Zombies! (Book 3): Violence Solves Everything

by Merritt, R. S.

  She stared at him in shock as he tried to get words out.

  “Are you infected? You look infected?” She asked him.

  Kyler slid backwards away from her carefully keeping the gun pointed at her. He slowly and carefully spoke to the two trying his best to enunciate every word.

  “I’m alive. Not infected. Was in a forest fire and got hurt. I’m not infected. Do you have water?” He asked this last part a little desperately. His throat was on fire. He needed to quench it now.

  The two women whispered to one another then the one came out with a gallon jug of water. She handed it to the dark-skinned woman who walked it down the stairs and handed it to Kyler. Making the decision to trust them Kyler let the M-16 dangle off its strap while he took a big swig of the water out of the jug. While he was drinking the woman swung her bat one handed right into the side of his head putting him down on the ground.

  He woke up on a couch. He remembered wishing for water and a couch and thinking the cosmos owed him at least that much. He laughed out loud thinking the cosmos must’ve decided to teach him a lesson. He’d gotten his couch and he vaguely remembered getting some water as well but at what cost? He’d reached a level of pain in his head that he wouldn’t have thought possible if someone had tried describing it to him.

  “Good. You’re awake.” One of the women said to him.

  “Yeah. Great.” Kyler mumbled back. Even the act of mumbling hurt.

  “We’ve got pills. We can help you out with the pain you’re in. Tell us who you are and what you’re doing out here first though.” The blond woman said. Kyler stared at her dazedly. What she was asking may seem straightforward enough but the two words he’d mumbled earlier seemed to have sapped all his strength. No way was he getting out the dissertation they were demanding.

  “Are you of the people?” the dark-skinned woman asked.

  Kyler shook his head no then decided it actually hurt less just to say no. He had no idea what the woman was talking about.

  “Are you of the brotherhood?” She asked him next. This one was a little harder for him to answer. He knew he was getting setup to be in the brotherhood but as of now he was in more of an intern stage. He had to attend some more training and accomplish some sort of good deed or something to be admitted. It was all a little fuzzy in his head. There was also the issue that these two women may hate the brotherhood. He had no way of knowing. He decided to just go for it.

  “Initiate. Plebe. Uhm. Intern for it.” He stuttered out feeling like an idiot. He’d been told the correct information, but he couldn’t seem to remember any of that right now. Something he said seemed to relax the two women though.

  “I’m Kia and this young lady over here is Diamond.” The dark-skinned woman had identified herself as Kia and the blond as Diamond. “Before you make any stupid jokes about stage names those are our scavenger names.”

  Kyler nodded as little as he could to avoid the pain. He had no idea what she was referring to or why he’d make fun of their names.

  “I’m Kyler.” He managed to say finally.

  “Ok Kyler. What are you doing out here? You’re not making a run for it are you?” Kia asked. She was staring at his eyes trying to catch him in a lie.

  “I turned the Zombies on the road to the north.” Kyler choked out. That seemed to impress both the women.

  “Alright then Kyler the intern. Assuming you are who you say you are, and you did what you just said you did you’re ok in our books. Luckily for you we happen to be out here on a scavenging mission for opiates. The preferred drug to keep the people in their place. It also happens to be the drug you look like you are going to need a bunch of to get through what must be some really bad pain.”

  “Yeah, his face must really hurt since it’s killing me.” Diamond said as she came back with some crushed-up pills in a glass of water for him. She tilted the glass and helped him drink it. Within a few minutes he was passed back out. Diamond soaked a t-shirt she found in one of the drawers in the trailer in some cool water and used it to dab at the blisters covering Kyler’s exposed skin.

  “You think he’s really an initiate?” Kia asked while Diamond worked to try and clean up Kyler as much as she could.

  “I don’t see why he would’ve made all that up or even known that term if he was lying. The mission seems to jive with the fire and all the Zombies and everything too. We’ve collected enough pills to buy us some family time back on base anyway. We drop him off at the outpost on our way home and if he is who he says he is we’ll get even more of a bump. If he’s lying, then they’ll deal with him and we’ll still get a bump.”

  “Works for me.” Diamond said and went back to dabbing Kyler’s head with the wet shirt. Her mind already calculating how much family time she’d be able to negotiate with the pills they’d already collected and the possible initiate they’d rescued. More than anything in this world she lived for the time she could spend playing with her baby sister between scavenging missions. Knowing that the bigger the haul she brought back the better her sisters life and the more time she’d be allowed to see her. If she failed to bring back what was requested, then the pills they’d stockpiled would be used to addict her sister. That was the way the brotherhood had figured out to compel her and the other scavengers to work harder to bring back what was needed.

  Chapter 30: Ohana

  Randy jogged along behind Tony and the out of breath guard who’d come to get them. The guard led them into a room at the end of the hall that served as the armory. A couple of frazzled looking older men were handing out kits to the soldiers rolling into the room.

