Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse (Book 2): Conflict (17 page)

As to
Laura accompanying us, that was Steph’s idea. She suggested that someone from
Anadarko should go along to get a feel for the region and to see how others
were surviving. This, combined with their own perspective of how not to do
things, might lead to insights that would help everyone. The idea was popular,
and Laura was quick to volunteer. Personally, I think she was hesitant to risk
the lives of any of her people, after all that happened, preferring to place
herself in danger instead.

Marcus
and his tractor trailer were the only real annoyance. Again, we were going to
be carting the huge, awkward, gas guzzling truck all over the place. Okay, so
it wasn’t nearly as far as the prior trip, and being in a sparsely populated
area to begin with, it should be doable. Still, the thing was a pain. We often
had to push other cars out of the way, and while it could sometimes move in the
grass and dirt, suitable ground was often hard to find. However, Lizzy thought
it a good idea, along with Briana, and I wasn’t prepared to go against their
unified front. So, I wimped out and agreed with the caveat that it was barred
from any future journeys unless the roads were scouted in advance.

Kenneth
was the weak link in the group. He didn’t refuse to go, but it was clear he did
not want to return to Wyoming. The man was haunted, with the loss of Barbara
the primary factor, or so I believed, and he consistently refused to share anything
further about his past. Still, I didn’t give him much choice in the matter. We
needed him. He had lived there for several months and was our only connection
to the Wyoming refugee system.

Now, if
Kenneth had refused outright, well, then he would have been left behind. Taking
someone against their will is asking for more trouble than it’s worth. He might
start fighting or try to kill us in our sleep. He might run off. No, if Kenneth
refused the issue would have been dropped. But merely saying he didn’t want to
come, that was different. I felt no great moral imperative to do other than
push, plead, and coerce his cooperation.

Sofie
wanted to join us. She was having a grand time traveling and enjoyed it
immensely, danger notwithstanding, but she was growing ever sicker. There was
no way to know for certain, but I think a full blown case of AIDS was
developing, along with all the problems that brings. The poor woman was always
ill, and she was getting thinner by the day. It might have been something else,
perhaps a form of cancer on her insides, but considering how young she was and
the fact we knew for certain she was HIV positive, that was the less likely
scenario.

We
initially headed west along US-20 toward Lusk, Wyoming. It was the most direct
route from our home in the national forest and pleasantly easy going. We
cleared the state line in short order and were almost at the Lusk Municipal
Airport when the sun began to set. Mary suggested checking it out, but wanting
to maximize daylight, we decided to wait until morning and spent the night a
mile away. My Jeep and Laura’s pickup were parked in a field. The tractor
trailer was left on a side street.

*
* *

“Ready
to go kill zombies?” asked Mary cheerfully.

“I
fucking hate mornings,” mumbled Lizzy. Her eyes were bloodshot.

“Were
you drinking?”

“No!
It’s allergies.”

“Lizzy
does get kind of messed up in the spring,” confirmed Mary. “It was like this
last year too, and the one before.”

“That’s
not a good thing short stuff.”

She
rounded on Marcus. “No height comments!”

The
trucker just tipped his cowboy hat and smiled.

“I think
we should get her a plastic bubble,” added the teenager, with a snicker. “Maybe
one that’s soundproof.”

“That
might be going overboard,” I said, before the fight started. “And we’re not
here to shoot zombies. Got that Mary?”

“She
gets it,” injected Lizzy, “and she gets to be on watch for being so damned
annoying.”

Mary
looked at me pleadingly.

“Kenneth
and Laura get primary watch duty. You two will be sitting up on top of the semi
where you’re out of reach and have a good view of everything. Lizzy and I are
the first team, with Marcus and Mary as the second. We’ll call for the zombies.
If any are around they’ll likely come right out. Lizzy and I take care of them,
with team two helping as needed. Got it?”

“Works
for me,” said Marcus. “Doesn’t look to be too many around.”

“Most
are probably in the town itself,” agreed Lizzy.

“We’ll
be going around that,” I reminded them. “Not much point in messing with the
cities this run.”

“There
aren’t any refugees in the towns,” confirmed Kenneth.

This was
something he’d told us several times already.

“Let’s
get to it,” I concluded.

We
pulled up close and dropped those few shamblers who were present. The noise of
our approach – face it, the semi is loud – drew more, so we waited patiently
for them to arrive. The prior year it had been commented that fighting zombies
was an all or nothing thing. That really is true. If they come at you one at a
time or in small, spread out groups, they are extremely easy to kill. The
walking corpses are slow, never moving faster than a brisk walk. Provided you
are good on ammunition and don’t panic, you can easily shoot them in the head
when they’re fifteen or twenty feet away and never be in real danger. Get a
bunch all at once, however, and you just might be screwed, in the bad sense of
the word.

“Shouldn’t
we go inside?” asked Marcus.

I was
staring at the darkened entrance. The angle was bad, and all I could see were
shadows.

“Might
be food or something we can use.”

The man
was correct. “Mary, go get the flashlights and a lantern.”

She
darted off, returning a minute later.

“Slight
change,” I added. “Mary carries the lantern and walks behind me and Lizzy.
Marcus stays by the door to make sure we can get out again. Lizzy and I will do
the shooting. That good with you?”

The
large man nodded. “I don’t mind rear guard. Did it rather often with the twins.
They always go first.”

“Okay
then, let’s check it out.”

