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

by Merritt, R. S.

  The local warlord didn’t have much of a chance really. Another hour of waiting and Roberts signaled for everyone to get back in the helicopter. They’d been sitting in a field in the middle of nowhere with a couple soldiers including Rodriguez and Kyler on Zombie sniping detail. That meant they had to stand outside and shoot any Zombies they saw. They were in a remote enough location where the noise didn’t really matter. They were going to be leaving soon anyway and the sounds of the rotors were louder than a hundred gunshots.

  They all piled back into the helicopter and flew for about fifteen minutes before landing on a small island next to a large group of men. All of the men were armed except for the five bloodied prisoners sitting on the ground with their hands bound together by zip ties. The island with the warlord on it had been taken quickly and efficiently. The warlord may have the same number of armed men, but he had nowhere close to the same number of real soldiers the Brotherhood boasted. The warlord had retreated to the island to plan the defense against the helicopters coming through the mountains. The ground attack had caught him completely by surprise.

  Roberts stepped out of the helicopter and went to speak with the men in charge of the group who’d taken the island. Once he’d spoken to them, he walked past the prisoners again and spoke on the radio for a few minutes. Then he stood by and waited while another helicopter landed on the island. Above them two more of the gunships flittered around like giant deadly hummingbirds as a constant threat to anyone who may decide to try something stupid.

  A tall man in a suit with a long black jacket got out and walked towards the prisoners. Curious what the man was talking about Kyler walked over so he could hear better. A fierce looking man with a very lethal looking Uzi eyed Kyler aggressively as he started getting too close to the man. Deciding he didn’t care enough to get any closer Kyler stood where he was to listen in.

  The Senator met Roberts halfway and shook his hand. Then he walked over to the defeated warlord.

  “You know who I am right?” He asked the man. The man looked up and nodded. The nod earned him a slap to the back of the head from one of the armed men standing behind him. The Senator just stood there until the man remembered his manners.

  “You’re the man who controls Florida and Georgia. The Senator.” He finally said.

  “Very good. Except now I also control Tennessee and we might as well say Alabama as well. Although Alabama has completely fallen apart so there’s no real control there per se. You now report to Roberts here. Your mission is to continue expanding throughout the state like you’ve been doing. Only now you do it our way and we own you. The only reason you’re not dead is because it’s easier to take over the land if I just can take over an existing governing structure. Otherwise it’s just a big mess of hillbillies and Zombies like Alabama is. Do you understand?”

  “Yeah.” The man said defiantly.

  “Hmmm…. I don’t think you do. Bring his family.” The Senator said. He turned around and one of his aides handed him a pair of wire cutters. The Senator waited until an attractive blond woman and three little blond kids were dragged in front of him. The woman and two of the kids were crying. The teen boy was staring at the Senator with hatred spewing out of his eyes. The Senator pointed at the boy and the men holding him smashed him to the ground and held up his hand.

  “Wait. I understand completely. We’re good sir.” The once defiant warlord was now groveling. He may be a hard man, but the Senator knew how to quickly find a man’s weak spot. He smiled at the warlord then snipped off one of the boys fingers. The boy joined his sisters and mom in bawling.

  “Now you understand. We’re going to arrange for your family to stay at one of our camps in Georgie where they’ll be safe while you work on turning Tennessee into a territory that I can be proud of. If you do a good enough job you may even get to be in charge of a region of it. Now do you understand?” The Senator asked again.

  “Yes sir.” The broken man said.

  “Excellent. Now I believe you. Do what you’re told, and you’ll be seeing your family again in no time. Screw around and we’ll send you pieces to remember them by.”

  The Senator turned and got back in his helicopter. The wife and three children were shoved in with him. The helicopter took off immediately disappearing into the distance with its escort. The man on the ground stared after the helicopter with a heartbroken expression until it finally blinked out of sight.

  “That was efficient as hell.” Rodriguez said. Kyler nodded in agreement. Efficient and evil. He felt like he needed a shower just for being on the Senators side. He wondered if they’d be issued storm trooper armor anytime soon. He stared at the small finger lying in the dirt.

  Chapter 21: The Clearers

  Kelly stood in one of the upstairs bedrooms with the curtains open to let in the light. She had a couple of towels and a jug of water she’d found out in the garage that she was using to try and clean herself off. She had a pile of clothes on the bed she’d hauled from the master suite downstairs to try on. She’d completely stripped down for her sponge bath which meant she’d already had to chase Randy out of the room. All of the kids were sitting around the room with her. It made her nostalgic for the old days when the kids would all congregate wherever she ended up at in the house to talk and play. She’d felt like she never got a second alone but when she did it always felt a little off until one of the kids would end up rambling into her.

  “You think they’ll come back?” Myriah asked. She’d asked that question five different ways already that day.

