Z14 (Zombie Rules) (13 page)

             
Her eyes widened slightly. “You smiled at me.” She said.

             
“Yeah, I guess I did.” I finished drying her, wrapped her in a towel, and carried her back to her bed.

             
“I guess I can’t keep a chip on my shoulder the rest of my life, now can I?” I said as I pulled the blankets over her and fluffed her pillows.

             
“How about I brush your hair out before you go to sleep?” She nodded and smiled at me again. I helped her sit up and as I reached for the brush on the nightstand, she suddenly leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. I smiled to hide my embarrassment. I quickly brushed her hair and fluffed her pillows again. She grabbed one of my hands.

             
“When we were dating, you were a naïve boy. You’ve changed, Zach. You’re a grown man now.” I looked at her and shrugged.

             
Julie interrupted anything either of us might have said when she brought in the baby. She had him swaddled in a small blanket. Macie took him in her arms.

             
“You have a beautiful baby boy.” Julie said. Macie looked up and tried to smile, but she couldn’t seem to do it.

             
“What did you call it again?” Howard asked.

             
“Kuru, it’s a disease resulting from cannibalism.” I said. “Apparently, the only way to properly eat human flesh is for it to be cooked well-done, and avoid eating the brain.”

             
Howard eyed me. “How in the hell did you know what it was?”

             
“In ninth grade I did a report for my geography class. Each student was assigned a country in Africa. My country was South Sudan. There is a River in Sudan named the Kuru. I was going to add a few factoids in my paper about the river systems and was doing a Wikipedia search. There were a few hits on the word Kuru. One of them was about cannibalism in New Guinea. It fascinated me so much I looked up videos of it on You Tube.”

             
Howard shuddered. “They had videos?” I nodded. Howard shuddered again. “Eating people. That’s just plain wrong Zach. Just plain wrong.” I nodded silently. “You sure it’s a Ford F150?” Howard asked.

             
“Yeah, it’s a nice one.” I said. He already knew this. We discussed it before we left his shop and found a spare tire to fit it, which was sitting in the back of his Hummer. Howard was sort of the opposite of Fred. Where Fred was stoic, Howard was a talker.

             
“Zach?” Howard asked. I looked over at him. “If you were starving, maybe had a wife and some kids who were starving, and, they were looking at you, wondering what you were going to do about it, would you do it?”

             
“Would I do what?” I glanced over at him. “Eat another human?” Howard nodded and eyed me.

             
“I don’t know, Howard. I know I’d have to be very desperate before I even thought of it as a viable alternative. I guess if I had starving kids and there was no other food source…” I shrugged.

             
“I don’t know.” I repeated. “The only thing I’m certain of right now is if I see any of those people again, I’m not going to be very civil with them.” We rode in silence for a couple of minutes.

             
“I’ve never been a fighter.” Howard suddenly said. “I had two older brothers. Both of them were in a gang. My oldest brother was killed in a drive-by. There was no rhyme or reason behind the murder. He happened to be in a rival gang is all. My other brother, he swore revenge. He found three of them in an apartment one night and killed them all. The police arrested him, of course. He got tried as an adult and the jury found him guilty. The judge gave him back-to-back life sentences. He was the same age as you at the time.” Howard shook his head sadly before continuing.

             
“I was thirteen when it happened. My momma was devastated. I don’t think she ever recovered. I was pretty devastated too.”

             
“What did you do?” I asked.

             
“I had an Uncle who owned a garage. I started working for him after school and on weekends to help momma pay the bills. It kept me out of trouble and away from the gangs. That’s how I became a mechanic.”

             
I nodded thoughtfully and pointed down the road. “There it is.” The truck appeared unmoved since I had left it.

             
“Okay, you’re the better shot, I’m the better mechanic. I’ll get the tire changed and you keep watch.” Howard said. He parked behind the truck and we got out. I made a quick scan of the area and looked in the truck. It was empty.

             
“They took everything, the bastards.” I said.

             
Howard grunted and crawled under the truck. “The gas tank is still intact. No holes, but I’m betting they drained it as well. Good thing we brought a gas can.”

             
I used Howard’s binoculars to scan the area as he got the tire replaced and put five gallons of gas in the truck. I fished the keys out of my pocket and it started right up.

             
“Good thing you took the keys with you. They’d have taken this truck with them, even with a flat tire.” Howard popped the hood and inspected the motor. “Everything looks good Zach. It’s got four-wheel drive, a tow package, and a V8 engine. It’ll be able to tow up to six thousand pounds. It even has one of those new lithium batteries. That’s awesome.” He said as he closed the hood, looked around, and studied me.

“
What are we, about fifteen miles from your farm? You say you ran all the way back? In the dark?” He asked. I nodded.

             
“Holy sheep shit Zach.” Howard said incredulously.

             
I shrugged. “It was either run or meander along, waiting to be attacked and eaten.”

             
Howard laughed. “I get your point.” I frowned then. Howard saw it. “What?”

             
“It was the weirdest thing Howard. For a few of those miles I felt like I was being followed.”

             
“Well of course it was the zombies.” Howard said.

             
I shook my head. “No, it was something or somebody else. The zombies stank and they made these awful breathing noises. They sounded like someone using a rasp on a piece of old oak. They were fairly easy to avoid. It was something else. I don’t know, but when I was running, I felt like someone was trailing me. I made several detours and cut backs, but I never saw anyone, or anything.” I shrugged. “Maybe it was a coyote thinking I would be an easy meal.”

