Southern Zombies Three Book Box Set: A Story of Survival, Southern Hospitality, and Southern Blood (3 page)

So I look again. This time, I see a zombie with his mouth pressed to my window, staring, licking my window. Riley looks at me as if to ask, “what are you going to do?”

Now I don’t know the fascination with windows and zombies. It seems they are for some reason attracted to having their face pressed to a window. But believe me, it’s not a pretty sight. They have pus filled blisters rupturing and oozing all over and dripping down the window. The harder their face is pressed in; the more ooze you get. And his eye pops out. Oh my god. Needless to say, all my supper made a second appearance.

I get myself together and try to decide how to get Mr. Window Licker off my window without a lot of noise, which seems to bring them running.

I look at Diane. She is just staring at me. “What?” I ask her. She says nothing, just stares. So I see I am on my own with this one.

I look around in the truck. Thank you Marc for having a Louisville slugger under the seat.

I grab the bat and ease open the sliding back window. I slowly push myself through the window. The zombie has clearly turned his interest to Riley, who has his nose pressed to the window, adding his own amount of slobber to the inside. Marc is going to shit when he sees this.

As I stand up in the back of the truck, I get into my swinging stance. Now for those of you who have never played softball or baseball, let me explain. The zombie is on the driver’s side window. This is going to make me have to swing at him with my left hand. I happen to be right handed. Not a big deal, right?

As I get closer to the side edge of the truck bed, I lean over and look around to see the zombie, still with his face in the window, still licking it and still eyeing Riley like he is a midnight snack size morsel.

I pull the bat back over my left shoulder to get as much momentum behind my swing as possible. I swing. The zombie's face hit the window with a loud thunk, Riley barks, Diane screams and the zombie falls away from the window, taking the driver’s side mirror with it as it falls. Marc is never going to let me borrow another vehicle during a zombie apocalypse. How the hell do you explain a zombie tore the mirror off?

The rest of the night went with no more interruptions. We woke at dawn, eat, let Riley do his business, we did our business, and we started off again.

At this point, we are about 340 miles from Richmond, Virginia. I am still worried about Bobby and how he is faring. I hope we will be able to get to him by nightfall.

We have to make a stop in Durham to refill the tank on the truck with the gas we got at the store. We decide this time to pull over on the side of the highway. No one is around and it looks like no one has been around in hours.

I get busy refilling the tank and letting Riley handle business. He is sniffing around in the grass and hunting around for whatever it is he hunts for while he poops.

Suddenly, he lets out a whine. I look over and see his tail wagging furiously. And he is still whining. I look over at Diane and she shrugs. She’s no help.

I call to him. Remember I said he is a dachshund? Well, anyone who owns a dachshund knows they do not listen even in the best of circumstances.

So, he ignored me. I called out to him again. He looked at me, and turned back around as if I was not worthy of his attention.

Diane was standing there with a bead on areas where Riley was whining. I grabbed the bat from the truck and started over to where he was. I was cautiously looking around and looking in the area he was whining at.

I finally made it to where he stood, still whining and tail wagging, and I looked in the grass and saw…. Nothing. “What the hell?” I asked.

I take the bat and start parting the grass back so I can get a better look. Still, I see nothing. I walk down closer and continue to part grass back. And on closer inspection, I see a red ball.

I look at Riley, who is still wagging furiously and whining and ask, “What the hell? You sniff out a ball in the middle of an apocalypse?”

Diane says, “I told you his ass is spoiled.” I ignore her. For this is something I already know and have no need to be reminded of.

So I cave in and get the freaking ball for him. He grabs it from my hand and runs to the truck, waiting for me to let him in.

About the time I turned around, I heard a shot. I whirled around in time to see a zombie fall behind me, and Diane with the rifle still up to her shoulder. I ask, “Where did that come from?”

She said, “From the other side of the truck.”

So what is this? An ambush? Can they plan an ambush? Do they have any thought processes?

I don’t know but don’t want to stay around to find out.

We looked at our zombie stalker, finished filling the tank, loaded up and got back on the road.

Since we will not make it to Richmond by nightfall, we decide to spend one more night in the truck. This time we decide to take turns on a watch. Diane says she will take first watch. This is fine with me as I have been driving since we left home and I am ready for a rest now.

I crawl over into the extended cab and lie down to nap. Diane is in the front, with her 44. Riley is sitting by her watch too. A dangerous combination those two.

An hour or so later, I wake up to my phone ringing. “Holy shit, is the phone working again?”

Diane says, “Apparently so if it is ringing.”

“Stop being a smart ass.” I say.

“Stop being a dense ass.” She says.

Really? Is all the sarcasm necessary?

I answer and thank the Gods it is Bobby. Yelling. “What the hell is happening? Are you ok? Where are you? Are you alone?”

I finally get a word in to let him know that if he will stop talking for a minute I can answer him. He then lets me know that he sees the fact that zombies are running around has not made my smart ass mouth any better. I ignore him as we may not have enough cell time to answer questions.

I ask him if he is ok. He explains that he and some co-workers were in a meeting when the whole shit fest started. Seemingly, most people who took the flu shot turned while they were in the meeting and the ones who were not infected had to fight their way out of the conference room. They were able to get to another conference room and secure the doors so nothing could get in. They are low on water and food but are making the best of it right now.

“Diane, Riley and I are on the way to get you.” I say. “Excuse me,” he says. “Did you just say you and your sister are on your way to get me?”

“Yeah! Why?”

“Well, I was just asking to make sure I heard correctly. It’s not every day that your wife and her sister have to come and rescue you from a zombie invasion.”

