Z14 (Zombie Rules) (35 page)

             
Julie looked worriedly at the gash on my cheek. The bleeding had almost stopped now, but I had no doubt it was a pretty ugly wound. I tried out a carefree smile while I offered advice.

             
“I would suggest pouring some peroxide in the wound and then sealing it with super glue. If we have any ice or anything cold, I sure would like to put it on my head. Andie can use some as well.” Julie gave me a condescending look, but did as I suggested while I told them of the encounter with the Captain. Rowdy got a wet rag and began tenderly cleaning up Andie’s face.

             
I told them everything, except for the remarks the Captain said about Andie. When I had finished, everyone seemed to be in stunned silence.

             
“So this Captain fellow, he’s dead now?” Rowdy finally asked. I nodded, and then felt the need to speak further.

             
“I want y’all to know something, Andie came through. If not for her, I’d be dead.” I looked over at her and patted her hand. “It was a very hard decision for her to kill her own uncle, so I hope you guys understand and not pester her with questions about it.” Everyone nodded in understanding.

             
“Are all of them dead, Zach?” Howard asked.

             
“I’m not sure. There are three unaccounted for, not counting the baby. One of the women ran out of the house with the kid, so they may be okay. The others may have escaped or they may have burned up in the fire. Either way, I don’t believe they are a threat, not anymore.”

             
“What are we going to do now?” Julie asked. She had finished with the gash on my cheek and began wiping the blood and dirt off of my face with a wash rag.

             
“I want to go to our old house and take stock of how much is ruined.” I said.

             
“We’ll do it first thing in the morning.” Julie said.

             
“I really want to do it now. Tomorrow, I would like to get everything that is undamaged loaded up and moved into the Riggins’ home. Besides, we need to get those bodies burned.”

             
Rowdy grinned broadly. “For once, I am one step ahead of you Mister Gunderson, sir.” He said smugly. I looked at him and then at Julie. She was smiling too.

             
“Rowdy has already stacked the bodies by the sinkhole and pulled everything out of the house that was doused in gas.” She said. “He was going to burn them, but we thought you might want to look them over first.”

             
“Yeah, we were going to wait a day or so, and if you didn’t come back I was going to go ahead and burn them.” Rowdy said, and then realized what he implied.

             
“Sorry.” He murmured.

             
I shook my head, which sent a minor wave of nausea over me. “No need to apologize, your reasoning is perfectly logical. Alright, let’s go look them over.” Even though Julie was very much against it and demanded Andie and I straight to bed, my stubbornness won out and we rode in the jeep over to the sinkhole. Secretly, I wished I had listened to her. Every bump sent waves of pain through me.

              Andie pointed at one of the corpses. “That’s Eddy, he must have been the sniper you shot.”

             
“That was some pretty good shooting Hoss, you put two holes in his head, side-by-side.” Rowdy said. “Oh, here’s what he had on him.” Rowdy went to the truck and returned with a sniper rifle. It was a Remington model seven hundred with a scope, fluted stainless steel barrel, and a black synthetic stock.

             
“That is a nice looking rifle.” I commented. Rowdy grinned. I pointed at the bodies. “So, none of these are George?” I asked Andie. She shook her head. So, George, the Marine, was still out there somewhere. It was cause for concern.

             
We were interrupted by an unusual sound. All of us looked around and then saw something none of us had seen in quite a while.

             
A helicopter flew overhead.

             
It was a military helicopter, a Chinook by the looks of it, although I was no expert. It was painted olive drab, and it was flying low, maybe five hundred feet.

             
“What are they doing?” Julie asked as it went into a banking maneuver. We watched as someone standing at the rear of the helicopter threw an object out. Whatever it was, it was small. There were a couple of long white pieces of cloth attached to it and they were furling in the wind as the object descended. It landed about a hundred yards from us.

             
Andie ran after it. It looked small, not much larger than her hand. She jogged back to us a minute later.

             
“It looks like a small tube.” She said and handed it over to me. I opened it while everyone peered closer. It was a typed memorandum and looked like it had been photocopied many times over, with the exception of a handwritten paragraph at the end. I read it aloud.

             
“Attention to orders: The Provisional Government of the United States of America is hereby requesting all surviving personnel to report to the nearest military facility in order to receive care and treatment. Upon arrival, personnel will be processed accordingly. We offer housing, health care, food, and most importantly safety.” I looked at my friends.

             
“The rest is handwritten. It says the nearest military facility is Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and there will be a military transport plane waiting at Smyrna airport the rest of today and tomorrow to pick us up.” I finished. Julie took the memo out of my hand and reread it. Rowdy shook his head slowly.

             
“I don’t know about this Hoss. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m glad there are other people still out there, but I surely don’t like that word – processed. That’s the word they use when they lead cows to the slaughter house.”

             
“What do you girls think?” I asked.

             
“I think I’m with Rowdy on this one.” Andie said. I looked at Julie. She had her head down and was looking at the memo.

             
“Julie?” I asked. She looked up at us.

             
“They said they have medical care. I’m just thinking about the baby.” She said. “But I’m not overly fond of abandoning everything we’ve done here.”

             
“Okay. We’ll show this to Howard and Lashonda. In the meantime, let’s get this shit burned.”

