Zombie Chaos (Book 2): Highway to Hell

by Martone, D. L.

  So, while Ray clutched Frankie’s collar, I carefully slid open the driver’s-side door of my van, stepped inside, and scooped up Azazel before she had a chance to wonder what I had in mind. Gently, I guided her inside the cat carrier, and naturally, she cried with displeasure as I secured the gate. To placate her and distract her for a while, I opened a can of tuna, spooned about a third into a porcelain ramekin, and slipped it through the little lid atop her carrier.

  As expected, she stopped meowing immediately and dug into her favorite treat. I stroked her furry head, tucked the remaining tuna in the fridge, shut the carrier lid and the van door, and rejoined Ray near the dead looters.

  “Oh, shit,” I said. “I forgot those idiots left the back door wide open when they grabbed me.”

  Hoping the barks and gunshots hadn’t enticed any unwanted visitors into the Hamiltons’ house, I retrieved my trusty axe from the passenger-side footwell in my van and led Ray up the steps, over Paw’s bullet-riddled corpse, and into the den. By the light of the lantern my companion carried, I didn’t see any zombies inside the house, but I could certainly hear a few undead interlopers moaning along the rear fence. Without hesitation, I shut and locked the sliding glass door, then picked up my shotgun from the tiled floor. Felt good to hold the Mossberg again, even if the barrel was still covered in zombie foulness.

  After performing a quick sweep of the rest of the house, we returned to the garage. While we awaited his children, Ray briefly related the tale of how he, Travis, and his daughter, Nicole, had returned from a fishing trip on Lake Maurepas to find the boat launch overrun by decomposing carnivores. Although he didn’t strike me as a fan of horror movies, he matter-of-factly explained how he’d encountered and dealt with the sudden zombie epidemic. Obviously, he didn’t care whether his enemy was an Iraqi insurgent or an undead corpse; he’d handle either situation with the same precision and determination.

  As I’d assumed, Ray was a former Marine. He’d dedicated more than two decades to the service and would’ve done so for the rest of his life – if only his wife hadn’t gotten cancer, forcing him to retire earlier than planned. After she’d died, Ray had willingly raised his children on his own, teaching them all he knew about defending their home, property, lives, and loved ones.

  So, naturally, all three of them had been armed, even his daughter, on their shocking return to the boat launch. A few well-placed head shots, and they’d reached their truck and made it home more safely than most people surely had.

  Based on his accent, I’d also assumed Ray was a native Cajun, and I was right. Raised on the bayous of southern Louisiana as a shrimper and a gator hunter, he’d returned to his fishing and hunting heritage during his retirement. But he’d obviously kept up with his shooting practice and physical conditioning, too.

  Shit, the dude couldn’t be more of a badass if he tried.

  He certainly put my own attempts to prepare for the zombie apocalypse to shame. While I’d spent the past two weeks gathering supplies, walking twice a day, and learning how to use my varied firearms, I was still overweight, out-of-shape, and nowhere near ready for such a species-ending challenge.

  I glanced down at the bloody floor of the garage. Just as I wondered whether Ray and I should stack up and cover the bodies of the dead looters, Travis returned with his little sister and his father’s toolbox.

  I’d worried that the sight of the three corpses would upset the young girl, but perhaps not surprisingly, she turned out to be as tough and imperturbable as her father and older brother. Roughly three-foot-nothing and maybe seven or eight years old, she marched right up to me, stuffed her Glock in a side holster, and thrust out her hand. Despite her small stature, she had the same black hair and no-nonsense vibe Ray and Travis possessed.

  “I’m Nicole,” she said.

  With a wry grin, I accepted her hand and shook it. Her grip was almost as firm as her father’s. “I’m Joe. Nice to meet you, Nicole.”

  Ray, meanwhile, took the toolbox from Travis and placed it on the workbench. Dents, rust, and even what resembled dried blood marred the large red box. It looked as though it had already endured an apocalyptic event.

  “Four more zombies walkin’ out front,” Travis reported to his father.

  “Recognize ’em?” Ray asked.

  “T’ree of ’em were so messed up I couldn’ tell, but one was definitely Mrs. Kerry.”

