Authors: J.A. Crowley
We had a bunch of stops to make. We decided that I would drive the pickup, with Mike riding shotgun and Bobbie and Sean in the back. Molly would ride with us. Kate would drive the Expedition with the trailer. She had Jake riding shotgun and Tyler and Julie in the back with Shithead. Stan would drive the other Expedition. Marj would ride shotgun and Cody would sit in back. Christina was a crack shot, so we created a comfortable spot for her to lie in the back of the cargo area and check our rear. We told her not to shoot except in an emergency, and to warn us before she did.
The CB radios worked great and we agreed that channel 4 would be primary and channel 9 would be backup.
Stan knew a guy who was a gun dealer and had a small shop on the outskirts of town. That was our first stop. We wanted to stock up on ammo and see what we could find. To our surprise, Tom was alive and well barricaded in his shop along with his wife and two sons. Stan invited them to come along, but they decided to stay. “We’re going to ride it out here,” he said. “I haven’t seen many of them since the day they swarmed.”
“Jack here took care of most of them, and we got the rest,” Stan said proudly. “Do you think it’s safe around here? We figure that it’s okay for now, but that more hordes might come along anytime, since we’re so close to the highway here.”
“I know,” replied Tom. “We’re planning on barricading the highway at that narrow point right by Route 140. We’ll blow the temporary bridge and barricade the rest of the roads in and out of town.” He showed us a topographical map of town. He’d clearly been thinking carefully about this and had a pretty good plan. Our group had considered doing the same but we had made a definitive decision to stay away from major highways. Those hordes had a way of defeating barricades. We had learned that the hard way.
“Are there other survivors?”
“I’ve heard some chatter on the radio but we’re not sure.” Tom replied. “I sure hope so. I heard someone talking about the full moon on the radio. They said the full moon had something to do with the horde. Who knows?”
I counted back and realized that the horde had happened the day after a full moon. Decided to ponder that one for awhile.
“Good luck,” I told him. “Do you have any guns or ammo that you’d be willing to part with before we go?”
“What do you need?”
Stan told him. Tom said that he’d like to hold on to what he had, for the most part, but was willing to trade. We traded him three cases of MREs for two cases of .22 ammo and we also swapped out six different .22 rifles for 4 Ruger 10/22 .22 rifles and 16 magazines. We gave the new .22s to Sean, Bobbie, Tyler and Cody and they were ecstatic. We traded him two 9 millimeter pistols for 4 used Smith & Wesson 22A .22 pistols and a dozen magazines. I traded Tom a bagful of gold and jewelry for a case of .223 ammo, a thousand rounds, and four extra magazines for my Mini. Tom wouldn’t give up any of his .45 ammo or guns.
We were all happy with our trades, agreed to stay in touch on the CBs and via shortwave, and said our goodbyes.
Our next stop was the bridge. I wanted to set it up as a zombie trap and Stan and Marj wanted to say goodbye to Stan, Jr. While they did that, I tied a bunch of bottles and cans up with fishing line, filled them partway with pebbles and broken glass, and lowered them from the superstructure. It was windy up there and the cans knocked together, making a good amount of noise. I hoped that zombies would be attracted by the sound from time to time and fall off the drop. Maybe we’d never know, but I thought it might help.
Chapter Thirteen: Bill and Nancy
The next stop was to check on Tyler and Cody’s mom and dad. Bill and Nancy had planned to go to the Cape, but were known from time to time to enjoy a weekend at home without the kids. We simply couldn’t leave without checking on them. Their neighborhood was not far from mine, just off Chestnut Street. It had been obliterated by the horde. Cars were strewn across yards and the road, several houses had burned, and it was a mess. There was a barricade built out of cars and fence parts and there were a lot of dead zombies, so clearly someone had made a last stand there. Nothing was moving then, though.
