Zombies! (Book 5): Greater Love Hath No Man

by Merritt, R. S.

  Sitting in the woods for another thirty minutes after Rodriguez left waiting for something to happen was the most relaxation Kyler had gotten in a while. Other than the fear that a Zombie may decide to wander over at any second and attack them it was pretty pleasant. It smelt nice out in the woods to and he was enjoying just sitting there feeling a slight breeze across his face. The forest had always been his happy place. It brought back memories of his dad. He was completely relaxed when the sound of a horn and some idiot yelling loudly in Spanish drifted to them on the breeze.

  The screeching started instantly as all the Zombies ran in the direction of the interstate seeking out the source of all the noise. Krantz and Kyler were too deep in the woods to hear anything once the screeching started. They quickly crawled back to where they could see the plane clearly again. It looked like all the Zombies had taken off except for one crawling along the ground where it’d evidently broken its leg jumping out of the plane. Other than the one on the ground it looked like they were golden.

  Not caring to waste any more time Krantz stood up and jogged over to the one crawling along the ground. It never even turned around to look at him. Krantz just slammed his hammer into the back of its head twice and then walked over to the open hatch leading into the plane. Kyler met him there. From where they were standing, they couldn’t see anything except a couple of leather-bound chairs. The inside of the plane was tilted at an awkward angle. Wishing there was a better option Kyler grimaced at Krantz who was waggling his eyebrows at him and standing by the door with his fingers interlaced together ready to give Kyler a boost.

  Kyler put one hand on the bottom of the door and his booted foot in Krantz’s interlaced hands. Hoping he wasn’t fixing to come face to face with a Zombie he climbed into the open hatchway. He turned around after verifying there were no Zombies waiting inside to eat him and helped Krantz climb up. Nothing looked out of the ordinary in the small sitting room they were in. It was obviously an expensive plane based on all the white marble tile work and expensive looking carpet. Other than a few bright red stains Kyler didn’t see anything very ominous.

  Krantz walked over to the door leading to the next section of the plane. Kyler walked over to join him. Based on how nice the area they were in now looked Kyler wondered how nice the first-class section must look. Expecting to have to break the door down Kyler was pleasantly surprised when Krantz just slid open the entrance to the next section. If the Zombies had figured that out, they could’ve been feasting on the meat in the next room.

  There was a blood covered man wearing camo seat belted upright in a chair with a couple of holes in his chest. Another guard was crumpled in the corner with a bone sticking out of his arm and a gunshot wound. In the cockpit they found two bodies. One of an older man who must’ve been the pilot and another man in camouflage who’d been shot in the head. They looked around but couldn’t find the bodies of any kids or women. Krantz took some quick pictures of each of the other bodies. Kyler helped by yanking up their shirts so they could identify which ones had Brotherhood brands. All the bodies except the pilot had the brands.

  “We’re either on the wrong plane or the prisoners they’re trying so hard to catch managed to kill the guards and escape with a bunch of kids.” Krantz whispered.

  Kyler shrugged. He had no idea how the Cleavers could’ve overpowered the soldiers who’d been on this plane, but it looked like they had. Which meant they were still responsible for trying to track them down. He wondered if maybe Krantz’s other guess was right and the family hadn’t been on this plane after all. The discarded handcuffs and the SpongeBob DVDs seemed to argue for the Cleavers having been on board though. To have pulled this off the Cleavers must’ve gone all Incredibles on their captors.

  Krantz dug through the expensive looking whiskey behind the bar pulling out a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue Label. He winked over at Kyler.

  “Need to reward Rodriguez for the distraction idea and execution. That saved us a lot of work. Looks like the family made it out. Time for us to head over to Ground Balls or wherever...”

  Chapter 17: Roughing It

  “What?” Randy asked Kelly. She’d given him a look after he mentioned trying to find some ATVs and head out into the woods.