  “Damn, dat’s a shame. She was a nice lady.”

  A moment later, Travis and Nicole were sitting on the ground, petting Frankie without a care in the world, and their father was once again examining my engine compartment.

  “So, where ya headed wit’ dis rig?” he asked me.

  “Well, first, I have to make it to Baton Rouge, to pick up my wife, Clare,” I said. “And then we’re headed to northern Michigan.”

  With any luck, my parents would be up there, and if possible, I intended to collect my brothers, John and James, and their daughters along the way.

  Ray squinted at me like I had lobsters (or, more appropriately, shrimp and crawfish) crawling from my ears. “Why ya wanna head all da way up dere?”

  “It’s a pretty isolated location, and I’ve been sending stuff up north to prepare for this.”

  “Prepare for dis? For da dead to rise?”

  “It’s a long story, but a couple weeks ago, some friends of mine told me this was gonna happen. People I trust. Not many of the folks I told believed me, of course, but well, I guess my friends turned out to be right.”

  Briefly, I explained what little I knew about how the zombie infection had begun in India and eventually spread to New Orleans. I still had some questions about the whole thing, but Ray took my story in stride – despite its obvious holes. He might not have trusted me had I shared the same news two weeks earlier, but nowadays, seeing was definitely believing. In the end, it didn’t really matter how the zombie chaos had started. All us survivors could do was deal with the rotten consequences and try to… well, survive.

  Nodding stoically, Ray turned back to his beat-up toolbox, opened the lid, and revealed a neatly arranged assortment of tools. After a quick search, he grabbed a slotted screwdriver, a box cutter, a stainless-steel duct clamp, and a roll of thick black tape.

  “I told you, I have some duct tape,” I said, edging toward the passenger-side door of my van. “Hate to use up all your stuff.”

  “No problem,” he assured me. “Got a ton of it. An’ it’s a helluva lot sturdier dan duct tape.”

  Without awaiting my response, he reached into the engine compartment and pulled off the busted hose leading into the radiator. Even though the van had been cooling down in the garage, I’d pushed her to her limit, so I wasn’t surprised to see steaming antifreeze coolant pour from the radiator and the hose. The radioactive-looking green shit was surely still hot to the touch, but the guy didn’t even flinch.

  Yep, definitely a badass.

  Using the box cutter, Ray sliced the holey end off the hose, then wrapped the rest of it with his heavy-duty tape. He slipped the duct clamp onto one end of the hose, forced the hose onto the radiator fitting, and tightened the clamp with the screwdriver. In less than a few minutes, he’d fixed my ride.

  “It’ll need some more antifreeze,” he said, “but for now, we can jus’ fill it back up wit’ water.”

  I nodded, figuring I’d swipe some water from the Hamiltons’ toilet tanks or, if it had cooled down enough since the blackout, their hot water heater. While I hadn’t provided for every occurrence during my frenzied two-week prep phase, I’d made sure to fill my van’s built-in and portable water tanks. But there was no point in wasting my own supplies. Although my parents’ Michigan property curved around a freshwater lake, had access to a well, and was equipped with a couple generators (thanks to my maxed-out credit cards), I wanted to make sure we had enough water for the long journey north. There was no guarantee we’d encounter handy resources along the way – or folks as generous as Ray and his kids.

&
nbsp; Turning to my latest savior, I simply said, “Thanks, Ray. I really owe you.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  With my assistance, he then proceeded to repair my side-view mirror. I held it in place while he taped the shit out of it. It wouldn’t last forever, but unless I ran into any more parking-lot doors, it would likely hold until I could replace it in Michigan.

  “So, lemme git dis straight,” Ray said when we’d finished. “Ya bought all dat stuff, but didn’ git a good set of tools or spare parts or even some duct tape?”

  From most people, such a question would’ve come across as you’re a fucking idiot, but Ray seemed to be genuinely asking me. I felt foolish admitting that I’d left several rolls of tape behind during a recent supply run to Home Depot – and that I’d forgotten to remove my own tools from beneath the backseat of my pickup truck when I’d sold it to purchase the step van. So, I merely shook my head. What else could I say?

