Discovery tzc-2

by Mark Clodi

  Five minutes later Tom and Stewart left the hardware store lugging a heavy army green box between them, on top of the box were assorted dog treats, dog food and one flip flop. Stewart was wearing the other one over her socks. Amelia, who was standing by the cars keeping a look out noted the blood on their clothing and started to ask a question. Stewart stopped her, “Don't worry about it. Just the run of the mill shit we find everywhere we go. We did get some good stuff this time, weapons and hand grenades, the guy must have been a gun nut. You guys didn't hear us firing from out here?”

  “No.” Amelia admitted, “Where was he?”

  “In the basement, with all this stuff. Funny how none of it did him any good in the end. How about me and Tom get cleaned up and we get the hell out of po-dunk-ville?”

  Chapter 10

  The three zombies loped into town an hour after Max and his companions left it. They went into the hardware store and then into basement where the lights were still on. He looked at the man's body and frowned, the flesh was dull and unappetizing, the woman's was no better.

  “I gotta stop thinking about them in terms of food.” said their leader, a man named Erik, but he went by the nickname 'Red'.

  Nita, nominally the second in command of this trio smiled and said, “They wouldn't taste good now anyway Red, you know that.”

  “Besides” put in the third a man named Hugh, “we gave up humans, remember? We are going to save the world and all that.”

  “We are doing what we can, don't make it into a joke.” said Red. He was a white man whose skin looked a bit chaffed and almost red, hence the nickname. His hair was a raven black and his eyes were a piercing gray, almost clear of the betraying cataracts most zombies had. He moved with a cat like grace and had a huge pistol on his hip. His pistol was an old fashioned fifty caliber weapon he picked up from one of his victims, the guy had already been dying and showed Red how to load the gun using black powder and small, childlike caps. Red liked the gun because it was so very anti modern, it was not efficient, it had short range and made a huge noise when fired. In short, it suited him. Hugh had been Red's second recruit from the suburbs around Denver, the man had probably been fifty when he died and was from Colorado. He was in top physical condition when he became a zombie his broad shoulders and huge muscular arms made a classic 'V' build favored by those into bodybuilding. Despite Hugh's physical appearance the man never doubted Red could best him in a fight hands down. In the current world looks did not count for much, how many humans you had consumed counted for far more. Hugh's hair was a close cropped gray, he had a badly receding hairline with some questionable hair in a strange pattern near his forehead, as if the man had gotten hair transplant that didn't go as planned.

  Nita was the odd one of the group, she agreed with Red's aims, but would not go so far as to abstain from human flesh if she could get it. The middle aged woman had a good sized belly on her from giving birth to three kids, the fact that the weight followed her into her new life bothered her immensely. At night when they were walking and talking she would constantly complain about the fact that she might be doomed with a middle aged, fat body for the rest of eternity. Nita had darker skin than the two men and her hair and eyes matched Red's.

  “I think I am done with saving the world for today. I could use some grub.” Nita said.

  Red just scowled and checked out the room. There were still weapons in one corner and some medicines in a case on the wall. “Jeezus, this is some sort of opiate. Where did these guys get this stuff. Grenades? Drugs? Were they planning an uprising or what?”

  “Probably planning for the end of the world. I wonder why the ones we are following killed them?” said Hugh.

  “You can't be serious. They didn't kill these guys. This one had to be a psycho killer, the one boy is tied to the bed and looks like he has been dead for days. The girl she died here, probably about the same time. I think there is, where that plastic is taped to her" said Red pointing to a bit of bloody plastic and tape on the woman's body, "I think that is a bullet hole. I think they were trying to save her, but couldn't.”

  Hugh shrugged, “Don't mean nothing really. Why are we here?”

