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

by Ann Riley

He starts choking me. Squeezing as hard as he can. I am kicking and fighting to get him off me, but I am weak now and feel as though I have no strength. I can feel myself fading and can see dots in front of my face. Damn, he is going to kill me.

  I bring my knee up one last time to connect to his balls and I can’t pull it up. Everything is getting darker and I know I am done for now.

  Suddenly, I hear a shot ring out and the doctor screams, and I black out.

  Chapter 11

  I come to, after I don’t know how long. I see the doctor beside me with a bullet in his head. I lie there trying to get my mind back together. It feels like he crushed my windpipe as my throat is hurting like hell. I roll onto my side and roll face to face with Marc. I reach my hand out to touch him and see if he is still alive, he is still burning with fever. He must have been able to get in here, get the gun and shoot this crazy bastard. Then he passed out.

  I drag myself closer and call his name. No reply. I shake him and still no reply.

  Shit.

  I get myself up on my knees and lean over to see if I feel his pulse. It’s there, but very weak.

  I head over to the cabinet that I see some medicine in and look for the pyrimethamine and sulfadiazine. I find two bottles of each and put them in my pocket.

  I find a backboard to put under Marc and strap him on it so I can pull him out of here. I get the gun, still in his hand, and stick it in the back of my waistband.

  “Hold on nephew. We are getting the hell out of here.” I tell him.

  I would like to see if there are others here, but chances are they are already infected and there is nothing we can do. So I get Marc on the board and pick up the end and start dragging him out.

  “Damn you’re heavy. You don’t look that heavy, but you have put on some weight son.” I tell him.

  I drag him to the elevators we came down on and dig the key card out of my pocket and scan. The doors open and I pull him inside and we go up.

  We reach the top floor and the doors open. I step out and look around. I don’t see anyone, but that doesn’t mean shit.

  I start dragging Marc again and we get outside and I see the truck we drove over here in. I run over to it and get in to drive over to where he is. It takes all the strength I have to get his ass off the ground and in the truck. We have food and water in the truck so I drive out to the edge of the woods we waited in earlier so I can get him out and give this medicine to him.

  We reach the woods and I park, get out and check for anyone lurking around, like walkers. I don’t see anything so I get our food, water and blankets out. Make a bed on the ground and start a fire. I pull Marc out and get him on the blankets and covered up. I have to rest for a minute as I still have a fever and am about to pass out.

  As Marc rests, I get the medicine out and get it ready for him. I’m going to have to crush it and put it in water so I can pour it down him.

  I take a bottle of water and pour out some in the small cup in my backpack and dump the pills in.

  They dissolve and I raise him up and pour it in. soon he takes some sips and when he is finished, I lay him back.

  Fuck, I am hurting. I grab a bottle of water and start pouring it on my head. Washing my face to get the blood off and drinking it too. I feel my hair where I chopped it off. It will grow back, but it sure feels funny as hell.

  Grabbing the backpack, I dig out some jerky, chips and cheese. I find some Tylenol Tammy packed for us, bless her soul, and pop three in my mouth. I have to get this fever down.

  I finish eating and sit there watching. I’m trying not to go to sleep, but damn it’s hard. I am exhausted.

  It’s dark now so I get up and go find a couple of logs for the fire. When I come back, Marc is moving around.

  “Marc. Can you hear me?” I ask him.

  He nods.

  I feel his head and see the fever has gone down some so I take two Tylenols, crush them and make him open up so he can swallow them.

  He goes back to sleep and I sit and stare at the fire. I want to go home. Damn this. We still don’t know anything, only that they were infecting people there. We still have no cure. We are back at zero.

  I sit long enough to doze off because I wake up to see Marc looking at me.

  “Are you alright?” I ask him.

  “Better. But not good.” He says.

  “Are you alright?” He asks.

  “Yeah. Sore and stiff as hell, but alright. My fever finally broke. I got some of those pills in you for the toxo parasite, you need to take some more now.” I tell him.

