Floyd & Mikki (Book 1): Zombie Hunters (Love Should Be Explosive!) (18 page)

The ranger came back with Marjorie and another man after dark. Floyd and Mikki correctly presumed that it was Stan, based on the way Marjorie was hanging onto him.

“We’ve decided to move you into better quarters,” Ranger Martin declared. “But it’s only temporary, and it’s based on your willingness to help. You understand? We have limited resources and we can’t afford to feed and house people who don’t contribute.”

“Understood,” said Floyd.

“And we want to hear about your plan for wiping out the rest of the raiders, if you have one,” Stan added.

“This is my Stanley,” Marjorie said proudly.

You could see the resemblance. Stan and John Martin were both the same height, with the same slender yet rugged build and similar facial features. John kept himself shaved while Stan had short, neatly trimmed beard. Stan looked like he had just stepped out of an Old Spice commercial. Floyd half expected him to start whistling.

Floyd and Mikki picked up their gear and John led them into the camp. It was a small area of eight cabins with a large, unlit campfire surrounded by wooden benches in the center. John pointed to the smallest cabin and said, “This’ll be yours, for now.”

A group of people sitting on the benches and talking amongst themselves stood up to greet the new couple as Ranger Martin brought them into the camp. Floyd and Mikki read their faces as they approached. A couple of them were full of fear, some held abundant hope, and most just wore welcoming smiles. There were several children among them, including a newborn in its mother’s arms. The other kids ranged in age from about 4 to 16. The four-year-old clung to its mother’s skirt. Again, all the clothes were older and worn, but obviously clean.

“This is Floyd and this is Mikki,” Ranger Martin announced. They are going to be with us for a couple of days, then they are heading out for New California Haven.” Everyone’s faces brightened at that, except for the couple with the clingy toddler, who had the sourest looks on their faces.

The various family clans began introducing themselves all at once, welcoming Floyd and Mikki, and asking them questions. Even the Sourpuss Couple shook their hands and offered a begrudging, “Welcome.” It was all a bit overwhelming, yet reassuring. In the middle of a dying world, some semblance of Humanity had, indeed, survived.

Neither Mikki nor Floyd could remember everyone’s names, and they dodged the tougher questions as best they could, explaining that some of the stories they had to tell were not suitable for the ears of children. Everyone understood that, and returned to generalities like where they were from and how they had come to find the camp.

Of course, everyone wanted to know about New California Haven. Was it real? Had Floyd and Mikki been there? Would it send help? Would it take them all in? The two Zombie Hunters had no real answers to give on that subject, so talk turned rather quickly to the raiders. Stan had watched from the tower through his sniper rifle. Even with a high-powered scope, he was too far away to see many details, and wind-blown tree branches would repeatedly block his view, but he had seen enough.

The explosions had been easy enough to see and hear, for one thing. Stan had told them all about how a big red pickup truck had barreled down the interstate, spitting bullets and bombs as the raiders tried to take it out. He had seen two figures in black kick ass and blow up the big snowplow they had all feared would come for them one day. It was as though Sir Galahad and his maiden had slain the dreaded dragon. No wonder several of the campers looked at Floyd and Mikki with hero worship, especially the children.

One of the younger boys remarked, “Cool! They got their names on their guns!”

The Sourpuss daughter said to Mikki, “My daddy says you’re a killer.”

“Your daddy’s right!” Mikki answered, staring intently into the kid’s eyes. The little girl screamed and ran off.

“You wanna see the goats?” asked another girl, about 12 years old.

“Goats?” Mikki asked.

“Yeah! We use ‘em for milk. We got a couple of pigs we’re raising, too.”

Mikki went up to Floyd and whispered in his ear, “Get me the hell outta here, Floyd. These people are driving me nuts. It’s like Mormon Country Safari in here!”

Floyd whispered back, “They’re just trying to be nice. Chill out and play along!”

