Floyd & Mikki (Book 1): Zombie Hunters (Love Should Be Explosive!) (7 page)

Floyd sat looking through his binoculars, perched atop a freeway overpass. He pointed to a building in the town below and handed the binoculars to Mikki. One look and she knew immediately what he was referring to. The sign outside the store said, “Gregory’s Guns.”

She smiled at Floyd and continued surveying the area. Something was definitely not right. “Looks like someone beat us here,” she said eventually.

“Yeah, but when?” This was more of a big town or small city, and it was filled with dead bodies—undead dead bodies. Piles of wrecked cars filled the streets and more than a couple of fire hydrants had been knocked over, sending geysers of water into the air. Neither Floyd nor Mikki could see any sign of movement anywhere and the air was deathly quiet, save for the sound of water trickling down the streets into the sewer grates.

Time to suit up. Floyd put on all his protective gear over his red flannel shirt and battered black jeans. Mikki just grabbed her football helmet, a couple of pistols, several spare clips, and Lucy. She buckled a wicked machete around her waist, the blade ready to be pulled on a moment’s notice. Floyd carried his usual weapons and Ol’ Faithful, and then grabbed four grenades, which he hung in strategic places around his belt. Mikki grabbed four for herself and hung them right on the waistband of her cutoff shorts. Floyd thought of offering her an old jumpsuit he had in the back, but it was too thin to offer any real protection.

As they moved up the street, they saw that windows in all the shops had been broken. Everything of value seemed to have been taken. They peered into cars and shop windows with shotguns at the ready.

“Damn,” said Mikki, eventually, eyeing the ruins.

“Double damn,” said Floyd.

They made it to the gun shop. None of the windows were broken, but the door was unlocked, so they went in and inspected it thoroughly.

Someone human had obviously been there before. There were no guns in any of the display cases, which were all smashed. Some boxes of ammunition were left, but they were all of the .22 caliber short or .22 long rifle variety. Fairly useless for killing zombies, and there was nothing that would fit any of the weapons they currently carried. Floyd went to the back and Mikki went behind the main counter.

“Floyd!”

He came over to see what she was pointing at. The man on the floor couldn’t have been dead for more than a week, but he was human when he died. He had been shot in the head and there was dried blood everywhere. Zombies didn’t bleed.

Mikki leaned down over the body. When she looked up, she noticed something…a button under the counter. Just for the hell of it, she pushed it.

Floyd and Mikki both jumped when they heard a soft click and a light appeared through a crack in the back wall! Before they could move, the light disappeared as the secret door slammed shut.

“What the hell?” Floyd whispered to Mikki, “When I get into position, push that button again.”

Mikki nodded and Floyd made his way silently to the wall. Floyd grabbed the empty shelves to act as a handle and nodded to Mikki. As soon as he heard the click, he pulled the door with all his might. There was resistance at first, but it soon gave way and opened wide. Floyd stumbled into a rather large, brightly lit room to find himself staring down the barrel of a machine gun.

“Mister, you done made the biggest mistake of your life!” came an unfamiliar voice.

“Drop it, old man!” Mikki yelled from the doorway, Lucy trained on the stranger’s head. He was short and chubby, wearing an old green camouflage T-shirt, dirty jeans and tennis shoes. What little white hair he had left on his bulbous head was sticking out in every direction. As he spoke, Mikki could see he had maybe five dirty teeth in his mouth, none of them next to each other. The man kept his aim on Floyd as his eyes darted between him and Mikki, obviously trying to decide what to do next.

Floyd put up his hands. “We don’t want no trouble, Mister. We didn’t know you was in here, honest. Mikki, lower your gun.”

“Are you crazy? I lower my gun and he’ll pop you in the head!”

“If he pops me in the head, you can shoot him! For now, just lower your goddam gun!”

“Screw you! I lower my gun, and maybe he’ll pop me in the head!”

“Goddammit, Mikki! Why can’t you ever do anything I tell you to?

“Tell me to do something that ain’t
stupid
and I’ll do it!”

The two started yelling at the same time as their eyes jumped between the old man and each other. After a minute of this, the old man busted out laughing and lowered his weapon.

“Damn!” he said, “You two always argue like this? You sound like me and my ex-wife!” Then he said to Mikki. “You can drop the shotgun, girlie. If I had wanted to shoot you, I woulda done it by now. And I reckon you all woulda done the same, iffen you wanted to. Name’s Zeke. Welcome to Groverstown.”

