Zournal (Book 5): Feeling Lucky? Page 3

  Finally, Ginny came running down the hall and slid to a stop in front of us. She looked at Ann with concern and then told us we needed to try and hold the Zombies here as long as we could because the rest of the upstairs was basically a death trap. Cheap bedroom doors and windows that opened up to a two story drop to the ground below. The ground below was covered in Zombies trying to get into the house.

  “There is one room that is over the patio that we could get onto the patio roof and jump down from but there’s a ton of Zombies all around it and I think they’d see us get on the patio roof. We could probably get in the attic too. There’s a rope hanging down in the hallway that would get us up there.” Ginny looked at me to see what I would decide. A homicidal looking Daisy had wandered over to us as well. Every one of her exhales were currently being done with a low mean sounding growl. She was like a vicious wolf with a bad perm. Channeling her inner Cujo. Good, we were going to need everybody to Cujo up to make it out of this mess.

  Ginny was giving us the scenarios we’d already done a few times. We’d escaped houses through the attic, through jumping out windows and jumping off patio roofs. That damn smoke of Reeves was making my eyes water like crazy and tickling the back of my throat. Ginny was still staring at me waiting for an order. It looked like Ann was thinking of kicking back and taking a nap. Reeves had gone from using the hammer to a firing stance where he was shooting a round every couple of seconds into the mob trying to get up the stairs.

  I went over to where Reeves was. I had my nine-mill pulled out to assist if needed. I was hoping it would not be needed as my gun was much louder than the backup .22 caliber pistol Reeves had pulled out of somewhere. I wasn’t sure if it mattered any more but I still felt like we should try and keep the noise down as much as we could. Looking down the stairs I saw why we had not been swamped yet. Every bullet Reeves sent down range was stacking the pile of dead bodies blocking the stairs even higher. Maybe we could pull off a Spartan firing range kind of thing here. More likely, we’d kill them until we ran out of bullets then have to beat our way through twice as many of them with a couple of hammers. Spartans weren’t really into long term strategy.

  We needed to exfiltrate the hell out of this house.

  “Ginny. How many outside the porch roof? Think we could go through there and get out and to the Hummer without getting caught?”

  Ginny didn’t even hesitate. “I think it’s probably worth a shot. With the Koreans looking for us I don’t think we have time to try and wait the Zombies out and escape through the roof. Let’s do it while we still have bullets left though because we’re going to have to commit mass murder to make it to the car.”

  Sounded like a plan to me. A half ass, probably not going to work, be embarrassed to tell anyone it was a plan, kind of plan but still better than standing at the top of the stairs until we got eaten. I told Reeves what was up and told him to give us thirty seconds and then follow us to the second room on the left and be ready to jump out a window and commit some serious carnage. Ann was back to a wakeful state which was promising. I didn’t really fancy jumping off a porch roof with her in a fireman’s carry. I was clumsy enough without trying to not kill her accidentally when I jumped. She could just throw her own half-comatose-self off the roof and we’d all have to just hope for the best.

  I grabbed her hand and the three of us ran towards the room. Daisy running around and jumping up on us in excitement. I’d forgotten about the dog. Guess I would be jumping with someone in a fireman’s carry after all. The things I do.

  We got in the room and the window overlooking the porch was stuck. I kicked the crap out of the frame a few times and it still wouldn’t come up. Ann pushed me to the side and gently moved the lock thing on top of the window to the other position. The other position evidently being the open position. She smirked at me as the window smoothly slid up. Whatever. I decided she could jump with the dog.

  Reeves came busting in the room. He turned around and slammed the door behind him and locked it.

  “They’re coming!” He whisper-yelled at us.

  We all started going through the window to stand on the peaked patio roof outside. We could see the structure the Hummer was in from here but it was going to be a solid sprint while shooting to make it there alive. We were going to have to shoot our way through a solid mass of them and it looked like more were pouring in every second. We needed to move quick or we weren’t going to need to worry about the Koreans because the Zombies were going to have us.

