Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse (Book 1): Sanctuary (36 page)

So much
for Cherie staying out of the fight. I wonder if she was disappointed or angry.

Past our
makeshift circle it was dark. The moon and stars were obscured by clouds, and I
couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead of me. Lizzy darted forward, and I
grabbed her by the hair.

“Oww!
What the fuck is wrong with you!” She slapped my hand away.

“Don’t
get separated. I like you too much to want to shoot you by accident.”

A bullet
whizzed past to strike a tree a few feet away. The timing was more than a
little freaky.

“Damn
it!” shrieked Lizzy. “Shoot the fucking zombies, not us!”

The
point was made though, and she stayed close to me and Briana. We moved in and
dropped every zombie we encountered, and we directed the survivors toward our
vehicles. Those few, very, very few, who had guns or clubs and were trying to
beat back the zombies were told to pair up and stay where they could help one
another.

Most of
the actual fighting was a blur. I went through four clips, all I had, for my
.40 caliber Beretta. Then I pulled the Glock .45 – normally it was kept in the
Jeep’s door well, but I’d grabbed it for this fight – from my waistband.

“I’m out
of bullets,” said Briana.

“I’m
running real low too,” added Lizzy.

“Same
here,” I admitted. “More in the Jeep. We can go back for it. Should probably. I
think all those still alive have already run there, or at least gone in that
direction. We might not be doing any more good out here.”

“Everyone!”
I shouted, just in case. “Start moving to the trucks.”

We
turned and jogged back to the vehicles. With the headlights glaring out at the
darkness, finding them was no problem.

“How
long have we been doing this?” gasped Lizzy. She was breathing hard.

“We got
here about twenty minutes ago,” said Dean, glancing at his digital watch. It
had a nifty blue light built into it.

“That’s
it?” She didn’t sound like she believed him.

I
watched as Cherie shot a zombie that was approaching her side of the rough
circle. She seemed calm and collected.

“Here
you go,” said Briana. She handed me one of the extra 9mm pistols and several clips.
I dropped my other guns in the bag, and she tossed it back into the Jeep. “Want
the shotgun?”

“I… No,
not yet at least.”

There
were only about fifteen people between the Jeeps and pickup, not very many at
all. This sucked.

“Lizzy,
get reloaded and help Cherie. Dean, go help Alec. Briana and I have this spot.
Just stay put and drop them as they close. We’re not moving until the sun comes
up, not unless we absolutely have to.”

*
* *

It was a
miserable, horrible time, but the sun did rise an hour later, allowing us to
see the results of the attack and our attempts to help. There were bodies
scattered everywhere. Of the zombies, there were roughly two hundred, most
lying between us and the lake camp or around our vehicles. There were other
corpses though, the bodies of campers who’d been hit by friendly fire. There
was no way to know, but I really hoped I hadn’t been responsible for any of
their deaths.

Pastor
Thomas Wills was among the fallen. We found him near the tents, several bites
on his body, and a bullet hole in his forehead. I don’t know who shot him, nor
did I ask.

In
addition to those who reached us, others had taken my ad hoc advice, passed on
through Simon, and shimmied up some trees. Michael and his father had been
among them. They’d gotten into the branches of a pine and moved as high as they
could. There were other children as well. Some said their parents pushed them
up, having seen Simon do this with Michael. A few even managed to follow, but
most were dragged down by the walkers.

Julie
also survived the night by hiding in their SUV, with the doors locked, ducked
down in the back seat out of view. She would have made it through the chaos
when so many, far better people, had perished.

“This is
your fault!” she shrieked, pointing a finger at me.

“Jacob’s
the one who came to save you!” Briana shouted back. “Without him you’d all be
dead. We were the ones who killed the zombies. You just hid and didn’t do
anything.”

“He led
them here, with his running all around the place,” continued Julie, in
hysterics.

I wasn’t
about to admit to it publicly, no matter what, but there was some validity to
that accusation. We had just been in Chadron, and while we were extremely
careful to circle around the town and come back in a manner to avoid such a thing,
it was possible some of the zombies may have followed, or at least begun
traveling in that general direction.

“They
could have come from anywhere,” I said. “This camp is not that far off the
highway, just down a short side road. It was always easy to reach.”

“They
probably were just passing by,” said Lizzy, “and heard your constant whining.”

Julie
lunged at Lizzy who slammed a meaty fist into the taller woman’s jaw. She fell
back to land in the dirt. Michael began to cry, and Simon moved to help her.

“Honey,
you need to calm down. This isn’t Jacob’s fault, or anyone’s. These things are
monsters. You know that.”

She
began to scream and yank at her hair as she pulled away from her husband. Julie
even tore some strands out by the roots.

“His
fault! His! His! His!”

Yep, she
was quite insane. This was so not good.

Then
Julie drew a gun from her waistband and leveled it at me. I never noticed it. I
never even considered she might be armed. Before she could fire though, Simon
stepped between us, trying desperately to calm his wife. That was good for me,
not so much for him. She pulled the trigger, and the bullet caught him in the
shoulder.

“Simon,”
she gasped, briefly lucid. Then the madness took control, and Julie was on her
feet, running for the trees.

After I watched
her vanish, hoping she never came back, I turned to see Cherie comforting
Michael while Briana and Dean were trying to staunch the bleeding.

“Could
this get any worse?” demanded Lizzy.

I had no
idea and said nothing.

We spent
the remainder of the day trying to help the survivors. Quite a few had been
bitten. Some of these ran off as well, not wanting to force their friends to
shoot them after they died from the infection. Others screamed and cried, fully
aware that there was nothing anyone could do. The bodies littering the area
were largely left where they fell.

