American Revenant: Hometown Exodus (3 page)

                “Well shitfuck.”  Real fear bloomed in
Grinny’s eyes.  Sam’s voice chilled him right to his marrow.  “That was all
Reichart, we was just following Reichart man.  And he was the first one took a
bullet back there.  I know, I was wearing half his face.”

                “You can have your very own bullet you dirty
shit.  Now let’s walk back there and talk to your buddy.”

                Though Sam felt that his blood was boiling
with rage, it was all Jimmy could do to follow his lead.  He had witnessed
first-hand what this asshole and his friends had done to the Tanners.  He
wanted to reach out and choke the old bastard to death right there.  But that
also meant giving in to something within himself that he was terrified of.

                They stepped around the back corner of the
building, Sam with the rifle to the back of the old man’s head, Jimmy
momentarily lost to thoughts of rage.  It took them a moment to realize that
Mike was laying on the ground, a big thickly bearded man straddling him.  The
big guy was trying to punch through Mike’s arms, get at his face.  Mike, at six
feet three inches and weighing just over three hundred pounds was no small
man.  Using his size he slammed his back and hips up and down, attempting to
throw the guy off without letting him through the blockade of his forearms. 

                Sam shouted, “Get the hell off him, or I’ll
blow your damn head off!”

                The big guy ignored the shout, kept pounding
away at Mike.  Jimmy let his rage flow, using the fierce anger burning him up. 

“GRAAAAH!!!!”  He charged the
bearded beast beating his friend, tackling him from behind.  Jimmy didn’t let
go as both men went over, locking his arm around the thick neck.  Big Beard
tried to push up, get his legs beneath him, fight back against whatever crazy
demon had grabbed on to him.  Jimmy was unrelenting, tightening his grip, jerking
backwards and side to side.  The other man wasn’t giving up, slamming an elbow
over and over into his attackers’ ribs, but it seemed to make the demon squeeze
tighter, jerk harder. 

Jimmy gave a great heave backwards,
while using every ounce of strength left in his burning arms to twist and jerk
the thick neck to the right.  There was a sharp snapping noise, then
stillness.  The dead weight now in his arms leaned back on him.  He fell
backwards, trying to suck air in past the heavy bastard lying on his chest.

Mike pushed from the side, rolling
the guy off of Jimmy.  He reached a hand out, offering to help him up, but
Jimmy just lay there sucking air.  “Thanks.”  Jimmy just nodded.  Dark bruises
were already beginning to form on Mike’s thick forearms.

Mike noticed the old guy Sam was
holding at gun-point.  He looked as if he would never grin again.  His eyes
were wide open, staring in awe at what this crazy dude lying on the ground had
just done to a guy that was at least twice his size.

Sam broke the silence, “So what do
we do with this one?” 

Jimmy sat up, looking back and
forth between Mike and Sam.  “Shoot the son-of-a-bitch and let’s go home.”

“Hey now, you fellas don’t have to
do that.  Let me go, I swear you won’t never see ol’ Hendry T. Mason ever
again.”  The man was drooling from fear thinking these three crazy fuckers were
going to put a bullet in him and just walk away.

“Sam, Mike, you didn’t see the way
this guy was grinning sitting behind the wheel of that truck while our friends
died.  He was having a good time, enjoying himself.  End him here so he can’t
hurt anyone else.”

“I can’t just execute someone, Jimmy. 
Yeah, everything is shit now, but it’s not so far gone that I can be judge,
jury, and executioner.  Not even with human filth like this.”  Sam punctuated
the statement by shoving ol’ Hendry hard with the barrel of the rifle.

Hendry stumbled forward and fell to
his knees.  He stayed there blubbering, begging them not to shoot him. 

Jimmy stood up, hovering over the
kneeling man.  “Fuck you!”  He kicked Hendry hard in his ribs, knocking him
over next to his dead friend.  He spat, turned away, grabbed one of the two
bikes left lying in the grass behind the building and walked to the truck in
front of the building.

Mike and Sam stood looking at each
other for a moment, briefly taken aback by Jimmy’s outburst.  Then the quiet of
the day was shredded by a scream from the old man on the ground.  Both men
snapped their attention to the bodies there, and were shocked to see a
rubber-necked dead man chewing mightily on ol’ Hendry’s face.

