Southern Zombies Three Book Box Set: A Story of Survival, Southern Hospitality, and Southern Blood

by Ann Riley

  We get the cart and start down the aisle loading up on water, camping supplies, another first aid kit, and some sleeping bags.

  We also pick up some boots and coats as it seems to be getting a little colder. I find some more beef jerky for Riley and we make our way over to the gun section. We found another Browning 30 06 bolt-action and a Browning 12 gauge. I wasn’t thrilled about shooting a twelve gauge and getting my shoulder knocked off, but I will if I have to. We kept looking and found two Browning hi power 9mm lugers and grabbed those. Then we started loading up on ammo for our new found guns. I still haven’t found my 50 caliber. That may be a good thing though.

  I grabbed a couple of tactical hunting knives and found a Taser. Yes, a Taser. I wanted to see if they worked on the undead. Do you call them undead? Or re dead? Would undead relate only to vampires? Are there any vampires? For that matter, are there any werewolves? Who the hell knows? But I would try out my new found toy on them too.

  After making our rounds through the store, we got back to the door. Our dinner guests were waiting for us. The three zombies were patiently waiting for us to return. Again, faces pressed to the window. What the hell is it with zombies and windows?

  I pick Riley up and put him in the shopping cart so we can get ready to run out. Diane says, “So this is what we are going to do.” I look at her and think, “Oh hell, here we go.”

  She says, “You take the shopping cart and get ready to run. I will open the door and try to push them away so you can get out. Give me the bat so I can take a swing at them when we get out. You run as fast as you can to the truck and start unloading the cart while I hold them off. Keep the rifle out so you can take them out when you get the cart unloaded.”

  “Is this going to work?” I ask.

  “There’s only one way to find out,” she replies.

  “That’s not what I wanted to hear.” I tell her.

  “Shut the hell up and get ready to run,” she tells me.

  “Such a smart ass.” I tell her.

  “1, 2, 3” she counts off.

  And I am off and running with a shopping cart at full on speed.

  Riley is barking like he is rushing me on. “Would you like to do this?” I ask him. He gives me a tail wag and we keep running.

  I can hear Diane swinging behind me and hitting her marks with the bat. I get to the truck and run the cart into the side of the truck. Another scratch for Marc to bitch about. I will never hear the end of it.

  We had a truckload of stuff and it took a minute to get it out. When I finally got everything out, I grabbed the rifle and turned around to start firing and saw Diane surrounded.

  She yelled, “These fuckers have me surrounded.”

  I yell back, “You don’t say.”

  At this point our three dinner guests have expanded into 12. Where the hell had they come from? They weren’t here when we came up. Maybe they heard the noise and came to explore and found a smorgasbord of fresh meat.

  I started firing into the crowd, careful of where Diane was. If I accidentally nicked her I would never hear the end of it. Even if I tried to save her from being the main course on a zombie menu. She would kick my ass.

  I thinned the crowd out to 5. I ran closer so I could get a better shot in and Diane ran towards me. At the same time she started to run, a zombie reached out and grabbed at her arm. His hand slipped from her arm and left a long scratch from her elbow down to her wrist on her left arm. I reached out and grabbed her by the shirt collar and started running. We made it to the truck and I hauled her over the side and into the back and I jumped in and went through the back window to get behind the wheel and drive.

  As I started out of the parking lot of the sporting goods store, she was climbing through the window. I ask “Are you ok?”

  “Yeah,” she replies. “But it burns and it is hurting bad.”

  “Fuck!” I yell.

  “Do you think a scratch will get you infected?” Diane asks.

  “I don’t know. I have no fucking idea. What are we going to do?” I ask.

  “First, let’s calm down and find a place to stop so we can take a look and clean the wound up. We have peroxide and alcohol so I can use that to clean it up and bandage it. After that it will be a wait and see type of thing.” She says.

  “So what if it doesn’t work? What if you can get infected by a scratch?” I ask.

