by J. W. Vohs
Jerry pointed out, “If you use that thing you’re going to bring every zombie within two miles pouring down on us!”
She nodded her understanding, “If I have to use my baby tonight it will be because every zombie within two miles is already pouring down on us!”
Blake interrupted, “She’s beautiful but deadly, spent two tours in Iraq as a combat medic who carried a gun!”
Lori sighed before explaining, “Terrorists don’t honor the Red Cross; in fact, they seem to go out of their way to aim at us when we’re wearing it. So yeah, my vow to help people didn’t stop me from wasting a couple of those bastards!”
Blake smiled and shrugged, “See what I mean?”
Sal offered, “Pack the Glock in a holster in case we run into a pack we can’t beat without your bullets. Otherwise, carry one of your battle-axes or a mace. The weight of those things alone will crush a zombie’s skull. Once we get you all settled in we’ll see what we can do about modifying your SCA weapons so they can be used to kill.”
“Oh man!” Blake exclaimed, “I forgot about the halberd I bought from your brother, David. I keep it hanging above the fireplace in the family room, and he had sharpened it before shipping. I’ve only used it for display; I decided it was too awesome to ding it up fighting!”
Blake rushed off to grab the halberd as everyone checked over their gear one last time. Lori looked at David and said, “You haven’t talked about order of march.”
At first he was confused by what she was talking about until she explained, “The positions you want us to take in the column leading to your father-in-law’s house.”
“Oh yeah. Well, Jerry will lead because he’s best with the .22 pistol. Blake and Jenny should follow him, with you behind. Then Sal and me. Does that sound ok?”
Lori’s lips twisted as she thought for a moment, “I should be in the rear with my Glock, in case we have to ditch noise control fighting off a pack. But I suppose you thought of that and realized I wouldn’t want to let Jenny out of my sight.”
David gave a little smile, “Actually, I didn’t think about you and that beast you carry, but I did figure you’d want Jenny close to you. Look, we haven’t had many problems in this neighborhood, especially moving along the path between the fences. I don’t think we’ll have any trouble on the way back, but why don’t you carry my .22 since you’re familiar with pistols?”
Lori grimly accepted the offer and tucked the gun in her belt next to her mace, which was accompanied by a long kitchen knife with a wicked point. Even Jenny was carrying a hastily sharpened short sword.
Sal knelt down by the girl. “We’ll keep you safe, Jenny, but if you ever have to use that sword of yours you have to stick it in one of their eyes. Can you do that?”
Jenny nodded and gave a nervous little smile as Blake came walking back in carrying the halberd. Finally David said, “Well, let’s get this over with!”
Even though the bushes where Sal, David, and Jerry had been hiding earlier weren’t big enough to provide cover for their expanded group, that’s where they all ran to first before stopping to view the area between them and the route leading to Jim and Trudy’s house. They crowded in together as tightly as possible, while those with NVGs peered about in every direction looking for any sign of zombies before traversing the long stretch of open ground leading to the pathway. As point man on the trip back to the house, Sal had responsibility for signaling the all-clear that would initiate their next move. He was just about to give that sign when the sound of an engine turned all eyes to the street leading toward the end of the Martinez’ cul-de-sac.
A large pick-up came into view, traveling way too fast as it approached the dead end. The vehicle didn’t even slow as it hit the high curb dividing the road from the grassy field in whose bushes the small group was hiding. Its wheels left the ground before slamming back to the soft earth and spinning to a sudden halt as the engine sputtered and died. For a moment the world was silent, until the sound of a child screaming, “Daddy, Daddy wake up!” carried over the short distance to David and the others.
Jenny shouted, “That’s Addison! Mom, that’s Addison’s dad’s truck!”
David turned to Lori, about to ask her to quiet the girl when the sound of moaning came wafting through the night air. The moans were close, and they all looked down the road to see shuffling figures moving through the moonlight and soft shadows cast by the Oaks lining the street. Ever the cop, Jerry jumped up and began running toward the sound of the panicked little girl. David followed a second later, motioning at everyone else to stay put even as Jenny broke cover and ran after him. Then events quickly spun out of control as Lori and Blake followed their daughter and Sal tried to catch up with everyone.
Jerry and David reached the truck at the same time, the former police officer yanking the passenger door open to find a girl about Jenny’s age pulling on the arm of her bloodied, unresponsive father. Suddenly what they thought was a wounded or dying man opened his eyes and the glow of the overhead light revealed the tell-tale, overlarge, black pupils of a zombie. David immediately reached past a shocked Jerry and roughly pulled the girl away from the monster that had been her father, pushing her into Lori’s arms and shouting, “Check her for bites as best as you can!”
Then Sal exclaimed, “Holy Lord, there’s dozens of ‘em!”
David looked up to see that a huge pack of zombies was less than a hundred feet away, with three or four fast movers leading the charge. He grabbed Sal by the shoulders and commanded, “Get these people onto the path and back to the house! Me and Jerry will hold them off!”
