Dead Life (Book 3) (20 page)

              “Why don't we start out with you giving Jeb back his rifle. I heard things were under control here. Somebody tell me what happened. Boys, lower the rifles.”

              “Your boy Jeb decided he was going to be the tough guy and tried to hit me with his rifle. Didn't go like you planned. Did it Jeb?” Al emptied the Winchester 30.30. and handed it back to Jeb.

              Jeb grabbed the rifle from Al. His face was beet red. A combination of anger and embarrassment I assumed. “He tried to stop me from looking in the truck Chief. I was just...”

              The Chief cut Jeb off mid-sentence. “That's enough Jeb. I know what you were trying to do. Sorry folks. We don't normally do things like that. These men aren't fully trained. They know better than to treat good folks like that. I'm sure Jeb wants to apologize. Don't you Jeb?”

              “Sorry mister.”

              From the look on Jeb's face I could tell his apology wasn't exactly from the heart. Hopefully this would be the end of it, but I got the feeling Al's troubles with Jeb were far from over. Chief Mike went with Al and me to the back of the U-Haul and we raised the gate for him.

              “You folks are well supplied. Where did you get all this?”

              “Some of it came from the store I worked at before everything went to shit. The rest Al and I had already.”

              “You two a couple of survivalists?”

              “You could say I'm a true believer in the Boy Scout motto 'be prepared.' I had a fall out shelter at home. It was well stocked. Steve has a son in the Army. He works with the NSA. Through him, Steve was able to get wind of what was coming and he got himself ready. We decided to pool our resources.  When the shit hit the fan, we got the hell out of town. Right now we're looking for a safe place to stay.”

              “Well I think you may have found one. I saw the way you took that gun from Jeb. We could always use a few more well trained hands around here. Think you might want to stick around?”

              “I don't know Chief. We really just need to get across the bridge here and get to Gina's dad. Honey, what's the name of his motel?”

              “It's called The Boonville Inn.”

              “That's out by the highway. That's not good. I know your dad though. Pete might be okay. He's a tough old bird.”

              “Why isn't that good, Chief?” Gina asked with a tremor in her voice.

              “I haven't been out that way in four days. Don't think I could get there if I wanted to. Tell you what. Let's get you folks in town, get something for you all to eat, and we can talk about it.”

              One of the guards got in the tractor trailer and backed the truck away from the entrance to the bridge. The Chief had a car waiting for him on the other side of the bridge so we followed him into town. The people of Boonville had been busy the past several days. We could see the barriers that had been hastily erected surrounding the town. Some streets were blocked off with tractor trailers stretching across the road. They would go from the side of one house right up against the next. Where there weren't trucks spanning the gaps between houses, plywood walls had been constructed. The work that must have gone into building the barrier was amazing. We didn't go far until we came to center of what was now left of the town. We stopped in front of a Baptist church and the Chief got out of his police cruiser. I pulled up behind Al and Gina and I got out of the Hummer.

              “This is police headquarters such as it is.”

              “You've been busy, Chief.”

              “We spent the first day trapped in this church. There were twenty of us in here. Luckily we were heavily armed and after a day sitting in here on our asses, we got sick of being trapped. I got some men up on the roof to lay down covering fire and the rest of us fought our way out. Lost ten men that day. Fortunately, most everyone in town owns firearms so we went house to house building an army. After that second day we had an entire block sealed off and cleared of zombies. There were two hundred of us by then. Ever since then we've been working our way out from this church. We have control of ten square blocks now. There's a Piggly Wiggley Market inside the perimeter, two hardware stores, several clothing stores, and two gun shops. The bad part is we need to expand one block to the south so we can take control of the Mobil Gas Station just outside our walls. We've got twenty three generators and can't spare the fuel to run them. You passed all those bodies on the other side of the river. We need the gas so we can burn those up too. If we don't, the smell is going to get unbearable in here. I don't know if those bastards smell worse dead or alive. Well I guess technically they're dead either way. But you know what I mean.”

              “I think we might be able to help you get to that gas station Chief.” Al said.

              “You got something in mind?”

              “Maybe. Why don't you show me where this gas station is? Steve, want to come along?”

              Gina gave me an imploring look. I knew she wanted to find out if her dad was still alive. We'd come this far, spent all these days on the road and now we were a few miles from our goal; only to find we would have to wait at least another day.

              “Honey, I'm going to go with them. I'll find out what's going on with your dad.”

              Rick stayed with the girls. Mike, Al, and I piled into the chiefs Charger and headed for the barricade. I hadn't been in the back seat of a police car since my first wife and I had gotten divorced. That's another story though. We won't go into that.

              Mike stopped a few hundred feet from the barricade that ran across the street between the two businesses bordering the road. There were armed men stationed along the street next to the wall. I couldn't help the feeling of impending doom that came over me as we got out of the car. The constant moaning of the zombies could be heard from where I stood. That and the rickety look of the wall in front of me didn't add to my comfort level. It looked like a good wind could blow the barricade down any minute.

              “We can't get too close to the wall. The sound of the engine gets them all riled up. We'll have to be quiet when we get closer.”

              “Hang on there Chief.”

              “What is it Al?”

              “Is it safe? I don't really want to get any closer. Sounds like there's a shit load of zombies on the other side of the wall.”

              “There is. The wall is sturdier than it looks. I promise you, we wouldn't be here if it wasn't.”

