“This isn’t working as well as I thought,” Chris yelled over the din of the engine after they had passed the undead at the end of the driveway. “Swing around to the house for a sec, I got a better idea.” Buffey did so and returned to the front porch of the house. Ashleigh stood in amazement of the carnage that the two had accomplished. They had taken out over a half dozen of the infected. Chris darted inside of the house and reappeared seconds later with one of the chainsaws that Buffey had got earlier.
“Wait that’s too loud!” Buffey yelled, but it was too late. He set it down and pulled the cord on the saw and it roared to life. He picked it back up, got back into the passenger seat, and looked at Buffey, who was fuming. “That is gonna attract a shitload of those things!” she screamed.
“Yeah but we gonna take care of all of them at once right now!” Chris hollered back. Buffey did not like the idea of getting more of the zombies in the vicinity, but Chris was right. They could take out all of the immediate threats and watch for more to come, if they did. She again gave the ATV gas and moved toward the crowd of undead that was now extremely agitated at the sound of the chainsaw. Chris steadied the saw at eye-level of the zombies and held the throttle wide open. The zombie’s heads, one by one, were sheared off as the T-Rex with its chainsaw bayonet tore through them like a hot knife through butter. They repeated the process until the last of the living dead was permanently deceased.
The yard of the normally peaceful home looked like a war zone. The decapitated and crushed zombies now lay scattered all throughout the lawn. The T-Rex was covered in the remains of long-dead zombies and its normal red color was now a sickening mix of chunks of brown and gray. The smell was atrocious. Buffey and Chris came back to the front porch and surveyed the damage.
“Well at least we smell like them now, maybe they will leave us be for a while,” Ashleigh said and crinkled her nose. She also knew that this was a temporary solution to a permanent problem, as more undead would eventually make their way to them. Chris firing up the chainsaw had not helped matters any as far as being quiet, but it did get the job done on their current batch of infected that had invaded.
“Yeah that pretty much takes care of our current situation, but what is gonna happen when they come back or if we just rang the dinner bell for a hundred more?” Buffey said angrily, glaring at Chris.
“We will burn that bridge when we get to it. We needed to keep ‘em away and the smell will do that. It will overpower our scent, if we actually have one. Trust me, we are better now that we took all of these out,” Chris said, motioning toward the disaster area that was the front yard. Buffey was angry with Chris but she had to agree. There would be no way in hell that the undead would be attracted if indeed they could smell the living.
After they were inside and secured the door back, Rickey came out of his room. During all the commotion, no one seemed to notice that he had not said anything throughout the ordeal of killing the zombies on the lawn. He had heard his Daddy and Chris shoot guns outside before and had heard him use the chainsaw before as well. Rickey did not like the chainsaw as it reminded him of a character in one of Daddy’s video games that he was not allowed to play. He did not like shooting the guns either. Joe had offered to let him learn how to shoot the .22 that he had and Rickey had balked at the idea. Joe figured that Rickey was old enough to learn, and now that the world had fallen apart, it would become a necessity. Rickey wandered into the living room to see Mommy and Chris taking off bloody clothes and putting them in a trash bag. They smelled bad, too.
“What are you guys doing!” he exclaimed. Buffey, Chris, and Ashleigh all exchanged looks and finally Buffey spoke up.
“We need to talk to you, honey, about what is going on.”
“Ooookay,” Rickey said hesitantly.
“There were bad accidents all over the world and now the dead people are coming back to life, you know, zombies.” Buffey cringed at saying the zed word, but she figured now was not the time to lie. He needed to know exactly what was going on outside.
“Really! That is awesome! My daddy will take care of the zombies! He will just shoot ‘em in the head like on Left 4 Dead!” Buffey knelt down beside Rickey and put her hands on his shoulders and her eyes began to well up with tears.
“Daddy is stuck in Tazewell, but he is on his way here. I don’t know when he will be here, babe.” Buffey was nearly overtaken with emotion.
“It’s okay, Mommy, my Daddy will take care of us when he gets here. He knows all about how to get rid of the zombies,” Rickey said matter-of-factly.
Buffey wanted Rickey’s confidence, but she wished he were right.
She prayed he was right.
CHAPTER 7
Joe woke up in a sweat. He had another nightmare, this time about his family. He had fallen asleep on the couch in Jamie’s basement. They had made it to Jamie’s house with only a few of the undead in their path since parting ways with Larry. Joe sat up from the couch and swung his legs over, and began rubbing his temples. He went over to the TV. There were still broadcasts on, but none was of any use. They were repeating the same useless information. His nightmare almost disappeared from memory, fading away into his subconscious. He shook his head and cleared his mind. If he were going to make it home, he would not need distractions.
“You’re up, good, come here.” Jamie said noticing Joe was upright finally. Joe obliged and went to see what his partners were up to. He took a seat at the workbench and put his head down on the table in his arms.
“What’s up, man? You look like somebody just walked over your grave.” Donnie said. Donnie was a man of few words, so for him to notice Joe was out of sorts, he really must have been looking sorry. Joe turned to his friend; his eyes were baggy and tired. His ribs ached and his head was throbbing, most likely from a concussion in the accident.
