by TW Gallier
"There's a Whole Foods Market," Jenny cried.
"So?"
"We haven't eaten since they captured us."
I couldn't process that. They hadn't been fed in five days?
"Not even the children?"
"No."
Shock didn't begin to describe what I felt. What kind of monsters kidnaps women and children and then doesn't feed them? Suddenly I wanted to go back and kill more of them. Instead, I turned into the shopping center and headed for the grocery store.
"The store has probably already been looted, but we might find something left behind that hasn't spoiled," I said. "If not, we'll find you something to eat real fast."
I drove up and parked as close to the store as possible. The other three trucks parked behind me. Charlie parked the Bradley to block the drive between buildings.
First thing, I apologized for getting us lost. At least the .50 Cal fire teams were going to a different rally point setup, so wouldn't be expecting us.
"The women and children haven't been fed," I said. "So we have to feed them immediately."
The front doors were already busted out. All we had were a few flashlights. I immediately regretted leaving our lanterns behind. They wouldn't be easily replaced.
"Oh God, it stinks in here," Jenny said, face screwing. "Did someone die in there? Or is that just rotting food?"
"Maybe both," I said. "But it's not too bad."
There hasn't been power for many weeks. I suspected the stench was a lot worse a week after the end of our world. Pretty much everything that was going to rot had done so, and that was just the residual stink. There was virtually no air circulation in there.
"Let's put the children next door in the Old Navy store," she said. "Only the people looking for food need to be in here."
Jenny took charge of that. She gathered the women together, and they divided up into two groups. The women with children took their kids next door to find them clean clothes. The other group began the search for food. Men like Fred, Terrel, and Vince wanted to be with their families, but we had greater concerns at the moment. Hell, I just wanted to be with my family, too.
"Sean, Coop," I called them over. "We need to send out some men to scout out this shopping center. There might be stores with camping gear, clothes, and better food."
"Yes, but first we need to post someone atop this store to keep an eye out for aircraft," Coop said. "We destroyed or heavily damaged every helicopter on the ground, but that doesn't mean they don't have more."
"They'll probably be able to patch together a few given time," Sean said.
"If the zombies don't eat them," I said. "But that's the feel good answer."
We agreed, most of the soldiers would survive. They might even be able to reclaim the airfield. Most of their ground vehicles were untouched by us, so they had tanks, Bradleys, and Humvees at the very least.
"Fort Knox is only a few hours from here," Mike said. "There are probably more tanks, Bradley's, and helicopters just sitting there. I suggest we get far away before they get pilots into new helicopters."
Sean and I decided on sending Mike, Charlie, and Brett to scout the shopping center, since none of them had family there. Coop took some of his guys and started looking for a way up to the roof. I sent Fred, Vince, and Terrel to protect the women and children in Old Navy. Sean and I were about to head into Whole Foods to look for food when Brett returned bearing treasure.
"We found an Eddy Bauer store," he said. "It's been pretty thoroughly looted, but we found these three LED lanterns. The batteries are still working."
"You found batteries?" I asked.
"No, these are display models."
He advised us there were still some hunting clothes available, but everything was thrown around and a lot of it torn up. We'd check it out later. Brett hurried off to continue searching with Mike and Charlie. I took one of the LED lanterns over to the Old Navy, while the other two were needed to help find food. Sonya quickly took the bright light from me and placed it on a counter to cast light over the children's section. I headed towards Jenny in the boys section.
"Having any luck?" I asked Jenny.
She was wearing a new polo style shirt that looked light brown or tan in the dim light. She was still in her filthy, blood-stained jeans. I noticed Spooky had a new outfit: Jeans, shirt, and sneakers. Timmy had a new shirt, but Harlan was still wearing the same clothes.
She scowled at me. "No. The clothes left behind are mostly ripped up. Why take the time to destroy the stuff you don't want?"
Good question. "People were probably going crazy at that time and fighting over everything. They probably ripped most of the clothes while fighting over them."
She might not be happy, but that store was a post apocalypse gold mine. I looked around to see mothers pulling shirts and pants off children, or digging through piles of discarded clothing.
"Don't worry. I'm sure there are other stores we can check," I said. "Do you need anything before I head back outside?"
"Food and water."
We found more food than I'd hoped, which was brought outside. Our scouts returned shortly after we gave up the search.
"We found an REI store, and a Mattress Firm," Charlie said.
"Seriously? We don't need beds," I said.
"We do for tonight," Mike said. "And it wasn't ransacked, so pretty clean."
I couldn't argue with that logic. So we moved everyone over to the Mattress Firm store. The kids were fed while the adults brought out more mattresses to ensure everyone had a place to sleep. Once the children were all asleep, the adults gathered to discuss what to do next.
"Are you sure you don't want to come with us?" Coop asked. "Carter's family has a vacation home on a private island in New York. There's good fishing and enough land to farm."
"And there are lots of lakes and islands in that part of the state. Zombies can't get you on islands," Carter said. "And bad guys can't sneak up on you, either."
It was tempting. Sean and I discussed it with the other members of our group. To my surprise, they still wanted to go to Canada. Civilization had more appeal than a primitive life as sustenance farmers. And I agreed with them.
