make a box. Get it?”
“Got it,” Isherwood answered. Before they started trying to mound up zombies up New Roads Street and back east on Main Street toward the courthouse, they had to clear out the ones that were right on them.
“You little punk,” Justin said under his breath, as he reached over and stabbed a zombie in the head. It was scratching unfleshed fingertips along the roof of the Escalade towards him, but couldn’t get anywhere close. The spare tires they had mounted on the sides of the vehicles forced the zombies to keep their distance.
“Hey,” Patrick turned to ask. “Was it an RD?”
Justin looked at him funny. “Huh?”
“You know, an RD – a ‘River Dead.’ Was it water-logged?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Justin answered. “But yeah, I’d say probably yeah.”
“Crap,” Isherwood cursed, as Patrick shook his head.
Justin paused a second from shooting up New Roads Street. There was a break in the zombies, anyway. “Look, guys. We’ll take care of it. This new tactic is working awesome. These trucks are taking care of business. And look, we’re about to finish up here, anyway.”
As Justin pointed, Patrick noticed that nearly all the zombies had left the church fence and the lines toward the growing mound were slackening.
“Sure,” Isherwood agreed. “But we don’t want to run out of bullets before the river runs out of dead.”
To see that the tide of zombies coming at them from the church was slackening, Justin had needed to pull himself up out of the turret of his vehicle. The barricade of zombies corpses had risen up quickly. It was now about as high as Old Blue’s cab, though it was much thicker in the middle of the road than at the sides.
“Hey, guys.” Patrick called out over the h
ail of gunfire. “Can you switch directions with me? They’re starting to come around the sides more and more now that the middle is so high.” Justin and Isherwood switched without another word.
“We’re looking good down here.” Sara’s voice came over the radios. “Whatever y’all are doing is working fine. Dinner’s waiting for you whenever you finish. Click-shhh.”
“Heard that,” Isherwood laughed. Loud enough to be heard over the rifles, Justin’s belly roared at the mention of dinner.
“Hey, guys?” Patrick asked, alternately facing east along Main and north along New Roads Street. “I like the boxed in approach, but how’re we getting out of here? We’ve blocked off all the roads!”
CHAPTER NINETEEN: THE ABBOT’S VISION
The three men managed to finally return to the church grounds, albeit covered in gunpowder and with their ears still ringing. They had clunked their way through a gap in one of the corpse walls. The New Roads Street wall was still thin enough at the edges for the trucks to pass through.
Sara greeted them at the back gate, the same one they had passed through when they first arrived at the church nearly a week ago. When they got back to the Rectory, everyone was there to welcome them back. There was also a hot meal waiting for them.
Vanessa and her boy were there to greet them, as well. The boy’s name, it turned out, was Le’Marcus. Isherwood was relieved at their mental state, which appeared as good as could be expected. Vanessa was still twitchy, but seemed friendly enough. He knew that black girls were the toughest babies, the most likely to survive when born premature. Black women were probably just as tough, he thought. Vanessa gave each of the men a hug to show her gratitude. They all agreed afterwards that she must not have lost any muscle mass. Justin added, “I think that hug cracked a rib.” They were all glad, especially Isherwood, that not only had they found survivors and not only for them, miraculously, being mother and son, but that they looked to become very productive members of the community. Isherwood decided an in-depth conversation with Vanessa about radios could wait until the morning.
“Steak with a side of steak for our men,” Sara had said. Justin was especially grateful for the meal. They hadn’t realized how hungry and weary they had become. The sustained adrenaline rushes of the day had left their hands shaking. They finished their meal quickly and were soon led to bed by their wives. To a man, they fell asleep before their heads even hit their pillows.
*****
The next morning following Morning Prayer everybody was in the Rectory dining room for breakfast. Monsignor was seated at the head of the table. The rest of the men, except for Jerry, had elected to let the women sit in their places at the table. Isherwood was leaning against the mantelpiece, while Emma and Charlie ate at his feet at a little table that had been brought over from the Sunday school room. Sara was drinking a second cup of coffee at his side.
Isherwood was explaining what they had seen the day before, telling them about the fence lines covered in tattered rags and the river dead. Justin and Patrick added details here and there. “I’m not saying we should expect to have z-guests at our front gates every day, but it could happen. We’ve got plenty of ammo for now, but it can’t last forever unless we start manufacturing our own, reusing our casings. But even then, there are other limiting factors like gunpowder. We can use knives, spears, swords and the like to kill them at the fence, but in a prolonged fight they could mound up high enough and just start spilling over the top of the fence. Even then, we’ll need Jerry on the tractor regularly clearing away the mounds from the fence. We’d need a massive zombie landfill slash mass burial site. Or else, maybe we could start using the corpses as fortifications. Here’s where I stand. Let’s see how things go over the next week. If the numbers keep increasing, we’ll move on to greener pastures. If not, it may have just been a freak belching of dead out of the river.”
