Dawn of the Apocalypse: A Zombie Apocalypse Novel (13 page)

            Time to bug out.

            I ran out the front door.  Mike was starting to back away from the corner.  I joined him, killing one, two, three zombies in as many shots.  There were more on the stairs, but starting to thin out on the ground.

            "What the hell were you doing?" Mike asked.

            "Making a bomb."

            I could hear the ATV still idling down below.  At least it hadn't used up what little gas we left in the tank. 

            "Fall back to the next corner," I said, slapping him on the shoulder.  "Hurry."

            Mike started backing away.  I held my ground for a second longer, and opened up full auto on the zombies at head level.  A few lead zombies fell, but I wasn't really taking aim.  Once Mike was far enough away a surge of zombies would overtake him, I took off running to the north-west corner.

            "Charlie, get ready to go over the side!"

            "It's fifteen fucking feet!"

            "There are thirty fucking zombies up here!" I replied.  "When I give the word, run to the middle of the house and climb over the rail.  You can lower yourself slower that way."

            I wasn't a hundred percent sure that would give us the time to climb down slower and safer, but it was worth a try.  Neither Mike nor Charlie challenged my assumption.

            "Empty a magazine into them and then GO!"

            All three of us opened up.  The lead zombies were hit by a hailstorm of bullets.  That stopped forward progress, and even forced a few to step back.  When my weapon locked open, empty, I took off running as I shouldered it across my back.  Mike and I met Charlie in the middle.  I waved them over, while I pulled my pistol and started shooting on both directions at the approaching monsters.

            "Get down, Roger!" Charlie screamed.

            A second later I heard gunfire below.  I was hoping all of the zombies would be up there, but life sucks.  After squeezing off four more shots, and emptying my pistol, I tossed it over the side and vaulted over the side just seconds before the zombies reached me.

            "Airborne!" I cried as I plunged down feet first.  I hit the soft, rain-soaked ground, tucked and rolled.  I was back on my free in a flash, though the barrel of my rifle dug a big clump of dirt up.  So I snatched up my pistol and reloaded.  "Get the ATV and gas!"

            There had to be two dozen zombies still on the ground.  Where the hell were they all coming from?  Jesus.  I slowly turned 360 degrees, emptying another magazine as I went and killing zombies in every direction.

            I reloaded the pistol as Mike jumped on the ATV and started toward the boat.  Charlie jogged behind him, keeping the zombies at bay.  Barely keeping them away.  It looked like most of the zombies on the ground were going after them.

            I holstered the pistol, and then did my best to clean the dirt off the end of the barrel.  There was a little dirt up the barrel.  I hesitated using it.

            "Screw it," I growled, and then fed it a full magazine.  I held it out at arm's length, turned my face away, and pulled the trigger.  It didn't blow up!  "Hey, zombies!  Zombies!  I'm over here!"

            I ran back and forth, waving my arms.  The vast majority of them stopped and turned toward me.  I got a chill when that happened.  It was like they all moved as one.  Freaky.

            "Screw you, you butt ugly rotting mother fuckers!" I taunted them.  They started toward me.  I glanced at my friends.  They were halfway to the boat.  Only a handful of zombies were still chasing them.  Charlie and Mike could take them out easily enough.  So I grinned at the monsters coming at me.  "You're a motley crew, and I don't mean the rock band, assholes."

            I started backing up, shooting the closest ones in the head and heart.  They slowly began to drop.  When I was halfway to the surrounding woods, I noticed Mike and Charlie had reached the boat and were frantically transferring the gas tanks over.  More zombies were headed toward them, as well.

            "Heads up!" I shouted.  Then I looked up at the house, with decks full of zombies.  They'd also smashed open most of the windows and were climbing in.  I started shooting at the windows and the wall to the kitchen.  "Burn!"

            I went through half a magazine before the house exploded.

            The explosion knocked me down.  It knocked down all of the zombies, too.  Some of them up on that deck were on fire when they regained their feet.  That was the first time I noticed a zombie care about what was happening to him.  The burning zombies flailed their arms and ran around in circles, much like a normal person would do.

            The other zombies pretty much ignored them.

            Jumping to my feet, I took off running toward the river.

            "Watch out, Roger!"

            A handful of zombies were attacking from my left.  I knew immediately I'd never reach the boat.  They were closer to it, and had a better angle.  Cutting right, I faked them out, before cutting sharply to my left.  I was just able to squeeze between them and another larger group charging toward the boat.

            Though none of them truly out right ran, they could do a pretty fast jog when they leaned into it.  I did notice some of them falling down.  Worse, the first group turned around and kept themselves between me and the boat.  Another group was heading for the boat at a pretty fast clip.

            I really wasn't going to get back to the boat.  That realization was chilling.

            "Shove off!" I shouted, which wasn't easy.  I was pretty badly winded by that time.  "Pick me up down river!"

            They only hesitated a second.  Charlie pull-started that old engine, while Mike pushed them away from shore.  I changed my angle, picked up the pace a little, and ran straight into the woods.  I was headed downriver, at least.  I could hear the boat just off shore. 

            The zombies came crashing into the woods after me.  They were pretty loud.  Stealth was not their thing.

            Being a country boy, I knew the woods.  I ran through them almost as fast as open ground.  Low limbs scratched my face, neck, and arms.  Briars tugged at my clothes, but I didn't slow down.  I barely paid any heed to what kind of underbrush I was charging into, which wasn't doing me any good.

            "Shit!" I screamed, too late.

            The woods suddenly opened up when I plunged through some exceptionally thick underbrush.  I face-planted my ass in the river.  Cold water engulfed me, while going down my throat and up my nose.  I almost panicked and lost my rifle.

