Zomblog Saga Box Set (Books 1-6) (30 page)

This afternoon we watched a group of five people drive a grain harvester, one of those great big combines with the rotating blades in front, down a huge grassy hill.  They were so intent on their objective that they never saw the two people who came running from what I had to assume was their hide out.

We all watched helplessly as the couple, probably trying to join up with the group in the combine, ran past the scattered zombies that had turned and walked heedlessly into the whirling blades that would scatter their remains in gore soaked bits and chunks.  The couple, a man and woman, were easily dodging the zombies as they closed in on apparent salvation.  Unfortunately the man stumbled, sprawling out of site in the tall grass.  Some of the zombies close to the couple changed course.  The woman dragged the man to his feet, but the couple had to run quick to avoid being caught.  They veered right into the path of the combine.

I don’t think the folks driving and riding in the huge machine even know what happened.  They reached the bottom of the hill and we lost sight of them as they ducked into what looks like an office complex of some sort.

Other than that, we heard gunfire a few times and just before sunset there was an explosion in a residential area just south and west of town.

Our airport terminal is easy to defend.  We’re up high so the stench-bags don’t notice us.  There are twenty or so around each of our vehicles making a fuss.  I guess they think we’re still inside.

A caravan of makeshift armored vehicles rumbled down I-84 just after 10 a.m.  They had the look of a band of pirates.  Large, black, skull-and-crossbones flags waved from poles and antennas to really complete the image.  Of course the flags were very redundant here.  When several of the vehicles have a collection of heads mounted on the bumpers and a few of the trucks had cages in their cargo area with living beings chained inside, it is clear that this is a group intent on living out some sick, twisted
Road Warrior
fantasy.

Thankfully they didn’t seem interested in The Dalles and methodically plowed through the undead welcoming committee that greeted them on the interstate.  Between road conditions and the walking corpses, their procession was forced to move at little faster than a walking pace.

Interesting item of note: none of the living factions in town made so much as a peep.  Obviously, whatever divisions exist, nobody wanted to deal with what looked to be a large, well-armed group of folks who most likely would act in as lethally a hostile manner to the living as they do the living dead.

Awoke this morning to screams that you instantly recognize as those belonging to somebody being eaten alive.  No matter how many times you hear it, nothing liquefies your spine like that sound.

I was the first to the window looking out towards The Dalles Bridge. I saw most of what happened.

Three women…well…two were barely girls by the looks, were running across the bridge.  None of them had so much as a stitch of clothing on them.  I was so intent on watching them that it was a few moments before I noticed the group of leather-clad men atop a lone railcar. They were having quite a time by the looks of it.  Slapping one another on the back, pointing and laughing it up as they watched.  When the second runner, the oldest of the three, was pulled backwards by the hair and vanished under a dozen or so zombies, I actually saw them exchanging what looked like bottles of booze.

They were betting!

The third and final runner, a girl of no more than twelve, decided to take her fate into her own hands.  By now, the others had joined me at the window and were involved in an argument about trying to rescue the doomed.  That’s what they were.  The young girl scrambled up onto the rail of the dull pink bridge and leaped.  While the height was not too dreadful, her landing was.  We watched and waited.  Finally, we spotted her, face down, drifting away with the current of the Columbia.

Still, it is what happened next that has us stationed so that we can watch all approaches.  It is what we all saw and none dispute the danger which is why we made a few trips to the vehicles to retrieve large amounts of ammo, grenades, and two of our tripod-mounted .50 cals.

The men looked seemingly right at us…then…they waved.

This is no way to spend my birthday.  The big 3-0.  Not exactly living up to the dreams and expectations I had when I was growing up.

Although, if I wanted, I could be part of the ruling clan of The Dalles, Oregon.  It is unlikely that we would receive any resistance if we declared ourselves as such after today’s events.

It seems that the men we saw yesterday were the largest group in this town.  By best guess, they numbered about fifty.  I will hazard a guess and say that they saw us at some point and only saw a handful of women and girls.  I guess they didn’t see the firepower.

