Zombie Dawn (19 page)

Utter boondocks.  A few houses, lots of fields, plenty of forests, surrounded by nice clean water full of delicious fish.  No barricade across the road, at least not immediately.  We kept rolling into the “town” of South Hero.  It was really just a few streets and a couple of businesses—a feed store, a building supply place, a couple of bars, a small supermarket, stuff like that—and appeared to be completely empty and completely intact.

That’s when we met the “Dude.”  The road in front of the feed store was very wide.  We parked our vehicles facing different directions and manned the machine guns.  Mike was on top of the bus with his M-79 along with Jake, who carried the M-107.  We had a decent defensive position but we were always leery of new places so we were all on high alert.

Down the street came the “Dude,” completely bedecked in brand new cowboy clothes (with the checked shirt, the jeans, the vest, and the neckerchief) and a huge black 10 gallon hat.  He had two pearl handled revolvers and was riding a huge stallion.  He had a 12 gauge held across his saddle.  He came off as sort of a campy Lone Ranger wannabe who thought he looked like John Wayne.

Kate and George had immediately cleared the feed store, and Stan and Darnell had cleared the bar across the street.  Each was empty.  Kate and Darnell each radioed to me that they had a shot on the “Dude,” as we immediately, and without discussion, called him.  Stan radioed that he had found some cold beer.  George and Stan were checking around for others, and saw none.  Mike and Jake also said all was clear.

I walked out to meet the Dude.  I had my M4 by my side, with the muzzle carefully pointed down.  I did not want to spook him, nor did I want to get shot.  We got into sort of a showdown type of thing where we walked down the middle of a silent street. I decided to shoot only if he tried to shoot me, or if he spoke like a bad imitation of the Duke.  I thought about shooting the horse, too, but decided that Bobbie would be pissed if I did.

As he got closer, I relaxed a bit.  It was a kid and he clearly had Down’s syndrome.  I realized that Down’s syndrome people could function at a high level but I didn’t know that extended to advanced survival skills; there had to be others around somewhere.  I wondered whether calling him “the Dude” was politically correct or not.  But I knew, deep in the fabric of my soul, that this was the “Dude.”

Closer still.  He looked like he was 12.  The horse wasn’t really that big, just that the Dude was short.  He rode the horse pretty well.  I’m no expert, but he looked comfortable and balanced up there.

The Dude smiled.  “Hello,” he said.  I also said hello.  To which he replied “Hello, thank you.”    I asked who else was around, to which he replied “Hello.” We kept it going for a bit before we had a breakthrough.  The Dude wore a huge smile.

“My name is Jack.”

“Hi, Jack.”

“What’s your name?”

“Markie.”

“Where do you live?”

“I live with the ladies.”

“Are they nice ladies?”
“No, they’re witches.  South Hero witches.”
“Where are they?”

“I don’t know.”

“How far away from here do you live?”
 “I don’t know.”

“Have you seen zombies?”

“Yes.  They are mean.  They came and killed everyone, then the witches killed them.”

“Are all of the zombies gone?”

“I dream about them.”

“Do you see them when you are awake?”
“Not anymore.”

“Where do you live?”

“I don’t.”

I took this to mean that he had escaped, or something.

“Where did you used to live?”

“With the witches.”

“How many witches?”

“Too many.”

“How did you get away?”

The Dude kept moving his horse toward our vehicles as we spoke, and I had to walk fast to keep up with him.  I asked him to stop, and he didn't.  I grabbed his reins, but he spurred his horse and kept going towards the trucks.

Once again, Kate figured it out first.  She shot the Dude through the head just as the explosive vest he was wearing detonated.  It knocked me flat on my ass, and I couldn't hear well for a few days, but I was okay.  Kate's quick thinking had saved everyone once again.  If he had gotten to the trucks, we would have lost a bunch of people.

"How could you shoot a retarded kid?" I asked her later. 