  “How is your arm?” I ask.

  “It will be fine.” He replies.

  “How did we get out here?” He asks me.

  “I put you on a backboard and dragged you out of the building. I wrestled with you to get you in the truck and back out and laid you here.” I tell him.

  He shakes his head.

  “If you hadn’t been able to shoot that fucker, he would have killed me.” I tell Marc.

  “I know. I heard the noise and the explosion and tried to find you. I came down and saw him choking you, saw the gun, picked it up and shot his ass. Then passed out.” Marc says.

  “You had me scared. I didn’t know if you were going to make it or not.” I say.

  “Yeah, I didn’t know if I was going to make it either.” He says.

  “Well, we did. And I’m ready to drive our ass home. Fuck this shit. We can almost die at home.” I tell him.

  He snorts out a laugh.

  “We are resting here for the night. We will wake up early and head home. How’s that sound?” I ask him.

  “Sounds wonderful.” He replies.

  I make us something to eat. We smoke a couple of cigarettes and talk for a few minutes before he goes back off to sleep.

  I sit there and stare at the fire and want to be at home with Bobby and Riley.

  I get up and get the rope out of the truck that we made for an alarm. It has bells on it. I string it around our little camp and go back to sit down. Soon I am asleep.

  Chapter 12

  I don’t think I was asleep any more than thirty minutes when the bells start ringing. I jump up to a squatting position and look around. A damn zombie.

  He has gotten tangled in the rope. I walk over and stab him in the head. After dragging him off to the side, I rehang the rope and sit down.

  “You need some sleep. Go ahead and I will watch.” Marc says.

  “Are you sure you can right now.” I ask.

  “Yeah. Go to sleep.” He says.

  So I do. I think I died when I laid down because I didn’t know anything else until the sunrise woke me.

  When I woke up, Marc was sitting at the fire looking much better. His color was back and he had no fever.

  “Did you take some more medicine?” I ask him.

  “I didn’t know which one.” He says.

  I did around in the bag and get the pills out and hand them to him. He takes them and hands me some cheese and jerky, water and chips.

  “Have you seen any walkers around this morning?” I ask Marc.

  She shakes his head no.

  I guess that’s a relief because I don’t feel up to killing any.

  “What now?” Marc asks.

  “We need to get your arm checked and set properly. I’m not sure I set it correctly and I don’t want you having trouble with it later on. We need to find a doctor or nurse. Although I don’t know where in the hell we would find one.” I say.

  “We need to find a radio to call home. They will come looking for us if we don’t and I’d rather they not be on the highways now. It’s too much shit happening.” Marc says.

  “Let’s go then. I will drive and we can look for a Radio Shack or some other electronics store to get a radio.” I tell Marc.

  We get our things together and get in the truck to search for a radio.

  As we get into town, we see walkers everywhere. It seems as though they have multiplied overnight.

 
Finally, we see a Radio Shack. We park and get our weapons ready. We are going to bring the guns, but use the kukris so we don’t attract more walkers to us. I get out first and Marc comes from behind.

  “Stay behind me. You only have one arm. Just make sure the walkers don’t get me from behind and I will take care of the front.” I tell him.

  “I feel useless.” Marc says.

  “Well, you better not be because if I get bit I’m kicking your ass.” I tell him.

  He smiles.

  I start swinging with my first step. We have six walkers right in front of us and I take those down one by one. I hear Marc chopping into heads behind me and hope we can get out of this shit before we get chewed up. I continue my trek to the doors and try to turn occasionally to see where Marc is.

  We reach the door and see the window is shattered so that means walkers inside. Damn. I go in and look around as Marc comes in behind me. He walks off to start looking for a radio as he knows what kind we need. I watch and take out any walkers coming in the door after us.

  “Got it.” Marc says.

  “Good. Let’s get the hell out of here.” I tell him.

  On our way out, I see a battery display and load up my backpack. You can never tell when you may need a battery.

