Zombie Dawn II: A Zombie Apocalypse Sequel (6 page)

I interrupted.  “I bet
that was us.  What did you hear?” 

“Well, it was supposed to
be a safe place.  A fair place.  They said if you worked, and earned your keep,
you’d be okay there.”

“So you headed up that way?”

“Yeah, I never believed it, but I had
nowhere else to go.”

I told her it was true, and that it was
the place we’d tried to destroy.  I felt a bond grow between us as she sobbed
her heart out.

After a bit, they start sending
Bonnie Brice back down.  She’s always coming on to me.  I always rebuff her
advances, but we became friends, too.

Chapter 17:    Jack’s Journey—Real
Wolves

I awoke feeling better
than I had in a month.  A night’s sleep and no pain will do that to you.  It
was a bit freaky that Michah’d apparently been staring at me the whole time.

“Do you still want to
come with me?”

“Yes, please, Jack.”

“Well show me around your
shop.  Let’s see what there is in here that we can use.”

There was a lot of good
stuff in there.  The barn had a stream running through it, and the stream
turned a wheel that turned belts that powered a wood cutting mill and all types
of power tools.  It was old-fashioned but ingenious.  And it still worked.
Micah was very proud as he showed me what he could do with it.

There were a bunch of
good useful bikes, and a complete repair shop with all necessary tools as
well.  But we couldn’t use them, at least not right then.

I had determined, based on the track
of the army, that they had to be heading back to Burlington.  I also knew that
they would smarten up at some point and start to leave rear guards and traps
behind them.  So I explained to Micah that we’d be heading cross-country and
staying off of the roads.  We’d head to Burlington and take our time to make
sure we got there alive.

We left early the next morning after
stocking up with supplies from the shop.  I made a mental note to move all of
the contents of the shop, and the water wheel and mill, back to the Farm if we
ever made it that far.  Jim could figure out how to make it work.

That night, we were almost eaten by
wolves.  Not zombie wolves, mind you, but an actual pack of grey wolves.  They
must have come down from Canada, because I sure hadn’t been reading about
wolves in Vermont recently.   There were at least a dozen of them.

We’d decided to pick up the pace a
bit so we were traveling later into the night than usual.  I figured there’d be
some house or building to shack up in, but we were on a desolate stretch of
road.  Nothing around.

When we first spotted the wolves, we
figured that it was a good thing because they were eating a zombie, right down
to the bone.  I knew we were fucked, face down and hard, if there were zombie
wolves.  But these wolves were sleek and well fed, and they didn’t exhibit
zombie behavior.  They were fast and organized.  I guessed they were okay.

But, even if they were okay, they did
not discriminate between human and zombie.  I realized this when they began to
stalk us.  It’s kind of eerie when it begins.  You hear them howl and bark, but
you don’t see them.  You hear a twig snap, or some panting, or an odd howl or
growl.  But you never see them.  You can smell them, even, but you still can’t
see them.  You just know they are there.

These fat bastards were used to
helpless prey, though, and they weren’t ready for us.  Micah had proved to be a
good shot, since he’d been hunting since he was about four.  And he knew the
woods.  When he knew we were pretty well trapped, he popped a flare, using it
to start a small blaze in a downed pine tree.  There was a ton of available
firewood.  No one had been around here for a bit.

When the tree went up, we could see
the red eyes all around us.  I’m sorry to say, but these “noble” creatures
never really stood a chance.  Without even thinking about it, Micah and I each
selected three targets.  Micah shot first, with his 12 gauge, and hit a big
grey.  I hit his white bitch, then a brown.  Micah popped his second, another
huge grey.  They were gone, as quick as that.

I had not wanted to shoot, at all, to
avoid alerting our friends  that  we were after them.  I didn’t even want a
fire.  But, as they say, life is what happens while you’re making other plans. 
Without fire and guns, those wolves would have gotten us.  My conclusion was
that the wolves were overall a good thing because they killed and ate zombies,
but that they’d get some “normals” as well.  Life in the new times sure was a
bitch.

