Slow Burn: A Zombie Novel (25 page)

I woke up needing to piss like a horse. After taking care of Nature’s call, I stepped outside for a breath of fresh air and discovered it was another beautiful day. Luckily I managed to get in a good 45 minute workout before shaking Mattie awake from her sleep on the couch.

“
You said to wake you up at eight, but I gave you an extra half hour,” I said as Mattie rubbed her eyes and stretched.

Wearing a set of light blue pajamas she looked simply delicious, and I had to resist the urge to try my luck at getting her out of her clothes right then and there.

“
Thanks, I needed it,” she replied. “Stephen is convinced the power will not be on much longer and wants to use up all the perishable food. I promised to go all out on breakfast again today in exchange for no guard duty.”

“
That’s a fair trade,” I mumbled. I watched her get up and walk towards the kitchen, her shapely ass moving seductively under the cotton pajama bottoms.
There’s no way she is doing that without trying
, I decided.

As my eyes drank in the sight of her ass, I gradually became aware she was watching me stare from over her shoulder.

“
Pull your head out of the gutter, Mike,” Mattie giggled. “You’re not the only man left...yet.”

Stephen was now asleep, and Dan once again assumed guard duty with eagerness. It seemed he enjoyed his mornings with a fine cigar and an endless supply of moving targets to hone his shooting skills. We were all treated to another feast as Mattie went above and beyond with French toast and sausage, along with the rest of the frozen orange juice. The butter and syrup melted on the hot toast and we tore through nearly two loaves of bread, eating our fill while we could.

“
That’s the last of the eggs, guys,” Mattie announced. “There’s more bacon and sausage in the freezer that I’ll probably cook up today.”

After breakfast, Mattie took a plate up to Dan and put the rest in the fridge for Stephen to eat after he woke up. I helped her clean the kitchen, and Chris cleaned his rifle on the living room floor in front of the TV. Overnight, NBC 5 went offline and now was replaced by Channel 12 as the only station working. It was a local access channel that was offline initially but was now broadcasting. A young reporter going by the name of Troy Lundell, most likely a student from the looks of it, was relaying the national and local news. The top local story was the riot at the Statesville Maximum Security Prison located just to the north of Joliet. After several days of not being able to leave and check on their families, guards had mounted an escape, and the prisoners seized the opportunity provided by the lack of supervision and deteriorating living conditions. Many may have already escaped and the institution was close to total breakdown. Troy described the steps recommended by the CDC and outlined known symptoms of the virus.

The national news centered on various churches filled with believers, declaring the end of days, and the military’s decision to withdraw to their bases in an attempt to reorganize after being overrun on quarantine duty nationwide. They were then promising to begin search and rescue operations. Amidst all the bad news was a developing Federal plan that offered some hope. The Department of Homeland Security had announced the establishment of official safe zones around the country to provide for and protect survivors. The local safe zone chosen was Joliet West High School. Troy stated that there would be a press conference at 2:00 P.M. local time on this station, which was now broadcasting from the school. It would also be broadcast on the radio at 98.3 FM, which was now back online and working out of the school as well. In the meantime, any survivors in the area were urged to make their way to the safe zone, if possible, where food and shelter would be provided. He also encouraged everyone to bring as much in the way of food, clothing and hygiene products as they could carry. After repeating the top stories, Troy began an interview with a high school professor on sanitation and the spread of disease. I remarked on how it actually appeared that Troy was doing a pretty good job amidst all the confusion, and may have found a solid career choice if the world wasn’t falling apart all around him.

Chris and I drew the short straw today after losing to Dan and Stephen in a coin toss on who got the pleasure of stacking and then burning all the fallen zombie corpses littered about in the vacant lot across the street from Stephen’s place. It was nasty, smelly work but it needed to be done. Stephen had a couple sets of Army MOPP (Mission Oriented Protective Posture) suits in his basement due to his paranoia over the overblown H1N1 crisis of 2009. The only good thing was that Chris and I had plenty of experience wearing them while in the military. Chris may still be in the Reserves, but as soon as I put the mask on, circa 1991 Kuwait, it seemed like it was just last week. Just as I remembered, they were suffocating and claustrophobic, and we decided to just leave the hoods off. Dan provided cover from the house as we used a hand cart from Stephen’s garage to carry the several dozen bodies littering his and neighboring yards to the vacant lot. Many actually had been killed while they were crossing the lot, and we didn't have to drag them far. The zombies seemed to gravitate to the bodies like they were a bait pile, and it was Dan's idea to let them get in close before putting them down. We both purposely avoided one rather large female zombie, must have weighed at least four hundred pounds, each hoping the other would tackle the heifer, until she was the only one left. Eventually we had to just drag the huge bitch behind Chris’ truck with a chain.

We were both exhausted and completely soaked with sweat from the ordeal even without the masks and were caught off guard, not noticing that three zombies had gotten within a dozen yards of us. They seemed a bit slower than the ones we saw yesterday but still got way too close. Shocked, we both struggled to draw our pistols when their heads exploded in a red mist from Dan's suppressed AR-15.

"Relax kids!" Dan shouted down laughing. "I had ya covered. Just didn't want you to have to carry them too far!"

I was too tired to even reply and just shook my head and chuckled. This took all morning, and I just wanted out of the fucking chemical suit. Rob brought out the gas cans, and we created an oil/gas mixture for the zombie burn pile. The pile was doused with the accelerant and lit. The black smoke and heat partially covered the growing stench, but more gas was needed to keep the fire going. Eventually we used all of it and just left it to smolder out.

