Haven From Hell: Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse

by Won, Mark

  My guess was that they were firing from my twin armored tree stands. Bastards. One gunman was shooting up the passenger side, while the other two had been more focused on me as soon as I’d taken a step out of the van. If the damn fools had waited another two seconds they’d have had me dead to rights. As it was, I was able to jump back in the driver’s side before I’d closed the door.

  Alice had her head down on the blood covered seat. She’d clearly been hit by some of the random fire. I put my own head down and backed straight out, driving blind. I was able to use my rear camera to navigate around the corner and then sped up some. I still had to keep my head down to avoid getting it shot off.

  If it were the Tattoo Crew shooting at us, then they’d clearly held everything I’d taught them about shooting in contempt. Random, wild fire, more bullets in my poor old van’s back doors than focused on the drivers area. What were they thinking? Idiots!

  Still, it’s good for me that tattooed covered trash is stupid, and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that ear piercings somehow damaged the male brain. I managed to back away for a hundred yards or so and turned another corner, taking cover behind a house. They stopped shooting. The trees along my property line had been a real lifesaver, giving me some much need concealment during the escape. I turned the van around and drove down a side road. Then I checked on Alice.

  A bullet had punched through my armored glass and hit her right arm. I grabbed the first aid kit from the back and got to work. I had made sure to pack a local anesthetic in the kit, so I used that first. It was probably illegal to own but it’s not like anyone was going to lock me up for it. She was going into shock so I hooked up my little oxygen tank for her and got her laying down as far as her seat would go.

  Finally, with her as doped up as I could get her, I got out, walked around to the passenger side, and opened up her door so as to reach her arm better. Then I began a little field surgery. My main problem was keeping an eye out for zombies. Every now and then one would shamble up to me while I was working. I found that to be very distracting. That was the only time I ever thought of Emma as a surgical tool. I mean the kind actually used in surgery.

  Alice’s arm was broken but she’d live (survive the gunshot, I mean). I sewed her up and then got a splint and sling on her arm. Pretty good work for an old guy. I remembered to put a bottle of antibiotics in her pocket, for later.

  After all that excitement we had to move. I ran down a couple of zombies as I went around a couple of blocks. Putting a little distance between my house and me seemed a wise move. What I wanted was a place to hide until Alice was in a slightly more functional state. But I was also in a hurry.

  I had more options around town than you might think. I used to own a lot of the land thereabout and my dad and I had made a number of caches. When I was forced to sell there was no safe way for me to move all that stuff. Also, a lot of it was illegal anyway. The simple solution was to let people build over it.

  On the other hand, I didn’t know what was going on inside my own house. For all I knew my family were being tortured as I sat there caring for a stranger. I decided that I had to get back inside my home ASAP.

  Knowing my own camera blind spots, I circled around and approached from the south. About a block away I decided to approach on foot. First I got Alice laying down in back, mostly out of sight. She was heavier than she looked. Then I wrote her a short note and locked the van. I left her a set of keys. Even if I never came back she was still better off than when I’d found her. She had enough food, water and ammunition to last for a while, anyhow.

  That’s what I told myself as I walked away.

  Chapter 5: A Walk in the Park, Mi Casa es Mi Casa, and the The Hand of Providence

  I had been giving my approach some thought. Since I wasn’t willing to wait until dark, I figured my best approach was to enter fast and silent. Maybe no one was watching the monitors. Even if they were, maybe they wouldn’t understand what they were seeing. I had to take the chance.

  I moved through the street side treeline as I made my approach from the south. The only risk of being seen too soon would come when I had to cross the approach to the canoe docks. Once on the other side I was back in the tree line, then I moved to the fence the city had put up around my pond.

  Occasionally I would see a zombie in the distance but they were too far away to be a threat. Still, I kept my eyes peeled. I didn’t want to have to shoot one, since the noise might give me away.

