The Zombie Apocalypse (Book 1): Buried Instincts

by Henson, Lynn

  Blake noticed a strange yellowish cloud that was only really visible as the Humvees spotlight played across the zombie mob. It seemed to be floating around the front of the zombies, the greatest concentration where the majority of the fire had been concentrated. “Hey, do you see that?” Blake asked Tiffany.

  “Huh? See what?” she asked, startled out of her routine.

  “There’s like this gas cloud or something around the infected. It’s kind of yellow I think.”

  Her eyes searched out into the infected mob and her eyes widened as the spotlight from the Humvee played across them. “Oh yeah! There’s definitely like a cloud. So?”

  “I’m not sure. Probably nothing good,” he guessed.

  From what he saw, the situation was already improving. The wire was tangling up the zombies and gave them time to lay a second line of it behind the first one. With the fire from the rooftop teams and the Humvee, they were able to do this with a minimum amount of stress. Blake saw more people being positioned along the lines, and it was starting to look like this position was as well defended as the line that had been created back to the south. Which wasn’t to say that it was an impregnable fortress, but at least it had reached the same level as the rest of their defensive perimeter. Mortar fire began to blossom in the midst of the zombies and the Humvee was moving again, directed to a new position where the defenses threatened to get overwhelmed. Repetition and tedium took over again and Blake quickly re-entered that state of mind where no thought was really necessary and the passing of time was marked by spent magazines.

  After emptying enough to fill a grocery bag, Blake realized he was fucking tired. His arms were sore, his shoulders hurt, and his aim was getting sloppy. Not that it was great, to begin with. His eyelids were getting heavy and he realized that he’d just emptied a magazine without knowing if he was hitting anything. “I need a break,” he announced unceremoniously, propping his weapon up against the small ledge and lay down, covering his face with his sleeve. The last thing he heard before falling asleep was a girl’s voice saying, “Hey!”

  fifty-two

  He was shaken roughly awake after just beginning his nap. “Hey... what the hell?” Blake protested.

  “Come on, you’ve rested long enough,” Tiffany rebuked him. “We let you sleep an hour, now I need a nap.”

  Grumpily, he rubbed his eyes and took his rifle up again. Tiffany was lying flat on her back, rifle within reach. He scooted over closer to Bree who was still shooting with practiced ease. He put a fresh magazine into his rifle and took aim. The situation seemed to have escalated as expected. The zombies were now spread out all along the first barbed wire barrier and the ones behind it had spread out trying to find a path through their fellows, only to get tangled up in the wire. It created this grotesque zombie hedge that kind of thrashed about until the base defenders could put a bullet through their brains. Their corpses still remained to hamper their fellows who shuffled around behind them trying to find a way through. The soldiers in charge of the mortars hadn’t been idle and explosions you could set your watch by appeared in the midst of the main body of the mob. But still, despite hours having passed, there were still no end to them. “So what do you think now?” he asked Bree, “This strategy seems to be working. We’ve got piled up bodies of zombies creating walls and we’re keeping things from getting out of hand.”

  “This from someone who a few hours ago was stressing out about hurting zombies,” she replied grimly.

  “Was that only hours? Feels like days,” he answered somberly. “I got some perspective,” he added.

  “Anyway, this defense will not work,” she answered.

  “What? Why not?”

  “We don’t have enough people. I don’t think anyone has rested at all since the fighting began. What do you think will happen when we finally need to sleep?”

  “I’m sure they’ve thought of that. They’ve probably got some kind of rotation planned.”

  “I doubt it. I don’t think even they imagined so many zombies would be coming here. Your argument was that this place was in the middle of nowhere and would be overlooked. They probably thought the same way.”

  “But they must see now that this isn’t going to be over any time soon.”

  “I think that the ideal response would be to get everyone out here and throw everything we have at them, eliminating the threat quickly.”

  “So you’re saying that they didn’t think this would be taking so long.”

  Bree nodded. “Yeah. I think they’ve probably realized that this is a siege now and will have to account for that in their defensive strategy.”

