Zombie Rules (Book 4): Destiny (12 page)

“Why are we going to use horses?” Justin asked as he looked over at the two ATVs parked in the barn.

“The name of the game is conservation. There used to be an ample supply of fuel around here, but no more.” I told him the story about the tanker explosion.

“There is another fuel reservoir near the old Titan’s football stadium, but when the Cumberland flooded, it caused a lot of damage. The last time I went down there, it looked like the reservoirs were FUBAR’ed. There’s like ten feet of mud piled up, it’d take a lot to get to them, and even then the fuel is probably no good.”

“All of downtown is flooded?” he asked.

“Not anymore. The water table has adjusted itself, but a lot of damage was done. So, fuel is at a premium and it’s hit or miss these days. Most storage tanks are empty, some of them have fuel still in them but you never know if it’s going to be contaminated or not. Okay, now I’m going to clean and check the hooves. Normally, you wouldn’t have to do this every time, but nowadays it’s a necessity. Now, when you do this, you have to be careful you don’t get kicked.”

I took my time and made sure Sate didn’t try anything. He stood still and let me do my work up until the last hoof before he tried to bite me. I ducked out of the way while Justin chuckled. I showed him the proper way to put on the blanket, saddle and attach the cinches. After showing him how to put on the bridle and bit, I grinned.

“Now you get to mount Hank,” I said and pointed. “Always mount a horse on the left side.”

The sergeant mounted Hank easily and grinned like a kid as I handed him the reins and gave him a rundown on how to steer a horse. Sate was a different story. He waited until I was barely in the saddle and then reared up. It took a little scolding before he settled down, but I could tell he was full of energy and wanted to go on a run.

“Follow me,” I said and nudged Sate. He took off like someone had poked him in the ass with a cattle prod and shot out of the barn at a full gallop. I let him have his head and guided him toward the far end of the farm.

When he started running out of steam, I slowed him to a trot and began checking the fence lines while I watched Justin bouncing up and down in the saddle as he finally caught up with us.

“Man, that horse is fast as hell,” he exclaimed.

“Yeah, he hasn’t been gelded, that’s what makes him so full of piss and vinegar. This is the routine for him if you ever ride him. Get the pent up energy out of him with a quick run and he’s mostly fine the rest of the day. Hank is much calmer.” Justin nodded thoughtfully. “Okay, the first thing we’re going to do is check the animal traps.”

“You trap for food?” Justin asked. I suppressed a derisive chortle and motioned for him to follow me. When we got within eyesight of the first trap, Justin gasped. I dismounted, secured Sate to a nearby tree and directed Justin to do the same with Hank.

“Okay, watch my back. Sometimes there’re others lurking around.”

I walked over to the snarling zombie whose hand was gripped tightly by the trap and barely still attached. He lunged at me as I approached, causing his hand to finally separate from his arm. I sidestepped and brought the machete down on the back of his neck, severing the spinal cord. He went down, now paralyzed, and I finished up by stomping on his head until I heard the satisfying sound of his skull being crushed.

“Is this normal?” Justin asked. I looked down at the now motionless zombie.

“Usually it’s a coyote or a ‘possum, but I get one of these a couple of times a week.” I pointed at the fence line. “Sometimes, they’ll get hung up in the barbed wire too. Alright, let’s have a look at this one.” I used my boot to roll him over. Its face was badly damaged from my attack. This one was wearing a heavy Army surplus jacket, jeans, and some thick leather boots.

“Alright, based on the clothing and his general appearance, I’d say he became infected during the original outbreak. You see all of the scabs and scarring?”

“Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of ‘em looking like this,” Justin said. “They’re healing up, aren’t they?”

“Yep. I don’t know how, but they are. They’re getting smarter too, but they’ll still stick their hand in a bear trap if they see some raw meat. A couple of weeks ago, one of them stuck their whole head in this same trap.”

“I bet that ruined your day.” I looked at him questioningly. He chuckled. “You didn’t get a chance to use your machete.”

“We refrain from using ammunition when we can, but yeah, I like using it.” Justin nodded in understanding and then frowned.

“So, I’ve got to ask you, I’ve seen carcasses of coyotes hung up and you must have two or three crows hanging up by your gardens.”

“It scares them off.” He continued frowning, so I explained. “Crows and coyotes are surprisingly smart. They see their dead buddies hanging up, they tend to stay away. I’ve not caught a coyote in a trap for several weeks now.” He nodded as he rubbed his face.

“I obviously still have a lot to learn. So, I’ve been thinking, would you be willing to help us hit up some of the gun stores in the area so we can restock our ammo?” I scoffed.

“Those places were emptied out long ago. No, the best places to find guns and ammo now are in people’s houses, but it’s hit or miss.” I pointed at the shotgun in my scabbard.

“I found some twelve gauge reloading supplies back a few months ago, but shotguns are loud. I only use it when I have to.”

“And the zombies are attracted to sound,” he added.

“Exactly.” Justin crouched down and worked the zombie’s jacket loose, exposing a web belt with an empty holster attached.

“Dang, I thought I was going to get lucky for a second.” He pointed at the boots.

“Those are some Danner combat boots. I’m tempted to take them.”

“Help yourself, but I sure wouldn’t wear them.” Justin looked up at me before standing.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. So what do you do with them?”

“Drag ‘em to a nearby sinkhole and burn ‘em. C’mon, let’s check the rest of the traps and then we’ll take care of him.”

“So, what’s next?” Justin asked as we watched the corpse burn.

“We need to check the fence lines, make a count of the cattle and make sure none of them are injured, and then we’re going to get the two-man crosscut saw out of the barn and cut up a big old tree.” I looked at the corpse and threw another old tire on top of him. Satisfied, we mounted up.

