by Brown, TW
“Leaving us alone is NOT an option,” Shari snapped. “I realize that Erin will slow us down…a lot—”
“I’m standing right here,” Erin said, sounding hurt.
“I know, baby girl.” Shari put an arm around her little sister and returned her defiant gaze to Kevin and Peter. “I will watch her if you two big, strong men can’t deal, but there is no way you are just going to leave three women to fend for themselves while you dash off where anything can happen.”
“It’s not like you can call to check in with us or say you’re gonna be late,” Heather added.
“Well,” Kevin nodded, “I’d say that we need to make radios a priority.”
“Good!” Erin blurted. “I miss my iPod…music would be nice.”
“That might be a mixed blessing,” Peter spoke up, everybody choosing to ignore Erin’s statement. “Sure, we could get in contact with each other, but I know for a fact that they were monitoring frequencies back at The Basket. We start blabbing and somebody say the wrong thing to give our position away and we bring them right to us.”
“Then what do we do?” Heather asked, brimming with frustration. “We can’t let those jerks dictate everything that we do or don’t do.”
“No,” Kevin shook his head, “but unless we add to our numbers, we are prime candidates to be picked off by any large group or band of raiders that come along. That was the cause of the ultimate demise of the characters in the original Dawn of the Dead, they created this Utopia, but some raiders came along and they couldn’t defend it.
“We have a good location. Being this close to a city and surrounding neighborhoods, we could actually be sitting pretty when it comes to supplies. Our biggest need is finding more people like ourselves.”
“I travelled across the state,” Peter said shaking his head, “I didn’t run into anybody until Shaw and his men nabbed me.”
“Were you looking?” Heather surprised Kevin by voicing the exact words he had floating in his head.
“No,” Peter admitted.
“So here’s how I see it,” Kevin flattened out a piece of paper, “we follow the river.”
“The Licking?” Heather offered.
“Okay…the Licking River…we follow it east. According to Heather’s dad, there is a nice golf course about a hundred miles that way,” Kevin explained.
“First flaw,” Peter spoke up. “That river hooks north at some point because it passes right by The Basket. Second …well…it’s more of a question. Why are we going so far if the point is to stay close for supplies? Not to mention we would be going back towards the bad guys.”
“Let me take those in order.” Kevin set down the pencil and turned to face Peter and the others. “Thanks for the heads-up on the whole heading towards The Basket thing. We will need to stay on the south bank. When the river veers north, we will maintain our eastern course until it comes back to us. As for your second question,” Kevin made exaggerated air-quotes, “it is irrelevant. We will still be close enough to major population areas for supply runs. Also, we have the advantage of having more ground to lose any zombie herds that pursue. And really…does it matter which direction we are from The Basket? We’ve been thrown back to the transit equivalent of the Pioneer era when wagon trains took months to make the journey out West. We might as well be across country. I’d rather be in a position that, if they branch out their scavenging operations—”
“Like they did to Heath,” Heather piped up. She glanced over to see Kevin scowling at her. “Sorry.”
“Like they did to Heath,” Kevin enunciated each word. “Then we will have plenty of warning. By the time they reached our new location, hopefully we would have the numbers to fend them off.”
“Excuse me?” Erin spoke up. Everybody looked at her, causing the girl to blush. She cleared her throat and continued. “What happened to South Dakota?”
Heads swiveled to Kevin. He slumped back on the table and dropped his head. That had been the plan when it had been he, Mike, Darrin, and Cary. They were going to head for the hills and survive the zombie apocalypse in style. There would be plenty of women who would be thankful and…
“Plans change.” Kevin turned his back on everybody.
***
“Jesus,” Peter said as the truck swerved to avoid a pair of zombies that lurched out from between a jumbled heap of at least three cars and a motorcycle that had been hit by a school bus and dragged along until the entire mess plowed into the garage of an expensive looking home.
