I only managed to reload once before they were on us. It’s funny how you think of insignificant things when you’re in the midst of an adrenalin-pumped, balls-to-the-wall situation, like fighting for your life from bloodthirsty zombies. There I was, butt stroking left and right and the only thing I was thinking about was these things looked fairly decent, comparatively speaking. They still smelled, but the decomposition was minimal, in some of them it was almost non-existent. Chunks of rotting flesh had completely scabbed over and their blackened eyes actually looked like they had moisture.
The gunfire coming from behind me was almost unnoticed now, like white noise in the background, rain on a metal roof. Instead, I was concentrating entirely on surviving. The only good thing at the moment were the skulls of the infected seemed to be softer than normal. One good whack and they’d burst open like a ripe melon.
“Keep moving!” I shouted at the two idiots. But I was talking to empty air. Once his brother had hopped up on his back, Shooter broke into a run and the two of them were almost back to safety. I applied one more satisfying butt stroke and then turned to make a sprint toward the Stryker. Another one of those random thoughts entered my brain as I realized nobody was shooting anymore. No matter, I had no doubt I could outrun any zombie and I only had a hundred yard sprint.
And then, the unthinkable happened. I tripped and fell. Maybe it was a piece of debris in the roadway, maybe a zombie clutched at my foot, or maybe it was nothing more than my own clumsiness. Like the inept bimbo in a B-horror movie. What I did know was now it wasn’t going to matter how immune I was. They weren’t interested in infecting me; they were going to eat me alive.
The one closest to me was a big one, a man who looked like he could have been a sumo wrestler at one time. As he bore down on me, I kicked him in the chest as hard as I could. It pushed him back a couple of feet, which momentarily slowed up the others trying to get at me. Suddenly, there was a loud eruption of gunfire. I realized it was Seth; he’d opened up with that fifty caliber machine gun and he wasn’t taking any prisoners. The fact that very few of his shots were headshots didn’t matter. The kinetic energy of those fifty caliber rounds were literally causing the zombies to explode on impact. It was both terrifying and fascinating.
I spider crawled backwards as fast as I could, not daring to stand up and catch a round by mistake. When my head hit the front of the Stryker, there were five or six left, but they stopped their attack suddenly and attempted to run away. Seth shot them each in the back.
“Don’t shoot us, bro!” Justin shouted as he and Ruth emerged from behind the Stryker and crouched beside me. They kept their assault rifles pointed at the wood line, allowing me to get back on my feet.
“Are you hurt?” he asked excitedly. My ears were ringing, my mouth had an acrid coppery taste, and I had quite a bit of black goo splattered on me. It was only then that I saw everyone had driven the vehicles forward and were now immediately behind me.
“Alright, we don’t need everyone exposed!” Justin shouted. “Everyone except Zach and me get in your vehicles and reestablish a perimeter, just like we’ve rehearsed. Move it!” Grant ignored Justin’s order and rushed up as we made it behind Stryker.
“Let me check you out, Zach,” he begged. I stood still as he donned a pair of nitrile gloves and began closely inspecting me. Looking around, I saw Kelly in the Volvo, looking out at me with a mixture of fear and concern in her expression. The kids were beside her and Frederick even had his face mashed up against the window. I gave her a nod to let her know I was okay. The top hatch of the Stryker opened and Seth stuck his head out. When he saw that I was okay, his worried expression turned ecstatic.
“Thank you, Captain.”
“I told you this thing was the shit, but I couldn’t shoot until I had a clear field of fire,” he explained. “When you fell down, that was the best thing to happen.” I nodded in understanding.
“I don’t see any bite marks, but you’ve got some of that stuff on your face,” Grant said, went into his medical bag and came up with a plastic bottle of isopropyl alcohol. His other hand had some gauze. He soaked it and started wiping me down.
“So, what the hell happened?” Justin asked. I explained and then pushed the doctor’s hand off of my face.
“I’ll finish cleaning up later. Why don’t you go check on Cutter?” He nodded and jogged off.
“You saved those two idiot’s lives,” Justin remarked.
“Yeah,” I muttered. He sighed deeply at the Butter Pooter duo’s latest nonsense and looked around.
“It’ll be dark soon, but we probably shouldn’t camp here for the night. There may be more around here.”
“Yeah, they may come back in larger numbers.” Justin digested my opinion, looked up at Seth, who conceded my point with a nod of agreement and slapped the top of the Stryker.
“It’s not a problem; this baby is fairly easy to drive at night with the imaging equipment. Everybody just needs to stay close and we can get an hour or two between us and them.”
“Alright,” Justin said angrily. “We’ll head out just as soon as I go have a word or two with those knuckleheads.”
