Zombie D.O.A. (25 page)

“Man’s gotta eat,” Hound D
og said and spat into the dirt.

“Granted,” I said. “But just one of those deer over there would have fed you for a while. The other will just r
ot before you get to eating it.

“So what?” St Louis said. “So what if we want to kill every god damn deer in this entire forest? The whole world’s turned to shit. What’s it to you if we shoot the place up?”

He had a point, I guess. What did it matter to me? Except that it did.  It mattered because when there are no rules, it becomes even more important to follow your conscience. To do the right thing. Sorry if that sounds preachy, but that’s how I felt then, and still do.

“Tell you what, mister,” St Louis said. “How’s about we share our kill with you, even stevens, fifty-fifty, right down the middle? Then we walk away, no hard feelings? How does that do ya?”

“Here’s a better idea. I said. “I noticed you had a couple of shovels back there. You, Hound Dog, go get them.”

Hound D
og looked at me uncertainly, “You ain’t going to kill us are you, mister?”

“No unless you make me. Now go.”

Hound D
og hustled off and returned with the shovels. “Now give one to St Louis here,” I said.

“Name’s Gerry, asshole,” St Louis said accepting the shovel.

“Now you boys get digging,” I instructed.

“I ain’t doing it,” Hound D
og said, throwing the shovel down, “You’ll kill us if we do.”

“I’ll kill you if you don’t,” I said, and I must have made enough of an impression because he picked up the shovel and started digging.

The earth was soft and pretty soon they had a decent size
d
hole dug.

“Now I want you boys to fetch those deer off the back of the truck and give them a decent Christian burial.”

“Ah mister,” Hound D
og started to protest, then thought better of it.

By the time the last of the earth had been shoveled in and patted down, it was getting dark.

“You boys did good,” I said, “so I’m going to cut you some slack. Hound dog, this is your lucky day, I’m not going to shoot you after all. Here’s what you’re going to do, you’re going to start walking straight down this road…”

“But our truck…”

“Forget the truck. You walk down this road, you don’t stop, and you don
’t look back. I see you peeking,
I might just take a shot with that fine sni
per’s rifle of yours, Hound D
og.

“Oh, and one more thing, stick to the road. Don’t go thinking about taking a shortcut through the woods or anything. I heard there’s wolves around here, so you boys might just have the chance discover how brave you really are without a high powered rifle in your hand.”

“Fucking asshole,” St Louis spat, and then tur
ned and started walking. Hound D
og looked like he was thinking of saying something, then turned and followed his friend.

I loaded up the AK-47, the M40 sniper’s rifle and the shotgun into my truck. There was some ammo and a couple of spare mag
azine
s
and a cleaning kit
for the AK and I took those too.

It was fully dark by the time I drove away. About half a mile down the road, I passed St. Louis and Hound Dog and I slowed down and tossed out their
truck
keys.

In the rearview mirror I saw St. Louis step into the road and flip me the bird as I drove off.

Tom’s pickup had finally given up the ghost just outside of Tulsa. I felt sorry to leave the old hulk behind. It had served me well and had also kept me connected in some way to those good people I’d left behind in Kentucky.

I’d found a photograph pinned to the sun visor. A slightly younger Tom and Betsy sitting at a table with a red checked tablecloth, a meal laid out before them. Tom had his arm around Betsy, and they both held wine glasses
,
raised in a toast.

I took the photo now and pocketed it, knowing Tom wouldn’t have minded.

I had a decision to make about my little armory. I knew I wasn’t going to take the shotgun, so I stripped it down and tossed the parts into the bushes. The AK and the .38 were a must of course, but I had to decide about the M-40.

In the end I didn’t take it, simply because I didn’t know when I’d find another serviceable vehicle, and it made no sense lugging a heavy rifle that I might not need.

Joe Thursday had been partial to the R-5 carbine, but I’d found over the years that when it came down to it, an AK seldom let you down.

I packed the extra mag
azine
s
, cleaning kit
and some extra loose ammo for the AK into a rucksack I’d also taken from Tom’s. I also packed in some ration
pack
s I’d pilfered from a broken down military truck somewhere near the Missouri / Arkansas border. They tasted like shit, but they
were light, which
made them
easy to carry
.

Besides, I’ve always been a ‘food as fuel’ type of guy. It had always bugged the hell out of Rosie whenever she tried a new recipe and wanted an opinion on it. ‘It was good honey, I’d say. ‘Yes,’ she’d insist, ‘but what did you like about it?’ To which I’d normally offer some inane comment like, ‘It was, er…crunchy?”

