Zournal (Book 4): Reap What You Sow

by Merritt, R. S.

  “Good to go babe.” I gave her a thumb up and what I hoped was a sexy wink and smile. “How about you? How’s the ankle?”

  “Is something stuck in your eye? It’s good enough to run on again. Otherwise, I wouldn’t suggest leaving yet since I seem to spend most of my time outside running for my life.”

  Made sense to me. Running was a big-time survival skill in today’s world. Becoming a Zombie did not seem to make people any faster. If anything, they lost some coordination and got slower. What it did do though was make them where they could care less if they weren’t able to breathe or their legs were on fire from the running. They’d just keep going until they fell out or caught you. They were a cross country coaches dream. If you found yourself in the position of having to run from them they quickly became a nightmare. The bastards had ‘heart’!

  We had the Humvee with the mounted machine gun. Reeves had not figured out how to reload it until we got here so we still had ammo for it. I left Ann in the bedroom where she was busy packing up our few worldly possessions and I went into the main living area space where Reeves was sitting back from a window he was busy staring out of.

  “See anything?” I asked him.

  “Just a few Zombies wandering around. I think we’re good to go if you’re about ready to make a break for it. Just need to take them out quiet so the street doesn’t fill up with Z’S before we can get our crap in the car and get out of here.”

  “You good to go?”

  “I got shot way less than you did. I think you’re probably the limiting factor on this one boss.”

  He had a valid point. I was honestly nowhere near being a hundred percent ready to rock but I doubted anyone was at this point. It was more a matter of sucking it up and keeping your body moving the direction you wanted it to go in. What kept me going and motivated was a healthy fear of failure. Not just that failure meant death but also that failure meant letting Ann down. Dying now would mean all the hard work and sacrifice up to now had been worthless. I needed to leave some sort of mark. Preferably, I’d beat my way through this mess and come out the other side with most of my bits and pieces still functional. Not that it would matter if I lost any more of my friends along the way. Each one of them that died took a chunk of my soul with them. It made it worse that I was the one they all looked to in making decisions.

  We got all of our stuff together and settled into the couch in the front room to go over the plan. That didn’t take long since the plan basically consisted of getting to the car without dying then trying to get over the river without dying. In all the confusion and driving and gun fire no one was really confident that they knew where we were at the moment. The general consensus was we had been headed towards the river so we just needed to get in the Humvee and follow signs for going west.

  West was good. The not dying part of the plan may be easier said than done. In order to see signs that may point us in the right direction, we needed to drive during the day. Driving during the day meant more Zombie activity and made it easier for the Koreans or any other random hostile groups to see us. We had the machine gun, which was awesome, but using it would catch the attention of every Zombie in a radius of a few miles. The Humvee was a formidable vehicle but we knew from experience you couldn’t always just force your way through a group of Zombies.

  Ginny seemed to think we had about half a tank of diesel but she wasn’t completely sure. Half a tank should be able to get us out of the city and into the next state. I’d never been to Arkansas so that should be neat. What the hell was in Arkansas anyway?

  “Anybody ever been to Arkansas? Any idea on terrain or big cities or things to avoid?”

  Everybody just stared at me. I stared back.

  “Flat? Like a desert?” Ginny threw that out there.

  “Arkansas is west of us?” Reeves asked.

  I really missed Google.

  Nothing for it but to gear up and go. I was still pretty wobbly on my feet so Reeves took the lead. He had a bat in one hand and a machete in the other. Ann was beside me making sure I made it to the Humvee. Ginny had moved into Thomas’s old position of watching our backs. She had managed to hold on to the metal stair pole he had always used to finish off the Zombies on the ground. The heavy metal pole basically just needed to be shoved downwards into a skull to penetrate it and scramble the brains.

  We had waited about an hour hoping to have a clear shot to the sidewalk we needed to turn down to get to where the Humvee was parked. There had been three Zombies outside for most of that time. One had wandered off for no apparent reason about five minutes before we decided to go. Reeves jogged straight for the other two once he had opened the door. His pack was bouncing on his back as he stopped in front of the Zombies to let them charge him. Ginny positioned herself about ten feet behind him. Pole raised and ready to run in and finish off the Zombies once he put them down.

  The Zombies charged straight at Reeves. He dropped the machete on the ground and gripped the bat with both hands. The Zombie in the lead was a teen boy with long greasy hair. He must have been an athlete as he had large arms and a powerful looking chest underneath the blue toned skin and layer of accumulated filth. Reeves cracked the bat against the kid’s skull and stepped to the side as the kid tumbled past him. Instead of falling to the ground, the Zombie somehow maintained his footing and went running past Ginny and straight at Ann and me.

  I had my pistol in my hand but did not want to pull the trigger and alert a bunch of the Zombies to our location. Ann solved the problem by stepping forward and embedding a hatchet in the guy’s forehead. Looking up from that miniature horror film, I saw Reeves was busy beating the other Zombie to death with his baseball bat while Ginny was turning around to go help him. She had evidently turned and started back to help us then seen Ann go all Paul Bunyan on the Zombies forehead so she stopped and started back to help Reeves.

