Slow Burn: A Zombie Novel (47 page)

“
I have been putting together that list of things we are going to need,” Chris mentioned. “There is a big old hardware store on the east side. It’s out of the way and in a solid brick building so hopefully it’s intact. It is full of tools, hand powered and mechanical. They should have everything we could need stockpiled there.”

“
Sounds good, sonny,” Dan said eagerly. “I’m always up for some looting.”

“
We should keep an eye out for survivors too,” Chris said. “Especially women if we are going to have to repopulate the planet.

Dan gave the accelerator a little more pressure at that comment, and the bus picked up speed. “Point the way, bro, and we’ll get that old prison looking like the Taj’ Mahal by the time they show up!”

* * * * * * * *

“
Be very quiet. There are several zombies wandering around outside," Stephen whispered. "I’m not sure how they found us, and I don’t think they know for sure that we are in here. But they know we are close by.”

When Mattie crawled to the window she could see that indeed several figures were wandering around outside in the yard and street.

“
How long was I asleep?” she asked. “And how is Mike?”

Stephen slid onto the floor next to the window, exhaustion clearly etched on his face. “I’m not sure, several hours at least. It’s almost ten, Mike’s still sleeping.”

“
Well, you get some rest now,” Mattie ordered. “We can worry about getting to the prison after you get some sleep. I'll check up on Mike and keep watch.”

Mattie found Mike still asleep and settled in near the window. Stephen soon drifted off on the loveseat while Mattie watched several zombies shuffle about aimlessly. She sadly watched what looked like a mother and daughter, both infected, walk down the street nearly hand in hand. The little girl still had her backpack on, and it looked from a distance like her mother was walking her to school. Her thoughts then drifted back on how she came to find herself watching such a morbid sight. Mattie sighed, becoming tired at the thought. Her mind wandered as she fought to stay awake. Her eyes were heavy when she suddenly snapped to attention.

The mother and child zombies were now well out of sight, and Mattie was not sure how much time had passed, but she was startled by a heavy groan that sounded close, like
in the house
close. Stephen was awake and had his pistol out in a blur. Climbing to his feet, wincing in pain at his knee, he scanned for the zombie that somehow must have made it inside. In the darkened room Stephen scanned and saw something move over by the couch. Again a growl cut through the room.

Stephen motioned for Mattie to stay back when he saw she had drawn her pistol as well. “Just watch my back, Mattie,” he said quietly.

Limping over to where Mike lay on the couch, Stephen cleared the room. Standing on the other side of the room now, he did not find the zombie he swore that he just heard.

“
Where did it go?” Mattie whispered.

Behind him a loud groan made him spin, and he discovered that it was actually Mike making the noise.

“
Oh fuck! Mike is one of them!” Stephen said in a rasping voice. “He must have been bitten escaping the safe zone and couldn’t tell us!”

“
Noooo!” Mattie wailed. “It can’t be true!”

They stood over Mike lying on the couch, watching his arm slide up and into his shirt pocket while Stephen’s gun was shaking, pointing at his friend. Stephen cocked the hammer on the Beretta and waited. Mike grunted, sitting up a little bit to support himself on his left arm while his right hand pulled out a can of Copenhagen. He reverently put in a dip and sighed in satisfaction. “Ooooo…that’s the good stuff,” Mike sighed.

Mattie cheered in happiness and tackled me back down onto the couch.

“
I’m so happy you are awake and okay!” Mattie cried while lying on top of me with her arms around my neck.

“
Yeah, everything seems to be fine except this throbbing headache.”

Mattie looked at me with a mischievous grin. “That’s not all that appears to be throbbing,” she whispered with a giggle, poking my side playfully.

Pushing her off with a groan, I sat up and asked Stephen where the bathroom was.

When I finally made my out of the bathroom, they filled me in on what happened the night before and where we’d ended up.

“
That blast was way too big to be anything the people at the safe zone could have put together. Something on that scale had to be military,” I said. “Hopefully someone survived.”

"Oh yeah…it was definitely an air strike," Stephen said, "with a cluster bomb at the end."

They told me about finding Jack’s body in a front yard a few blocks back and me under the wreckage of the porch. Then Stephen told me that Mattie had carried my pasty old ass a good two or three blocks until we reached our current location, which was in the 800 block of Mason Avenue. Stephen also let me know that we were secure in the brick two-flat for now and had plenty of supplies. The storm had passed and all was quiet outside.

“
So what do we do now?” I asked. “I’m still pretty banged up.”

“
I hurt my knee again as well,” Stephen replied.

“
You poor thing…will you live?” I couldn’t help myself.

He gave me the finger. “Plus I was up all night guarding your ass,” he said. “I’m gonna crash. We can plan out our next move tonight.”

While Stephen slept, Mattie and I went through the food stocks in the house. There was enough to eat for several days in the cabinets and several cases of bottled water tucked in the pantry. A shelf in the basement had flashlights and batteries along with several candles.

“
If this house had a fireplace, we could send Dan smoke signals,” Mattie joked.

“
Not a bad idea,” I remarked. “There seems to be plenty of small fires smoldering around town though. I don’t know if they would even notice.”

Mattie found a small propane camp stove and soon the smell of stew filled the house. She managed to beat me in checkers at least five games in a row before I relented and took another nap, this time with a full belly.

What seemed like hours later, I woke to a dark house and could hear Stephen and Mattie whispering.

“
That chili was excellent as always, Mattie,” I heard Stephen say.

