“That makes sense,” we nodded knowingly.
“Do y’all have any food, sleeping bags, tents, or anything like that?”
“No,” we said. “We lost all that with our truck.”
“Well, bless your hearts,” she said shaking her head. “We’re gonna get you fixed up with some supper and find you a corner to sleep in for tonight.”
“We won’t stay long.” I assured her. “We’ve got to get back home to our dog and our neighbors and our own supplies.”
“Well,” she said somewhat disbelievingly, “That’s fine. Perhaps, y’all can trade with us. You’ll have to talk with the mayor before you go.”
“Alright,” I nodded. “Thank you so much!”
As I turned to gather up our little band, I saw the paramedics wheeling Charan into the urgent care clinic. I followed to the door. A nurse in medical scrubs blocked my path.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “We just can’t accommodate any more visitors.”
Vijay was already in. But, he came back towards the door.
“I’ll keep an eye on Charan,” he said. “We talk later.”
I turned back to look for Karen and found that she had lingered just a little longer with the welcoming committee. Now, she was looking for me.
“Tonight,” she said. “We get to sleep among the shoes!”
“Shoes?”
“Yes, we have a deluxe spot at the back of the shoe store.”
Before we headed off to our sleeping spot, Karen showed me where we could grab a sandwich. The sub shop was open. I was excited. But, when we got there, we found that they were only handing out peanut butter sandwiches, potato chips, and cups of water. It was standard fare for a zombie apocalypse.
Chapter 46
We were issued some blankets and assigned a couple of cots in the stock room of an abandoned shoe store. As we walked in, Karen eyed the shoes. They had plenty of cute sandals and boat shoes and dainty little sneakers. But, the shoe bargains of just a few months ago suddenly seemed pretty useless. Something with steel toes, thick leather uppers, and the ability to withstand a bite would work better. That didn’t stop Karen from grabbing a pair of glittery flats in her size.
“Do you ever think we’ll have an occasion to wear these?”
“I sure hope so.”
We made our way to the back and found our spot. It wasn’t particularly comfortable, but that didn’t matter. We were just glad to sleep in a fortified spot. The cots sagged and the room was stuffy and dark. There must have been three dozen people assigned to sleep in the store. I could hear several people snoring. But, they had no idea what they were in for once I nodded off. My snores could wake the dead. But, that wasn’t funny anymore.
“Do you think Dale is o.k.?” Karen asked as we started to nod off.
“Sure,” I replied trying to be reassuring. “Preston loves him.”
“We need to get back home to Dale,” she continued. “He’s family.”
“As soon as we get up,” I promised. “We’ll get a car, grab some gear, and hit the road.”
“Good.”
“How did we get stuck doing this?” Karen asked.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I think it was your suggestion.”
“I don’t hate them,” she said. “I just wish they would cook their curry somewhere else.”
Chapter 47
In the morning, we got up and took inventory of the few things we had. We both still had big knives strapped to our belts. I had a folding knife in my pocket. We had keys. Karen dumped the contents of her shoulder bag onto the cot. She was prepared for almost anything. She had a first aid kit, a pocket knife, wet wipes, her wallet and credit cards, lipstick, women’s necessities, a loaded magazine, and a Glock 17 semi-automatic pistol.
“How long have you had that?” I asked.
“Since we took it from Johnny Businessman,” she replied.
“Why didn’t you give it to me when I lost the Smith & Wesson?”
“You were being an asshole.”
“Can I have it now?”
“Why? You lost your pistol.”
“Ummm….can you shoot?”
“Better than a guy without a pistol.”
She had a point. I did lose my pistol. She still had one. I didn’t. But, I could see the wheels were spinning. She was thinking of something. She handed me the 9 millimeter Glock.
“You can have this pistol,” she said, “if you get me a car.”
