In my hangover haze, I made up a bucket of strong disinfectant solution and carefully scrubbed the front door and porch.
“What a lovely fucking Sunday morning!” I said out loud as I tossed the bucket’s contents into some bushes.
I had planned to go into work that afternoon, but Phil had texted me that the other ZIPs samples and some needed supplies to start the project wouldn’t be in until Monday afternoon, so I should stay home until then.
Maybe he was lying so I would get some more rest, but I wasn’t going to argue. I did need some rest, or at least something to try to take my mind off of things. I called Cam and invited myself up to his place. He and his buddies would be having a meeting at their “compound” (when did they get a compound?) that afternoon, so he gave me the address and told me twice to be very careful and not to stop for anyone. I told him he didn’t need to worry about that, without elaborating.
Sunday traffic on the New York State Thruway was usually a nightmare, especially in West Nyack because of the Palisades Center Mall, and in Harriman, with everyone flocking to the Woodbury Commons outlet stores. Apparently, half-price designer jeans and home décor were not on people’s To-Do Lists these days, as I practically had the Thruway to myself. And as state troopers had better things to do than set up speed traps, my lead foot got me up to Saugerties in record time.
My Garmin then navigated me through a maze of back roads even I didn’t know existed. When my wheels started spinning on a steep dirt road, I was certain I was lost, until I saw the glint of sunlight on barbed wire just up ahead. I put the car in reverse and rolled back until I had traction, then gunned it up the hill.
(Note to self: it was probably time to trade in my little compact car for an SUV, or at least something that could hold more guns and supplies, not to mention being able to run down a few zombies without bending like a fortune cookie. This was the way I was starting to think. )
The road leveled off at a large, steel gate that appeared to be the only opening in a long line of sections of both chain link and stockade fencing that stretched off into the woods. I honked my horn a couple of times, unwilling to get out of my car until I was sure I was at the right place.
“Well, you must have flown up here, my True Girl,” I heard Cam’s voice say from somewhere. I looked all around, but couldn’t see him.
I rolled down my window and shouted, “Where are you?”
“Up here,” came his response.
I fully expected to see him sitting on a tree limb or a deer stand, but when I looked up I saw a surveillance camera and speaker mounted to an oak tree.
“So this is your double-secret boy’s camp?” I asked, laughing.
“Welcome to Sherwood, my Lady,” Cam replied, quoting my all-time favorite actor in one of my favorite movies. (And for anyone who thinks I’m talking about Kevin Costner and his version of Robin Hood, well, I feel sorry for you.)
There was a loud buzz and the gate swung open, and then closed again as if by magic when I pulled through. They had certainly spared no expense. It was at least another quarter of a mile before I started to see any buildings, and it quickly became evident that this had been a summer bungalow resort. It was also evident by the guard dogs, flood lights, watch towers, and concrete pillboxes (for real!) that the place could now easily double as the set for a prison camp movie. More startling than that, however, was the fact that no one was wearing masks or gloves!
As Cam approached the car, he could see I was pulling on my mask and gloves, and was reluctant to step outside.
“Don’t worry, we’re all clean here,” Cam said as he gestured toward the two dozen or so men approaching who looked like Hell’s Angels that had just been in a mud wrestling competition. “Well, maybe that was a poor choice of words. Let’s just say they aren’t infected.”
Cam explained that they were digging a moat for yet another line of defense around their “command center.” I slowly got out of the car, but when Cam stepped forward to greet me, I stepped back.
“Told you ya should have showered before the little lady got here,” one of the leather and denim clad bearded men covered in clumps of dirt yelled. (Which could have described any of them.)
“Hang on a minute, Trues,” Cam said as he ran into the closest bungalow and quickly returned with a big Tupperware container of what looked like coffee filters. He opened the container and handed a filter to each man. “Okay, whip ‘em out boys and put the lady at ease.”
I raised my hands and started to say that wasn’t really necessary, but zippers were already opened and I was treated to the most bizarre chorus line of men pissing onto infection test papers and then holding the dripping yellow papers proudly up in the air. There wasn’t the slightest hint of blue, so at least no one was in the infectious stage.
