Zombie Rules (Book 3): ZFINITY (27 page)

“I’m still here, Hoss,” I said with a grin. Rowdy nodded and looked at his cauterized arms.

“One thing’s for sure, I’m going to have a mess of scars to brag about.”

Everyone was quiet now. Terry cleared his throat and looked at Andie.

“I think I should lock the barn doors when we leave. If you have any trouble, start shooting. We’ll come running.”

“You got it,” she replied. “You guys get out of here.”

Fred was standing outside, scanning the area with night vision goggles as we walked back to the house. “I’m seeing nothing but dead zombie bodies everywhere,” he said. “There’s nothing else out there.”

“We need to secure this place,” Terry said. “Let’s start with that damned gate.”

We made a careful sweep of the perimeter before heading to the gate. It took several minutes to drag several bodies out of the way, but managed to get it secured.

“I wonder who dropped the ball on getting the gate secured for the night,” Fred commented idly as we walked back to the house.

“All I can say is someone went to their former residence, got some of her clothes, and came back about the time the sun was setting,” Terry responded. “She said she locked it up, but I should have double-checked it myself.”

Neither Fred nor I responded. When we got back to the house we looked over the exterior. There were several dead corpses stacked up on the porch and around the door. It took us another thirty minutes to drag all of them out into the yard. It was laborious work, but necessary.

Afterward, we sat on the porch and scrubbed our hands clean with a bucket of water and lye soap. I was tired, dead tired. I sat in one of the chairs and could have easily fallen asleep right there. Julie brought me a fresh glass of water. I nodded in thanks.

“Tomorrow we’ll get one of Mac’s dump trucks and haul those things out of here,” I said. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m just too exhausted to do it tonight.” Everyone voiced their agreement.

“I believe we should retrieve more than just the dump truck,” Fred said. I knew what he was thinking. Julie looked at us.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“That is technically all of our equipment. Those Huntsville people have no claim to any of it.”

“Yeah, we’ll figure it out tomorrow.” I said. “Let’s get inside and try to relax.”

Julie stayed close beside me as we went inside. The den was dirty, but it didn’t stop me from plopping down in my favorite easy chair. Much to my surprise, Julie sat in my lap. Her closeness was wonderful and comforting. We watched in tired silence as Wanda worked the floor with a mop, attempting to clean up some of the black ooze all over the den floor.

“We’re all tired, that can wait until tomorrow,” I said. Wanda made a face.

“I’m not going to let this shit dry and stain these nice floors,” she retorted. I shrugged. I was too tired to argue. Julie leaned forward until her lips were close to my ear.

“Can I talk you into staying here tonight?” she whispered. “I’d feel a lot safer.”

It was what I was hoping to hear. I looked at her and nodded.

Even though I was dog tired, Fred and I waited until everyone went to bed and then talked quietly about the night’s events. After yawning a few times, he ordered me to bed as well and I didn’t argue. Julie was asleep already, so I slipped off my boots and most of my outer clothing as quietly as possible before gently slipping under the blanket. She must have sensed my presence and immediately snuggled up against me. It was comforting and reinforced how much I missed her. I fell asleep immediately but only for a few hours before awakening with a start. I think I was dreaming about those damned zombies getting into our house and had sat up, expecting to be attacked. When my senses sharpened, I looked out of the window to see the sky turning gray. I eased out of the bed and checked on Frederick. He too was sleeping soundly. Quietly moving into the den, I saw Fred sitting beside the radio.

“I tried calling them all night, they just now answered,” he said with clenched teeth. “Kelly said they had no troubles and everyone had gone to bed.”

I shook my head in disgust. We had impressed upon them to maintain hourly radio contact in the event something like this happened. The dogs came scampering up the stairs, followed by Konya.

“The kids said you two were awake.”

I forced a tired smile and poured a cup of last night’s coffee. It was lukewarm and brackish. Fred stood up and stretched.

“Let’s go take a look at the damage.” He said.

The carnage was even more unbelievable in the daylight. Fred pointed.

“It looks like they all came in through the gate and went straight toward the front door.”

I nodded. There were dead corpses everywhere, but most of them were concentrated at the gate and the front yard. I pulled out the keys to the padlocks.

“I suppose we need to check on Rowdy,” I said heavily. The ride only took a couple of minutes. I knocked loudly on the barn door and waited for the verbal challenge. It was quiet inside, which seemed odd.

“Andie, it’s us, we’re coming in!” I opened the two padlocks on the door and swung it open. Andie was waiting for us. It was obvious she had a rough night. Her eyes were puffy and her short cropped hair was disheveled. On the other hand, Rowdy appeared to be sleeping soundly. I walked over and tapped the metal of the cage with one of the padlocks.

