Zournal (Book 2): Cruising The 'Poc

by R. S. Merritt

  I marched them both down the long driveway of yet some other rich dude and had him kick the door down when we got to the bottom. I then had him carry the other guy upstairs and I had them both go in the bathroom and I proceeded to zip tie the crap out of them. They weren’t going anywhere for a while and I figured it would take some time for them to be found. We left them in there and went downstairs to the garage. A big Escalade was in there, next to a Range Rover, freakin’ rich people, and the guys were conveniently hung up on a peg right by the door.

  I grabbed the escalade keys and tossed them to Ann, “Fire it up, somebody put Ginny in the backseat. For god’s sake turn on the AC full blast!”

  Then I went and Thomas and I figured out how to manually open the garage door. We all piled into the all leather, options I didn’t know existed awesome car and Ann pulled out and drove us about fifty feet past where we had been standing and we could now see the bridge about a mile away. Oh, well, that is one mile we did not have to walk now. We drove to the base of the bridge. The whole structure was twisted from the blasts it had taken in the center of it. The road just kind of twisted and disappeared but on the left side there was a pedestrian walkway that was still halfway there.

  It didn’t look safe, but what really did in this new normal? Worse case you slipped and fell into the Zombie / Shark / Gator infested waters a hundred feet below us. I looked around at everyone.

  “Don’t slip.” Seemed like good advice to hand out. I was going to do my best to follow it. I walked out on the concrete and got to the part where it was just the rebar connecting us to the other side of the bridge. I put my foot on the rebar, trying not to look down, and took a few more quick steps and I was on the other side. I stood there and helped Ann across. Next came Reeves and Thomas helping Ginny. She was able to walk it on her own and set trembling on the ground once she had made it across. Thomas waltzed across with no apparent concern. He even stopped to look down through the holes where the rebar was to check out the river. Freak.

  Reeves was bringing up the road when we heard a humming noise. I looked around and did not see anything. Then Thomas grabbed my shoulder and pointed up the river. It looked like Jenkins boss had missed him sooner than anticipated. They must have had a radio check in deal they did not bother telling us about. Next time we’d know. I gave the order to run for the other bank. Preferably on the side away from the oncoming boat so they would not be able to see us. We ran. The bridge had not seemed that long when I looked at it before. With an angry boat with a large mounted machine gun on the bow coming for us it seemed like it was about twenty miles to the other side.

  Once we had reached a point where the traffic snarl had turned into a reasonable number of cars I started looking at the cars we passed. Most of them had the doors open which we knew from experience meant there was a good chance the battery was dead. I saw an old pickup parked on the side and I ran over to it and opened it by the handle. A dead dog fell out on top of me. I brushed it to the side and climbed in the cab of the truck. It smelled like cigarettes and a dead decaying dog in there. The keys were on the dash though.

  I moved into the driver’s seat and shoved the keys in the ignition. I said a quick prayer to the gods of batteries and petrol and turned the key. The truck roared to life. It was a beautiful sound. I put it in reverse and almost ran over Reeve, he swerved and jumped in the truck on the other side, helping Ginny into the middle of the cab. Thomas and Ann dove into the truck bed and Reeves opened the little window so we could all talk. I had thirty point turned the truck around and we were going as fast as I dared towards the other side. It looked like I even had over a half tan of gas so I was stoked.

  Then I saw the med lined gathering around the foot of the bridge. They must have landed right there and climbed straight up. They were busy setting up a road block to stop us from getting through.

  “This is our third strike guys. Let’s let them take their shots at us. I’m going straight for them. Guns out. Blaze away on my count, three, two, FIRE!” I floored it and headed straight at them. I was screaming my head off. Reeves had his weapon out the window, pointed in their general direction and firing on full auto. Ann was doing the same from the cab while Thomas was just sending random shots from his Beretta in their direction. It worked. They dove out of the way and we busted through. They scored some shots on the truck and I was going to owe the truck owner some money for bodywork if he ever showed up but we flew through the roadblock and did not look back.

  Entry 21: The Thunder Rolled

  We continued to skid around turns as Zombies started to emerge to see what all the gunfire was about. I swerved to avoid a small girl standing in the middle of the road with a pink bow in her hair and a ballerina outfit on. She was staring serenely at us. Her face was covered in the bulging varicose veins but she did not charge us, just stared. As we swerved around her the trance seemed to break as I saw her sprinting towards us after we had passed her. Her face had transformed from serene to contorted into the mask of rage all the Zombies seemed to put on when they saw uninfected humans.

  I almost hit a boat trailer that was sitting on the side of the road because I was busy staring at the little girl chasing us. Ginny hit me in the arm and yelled at me to look where I was driving. I swerved around the boat trailer and kept going down the road. Zombies were popping out but the mass exodus of Zombies from the houses and bushes seemed to be slowing down as we got further from where the gunshots had taken place. I wondered why the shots had not carried further out here with nothing to block them as we continued on the long curving drive past all the multi-million dollar mansions.

