Living amongst the Dead: On the Road Again

by J. N. Morgan

  Living amongst the Dead:

  On the Road Again

  J. N. Morgan

  Copyright © 2017 J N Morgan

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1545581037

  ISBN-13: 978-1545581032

  Chapter 1

  The smoke continued to rise on the horizon, the house that had become Richard and Tiffany’s home lost to flames and the undead. It had been Johnathan’s childhood home, and the roughly middle-aged fellow sat sadly there on the grass with the woman between them, helping to pass the bottle of strong, black rum between the two. The survivalist, her lover, lying just to her left as they face west towards that lonely house in the valley, grunted as pain shot through his shoulder. He had only just managed to catch his breath, far slower than those around him even though he was in pretty good physical shape, had been almost fatally wounded just 5 days prior. The woman who did it currently sat just a little north of them on the highway that the three sat next to, watching warily for any of those undead bastards that might yet try to follow where they went but it seemed like the blaze had successfully kept most of their attention.

  “We should go back…” Veronica gave, a stone-cold look in her eyes as she didn’t take her eyes from the direction of the rising smoke.

  “Right… not the best time for jokes right now, Nick.” Her friend Tiff gave, having just clicked her tongue at her wounded ‘boyfriend’ of sorts for suggesting she try a swig of the harsh black Kraken rum. She knew it’d burn and make her cough and sputter, just like it had before when she had tried weaker rum straight.

  “I’m not joking.” By now the forlorn-looking ex-Priest, believing himself without any family or even now a home left on God’s green Earth looked to the woman. His sad look maintained. “Not now. Wait for those fuckers to roast or wander off or whatever. Give it another couple hours.” She looked up at the high Sun; about noon probably, maybe early afternoon. “Pass by the rubble-” Johnathan scowled at her calling it that, especially considering his parents sadly had been buried in the backyard, “-and go straight for Strathcom. A lot of those things had been taken down for sure, a lot taken out of there. We could go into town, hold up for a while, I’ll spend some time clearing it out each day, and once Rick-”

  “Rich… ard.” The somewhat portly Caucasian woman was not at all amused at her young friend’s musings. They had only been resting for a short time, fully intent on continuing to head east since there wasn’t really any other recourse, yet now of all times she suggests a complete change of plans? On top of it all, she was really getting tired of calling her man the wrong name. He just sighed, accepting the bottle of Kraken and taking another swig, willing it to aid him in dealing with the pain in his shoulder, pain caused by a .308 softpoint shot from a bolt-action, shot by Veronica herself. Accidentally but with intent, if that makes any sense.

  “Whatever, look, the place should be cleared enough so we can take i-”

  “Mmph- to what eeeend?” The grunt wasn’t from pain, which was usually the case for him to make such noises. It was just after a swig, and perhaps it was his tired state, and/or perhaps his still relatively low amount of blood due to having lost so much from the gunshot wound, he felt the alcohol really getting the drop on him. “You say ‘clear them out’ like it’s easy, but seriously… how much time have you spent taking out… walkers?” With his breath back, it would seem he’s been improving in terms of talking. A few days ago he could barely get a sentence out without several breaks for breath. “It’s not easy; it’s risky, and you should avoid it whenever possible. Not seek it out.” Taking one more swig, his left hand held the bottle towards his right, where it was taken by one of the loops on either end of the neck by the woman and handed to the salt-and-pepper-haired man to the other side of her.

  “I can do a lot better than you can right now, white boy.”

  “Heheh-HNNG, fuck…” he’d started chuckling at her feminism and evident racism when the jostling sent pain to his shoulder, forcing his left hand to shoot over it, hovering over the wounded and bandaged area. He wore a t-shirt over it, left arm going through one sleeve but the other sleeve remained empty; his slung left arm underneath it against his body. “You’re right, you can… but you haven’t had as much experience with bayonets as me… and I’m telling you, it’s not as easy as you… might think.” The left arm slowly moved away from the afflicted area, hand coming to rest on his stomach, and while he continued to squint up at the sky Tiff’s hand levitated to his short dark-brown hair, stroking it, and eventually giving his scruffy cheek a small caress. She hated to see him in such pain, and hated further that it was her friend who had done it to him. Poor boy. It was hard to believe it, but with him at 27 years old, she was nearly a decade his senior.

