“Oh, yeah?” Justin asked. “How many?”
“It started out with six of us, but at one time we had fifteen people. But there was some trouble.”
“Trouble?”
“Yeah, four of them died.”
“How so?” Brandon asked.
“One got infected and attacked the others.” Well, that’s not exactly how it went, he thought, but no need to give them details.
“Do you know how that person became infected?” Grant asked. Cutter replied with a short laugh.
“Sure. He got careless and got bitten one day. He dumped peroxide on the bites and kept it hidden from everyone, but an hour or two later he went ape shit and tore into the others. So, we had to kill them.” Actually, Kiss killed them. He killed all three of them while the rest of them looked on indifferently.
“And then the flood happened and wiped us out. My brother and I decided to head out on our own.” Yeah, they snuck out in the middle of the night because Kiss was starting to scare them.
Justin looked him over. For some reason he didn’t think Cutter was being entirely truthful, but said nothing. He made a mental note to discuss it with Zach and the others later.
“So, why didn’t Zach join in on this goat fuck?” Cutter asked in an effort to change the subject.
“He said after what he’d been through, there was no way he was going to leave his kids,” Grant explained. “I guess I’m partly to blame for that.” Cutter snorted.
“Sounds like he’s a coward.” Justin gave him a withering stare, but Cutter was unfazed and continued. “And why do you all keep acting like he’s some kind of genius?” It was phrased as a question, but his contempt was clear.
“Because he is, or very close to it,” Grant responded plainly, as if he were speaking to a child. “And for the record, I don’t believe there is a cowardly bone in his body.” Justin looked at him in surprise.
“You actually sound like you respect him,” he said. Grant nodded.
“I do, believe it or not.” He was silent, until he glanced around and saw everyone staring at him.
“Think about it. He was nothing more than a sixteen-year-old kid when the plague broke out. The one person he was with died within a month. So, he was all alone, seemingly helpless. I mean, really, how many of you really think you could have survived by yourself if this shit hit when
you
were sixteen? I sincerely doubt I could have.” Grant paused and looked at them.
“But Zach survived. Not only did he survive, he found others and helped them survive. He achieved it through innovation, cleverness, and toughness.” Grant pointed at an arbitrary location on the northwestern horizon. “That school you’re living in, that was Zach’s idea, along with the radio tower, and the crop production, and the livestock care, and the successful eradication of most of the zombies around the school.”
“Hey, I’ve got an idea. You should train him to be a doctor,” Brandon said half-jokingly.
“I'd love to,” Grant replied. “Unfortunately, he doesn’t like me very much, so I don’t believe he’d be interested, but he’d be a good one. I believe he’d be good at anything he set his mind to.” He chuckled then.
“You guys want to hear a story Janet told me?”
“Sure,” Justin replied.
“At one time, Zach was hooked up with two young fillies at the same time.”
“Wasn’t he married?” Justin asked.
“Yep, to a girl named Julie, Janet’s daughter. But he had another young lady as well.” Blake sat up.
“Wait, he was banging two women at once?”
“Indeed he was,” Grant affirmed. “There’s a few pictures of them still sitting on the shelf of the old house. They were both very pretty. Sadly, both of them are dead now, but you have to admit, for a while he was probably having the time of his life.”
“That dog,” Justin said with a chuckle.
“What do you mean pictures?” Cutter argued. “There ain’t any places to go get pictures since it all went to hell.”
Grant turned and looked at Cutter. “Haven’t you been listening? Not only is Zach intelligent, he’s very resourceful. And, you’d do well to avoid any confrontation with him. He can be very dangerous.” When Major Parsons made that proclamation, Cutter cackled derisively.
“I’d have to agree,” Justin said. “There was a fellow Marine by the name of Solonowski. He made the mistake of tangling with Zach and lost. Tonya told me he’s killed others too. If you keep hitting on Kelly, don’t be surprised if one day he gets tired of it and takes a piece out of you.” When a minute of silence passed, Cutter spoke up.
“So, what happened between Zach and that Polack Marine?” Cutter asked sarcastically. Justin gave him a look before answering.
“Sol was a decent Marine, but he was a hothead and always let his emotions get the better of him. He underestimated Zach and Zach killed him.” He paused a moment. “He killed him with his own knife. So, I guess we should be calling him Cutter instead of you.” Brandon and Blake burst out in laughter. Cutter scowled and stood.
“Well, all of this talk about Zach makes me want to take a shit.” He grabbed some napkins out of his pack, walked over to the guardrail and stuck his ass over the edge. Brandon sighed and stood.
“Alright, I have first watch. You guys try to get some sleep.” He looked pointedly at Cutter as he walked back to the rest of them. “I hope you washed your hands.”
