Z14 (Zombie Rules) (50 page)

             
“Here, squirt some of this in your mouth.” He did as told without complaint. I found a canteen in the backseat and handed it to him. He took it gratefully, took a big gulp, and squished it around in his mouth before spitting it out.

             
“Much obliged.” He said quietly.

             
“Rowdy, are you merely hung over, or are you getting sick?” I asked quietly. He looked at me when he understood the implication.

             
“I wasn’t bitten, or anything.” He said quietly. “When Cindy got bit, we didn’t do anything, like sex or kissing. I tied one on last night. More than I’ve drunk in a long time.”

             
“Alright, wipe your face off. When we get there you probably shouldn’t say anything. I’ll do the talking and maybe those women won’t castrate you on the spot.” Rowdy looked at me and nodded dejectedly.

              Fred met us outside as we drove up. He waited until I shut the truck off, and the two of us got out.

             
“The young lady didn’t make it.” He said. Rowdy looked at him a moment before running back to the rear of the truck and dry heaved.

             
“Did she turn?” I asked. He nodded somberly.

             
“Mac was true to her word.” He said. “When the young lady turned, she put a bullet in her head. The ladies refused to burn her, so we buried her down the road at a church.” He looked over at Rowdy.

             
“Do him a favor, and take him back home. That mother is blaming him for everything.” I agreed.

             
“You want to ride with us?” I asked. Fred nodded. I headed back toward the truck, but before I took two steps, Kelly burst out of the door to the house and ran up to me. She grabbed me in a hug and held me tightly.

             
“Oh Zach, this is so terrible.” She lamented. “I feel so vulnerable out here.” I patted her on the back and consoled her. Fred gave me his typical arched eyebrow before walking back to Rowdy and helping him into the truck.

             
“I want to come live with you.” She said quietly in my ear.

             
“Uh, well, we’ve got a full house currently. It’d be a little cramped.” I felt her waist press against me.

             
“I don’t care. It can’t be more cramped than here. I’ll sleep on the floor if I have to. It’ll be safer living with you, and I’ll earn my keep, I promise.” She said plaintively.

             
“I’ll see what my wife has to say, okay?” I said, while attempting to gently pry her off of me.

             
She looked at me deeply with her dark, smoldering eyes. “Okay. I’m counting on you, Zach.” She said, and then she kissed me on the cheek, the one with the scar.

              “Zach, check this out.” Terry said. He turned to Joe. “Answer the following for Zach. When using an M4 assault rifle, what is a malfunction and what actions should you take?”

             
Joe looked at me. “A malfunction is when the weapon stops firing because of a mechanical failure of the weapon, the magazine, or ammo. There are two types of actions you can take, immediate action and remedial action. For immediate action, you slap on the magazine, pull the charging handle, observe a bullet come out, release the handle, tap the forward assist, and shoot. If that doesn’t work, you apply remedial action, and that is, you pull the magazine out, lock the bolt to the rear, put the weapon on safe, and then find out what’s wrong.”

             
I raised my eyebrows. “The kid picked it up within minutes, Zach.” Terry said. “Hell, I did hundreds of pushups in basic before I got it right.” He said with a chuckle.

             
“Awesome, Joe.” I said. Joe looked over at Fred expectantly.

             
“I suspect we have the makings of one hell of a soldier.” Fred said. Joe beamed with pride.

              I poured a thermos of coffee and carried it to the bus. Rowdy was once again curled up in the fetal position on one of the bunks. The interior of the bus was rank smelling.

             
“If you throw me off of the bunk, I’m going to throw up on your shoes.” He muttered.

             
“Nope, I’m not going to touch you. I’ve got some semi fresh coffee here, if you feel up to it.”

             
Rowdy eventually rolled over and sat up. “Yeah, I’ll try some. It can’t make me feel any worse.” I poured some into the plastic cup. He blew into it and took small sips.

             
“Is it helping?” I asked.

             
“A little.” He replied.

             
“Good.” I said and unfolded a piece of paper. “You need to do some work to keep your mind occupied. When you’re able to get up and moving, I need you to do this.” I said. He looked at the piece of paper.

             
“What is it? He asked.

             
“It’s a design for an open top crate. I need a dozen of them to store the vegetables and stuff in the basement. Here is a scaled drawing with the dimensions. I’ve got lumber and tools in the barn, everything you’ll need.”

             
Rowdy looked at it a long moment before answering. “Okay, I’ll get started on them. I don’t know if I can get all dozen of them finished today, but I’ll do what I can.” I nodded and left quickly, it stunk in there.

             
It probably would have been better if we had tried this in the dead of winter, when the zombies were frozen, but back then there were only a few of us. Today, there were eight of us. Mac insisted on driving the Volvo. Fred, Bo, and Joe were with her. I convinced Julie to stay home, so it was Terry, Andie, Kelly, and me in the truck behind the Volvo. For reasons I don’t know, Julie had invited Kelly to live with us. That was three weeks ago, and she unabashedly flirted with both Terry and I whenever she got a chance. She flirted with Terry one night and Andie immediately stuck a knife to her throat. That ended that.

             
Rowdy was by himself, driving the utility work truck Rick had found last year. We had it loaded with equipment we were sure we’d need, along with one of the tankers. Only Andie and I were wearing tactical vests, the rest were dressed casually, in jeans, tee shirts, and windbreakers.

