Living Amongst The Dead (Book 3): On the Road Again

by J. N. Morgan

  Her and supposedly her baby’s brains were splattered on the wall to their left, meanwhile the woman’s body slumped over to the right, the baby falling with her, and so their bodies lie there on their sides. The woman almost in fetal position, and the baby curled up against her stomach, the left sides of their heads a mess of gore. The young woman put a hand to her mouth as she walked out the front door, past Richard. Leaning down, she dropped the Chinese-made rifle on the grass of the house’s front lawn, the left hand that had been holding it going to a knee, right hand still at her mouth. Body motioned as though it were retching though no sound came out, and then she dropped.

  Legs buckled beneath her, left just a little before right, it sent her down to the soft green surface on her left shoulder first, rolled over onto her back, and so she lie limply in unconsciousness. The woman’s coat, far too big for her, could not be zipped up as usual. It was wrapped around her with one flap over the other, and a sash around her waist to keep it tight. The sash was loosened from all the goings on, one flap opened, and within the luxurious winter coat was shown her sleeveless black shirt, a ‘wife-beater’ as some called it. A modestly-sized breast concealed within, and Richard looked down to her.

  His woman followed, dropping to her knees beside the thin early-20s feminist, wrapping her coat up to keep her warm. It was obvious she wasn’t dead but checked her breathing all the same. She had saved their lives, single-handed killed… 5 of them was it? Or was it 6? But then again, that first one, the panicked boy going for his rifle, had that been necessary? Did the others retaliate just in his defence or would they all have attacked them anyways. They’d never know now, all were dead, even Johnathan. Rich went to ground as well, sitting down as gently as he can manage, Lee Enfield put down on the grass beside him as he tried to collect himself, to let his heartrate slow down, and the lad who had been the first to be shot began to stir.

  CHAPTER 3

  “Mmgh…” with a grunt, sling in-hand, he swung it over to his right carefully trying to keep the hefty rifle from hitting his shoulder. Trying to move it over said injured right shoulder just wasn’t going to happen on his own, hoping to bring it over his head and so have the rifle slung slantways thus more securely. So for now it was left on the grass, safety still engaged, having never been disengaged even when Tiffany had pointed it at the dead boy earlier. Without a word to the woman, he unholstered his pistol and made his way to the lad as he began to get up.

  5+1 remaining in it, he knew this for he had already fired two rounds but always kept 7+1 when carrying it. Adjusting his grip one-handed, a knuckle of his left pointed finger swept the manual safety off with a click, and young, dead eyes looked over to him. Thin arms outstretched, reaching for the man, he reached an arm out as well, and at the end was the M1911A1 he’d owned for what must be coming up on 9 years or so. Thick front sight centered in the rear sight, ignoring the white dots, it was steadied on the kid’s forehead until BOOM! For the second time that day the lad fell dead.

  Finicking with the firearm with his non-dominant hand, the safety was eventually re-engaged, and so the firearm holstered once more in the black leather holster that hung outside of his jeans. The spike bayonet of his No.4 Lee Enfield was unsheathed next, and so with about as much effort as he could muster, he knelt by the ginger and drove it into his head from the temple. Removing it was extremely difficult, to the point where he was thinking of trying to fix it to his rifle while it was still in the fellow’s head just to get more leverage, but eventually it came out. The fat one was dealt with next, and he was nearly returned to Tiff who sat next to her friend, tending to her, when he groaned at the realization that there was still the woman with the bow and arrows inside. He doubted he managed to get her in the head with his pistol at THAT distance, with his off-hand no less.

  “Tiff?” He asked, and looking pale, the woman looked up to him as she knelt by her friend. “I need your help… do you mind?” The fellow asked her gently, and she nodded as she got to her feet.

  “Now just focus on where you want the bayonet to go…” Richard instructed, standing there in the living room of the house, watching her handle his bayoneted No.4 Lee Enfield, its spike being trained on the the woman’s temple where she lay on her back, facing away from the two. Her features were quite Native, which explained the straight pitch-black hair. Whether she used that bow by choice or simply because all the other firearms were taken, he didn’t know, but thought it commendable that she could evidently use it. She had nocked an arrow on the string with ease, drew the string back as though she had done it many times before, and he truly did believe that if he didn’t get that shot off in time, she may very well have hit him with that arrow in spite of the distance and the fact that he was behind cover.

