"I just want us to be safe. Nicole is basically family, but my main concern is for our safety," says Lauren.
I can understand Lauren's point of view. I understand the concern and know the risks, but I feel the need to check on Nicole.
I tell Lauren, "The plan is to load up the SUV, take Kim to her parents’ house in Lakeland, and book it over to Orlando."
Lauren nods in agreement with the plan and goes to check on Kim before going to bed for the night.
I ask, “You ok with the plan Phil?”
"Yeah, I see Lauren's side, but I also know that we need to check on Nicole. We said we would to Matt. I'm down for whatever you think we have to do," says Phil.
I nod with appreciation to Phil's loyalty.
I say, "Alright man let's turn in for the night, get up early and get on the road."
Phil reaches in the refrigerator, grabs a bottle of water and heads to his bedroom. Phil sits on the edge of the bed, runs his right hand through his hair and takes a deep breath. He grabs a book that he brought with him from home. As he opens the book and turns to a page, a picture falls out. He picks it up from the floor, looks at it and smiles.
"Oh, the good ole days. The one that got away. I won't let you get away this time," says Phil as he looks at the picture.
He places the book on a bedside table. He takes another look at the picture and places it face down on top of the book. The back of the picture has something hand written on it. It reads:
Nicole and Phil forever 2-1-2000
I awake to the smell of breakfast food cooking in the air. Lauren is in the kitchen cooking up a feast. I wake up, walk into to the kitchen to find Kim and Lauren both in the kitchen making a huge amount of food.
"I have to cook all this now, because it will probably all go bad when we leave and turn off the generator," says Lauren.
I reply, "Good idea"
The front door closes. Phil is loading up the SUV with some supplies, gear, weapons, and food.
"I think we should take two vehicles. The truck and the SUV," says Phil.
"That truck is badass. Brand new jacked up V8. Those junkies stole a great new truck for us," Phil says with a big smile on his face.
"Good idea," I reply.
Kim walks over to me and asks, “Is there any way that we can stop by my house to get a couple things before we leave?”
Initially I wanted to say no way, we have to go now and can't afford any more time wasted, but before I can get a word out.
"Sure," Phil says.
Phil continues, "I can take you there, and we can load some things in the truck. While these two eat breakfast, we can go over to your house and be right back. We’ll back before they even finish their breakfast."
Kim replies, "Ok, let me wash my hands and then we can go."
I walk over to Phil and say, “You be careful and don't bring unnecessary stuff. Only the essentials that we can load and unload quickly."
Phil jokingly replies, "Yes, captain. Only the essentials."
Kim walks through the kitchen to the front door. Phil follows her.
Phil says, “See ya later.”
I reply, “Don’t take forever. If you aren't back in 20 minutes. We will come looking for you.”
Phil and Kim hop into the black pick-up truck and drive over to Kim's house. My neighborhood is a decent sized neighborhood that use to be very nice and well-manicured through our home owner association fees. As Phil drives through the neighborhood, more and more neighbors have turned into zombies and more houses have become abandoned. The neighborhood isn’t that big, so Kim’s house isn’t very far way.
"The tan house, on your left," says Kim as she points to the house for Phil to drive up to.
"Nice boat," says Phil.
"We were going to sail to Mexico, that was the plan," says Kim.
Phil and Kim leave the truck and enter Kim's house through the front door. It's a nice Florida style single family home, well-kept overall but with a million Knick knacks and things people collect over the years as a home owner. The walls are filled with pictures of various family members.
"Are these your kids?" asks Phil as he looks at a photo on the wall of two girls.
"No, we didn't have any kids. Steve didn't like kids very much, and I always went along with whatever Steve wanted. I would have liked to have a girl though. Dress her up in a cute dress with pig tails," says Kim to Phil as she looks at the picture Phil was looking at on the wall.
Kim goes into her bedroom to pack up. As Kim packs up a couple bags for her trip, she sees a picture of Steve and herself. She picks it up and starts crying.