  Speaking of the Zombies. The door to the bedroom we’d just climbed out of gave up the fight and broke open from the pummeling of the Zombies on the other side of it. They all instantly started running towards us. Ginny ran over to the open window, kneeled and started pulling the trigger on her AK-47. She turned to us and yelled to hurry up and jump.

  I was torn between wanting to get her out of there and knowing that we needed her watching our back. There were hedges below. It was a solid ten-foot drop. With Zombies starting to line up below and stare up at us. Reeves was reloading. Ann looked a bit dizzy so I didn’t really want her covering me with a large rifle. I gave Reeves a couple of seconds.

  “Yo Reeves, cover me then send Ann down then you and Ginny get down here.” I didn’t wait to see if he had heard me over the screams of the Zombies and the rapid fire coming from Ginny. I turned around and jumped before I could lose my nerve. I aimed for the hedge row hoping it would soften the landing. Which it did.

  The hedges I slammed into had the benefit of cushioning my landing. They had the disadvantage of getting me stuck in them. I was trying to work my legs out of them and bring my pistol around to start firing. Reeves must have heard me because the Zombies around me started dropping as the tops of their heads exploded.

  Entry 5: Running the Gauntlet

  I stood there trying to get my legs out of the big bush I had cannonballed into while the Zombies in front of me continued to suffer from spontaneous cranial eruption. I heard a noise from above and looked up to see Ann dangling from the roof. She let go and I caught her as she fell towards the ground. I looked back up just in time to see a giant ass dog plummeting towards my face.

  I glanced back up from lying flat on my back and noticed that Ann checked on Daisy before me. Women. Really? Daisy was growling and facing the rapidly closing semi-circle of Zombies moving towards us. Reeves plopped down in the bushes behind me and I turned and saw him catching Ginny as she jumped off the roof. Ginny bounced back on her feet quickly and yelled we needed to get moving now. She took a step forward, slammed a fresh clip into her AK-47, and a Zombie fell off the roof onto her head.

  I spun on my heel and rushed to help her. Reeves was reloading while Ann provided cover fire. We were so tightly surrounded all she had to do was point the gun in the general direction of the Zombies and pull the trigger to ensure a hit. Keep shooting until you ran out of ammo, reload, repeat. The Zombie who had jumped on Ginny had come down head first and was laying on the ground paralyzed gnashing its teeth. I helped her to her feet and she yanked me forward yelling for all of us to get moving.

  The situation on the ground looked way more desperate than it had from the peaked roof of the porch. It’s easy to say if you have a clip with twenty bullets then that should be good for twenty Zombie kills. In reality, you’re lucky if twenty ends up leading to five incapacitated Zombies in these close quarters. If a shot didn’t kill them they just kept coming at you no matter how messed up they may be. I saw one still coming at me after someone had blown its eyeball out of its sockets.

  I had my nine and a couple smaller pistols strapped to me. I hadn’t grabbed my M-16 when I got out of the Hummer as I had been trying to help Ann and had forgotten to snag it. Ann had a semi-automatic hunting rifle she was using. It had a way smaller clip than the AK-47 Ginny was using but was still better than the hammers and machetes we were going to be reduced to pretty shortly. I used one of my last remaining bullets to take out a Zombie Daisy was holding in place.
The Zombies seemed to ignore Daisy while we were around but based on the lack of dogs and cats in general I assumed that they made great Zombie food in a pinch. Back at the beginning of all this mess, the first Zombie I had seen up close had been a beautiful mostly-naked blue veined woman lying in a bathtub next to a half-eaten cat so that lent some more credence to that argument.

  We pressed on towards the Hummer in the RV shed, keeping up a steady stream of lead going out from us in a 360-degree arc of coverage. We were surrounded. We were being overwhelmed. I dropped my pistol in my pocket and tugged out my knife and a machete. It was turning into a slaughterhouse.

