“Let’s go, then. Pack up some food and take me to the Use It Up Shop.”
“Okay, Jack. You’re the boss.”
Just a guy who wanted to follow. And did it well.
We get to the shop, and it was a classic Yankee barn. Unpainted boards, sagging roof, big huge red doors, and a beautiful sperm whale weathervane on top. I loved it.
No one was around the shop, but Micah was exactly right about the contents of the inside. His dad, who he pointed out to me, and Otis, Daddy’s old drinking buddy, were wandering around in the there, clearly zombies.
Surprisingly, Micah knew what had to be done, so there wasn’t much talking. I had feared having to trick him or get rid of him for awhile, which would be difficult with the distraction of the pain from the tooth. What a relief that he “got it.”
“Will you do it, Jack?”
“You got it, buddy. Sorry.”
“It’s okay. Daddy’s gone anyway.”
“Go dig a grave, but stay close.”
I opened the door and lured Micah the elder out. Dodged his slow grab and ended him, quite neatly, with the K Bar. Sever the brainstem and he’s down, quick and not that messy. Those old ones are usually pretty easy.
Otis was a lot tougher. He was redneck wiry and had probably worked hard jobs since he was about eight. That carries over a bit. He was quick enough that I put the knife away and pulled the 9. But decided not to risk the noise. Why had I not put the suppressor on? Anyway, I grabbed this long digging pole, with a chisel point at the end, knocked him down, and drove it through the middle of his face. An amazing amount of reeking black filth oozed from the back of this heat, puddling in the dirt. I was glad it was outside in the yard. The stench was awful. I sort of passed out for a bit, holding on the pole. When I came to, I was sweaty, panting, scared. But, end of story for old Otis.
After I very carefully checked the entire barn—it was huge and loaded with tools—I put Daddy and Otis in the deep and almost perfect grave that Micah dug and we buried them. Micah said a few words, very few because he could see me about to pass out from the toothache, and we went inside.
How would you pull a tooth if you really had to and there were no dentists around? Ever thought about it? Neither had I, until the last few days. All I knew was that it had to be quick and definitive. No screwing around. One and done.
Micah had a huge collection of pliers and stuff. All mounted on the wall. Maybe every kind ever made. Under the circumstances, it looked like a torture chamber. We picked out a set of locking pliers. Micah said those were the ones he’d used before, and had used on him.
We discussed how it would go. Lock the pliers on. Yank it out without hitting other teeth. Hand me that bottle of whiskey. Grab me a bandage. Get me the pills.
You know those skinny guys who work with their hands all the time and are amazingly strong? Micah was one of them. Wiry, but he could turn screws and bolts that would make a bodybuilder weep. He pulled a couple of three inch screws out of a rock maple beam to prove he could do it. Jesus, he was strong!
I’m sitting in an old barber chair. He tilts it way back. Open up. My hands pouring sweat, locked onto my thighs. Heart pounding away. He locks on, braces himself and pulls. Bingo. Comes right out. Rotten, but the root was still okay and came out with the tooth. About of pint of rotten pus and blood poured out of there.
Micah shows it to me, looks like he got it all. Feels better immediately. Absence of pain like rainbows and unicorns. Rinse it with some Listerine, a few shots of rotgut, a few pills, pack some gauze in there, ask Micah to watch while I snooze, and over and out.
Chapter 15: Mike’s Journal—After the Battle
That was it for the battle. They must have dragged me out of there. I’d seen Santos cut Mom, and lots of blood, so I assumed she was dead. Turns out he cut the bottom of her left ear off. Bloody as hell, but she was alive and fine. Pissed off and scarred, but fine.
We end up way underneath that armory at St. Albans. Far below where we’d been before. No wonder we had gotten jumped down there. A foul, dark, fetid nest.
The most terrifying thing was that they had a nursery down there. And some zombie babies, brains, I guess. They must have been in their mothers when they turned. The mothers were all higher ranks. Some of them in Mariana’s inner circle. Mom was working down there. It was gross.
