Zombie Rules (6 page)

             
“Why am I doing that?” I asked.

             
“Hell, hoss. You know why. We don’t want any of that boy’s blood and DNA on your truck. Now don’t get any false hopes, we’re not out of the woods yet. There may be witnesses and a security camera may have recorded the whole thing. But, and it is a big but, we may get by. If the police come and visit, you’re going to readily admit you were at Kroger and yes, that boy was probably one of the boys who attacked you, but you did not see him and you did not have any kind of confrontation. Got it? If they get to asking any more questions that sounds like they know you did it, you lawyer up and dummy up, okay?”

             
I nodded. It seemed to make sense. He looked at me, not unkindly. “You’re thinking about what you did. You’re thinking you just murdered someone, aren’t you?” I nodded again. The shakes made a sudden reappearance. “Okay kid, let me tell you something. If you want to turn yourself in, good luck to you. I’ll write you, if this flu thing is just a passing bug that is. But, think of it like this. That boy deserved what he got. If you hadn’t of stabbed him, there’s no telling what he would have done to you. You did what you had to do. I don’t want to hear any whining about it. Right boys?” He looked at the dogs. They kind of just sat there with blank dog-like expressions. “See, the boys agree.”

             
I silently assented and spent the next hour wiping down my truck. After I finished, I then drove it around the farm getting it good and dirty. I was relying on Rick’s advice. I certainly did not want to go to prison. I’m skinny, blonde headed with Nordic features, blue-eyed, and a big toothy smile. I’m fairly certain my prison buddies would change my name to Suzie and have me wearing lipstick and a short dress for my duration. Not a pleasant thought.

             
On Rick’s advice I had a couple more shots of his rotgut whiskey and went to bed a short time later. I thought I would never fall asleep, but sleep did come. I awakened more than once due to nightmares. Rick and the mutts never noticed.

              The police never came. Rick was right. They apparently had their hands full with another crisis. We watched the news on TV. Video footage from around the world was shown of people going crazy and attacking other people. The graphic stuff was blurred out at first, but it soon gave way to raw, uncensored footage. We watched as sick, maniacal people would launch themselves upon hapless victims, tearing at them and sinking their teeth into flesh, gnashing and gnawing. We watched as police and soldiers stood side by side shooting over and over at approaching hordes, only to be overrun by the sheer numbers. Gunshots, other than headshots, did not seem to affect them.

             
We monitored blog sites, Facebook, Twitter, Jabber, Steambox, and a couple of other social network sights I had never heard of before. Rick had his Ham radio going talking to his fellow Preppers. He was in some sort of club comprised of Hamm’ers from around the world and they spoke to each other in that peculiar Ham radio operator lingo.

             
Some of the items he had me buy were large maps and a box of thumbtacks with multiple colors. We hung the world map on the wall and inserted thumbtacks on the cities where outbreaks were being reported. The color coding represented the number of reports. The red thumbtack represented the highest number of reports. At the end of two days, the entire Middle East region was festooned with red. Southern Europe and most of Africa had a number of yellow. The good ole’ USA was starting to gather a number of blue tacks. I wanted to use green, like the colors on a traffic light, but Rick out voted me. He thought green would be misleading. I reminded him it was only the two of us viewing the map and I doubted there would be any confusion, but I just got a withering stare. So, blue it was. Blue of course represented minor reports.

             
On the third day of this endeavor, we had all of Africa red. Most of Asia was yellow, but the reds were creeping in. Europe was completely yellow, with the red starting to creep north. Most of the cities in North and South America had blue tacks, with the exception of the major cities like Rio, New York City, and Los Angeles, which had yellow tacks. I pointed out one blue tack to Rick. “What is this one all about?” It was stuck on a spot in Antarctica.

             
Rick turned away from the computer monitor and looked at it. “There is a research base down there. Fox news reported a scientist was very sick and there was trouble with bad weather keeping a rescue plane from flying down there. Since then they’ve lost radio contact with them. Probably should replace it with a red tack.” His cell phone rang. He looked at it in surprise, like he honestly thought the world had already ended and we were the last people on Earth. After a couple of rings, he answered and spoke tersely to whoever was on the other end before hanging up.

             
“I ordered a resupply of propane four days ago. They just now decided to come out. The driver is bitching about the road being blocked.” Since we no longer had a gate, we blocked the bridge with a John Deere tractor, complete with a backhoe attachment. “I’m going to move the backhoe and let him in. You keep monitoring the news, okay?” I agreed. The bridge was the only entrance to the farm. If you wanted access to the farm, you either had to fly in, swim across the fast moving creek, or drive several miles around to the back of the farm with an ATV and use wire cutters to get through the cattle fencing surrounding the farm. We had earlier agreed that the blocked roadway would at least give us time to prepare if the police showed up.

             
The old homestead we were currently living in was heated by propane and the fireplace. There was a tank behind the house which needed to be filled every fall. I was wondering what exactly we were going to do next fall. It was definitely something to add on the to-do list. We had a well for water, but the pump was electrically powered. We had a generator, but it was dependent on fuel. We had a large fuel tank near the barn for all of the farm equipment, but it would not last forever. Still, all in all, Rick had gotten the farm equipped pretty decently. He had a root cellar stocked with canned goods, a barn full of tools, ammo reloading gear, and various other types of equipment. We had a smoke house, a deep creek that had fish, a chicken coop with brooding hens, and Rick had harvested from the garden just last month.

