by Unknown
We ended up at the main sliding glass door and opened it. This led us to the living room. This house was a bit smaller than the first, but it was still a very nice place and had a lot of room. The living room was in better condition with the furniture still intact and arranged so a group of people could sit and talk. We continued to hear talking from inside the house so we moved into the house, pulling out our weapons in case we ran into anything. The noise was coming from the upstairs area so we headed in that direction.
At the top of the stairs, we began to make out what was being said.
“You like it like that, don’t you bitch?”
“Please, don’t hurt me anymore; I’ll do anything you want. Please.”
“Of course you will, they always do.”
We moved towards the sound. I really wanted to get to the person pleading before she had to deal with more pain. As we passed the first room, we saw a young girl tied to a bed, she was dead, thankfully, since she looked like she had been through hell. The second room was empty, but the bed was a wreck. As we turned our attention back to the main room, a guy walked out of the bathroom down the hall and said, “Hey, man, wait for me. I want some of that before we turn her.”
Before the guy could turn to us I had my spear stuck through his throat and his head pinned to the wall.
“Hurry up you cocksucker. I’m about to explode, I want this bad.”
I left the spear in the wall, pulling a new one from the stash on my backpack and moved towards the bedroom. Once I could see in, I saw the women tied to the bed, video cameras around the bed and a huge guy standing naked with his back to me, jerking off as he looked at the women on the bed. “I’m going to split you open before we are done, bitch. ….Hurry up you piece of shit, I’m ready.”
The women had her eyes closed, crying into her arm and didn’t see me walk in. The guy did notice something because he turned and was instantly surprised when he figured out that I wasn’t who he was expecting. He was quick and was heading towards his gun which was lying on a night stand. I jumped towards him with my spear raised, driving it through his upper shoulder. I missed my original target due to his quick move, but I still landed the spear in a good spot wounding him.
We toppled to the floor as he tried to get his huge hands around my throat. I struggled with him, pushing his hands away and not letting him get a grip. He was much stronger than I was and twice my size, but I had the advantage of not having a piece of wood sticking through me. I drove my knee into his groin and wrenched his hands back.
Amy moved into the room and gave the guy a swift kick to the head with her steel pointed boots, knocking him out. He went limp, dropping his full weight on top of me. “Thanks,” I said to her. ”Can you help me get him off of me?”
“I wish I had a camera to take this lovely picture of you and your boyfriend in a tangle.” She laughed as she helped roll the guy off me.
Standing up and brushing off my clothes, she said, “Let’s move, we’re behind schedule and Brian will be shooting very soon.“ She moved to the woman on the bed and using her knife she cut the woman free from the bindings that were holding her tot eh bed. “You’re free. Get some clothes on, grab that spear from Matt and follow us if you want to live.” Amy moved towards the door and out into the hallway.
The women were up and pulling on a dress that was lying on the floor. I pulled a spear out of my backpack and handed it to her. She took it and immediately drove the spear into the biker on the ground. “You fucker, die!!! Die!!!!” She started to scream as she continued to drive the spear into the biker.
Amy ran in and slapped the women. “Shut up!! We can’t have anyone hear us. Not now. We need to move.” She pulled the women out of the room. “Let’s move Matt.”
We all headed to the garage and looked out over the clubhouse. It was still early in the morning, but the sun was starting to come up and visibility was getting better. Outside of the second tennis court, a few of the bikers were standing around talking as another biker had his gun out and was directing a prisoner into the second tennis court. Once he was inside, the biker moved to the exit, closing and locking the gate. “What are they doing?” I asked the women we had saved.
“Getting ready to have Randy fight one of those things.” She replied looking away.
“We need Brian to take out the bikers, now,” Amy said.
“Let’s head out.” We all began to move out. Just as we hit the end of the driveway, we saw one of the bikers fall to the ground and then a distant sound of a rifle. The other bikers weren’t quite sure what happened, with one of them actually laughing at the one that fell. Then another hit the ground. The next one was off and running towards the clubhouse when he hit the ground. Brian was a good shot, that was for sure.
From the west side, we saw Butch approach the tennis courts and start to cut open the fencing, trying to make a big enough hole for the prisoners to crawl through. Because of the noise from the gunshots, many of the remaining bikers were coming out of the clubhouse with guns drawn. Some hit the ground from Brian’s perfectly placed shots, but there were too many for him to hit, so some of them made it cover.
The bikers saw the prisoners escaping and started to shoot in their direction, which also put Butch in a very bad position. He was moving away, trying to get to a shed by a basketball court to seek shelter as the ground around him erupted as bullets landed too close to him.
I took off running, pulling my pistol out, heading to the back of the clubhouse so I could sneak up on the bikers from the rear. Amy and the women we freed followed me to the back door. We pulled the door open and went inside. Inside was a disaster, this was the place the bikers spent most of their time. Empty booze bottles and half eaten food were all over the place, on the counters, the tables, and shelves.
