Don't Dare Call Them Zombies : Books 1-4 (22 page)

All of a sudden the opening riffs of “Sharp Dressed Man” blasted out of the speakers behind our seats, drowning out all other sounds. My bones were literally rattling from the sound as I noticed we had gotten the attention of the freaks. There were now dozens of them coming towards us from all directions.

Trying to ignore the pain in my ears, I drove the vehicle onto the driveway of the church. A couple of the freaks were only a few dozen feet away; they were getting too close for comfort. I put the vehicle in reverse and started to slowly back up towards the main road. Swinging the vehicle around, I dodged one of the petrified creatures and then another.

Through the rear view mirror I could see Meredith was still in the back, standing in the bed of the truck holding onto one of the railings.

“DOES SHE HAVE A GUN?” I yelled at Linwood through the loud music.

“I DON'T KNOW!” he yelled.

He reached up behind us and pulled a compact shotgun that had been secured to a gun rack.

“IS IT LOADED?” I shouted.

“WHAT?” he asked. I realized he couldn’t hear me well with the music playing.

“I-S I-T L-O-A-D-E-D!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.

“YES!” he confirmed.

He handed me the semi-automatic shotgun. I doubted the barrel was of legal length; it seemed to be less than eighteen inches long. Despite its illegality, I accepted it graciously and reached out the window with it.

I quickly turned down the volume for a moment, and I shouted at Meredith to take the gun.

“Take out any freaks that get close,” I said.

She took the shotgun and nodded.

I drove onto the main road and turned east. There were a number of freaks ahead of us on the road. But as we approached each of them, Meredith would take them out with the shotgun. At close range, their heads would almost explode from the buckshot.

We slowly made our way down the road. Freaks were following the sound of the music blasting through the trucks speakers. I hoped that we had lured away most of them from the church, but I had no way of knowing how many had followed us.

“HOW FAR SHOULD WE GO?” Linwood asked.

“I DON'T KNOW!” I answered.

I scanned my surroundings for any feature that might seem useful or helpful. Mostly, we were in farm country. In the distance were fields of cotton and soybeans. What I needed was a safe place to park the truck. However, the vehicle was so large it would be difficult to hide.

I heard a slapping on my window and looked at my rear view mirror. It was Meredith. I turned down the volume enough to hear her ask if we had any more ammo. Linwood reached under his seat and pulled out a small cardboard box. He opened it and removed the two red cartridges, and then handed me the box.

“Tell her to load up with these,” he said.

I handed her the box as I saw a freak approaching us from the side of the road. I quickly pulled out my revolver, reached out of the vehicle as far as I could, and fired. The shot hit the decaying body of the old, woman directly in the face.

“Keep going,” Linwood said.

I turned the volume back up. ZZ Top echoed through the countryside.

I accelerated and continued down the road. We were now at least three miles from the church. However, we had a long trail of freaks following us.

“LET’S GET OUT AND MAKE SOME NOISE!” I shouted.

We stopped and got out of the truck. My ears were still ringing from the loud music.

“I'll take the rear,” I said. “Linwood, you cover the left and the front. Meredith, cover the right.”

“Shoot every freak you see, but don't let them get too close to the truck,” I ordered.

One by one I fired at the freaks that approached us from behind. Out of the first five rounds I fired, I took out five of the freaks. I quickly reloaded and continued firing. Their dead, decaying bodies began to litter the road behind the vehicle. As I continued firing, the pile of corpses only grew higher; it created an obstacle course for the freaks and slowed them down. Every time a freak stopped to step over a body, it gave me a perfect opportunity to aim and fire.

Meredith had decided to take out a few freaks that were coming at the truck from what looked like a classic, southern home with a wraparound porch. She had no problem eliminating the monsters with her machete.

Linwood fired at the freaks as they walked out of some nearby trees towards us. He was also a good shot, but he would occasionally miss. Every miss was followed by a curse, and when he fired again he’d always hit his target.

For a little while, we were taking out the freaks with little or no difficulty. My mind started to drift and it gave me an opportunity to think about my situation. I realized that there were a few people now residing at the church who were not regular members. Linwood, Meredith, and Sam all fit into this category. They probably lived in the area, knew some of the membership, and had no better option than to seek shelter at the church.

 My train of thought was broken as I saw a larger number of freaks were approaching from the nearby timber. I realized we needed to move.

We all got back in the truck and continued down the road.

I decided it would be a good time to turn off the stereo and find a good place to hide. We had made a lot of noise for an extended period of time, and we needed to find a way to get back to the church.

“THERE’S NO NEED TO MAKE NOISE ANY MORE!” I shouted. “TURN IT OFF.”