             
Our destination was on Trinity Lane. Specifically, we were going to loot the police department’s property and evidence warehouse. It was a nondescript building located behind the East Precinct. But first, we were going to take a minor detour to the reservoir.

             
I probably never would have known about it, but I had to drive Rick there one day after bailing him out of jail. For some reason, they had taken all of his property out of his truck, and turned it in to the property unit. I was rather perturbed at him on that particular day. I had to miss a day of school to pick him up from the jail, and then we had to drive across town to the property room. To top it off, we had to drive over to the other side of town in order to get his truck out of the impound lot. I gave him hell the entire day, and he retaliated with a nonstop barrage of beer farts.

I missed him terribly.

              The walls of the building were concrete block and the doors were reinforced steel. The main entrance was a double set of doors, with bullet proof glass separating the citizens from the police personnel. I was hopeful the reinforced structure had kept everyone out. I had a plan to get us in.

             
The Volvo, with its modified steel cowcatcher, made for easy travel. Whenever Big Mac encountered a traffic jam, she simply pushed the cars out of the way. We made a straight path down Nolensville Pike, crossed Broadway, and turned onto James Robertson Parkway. The bridge had its share of abandoned cars, but we had little trouble clearing a path, and made it to the reservoir with little trouble.

             
There were no new zombies roaming about the property where the reservoir tanks quietly sat, and the ones we killed back in August were now nothing more than skeletal remains. I stopped the truck, and as we rehearsed, everyone got out and formed a defensive perimeter while Rowdy unhooked the tanker. He fumbled with it for a moment, but got it unhooked within a minute. Everyone loaded up and we headed out.

             
“Why did we leave the tanker there?” Kelly asked.

             
“We’re going to return here on our way back, fill it up, and haul it home. We have no idea what we’re going to encounter in the east Nashville area, so I didn’t want Rowdy to be trapped with towing that tanker.”

             
“I see, I think.” She said as she smiled at me. “Do you think we’ll find some good stuff?”

             
“If nobody has looted it before us, I’m cautiously optimistic.” I said.

             
“There better be some good weed in there.” Andie said. “I haven’t had any since I don’t know when.” She looked at Terry and grinned. “Weed, that is.”

             
“I haven’t had any of anything since I don’t know when.” Kelly said. I glanced at her, and she grinned coyly.

             
“What kind of work did you do, Kelly?” I asked.

             
“I was a night auditor at a hotel and was going to school part time. I wanted to be an accountant.” She touched me on the thigh as she spoke. “What about you?” She asked.

             
“I worked on the farm we’re living on, but I was still in high school.” I said with a grin. Her mouth dropped open at the realization she was older than me. “Yep, I’m only seventeen.”

             
“Holy shit, I thought you were at least twenty-one.” It seemed to shock her, but it didn’t stop her from touching my thigh.

             
When we turned onto Trinity Lane from Gallatin Pike, I got on the CB radio and advised them it was only a couple of miles more. We drove under the railroad bridge and turned left. Now was the high stress moment. Would the building be unoccupied? Or, would a group of people be living there and start shooting as soon as we drove through the entrance?

             
The East Precinct building had a public parking lot in the front. The back had a fenced in area where police personnel parked their marked and unmarked vehicles. Someone had cut some holes in the fence, and more than one of the marked police cars had been vandalized, which seemed a stupid waste of time to me. Why would someone take the time out of their quest for survival to spray paint derogatory terms on a cop car? The thick layer of grime on them, along with the vandalism, indicated they hadn’t been moved in a while.

We drove past
, and immediately behind the precinct was the plain white building with a separate parking lot. We pulled to the side and Rowdy drove around us. He backed up to the edge of the building, jumped out, and immediately began unlashing an aluminum extension ladder. He had it leaned against the building and bounded up the ladder quickly.

             
“Damn, he’s firing on all cylinders today.” I commented.

We parked and jumped out. Fred and I walked up to the main door. There were numerous pry marks and indentations in the door, probably from a sledge hammer, but the door was still secure.

              “Let’s drive around the entire building and check it out.” Fred suggested. We jumped into the Ford truck and slowly drove around the entire perimeter. There was no evidence of any kind of entry being made. It was a good sign. We drove back, and lined up the vehicles in case of a need to flee quickly. Rowdy, was dutifully up on the roof, scanning the area with binoculars.

             
“Explain to me why we don’t simply hammer through one of the walls?” Bo asked.

             
“It’ll take longer and make more noise.” I replied. “We run a higher risk of attracting attention. Plus, if we put a hole in the roof, it can’t be seen from anyone at ground level.”

             
Bo nodded in semi understanding. I knew he thought we were exercising unnecessary caution, but I disagreed.

             
“If the roof is fortified, it might be easier to hammer through a wall, but I’m betting they didn’t bother with it.” I said as we got out and approached the group.

             
“Are we ready, Hoss?” Rowdy asked from the top of the roof. His Remington was slung over his shoulder. He was acting all giddy, which made me wonder if he had a bottle stashed in the truck somewhere, like Rick used to do. I nodded to him.

I went up next, and then the rest of them formed a line. They handed me the tools we were going to need, including another extension ladder, a
gas operated commercial grade Sawzall, bolt cutters, pry bars, and flashlights. We walked around, eventually finding ourselves in the middle of the building.