We moved through the clubhouse and found two of the bikers firing their guns out a window towards the tennis courts. The woman we freed ran up and shoved the spear into one of the biker’s ass cheeks, forcing him into the front window. The window shattered as the biker fell through to the front deck. The second biker turned to look at what caused his buddy to crash through the window but was shot by Amy before he could figure it out or try to shoot his gun. He fell backward through the busted window, landing on the first one.
The remaining bikers on the deck scattered, once they realized they had been compromised from the rear. They all headed in different directions trying to get to some new cover. The woman we freed took off out the door and headed to the tennis courts, following the men that Butch had set free. Amy and I headed out the back door, looking around to find any of the bikers.
We heard a truck start and a motorcycle rev up, and then they both sped past us heading to the rear gate. We continued to hear gunshots from the front of the house so we made our way around the clubhouse and found two bikers stuck behind a truck trying to get to the doors. Between Amy and me we ended their lives and the sound of gunshots came to a stop.
“Butch, Brian. All Clear” I yelled. Amy and I moved to the front of the clubhouse and waved towards the area that Brian was perched and to where Butch was hiding with the prisoners. After a few minutes, Butch showed up with a group of men and the woman we had set free. Many of the men and older boys were gone. “They didn’t want to stay around, they wanted to get away and get way as quickly as possible,” Butch explained. “I wasn’t going to stop them.”
“We need to get out of here, and quick. There’s a bunch of infected gathering at the gate. It could be the horde we saw at the farmhouse.” I explained. We all headed towards the remaining trucks where we found the keys in the ignitions.
“What’s your name?” I asked the guy that I had seen get taken to the center tennis court. Of the people that stuck around, he seemed like he might be the leader of the group.
“Randy.” He replied, hugging the women from the house. “This is Betty. Thanks for saving us. This was our neighborhood before these infected showed up.”
“Are any o
f the guys that are dead the leader, Ripper?”
“No. I saw him head out on his motorcycle.”
“Where’s the rear exit go?”
“It heads to the east and then around to the rural route to the north. We used it for service vehicles.”
Amy, Butch and I looked at each other, knowing this was not a good thing. Having failed to get Ripper could be a bad thing.
“We need to get out of here and back to the truck stop. If they are headed north, they may try to hit Shannon.”
Chapter 30
There were ten of the survivors that stayed behind and wanted to come with us. Some of them were from the neighborhood and some were just travelers who got caught by Ripper and his gang. They didn’t want to stay in this hellhole that was their home for the past week, so we told them we would take them with us.
We quickly loaded up four of the trucks with what supplies we could find and headed to the rear gate of the neighborhood. Butch was there waiting for us as we pulled up. He jumped into the truck I was driving and we headed out to find the remaining bikers, away from the horde and back home to the truck stop.
Brian opened the rear window and said to me, “I couldn’t get a shot at the bikers that got away. Too many things in the way and they were gassing it out of here. If we find them, get me close and I’ll get it done.” He sat back down and started to reload his rifle cartridges. He spoke again after a minute through the window. “I did notice a large group of the dead heading north, straight to the neighborhood. It might be a problem soon.”
I raced down the dirt road trying to catch the remaining bikers while thinking of what we should do about the horde of infected heading north. Do we keep trying to avoid them or do something about it? Every chance we got, we needed to kill these things. We needed to start thinking about how we could take the offensive with this major problem going forward. If we could build a network of people that fought these things like it was a war, which it was, then we might have a chance.
When we finally reached the rural road, we stopped and discussed our options. The biker group could have gone either east or west or they could have split up. In the end, after spending too much time discussing it from my point of view, we decided that we would take two trucks each way and try to catch them.
Some of us thought it would be best to stay together and head back to the truck stop, others wanted to split up. I wanted everyone out of the truck I was in so I could go and find Ripper. I wanted this to end. No one would listen to me, so a decision was made and we spilled up and headed in opposite directions.
Amy and Brian headed northeast and Brian and I headed North West. The rest of the Common’s group was spread out in each truck. I hoped that if we ran across a problem, they would be able to help us.
Brian and I finally came across the truck the bikers had used to escape. It was dumped on the side of the road with nothing in it, not even some gas. The bike that Ripper was riding wasn’t here either. We didn’t see any tracks leading away from the truck into the woods or fields around the truck. We figured they had come across another vehicle and continued to head North West.
We continued to head to the truck stop checking every house, barn, and store on the way looking for the missing bikers, but came up short; we just couldn’t get a win. We pulled into the back lot of the truck stop and saw the other two trucks parked close to the garage doors. Amy and Butch had made it back to us, which was a good sign and I was happy to know they must be safe and they had delivered another group of survivors to this safe spot, which might .keep humanity alive for a bit longer, but we didn’t find Ripper and his remaining few gang members. This posed a new problem for us because Ripper would come back and take his revenge.
