Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse (Book 1): Sanctuary (44 page)

Chapter XIII

We
departed early the next morning, planning to reach
Martin, South
Dakota
by traveling
north on US-385 to
Chadron
, then east along US-20. At
Merriman,
Nebraska
we would
cut north along State Highway 61 – it turned into State Highway 73 after
crossing the
state
line
– which would
take us directly to Martin. It looked to be about seventy five miles or so,
less than an hour and a half drive under normal circumstances, not that those
existed any longer.

“Think
Chadron is always going to have zombies?” asked Mary.

In the
background I could hear Lizzy demanding she give the radio back and not to be
touching her things.

“Nyah,
nyah.” Mary was still holding the transmit button. “Mine now.”

“Little
brat. I do the talking.”

“My
turn,” she laughed. “Be nice, or I’ll steal the batteries to your vibrator.”

“I do
not have a vibrator!”

“It’s
true Mary,” said Lois. “I would know about it.”

“What do
you think Briana?”

“With
her obsession regarding turkey basters, I’d say it’s very possible. She’s
sneaky enough to hide things from Lois too. Lizzy just isn’t trustworthy.”

“Is that
thing on? Damn it! And the baster was from the two of you, not me!”

“Anyways
Mary,” continued Briana, “I think Chadron is something of a zombie resort. They
do like the place. Just so long as they don’t find the castle, I guess I can
live with that, assuming there’s any choice in the matter.”

“We
should warn anyone we find. I wonder if other cities get them like that too.”

“Probably,”
replied Briana, “or maybe. I don’t know. I’d guess it’s possible anywhere roads
meet. Chadron isn’t as bad as it used to be though, before we shot so many.”

“Think
this is going to be our last run of the year?” asked Mary, continuing the spree
of questions.

“I’m
thinking yes, at least for any significant distance. It’s getting too cold. One
big snowstorm and we’re stuck in the middle of nowhere.”

I agreed
with Briana’s assessment. We were likely good for this trip, but if we kept
going out, we risked getting snowed in somewhere. And there’d be no plows to
clear the roads. We could conceivably be trapped until spring.

The
conversation devolved into normal banter after that. We rarely drove in
silence, and with batteries for the radios easy to come by – we had buckets
full of them – there was no reason to conserve power. The replacements would
lose their charge long before we got around to using the last.

*
* *

Gordon,
which we hit around midday, was the largest town we’d pass on this trip. That
likely meant lots of zombies and all the associated dangers. Fortunately, the highway
ran along its southern edge. There was plenty of open space and a decent line
of sight, so we were able to see any mobs well in advance and avoid them. There
were more wrecks than normal however, and we had to go off road a few times,
once to get around an overturned semi. I’d just passed this when Lizzy called
out on the radio to stop.

“What’s
up?” asked Briana.

Through
the rearview mirror, I watched her pull over and hop out of the Grand Cherokee.

“Toilet
paper!” called Mary. She followed Lizzy and assumed her customary position as
lookout. She had the radio in her left hand. “A whole truck load.”

“She’s
right,” observed Briana. “Let’s go ahead and grab some.”

The rear
of the trailer was open with boxes scattered across the pavement. Most had succumbed
to the elements, rain destroying the cardboard and animals or whatever tearing
apart the flimsy plastic. Still, the freight within appeared to be intact. It
might be salvageable.

“Why not
get it on the way back?”

“We
should do it now,” she countered. “We only have one roll with us, and that’s in
their Jeep.”

“Lizzy,”
I asked accusingly, as we joined them, “did you steal our toilet paper?”

“Not at
all trustworthy,” called Mary. “You have to remember that. She’s a bad, bad
person, sneaky too.”

“I am
not… Keep watching for zombies!”

“My
fault actually,” clarified Briana. “We didn’t have enough in the house for that
chamber pot thing in the washroom, so Mary and I took everything from the
Jeeps. We meant to put some back but never got around to it. I found the one
roll we missed during our last stop. Lois needed to go, so it ended up with
them.”

“And I’m
only now being told this? Come on ladies, try to include me in some of the
discussions.”

“I
thought you didn’t want to hear anything about female hygiene.”

“Briana,
being able to wipe after taking a crap supersedes such things. Also, taking a
dump is not female hygiene. It applies to everyone. That makes it normal.”

I drew
my pistol and shot a zombie that was getting close. “Go ahead and grab whatever
we need, but try to hurry. And be careful.”

She
snorted. “I’m always careful.”

*
* *

Merriman
was basically a speck on the map. This town was tiny, very, very tiny, so we
decided to stop and take a look before parking for the night. That would give
us plenty of time the next day to reach Martin and hopefully find the other
survivors. In the meantime we were doing a little scavenging.

“Fifth
house with nothing in it,” said Lizzy. “Someone stole all our stuff.”

“Wasn’t
exactly ours.”

“Well
Briana, true. No. Change that. I wanted to loot it. That makes it mine.” She
stomped off.

“I think
there really is a settlement in Martin,” I said. “This is nearby. They could
have easily emptied it out, much like we’ve been doing with
Hemingford
and Chadron. Small as it is, a group
could check everything in a few days and take whatever they wanted.”

“No
food,” agreed Briana, “except the rotted, pasty stuff in the fridges. Somebody
took it all. Almost no zombies. Whoever was here did a thorough job. Not many
rotting bodies lying about either.”

