by GJ Zukow
Aaron acted like he knew what he was doing but he was bluffing. I almost laughed in his face when he pulled out this monstrosity of a handgun. It was a chrome-plated, extended barrel forty-five with a large scope mounted on it. The thing must weigh between fifteen to twenty pounds, it was so overdone. Obviously it was meant to be used with both hands, kinda defeating the usefulness of a pistol to begin with if you ask me. Anyways, Aaron was firing the thing with one hand, missing his target completely more often than not. When he complained that his wrist was hurting from kickback of the giant sized version of a handgun, I did laugh at him. I gave him one of my nine millimeters and gave him a few tips. Immediately his aim improved and his respect for me grew a bit.
When we finally made our way to the radio room we made a grisly discovery. The overpowering smell of death and decay assailed our noses as soon as the door cracked open. There, in the center of the radio control room floor were two rotted skeletons, locked in a death struggle. Aaron almost openly wept when he recognized Judy’s jewelry, still around the bones of her fingers, her wrists and draped around her neck. The other body was a mystery to Aaron. The other decomposed skeletal remains were naked except for the weapons strapped to it. It became clear to us from the shattered skull of Judy’s skeleton and the folding pocket knife wedged between the other’s sternum and ribs what had happened. The naked cadaver could only belong to one of the carriers I told Aaron. Judy died a hero, I reminded him, if that Red would have survived he would have come back for the rest of them.
Judy’s corpse wasn’t the only thing that had bullet holes. The Red must have spent all of the ammo in his clip before he died. The radios we could have used to call for help were ruined. Bullets ripped through the electronics, none of it could be repaired.
I gotta say I’ve been having a good run lately, always finding what I needed. I was a little miffed at not being able to get any meds for Nancy or finding a working radio. I certainly hope it doesn’t mean that my luck is coming to an end.
From here I’m going to figure out a way to get Nancy and Candi to the safety of the Keys.
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Tomorrow morning we’re leaving, as early as possible. The plan is to get on I-75 south and follow it through Tampa all the way down to Cape Coral. Once I hit Cape Coral I’m going to find a boat and we’ll sail east until we hit Flamingo where we’ll gas up if we need to before heading directly south to the Keys. This way we don’t have to worry about traveling through the everglades and we can stay as far away from Miami as possible.
We’re taking both of the trucks that have been modified for the ammonia mixture. One will lead the three vehicle convoy and one will take up the rear. The vehicle in the middle is going to be a former Recreational Vehicle, fortified and strengthened to drive straight through a herd if needed to. I’m going to drive the lead truck, Aaron will be driving behind us with Elle and Keith taking control of the RV itself. Of course Nancy and Candice will also be in the RV, being watched over by whichever of the two isn’t driving. Laelaps, of course, will be with me in the cab of the lead truck.
I was unsure about using an RV but Keith and Aaron did a great job in making it safe. Thick plywood panels are securely bolted over windows, including the front passenger side of the windshield. It took them most of the first day to locate and work on the RV they chose, packing it up and finishing the work today. They bolted an iron cage over the driver’s side windshield and put in a CB so all three of the drivers in the separate vehicles can talk to each other. If I hadn’t seen it for myself I wouldn’t have believed it was possible, that the cramped vehicle could actually hold all of the supplies that we crammed into it proved to be a happy surprise.
The three newcomers seem to be trustworthy, they could have taken whatever they had wanted and taken off whenever they wanted but they didn’t. It’s clear to me, from the inside jokes and the cryptic little things they say to each other that they had been involved in some kind of relationship while they were trapped together for so long. Now that they are free, Elle and Keith seem to have become a couple, cutting Aaron out of their conversations and staying a bit aloof towards him. Aaron is obviously aggravated by this turn of events and has started hanging around me. I’m not too thrilled with Aaron’s attentions. It’s not that I dislike the guy, it’s that I don’t know anything about him. I’ve been kinda blowing him off, finding other things to do whenever he tries to carry on even the most basic conversation with me. All three of them have been locked up in that building together for almost two years, they have nothing of interest to tell me, excepting the information they have regarding Key West and the group of survivors there. They may not have had anything to kill the time with except for having group sex, but I did. Each of them, separately and together, have dropped open invitations (no hints with Aaron, he made it basely clear) for me to feel free to join them whenever I wanted, all of which I turn down.
Nancy is doing both better and worse at the same time. She’s still fevered and completely out of it. While her face, with the multiple fractures, appears to be slowly healing, her feet are in real bad shape. No matter how much we try to keep her feet drained and cleaned of the nasty smelling pus, it just keeps spreading. I’m terrified that the vile wound is infected with gangrene. Keith had been talking of amputating her feet, in an effort to save her life if they need to but who would do that, I asked. It’s one thing to talk about it and another thing entirely to do such a thing safely. Her best bet lies in Key West, hopefully in a matter of days we’ll be there.
Candice is doing well. Somebody is always taking care of or entertaining the child. Elle spends most of her day with little Candi, giving me a decent break from my previous babysitting chores.