  “Then you will shoot my ass because I refuse to be walking around as a fucking zombie munching on people.” She said.

  “What the fuck? I can’t shoot you. You are my sister and I can’t do that.”

  “Why not? I would shoot your ass if you morphed into a monster.” She tells me.

  “Well, I’m glad to see you are so candid about your intents if I am turned. No one like family to put you in your place during times of emergencies.”

  “Shut up whining and pull the damn truck over so I can clean this wound up and see if I am going to be a damn zombie or not.”

  “Fine,” I tell her.

  I found a place to pull over. Yeah, we got lucky and found a CVS pharmacy, so I pulled in. Diane worked on cleaning her wound and she sent me into the pharmacy to get some antibiotics and pain medication. She is a nurse’s assistant so she is familiar with these things. Now is the time we need Tammy here. She is Diane’s youngest child who also happens to be a nurse.

  I make it into the pharmacy and start looking for amoxicillin and Percocet.

  At least it had been closed when the virus hit and the store was empty, or so I thought. As I got ready to climb over the counter, I saw that I was being watched. Mr. Pharmacy Man had obviously been eyeing me from the time I came in. He was over between the shelves of medicines and I couldn’t see him from where I was until I jumped on the counter.

  When he saw me on the counter, he started ambling towards me. Damn can I get a break here? I jumped off the counter behind the register and slowly walked around to the shelf that was closest to me. Mr. Pharmacy followed me around. I continued my walk down the shelf, made a left and continued to walk towards the back wall. I still had my stalker behind me. I made it to the back wall where there was a corner that started back up to the front of the pharmacy counter. There was a medicine cart sitting at the front of the aisle that I grabbed and pushed in front of the aisle opening, then I ran around to the front end cap of the shelf and pushed it towards the back wall. And blocked in Mr. Pharmacy.

  He was standing there staring at me as I moved around looking for what I came for.

  I found the antibiotics and grabbed as many bottles as I could hold. I turned over to the other shelf and found some Percocets and found a few prescription strength ibuprofen. I grabbed those too.

  I jumped back over the counter and was making my way back to the front door. All the way back, I was thinking about how I would deal with the “what ifs” of Diane getting scratched and if she turned. Could I kill her? If I didn't, she would kill me. Why am I thinking about this? Get back on track Tracie, I tell myself. She will be fine. But still, that thought stays in the back of my mind.

  Chapter 7

  I make it out of the CVS and back to the truck without any followers. It is almost dark now so we need to find a safe place to rest for the night.

  When I get back in the truck, Riley is looking at Diane whining. I look at her and see she is pale, feverish and has beads of sweat across her forehead. I panic, as usual.

  I open the antibiotics and crush some into some water and try to wake her. She doesn’t respond. So now I am really panicking. I lift her head up and pour the water and medicine down her and hope she doesn’t strangle on it. So far, so good. I’m not sure how much to give her, so I give her two. I crush an ibuprofen into water and pour it down to hopefully break the fever.

  At this point, it has gotten dark. So I pull her into the back cab and put her on the seat and cover her with blankets in hopes of her sweating the fever off. Riley sits and stares and gets up and goes to lay beside her. I find some food for Rile
y and me and start my watch.

  After a couple of hours, Diane is sleeping, but is not resting. She seems to be in pain. So I crush pain pills for her. She calms down after that and I get back to my watch. The moon is bright and I can see all around. I sit and think about how things are playing out. I think about momma and daddy and how I miss them, but also glad they aren’t here for this shit Fest. I think about Diane and pray that the medicine helps her.

  Riley jumps into the front seat a few hours later to let me know he needs to go out and take care of his business. I leash him and we get out and he goes on the tire. Yep, the tire is as far as he would get away from the truck.

  As I stand there, I take a look at Marc’s truck. “Holy hell” I think. He is going to kick my ass.

  We get back in the truck and get settled and I doze off to sleep. Around 4:30am, I hear the grass moving around in the ditch.