            Sputtering, I finally got my feet under me and stood up in chest high water.  Zombies were standing on shore staring angrily at me.  I immediately lifted the M-4 above my head, barrel down to drain water from the barrel.  And then I started shooting them.

            They just stood there and let me kill them.  It was so bizarre, I stopped firing.

            "Gotcha!" Mike shouted.  I felt the boat loom behind me, and then Mike grabbed my collar.  "Hurry up, man.  Climb up."

            With a little help from my friend, I hefted myself up and onto the boat.  I leaned against the rail and watched the zombies for a long moment, while struggling to regain my breath.  They were just staring at us.  And there was only about ten feet separating us.

            "Why aren't they attacking?" I asked.  "Even before you arrived, not a single one of them even tried to step into the water."

            "Maybe they're afraid of water?" Charlie said.

            "Obviously, but why?"

            Mike sighed gustily, and relaxed.  He handed me a beer, and then popped his can open.

            "It don't matter why, man," he said.  "If they are all afraid of the water, then we have to use it against them.  Personally, I now feel a hundred percent safer in this boat."

            "Yeah, well, in a day or two we'll have to leave the boat behind," I said.  "We need to start making plans."  I gave the zombies another wary look as Charlie took it out of idle, and turned her toward open water.  "Zombies are full of surprises.  I just hope we don't get a bad kind of surprise."

Chapter 19

            "I wanna go fishing," Timmy said as we reached the former model home's front door.

            His little brother was all onboard with that, nodding vigorously in support.  I would rather be fishing with my boys than attending a hastily called meeting.  Nothing good came of such meetings.  The last thing I needed was another threat to deal with.

            "Go inside and play with the other children," I told Timmy and Harlan.  "This meeting shouldn't take too long.  We'll go fishing afterwards."

            I ushered them through the door.  Timmy went reluctantly, but then he spotted his friend Spooky and took off toward her.  Spooky was the nickname of Paul and Ann's ten year old daughter.  There was nothing spooky about her, so I wondered yet again why she was tagged with such a name, but even her parents called her Spooky.

            "Jenny!  We're about to start," Bill called from the door onto the front deck.  "The meeting is about to start."

            Every adult in the community was there.  Fred was the only person on guard duty, and his post was the corner of the deck overlooking our first barrier on the access road.  That stunned me.  We'd never had one hundred percent participation in a meeting.

            "What's the meeting about?" I asked.

            Bill just smiled and nodded.  He was our unofficial leader.  Some called him "mayor," but he claimed no title.  After centering himself on the rail, he faced the group and held up a hand to quiet everyone down.

            "I called this meeting to discuss information we recently received," he said quite solemnly.  My fight or flight instinct kicked in.  Something bad had gone down that would affect all of us.  "With this new information we need to discuss our future."

            I already didn't like the sound of that.  I never was much of a follower.  Roger and I liked to blaze our own trail through the world.  We avoided joining organizations just because obligations came with them.  Our community was dependant on each other's help to survive, so I didn't object to pulling my weight by hunting and guard duties.

            "What exactly does that mean?" Fred asked.  "What is this new information?"

            "We found a working radio in one of the empty cabins," Sean said.  "It didn't have much battery life left, but we found a station broadcasting news from around the world.  In two hours we learned some really disturbing and important things.
            "First and most important of which was the US Government has no plans to clean out the zombies," Bill said.  "They're going to let them die out before exploring the possibility of returning to the eastern US."

            "What?" I cried.  "The Feds are abandoning us?"

            "In a word," Sean said, grimacing.  "Yes."

            People started shouting questions, while others turned to each other and discussed it.  I just sat there in shock.  My family, and Roger's family, were mostly career military.  Our families dedicated their lives to protecting the United States of America.  Now, to learn the government was abandoning us in our greatest need was beyond comprehension.

            "We have options, though," Bill quickly said.  "The West Coast was not hit by the bio-warfare agent that is infecting so many on the East Coast.  The US government is still operating west of the Rockies."

            "Also, Canada was not hit," Sean added.  "So we have two options."

            "Uh-oh," I muttered.  A chill slithered down my spine.  "I know where this is going."

            Sean glanced at me, then turned back to the others.

            He continued, "We can pick up and go north to Canada."  Absolute silence fell upon that deck as everyone considered what that would entail.  "Or we can go west, and settle somewhere inside the remaining United States."

            "We have to leave?" Ann asked.  "I don't know if I like that.  Why can't we stay here?"

            "We will run out of food sooner rather than later," Sean said.  "It won't be long before what the daily hunts bring in will be all we have to eat."

            Not true for everyone.  Roger and I had stocked our cabin pretty well.  The boys and I could last for many months by ourselves.  Leaving was not an option.

            Roger was coming.  I knew it in my bones.

            "We're here to vote on where we go," Bill said.  "West, or north to Canada."

            "There's one other option," I said.  "Stay here."

            Bill and Sean looked at each other.  I could see they were in it together.  The two of them had decided we have to leave, and they didn't want to hear anything different.

            "That is not an option," Bill replied.  "To stay is death."

            "We learned some very disturbing information, too," Sean said.  He paused to look across the group.  Dramatic effect?  "The death toll across the Infected areas is staggering.  Most are either dead or turned into zombies.  And every single zombie is headed southward.  All of the big cities of the north are coming, and they are all zombies."

            "Tens of millions of zombies," Bill said.  "Maybe a hundred million are coming down to Georgia.  There's no way we can fight them off for long."

            For a second I thought I would swoon.  Heart racing, I struggled to breathe.

           
God help us.

            One minute I was determined to stay and wait for Roger.  The next I worried about Timmy and Harlan.  My first priority was the boys.  But surely it wouldn't take too long for Roger to reach us.  After crossing the country he would know better than anyone what to do and where to go.