"It was easy, I just didn't lead him as much." she quipped.  Mike howled, remembering the classic line from "Full Metal Jacket."

It wasn't a laughing matter, though.  Dude had seemed like a good kid and I wanted to find the miserable bitches that had made him do that.  And kill them.

Chapter Twenty Two:  The Witches

We started searching South Hero house to house, which did not take long.  We were seriously pissed off, so I had to remind everyone that the "witches" probably had other innocent captives and that they'd managed to defend themselves against the zombies.  That slowed everyone down a bit.
            We'd clear each building, then roll the vehicles up, then clear the next buildings.  We didn't see anything but all of a sudden we were under fire; first the whisper of bullets then the sound.  They were firing from very far away, beyond the range of their weapons.  A lot of rounds ticked off the Hummer and the bus and a couple of people were hit with shattered glass, but no one was seriously hurt.

Meanwhile, Jake had spotted where the rounds were coming from, a bank over half a mile away.  They were elevating their barrel to reach us.  I ordered all of the vehicles except the Hummer to retreat, which they quickly did.  Jake jumped on the roof of the Hummer with M107 and fired.

Jake's first round must have come awfully close, because their machine gun shut down for a bit.  During the break, we moved the Hummer forward while Stan readied the M24.  We set Jake up in the third floor of an apartment house to cover us, and then began to move forward in the Hummer in short jerky motions.  Jake was about 1000 yards out.

When we were about 700 yards out, we set Stan up on the other side of the street on the roof of a gas station.  Stan and Jake both had good angles, and started pouring in coordinated fire.  Jake would fire, then Stan.  They were still shooting from the bank, but they were not even close.

When we got to 300 yards, Mike started firing with his M79.  We knew there was some risk to any innocents in the bank, but we had to protect ourselves first.  Mike was a natural with that thing.  He dropped the first round right on top of the machine gun, which silenced it for good.  His next rounds landed right in front of the building but then he got the range, landing on top of the bank and sending some inside through the windows.  He hit with a phosphorus round and the bank started to burn.

A few minutes later, at least thirty people ran out. 

George fired short bursts from our .50 cal over their heads, and they hit the dirt.  I radioed back to Tom to roll up in an Expedition and cover them with the .30 cal.  He picked up Jake and Stan on the way. 

I told the guys to shoot anyone who moved while I strapped all of the people up with zip strips, both arms and legs.  When they were all tied up, I asked if anyone else was inside.  The loudest of our prisoners was a fat bitch with bushy black hair and she seemed like the leader. 

She spat at me and it hit me.  I fucking hate when people spit on me.  The only way to get away with it is to spit on me, then immediately kill me.  Or maybe spit at me as you kill me.  This broad didn't have a chance.  I kicked her right in the mouth as hard as I could and teeth sprayed everywhere.  I gave her one more chance and she spat at me again.  This time she missed, but she'd run out of chances.  I popped her with my .45.  I just knew she was responsible for the Dude and I figured that this would help the others improve their cooperation.

It did.  Another one, this one a skinny one with bushy gray hair, told me that some more people were inside the bank.  I didn't trust her a bit, so I told her she was going in, alone, to get them and that she had one minute to do so.  I cut her legs loose, patted her down, and sent her on her way.  Jake and Mike went around back to make sure she didn't run out the back, which was exactly what she did.  Jake smacked her and sent her back in.  Seconds later, we heard her screaming.  We decided to wait and see what happened.

A few seconds later, a dozen people ran out of the bank.  These were the captives.  Four adults and eight kids.  They immediately ran over to the people lying on the floor and attacked them, trying to rip them apart with their bare hands.  We gave them a few minutes to vent, then I fired a few rounds into the air and told them to stop.

We decided to hold our first post-Incident trial right then and there.  I asked each person what had happened.  It was clear to me that the thirty who had run out first were the "witches" that the Dude had talked about and that the twelve that had come out later had been captured and tortured by the witches.  Hundreds of others had also been killed by the witches.  

