The Zombie Virus (Book 1) (15 page)

“I put a bucket of water in her room, along
with the rest of the lunchmeat and bread and a bag of cheddar
snacks. I took my bowie knife and cut her legs loose…she was
struggling like a coon in a trap. I kissed Glenda on the forehead
and then picked her up by her hair so she was standing on her
tiptoes. I cut the cord around her wrists and got out of there
quick. She hit the door hard after I closed it and was making
grunting noises through the tape across her mouth. I told her I was
sorry and I left.” He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand
trying to hide the pain they showed.

“I went out, shot two of those crazies who
were hanging in my front yard and hopped on my bike and took off
down the road to the clubhouse. Damn if every crazy person I passed
didn’t chase off after me. Time I got to the clubhouse which was
about five minutes away, there must have been damn near twenty of
those things following me. I ran inside the clubhouse quick and
those things were right behind me. I had barely turned around when
something slammed into my head hard enough to make me see
stars.

“It was one of our prospects, Jake, standing
there with a bat in his hand. He looked scared.” Frank bellowed out
a laugh at the memory. “Dumb kid thought I was one of them things!”
he laughed again. “I guess I would have too. My eyes were nearly as
blood red as the crazies’ from drinking and my hair was all dirty
and disheveled and I had blood all over me from those two I had
shot in my yard.” Frank’s eyes reflected the mirth that thinly
veiled the sorrow of his situation.

“Jake really rang my bell with that hit or I
would have clocked him back. As it was, I was doing all I could to
keep standing. I think when Jake finally realized I wasn’t one of
them, he was even more scared. Probably thought I was going to
break him in two. He lived there at the clubhouse with another
prospect. They had both gone to work Tuesday morning and only Jake
had made it back there later that evening. I guess he had a hell of
a time getting back and it was a nightmare out in town. He got me
some ice for the knot he had given me and a shot of Crown Royal to
ease the pain. He said he had been sleeping next to the door and
only woke up when the door started opening.

“The clubhouse was on the other side of the
tracks, if you know what I mean, with shabby, run down row houses
on each side. It was constructed like a fort, though, cinderblock
with high, barred windows. We had a one-inch thick steel door set
in a steel frame embedded in block to slow down any forced entries.
We had security cameras so we could view all the areas around the
building plus the bar area. I was pretty sure those lunatics
couldn’t break their way in there. You could hear them outside
though, scratching and pounding on the door, but there ain’t no way
they were getting through.

“Jake cooked us up some burgers and we tried
to figure out our next steps. Even though we were safe in there, we
would have to get out sometime, at least for supplies. Plus I
didn’t know how long we would have power. There was a small gas
generator out back, but only about a day’s worth of fuel for it. We
couldn’t get any outside radio stations or get in touch with anyone
we knew, so we were cut off from what was happening. All we had was
the security cameras, and what they were showing wasn’t so amusing.
We were in some deep fucking shit.”

He looked apologetically at Jeremy again.

“The lunatics outside stopped beating at the
door after a few hours and we had some peace and quiet. I woke up
the next morning and took a shower and Jake had a hot breakfast
waiting when I was done. We talked about where we could get some
more weapons. We didn’t keep anything in the clubhouse because the
police liked to conduct raids every now and then and we had a
couple members who were felons. They didn’t need that kind of shit.
Usually everyone brought their own pieces with them, and left with
them. Our prospect was one of those felons who couldn’t carry
anything that went bang. So all we had was my shotty and some
bludgeoning weapons. There was a gun store in town, but the way
Jake made it sound, we would need an army to get to it through all
the crazy people that were out there. On the security monitor
showing the front of the clubhouse I saw this chick come running at
our door and start banging on it, a mob of lunatics right on her
heel. Jake ran to the door and threw the deadbolts and slammed it
open. I was like, what the fuck bro?! That chick fell through the
doorway with those crazies all over her and there was Jake punching
and kicking them off of her. I got my shotgun and shot until it was
empty and there was a pile of dead people blocking the door behind
her and Jake. They were still piling in over top of the dead ones.
There was no way we were getting that door shut so we knew we had
to get out of there fast. she was We helped the girl up and we all
rushed to the back of the building and out into the backyard.