  “I don’t think so. There’s a lot of places for them to search for us so I doubt they’ll check here twice. The longer it takes them to find us the less important we’re going to become.” Kelly answered patiently. She couldn’t exactly get mad at Myriah for asking if the bad men were going to come back and try to kill them again any time soon. It was a legitimate thing for a teenaged girl to be freaked out over.

  “I keep thinking it’ll be like when someone escapes from prison. They’re all over the news for a few days then it just kind of fades away unless they’re caught.” Caitlyn added.

  “Zoey! Do not feed your little sister the noodles falling out of my hair!” Kelly said emphatically to a giggling Zoey who was being egged on by an equally guilty looking Ali. Kelly smiled down at them as she gently nudged Doreen towards Caitlyn. It wasn’t like a little ‘hair-ghetti’ as Zoey was calling it was going to be the worst thing to happen to Doreen in the last few weeks.

  Kelly didn’t really feel clean, but she felt much better than she had before. She couldn’t actually remember the last time she’d really felt clean. One of her requirements for their forever home was a nearby lake or river so they could rig up some kind of hot water shower. She didn’t think that was too much to ask for. It was amazing how her life goals had been reduced to wanting a hovel somewhere remote that had a place you could pour lukewarm water on your head every once in a while. It’d be pretty luxurious if each of them got to have their own bathroom bucket as well she thought wryly.

  She finished dressing and headed downstairs leaving Myriah and Caitlyn to stand watch for an hour or two. She was planning on taking a quick cat nap then letting the girls sleep until early afternoon before switching off. None of them had gotten any sleep the night before. Even after the soldiers had withdrawn, they’d all been too wired to fall asleep. Except for the littles. They’d been so happy to be out of the trunk that they’d all passed right out. Kelly doubted they even really understood that men had come to the house trying to kill them. She was happy they didn’t seem to know that.

  Randy was downstairs using a shovel to move the dried-up cadavers on the floor of the living room to the formal dining room area. He was planning on pouring detergent all over them to help with the smell and then covering them up with a tablecloth. He just couldn’t take watching the kids run around playing by a bunch of dead bodies any longer. He knew that kids grew accustomed to new environments and experiences much faster th
an adults. He still didn’t want to live in a world where using a dead body as the target for a coin toss game by a bunch of pre-teens was considered normal.

  “If any men come in here searching for us, they’re going to take one whiff and know someone’s been here.” Kelly said snaking her arms around his waist. She was referring to the heavy smell of Febreze in the air. Randy had found a few cans of air freshener in the hallway closet and immediately went to town. He’d thought Kelly would love the idea of being in a house that didn’t smell like dead bodies had been marinating in it for years.

  “If they try to come in just act like a Zombie again and scare them away.” Randy responded. He’d been disappointed to find out she’d come down the stairs fully dressed.

  “Your turn. I just got all that crap out of my hair and I think I’m missing a chunk of my tongue. Anyway. Nap time. I told Cait and Myriah that we’d sleep for an hour or two then take over for the rest of the day. Hopefully we can be on the move by tonight. I feel way too exposed here. Last night was way too close.” Kelly finished with a haunted look in her eyes. She was remembering how close they’d come to getting caught the night before. How close they’d come to getting themselves killed and leaving their little girls stuck in a trunk to try and live through this hell all alone. Randy stepped in and held her for a few minutes until she felt herself getting her composure back.

  They went and lie down next to where the littles had all congregated in a pile of kicking feet and open mouth breathing in the middle of the mattress in the den. Randy joined them in slumber town minutes after crawling into the bed. Kelly lie awake a little longer stroking Doreen’s hair and taking the time to just adore her precious girls. Exhaustion finally carried her away despite her fears she wouldn’t be able to sleep. Her tears and drool mixing together to wet the sliver of pillow she was able to pry away from Zoey.

  Caitlyn shook them awake four hours later. Kelly looked at her phone confused on what time it was.

  “I couldn’t sleep. Myriah’s asleep upstairs. I just walked back and forth between the two rooms, but I can’t stay awake any longer.” Caitlyn was slurring her words she was so tired. Kelly quickly got up and gave her spot to Caitlyn. She went to wake up Randy then thought better of it. Hopefully the watch today was going to be a big waste of time so she might as well let him sleep. At least then then one of them would be coherent come nightfall. Judging by his snoring he wasn’t trying to wake up anytime soon anyway.

  Kelly walked up the stairs after grabbing another bottled water. She took a warm can of diet coke with her as well. It would inevitably turn out to be flat and tasteless, but she was hoping that didn’t impact the caffeine content. She was pretty sure that expired soda wouldn’t kill you any faster than fresh soda would. At the top of the stairs she looked out all the windows in the back of the house again before throwing a blanket over Myriah. She’d fallen asleep sitting up in a lounge chair in the loft looking out the window facing the front of the neighborhood.

