Zournal (Book 2): Cruising The 'Poc Read online

  Reeves was moving around gently nudging everyone awake. I slowly stood up, stretching as I did so. My neck was killing me. I had slept in a weird position partly because we were all using freakin trees for pillows and partly because I hadn’t wanted Ann to roll away from me if I shifted around. Drool or no drool it was definitely nice having her curled into me. I reached down and helped Ann up then walked over and squatted down beside Thomas.

  “How’s the arm doing?”

  Thomas looked at me blearily, wiping the sleep from his eyes with his good arm, “Honestly, it doesn’t feel so great, kind of a constant dull pain. Zombie outbreaks are not conducive for getting lots of rest and keeping the arm immobile a lot. I’ll live though, which is more than most people can say so I’m ok with it. Just wish I could Google how long the cast should stay on and junk like that. My freakin arm itches so bad it’s unbelievable.”

  I helped him up and him and Ann started making sure they had all their stuff gathered into a pile and began digging through bags and pockets trying to find us some breakfast. I saw Oreos and snack sized bags of Cheezits going into a pile so that was interesting. I guess when you’re running for your life most of the day, every day, you don’t need to stress to much about the carbs. Or the Gluten, or the trans-fats or if the Oreos had been locally sourced or not. Amazing how much stuff turned out not to really matter at all.

  Continuing on my rounds to check on everybody I squatted down next where Chrissie was slowly working her way to a wakeful state. I handed her one of the last raisin crème pies I had in my pockets and asked her how she was doing.

  “Peachy, with a side of cream. Honestly, between the gourmet food and the really neat outdoor activities I feel almost like I’m on vacation. If it wasn’t for the whole most of the world being diseased crazy freaks constantly trying to chase us down and eat us I might even be having fun. On the plus side, I think I’m losing weight, even though we’re all eating crap.”

  Alright then, I gave her a quick hand-up as well and told her to start gathering her stuff together. It was nice to see her starting to come out of her shell. She’d seen her family killed in front of her, been held hostage in a small room by a bunch of convicts using her and her sister however they wanted, forced to stare at her mom’s body rotting away directly outside the room they were trapped in, and had to deal with the rash of the rest of the bullshit in this new world the same as us. It really was a miracle any of us were staying sane.

  Speaking of people whose sanity I was concerned about. I walked over to see where Reeves was at with being ready to roll out of here.

  “Hey Reeves, you have an idea on where we need to head?”

  Reeves looked at me like a teacher looking at a not so bright student who just asked how to do something for the fifth time, “North. I-4 hits I-95 somewhere North of us. Once we hit I-4 coming from this direction we turn right and that will take us towards the overpass for the interchange with I-95. We need to hurry and get there to meet up with Ginny. I’m ready to head out once everyone is up and ready.”

  I didn’t bother asking him how he knew which way north was. Sun rises in the East and sets in the West and moss grows on the North side of trees or some crap guys are supposed to know and I have no clue about. GPS devices have done a lot to emasculate an entire generation of men. I wasn’t about to admit to Reeves that all the woods around us looked the same to me and if left to my own devices I’d probably just wander in a circle until I ran out of Oreos and died.

  Everyone assembled around Reeves and I with backpacks on and weapons in hands. I had just gotten the straps of my pack settled so that they lay in the furrows that had been dug into my shoulders. I had changed into a pair of shorts that were too tight and some new underwear I had in my pack. I had to throw out the clothes I had been wearing when Reeves and Ann opened up that last Zombies head on top of my ass. I’d thrown the clothes away and rubbed sanitizer gel all over my posterior before pulling on the new wardrobe. I had done it as fast as I could to try and avoid having someone see me as it looked extremely gay. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I never would have heard the end of it.

  Anyway, Reeves gave my legs another look in my shorty tight shorts and shook his head. Ann whistled. I blushed, end of the world and we can’t manage to come across any stylish clothes stores to loot. I was mostly still cycling through the stuff we had taken from the warehouse store in our mad dash to escape the frenzied horde there. Next mall we passed I made a mental note to Abercrombie and Fitch myself up. For now, though, I was mostly trying to avoid thinking of what we would do if we found the overpass on I-4 and Ginny wasn’t there.

  We set out. Reeves confidently started walking and we all fell in behind him. About a minute later, without saying a word, he did a 180 degree turn and started walking that way instead. I’m guessing he saw some moss on a different side of the tree or the North Star was out of alignment or whatever. We should have probably looked for a compass at that ammo store we had looted.

  I was really starting to think Reeves had lead us the wrong way when we all caught up with him standing at the edge of the brush line beside what was obviously I-4, based on the big I-4 sign we could all see. The highway itself looked pretty clear of cars. There was just two or three sitting randomly on the side of the road and no Zombies that we could see from our current vantage point.

  Just because we could not see any Zombies did not mean there were none. We had all seen where making noise by firing a gun or starting a car would capture every Zombies attention within earshot. They would then head towards the sound with a relentless single-minded focus. It was still daylight, whatever Zombies were about, would be shuffling around doing Zombie stuff as long as they did not see us.

