ZOMBIES: "Chronicles of the Dead": A Zombie Novel (6 page)

"Grab the siphon pump and bring it over here."

Jacob looked around the garage.

"I don't see it, where is it?"

"I think it's over there behind that tool box," I said, pointing to an old gray partially rusted toolbox in the corner.

Sliding the toolbox over and spotting the small plastic pump, Jacob announced, "I got it!"

Gin picked up the almost empty gas can we used to fill our lawnmower and asked. "Do you want this one too?"

"Yes, we're going to need all the gas we can take with us!" I answered.

"Well this one doesn't have very much gas in it!" she said,

"That's the next problem we’ll have to solve!" I said.

"How are we going to do that?" she asked.

"We're going to have to go outside and siphon some of the gasoline out of the van," I answered solemnly, thinking that taking a chance filling a gas can while standing around outside in the midst of a zombie outbreak might be more of a risk than we really wanted to take.

But, at the time I felt that we would probably need the fuel at some point down the
road
so to speak, and not having any other gasoline source, the van was the plan.

"Do we have anymore containers we can use?" Billy asked, as he looked intently around the garage.

"I don't think so, we have the two boat tanks and the mower can, and that's it," I answered.

"So we can take fifteen gallons of gas with us, right?" Billy asked sounding a slight bit frustrated.

"Right, unless we can find something else we can put gasoline into, real quick, and I don't see that happening.

But the good news is, since I had intended to take the boat out on the river this weekend, the two boat tanks are full, so all we have to do is fill up the one gas can and we're set."

Gin turned to me with a very worried look on her face.

"How long will that take? To siphon the gas I mean."

"Not long I hope; it depends on how much trouble the eaters give us," I replied confidently, unaware of how bad things were deteriorating outside of our house.

Then pulling my pistol from my waistband, I tapped the butt of the gun saying. "But first things first, we'll need more guns than just this Glock."

"I'll help you get them," Billy said quietly, sounding somewhat excited.

"Me too!" Jacob added, with the same excited tone.

"Let's all go back in the house and take another look around, maybe we can grab a couple of things that we missed the first time," I said, as I led the way into the house.

I gathered together all of my firearms, ammo, and the relevant equipment that I had.

We pulled the pillowcases off the bed and put the rifles, pistols, magazines, and ammo in them, and the remaining equipment such as holsters and slings were bundled into one of the bed sheets.

Each of us took as much as we could lift, and carried it to the garage.

You never really know how many guns you have, or how much they weigh, until you try to carry all of them at once, including their ammo, holsters, and assorted accessories.

Passing Gin in the hallway she looked perplexed and asked, "Do we really need all of that?"

Without any hesitation, I answered her question.

"Honey, when you absolutely need a gun, there is no substitute! Remember, when
seconds
count, the police are just
minutes
away. And I think in this case, it seems that the police are never coming."

Seemingly not totally convinced by my mini-lecture, Gin gave me what might be called a knowing look and said in a monotone voice.

"Okay."

The weight of our equipment made the trek back to the garage seem longer than it really was. Even after each of us stopped once or twice along the way to give our hands a quick rest, by the time we got to the garage our hands and arms ached, and we were unable to maintain our hold on the makeshift transporters any longer, and they began to slip from our grasp as we entered the garage.

"That was harder than I thought it would be," Jacob said, as he rubbed his hands together to get the blood circulating again.

"You think everything is harder than you thought it would be," Billy said, as he too rubbed his hands together.

We dumped the contents of the pillowcases and sheet onto the floor in a pile, and we wasted no time preparing to go outside and pump enough gas from our vehicle to fill the remaining gasoline container.

Peeking out the side and only window in the garage, Billy said. "I only see two on this side; they're just stumbling around out there."

"We don't know how many more might be on the other side of the garage door. There could be one, or none, or a whole lot more of them! So here's how we're going to do this," I said, with the sound of authority in my voice.

“We might run into more than just eater’s out there, so we’re going to dress the part, besides, we don't want to go out into a world full of eaters in street clothes, so grab those camouflage uniforms over there. Mine is the multi-cam, there’s some army digital that should fit Jacob. Billy you get older stuff, I think it’ll fit you.”

“I always get the old stuff,” Billy said jokingly, as he reached for the older garments.

It was good to hear Billy joking; I hoped it meant that he was getting past the grisly episode in our kitchen with the neighbors.

Smiling at him, I said. “Just start changing and I’ll tell you the plan."

As we changed our clothes, I shared the details off my plan with the boys. I call it my plan, but really I was just making it up as I went.

"Billy, when I say go, you open the garage door, do it as fast as you can, if there are any of them out there we want to catch them by surprise, not the other way around. From what we've seen so far, they haven't demonstrated any semblance of speed. So, I think they're probably not capable of moving very fast, but I don't know that for sure. If they’re close, they could be on us quick. Billy you carry the gas can, and I'll carry the siphon. While I'm sticking one end of the hose in the van's gas tank, you put the other end in the gas can, and I'll start pumping the fuel. Jacob you cover us with one of the rifles, I don't care which one, I would use either the AK-47 or the 9mm carbine if I were you. On second thought, use the carbine, it's better for close quarter’s battle, and that way we can save the AK ammunition for longer range targets."

Nodding his head, Jacob agreed and grabbed the pistol caliber carbine.

