Zombie Dawn (22 page)

Tom, George and Mike hid in some bushes and covered me while I approached the house.  I waited for a few minutes to see if anyone noticed me but finally I had to knock on the door.  Kind of weird knocking on the door in a post-Apocalyptic world.

After a few minutes, a young boy called out uncertainly:  “Who’s there?” 

I called back:  “I’m looking for survivors.  How many do you have in there?”

I heard some whispered discussions inside.  Sounded like a man’s voice, or more than one.  I wondered why the boy would do the talking if there were adults inside.

The boy returned.  “Just me and my sister.”  Okay, now I knew.  I’d heard the men talking.

“Is that everyone?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Would you like to come with me?”

“No, we have to stay here.”

“Why?”

Silence, then more whispering.

“We’re safe in here.”

“Do you have food and water?”

“Yes.”

“Are there any zombies around?”

“No, I haven’t seen any.”

“Do you know if there are any other survivors in town?”

“I don’t know.”

“Okay, are you sure you don’t want to come with me?”

“Yes.”

As I walked away from the door, I again heard whispering.  As discussed, I walked back to the Hummer.  Everyone joined me there a few minutes later.  I told them what I had said and heard.

Tom started it.  “I saw a curtain move on the second floor.  It was the upper part of the curtain, so it probably wasn’t a kid.”

George added:  “Yeah, how could a kid live alone in a house like that for this much time?  Something weird is going on there.”

Mike had been around back.  “There’s a fenced in pen in the back yard with a door that comes out from the back of the house.  Looks like a dog kennel, but there were kid’s toys in it.”

This situation touched on our group philosophy and we’d come up with some rules regarding situations like this.  We had decided that we owed an obligation to other survivors to help them, share with them, and allow them to live with us if they wanted.  We would defend ourselves from survivors who attacked us but we would never initiate an attack.  Per Kate and Marj, kids were a protected class.  They were thinking ahead to the long term and the addition of new children to our group was a priority for them.

We decided to hop into the Hummer, warm up a bit, and talk things over.  In the event that someone from the house was watching us we’d clear out for a bit and come back later and approach the house.

This gave us a chance to check on our Popsicle.  When we returned to the Sentra, it was still running.  I opened the door and a blast of hot air escaped.  I checked on Popsy.  He was not moving but all of a sudden his eyes popped open.  He couldn’t move but his reddish black eyes sent the message that he wanted to eat me.  I closed the door and hopped into the Hummer. 

“He’s not done yet, but the cold doesn’t kill them.  He’s starting to come around.”
            “Godammit!” said Tom.  “Why can’t we ever get a break?”

“Don’t worry about him.  Let’s figure out what to do about the house,” I snapped.  We were all wishing that the cold would simply kill the Zs. Now we knew that they’d be back in the spring and also that we’d have to send teams out all winter to eradicate them.  It sucked.

Mike came up with a nice simple plan. “Let’s stake them out tonight.  It’s so cold they’d never expect it.  We can bundle up in our sleeping bags and watch from that red house next door.”

George groaned.  “This sucks.  Let’s just go in shooting and see what happens.”  George was not a fan of the cold. 

We decided to suck it up and use Mike’s plan.  This time, we parked a mile out and walked in silently.  Mike led the way; he was getting pretty good at this stuff.  He got us into the red house and we went upstairs and into two upstairs rooms, where we sat and waited.

Tom and I each had night vision equipment so we were scheduled to take the first watch.  It wasn’t even dark yet when we saw the back door of the yellow house open and five kids tumble out into the back yard into the dog pen.  They didn’t have much on in the way of warm clothes and had clearly been thrown out.  It looked like two girls about Bobbie’s age and three boys about Sean’s age.  All of the kids were filthy, skinny, and bruised. 

They quickly went to corners of the pen and relieved themselves.  When they were done, the older girls knocked on the door and, after a while, they were let back in again.  The youngest boy was a bit behind and we saw an adult smack him in the head for the delay.

