Battlefield Z Omnibus, Vol. 1 [Books 1-9]

by Lowry, Chris

  “I don't think they should be forgotten either.”

  Nuts. Either he was, or I was and it could go either way. I mean after all a beautiful girl did ask me if I wanted sex last night, and I said no. Or if I didn't say it outright, I indicated no, let's wait, and put off til tomorrow. What if that was my last time having sex? What if I got bit today, or shot? Or Anna lost control of the car and we careened off the edge of a canyon like Thelma and Louise at the end of their movie. I couldn't think of any canyons between here and Arkansas that would be as dramatic as that, but Alabama had enough ravines and ridges that a tumble down one in a car would be a steel death trap.

  “Are you crazy?” I asked in my most serious voice.

  He nodded and sighed.

  “Probably I am,” he said. “But even if that's true we need to eat lunch. Come on,” he began walking to one side of the cemetery as we watched. All of the Z on the fences turned and followed to that side and it was then I noticed he had led them away from the gate, and stacked them up on the opposite side.

  He turned around and made a beeline for the gate.

  “Come on,” he called. “We have to move fast.”

  He jogged through and we followed.

  “You can bring your car,” he told us.

  I nodded for Anna to drive behind as he jogged down the street. He wasn't built like a runner, but like a soft-boiled potato and sweat popped out on his forehead after several steps.

  “It's not far,” he huffed.

  I wondered if he was leading us into an ambush. I could hear the car rumbling behind me, so I didn't worry if it was. At least Anna could make a getaway.

  “They can't move so fast,” he said and glanced over his shoulder.

  The Z were following but he was right. Their lumber was no match for our slow jog. This wasn't a tortoise hare situation we had going, it was more like turtle snail, but the idea was we were moving faster than they were and so long as that held true, we'd be safe.

  He led us straight to the front of the discount store in the middle of the strip mall that stood across from the courthouse and around the side to a door in the alley hidden by a dumpster.

  Anna parked the car in front of the store and followed us in, as the man shut and locked the door.

  “Welcome to my home,” he said.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  His home was a discount store. He had boarded up the bottom part of the wall of windows that looked out over main street, but left the top uncovered so natural light flooded in. Smart.

  Row after row of canned goods and packaged food filled each aisle, and he had set up a small bedroom where a display had once stood.

  “Help yourself,” he offered. “I had to clean out all the meat and dairy, most of the vegetables, but the rest is pretty good.”

  Anna wandered up and down the aisles and I sat with the white-haired man in folding camp chair across from his recliner.

  “Don't suppose we need names,” he said. “You're just passing through.”

  I nodded.

  “Do you have any news of the road ahead?” I asked. “Anything we should be on the lookout for?”

  I was looking for a warning or directions, but he shook his head.

  “I've been here since it started,” he shifted up the footrest and leaned back in his seat. “I'm the pastor for First Baptist, but I moved out of the parsonage and into here because it's closer to the food. And safer.”

  So it was his Spam we had stolen from the home we stayed in last night. Or acquired since it was abandoned. I decided not to tell him.

  Anna came back with a couple of cans of shredded chicken and a can opener.

  “Do you mind if we keep this?” she asked. “You have eleven more.”

  “Don't suppose I could use more than one at a time.,” he smiled. “Look at all this. How long do you think I can last?”

  It wasn't a larger store, one of the mid-size discount chain that took over after Wal Mart built a superstore on the edge of town to kill off the Mom and Pop's, then moved away when it wasn't financially viable for them to keep serving the community. I had seen it before the Z in several towns.

  “Maybe a year,” I guessed.

  It could be longer if he stretched rations. I could see a display of Ramen noodles that would last for three months alone.

  “That's what I figured,” he said and patted his belly. He had spindly tiny legs, scrawny arms but a rotund little pooch across his midsection like a small volleyball. “They should have this figured out by then.”

  “This?”

  “The virus,” he pointed to the boarded-up windows. “The CDC or the government has to be working on a cure by now right? It took them about eighteen months to get a vaccine for Zika and that only affected third world countries. This is a much bigger problem.”

  That was an understatement.

  I wondered if he had watched the new much before it went off the air. Maybe my perspective was different since I had escaped from a metro with a population that bordered five million and he lived in a town with less than ten thousand. I saw how much damage was done.

  “It's pretty bad out there,” I said. “I don't know if the government still exists.”

  “Of course it does,” he said too quickly as his eyes darted from Anna to me as if daring us to contradict him.

  “They're just hidden in bunkers and safe spots, working on it now. They'll have the cure in no time, you'll see.”

  “Is that why you locked the people in the Church?” Anna asked and wiped a smear of chicken off the corner of her mouth. She washed it down with a bottled iced tea.

  “Sure it is,” said the pastor. “I led as many as I could into the sanctuary before it got too dangerous for me to keep trying. I locked twenty more in the Second Baptist Church too. When they get the cure we can help those people.”