  We head back out the door and I clear the path again. Marc is coming up behind me swinging with one arm.

  Getting to the truck, we see walkers surrounding it.

  “Holy Hades on a wagon.” I say.

  “What the hell does that mean?” Marc asks.

  “Trouble.” I say.

  “Get ready to get to the truck and get in.” I tell Marc.

  He nods.

  I pull out my rifle and start picking off walkers. Marc is still swinging his kukri and we finally get a small path cleared for him to get to the truck and open the door. He gets the truck going and dives to where I am standing with his door open knocking down walkers. He slides over and I get in to drive.

  “Fuck. I am tired of this shit. Will it ever end?” I ask.

  “Hell if I know.” Marc says.

  We drive around to find a walker free place to park. We are able to go back to the hotel we were in on our first night here in Canton. No walkers so far.

  Marc gets into the back of the truck to get the radio set up and I watch for visitors. Including walkers and other humans.

  “Hey, is anyone there?” I hear Marc say.

  We wait for a second, then hear Bobby’s voice.

  “Yeah, I’m here.” Bobby says.

  “Hey man. How is everything there?” Marc asks him.

  “We’re fine. How are y’all? We were getting worried. We haven’t heard from y’all in four days. You know we were about to head that way.” Bobby says.

  “Yeah, well, we had some trouble. We will explain when we get home.” Marc says.

  “Hey baby.” I say to Bobby.

  “Are you alright?” he asks.

  “We are now. Marc has a broken arm, but he is alright. We are going to try and look around for a doctor so it can be checked. Then we are coming home.” I tell him.

  “Why can’t you wait and let Tammy look at it.” Bobby asks me.

  “Because I am not sure I set it correctly and I don’t want it to heal wrong.” I say.

  “Well hurry and come home. We are worried. We got the fencing back in order and got all of the security back in place. Trey and I have worked nonstop to get it back up and running. We had to set an alarm around the barn and set up some extra electric fencing because the walkers were trying to get to the horses.” Bobby says.

  “Fuck. Did they hurt any of them?” Marc asks.

  “No, but we caught one in the barn almost into the stall. Trey killed it and we started setting up the security in there. We had to move the dogs into the barn for that reason. I guess if they can’t find human flesh, they will settle for anything else they find.” Bobby says.

  “Ok. We will be home as soon as we can. How is Becky and the rest of the family?” Marc asks.

  “We are all good. We have set up a watch schedule and everyone has a turn. This will be the only way we can stay safe. We take turns watching the babies and Diane, Kelley and Tammy take care of the house, gardening, medicine and food supplies. Kelley and Tammy make their kids and Becky’s kids clean and keep the living area in order, so everyone is doing their part. Trey and I take care of outside things. We make rounds every hour to make sure there are no breaches. We are managing.” Bobby says.

  “It sounds like y’all have got it under control.” Marc says.

  “We do.” Bobby tells us.

  “We will be home soon. I love you.” I tell Bobby.

  “I love you. Y’all be careful. And don’t wait so long to call next time.” He says.

  “Well, we kind of had an accident and lost everything, including the radio, so we couldn’t call, then we were kidnapped.” I tell him.

  “Fuck, I knew I should have come.” Bobby says.

  “No worries. I am protecting us by any means I have to.” I say.

  “Good.” Bobby says.

  “We’re going to go man. Tell Becky I will be home soon and tell everyone to hang in and keep up the work.” Marc says.

  “I will. See y’all when you come home.” Bobby says.

  Marc and I look at each other.

  “Where do we find a doctor?” He asks.

  I shrug.

  “How about a hospital check? Or let’s check for offices and see if we may be able to find one that has moved into their office.” I say.

  Marc nods.

  We get back in the truck and start driving. Canton is not very big and I’m hoping there may be a doctor’s office that was next to a house. That may mean that the doctor lives in the house.

  I drive around looking for an office and run upon a medical plaza. We may be in luck, or not.

  “Let’s check it out.” I tell Marc.