He held his hand out to Mikki. She wouldn’t take it, but Floyd did. He shook the old man’s hand and said, “I’m Floyd. This is Mikki. So what are you doing here? We found a man dead outside behind the counter. You know him?”

“That’d be Mr. Gregory. Good man. I worked for him for 30 years, designing ‘special’ items for his customers, including government types. Some raiders came in and killed him about a week ago. I been too scared to come out since.”

“How long you been in here?” Floyd asked.

“Hard to tell. Quite a while. We heard on the news about some kinda attack of the living dead. The newsman thought it was a joke. We all did. We realized is waren’t no joke when we heard a big ruckus out in the street.

“Cars started crashing into each other. People ran scared. A few started looting, so we closed the shutters outside. Just as we shut the door and locked it, we saw the first one. All crazy looking, with dead eyes. Tried to bite us through the glass. But that ain’t no ordinary glass. And the bars on the door woulda kept him out, anyway.

“We just stood there, not knowing what to do. Like watching a train wreck or a TV show that’s so bad, you can’t take your eyes off it. Except it all was happening right outside our window. And that damn thing just kept standing there, lookin’ at us, trying to beat its way through the door. Beat the door so bad that one of its arms broke and damn near fell off. It was so stupid, it just kept banging on the door with the other arm and trying to bite the glass.

“So Mr. Gregory and me hid out in the back room. It was plenty stocked with food, just in case of an emergency. We never dreamed it would be this kind of emergency. As you can see, we got electricity. And there’s a shower and toilet in the back. Nice clean water.

“Anyways, after a couple of days, the TV went out. No signal. Didn’t know if one of those things had screwed the antenna on the roof or if the local TV station was out. After a few more days, the local radio died, too. News reports only came in from stations far away. Kept hearing how the government was taking care of the situation and to stay put, safe in our homes. But one by one, all the stations went silent.

“Hmph! Shit! No place was safe, apparently. Except locked in here.”

“So how did Mr. Gregory end up out there, then, if y’all were both safe in here?” Mikki asked, Lucy finally tucked safely under her arm.

“About a week ago, we saw movement on the security cam. You can see over there,” he pointed to a console with several screens in the corner. “We saw well-armed people shootin’ up the walking dead. Maybe about 20 of ‘em, all wearing gray jumpsuits and helmets with facemasks. Mr. Gregory figured it was the government come to rescue us. I told him he was a damn fool and don’t go out there, but he wouldn’t listen. After bein’ cooped up in here for so long, he was a little stir crazy. He went outside, opened the door and waved at the people.

“About three of them came inside with him. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I saw the fear in Mr. Gregory’s eyes as they were talking to him. I was fixin’ to head out there to help, but it was too late. One of the men shot him in the head. Came outta nowhere. Just,
BOOM
, and he was dead. They started smashing all the cases and taking everything that wasn’t nailed down. Guns, ammo, everything. So, I just stayed put.

“I watched the whole thing on that screen,” he said sadly. “He was a good man. Didn’t deserve to go out that way. Shot like a damn dog in his own store. Sons of bitches! Now you know why I got so spooked when you showed up wearing that black facemask. Then I saw her, and I figured she didn’t fit the profile. I knew you was different.”

“Why haven’t you ever left this room?” Floyd asked.

“Me? I like solitude. Had enough of people after living with my ex-wife, so this was my home long before the…whatever it was…happened. Slept here more than once rather than try to head home. Besides,” he lifted the trouser of his right leg, revealing a metal shaft that ran from an artificial knee socket into a tennis shoe. “Bum leg. Can’t really move fast anymore. And I’m asthmatic, too. Can’t walk or run too far. Wouldn’t be smart for me to go outside.

“Oh, curiosity got the better of me and I did poke my head out a couple of times. Turned out there was nothing for me out there but death. So I just holed up in here. Then you found that goddam button and popped open the door. I thank God those raiders didn’t find it, or you mighta found two dead bodies in the store.”

“So those men who came through the town, they took everything?” Floyd asked.

A bright glint appeared in Zeke’s eyes. “Oh, no! I never said they took everything. They just took what was out there. What was out there…was nothin’!”

Zeke put his weapon down on a cot in the middle of the room where he obviously slept and moved over to a chair in front of the security monitors. He sat down and swiveled around to face Floyd and Mikki. “Can I see your shotguns?” he asked.

