Don't Dare Call Them Zombies : Books 1-4 (45 page)

BOOK: Don't Dare Call Them Zombies : Books 1-4
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I then saw a girl, balled up in the corner of the room.

“It's okay, I'm not here to hurt you,” I said.

I walked closer to her and she screamed.

Suddenly, a freak came through the door to the serving area. Apparently, this one was not deaf and had heard the girl's scream. I pulled my pistol at the freak, and tried to aim for the head. However, it was dark and I missed. The sound of the gunshot echoed throughout the room. The freak lunged at me and knocked me down. My pistol fell out of my hand and slid away. I held back the monster with one hand while I pulled the small knife out of the sheath on my belt. I stabbed the freak in the temple, and it fell to the floor.

Before I could get to my feet, three more freaks came through the door. One of
them dove onto the ground and bit into my leg. I pulled out my revolver and shot him in the head. I then pointed the revolver at the other freaks approaching me. I fired, but my shots missed.

I was out of ammo in my revolver, so I pulled out one of my Derr
ingers and shot at them again, this time hitting them both in the head. I could hear more commotion outside the kitchen; more were coming. I noticed that the kitchen window had a dark curtain across it blocking out almost all of the light. With my leg bleeding I crawled to the window and pulled myself to my feet. As I did so more freaks appeared in the doorway and started lurching towards me. I grabbed the curtain and pulled it open

Light poured into the room and the freaks seemed to be startled. I stood up
, took out my large butcher’s knife and started to hack into them. However, more freaks were approaching. I couldn’t take all of them out. My route to the supply room was also cut off.

I looked for the girl who had been balled up in the corner of the room
, but she was gone.

I sliced the head off one freak. Another one came at me and I split its head in two. However, my knife was stuck in its skull.

Beside me there was a frying pan. I grabbed it, and I swung it at another freak. It fell backwards to the ground.

Turning around I saw another freak approaching. I saw a knife on the table beside me, grasped it, and stabbed it in the freak's eye.

I pulled out the knife and saw several more freaks pouring into the room.

“Get down,” I heard a voice say.

It was Candy.

She pointed the emitter at the freaks and they dropped to the ground.

I hobbled towards her, and she helped me get out the window.

“That was stupid,” she said. “You
shouldn’t have gone in there alone.”

“How did you know I was in there?” I asked.

“I heard the gunshots,” she said.

“Let me see your leg,” she said, kneeling down. She pulled up my pant leg and looked at my calf muscle which was covered in blood.

“That’s a nasty bite, Hank. I have to get you back to the clinic, so I can clean that and bandage you up.” she said. “But first let me treat you with the emitter.”

She pointed the gamma emitter at my leg for a minute or two.

“That should prevent you from turning,” she said. “Now come on, let’s get you to the clinic and get the wound taken care of.”

When I came through the door with Candy Jennifer gasped and ran over to me.

“Hank! What’s happened to you?”

“He’s been bitten, but I’ve given him a good dose of gamma rays,” said Candy. “Sit down here, Hank, and let’s get this wound fixed.”

“Why do you always have to act the hero? – You could’ve gotten yourself killed – or worse,” Jennifer said to me, looking at my leg that Candy had begun to clean.

“I’m just trying to make sure that
we’re all kept safe, Jennifer.” I said, but that didn’t seem to satisfy her.

“Please, Hank, please don’t put yourself in harm’s way unnecessarily. I need you – we all need you with us.”

I didn’t respond. I didn’t know what to say. I was just doing what I felt had to be done, but I knew that was not an explanation that Jennifer wanted to hear. I sat and let Candy clean and bandage me up. When I stood up I was surprised that my leg felt okay. There was a little pain, but it wasn’t enough to keep my off my feet.

I went and talked to a few people about the girl I h
ad seen. No one knew who she was. It bothered me that she’d disappeared. The young woman had seemed terrified. I could only assume that she’d been locked in the building with the other survivors. One of them must have been infected and spread the infection to the others. Hiding and staying away from the freaks was what saved her life. I hoped she’d find the other survivors and join them.

We spend the next few hours going through the compound, checking every room and every building for freaks, but fo
und none. Happily we did find the young girl locked in one of the bathrooms. She was very traumatized, having lost her family members in the freak invasion, but was in good health, and she was quickly taken under the wing of some of the survivors.

We manag
ed to secure the main gate with supplies found within the compound and felt safe enough now within the facility to move around freely. Overall, there were forty five inhabitants of the camp that had survived, and we began to discuss what we should do. The consensus among survivors of this camp was to get to one of the other four relocation centers that I had told them were still apparently secure from freaks. The closest one was in southern Tennessee, and the survivors at the Drysdale facility felt this was the best destination for them. They began to organize themselves to start a journey in that direction. There were still plenty of working vehicles here that would be capable of making the journey and transporting people and supplies to Tennessee.

Jennifer
, Robert, Candy, Meredith and I decided that we wouldn’t go with them. We opted for now to stay at the Alabama compound and study our options, but we gave the survivors here as much information as possible based on our experiences to help them prepare for what would certainly be a challenging journey. There were many weapons here as well as food and other provisions that they would need for their journey, and we helped them with their preparations. After two days of preparation, the Drysdale survivors set off for Tennessee leaving us as the lone inhabitants of the compound.

Mary decided to stay with us. It
didn’t take a lot of convincing. She was thrilled to be with her sister again; Jennifer was the only living family member she had. She was still sick, but the radiation treatment had worked and she slowly started to recover.

I found a graveyard a few miles away, and I buried my mother. I
didn’t have a casket to place her in, so I used the blanket her body was wrapped in as a burial shroud. Out of some scrap lumber, I made a simple cross and carved her name on it. She deserved better. I felt as though I had failed her.

When I started to speak a few words by her grave, my eyes filled with tears. I
couldn’t control my grief. I only managed to say, stuttering and crying, that she was a good woman, a good mother, and that I loved her. I asked Candy to read a few words from the Bible Reverend Sikes gave me. As she talked about fearing no evil and walking through the shadow of death, I felt as though a part of me would always remain in the ground with my mother.

Driving away, Jennifer began to talk to me.

“I'm so sorry about your mother,” she said.

“It's okay,” I responded.

"No, it's not okay. You just lost your mom," she said.

"I'll survive," I said.

"I don't want you to just survive," she said.

"All I can do is
survive. My mom is dead," I said.

"You have me," she said.

Candy was listening in and interrupted.

"And you have a crazy sister in law," she said.

"I'm thankful for both of you," I responded.

"
And I’m thankful for you," Jennifer said.

"So will you let me marry you?" I asked.

"Of course -- we just need to find a preacher," she said.

Even though we knew there were minsters there, we were not going back to the relocation center in Dublin. Our fates
were ahead of us, not behind us.

Back at the compound I gazed over the scene around us I couldn’t help but think of the strange contrast between the beautiful woods and fields surrounding us, and the hundreds of hideous corpses that lay strewn around the
facility we were in. How could we ever recover from such a catastrophe, and return to a normal way of life that only weeks before we had all taken for granted? As I looked around something caught my eye in the clear sky above me. I saw a large cylinder-shaped object flying completely silently, and faster than any aircraft I had ever seen.

“Let’s follow it,” I said.

The Chihuahua barked.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BOOK: Don't Dare Call Them Zombies : Books 1-4
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