Zombie Rules (Book 3): ZFINITY (19 page)

We watched the gang load up and drive off, waving at them like they were going on vacation, and watched them until they were out of sight. I then looked at Julie with a grin.

“What say we take a ride?” I asked. Rhonda was at our house with all of the kids, running them through the shower and what not, so we had a babysitter for most of the day.

“Where to?” she asked.

“Through the neighborhoods, maybe stop in one of the libraries and look for some books.”

“You’re not fooling me. You want to find Big Bastard,” Julie declared. “You’re becoming obsessed with him.”

I reluctantly nodded. “He’s dangerous. The sooner he has a bullet put in his head, the better off we’ll all be.”

Julie sighed. “We can ride around and check things out, but we’re not going inside any houses or buildings.”

“We’ve cleared houses together before,” I said, thinking I’ve also cleared plenty of houses on my own.

“Do you really want your pregnant wife clearing houses?” she responded, to which I had no rebuttal.

“Touché,” I conceded, “alright, I have an idea, let’s go to Howard’s shop. It feels like we’ve knocked the front end out of alignment on the truck. Besides, those two machine guns we took off of the Captain’s bus are still in there.”

Julie tried to think of a rebuttal, but finding none, nodded reluctantly. We checked our gear, hopped in the truck, and had no problems making our way to the shop.

The shop was once a tire store located on Old Hickory Boulevard. When Howard and his family found themselves without a place to live, he moved them to this store and painstakingly converted it into a home. He had fortified it heavily. All of the windows, bay doors, and even the roof had rebar welded solidly in place. The lobby had been converted into the living quarters, and the rest was left as a shop to fix automobiles. Only a few of us knew of its location in case we needed a place to bug out.

I circled the immediate area, looking for any potential threat before driving into the parking lot. Julie stood guard as I unlocked the main entry door, made a quick sweep, and opened a bay door for her to drive the truck in. I shut the door behind her, nursed the generator to life and turned on the front end alignment apparatus.

“Do you know how to use it?” Julie asked. I nodded.

“Howard taught me, although I’m not as good as he is, or was.”

My last comment brought a pained expression on her face. “I know, babe, I miss them too.”

We sat on the concrete floor and watched the computer boot up. I instinctively reached over and held her hand.

“What are your big regrets?” I asked her. She looked at me questioningly. “Since the world went bad that is. I regret what happened to Howard. I know it’s my fault and I should never have…” I was interrupted by Julie shushing me with a finger on my lips.

“It was a tragic accident,” she said. “We could have begged them to stay with us and they would have, but instead, we encouraged them to go to Fort Campbell. The rest is fate.”

“I know, I know, but I also encouraged them to keep their guns with them.”

“Yes you did,” she responded, “but you believed you were doing the right thing, and I agree. Now, nobody knows what has happened up there. If they were armed, they could have made a difference.”

I softly squeezed her hand in appreciation. “It’s a lot of speculation,” I mumbled, “but I appreciate it.” We sat there quietly for a moment on the floor, holding hands like school kids.

“I regret what happened to Macie,” she finally said. “If I had been more aware of my surroundings, I would have seen those two bastards hiding in the store.”

I shook my head vigorously. “No,” I said forcefully.

“Oh, Zach, we both know it’s true. You never said anything, but don’t think I didn’t figure out we messed up your line of fire by standing too close to Andie’s jeep.”

I started to disagree, but she stopped me with a squeeze of a hand. “You asked me what I regretted, so let me get it out. I regret saying nothing as I watched my dad leave the safety of the school and getting himself killed. I regret the way I allowed my mother and her lover to deceive you and Rick back when we first met. I think Don might even still be alive. He wasn’t a bad guy, but he was so bamboozled by Mom that he didn’t use good judgment. I didn’t see it back then, but I see it now.”

She sighed. “And finally, I regret losing Tommy for so long,” she dabbed at her eyes. “So, those are my regrets, most of them anyway.”