  “You both know how to handle M-16s and Glocks?” One of the men behind the counter asked.

  “Yes sir.” Randy answered. He nodded again when asked if they’d ever used grenades or flash bangs before.

  “What’s a flash bang do?” Randy asked Tony as they were putting on their gear on the opposite side of the room.

  “Based on the SWAT movies I’ve seen they flash followed by a loud bang.” Tony answered. He was loading up the two spare magazines he’d been handed wondering why they didn’t just go ahead and make sure all the magazines were loaded all the time. When you needed a loaded magazine, you needed it right then. He shook his head at the imagined military logic behind not having this chore completed already.

  “When you guys are ready head to the north entrance. The north entrance guards will show you where to go. You’ll need to follow orders and maintain operational silence as much as you can for as long as you can.” The guard who’d brought them there disappeared out the door. That left them both sitting there loaded up with weapons and faced with a dilemma.

  They walked out of the armory and headed towards the north entrance at a fast walk.

  “We trying to die defending this place?” Tony asked.

  “I could care less about this place.” Randy answered. “What I care about is my kids who are somewhere in here. If we need to risk our lives defending this place so they can escape or be safe, then I’m down. We see a way to get out of here and take them with us then the rest of this place can go to hell.”

  “Cool. Here we go then. Get your game face on and don’t die.” Tony replied as he slowly pushed on the bar on the door at the north entrance to exit the building. The door let them out into a concrete stairwell that had another door leading to the outside. The little room had a few men standing around in it. They were gearing up and looking like they were ready to go mix it up with the Zombies outside. One of the men was holding a small walkie talkie with an earpiece and seemed to be intently listening to something.

  “Ok men. You two new guys listen up.” The man waited until he had everyone’s attention before laying out the plan.

  The plan sucked.

  “You want us to open the door and run out into a Zombie mob and try to distract them so everyone else can sneak out the other exit?” Randy asked out loud. Everyone stared at him. He realized he’d said it out loud in a tone of voice that
didn’t lend itself to the type of proper military respect he should probably be showing up the chain of command.

  “Yes, I do. This building has plenty of windows and the lookouts we have on the roof already verified the Zombies are starting to break through them. Somehow the infected bastards know there’s a lot of snack sized humans inside and they’re not going to stop until they get in. So, we’re going to distract them. Let’s not spend a lot of time thinking about this. Let’s open the door and do some killing.”

  Then the guy pushed the door open and ran out of it with everyone following him. Tony and Randy stared at each other for a second before exiting the space much more carefully than the other men had. Outside the staircase the world had gone insane. The rest of the guards had formed a skirmish line and were sweeping in towards the Zombies.

  An attack formation like that was intended to break the enemy mentally and send them scurrying away in all directions. Mindless Zombies didn’t react the way normal people would to the same tactics. Mindless Zombies just saw humans and heard noise and ran towards it to rip and consume. The Zombies ran teeth first into a hail storm of bullets. The pile of bodies quickly growing to a height that was making it very difficult for more Zombies to get at the humans attacking them. Tony and Randy joined the line taking shots at the charging Zombies.

  Despite not having any knowledge of military tactics the Zombies had perfected the flanking and encircling maneuvers. They had these down mostly because there were so many of them that this is how they always ended up winning against military might. Tony bumped Randy in the shoulder and pointed behind them. A massive force of Zombies was emerging from the woods where they’d broken through the lowest bidder provided chain link fence that separated them from the road. The Zombies were screeching in anger as they charged the human battle line. There was no way the small group of men were going to be able to hold the position and get out of there alive.

  They tried to move back towards the stairwell in an orderly fashion. That lasted for about ten seconds before the men noticed the Zombies seemed to be getting closer to them than the stairwell was getting at which point, they all broke and ran for it. The man who’d led them into his mess tried to assemble a couple of guys to hold the line while the others retreated. He physically gabbed one guy and tried to make him stand in the rear and guard the retreat. Tony saw the man punch the other one and then he lost sight of them as a couple of Zombies sprang on top of both of the fighting men.

  Tony and Randy made it to the door simply because they’d been the last to come out the doors. Since they’d been the last to come out the doors and because they’d tried hard to make their shots count, they still had full magazines left for the retreating portion of the ill-fated attempt to distract the Zombies. Of the patrol that’d gone out only one man made it back into the stairwell with Tony and Randy. He came in the door right after Randy and then got pulled right back out by a massive Zombie. Tony shot that Zombie in the head but another one jumped in and bit into the screaming man’s stomach while others started biting any other exposed flesh they could find.

  Tony and Randy found themselves staring in a daze at the fellow guard having his skin ripped off his body right in front of them. They snapped out of it when the Zombies deemed to notice they were standing there as well. The Zombies charged in while Tony and Randy opened fire. They burned through a magazine apiece backing their way into the door to the main building. Tony fumbled with a flash bang and tossed it into the stairwell. They tried to use the confusion to get the door to the stairwell shut.