“Belching, really?” Justin laughed. Isherwood winked at him, but the room soon fell silent.
Finally, Monsignor spoke up. “Isherwood, that sounds like a fine plan. Just keep us updated daily – after breakfast is a good time, just not while we’re eating.” He smiled at his joke to help lighten the mood in the room.
Monsignor next asked for updates on their food supplies from Gran and Tad who were in charge of the pantry. The Three Amigos’ subsequent raids on Langlois’ grocery had mostly emptied the store. Gran and Tad believed they had salvaged and preserved almost all of the meat using a brine solution, and were ready to process what Patrick had stored temporarily in brine inside Wal-Mart. They had also converted the large front room of the St. Joseph Center into a massive pantry. They had salvaged cinder blocks and wood planks from here and there to make aisles of shelves. They had managed to turn the pantry into what resembled a little grocery store stacked high with glass jars of salvaged fruits and vegetables, bags of rice and grain, and all the other goods that had been brought in through the raids.
Isherwood asked Gran and Tad whether, if they had the time, they could also organize the armory. He was hoping to add to it soon with raids on the sheriff’s and police stations. They hadn’t yet had the time to organize it after unloading it all from the National Guard outpost. The old supply closet of the St. Joseph Center was a good space, but it would soon become a disaster. A good inventory was also desperately needed, if they didn’t mind, Isherwood added.
Jerry gave an update on the fields he’d planted. He had been given bags of potatoes from Wal-Mart and Langlois’ that had started sprouting. With the help of Patrick and Justin’s kids and, of course, the new tractor, they had planted almost 3,000 feet of potato rows. Jerry wasn’t too sure about the seed corn he had planted. He’d know more by next week, he said, guessing that everything ought to be sprouting by then. He also mentioned that the old well on the property, as well as the pump was still functioning. It would be ready to go when or if the water pressure finally failed.
Sara had taken charge of the gardens, along with Denise and Chelsea, Patrick and Justin’s wives, respectively. They had taken the huge National Guard out to Tractor Supply and loaded it down with all the seeds and poultry feed they could find.
“You did what?” Isherwood asked, taken completely aback. He had no idea that anyone besides he, Patrick, and Justin had been making raids. Sara explained that they had been very safe.
“Almost all the mothers could’ve been wiped out at once,” Isherwood stammered. “And who of you knew how to drive that big old truck?”
“I did,” said Chelsea to Justin’s great surprise. Chelsea smiled at her husband’s discomfort. “Used to date a guy that drove big rigs,” she explained.
“Okay, I’m glad y’all did it and got back safe,” Isherwood went on. “But, at least until we can figure out the extent of the – of the infestation, nobody leaves except for the three of us. And, nobody leaves at all without letting us know. We’ve got to be able to coordinate our movements. Everybody understand?”
Sara reluctantly agreed to hold off for now. “Besides,” she said. “We’ve got more than enough to occupy us right here for now.” She went on to explain that they had also taken the store’s entire stock of Greenhouses-In-A-Box. They had assembled three 10 foot by 20 foot greenhouses on the large back parking lot to start making use of all the unusable concrete space, as well as another two, smaller greenhouses in the parking lot along the west side of the church grounds.
With the help of Jerry’s tractor, they had also tilled up the lawns along the eastern side of the church. They were still waiting for their seedlings to sprout in the greenhouses, but they had already built wire trellises to grow bush beans and tomatoes. They were going to start converting the flower beds around the church office and between and around the rest of the buildings into vegetable beds. They would use the walls of the buildings to support tall plants and trellises.
The ladies were also looking towards building and scouting out fruit orchards. They had a number of fruit trees they planned to plant up and down the rec
tory’s large front lawn. Sara asked if the raiding parties could start filling in a map that she had with the various orchards around the parish and within the city, itself. Isherwood was really excited at this idea and eagerly took the map, which Sara had already begun filling in from memory. He knew, too, that the long plots of land around town were full of pecan tree orchards, and that the protein found in the nuts could serve as a protein substitute if their supplies of meat were to dwindle.
Monsignor seemed to have followed a similar train of thought. “If I may interrupt, I would like for this group to begin thinking towards how we could conserve the cattle population in the area. I believe, though I do not know, that most of the cattle around here will be able to sustain themselves without much help from us. The grass is growing fast and the rains should provide plenty of drinking water. Once the summer is upon us, however, the cattle will need our help. I understand that we won’t be able to save all the cattle – not even close – but we can scout out the best pasture land and bring what’s left of the cattle populations there. Isherwood, am I right to believe that some cattle remain despite those creatures attacking them?”
Isherwood nodded, looking to Patrick and Justin for confirmation. “Oh sure, Monsignor. They’re definitely an endangered species, but we’re still seeing them here and there. The herds along the levees are all but gone, but the ones in pastures with better fencing have fared much better.”
“I’ve actually seen a cow charge and stomp a zombie,” Patrick said. “A small herd of cows could easily defend themselves against one or two zombies.”