Sal started to protest but David smacked the side of his helmet as hard as he could and shouted, “Move!”
Coming back to his senses Sal picked up the wailing Addison as Lori declared, “She looks clean to me!”
Then Sal yelled for everyone to follow him as he took off for the entrance to the path leading home. Blake hesitated for a second until David shoved him and loudly commanded, “Protect your family!”
Finally everyone was moving away from the truck as David looked over to see Jerry with his pistol in a two handed grip, slowly stepping forward to meet the charging horde as David hefted his halberd and positioned himself at his friend’s right side. A moment later Jerry opened fire and dropped the leading zombie with his second shot. Another fast mover had set his sights on David, and leapt in his direction only to be impaled through the teeth by the long spear tip at the end of the eight-foot shaft.
The next zombie also seemed fixed on David, but Jerry shot him behind the left ear at point-blank range. For a brief moment David thought about how strange the pistols were; their high-grain, low-velocity rounds exiting the barrel with only a whisper, the soft, non-threatening sound giving no clue about the brain-wrecking projectile about to stop a snarling zombie in its tracks. Then Jerry broke the momentary spell by shouting, “Jump up into the bed of the truck!”
With the slower members of the pack now just a few steps away the two men threw themselves over the sides of the rear of the pickup and immediately prepared to receive the zombie charge. David realized that there were indeed several dozen of the creatures as the first of the flesh eaters shuffled into his halberd’s range. He was definitely getting the hang of the weapon as he began efficiently thrusting the spear-tip into the faces of the moaning beasts. To his right, Jerry was methodically firing round after round into the skulls of zombies. He was allowing them to step right up to the side of the truck before pulling his trigger.
In what seemed to be only seconds the entire pack had been transformed into a gore-covered mass of corpses surrounding the bed of the truck. Jerry was seating his fourth and final magazine as he ominously warned, “We’d better get the hell outta here; I don’t think we can kill that many.”
Alarmed by the tone in Jerry’s voice, David looked up to see literally hundreds of zombies coming down the street led by a gang of fast-movers now less than a hundred yards away. “C’mon,” He hoarsely c
ommanded, “We’ve got to get to that pathway or we’re dead.”
Though they were running as fast as they could in their armor and carrying their weapons, the fast movers were steadily gaining on the men as they rushed to reach the entrance to the path leading home. For a moment David thought they were going to have to fight the flesh-eaters in the open, where they would kill as many as possible before the inevitable happened. The thought of Christy’s expression as she learned of his death seemed to give him a final burst of speed and he reached the relative protection of the high wooden fences a few yards ahead of his moaning pursuers.
He felt Jerry at his side as he turned just in time to plant the butt-end of the halberd in the ground and fall to one knee, where he pointed the weapon forward and speared the first zombie in the chest. Of course the creature was still alive, but the stout shaft of the halberd stopped the fast-mover in its tracks, and those following him crashed into his inert body and stumbled to either side where they found strong fence panels blocking their path. The brief moment before the zombies began moving around their impaled pack-mate gave Jerry a chance to lift his pistol while sucking in deep, ragged breaths as he tried to recover from their frantic sprint away from the truck. Finally, he settled down enough to begin placing aimed shots into the fast-movers now recovered from their pile-up and trying to reach the live humans so tantalizingly close.
After a few deep breaths of his own, David pulled free his mace and swung it in a savage overhead stroke that crushed the skull of the zombie still struggling to remove itself from the halberd. Now others pushed aside the corpse blocking their way and reached for David, who dropped the mace and pulled the short sword. He was exhausted and angry, and without thinking he began grabbing zombies by their shirts, hair, necks, whatever he could get a grip on, and roughly pulled them forward to where their faces met the razor-sharp tip of his blade. He was bitten a number of times but felt no pain in the frenzied state he was in, and the Kevlar-laced leather gloves and jacket sleeves kept the monsters’ teeth from breaking through to his flesh.
The soft ‘swoosh’ of the silenced .22 rounds continued echoing in David’s ears as the zombie corpses began to pile up at the entrance to the pathway until finally he heard Jerry shout for the second time, “I’m out!”
David pulled his sword free from another flesh-eater’s brain and exclaimed, “Let’s make a break for it!”
The two men spun around and ran down the tunnel-like space between the fences, not bothering to turn and see how many zombies were managing to crawl over the mound of corpses left by their fierce resistance. Neither man had much left in the tank, and their brief sprint quickly degenerated into a heaving shuffle as they heard the moans and footsteps of their pursuers growing steadily closer. They were almost to the edge of Jim and Trudy’s fence when the back of David’s jacket was grasped by a powerful zombie who let out a bellowing moan of triumph just before David heard the air overhead snap with the passage of an arrow that buried itself in the monster’s open maw.
The zombie’s momentum carried its corpse onto David and they both collapsed to the grass just outside the gate. David lay face up and gasping for air, watching Luke who was somehow standing above the palisade pouring arrows into the flesh-eaters as Christy stood beside him with her halberd jabbing down into the faces of the closest monsters. Blake now stood above David with his own halberd as Lori rushed out and grabbed the fallen fighter under his arms and pulled him inside the fence where he saw Jerry standing bent-over at the waist working to catch his breath.