“Gentlemen—and I use that term very loosely,” I began, which got a laugh out of them. “I appreciate the gesture, but I do hope you will excuse me if I do not reciprocate, and instead present my purple wrist band to show I was just tested two days ago.”
There were some lewd comments about me showing them mine since they showed me theirs, but Cam put a stop to that in his usual gallant manner.
“Shut the fuck up you sons of whores!”
I then peeled off my gloves and took off my mask, in a slow, provocative manner as if performing a striptease, much to the delight of my audience. And in some twisted way, I did feel as if I was stripping naked. I mean, no one went anywhere without a mask anymore. I felt scared and vulnerable, but I also felt freer than I had in months.
“All right, all right, the show’s over,” Cam said, failing to suppress a grin himself over my surprising and uncharacteristic behavior. “Everybody back to work.”
Though Cam appeared to be the youngest by at least a decade, he was clearly the leader of this motley crew of bikers, rednecks, ex-military, survivalists, and some vaguely, (and uncomfortably) Neo-Nazi types. But they all seemed like good guys and I knew Cam had enough sense to weed out any bad elements. Although, with zombies everywhere, didn’t you actually want the bad elements in your camp?
Cam gave me a tour of the vast network of fences, barricades, motion sensors, and—unbelievably—mine fields! When I started to ask where they got them, he cut me off and said, “Don’t ask.”
I also didn’t bother to ask where they got the stockpile of automatic weapons, and let me tell you, it was an eye-popping assortment of Uzis, Krinkovs, AK-47s, and even the classic and timeless Thompson submachine gun.
“Oooh, what a beauty,” I said caressing the solid wood stock of the Thompson.
“Care to take it out for a spin?”
Cam didn’t have to ask twice. He actually had a shopping cart he filled with several different machine guns and gobs of ammo, and then wheeled it down to their practice range. Some of the boys stopped work to come watch—and eventually all of them did—as there was apparently some primal attraction to girls with guns.
I started off small with the Uzi, which was lightweight and easy to handle, but really didn’t impress me. The Stirling was a nifty little weapon, but didn’t pack any real punch.
“You want punch? Try this,” Cam said handing me an AK-47.
I wasn’t even half way through the clip when I knew the kick was going to leave a bruise. It was a rough, crude, unsophisticated weapon, but I respected its simplicity and its reputation to keep on firing under just about any condition, even if a tank rolled over it.
Then came the Belgian Fusil Automatique Léger (Light Automatic Rifle) made by Fabrique Nationale de Herstal, or the FN FAL, for short. It was a loud, vicious beast of a weapon and I couldn’t imagine any soldiers having the guts to advance upon anyone armed with one of these bad boys. Of course, zombies didn’t have any sense of danger, or any other real sense for that matter, so the FN FAL would not make an impression on them—other than its beefy 7.62 NATO cartridges shredding their flesh, that is.
Finally we came to my two favorites. First was the M1
6, a nimble weapon that instantly made me understand why over 8 million of them had been put into the hands of soldiers around the world. It didn’t have the flash and pizzazz (are those the right words to use for a gun?) of some of the other weapons, but it was a cool, efficient, killing machine.
Last, and certainly not least, was the favorite of gangsters, bootleggers, bank robbers, and Hollywood film makers; the famous and iconic Tommy gun. Machined out of a solid block of steel—unlike the cheap pressed metal of the “economy models” of many of the foreign machine guns—and solid wood grip and stock, I felt like I was cuddling up to a piece of history as I tucked it against my shoulder. And when I pulled the trigger on full automatic, well, let’s just say it was love at first shot.
“Hey Cam, I think she’s having a ballistic orgasm,” one of the boys shouted.
Okay, so maybe I was. I had always enjoyed shooting, but I had never actually fallen in love with a gun before.
Cam winked at me then addressed the small crowd.
“Any of you sons of bitches have a problem with Trues taking this baby home with her?”