After showering and eating a lunch of burgers and potato salad, it was time for the press conference at Joliet West High School. When the camera went live, Troy Lundell, now dressed in woodland camouflage fatigues, introduced Greg Lewis, a councilman for the City of Joliet. A couple of guys stood behind the microphone holding shotguns, and it kind of reminded me of union thugs at meetings back in the day. I worked for Caterpillar as a welder for five years before becoming a police officer, and I quickly tired of the union board selling out the workers.

"Hey, I know that guy!" I exclaimed. "He voted against every police funding issue that came up! Who put him in charge?"

"Hush!" Mattie whispered. “Let’s see what he has to say.”

I gave Mattie a hard look but kept my mouth shut.

Councilman Lewis began to speak about the current crisis that had crippled the country and explained how he was in charge of coordinating with FEMA before the current crisis and now was in control of the FEMA designated safe zone at the Joliet West High School. He introduced Sgt. Timothy Henderson of the Joliet Police Department and Lt. Jerry Hetman of the Joliet Fire Department.

“
Sgt. Henderson was the last guy I saw at the station before I left,” Chris mentioned. “He gave me the keys to my squad. I wonder how he managed to weasel his way out of the station in time to save his own skin.”

Lewis was babbling on how it was beneficial to come to the safe zone where there was food and shelter and how they were in desperate need of manpower to help out with essential tasks.

The camera panned to the left, and Lewis introduced Capt. Brian Marshall of the Illinois Air National Guard’s 182nd Air Lift Wing out of Peoria. With his gray flecked hair, trim figure and pressed multi-cam uniform, Capt. Marshall played the part of military commander well. They flew C-130E transport aircraft in his unit, and their heavy lift capabilities were rather remarkable. Capt. Marshall was surrounded by several Air Force Security Forces personnel. I immediately recognized Andrew and Kevin, two fellow officers and Air Force Reservists, who stood in the group of soldiers.

“
How the hell did they make it down to their base in Peoria during this mess?” I asked.

“
I think this past weekend was their drill weekend,” Chris replied. “Maybe the military had a little bit of a heads up and kept them on base before they could leave for home?”

Capt. Marshall explained how several of his aircraft landed at the Joliet Municipal Airport and led a convoy of supplies to the newly formed safe zone. However, they were unable to stay as they had many other safe zones to set up around the state. The captain had no answer to the questions regarding the state of the Federal government and gave several “No comment” replies to the crowd gathered in front of the podium.

As the press conference was handed back over to Councilman Lewis, who was having a City Street Department worker explain how barricades were being put up around the school, our discussion turned to our next move. Any fool could tell that there was no real functioning government behind this safe zone, and we decided to wait a couple of days to see how it all played out. We hoped that maybe Nick, Brooks or someone else we knew had survived and would show up at Stephen’s, but it was looking less and less likely. In the meantime, Dan took Rob out, and they gathered as many gas cans as they could find from around the neighborhood and drove to the city’s fueling station where we fill up our squad cars, located just a mile or so to the west of Stephen’s house. It was isolated, built in anticipation of an ever-expanding city which, along with most of the country, did not see the housing bubble bursting like it did in the fall of 2008. In two trips, they managed to gather enough gas and diesel to fill Stephen and Chris’ trucks as well as Rob’s Tahoe and the ambulance. Both of Paul’s vehicles were small foreign hybrids and were of little value. With the condition of the ride that Dan arrived in, we hoped to just exchange it for a better vehicle and didn’t bother fueling it up.

After having everyone back over for dinner, which was a combination of all of Stephen’s remaining perishables, including some steaks, hotdogs and frozen wings, we decided that a small raid would be launched in the next day or two. I would lead Mattie and Jamere on a trip to the small west station of the Police Department located five miles to the northeast of our location. We hoped to secure the armored S.W.A.T truck, a larger armored version of an ambulance, for our future move to wherever we decided to go. We would take Dan’s landscaping truck on the raid, returning hopefully in the S.W.A.T rig. Stephen would follow in Chris’ truck and would lead Chris and Paul on a raid of the nearest Walgreens pharmacy. They would try to secure the inhalers for Britney as well as some food at a small Aldi’s grocery store located behind the Walgreens. Stephen and I would each carry handheld HAM radios, and Dan would monitor from the base station. Rob would handle security from Stephen’s office and Vanessa would be pressed in to service, guarding her residence.

“
Mission will kick off in a couple days at the latest. I would like it to begin at 0800hrs and I hope we are back by 1030,” I declared, as I wanted to have some time to fine tune the plan.

“
I got a bad feeling about this raid,” Jamere said as he headed back to Paul’s for the night.

“
Why’s that?” I asked.

“
I’m the only black guy in this little group, and we all know what happens to us in horror movies.”

“
Hahaha!” I laughed. “Stick with me and you’ll be fine, kid!”

Before bed I trudged down to the basement to have Dan show me how to run his portable HAM radio, which I discovered was basically like my police radio once set to the proper channel. I stuck around and listened as Dan talked with his newfound buddy Phil on the base station. Phil informed us that his situation was slowly deteriorating. They lost power in the city and were having a hard time seeing the zombies at night. There were a lot more arriving all the time, and his group was forced to make do by reinforcing the barricades. There was no way they were going to be able to make their way out of the neighborhood. No additional survivors had gotten in either, and ammunition was running very low. To make things worse, his daughter went into early labor with his first grandchild. At least there was a nurse on the block, and she was with her now.

“
Congratulations, grandpa,” Dan replied to the news. “I wish I could hand you a cigar.”

Phil laughed and still seemed confident that help would reach them and said he had plenty of battery power for his radio and would contact Dan in the morning.

“
Don’t worry about me,” Phil remarked as he signed off. “I’ll pull through.”

“
Sounds like we could have things a lot worse,” I sighed as Dan shut down the radio.

“
Yes we could, buddy,” Dan replied. “Now go get some rest. I’m gonna go have a smoke and then relieve Chris for the night.”