  Kelly popped the top on the warm can of chemicals blended together to produce the addictive liquid that mimicked the taste of the also-addictive sugar filled variety. It tasted pretty bad, but anything was better than another bottle of melted plastic flavored warm water. Considering the sodas used metal that didn’t melt in the heat and combine with the liquid they were containing it might be healthier than bottled water at this point. Not that it really mattered. They should be so lucky to live long enough to die from some sort of bottled water plastic related cancer.

  Bored and tired Kelly snooped through the long dead homeowners possessions. The game room had a bookshelf with a bunch of photo albums lining one of the shelves. The ones you could order online after uploading the pictures you wanted in it. Kelly had loved the ones they’d had at their old house. She wished she’d been able to hold onto them. She very much doubted she’d be able to open up Amazon and pull her pictures out of the ‘cloud’ anytime soon. She had zero desire to try and fight their way back down to Florida to retrieve anything either. All she really valued in this world was currently sleeping under the roof of this oversized crypt.

  She was looking through pictures of a trip the family had taken to Nashville when motion from the street caught her eye. She looked out the window and saw two large Penske moving vans rolling into the neighborhood. Both of the trucks had chain link fencing welded around the fronts and tops of them. They had slits cut through multiple places in the back. A ladder was welded to the side of the Penske so that you could climb to the top of it.

  On the top of each of the trucks were mounted machine guns surrounded by boxes full of ammunition. Men in camouflage stood on the top of the trucks smoking and staring dead eyed into the homes they were driving past. The chain link fencing welded around the tops of the trucks was beat to hell. It looked like it’d still serve the purpose of stopping any of the adrenalized Zombies from just jumping up on top of the Penske to chomp away on whoever was manning the guns.

  These were the clearers. These were the men who were sent to clear out the towns and cities so that the looters could go in and collect everything to be brought back to the warehouse to be stored. Like the men who’d jumped off the boats at Normandy these guys knew their life expectancy could be measured in hours once they rolled into one of these towns to get to work. Once the bullets started flying and the Zombies started swarming their job was to stand up and bring the fight.

  Despite the short life expectancy, it was a billet that most of the looters eagerly volunteered for. The only path to promotion the looters had was to get selected to be a clearer and perform well in that capacity. A good clearer who managed to stay alive for a year was eligible to be promoted into the regular people’s army. Once in the people’s army they’d get privileges like being able to visit with their families on a regular basis. The pecking order in the Brotherhood controlled states had been hacked out in blood and sacrifice. The Senator finding a way to control everyone by offering what they most wanted. Protection for their loved ones. That same protection encouraged loyalty by separating them from their loved ones until you did well enough to get to see them again. The system had come together so gradually most of the people hadn’t even noticed it was happening until it was already done.

  The clearers had been ordered here to clear the town. They’d do their best to kill every Zombie within the city limits. Once they’d killed all the Zombies that would come at them, they’d go door to door clearing the homes. For the clearers that survived doing all of that then they’d start all over in a new neighborhood once this one was done. If they were swarmed by more Zombies than they could kill, they’d go ‘turtle’ on them. That meant they’d all retreat into the cargo bay of the truck and sit quietly until the Zombies left. Lots of times the Zombies swarms would dissipate overnight, and they’d just continue the fighting the next day. Sometimes they’d end up stuck in the truck for a few days waiting for the Zombies to clear out. They kept at least a week’s worth of food in the truck at all times.

  The driver of each truck was typically the most senior person on the team. They were the ones who were up for promotion into the ranks of the army soon. They were desperate to prove themselves while also being wary of dying before they got their promotion. They were in charge of using the radio to communicate status back to HQ. HQ kept a map of all the sites that’d been cleared and were ready to be looted. The team leads as they were called directed the team locally via walkie and were responsible for making sure no houses were skipped. In addition to the regular clearing job they’d also been given photocopies of a family of traitors that they should be on the lookout for. If they found them, it meant instant promotions for the team.

  Kelly watched from the upstairs window as the trucks positioned themselves to block the main entrance. They parked back to back at the entrance completely blocking the road coming into the subdivision. Men climbed up the sides of the vans moving into position. Kelly stared down at the activity wondering what the men were getting read
y for exactly. She grabbed Myriah’s shoulder and shook her awake.

  “Go get your dad. Wake up Caitlyn. Tell your dad to come up here and tell Caitlyn to get everybody ready downstairs but stay quiet and hidden. You got it?”

  “What do you want me to do?” Myriah asked. Kelly saw the fear in Myriah’s eyes. The poor girls lips were already quivering, and she looked close to tears. Kelly felt bad about telling Myriah they’d be safe there today. Obviously, they’d been wrong to think it’d be safe to stay here another day. It was a mistake that may end up costing them everything.

  “I want you to come up here with your dad. I may need you to be the messenger between us and Caitlyn. I’m sorry they came back honey. Make sure your pistol is ready to go and you can get to it. We may need them.” Kelly said.