Zombie Rules (Book 4): Destiny (31 page)

“It looks different,” Justin whispered. They’d stopped on the apex of Interstate 24 where it crested over Monteagle Mountain about a hundred yards from where they got into a firefight not so long ago.

“All of the bodies are gone, but that's all I see,” Grant opined. Justin squinted at the remains of the roadblock. It was in shambles now and there had been no effort put forth to rebuild it. It took him a moment before he spotted it.

“Does it seem like there are a few more abandoned cars than last time?”

“Yeah,” Grant suddenly exclaimed and pointed. “And that dump truck wasn't there before.” It was parked in a seemingly random angle. Justin looked it over for a few minutes.

“Alright guys, I believe I see now.” He pointed at the truck. “A few people can hide up there in the dump bed and have a good line of fire along the roadway. That thick steel can offer them some protection from gunfire.” Justin thought of how a grenade launcher would’ve negated that obstacle, if only he had one.

“If you look close, you can see a couple of holes drilled into the walls of the dump bed.”

“Is it a set up?” Cutter asked.

“Could be.”

“You think they’re the same people we tangled with last time?” Blake asked. Justin shrugged.

“We killed all of them. At least, I think we did. Nothing’s certain.”

“What do we do?” What to do indeed, Justin thought. The last thing he wanted was to get into a gunfight with other survivors. Besides, they were going to have to come back this way after they completed the mission.

“Well, it's a good thing we know Zach,” he said with a grunt. Cutter frowned in confusion. “He thought we might encounter potentially hostile people and he came up with a plan.” Justin explained, and a couple of minutes later he was walking toward the dump truck holding up a stick with a white rag tied on the end. He was unarmed, at least nobody could see a weapon on him. The loose-fitting, camouflage-patterned combat blouse hid the nine millimeter Glock tucked into his waistband in the small of his back. He didn’t see anyone, but still, he felt a presence. In for a penny, in for a pound, he thought and kept walking.

The idea was to get as close to the dump truck as possible, out of the kill zone. If it went bad, his only hope was to charge forward, where they least expected. Blake was back at the truck on the M60, watching closely, and Brandon provided rear security. When Justin got to within ten feet, he saw movement through one of the roughly sawed out holes. He stopped and spoke.

“Hello!” After a long couple of seconds, a man's head slowly appeared over the top of the truck's hood, which, due to the way the truck was parked, was on the far side.

“Howdy,” he replied with no hint of warmness.

“You’re the first live people we’ve spotted in a while. My name's Justin.”

"I’m Jubal.” He was an older man, maybe in his late sixties. His tone and behavior concerned Justin. He was armed with a rifle which he had laid across the hood and made no move to walk around the truck. Justin guessed due to the height of the truck, the old man was either very tall or he was standing on something.

“I hope we're not intruding,” Justin probed, trying for civility.

“That depends. What’re you fellas doing here?” he asked, or maybe it was more of a demand, Justin couldn't decide. The man was staring at him quizzically, warily. Justin certainly didn’t recognize him, but wondered if the reverse were true.

“We're just passing through, heading to Atlanta, but we saw you all and we were hoping maybe you were in a trading mood, so we stopped.” There was a spark of interest in his face now. His head dropped out of sight and he stepped around the front of the truck. He was maybe six feet tall, slender but seemingly fit and a full gray beard hanging down several inches from his chin. Even though it was a warm July morning, he was wearing a dirty beige long-sleeved shirt and jeans. The others kept out of sight.

“Ain’t nothing in Atlanta but dead people and zombies.”

“I believe you,” Justin replied. “But we’ve got a little bit of unfinished business down there. Hopefully, we’ll get in and out in one piece.” Jubal replied by spitting. There was a long moment of awkward quietness. Justin was about to bid Jubal goodbye when he spoke again.

“What kind of trading did you have in mind?” It was what Justin hoped for. He held up the plastic gallon jug he had carried with him.

