Don't Dare Call Them Zombies : Books 1-4

by Zachary Stone

  “Yep, that tire is gone. Look here – you’ve got three nails in it. I doubt I could even plug it up right. You just need a new tire and a good spare.”

  “Let’s go,” Sam urged. “We need to get this done and over with – c’mon, this way.”

  He directed us to a large white truck with an extended cab.

  “Now, since we’re going in my truck we’re going to do this my way,” he said. “Rob's place is just down the road. Before anyone gets out we’re going to circle all the way around his property. This truck is a four wheel drive; I doubt we will get bogged down. If the coast is clear we’re going to stop, get out, get the tire, and head back to the church.”

  “Okay, sounds good to me,” I said.

  The four of us climbed into his truck which smelled of cigarette smoke. I took the shotgun position while Jennifer and Robert sat in the back. Sam started up his truck, and we traveled down the long driveway of the church. I took a moment to load up my revolver as we turned onto the main road.

  “My place is a little over a mile to the right,” Robert stated. “I’ll need to unlock my garage so I can look for the tire.”

  Hanging above me on the cab ceiling was a very high tech looking hunting bow and a quiver of arrows.

  “Are you a hunter, Sam?” I asked.

  “Almost everyone does some hunting in these parts. But for the most part I like to target shoot,” he explained. “And I'm a very good shot.”

  I believed him.

  As we continued down the road we saw something in the ditch by the side of the road. Sam slowed down, and as we got close we could see that it was a freak crawling slowly along the ground. One of its legs looked broken. It was headed, very slowly, towards the church. We passed by it without stopping, and continued to Robert's place.

  “We can dispatch that one on our way back,” Sam said.

  Only moments passed and we were at the entrance to Robert's driveway. His house was positioned a long distance from the road, in a similar manner to the church. We drove down the driveway until we got to his front yard. It looked clear of freaks from the front of the house, and we proceeded to circle around his property – just like Sam had planned.

  “Keep your eyes open,” I told everyone. “Let me know if you see anything at all suspicious.”

  As we drove slowly around the property surrounding his small brick home I saw a number of junk cars parked in various places. He also had what looked like the frame of a motorcycle on his front porch.

  “I can see you do some work on cars,” I said, half joking.

  “Yep, I sure do,” Robert responded.

  As we pulled around to the rear of his house, to my dismay we saw three freaks in his back yard walking towards the sound of our truck.

  “Ok. We have work to do. Look around! Do any of you see any more of them?” Sam asked.

  I scanned the surroundings and only saw those three.

  “There are only those three, I'm pretty sure,” I responded.

  Without a moment's hesitation, he took the bow and quiver of arrows from their mount on the ceiling of the truck and hopped out the vehicle. In what seemed like one quick motion, he took an arrow, put it in place, pulled back the string, and fired at the closest freak hitting the snarling, hissing woman square in the forehead. She’d barely hit the ground by the time another arrow had been launched. This second arrow pierced the eye socket of a tall, skinny freak.

  “Hank, look! There’s another one,” Jennifer called out, pointing into the distance beyond the house. Two more freaks were walking towards the house from the field behind it.

  “Where did they come from?” Robert asked.

  “It doesn't matter. I have to take them out. Stay here,” I said.

  I jumped out of the truck and walked towards the two flimsy looking corpses approaching. Their receding skin showed their facial musculature; one was male, the other female. Flies circled and as they grew closer I could tell why; even for decaying corpses, they smelled putrid.

  I unsheathed my butcher knife and grasped it firmly. As the male freak approached I took a quick step to the side and plowed my knife into its face. I simultaneously extracted my blade from his head with a jerk the now truly dead corpse collapsed.

  Although it was not difficult to kill such a slow moving and clumsy freak, I wanted to be careful not to get cut in the process. I was unsure if a scratch could transmit the infection or not, but I didn’t want to be a guinea pig like poor Meredith.

  Having dealt with the male freak, I now turned toward the female who was coming at me with flailing arms. I tried to keep a good distance until I could be sure of clean strike. She had long nails that made her hands look like claws. This was especially true due to the fact the skin on her fingers had peeled away. As soon I saw a clear opening I swung at her neck. The blade sliced through her neck and her head fell to the ground.

  Even with her head detached from her body, her eyes and mouth were still moving. Feeling a sense of pity for the poor woman, I took my blade and stabbed it into her temple in order to destroy her brain, and she finally stopped moving.

  I raced back towards the truck and found that Jennifer and Robert had left the vehicle. Jennifer was keeping watch as Robert fumbled with his keys to open the garage door. On the other side of the truck, I saw Sam walking back towards us. A number of freaks were lying on the ground behind him, all with arrows in their heads.

  I reached the door of the garage at the same time Sam did.

