Roxanne's Story (Book 1): Survival in the Zombie Apocalypse (10 page)

KC stood there looking down the path, then swung around when she heard Lucky laugh again. It infuriated her to see them together. Not being able to watch anymore she dropped to her knees in the dirt and began stabbing the earth with her knife, over and over again.

The original plan had been for Lucky, Roxanne, Cami and Brandon to go to Pigeon Falls for ammo and supplies that the park did not provide. Brandon’s air mattress had a hole in it and he needed a replacement but he would take a mattress from a home or one of the motels along the strip if all else failed. They wanted towels, shampoo, blankets and everyone needed more clothing since the few extra pieces they had with them were becoming threadbare. The women needed personal items and the men wanted to shave again so they divided the team into two men and two women each knowing what was needed for their gender. They had found the storeroom for the public restrooms so they had plenty of paper towels, toilet tissue and soap. Cami scoffed at the idea of finding female items saying, “It’s all ammo and weapons I’m looking for, although I could use some more jeans.”

They hooked up the trailer to the hitch on Brandon’s SUV and filled it from the only gas pump on the premises. Ed had managed to connect a generator enabling them to use the pump but had not been able to read the gauges to know how much gas they had left in supply. Since they were going to be gone overnight they left the SUV to get their sleeping bags and came back to find KC sitting in the backseat of the car.

“KC, what are you doing? It was decided who was going and your name wasn’t mentioned,” Brandon said. KC continued to stare straight ahead and did not answer. Brandon went around to her side of the car but she quickly locked the door before he could open it. “KC, get out of the car right now!” he yelled pounding on the door but she only added to the drama by yelling in return.

“Going!” she screamed. Then she stabbed her finger toward the front of the car, “Going, Going, going!” Brandon sighed and stepped back unable to deal with a stubborn teenager.

“Let her go in your place Brandon,” Cami suggested from the other side of the car. “She knows how to fight but I can’t say that I’ll be watching out for her.” She paused, then banged on the window, “You hear that KC? I’m not going to watch out for you!”

Brandon came around to Cami and objected to the idea, “But that leaves Lucky with three women.”

Cami put her hand on her gun and turned to face him, “I swear to God Brandon, if you continue to put me into the category of a helpless female I’m going to beat the living crap out of you.”

Brandon threw his hands up in surrender and backed away, “OK, OK, if it’s agreeable with Lucky then I wish you luck.” They turned to look at Lucky for his approval. Lucky in turn looked at Cami and asked, “You can vouch for her ability to take care of herself?” Cami nodded, “I can.”

KC unlocked the doors to let everyone in but before getting in the car Roxanne called Brandon back. She took the rawhide off her neck and handed him the key to the back gate. “Why don’t you put this in the ashtray along with the key to the car back there?” Brandon took the key but covered her hand with his before she could pull away. “Thank you Roxanne” he smiled. “This means a lot to us.” Roxanne blushed and pulled her hand away. As she got in the car she noticed that both Cami and Lucky were grinning. She studied both of them then said, “What? Are we going to sit here all day? Let’s get a move on!”

Roxanne gave orders to Mutt to stay behind but when Brandon turned to walk away he realized that Mutt wasn’t following him. He looked back to see Mutt still standing in the same spot watching the car approach the tunnel where Ed had moved the bus. Brandon walked back and leaned over to scratch Mutt saying, “She’ll be OK Mutt. Lucky will look after her.” Mutt continued to stare as if he were thinking this over and then with a “woof” he turned and walked with Brandon.

“I didn’t approach the park from this highway so I don’t know what’s around here,” Roxanne said after they had been on the road.

“The hard part will be ammo,” Cami said. “By now most places will be thoroughly ransacked. Everyone is living on borrowed time now. The last man standing will be the man with the last bullet.”

“I don’t expect to find anything in the Sports Stores Roxanne”, Lucky interjected. “I’m only going there because of the possibility of arrows and to get Brandon an air mattress. Maybe some sterno cans so Ed doesn’t need to fire up the generators for Sally to cook on the stoves so often. Those generators are our prime asset and should be used carefully since we don’t know how long the gas will last. We need to find more candles and kerosene for our lamps. We’ll start with Pigeon Falls first since that’s a small town and then see how close we can get to Gatlinburg before hitting heavy zombie traffic or the roads are blocked. Anyone going south to get out of Tennessee from this area would have taken those roads.”

The going was slow, especially because of the trailer that they were towing. Lucky not only had to maneuver the SUV around stalled traffic but had to manage the trailer through too. They did not stop to inspect any of these cars for supplies nor did they stop at the houses they passed. If the search in the town was futile then they would resort to searching as many houses and cars as they could on the way back.

They found a small shopping center that had a hardware store, sports shop and clothing store and thought it ideal to find all three stores in one place. They were able to get several air mattresses, sterno cans and Roxanne found both recurve and compound crossbows. Celeb said the compound was heavier and good in small places. The back room had some unopened cases of arrows and she was ecstatic about that. She also picked up several books on survival methods, medicinal herbs and more seeds from hardware. They took anything that could be used as a weapon including hoes and pitchforks. The hoes would be good for killing snakes. Cami was disgusted that nothing in the way of ammo was found.