  A helicopter flew low overhead. They started shooting into the Zombies and opening up a path for us. The problem was they didn’t stop shooting when they got to us. The Koreans had found us.

  Without needing to coordinate we all started running through the gap the machine gun fire had opened up for us. We heard noises overhead as the Helicopter spun around for another pass at us. We were probably going to all die but we kept running just in case. I saw Zombies falling up ahead as Reeves or Ginny or Ann put them down. Daisy was bouncing along like a giant bunny rabbit with her mouth covered in blood and other crap I didn’t probably want to know too much about. She looked like she was having a blast. I put my head down and pumped my legs and arms. I figured since I had no ammo I needed to close with the Zombies up ahead to make a difference.

  Bullets started flying past us as the helicopter overhead settled in and the gunner started taking pot shots at us. He must not know how to reload the machine gun or they had limited ammo or something. Either way, the guy was a suck ass shot. He must have been trained by those storm troopers in episode IV who take those shots at Han and them as they’re leaving. Either that or Cobra Commander had taught them how to suck at shooting. I ran and buried my machete in the neck of a little girl Zombie. I refused to let myself look at her too closely knowing I’d just see her face over and over in my nightmares.

  Blood was spurting everywhere and the machete was stuck so I left it and fumbled around for my hatchet while looking to see how everyone else was doing. They all looked like how I felt. Ann was using her rifle to beat a Zombie to death. So much for the six-hundred-dollar hunting scope it had strapped to the top of it. That thing was done. Everyone was still alive so as far as I was concerned we were winning. I turned back towards the shed and started running again. Expecting to be shot in the back at any second is pretty motivating as far as wind sprints go.

  I bashed the hatchets dull end into two Zombies heads as I was running. They both went down so I kept on moving. The gunfire had died down behind me as everyone must be reaching the end of their ammo or at least their ability to swap out clips and keep running. As I ran under the edge of the roof of the RV shed we had the Hummer under I glanced behind me. I saw the helicopter was drifting closer as the gunner continued taking pot shots. Reeves stopped, spun around and sent three shots in the direction of the gunner. The helicopter jerked backwards and flew away when the gunner dropped his rifle out the open side of the helicopter and started clutching at his shoulder.

  Inside the shed, a few Zombies were wandering around already and there were a ton descending down on us from outside. This fight was a long way from over. I ran towards the Hummer and ripped the door open so I could get to the M-16 I had left laying across the seat. I pulled it out and flipped the switch to put the weapon in semi mode and started popping off shots at the Zombies getting close to us. Reeves jumped in and started working his way into the turret. Ann jumped in the backseat with Daisy. Ginny ended up in the driver’s seat as I jumped into the passenger seat and slammed the door shut.

  Ginny got the Hummer started and moving backwards fast. We hit the support beam for the shed with the back of the Hummer hard enough to bounce all our heads off the backs of our seats. I heard Reeves cussing like crazy above us as he got whiplashed all over the place up in the super uncomfortable turret. Ginny turned the wheel hard and put it in drive and took us out of the shed. Reeves put a couple of rounds in the air at the helicopter to get them to keep their distance and then focused on making sure the Zombies that got in our way got put down before they could bunch up and slow down the Hummer.

  Ginny looked at me and I pointed out towards the desert. I figured the helicopter had ground forces on the way and was letting them know where we were located at. We needed to run into the desert until the helicopter ran low on fuel and had to return to base. Hopefully, without being replaced by another helicopter. We had plenty of diesel and supplies to drive for a few hours.

  We drove towards the desolation of where the desert meets the unforgiving mountains with the enemy helicopter stalking us from above. I put my head back in the seat and closed my eyes and allowed myself to just breathe for a few minutes. The adrenaline was fading and I was surprised to see a big bloody groove on my leg where I had evidently taken a bullet at some point in our run. It didn’t look like it was going to kill me immediately so I closed my eyes again and just gave thanks that we had somehow survived the latest meat grinder.

