“I’ll help you get Frederick strapped in,” I replied and walked with her to the van. The others stayed back and gave us some space. It took me a moment to get Frederick into the child restraint seat.
“I didn’t realize how long it’s been since I’ve done this,” I quipped. Julie said nothing and watched me patiently. When I straightened up, she was standing close. My first instinct was to grab her and hug her tightly, and I think she wanted me to, but I didn’t.
“Wanda wants to wait until tomorrow before we bring her over to the house,” she said, breaking the tension.
“Okay, good. We’ll get her over first thing tomorrow morning. I promised Terry I’d start helping with the chores again as well. Are there any issues you need me to help with?”
“Oh, now you ask,” she retorted sarcastically. I looked at her.
“I remember a time when you wouldn’t have even thought about responding like you did just now,” I turned and walked off without waiting for a response.
After dinner, Fred decided to take Prancer for a late afternoon ride. He didn’t ask if I wanted to accompany him, so I went to the porch, sat in one of the rockers and watched the setting sun. Wanda came out and joined me.
“How’d she do today?” I asked.
Wanda nodded. “Good. The company cheered her up, but it exhausted her. She’s sleeping.”
“I told Julie we’d bring you two over there tomorrow morning, is that good with you?”
“You’re not going?” she asked. I shook my head slowly. We watched as Fred rode up and walked Prancer into his newly built barn. “You and Julie belong together,” she commented.
I looked over at her. It was the first time she had ever said anything about Julie and me. I shifted in the chair.
“I agree, but there’s a dynamic going on with Julie and her mother which isn’t helping any. I have hopes, but I’ve no idea what to do.”
“Well, she’s pregnant too, don’t be too hard on her,” she said.
“Do you realize we’re actually having a pleasant conversation?” I asked rhetorically.
“Don’t ruin it,” Wanda quipped. I chose not to respond.
It was late when I got home. For the past three days, I had been helping Rowdy and Terry with the farm work, and today seemed especially toilsome. I suppose it was because it was an unusually hot day and the gnats were especially bad. The women took pity on us and fixed us lunch. It was nice sitting at my own kitchen table. Everything almost felt like normal, except for Janet and her nonstop passive-aggressive comments. She was like a human version of an annoying gnat that I wanted to swat.
“You look worn out,” Fred commented as I watched him brushing down Prancer. He had relented on Bo’s insistence and now had four more horses in the barn.
“Those other horses are going to feel neglected with you doting so much on Prancer,” I commented as I grabbed another brush.
“If I don’t take care of Prancer first, she gets her feelings hurt,” Fred responded and fed her a carrot.
“Sounds like at least one woman I know,” I quipped. Fred nodded in agreement.
“How’s it going between the two of you?” he asked.
“I honestly don’t know,” I said as I started brushing a big gelding named Hank. “Our conversations are pleasant, but short. Jessica seems to be fitting right in with her and Andie, but Janet acts like she’s a big inconvenience,” I started chuckling. “Oh, you’ll love this, Janet
hates
Wanda.”
“Not surprising,” Fred replied. “How’s Wanda taking it?”
“Oh, you know her, she’s not taking an ounce of shit,” I frowned. “It’s funny, Andie and Jessica don’t like Janet either, but Julie doesn’t see it.”
“Is Rowdy still doing her?”
“I believe so.”
“Dumbass,” Fred muttered. I agreed.
“What are you going to do?” he finally asked.
“I honestly don’t know,” I finished up on Hank and started on the last horse, another gelding named Dusty, causing Hank to snort at being abandoned.
“When I got through with the chores, I played with Frederick for a little while, and when I went to leave, she hugged me, but that was the extent of it.”
“Sounds like progress.”
“Yeah, but I noticed she looked around to make sure Janet wasn’t anywhere around before she did it.”
“When I went on my ride, I noticed some tracks,” Fred said, “lots of them.”
I stopped brushing Dusty and stared at him. “Human or zombie?”
