Dawn of the Apocalypse: A Zombie Apocalypse Novel (10 page)

            "It's worth a chance," I said.  "I'll go.  You two keep the bikers and zombies at bay."

            After dumping most of the spare magazines back onto the front seat, I took my M-4 and ran into the woods.  I wasn't gone two minutes before I heard gunfire behind me.  I paused, torn between continuing on my mission or going back to help them fight off the bikers.  It was definitely the bikers, because zombies didn't shoot back.

            Now I was wishing I'd let Charlie go look for a boat.  I thought it the more dangerous of the options.  Maybe I was wrong.

            Halfway to the marina, I ran into trouble.  Zombies.

            They were heading towards the firefight.  We literally ran into each other in the woods.  I shot one point blank in the heart, and butt slapped the other.  Another charged me.  A roundhouse to the head sent him stumbling away.  So I shot the other zombie and took off running.  The last of the three came after me.

            I was faster.

            I quickly worked my way closer to shore.  The treeline was back a short ways, even though the river was just a little up from all of the recent rains.  It still wasn't over the bank high.  I was able to run full out most of the rest of the way.  More zombies were at the marina.

            "I'm starting to develop a real dislike for zombies," I muttered.  I counted four right off: three young white women and an elderly black man.  All were in t-shirts and jeans, but covered in blood.  "Are all of them drenched in blood?"

            Then I spotted the corpses littering the parking lot.  Zombies ate people, so yeah.  Lots of blood.  All four whirled around when I came out of the woods.

            There was a cabin cruiser at the marina's gas pumps, with the nozzle still in the tank.  No power, so it wasn't still pumping.  Still, it was my first choice.  It was about a thirty foot boat.  First I had to deal with the zombies.

            The women were closest, so I shot them first.  One tripped at the last second, so missed her.  The bloody old guy ran past her, so I turned toward him.  He was the fastest running I'd seen so far.  He was also coming at me downhill.  And then the zombie I didn't kill in the woods came stumbling out behind me.

            I ducked and dodge out from between them.  The female surged off the ground remarkably fast.  I shot her seven times before I lucked out and killed her.  By that time the old black zombie was on me.  Thrusting the barrel of my M-4 straight into his neck, I knocked him back a step.  He didn't even grab his throat, though I could hear his breathing became loud and difficult.

            "I crushed is god-damned windpipe and he's still coming at me?"

            Pressing the barrel to his chest, I blew his heart into a million pieces with five shots.  Then I shot the last one three times, without killing him.  And I was out of ammo.

            "It's a lot easier to kill them in the movies!" I cried, and butt-stroked him in the face.

            Ejecting the empty, I put in a full magazine, racked it, and shot him twice in the head as he struggled to his feet.  I was shaking like a leaf with adrenaline, looking all around for more to kill.  I was thankfully all alone.

            Avoiding looking at any of the corpses in the parking lot, I hurried onto the marina's docks.  I went straight to the big cabin cruiser.  Thankfully there were no dead bodies or undead monsters on it.  I climbed up to the wheel and tried to crank it.

            I got nothing.

            It was a pretty new boat, so the EMP probably got it.  Still, I checked it a bit to see if I was just doing something wrong.  I'd never been on anything bigger than a bass boat.  I knew how to start one of them, but the yacht might've had a procedure I didn't understand.  Unlike military vehicles, it didn't have starting instructions posted on the dash.

            So I abandoned it.  I started looking for a boat with an older motor, but big enough to carry three men and our gear and ammo.  I tried an older ski boat, that wouldn't start, and then found a pontoon boat that would.  It had a motor so old I had to pull start it.

            Perfect.

            The five-gallon red gas tank was full, but it only had one.  I thought about looking for some more tanks, but the sound of gunfire back at the Humvee wouldn't let me waste any more time.  I headed back into the fray.

            The boat had a 50-hp motor, but it still wasn't very fast.  Either the propeller was pitched wrong, or the boat was too heavy and thus underpowered.  Or maybe I was just impatient.