“Hey, Hoss, how’re you doing?”

There was no response. I suddenly became concerned and looked closer. Rowdy’s features were contorted and there was a bullet hole between his eyes. I gasped and looked over at Andie. Tears were falling heavily down her face.

“I’m going home,” she said in a childlike voice and walked out.

“We’ll take care of this,” Fred said, gesturing toward Rowdy. I nodded gratefully and ran after Andie. Once I caught up with her, I put my arm around her shoulders and we walked together back to the house. She explained as we walked.

“He turned about three hours ago. I used some scrap burlap to muffle the sound of the gun,” she looked up at me. “I didn’t want to wake anyone up. There was nothing anyone needed to lose any more sleep over,” she then burst out sobbing. I held her tightly as we walked into the house and sat on the couch. Everyone began waking up then and filtering in the den. Janet was the last person to come in and scowled at Andie.

“What the hell is she crying about?” she asked nobody in particular. Before I could respond, Andie lunged off of the couch with a shriek and all five foot three inches of her attacked Janet with the ferocity of a raging pit bull.

By the time Julie and I were able to pull Andie off her, Janet’s face was a bloody mess.

“What is wrong with you, you damned psycho!” she shouted between breaths.

“Rowdy told me what happened, you bitch!” Andie shouted back. All of us looked at her questioningly. She pointed at Janet. “When the zombies opened the door to the bus, she pushed Rowdy in between herself and them. That’s how he got bit.”

All of us looked at Janet now, lying on the floor, a pathetic bloody mess. I glanced around at the room.

“Rowdy turned. Andie had to put him out of his misery.”

There was a collective gasp. It had been a long night and the day wasn’t starting off any better. Jessica appeared to be faint and grabbed the couch to steady herself. Wanda came to her aid, maneuvered her around Janet, and got her seated at the kitchen table. I let go of Andie and Julie gently coaxed her to her bedroom. Making sure she was okay, I went back into the den and stood there staring at Janet, still lying on the floor, breathing heavily. Julie walked back in and stood on the opposite side of Janet, glaring at her mother, maybe seeing her in a new light. She finally squatted down and checked on her injuries.

“How bad is it?” I asked without any empathy. One of her eyes was already swollen shut and she was bleeding profusely from her nose, but in spite of the obvious pain, Janet glared at me.

“Get that bitch out of my house immediately!” she snarled. I shook my head.

“No, this is Andie’s home, not yours,” I responded, “you’re only visiting.”

Janet looked at me in astonishment, but it quickly turned into an expression of pure hatred.

We skipped breakfast in lieu of burying two close friends, Rowdy and Curly. There was a good spot on the hill with Rick, Macie and Macie’s infant child. We all said a few words in tribute to him and how his life enriched ours. Janet chose to remain in the house. I guess sleeping with Rowdy did not enrich her life one iota.

Afterward, we loaded up and went to the school. Fred remained outside as the rest of us went in. They were sitting down for breakfast when we entered and seemed surprised to see us.

“Good morning,” Benny said, “are you joining us for breakfast?”

“No sir, we only wanted to see how you guys were doing. After going on alert status last night, we couldn’t raise you on the radio.”

I heard Tonya scoff and looked at her. “Have I said something wrong?”

“You seem to think when you say jump we’re supposed to say how high on the way up. You certainly are an arrogant prick.”

I looked around the cafeteria. Marc and Ward were avoiding eye contact. Gus was already on his second plate, ignoring his whining children and us. Carla eyed all of us with something between sadness and contempt. Kelly and Rhonda were nowhere to be seen. Benny was the only one who would make eye contact with me.

“Zach, we had a very busy day yesterday. Everyone was dog tired.”

“I see,” I said after a moment.

“I see,” Tonya mimicked me and scoffed again. I saw Julie’s expression turn to anger. I caught her eye and shook my head slightly.

“We’ll be going then,” I responded.

“Yeah, get out of here. Maybe you can find someone else to murder.”

“Why, is there another piece of shit like your brother wandering around?” Julie asked sarcastically. Tonya’s eyes widened and she went for the handgun in her holster. We responded as a team, drew our respective handguns and leveled them at her head. She froze and her face paled. It was a standoff of sorts, but Tonya had four guns aimed at her and she had not even cleared leather. The tension in the air became thick within seconds.

“Lady, get your hand off that gun before I send you to hell with your brother,” Julie snarled.

“Honey, please,” Benny begged. Tonya eyed Julie and reluctantly let go of her revolver. Terry quickly strode over, took it out of her holster and unloaded it. He leaned forward until his face was inches from hers.