I put my arm around her and hugged her tightly. “We’ve done some good things, haven’t we?” she asked me plaintively.

“I think we have,” I responded. The computer for the alignment machine beeped, indicating it was ready.

“Why don’t I work on the front end, and you,” I said pointing to a work bench in the corner, “give those M60s a once over.”

“Do we have any ammunition for them?” Julie asked as the two of us stood up.

“No we don’t. I think we’re going to have to raid the National Guard barracks and see if we can find any. Maybe you can get your mother to draw up a map of the place.”

Julie chortled. “Yeah, I’m sure she’ll be very helpful.”

We spent the next two hours lost in our individual tasks. When I was finished, I walked over to the work table where Julie was carefully using a dental tool to work specks of carbon out of the nooks and crannies of the receiver assembly.

“Are you finished?” she asked.

“Yep,” I responded, “how are you doing?”

“There was a lot of soot and carbon built up on the parts, but I’ve cleaned most of it off,” she pointed at the parts scattered about on the table. “You get to help put them back together, if you think you can,” she teased.

I chortled. “Piece of cake.”

Although it took us longer than we thought it would, we finally got the weapons reassembled. Howard had fabricated new stocks, but had never gotten around to making heat shields on the fore stocks. It would be another task for me when I got the chance. I inhaled deeply.

“Ah, the smell of gun lubricant is so intoxicating, it’s getting me all worked up.”

“You want to fool around before we had back?” Julie asked accusingly, although she was smiling slightly.

We didn’t bother with the beds located in the dark back room. Instead, I threw a blanket on the couch in the main room. It wasn’t the most comfortable spot to make love, but we were alone for a change and that more than made up for it.

Afterward, we loaded up and backed the truck out of the bay. I was locking up when Julie gave me a heads up.

“I hear a car coming.”

The two of us grabbed our respective assault rifles and took up a favorable position to hide from view and defend ourselves, if needed. The vehicle was coming from the west. It was a familiar looking van with a homemade camouflage paint scheme.

“I believe it’s Konya,” I said and ran out to the roadway. Julie joined me and we waved vigorously as the van drove down Old Hickory Boulevard. I heard the dogs start barking before the van stopped in the roadway. The driver made a U-turn, and headed back toward us. Julie looked at me and smiled.

“I thought he was dead,” she said.

“Me too,” I replied and waited for him to approach. He drove slowly, eyeing us as he neared. His appearance indicated he had had a rough winter. Three of his dogs jumped out before him and ran in circles around us, obviously happy to see familiar humans.

“Hi, you two,” he said with a halfhearted attempt at a smile. His beard was even longer now and unkempt. I shook hands with him while Julie opted for a hug. Number Two jumped up on Julie and licked her face while his tail wagged so hard his butt was gyrating.

“Where have you been?” she asked him. “We’ve been worried about you!”

He scratched his beard a moment before answering. “I’ve been around. I found a house with a lot of food, so me and the kids stayed in there until it warmed up a little bit.”

“Are you missing a dog?” I asked. Konya nodded his head sadly.

“Number Three got attacked…” his voice cracked and he was unable to talk for a moment. “We were hunting through some houses, and some of them bastards laid in wait,” he looked at us with tears in his eyes. “They worked as a team, Zach. A couple of them grabbed hold of him, and while Three was biting one of them, the rest of them…” he turned away from us. Julie instinctively started rubbing him on his back. After a moment, he wiped his eyes and faced us. Number Two nuzzled my hand and I absently petted him.

“Well, the good news is, I killed them, but they sure weren’t acting like your everyday dumb zombie. Have y’all noticed they don’t seem to be rotting anymore?”

“Yeah, we’ve been noticing the same thing. It was little things at first, but every time we encounter them, we’re seeing something new.”

We stood there chatting and talking about the weather. Konya pointed at the building.

“Find anything good in there?” he asked. I shrugged noncommittally.

