Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse (Book 3): Salvation

by Scott, Joshua Jared

  Vaccines were never fun, and the boy was too young to understand that it hurts far less when you stop struggling and simply relax.

  “Then sit still,” ordered Briana.

  “Daddy!”

  “Listen to your mother. She’s the boss, and if you don’t, I’ll let your sister eat you.”

  “Chomp chomp,” giggled Mary. She made a silly face.

  “No eating Asher,” stated the boy, smiling broadly, all thoughts of stitches and painful injections gone.

  “We did have fun,” continued Mary, turning her attention back to Xavier. “There were a bunch of boring meetings, but I got to skip most of them so they don’t count. And my dad beat up a senator. We made the news there. They have television too. Can you believe it? We need to get our own running.”

  “A senator? Jacob, that for real?”

  I sighed. “Yeah, he put his hands where they did not belong.”

  “It’s because he’s a pervert and I’m so super beautiful.” Mary sounded strangely satisfied.

  “This was at a dinner party too,” I added, “a large one. He walked by and… Let’s say that I lost my temper, a little.”

  Briana snorted. “It was more than a little, not that I’m saying he didn’t deserve having the teeth knocked out.”

  “Is this something we should be talking about?” asked Xavier. He lifted the helicopter higher as we approached the Black Hills. “Or do I need to keep quiet?”

  “Mary was telling the truth about us making the news, and there was no shortage of witnesses. No reason to try to hide it.”

  “As if you could,” said Briana. “The way Martin was carrying on in Hawaii, you know he’s going to be telling everyone when he gets back to Yellowstone, and the military guys are probably giving Marcus and his drivers a rundown as we speak. I’ll be spending the next few days just straightening the story out.”

  Briana leaned in close to whisper to me. “Do you think smashing Senator Mons’s face is going to help or hurt your reputation in the Black Hills?”

  “With our people, it’s going to help.”

  “You think so?”

  “Don’t you?”

  * * *

  Michael joined us for dinner that evening, accompanied by his uncle. The man did not appear in any way reformed following his extended stint in the stockade – Carter and Carlson remained there until Lizzy and Laura assumed temporary power and cut the pair loose – but he was otherwise behaving himself. Carter also adored Mary, in large part because she was an active member of the militia which made her a more than acceptable girlfriend for his nephew.

  “We get to date date now,” she told him, breaking the news shortly after he entered the house.

  Briana and I were preparing dinner while my daughter entertained the others. Asher was bouncing around with a seashell in one hand – that would be broken soon enough – and a plastic sword in the other. It was his third, maybe fourth adrenaline rush of the day.

  “That’s great,” replied Michael, returning her hug and just as quickly letting go.

  “Damn, boy,” hooted Carter. “That’s not how you do it. Haven’t you learned anything listening to my stories?”

  “The best part,” continued Mary, with a happy smile, “is that you don’t have to worry about Dad getting mad and having Tara and Dale kill you anymore. It was possible, you know, because of how much we were hanging out, but now that we have his permission to be together there’s no problem.” Her expression hardened slightly, and she pointed a single finger at his chest. “That might change if you don’t behave yourself.”

  Michael glanced around nervously. The twins were not present, but that didn’t stop his eyes from sweeping the room.

  “I’m teasing. Really. Dad was not going to have them kill you.”

  “Jacob wouldn’t get them to do it anyway,” commented Carter. “He’d do it himself. No shirking with that one.”

  Briana rolled her eyes and gestured at the onions in a very poignant manner. I resumed chopping and dicing.

  “You need to lighten up.” Mary suddenly planted both hands on Michael’s chest and knocked him back into the sofa. “Sit down, and I’ll bring you a drink. What does everyone want?”

  “White lightning for me,” said Carter.

  “That stuff is going to kill you. It tastes terrible too.”

  “Girl, it’s the only thing around here with a kick, and don’t you be telling Steph that it’s no good. She might close down the stills.”

  Horror of horrors.

  “Fine, but you only get one.”

