Zournal: Book 3: Scorched Earth

by R. S. Merritt

  I’d forgot, he had the issue going on with his throat from the smoke inhalation. We should be celebrating his muteness, instead, it was one of those times when I’d really like to find out what he thought was going on. I asked him if Ann had told him about the messages we had received on the phone. He mimed a bomb blowing up then us finding and killing someone. I assumed he was referring to the Koreans, or whoever had done it.

  “Yeah, I’d love to take out a few of them too, for doing that. What we need to be focused on though is how do we avoid them. My other question for you would be, do you know how far radiation can travel?” I hoped he knew, like the forest fire possibly coming our way wasn’t enough to worry about, now we had another potential killer in radioactive fallout. He shrugged. Mimed running away with his fingers. Then his fingers laid down and pretended to die. Not extremely useful.

  I told him to lay back down in his chair. I went and wet a new washcloth for him, laid it across the burnt side of his face, then went to find Ann. Reeves needed pills and I needed to know what she thought we needed to do. Maybe she had some insight into how far radiation could spread. They had some power plants on the coast in Florida so there should have been some training for Law Enforcement on what to do if one of those melted down or Chernobyled somehow. I wasn’t sure how that really correlated to a bomb going off, but assumed there should be some similarities.

  I found Ann in the media room with Thomas and Ginny. Judging by the solemnity of all three of them, they must have been talking about the blast that took out Charleston. I asked them if they had any idea how fallout worked. Ginny and Thomas had nothing. Ann mentioned it could get in the upper atmosphere depending on the force of the blast, at which point it could come down pretty much anywhere on the earth. I asked Ann if she had any training in nuclear incidents. Ann said that the limited training she had received had consisted of crowd and traffic control mostly. The next steps for local law enforcement was contacting, then waiting for, the specialists from the military to show up.

  I really just needed someone to tell us if we needed to leave or if we were still good to hang out here for a bit. There was one person I could think of who could probably give us an honest answer to that question.

  “Should we hit up Lt. Wilson and see if those guys can tell us if we’re safe or not?”

  Everyone nodded. Since we had talked to the Lt. earlier without running it by anyone, it seemed a little late to be asking for consensus now anyways. What we had not done earlier was press the button that would send our coordinates to big brother. We decided we still would not do that, but we would have to give them some generalities on where we were at in order to find out if we needed to move out or not. Decision made to turn the sat phone back on and ask, I went ahead and powered it back on.

  I sent a quick text asking how far from the blast we should be in order to be safe from Fallout and if there was anything we should do. The answer came back in a few minutes.

  “As long as you are greater than fifty miles from Charleston you should not have to do anything. To be extra careful we would recommend staying inside a designated fallout shelter, basement or house for the next week.”

  We each read the message and then I powered the phone back off. We had been worried about nothing for a change. We shouldn’t be glowing in the dark or developing super powers anytime in the near future. Then I remembered, I had spent the day laying on the roof. Then drug the sheet around with me everywhere. Oh, well, probably best not to mention that at the moment. Unless we died because I kept my little secret about the tanning deck. I ‘fessed up and headed for the shower to wash the radiation off me and to get away from Ann until she became less pissed. Just because I had drug a possibly radioactive, fall out infested, death sheet into our bed…

  Ann headed to our room to throw away the sheet of death and to get Reeves his pills. Thomas and Ginny settled back down to killing Zombies in a mall setting on the 70” HD TV. Killing them that way made it look so easy. I hung out for a little bit, making snide comments about the game.

  “Thomas, how come you don’t chase the Zombies around with a chain saw in real life? Must be nice just to press the button when you want to sprint. How come we can’t just run over medical kits and heal up.”

