Survivors Series (Book 1): Heroes Aren't Born

by Voeller, Cody

  “Livestock? What kind? Where did you get them?” Sarah asked enthusiastically.

  “Oh, we have a few chickens that produce eggs. A couple horses we use for farming and patrols. We have several dogs that we use to alert us of the undead. And we have a milk producing cow. She’s not much but she’s tough.”

  I could tell Sarah wanted to talk to me about the livestock but she held her comments for me until later. “And what do you contribute to this little community?”

  “Only what I’ve learned in my long and boring life. I was in the army for a while and when I had the chance to leave I did. I tried my hand at several jobs. I was a teacher, I worked at a small bookstore. I was bored and ready to get back into the army when I met Kelly. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. After asking several times and her refusing, we finally got married and had three kids. We opened and worked a store together, our kids helped from time to time. I do what I can to help the others, but like I said, they do most of the work.”

  “What happened to your wife?” asked Sarah.

  “She died when the dead came back. Kelly and I were working the store one night when a young woman came in with her son. This was when everyone was getting sick, and she couldn’t get her son to the hospital because it was so crowded. Anyways, she came in to get some medicine, anything that might help. As she was walking down the aisle her son collapsed, just fell down right there in the middle of the store, no warning or anything. She screams for help and Kelly reached them first, she always was faster than me. Kelly checks the kid and finds that he’s not breathing so she starts CPR while I called 911, I got a busy signal so I went to see how Kelly was doing. She got the boy breathing, Jack was his name, and sitting up. But he was dazed, just sitting there staring off into space. His mother couldn’t get his attention and neither could Kelly but she kept trying, she got real close to Jack’s face and spoke his name softly. Jack never looked at her, just through her, even when he started coughing up blood in my wife’s face. She got some in her eye and mouth. Even then she didn’t care about herself, she wiped away the blood and kept trying to get Jack to respond. We got the women some medicine and made sure they got home okay. We tried to call 911 again but all we got was that damn busy signal. We closed up and went home, that’s when she got sick. It didn’t take long for her to become very ill, I think it had something to with our age. Immune system’s not up to snuff. Anyways, I was up and reading the paper when she came walking into the kitchen. She had been up all night with a fever, throwing up and moaning. I walked up to her and tried to get her to listen to me. She stared at me with dead eyes and when I finally did get her to pay attention she started to bite at the air and would have probably bitten me if I hadn’t been holding her by the shoulders. She seemed stronger than before and far more determined to get at me. I shoved her away and she fell backward. She got up and came at me again. I was crying when I shoved her the second time. She hit her head on the counter and didn’t get up again. I buried her in her garden and as soon as the streets filled with rioters and the undead I packed up and hit the road. I had planned to go to Canada, they were saying that there was less infected up there. I started to meet other survivors along the way and soon enough they started to follow me.”

  “Where’d you come from?” I asked.

  “Colton, Colorado.”

  “And how the hell did you end up all the way up here?”

  “My plan was to get to the coast. I figured if could get a boat I could sail the coast to Canada, maybe live in the woods with my youngest son. My wife was gone and the rest of my kids were too far away and I couldn’t even reach them on the phone. I met Z pretty quick and he decided to walk with me. By the time I did reach the coast I had a fairly large group of people following me, too many for boats. So we started walking the coast, ended up here.”

  I sensed that there was more to the story, a lot more, but I decided to let it rest. “So are you lot planning on staying for a while?”

  “I don’t rightly know. It all depends on what the others want to do. For now, they seem pretty comfortable and are only getting more so. I suspect that we’ll be staying for a while.”

  Sarah got up and took our plates. She went to help some of the other women dish up food and wash the dirty plates. My eyes followed her, smiling, “Well Luke, it seems like you’ve got something pretty special here,” I said without looking away from Sarah, who had just picked up a small child and helped him with his hot dog.

  Luke chuckled, “Seems like I’m not the only one with something special.”

  I turned to look at him. He had been watching me watch Sarah and he was grinning. I grinned back, “That obvious huh?”

  “Son, if you were any more obvious you’d have lasers shootin’ out of your eyes.”

  Luke and I talked for a little while longer about his compound when I heard a loud whistle pierce the afternoon air. “What’s that?” I asked.

  “One of the scavenger groups is back. That was the signal.”

  I took a few minutes but I soon saw a group of six walk into view and head towards the food. When they got close enough I saw that one of the six armed men was Adam. I nodded to him as he passed but he only sneered. Huh, I thought, wonder what’s got him so pissy? I turned to look back at Luke who had ignored the returning group and prepared to ask him a few questions about his farm when I heard a yell from the food line. “I said get away” I turned and saw Sarah shoving Adam away. She began walking back to our table and had almost made it when Adam was back on her, grabbing her around her waist.