“Lead the way,” Mikki said to the child, with a forced smile.
Anything to get away from this crowd of happy yokels.
Any more of this sugar and she’d get diabetes.

Floyd sidled up next to Bob as the women swarmed Mikki, pelting her with eager questions that had nothing to do with knitting. “Ranger Martin said you guys heard a broadcast from New California Haven,” Floyd asked. “Was it a live broadcast or a recording?”

“Well, at first it was just a recording, but I scanned the bands regularly. You don’t always get the best reception with the mountains around here, but when the weather’s just right, you can skip a signal off the atmosphere. One really clear night, I was at the radio and the skip was perfect. I got real person on the line.

“I told him who we are and where we are and asked him to send help. He said they couldn’t send anyone so far away, but if we could make it there, they’d take us in, families and all. He said they had food and medicine and doctors and livestock and crops and
no zombies
. That was the important part, of course. He was just about to tell me the exact location and how to get there when a tube blew and the radio went dead. That was about two months ago.”

“Tube?”

“Yeah, tube. I was using the old ranger radio leftover from the 1960’s. No digital circuits. All cathode ray tubes. Ancient technology, but radio waves are radio waves and don’t care how you generate them. Now it’s just a big hunk of useless metal.”

“There aren’t any spare tubes around the camp?”

“There were, but the box had been dropped somewhere over the years. Every one of the tubes was cracked or smashed. Not like I can exactly head down to Radio Shack and pick up a spare. The tubes are so old that no one would carry them, anyway. They only other model I even know of is up at the Wilkerson place.”

“What’s the Wilkerson place?”

“Old Lady Wilkerson. We used to call her Crazy Old Lady Wilkerson. Not to her face, of course. Really nice lady, but very rich and very eccentric. Big donor to the ranger’s office. Big back-to-nature freak. Supported all sorts of pro-forest groups, but she almost never came down here. She was pretty much a recluse, even before the disease showed up. Lived in a big custom house up on a big hill, overlooking the forest. We figured she must have died when she stopped transmitting over six months ago, but she had the exact same model radio, so maybe it just blew a tube, too. I’d love to get my hands on that radio for the spare parts.”

“Then why haven’t you taken some men and headed up there to get it?”

“Because that would be suicide,” Ranger Martin interjected, joining the conversation. “Might as well be on the moon. You see these walls around the camp? We built these for a reason. There are creatures in these woods. Creatures we don’t want in here, and we certainly don’t want to meet them out there.”

Floyd looked around, taking a better look. The perimeter defenses were indeed, impressive. The campers had cleared a path of trees and used the wood to form a blockade. Heavy logs were buried deep and stuck out of the ground, angling upward and outward. There were places around the inside of the wall to stand and fire at anything that might approach. There was a line of pointed stakes outside the main wall that served as an additional deterrent. It looked as though the wall could keep out an elephant. No wonder the campsite had remained safe for so long.

“You sure done an impressive job,” Floyd complimented the ranger.

“Outside the walls we grow a variety of crops.” John explained. “The undead creatures in this forest aren’t interested in fruits and vegetables, so we run out during the day to till the soil, plant seeds, or harvest. Same thing with fish. There’s a boat with fishing gear by the lake. We’re pretty safe on the water. Just have to be careful getting there and back. We keep an eye on things from the wall and only head out when it’s absolutely safe.

“We all work together here. The women sew, cook, do laundry, take care of the kids, and Marjorie tends to the wounded when necessary. The men do all the heavy lifting, literally: manual labor, building, repairing, scouting and, when necessary, the shooting.

“But don’t be fooled, every one of these women and most of the kids know their way around a rifle and shotgun. And they’re pretty good with knives, too. They’ll slice and dice anyone who poses a threat to their husbands or children. The raiders found that out the hard way in their first couple of attacks. After that, they preferred to go around us rather than attempt a frontal assault.”