“You didn’t think I would just leave you there, did you?” I ask.

“Of course not.” He says. “I know your stubborn ass would never have listened to anyone who tried to stop your road trip.”

“I love you too.” I replied.

“I need an address so we know where to come to.”

“I don’t have an address, but the name of the building is Richmond Blinds. It’s on a corner by a mall called…”

And the line died.

“Damn, damn.” I screamed.

“Did the phone lose signal again?” Diane asked.

“Yes, and all I have is the name of the building where he is and we don’t even know if it is surrounded by zombies or what the situation will be out around the building when we get there.” I tell her.

“Don’t worry, we will get there and get him out. We are driving this far and I will be damned if I leave empty handed.” Diane says.

Got to love my sister. She is not going to have a wasted trip even if she has to shoot and run down every zombie in sight.

I can’t go back to sleep now so I tell Diane to get some rest. Riley and I sit in the front seat looking out the windows. Everything is quiet. The moon is bright and visibility is great.

Riley decides he has had enough of guard duty and lies down to take a nap. While he snores, I start trying to make a plan in case we have to go in with guns a blazing.

The first item on my agenda is to find a sporting goods store. We need more ammo and maybe a few more rifles and handguns. We need to find a tent and camping supplies in case we need them. I would like to have a Browning M2 50-caliber machine gun. I don’t know why. It seems like the thing to have now. Although I would probably let it vibrate off of where ever I had it set up. It is worth a thought, though if only so I could mow shit down at high speed during this crap we have going on. You can never tell what you may need when the world is coming to an end.

We are up and about around 4:30 am. We eat, take care of our business and get started on our way. I let Diane know the plan to find a sporting goods store and for her to be on the lookout for one.

We finally make it into Petersburg, Virginia and find a sporting goods store we can read. Diane leashes Riley and gets him out of the truck. I grab my bat and get out and we start to the front door. Cars are parked all around in what looks like a traffic jam. Doors are left open, blood smeared all over. You can clearly see a last stand occurred here and the zombies won.

We continue our trek to the store and Riley gives us a warning bark. There are 3 zombies coming slowly at us.

Diane raises her 44 to aim and I stop her and let her know we did not need to draw attention. “What bright idea do you have now?” she asks. I reply with a “kiss my ass”.

I keep the zombies pushed off with the bat while we continue to walk toward the door. When we get inside, I tell Diane to go get a shopping cart and we will start in the gun section.

We get the cart and start down the aisle loading up on water, camping supplies, another first aid kit, and some sleeping bags.

We also pick up some boots and coats as it seems to be getting a little colder. I find some more beef jerky for Riley and we make our way over to the gun section. We found another Browning 30 06 bolt-action and a Browning 12 gauge. I wasn’t thrilled about shooting a twelve gauge and getting my shoulder knocked off, but I will if I have to.  We kept looking and found two Browning hi power 9mm lugers and grabbed those. Then we started loading up on ammo for our new found guns. I still haven’t found my 50 caliber. That may be a good thing though.

I grabbed a couple of tactical hunting knives and found a Taser. Yes, a Taser. I wanted to see if they worked on the undead. Do you call them undead? Or re dead? Would undead relate only to vampires? Are there any vampires? For that matter, are there any werewolves? Who the hell knows? But I would try out my new found toy on them too.

After making our rounds through the store, we got back to the door. Our dinner guests were waiting for us. The three zombies were patiently waiting for us to return. Again, faces pressed to the window. What the hell is it with zombies and windows?

I pick Riley up and put him in the shopping cart so we can get ready to run out. Diane says, “So this is what we are going to do.” I look at her and think, “Oh hell, here we go.”

She says, “You take the shopping cart and get ready to run. I will open the door and try to push them away so you can get out. Give me the bat so I can take a swing at them when we get out. You run as fast as you can to the truck and start unloading the cart while I hold them off. Keep the rifle out so you can take them out when you get the cart unloaded.”

“Is this going to work?” I ask.

“There’s only one way to find out,” she replies.

“That’s not what I wanted to hear.” I tell her.

“Shut the hell up and get ready to run,” she tells me.

“Such a smart ass.” I tell her.

“1, 2, 3” she counts off.

And I am off and running with a shopping cart at full on speed.

Riley is barking like he is rushing me on. “Would you like to do this?” I ask him. He gives me a tail wag and we keep running.

I can hear Diane swinging behind me and hitting her marks with the bat. I get to the truck and run the cart into the side of the truck. Another scratch for Marc to bitch about. I will never hear the end of it. 

We had a truckload of stuff and it took a minute to get it out. When I finally got everything out, I grabbed the rifle and turned around to start firing and saw Diane surrounded.

She yelled, “These fuckers have me surrounded.”

I yell back, “You don’t say.”

At this point our three dinner guests have expanded into 12. Where the hell had they come from? They weren’t here when we came up. Maybe they heard the noise and came to explore and found a smorgasbord of fresh meat.

I started firing into the crowd, careful of where Diane was. If I accidentally nicked her I would never hear the end of it. Even if I tried to save her from being the main course on a zombie menu. She would kick my ass.

I thinned the crowd out to 5. I ran closer so I could get a better shot in and Diane ran towards me. At the same time she started to run, a zombie reached out and grabbed at her arm. His hand slipped from her arm and left a long scratch from her elbow down to her wrist on her left arm. I reached out and grabbed her by the shirt collar and started running. We made it to the truck and I hauled her over the side and into the back and I jumped in and went through the back window to get behind the wheel and drive.