  “You almost killed your daughter on a Jet Ski. You’ve told me about the moped you totaled when you were a kid. You have no clue which way north or south is unless there’s a sign on the side of the road telling you which way to go. You complained the whole weekend we spent at Camp Wilderness. That’s where Mickey Mouse camps.” Kelly stopped talking assuming she’d made her point.

  “If we go in the woods, they can’t find us. If we stay here, they can.”

  “If they find us, we shoot them then go into the woods. I just think we’re safer in a gun battle than with you driving us around on a three-wheeler. What are we supposed to eat in the woods? Where do we sleep? There aren’t any walls to hide behind so now we’re out in the open every night just waiting for a Zombie to meander over and kill us.” Kelly said. She had more she wanted to say but she thought that should be enough. Her husband was a smart man, but he could be a complete moron sometimes.

  Randy stared at his wife. He loved her but she could be a real pain in the ass sometimes. He wasn’t going to try and be Evil Knievel on a freaking three-wheeler with his toddler in his lap. He decided they should probably see if they could find something that looked safe enough to her but would still work for them to take off road as needed. They were in a subdivision full of expensive homes in the heart of the South. There was absolutely guaranteed to be some nice adult toys in some of these garages. That thought led to him thinking of something else as well.

  “There should be guns in these houses too.” Randy brought up. The first day of hunting season was second only to Christmas as the major holiday in this part of the world. At least half the houses in this complex were probably full of well stocked gun cabinets. He was hoping some of them weren’t locked. Gun safes were the absolute bane of looting houses in the apocalypse.

  “I talk about trying to be safe and the first thing you think of is trying to find more guns?” Kelly asked with a smile. Then she stepped forward and kissed him.

  “I love you too. Now let’s go get the kids and see if we can’t find something to drive or a good place to hide. We need to keep an ear out for that helicopter too. Not to mention any men they decide to send to check out the town.”

  They went and grabbed the kids and brought them across the street into the house they’d been sitting in. There was canned food in the pantry and an old case of bottled waters for them to drink. Bugs and rats had eaten through a lot of the packaged food that’d been in the pantry. They’d crashed in enough abandoned houses by now to be used to a certain level of rat and bug infestation. None of them really liked actually seeing the rodents or bugs though. Kelly supposed you never really got used to waking up with a rat or a roach crawling across your arm. Then again, she’d never have guessed in a million years that there’d come a day she’d feel comfortable handing her teenaged girls guns and leaving them to watch over the littles in a house full of decaying corpses.

  Randy led the way over to the gate in the side yard of the house they were leaving the kids in. They ducked out that gate and into the gate of the neighboring home. They’d each grabbed some tools from the garage to use to quietly deal with any Zombies they ran into. Randy was rocking a hammer and a pair of work gloves. Kelly had a hoe. Her plan was to push any Zombies away from her then either beat the crap out of them with the hoe or let Randy kill it. Randy thought it was just a cop out to try and avoid getting blood and brain bits all over the new clothes she’d just changed into.

  He was hoping the next garage might have some better hand weapons. That wishful thinking was fulfilled in spades when they broke in the back door of the next home. From the Tolkien posters on the wall to the pictures of a chubby guy wearing chainmail and sporting a horrible goatee it was fully possible this may be one o
f the best houses ever for hand weapons. That supposition was proven accurate as they stood in a room staring at everything from polearms to morning stars. Unfortunately, they were the nerfed-out versions that were used at the renaissance faires for nerds to pretend to kill each other.

  Above the fireplace mantle was a huge broadsword that turned out to be welded onto the hooks holding it to the wall. Randy figured that out when he tried to pull the sword off the hooks while balancing on the mantle. The sword didn’t come out but the anchors holding up the mounting hooks did and down came Randy, a good chunk of the fireplace and the heavy ass fake sword. Kelly stared at the resulting mess trying to contain her laughter. Not that her laughter mattered too much after all the noise Randy had just made. Pulling half the wall down plus the big sword on top of himself while falling into a glass covered coffee table with a Narnia chess set had made a good bit of noise.