“Yeah, most definitely, but first, let me show you two something.” They followed me as I worked my way around the fallen bodies until I came upon one, a rather rotund man who was probably African American at one time, although it was hard to tell. I raised my rifle, but realized he was dead. I pointed at his chest.
“I hurried my shot and instead of a head shot I hit him center mass. At first I only thought it disabled him, but look.” Both men inspected the wound carefully.
“It killed him,” Seth observed.
“Well, that’s something new,” Justin remarked.
“If that’s what killed him, it means their circulatory system if functioning again. Maybe.”
“That could be a game changer,” Seth said.
“Are you going to cut him open?” Justin asked. Seth frowned and looked at me.
“Nah, we don’t have time.”
“Have you cut them open before?” Seth asked.
“Yep, their insides are very interesting. They stink even worse when you open them up, but it’s still interesting.” Seth grunted in thought and then looked pointedly at me.
“Say, Zach,” he said as we began walking back toward the group. I stopped and looked at him. Here it comes, I thought. “You know, if something happens to you before we get to Weather, I may as well go live with Melvin and Peggy. Just saying.”
“Point taken,” I replied and began walking again. I knew that was going to be all he said on the matter, Kelly was going to be a different story, I suspected.
Grant was wrapping Cutter’s knee with an elastic bandage as we walked up.
“Hopefully, he just wrenched it,” he said. “I’ll know more when we get to Weather.”
“What the hell happened?” Justin asked them.
“We were scavenging,” Cutter replied. “I guess we got a little too far away from the convoy.” Shooter joined in.
“When we first spotted them, we took off running, but my idiot brother tripped on his own two feet.” He finished his sentence with a reproachful scoff. I looked them both over. Shooter had that same stupid smile he always had; Cutter looked ashamed. I wanted to chew them out, but I just didn’t have the energy. I turned to Justin.
“I’m going to wash this crap off of me. Give me ten minutes then we can get underway.” Justin nodded and took off to tell the others. I started to walk away when Cutter shouted out to me.
“Hey, man.” I stopped and turned. “Thanks,” he said. “We would’ve been goners for sure.” I looked at him a long thirty seconds. He seemed sincerely grateful. Shooter, however, just kept smiling that stupid little smile. It made me wonder if Shooter would have stayed with him or when they got too close he would’ve dropped him and took off.
Kelly watched from the open door of the Volvo as I stripped and used a wet rag she provided to wipe myself down.
“You worried the hell out of me,” she said. No silent treatment this time. At least, not yet.
“You did the right thing getting the kids in the truck. They’re more important than anything.”
“If you really thought that, you would’ve been inside the truck with us instead of risking your life saving those two.” I looked up to see a tear running down her cheek. She quickly wiped it away.
“What will we do if you’re dead?” she asked angrily and disappeared into the truck before I could answer. She reappeared a moment later and tossed me some fresh clothes. I changed quickly. I heard the back of the trailer slam shut and a moment later Jorge and Josue emerged from behind it.
“We loaded up the bike. I think I’ll ride in a car from here on out.” I nodded at his wise decision.
“Justin, this is Kelly,” she said into the microphone before I even had a chance to get seated. “We’re ready.” She stared straight ahead, not saying anything. Even I knew she was upset and I needed to make things right, but wasn’t sure what to do about it. I listened as Justin got confirmations from everyone as the sun disappeared below the horizon.
“Alright everyone, code Romeo eight and give me a click.” It was a simple code that I had made everyone memorize during the mission briefing. Romeo meant radio. Whatever number of the code, we subtracted one and then went backwards the appropriate number of channels on the CB. When Justin counted the correct number of clicks, he spoke.
“We’re going to try for at least one more hour of drive time and then stop. I know everyone is tired, so you need to help each other stay alert and watch your intervals. Once we stop, nobody is to venture more than ten feet away from your vehicle. Copy?” Everyone clicked in acknowledgement.
“Excellent,” he responded. “I’ll assign guard duty once we stop.” I spoke up.
“You drove all day, you must be tired. Why don’t you let me drive?” I suggested. Kelly shook her head.
“I’m fine.” Her response was clipped as she released the air brakes and started forward. We drove five miles in silence. Yep, it was the silent treatment now. Even Janet and the kids were quiet.
“I love you, Kelly.” She looked over at me and her eyes started watering up again.
“I love you too, you – shithead.” It was the second time she’d ever called me that. She must have been really upset.
“I’ll do better, I promise.”
“Bullshit,” she said. Frederick chose that particular moment to venture out of the sleeper and jump in my lap, the heel of his foot landing squarely on my groin. I gasped in pain.
“Serves you right,” Kelly quipped.
“It’s not too far now,” Raymond said excitedly over the radio as we turned onto State Route 277, and as soon as we made the turn, there were noticeable changes. It was subtle at first, but quickly it became obvious there were humans at work. Seth glanced at me with a grin. He had the hatch open now and was driving with the wind in his face.
