As she approached the men, they noticed she was wearing a plaid, long-sleeved shirt that appeared to be stained with blood, although the color of the shirt would not give away exactly what it was. She handled the M16 like a soldier, much like in the way that the burly man easily handled the .50 cal. She approached the three men and took their packs and weapons as her friend kept watch over the men. She tossed the bags back at the Humvee and stuffed their weapons inside. Joe stepped forward with his hands raised in surrender. The brunette woman spun around and raised her M16 at him as he did. Joe stopped and gauged his enemy for a second, then tried to speak and was cut off by the woman.
“Don’t wanna hear it, so don’t bother with it, honey,” the woman said sarcastically.
“Look I just was gonna say that…UHMPH.” The woman had delivered a textbook butt stroke of the rifle to Joe’s solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him. Joe buckled and fell to his knees. Balboa stepped in front of Joe to shield him and was met with the same fate. The woman obviously knew how to fight, and was not to be reckoned with. She delivered another blow with the rifle to the side of Balboa’s head, knocking him out cold. Joe gasped for breath and coughed violently as he watched his comrade fall in front of him. Balboa’s breathing was shallow, but he was alive. Jamie stood motionless behind them, not wanting to meet the same fate as his friends.
“Woohoo! Knocked that big sumbitch right out dint’ya Lucy!” The big man was obviously excited at the ferocity of his companion, now known as Lucy. She stepped forward and knelt down in front of Joe. She gently raised Joe’s chin up to meet her eyes and slowly let a shit-eating grin creep out.
“This one’s kinda cute, Bobby. It’s too bad daddy needs more for the congregation, I might just have to keep this one.”
Joe looked into the eyes of his attacker, Lucy. “I’m not part of your goddamned congregation, you crazy bitch,” Joe said through his clenched teeth. Lucy smirked at him and stood up. She swung the butt of the rifle and met Joe square in the temple, knocking him out cold as well. Lucy stood over Joe and whispered into his ear as he faded out of consciousness.
“Thou shalt not use the Lord’s name in vain, asshole.”
CHAPTER 8
The afternoon waned by slowly as Ronnie, Ashleigh, Buffey, Chris, and the boys sat patiently at the helm of the first engine. Ronnie had just got off the radio with Joe and waited on them to get back from their excursion into town. Joe had told them that they had managed to get a compass and some new clothes, both which were desperately lacking in the train. A sweet stench filled the cabin from the combination of the clothes they now wore and the overall lack of hygiene that they now possessed. No one had a shower for the last several days, and the funk that wafted out of the cabin of the train was not lost on the group. Ronnie sat the radio back on the charger and seated himself back at the throttle to the locomotive. Ronnie drummed his fingers on the console of the locomotive as the steady hum of the engine droned on. Ronnie silently got up and turned off the diesel engine. His action was met by concerned looks from the rest of the people concerned. Ronnie walked away from the switchboard as Chris shot him a disapproving glance.
“Why’d you cut the engine off? Joe and them should be back any minute.”
Ronnie grabbed his rifle and made his way on to the walkway outside the cab of the train. “I just want to keep an eye out for anything. There ain’t been any zombies for a long time now. Just wondering where they all went to.”
Chris thought about what Ronnie had said for a moment. He had not noticed any of the undead either, an unsettling thought that ran around inside his head until it was interrupted by the sound of automatic gunfire. Out on the walkway, Ronnie sprinted towards the end of the train and jumped down from the catwalk. He raised his rifle and scanned the area, looking for the Humvee to come barreling down the tracks towards them with God knows what in tow. Chris did the same as he stood on the railing, looking out into the dense tree line that was off to his left. The overgrown area made it difficult to see anything as he paced back and forth, trying in vain to get a better view. Ashleigh and Buffey both darted out of the train as well, drawn by the commotion outside. A pang of fear passed through Buffey as she looked down from the railing as Ronnie approached with a quickened step. Without a word, he and Chris clambered back into the railcar. Buffey frantically grabbed Chris by the sleeve and spun him around to face her.
“Look, there might not be anything wrong, we just want to make sure they have backup if they need it.”
“What were they shooting at? As loud as that was it had to have been the .50 cal, right?” Buffey’s eyes began to well up with tears as she searched Chris’ face for the truth of the matter.
Ronnie brusquely came into the conversation as he grabbed his pack and one of the M249 light machine guns. He stuffed two of the grenades that Balboa had from the ammo stash into Chris’ chest. Chris looked down at the baseball-shaped explosives that Ronnie had given him and stuffed them into the cargo pocket of his pants. Ronnie slung his pack over his shoulder and went to the ladder well that led onto the ground. Chris looked at the concerned faces of his two female passengers as a faint cry emanated from the back of the train. Chris glanced past the women towards the sound of the cry.
“You girls take care of the boys. If anybody besides us comes back here,” Chris shoved a rifle towards the two women, “kill ‘em.”