  “So I’d think that now that the situation has pretty much stabilized, they should start letting us get some rest.”

  “That’d be the smart thing to do. If they could do it without compromising our defense,” she agreed.

  He thought about that for a minute as they continued to plunk away at the large mob.

  “Shouldn’t we come up with a contingency plan?” he asked.

  “If the defenses fall?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Get in the car and drive away.”

  “That’s it?”

  She paused to look sideways at him over her rifle. “It’s worked so far.”

  “Uh, but... ok,” he fumbled, not able to refute that.

  “Simple is best,” she said, concentrating again on shooting.

  They continued with their work, waking Tiffany after she’d napped for about an hour so Bree could go on her break.

  “Hey, Tiffany,” Blake began after she’d got back into a rhythm, “Where are you originally from?”

  “Iowa,” she answered simply.

  “Lots of corn?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You have family there?”

  “Mom and my little brother. We lost dad about four years ago.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “He was a drunk bastard,” she replied, anger creeping into her voice.

  “Er... how old is your brother?”

  “He’s going to be five next month.”

  “Wow, that’s quite a gap between ages.”

  “Yeah, he was an accident. Mom didn’t exactly want to bring another kid into our toxic home environment, but it just happened.”

  “Do you think they’re ok?”

  “I think there’s a good chance they are. They live in a small town with lots of land around the house.”

  “Don’t you want to see if they’re alright?”

  “Of course I do. But I don’t think the situation is really ideal for me to go find them yet.”

  “But once it is ideal, maybe we can go find them.”

  “Yeah, I’d like that.”

  The night passed by like a weird dream. Sleep was brief when they could take it and when they were awake they were shooting their rifles into the unending mass of the undead. The most exciting thing that happened was when Tiffany’s rifle jammed, breaking them out of their limited set of actions. When dawn came, everyone was completely exhausted. Even Bree was looking bleary-eyed and Blake could’ve sworn that Tiffany had fallen asleep while shooting.

  Blake had just depleted yet another magazine when he realized the Humvee had not moved in a long time. The gunner was still rocking away with his minigun, but the driver’s side door opened and the driver flung himself out of the vehicle and was clawing at his face, obviously in great agony. The gunner noticed immediately, but he continued firing at an area that was threatening to get out of control. “Shit! They’re in trouble!” he exclaimed.

  Bree muttered something under her breath and shifted her fire to try to help cover the Humvee. Blake did the same, as did the people on the neighboring roof and for a moment thought they could keep the zombies in check. That was when the minigun went silent. The gunner appeared to look dumbfounded before picking up his personal weapon and firing into the zombies. The minigun must be out of ammo. Fuck! “Shit, shit, shit... what do we do?!” he
blathered.

  “Wake up Tiffany then get down there and help them!” Bree yelled.

  “What?”

  “You heard me! Go go go!” Bree responded urgently.

  He shook Tiffany awake and she looked really indignant at having her nap cut short. “Blake, this-” she began.

