Dawn of the Apocalypse: A Zombie Apocalypse Novel (20 page)

            "How did y'all get me away from my friends?"

            Sean was a friggin Marine.  He should've killed all four of them with his bare hands.  While Bill might've been over his head, I hunted and patrolled with the other men and I respected their ability to fight.  Their bravery was unquestioned.  So how did Vince and Nolan escape?  More important, how did they escape carrying me?

            "We're mountain men," Vince said.  "Ain't no city boys able to keep up with us."

            "Well, that's just dandy," I said.  "You want to point that gun somewhere else?"

            "I said take your clothes off."

            I'd hoped he'd forgotten about that.  My blood ran cold.  What was worse?  Raped and then surviving?  Or shot dead?  I was kind of leaning toward the latter.

            When I hesitated, Vince surged forward.  I instantly knew by the way he was holding the rifle that he wanted to butt-stroke me.  Dropping into a defensive stance, I held my breath and waited.  At the last second, I ducked and shifted to the side.  That left him wide open.

            "Damn you," I cried when I kicked him between the legs.

            He twisted just enough that I failed to get a solid hit.  I shoved him, and then tried to twist the 30-30 out of his hands.  Vince was too strong, so I released the rifle and made a run for it.  Nolan cut me off.

            "Halt!" Vince cried.

            I grabbed Nolan's limp arm, twisted, and moved around him as she screamed bloody murder.  A rifle shot echoed through the mountain air a second later.  Nolan's eye got huge, and then he screamed again.

            "You shot me!"

            I made Nolan squeal like a gut stuck pig by savagely twisting his arm.  Bone popped, but I wasn't sure if it was a break or a dislocation.  He dropped to the ground, which left me open to Vince's fire.  So I released and darted to the side.

            And ran into another man.

            "Let me go," I cried, struggling.  He opened wide, and then clamped his teeth down on my shoulder.  That's when I noticed his crazy eyes and bloody body.  "Zombies!"

            I dropped my weight and twisted, breaking free of his grasp.  The zombie stumbled over me.  Checking my shoulder, I was relieved to see he failed to break the skin.  It still hurt like crazy.  And then I noticed more zombies struggling up the mountainside.

            "Run!"

            Vince was cussing a blue streak.  He fired and fired, until the rifle was out of ammo.  Nolan screamed.  I saw two zombies on top of him, biting his arms and neck.  His father then went down as four zombies piled on top of him.  My rifle went flying off to the side.

            "Jesus!  Help me!" I cried, and took off running straight to that dropped rifle.  I had more ammo in my pockets.  "Stay away from me!"

            More zombies turned toward me.  I snatched up the 30-30 at a dead run.  Well, as fast as I could run uphill, anyway.  I already had a round in hand, which I loaded as I turned back toward home.

            "Die!" I screamed, stopping just long enough to aim and shoot the closest zombie in the head.

            I learned real fast that the zombies were just a little faster.  They didn't seem to tire, while I was quickly exhausted.  Managing to load the rifle, I jumped behind a boulder and started picking them off as they struggled up the mountain after me.

            "Sweet Jesus," I cried when I shot the last one.  I only had one round left.  "What a nightmare."  Then I noticed movement.  Another one was coming up after me.  "Oh no."

            It was Vince.  Well, what used to be Vince Mahan, at least.  His left hand was mangled, missing at least two fingers.  His lower lip was half ripped off, and his nose was missing.  But it was his eyes that held the true horror.  They were filled with zombie rage.

            I used my last shot on him.

            There was no way to know if there were any more zombies coming.  Turning toward home, I moved as fast as my bruised and battered body would permit.  It had to have taken me a good hour or more before I finally heard men shouting.  I didn't recognize the voices, but called out for help.  If they weren't my friends, well, I'd just have to deal with them.

            I sat down to wait.  I couldn't go another step.

Chapter 30

            "What does that sign say?"  Mike pointed to the east.  "Is that a highway sign?"