"Billy, you and I will use pistols, pistols will give us plenty of fire power and we can quickly holster them to free up our hands to do the siphoning," I said, as I pointed to the pile of guns and assorted equipment.

Billy rummaged through the mixed heap of firearms and equipment we had dumped on the garage floor.

"I'll take this one; do we have a holster for it?" he asked.

"That's the 92 right, here it is," Jacob answered, as he handed him the holster.

Reaching behind me, I pulled the Glock 19 I had used on Julie earlier from my belt.

"I'll need a holster for this too, it’s in that pile somewhere, Jacob see if you can find it."

Reaching into our equipment mound, Jacob pulled out two holsters, one in each hand, and held them up in front of me.

"I think it's one of these."

"It's this one!" I said, taking the one in his right hand.

We geared up, and took our positions by the garage door.

"Billy, look out the window again and see if anything has changed," I ordered.

Billy moved quickly to the garage window and peeked out.

"Still only two of them over here," he said as he made his way back to his assigned position at the garage door.

"Okay, everybody knows what to do, everybody ready?" I asked.

Both boys replied.

"Ready!"

"Okay, on three, one, two, three, open the door!" I shouted.

Billy tugged hard on the garage door handle, and the spring-loaded door clattered and squeaked as the somewhat rusty wheels road up along the metal tracks.

As the door opened, and revealed the driveway, our worst possible nightmare had come true, we immediately found ourselves exposed.

At least fifteen zombies were in the driveway and surrounding area, two of which were within arm’s reach of Jacob. The shrill squeak from the wheels had attracted the zombie's attention, and in the split second that it took to open the garage door, the closest zombies were already on the attack.

It all happened so fast that Jacob didn't have enough time to raise his rifle to his shoulder. Holding his gun at his waist, he raised the barrel of the carbine slightly, and began to fire the semi automatic gun as fast as he could.

As Jacob fired the nine-millimeter carbine repeatedly, the muzzle rise lifted the gun up, and before his target's hands could grab him, Jacob’s bullets were smashing into the zombie's face.

"Close the door!" I screamed.

Billy had lifted the door with so much force, that when it had reached its pinnacle, it bounced back and was already on its way back down. Jacob had already turned his gun on the second zombie, which had now turned and taken one staggering step in his direction. He again began to rapidly fire his weapon.

Two more shots rang out, the first one hitting the zombie in the neck and the second one boring its way through the garage door that was quickly on its way down.

Lowering his rifle, Jacob said. "I think I got both of them, but that second shot, I don't know."

With my heart pounding, I said. "Billy, make sure that door is locked, we don't know what those thing are capable of."

"Got it," Billy said, as he jiggled the latch. "They’re all over the place," he said, as he once more tested the door lock.

Little did we know it at the time, just how much of an understatement that was.

While Jacob had been dispatching the two zombies, his gunfire had drawn the attention of other zombies in the neighborhood, and they too were now descending upon our home.

"Holy shit," I shouted. "That wasn't good; Jacob you almost got bit, we all almost got bit! That was stupid!" I said, disgusted with myself.

"I've always told you boys, laziness will cause you pain. We were so intent on grabbing our guns, and planning how to get the gas out of the van, that we overlooked the obvious," I said sternly, scolding myself more than anyone else, and thinking "
so much for making it up as I go."

"We should have taken the time to gather more intelligence; we should have looked out the front window. From now on we've got to be much more careful; we've got to think things through a little more." Only this time thinking, "
we, meaning me
!"

With that said, we began to formulate a new plan.

"We're going to forget about filling that third gas can, we'll take it with us, but from the looks of things, we're going to have enough problems just getting the boat out," I said, my heart still racing from the shock of the near fatal encounter we had just experienced.

“Jacob, go see what your mother is doing, we need everybody out here."

“Okay dad, I'll tell her,” Jacob said, as he hurried back into the house.

“Billy, crank up the trailer hitch about a foot, once the garage door is opened again, we don't want to be out in the open any longer than we have to be," I said. “And check the tire pressure on the trailer; we can't afford to have a flat tire on the way to the river. I'm going to oil those squeaky wheels on the door, no point in announcing we're coming out.”

Billy was eighteen when this all started, a typical teenage boy, cars, girls, and texting was his main concern, but fishing was still high on his list of things to do. Therefore, I tasked him with gathering up all of the fishing equipment that we might need on our journey.

"And put your fishing stuff in the boat, we don't want to forget that," I said,
knowing that he would make sure that we had all the fishing gear we would need to help us survive in this new apocalyptic world.

"I'm going in and see what’s taking your mother so long; she’s probably packing way too much stuff,” I said, as I glanced into the boat, and quickly realized how little room for supplies there was.

“What’s going on in here Gin?” I asked, trying to sound confident that everything was going to be fine.

“We're packing things, like you said to,” she answered, speaking with a hint of sarcasm.

"I said grab a few things we might have missed, not pack the whole house!"

Looking at me sheepishly, she said, "I know, but everywhere I look, I see something we missed."

“All right," I said. "But some of that stuff we don't need and don't have room for, like all those pillows."

"We're going to need pillows! How are we supposed to sleep without pillows?"

"Okay, we'll take as much as we can, but remember, the boat is only fifteen feet long. I guess we can always throw something overboard if we need more room,” I murmured as I turned away.