Zournal (Book 5): Feeling Lucky?

by Merritt, R. S.

  “What the hell do we do with them?” Ann asked me. Looking at the two wriggling bundles Reeves and I had brought back. “The tanks are only two houses away so we need to figure something out quick.”

  I thought we should take their bags off them in the attic and drop them to the floor from there. Ginny pointed out this could lead to two Zombies staring at the attic door when the Koreans got here. That could be awkward. Marg came over from where he had been watching out the kitchen window.

  “They’re coming.” He whispered forcefully at us. A note of panic evident in his voice.

  We stormed up the stairs carrying the two Zombies, all our gear, and a reluctant dog. At the top of the stairs Ginny and Ann were already up the stairs and spreading out in the attic. Catori grabbed Daisy and went bounding up the stairs holding her. The Indian and the dog had bonded well.

  Reeves and I had not had the time nor the inclination to attempt bonding with our bundles of joy. We drug them up the stairs. Once at the top we tried to work out how the hell we were going to set them free. It had been easy enough to tape them up once we had the bags over them. We worked on getting the tape off their legs first. Then we each stood precariously on either side of the open hole the ladder came through. Marg had the ladder and was ready to pull it up once we dropped the Zombies.

  Reeves and I looked over at each other and nodded. We pulled our bags up and simultaneously started shaking them. A hand shot out of the bottom of my bag and grabbed me by the balls. Then the hand started wrenching and pulling and the body started coming out of the bag. I shook the bag harder and the kid fell out of the bag and was swinging over the hole. Held up only by his fierce grip on my junk. I was hanging onto the rafters trying to kick the kid off. Ann ran over with the bolt cutters and started chomping away at the kid’s wrist. His hand let go of me and the kid fell to the floor below through the hole.

  A similar thing happened to Reeves but the lady grabbed him by his ankles and they both went through the hole. The kid Zombie was trying to come back up the ladder but Reeves and the lady Zombie landed right on him and used him like a sled to get to the floor below. Reeves hit the bottom and jumped off the lady Zombie and started running back up the stairs. Marg was whispering at him to get back down there and get the damn laundry bag off the Zombies head. The Zombie was currently running in circles and couldn’t figure out how to get the bag off.

  Reeves ran back down, stopping to kick the kid Zombie full force right in the face, and ripped the bag off the lady. He then turned around and started sprinting back up the stairs. The lady Zombie grabbed him by the pants and was pulled up about half the stairs before Reeves tripped because his pants ended up around his ankles. Marg grabbed him by the hands and heaved him the rest the way up the stairs while the lady and kid Zombies started back up again. Ginny ran over with a two by four she had found somewhere and shoved them both hard enough to make them tumbled backwards down the stairs.

  We all grabbed the ladder and manhandled the damn thing back up. Somewhere in all the ruckus the ladder had gotten a hole in it so we would look down through it. The lady and the boy Zombie were standing directly underneath the ladder staring up at where we were hiding in the attic.

  We heard the front door open below.

  Awkward.

  Entry 25: Motel 6

  I carefully avoided looking at Ann. I think between me and Reeves we had tripped her ‘no effing way are they that stupid’ breaker. She was incapable of saying anything about it. She just looked at me, covered in blood and hurt like normal, then over to Reeves, who was busy trying to nonchalantly pull his pants up. I was hoping she’d have to let the whole thing slip because she wouldn’t be able to process it all and figure out a good place to start tearing into me. I was actually getting impatient for the Koreans to get in the damn house so it would take her mind off the comedy routine Reeves and I had just performed. I was hoping the Zombies would run downstairs and cause a distraction and it would all be worthwhile. If they didn’t I’d never hear the end of this.

  A loud banging noise downstairs caused both Zombies to forget about us and trip all over each other trying to find the stairs to get to the source of the noise. They disappeared from site and a minute later we heard some muffled bangs as the Koreans put them down. Excellent, now we just needed them to go in the garage and kill the breakers and get the hell out of the house. The attic space we were in was small and it was freezing. We all slowly inched our way as far from the attic opening as possible.

  We heard doors opening and voices calling out below. It all sounded very professional. Then the voices were closer as the soldiers moved to clear the upstairs portion of the home. The attic door went down suddenly and a solider yelled up into the attic. I don’t think it was an actual word. We heard the soldiers moving on when nothing came hurling down at them from the attic. Excellent. They must just be turning the breaker boxes off to prevent fires and checking the house for Zombies. If they had come up in the attic there is no way they would not have seen us. We’d have had to shoot whoever came up then fight the rest. They had tanks. We had rifles and a goofy looking dog.

  We were going to be stuck sitting in this attic for at least another hour but it looked like we might survive. The Koreans shuffled around for a while and then we finally heard them leaving. We sat there for another thirty minutes to make sure the house stayed quiet. We also wanted to give them time to finish up with the neighbor’s house so they wouldn’t see us through a window or something. I motioned everyone else to stay still and I slowly went down the ladder to see if the coast was truly clear.

