Floyd & Mikki (Book 1): Zombie Hunters (Love Should Be Explosive!)
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Authors: Joseph Tatner
Tags: #zombies
Love should be explosive!
by Joseph Tatner
Copyright 2013 by Joseph Tatner
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“Floyd and Mikki: Zombie Hunters is an amazingly funny book, a zombie book that is so totally different from every other one on the market. I couldn’t help but laugh out loud at their antics. Joseph Tatner has a brilliant turn of phrase, a fantastic aptitude for telling a story and is very funny with it. Amazing story, great characters and a really good plot all combine to make this an explosive and hilarious novel. Despite all of the zombie movies out there, this is one I would love to see on the big screen.”
~ Review by Anne-Marie Reynolds for Readers’ Favorite
P.O. Box 3115
Coeur d’Alene, ID 83814
First edition, September 2014
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without written permission.
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s own warped imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons (whether living, dead, or undead) is purely coincidental. Nothing in this book is intended to disrespect or disparage any person, place or thing. Knowledge of military hardware and development is based on open source material and this book reveals no known state secrets. Any similarity of the events in this book to an actual zombie apocalypse, present or future, would really suck.
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All the world was silent. There was no wind. No chirping birds. No barking dogs. No meowing cats. No crickets, no frogs, no fleas. No horny insects rubbing legs together to attract a mate. Not a whisper of sound from a rustling leaf or any sign of nature at play. The food chain was all screwed up.
Mother Nature had proven herself very resilient throughout the millennia. She had adapted to drastic changes in temperatures in the Jurassic period, the Ice Age, a meteor strike that supposedly killed the dinosaurs, and God knows what else. Mother Earth had survived Humanity’s fears of a new Ice Age, then fears of Global Warming, then fears of Global Cooling. Yet, nobody saw the real danger coming. Nobody. And by the time they did see it, it was too late.
Yes, the Earth had survived as the multitude of species that crawled across her surface or swam through her oceans came and went. Humans, however, were not so lucky. The Arrogance of Man. Humans had tried to save every endangered species on the planet, but we couldn’t even save ourselves. For all our brainpower and ability to manipulate our environment, in many ways we remained the most vulnerable creatures on earth.
Cockroaches were laughing their asses off at us.
As the sun dipped low enough to barely touch the horizon, a faint noise fluttered through the warm, dead air. A soft murmur, growing slowly but steadily in intensity. Actually it was two sounds blended together. The whine of tires on asphalt and the thunder of a roaring engine peaked as the supercharged pickup perched itself at the top of the hill and stopped.
The driver carefully scanned the tiny gas station and surrounding area below through a pair of high-powered binoculars. The pickup was originally a Ford F-175, but it had been so heavily modified, it was doubtful that any engineer from the company would have recognized it. Several stickers portraying the American flag had been slapped onto the outside of the truck, with a rather large one on top of the roof and a big bumper sticker on the rear that said, “Don’t mess with Texas!”
The space within the cab and covered bed been modified by the driver, as well. Every space had a purpose and every purpose fit within a well-orchestrated plan. The bed had a hard-top lid covering more than 20 assorted fuel cans. A few could hold only one or two gallons. Most held five to 10 gallons, while some held 20. Two could hold 50 gallons each, but of these, only one was about half full. The rest were all empty. So were most of the gallon-sized plastic water bottles stacked precisely behind the seats in the cab.
The dashboard was covered with a carefully arranged assortment of folded road maps and Thomas Brothers guide books for different states and counties. Local area maps were closest, on top of the others and within arm’s reach, while maps from outlying regions were arranged alphabetically at the other end of the cab. An orderly batch of handguns and ammunition clips rode on top of the maps, everything held in place by a long wooden plank, duct tape and brackets screwed into the dash. Floyd wasn’t the handiest of handymen, but he knew his way around a wrench, lathe and other assorted power tools. He had been a mechanic working for a national chain of automotive stores back in his home state of Texas only two years ago, but that was now a distant memory. It seemed like decades, long gone by.
Large capacity magazines had been outlawed by the government, but even in normal times, Floyd didn’t much care for anyone telling him how to live his life, especially the Feds. He had been a proud American when there was an America, and he valued his freedom more than anything (which is why he had affectionately named his truck, “Freedom”). He would be damned if he was gonna allow the same government that was supposed to protect his freedom to take it away from him, piece by piece. One idiot politician had once proclaimed, “You don’t need 10 bullets to kill a deer!” Of course not, but nobody was talking about killing a deer, and you needed a helluva lot more bullets than that to protect yourself once the world fell all to hell.
Floyd had scavenged only the best firearms and the highest capacity magazines. Revolvers were theoretically more reliable because they never jammed, but he couldn’t afford to be limited to six or seven bullets. Weight and space each had their price, as well, and he needed the most bang for his buck, so to speak. The pride of his arsenal sat on the seat beside him, tucked between a couple of boxes.
Ol’ Faithful was originally manufactured as a Browning Maxus Millennium version, single-barreled, autoloading, semi-automatic shotgun. Floyd had added a magazine extender to increase the capacity to nine 2.25” shells (one in the chamber and eight in the mag) and had sawed off half the barrel to make it even with the magazine. The shotgun didn’t take the largest shells, but it was devastatingly effective at short range and could be used in all but the tightest of spaces. Floyd had cut out the middle of the stock and glued the end back on so he could shoulder the weapon if necessary, but he preferred to grip it tight with both hands.
