Don't Dare Call Them Zombies : Books 1-4 (29 page)

“I highly doubt it,” I answered. “But we’re not going to take any chances. I think you and Robert should stay with the vehicles while Jennifer and me go and get some more information.”

“I need to know what to tell the people at the church,” Robert stated. “I
t will take a lot for me to convince them to leave. Some of the members have been attending for their entire lives. Unless I have some specific information, I don't know if I’ll be able to convince them to evacuate.”

“I'll find out as much as I can,” I s
aid.

“I could stay here by myself,” Meredith said. “I can take care of any freaks that come my way.”

“That wouldn't be safe,” I said. “You never know when a large group of freaks may show up. With two people you have two sets of eyes.”

“Okay,” Meredith sai
d.

“And put the dog back in the crate,” I told Meredith. “I'm scared of it getting loose.”

“Okay”.

“Stay safe, we’ll be back,” I said.

After handing her the keys to the van, Jennifer and I started walking towards the relocation center. We kept a look out for freaks as we worked our way down the worn, littered road. During the walk we only saw one of them and, it was easy to dispatch. Jennifer insisted on taking it out, and I simply watched as she quickly dug into its neck with her large butcher knife. Except for the creature's coal black eyes that continued to move in their sockets, the freak was motionless as it lay helplessly on the ground.

As we approached the relocation center, I noticed a couple of large buses and a number of military vehicles parked ju
st inside the tall fences that surrounded the facility. Once again, a Humvee began to travel towards us. Eventually, it stopped.

This time a different soldier exited the vehicle looking tired and frustrated. He waved for his partner and the sniffer dog to
join him.

“You know the drill,” the soldier I had seen earlier said holding onto the leash of Tybalt, the German shepherd. “We have to make sure you and your friend are clean.”

Jennifer cringed just a little at the sight of the large dog.

“Just relax, Jenn
ifer. It’s not vicious,” I said.

After taking a few snorts of our scent, it walked back towards its handler.

“You’re clean,” we were told.

“We need to go inside and talk to a few people,” I said. “We were told earlier we would be allowed to do so.”

“Alright,” the soldier told us. “Climb in the back.”

We climbed into the back of the Humvee with the dog and his handler sitting in front of us. As we bounced along the pothole-ridden road Jennifer held onto my arm to stabilize
herself, and I grasped onto the arm rest.

By the time we exited the vehicle, we could see a group of survivors lining up against a fence in the distance.

“They can fetch whoever you want to talk to or you can go inside,” the driver of the vehicle said brusquely.

“Thanks,” Jennifer sa
id.

Although I would prefer to talk to Ms. Suzy and her family without a barrier between us, I was hesitant to enter the camp. From the outside, it looked somewhat sinister. Instead of just one fence, the facility had double fences which provided twice the
ability to keep people out, or in. Also, on top of the tall, chain length walls were lengths of razor wire.

“We will just talk to them from the outside, for now,” I said.

“Sure, let us know if you change your mind and want to go in,” said the driver. “The processing station is located in the brown building over there.”

The term, “processing station” made me feel uneasy.

“Thank you,” I said.

Jennifer and I walked towards the fence where a dozen survivors stood looking at us. Interestingly, the inner fence o
f this portion of the perimeter had an open gate that allowed the occupants of the compound to stand directly next to the outer fence. It seemed like the compound had been designed this way intentionally to allow outsiders to interact with the people inside.

“Howdy?” a voice called out.

“Hello!” a woman's voice said.

“How are you?” a man asked.

I looked at the faces of the occupants and they looked tired, but everyone seemed eager to talk with someone from the outside.

“Hello,” I said to the group of people
. “My name's Hank, and this is Jennifer.”

We quickly became overwhelmed with different questions being asked at the same time. One woman asked how it was
 
out there
, and another man asked if I had come across his wife and children. Other questions were asked as well. I tried to answer them the best I could, but it was difficult communicating with so many people at once.

“No, I'm afraid I
haven’t seen your wife. I'm sorry,” I told one man.

“It's pretty bad out there, but the freaks seem to be slowing down just a bit,” I told a woman.

“I'm sorry, but I don't know how bad it is in Springfield,” I said to another woman asking about her hometown.

Jennifer then stepped in and took control.
“We need some help. We need to talk with a Ms. Suzy Lindermann -- we know she’s in the facility.”

“Oh, I’ve met her,” a blond haired woman, wearing a gray hooded jacket, told us. “I'll go find her and bring her here.”

“Thank you very much,” I told the woman.

While Jennifer and I waited, we continued to talk with the other survivors. They said the rations were a bit meager at times, but they were being treated well. When I asked them if they were free to leave at any time, they responded affirmatively. Howev
er, according to one woman, most of the occupants were glad to have the protection of the compound. It was not luxurious, but none of the monsters could get inside.

“Have all of you been told about
the situation with the nuclear power plants?” I asked a man at the fence.

“Yes, the news leaked out last night,” he said. “When we bugged the soldiers enough they gave us an update over the loudspeakers.”

“What exactly did they tell you?” I asked.

“They sa
id we would be transferred to another relocation center soon. You see, there had been several thousand of us in here, but now there are just a few hundred. We knew they must have been busing people out for some reason or another,” he said.