Except for the part about doing laundry and taking care of the kids, Floyd couldn’t help but think that Mikki would fit in well here. Unfortunately, they didn’t seem to have hand grenades or dynamite. Mikki would probably go nuts if couldn’t blow something up every now and then. Of course, Floyd had no doubt that she’d still find a way, even if she had to mine the potassium nitrate, sulfur and charcoal herself.

“So what’s your plan?” the ranger asked. “You gonna take on the raiders again, or head straight out to California?”

“Those raiders pissed me off,” Floyd thought out loud. “But I don’t go lookin’ for trouble, neither, and I got no desire to get myself killed over stupid pride. That’s how I stayed alive this long.

“Still, these raiders ain’t too bright. They’re good with brute force, but they have no tactics. Should be pretty easy to take them out if we work together and plan a good attack. If you give Mikki and me a couple of men, we should be able to take the rest of them out.”

“Mikki? Wouldn’t you want to leave a girl like her in the camp?”

“There
is
no girl like her. And do you want to be the one to tell her she has to sit behind with the women while the men folk all head off into battle?”

“No, I guess that wouldn’t set too well with her.”

“No, it wouldn’t. Besides, she knows what she’s doing, and she’s fiercer and more deadly than any raider. However, if we’re gonna do this, we should move soon, before they have a chance to regroup and rebuild. It’s already been a couple of days, so the sooner, the better. You’ve never tried attacking them directly at their camp, have you?”

“No.”

“Good. Then they won’t be expecting it.”

John and Stan brought Leshawn and Pedro with them. Leshawn was a huge black man, former military, who handled all the weapons training for the camp and managed the ammo distribution. His wife had died in the original animal attack that also took the ranger’s wife and baby girl. Pedro had been in construction and designed the camp’s defenses. He also was an excellent shot and had proven himself to be fearless during earlier run-ins with the raiders. Bob and several others had wanted to come, too, but Ranger Martin didn’t want to leave the camp defenseless, just in case.

Floyd led the way to where he had parked Freedom. He reached in and pulled out three of the four Mini Uzis and handed them to John, Leshawn and Pedro. “These will do better than those shotguns you brought,” Floyd explained. “Stan, you keep your sniper rifle.

“These are loaners, for today only. We don’t have a whole lot of ammo, and you won’t need a lot anyway. Friend of ours custom-made this ammo. It’ll blow a man away with just a round or two. Fires 1,000 rounds per minute, so barely touch the trigger.”

“I’d sure like to meet this friend of yours,” said Leshawn.

“No, you wouldn’t. Only one way you can meet him now. He’s dead.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well, a lot of good people are dead. Let’s try to not join’ em today, OK?”

“Good idea,” Pedro agreed.

“It’s nine o’clock,” Mikki announced. “One hour til ‘go’ time.”

The crew headed out, sticking to the side of the road that led to the interstate. The raiders probably had someone else up in the tower by now, but with all the outside lights off to avoid attracting anything from the woods, they should be able to approach undetected. There was always the possibility of an attack en route, but any woodland threats in this area had been pretty much eliminated by the raiders or the Campfire Crew. Even the hordes of zombie bunnies had pretty much disappeared.

Floyd and Mikki took point, with Pedro at the rear, looking behind them repeatedly. Floyd held up a hand to halt the team. He pointed to Stan and then pointed at the raider tower. Stan looked through his scope and Floyd through his binoculars, both men getting a good lay of the land.

There were two raiders up in the tower, completely oblivious to them. They were facing down the long length of superhighway that led to Groverstown and beyond. They must have seen the flash when the town went nuclear, but they could have no way of knowing part of the road had been vaporized as well. There would be nobody coming down that road, probably ever again.

There was a dim light coming from under the door of a small building. Four raiders were standing on the back wall, two were sitting in chairs drinking something near the barricade, and one was leaning up against the locked door of a shed. Most of whoever was left in the raider camp was probably in that small building. It was single story, shabbily built, and seemed to be a dormitory of some kind. Several of the tube-framed dune buggies and a number of motorcycles were somewhat lined up in an open area in the center. There was a large, open storm drain pipe that ran right under the interstate from one side to the other. They could use that to get to the other side unnoticed.

