Friggin Zombies (4 page)

With my lists updated I decided to hit the shower and go to bed myself. I would need to be hard at it by sunrise, getting the trailer unhooked and the van unloaded. If I could do all that before heading to town, then I wouldn't have to come back to do it once I dropped Connie off.

Although I didn't think I'd sleep much, considering my company and all, once I'd stood under the hot water a while and then toweled off I hit the bed and went straight to sleep. Tomorrow's worries would wait for tomorrow to get here.

I hoped.

CHAPTER FOUR

By dawn I was awake and ready to go. Today I decided to abandon any hint of stealth, and strapped my gun on my belt to start with, along with an extra mag and some other accessories. I had too much to do and too little time to get it done to worry about scaring or offending anyone. Besides, I had a permit and I was on my own property.

I moved the trailer off to the side of the driveway, doors facing toward the garage to make it easier to unload later. The van didn't have a lot left in it since I'd unloaded it the night before and Connie hadn't left much inside. It was the work of only a few minutes to clear out the van and less than an hour to get the trailer. It was nowhere near as loaded as it had been when I'd brought my first load of stuff in. Once that was done I stood outside for a minute, thinking.

The van was my work vehicle but it was pretty handy for most other things, too. Still, if things really did turn all end-of-the-world on me, I'd need more than the van maybe. I'd need Big Baby. Realizing that I hadn't thought far enough ahead, I started for the barn.

Now Big Baby is. . .well, my baby. I mentioned I liked off-roading, remember? Well, I did that with Big Baby. I also took her camping, fishing, hunting, basically anywhere I could justify taking a 1972 K5 Blazer with a 454 cubic inch engine that was cranking right at four hundred horse power, a four speed heavy duty. . .well, you get the idea. Big Baby is a bad ass old girl. Four extra inches of lift to accommodate the oversize tires, heavy brush bumper that doubled as a water tank and air tank, roll bar with. . .I'm doing it again. Sorry. Thing is, Big Baby is my pride and joy. She's been re-built from fender to fender and bumper to bumper. If I could figure a way to get it on there, Big Baby's got it.

She also drinks gas like an elephant drinks water. To compensate she had twin oversize fuel tanks and a third tank beneath the bed liner. Their combined capacity gave me about eight hundred miles range without refueling. That may not sound like a lot, but thing is? That eight hundred miles could be over the worst ground in the area and I'd still be able to get there. As Fremont said, a man moves when he wants or he doesn't move at all. Well, Richard Chamberlain said it in a movie where he
played
Fremont anyway. So there.

Regardless of who said it, I liked to be able to move, come whatever. And Big Baby made sure I could move.

I checked all the fluid levels first, making sure she was ready to rock. I hadn't run her in a good while, and I was particular about that. I had too much time and money invested to let something silly or stupid mess her up. She was a little sluggish to start, but that was normal when she hadn't been run in a while. I let her idle for a few minutes and soon enough she was ready to go. I pulled out of the barn, stopping long enough to close the door again, then pulled around front.

Connie was in the kitchen when I went inside, already done up for another day as Doctor Hottie. And damn she was hot. I mean great balls of fire get the water hose
hot
. I've said that before, haven't I? Sorry. Anyway, she smiled at me when I walked inside.

“Morning.”

“Morning,” I replied, getting my EDC bag. I looked through it briefly out of habit and then went to the closet and got my three day bag to put in the Blazer. I had decided it was just stupid to keep using the van if I had to be in town. I might really need to get home no matter what, and Big Baby would make sure I did. No matter what.

“You about ready to head in?” I asked, and Connie nodded.

“Can we stop somewhere and get breakfast?” she asked.

“Sounds like a plan,” I nodded, and looked at my watch. Forty-seven hours and ten minutes left. Today was Thursday. The food we'd ordered might get here on Friday, or Saturday. I had paid extra to make sure mine was here in seventy-two hours and Connie had done the same. It was an extra expense, but. . .I figured if I didn't have it by then, I might not get it. If I didn't need it, then I'd just be poorer. A lot poorer. But I could always eat the stuff.

