Slow Burn: A Zombie Novel (30 page)

Judging from the latest intel reports and seeing with his own eyes the sheer amount of infected swarming the walls, Matvei held back fifty of his most loyal mercenaries. He now briefed the squad leaders among them and explained that their orders were to head to his ranch outside Burch, Arizona and augment the smaller team he had sent days ago. He did not want the majority of his command knowing the location of his ranch for obvious security reasons.

“
You are the best I’ve got,” Matvei praised. “And you can be trusted.”

They would be equipped with twelve Suburbans and another dozen trucks full of supplies, along with a fuel tanker. They would take a different route than the other convoys but would stay in radio contact with them along the way. Matvei himself could have flown to the ranch by helicopter. They had an operational helicopter, but Matvei wanted it operating in the Dallas area and also wanted to lead this particular command himself.

The final stages of the operation began amidst heavy gunfire as zombies broke through their southern perimeter. Since most of the units had already departed earlier that day, this end result was expected. Every man memorized the evacuation plans and hastily boarded their vehicles. Without the deadly barrage of gunfire, waves of the infected attackers rapidly flooded the compound in search of any living human. The sight of so many unnerved even Matvei as he climbed into the black SUV and slammed the door shut. His group was the last to leave, and they finally broke contact with the zombies several miles north of the compound. Driving along in silence, Matvei hoped the other larger convoys, even though well-staffed and armed, would have the discipline to hold it together through similar experiences.

“
That was fucking crazy, captain,” Raul, who was driving Matvei’s truck, said after they cleared town. “They are a lot harder to kill than I thought. Did you see that woman with her arm blown off? She was still coming at us!”

“
You’re with me because you are cool under fire, Raul,” Matvei reminded him, “and I expect you to stay that way.”

“
You have my word, sir,” Raul replied with confidence. “We got this.”

A few hours after passing the unguarded border of the United States, Matvei had long since tired of listening to his rear gunner flap his gums. Swaying from side to side as the driver avoided striking the random infected beings walking in the roadway, he placed a call to Tamera at the ranch on his satellite phone. After several seconds of listening to the woman’s panicked voice, he was able to calm her down. As it turned out, she was doing remarkably well, all things considered, and had been worried about his fate. Matvei assured her he was fine and headed her way. She, of course, had no idea that he had been responsible for the current crisis, and it needed to stay that way. He then spoke with his top man at the ranch, a former comrade from Russia, who informed him that everything was running smoothly at the ranch. Due to their secluded location, they had not reported any contact with infected on the property. Matvei completed the call and then turned his attention on how to deal with the large group of infected who managed to clog the road ahead, clustered around a large traffic accident. Checking a map, he knew there was a bridge ahead, and that may be the cause of the tangled roadway.

Pressing the button on his helmet radio, he ordered his men to fan out their vehicles into a half moon across the roadway. Soon enough, what seemed like hundreds of infected emerged from the web of damaged cars and headed their direction. Matvei ordered his men to hold their fire until he gave the command, and waited until the snarling mass was within ten yards.

“
Kill them all!” Matvei cried and opened up with his G36 rifle.

It didn’t take long for the infected to take the full brunt of a screaming wall of lead right in their teeth. Within moments, his hardened mercenaries reduced the large group of infected tangos into a pile of bleeding hamburger. Once the undead vermin were disposed of, Matvei called for a cease fire and ordered his men to fall back into their positions in the convoy. A forward scout then reported that indeed a bridge up ahead had been knocked out, perhaps by the military in a quarantine attempt. Several dead soldiers and a burnt out Humvee remained on their side of the river bank. Glancing at the map again, Matvei chose one of the several pre-planned alternative routes, and cursed the loss of precious time, fuel and ammunition.

