Major Dunfield and his soldiers landed in front of a residential farmhouse, armed with their weapons, and a photograph of Jack Frost from his initial entry training base. From the air, they'd seen one or two people in the yard, though they'd fled back to the house at the sight of the approaching chopper. Dunfield laughed inwardly at the thought of being that intimidating. Dunfield signaled to the six men he'd hand-picked for this mission, who fell into formation behind him, ready to storm the house if necessary. Giving the appropriate hand signals, two of his men were directed toward the side of the house while two others were directed to the back. The rest stayed with him as he approached the front door, almost as if he lived there.
As Dunfield walked down the paved walkway, he kicked a few children's toys out of the way, his heavy military issue boots breaking a plastic big-wheel. The front of the house was guarded only by a homemade wooden patio, which Dunfield strongly doubted had been permitted by the county.
He and his men traversed the wooden steps and pulled aside a lightweight screen door. One more glance around the property showed him that this house, like many other houses in the Ohio countryside, stood alone. There were very few neighbors in the vicinity, and only a few horses in a fenced area. He turned back to the house and pounded on the white door. If this had been an interior door, his violent knocking might have torn it from the hinges.
“Give them thirty seconds, then we break it down,” Dunfield said to his men, who nodded in response. He knocked again, counting down the seconds. He almost wished that he would have the opportunity to terrify the residents in that manner, but moments later, he heard footsteps from within, and the door being unlocked. It opened within a few seconds, and Dunfield was presented with the face of a man significantly younger than him, about twenty-eight, with a full head of black hair.
“Can I help you?” The man said half smiling and extending his hand to shake. Dunfield eyed it and didn’t return the gesture. Instead, he pushed his way into the house, practically shoving the man over with the door. Dunfield had always liked imposing his will on others, but he had kept it in check until this had happened. Zombies were his ticket to absolute power and he relished wielding it against those less powerful. To him, everyone was now less powerful, and this man was no exception.
“Hey!” The man began to walk behind Dunfield, but was quickly restrained by two of the other soldiers. Dunfield’s smile was grim, expectant. The man before him didn’t realize that he was about to join the new military or die. If it was the latter, Dunfield might do the honors himself or leave it to an underling.
“My name is Major Dunfield, and my troops are securing this area, and we are on the trail of a war criminal by the name of Jack Henry Frost,” Dunfield reached into his pocket and produced the BCT photo of Jack Frost in his IET uniform. What he'd said was only a slight fib. Since the event, his numbers had been growing, and he now commanded approximately two hundred soldiers, though many of them had no formal training.
With a bit more pushing, Dunfield would be able to assemble a formidable force – something that would be very helpful given the climate as of late. If his intelligence was correct, the event had taken the lives of a good portion of humanity, and his own force might outmatch any other on the continent. Restoring law and order, along with the true American way, might actually be a possibility.
As Dunfield looked about the house, he noticed it was an open concept, which served his purpose all the better. In the corner there was a woman shielding two children, a boy and a girl, both around four years of age.
“I see you have a lot to lose, Mr....” Dunfield intentionally paused, waiting for the man to answer.
“Horowitz,” The man stated his last name.
“Horowitz! Well, Mr. Horowitz, I'm going to need you to tell me a bit about this young man. He's done some very, very bad things.”
“Care to tell me how he's done so many...bad things?” Mr. Horowitz asked, unfortunately beginning to grow a bit of a backbone. “I know this kid, everyone does. He just shipped out to basic training.”
“Yes, that's right, he did, and like I said, Mr. Horowitz, you have plenty to lose.” With that, Dunfield signaled to one of his soldiers, who began to walk toward the woman and children standing in the kitchen.
“Wait!” Horowitz said, struggling against his captors. “I'll tell you--”
He was cut off when Major Dunfield raised a finger.
“You'll get a chance to tell me everything you know,” Dunfield said. “But we're trying to rebuild the United States of America here, you understand? We need good upstanding patriots to help form our more...perfect union. Maybe you're a patriot, maybe you're not, but today an example needs to be made, and I'm all about making examples.”
As he spoke, the soldier pushed the woman out of the way and grabbed each child roughly by the arm, despite her protests.
“Wait, no, please!” Mr. Horowitz yelled, still struggling. “Jack Frost lived on Home Road, near the grain refiner, with his parents and sister--”
Major Dunfield held his finger up once again and pointed to the two children who were, at this point, crying hysterically. Both children were young, moldable and under ordinary circumstances, cute. The little girl had a full head of dark curls pulled up in a ponytail, and the boy, slightly older, was sporting a short haircut.
“Choose, Mr. Horowitz. One or the other,” Dunfield gestured to the children.
“What?” Mr. Horowitz screamed. “Are you insane? I just told you what you wanted to know?!”
“Mr. Horowitz, in our more perfect union, otherwise known as the reformed United States of America, there is no place for traitors, or those who would render aid to the enemy in a time of war. Now, you have five seconds to make your decision, or I will kill both of your children and your nightly squeeze, are we clear?”
“I told you everything!” Mr. Horowitz screamed, finally on the verge of tears.
