Slow Burn: A Zombie Novel (58 page)

As “Ruin” by Lamb of God thundered out of the speakers and shook the floor, I finished waking up by doing calisthenics. Blood pumping and working up a decent sweat, I decided it was time to hit the shower, and once finished, I hopped out and toweled off. Going through the motions, I brushed my teeth and shaved as Metallica screamed out “Sad But True” over the speakers, and so did I, which sprayed toothpaste all over the mirror. I headed back to the bedroom with the towel draped over my shoulder, still singing along with the gods of heavy metal, and tossed the towel onto the bed while I scrounged up some semi-clean clothes for the day’s routine of raiding homes and businesses for supplies. Still standing there naked and holding a t-shirt, the music went from concert level to zero in a split second. I even manage a few more lyrics before my dumb ass realized the music was turned off…and not by me.

Why did I feel like I was about to become a victim of something horribly embarrassing?

Slowly turning my head, I saw Mattie standing in the bedroom doorway holding the entertainment center remote control. Her head was tilted to the side and she was leaning against the door frame.

“
Since you were done waking up the entire prison and drawing in every nearby zombie, Stephen wanted to know if you wanted to go on the supply raid today,” she said while scanning my backside with her eyes.

I figured the best way to play her game was to ignore her. Turning back, I continued looking for a pair of pants.

“
Hell yeah I wanna go on the raid,” I responded nonchalantly. “Just give me a few minutes to get dressed, and I will be right out.”

“
Are you looking for these?” she asked innocently, holding up a pair of jeans.

Snatching my pants from her grasp, I dressed as fast as I could without blushing like a schoolgirl. Eye witnesses would say that I ran from my camper.

“
Not true,” I later swore.

We had set the campers belonging to Stephen, myself and Mattie, Dan and Chris, Logan and Kleaner, plus Casper in a circle similar to what a wagon train would do on the Oregon Trail. This was Stephen’s idea, and he had even gone so far as to deploy concertina wire around it and wanted to further reinforce it with fixed barricades as an extra layer of defense. In the center of the circle was our parked school bus, still loaded with essentials in the event a quick escape was necessary.

“
Seems unlikely,” Stephen conceded, “but you never can tell.”

The bus itself had been getting upgraded armor from our small motor pool operating out of a large maintenance building. Reinforced bumpers were added just the other day and skid plates right after that. Once again, we had been taking care of ourselves, but also at the same time encouraged others to fend for themselves and do the same. The more reinforced vehicles we had at our disposal, the better. I thought we would end up passing the bus off to someone else and picking up a better BOV shortly. I had a couple of ideas in mind.

I jogged out of our mini perimeter across the yard to the nearby truck we had turned into our roving kitchen. It used to be a taco stand and was equipped with plenty of cabinet space and a refrigerator, along with grills, a sink and a large serving counter. We had been working in the meantime to get the old prison cafeteria cleaned up and opened before winter as well, and it was proving a tall task. I grabbed a plate, and the ladies working the counter loaded it up with some scrambled eggs.

"Whoa,
eggs
?" I said aloud. I stopped in my tracks, and the ladies giggled as I looked at them questioningly.

“
Some of the guys found some chickens roaming around the neighborhoods,” one of them answered. “Now on occasion we’ll have fresh eggs and meat!”

The server scooped up another spoonful and slapped it onto my plate. “Here you go sir, you need to fatten up.”

Apparently with all the casualties from this zombie outbreak, marrying age men were in short supply. As a result, most of my crew had been getting attention from the many suddenly single women now living here.

And who am I to disappoint these poor girls?

They started giggling again as I gave them a wink and continued on down the line. The eggs gave me an idea. We needed to find some nearby farms and get some livestock for fresh food. That was, if the farmers were either dead or willing to help. I didn’t want to just go raid a functioning farm like my Nordic ancestors used to do. Raping and pillaging was not good for public relations, or so I had been told. The mental “to do” list just kept getting longer.

Wolfing down the eggs, I made my way over to Stephen, who was chatting with some of the folks going with us on today’s raid. The old prison fire station had been thoroughly cleaned out, and due to its central location in the yard had, been turned into our new command center. Upstairs, where a couple of offices were outfitted with filing cabinets and computers, we had two former secretaries trying to get our growing staff organized and assigned to various tasks. They were also trying to add to a list of priority ranked items to get this place running smoothly. As much as we all hated paperwork, our organization was growing and we were going to need to stay on top of it. Downstairs and heated by a large propane heater, the bays that once contained the two fire trucks now held several tables and chairs set up similar to our old roll call room at work. One wall held charging stations for Motorola radios and several water coolers. Along the other someone had taped up a very large map of Joliet. In the front, Stephen completed the look with an American flag and a Gadsden "Don't Tread on Me" flag, on poles flanking a large marker board. Right in front of the marker board was a large desk with a laptop.

"Glad you could join us, Mike," Stephen said sarcastically as I entered the room.

"Hey, asshole, I remembered when you could barely wake up in time for your afternoon shift. Let’s get down to business."

Stephen flipped me the bird and then began to lay out the day’s operation.

“
The last several days we’ve had some so-so supply runs,” Stephen informed the group. “Adding to this problem is the fact that we’re constantly taking out new people, and we’re not all on the same page as far as tactics and security. Finally, we’ve found that many of the remaining large grocery stores have already been looted or burnt to the ground. Several of us have decided to start an efficient and organized mission of going house to house for supplies, also hitting any smaller business as we clear an area. The city is in the process of being divided up into grids, so that once an area has been searched, we can move on, not wasting valuable time. Houses that have been cleared are also to be marked with spray paint, maybe a large X.”