  I went to the window in the bedroom that faced the direction the tanks had come from. Nothing in that direction. I looked out the window on the other side. Slowly moving the curtain to take a peek. The Koreans were parked a little further up in the cul-de-sac. They were finishing off another house before heading for the rest around the circle. Since we were in a cul-de-sac we would be stuck with them while they finished the circuit. We wouldn’t want to risk being seen moving around. I wondered if they went anywhere at the end of the day or if they just spent the night wherever they ended up at.

  I guess we’d find out. If they decided to spend the night in the cul-de-sac that meant we’d lose some time since we would need to wait a day before trying to make our way out of there to avoid being seen by any patrols or watches they set up. I went back up the ladder and had a whispered conversation with everyone. We decided we’d just have one person down at a time. No one really wanted to sit in the creepy, cold attic so I went back up and sent Ann to stand the next watch and report back on what the Koreans were up to. She came back and sent Ginny down for the next watch. The Koreans had cleared a few more houses and seemed in no hurry to leave.

  By the time it was my turn again it was getting close to dusk. I was really hoping to see the Korean tanks rolling out for the night. Instead, it looked like they were settling in for the night. They had made it around the end of the street and were about four houses down the street from us at this point. It was a pretty safe distance I was thinking. I watched as they went back and forth into the house and when the tanks did not start back up and nothing much was moving after they had been sitting there an hour I concluded they were spending the night. It made sense rather than have to waste all the diesel to move those tanks back to base.

  It wasn’t like the base could be much safer for them anyway. They had enough guys with them to keep a decent watch. They had those tanks to hop in if things got hairy. Not a bad setup really. They could pick from any of the houses they had cleared during the day to sleep if they didn’t feel like squishing together inside the tanks. I snuck down the stairs and checked the two Zombies who were dead by the door. Each of them nails embedded in their heads. That must be the Korean preferred method of Zombie execution. Nail guns would also save them from using their conventional ammo up on Zombies.

  It was starting to get dark out. I decided to act on our unofficial motto that motion was lif
e. Especially as I saw Zombies still wandering around out in the street. All the home invasions and driving tanks around the Koreans were doing was stirring up some interest among the local Zombies. Although, less than I would have guessed or found normal. I wondered again about that low humming noise. Maybe they had figured out a way to attract the Zombies to a central point? A giant Zombie Zapper would be pretty awesome.

  I went and told everybody I thought we should go ahead and roll out tonight instead of waiting. Everyone started gathering their gear together and we brought down all the extra supplies they had loaded in the attic to hide them while Reeves and I were ‘playing grab-ass with the neighbor Zombies’. We got everything down to the first floor. Careful not to use any lights where they may be seen and moving slowly but with purpose about our tasks. We didn’t want to attract the attention of the loosely converging Zombies or the attention of the Korean target they were after.

  We didn’t hear any loud noises from down the block so they must be finishing off the Zombies quietly as they approached. I would assume they had been doing this nightly for a while now and were as good, if not better, than we were at it. Once we had everything situated we waited until about two in the morning to roll out. We wanted it dark and we wanted the Koreans to be more focused on staying awake and the Zombies right in front of them than looking around the neighborhood. Once I thought the time was right, we woke up everyone who had been taking catnaps and headed for the back door.

  We got the sliding glass door open and sat there listening for a while. The low hum was still in the air although it was not as prevalent as it had been during the day. We heard a Zombie scream off in the distance and a couple of loud bangs that sounded like gunfire. Nothing sounded danger close though. We took turns moving quickly through backyards away from the house we had been in and the Koreans camped out down the street. When I didn’t get shot in the back or hear any alarms go off after we had made it a few blocks I started feeling a lot better about our chances.

  It was Las Vegas though so I knew if we bet against the house too often for too long we’d lose. The trick was going to be to get in and win big and get the fuck out. I fully planned on walking away a winner if at all possible. We just needed to define what ‘winning’ meant. As I ran through backyards and dodged trampolines and sprinkler heads I considered that question. We wanted to hurt the Koreans and try to rescue some prisoners. I would assume in the process of rescuing prisoners that we’d end up hurting some Koreans. With that in mind, I decided we should just focus on trying to find the prisoners. I’m sure Catori and Marg were already thinking along the same wavelength anyways.

  I slid into the grass behind a big white house. I was breathing like a fifty-year-old smoker trying to run a marathon. Everyone else sounded like they were about to die which made me feel better. The only one enjoying all of this running was Daisy. She couldn’t get enough of it. She was sitting in the moonlight with her big tongue hanging out and panting with that goofy ass dog grin on her face. I thought about trying to tie some ammo and shit to her back and making her work for her Kibbles but decided it wouldn’t be worth the hassle.

  We’d only made it a few blocks but we sounded like someone should go ahead and call 911 because there was going to be a heart attack of some sort any second now. I decided we should keep running to try and get closer to downtown so we could see it and come up with a plan. Also, I felt like we probably needed the exercise. We were getting flabby from driving around all the time. We needed some run for your life Zombie aerobics to whip us back into shape. Keeping that in mind I let everyone know I thought we could make it another three blocks before we needed to find somewhere to crash for the day.

