Zournal: Book 3: Scorched Earth

by R. S. Merritt

  I’d brought nail clippers and a battery powered razor / hair trimmer thing and pretty much everything else I thought may be useful. I spent an hour in the bathroom. Because, why not? I finally walked back over to our nesting area and Reeves pretended to check his watch.

  “Hey princess. You got your golden locks all combed out everything? The royal ass all debunked? Nice self-haircut, you do realize you’ve given yourself a starter mullet, right?”

  Ignoring Reeves, I headed over to where Ann was sitting and reading a first aid guide she had found. She had read it about a hundred times at this point. Her and Ginny had already gone through all the magazines up front and we had all done the quizzes in the different chic-magazines. It turns out I am marriage material but never going to be rich and Reeves is good weekend camping trip material and will probably end up a homeless alcoholic. It’s eerie how accurate those things are!

  Ann looked up and pretended to sniff. Smiling, she looked over at me.

  “Ignore Reeves, your hair looks like your barber was maybe a little drunk, and maybe partially blind, but you smell good which is all that matters to me honestly.”

  She kissed me, which totally made the toothbrush, floss, mouth rinse routine I had gone through seem way worth it and extremely smart on my part. I’ve totally got apocalyptic game.

  She leaned back after the kiss and asked me how my eye was doing. We had swapped out the nasty bandages that had been covering my eye for an actual eye bandage we had found. I had been swapping it out every few days with a bunch of antibiotic ointments and junk rubbed in around the eye. It had stopped hurting a while ago. When I tried opening it I could see but it was super blurry and made my eye tear up like crazy. I hoped that meant it was getting better and had already made sure I had a bunch of the bandages and ointments in my bug out bag.

  “It’s feeling Ok. Hoping at some point I can stop doing the whole pirate thing.”

  “Looks good on you.” Ann switched to serious mode. “How long do you think we can stay here for? Staying in one spot too long has never really worked out well for us.”

  She was of course referring to the fact that somehow the Zombies always seemed to find us. Things were changing daily in this new world but the two things that seemed to remain always true were that motion is life and noise is death.

  “I don’t know. I’m good with staying here as long as it takes for Thomas to be better. I don’t think any of us are going to make it back to a hundred percent but it’s rough out there when you’re physically ready for it. Having us run around with me pretending to be a cyclops and Thomas only able to use one arm doesn’t increase our survival chances a lot. I’m thinking we have plenty of food and supplies right here and an easy escape in the Hay Mobile if we need it. A few more weeks maybe?”

  “You ever going to take me on a real date?” An asked, snuggling up closer to me.

  “Hopefully, we’ll be hanging out near a ski resort soon and we can do all kinds of stuff. Maybe chill in a hot tub with a couple bottles of wine surrounded by snow.”

  We sat and talked for a while. I was on watch so couldn’t go to sleep yet. Watch in this case just meaning one of us stayed awake and got up and looked around every once in a while. Not a whole lot to it but it ensured at least one person formally responsible for being awake all the time in case something happened. Nothing did. I finally got bored and realized it had been way past my turn. I let Ginny know she had the watch and I lay down to try and get some sleep after finishing off some notes in the Zournal.

  Entry 13: One Way on a Greyhound

  I woke up with Ginny poking me in the side.

  “What’s up?” I asked. Expecting to need to grab my stuff and get to stepping.

  “I think I heard a crash or something outside. Then I heard a lot of yelling from outside. Not sure what’s up but seems like something we should check out. It’s coming up on dawn so we can see. I was thing we wake everybody up and sneak someone up to take a look.”

  Sounded like a good plan to me. I didn’t want to risk us being discovered by the Zombies though. We could still use some more laying around, doing nothing time. On the other hand, we probably needed to see what was going on and Ginny would not have brought the plan to me if she had not thought it through.

  We poked and prodded everyone else to wake them up. I debated on waking up Thomas but finally decided to just to let him know what was going on. I told him we were going to put a couple of us up on the roof to see what was going on outside. Thomas sat up straight and said he’d keep an eye out down here so we could focus on the roof.

  Reeves, Ginny, Ann and I all moved over to where Reeves had come through the roof on his first entry. He said he had found an hvac cover or something on the roof, unscrewed it and come down that way. BY come down he had basically let himself fall through air ducts and plaster and all the other junk in the ceiling. He had pulled the duct cover closed behind him to keep out the rain at least.

  We had brought out a large ladder we had found in the back. We set that up on top of the shelves and it went right up into the opening. I held it while Reeves clambered up it and disappeared into the ceiling. He was moving crazy slow to try and be as quiet as possible. Finally, after about five minutes of staring at the bottom of his feet, he disappeared and light rained down on us from the hole. I held the ladder for Ginny to go check it out. I was dying of curiosity but Ginny had been the one who heard the noises so she should be the one to go up and check it out first.

