Zournal (Book 5): Feeling Lucky?

by Merritt, R. S.

  I hate the way we never really know everything. Any Zombie movie I’ve ever seen the hero runs into a guy who used to work for the CDC or happens to be a virologist or something like that. Everything gets summed up neatly and makes some sort of sense. This was not the world we lived in. Our ‘truths’ were made up of our wild ass guesses and some rumors we’d been tossed by the people we’d run into along the way. We weren’t a group of idiots but I didn’t think any of us would make it past final jeopardy more than once.

  I went and joined the group in the attic. It was cold. Everyone was miserable. Pretty much everybody had been sound asleep in a real bed when told to drag ass up to the attic because there was imminent death parked down the street. Even Daisy looked pissed off. She’d been sound asleep on the bed in a nice warm area she had painstakingly circled fifty or so times before laying down.

  I let the group know what I thought was up based on what I’d seen so far. I said my plan was to keep quiet and wait for night so we could move again without being seen. To hide in the attic if they got close or looked like they were coming in this house.

  “Hey boss, when we going to start killing these assholes instead of running away from them? Those last guys had tanks but you said these guys just have some trucks. We could probably kill a bunch of guys who just have trucks. Maybe even get us a prisoner who speaks English so we can figure out which direction to head next.”

  That made sense. At some point, I needed to pick a target and hit it. It would be easier out here in the suburbs than once we got into the city proper. I was still in evasion mode when I needed to be transitioning into engagement mode. My instinct to keep everyone safe was at odds with our goals of engaging the Koreans and getting prisoners to figure out where Catori and Marg’s families may be being held. Ok. In for a penny, in for a pound.

  “Alright then. Let’s switch gears and come up with a plan for how we’re going to engage those guys and hopefully get an English-speaking prisoner. Ideas?”

  “I speak Spanish.”

  “Thanks Marg.” I wondered why the hell he was bringing that up. Good for him?

  “The prisoner can speak either English or Spanish and we’d be able to talk to them. Might be an option. Lots of people learn Spanish.”

  “Sweet. Very good point. Anybody else speak any other languages?”

  “I took French in college boss, but I sucked at it.”

  “Awesome. Thanks for playing. Anybody else?”

  Ann spoke some Spanish and some creole. Marg could also speak Spanish and Portuguese. Lots of Brazilian tourists came to the Grand Canyon and being multilingual was a nice bonus for the pilots.

  I couldn’t believe it hadn’t occurred to me to ask about this before. For all I had known someone in the group may have spoken freaking Korean. Oh well, chalk it up to the arrogance of being an American and thinking the world revolved around English. I guess now the dominant language in America was Korean. Great, I’d become a minority right as I was getting to the age to start enjoying and profiting off my white privilege. Life isn’t fair.

  Ginny had taken a stroll down to the window at the end of the hallway. She peeked out the window and came back a lot faster than she had left.

  “They’re parked outside our house!” She whispered at us as we all went quiet and started working on getting everyone in the attic and pulling the ladder up.

  Entry 27: Deep Blue Moat

  We hid in the attic again. No charge of the light brigade down the stairs to try and take them out. The Koreans banged around downstairs for a little bit then left. We gave it about thirty minutes from the last time we heard anything then I snuck down to see what was going on.

  Looking out the windows showed me they had moved on to another house down the road. I saw a few Zombie bodies lying in the street. I carefully moved down the stairs and saw that they had been putting metal bars over each of the windows. They had also put a much stronger piece of wood across the front door to use as a lock and plywood had gone up over the sliding glass door in the back. They were either expecting a hurricane or trying to Zombie proof some of the houses before moving people in. I had some news for them. The wood bars and plywood would make it Zombie resistant but there was no such thing as Zombie proof.

  I went back upstairs and told them what I had seen. I didn’t expect the Koreans to come back anytime soon but we set two guards and the rest of us went to sleep. You could definitely hear that humming noise through the open window now. It sounded like waves crashing on a distant beach. It lulled us all into a nightmare fueled slumber.

  In my nightmares, it was always the kids. I knew they were Zombies and I knew if I hadn’t put them down they would have put me or my friends down. When they were coming at you it was easier because they looked like pure evil. Teeth gnashing, evil red eyes filled with the glow of hate and unnaturally blue skin flexing under the rags they wore. I never even really hesitated to kill them. What always stopped me was after I had them on the ground. That’s when the body seemed to shrink in front of my eyes. When the tiny frame of the life I had just taken stood out in stark contrast to the monster who had been attacking me a second before. Those were the times that broke my heart. That was the guilt that burned through my fevered dreams.

  I almost took a swing at Ann when she woke me up. It took me a few seconds to orient myself and remember where we were and what was going on. I sat up, rubbing both eyes with the heels of my hand. I checked to make sure my weapons were still attached to me in case I had to run. I stood up. Ann handed me a toothbrush with a liberal amount of toothpaste on the top of it and stared at me. She actually waited until I had brushed and then and handed me a water bottle and told me to spit. Every time I tried to protest this treatment she pointed out, rightfully, that if she didn’t do it this way I’d neglect brushing my teeth and my breath would start smelling like a dead rat.