“We have a tall security fence around the
back of the property. Jake and I swung the girl up onto the top of
the fence and she got down on the other side. We were right behind
her. I had to club a couple of those batshit crazy people in the
head when they started climbing the fence behind me, but we all got
over. That chick had a piece of her shoulder torn open from a bite
and it was bleeding bad, you could see the bone. She also had bite
marks in her calf and arm. She was so terrified that she couldn’t
make a sound. Her voice was just froze up. She kept up with us,
though, and we hauled ass out of the neighborhood. She must have
been running on pure adrenaline. We ran about two miles, dodging
through yards until the houses thinned out near the edge of town.
The girl dropped at the border to a field and couldn’t go any
further.

“Jake and me got her moving again. There was
an old abandoned farmhouse at the end of the field and we ran for
it. We broke into the house and just dropped in exhaustion. When I
looked back out there was no one following us. We were safe for the
moment.

“Come to find out that this was Jake’s latest
squeeze. Her name was Karen. She said she had been trying to get to
the clubhouse since this shit all started. She went through hell
getting there, dodging those crazies, hiding out at night in empty
homes. Damn, but if she didn’t make it only to get half eaten at
the door. She was not doing well by the time we got to the
farmhouse. We got the bleeding stopped, but she had a fever setting
in and looked pale as a ghost. We figured maybe she had lost more
blood than we thought. We had to get her help, but the damn
hospital was on the other side of town from where we were.”

Frank paused for a moment then said, “She
turned into one of those things after a while. I heard Jake yell
and then growling noises from the back room. I grabbed the shotgun
and ran back there. He had her pinned to the floor and she was
hissing and snarling at him, trying to get free. Her eyes looked
like all the blood vessels had burst and bloody spit was spraying
out of her mouth. I could smell that candy sweet smell in the room.
Jake said the bitch had bit him out of the blue while they were
laying there resting together.

“Since I had seen it happen to Glenda, I knew
right away what Karen had become. I put my boot on her neck and
told Jake to back away. He got off her then looked at me like I was
insane when I put the shotgun to her forehead. I pulled the trigger
and blew half her head right through the floor then I racked in a
shell and pointed it at Jake. He was standing there looking at me
like he was seeing a spook. Blood soaking through his tee shirt
around his pec. I told him to lift his shirt and when he did I saw
the bite mark.

“I wasn’t sure about this at the time and I
know I ain’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I was forming an
idea about them crazies biting you. Jake kept asking me what the
fuck I was doing. I just told him to shut up and do what I say. I
made him go out back where there was an old clothesline that I cut
down and used to tie him up. He was all kinds of pissed off. I told
him that once I saw he wasn’t going to go insane like his
girlfriend, I would let him go.

“I think he realized what I was talking about
because his eyes got real big. I let him sit there, trussed up
against that laundry pole and I just sat and watched him. He kept
asking me if I really thought he was going to go batshit like
everyone else. I told him I didn’t know but I wasn’t taking any
chances.

“It didn’t take long. We were in the shade of
the house, still he was sweating like a pig, and his talk started
getting slurry, like he was drunk. He just kept saying, ‘Oh shit,
oh shit, don’t let me become one of them!’”

Frank grimaced. “Poor kid, he knew what was
happening to him. I told him I would take care of it. He had
stopped talking by the time his eyes turned red. The whites kind of
just went red all at once. Real creepy! It was just like my wife
except a lot quicker, and he never did pass out, just sat there
with his head down, drool dripping down his chin and his eyes
half-closed and watching me the entire time. I got up to stretch
one time and went over to check on him. I lifted his chin up with
the barrel of my shotty, and when I did he snapped at me with his
teeth. I knew he was gone then. It hadn’t even been an hour yet. He
was chewing on the barrel of the gun when I pulled the trigger. I
felt very alone then.”