*
* *

There
had been many revelations about zombies over the past month, the big one being,
obviously, that they were real. A new one was soon revealed. It was something
that none of us expected. All our prior experience led us to believe it
wouldn’t happen, and as such we were very much unprepared. You see, all the
dead were rising up as zombies, not just the bitten. Only, the amount of time
between death and reanimation differed. Those infected by a zombie’s bite
returned seven minutes following death. For all others, it was roughly twenty
six hours.

“What a
mess,” muttered Lizzy.

I
nodded. The previous day had been long and hard. We spent most of it checking
and rechecking the area for zombies and keeping an eye out for Julie in case
she came back. We tended to the injured. For the bitten there was nothing we
could do. As to those with sprains, bruises, and cuts, they were patched up.
One man had a broken arm which we were forced to set and bind with no knowledge
of what we were doing. Three of us had to hold him down. Still, I thought it
would heal okay, and Cherie pumped him full of antibiotics to prevent an
infection.

Lizzy,
Briana, and I remained at the lake camp. All the children and the injured were
at the newer settlement in the meadow with those bitten under constant watch.
They’d be dealt with after they turned. Dreadful business. But collecting the
bodies wasn’t much better. They were already beginning to rot. At least it
wasn’t as hot as it had been.

By the
way, zombies do resume normal decomposition after they’re put down, and
animals, mostly flies in this case, will approach once they are dead dead.

Along
with a dozen others, all volunteers, we were going to stack the corpses in a
mass grave – it had been prepared the day before using a natural depression in
the ground – cover them up, and finish moving everything to the meadow. And it
would be everything, every car, every tent, even the picnic tables. There had
been no arguments. Following the attack, no one wanted to remain so close to
the highway.

“I don’t
like that they showed up all at once the other night,” commented Lizzy. “Simon
said that’s what happened, a big group instead of trickling in slowly.”

“It was
before dawn,” I pointed out. “Most were asleep, and there’d been a lot of
confusion. We can’t tell for certain what happened. Oh, I agree that they had
come as a group – obvious, that – but they might have shown up in several waves
or with a group first and then more trickling in.”

“That’s
getting pissy with facts,” argued Lizzy. “Having a solid group this far from a
town is just plain bad.”

“We’re
going to need to keep an eye out for large groups from now on,” added Briana.
“We can’t assume the zombies, if they appear, will be spread out anymore.”

“You’re
right,” I agreed, “both of you.”

“We need
to come up with a better shooting system too,” continued Lizzy. “When we’re
clearing them out we need primary shooters, secondary ones for backup, and
somebody who just reloads clips for us or maybe carries a sack of extras.”

“Makes
sense. It’ll work during daytime anyway. In the dark like last night, I don’t
know.”

“We need
flood lights for that.” Lizzy shook her head. “I hated not seeing what I was
shooting. After we build our wall, we should mount them up high.”

Back on
the original topic. Following this enlightening discussion, we began to load
the bodies on a trailer hitched to a pickup, which would then cart them to the
mass grave. It was during this process that the first of those who died without
being infected came back.

“Goddamn!”
shouted Georgy Boy, a nickname I hoped.

I turned
to see him backpedaling. He made it about seven feet before he tripped and
fell. The zombie, one of those killed by friendly fire, rose to its feet and
shambled forward, arms outstretched. Lizzy was closest, and she shot him in the
head.

“Where
did that one come from?” she demanded, glaring down at Georgy Boy. “Well? Say
something before I start kicking you.”

“It just
woke up,” he stammered.

“That
was Louis,” someone said. “He was shot by accident the other night.”

I looked
down at the zombie. There were no visible bite marks. However, the gunshot
wound to the chest was pretty obvious.

“There
were what, five dead who didn’t have bites?” asked Briana. “Did they come back
too?”

“Where
are they?” We had only just begun stacking them on the trailer. Most were lying
on the ground all about us. “Anyone remember?”

“There’s
one,” said a woman. I forget her name. I tend to be lousy with names, but since
she left the next day of her own accord, I suppose it doesn’t much matter.

Another
body had risen. It noticed us almost immediately and started moving forward.

“Got one
on the trailer,” remarked Lizzy. “Right there, stuck under the other bodies. I
don’t think it can get out.”

“They
shouldn’t be doing this,” cried Georgy Boy. “They shouldn’t be coming back!”

“Well,
they are,” snapped Lizzy, “so get a grip.”

“Lizzy,”
I said, “put him out of his misery.”

Georgy
Boy began to hyperventilate.

“Not
you.” I was losing patience. “The zombie on the trailer. I’ll get the other
one.”

“Come on
Georgy,” said the woman with the name I couldn’t remember. She helped him to
his feet. “You need to calm down.”

She led
him to one of the picnic tables. As if we didn’t have enough problems.

“Where
are the other two?” asked Briana.

I shot
my zombie and looked around. Nothing was moving. No, wait. There was one about
thirty yards away. I dealt with him as well.

It took
twenty minutes to find the final zombie. It was a woman who’d been shot in the
leg, shattering the left femur. As a result, the thing couldn’t walk, but it
did crawl, slowly, toward our voices, undeterred by its handicap.

*
* *

“How are
things there Cherie?” I asked, through the radio.

“Simon
is going to be okay,” she replied, “but Michael’s a wreck. Most of the other
children are as well. A good two thirds of them are orphans now. I don’t think
any have both parents left.”