Fight 4 Us: (Book 3): Refuge

by Grenda, Brian

  As I try to think of how to block the entrance of the zombies, more and more zombies keep pouring into the neighborhood.

  It’s almost like they are being directed to walk right in.

  I hear a scream from a woman near the South entrance. Several people are trapped on the lookout platforms as zombies try to reach for them.

  I shout, “Shaun, get in the truck. We need to get to the South entrance.”

  Shaun hops in the driver seat, and I hope in the truck bed. Shaun starts up the truck, reverses, out of his driveway and runs over several zombies in the process.

  As we are driving towards the South entrance, I hear someone beeping at the South entrance from outside the neighborhood.

  Shaun speeds down the road and stops at the South entrance gate. I hop out of the truck, and I open the gate. Phil speeds through the entrance in his SUV.

  Several zombies try to attack me as I open the gate but Shaun, Chris, and Tony kill them, before they can get to me. Blood and brains go all over the concrete cinderblock wall.

  Phil speeds down the streets of the neighborhood and is mowing down zombies in the street. The SUV plow is ripping zombies in half as Phil speeds through them.

  Phil drives all the way through the neighborhood and back to Shaun’s house. Phil’s plowing off the street, cleared out a lot of the zombies, but more keep coming through the entrance that The Conquerors made.

  I run back to Shaun’s house and meet up with Phil.

  Phil jumps out of the police SUV, followed by TJ and Odin.

  I point to the hole in the fence as I’m running towards Phil and says, “Phil use the SUV to block the entrance to the neighborhood.”

  Phil sees what I want him to do and drives the SUV, through a huge herd of zombies coming from the hole in the fence in the backyard of the house next to Shaun’s.

  TJ and Odin take care of the remaining zombies around Phil’s SUV, so Phil can exit his vehicle.

  By Phil plugging up the hole, we have stopped the zombies from coming into the neighborhood from the Southern part of the neighborhood, but we still need to take care of the Eastern part of the neighborhood.

  Bobby G exits his house through his backyard fence and kills the last remaining zombies that was banging on his front door.

  I gather up the group and say, “We need to secure the Eastern part of the neighborhood still. Check your ammo and let’s get over there.”

  Shaun, TJ, Odin, and Phil hop into Shaun’s jeep and drive over to the Eastern part of the neighborhood.

  Bobby G, Carlos, Matt, and myself hop into my SUV, and I follow behind Shaun.

  Shaun and I drive through the cul-de-sac where Kim use to live. This side of the neighborhood is usually very quiet, but today it’s full of zombies who want to eat us for dinner.

  Shaun plows through several zombies with his jeep and I follow behind taking out about five zombies with my SUV.

  I park the SUV and see that The Conquerors made another hole in the back fence of a neighbor’s house. Zombies are pouring into the neighborhood through the hole, but not nearly as many as at the Southern part of the neighborhood.

  We exit our vehicles and start mowing down the approaching zombies. Shotgun blasts, knife stabs, dog bites, and handgun shots kill a lot of zombies.

  There is a slight break of approaching zombies.

  I see an altercation occurring inside the house that has the hole in the backyard fence. Four men are fighting in an upstairs bedroom.

  I shout, “Guys cover me. I’m going into the house.”

  The guys start shooting zombies as I dodge, dive, and duck through the approaching zombies.

  I make it to the front door of the house safely. I run inside the house through the partially opened front door and lock it behind me.

  The pounding of zombie hands is heard as I start to search through the house.

  As I make my way towards the upstairs staircase, a man charges at me. I kick him in the face. He gets up and reaches for his gun that is tucked into the back of his pants.

  I kick the gun out of his hand and stab him in the chest with my katana. I slowly remove the katana from his chest and the man falls to the ground.

  I hear two gunshots come from upstairs and look up at the ceiling to where I heard the sound.

  A man shouts, “He shot me! I can’t believe that guy shot me!”