  “And three or four for the road, after we eat.” He rapped the floor with his cane. “Maybe five if I eat all my vegetables.”

  “Or six if you eat a double serving of carrots,” she giggled.

  “Only a single shot,” cautioned Briana, as Mary joined us in the kitchen. “And there won’t be any nightcaps.”

  “He’s old with nasty arthritis,” I countered. “Go ahead and give him a double. Splash some extra in too, if you want.”

  “Jacob!”

  “Sweetie, there are no rocket launchers in the house. We’re perfectly safe.”

  Briana let out an overly dramatic sigh before giving Mary a nod.

  “Woo Hoo! He’ll be happy. Oh, Michael and I are going out after dinner, but we’ll be back before the sun comes up.”

  “Not a chance.” I looked over at Briana. “No overruling me either. Sorry, but you’ve been up for next to forever already. It’s bed time for everyone after we eat and clean up. We are back to normal work first thing in the morning.”

  “Ah, Dad. I’m perfectly fine, and it’s not like I’m old the way you two are. I don’t need as much sleep.”

  “What do you mean old? I’m only four years older than you,” protested Briana.

  “More like four and a half,” she retorted.

  “Oh, you are so not going dancing or partying tonight.” My wife was in the shadowy zone between amused and pissed. “Go hand off that drink and get back here so you can mash the potatoes.”

  “But, who’s going to talk to the guests?”

  “Carter can play with Asher. Tell Michael to get his ass in here. If he’s going to be hanging around all the time, he gets to contribute.”

  “Dad, do something.” She looked at me pleadingly.

  “Mary, you brought this one on yourself. Besides, I’m not about to get in the way of Briana’s hormones.”

  “Oh,” she snarled, “you are so going to regret that.”

  I should know better than to make such a comment.

  * * *

  The following morning, Lizzy and Laura caught us up on all that had been happening. The big event was the fire, and I am so very glad it did not spread. Images of the fire in London or ancient Rome, even Chicago, had roared through my mind. Our cabins were spread out, seeing how we had plenty of space in which to build, and the wide streets helped prevent any flames from spreading. Still, it could have been a major catastrophe.

  Randall’s new stone houses were a welcome surprise. There had been on and off talk of constructing such things for quite some time, but other tasks had priority, so these kept getting pushed back, over and over again. The burned cabins presented the necessary excuse to finally get started.

  As to the trio of Canadians Renee brought back, along with one very large dog prone to air sickness, they had already been passed on to Yellowstone. Thor was sedated before making the journey. Getting an unconscious hundred and forty pound dog into a Cessna is not a simple task. Randall was called over to help. I swear, that man can lift just about anything.

  Steph came by next, and we gave her the detailed manifest of what we’d brought. The instant she saw the complete list, the redhead let out the sort of happy squeal I’d come to expect from Mary and rushed to the trucks to see for herself. The pineapples, as predicted, were the number one draw with a thousand pounds of pure cane sugar coming a close second. The fresh fish and crab, all of which were packed in
dry ice, would be served for dinner that evening. Who knows, the treat might even take everyone’s mind off my adventures in paradise. How the gossip flies.

  A few days later, on August 16, we held our election. The Black Hills Council was now a reality with nine representatives selected by popular vote. Twenty eight competed for the positions, and nearly every adult cast a ballot. The campaigning, most of which I missed, was fierce. The form this took was almost exclusively that of stump speeches, and some of these involved actual tree stumps. Most, however, were on street corners or in front of taverns.

  A few restrictions had been placed on the campaigning. The first was that candidates could not extol their virtues from atop the outer valley wall or next to the citadel. There would be no hinting that the establishment or militia was providing official support. Speaking in front of anyone’s home was likewise prohibited. It was to be everyday public places only. Privacy and family life are sacred, and this would not be challenged. Finally, a curfew was established, all speeches and political rallies being limited from an hour following sunrise to the hour before sunset. Baltis pretty much fell silent during the night. It wouldn’t do to mess up everyone’s sleep.

