Slow Burn: A Zombie Novel (55 page)

“
Well, we got just the place for you to keep on lockdown friends. Now pack your shit and be ready to roll!” Stephen yelled while returning to the convoy, which was preparing to pull out.

Logan and Kleaner gave a whoop of excitement, gave each other a chest bump then ran inside and upstairs to pack. The rest of us filed back to our vehicles and the convoy again proceeded west.

The rest of the trip to the RV lot was largely uneventful. Slowing to a stop in front of the business, we saw rows and rows of undamaged campers just waiting to be looted. I climbed out of Dan’s bus with a set of bolt cutters. With a bit of effort, the cheap lock parted, and I swung back the chain link gate. After the entire convoy entered the fenced-in lot, I shut the gate and secured it with a new lock, leaving the key with it. As people walked excitedly among the campers, I made my way exactly to the one I wanted. I used to patrol this area before the outbreak and had answered several alarm calls at this business. Walking to the southwest corner of the property, I found my prize.

Taking up a huge chunk of real estate was a brand new blue and silver luxury bus RV. The sticker stated it was a Tiffin Phaeton Class A diesel blah, blah, blah… for the low, low price of $244,995 dollars. I jogged over to the main building where Stephen had located the lockbox with the keys for all the camper doors. Spotting the keys labeled Tiffin, I snagged them off the board. Exiting the building, I ran into Mattie looking around at the various fifth wheel pull-behind campers and travel trailers on the lot.

“
Find one yet, Mattie?”

“
I found one that’ll work nicely for the field hospital. I have it hooked up and ready to go,” she said while walking with me. “Have I found one for myself? No, not yet. I might have to bunk with somebody.”

“
I might have some space in my pop-up camper I picked out,” I lied.

“
But there are so many others you could take, Mike, why did you pick a pop up trailer?” she questioned.

“
You know me, Mattie. I’m not a flashy material guy; simple stuff for a simple man,” I countered.

I just happened to finish what I was saying as I stopped at the door to the huge RV. Realization slowly dawned on her face as I unlocked the door.

“
I might be able to put you up for a few days, but the first month you are late on the rent I will toss you out,” I said with mock sincerity.

With a girlish laugh of glee, Mattie sprinted on board the RV. While she was looking into every nook and cranny, I spent some time trying to figure out how the hell the thing started. The dashboard looked like the control panel of an airliner. Finally the huge diesel rumbled to life, and I gave a little cheer of success. Next to the driver’s seat was a big control panel where I found the interior light switch. Throwing the switch, I could see why the damn thing cost so much.

“
The owners really must rough it when they go out camping in this beast,” I remarked, shaking my head in wonder at the plush interior.

I heard Mattie yelling something about the master bedroom when gunfire erupted from outside. Minutes later Stephen was yelling into my new pimp ride.

“
Mike, let’s move out already! We got all the trucks hooked up we can take this round,” he said as he climbed the steps into the bus. “Have you seen Mattie? I want everyone accounted for before we leave. We don’t want to leave anyone behind. The zombies have even found us out here!”

“
I’m here!” Mattie yelled from the back.

“
Okay, Mike, she is your responsibility for the trip back,” Stephen joked.

Flopping down into the driver’s seat of the huge luxury bus, I groaned as I rested my head on the big steering wheel. Glancing into the mirror, I saw Mattie had laid down onto the bed, causing me quite the distraction.

Try not to crash, Mike.

I swear that woman’s hotness will be the death of me.

I put the huge bus into gear and followed the truck in front of me out of the lot. Stopping just long enough to secure the gate, I gave the RV some extra gas to catch back up to the rest of the convoy.

Logan and Kleaner were sitting on a large pile of boxes stacked out in front on the sidewalk as we pulled back up to their apartment building. Our long column coiled together for protection as we stopped, and I had plenty of time to take in the view. The beautiful setting sun contrasted with the decay that could already be seen all around, and the smoke from several fires could be seen burning in the distance. Looking towards the brick building, I saw that both Logan and Kleaner were sucking water out of Camelbacks and their shiny new BDUs were drenched in sweat, as if this was the most work they had done in months. Logan snapped to attention when I stepped down from my RV.

“
Thought you weren’t gonna make it brother!” he yelled enthusiastically. “Kleaner, let’s not slow the man down. Get our shit loaded!”

“
Relax, meathead, I’m sure they will give us a hand,” Kleaner replied. “We got a lot of stuff here.”

As they continued to bicker like school girls, I looked at their stuff. At least thirty cases of military grade MREs, and eight or nine cases of Lake City 5.56, also military issue.

These guys must have had a buddy who worked for the Army in supply or something. I saw box after box of Army issue equipment being loaded into our vehicles.

“
Very impressive guys,” I said after a low whistle.

“
We’re all high speed, low drag brother,” Logan replied with a smile.

* * * * * * * *

As this was all playing out, Stephen walked over to their building and started checking it out, eventually heading up to their apartment. For all the military gear that was stacked neatly outside, the upstairs was the exact opposite, a total disaster. Old pizza boxes were stacked in the corner all the way to the ceiling.

You’d have to actually try to stack boxes that high
, he thought.

Garbage bags full of Mountain Dew and Pepsi cans were also strewn about. There was an impressive row of empty Jack Daniels bottles along the sides of a desk that had a large bank of video monitors on it. A cable ran into a closet that must have held some sort of battery bank, as evidenced by the fact that the monitors were still turned on. Several cameras showed the group finishing up the loading outside, and several more clearly showed the workout room downstairs as well as the locker room. Stephen let out a chuckle and suddenly had the feeling that he was being watched. Spinning around, he found himself face to face with Logan, who was again sweating heavily.

