Fight 4 Us: (Book 3): Refuge

by Grenda, Brian

  Lauren says, “Hey guys. Have fun. I’m going to check on the vegetables.”

  Lauren goes into our backyard and starts to tend to the vegetables.

  Phil looks at me and asks, “So what’s up Ryan? What’s up with that house at the West entrance?”

  “The house is weird. The owner never comes out, and I saw several holes that were dug in the backyard of the house. They looked like graves and some of them looked freshly dug.”

  Shaun asks, “What the hell is he doing in there? Killing people and burying them in his backyard like some sort of a serial killer?”

  “I don’t know exactly, but I want to find out. I don’t know what’s going on in there, or how many people are left alive in that house.”

  Phil says, “Okay, that’s enough for me. Let’s go check it out. I’ll be right back, I have to go gear up.”

  “Alright. Let’s go guys. Gear up and meet me back here in 10 minutes.”

  The guys and I go back to our homes and gear up.

  I walk into my house and get my bulletproof vest from the bedroom. I grab my katana and handgun and then exit my house.

  I lock my front door and walk back over to my dad’s house. No one is back at the oak tree, so I go into my dad’s house.

  I open the front door and shout, “You better have clothes on dad.”

  Bobby G comes out of the bedroom and jokes, “Nope. No clothes.”

  Milo walks over to me and rubs against my right leg. He starts purring and meows at me. He is a very good and affectionate cat. Callie runs into a bedroom and hides.

  I check their water and food bowls and see that they can use some food and fresh water. I fill up the bowls, and pet Milo on top of the head.

  Bobby G says, “Alright I’m ready.”

  I look at my dad and see that he isn’t wearing a bulletproof vest.

  “Where is your vest?”

  “You think I need it?” asks Bobby G.

  I point to the bullet that is left in my vest from when Derrick shot me and say, “Always be ready.”

  Bobby G says, “Good idea, I’ll be right back.”

  I hear the guys talking outside by the oak tree as I’m standing near the front door.

  I shout to Bobby G, “I’ll be right outside. The guys are here.”

  The guys are geared up and ready to go. I walk over to them and see that they aren’t taking this lightly. They are wearing their protective and tactical attire.

  Bobby G walks over to us holding an aluminum baseball.

  “Okay guys, the plan is to find out what is going on at that house at the West entrance. I have no idea how many people are living in the house and what is going on, but we are going to find out today.”

  We start to walk towards the house, and we go over the plan. Phil, Matt, and Shaun will go into the backyard and check it out.

  Bobby G and I will knock on the front door again. Hopefully someone will come out or let us have access into the house, but I doubt it.

  We arrive at the driveway to the house and I examine the house from the outside.

  The house is a very nice beige colored house with a two-car garage.

  I look at the guys and ask, “Everyone ready?”

  The guys nod and say, “Yes.”

  As Bobby G and I walk past the closed garage door, I try to open the garage door from the outside handle at the bottom and it slightly opens.

  I shout, “Hey guys come here.”

  The guys come to my location and help me lift the garage door open.

  We open the door and see tons of boxes and sports equipment in the garage. It looks like the owners of the house were part owners of a sports equipment store.

  Shaun says, “Jackpot. They got some good stuff here.”

  I say, “Okay, new plan guys. I want Phil to be here in the garage with me. Bobby G you go to the front door. Matt and Shaun go to the backyard.”

  Matt and Shaun go to the backyard and see the make-shift graves.

  Matt steps in a pile of mud and shouts, “What the hell is going on here?”

  Bobby G walks to the front door and knocks on the front door. He listens at the door to see if he can hear anyone inside, but he can’t hear anything over the noise from the workers at the West entrance.

  Matt and Shaun see a sliding glass door that is open, but the screen door is closed. Shaun walks towards the screen and notices a foul odor coming from inside.

  Phil and I make our way inside the garage and wait at the closed door that will take you inside the home from inside the garage.

  Phil and I can hear some noise from inside, but aren’t sure what to make of it.

  I hear Bobby G knock at the front door and ring the doorbell. The people inside seem to be talking as we hear three people’s voices through the walls.

  Phil slowly opens the door and peaks inside the house. As soon as Phil opens the door, a terrible smell comes towards us.

  Phil moves away from the door and covers his mouth and nose. I pull my tee shirt over my nose and try to block the smell.

  The smell is a mix of rotten eggs, body order, and garbage.

  With the door open, I can hear the people inside clearly.

  “What are we going to do Gary?”

  “We have to get rid of the guy at the front door.”

  I hear one of the men grab a gun and load it.

  “Are you going to kill him Gary?”

  Gary responds, “Yeah. We haven’t come this far in this house to lose it now.”

  The men start to move towards the front door, and I fear for my dad’s safety.

  I look at Phil and whisper, “We need to move now.”

  Phil enters the house, and I follow behind him.

  Gary opens the front door and points the shotgun at my dad.

  I shout, “Dad! Get down”

  Gary fires the shotgun, but Bobby G luckily moves out of the way, before Gary pulls the trigger.

  Gary turns towards Phil and I and points his shotgun at us.

  Phil without hesitation points his shotgun at Gary and blows the right side of his head off.

