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Sam said, “ Anything that I can do to help. Can I ask, are you guys teaching the younger people skills? I used to teach a metal works class at the community college. Just wondering.” Jose said, “ Will you teach me what you know?” Sam said, “Sure, Jose.” Jose smiled, “ Thanks.” Will answered, “ We have been so busy trying to close the place off, and with supply runs, and such. We have not had a lot of time for that. But, that is a good idea.” Rachel said, “I have seeds, too. We should poole our extra seeds. Create a seed bank. If I can get back to my place, I have a garden planted. I can do some picking. I can get it done in a day. Soon, it will all go to seed. We can use those crops for seed. I think that you all need a hothouse, like Mr. Neely has.” Stella asked the men, “What do you all think? Is there time for us to check out her garden? Will said, “We could go on up there today. But, Rachel, you can't go out there alone.” Imogen spoke up, “I have seeds. I will pitch in, too. I don't know if it will be what everyone likes to grow, but I will be glad to share. And, anyone who needs medical care, I'll help with that, too.” Mary said, “Why don't we get together tomorrow, and make plans to teach the children, and do some planting? If Sam is going to be making tools, and be teaching our young people, he won't have time to do much else.” She turned to Sam. “Sam, I'll help you in the garden.” Sam looked at her belly. He said, “Thank you, Mary. Maybe, you can help me water sometimes. You should not do any lifting or bending.” Renee said, “Okay then. We meet tomorrow, lunchtime, at my place. I encourage all of you to pick a spot near your place, and plant your own garden. But, it is a good idea to also keep an extra group garden, and a greenhouse. We have been blessed with the one we already have. But, we need to get extra food grown for winter. Will has done an awesome job of bringing us the extra veggies that we have. And, he gave us some of the seeds for the first group garden. We need to thank him.” Rose stood up, she looked so sad. She was angry. “I am going to be on the watch crew. And, from now on, I will go out on the supply runs. ” she walked away. Stella followed her. Will waited, until they were out of ear shot. He shot looks between the men and Renee. “Listen, I think that we should put an extra person or two at Roses place. Her and Ms. Clea., they are there alone with children. Their place is the most important lookout. It sits right near two crossing highways. That is the route where people, living or dead, will follow. And, it leads straight to us. I also found a small herd of cattle. I want to try to get them to my place.” Scott asked, “ You found cows? How will we do that?” Will replied, “I'll do it, I need the gate opened to my place, when I call.” Scott argued, “ It's too dangerous,Will.” Will replied,” I have to try. Those cows will feed us for two or three years.” Scott said, “ You already have cattle, Will.” Will spoke in a question, “And, if we take in more people?” Scott loked flustered. Jimmy agreed, “He is right. I'll help you Will. How far are they?”Aidan and Kyle agreed, too. “Maybe, he is right.” said Aidan. Will said, “ They are on the other side of Rachel's place. We get them moving this way, we can move them right across her field. Then, down the highway a mile, and into my pasture. We have to get them before hat herd comes too close. And, we need to be ready for people, live or dead.” Kyle said, “Okay, I'm in. Charlie, Frank, can you get started on closing up the fence behind the orchard? Just until, we get back.” They agreed. Aidan said, “We need extra people at Rose's place.” Scott said, “Yes. We keep at least two people there, around the clock.” Will said, “I'll meet you down by the highway.” They met down by the highway and rode though Rachel's property on horseback. When they came to the abandoned farm, they saw forty-two head of cattle. Will opened the gate and rode into the pasture. He started to chase them on his horse.