  Reeves and Ginny came back down the ladder after about fifteen minutes. We all met around the base of the ladder to discuss what they had seen.

  Ginny spoke up first, “Looks like a big bus smashed into a building about a block over and managed to attract a massive crowd of Zombies. Looks like a bunch of survivors are hiding out on the roof. They must have gone out the back of the bus and boosted each other up to the roof then jumped for it. So far it doesn’t look like the Zombies have figured out a way up there but we couldn’t see any supplies or anything so the people up on that roof are pretty much dead.”

  “We could try and distract the Zombies and get them to leave those people alone.” Thomas threw that idea out but we all knew it was a Band-Aid at best. It would be really hard to get the Zombies to leave when they could see people walking around on top of the roof. Our first priority had to be to our own self-preservation as well. We needed a plan that didn’t put our group in too much danger.

  Ginny looked over at me, “A bunch of the survivors on the roof look like they’re little kids.”

  Well, crap. Now that meant that we needed to worry slightly less about our own self-preservation and try to do something to save them. I needed to make sure our bug-out bags were all prepped just in case.

  Bug-out bag! I turned around and walked quickly over to where we all had our bags lined up and ready to grab if we needed to get out of there in a hurry. I dug around in mine until I found the sat phone we had been given. We had decided not to turn it on unless we had an emergency, none of us trusted the military not to track us for nefarious purposes. I walked back over to where everyone was trying to see what I had just left so abruptly to grab.

  “That may work.” Ann sounded impressed. Possibly, a little too impressed.

  “Ok guys. Are we good with hitting the power button on this thing? I’m seeing if we can get the military to sweep in and try to save those people.”

  Everyone nodded in agreement. There really weren’t a whole lot of choices. None of us were going to just walk away and let a bunch of kids die on a roof. At the same time, none of us were trying to die either. This may be the alternative we needed. Or not, we’d find out in a minute.

  I turned the Sat phone on. I had read the directions so had a pretty good idea of what we would need to do. Yes, life in the Apocalypse is so thrilling, every second that I took time out of my busy, hectic schedule to read the manual for a phone I had thought we would probably never actually turn on. It was not a good read. However, I
was pretty familiar with what the phone could do and how to navigate the interface.

  When the phone booted up it was completely different from the guide I had read. WTF. Seemed like a standard government kind of thing to have a hard copy of something that changes every time there is a new firmware load for it. Then again, what kind of loser reads manuals for phones they aren’t even thinking about turning on?

  We flipped it on. We couldn’t get a connection. I wandered around the store and nothing worked. Reeves suggested we go up on the roof and see if that fixed it. Since Ann and I had not had the chance yet to take a look at the kid’s location, this seemed like a good idea. Reeves held the ladder as I went up, followed by Ann. I pulled myself out on the hot tar roof. I reached down and Grabbed Ann’s hand and helped her out as she got to the top of the ladder. We both squat walked our way over to the side of the roof facing the direction the bus was supposed to be crashed in.

  Getting to the edge of the roof, we took a look over the ledge towards the sounds of Zombies screaming in frustration. Reeves and Ginny had left out how chaotic and crazy the scene over there looked. The bus was one of those large Greyhound buses and it was tilted on its side against a local credit union. The front of the bus was embedded in the brick wall of the credit union keeping the rest of the bus from falling over all the way. The whole area was crawling with Zombies trying to figure out how to get on the roof. Screaming in anger that they could not get to where they could see the people sitting out in the sun.

  Sitting on the roof were about fifteen people. The roof was slanted and did not have a ledge like the one we were on did, so it kept the people in site of the Zombies. There were mostly children on the roof. Getting them up there must have required two adults standing on the tilted top of the bus and flinging the kids up on the roof while Zombies were attacking their ankles. It must have been hell. Staying low I pulled out the phone and saw that it was now connected. The battery was about half dead. I’d have to check and see if I could get it to plug into the port I used for the solar charger for my iPhone.

  Once it was on I typed in the pin they had written in the front of the book to access the phone. Once logged on, a handful of text messages scrolled across the screen. The first few were fairly innocuous.

  ‘Travelers, please note the road around Savannah is currently hosting a large group of infected hostiles.’

  ‘Travelers, please report in as able so that we can track and offer you suggestions on route.’

  ‘Travelers, the virus no longer seems to be spread by contact or attack from the hostile infected. There have been several episodes of suicide noted by people who were bitten and probably would have survived.’

  ‘Travelers, travel at night still the safest.’

  ‘Travelers, please report any observation of hostiles in area. Especially living hostiles. Avoid foreign nationals in military garb.’

  Scrolling through those texts and a host of similar updates, I had the sinking feeling we should have been reviewing those earlier. If we had seen the notices on Zombie activity on I-95 around Savannah, we may have planned for it better and Frank may still be alive. Pushing that thought to the side for later consideration I contemplated what we should send. After a quick, hushed conversation with Ann we ended up in a text conversation.