We did have an anxious encounter while we were raiding the junkyard again. We had been there for less than half an hour, getting what supplies we needed, when from nowhere a signal flare arced high into the air, falling slowly back to earth over the compound. Turns out that there are a few more scattered survivors around, but not many. The Red death squad scoured the county pretty well of the immune. Now that the undead menace has been dealt a severe blow here in Ocala, people, once terrified of going outdoors are starting to timidly venture outside again. The two men refused to come with us, to the Keys, preferring to stand and fight if need be, in the town where they were born and raised. Although they were sad to see two single women leave their town they were pleased about learning the secret of ammonia. They were also happy to take over the old base, maybe they could make better use of it.
Everybody who has seen the abomination that is the temple to Yama-Kali has voiced their extreme hatred of the place. Today I destroyed the affront to the Gods. I didn’t blow it up or light the building on fire (at first). I did learn how to operate a massive bulldozer though. I had a great time clearing an area of all the assorted cars and junk strewn about. Then I literally smashed down the temple walls and destroyed the altar and throne with the heavy steel plow blade. I wasn’t content to just mash them up though, I pushed the whole building and everything that once resided in it into a huge pile. With the help of a gallon of gasoline I think I created the world’s largest bonfire. It still burns, lighting up the rapidly darkening sky.
I hope all of this hard work isn’t going to be in vain. I don’t know if the colony of the immune even still exists. For all we know, a hurricane could have destroyed the settlement. We could be striving to reach a place worse off than what Ocala is now.
Friday, July 4, 2014
I didn’t even realize it was the fourth of July until I wrote the date. Holidays are nothing more than another day now. Gone are the days of picnics and fireworks to celebrate Independence Day. Now it is enough to simply live to see another morning.
We left for the Keys on time, heading south on I-75 by the time the rising sun cleared the horizon. We thought we would be alright. We thought we had prepared and packed whatever we would need for almost any problem. How wrong we were.
The interstate was, for the most part, clear of any major wrecks or traffic jams until we hit Tampa. Clear doesn’t mean we can drive at speeds anywhere near the old speed limits. Clear nowadays, simply means one can drive past the rusted cars haphazardly parked half on and half off the overgrown shoulder or one can weave in, through or around the mangled wreckage of multi-car accidents. The speedometer never climbed past thirty but that didn’t bother us. Even though we only averaged ten miles an hour we felt better with every mile closer to Key West that we drove.
Five miles before Tampa the interstate became a complete parking lot. The RV is big and heavy, needing almost a full lane. We ended up having to switch over to the other side of the highway, traveling south in what used to be the northbound lanes. We quickly found out why the northbound lanes were clear while the southbound lanes were jammed bumper to bumper.
The charred remains of a tanker truck completely blocked the northbound lanes, its cab wrapped around one of the support pylons of the old elevated train track above it. The viaduct hadn’t collapsed but it was clear that whatever the huge tanker truck had held had been highly flammable. Burned out cars and trucks were resting on tireless rims on both sides of the cracked concrete of the interstate. There were no fire trucks or police vehicles in the area so we figured that it must have happened in the last days of the madness when society broke down completely.
According to the map, it took us all day to drive the ninety miles from Ocala to the outskirts of Tampa. At the rate we were going it would take us another full day to traverse the hundred and twenty five miles until we reached Cape Coral.
The undead weren’t the ever present threat they used to be. Rarely did we see anything other than a lone corpse wandering the ruins of the highway. Most of the undead had finally collapsed and those that still walked were, more than likely, were either gathered around a survivor’s safehouse or congregating around a carrier.
As the light was starting to fail with the rapid approach of nightfall, we all decided to find a deserted gas station and top off our tanks. We did everything as silently as we could, mainly relying on my bow when the ever curious undead were drawn to us from the sounds of our motors.
Nancy was in bad shape, moaning and calling out in her fevered hallucinations. Whenever Nancy went into one of those phases, Candice would act up, crying inconsolably as if she could sense her mother’s distress. As a group we decided to forge ahead to an interstate rest stop to set up our night’s camp instead of staying in a former metropolitan area where the undead were the thickest.
After detouring for what seemed miles through the ruins of Tampa, we were finally able to get back on the interstate. Things seemed to be going well, the next rest stop was deserted but for a few abandoned vehicles. The only zed we found was in a comatose state, rousing itself from the long neglected floor of the men’s toilets once we got close to it. Nobody actually wanted to get out of the RV and sleep in the mold and grime covered tiles of the restrooms, instead we all crammed into the RV and slept in sleeping bags. We parked with one side of the RV parked along the wall of the rest stop with the two spray trucks parked one behind and one alongside. Then we sprayed the hell out of the surrounding area with the ammonia and set up watches that would monitor the surroundings from the roof of the RV.
As soon as I opened my eyes the next morning I knew something was wrong. The sun was starting to rise, Aaron had never woken me for my four hour turn at watch. Then the smell hit me. The powerful odor of ammonia was way too strong. When I got up, I had to almost climb over others to get to the door. Needless to say, they all woke up and quizzically looked at me, they knew what the watch schedule was supposed to be.
Keith started coughing as soon as he opened his eyes, an instinctual reaction to the irritating chemical. Quickly he covered his mouth with his arm, knowing even the faintest cough could draw the numberless undead to investigate.
