by Won, Mark
My idiot boss was looking pretty scared. I got out my new phone and took a picture of his raging fear. I know that sounds cruel, but there was nothing to really worry about. If the zombie had been an ogre she’d already have had that door off, and I’d have been driving away. ‘Normal’ zombies may be stronger than a human, but not by that much. Say, two or three times as strong, tops. She did rip the handle off the door, though.
I quietly got out of the cab and came up on the zombie’s flank. It tried to turn and face me, but way to late. I was beginning to get the feel for that roofing hammer.
Come to think of it, why was there a roofing hammer in the maintenance area of a supermarket, anyway? We didn’t have that kind of roof. And even if we did, the store hired professionals for that kind of work, anyway. I thought about asking my idiot boss, then decided against it. One look at his repulsive mug, and I could tell he wouldn’t have a clue.
I splattered the brains of the zombie I’d trapped under the wheel, and started to fill up on gas. By the time I’d gotten a few gallons in the tank the glass door to the station shattered outward, spraying glass all over the pavement. A zombie began trying to get past the metal partitions remaining in the door.
That thing was so unbelievably stupid I had to laugh. All it had to do was duck down and slip through. I glanced at my watch in order to time how long it took the shambling horror to bypass the world’s simplest barrier. Ninety-six seconds. I left the fuel nozzle in the rig and moved over to intercept the newest threat.
In life, it had been the clerk for the station. That’s when I started to think of them as its, instead of hims or hers. One look and anyone could tell those things had left all their humanity behind. I moved in fast with a roundhouse swing, crushing its temple.
Then we were back on the road again.
I’d heard that in the old days people used to just drive around for fun. While I, myself, was driving around some beautiful early spring countryside, in the heartland, without anyone else around, I finally garnered some perspective on that. Until that point, driving unnecessarily had seemed a pointless, if not painful, waste of time and money. Without all the traffic and crowds, though, it was nice.
Eventually, I reached a suitable destination for my purposes and pulled the rig over. I was by the Great Lake Michigan. It was visible off to my right, and the home I intended to invade was off to my left, about fifty feet away. The whole thing was a real nice estate. I was trespassing on at least a five acre property with a grandiose, new built, old vibe mansion situated prominently on a low hill overlooking the lake. What they call Victorian. Pretentious as hell.
Around back, I could glimpse the edge of a swimming pool. There were a couple of shady gazebos on the property, and what looked like it might be some kind of tiny vineyard in one corner. The land had a low, ornate wall running all the way around it, but no gate. Hence, the nearness of my approach. Off a bit to my right I could see a large boathouse, and that’s why I’d stopped. You see, my plan called for a boat at some point.
Getting out of the cab, I decided to finally see first hand how the other half lived. The boathouse came first.
Peeking through the window, I could see a fine looking yacht which I knew absolutely nothing about. But it was big, and it was there, and that was good enough for me. I figured that I’d check out the owner’s manual later. The door to the boathouse was locked. I would have to search the house for the keys, but it had been my intention to search the house all along, anyway.
At the front door (beautifully ornate, with carved grape clusters and cute little fauns) I brazenly entered. I made sure to leave the door open behind me as I began a careful room to room search. Whoever had used to live there had obviously been a millionaire many times over. I wondered where what was left of him was lurking.
After a bit of searching I came across a formerly living and live-in maid, still brandishing its duster. Its back was turned to me as I entered yet another beautifully bedecked room, full of antique wood and plush accoutrements. Right off, I could tell that it was a zombie, even though it had yet to acquire a rotted appearance, by the way it just stood there staring at the mirror. My reflection was clearly visible, yet it didn’t respond to my presence. It was like it couldn’t see me.
I tried silently waving to see if that might get its attention. The stone stupid thing just stood there, oblivious. I walked right up behind it and splattered its brains all over that fine silvered mirror. It didn’t even flinch. It fell, but it didn’t flinch.
From room to room I searched for some guns and keys to the boat. I knew I would need both if I were ever to make good on my idea of liberating an island. Eventually, I found a sumptuously appointed bedroom complete with two silk clad, pajama wearing zombies.
I backed off in a hurry to give myself room to swing. My maneuver caused the former Mr. and Mrs. Elmer J. Fudd to stumble into each other as they tried to get through the door. After a couple bloody swings of my trusty hammer I had the room cleared. There was an expensive looking clothes stand, complete with lapis lazuli inlay, between two regal dressers. It had a couple pricey outfits hanging on it next to an Egyptian cotton towel. I thought that maybe the slacks had been the intended wear for the day, so half a second later I was digging my hands through rich people’s pockets. That made for a nice change of pace. In my experience things were usually the other way around.
I hit pay dirt in the suit pants pocket. A ring of keys. Just the thing to get this show on the road. Next, I searched a dresser, and found a couple more keys next to some silk underwear. Then I noticed a large wooden key hanging on the wall. I hadn’t seen it at first because a free standing Amish style wardrobe had blocked the view of it from the entrance. It had about a thousand little hooks on it, each with a separate key. I wondered just who these people were, that they needed so many keys for so much stuff. Fortunately, the big wooden key had lots of little labels for all its little keys.