“Zombie, I’d say. They were going down Holt Road. I didn’t follow, too many of them.”
I nodded in understanding. After my little trek, Fred threatened to kick me out, so we agreed never to do any zombie hunting by ourselves, if we could avoid it.
“We’re going to have to put together another kill mission,” I said. “I wonder if the crew over at the school would be willing to join in.”
Fred shook his head. “I’d rather not be in close proximity of Carla and Tonya if they’re armed. They might decide to take a shot at me. We’ll head over to Bo’s tomorrow. He’ll join in. Maybe that other crew would be willing to join us.”
I agreed, but was thinking the same thing that Fred was. Chet’s crew had become somewhat stand-offish since the tanker accident. Anytime we had suggested any group endeavor they acted like we should pay them for any assistance.
The two of us had a simple quiet dinner and talked it over before retiring to the porch. I got a lantern going and began to read. Fred sat quietly, looking out into the distance.
“I miss the boys,” he suddenly said. It was the first time in a while he had mentioned them. I closed my book. “Yeah, I miss them too. They were growing into some fine men.”
“I miss Mac too. She was one of a kind.”
“Yes she was,” I responded.
“I’ve replayed that day over and over in my mind,” Fred said heavily. “I should have paid more attention.”
“Andie said other than a large pothole there was nothing else that stood out.”
“Julie avoids eye contact and won’t talk to me,” his voice almost cracked when he said it. I felt for him.
“She’s been doing the same with me. She actually blamed it on me because I didn’t go with y’all. That was the final straw for me moving out.”
Fred looked over at me. “I didn’t know that.”
I shrugged. “Yeah, my brain tells me she said it because she’s so distraught over Tommy’s death, but even so, it hurt like hell. Maybe we can get Marc and Ward to talk to her.”
Fred grunted. “Hell, they’d want a group therapy session, followed by a big group hug and campfire songs.”
I smiled at the thought of all of us pouring out our emotions to them. “Yeah, you’re probably right, but hell, it might even do some good.”
We talked some more until Fred yawned and said he was going to turn in early. I knew I couldn’t go right to sleep, so opted to stay up and read some more. About the time I started nodding off, I was startled awake by the sound of distant gunfire. It took a second or two before I realized the direction the gunfire was coming from.
“Fred!” I yelled as I burst through the door and frantically began gathering my gear. Fred rushed in the den as he was pulling on a pair of jeans.
“Julie’s in trouble!” I tossed him one of the rifles and took off toward my truck. Fred followed me with a shirt and boots in his hands. I kept the headlights off as I raced down the road. I knew the route to my house with my eyes closed and didn’t want to alert anyone of our presence until we had a chance to put some lead into them.
Fred hurriedly finished dressing, checked the load on his assault rifle, and then checked mine. “We’re good. How much ammo do we have?”
“There should be twenty magazines in my bag!” I shouted louder than was needed. The adrenaline was coursing through my veins, and the worry over Julie and my son’s welfare was making it difficult for me to keep calm. I kept trying to speed up, but Fred admonished me, forcing me to slow down.
*****
It took almost thirty minutes for Julie to get little Frederick to sleep and another thirty minutes of shifting around in bed, trying to find a comfortable position. She was just starting to nod off when she heard the loud braying of one of the donkeys, which caused Curly to sit up and bark.
She was tired. The heat had not dissipated much and the house was stuffy, which didn’t improve her irritable mood. She lay still, mentally trying to will the donkey to shut up and go back to sleep. He didn’t. Reluctantly, she heaved herself into an upright position and stood up. Her ankle, which she’d injured when Prancer had thrown her, ached a little worse than normal. She retrieved her assault rifle, which was leaning against the bedroom wall and started walking toward the den.
“I’m going to kill that jackass if he doesn’t shut up,” she muttered. Curly jumped down from the bed and followed her dutifully.
She rounded the corner into the den when two things happened simultaneously; the front door slowly opened and Curly let out a guttural growl. Julie was stunned as he launched himself at the thing walking through the door.
