ZOMBIES: "Chronicles of the Dead": A Zombie Novel (32 page)

"If you're right, then we need to be looking for a post office vehicle, probably one that's big enough to transport at least four or five people," Russell speculated.

"Which way now boss?" Lonnie asked. "They could have gone in any direction; we can't follow tire tracks on the pavement."

"We keep going south, that's the main direction they've been traveling since they massacred my men and murdered my cousin," Russell answered, with a stern look on his face.

"There's nothing we need here, get back up here and let's get after them," Russell ordered.

They left the post office with the crazy woman still on fire, and drove south checking their surroundings hopeful that one of them would get a glimpse of their elusive quarry.

"Everyone keep your eyes peeled, I want to catch these killers before nightfall," Russell barked, persistent in his determination to capture the people that had ended his cousin's life.

Catching their quarry before nightfall might be easier said than done. The ambushers could travel only as fast as the road conditions allowed, for like their elusive prey, they too had to deal with the occasional zombie or two, or three, and the wrecked vehicles that cluttered the roadway, both of which limited their speed and agility.

Russell had always been somewhat of a lucky guy, once before the end of days arrived, he had won a small but substantial jackpot in one of the state lotteries. He was a pretty good poker player, though he didn't play on a regular basis, and standing over six feet tall, the ladies didn't find him hard to look at, so he did all right in that department too.

So, as luck would have it, one of the men in his bunch, just by chance, as he turned to the side and sat down to tie his shoelace, spotted a large postal truck.

"Over there, look over there, just beyond that gas station, that's got to be them," he said.

"That's them all right, it's got to be them, stop the truck," Russell ordered loudly, pounding on the roof.

"Give me those binoculars," he said, pulling the dangling field glasses away from the chest of one of his companions, jerking the man's head up against his body, pulled by the leather strap around his neck.

The sun was beginning to set, and it would be dark soon.

"It looks like they've stopped," Russell said, staring into the binoculars. "I see two of them standing by their truck, these guys look like they're military."

"How many of them are there?" Lonnie asked.

"I can only see two of them and they're wearing two different uniforms," Russell replied, intently looking through the field glasses.

"Maybe they're what's left of two units that fought the zombs in the beginning," Lonnie suggested apprehensively, feeling a little uneasy about attacking trained soldiers.

"It doesn't matter to me who they are or where they came from, we're going to kill them," Russell said, sounding more determined than ever.

"This looks like a good spot to bed down for the night, if there's no eaters in there," Billy said. "Dad, let's check the inside, if we can't stay here we'll need to find another place before it gets too dark to see."

"Okay, let's go in, honey the same formation as always," I said to Gin.

After our experience with Clyde we had adopted the swat style of entry, guns at our shoulders and looking down the sights. That way no time was wasted raising our weapons and finding a sight picture.

We entered the building, which in its former life was the city jail, which sounded like a great place to spend the night until we got inside.

The suburban jail stood alone in the middle of a small courtyard, and backed up to a large garage where the police cars had been stored and maintained, giving us the advantage of being able to see in a 270 degree span around the building, depending on our location within it. It also had a stairway that led to a roof hatch. Probably used to watch prisoner trustee's in the courtyard.

As soon as we cleared the threshold of the jail, we began to hear moans and groans coming from the hallway where the prisoners were housed. The entry way and the main office was zombie free, but as we continued on, the smell of rotting flesh became stronger, and the groaning gave way to the usual growling, snarling, and snapping.

Opening the heavy steel door that led into the actual jail area, the squeaking hinges on the door alerted the still incarcerated prisoners to our presents. Some of the prisoners had caught the virus and turned into zombies, just as millions worldwide had done at the start of the outbreak.

The outbreak of the virus was so sudden and overwhelming that most people including military and police, abandon their posts in search of their loved ones. Very few jailers had the opportunity or the inclination to risk their lives taking the time to release their prisoners, so they were left in their cells, and with nobody to feed them, the prisoners that weren't affected by the virus slowly starved to death, died of thirst, or killed themselves.