  An interesting aspect of the election process was the rapid adoption of long, substantive speeches. Sound bites are a thing of the past. We lack the technology and infrastructure to catch isolated statements and rebroadcast them over and over. Slogans were almost as scarce. People wanted answers and plans, not meaningless drivel and certainly nothing that sounded like a campaign promise waiting to be broken.

  Accompanying this resurgence was an entertaining reaction against any candidate who failed to get right to the point. Let me be the first to say that the tradition of hurling rotten fruit has been reborn. Now, I was startled when Laura told me about this, more so when I learned there were seven separate peltings in a single day. Really, seven candidates received the abuse within hours of one another. However, with two of the attacks launched by the speakers’ own family, another turning into a block party, and apparently no sore feelings to be found, I let it go. If everyone was good with this sort of bizarre fun, who was I to interfere.

  Briana was less understanding and issued an edict. To start with, she insisted any such behavior be friendly in nature. If it turned mean, it would be treated as assault under our legal code. Only soft, mushy tomatoes and the like could be used. Small children, the elderly, and pregnant women were to be kept out of the line of fire. Finally, those doing the throwing were also the ones who had to clean up the mess.

  Remember a few paragraphs back when I suggested a spectacular meal might decrease the rampant speculation concerning my behavior regarding the smiting of Senator Mons? Barely a dent. Mary is right. We really do need to bring television back. Something, anything to distract people would be welcome. I hate being the center of attention.

  * * *

  “I agree.” I stepped close to the precipice and looked down. “We are getting close to maxing out our border defenses.”

  “We could do more,” Lizzy admitted, tossing a rock over my head and watching it plummet sixty feet to the ground below, “but other than the roads, which are all gated now, there’s no way any zombie can get inside the Black Hills, not anymore, not even if it was lucky.”

  Calling our system of natural obstructions, walls, ditches, and miscellaneous barricades a border defense is somewhat deceptive. The Black Hills are not a monolithic structure. While there are plenty of ridges and cliffs, we also have wide sloping valleys and low lying hills, some of which extend well beyond the core area. It is beyond our ability to control the entirety, so we settled on a perimeter that gave us the largest living area possible while still making full use of the difficult, treacherous terrain.

  “True enough. We could do more. You can always do more.”

  “I don’t want to do more. I think we need to focus on the comforts now. That’s what’s missing.”

  “Talk to Randall and have any militia or volunteers who were doing this work sent his way. Make sure you keep up the key watch stations and patrols though.”

  “I’m going to redo those, the patrols. I want to shift the youngest to that. The odds of them running into a horde of zombies are pretty low, given the aerial runs, and the practice will do them good, for the newbies anyway. The guys with real experience are going to head farther out to take down the shamblers before they even come close, at least until it starts snowing. Too fucking miserable in the winter to be hiking around.”

  “We haven’t been focusing as much on the general region as we could,” I agreed. “I have no objections, except regarding disposal. It’s time we stop leaving the corpses to rot or for the scavengers to eat.”

  “Hell, no! I am not about to tell anyone they have to bury the things. You know how long that takes? And don’t tell me it’s no fucking trouble to dig a few holes now and then.”

  “Calm yourself.” I moved away from the edge and took a seat on a large boulder, patting the stone beside me. “Sit down.”

  Grumbling and glowering, she did so.

  “Burying is too much trouble – we all agree on this – aside from real burials for real people. What I was thinking was more along the lines of extending our existing burning policy, where we burn those killed in the Black Hills, to basically all zombies. You know, we really should have started sooner. Walking down the road and coming across a corpse isn’t the best thing for your nerves, more so if a child sees one.”

  “Kids hardly ever leave the main valley.” Lizzy ran both hands through her thick hair. “I will admit, and don’t you dare share this with anyone, that I got sick to my stomach more than once, going around a tree and seeing a skeleton or something on its way to becoming one. Fucking nasty, and the stink was worse.”