“You might consider hitting the walking corpses,” Kevin managed to say even with the weight of all three girls squashing him into the doorframe. “That reinforced front bumper can take it, and it would be marginally better than hitting…say...I don’t know…a school bus!”
“I didn’t hit the school bus!” Peter snapped.
“Not directly,” Kevin mumbled.
“Careful,” Heather interrupted, “there’s a bend up ahead. It veers back towards the river.”
“I’d like to ride in this truck until the roads won’t allow it,” Shari added. “Getting in to a wreck would sorta shorten the time considerably.”
“Maybe we will be able to ride the whole way,” Erin offered brightly, oblivious to the thick sarcasm floating around the cramped cab. “A hundred miles by truck will take us a couple of hours. Walking would take like…forever.”
“We’ll go as long as we can today,” Kevin said, not wanting to burst her bubble. “But everybody needs to start keeping their eyes peeled for a place to spend the night.”
“What does that sign say?” Peter asked.
“Township Highway two twenty-nine,” Heather read.
“Sure would be nice if we had a map Peter groused for what seemed to Kevin like the thousandth time.
“Hey!” Shari reached across Kevin and pointed. “There’s the river!”
“Then we are going the right way.” Heather leaned forward to look past Peter.
“How far does this road go?” Peter asked.
“That far!” Kevin yelled, pointing straight ahead.
Peter slammed on the brakes throwing everybody forward. Heather and Shari threw their arms across Erin instinctively to protect the pregnant girl. They made eye contact and Shari allowed her lips to curl slightly in a smile of gratitude.
Everybody stared at the mess blocking the entirety of the road. Obviously the military had set up a defensive position here. The open field to the left that extended almost to the banks of the river had been plowed up and crisscrossed with trenches that were fronted by coils of razor wire and stacks of sand bags.
There were remnants of military tents, along with an assortment of vehicles—most showing signs of having been fire-bombed. A curious mix of civilians and soldiers lie dead in rows.
“What the hell?” Peter asked for everybody.
“Did the soldiers turn on each other…or did locals attack the outpost?” Shari asked. “I mean,” she turned to face Heather, “you live near here. What happened?”
“No idea,” Heather said with a shrug.
“You girls stay in the truck.” Kevin opened the passenger side door and climbed out. “And I don’t want to hear any arguments about this.” He held up a hand to silence any protests. “Peter and I will have a look around. It seems that we will be on foot from here on out. Let us make certain that we can pass through here without too much trouble.”
“I don’t see any zombies,” Heather said.
“And when Peter and I are certain that is the case, we’ll load up and get moving.”
“I had to open my big mouth.” Erin slumped forward in the cab, resting her arms on the dashboard. Everybody looked at her with varied expressions of puzzlement. “It’s like saying ‘What could possibly go wrong?’ or something like that.”
Peter shook his head and climbed out. As he and Kevin closed the doors, the sounds of crying and consolation drifted from the truck.
“That should keep them occupied while we search,�
� Kevin said with a wink.
Peter chuckled and unslung the rifle from his shoulder. Kevin drew a well-used hand axe, and the two walked cautiously up to the mostly-intact barrier. All of the dead bodies seemed to be just exactly that: dead.
“What do you think happened here?” Peter asked.
Kevin scanned the area as he stepped around a pile of sand bags. Brass casings littered the area, but there was no sign of a machine gun. Two long-since-dead soldiers lay slumped over amidst the debris. He turned one of the bodies over with the toe of his boot. The killing bullet had ripped a hole in the young man’s throat.
“I don’t have a clue.” Kevin knelt down to get a closer look. “These guys were shot. No signs of bites anywhere.” He got up and moved over to a civilian. “Same here. This guy was shot, but he wasn’t bitten or scratched by anything.”
Together, the two moved through the carnage. The vehicles had been hit by powerful ordinance. The lone tank looked to have taken several hits from RPGs. Soldiers and civilians lay dead, side by side, giving the indication that they were fighting together against a common enemy.