The plan was fairly simple. Right at ten o’clock, Bob would cut the power line to the raiders back at the camp. That would be the signal to go. Mikki would take out the dormitory building, Pedro would take out the two guards by the barricade, Leshawn and Floyd would attack the four at the back wall, and John would take out the lone guard by the shed. Stan would also keep an eye out to pick off anyone else he could with his sniper rifle. The trick would be taking out the sniper in the tower and getting Stan up there unseen before everything else happened.

At 9:45 PM, Mikki and Stan crawled through the pipe slowly and quietly until they came out the other side. Leshawn and John hunkered down close to the raider camp entrance, out of sight, waiting.

Floyd climbed the back end of a nearby tree, moving up from branch to branch, until he had a clear view of the men in the tower. Stan might be a great shot, but Clyde was silenced and currently loaded with slugs in the box mag. Floyd would switch to drum mags to fire shot shells during the main battle.

Waiting patiently, Floyd observed the two men in the tower through his scope. They were laughing and joking with each other. Finally, he saw his chance. The two line up perfectly and Floyd fired. The slug flew straight and true, silently piercing both heads with one shot. The bodies fell to the floor and nobody on the ground seemed the wiser. Stan would find no resistance when he climbed up into that tower.

The ladder to the tower faced the inside of the camp, but if all went well, the raiders would be too busy to notice Stan climbing up. It was already 9:52 PM when Floyd silently descended the tree and joined Leshawn. The seconds passed by like glaciers during the Ice Age. Veeeeerrrrry sloooowwwly.

Meanwhile, Floyd’s heart was pounding faster and faster in his chest. He had never been part of an operation like this, but he knew what needed to be done and was determined to do it. Besides, he was wearing his full body armor and was well-stocked with weaponry. He wasn’t really worried, but he was smart enough to know anything could go wrong. He was on edge, and that edge heightened his awareness of his surroundings.

Right on time, the few dim lights in the camp went out. Before any of the raiders could say, “What the…?” gunfire erupted all around, directed right at them. Floyd and Leshawn had the farthest ground to cover, so they started running as soon as the lights went out. The raiders could see them running but thought it was just a couple of guys from their group horsing around. That is, until Floyd threw a grenade at the two farthest away on the wall. Mikki threw two grenades of her own through a window of the dormitory building as Stan headed up the ladder.

The lone guard saw Stan and raised his rifle to fire but John took him out with one burst of the Uzi. All three grenades went off at about the same time. The building erupted and the two wall guards were blown off their perch. Floyd and Leshawn finished off the closest two wall guards before they knew what was happening. Floyd looked at Leshawn and said, “I love it when a plan comes together!” LeShawn fired the Mini Uzi to take out another approaching attacker.

Pedro jumped through the barricade opening and fired at the two raiders in the chairs. He had never fired an automatic weapon before and shot off way more rounds than were needed, nearly emptying the first mag. There wasn’t much left of the two when Pedro was done.

A couple of raiders came stumbling out of the dormitory door, dazed and dripping with blood, but Mikki was right there to dispatch them with Bonnie. A couple of raiders who went unnoticed attacked Floyd and Leshawn from behind. One jumped onto Leshawn’s back and tried to stab him in the throat. Leshawn grabbed his arm, threw him over his shoulder to the ground, and nearly broke the man’s arm right off with one quick twist. You could hear the bone snap throughout the camp. Leshawn then snatched the knife and stabbed the raider with it.

The other raider stabbed Floyd in the back, but the blade just stuck in the Kevlar jacket. Floyd turned around and Clyde relieved the attacker of his head. A couple of raiders who were sleeping in the dune buggies, woke up and headed at John. He turned around to see a pistol pointed at his head but the attacker went down thanks to a sniper bullet from Stan. John blew away the other raider just as he was raising a pistol to attack. A few other shots were fired from the tower and a few more raider bodies hit the ground.