  I slowly and carefully walk up the stairs. I try not to make any noise, but as I step on the top step it makes a loud creak.

  I run into a nearby bedroom and hide.

  A man comes running out of the master bedroom and stops at the top of the staircase.

  I see the man looking down the staircase and decide that this is my chance.

  I run towards the man and kick him in the back.

  The man goes tumbling down the steps and breaks his neck as he hits the ground level.

  Another man comes out holding his left shoulder from where he was shot.

  I look at the man and he slowly tries to point his gun at me.

  I rush towards him, move to the left, the man fires the gun. I kick the gun out of his hand and he falls to the ground.

  I punch him in the face and grab him.

  The man is bleeding profusely from his left shoulder.

  I pick the man up from the floor and slam him against the wall.

  I shout, “What did you guys do? How many of them are you? Tell me!”

  The man says, “I ain’t telling you shit. You guys are in big trouble.”

  I jab my knife into his left shoulder gunshot wound and the man screams in pain.

  “How about now? You like that? You aren’t going to talk huh?”

  I pull the knife out and the man screams in pain. He starts breathing heavily, but refuses to tell me anything.

  He won’t talk, so I decide to make him pay for not talking. I jab my knife deeper in the wound and turn it while it’s inside.

  The man screams and says, “Okay. Okay. Please just stop with the knife.”

  “What did you guys do?”

  The man tries to gather himself and says, “We wanted to send a message, we blew up two parts of your border fencing and directed zombies into the neighborhood. That’s what Pete and Joseph wanted us to do.”

  “Where is Pete and Joseph now?”

  “They aren’t here. They sent us to send the message is all,” says the man.

  “Who is this Joseph guy?”

  The man replies, “He’s bad news. He is someone you don’t want on your bad side. He takes what he wants, when he wants it.”

  “How do I find him?”

  “You don’t, usually, he finds you,” replies the man.

  “Where does Joseph live? Where is home base?”

  The man says, “I really don’t know. The only place I know that he frequently goes to, is the Big Club. He and his brother own it.”

  I let the man go from my hands and he drops to the floor.

  I walk into the bedroom that the men were fighting in and see that these two men killed the two men that were living there.

  The two men living in the house where a father and son. The son couldn’t have been more than 13 years old. I see the dead body of the teenage boy, and I instantly get mad.

  The boy didn’t need to die, no one needed to die. These idiot Conquerors feel like they own everything and everyone.

  I walk over to the man with the gunshot wound, take out my katana, and slice into his skull.

  There are far less gunshots coming from outside. I walk down the stairs and exit the house through the front door.

  A lone zombie reaches for me, but I swing my katana with my right arm and cut the top half of his skull clean off.

  The guys cleared out the approaching zombies, and only a few more zombies come through the opening in the fence.

  I look at the guys and say, “We need to patch up the holes in the fence here and at the other section. Shaun, you and a couple people grab the fencing materials that we got from
the store today and work on this section.”

  Shaun and Phil hop into Shaun’s jeep and they drive to where we left the fencing supplies. TJ and Odin go check out the hole in the fence, while I take my group of Bobby G, Carlos, and Matt to the other section that needs to be repaired.

  We arrive at the Southern section that needs to be repaired and the zombies are still contained by Phil’s SUV plow.

  I look at the guys and say, “Let’s clear out these zombies with knives, bats, swords, and anything else sharp.”

  I take out my katana and start clearing out some of the zombies as Bobby G uses his bat, Carlos uses a pipe, and Matt uses a machete.

  We clear out all the zombies, but leave the SUV in place to avoid any more zombies from getting in, until we can patch up the hole in the fence.

  After we finished clearing out the zombies, I take a seat on the curb and look at the neighborhood.

  Bobby G sits next to me and says, “It was that new group, wasn’t it? The Conquerors? What a terrible name. I guess people will always try to take everything over even when the world has gone to shit. They want to rule the shit.”

  “Rule the shit. Well, they can have the shit, but not what we got. We don’t have shit. We have a future, a new world, and a new beginning.”