We had some down time for awhile. Marvel had some respect for human survivors, having seen them kick the shit out of Santos’ army, and started to hedge his bets a bit. Fewer beatings. A bit more food, none of it good. Kept the zombies away more. News from outside and around, a little. I kept working on him, talking to him, seeing if I could use him somehow.
Even with the improvement, it was the worst place I’d ever seen. The rank stench fills your mouth and your lungs. I will be able to smell and taste it forever. Not sure if I hope to die, or for rescue. Doesn’t really matter. But I’d like to get Mariana and maybe Santos before I die.
They never really let me see my mother. Marvel has no news about her, either.
There is a big, strong, girl among Santos’ slaves. Maybe five nine, about one thirty. Brown hair, brown eyes. Her eyes are kind of wide apart, and she’s got a ton of freckles. Big shoulders, big hips.
Her name is Lita. I sort of liked her, at first, then she challenged me to a fight. While I was chuckling, she knuckled me right in the nose with a hard right. Then she kicked me in the shin, stomped on my foot, and flipped me over her back. I lost my breath when she slammed me down.
I liked that she immediately got all concerned. Her eyes got all big, and she started to get ready to give me CPR or something. Even in my damaged condition, I was able to give her a gentle throat punch, followed by an eye gouge, then I rolled onto her back with my index fingers hooked into her lips, ripping them apart until she screamed in pain.
I was not about to lose a fight to a girl. I did notice that she had nice lips, and pretty eyes. I let up on her a bit, but she kicked me in the face and I passed out. My last thought, I think, was that I was a sucker for a pretty girl. And that it would not happen again.
Chapter 16: Kate’s Diary—New Friends
After my attempt to burn the nursery, I’m locked in a small cell, further down, even deeper than the nursery. Way, way down. This is where the leader zombies live. Mariana. Santos. This guy Albert. A bunch of others, zombies and humans. A few humans around to clean a bit, and feed the other humans. The zombies must leave to eat. My cell is right off of Santos’ room. They stick me in here with Dokeh. She’s still wearing her id tag, one of those ones on a cord around your neck. Amazingly, Dokeh was her real name. I bet she was sort of a looker in the old days.
Now, there’s nothing in there. She doesn’t threaten me. Tends to stare. I move when she seems to be staring at me. She’s not looking at me, because her head doesn’t move when I do. It’s eerie. No sound, very little movement. She leaves every once in awhile for what I guess are staff meetings or something.
They send in a human to guard and watch me then. Change my bandages. Usually it’s Sadie, sometimes Bonnie. Now that Sadie sees that I hate the zombies, she softens towards me. She’s from Maine. We strike up a friendship and exchange stories.
“My boyfriend was a real asshole. Friends with my stepdad. Older. Used to beat me. On the first day after “it” happened, he turned into one of them and came for me. I did not hesitate even a little bit, just whacked him with a framing hammer until he stopped moving. Then again and again. I screamed out loud for an entire day, cried for two more. Finally, I left my house.
My little brother was a carpenter. His body was in the shed, I guess too damaged to become a zombie. My mom had turned, too. I couldn’t kill her. I just ran away from there. Wandered, it seemed like forever.
Meet up with a small group of survivors. They’d heard on the radio that some guys were starting a commune up in Vermont on an island.”
I interrupted. “I bet that was us. What did you hear?”
“Well, it was supposed to be a safe place. A fair place. They said if you worked, and earned your keep, you’d be okay there.”
“So you headed up that way?”
“Yeah, I never believed it, but I had nowhere else to go.”
I told her it was true, and that it was the place we’d tried to destroy. I felt a bond grow between us as she sobbed her heart out.
After a bit, they start sending Bonnie Brice back down. She’s always coming on to me. I always rebuff her advances, but we became friends, too.
Chapter 17: Jack’s Journey—Real Wolves
I awoke feeling better than I had in a month. A night’s sleep and no pain will do that to you. It was a bit freaky that Michah’d apparently been staring at me the whole time.
“Do you still want to come with me?”
“Yes, please, Jack.”