“Kevin, check this out,” Peter called. He was in the ragged remnants of a field tent. It looked like it had been a communications center. None of the equipment looked worth a damn due to weather and weapons. However, Peter held a black binder in his hands and was flipping through plastic-coated pages. Kevin stepped over the body of an older man with a silver eagle insignia pinned to the cap that was welded to his head by all the dried blood.
“Whatcha got?” Kevin asked.
“The answer to at least one prayer.” Peter handed the binder to the other man.
Kevin took it and began flipping through the pages. He quickly recognized the Google logo in the lower right hand corner. Peter reached over and flipped forward a couple of pages.
“My guess is that we are right there.”
“This is the entire area,” Kevin said as he slowly turned the pages. “And I bet we can figure that these heavy green markings indicate other outposts or roadblocks. This is almost a gold mine!”
“Almost?” Peter raised an eyebrow.
“It’s like having the cheat book for a video game; we know where the treasure is,” Kevin paused. Almost on cue, a body lumbered towards them from behind the burned out wreckage of a Humvee. “But it doesn’t guarantee that you will beat the monster guarding it.”
Handing the binder back to Peter, he advanced on the undead soldier. This one had a bullet hole in its left cheek. Its head tilted back and to the right where the back of its neck had been blown out. He briefly wondered if the shooter had fallen victim to the ghoul after landing the headshot that proved to only be a near miss. With an overhand swing, he brought his axe down and buried it in the crown of the zombie’s skull.
“So,” Peter walked up as Kevin was wiping off the axe head on a flap of the soldier’s jacket, “I say we find a spot and take the time to really plot our course. This binder will help us to avoid any concentrations of potentially populated areas.”
“Let’s go tell the girls,” Kevin agreed.
***
Clearing the house proved not to be an issue. In one large bedroom, all of the occupants—according to the enormous family portrait hanging above the granite fireplace—were accounted for. Two teenaged boys and a young girl, no older than five, lay on the bed with an empty bottle of pills on the nightstand. Each had a large, plastic bag over their head. A woman was sitting in a nearby rocking chair in the same state; her hand was locked eternally on that of the little girl’s. Another body, presumably the father, was in the bathroom just off the master bedroom suite. He had stepped into the tub and blown his brains out with a double-barrel shotgun. Most of his head decorated the tiles from waist high all the way up to the ceiling.
“That’s The Basket.” Peter pointed to a building on the map. “If we stay with the river and cut through here, we come out in what looks like a lot of open farmland.”
“I had no idea that there were so many residential areas,” Kevin said shaking his head.
“Is that a problem?” Heather asked, trying to look over the shoulders of the two men as they sat huddled at the kitchen table.
“It could be.” Kevin glanced up at the girl. She had an intent, serious expression on her face and seemed genuinely interested in all the talks about logistics between the two men. This was the polar opposite of Erin and Shari. Once they’d arrived and made sure that the house was secure, both girls had found an empty bed and climbed in. With Erin it was understandable; her being so close to delivering a baby and all.
“I don’t understand,” Heather said, moving to the other side of the table where she could at least see, even if everything would be upside down.
“Each of the residences has to be considered a threat, potentially holding one or more zombies. Apartment complexes are even more dangerous,” Kevin explained. “The zombies out and about aren’t as scary. We know about them. Also, they’ve been on the move and have dispersed. The ones still inside could be a problem. We won’t know they are there until we actually see them.”
“Is that your nice way of saying that we aren’t ever going to catch a break?” Heather sat back in her chair and crossed her arms.
“Yep.”
“So here,” Peter pointed to a spot on the glossy Google Earth picture causing Kevin and Heather to lean in, “is the possible military outpost closest to our current location.”