"Why did you want to do such a stupid plan? We can't hurt people Steve. I don't want to hurt anyone," Kim says as she places the picture back on the bedroom dresser.
Phil hears a noise coming from outside. He looks out the front door window and sees five zombies coming towards the front door. They must have been attracted to the sound of the truck.
Phil locks the front door and says, "Kim you have to hurry."
Phil braces the front door with his back as he is afraid to move away from the door. Kim walks up to the front door carrying three large rolling suitcases, two photo albums, and a coffee maker.
"We can't bring all the crap," shouts Phil.
Help me brace this door with the sofa. As Phil moves way from the front door. The front door window breaks. Zombie hands reach for Phil and Kim as they move the heavy sofa to brace the front door.
"How are we going to get out of here now?" asks Kim who is noticeably shaken and worried.
Phil assesses the situation and figures that the only way out is to go through the backyard over the fence into Ray’s backyard and then over to Ryan's house. Phil tells Kim the plan and Kim nervously agrees with it.
"Take two bags and forget the coffee maker," says Phil.
Phil goes inside the garage to find a weapon. He frantically looks around, moves objects around and sees a hammer that might work.
"Why did I leave the weapons in the truck?" Phil says to himself as he holds the hammer in his hand.
Phil leaves the garage and meets up with Kim at the sliding glass door. They both look at the backyard and see that it's clear. They each take a bag of Kim's belongings and move quickly towards the back fence. As they get to the back fence, they hear zombies in various backyards, including Ray's backyard now. Phil jumps up on top of the fence. While on top of the fence, he can see into Ray’s backyard. There are two zombies in the backyard now.
"Damn, can I ever catch a break?" asks Phil.
Kim hands Phil her bags. Phil then throws them into Ray's backyard.
He says to Kim, “I have to take these two zombies out first, before we can go. You wait here for a second.”
Kim replies, “Well hurry up about it then.”
Phil jumps down from the fence into Ray’s backyard. As he jumps down he drops the hammer. A zombie falls towards him. Phil falls backwards to avoid the zombie from biting his legs. He gets up and grabs the hammer. As he grabs the hammer, a zombie tries to bite his right shoulder but Phil dips out of the way.
Phil taunts the zombies, “Thought you had me today guys. Not today and hopefully not any day."
Phil swings back the hammer and hits the zombie in the head that is lying on the grass. The head starts to bleed. Phil takes the hammer back for another swing and now destroys the head.
The other zombie is now up and goes after Phil. Phil swings the hammer back and jams the hammer into the zombie's left temple. The hammer gets stuck in the skull of the zombie. The zombie is coming after Phil still, but Phil kicks the zombie down and rips the hammer out of the zombie’s head. The zombie is now on his back. It tries to get up, but can't. Phil swings back the hammer once again and comes down hard with it. The hammer lands right on top of the zombie’s head, which causes it to explode.
“Are you okay Phil?” asks Kim.
Phil helps Kim over the fence, they grab the bags from the grass and e
xit the backyard. They go through the backyard fence and see Lauren and myself about to drive over to Kim's house.
I ask Phil, "What the hell happened?"
Phil replies, “It didn't go as smoothly as I would have hoped.”
I reply, "Where is the truck?"
"It's back at Kim's house. It's safe, we just had to leave it, because we had a group of zombies by the front door," says Phil.
I grab the two bags that they brought back with them, throw them in the back of the SUV, and say to Phil, “Let’s go get that truck back and finish up here, before we go.”
I tell Kim, "Go inside with Lauren and get cleaned up before we go."
Kim and Lauren walk inside the house. Lauren shows her to a bathroom so she can clean herself up before our trip.
Phil and I get in the SUV and drive over to Kim's house. As we pull up to Kim’s house, we see a lot of zombies by the house, truck, and front door. The zombies must have attracted more zombies as the front door now has about ten zombies at it.
I ask Phil, "Can you get to the truck?"
