Zournal (Book 4): Reap What You Sow

by Merritt, R. S.

  Coasting to a stop by the fuel pumps we took a long look around to make sure no Zombies were wandering around. I drove over a bit closer to the truck stop so we could see inside. We’d stopped beeping the horn to check for Zombies since we figured out sound really carried a lot further now that there was no other noise to compete with. That meant if I beeped the horn we may have Zombies from as far as a mile or so away start heading in our direction. Doing something intended to test for Zombies locally could cause Zombies to show up in twenty to thirty minutes which we had figured out about the third time it happened to us.

  We had a quieter approach now. Ann drove over and Reeves got out and started knocking on the big window in the front of the place. Then he stood there and waited. No large slavering Zombie showed up to try and kill him so we considered the place cleared. Ginny was up in the turret covering us. Ann stayed in the car to keep the engine running. I went and joined Reeves to see if we could figure out a way to break in.

  Most of these places had already been broken into so it was pretty easy to just follow the path of the previous vandals. This one appeared pristine. That was odd since it was so close to a city but we had run into anomalies before. It was pretty exciting to look through the windows and see shelf on shelf of supplies just waiting for looters. I was in full looting mode. Not having any better ideas, I raised the iron pole over my head and brought it down hard on the glass. It completely ruined our stealthy approach but the window shattered and we now had an easy path into the place.

  Carefully clearing the shards of glass and climbing in through the jagged hole Reeves and I began scoping out the place. It looked like we were wrong on it being pristine. Although the front of the store had not been touched the back of it looked like someone had lived here for a little while. Food wrappers and a big pile of bedding in the corner told that story. Reeves and I were more alert now that we saw someone had been in here. We started carefully clearing the store. Once the main store was cleared we moved down the hallway towards the showers to make sure no one was hiding out back there waiting to attack us once we let our guard down.

  About five Zombies came flying down the hallway towards us. I hefted the iron bar in my hands and waited for Reeves to start shooting. The way we typically cleared these places was one of us would have a melee weapon to silently take out Zombies if possible while the other person would keep an automatic weapon in hand in case things got out of hand. Things were officially getting out of hand.

  The Zombie in the front was carrying a long piece of wood. I was staring at him when I got knocked off my feet by something. I thought I must be dead based on all the blood I saw on the floor around me. I figured out it was all just spaghetti sauce when I saw the broken bottle of Ragu. A Zombie had just pegged me with a bottle of Ragu. I swear the lead Zombie had been coming at us with a spear or something too. WTF?

  I sat up. In the short time span I had been laid out by the pasta covering projectile Reeves had went ahead and shot the Zombies. That was nice of him. I looked down at the end of the hallway where they were laying a in a pile with some blood pooling up around them. Reeves looked at me.

  “Boss. These Zombies had weapons and shit. They also waited back here instead of charging when we were making all that noise. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Reeves helped me up and we started slowly for the front of the store. Wary of any more surprises. We heard the fifty outside come to life and start barking out rounds. The front windows we had been headed for blew inwards. Reeves and I both hit the deck as some rounds went flying through the store. When it seemed like we might not die I pulled out my radio.

  “Ginny, Ann. We’re coming out the front. Can you hold your fire or should we wait? Over.”

  Ginny came back right away.

  “A bunch of Zombies just started throwing crap at us then tried jumping off the roof to get at us. Sorry about the rounds through the windows. Get out here so we can get out of here. This place is freaking me out. Over.”

  I agreed. Reeves and I quick stepped our way out. I stopped long enough to fill one of my pockets up with bags of gummy life savers. Ann really liked them so they’d become like giving her flowers in this new world. I normally kept a bag or two hidden for myself to so it was win–win. I felt my head. I had a nice big knot forming up there. Ann was going to accuse me of getting hurt on purpose just so I could get more pain pills.

  We carefully climbed out the window. Both of us had our rifles out and ready at this point. Making too much noise was no longer a concern. Ginny was in the turret trying to look in every direction at once. There were dead Zombies laying all over the place. I tried not to look too close since those fifty-caliber rounds really did some damage on impact. We carefully made our way towards the Hummer. Ginny spun around up in the turret to face the other direction now that we were out and covering behind her.

  A few Zombies were sprinting towards us from across the highway. They seemed like your normal killer Zombies though. I heard the snap of Ginny’s hunting rifle as she switched to it for accuracy and to conserve ammo. We were almost at the car when Reeves yelled to turn around and he started firing. The entire roof of the extended store as far as we could see was covered in Zombies who started jumping off the roof and rushing towards us. Other Zombies started pouring out from around the sides. Rocks started pelting us and the Hummer.

  I heard the fifty get cranked up and start going and saw the waves of Zombies getting knocked back. I added my fire to the mix until I ran out of ammo then I turned and jumped into the passenger seat and slammed the door. Reeves had done the same and was screaming at Ann to start driving. I saw Reeves trying to pull Ginny down out of the turret but she was just kicking everywhere. I threw open my door and screamed for Ann to stop. We had only been going for about thirty seconds so there was a gap between us and the charging Zombies but not much of one.

