Zournal (Book 5): Feeling Lucky?

by Merritt, R. S.

  We figured there were probably things at the airport we may be able to use. We did have two pilots in our group which was a definite bonus. The airport patrols would be a lot more watchful tonight than they had been previously been though thanks to our extracurricular activities in the area. We also could not figure out a quiet way to land a helicopter on top of a casino.

  We worked on coming up with a distraction. A distraction big enough to empty out an entire city was beyond us though. If we dropped dynamite or bombs on Las Vegas Blvd it would get the Zombies all stirred up and may get them out of our way but the Koreans would still be there to shoot us in the face. We figured they were using the monorail track to get around. That would put them out of reach of the Zombies and connected them to all the casinos. If we could get up on that somewhere we may be able to hitch a ride to the Luxor on it.

  If the Koreans didn’t all look so Korean we could try disguises. As it was, none of us looked the slightest bit Korean. Catori and Marg had the dark skin but other than that no real similarities. The rest of us were obviously not Korean. We thought about wearing face masks or hazmat suits or ponchos. None of the brainstorming was getting us very close to a rescue. It was actually starting to occur to all of us how impossible this mission was.

  We needed to springboard over hundreds of thousands of Zombies to break into the Luxor. The Luxor would be well lit and crawling with Korean soldiers. It was being used as a prison so additional guards would be stationed inside as well. Once we got in we needed to find and free the prisoners. We had no idea where any of them were locked up at or if they were even locked up in the Luxor. Once we got them out of the lock up how the hell did we sneak them all out and past the Zombies? What if some of them didn’t want to leave?

  I started likening the plans we were coming up with to turds circling a toilet bowl. At the moment, the biggest shiniest turd that looked like it may make it go down the hole first was the plan that was crap by anyone’s standards. It was the Star Wars plan to get into the prison on the death star. Except we didn’t even speak the same language as the guards. We’d have Catori and Marg put on the uniforms of the dead soldiers we had shoved under the cubicles. Hopefully, we could get most the blood off.

  Catori and Marg would be escorting the rest of us as prisoners. I wasn’t sure they even allowed male prisoners but we were going to find out. Catori and Marg would escort us all right through the main entrance. Hopefully, no one bothered talking to them. Ann was going to be in the lead with just her bra and shorts on which should keep most people’s attention focused at the front of the line. We were betting our lives on her ability to distract an army with her cleavage. Kind of like Leia in Return of the Jedi. There were way too many Star Wars references in this plan for it to even possibly have a chance at working.

  Once we had our half ass plan sort of baked we gave ourselves an hour to get ready and go. Most of that hour was spent trying to figure out how to make us look like prisoners when we had no chains or handcuffs or anything. After struggling with that plan for about two hours, we all agreed that plan was never going to work anyway and we decided to just gather our crap and head in the direction of the Luxor and try to figure out a better plan as we went. Assault by improvisation as Ginny put it. I loved the way she had cool terminology for everything we did. Made our plans sound way less stupid.

  Entry 32: Winging It

  We all got suited up and gathered at the entrance. We looked like a group of militant homeless people with a dog. Ann looked fashionable, Ginny looked a bit grunge, the two Indians were just in jeans and dirty clothes and carrying a bunch of crap. Reeves and I had obviously given up completely. I got blood all over myself so often I’d just started wearing whatever I could get to stay on my body. Reeves looked like he was trying to make a statement. Here we were getting ready to try and sneak into a giant pyramid surrounded by Zombies and protected by armed North Korean soldiers and Reeves had on a bright orange sweatshirt with ‘If History Repeats itself I am so Getting a Dinosaur’ complete with a little drawing of a T-Rex underneath it.

  Reeves caught me staring at him.

  “What?”

  I pointed out he had on a bright orange shirt. He pointed out we were sneaking into a place in Vegas not parachuting into the woods. I couldn’t really argue with that. Plus, I’d figured out my sweatshirt was a baby blue color so I chose to roll with the urban camouflage concept as well. Catori opened the door and stepped out and we all followed him. We were planning on taking the same route they’d taken the previous night. It suddenly dawned on me we could try going the other way and possibly just sneak right in a back door to get into the Luxor. If nothing else we could skip the mobs outside of Mandalay Bay.

  I waved everyone back inside to tell them the new plan. Everyone agreed it was probably the best idea so far. We headed the opposite direction to get out the other side of the call center building. From there, we went over another block and then turned right to walk in parallel with the Las Vegas Strip. All the Zombies were crammed in tight around the strip trying to get into the casinos. We’d figured out that was since the Koreans openly walked around on the monorail tracks. The Koreans didn’t bother hiding it as they probably liked the deadly moat around the properties to keep out intruders. It would keep the Zombies central as well so they could more easily carry out the house cleaning operations.

  Eventually, the Zombies would become a major pain in the ass as the threat of special forces sneaking in and killing them dwindled. At that point, I’m sure they’d start mass murdering and digging graves to get rid of the Zombies. Until then though, hundreds of thousands of insane cannibals surrounding your property probably kept out more intruders than an ADT sign. The street we were on was relatively clear. We’d screwed around to the point where it was going to be dawn anytime now but all of us wanted to show some momentum for the day so we pressed on.

