ZOMBIES: "Chronicles of the Dead": A Zombie Novel (37 page)

Four others in the group stepped forward and relieved us of all our weapons.

"The ammunition too," ordered the red headed man. "What's your name, why are you here, and what in the hell are you doing destroying my water tower?"

His total focus was now upon us, and I could tell that this man was in no mood to play games, yet there was something vaguely familiar about him, but I just could not place it.

"My name is Jack, this is my wife Gin, and these are my two sons Billy and Jacob," I told him.

The man stared at me with a steely glare and said. "Next question, what are you doing here?"

"We're just traveling through, our van broke down a ways back, and we climbed the tower to escape these eaters that you and your people just put down," I answered, with my own steely glare fixed on him.

"Why did you poke a hole in one of my water towers?" he asked, still glaring at me.

Again, I glared back at the man.

"My family and I are from the St. Louis area, we floated down the Mississippi River to Vicksburg, and along the way we found that the only thing these creatures seem to be afraid of is water."

"You should have seen the way some of them freaked out when they fell in the river," Jacob interrupted.

A seething glance from me got the message across to Jacob to just stand there and keep his mouth shut.

"So, when we found ourselves trapped up there, and the eaters somehow managed to climb the ladder, I poked a hole in the tank and that kept them from climbing up," I continued. "We didn't realize that it was your water supply."

The man didn't answer, he didn't say anything, he just stared at me, and after a while he said. "There's something about you, what was your name again?"

"Jack," I answered sharply.

The man squinted his eyes and continued to stare for a moment, and then a slight smile came to his face.

"You didn't happen to be in the Corps, did you?"

The memories came flooding back to me at that moment.

"I didn't get your name," I said, as a slight smile crossed my lips.

"Ron," he said, but you can call me
Sarge.

At that instant, we both knew what was familiar about each other. Years ago we served in the military together.

"You old "
Devil Dog
", how have you been?" Ron asked, now grinning from ear to ear.

"I been doing all right Sarge, well until all of this started," I said, pointing to the pile of fly infested zombies at our feet.

"Give them back their weapons," Sarge ordered his men. "This guy can out shoot all of you; at least he could back when we were in the Marines."

"I'm getting a lot more practice nowadays," I said re-holstering my pistol.

"I guess we all are," Sarge added, motioning for me to follow him. Let's get the hell away from these damn flies.

"Indeed, the eaters are bad enough," I agreed, following closely behind the Sarge.

"We've got a nice little setup not far from here; it's pretty secure, and has enough room for all our people, enough room for you and your family if you'd like to join us. I can't believe we ran into each other, it's been a long time Jack, a really long time," Sarge said.

"I never would have guessed it was you at the bottom of that water tower, we didn't know what to expect when we came down," I responded, waving for Gin and my sons to keep up with us.

The former sergeant abruptly stopped, turned to me, and said. "You're damn lucky it was me at the bottom of that water tower. We've ran into people that would have killed you for your hat, hell there might be one or two of my men, or women, that would do that. After they saw you poke that hole in the tank, some of my people wanted to just shoot you off that tower and ask questions later. I told them they might miss and put more holes in the tank, even though I knew that they
wouldn't miss
."

"I'm glad you were so convincing, you always were a smooth talker Sarge," I admitted, nodding my head.

The sergeant briefly turned to one of his men and pointed to the hole in the water tower.

"Donny, you and Paul climb up there and plug that leak!"

He turned back to me.

"Jack, what in the hell were you thinking, climbing up that ladder in broad daylight, in full view of everything in hell's damn creation?" Sarge asked, with a very concerned look on his face.

"Must be from fatigue, we've been traveling almost from the minute the world went to shit, I guess I'm just tired, I'm not thinking straight, I've lost my edge," I answered sheepishly, still embarrassed about my mistake.

"Well, I've got to admit, you certainly do look like shit, but don't worry, I'll make sure you and your family gets some rest, and I'll keep the meaner ones under my command away from you for awhile, until they can see that you're not a complete idiot."

"I'd appreciate that, and thank you for not summarily killing us all, and oh yes, thank you for another emotional scar with that idiot comment," I said, trying to add a little levity to the conversation.

The sergeant turned away smiling and said. "Same old Jack, kills ya with laughter, or kills ya with his gun, but one way or another he'll kill ya."

We walked for a while talking of old times in the Marine Corps, and watching his people kill small random groups of zombies along the way.

"Well this is it Jack, what do you think of it?" Sarge asked, as we hiked across a large, formally well-manicured lawn that was now overgrown with weeds and tall grass.

The building that stood in front of me was constructed of red bricks with stone windowsills that sat ten feet above the foundation. The complex had a seven or eight foot high chain link fence surrounding most of the facility, and a parking lot that was capable of holding a couple of hundred vehicles, but only had eighty or ninety in it at that time.

"It's a YMCA building," I said. "And a fairly large one at that!"

"Large indeed," Sarge said. "We've got a swimming pool, gym, two basketball courts, and we converted one of the three hand-ball courts into a movie theater."

"Where do you get your electricity," I asked.

"Same place we get our hot water for our showers, that's the best part, we have a huge gasoline generator that runs everything that's electric, lights too," Sarge said proudly.

"Sure sounds like a sweet setup," Gin said, overhearing our conversation as she followed.