  I jumped out of the Hummer and rolled a time or two before making it to my feet and jumping on the hood and then jumping to tackle the large Zombie who was hanging onto Ginny by her hair and slamming her face into the side of the turret while trying to get at her with his teeth. I ripped my nine out of the holster and put it on the things torso and started pulling the trigger. The Zombie let go of Ginny and tried to get at me and I shot the diseased piece of crap in the face. Opening up a big bloody hole though his head where his nose used to be.

  Ginny was limp. Her body disappeared down into the turret as I kicked the Zombie off the roof and jumped into the turret myself. I was screaming for Ann to drive. I emptied my pistol into the oncoming crowd and jerked the barrel of the fifty up. I pulled the trigger and heard some clicks but nothing happened. I dropped my nine into the turret and yanked my .38 out of my pocket and shot the first three Zombies who tried to climb up the side of the Hummer to get at me. Ann started driving. I sighed in relief.

  A hand wrapped itself around my face and I felt fingers going into my mouth and nose as I was yanked backwards. I flailed behind me trying to knock the thing off the Hummer but it had a good grip and was right behind me which made it real awkward to try and hit. I felt teeth sinking into the back of my neck. I squatted down then kicked myself into the air with all the power I had left in my legs. The thing lost its grip on me with its hands but ripped off a big flap of skin from my neck. I turned around and faced it. The Zombie looked like it was probably about fifteen or sixteen years old. A young man who looked like he would have played some football or hockey or something like that. We may have been buddies in another life. I swung the barrel of the fifty around and hit him in the leg making him lose his grip and fall off the Hummer. He landed on his head and the back wheel ran over his legs as we drove on.

  I dropped down in the turret to check on Ginny. I realized while I was dropping down that I may be in worse shape than Ginny. Now that the adrenaline had faded my head was pounding, my neck was stiff as a board and burning like crazy down into the top of my back where the fucker had shredded my skin. Ann looked in t
he rear view and I saw her gasp. I hadn’t ever seen her gasp. Ah hell, what did a gasp mean about my general health?

  I sat down next to Reeves who was working on making Ginny comfortable. He turned around and saw me and gasped. Really.

  He reached in the front seat and grabbed the peroxide and field dressings and started working on my back. He cut my shirt off me instead of trying to pull it over the missing skin. I appreciated that. He then dumped peroxide and alcohol all over my cuts. I did not appreciate that. It felt like he had taken a flame thrower to my back. I cussed like I have never cussed in my life. It was inventive. It involved squirrels impregnating satanic deities. The grass went brown outside the Hummer. Ann gasped again.

  Reeves wrapped up and handed me some pills. He told me how impressive and inspiring my cussing had been. I leaned back and waited for the pills to take me away. As I was boarding the flight to take me to sleepy town I heard Ann talking to Reeves.

  “I swear he just gets hurt so he can get more pain pills and take a nap.”

  Entry 21: There’s no Place Like Home

  I woke up in Kansas. I was in the backseat leaning against the passenger side window. Ginny was on the other side. She was laid out along the seat with her muddy combat boots up on my leg. She had drool dripping off her face. It hurt my entire body but I kept from screaming in pain while pulling out my camera. I didn’t want her to wake up before I had the chance to get a picture of her looking so goofy. Reeves turned around and handed me some pills and helped me drink a bottle of water.

  “You should have asked. I already got like five pictures of her with that drool river thing she has going on. If she ever brings a boy home for us to interrogate I’m totally whipping out that picture before we take the kid outside and let him know how fragile life is.”

  I agreed completely. It sucked to be the boy who wanted to date Ginny. She was going to have two very protective adopted big brothers making sure no one got carried away. My back burnt, my body beat to shit and I was mostly worried about Ginny. In addition to the drool thing she had going on, she was also sporting two black eyes and a big bruise on one of her cheeks. Those were just the visible injuries.

  “How is she?” I asked Reeves, loudly enough for Ann to hear as well.

  “We stopped a little while ago to check you guys over. We had to change the wraps on your back. They were drenched in blood so thanks for that. You have a nasty chunk of skin missing thing going on back there. Not really sure if we’re up to performing a skin graft so we’re hoping we keep it clean and covered up and feed you a ton of antibiotics that you’ll just end up with another scar for the collection. The big bump on your head from getting whacked in the truck stop was bleeding but now it’s stopped and the swelling seems to have gone down. Your whole face is one big bruise though and your head looks funny thanks to the big bump growing out of it where you got hit. You have all kinds of issues. Ginny just got beat up and managed to get a broken nose and some bruising. She should be fine.”

  “Cool deal. I was hoping that’s all that was wrong with her. Sounds like all my parts are still mostly inside my ripped-up skin suit so I’m good to go to. You guys ready to talk about what we saw back at the truck stop? Have you started trying to process that yet?”