It was a unanimous decision to let “Dr. Kilzombie” have the Thompson. (I winced at the name at first, but the fortieth or fiftieth time they called me that I actually began to like it.) They also decided I should take an M16 and an AK-47 with me, as well. I thanked them all for their generosity, and just to show them that I was truly “one of the boys” I agreed to a shooting contest that included (god help me!) ample quantities of Jack Daniel’s.
I woke up the next morning face down on the floor of Cam’s bungalow and had no recollection of how I got there. The jackhammer was once again tearing up the pavement in my brain, and my right shoulder was sore and swollen from the kick of enough machine guns to arm a small nation. But there was pain in my left arm as well, and when I ran my right hand down my arm I felt a couple of big bandages. Had I been wounded somehow?
I staggered to my feet and stepped over Cam (who was on his back on the floor, snoring like a buzz saw) and went into the bathroom. The first thing I did was take a fistful of aspirin. Then I splashed cold water in my face until my eyes were able to focus, at least a little. I found that I had bandages wrapped completely around my forearm, and another around my bicep. WTF? Had I burned myself?
When I peeled back the tape and pulled down the corner of the gauze pad on my bicep, I wouldn’t have been more horrified if I had seen third degree burns.
For the love of god, I had a tattoo!
Despite the pain, I yanked off the rest of the bandage and found a circle of raw, blood-red oriental letters. Gasping in horror, I tore off the other bandages on my forearm and found both sides of my arm covered in what looked like leaves or something, and a skull. A freakin’ skull, for Christ’s sake, on my arm!
You have no idea how freaked out I was. Me, conservative Dr. Rebecca Truesdale, with tattoos! In a state of panic, I tore off all my clothes to see what other parts of my body I had violated, but took some solace in the fact that only my left arm appeared to have been disfigured. You just can’t appreciate how much I absolutely hated tattoos, and how I equated them with ignorant lowlifes, not that I mean to give offense to those who had a differing opinion about defacing their bodies with ink.
Okay, so maybe I did mean to give offense. I just hated tattoos, and I stormed back into Cam’s bedroom and gave him a none-too-gentle kick in the ribs. He sat up ready to take a swing at whoever was assaulting him, but his eyes bulged with surprise as he saw me standing naked over him.
“Well, good morning to you, too, baby!”
“How the hell could you let me get tattoos!” I shouted at him, genuinely as pissed off as I had never been pissed at him ever before.
“Let you get tattooed!” he countered, shouting right back at me. “You held a motherfucking knife to my balls and dared me to try to stop you!”
“I would never…oh my god, I did have a knife, didn’t I?” The awful reality started trickling back through my Jack-soaked brain. “Oh god damn it. What have I done?”
I sat on the bed and buried my face in my hands.
“I think it looks pretty cool,” Cam said, finally rising to his feet and tilting his head back and forth as if studying a fine oil painting. “I have no fucking idea what it all means, but The Monk has done some fine work there.”
After a cup of coffee and a few more aspirin, we went over to The Monk’s cabin to find out what I had let him do to me. Charlie “The Monk” Ferguson used to ride with a violent motorcycle gang, and almost killed a man in a liquor store robbery. To escape the law, and do penance for his suddenly guilty conscious (which didn’t surprise anyone more than Charlie, himself) he fled the country. He spent many years in various monasteries in Southeast Asia and India, working as a handyman and learning something of what he called an “alternate lifestyle,” i.e., actually being nice to people instead of always trying to kick out their teeth.
As Charlie tells the story, he was beginning to think it was his destiny to shave his shaggy hair, renounce the world, and become a full-fledged monk.
“Then one day, the head Buddhist monk what was in charge of that there monastery,” Charlie recounted in his own inimitable style, “Says to me, ‘Charlie,’ he says, ‘Your path to true enlightenment can only be found on the back of a Harley,’ he says, and I swear on my mother’s grave he said that.”
So Charlie “The Monk” returned to the good old USA—under an assumed name, of course, lest his outstanding warrants catch up with him—to pursue a more meaningful life building fortified camps stocked with illegal weapons and to tattoo drunken doctors.
