by SJ Morris
They moved over to make room for Tom since he was hauling ass towards the back door.
He and Chris jumped in and I slammed on the gas, pulling us around in the field to get back to the dirt driveway and back to the road. Troy followed quickly behind us and we were finally on our way back to the cabin.
We left with three and we're going home with six, seven if you count each dog as half a person, but these weren’t real dogs they were just lap dogs.
Lilly might be small but she was useful to have around, at least.
These two seemed to only know how to be pet and taken care of.
Ah well, no matter how you looked at it, it was still a good start to our little band of survivors for the zombie apocalypse.
I would have expected to come home with fewer numbers than we left with when all of this started, but now I was confident that we’d all survive this.
The only remaining question was exactly how far my confidence would get us.
Chapter 12
We drove mostly in silence except for the panting of the two foo-foo dogs in the back and the cooing that Linda and Tom were doing to them.
Yes, I said Tom.
He was all,‘Who’s a good puppy? You want your belly rubbed?’
It almost made me sick, but I was happy to see Tom as a gentle giant. Everyone has quirks, right?
Tom had animals and kids.
It was funny to look over at Chris and see him shaking his head every time Tom made the stupid baby voice to the dogs.
Linda loved that she found someone else who shared such adoration for her dogs. She had an ear-to-ear grin but I couldn’t tell if it was because she had someone else ogling over her dogs, or if she knew that she was on her way somewhere safe with her little family.
I would have guessed it was a little of both.
Steven just slept.
I presumed he hadn’t gotten much of that in the last few days, so, we’d have to wait to ask him what happened to them before we ran into each other.
We were pulling up to the gas station and I slowed down a little. I had been keeping the Jeep at a steady forty miles-per-hour since we left the farmhouse and the barbed wire mess in the road where we got Troy. I only slowed to about 38 mph and Chris looked over at me instantly.
“What do you think you’re doing? I told you we are not stopping here to get into more of a mess.”
“I just want to see if anyone needs help. If the same two police cars are there and no one is around, I want to check it out to make sure that no one else is in trouble.”
“You haven’t had enough action for one day?”
“I most certainly have, but if the cops that came in those cars are still around and need help, I think we should help them.”
“They are police officers, Abby. They have guns and they can protect themselves.”
“If they do need help, them having guns and some training is exactly why we should help them. If those four assholes you told us about before show up at our doorstep, the more trained and armed people we have on our side, the better.”
“Well, when you put it that way, I guess I agree. Let’s stop and see if they need help.”
I looked at Tom in the rearview mirror and knew that he was slightly confused. He finally spoke up as I stopped at the entrance to the gas station.
“What four assholes are you guys talking about?”Tom said with a raised eyebrow. I was going to let Chris take this one. I was not about to get myself all worked up before taking a peek around for more infected or scared police officers.
“Well, do you remember I told you about those four guys I worked with in Columbia? The ones that hurt the little girls?”
“Yes...”
“Well, apparently Jack gave Troy their names and phone numbers to call if something happened and he called them.”
“If what you said is true and those mother fuckers show up at our compound I will personally take each one of them out. Why the fuck would Jack have them join us?”
I had only known Tom for a few days but I would never have imagined he could get this mad, this quickly. He was a very dark skinned black man but he was truly turning red with anger.
“Calm down there, buddy. They haven’t shown up yet and if they do, we will be ready for them, okay?”Chris’words seemed to calm down our angry giant for the time being. Just as I thought we had pacified the mood in the car, Linda started screaming and pointing out the windshield. We all looked and sure enough, there was an infected heading right for the Jeep. This zombie was a very large woman with one arm attached and the other ripped off at the shoulder. She was wearing a bright pink moo-moo.
I would have screamed if she were coming at me... even if she wasn’t dead.
“Linda, you have to stop screaming. We are safe where we are. There's only one so far and she’s moving very slow, so she’ll be easy to take out.” Chris said as he grabbed the hand she was pointing with.
This quieted Linda and Chris got out of the Jeep. He was very quiet and slow with his movements as to not gain the attention of any additional infected that might be in the area. He didn’t leave the side of the Jeep as he aimed and fired one quiet shot into the large woman’s forehead right between the eyes. She went down with almost no sound other than a soft thump since she had so much padding.
A solid win for the good guys, I’ll take it.
Tom climbed out of the back slowly and went around, standing next to Chris.
They whispered something to each other I couldn’t hear and Chris disappeared into the woods, next to the station. Tom came over to my window and told me to stay put and keep the truck closed. He and Chris were going to clear the surrounding area and then they were going to check inside the store. I was to stay in the truck, protect our new friends, at all costs, and not open the doors for anyone other than him, or Chris. I nodded in understanding while Tom jogged off and disappeared into the woods across the street from the station.
Everything was quiet and soon, Tom and Chris reappeared from the woods, closer to the store. Chris gave me the okay sign and they crept against the wall, leading to the store’s front door, that was covered in dried blood from the previous night’s activities.