The two continued to mumble about ‘what ifs’ and ‘maybes’ as they poured over the maps. Heather got up and wandered into the kitchen. The lingering smell of rot hung in the air even though they’d opened the windows. She grabbed a can of tomato soup, a bowl, and a bottle of water. Sliding into the breakfast nook that jutted off the kitchen and had windows on all three sides that looked out into what had once been a beautifully landscaped back yard, she turned to the task of making lunch. Her eyes drifted to the wooded hills that bordered the back of the property.
As she poured the congealed soup mixture into the bowl and began smashing and stirring, her eyes kept catching hints of movement in the distant trees on the hill. At first she dismissed it as an over-active imagination and paranoia. Mix that in with fatigue and the shadows playing in the late afternoon sun, and it was a perfect combination.
Satisfied that she’d finally mixed the soup as well as could be hoped for, Heather scooped a lumpy mouthful and swallowed. Her eyes blinked twice, and this time she was certain that she’d seen movement. Somebody…or something…was in those woods.
“Kevin?” Heather called as loudly as she dared, suddenly very self-conscious about noise levels.
“Yeah?” he answered from the dining room, his voice indicating that he was only answering perfunctorily.
“Somebody’s out back!”
The sounds of chairs scooting on the hardwood floor were followed by fast-approaching footsteps. Kevin and Peter both had pistols drawn and were looking around like they expected to be ambushed right there in the kitchen. Heather pointed to where she’d last seen movement.
Peter corrected his search a little to the left, following Heather’s pointing finger. “There!” he announced.
“I don’t think it’s a zombie,” Kevin muttered, heading for the door. “And I’m willing to bet that they know that we are here.”
“Where do you think you’re going?” Heather scooted out from the breakfast nook.
“I am going out there to find out who our visitor is and what they intend,” Kevin stated. “And you are gonna stay here with Peter and cover me. Peter,” he looked over at the man, finished with any debate Heather might have had in mind, “I need you upstairs on a window with a view keeping me in sight with that 30.06 we have. The scope is sighted and ready for action so just keep me in your sights and adjust on this stranger when we get close.” The man nodded and headed for the stairs. “As for you,” he returned his attention to Heather, “I want you at the door with the .45. If they are meaning us h
arm and I have to run for it, you just start shooting. Aim for the body if you see anybody. These aren’t zombies so a headshot isn’t necessary. We’ve been aiming for the head for so long, you might try to do so on instinct. A body shot is all you need.”
“Okay,” Heather said with a sullen nod. She felt a new fear spike up inside her. She wasn’t sure if she could actually shoot a living, breathing person.
With that, Kevin headed out the door. He made his way across the overgrown back yard towards the fence and the tree line beyond. He made a big demonstration of holstering his weapon as he walked across the open ground between the house and the trees. Halfway there, he stopped.
After several nerve-wracking seconds, a lone figure stepped out of the shadows. It was dressed in head-to-toe camo, including a wide-brimmed bush hat equipped with a mesh camo veil. The figure held a shotgun—also camo—high above its head. Slowly and deliberately it slung the weapon over one shoulder and, with hands raised, began crossing the distance left to reach Kevin. At one point, the figure had to duck through some fencing and deliberately showed its back. About ten yards away, the figure stopped and pulled off the veiled hat. Kevin’s eyes widened just a bit.
“How many inside with you besides the one tracking me upstairs with the scoped rifle and the scared girl in the doorway?” the most beautiful girl Kevin believed he had ever seen—in person anyways—asked.
“Umm…” Kevin actually felt the saliva in his mouth dry up. He blinked his eyes, unable to look away or even attempt to disguise his staring. Her blonde hair hung in several pencil-thin braids and her blue eyes reminded him of a clear sky on a crisp autumn day. Her face was bronzed from the sun and, with absolutely no make-up, looked more radiant than even the most airbrushed centerfold model.
“Hey…you!” The woman snapped her fingers in front of Kevin’s face.
“Sorry.” Kevin shook his head and gathered himself. “You’re just so—”
“Yeah,” the blonde pressed her lips together in obvious disdain, “I’m pretty. Can we get past that and maybe you answer my question.”
