The Feral Children [A Zombie Road Tale] Box Set | Books 1-3

by Simpson, David A.

  17

  Putnam

  Putnam, Iowa was a typical small midwestern town. The old courthouse with its weathered clock tower dominated the skyline while elms and maples lined the sidewalks. Their leaves exploded in the brilliant colors of fall and the hues of gold, orange and red invoked images of a Norman Rockwell painting. Now, the trees stood in silent witness to the devastation that the virus had wrought on the small slice of heaven. Trash and debris nestled against their trunks and white plastic shopping bags were tangled in the lower branches. Fallen leaves covered the streets. Store front benches, already starting to rust, sat empty and forlorn. The old men who whiled away the mornings with hot black coffee were long gone. The stores and businesses sat deserted and dark, a few had shattered windows with glass shards on the sidewalk. Smashed cars with open doors sat at intersections, traffic lights swayed on the wires above them.

  Flies still buzzed around the delis and ice cream shop, their perishable items long spoiled and reeking. Birds flew in and out of the open windows while mice skittered back and forth, chewing into the boxes and bags of food. Ants marched in single file lines carrying their spoils like a conquering army. A few stray cats and half-starved dogs wandered the alleys, their owners either part of the undead hordes or long gone and never coming back.

  Putnam was laid out in a square design like many other turn of the century towns across the country. Its buildings were brick and mortar, no fancy glass and steel, just classic architecture in the old square. Easy access to the Mississippi, with its barges moving products on the river, and the fertile soil made for an ideal agricultural site. Bypassed by the interstate in the early 1970’s, it sat off the beaten path and died a slow death as lifestyles changed. They youngsters went away for school and never came back and the downtown became boarded up storefronts and second-hand junk shops. For a generation it was forgotten, a relic of a bygone era withering away. The digital age changed all that, the antiques store no longer needed local customers to stay afloat, he could sell his wares globally on eBay. The inexpensive houses near the riverfront found a resurgence in popularity when people worked from home and gentrification brought in new businesses.

  Like so many other small towns the square offered an eclectic mix of the old and new. Situated beside the feed store was the Verizon hub. Across the square, Mixon’s barbershop sat next to Bowman’s software engineering office. The owner of Maroni’s Italian Restaurant had worried about the new Subway shop when it opened but by setting out a sign advertising his lunch specials, he more than made up for lost business. Not that it mattered anymore, Sal Maroni shuffled along the road a hundred miles away in an unending quest to find fresh blood. He didn’t know where he was going or where he’d been. He didn’t feel the rain or the cold or the bones of his feet as they scraped along the asphalt, his shoes and skin long worn away. He wandered with dozens of others, mindless and adrift, always hungry and always searching.

  Donny jogged ahead of the rest of them, scouting for danger. Harper drove the cart with Murray seated beside her, his wheelchair folded in the back. The others walked silently down the road, ready to turn and run for the safety of the park at the first sign of trouble. They had drawn straws to see who would stay. Somebody had to if the trip were a disaster and none of them came back. Somebody had to free the animals if that happened. Vanessa had walked with the strange parade to the rear gate and made sure it was latched then watched as they disappeared. If none of them came back, she knew what to do.

  Murray brought China, one of the capuchins. He insisted that her knack for getting in and out of places might come in handy. She perched on his shoulder, looking through his hair for anything that might provide a snack, grooming him affectionately as if he was one of her own pack. He swatted at her as she stuck her finger in his nose. Undeterred, she kept probing.

  Zero and Lucy padded softly beside Swan, ears up and alert, while Cody and the twins brought up the rear.

  Welcome to Putnam the sign read Iowa’s friendliest town. There was a compact car crumpled against the base of the brick structure, the doors still open where the driver had either fled or died. There were dark stains on the seats that looked a lot like dried blood and they looked away as they passed.