“Well there’s my little tattoo goddess,” Charlie said when he opened the door, scratching himself under his sagging boxer shorts. By comparison, Charlie’s manners and appearance made Grizzly Adams look like Martha Stewart. And this is the man I let repeatedly puncture my skin?
“Uh, Monk, Trues is a bit upset,” Cam began as if trying not to offend a fine artist.
“What? Not happy with my work?” he said, genuinely crestfallen.
“No, it’s not that. It’s just, well,” I said stumbling for the right words. “It’s just that I really don’t care for tattoos, and well, I-”
“These aren’t just tattoos!” he replied, astonished at my apparent ignorance. “Don’t you know that in many cultures skin art is a symbol of maturity, accomplishment, and spiritual growth!?”
“Yes, of course, but they just aren’t…me,” I said as gently as I could.
“You get in here and sit your pretty little ass down and let me tell you something about yourself,” Charlie said, with no hint in his voice that it was an option.
I expected to walk into a filthy pit of dirty clothes and half-eaten cheeseburgers, but found a Spartan and immaculately clean interior—with no chairs. Charlie motioned for us to sit on a small oriental carpet, and he sat on the bare floor in front of us. This massive, hairy, brute of a man then spoke to me with the voice of a wise seer.
He told me that the red lettering on my arm was the sacred Tibetan mantra “Om mani padme hum.” It was most associated with the bodhisattva of compassion, and was therefore a visible expression of my lifelong devotion to cure the sick and alleviate the universal suffering of mankind.
On my inner forearm he had placed the artwork of autumn leaves; while on the top of my arm he had placed winter leaves. This was to remind me that all things pass, and no man alive can stop nature from taking its course. No matter how cruel and unfair life may seem—especially now—God had a divine plan and we must work within that plan with as much compassion and integrity as we can.
The skull, well, obviously that represented death, but that was way too simple an explanation. It was a symbol of the force that I fought in the laboratory and in the hospital, hoping to keep the living alive. But it also now represented the undead that walked the land, and my ability and courage to face those unholy creatures and bring them to a state of eternal peace.
; When The Monk finished speaking, he gently re-bandaged my arm, placed his hand on my head and spoke some sort of Tibetan prayer or blessing.
I was speechless. What could I say? Perhaps the Monk was a master at spouting eloquent bullshit, or maybe he did have the power the look into my soul and recreate what he saw with ink on flesh.
Either way, I was stuck with it for now. So I thanked him, loaded my automatic weapons into the car, and headed home.
Chapter 7
Phase 7: The End of the Beginning: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” Winston Churchill, November 10, 1942 (after the British defeated Rommel and the Afrika Korps at the Second Battle of El Alamein)
Thank god for lab coats and ibuprofen.
By the time I got back home, I had just enough time to shower (while holding my bandaged left arm outside of the shower curtain) and change clothes. A large dose of ibuprofen helped the pounding in my skull, but I knew that no amount of makeup would conceal my “passed out on the barroom floor look” so I didn’t even bother.
A pair of sunglasses would hide my bloodshot eyes until I got to my lab, and I was hoping my safety glasses would take over from there. The lab coat would hide the bandages on my arm, which were obvious under the sleeve of my shirt. I was somewhat confident that the result of my weekend’s indiscretions would not be observable.
“Holy shit, Becks,” Phil said after a long whistle of surprise, “What did you do, lose both a drinking contest and an arm wrestling competition with a bunch of sailors?”
Apparently, clear safety glasses did not hide red eyes, and lab coats could not conceal the stiffness I exhibited in both arms. To avoid undergoing the long series of questions I knew Phil would ask, I decided to get it over with all at once.
“I turned away a dear, sweet, old lady at my door because she was infected, so she went home to be eaten by her zombie husband, who was then probably shot by police. I felt like shit so I drank myself into oblivion. That was my Saturday night.
HVZA (Book 1): Hudson Valley Zombie Apocalypse Page 10