“Five, four, three,”
“No, God, no, please, someone help!” Horowitz had the wild-eyed look of a trapped animal. He strained against his captors, mouth opening and twisting in the internal and external struggle this situation had created.
“Two,”
“Major, please spare my children!” Horowitz's wife shouted, trying to take them from the grip of the soldier. Her dress had been prim, perfect. The perfect housewife and her simpleton husband; Dunfield hated her simply because she existed. She reminded him of his mother; his father had beaten her and beaten him. He despised his mother: cookie-baking, pie eating woman who didn’t have three brain cells to rub together and spineless to boot.
“One.” Dunfield’s smile was broad; he loved this part.
His other soldiers remained stoic, eyes shifting nervously. They were too terrified to defy him; everyone was spineless weaklings to be taken advantage of.
“Take the children to the chopper,” he ordered, “we'll start their training when we get back to camp--”
“No!” Horowitz shouted.
“Burn the house; lock them inside. We lift off in ten.” Dunfield loved the sound of his voice, the clipped military precision with which he delivered the orders. No one knew that he had been a frustrated, pencil pusher in the old military.
***
“Things are progressing faster than I would have liked,” Jonah said as he examined his PDA.
“Faster? Faster than what?” Aimee asked as she walked beside him across the field. She wasn't aware of it, but they were moving toward a small village that had been affected, but was now mostly abandoned.
“Yes, faster,” Jonah nodded. “We're going to need some transportation.”
“And just where is it that we are going?” Aimee inquired.
“We're going where we need to be,” Jonah said. “And I'm afraid that if we don't get there, we're going to lose our opportunity to set things right.
They walked in silence for a good hour until Aimee saw the first building, and the second, and the third.
“Is that a pool hall?” She asked, pointing at what looked like a bar.
“I'm not entirely sure what that is,” Jonah laughed. “But maybe so. What is it?”
“It is...it is a place where...how the hell do you not know what a pool hall is?”
“I told you Aimee, I'm not from around here,” Jonah smiled once again as they approached the building from the back. It was indeed a pool hall of some type, or a bar.
“No sense in going in,” Aimee concluded. “The food is horrible in such places. They may have beer.”
“Many a civilization has been ruined by beer, or the equivalent,” Jonah smirked. “Or been saved, depending on how you want to look at it.”
“Civilization, society, all bullshit,” Aimee concluded. “They are all trash, no respect for one another.”
“Now that can't be true,” Jonah said, stopping and placing his hand on her shoulder. “Humanity, like any other race, has its merits. You're looking at the negative, and when you do that, of course, you're going to see the bad! What you need to look for is that one, single spark of goodness, and you need to use that spark to set a wildfire. Once you say or do the right thing, and it catches on, everything will be fine. People will start to work together, and most importantly, they'll start to love each other, despite their sexual orientation, their disabilities, gender, and any other differences. One little spark is all it takes.”
“It's a nice sentiment,” Aimee said as she resumed walking. “But, it will never ever happen.”
“It's happened in other places, it can happen here.”
“What other places?”
“Mmm,” Jonah said, shaking his head. “You're asking far too many questions again.”
“I hate you.”
“We need a car,” Jonah said. “That one will do nicely.”
He was walking in the direction of a Ford Focus, which had been all the rage when it came to fuel economy. It was parked along the edge of the sidewalk and seemed to be empty.
“How will we start it without a key?” Aimee asked, peering through the windows and hoping that the keys might have been left behind. To her surprise, the car started without any warning, and without anyone touching the ignition. She turned to Jonah, who was working with his PDA.
“It sends out a pulse,” he explained. “Just a little program I wrote. It doesn't work well where I come from, but your vehicles are primitive enough.”
“Primitive enough? This is brand new!” Aimee remarked as she walked to the passenger side of the vehicle. Moments later, they were underway. An attempt to pass through the center of town failed due to a slight wreck, but Jonah was able to take a right at the intersection, and they soon found themselves on the highway, heading north.
He followed directions provided to him by his PDA, which Aimee assumed was some sort of GPS. She asked very few questions during the drive, and in fact, nodded off, only to awaken about fifteen hours later, according to the clock on the dashboard.
“Where are we?” She asked Jonah when her eyes finally peeled open.
“If my device is correct,” Jonah replied, keeping his eyes on the road, which was now enveloped in darkness. “We're just crossing over the border of what you call Tennessee.
“What I call Tennessee,” she echoed. “Everyone here just calls it Tennessee; you're not special.
Jonah smiled as he checked his device.
“We're here,” He said, pulling over.
“Here? Here where? We are on the side of the road!”
“Nevertheless,” he said, pushing his door open, “we're here.”
Aimee opened her door and walked around to the backseat, where Jonah was sorting through some supplies. He found the jug of water he'd given to Aimee at the Q-Mart and nodded.
“This should do nicely.” He said, closing the door and walking toward the field directly left of the vehicle.
“What should do?” Aimee demanded.
