by Scott W Cook
The Kalashnikov was a big heavy weapon, though, and because it had a simple steel butted wooden stock, there was no shock absorption like you got with an M16 or M4. Andrea and Andy could both use the bigger weapons, but the Marlins were better suited for them and they could stay accurate in a fire fight with them longer.
Andrea’s shot was true. One of the zombies near the center of the group staggered back, his head snapping to the left. He actually stood for a second before crumpling to the ground at the feet of what had once been a business man.
My target wore a tattered blue suit and one dress shoe. His face was gray and his eye sockets hollow. His nose and lips were gone which left him with a ghastly grimace of horror. No matter how many times I looked at these things I still couldn’t entirely suppress a shiver or the feeling of horror they invoked.
I took a breath, squeezed the trigger and exhaled. My heavy round entered between his eyes and I watched as the back of his head exploded in a cloud of greenish gore. Greenish because of the NV scope’s green tinge. As he toppled backward, I noticed that my round had exited the zombie’s skull and penetrated another one standing right behind him.
“Toofer,” Andy quipped as his Marlin puffed.
His shot was close, but not quite in the head. The .22 round struck an elderly woman in the breastbone and she didn’t even flinch. Andy whispered an oath and adjusted his aim upward and fired again. I watched the gout of zombie goo erupt from her left eye.
“Good work, Andy,” I hissed, “Way to adjust for bullet drop.”
“It’s hard getting used to these slow rounds,” Andy said.
I nodded, “Yeah, but you’re coming on fast.”
Tony’s shot was true, as I’d expected. He didn’t get two though. Guess that’s why I’m the captain.
“Dickhead,” Tony said to me.
“What?” I asked as Andrea fired again.
“Showing me up in front of the help,” Tony quipped with a grin.
“We’re the help now?” Andy asked, sighting in.
“Well,” Tony whispered airily, “yeah…”
It took us about thirty seconds and the expenditure of 21 precious bullets to take down the munch. Yeah, I’m going with that one. Let’s see… up to five is a gnaw of zombies… five to ten is a chomp and a group of ten to about fifty zombies is a munch. From fifty to a few hundred is a gobble and anything over a couple of hundred you can call a horde or a hell no!
“Okay, skipper,” Tony said as he got to his feet, “What about inside the store? It’s gonna be a tough clear with four of us.”
“Maybe not,” I replied as we cautiously moved forward across the parking lot, “The store has automatic doors. With the power off, only a human with some motor skills could know to slide the doors apart manually. These dumb shits were probably milling around out here because they couldn’t figure it out.”
“Yeah,” Andy said, “And what about the dumb shits inside?”
“Good point,” I said, thumping him on the shoulder, “That’s good tactical thinking. I hope, though, that once the initial outbreak started, people didn’t risk their lives to go to the boat store for flip flops, pad eyes and inflatable rafts. And if humans were using this place as a hideout, those G’s would probably be a lot more agitated.”
“And if you’re wrong?” Andrea asked.
“Then we shoot the fuckers,” I said placidly.
We made our way around the dead zombies… redundant? Well, maybe zombies are mostly dead, but these folks were all the way dead now.
I stood in front of the entrance door and tapped the barrel of my rifle loudly against the glass. This was a clearing strategy that Tony and I had developed early on. Since the G’s were attracted to noise, you could draw most of them to the entrance of any building you wanted to clear by knocking or tapping on the door. The ghouls would shamble up and you could pick them off in an orderly fashion and even let them exit and take them out in the open. This was preferable because you didn’t then have to drag them out of the way once they fell.
We waited five minutes and nobody… well, nothing… appeared from inside the inky darkness of the marine supply store.
“NVG’s,” I said, pulling my own night vision goggles from on top of my head and adjusting them over my eyes.
“I don’t see any zombies,” Andy commented.
“Switch to thermal,” I suggested.
