Zombies! (Book 6): Hold The Line

by Merritt, R. S.

  “I’m not attacking that thing with cutlery.” Kelly said pulling out her pistol after dropping her hatchets to the ground.

  No one argued with her. Rifles and pistols were very quickly pointed in the direction of the scary giant pig. The boar just sat there grunting and staring at them until without any warning it charged straight at Kyler. Startled by how fast the big beast had moved the first shots they all wildly fired missed. Even as the fire became more accurate it didn’t seem to be doing anything besides pissing off the gigantic pig even more. It had Kyler slammed up against a tree as it tossed it’s head back and forth trying to fling him on the ground. Kyler was blowing off chunks of its bristly hide in big spurts of blood every time he pulled the trigger.

  All of them started walking their fire into the boars side until it finally collapsed to its knees. The fire seemed to go out of its eyes even as it made one last attempt to bite through Kyler’s boot. A second after the boar collapsed Kyler fell to his knees beside it. He was bleeding profusely from a massive bite on his thigh and his back had been roughed up hard with the monster pressing him up against the tree.

  “Well at least I won’t turn into a Zombie. After all this time I’m going to end up with freakin rabies.” Kyler said as everyone gathered around trying to see how badly hurt that he was.

  “We don’t even have time to cut off a few pork chops for later. If the Zombies weren’t headed this direction before they definitely are now. We need to get moving. Can you stand?” Randy asked Kyler.

  Randy and Kelly took Kyler’s arms trying to help him to his feet. He grunted in pain and fell back to his knees. They’d all seen the big rip in his pants covered in blood when he’d tried to stand.

  “Go! Take the kids and get the hell out of here!” Kyler ordered them. Kelly ignored him and squatted down to start wrapping tape and gauze around his leg. She squirted in all the iodine she had on top of the bite marks on his leg. Caitlyn helped while Randy watched the perimeter and Myriah stood guard over the littles. The littles were all staring at Kyler hoping he wasn’t really hurt all that bad.

  “I think that’s probably good enough for right now. We don’t have time to figure out a stretcher so you’re either hopping or Randy is going to have to carry you. Actually, let’s skip the you trying to hop along and just go straight to Randy carrying you.” Kelly said.

  “We should‘ve at least tried letting him hop.” Randy joked as he situated Kyler up on his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. The joke didn’t last long as the screeches echoing in the woods were now homing in on them.

  Everyone was now carrying somebody which meant if they ran into another fight, they were going to have to put people down in a hurry. Kelly had Zoey stand beside her while she looked at the compass. Once she was satisfied that she knew which way north was, she picked Zoey up and started running through the trees. There was no time for jogging now. Tired, hungry, thirsty and weighed down they ran as hard as they could through the woods trying to outdistance the screeches coming from all around them.

  Kelly felt like she was going to blackout, but she kept running. She hoped Myriah and everyone was able to keep up. She didn’t have the energy to actually turn her head and check. Zoey felt like she weighed a hundred pounds even though she was pretty much skin and bones. She was soaked and chafed and didn’t think she could take running through the drenched forest another step when they ran up a median and over a clear space with no trees.

  “We on a road?” Randy asked. It was hard to understand him he was breathing so hard. It was also hard to hear over the sound of her own tortured breathing. Kelly looked down and kicked at the piles of dirt and leaves she was standing on. Underneath a few layers of nature’s garbage, the grey concrete of a road was visible.

  “Yep.” She responded. She didn’t know what else to say. The road ran east and west, they needed to go north. She followed Randy as he plunged down into the ditch on the other side of the road then climbed out to keep running north. She’d been happy to see the rest of the girls show up out of the woods and join them . None of them looked happy but they all looked very much alive. Alive was her new threshold for how well her daughters were doing. It was a threshold she knew most of the parents still alive in this new normal would trade for any day. It wasn’t lost on Kelly how lucky they were to still have their family together.

  She was worried about Kyler. He was being uncharacteristically silent. He must be in a ton of pain. The pig that’d roughed him up had been huge. He’d been serious about them leaving him behind as well. If it’d been the only way to save the kids, then Kelly would’ve left him there. As it was it looked like her bet on taking him had paid off. Now she just hoped he survived whatever injuries he had. Bouncing around on Randy’s back on this wild chase wasn’t anything any doctor would condone.

  A lone screech followed them into the woods.

  “I think one of them saw me when we were trying to get out of the ditch part.” Myriah told her mom. She’d put on a burst of speed to catch up and let her know.

  “Run faster.” Kelly said loudly enough to be heard over everyone’s breathing. She picked up the pace as did everyone else. They pushed themselves beyond what they considered endurable for a few minutes before lapsing back into more of a fast walk.

  They pressed on for what seemed like forever but in reality, was about two hours. Long enough for Kyler to process whatever pain he was in and start pestering Randy to let him try walking again. Randy was ignoring the requests for now. He knew Kyler needed more time to recover from that vicious attack than just a couple hours of napping while he was carried through the woods. Randy would’ve loved to set him down. Kyler himself may not be that heavy but when you added his weapons and pack it was all Randy could do to stay on his feet.