  Smirking, he shut the toolbox lid and slid it toward me across the workbench. “Take dat. Got more tools dan I know what to do wit’.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” I said, dumbfounded by the guy’s generosity.

  I was tempted to ask if the non-rust stains on the toolbox were indeed blood, but thought better of it. Assholes might’ve made up 99.98 percent of the world’s population, but Ray and his children were certainly part of the .02-percent contingent, and I didn’t want to repay his kindness by insulting him.

  Ray lowered my hood, then turned back to me. “An’ now… ’bout dat favor.”

  Chapter

  11

  “You know the part in scary movies when somebody does something really stupid, and everybody hates them for it? This is it.” – Trish, Jeepers Creepers (2001)

  “Dere some folks trapped in da offices on da second floor,” Ray informed me.

  We were lying precariously on a rooftop in downtown Gramercy, using two pairs of Ray’s night-vision binoculars to scope out the Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic Church on East Main Street.

  Clare and I weren’t religious by nature; in fact, we were both atheists. Still, that had never stopped us from harboring a fascination for religious history and architecture. As Catholic churches went, however, the Sacred Heart wouldn’t have impressed either of us.

  No St. Louis Cathedral, that’s for sure.

  An understated tan brick building, it sported narrow stained-glass windows, a porte-cochère, and a solitary steeple. At the moment, however, its most notable attribute was the fact that it appeared to be filled with and surrounded by zombies. Loads of them.

  Climbing onto our current perch hadn’t been easy, but it would’ve been a lot tougher with hungry zombies in the vicinity. I’d been grateful for the lack of mindless carnivores nearby, but looking through the binoculars, I understood why that had been the case. It seemed as though most of the town’s former residents were trying to cram their way inside the church. Not for solace or salvation, but perhaps out of habit – or more likely because of the tasty morsels on the upper floor.

  Through the binoculars, I could see several people milling about a darkened office – just as Ray had claimed. They weren’t stumbling around the room like zombies but pacing with nervous anticipation. Like living humans in major trouble.

  “Uma an’ Eunice were workin’ up dere when dis all happened,” Ray explained. “Deir husbands fought deir way into da church, but dey ran outta ammo… Been dere ever since. Dey managed to reach me on an ol’ shortwave radio, an’ before you showed up, I was tryin’ to figure out how to git to ’em.”

  Shifting the binoculars from the office to the parking lot beside the church, I realized the zombie horde was almost as huge as the one I’d faced at the French Quarter party house earlier in the day. Well, to be honest, I hadn’t faced them. I’d fled from them, along with a couple of lucky stoners.

  Hours later, my new pal Ray hoped I’d help him bust some of his neighbors out of a zombie-infested church. It was fucking suicidal, and we both knew it. If Ray hadn’t saved my ass, I doubted I would’ve agreed to assist him. As far as I was concerned, putting my life at risk equated to putting Clare’s life at risk, and I refused to fail the love of my life. At least more than I already had.

  But, even though I’d hoped the favor Ray needed was less life-threatening, I certainly couldn’t turn down the man who’d spared my life, my cat, and my ride from a nasty end.

  After Ray had repaired my radiator and mirror, he’d explained that he required my help in rescuing some friends from a nearby church. I’d realized then why a pragmatic guy like him had waited to flee the neighborhood. He had more people to save.

  So, after filling the radiator with toilet-tank water, I’d wiped the zombie goop off my shotgun, secured the toolbox in the storage space beneath my sofa bed, and given Azazel some more well-deserved tuna. Then I’d fueled myself with a handful of cashews and dried cherries (thinking, at my current rate, I’d be at my pre-marriage weight in no time) and hauled Ray, Travis, Nicole, and Frankie to a curved driveway that lay at a relatively safe distance from the zombie-infested church.

  Presently, I lowered the binoculars and turned my head. “So, what’s the plan?”

  In response, Ray glanced over his shoulder. I figured he was checking on his kids, who stood with Frankie outside my parked van, several yards behind us. Honestly, I thought he might suggest we take them and the dog back to his house before embarking on our suicide mission, but from his next question, I realized he wasn’t looking at them.

  “What kinda guns ya got in dere?”

