Zombie Rules (Book 3): ZFINITY (38 page)

There were thousands of them. For some reason, I was standing on top of a stool in the middle of the street, looking them over. They had me surrounded, their empty black eyes staring at me in deadly silence. I started shooting, over and over, but there were too many of them. None of them moved, they simply stood there staring at me until a bullet to the head knocked them over. One of them finally walked up to me. I shot her right between the eyes. She didn’t fall over dead like she should have. Instead, her mouth began to move.

“Zach,” it said. I frowned in confusion. The thing was a woman at one time, very badly decomposed with black pus gushing out of the fresh wound in the forehead.

“Zach,” it said again, only this time the voice sounded familiar. The decomposed face then started to change before my very eyes. I stood there transfixed as the face began to take shape.

“Zach,” she whispered. It was Julie. I inhaled sharply and jerked awake.

“Zach!” The voice was a frantic whisper. As I became more alert, I looked around, expecting to see Julie, smiling because she had awakened before me. Instead, it was Kelly, and her face was very close to mine. So close, I instinctively pushed her away.

“What is it?” I mumbled irritably. She quickly held her finger up to my lips and then pointed out of the passenger side window. I rubbed the sand out of my eyes and tried to focus. At first, I did not see it. I kept looking around the parking garage, overlooking the view out of the open section. Kelly pointed again. Then I saw it. There were zombies, lots of them, walking along the railroad tracks that ran behind the garage.

“I stepped outside to pee,” Kelly whispered, “and I spotted them. They didn’t see me though, I was real quiet.”

I shrugged off the grogginess, pushed aside the dream and focused on the zombies. They were trudging along, almost like they had a specific destination in mind. I had no watch, but it looked like it was sometime around noon.

“How long have they been walking by?” I asked in a whisper.

“I first spotted them about an hour ago,” Kelly replied. “You were exhausted and I knew you needed your sleep, but after an hour went by with no end in sight, I thought I’d better go ahead and wake you.”

I nodded in understanding, glad she let me get an extra hour of sleep, I certainly needed it. I didn’t have my watch anymore, which irritated me. Straining to look out of the entrance to the garage, it was difficult to see where the sun was in the sky. I glanced at Kelly.

“Got any guess what time it is?” I asked. She reached back, retrieved her jeans and pulled a Timex wristwatch out of her pocket.

“A little after noon,” she responded. I focused again on the zombies. There was an endless line of them.

“Where are they going?” she asked. I shook my head.

“It may be wishful thinking, but it looks like they’re in the middle of a mass exodus from Nashville, at least I hope so,” I said. “Maybe there’s nothing for them to eat around here anymore.”

“That’s good, right?” she asked. I nodded.

“It’s good for Nashville, if in fact they’re leaving, but very bad for every town on down the line.” I thought a second. “If they stay on those railroad tracks, they’ll eventually end up in Memphis.”

“Why are they following the railroad tracks?” she pressed. I refrained from giving a smart assed answer. I was still tired and had not eaten very much in the past couple of days.

“The correct answer would be rule number nine; they’re following the path of least resistance,” I said. Or, were they? Maybe they actually had a plan of some sort. Maybe they were simply walking down the tracks until they got to an intersection before diverting to another location. I guess the rules really don’t apply anymore. We sat quietly and watched the seemingly endless line of them walking, walking to who knew where.

“There’re so many,” Kelly whispered. “It’s like we’re in a world of Zfinity.” I looked at her oddly.

“What?”

She looked at me and absently rubbed her wound. “Zfinity, no matter how many we kill, we’ll never be rid of them.”

I thought about that and eventually nodded my head. “You’re probably right,” I replied and looked her over. She was still wearing a shirt, but had not put her pants back on. I had to admit to myself, her legs were nice and toned. She still had a tan, leftover from the summer when the girls liked to bask in the sun, but she’d gone several days without shaving. I put my palm against her forehead.

“You seem to have broken your fever,” I said. She nodded.

“I woke up about sunrise. I’m feeling a lot better, except for those damn maggots, they’re itching like crazy.”

“Let’s have a look at it,” I whispered and untied the two tee shirts that were wrapped around her wound.

“Is it bad?” she asked with a slight quiver in her voice.

“You’re going to have a pretty good scar, but I’d say the maggots have done a nice job of cleaning things up,” I replied and looked around.

“There used to be a first aid kit in here. We’ll look for it in a minute. In the meantime, I’ll get these little critters off you.”

“Oh, thank God,” she whispered in relief. “I’m going to have a phobia about maggots for the rest of my life.”

After picking the maggots out and securing them in the prescription bag, I found the first aid kit exactly where I had first stored it, cleaned up her wound, and wrapped it with fresh gauze. The kit had a thermometer as well, which I had forgotten about. I pulled it out and stuck it in her mouth.

“Ninety-nine degrees, that’s good. You’re not out of the woods yet, but I think you’re going to be alright. You’ll need to keep a fresh dressing on and I want you to follow the dosage on the bottle of Ampicillin, okay?”

“Thank you, Zach,” she said gratefully. I shrugged.

“We’ve got to take care of each other,” I replied. “If you’re right about everyone being dead, we only have each other now.” My statement elicited an involuntary whimper from her, causing her to reach over and hug me tightly.

“Are we going home now?” she asked. Her voice was muffled because it was buried against the nape of my neck. My body odor did not seem to bother her.

“Yeah, eventually, but we have to be careful we don’t drive into a trap, and if we start the truck now, it’ll alert the zombies.”

Kelly pulled her head away. “We can out run them,” she replied.

“Yeah, but I don’t want them diverted. They’ll follow us down Woodmont until we’re out of sight and then simply keep walking. It’ll bring them closer to home. Let them keep going wherever the hell they’re going.”