  I noticed both Ginny and Thomas were ignoring me. I started feeling like the weird, drunk uncle no one likes so I told them to have fun and wandered towards the kitchen. I thought while I walked. The Koreans being in play added a whole new element to moving towards the cabin. For all we knew, they were going to keep nuking bases on the East coast. In that case, I wanted to be on the other side of the mountains from the new holocaust. We couldn’t go too far though considering there were probably already a couple of patriotic pay back missiles on the way towards wherever the Koreans were camping out on the West Coast.

  There was only so much we could worry about. I opted to put first things first and stick to the plan. We’d be working hard at doing nothing for the next week or two. Hopefully, the rest would help us heal up for what I hoped would be the final push to the cabin.

  Entry 27: Second Wind

  We ended up staying a little over two weeks. We had eaten through everything in the house and were breaking into our supplies in the truck to keep moving. My back felt much better. I had been doing stretches and exercising everyday then taking a shower. A shower. This house was fantastic. If we weren’t running out of food I don’t know if we would have been able to pry Thomas and Ginny out of the media room. Turns out they were both huge gamer geeks.

  Reeves had healed up but his face was probably going to be scarred on the left side. Not that he cared. He pointed out that there were a lot of people wandering around today who were blue, a little scarring didn’t bother him any. Plus, he was still better looking than me, according to him. His voice was still scratchy too. Everyone else seemed to have gotten past the smoke inhalation issues.

  This had been the best two weeks I had had in a long time. Reeves had migrated into the Media Room with Thomas and Ginny which had left me to spend a lot of time with Ann. The next time we passed a bank, I planned on going in and taking out a million dollars to hand him for that favor. Thinking about that, probably better off trying to find him a bottle of Jack Daniels somewhere. Less symbolic, much more appreciated.

  We were thinking about staying and just heading out for supplies. The house really was awesome. I know my parents cabin did not have solar panels and wasn’t sure how water got to it. The closer we got the more I wondered if heading there had ever been such a great idea.

  The reason we chose to leave. Zombies started showing up. I’m not sure how they found us out here in the middle of nowhere. How they knew we were in the house was beyond me. We had all the shades drawn. We didn’t make any crazy noise. We were seriously in the middle of nowhere. I had not even climbed back up on the radioactive deck since that first time I pulled watch.

  I walked down into the kitchen one morning doing my daily rounds to check for Zombies. One was standing by the pool. Staring into it. I assumed he may be looking at the dead one I had pitched in there. I had not been out to see how that pool burial turned out after tossing in the body. I backed up slowly and went and let everyone know there was a Zombie by the pool and to be quiet.

  When I walked into our room, Ann had been standing over by the curtains. She had them pulled apart slightly and made a shushing gesture at me as I walked over to her. I looked through the small part in the curtains and saw that there were two Zombies wandering around our Penske. We all knew if you could see a few Zombies there were probably thirty around that you could not see. They tended to travel in packs. Not sure if it was a pack mentality thing or they just kept thinking that one of the other ones knew where a regular human was hiding out and followed them. Either way, it was time for us to go.

  Ann looked at me, tears in her eyes, “We really have to leave the shower?” She smiled through the tears, but I knew she was frustrated and scared. If the Zombies could wand
er up on us here, in the middle of nowhere, how were we ever going to find a place to live our lives? There was no easy answer to that. Hell, once the Zombies finally died out, the Koreans would be trying to enslave us or something. Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

  There was always the chance she really was just sad about leaving the showers. Women, who knew. Time to pull everybody together and figure out our next move. I told Ann to hang out in here and I went to gather everybody up and bring them back to the room so we could talk it through while we still had time for talking. Thomas and Ginny looked at the X-Box controllers the same way Ann had glanced over at the shower when I had said we need to leave.

  We all headed back to the master bedroom. Getting there, Reeves settled into his favorite oversized chair, Ginny hopped in bed with Ann and Thomas sat down at the little writing desk in the corner. I cleared my head, thinking about how to begin and what our next steps should be.

  “Hey. I know this place has been awesome, pretty much the dream house in this episode of ‘Real Housewives of the Apocalypse’.” No one laughed. Oh, well.