Fortunately, the Glock served as the inspiration for the predecessor of my old Smith & Wesson. I pointed the gun in a safe direction, pushed the button to drop the magazine, and racked the slide to ensure that the chamber was empty. Once, I was certain. I took a close look at the Glock. It was similar to my old Smith. Where the Smith and Wesson had a smooth grip face, the Glock had subtle finger grooves. The Glock also offered a lighter trigger and took a different approach to the loaded safety indicator. But, the Glock was close enough to my Smith that I was comfortable using it. I loaded the loose round back into the magazine, put it back in the pistol, and racked the slide. It was good to go.
The next order of business was to get breakfast, check on Charan and Vijay, and then get a vehicle so that we could get home. We walked over to the sub shop to see what they had for breakfast. It was oatmeal day. Reliable sources told me that every day was oatmeal day. We both got a bowl with a bit of sugar and cinnamon. There was water to wash it down. In the age of zombies, this breakfast was a logistics miracle. We were happy to get it. After breakfast, we wandered over to the urgent care center.
“We’re here to see two Indian gentlemen: Vijay and Charan,” we announced at the door.
“Oh come right in,” a young woman in scrubs replied. “They should be good to go.”
“Already?” I said incredulously.
“This is a five-bed medical facility serving hundreds of people,” the nurse said. “We don’t have the space or the resources.”
We were led into a consultation room where Charan was sitting bandaged in a wheelchair. His complexion was brighter and his wound was professionally dressed. His arm was immobilized in a sling.
“Hi guys,” Charan said bravely. “They have put me back together.”
The nurse tapped me on the shoulder and I stepped out of the room into the hallway with her.
“Listen,” she said quietly. “This kind of wound normally takes a hospital stay of at least ten days, serious attention to cleaning and dressing the wound, and then several weeks of physical therapy.”
“How are we supposed to take care of him?”
“We’ve shown Vijay the basics of what to do,” she answered. “But, we can’t provide that level of care.”
“We don’t have any medical facilities,” I protested. “All we have is a pharmacist and some supplies.”
“Hmmm,” she replied pensively. “Perhaps we can work a deal?”
“What kind of deal?”
“We need drugs and medical supplies,” she said flatly handing me a list. “Bring your friend back in a week--and he’ll get a doctors appointment--if you bring us these formulations of prescription drugs.”
“I can barely read any of this,” I said.
“I’m sure your pharmacist can read it just fine.”
“You have a deal.” I said. “In a week, our group will bring him back with the supplies.”
“But,” I continued. “To get this prescription to our pharmacy, we need wheels!”
“We’ll see what we can do.”
Chapter 48
The nurse and I walked out into the parking lot. She handed me a set of keys and pointed to a royal blue Toyota Camry. It was a basic passenger sedan and it was covered with brown pollen, but it looked damn good to me as a pedestrian.
“It belonged to a patient,” the nurse said.
“Thank you!”
I shoved the keys in my front pocket and strolled back into the Urgent Care clinic. It was time to make the trek back home.
“I got us a car,” I announced. “We can go home.”
“Wow!” Vijay exclaimed
“How did you get that?” Karen asked.
“I made a deal.” I said waving the prescription list around. “In one week, someone brings Charan back for follow up treatment with all of the drugs on this list.”
“That someone had better not be you!” Karen warned.
Vijay started wheeling Charan out and we ran out to car. I pulled out the keys and opted to use the key and door lock to unlock the car. Karen reminded me that she was the one driving and that I was the one shooting on this trip. She was right. I squeezed into the front passenger seat while she started the car.
“Wait! Wait! Wait!” we heard a woman yelling.
Karen rolled down the windows and we looked around. We saw Francine running awkwardly across the parking lot. Today, she was wearing a pant-suit with a tropical print top. Across her waist, she wore a black nylon belt that clashed with the rest of her outfit. But, as she approached the car, she paused to straighten her clothing and when she tugged on her belt the ubiquitous black nylon and velcro holster sold at every gun show in America rotated into view. She wore an old school revolver on her hip.