  When the city had bought my fishing pond they put up a few fences, so people would be more inclined to pay to go through the changing rooms that lead to the ‘beach’. In the middle of the sandy area there was (I hate to admit it) a beautiful little bridge which folks could take to cross the narrow point of my pond. It lead to a real nice series of shady arbors. Artful, really.

  Of course, anyone who wanted, could just wade around the fence to get into the arbor area. That was my plan.

  Once around the fence I ran over to a huge ‘new art’ eyesore with money donors’ names engraved all over it. Getting those names on there had been my idea. That ensured no one would ever move it. My town would sooner move a graveyard, bodies and all, than disturb the sacred names of the people who bribe the leadership.

  The tacky thing was the only flaw in the arbors. It was about eight feet high and four wide, rounded at the corners and covered with leafy looking scrollwork. I gave a particular metal leaf located high up, out of the reach of children, a full turn. Then I did that three more times with three other leaves. Around the other side a pin hole had opened up. I put my key in there and turned. Carefully, I took a rosebud and turned that. The door opened. Simple.

  I’d built the thing myself but lied to the counsel and told them some ‘famous’ french artist had done it. Saved myself a ton of money, and I got to keep my secrets. I also got my name on the eyesore.

  I entered that monument to arrogance, and lifted the floor plate. Underneath, I had to dig down about a foot before I reached the hatch. Once open, I climbed down, closing everything up behind me as best I could. At the bottom I found myself in my generator room.

  The hundred yard tunnel I’d built was still in the same shape I’d left it. I finally got to my tube shelters and could stand up straight. All that bending over isn’t good for an old man with a bad back, with a bullet bruise on top of another bullet bruise.

  Across the way, at the other end of the cylinder, I found the ten foot corridor leading to a hidden way into my U-house. I got ready and slipped in. The utility room was clear so I moved into the family room. Also clear. Then through the kitchen and pantry until I’d passed through another concealed door leading to the super bunker.

  I found the super bunker empty, too. I locked up behind myself and accessed the computer system. I need to see and hear what was going on.

  The Tattoo Crew were having a nice little party in my living room. All I could think was, you chumps have the whole house and you’re still hanging out in that one room. I switched through all the rooms in the house but they seemed alone. Without visual I couldn’t be sure, though.

  I decided to take in their conversation before heading upstairs and killing them all. I hope you’ll pardon me leaving out the expletives.

  Dylan was speaking, “I shot that --- twice. All he did was --- crawl off and --- die. The -----.”

  Liam, one of Dylan’s two screw head cronies, replied, “I dunno Dylan. You saw how that --- got back in the van, man. He looked ----[very angry]”

  One of the women, Doris I think, said something unintelligible. They all understood her so I supposed it was some vulgar subdialect of English. The one stupid people use.

  Dylan replied, “Shut the --- up, you ---. You don’t know nothing. Only reason for you to open you [sic] mouth is to suck my ---.” I was considering washing that man’s mouth out with soap before killing him.

  Dylan’s other crony said, “---- we--- need to --- make --- sure man. Let’s --- call him on the --- radio and
--- say it was a --- mistake. Then when he --- comes --- in we can --- kill that ---.” I was going to run out of soap at that rate.

  Cynthia gave them her opinion, “Let me call him, Dylan. I’ll trick him. I’ll say you’re all asleep. Then we get him when he comes in the house.” She was so intense she only added a single vulgarity at the end, as an afterthought.

  Dylan became enraged with all the thinking everyone but him was doing. He slapped a couple of women, cowed a couple of half wit cronies, and stormed out the door. They all followed.

  Once they were outside I could finally see them all by using the cameras mounted on the exterior of the house. Dylan had taken my grenade launcher. That bastard opened fire on the antenna on my re-purposed grain silo. It took him all six shots but eventually he did hit it. Two could play at that game.