  “Anyway. You’ve all seen we have visitors outside. I wish they hadn’t shown up, but on top of that we’re eating into the food supplies on the truck already too. I was thinking about what I’d miss about this place the most ever since Ann mentioned showers and Thomas kissed the X-Box goodbye. I think it’s going to be that for the first time we were able to all feel reasonably safe somewhere. Plus, we had some creature comforts thanks to the miracle of solar energy. This place was a reminder of how life used to be. It’s going to suck to leave, but I don’t think we have a choice.”

  Reeves and Thomas both chimed in with, “Motion is life.”

  It sounded a little like a monastic chant. We all appreciated the sentiment though. Ginny and Ann both looked a little rebellious still. I probably should not have mentioned the showers in front of Ginny since she had been preoccupied with missing out on the X-Box. Now she realized she’d have to be walking around with a bunch of stinky people while not playing any video games. Ann sighed.

  “Ok. I take it the plan is to quietly kill the Zombies wandering around the house, load up our gear, and head towards the mountains?”

  I looked around at everyone else. “Pretty much.”

  Ann sighed. “Ok, I’m adding a step though. Everybody is taking a shower before we leave.”

  “We’ll be in the game room! Let us know when it’s our turn.” Thomas and Ginny disappeared.

  Reeves and I were left to stare at each other.

  Entry 28: Gun Smoke

  I finally tore everyone away from their X-Box controllers. After waiting on some of the longest showers ever to be completed, we all stacked up on the front door. We all had our hand weapons out except for Ginny, she was up on the balcony with a .22 rifle. It was the weakest rifle we had, but it was also the quietest. She was going to take out the larger Zombies we saw wandering around, or at least put a hurting on them. Then join us below, to get in the truck and get the hell out of here before a million Zombies showed up courtesy of the gunfire. Quiet as the .22 was, the crack of its shots would still carry in the silence of today’s world.

  Our signal to head out was the third muted crack of Ginny shooting. As soon as we heard that, I threw the door open and we rolled out in a skirmish line towards the truck. Ann was in the middle with a baseball bat and a machete, Reeves was on the right side with a wicked looking serrated knife from Gerber in one hand and a bat in the other, I was on the left side and had my sword and some kitchen knives shoved in my belt, and Thomas was behind the three of us with the metal spike pole he was carrying now held in his one good hand. All of us had our guns on us as well, in case it got real out here, but we were hoping to keep it reasonably quiet to avoid the only road out becoming blocked with Zombies.

  A few Zombies saw us come out the door, screaming out a challenge as they started running towards us. I focused in on the one I needed to take down. Noting the big guy in the middle fall to the ground as the muted cough of the .22 rifle went off again. Ginny would be trying to hit them in the eye. Anywhere else, the .22 round probably would not do a lot of damage. Any other person on the roof, I would be surprised at the number of Zombies already laid out on the ground. She was basically taking pot shots at targets the size of a quarter, that were bouncing around all over the place, and she was connecting.

  An elderly woman, wearing what was once a white shift but was now a disgusting, frayed, stained rag wrapped around her black and blue body was coming for me. Her red eyes burning with the hatred they all seemed to have for us. I walked towards her, sword raised like a little leaguer waiting for a pitch, and swung for the fences when she got close enough. The sword caved in the side of her head and she dropped. I paused for a second. Grossed out by the site of the old woman’s skull and sickened at myself for how easy murder had become.

  Only the standard aches and pains accompanied the swing. I’d been worried the swing would tweak my back and put me on the ground in pain. I glanced to my right and saw Ann and Thomas finishing off a small Zombie. Ann was trying not to look at what she was putting an end too. We’d been in the house long enough to go soft it seemed like. We needed to get hard again, quick. Hesitating in the face of these Zombies was going to get us killed.