  His eyes gleamed in the slanted sunlight and I wondered if he had been touched by madness. I know it touched us all, what was the saying, if we weren't a little crazy we'd all go insane? It was crazy to still be alive in this world, crazy to be roaming across the country instead of holed up in a store full of food, but maybe as it turned out, just as crazy to stay in one place.

  Especially with people you know. Or knew.

  Each day was an exercise in survival, and one day you might have to make a choice to kill someone under your care, one of your flock as it were, before they ripped into your skin and turned you Z.

  Thinking about that might drive me a little crazy too.

  “It might take longer than a year,” I lied. “Do you have access to the roof?”

  “I think there's a ladder in the back.”

  “You should think about putting in gardens if you have seeds. Maybe some water collection tarps, just in case it takes longer than you expect.”

  He nodded now, getting excited.

  “You know what, that's a good idea. You just paid for your meal in spades,” he rubbed his hands together. “I appreciate the suggestion.”

  “You're welcome,” I said.

  He pushed himself out of the recliner and puttered around the soup section with a knapsack in hand.

  “Let me give you some soup to go. Tomato soup,” he showed us the familiar red and white can. “I hate it. Tastes like that mush with spaghetti-O’s, and I had those every day growing up. Hated them.”

  Anna tried to wave him off.

  “But you might end up needing that.”

  “If I run low I can always visit my parishioners homes, I know they have some food laid up.”

  He filled the backpack with soup cans and two boxes of saltines, and a second with re-fried beans, but only the store brand. He kept the name brand for himself.

  One backpack full of food for each of us. Maybe there were still kind people left in the world, pockets of them who weren't just looking out for themselves.

  “The car's up front,” said Anna.

  We could hear the Z moaning through the boards. It was a plaintive woeful
sound like the wind brushing across the open end of a rotting log. Sporadic.

  “I have to do this every morning, just to be sure,” said the pastor. He walked to where the front door once was, hidden now behind a layer of plywood and yanked on a string.

  Bells connected to the other end jangled.

  He gave it a few more tugs and the moaning grew louder, then led us to the back door and peeked through a window with a mesh screen inset.

  “All clear,” he announced. “Try to stay safe out there.”

  He pulled open the door and ushered us out into the empty alley, then closed it behind us. We could hear it bolt shut.

  “Weird,” Anna whispered.

  “But lucrative,” I patted the full backpack on my shoulder.

  We moved to the end of the alley and watched the knot of Z gathered under the bells just in front of the door. The path to the car was clear if we moved quickly.

  “Ready?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  We jogged toward the car. Anna opened the driver's door and I slid around the back end to get in on the passenger side. Our movement attracted the Z who turned to us en masse and began shuffling our way.

  The door was locked.

  I pounded the window and Anna reached over to slip the lock up.

  An engine roared at the far end of the street as a Dodge Charger raced toward us. It slammed through three Z and sent them flying and squealed to a stop. The window rolled down and a young black kid with a gold tooth leaned out.

  “Brian sent me,” he said. “He needs your help.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Jamal was a tall lanky kid who stepped out of the still running car and kept a watchful eye on the Z as they lumbered toward us.

  “He wants me to bring you back as fast as I can,” he said. “I'm Jamal.”

  “Jamal,” I said and fingered the trigger on my rifle.

  I'm not saying I don't have trust issues, and that a total stranger who knows you isn't something to be wary of, but he's lucky he used Brian's name.

  “We've got to move,” Anna called out through the open passenger door. “They're coming.”

  She was right. The Z were just yards away and getting closer.

  “Go park at the church,” I told Jamal.

  The pastor ran around the side of the building, his voice raised in a mournful screech.

  “You killed them!” He dodged around the herd of Z and puffed toward Jamal.

  I had to hand it to the kid, he was fast. He ducked back into the car and spun it around like a stuntman, knocking down two more Zombies and missing the pastor entirely. He laid down two black strips of rubber as he raced to the edge of town.

  “He killed them!” the pastor shrieked at me.

  “Sorry padre,” I said.

  “That was Mrs. Hooper and Doctor Carter,” he screamed again, pointing to the bashed up body parts smeared across the pavement.

  A Z lunged for him, and he sidestepped the swipe without looking.

  “Those were people!”

  “I'm really sorry,” I said again and slid into the seat. We had to get out of there or the Z would grab him, or try for us and if that happened there wouldn't be any of his townspeople left. He may think they were people, and they were, once. But now they were monsters, predators intent on trying to take us down, and I wasn't going to let that happen.

  “Get back inside,” I told him and shut the door.

  Anna pulled out and avoided hitting any other Z though a few bounced off the side fenders which sent them reeling. Each thump drew a screech from the pastor and I watched him in the rear-view mirror as he danced, juked and jived away from the ever-growing crowd of Z.

  “He's not going to make it,” Anna said.

  “Probably not.”

  “I hope he shut the door to his place. We can resupply when we come back through.”

  I liked the way she was thinking about supplies, but got a hitch in my breath. What did Brian want? And why did she assume we were going back?

