Zournal (Book 1): It All Started

by Randall S. Merritt

My senses started coming back to normal, but long before I felt comfortable I had a man I recognized as the Captain we had first spoken to picking me up and jamming me into the wall and asking me what happened.

  “Did you kill my men? Why did you do that? We’re surrounded by cannibal freaks and you kill two of my men for no reason!”

  The Captain was starting to lose it. I felt some of his spit hitting my face so I let him have it right back, “So your pedophile, piece of crap, shit-bag, dead, former soldiers got what they deserved. You need to back up off me right now.”

  The Captain gave me a long look, “What do you mean ‘pedophile’?”

  Before I could answer, another of the soldiers who I recognized as Reeves pulled the Captain to the side to talk with him. I saw the Captain look over at Ginny who had the blanket wrapped tightly around her and was sporting a large bruise on her upper cheek and eye. Another soldier ran in then and said something else to the Captain and all the soldiers turned and left the room. Reeves was ordered to stay behind.

  Once everyone was gone Reeves said, “I’m sorry about your grandpa.”

  Ginny looked up from the cot she was sitting on and I could see her sizing up Reeves to make a leap for him. Turns out she was not planning on leaping for him. Out of nowhere she pulled a nine millimeter and aimed it at Reeves face.

  How the hell is everyone able to hide weapons on them? I had not even thought about doing it. Who the hell has the time to be hiding weapons up various orifices in the middle of an apocalypse? Why would you even thing about doing that? Zombies are not going to make you go through a metal detector before they decide which parts of your body look the most tender.

  Anyway, Reeves just put his hands up in the air and said, “I’m sorry about your grandpa. Mackenzie was a scumbag and if I had been in here I would have probably been the one who put him down if what I’m assuming happened is what happened.”

  Ginny sobbed, but the gun did not waiver. She looked over at me with an expression indicating I should take over the negotiations and she’d handle the pointing of the gun. Not knowing what else to do I walked over to Reeves and pulled his visible weapons off him. Although he probably had a bazooka shoved up his ass or something based on how everybody around here seemed to be so adept at hiding weapons.

  Once I had secured his weapons, I looked at him and asked if he’d be willing to show us how to get out of there. He was starting to respond when we heard gunfire coming from the front of the store. Reeves eyes got real big and for the first time he seemed to lose his cool. Seeing him lose his cool like that made me nervous as hell.

  “What’s up with the lack of noise discipline?” I asked.

  “It’s a last resort. If they are firing off rounds, then they must be desperate. The SOP was we only did that if they were breaking through the front or back doors. Sounds like it is coming from the front so I’m thinking we need to go out the back.”

  I was not sure why Reeves thought we were good with him tagging along but I also knew we needed his expertise to live thought the next ten minutes. Ten minutes seemed like a pretty optimistic amount of time based on the volume of gunfire and loud inhuman moans coming from all around us so I decided to just throw my trust at him and drag Ginny along with me. I handed him his pistol back.

  Reeves stood up and said to follow him. Ginny and I both stood up to do so. I asked, “Where can we grab our stuff? Is it on the way out? I could use my sword and I’m sure Ginny would like a real shirt instead of wearing a blanket around the rest of the day.” At which point I realized I was wearing a shirt and a minor race commenced with Reeves and I competing to see who could get topless first to give up our shirts to Ginny. I’m going to use the excuse of the concussion I am pretty sure I had at that point as to why I had not already done so. I was actually having trouble seeing out of my right eye as it felt like it had swollen to the size of an apple.

  “We can’t just leave him here.” Ginny said. She had looked up from his chest where she had been holding him and sobbing. She was covered in his blood. Tears were pouring out of her eyes. “He died protecting me. We can’t just leave him here.”

  I looked at Ginny, my heart was about to break as well and I was holding back the tears. The only thing helping me focus was the fact that I figured we had about two or three minutes to get out of this room and out the back door before we’d be overrun by the cannibals. I said the only thing that came to mind that I thought might work, “If we don’t move then he died for nothing. Honor his sacrifice, live to fight another day. Grow into the woman he wanted so much for you to become. But if we’re going to get out of here we need to go. Now.”

  I gathered some other blankets quickly and as Ginny stood up I threw them over the body of the man I’d become extremely close to. I held Ginny’s hand for a few seconds and squeezed it as she whispered her good byes. I whispered mine and ended it with a “Semper Fi Gunny. Rest in Peace.” Then I pulled Ginny towards the door where Reeves was waiting for us. Ginny had her gun in one hand and I had Reeves Beretta in my hand while Reeves had grabbed the M-16 of the ground and collected some clips before handing me back the Beretta.

  “Store room is this way. Humvees are parked out behind the store as well. Your stuff and extra supplies are in the storeroom. Let’s jam through there and grab as much as we can then make a run for the Humvees and try to get out of here.” With that said, Reeves moved into the hallway. Leading with the M-16 and moving so quickly it was difficult for me and Ginny to keep up with him. Both of us were still half blind from the flash bang they had thrown in the room and I had now gone from suspicion of having a concussion to I was about 95% sure I must have one. I had to work to stay focused or I found myself slowing down to look around or checking my shoes to see if they were tied or other random guy with a concussion crap.