“I've got a gallon of premium Tennessee moonshine here.” Someone in the bed of the dump truck gasped and started whispering, which Justin took as a positive sign until the older man scoffed and spit again.

“We're in Grundy County, son. We've been making moonshine ever since our forefathers settled this place.”

“I got a jug of honey too,” Justin added. The man didn't answer, but Justin could see the man was interested. “Besides,” Justin said. “My daddy always said a man can never have too much whiskey.”

“You make a good point,” Jubal finally conceded.

“That went pretty good,” Brandon said. Grant nodded in agreement. “They didn’t recognize you at all, Justin.”

“We were lucky,” Justin said. “But I think there were only two or three of them. If there were more, I believe we would have had to shoot our way out of there.”

“You gave them that whole jug of shine
and
the honey, and all we got was a couple of gallons of water and some chewing tobacco. We got screwed,” Cutter remarked.

“Maybe,” Justin said. “But we avoided a shootout which might have ruined the mission before we even got to Atlanta. I have a feeling we’ll need all of the ammunition we have when we get there.” Grant nodded somberly in agreement.

“Alright men, let's load up and move out. I want to get some distance between us and them before we stop.” He didn’t have to repeat himself and they were moving down the backside of the mountain within a minute. Justin watched his mirrors closely, as did Grant.

“They don’t appear to be following,” Grant observed. “You think they might have friends waiting down the road?”

“It’s possible, but I’ve got the CB on scan mode and we haven’t heard anything.” Justin hoped there wasn’t an ambush awaiting them. Although he was sure they had superior firepower with the two M60s, he only wanted to get to Atlanta and back home to Ruth unscathed. He chuckled to himself as he realized he was thinking of that small house as his home.

Justin caught the flashing of headlights from Blake and stopped. He got out as he saw Brandon and Cutter jump out and begin relieving themselves. He looked over at Grant, who began doing the same thing.

“It’ll be dark soon,” Blake commented. Justin glanced at him and looked around.

“Yeah, we should find a spot. Let’s get moving.”

They’d only travelled another couple of miles when he saw a bridge about a hundred feet long and pointed it out to Grant.

“This looks like a good spot to spend the night.” He stuck his arm out of the window and gave the hand signal for them to stop. Standing in the open hatch, he did a slow three-sixty with the binoculars. Satisfied, he exited the Humvee.

“We’ll camp here for the night,” he declared.

“Why here?” Cutter asked.

“The bridge gives us protection on two sides,” he answered. “All we need to do is cover both ends. That’ll be easy with the two sixties.” He looked toward the setting sun. “I think we’re going to have clear skies tonight, so that’ll help too. Let’s get our alarm system set up.”

The alarm system Justin referred to was a length of rope tied across the bridge on each end and the rope was festooned with hubcaps and other various types of metal objects, mostly soda cans. Cutter looked it over questioningly as he helped Blake tie it off.

“It’s not perfect, but it’s better than nothing and it’ll make pulling guard duty a little easier,” Blake said. “Knowing Justin, he’ll have us pull the first shifts and he’ll take the last couple of hours.” Cutter looked around to see if anyone was listening to them.

“Do you like him?” he asked under his breath. Blake grinned.

“He’s what you call a lifer. He would’ve kept reenlisting until they made him retire.”

“And you weren’t.”

“Oh, hell no. I was going to get out after my hitch and go to college. You know, party, bang college girls, and somewhere in between all of that get a degree.” Blake emitted a short chuckle. “God had other plans though.”

“So, you don’t like him,” Cutter pressed. Blake finished tying off the rope and checked its tautness before responding.

“I respect him, if that’s what you’re asking. Since it all went to hell, the man has gotten us out of a lot of close scrapes. He takes care of his troops too; that’s what a non-com is supposed to do. So, yeah, I guess I like him.” Blake paused a moment.

