Zournal (Book 2): Cruising The 'Poc

by R. S. Merritt

  I was definitely wishing we had hoarded away some more of the water bottles from downstairs though. I was thirsty. I’m sure everybody was. Ann had a few water bottles in her bag and Reeves had half a bottle shoved in his pocket when we made it up here but that had not gone very far between the five of us. It was hot in the attic. We had all moved over beneath the hole in the roof while it was still noisy down below. It had taken the Zombies a good few hours to calm down after catching site of us and hearing the shots from the pistol Reeves had let off.

  There had been a sustainable hum of activity and noise from below but as it got darker the noise levels slowly ebbed. Should we wait another day in the attic to see if more cleared out? We’d considered this strategy and the problem was that in all of our physically weakened states we weren’t sure we’d survive another day in the attic with no water. That had our choices some done to probably dying if we stayed in the attic another day to only possibly dying if we made a run for it late at night.

  Getting off the roof was going to be the major wrinkle in this plan. The tree was over by the peak of the roof on the side facing the place we had the truck parked. Getting down via the tree would require making a leap by moonlight into the branches and trying to be quiet, not miss, and then not fall out once you were over there. We had no idea if this was doable or not. Reeves and Ann both seemed to think it might work but neither of them were real certain either. They just both had noticed the big tree on the side of the house.

  Ginny had a different opinion on the tree. She voted no on that plan. She thought we’d be better off just going to the lowest part of the roof. Hanging off the roof and letting ourselves drop to the ground below. She said she had not really looked at the tree so didn’t know if the branches had been close and big enough for the Reeves plan to work or not.

  I had no dog in that fight. The last thing I really remembered was that Goliath Zombie beating the shit out of me while I lay on the ground. My face was one giant bruise. I had new bruises on my chest to complement the scars from the shotgun blast I had taken to the chest in an earlier fight. My one eye was covered in bandages like some kind of half assed mummy pirate. The other eye wasn’t fully functional yet either. I wasn’t real stoked on the idea of making a leap of faith for a tree branch from the highest part of the roof. Especially since with one eye my depth perception was bound to be all messed up. What I had told everyone is once we got on the roof and quietly made our way over to the side with the tree on it we’d call an audible at that point based on how it looked.

  Lame ass escape plan firmly in place we began wriggling through the hole Reeves had widened out in the roof. One by one we got up through it and grabbed our gear and headed over to the peak of the roof by the big tree. There was about half a moon out so we were able to see. We could not risk a light since that may attract unwanted attention. As we approached the tree and began to make out details I wondered what the hell was wrong with Reeves and Ann for thinking we’d be able to jump from the roof in to the tree and climb down. There was no way. I looked at each person and shook my head ‘no’ and then pointed to the low corner of the roof and held up a hand for them to wait.

  I pointed at Ann and then pointed at her eyes to go take a look off the corner of the roof and tell us what she saw. She was the lightest walker of all of us, except for maybe Ginny, but I wanted someone with some more experience than Ginny doing the scouting. Although, Ann had gone along with the Reeves plan to pretend we were all giant squirrels who could leap through the air onto the branch that was eight feet away and didn’t look like it could hold a large bird without bending. With that in mind I decided to join her and take a look myself.

  I crawled over to where Ann was laying on her stomach staring over the edge of the roof. I slithered up beside her and looked down towards the ground to see if there was anything down there. I didn’t see anything at first but the vague outline of bushes. Then I saw that the bushes were human shaped. Crap. That was a lot of human shaped bushes down there.

  They were laying up close to the house, all snuggled together like a bunch of puppies at feeding time. Stacked like cordwood in some locations it looked like. There was a white sidewalk going down towards where the river was behind the home. We had not really discussed taking the boat since we had no keys but I started thinking about it now.

  Instead of dropping off the roof and landing on Zombies and dying we were going to be forced to jump past where the Zombies were all squished up against the house. We would have to land perfectly quietly and get up and be able to make it over to where the truck was. As soon as we got in the truck and started it we would be swarmed so we’d have to drive like a pro to get out of this alive going that way. If we went and got in the boat, we could just cut the lines and drift quietly away. The keys may even be hidden on the boat somewhere we could find them given enough time. If we floated to far though we’d be back by the Navy base and they ‘d come kill us. Or, at least Reeves, Thomas and I wouldn’t have much of a chance of surviving that encounter. I had a feeling they may have realized they were short on females out there by now.

  Thomas had a messed-up wrist and arm, Ginny had a shark bitten weak leg, Reeves was still messed up from the road rash, Ann was dodging bullets left and right except for the missing chunk of her ear she had gotten early on, and I was all messed up. We all had gear lashed down all over us. Knives, our hand weapons, our go bags, medicine bottles, bandages, and just whatever we had picked up and shoved in our pockets that we thought may be useful down the road. We had it mostly secured so we could walk with it and not make much noise. Could we run with it though? Could we jump off a roof and land without killing ourselves or making any noise? Last time we’d done something like this one person in our group had landed on an object we couldn’t see from the roof and broke their damn foot. That had been jumping from a lower height than we were attempting to do now. There had also been a lot fewer Zombies that time.