  Teeth brushed and rinsed, I turned to assume control of the group and chart our course for the day. It’s a lot harder to get everyone’s attention and respect after they see your girl bossing you around about brushing your teeth. I felt like I should be wearing footie pajamas and trying to sneak out of my room to watch TV. It was so obviously humiliating that even Reeves had given up saying anything about it. He just gave me looks indicating that I was running extremely low on man points. I was ok with that. I’d probably kill people at some point in the day and that tended to reset your perspective on who was masculine and who wasn’t.

  I wanted to capture some prisoners and I wanted to move a lot closer to downtown Las Vegas. We could clearly see the lights of the strip tonight from our vantage point. It looked like multiple hotels had power. If we could get close enough we may be able to tell what was going on. Best guess, they were following the same philosophy they had at the hotel by the dam. Blocking off the floors they chased the Zombies to and killing the rest of them.

  Somewhere out in the desert there must be a mass grave that would dwarf most landfills. We didn’t want to tip off anyone that we had been squatting in the house so we ended up having to go out an upstairs window and drop onto the ground below off the roof of the porch. There was no other way for us to get out where we could figure out how to make it look like no one had been there. We figured out about five thousand different ways we could have done it as we were walking away from the house but whatever. Jumping off the porch worked and I’d take a plan that was easy and worked any day.

  We hiked through an industrial park. We skimmed our way around where the airport was and walked through a concrete jungle of strip malls and warehouses. Everything looked like it had been thoroughly looted. Made sense if they had tens of thousands of soldiers to feed and outfit. The low hum kept on. As we were getting closer the noise was becoming more discernible for what it was. I just wasn’t sure how to deal with it yet so wanted to wait and make sure it was what I thought it was.

  We were close now. A golf course separated us from Mandalay Bay resorts which is the first large casino on the
strip. It was still the middle of the night but I felt like we should get a base of operations setup and then send out a few people to scout versus all of us continuing to traipse around. One person could be a lot sneakier than six people and a dog. We’d actually send a minimum of two people as it was always good to have at least one other person watching your back these days.

  We broke into a building featuring row after row of cubicles with phones and desktops sitting on each one. It looked like a giant call center. It probably was a giant call center. We moved through the building until we found the breakroom. The vending machine had been smashed in and most of the snacks and stuff taken. We did find a couple bags of chips and like ten packs of snowballs. Those things are good and will never go bad. Since we were all probably going to die soon we weren’t too worried about our waistlines so everyone wolfed one of them down.

  Once we’d all had our treat for the day I brought up what I was thinking. Everyone instantly volunteered to be part of the scouting party. I already knew who the best scouts were though. Despite being Indians Marg and Catori were pretty horrible at sneaking around. They admitted they had rarely ever been hunting and all the Indian stuff was mostly for show and to get more tips. They were basically redneck pilots with long hair and solid tans. Reeves and Ginny would be the ones who went.

  Ginny could move like a wraith and Reeves was right there with her on the sneaking and peeking. They were both patient as hell when it came to military operations. I trusted them to make the right calls on what it was important to see and not to do anything too stupid and get caught. They had a solid four or five hours of darkness left and I wanted them to move out and get a closer vantage point. The plan was for them to go gather some intel and come back to us the next night so we could come up with a plan.

  Reeves and Ginny prepped up and took off so as not to waste any of the darkness. The rest of us explored the call center and got more comfortable. There were five floors and a large warehouse area so I was thinking distribution center with attached contact center. We set the watch and everyone settled down except for myself and Ann. We left Catori standing guard and wandered around until we found a roof access. We sat on the roof and held hands and looked at the stars and the bright lights of the strip. Looking at the strip you could almost believe nothing had ever happened.

  We sat there as the sun came up and the humming and crashing noise started getting louder in volume. As the sun rose so did the hundreds of thousands of Zombies that were all trying to get into the casinos on the strip. For as far as we could see surrounding Mandalay Bay and the strip was an undulating mass of screaming Zombies. It looked like the Koreas may have figured out a way to use the Zombies like a living wall or moat. How the hell were we going to sneak through that to liberate anybody?

  Entry 28: Patience is a Virtue

  We took turns sleeping and standing watch throughout the long day. Everyone got a chance to go up on the roof to look over at the massive number of Zombies howling their heads off over on the strip. We talked about some different ways of trying to locate Marg’s and Catori’s family. None of the ideas passed the smell test and most ended with us dead and Ginny and Ann possibly joining up with the captured women.

  Ann brought up the idea of having herself get captured and then signaling us to let us know where they were being held at. That worked great except for the torture, rape and possible death resulting to her from her capture. Assuming she got past the torture, rape and death stage there was still the issue of trying to figure out a way for her to let us know where she was. Even if she was locked in a hotel room surrounded by windows the Las Vegas windows were not designed to allow anything to be seen out of them.