  There was just one small Zombie left between us and the truck. Reeves charged it, knocking it to the ground and finishing it with a strike to the throat from his knife. Reeves stood up, covered in blood. I glanced on the balcony and Ginny was no longer there. Good, she should be hauling through the house right now to join us. I ran towards the front of the truck and got it unlocked and started up while Reeves threw the back gate open for him and Thomas and Ginny to jump in. Ann joined me up front and we waited for Ginny to come out of the house and get in the truck so we could take off.

  We’d stuffed the back of the truck a few days before the Zombies showed up with the bikes and four-wheelers from the garage. We had also shoved in all the bedding and everything else we thought may come in useful. There was still plenty of room back there for the three of them to stretch out. We’d found a bunch of rope, so everything was tied down tight to keep them from getting smashed in the probable we needed to do some evasive maneuvering. We’d also rigged it so they could pull the back down a bit without having to shut it all the way. We had a lantern flashlight hanging down back there to shed a little light too, because driving around in the middle of a Zombie apocalypse locked up in a dark, hot container sucks.

  Ginny came out the front door with rifle in hand, about the same time as three Zombies came storming around the side of the house. She made a beeline for the truck. Thomas and Reeves had both jumped out to cover her. Reeves had an AK in his hand, aiming over Ginny’s shoulder as she ran towards the truck, Thomas was facing the opposite direction, covering Reeves back. I used my sword to break out the rest of the broken glass on the driver’s side window and kept a lookout in that direction, waiting for Ann to tell me Ginny was in and we could get moving.

  Ginny stopped, turned, took a knee, and started blasting away at the three Zombies behind her. I heard the much louder shots from the AK kick in and then Ann was yelling at me to go. I hit the accelerator and we slowly started building up speed as the RPMs moved up and stayed in the red area on the dashboard gauge. I swung the big, heavy truck around to point up the driveway and we started rolling. Zombies were busting out of the woods on all sides of us. It was a race now to see if we could get down the long driveway before the noise from the brief gunplay brought enough Zombies along to block the road.

  I kept the accelerator down, trying to remember how long the driveway was. It would not help us if we hit a sharp T-Intersections going fifty miles per hour in this big truck. I was going to have to slow down at the end of the driveway to make the right turn to head towards the interstate. By slowdown, I was more or less going to have to come to an almost complete stop or we’d be flipped over and covered in Zombies. Like a Twinkie dro
pped on a fire ant pile. I had no desire to end my life as the creamy filling for a bunch of whacked out blue people.

  I continued down the road, fast. My palms were sweaty and my heart was racing. We had already slammed a few Zombies off the front grill of the Penske. Looking in the rear-view mirrors, we had left the bulk of the Zombies behind. There was no doubt they were heading up the road towards us as fast as they could move though. Everything was going to depend on making the curve up ahead. I went ahead and started slowing down. I pulled my pistol out and asked Ann to check the safety for me and put it on the seat. I continued to slow down.

  Looking up ahead, there was a crowd of maybe ten or twenty Zombies coming at us from where the long rural driveway met the county road. I was only doing about fifteen miles per hour now. The first of the Zombies was closing the gap rapidly, it jumped for the hood and was smashed against the grill and disappeared. Taking a deep breath, I slowed to ten miles per hour and grabbed the pistol off the seat. Ann had rolled down her window and pulled out her pistol as well. I kept the speed at ten miles per hour as the Zombies started surrounding us.

  Steering with one hand, I waited for the inevitable, a Zombie leaped up on the side of the cab nearest me and stuck his arm in fast enough to grab me by the collar. I sent two bullets in his general direction and the Zombie fell backwards into the crowd now vying to climb up and grab me. I heard loud shots continuously from the back and figured Reeves and the rest of them were probably shooting away at the Zombies trying to climb in through the gap we had left open in the back. That should at least keep the ones behind us from catching up and threatening Ann and me while we tried to pull off this turn.