Zournal (Book 5): Feeling Lucky?

by R. S. Merritt

  Ann slowed down further and started pulling into the scenic overlook parking lot. I would have probably just driven by slowly and tried to avoid what she was driving us into. A few of the Koreans looked over at us and waved in a friendly manner. Thinking we were just a car full of their brother soldiers. Ann got into a position she liked and yelled for us to go.

  Reeves popped into the turret and opened fire on the point-blank targets that were just standing around looking out over the mountains. Ginny and I popped out of our doors and started popping off shots at the people trying to run away. Any of them who stopped and tried to actually engage us caught more than their fair share of bullets from us. We used a lot of ammo and it was a very intense few minutes but in the end fourteen Koreans lay on the ground dead and we hadn’t gotten a scratch on us.

  I know there was fourteen because Ann had way too much time to think about this scenario and came up with the idea to toss the bodies off the cliff on the side of the overlook. We stripped the soldiers of everything useful and loaded it up into our Hummer before pushing the special edition Jeep Cherokee off the side of the cliff to tumble to the same resting spot far down the mountain as the men who had driven it here. In addition to the guns and ammo we collected, there was also a substantial amount of diesel on the back of the troop transport they had been using. Once we had taken all of that we wanted we drove the troop transport over to the spot we had pushed the jeep off of and sent the transport right after it.

  When we were done you couldn’t tell there had been a fight here unless you looked close enough to see the blood marks on the asphalt. We had just finished cleaning everything up and had gotten back into the Hummer when another troop transport pulled into the parking lot. By this time, we all had on Korean uniforms and hats so from a distance we could hide in plain sight as long as we kept our heads angled down and the girls remembered to keep their hair tucked in. The transport pulled in a few parking spots from us and the guys in it all piled out and started walking towards the cliff to check it out. They were even pulling out cameras to take snapshots.

  I hated to get in the way of a solid selfie but I figured here was some more low hanging fruit. I nodded at Reeves and he went back up in the turret. An officer was walking towards us and Ann opened her door, got out and smiled at him. He looked confused at her pale features but didn’t immediately reach for his gun. Not that it would have helped him much since Ann already had hers in her hand. She raised the pistol up and shot the guy in his chest at point blank range. The other soldiers turned towards us and Ginny and I started shooting even as Reeves got the Mama Deuce to start slinging lead.

  I was pretty stoked to see that a good number of them went flying off the cliff when Reeves hit them as they were standing right next to the edge. That meant less bloody corpses for us to drag over to the edge when the fight was done. We put twelve more Koreans out of commission in that ambush and removed all the evidence. I figured we were kind of starting to push our luck so we piled back in the Hummer and started driving down the mountain. We had replenished our ammo and added even more diesel to our supply. Reeves and I were soaked in sweat and blood. The diesel gave me some ideas around just finding where a bunch of the bad guys were sleeping and burning it down around them.

  About five minutes after we drove away from the scenic overlook we passed seven troop transports that were headed in the direction we had just come from. We all just kept our heads down and drove right past them. Luckily, for the most part, people see what they expect to see so I credit that with getting us past them. There was a sign coming up telling us that Fort Garland was only five miles away. The sign also said something about it being the gateway to the valley. We decided we had pushed our luck enough for one day and opted to jump off the highway onto one of the small feeder roads and drove about five miles south on it before cutting back to the west to go around the while area.

  Our evasion technique either worked great or there wasn’t really a big military presence anywhere in the area because we didn’t see anybody other than a few random Zombies. We were back on track to hit the City of Lost Wages if we just hung out on HWY-160 for a while. I was starting to understand better and better why these were called the flyover states. You could drive forever and the scenery still looked the exact same. It was like an episode of twilight zone or something. We decided to loop Reeves into our driving rotation to maximize the sleep we got and keep us moving towards the enemy.

  I settled in the back when it was my turn and typed for a while on this phone before snuggling up with Daisy as best as I could and going back to sleep. You never knew when you were going to get your next chance to sleep somewhere that death wasn’t imminent so we’d all learned to really enjoy the hell out of a solid nap.

  Entry 11: Now That’s a Big Hole

  We drove. The biggest enemy became boredom as we cruised through the endless piles of sand with periodic stops to top off the diesel and let everyone stretch and pee. There were rarely trees out here and no one really wanted to try and get too close to a cactus and expose their sensitive bits to heed the call of nature so we spent a lot of time looking in different directions. Like the cacti and rattle snakes weren’t bad enough you also had to worry about Daisy coming up on you and sticking her nose where it absolutely did not belong.

  There was a good deal of time for self-reflection which was also a bad thing. It gave each of us time to consider what we were doing. No matter how you looked at it, we were driving across the whole damn country to try and pick a fight with a force that measured in the hundreds of thousands. We’d have to do something pretty spectacular for them to even notice we had hit them. Otherwise, we were just the mosquito who buzzed around all night to finally land on someone’s arm and get smashed.