  Although he’d caught a glimpse of the uncovered weapons when he’d awaited his chance to take out the rednecks, he’d been a bit preoccupied at the time. Now, he could focus on a more critical mission – one that would require as many firearms as possible.

  So, after a brief discussion about my stash, we scrambled down from the roof, ventured back to the kids, and laid out the necessary arsenal in the rear of my van: two fully loaded shotguns, a couple of 9mm handguns, two machetes, and plenty of ammo. I also had a couple of ARs under the sofa bed, but Ray figured, with the low light, we’d be better off with the shotguns.

  Before we’d left the Hamiltons’ house, Travis had run back home to fetch a duffle bag filled with some of the family’s best weapons. Presently, he unzipped it and removed a bolt-action sniper rifle. According to the boy, he hadn’t owned it for long, so he was still learning how to handle it.

  “Dat’s a Barrett M98B,” Ray informed me.

  While the designation meant nothing to me, I had actually heard of the company. I’d spent the last couple of weeks, after all, learning as much about guns as I could.

  “Da boy’s got a few udder rifles, too,” Ray elaborated, “but dey not designed for what we gotta do.”

  Admittedly, I was afraid to ask for details. Regardless of the plan, there was a good chance one or all of us wouldn’t survive the night.

  Well, Joe, shit’s definitely about to get real… Hope I don’t press my luck this time.

  Chapter

  12

  “There’s too many of them. I can’t kill the world.” – Reverend Harry Powell, The Night of the Hunter (1955)

  “Seriously, this is batshit-crazy,” I mumbled as Ray and I pulled away from the abandoned house where we’d left his kids and the dog.

  He’d obviously raised some tough offspring, but when he’d told me that Travis would stay behind with the sniper rifle and little Nicole would “spot” for him, I thought he might’ve overestimated their capabilities. Still, I’d refrained from contradicting him as he and I steadied a ladder against the side of the empty house – a house situated between two trees, with a gently sloping rooftop that offered a clear view of the church and its adjacent parking lot. I’d stayed quiet as Travis and Nicole scurried up the ladder with their weapons, a pair of night-vision binoculars, and a couple of my walkie-talkies. I’d even kept mum as Ray climbed to the rooftop with one hand, hauled Frankie with the oth
er, and then helped me and Travis slide the ladder onto the roof, just above the gutter (where no zombies or marauders could reach it, but the children could still access it in an emergency).

  With the kids serving as a lookout for us, we readied the guns and other weapons we planned to use during the rescue attempt, and I finally took the time to divvy up some of my arsenal between the crate under the tarp and the storage space beneath my sofa bed. Then, perhaps to dispel any unvoiced concerns of mine (and to verify his own assumptions about his children’s skills), Ray surveyed the church with his night-vision goggles and used one of my remaining walkie-talkies to instruct his kids to take out two of the zombies shuffling along the edge of the parking lot.

  Nicole, gazing through the binoculars, spotted the first one and called it out to her brother, who immediately took the head shot. Peering through Ray’s spare goggles, I saw the zombie fall to the asphalt. When Nicole indicated the second zombie, I watched as it, too, tumbled to the ground, motionless.

  “Wow, he’s good,” I said, shifting my focus toward the rooftop, where Travis and Nicole awaited further instructions, and Frankie calmly sat beside them, either already used to the sound of gunfire or unwilling to abandon his new family. “Not that I had any doubts.”

  Ray grinned. “Sure ya didn’.”

  “Hell, why don’t we just sit back and let your son pick ’em off one at a time? Less suicidal that way.”

  Ray frowned. Maybe he didn’t think putting all the weight of responsibility on his children’s shoulders was the best approach. Instead, he explained, “Don’t got an unlimited supply of ammo for dat gun, so Travis’ll only shoot when we need him to.”

  I shrugged. Made about as much sense as everything else I’d done that day. And honestly, I didn’t feel like arguing. I’d already wasted more time and energy than I’d intended in my effort to get to Clare. In retrospect, I likely would’ve reached Baton Rouge hours earlier, had I not decided to reclaim my wife’s ring, avoid the flaming Mardi Gras Indian, and stop to help people in need. At the moment, I had just enough reserves left to assist Ray, get back on the road, and hopefully reunite with my wife.