Phil rolls down his window points his rifle out of it, takes aim at a zombie that is standing by the driver side door of the truck.
Pfff!
Phil shoots the zombie with a clean head shot. The zombie falls to the ground. Phil has a huge smile on his face.
I ask Phil, "Are you enjoying this?"
With a big grin on his face Phil says, "Killing zombies is great stress relief."
Phil gets out of the SUV, runs to the truck, opens the driver side door, gets in the driver seat and closes the door. Phil and I drive back to my house to finish packing up for the trip.
CHAPTER 6
ROAD TRIP
Phil and I are loading up the truck and SUV for our trip to Lakeland and then Orlando. Part of me is nervous to leave the safety net of our house. Especially since we are going to an area that we don’t know if it’s safe or not. I can’t help but think about Nicole and her safety though. I really hope that she is safe and protected in Orlando. Phil, Shaun, and Matt have been my best friends since high school. I see them as my brothers. I was an only child growing up, and the guys were brothers that I never had. We developed a close bound and would do anything for each other.
Nicole is one of Matt’s three sisters. She was the closest to Matt in age and became part of our close-knit group in high school. It was great when Nicole moved down to Orlando a couple years ago. Lauren and I could see her often as Tampa is not that far from Orlando.
"Ok that's the last bag," says Phil as he puts the last bag of supplies in the truck.
I tell Phil, "Let's go back to the police station to gas up and see if we can get any last-minute supplies that we missed in the police station the first time we went there.”
Phil nods in agreement and gets in the truck. Lauren locks the front door to the house and gives me a look of concern.
“I really don't want to leave the house, but I understand what we are doing here,” says Lauren.
I reply, "We have to check on Nicole and then we can come back here. We will be back here at some point, but have to do a couple things first."
I grab Lauren and give her a big hug.
I continue with, "Keeping us safe is my main priority, and I will keep that view no matter where we go."
Lauren and I get into the police SUV and we head back to the police station with Phil and Kim following us in the truck. As we leave my driveway and drive through the neighborhood, I can’t help but to notice that the neighborhood is getting more and more abandoned. Even just from the past two nights, you can see that more and more houses have been left all alone and not showing any signs of people living in them.
As we pull on the main road outside of my neighborhood, we see more bodies lying in the grass, sidewalk, and street. The streets are becoming more and more blocked with abandoned vehicles. It's getting harder and harder to get through the main streets.
We get to the police station, drive through the back gate and head to the gas pumps. Lauren and Kim gas up the vehicles and fill up some spare gas containers as well. The back of the police station is fenced in and continues to become swarmed with more zombies. It’s like they can smell our flesh. The fence seems to be holding for now, but the sounds of zombie groans and screams fill the air. Phil and I check some abandoned cars and vehicles in the police station parking lot. I find a bulletproof vest and a pair of radios. I try the radios and they both work.
I hand one to Phil and say, “These might come in handy for our trip.”
Phil sees something of interest and shouts, “Yes. We have to take this.”
Phil runs over to a police SUV that has a front-end push bumper with a makeshift metal plow attached to the front of it. The SUV was previously covered by one of the tarps. We didn’t notice it before when he came to the police station with Ray and Stephanie as the SUV was covered. The wind must have blown the tarp off the SUV.
Phil is all about taking this new badass custom SUV. Phil loves cars and seems to be really excited about driving this new police SUV with the custom front end plow attachment.
I say to Phil, "That might come in handy. Let's go inside the station and get the keys, unload your truck and load up your new ride."
Phil replies, "Yes sir. I can't wait to run through some stuff with this."
Phil and I go inside the station to find the keys to the new SUV. The police station is empty and shows no signs that people have been in the station since Ray took us to the station a couple days ago. We don’t know where they keep the keys, so it takes us some time to find them.
