An Apocalypse Family (Book 1): Family Reunion (5 page)

I only had to look at the body for a second to verify that it was not getting back up, and then I looked to the street beyond.
Shit!
Fifteen to twenty of the freaks were running full tilt down the street toward the house. I turned and yelled,

“Run! Go to the utility room!”

Max grabbed Lisa’s arm, yanking her to her feet just as I got to them. I grabbed her other arm. You would never have guessed that two overweight fifty-plus-year-old guys could move like we were. We dodged around the obstacles we had set up earlier in the day, making it to the kitchen just as the first of the freaks hit the door. It shook, but held. I slipped a little making the turn toward the stairway that led down to the utility room, landing on my left knee. The one the doctor said would never be right again, even after he replaced half of it with titanium.

I dropped Lisa’s arm and kept shouting to them, “Go… Go… Go!”

I turned to the door and brought the M4 up. The door still held, but I didn’t know how long it would. One after the other, the freaks launched their bodies at the door. They were all shrieking.

Probably calling all the freaks in Seattle to the buffet,
I thought, as I waited to see if they’d get through. Each time one hit the door, I winced. They kept it up for a good while. I don’t know how long I sat there kneeling with the M4 pointed at the door. I just know that my knee was killing me. I slid to the floor and belly-crawled to the stairway. I could barely make out Max at the doorway of the utility room in the basement.

I set the last trap as I heard the frame of the front door crack. I didn’t know if it would continue to hold, but I wasn’t sticking around to find out. I turned over onto my ass and bumped down the stairs like a two-year-old looking for a good time. When I got to the bottom, Max grabbed my hand, pulled me into the room, and slammed the door shut.

“Did they get in?” Max asked, hammering two-by-fours over each corner of the door and frame. He told me earlier that it gave more surface strength to the door than simply nailing them across the frame.

“I don’t know,” I replied, rubbing my knee and making a pouty face.

“Why in hell’s name did you shoot the hell out of the door?” I asked in a reasonable tone, which probably came out sounding more like,
“WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING, YOU IDIOT?”

Max didn’t miss a lick. “Oh, I dunno. Maybe because I just saw my little brother go flying backward and I thought it might be a good idea to stop whatever was trying to break in and eat his ungrateful, useless ass.”

“Hmm…” I replied thoughtfully. “Well, you know that every one of those things within miles is probably headed for this house now, looking for an easy meal.”

Max briefly paused his hammering and said, “I guess I should have just let them eat you then.”

He finished nailing up the boards that we stored down there for this very purpose. Earlier, we had set up the utility room as our fallback position. All our weapons and ammunition, some water, and some food were down here. He’d, however, left the five grenades upstairs, set up with trip wires around the house as a surprise for our guests. Thankfully, we hadn’t tripped them dragging Lisa across the living room, which could have happened easily since she wasn’t in on the plan.

The house shook and dust fell on us from the ceiling. “One down,” Max said, and lifted four fingers, his thumb crossing his palm. The second grenade exploded, sending another massive quake through the house. Max folded over a finger. Again, the house joggled; again Max put down a finger. I just covered my head and hoped the ceiling stayed in place.

“Jeez Max, get down,” I shouted…

Max just smiled and looked up. A thump that felt like a blow to the gut rattled the room. Max bent down and covered his head, which was what I told him to do, but it did not instill a lot of confidence in my expectations. I grabbed Lisa and covered her as best I could. The walls literally bowed inward, my ears felt the compression, and the world went dark.

*****

Max shook his head and wondered how long he’d been out. He found Ryan’s tactical flashlight and turned it on to check on Ryan and Lisa. They both seemed to be unconscious, but okay otherwise—no bloody ears, noses, or eyes.

He got up and surveyed the damage. The room itself was still structurally sound. Stuff had fallen off the shelves and the drop-down ceiling tiles were lying about, making the room seem in disarray. Not bad. His booby traps had all gone off without completely destroying their HQ.

It was just like his days in the army, although he’d never actually been in combat. All they had ever done was train, sit around, and then train some more. He was glad to see that the training had stuck thirty-five years later. He looked at the time, 5:20 a.m.—still a few minutes before the sun would come up.

He got up and went to the door. He put his ear to it to see if he could hear anything moving in the basement. His hearing wasn’t great before the grenades went off, and now there was a persistent high-pitched ringing, but he concentrated on trying to locate any movement outside the utility room.

After a few minutes, he decided to do some recon. He pulled the boards from the doorframe with the claw hammer as quietly as possible. He started to open the door, and then stopped. He checked his rifle and made sure there was a fresh magazine in place with a round in the chamber. He cautiously opened the door and stepped out, closing it behind him.

*****

I don’t know how long I was unconscious, but as I came to, my ears were ringing and I was covered in debris. I lay there for a moment to get my wits about me. I felt someone moving under me and remembered trying to cover Lisa. I rolled to the side a little.

“Lisa, are you okay?”

She ran a hand through her hair and looked as if she was contemplating an answer. “Yeah, I’m fine. I actually feel hungry,” she finally replied.

I chuckled. “Well, that’s a good sign, I guess.”

I moved around and threw some of the ceiling tiles off me to see if I could locate Max. The last place I’d seen him before the grenades went off was over by the door. He wasn’t there. I noticed that the boards were missing from the doorframe, although the door seemed to be fine and was still shut.

I collected myself and cleared away the junk, which was mostly ceiling tiles and boxes from the shelves. Having tidied up a bit, I decided to go look for Max.

“Lisa, I need to go find out what Max is up to. Why don’t you try to find the least disgusting MRE there and eat a little? Don’t overdo it.”

She gave me a weak smile. “Okay, and what if the monsters come eat me while you’re out looking for Max?”