Mike and George were already asleep in their sleeping bags.  We really did have good equipment and they seemed pretty comfortable.  Tom and I were freezing, even though we were partially in our bags.  We had to keep moving around the house to keep a good watch, and cold air would quickly get into our bags every time.  We were in a foul mood.

“Tom, we need to watch this house at least until tomorrow morning.  If the same kids come out again then, we’ll have to assume that they’re the only ones in there and I’d just attack the house right then.”

“What if there are babies inside there?”

“I don’t think these guys could handle babies.  Did you see those kids?  I think these guys are keeping them as slaves, maybe for work, maybe for trade, maybe for sex.  Guys like that wouldn’t put up with babies for long.”

Tom kept at it with the babies.  Finally, I agreed to go out after dark and listen and watch carefully to get more information.  We couldn’t risk the lives of innocents, even at serious risk to ourselves.  I was now in the foulest mood of my life.  We woke up Mike and George and told them the plan.   George insisted on going with me.  Mike and Tom would cover us.  Mike had a night vision scope on his M4.  Tom would use his night vision goggles and the iron sights on his M4.  I reminded him not to screw up and shoot us.  “How the hell can you shoot like that?”

Tom was the ultimate shooting weenie and replied: “Li and I practice this all the time.”

“Whatever.  Come on, George.”

 At least we were moving, which helped warm me up a bit.  We had agreed to stay on the side of the yellow house that faced Mike and Tom.  We slowly approached.  George hid behind a big trash can. I walked up right next to the house and pressed myself against it.  The windows were positioned so that no one could see out.  We carefully scanned the outside of the house for cameras, lights, and microphones and saw none.

A few of the windows had flickering light in them; we figured that they were using candles or lanterns.  It made me long for my warm, comfortable island hideout.

I had known from the beginning that we wouldn’t be able to see or hear much from that side of the house.  Somewhere in my mind I knew that I would end up inside that friggin’ house before the night was over.  I had started to approach the rear door when the knob turned.  I barely had time to bail out behind a shrub when two guys came out. 

They were clearly white trash.  Filthy, bearded, dressed in rags, horrible teeth.  I could smell whiskey and body odor from where I huddled.  I could also overhear them as they did their business.

“You watch it, Jimmy.  He told you not to touch any of the new ones.  He’s saving them all for the weekend.  I saw you eying up that little boy.”

“He always takes the good ones.  I wanna pick my own this time.”

“We’ll get our chance later.  He’ll be asleep.  I say we cut his throat tonight.  Then you can have first pick.”

“That’s a deal, Ronnie.”

I’ve always hated diddlers.  In the old world, we’d had to give them rights and no one, or at least not many, had the balls to kill them.  We had to let them live in our towns.  We had to let them out on parole and probation.   We had to pay to keep them in prison.

I decided to enact a slight revision to the criminal code right then and there.  From now on, pedophiles had the exact same rights as Zs.  That was the right to be hunted down and killed on sight.

This was an exciting development.  My lawyer skills were a little rusty but I figured I could get the rest of the group to sign off on the concept.  In fact, I was so confident on enactment of that particular approach that I crept into the pen and popped each of them in the back of the head with my hammer, then slit their throats. 

George’s eyes were as big as pie plates.  I motioned him over and told him to draw his weapon and stand beside the door.  I then pounded on the door and stood back and to the side.  I heard someone approach and man’s voice called out. “Just come in, you fat losers.  The door’s open.”

We waited.  I called out “Ronnie needs help,” in what I hoped was sort of like Ronnie’s voice.  I was watching the window next to the door.  When I saw it move, I fired my .45 five times through the window and the wall under it.  I heard a low thump as something hit the floor.  I kicked open the door.  A man was lying on the floor.  He was still alive.  I double-tapped him in the head and quickly reloaded, then waited silently next to the door.