  This sucked. I lay there and stared. Ann leaned over and kissed my hand and smiled at me. I looked at her and she shrugged her shoulders and made her fingers act like a little person jumping off the roof. I wondered if we had anything we could use as a distraction. I thought about setting off car alarms but I don’t think there were any cars around we could do that too. Oh, well, a horrible plan well executed is better than no plan. We didn’t have a hell of a lot of time to try and come up with anything better. This was going to be it.

  I briefly considered the jumping order. We wanted the people least likely to make any noise to go first. That way there would be more people already on the ground to assist anyone who had issues when they landed or made noise and woke up some of the slumber party slayers. The order would be Ann, Thomas, Reeves, Ginny, and then me. I pointed at Ann and gave her a thumb up and told her to jump, roll, and guard the next jumper. That is what I tried to tell her using my fingers and some random gestures anyway. I hoped my lousy charade skills didn’t end up with someone getting hurt. I didn’t realize until now that those family Pictionary games growing up were meant to impart a life or death skill.

  Ann started slithering backwards along the roof then I heard her standing up. I stayed where I was to watch and prepared to leap into the fray if something happened when she jumped. Ann took a couple of steps, jogged right to the edge of the roof and vaulted out into thin air. She landed hard and we all drew in our breaths as we clearly heard her hit the ground. We all stayed still, nothing happened, Ann moved herself into a crouch and took a few steps back to wait for Thomas to try this hurdle of death dare.

  Thomas went past, landed, and was up in no time. Reeves landed awkwardly and rolled sideways somehow. He made the most noise of the three so far, but even though it must have hurt like hell not a single whimper escaped him. It was down to shark bite and me. I looked back at Ginny, she looked scared. I knew her leg was still paining her. I took a wad of napkins out of my pocket and pulled three of them off before shoving the napkins back in my pocket. I always had nap
kins in my pocket now after the couple of times I’d been forced to use leaves when nature called. I wadded up the napkins and mimed opening my mouth real wide to Ginny. She got what I was doing and opened her mouth like the dentist had asked her to say “ahhhh”. Instead of shoving a water pic in her mouth I shoved in the napkins. She bit down on them and nodded her thanks. Hopefully, they would serve as a gag to keep any yelps of pain from escaping when her leg encountered the ground. I gave her a thumb up and got out of her way. She ran, leaped, and all good.

  Now it was just my half-blind, weak feeling as hell body that had to somehow throw itself over the snoozing pile of instant fatality and land quietly. I was pretty sure I could jump quietly; it was the landing that worried me. Like the old joke goes, it’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the big pile of Zombies that wakes up and jumps on you as you lay there with two broken legs watching them chew their way up your body.

  I wasn’t doing a very great job of psyching myself up. I needed to work on the basis of that Oprah ‘The Secret’ bullshit. I would just envision myself landing gracefully and it would happen. Before I could talk myself out of it or dredge up any odder analogies for the situation, I decided to just go for it. I ran to the side of the roof and I tripped.

  Entry 27: Dain Bramaged

  I woke up laying on a hard-wooden bench seat. I looked around and saw Ginny and Ann sitting up by a chair that was on a pedestal. It looked like we were on a boat. I felt a sudden clenching in my stomach, I rolled over and hurled the contents of my stomach all over the deck. Then I settled back as Ginny and Ann very cautiously approached me, like I could blow again at any second. I suppose I didn’t blame them, I’d been puked on before by a date and it is not a pleasant sensation.

  I checked and I still could not see out of my right eye. It was still covered in bandages. It felt like I may have added some more bandages on the back of my head. Ann looked down at me and shook her head slowly.

  “Steve, what are we going to do with you. You realize you have another concussion? Are you trying to set some sort of record?”

  I smiled weakly up at her. “Where are we? Is everyone Ok?”

  Ann avoided my eye as she started talking. “You did a flip off the roof like you were trying out for Cirque De Soleil or something. You landed flat on your back right next to a big pile of the Zombies. They started moving around some so we ran in to pull you out before they could wake up and take advantage of the midnight snack that had just fallen out of the sky. We got you. Reeves threw you over his shoulders and started running towards the truck.”

  Here Ann stopped to breathe and look around briefly before continuing, “A few of the Zombies you landed beside stood up and started doing there screaming thing. Thomas and I went back to beat them down but more of them had picked it up. We heard a ton of screaming start up in the direction where the truck was. Ginny saved our lives, she yelled for us to follow her and started sprinting down the path towards the river. It took the rest of us a second or two to figure out, but she was headed for the boat. It made sense to us. The screaming behind us was gaining in momentum and we could see a mob of the Zombies starting to form and head our way. We got to the dock, Reeves and Ginny kept going and Thomas and I slowed down to try and close the gate behind us to buy some time.”

  Ann shuddered and a sob came out of her. “The Zombies hit the gate hard and knocked me on my ass. Thomas jumped over me like some kind of knight in shining armor flinging that metal stair pole of his all over the place while I worked to get back on my feet. He lost his footing and went down to a couple of the Zombies who managed to hit him at the same time.”