  I had been staring at the cars lining the side of the road and saw on the other side of the median where a large Escalade was stopped right behind a beat up looking Elantra. It looked like the Escalade had run into the Elantra when it was trying to pull to the side and park. I still found myself playing the game of trying to figure out all the weird scenarios we ran across. For instance, while we were sitting in the tree the other day two of the Zombies that walked by were wearing nothing but ponchos and their entire bodies were coated in green paint. Trying to figure out shit like that will drive you batty.

  I pointed out the Escalade to Reeves and the group. We would be riding to pick up Ginny in style. We gave the sun another thirty minutes to finish dipping into the horizon then Reeves and I jogged across the road to the Escalade. We walked slowly around it but could not see anything through the tinted windows. Reeves put his hand on the front passenger door handle and looked over at me. I nodded at him and held my sword up as well as pointing the flashlight from my phone at him. I had my phone, basically now my Zournal / Camera / Flashlight, wrapped in the red cellophane that we hoped would keep the light from being seen far away.

  Reeves opened the door. He jumped backwards and fell on his ass as an arm and head came out of the passenger seat and attempted to get at him. I ran forward and hit the Zombie hard in the arm and then swung again at the emaciated Zombies head. I couldn’t get a really good swing from the angle I was at but a few repetitions served to send that Zombies soul towards the light. Another Zombie was trying to get at me from the driver’s seat and there were arms hitting the back of the passenger and driver’s seats and lots of screaming. I shined the light around quickly to confirm my suspicions, stepped back, and slammed the door on the dead woman’s body. It seemed a whole family had pulled over and woke up as Zombies with seat belts on and were doomed to spend eternity in a nicely upgraded Escalade.

  How long could these things last without food and water? The one I had beaten to death had been pretty lively for someone sitting in a car for a few months with no food or water. I didn’t have a lot of time to consider that though as we heard echoing screams and moans from the forest and drifting down from further up the road as well. I clicked the Walkie twice to let everyone know to go ahead an
d join us up here by the Escalade.

  “Reeves, can you go around and knock out the driver and I’ll hit the two in the backseat.” I saw Reeves head towards the other side and I took a step back, opened the back door, beat on the head of a small Zombie that I refused to look at too closely until it had stopped moving. I closed that door and went around to the other side. I saw Reeves was waiting on me and watching the others coming across the road to join us.

  “Once I’ve taken care of this last one can you pull out the driver and get in and see if you can get this thing started?” I asked Reeves. Bracing myself for my next task I slowly opened the back-driver’s side door. There was a baby around probably ten months or so in a car seat. This one was just lying there so I assumed it may already be dead. I poked it with my sword and verified that this one had not been able to survive sitting in the car for that long. I pulled out my Kabar, sawed through the seat belt quickly and tried pulling the baby seat out. It was locked into the seat somehow. In front of me, I saw the drivers body tumble to the ground and felt the car shift as Reeves climbed in to try starting it.

  A couple of seconds later Reeves looked back at me, “No go boss. They left the car turned on so it’s been out of gas for a while now.”

  The screams and yells were getting much closer. We did not have a lot of time to try and figure this out. We basically needed to get a car to start or haul ass for the cover of the woods. I really did not want to spend another night in the woods. I hopped down to the ground where Ann was staring at me expectantly.

  “This one wouldn’t start. I’m going to try the Hyundai this Escalade ran into but if it doesn’t start we need to just get back to the woods and we can walk for a while.” I ran over to the Hyundai. Looking through the windows I saw a bunch of trash and crap but no Zombies. I tried the door handle and it opened easily. I had a quick moment of panic as I did not see the keys in the ignition but I found them in the pile of Dunkin Donut wrappers on the passenger seat. No wonder this guy had a Hyundai, he must spend a few hundred a month at the donut place. I couldn’t really argue with his priorities.

  I grabbed the keys and stuck the car looking one into the ignition. It wouldn’t turn. I maneuvered my body to sit down and press the brake and jiggle the steering wheel around a little bit then I tried the key again. Yep. That fixed it, the key turned easily and the car roared to life, well, it being an Elantra more like the sound a weed whacker makes but whatever. The passenger door opened and Reeves climbed in. The back doors opened and Ann, Chrissie, and Thomas poured themselves into the back of the car. We were all sitting funny since we had not bothered to take off our packs and such. We had all thought there was a good chance we’d be running for our lives versus driving away from here and seconds may count. The back doors wouldn’t close.

  I started driving with the stupid door open binging noise going off every five seconds. I was trying not to drive too fast since no one could get the back doors to close. I assumed they wouldn’t close because of the love tap the Escalade had applied to the rear of the car before it came to rest. That wasn’t stopping Ann from repetitively trying to get the door to shut all the way. She was making a lot of noise between the metal squeaking and banging as she yanked on it and her cussing.

