Zournal (Book 2): Cruising The 'Poc

by R. S. Merritt

  It was a nice house. Definitely a CEO or a rock star or somebody with some serious cash had owned this place. My old apartment would have fit into the master bedrooms’ bathroom. The place was gorgeous with marble everywhere and all the fancy touches. In the old world, it was a real prize. In the new world, a real prize was an ammo store or a supermarket, preferably on a private island. This place had huge bay windows. Perfect for looking out at the ships going down the St Johns. Also, perfect for Zombies or raiders to bust through and rip you apart.

  Priorities had changed. The world had changed. Around six months ago my biggest problems had been no money and no girlfriend. Now I had the best, most kick ass girlfriend ever and money was what we used to play monopoly with. Once we had secured the house as best we could we went back to the siting room and resumed our vigil. I tried telling Reeves to take a rest and I’d wake him up if anything happened and he told me he would rather wait and see how Ginny did and suggested maybe I could go take a nap. (He actually just told me to “fuck off” but I think it sounds better the way I wrote it. His way was much more succinct though.)

  Ginny coughed. It was about 3:30 AM and Ginny finally did something. We all jumped around like she had made a full recovery. Ann startled awake violently and knocked over the huge stack of towels that Reeves had brought down when he figured out Ginny might need some more of them. Ginny looked around weakly. Ann held her hand and asked her if she wanted anything.

  “Water, please.”

  We had five big bottles of water sitting there for her but Reeves still took off to go get more. Ginny was drinking by the light of my phone and a couple of those glowing necklaces we still had left. All of our flashlights and batteries and other electronics were dead thanks to all the water we had gone through. We were sure this guy must have that stuff in his house somewhere but we had not been able to find anything. Not knowing when we may be risking death in water or whatever, I’d gotten in the habit of putting the phone in two of the big freezer Ziplocs with a bunch of napkins around it along with the little solar charger and keeping it in my buttoned pocket on my shorts. I had done a lot of writing and thinking while sitting there waiting for Ginny to get better. It had developed into a kind of therapy for me, plus the phone had proven seriously useful about a million times at this point, even without being able to actually use it as a ‘phone’.

  Ginny took a few sips of the water and smiled at all of us.

  “I’m good guys, everybody go to sleep.”

  Reeves brought over every bottled water in the house and was starting in on the other drinks from the pantry when Ann stopped him.

  “Reeves, get some sleep, Steve, get some sleep, Thomas, get some sleep.” She looked at each of us in turn. “I’ll stay up the rest of the night with her and wake you up at dawn. I don’t think we’re going to be going anywhere for a day or two at least. She’s going to need time to rest up.”

  “I’ll clear my calendar…”

  We all laughed at Reeves lame joke and lay down to try and get some sleep. Sleep covered me like a blanket, my mind mercifully going on shut down until I was gently shaken away by Ann in the morning.

  I was hoping she had figured out a way to make coffee. She handed me a bowl with canned peaches in it. Close enough, I started spooning them into my mouth. “How’s Ginny?” I was able to say without dribbling too much peach juice down my chin into my beard.

  “You are a sexy beast! With your peach favored chin beard and everything!”

  I worked on wiping off my chin. Ann jumped on me and gave me a very nice, and very surprising, good morning kiss. It was good. I couldn’t remember the last time I brushed my teeth but Ann must really like peaches. Ann jumped off me as quick as she had jumped into my lap and said, “Ginny is good! She’s feeling strong and I think her leg may actually be healing ok. I’m going to keep loading her up with antibiotics and changing her bandages and pouring peroxide all over everything but I think we’re good! She’s just going to add another couple of scars to her collection. I’m going to go check on her and give her the morning antibiotics and pain killers then I am going to shut my eyes and drift away for a while. You get to be in charge now!”

  That was all a lot to take in when I had just woken up, eaten peaches, gotten kissed better than I’d ever been kissed before and found out my adopted little sister had recovered overnight from being bitten by a shark. “Ok.” I said.

  Entry 20: A walk on thin air

  Ann had claimed a couch and blanket over in the corner. I walked into the kitchen to see if I could find some more peaches. Everyone else was still sleeping. I struck peach gold with a family size serving can and was searching for the can opener when someone knocked on the door.

  I froze. I put the can down and pulled out my pistol. I started moving over towards Reeves to kick him awake.

  A loud, insistent banging on the front door. I looked down and everyone was already waking up and slipping into clothes and grabbing weapons. A booming voice came to us from outside.

  “US Navy, open the door, we’re here to eject looters. Open the door, or we will come in shooting and you will all die.”

  I looked around, everyone was as ready as we were going to get.

  “Coming!” I yelled and started quickly walking towards the door. My pistol held in front of me. Ready to blow a couple of holes in the door with my last three rounds and dive for cover. I made it to the door without being shot. I reached down, unlocked it, tried opening it, reached up, removed the deadbolt, then tried again. I swung the door open, blinking at the bright sunlight filtering through. Standing in front of me was a man in a scary looking combat uniform. Behind him were five to six other guys, also looking scary in masks and camo. The masked man spoke, loudly enough for everyone to hear.

