Floyd & Mikki (Book 2): Zombie Slayers (Dawn of the Living) (6 page)

After several hours of passionate lovemaking, Floyd and Mikki slept surprisingly well in the fold-down cots, even if there wasn’t enough room to sleep in the same cot. They found a stash of MREs in one compartment and a small supply of hand grenades in another. Mikki was starting to feel like she was back in the game as she took inventory.

Her tally complete, Mikki reported to Floyd that they had 835 rounds of machine gun ammunition, 7 cannon shells, and 12 additional grenades. They decided to fill four Mini Uzi clips each with the new ammo, for a total of 256 rounds. That left 579 rounds for the vehicle machine guns. Since they had no idea what kind of powder was in the cartridges or what might be in the nose of the bullets, Mikki filled only one of the Uzi clips at first, until they could test the ammo. Better safe than sorry.

Mikki then loaded a clip into each of the portal guns and fired off a couple of rounds from each. They worked perfectly, blowing large holes in building walls and shredding trashed automobiles. No doubt they would blow bigger holes in flesh—especially dried out zombie flesh.

Suddenly Mikki doubled over, wincing in pain. She bore it silently, breathing in tight gasps, but Floyd noticed it immediately. Ever concerned, he ran to her side.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

Mikki could see the worry in his eyes. She smiled and nodded, then regained her composure. “I’m fine, Floyd, believe me. It’s nothin’.”

“It didn’t look like nothin’! Mikki, don’t lie to me. What’s wrong?”

“Nothin’s
wrong
, Floyd! Nothin’ at all! Seriously! Just let it be.”

She seemed to have regained her composure, but Floyd was not convinced. He kept pressing the issue and she kept arguing. Finally she had enough hand blurted out, “I’m on my period, alright! I’m cramping!”

The look on Floyd’s face was utterly comical. He looked like a mule had kicked him in the stomach, followed up by a kick to the head. Mikki laughed at him.

“Damn, Floyd! You should see your face! I picked up a bunch of tampons at that gas station back there. I should start bleedin’ in a day or two, but the cramps—”

“OK! OK! TMI, Mikki! I get it! I trust you!”

Mikki laughed even harder and teased him mercilessly. The poor guy! He was not at all comfortable with this kind of topic. She showed him some compassion and let the matter drop—for now. She ended with, “Let’s just say it’s good that we got this tin can to wrap around us for the next couple o’ days. I’ll be a walkin’ zombie magnet ‘til this is over. They smell blood, ya know.”

“Yeah. OK. Thanks. I guess.”

He looked like such a schoolboy! “Oh Floyd, you big doofus. I do love you!” She gave him a kiss on the cheek and he relaxed a bit. “Now pop the top and let’s see what this Uzi can do.”

First, Floyd started Behemoth and the screens all lit up. Seeing that there was nothing around them to worry about, he opened the hatch and hopped out, reaching down to help Mikki up. She lit up a cigarette and let it hang out the side of her mouth as she took aim at a nearby car. At first she switched the Mini Uzi to single fire.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

One bullet at a time, another piece of the car went flying. Mikki switched to full auto and fired a few controlled bursts. Pieces of metal exploded from the vehicle. She aimed at a building wall and blew chunks of debris in a line along the side. The barrel was barely even warm. Zeke certainly had engineered the firing mechanism to last, no matter what. These rounds were clearly more powerful than your normal 9mm.

Satisfied, she turned to Floyd and said, “Yup. I reckon these’ll do just fine, Floyd!”

Dropping back down inside the vehicle, Mikki began loading the other Mini Uzi magazines. She wanted to try out the cannon but with only seven shells, she couldn’t afford to waste one. She would just have to hope it worked when they needed it most. Damn! She was starting to think like Floyd! Ah well, given the gaping holes in many of the buildings, there seemed little doubt that the cannon worked just fine.

Floyd joined her and began reviewing his Thomas Brothers Guide, mapping out a route as he ate one of the shelf dinners Mikki had grabbed from the gas station. It tasted pretty good for meatloaf. It wasn’t like what mom used to make, but that was good because Floyd’s mom was a crappy cook. He threw the trash outside the vehicle and was just about ready to leave, when Mikki started climbed up the ladder and popped the hatch.

“Where you goin’?” Floyd called after her.

“Be right back!” was her only reply.

Hearing gunfire, Floyd grabbed Clyde and scanned the monitors for any nearby danger, but he saw nothing. He poked his head out of Behemoth and saw Mikki shooting at the wall of a relatively untouched building. She fired in short bursts and finished the clip. At first, he thought she was just getting in more target practice, or that she just loved the feel of a lead-spitting Uzi in her hand again. Then he realized what she had done. In bullet holes, permanently engraved on the side of the building, she had drawn a huge heart with their F+M logo.

“Seriously?” he asked, as she jumped back in the vehicle.

“Seriously,” she replied.