  Gary falls onto the front porch. He lands next to Bobby G who is lying face down on the front porch now.

  A man in the living room runs out of the back-screen door right at Shaun and Matt.

  Matt is pointing his shotgun at the man as he comes running out of the house. The man runs right past Matt and tries to hop over the wooden fence.

  Shaun tackles the man, before he can get over the fence.

  I yell at the other man that was behind Gary inside the house, but he runs out the front door and towards the workers at the West entrance.

  The man tries to run right out the entrance, but Chris hits him in the head with a shovel.

  The man falls back on the street and cradles his head where Chris hit him.

  I run over to the man and drag him over to the front lawn of the house that he ran out of.

  Shaun brings the other man and makes him kneel next to the man that I just caught.

  I look at the men and shout, “What the hell are you doing here? Do you live here?”

  The men plead for us to let them go and shout, “Yeah I live here. We live here.”

  The two men are severely skinny, full of tattoos, and look to be drug addicts.

  Both men plead with us not to kill them.

  The men shout, “We live here. We don’t want any trouble, we just want to stay safe in the house.”

  “They are lying Ryan. The Fisher family use to live there. They killed them and buried them in the backyard, along with several other people in and around the neighborhood,” says Tyler as he walks over to us.

  “Thank you, Tyler.”

  I look at the men and say, “We got some liars here, if we can’t trust you, then you have to go, and since we can’t trust that you won’t kill again, you have to be gone from this world.”

  The men plead with me not to kill them, but I have no choice. I can’t trust these people a
nd the fact that they shot at my father only fuels my thought to kill them.

  I put my handgun barrel on the forehead of the man I caught.

  Phil points his handgun at the back of the other man’s head.

  The workers have stopped working on the wall and are watching us, Chris and Carlos are watching us, and other people in the neighborhood are watching us.

  I shout, “These people killed inside this neighborhood, our neighborhood. We can’t allow that. We have rules in this place. No stealing and no killing are part of our rules. These men did both. So, they must die.”

  I look around at the onlookers for a second and feel that some of them don’t agree with me, but most of them do.

  Either way, I have to stand by my decision of killing these men and there is no going back.

  I look down at the men and say, “I wish you well in wherever you are going and in your next life. I hope it’s a better one than this.”

  The men scream in fear.

  Boom!

  Boom!

  I pull the trigger to my handgun, followed by Phil. Both men fall to the ground and are dead.

  I holster my weapon on my right thigh and walk towards Gary’s body that is lying lifelessly on the front porch.

  I grab Gary by his feet and drag him over to the front yard next to the bodies of the men that Phil and I just shot.

  I place Gary on top of the man I just shot and say, “Let’s get these bodies burning, I don’t want to see them anymore.”

  CHAPTER 7

  UP IN THE SKY

  “Let’s get moving. We want to be back with the solar panels, before Carlos finishes up the West entrance.”

  The guys and I load up the truck and both SUV’s for our trip back to the solar panel warehouse.

  Bobby G stays back to keep an eye on the neighborhood.

  I back out of the driveway, look at Bobby G who is standing in my driveway with Lauren and say, “You are in charge while I’m gone. Keep an eye on this place. We shouldn’t be gone for that long. Maybe two hours. Stay safe.”

  Bobby G replies, “You too. I’ll keep this place running, while you are gone.”

  I give a goodbye beep and drive down the neighborhood streets followed by Phil who is driving his newly fixed up police SUV, and Matt and Shaun who are in the red truck.

  We arrive at the West entrance and see that it’s almost finished. Carlos and Chris walk over to me and give me an update on the West entrance construction.

  Carlos says, “We should be done in about 4 more hours. We have to attach the front gates, and build the lookout platform.”

  I look at Carlos and say, “Great. It looks great. If we finish the entrance tonight, we will have a little party for everyone. I’ll see you later.”

  I say goodbye to Carlos and Chris and drive through the West entrance.

  The neighborhood is coming together, and I feel great at the progress that Carlos has made at the entrances.

  As I drive down the main roads towards the solar power company warehouse, I can’t help but to see what has happened to a lot of the buildings, roads, and businesses.

  The roads are starting to become more clogged with abandoned cars. Some cars were in accidents with other cars or zombies, while other cars are left in the middle of the road for some reason.

  I must stop several times and have Phil clear out the blocked roads with his police SUV plow.

  As Phil is clearing out a pile of cars on Dale Mabry highway, I see a group of three guys spray paint a symbol on several abandoned buildings.

  It’s a strange symbol that I haven’t seen before. It’s a circle that kind of looks like a snake eating its tail with a cross in the middle of it.

  I can see that more and more buildings have that symbol, as I drive down the street. The markings can’t be a good thing, but I’ll have to find out what they mean.

  After about 30 minutes, we arrive at the solar panel warehouse that Phil and I got our solar panels before.

  The warehouse is still abandoned and looks to be in the same shape that we left it in. Phil backs up right next to a loading bay, Shaun parks in a parking space, and I park next to Shaun.

  There are several zombies walking around the parking lot and inside the warehouse.