  “Alright, put the peashooters down. We’re here because you did not go far enough yesterday when we told you to leave. Jacksonville and the surrounding area all belong to the Navy now and we have declared martial law. You are not welcome here. We will give you a second chance, third time we find you on our land we will shoot first. There will not be any questions later because you will all be dead. Is this getting through to you, looters?”

  “How were we – “, I fell down to my knees midsentence. The guy had rammed the end of his M-16 into my stomach and knocked the air out of me. He stared at me a second then looked around the room where my crew now had all their weapons pointed directly at him.

  “Put the guns on the ground. All of you go sit on the couches. We’re confiscating your weapons, we’re confiscating your bullets, we’re confiscating your food and we’re kicking you off our land. Any questions? Then sit the fuck down.”

  I held my hands up and handed him the nine millimeter I had been carrying since Reeves handed it to me back in that Publix a million years ago. The other men entered past there leader and one walked me over to the couch with his gun barrel poking me painfully in the back. They forced us all to sit down, took our weapons, and zip tied our hands behind our backs. Once they had us secured the leader issued an “at ease” command and they all settled down a little. I noticed none of them took there masks off though.

  The leader told them to search us and pretty soon we were being molested by the guys as they searched us for weapons or anything else they thought looked valuable. I thought the guy searching Ann was a bit too handsy and told him to back off. He looked over at me and flipped me off. Ann kneed him right in the balls. Hard. Evidently there going into battle gear did not include a cup because he fell to the ground, writhing around in obvious pain. I was really, really in love with that girl.

  The commander walked over and looked down at his man lying on the floor with his hands on his crotch. He stared at him for a second and then nodded, like a ‘yeah you probably deserved that’ kind of nod. Then he looked around at the rest of us as his man got slowly up off the ground. The guy looked like he was going to take a swing at Ann and I stood up with my hands still tied behind me and was fixing to cha
rge the guy when the leader grabbed him and threw him towards the door.

  “Johnson, go outside, cool down, try to be less of an asshole. Sorry lady. I’m going to assume he did something you thought was out of line. Just so you know, my orders were to kill looters or run them off our land. I’m choosing to run you off the land instead of kill you. Keep that in mind next time you decide to try and hurt one of my guys for trying to cop a feel. Whatever though, here’s the deal, we’re taking your stuff, we’re watching you walk over to the other side of this island, you’ll get on a boat there and not come back. Is that understood?”

  I asked if we could keep our weapons and some food. The mask turned in my direction and considered me for a few seconds.

  “You can each keep your hand weapons, knives, that sword of yours, baseball bats, junk like that. You get the clothes on your back. Everything else is mine now. You’re giving it to me for the boat you’re going to take. Plus, your lives. Deal?”

  We all nodded it was a deal. Reeves was looking at them like he was going to jump up any second and take them all on. I caught his eye and shook my head no. I shifted around in my seat confirming that my phone was still stuck in my cargo pants back pocket. At least I’d be able to hopefully get out of here with my therapy device. It was almost a part of me at this point. The Navy guys mopped up all our stuff and threw it into the kitchen. They seemed mostly concerned with our packs and obvious weapons. Once they had us disarmed they led us all outside and sat us down on the ground. I sat there wondering if this was the part where they walked around and put a bullet in the back of each of our heads.

  It turned out this was simply the part where they argued about who had to walk with us to the other side of the island. The leader finally just grabbed two of them and told them it was going to be there job to make sure we got off the island on the North side and did not plan on coming back. The two-chosen mumbled their agreement and waited as the rest of that team got up and left. Then they walked over to us, still with the hazmat gear on.

  “On your feet. Time to get to marching. Go out to the road, turn left then we’ll walk until we get to a bridge which we’re going to get you to try and cross.”

  I looked over at Ginny, she had struggled to her feet, I could see blood soaking the towels that were currently tightly bandaged to her lower leg. They had taken all of our medicine so hopefully the antibiotics Ann had been giving her did the trick. She wasn’t complaining about the pain at least. Although, in these times you could basically have a bone sticking out of your skin and everyone’s attitude seemed to be that you should just walk it off. We’d all become so used to being constantly battered around that normal physical pain was no longer an issue. It was hilarious to me the things people used to go to the doctor for. A sprained foot? Who cares. Sick? Who cares. Shark bite? Lame.

  We all moved out. I moved in to let Ginny lean on me and Reeves got on the other side of her and we took turns supporting her weight as we walked. When it seemed like she was staying upright through sheer will power Reeves picked her up and carried her like she was a baby. You could tell how bad off she was as she did not say a word about it. Just hung there in his arms looking pained. I told Reeves to let me know when he got tired and I’d take a turn. He gave me a look that said he probably wasn’t going to get tired any time soon so I fell back a little bit. Giving Ann’s hand a squeeze as I went past her.