Although many of the legends were cryptic, enough were sufficiently straightforward to facilitate progress. I grabbed the keys labeled ‘gun safe’ and ‘boat house’ for starters. In the walk-in closet I found the gun safe and another safe intended for more general usage.
My odds of finding a firearm in the house had been fair. In Wisconsin there were plenty of Great White Hunters. Also, in recent years more and more people had been buying firearms for home defense. I had thought that I might have to clear three or four houses, at most, to adequately arm myself.
Inside the gun safe I found a pump action shotgun, a .30-06 hunting rifle with a scope, and a .22 rim fire rifle. Plenty of ammunition to go around, especially for the .22. Things were looking up.
I took the shotgun and returned to the rig, where my idiot boss, the lazy useless lump, was busy waiting to get a little older. I told him to go inside and get cleaned up. I began contemplating abandoning the cretin at the house, once I was ready to leave, since it looked like a reasonably safe place. I had to check out the boathouse next, regardless.
The yacht was devoid of inhabitants. Its kitchen was well stocked with imperishable canned goods, and there was a sizable first aid kit in its own specially labeled cubby. I started the engine and checked the gauges. I had no idea what most of them meant, but I could tell the boat had plenty of fuel. That was all I really cared about.
After shutting off the boat, I went back into my new house for a more thorough search. I found quite a few nice toys, including a giant private entertainment system, a pool table, a sauna, and a couple of beautiful vintage cars. That was in addition to the regular cars. Also, the Fudds had owned a nearly complete coin and stamp collection, as well as some collectibles of a more unusual nature.
In the study I found no less than three stuffed deer heads and a bunch of, what I assumed, were high quality (or at least expensive) objects of American Indian art. Also, there was a gun cabinet with a few antiques in it. I gave the muskets a hard pass but snagged a necklace made from oversized bear claws, just for the hell of
it.
Eventually, I got done playing around and went back to the master bedroom. I dragged the bodies of the zombies that I’d made over onto the balcony, knocked down the rail with my hammer, and kicked their stinking carcasses over the edge. Then I searched the dressers for the combination to the closet safe. I had real trouble finding it until inspiration struck.
When I looked through a small bookshelf in the closet, I found a couple of shelves with nothing but owner’s manuals on them. One of them had a picture of a safe on the cover with a four digit number on it. Voila, I was a safe cracker. Inside I found some useless money and a potentially useful pistol as well as a derringer. Why they weren’t in the gun safe I couldn’t tell you. There were some official looking documents, maybe a contract or two. All just kindling now. I took the money anyway.
I found my idiot boss hugging himself on a couch in the upstairs hall. I told him to get some sleep, we’d have a busy day in the morning. Then I fired up a couple of computers and started researching and printing off everything I could find relating to early technology. Especially diagrams and pictures. I also got a bunch of maps which I paired with certain retail information. I wanted to be able to either build stuff or find it. I checked ice cover, likely traffic congestion, weather conditions, and anything else I could think of which might be useful for identifying an impediment to progress.
I kept at that until the power went off sometime after midnight. A backup generator came on, but my connection to the internet was lost. So, I found some spare silk pajamas, spread that money on the bed in a spare bedroom, and crawled between the Egyptian cotton sheets. I slept late.
In the morning I showered and dressed in a designer outfit I’d found in the hand-me-down section of another closet. I made sure to pack some luggage that I’d found, too. Apparently, at one time the Fudds had a child that approached my dimensions.
Once I found the generator I shut it off and called my idiot boss down for breakfast. Unfortunately, he had gotten over whatever made him, him long enough to get his crack out of the rack and come downstairs. If he’d ignored me I’d have gladly left him. Oh, well.
After our cold cereal we went out to the boathouse and boarded phase two of The Plan. I figured out the controls well enough to open the door and drive us out onto the lake. I knew I had to hurry if I wanted to be in a position to save anyone, but I had no prior knowledge of sailing. Or piloting. Whatever.
There were only a very a limited number of controls, so I got the hang of it pretty quickly. I wouldn’t be winning any boat driving contests, but I could get by. The biggest fear that I had was the ice. We’d had a fairly mild winter, but there was still enough ice to be potentially problematic. Also, Old Man Winter had been trying to even the score by making the spring a cold one. Even though the boat house was heated (what a waste) I still had to worry about the ice immediately outside the doors. Fortunately, it was paper thin and only caused minor cosmetic damage to the yacht when I took it out of its berth.
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My intended island finally materialized just as I was getting the hang of boat driving. I approached shore and started looking for an assemblage of buildings. The ice was worse there, and so I had to be careful to avoid it.
It was a good thing the waters were calm just then. In my earlier researches, I’d learned that section of the lake was called ‘Death’s Door’ due to the number of dead sailors attributed to it. Not a promising factoid, but I chose not to take it as an omen.
I sailed around the island until I came to a few houses. Once there, I got out some binoculars and investigated the situation. Not to bad. Not great, but definitely workable. All I needed was a small army and a small navy. An air force would be nice but that could wait for later.