  “Just keep fighting Ry. Just keep fighting. Every day until your last day,” says Bobby G.

  “I’ll keep fighting to the end. Whenever that is, but it does sound like this guy Joseph who runs The Conquerors is bad news.”

  Bobby G jokes, “Bad news, huh. Well change the channel. Something else has to be on.”

  We have a good laugh and are grateful that no one we love got hurt after all this chaos that The Conquerors caused.

  I stand up from the curb, help Bobby G get up and see that most of the people in the neighborhood are alright. We survived this attack and that’s a win.

  Matt comes over to me and says, “I’m going to get the rest of the fencing supplies from the house at the North end, so Carlos and I can patch this fence up.”

  “Good idea.”

  Matt asks, “Is it okay if I take the truck?”

  “Yeah, it’s down by the South entrance.”

  Matt and Carlos walk down the street and get into the red truck.

  Bobby G drags a zombie away from his front door. I see him moving the zombie bodies and help him. We pile up the zombies in the center of the cul-de-sac near Shaun’s house.

  I walk into my backyard to grab my gas can from my shed. Bobby G is met by Chris and Tony who help him move the rest of the zombies that were around his house and the street.

  I walk back to the pile of zombies and light it on fire. Smoke fills the air as the big pile of zombies starts to burn.

  Bobby G, Chris, Tony, and myself clear up the remaining zombies in the street, near the South entrance, and scattered throughout the neighborhood.

  Chris puts the last zombie into the burning flames, looks at me, and says, “I don’t know who this new group is, and what they think they are doing, but I have faith in you and your decisions. Keep up the good work.”

  Chris and Tony walk back to their homes and call it a night.

  Phil, Shaun, TJ, Odin, Carlos, and Matt make their way back to Shaun’s house.

  Phil walks over to me and says, “Wait to you see what we got.”

  I walk over to Phil’s SUV as he opens the back hatch to the trunk.

  Phil opens the back hatch and the SUV is filled with food. TJ and Phil loaded up the SUV with tons of food.

  I examine what food Phil and TJ got, and it is a lot of good stuff. They even got cat food for Milo and Callie.

  I grab a can of food from the SUV and say, “Thank goodness. You and TJ did great. Oh, and Odin too. Thank you.”

  We unload the food and divide it among the houses in the neighborhood and TJ. We evenly divide it among the houses, and what makes sense for each household.

  The food that TJ and Phil brought back should last for a while, but we still need to get more crop production going.

  Phil closes the SUV trunk and says, “Now let’s fix this fence.”

  Phil gets into the driver seat and waits for us to get ready to clear the last remaining zombies that are trying to get in.

  Shaun, TJ, and myself are ready. We are standing on the sides of the SUV.

  I look at Phil and say, “We are ready.”

  Phil slowly reverses away from the fence and several zombies fall forward into the backyard.

  I stab two zombies in the head with my katana, Shaun kills two zombies with one swing of the bat, and TJ takes care of a couple zombies.

  Another group of zombies makes their way into the backyard. Three zombies come towards me, while two zombies come towards Shaun and TJ.

  Shaun and TJ easily take care of the two zombies. I kill one of the zombies with a katana stab to the head. I kick the other one down with my right foot, but the last zombie is coming close to me.

  I go to pull out the katana from the zombies’ skull, but the last approaching zombie is about to bite my right shoulder.

  TJ and Shaun are too far away to help.

  Shaun shouts, “No! Ryan!”

  The zombie’s mouth is inches away from my right shoulder when suddenly an arrow comes flying into the zombie’s left temporal bone in his skull.

  The zombie goes flying into the fence with the arrow in his head. He is instantly killed.

  I looked back and am surprised to see who shot the arrow.

  It was Lauren.

  Lauren shot the arrow from across the street with the compound bow.

  I look at Lauren and see that she has a huge smile on her face knowing that she just saved my life.

