Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse (Book 3): Salvation (7 page)

“You
could use it as an intro for your sex ed classes.”

“Briana!”

She let
out a laugh. “Maybe not. How old are the kids before they start getting sex
ed?”

“We
don’t have sex ed, not officially. The health classes in the upper grades cover
the basics, barely. Most of the time is spent on how to not get food poisoning,
how to stay clean, first aid, more first aid, advanced first aid, trauma care, that
sort of thing.”

“Anyone
being told about sex can see naked zombies. Go a year or two younger in any
case, and make sure you start with some graphic footage of their teeth slamming
together, or of one that’s all messed up. That’ll take their minds off the
nudity. It might even limit the giggling.”

*
* *

My
absence from the Black Hills was a short one, and not a whole lot happened,
aside from these mundane conversations. However, there was one additional event
of interest. This involved discovering what happens when you incorrectly reload
your own ammunition.

Lou, a
twenty something, thrill seeking moron, took the rounds for his .44 magnum
revolver and pried the actual bullet off three, pouring the powder from two
into the third. He then, very carefully, got the piece of lead back in place. We
generally don’t bother with such things. For one, we are supplied by the government,
so there is no reason to worry about reloads. Second, we don’t have access to
the individual parts such as loose powder or caps. We do gather up what brass
we can so this could be sent west to the factories there for recycling, but
that’s about it.

At any
rate, Lou then went to the pistol range – this is located near the town, facing
one of the ridges which frames the valley – and took aim. We set numerous
timbers in the ground in front of a huge mound of dirt. Boards crisscross and
connect these, giving a person something he can staple a paper target too. The
trigger was pulled, and the gun exploded. The weapon was ruined of course, the
barrel split in two and bent back. Lou lost all four fingers of his right hand
and the first knuckle of his thumb.

Our
doctors and nurses did all they could, which was essentially nothing. The
missing digits were blasted apart. Even if they had been recovered, our
hospital, nice though it is, can’t handle the delicate, time consuming surgery
that reconnecting them would require, not to mention our medical personnel lack
the necessary training. They stopped the bleeding and sealed the injury, but
that was all they could do.

He
received very little sympathy, once it became common knowledge that the
accident was solely his own fault. The grief this caused, on top of being
mutilated, resulted in his getting prescribed some expired anti-depressants.
Hopefully those would help. With next to nothing being manufactured, we were
almost at the point where medicating the mentally ill becomes impossible. Then it
would be therapy only, and we have no trained psychologist or psychiatrist, or
forced confinement for those who simply cannot function without drugs.

Chapter II

“He
asleep yet?” asked Briana.

“Finally,”
I replied, joining her on the sofa.

Asher
had squealed with joy when I returned – always a good thing – and there were plenty
of hugs and kisses. I tossed him in the air. I gave him horsey rides. He showed
me his newest favorite toy in the world. I tickled his tummy. Then, after about
twenty minutes, he decided he rather play with his big sister instead. Following
a couple of hours of trains and building blocks, it was time to read a story
and send Asher off to bed.

“Anything
I need to know,” asked Mary, stifling a yawn, “about anything here?”

“Not
that I’m aware of.”

“Nothing,”
agreed Briana, “but there are a few things to discuss so go ahead and take a
seat.”

The
teenager did not look at all happy, being more than a little tired herself, but
she dutifully plopped herself in a chair.

“Remember
when you said you were going to be transferring fuel to Yellowstone, for their planes?”

I
nodded. That had been mentioned right after dinner and a few minutes before
Briana had to step outside to settle a dispute regarding someone’s cat pooping
in the neighbor’s garden.

“You are
going to have to be super careful with any tanker trucks, since they can’t go
off road. While you were gone, a huge group of zombies was spotted on the highway
heading straight for Rapid City. The early estimate was forty thousand
shamblers.”

Mary sat
up straight. This took precedence over getting some much needed shut eye.

“Turned
out be closer to twenty five, which is still terrifying. I have pictures and a
few videos on the computer. I’ll show you both later.”

“Where
are they now?” I asked.

“Ronnie
took his helicopter and slowly flew past them, real close to the ground, to get
them to go back the way they came. It took some doing and a bit of time, since
the ones trying to turn around kept banging into those further back who wanted
to move forward, but it did work for the most part. We need to consider doing
the same whenever we’re clearing a place. It is a whole lot safer than trying
to lead them around with the Jeep or a truck.”