  Looking up ahead I saw movement on the road. It looked like a few hundred Zombies running this way. The noise from our gunfight must have carried after all. I slowed down to try and figure out what to do. Ann reached through the back window and smacked my neck to get my attention.

  I looked back at her, intending to tell her we had big Zombie problem down the road if she didn’t mind. She pointed at the closest driveway and started yelling.

  “Go down that driveway, hide the truck, go now. I hear a helicopter coming. It has to be those Navy guys sending out a copter to finish us off. We have to – “

  She was cutoff when I spun the wheel to the left to take us down the driveway she had pointed at. Her and Thomas both went sliding across the truck bed, along with all the assorted garbage and a few inches of rainwater. She was going to be pissed. If we did this right she might even be alive long to have the option of being pissed. We just needed to make it down the drive and hide the truck before we were spotted by either the helicopter or the Zombies. Damn, these people had a long driveway.

  Not being redneck hillbilly rich people the five thousand square foot summer ‘cottage’ in front of us did not have a carport. I thought about ramming through the garage door but figured that would cause too much noise and guarantee the Zombies would find us. Instead, I slammed the truck into park, skidding into the side of the house, and yelled for Reeves to go get the garage door open. I saw that Ann had also jumped out and ran towards the garage door. Thomas was laying in the water and I may have knocked him a little bit unconscious when I had ‘parked’ the truck by the garage. His face was out of the water so I decided not to worry about him for a second.

  I focused on Ann and Reeves who were fumbling around with the garage. Reeves was trying to pry it open and not getting anywhere. Ann ran around the side of the garage. About ten seconds later the garage started jerkily being wheeled open. I put the truck in drive and as soon as the door was all the way up I had wheeled in there. Reeves was helping Ann get the garage door down. Thomas was complaining about his head. Ginny was trying to get her ‘bandages’ to stay on correctly but the tape we had wound around the towels was giving up the fight.

  The garage got dark as the door finally shut all the way. I jumped out of the truck and into the truck bed. I stood up to look out the garage windows and hit my head on some kind of pipe fitting hard enough
to make as pot on the top of my head start bleeding. Ouch! Ann joined me in the truck bed and after checking on Thomas she moved so she could also look out the window. She managed to do so without almost knocking herself out. Yay for her.

  Looking out the window I saw that a lot of the Zombies were running towards the house. They must have seen us turn in. We could all hear the helicopter now. While we stood there watching it came flying down the road about twenty feet off the blacktop. It was one of those black hawk down looking bad ass apache attack helicopters that cost like a billion dollars each. It looked very cool. The helicopter stopped at the end of the drive where the Zombies had started running for us. The Zombies turned around and started running for the helicopter instead.

  The helicopter flew over us with the Zombies chasing behind. It took about ten minutes but eventually all the Zombies had run past us from the large group that had been in pursuit. We all stood quietly in the truck bed. The noise from the helicopter increased in pitch then we could all hear it landing in the driveway. I ordered everyone to get down in the truck bed and aim at the doors. We shared the little bit of ammo we had and waited.

  Two of the little windows in the garage door blew inwards as someone shot something threw them Glass bounced around inside the garage. Then two metal canisters of something fell into the garage with clanging and hissing noises. Reeves yelled it was tear gas and started trying to pull his shirt over his face. Ann jumped of the truck and looked like she was going to get in the cab. The gas filled up the garage and was making everyone’s head swim and eyes well up. It burned. Every bit of my exposed skin burned. I was half blind and all I really cared about doing was getting the hell out of this garage.

  Around me I heard someone puking and Ann was yelling for us to put our guns up. I couldn’t even see so I wasn’t real sure why I should put my gun up. It seemed like it was clearing up a little bit when two more canisters came tumbling in. I rushed for the door. I was rushing with my eyes closed because of the pain so I ran right into the wall. I got up, held my pistol up, noticed Reeves was right there beside me, and I opened the door to run out. As soon as we ran out we were both knocked on the ground and tied up. I was Ok with that. I was Ok with anything that happened to me at the moment as long as it happened in nice clean air.

  I was yanked up in the air. A tall muscular guy with a crewcut through me against the wall. He got right in my face and started interrogating me.

  “Where is Jenkins? Where is Thomas? Did you kill them? How did you get their guns?”

  “We didn’t kill them. Just knocked them out, tied them up, and left them in a house down the road.”

  I had snot running down my face and was still having trouble breathing but I think I got the message across. The guy must have been through interrogating me because he started using me as a punching bag. When he was done holding me up by punching me in the stomach he got out of the way and I fell on the ground. It was still better than being in that garage full of gas. Another guy picked Reeves up and did the same thing to him. Only difference being Reeves told them to bite his ass to every single question. Not the best comeback I had ever heard but the best Reeves could come up with after the beating and the tear gas. I gave it one thumb up and a swish.