  We had not made it to the sidewalk yet and our plan was already going to hell. Ann was busy trying to work her hatchet out of the dead dude’s forehead. She had gotten it stuck in there pretty good and it came out with a plopping noise and a bunch of bloody brain juice oozed out. I thought it was pretty gross looking but it hit Ann the wrong way completely and she started puking in the lawn. This day just kept getting better.

  I looked up from Ann trying to regain her composure and saw Reeves gesturing for us to hurry up. I handed Ann the bottle of water I had in my pocket and she swished out her mouth, spit, and then guzzled down some of the water. She wiped the hatchet off on the grass and kept it in her hand as we both started trotting to catch up to Reeves and Ginny. They had opted to go ahead and continue up the street towards the Humvee. When we rounded the corner, we saw Reeves attacking a blue old lady who was screaming demonically and baring her stained red teeth at him while he whacked her with the bat. Ginny was finishing off another one he had already put on the ground.

  All of the noise from the Zombies we’d dispatched had attracted plenty of unwanted attention. We heard yells starting up from the streets all around us. That was our cue to get in the Humvee and get the hell out of dodge. We all piled in. Reeves got on the turret. Ann took the driver’s seat and started us up. Ginny went in the back to help Reeves and I hopped in the passenger seat to try and help navigate. Not that I had the slightest clue where we were.

  Entry 10: Death Race 2000

  Ann asked me which way to go. I had one of those tourist maps that showed the main streets and highways. The location of Graceland and the Capitol building were blown up real large and covered a lot of the street names. All I had been told was that we were somewhere along I-40.

  “Which way were you going when you parked?”

  “You mean when we were running for our lives and looking for a place to hide from the helicopters and Zombies while I was literally applying direct pressure to keep you from bleeding to death?” Ann responded sweetly. Her smile taking the sting out of the sarcasm.

  “Pull out and go right!” Ginny yelled from the b
ackseat. “After that try and find I-40 West or I-40 South until it branches off and crosses the river. I know we came from the other direction when I parked here so turning right should keep us moving in the right direction.”

  That worked for me. It worked for Ann to evidently. She pulled out and whipped the Humvee around to head to the right. There were about ten Zombies already sprinting for us down the narrow road. Ann didn’t bother trying anything fancy. She accelerated to about thirty miles per hour and just let them bounce off the front of the car. A couple of them got thrown into the windshield. Fortunately, this vehicle was designed to withstand IEDs so a couple of blue skinned freaks bouncing off of it did not cause much in the way of issues.

  Ann had her jaw set as she ran down the remaining sprinters and turned hard left at the next set of cross streets. A Zombie jumped on the hood and made a few pathetic swipes at the window before Ann turned another corner causing the Zombie to slide off and roll into a pile of trashcans. Ann accelerated down the next street until we saw a sign that pointed us towards I-40. Ann turned to follow the signs.

  The on-ramp was clogged up with a group of Zombies gathered around an overturned FedEx truck. How long ago the FedEx truck had tipped over and how long the Zombies had been standing around were any bodies guess. We needed to get up that on-ramp and onto I-40 though. There was a passable route beside the overturned truck if we could get through the crowd of Zombies. There was too many of them to just mow through them though.

  “Pull up over there with me facing them and park for a minute.” I pointed at a spot about thirty yards beyond the base of the on-ramp. Ann gave me a look but went ahead and drove to the spot indicated and braked to a stop. As expected, the bulk of the Zombies started walking in the direction of the vehicle. I rolled down the window and started yelling as loud as I could. That got the expected result as all of the Zombies began lurching in our direction as fast as their blue skinned legs would carry them.

  Ann was staring at me.

  “That was your plan? Pull up over here and yell ‘lunch time bitches’ as loud as you could? You didn’t see any possible flaws?”

  I sensed she was being sarcastic again so I hurried up and rolled up my window while yelling to go. A couple of the Zombies slammed against my window right as I finished getting it rolled up. They continued to claw at it and leave gross Zombie nostril skid marks on it as Ann turned us in a tight circle back towards the on-ramp. There was a steady stream of Zombies running straight for us. We’d now have to hit every single one of them to make it to the ramp and onto I-40. To make it more exciting it looked like some of the Zombies we’d left in our wake had started to catch up as well.

  “Angry charging Zombies are way better than standing around in a circle Zombies!” Ann yelled over the sound of Zombie bodies banging off the front of the Humvee while she blindly drove for the on-ramp.

  “Reeves! Can you climb into the turret and make sure we’re headed in the right direction?” I asked over my shoulder.

  “Will do boss.” Reeves said as he stood up and worked himself into the turret and started unlatching it.

  A Zombie hand came down the side of the turret and started trying to lever it up as soon as Reeves had popped it open. Reeves started awkwardly sawing at the flexing arm with his Kabar while Ginny hung on to the handle to the latch to keep it from being pulled up. The turret slammed shut as the hand got mostly sawed off.