After several side roads and even more encounters with infected individuals, the column of vehicles painstakingly made its way back onto their original route and out in the open country. It was dark and Matvei ordered his scouts to move ahead and try to find a defensible location to make camp for the night. His men were tired, but Matvei wanted to get a few more miles up the road tonight. They were now heading northwest on highway 1017 and would take it up to Laredo. Ultimately, he hoped to make it to his ranch in the course of a week.

“
This is gonna be a long trip, Captain,” Raul stated after the convoy finally picked up some speed.”

“
It’s going to take a lot of time, killing, and hard work to get what I want accomplished completed,” Matvei replied. “But as they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

I awoke the morning after our raid to Mattie informing me that Robert decided to take everyone from Vanessa's house in his Tahoe to the high school safe zone. His wife wanted to go and had been pleading since yesterday’s botched raids. Vanessa and Holly wanted to go as well, stating they would feel a lot safer there. Robert wanted to stay but also knew that they did not have the proper weapons or supplies for a sustained run and would just be a burden, draining from our limited supplies. I knew he was right and after going upstairs and meeting him in the driveway, I gave him a handshake as we helped load his SUV with their remaining supplies, so they wouldn't show up empty-handed. At least Robert brought a gun and some common sense to the fight. The drive to the school was maybe eight or nine miles and shouldn't be too bad, at least not yet.

Troy Lundell was again broadcasting on 98.3 FM that morning, reporting that they were still up and running at the safe zone but in need of volunteer personnel and supplies. We all listened to the broadcast from the radio in Robert’s Tahoe as we finished loading.

“
He paints a good picture,” Robert said while the women and his kids loaded up. “I hope it is as it seems.”

“
It will be Robert, have faith,” Mattie said, giving him a hug. “We will see you all soon, I’m sure.”

Vanessa and her daughter Britney were subdued and only spoke to Mattie before climbing in the back of the truck. Britney gave Buddy a hug; the beagle wagged his tail, unaware of what was happening.

Holly gave Stephen another hug outside the rear door of the Tahoe.

“
Thanks again for everything guys,” she said, tearing up. “Please come by sometime and check in on us.”

“
Sure thing, as soon as you all get settled in,” Stephen said, shutting the truck door behind her.

The Tahoe sped off, and I came to grips with the fact that we would probably have to bug out shortly as well. In preparation of that eventuality, we spent the day outfitting the school bus for the trip. Stephen and Dan pulled security while we stripped the seats from the bus, leaving only the driver’s seat and two front benches. A pile of school bus seats was left in Paul’s front yard, but I didn’t think the homeowners association was going to care at this point. It was exhausting work loading all of Stephen's supplies and food, which filled the entire back of the bus, floor to ceiling. The ambulance, which was now parked in Stephen’s front yard, was being set up as a camper of sorts, with our day-to-day gear, MREs for quick meals, and most of the ammunition. Chris' truck was loaded down with the supplies he’d brought, as well as the preps that I took from my house, which filled the entire bed of his truck.

"We have a lot a shit!" I grunted as I carried up yet more five gallon buckets of rice from the basement to the bus.

"We also have a lot of company," Dan said dryly from his upstairs perch when I reached the front yard.

I looked up at him, and he motioned with his head at what must have been well over a hundred zombies approaching from all four directions. They seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, drawn by all the noise we were making outside. With us most likely the only living beings in the neighborhood, we were probably now the zombies’ only meal option. They were not moving fast; the creatures seemed to slow the longer they were infected. When we first came across them, they moved at a jogging pace, whereas this current crop of flesh eaters was moving at a fast walk. Their statures appeared gaunt, and they moaned and hissed at a sickening pace. They were becoming harder to recognize as once being just like us.

The infected monsters were also undeterred by the fact that Stephen and Dan had already dropped several from their midst. I watched in shock at how so many had gotten close so quickly. Dan's suppressed rifle was silently ventilating skulls while the report of Stephen's rifle echoed across the quiet neighborhood. In between gun shots, Buddy barked loudly at the unnatural beings coming at us. Mattie, Chris and I were forced inside when the zombies finally reached the yard.