  “Just checking, you know 'the call' isn't as strong here.” said Red. 'The Call' was how they described the constant urge they received in their minds from the east. All of the zombies seemed to be getting it too, the slower, shambling zombies were thoughtlessly compelled to move that direction. Red, Nita and Hugh could ignore it, but the call was still persistent and annoying, the three of them had risen to sentience and only if they were close by could a more powerful zombie compel them to do things. Red had first hand experience with such a 'zombie master' in his recent past, the man he had traveled to Denver with had kept him on a short lease. When the late, not so great 'Og' had died near the Denver International Airport, he had been forcing Red to pursue a group of military trucks to the south. Og's control off Red all but disappeared after the bomb went off. He was not positive that Og was dead, but the zombie was weak enough that he could no longer control Red and that was good enough for now. Red, Nita and Hugh were not sure if another zombie could control them again, so they had no interest in getting too close to whomever was calling all of these zombies eastward. The control also seemed to be stronger in any zombies that Red made, so he assumed it worked the same way. Og had killed Red in Florida a month ago and had been able to control him without any problem at all. The zombies who had made Nita and Hugh were gone, possibly they had been killed by the living or had never consumed enough humans to actually remember who and what they had been. The change from human to zombie to super zombie was not an easy one and most who went through it were different from who they had been. Something about gaining so much power changed them for the worse, in Red's opinion.

  “Should we box a bunch more in here?” Nita asked.

  “Yeah, we could get a few thousand in the buildings in town.”

  “A few thousand, from the hundreds of thousands following us? It won't make much difference will it?”

  “It will, each town we go through we lock a few thousand in and soon there won't be any horde left.”

  “I agree, but, you feel it too, right?”

  Red nodded, he didn't have to ask what Nita meant, the compulsion was growing stronger the further east they moved. This caused the zombies to move faster, they might fill this town with zombies, but the next town they might not get so many as the zombies shuffled by. The slow zombies were very stupid and when the trio 'boxed' them they just put them in buildings and blocked the doors, the zombies at the least were slowed down, in some cases, like this basement, Red doubted the zombies would ever get out unless someone freed them. In an ideal world Red, Nita and Hugh would swing back through the town whenever they stopped the horde and kill all of the zombie that were still trapped, for now they had to be content with locking them up and making it hard for the stupid ones to get out. So far they had boxed zombies in three towns taking the horde down by ten thousand or so, but the horde was too big to stop completely.

  The three of them also worked to stay ahead of the band of zombies, because if they were closer to the slow ones they could make them stop, which caused a bit of a traffic jam and delayed the horde's movement. Red didn't know why the zombie to the east wanted all of these brain eaters, but he knew it couldn't be for something good. Anything the more powerful zombie wanted, Red would fight against it for. Hugh and Nita, for the most part, agreed with Red's reasoning and agreed to help him. In terms of raw power Hugh was probably the weakest of the three, so Nita and Red were watching him carefully. If Hugh started to walk east, the other two were going to grab him and head west until he regained control of himself, then keep going.

  “Alright, anything we really need here?” Red asked the others. They shook their heads and he said, “Okay, lets get a few hundred into this place and lock them in, you two know what to do.”

  The three of them filed out, leaving the bodies in the basement where
they were. In a little over three hours they had the town filled with the first zombies that led the Denver horde. Red finished up putting the last undead he could squeeze into a barn and locking them in and then went to find Nita and Hugh. He could sense where other zombies were with relative ease, the more intelligent a zombie was the shorter the range of his ability to sense them. Nita and Hugh only knew where Red was when he wanted them to know. Concentrating he found that the two were over near the main exit to the town from interstate eighty. A few minutes later he approached a bemused Hugh and Nita standing by a red cargo van on the shoulder of the road.

  “What is so funny?”

  Hugh hooked a thumb in Nita's direction, “Her.”

  Turning to Nita, Red asked, “What?”

  “Don't you feel them?” she asked him, pointing at the van.