“Notice anything different?” he asked.
“Someone’s cleared the roads of the derelicts.”
“Yep,” he replied. “We did that and more. Wait until we hit Blueridge Mountain Road. We repaved it.” He nodded in satisfaction. “Now, we had to table a lot of our work while we sent out delegations, but we’re going to start back before the cold weather gets here.”
“What’s on the drawing board?” I asked.
“Well, I think you’ll like the answer. There is a detailed report, even longer than your mission report. You’ll spend hours joyfully reading it.” He laughed at his own joke, which I didn’t find very funny.
Soon, we began seeing people. They were in groups of four or more, most of them working the fields. They waved as we drove by. Some even ran to their vehicles and fell into the convoy. It was after five when we turned onto Old Blue Ridge Road and we now had several vehicles following us.
A couple of minutes later, Seth stopped the Stryker. There was a long pause before he spoke.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Mount Weather.” I think all of us were in a state of wonder. The people who were following us had exited their respective vehicles too and had crowded around us, welcoming us and introducing themselves.
A couple of golf carts appeared from around a building. I recognized the passenger in the leading cart.
“I’ve radioed ahead,” Seth whispered as he pointed. “The President is most anxious to meet you.”
I’m writing this while sitting in a small but rather pleasant suite of rooms three floors underground. We had arrived at Mount Weather about an hour before sunset and were greeted warmly by people we’d never met. Everyone was friendly, but there were no handshakes or hugs, no physical contact whatsoever. Rachel made one of her humorous comments about how it must be because of how we smelled, but then a serious-looking women candidly explained that there was to be no contact until it was proven we weren’t infected. Then we were forced to sit and wait at the front entrance making small talk while the medical staff performed blood tests. It was frustrating, but necessary, I suppose. But, I mean, really. You don’t need a blood test to spot a zombie. And hell, the medical staff was fully aware of who I was, they even called me by name.
So, after a couple of hours, the doctors declared us plague free (big surprise, right?) and then came the friendly handshakes, the gates were opened, and we were welcomed inside the compound. That’s when the second sticking point arose. Somebody, an older man with a pompous air about him, demanded we disarm. Seth spoke up on our behalf and before we knew it, we were being introduced to the President.
He made no attempt to shake a hand or anything physical, and instead greeted us with a preplanned generic speech. He’d probably used it a couple of other times for visiting dignitaries back in the day. I know, I’m being a little cynical about the man. I should reserve judgement until after I get to know him. The Marines, ten of them, watched us warily. After all, we were within ten feet of the man and most of us were armed. Justin had made some small talk with them while we were being tested, but I haven’t had a chance to ask him about it.
Afterward we all enjoyed a pleasant dinner, even though every time I got a forkful of food in my mouth someone would invite themselves to sit down and ask about the zombies. It confirmed my suspicions that these people had very little interactions with the world outside. I wondered who cleaned out the infestations around here, the Marines probably. I’d ask about it later.
Finally, we were shown to our living quarters. Like I said, they’re quaint, but nice enough. Secure. That’s the big thing. All of the living quarters are underground and cordoned off with thick, steel doors and security locks.
There’s going to be a debriefing session tomorrow. Seth said it’ll start after breakfast and will probably last most of the day. Expect a lot of naïve questions, he said. That’s my take of these people; naïve. None of them, with the possible exception of a few of the soldiers, have the hardened expression of someone who’s had to fight every day for the past three years just to survive.
These people are a very diverse bunch. There are at least two military generals, senators, congressmen, doctors, university professors, bureaucrats, you name it. I am indeed a small fish in a much bigger pond than quaint little Nolensville, Tennessee. It’s a little intimidating.
But, they are, what’s the right word - naïve? Yeah, naïve, but also soft. Give them the once over and you can tell most of them had never experienced what we have. They’d never had to wonder where their next meal was going to come from. They’d never gone for days without sleep protecting their loved ones. They’d never engaged in hand-to-hand combat with a bunch of infected things that wanted to eat you alive. When the red balloon went up, most of these people were whisked away to the safety of this shelter, built and stocked with taxpayer money. I overheard one of them saying there was enough stored food to last two hundred people another five years. Five years’ worth of freeze dried and preserved food for two hundred people? Damn.
If all that isn’t enough to cause a man to develop hemorrhoids, after the debriefing tomorrow they’re expecting me to meet with the doctors for “tests.” We’ll see about that.
I’m going to end this journal entry by saying this; I want this to work, I really do, but I’m also wary, although I’m not sure why. Maybe I’ve become more like Rick than I’ve realized; asocial, skeptical, paranoid even.
Well, if this doesn’t work out, there’s always Nolensville.
Read on for a free sample of Chaos Theory: A Zombie Novel