by Will Lemen
Gin kept watch as we checked the lot; we were having no luck at first, but in the last row sat a big blue tractor with a huge sleeper.
"Jackpot," Billy yelled, waiving to the rest of us through the open drivers window, as he heard the powerful diesel engine start up.
We gather by the truck's cab, and Billy informed us that the gas tanks were full and it looked like there would be plenty of room for everyone.
"The trucker that owned this rig must have been getting ready for a long haul somewhere," I said, thinking the driver must have gotten killed just before he was about to leave the truck stop.
The only thing left to do now was to check some trailers, stock up on any food and water we could find, and get back on the road again.
"Anyone find any bolt cutters in any of these trucks?" Billy asked, sticking his head out the window. "Every trailer I saw had a lock on it."
Pulling a small pair of bolt cutters from behind his back, Jacob answered with a smile on his face.
"Do you mean like these?"
"Those are kind of small, but they'll probably do. I doubt if we have to open every trailer," I said, patting Jacob on the back.
"Let's try that one over there," I suggested, pointing to a trailer that had the logo of a national food chain plastered all over it.
After Jacob tried numerous times to cut the lock off of the back door of the chosen trailer, and found that he lacked the strength to squeeze the bolt cutters together hard enough. Billy wrenched the cutters from his hands, and moments later, we were in the trailer.
"I could have done it," Jacob complained.
"We didn't have all day," Billy, answered sarcastically.
"I probably weakened it for you," Jacob hinted, implying his brother couldn't have done it without his help.
"Enough bickering," Gin scolded, from outside the trailer. "Is there anything in there we can use?"
"I think there's lots of stuff we can take with us, maybe we should hook up this trailer and take the whole thing with us dad?" Jacob suggested.
"I don't think we'd get too far hauling this or any trailer for that matter, remember we need to be maneuverable, and trying to get around all of the vehicles that are parked all over the road, would be hard for a seasoned truck driver, impossible for any of us," I explained.
"There's some bottled water back here," Mary shouted.
"Help Mary with the water boys, get as much as you can carry, we don't know when we'll find more," I maintained, lifting two cases of the precious cargo.
From that one trailer we ended up with enough food and water to last the five of us a week or more. We packed most of the food in the sleeper unit, leaving enough room for us to sleep when need be. We found that there is an amazing amount of compartments inside and outside of the cab of a tractor-trailer rig that small items can be stored. Not to mention, by strapping most of the cases of water in between the cab and the fifth wheel, we had plenty of room for the rest of the supplies.
With everything packed, the boys and Mary in the back, Gin riding shotgun, literally, and the rest of our guns at the ready, I pulled our new ride out of the truck stop and back onto interstate 45.
"Next stop Galveston Texas!" I proclaimed, adding an extended Indian war whoop as we hit the freeway.
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ON THE ROAD AGAIN
The road to Galveston was about the same as the road to Dallas, or the road to Shreveport, or probably the same as the road to anywhere in the country.
It was peppered with abandon cars and trucks and staggering zombies that for the most part we tried to avoid.
We drove for a while, until I saw a billboard sign that read "Military Surplus" next exit.
"I think we'll take this exit, we might be able to find something of interest in that surplus store," I announced. "Remember, I told you we'd find you some camouflage clothing honey, there should be a lot of it there."
Jacob stuck his head out of the sleeper.
"I'm going to look for a machete like Mary's, I want another backup weapon."
"That's not a bad idea, maybe we all should look for an extra backup weapon, I'm thinking of a tomahawk myself," I added, turning onto the exit.
"There it is!" Jacob hollered, pointing to a storefront that was painted olive drab green, with artillery shells on each corner of the building.
"Calm down, we ain't deef, as my grandmother used to say," I said, smiling. "I see it, how could you miss it."
We used our usual tactic, and pulled up as close as we could to the front door. We sat up high in our semi-tractor, and that high vantage point allowed us to see not only the surrounding area, but allowed us to see what, if anything, might be lurking behind most of the parked cars that were near.
Several blocks over we could see zombies milling around, but they were too far away for the noise of our diesel engine to make them aware of us. Even the hissing sound coming from the airbrakes did nothing to attract their attention.
"Eaters, that means no dogs, let's go," I said, as we all exited the vehicle.
"I'm going to lock the doors, I don't want to leave somebody behind to guard the truck by themselves, and I don't want to leave the doors unlocked and take the chance that someone, or something might crawl inside while we're away."
"What if we have to leave in a hurry?" Gin asked, stepping onto the sidewalk.
"What if we have to leave in a hurry, and there's an eater in the truck?" I answered. "I think we can unlock the doors faster than we can get rid of an eater that's hunkered down in the cab of our vehicle, and a lot faster than we can clear the truck of someone that has a gun trained on us."
Mary stepped down from the truck, and in her snarkiest tone added.
"Unless of course, you get killed with the keys in your pocket."
I then responded back to her in my snarkiest tone.
"Right, so you better make sure I don't get killed, problem solved, see how easy that was?"
