by Ben S Reeder
I hopped down from the fence and made my way to the back door, reclaiming the hidden key I’d hung on a nail on one of the fence posts. A big bowl of cat food and another filled with water were on the porch, a sure sign Maya hadn’t been able to find Leo, our big orange tomcat. The back door opened quietly, and I pulled the SOCOM before I ducked in and moved to one side, ending up beside the refrigerator. For a moment, I just listened. It was quiet and it stayed that way for a count of one hundred, then two hundred. If anyone had been here, they were probably gone. Of course, right now, anyone who might have thought about causing us trouble had other problems trying to eat them. Still, I wasn’t about to stick around and make myself an easy target. I stood up and checked the living room, then did a quick look-through of the rest of the house. The key rack by the front door was empty, and the pantry had been methodically stripped, including the five gallon buckets of staple foods and the empty water jugs. Most of the photos were gone from the top of the entertainment center, with the frames left empty. Finally, I took a look in the garage, and only saw one bike hanging from the hooks in the ceiling. Once I was confident no one was lurking, I went back to our bedroom with a lighter heart. Maya had followed the plan and bugged out like I figured she would as soon as Cassie and Porsche had shown up.
Aside from the obligatory bed and dresser, Maya’s and my room held one other feature of note: bookshelves. Before we’d bought our e-readers, we had invested heavily in paperback books, and thus, bookshelves. Aside from the two large shelves in our room, there was another one in the spare bedroom. We had enough books to stack them two high and two deep in the shelves, which made for great camouflage. I went to the shelf on the right side of the room as I stepped in and knelt down. Behind the books on the far left side was our fireproof strongbox. I grabbed it and headed for the kitchen. The strongbox made an audible clunk as I set it on the counter, then I turned to the freezer. Maya had one of the keys on her keychain, and we had kept another hanging on the key rack by the front door. We also kept a spare hidden in the freezer, encased in an ice cube at the bottom of the tray for the ice-maker. A few whacks with the meat tenderizer freed it, and I unlocked the strongbox moments later. Inside was half of the stuff I’d stashed in it. Ten silver ounces, three hundred rounds of .22 long rifle ammo, fifty rounds of .45 ACP and a set of unmarked keys were left. Maya would have the same stuff on her, except for the keys. Now I had almost everything I needed to bug out. I really wanted a hot meal, a hot shower and a few hours of sleep, but like the old poem went, I literally had miles to go before I slept. Of the three, all I was likely to get right now was a lukewarm meal.
I stowed the stuff from the safe and left it on the kitchen table, then opened the refrigerator. The big pot of Maya’s chili was still there, though much depleted since I’d been at it last. A handful of crushed up Fritos and some shredded cheese before it went into the microwave added texture and…well, cheese, which I’d never known to make a meal any worse. When the microwave beeped, I took the steaming bowl and sat down at the kitchen table to eat, probably for the last time. It was a bittersweet moment. I was finally home, my destination since sunset yesterday, and I was alone. Worse, I was going to have to bug out and say goodbye to the home Maya and I had made over the past two years. When I’d prepared for this moment, I had always imagined us doing that together, which somehow took a little bit of the sting out of it when I thought about it.
My maudlin ramblings came to an abrupt end when I heard the back door thump against the jamb. The SOCOM was in my hand as my head came up, and the door rattled again. Only one creature on Earth without opposable thumbs was that insistent, and the thought brought a smile to my face as I went to the back door and looked through the glass panes. Sure enough, Leo was sitting on the porch, looking up at me with a fierce feline scowl, as if to say “Let me in asshole.” I opened the door and he sat there for a moment, as if suddenly undecided about whether or not it was open wide enough, or if he really wanted in. Then he jumped across the threshold and head-butted my shins. I closed the door behind him and reached down to scratch the top of his head, but he had other ideas. As soon as I bent over, he reared up on his hind legs and put his front paws on my thigh. Leo is a big cat, and when he leans against you, you know it. When he wants up, there were two stages. This was the first one, the gentle request, which was to say, he hadn’t pulled his claws out and started climbing up my side. My face broke into a smile as I pulled him up and he immediately planted his furry forehead against my cheek. There was a deep rumble like a chainsaw idling, his version of purring, and he curled up into the crook of my elbow, his favorite sleeping spot since Maya had first rescued him as a kitten two and a half years ago. Back then, he’d barely filled the palm of my hand. Now he felt like fifty pounds of orange fur and attitude snuggled up against me.