  I brought my remote gun turret online. After all those explosions I had been afraid that one of the grenades might have damaged it. It was a relief to find everything in working order. The weapon was located in a hidden recess about ten feet down from the top of my old silo. I got it out of its recessed hidey-hole with no problems and brought it around on it’s track. Then I opened fire.

  They never saw it coming. I was using a heavily modified .22 caliber rifle. Converting it to full auto had been a challenge back in the day, a real labor of love. Firing it at the Tattoo Crew was the first time that I’d ever used it except in testing. Obviously, I could never have let the authorities know about anything like that, so I’d only got to try it out a couple of times, years ago. After all that time, I’d been afraid that it might not work.

  The expressions on their faces changed from the awed wonder of watching Dylan miss five out of six times, with grenades, to the awed horror of their own impending deaths. It was beautiful. I was glad I’d caught the whole thing on tape. Every now and again I like to take it out and watch it.

  They got back up in short order, so I decided to try an experiment. I gave those walking dead the whole nine yards, just to see what would happen.

  Turns out, not much. I just wasted about four hundred small caliber ammo rounds and they were still walking around just like it was nothing.

  Then it was time to check my home and see how much damage those morons had done. I went room by room, clearing the whole house. No dead bodies, not even Spot. I thought for sure they’d have killed him. As soon as my dog heard my voice he came out from hiding under my bed. He was so glad to see me he peed himself. That’s as good as a greeting gets, from a dog.

  I found a few broken bottles randomly dropped about the family room, the same room with the liquor cabinet in it. That explained why they always seemed to prefer that room.

  I went back downstairs and into the super bunker and tried extended the telescoping antenna. My range with it wasn’t as good as I would have liked, but I’d hoped to get lucky. That idea was a bust. I couldn’t get the thing to work.

  That’s a real problem with that kind of technology. I didn’t want to test it or the neighbors might see I had it. But not testing it led to a breakdown through disuse. Just another thing to fix.

  I grabbed a spare CB but couldn’t get ahold of anyone. I began a real search of the house for some kind of clue. I saw some refrigerator magnets on the floor. Then I checked the garbage and hit pay dirt.

  A note had been left for me. It explained how everybody decided to leave and go to Haven. Everyone seemed to just assume that I’d be along shortly, as soon as the bus could get back to me. Meanwhile Dylan and his friends would ‘help out’. Love, everybody.

  I guess I knew most my family would go, but it was still sad. Mostly because my antenna was broken. I couldn’t even talk to them. I determined to fix that come morning. Meanwhile I had to go get Alice.

  Firstly, I downed the Tattoo Crew for the last time, using Emma. Then I fixed the front gate (only gate, really) which those hooligans had sabotaged with a branch.

  I made my way back to Alice with some alacrity. When I found her she was still unconscious from all the dope I’d given her, but that was okay. We drove back home and I gently roused her enough to get her up the steps and into bed.

  When I woke up next morning I had a full day ahead of me. Cleaning up, moping, sweeping, fixing a couple of antenna, and still looking after the flocks. My back felt like I had been trampled by Zilla.

  Speaking of which, by the time I stepped into the yard that morning, Zilla was enjoying a repast of human remains. The Tattoo Crew were finally serving a useful purpose. Better than anything they’d ever done in their worthless, treacherous lives. I tried calling Zilla away, because it’s never a good idea to let your animals eat people. You don’t want them getting any funny ideas. Zilla ignored me, as I knew he would, so I had to go over there and take care of that mess more forcefully. Using chicken feed as a distraction was very helpful.

  Spot tried to get some human remains for himself, but I did call him back. I was a bit worried about what might happen to Zilla. The last thing I wanted was a giant, tusked, pig zombie shambling about the property.

  Later, while I was on top of the silo, trying to weld the broken pieces of my antenna back together, I saw some action out in the distance. Some miles out there was a convoy moving. I caught glimpses of them at the crossroads, otherwise the woodlands by the roadside blocked my view.