I saw Tom run up to the police cruisers that still had their lights flashing. He turned off the wig wags and the overhead light bar. He came out of the second car with a new shotgun in hand.
After he briefly checked the weapon, he placed it behind him in his pack and went back to the door with Chris.
Chris opened the door slowly, looking up to make sure and grab the bells that would have announced their entry before they both slowly disappeared.
I guess someone had moved the body of the infected I’d killed since they walked right in without having to step over what I remembered was left of him.
I looked in my rearview mirror and I could see Troy sticking his head out of his window, trying to get my attention. I looked around and didn’t see any threats so I rolled my window down and leaned out of the truck.
“What’s up, Troy?”I said a little louder than a whisper.
“What the hell is going on? Do we need gas? Why are we stopped here?”
“We’re trying to see if there’s anyone here that might need help. Just be quiet, roll up your window, and stay in the car.”
With that, I ended the conversation by sticking my head back in and closing my window. I may have had a lot of things that I wanted to talk to Troy about, but now was not the best of times to start our conversation.
The silence and the unknowing of what was going on inside wasawful. I couldn’t see anything through the dried blood on the door and there was too much stuff covering the rest of the windows to have even a limited line of sight through the glass.
However, just as I was about to get out of the truck, against my better judgment, to see if they needed help, there was a huge crash from inside the store.
I heard someone scream, but it didn’t sound like Chris or Tom. I had my hand on
the door handle when Tom came through the door heavily with a dark-skinned woman wearing a police uniform, leaning on him. She was bleeding from the head and appeared to be going in and out of consciousness as Tom helped her towards the Jeep.
I got out to help him get her to the car and turned to see Chris coming out of the store, which filled me with relief. He didn’t seem worried that there were any threats left inside the store and that made me relax a little.
“She hasn’t been shot or bitten, as far as I can tell. I hit her in the head with the door as I kicked it in, looking for infected.”Tom seemed upset at what he’d done to the poor woman.
We got her steadied on the hood of the Jeep and I got a bottle of water to wash away the blood on her face. As I poured she seemed to come to a little more.
“Barry, get Barry...He needs help out there.”
“Ma’am, you aren’t making any sense. Who’s Barry and where is he? We’re outside in the parking lot, now.”Tom tried to get the woman to focus on him while he talked to her but she was pretty out of it.
“He’s out there... partner...he tried to follow me... he didn’t make it in... still... outside...Barry.”
Chris overheard the woman and began another look around the outside of the building. He was whispering the name Barry, telling the air that it was safe to come out and that his partner was okay. He got to the back corner of the building where the bathroom door and garbage dumpster was.
I bet that was a nice combination of smells in the summer; hot garbage and gas station bathroom. No wonder that kid the other night was so excited to get the door open from the bathroom and yell at the, now departed, Curtis, for still not fixing it.
Chris stopped suddenly in front of the dumpsters and backed away from it with his gun pointed at the flip top lid. He whispered something, but he was too far away for me to tell what it was. After a few seconds, that felt like hours the black lid started to rise slowly.
“Keep both hands up and on the lid, please. Make no sudden movements and I will help get you out of there.”Chris said a little louder, with his gun still trained on what or whoever was coming out.
A man in his early forties, if I had to guess, in the same policeman's uniform as our new, half-conscious, friend slowly emerged.
Chris, seeing that the man was unarmed, not infected, as far as he could tell, and an officer, he dropped his gun to his side and held out his hand to help the man out of the dumpster.
Now, with the lid open, I could smell the disgusting mix of decay and old food. The stench was almost as bad as the infected smelled.
That poor officer was trapped in that dumpster with the lid closed for God only knew how long.
Now, I felt like shit for not making Chris stop when we passed by earlier. He was as white as a sheet of paper and had dried vomit all over the front of his uniform. As soon as Chris had him out of the dumpster, he backed away from what used to be his own personal hell on earth. He looked at the dumpster as if something was going to come out of it and attack us.
“Chris, peek inside and see if there is anyone else in there. He looks pretty freaked out like there might still be something inside.”
“Awesome idea, Abby. Let me just open that shit dump again, I missed the smell.”
“Very funny, just look inside!”
Chris pulled his rifle back into position at the dumpster and reached out to open the lid. He looked over at the man he just pulled out of it who was shaking with his arms crossed over his chest. Chris lifted the lid slowly again and peeked his head over the edge. He made an awful face and let the lid close as quietly as possible with him stepping away and grabbing the unmoving officer by the arm and walking him in our direction.
“Nothing else in the dumpster of interest, unless you want to rejoin Miss Piggy over there with her arm,”Chris said as he slowly pulled the officer closer to where we were. As soon as he saw the female officer we were cleaning up, the man snapped out of whatever PTSD dream state he was in. He rushed over to us and started quietly talking to the woman, asking if she was okay.
He called her Jasmine so we had a name for one of our new friends. Tom looked up at him and cleared his throat.