Briana
was correct. Way back when, we had no access to aircraft, so the thought never
occurred. During the war we were preoccupied. Most recently, when we were
clearing Rapid City, we had so many shooters available that it hadn’t really
mattered. However, now that the raiders were back, it was definitely worth
keeping a pilot or two on standby as an additional safety measure should
another horde appear.

“A few
hundred ended up in the city anyway,” she continued, “so be careful when you go
over to the Air Force base for fuel.”

Hundreds
could be dealt with.

“Where’s
the big group now? ” asked Mary.

“A
scouting flight this morning said they were about sixty miles away. We’ll check
again tomorrow, but I’m pretty sure we don’t have to worry anymore. Still and
all, one big group means others may appear. You don’t want to be leading a
convoy and run into one with nowhere to go.”

“We will
definitely check out the route in advance,” I promised.

“Agreed.”
Mary got up and started walking toward her room.

Our
house, centrally located within the citadel’s protective walls, consists of a
large living room, a small kitchen with adjacent dining area, and four
bedrooms. There was an indoor toilet, but the pot had to be regularly emptied
into one of our community septic tanks, a drawback of not having a sewer
system. Fortunately, electricity was not an issue. That we had a surplus of.

“A few
more zombies is nothing,” I commented, “but good to know they’re there.”

“I
really shouldn’t be worrying, not when there is so much else going on.” Briana
frowned. “I can’t seem not to. Things have been so pleasant the past couple of
years.”
“Very true, but at least the fighting should be in mostly one place this time.
As messed up as the roads are nowadays, I don’t want to be driving any more
than I have to. Bad enough encountering them here or while transporting
something, but imagine if we were running from the prophet’s men and came
around a bend to find twenty thousand zombies shambling about in front of us.
Be worse than when the castle fell.”

Briana
shivered at the thought. Then she leaned up against me.

“Up side
is that the zombies will keep them stationary too, for the most part. The
bastards might go cross country some on dirt bikes or trucks, but they won’t be
nearly as mobile as they were the first time around.”

“Do be
careful when you’re gone, Jacob.”

“I’m
always careful.”

She snorted.
“Yeah, right. Well, you better be, because I absolutely insist you be here when
you become a father times two. I mean three, with Mary.” She blushed.

“You
mean you’re… That’s wonderful!”

“Hey!”
called Mary. “Some of us are trying to go to sleep.”

“Think
we should tell her?” I asked, lowering my voice.

“Tomorrow.
If we tell her now, you know Mary will forget how tired she is and keep both of
us up all night talking, and I need to get some sleep as well.”

“Fair
enough.” It was a pretty accurate assessment of what would happen. “How long?”

Briana
gave me a kiss. “I’m thinking sometime around October. Yvonne insisted on a
pregnancy test, as if I didn’t know why my period was so late, and I’ll be
seeing one of the doctors this week for an exam. Maybe he’ll be able to tell me
the actual due date. And…” She curled up closer. “…just to remind you, try not
to get killed in the meantime. I know it’s pointless to try to keep you at
home…”

That was
true. I was not one to sit back in safety while others did the fighting, and
when it came to protecting my family I was definitely proactive. This time, the
raiders were going down.

“…but I
am going to worry. And no getting wounded either, like the last time when you
were shot. That’s almost as bad. Remember, any stress I feel might affect the
baby.”

“Boy or
a girl, what do you think?”

I
refrained from commenting on Briana’s nefarious tactics. Such blatant
manipulation was an integral part of her personality. Nothing I did or said was
going change that.

“Girl.
Asher needs a little sister he can protect and who can steal all his toys.”

A thought
popped into my head. “Think you are going get the morning sickness like last
time?”

“I hope
not, but I wouldn’t count on it being any easier than before.”

“I’ll
make certain to position a couple dozen buckets around the house.”

That
earned me a slap across the top of the head.

“Okay, one
each in the bedroom, kitchen, and family room. Even if they only get used once,
that’s one time the rugs don’t need to be cleaned.”

“I am going
to need the one by the bed,” she admitted. “God, I really hated that the first
time around.”

It had indeed
been miserable.

“Think
the doctor could give you something.”

“Hope
so. I’ll ask when I talk to him. Oh, remind me to tell Steph first thing
tomorrow. She’ll be really mad if I don’t.” Briana got up and switched off the
table lamp. “We were just talking about children a little while ago, right
after you left for Yellowstone. I was starting to think I might be then but
really didn’t think so.” She laughed. “I’ll tell you about that later, and
about her Lizzy based disciplinary strategy.”