They walked until they'd left the pavement, but Aimee couldn't see a thing. It was close to midnight, if not far past it, and they were walking without lights. In spite of that, she couldn't help but feel...relieved, almost. Cuba had suffered from overpopulation for several years, and no matter where she had traveled to on her small island, she never quite felt alone. When she was a teenager, she would sometimes sneak past the barricade and swim off the coast. She couldn't go far, but sometimes, in the middle of the ocean, or at least as close as she could get to the middle, she felt alone, and that itself, was a gift. Here, today, in this cornfield, with this mysterious man, she truly felt free, despite all that had happened.
“You'll want to stop now,” Jonah said.
“What?” Aimee asked, just as she stumbled over something on the ground. “What?!”
Jonah was already on one knee, turning the body over. It was a young man wearing a military uniform, old style camouflage. Jonah patted the boy on the cheek.
“Hello, Jack,” Jonah said. “I need you to wake up now. I brought you some water.”
The boy groaned as Jonah unscrewed the cap and held the jug of water to his lips.
“Easy now,” Jonah said. “You've been unconscious for a while.”
“I...” The boy said. “Who are...”
“My name is Jonah,” Jonah said, “and this is Aimee. We came here to ask you a very important question.”
For the first time, the boy opened his eyes and stared straight at Jonah. He looked from Jonah to Aimee, clearly confused and attempting to force his eyes to adapt to the darkness.
“What do you want from me?”
“I need you to tell me,” Jonah said. “Where I can find your sister, Sarah Frost.”
***
It was Kelly who finally broke the long silence the remnants of the Hosier family had endured for the last hundred miles.
“I need to pee,” Kelly said.
“We're not stopping,” Frank said, his knuckles white against the rubber steering wheel.
“Are we going to talk about what just happened?” Amber asked, referring to Mark's death and her mother's apparent suicide.
“What exactly do you want me to say about it?” Frank demanded, pressing his foot against the accelerator, and taking a bit of satisfaction at the rising engine noise.
“I don't know,” Amber said. “Maybe we could talk about why it happened?”
“Why do you think it happened?” Frank said, his voice elevating. “She watched her oldest son die in front of her, then she had to sit there and watch you point a gun at your own uncle while the world's going to hell in a hand basket. Who the hell wouldn't lose hope? Hell, I'm losing hope myself at this point. Where are we going? What are we going to do when we get there? What's the point of all this shit?”
“Dad, you're scaring Kelly,” Amber said, looking at her sister, who had more of a blank expression on her face than anything else.
Frank sighed. “You know what, you're right, I'm...I'm sorry.” He slowed down and took an exit that promised a rest stop for weary travelers.
“Get your guns ready,” Frank said. “We have to clear this place before anyone can use it.” He had apologized, but they were still falling apart, and quickly. Their mother had always been the glue that held the family together. They could have lived without Mark, though it was a significant blow, but without Virginia? How were they supposed to pull that off?
Frank navigated the entrance to the rest area, with the vehicle inhabitants cautiously eying a semi-truck that had pulled to the side. One could only assume that the driver had stopped here to sleep, and if he had turned, then he might now be stuck in the cab. From what they had all seen thus far, these things had no idea how to open doors, and they could most certainly live with that.
Amber watched out the side door, and noticed that they were driving in the right hand lane – in the path of oncoming traffic. Not that it mattered at this point.
“Maybe, we should open that truck,” Carl suggested from the front seat. “Might have something usefu
l.”
“Not now,” Frank replied. “I'm not taking any more chances with my family. We clear this rest stop; we use it, and then we get out of here.”
“Fine, but I'm hitting up the vending machines,” Carl was adamant in that.
Rather than parking in a designated spot, Frank simply parked the minivan in the center of the lot, keeping his distance from a green Toyota.
They exited the vehicle, each of them, Kelly excluded, aiming their weapons front. They cautiously made their way toward the rest stop without encountering any sort of resistance apart from a few of the undead trapped inside their vehicles, where they had been turned. One of them pressed against the window of a blue Taurus, staring at Amber with empty eyes as she led her little sister to the sidewalk and up the abandoned stairs, leading to the restrooms.
The concrete steps were in disarray, to say the least. Normally, there would be staff to clean them every few hours, but at this point Amber might have been incredibly disturbed if someone were actually taking the time to sweep the steps, and she might be even more disturbed if a zombie had taken over the job.
She rushed her sister up the stairs and told her to hurry as she surveyed the area.
“Stop pushing me!” Kelly whined.
“Just trying to keep you safe, little sister,” Amber reassured her.
She was aware of Frank and Carl beside her as they all reached the stop of the stairs and approached the rest area lobby. Amazingly, it still had power, though there were enough windows inside to permit a moonlight illuminated room. Instead, it was bathed in the yellow light that had been deemed appropriate by the state. For whatever reason, it was determined that the weary traveler's eyes would adjust much better to the soft yellow light then an aggressive florescent one. Amber never thought it would make much difference, having been on more than one road trip.
They surveyed the lobby from outside, and determined that it was probably clear. They opened the doors and cautiously walked in.
“We'll all use the same bathroom,” Frank said. “I don't want to clear both of them. He began to walk toward the men's bathroom, until Amber cleared her throat. “What?” he said, turning back toward her.
Zombies Ate My Neighbors, Family & Friends (Book 2) Page 4