Jim and Sal were suddenly there as well, helping both men to their feet and leading them into the garage where they could be cleaned and checked for injuries. David could hear Luke and Christy climbing down off of step-ladders and following the rest of them into the house, ignoring the moans and frustrated fence-pounding by the zombies they had hadn’t been able to destroy.
The two exhausted fighters were told to sit down over the drain, where Jim proceeded to spray the black blood and gore from their armor as they tried to recover enough strength to at least keep their helmeted heads up. Finally the cleaning was finished and Vickie was there to inspect them for injuries, especially any open wounds. David knew that he should have been embarrassed to be shivering in nothing but his underwear in front of another woman, but Christy, reading his thoughts as usual, told him that it was nothing Vickie hadn’t seen before. David didn’t argue, but figured that he must be ok since he found himself biting his tongue to keep from making a rude joke in front of people other than his wife.
Ten minutes later he and Jerry were allowed to dry off in the garage before heading upstairs to clean up more thoroughly, but first David wanted to know what was being done about the zombies outside the fence who now knew this house had food in it. Luke had just walked in to see how his dad was doing and calmly reported, “You don’t have to worry about that, David. I took care of it.”
“What do you mean?” David asked.
“The zombies,” Luke replied. “I snuck out onto the roof on the front side of the house and tossed some bottles as far down the block as I could. When they started shattering on the sidewalk past Judge Ryan’s place the zombies all shuffled away in that direction.”
David looked over at Jerry and exclaimed, “You know what, you have a very smart kid here!”
Jerry just let out an exaggerated sigh and declared, “Brother, you don’t know the half of it!”
75
David’s Journey
CHAPTER 8
After everyone was clean and rested they all crowded into Jim and Trudy’s living room to get to know each other better, as well as to discuss living arrangements and safety procedures. Lori held Addison as she slept fitfully after crying herself dry. Again, David thought about what all of this violence was doing to the children but didn’t know what to do about it. As far as he could tell they only had two choices: live or die. Everyone who lived was going to have to survive the most horrific war in the history of mankind. He hoped that once they were all safely living with his brother life would settle down into predictable patterns of work, play, and love, but for all he knew this war would never end. Unless the virus was somehow eradicated or a vaccine was developed, people would still be susceptible to the infection that had now become part of the human experience.
Christy’s voice interrupted his thoughts as she asked the group, “Does anyone think we should do anything but stay hidden in our houses until the zombies thin out?”
Jerry spoke up, “No, we’ll move supplies at night when needed and stay in touch with one another over the radios. Jim, you got plenty of batteries?”
Jim nodded and smiled, “Damn near emptied Costco out of ‘em when the first news of the virus was reported.”
Sal chuckled as well, “Seems as if you almost emptied them out of everything!”
Trudy added, “I kept nagging at him not to max out our card over there, but I don’t think we’ll be getting any bills this month.”
Vickie offered, “Guess I’m finally free of the student loans that got me through medical school.”
David jumped in, “Haven’t had any taxes withheld from my paycheck lately! Do you think I’ll still get social security when I turn sixty-three?”
Jim retorted, “Damn, I forgot all about that! I was only six years away from starting to get my money back! You think maybe the government’s holed up somewhere and might make a comeback once all the zombies are dead?”
Blake declared, “If anything good came out of this evil it’s that the survivors will get a chance to start over again. Keep the Constitution but never go back to all of the crap that had eroded the original idea.”
Everyone nodded their agreement with this sentiment, until Jerry asked, “How long we plan on staying here before we head out for Indiana?”
All eyes turned to David, who waited a long moment before responding, “Well, Jack told me to give it a few months. It’s only been a couple of weeks and we’ve got more zombies a
round us than ever. I think we have to spend the summer here, regardless of the heat or how stir-crazy we get, but we’ll need to give ourselves time to make the trip before winter sets in. I’ve been studying maps whenever I get the chance, and I have some ideas that I’d like everyone to start thinking about.”
He looked around the room before continuing, and everyone was looking back at him with expectant eyes. “As we’ve been learning, life on land is a very dangerous proposition these days. I can’t imagine that we could survive a two hundred mile road trip to Jack’s place with the zombies being as thick as they are. So, I was thinking maybe we could make most of the trip by water.”
Jerry cocked an eyebrow and asked, “So what’s your plan?”
David leaned back and crossed his arms, then explained, “We make our way to the shore of Lake Erie and find a boat. I really doubt that these creatures can swim, and even if they can they’d be pretty vulnerable in the water. We take the boat to the mouth of the Maumee River in Toledo, switch to something smaller and start making our way upstream. I don’t know how many dams and other obstacles would be in the way, but the headwaters of the Maumee come together in Fort Wayne. That would leave us about forty miles short of Jack’s compound, but the population density is lower over there once you’re out of the city, and we would have a fighting chance of making it.”