  “Nice freaking shot my love.”

  “Thank you. Any time sweetie,” says Lauren.

  Shaun looks at Lauren and says, “We need her on the lookout platforms killing these things or better yet hunting animals for food.”

  I look at Shaun and say, “Easy big guy. One step at a time.”

  TJ kills the final zombie with his knife and the zombie threat is over.

  We all clear out the remaining zombies and bodies through the neighborhood and burn them.

  Carlos and Matt patch up the fence and secure the area. They cut down several trees behind the fence and make a blockade of trees to help secure the area.

  We survived this attack, but I’m sure it was only a test. The real threat of these Conquerors remains.

  I can’t help to wonder what they will do next and how much of a threat they really are.

  Joseph sounds like a terrible dictator, but I have yet to meet him. It’s only a matter of time I’m sure. With a name like The Conquerors, I’m sure Joseph isn’t willing to bargain or negotiate.

  CHAPTER 13

  JOSEPH THE CONQUEROR

  It’s a hot summer day in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in the late 1990’s. Two men are working in the hot summer heat. One of them is a huge man that stands 6 feet 4 inches tall and weighs 235 pounds. The other is a smaller man that stands 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighs 165 pounds.

  “Come on man keep up,” shouts the large man.

  “I’m trying Joe. I’m not as big as you, plus I think my wheelbarrow tire is starting to get flat,” says the man.

  “Don’t give me that crap. Jacob. You are very strong. Just not as strong as you brother here,” says Joseph.

  The men are working for their father on a construction site. Joseph and Jacob are brothers by blood, but they are very different in every other aspect.

  Joseph is the older brother. He’s bigger, stronger, faster, and more physical than he is smart.

  Jacob is younger, by two years. He’s the smart one of the two. Jacob isn’t puny by any means, but he’s small compared to his brother Joseph.

  “Hurry up you two. We need those bricks over here now,” shouts Joseph and Jacob’s dad John.

  John started his construction company from nothing and has built it up to a large company that tr
avels throughout the state of Florida for high paying jobs and contracts.

  Joseph and Jacob are John’s only children, and the three of them live together.

  The work day is done, and it’s time to head home. John, Joseph, and Jacob get into John’s truck and head home.

  The three guys sit down for dinner and decompress from the day’s hard work.

  Jacob looks at his father John and asks, “Why did mom leave?”

  John says, “That’s not important but if you must know. She didn’t want to be around us anymore.”

  “But why would she leave us? Was it for something bigger and better, or was she fed up with the constant travelling for work?” asks Jacob.

  Joseph jokes, “She left because of you, and how much of a pain in the butt you are.”

  John says, “Shut up Joe. That’s not true Jacob. Your mother was tired of the constant traveling and of me, I guess. But your mother leaving us, shows us a huge lesson to be learned.”

  Jacob asks, “What lesson is that?”

  “Always value what you have and not what you don’t. People will leave you, one way or another. You can only count on yourself to get things done. That even counts from your family. But if you have people that are willing and wanting to help you with things, then you value them and appreciate them,” says John.

  Joseph says, “Like me and dad, Jacob. We are a team. We didn’t leave you and won’t leave you.”

  “So, appreciate me!” jokes Joseph.

  Joseph and Jacob were close for most of their lives, but they grew apart as they got older.

  Joseph got into bodybuilding and into himself, and Jacob was all about taking over the family business and looking out for the family.

  “You want to go to the gym with me bro?” asks Joseph as he walks into Jacob’s room.

  Jacob replies, “No thanks man. I have to finish going over the paperwork and receipts for the financial audit tomorrow.”

  Joseph is about to leave Jacob’s room, when Jacob sees that Joseph got a tattoo.

  Jacob asks, “Joe, what’s that on your arm? A circle with a cross in the middle of it?”

  “It’s a snake eating its tail in an endless loop. It symbolizes an endless insatiable hunger. The symbol in the middle of it, means a conqueror,” says Joseph.