             
Howard nodded, although I don’t think he comprehended what I was saying.

             
“Alright Zach, where to now?” He asked.

             
“I’m going to get my property back.” I said. Howard’s eyes widened.

             
“You’re going to confront those cannibal eating motherfuckers?” He asked.

             
I nodded. “You can wait here if you want.”

             
“Oh, hell no. I’m not sitting here by myself.” Howard rubbed his face. “I’ll follow you.” He walked to his Hummer.

             
I drove up to the neighborhood and parked near my old truck. The driver’s door was open, as if they were looking for something to loot out of it as well. The bodies were missing. Only some dried blood trails remained. I followed the trails through the yard and to a house one street over. I went back inside the truck owners’ home and scrounged around until I found a couple of mason jars. I punctured a hole in the gas tank of my Ranger and managed to fill up two of the jars. Rigging them so they were Molotov cocktails, Howard and I drove over to the next street and parked about twenty feet away from their house. I saw curtains being pulled aside. They knew we were here.

             
I exited with my assault rifle and shot out the windows before lighting one of the rags on the jar and threw it through the broken window.

             
“You fuckers have five minutes to bring my property back to me.” I shouted. “Watch ‘em Howard.” He took up a position beside his Hummer with his shotgun. I prepared the second jar.

             
“Four minutes!” I yelled, and threw it through the other shattered window.

             
“Zach,” Howard whispered. “It’s only been about twenty seconds.” I looked at him and winked. There was smoke coming out of the window now. I shot a few more times and reloaded.

             
“Three minutes!” I yelled and glanced back at Howard. He looked at me and then shot out one of the upstairs windows.

             
“Two minutes!” He yelled. I nodded.

             
“I’m going to run around to the back of the house. Stay here.” I said as I took off running. The back door was opening a crack as I rounded the corner. I splintered the door frame with a bullet.

             
“Do you fuck-tards think we’re playing? You better bring my property back A-S-A-Fucking-P!” The door slammed shut and I jogged back around front. The front door of the burning house opened a moment later.

             
“Don’t shoot!” A woman shouted. “We’re coming out!” They nervously exited the house with their hands raised. It was the same crew, even the kid. Hell, they were even wearing the same clothes.

             
“Where is my property?” I asked.

             
“It’s all inside.” One of the men said.

             
“Well, go get it you dumbass.” I demanded.

             
He tentatively looked inside. “The place is on fire. It’s full of smoke.”

             
“Well then, you better make it fast. You men go in there and help your friend. Otherwise, I’m taking out your kneecaps.” They were certainly slow witted, but a shot at their feet reaffirmed to them I was serious. They turned and ran back inside. They came out a minute later with their arms loaded and coughing heavily.

             
“Put it all in the back of my truck.” I said. “Make it fast.” They hurriedly complied. As the last one dropped my property into the bed of the truck, he looked back at the house. Flames were visible now.

             
“You’ve set our house on fire. What do we do now?” He lamented.

             
“Frankly, I don’t give a shit.” I motioned at Howard and we left.

              ”You want to drive over to the Cool Springs Mall and try some of the retail businesses around there? See if there’s anything left over we can use?” Howard asked.

             
“I need to get some baby stuff, and maybe some stuff for the girls, but I need to make it quick and get back to the farm.” I said. We were sitting in front of his home, a former tire store near the intersection of Nolensville and Old Hickory. I hooked my thumb over my shoulder at a nearby Walmart. “Have you been in there lately?” I asked.

             
Howard shook his head. “Not lately. I tried back in the spring. Man, it was full of zombies.” He shook his head again.

             
“But, I haven’t tried it lately. You want to give it a shot?”

             
I shrugged. “We can give it a try. If there are too many of them still in there, we’ll back out and call it a day.” Howard frowned with worry, but went along.

             
We started at the front doors and slowly worked our way in. We spent the next two hours clearing the super store. Every time we thought we had killed them all, another one would emerge out of a dark corner. The two of us were drenched in sweat by the time we killed the last one.

             
“My ears are ringing. I should have worn earplugs.” Howard lamented.

             
I nodded. “Yeah, mine too.” I made a mental calculation. “I’m counting eighteen dead zeds, does that sound about right?” I asked. Howard nodded in agreement.

I pointed toward the front of the store. There were multiple corpses
of what I suppose were healthy people before they died. There wasn’t much left of them. Whatever the zombies didn’t chew on, the maggots had finished the job.

             
“It looks like people would come in here thinking they had easy pickings and would get attacked. Even so, this store doesn’t have much left.” I said. Howard nodded again and took a long drink from his canteen.

             
“We need to apply rule number eight and burn these corpses.” I said as an afterthought. Howard got up and walked down an aisle. He returned a minute later with two pair of cheap gardening gloves. I smiled appreciatively.

             
“It’s like you predicted though. Those zombies are dying off. These ones here,” Howard waved his finger at the zombies we’d killed. “They could hardly move.” I agreed. It was a good sign. Once they all died off, it would make it a lot easier for the survivors. We had no problem dragging them outside. The decomposition reduced their body weight by a considerable amount. Stacking some debris on top of the corpses, we watched them burn. When the fire was going sufficiently, we walked back in and then spent several minutes looking around at the small amount of merchandise left.