  I get out of the SUV and kill some of the zombies that were aimlessly walking around the parking lot.

  Matt exits the SUV and takes aim at a zombie. Shaun shouts, “No Matt. No guns unless you need too. Let’s keep it quiet and use knives. We don’t want to attract attention.”

  Matt takes out a knife and stabs a zombie in the side of the head.

  Phil exits his SUV, kills a zombie with a bat and shouts, “Guys get in here. We have more zombies to clear out.”

  We run over to Phil and see that there are five more zombies to kill in the warehouse.

  Shaun kills a zombie with his knife and throws the body to the floor.

  Two zombies come after Matt, and he isn’t sure what to do. He freezes in place and is about to get eaten.

  I see Matt freeze up, and I attack the zombies before they can reach Matt. I kick one of the zombies in the head, and he knocks over the other zombie while falling to the ground.

  Phil kills the last two zombies with his baseball bat, while I stab the two zombies I kicked over with my sais.

  Shaun walks over to Matt and asks, “You okay bro?”

  Matt in a scared tone replies, “Yeah. Two of them where coming at me. I didn’t know what to do. I’m not good with knives.”

  I look at Matt and say, “We gotta conserve our ammo. When we get back home, we will show you how to use another weapon like the bo staff or compound bow.”

  Phil shouts, “Enough jibber jabber. Let’s load up the vehicles with the panels, wires, and anything else you think we need.”

  Shaun jokes, “Okay. Mr. P. What panels are we getting?”

  Phil shows Matt and Shaun what to grab and they start to load up a flat bed cart.

  I find a spool of electrical wire as well as smaller cables that we will need to connect the panels with.

  The guys load up the truck and Phil’s SUV with solar panels, while I load up my SUV with the electrical wiring.

  Phil comes over to me and says, “We got all the remaining solar panels that are for residential use. Should we get any of the other commercial solar panels?”

  “Yeah. Load as many of them into my SUV that we can. I’m sure that we can use those for something in the future.”

  I put down the back seats in the SUV and we load up the solar panels.

  As we are loading up the panels, I hear a strange buzzing sound up in the sky. The sound is getting louder and louder and heading in our direction.

  I look up into the sky and see two helicopters flying past us. The guys look up and see the helicopter pass over us.

  Phil asks, “Where are they coming from Ryan?”

  “Most likely MacDill. It’s an Air Force base. I guess it’s still up and running.”

  Shaun says, “Well crap. We need to check it out. Maybe they have supplies, or something that we can use.”

  Phil replies, “Maybe, but I doubt they will just let anyone in there.”

  “I will see if anyone has a connection with the base in the neighborhood, and we will go from there.”

  I really want to get into that military base, maybe they will have some answers along with supplies and other useful items.

  Phil puts the last solar panel in my SUV and closes the trunk. We took all that we can hold and should be able to set up several homes with these panels.

  “Let’s get going back home guys. Phil, you lead the way.”

  We all start up our vehicles and head back home. Phil leads the way, followed by Shaun, and then myself.

  As we make our way back home, I can’t help but to look for that symbol those guys were painting on the buildings.

  I think to myself, “What is that symbol? What does it mean?”

  We make a left down a street, and
I see that symbol painted very big on a billboard. The symbol is painted really big on the left side of the billboard and has words next to it.

  I stop my SUV, get out of my vehicle and look up at the billboard.

  The symbol and words are in a red paint on a black billboard, the billboard says, “Obey or Be Conquered.”

  I look around and see that symbol painted on every building.

  The three guys that I previously saw painting the symbol on buildings come out from behind a building and are walking towards me.

  The shout, “You better run pig!”

  “I say excuse me? Pig?”

  They both take out guns and shout, “Yeah. Pig. We don’t like cops around here.”

  I jump back into my SUV and speed away. The men are shooting at my SUV as I drive down the street.

  I’m speeding down the street, and can catch up to the guys. The guys kept driving as I stopped to look at the billboard.

  We make a right turn, a left turn, and then pull down the street outside of the neighborhood.

  We arrive to the neighborhood at the West entrance and I’m relieved to see the neighborhood is safe and secure.

  Carlos and Chris hold open the West entrance gates and we drive through into the neighborhood. We drive our vehicles to our homes and park.

  I exit my SUV and walk over to Phil’s SUV. Phil parked his SUV in my dad’s driveway. I help Phil unload the solar panels and move them into my dad’s garage.

  Matt and Shaun unload half of the solar panels at Matt’s house and half of the solar panels at Shaun’s house.

  After we finish unloading the solar panels I get all the guys together for a meeting.

  We meet by the oak tree in front of my dad’s house and I want to talk with the guys about the potential problem I ran into on the drive home.

  I’m about to speak when Carlos and Chris come down the street in Chris’s car.

  They stop the car and walk over to us.

  Chris shouts, “What’s going on guys?”

  I look at Chris and say, “I got some news. We have a potential problem on our hands.”

  Chris says, “What’s going on?”

  “Well, on our drive back home I ran into a couple of guys that started shooting at me. “

  Shaun says, “I thought I heard gunshots.”

  “Yeah. It was three guys. They said that they didn’t like cops and then started shooting me.”