  “Sorry boss. Not gonna happen.”

  I considered other ways to see out. Ann had slowed down at this point to avoid driving into the concrete pilings holding up I-40 or driving into the FedEx truck. None of us could roll our windows down. Zombies were packed tight around the Hummer and trying to force their way in from every direction. Ann was moving slowly as going forward was not a safe option at this point.

  “Hey Ann. How about reversing real fast and trying to throw them off then trying to move forward again.”

  “Hopefully that works out better than your last idea!”

  Ann came to a stop and put the big vehicle into reverse and firmly stomped on the accelerator. The Hummer jerked backwards, unevenly at first, then gaining momentum. A few seconds later we were free. Ann hit the windshield wipers and fluid wash to get rid of the goo on the windshield. Once the windshield was slightly less disgusting we could see that the Zombies were still coming at us. Ann liked the idea of reversing though and kept right on going backwards. This had the desired effect of spreading the Zombies out to a more manageable mass. Once Ann had gone backwards for about a quarter of a mile she slammed on the brakes and shifted the Hummer into drive.

  The Zombies were now spread out pretty well in a crooked line with the fastest being the first ones we smashed into. Ann then started slaloming through them towards the on-ramp. We never would have made the on-ramp in a regular vehicle and it was about ninety percent miracle that we made it in the Hummer. We needed a car wash in a major way but we were finally able to go over twenty miles per hour again once we made it up the ramp to the interstate.

  Ginny poked her head in from the back seat, “We probably should have just tried the west bound ramp and gone the wrong way on that side of the highway.”

  “Maybe, next time, try speaking up a bit quicker honey.” Ann snapped at her. Ginny wisely ducked back into the backseat and kept quiet.

  Carefully not saying anything out loud I reflected on how long it takes some habits to die. It hadn’t occurred to either Ann or I to go up the wrong ramp because it was ingrained in our heads since the first day of driver’s education not to drive into incoming traffic. Ginny, being younger than us, was obviously adapting faster. She’d never gotten her driver’s license so maybe going the wrong way on an on-ramp didn’t freak her out the way it did us. Either way, it was a pretty big mistake that could have gotten us killed and it fell on me as the leader for not soliciting everyone’s ideas. I needed to start thinking outside the box before I ended up stuck in one.

  Ann was cruising. She weaved in and out of the few cars sitting in the highway until we came up on a massive traffic jam. It was on the highway leading to the bridge that would take us over the Mississippi. We’d seen this before. I bet somewhere up ahead we’d find the remnants of a militarized road block. I looked across the median.

  “Wrong lane it is. Who says old dogs can’t learn new tricks!” I smiled over at Ann. She was already angling that way and trying to figure out the best way to ease onto that side of the road over the concrete median protector things.

  “You calling me an old dog? Really?”

  I really needed to just not talk. Nothing good ever came of it. I opted for not trying to explain or justify my remarks since experience had taught me I’d only manage to dig the hole deeper. There was no obviously way to get past the concrete barriers so Ann pulled up next to them and Reeves and I hopped out to try to brute strength our way through them somehow.

  They were just big concrete barrier walls. They weren’t attached directly to the road as far as we could tell. Pushing and pulling on them didn’t accomplish anything except getting us laughed at. Ignoring the hecklers in the Hummer we stared at the six inches of concrete keeping us from the side of the road we needed to be on. The crack of Ginny’s rifle reminded us we didn’t have all day to hang out and work on this problem. I looked up at the top of the Hummer where Ginny was squatted in a firing stance. She gave me a thumb up and gestured that we probably needed to get moving.

  “Winch!” I stared at Reeves, wondering why the sudden onslaught of sexist terminology. Ann was giving him an offended and hurt look.

  “The other winch!” Reeves walked up to the car where Ann was still staring at him with an offended expression. She smiled when he went to the front of the car and started pressing the button to unwind the winch on the front of the Hummer.

  Once I figured out what he was talking about I rushed over to help him get the metallic, heavy duty cable wrapped around the barrier. We got it secured and Reeves went back and pressed the butto
n to reel it in. The cable got tight as we all stared at it. With a loud scraping noise the concrete barrier began slowly moving backwards. Once it was open enough for the Hummer to fit through Reeves and I worked to get the cable back under the car then jumped back in our seats as Ginny took a few more shots at some Zombies that were getting danger close before she clambered herself back into her seat as well.

  A couple more Zombies caught up to us as we were navigating through the narrow gap. We ignored them slapping on the windows as Ann started speeding up and we headed towards the tall bridge that would take us into the western side of the country. This side of the highway was cleared off pretty well. It looked like someone had come through and pushed the few vehicles that had been stalled out into the breakdown lane to ensure the road was clear. My money was on the Koreans for having gotten that knocked out. I wondered why this bridge has been spared a bombing run. It seemed like this would have been a pretty obvious strategic target to take out.