by Joe Kelly
“I’m going to pull up beside them, when I stop, everyone covers Jason while he climbs up and cuts the lock for them.” Jared said, promising himself that the next hardware store they raided they would pick up more bolt cutters, so that each team would have one.
The Van pulled up alongside the Deuce and stopped the side doors opening. Logan crossbow at the ready leaped out, followed by Jason. Jared was right at their heels, he hit the ground weapon up and swinging towards the first target, zombie twenty feet away, stumbling along a Pontiac station wagon trying to reach the team.
“not this time Spanky” Jared muttered as he fired. The crossbow bolt smashed out on a flat trajectory, striking the zombie in the forehead. It pitched over backwards. Jared was already reloading his weapon before it hit the ground.
Jason dashed around the front of the van and quickly climbed up into the deuce. “someone called for a key.” He said as lifted the cutters. Grunting with effort he pulled the arms of the cutter together. With a loud snap the blades bit through the steel hasp and the lock fell to the ground.
“Henry open it up, everyone else be ready just in case.” Chris called out.
One of the first trailers they had opened, had contained a zombie. The rig had been on the side of the road which made Chris think that the driver had been checking the trailer when he had been attacked. Injured the driver had climbed into the trailer and closed the door and died some time later. Since then they took no chances even if the trailer was locked.
At Chris’s signal, Henry pulled the doors open stepping back as he did so clearing a field of fire. Bingo, Chris thought seeing the trailer was filled from top to bottom and front to back. “okay people let’s do this as fast as we can.” The men rushed up and began pulling out boxes and cutting them open with the box knives each of the carried for this kind of job.
“Blenders” Henry said shaking his head as he tossed the box he held over the side of the deuce. “I’ll raise your food processors” John Madoc called out. Another box hit the road. John was only nineteen and had escaped Knoxville with Logan’s group. He had lost count of how many zombies he had killed in that nightmare escape. The only ones that haunted him were the ones he had known, like his roommate, his girlfriend, a professor and many more.
Chris shook his head, but said nothing. It was stress relief nothing more, just like We joke. Though this time it’s a much safer job being up off the road in the back of a deuce.
He looked up as the ultralight flew overhead, it no longer sounded like a mosquito, no with the Enduro motor it now sounded like an enraged mosquito on steroids. His lips twitched in amusement as he focused on his team, particularly Henry.
To say he hadn’t been happy about Henry being placed on his team was an understatement, but being honest with himself, Henry was working out much better than Chris had expected. Henry had asked few questions this morning when he had been told what they would be doing today, and the questions he had asked had been on topic and not whining about the job. In fact, Henry was working faster than the others on the team and if he kept that up for a few Missions then Chris would be officially impressed.
He had half expected fireworks between Madoc and Henry, since Madoc had ‘dated’ Henry’s girlfriend for a short while. But there had been nothing, thank god for acting like adults Chris told himself.
The minutes ticked by, the piles of boxes to either side of the Deuce were growing taller. They were not even a quarter of the way into the trailer and had only ten boxes they were keeping. “Creamed corn” Henry called out, he stacked the case with the other ten, “looks like a whole pallet of the stuff” He commented as he went back into the trailer.
“Load it all up, three minutes left” Chris called out.
“Keep loading, so far its looking good on the ground” Jared said over the radio having overheard Chris.
“look at this” Madoc called out excitedly. He had just reached a pallet of boxes; each box was maybe six to eight inches thick and the same width and length as the pallet. “solar panels.”
“Priority item, everyone help get that on the deuce.” Chris called out then reported to Jared.
“now that’s a find” Jared said once Chris finished.
“Four panels to a box, ten boxes total.” Chris said. “Don’t get all excited and we will need inverters and batteries for them.”
“that’s more panels than we had, and inverters and batteries will be laying around in stores, people were grabbing food and medicine not solar gear.” Jared pointed out. “we can look for a Harbor freight and in car parts stores for them.”
Team two had swept the area in front of the Semi for almost a hundred yards, putting down any undead they found. Steve was just turning to head back to the idling vehicles when he saw ten undead emerge from the woods on the east side of the road.
“contact, ten” He reported then frowned as six more stumbled out. “Sixteen” He amended.
“Wrap it up, we’re moving out” Jared called out lifting a hand and making a circular motion. Even as he spoke he saw a group emerge from the woods just behind their position sixty feet away. “Contact seventeen” He reported. “I want everyone mounted up right now.” Jared said over the radio.
There were just too many to take on with hand weapons and crossbows and he was sure that even more undead were on their way and they were just far enough away the teams could mount up and leave without expending precious ammunition. Later, he could send Ronny back to see if the area was clear then come back with the teams and strip more out of the truck.