KC did not get out of the car until they went to search the clothing store. They looked through the window first but everything standing in human form looked to be a mannequin. The door was locked leading them to believe that the place was clear of zombies. Lucky used a tire iron to pry the door open and once in they fanned out, each seeking what was on their list. Cami went directly to the boots, Lucky to men’s shirts and jeans, Roxanne to ladies undergarments but KC went to cosmetics.

It was when they heard that familiar moan that they all turned at once to find the source. At that moment a zombie tried to push through the racks to reach KC, succeeding in getting one arm and his head through. She quickly drew her knife and with a yell of “HA” stabbed him in the head, wiped her knife off on her pants and continued spinning the rack to select eye shadow. She hadn’t moved an inch. Roxanne and Lucky looked at one another with raised eyebrows then turned to their own shopping.

Cami took some shopping bags from behind the counter and started filling them with jeans of all sizes, “We’re going to need something to weigh these bags down in the trailer or they’ll fly out.” They heard KC grunting and turned to see her dragging a mannequin out the door to the truck.

“Well,” Lucky said, “I think you have your answer to that problem.”

Cami became more disappointed with each place that they stopped at which did not have ammo, and her attitude was quickly turning sour. “Looks like these places have been picked over Cami, and only trash is left,” Roxanne said.

“Not just picked over once, but many times,” Cami said. “Someone has hunkered down and is raiding these towns over and over again, probably going a little further out each time. We should be careful since they will consider this area as their home base. They’ve probably been at it from the start and will be getting desperate.”

“Well, let’s change our plans and go directly to Gatlinburg today instead of tomorrow,” Lucky suggested. But the closer they got to the city, the heavier the pockets of Ze’s became. Lucky was able to drive through most of them but knew that for each zombie he didn’t run over that they would turn and follow the truck. Eventually the stragglers would gather and become a mob. As he reached a crest in the road and could see into Gatlinburg he came to a stop. In silence they all looked down to see that the city was heavily occupied by Ze’s. The streets were filled with them aimlessly wandering, the moans putting chills down their spines.

“I don’t think this is a good idea” Lucky said. “We are outnumbered at least fifteen to one. Not worth losing anybody. Let’s just turn around and hit some of the side streets out of town and start going from house to house. I think this must be what we are getting back at the park, the overrun of stragglers. If this herd and those pockets of Ze’s we drove through all merge into one and come to the park, we could be in for some heavy fighting.”

They had been cruising the backstreets while Cami and Lucky argued over whether the best ammo would be found in a redneck area or a rich neighborhood when Cami suddenly told Rick to stop. “Back up a minute. Think I saw something of interest.” They were at a brick wall of a gated community but Lucky backed up so they could see through the fenced gate. “There!” Cami pointed, “See that NRA flag in front of that house? That’s where we need to go.”

“Doesn’t feel right, Cami” Lucky said. “There’s a chain and padlock on the gates. Could be the folks who you said had hunkered down. And if he lives where that flag is flying he could easily pick us off out here like a sniper.” Against his better judgment Cami got out of the car and approached the gates. She continued to look around at the various houses spaced two acres apart from one another. When she got back in the car she told Lucky to keep driving further up the road. As they came to a small tree growing outside of the wall she said, “This looks right. Stop here.”

“Lucky, you and I will use the tree to go over the wall,” Cami suggested. “We should be opposite a house that will block the view of anyone in the NRA house. He won’t see us come over the wall and we can use the second house to get closer. From there we play it by ear and sight before we approach any closer, trying to stay under cover until we can look in the windows and assess the situation. But I want that house.”

Roxanne objected to the idea of Lucky and Cami going alone but no one knew if KC could drive and if either of them were injured Roxanne would need to drive them back to the park. She watched them climb up the tree and then over the wall but the waiting was intolerable so she turned to talk to KC. She put her arm across the back of the driver’s seat and turned to ask, “KC why haven’t you gotten out with the rest of us to do a search? You only went into the department store with us and then you looked at cosmetics.”

At first Roxanne thought that KC was stuttering in an attempt to get the words out to answer, but then she realized that KC was hissing at her. She quickly removed her arm from the driver’s seat, “KC, what has gotten into you?” She had never seen this reaction out of KC. “Is it the Ze’s we saw on the road or in town? Has this trip made you nervous?” KC did not answer but the snake-like look in her eyes put a chill down Roxanne’s spine.

Roxanne got out of the car and came around to KC’s door and opened it. “Get out of the car. If anyone is hurt it will take both of us to help them back over the wall.” She popped the trunk. “Get the bolt cutters out of the back.” KC sat for a few moments, then got out to do as she was told.

Cami and Lucky were looking into a window of the NRA house to see that two men were dead in the living room. One was a zombie but the other had been shot in the head. There was a shotgun and a rifle on the floor.

“If these two are the ones who hunkered down it looks like the isolation got to them” Lucky said. “The zombie is shot in the chest, the dead guy in the head. An argument that got out of hand possibly.”

“Or they decided to Opt Out” Cami said “And one of them is a bad shot. Why don’t you go back to the car and let the girls know that everything is OK. I know they must be worried. Use the bolt cutters and drive through the gate up to the house. We can search this one while they search the house next door.”

“Don’t like that idea,” Lucky said. “Why don’t you go back to the car and I’ll search this house?”

“Because you can get over the fence easier than I can.”