  ‘Travelers to Military. Multiple civilians trapped on roof of building one block from our current position. Are you able to assist?’

  We only had to wait a minute or two for a response.

  ‘Military to Travelers. Please send coordinates.’

  Scrolling through the options on the phone I found the menu item to let us send our current coordinates. I went ahead and pressed send.

  ‘Military to Travelers. Please provide details on trapped civilians. Please send photos of location if possible.’

  Utilizing the camera on the phone, we snapped several pictures and figured out how to send them. The satellite uplink was not the fastest connection ever, so we ended up only sending the best ones. Once we had sent those we waited. A few minutes later, we got another response.

  ‘Military to Travelers. We have dispatched a gun ship and a transport. ETA is 22 minutes. Maintain your current position to avoid friendly fire.’

  Friendly fire? That didn’t sound good. Ann and I looked at each other, read the message a few more times and were trying to decide if we should get in the Hay Ride and get out of Dodge when the phone rang. I hit the speaker button.

  “Hey guys, this is Lieutenant Wilson, Navy Seal, I gave you guys the phone. I’m enroute with some of my team to affect the rescue of those civilians. Are you looking to come with us too? Or are you still heading for the mountains?”

  Entry 14: Big Brother

  “Hey Lieutenant, good to hear from you. We’re still planning on heading to the mountains but want to make sure those kids get out safe first. Anything you need us to do to help? What’s the plan?”

  I hoped the plan did not involve a ton of noise. However, since it was a team of Seals I figured there was a good chance they were going to blow something up.

  “Hey Steve, good to hear your voice too. You guys were actually some of the only survivors we’ve found. Hoping you trust us a bit more after this to check in. We’re basically planning on hovering over the building and roping down two men to help get the kids in the basket, then reeling them in and dropping them off in the transport coming up I-95 behind us. We’re going to try and not fly over your position so that hopefully we draw them away from you instead of on top of you. We’ll go real slow away from you on the second run to make sure to draw them away from you. It should only take us two trips to get them all out of here.”

  Ann and I looked at each other but couldn’t think of anything wrong with that plan.

  “Understood Lieutenant, we’ll be over here if you need anything. I’ll keep the line open if you’d like.”

  By this time, we could hear the sounds of an approaching helicopter. Looking in both directions, we finally saw a black hawk down looking machine flying in fast and low. It flared as it approached the credit union and settled into a hover above them. We watched as a couple of guys fast roped down onto the roof of the credit union. One of them immediately raised a rifle and went to each side of the building to make sure it was secured. The other was waiting for a basket that slowly descended from the helicopter.

  The Seal on the roof was assisted by the three adults who had been with the kids. One by one, they loaded ten of the kids into the copter. The copter flew off, away from us, leaving the three adults and two Seals on the slanted roof of the credit union. The Zombies were going ballistic. The noise from the helicopter had gotten them worked into a frenzy. They bashed themselves against the walls and clambered up on the bus and tried climbing up the broken wall. More and more of the Zombies were coming. They started to build a drift of writhing flesh against the side of the bank as they all tried to climb the wall.

  “Well that’s FUBAR.” Reeves startled us. He had come up through the hole and moved in behind us while we had stared, mesmerized by the catastrophe unfolding in front of us.

  The Seals started picking off Zombies who were able to clamber to the top of the pile and try getting on the roof. We watched as the two Seals walked the wall, dropping something every few feet, then they jumped back and hit the deck. A few seconds later there were several loud booms and flashes of light. Pieces of Zombie went flying all over the place and the Zombie drifts settled down by about six feet, which put the roof out of reach for most of the Zombies. Just as I had anticipated, the Seals had fallen back on their standard technique of blowing shit up.

  It looked like it had worked though. The loud booms had attracted even more Zombies and the noise was straight out of a heavy metal death concert mixed with a pig being slowly roasted alive. The Zombies started building up against the side of the wall again and the Seals dropped their last grenades to similar effect. They then resorted to walking along the walls and shooting the ones who were get
ting close.

  Reeves looked over at me. “They’re screwed. We need to get in the fight.”

  I picked up the Walkie. “Ginny, come on up and bring us some rifles and ammo.”

  Ginny started handing rifles and ammo up to Reeves who brought it over to us. Ann and I got situated and started blasting away at the Zombies attacking the people on the other roof. We were both using AR-15s which were loud. We kept our bodies hidden from the ground, in the massively noisy environment out there I was hoping we would not become a new focal point for the Zombies.

  Reeves and Ginny joined in on the Turkey Zombie shoot. To make our ammo last, we were trying for shots to center of mass on individual Zombies. This entailed trying to get your eyes to avoid the horror of the mass of undulating bodies in front of you to focus in on, and kill, individuals. We were systematically taking them out. We were not going to be able to stop them but we could assist in slowing them down. I cycled through three clips before I heard the sweet sound of the copter returning.