“Valid point, my dear.” I unholstered the M9 and held it up. “Have you ever fired one of these?”

She reached up and took the weapon, popped the magazine out, racked the slide, and caught the round that was in the chamber as it flew out.

“Please… your brother had me shooting before I could spell my name.”

“Okey-dokey, Annie Oakley,” I said with a smile.
Damn, I wish I’d done the same with Auddy. Please God, let her be okay.

I handed her one of the extra magazines. “We need a password to make sure we’re good when we come back. What works for you?”

Lisa came back quickly with an answer. “I’ll be Raven and you can be Chicken One, and Dad can be Chicken Two.”

“Chicken One? I think I can come up with something better than that.”

“Nope. I insist. Besides, who is ever going to guess that?”

I had to admit that she had me there. “Okay, but if someone has me at gunpoint or something, I will change it to Eagle One, okay?”

“Good thinking, Chicken One!” she giggled.

I grimaced and continued, “Right, so I will only go out and look around for a few minutes, then I will come back and check on you.”

“Roger that, Chicken One!”

I am definitely changing this shit soon. If she thinks it’s cute I will let it go for now, but Chicken One? Really? In all the books I’d ever read, the guys always had really cool names. Chicken One is bullshit—although it did make me laugh.

I cracked the door and peeked out.
“
Roger that, Raven,” I said over my shoulder. “I will be right back.”

Oh crap, Sarah is going to be pissed when she sees what Max did to her house.

I looked up the stairway to what used to be the first floor. A predawn hue promised another day, something that I realized was no longer to be taken for granted. I stepped over some pieces of unidentifiable debris.

The top of the stairs ended in the kitchen, or where it used to be. I could see the sky.
Hmmm…
not good, not good.
As I climbed the stairs, I heard something moving around.

“Max? Is that you?” I called out. “Yeah, just me, and a bunch of zombie parts,” he answered back.

I crested the stairs and turned toward the front room. The house was a total loss. There was a big hole that used to be an exterior wall. The interior walls were peppered with shrapnel and stains of what must have been the blood of the freaks.

“Zombies are undead things that you have to decapitate or shoot in the head to kill,” I said, approaching him. “These things aren’t dead and can be killed with a body shot.” I put my hands on my hips. “And furthermore, they don’t get back up after you shoot them.”

“I stand corrected, little brother. And what other conclusions have your skilled observations helped you arrive at?” he said, mimicking my stance.

His sarcasm ignored, I went on. “Well, it appears they don’t enjoy the sunshine, or even the overcast skies of the great state of Washington.”

He interrupted again, “And the bastards can’t stand a good fragging.”

I looked around at the devastation his grenade traps had caused. “You realize that if Sarah ever comes back here, your ass is kaput.”

“What? They were your damn grenades.”

I just shook my head. “Come on, we need to get Lisa and talk about what’s next on our agenda.”

We collected everything that we thought would be useful and packed it into the two vehicles. Then we sat down to discuss our next move. Lisa was still nowhere near one hundred percent, but she had a vote in everything we decided.

Max and I each had our own ideas about what to do. I, for one, said that we should head up to Parker’s house in Everson after returning to the ferry to collect the rest of the guns and stuff I left there. Parker was our older brother. He lived a short distance from the Canadian border and kept a bunch of stuff we could stand to have, especially his local knowledge. He and his wife, Rhonda, were mother-earth kind of folks. She was retired now, and Parker worked for the state fish and game department. He got the job because of his extensive knowledge of the peregrine falcons in the area, and all other manner of bird species. His love of falcons was second only to his love for his wife, although she debated that.

Max wanted to go to the ferry also, but then head directly for Meg’s house in eastern Washington to hook up with her and Sarah and the kids. Lisa didn’t really care either way, but tended to side with Max just because. There were other things to take into consideration.

I’d one or two concerns. “Max, who was still trying to make it to the reunion? Is there a chance anyone got all the way to the island? Or maybe someone who might still be stuck at the airport?”

He rubbed his temples and thought for a minute. “Well, everyone from San Diego was going to drive up. Jake and Carla were going to bring Lauren and Steve and stop in Portland to pick up Conner, and…”

I’d been holding up my hand since he got to the part about Jake and Carla. I choked up a bit and took a deep breath.

“Jake died from the flu. I don’t know what Carla was planning, but I doubt they left San Diego.”

Max knew how that had to have affected me, and just said, “Aw shit, sorry man.”

I waved my hand in a circle indicating he should continue.

“Well,” he said, “that means Barb and all of her clan probably didn’t head out either.” Barb was our oldest sister and her clan was composed of about twenty other nieces, cousins, and assorted family.

“I don’t know,” I said. “What about Maddie, wasn’t she flying up from Texas?”

Max gave a quick shake of the head. “No, she and her husband were borrowing a friend’s RV and driving. Jean was flying to Colorado to hook up with Lynn, and they were going to drive to Meg’s before heading out to the coast.”

So, that accounted for all of our immediate family, as Jean and Lynn were our other sisters. There were still more cousins and our one surviving aunt, but neither Max nor I knew their travel plans.

“What about Trish?” I didn’t want to ask because Trish was his daughter from his first marriage. I knew it was a touchy subject, but I touched it anyway.

Max got a faraway look in his eyes, as if remembering a long ago time when life was just getting started.

“She’s at her mom’s place with Frank. They were going to come over for a day, but with what happened, they are probably going to hole up at the farm.”

He grimaced, then said, “Damn place is way the hell out in the boonies, so they’re good for now.”

I put both hands on my knees and sighed. “I would feel better if we at least did a drive-by at Parker’s before heading to Meg’s, but I will go along with whatever you guys decide.”