Suddenly everything was quiet in the camp. Stan came down out of the tower and Mikki used Bonnie to shoot the lock off the shed. As she suspected, it was full of ammo. Floyd inspected the outdoor machine shop area. It was complete with tables, a hoist to lift engines, and a large assortment of power tools. There was even a complete set of welding equipment.

Ranger Martin and his men searched every inch of the camp, making sure all the raiders were dead or dying. They wouldn’t be wasting any of their precious medicine on these guys. Then Leshawn noticed movement in one of the buggies. He waved his hand in the air to get the attention of the others, then pointed. They slowly headed off in that direction, weapons ready. Mikki reached down and ripped away a leather jacket that had been draped over the cockpit of the vehicle.

“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” a pathetic figure begged. He was filthy with yellow teeth, wearing dirty jeans, a leather vest and no shirt. He didn’t appear to be armed, but he had five piercings in one of his eyebrows, a tongue stud, and other spikey doodads sticking out of various unnatural areas of his face. He had some kind of Celtic or Samoan tattoo around his right eye and forehead. He obviously had done his best to look as badass as possible. It didn’t work, especially with him crying like a baby for his life.

“Just shoot him,” Mikki said.

“No, please! I never wanted nothing to do with these guys! I’m not one of them! I’m a victim of circumstance. You gotta believe me!”

“Yeah…just shoot him,” Mikki said again, and she raised her shotgun.

“Hold on,” the ranger ordered. “We can’t shoot an unarmed man.”

“Yeah, that’s right!” the pathetic excuse for a human being agreed.

“You guys ever read
Lord of the Rings
?” Mikki protested. “Gollum? They didn’t kill him when they had the chance and he caused them nothing but trouble ever since. Just shoot the bastard!”

John’s men kept looking from the ranger to Mikki and back again. John could see that Mikki’s argument was having an impact on them. “If we act like raiders, then we are no better than raiders,” he asserted. “They may be uncivilized, but we aren’t. How do we want to raise our children? What kind of example do we want to set for them?”

Mikki could see she was losing them, so she appealed to their sense of reality. “And what are you gonna do with him, then? Build a jail? You yourself said you don’t have enough resources to feed and take care of somebody new. You gonna waste your food on this jerk?”

“Give him a motorcycle and set him loose. Let the woods claim him if he can’t survive on his own, but we won’t have his blood on our hands.”

“You gonna send me out there all alone with no way to defend myself?”

“Or you can die right here,” Mikki offered, raising Bonnie’s barrel to the level of his eyes.

“No, that’s fine! I’ll take a motorcycle.”

“And if we ever catch you back here or anywhere around our campsite, we
will
kill you, understand?” the ranger asked.

“Oh sure! I understand! No problem. Thanks!”

“Better bring that motorcycle around to the back barricade,” Floyd suggested. “Road’s out in the other direction. He’ll just have to come straight back here if he leaves that way.”

Gollum meandered over to the side wall and sat down as Leshawn grabbed one of the bikes. He wheeled it outside and around the camp to the other side of the back barricade, making sure the keys were in the ignition. He checked and saw it had a full tank of gas as well.

“Get out!” Ranger Martin ordered.

“Right away! No problem!” Gollum got up to leave, but as he did so, he opened fire with a pistol he had picked up from the body of a fallen raider near the wall. He fired off three shots as he ran to the bike, laughing hysterically like a madman all the way. He fired up the engine and put it into gear just as Mikki jumped over the back wall.

She fired four rounds into Gollum before she even hit the ground. She tumbled and rolled and jumped to her feet in time to see the bike shoot out from under the dead body and skid to a halt on its side. Mikki kicked the body over to stare into the dead man’s glassy eyes.

“Gollum,” she said, disgusted.