  I needed more information and it was waiting for me in front of the big brick monstrosity of church. Jamal leaned against the side of his car, a pistol slung low on his hip like an old-fashioned gun slinger. He even had the bottom of the holster tied with a string of leather.

  He gave a grin as we pulled in, gold tooth glinting in the sunlight.

  I stepped out of the car and kept my rifle pointed in his general direction.

  “How did you find us?”

  That's the question I pondered the entire short trip back here. Brian may have sent him, but there were a couple thousand possible routes we could have taken, especially the way we zigged and zagged.

  The odds of finding us were pretty slim, and running into us in town slimmer still. After the truck full of kids his age last night, I was feeling wary.

  Wary enough to shoot first and skip the questions.

  It was just the mention of Brian that kept me from pulling the trigger.

  “One of the guys, his dad taught him how to lay a tripwire,” said Jamal. He casually dropped his hands to his belt, just above the butt of his pistol.

  The kid had balls if he planned to try and quick draw us. I saw Anna shift away in my peripheral vision, spreading out so his targets were further apart.

  “We string fishing line across the road connected to a can on a branch. When something goes through, it pulls down the can so we know who's in our territory.”

  Our territory. That didn't sound good.

  “I just followed the cans you guys knocked down,” he finished.

  “We went on a lot of roads,” I shook my head.

  “We have a lot of cans,” Jamal answered.

  Tripwires. It made a little bit of sense to me, and if it was true, it would be a really low tech way to track something.

  “Why did Brian send you?”

  Jamal glanced up the road into downtown. The pastor had disappeared, either gone back inside or back to the cemetery for his thankless task, but the Z were moving our way.

  “I can tell you everything on the way back, but we should get moving.”

  “I haven't decided if I'm going back,” I told him.

  I could see Anna's head swivel toward me, but she kept quiet.

  “But Brian-”

  “Tell me how you know Brian,” I told Jamal. “Tell me why he sent you after us.”

  “Alright,” he said and lifted both hands. The further they got from his gun, the easier I felt.

  “The group I'm in is made up of kids. We got together the first week and have pretty much stayed together. But once you're eighteen, you're out. No adults allowed. I turned eighteen a couple of days ago, and they cut me loose.”

  “Kids?” Anna said. “How old?”

  “A bunch of different ages. Six is the youngest so far, all the way to a couple just like me, eighteen. I know some of 'em lied and said they were seventeen, but they're my age. I just didn't rat them out,” he puffed out his chest in pride. “I should have lied too, but I wasn't thinking, you know.”

  “They cut you loose,” I said as the Z moans got louder. “Then what?”

  “I was alone, and scared and I met this girl and her mom. Hannah. They brought me back to their house.”

  That sounded like Brian, wanting to take in strays and start building up his community. There was room enough in the house too.

  “Where did you meet them?”

  “A town. They were doing a supply run.”

  “Just the two of them?”

  “That's all I saw. I mean that's all that was there. The other two, Brian and his wife were at the house.”

  Why would Brian let Hannah and Harriet go off on their own, I wondered. What were they doing in town?

  “What next?”

  “Look man, those Z are getting too close for comfort. Can't you just come with me, or follow me or something? I swear Brian sent me to get you. He needs your help. The little girl needs your help.”

  And there it w
as.

  I might say no to Brian. He was an adult, a man who could take care of himself and of Peg. I could say no to an eighteen-year-old stranger who drove up on me in the middle of a podunk town in Georgia, and ignore him.

  But Hannah was my daughter's age, and I had rescued her before. Twice. The kid had a knack for trouble, and by saving her it made her my responsibility. Sort of.

  I almost told Anna to get in the car and keep driving.

  I could forget about Hannah, and Harriet and Brian and Peg, or at least push the memory of them to the back of my mind where I kept the rest of the ghosts. I could let them try to fix it, whatever it was by themselves, and just keep going. I had a plan and a goal of my own, and every day I delayed meant more time my kids could be in trouble. Hurting.

  Just like maybe Hannah was hurting.

  I spent a lot of time wondering about all the things I missed while my kids were growing up. Little things their step dads got to experience that I never would, night after night. I was haunted not by memories, but by the ghosts of missed possibilities, and those were the worst poltergeists because they weren't real, and never had been.

  I closed my eyes for a moment and sighed.

  It was possible the kids were alive and waiting. It was possible they were Z or dead. I had to go and find out either way. But I knew that a little girl was in trouble and I could help. The man in charge of her car had sent someone to find me to help. That meant there was something he couldn't handle so he needed my help too.

  “Anna,” I said in a small voice.

  She scooted around a Z as it got too close and pitched headfirst into the car to crank it up.

  “How much gas do you have?” I asked Jamal.

  He peeked in at the gauge.

  “Three quarters of a tank.”

  “Park behind the house across the street,” I told Anna. “Follow her.”

  She pulled behind the little white cottage and hid the car and Jamal drove behind her. I walked across, dodging Z and jogged a little ways back toward town so they followed to buy us time, then sprinted back to Anna.