* * *
The smell was unbearable. The musty, damp air that contained the horrid stench was all around the three men that inhabited the dark room. Jamie stood over Joe and Balboa trying to wake both of them. Joe lay on his back, a large gash on the side of his head from his previous encounter with Lucy and Bobby. Blood still trickled from the open wound as Jamie tried in vain to wake him. Balboa stirred from his knockout as Jamie was gently trying to shake Joe awake. Balboa groaned lowly and rolled over on his side, facing the earthen floor. Jamie noticed Balboa coming to and scurried over to him. Balboa slowly sat up and immediately wished that he were still knocked out. The throbbing pain in his temples reminded him that he was alive, but he could have done without the reminder. Jamie grabbed Balboa by the shoulders and examined his head wound as well. The blood had clotted and was no longer oozing from the cut.
“Let me take a look at that, dude. You feel alright?”
“Yeah, I guess I’m as good as I’m gonna get at the moment.” Balboa looked over at Joe on the floor. “Is Joe gonna make it?”
Jamie looked over to Joe, still lying on the floor. “Yeah he’s still breathing well for the moment. We need to get him up, though. I don’t know what these assholes have in store for us, but all I know is it sounded like a goddamned herd of zombies out there when they brought us here.”
“Why? Where the hell did they take us to?”
“I don’t know where we are exactly. They stuffed iPod earphones on me or something and played some horrible fuckin’ country music, then put a hood over my head. If I guessed right, we drove for about ten minutes at around twenty miles an hour. We didn’t go too far, but far enough that the rest of the gang will have a hell of a time finding us.”
“If they were smart, they wouldn’t come looking for us at all.” Joe rolled on his back and joined the conversation finally.
Jamie grinned in spite of their situation and moved over to Joe, who was slowly gathering himself up and leaning against a wall. Joe reached up to the wound on his head and came back with a handful of partially clotted blood. He slowly closed his eyes and cursed himself for falling into such an abysmal situation. He hoped that he was wrong, however, about Chris and Ronnie coming to look for them. After he had got off the radio with Ronnie, he undoubtedly would have heard the mammoth .50 cal and piqued his interest. He had mixed feelings on the subject, however. If Ronnie and Chris were to come looking for them they would be leaving Buffey, Ashleigh, and the boys to fend for themselves in an area that they did not need to be left alone in. Joe pondered all of these things as he tried in vain to figure out exactl
y what the duo of religious nuts had in store for him and his friends.
Jamie sat in front of him and examined his wounds. Joe brushed his hand away brusquely. Jamie gave Joe a mocking scorned look. “Medics always make the worst patients.”
“I’m fine, just got my bell rung by that bitch.” Jamie sat back and motioned over to Balboa, still shaking cobwebs away.
“You weren’t the only one. They nailed both of ya’ll and left me alone for some reason.”
“We have to get out of here. I don’t know what they have in store for us,” Balboa got to his feet and addressed both men. “But I am not staying around to find out.” He motioned to Joe. “You got any ideas?”
“Huh uh,” Joe looked at Jamie, who was intently staring at a wall near the back of the small room that they were trapped in. Jamie strode over to the two men and grinned.
“How about a barbecue?”
* * *
Bobby and Lucy knelt before their father, waiting for his approval. They both had done their jobs admirably in their eyes and desperately waited for his support. Their father, Abraham, stood with his back to his children with his hands crossed behind him. He gazed over the glow of the stained glass aura in front of him. Abraham was pleased at the work of his children. The work they had done was the first step in gathering the saints he would need to usher in the reign of Christ for the next thousand years. Abraham believed that the verse of Revelation 20:6 that said:
Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.
He believed that soon he would have enough priests to be at the right hand of God himself. He wanted to show the Lord that he was worthy of being by his side for the next thousand years.
Abraham turned towards his children. He reached his weathered hand down to his daughter, Lucy and raised her chin. Her soft eyes met her father’s and immediately lit up. She knew he was pleased with their performance. Abraham’s grizzled features were transposed in a younger form on his son Robert, better known as Bobby. Bobby looked upon his father’s face with a devilish grin as the patriarch of the family brought his gaze to him.
“The new followers are in the cellar, daddy.”
Abraham motioned for them to stand. “Very good, my children. The congregation is nearly full; the priests of the New Resurrection will be pleased that we have brought them more people to share in the glory of the Thousand Year Reign. Keep the new followers down there until I am ready for them. They have not yet had the glory of their second resurrection, and I am not yet prepared yet for them.”
“Yes, daddy,” both of the children sounded in unison.
With that, both Bobby and Lucy stood and bowed to their father and turned to exit the church. They walked single file down the aisle of pews that held their current congregation of the Followers of the New Resurrection. The gnarled cries and the gnashing of teeth greeted them as they made their way out of the church. Outstretched hands of the undead reached for them as they exited. Bobby secretly prayed that the chains would hold them in place as they walked out of the front doors. They had collected nearly 70 followers since the Second Resurrection and were now about to add three more. The pitiful cries and ghastly moans of the church faded out as they exited the building. Behind them, Abraham walked down to one of the ghouls seated in the front pew. The woman, long since being turned into one of the undead snapped at him as she was chained to the pew. Her arms reached out to grab Abraham as he approached. He grinned and addressed the congregation. His chosen priests were in an uproar.
His chosen priests were a church full of dozens of zombies.