  With an apprehensive grunt, the woman finally thrust, and so the cruciform spike luckily penetrated skull on the first go.

  “Nicely done, now getting it out is the tough part.” To his surprise, she went ahead and put a foot on the dead woman’s head, got a firm grasp on the rifle, and hauled the bayonet out in one swift motion. “Very nice… almost looks like you’ve done this before. Now press that button thing under the spike and- yeah.” Figuring it out before long, the depressed the rectangular button, gave the socket bayonet a turn, and so it came off with ease. She gave a sniffle as she knelt down at the body, wiping the blood, skull fragments, brain matter, and hair off on the woman’s clothes. Besides the blood from the gunshot wound and they bayonet thrust, it merely looked like she were sleeping. Eyes were welling up, reddening, and she handed the bayonet to her man as she left the house without a word; she was about to cry.

  She hadn’t had to deal with walkers too often, usually able to avoid them, but as for people trying to kill her or having to kill other people, it was still very new to her. These were things she would have to learn however, if she wanted to survive in this world, and so he went to check the house without her. The sight of the aftermath of the supposed mother and child’s murder-suicide was grizzly and heartbreaking. He didn’t even want to have a look at the revolver to see if it were worth taking or not. The door was locked from the inside, and closed. Next he found the blonde woman, and she was definitely not getting back up. Looked like the place was clear; they could finally calm down and catch their breath.

  Sitting down next to Tiffany, just beside where Veronica lay, his one good arm came to her back and rubbed it. Silence took them now, and so they rested. Poor Johnathan…

  The woman eventually coaxed Nick into waking up, lightly tapping the cheeks on her face and nudging her about. A brief moment was spent checking for food in the house, naturally avoiding the refrigerators for they would of course have been without electricity for a long time and thus anything that might have been left within, if anything were still in there, would be utterly rancid. There were some bins filled with mostly-empty cans, little bits of food left within producing a thoroughly unpleasant smell. Cupboards were barren, some chunks of meat both raw and cooked were found here and there in the houses but they decided to pass; not knowing how old it is, who handled it, or even what type of meat it was.

  A basement gave them an answer. A huge amount of air fresheners, the types you hang from rearview mirrors in vehicles, were hanging all around. Left hanging were some animal limbs, and in the corner was a pile of bones nearly stripped clean of meat. The scent of the rotting bits that were left was largely overpowered by the hanging little cardboard trees and things, which must have been taken from the gas stations. Not all the bones appeared to be of an animalistic nature however, some looked distinctly human, and so the search for supplies ended there. The women were utterly shocked and disgusted, but Richard showed only disappointment. He was beyond the level of shock and disgust, it was things he had seen before during his thousands of kilometers of travel, and so only shook his head as he guided the females out.

  There was not much ammo to go around for this group. Only one .243 was left in the rifle used to ‘counter-snipe
’ the sharp shooter who had killed Johnathan. The boy, the first to be killed, had a simple wooden-stocked Ruger 10/22. A 25-round magazine in it, and the ‘sling’ was an adjusted guitar strap covered with the Canadian flag, but because the 10/22 had no sling mounts it had been applied using duct tape. Worked fairly well, and it was given to Tiffany. Being fairly new to firearms, a .22lr was good to get her bearings with. The 25-round vaguely banana-shaped magazine had been unloaded under his instructed, the rounds counted, and so the 17 rounds hollow-point lead-bulleted rounds that remained were loaded into it again. The simple cross-bolt safety was taught to her as well as the strange nature of its bolt hold-open.

  The other firearms, including the impressive lever-action that the fat one had which was in the big, meaty, .45-70 or ‘.45 Government’ cartridge had so few rounds left that it was decided to leave them all alone. At least the Ruger 10/22 was extremely light so even though it only had 17 little cartridges to use it wouldn’t be a pain to lug around. Other than the revolver used in the murder-suicide, no pistols were present, and it was decided not to waste time on checking the sharp-shooter.