*****
I rounded the final curve leading to the driveway when there was a loud thump followed by the truck shuddering. I slammed on the brakes and turned the lights on. There were probably fifty or sixty of them in the roadway and dozens more hung up in the barbed wire surrounding our property. I gasped as I saw at least as many wedging themselves through the open gate and marching down the driveway toward the house.
“Holy shit, Fred, the gate’s open,” I said with fear running down my spine.
“Holy shit is right,” Fred echoed, rolled down his window, and began firing. I maneuvered the truck as close to the entrance as I could before the sheer mass of ugly zombies prevented me from traveling any further. There was no need for subterfuge any longer. I turned on the rack of lights mounted on the roof and the two of us began methodically firing. A lot of the zombies turned their attack toward us and swarmed the truck. It was futile for them though. The thick hardware mesh I had mounted over the openings held fast.
Within minutes, the acrid odor of cordite was thick in the interior of the truck. Our eyes were watering and we were coughing, but we continued firing. We could also hear shooting coming from the house.
“From the sounds of it, they’re putting up a good fight in there!” Fred shouted over the gunfire. “How much ammo do they have?”
“About a thousand rounds inside!” I shouted back. “Red!” I saw Fred nod out of the corner of my eye as I inserted a fresh magazine before shouting. Fred then reloaded and gestured toward the zombies.
“These little bastards are starting to stay clear of my kill zone,” he commented. I realized they were doing the same to me. I put the truck in gear and repositioned it.
“Just don’t stack the bodies up in front of the gate,” I said. “Otherwise, we’ll never be able to drive in.” I started firing again. Both of us instinctively knew we had to make each shot count; we had no idea how many of the things were surrounding the house.
Fred and I burned through two magazines each before the number of zombies dwindled to the point where I could drive through the gate. I made a point of parking safely out of the kill zones I had created from the windows and paused long enough to try to raise them on the radio. I didn’t receive a response from anyone in the house, but a sleepy voice did answer.
“Is that you, Zach?”
It took me a moment to recognize the voice emanating from the speaker. “Kelly, we’re under attack by zombies!”
There was a pause before she answered. “Oh, my God, Zach, what do we do?”
“Wake everyone up and get them to form up in their defensive positions, they might try to attack you guys next.”
“Uh, okay,” she responded.
“I’ll call back in a few,” I dropped the microphone without waiting for a response and resumed firing.
After what seemed like an eternity, we had annihilated the horde with only a few stragglers left. I found the microphone lying on the floor and was about to call for someone in the house again, but Fred cleared his throat.
“I believe I see a friend of yours,” he said casually and pointed back toward the end of the driveway. I looked in the direction he pointed, confused and wondering why he was wasting time, until I saw what he was pointing at.
It was Big Bastard. He was standing off to the side of the driveway near a tree, out of the way of all of the gunfire, watching. I pointed at him as well.
“He was leading this assault, Fred,” I said incredulously. “That motherfucker led an assault on my house with my wife and kid inside!”
“Yep, I believe you’re right,” Fred responded.
He must have sensed we had seen him and took off at a run. Not a fast run, it looked more like a seventy-year old man with a bum knee, but running nonetheless. I floored the accelerator. Fred had just enough time to brace for impact as I ran him down.
I lined up the truck and hit Big Bastard squarely. His head snapped backward as his torso was propelled forward about twenty feet. I slowed only a moment and then drove forward until I felt like I was running over a speed bump. Stopping the truck, I looked over at Fred.
“If you don’t mind, cover me,” I said coldly. Fred nodded.
We exited the truck together. My driver’s side tire was on top of Big Bastard’s lower torso. He stared up at me malevolently and snarled. I didn’t bother with any clever one-liner. Instead, I pulled out my lock-blade knife and slowly, deliberately, cut his head off. I’d never admit it to anyone, but I had a smug sense of satisfaction as I buried the knife into his neck.