Ranger Martin (Book 3): Ranger Martin and the Search for Paradise

by Flacco, Jack

  He said. “Look, we only have a few more chewers to take out then we can help Jon, Abigail and Silver with the truck.”

  “Fine, but once we’re out of ammo, we’re out of ammo. We won’t have anything left to fight with.”

  With a nod, Matty marched forward as Randy watched her with shock all over his face. If she were going to die, she would do it on her terms, surrounded by the enemy that had kept her awake at night preventing her from getting enough sleep.

  He didn’t have to question her. Randy marched forward not leaving her side.

  In the meantime, while Jon unloaded the gun that used to belong to Silver, Abigail ran to his side with her own gun she had yanked from her pocket. They weren’t about to let anything crawl up the drive to where the truck lay helpless in the ditch.

  This gave Silver enough time to run back to the Humvee. He bent and dug his heels into the dirt where the branch lay stuck under the rear wheels of the vehicle. He thought if he could pull the branch from the bottom, they’d have a chance to get it out and be on their way. He tugged and pulled and it moved ever so slightly. He flashed a smile of hope thinking with a few more tugs they’d be in the truck leaving the godforsaken lot.

  But his plans would have to wait. Three chewers burst from the woods on the opposite side of the Humvee and roared at everyone for trespassing into their home with the sound of gunfire. They didn’t see Silver, but Silver could see them from under the truck. He slammed his back against the wheel realizing Jon had taken his gun. If anyone was going to die that night, it wasn’t going to be Silver.

  * * *

  Ranger traced his steps back to the prison cell where he found his stash of grenades, and shotgun lying on the bed where he had left them before Josh rudely disrupted his peace. When he drifted from the cell, the first thing on his to-do list was to toss a grenade into the cell to destroy everything Josh cherished. A little payback for the way Josh had treated him.

  As he stepped into the cellblock and walked away, he didn’t feel the need to hurry. He took his time, swung his shotgun on his shoulder and allowed himself the luxury of a smirk.

  The explosion ripped apart the cell and blew chunks of debris behind Ranger while he continued strolling from the scene. Satisfaction washed over him and he stepped forward with the pressure in the air pressing him forward.

  Here was a man who explosions didn’t annoy.

  During the time the smoke behind him began to clear, as Ranger opened the door to the long hallway, Josh limped in the background, twenty feet away from the door of the shower block to the opposite door that led to the outside.

  Meanwhile, the zombies that had chased Ranger from the dock hadn’t left. They knocked on the entrance wanting to get in. Outside, the clouds that once allowed the moonlight to escape had all but disappeared. The moon shined brightly rendering the area outside the courtyard as if it were day.

  The undead pounded on the door and moaned. They had no idea what they were doing other than knowing their meal had escaped their clutches to hide behind it. The low drone from their broken vocal cords couldn’t hide the sound of a click behind the door and a twirl. Their instincts awoke and they pounded hard from the outside.

  Pound. Pound. Pound.

  The door blew apart in pieces of shrapnel that flew through the brains of the frontline. Green goo splattered the nearby trees. Undead body parts fired in every direction landing in the bushes and to the sides of the path leading to the opening.

  The chewers that were lucky enough to escape the carnage of their brothers and sisters thrust their arms in the air and raced toward the opening where the door once stood protecting Ranger from their evil grips.

  Another grenade clicked and twirled in the opening, and another followed it as insurance. The bombs sat there spinning in the doorway waiting for their next victims.

  The eaters dashed into the opening, but before they could turn right or left, the doorway vomited their chunks from the grenade blasts into the path where parts of their brothers and sisters lay. Green covered the inside walls and smoke followed the second blast to shroud their enemy’s presence.

  Through the smoke, the enemy of the undead appeared. Wisps of smoke trailed behind as he separated them with his cowboy boots and his worn jeans. The shotgun he carried as his close companion followed, his grip holding it tight, awaiting for its next victim. The baseball cap sat firmly on his head, a testament to his dedication to his late brother who once had died a terrible death.