*
* *

I began
making preparations for the fuel raid the following afternoon, the morning spent
with Mary bouncing up and down and a series of visits from our friends. We do
have quite a bit stored in the valley for the helicopters we keep there, with
more at the two airstrips where we base our planes. There are also emergency
supplies stashed elsewhere within the Black Hills. However, I wasn’t about to touch
any of these, nor did I particularly want to take any aviation fuel from the
various municipal airports we had identified and searched over the past few
years. Those, being relatively isolated and secure, serve as our emergency emergency
reserves. That left the Air Force base.

Ellsworth
was one of those places that always seemed to have a sizable group of shambling
bodies in residence, and our visits were infrequent enough that we didn’t
bother remedying the situation, beyond shooting any that tried to eat us. Then
again, it would not have mattered all that much. With zombies always on the
move, more were continuously arriving to replace those we killed. Regardless, the
massive stores of fuel, oil, spare parts, and so on more than made up for the
inconvenience. We filled four tanker trucks, one for us and three for the
people over in Yellowstone. Even after dropping off dozens of barrels at our
preselected fuel dumps, our allies would still be receiving around thirty
thousand gallons of the precious liquid. That should make them happy.

I’m not
going to go into detail concerning this trip. It went smoothly enough, in large
part because everyone slated to travel to Yellowstone was present. With a force
that large, we were quite secure. The looting run also doubled as a training
exercise, and we discovered a few issues that needed to be addressed.
Coordination and communications between the teams was one, especially when it
came to obtaining extra ammo. Resupply needed to be requested before a squad ran
low. We had trained on this in detail, but, to be fair, it hadn’t really come
up before in practice. I’d have to arrange for some refresher courses.

Another problem
involved the need to shuffle personnel about to prevent married or otherwise
romantically attached individuals from serving together. Really, just because a
girlfriend says zombies are coming is no reason for a guy, who was assigned a
specific task, to abandon his post in order to rescue her. The fact she did not
need saving made it that much worse. The woman was only letting those nearby
know that more were coming from the side. It was an informative comment, not a
call for help. I had him stripped to the waist, tied to a tree, and whipped. It
was only thirty lashes, nowhere near what he deserved, but still enough to get
the point across. By leaving his position, and without telling anyone of his
intentions, he allowed a trio of shamblers to come within a few feet of a squad
mate. The things had approached from behind, and it is a miracle the fellow
wasn’t bitten.

Drummed
out of the militia in disgrace, he was further sentenced to spend a year mucking
stables and cleaning pigsties. Afterwards, he could apply to rejoin the force,
if he was so inclined. There were quite a few not so generous, demanding Charles
be exiled or, in a one case, executed. If any of our guys had been bitten
because of his actions, Charles would now be a corpse, but ultimately no one
was hurt. Luck had been on our side, and as such I couldn’t bring myself to do
more. Besides, the kid is only eighteen. There’s a very good chance he will
mature and never again do such a thing.

As to
the militia members I was taking, we had six squads, each with ten people. A
squad consists of nine riflemen armed with M-16’s – between what we obtained
from the Air Force base and what the government in the islands supplied, we have
no shortage of these – and secondary weapons such as a .45 automatic, hand
grenades, and a sniper rifle to be utilized if circumstances called for it or
left sitting in the base if not. While it would be nice to carry both rifles so
they were always available, I have to admit that doing so is not really
practical. The tenth man is a machine gunner with the tripod and belts of
ammunition divvied up between the others. It was far too much weight for one
individual to carry on his own, and the squadmates never seemed to complain if
it meant more bullets on hand should the need arise.

The
leadership squad consisted of myself with Mary as my assistant. I’ll pause here
and state that the splitting of people in romantic relationships did not extend
to other familial connections. There were simply too many related by blood or
marriage to effectively separate them. Lizzy was second in command, and we also
have Tara and Dale, Carlson in the role of demolitions expert, and Xavier as a
pilot. We were taking a renovated news chopper for him to fly, keeping our military
craft out of sight for the time being. It had been painted a rather dull shade
of green and was to be used primarily for recovering the wounded and general
scouting.

Several
old friends were present among the militia squads. These included Harvey, who
had fought beside the twins when the zombie apocalypse first began. He was
leading second squad. Terrance was going, along with Tim Myers. Tim was a few
months older than Mary, having just turned seventeen. Upon first meeting two
years ago, Tim promptly and hopelessly fell in love with my adopted daughter.
That infatuation had resulted in a great deal of annoyance and frustration on
Mary’s part, but things calmed down after a few months. I suspect Tim still holds
out hope for a relationship, but Mary has zero interest.