Andy hit a switch on his goggles and changed the display from night vision to infrared. With this setting, you could detect heat signatures even in a darkness so deep that the night vision wasn’t effective. We’d discovered that zombies, while technically dead and therefore had no circulation, did emit a heat signature slightly higher than their surroundings.
“Negative,” Andy reported.
I grinned, “Okay. Why don’t you and mom go get the trucks and Tony and I will check the interior out. I want to load up as much as possible.”
Andrea glanced at me and frowned, “I don’t like the idea of you two all alone in there.”
“It’ll be okay,” Tony said, “so far there are no G’s appearing, so if there are any in the stockroom or the shitter the two of us can handle them easily.”
“What about noise?” Andy asked, “That’s why we parked out on Tyrone in the first place.”
“True,” I explained. Andy was a good student and he asked a lot of questions. A lot of people might be annoyed by this, and there were times when I had to tell him to simply follow orders, but I liked that he wanted to know why things were the way they were and how stuff worked, “I was concerned about these shit for brains here. Now that we’ve taken them out and there don’t seem to be any others, the sound of the engines is a small risk. Besides, I don’t want to spend time loading up carts just to walk outside and find ourselves in the middle of a gobble.”
Andrea scoffed, “A what?”
“Oh,” I said sheepishly. I forgot that I’d created these names in my head and hadn’t shared them. I explained my thought process.
Andrea chuckled, “Jesus, Sammy, you are one fucked up squid.”
“That’s Captain to you, Major,” I said in mock formality, “Besides… it’s fun to think up crazy shit. Now you two move out. When you get back, reverse up onto the walkway here and put the open truck beds close to the sliding doors. It’ll make it easier to load and give us some cover should you attract any attention.”
“Aye aye, sir!” Andy and Andrea both said in unison as they snapped to attention and saluted.
Tony guffawed.
“Come on, laughing boy,” I quipped, “Let’s go shopping.”
“Who you callin’ boy, ofay,” Tony said with a grin.
“Ofay?” I asked sardonically as I slid the doors slowly open. There was some tension in them and it wasn’t as easy as I thought. So much the better, “What’re you like a hundred?”
“So what do you prefer then?” Tony asked, “Honky, peckerwood, cracker?”
I rubbed my chin thoughtfully for a moment as we stood inside and listened to the darkness. After about a minute of not hearing anything like a moan, a rasp or the sound of shuffling, I said, “I prefer blue eyed devil myself. Or massuh works.”
Tony chucked me on the shoulder and chuckled, “Okay, Sharky. It sounds okay in here. Let’s split. I’ll take the left and you go right.”
“Good idea, X O,” I said. I slid the collapsible headset over my ears, adjusted the microphone and plugged it into the radio, “Read me?”
‘Loud and clear,” Tony’s whispered voice came from my earphones.
“Move out.”
We didn’t find any more zombies in the store. Even more interesting was the fact that except for a few sections at the front of the store, specifically those where shoes and clothing were kept, the shelves were almost full and the stock rooms had even more.
Tony and I met back at the front of the store after our sweep of about ten minutes. I thought he looked funny with his NVG’s over his eyes, their lens
es glowing brightly in my own goggles.
“Damn, Sammy,” Tony said as we met near the front doors, “There’s a shitload of stuff in here.”
“Yeah,” I said and turned to watch as our two pickup trucks, Tony’s F150 and my Dodge Ram 1500 backed up onto the sidewalk and up to the two sets of sliding doors. Their tailgates were down in expectation of a haul, “Like I thought – boating wasn’t a high priority once the world went to hell in a bread basket.”
Our radios crackled and Andrea’s voice said, “How’s it going in there, boys?”
“Nominal,” I replied, “No ghouls in here and a lot of merch. We’re gonna load up a couple of carts. Are you guys okay to take watch?”
“Roger that,” Andy chimed in.
“Will do,” Andrea seconded, “How long do you figure?”
“Maybe thirty minutes,” I replied, “I’ve got a list.”