             
I stood at the back door and watched the man transfer propane from his tanker into the large cylindrical tank. The name tag sewn onto his work shirt read Junior. I certainly hoped it was a nickname and not his Christian name. He was grossly overweight, which made every little movement a major effort for him filled with panting and grunting. He had to wear suspenders because I don’t think they made a belt big enough for him. I noticed Rick was keeping a fair amount of distance from him. He was also wearing a handgun in a holster attached to his belt. Junior either did not notice or did not care. We all paused in our thoughts and actions to look skyward as a sortie of military aircraft flew overhead.

             
Junior pointed at them. “My brother-in-law is in one of them planes. He’s a staff sergeant in the National Guard. They got called up this morning. He wasn’t supposed to, but he sneaked a call to my sister.” He looked over at me. “You see, we’re not related by blood. He’s married to my sister, that’s what makes him my brother-in-law.” Well no-shit Junior. Thank you for the edification.

             
Satisfied he had successfully bestowed some wisdom upon me, a mere child, he spit a gob of tobacco juice, some of which did not make it clear of his ample gut. He casually wiped at it with his meaty hand and looked at Rick. “He told her there was some serious shit going down. After I get off work today, we’re going to the grocery store and stock up.” He looked somberly at Rick and lowered his voice. “You two should do the same.”

             
Rick gave him a serious nod of acknowledgement. “Very good advice Junior. What else did your brother-in-law have to say? Did he tell you where they’re going?”

             
Junior shook his head. “No, no he didn’t.” This time had the clever idea of bending forward this time. He also increased the amount of pressure between his lips which gave a higher trajectory of the spittle. He was rewarded with a clean shot. He nodded in satisfaction. I’m sure Missus Junior would have been proud.

             
“But he said they had them loaded up on the planes quicker than they ever had before, and they got issued live ammunition. He said they haven’t done that since their unit got deployed to Iraq.” He wiped his mouth of leakage. “He’s a genuine war hero. Probably the only one in this whole danged county.”

             
Rick was not amused. He thanked Junior and bluntly told him it was time for him to leave. Junior shrugged and waddled back to his tanker truck. Rick followed him to the road.

             
I had been sitting in front of the TV for over an hour and was about to turn it off when a headline flashed declaring breaking news. I grabbed the remote and turned the volume up. Rick walked in a short time later. “The propane tank is now full. Junior is long gone, I got the backhoe across the bridge again, and we are officially on lockdown. I strung some concertina wire at the front of the bridge too. It’ll be downright difficult for anyone to just walk through. What are you watching?”

             
I turned to him briefly and pointed to the TV. “They said O’Hare airport in Chicago has suspended all incoming and outgoing flights. No official reason has been given but the news woman is speculating the flu outbreak has caused a shortage of employees.”

             
Rick scoffed. “Yeah, right. They didn’t say anything about zombies, but what do you bet they’ve had some attacks. Alright Einstein, what’s so important about O’Hare?”

             
“Well, it’s an International airport. They have flights incoming from all over the world. About seventy to seventy-five million passengers a year go through the airport along with over a million tons of freight. If they’ve suspended all flights, it must be quite serious.” Rick nodded thoughtfully. He walked over to the map and replaced the blue thumbtack over Chicago with a red one.

             
“I don’t know how you know all these little facts about everything. But it’s damn helpful.” He scratched at his beard. “When something major like this happens, it can only mean one thing Zach. It means it can’t be contained.” My skepticism about Rick’s theory was long gone. All I could do was nod in agreement. He sat down in front of his Ham radio and grabbed the microphone. “WA4OEQ, QTH middle Tennessee, calling any listening station. Chicago is now in condition red. Chicago is now in condition red, over.”

             
After a moment, there was a response. “WD5KZZ to WA4OEQ, my QTH is Tulsa, Oklahoma. QSM please sir, over.”

             
Rick looked over at me. “QTH means the location you’re at and QSM means to repeat your last message. I need you to learn all this.” He looked at me seriously. “You need to know what a brother-in-law is too.” Rick turned his attention back to the radio before I could retort and repeated the information, going into more detail. After a few minutes of conversation, Rick bid the man seven’s and three’s, radio lingo for good luck, and signed off. “Okay, you heard what Tulsa said. Put a yellow tack on Tulsa, Norman, Oklahoma City, and Kansas City.” I did as told and we looked at the map together in silence for several seconds. Rick began pointing at the various tacks and making lines from each one. All of the major cities on the map were now covered in thumbtacks. “In just two days we have some reds and a whole shit load of yellows across the US alone.” He said it quietly, as though he did not believe it, even though he is the one so certain it was going to happen. “It’s spreading like wildfire.” I looked over at Rick’s dogs. They were looking at the map also.

             
In the ensuing hours, all of the airports and seaports closed. The Interstate system became a massive traffic jam with people frantically going to some place they believed to be safer than where they were. Grocery stores were emptied of their wares. Convenience stores, popular for the ease of purchasing gasoline and minor food products, were overrun with impatient customers. It inevitably lead to short tempers and fights. Spontaneous riots were breaking out as people could not seem to grasp what was happening. It was the government, they’d shout. Somehow, it was always the government’s fault.

             
The President gave a live speech promptly at six o’clock. I turned the volume up on the TV. “My fellow Americans,” He began.

             
“Oh shit, here it comes. Get ready to bend over fellow Americans. BOHICA!” Rick yelled.

             
“I am speaking to you this evening from the confines of Air Force One. As you may now know, the world has been beset upon by a deadly illness of pandemic proportions…”

             
“Well no shit, Sherlock.”

             
“...I have activated all military units, personnel with FEMA, and the CDC…”

             
“You should have done that weeks ago, numb nuts.”

             
“…This morning, I called upon Congress to join with me in enacting martial law…” Rick looked at me. I nodded in understanding.