Roxanne's Story (Book 1): Survival in the Zombie Apocalypse (24 page)

“And all this ammo,” Cami said. “We can’t pack all that up either and I’m not leaving it.”

“Both of you please listen to me,” Lucky said. “Sally, I’m not talking about 100 Ze’s, I’m talking a whole city of them. If we hide in the Admin bldg. and remained quiet so they didn’t hear us, they would still starve us out. There isn’t enough food to wait out this herd because only 70% of them will move on. The rest will get distracted by something and stay, or will get to the bus and stop and wander around for ages, or will get hung up on something and there will always be stragglers coming in, the ones who fell behind. This herd will own this place! It’s not ours anymore.”

“And you, Cami,” Lucky turned to face her. “There isn’t enough ammo to kill them. All we would be doing is letting them get closer until they surround us. As of right now,” he turned to the group, “they haven’t seen us in here, only on the road and it changed their direction. We still have time to get out unseen so they will not follow us.”

“Gene you, Sally, Morgan and Caleb get your things, as much food as you can as much ammo as you can and take the small truck out front. It will only carry four. Me, Roxanne and Brandon will put as much as we can into the truck parked at Ed’s fence and take the logging road. I hope that the truck can thread around the trees in the forest to avoid the cavern and climb the embankment on the other side of the clearing so we can reach the farmhouse. Cami, you and Randy will follow us in the station wagon that you arrived in. Gene you will meet us there. Be careful since we haven’t checked out the farmhouse but once we meet up we will decide what to do. If we aren’t there in an hour after you then unload some of the equipment and use the logging road to come looking for us. If we get stuck we may need to transfer food and ammo over to your truck.”

“I’m not going,” Cami said. They all stopped and looked at her. “Don’t worry, I’m not committing suicide but I’m not leaving this ammo behind. If we get stuck in the woods we will have two vehicles loaded with ammo and food that will be abandoned. And some of us will be on foot if there isn’t a car at the farmhouse because Gene can’t take all of us. I’m loading as much as I can and driving to the new entrance we created at the demolished building. That’s where you expect them to come in since they detoured to follow you. I can slow them down from entering from that direction and give you more time. If I can’t take it with me then I’ll use it and catch up with you. I’ll take Caleb’s dirt bike.”

“Cami, that doesn’t make sense,” Lucky said. “You have not been on that road. You don’t know where the cavern is and could drive into it.”

“I’ll come with you Cami,” Randy spoke up. “There are still six grenades left and I can break up a herd real fast with that. Between Cami and I we could do some serious damage.” Everyone was surprised to hear this from Randy since he had been in favor of abandoning The Park to Chen Le. “Plus I know the logging trail and where that clearing is. We can take the truck that Cami plans on driving to the Weaver’s shed and once our ammo is gone I’ll drive us back to the logging road. It’ll work.” He smiled.

At that moment they heard a siren go off in the distance. “What the hell,” Morgan said.

“It’s the alarm on the car that I parked at the back gate,” Roxanne said. “We were afraid that part of the herd had already found the service road. Looks like they broke through the fence and we don’t have two hours after all.”

Everyone scattered at that point. Time was precious and each person had their own task. The truck assigned to Gene never had extra supplies in it since it was parked at the front entrance where anyone could access it and steal the supplies. They used it basically for runs outside of the Park and would take only what they needed for that run. Since the truck that Lucky intended to use was stocked they concentrated on helping Gene and his crew add supplies to the truck that he was going to take. But all this took time running back and forth.

Lucky saw Cami and Randy drive off behind the Admin building and knew that she was going to carry out her intentions of trying to slow the herd. What he had not had a chance to explain was that she would be boxed in if she sat at the newly demolished Weavers Hut. The zombies coming in from the service entrance would circle around and come up behind her, especially when they heard gunfire.

As Gene, Sally, Morgan and Caleb got in the truck Lucky said, “Remember, give us an hour and then come looking for us. You’re only a mile away from the farmhouse and will be using a good highway. But we will be on bad terrain and meeting up with stray zombies, which is if that group of Ze’s hasn’t increased too.”

Cami drove to the Weavers entrance that they had made by the demolished ride and pulled the truck up to face the open field where the mine was located. The field was already wall to wall Ze’s that had advanced half-way across the meadow. “Jesus,” Randy said, “I thought they had exaggerated. I hadn’t expected it to be this thick. Maybe they’re right Cami. Maybe this isn’t a good idea after all. I forgot about that ring of trees giving shade to the picnic tables. I can’t lob the grenades over those trees but if I wait until they advance past the trees, they’ll be awfully close Cami.”

“You just keep handing me ammunition when I call for it,” Cami said. “Let’s get in the back and I’ll show you what I need. As I’m reloading you throw your grenades. Just use your own judgment and do the best you can, Randy.”

Roxanne nervously worked on detaching the wires from the fence Ed had cut while Lucky and Brandon took the opportunity to throw more things in the back. Lucky threw in both their duffle bags as Roxanne untangled the last of the wire. She told Mutt to get in front, not wanting him to ride in the back of the truck and the three of them piled in with him. She did not see any zombies behind them and felt that they had not been seen and would not be followed. They were approaching the tree line when they heard explosions and rapid gunfire.