              “If you say so.”

              Al checked his pistol as we walked to the barricade. I followed his lead and checked to make sure mine were fully loaded too. I doubted they would do us much good anyway. If that wall came down, we were toast. The Chief was saying something but I couldn't hear him. We were right on top the wall now. Between the sound of the zombies and his whispering Al and I needed to lean in to make out what was being said.

              “Anywhere the barricade crosses a road or goes through a yard, it's a double thickness. Some places have trailers across them. Others have two walls built together with braces running between them. All the houses or businesses along the perimeter have their exterior doors and windows boarded up.”

              “I noticed that when we first got into town.” I whispered.

              “We have the river to our backs so all we had to do was run chain link fence from the wall down to the river bank. Then we put a privacy fence inside of there to keep them from seeing in. They couldn't get through the ten foot fence but they were going nuts trying to get at us. So we put the privacy fence inside the chain link. That settled their asses down. I don't know if you knew this or not, but zombies can't swim. They won't even go near the water.”

              “Hadn't come up yet.” Al said.

              “Not so loud Al. Don't get those son of a bitches wound up.”

              “He's right. They broke through the wall a few days ago that's why we doubled them.”

              “Sorry.”

              “That's okay. I don't think they'll get through again. But I don't want to find out I was wrong either. Anyway, the outer wall is higher than the inner wall. Just climb up on the platforms so you can see over.”

              There were six three foot high platforms by the wall in front of us. I climbed on the one by me and looked over. My line of sight went out from the wall several feet. I couldn't see what was right up against the wall in front of me but I could see the gas station fifty feet away. Hundreds of zombies were out there too. They weren't shoulder to shoulder but they were everywhere. I climbed back down and we walked away from the wall.

              “How the hell do you plan on getting to the gas station Al?” I said.

              “We need to find a way to draw the zombies away from the wall.”

              “That's how we've been expanding the compound. It's worked fine up till now. There's just too many out there. We had radios playing in houses about half a mile from here. I think the batteries must have died. Yesterday the number of zombies outside the fence tripled.

              “How have you been getting to the outside?”

              “There's a gate one street over and another on the north side of town. They're not gates really; just openings in the fence with tractor trailers blocking them off. Outside the gates we have loud speakers rigged in a few of the houses. We use the speakers to get the zombies back from fence. Then someone goes out in a truck with a CD playing. You turn the music up real loud, drive around for a while to gather them together, then drive away slow. Works really well.”

              “So what's the problem?”

              “Last time we tried it, the driver didn't make it back. We were on the two-way when he got surrounded. Before I had a chance to get to him, they broke through the windshield. It was my brother.  I had to tell his wife what happened to him. I haven't had the heart to send anyone back out there. Besides, there's more of those bastards out there than before. It would be suicide to try.”

              “We'll go.”

              “You're awful generous there big guy. You might be ready to die. I was hoping for a few more days,” I said.

              “Don't be a pussy. I've got all these grenades. We'll just lob a few over the wall. Get somebody on the loud speakers, toss a few more over, then head out.”

              “You're sure this will work?”

              “No. But what the hell.  Either way we need to get past those gates. May as well have a dry run before we try getting through with the girls.”

              I hated to admit it but he was right. The last thing I wanted to do was take Gina out there and get her killed.

              “Fine, let's do it. I'm driving.”

              “We both are. Mike, have you got two trucks in here sitting up on a high suspension? You know big tires, all jacked up. Kinda monster truck.”

              “You're kidding me? This is rural Missouri. Hell yes. We probably have twenty trucks like that in here. You can have your pick.”

              “Let's get back to the girls. Chief, tell me about the Boonville Inn on the way.”

              On the way back to the church, Mike gave us the low down on what we would be facing if we tried getting to The Boonville Inn. It wouldn't be easy. No matter what, we would have to try. Gina wasn't going to be able to wait much longer to find out what had happened to her dad. On top of that, I wanted to consider making a run for Fort Leonard Wood. My son Tim was headed there and I was hoping to catch up to him at some point.

              We got back to the girls and found them with Rick inside the church. Cindy was sitting on a pew facing the alter. She was praying. I was a little surprised, but what the hell, this was the place for it. Besides, we were going to need all the help we could get. Al went over and sat next to her, folded his hands, and joined her. I'm not an atheist or even agnostic. I've just had my faith shaken a little. Seems like God has kind of forgotten about us. We were here though and a little prayer never hurt anybody so I decided to join in. I sat down a few rows behind them and thought about what I had to say. After some reflection I decided it would just be best to ask for a little luck. So far we'd had plenty of it, luck that is, so I figured maybe that was all God was giving out right now.

              After a few minutes I could feel myself drifting off to sleep. Sitting for this long with my eyes closed reminded my body of how tired it was. My eyes snapped open. There was Gina sitting next to me. She was deep in prayer too. I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked back, it was Rick.

              “I just want to let you know, I'm coming with you guys. Whatever the plan is, count me in. I'm getting tired of being left out.”

              “I'm glad you feel that way. Let's get Al. It's go time.”

              While we'd been in the church, Mike had put the word out that we'd need two trucks. There were two outside the church; a Ford and a Chevy.  Both were king cabs and both sat at least three feet off the ground. One already had boards for a front bumper and they were busy modifying the other.