After
the second assault on the lake camp, we stopped burying the zombies we killed.
There were just too many of the things. We moved them away from creeks or other
water sources, and we dragged them out of any building we were actively looting
or might loot later, but that was about it. Most were simply left to decompose.
This had brought up questions about disease, but with our limited numbers it
was either get the stuff we needed or spend hours upon hours loading corpses
into trucks and digging holes. We opted to allow nature to take its course, and
anyway, it would be wrong to deprive scavengers of an easy meal.

“Come on
out zombies,” called Lizzy.

“Anything?”
asked Mary. She was standing in the street with Lois, roughly twenty yards
away.

“Not a
damn thing. I don’t like this place. Come on Jacob. Let’s look inside.”

I joined
her with Briana keeping position by the door. We quickly scanned the small
house. The pantry and cabinets were completely bare of anything edible,
although we did find some adult movies in the bedroom closet. They were in a
small cardboard box, unlabeled.

“Here,”
said Lizzy, handing me a few. “You and Briana can watch those. I’m keeping
these for me and Lois.”

“Girl on
girl I presume.”

“Don’t
be questioning my lifestyle,” she snapped.

I
glanced at what she was holding. “Yep, thought so, but I do need to ask about
the midget one.”

She
blushed. “Variety.”

“You
could give Mary some. Tell Lois they’re educational videos. Briana and I can
place wagers on what might happen.”

“I don’t
think Lois is ready for her little sister to have that sort of education yet,”
replied Lizzy, her teeth almost, but not quite, clenched, “particularly if I’m
helping her receive it.”

“It’s
going to sneak up on you sooner or later. First she’ll be getting a boyfriend,
then getting married, having kids, having grandkids who’ll call you Grammy
Liz.”

She
groaned. “Stop. I feel old enough as it is, and I’m nowhere near as far along
as you.”

“Just
give it a few more years. By the way, do they have
Porn of the Dead
by
any chance?”

“
Porn
of the
…” Lizzy’s jaw dropped. “Tell me that’s not real.”

“It is.
The thing was made a few years before this all started. I mentioned it to
Briana way back, on our way up here from Texas.”

“Zombie
porn. Disgusting, just the idea of it.”

“Less so
before they were real. Back then it was just a bit of variety.” I tapped the
DVD starring a slew of little people. “The movie zombies were pretty similar to
ours, intact and not really rotting but still looking dead, or covered in bad
makeup as the case was. The not rotting part bugs me, in a big way. Wish I could
figure out why or how it stops like that.”

She
shrugged. “No fucking clue Jacob.”

*
* *

The
final stretch to Martin was a lesson in simplicity. The road leading north had
been conveniently cleared of all obstructions, the cars and trucks pushed off
to either side. Someone had gone through a lot of trouble to ensure there was
an open route along that highway. Even better was the lack of zombies. We saw
only a handful.

“This is
weird,” said Lizzy, over the radio. “This is really, really fucking weird.”

“I’m
agreeing with you,” replied Briana. “Not many bodies either, that I can see.
It’s just like in Merriman.”

“If they
have the people to move all those cars, then they could drag away the ones they
shoot,” said Lizzy, “stick em in a hole or burn them. Maybe they just care more
than us.”

“Briana.”
I pointed out the driver’s side window. “Check out the buzzards.”

Her
expression darkened. “That’s a lot of them,” she whispered, before relaying the
discovery to the others.

*
* *

“They
had one really, really big fight,” observed Mary. Her face held a mixture of
awe and sorrow.

The
survivors’ compound was huge, consisting of four large commercial buildings.
These were connected by walls of brick or lumber with the lower windows closed
up permanently. In some cases it looked like entire sections had been heavily
reinforced. There were watch stations on top of each structure, and a single
large entrance. This had a city bus parked in front of it. The windows were
covered in sheet metal, and additional panels dropped to within an inch of the
ground. When it was in place nothing could get past it. It was exactly like the
one in the movie The Road Warrior, and it was substantially more effective than
our plan of pulling an animal trailer in front of our own gate.

While
their entrance was still intact, the walls were not. There were two large
holes. The first was to the side of the actual gate. The other was on the far
perimeter wall. Both looked as if they had been made with explosives. Scattered
about these were the bodies of men, women, and children. A few wore heavy denim
jackets with the same patches as the raiders we encountered in Chadron.

“We need
to see if anyone’s alive,” said Briana.

“Yeah,”
I agreed. “Shoot anything moving that’s wearing one of those jackets. You too
Mary. Don’t hesitate.”

“Jacob?”
asked Lois. She was shaking.

“We’re
all going together this time. No one will be left alone keeping watch. Don’t
know why it happened, but I’m pretty sure the gang attacked these people. We
know they’re dangerous. Remember what they tried to do to Steph.”

I led
the way inside to see what was left, and I’m not ashamed to say that I’ll be
having nightmares for the remainder of my life. The scene was horrendous. The
community had been large – Mary counted two hundred and eleven bodies,
excluding those in the telltale jackets – and there was no doubt that they’d
fought back. It hadn’t worked out for them. There was nothing living within
those walls and only a single zombie. Judging from his injuries, he’d been shot
in the stomach and left to die. Every other body had a head wound. From the
angles, it appeared many were inflicted after death.

Quite a
few of the residents had been captured during the onslaught. I couldn’t tell if
they surrendered or were overpowered, but it made no difference. The women,
save some very old ones who had been beaten to death, were horribly abused.
Many of the children were as well, both boys and girls. It seemed the attackers
had no concept of too young.