Cami knew that she could not take the time for a head shot. There were just too many of them. She emptied the machine gun into them and although some went down most were just jerked around as they were riddled with bullets. She reloaded again and again while Randy threw grenades. He was more effective than her, blowing whole zombies apart and clearing small areas which were soon filled with more Ze’s from the back of the herd. Due to the noise that they were making Randy did not notice the zombies behind them until the truck began to shake.

“Oh My God, Cami!” he screamed. He pulled out the shotgun and started blowing away the zombies as they reached for him. As each zombie fell another stepped over it and advanced with the pack pushing forward toward the truck. When his shotgun emptied he pulled out his pistol, “Cami, what are we going to do? We’re surrounded, we’re surrounded!”

Cami turned around and grabbed his arm, “Get on the roof of the truck. Grab that overhang,” she pointed up to it, “from the collapsed ride and climb over to the other side. Take Caleb’s dirt bike and go by the logging trail.”

Randy climbed on the roof of the cab and yelled, “But what about you?”

“I’ll meet up with you. Get going now!” She quickly reloaded and began firing down at the zombies who had surrounded the truck on all sides. The truck shook from side to side as they pressed against it, reaching out toward Cami who was trying to stay in the middle of the truck bed so they couldn’t reach her legs.

Randy reached for the overhead pillar and swung himself into the wreckage. It teetered but he maintained his balance. He climbed over a few of the seats attached to the ride and looked back. The zombies had climbed over one another to reach Cami and had her by the legs. She tried kicking them off and continued to shoot into the crowd but they pulled her legs out from under her and she went down with a bang on the truck bed. She tossed the empty machine gun aside and rolled over to pull her pistol out and continued to fire at those attempting to bite her legs. Since her focus was on her feet she did not notice that zombies had climbed over each other on the other side of the truck. They grabbed her shoulders and used them as a means of pulling themselves into the bed of the truck.

Randy started to cry as he turned back to his climbing and heard Cami’s cylinder click on empty. She never screamed, she never yelled which Randy was thankful for, but he wish he hadn’t looked back.

Lucky stopped the truck at the end of the trail and scanned the opposite bank of the clearing looking for a break in the forest. “I don’t remember the woods being this thick on the other side.”

“Neither do I,” Brandon said. “I don’t see a place where we could drive the truck through to get around that cavern. There isn’t enough room between the trees for the truck to be able to clear them. Not even if we smashed the side view mirrors off could we fit between any of those trees.”

“I’ve seen three zombies come through the tarp and drop out of sight since we’ve been sitting here,” Roxanne said. “They are accumulating in this direction toward all the noise at The Park.” The sounds were in the far distance but they could hear gunfire and explosions and knew that Cami and Randy were still fighting.

“We’ll need to abandon the truck,” Lucky said turning off the motor. “We’ll have Gene drive down to the edge and we’ll transfer all the equipment over to his truck. Take only what is necessary, don’t weight yourself down with a lot of heavy equipment. Brandon, how far is the farmhouse from here?”

“We have another half mile to run but once we clear these woods we’ll cross a dried creek bed and we didn’t see any Ze’s on the other side of that so we should be able to slow down and catch our breath at that point.”

Everyone got out and began to gather their things from the back of the truck. Roxanne elected to take her duffle bag, crossbow and rifle which she could throw over her shoulders while leaving her hands free for her axe and pistol. “Mutt, stay close. We’re running this time, not fighting so don’t stop to draw anything away.” Mutt was panting when he looked up at her knowing that this time was different from the usual ‘sneak & peek’ that they did on the road together.

They three of them looked at each other, nodded and started to jog to the left of the clearing through the forest. They were almost completely around the clearing when they started running into Ze’s headed toward The Park. They tried to run around as many as they could but were often forced to use their knives. If two or three zombies were bunched up or it was too difficult to get around them then they would draw their pistol and shoot
.
This was not a situation of clearing out Ze’s, this was a situation of getting to a de
s
ignated point as quickly as possible and to outrun any who were attracted by gunshots. Sometimes Mutt would run ahead and then come back to jump against Roxanne’s side indicating that she should alter her course to either the left or right. The groundcover in the forest did not help with vines tripping them up or slipping on a hidden wet branch.

By the time they cleared the forest they were winded and each of them had emptied at least one of the guns they carried. They stopped to catch their breath and to reload. From this distance they could no longer hear noise from the park and did not know what was happening there. “I’m surprised that Gene hasn’t come down from the farmhouse by now,” Lucky said.

“It’ll be easier from here on,” Brandon said. “The road will be alternating between sand and a hard surface going through grassy fields and corn fields.” They finished reloading and drank some water from their duffle bags, then threw everything across their shoulders again and started walking. They did not see any Ze’s in their path but knew that many were behind and following them. The sun had become hot in the open fields without any shade but especially in the corn field where it seemed as if all the oxygen had been sucked out of the air. By the time they came out of the corn field behind the barn they were in a full sweat with their hair sticking to their faces and their shirts plastered to their bodies.

“I don’t see the car,” Roxanne said.

“Let’s check around front,” Lucky said. “Gene should have been here by now. It’s only a mile away by the highway. You don’t think he got lost, do you Brandon?”

“No. Gene drove the car back to the Park from here. I know we were all spooked by the forest, but it’s the first farmhouse you meet after leaving the Park. I’ll check the barn to see if he parked in there.”