“Well show me around your shop. Let’s see what there is in here that we can use.”
There was a lot of good stuff in there. The barn had a stream running through it, and the stream turned a wheel that turned belts that powered a wood cutting mill and all types of power tools. It was old-fashioned but ingenious. And it still worked. Micah was very proud as he showed me what he could do with it.
There were a bunch of good useful bikes, and a complete repair shop with all necessary tools as well. But we couldn’t use them, at least not right then.
I had determined, based on the track of the army, that they had to be heading back to Burlington. I also knew that they would smarten up at some point and start to leave rear guards and traps behind them. So I explained to Micah that we’d be heading cross-country and staying off of the roads. We’d head to Burlington and take our time to make sure we got there alive.
We left early the next morning after stocking up with supplies from the shop. I made a mental note to move all of the contents of the shop, and the water wheel and mill, back to the Farm if we ever made it that far. Jim could figure out how to make it work.
That night, we were almost eaten by wolves. Not zombie wolves, mind you, but an actual pack of grey wolves. They must have come down from Canada, because I sure hadn’t been reading about wolves in Vermont recently. There were at least a dozen of them.
We’d decided to pick up the pace a bit so we were traveling later into the night than usual. I figured there’d be some house or building to shack up in, but we were on a desolate stretch of road. Nothing around.
When we first spotted the wolves, we figured that it was a good thing because they were eating a zombie, right down to the bone. I knew we were fucked, face down and hard, if there were zombie wolves. But these wolves were sleek and well fed, and they didn’t exhibit zombie behavior. They were fast and organized. I guessed they were okay.
But, even if they were okay, they did not discriminate between human and zombie. I realized this when they began to stalk us. It’s kind of eerie when it begins. You hear them howl and bark, but you don’t see them. You hear a twig snap, or some panting, or an odd howl or growl. But you never see them. You can smell them, even, but you still can’t see them. You just know they are there.
These fat bastards were used to helpless prey, though, and they weren’t ready for us. Micah had proved to be a good shot, since he’d been hunting since he was about four. And he knew the woods. When he knew we were pretty well trapped, he popped a flare, using it to start a small blaze in a downed pine tree. There was a ton of available firewood. No one had been around here for a bit.
When the tree went up, we could see the red eyes all around us. I’m sorry to say, but these “noble” creatures never really stood a chance. Without even thinking about it, Micah and I each selected three targets. Micah shot first, with his 12 gauge, and hit a big grey. I hit his white bitch, then a brown. Micah popped his second, another huge grey. They were gone, as quick as that.
I had not wanted to shoot, at all, to avoid alerting our friends that we were after them. I didn’t even want a fire. But, as they say, life is what happens while you’re making other plans. Without fire and guns, those wolves would have gotten us. My conclusion was that the wolves were overall a good thing because they killed and ate zombies, but that they’d get some “normals” as well. Life in the new times sure was a bitch.
So we spent that night waving burning branches and picking off a few more wolves and even a few zombies attracted by all of the noise and flames. The highlight of the night was when the wolves killed and ate a pod of three zombie “wolves” and a brain. Quite easily, really. It gave me some hope. Let the real wolves proliferate and see what happens. Maybe they’d help our eradication program.
Tomorrow might bring an attack from Santos, but we had no choice. Kill or be killed.
Chapter 18: Mike’s Journal—Mike In Love
I am in love. Despite all of it. Lita is just like me, but she’s a girl. And a sexy one. She loves to make out, and a little more, when we have some time. But really we are mostly just friends. And opponents. We practice fighting more than we practice that girlfriend stuff.
It’s tough to enjoy it since we constantly remember that we are slaves. That our job is to kill my Dad and the rest of the Farm. And my Mom is Santos’ sex slave or something.
But amazingly, every once in awhile we do forget it all.
Ian likes Lita, too. But he is very careful to stay away from her.
“She’s just a kid, Mike. Don’t you worry, she’s all yours,” he chucked one time when he saw that I was jealous. I had grown to trust Ian a bit, but it was good to hear.