  The emerald bloodbath had painted everything in the blasts’ wake. The undead that had survived dragged on the ground hoping for a bite of their enemy. But Ranger had had enough of the monsters. He was ready to go home. With every step he took on the path, he crunched and crushed broken bones, squishing sinew.

  Of all those that had died that night, five had the gall to have survived intact. They stood at the mouth of the woods that led to the docks, and screamed their displeasure of what the zombie killer had done. Had they had a conscious being living inside their decrepit shells, they would have felt anger and hatred for their brothers and sisters’ killer. But they moaned with hunger only seeing before them a man who could provide them with the nourishment they needed to get them through another night. That was to say, if they could satisfy their appetite for longer than a few minutes.

  Standing in one spot, Ranger waited for the five. He didn’t run. He didn’t hide. He stood there loading his shotgun with shells, readying for a fight. Nothing could distract him for the job he had to finish. If there ever was a time for Ranger to run, now was not that time. The anger bubbled in his stomach and churned his innards to want revenge for his lost life. He wanted to exact vengeance for all the undead had done to him, to the families of the world and to his own family. Nothing could stand in his way as he pressed the last of his shell from his pocket into the shotgun.

  He cocked it and waited. A smile washed over his face. He knew the chewers couldn’t stop their urge to want to kill the zombie slayer. They didn’t know that whatever they did, they would lose. No matter how many times they’d try. They would always lose.

  * * *

  Chewers had surrounded the kids from every side. Matty and Randy held the line with a dwindling supply of ammo, pushing a horde of eaters marching toward them from the mouth of the parking lot and descending to the middle of the drive. Jon and Abigail had their own problems to deal with. A zombie crowd pressed from the bottom of the drive climbing toward them as they fought them off with guns and attitude. As for Silver, he cowered with his back to the rear wheel of the Humvee while three of the undead appeared from the woods on the opposite side. His mind wandered not wanting to disappoint his team. Then again, he did lose every friend he had known for being part of Ranger’s team. He could have easily abandoned everyone.

  He didn’t.

  With his mind on getting the truck out of the ditch, all he had to do was pull the dead tree branch from under the rear wheels and fire up the truck to pick up the rest of his friends. They’d worry about Ranger later. Now was the time to think about them.

  Nodding to himself, Silver had decided to take matters into his own hands. He had given his weapon to Jon to use against the rot bags at the end of the drive, so he had no choice but to search for his own weapon. Scanning the ground, he found rocks, but they were much too small to hit the three zombies. He needed something bigger, he thought. If he could find a huge rock, he could crush whatever brains the three maggot suckers had left. The only thing close to a huge rock was a stone the size of a golf ball. It just wouldn’t do. He needed bigger.

  While Silver searched for a weapon, the crowd at the top of the hill had grown thin. The massive amount of bullets Matty and Randy had consumed had taken a toll on the undead numbers. With a few stragglers left for the killing, the teens’ faces lit with hope that they might actually get out of the predicament with their lives. If only it would have been that easy.

  Randy’s gun had tossed its last shell casing to the grou
nd. Rather than bother Matty for another clip, as she killed everything she shot at, he tossed his gun and charged the zombie line, unsheathing his knife along the way.

  “Where are you going? Come back!” Matty delivered another perfect shot at a dragging cadaver that had wanted to take Randy down.

  But Randy didn’t answer. With the knife gleaming in the moonlight, he dashed to the center of the fray and delivered his first blow to one of the eaters that had dared put its hands on him. The blade crashed into its temple without much trouble and the roaming stiff dropped to its knees.

  Scanning the dwindling crowd, Matty chose her shots carefully. Anything that posed a threat to Randy would quickly meet with a bullet from the barrel of her smoking gun. She didn’t have to wait long either. She picked off the undead that had attempted to come behind Randy with its extended arms.