            I had no idea what he meant.  All signs on a highway were highway signs.

            We looked both ways to ensure there were no witnesses, and then crossed the wide road.  We were in mostly open country.  Farm country.  There were homes along the road.  That was the largest east-west road we'd come upon so far.

            "Route 22," Charlie said.  He pointed further up the road.  "According to that sign Union City is the next town."

            I pulled out our road map and found Union City.  "Great.  We're in Tennessee now."

            We argued over the map a few.  I wanted to go around the small city.  Mike and Charlie wanted to go in.  They had a pretty good argument, too.  Food.

            "I'm starving, man," Mike said.  "Maybe we can refill our canteens, too."

            Water was still running in most of the houses we came upon.  None of us knew how much longer that would last.  Just thinking about running water made me long for a hot shower.  We'd spend the previous night in that damned hay loft, which left me feeling itchy.

            "Cities have zombies," I said.

            "We have guns," Mike returned.

            "Not that simple," I said.  My stomach growled.  It was so tempting.  "I'm hungry, too, but is it worth the risk?  There are houses around the outskirts of the city."

            "Yes, but there are actual stores in the city," Charlie said.  "I vote we go in, but if we see the zombie population is too high, we turn around and follow Roger's advice."

            That was a compromise I could live with, mostly because I was about to be outvoted.  So using as much cover as we could find, we headed toward Union City.  The closer we got, the hungrier I became.  Just outside of town we came upon a convenience store that hadn't been looted.

            It was locked up with steel bars over the windows, but we were able to jimmy the back door open.  The stench was nauseating.  We found out why real quick.  Dead meat.  Not human, but beef, pork, chicken, and whatnot.  The store had a small butcher shop within.

            We found sodas, loaves of bread, peanut butter, and jelly on the shelves.  The three of us ran through the store grabbing what we wanted in a mad rush, while trying to hold our breaths.  It was tough, but rewarding.  I even snatched up a big meat cleaver.

            We sat under a tree behind the store and enjoyed our meal.  That PB&J sandwich was so delicious that I had two more.  The bread amazed me.  Even after almost two weeks it was fresh.  I wondered what kind of chemicals they were using to make it last so long.

            We also ate chips, while washing it all down with the soft drinks of our choice.  I popped the caps on a coke, grape soda, and a root beer.  All I needed was a sip or two from each.

            "Lord, even in the middle of the apocalypse we're wasteful of food," I said, and then burped.  "I'm glad y'all talked me into this."

            Three shots rang out.  It sounded deeper in the city, and came from a high-powered rifle.  Not an immediate threat to us, but Union City was not completely abandoned.  In many ways other survivors frightened me more than zombies.

            "Keep the peanut butter and jelly," Charlie said.  "Put it in a pack.  Put the bread on top so we don't crush it."

            "Glad to see you have your priorities in order," I said, as I put that precious treasure in the blue pack.

            "Of course," Mike said and signed gustily.

            I followed his line of sight to the back of the store, and three zombies.  Three middle-aged white men.  One had long gray hair and beard, like he was an old hippie zombie.  They spotted us and charged with open mouths and rage filled eyes.

            "Try out your cleaver," Mike said.  "There's only three of them."

            "Only three?  It only takes one bite," I said.  Still, he had a point.  Now was the best time to see if I could use it as a weapon against them.  "Okay.  Let's divide and conquer."

            Standing our ground, we waited for the zombies to reach us.  At the last second we scattered.  One of the zombies fell down, another ran into the tree, and the last just looked confused for a second.  The lone standing one turned on us and attacked.

            Mike and Charlie moved away from me, but stayed close enough to help.  The zombie locked his intentions on me.  Bracing myself for a fight, cleaver in hand, I waited for him to reach me.  A roundhouse to the head left him dazed and staggering.  I moved behind him, and swung the cleaver with all of my might.  I didn't take his head off, like I intended, but I severed the spine just above his shoulders.

            The zombie went down and stayed there.  He was finally dead.