In the end, all of the prisoners fell prey to the disease and were now extremely hungry for human flesh. In fact, most of them were so hungry that they had begun to gnaw on parts of their own bodies to satisfy their cravings.

Except for the ones that had used bed sheets or some other means to hang themselves in their cells. They would have fed on their own body parts had it not been for their method of self-execution. The weight of their bodies pulling down on the vertebra in their necks and spines for such an extended length (no pun intended) of time, had stretched their necks and backbone to the point that their head was separated so far from their torso that they could no longer reach their mouth with any part of their body except their finger tips. Their rotting muscles having been deprived of any nutrients during their incarceration were too weak to even raise their pathetically scrawny arms. However, the muscles in their jaws seemed to be working just fine as they continued to snap and snarl at us the whole time we were in the cellblock.

"Well, sleeping in the cells is out of the question," Gin said.

"The smell is too much to deal with, even if we did remove them from their cells," Jacob added, holding his nose.

"Not to mention these incessant flies," Gin added, waving her hand in front of her face to shoo away the annoying insects.

"We'll have to look elsewhere," I said. "Billy, go get those weak excuses for binoculars we have, we'll go up on the roof and see if we can see a better place to go from there. Jake, you go with your brother."

Soon Billy and Jacob returned with the binoculars and we all headed up the steps to the roof.

The sun was nearly down as we scanned the area around the jail.

"All I see that's even worth checking is that gas station over there, it's small enough that we can clear it out in no time, that's if there are any eaters even in it," I said.

"What's that over there?" Gin asked. "Past the gas station a few hundred yards, you see it?"

I focused the spyglasses on the small bump on the horizon, and saw that it was a flatbed truck.

"We got trouble, big trouble, it's those ambushers again," I said, scanning the horizon for more signs of danger.

Everyone strained their eyes to see the distant bump in the fading sunlight.

"What is it dad," Jacob asked.

"It's a flatbed truck, and there are several men on it, but it looks like it's just setting there," I informed them. "Everybody down," I ordered.

"What are we going to do honey," Gin asked, visibly upset.

"They probably know we're here, probably saw our truck. They're most likely going to either wait till nightfall and come in under the cover of darkness, or bed down and hold off until morning, whichever way they decide they'll be watching our truck. They might even try to disable it," I asserted. "We need to come up with a plan, and fast."

"We could leave the truck here and take off on foot," Jacob interjected.

"That will be our last option, if we run now we won't get five miles and they'll catch us before sunrise. That is if we're not a midnight snack for the eaters," I maintained.

Gin looked around, her eyes were wide open and she looked like she was almost to the point of panicking.

"We can't stay here, if we get trapped inside we'll be doomed for sure," she said.

"You're right, we can't stay here, but we might be able to make them think that we stayed here. I have an idea. Follow me!" I ordered, ducking down and walking to the roof hatch.

Back inside the jail again, I laid out my plan.

"We need some glass bottles and some kind of cloth," I instructed.

We found the bottles in a soda machine in the officer's break area, and tore strips of cloth, from some of the inmate's jump suits that Jacob found in a closet.

"Billy and Jacob, we need some gasoline, can you two go out on the street and poke a hole in the gas tank of one of those cars out there and drain some out?" I asked, not really wanting to send them out alone, but seeing no other option.

"Sure," Billy answered. "But we'll need something to drain it into."

"There was a janitor's bucket in the closet with the prisoner's outfits, I'll get it," Jacob said, as he hurriedly walked back to the closet.

"What do you want me to do," Gin asked, still wide eyed.

Breaking the front of the soda machine with the butt of my AK, I pulled a bottle out, and handed it to Gin.

"Take these bottles out of the machine, and empty the soda out of them," I said.

I looked around and handed her a trashcan that was setting beside the desk.