  We were walking down the middle of the road in broad daylight and we were not being attacked. It was really freaking me out. To make conversation I walked back and mentioned my observation to our guards. One of them looked at me and said not to worry about it, the island was pretty much safe at this point. I gave him a look.

  “Oh screw it.” The guard pulled his mask off. “I’m about to die wearing that damn thing. You guys obviously aren’t infected anyhow. Jenkins, take your shit off too. That way I know you won’t say shit to nobody.”

  Jenkins pulled his mask off too, smiling at the first guy, sweat covered both their faces and their hair was matted down with it. I asked them again why we didn’t have to worry about it. The one who had originally took off his mask answered.

  “Because we’ve done plenty of patrols through here and we’ve killed most of them I think. We still get random ones and if you pull the trigger a few times a bunch still show up but never more than you can handle. We killed a lot of them just by cruising up and down the river making loud noises so they’d come out and run into the water.”

  Made sense to me. We’d been using a similar strategy to kill them too once figured out they couldn’t swim. I wanted more info out of these guys but didn’t want to come across like I was pumping them for info. Luckily, Ann had wandered back and fell in beside us. She must have figured out what I was trying to do because she got a bit flirty, to the point where she started complaining about the heat and took off her shirt to march along in her sports bra. Now we could probably ask them for the nuclear launch codes or their high school locker codes and they’d tell us without even realizing it. She’d managed to do it casually too; women are totally evil. I wondered how many times I had fallen for that from her!

  “So, are we getting on a boat up here or swimming for it when we get to the river or what’s the plan for us?” I didn’t know if they’d be able to tear their eyes off Ann long enough to answer the question but Jenkins spoke up this time. I understood what Ann was doing but this was still a bit annoying for me.

  “The bridge up here got about ninety percent knocked out when we strafed it. We took out most of the bridges to try and stop the spread and to isolate out islands and our bases better. We have the strips that’s still connected up here blocked off by some concertino wire and other crap but you should be able to climb over it and go to the other side and keep walking. Just don’t fall.”

  “What about getting Ginny over it? She’s the one that got bit in the leg by the shark.”

  Jenkins answered again. “Yeah, that’s your problem, my job is to get you to the bridge and make sure you go over it and don’t come back. If you got an issue with that let us know and we’ll just go ahead and shoot your right here and save a lot of walking.”

  “You’d really shoot us?” Ginny asked. “We’re American citizens you know.”

  “Not about America anymore ma’am. It’s about taking care of your family and yourself. That’s what we’re doing here. We own this whole area and we’re keeping everybody out. We have plenty of food and ammo and everything else we need to survive way into old age.”

  Ann leaned forward and said huskily, “Do you have a lot of women back there?”

  That got both their attentions. As they stared at her I swung my sword and hit Jenkins in the leg. He went down hard. The other sailor turned to bring his rifle up on me and Ann jumped on his back, riding him to the blacktop and shoving his face into the concrete. I gave the guy a couple of kicks in the face while Reeves and Thomas were busy taking the guys weapons. We zip tied their hands behind their backs and zip tied their legs together.

  We all stood around, breathing hard, Reeves took one of the M-16s and handed the other one to Ann. Thomas and I each got pistols. We took all their water and their radios. They didn’t really have anything else useful on them. Jenkins had woken back up. Reeves started to kick him in the face again and I held up my hand to stop him. I looked down at him and waited until he looked up and saw that I had the pistol aimed at his face.

  “How far is the bridge from here?” I asked.

  “Yoush should shees it wehnd yoush goah round next curve,” he mumbled, words coming out all garbled thanks to the repeated kicks to his face having evidently messed up his teeth and tongue and mouth.

  “How long until they come looking for you?” I asked.

  “Shoon. They com shoon.”

  “Were you going to kill us at the bridge?” I asked him. Staring intently at his eyes to try and see the truth.

  “Nosh. No shir!”

  I continued staring at him. Idly wavin
g the berretta around so he could stare at it.

  “Shom of yoush wood have dead on bridgesh probablish cause it is not easy to go achross.”

  Ok. That was good enough for me. We needed to get moving. But it sounded like we needed a boat versus trying to cross over the bridge. I asked Jenkins where we could find a boat. He mumbled a bunch of stuff, a tooth actually worked its way out of his mouth in a big rivulet of blood while he was talking. I couldn’t tell what the hell he was saying. Finally, Ann translated for me.

  “He is saying that they already took all the boats and the gas. The only way to get off the island is the bridge or swimming. That right their guy?” Jenkins bobbed his head up and down in agreement.

  I looked over at Ginny who was standing up on her own again. Albeit, a little wobbly still. I looked down at the two conquered soldiers. What to do with them? If we just left them there then their friends would find them way too easy when they came looking. We wanted it to take them awhile. I also didn’t necessarily want to leave them tied up on the side of the road like some kind of Zombie drive through. I looked and we had a ton of the Zip ties out of the one guys bag. I cut Jenkins bounds and told him to pick up his buddy.