  By group consensus they had decided to skip looking in any houses unless they didn’t find any big supplies of food at the stores. They might get a few bags from homes but they were much more likely to find the dead inside. It would be better to try to score big, maybe find whole storerooms of canned goods, more than they could carry. Walking beneath the trees that lined the streets the stench of decay was heavy in the air. Occasionally they saw a curtain flutter in a house as a shambling shape brushed against it. They didn’t talk, not even to whisper. They used military hand signals learned from a book. Swan had to shush her wolves more than once when their deep rumbling growls started to get loud. Putrid bodies lay decomposing in the streets, empty eye sockets filled with mucky water. A lot of them had holes in their heads, dried brains and blood crusted around the wounds. There were empty bullet casings littering the ground, a lot of them, but they didn’t see any guns. Whoever had been doing all the shooting had won the fight. At least, this one. All the bodies showed signs of having been fed on, bones exposed and weathering as they returned to dust. They didn’t know if it was from the zombie attack or animals scavenging their remains but none of them cared to look closer to try to find out.

  Donny fell back to join them as they continued their slow walk into the downtown area, the cart crunching over leaves and broken glass, all of them gripping their makeshift weapons and staring in all directions. The desire to turn and run back to the safety of the Park was strong. Inside the fences, they weren’t afraid. Inside the fences, they were safe. But inside the fences, there wasn’t any food. They heard thrashing up ahead and Swan urged Zero and Lucy forward as she slunk along in a crouch beside them. Unconsciously baring her teeth and growling deep in her throat with them. Cautiously, the group followed the growling trio. Tobias and Annalise readied their pitchforks and advanced slowly, eyes wide, breathing fast and ready to lunge. A zombie in a deputy sheriff uniform lay pinned underneath an overturned patrol car, his clawing fingers ground down to splintered stumps. It snapped at them, biting the air with his yellowed teeth and struggled harder to free himself.

  “Kill it before others hear him and come running.” Murray whispered. “Hurry.”

  China hid herself under his shirt and shivered.

  “We are warriors.” Tobias told his sister.

  Mouth grim, she nodded and they both thrust their pitchforks into the biting things face.

  It fell still instantly and the wolves stopped their quiet growls, sniffed at it and snorted. Tobias’s eyes were huge in his rune painted face and Annalise seemed even paler as they pulled the tines out and looked at the black blood dripping from them. It was their first kill. She waited for a moment to see if she would feel guilt or shame. She had just taken a man’s life. But she hadn’t, really. The man was already dead and they had done him a mercy. She gripped her pitchfork with greater resolve and a small, tight smile spread across her lips. It matched the one Tobias wore.

  The closer they got to the square, the more evidence there was of a battle. The zombies had won, that was obvious, but a lot of them lay dead with blown open heads. Windows were shattered at the municipal building and the doors were broken down. Someone had tried to make a last stand but it hadn’t worked. There must have been thousands fighting to get in, the entire town. Cody wondered what happened to them because so far, they hadn’t seen any wandering around. The place was long abandoned.

  The nose of a pickup was wrapped around a utility pole and a lone black crow was focusing on the driver as it cawed and shifted anxiously from side to side on crumpled hood. The woman inside was pinned: trapped by the steering wheel and the crushed roof from the broken off pole. She was half way through the windshield, her body bent in an unnatural manner. Her face was a ruined mess, eyes
and lips gone, cheeks shredded from the crow that dipped down and tore at the easy meal, feasting on the rotting flesh. She still struggled and chomped but her movements were feeble and the black-eyed crow easily avoided her broken teeth as he ate. Vultures circled overhead in slow lazy circles, awaiting their chance to feast undisturbed on the dead.

  Putnam had everything they needed if they could get to it without getting shredded by the zombies. They weren’t equipped to fight the undead, not yet anyway. The first thing on Murray’s list was Armor and Weapons.

  “We have to find a sporting goods store or thrift shop first.” he told them. “We need to find protection. We need leather gloves and football pads or soccer guards. Anything that will prevent us from getting bit. That comes first before we look for food.”

