Taking It Back (34 page)

Christmas was actually a pretty happy affair. We selected a small pine tree from our abundant supply, and decorated it with trimmings gleaned from a few of the abandoned houses. It took a few tries, because some of those people had really bad taste. Jake got some new cars and Julia got some new stuffed animals. I raided a bookstore for Sarah’s gifts, and Charlie did the same for Rebecca, except he went to a craft store. Tommy had made a run to another town, and came back with several dresses for Angela. It was almost normal, except for the cougar growls that drifted upwards from the river valley floor.

We celebrated Jake’s second birthday around this time and since we had no idea about Julia’s birthday, we celebrated hers as well.

Three weeks later, Charlie, Tommy and I were back in the boat, heading north. The ground was covered in snow, and ice chunks bumped into the hull every now and then. We were headed back to Leport to take part in a massive push to clear the area of zombies. Nate and I had planned this push for months, realizing that if we moved when the zombies were frozen, we would stand that much better of a chance when the weather turned warmer. Plus, with all the towns that had survived and the communication network we had set up, we were able to coordinate a massive assault on the undead.

As we ventured farther out, we were meeting with more people and towns that had survived the initial Upheaval. What we needed to do was to make it safe to travel and to let people get on with living, not just surviving. That was why the towns on the railroad were clearing up their counties, marking them safe as they pushed out farther. With luck, we hoped to have an area of over twelve hundred square miles cleared of the Z’s by spring. Next winter, we would do the same. A big hope was that a majority of the zombies would eventually decay to the point of uselessness within a few years.

The three of us were standing with Trevor and his band of merry men on the outskirts of Bolingbrook, a heavily populated suburb of the city. It had been bitterly cold the last two weeks which was perfect for zombie hunting. The ones we encountered were pretty much frozen, moving slowly if at all. There wasn’t the heavy snowfall yet, so we didn’t have to worry about zombies under the snow.

I stood with my long crowbar in my hands, my faithful M1 Carbine slung over my shoulder. There were two pickup trucks waiting behind us and more waiting beyond them. My orders were simple. Eliminate the zombies, drag them outside, and mark the doors according to what was found inside the homes. F if there was salvageable food, W if there were weapons or ammo. Other items would be recovered later to be distributed as needed or sent to the towns on the river or railway.

In a way, it was funny. There was so much stuff that we couldn’t possibly use it all. Much was going to go to waste, but I guess that was the price to be paid for a society that was consumed by consumerism. More of everything, whether we needed it or not.

The cars were being moved to the edges of the roads and placed on their sides to form a wall. Gas was removed from the cars and added to a tanker truck that followed along. Any leftover zombies in the cars were summarily executed.

I looked at the rows of homes with their torn and frayed white flags fluttering from mailboxes and sighed.
Gonna be a long day
. I thought, hefting my crowbar. I looked at Tommy and Charlie and gave the order.

“Move out.”

We separated into pairs and I went with Trevor. All around me was the sound of men breaking into homes and dispatching zombies. Doors were spray painted, and then the trucks fired up. In the first three homes I didn’t find any zombies, but Trevor found a decent horde of canned goods. That was the way we ran it. One would go in, check only for Z’s, while the other looked for usable goods. It was cold enough that the zombies were pretty much popsicles; some could move, albeit very slowly.

Some homes had that broken-into look, with interesting blood sprays on the walls and ceilings. Body parts were here and there and in some homes you could almost read what happened in the way things were left. One house had a father lying in his bed with a neat hole in his forehead, the bodies of his wife and children in their beds, tied with rope and each sporting a ventilated skull as well. My guess was the family had turned and the father committed suicide after finishing them off.

We found little in the way of arms and ammo, but we had plenty of canned and dry goods. The majority of the trucks taking supplies were laden with food items. We had no use for the vehicles we found, but we rolled them out to the end of the driveways in case we needed them.

The day went fairly smoothly and the sun was beginning its evening decent when Trevor and I approached our last building. It was an older two story home that looked like it had been renovated before the Upheaval. I popped the door open and Trevor stepped inside. He immediately dropped from view, landing with a crash in the basement. I stepped up and saw that the floor had been removed from the front hallway, leaving only studs. Trevor had managed to fall neatly through the studs to the cellar below.

“You okay?” I called down, trying to keep myself from laughing.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Trevor grumbled from below. “Just my pride…Oh, Jesus!” Trevor screamed.

I dropped through the boards and landed heavily next to Trevor, my crowbar clanging loudly on the cement floor. I sprang up, holding the bar in front of me. The basement was dark and cluttered with only the thin light from the upstairs door and window wells providing any illumination. I could hear them shuffling in the dark and I could see what startled Trevor . I saw several pairs of glowing eyes in the darkness and as I looked further, more eyes slowly opened up. A quick count revealed at least fifteen ghouls in this basement. They were coming around corners and crawling out from under workbenches. One was even slowly rising from a large wooden box, unfolding itself. It was all in slow motion, like the worst nightmare someone could have come up with. As I looked, several more pairs of glowing eyes opened up and started to move forward in the darkness. These were just the ones I could see. Chances were, more without glowing eyes were down there as well, shuffling slowly forward, hunger driving them on and on. The noise in the basement suddenly intensified as the dead struggled forward. I had no time to wonder why so many Z’s were in this particular basement.

I swung the crowbar viciously at the nearest one, cracking its skull and killing it.

“You bit?” I hissed at Trevor as the eyes moved slowly forward. This basement had been relatively protected from the cold, so these zombies would be moving a little faster.

“I don’t know!” Trevor cried. “Something got me on my ankle when I fell!”