  We get out and walk up to the building. There is an office to the right that has a Dr. Brent Moore’s name written on the window.

  I put my hand on the door knob and turn. The knob is not locked, but as I push, I can feel that there is something against the inside of the door. I look over at Marc and nod at his gun. He takes it out and aims at the door. I push a little harder and hear a voice from inside.

  “What do you want?” the voice asks.

  “We just need help.” I say.

  “We don’t have anything in here of value. Only a few food items. Nothing else.” The voice of a man says.

  “We aren’t looking for food. We need help with a broken arm. Are you a doctor?” I ask.

  “Maybe.” He says.

  “Well, you are or you aren’t. Which one?” I ask.

  “Look, my nephew broke his arm in an accident. I set it, but I’m no doctor or nurse. I don’t want it to be set wrong. I need you to look at it if you are a doctor.” I tell him.

  “I am a doctor. Are you sure you aren’t trying to kill and rob us.” He asks.

  “I promise we aren’t. We have our own supplies.” I tell him.

  I hear stuff being moved from the door. Then the door slowly pulls open and a tall dark skinned man stands there in front of us.

  I hold out my hand.

  “I’m Tracie and this is Marc. It’s nice to meet you.” I say.

  “Likewise. My name is Brent Moore. This is my office. Or was my office.” He says.

  I nod.

  He waves us in and we look around and see three more people with him.

  “This is my nurse Rebecca, and my receptionist, Lauren.” Brent says.

  “Nice to meet y’all.” I say.

  “Come back and let me take a look at that arm.” Brent tells Marc.

  We walk down a corridor toward some exam rooms. We go into one and sit down. Brent takes the bandage off Marc’s arm and sees the cut.

  “I need an x-ray. We have a generator running for the moment, so I can get an x-ray to see if it’s set.” Brent says.
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br />   We follow him to an x-ray room and he gets a shot of Marc’s arm. We head back into the exam room and Brent starts cleaning the wound on his arm and applying some ointment. His nurse comes in a few minutes later with the x-ray and shows it to him.

  “You did a good job setting it. I am going to put a cast on now so it can heal.” He tells Marc and I.

  We nod.

  Dr. Brent gets started on the cast and I walk around to see how things look outside. No walkers yet, but I can bet they are coming.

  “How long have y’all been here?” I ask Rebecca.

  “About three weeks now. We barricaded ourselves in because people are out for themselves now. We can’t trust anyone. We were trying to help people, but the last people who were here tried to rob us of our food and water. So we blocked the doors.” Rebecca says.

  “You did right.” I say.

  “We came here to help some people, got kidnapped, almost died and now we are trying to get home.” I say.

  “Where is home?” Rebecca asks.

  “Pontotoc.” I tell her.

  “You guys are a long way from home.” She says.

  I nod.

  “I don’t see why we stay here. We should leave as there is no one left here in town.” Rebecca says.

  “Well, y’all can come home with us. We have about twenty or so with us at the moment. We could use a doctor and an extra nurse.” I say.

  “An extra nurse?” she asks.

  “My niece is a nurse.” I tell her.

  She nods.

  Marc comes out of the exam room with his cast on.

  “You alright?” I ask him.

  “Yeah.” He says.

  “What will y’all do now?” Brent asks.

  “We hope to go home.” I say.

  “There is nothing left here.” He says.

  “I was just telling Rebecca you guys could come with us. Y’all are welcome to.” I say.

  Brent looks at Rebecca and Lauren and they both nod.

  “Ok. We will.” He says.

  “You want to take any of this stuff with us?” Marc asks him.

  “Yeah. We need this medical supply stuff I have and I can take all of the sample medicines I have stored.” Brent says.

  Rebecca and Lauren start packing up items in crates to load into the truck. I continue my watch to make sure we aren’t in danger of being surrounded. They pack up all of the bandages, medicines, ointments, and everything else they find along the way. Brent is packing needles and other items he has in his office.