“Oh. So, how long are we going to sit here?”

“I have no idea,” I replied. “I would think there is an end to the line somewhere and the number of them will gradually dissipate.”

It did. Dissipate, that is, but only after we sat there for four long hours, watching them trudge past. The both of us dozed off and on. At one point, Kelly and I were whispering to each other while I occasionally glanced at the horde. Kelly was saying something about eating when I grabbed her hand.

“Don’t move,” I warned in a quiet but stern whisper. She started to say something, but I squeezed tightly for emphasis. It started with one single zombie. He was ambling along with his ugly zombie buddies, but then he suddenly stopped. Every other zombie behind him stopped in unison. He slowly turned his head toward us and stared. A second later, the rest of them turned their head and stared. I remained perfectly still. Kelly, who was facing me and could only imagine what I was seeing, followed my lead and didn’t move.

“What is it?” she asked so quietly I could barely hear her.

“They’re looking this way,” I answered in the same manner. “All of them are looking over here.”

The windows on the truck were tinted, and the thick bullet proof glass Fred and I had mounted, helped in making it difficult to see who or what was inside the semi. Nevertheless, those things saw or sensed us somehow. We remained motionless for several minutes while the things looked in our direction. I was convinced that at any moment, they were going to start walking our way.

Then, just as suddenly as they had stopped, they faced back in the direction they were going and started walking again.

“That was damned strange,” I whispered. Kelly nodded in agreement.

It was late afternoon when the last one of them, Mr. Caboose, finally walked out of sight. We waited another thirty minutes before quietly exiting the truck and creeping over to the opening in the wall of the garage.

“Do you see any?” I asked.

“Nope,” Kelly replied, “not a one.”

“Good, let’s get out of here.”

The clock on the dashboard was not calibrated, which irritated my obsessive compulsive personality. Once exiting the driveway, I got a fix on the position of the sun.

“What time is it?” I asked as I gunned it and quickly went through the shifting of the gears. She pulled out her watch again. “Two minutes after five.”

“We’ve got another hour or so of daylight, which will be plenty if we don’t run into any problems. Help me keep an eye out. If you see anything unusual, let me know, and get that damn clock calibrated,” I said, pointing at the instrument panel. “That’s driving me nuts.”

We made it to Howard’s old tire store in quick time. I parked the truck across the street, turned it off, and looked around carefully before getting out.

“Why are we stopping here?” Kelly asked as she hobbled after me. I paused for a moment, waiting for her to catch up. I pointed at the building as an answer.

“Put your arm around my shoulder,” I directed. She did so and I helped her as we slowly walked across the empty street and made our way to the building. Looking around, I retrieved a key Julie and I had hidden. I sincerely doubted anyone or anything was inside, but I followed our established protocol anyway.

“Only a few of us know of this spot,” I explained. “It’s a secondary hideout. It’s stocked with food, water, and some ammo.” I unlocked the door, and standing to one side, spoke clearly but not too loudly into the interior.

“Come in Saigon,” I said, waited, and repeated it. There was no response, which didn’t raise my hopes. I carefully pushed the door all of the way open and stepped inside.

“Wait here and stand watch,” I directed and proceeded to clear the building. Satisfied, I motioned Kelly into the living area and we sat on the couch.

“The Allen family used to live here,” I explained. “After they moved out, we agreed to use it as a backup location and not tell anyone about it. Besides them, the only people who know about it are Julie, Fred, Andie, and Terry.” I sat for a moment and rubbed my face. The last time I had shaved was back at home and I had a face full of scruffy, teenaged whiskers.

“There’s food and water stored in the kitchen,” I said. Kelly started to get up but I put a hand on her shoulder.

“Keep your seat, I keep forgetting about your injury. I’ve been chastised more than once by Julie about being self-absorbed.”

I fixed up a couple of plates of mixed canned food and room temperature Kool-Aid. We ate quietly in the dim ambient lighting, listening to the sounds of nature outside and attempting to discern any subtle differences.

“Is there running water here?” Kelly asked. “I could use a good bath.” I grunted, knowing I was just as rank as she was.

“No running water, but we have several jerry cans in back along with a wash tub and soap. You’ll have to bathe standing up, but it’s all we have at the moment.”

“I’ll take it,” she said. I picked up one of the candles we’d lit and walked with her back to the rear of the building. Kelly watched as I took one of the jerry cans and filled the wash bucket with about a gallon of water.

“Go ahead and wash your clothes if you want to keep them,” I said and pointed at a clothes line. “You can hang them there. If you’re ready to throw them out, there are extra clothes in the closet. They’re Julie’s. What are you, about an inch taller than her?”

“Yeah,” Kelly responded, “but it won’t make much of a difference. Aren’t you going to bathe too?” she asked as she started to get undressed. I nodded.

“I’m going to get the kitchen cleaned up first. Besides, you need your privacy.” She scoffed as I walked out.

“So, what’s the plan?” Kelly asked. After cleaning up, Kelly informed me it was close to eight o’clock. We turned down the blankets to the bed and blew out the candles.

“Full dog fart mode,” I replied in the dark. I heard Kelly sit up.

“What the hell is dog fart mode?”

“Silent, but deadly,” I replied and adjusted my blanket. “I’m going in there silent, and if anyone gets in my way, they won’t have an enjoyable day.”

I could see her silhouette in the dark. She was still sitting up and appeared to be staring at me. I explained further. “We’re going to get up before sunrise. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there is a Chevy Volt parked out back. It was running a couple of months ago, but we may need to jump it off. That’s the vehicle we’ll be using.”

“So, what’s special about the Volt?” Kelly asked.

“If you will stop interrupting, I’ll explain,” I retorted. After a moment, I sighed and sat up. “I’m sorry for that. I know I’m being an irritable bastard.”