We search every room and office at the police station. I push open the weapons locker door. As the door opens I expect to see Ray and Stephanie’s bodies lying on the floor. To my surprise, they aren’t there. The room and floor is clean. No blood can be found anywhere. Someone must have moved the bodies and cleaned up the weapons locker. The bodies of Ray and Stephanie are gone. We didn’t take them with us or move them earlier, so someone must have come and cleaned up the bodies and blood.
Kim and Lauren finish getting gas in the vehicles.
Kim comes over to Lauren and asks, "What is the end game of all this?"
Lauren replies, "I don't know, but I do know that we have to keep fighting and surviving. I don't want to give up yet. If I am around Ryan and the right people, we can make it through anything. When you have the right people, you can make it through anything."
"We will see about that. Hopefully you are right and with the right people, we can get through anything," says Kim.
Just as Kim finishes her statement. Phil comes running out of the station with the new SUV keys. He is excited and almost giddy about getting to drive the police SUV.
"Boys and their toys!" says Kim.
I come out of the station and lock the back door. Part of me can’t believe that Ray and Stephanie’s bodies are gone, but part of me is relieved that someone took care of it. As I am walking towards Lauren and Kim at the gas pumps, I feel that someone is watching me.
I stop walking and look around. I see a couple of tall buildings and a parking garage but don’t see anyone. I see the zombies banging on the fence that surrounds the police parking lot. I don’t feel threatened but do feel a sense that someone is watching what we are doing at the police station. I take another look around the surroundings and don’t see anyone looking at us. If someone is looking at us, hopefully they will show themselves one day and help us.
I see Lauren and Kim talking and decide to walk over to them.
I ask, "Everything ok ladies?"
"Yeah," they both reply.
Phil pulls up to the gas pump in his new police SUV with a CD blaring with some country song.
"Let’s gas this up and load the truck supplies in this SUV. I want to wreck some stuff with this new vehicle," says Phil.
Phil parks the SUV at the gas pump, turns of the engine and gets out of the SUV. We load the supplies from his trunk into the new SUV, put
gas in it, and check to make sure we are all ready for our trip. Once we remove all the supplies from the truck, Phil parks the truck in a parking spot in the police lot. He takes the keys out of the ignition and gets out of the truck. Phil knows that we won’t need the truck for the trip but wants to keep the truck safe if we need it down the road. He thinks it’s a good idea to lock the truck up and hide the keys in the back police lot. If he takes the keys with him and he loses the keys at some point, the truck would be useless.
Phil sees a covered propane storage locker that is outside against a back wall of the police station. The propane locker holds several propane tanks and Phil puts the keys in locker number 11 that is unlocked and holding an empty propane tank. Phil takes the empty propane tank out of the locker, puts the truck keys inside the locker and places the propane tank in front of the keys.
Phil finishes hiding the keys in the propane locker and walks back over to Lauren and I. Kim finishes putting gas into Phil’s new SUV, closes the gas tank, and gets in the passenger seat. I hand the radio and bulletproof vest to Lauren who is sitting in the passenger seat of my police SUV.
Phil walks over to me.
I turn to Phil and say, "We have to get onto I-4 East. We have the radios now so we can talk if you have any questions or any problems. You lead the way and clear the path of cars or anything that may be blocking the road. Kim should be able to lead you to her family's house in Lakeland. If anything is fishy about Kim's family or if it's unsafe, we need to get the hell out of there. I'm not sure we can completely trust Kim, but hopefully we can."
Phil replies," I will make sure we are safe at all times and won't let Kim or anyone else risk that. Let's save the radio for only necessary conversations to make the radio batteries last."
I reply, "Good idea."
We get into our vehicles and head to the exit of the police station. I open the gate and our group gets on the road. The roads around the police station are clear with minimal blockage. Phil gets in front of our SUV and our two vehicles make a straight-line path while driving down the road. Kim tells Phil to make a right onto the highway. The entrance to the highway is clear and without a problem. We get onto the I-4 East Highway. We pass a sign that reads:
Fight 4 Us (Book 1): The Beginning Page 8