“Are you leaving us?” she asked in a church-lady southern drawl. “You should have stopped by!”
“Well,” Karen said. “We have to get Charan back home so he can rest and recover.”
“Bless your hearts,” Francine replied. “You need to take good care of that young man.”
“He’ll be back here for a doctor’s appointment in a week with some drugs that doctor asked for.”
“The mayor really wanted to talk with you.” Francine said. “So, I didn’t want to let you slip out of town without him saying hello.”
Karen and I looked at each other and wondered what was up. When we looked back to Francine, we noticed a distinguished looking older gentleman in a business suit ambling up. He was wearing a red power tie in the middle of the zombie apocalypse. I had really hoped that the zombie apocalypse would have changed our country’s dress code.
“Hi y’all,” he said. “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Mayor Jenkins. I’m the acting mayor of Kennesaw.”
“The acting Mayor?” Karen asked. “What happened to the Mayor?”
“Unfortunately,” Mayor Jenkins said. “He passed away in a battle against these monsters over at Due West Road.”
“I’m sorry to hear that!”
“He was a real hero,” the Mayor continued. “He rallied the townspeople for the fight. We almost stopped them. You know every household in Kennesaw was required by law to own a gun. But, unfortunately, not enough people had major quantities of ammunition.”
“At least some of you survived.”
Francine interjected, “Mayor Jenkins drew them away with a distraction.”
“I’m just glad some of us were able to escape and regroup.”
“Thank you for all your help.” I said yelled from my side of the car.
“You are most welcome,” the mayor replied. “We are glad we could help you out.”
Here comes the “but,” I thought. What does he want? Can we go now?
“However,” he continued. “We need some help ourselves.”
“Sure Mayor,” Karen replied in a flash. “What can we do?”
“Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!” I thought.
“We need some specialized equipment,” the Mayor continued. “We’ve got this old boy who thinks he can get a Ham radio working so we can contact the outside world.”
“But,” Karen said. “We don’t have any Ham radio equipment.”
“Hell,” Mayor Jenkins said. “Don’t nobody have any Ham equipment. We all used Twitter, Facebook and the interwebs before this happened.”
“I don’t think we can help you on that one.”
“Yes,” he said. “You can! There is an electronics hobby store over in Cumberland that used to carry all that stuff.”
“Why should we risk our necks,” Karen said. “Trying to get a bunch of nerdy electronic stuff?”
“We have just opened an ammunition factory,” the mayor said. “And, we can hook you up with a lot of ammunition—a whole lot!”
Unlimited ammunition was the holy grail of the zombie apocalypse. I hopped out of the passenger side and stood up beside the car. I knew the Kennesaw had all kinds of small arms accessory businesses, military surplus stores, and other macho industries due to their mandatory gun ownership law. But, I hadn’t thought about ammunition. I vaguely remembered shooting some Old Dixie Ammunition a few years back. It was commercially reloaded ammunition and it was cheap.
“Did you guys get the Old Dixie Ammunition factory working?”
The Mayor pulled out a brand new box of 9mm ammunition and handed it to me with a wink. I glanced at the box. They were 115-grain jacketed hollow points. We had another precious 50 rounds for the trip home.
“That factory is a secret son!”
“No promises on when,” I said. “But we might be able to help with those parts.”
“Great!” the mayor replied with a huge grin. “Here’s a list of what we need.”
He handed Karen a sheet of paper with some diagrams and a parts list for some sort of transmitter and receiver for Ham radio. While we didn’t understand what all the parts were, we might be able to find the place and get them. Reliable contact with the outside world would help everyone.
Chapter 49
We said our goodbyes and then we got out of there. They had saved our lives and saved our comrade. But, they had also made potentially dangerous demands on us and on the people of our community. I wasn’t at all sure that we would be able to meet those demands. Ammunition could be helpful, but was it worth risking our lives for? Even though we had agreed to help, we wondered if we had bitten off more than we could chew. But, once we passed through through gates of the little human outpost, we had to focus on our journey home. As we looked right and left out of the shopping center, a few random zombies took notice of us and started our way. Christy punched it and shot out into the street.