"The Canadians aren't letting anyone in," Coop said. "And neither are the Americans out west."
"The Americans?" Jenny asked. "You say that like we aren't Americans."
"They don't consider us Americans anymore," he said. "We were at a rally in North Dakota when the shit went down. Word came that the western states were spared, so we headed that way. The Army and Air Force attacked us in Montana and killed about two-thirds of us, so we turned around and headed east."
"Both the Americans and the Canadians will attack you if you try to cross the border," a biker woman named Connie said. "You'll all be better off with us."
Their argument convinced most of the women not part of either the bikers' group or ours. And even Fiona chose to go with the bikers. From what I learned from Jenny, I wasn't surprised by her decision. I felt bad for Fiona. She'd suffered so much loss, including her pride and dignity at the hands of the soldiers. She probably thought we'd judge her too harshly, but we knew it wasn't her fault.
I think Sean wanted to go to New York and start over. I had to admit, I kind of liked the idea, too, but that would mean giving up on civilization. My children deserved that chance. I thought that Brett would go with the bikers, since he voted to go to New York. But he stayed with us in the end. None of our wives or other women chose New York.
Yeah, I was a little surprised.
We even gained four more women, all without children: Ally Hayes, Corinne Ortiz, Michelle Castle, and Tanya Weissinger. They all looked early-twenties and determined. They swore they understood and accepted the risks, but they wanted a chance to return to civilization.
They were all former girlfriends of soldiers, forced into servitude immediately, so I had my doubts. None of them had to fight for their lives like we had. I couldn't guarantee they would be able
to hold their own, but it was obvious all of the women accepted them without a second thought, so we didn't even bother to vote on it. They joined our group.
"We leave at first light," Sean said. "But we have to scrounge up enough diesel to top off the trucks before we can bed down."
"You didn't mention the Bradley," Mike said.
I shook my head. "It's too slow and a gas-guzzler. Besides, it's almost out of ammo."
Mike and Charlie weren't happy, but I noticed their minds were already past the loss of that sweet toy, and they were not so covertly checking out our new women. I looked at Jenny, who shook her head woefully.
"Men," she whispered.
I shrugged, thinking my friends deserved girlfriends. Maybe it would work out. From the way Kate was looking at Sean, and Willa was eyeing Brett, Mike and Charlie needed new blood in the group. I just prayed they proved to be assets, and not burdens. We still had a long, dangerous journey ahead.
Chapter 22
Roger
We were all up before dawn. Despite that, it was the best night of sleep I'd enjoyed in a long time. I didn't know if it was due to having my wife and children back, or I was just that tired. The bikers took all of the two hour watches, despite Sean and I working out a guard roster. They just didn't wake us up.
Breakfast was cans of cold pork and beans we'd scrounged up. Eating pork and beans cold always brought back memories of my childhood camping trips with family. My parents thought pork and beans were good for any meal after sleeping under the stars.
"Will twenty-eight people fit in one truck?" Jenny asked.
We'd just finished getting our three kids up into the truck. Jenny positioned them next to the cab. There was no cover between the cargo box and cab, so we'd be able to speak back and forth. Someone could even crawl back into the cargo box, or up into the cab if necessary.
"Don't worry. We'll fit."
I seemed to remember the seating capacity of a deuce and a half was twenty-five. The cargo bed on the 5-ton was larger, and the truck could carry twice the tonnage. No problem, though it might be cramped with so many men, women, and children, as well as all of the food, clothing, and spare weapons and ammo. The cargo box would be full. I was going to drive, with Sean being the TC. And Jenny had already talked her way into riding up front with us.
All of the weapons and supplies had been divided up with the bikers. They took the bulk of everything since they had so many more people. We had more than enough if we made it into Canada within the next few days. That part of our plan wasn't looking good.
Our cargo was in the middle, with it open all the way around for people. Slits were cut in the canvas on the sides as firing ports. We managed to talk the bikers out of one M60 machine gun, and Vince would man it out the back. The bikers didn't want to part with it, but Jenny helped me, and some women just have a knack for changing men's minds.
"Just to let you know," Sean said as he joined us behind the truck. "I've been speaking to the overnight guards. They spotted two patrols of four Humvees on the highway last night. One was heading north, the other was spotted two hours later coming back south. So it might've been the same patrol."
"So they're not all dead, and they still have the capacity to fight," I said. "That's fucking great. Thanks for cheering me up."
"That was my reaction," Sean said. He grimaced. "At least they didn't see any helicopters."
That news made me more anxious than I liked to admit. Just thinking about those bastards made my blood boil. A big part of it was they were US Army soldiers, and I held them to a higher standard.
"Calm down," Jenny whispered, squeezing my hand. "It all turned out fine."
Her idea of "fine" and mine were not even close. Still, I had to concentrate on what I could control. So I helped women and children up into the truck, and tried to concentrate on the task at hand. I had plenty of time to worry about soldiers once we were back on the road.
The bikers had far more people, so we were ready to leave long before them. After saying our good-byes, and thanking them profusely for helping us, I climbed in behind the wheel and cranked her up. Jenny slid in beside me, with Sean sitting next to the window.