That .45 was loud, and I heard the kids in the house calling out.  There were a lot more than five, it sounded like.  I radioed to Mike and Tom to come down, got George inside the house, and started a slow search.

I was in the kitchen.  It was lit only by a small votive candle.  It was empty.  I carefully walked down the front hall to the front door and opened it wide.  I stationed Mike by the front door and George by the back while Tom and I cleared each room.

There were three other rooms on the first floor.  They appeared to be rooms used by the three dead assholes, with camping gear, porn magazines, and booze bottles strewn around.

George led the way upstairs, where there were four bedrooms.  I was amazed to see that there were three babies in one room, all alive.  They were screaming at the top of their lungs.  A confession:  Other than my own kids, I hate babies.  Luckily, there was an older girl who came out from another room and started to quiet them.  She didn’t speak a word.

I checked the next room, which had six young boys in it.  The room after that had five young girls in it.  The final room had another five toddlers in it.  Jesus Christ!  Nineteen kids and babies.  Kate would be happy but what a load we had just taken on!

It was about eleven at night.  We decided that Mike and Tom would stay at the house and guard the kids and that George and I would return to the Farm to pick up some help and the bus, which we’d need to transport our new charges home.  I wanted to go alone, but it was a rule that we travel together at all times, so I was overruled.  We rigged up a few Claymores at the house and also set up a .30 cal that covered the front.  Mike and Tom seemed fine, but I was worried.

George and I left immediately.  This was dangerous and we drove as fast as we could.  There was an amazing amount of wildlife out and about.  We almost hit a deer.  But that was about it.  A few miles out, we raised the Farm on the radio and I asked Kate to get the bus ready along with Stan and Christina and be ready to roll.  Jake and Sumner would be in charge of security while we were gone.

Kate was ready in about 20 minutes.  Amazing, really.  Between wanting to make sure that Mike was okay, and the prospect of new kids to care for, she was eager to proceed.  We’d kept the bus and the other vehicles tuned up and ready so it started right up.

A few minutes after we got there, we rolled out again.  I led the way in the Hummer and Kate drove the bus.  This time I did hit a deer, but the crash bar took care of it.  It ran off into the woods.

A couple of miles out we raised Mike on the radio.  They were under attack.  They thought the attackers were other survivors.  Tom was tracking their radio transmissions.   Apparently, the yellow house was ground zero for some, but not all, of the bad guys.  According to Mike, it looked like six heavily armed men, grouped around the front of the house.  Mike had shot two, and the remaining four were discussing things behind a stone wall in the front yard.  I remembered the yard, and told Mike and Tom to wait until they heard our shots but to be ready.

George, Stan and I crept through the surrounding neighborhood.  We were all set up for nighttime action.  All black clothing, with night vision goggles.  We made our way to a spot about fifty yards away that had a view of the stone wall.  They were laying there, talking, and clearly freezing.  There were four of them, and one had been wounded.  They carried AR 15s with scopes.   

Each of us had a clear shot.  We had discussed taking them alive, but we decided that it wouldn’t be hard to find any survivors.  Clearly, we’d have to clear St. Albans house by house and we’d come across them soon enough. 

George called the shot.  He aimed carefully and counted off.  We had agreed to shoot at three, and we did.  Two of us had chosen the same target, so we only hit two.  The other two started to stand up but once their heads got above the stone wall Mike popped them.  That kid could shoot!

We checked out the four--all dead--and swept the perimeter of the house.  We radioed Mike and he cleared us to come in.  He directed us to take their weapons, which were nice and in .223.  I radioed Kate and Christina and had them bring the bus in and park it right next to the house.  We loaded all of the children into the bus.  Kate and Christina were shocked.  It’s one thing to say we found twenty kids, but it’s another to actually see twenty kids.  This was a life changer for all of us.  I was not happy about it, but Kate was delighted.  She already had ten of the kids helping her take care of ten of the other kids.