  We made it to Ali Baba lane and took a right to head straight for the Luxor. We could see the large pyramid shaped resort rising into the sky in front of us. Random lights on in the rooms and the top glowing in different colors. The sky was definitely starting to lighten up. We’d already had to put down a few Zombies that had stumbled out of alleys and pulled themselves up off the side of the street. Most Zombies seemed to like to sleep in but I didn’t want to get caught out in the open if there were a bunch of early risers nesting around here. I also didn’t want to open the door and walk into a nest right as they were all waking up.

  We picked an office building right next to the freeway and broke in through a window. We had all just slipped in when the sun finally made its way over the horizon and a slew of Zombies came stumbling down the road we had just been stranding on. I considered it a major failure on my part that we had come so close to dying because I lost track of the time. I chalked it up to learning from experience. We went to look for stairs to see if we could get up on the roof and start trying to learn some more about a path to the Luxor.

  We found the stairs in the corner leading up to the roof access. We drug our tired bodies up the stairs. We were all ready dreading the pending fight with the door at the top but it opened up easily. We walked through it and I looked around the roof. To the right of us was a tarp strung up to provide some shelter for the three Korean soldiers sitting there staring at us.

  Everyone pulled their weapons at once. I drew my pistol and threw myself to the side while firing into the mass of the soldiers. I heard firing from behind me and I saw a couple muzzle blasts from the Koreans before they all fell into their little tent fort setup they had going on. I got up and looked behind me. Marg had taken a round in the shoulder but Ann and Ginny were already helping him. Reeves, Catori and I advanced on the dead Koreans. We all knew we needed to get out of here pretty soon since the gunshots would have carried in the quiet and someone would be on the way to investigate shortly.

  Reeves picked up one of the prone Koreans and set him up in the chair. He started doing another one and whispered to us t
o help him. Catori and I finally caught on that to a casual observer the Koreans may look like they’re still sitting around up here. It may buy us a few valuable minutes. We set the three of them up. I saw they had a radio. It was currently squawking out a bunch of Korean words. I assumed someone asking about who got shot. If you’re dead raise your hand.

  I thought about taking the radio. It seemed kind of pointless but you never knew. I shoved it in my pack along with a couple of clips of ammo for an AK-47 and a bottle of water. Reeves and Catori looted for another few seconds then we headed back to help Ann and Ginny get Marg back down the stairs. We needed to be out of this building as soon as possible.

  “Done desecrating the corpses?” Ann asked me.

  I ignored her and helped Marg through the door. He hadn’t been shot as many times as I had in the past so he was pretty freaked out about it. Kind of acting like a big baby if you asked me. It was just a bullet in the shoulder. The guy was acting like he was fixing to fall over dead at any second. I was pretty sure that wouldn’t happen unless there were internal bleeding or it got infected. I kept those thought to myself and just helped him down the stairs.

  “Those guys just had bullets and a couple of waters.” Reeves huffed as we got to the bottom of the stairs. I hate stairs. Damn apocalypse took out elevators. Another reason to hate the Koreans. Then it occurred to me the power being on maybe the elevators were running?

  “Yo. Boss! If the guys had barely any supplies on them that means they probably aren’t living in this building. That means there has to be away to get from here back to the main base. A way that doesn’t include being eaten by a bunch of Zombies.”

  Ah. I thought for a second he had just been complaining because there hadn’t been much stuff to take off the dead bodies. His statement was making a lot more sense now. I set Marg down in a chair by the elevators. I looked down and noticed he’d bled all over my freakin shirt. Ann looked at me and just shook her head as I started digging in my bag for a different shirt to wear. I handed her the sweatshirt to shove into Marg’s shirt to try and help with the bleeding.

  We heard a scraping noise from the other side of the building and we all melted into the hallway as best we could. A minute later two Koreans came strolling down the hallway. They looked alert but did not have weapons in hand. I stood up with my AK-47 pointed lazily in between them. I heard everyone behind me move into position to cover as well. One of the Koreans went for his pistol. I saw his forehead explode and brains and bits of skull flew out the back of his head onto the other soldier’s shoulder.

  The other soldier just stood there. I motioned for him to put his hands in the air and he did. Catori moved forward and knocked the guy on the ground then wrapped some tape around him a few times. If we ever run out of duct tape I’m absolutely going to pack my stuff up and leave this apocalypse. I moved forward and squatted down beside the guy. He was whispering something in Korean. I asked if he spoke English and got nothing back.

  I stood up and reached down to drag him to his feet. Then I flipped him around and told Reeves and Ann to get the other body searched so we could try and figure out where this ass hat had come from. I waited a minute and then shoved the guy back the way he had come. He looked back at me and I shoved the barrel of my rifle into his face hard enough to crack some of his teeth. He turned around and seemed to just be shaking. I kicked him directly in the ass then pushed him hard enough to knock him down on his face in the direction he had come from.