  There were some sighs and I saw some longing looks at the white house we were currently huddled behind but everyone stood up. I had Reeves take point and keep us moving forward. We all had hand weapons out but so far had not had to deal with any Zombies. We had seen some moving down the middle of the street but we just stayed out of sight until they had passed. They had been heading towards the Koreans we had just evaded. I wished them ‘bon appetite’.

  We stopped in a subdivision about a half mile south of the airport. From here, we should hopefully be able to watch the traffic on I-215 and see if we saw any sort of troop movements. We moved into a small home and flipped the breakers on. It was kind of annoying having power and not being able to use it fully for fear of discovery. We had to watch the lights and when we flipped on the breakers had to jump around turning stuff off to keep from being seen or having the house catch on fire.

  I was hopeful we could find a subdivision with some Korean officers in it. If we found the nice houses or hotel suites maybe we could capture one who knew where prisoners were kept. Until we had a clear destination in mind were stuck in recon mode. It had been nice of the Koreans to clear a bunch of houses and leave the lights on for us.

  Entry 26: Counting Coup

  I slept near an open window and was awoken by the same hum that had been prevalent all night. I woke up around nine in the morning. Ann and I had claimed the master suite upstairs as ours. Daisy had joined us and gotten way more cuddle time and petting than I did. I was totally jealous of the dog. Daisy growled at me as I got out of bed to go look out the window.

  I-215 was about eighty yards from the window I was looking out of. While I watched, several large trucks went by on the interstate. No way to tell what they were hauling but based on the direction they were going I figured it was probably supplies for the invading forces moving east. Messing up the supply chain would be one way to slow them down but I didn’t see blowing up a road as something that would be more than an inconvenience for them here. In the mountains where there were no easy ways around it would be a big deal. In the city, they would just have to go around on a side street.

  Slowing them down was not worth the effort anyway. Our goal was to hurt them. If we knew that slowing them down would give US forces more time to strike at them then slowing them down may move higher up on our priorities list. As of now, we weren’t even very sure the US was still trying to strike out at them. Regardless of what the rest of the country was doing we were still determined to carry out our vendetta. No real choice in the matter anyway other than to try and run away and hide somewhere until the Koreans eventually found and killed us or we got eaten by Zombies.

  I’d rather go toe to toe with the big ass beast we were trying to take down than run away to live in fear. The old me may have been able to do that but I’d changed over the last two years. People I’d loved had died. I’d seen unbelievable acts of heroism and bravery. I’d seen people willing to lay their lives down for others. I didn’t see how I could honor their memory and be a coward myself. I had to live up to the example they had set. Or, die trying.

  I saw an airplane coming and landing at the airport. It was a large military plane. We were about two blocks from the landing strip. Once we worked our way around the airport we’d be on the Las Vegas strip. My plan was for us to be setting up over watch in one of the casinos on the strip by tonight if we could. We were all assuming the bulk of the Koreans were holed up in the massive hotels on the strip. They could easily have fifty thousand soldiers holed up in the hotels on the strip. That would be without making them share rooms. I’d read in a flight magazine, the one time I’d been out to Vegas, that six of the top ten largest hotels in the world were located in Las Vegas.

  Las Vegas made sense from a hotel point of view but it was in the middle of the desert. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me from a supply point of view. I kind of saw what they were doing if I looked at it like they were primarily still setup in San Diego and LA but were moving east and using Vegas as a spring board and supply point for the forces moving east. Long term, Vegas had come from the desert and I figured it would eventually return there as well. Or, thanks to Hoover Dam, it may become the new world capital. If we had anything to do with it the whole city would burn to the ground along with the Koreans currently c
alling it home.

  I wasn’t the one in charge of playing the real-life risk on what was left of the world board though. My goal was to hurt the people who’d hurt us and pull Ann and the others out of this mess alive. If I could accomplish those two things I’d be happy. I was pretty sure based on the odds we were up against that they were going to end up being mutually exclusive goals. If Reeves could day drink then I could day dream though. Looking out the window I imagined a world where the Koreans had been driven out of our country and the Zombies had all peacefully died from some complications with the virus.

  I was strolling through the vineyard of our imaginary Northern Californian Oceanside retreat with Ann holding my hand and Daisy romping through the fields when I saw a bunch of the trucks exit off the highway and head into the neighborhood we were in. Crap. Now what they hell were they doing in the houses? The breakers for these had been turned off and the only evidence we’d seen of Zombies was some knocked over furniture and bloodstains in the foyer area. I sent Ann to round everybody up and head into the attic with our supplies. It was my kneejerk reaction since it had worked for us last time.

  The trucks were stopping about a half mile down the street from the house we were in. All I could tell was the trucks had stopped and people were moving around. No clue what the hell they were up to. They’d already cleared this neighborhood and made it safe to turn on the lights so this must be the next phase. People actually moving in? Fortifying the doors and windows better against Zombies? Stocking food and supplies in the houses? Installing water filtration systems? Who the hell knew?