  The inhuman screaming seemed to be getting louder while the sound of gunfire seemed to have slowed down considerably. I took this as a bad sign for the defenders of the store. We ran out into the open warehouse part of the store and Reeves led us to a cage type room near the back where another soldier was standing holding an M-16 and staring hard at Reeves. As we get the closer the soldier yelled out, “Halt, is that you Reeves? What’s going on?”

  Reeves, breathing hard, “Hey Mitchell, yeah it’s me. We need to grab a bunch of supplies and get in a Humvee and haul ass out of here. Base is overrun. Thinking the Captain and everybody is dead. These are the new people who came in. Let’s go.”

  Reeves moved to go into the cage and the man raised his rifle and pointed it at Reeves, “Captain told me nobody gets any supplies without him approving it and he has not approved this. Step back or I will have to fire.”

  Reeves stopped and looked at the guy like he’d lost his mind. “Dude, the Captain is dead, we’re all going to be dead. Lower your weapon and get the fuck out of my way.”

  The soldier took a step forward, still with the M-16 pointing at Reeves, “On your Knees Reeves and tell these other people to do the same.” Incredulously, Reeves started getting down on knee. The man’s head exploded in front of me at about the same time I heard Ginny’s gunshot.

  “You told me to honor Pampa I needed to survive. This guy was going to get us killed.”

  Reeves got back up on his feet, staring at Ginny. Then he seemed to shrug it off as he realized how close the screams were getting and ordered us. “Alright, get in here and help me grab some crap, no good escaping if we starve to death or get chased down and eaten five minutes after we get out of here.”

  Ginny and I both joined him in the cage and grabbed one each of the packs that had already been put together in case something like this happened. I spotted my sword leaning against the wall next to a bunch of other baseball bats and the like so I grabbed it and went back out of the cage. Ginny and Reeves joined me a few seconds later after grabbing what they preferred. Reeves said to follow him and we set off jogging in the darkness once again.

  He brought us to a door which he slowed d
own to cautiously open, letting us see the loading dock outside bathed in twilight. He seemed satisfied when he looked out and he waved us to go through the door. As we opened the door wider and started going out the first of the Zombies came pouring into the space we were vacating. Reeves opened up on full auto and screamed for us to get the Humvee started. We hauled ass for the Humvee while he held the rear position. We got to the Humvee we recognized as ours and jumped in, impatiently waiting for the light to turn on so I could start it. Hearing the screams escalate in volume I looked up from the light and saw Reeves sprinting towards us with a steady stream of the Zombies pouring out of the building behind him.

  I went ahead and flipped the switch to start and the Humvee shuddered a few times and came to loud rumbling idle. I heard Reeves get in then felt several other bodies slam into the side of us. I went ahead and put it in Drive and floored it. I swerved around the other cars that were parked by the loading dock and tried to stay on the small road leading towards what I hoped was an exit to around the plaza and out onto the main road. Up ahead I saw a small group running straight towards us so I slowed down to try and let them get beside us so I could floor it past them in my standard maneuver that had been successful so many times. Unfortunately, slowing down back here allowed the Zombies that had been chasing us to start catching up and trying to break into the car.

  I wasn’t real worried about them getting in here. I was worried about so many of them surrounding us that we would not be able to bull our way through them. Reeves was quietly letting me handle this. Evidently he figured that I had a bit of experience in this by now while he had been spending most of his time hiding in a grocery store. Gauging my speed to try and keep from smashing into the Zombies running straight at us while also keeping a better distance from the ones behind us I fiddled with the brakes and the accelerator but still hit the first few Zombies coming at us too hard and they ended up under the car while some others jumped on the hood and blocked my visibility as they tried to get through the windshield and at me and Ginny.

  Rolling blindly forward now I was forced to slow way down while I tried to see where we were going. The narrow alley we were driving down did not give me much room to maneuver and it kept the Zombies more bunched up than normal so they were really getting deep around us and I was worried we’d start losing our forward momentum pretty soon. I could already feel the resistance in the car now when I pressed down on the accelerator to try and maintain as steady forward momentum. Up armored or not if we got stuck the Zombies would eventually be able to beat their way into the Humvee.

  I continued to press down on the accelerator and move forward as we became surrounded on all sides. Desperately I began pressing down even harder on the accelerator as the engine began to whine and I noticed we were slowly decelerating due to all the bodies packed in front of us. They were all over us now as well. The windscreen was completely covered in their faces and hands as they tried to beat their way in. The side windows were being pounded on. There red eyes were staring at us from every direction. I looked in the back and saw Reeves digging through the bags we had shrugged off and thrown into the back seat. He was making a pile of something he was pulling out of each pack.

  I looked a little closer at what he had made a pile of. “What are you going to do with all those grenades?” I asked as I finally figured out what they must be. It was difficult talking due to the pounding fists hitting all sides of the vehicle and the insane screaming they were making. We were still moving forward but it was very slowly now.

  Reeves yelled back over the noise, “We have grenades. There has to be a way grenades get us out of this mess. Let’s blow some shit up!”