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The others sat on their horses, and watched Will ride up behind a couple of cows, then chase them towards the gate. Soon, the animals headed out in a slow moving herd. As they passed the men, Will came past them on Elvis. He yelled, “ Ride along side them and yell at them, then weave towards like you're going to run into them. Let's keep them moving towards our place. Half an hour later, Stella saw the cattle marching towards the walls. “ Stella!” said her father. “Open the gate to the pasture. Remember how I showed you to open it?” Stella blurted out, “Dad.. Give me a minute.” She hurried out to the pasture on a four-wheeler. She hurried to the new steel gate that her father had connected and pulled a lever, and released the lock on the gate. Now, she could pull it open. As she jumped out of the way, Will chased the cattle into the pasture. After they were inside. Stella closed the large, heavy gate, and locked it. Will yelled to the men, “Thank you. I think Mrs. S. is right.” The next day, Will spoke to Granny, about building a guard shack on top of the double-stacked storage container walls. Of course, she agreed. After the next day, they had gates and the back side reinforced. Then, Frank worked on disguising the outer gates, and the ridge in the back. After that week, they started seeing small mobs of zombies. Aidan and Kyle planned to go outside of the walls, and look to see how far the herd was from them. Will was on his wall, around two in the morning, and heard his daughters' voices coming his way. They climbed the home-made stairs that he attached to the container-wall. Stella was holding a plate containing a large piece of pie on it. She said, “We figured that, you were hungry.” Scarlett handed him a glass of milk. He took the pie and milk. He said, “Well. Thank you, Girls. You should be in bed.” He started to eat. Stella said, “I can take the rest of tonight, if you want, Dad.” He said, “No, you girls take the day time.” Scarlett said, “Dad, you need sleep, too. If we are both here, it will be okay.” Will got on the radio, “Hey Jimmy. Everything okay?” He said, “Yep. Quiet here.” Will called out to the others, “Renee?” Nina's voice came on, “Renee is off tonight. It's my turn. Charlie is coming to relieve me, in a few minutes. Everything is quiet.” Then, Jimmy asked , “Jessie, Matt?” Matt said, “A-okay” They sat on their shifts, feeling a lot more at ease. Suddenly, they heard explosions. Everyone came running out of their homes. Renee got on the radio, “Hey! Is everyone okay?” Jimmy said, “Yes. It's in the distance.” Scott came on the radio, “Jimmy. Do you have your field glasses?” Jimmy responded, “Yes. It looks like, its coming from the little town that we went to to get supplies from. How far is that from here? Twenty miles, or so? I don't know what it is, but something big just blew up.” Scott said, “Every walking corpse in the county will be heading that way, from every direction.” Will responded. That is what I was thinking, too. If too many come within twenty miles, they can get here within a day or two.” Scott said, “Emergency meeting by Rose's house. In fifteen.” Everyone met over at Ms. Clea's wall, a few minutes later. Rose was already outside. Will came first. He asked, “Jimmy, how bad is it?” Jimmy said, “Bad enough. Even if it wasn't still burning. The sound alone, had to catch the attention of a thousand of those things.” He handed Will his field glasses. Will took them, then looked through them. Even though, there was rough terrain and lots of trees in the distance, he could still see the fire burning. The blaze looked like, a small glowing light protruding from the black horizon. Will said, “It looks like it's coming from the gas company. If it is, it will keep burning, until all the gas is gone. Or, every other building that catches, will.” Rose looked worried. Now Renee, and the Pastor were walking up, with Gypsy following them. Renee said, “What happened?”
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Will said, “Something in town exploded. It's burning. I think it may be at the gas company.” Scott came walking up now. He asked Jimmy, “Jimmy, do you know what are we dealing with, here? Did you see anything?” Jimmy said, “The gas company exploded. Or, that's what Will thinks.” Kyle, now walked up. “Does anyone know what it is?” Scott said, “They think it's the gas supply company, up in town.” Kyle stared at the glowing-fire in the distance. He said nothing. Now, Ben, Jose, and Chloe walked up. Ben said, “Whoa! A fire.” Renee said, “You three should be in bed.” Chloe said, “We were. Until we thought the place was falling in on us
.” Others were walking up, too. Jimmy said, “I don't like this. Zombies don't blow things up.” Will called out to Aidan, “Aidan, can you come here? To Rose's. We all need a meet up, now. See if one of the others can watch your post. Just, for awhile.” Chloe said, “I'll do it.” They all turned, and looked at her. Ben said, “Me too.” Jose said, “I'll go with them.” Naomi stood behind them, “I'll help, too.” Jose turned, and smiled her way. Jimmy said, “You have to be quiet. Always whisper, and never open the gate, or go outside the walls. If you see anyone, or thing, keep your heads down, and quietly call us.” Chloe said, “Got it.” Renee cut in, “And, keep your radio close. I want to hear from you kids every little while.” They all said, “Okay,” at the same time. Then, left for Aidan's post. After a few minutes, Aidan and Nina showed up. Aidan asked, “What do you guys think started that?” Will said, “ Don't know. I don't think it was the dead.” He held out the field glasses. Aidan said, “It's okay. I already looked, I have my own back at my post. You guys think it's the people that we had the run in with?” Scott answered, “Well, haven't seen any pyro-zombies...yet.” Jessie said, “At dawn, I'll go out for a hike, try to get as close to town as I can. Try to see what is going on.” Mary said, “No. You need to stay here. We all do.” Renee said, “This is not good. We have to have a group meeting in the morning. Everyone needs to be aware of how dangerous things might get for us.” Jimmy said, “She's right. Even if, this is a lone survivor. It could spell trouble, here. If that herd was not heading this way, they will be, now.” Will said, “Alright. We should all get back to our posts. Keep checking in ever hour. We'll talk more in the morning.” Scott said, “We need to outline sme protocols for a breach. And, we need to get on it A.S.A.P.” They all just, looked at him, like a group of deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming vehicle. No one knew what to say, but they all knew what he had meant.