"Empty them into this, I have another idea," I boasted. "I'm going to go with the boys and cover them from the doorway, get that done as fast as you can, we don't know how much time we have."

"Okay honey, I'm on it," Gin responded, as she popped the cap off the first soda bottle.

"Lonnie!" Russell summoned.

"Yeah Russell," Lonnie answered quickly.

"Make sure the men get fed, and that their guns are fully loaded. Post some sentries, as usual, and I want somebody watching that truck every second, I don't want them slipping away during the night. We're going to wait until just before dawn to attack," Russell said, staring toward the jail as the last fading rays of the setting sun disappeared below the horizon.

With the janitor's bucket half filled, the boys returned to the jailhouse with the gasoline I had sent them to get.

"This should be enough; it's for Molotov cocktails isn't it?" Billy asked, voicing his uneasy confidence that he already knew the answer to his question.

Confirming his supposition, I answered. "That's right son, that should be enough, and it is for Molotov cocktails, let's get it to your mother."

When we joined Gin in the office, she was sitting at the desk with the trashcan on the floor beside her, and emptying the last bottle of soda into it.

"You want to tell me this brilliant idea of yours? What are you going to do with all of this soda?" She asked, setting the bottle on the desk.

"Well, first we're going to get busy and fill all of these soda bottles with gasoline, and stuff the strips of cloth into the tops," I explained.

"Yeah, Molotov cocktails, I get it, but what are we going to do with all of this soda?" She asked once more, expecting an answer this time.

"All right, here's the whole plan. We're going to lock the back door and somehow secure the roof hatch. Then we're going to pour the soda all over the floor making it slippery. Right before we exit the building, we'll open the cell doors and let out the eaters. We then leave the building with our bottles of gas, close the front door to keep the eaters from leaving, and we'll sleep in the truck. You and Jacob will anyway, Billy and I will keep watch from under the truck. That way we'll be there to protect the vehicle and watch the front door at the same time," I told them.

"What about eaters, you're going to stay out in the open all night with eaters prowling around?" Gin asked, not sounding too happy with my plan.

"One of us will be awake the whole time, we'll be able to take care of any small group of eaters, and if a large horde shows up, then I guess we may have to jump into the truck and make a run for it," I explained, offering up the best answer that I could.

"What about the cocktails, when are we going to use them?" Jacob inquired.

I looked straight at him, and said. "If everything goes as planned, those men out there will think that we're inside the jail and not look too closely at our truck. When they charge through the door with guns blazing and are greeted by the ravenous eaters inside, the soda will make the floor slippery, thus making it harder for them to stop and turn around, and get back out of the building. That's when we toss the gas bombs through the front door and trap them inside. And we shoot any stragglers or rear guard that didn't enter the jail. That's the plan anyway, and only a thousand things can go horribly wrong," I maintained. "So we're all going to have to be alert, and when the time is right, we're going to have to get just plain downright mad dog mean, meaner than those men, meaner than the eaters, even meaner than a pack of feral dogs, just plain mean," I lectured, hoping to raise the bar on their fighting spirit.

We broke the lock on the back door to the jail, sealing the door closed; the roof hatch had been nailed shut by Billy and Jacob with tools that we found in a maintenance closet. As soon as it was completely dark outside, we unlocked the cell doors and quickly spilled the soda onto the floor, we then ran out of the building as fast as we could. The trap was set.

Once outside, Gin and Jacob quickly and quietly crawled into our postal truck, and Billy and I, took our place under truck armed with our edged weapons, pistols, AK's, and Molotov cocktails.

The night passed slowly, neither Billy nor I could sleep as we waited for the impending attack.

Then a little after midnight Billy whispered.

"Dad, eaters, they're coming this way."

"We need to draw them away from the truck," I said, quietly crawling from under our vehicle.

Billy followed, and we ran across the street, the zombies hadn't seen us yet, so we were able to maneuver into a position that put us at a ninety degree angle from them.

This pack consisted of five zombies, three females, and two males.