They made the outskirts of Atlanta a couple of hours after sunrise. Atlanta was a major metropolitan area back before and traffic jams were common. Now, the streets were, unsurprisingly, a logjam of abandoned and wrecked vehicles, the big difference being as they got closer to their destination there was a marked increase of skeletal remains, as if a large group of people had all been killed en masse. Several buildings had burned at some point and were now nothing more than shells of blackened concrete and steel I-beams. Justin recognized familiar landmarks as they approached the Arlen Specter building. He maneuvering through and led the two vehicle convoy onto Clifton Road without any problems.
“Alright, heads up, gents,” Justin said, breaking radio silence. “We’re almost there.” Without the usual Atlanta traffic, they arrived within minutes. But, they had to stop several feet away. Brandon stopped the second vehicle beside him. Justin set the brake and stood out of the top hatch with hands on the M60. If not for the stench, it would have been an amazing sight. Thousands of corpses were stacked on top of each other. But, that didn’t mean there weren’t any live zombies left. Oh, no. Justin counted at least thirty on the street. They were standing around aimlessly and seemed not to have not yet spotted the five men.
“Oh, my God,” Cutter gasped. Justin pointed.
“See over there? They made a ramp with their bodies. First, to get over the fence, and then to get to the third floor windows.”
“That's over thirty feet high,” Cutter said in amazement.
“I bet you a lot of them on the bottom are still alive,” Grant remarked. It was about that time that the wind shifted. Blake gagged, leaned out of a window and heaved up his breakfast. Brandon searched around in the Humvee, frantically looking for a respirator, but it was too late. The foul odor hit him and he started retching too.
“How are we going to get in the building, Justin?” Grant asked. Justin didn’t answer for a long three minutes.
“Mann, try to raise them on the radio.” The soldier acknowledged and tried for several minutes without success.
“Alright, this is a no-go, we’re aborting,” he finally said. Grant looked at him in surprise.
“What do you mean?” he implored. Justin waved a hand around.
“There’re too many of them,” he explained. “Once they figure out we’re here, we’d run out of ammo before we could shoot our way out.”
“There’s got to be some other way,” Grant lamented as he retrieved the binoculars. He scanned the windows, all of them, looking for any signs of intelligent human life. Perhaps a sign hung in one of the windows, or someone using a mirror to signal them, anything.
But there was no sign, there was no signal. Nothing. Only zombies. Thousands of them. He suddenly gasped.
“Oh shit,” he muttered.
“What?” Cutter asked as Justin realized what was happening. The zombies, all of them, seemed to turn toward them simultaneously and began walking. Slowly at first, but the momentum was picking up.
“Time to go,” Justin said urgently and dropped down into the driver’s seat. Blake did the same and together they started the Humvees. Only, Blake’s Humvee didn’t start.
“Shit!” he barked as he desperately tried to start the vehicle.
“Did you flood it?” Justin asked through the window.
“I don’t know, maybe.” He kept turning the starter, but the engine refused to crank to life. Justin looked at the approaching horde. They were less than a hundred yards from them now. He made a command decision.
“Grab your gear, the sixty and the ammo and get in here,” he commanded. The three men didn’t hesitate.
“We’re going to leave it?” Grant asked.
“You got a better idea?” Justin responded. All of them turned to look. The original group of thirty was getting closer. What’s more, the numbers were growing. They seemed to be coming from everywhere.
Five grown men and assorted gear made it a tight fit in the Humvee, but nobody was complaining. They took off just as the leading edge of the horde made it to them.
The vehicle had plenty of torque, but it’d never win any drag races. It accelerated slowly and the men watched anxiously as the zombies grabbed at them.
“Son of a bitch!” Justin yelled to nobody in particular as two of them jumped in front of them. Justin had to slow slightly to run over them, which gave the zombies a slight advantage.
“They’re throwing themselves under the wheels to slow us down!” Brandon shouted in sudden understanding and opened fire. Blake squeezed through the open hatch and joined in the shooting. It gave them just enough of an opening for Justin to accelerate and finally speed away from them.
“Shit,” Grant muttered.
“Alright guys, shoot only if you have to,” Justin ordered. He was worried. The two soldiers went through a lot of rounds very quickly and they didn’t have a whole lot to begin with.
They were back on the interstate when they encountered another horde.
“Where did they come from?” Cutter asked nobody in particular.
“Hold on!” Justin shouted as he swerved right and left in an attempt to avoid them. He understood now. These things were working collectively. If enough of them could get themselves caught up in the undercarriage, they could effectively disable the Humvee. It wasn’t a pleasant thought. Brandon started firing again, but at least he was only shooting in three-round bursts.