  “Emergency,” he offered in way of explanation, and he rushed over to the ladder trying to combat a wave of dizziness that threatened to send him crashing to the floor. He reached the top of the ladder and closed his eyes, hoping that the disorientation would pass. The dizziness receded and he slung his rifle on his back then climbed down the ladder. He dropped to the ground when he was low enough to safely do it and rushed around the building. He sprinted towards the Humvee but had to slow to a jog when he was suddenly out of breath. When the dizziness returned accompanied by its pal nausea Blake struggled to maintain his slow jog. He managed to reach the Humvee and tried to get the attention of the gunner, who whirled with his weapon raised. Blake flinched and ducked down, putting his hands up. The gunner determined that Blake was on his side and frantically pointed towards his fallen comrade. Blake nodded and the soldier continued to fire into the breached section of the barbed wire. He walked over to the fallen soldier who was motionless and checked for a pulse. He found it, but what really grabbed his attention was a nasty looking series of blisters that had covered the soldier's face. And I smell mustard. What the fuck? He got him under his shoulders and dragged him backward. Zombies were now crawling towards them having cleared the wire. The closest one, a middle-aged man in an expensive looking suit, suddenly had his brains blown out of the side of his head and crumpled to the floor. Behind him a Rastafarian looking man crawled past him, his dreadlocks covering his face. Blake noticed that his little Africa medallion had a bullet hole in it. The gunner appeared to his left side and emptied his rifle into the Rasta zombie. The shots went wild though and the zombie lurched forward, trying to get a piece of the soldier Blake was slowly dragging backward. The gunner threw his rifle at the zombie and tried to help Blake pull the driver back. Blake glanced at him, and the gunner’s face had blisters all over it as well. Together they dragged the soldier towards the defenders. Zombies were occupying the area immediately around the Humvee despite the rooftop gunners managing to fell a good number of them. Even worse, the concertina wire was snagging onto the zombies and the perimeter was being deformed as they continued to walk towards them, dragging the wire with them. They managed to outpace the zombies, pulling the driver out of immediate danger. Blake looked up and saw that the zombies were still continuing to nullify their hard defenses in spite of their shooters efforts to contain the problem. He continued to pull the soldier back when the gunner collapsed suddenly. “Aw, god damn it,” he complained as he positioned himself to better pull the driver back. The zombies continued to widen the breach and more and more were moving in towards them. They had completely surrounded the empty Humvee, walking past it like river water flowing around a rock. He dropped the driver and ran forward to drag the gunner back. The zombies had definitely zeroed in on him and were approaching with morbid determination. He continued to move them backward and managed to get the gunner to the point the driver had reached. A tough looking guy with leather pants, denim vest, and half of his face resembling ground up meat lurched forward eagerly at him. He grabbed a hand from each of the unconscious soldiers and tried to walk backward. It was working, but the zombie was gaining on him. He dropped their arms and unslung his rifle from his back and brought it up, pointing it at the tough zombie. It lurched forward again, then his face exploded spraying gore and an eye onto Blake’s boots. He looked up and saw Bree looking down from the roof. She waved and then sighted the next closest zombie. An overweight one donning a pirate costume with black eyeliner was the next to have the contents of his head spread all over the floor. Blake slung his rifle on his back and lifted the driver up by his armpits, going back to the one at a time system he’d started with and dragged the man towards a jeep. He had the soldier about three-fourths of the way there when his legs gave out from under him and he fell to his butt, the back of the soldier’s head falling onto his crotch. He didn’t move for a few seconds, waiting for the dizziness to pass. He heard boot steps trotting up from behind him and turned to see Tiffany jogging towards him with her rifle cradled in her arms. His machoness prompted him to get unsteadily to his feet causing him to drop the soldier’s head down to the ground. He made a halfhearted attempt to correct that and failed anyway, then just stood all the way up. “Let me help you get him into the jeep,” she suggested.

  He shook his head, “Go get the other guy!”

  She nodded and ran past him. He crouched down to reassemble his hold on the soldier when gunfire burped out just in front of him. He looked up to see that Tiffany had stopped and shifted into a shooting stance to try to clear the zombies away from the gunner so that she could reach him. He grabbed the driver by his collar then pulled him all the way back to the jeep. After a lot of effort and grunting, Blake somehow managed to pour the driver into the back. He ran back towards Tiffany who had managed to clear out some of the zombies surrounding the gunner, but had now attracted attention to herself and was completely occupied by shooting them to keep them off her. Thankfully, the rooftop shooters were managing to keep the zombies off the gunner. Tiffany dropped a decrepit looking old man zombie, who had probably been decrepit before shit went down, creating an opening. Blake saw it, grabbed the gunner by the arm and dragged him backward towards the jeep. The side of the head of a GILFy looking zombie with an enormous sagging chest exploded, spraying pieces of brain and bone everywhere. Ahead of him, the head of a hefty looking man dressed in a black button-down shirt and black jeans snapped back and fell the ground. The closest zombies, a young guy, a tall fit woman, and a black man fell upon the gunner, and their combined weight making it impossible for him to continue to pull him. He unslung his rifle and frantically unloaded on the zombies. The woman’s head exploded, spraying chunks of flesh and skull in different directions, the young guy took several shots to the chest sending him flying backward to land in a thrashing heap on the ground a few feet away. The last few shots made a mess of the back of the black guy’s head. Unfortunately, Blake managed to also score a hit on the soldier’s leg, a dark stain now spreading around the hole in his pants. “Oops,” he apologized.