Technically it was Elle’s turn to be up on the roof by then, my four hour rotation would have been over an hour before that.
We were all shocked by what we found outside. It was the lingering pools of ammonia saturating the ground that first caught my eyes (and nose). Both of the tanks on the converted fertilizer trucks had been punctured, all but a couple of gallons in each tank had spilled out. Every one of the tires on each vehicle had been slashed sometime while we slept. Somebody did not want us to leave anytime soon, although I was of a mind to drive as far as we could away from this place, rims sparking, if need be. Of Aaron, there was no sign, not even a single drop of blood to explain his absence. We all found it hard to believe that he would have done this to us and then run off, leaving us purposely stranded. What was worse was the small numbers of undead that were starting to arrive, held at bay only by the ‘monia which was rapidly evaporating in the morning sunlight.
We all had cell phones, appropriated from the Red’s junkyard and former base. Instinctually, we all checked to see if Aaron had tried to call us, quickly flipping them open and checking for missed calls. He hadn’t called or tried to contact any of us.
Nervously and without asking any of us, Elle called Aaron’s phone, taking a risk that the call wouldn’t be on ring and attract any unwanted attention if he was in trouble. We all held our collective breath, hoping that Aaron would answer but he didn’t. There is no point in leaving a message, none of us know the pass code to open the voicemail, so she hung up with tears starting to form in her bloodshot eyes. If he’s alive he’ll eventually check his cell for missed calls if he can, we reasoned.
An intense debate ensued as we tried to figure out what to do next. Elle and Keith refused to even entertain the notion of going and searching for Aaron. Elle was scared, as we all were, and both Keith and I nervously laughed when she volunteered to be the one to stay behind and watch after the invalid and the infant before the subject had yet to come up. Neither of them wanted to venture into the wasteland of Tampa to search for somebody that was more than likely already dead.
I finally got Keith to agree to come with Laelaps and me and scout around for Aaron while we searched for something we could use to get us out of the pickle we were in. We needed to either find a suitable replacement for the RV, at the bare minimum, or find an auto shop or something to replace purposely deflated tires. If we didn’t find something within a couple of hours, we would find someplace safe to hole up in for the night. That was our only plan at the time, there really was nothing else we could do. Whatever we had to do I told him, we would have to do it as fast as we could. The ammonia wouldn’t keep the undead away forever. The automated, ambling, necrotic, parasite controlled corpses would have this place completely surrounded by nightfall, not to talk of whatever happened to Aaron happening again tonight. I didn’t like the idea of not conducting a proper search for Aaron but the baby's safety comes first. I have to get Candy to a place where she won't be hunted as food.
It wasn’t difficult to see the path where Aaron had been dragged through the long, untended and dew laden grass. We didn’t have to worry about getting the hungering dead’s attention in order to lead them away from the RV and it’s vulnerable contents. After a single walk around our disabled vehicles before we left, every one of the undead in the area tried to follow us around the safe zone that the ammonia provided. We had to keep moving, maintaining an expanding lead on the walking dead that followed us and quickly passing by those that weren’t close enough to kill. Keith preferred to use a fire axe (the biggest kind with the pick on the other side of the head) for melee with the abominations, preferring the sturdy two handed grip over the one handed sword I used. It was apparent we were going the right way, soon we caught up to members of the undead puppets who were intently making their way in the same direction as we were. They had obviously caught sight or scent of Aaron as he was being dragged past them and were still trying to follow in the direction they had last seen his desired flesh. Most of the zeds we were forced to kill didn’t even realize we were running up behind them, so inten
t do they become on whatever simple task they are capable of, until their skulls were split open like rotted melons.
The trail had been made only a few hours earlier, leading through an acre or so of light Florida woodlands into a shattered neighborhood. The trail went cold once it crossed onto the cracked concrete of a street and we had thought we had lost it until Keith spotted one of Aaron’s shoes lying further down one of the cross streets. I have no doubt now that when we looked around from where we found the single shoe, that we were meant to see the Auto & Tire Kingdom sign rising above the rooftops from no more than a street or two away.
Keith was slowing down after such a short amount of time, starting to sweat and heavily huff as we jogged a bare mile. Having been cooped up in the confines of the offices, he never had much opportunity to get anything in the way of exercise. When he spotted the sign he told me that's where he was going first, he wanted to get away as soon as possible and too bad for Aaron but he was going to take off without him if he could. Neither do I think it was coincidence that we found the other of Aaron’s worn sneakers lying further down the street in the same direction as our destination.
When we arrived at the Auto store, we found it had been completely secured with plywood over all the windows and doors. There was one door, at the rear of the building next to the loading bay, that had the lock punched out. Thinking that the door may have been trapped we took care in checking out the door as we gently tried the latch and slowly opened it, using my flashlight to peer into the darkness and searching for signs of a tripwire or worse. The door wasn’t trapped and we both nervously opened the door and tried to peer into the unknown darkness. I was in front of Keith as he held the door open while I scanned the pitch black of the interior with my M16 and handheld flashlight, making sure there was nothing that was going to try and eat us as soon as we entered.