            I stood at the wheel in the center, steering with one hand and holding my rifle with the other.  At the last second I killed the engine to coast up to shore.

            "Move everything over!" I shouted above the din.  "I'll cover you!"

            The bikers were all behind trees.  I didn't know where they all were, so just shot at anyone who shot at us.  After a moment I figured it all out.  Mike and Charlie started moving our stuff over.  They just threw it on deck.  Things were going everywhere, but the railing was low enough to keep anything from going overboard.  It seemed to take forever to transfer everything over.

            The bikers got frustrated or something.  They really didn't want us to escape.  Personally, I would've given up the fight long ago and went away to lick my wounds.

            "What are these guys?  Psychopaths?"

            "Psychopaths, sociopaths, and every other kind of bad path," Mike said.

            Seven bikers, two of them women on ATVs, charged the boat. 

            "Hit them with a grenade!" Charlie screamed.

            Mike did better than that.  He shot the Humvee.  It lit up like a match.  Then he shot two more grenades at the bikers, forcing them to turn tail.  Charlie shot one of the women off an ATV, and the riderless ATV ran over another biker.

            "I thought those things had a kill switch?" I said.

            "I don't know.  It didn't work if it did," Charlie said, grinning.  "That was better than a Schwarzenegger movie."

            "Speak for yourself," I replied as I started the engine.  It took three pulls.  Then I backed us out, and headed downstream.  Charlie and Mike stood with weapons ready in case the bikers returned before we were out of sight and range.  I went straight back to the marina.  "I want to grab some more gas tanks."

            Charlie stood watch while Mike and I went through the boats.  We found five more gas tanks, each more than half full.  It was good enough for now.  We headed downriver.

            I kept us moving under power.  Because of the rain, the river had a pretty good current and messed with me a little.  I honestly began wondering if that pontoon boat was big enough to be on the river.

            The rain started coming down hard.  The wind whipped up, and the water got rough.  At least we had a roof over our heads.  The fact there were no walls didn't help with the wind and rain, so we were all soaked to the bone.

            While I worried about death by drowning, Charlie and Mike put all of our gear in order.  Even with all of our stuff there was still room for all three of us to stretch out and sleep.  I started to feel better about our chances.  My main concern was speed.  The Humvee was faster.

            We were about an hour on the river before I spotted it.

            "Is that a dam?"

Chapter 14

            I heard a shotgun off in the distance.  Sean was the only one hunting with a shotgun.  Actually, he was acting all Rambo and hunting with a 12-gauge shotgun, 30-06, and a pistol.  He was loaded for bear, including a wicked looking inwardly curved knife he called a "Kukri Gurkha Blade" as if that meant something to me.

            I prayed it was game, and not a zombie, he was shooting at.  Since it was just a single shot, I guessed game.  It would be nice to have fresh meat for dinner.

            "Jenny!" Fred called.

            I barely heard him.  Voices didn't travel well in forest, but the mountains sometimes helped.  We were hunting in the Chattanooga National Forest.  Roger swore it was filled with game.  After four hours hunting, I hadn't seen a thing.

            I turned back toward the community.  The hunting party was supposed to meet back up before returning home.  The plan was to get home early enough to clean the kill and cook it up, to be divided equally between everyone.  Fred, Bill, Sean, and I got out of our scheduled guard shifts that day to go hunting.  Tomorrow, another group of four would hunt.

            That was the fifth time I'd heard the shotgun that day.  I'd heard a 22 Cal a few times, too.  Both Fred and Bill were hunting with 22s.  I was carrying the 30-30 because I had hopes for something bigger than a rabbit or squirrel.

            Trudging back up the mountainside, I began to reconsider my sanity.  Why did I steadily walk downhill the whole time?  Fortunately, I hadn't wandered too far from where we split up earlier.

            I entered an open area.  Three steps in and all hell broke loose in the woods to my left.  I was close to the left side of the mountainside meadow, when a spike buck raced out of the trees and straight at me.  We spotted each other at about the same time.  He cut right as I lifted the 30-30, took aim as I led him with my sight across the meadow, and squeezed the trigger.