The door to the shop was open, the glass was broken out, and the door had been propped open with an empty ammo can.
"We're not the first ones to have this idea," Billy said, as we started to enter the building.
"I'll go first, and then Mary, then Jacob, and then Gin, Billy you come in last and watch our backs," I ordered. "Who or whatever was here is probably gone by now, but we don't know that for sure, so stay alert everybody."
We slowly entered the surplus store, it had been ransacked, the shelves that were still attached to the walls were empty, and what was left of their goods were now on the floor. Clothing racks had been turned over, the merchandise was scattered among the usual array of dead rotting bodies, and severed body parts that we had grown accustom to seeing almost everywhere we went.
"It looks like more than just one or two people were here," Mary whispered, pushing aside one of the racks.
"It looks like this store was crowded during the beginning of the outbreak. There's lots of signs of a brawl, and as you can see some died right here," I said, gently nudging a carcass with my foot, of what was left of an old man with half of his head missing.
"Let's get what we came for and get the hell out of here," Gin said, as she rummaged through some used camouflage uniforms.
"Army digital is fine, that's what Jacob is wearing, there's some used Marine Corps digital, and some brand new multi-cam over here," I explained, picking up a pair of multi-cam pants.
"Billy, you've got that old school camouflage design, now's your chance to upgrade if you want too."
"I'm fine, these are really comfortable, and I like the big pockets," Billy answered, standing by the door, manning what had come to be his usual guard post.
"I like these," Gin announced softly, holding up part of an air force uniform.
"Good choice honey, grab a bunch of different sizes, get some for Mary too, you two can try them on in the truck and find one that fits."
"That's a cool camo pattern mom, and look what I found!" Jacob announced excitedly.
We looked in Jacob's direction, and he was holding up a display of edged weapons.
"This is just the display, there's a bunch of this stuff all over the floor over here, even a tomahawk for you dad," he said.
Mary tossed him a large duffel bag she had found.
"Put the stuff in there, we'll sort it out in the truck," she ordered. "We can't stay in here all day."
We gathered a small assortment of equipment that was on hand, and Jacob stuffed it into the bag as well.
"Let's get going, we've been in here too long," Mary asserted, moving toward the front door.
"Billy, is it clear?" I asked, passing by Mary, smiling and dangling the key in front of her.
Billy cautiously crept outside. He turned back and motioned for the rest of us to follow. We bolted across the wide concrete sidewalk and up to the truck, I unlocked the passenger's door, and as I opened it, I said. "Get in and unlock my door."
They piled into the cab of the truck and dumped the surplus booty into the sleeping area while I ran around to the driver's side to join them. Billy had leaned over passed the steering wheel, and reached for the door lock as I came around the front of the truck. I heard his startled warning even though the driver's window was up. At the same time, I noticed what he had seen; there was someone at the rear of the cab.
The entity had its back to me and was a few steps away, and cutting one of the cords that held down our cases of water. It was simply reflex that caused me, without any hesitation what so ever, to pull my pistol and fire two shots into the back of the head of the would-be thief.
As the body fell to the ground, a screaming woman appeared from behind a car that was parked across the street. She ran straight at me, waving a butcher knife over her head. Again my reflex's kicked in, I turned my body and swung my pistol in her direction, I double tapped her with two 9mm slugs in the chest, from a slightly off balance modified Weaver stance. The woman dropped face first onto the street. She had no sooner hit the pavement, than three more people appeared, all were men, two came from behind the same parked car that the woman had been hiding behind, and the third from a nearby abandon truck. All were running toward me, and all were brandishing knives.
By now, Billy had jumped out of our truck and was leveling his AK in the direction of the men in the street. We fired on the attackers, Billy taking the two on the left, leaving me to attend to the one to our right.
Zombies alerted by the gunshots, now began to appear on the scene, as well as more humans wielding knives.
Fortunately, for us, whoever this group of people were that were trying to steal our water, they hadn't managed, for some reason or another to acquire any firearms.
The street in front of the surplus store was starting to become rather crowded with beings that were trying to kill us, some of which were alive, and some of which were un-alive.
"Get back in the truck!" I shouted to Billy, who wasted no time complying with my request.
I shoved my pistol back into its holster and jumped upon the running board of the truck, opened the door and slid inside.
"Lock the doors!" Gin yelled the unnecessary advice, as Billy crawled over her into the sleeper.
I inserted the truck keys into the ignition and started the engine, threw the truck into first gear, and we began to move.
Some of the faster knife-wielding attackers were upon us before I hit second gear. Holding onto the side mirrors on each side of the truck, they began to hammer on the windows with the handles of their knives.
"They're going to break the windows," Gin screamed, leaning toward me.
"We'll see about that. Hold on everybody," I shouted, just before I tapped the brake pedal.
Now in the truck's third of many gears, we were approaching twenty-five miles per hour. That's when I suddenly hit the brakes rather hard, and then quickly let off them again; I then crushed the accelerator pedal to the floor once more.