Suddenly, I saw
a woman with red hair walking towards me. She clasped onto the chain length fence and smiled. It was Ms. Suzy, as beautiful as ever, if a bit weary.

“Thank God,” she said. “It's so good to see you! I didn't know if you two were going to make it or not. No
one else from the store has shown up so far.”

“It's great to see you,” I said.

Jennifer's attempted to entwine her fingers with Ms. Suzy's through the metal fence.

“I'm so glad to see you Ms. Suzy,” she said. “I was really worried about you.”

“I was worried about you too,” Ms. Suzy said.

“Where is Katie?” Ms. Suzy asked. “Is she with you?”

“I’m sorry -- she didn't make it,” I said. “She was bitten in Sandy Hills while we were trying to get out of town. Then we were overrun and...”

I saw her eyes lower at th
e news.

“She didn't deserve that,” Ms. Suzy muttered.

“No, she didn't,” I said. “But you can at least know she isn’t one of them.”

“Good,” Ms. Suzy said. “That would be a fate worse than death.”

“What about everyone else?” she asked. “Remember the coach that left the store?”

“We came across the coach on our way here,” I said. “It was turned over and everyone was dead.”

A look of shock appeared on her face.

“Everyone?” she asked.

“Yes, everyone,” I said. “I'm sorry.”

“So where have you been?” she asked. “It
has been days.”

“We actually had a flat tire and found a bunch of survivors in a church. They invited us in and we stayed with them a while we had our van fixed. Actually, they have a good thing going, or at least as good of a thing as you can have these
days,” I said.

“Really?” she asked.

“They have their issues,” Jennifer said. “But they were pretty good to us.”

“They’re going to need to evacuate,” said Ms. Suzy. “Where are they located?”

“They’re located just outside of Egypt,” I told her. “Do you know of the town?”

“Yes, I've heard of it,” she said. “They’re in more danger than we are from the meltdowns.”

I quickly envisioned the map of the area we all studied at the church. From what I could remember, she was correct. The church was probably fifty miles closer to the nuclear power plant than we were.

“Oh, Hank, your mom told me to give you this when I saw you.” Ms. Suzy handed me a folded piece of notebook paper.

“So you saw my mom?” I asked, “How’s she doing?”

“Yes, I did, and
she was doing pretty well, all things considered. I was lucky to find her with so many people here. But I talked with her the night before she left and she wrote that letter for me to give you if I was able to see you.”

“Thank you,” I said, taking the note
. I didn’t want to read it in front of everyone, so I put it in my pocket.

“Did you come across my sister?” Jennifer asked. “We were told she was bused out two days ago.”

“No, I'm sorry,” she answered. “It was very crowded and I have been busy trying to take care of myself and my family.”

“How’s your family?” I asked.

“They’re doing alright,” Ms. Suzy said. “But I'm not sure how any of us will be in the long term after dealing with this nightmare.”

“I'm glad
they’re okay,” I said.

“Why don't you two come inside so we can talk more?” she asked.

“Okay,” I said. “But we don't have much time. We need to get some information back to a friend of ours down the road. He’s waiting for information to take back to the church.”

“You’ll need to go through processing,” Ms. Suzy said. “It's the brown building over there.”

She pointed to a brick building that was embedded in the wall of the compound. Although everyone inside the compound seemed to be alright and we hadn’t been told any horror stories, I was still a bit nervous about going inside. I had read many articles on the internet about all of the so called “relocation centers” scattered across the United States that FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, would use in a national emergency. Some people thought they were little more than concentration camps that could be used to imprison political dissidents. I didn’t think that was the case in this place, but I still felt a bit uneasy.

“What’s involved when it com
es to being processed?” I asked.

“It's not too bad,” Ms. Suzy said. “
You’re sniffed by a dog; they take your photo, run a metal detector over you, take your name, and give you an ID card.”

“The ID card looks like this,” she said, holding a small plastic b
adge attached to a cord wrapped around her neck.

When she mentioned the metal detector, another reality struck me: I would have to give up my weapons to go inside.

“We can't just give up our weapons,” I told her. “They’re our lifeline.”

“They’ll give them
out when you leave,” she said. “Or at least many of us were told so.”

“They better,” I said.

“I'll ask them first,” I added. “We aren’t going to be in there long.”

Chapter 2

Jennifer and I walked along the fence of the relocation center towards
the brick building where we would be processed; there was no other option if we wanted to enter the facility. Although I really didn’t want to go inside, I needed to get more information about the nuclear incidents that were taking place. It would take solid facts, not rumor or hearsay to convince the congregation to evacuate the church.

As we neared the door to the processing building three soldiers approached.

“Do you wish to enter?” a soldier asked.

“Yes, we need to go inside,” I said.

“You’ll have to turn in your weapons,” he said.

“Will we get them back when we leave? We’re not going to be inside very long. I need to know that when we come back out our weapons will be here.” I said.

“They’ll be here,” the tired-looking soldier answered. “We’re not going to steal them from you.”

“Alright,” I said.

Preparing to hand over my weapons, I felt for the note from my mother that Suzy handed me into my pants pocket – I didn’t want to lose that. I then proceeded to hand the soldier my pistol, my revolver, my Derringers, and my butcher knives. Jennifer handed over her blade and handgun, and the three soldiers ushered us into the processing building.