We spent a few hours getting everyone situated in the truck stop, unloading the few supplies we had scavenged from the neighborhood and locking down the place in case Ripper and his crew showed up. The survivors were very happy with the new accommodations and that food was provided to them. Even after only a week in this new apocalyptic world, they were looking like the infected due to the lack of nutrition. We were told that Ripper and gang would only feed them once a day and only a small bowl of watered down soup.
With the new arrivals fed and given the basics to live, the main group met in the office to discuss what was next.
On the way to the office, I ran into Jamie standing guard in the café area. “Hey Jamie, how are things?” I asked.
“There OK.” She replied.
I could tell something was wrong and asked her about it. “What’s the problem? What’s wrong?”
She moved closer to me and pulled me further away from the other person in the room standing guard. “There is a small group of people here that are not happy with how things are being run. They’re starting to group together and talk about taking over.”
“Who are they? What aren’t they happy about? This is a good situation here, at least till the government fixes everything.” I said knowing that wouldn’t happen. There just wasn’t any way that the government would be able to fix this. After only 7 days, our society had fallen apart and the world as we knew it was gone.
“His name is Rick and he’s getting everyone anxious with his ideas and talk of providing a better place than what Shannon is providing. He keeps saying we are going to run out of food and that the more people we let in, the worse it will get.” She said in a whisper to me.
This was wonderful. We as a species were on the brink of extinction and one guy was about to potentially destroy an island of humanity. All because he was used to being in charge and “leading” people. I was going to have to do something about this “Can you keep track of what is going on and let me know?” I asked her.
“Yes, of course. I owe you my life.” She replied with a soft squeeze to my arm.
I thanked her and continued my walk to the office.
I met everyone else in the office. Amy, Butch, Shannon, Brian and Rob were all there. It was a cramped space, but I was standing up against Shannon, which I didn’t complain about. The slightest touch from her gave me the shivers and made the hair on my arms stand up. I might have been shaking a little through the whole conversation.
“What’s next?” Brain asked. “Do we get a party together and go hunt this maniac down and end this?”
“I’m in,” Butch said. “My parent's place is in their area, they’re in danger as long as this ass-hat is alive.”
“We don’t even have a clue where he is,” Amy said. “We can’t just split up and go in every direction to find this guy.”
“We missed our chance yesterday. It’s that simple.” I said. “We need to decide next steps for the next few days. Butch wants to get to his parents and I think that’s a good idea.”
“I agree, but we can bring all of these people down there,” Butch said. “We don’t even know what it’s like on the farm. It could all be a disaster.”
“You’re assuming we all want to go,” Shannon replied. “This is my home. The one place I am comfortable in and know how to protect.”
“So we get a small group together and go see how things are on the farm,” I said. “You guys have a lot of people here, so if Ripper did come by you should be able to deal with him. Amy, Butch and I can go to Butch’s place and check it out. We’ll send word to let you know how things are.”
“I don’t like it, but OK. It sounds like the best plan we have.” Shannon said to me.
“We also need to discuss the horde we saw moving north. It's headed directly towards the truck stop.” I said. “They’ll be here in the next few days, so we need to figure out what the plan is and what happens when the plan fails.”
“We stay here, stay quite while it passes and then moves on with life till the next problem,” Brian said.
“There could be a ton of them headed this way. If the infected are moving away from the city, then there will be a lot of them.” Amy replied. “You should think a way to reinforce this building.”
“And a way to reinforce this building,” I said. Even with the current security they had set up, the building could be breached by a horde of infected this large.
“What if we moved the trailers in front of the building, so the dead would have to get through the trailers first before the windows,” Rob asked. “We’ve got a shitload of trailers and semi’s out back.
“That’s not a bad idea. You know how to start them off you don’t have a key?” Butch asked.
“I’m the head mechanic, man. Of course, I know how to start these things without keys.”
“Sounds like a plan, lets rest today and then the three of us can head out tonight. Yesterday’s travels at night seemed to work just fine, so might as well do it again instead of wasting another day.”
Everyone agreed as they left the office leaving Shannon and me alone.
“You sure about this?” She asked me.
“Yeah, we need to find out about Butch’s parents. They’re a second family to Amy and me and besides, Butch would just up and leave by himself to find out. I can’t let him do this alone.”
“How long do you think it will take you? I was kind of getting used to having you around.” She smiled at me.
“You were?” I blushed. “I’m happy to hear that.” I pulled her close and kissed her.
Later that day, I met with Amy and Butch and we made our plans to head down to Butch’s parents, planning the route and the supplies we would need.
“Where were you and Shannon after the meeting this morning? You guys seemed to disappear for a while.” Butch said to me as he loaded his rifle and supplies into the truck we had parked in the garage bay. “You guys hook up, dude?”
“Why would I tell you if we did?” I said to him.
“Because we’re pals, dude. Pals tell each other everything. Come on, give me the juicy details.”
“No. This is between Shannon and me. And to get you off my back, we did spend some time together, but the details aren’t public.” I said. “I really like her.”