  A block from the center of town, Replay Consignments had mannequins in the windows bedecked with football equipment. It was a second-hand sports shop and Swan took the lead, her two protectors staying close. The bell over the door tinkled and everyone froze but nothing came lunging out. The wolves entered warily, sniffing around in curiosity but not alerting to danger. The rest of them slipped in quickly and as soon as he found a display with baseball equipment, Cody grabbed some catchers gear and hurried back out to Murray. The leg guards were perfect, nothing was going to bite through them. It didn’t take them long before they were decked out with a combination of hockey, soccer, lacrosse and baseball guards and they all felt a little safer. They had a fighting chance now; a zombie would have a lot tougher time finding flesh on them. The modern armor was nothing like the steel and chainmail of old. It was lightweight, easy to move in and quiet.

  “Weapons next on the list, right?” Annalise whispered as they eased out of the store, still trying to move silently. For all they knew, a huge horde could be a few blocks away.

  Cody nodded and pointed to a hardware store half a block up. The first thing they thought of when brainstorming their raid was guns of course. They argued pros and cons for a long time and in the end, they decided against them. Nobody had ever shot a real one and what if it drew in zombies? The world was so quiet now with no cars or airplanes or even the hum of electrical wires, a gunshot could probably be heard for miles and miles in any direction. And worse, what if it frightened their companions? Animals had to be trained to guns and they couldn’t risk panicking them, scaring them so bad they ran too far away and got lost.

  In the survival books, they had found plans on how to build war hammers and sawblade battle axes from threaded pipes and other common materials. Weapons they could tailor to kids. They knew from chopping wood they would never be able to swing an axe fast enough to protect themselves from attack. Baseball bats were too blunt.

  “You’ve got to pierce the skull!” Murray kept telling them. “We have to have long sharp instruments. Spears when we can, spiked hammers for when it gets close. Knives aren’t heavy enough to pierce the skull and the weapons have to be our size, not our parents’ size. We have to be able to swing them hard and fast.”

  Swan swept the store with the wolves and when she gave them the all clear signal, Cody and Donny slung Murray over their shoulders and hustled him inside. The twins stood guard with the pitchforks as Harper grabbed his chair and followed, the little monkey scampering beside her. There were bloody hand prints on the swinging doors. Something dead had been inside but it was long gone now.

  They found flashlights and packs of batteries then made their way to the plumbing section. Everything they needed was there and with a sigh of relief, they got started assembling the various pieces of threaded pipe, T-fittings and caps into deadly child sized war hammers. They capped off one end of four-foot sections of black pipe and duct taped steel marker stakes into the other end, their pointy tips made deadly thrusting spears.

  “Make sure you grab some flat files.” Murray said, checking his list. “And paracord to wrap the handles.”

  Fine tuning and improving their weapons could be done back at the Park but it felt good to have something besides a pitchfork to fight with.

  China found the bags of peanuts near the register and was chattering excitedly as she tore them open. The wolves and the panther paced the store, vigilant and sniffing the air. It only took them a few minutes to assemble the weapons and Cody motioned for Donny to help him in the farm supply department. It wasn’t well stocked but there a lot of things a hobby farmer might need. Food for chickens and goats, various feeders and incubators and light farm equipment. Mostly implements that could be attached to a riding lawn mower. They needed to get the biggest two wheeled garden cart they could find to hook to the back of the golf cart. It would double their carrying capacity. They added a few sacks of grain for their cow and goats and Murray made note of how much was left on the shelves. They knew where to come when they needed more.

  Armed, armored and with the few tools they needed, they made their way back outside and were ready to hit the grocery store. The town was eerily quiet with only the tweeting of birds and their footsteps crunching on leaves breaking the silence. They could hear the flap of vultures’ wings overhead.

  “Where did everyone go?” Annalise whispered as they passed another empty shop, its door broken and hanging askew. “Something must have made them run off.”

  “Maybe some survivors were in a house and when they ran out of food, they drove off.” Harper said. “Maybe all the dead people chased after them.”