  Ginny was staring around with her eyes wide open. She had not spoken very much since we had gotten in the car. Like any sane person she was currently freaked out and scared as hell. I asked her, “Hey Ginny, you have any ideas? Reeves and me are drawing a blank on this one. I agree with him that grenades should be able to get us out of this mess though.”

  “The more noise we make the more will come. The more that come the harder for us to get out.” Ginny killed our path clearing via grenade tossing plan with that statement of fact. She continued to crush our dreams with her next question, “Wouldn’t the grenades hurt the Humvee?”

  Reeves looked a bit sadly at his pile of grenades.

  Ginny continued talking and asking questions, “How do we toss the grenades with Zombies all over the car? Won’t they get in when you roll down the windows? You’re going to stick your arm out there to throw it?”

  Reeves started putting the grenades back in the bags. “Any other ideas?” He asked, “Other than sitting here in the car until either they break in or we starve to death?”

  “If we kill the engine, turn off the lights, and duck down as low as we can get so they can’t see us very good then some of them may wander off. If there’s a noise from somewhere else, then a bunch of them may take off. I say we do that for a few hours then right before the sun starts coming up we try and drive fast and smash our way out of here.” Ginny had obviously been thinking this through. Probably using the same exercises and training Gunny had been working to impart in me.

  “Sounds like a plan to me.” I said and flipped off the lights. I looked back at Reeves and when he nodded I went ahead and put the car in “P” and turned it off, saying a silent prayer it would turn back on again with no issues. Those things completed, Reeves handed out ponchos to each of us which we used to cover up as well as we could, we put our seats down, tried to get comfortable, and focused on our action-packed plan of doing nothing for a few hours.

  Entry 27: I Can’t Believe That Worked

  It’s hard to imagine you can get bored when you have Zombies crawling all around you trying to break through a two-inch piece of glass to rip the skin off your body and devour you alive. I may just have a screwed-up fear instinct or something but after a while even the frustrated grunting, moaning, and inhuman screams started to get a little old. I found myself trying to get comfortable enough to take a nap and wishing they’d shut up so I could get some sleep. The only sounds inside the Humvee were the occasional sob from Ginny, which I know came more from sadness over the loss of her Pampa than from any kind of fear she may have over our current situation.

  I missed Gunny to. The man had reminded me of my own father in a lot of ways. I could relate to the way the affection had missed a generation due to the deployments and demands of his military career. I knew that the detachment in both Gunny and my own father were more job related than anything else. Assuming we made it to Tennessee and my dad was still alive I intended to have a long talk with him. In a way, I think that would be a great method of honoring Gunny and something he would have heartily approved of.

  Anyway, no big surprise to me but I could tell Reeves was impressed, Ginny’s plan worked. We stayed as still as possible, I’m pretty sure we all cat napped through parts of the night, and then around 3:30 AM we decided to make our move. The moaning and pounding seemed to have died down a little bit in intensity. Unlike in the movies these Zombies we were fighting were still alive. That meant they did not have an unlimited amount of endurance and that complete mindlessness of being able to keep doing the same thing forever. Evidently, they also got bored after a while with no further movement from us inside the car.

  I whispered that I was going to get ready to go and for everyone to stay still and not make any sudden moves. I pressed the control to start the Humvee warming up and waited until the light came on then tensed my body and started the Humvee. It roared to life and so did the Zombies around us. Trying not to give them time to mass up and keep us from moving forward I slammed my foot down on the accelerator. There were lots of noises as we ground over the bodies of the ones who did not get out of the way fast enough. The Humvee was obviously starting to mire down again when the bodies finally stopped being so compacted around us.

  I couldn’t see crap since two Zombies were still managing to ride on t
he hood and try to get through the windshield and get at me. Which explains why I ran into the wall. Running into the wall did have the benefit of flinging off our unwelcome hitchhikers. However, it slowed us down enough where the Zombies we had left behind were able to start catching up. I slammed the Humvee into reverse and stomped down hard on the accelerator. The wheels caught and we flew backwards smacking into a group of the Zombies who had almost caught up with us.

  Luckily, their bodies shielded us since I had reversed too hard causing us to slam into the concrete barriers on the other side of the little alley we were in. I threw the Humvee back into “D” and once again pounded down on the accelerator. The Humvee roared back to life and we headed back at the wall with me spinning the wheel to the right as hard as I could to try and avoid slamming into the wall again. Evidently there was enough people parts and fluids on the ground that we couldn’t get good traction as we slid sideways back into the wall and bounced off. I still had the pedal on the floor so once we finally caught purchase on the ground we surged forward.

  We had the lights on and I could see more Zombies running at us from all directions but I could also see where we were finally going to come out of this alley. I tightened my grip on the steering wheel and just kept barreling forward. We were hit by sprays of fluid and people flew into the windshield with the sound of their bones and teeth breaking as they hit it. I was moving too fast for any of them to get a grip so after hitting the windshield fluid a few times I could actually see around us now. I saw a tight turn coming up ahead to get us out of the alley and back into the parking lot. I slowed down to take it but we still grazed the concrete barrier son the other side of the alley pretty much ruining any chance on getting our deposit back on the car.