             
We dumped all of the gasoline soaked items from the house and used it to burn the bodies. The ruined items included Rick’s old chair, which didn’t help my sour mood. We watched them burn for a while and then headed back to our home. I did a walk-through in silence. Although Julie and Rowdy had opened all of the windows, the house still smelled of gas. Julie and I went down into the root cellar. Everything was intact, but I could still faintly smell the gas odor. She stood close and I instinctively grabbed her butt. She slapped at my hand.

             
“Don’t get something started you won’t be able to finish. You really need to be in bed right now, for rest, not for sex.” She chided. She was right. I was sore as hell.

             
“I agree, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep if I didn’t get a firsthand look at all of this.” I responded.

             
“So, what do you think?” She asked after a minute.

             
“If we try to live in here I’m afraid the fumes will get us sick. Not to mention we won’t be able to use the stove or fireplace. I think it’s time to move into the Riggins’ home.” I said.

             
“I like that house. The master bedroom is big enough for us and the baby.”

             
“They have well water and a generator hookup, but no barn or greenhouse. It’ll be a lot of work.” I said.

             
“So what else is new?” She asked sarcastically. “You thrive when there’s hard work. In the meantime, I’m getting you to bed. No arguing with me, you look awful.”

             
I smiled at her reassuringly, but she was right, I felt awful. I explained to Rowdy what I wanted to do on the ride back to the Allen’s house.

             
“Don’t you worry about a thing. I’ll get right on it.” He said with a wide grin. “I’d like to play around with this rifle though.”

             
I shrugged. “It’s yours, I hope you can shoot.”

             
“Thank you kindly, Hoss.” Rowdy said and caressed the rifle lovingly. “Yeah, I can shoot. I was raised in southern Alabama, of course I can shoot.” He said.

             
Julie insisted I eat. I forced down a couple of boiled eggs while Howard and Lashonda read the memo.

             
“It seems promising.” Howard said. “I mean, we didn’t think anyone in the government was left.”

             
“It’d be nice having a semblance of society again.” Lashonda added. “A hospital to go to when you’re sick, a school for the kids, Sunday church, that’d be real nice.”

             
I didn’t blame her sentiment, but still, I was wary.

             
“Alright, why don’t a couple of us go pay them a visit in the morning and see what they have to say?” I suggested. They readily agreed. I was thinking about the last time we encountered soldiers. It did not end well.

             
I awoke in the middle of the night. The four of us were sleeping in the den of the Allen’s new home. It was like a slumber party and I was the one who had eaten too much candy. My gut was still hurting from the kick the Captain gave me, may he rest in hell. In truth, I was hurting all over. There must have been a few punches and kicks I don’t remember receiving.

             
I went to the restroom and shined the flashlight in the bowl. My urine had an orange tint to it, indicating blood. Not a great deal, but enough to concern me. I went back to the den and lay beside Julie. Andie’s eyes opened and she watched me as I got comfortable. She was snuggled up beside Rowdy, who was snoring contentedly. Her face was bruised and swollen, but Julie had managed to straighten her nose. I gave her a small wave, a simple hand gesture to let her know I cared and was glad she was here. A little smile crept across her face. I closed my eyes.

              The next day, Howard, Rowdy, Lil’ H, and I took the truck and drove to the Smyrna airport. I had Howard drive and directed him to take a route down Rocky Fork Road, which was stupid because we had to stop and cut up three trees that had fallen across the road. I was hoping to see Toby and his kids, or even Moe. The only thing we saw was a zombie, with its peculiar, distinctive amble, walking down the middle of the road. We had the windows protected with hardware cloth, so I saw no immediate threat.

             
“Howard, drive up close to it on the passenger side and take a look. Get ready to pop it with your handgun Rowdy.” He nodded in agreement.

             
When we approached, the zombie suddenly stopped. It must have heard us, but it didn’t turn around, it only stood there with its back to us. I drove up beside it and stopped.

             
It was a female, wearing jeans and a torn beige jacket. She slowly turned her head and stared at us. I’d several encounters with zombies over the past year, but this one made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. She stared at us with black eyeballs while slowly gnashing her teeth. Suddenly, she lunged at the jeep and clawed at the window. Rowdy jerked back in fright, but then stuck his handgun through the hole in the mesh and fired. She continued staring at us for another second before falling to the road.

             
“Wow. That was weird.” Rowdy said. Howard and I agreed.

             
We elected not to spend the time burning the corpse, and instead hurried toward the Smyrna airport. Surprisingly, there was only one crashed plane off in a field. The hangars had a few planes tethered down, but many others were empty.

             
The olive drab cargo plane on the tarmac was easy to spot, and a cadre of soldiers milled about near a hangar. I stopped the truck on Fitzhugh Road a hundred yards away from the hangars, looked at Rowdy and pointed at the M4 assault rifle.

             
“Would you mind staying here by the truck with that M4 handy, just in case? I asked.

             
Rowdy gave a curt nod. “I understand. But if they’re friendly, and there’re women around, you better give me a whistle. I chuckled and confirmed he knew my hand signals before Howard and I walked toward the group. They saw us coming. Two of the soldiers approached.

             
“Welcome, before we proceed, you will need to surrender your side arms.” One of them said while holding his hand out. The other soldier had an M4 with a front sling. He held it casually, but I had no doubt he could swing it around in action quickly. I shook my head and gave the warning hand signal. His rank showed he was a corporal. He was in his early twenties, clean shaven, and clear blue eyes. He didn’t look at all like Corporal Leon Hart, but the rank and attitude reminded me of him all the same.