“I usually cook but I've been busy this morning,” I told my new roommate. “What time do you have to be at your office?”

“By eight fifteen,” she replied, looking at her own watch. “Plenty of time to get a bite and pick up my car. If we start now,” she added, looking up at me.

“We're good,” I nodded. “I already unloaded everything.”

“I saw my stuff in the living room,” she nodded. “I'll get it squared away tonight when I get back.” I shrugged that off.

“Leave it there, or in the spare room if you want, until we see what happens. You may not have to unpack everything.” I opened the door, holding it open for her. No sense in wasting a good opportunity by not being a gentleman, you know? Bad, Drake. Very bad. She smirked as she walked by. Busted again. Still made me smile.

She made it about two steps outside before jerking to a stop. I reached for my pistol but then I realized that she had just noticed Big Baby.

“What in the hell is that?” she asked, and the little tone of awe and surprise made me smile just a little.

“That is Big Baby,” I informed her grandly. “She will make sure we can get around, no matter what happens. I'm taking her in this morning for an oil change and to fill up her tanks.”

“Tanks?” Connie asked, moving again. “Plural?”

“Well, she burns a lot of gas,” I shrugged. “So, yeah. Three tanks.”

“How much does it cost you to fill this monster up?” she wanted to know, using the hand strap and the step ladder to get inside.

“Nowadays, around two hundred dollars, give or take,” I answered. “It's not like I drive it much, though. Like I said, Big Baby's here in case of emergency. If things are turning bad, we can get around a lot easier than using the van or your car.”

“And run over anything that doesn't move aside,” Connie added. Maybe a bit tart, I thought.

“Now you're getting it!” I enthused, to which she replied with a snort.

We made it to town in good order and got us some breakfast. I dropped Connie at her apartment to get her car, where she was glad to see her roommate's car.

“I need to go and talk to her,” Connie said, opening the door. “I don't have much time, but she needs to know what might be happening.” She stopped and looked back over her shoulder at me. “Want to meet her?”

“Sure,” I shrugged. I had time. And I honestly would have done pretty much anything she asked me to. What can I say?

Connie's roommate was named Rita. Rita Thomas. Redhead, freckles, cute. Nothing like Connie, but not in any way unattractive.

Rita scoffed at Connie at first, but Connie kept on hammering at her with facts, using my tablet and her own laptop to show Rita the business. In ten minutes, Rita's tune had changed completely.

“Got room for me too?” she asked, looking at me hopefully. She seemed like one of those people who are just naturally bubbly. I hated that in a person, especially early in the morning. But. . .any friend of Doctor Hottie and all that, right? Right.

“Yes,” I told her. “Pack what you need to take with you, and I'll come back by and pick you up if you want. Or you can follow me out there,” I added. “Either way.”

“I'll need my car,” Rita said thoughtfully. “I'll have work to do if this doesn't happen. You know it sounds crazy, right?” she looked at me doubtfully.

“I do,” was all I said.

“Well, no sense takin' chances, I always say,” she bubbled again. Ugh. Too early for that, even if the world was ending. “I'll get to work. Luckily I got the weekend off, so I'm good. It's my long weekend, since I was on call yesterday. I'm a home health care nurse,” she added. Bubbly. Again. I shot a glance at Connie, who was hiding a grin. Almost an apologetic grin, I noticed. When Rita turned to get a pen, Connie mouthed 'sorry' to me behind her friend's back. I just waved it off. If it got me in good with my goddess of medicine, then I'd make do. Bubbly or not.

“Here's my number!” Rita grinned, handing over a business card with her cell phone added to the back. “Give me a call when you head this way and I'll be waiting.”

“Oh-kay,” I sort of drug it out, and I swear Connie snickered just a little. It's really lucky for her she's my dream woman, or I'd have been very put out by that. A little. Some. Okay, you got me. I probably would have let a bear crap on me if it made Connie Kane look at me favorably. Know what I mean?

Anyway, I left Bubbly Red Rita to pack and headed for Chuck's garage. Chuck was a buddy. We road trails together some, and he had done a lot of work on Baby for me. Anytime it was something outside my skill set, I took it to Chuck.