  “Hey Ann – “, I started to tell her to lay off the door but she gave me an STFU look so I just went back to driving. I used the standard approach we had developed of slowing down when the Zombies got close and letting them get on the side of the car then speeding away. That approach had served us well so far. This was the first time we’d been driving a tiny clown car with back doors that wouldn’t close all the way though. Ann had realized this almost immediately which is why she had been working so hard on getting her door to shut.

  The first Zombie I rolled past reached out and grabbed Ann’s door and started playing tug of war with her. She wasn’t having it so she pushed the door away from her as hard as she could, causing the Zombie, a young woman with the requisite bulging veins and nasty attitude, to lose her grip and have most of the skin on her arm get ripped off down to the bone as she stubbornly hung on and tried to get at Ann. The Zombie managed to get one of her legs into the car and started slipping under the door and looked like it may actually be getting in the car so Ann slammed the door shut on it a few times.

  The Zombies leg snapped and a bone was sticking out of it and the damn thing kept trying to get in until I aimed at a metal guard post thing and knocked her off. I hit the guard post so hard that the door smashed into the side of the car and Ann was left with a Zombie leg, leaking blood all over the place, sitting in her and Thomas’s’ lap. The door was now wedged shut somehow though so at least that part was good. Except for the detached Zombie leg and the blood and all the screaming and cussing and death threats against me coming from the backseat.

  I chose to take the high ground and ignore all that noise. I continued driving east on I-4 which equated to heading North East. The screams of the original Zombies chasing us faded into the distance. As we drove though we heard more Zombies wake up and yell out their frustrations. We had only gone a couple of miles when we hit the traffic jam from hell. Cars were lined up in both lanes and in the median.

  We could see about a mile up ahead where the overpass was. We were hoping that is where Ginny was. By the sounds of everything the Zombies were starting to approach our car. I looked over at Reeves, and for the millionth time, he hit the Walkie Talkie button twice to send a signal to Ginny that we were nearby. We all waited for it but did not hear a response. Time was growing short for us to hang out in this area so I went ahead and hit the lights on the car and flashed them for about a minute between regular and low beams.

  We had no way of knowing if Ginny got that signal or if she wasn’t even at the overpass yet. I went ahead and flashed the beams a few more times. Which really got the natives stirred up. I hit reverse and we moved backwards quickly, hitting a Zombie hard enough for his head to spider web the back window of the Hyundai. I had not seen him approaching the car. If I wasn’t more careful we were going to end up as Zombie food. It would be great if we could just stop and duck down and let the Zombies wonder by but in this car, we were pretty plainly visible and a bunch of them seemed to be headed our way now. At least we were down to just the one door that wouldn’t shut.

  Reeves had his hand on the door handle, “Go about 10 miles down the road, park this car in the middle of the East bound lane so I can find it, get in the woods to wait and give me two days to find you. Hopefully, I’ll see you a lot sooner than that.” With that said, Reeves jerked open the door to the car, awkwardly pulled himself out, grabbed his gear, slammed the door shut and took off for the woods, swinging his bat at a Zombies head as he ran. A few of the Zombies followed him, the majority of them were still coming for us.

  I put the car in drive and spun us in a tight circle as quickly as I dared. Then I headed up the road at about twenty miles per hour. Modifying our standard approach to try and put the Zombies on Ann’s side of the car since that door was pretty much never opening again. I looked down at the odometer and added ten to it and tried not to worry that now two of our team were missing and on their own.

  Entry 8: Sardines

  After driving for a couple of miles we entered a long stretch of nothingness that is I-4 between Daytona and Deland. It did not take too long for the howls of the Zombies to recede in the distance. That was little comfort as we knew they would just keep coming. Another thing we had all learned the hard way was that movement kept you alive in this new reality. Staying in one place for too long would eventually attract the Zombies. We had seen this over and over again in our travels so far.

  Once my mental math had us at about nine miles from where we had left Reeves I started looking for a place for us to pull over. Looking at the sides of the road it looked like we were in some marshland or something so that was going to be super fun to hang out in for a day or two. I drove a little past the ten-mile mark and saw something up ahead on
the side of the road that looked interesting. Speeding up a little bit to get closer it gradually resolved itself into an overturned U-Haul truck laying on its side down by the woods where it had skidded.

  “You’re past ten miles.” Thomas was quick to let me know he thought I wasn’t great at math.

  “You need to turn around and go back a mile.” Ann jumped right on the assume Steve can’t add ten to a number bandwagon.

  Before Chrissie could chime in about telling me if it was only ten I could just use my fingers to figure it out I said, “I was just coming up to see what this thing was. I’m thinking it may give us some better options than sitting around in the swamp back there with nothing. I’m going to drive by it slow so we can look and see if anything looks dangerous then we can park the car back at the ten-mile mark, leave a sign on it saying to keep going and we can come back here and grab stuff to make the stay more comfortable hopefully.