Dead Life Book 5 (9 page)

Chapter 10

              We loaded most of the rest of the gear from the back of the U-Haul into our “new” truck. Al and I did this while the girls took turns shooting the steadily increasing number of zombies that had been drawn to all the noise we were making. The transfer was more difficult than it should have been since we were unable to get down on the ground to load the truck. Cindy moved the Ford away from the back bumper then climbed into the bed of the other truck. Then Al backed up against the back of the U-Haul. When this was done the four of us had a somewhat uncomfortable reunion. After rubbing it in for a while and doing their best to make us feel bad Al and Gina finally laid off. I had seen firsthand, when Gina and I had first started dating, that she could be a bit jealous at times. After some quick explaining as to what had actually happened though she calmed down. Al actually seemed madder that I was going to leave half of his grenades behind than he was that when they found us I was hugging his half naked girl-friend.

There was a heated argument between Al and me about who was going to go down into all that zombie goo and remove the wooden bumper from the U-Haul; then put it on the front of our new vehicle. Al argued that I was younger and in better shape than he was. What a crock of shit that was. I reasoned that he was older than me and most likely not nearly as tasty as I would be. Therefore not as appealing to the undead and less likely to be attacked by something coming up out of the zombie sludge that surrounded us. We finally agreed it would be best to find a hardware store or a lumber yard and make a new one. The only things we had left behind were the propane powered generator and a few of the spare tanks for it. Al insisted on bringing most of the propane tanks with us. I was pretty sure he had an idea that he could use them as some sort of half assed bomb at some point in the future. Good old Al.

As we drove away from the U-Haul Al’s voice came over the radio, “Did you buy the extra insurance on that thing?”

“No. Why would I?”

“There’s going to be a hell of a charge on your final bill. They expect you to bring those things back you know.” Then we heard the roar of his laughter over the radio.

“That’s just stupid,” we heard Cindy say in the background. “You’re the only one that thinks you’re funny.”

“Steve, you thought that was funny, didn’t you?”

Gina looked at me. A questioning look on her face. “That would be a no Al.” Now it was my turn to laugh.

“Give me that,” Gina said, taking the radio from me. “There’s a small town about twenty miles west of here. Let’s try to make it at least that far before it gets dark.”

“Sounds good,” Cindy replied. The girls had taken over control of the radio.

Al had chosen to drive the rusted old pick up. I think it was a Chevy. I could see that he felt comfortable in the older truck and had to admit that he looked at home behind the wheel of the rusted piece of shit. Until we were able to get a new wooden bumper installed on it Al would have to give up his second favorite pastime. Running over zombies. We made it to the small town Gina had us going to, Sedalia, in less than twenty minutes. So we decided to press on. Going to Boonville had taken us too far to the west and now we had to go back to the east. Jefferson City was the next major city we would come to. These back roads were killing our time. Missouri had several major highways crisscrossing the state. It was just that none of them were in this area. Right now we were on highway 50, highway my ass. When we got to Jefferson City we would be able to make a straight shot down highway 63 to Fort Leonard Wood. That’s if we got lucky and all the roads between here and there were drivable.

The next town we came to was gone. There had been a fire in the small city of Tipton and everything had burned to the ground. The roads were still passable so we kept going. I had never been to California but had always wanted to and now was my chance. California, Missouri population 4,278 not exactly the California I was hoping to see but if I could find a safe place to sleep I’d take it.

On the outskirts of town we came to a lumberyard. The entire compound was surrounded by a ten foot chain link fence topped with barbed wire. The gate was chained shut and pad locked. The lock was inside the fencing, suggesting that someone had locked themselves in. We parked outside of the gate and watched for movement inside.

“How long are we going to wait here?” Cindy asked.

“Not much longer, babe,” Al answered.

“There’s definitely someone in there,” I said. “I see two cars and a pickup. Let’s cut the chain. Nobody’s coming. They either don’t see us or are hoping we’ll go away.”

Al got the bolt cutters from the back of the truck and I watched for any activity from the front of the building while he cut the chain. We had several locks and would just use one of ours to secure the gate behind us. That way whoever was in here would still be able to use their lock after we were done.

Al unwrapped the chain and opened the gate. “Do we go in on foot or do you want to take the trucks?”

“Let’s take the trucks,” I said. “I don’t like this.  If anybody is in there you’d think they’d be watching the gate.”

Gina and Cindy drove the trucks through the gate while Al and I watched the building. Al wound the chain back around the gate and put our lock through where he had cut it. He left the lock open though, in case we needed to make a hasty retreat.

The first house I had owned when I was in my twenties had a wood burning stove. My dad and I had gone to a lumber yard much like this one back then. There was a mountain of scrap ends piled by the road leading to the saw mill. We had come to the lumber yard all those years ago to buy a truck load of these scrap ends. I borrowed a truck and the two of us drove for hours to get to the lumberyard a friend had told me about. After getting to the lumberyard I found out it was only thirty dollars a truck load and had gone about loading as much scrap wood as I could into the back of the truck. When I had the bed of the truck full I noticed several of the workers standing around, smiles on their faces. One of my back tires was nearly flat. It must have been low on air from the start. I tried to fill the tire with one of those battery operated pumps that one of the workers carried in his car but there was too much pressure on the tire. I was forced to unload the scraps from the back of the truck. Then reload it after I inflated the tire. I remember being so mad that day. All that work loading, unloading, and then reloading the truck. Now the thought of that day brought a smile to my face. If only a flat tire was the worst of my problems now.