“I’m glad to see you,” I told him as I felt my chest tighten. Maya and I had both had a soft spot for animals, and I knew it had to have been rough for her to leave without being sure of Leo’s fate. I swear, he must have gotten a stray hair in my eye, because I had a moment of blurred vision. A furry paw reached up and tapped the side of my face before he head butted me again. Usually that was a reminder that I’d stopped petting or scratching far too soon, but just then, I could have sworn he was as happy to see me as I was to see him.
“You ready to get the hell out of here, ya big furball?” I asked. He answered me with a sort of purring chirp, and didn’t protest when I set him down. Maya and I had planned for bugging out together and separately, and at the moment, I couldn’t have been happier for it. I knew she was as safe as was possible right now, and she knew I would catch up to her if I could. Leo followed me as I went out to the shed and grabbed the shovel, then trotted along beside me as I went back to the garden along the west fence. We had sectioned it off from the rest of the yard with heavy, untreated railroad ties. With a tired creaking of my knees, I knelt down beside the one on the south side of the garden and flipped it over. Then, I started to dig. About a foot down, the shovel hit what I was looking for with the thump of metal against plastic. I tossed the shovel aside and started scooping dirt out with my hands until I had uncovered a four foot long line of black plastic tarp. It parted easily under the combat knife in my vest, revealing a six inch wide gray plastic tube with a thick nylon strap laying along its length. A little tugging pulled the whole thing free from the dirt. Underneath it was a quarter section of pipe that I’d cut a one inch square into. I grabbed it and brought both pieces inside. The section of pipe fit neatly over the cap at one end, and with some effort, I unscrewed the end to reveal the contents of my bug out cache. Inside was my Ruger 10-22, my venerable Colt M1911A1, a sword and a set of knives, three home made MREs, a Lifestraw and my basic survival kit. I opened the survival pouch and checked that everything inside was still in good shape. The poncho and mylar survival blanket were intact, as was the black canvas Direct Action Response Kit I’d bought from Dark Angel Medical. The DARK Kit was a stripped down, bare essentials kit with a tourniquet, shears, and the basic bandages necessary for serious wounds. It also had hemostatic gauze, a specially treated bandage that promoted quick clotting. It wasn’t what Maya called a ‘boo-boo kit’ that you used for minor cuts and bruises. This one was for the serious stuff: gun shots stab wounds and major lacerations. It was the one kit I never wanted to have to use, and the one I was the most grateful to have. A flick of the disposable lighter produced a good flame on the second try, and the survival matches looked good. When I pulled out the chemical hand warmers, the seals were still intact, and the Mag light worked once I put the batteries in it. Food, water, shelter and light were all covered. The next part was defense.
I had stored the Ruger and the .45 field stripped, with a .22 revolver stashed intact with them just in case. I had the two guns reassembled and ready to load in about ten minutes. The Ruger had six magazines, the pistol had four. The cache had been stored with 100 rounds for each inside it, and a multi-tool for good me
asure. Each magazine was loaded slowly, every round checked before it went in the mag. The Ruger 10-22 was a fine little rifle. Lightweight, reliable and infinitely customizable, it had become the mainstay of my small arsenal. I had added a quick release lever for the magazine and a four power scope to mine. My .45 had been my grandfather’s, and it had been given to me in his will. I’d grown up shooting that gun, and it had yet to let me down. It hit like a Mack truck, and it was deadly accurate. Finally, I pulled out the blades.