“Your brother was a rapist and a murderer. We all know it. Denying it won’t make it go away.”

He glared at her a moment longer and shoved her revolver back into her holster. He then walked out with Andie a moment later.

I holstered my handgun and stared at the woman for a long minute before looking at Benny. “So, is this how it’s going to be? Has your wife turned into some sort of psycho who’s going to pull a gun on us whenever we visit?”

Benny said nothing. It looked like he wanted to say something for a second and his mouth started to move, but then he looked at his wife and remained quiet. I started to walk out, but stopped and turned.

“We welcomed you guys with open arms. We had no idea there was a sociopathic serial killer in your midst, maybe y’all were unaware of it as well, I don’t know,” I stared pointedly at Tonya and Carla a moment before looking the rest of them over.

“Do y’all even talk about what happened to the Thompsons?” I waited for an answer but all I got was a chilly silence. I resisted the urge to sigh in futility, although futility accurately explained my state of mind with these people.

“Anthony murdered Geoffrey in front of his sister and mother. He then chained up Janine and Jessica like they weren’t even human. He raped them, tortured them, you name it,” I took a deep breath before continuing.

“You talked about due process, Benny. You were right. Anthony deserved due process, but the truth of the matter, Benny, you people would have turned a blind eye to it, just like you did when two of your own were strangled to death.”

My palms were sweating and I could feel myself getting more disgusted by the minute. I paused for a moment to get my emotions in check and looked at all of them.

“Tell me the truth, all of you. If we had any kind of trial and he was found guilty, what would you have done then? Sentence him to some kind of intensive therapy? Is there any of you who would have done what needed to be done?” I looked around. Nobody answered.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“What makes you think he would have been found guilty?” Tonya suddenly demanded. I gritted my teeth before responding.

“Your question implies you think I’m lying about the whole thing and Jessica is either lying too, or she’s identified the wrong person who held her captive and committed all kinds of sickening things to her,” I said evenly, “and that, my former friends, is very sad indeed.”

Julie stepped forward. “Maybe for some idiotic reason you thought Zach was lying. All you had to do was listen to what Jessica had to say. Oh, wait. None of you pieces of shit even bothered to visit her. I don’t even recall if any of you asked about how she was doing,” she said and spit on the floor. “You people disgust me.”

There was a muted silence now. Even Tonya had nothing to say. I looked at Julie.

“I think we’re done here,” I started to leave, but remembered the black plastic trash bag I had brought in.

“Oh, I brought you guys a present. Consider it a parting gift,” I walked over and put the bag on the table in front of Marc and Ward. Marc peered inside and shrieked like a little girl.

“It’s pretty obvious that you people don’t give a shit about what happened to us last night, but I’ll tell you anyway,” I gestured at the bag. “That monster, the same one you guys went g00-goo over, did something downright scary. He organized a group of fellow zombies. Somehow he figured out where we live and orchestrated a planned, methodical assault on our homes. We lost one of our own because of it.”

“Who was it, Zach?” Benny asked. I stared at him in disgust.

“You’re just now asking?” I looked around. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Kelly caught up with us as we walked through the parking lot. She looked at us and then focused on Andie.

“Can I please come back with you guys?” she pleaded. “I can’t stand it here. I promise I won’t be a problem.”

Andie didn’t answer. Kelly looked over at Julie and me. “Please?” she begged.

“Well,” I said, “Andie is…”

“No, it’s okay,” Andie interrupted. “I’m going to move in with Terry, she can have my bedroom.”

Julie and I looked at the two of them in surprise before looking at each other. She shrugged indifferently. “Okay, go get all of your stuff. We’ll wait for you, but make it quick, and tell Rhonda she can come too.”

“Alright everyone, load up in my truck,” Fred ordered. “We’ve got a lot of equipment to move and a lot of work waiting for us when we get home.” Everyone moved with a purpose. Fred pointed at me questioningly.

“Y’all go ahead,” I responded and motioned for Julie to ride with them. “I’ll drive over as soon as I get Kelly and Rhonda loaded up.”

“Are you going to be okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, none of them are stupid enough to try anything.”

He nodded again. I leaned up against my truck and watched as my friends drove across the street as I waited for the two girls. Benny walked outside a moment later. I tensed up until I saw he wasn’t armed. He looked across the street at the radio tower and saw everyone walking around the heavy equipment.

“What are you guys doing?” he asked.

“We’re going to move most of Mac’s toys back to our house. That includes the tanker.”

“May I ask why?”