It was also good that Lita was almost afraid of the big Brit. Just looking at him, you could his history. See the blood on his hands. Imagine what he’d had to do back in the day. She kept well away from him unless he was teaching fighting or shooting.
Chapter 19: Jack’s Journey—Bear and Moose
Those wolves did not become zombies, but I’m wondering about the bears. Up in Vermont, the only bears, at least right now, are black bears. Not the biggest, but big enough. I figured that it would not be long before we had browns and grizzlies again, but right now, we only saw a few blacks.
Bears are eerily similar to humans, I’ve always thought. They eat everything, like we do. They are unpredictable, like we are. You can’t tell if they are going to attack, or cuddle. They’re also kind of like pigs or dogs, but so are we. I thought maybe the similarity made them more likely to become zombies.
Anyway, I saw something the other day that made me wonder if a bear might have “turned.” Micah and I were walking along a river bed, the night after the wolf attack, and we were like zombies ourselves. Stress, bad food, and no sleep will do that to you.
We saw a glorious bull moose in a wetland next to the river. It was massive, healthy, up to its ass in the water. Eating some weeds or something.
As we stopped for a bit to admire it, we saw a mature black bear coming down a game trail towards us. It was staggering along, and although it was not full grown, maybe a few years old, it just seemed wrong. We hunkered down to watch, although I kept it in my sights.
The bear saw the moose. I have a feeling that it didn’t smell the moose, since this bear was really bumbling and stumbling along. I’d seen a few bears in the wild, and they seemed sort of business like. Flip a stump and eat bugs. Rip some blueberry bushes apart. Eat a dead squirrel. Get in the river and scoop a fish. But this bear didn’t have that “feel.” It was wrong. Nothing in nature stumbles, until it’s mortally injured or at the end of its life. This one was just wrong.
This bear might go two hundred, two fifty max. The moose at least fifteen hundred pounds, with hooves and horns and way out in the water to boot. A bear would not try this moose, normally. No way. But this bear, the moment he sees—not smells—this moose, he attacks, full out, starting about 200 yards away. It must have been exhausted by the time he got there.
I had the bear lined up for a kill shot, but the moose was ready for it. It walked out to where the water was about six feet deep. Waited until
the bear got close. Placed its front hoof, almost calmly, on the bear’s head, and stomped it under the water. Held it there for about five minutes.
I kept a close eye on this through my scope. I figured I might know a thing or two that a moose hadn’t figured out. Sure enough, as the moose walked away, that fucking bear comes right back up and takes a bite out of its ass. A small bite, to be sure, before I filled its head with lead. This time, it sank beneath the river for good.
Micah and I watched for a bit to see what would happen to the moose. The wound was survivable—unless moose got infected. We had to move on, but we stayed for a couple of hours. I saw no sign that this moose had turned. I certainly hoped that wolves and moose and deer wouldn’t become zombies, but I was concerned about the bear. Who needs zombie grizzlies hunting humans?
Chapter 20: Kate’s Diary—Luis Macias
I had become almost friendly with one of Santos’ human guards, named Luis Macias. Luis was a former drug mule and cartel enforcer from El Salvador who got caught up here by the zombie apocalypse. Other than the Brit that Mike hung around with, Luis was the scariest looking human around. Huge, muscular, and covered with gang and prison tattoos.
Perhaps because he’d heard about my efforts to burn the zombie babies, Luis became quite friendly to me. He would bring me extra food and water, even once a cold soda that he had stashed somewhere.
I asked him why he worked for Santos, and he shrugged.
“There is no choice, Kate. Santos is strong. The strongest. I always work for the strongest. In my country, to do otherwise will get you killed.”
“But you are not a bad man, Luis. Why don’t you try to make things better? My husband is also strong, and will be coming here to get me back. Why not join me and fight for us? With you help we can be the strongest, and you will be safe.”
Luis just shrugged. I don’t think he could really answer. All he could see was that Santos was strongest now. But I wondered if we could turn him. I thought he was a good man way down inside.
Zombie Dawn II: A Zombie Apocalypse Sequel Page 4