The teams on the ground quickly board their vehicles, with time to spare. The Team stripping the Trailer wrapped up, closed the trailer door. With a Bellow the Deuces pulled out the rest of the vehicles following.
How much longer can our luck last, Jared asked himself. Private Murphy is going to turn his attention to us again at some point no matter how well prepared we are and how good our plans are.
“on the bright side, we have a bunch of new solar panels” Logan commented.
“True.” Jared agreed and a little more food. I think once we set up the new camp, I’m going to send Ori and Steve out to do a little hunting. Another deer or two wouldn’t hurt.
He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, what we need is a large supply of food stuff. We aren’t going to find that at any grocery store because the majority of those were stripped bare even before the complete collapse and what few remained stocked after that were stripped by survivors. Granted a few might still contain canned goods, but the odds of us stumbling across one are slim, probably closer to zero.
That Walgreens Kelly and his family had been hiding in was probably the only place we will come across. No what we need is something closer to a sure bet. Some place that the average person wouldn’t have thought about or even known about. Like a Distribution center for a large chain or once we hit the coast some of the ware houses on the docks. The Dock are probably out since the dead will be thick as flea’s.
The few Walmart distribution centers I’ve seen have always been outside of big cities and towns, not visible from the main road and fenced in. Maybe that’s not usual but I’m betting it is. The only problem might be former employees might have holed up on the property.
If we run into that situation I can at least attempt to bargain with them. And if they say no? he wasn’t sure. At the moment they had food, more than enough for a while.
We need to spread the food out across the vehicles, that way we can’t lose it all if one vehicle goes down and has to be left behind. We are going to need more vehicles too, if this keeps up. And therein lies the problem, more vehicles mean more fuel.
The problems never end, and Ronny wants a real plane, which means more and a different kind of fuel, a vehicle to carry it in and what about maintenance on the thing.
And of course, there is the health side of things, we need pumps to put water into the RV tanks, so we can at least shower a couple of times a week and wearing dirty c
lothes could make the survivors sick, not to mention dirty clothes would fall apart in short order so that meant they would need power and water for the clothes washers in a couple of the Rv’s.
He glanced at Jill, who seemed preoccupied and was watching the forested hills slide past the vans windows. “you okay?” He asked, she had been quiet all morning. It was also a way to keep his mind from dwelling on the problems they faced.
“in the traditional sense? No.” Jill said without turning to look at him. She wanted to tell him about the dreams she had been having. She wanted to say how much she had grown to love him, she wanted those rotting things out there to fall over and she did none of that. “For the Land of the dead, I’m better than okay. We have food, weapons and limited safety, which as you point out is probably more than the vast majority of survivors out there can say.”
“this is where Ronny, if he were riding with us, would say something like ‘don’t forget a good sex life and spankings.’” Jared said giving her a lopsided smile that didn’t touch his eyes.
“sounds right,” Jill agreed. “has he always been like that?”
“what sexually addicted, a perv, a man whore.” Jared asked, his sense of humor surfacing. “The night I met him, He had four hookers sitting with him.”
“You’re kidding”
“no, I’m not.” Jared said shaking his head. “Okay maybe they weren’t hookers, I’m not sure. But he has always like the ladies, he started slowing down when he got out and stayed in Tennessee then changed a lot when he met Mary. Now, well its more talk than anything else, He loves her a lot.” He chuckled suddenly at a memory. “remind me to tell you about the time goat boy broke up a wedding.”
“Now that’s unfair to throw that out then tell me to wait.” She said then looked at Jared, if he had been trying to break her dark mood he had succeeded. “Goat boy?”
“Now I’m curious.” Logan said from the back of the van.
“Another day, I promise” Jared said with a smile.
✽ ✽ ✽
Tendrils of smoke drifted through the shattered store front as Jared crouched beside a corpse searching the body. “You know this sucks!” He muttered as he took the cell phone, and multi tool he had found and slipped them into a pouch he carried. He rocked back on his heels and looked around making sure that no undead had somehow gotten past the guards.
His gaze slid over the overturned desks and chairs, a woman’s sensible shoe lay in the middle of the floor, ceiling tiles that had been knocked out of the ceiling by the explosion lay scattered across the floor.
It had been a fast fight, all things considered, one of Ori’s propane bombs had unlocked the door and part of the wall to either side, the shrapnel, mostly glass and shattered brick had taken out four of the six zombies. Team one had taken out what was left of the dead.
“I got two full Glock mags off this one” Ronny called out. “we can always use more .40.” He said as he rolled the corpse of the former police officer over to remove his duty belt. The pistol was nowhere in sight.
There were few undead bodies worth searching thank god, Jared thought.
“why are you grabbing cell phones?” Logan asked as he walked past carrying a box of canned food from the storage room.