I’d just gotten my stuff together when I heard the sound of a car engine far off. I soon realized that it wasn’t a car engine at all but the distinct rumble-splutter of a Harley Davidson motorcycle, and by the sound of it, more than one.

The area I was in was a wide featureless plain. There was very little cover other than fields of tall yellow grass and the corpses of abandoned vehicles that littered the highway.          

As the sound of the Harley
s
grew
louder
,
I moved
about
twenty yards from the road and sunk down int
o the grass. The field
had an upward slope, giving me a good view of the road.

T
he bikers approached
and
I saw that they were escorting another vehicle, a yellow school
bus. As they spotted Tom’s truck with the hood up, they slowed and came to a stop.  O
ne of the bikers dismounted and rummaged through the cab.

Then they seemed to be having some sort of debate, while one or two of them shaded their eyes and looked off into the distance, probably hoping to catch a glimpse of whoever had abandoned the truck.

After a while they got going again, five bikes at front, then the empty school bus in the middle, and three bikers bringing up the rear. I could just make out the insignia on their leather jackets as they passed, a picture of a skeleton riding a motorcycle, with the words ‘The Dead Men’, embroidered above it.

In my time on the road, I’d never had a run in with any of the motorcycle gangs, or road crews as they were commonly called, but I knew them by reputation. They were cut-throats, rapists and slave traders, and some were rumored to be cannibals. I’d heard stories of them using human victims as decoys, throwing them to the Zombies to keep them occupied, while they raided a city for provisions, or more often drugs.

I waited until the sound of the Harley’s had faded before I got up. It was mid-afternoon and hot. I took a sip from the canteen where the water was already turning tepid.

My original plan had been to continue along route 412 until it crossed the river and then to swing south and skirt the city, but this latest encounter told me I’d have to stay off the road and make the trek cross-country.

I took one more swig of
water and set off across the sea of grass.

By nightfall, I’d reached the river and I found a place to hole up for the night. I ate a pre-packed beef teriyaki meal that could have been flavored rubber and had a couple of hardtack military biscuits with arm-pit flavored spread cheese and a Hoohah bar. I washed it down with an orange instant drink that was the best tasting thing in the ration pack.

Sometime during the night I woke to the sound of what I thought was gunfire. Instead it was a huge fireworks display, which lit up the sky above Tulsa. I fell asleep thinking that we were living in strange times indeed, and drifted into a dream where Ruby was beckoning me towards the door of the house on the cliffs.

There was a brass nameplate fixed to the door and I could make out something on it. P-E-N and then something else obscured by the glare of the sun.

I woke before dawn and went down to the river, filled my canteens and washed up.

When I returned to
the
campsite there was a man sitting on my sleeping bag, with his eyes closed, his legs folded under him and my AK-47 cradled in his lap.

I immediately ducked for cover behind a clump of bushes and started moving left to try and flank him.

“Don’t bother,” the man said, “I see you.”  Which left me in a quandary, I had the .38 but, with no real cover around, getting involved in a shootout could only end badly for me.

“Pretty careless of you leaving your weapon unattended,” the man said.

“Didn’t think there was anyone around,” I said, still crouching in the bushes.

“There’s always someone around, Chris. Remember that if you want to stay alive.”

I rose then, “How do you know my name?”

The man chuckled, “Now you see that right there, showing yourself to a man holding a rifle, that will get you killed too.”

“I asked how you know my name?”

“We have a mutual friend. He knew I was going to be in the area, asked me to look you up.”

“A mutual friend? Who…”

“Joe Thursday.”

“Joe Thursday? Joe’s still alive?”

The man chuckled again, the laugh of someone who enjoys a good joke. “Take a whole lot of killing to put that tough son of a bitch in the ground,” he said.

“But how? Where is he? And how does he know I’m here?”

“That’s a lot of questions, the first I believe I’ve already answered. In answer to the second, it’s best you don’t know. In answer to the third, you’ll be amazed how much you can learn if you cock your ear in the right direction, even in this messed up world. Now, you going to stand out there in the bushes like a pathfinder, or you going to come over and be fo
rmally introduced?
“

I walked over while he put the rifle tenderly down, got to his feet and extended a hand. His grip was firm. “Charles Babbage,” he said. “My associates call me Charlie B, my friends call me Babs.”

“What’s Joe call you?”

“Dipshit mostly,” he laughed.

“Babs it is then,” I said, shaking his hand.