There was a laugh and Andy said, “Of course you do!”
“Of course you do, sir,” I groused with a smile, “Preparedness is the mother of success. You plan your dive and dive your plan.”
Andrea scoffed, “Typical SEAL.”
Tony and I laughed and he said, “Says the Marine pilot.”
I handed Tony a slip of notepaper on which I’d written my list. I had a duplicate as well. I’d broken the list into must haves, would be nice and dreams come true. The list had items such as blocks, carabiners, dead eyes, pad eyes, plumbing equipment, propane and butane, rod holders, fishing gear, as much of several sizes of quality line as we could get, sunscreen, hats, flip flops, boat shoes, a couple of extra grills and stoves and a variety of other odds and ends.
In addition, I wanted batteries. West Marine had an entire aisle filled with flooded lead, AGM, gel and lithium. I was astonished that this shelf among all the others was nearly full as well.
“Fuckin’ motherload!” Tony exclaimed, “How the hell?”
I shrugged, “Don’t know, brother. But let’s pick a few of the biggest lithium’s and a few AGM’s. Damn… they’ve got solar panels too!”
Tony and I loaded up our shopping carts and took them out and transferred the goods to the truck beds. We went back and did this twice more before the beds were full and we could only just close the bed covers.
“Let’s lock this up,” I said, “I found a set of keys in the manager’s office. I think we can lock the front doors and go out the back and lock that up, too.”
Tony frowned at me, “Then somebody who comes along, and somebody will eventually, will have to break in.”
I sighed, “Yeah… I guess it isn’t right to try and keep this to ourselves. We got everything on my list and then some. If we come back in a while and it’s been looted… well, I guess fair is fair.”
“Sam,” Andrea said over the radio, “We’ve got company.”
“Fuck…” Tony said as we slipped between the open doors and the trucks. We both slid the doors back into place and went around to the front of the vehicles. Andrea and Andy stood side by side, their weapons at the ready looking out toward Tyrone Boulevard.
“What’ve you got?” I asked as I stepped up next to Andrea.
“Look,” She said and pointed.
A group of individuals could be seen out on the deserted four lane road. They were slouching along toward us. It was hard to see if they’d spotted us yet, but by the way that they moved, I could tell they were zombies even from more than a quarter of a mile away.
“Looks like a munch,” Tony said with a grin, trying out my new vernacular.
“I got your munch,” Andrea shot back with a big grin.
“Promise?” Tony jibed.
“Shit…” Andy said, ‘I think there’s more than fifty… isn’t that a gobble?”
I snorted, “Yeah.”
“Okay,” Andrea said, “We should spread out and get ready to take them down.”
“No,” I stated, “They’re not in our way. No sense wasting ammo. Let’s get the hell out of here and back to the boat.”
I could see disappointment on her face and even on Andy’s. I got it, there was something satisfying about blasting these diseased and decaying assholes. It was almost like getting a little payback for them destroying our civilization and our lives.
Of course the truth was that the zombies didn’t act with any sort of malice. They just were and they just did what they did out of pure instinct. Intellectually, we understood this… but emotionally… everything we once had was taken away. Many people we had known and loved had been devoured alive by these things… or what might be worse, turned into them.
It was hard not to think about wiping them all out along with feelings of anger and resentment. It was necessary, too, if we ever wanted anything like a real life back.
The funny part was that at the beginning, it was equally hard to kill them as it was hard not to kill them now. Zombies had been living breathing people at one point. Sometimes you’d sight in on one and realize it was a junior high kid, or it looked like your grandmother or something.
We’d gotten over that now, but conserving resources was critical, especially when it came to the specialized low velocity ammo we preferred on raids.
“What about using the AR’s,” Andy asked, “With regular 5.56? Who cares if we make noise now, we’re exfiltrating the area anyway.”
I grinned at him, “Good use of military jargon, buddy. Yeah, we do want to wipe them out. Yet if we start a fire fight, we’ll just draw more of them to us. We already have these twenty that we should be burning and can’t now… and there’s something else to consider, too.”
