Zombies! (Book 3): Violence Solves Everything

by Merritt, R. S.

  She cried until her throat hurt and the tears stopped coming. She beat on the door and walls until her knuckles bled. She slept and when she woke up, she was still trapped. She was still seeing the house out the back window of the car as they drove away. The house that was due to be overrun by Zombies. The house that had her little sister hiding in a bathtub. Zoey was being protected from certain death by a cheap shower curtain. Every second she was in this closet was another second closer to death for her little sister.

  Why? What did these idiots want with them? Why was she locked in a closet when she should be out there trying to save her little sister? Where were Doreen and Ali and Caitlyn? For all she knew they may all be in a situation where they could die any second. She was going mad with worry. She yelled at the door for a little while. She screamed for them to let her out so she could save her sister. She screamed to know where her sisters were being kept. She made threats. She was ignored. She eventually slept again.

  When she woke up there were two more water bottles and a little bag full of trail mix. She devoured the stale trail mix washing it down with the water. About fifteen minutes after eating the trail mix and drinking the water she was beyond groggy. She couldn’t even manage to put any coherent thoughts together. She collapsed into the corner of the closet and watched as the closet door opened. She willed herself to jump for the man who’d opened it. She needed to rip out his throat and make a run for the exit. From there she’d go to find her sister. The drugs in the water she’d drank kept her from remembering her sisters name.

  She managed some completely ineffectual punches on the back of the man who scooped her up and threw her over his shoulder. He carried her out into the hallway. The other man stayed behind to clean out the closet. He made a note of the fact that Myriah had used the bottle instead of relieving herself on the floor. It was a crude test, but it did seem to separate the ones who were going to make it from the rest. The ones who’d maintained more of a sense of normalcy did much better in this environment than the one’s who’d regressed. The ones who’d gone feral as the principal liked to call it. They typically shipped the feral ones off to the camps without bothering to waste any time attempting to groom them.

  Myriah slowly came back to life sitting in a swivel chair. A man and woman sat across from her talking about supply runs and shipping issues. Myriah didn’t really understand everything they were saying but she chalked that up to the massive headache she had. She tried to get out of the chair but discovered her hands had been tied to the arm rests. Her legs were loose but that didn’t help her since she would still be attached to the chair. She shifted around trying to figure out how to free her arms.

  Burning pain across the top of her thighs. Myriah cried out and pushed herself backwards. Looking up she saw the man had gotten up out of his chair and was standing over her with a wooden rod in his hand. Her legs burnt badly from the sting of that rod being whipped across her thighs. She doubled her efforts to free her arms and got another hard strike across her thighs. Tears leapt unbidden into her eyes. She screamed out loud in pain and frustration. She fixed her gaze on the man who’d been hitting her. He reached back and started to bring the rod down again when the woman cleared her throat.

  “You do know you can’t win this right? You’re tied to a chair in a locked room facing a man with a weapon who’s under my protection. I’m trying to decide if I admire your spirit or if you’re just supremely stupid. I’m leaning towards stupid but please prove me wrong. Or, we’ll simply get rid of you. We can always use more scavengers and Zombie bait. If you happen to survive until you come of age, we could give you to a common soldier as a reward.”

  “Or you could shut your dumbass mouth before I get my hands loose and shut it for you.” Myriah stuttered out. She tried to have it come out like a zinger from an action hero in a summer blockbuster. She felt like her voice cracked hallway through it and the fear was perceptible in her voice though. She hated herself for the weakness. She hated whoever these people were.

  “Ok. Well we’re going to try one more thing to see if we can get you to cooperate. If not, then there’s plenty of other girls out there we can pull into the program.” The lady turned her head slightly towards the open door to the hall and called out to someone out there to bring someone else into the room.

  Myriah glanced over towards the open door wondering what this new ploy was. Her heart sank when she saw who they were marching into the room. A tearful Ali was leading Doreen into the room by the hand. Doreen and Ali both smiled when they saw Myriah. Doreen started running towards Myriah with her arms spread and a big grin on her face. Both Ali and Doreen looked like they’d had baths and haircuts recently. They were both wearing pretty little flowery dresses and crocs.

  Before Doreen had gotten hallway to Myriah the lady nodded. The man stepped forward with the cane pole and whipped it across the back of Doreen’s thighs. Doreen fell to the ground screaming in pain. Ali jumped forward to help Doreen and was rewarded with two strikes to her back. Both girls were on the ground in pain. Myriah was screaming and cursing and alternately begging and threatening the lady and the man. Ali crawled across the floor to wrap herself around Doreen to shield her from any more blows. The man stood over both of the with cane pole held ready to strike and looked over at the lady.

  “I’m sorry! That’s enough! I’ll do whatever you guys say! Stop hitting them!” Myriah shouted. The lady looked over at Myriah then back at the man.