  Then I saw a horde of zombies closing in on their location from north and another horde from the south. They seemed to be working almost as a group, closing in on the target. I’m pretty sure it was just a coincidence, though. Pretty sure.

  There was no time to waste. I slid down the ladder and ran to my truck. I really didn’t trust that van. It had taken a lot of fire and I could hardly see through the windshield because of all the cracks and spiderwebs. The side windows were practically opaque from the damage and had a few holes. Also, there might have been some damage to the guts of the thing, and I didn’t want to find out about any severe impairment the hard way.

  It was a nice truck, with it’s own away package. Not as bullet resistant as the van used to be, but not bad. Being a heavier vehicle I had added a few steel plates to the sides and a nice bullbar on the front.

  I found that bullbar somewhat amusing. You see, it was illegal. Some nonsense about being a danger to anyone I might run over. The flame thrower I stored in the back, however, that was perfectly legal.

  While I drove toward their last known location I tried to raise them on the CB, to warn them. That’s when I heard the shotguns. A lot of shotguns.

  I changed course and once I had them in sight I saw that they’d sort of circled the wagons. They had brought three cars in the rear of their convoy together to form a wall against the zombies. They’d done the same at the other end. All the rest of the cars were strung out in between with a clump in the middle. All along the road they were hoping the trees would keep the zombies off them. I’ve learned that there’s always some, though, that play by different rules.

  As I watched I saw a bunch of women and children climbing trees on the south side of the road. Not bad for a completely desperate, utterly short term solution, if you’re into that kind of thing.

  In the lead vehicles (mostly trucks) I saw a bunch of backwoods farmers unloading on the approaching horde with weapons probably crafted during the turn of the century. The century before this one, that is. For those guys pump action was the new, hot thing, and something to make the neighbors jealous.

  One kid was swinging away with an ancient maul in one hand and a double headed wood ax in the other. He looked like he couldn’t figure out if he wanted to be Paul Bunyon or John Henry. As I watched I saw the distinctive gait of an ogre loping through the crowd, shoving regular zombies aside. That muscle bound farmer’s son threw his ax strait into the ogre’s skull.

  By then the horde had begun to close in all along the road. Anyone not on a truck, vehicle roof, or up a tree got to one of those locations, fast.

  On the near side of the conflict I saw a beanpole firing his pis
tol pointblank into the horde. He looked over to the trees and saw a ghoul climbing a tree, reaching for some girl. She was a little kid holding tight and trying to climb higher. Through my glasses I could see she had the cutest dimples. That beanpole raised his pistol and took a snapshot from at least thirty yards away. The way that ghoul was jerking all over the place as it climbed, I was pleasantly shocked to see it’s head burst apart like a melon. Best shot, of it’s type, I’d ever seen.

  I figured it was time for me to do my part.

  I put the pedal down and hit the play button on my CD player. My hope was that the music would call them to me and maybe buy some time for a few people to escape. Their whole situation had the flavor of a last stand.

  Once I got closer I rammed my way through the cars blocking my way, skidded to a halt and leaped out of the cab and into the bed of my truck. Some of the zombies did turn my way, so I took that flamethrower of mine and lit them up. I had to be real careful about friendly fire with that thing. It would have been easy to make a misjudgment.

  I waved it all over one side of road and then the other. Then I turned and cleared the road behind and around me. I looked about and saw that beanpole gawping at me like I was from another world, so I called him over and told him to drive. Smart kid, he did what I said.

  Beanpole took things nice and slow. Gave me plenty of time to adjust. We drove up to the front of the convoy and I cleared that, too. Everybody fell back while I managed to hold those horrors at bay. I noticed that I was running low on fuel (It was my own special mix), so I told everybody to hurry up.

  The strongman, John Bunyan, with the maul, went into the woods and smashed enough heads to clear the way. Everybody rendered plenty of support fire. Then they all started to get into the few remaining cars they had left.

  Once we were out of immediate danger I banged on the truck’s back panel to tell Beanpole to pull over and let me drive.