“Hell no, you cain’t see our shotguns!” Mikki roared.

“Mikki, he’s unarmed,” Floyd said, annoyed.

“So? How do you know he ain’t got this place booby trapped?”

“It ain’t booby trapped or we’d be dead already. He just wants to see your shotgun. Show him your shotgun!”

“OK, there!” She held the shotgun out in front of her with both hands momentarily. “Now you seen it.”

“Damn, I can’t believe you sometimes!”

“You cain’t believe me? You want me to just hand over my shotgun to some stranger? What the hell’s wrong with you Floyd? Seriously?”

Mikki would have continued ranting but Zeke broke out laughing again. He asked, “How long you two been married?”

“We ain’t married!” the pair asserted in unison, shocked that the question would even be asked.

“We barely know each other about a week now,” Floyd explained.

“Well, you fight like an old married couple. That’s a good thing, in a way. You both speak your minds. Don’t care what anyone else thinks. And you obviously trust each other to express your feelings. I like that about you. Makes you real people, in my book.”

Floyd handed Ol’ Faithful to Zeke. Mikki took a bead on Zeke with Lucy, just in case he tried anything funny. Zeke just looked at her and smiled.

“Ah! I thought so,” he said after examining the shotgun from every angle. “Browning Maxus Millennium. I see you added the magazine extender and made a few other modifications. Crude but effective. You like movin’ in close quarters, Floyd?”

“Don’t like it, but it’s necessary sometimes.”

“I’m sorry, what? Gotta talk in my good ear. Can’t hear nothin’ in the right ear and miss half of everything else with the left.” Zeke angled the left side of his head toward Floyd to hear better.

“I said, I gotta go through tight spaces sometimes,” Floyd repeated, a little louder.

“Oh, no doubt. No doubt. As for you, Missy…” Floyd leaned back in the chair as Mikki took a tighter grip on Lucy. “Remington Model 870. Standard police issue, or used to be. Interesting modifications you’ve made there. Those batteries you’ve got taped to the side can’t last you very long, though.”

“Don’t need ‘em to. I only use it in short flashes. Zap a creeper in the eyes when it’s dark and they gets confused, but only for a second or two. Any longer than that and it gets ‘em mad.”

“Zombies smash any lights they find,” Floyd added.

“Ya don’t say now,” Zeke mused. “Well that explains why the whole town went dark soon after they started showing up. I thought it was a problem with the power, but as you can see, power’s fine in here.”

“Yeah, how is that?” Floyd asked.

“Remember I told you we had government-type customers? I designed, maintained and repaired firearms for government security folks. Up on the hill to the north is a small building. Small, but heavily fortified. We were the guinea pigs for some new mini nuclear power plant. ‘Pebble-bed reactor,’ they called it. Supposed to be totally automated. Enough juice to power a small town at a fraction of the cost of a big plant. No pollution and safer too, according to the people there. Unless you cranked up the power to maximum for more than an hour or so.”

“Then what happens?” Floyd asked.

“Don’t know for sure, but it probably wouldn’t be good. But, since the town’s still here after a couple years with no one up there manning the switch, I’d say it’s running on autopilot just fine. We get our water from an underground spring, too. Always fresh.

“So you kids are welcome to stay here with me if you want. I can set up a couple more cots. I can point you to a couple of places around town you might be interested in, too. And of course, when it comes to weaponry, I got the best. I got just one little favor to ask of you.”

“And what’s that?” Floyd asked warily.

“Don’t sit right with me having Mr. Gregory out there on the stone cold floor. He was a good man. Deserves better. Could you take him out by the old church and bury him for me? I’d do it myself, but you know, bum leg and all.”

“You sure that’s all you want, old man?” asked Mikki.

“That’s all I want.”

“Well, I reckon we can do that. Right, Floyd?” For the first time, Mikki sounded civil.

“Sure. Why not? We got quite a bit of daylight left. How far to this church? I got a truck I left on the freeway overpass up there, but the streets are too clogged with smashed cars to use it.”

“Oh it’s not far. About a mile and a half straight up this street on the left. It ain’t very dignified, but I got a little wagon you can use to take the body. You can load it up with anything good you find on the way back. Ain’t no zombies left in this area that I seen after them raiders went through here. At least something good came out of that.”