            The buck dropped like a rock.  Before I could let out a cry of joy, I heard more rustling in the woods.  Was he leading a herd?  It was usually the does that led the way across open country.  And then I saw them.  Two men.

            I froze.  I didn't see any blood on them, so wasn't sure if they were zombies or other survivors.  Either way, I was in trouble.  Zombies would try to kill me.  Survivors might fight me over the dead deer.  A moment later the first one came out in the open, and I saw the crazy fury in his eyes.

            The zombie looked at the deer, and then at me.  That was the first time I'd seen a zombie hesitate for anything.  I didn't hesitate nearly as long as him.  Taking aim, I squeezed off another shot.  His head was slammed back, and he fell backwards and didn't move.  I cocked that 30-30 faster than Lucas McCain on the Rifleman.  My second shot missed the other zombie.  I think it hit the tree he passed behind.  Chambered another round, and shot him in the head, but he only staggered.

            "Dammit.  Die for Christ's sake!" I shouted, and shot him dead center in the chest.

            That killed him.

            Men shouted above me on the mountain.  My hunting partners were on the way.  There was only one reason to fire that many times in quick succession.

            Moving closer to the fallen buck, I scanned the surrounding trees for more zombies.  Where there was one, there was usually a thousand.  At least that was how it seemed.

            Fred arrived first.  He stayed far away from the dead zombies, but looked concerned as he approached me.

            "Are you okay, Jenny?"

            "I'm fine."

            "Then there is something wrong," he said.  "My wife only says she's fine when there is something wrong that she doesn't want to say."

            "That's because you're supposed to figure it out," I said, grinning.  "I'm okay.  No injuries, just rattled nerves."  I looked past him.  "But I shot a deer."

            I heard Sean and Bill coming before they emerged from the forest above us.  Once again I had to swear that I was okay and not injured.

            "Are y'all worried about my safety, or are you afraid I was bitten and will turn into a zombie?" I asked, only half joking.  All three of them froze, and I saw their minds processing that.  They looked suitably horrified.  "I wasn't touched by either of them, much less bitten.  So don't worry."

            "That's something we should discuss as a group," Sean said, before he turned to the dead buck.  "Did you get him with the first shot?"

            "Of course," I said.  "I'm insulted you'd think otherwise."

            "In my defense, you haven't killed every zombie with the first shot."

            I slanted a wary look at the two dead zombies. 

            "I have an aversion to shooting people.  Even undead or infected people."

            "Yeah," Bill whispered, staring at one of the zombies.  "Understood."

            Fred and I stood guard while Bill and Sean gutted the deer.  None of us was convinced there were just the two zombies.

            Bill had a proper skinning knife that he used to field dress the deer.  Sean acted as his assistant.  I'd field dressed more deer in my life than I could remember, but the sight and stench of that buck's guts made me puke.  Very embarrassing.

            "Sorry," I whispered, stomach still churning.  I glanced at the two dead zombies.  Black flies were already starting to land on them.  "Shooting people upsets my stomach.  I'll be fine."

            They nodded understanding, also keeping wary eyes on the two zombie corpses.

            The deer was quickly readied to drag back home.  I'd learned that Sean had killed a rabbit and two squirrels.  Bill had also bagged a rabbit, while Fred got a squirrel.  Not bad for our first hunting party.  There would be enough meat for everyone.

Chapter 15

            "Well damn," Mike said.

            From our vantage point, the dam was little more than a line on the horizon.  A break in the waterline.  As we got closer and closer, it became more obvious.  Still, when I hear dam I think massive structure.

            "How are we supposed to get past that?" I asked.  "I thought there was lots of recreational and commercial traffic on the river."

            To our left came the answer.  Another boat appeared almost out of nowhere.  It was a large fresh water yacht, maybe thirty feet long.  I turned towards it.  I started grinning.