“It could be worse,” Grant said while holding on for dear life. Justin hastened a sideways glance at him. “At least they haven’t figured out how to block the road with all of these derelict cars.” Justin frowned at him.
“Don’t give ‘em any ideas.”
“Are we going to give it another try?” Blake asked. They’d driven five miles down the interstate, and after not seeing any zombies anywhere in sight, they stopped. While everyone provided security, Justin crawled under the Humvee to check for any damage.
“Damn,” he muttered and quickly crawled back out.
“What’s wrong?” Grant asked. Justin retrieved his protective mask.
“There’s pieces of zombie flesh falling out of the undercarriage,” he said as he donned his mask.
“I feel safe to say our mission is a failure,” Justin said from under the Humvee. “So, no, we’re not going to give it another try.”
“I don’t know, Lieutenant,” Grant rejoined. “We’ve got to do something.” Justin saw no damage, crawled out, and pulled the respirator off. He looked at his military top in disgust and took it off. Blake found a rag and wet it down before handing it to Justin.
“What would you suggest, sir?” Justin queried as he wiped his hands off. “I mean, unless we were looking at totally different things, I don’t think there is any way in hell we can get in that building and back out in one piece.” Justin watched as Grant tried to form some type of cognizant response, but couldn’t. Justin sighed as he threw the rag down. “Who has the sanitizer?”
“Alright,” Justin said after he’d cleaned up, “it’s decided. We’re heading back. Let’s sort our gear and take an ammo inventory. Brandon, man the sixty and keep watch.”
“Okay, slow down.” Grant was driving now, Justin was in the passenger seat with an M4 sitting in his lap. “Let’s see what kind of greeting we’re going to get.”
They were again approaching the crest of Monteagle Mountain. Suddenly, Grant braked to a stop and pointed.
“That looks like Jubal,” he said. There was a man lying on the ground beside the dump truck with his head and shoulders resting against one of the tires.
“Edge closer, slowly,” Justin said. Grant complied and came to within fifty feet before stopping.
“Yeah, it’s him, and there’s blood all over him.” Justin scanned the entire area, spotting two sets of legs peeking out from behind the dump truck.
“Blake and Cutter, rear security. Brandon, cover us with the M60.” Without waiting for an answer, he and Grant exited the Humvee and the two Marines jogged over to Jubal.
“He’s still alive,” Grant said and started carefully cutting off his shirt. There were four bullet holes in his torso, each of them oozing blood. Grant briefly glanced at Justin somberly. Jubal stirred and struggled to open his eyes. When he was able to focus, he coughed and drew in a breath.
“Well, lookee here, it’s the Marines to the rescue.” His voice was ragged and pained. He coughed and a bloody froth came out.
“What the hell happened?” Justin asked. With painful effort, he pointed over at the two sets of legs.
“We had a difference of opinion.” He watched Grant fussing over him a moment before waving him off.
“It’s too late for all that,” he said while coughing up a combination of phlegm and blood. “Unless you got one of them life-flight helicopters on the way to swoop me up and carry me to a fancy hospital.” He reached out with amazing quickness and grabbed Grant’s arm.
“Marine to Marine, I ain’t gonna make it, ain’t that right?”
“You were a Marine?” Justin asked.
“What do you mean
were
a Marine, son?” More coughing. “I’ll always be a Marine ‘till the day I die, which ain’t gonna be too much longer, I’m thinking.”
Justin gestured at Brandon and hooked a thumb toward the two bodies. He nodded and hustled over and disappeared behind the dump truck. He emerged a moment later carrying two pistols and a scoped rifle.
“They’re dead,” he said. “Both of them shot in the head. Good shooting, old man.” Jubal nodded at the compliment and handed his handgun to Justin.
“That’s a Colt Nineteen-Eleven. I’ve had it ever since ‘Nam. It’s old, but it’ll still do the job. Take care of it, please.”
“I will,” Justin replied.
“They knew,” he said in between coughs.
“What?” Justin asked.
“Ole Banjo over there, he may not have looked like much, but he had country smarts. He saw those machine guns of yours and remembered all of them casings lying around his dead kinfolk from a while back. He put two and two together. They were going to set you up and kill all of you.” He gestured. “Banjo is pretty good with that deer rifle. He was going to pick you off.” He gestured toward Banjo again. “I don’t think I ever saw him miss when we went huntin’.”
“Why’d you stop them?” Grant asked.
“Why do you think, son?” Jubal questioned. None of them had a response, and instead watched silently as Jubal’s breathing faded. When it was obvious the old man was dead, Justin used the Colt to put a bullet in his head.
“Rule number one,” Justin said quietly. “Semper Fi.” Justin shared a long moment of silence with Jubal before walking going through his pants pockets. He found two extra magazines for the Colt.