“I had a horrible nightmare,” Joe said finally, “I was at my house in my backyard, and I was digging two graves. After I finished I crawled into one of them and the undead grabbed me and pulled me down. It was so surreal, but I felt like it was real, you know.”
Donnie patted Joe on the back reassuringly. “I think we all are gonna have those for the rest of our lives. This isn’t some shit you’re just gonna forget.”
Joe knew he was right, but he did not like facing that truth right now. He turned to Jamie, “You were saying.”
Jamie had assembled all the tools they would need for their journey and it was impressive. Each man had a three-day assault pack with a CamelBak that would hold 100 ounces of water. Joe would use his pack and CamelBak, and the rest would use Jamie’s assortment. They each had and AR-15 and a sidearm. Jamie had a SIG/Sauer P226, Donnie and Andrew both opted for a Glock 19, and Joe had a FNP9. They each had three pistol magazines, all of them 9mm with 15 rounds each mag. The AR-15‘s each had six magazines extra and one chambered for a total of 255 rounds total per man. The magazines were held in US Army, load-bearing vests (LBV’s). The three men looked at Jamie after laying out all of the equipment. Jamie grinned and said, “Hey, I like having my toys. Least I get to use ‘em now.”
“Damn, dude. Where do you get all this shit?” Andrew said as he tried on the LBV.
“I, uh, know a guy who knows a guy,” Jamie said, laughing. “I’m a gun dealer, so I get the guns at dealer price. I don’t have a wife or kids, so these are my babies.”
“Remind me not to ever piss you off.” Donnie retorted.
“Yeah, no shit.” Joe chimed in. “So what about our vehicle? We still gonna use 41?”
Jamie set aside his equipment and came around the bench. “Yeah, it’s our best bet. We can have a driver, somebody riding shotgun, one person at the side door and one at the back door. We will have everything covered three-hundred-sixty degrees.”
“Yeah, sounds good. The truck has all the medical supplies we could carry. We raided the ALS locker at the office before we came and got you.” Andrew said, motioning to Joe. “IV’s, meds, you name it, we got damn near all o
f it.”
“Right on!” Joe said. The medical supplies would be invaluable in their trip. Joe’s platoon sergeant had always said during their field training and exercises that ten percent of them would have an emergency while they were gone and to prepare for it. That number was compounded several times over now that the dead were walking. The medical supplies would take care of any emergencies that would inevitably pop up along the way.
“So when do we get to get our ass-kick on?” Donnie asked as he packed his supplies in his assault pack. “I figure we wait until about dusk and head out. No sense in trying to get out of town right now. Everybody is gonna try to leave immediately, which is gonna mean more people to deal with along the way. If we wait til dark, we won’t be able to see shit.”
“I agree, we wait til dusk. We get everything together now and wait for this evening. Like Donnie said, less to deal with.” Jamie added.
“Okay, well let’s go over the plan then.” Joe said.
Their scheme seemed as foolproof as they were going to get. They would wait til late in the evening and then make their way across town. The route would take them down Main Street in Tazewell, but avoiding the four-lane highway outside of town was essential. Most of the population had already fled, leaving the remains of Tazewell to the walking dead. They hoped that they would not run across many of the undead along the way, but that was only half of their worries. It was the people who were still in town, well armed and not wanting to differentiate living from undead. There were more guns than people in the area, and that fact was not lost on the four men. If they ran across any trouble, more than likely it would be from the people who were going to be looting and trying to establish the small mountain town as their own personal kingdom. There would be no bargaining with either these raiders or the undead. The men decided that they would use lethal force on anyone that posed a threat or actually threatened their lives. It was not a decision that they took lightly, but they were not about to be killed by some backwoods redneck out for a joyride with his double barrel. They did not have any suppressors for their weapons, so keeping quiet was their best option. They would not fire from the vehicle unless it was necessary. They were all well versed in guns, and there was no need for target practice or wasting ammo. They would make their way to the edge of town to Virginia Route 16 - their mainline through the mountains. Donnie said he would be parting ways after the crossed the first set of the three ranges. The remaining three men protested, but he insisted. The road he would take after he left them would take him directly home, to his kids and waiting ex-wife.
“How do you know they are even gonna be there?” Joe asked.
“The same way you know your wife and son are going to be waiting on you, man. I just know. I have that feeling you do, that they are safe and holed up at the house. I have a 9mm that she knows how to use. She was at the house babysitting the kids, and I doubt she would leave them or leave the house.”
The two fathers of the group agreed with each other. They both hoped that their families were safe and waiting on them, so the argument ceased. Donnie would leave them after the first mountain on foot, a man on a mission.
“Hey, come and look at this shit. We might need to do something about this, like soon." Andrew interrupted their conversation. He had been looking through the small window in the basement outside. Several of the undead were milling around outside and getting dangerously close to the small opening that Andrew was now peering through. The zombies that were outside looked as if they were searching for something.
Jamie taped black trash bags over the window that the undead had taken a liking to. The men had no idea what they were doing outside now, and did not care to get curious and find out. “How do they know we are in here?” Andrew asked, looking slightly annoyed that their cover had been found by the zombies.