Stephen continued to go over the new plans with the others, while I reflected on today’s mission. The raid today was somewhat of a large scale operation, our largest to date. We had worked out a four team system to expedite the entire process and tried to pick people that were best suited to the given task.

The first team would be responsible for breaching and neutralizing any threats inside, securing the structure. Once the home was determined to be clear, the second team would enter to scavenge any food products, weapons, and tools the compound might be able to use. All of it would be loaded into several trucks that will be in our raid convoy. The third team would be in charge of body disposal after the scene was secured. With so many zombie corpses lying about, the need to dispose of them to lower the risk of spread any possible disease was huge. They were charged with burning the bodies on site, using existing materials. On occasion, the John Deere front end loader would be used to knock down entire buildings for fuel, and to create open space and fire lanes throughout the city. Worst case scenarios, we could pack corpses into select homes and torch them. Finally, the fourth team, consisting of an additional eight personnel, would be pulling initial perimeter security and communication duty for the entire operation. They would be joined by the first after the building was secured. All in all, there would be approximately thirty people participating in the raid. Once we got rolling, I thought we would be able to clean out a house in minutes.

Stephen stressed the need to work fast, as the noise quickly attracted zombies, and we didn’t want to get boxed in. The plan was to jump from several predetermined grids today to try and stay clear of the seemingly ever-growing zombie horde. And always the constitutionalist, Stephen again reminded us to make sure the houses we hit were empty or if there were survivors, that the owners did not mind our help. If they wanted to be left alone, we needed to respect their property and move on to the next house.

Stephen and Dan went on several less organized raids yesterday and planned on staying behind to finally start the long task of setting up a large HAM radio tower with some of the components they had both gathered and brought with from Stephen’s. They really wanted to get communications up and running to try and get an idea of what was going on in the rest of the world. Finally, with an organized plan in place, they hoped to get the CB band, 2M, 6M and 10M antennas up and running for a large frequency selection and multiple range options. Stephen also batted around the idea of getting a small A.M. radio station working, but had no idea where to start. They were looking at several days of work at least, and were anxious to get started.

Mattie wanted to stay behind as well. She now had the hospital camper outfitted and was working on her next project, the daunting task of getting the prison infirmary cleaned out and safe for occupancy, as well as setting up a refugee intake holding area. It would consist of a section of ten former prisoner cells that we would use to temporarily house new survivors that wanted to enter our little community. We would be using them to isolate any newcomers, to make sure they were not infected with the zombie virus before we let them into the general population. We could not risk an outbreak inside the walls, and up to this point we had been relying on a simple exam. We already had one close call, with a survivor who had been scratched by a zombie just before his arrival. Luckily, Mattie caught it during intake interviews, and he was isolated until his death. From now on, all new intakes would need to endure a two day observation in a comfortable prison cell. Mattie and her small crew were cleaning and rehabbing the cells from the several years of rust and mold buildup. We all agreed that soon there would probably be several hundred additional souls in our humble castle, and a clean living environment would be crucial to our long term health.

With the meeting complete and vehicle assignments given, the convoy vehicles fired up and the main gates prepared to open. Grabbing my rucksack filled with extra ammo and emergency rations, I tossed it into the cab of Chris’ truck along with my Colt M4 and folding stock Mossberg 500 shotgun. My ever present aluminum baseball bat was threaded through the rucksack straps. Chris was going to be with me in the first team. I was in charge of breaching while Chris was in charge of the house clearing. Hopping into Chris’ truck, which was the lead vehicle on our convoy, I waved to Casper to open the massive steel doors of the prison. As they groaned open, a few zombies wandered through but were immediately stricken down by Casper and a few gate guards. Watching him high five his comrades and give us a thumbs up sign while wearing a shit eating grin made me shake my head.

“
That dude has way too much fun killing zombies,” Chris remarked as we drove past. “But at least he got rid of that ear necklace.”

The large raid convoy spilled out of the prison yard and onto Collins Street where we made our way southbound. Logan and Kleaner made a big production of laying down covering fire as we left.

“
It's their ammo; they have the right to burn it however they want.”

Approaching Francis Street, we made a left and pulled up in front of the first of several homes we planned on hitting today. The perimeter team exited their trucks and formed up around the structure while the others waited in their trucks. My team formed up and approached the front door of our current target. They got a bit confused and bunched up, but I barked some orders and we straightened it out quickly.

The point man reached the front door, which luckily didn’t have a screen door attached, making entry much easier. He pounded on the door and announced our presence. After several moments with no answer, he checked the doorknob to see if it was locked and nodded at me.

“
Locked!”

You would be surprised at how many doors get rammed open when all they needed to do was turn the knob. I stepped up to the door since I was the designated ram guy.

Brute force is the bomb.

With a loud crash I sent the front door spinning into the living room area of the home followed by a shower of wood splinters from the door frame. Stepping aside, I let Chris enter along with the rest of the team and filed in at the back of the stack, covering the entrance. Within a few minutes, the team cleared and secured the home. Luckily nobody was in it, alive, dead or even undead for that matter.

“
Okay men, fall out to the trucks and pull perimeter duty while second team comes in for supplies,” Chris ordered.

While we formed up outside and the other team entered, I asked Chris how the room clearing went.

“
Not too bad considering none of them ever did anything like this before today,” he replied. “But we have thousands of homes to clear, and before you know it, they will be pros. Just takes repetition to get it down right.”