  If she managed to get some kind of phone past the guards without a signal or WIFI or something then the ‘find my iPhone’ and other apps we thought about using were useless. There was the real possibility there were multiple holding areas and she could end up in a different one from wherever Marg and Catori’s family were being kept at. We figured the children had already been split from the parents and were in a different area anyway. If we had to, we’d prioritize freeing the kids first then try for the adult women. Assuming we could figure out where any of them were.

  We talked and slept and loaded clips until there was nothing to do but pace and wait for Ginny and Reeves to get back. When they still weren’t back by ten I started getting very nervous. That was plenty of time for them to have made it back as far as I was concerned. Ann and Catori were concerned about them as well. Marg had gotten pretty sullen and was focused mainly on his missing wife and daughter. He was starting to push for us to just go out there and start bringing down Koreans until we found one who spoke a language we could communicate in and making them tell us what we needed to know.

  I got the frustration. I knew they’d have a difficult time making me sit around and wait if I knew the Koreans had a hold of Ginny or Ann. I’d be one of the first ones to go in guns blazing. The thing was. The odds here were so stupid ridiculously stacked against us that we had to exercise some patience if we expected to figure out anything. Best guess, the average soldier on the street wasn’t going to have a clue where foreign women were being kept for reeducation or whatever. The North Koreans weren’t known for how well they shared information with their people.

  Where the hell were Ginny and Reeves? Around three in the morning we were all getting super antsy. No one was sleeping and we kept taking turns going to different vantage points within the building and up on the roof to try and get different angles to look out and see if we could see anything. What if they never came back? What would we do then? How long should we stay here waiting for them? We didn’t have more than a few days’ worth of food at the most. We would still have no idea where to look. The whole reason we’d sent them out was to try and figure out what we were dealing with. If they didn’t come back were back at square one. Except we didn’t have anyone to send out to scout for us and we’d doubled the number of people we would need to try and rescue.

  The sun came up and they still had not made it back. The tension was palpable between us. Marg was freaking out since he felt like he was standing around twiddling his thumbs while his wife was getting raped and his kid brainwashed into thinking she was Korean. Catori was more realistic about the situation and realized he couldn’t do anything until he had some knowledge to act on. It came to a head when Marg asked me what we were going to do if Reeves and Ginny didn’t come back soon.

  I told him I didn’t know. I told him we’d have to wait and see and hope they made it back. He said his wife and kid didn’t have time to wait for Reeves to decided to come back. Something about the way he said it irked me. Like he assumed Reeves and Ginny were out playing the slots or something was the reason they had not made it back yet. I didn’t say anything but that managed to piss Marg off. He got in my face and said we needed to be ready to move out tonight. I told him to sit down and STFU.

  He punched me. I’ve been hit so many times since this all started. I’ve been shot and thrown out of cars and mauled by alligators. I’ve swam with sharks and wrestled with Seals. I’ve dove head first into mobs of Zombies trying to eat me alive armed only with an oversized hammer and a knife. About three seconds after he punched me he was face down on the floor with my boot on the back of his neck. Ann looked over at us.

  “Don’t kill him. He’s just stressed about his wife and daughter.” She went back to the romance novel she’d found in one of the desks and ignored us.

  I realized my pistol was in my hand and had been aimed at the back of his head. All of this had happened by habit. I had no formal training but I bet I could teach a class in bar room brawling and street fighting based on my experience that would have everyone lining up to sign up. Catori was staring at us. It looked like his jaw might actually be resting on his chest. Now for the awkward part. I slid my pistol back into the holster and moved my foot off Marg’s neck.

  I reached down to help him up but he avoided m
y hand and pushed himself up to his feet on his own. He was breathing hard and looked pissed. His nose and lip were bleeding. He told me to go eff myself and turned around and stormed out of the room. I caught Catori’s eye and nodded in the direction he had left in. I was hoping Catori could catch up with him and calm him down. I sure wasn’t in the mood to try and calm him down. Ann looked like she didn’t have any plans to go anywhere for a while either.

  Marg and Catori came back in the room about thirty minutes later. Marg walked over to me and looked me in the eye and said he was sorry he had hit me. Instead of saying I was sorry I threw him on the ground after his girly punch and pretty much defeated his weak ass in under ten seconds I just graciously accepted the apology. I noticed Ann smiling to herself over in the corner. She was probably loving listening to me try to be diplomatic. I went in for a bro hug and told Marg what was on my mind.

  “Hey man, I understand why you swung at me. It doesn’t get any more stressful than what we’re going through right now. We just don’t have a choice. We have to be patient. We have to figure out a game plan. Otherwise, we’re just going to die or get captured ourselves. Either way, we won’t be useful to your wife or your daughter. It sucks but there just ain’t shit we can do right now. We need Reeves and Ginny to get back here. Hopefully they’ll have something we can act on. If not, I don’t know what we do. I can tell you that all of us are trying to help you and that we’re willing to stick our necks way out to do it.”