  “Well what do you think we should do? HUH?!” Her volume was rising now, “Just keep going that way? To what? To the woods? There might not be anything down there for days!” Like her volume, she herself had risen, standing now and turned to face south towards the three, specifically at the man she had nearly killed. In her left hand she held the Chinese-made SKS that had previously been in the possession of Johnathan but he willfully gave it up, and it just so happened to have gone to her. The bayonet locked back under the barrel was pointing down, the muzzle itself of the barrel pointing up, but she jabbed with her fist towards the east where it was proposed they travel.

  Down that quiet highway, past a lone tree standing just to the south of it, past a couple wrecked vehicles that collided head-to-head at some point which somewhat blocked up the road in the middle of a rock-cut, was a turn. A turn in the road, it went left, a bit towards the north, and that’s all she knew about it.

  “Quite a few clicks to the next town…” the oldest of the bunch said, his voice deep and gravelly. Capable of quite an intensely loud volume. Having been both a Catholic and a Protestant Priest, he was used to speaking loudly to his flock so that all ears could hear, no matter how far away in God’s house, or how old. Now, it was mostly quiet, little more than a mutter.

  “How many?” Came Richard. Tiff’s red-dyed hair shook as she looked from her left to him, to her right to the older man. The red had faded over the months, and her brunette roots were quite exposed.

  “Don’t know. Decent drive though. Never really timed it… I’ve been away for a long time…” Eyebrows twitched as they lowered, the centers of them wishing to rise but he willed them not to. A slight crack in that old voice towards the end. His parents were gone, nothing but a damned stainless steel turkey tray with holes in it to mark their resting place, if it even still stood. So many years since he’s seen them, only to find out he was just a week and a half or so late. Had he gotten there just two weeks sooner, he could have been with them for the first time in… God knows how long.

  “Well I don’t need to be a fuckin’ rocket scientist to know that a ‘decent drive’ is going to be a fuckin’ long walk. So we head back to Strathcom, barricade ourselves in, and-”

  “Food-”

  “Don’t interrupt me, mother fucker!” With infinite sass, she warned him of it, almost in a mocking attitude as though it’s foolish for him to even make such a mistake.

  “No, really. Food. We don’t have much left. There can’t be much left in town to scavenge, I don’t recall seeing any river nearby to fish from or a lake. I do not want to know how you guys got… fresh water.” At this point it was almost a game for him. Try to keep the sentences short or at least provide breaks at decent points; try to go without having to take a breath mid-sentence but right at the end he’d lost. Maybe it’d be best if he cut down on the drinking; it can’t be good for how little blood he had in
him… but he accepted the bottle again.

  “You son of a-” moving the rifle to her right hand, she started marching towards the three, eyes set on Richard where he lay on the grass wounded.

  “Nicky-NICKY NICKY!” Tiffany shot to her feet, sore feet, having had to lug her man’s hefty backpack, firearms, and ammo there. She quickly went before the tall dark woman, looking up to her, hands coming up to slim but muscled shoulders to stop her, meanwhile eyes continued to peer over the older woman towards Richie. She was the youngest of the bunch, and with all the stress going on she was clearly not in the mood to take any ‘lip’ from some disgusting white male.

  “This prick is gonna get us killed, Tiffy!” She barked, a couple drops of spittle attacking the faded hair.

  “Technically you’re the one that almost got me killed.” The humour was out of his tone now, unable to believe that she’d be starting drama now after what just happened, after they narrowly escaped with their lives. True, she was a huge part of saving them, but it did no good to be spouting harassment about.

  “ENOUGH!” The wounded fellow twitched and groaned in pain. Tiffany was checked as surprise went over her features as she looked to Johnathan as he rose to his feet, rum sloshing in the glass bottle in his hand. He was quite lucky it didn’t break when he tumbled from the living room window of his house not long ago. “Even if we DID go back to Strathcom, even if we DID temporarily fix the issue of food and water; it would be just that! TEMPORARY!” His deep voice boomed with years of experience of singing loud hymns over a congregation.