“Excuse me, Sir. Jasmine here seems to have a bit of a concussion, so we need to get her to our infirmary as soon as possible to clean her up, and so she can rest. Will you come with us? We have a safe house all set up.”
“Ugh, sure. The call to this location was the last radio transmission we had with headquarters and that was first thing this morning around seven. We tried reaching the station before we went inside because it looked like we were going to need backup and never got em’.
“So, the last time you had communication over the radios was around seven this morning? Sounds like it’s almost full on outbreak everywhere if the power and radios are out up here already.”Said Chris as he swiped his big hand down his face.
“Right after we tried to radio for backup, that one over there came at us trying to bite.”He pointed at the big woman on the ground.“I tried to hold her off so Jazz could try again for backup when another one came out of the woods, after her. I saw her run into the store and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to hold the woman off me for much longer. She was so strong and all she wanted to do was bite me. We heard of this happening in major cities and we saw all the crap on the news, but until this morning we hadn’t really seen it here in town.
“Well, as of yesterday morning the Z-Strain took over a strip mall about thirty- miles north of here. We have some of the survivors at our cabin, including some kids from a daycare.”
“The Z-strain? What? Oh my goodness. This is terrible.”Said the officer now shaking his head in disbelief.
“What happened when you got separated?”I broke in to hopefully keep him from thinking too much about everything since I didn’t want to spend more time sitting here than we had to.
“Well, I gave the lady one final push with what strength I had left and she stumbled backward. I started to run for the store’s door, but the other fast one that went after Jazz was still there, trying to figure out how to get in.
Luckily, he was too busy with the door to notice me. I ran to the side of the building and saw the dumpster lid open.
I figured it would be as good of a place as any to hide until hopefully backup showed. I jumped in and as I was closing the lid, the woman caught up with me. She reached in and grabbed a hold of my shirt really good. I ducked down as far as I could and fought with her, but couldn’t get her to let me go. I pulled out my gun and took about six shots at her. I guess I only hit her in the shoulder because she thrashed a little and her arm came off as the lid closed.
She beat on the can for what seemed like forever. I was waiting for her to die from blood loss, but she didn’t quit. After what I guess was about an hour, she stopped the pounding, but I could hear her still pacing and groaning in front of the dumpster. I only had four bullets left and if her taking 6 to the shoulder and having her arm come off wasn’t going to stop her, I didn’t think my last four bullets would either. So, I just stayed quiet, well as quiet you can be while you are throwing up everything you have in your stomach from the foul smell that her arm and the garbage was giving off.”
“Well you’re out now, you and your partner here made it. What’s your name, Sir?”Tom asked.
“Lieutenant Barry Fangle, Sir, and who do I have the pleasure of thanking for saving my deputy and myself?”
“I’m Thomas Buckeneye and this here is Christopher Bryant. This lovely lady in black is Abigail Norrington. Troy is back there in the car behind us. If you don’t want to drive your cruisers, we can have you drive with him and you’ll meet everyone else once we get you all back to the cabin, Sir.”
“Thank you, and no more sir. Please, just call me Barry.”
“Sure thing, Barry, just one quick question. Did you get any of the blood from the woman’s arm in your mouth, eyes, or any open cuts you may have?”I had to chime in, I needed to make sure
we weren’t bringing more infected back to the house. We already had one in the infirmary and I didn’t want to add any more.
“Oh no, ma’am. No bites and no cuts that I know of.”
“Now it’s your turn. No ma’am’s, please, just Abby. I don’t mean to be rude, but do you mind if I have a look at you to be sure? From what we know, the infection is transmitted by getting infected blood in your blood stream. For your safety and ours, I want to be sure.”
“Absolutely, have a go. I’d like to be sure I’m not going to be one of those things too, so what do you need?”
I reached forward and took off my glove. I felt his forehead and he didn’t have a temperature. I checked his pulse and it was normal, so I lifted his shirt and turned him around a few times to check for rips in his clothing and he was clear.
“You look good but I or Troy will need to check your temperature every few hours to be sure. If you start to feel hot and sweaty for no good reason, come and find us immediately.”
“You’ve got it, Abby. If I start to turn into one of those... things, you all have my blessing to put one in my brain, please. Is Jazz bit, did you look her over yet?”
“She’s good, as far as I can tell out here. She only has the head wound but we need to get her back to the cabin so we can look over her properly, too.”
“Well, then what are we waiting for? Lead the way. I’ll drive my cruiser and if one of you wants to drive the other, I’d certainly appreciate it. We’ve got supplies in the cars that might be helpful and I can’t see just leaving them here for someone else to think there might be police around to help and they get hurt.”
Tom volunteered Chris to drive the second cruiser since he wanted to stay with Jasmine.
With that, Tom loaded Jasmine into Troy’s car. Barry and Chris started up the cruisers and pulled behind our little caravan. The now four cars pulled out of the gas station lot and headed for home. I was really worried what we would find back at the cabin.
I hoped there was only the arrival of the few guests we invited the day before, the new people we found this morning resting, and the remainder of our families, just as we left them.