  Ann spoke up this time. “Reeves and I have been talking about that while you and Ginny were having your slumber party. Those Zombies were evolved. Reeves told me about the ones who ambushed you in the store. Smart enough not to come running at the noises we made. Smart enough to throw crap at you before attacking. I guess some were even carrying weapons. The ones who jumped off the roof threw stuff in their first assault too. The big deal though I keep coming back to is how they coordinated it.”

  “Yeah boss. They were using tactics against us. They held back until they thought they could take us then they charged. Someone had to have been giving the orders and they had to have been capable of following the orders. The orders were stupid and anyone with half a brain should have been able to overwhelm us with the hundreds of people they had but it still shows they’re trying to use tactics. At some point, they may get lucky and choose tactics that work.”

  I had been hoping it was just me going crazy and that none of that stuff had happened. Either I was still crazy or it had all happened like I remembered it. Reeves and Ann were backing up what I had witnessed. The Zombies were getting smarter. Smart enough to use some crude hand weapons. Smart enough to hold back from charging when they heard a noise or saw a regular human.

  “Do you think it may be a localized effect?” I was thinking out loud. “Maybe the Zombies in this region didn’t get as bad of a dose as the ones back East?”

  “That could be it.” Ann agreed. “Or, it could be a different strain of the virus or they could be slowly recovering from the virus. If the virus whacked out their brains and made them insane cannibals for a bit maybe that part starts to slowly wear off?”

  I really wished we had the sat phone available to give the Lt a call. I’d love to get his take on our half-ass theories. I needed to know if it was an isolated patch of less stupid and more organized Zombies we had managed to run into or if this was something more widespread. If it was an isolated incident, no big deal. If the Zombies were getting smarter or there were less virulent strains of the virus floating around then we needed to change our tactics if we were going to survive. Until we discovered otherwise we had best assume the Zombies had gotten smarter and we needed to be more careful in confronting them.

  Reeves and Ann both agreed. As Reeves put it we might as well start adjusting our tactics anyway since we were getting closer to where we could expect to be waylaid by the Koreans. Looking out the window I noticed they had already put some new tactics into action. We were no longer barreling down a major Interstate. We were on some two-lane back road instead. Driving past row after row of corn. I was hoping we’d find a nice place to lay our heads for a few days and rest up.

  I mentioned the rest up plan to Ann and Reeves and they concurred. We just needed to find a likely looking place. The good thing about being out in the sticks was that we shouldn’t have to kill more than a few Zombies at the most to take over some homestead. We could use guns to do it if we wanted to but you still risked a bunch of Zombies showing up on your doorstep later. The thought of being surrounded by hundreds of those eerie ambushing Ragu tossing Zombies while we were snoozing in some old farmhouse was not comforting.

  Ann turned off the road onto a paved driveway that lead up to nice looking estate. We may be relaxing in style.

  Entry 22: And Your Little Dog Too

  We drove up towards the estate and stopped in front of the big metal gate covering the drive. The entire estate appeared to have a fence around it which was pretty awesome. At least it would be awesome once we were inside, right now it was more of a pain in the ass. Ann kept the engine going while I got out to take a look at the gate. Reeves was up in the turret since Ginny still wasn’t able to stand up for long periods of time without feeling like she was going to puke. Having suffered through numerous head injuries myself I totally understood.

  Reeves had volunteered to get out and check out the gate but someone needed to be up in the turret and I couldn’t really squeeze up there without having my back touch the sides on the way up. Just thinking about that made me want to cry. Ann had said I should drive while she checked out the gate but I couldn’t turn my head very well still so driving was out, since at some point I would probably need to look to the side before turning. This left me to be the one who was left trying to figure out how to get the security gate to go up. I had no clue. I really wasn’t great at this kind of stuff.

  I figured there had to be some kind of manual way to do it. It probably wouldn’t be easy to do it manually since that would defeat the whole purpose of a security gate. Standing there staring at the gate and ignoring the desire to scratch my back at the place where I no longer had any skin I pretty much just got mad. I was mad that we spent all this time just t
rying to survive. I was mad that our lives had been reduced to trying to figure out how to open security gates with no power and worrying about the shelf life of canned pasta. I was mad that my friends and family were dead.

  Screw this gate. We were getting in. I went to go climb over the gate and check it out form the other side. It wasn’t a real tall gate but between my neck and back I wasn’t going to be able to get over the fence. Reeves finally took mercy on me.

  “Hey man, climb up into the turret on the top of the car so you don’t have to squeeze into it and I’ll jump the fence and see if I can figure out how to get the damned gate open. You try jumping it you’re going to rip your back in half or something and its already pretty gross changing your bandages as it is.”

  Sounded about right. I clambered up onto the Hummer and Reeves helped me get situated in the turret. It hurt to look around so I wasn’t going to be the best over watch possible. I let Reeves know he needed to keep an eye out and yell if he saw anything. Then I sat and watched as he grabbed the tool bag out and went and quickly hopped the security gate. It sucked watching people who could actually move around when you were basically useless. I didn’t feel too bad though since it seemed like we all took turns being useless. It was pretty amazing any of us could actually move at all based on the kinds of injuries we’d all endured.