  Randy reached a hand up into the air for Kelly to help him up. She helped him halfway up before letting his hand go and stepping back with a startled look on her face. A pissed off and hurting Randy started to say something rude before noticing the look. He followed her stare up to the balcony on the top of the stairs where a Zombie dressed in a full suit of armor was standing. The full suit of armor included a helmet that had the visor pulled down. It looked like the visor was tilted forward which could be blocking its sight. That would explain why it wasn’t screeching and flinging itself off the balcony to try and get at them.

  Kelly looked down at Randy and shrugged sticking her hand back down for him to grab. Trying to move much more quietly this time Randy pulled himself up out of the wreckage of the coffee table and the debris from the wall avalanche he’d caused. The Zombie on the balcony grunting and moving around every time a brick shifted or some other bit of noise escaped Randy’s attempt to quietly excavate himself.

  Once Randy was standing back up, they took in the sight of the medieval monster on the balcony. Randy glanced back and forth from the hammer he had in his hand to the hoe Kelly had leaned against the bottom part of the fireplace. Trying to beat a Zombie in the head who was wearing a metal helmet probably wasn’t the best idea. He didn’t think the hoe was going to be very useful either. He stored that comment up in his head to share with his wife once they’d taken care of the plague ravaged knight upstairs.

  He spun quietly around on his heel and headed into the kitchen. On the countertop was a knife block with some expensive looking knives sticking out of it. Randy grabbed two of the biggest knives and walked back into the main room. He handed one of the knives to Kelly. She took it but didn’t look super thrilled with what he was implying. He was going to have to stop letting her change into clean clothes because every time she did this happened. A day from now she’d be covered in blood and mud strangling Zombies to death with her bra but for today she was clean and deadset on staying that way.

  Randy sighed and headed for the foot of the stairs. His idea was to get the Zombie to hear him, so it came down the stairs. As it passed him, he’d go over the railing and stab the thing through the back of its neck. Assuming the helmet didn’t go down too far. From this angle it looked like it was probably pulled up on the neck so he should be good. Otherwise he’d just knock it on the ground, pull off the helmet and have at it.

  He got into position at the base of the stairs and smacked the knife blade on the metal railing a few times to make some noise. His goal was to get the Zombie interested enough to come down the stairs without guaranteeing an uninfected human was standing at the bottom of the stairs. In other words, he wanted the Zombie to come investigate without screeching it’s head off and summoning every other Zombie in the neighborhood.

  The Zombie took the bait. At the sound of the knife blade dinging off the railing it spun around and ran for the stairs. Not being able to see it misjudged the stairs and tripped at a high rate of speed. The Zombie tumbled down the stairs end over end to come to rest on the floor by Randy’s feet. Stunned into being motionless for a second Randy quickly recovered and jumped on the motionless Zombies back. He ripped off the helmet and spun the head to the side to get at the neck easier.

  The Zombie already looked like it was dead, but Randy wasn’t big on taking chances. As long as he was down there, he might as well stab the hell out of the thing. He shoved the knife into the Zombies throat a few times and watched as the blood slowly drained out of it. That convinced him the Zombie really was dead. If it’s heart was still beating, then blood would’ve been spurting all over the place.

  “Remember when you used to take me to a nice restaurant, and we’d split a bottle of wine then I’d nap through whatever movie I picked out for us to watch?” Kelly said looking down at her husband as he hacked away with a bloody kitchen knife at the obviously dead, armor wearing, chubby Zombie. Randy smiled at her then stood up to survey his handy work.

  “Bite mark on the foot. Dude should’ve put his boots on first.” Randy said pointing out the bite mark on the man’s bare right foot.

  “Rookie mistake.” Kelly agreed sarcastically. “Let’s go upstairs and hope he has some real weapons up there. I’m not trying to encourage any more of your stupid hoe jokes.”