  “You didn't!” then Red concentrated on the van and found that it was crammed full of slightly moving undead. Quickly counting he came up with thirty one zombies, “A new record!” Red walked around to the front of the van where the bodies were pressed up against the windshield and wiggling. “I think this van is larger than the last one.”

  “That's what I said!”

  “It is not! Look it is the same model and everything, but there was one difference.” Nita said.

  “What?” the men asked at the same time.

  “No bench seat in back. I got the extra three where the bench seat was. So does it count?”

  Slowly Red nodded, “Why sure. I mean it is your game if you think it counts, then it does.”

  Nita nodded, “I guess, but I wanted to see if you thought it was cheating because there wasn't a seat in back.” The three of them left the slightly bouncing van behind them as they walked back onto the highway.

  “No, I think it is good. Hugh?”

  “I think it counts. Thirty one, no kids. Why do you like cramming zombies into cars anyway?”

  Nita shrugged as they moved along, “I don't know, it is something to do. I could get into the Guinness book of records with it, if we bring that back.”

  Red laughed, “Always thinking ahead Nita!”

  “Yeah, of course, why shouldn't I? Now if I could just lose this momma fat….”

  The men groaned and trudged through the warm afternoon.

  Chapter 11

  The smoke was pouring from the town up ahead, not from one place but from several different spots. Max handed the binoculars back to Stewart.

  “Yep it is burning up ahead. Tom that is North Platte?”

  “Yes. It looks like the first fire is at the Wal Mart on the north side of the highway and the other one is at a hotel to the south of it.”

  Stewart nodded while taking a closer look. “So which way do we have to go to get to your parent's farm?”

  “North. Through town would be easiest. Either that or we head back about fifteen miles. There is only the one bridge here, or we could go past it and go up through the industrial park by the golf course….”

  Stewart lowered her binoculars and turned to Tom, “It is your call, the Wal Mart is probably burning, but I don't see anyone or anything moving around up there. How far north of town do you live?”

  “Oh not far at all, just out of town turn right and then take the third left. The farm is at the end of that road. Just north and east of town.”

  “Do we need anything from the town?” Stewart asked all of them.

  “No. We have enough food to get through the night. But we better get moving if we want to be bedded down before sunset. I don't want to be poking around a farm in the dark.” said Max, then he hastily added, “I mean, if your parents aren't there Tom.”

  It was close to sunset now, with the harsh heat of the mid afternoon finally fading. They group was down to two vehicles again, Stewart's Denver Police Cruiser and Max's minivan. The wrecker had started overheating a couple of hours ago and Max had concluded there must have been two sets of gears in the vehicle and he had been running the truck in the 'low' gear range. The engine got so hot they had decided to dump the truck and stick to the vehicles they were used to. They had not had to move any wrecks off the road since the morning, which made the decision easier and they left all but one of the diesel fuel cans with the truck as well, which freed up a little more room in the two vehicles they did have.

  Tom and Stewart got into the cruiser while Max and Amelia hopped into the van. Seth, Nick and Riley were in the back of the cruiser and the rest of the kids were in the minivan. Opening the van door Max sat down into the middle of an argument between Cory and Kenny.

  “You have to keep your shoes on!” Kenny insisted.

  “No! Leave me alone!”

  “Put them on! That is a rule! You have to wear shoes!”

  “What is going on guys?” Max asked sliding the van into gear as Amelia hopped into the passenger seat.

  “He won't wear his shoes Max!” Kenny said.

  “I don't have to!” Cory yelled back.

  “Kenny? What have I told you about that?”

  “Uh, but he is in the car. In the car you have to wear your shoes.”

  “Kenny didn't you ever go over to a friend's house?”

  “One time I did, yeah, I didn't like it. They didn't play right.”

  “So things were different at their house than at your house?”

  “Yeah and I didn't like it. They messed up the rules.”

  “That is what I mean here, in our van the rules are different. There are not any rules about keeping your shoes on.”