Frank paused and looked off into the
distance. He remained quiet for a long moment before he continued
his story. “I hightailed it out of there after that. The sound of
the shot was loud enough to carry and I heard some wails in the
distance. I headed northeast toward the highway. It was rough going
through some of the thick scrub of the woods before it opened up
into some more farmland and the highway north of Tappahannock. I
was walking across a field when I saw this beat to shit car with
smoke and steam coming out of it crawling up the road at no faster
than a running pace. I figured they had to be healthy people to be
driving the car. The engine locked up and I ran the rest of the way
up to it. That’s when I met these two darlings here.”

Frank took a long pull of water from his
bottle, slaking the thirst that had built up over his long
narrative.

“We didn’t know who or what he was,” Amanda
piped up in the silence. “He asked us if we were bit and all we
could do you know, was shake our head ‘no’. We were really freaked
out at that point and couldn’t even speak.”

“I told them they may as well get out of the
car instead of sitting there roasting like a couple of chickens in
an oven,” Frank said after he had satisfied his thirst. “They
looked at me like I was going to eat them.” He laughed.

“Shoot,” said Kera in her melodious voice,
“we didn’t know him from Adam and he looked like he was going to
eat us!”

“It took it a minute to click in our heads
that if he was one of those crazy people he wouldn’t be talking to
us,” Amanda said. “So Kera and I got out of the car.” Amanda looked
at Frank and smiled. “He is kind of intimidating at first, but you
warm up to him real quick and we felt the safest since all of this
started with him there. He asked us where we were going and we told
him anyplace but there and pointed back toward Tappahannock.”

“Yeah,” Frank said. “I had no desire to go
that way either, so we all just started walking north, never even
discussed a destination. The road was empty in both directions,
only an occasional house and lots of woods. I didn’t even consider
that Port Royal would be as bad as Tappahannock,” he growled, “it
was just a direction to go and I was enjoying being around other
survivors and not being chased.” He smiled. “I told you I ain’t
always the sharpest knife in the drawer. We walked all through the
afternoon and the sun was getting low in the sky, so we decided we
would have to hole up for the night. I was hoping to find us a car
to use also. We were near Champlain so we figured we could find
something there.

“We found a house set back off the road a bit
that had a car in the driveway. It seemed like a decent place to
shack up for the night since there wasn’t much but woods around it.
I checked out the doors of the car, they were locked.”

Frank’s expression turned grim. “It must have
heard us coming up the road. When we walked up I thought I saw
movement behind the big picture window and before I could say
anything to the girls the window just exploded and this crazy naked
filthy young dude lands on the porch.

“He stands up all cut up and bleeding from
the glass and wails that spine-chilling howl like a wild wolf.
Before we can even turn around and run, he jumps over the railing
and launches himself at us. The girls both screamed and hauled ass
the opposite direction and I’m back-peddling as fast as I can
trying to pull the shotgun out of the leg holster. That boy was
almost on me before I got the damn gun free. I shot him and it
ripped through his guts. He didn’t even slow down. He fucking runs
right into the barrel and impales himself through the hole I just
made in him. I rack another round in and just pulled that trigger
again real quick like. The buckshot must’a tore through his spine
because he dropped like a rock.

“I’m still trying to back up and this boy
with a hole clean through his middle is still trying to claw his
way through the gravel after me, leaving a trail of blood and guts
behind him like some grotesque slug! It was fucking hideous! I beat
feet out of there. Caught up to the girls on the main highway and
we went north.” Frank paused to finish off his bottle of water. “I
decided that looking for a car at a house wasn’t the best plan. A
few more miles up the road was an old boarded up house. It was
almost dark, so we decided that would be our safest bet. The
nearest homes were several hundred yards away. We figured if we
were quiet we would be okay. We tried to pry some of the planks off
the door and after some hard work and too much noise I finally got
two off so we could squeeze inside. The place was a mouse-infested
hole. There was an old stained mattress on the main floor where the
local kids had probably come to smoke their dope and bump uglies. I
don’t think any of us cared. We were dog tired and we all just sat
down on that smelly mattress and went to sleep instantly.