  What the hell is it now I say to myself? Riley is up and alert. Diane is still sleeping. So I am on my own as Riley will let me know if he sees something, but after that he will be hiding behind me.

  I slowly raise up and see…… a woman crawling through the grass towards the truck. Well, this should be interesting, I am thinking to myself. “What is she doing? Does she think no one is in the truck?” I decide to wait and see where this goes.

  As I watch, she slowly crawls closer to the truck. She gets to the driver’s door and reaches up for the handle to open the door. When she pulls the door open, I am sitting there with my 44 aimed at her.

  I ask her politely, “Can I help you find something?”

  She is stunned as all she can mutter is, “um.”

  “What is your name?” I ask.

  She doesn’t answer, she just looks at me. I let her know that she can either tell me her name or I will drop her right there for trying to steal my truck.

  She slowly mutters, “Janice.”

  “Hi Janice, my name is Tracie, where are you heading?” I ask.

  She starts telling me her story of how she was at her mom’s house when the virus hit and the house was overrun with the infected. She was able to get out of a window on the second floor of the house and climb down a trellis and make a run in the field next to the house. She had been running and hiding for two days with no food or water. She was trying to find somewhere to rest and hopefully get some food.

  “Do you want to join us? We are heading to get my husband who is stranded in an office building and after that you are more than welcome to join us back at our home.” I tell her.

  I see her rolling that idea around in her thoughts so I give her a few seconds to decide. Finally, she says, “Yeah, I will join you. I have nowhere else to go.”

  “Come on and get in the truck. My sister, Diane is in the back. She was scratched by a zombie and she is sick right now and I have been giving her antibiotics.” I tell her.

  “Is she turning?” Janice asked.

  “It doesn’t look like it yet, but I am watching her. She does look better since I have gotten antibiotics in her so I am hoping she will be ok.” I say.

  Then, Diane starts moving around and shivering. I crush more antibiotics and a pain pill and pour them down and wait for her to settle down. Pretty soon she is back asleep.

  I tell Janice to get some sleep and I will watch.

  Around 6:00 am, I get food together to eat. I check on Diane and see she has no fever now and her complexion looks better. I open the truck door and Riley and I get out so he can take care of his morning business and I can stretch.

  At this point we are about two hours away from where Bobby is. I have to get there today.

  “Who is the girl in the truck?” I hear from behind me.

  I screamed as loud as possible and turned around to swing my bat. Diane is standing there looking at me like I had lost my damn mind. I look at her to make sure she had said something and not turned into a zombie. Then I grabbed her and hugged her, happy that she was ok.

  “Why in the hell did you sneak up on me?” I ask.

  “I didn’t.” She said.

  I explain to her who Janice is and what happened to her. She agrees that she can go with us.

  “We need to get going. I really want to reach Bobby today. I don’t know how long they can hole up in there and I am getting worried.” I say.

  “Let’s go.” She says.

  “Do you feel better?” I ask her.

  “Well, if you mean am I going to turn into a flesh eater, no, I don’t think so. I do feel better. If I feel like I am going to turn, though you will be the first to know.” She says.

  “That’s not comforting.” I say.

  “Yeah, it never is.” Diane replies.

  Chapter 8

  Back on the road and heading toward Richmond, we see a group of people running from a horde of zombies. The humane thing to do would be to stop and help them. But during a disaster like this, your survival instincts take over and you know that stopping will be a risk to you and everyone around you. So you keep going.

  “Are we not going to stop and help them? Are you going to just drive on by and not do anything?” Janice asks.

  “What do you propose we do Janice? Would you like for us to stop and have you run out and get the attention of the zombie entourage so we can help the ones being chased?” Diane asks her.

  “Well, I don’t want to just leave them.” Janice replies.

  “Fine.” I tell her.

  “I will pull over on the side, you get out and run to the back of the truck and get their attention while we help the others.” I tell her.