“
Where did they all come from?” Mattie asked as we closed the door.

“
From the looks of it I would guess Hell!” Chris joked.

We grabbed our rifles and jumped into the fight.

"Chris, take the backyard with Mattie," I ordered. "I'll help cover the front."

"Roger that!" Chris replied, sliding open the glass patio door and immediately firing at several zombies who had somehow forced an opening through the cedar fence and spilled into the backyard.

The cracks from his rifle made my heart race at the anticipation of yet another full blown engagement as I switched my selector switch to “semi”.

The sound of gunfire was soon deafening with hundreds of rifle rounds fired through windows from inside the house. The smell of cordite and the sound of dozens of empty shell casings hitting the hardwood floors filled the room as I ran between the two front windows of the house firing at the closest targets. Several went down from well-placed shots upstairs, just as I lined them up. Even with the zombies this close the head shots needed proved to be tricky. Several of them lost parts of their skulls from glancing blows and continued forward relentlessly. They also seemed to have the luck of stumbling at the moment I fired, causing me to miss. We were burning through our ammo fast and having the loaded magazines pre-positioned in ammo cans was paying off.

“
Loading, cover me, Mattie,” I heard Chris say from behind me. An empty magazine hit the floor and a fresh 30 rounder was slapped home.

Chris began to fire again as Mattie moved up and was standing beside me with her rifle, firing at two zombies who snuck around from the front of the school bus, which was backed into the driveway. Having never shot an AR-15 before this week, she took to it rather well and appeared to be a natural.

"We got the back almost cleared out," she said, continuing to fire at a steady pace. "They’re mostly hitting us from the front of the house now. Chris can handle what’s left."

Twenty minutes and probably two hundred dead zombies later, the attack slowed to the point that Dan's suppressed rifle could keep up, which lessened the noise and allowed us to break contact for a bit.

Stephen wiped the sweat from his face. "There is no way we’re going to be able to hold here much longer," he remarked, stating the obvious. "After we get cleaned up and get some food, we need to come to some sort of an agreement. And I got to set up my truck, in case we have to bug out in a hurry. Shoulda already done that damnit."

“
I agree,” I chimed in. “We can’t stay here much longer. The surrounding houses really hurt our field of view, and with the power out and failing water pressure, this subdivision will be uninhabitable.”

“
I’ll help Dan with any stragglers,” Chris volunteered, “and make sure that all those bodies are really down for good. We don’t need any nasty surprises, namely a zombie ankle bitter when we leave.”

Stephen purposely left out enough gear to load his Chevrolet Colorado, which was parked in the third stall of his garage. He wanted to set it up as an emergency fallback vehicle and leave it at his residence. I helped him load three jerry cans of stabilized gasoline into the back, along with six cases of MREs. Two large plastic containers with assorted camping gear were also thrown into the back, next to three six gallon plastic water jugs and two cases of bottled water. In the back seat, we put extra backpacks containing boots, clothing and hygiene products. This mostly filled the truck, and after a long thought, Stephen also put his Polish AK-47 and 2000 rounds in the truck along with his service pistol, the Glock 17 and 500 rounds of 9mm for it.

“
I can only carry so many guns,” Stephen remarked. “Might as well leave a couple for insurance, just in case.”

We made sure the truck’s gas tank was topped off and checked the oil and fluids. Confident that he had a well-stocked BOV ready, he hid the keys under the freezer in the garage and headed inside. It was dark outside now, and we were all tired from the day’s work. We agreed to figure out our next move in the morning and to run short two hour guard shifts overnight as there was a slow but steady trickle of zombies now roaming around in eyesight of our watch position. I agreed to go first and shot eleven with Dan's silencer equipped rifle by the time I was relieved by Mattie. I wasn’t completely sure but I thought one of the creatures I had downed outside was Paul.