“Good job, Marine,” he said under his breath. He stood and walked over to Banjo and his friend. He used Jubal’s Colt to shoot each one in the head.
“Do they really come back to life?” Blake asked after they’d gotten underway. “People, I mean. After they die, do they really come back as zombies?” Grant shrugged.
“We’d had reports of it happening, but nothing confirmed. We had all kinds of unconfirmed reports.”
It was slow going. Cars and trucks in the west bound lanes of I-24 were more numerous, for some unknown reason. Nonetheless, they had no other encounters, with either man or zombies, until the approached community formerly known as Beech Grove. Justin had been half dozing when he saw something down the road. Suddenly, he sat up and slapped Grant on the arm.
“Stop the vehicle,” he told him. Grant braked quickly, looked over at Justin questioningly and followed along his line of sight. About three hundred yards down the interstate, a figure was walking along, his back to the men.
“Is that a zombie or a man?” he asked.
“He ain’t walking like a zombie. More like a soldier. Look at how his shoulders are square and the deliberate steps. He’s carrying a rucksack and a rifle too.” Justin pulled out the binoculars.
“His ruck is stuffed as full as it can get. I bet it weighs almost a hundred pounds.” And the man doesn’t seem too hindered by carrying all of that weight, he thought. He looked over at Blake. “Let’s check him out. Don’t do anything threatening but be ready.” Grant started forward.
“You know, I still outrank you,” he said to Justin.
“Yes, sir,” Justin replied, “and as a superior officer you wisely know your forte is doctoring and mine is soldering.” Grant started to retort, but instead grunted and sat back in his seat.
“Pull up beside him, but keep some room between us.” As they started forward the man stopped walking, dropped his rucksack and waited. He held his rifle at port arms. It wasn’t threatening, but Justin knew he could bring it up and fire quickly if he wanted.
The major continued driving and stopped when the Humvee was even with him. The man stood motionlessly, staring at them. He was a younger black man, maybe a year or two younger than Justin, lean, wearing a set of ACUs that’d seen better days and his face was fixed in a perpetual scowl.
“How’s it going, soldier?” Justin asked. The soldier nodded quietly and looked them over carefully before his eyes settled on Blake, who was standing in the open hatch casually leaning against the M60.
“Expecting trouble?” he asked with a quiet southern drawl.
“Just being careful,” Justin replied. “I’m Lieutenant Justin Smithson.” He gestured with his head. “The driver here is Major Grant Parsons. That’s Private Mann on the sixty.” He hooked his thumb at the back seat. “Sergeant Caswell and Butter, uh, I mean Cutter.” The soldier gave them all a curt nod.
“My name’s True. I was in the Guard at one time, but I don’t much bother saluting to anyone anymore.” He paused to see if either of the officers had a problem with that statement.
“Where are your people, Private True?” Grant asked.
“Dead,” True responded without emotion. Justin paused a moment to see if True was going to elaborate. He didn’t.
“Where are you heading?”
“Nashville,” True replied. “I met some people there a while back and I’d like to try to find them.” Justin glanced briefly at Grant, who shrugged.
“You want a ride?”
Brandon helped him strap down his rucksack on the outside of the Humvee with the others.
“It’s going to be a little cramped,” he quipped.
“It don’t matter,” True replied. “Say you’re a lieutenant and you’re a major?”
“That’s right,” Justin said. He had turned in his seat and watched Private True. The man had rendered his assault rifle safe and had the barrel pointing down at the floorboard.
“I don’t like officers,” True casually announced. Justin glanced at Grant a second before returning his attention to True.
“Y’all don’t have to worry about me. I’m appreciative for the ride. I couldn’t find a car that’d run.”
“Why don’t you like officers?” Grant asked loudly over the noise of the engine.
“It’s a long story full of bullshit and betrayal,” True replied.
“We’d still love to hear it,” Brandon countered. True shrugged.
“I was fresh back from Afghanistan and we were promised a week’s leave. Just before I was going to leave and head home to my family, this butterball lieutenant, fresh out of college, comes swaggering in and tells me I have to pull weekend guard duty.”
“That sucks, what happened?”
“I told him in to go fuck himself,” True replied. “I got stopped at the gate by the MPs as I was heading out. I spent the weekend in the brig, got an Article Fifteen and busted back to E-1.” Justin nodded in understanding. True leaned back and tried to make himself comfortable, which wasn’t easy, being squeezed between Brandon and Cutter.
“So, anyway, the only officer I ever respected after that was a lieutenant by the name of Ward, and he’s dead.” There were a few minutes of silence before he spoke again.
“If y’all don’t mind, I’ve been a few days without sleep. I’m gonna catch up.” Without waiting for a response, he pulled his hat down over his eyes. He appeared to be asleep in under a minute.