  “Oh come on girl…”

  I didn’t even have to think, I just reacted. I pulled my pistol as I stood and leveled it Adam’s head, “That,” I said nearly growling, “is a very bad idea. Let her go, now.” Adam and I locked eyes and he grinned when the rest of his buddies grouped around him. They were all still armed and pointing their guns directly at me.

  “Now what fucker?” said Adam still grinning.

  “Go ahead, let them shoot. It doesn’t matter because even if they manage to kill me, you’ll already be dead. I’m not afraid to die but I would bet every penny I’d ever owned that you are. So I’ll say it one more time before my pistol gives you a lobotomy, let her go, now,” I stared into his eyes and waited. I was ready to squeeze the trigger when his eyes looked away and he let go of Sarah. She kept walking towards me like nothing happened and stood next to me. “Now how about we put the guns down,” I said smiling.

  None of the men looked like they wanted to do anything of the kind and I was ready to stand there, pistol in hand until doomsday, when I heard Luke’s calm yet authoritative voice say, “Put your guns away, all of you. Now.” Their gazes shifted between each other but they eventually took their fingers off their triggers and let their guns hang at their sides.

  I put my gun away and whispered to Sarah out of the corner of my mouth “You ok?”

  “Uh huh,” she whispered back.

  “Why didn’t you kick his ass?”

  “You told me not to expose our strengths. I was just following orders,” she whispered smiling at me.

  “Oh ha, ha, ha,” I said sitting back down.

  “I must apologize for Adam, sometimes he is a bit rash. I blame myself for that. I was never as attentive to him when he was growing up as I was with his brothers.”

  “Whoa, stop, rewind. Are you saying that Adam is your…”

  “My son, yes,” he nodded.

  “No way.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I’m sorry to tell you this Luke but your son is an asshole and he almost got shot because of it, twice.”

  “Yes, he complained in great detail about your sniper. Said we couldn’t trust you. Like I said, he’s a little rash at times but I still have hope that he will become the man I know he can be.”

  “Sorry if I don’t share your faith.”

  “It’s ok, but he’s family and no one should turn their back on family.”

  �
�I agree completely.”

  We talked for a little while longer about the facility and Luke offered us a tour. Much of the grounds had been torn up and used for planting, some went to the grazing animals and keeping the chickens. I learned that the facility was equipped with a very large backup generator which had kept the fridges and freezers running on very low power and were supplemented with solar power, the panels lining the roofs of every building. We took a look at the dorms. They were split up into men, women, family and elderly. Each dorm had a guard, not to keep them in but to keep them safe from Walkers. We patrolled the perimeter and I met a few of the guards on duty. They weren’t all men, there were several women who smiled at me. I saw something in each and every one of their eyes. It was a coldness, a deadening that betrayed their warm smiles. It told me something very important about these people, they were survivors who had gone through absolute hell to make it to where they are now. These were no longer civilians, they were warriors in the fight against the undead.

  “Is there anything in the armory?” I asked hopefully as we walked back to the main compound.

  “I’m afraid not. It was one of the first things we checked when we got here. It’s completely empty except for a few shells that we cannot use in our rifles.”

  “Damn. So all your people are armed with what?”

  “Many have personal weapons but we added to our weapons cache whenever we could, mostly from gun shops. We have pistols, rifles, shotguns and even a few crossbows.

  “Damn, I was hoping for some heavy munitions. Maybe even a few grenades.”

  He laughed, “Sorry, none of that.”

  “Too bad.” We walked in silence for a short time before I asked, “So Luke, I’m curious. Why haven’t you asked me anything about my people or home? I mean, you answered every question I could think of and yet you haven’t asked a single one, besides asking whether I had a military background.”

  “Not all men are willing to share their secrets. Even before the dead awakened most people were unwilling to udder even the most simple personal fact. I did not know if you were as protective of your secrets as you are of Sarah,” he said smiling again. “Was I not correct?”

  I smiled, “You were. Forgive me for playing this close to the chest. I do not want a repeat of our last survivor relationship. I would do anything to protect my family and if your people are the aggressors then that doesn’t bear well for them.”

  “Would you have shot Adam if I he had not backed down?”

  “If he hadn’t let go of Sarah? I would have put one in his forehead.”

  “That James is quite possibly the most truthful thing you’ve told me.”

  “I haven’t lied to you, Luke.”

  “I know that but what you just said told me more about you than you could ever know.”

  I smiled, “Why are all the people who survived this damn apocalypse so damn observant?”