“
Were you spying on the lovely Curves ladies downstairs?” Stephen asked, unable to hold back a smile.

“
Um... no...uh, those cameras we only put up afterwards... for...uh... watching for zombies,” Logan stated not very convincingly.

“
You don’t have to justify it to me, friend,” Stephen said, still chuckling. “We should bring this stuff with. It’s pretty high tech and looks expensive. We could probably use it at the prison.”

Logan, now beaming with pride, stated what a fantastic idea that was and went on with a long dissertation on how much time and money were put into the setup. He also spewed technical mumbo jumbo that went right over Stephen’s head.

“
Hey!” Logan said loudly, snapping Stephen back to attention. “I got something else to show you!”

He led Stephen to a bookshelf that had a row of binders on it. The names on the bindings read like familiar old books to Stephen: Nuclear War, EMP Strike, Solar Flares, Economic Collapse, Virus/ Pandemic, Natural Disasters, Asteroid Strike/Super Volcano, New Madrid Fault/Earthquake, New World Order/UN Invasion, Martial Law/Federal Crackdown, Second Civil War, and finally Zombies.

Logan waved his meaty arm at the shelf. “My buddy and I put together standard operating procedures for every contingency we could think of. We did some reorganizing after we came through the 2012 Mayan scare without a hiccup awhile back. We added the zombie one last year after getting all liquored up. Who would have guessed that it’s the one we would need?” Logan laughed as he pulled the zombie binder from his collection.

“
That is actually pretty impressive man,” Stephen replied. “Let’s get some help up here to get those cameras so we can hit the road. And grab those manuals; they will be good reading material for later.”

Stephen was grinning ear to ear as he walked down the stairs and back outside.

“
You got to check it out upstairs, Mike,” he said as he grabbed the last box and walked it to his new ride back and future home, a like-new 2014 Winnebago Adventurer. “You’ll get a kick out of there place. Apparently our large friend likes large gals.”

A few minutes and several fat chick jokes later, a blushing Logan and Kleaner were on their way back to their new home. Kleaner was already talking about zombie security measures he wanted to implement at the prison as the convoy crawled east towards the river.

The convoy was heading back to the prison with their newly acquired homes, and things were going well, almost too well. Dan was getting one of those feelings that he didn’t like and let me know via radio. As the convoy was traveling down the road, the lead elements came to a point in the road where several vehicles were bunched up, creating a long, narrow funnel. Similar to the term “fatal funnel”, it was a place you did not want to stop as you were passing through. To stop in a “fatal funnel” made you an easy target. This funnel was even worse because of the bend in the road. Dan couldn’t see the lead vehicles of the convoy as they made it through the bend.

The trucks in front of him came to an abrupt stop. Dan’s visibility was restricted by the ass end of a large camper just to his front.

“
Shit, don’t stop here!” Dan yelled out loud before grabbing the radio to notify the others.

“
We got a fucking problem,” he radioed back. “The trucks in front of me were passing through that narrow spot and stopped. I’m going to jump out and see what’s going on. If their ride is disabled, then I’ll to tell them to get out of the way so the others can pass.”

“
Let us know if there’s a major problem,” Stephen replied. “I’ll send some guys to pull security.”

Dan walked up to the lead truck that had stopped, and noticed that all the tires on the truck were flat, along with the tires on the 5
^th
wheel camper.

“
That is not bad luck. It happened on purpose!” Dan yelled at the driver, who was out of his truck and scratching his head in disbelief. “Everyone that’s not driving get out of the trucks and pull security. I want a perimeter. We’re way too spread out here.”

Several men jumped from their trucks and spread out. A few walked over to a large single story concrete block building that had several closed garage doors in the front. It appeared that it used to be an auto repair place. On each side of the door were parked cars that offered some cover.

“
Hey guys,” Dan yelled over the several large diesel engines that were at an idle. “One of you get on the roof of that building and take a look around. I got a bad feeling here.”

“
I got it!” he heard one of them yell back.

As Dan was looking down at the ground, he called out that he had spotted some debris that could have caused the flats. Twisted pieces of jagged metal were strewn about the roadway. They were perfect for flattening tires and had clearly done that quite effectively. Just before he reached down to grab one for a closer look, he heard the sound of a large metal door from the nearby auto mechanic shop opening up, followed by the thunderous sound of several semi-auto rifles beginning to fire. When he looked over, he saw no less than a hundred zombies pour out of the open doors to the shop and quickly overwhelm the men standing next to the building. They screamed in terror and fired wildly before being pulled down and torn open. Dan and two other men were backed up against one of the camper trailers, making speed reloads as fast as possible. The zombies closed the gap clumsily but still managed to grab the man just to Dan’s left as he went to reload. Dan slung his rifle and drew his 1911, shooting a zombie in the head just before its jaw snapped shut on his arm. He then climbed up onto the roof of the nearest camper, emptying his pistol into the twisting mass below him. The noise was now a liability, for it was drawing in additional zombies as the reports of multiple rifles all around the perimeter began to heat up.

“
Everyone close up ranks!” Dan screamed. “We got zombies in the wire!”

Both of the men that had been standing by Dan when the attack began were now dead. Pausing to reload his last rifle magazine on his person, he turned again to face the group of zombies that poured out of the building. He had made the mistake of only having two extra rifle magazines on him when he got out of his vehicle.

It was a rookie mistake, and he vowed that it would not happen again.

Just as Dan was making a reload into his pistol, it must have seemed like God unleashed bolts of lightning at the zombies. They started to drop right below him as if they were being cut down by an invisible force. That force just happened to be Mike, Chris, Stephen and about six other men and women walking in a straight line formation, unleashing an amount of firepower normally seen only from a heavy machine gun. Dan watched the group of saviors closing the distance to his position.