  We tried to spend some of the time constructively by planning our next moves but we didn’t have a ton of intel to go on. Kyung had not had much knowledge around troop size, armaments, movement, logistics or any of that. In the end, he had turned out to just be a kid in a uniform who knew how to speak English. I had a feeling even if we had managed to snag an officer who happened to speak English we would not have gotten much more out of them. The Koreans seemed very devoted to compartmentalizing knowledge. I wonder how many of them thought that America had been the one who unleashed the virus on the world.

  I shared that idea and Reeves backed it up immediately.

  “Yeah boss. They’ve been taught the US is the great Satan. Of course, we would unleash something like this on the world. The big irony is they probably got the secret formula from us to do it. I can’t imagine that cash starved third world dictatorship could pull off the science to make this work without any help.”

  That sounded like just about every massive plague breakout movie or miniseries I had ever seen so I couldn’t disagree. It didn’t help us out very much in our current situation though. How could we possibly make a dent in the Koreans and help drive them out of our country? How could we avenge the millions of dead Americans around us? More importantly, how could we avenge our circle of family and friends and avoid becoming like them? There was no answer to that question because this situation was untenable. Originally, we had headed this way with the idea of joining up with the military in Portland and helping them in whatever capacity we could. After what happened in Boulder we had decided we were better off on our own.

  We had absolutely bit off more than we could chew. We’d been lucky so far not to get killed in the different missions we’d managed to pull off. We’d literally come out unscathed after driving through tunnels of Zombies trying to crush us. We’d done plenty of stuff that strained all credibility and pushed the boundaries of my belief when I looked back on it later. In the heat of the moment we had just acted but looking back on it if we had made the wrong decisions at any of a thousand different places we’d have been dead. I kept thinking we were making the wrong decision now by driving straight at the enemy. I needed to figure out a way to slow down this train we were on before
we hit the end of the line.

  Planes flew over us occasionally. Big ones and small ones. Some of the small ones dipped down to check us out but never did anything after that. Probably because it was too hard to figure out which side we were on. That did mean that people were tracking us and knew there was a Hummer driving towards the Grand Canyon. At some point, I expected that knowledge to become actionable and a roadblock to appear after one of the long winding turns. There was also a significant pucker factor to be had from being checked out by planes that could destroy you with the press of a button.

  I’m not sure if the pilots were being cheap with their missiles or they just weren’t sure if they should kill us or not since pretty much everybody seemed to be using the Hummers to drive around in these days. Either way, we managed to not die which was our primary objective. We were getting close to the Grand Canyon. Hundreds of miles close anyway. So, at least we’d be able to mark off seeing that from our bucket lists. I didn’t think the Koreans would be focusing a lot of energy on guarding the canyon. It was pretty much a non-strategic giant hole in the earth. A pockmark on gods grand creation.

  We assumed the Hoover dam would be under heavy guard. We were speculating they might have the power turned back on by now. I wasn’t sure how many hydroelectric capable engineers the Korean army had but even with a few they should have been able to accomplish something by now. Especially with the thousands of helping hands they would have. They’d be able to work and fight off Zombies at the same time. We toyed with the idea of taking out the dam somehow to cripple them electrically. Not that any of us had any ideas on how we would actually be able to accomplish taking out something that massive.

  The ideas kept being tossed around as we drove. Some of them seemed to bear some contemplation like the dam and trying to locate large barracks full of soldiers and setting them on fire with excess diesel or gas. If they were camping out in Vegas and we could start a massive fire on the strip that may do something. We were doing that thing where we try to come up with plans in the dark. That lead to having to make all kinds of crazy assumptions. We all knew what ‘assume’ stood for. Especially at this point in our journeys together. One of the most dangerous things in the world is an assumption that you act on.

  Entry 12: The Havasupai

  After driving through the desert for what felt like a million years we hit the intersection with HWY-89. Here, we had the choice of going either north or south. Both ways looked like they’d suck but the more direct route to Las Vegas was south. Going south meant we’d have to bounce off onto secondary roads and skirt the canyon that way. Otherwise, we’d run into I-40 which we all agreed was probably a pretty major artery for the Koreas to use to move troops eastward into the US.

  We hadn’t really had any problem with Zombies out here in the middle of nowhere. Mostly because the towns we had gone through had small populations prior to the event and now there was pretty much no one left in them. The occasional Zombies we did see we easily avoided. Zombies win by having a bunch of their Zombie buddies with them and tricking you into a corner. As long as you keep space around you and don’t let them corner you, life is good. If you do get cornered you need a lot of ammo and a healthy dose of luck to get out of it.

