Z14 (Zombie Rules) (33 page)

             
“We need to check on the Allens.” She finally said. It was a good point, I had totally forgotten about them. We arrived at their house two minutes later with weapons at the ready. Much to my relief, there was no ball of fire greeting us, nor were there any hostiles shooting at us. Howard came running out with his shotgun.

             
“Lil’ H was at your house and seen them coming. He ran all the way back. I got ‘em all in the basement.”

             
“Good.” I said. “Julie and Rowdy are going to stay with you guys.”

             
Howard looked sidelong at me.

             
“What are you about to do Zach?” He asked.

             
“With a little help from Andie, I’m going to end this shit.” I looked at my friend. “He was right Howard. He told me I was being naïve. He was right.” I held my hand out. He slowly held his out and we shook.

             
“You’re a good man Howard, and a good friend.” I said. Howard had difficulty making eye contact, and opted instead to stare at our feet.

              Andie and I drove in silence most of the way. We swapped vehicles and got into her jeep. I parked at the burned out store in College Grove and looked at her.

             
“How far?” I asked. She pointed.

             
“About four miles, I should drive from here on.” She said. We swapped seats.

             
“I want a spot where we can hide your jeep and approach on foot, and we don’t need to accidentally encounter them.”

             
Andie nodded. “There is an old barn about a quarter of a mile from Ward Road. Nobody ever used it. We can get there the back way. I don’t think we’ll run in to anyone.”

             
“Sounds perfect.” I said.

             
Andie took a hard left into a driveway of an old home with wood siding badly in need of paint. It may have been green at one time. She drove around the back of the house, continued through the back yard, across a shallow creek, and into some woods. She drove down an overgrown trail through the trees, swerving left and right. I was now lost and getting concerned. Soon, we emerged from the trees and faced the back of a barn that looked like it was on the verge of collapse. I looked at Andie.

             
“It was my dope smoking hang out back in the day.” She said in answer to my unasked question. “On the other side of the barn is Rocky Glade Road, just a little bit down from Ward Road. Is it good?” She asked.

             
I jumped out of the jeep and opened the barn doors. She eased the jeep forward and inside the barn.

             
I looked around before I closed the doors. If one looked closely, you could see the tire tracks, but you’d have to have a sharp eye. It would have to do.

             
“We’ve cleared out most of the zombies in this area. We should be safe, from them anyway.” Andie said.

             
“We’ll leave the jeep here.” I said and unloaded the knapsacks. I unloaded the contents and took a quick inventory.

             
“What is all of that?” Andie asked and pointed at my special goodies.

             
I gestured at the two plastic milk jugs with nails duct taped to the exterior. “Those contain a mixture of fertilizer and diesel fuel. The nails will add to the carnage.” The tops had some detonators screwed into the tops.

             
“They’re bombs?” Andie asked. I nodded.

             
“Now these should be obvious.” I said as I pointed to the bottles containing fuel and rags sticking out of the ends.

             
“Uh, Molotov cocktails?” She asked. I nodded.

             
“Fight fire with fire I always say.” I said. She nodded tentatively. I had been watching Andie the entire time. The trepidation seemed to be growing in her with each passing minute.

             
“Alright, it’s time for a talk.” I said. “I’ve got to ask you, are you ready to go through with this?” She started to speak, but I held up my hand.

             
“Before you answer, I want you to know, my intention is to kill your uncle and anyone else who I believe is a threat. If you can’t go through with this, you still have a home with us. We won’t hold it against you. I can only imagine how difficult it must be to go against a blood relative.”

             
Andie looked strong, at first. Then, when the brevity of the situation sunk in, her lower lip started quivering. I set my rifle down, walked over to her, and hugged her tightly. A sob escaped her lips.

             
“I’m scared, Zach. I don’t know if I can.” She admitted weakly.

             
“It’s okay.” I said quietly. “It’s okay.” We stood there a moment while Andie fought through the tears. She finally spoke.

             
“I’m sorry.” She said meekly. I held her at arm’s length.

             
“It’s okay, really.” I said. “So, a minor change of plans.” Andie looked up at me. “I’m going to take care of this, once and for all. If you get into trouble, or if you get a bad vibe and you don’t think I’m going to come back, you hightail it out of here and go back to the Allen’s.”

             
“But what if you need help?” She asked.

             
“Don’t worry about me. You take care of yourself.” I looked at my watch.

             
“I better get going. Point me in the right direction.” Andie led me to the front of the barn and pointed to a bend in the road about a hundred yards away.

             
“This is Rocky Glade Road. Just around that bend is Ward Road. The compound is at the dead end, about another hundred yards.” She bit her lip before continuing. “The Captain’s living quarters is on the second floor of the main house. There is a trailer behind the house that some of the guys share.” I nodded, remembering the drawing she made. As we peered out of a crack in the wall of the barn, the bus drove by. We quickly ducked out of sight.

             
“Damn. There goes plan A.” I said and furrowed my brow in concentration.

             
“Okay, I’ve got something else in mind.” We sat on the bare dirt floor of the barn and ate a snack of old protein bars while I went over my plan with Andie.

             
“What time do they usually go to bed?” I asked.

             
“Usually around twenty-two hundred hours. We rotate guard duty, but it’s become a little bit of an inside joke. Whoever has duty just sleeps in the guard shack.” Andie said.