Hendry was trying to push himself
away from the gnawing teeth, but they were latched into his cheek and pulling a
chunk out even as he screamed. 

Two loud pops, two dead bodies. 
Sam stood there gaping, smoke twisting up from the barrel of the AR-15.  “Damn,
I didn’t think these things went all zombie that fast.”  

Mike just grunted, and grabbed the
last bicycle. 

6

The second team of men stood
outside the school, ready to mount their bikes and begin pedaling towards the
river road when they saw four bicycles in the distance. 

“It’s them.”  Dean Fletcher
followed the team through a large pair of field glasses.

“We were just about to head out and
look for you guys,” Mike said in greeting as the first team dismounted their
bikes. 

“We thought you would be,” Rick
replied.  “Sorry guys, lost track of time, but we did find some good stuff.” 
He pointed at the heavy bags on the backs of the bikes.

“Let’s get everything inside.  Then
we can look over what you guys picked up.”  Jan Fletcher ushered everyone
indoors, pulling her husband Gordy aside until everyone passed.

“I’m glad you’re back, I was
worried.”  She gave him a quick kiss and followed the others in.

Everyone met up in the lunchroom
area, gathering around a couple of old folding tables that were pushed
together, acting as a banquet table.  Children hugged their fathers, wives
kissed their husbands and no one talked about how afraid they were that someone
they loved wouldn’t come home that day.

Adults seated themselves at the
table, while the children went to the far end of the room.  After the long and
stressful day of waiting they didn’t want to let their families out of sight. 
The adults tolerated this as long as the children kept the noise low so they
could talk easily.

“Ok guys, let’s hear it.”

Mike grinned at his wife.  “Ok,
babe.  We know that using Bear Creek to load up and get out isn’t going to
work.  The kind of boats we need just won’t come down the creek; if they do,
once fully loaded they won’t go back up.

“Loading and leaving from the slips
at the marina is going to be the easiest for such a large group.  If it was
just people we could hike everyone up to River Point and board some boats from
there.  But we have a ton of supplies and gear, stuff we can’t leave behind.”

“What’s the risk involved there?”
Jan asked.

Team Two had already decided to let
Sam handle the questions involving risk and the elimination of it.

“Well, we will have to use vehicles
to move everything.  That’s going to be noisy as hell no matter what we do. 
I’m thinking we go from here, cross the south-side bridge, down Main to
Broadway.  Once we take the right on Broadway it’s a straight shot to the boat
ramp, just a few hundred feet.  The slips are right there, with everyone
working to load all the water transport we have it shouldn’t take very long. 
The question is not how to stop all the Gut-Suckers.  Instead we need to ask
how to slow them down or draw them away.”

“I hate that term ‘Gut-Suckers’,
it’s just nasty”

“Sorry Tam, kinda become a habit
now,” Sam said, only half-apologetic.

“Ok, so do you guys have any ideas
on how to do the slowing or drawing away of the,” Gordy paused, “horde of
zombie un-dead?”  He smiled at Tam as he said it; she returned it with a sarcastic
grin.

“Well, we were thinking about
setting up a field of trip ropes.  Ropes strung just over ankle high, back and
forth across the most likely areas they would come through.  It won’t stop them
but it might slow them down enough for us to get loaded and off on our little
river vacation trip.”

“That sounds kind of silly to me,”
Lisa Phillips said, “like an awful lot of work for very little return.”

Sam bristled for a moment, ready to
challenge Lisa, when he realized that she was right.  It was silly to think
that setting up a trip-rope labyrinth would help them in any way.  “I’m not
sure what else we could do though.  Putting up a barrier of any type along that
area would be time consuming and the noise would draw every zombie for a mile. 
I really don’t see a feasible way to stop them while we load everything and
ship out to the river.  Unless the gut-suckers aren’t there when we pull up
then I can’t think of anything.”

Before anyone could offer an
opinion a voice spoke up from across the room.  “What about church bells?”