  “It’s what has kept us alive.”

  “True.”

  Back at the main facility Sarah and I talked with several of the survivors. I was surprised by how many families there were, there were even a few pregnant women. I was amazed by how many people Luke had led to safety. I looked at my watch and motioned for Sarah. She stopped talking to one of the women making bread and walked over to me. “What’s up?”

  “It’s getting late. It’s almost six, I think we should head back. What about you?”

  “I…”

  Luke must have overheard us because he interrupted her before she could finish, “Would you like to stay for dinner? I believe we’re having some sort of chicken stew with fresh bread. Please, stay.”

  I looked to Sarah who shrugged, “Alright I guess we can stay a little longer.”

  As it grew darker, torches around the camp were lit to provide a little light and a large bonfire was made near the dining area. The facilities lights would have worked but they wanted to minimize their energy use to keeping the food cold. Dinner was delicious and tasted a thousand times better than any canned soup I had eaten in the last few months. I was surprised when a plate what looked like cobbler was set in front of me. I took a bite and asked “Blackberries? Where did you get blackberries?”

  “A field about half a mile east of here. It was overgrown with blackberry bushes.”

  I took another bite, “This is amazing, who made it?”

  “That would be Annie. She’s our resident genius in the kitchen. She even managed to make a few MRE’s taste decent.”

  “Now that is amazing,” I said laughing.

  “What’s an MRE,” asked Sarah.

  “It stands for Meals Ready to Eat. They’re military rations that taste like cardboard. If Annie was able to make those decent even partially decent then she really is a genius.”

  “Why thank you, James,” said Annie as she passed.

  “Your ears must be burning,” said Luke with a smile.

  “Well, it couldn’t hurt you to compliment me every once in a while old man.”

  “The cobbler is delicious Annie, thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said continuing their playful banter. If there hadn’t been such an age difference between the two I would have sworn that they were flirting with each other, but then again maybe they were. Who knows?

  “Are your bathrooms working?” asked Sarah.

  “Of course. You’ll find what you’re looking for in the woman’s dorm. The toilets use collected rain water to flush. Be careful not to fall, I don’t believe that area has been lit yet.”

  “Ok, thank you,” she said to Luke before turning to me, “I’ll be right back.”

  “Ok.”

  She took off and I started to finish the rest of my desert. “So is there anything that you seem to be missing?” I asked Luke.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Are there any goods or supplied that you’re missing or that you wouldn’t mind having.”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “It’s just that I know this area very well and I could probably help with your scavenger missions. I might even know some pretty good hunting area’s if you’re interested in elk and deer.”

  “That would be great and very helpful but what I’m really missing are leader’s someone…” began Luke before he was cut off by a yell coming from the dorms.

  We were up in an instant and running towards the noise. Luke was far faster than I would have thought and he was able to keep up with me the entire time. Reaching the dorms I saw something that I had not expected. Adam was lying on the ground in the fetal position, clutching himself. Sarah was standing over him, angry. I was about to ask what had happened when one of Adam’s buddies from before came rushing out of the darkness, probably trying to take Sarah by surprise. He didn’t even have a chance. As he ran at her I intercepted him and slide on the ground in front of him, not unlike how you would slide into a base when playing baseball. He went down hard, hitting his face on the hard ground. Standing I walked over to where Sarah still stood. “What happened?”

  “This motherfucker tried to grab me when I came out of the bathroom. I think I fractured his wrist and I kneed him in the balls.”

  I crouched down next to Adam and spoke so only he could hear me, “You’re probably having a little trouble breathing right now. Count yourself lucky, she could have killed you if she wanted to. I told you before that attacking her was a very bad idea.” As I spoke a third attacker came from the dark and as I rose I leveled a side kick to the middle of his chest. He turned slightly to try and avoid the strike but he only managed to redirect my attack so it struck him in the side, cracking a few ribs. As the three lie on the ground moaning, I looked at Luke with disapproval. “Luke, it looks like you have a serious case of stupid going around your camp. I hope it’s not contagious, I would hate for others to get hurt.”

  “I’m sorry James. I don’t think we’ll have any more cases like this.”

  “Good. Now your son here probably has a fractured wrist and he sho
uld count himself lucky that’s all he has. That one probably had a few broken teeth, maybe a dislocated jaw, the ground is pretty hard. That third one has a few cracked ribs for sure. Do you have someone who can patch them up?”

  “Yes, we have a few people with a little bit of medical knowledge. They should be able to take care of them.”

  “Good. I think it’s about time for us to go home. Could you get Z and Ben to take us back to the Costco, my bike is there.”