  “I don’t think I believe you quite yet.” She nodded at the man who whipped Ali in the back and arms until she rolled off Doreen. Then the man gave Doreen a few more whacks. Blood was seeping out of cuts in Alis and Doreen’s brand-new dresses. Neither of them looked freshly bathed anymore. Myriah was sobbing and saying over and over she’d do anything. She kept saying how sorry she was. Seeing the blood on her littles sisters pretty new dress she meant it. Watching Ali try so bravely to protect Doreen she meant it. A tiny voice in the back of her head told her to apologize and beg for now but a day of reckoning would come.

  “Do you believe her now ma’am?” The man asked. He looked like he was losing his stomach for beating the little girls at his feet with the cane pole.

  “I believe I do.” The woman turned her face from where she’d been watching the children be beaten to look again at Myriah. “What was your name again?” The lady casually asked her.

  “It’s Myriah ma’am. Doreen and Ali there are my little sisters. I’m so sorry for how I’ve acted. I can follow orders. I can –“ The lady cut her off with a swipe of her hand through the air.

  “You may address me as ‘principal’. Only the guards and other adults are allowed to call me ma’am. You will, of course, follow orders moving forward. If you don’t follow orders, we won’t bother hurting you. We’ll whip your little sisters instead. The only real reason we have to waste our resources on a girl her age is to help keep you and your other sister in line. Starting now you will do what you’re told or there will be consequences. Understood?” The principal waited for Myriah to confirm she understood.

  Myriah nodded her head in affirmation. The principal pointed at her and the man she’d brought as her enforcer stepped forward and whipped Myriah hard across the thighs. Myriah looked up in shock.

  “Let’s try that again. When I ask you a question you will answer the question out loud. You will never nod your head or mumble anything to myself, the guards, or the other adults in this building. Or you will be punished. Understood?” The principal stood in front of Myriah with an evil grin resting on her lips.

  “Yes. Understood principal.” Myriah said as loudly and clearly as she could manage over the searing pain emanating from the tops of her thighs.

  “That’s better. Now tell your little sisters goodbye. You won’t get a chance to speak to them again for a while. Then you’ll follow Mr. Abrams to your room assignment. I don’t expect to hear of any more trouble from you.” The principal got up and left the room. Leaving Mr. Abrams and
another guard in the room with them. Myriah assumed the other guard must be the one who’d be taking Doreen and Ali to their areas.

  Mr. Abrams came over and untied her wrists so she could get up out of the chair. He watched her impassively as she painfully knelt down to hug Doreen and Ali. Myriah had to be careful as it seemed like every spot her hands touched on either of their bodies made them wince in pain. Doreen and Ali were both crying as they all tried to hug each other and wish this nightmare away. Myriah was thinking Zoey might actually be the lucky one to not have ended up here.

  In what seemed like no time at all the other guard signaled it was time for them to go. Mr. Abrams told Myriah to follow him and walked out the door briskly. Not knowing what else to do and hating herself for her weakness Myriah peeled Doreen’s hands off of her and left the room quickly. She didn’t look back. She knew she had to play their game for now, and she was determined to do it. Until the time was right not to play their game anymore.

  Chapter 23: So Now What?

  “This sucks.” Pete said looking down at the writhing mass of Zombies undulating on the forest floor. They were high enough in the tree where you had to peek between the limbs and foliage to see them. The height didn’t seem to diminish the sheer volume of that many Zombies. They howled like a team of demented hunting dogs with a bear cub treed. They were high enough in the stout old pine tree that the limbs were dangerously thin. Every time one of them shifted their body around to get more comfortable they were in serious danger of plummeting to their deaths.

  “It could be worse.” Tom said from his perch slightly below Kyler and Pete. He was heavier than either one of them so had stopped trusting the limbs to hold him slightly before Kyler and Pete came to that same decision. Since he was the lowest, he was on guard duty. Guard duty in this case mostly consisting of waiting until one of the adrenalized Zombies showed up and made a play to get up in the tree with them. Tom was doing his best to shoot them out of the tree with minimal use of ammunition.

  “How exactly?” Kyler asked. He was ok with taking the bait. Anything to get his mind off the fact they were probably going to die stuck in this tree. He didn’t know why but it really bothered him that he didn’t really have a clue where he was right now. It probably didn’t say much for the quality of his supposed spy craft that he wasn’t even sure he was still in Georgia. He imagined showing back up and providing the report to the commander. Be careful of that tree in the southeast part of the USA because there’s a lot of Zombies underneath it. Really useful intel he was going to be able to provide. Lucky for him he’d be dead long before he was going to have to make any sort of report at this rate.

  “We could be one of those things down below howling up at the tree instead of one of us losers sitting up here in it. The way I figure it we already did better than ninety percent of the population just to still be alive at this point.” Tom stopped talking to draw a bead on a skinny little Zombie who looked like he was dressed in a kimono. It was getting difficult to tell the race and sex of the Zombies now that their faces were covered in boils and pus. They were starting to look more and more like the orcs out of the Lord of the Ring movies than anything else. Except their faces oozed blood and pus and they had a yellow jaundice tinge to them and always looked greasy. It wasn’t a good look.