"I'll take the women, you take the men," I ordered, pulling out my tomahawk.

We crouched low, and silently walked toward the wandering zombies under the cover of darkness, waiting to stand erect until we were within striking distance of them.

My first kill was a middle-aged woman of medium build, medium height, medium weight, in fact, everything about her was medium. She was wearing a light blue sequin dress, which sparkled somewhat in the dim pastel moonlight, making her easy to see in the dark.

I placed the blade of my weapon squarely between her eyes with such force, that the sound of her skull splitting echoed back to us off some of the surrounding buildings.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the method that Billy used to assault his first kill of the night. He leaped a few feet forward into the air before making contact with the zombie, using his weight to enhance the downward force of his swing; he brought the point of his sickle down on the crown of the zombie's head, performing a classic zombie kill.

Both of our zombies dropped to the ground at the same time, and we pulled our weapons from their split craniums in sync. With the bodily fluids dripping from our weapons, we turned our attention to the remaining three hungry night stalkers.

I dispatched the other two female zombies in a similar fashion, as Billy finished off his lone male maniacal night prowler with a horizontal swipe of his sickle across the monster's eyebrows, detaching the top of its head and cutting its brain in half. We wiped the blood from our weapons on the zombie's clothes, before hurriedly returning to our hiding place under our truck.

Once beneath our vehicle again, we both felt a sense of security, however, we both knew that feeling was false.

We waited out the rest of the night under the truck, anticipating the ambusher's attack.

An hour before dawn, just as Russell promised, the word went out around the ambusher's camp.

"Saddle up boys, we're going in, everybody up," Russell yelled, ordering his men to their feet.

Their plan was simple, they would ride slowly toward the jail making as little noise as possible. When they were about a half a block from the jail, the driver would speed up, and they would use their truck as a battering ram against the front door. The assault force which was everyone but the driver, would jump off the truck just before they smashed into the jailhouse door. The driver would then back up their truck, giving the assault force enough room to enter the building. At that time they would use their superior number of men and weapons, what Russell called a force multiplier, run into the building and kill everyone is sight. Their plan was simple, direct, and to the point.

The ambushers boarded their flatbed truck, and began their slow trek to exact their misguided revenge upon me and my family.

"You feel that dad?" Billy asked. "I can feel a vibration, like a deep rumbling."

"They're coming," I said, tapping lightly on the undercarriage of the truck to alert Gin and Jacob to the impending danger.

We heard a dull thump as Jacob kicked the floorboard of the truck, signaling that they got my message.

We curled up behind the large truck tires, making ourselves as small as possible, and shook the gasoline cocktails to moisten their wicks with the flammable fluid inside the bottles.

"Here's the lighter, after the first one is lit, use it to light the others," I whispered, holding the lighter next to one of the gasoline bombs.

"We wait until they go inside, right?" Billy asked, trying to confirm the plan.

I answered his question with a quick nod of my head.

We watched as the ambushers rounded the corner, their truck began to gain speed, and the rumbling got louder.

"They're coming right at us," Billy said. "I think they're going to ram
us
."

Thinking he might bolt from under the truck and give away our position. I grabbed his arm tightly, indicating to him that I was
not
going to run.

The speeding truck came within forty yards of us, then it abruptly made a hard right turn toward the front of the jail.

The turn had been so sudden and sharp that it threw two of the attackers from the bed of the truck. When they finally stopped rolling, they were so close to our vehicle, that it was a miracle that they didn't see us hiding there.

Not wanting to be left out of the fight, the two men got to their feet quickly and ran to catch up to the truck that had ejected them.

The sharp turn their truck had made decreased its speed considerably, giving those men that had managed to stay on the flatbed, a chance to bail from the truck at a much slower speed.

However, the momentum the truck carried as it slammed into the front door of the jail was more than enough to do the intended job.

As the driver backed the truck up, the rabble of men that were fixated on our destruction scurried into the jail led by Russell.