“What?” The young man asked.
“Other survivors,” I explained, “Let’s say we draw a few hundred of them here. Then we leave and the G’s are left to wander around. Maybe there’s a group of people hiding nearby and we just delivered a problem into their midst. No, at this point, the smart move is to get out and minimize contact. Mount up.”
I got in the passenger seat of my truck next to Andrea and Tony got in with Andy.
Together we pulled out onto Tyrone and went left. I could see the G’s take particular notice of us as we did so. They began to moan and their arms came up in that unique and very creepy Frankenstein posture as they shuffled after us. They did move a little faster, but it was still slower than an average person could walk. I watched them as we distanced ourselves and was thankful that we had the average run of the mill type of zombie to contend with.
Then I laughed out loud as we turned onto twenty-second avenue north.
“What the hell are you laughing at?” Andrea asked.
I shook my head, “I actually just had the thought that I was glad we had the traditional Romero-esque shamblers instead of the fast and strong zombie’s people were starting to dig.”
“Thankful?” Andrea asked indignantly.
“I know,” I said, “That’s what I was laughing at. Maybe five or more billion human beings have either gone down the gullets of those shitbags or have turned into them. And I’m grateful… what a world.”
“Yeah, well get a thank you note ready, then,” Andrea said with clenched teeth and pointed ahead of us.
Maybe half a mile ahead, where the road curved to the right stood a group of ghouls. It took them a moment, but they caught sight of us and turned in our direction.
Andrea slowed to a stop and Andy pulled up next to us. He leaned out of the driver’s side of Tony’s truck, “Now what, Sam?”
I sighed, “We take them out.”
We exited the vehicles and took up positions in a line about five feet apart. I checked the load out on my AK, “Same deal as before. One second intervals along the firing line. I’ve got twenty-five rounds in this mag and another two magazines on me, you guys?”
Tony had the same as me. Andrea had ten left in the tube magazine slung under her rifle’s barrel and Andy had nine due to his one extra shot.
The group of zombies wasn’t huge, but it was probably a close run thing between a munch
and a gobble.
Yeah, I’m going with it.
“One change,” I said, “Andy, get up onto one of the truck beds and scope our six. Keep an eye on our surroundings and make sure nobody’s creeping up on us. Refill your magazine, too.”
Andy bounded up onto the roof of Tony’s truck and scanned in a three-hundred and sixty degree arc, “all clear so far.”
“Okay,” I said after Andrea had topped off her own magazine, “Take aim…”
Again we cycled through the firing line and took down ghoul after ghoul. They didn’t react, didn’t care and didn’t try and avoid us. They all just ambled toward us, arms outstretched, mouths agape emitting long mournful and blood-chilling moans. The three of us worked through round after round and the enemy fell.
There were at least forty of them. It took us no more than a minute to take them out.
“Andy?” I asked.
“Negative contacts,” Andy said, “I can see the ones we left behind on Tyrone, but they don’t seem to see us anymore.”
“That’s interesting,” I commented, “We’re what, less than a mile away? Maybe these things don’t have good eyesight or something.”
“Or a certain radius beyond which they don’t pay any attention to?” Andrea asked.
“Andy, are they coming toward us?” Tony asked.
“No,” Andy said in puzzlement, “They’ve stopped near the entrance to West Marine. They’re just… standing there.”
“Weird,” Andrea commented.
“Okay,” I said, “let’s not push our luck.”
“What about burning them?” Andy asked as he jumped down from the bed cover.
“I’d rather get the hell out of here for now,” I said, “We can come back later and do it, maybe. Don’t really have much gas right now.”
We got back into the trucks and drove around the pile of dead living deads. I liked to burn the bodies whenever I could. If this thing was a disease, then exposing it to extreme heat would destroy the virus. On top of that, a bunch of rotting corpses was a potential health hazard.