  Meanwhile, Jon had become quite handy wielding his gun at the roaming undead. Had Matty stood fighting next to him, she would have been proud of his aim as his shots penetrated the zombies, leaving them to rot by the side of the road. It didn’t concern him, though. With her own gun blazing, Abigail kept him company until she had consumed the last of her ammo.

  “Jon, we have to leave.” Abigail threw her gun into the woods as if it were a broken toy.

  “Take mine. You have a better shot.” He said.

  Abigail grabbed Jon’s gun and continued the barrage she had once started, letting loose a hail of fire at the crowd below.

  Everything seemed to have been going well. Matty and Randy had their problems, but nothing as bad as not being able to control the final assault on the undead. Abigail kept the crowd at the foot of the drive contained with her own brand of fighting.

  But one thing still needed fixing. The three draggers that had appeared from the woods by the side of the Humvee spotted Jon unarmed and with his back turned toward them. The guns going off from both directions had deafened the boy of the screeching, groaning and moaning coming from behind.

  The undead trio, torn clothes, rotten flesh and a miserable stench to them, dragged from the side of the Humvee and dirt followed their moans. They scoured the ground as they pulled themselves from the ditch with one intention—a unified intention—to take Jon for themselves.

  Once they climbed from the ditch, the moonlight beaming its white rays on the road ahead, they had ten feet before their dream of ending the craving that tormented them would subside.

  Jon had nothing else to do other than toss rocks at the approaching few zombies left at the foot of the drive. Abigail and Jon had cut through them efficiently, bringing their numbers down to a handful.

  With three feet left between the approaching zombies from behind Jon and Abigail, only a miracle could have saved them now.

  Chapter 31

  After having tossed grenades to clear the doorway of the undead that had blocked his escape, Ranger stood beyond the doorway, smoke trailing behind, waiting for his final fight with the sons of rot that had slipped from the woods and into the clearing by the path leading to the prison.

  His idea of fun was playing with five zombies with his bare hands. He had one grenade left hanging from his belt, but he didn’t want to use it. It would have been too easy. He wanted the rot bags to suffer. He wanted them to feel the pain he had felt when they had taken away his wife from him months earlier. The sting of that event left a crack in his heart pressing him to take vengeance on those who dragged with undead limbs. He wasn’t about to show mercy by simply tossing a grenade at them. He wanted each of them to learn the real meaning of loss by hearing the last words they would ever hear coming from him alone.

  Twenty feet between Ranger and the five zombies, and the first flew past ten feet without a worry. It was a dasher, a broken chewer pumping its legs like an Olympian sprinter. It lunged at the demon murdered. As it took flight, Ranger blasted its head in a green explosion of chunks that had gone everywhere. The body flew past him and crashed on the wall behind. He smirked at the mess he’d created. Too easy, he thought. He put away the shotgun and pulled his knife from its sheath.

  The second, another dasher, blew past its friends and hurled itself toward Ranger’s direction. As its brothers and sisters dragged their limbs, playing a game of Follow the Leader, it chugged like a locomotive, pressing hard to gain the advantage the first wasn’t able to achieve. It bore its teeth and shrieked, as five feet became four, became three. Within seconds, it stretched its paws at the zombie killer, but it didn’t feel a thing. The knife slashed through its head releasing its brains all over the ground. It collapsed at Ranger’s feet, right where it belonged.

  Ranger stamped his foot on what remained of the second one’s skull and pressed hard until the crack sounded throughout the clearing. He had declared war and the three left didn’t surrender their slow pace toward the one who had killed their kindred. They wanted blood, but it would be Ranger’s blood not theirs that would cover the ground.

  When the remaining three chewers began their advance with a slow purposeful pace, Ranger removed his heel from the mess and shook the goo from the soles of his feet. He stuck his tongue out in disgust wondering how he would clean his boot. He strolled to the grass paying no mind to their dragging. Three of them coming after him seemed like a luxury, considering how he had tackled hundreds in the past.