  “But Max he is barefoot! He doesn't even have socks on! When you go out of the house you have to have shoes and socks on. Always!”

  “What about if you go swimming?”

  Kenny laughed, “No! Not then. I got to go swimming once, they had a sprinkler, it was inside over the pool and water would fall down on you. I didn't wear shoes then.”

  “So sometimes you didn't have shoes on when you were outside the house.”

  “I always had shoes on in the car. Always.”

  “Well in our car you can wear shoes or go barefoot or just wear socks, those are the rules.”

  “Okay. But if you have shoes on you have to wear socks. And if you are barefoot you have to keep your slippers on.”

  “No, no Kenny. You don't in our car, you can wear any combination of shoes, socks, bare feet, flip-flops or sandals or even boots if you want to. It is completely up to each person. Okay? So please leave Cory alone.”

  Kenny seemed to sulk, then asked, “Could I go ride with Policeman Stewart?”

  “No!” Max and Amelia said at the same time. They pair of them had long ago given up on telling him that Stewart was a nickname and that she was a police woman.

  They settled back and Max pulled out after Stewart, who was proceeding down the interstate slowly. Jessica and Erin were sitting in the middle seat, with the boys in the third row. The girls were coloring pictures when Jessica wrinkled her nose and said, “Phew! Who farted?”

  Erin said, “Eeew!” and a moment later Max and Amelia were hit with a stench rolling in from the back seat, where Kenny sat with a happy smile on his face. Cory was studiously not looking at any of them, remaining focused on a hand held video game.

  “Alright, boys who did it?” asked Amelia rolling down her window. Max rolled his down as well and turned the air conditioning on 'max'.

  “Did what?” asked Kenny.

  “Made the smell!”

  “Farted!” said Jessica, leaning forward to breath in the smoke tinged air from behind Max.

  “Not me.” said Kenny.

  “Me either.” Cory replied, “It's him.” he said pointing his finger at Kenny.

  “Uh-uh!”

  “Is so! He took off his shoes and the smell came out!”

  “Holy shit! This is really bad.” Max flashed his headlights at Stewart and stopped the car in the middle of the road, the passengers bailed out of the minivan, except for Kenny who just looked at everyone.

  Stewart
backed up her car and rolled her window down, “What is it?”

  “We may have found a way to kill all of the zombies.” Max said. A second later Jessica giggled and even Cory smiled.

  “What? How?”

  Max looked at where his van was parked, noted the slight breeze carrying the sour foot odor towards them and said, “Just wait for it…”

  Stewart wrinkled her nose in disgust, “What the fuck is that? Is that…did he shit his pants in there?”

  “No! No pooping except in a bathroom and always wipe clean after! I didn't poop myself!”

  “He took his shoes off.” said Amelia.

  “Oh God that is..ugh! I am moving the car out of the way!”

  Stewart backed up more until she was no longer downwind of the van's open doors and windows. By then Seth was yelling out of the cruiser window for Kenny to put his shoes back on.

  “You can't take your shoes off outside of the house!” the boy called. Riley, upset by the commotion started barking non-stop.

  Sighing Stewart opened her door and stepped out to lean against the hood. “Biting dogs, kids yelling in my ears, toxic foot odor. Geezus to think two days ago I thought I had it bad with just the flesh eating zombies.”

  Seth continued his tirade against Kenny while Max and Stewart stood looking at each other. Slowly Max grinned and then Steward started to laugh. Tom, opened the door on the other side of the cruiser and stood up, keeping one leg inside.

  “What is it?” he asked, a look of bewilderment on his face.

  Max shook his head slowly and tried to stop laughing. Amelia stepped over to them, “Are you going to let them argue like that?”

  This caused Max to laugh harder, but Stewart just reached in and unlocked the rear doors to the cruiser. Quick as a shot Seth was out and yelling at his brother about the rules. Amelia turned to go intervene and Stewart stopped her, “Hold up honey, let them work this one out.”