  They walked up the stairs giving the Zombie a wide berth. They were used to death but didn’t see any need to wallow in it. At the top of the stairs was a loft area with a hallway off it leading to some upstairs bedrooms. The loft area itself was made up like a Dungeon Masters lair. Not the weird leather wearing, whip wielding kind of dungeon master where you needed a safe word. This was more the dorky storyteller version with the fifty-sided dice and volumes of books to distinguish between a dragon and an elderberry beast or whatever.

  This room had a rack on the wall with actual swords on it. It also had a calendar of scantily clad women with pointy ears riding wolves. They found throwing stars that they both deemed useless and a couple of versions of medieval battle ax replicas that looked really useful. Bemused by the house they’d stumbled into they lugged the weapons back over to the house with the girls in it. The girls were sitting around the kitchen table eating a variety of beans and SpaghettiOs. They’d covered up the corpses with towels and blankets they’d found around the house. They took the delivery of the medieval weapons cache in stride.

  “I’ll take the dwarf battle ax.” Myriah said.

  “Long spear thing for me.” Caitlyn said looking over the pile of Lords of the Ring crap her parents had just dragged in. She’d thought they were looking for weapons to fight the Brotherhood with. Good luck stopping an attack helicopter with a replica of King Arthurs sword.

  “I wonder if he got all this stuff out of the sky mall magazine?” Kelly asked.

  “That actually makes a lot of sense.” Randy responded. Put a rich renaissance fair regular on an airplane a few times a week with that magazine and a credit card and boom. He’d always wondered who the hell bought stuff like replicas of the one ring. Now he guessed he knew.

  Kelly had left her hoe at the renaissance house. She’d switched it out for a much cooler looking spear thing. Randy had held onto his hammer but was now carrying a small ax as well. He thought the samurai sword he’d found was a lot more practical than the heavy broadsword he’d also dragged over. Either one was a step up from swinging a machete in an open-air fight. For close in work like quietly clearing houses he still wanted to stick with hatchet and machete sized weapons. Kelly obviously just wanted to keep the Zombies as far from her as possible until Randy had a chance to whack them in the head with his hammer.

  “Should we hit some more houses and see what they have or try and make a run for it?” Kelly asked.

  “I don’t think we want to be out in the open when the helicopter could come swooping in at any second. We need to wait for it to get dark to make our move. We might as well see if we can find anything useful.” Randy answered preoccupied with trying to see over the fence by standing on the chair on the back porch. He supposed he should just go upstairs to try and look around from one of t
hose windows instead.

  “You do remember at nighttime those pilots will have night vison and the soldiers all carry those goggles that let them see in the dark right?” Caitlyn said.

  Caitlyn’s comment threw the whole plan for a loop. Kelly and Randy had still been operating with the avoiding the Zombies mindset. Once you added in helicopters and night vision and all that the complexity level increased about a million times. Plus, the soldiers up here seemed to be more along the lines of professional, full-time warriors versus most of the ones they’d dealt with in Florida. In Georgia the Senator had managed to keep most of the reserves and national guard intact. He’d made his coup legal by moving every fighting man in the state of Georgia under the command of the national guard. In the absence of any other commander in chief the Senator had assumed that responsibility and moved to seal off the state and contain the viral epidemic.

  Even with the Senator moving fast they’d still lost hundreds of thousands of soldiers. Once they found out their wives and children weren’t safe most of the men didn’t heed the call to stand their posts. They left to go protect their families. The ones who did stay in the barracks risked getting infected because of the close proximity to each other. To solve the problem of men deserting they began rounding up the immediate family of the officers and senior enlisted men and putting them in guarded camps to ‘keep them safe’. It was soon well known your family was only safe if you toed the line and did as you were ordered. Right or wrong this approach had made it so that Georgia ended up with about ten times more survivors than any other state east of the Mississippi.