             
“Alright, I’m going to head out at midnight. It would be best if we tried to get a little shuteye, I have a feeling it’s going to be a long night.” I said. Andie looked at me somberly, and retrieved a blanket out of her jeep.

             
I awoke with a start and quickly checked my watch. It showed a few minutes after midnight. I was shivering. It had grown even colder after the sun went down. I woke Andie, who was sleeping by my side.

             
“It’s time.” I said simply. She nodded and stood while I stretched, worked the kinks out of my stiff muscles, and put on my Ghillie suit.

             
Andie watched me, and then stood. “I’ll show you the way, it’s the least I can do.” I looked at her a moment, nodded and told her to put on the other Ghillie suit.

             
Getting my things together, Andie led me down Ward Road, stepping behind a tree when we were within site of the house. I peered around the tree and checked it out.

             
It was a full moon with a clear sky tonight, so I could see fairly well. The front entrance was gated and there was a guard shack made of wood with concertina wire wrapped around it. It wasn’t very impressive. I would have thought at the very least it would have been fortified with sandbags.

             
The house was an old two-story structure with white wood siding and a wraparound front porch. I couldn’t see the trailer from my angle, but the lack of any backlighting indicated everyone was asleep.

             
I saw no movement, heard no noise. Either I was going to pull this off, or I was walking into a trap.

             
“Okay girl.” I whispered. “Sneak back to the barn and wait. If I don’t show up after all of the shooting stops, you get the hell out of here. Got it?” Andie looked at me in the dark. I saw her nod her head, but could not see any facial expression. She stood on her tiptoes and kissed me, and then disappeared in the darkness.

             
After she was safely away, I low crawled my way closer to the front entrance, keeping an eye on both the guard shack and the house. There was no movement. I made it to the gate undetected, crouched beside one of the support posts, and listened. Turning my head so my good ear was turned toward the little guard shack, I heard nothing. Now came the hard part.

             
The gate was a typical galvanized steel cattle gate you could buy at the farmer’s co-op. There was concertina wire carelessly draped all over it, otherwise, there appeared to be nothing special about it. The rest of the perimeter was protected with a four strand barbed wire fence and concertina also strung across the top. I suspected there may be booby traps here and there. I carefully laid my rifle down and slowly, gently, caressed the entire gate with my hands. I found no wires, monofilament lines, or containers filled with burning surprises. The slide latch was located in the inside of the gate. It had a spot to put a padlock, but surprisingly, there wasn’t one. I reached through and slowly, painstakingly, slid the latch. The soft scraping noise seemed to scream out, and I was certain at any moment I was going to be discovered. The resistance of the latch suddenly lessened. I had it open. I opened the gate a fraction and again checked for any tripwires. There were none. Grabbing my knapsack, I eased through.

             
I made a quick peek through the small slit in the front of the shack I assumed was supposed to be a firing port. All I could see was a dark blob of a figure inside. I took a longer peek this time and watched for a few seconds. I could hear deep breathing through the slit, but the person did not move. I worked my way around and located the entry door in the back. I tried the knob carefully, found it unlocked, and opened the door. The heady odor of marijuana immediately assaulted my nostrils. No wonder he never knew of my presence, he was stoned senseless. His back was to me, his feet were propped up, and he had a couple of blankets wrapped around him. His breathing was heavy and rhythmic.

             
The only new sound he made was a gurgling noise when I slit his throat. He may or may not have been a good guy who didn’t deserve to die like he did, but it was not my concern. He chose the wrong group to throw his lot in with. I wiped my knife on his blanket and shut the door quietly.

             
I caressed my two milk jug bombs, I guess to subconsciously insure they were still with me. The detonators were homemade and were stuck into the tops of each milk jug. I set one of them up at the front door of the house and rigged them with a monofilament tripwire. I did the same with the second one at the door to the trailer in back. I kept looking around as I was setting them up, wondering when hear the crack of a gunshot immediately followed by mortal pain.

             
It didn’t happen. Lady luck was on my side. Free of the extra weight, I made it quickly over to the parked bus. I tried to quietly open the door, but it started to make a horrible squeaking noise when I only got it open a fraction of an inch. I stopped and ducked around to the far side of the bus, out of sight from the house. Peeking out, I still saw no movement or stirrings. Looking up at the two machine guns mounted in this beast, I realized there was no way I could allow them to have this death-mobile in their arsenal.

I pulled o
ut a lighter and lit all four of the Molotov cocktails. I tossed the first one through one of the open turret bays on the bus. The sound of the breaking glass was quickly followed by the distinctive sound of gas igniting. Next, I ran toward the house and slung the remaining three. Two of them definitely broke, but I was uncertain of the third one. No matter, it was time to flee. I ran through the partially open gate, pausing only long enough to grab my rifle. I was twenty yards shy of the big hickory tree when I heard muffled yelling, followed by the door opening. I ducked behind the tree a fraction of a second before the bomb was detonated. Fighting to control my breathing, I raised the rifle and looked through the scope. There was a body lying on the ground. A second later an older man, long beard and wild hair, wearing nothing but boxers and combat boots ran out of the door. He was armed with an assault rifle and fired wildly. I took aim as he started making his way toward the bus. The round took him in the right shoulder. He fell and started crawling. I shot him again. It was then I heard the second explosion, followed by an agonizing scream. Presumably, this was the bomb I had set up on the door of the trailer.