  They stood before the ditch, looking down at a lumpy mass hidden by a thick quilt which was tucked beneath him. Johnathan, pulled out of the ditch by Nicky, was laid down beside it and covered over. There was probably a shovel in one of the garages but none of the three wanted to stick around long enough or waste energy on digging a grave. Pouring a swig’s worth of rum on the body, Rich took one down, and passing it around even the women decided to drink some of the strong, black liquid. They shuddered and grimaced at the taste, but nodded their thanks as it made its way back around to the wounded man who finished the bottle off, keeping it with the intent on using it as an additional water bottle.

  The brief moment’s silence passed, nobody knew what to say, nobody really knew him too well, and so after the drink and the nod the three shuffled off. Rich was doing not bad on his own but Tiff came to his side all the same, wrapping an arm around his back and he wrapped his one good arm around her shoulders as she helped support him. The general store was passed over, and so the rest of town was put behind them, one fewer than when they had started.

  “It’s sad that that’s the way it has to be now…” his deep voice gave, looking down at the pavement as a small dirt road among some birch trees and bushes was passed by. He peered down it just for something to do. A trailer sat there on the right side, and as they further passed the little access by a large two-story house came into view on the left side of the dirt road; so cut off from that little community by greenery that they didn’t even know it was there until now.

  “You’ve been in a situation like that before?” Nicky asked, and as soon as he heard her tone he was anticipating skepticism as though whatever he might say would be a lie, but it sounded like a genuine question.

  “Mmh.” A simple grunt in confirmation, a little nod of his scruffy head. Tiffany wanted to go into that quiet and lonesome looking house, wanted to lie down all day and just let her mind settle after all this. Looking to her man’s face, some of Johnathan’s blood… and possibly God knows what else from him, speckled his features here and there. She quickly averted her eyes as he spoke to the woman walking to his right.

  “How many have you killed?” The question was asked like any other might be asked. ‘Ever been to another country?’ ‘Have you tried escargot?’ ‘What did you think of that hockey game the other night?’

  His reply was initially just a sigh, a sour look coming across his features as he just looked ahead, not turning his gaze to the younger fellow Canadian now pointedly looking at him. Was this her weird way to try and give him a chance? Had he somehow proved himself to her, to be able to take care of her Tiff, her ‘babushka’ as she occasionally called the somewhat older woman in private? His eyebrows lowered as he looked down to said woman; she was slowing down, and since he was resting some of his weight on her to help him along he too was slowing down. Looking off to the left, a small bit of water showed itself in the midst of quite a bit of overgrowth, looking almost swampy, but as she watched the snake of water go off to the east as their bodies faced south, the ‘snake’ opened up into a lake, quite a good-sized lake.

  Though going at a slower pace, they continued to walk, and the several hundred meter long stretch of open water soon showed a corner, and now it appeared to be over a kilometer of open water. Clearly not one of the famous Great Lakes, but certainly a nice sized one, and finally they came to a stop. That easily explained where that group of people were getting their drinkable water, now the question was should they stop here for a while to recuperate or keep going. His woman, if asked, would most certainly opt for the former, but there were still MANY hours of daylight and he wanted to get more distance between themselves and that town, especially after all that gunfire. Though there seemed to be no other populous areas around so perhaps few, if any, walkers would show up? Bathing in coldness was less-than-pleasant, it was always nice to be clean, and it wouldn’t hurt to do some boiling to fill up that Kraken bottle with potable water. There was also doubtlessly fish in there that they could have a meal of, and since they were pretty much out of food it would be good to have a nice big fill.

  The three discussed the matter, and though Rich was clearly the least eager to stop in spite of being the least capable to travel, he conceded that it was a good idea to stock up on fresh water, rehydrate, perhaps check out his wound to make sure it was clean after all that had gone on, as well as have a nice big meal of fish before going back on their way. They must get back on the road again within an hour or two though, he insisted, and so it was just the matter of figuring out how to get to the lake without going through the bog. There wasn’t much in view up ahead, so to the behest of the final male of the group they turned back so as to walk past the two houses. Perhaps that supposed ‘valley’ they had seen earlier was actually the primary body of the lake itself.