When I had bought them from Zombie Tools a year ago, the last thing I had on my mind was actually fighting zombies with them. I’d grown up with the idea that there was no excuse not to have a sharp knife on you at all times. In Missouri, like most of the Midwest and South, it was just something a man always had on him, whether it was a pocket knife or a fixed blade. Thus, the ZT Tainto was a must. Fourteen inches and fifteen ounces of 5160 carbon steel, it had been the first blade I had bought from Zombie Tools, and it had been hard to put it away in the cache. The second blade, though, was the one I found my hands itching for since I’d realized I was in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. Called the Deuce, it was as close to indestructible as I had ever seen, just tip heavy enough to hit like a sledgehammer but not as clumsy, and light enough to swing all day if I needed to but heavy enough to cut through most things. Right then, it definitely lived up to the Zombie Tools slogan “A fist full of fuck yeah.” The last blade was actually six blades, two sets of ZT Spikes, throwing knives that could also be turned into rope darts with a few feet of paracord. I had picked them up for hunting small game and as a deterrent. The Tainto went on my belt, and I stowed four of the six ZT Spikes in a pocket on the tactical vest. The other two went in the leather sheath I’d made for them. Finally, I slung the Deuce in its Kydex sheath across my back. The SOCOM stayed on my leg, and the Colt’s holster went on the vest, under my right arm. The Ruger I just slung over my shoulder. Armed and moderately prepared, I went back into the bedroom and opened my closet door.
Inside was only one thing I needed. I’d put it off until last because it felt like I was saying goodbye to the house, but it was that time. I needed to be on my way. Maya was waiting for me. With a deep breath, I knelt down and grabbed my own combat boots, then headed for the kitchen table again. The boots I’d taken from the guards at MSU had almost fit, but they weren’t mine. Even ‘almost’ didn’t fit well enough to keep blisters from forming if you walked long enough. This pair was broken in and they fit right. As soon as I slipped them on, I felt the difference; my feet were still sore, but they weren’t being rubbed raw along the heel or the outside of my foot. I did a quick check of the other things we stored in the hall closet, but my other Ruger was gone, and so was my main bug out bag. Maya had stuck to the plan.
Leo followed me out to the garage, and sat on his favorite spot as I took my Schwinn down. As he perched on the cardboard box by the door, he followed my movements with half-closed eyes. The bike was still in good shape, but the air pressure in the front tire was low. That was easily enough remedied with the hand pump before I went to the bike trailer that I’d stored vertically against the wall. That was still in great shape, so I lugged it through the house and into the back yard, then went back and did the same with the bike. Leo followed me when I brought the bike out, then stopped on the porch and waited while I grabbed the bucket with his food and his inside bowls, and loaded the cache tube and the rest of my gear on the trailer. Finally, I grabbed my bolt cutters and crowbar out of the shed along with the bungee cords. Once I had everything lashed down under bungee cords, Leo hopped down off the porch, trotted over to the trailer, hopped up on top of it, then proceeded to turn around twice and plop down in a puddle of orange fur. I laughed at him like I did every time he did that.
“This isn’t just a trip to the grocery store, you know that, right?” I said as I pushed the bike across the yard. He raised his head long enough to regard me with cool disinterest, then returned to his lounging. With his tacit blessing, I pushed the bike out through the back gate before I latched it behind me, then got on the bike and started pedaling across the park and toward the road. Faint gray light was gracing the sky on my right as I coasted down Oak Grove, and for the first time in hours, I heard birds start to sing. Their chirping covered any sound I might have made as I pedaled up the slight incline near the intersection of Cherry Street. I turned east and followed Cherry, watching the sky light up ahead of me. As the side streets went by, I tried to grab quick looks, but I couldn’t see any movement in the dim light, even at the slower speeds I was going. Once I got past Belcrest, I was in more open ground, but it was still quiet. A couple of hundred feet before I got to the railroad tracks that crossed Cherry, I stopped at a small turn off that led to a dirt road.