We went to Tyler and Cody’s house. Their parents, Bill, Jr. and Nancy, lived in a nice colonial at the end of the road. It was trashed. We looked around carefully, and Tyler and Cody yelled loudly for their parents. Just when we were about to give up, we heard a sound from the side yard. Something was moving. It turned out to be the cover to the septic tank. Bill and Nancy had hidden down there and had survived. We helped them out of the tank and hosed them off. They were filthy, starved, crying and laughing. So were Tyler and Cody. We had to douse them all with a hose. They went into their house, changed clothes, packed up a few things, and came with us. It was never even discussed.
Bill had a 12 gauge, which we threw in the back until we could clean it. That was it for weapons from their house. He told us that he’d seen a zombie climb up a tree and jump on one his neighbors. We hadn’t seen anything like that, so we asked him about it.
“It was this guy Tom St. Pierre. Big, tall guy, always works out, the rest of us hated him. Vegetarian, organic food, doesn’t drink. Good looking, surgeon, had it all. He was smart, strong, successful, everything. After we got him, we checked him out. He had only one bullet hole, where my neighbor got him between the eyes. No bites or other wounds. We figured he must have turned at the hospital and somehow he retained some speed and some intelligence.“
He came running up, about as fast as a normal person, jumped on the hood of a car and got over it. We all missed him; no one was ready. He saw Freddy over next to a tree looking the other way, jumped up into the tree, and came down on Freddy. Another neighbor, Tim, is a good shot and dropped this guy while he was biting Freddy. I haven’t seen any like that before or since.”
We put that one into the memory banks. We’d seen some of the younger ones moving quickly, but this was the first adult we’d heard of with speed and agility. It was hard to even imagine having to deal with them. We spread the word to everyone that there were some strong and fast zombies out there and not to take anything for granted.
We decided to keep our eyes out for another vehicle so that we’d have room for more survivors and supplies. We remembered that there was a nice black 4 wheel drive cargo van back at Smitty’s so we drove over and picked it up. It had only two seats and the back was wide open.
Christina agreed to drive, since Bill and Nancy were exhausted. We threw a mattress in the back of the van and let them rest. We decided to fill the van with supplies and mount a CB and GPS in it and that we’d actually leave town the next morning. Once again, we got supplies from Ace Hardware and Radio Shack and equipped the van with extra gas tanks and a first aid chest.
Good news. Nancy was a doctor. Actually, a dermatologist—but still a doctor. Stan, Kate and I discussed briefly that she was like gold and needed to be protected at all costs. We remembered that Bill was a plumber. Possibly even better. They were valuable acquisitions to the team, to say the least.
We broke into a large CVS and cleared it of six zombies. Again, it had been barricaded and all of the zombies were wearing CVS shirts and aprons. They had protected the store but been attacked from inside when one or more of them turned.
Nancy told us what supplies to gather and went back to the pharmacy with Stan and Mike as armed escorts. Surprisingly, it was intact, and Nancy was able to get what she wanted. We stocked up on food and water and the kids went crazy with candy and gum and soda. The van was already stuffed to the gills, with no room for the mattress anymore.
That night, we stayed in the town library. It was empty and easy to secure since it was an old stone building with a few small windows. We all “checked out” a bunch of materials and figured we’d never have to pay the fines.
During that night’s meeting, I told the group that I needed to check on my sister, who lived to the east about fifteen miles, and then my brother, who lived about fifteen miles to the west, before we could head north. I needed to know what had happened to them. To my surprise, everyone agreed.
We left at 5:00 a.m. the next morning and headed east. It took about three hours and thirty plus miles to cover what was usually a straight, fifteen mile shot. Many of the roads were blocked and we saw more and more zombies as we got further from town. Stan ran down as many of them as he could.
At about 6, we passed a police station and decided to check it out. It was empty, but we were able to get two AR 15s in .223, 500 rounds of ammo, and a dozen round magazines. Just before 8, we drove along the back of a large sporting goods store and decided to give it a shot.