  She just looks at me. “Is that a yes or a no?” I ask.

  “Well,” she starts, “I didn’t want to be the one who was being used as bait.”

  “Oh, you don’t say. And what the hell makes you think we do? This is what we are going to do… nothing. We are going to drive our asses right by, and if you feel the need to get out and lend a hand, let me know and I will be glad to stop and let you handle that.” I tell her.

  She shuts up after that chat.

  Looking around, we can see remnants of what used to be humans scattered around. Arms torn from shoulders, legs ripped and chewed from bodies, detritus everywhere you look.

  It looks like the old belief of “zombies only eat brains” does not apply in this situation. They seem to be eating whole bodies, leaving little remnants and remains of their meals.

  Now I have read about zombies, past and present. I also know that the belief in magic and witchcraft is widespread throughout Haiti and the Caribbean, often in the form of religions such as voodoo and Santeria. When I visited the Dominican Republic I wanted to look into that stuff more, but I never built up enough nerve.

  Haitian zombies are said to be people brought back from the dead and sometimes controlled through magical means by voodoo priests called bokors or houngan. Sometimes the zombification was done as punishment to strike fear in those who believed that they could be abused even after death, but often the zombies were said to have been used as slave labor on farms and sugar cane plantations.

  But looking around, I see no form of any of the conventional zombies described in movies or in history.

  “These fuckers are eating whole people.” I think.

  Mostly what we have seen are the slow moving ones. Sluggishly stumbling and ambling around. They don’t run. They may catch a fast pace, but are more than likely to stumble and fall down. A shot to the brain seems to kill them too.

  “How the hell are we going to survive this?” I think.

  “Look at all the looting that has been done. I bet bread and milk aisles are empty now.” Diane says.

  I have to laugh, for she tells the truth. If you are from the South, then you know that any mention of a tornado, hurricane, sleet, snow, ice, or any other bad weather situation results in everyone running to the grocery store to get milk and loaf bread. I don’t know what the hell we expect to do with milk and loaf bread during disasters, but it will be the first items to dis
appear in an emergency.

  Then you will have the neighboring Lowes, Home Depots, Wal Marts and such selling out of generators. Now I don’t know about anyone else, but if a tornado blows your damn house away, where are you able to use a generator?

  Then, if you refer to chapter one, you will see I worked for a major television broadcasting company. So not you have people calling in after the disaster due to having no television operational. Damn, you don’t say!!! That may be because the cables, dish or whatever got blown away during the storm. Or maybe the ice froze on cables and broke them.

  Yes, I know I am digressing, but sometimes you have to wonder what the hell people are thinking.

  Chapter 9

  So at this point, Janice has gotten on Diane’s last nerve and is riding mine to the finish line. She has complained and bitched about not being comfortable, not having enough room, needing to stop and take a restroom break. I keep reminding her it’s a squat break as we have no damn restrooms to stop at.

  Diane checks the map and says, “Almost there. About another 25 miles. How are we going to go about this?”

  “I have no idea yet.” I tell her.

  We find a place to stop for an hour to rest and I decide to make a call into Marc on the radios. I want to let him know we are almost there and where we are, so if he needs to come haul our asses out, he can.

  “Anyone on?” I ask into the handset.

  “Hello?” comes back.

  “Hey Trey, is your daddy close around?” I ask

  “Who is this?” he asks.

  Really? I think.

  “Tracie.” I reply.

  “Who?” Trey asks.

  “For fuck’s sake Trey. It’s your damn Aunt Tracie. How many aunts named Tracie do you have?” I ask.

  “Daddy, Aunt Tracie is on the radio and is being a bitch.” Trey yells.

  “I’m kicking your ass when we get home mister.” I tell him.

  “What’s up?” Marc asks. “Have you guys got to Richmond yet?”

  “Almost. We are about 25 miles out. We stopped to let you know what was going on so if you needed to come get us you would know where to head to.” I tell him.