  “Nice shot.” Pete complimented Tom on the head shot he’d just scored. They’d all seen the Zombie do a backflip when the round took off most of its skull. It’d come running up the ladder leading to the deer stand attached to the tree. The same deer stand they’d used to get up in the tree when the smoke grenades hadn’t worked out as well as Kyler had hoped. If the deer stand hadn’t turned up when it did to provide them this flimsy escape, they’d probably be dead by now. If they’d been able to just climb the tree and sit there most of the Zombies would’ve just wandered by underneath and everything would’ve been fine and dandy.

  They couldn’t just sit there though when the random adrenalized Zombie kept jumping for them. Kyler was hoping that with the setting sun the Zombies may settle down and forget they were up in the tree. Then with any luck at all the Zombies would wander away in a day or two and they could climb down. It was going to suck living in a tree for that long, but it was definitely better than the alternative. Kyler shifted around to try to get a little more comfortable on the two branches he was straddled across. With his back against the tree it actually wasn’t too horrible.

  “We should go into quiet mode as soon as it starts getting dark. The sooner we do that the sooner these Zombies will wander off.” Tom said from below Kyler. Following his own advice, he shut up after that and stopped shooting the Zombies who crowded around the deer stand with hands extended up towards him. As long as none of them exhibited any Michael Jordan jumping skills, he saw no need to take shots at them. They were actually serving to keep the more coordinated Zombies from getting up the ladder to get close to them.

  Kyler was starting to think they might actually be able to pull this off when he saw the Zombies start going ballistic beneath them. He shifted around trying to see what was going on down below. He figured it out about the same time he smelled the smoke. Deer and other animals were tearing through the forest all around them and running into the mass of Zombies radiating out from the tree they were stuck in. The Zombies were jumping around like crazy trying to grab the food so conveniently running past them. Kyler assumed the animals were fleeing from a fire.

  Kyler further assumed the fire was probably emanating from the area where he’d set off all the explosives to try and cover their retreat. In retrospect blowing up a truck bed full of gasoline and explosives next to a forest full of kindling might not have been the smartest move. There was no ranger patrol to call in airplanes full of fire retardant. No volunteer fire fighters to be driven up to clear brush and dig ditches to stop the spread of the flames. This fire was going to spread and wouldn’t stop until it ran into a river or a thunder storm.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. How can anyone’s luck be this damned bad.” Pete whispered loudly. “Like being in a tree surrounded by Zombies isn’t bad enough there’s seriously got to be a forest fire heading towards us. Did we blow up a church or something on the way here? Why does God hate us?”

  “We may need to make a run for it soon if the fire keeps heading this way.” Tom said ignoring Pete’s questions. There were a lot of days he wasn’t sure if having survived made him lucky or not. He lived every day knowing his family had all died already.

  “How exactly are we going to make a run for it through all those Zombies down there? They’re not going to care if a fire’s coming. They’ll stand there and burn waiting for us to come down. Especially if the fire keeps us visible to them. Plus, all the screaming we’re going to start doing when the tree catches on fire around us.” Kyler knew Tom was just trying to think of a way out of an impossible solution but that didn’t mean he had to go along with it. Also, if you couldn’t be a little grumpy in the situation they were currently in then when the hell could you be irritable?

  “The wind could always blow the fire the other way. Let’s wait and see.” Tom said.

  “We all know which way the damned wind’s going to blow. We must’ve blown up a church and when it fell over it caught an orphanage on fire. Like an orphanage for kids and kittens. Or one of you guys is a prick of epic proportions to have this much bad karma coming at us.” Pete continued to blabber on. Talking was a coping mechanism for him. Between the screaming Zombies and the steadily increasing roar of the fire no one could really hear him anyway.

  A huge red glow reflected off a giant wall of smoke moving towards them. Below them on the ground the Zombies didn’t seem to care that it was getting much hotter. Kyler was wondering if the smoke inhalation would kill them faster or slower up in a tree than it would if they were on the ground. For about the millionth time since this had all started, he yearned for the ability to whip out a smart phone and google the answers he needed. He knew there was probab
ly hundreds of websites that could assist him with his urgent forest fire related questions.

  Hot ash started raining down on them even as more waves of heat drifted up. Kyler was having a hard time breathing and his eyes were tearing up like crazy. There was no way they were lasting much longer sitting in this tree.

  “Ok boys. Been great knowing you both. Let’s go ahead and get to the ground and try to sneak or fight our way out of here. It’s pretty much suicide but so is sticking around in this tree. See you both in hell. Hopefully, it’s not this hot there.” Tom announced and started working his way down the branches towards the deer stand.

  Looking below Kyler thought they may have already made it to hell. An eerie red glow flickered around the Zombies. Their demonic screeching rose to a fever pitch when they noticed Tom coming down the tree. Kyler and Pete climbing down after him. They stopped in the branches above Tom as he worked his way onto the deer stand to have a look around. Kyler wasn’t sure exactly what Tom could see from his vantage point but from Kyler’s vantage point they were pretty much screwed. Zombies faces stared up at them from every direction Kyler looked.