They came at us around noon today.  In pick-up trucks and flatbeds they came storming across the bridge.  We let them get across before we opened up.  Snoe and Brittany started things off with a quick volley of grenades that did most of our work for us.  Then, from the roof, Caren and I opened with the .50 cals.

It was actually quite anti-climatic.  I’m sure that these redneck buffoons felt they had easy prey waiting.  Snoe actually dragged a badly wounded survivor out of the wreckage.  She’s been down in the baggage claim terminal “questioning” her captive for a few hours now.  Every so often the screams are loud enough that we can hear them.

Outside, things have been quiet.  The zombies came in like crows after carrion to finish off anybody who may have still been technically alive after the brief engagement.  Then, they wandered off.  Some our way, others back across the bridge and into town.

There has been not so much as a single gunshot from outside since ours echoed in the cool fall air.  Perhaps the survivors are waiting for something from us after the vulgar display of firepower we put on.

All day yesterday, Snoe would come up and give us a briefing of news she managed to extract from her prisoner.  Early this morning, she determined that there was no more information to be had.  She apparently dragged the man outside and drove him to the bridge and shoved him out of the Hum-Vee.  I guess the guy could only crawl from what Cera told me when I woke up.  He barely made it ten feet.

My hunches about these guys being the “evil overlords” of the area were correct.  It also seems that they have a stronghold in some hotel in town.  Most of their entertainment comes in the form of women and girls they’ve snatched up either from passers-by, or other local clusters of survivors.

All but a handful of the gang were involved in yesterday’s attempt to storm our little location.  Snoe, Caren, and Cera are now on a recon mission.  It seems we’ll be liberating whoever is left before we continue our journey.  We are on radio silence until midnight when they will check in and decide if this is doable.

If we get the word, all of us are to pile into the Hum-Vee.  Since Snoe has already driven the Bradley over and hidden it someplace, we will be directed to a pick-up site.  From there…well. I’m sure Snoe will tell us what to do.

I don’t really know exactly what that guy said, but she has taken this mission a bit personal.  She’s not acting reckless, but she is definitely not acting normal right now.  I will keep an eye on her, but of course, at this moment, she is out there.  Among the living dead and the deadly living.

Nothing went right.  Snoe radioed us early yesterday morning.  We did just as she’d instructed:  We piled into the Hum-Vee and drove up to someplace called Kelly Viewpoint.  She gave great directions.  The problems started when somebody went on the offensive…against us!

Gunfire from seemingly every direction came from the darkness.  Instinctively, I swerved and ended up slamming through the front of what had to be an absolutely gorgeous house before all this madness began.  We had to abandon the vehicle then and there.  Without night-vision goggles, it was a chilling sight to see hundreds of those damn things coming for us.  You could hear their ghastly moans and the occasional baby cry (which still chills my blood) from every direction.

With zombies coming
en masse
and fearing that whoever had opened fire on us was waiting to gun us down, we had to rely on hand-to-hand weaponry so we couldn’t be tracked by our gunfire.  Of course if they (whoever
they
were) had night-vision, we’d be screwed.  It seems they either didn’t, or, took off after we crashed.

In the confusion, we all got separated.  I ended up on the roof of a video store.  One-by-one, as each of us reached relative safety, we had to get Snoe to come for us.  Unfortunately, Dominique didn’t have a radio; Penelope’s broke, likely during the crash.

It took all day, seeking out places where zombies were congregating.  We did find some survivors of the City of The Dalles holed up in the city jail, but we were waved off.  I guess they were fine with their situation.  So, late yesterday afternoon as we were on the verge of giving up, Dominique came running out of a ranch-style house.

Just before sunset, we found Penelope.  Her entire left arm had been ripped away.  Even worse, something had fed on the right side of her face.  Most of the cheek as well as the right eye were blood-crusted, gaping holes.

Caren’s shot was clean.  Center of the forehead.