Trish Tanner blushed as all eyes
turned to look at her.  “I was kind of going with this guy for a bit and I
would sit and watch him play this zombie game all the time.  I know, real
romantic right?  Well this one part a bunch of people were using church bells
to draw zombies, “Walkers” were what they were called in the game, away from
one place to another.  So, yeah, church bells.”

Trish sat back down with the other
children, attempting to engage her little brother.  Everyone at the tables
realized that the children weren’t just staying quiet, they were listening in. 

“I thought most churches had
switched over to electronic bells, played over a loud-speaker,” Jimmy stated.

“I’m fairly certain that the First
Presbyterian Church on North 6
^th
street still has a bell,” Gordy
offered.  “I think it might work, even if just long enough to get us on the
river.  It’s worth trying, but someone will have to go ring it.”

“Dad, I can handle that.  We agree
on a time when you will leave here.  I’ll start ringing the bell like crazy at
the same time.  The downtown area and the riverfront should be completely clear
by the time you get there.  I will continue ringing the bell for about twenty
minutes.  You guys get the boats loaded and on the river.  I’ll wait a little
while then head to the marina; someone waits just offshore for me.  It should
be just that easy.” 

Before Gordy could say anything Jan
caught his eye and gave him a tiny nod. 

“Ok, Dean, sounds like it would
work to me.  After this is done I say we flesh it out a little more, make sure
everyone knows the plans of ingress and egress.  You also need to make sure you
are carrying at least a sidearm and a day-kit, just in case.”

Gordy glanced at his wife, and she
gave him another small nod.  As much as he hated the thought of sending his son
out there, he loved the boy who was not a boy.  They were all in this together,
and in all honesty, Dean was more suited to this mission than any of them.  A
third degree black-belt in Karate, a marathon runner, and an educator, Dean was
far more capable than most. 

“So,” Mike began, “do we have
seaworthy watercraft or are we all going to be doing the backstroke up and down
the Mississippi?”

Rick looked around at his team, as
if asking their blessing to be the spokesman.  When none of the others said
anything he cleared his throat.  “Well, everyone saw the loaded bags we came
back with.  We found a bunch of useful stuff.  Several bags of charcoal, oil
lanterns and oil, some canned foods, a Henry survival rifle, just a bunch of
various stuff that we didn’t want to leave behind.  What we don’t have is a
pontoon boat.”

Rick waited for a moment to let the
groans and complaints die off.

“We have three, as well as a couple
of jon-boats,” He said with a grin.

The family sat around the table for
several hours discussing the boats, and all the options they had available to
them.  A meal was prepared and enjoyed by all, followed by more discussion.  By
the end of the evening the group as a whole had decided on an overall plan for
getting on the river and away from town. 

Over the next couple of days, two
groups would work to get the boats down to the river using the two old pickups
they had including the one that Hendry and his partner had left behind.  Each
group would be a three person team.  Two people would handle the boat work,
while the third would act as lookout for potential threats.  

A third group would take out an old
box truck Jimmy had owned for years and try to salvage anything they could that
would be of value to overall group survival.  This group would also consist of
three people, two for the heavy lifting, one standing guard over the whole
process.

No one sat idle over these days. 
Anyone at the school packed up all the supplies they had as tightly as
possible.  Every square inch was used in every bag and box they had available. 
Nothing was to be left behind.  Cases of MRE’s and canned goods were stacked at
the doors. Bottled water, weapons and ammunition were boxed or bagged in
backpacks and duffle bags.  72-hour bags were put together for every member. 
These were to be carried at all times.  Every possession these people owned
ended up in a massive pile by the front doors, where they would move it to the
trucks. 

The three trucks would each be divided
between the three pontoon boats and two jon-boats.  Each boat would carry some
of every item, so that if something were to go wrong, not all of any one thing
would be lost. 

7

On the morning of what would be
their last day at the school Jack, Gordy and Jimmy were going out for one final
scavenge.  They had gathered as many supplies as they could safely get to, but
Gordy wanted one last run.

As they drove away from the school,
watching in their side mirrors for anything that may be following them Gordy said,
“Ok guys, here’s the deal.  I wanted this last run for one reason.  I want to
go check on Capp.  If anyone could survive this shit, either on sheer
cantankerousness or superior firepower it would be Harlan Capp.”