  He threw his rifle aside and struggled to pull the gunner back. He managed to move him a little ways when Tiffany ran up and grabbed the hapless soldier by the legs and lifted up. Together, they got the soldier the rest of the way to the jeep, piling him on top of the other soldier. They got in and Blake started the vehicle. Tiffany turned in her seat and fired off a couple more shots at the approaching zombies then fumbled around in her pockets for more ammo. He stepped on the gas and sped off in the direction of the base. “What about Bree?” Tiffany yelled as she finished reloading and checked behind them again for anything chasing them.

  “Fuck! Worry about us!” he yelled, slamming on the brakes.

  The jeep screeched to a stop and Tiffany had to push against the console to keep from getting thrown out of her seat. Zombies filled the road ahead, moving in a large herd to the right relative to them. The loud screeching caused many of them to turn to look at them and start moving in their direction. “What the hell?! Why are they inside the defensive perimeter?!” Blake yelled, frustrated. He slammed the jeep into reverse and turned it around, heading back the way they came. They quickly came back to their defensive position seeing Bree and four other people gathered around the other jeep and a pickup truck. The group looked up with alarm at the sudden appearance and congregated around when Blake pulled to a stop. “What’s wrong? What happened?” Bree asked, the concern in her voice apparent.

  “The way back is blocked by zombies!” he explained quickly, “We need to find a way around. What happened to you guys?”

  “Without the soldiers, we’re going to lose this position,” Bree explained, the
others nodding. “We decided to go back before getting trapped here.”

  He glanced over to the barbed wire, and it was all but squashed flat by the zombies snagged on it. The ones behind them were crawling over the ruined obstacle and were coming towards them. “Well, get in your cars!” he barked, “We’re running out of time!”

  The last of the defenders hurried over to their vehicles. Bree pulled forward and started down a different street than the one they had used to get here. Blake and the pickup followed quickly after her, casting a glance at his rearview mirror at the zombies that were chasing after them.

  They didn’t follow her long before they had to come to a stop again, because of a large mass of zombies ahead of them. Their route had brought them to the left of where Blake had first encountered the new group, and there was definitely no way forward from here. Bree turned her jeep around quickly and headed back the other way, and everyone followed after her. Blake glanced again behind him at their mindless pursuers and swallowed nervously.

  They had to maneuver past some of the ones that had cleared the barbed wire as they headed back, and Blake started to feel like he was getting boxed in. Bree was maneuvering more towards where the zombies would be coming in from and away from the depot buildings. Probably because there’s more room to maneuver. They moved beyond the last of the storage buildings beyond which was desert. Bree pulled to a stop and Blake stopped next to her. They looked out into the night and saw hundreds of figures moving into the base from the direction of the highway. The pickup with the others rolled to a stop behind them and waited. Bree gripped the steering wheel, staring intently forward. She can’t find a way through. He honked his horn, startling Bree out of her intense focus. “We’ve got to get ahead of them!” he pointed towards the direction the zombies were walking. Bree looked incredulous and opened her mouth to argue. “Now! Hurry, there’s no time! Drive!” When she still didn’t move, he stepped on the gas and turned the car in the opposite direction and took off back the way they came. I hope for fuck that she takes the hint. Moments later, Blake heard the sound of an engine being pushed hard, and he felt relief wash over him. He slowed down and pulled to one side to let her pass, which she did. The pickup was way back there, but at least it was coming after them. He turned his attention to following after Bree. For her part, Bree looked like she was about to go airborne, and Blake had to force himself to keep his foot down on the gas despite his brain screaming to slow the hell down. They very quickly reached and then passed the point where Blake had first attempted to return to the base and zombies were beginning to appear along their route, coming from where they had been defending.