The
place was devoid of people, living or otherwise, which was fine with me, and
there was little of interest to be found. We took what we could, mostly office
supplies. Pens, pencils, notepads, and the like might not seem important, but
since none of us knew how to make the stuff, we were stocking up while we
could. Okay, so mostly we grabbed it because drawing and coloring was one of
the things that kept the little ones quiet and happy. It was nice to not hear
children screaming or fighting all the time.

We did
discover a single human skull. It was bare of flesh and sitting on a counter.
There was no indication of who put it there or why. The thing was discolored
and lacked any discernible bullet wounds or fractures.

“Think
it was from before zombies woke up?” asked Mary.

“Might
be.” I didn’t know, but it seemed likely. “The question I have is why it’s out
like this, displayed.”

“A
warning?”

“I don’t
think so Mary. If that was the case there’d probably be a sign or something as
well, and why warn people away from here? We didn’t find food or weapons,
nothing essential.”

Lizzy
shrugged. “Who the fuck knows?”

*
* *

We
skirted Lusk as planned, continuing west toward I-25, which was also US-87 and
US-26. I mean, really, who planned that bit of highway nonsense? I can see
multiple roads running together briefly before splitting apart again, but three
of them for a good chunk of the state? And Wyoming isn’t a little place. It had
to be laziness, or a federal official with ready access to mind altering
substances.

At any
rate, the highway showed far more signs of destruction than the back roads. It
wasn’t as bad as the thoroughfares down south, but it was clear that people had
been moving. There were plenty of vehicles with Wyoming plates heading south,
maybe to Cheyenne or Denver, people trying to find safety in the cities? That
seems foolish, but perhaps they hadn’t known what was happening or how
widespread it was. However, the bulk was pointing north, and a lot of these had
Colorado plates. Looks like the folk down there decided it was best to leave
the population centers behind and make a run for rural areas.

Many of
the cars had run out of gas and were abandoned. With twenty or more miles
between towns, I figure their owners died of heat exhaustion or were caught by
the dead. Fortunately, we were still able to siphon gas, mostly from the
wrecks. Plenty of those around, including quite a few head on collisions. It’s
important to always drive on the right side of the road, even during the
apocalypse. Safety first.

Three
days passed before we found another living soul, but it happened. Woo Hoo! Came
across a few zombies as well. In fact, they were so sparse that Laura had
remarked on it, followed by commentary on how she wished she’d followed our
lead from the start and headed for the most isolated region possible. It was
unlikely to last though. The dead were spreading, and with over three hundred
million people in the United States, more if you included Canada and Central
America, they would eventually be everywhere.

Now,
back to the survivors we found. I was in the lead when I noticed a man running
toward a house. He’d obviously seen us, so we slowly approached and parked
about a hundred feet away. By the time I was walking up with Mary at my side,
there were seven of them standing on the front porch. All were armed, but none
seemed violent.

“How are
you doing?” I inquired.

“Good as
can be expected,” replied an older man. “Yourself?”

“Getting
by.”

“We’re
just fine and dandy,” added Mary, with a huge grin. “Want some beans? I’ll give
you a few cans for a steak.”

Briana
had suggested packing the tractor trailer with goods to barter in case the
opportunity arose.

“How
about guns instead,” asked a youth, maybe thirteen. He looked to be around
Mary’s age, though a few inches shorter.

“We
might be able to help you out there,” I said. “We took quite a few from a nasty
group of bandits who had been murdering anyone they came across.”

That
earned us some startled glances.

“On
bikes with heavy jackets?” asked the first man, slowly.

“That’s
them,” chimed in Mary. “They were bad, bad people. They had a Jeep with a flag
hanging from it made out of someone’s skin, and some of the motorcycles had
heads on the handlebars. They put them there with barbed wire…”

“Enough
Mary. Save the details for later.”

“We
killed all of them too,” she continued, ignoring me.

“We
killed a bunch, and then the thousand or so zombies that were drawn by the
noise joined in,” I corrected. “They hit our settlement last year and another
in South Dakota. I can give you details later if you want. What we’re focused
on is finding other people, safety in numbers and all.”

“Tim,
why don’t you go and prepare some steaks for them.” The teenager nodded to the
old man and hurried inside. “Beef is something we have no shortage of, so
you’re welcome to it tonight. We can discuss matters in more detail, if you
don’t mind calling the others over.”

I waved,
and Lizzy and Marcus put their rifles away. Mary had kept a finger on the
transmit button of her radio the entire time.

*
* *

The
ranch was part of a network held together with regular radio contact and,
weather permitting, personal visits. This system did a fair job of keeping everyone
up to date, and the people knew all about the disaster that befell Kenneth. A
rescue was eventually organized, but they’d found no one. The knowledge, the
certainty, that he was the only one to make it did nothing to ease Kenneth’s
mind.

As to
the survivors, they were spread throughout Wyoming, mostly on the plains but
also in and around Yellowstone. The towns were empty, as far as anyone knew,
and other than a handful of outposts in the mountains used as watch stations,
those portions of the state had likewise been abandoned. The total alive was just
over twenty three hundred.

This
seemed low, real low. Wyoming was a very rural state with cities few and far
between. There should have been more. Then again, there was no shortage of towns
that collapsed within hours of the change. It was very possible the death toll
truly was that high. Regardless, twenty three hundred was the number in regular
contact with one another.

After
sharing everything we had on the raiders, Mr. Myers, the patriarch of the
group, filled us in on what they knew. There had been at least three bands
operating independently, now down to two. One was in the southwest around the
California / Nevada border, the other somewhere in New Mexico or Arizona. They
moved around a lot, apparently at random, and news came infrequently, sometimes
with months between reports.