  “Hurry and unlock the door,” I urged Robert whose hands were trembling as he tried to get the key into a padlock on the garage door. I was sure hadn’t expected to have to deal with so many freaks on such a short trip.

  Finally, he unlocked the door and switched on the interior light of the garage. Against a far wall of the extensive garage were at least a hundred tires piled up in stacks. I could also see lathes, drill presses, saws, a large air compressor, and a number of other pieces of equipment. It was as if he had his own personal, well equipped machine shop.

  “I'll stay out here and keep watch,” Sam said. “Just get in, get what you need, and get back here.”

  Robert, Jennifer, and I entered the garage. We followed our host towards a desk with notebooks and folders.

  “I need to check my inventory,” he said. “Just give me a moment.”

  I heard him muttering a series of letters and numbers as he looked through one of the notebooks.

  “Found it. You’re in luck. I have two. And I have an extra rim,” he said.

  “Great!” Jennifer exclaimed.

  “Come with me,” he told us.

  We followed him to one of the stacks of tires. A piece of tape on the wall labeled the stack “A-4”. He began to dig through them, tossing tires to either side until he reached the two we needed.

  “Here they are,” he stated, showing us two almost brand new looking tires. “Now, I want to find you that rim. I know exactly where it is.”

  With each of us taking a tire, Jennifer and I followed him to the other side of the garage. Rims of various sizes were piled up against the wall. Although the place seemed rather chaotic, there seemed to be a method to his madness. He obviously knew his garage and its inventory well.

  As Sam picked through the rims we heard a shout from outside the door. It was Sam.

  “Hurry up, y'all,” he warned. “There are more of them coming.”

  Robert kept on searching as we waited anxiously. Only a moment or two passed and he pulled out a rim from one of the stacks.

  “Here it is,” he stated. “An exact match.”

  “Let’s go,” I urged.

  “Wait,” he said. “I need to get something.”

  “Well, hurry. We may not have much time,” I said.

  As he quickly walked to another corner of the shop I thought about going out and helping Sam, but the truth was I didn't want to leave Jennifer. Although Robert seemed trustworthy and was risking his life to help us, I had only known him for a
day. Maybe I was being paranoid, but perhaps I was just trying to look out for a woman I cared about.

  “Now we can go,” Robert said.

  In his arms was a large, old fashioned sickle – like the kind you see death holding in horror movies. The large weapon, originally made for harvesting wheat or grain crops, looked ideal for the task at hand. Apparently, it also made him feel safer, as he no longer looked uneasy.

  With a large tire in one arm and my butcher knife in the other I led the way to the door. Looking in both directions, I stepped outside. Sam was firing arrows, slowly but steadily, at freaks as they approached.

  “We’re ready to go,” I shouted at Sam.

  “Good,” he said, as he fired one more arrow at a freak between him and his truck.

  “Follow me,” he called out.

  We hustled as fast as we could to the truck, but freaks were approaching from both sides. As one approached me, I swung the tire in my left arm at its head. The tire smacked its face, and the freak fell backwards.

  I heard a “swishing” sound as Robert's sickle decapitated a tall Asian-looking freak, slicing through its neck like it hadn’t even been there.

  “Behind you!” I called out to Robert as another approached from his rear. Before he could even turn around, Jennifer had taken her blade and slashed off a portion of the freak's skull.

  Turning around towards the truck, I saw Sam throw down his bow and pull out his pistol. He began firing at the freaks. He was right about being a good marksman, as every shot he fired seemed to be on target. Out of seven shots he fired, seven freaks collapsed to the ground, motionless

  Sam’s using gunfire meant we had to get out of there immediately. If there were additional freaks in the woods surrounding his home they would be drawn to the noise. Reaching the truck, we threw the tires and rim in the back along with Robert’s sickle. As I climbed into the vehicle, I saw that the driveway was blocked by more freaks; unfortunately, several trees and bushes would block us from driving directly from Robert's front yard onto the road.

  “Lock your doors,” I called out to the group.

  “Let me get a shot at them,” I said to Sam as I checked the cylinder of my revolver.

  Sam stopped the truck so I would have a good angle to shoot from. I opened my door, stepped outside, and carefully aimed at the first freak. My shot was true; the bullet hit the monster exactly where I had aimed – between the eyes. I felt more confident with the revolver than I had in the past as I continued to fire at the freaks. Although I had far less experience with a handgun than Sam, I seemed to be just as proficient with one right now.

  After firing five rounds I had cleared the driveway. I jumped back in the truck and we slowly drove over the dispatched freaks as we headed towards the main road. Looking in the direction of the church, I could see a few more of them walking in the road.

  “We can probably swerve around them,” I suggested.