Sean had an M-249 and four ammo pouches, so Jenny was given the task of reading the map and keeping me on course. Jenny was happy, because all she had to do was turn around and our kids were right there. I was relieved to finally being moving towards our goal, and I think Sean felt the same way.
"Do you think the Canadians will let us in?" Jenny asked as I pulled away from the mattress store.
"No," I said. "We'll have to find a place to sneak past the border guards."
"We'll check for marinas and boats when we pass Lake Erie," Sean said. "It might be easier to slip in by water."
I held my tongue. We'd be easier to spot on the water by Canadian ships and aircraft, with nowhere to hide. If they sunk our boats, then we'd drown. By sticking to dry land we could always melt into the surrounding woods or city, depending on our location.
Edmundson Road ran along the north end of the shopping center, with I-71 on the western side. I turned left on it and headed northwest, crossing over the highway. By the time we crossed the bridge, the road had turned into Smith. That took us through residential neighborhoods until we reached Sherman Avenue. That street ended at a T-intersection and a golf course.
"Turn right," Jenny said.
The road sign had been plowed down by a car, which sat atop it as a burned out husk. Human remains were on the ground to either side. Zombie carjacking?
That road took us up to Tennessee, with was mostly industrial all the way to I-75.
"Do we really want to chance the highway?" Jenny asked.
The prospect scared me, too.
"We can reach Detroit in four or five hours on the highway," Sean said. "It might take a couple of days if we stick to side roads. I think we took out all of the helicopters, but I also think they'll be able to cobble some together in a day or two. I want to be out of range before that happens."
"He's got a good argument," I said. "And honestly, some of those helicopters looked pretty intact to me. I think they'll have one or two up by tonight."
Of course, our argument all depended on how well and quickly the soldiers cleared the airfield of zombies, got the hoses replaced to fill the moats, and how many pilots and mechanics survived. They might be reduced to grunts in trucks, Bradleys, and tanks.
I drove up onto I-75 north, and floored it.
We didn't get very far before I had to slow down and start wending my way through abandoned vehicles, massive pile-ups, and other obstructions. I-75 in Cincinnati was the worst stretch of road I'd seen so far. It looked like the end came during rush hour, and everyone on that highway was killed or turned into zombies. We spent more time on the shoulder than on the road.
Just getting out of Cincinnati took over an hour and a half from our departure. The road cleared considerably after that, but was still too cluttered to hit even 50 MPH. The land between Cincinnati and Dayton was fairly built up. So it was almost three hours after departure that morning before we reached the outskirts of Dayton.
Sean's four to five hour trip to Detroit prediction was completely blown out of the water.
"We'll be lucky if we reach Toledo today," Jenny said. "But it is on Lake Erie, so maybe tomorrow we can look for boats to cross over."
"At least we haven't seen any helicopters," I said. "What did Mike say a helicopter's range was?"
"I don't remember," Sean replied. "Didn't we figure out a round trip was only halfway to Detroit?"
I didn't have time to answer. Three cars came speeding up the on ramp as we were passing by. Weapons were thrust out the 1960s era sedans' windows.
"Watch out!" Jenny cried. She turned and shouted into the cargo area, "Protect the children! Three cars to our right!"
Sean immediately opened fire. We were going a lot faster than the cars, so pulled ahead. They came under fire from Vince's M60 and several oth
ers. The first car up on the freeway suddenly swerved left and started flipping down the road. The other two continued after us. I could just make out the sound of their gunfire.
"Get them, Vince!" Sean called.
I couldn't do any evasive maneuvers due to all of the abandoned and crashed cars and trucks. I even had to slow down to weave my way through that mess. The last two cars closed the gap quickly, but that just made it easier for Vince and the others. One of them started smoking and slowed to a stop, and then the other crashed into the back of a dump truck.
"Is that a roadblock up ahead?" I asked.
Chapter 23
Roger
There was a large hand-painted sign with just the word "TOLL" atop a pickup. It was in the middle of a cloverleaf. I could see men atop the ramp above the roadblock, and behind it.
"Why does everyone want to block the road?" Jenny asked.
I took my foot off the gas to give us time to assess the situation. The road blockers were using an existing multiple car pile-up to bottleneck traffic through their "toll lane" on the rightmost lane. A concrete barrier kept us from moving over to the southbound lanes and bypassing. To the right was metal crash rail, with a grassy ditch and rise beyond.
"We're trapped in here," Sean said. "More cars might be waiting for us if we managed to turn around."
Turning around would be disastrous. The wrecked and abandoned cars were too thick on that road, so I didn't see any clear spots big enough to do a three-point turn. We only had two options: stop and submit, or fight our way through.
"Vince!" I shouted into the back. "Cut a hole and pop up with that M60. We have snipers above us on a bridge, and men behind cars. I need some major firepower if we're going to survive this."
The barricade and all the hostile men had me rattled. I'd totally forgotten we only had one crew-served weapon to engage them. Vince did as I requested, moving forward and slicing open a hole to stand up in. And he immediately opened fire on the men atop the bridge.