  Entry 6: Tracked from Above

  The helicopter followed behind us like a balloon behind a toddler. Bobbing around erratically but staying at about the same distance as if we did have an imaginary string tied around it. We all wanted the damn string to break and the helicopter to go sailing off over the horizon. It didn’t seem to be happening though so we focused on trying to figure out where the hell we were.

  We were driving down roads that probably hadn’t been real awesome before the end of the world. Without regular maintenance, the roads were barely recognizable as roads for long stretches. A couple of times we thought we had managed to get off the road and were just randomly driving through the countryside until a street sign would pop up letting us know we were still on course. Not that we had a course set or any real idea on where we were trying to get to at this point. My main goals seemed to be pretty focused on the tactical situations these days. It seemed pointless to try and put too much effort into planning for something a week away when it required all of our energy and ingenuity just to make it through the next hour.

  It was like we were a bunch of alcoholics stumbling through life focusing on staying sober for one hour at a time. We’d managed to make it almost two years at this point. That was a pretty good run and I hoped it said a lot for our ability to keep on surviving and bringing the pain. The alcoholic analogy probably wasn’t the best to use since I’m pretty sure at least one of our party had started leaning on the alcohol crutch pretty hard to get through life. Reeves had gone from random intoxication to maintaining a pretty constant buzz. I’m sure it took out some of his fighting and thinking abilities but it made up for that by keeping him sane.

  Based on the compass in the dash of the Hummer we were headed west most of the time with some turns to the north. That is about where we wanted to be going anyway so at least that was good. I was hoping we were getting lost in the desert enough where the helicopter would not be able to call in forces to meet us without making them go through so much trouble that apprehending one rogue Hummer wouldn’t seem worth the effort. Even as I was thinking this I watched in the side mirror as our escort peeled off and flew away. Reeves dropped down from his position up in the turret.

  “I’m frozen and covered in road dirt. Glad that annoying whirly bird has flown south for the winter. We’re down to around just a few hundred rounds for the mama deuce. After that it’s assault rifles until we run out of ammo followed by the buckets of .22 rounds we have and then we can throw rocks and cactus or try and figure out a way to weaponized this dogs breath. If we’re still planning on driving into the Korean front with guns blazing we may want to stop somewhere and stock up first. Right now, we’d blaze for about twenty seconds.” His announcements finished, Reeves reached into his bag and pulled out a suspicious looking water bottle then disappeared back up into the turret.

  I saw a sign coming up that said we were on Comanche trail. I
didn’t know if it was a good thing or not that all the roads around here seemed to be Indian tribal names. Comanche turned into Cherokee and we kept right on cruising. Ginny signaled we were running low on diesel. I told her to go ahead and pull over so we could top off the tanks and figure out our plan.

  Ginny pulled over to the side of the road and we all got out of the Hummer. Breath visible as mist in the cold evening air. Daisy jumped out and started sniffing around for a place to take care of business. Ann looked a good bit healthier than she had been when we pulled over at the last stop to rest up. Some rest stop that had turned out to be. I asked her how she was feeling.

  “Pretty good. As long as I don’t stand up too fast or sit down too much or try to lay down. Also, breathing hurts ever since Reeves dropped me off the roof on top of you and you jammed your shoulder into my ribs. So pretty much peachy with a side of cream. How about you?” The big smile on her face let me know she was kind of kidding. We were all fairly used to working and fighting while injured at this point. The only real excuse in this brave new world was death.

  Daisy plodded over and I rubbed her on the head. That wasn’t good enough for her and she jumped up on me placing both big paws on my chest and attacking me with her big ass slobbery tongue. I fought her off while Reeves untied one of the diesel containers and started filling up the tank. Ginny got out and Daisy went to attack her instead of me. I ignored Ginny trying to escape from the large furry love monster and looked over the hummer to see how many of the Diesel containers we had left.