  Once on the grass, he scrapped his feet on the blades paying attention to remove all the blood. He placed his hand on a tree and leaned forward while the eaters continued with their slow trek. His attention wasn’t on them, and he took his time while cleaning the remaining guck from his clothing.

  It was then his expectations of the zombies changed. As he pulled his knife and used it to scrape what little brain matter he found stuck in the cracks of his boots, a crowd of undead slipped from the woods behind him and groaned. There weren’t three this time to fight him, but a horde bent on putting Ranger out of order for good.

  Of course, Ranger didn’t know about it until he turned around and saw the maelstrom of offenders breaching the trees. Suddenly it didn’t matter what he had on his shoes or on his clothes. It became his goal to get out of there a quickly and in one piece.

  With three chewers facing him and a horde behind him wanting to stuff him into their bellies, his choice was an easy one—take on the three and get out of there before the horde began to frenzy.

  But before he could put his plan into action, one of the three chewers screamed a bellowing cry and jumped the zombie slayer pummeling him to the ground.

  Ranger thought the dashers had all but died in his first two encounters. He didn’t think he had to worry about a third.

  The dasher snapped its jaws and drooled over Ranger’s face. All he could think of was, “not again.” He’d been in situations like these before and didn’t like to revisit them without some preparation. This time, though, the dasher’s hands wrapped around Ranger’s throat as if it had known its actions would put an end to the zombie slayer.

  It didn’t take long for Ranger to put it in its place. The knife he had used to clean his shoes hadn’t left his hand. He stabbed the eater in the temple releasing a spurt of green all over him. He thought, “Great, now I’ve got to clean up again.” He rolled the dead body and rose to his knees only to have the fourth of the five chewers leap on his back.

  If anything he hated the most, he hated leapers. He didn’t have a problem with dashers. They would expend all their energy trying to catch him that it became a fun game of Cat and Mouse. Leapers, however, would hop from their standing position and go for the jugular. In this case, that was what the leaper did. He went for Ranger’s jugular.

  And just when Ranger thought he had his hands full, the last of the five chewers trounced him.

  Still resting on his knees, Ranger punched one of them in the face, decking the putrid scum to the ground. As it jostled to get back to its feet, Ranger stabbed the other under its chin. An easy kill, he thought. It dropped in front of him without any life left in it. By that time,
the one who had its face rearranged by Ranger’s left hook took to its feet and dove on him with its teeth landing on Ranger’s neck.

  At this point, Ranger wouldn’t have any more of it, not when the crowd behind him inched closer and stood five feet from where they could turn him into their next late night goodie. He grabbed the last of the five zombies by the throat, and squeezed it with one hand. He could have used the knife, but he wanted to make an example of it to the others. “This would happen to you if you mess with me.” He squeezed until its throat burst in a rush of green guck and goo all over Ranger’s hand.

  Ranger smirked. Another cleanup job.

  But when the zombie slayer released the body of the rot sucker, it had done something Ranger wasn’t counting on. He heard a snap and the sound of a familiar metal click hit his ears. The rot sucker had taken the grenade that Ranger had hanging on his belt and tugged at the ring starting the timer.

  Ranger had seconds before he would die an awful death.

  * * *

  As the three zombies rose from the ditch where the Humvee lay in a sad grave with a branch stuck under its rear wheels, Abigail kept firing at the dozen zombies ascending the drive. Since Abigail had earlier run out of bullets, Jon had given her his gun, and thought he’d help by tossing rocks.

  From behind the kids’ shoulders, the three zombies rose from the ditch, having three feet left before they’d have their way with them. There was no such thing as not playing with their food once they locked their paws on the kids. One at a time, they moaned with hunger. They hauled their limbs from the pit and headed straight for the kids. Nothing could save them now.

  While the zombies dragged their feet, Randy stabbed a hole through the remaining zombies that had blocked the entrance to the parking lot. With every one of the undead that he slipped his blade, Matty stood next to him pumping bullets into the heads of those that threatened her friend. They made the perfect team. Nothing could get in their way. They had a rhythm to their madness.