  “We shouldn't stop and try to take them out,” Jennifer added. “Let’s just get back to the church.”

  “I'll try,” Sam stated as we proceeded down the road to the church. As we slowed down to go around the first freak, it managed to slap its bloody hands against the passenger side window. The gruesome handprint on the glass looked sinister, but did no damage to the truck. Sam was a little more careful driving around the next set of freaks, and the vehicle didn’t get touched.

  Moments later, we neared the drive way of the church. As when Jennifer and I first saw the building, it was surrounded by vehicles. Everything seemed normal from the outside, so we drove up to the church and parked close to my van.

  “What is the matter?” Jennifer asked me. “You have a look on your face.”

  “I don't know,” I said. “Have you ever heard of Deja vu?”

  “Yes,” she answered. “It’s when you get the feeling you have been somewhere before or have already done something.”

  “Right. I'm feeling something like that now.”

  “Stop with the mystical mumbo jumbo and let’s get out,” Sam told us. “We need to get your new tire on.”

  We got out of the truck and scanned the surroundings. There were no freaks in sight. The patrols were very good at keeping out the stray freaks that wandered onto the church property, and made me feel like it was safe enough to get on with work on the van.

  As we took the tires and rim to my van, Robert went to get a small air compressor and a few other tools out of his trunk. While he gathered what he needed to install and inflate the new tire, Sam and myself got the jack out of the van. We positioned it carefully into position under the frame of the van. However, before we could even begin to get the wheel jacked up and off the ground, we heard a loud sound.

  Looking up at the steeple of the building we realized where the noise was coming from.

  The church bells were ringing.

  Chapter Six

  Looking upwards at the steeple of the church, I could see inside the belfry a large, bronze colored bell swinging back and forth rapidly. Normally, the sound would be a reassuring, and even celebratory to the residents of this remote, country town. With no freaks in sight, the pretty white church with the swaying bell looked almost idyllic. However, it only took my mind a brief moment to realize the resonating echoes of the bell would attract every freak for miles around.

  “What blame fool is ringing that bell!” Sam exclaimed.

  “I don't know,” I said. “We have to get inside and put a stop to it. The freaks are going to be heading here from all over the countryside.”

  “Do we need to stay out here and fight?” Jennifer asked nervously.

  I scanned our surroundings. A few patrols were running towards the church while others stood looking upwards towards the bell. Probably, all of them were just as confused as we were. Looking at the wooded areas around us I couldn’t yet see any freaks emerging, but I knew they would be arriving soon – with an appetite.

  “We need to go inside for now,” I said. “We have to find out what's going on.”

  We had just started towards the church when Robert ran up to us carrying his sickle.

  “Let’s move,” I said.

  By the time we had reached the gate to the fenced off perimeter behind the social hall, the church bell had stopped ringing. Meredith and two other guards were standing at the gate. A man from inside had come out and was speaking to them.

  When Jennifer, Robert, Sam and I approached the gate Meredith opened it without saying a word and allowed us to enter. Once inside the fence, we stood and listened to the conversation that was going on.

  “Where is the tramp now?” Meredith asked the concerned looking man.

  “They got her tied up with the other girl,” he said. “She’s still ranting and raving about Tom and how we’re all going to pay for what happened.”

  “Does she realize if this place gets overrun she could die with the rest of us?” Meredith asked, exasperated.

  “Apparently not,” he said. “She wants revenge. It's all that’s on her mind.”

  Sam and Robert continued towards the social hall, but I needed to find out what was going on.

  “Meredith, what's going on? What happened?” I asked.

  “Remember those two shots that were fired?” she asked, her expression grim. “Just before you left.”

  “Yes,” I responded.

  “Well, that was Oscar. Nobody noticed, but he had a gun while he was in the storage room with his grandson, Tom. Once everyone had left the room, he shot Tom and then turned the gun on himself,” she said.

  “Oh dear God,” Jennifer exclaimed.

  “That’s not the worst of it,” Meredith uttered. “Once his girlfriend learned what happened she went into a rage. She apparently pulled herself together enough to plot her revenge. We should’ve had her tied up like the others, because she managed to break into the tower room and start ringing the church bell. Now we’re all screwed.”

  “So what's the plan?” I asked. “Are we going to t
ry and fight the freaks when they get here?”

  “I don't know,” Meredith asked. “If there are too many of them we could get overwhelmed.”

  “I wonder how many there could be,” Jennifer said.

  “Probably a lot,” Meredith stated. “I think the sound of the bell can travel further than our gunfire.”

  Looking at Meredith I noticed her face looked a bit pale. The bandage covering the scratch was still on her arm.

  “How is your arm holding up,” I asked her.

  “I'm still here,” she stated curtly. “Now, go inside and find out what they want us to do.”