Up until then, I hadn’t risked using the front light on my handlebars, but I decided I was safe enough to reassure myself. The headlamp came free of the clamp, and I flicked it on. Leo gave me a look of mild interest as I crouched at the edge of the red clay road and played the light over it. Sure enough, after a little looking, I found what I was looking for: bicycle tire tracks. Six people tracking down the same road was going to leave a trail even a lapsed country boy like me could read. I wasn’t going to be telling anyone how fast they were going or how heavily they were laden, but I figured they’d been this way. Another ounce of worry felt like it was lifted off my shoulders as I went back to the bicycle and put the headlamp back in its clamp. Maya had been okay at least up to here. No one else knew our bug out route, and only she would have known that you could only take that particular route on a bike.
Up ahead, I could see the first cars backed up from the overpass, and a few that had tried to go off road to get to 65 Highway. Most had gotten stuck in the softer ground. On the right side of the road, the remains of a Jeep smoldered in the dawn’s first rays as the sun started to clear the trees in front of me. I looked to the path that Maya had led the others down, and I wanted to follow it. But I still had a stop to make. With the traffic backed up, I didn’t want to risk running into any ghouls trapped in a car. For that matter, I had no idea if there were any survivors lurking around…or, more accurately, if there were any scavengers. I turned left, away from Maya’s trail, and headed down Cavalier, the street directly across the road from me. Cavalier ran almost due north through an industrial park. Businesses went by on either side as I pedaled, places with their closed signs now permanent. A body shop, a gymnastics center, a shipping company…all silent now. The road curved left in front of an advertising company, but I kept going, letting the bike coast into their parking lot and turning right. The east end of the lot ended in a gravel drive about ten feet from a double gate. Black smoke rose in a thick column ahead of me, one of many that I could see now that the sun was up. I’d hoped it was further north, but from the looks of things, I was pretty sure it was coming from the same place I was going. My heart sank as I got off the bike and went to the trailer.
“Alright, you. Stay here,” I told Leo. He looked at me reproachfully and laid his head back down. He knew the drill. Once I was on the bike, he stayed put until I started unloading the trailer or took him off of it. The first few trips out to our bug out retreat had been in a carrier, then he’d been allowed to ride in the open. All it had taken was one incident of him running off for him to figure out to stay with the bike until we unloaded. I went to the gate and cut the lock, then slipped through. The back fence was a joke, mostly there to act as a property line. I clipped the connecting points at the corner of the fence and pushed the chain link section away to create my own opening. From there it was only thirty yards to cross the railroad track and approach the rear of the storage facility where I’d stashed the rest of my bug out gear. A few more judicious clips with the bolt cutters and I was pulling the chain link fencing away from the southwest corner of the lot. Carefully, I made my way in, crouching in the ten foot space between the end of one row of storage units and the fence.
The bolt cutters had do
ne their job, so I stuck the handle through my belt before I unholstered the SOCOM and screwed the suppressor on. I could hear the sound of flames crackling toward the front of the lot, and the low rumble of a diesel engine. For a moment, I stood there and listened further, and caught a few brief snatches of conversation, but nothing I could make out clearly. Someone was here, but how many someones? And where the hell were they?
The sound of a storage door being rolled up answered the last question. It sounded like they were midway down one of the rows. My small storage unit was near the end closest to me, less than ten yards from where I stood. I took a few slow steps forward and peeked around the corner of the building. The row was clear, and I could see my storage unit just a few feet away. As tempting as it was to sprint to it and grab my stuff, I couldn’t do that. Each row was over a hundred yards long, and that was a lot of area with zero cover. If someone caught me coming out of my unit, I was in the deep end of screwed. So, I needed to catch the other guy out in the open. At least that way, I could decide if I could leave them alone or if the Texas defense of “he needed shooting” was justified. I double checked the safety, swallowed the tang of adrenaline in my throat and did a fast trot across the open section until I was behind the next row. A peek around the corner showed no one in sight, but I could hear people talking more clearly now. Another quick dash, and I was behind the third row.