She drove the armored Hummer up the highway. Ruby didn't know what highway that she was traveling on. She just knew that she had to get away from those crazy people. Her armored Hummer was the result of her late husband's handy work. He had bought the Hummer the year before this new zombie apocalypse. He was an avid car builder, and an ex-marine who loved to tinker with hotrod vehicles. Always fixing up different vehicles, then selling them. Always helping his friends when they had car problems. After it all started, one by one, they witnessed their neighbors being attacked, then getting sick. Or, noticing that, many just disappeared. Finally, one day, after their neighbor had been bitten. They her wandering around her front yard. She was covered in blood. Jed, Ruby's husband, went outside to try to help her, she tried to attack him. He knocked her down, and ran back into the house. After seeing that, they both started to realize how bad things were really getting. They knew that, they needed to get away. They covered the windows to the home with black garbage bags, and kept all noise down. Before the power went out, Ruby started searching online. She started seeing video's that others had posted.
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The videos that she found, were videos of the dead rising, then attacking people. Jed knew how to weld, how to build any type of vehicle. Soon, their neighborhood became swarmed with the dead. He spent day and night working on the Hummer. He armored it, armed it, and made it almost completely bullet proof. When he was finished, they packed up, and left. Ruby called it, the J-mobile. They drove through blocks, and blocks of gruesome looking zombies. Nowhere that they turned, was zombie free. After a while, they made it to the outskirts of Griffith, Indiana. After they came to the edge of Griffith, they entered Sherrerville. The streets were empty. Some abandoned vehicles, and empty houses was all that was left. They drove through Main street. Then, went west to Route 41. They headed an hour south, found an empty house on an old back road. They stayed there for months. Every now and then, they would go out for supplies. Sometimes, they would run into the dead. They learned quick, to kill the brain. Jed made special weapons that they would use to take the dead out, quietly. He had his guns and a bow gun. But, he also had a machete, knives, a wrist bow, for each of them, and a couple of home made sharpened long blades that Jed had slimmed down, from a couple of old machete blades. He called them “Jabbers”. Ruby used her jabber a lot. The blade was long and thin, and thanks to Jed, very sharp. But, it was not as long as a sword. It gave Ruby much easier stabbing power. Especially, when she had to kill tall zombies. Ruby had lost Jed a month prior. She had been on the move, ever since. They were out on a supply run, and were swarmed. They made it to the Hummer. Before Jed could get over to his door, more zombies came from all sides, Ruby screamed from inside, while the zombies swarmed her husband. Pepper barked viciously at the windows, he hated the dead. She could not even see Jed. She screamed and cried, as zombies circled the Hummer. They clawed at the window, as she cried until she had no more energy. She woke up the next morning in the back seat with Pepper's head on her leg. Ruby and Pepper sat in the Hummer staring at the ground where Jed 's remains lay. The zombie herd was gone, now. Moved on to everywhere, and nowhere. Ruby stepped out of the Hummer. She picked up Jed's bloody weapons, and saw a bloody, half-eaten, zombie that, had once been Jed. She started to cry, hysterically. She bent down into a squatting position. Pepper sat next to her. He was confused by the crawling, zombie version of his former human-Dad. He whined and half barked. He nudged Ruby. She stood up, and marched toward the zombie Jed. She stabbed it through the temple. She saw more dead coming her way, it was a small mob, but too many for her to handle, alone. Pepper barked, and raised his teeth. His fur stood on the back of his neck. Ruby frantically, looked for the Hummer keys. They were in Jed's hand, he was getting ready to get in and get going before the dead swarmed him. She looked around on the ground. They lay in the grass, just a few feet away. Pepper was still barking. She grabbed the keys and Jed's weapons.“Come on, Pepper!” She rushed towards the Hummer. She opened the door and said, “Come on, Boy. Get in.” She turned and looked to see the dead mob, just twenty feet away, and coming right for her. Pepper jumped into the vehicle. She climbed into the Hummer, slamming the door, then speeding off, just in time to lose the mob of bloody zombies. Now, she was running from a mob of people. She sped down the highway. Those guys were crazy. And, after Pepper took down two of them, they wanted revenge. Pepper whined from the passenger-side seat. Ruby said, “It's okay, Pepper. We are getting away, Boy.” She reached over, and patted his head. She saw a turn off, into an old grassy, unused back road. She turned in and drove a ways. She idled the vehicle through the pathway. It looked like an old driveway, only with no end. She saw an opening behind some trees. She pulled up and then backed into the spot. She turned off her Hummer, then waited.
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