I sent Jake and Stan back into the bank to check it out.  There were a few dead bodies in it, some weapons, and some supplies, but nothing special.  I decided that it would be the final resting place of the witches and we ordered them to go back into the bank, then we burned it down with some of Mike's phosphorus grenades.  It was barbaric, but so were the witches.  We didn't have time for a firing squad and they didn't deserve it.  Rather than banding together against the zombies, they'd used the Incident as an opportunity to hurt other survivors.  That had to be about the worst crime you could commit.

The survivors had been recently captured from Grand Isle, the island immediately north of South Hero Island.  The islands had initially had quite a few survivors but they'd been whittled down over time by the witches, who had quickly gotten control of the entire area.  The witches had cut the bridge to the north and maintained a watch over the bridge from the south, which we had used.  They were apparently expert at hunting and killing zombies.  They used survivors as bait.  I was glad that I'd killed them.

There were two families of survivors.  The Spillers were dairy farmers and the Lynches were beef ranchers.  Dave Spiller was a Marine vet, and his wife Sheila was a nurse.  They had three kids--Davey, age 12, Suzie, age 13, and Randall, age 15.    Danny Lynch was a Navy vet and his wife Lisa was a large animal veterinarian.  They had five kids--TJ age three, Timmy and Lisa (twins, age five), and Sara and James, twins, age nine).

We set up in the feed store and got to know each other.  We took a couple of days to relax.  There was plenty of food in town and we actually added to our supplies.  We slowly and carefully cleared the entire town.

Dave and Danny took a look at our cattle cars and sort of chuckled. They realized how green we were at this, as did we.  We were very lucky to have them.  We decided to put our dairy cows with the Spillers and the beef with the Lynches for the time being.  Their spreads were right next to one another at the northernmost point of Grand Isle.

They had no desire to live with us; they were flinty Vermonters and very independent.  We agreed to stay in constant contact by radio.  They’d act as our northern guard and we’d watch the south.  We’d share food and weapons and work together to resettle the islands and keep them safe.  Dave and Danny made it clear that they’d take their share of survivors; all we had to do is send them up there.  We wanted to do that, because their defenses were light and they didn’t have much help.  By helping them, we’d help ourselves.

Chapter Twenty Three:  Grand Isle

Our Vermonters gave us a grand tour of the islands.  Dave and Danny came with Stan, Tom, Kate and I in the Hummer and we ran all the way up to the north, then around the perimeter.  It was pretty quiet.  Lots of burned out farms and wandering animals.  We needed to confirm that the witches had cut the bridge that allowed entry from the north.  They had.

We returned to town, where Dave and Danny loaded up their families and took off for their homes.

We were on our own, and basically in charge of the entire southern part of the islands.  We had a wide variety of properties to choose from, so we picked the biggest and nicest house that we saw.  It was huge, comfortable, and in excellent shape.

That night, we had a meeting.  The first order of business was to arrange a defensive perimeter.  We talked a bit about the types of attacks we might face.  We figured we had five primary possible opponents.

One would be bands of humans who’d gone rogue and preyed on survivors.  I thought of them as douchebags and we all started calling them “DBs”  These would be short-sighted violent assholes who would not plan ahead and would likely range out further and further as they began to run out of scrounged Twinkies.  They probably had military skills but we figured that, for the most part, they’d likely go away if they saw prepared and manned defenses.  There was to be no mercy for DBs.  Ever.

A second would be wandering zombies in small quantities.  This was more of a constant vigilance and training type of concept.  We had decided to move to the boonies for a reason—because there weren’t many people around.  But we knew they could appear anytime.  We saw one wash up on the beach one day.  It had somehow moved under the water, or been moved, and it simply arrived.  Every once in a while, one would succeed in breaking a window and escaping from its house or car.  They weren’t really dangerous if you were prepared but could easily kill you if you let up even for a moment.  These we called Zs, zeds, or zombies.