“They smell us,” Joe said, walking toward the window. “Most zombie movies I saw they could smell the living. I don’t know how or why they do but we smell funny to them. Imagine you are a zombie, looking for your next meal, dude. We probably look like walking prime rib to them.”
“So how do we fix that?” Donnie asked.
“Well, we could get a few of em and cover ourselves in zombie blood and shit. We would smell like hell, but they would keep off.” Joe answered. “But on the flip side of that, we don’t know if it is contagious by any other means than just the bites and, personally I would rather not smell like a dead skunk’s asshole either.” Joe said, trying to lighten the mood. The men were worried about the unknown, which was their biggest problem at the time. They did not know much about their nemesis and that would make it very difficult to deal with them, especially in large numbers. They did not like waiting, either. The longer time went on the more the men had to think about the task that lay ahead of them, and the slow settling in of reality and what had conspired thus far. They sat silently, going through the equipment in solitude, none of them wanting to say what they were thinking.
“Okay, elephant in the room, why and how did this happen.” Jamie finally spoke, breaking the dead air.
“Hard to tell. Larry said the gas when it was concentrated was lethal. You died from it then it brought you back as a zombie. Now it’s in the atmosphere and the air that we are breathing. Now you can’t die from the gas but it still brings you back as one of them.” Joe said.
“And this shit was a couple thousand feet down, right? Like a mile down or so?” Andrew asked.
“Yeah. I remember my grandpa back in the day was a coal foreman. He said something about the something called the ‘coal gap’ happened around the same time as the dinosaurs became extinct. You hardly find any coal from that time period. Maybe this gas is like some kind of fucked up natural gas that was caused by whatever killed the dinosaurs,” Jamie explained.
“Yeah but why now and why all at once?” Donnie queried.
“Maybe it was under pressure or maybe it’s just shitty timing, maybe God, maybe it was a thousand other things that we have no fucking clue about. Truth is we have no idea what this is, why it happened, or how long it’s gonna last. Last I checked there are a shitload more dead people than living people on this planet and now all the dead ones are coming back. I think we best just get comfortable with the idea of zombies.” Joe blurted out. He tried not to get frustrated at the details of the current predicament, but he was trying to come to terms with the fact that many things were not going to change from now on. Joe realized that he was not helping matters any by yelling at his friends, either. “Look, guys I’m sorry. I just want to get this show on the road.”
Jamie, Donnie, and Andrew all approached him. “We do too. Just gotta keep your head in the game.” Donnie said. Donnie had his wife and kids to go after as well, and Joe knew that. He quickly apologized to the group and went about his business. He needed to stay focused on the task at hand.
They gathered all of their supplies and had those ready hours before they would leave out. The wait was killing them. They shaved, showered, ate, and slept for the next several hours. They had made it back to Jamie’s house around noon; it was now 5 PM. Joe anxiously paced around the basement.
“You know what, fuck it. You guys ready to get the hell out of here. I’m ready to go out there and get this fucking show on the road.” Joe grabbed his bug-out bag and weapon. The other men followed suit. They seemed as anxious to get out of the house as he was. They each checked their weapons and cinched their packs on. The sounds of the dead moaning outside were mixed in with approaching thunder, creating a cacophony of the macabre. The four men climbed the stairs single-file leading out of the basement and made their way to the front door. The sounds of shuffling feet meant that the dead were not far away outside. Donnie approached the door and peered out. There were three zombies milling about on the lawn and several more near the front of the ambulance.
“Too many to just run past, we gonna have to pop em then make a dash for the truck,” Donnie put forth.
“Okay, Jamie you
drive, Donnie ride shotgun. Andrew and I will hit the back. Once you hear us get in, hit the road. We will only have a few seconds after we ring the dinner bell for ‘em before they come after us.” Joe asserted. He looked at his comrades, nervously waiting for the signal. “Ready? Let’s do this shit.”
The three men filed out the door silently. They took up their positions and saw their enemy. There were more moans from around them, and they knew they were going to cause a stir shortly. Each took aim at one zombie each. Joe had showed them military hand signals, which he now employed to get his friends in position. He waved Jamie to his left and Donnie to his right to position them to make a run for the truck. The undead noticed their presence, and they growled at the smell of lunch coming outside to play.
“GO!” Joe shouted, and stepped forward to take out the first of the undead that were standing in front of him. He threw up his sights and took aim at two that were turning toward him, baring teeth, and drooling incessantly. Two quick headshots took care of them. Jamie moved around his side of the truck and was immediately startled at how quick the zombies had gathered near the driver’s side of the door. He hastily dispatched the first one he saw with a double tap to the head. He moved his AR-15 aside and drew his pistol to get into the truck as more approached him. He threw the door open, smashing one of the undead in the face in the process. He closed the door and disposed of it with another headshot, then opened the door back and got in. He fumbled with the ignition and turned the key. The truck immediately roared to life. He looked to his right in time to see Donnie take one out with a well-placed buttstroke to the head. Donnie then grabbed the door and climbed in.
Six Feet From Hell: Books 1 - 3 Page 7