Chuck happened to be free when I drove up and went right to work on Baby's fluid and filter check. We talked about odd and end stuff while he checked her over. He didn't mention the stuff in Europe and I didn't bring it up either. I liked Chuck, I really did. But he was straight red-neck. If I had told him he would have laughed me out of his garage, and by sundown the entire city would have thought I was nutty as a fruitcake. That was a complication I didn't need. Just did. Not. Need. So when Chuck was done, I paid him, gave him a little extra for beer since I wouldn't be out this weekend, and said good-bye.

Haven't seen Chuck since, I'm sorry to say. He was a pretty good guy. Thinking about all this makes me feel bad once in a while. I mean, I know that no one would have listened, you know? I could have yelled it from the courthouse steps and no one would have cared other than I might be disturbing them with the noise. So what do I have to feel guilty about?

Technically nothing. Nice word, technically. Means 'according to the rules, by letter of the law rather than spirit', and about a half-dozen other things all designed to make people who didn't do 'the right thing' feel better about themselves.

But seriously, what could I do? I wasn't even sure that 'it' was going to happen. I just had a really bad feeling based on a few minutes of amateur video that was no longer on the web, a few odd news stories that seemed to be falling into a predictable pattern, and a healthy dose of fear. No proof to show anyone and no way to substantiate a single thing I thought was going to happen.

What would you have done if someone had come up to you and  said, ‘H
ey, man. Like, I don't wanna start a panic or nothin' but. . .zombies are real, dude, and they're coming!'
Right. You'd have laughed right in their face, and told 'em to stop screwing' with ya.

Or called the cops. Either way.

It's easy to step back and tell yourself,
‘Hey, they can look for things just like I can. If they aren't ready, it's their problem’.
Sounds good up to a point and it even makes sense. When did it become my obligation to do the watching and digging and looking for everyone else? I could have stayed at home drinking beer. . .well, I had stayed at home and drunk beer, but not to excess, all right? I was doing research.

I was watching news reports, videos, anything I could find that would tell me what was going on. If I can spend the time to keep up on stuff I need to know, so can other people. Problem is, most everyone depends on the 'goobermint' to tell them what's wrong and what to do about it. I mean, let's face it; the people in Dee Sea can't do the job they were sent there for in the first place, and you want to depend on them to give you timely information about a problem that could bring about a zombie apocalypse and perhaps the end-of-the-world?

Nah. That's too much trust to place in the hands of self-centered, self-important morons. I'll take care of myself, thanks.

Look, all I'm saying is that there was nothing I could have done any differently about folks like Chuck. They wouldn't have believed me. Would have ridiculed me and probably tried to have me arrested for observation. That's a real thing, you know. And I didn't have time for that. So, do I jeopardize my own safety and survival trying to help people who would just turn things around on me?

Well, I didn't. So sue me.

Anyway. . .with all that done I ran by the Lowe's one last time, picking up five more gas cans. Last five they had, in fact. I filled them and Big Baby, adding fuel stabilizer all around. The bill was something else for something like ninety gallons of gas. If it hadn't been for the end-of-the-world thing, there's no way I would have been spending that kind of money. Later on I'd be glad I did, but at the time it was just a throw of the dice.

I took a look at my well worn lists and realized that except for a few little odd and ends I was done. I picked up six new deep cycle marine batteries for the new PV cells I had gotten the day before. Another hefty chuck of money, but a good investment. Case of motor oil for Baby and at least one bottle of every fluid she needed. More fuel treatment, just in case. By the time I left the parts house, the manager was inviting me to his son's graduation from college. You know, since I was paying for it and everything.

Finally I couldn't put it off any longer. I pulled out my cell and called Bubbly Red Rita and listened as she bubbled to me that she was ready to go. Sighing in regret for the weakness I felt any time I was in Connie Kane's presence, I drove back to their apartment. Rita was ready all right. With what looked like everything she owned, ever.

“What the hell?” I asked, looking around the crowded living room. “Connie didn't have near this much, and you don't have a single gun case in the bunch! You can't possibly need all this stuff!”