  We turned on the highway that should take us to the Grand Canyon. The map did not show any roads but we were hoping there’d be some we could use to keep moving west without having to get on the interstate. We drove past the East rim entrance to the park and kept going. We were following signs now that said we were headed towards the Grand Canyon Village. I was hoping there’s be a gift shop or something with some better maps of the local area in them. We were doing good on HWY-64 right now but it looked like it ended at the Grand Canyon Village and another road picked up heading south towards I-40 again.

  We got to a turnoff that had a sign directing us to the Grand Canyon Village. Rather than keep on the main road we decided to go ahead and start the off-road journey. Or, at least the off the beaten path journey. We drove past empty parking lots. The place was eerie. Not any Zombies that we could see. This didn’t seem like a place people would have gone when they were sick. This seemed more like a day trip kind of place. Not that there wouldn’t be some running around here. It looked like there were lodges and long-term camping and other stuff up here. That meant there would be some Zombies strolling around the grounds.

  Speaking of lodges and long-term camping. I decided it might be a good time for us to lay low and do some recovery and planning. We might not find another place this suitable for a while. Everyone agreed and we headed into the parking lot of one of the lodges. We picked one that was out of the way and did not have any cars parked in front of it. We figured that made it less likely someone was staying there when they turned into a Zombie. We cleared the lodge using our normal procedures and started porting some ammo and other supplies from the Hummer into the lodge. The lodge itself had four bedrooms and was nice and homey. I’m sure tourists paid good money to stay in these things during the peak whitewater rafting seasons.

  I had my hands full with a case of water when an Indian stepped out from the side of the building and leveled a rifle at me. Several others came out behind him and out from around the other side of the lodge. They all had the long hair with feathers braided into it and looked like they’d thrown on some war paint also. They also looked pretty serious. Reeves and Ann had just gone into the lodge with their bundles of goods. They were marched out a second later by two of the Indians with rifles leveled at their backs. At least they had let them put down the crap they were carrying first. This water just kept getting heavier.

  “Hey. Can I set this water down? Preferably without being shot. Why are you aiming a gun at me anyway?” I said all that while carefully squatting down and placing the bottles of water on the ground. Glancing around I saw there were about eight of the Indians standing around. Not horrible odds.

  The oldest one, the one I was assuming was in charge, spoke up. “Why are you trespassing on our land?”

  I carefully considered my response.

  Reeves did not. “We were hoping to pick up some beads and maybe one of those dream catcher things. You guys have any of that stuff laying around? Maybe peel off the made in China stickers first though.”

  I noticed Reeves had a gun in each fist. I wasn’t sure where they’d come from or when they’d ended up in his hands but the Indians noticed them too and their rifles snapped back up. The old man spoke up again.

  “Pretty cocky for a couple of white devils who are so close to death.”

  “You’re pretty close to a trip to hang out with the Great Spirit there yourself Kemosabe.” Ginny racked the bolt on the machine gun as she appeared in the turret. Daisy started barking as she came around the side of the Hummer and ran over to me to get petted. Great. Now I had to look intimidating with the big goofy looking dog giving me a hug and trying to lick my face off. I shoved Daisy off of me. She jumped right back on me.

  “Hey. Why doesn’t everybody calm down and we can work this out. We had no desire to trespass or offend you in anyway. We were just looking for a place to rest before we kept going west.”

  “Why are you going west?” One of the other Indians asked me. Stepping forward and switching his aim to my head.

  “We don’t really care for the way the Koreans have treated us so we were going to go have some strong words with them.” I decided to take the risk and see where it went.

  “Where’d you get the Hummer?” He asked. Moving even closer to me. The barrel of his rifle was really starting to look overly large.

  “We took it from the last Koreans we met after we had some words with them.”

  The Indians all looked around at each other. Most of them had visibly relaxed.

  “Good answer.” The older Indian spoke up again. “We’re hunting the Koreans too. They’re going to pay for what they’ve done. We’re in a bit of a time crunch. So, hand us your weapons and ammo and we’ll leave you alone.”
>
  “Fuck off. Hand us your weapons and ammo you Pocahontas looking assholes.”

  Reeves was not the most political minded one of us. Not politically correct either. It’s one of the things we all loved about him. Except for now. Right now, his character traits were a major pain in my ass. I realized I was one of the only people who didn’t have a weapon in their hand. I pulled out a grenade and pulled the pin out of it. If they’d been a bit quicker to figure out what I was doing they should have shot me before I did that.

  “Listen. I’ve had a long day. I’ve driven across this whole damned country to get here and kill Koreans. I’m not about to hand my weapons over to a bunch of guys who have been living a few hundred miles from the main force of them without doing shit for over two years. So, why don’t you back the fuck off and go back to your wigwam or whatever and let us get some rest and then we’ll go continue to do all the fighting while you sit back here and hump buffalo or whatever you do in the middle of this freakin desert.” I finished my little tirade and got ready to drop the grenade and run for it. Daisy kept trying to grab the grenade out of my hand. We’d managed to pick up one smart dog.