  Their heads had lowered as they passed by their former fellow survivor’s body. Tiff kept her little Ruger 10/22 at hand, Nick kept her rifle, and Rich left his rifle slung over shoulder but kept his pistol keenly in mind as well as the fact it now only held 4+1 due to having put that kid down with it. In his butt pockets were four more mags, three were fully loaded with 7 rounds each of 230gr ball .45 ACP FMJ while the fourth only had 3. 29 pistol rounds in total. Considering that’s probably more than all the people who died today had together, he was doing quite well for himself. Had his right arm not been out of commission and if he had anyone more physically capable than his apocalyptic girlfriend of sorts, then he would have had a round saved by either taking the young zombie out by melee himself or having someone else do it. Meanwhile, the bandolier that had been over Tiff’s chest was now over his own.

  Four of the five green-cloth pockets had 10 rounds of .303 in two clips apiece, and finally the fifth pocket held a modest 2 loose rounds which were weakly loaded. Best to be kept for walkers or perhaps human threats at a close distance rather than for hunting anything like deer or moose which really deserved full power cartridges. Thinking back on it, with that small ledge of the ditch acting to steady his firearm (at the time his pistol), the ‘HALF LOAD’ .303 cartridges probably would have had such low recoil on his left shoulder that it might not have hurt his right as the kick shuddered his body, but he had no doubt that the recoil of a full power cartridge would go right through his left shoulder and jostle his right enough to cause intense pain.

  As for Nicky who felt the .223 cal bullet hole on the bow of the boat that had saved her, in a pocket of her gorgeous winter coat was 17 rounds of 7.62x39 surplus. She had gone back to the corner of that house where the one loose round had fallen. So going over her ammunition found that she had 3+1 in her semi-auto rifle having used one in her recently fully-loaded rifle to kill the blonde woman, and in her pocket had previously been one full clip with another than now held 5 (after putting said loose round on one that had only 4), and then there was two loose rounds
besides that from a few days earlier that she had forgotten about. Using that karate-chop method of opening the bolt while having her thumb still accessible, she caught the +1 of her 3+1 loaded rifle, pushed it in the mag for 4 rounds, pushed one of those two loose rounds in it for 5, and letting the bolt fly forward had her max of 4+1 at the ready. This left 1.5 full clips, along with 1 lonely little round which she left alone. Considering she had only 5-round capacity, it was more useful to have a 5-round clip than a 6-round one.

  No threats presented themselves as they went through the short road that had gone down a small drop which had kept it out of sight earlier. It went by a sort of park area, complete with benches, a few barbeques that were permanently fixed in place, and a red pipe of sorts jutting from the ground which was kept closed by a big metal cap. Judging from the smell that emanated from it upon getting too close, it was to be used by RVs for disposing of their waste, possibly known as ‘black water’. ‘Grey water’, if memory serves, was either for water that had been used in the shower or the sink that had to be discarded, and what the term was for the clean water he didn’t know. Perhaps ‘white water’ or ‘blue water’. It had been a long time since he’d been on an recreational vehicle.

  They made their way down to the water’s edge, Tiffany lugging Richard’s hefty backpack full of valuable supplies for survival. Nicky got to making a fire right away, intent on taking full advantage of a nearby BBQ, however that grizzly scene in a basement quickly made her reconsider. The fire will be on the ground, as usual. Forest lined the opposing side of the lake, which was calm and smooth from lack of wind. An easy thing, to imagine families here having fun. Children splashing about in the water, tossing a plastic pop bottle full of rocks so that others can try to dive down and find it. Hotdogs and burgers being cooked up, cans of beer being cracked open, perhaps a young teen couple walking along the lake’s edge towards the woods seemingly just to stretch their legs after a long drive and have a private chat but secretly intent on lunging into one another’s arms to take each other’s lips. Instead, there were corpses near and around the houses nearby, a zombies had to be put down, an innocent man and former pastor had been killed, and there had been a murder-suicide involving an infant for reasons they’ll never truly know.