We’d thought about larger stores and knew that it might be risky, but we needed as many weapons and camping supplies as we could find and decided it might be worth it. We had thought it out a bit. First, we arranged the vehicles in a circle and put a shooter on top of each vehicle for security. We decided that Stan, Jake and I would go in. We carried only our .45s.
There were only a few cars in the parking lot, but we found a BMW 735 with its keys in the ignition, along with the former owners who were mindlessly struggling in place. We busted into the car and ended the occupants. The car started right up and we rigged it to drive right into the store. We rolled down the windows, turned the radio up as high as we could, and launched the car into the store. It smashed through the front window going at least thirty miles per hour and crashed through the store. We figured that would draw the attention of any zombies. We waited for five minutes then slowly entered.
The place was empty. Most of the good stuff was already looted from the shelves but we broke into the storeroom and found some valuable items, including a dozen high end sleeping bags still in the box, a case of Maglites with batteries, a box full of Coleman lanterns, two cases of freeze-dried camping food, and two big tents. Jake broke into the manager’s office and found a huge gun safe in it, which was open and full of goodies, including cases of .223, crates of .22 and .45, and lots of 12 gauge shells. Also, there were three Mini 14s in there in .223 and half a dozen .45s. Magazines for all of it. On the way out, I saw that the store had a Thompson .45 and two drum magazines mounted in a framed display case high above the gun case. I grabbed a stepladder from the back, broke into it and grabbed the Tommy gun and magazines. I’d figure out later if it worked.
We loaded our finds into the van and moved out.
Jenny lived about a mile from the store. Her neighborhood, a gated condo complex, was barricaded and looked intact. It was a really nice complex. Jenny had divorced well.
Mike, Jake and I drove up slowly in the pickup and beeped the horn. The rest of the cars were hidden out of sight. After a few minutes, a man called out: “Go away. We have you in our sights and will fire on you if you try to enter.”
I called back, letting him know we were survivors looking for my sister, Jenny. He hesitated, and I could hear him talking to someone else. He said “They aren’t in here. This place was empty when we got here. Go away.”
I called back, letting them know we were leaving peacefully. We rejoined the others. “Something’s wrong there,” said Jake. “Shouldn’t that guy have been happy to see more survivors?”
“Did you notice that you asked about one person and he responded with ‘they’?” said Stan.
“Yeah, I think we’ve got to get in there and take a look around.” There was a DPW garage close by and we decided to clear the garage and spend the night inside it. There were quite a few zombies in there and we cleared them quickly. We decided that whoever was not going on the “mission” would stay in the cars, and be ready to go immediately when we returned. That would keep them safer from zombies, and allow us to bug out quickly if we were chased or followed back from Jenny’s.
Mike, Jake and I went in. We carried M4s and .45s only plus small rucksacks with some food and water. I carried six grenades. Mike carried some heavy bolt cutters that we’d found in the garage. Jake carried 2 Claymores with some wire and detonators. The plan was to circle the complex and see what was going on. If we decided to enter, Jake would create a diversion by blowing one of the Claymores. We’d cut a hole in the fence and come in the other side. Jake would then set up outside the hole and cover our retreat with the other Claymore.
As we walked around, we could see some lighted areas in the compound. There were quite a few people inside, mostly women and children. Initially, I thought they were zombies because they moved oddly, but when we got closer I could see that their feet were shackled. We saw five or six men who were not shackled yelling at the women and hitting them. There were about eight women and twelve kids. One guy grabbed one of the women and dragged her into a condo while the other men laughed.
I’d seen enough. We decided to return to the garage for reinforcements. I wanted to bring Christina and Kate as sharpshooters. Jake and I would go in and attack the captors. Mike would free some of the captives and arm them so that they could defend themselves. We decided to go in silently, without a diversion, at 3 a.m.
I silently cut a large hole in the fence. Jake wired the two Claymores to the sides and set them up for Christina to blow when we retreated. Christina set up in a tree across the street, with a good view into the compound. Kate set up in a tree further down. She had a good view of the opening and Christina’s tree; her only job was to cover our retreat.