  “Same here, but burning solves…”

  “It’s different outside,” she interrupted. “We don’t always have wide open rocky areas to use, and if we stick the bodies in the middle of a highway, there’s a good chance the fire will spread. Most are what, twenty feet wide? That happens and our pretty little walls and trenches won’t stop the entire place from going up.”

  “Lizzy, give me a chance here, please.”

  “I… Fine.”

  “Of course we can’t have individual squads burning them willy nilly, not on a regular basis. We also can’t load them up on boats, tie rocks to em, and drop them in the Pacific either, like they’ve been doing in Hawaii.”

  “What then?”

  I hesitated. “We are going to build a very large, very powerful crematorium. Think Nazi death camp. I want nothing but ash left.”

  Lizzy gave me a level stare. “Nazis? You are using fucking Nazi fucks as a reference? What, you hit your head?”

  “It might not be the best way to explain it,” I said, grimacing.

  “How about you say like in a funeral home but bigger? That might go over better.” She bumped her shoulder into mine.

  “Probably.” I sighed. “Anyhow, we need something that can handle several bodies at a time. I figure we’ll place it in Custer. Most of our trucks and patrols go in and out from the south, so it would be on their way back. Even those going other directions can get there quickly enough using existing roads.”

  She shrugged. “It is out of sight of Baltis and all the other spots where people live. Best place, I guess, if you don’t want them seeing it. Fuck, this means the patrols would have to drag the zombies they kill all the way back.”

  “It wouldn’t be until next year,” I clarified. “No way we can have this up and running before then. And, once we do, we just send a pickup towing a flatbed with the patrols. Now, moving to less icky topics, who gets the houses, the nice stone ones?”

  “Fuck. Make them… Do a drawing or lottery. Anything else and people are going to bitch about it not being fair.” Lizzy paused. “Leave me, Renee, and all the directors out of it, same with the councilors. Might have someone thinking it was rigged, if we got one early on.”
<
br />   * * *

  “What’s up, Melody?”

  She was inside her new lookout station, a strangely crafted building made of stone and timber. It was fifteen feet long but only six wide, and the door was in the rear near the trail, with all three windows on the opposite side facing south toward the open plains. Inside was a single cot, a small table, folding chair, and a short bookcase that held several canteens, some tins of food, extra flashlights, and a radio.

  “This came out well,” I added.

  The woman gave me the slightest of nods. “I like it. Saw someone on a motorcycle. Out there.” She pointed into the darkness.

  Using my night vision goggles, I took a look. Nothing.

  “It was at twilight, way off in the distance. I tried to take some pictures but couldn’t get anything in focus. The zoom isn’t strong enough to see much even if I had.”

  “Definitely a bike?”

  “Yes, Jacob. It was a dirt bike, had to be since it was in the grass.”

  I frowned. “Other than it being a motorcycle, was there anything you noticed?”

  “It was going east,” she offered. “I called for a plane to take a look, but they had already landed for the night.”

  The breathing community generally went to ground when the sun descended. As a result, we rarely sent anything aloft after dark. The zombies were out and about – they kept moving regardless of the conditions outside – but that was about it. There was little to see, and those inclined to take the risk unerringly drove without lights, making them next to impossible to spot from above. Add in the limited fuel supply and attendant risks, and our policy was more than justified.

  “Keep an eye out,” I said, “and let me know if there’s a repeat. I’ll talk to the others on watch, along with the pilots. Hopefully, it’s just some random traveler. If not, well, maybe we can take a few precautions.”

  Interlude – Lizzy’s Story

  When I was off in Hawaii suffering through near endless meetings, and the rest of my family enjoyed the sun and surf – so unfair – and on the same day Renee recovered the Canadians on the outskirts of Rapid City, Lizzy and Melody were lounging about in Venusville with their new pinochle club. Remember, Melody is a workaholic in the extreme sense of the word. Given the choice, she rarely takes time off, but if cards are involved, Melody will consider leaving her lookout station, at least for a few hours.