“Nah, I was aligning the front end on one of our trucks. All of these potholes are wreaking havoc.”

He nodded and looked around silently. Julie made eye contact with me and gestured at him. I got the hint.

“Hey, most of the gang is out on a fuel run. Why don’t you follow us back to the house?” I suggested. “I’ll get the generator going and you can take a hot shower and join us for dinner.”

Konya looked at his dogs before answering. “If we’re still welcome I’d be much obliged.”

“You’re always welcome,” Julie replied with a smile.

We were starting to load up when we heard the distinctive sound of a car with a creaky suspension hitting a pothole. Looking around, we saw another van approaching. It was full sized, similar in appearance to Konya’s, and also fashioned with a similar hodgepodge of spray painted camouflage patterns and chicken wire covering the windows. Before I had a chance, the driver stuck up a hand and waved. Julie and I waved back tentatively. He drove straight to the parking lot and parked a few feet away. The dogs stood in front of Konya protectively while Julie and I kept our hands close to our weapons.

A haggard looking middle aged couple got out and smiled with a mouthful of yellow teeth. I nodded halfheartedly.

“I’ve been trying to catch up with you for the past ten minutes,” he exclaimed while pointing at Konya’s van. “My name’s Charlie,” He started to walk toward Konya with an outstretched hand, but the dogs stopped him with some menacing growls. I stepped forward.

“Hello, my name’s Zach,” I said, shook his hand, and gestured at my better half. “This is Julie, and the man with the protective dogs is Konya.”

“I’m very pleased to meet all of you,” he replied while eyeing the dogs nervously. He turned his head and gestured toward his companion, a tired looking forty-something woman with a wrinkled face. If I had to guess, I’d say she spent far too much time in the sun when she was younger. “That’s my wife. Her name’s Mary.”

“Them dogs got rabies?” she asked suspiciously. “They look like they’re infected.”

Konya responded with a disdainful glare while I looked over the man carefully.

“What brings you out this way, Charlie?”

“Oh, we’re travelers. We travel around, meet people and trade with ‘em. Been all around these parts,” he said with a sweeping gesture of his hand.

“Wow, I bet you two are a wealth of information,” Julie said.

“That we are,” Charlie replied with a smug grin.

“How many people have you two seen?” I asked. Charlie folded his arms and rubbed his face.

“I’d say about a fifty, sixty in total.”

“What about the River Road people?” Konya asked. Charlie frowned.

“Those people are not very pleasant,” he said and spat. “They don’t trade fair. Speaking of trade,” he said and gestured toward his van, “we have stuff to trade. What about you people?”

“We always bring food supplies along. We have different types of canned vegetables. What have you got to trade?” I asked, hoping he had some good stuff. He frowned before responding.

“We traded for some canned stuff a while back and it was all bad. Do you people know how to can properly?”

I looked at Julie. She was not smiling, but at least she didn’t let fly with a disdainful retort. I went over to our truck, pulled out a jar of blueberry jam and handed it over to Charlie.

“On the house,” I said. “Give it a try and see what you think.”

Mary hurriedly grabbed it out of her husband’s hand, opened the lid, scratched the wax off, took a cautious sniff, and then inhaled deeply. There was a look of ecstasy on her face as she smelled the blueberry aroma.

“Well?” Julie asked.

“It smells wonderful,” Mary replied as she dipped a couple of fingers in, scooped out a healthy dollop, and then stuck them in her mouth. Charlie grabbed the jar out of her hand and did the same.

“It’s delicious,” he exclaimed as he smacked his lips.

“So, now that we’re through questioning our canning techniques, what have you got to trade?” I asked. Charlie gave a nod and a confident smile, as if whatever it was he had was going to have us jumping up and down with joy. He walked to the van and emerged after a second with a cloth Crown Royal bag. He made a big presentation of reaching in and pulling out some of its contents. I looked in his hand.