A moment later the music ended and there was a suddenly a deceptive sense of calm.

Up ahead and to the right, I could see what looked like an old country store. The sign plastered on the wall of the business read, “Bob's Bait Shop and More.”

It was a small business and there were no other shops nearby. I decided to investigate and see what was behind it.

I pulled around to the back of the store, and saw a small building that was attached to the store.

“We need to wait and let the freaks thin out,” I stated. “They will forget they ever heard anything.”

“I know this shop,” Linwood informed me. “We can stock up on ammo here. Old man Kapowski runs this place. It belongs to his son. I know where they keep their weapons cache.”

“Can we get in?” I asked. “They probably have it locked.”

“Don't worry about that,” he said.

Linwood reached under his seat once again and pulled out a black case. He opened his door, climbed down, and walked towards the entrance to the attached building.

“Cover me,” he stated.

I turned off the engine, put the keys in my pocket, and climbed out.

Meredith was already down from the back of the truck by the time my feet hit the ground.

“We can't use any of our guns,” I said. “We need to be quiet so they can disperse.”

“That won't be a problem,” Meredith stated, with her machete already in her hand.

I drew my blade out of its sheath and peeked around the corner of the building. There were a couple freaks headed towards us in the distance, but it seemed most of them hadn’t followed us.

Linwood opened the small case of lock picking tools and proceeded to work on the door. Meredith and I guarded the perimeter. When an occasional freak would come around the corner of the building, we would swiftly take it out with our handheld weapons.

Finally, the lock was picked and we entered the small building. I walked towards the door that led to main building and gave it a gentle push. It was already open.

“Be careful,” I said in a hushed voice. “There could be one of them in here.”

I took the lead as I held tightly onto my butcher’s knife. The inside of the store was very dark, and I couldn’t see very well. As I carefully walked down an outer aisle, something brushed against my arm and I jerked, but nothing happened. I realized it was just one of the dozens of fishing poles that were on display.

Ahead of me I heard something fall over and hit the wooden floor of the store, but I couldn’t make anything out in the gloom.

To my right I could see that one of the windows was covered by a blanket.

“Pull the blanked away from the window,” I whispered to Meredith.

She proceeded to make her way towards the window. The moment she pulled down the blanket and light flooded into the room revealing a horrible sight. A man, now a zombie was handcuffed to a length of pipe running along the wall. His body was rocking back and forth trying to get free from the cuffs. When he saw us he lunged towards us with his mouth open.

  “That's old man Kapowski,” Linwood said.

 Attached to a glass display case several feet away from him was a note written on a piece of yellow notebook paper. I removed the note and started to read it out loud.

To Anyone Who May Find Me

My Name is Peter Kapowski and I'm the manager of this establishment. I've been watching the news about the outbreak that is happening, and I'm afraid that I am infected. Ever since the meteor shower I have felt sick. I don't know for sure if I’ll turn into one of those zombies they are talking about on television, but I don't want to take the chance of hurting anyone. I'm writing this note to ask anyone who enters this building to take me out if I've changed into one of the creatures. I do not want to live as one of them. I pray that God will take my soul before I turn into one of them, if I do turn into one of them.

I balled up the note and threw it to the floor. If it was his wish not to live as a freak, I would be glad to make sure he didn’t have to. I lifted up my blade and stabbed him through the eye socket.

“Where did you say the weapons stash was located?” I asked Linwood.

“It's right through here,” he said.

I followed him to a back room. I saw a large chest of drawers in a bedroom.

“Let’s push this out of the way,” Linwood told us.

We removed the chest and behind it was a hollowed out portion of the wall. It contained a number of boxes of ammo, several handguns, and what looked like a machine gun of some kind.

“Now this is what I'm talking about,” Linwood said. “He showed me all this a couple of years ago after we had been out fishing together.”

He pulled out two semi-automatic pistols and attached an extended, thirty round magazine to each one.

“Here, take these,” he said.

“Didn't some of the folks in Washington want to ban these a while back?” I asked.

“Yeah, they felt that extended magazines were too dangerous for ordinary people to have,” he said.

“Maybe they would’ve felt differently if they had known a zombie apocalypse was about to start,” Meredith said.

“Don't call them zombies,” I requested.

“Why?” she asked.

“I hate that description,” I told her.

“What's so bad about calling them zombies?” she asked.

“Look, I can deal with those things outside being called freaks, creatures, monsters, or the infected. You can even call them dead folks like some of the people at the church do. But please, don't dare call them zombies. That makes them sound like something out of a horror movie – something that shouldn’t exist,” I explained.