As we rode, I pointed out various things on the farm. “We had a little over fifty calves born this past winter. Ten of them died, those aren’t good odds.”

“What’d they die of?”

“Cold weather mostly. Coyotes got a couple of them. Back when there was a full crew of us, we’d go out every morning, find the newborns and get them into the barns, but it’s just me and Kelly now.” I pointed to a spot on the far side of the farm. “I found one that looked like it had been eaten by zombies over there, but I never found the culprits, which was weird.”

“Why’s that?”

“They usually hang around if there’s a food source.” I paused a minute and stopped Sate. Justin stopped as well.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“Kelly and I have discussed the situation with you three. The only reason I could think of for you three to not live here is the possible threat to my kids. But, y’all brought them back. I don’t see how you could be a threat after you did that, unless there’s some kind of diabolical plot going on.”

“That’s a negative,” Justin said. “I’m just a gunnery sergeant, hatching diabolical plots is beyond my pay grade.”

“Yeah, figured as much. So, Kelly and I are not opposed to you guys staying here. You can stay in the homestead if you want. If that’s what y’all want to do, I wouldn’t mind the extra help.” Justin nodded thoughtfully.

“We’ve talked about it. When we made the decision to go AWOL, we didn’t have a specific destination. We were just going to drive and see where it led us. Then, she decided we needed to rescue your kids. That led us here.” He shrugged.

“I’m not opposed to finding a place around here and settling down. Ruth likes this area. She likes you too.” He made an expression that was hard to decipher.

“We never treated her very well back in the unit. When we were in Atlanta, she confided in me one night that you’d treated her with more respect than anyone else.”

“She’s a good person,” I replied. “It wasn’t hard to see.”

“Yeah, well, I ain’t that smart. It took me a while to figure it out.” I headed over to the large fallen tree and stopped.

“Let’s break for lunch and talk about it. I’ve got some beef jerky, canned yams and hardtack.”

“The zombie population around here seems pretty sparse,” Justin commented as he chewed on the hard jerky. “That one in the trap is the only one I’ve seen in a couple of days now.”

“We’ve managed to kill most of them off in this immediate area, but there’re always the wanderers, not to mention evil humans. You can’t ever let your guard down.” I sat, watching the sergeant as he chewed his food.

“I’m curious, Justin, if you were in the team that raided the house instead of with the team that snatched me, would you have shot and killed everyone like they did?” He took a long time to answer.

“I don’t know, Zach. I honestly don’t.” He coughed and took a swig out of his canteen. “All I ever wanted to be was a Marine. I enlisted right out of high school and even when I was in basic getting my ass chewed out and pounding sand, I knew I’d found a home. I’d just re-upped when the shit started. The Marines are all about duty and honor, and especially obedience to orders. So, if I were with team one instead of team two on that day and the order was given to open fire – I don’t know. I would like to say that I would have refused, but – I probably would have followed orders.”

I quietly digested what he said as I finished my lunch. Taking a long drink of water before putting my canteen away, I stood and pointed at the tree. Justin looked at it.

“It’s a big one,” he said. “I’d bet it’s at least fifty-years-old.”

“Yep. Let’s see if those Marine muscles can handle some good old fashioned farm work,” I said with a challenge in my tone. Justin grinned and stood.

We worked on the tree for the next three hours. We began with a steady pace on the two-man saw, but soon started trying to outdo the other. We were both winded within minutes and I’m sure his arm muscles were burning as much as mine, but neither of us complained and neither of us was going to be the first one to stop.

“You’re pretty damn strong,” Justin grudgingly said between breaths after the first hour. I grunted in acknowledgement, repositioned the saw for a new cut, and started again. When we finally had it cut up in two foot sections, we each sat on the ground catching our breaths and rubbing our arms.

“I have a feeling I’m going to be sore as hell tomorrow,” he lamented. I chuckled and watched as he pulled his gloves off and inspected the blisters on his hands.

“Yeah, me too,” I admitted and gestured at the cut up tree.

“This tree fell back around December, so we’ll stack it in one of the woodsheds and let it season for a year.”

“You let wood season a whole year?” he asked.

“Yeah, you can burn it sooner, but it’s not as efficient. The bottom line is, you plan a year ahead on your firewood. Those knuckleheads at the school don’t seem to understand this.” I gestured at logs.

“Okay, now we need to split them, that’ll let them dry out a little quicker.” We didn’t really need to, I could split them at a later time, but while I had the help I was going to get as much labor out of him as I could.

“I try to get eight cords cut every spring,” I explained.

“Always plan ahead, right?” Justin asked.

“Yep.”

We went at it for the next two hours. I finally relented and used one of the ATVs with the trailer to haul the wood back to the house. Justin admired my woodshed as we stacked.

“Isn’t this fancy,” he commented.

“Yeah, Fred built this one.”

“I like it. He put a pitched roof on it to keep the water off and the floor is elevated and open so air can circulate.” I nodded.

“And here I thought you were just a dumb Marine.” Justin gave me a look at that comment. I suppressed a smile and looked at my watch.

“I think this is a good stopping point and we’ve got plenty of daylight left. I’ve been thinking about where you guys should live. My house is too small for all of us. You guys can stay at the homestead, or there’s another house nearby that could work, unless you’d rather go live at the school.”

“Yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask, why didn’t you guys ever move in there with the rest of them?”

“At first, I saw no reason to. We had a house and a working farm. The school was meant to be a place for people who had been displaced to relocate to. I probably would have moved in there after what your people did to us, but I don’t exactly get along with the woman who is running things over there.” He looked at me questioningly and I explained the whole incident with Anthony and the ensuing fallout with Tonya as we rode at an easy gait.

“And this Anthony dude was Tonya’s little brother?” he asked. I replied with a nod. “Damn.” After a minute, he spoke again.