  “This is the ONLY option we have left, the only SENSIBLE option, so enough FIGHTING!” Turning from the wounded younger male to the fiery young black woman, back and forth as he spoke, Tiff standing firm between the two, Veronica finally took a step back. His arms had been raised and open, gesturing to the two, bottle in one hand, and now that the matter seemed to settled, peace finally attained once again, he screwed the stopper back on. Richard’s dull eyes faintly saddened at evidently being denied more of the booze that was quickly working its magic.

  The portly woman took he friend in a hug, her slender yet strong body a stark contrast. “Everything is gonna be alright, Nicky.” With rifle still in hand, she reciprocated the embrace, though her eyes that had closed soon opened to stare loomingly at Rich who looked up to the sky with a grin. It felt fucking good to feel drunk again, at least a little.

  “I know… I’ll make sure of it, babushka.” Brown eyes continued to stare down at the wounded man as she said it, though not in a menacing tone, and Tiffany took it as a sign that she’ll continue fighting the walkers if any more show up. The nickname always cheered her up.

  “Good!” Giving a tight squeeze of a hug, she said it thankfully before breaking off with a smile. Those haunting eyes quickly changed to become a little bit warmer as the women looked to each other. “Think you’re up for it, baby?” Turning towards the man lying down, Nick gave a grimace before she turned away as well to make sure the three didn’t see the hateful look on her.

  “Ohhh, I suppose. Perhaps a drop of water first? Nngh…” helping himself to sitting, she quickly came down at his side to aid him, the movement sending slight jolts of pain, muffled by alcohol, to his injured right shoulder. The bottle was fetched and everyone took a bit to rehydrate themselves. Johnathan elected to take that heavy backpack, Veronica took her own along with her rifle, which left Tiffany carrying the man’s No.4 Lee Enfield slung over shoulder even though she really didn’t know entirely how to use it. Better in her hands than the ex-priest’s however; he wouldn’t use it at all.

  Glass crunched under boots as well as Tiff’s little worn-out sneakers that really did need to get replaced by something more fitting for long-distance travel on foot. Though to be fair, the greying fellow could also afford to get some better footwear as well. He taught Tiffany how to remove the bayonet on the rifle; a wide rectangular button on the socket portion that wrapped around the end of the barrel. She depressed it and scraped it into the tubular, almost conical metal sheath that still hung from his belt. With the alcohol in him, he definitely seemed to be handling the pain better. Now with the backpack removed she could much more easily help the man, over half a foot taller, continue to hobble his way east.

  The glass that crunched beneath them were from a police cruiser and a civilian vehicle that collided together. A corpse lay on broken glass with mangled legs next to one of the cars, a hole in its head, flies buzzing about its mouth, eye sockets already wriggling with maggots. It had been killed with the very bayonet on the man’s hip a little over a week ago, and he noticed as they made their way along that the child’s body still lay decomposing on the floor. Tucked away in the corner of the driver’s side of the police cruiser. Hopefully the poor thing died quickly on impact, never having seen it coming. Couldn’t have been much older than 5.

  The smell was still terrible from the decaying bodies, and though his faith was in self-doubt Johnathan crossed himself as he went. Tiff couldn’t even look. Nicky was just glad that none of the dead appeared to be female however gender wasn’t exactly an easy thing to distinguish at this point. Walls of jagged rock were at either side of the small group as the Sun was still quite early on its descent behind them. Rock cuts; holes drilled deep into the ground and rock of this hill, explosives placed inside, and so now this mostly abandoned highway could stay level as it drive through the relatively steep hill instead of going over it. Trees enveloped them as they continued on, a pleasant change from the scent of putrefaction behind them.