The actual town of Kennesaw was sandwiched between I-75 and U.S. 41 which paralleled each other and were intersected by the Cobb County Connector. Ordinarily, in any non-rush hour or holiday or construction scenario, we would have been able to breeze home on any route and make good time. Overly optimistic realtors liked to claim it was 45 minute commute. But, now, each of those routes had been an evacuation path. We expected them to be jammed with cars, accidents, and hordes of hungry zombies.
“How should we go?” Karen asked.
“Backroads to Marietta, through the battlefield, through the neighborhoods, give the square a wide birth, and down to South Cobb,” I guessed.
We’d lived in Kennesaw many years before and Karen knew the roads like the back of her hand. The Camry accelerated to about 50 miles an hour and we started to make good time. We just focused on Kennesaw Mountain which rises about 800 feet above the local terrain. It was once the site of a Confederate stronghold that once defended Atlanta. After a bloody battle, the Yankees had outflanked the site and driven on towards the city. But, it was right on the most direct route towards our home. Outflanking the mountain would just take us through many more miles of zombies.
Fortunately, we didn’t see too many as we took the two lane back roads. We just saw small clusters of zombies every few hundred feet. Fortunately, they couldn’t react fast enough to block a fast moving car. We passed housing developments with what Atlantans derisively called McMansions. They were huge tract houses that were made to look like manors. They offered an abundance of square footage, huge entry foyers, chandeliers, and brick facades. Too often owners got big utility bills, construction defects, and high mortgage payments. But, that was all in the old world. Now, the houses stood quietly. Sometimes, there were signs of drama and trauma or small groups of zombies wandering the neighborhood streets. We didn’t have time to learn the stories. Karen ju
st pushed the pedal down and we started to make good time. Without traffic, I even began to wonder if the optimistic realtors were right. But, commuting time no longer mattered. The world would never be the same.
Soon we made it to Old Highway 41. It was the direct way through Kennesaw National Battlefield Park to Kennesaw Avenue and directly into the backside of the historic town of Marietta. On our right was a split rail fence that separated the road from the battlefield. It was a sacred place where past soldiers had died and a place where I walked a good dog we owned long ago. When we reached the biscuit restaurant that we always meant to try, we took a quick right onto Kennesaw Avenue. The mountain loomed beside us. I thought I could see deer in the forests munching on shrubbery as they had for generations.
“Keep a sharp lookout guys,” I announced. “We’ll pass through two walled communities and by some big open fields.”
Karen answered by mashing the pedal to the floor. We were flying down Kennesaw Avenue as fast as the Camry would allow. We were going nearly twice the 45 miles per hour that caused the solar-powered speed limit monitoring sign to flash urgently at us to “Slow Down.”
“Slow down!” Karen laughed.
“SLOW DOWN!” I replied. “The sign is getting angry!”
We had chuckled at that sign for years. We always spend up just enough to get chastised and then slowed before we entered the old historic neighborhoods of Marietta. Now, the solar powered sign was literally the last vestige of civilization.
We pressed on. As we got closer and closer to the historic part of Marietta, we started to see more and more Zombies. There were dozens literally just standing around. They saw our car and collectively turned toward us. Karen stomped on the brakes and slowed us down towards the speed limit. On our left we passed the kudzu covered ruins of an old mill and on our right we saw some quirky old estates with huge lawns and stately trees. Karen had to start changing lanes to dodge individual zombies. Soon, we had railroad tracks by the road on our left and a historic neighborhood on the right. We saw the three locomotives of the mixed freight train that we had hit a couple of days earlier. They looked undamaged. It made me wonder. But, soon it would be time to turn. But, the question was where? We didn’t go over the residential streets very often.
Zombie Complex | Book 1 | The Battle For Chattahoochee Run Page 11