My nose caught the scent, and my stomach growled on cue. When I entered the kitchen, Mattie and Stephen both greeted me, and Mattie poured me a large bowl of chili.

“
Stephen was just running through everything that we lost when we had to ditch the ambulance,” Mattie said with a sigh, “including my makeup case.”

“
Don’t worry,” I said with a laugh while giving Mattie a reassuring pat on the back. “We will get ya all new stuff. There is plenty of everything just lying around.”

“
It had my toothbrush too,” she joked, “and I need a shower.”

“
I saw a camp shower in the basement,” I replied. “We can rig it up near the drain in the basement and heat up some water.”

“
That would be great!” Mattie said. “Now what else did we lose?”

“
Well…mostly clothing and hygiene stuff,” Stephen informed us. “Our extra weapons were already with Dan and Chris. Most everything can be easily replaced. The only thing I’m pissed that I don’t have is my portable radio. I left in the ambulance on the charger. I used it to stay in touch with Dan and Chris, and I’m sure they have been monitoring it and wondering where we are.”

“
He probably has been out looking for us,” Mattie suggested.

“
Maybe,” I replied, “but he won’t look for long. There are just too many variables.”

“
I agree,” Stephen said. “I’ve been doing some thinking and I think we should just lay low until my knee feels better. Then I can make a break for the prison on foot and come back with help. There is enough stuff here that it’s worth bringing the bus and grabbing it all.”

“
Couldn’t you check around nearby for a truck?” I asked.

“
I probably will,” Stephen replied, “but I’m not too worried about it. It’s not that far on foot to the prison. In the meantime, let’s get everything here gathered up.”

After dinner we all took turns with the camp shower and then settled in for the night. Stephen fared better than me at checkers, beating Mattie once in four tries. We were all exhausted and soon were asleep, with Stephen taking the first watch. The next day sped by with the time being spent packing up everything useful in the house. The previous owner had quite a bit of food in his pantry and a freezer in the garage. The dry goods in the pantry were salvageable, but the freezer was a different story. Everything had thawed and spoiled. Thankfully the refrigerator had been mostly empty, and we were spared the smell of rotten food for the most part. The owner must have liked to camp, as plenty of gear was to be had.

“
No guns,” I remarked as we looked through the last of the stuff.

“
Just an empty safe,” Stephen added. “He must have grabbed just what he needed and beat feet.”

“
I wonder if he and his family were at the safe zone,” Mattie asked, not expecting an answer. “It wasn’t far at all.”

“
Could be,” I remarked. “We’ll probably never know.”

Stephen made the comment that eventually we were going to have to go house to house, clearing them of zombies and gathering up supplies needed to sustain us in the coming months.

Stephen announced before going to bed that night that his knee felt better and he would set out for the prison in the morning. Looking over at Mattie’s sleeping form on the couch and then over to Stephen, who was cleaning his weapons for the third time today, I decided that they seemed to be holding up very well considering the horrors they had seen the last few weeks. I took first watch and was relieved by Mattie around 0230hrs. After passing out, getting some additional rest and a breakfast of oatmeal cream pies, Stephen stated that he was ready to head out to the prison. I was in charge of creating a diversion. I crept out the front door and started shooting at several nearby zombies with my M4 carbine while Stephen slipped out the back door unnoticed. I got the jump on the first couple and had four or five of the evil bastards down before they even knew what hit them.

“
Good luck!,” I called to Stephen as his receding figure ran like hell out of our neighborhood.

* * * * * * * *

“
Hurry back!” was the last thing Stephen heard Mattie say before he closed the back door.

Clutching his rifle, he jogged to test out his knee.

He decided it would be fine and cleared the alley without seeing a single zombie. The loud gunfire from Mike’s rifle had drawn everything nearby. Stephen checked several vehicles for keys as he made his way eastbound but didn’t have any luck. He moved slowly to avoid any surprises and it took over two hours to reach the river. He crept his way up to the farthest bridge to the north in Joliet that crossed the river dividing the east side of town from the west. This was the Ruby Street Bridge, and it was a near straight shot after crossing it to the prison, which was maybe a quarter mile to the northeast.

“
Got to cross this bitch yet again,” Stephen said aloud and started to sprint across, weaving around several disabled vehicles.

When he reached the eastern bank he found several zombies bunched up together. They seemed to be walking towards the downtown area and did not immediately notice his presence. When one of them did and let out an evil hiss, Stephen downed him with a single shot from his rifle. A red mist covered the zombie behind his target, and that, along with the loud report of the rifle, got the attention of all of them.

Somebody else was alive down there, Stephen figured, and the small zombie group was on their scent. They should have been paying better attention, because Stephen was alive as well, and he had the drop on them.

He emptied his magazine into the undead cluster and in the process got carried away, only getting headshots about a third of the time. Reloading his rifle with a fresh magazine, he slung it over his back.

“
Good thing you fuckers are slow, and the prison is not too far from here,” Stephen said at the closest zombie, a black male with pants so low they prevented him from giving chase. Stephen dispatched him with his pistol and began to run to the northeast towards the prison with a growing horde giving chase.

His anticipation grew as the large limestone prison came into view. It looked like a medieval fortress with its massive stone walls, and Stephen hoped there was life on the other side. He reached the west gate and fired several rounds into the air as he approached, and a wave of relief came over him when the large gate suddenly opened. Stephen ran inside and was met by Dan, who gave him a large bear hug. Stephen coughed, due to the smoke from Dan’s cigar, and then saw Chris running up as well.