The sergeant turned around to Gin and said. "Sweet indeed little lady, sweet indeed. It would be even sweeter if we didn't have to go out into the world and collect supplies and gas and, well you know, things like that. But we're getting pretty good at gathering up stuff."

He turned back to me and said. "While we're out there, we figure we might as well do our part to bring back the world from the brink, and kill as many of those things as we possibly can, so that's what we do.

Part of our mission when we came for you was to clear out that bunch that had you trapped. We'd been watching them assemble for a couple of days before you showed up. When you climbed onto that water tower, we figured that was a good excuse to mosey over and take care of them and deal with you at the same time, you know kill two birds with one stone so to speak."

We reached the front of the sergeants stronghold where they had parked a tour bus in front of the doors, leaving about three inches of space between the bus and the building, and having to back it up a few feet to the right to gain access to the building, and then move it forward to block the doors again.

"Jack, you and your family go get cleaned up, we'll get you some clean clothes and get those filthy rags you're wearing washed and rustle you up some grub. I bet it's been awhile since you people have had a chance to take a hot shower," Sarge said smiling.

"It's been forever," I answered, smiling back at him.

"Johnny will show you around, I've got some things to take care of, I'll join back up with you at dinner, ok?" Sarge said, as if asking my permission.

"Roger that, Sarge," I answered, as we followed Johnny down the hall.

We spent the next hour taking a tour of the facility; it was almost like Johnny was trying to sell us a membership to the Y.

After we had taken a long hot shower, we were each given a plush bathrobe with a monogrammed YMCA logo embroidered on the pocket, and what seemed to be pants from a one size fits all martial art gee left over from a karate school that had used the place for their classes.

Once we were clean, dressed, and alone, Gin asked me a question.

"How well do you know this man, are we safe here, I mean, from these people?"

"From these people, I don't know. From Sarge, let me put it this way. If it weren't for the Sarge, I wouldn't be here. He has saved my life as many times as I have saved his. I would trust my life to him anytime, as I have many times in the past, we fought together during the war. And it looks like we may fight together again during this new war," I explained, conveying my confidence in my tone.

"What about his people, he said that they're pissed about the water tower, I heard him," Billy asked, duly concerned.

"I heard that too," Jacob noted, as he admired his new bathrobe.

"He seems to be in control of the others, and there's probably nobody here that has had to do anything worse than we've had to do out there, so let's try and be nice and get along with everyone, but keep your eyes and ears open, and as usual stay on your toes. We'll decide later, whether or not we're going to stay here. Let's go find the Sarge and get something to eat, I'm starved," I answered calmly.

It wasn't long before we found Johnny, who led us to the cafeteria where Sarge and about thirty others were gathered for the evening meal.

"There you are, I'm glad to see you're still carrying at least some of your guns," the Sarge said, pointing to Jacob's carbine.

"It's a little hard to carry everything wearing these bathrobes, so we thought we would just bring our rifles," I answered, holding my AK-47 up for display.

The stocky ex-marine laughed and jested.

"Good choice Jack, we never want to bring a pistol to a rifle fight."

"Not unless we have to Sarge," I maintained. "My family has some rules, and one of them is, always have a gun within reach, so we always do, I mean unless your men take them away from us," I quipped smiling.

"Don't worry Jack, that will never happen again, ever," Sarge answered, as the smile ran away from his face. "We feel the same way, look around you, everyone has a gun whether you can see it or not. This place is as secure as it gets outside of Cheyenne Mountain anyway, we can't take the chance of one of them getting in, and us not be ready for them. All it would take is for someone to die of a heart attack during the night, and we could lose dozens before sunrise. So everyone carries a gun all of the time, just like you."

"Eaters are everywhere!" Jacob announced rather loudly trying to join the conversation.

"Where were you headed before we met up?" Sarge asked.

"Galveston," I answered.

"Galveston is overrun with the dead, we got several people who came from there, they say it's a lot worse there than it is here, it's bad here, and it's really bad there, you don't want to go there Jack," Sarge pleaded.

We continued to talk and discuss our options, when four women carrying trays approached our table.

"Here you go, we hope this well be to your satisfaction," one of the women said.

All four trays were each brimming with food, and in the middle of each tray was a large, one-inch thick porterhouse steak.

"Steaks! Holy crud, where in the world did you get steaks Sarge?" I asked, thinking of Frank and his membership store full of food.

"I thought you might like that, one of my men was a butcher back in the real world, and cows aren't infected, none of the animals are as far as we know, except for maybe dogs, and we're not eating dogs.

We have quite a group of diversified people here, but just like the Corps, everyone is a warrior first and a tradesman second," he insisted. "Dig in Jack, you too boys, it's much better hot. Anything else we can get
you
little lady?" Sarge asked Gin, waving to one of the women who had brought the steaks to us.

"Well there is one thing," Gin answered hesitantly.

"Dessert, I bet it's dessert, bring some dessert, and bring enough for me too please," Sarge shouted to the woman.

"I could use some more ammo, that is if you happen to have any you can spare, and some dessert wouldn't be bad either," Gin said nonchalantly answering Sarge's question.

"We
are
running short on ammo," Billy added.

"We have about every kind of ammunition there is, we raid gun stores every chance we get, I think we can spare a little. I see you probably need AK bullets, what other caliber do you need?" Sarge asked.

Jacob raised his carbine and said. "I could use some 9 millimeter if you've got any?"

"If I've got any, why we have more of that than anything else, you can have as much of that as you can carry," Sarge insisted.