              Piles of cut lumber of different lengths and widths were stacked everywhere. Next to one of these piles was where we found the first dead body. There wasn’t much left. I couldn’t even tell if it had been a man or a woman. We stopped the trucks and Al and I got out. Gina and Cindy drove the rest of the way and we walked in front of the trucks. At the entrance to the sawmill we found another body. The torn remnants of the dress she had worn was the only reason I could tell this one had been a woman. Al told the girls to wait in the trucks while we went in. This brought a strong round of protests from both Cindy and Gina. They wanted to grab some wood from the piles outside of the mill and just take off. I kind of agreed with them but Al wanted to go inside and have a look around. He fed us some bullshit about finding the right size boards for the front of the truck. I didn’t say anything but should have.

              “We need a place to spend the night,” he said. “There’s a fence surrounding the perimeter. We’ll just look around. If we run into any trouble we’ll turn tail and come right back.”

              “Fine,” Gina said. “Go have your fun.”

              “I promise you baby. First sign of trouble, we’re out of here,” I said.

              Gina climbed into the truck with Cindy and closed the door. “I said go. So go.”

This was a big operation. The doorway was big enough to drive a tractor trailer through. The dwindling daylight only penetrated so far into the interior of the mill. Once we got away from the open entryway it got dark fast. Inside of the mill we found dozens of tents. It looked like an entire city had moved behind the fences in the hopes of finding something that didn’t exist any longer. Safety.

From the back of the building we could hear the unmistakable moans of the undead. Al and I proceeded cautiously deeper into the mill. We found several blood trails and followed the largest one through the debris field of the battle that had recently taken place here. The large saws and processed lumber stacked everywhere made it impossible to see all the way into the back of the mill. Avoiding tripping over the dead bodies that were everywhere made the going even slower. I stopped counting bodies after thirty. The spent shell casings, rifles, and hand guns, that hadn’t been enough to prevent this slaughter, lay next to many of the dead.

“Look at that one,” Al said. “She shot herself.”

“Looks like a lot of them did. We should get out of here.”

“There’s still zombies in here.”

“No shit,” I replied. “That’s why we should go. We’ll get your new bumper then set the place on fire when we leave.”

“They’re all in the back. Somebody’s still alive in here. They’d be out here now chowing down on these poor bastards unless they had something they were more interested in back there.”

Al was right. These kills were fresh. “Alright, let’s go.”

The further into the mill we went the louder the moans became. There were a lot of zombies in here. There was no way we would be taking this horde on with just our swords. We came to the back of the building and found what we were looking for. There were at least fifty zombies crowded outside of what appeared to be the office area of the mill. A solid steel door was all that separated the horde from whatever it was they were after. Most of them seemed to have lost interest in their prey and just stood staring off into space in typical zombie fashion. However there were about a dozen that were still actively trying to get in the door. Al and I stopped and raised our rifles.

“Be ready to fall back,” Al said, and opened fire.

As soon as we started shooting the entire group of zombies turned as one and ran in our direction. Even with our rifles on full auto this horde of freshly turned zombies were too fast. “Fall back!” Al shouted.

We retreated around one of the stacks of lumber. More zombies were coming at us from behind. How we had missed them on our way in I had no idea. There weren’t many but they slowed down our escape. A hand shot out from behind a stack of two by fours and grabbed my forearm. It pulled me off balance and I fell to the ground, dragging it down on top of me. As I hit the ground instinct told me to roll away from the undead monster before it had a chance to take a bite out of my ass. All this did was cause it to roll along with me. Somehow I was able to keep both hands on my rifle and used it to push the creature away from me. I had the end of the barrel up under its chin but my finger was nowhere near the trigger. I was in the process of sliding my hand up the stock of my rifle in an attempt to get to the trigger when I heard Al’s gun go off. He shot the bastard in the head and it flew off me, taking my rifle with it.

“Get up!” Al shouted.

He turned and fired into the runners as they rounded the corner. I drew my father’s revolver and fired from where I lay on the ground at the zombies that were coming at us from the other end of the mill. When my revolver clicked on a spent cartridge I crawled to the dead bastard that still held my assault rifle in its grasp. I pried it from its hands, ejected the nearly empty magazine, and slapped a new one home. Al reached down with one hand, grabbed me under the arm, and helped me to my feet. We fired in front of us as we made our way back out of the mill, taking down as many of the zombies that were in front of us as we could as we made our way out of the building. Suddenly the darkness that prevailed was broken by a set of headlights coming in our direction. The girls were coming to our rescue. The truck ran down several of the zombies that were headed in our direction and came to a stop next to one of the tents that Al and I had passed on our way into the mill. The passenger door to the truck burst open and Gina jumped out, firing her assault rifle behind us.

The tent next to her bulged in her direction and fell to the ground. She turned and fired a volley of shots into the writhing canvas mass beside her. I could see the darkened blood of a recently turned zombie oozing from beneath the folds of canvas as Al and I ran to the truck. By this time Cindy was out of the truck. She had her assault rifle and was also firing into the horde coming at us from behind. Al and I ran to the back of the truck and climbed over the side. There wasn’t a lot of room back there amongst all the gear but we were able to wedge ourselves in. I heard the doors to the truck slam shut. Cindy threw it in reverse and backed away from our pursuers. I was trying to get into a position where I could fire my rifle when she hit the brakes and I was thrown onto my back into some cases of bottled water. I could feel her turn a one eighty and decided it best to stay down until we were out of the mill.

The truck came to a stop. I waited a second then sat up. We were outside of the mill. I climbed over the side and ran with Al to the entrance way. By the time we got there what was left of the horde was just coming into view. We started shooting into the running mob of zombies and when the girls joined us the four of us were able to put them down with little trouble.