I looked him over. “Take a long hard look at yourself, Benny. A girl had terrible things done to her at the hands of one of your own. When informed of it, how did you guys react? When we were under attack last night, how did y’all react? Last night was rough, Benny. We came very close to being overrun. When we lost radio contact with you people, we thought you had been attacked too and were worried to death. When we arrived here this morning, we stood in the parking lot looking things over,” I waved my hand around. “You people weren’t attacked, you weren’t overrun. So, what do y’all do? You say to yourselves how tired y’all are and go to bed.”

I took a few breaths before speaking again. “We talked about you guys while we were burying our friend,” I said and looked hard at the man. “I had infected my friends with the hope of creating a thriving, harmonious society. When you guys arrived, I believed it was the start of something good, but look at how it turned out. If you guys had expressed one little ounce of regret about Anthony and what he had done to the Thompsons, it might have been enough. But no, you guys go into denial and then make us out as the bad guys when we took care of the problem. Before we came over here, we had a little group meeting. I listened intently to what my friends had to say. They were all disappointed and angry, and it was my fault.”

“Rowdy,” Benny observed quietly, “is he the one who was killed?”

“Yes,” I answered. Benny grimaced.

“He was a good man. I’m sorry,” he said, “I’m sorry for everything. Things have been rather tense since Anthony was – since Anthony’s death.”

I nodded, but did not respond. Hell, there was nothing else to say. I watched as Kelly came out with a couple of suitcases. I gestured at her questioningly.

“Rhonda said she’s going to stay here.”

“Kelly is going to move back in with us,” I said in response to Benny’s unasked question.

Benny watched as I loaded up Kelly’s suitcases in the back of the truck, and then got in without shaking his hand or saying goodbye. He looked downright sad as he turned and walked back into the school. Kelly and I watched him as he closed the door. Suddenly, she leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.

“Thanks, Zach. I’ve really missed y’all. These people aren’t the same as you guys.”

I started the truck and began driving across the street. “Yeah, all of us had high hopes.”

Kelly and Julie drove the trucks while everyone else jumped on a piece of machinery and we formed a convoy back to the farm. It would take us a total of three trips to get everything and it was late afternoon before we had it all lined up on the road leading to our driveway. Fred motioned everyone to gather at the gate.

“We’re going to need to leave everything parked on the side of the road for now until we can make some room,” Fred said while making a sweeping gesture toward the farm at all of the corpses. He pointed at Terry. “Why don’t you bring the dump truck in, and Andie, you bring the front loader in, we’ll use it to load up the bodies.” Everyone agreed without comment.

Julie and I jumped in the truck with Kelly. She was wide-eyed with amazement.

“Oh, my God, they’re everywhere!”

“Yeah, it was a close one,” I said.

“What did those idiots say when you told them we had called?” Julie asked.

Kelly made a face. “Benny and Gus walked around the fence with flashlights. They said they didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, so everyone went to bed. They didn’t seem too worried.”

Julie frowned as I shook my head in disappointment. We had discussed this possibility at length and had established a basic contingency plan. Apparently, they didn’t think much of it, or us.

We used the front loader and piled all of those nasty things into the dump truck. Even though it was a cool April day, we were all sweaty and dirty by the time we were finished. Julie walked up beside me as I looked at the dump truck. The corpses were stacked almost to the top edge.

“How many were there all together?” Julie asked me.

“About three hundred, give or take,” I answered.

“Holy shit,” she said while looking around and wrinkling her freckled nose. “I hope we get a good rainfall soon, the smell is awful.”

I looked up. The sky was a deep blue and the air was muggy. “Yeah, a good soaking rain would be nice, but I’m not feeling it in the air. Once we get the corpses hauled off, it should help with the smell.”

“Where are you taking them?” she asked. I grinned wickedly.

“I think I know of a really good spot where certain people will not be able to deny we were attacked.”

Julie looked at me quizzically, but smiled when I explained.

Fred and I drove to Concord Road. I stopped at the entrance to the old Publix parking lot and then backed the truck to the middle of the nearby bridge.

“I think this is a good spot,” I said. He grunted in agreement as I activated the hydraulic dumping mechanism. The bodies formed a large pile in the middle of the bridge, effectively blocking it of anything larger than a bicycle from getting through. If Benny and his group wanted to visit this neck of the woods, they’d either have to clean up this mess or be forced to take a long detour.

Fred stood by and kept a lookout, while I threw some old tires on top of the pile along with a combination of gas and used motor oil. Fred and I watched the fire for a minute.

“Are you sending a message?” Fred asked.

“Yep,” I answered. He nodded his head slightly in approval. The heat became very intense, so we loaded up and headed back home. I looked in the side view mirror at the burning pyre as I drove.