It felt good to be on the road again, especially in such a big-ass monster vehicle. Mikki sat next to Floyd as he drove. Noticing a pair of headphones, she picked them up and put them on. She hit a button and hoped she’d hear music, but her ears were only assaulted by static. She grabbed Floyd’s portion of the manual and thumbed through it.

“Hey, Floyd! This thing’s got a radio in it. Like the one Bob used at the campground. Maybe we can use this to contact him.”

“Worth a try. Here’s the frequency.”

Floyd dug out a piece of paper from his inside jacket pocket and handed it to Mikki. She used a set of pushbuttons to set the frequency on the digital display.

“Floyd and Mikki to Emerald Valley Campground. Do y’all copy? This here is Floyd and Mikki to Emerald Valley Campground. Do y’all copy? Bob, is you there?”

She tried for a couple of minutes but got no response. The two hoped nothing was wrong. Maybe the skip just wasn’t in line today. Or maybe Bob just wasn’t at the radio at the moment. Or maybe the radio in the giant weapon-on-wheels didn’t work, after all. Floyd told her to try again later. They left the radio on, just in case.

For such a huge vehicle, the ride was incredibly smooth and quiet. It wasn’t exactly a stealth vehicle, but it sure didn’t make as much noise as the stupid Datsun they were driving earlier. The manual said it ran on power cells. Floyd had no idea how long they would last, but the meter showed they were at a third power and there were two more cells in the back. Each cell was solid black. A foot wide, two feet high, and two feet deep. They popped into a simple insertion mechanism. Floyd wrote down the time they started moving to try and gauge how fast the power drained.

“Hey, Mikki! You want to look at this. Tells you how to change the batteries in this thing.”

He handed her the manual, folded open to the proper page. She understood at once what he was talking about. It wouldn’t do much good to run out of power in the middle of a battle, so the unit housed two batteries at a time. You could easily change one that was low without losing all power to the vehicle. Mikki checked and saw that one of the batteries was already dead. The red light wasn’t even glowing. The light on the other one was yellow.

She flipped open the latch on the dead battery and replaced it. The new battery lit up a yellowish green. Floyd noticed the power level jumped to 68%.

After sitting for nearly two years or so, the power cells were not at their peak, but they still had a lot of juice left. Maybe. They still had no idea how fast Behemoth would drain the cells in normal use. Either way, Floyd and Mikki planned to enjoy this new toy for as long as they could. Then they would scavenge any unused ammunition and supplies before dumping it.

Speaking of which, Mikki pulled a med kit from the wall and opened it up. Jackpot! In addition to the normal assortment of bandages and sterile wipes, there were several bottles of antibiotics. That should take care of Floyd the next time he got one of his colds. There was a full bottle of Ibuprofen and a small plastic case holding five syringes labeled “Morphinol.”

“Hey, Floyd! Check this out! Good meds!”

“What the hell is Morphinol?” Floyd asked.

“Oh it’s great stuff! Synthetic Morphine without the addictive side effects. One jab of this needle and you won’t feel no pain, even if yer arm gets blown off!”

“Good to know. Let’s hope we never have to use it.”

“According to the dosage, one shot should last 24 hours. And if you feel a cold comin’ on, you take one o’ these here pills every four hours.”

“Yes, Nurse Mikki,” Floyd snickered.

“Laugh all you want, but this stuff could save our lives one day.”

“Let’s hope not. Let’s try to not rush into some situation where we might get our asses kicked, OK? Please?”

“Oh, calm down, Floyd! After that last encounter I ain’t exactly itchin’ for a fight.”

“Really? Wow! Wisdom does come with age, after all.”

Mikki stuck her tongue out at him. “Watch yer mouth,” she said, “Or I’ll jab you with one o’ these needles just to watch you get all loopy.”

“No thanks. Hanging around with you gets me loopy enough.”

“In more ways than one, tiger!” Mikki answered with a wicked smile. Then she blew him a kiss.

They headed down the road for an hour. Driving Behemoth was a breeze. Any cars that didn’t get pushed to the side by the vehicle’s pointed triangular nose were crushed by its massive tires. All kinds of stores passed by as they watched on the monitors, but everything seemed empty. Either the place had been cleared of zombies or they were hiding inside during the daylight. The power level had only dropped 3%, so theoretically, they could travel for several days, depending on how often they stopped and shut down to conserve energy.

Floyd decided to go exploring. He was down to only six shotgun shells in Clyde and Mikki had only slugs. They had to find a gun store to boost their ammo. After another two hours of randomly roaming city streets, they found one. The Grant Boys in Costa Mesa. They had ended up farther south than he had hoped, but he had finally found what he was looking for.

“Hey, Floyd! Ain’t that yer picture up there?” Mikki was referring to the picture on the side of the building of a happy hayseed wearing a flannel shirt and holding a bunch of guns in his hands.

He actually did kinda look like Floyd when they first met, but Floyd refused to admit it.
And I certainly don’t look that doofy,
he thought. A sign above one of the doors said, “We got it when you need it!” Floyd certainly hoped so.