  “Is Thomas Ok?” I Blurted out. Unable to wait for her to get to the point.

  “I’m fine.” Thomas leaned over the bench I was on and gave me a little wave. “All good in the hood.”

  I let out a sigh of relief. What was Ann being so melodramatic about if Thomas was fine? I thought about it for a minute then started asking questions.

  “How long have we been on the boat? If we’re on too long, then we’re going to drift in front of those dudes in the boat with the big gun on it. You know, the dudes we left tie wrapped together naked in a bath tub for their mortal enemies to find. I’m thinking they’d love to see us again.”

  Ann smiled at me with a tear in her eye. Ginny was hugging Thomas. WTF?

  Ann continued her story. “We got up and ran to the end of the dock. Reeves had gotten Ginny on and had thrown off all the lines but one. Ginny was busy running it out and checking the mooring line. She yelled at us to get on board and we jumped on. Then Ginny and Reeves let go of the rope they had been holding and pushed us off from the dock. We drifted about twenty feet from the dock before the rope caught again and that’s where we’ve been at since then. A bunch of the Zombies jumped for us, a couple got on right after we pushed off but we just threw them in the water. What’s weird is they didn’t all jump in. There’s a group of about twelve of them standing on the dock staring at us. I’d say about a hundred of them jumped right in the river and drifted past us screaming. It was like some kind of River Styx out here for a bit with the damned souls floating by screaming as we made sure they stayed away.”

  I still didn’t get why Ann was acting weird. Sure, this was a messed-up situation but we had been in plenty of those before.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked her.

  “When the Zombies hit us at the gate. When Thomas saved me. He got bit.”

  Entry 28: Don’t worry. Be happy!

  The world went dark. A cold chill hit my body. All I could think was if I hadn’t tripped getting off the roof Thomas would not have gotten bit. Tears filled my eyes and I looked towards where I had seen Thomas last. I sat up to try and find him. I puked again. I think I got Ann’s arms and Ginny’s leg. They need to work on their reflexes if they expect to survive out here.

  Both Ann and Ginny were hopping around looking completely disgusted. I heard Thomas start laughing. I agreed, it was pretty funny. Ann and Ginny stopped cussing and started laughing too. Reeves walked back to us and was obviously trying to figure out why the hell there was puke everywhere and what was so funny.

  “Hey boss, you’re alive. Sweet. You may want to watch puking on girls you’re trying to hook up with. In my experience, it’s ok for them to puke on you but you puking on them is a deal breaker.” Then more quietly, “Hey Thomas, how are you feeling?”

  I had lay back down. Sitting up was not something I was willing to try again for a few minutes at least. I stared at the sky and canopy overhead. It was probably a few minutes before sunrise based on how bright the sky was. Thomas started telling Reeves he felt fine when we heard a ruckus start over where the pier was. Reeves jogged back to the front of the boat and we all heard some Zombie screams followed by loud splashes. This was followed by additional splashes and some inventive cussing by Reeves.

  Reeves sauntered back to where the rest of us were. “Damn ones on the pier keep yelling when they see us and that attracts more of them from wherever they’re hiding at. They come running down here, jump off the dock and either drown or get eaten by sharks or alligators. If they drift close enough to try and grab the boat I just whack them on the head with my bat and watch them drift on by. I’m thinking with the sun coming up we’ve got a long day of Kamikaze Zombies. If those dumbasses on the dock would leave we could probably just walk out of here.”

  “How many on the dock?” I asked.

  “Too many, probably only seven of them but they all look healthy and strong and we’d be trying to reel ourselves and this boat I using the rope and then trying to fight our way up on the dock. We may be able to take them but I don’t think it’s worth the risk doing it that way.” Reeves paused to think about our situation for the fiftieth time then kept talking.

  “We can’t cut the rope. We would drift down to where those other people would kill us. We can’t swim for it with the sharks and shit in the water. Pretty soon we’re going to be watching it rain Zombies as
they wake up and hear the Zombie choir on the dock summoning them down here to the floating buffet. I don’t know boss. If we had a bow or a gun or something we could pick off the weird ones standing on the dock, then hide out and wait until night time. The standard drill.”

  I piped up from my positon on the bench, “I was thinking distraction. Maybe we shoot a flare at a house and it catches on fire or maybe we throw an alarm clock on the shore and then make a run for it or something? I know those ideas are weak. I’m concussed. Anybody got anything along those lines?”

  Thomas cleared his throat and started talking. “I could swim to shore and make a bunch of noise and get them to chase me.”

  “No!” Ann and Ginny said it at the same time. Ginny made as if to move towards Thomas and secure him to the boat. Ann looked like she was trying to find some rope. Up by the bow we heard Reeves playing whack a mole with the Drift-Zombies.

  “I’m dead anyway! I got bit. Let me do this. Let me make my death mean something.” Thomas stood there defiant, teeth clenched together, a scowl on his face. “It’s the same thing any of the rest of you would do.”