  It was as good a theory as any and the longer they were there, the more confident they became. The town wasn’t that big, only a few dozen streets long with the same number of cross streets. It only had two traffic lights and a roundabout at the town center. Near the river was a small industrial area with a few warehouses and shops but they didn’t bother going down there, a grocery store was next on their list. They had a few choices, there were a couple of health food shops, a good-sized chain store and a little mom and pop that reeked when they approached it. It had been the best butcher shop for miles around but all that meat was spoiled, rotten and still stinking. Clouds of flies swarmed around it.

  They crossed the road to avoid the smell and spotted the other grocery store halfway down the block of a side street. Cody signaled and they made their way towards it, the cart humming along quietly as they swung their new weapons, trying to get used to the heft and feel of them.

  It was a pretty big store, the largest one for ten or twenty miles in any direction and supplied the rural families in three counties.

  There were dead inside.

  They spotted a few zombies wandering aimlessly up and down the aisles, trapped when the electricity went off and the automatic doors stayed closed.

  They huddled around the cart to decide what to do but they already knew. They couldn’t go back empty handed. They needed the food and what good was having weapons if they were too afraid to use them?

  “Okay.” Cody said. “Donny and I with the spears, Harper and Swan pry the door open and you two make sure it doesn’t open too wide. Just enough to stab them when they try to get us. Ready?”

  Wide eyes and nervous head nods. They were as ready as they’d ever be.

  The woman near the magazine rack heard them as soon as Swan shoved a tomahawk blade between the doors to pry them apart. Harper got her spear in the slot and the door slid open a few inches. She turned her black eyes to the sounds and smelled the untainted blood flowing through their veins. She screamed and launched herself at the two boys standing on the other side of the glass, her greasy, dank hair flying behind her. Other keens and screams took up the call and pounding feet came up the aisles sensing fresh meat. Her vein mottled face hit the frame and a reaching arm shot through, clawing the air and grabbing for flesh. Tobias had his shoulder against the door and Annalise had her Warhammer wedged in place but it still shuddered and slid open another inch. Cody thrust his spear, aimed for her eye and grunted with the effort as it broke through the thin wall of bone and pinned her in place. Her flailing stopped almost immediately, her l
egs crumpled and he had to jerk back hard to free his spear.

  Before she hit the floor, two more were fighting to be the first at the children. Old brown blood stains covered a man’s jacket, his yellowish shoulder bone poking through the shredded skin. Donny jabbed at him and the point tore into his cheek, slid off bone and flayed open a deep gash along his head. The man snapped at the steel, tried to bite through it and only broke his teeth. Pieces of them flew as the boy pulled back and stabbed again, this time aiming for the wide-open mouth. Filthy, clutching hands in a homemade carpet covered jacket reached for him, tried to dig dirty fingernails into flesh. The end of the spear burst out of the back of his head in a spray of black and yellow goo and before Donny could pull out, the man was shoved aside by a woman scrabbling over the fallen bodies. The door gap was wider now and the twins tried to force it back but the wild haired woman already had her head and shoulders through. She thrashed and screamed a dry scratchy scream then shoved it open, knocking both of them aside. Her frenzied flailing knocked Cody’s spear away and she launched herself at Donny. Harper screamed. Her bloody mouth was stretched wide as her hands grabbed his shoulders and she fell on him, snapping at his face. A black blur hit her, sharp claws slicing through skin like paper, snarling fangs closing around her neck and snapped it like a twig. Yewan’s mighty leap knocked her ten feet away from them and he savaged her mercilessly, ripping and shredding until the lifeless corpse lay still.

  “Watch out!” Murray yelled and they all turned away from the panther, back to the door. A toddler was climbing over the bodies, his hungry black eyes fixed on them as he snapped his milk teeth, the hunger driving him forward. Tobias tried to shut the door but the bodies blocked it. The baby keens were getting shriller the closer he got and Cody picked up his dropped spear. Donny scooted away on all fours as the thing came at him.