So we spent that night waving burning
branches and picking off a few more wolves and even a few zombies attracted by
all of the noise and flames.  The highlight of the night was when the wolves
killed and ate a pod of three zombie “wolves” and a brain.  Quite easily,
really.  It gave me some hope.  Let the real wolves proliferate and see what
happens.  Maybe they’d help our eradication program.

Tomorrow might bring an attack from
Santos, but we had no choice.  Kill or be killed.

Chapter 18:  Mike’s Journal—Mike In
Love

I am in love.  Despite all of it. 
Lita is just like me, but she’s a girl.  And a sexy one.  She loves to make
out, and a little more, when we have some time.  But really we are mostly just
friends.  And opponents.  We practice fighting more than we practice that
girlfriend stuff.

It’s tough to enjoy it since we
constantly remember that we are slaves.  That our job is to kill my Dad and the
rest of the Farm.  And my Mom is Santos’ sex slave or something.

But amazingly, every once in awhile
we do forget it all.

Ian likes Lita, too.  But he is very
careful to stay away from her.

“She’s just a kid, Mike.  Don’t you
worry, she’s all yours,” he chucked one time when he saw that I was jealous.  
I had grown to trust Ian a bit, but it was good to hear.

It was also good that Lita was almost
afraid of the big Brit.  Just looking at him, you could his history.  See the
blood on his hands.  Imagine what he’d had to do back in the day.  She kept
well away from him unless he was teaching fighting or shooting.

Chapter
19:    Jack’s Journey—Bear and Moose

Those  wolves did not become zombies,
but I’m wondering about the bears.  Up in Vermont, the only bears, at least right
now, are black bears.  Not the biggest, but big enough.  I figured that it
would not be long before we had browns and grizzlies again, but right now, we
only saw a few blacks.

Bears are eerily similar to humans,
I’ve always thought.  They eat everything, like we do.  They are unpredictable,
like we are.  You can’t tell if they are going to attack, or cuddle.  They’re
also kind of like pigs or dogs, but so are we.  I thought maybe the similarity
made them more likely to become zombies.

Anyway, I saw something the other day
that made me wonder if a bear might have “turned.”  Micah and I were walking
along a river bed, the night after the wolf attack, and we were like zombies
ourselves.  Stress, bad food, and no sleep will do that to you.

We saw a glorious bull moose in a
wetland next to the river.  It was massive, healthy, up to its ass in the
water.  Eating some weeds or something. 

As we stopped for a bit to admire it,
we saw a mature black bear coming down a game trail towards us.  It was
staggering along, and although it was not full grown, maybe a few years old, it
just seemed wrong.  We hunkered down to watch, although I kept it in my sights.

The bear saw the moose.  I have a
feeling that it didn’t smell the moose, since this bear was really bumbling and
stumbling along.   I’d seen a few bears in the wild, and they seemed sort of
business like.   Flip a stump and eat bugs.  Rip some blueberry bushes apart. 
Eat a dead squirrel.  Get in the river and scoop a fish.  But this bear didn’t
have that “feel.”  It was wrong.  Nothing in nature stumbles, until it’s
mortally injured or at the end of its life.  This one was just wrong.

This bear might go two hundred, two
fifty max.  The moose at least fifteen hundred pounds, with hooves and horns
and way out in the water to boot.  A bear would not try this moose, normally. 
No way.  But this bear, the moment he sees—not smells—this moose, he attacks,
full out, starting about 200 yards away.  It must have been exhausted by the
time he got there.

I had the bear lined up for a kill
shot, but the moose was ready for it.  It walked out to where the water was
about six feet deep.  Waited until the bear got close.  Placed its front hoof,
almost calmly, on the bear’s head, and stomped it under the water.  Held it
there for about five minutes.

I kept a close eye on this through my
scope.  I figured I might know a thing or two that a moose hadn’t figured out. 
Sure enough, as the moose walked away, that fucking bear comes right back up
and takes a bite out of its ass.  A small bite, to be sure, before I filled its
head with lead.  This time, it sank beneath the river for good.