  They stopped when they ran into a riverbank. The bank was a steep drop into the river that was about ten feet below them. They collapsed to the ground at the sight of the river. It wasn’t like they would’ve been able to swim across it even if they weren’t all half dead. The river looked deep and wide. If they could figure out a way to get across it then they’d at least leave their current pursuers behind.

  “Left, or right? Ouch!” Kyler pulled back in pain as Kelly pressed on his leg. She mumbled an apology and started moving bandages around.

  “Your leg is officially gross. I think the pig got a pretty decent hunk of meat out of you. You’re like seeping blood but nothing looks too major. I guess we just keep it packed up with gauze and stuff you full of antibiotics and hope you don’t die.” Kelly announced before finally moving back from Kyler’s leg.

  “You’re the worst doctor ever.” Kyler said.

  “I’m the best one you’re going to get with your insurance out here.” Kelly shot back. She smiled to take the bite out of it. She’d actually been pretty nice she thought. She wasn’t sure how gangrene and all that worked but Kyler had a hunk of his leg missing. She was pretty sure she’d seen his blood covered leg bone when she’d been poking around. That hunk of flesh had been bitten off by a wild boar. Wild boars ate carrion so there was no telling what nastiness lurked inside it’s jaws. They needed to get him started on multiple kinds of antibiotics as soon as possible or he may end up with something worse than the Zombie virus. She told Caitlyn to see what she could dig up out of their bags.

  A few minutes later Kyler was choking down pain pills and antibiotics. Kelly was carefully separating the remaining medicine into the doses she wanted to give him. A loud growl erupted out of the woods near them.

  “Please don’t let that be another one of those giant pigs.” Ali said . Her little girl voice making everyone want to laugh. The problem was that she’d said it out loud. The growls immediately turned into the screeches of an infected who thought he’d stumbled on a free lunch.

  “I guess it’s not a pig.” Randy said lunging to his feet. His legs felt worse than before he’d sat down after the short rest they’d gotten. He had his hammer in one hand and a knife in the ot
her. You never knew which of your body parts was going to end up close enough to strike out at a Zombie when you were wandering through the woods. It helped to have weapons in both hands since punching didn’t really accomplish anything more than putting your hand near the Zombie’s teeth.

  The Zombie rushed into view and charged at Randy. Randy waited until the last second to sidestep and swing the hammer hard into the back of the Zombie’s head. The Zombie went tumbling down the steep bank into the river below. It wasn’t able to make it back up for some reason. It just stood at the bottom screeching.

  “If you’re done doctoring Kyler, I think we need to roll out.” Randy said casually. He was really starting to hate this whole Zombie apocalypse lifestyle. Even though it seemed like they were a lot better at it than most people.

  Kyler tried standing up. He was able to get to his feet, but forward momentum wasn’t happening anytime soon. Sighing Randy scooped him back up. They all began trudging north eastwards from where they’d been. They knew they absolutely should be running with the Zombie back there sounding the alarm that non-infected humans were nearby, but their gas tanks were all way low. The short break they’d just taken had been just long enough for their muscles to start hardening up on them. Getting back into the swing of moving through the woods was hard.

  Randy wished they’d never stopped for the short break. Other than getting the medication into Kyler and checking on him it’d done way more harm than good. Since they were walking this time, they were letting Zoey, Ali and Doreen walk as well. Doreen would probably need to be picked up and carried pretty soon. Letting the girls walk was allowing Caitlyn to carry Kyler’s backpack and her own giving her dad’s back a little bit of relief at least. Random screeching had them walking faster but there was only so much they could do. Resigning himself to probably needing to silently kill a few more Zombies in the near future Randy contemplated the easiest way to put Kyler on the ground without breaking his neck.

  Kyler was saved the indignity of being thrown around like a sack of potatoes by the sudden emergence of an overgrown farmyard. Lying on its side half hidden by the overgrown weeds was an aluminum flat bottomed boat. More screeches sounded and they appeared to be coming closer so without losing stride Randy jogged over to the boat and kicked it over so he could see the inside of it.

  It was full of dirt and a bit of crud but there was a pair of cheap plastic paddles lying on the ground underneath it. Randy had Kelly help him lower Kyler into the boat then they both started dragging it across the yard towards the riverbank. Caitlyn and the kids joined in on the pushing while Myriah grabbed the paddles and jogged to catch up with them.

  A Zombie must’ve noticed them from the road as it came screaming towards them from that direction. Hoping the boat didn’t sink when they put it in the water Randy asked Myriah to shoot the Zombie. He was looking to give her some practice and also keep the rest of them moving towards the water with the boat. Myriah fired a few shots and the Zombie was on the ground. The shots attracted the attention of the hundreds of Zombies who’d been homing in on the ruckus they’d been making while trying to slip away.

  Myriah shot another two Zombies then picked the paddles up and ran towards where they were just getting the boat to the water. Randy had her hop in and join the others while he took a few more shots at the Zombies starting to show up. With the boat in water up to his hips Randy climbed in. There was a second he thought he may have screwed up and wouldn’t be able to get in without tipping the boat, but Kelly and Caitlyn were able to pull him in. He landed on top of a very high looking Kyler who was half-smiling though very glazed eyes.