“it’s a hobby.” Jared replied as he rose smoothly to his feet. The truth was he was looking to the future, when they could start rebuilding. He hoped to recover as much music, movies and information as possible off Cell phones, Laptops and PC so that not everything was lost. Of course, if we all die it won’t matter anyway, he thought.
“he is going to play sphinx” Ronny commented as he looked to see if there was anything on the other corpses that might deserve a look.
The radio suddenly crackled to life. “Might want to hurry up.” Steve said, his voice sounding tinny in Jared’s earbud. “we have eleven more Tangos in sight, traffic is getting heavier”
“Roger that, we are almost done” Jared told him as he checked his watch. “all right people, lets wrap it up, what we can’t get loaded in the next five minutes we leave.”
The food bank had been a god send, Jared thought. apparently as things went to hell in this area, no one or at least very few had thought about the food bank. Which had worked out well for Jared and his people
They had been heading for the next camp, when Ori had spotted the place and suggested they check it out. I’m glad we did, Jared thought, if it had just been a scavenging team I had organized we wouldn’t have been able to take three quarters of the stuff we have collected right now. And making multiple trips back to a location only ups the odds of heavy zombie presence.
Hopefully there might be more food banks just like this in other towns, Jared thought as he took hold of his rifle and brought to low ready in case things went south. Not that I really believe that, but it would be great and it’s something to check out when we can.
And not just a food bank, Jared thought, next door was a thrift shop both had been run by a local church. Ten more people were working over there stripping out clothes, books and shoes.
The stream of people carrying boxes, milk crates and bags full of food stuffs rushed to load what they could while they could. The one thing they had learned was how to strip a building as fast as possible to avoid getting besieged by the undead and trapped.
He strode out to the line of idling vehicles and checked the situation, Steve and others had the everything well in hand he thought noticing the scattered corpses along the edges of the parking lot. So far not a single zombie had made it into the parking lot But the growing numbers coming from both directions would eventually make it impossible to stop. He checked his watch again noting the time. “All right mount up, we are done.” He called out.
The convoy pulled out, the Deuce’s leading the way, the heavy trucks plowed through the gathering undead with ease, the undead that weren’t brushed aside were crushed. Five minutes later they were out of the town and heading back into the rural areas.
“that was fun” Logan said from the passenger seat.
“if you liked that I can pull some teeth for my next trick” Jared replied looking into the rearview mirror, Jill was sitting in the back talking quietly with Mary. He had no idea about what.
“it was better than the last time we stopped to recover fuel.” Logan commented. That was true, they had been hit hard and fast by the undead on that stop. “I think we ended up only getting forty gallons out of that tank.”
“Fifty.” Jared replied. “we probably used more than that, driving away.” He said bitterly. At least no one had died, but it had been close. Ori and Steve had covered the ground crews desperate run to their vehicles. The undead had been hanging on to the sides of the vehicles as they pulled away.
“All’s well that ends without dying” Logan said. “Yes, that’s looking for a silver lining.”
“You and Ori should end up best friends, he can’t joke either.” Jared said with the ghost of a smile.
Even at the end of the world, a sunset could still be dazzling, Jared thought gazing at the western sky where blazing orange, red and golds faded into pink rose and then aquamarine. The old mining facility looked full with all the RV’s, Deuces and other vehicles parked there. Cut into the side of a hill, in other states people would have called it a mountain. Heavy equipment, dump trucks and front-end loaders sat where they had been abandoned.
It was more like a deep stone bowl, with three massive mine shafts bored into the North wall, Jared thought as he watched the western sky.
Clearing the area had taken two hours, and then another half hour that the entire group had used to pile old rocks, boards and anything else they could find across the entrances of the mine shafts to block them off. The barricade wasn’t much to look at but it was enough to keep any undead that might be down in the shafts, inside and away from the camp.
He took a deep breath of clean air, another good point in staying out here in the sticks. The stench of the dead is rare. I wonder h
ow much longer before the hordes of undead in the cities start sweeping out into the rural area’s or will they just stay close to the places they once called home.
He shivered as he thought about any of the survivors outside of New York city, being surrounded by the Millions of undead that had swept out of the city like a tidal wave the sheer weight of numbers breaking down walls, shattering glass, allowing the dead to get inside buildings and feast.
Way to have happy thoughts, He told himself pushing aside the nightmarish mental images. Right now, we are safer than most people, He told himself. He wondered how true that was or was he just trying to convince himself it was true.
Tomorrow they would cross the Smokies via the Newfound Gap and be in Cherokee, the route would take them along the Oconaluftee river and hopefully whatever Pappy’s dream had meant would become clear. Probably won’t. I still have trouble believing in prophetic dreams. Isn’t it more likely that it’s just our minds bringing up information that we had forgotten, or solutions our subconscious came up with.