A hunting rifle with a high-powered scope and sling sat in its mounting bracket on the inside of the passenger-side door. He didn’t use it often, but like Ol’ Faithful, it had never failed him when he needed it. That was a major reason why he was still alive.
“Bitchin,” Floyd said to himself, lowering the binoculars and shifting back into drive.
He had timed it perfectly, carefully calculating his fuel consumption to make it back here with a little more than a tank of gas to spare. Everything seemed exactly as he had left it a month ago, but Floyd took nothing for granted. He had endured more than his share of unpleasant surprises and was not about to get sloppy now.
Catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror, Floyd couldn’t help noticing that the lines around his eyes had deepened. His dark reddish beard and moustache seriously needed a trim, as did the hair under his weather-beaten Bear Auto Parts baseball cap. He hadn’t had a bath in a month, but he did try to wash his hair at least once a week or so and brushed his teeth after every meal. These last couple of weeks had been especially hard on him, however, and he was glad to be back at what he considered to be his home base.
Slowly heading down the road, Floyd followed the standard routine that had helped keep him alive these past years with expert precision. The little gas station was just off the highway, and the flat desert landscape extended for miles around. Floyd gunned the engine, making as much noise as possible as he made wide circles around the tiny building, hoping to draw anything that might respond to the noise out into the open. There, he would have an easy target.
Floyd drew nearer to the building in ever-tightening circles. Most of the asphalt had long since disappeared from the parking lot, but the huge tires on Floyd’s truck laughed at the plethora of potholes and gaps in the pavement. Floyd noted that none of the building’s large windows in front were broken, and as he stopped next to the side door, he saw the lock was still on the deadbolt.
“Here we go again,” Floyd muttered to himself.
With two pistols in his front waistband and two in the back, Floyd grabbed Ol’ Faithful and opened the driver-side door. He sniffed the air for anything out of the ordinary, then quietly stepped down from the cab.
He didn’t head for the door of the building right away. Instead, he headed for the pumps. There had been no electricity for more than a year, rendering the pumps useless, but there was still gasoline in the underground tanks. At least, there should be, unless someone else had found this place during Floyd’s absence. That wasn’t terribly likely, as Floyd hadn’t seen another living soul in nearly 12 months.
Prying up the lid of the tank, Floyd dropped a nearby pebble inside. He smiled as he soon heard the welcome sound of a splash from below, and put the lid back on. He knew the gasoline here wouldn’t last forever, but he wouldn’t be stranded here anytime soon, either. If all went well, he would grab his siphon from the truck and fill all the gas cans in the morning. The sun was setting fast, however, so he had to get inside quickly.
Now it was time for the real work. Taking a deep breath, Floyd unlocked the deadbolt and slowly opened the door. There was still enough light streaming in through the large front windows to see by, which was one of the reasons he liked this place. The other was the tactical advantage of being able to look outside at anything that might be approaching. The back of the building had no such windows, but there was an access ladder to the roof, where Floyd had sat on many an evening with his binoculars and hunting rifle.
Quickly and methodically, eyes darting every which way, covering every possible angle, Floyd made his way through each room. He quickly scanned the front where there was no place for anything to hide, then hurriedly peered over the counter to see if anything lurked behind. The nose of Ol’ Faithful was ever pointing ahead, ready for anything.
Floyd turned the knob on the door to the rear area, disengaged the lock, and then kicked it open gently with his foot, shotgun raised and ready. He inspected the break room, the bathroom (thank God the water still worked), and the back office. Finally, Floyd drew a quick breath and threw open the door to the garage.
This is where the worst surprises had occurred. He could never completely secure this place. Critters of all kinds—all kinds—had somehow managed to find their way in here on more than one occasion. He had cleaned out as much of the machinery as he could, but he still had to search the two cars left in the area, resting over jacks that would never lift again. With no windows, this was the darkest area of the building, illuminated only by light from the open door where Floyd now stood, the seam between the two large rolling shutters, and a few cracks in the skylight. Floyd could see adequately in the gloom, but the darkness was still deep enough to be more than a little unnerving.
Scanning the room carefully, Floyd observed that the trunks and all the doors of the two cars were still open as he had left them, making it harder for anything to hide inside. He poked the nose of Ol’ Faithful into the trunk, front and back of each car, his senses alert for any sound or movement behind him as well. Not too long ago, a diseased raccoon had jumped out at him from the back seat of one of the cars. With the greatest of luck and instinct, he managed to blow it away in midair, but the incident had left him very wary.
It took nearly 10 minutes to search the 40’ by 80’ expanse, but Floyd was always thorough. Heading back inside, he climbed the ladder, unbolted the access, and popped up onto the roof. Nothing. Finally satisfied, he made his way back to his truck, where he removed a large ammunition box and a crate of emergency rations to get at the box on the floor in front of the passenger seat. He gathered eight small movement sensors into his arms and started making a wide circle around the building. One by one, he flipped a switch and dropped them at strategic intervals.
Each three-inch cube was black and powered by AAA batteries. Floyd had a large supply of batteries, but was always looking for more. Power cells of any kind were in short supply nowadays, and they often didn’t last very long. Before he locked up the truck and headed inside, Floyd switched on the receiver and walked toward one of the cubes. At about five yards out from the nearest one, the box in his hand began to beep and a little green light began flashing red. Floyd had the volume on low as he tested each sensor, and then turned it up high after he finally went inside. Fairly certain now that nothing could approach without warning, Floyd took a deep breath and finally began to somewhat relax. At least, as much as he ever dared to.