* * *
Chris and Ronnie were half-jogging, half-running down the tracks towards where they heard the sounds of the Ma Deuce not ten minutes before. Both men were not track stars as they both became winded quickly, but pressed on into town. They both had a sinking feeling about the whole situation, but kept quiet until they got almost to the end of the section of track and walked up cautiously on the rail crossing. Ronnie instinctively raised the M249 machine gun and scanned the area before proceeding. Chris watched the left side of the street for any stray zombies that might wander in. He did not see any.
Ronnie jogged ahead and was at the gas station in a matter of a few seconds. The NO GAS NO WATER DON’T ASK sign flapped back and forth in the breeze as they approached the front of the store. Ronnie lowered his weapon, as did Chris. A disappointed look crossed Ronnie’s face as he scanned the store.
“Doesn’t look like they’re here, does it?”
Chris was already looking down the street at the Army-Navy store. “No, but didn’t you say they were gonna look over there?” Chris motioned with his rifle towards the store.
Ronnie’s face lit back up. “Yeah Joe said something about getting a compass on the radio and some new clothes, I bet that’s where they got ‘em.”
Both men sprinted across and down the road to the Army-Navy store and quickly looked back and forth for any signs of the three men. Ronnie walked across the parking lot as Chris went inside to see if they had any problems inside the store. Ronnie wandered about aimlessly as he desperately looked for his friends. The feeling of dread was quickly spreading throughout his body as every inch of him screamed that something had gone horrible wrong with them. He was about to give up on looking when he nearly fell after stepping on something. Ronnie looked down to see the large .50 cal shell casings that littered the ground in front of him. He bent over and picked up the spent shells and examined them. There were approximately ten of the Ma Deuce brass casings lying on the ground in a haphazard pile. The gun looked as if it had been fired in a short burst, explaining the gunfire earlier. Ronnie tossed down the spent shells and got to his feet.
“Hey Chris, come here!”
Chris immediately appeared from the store. “What is it? You find something?”
“Yeah, brass from the fifty cal is over here. Doesn’t look like they were trying to get away from anything judging by the shells. This thing was fired while it was sitting still.” Ronnie tossed the last shell down and looked at Chris, who had a puzzled look on his face.
“Why the hell would they shoot the thing sitting still? If they were firing at someone or something I would like to think they would try and get away while they did it.”
Ronnie was the first to realize what had happened.
“Because they weren’t the ones firing it. Shit, they got jumped by somebody, Chris!”
“Son of a bitch. How the hell are we supposed to…?” Chris trailed off as he noticed yellow bits of something on the ground. He quickly strode over to where they were laying. He knelt down and picked up the small chunks of yellow sponge. Chris smelled and tasted the bits of what looked like a hand washing sponge from a car wash. Chris tasted the yellow delicious goodness of a Twinkie and grinned. “I’ll be damned. Looks like Hansel and Gretel left us a bread crumb trail.”
Ronnie got down on his knees and picked up a small piece of the Twinkie lying on the ground in front of him as well. He tasted the spongy cake and a smile crossed his face finally as well.
Chris and Ronnie made eye contact with each other with a wry smile. “Jamie.”
CHAPTER 9
“You used what?” Joe laughed in spite of the abysmal situation that they currently faced with. Jamie had just revealed his ingenious plan for leading their other comrades to their rescue. Jamie held up from his pocket the delicious yellow sponge that would hopefully lead someone from the train to their rescue.
“I had one in my pocket, figured it would be the only thing that could leave a trail. I sure as hell hope I’m right.”
Joe examined the wall behind Jamie as he spoke. Jamie had said something about a barbecue before being thrown off on the tangent of the yellow log of cream. Their captors had an ample supply of gasoline and propane tanks stored in the room they were trapped in. The earthen floor that they
walked on looked like an old storm or root cellar. Gas cans stacked three high and several rows deep sat alongside a dozen or so gas grill sized propane tanks. A steady rumbling of a generator had kept power going to the building above them. Judging by the way that Bobby and Lucy had talked to them, Joe surmised that the building above them was either a church or something made into a church. Bobby and Lucy had not given them enough information during their capture to give them an idea of what they wanted with the men. As Balboa had said, they were not about to stick around a find out, either.
Jamie and Balboa were looking around above them, trying to find a door or latch. They desperately panned the room looking for anything to get them out. Jamie’s hands wandered over the ceiling above him, but did not see or feel anything worthwhile. The dark cellar made it impossible to locate anything other than the bright yellow gas cans and the alabaster white propane tanks that were in the corner of the room.
After a few minutes of fruitless searching, they finally gave up and sat back down to discuss their options. Joe was the first to speak up.
“Look, dude. I am all for blowing this place all to shit, but I’d rather not be anywhere near here when it does.”
“Yeah, same here. We have to face the fact that, for the moment, we are incredibly screwed. We got no weapons, no food aside from Jamie’s Twinkie wrapper and no way of calling for help. Not that anybody would hear us at this point anyway. We have to wait ‘til they come back and let us out as much as I hate to say it.”
Six Feet From Hell: Books 1 - 3 Page 22