“You see, in the Marines you go through boot camp and learn the basics of being a Marine. After I graduated, I was assigned to the CBIRF unit and began specialized training.”

“Like what?” Cutter asked.

“The unit has a lot of equipment for detecting biological, chemical, and radiological hazards. I was trained to use almost all of them. Now, all that sounds good, but neither I nor the other Marines in my unit knew very much about real soldiering. Gunny did though, and the colonel.” He paused and sat up. “The colonel was a good man once. I guess it got to him.” He began unlacing his boots. “I’m going to let my feet air out for a little bit. You should do the same.”

Cutter didn’t respond. For some reason, his brother detested Smithson. Zach too, for that matter. He’d commented many times they should take them out, just on general principal.

After, when it was utter chaos, Cutter and his brother found themselves alone and starving. The first people they killed were two neighbors down the street from them. They were an old retired couple who had a passion for gardening. The brothers befriended them, offering to protect them and help out. Cutter was fine with the arrangement, but one night Shooter killed them in their sleep. He rationalized it by saying they were old and didn’t merit all of the food they were eating, even though it was theirs to eat.

After those two, it became easy. They worked their way all around the west Nashville area doing the same thing and eventually ran into the River Road group. At that time, it was only three teenage boys led by an ex-con nicknamed Kiss. He was mean and vicious, but he took a liking to Simon and Theodore, even gave them their nicknames.

Cutter shrugged off those unpleasant memories. A time in his life he was better off not thinking about. His brother always said they did what they had to do. He wondered if his brother thought that way the time they caught a woman and took turns raping her during a drunken spree.

“What’re you thinking, dude?” Cutter looked up to see Blake staring at him.

“Oh, nothing much. When are we going to eat?”

Dinner consisted of whatever each man brought for themselves. Each of them had a small gassifier stove made from tin cans and cooked up various food items, supplemented by jerky and hard bread. Cutter looked over to see Blake sipping a can of Coke. He saw him looking and grinned.

“I found a six-pack in a car a couple of days ago.” Cutter said nothing but thought about how long it’d been since he’d had a soda of any kind. Blake must have sensed it. He reached into his backpack and tossed a can.

“You owe me.” Cutter nodded his gratitude, popped the tab and took a sip of the hot, foaming soda. It tasted like nectar of the Gods to him.

After dinner, the men lay back on their sleeping rolls and chatted.

“Cutter, why'd you volunteer to go with us?” Grant asked. Cutter made a face.

“Because, Tonya has been a real bitch lately. It’s like, you can’t even enjoy breakfast before she’s creating work projects and ordering everyone around. You know that, she’s been doing the same thing to you.” Cutter didn’t mention his latest failed attempt with Kyra. He’d made a couple of passes at her over the weeks and she rebuffed every one of them. This last time she called him creepy. He shook the thoughts off.

“I don’t need some old bitch telling me what to do all the time.”

Grant smiled in the growing darkness. “I’m afraid it’s all necessary work, my friend.” He looked over at Cutter. “Like digging the pit for the septic tank. Wouldn’t you agree that it’s better to have a functioning septic system rather than burning the turds off every day from the outhouse barrels?” Cutter had no answer. He uttered a profanity under his breath and shifted himself around on his bedroll.

“Whatever, I needed to get out of there for a while. I haven't had any time for myself. Besides,” he said with a grin and holding up his large Rambo knife, “I'll get to do some zombie killing.” Justin grunted. He knew there was indeed going to be some zombie killing; he only hoped Cutter was up to the task. Grant changed the subject.

“What’d you do before you and your brother ended up at the school?” Cutter shifted again and answered guardedly.

“We were living with some other dudes in a place out on the west side of the county. It was a decent setup, a big house out on River Road that used to be a rehab clinic. They had a couple of years’ worth of food saved up and one of the dudes was a pretty good gardener. Everything was okay until the damn river flooded and washed away everything we had.”