Micah and I watched for a bit to see
what would happen to the moose.  The wound was survivable—unless moose got
infected.  We had to move on, but we stayed for a couple of hours.  I saw no
sign that this moose had turned.  I certainly hoped that wolves and moose and
deer wouldn’t become zombies, but I was concerned about the bear.  Who needs
zombie grizzlies hunting humans?

Chapter 20:    Kate’s
Diary—Luis Macias

I had become almost friendly with one
of Santos’ human guards, named Luis Macias.  Luis was a former drug mule and
cartel enforcer from El Salvador who got caught up here by the zombie
apocalypse.  Other than the Brit that Mike hung around with, Luis was the
scariest looking human around.  Huge, muscular, and covered with gang and
prison tattoos.

Perhaps because he’d heard about my
efforts to burn the zombie babies, Luis became quite friendly to me.  He would
bring me extra food and water, even once a cold soda that he had stashed
somewhere. 

I asked him why he worked for Santos,
and he shrugged.

“There is no choice, Kate.  Santos is
strong.  The strongest.  I always work for the strongest.  In my country, to do
otherwise will get you killed.”

“But you are not a bad man, Luis. 
Why don’t you try to make things better?  My husband is also strong, and will
be coming here to get me back.  Why not join me and fight for us?  With you
help we can be the strongest, and you will be safe.”

Luis just shrugged.  I don’t think he
could really answer.  All he could see was that Santos was strongest now.  But
I wondered if we could turn him.  I thought he was a good man way down inside.

One day, Luis came back to the Armory
badly wounded.  He’d been shot in the leg.  Sadie ended up nursing him, and I
helped her.  While she worked, Luis told us about the fight.

“I was out in Burlington, seeing if I
could find survivors or zombies.  Had a couple of wolves with me, a few
shamblers, and a brain.  Santos had ordered the brain to follow my orders and
to protect me from the zombies.  It worked somehow.  He wanted more bodies for
another attack on the Farm.  We weren’t finding nothing, but kept looking
around.

We ended up in this nice
neighborhood, kind of big houses set back from the street.  One of the houses
seemed like it hadn’t been looted or burned.  Almost felt like someone might be
in there.

It had been so long since we’d seen
anyone that we let our guard down a bit.  I sent the brain and the wolves
around the back and sides while I walked right up to the front door and knocked
on it.  My shamblers were right behind me.  All of a sudden, I hear a bunch of
quiet pops from around back.  Believe me, I’ve been hearing that sound my
entire life.  Silenced .223 rounds.  I ran as fast as I could away from the
house, just as the front door opened and this tall, skinny guy opened up with a
twelve gauge.  He blasted the shamblers to hell, then nailed me in the ass with
a load of birdshot as I ran.

Just when I thought I was in the
clear, I saw another guy come around the side.  He was the shooter.  He lined me
up for a kill shot, but one of the wolves took a final run at him, spoiling his
aim.  He got me in the shoulder.  I think the guy with the shotgun killed the
wolf.  I got away while they ran back in the house.”

Something about this incident made me
wonder if Jack had wounded Luis.  That type of trap sounded like Jack, and the
fight happened near, or maybe at, the old house we called the Bat Cave.  Could
Jack be on his way here to free Mike and me?

Chapter
21:    Mike’s Journal—Mike and Lita

I don’t care who reads this now.  I
am in love.  Lita and I went all the way last night.  It actually started when
we were fighting.  She got me down and, instead of trying to hit me, she ground
herself against me, down there.  And kissing me.  It was weird, at first.  Then
it felt kind of right.  Then, I was rock hard and figured a few things out all
at once.

First, this felt great.  I think I
was in love.  We hadn’t even kissed before, but we liked each other. 
Definitely.  I’d been noticing her a lot lately.  Her smell.  Her breath.  Her
body.  She had curves all over, and I didn’t.  I’d thought about it, but never
put it all together.  I instantly figured out why my balls had been aching so
much lately.