The sudden deceleration and subsequent acceleration, the surprise of the lurching motion forward and backward, and the laws of physics, caused the attacker's grip to be violently torn from the side mirrors and both of the attacking hitchhikers were thrown from our vehicle and tumbled along the pavement beside our truck.
"Can anybody say road rash?" I asked laughing, as I rammed two zombies that were clad in business suits and had wandered into our path, tossing them to the side as well.
"Another felony hit and run dad, how many is that for you now?" Jacob joked.
"Not enough," I answered as I swerved to hit a hapless older looking jaywalking corpse.
After several more felonies under my belt, we found our way back onto the interstate, and again heading in the direction of Galveston.
"We seem to be having a lot of close calls, almost every time we stop we end up having to fight our way out of some dilemma," Gin commented while sorting through her new camouflage uniforms.
"Indeed we do, but sometimes we have to stop, or somebody makes us stop, like those prisoners," I said in agreement.
"With our high profile in this truck we can see better, but they can see us better too. No matter where we go or which way we go, we're bound to find trouble, it's unavoidable," I maintained. "If it's not eaters, it's somebody else."
"Yes, it's always something," Gin agreed, shaking her her.
"We need to think about some new tactics, we've been lucky so far. If those water stealers would have had guns and ambushed us, we would have lost that fight for sure," I suggested, as I again plowed over an inadvertent lumbering zombie, dissecting the slow moving cadaver with the underside of our truck.
Listening to our conversation, Billy interjected.
"Sooner or later, we're going to be clearing a room or building and find it infested with eaters. Maybe we should adopt some kind of military or police type of entry, you know, the same way the swat, or seal teams do it."
Mary, listening intently agreed.
"That's what we need to do; we need to be more efficient when we go into these places."
"Swat team style it is then, we'll enter in single file in the same order as we entered the surplus store. We'll keep our rifles to our shoulders so we won't have to waste time raising them up to shoot," I said.
"I don't know what the laws were in Texas regarding silencers before the plague, but if we happen across any at a gun shop, we could sure use them," I said.
"I thought silencers were illegal?" Mary said.
"Only in the movies," I answered with a smile. "If I'd known this apocalypse was going to happen, I would have done the federal paperwork and purchased a couple. The laws go state by state. With the proper paperwork, they were legal in Missouri and many other states. Of course now they're legal everywhere, everything is legal everywhere now."
"That's good to know, if they were legal in Texas we might be able to find some, I'll keep my eye out for them, if we ever run across a gun shop that we feel is safe to stop at," Mary stated.
"Yeah, silent and long range both, that would be cool!" Jacob added with a smile, itching to get his hands on a suppressor.
"In the mean time, hand me that tomahawk you found," I said to Jacob. "I want to check out my new toy."
We traveled south for a while, dodging abandon vehicles and observing packs of zombies stumbling through the countryside. Nobody said much as we drove along. Then Mary asked me.
"You were curious about my friendship with Megan, so I told you how it is. Now I'm curious about something," she said.
"What?" I answered, as I concentrated on avoiding a group of abandoned cars.
"Back there at the surplus store you killed that man and that woman without giving them a chance. I wondered how you feel about that?" Mary asked coldly.
How I really felt, was annoyed at her question, but I tried not to show it.
"The man was stealing our water, and the woman was running at me with a knife, what would you have done?" I answered, nonchalantly. "Let him have our water, and let the woman kill you?"
"Look Mary, we're trying to survive, and I plan to do anything and everything I have to, to keep us alive," I said sternly. "We've all had to do things we didn't want to do, things that we would have never even thought of doing a couple of months ago, and we've all made mistakes. If not hesitating to kill that man and woman was a mistake, that's just too bad for them. We learned early on, shoot first and clean up the mess later is the best way to make it through this hellish world we're in. Even if we regret doing something later, at least we're still around to regret it. Besides, not one of them made any attempt to communicate with us. They sneaked up behind that car while we were in the surplus store, because they weren't there when we pulled up to the front of the building. Then they tried to steal our water," I said, casually aiming our truck at what looked to me like a family of three zombies in the middle of the road. The family consisted of the husband, his wife, and their small male child.
The thud of the already dead pedestrian's bodies hitting the large chrome bumper of our truck, and the slight jostle of the steering wheel as the front tires crushed my victims, acknowledged my aim was true.
"See everyone, that's how it's done, three less eaters we have to worry about, that's the way we have to look at it," I said. "If I could hit every single one of them I would."
"I would too!" Mary agreed, nodding her head.
The death of the undead family I had just run over, and my statement relating to the previous events that had just taken place, seemed to satisfy Mary's annoying curiosity about how I felt concerning my survival tactics, and ended our discussion of the matter.
On our journey south, we began to notice more feral dog packs, one of which was very large.
"Look over there!" Jacob shouted, alerting us to the distant danger. "Dogs, and a lot of them, look, passed those trees, you see um?"
Beyond a small wooded area about nine hundred to a thousand yards away from the freeway, Jacob had spotted a large pack of feral dogs.
"There must be fifty or sixty of them, and there's some more." Gin said, pointing to another group that was trailing the main pack of wild mongrels.