We keep getting a static heavy message.  All we can tell for sure is that it is a girl’s voice.  She is in Hood River, Oregon.  The part that doesn’t make sense is that she says she is “on the Broken Bridge”.  We have a couple of AAA maps and an atlas.  We can’t find any reference to Broken Bridge, or, if we are getting the message wrong, Broken Ridge.

We’ve looked for anything that rhymes and have nothing.  She sounds a bit frantic at times.  Other times, she sounds almost bored.  Her message repeats every hour at the top, give or take a few minutes.

Hood River is about half the size of The Dalles.  We will drive through slowly to see if anybody tries to get our attention.  Of course we have considered the possibility that it is a trick. 

That is why we won’t be taking any of the exits unless somebody actually tries to contact us.

Her name is Jenifer.  She is fifteen.  I believe she and Dominique are going to be good friends.  In fact, it was Dominique who spotted her.

There is a bridge across the Columbia River to a town called White Salmon.  The center span of the bridge rises to allow river traffic.  Jenifer was stuck on the raised span.  We don’t have all of her story yet. Here is what we do know…

A few months ago, Jenifer gave up hiding in her home.  She had raided every neighbor’s house to stay fed.  (We asked about her family but she immediately stops talking when we try).  Deciding to try and find the person who’s blog she had been reading until power failed (Sam would have been proud) she went first to the Albertson’s that he used in his initial foray.  Sure enough, the groceries he left stacked were there. 

She stayed a few days and came up with her plan. From the roof, she scanned for a pick-up truck. She saw one parked in a nearby apartment complex. There were plenty of zombies wandering, but, again remembering the blog, she came up with an idea. One street over was an abandoned police car. Hoping for the best, she tried the handle, it was open! She found the switch that activated the lights and siren. Still plenty of battery because the darkness and silence were shattered. Running along a fence, Jenifer stayed out of sight as she made her way to the truck. The parking lot was painted with apartment numbers. Going on blind faith, she went to the corresponding building and found the door with the matching number. With nothing more than a sharpened axe handle, she stormed into the residence which was occupied with an entire zombified family. She lured them out into the stair- well. They fell over each other trying to get at her, and of course a few stragglers came to investigate. Somehow, she got back upstairs and into the now empty apartment.

It took a few hours, but eventually, she found the keys. From one of the bedroom windows, she could see—and hear—the police car. By now, there were hundreds of those things surrounding her decoy. Even the few who had joined the evicted zombie family in pursuit of her seemed to have wandered off. She snuck out, jumped in the truck, adjusted the seat and started it up. The engine was relatively quiet and she slipped out and circled around back to the store. Climbing up and in, she managed to supply up. It took her the whole night and the next. By then, of course, the squad car had died. Deciding she could do with what she’d acquired, she headed out, following signs that led to I-84. Having never driven before, she drove very slow and still wrecked a few times.

Only driving at night, and staying on the main roads, she leapfrogged from place to place. Her main goal was to head east. She won’t say what—or more likely who—she was looking for.

At some point, she joined up with a small band of survivors headed the same way. It was while they were camping near Multnomah Falls—a journey that takes about an hour took six weeks or so—that a band of raiders arrived. Fortunately for Jenifer, she had been down by the water cleaning her clothes. She won’t say what she saw, only that the living people had done worse than what she had seen the zombies do.

From that point on, she’s been alone and on foot. About a week ago, she was out searching for food and saw a Pepsi truck up on the raised span of the Hood River Bridge. The climb up had been easy.

She picked up our radios in The Dalles and heard a lot of what happened. Hearing only female voices, she risked using her radio to call for help.

I have to say that for fifteen—today is actually her birthday—she is very pragmatic. I don’t know what she’s seen, but, like Dominique, for such a young girl to have braved this, seemingly alone for the most part, is amazing.

Of course she and Dominique are now fused, mouth-to-ear. They whisper and giggle. It is a strange sound in these extreme times. Pretty soon we’ll be wearing jammies, doing each other’s nails, and listening to Justin Timberlake...or whoever.

I wonder...