Inwardly, I cringed. If Trevor had been bit, he was as good as dead. I quickly looked around and didn’t see any Z’s near us. I did see a board with nails sticking out of it, so it was possible Trevor had fallen on that. I didn’t care at that point. We needed to get out of this hole. There was so much clutter and too many zombies to make a stand. They might have been slowed by the cold, but not enough.

I hauled Trevor to his feet and yelled in his face. “You gotta get up out of here now!” I swung the crowbar at another zombie that poked its head around a box of National Geographic magazines. The crowbar impacted with the sound of an axe hitting a log and the zombie fell to the floor.

Trevor jumped for the support beam and I swung his legs up, allowing him to hook his leg over and pull himself out of the cellar. That left me. I hooked the rounded end of the crowbar over the top of a stud and jumped up, catching two of the beams. As I swung my legs back, another zombie lurched slowly into view. I used my momentum and slammed my feet into the zombie’s chest, hurling it back over the box of magazines and crashing it to the floor at the feet of the rest of the Z’s. I swung my legs up and through the studs, hooking them over the top and pulling myself through the boards.

I took a moment to catch my breath. I carefully balanced myself and stepped over to the threshold and open door. Trevor was outside, inspecting his leg. I knelt down and reached to retrieve my crowbar.

The bar jerked in my hand and I fell forward, catching myself on the stud. One of the zombies had grasped the crowbar and jerked it down as I pulled it up.

“Not bloody likely.” I growled, lifting the bar up and shoving it forward, catching the zombie in the eye and impaling it neatly. The zombie fell back, the bar making a nasty squelching sound as it exited the Z’s skull. I stood up and looked down at the group of faces staring up at me, putrid faces and decaying limbs reaching up. I reached into my pack and retrieved my kerosene bottle. Squeezing a line of fluid down over their faces and into the box of magazines, I sprayed over the studs and on the walls I could reach. I also squeezed a little on the ends of my crowbar.

I pulled out a Strike-Anywhere match and used the grasping grooves of my SIG to light it. Tossing the match inside, I stepped back as the flames erupted and started their work. I lit both ends of my crowbar, and holding it by the middle, I wandered over to Trevor while the house behind me started to smolder and smoke.

Trevor watched me approach with my flaming bar and smiled wryly. “You planning on joining a luau soon?”

I grinned. “I look lousy in a grass skirt and a coconut bra. You okay?”

Trevor nodded. “Landed on a nail. I’ll probably die of infection.”

I turned serious. “All the same, you’re quarantined for three days. With that many zombies in that basement, one of them might have stepped on it, too.”

Trevor turned ashen. “Didn’t think of that. Oh God…”

“Just a precaution. Try not to think about it.”

Trevor looked down. “John, if the worst happens, could you…?”

Knowing what he meant, I placed a hand on his shoulder. “Yeah.”

We finished up and headed back to the regroup point. I filled in the rest of the team and there was a lot of concern expressed for Trevor, but a lot of hope as well. He should be okay, but if he turned, it was my job to put him down.

We moved through subdivision after subdivision, through office building and school. We killed the zombies where we found them, fought them if needed. We cleared more area than would have been possible a year ago and managed to safeguard more of the surrounding area. We had supplies to spare and were well-situated to not only survive the storm, but to actually start living as well.

35

Six weeks after the start of the offensive, the weather began to get warmer. I called a halt to offensive operations and we went back to our homes. I spent a week with my brother and made sure he and his were taken care of. He hadn’t taken to the training as well as I had hoped, but he was a natural at organization, so he was invaluable with all of the supplies and materials our push was bringing in. I invited him and his family back out to Starved Rock, but they wanted nothing to do with that place.

Mike had nothing but praise for me and what I had done. He said he had never been more proud to be related to me than he was now. I didn’t know what to say. I just always did what needed to be done.

Reports came in from the other towns and they all had success stories. We did lose several to the zombies, but I would have been stunned if it had been otherwise. Trevor got a nasty infection from the nail, but recovered in time to take part in the last three weeks of the operation.

Charlie, Tommy and I were on the boat, rolling back to Starved Rock. I hadn’t seen my son and new wife in two months and that was two months too long. We had laden the boat with supplies and were looking forward to planting some crops and making a serious go of our land. Sarah and Rebecca and Angela had gone to one of the other towns and learned how to can food for storage.

As we pulled into our little cove at Starved Rock, I felt a sense of home I hadn’t felt in a long time. We didn’t bother unloading supplies right away, we just headed to the lodge, each of us looking forward to our reunions.

Three weeks later, I stood on the patio, holding Jake and looking over the trees of the park, noting the emergence of a green haze which marked the beginning of spring and new growth. Jake was walking all over the place and babbling constantly. He loved his new home and loved the toys I had brought back.

Several days later, I was clearing out the Visitor’s Center when a heavily laden truck pulled into the parking lot. I stepped out onto the sidewalk, keeping a hand near my ever-present SIG. The truck door opened and the driver got out. I dropped my hand as Duncan walked over to me.

“Your orders have been carried out, sir. Request permission to rest,” Duncan said as he saluted me.

I wrapped Duncan up in a bear hug and lifted him off his feet. As I put him down, I shook his hand and reminded him of what I told him a while ago. “You’re always welcome where I live. C’mon up to the lodge. Charlie and Tommy will be glad to see you, old son.” We walked up to the lodge, where Duncan was greeted like the long lost prodigal.

The summer breezes ran lazily over the treetops as the sun dipped into the horizon. Scarlet rays turned the green leaves crimson and the purple clouds raced each other to the far side of the world. Sarah moved up close to give me a hug and kiss.

“Thank you,” she said.

“For what?” I asked.

“Saving us all.”