In order to avoid the increasing amount of ice I was encountering, I retraced my steps somewhat. Then I navigated along the southern side of the island until I saw another, smaller, island farther off. It had a lighthouse on it, making it easy to distinguish. Not that the light was on, of course. The lighthouse was strictly a museum piece.
The rich tourist destination spot for Thumb county was located right next to the lighthouse. A pretentiously simplistic fax log cabin resort by the name of ‘The Green Bay Inn’. It’s claim to fame was that it supposedly operated on only ‘green’ energy. I intended to find out for myself.
As I approached the shore, I noticed that I already had a few potential targets lining up along the docks. I found that to be very promising. The piers were free of ice with only three boats tied up to them, which I also took to be a good sign. All in all, an excellent beginning.
The ammunition I taken from Mr. Fudd’s gun safe promised to be entirely adequate for the task at hand, so I decided to add an experiment or two. I began by using the shotgun, just to establish a baseline, and, also, to attract as many more of the Changed as possible. After painting the docks red with the blasted grey matter of my three lookie-loo zombie fans, I decided to wait for enemy reinforcements. Eventually, a handful of zombies did make their way over to the boat. Their progress was sporadic and slow.
I wanted to perform a test to fail on one of the newcomer zombies. I expended an entire box of 12-gauge shells on it without killing it. All my shots were hits, too. It had broken arms, ribs, legs and, I’m sure, back. My shooting did knock the zombie down a number of times, but given enough time, it would get back to its feet and futilely continue to stretch its hands over the water at me. I think that the main problem I caused it was the loss of some structural integrity.
My next experiment involved using the .22. I carefully placed a bullet in the forehead of two of my new friends. They both went down instantly. One of my targets was the aforementioned 12-gauge magnet and the other was chosen at random.
Thirdly, I attempted to use the .22 to shoot a zombie in the mouth. My intention was to discover if any head shot would be sufficient to cause final death or if brain hits would prove mandatory. The reason I stuck with such a low caliber was to attempt to minimize any concomitant damage which might be done to the brain.
In two out of three cases I managed to shoot the subject in the mouth without causing final death to my victim. I reasoned that, in the minority case, I must have accidentally caused at least some collateral damage to the brain.
I realize that those early tests lacked enough repetition to be considered definitive, but they were all I felt had time for.
Another curious feature of zombie behavior was their avoidance of water. They didn’t like it. Given their clumsy nature I had to conclude that they couldn’t swim. However, since they didn’t seem to need functioning lungs I was a bit perplexed, and disappointed, that they didn’t give it a try, anyway.
My thinking (and hope) was that if they would enter the water to ‘chase’ me. Then they would just keep going, sinking the whole way, until they lost all sight of everything. At which point I hoped they would revert to a sort of ‘standby’ mode, ignoring their surroundings and become lost in the darkness. If that had been the case then our troubles would’ve taken care of themselves. Eventually, all the zombified masses would have ended up beneath the waves due either to aimless wandering or misguided hunting. From the briny deep (or its freshwater equivalent) they would’ve been much less able to cause harm.
Alas, it was not to be, which also implied some level of self preservation. If I couldn’t lure them off a shore then I might very well not be able to lure them off a cliff, or a bridge, or into a fire. Obviously, much more experimentation would be in order at a later date.
I drove the boat up to the dock without doing too much damage to either. Then, with my shotgun in hand, I strode toward the main building. The doors were still intact. So were all the windows that I could see. I had to guess there were probably still some zombies inside. I opened the door and used its stop to keep it from closing. I called out, trying to attract attention, but received no answer.
Inside, the place looked really nice. An excellent potential headquarters. Plenty of
rooms, a nice conference area, it even had a pool. The treasured adage, ‘If you’re going to have to endure, you might as well make yourself comfortable,’ came to mind.
I’d learned from my late studies last night that the inn was closed until later in the season, which was understandable, since it was still early spring and a little nippy out. Many years, the ice would still be blocking the docks. That would have been a fatal problem for my plan and was one of the things I had been sure to check on during the previous evening’s researching.
My studies had indicated that the bay and the northern part of the lake were frozen. Those waters could be expected to remain frozen for a few weeks, at least. The southern side of the peninsula was relatively clear, however. My worst fear would have been to try my plan on semi frozen lake ice or thin ice. What a nightmare. Couldn’t take a boat and couldn’t trust the ice to walk on, let alone drive on. Worst case, all around. If the weather hadn’t been good enough I probably would have turned around and tried for an island in the Mississippi, south of Wisconsin.
As things stood, I was sitting pretty. I continued searching the place until I found some white collar zombie just sitting on its ass. I’m sure much the same as it had done in life. I used my newly acquired pistol to put the filth out of my misery. In the basement I found some poor maintenance man-turned-zombie and compassionately made a quick end of it as well.
With the place all clear, I went on a hunt for the shortwave that I knew must be lying around somewhere. I’d looked up how to operate one the previous night because I knew communications would be essential for my plan to save humanity. I found it in the unlocked security room along with the keys and key coder, passwords for all the computers, access to the security cameras, and paper files of all their recorded information.