They rolled over several cars in the parking lot and parked. There was no sign of movement. It was like a ghost town, but that was in Knott’s Berry Farm a few miles away. After checking the surveillance monitors, Floyd shut Behemoth down.

The building façade was reminiscent of an old western town out of a cowboy movie. There were actually three stores in one. One for guns, one for camping and one for clothing. It was like winning the lottery! Assuming nothing happened to screw it all up, like a platoon of Super Z’s dropping out of the sky.

Floyd decided they should leave Bonnie and Clyde and their sniper rifles in Behemoth. They were too low on ammo to justify the weight and bulk. Besides, the new rounds in the Mini Uzis were almost as good as Zeke’s special bullets, and they planned to be bringing a lot of gear back with them. They emptied their backpacks except for one MRE each and water in case they got stuck inside for some reason, as well as a few other handy items.

When they came up to the door, it was locked. They peered inside and nothing seemed broken. No dead bodies anywhere. Maybe the infestation had hit here at night when everything was closed. But there were no bodies in the street, either. The total lack of any danger scared the hell out of them.

To Floyd’s surprise, Mikki picked the lock instead of smashing in the glass door. She explained that she’d rather be able to lock it again once they were inside.
Wow! She’s actually thinking ahead, for a change!
Now Floyd thought she was starting to think like him. That attack of the Super Z’s really must have rattled her. Either that, or she was just becoming less emotional and more mature. Killing zombies every day had a way of making you grow up fast.

Mikki locked the door behind them and they looked around. It was rather dark, as the building didn’t have any windows. The only light was coming in through the front glass door. It was already about 4 o’clock, so the light would continue to fade.

Both Floyd and Mikki felt they had died and gone to Gun Heaven. Almost every kind of firearm made in the US was in glass cases or mounted on the walls. Almost. Nothing could match what Zeke had made, and most of it was impractical for zombie hunting. Still, it was great to look around. Unfortunately, they didn’t have a lot of time before the sun set and they didn’t feel like spending a few days looking at stuff they didn’t need or couldn’t use.

Everything was covered in dust. Again, there were no bodies anywhere, dead or undead. Floyd started wondering whether the Rapture really had come and he did miss it. But he couldn’t imagine that Southern California, of all places, would be emptied out by God before the Apocalypse. Either way, it didn’t affect his current situation. He was still stuck in a deep pit full of shit, trying to claw his way out.

They found the ammo shelves behind the main counter. Boxes and boxes of every kind of ammunition they could want! Well, except for the exotic stuff like anti-armor or antipersonnel shotgun rounds, but Floyd did find several cases of slugs tucked away in the back. They briefly looked over the holsters, firearms, magazines and other items, but ended up ignoring all of them to start grabbing cases of ammunition. They stacked them inside the door, checking outside for any sign of activity with every trip they made. Nothing.

Moving into the next part of the building, they scoured the shelves for camping gear. Here they found a lot more useful stuff. Mikki found a shopping basket and it didn’t take long to fill it with a small portable propane stove, propane bottles, extra-warm sleeping bags, blankets, heavy overcoats, a dozen pairs of soft, warm socks, and a number of other prizes.

They pretty much cleared out the food aisle, grabbing dried fruit, beef jerky and a wide assortment of other camping foods. MREs were great, but even beef stew and lemon poppy seed muffin tops got old after a while, when that’s all you had to eat. Floyd stocked up on water bottles and water purifying tablets as well. Behemoth wouldn’t last for more than a few days, but it would work as a storage locker after that, for as long as they remained in the area.

Moving on to the clothing section, they found a wide variety of Western Wear. Cowboy boots and shirts, Stetson hats and work gloves. Oh, if only they didn’t need to be covered up in body armor all the time! Some of it looked really sexy.

Mikki pointed to a red flannel shirt just like the one Floyd used to wear. Floyd found a pair of pink cowgirl boots. They both felt nostalgic for a moment. From such humble beginnings! They had both been through hell and back, with several return trips. Nostalgia was a luxury they could not afford, however. Ever focused on the future, they left this part of the store without taking anything.

Heading outside, Floyd climbed on top of the vehicle while Mikki ferried boxes to him and he plopped them inside. Back and forth she went until everything was loaded. They had quite an arsenal now. Soon, Bonnie and Clyde would be fully loaded and back in action!

Floyd jumped straight down into Behemoth, ignoring the metal ladder as Mikki picked the store lock again to lock the door from the outside. Then she took one of the red spray cans she had grabbed from the store and tagged the door with their logo. As she turned from the door to join Floyd, she stopped. After thinking a bit, she got a big smile on her face. She drew a huge logo on the top of the hatch and each side of the vehicle in bright red paint. Behemoth was now officially the Floyd-and-Mikkimobile.

After reentering the vehicle and closing the hatch, Mikki spent the next few hours loading every magazine while Floyd organized their gear. Long after the sun had set, they finally pulled open the cots and settled in for a zombie-free sleep.