  Cli-… clack. Those stern eyes looked down to the wooden-stocked Type 56 SKS as she opened the bolt a little ways, seen the steel-cased surplus 7.62x39 that had been chambered, then hauled the bolt back hard to try and lock it open. The live round promptly ejected harshly up ahead and to the right, clinking against the pavement and seemingly intent on tumbling off the hard surface down to the dirt that lead down to the ditch by the side of the road. The early-20s woman cursed as she jogged ahead, backpack jostling and clunking as she went, the bolt having dropped to chambered another round in the mag as she caught the .30 cal round before it left her sight. Rich stifled a slurred laugh but quickly intentionally straightened his face in an attempt to prevent her from getting angry with him. Tiff had barely heard him and hushed the man which only made his smile come back on his red face. Red from booze; better than the paleness that had plagued him, she thought.

  “How do I lock this fuckin’ thing open?” She asked out loud, fumbling with the rifle, trying to open the bolt without ejecting the currently chambered round. She managed to bring it back slowly enough to where it just plopped down onto the mag and began to slide towards the chamber. While wrestling to keep the bolt open with her right hand, her left moved about to push that round into the mag, supposed to hold 10 rounds but still pinned to 5 sadly due to Canadian law, and finally pushed in that round that had tried to evade her. All 5 were in finally, and all the while the wounded man answered her.

  “The SKS can only be… locked open with an empty mag.” He explained, hobbling along with his good left arm around Tiffany’s shoulders. He could feel his trusty Lee Enfield touching his arm, and missed the feel of it in his hands. “Kind of annoying, yeah. Put the butt in the crook between your lap and your… belly, high on your leg. Right hand holding bolt back to… pin it there. Left hand free to do whatever.” He explained, and seen her about to try it. “Wait! Push bolt back with… side of your hand. Like a karate-chop. Your hand will block the cartridge from getting away from you.”

  The somewhat younger survivor did as instructed, and nodded with her lower lip pushing up on the upper one. It worked, and she found that she could now easily take that captured round that tried to eject, even while walking, and push it back in the magazine. Releasing the bolt she let it CLACK forward to chamber the round. Looking back to him, she gave a brief nod, which he returned.

  The landscape was pretty well barren save for the forest that the road seemed t
o cut through. Must have been an hour; a few kilometers, since they had left, and there were no other vehicles in sight so far. Tiff had swapped places with Johnathan, letting him take the weight of the much younger man’s arm over his shoulders. He’d taken the bottle out from within his black pea coat under which was the worn light blue dress shirt. Going along with all this was his pair of brown dress pants. A finely dressed fellow for the end of times, however as autumn wears on he’ll likely be on the look-out for something warmer for his legs.

  Richard grinned at the sight of the bottle, his cheeks still red from the alcohol, but Johnathan gave a side-long look at him before screwing the top back on with a grunt. Returning his right arm to around the younger fellow’s back, that taller and injured survivalist kept his left over his own pack which was on the former holy man’s back.

  Cli-... cli-clack. Chick-chick. Tiff had that old English rifle in her hands, told how to take the safety off and instructed quite clearly to keep her finger off the damn trigger. She turned that 60-degree bolt with ease, and due to being cocked it forced the bolt back a small ways to show her the brass. The rifle moved in her grasp as she then pushed the bolt harshly forward and quickly down, though not so quickly as Richard could manage. When he handled that rifle, closing it sounded like just one click, as though it were a straight-pull rifle, but Tiffany was still very new, had nowhere near the muscle memory he did, so closing the bolt gave that typical ‘cli-clack’ as it went forward and the hand was turned down. Pulling the safety lever backwards, engaging it, it produced no noise. Utterly quiet, and then as she tried to open the bolt it gave small metallic noises of complaint as it refused to do so. Engaging the safety locked the action up, which it was supposed to.

  She had taken his bandolier out from within his backpack earlier when her and Johnathan swapped places, him letting her have a rest from helping the tall survivor along. There was a broad grin on her soft face as she dawned the green cloth that held 5 pockets. She didn’t think it matched her clothes, but it was cool to wear one, and the weight of the ammo within it felt cool. Four of the pockets were full with two 5-rnd clips each for a total of 40 rounds. In the fifth pocket were two loose rounds of .303, both with writing on them from a black marker.