  I needed him to take us the way he had come from. I needed a hooked-on phonics Korean translation book. I kept pushing him and he eventually seemed to get it. He moved more confidently down the hallway to an external door. He paused to look out the window beside the door. Then he turned and looked at me and I bashed him in the face with the rifle stock and stared at him until he stood back up. He did so slowly, then he opened the door and started walking briskly towards the interstate embankment. We all followed him. It was sunny out now and we piqued the curiosity of a couple of Zombies who headed in our direction. One of them figured out we were normal and started screaming and running for us. The Korean was sprinting for a large wooden access hatch. He got to it and flipped it open and jumped down in it.

  Entry 33: The Flood Tunnels

  I started sprinting when I saw Reeves fighting to try and keep the access hatch open. He must have won the fight as he flipped the hatch open and turned around to cover us as we all ran for the opening. I took a quick look behind me and then tried to pick up the pace. We’d attracted a large number of Zombies who were screaming and heading towards us. I saw Reeves take start firing. I assumed he was taking out the ones he thought would reach us before we made the hatch. The noise from the gun shots would alert the Zombies and Koreans that we were in town but not much we could do about that now.

  Reeves was waving into the hole as we got there. Catori and Ann didn’t even slow down but just jumped feet first into the hole. Marg skidded to a stop to try and see where he was jumping and I shoved him in then used him as a human sled. We landed in a pile of cursing humanity I assumed to be Catori and Ann. I felt bad about being on the top of the pile until Ginny’s combat boot bounced off my forehead as she jumped into the concrete tunnel. The circle of light above us went away as Reeves got the hatch shut. He fumbled with the locking mechanism in the dark but were still alive so I felt he’d done a stellar job.

  I stood up and turned on the light on my phone to look down the tunnel. It went in the direction of the Luxor as far as I could see which meant it must cross under the interstate. I saw a lump crawling out of reach of my light. I looked back at Reeves who was digging through his pockets for his flashlight. Catori beat him to it and turned on a much more powerful flashlight that lit up the tunnel in front of us. This illuminated the crawling lump who was the Korean we had followed down this rabbit hole. He was bleeding from a couple of places on his back.

  We all moved forward until we surrounded him. He stopped crawling and rolled over to stare up at us. Reeves must have won the fight for the hatch by getting a few rounds into the guy. He was saying some Korean shit. I hit him hard in the head with my framing hammer and his head flopped on the ground as his body gave out. Marg went down on a knee beside the guy and started sawing away on his scalp. The dude wasn’t even dead and Marg was scalping him. We were going to need to get Ginny into therapy pretty soon. Hell, I could use some time talking out my feelings on a couch.

  We all walked on as Marg finished his work on the guy’s head and finished him off by shoving the scalping knife into the guys neck. If we did get cornered by the Koreans we better all just save a bullet for ourselves because they were not going to be merciful if they figured out who we were and put that together with what we’d been doing to theirs. I assumed they’d get pretty creative around how we ended up dying if they had a choice.

  We were walking down a wide concrete tunnel that had other concrete tunnels branching off it. The other tunnels were smaller but seemed to be the same general thing. The floor was damp and had standing water in some places. The ceiling was about ten feet high and the tunnel we were currently in was probably twenty feet wide. There was graffiti along the sides of it and some of the side tunnels looked like the homeless had turned them into hobo bungalows.

  Except for the flashlights and my phone, the tunnel was completely dark. We kept moving in the direction the main tunnel was taking us. I started checking my watch and having us stop every five minutes and just listen. We’d turn off all the lights and just focus on trying to hear anything that may be going on. We didn’t hear anything too crazy while doing that but about ten minutes into the march we had just turned our light back on when we heard a loud scraping noise. I ordered everyone to go dark and silent.

  Now we could all hear what sounded like people coming down into the tunnel and heading this way. We also saw some light starting to show up at the other end of the tunnel. We backtracked until we got to one of the side tunnels. We all climbed up into it a
nd hid about twenty feet down it behind an old moldy box spring. We lay in the cold, stagnant, nasty water waiting for the interlopers to pass by. Hoping they weren’t very thorough about scouting out the side tunnels when they came through.

  The noise of the people coming down the tunnel was getting pretty substantial. The tunnel was well lit in front of us. It was bright enough that I was worried we were going to be exposed huddled behind the old box spring. Our hiding spot had looked a lot better in the dark. Too late to worry about it now. All we could do was be still and will them not to look in our direction.

  They started passing by. It looked like they’d sent out a sizeable patrol to check out the noises and see what was going on with the missing patrols and sentries. I counted twenty soldiers who passed us before the light in the tunnel faded back to darkness. It occurred to me we should have shoved the dead Koreans body down a side tunnel. There hadn’t been any right there when Marg finished the guy off and we hadn’t thought about it after leaving the scalp-less corpse to bleed out. We had about five minutes before they would stumble on the body and come back down the tunnel a lot more alertly.

  We should have booby trapped the body. I’m a pretty awesome leader in hindsight. I needed to start thinking of this shit in real time. I took a second to think about our next move. We could hit the Koreans who had just passed us in the back right now while they weren’t expecting it. We could go further down this side tunnel and hope it went somewhere useful. Finally, we could go out the tunnel and try to sneak in wherever the Koreans had come out of.