  “We may need to lower Kyler’s pain killer dose.” Randy announced sitting up and grabbing a paddle. Kelly was feverishly trying to teach herself how to paddle to keep the boat moving away from the shore. Caitlyn and Myriah were both shooting at the Zombies starting to crowd into the water towards them. One Zombie came streaking down the overgrown field towards them.

  “A jumper!” Myriah screamed out.

  “Kill it!” Kelly screamed back.

  Myriah and Caitlyn focused their fire on the Zombie moving faster than life towards them. Before it could get close enough to make a leap for the boat, they managed to bring it down. They sat down causing the boat to stop doing the crazy rocking it’d been doing and also saving them from the very real possibility of falling overboard. Then they were out deep in the water with nothing to worry about except the boat sinking before they made it to the other side.

  Chapter 8: Up the Creek

  Paddling was hard work with the number of people crammed into the small boat. It rode low in the water making each stroke an ordeal. Randy paddled steadily on his side while Myriah, Caitlyn and Kelly kept trading off on their side. They’d paddled to the opposite shore where they saw nothing but the scarred remains of burnt buildings. They needed a house with supplies, so they kept on paddling. They eventually found a small house on the water that wasn’t burnt down. They spent an hour paddling towards it only to end up looking down the barrel of two guns and being told to paddle the other way or die. They chose to paddle the other way.

  Paddling away from that house was probably the fastest the boat had moved since they originally escaped from the Zombies. The knowledge that there were a couple of survivors aiming guns at their backs while they paddled was solid motivation. They needed to find an unguarded home they could ransack. They needed food and water soon or they were all going to look like Kyler. He was currently laying on the deck curled in a ball just kind of staring. It was a little creepy until you knew that Kelly had messed up and given him two pain killers and no antibiotics. They were lucky he wasn’t puking everywhere. The complete lack of food may help explain that.

  They were close to drinking water straight out of the river. They all knew at this point finding a case of bottled waters wasn’t extremely likely. Even if you did find them who knew if they were even safe after sitting out so long. Kelly would prefer to at least boil the water if they couldn’t find any purification tablets. With all the other issues they had she didn’t think a pandemic of diarrhea in their little clan would help anyone’s sanity. Especially since they also didn’t have any wet wipes left. Finding those was starting to be near impossible as well. Who’d have ever thought wet wipes would be worth more than a golden chest full of cash?

  Finding anything was starting to get rough. Her mind flashed back to the huge carcass of the wild boar they’d left to rot in the woods. She wondered if they’d been saved by the Zombies stopping to chow down on the fresh pork instead of continuing to look for them. If so then the boar hadn’t died in vain. She wished they’d been able to hack off a nice big chunk of it to roast up for dinner though. The thought of fresh roasted pork would’ve made her drool if she had any moisture left in her mouth. Randy and Kelly had never been the hunting outdoorsy kind of people, but she was thinking she’d need to start encouraging him to more actively seek out and kill Bambi. Kyler had been in the Boy Scouts so he should know how to prepare a deer once you killed it.

  They paddled until the sides of the river closed in on them almost completely. Hidden behind the branches of a weeping willow that hung over the bank a small creek flowed out of the lake. They realized they’d been paddling around a lake fed by a stream versus a big river. If they could get some supplies, they were hopeful they may be able to just paddle their way north and east until they were in North Carolina. They were especially hopeful of doing that if the creek didn’t wander through any civilized parts of the world. It didn’t seem like it was wide enough for them to hide from jumpers, but it was flowing pretty good thanks to all the recent rain.

  They paddled in silence between the tree and bramble covered banks. The landscape opened up to dirt and mud as they went under an overpass. The creek speeding up as it was constricted to go beneath the low road. Everyone on the boat in full alert and feeling extremely vulnerable. The last time they’d been on a boat going under a bridge they’d been shot
at. This time the biggest danger was hitting their heads since the stream was up high enough to put them pretty close to the bottom of the bridge.

  They passed under the bridge without any incidents. Occasionally a tree or log would block most of the creek and they’d have to get out and manhandle the boat over the obstacle. For the most part though it was pretty smooth sailing. Then the sun started going down. In the last bit of light, they could make out a large building about a hundred yards away from the creek. The building quickly fading into a grey blob then disappearing altogether as they continued down the creek.

  “We should stop for the night. It’s dangerous paddling through this mess when we can’t see in front of us.” Randy whispered.

  Kelly agreed and they looked for a good place to pull over for the night. They saw a small sandy bank up ahead by the light of their flashlights and paddled over. They had a couple of blankets and some ponchos in their packs. It was nothing that was going to keep them comfortable, but it was better than just lying in the dirt. They spent some time trying to figure out the best way to distribute the blankets and what to do with the ponchos. They ended up with Kyler wrapped in a blanket on top of a poncho and then the kids sharing the other two blankets with Kelly on a poncho while Randy took the first watch.