  The guy had conveniently punched me in the correct direction so that I fell on my back. Through the haze of pain, I looked around and saw there about five of them standing around. These weren’t the regular military guys who had been escorting us earlier. These guys looked like Seals or some kind of special forces dudes. I do not think our cleavage distraction followed by randomly jumping on them would have worked on these guys. They seemed way too professional. Plus, they looked like they spent way too much time in the gym.

  Speaking of cleavage, Ann and Thomas emerged from the garage carrying Ginny with them. The Seals aimed weapons at them and made them put their guns on the ground but did not tie them up or give them the obligatory beat down. I almost asked how come they were being sexists but figured it would just get me another beat down so I kept my witty remarks to myself. Reeves looked pretty rough, I figured he was wondering if telling these guys to bite his ass five times in a row had really been the smartest move.

  Ann and Thomas were both zip tied and made to sit against the garage. Ginny was laid down next to the garage, she was currently out of it. The Seal looked at me again.

  “Ok, what house did you tie them up in? We have a crew out looking. If they can find them alive then you may get to live.”

  “It had a red roof!” I had no idea what the address was or anything else. I just remembered it had a red rock shingle roof. I remembered because I had thought at the time it was really nice and wondered how much it had cost them to have it installed. My life now hung in the balance of how many places we had passed with red roofs.

  The tall mean looking Seal who had given me the beat down looked at me and asked if I had any other details. I thought about it.

  “They’re upstairs in the master bath. Tied up but they should be fine.”

  The Seal talked into his lapel mic. He looked all secret service and stuff. Then we waited. The Seals headset must have beeped because he turned around and started talking into it again. Then I heard him tell his guy to get some pictures before cutting them loose and I knew they had found them.

  He walked back over to us. He lost his professional look and started cracking up. The other Seals gathered around and asked what was up. Still laughing the leader looked down at us.

  “We found them. They’re alive so I’m not going to kill you. Any reason you stripped them naked and tied them together in the tub like a couple of ass clowns?”

  On hearing this, a couple of the other Seals started laughing to. Evidently not a lot of respect out there for Jenkins and Thomas.

  I had mostly done it because I was pissed at them for checking out my girl. Even though I don’t think any male on this planet could have resisted. Taking a calculated risk, I let them know the reason.

  “I thought they looked cute together?”

  The Seals laughed a little longer. The tall one got serious against and started talking into his lapel. He finished and looked up at us.

  “Ok. So, they want me to put a bullet in each of your heads, take your shit, and RTB. Because you made me laugh for the first time since this shit has happened I’m going to disobey a direct order. As long as my men agree we’ll let you live, because you let those two wanna be soldiers live. I’ll even let you keep a pistol as a bonus since you tied them up with such, style. Any of you guys think we should obey the order and kill the two kids, the woman, and these other two losers?”

  “No LT.”

  “Fuck that.”

  “Let’s kill the ‘bite my ass’ guy and let the rest go.”

  “Only orders we give a shit about are yours LT.”

  The tall Seal looked back at us, “Ok, that takes care of that. We’re going to let you get in that shitty pickup truck and keep on rolling. We’ll need the M-16s back, you can keep your pistol and whatever ammo you have for it. With the exception of the hot one, we don’t ever want to see any of you again.”

  “Why would I want to see you again?” Reeves asked, still bleeding from his last round of smart ass comments.

  The Seals ignored him, one stayed behind to guard us after they collected our weapons. A few seconds later a short Navy Corpsman came around the corner with a bag of field dressings. He removed the tape and towels from Ginny’s leg and smeared some type of antibiotic all over her leg. Then he put the field dressings on and secured them. Finally, he handed Ann a bottle of antibiotics and told her to have Ginny take two a day for the next five days and try to keep her off the leg and she may be fine.

  As he got up to leave Ann asked why none of them were wearing gas masks but the other guys were. The Corpsman smiled real big.

  “That was LTs idea ma’am, not to tell them the virus wasn’t airborne anymore. We put our masks on when we leave and right before we get back so it l
ooks like we’ve been wearing them the whole time. It’s funny watching those douche-bags spending the whole day in them, especially in this heat.”

  The Corpsman waved and walked away.

  Entry 22: Feet on Dry land

  Well, that was pretty anticlimactic. We all looked around at one another. Grateful to be alive. It was Ann who got us all moving. She wrapped a shirt around her face to help with the lingering tear gas, stood up and went into the garage to start working on getting the door open. I volunteered Reeves and Thomas to patrol around the garage and make sure no Zombies were going to sneak up on us. I handed Reeves the Beretta and the extra clip I had for it. He shoved the gun in his waistband and dropped the extra clip in his pocket then him and Thomas started walking to check everything out.