            "That's why all good zombie slayers use a katana," Mike said.  "Cleaner cuts, and the head comes off every time."

            "You're a funny man," I said.  Looking past my friends, I saw the other two zombies coming at us.  "Shoot them."

            Two shots, and two more dead zombies.  Unfortunately, I think we stirred up others.  A soulful wail rose up from the road.  We grabbed the packs and took off behind the houses.  Charlie led the way, Mike in the middle with the SAW, and me bringing up the rear.  I heard some of them around us, pounding on doors.

            "Oh, Jesus," Charlie cried.

            He stopped.  We ran up to either side of him.  The sight before us was horrific.  Five zombies, two of which were children, were devouring a dead body.  One little girl, who didn't look more that five, was gnawing on the small intestines.

            Even stranger, they barely gave us a look.

            "Follow me," I said, taking off running.  We crossed a residential street, and were spotted by other zombies.  "Faster!"

            We jumped a five-foot chain link fence, raced across another yard, and turned toward the main road again.  Route 22 went exactly where I wanted to go – south by southeast.  It would get me closer to Chattanooga, while avoiding the big city of Nashville.  I didn't want to lose that road.

            Hearing them before we reached Route 22, I turned behind a rather new looking steel building.  The sign over the closed bay doors indicated it was an auto repair shop.  I found an open door in back, and led the others inside.  And then gently closed and locked the door.

            Seconds later I heard zombies outside the door.  One of them tried the knob, and then pounded on it.  He pounded on it for so long I started to worry they knew we were inside, but then they stopped and we could hear them wandering off.

            "That was close," Charlie said.  "Maybe Roger's right and we should go around Union City."

            "You think?" I said.

            The roof had some of those fiberglass panels that let in light, so the garage was anything but dark.  Every bay held a vehicle in various stages of repair.  Out of habit, we began checking them to see if any would start.  Unfortunately, their engines were all at least partly disassembled.

            "Bingo!" Charlie cried.

            "Shhh," I said.  He was sitting in the driver's seat of a Ford F250 4x4 with a crew cab.  It was a mid-nineties model, kind of battered looking.  "What did you find?  Booze?"

            "I wish," he said.  "I think it'll run.  The dash lights up when I turn the key."

            "Do you think this steel building acted as a Faraday Cage?" Mike asked.

            Charlie and I stared at him.

            "It's something that protects against EMP," he said.

            He didn't sound a hundred percent confident, yet the pickup had power.  And it wasn't some fifty year old clunker, either.  It was a twenty-something year old clunker.

            "Do you think you can finish repairing it?" I asked.

            "Only one way to find out," Charlie said.  He checked the paperwork on a clipboard.  "It's in to replace the AC."

            "Looks like they were still in the middle of removing shit," Mike said.  "Do we want to continue with the AC repair, or just put it back together?"

            "Just put it back together," I said.  "I don't want to stay in here any longer than we have to."

            Charlie and Mike went to work on the truck while I explored the shop.  There was a very new full-sized Nissan pickup, but its front bumper was smashed into the radiator.  No telling what other kind of damage was done.  The other two vehicles were older sedans.  All had power when I turned the key.  Maybe Mike was correct, but I wasn't going to say anything.

            I couldn't find a gas can, but found a rubber tube and an oil pan.  After cleaning the pan really well, I started siphoning gas out of the other vehicles.  I spilled almost as much as I got into the pickup, but managed to fill the tank before they finished the repairs.

            Okay, it took them most of the day to put the engine back together.

            "AC should work," Charlie said, grinning.

            "You went ahead and replaced it?"

            "Yep.  They were halfway through removing the old AC, so it didn't take too long," he said.  "And we are filling it with Freon now."

            "AC uses more gas," I said.

            "Not really."

            I wasn't going to argue with him.  Putting the packs in the back seat, I looked around for anything else we could use.  Charlie put quite a few tools in the pickup's tool box.  I found a case of bottled water.  Nothing else.