  It turned out they’d mostly confused themselves with the flashbang. The noise and bright light attracted even more Zombies. They both had to let up on their triggers since their eye sockets seemed to have been burned out of their skulls. Flashbangs were no joke. Especially in an enclosed space like that. Ears ringing and eyes burning they stumbled down the hall away from the Zombies. They took turns being in the rear shooting at the approaching Zombies.

  Ahead of them a group of kids pulled open the door into the auditorium on the first floor. Vision slowly returning they rushed into the room behind the kids and immediately began looking for some way to block the doors. They’d locked them when they pulled them closed. After a quick search turned up nothing better to secure the doors with, they turned to follow the other small group out of the exit heading towards the south exit from the building.

  They ran out into the hallway and immediately heard screeching from down the hall. Neither Tony nor Randy were going to race past a group of kids and let Zombies take them out. They opened fire on the Zombies running in ones and twos down the hallway towards them. After a minute of shooting Tony figured the other group should be almost out the south entrance by now. He punched Randy in the arm, and they turned and sprinted for the exit from the warehouse.

  Someone had blocked the door with a heavy barrel of some sort. It took Randy and Tony a minute to get around that including having to turn and shoot a few more Zombies who’d gotten way too close for comfort. They finally got it open enough they could squeeze through. Once they were through, they turned and focused on getting the door shut again as Zombies slammed into it from the other side. Zombie arms and fingers were sticking out the crack in the door as they tried wedging the barrel back in front to hold it.

  Randy tried bashing the fingers sticking out but since the Zombies could care less about getting their fingers broken it did no good. Not seeing where the rest of the people had gone after they came out this south exit Randy motioned to Tony to let go of the door and they’d haul ass to climb the fence and get over the little weed covered dirt mound on the other side of it. Tony nodded and Randy held up three fingers and did a countdown. When the last finger went down, they dropped everything and ran for the fence. If the Zombies pouring out saw them, they’d be overtaken and eaten within minutes.

  Not wanting to stick around to find out if they’d been discovered or not after hurdling the fence, they started moving through the weeds away from the building. They went down a narrow well used path for about forty feet before they heard voices up ahead. They carefully moved forward on the trail listening to the voices in front of them. It sounded like someone welcoming someone back then there was some grunts and the sound of someone crying out in pain.

  Exiting the trail into the edge of a clearing Tony saw a pontoon boat pulling in, a girl being pinned to the ground by a guard, and an older girl fixing to be shot in the head by the principal. The next thing he saw was the principals head explode as Randy emptied a magazine worth of ammunition into the clearing. Tony joined in as well. He helped kill everyone in the clearing who wasn’t a child. When everyone looked dead, he helped Randy throw the kids on their backs so they could get them out of there before either the Zombies or more guards showed up.

  Randy was completely shell shocked. He’d gone through more emotions in the past two minutes than he’d have even thought possible if you asked him. He could hear the Zombies screeching in the distance and knew they’d be pounding into this clearing in minutes. He had to get his girls out of there. He still couldn’t believe he’d found them. When he’d walked into the clearing and seen Doreen standing there his heart had almost burst with love and happiness. He’d wanted to pick her up and hold her so much that he almost missed the rest of the drama taking place in the small open space beside the lake.

  Glancing to the side he’d seen Myriah spread out on the ground getting kicked hard in the stomach by some guy who was going to die for that kick. Then he saw the woman aiming a pistol at Caitlyn’s face. His brain was cutoff at that point and his red-hot rage took over as he blew that bitches head off before working the stream of lead through every other person in the clearing. Some distant part of his brain in that moment knew that Tony was standing with him and shooting as well.

  The screeches were getting way too close. He worked with Tony to get the girls out of there. He assumed the extra kid they’d picked up was the Ali that Zoey had told him about.
She seemed to be the only one able to walk so he had her follow them as he led the group out of the clearing and into the dense brush hoping to lose any pursuers. His mind was whirling as well calculating the odds that they wouldn’t even be missed. Especially if the Zombies got to the clearing and did some snacking before anyone showed up from the main boat to see what was going on with the pontoon boat that should’ve returned with passengers form the clearing.

  For right now they needed to get far enough from the Zombie mob and the clearing to be out of danger. He didn’t want to go so far that they got spotted though. There was still a lot of the brotherhood around here and everything could go to hell in a heartbeat. He was mindful they could have drones flying or men standing on buildings to monitor everything around here. He wanted to find somewhere to relax and lick their wounds until nightfall then move under cover of darkness. It was killing him not to just take off sprinting right now to try and get the whole family reunited. He was terrified something would happen to Kelly and Zoey while they were away. He couldn’t wait to see the look on Kelly’s face when they came waltzing in with the girls in tow.

  Chapter 31: Honey I’m Home