Zombie Rules (27 page)

             
It was a large house. There were six bedrooms and each room had its own full bathroom. It was very nice, except for all of the filth. The latest occupants were not clean people. The whole house smelled like a locker room. There was debris everywhere and the toilets were filled with trash and excrement. Very nasty.

             
But there was no Tommy. There was nobody at all, just like Trina said. Finished with our search, we walked back outside. Trina had not moved. “Okay Trina, where did they go?” Trina shrugged her shoulders. Julie grabbed her by her chin. “Listen bitch! I want to know where my little brother is!” I gently grabbed Julie and eased her away from Trina. Julie glared at me. I raised my palms out.

             
“Just wait.” I whispered and turned back to Trina. “Trina, we don’t want any trouble, we just want to check on Tommy and make sure he’s okay. Could you help us out here?”

             
Trina continued staring at a vacant point in space. She was defeated, she had given up. I could see it in her face. I squatted down to where my face was level with hers. Only then did she look at me. “Where is my Uncle Tay? Where’re Darius and Jason?”

             
“They’re dead Trina. They came at us with the intent of killing us. They lost.”

             
Trina did not move. “I figured as much when they didn’t come home last night.” She looked over at Julie. “I didn’t know you hooked up with Zach.” Julie did not bother answering. She drew on her cigarette before continuing. “I don’t know where they went. Your momma said something about Nashville, but I don’t know why they’d go there. Nothing but zombies in Nashville. Thousands of them.” She seemed to lose focus, but then turned her head back to me. “We’re all gonna die.”

             
I almost felt sorry for her at that moment. Hell, I was very close to hauling her butt back to the van, and then the radio crackled to life. “Zach.” Fred was whispering. “We got zombies, about two dozen of them. They’re all in one group. One block over.”

             
They were close. Too close. I motioned to Julie. She heard Fred loud and clear. We began running toward the van. I tried talking on the radio between hurried breaths. It was a lot harder than the movies portrayed it. “Fred, can you make it back to the van or do I need to drive to you?”

             
He responded calmly. “Drive straight ahead and make a right at the next street, be watching for me.” I clicked the talk button in acknowledgement as Julie and I got into the van. Fred emerged out of the front door of a house just as I turned and jumped in the passenger side. “There’s a whole passel of them.” He pointed down the street. “I never seen them group together like that before.” I looked, and sure enough there were twenty to thirty of them shambling along, slowly and steadily. They were in various states of dress and decomposition.

             
I used an empty driveway to turn in, back up, and turn around. The sound and movement of the van apparently attracted them. A couple of them actually reached out as if to grab us, even though they were still half a block away. I began backtracking our way out of the neighborhood.

             
“Fred, I got some theories about them, which means I’m doing a lot of guessing, but I think the cold weather slows them down. They’re moving like old ugly people.” Fred looked in the passenger mirror at the retreating forms. He nodded in agreement. My earlier assessment of Fred’s demeanor had not changed. He was quiet natured. Taciturn would be a good word to describe him.

             
“Did you find the kid?” I looked in my rearview mirror at Julie. She was quiet as well, just sitting there staring at nothing in particular.

             
“Everyone is gone except Trina. She believed Julie’s mom and Tommy may be headed toward Nashville. Macie might be with them as well.” I waited for an emotional outburst from him. Okay, I’m joking. Fred nodded, and then looked out the window as if we were out on a Sunday drive. “We have plenty of daylight left. I’d like to leave this neighborhood, cover a route toward Nashville, and see if we happen upon them. If, along the way, we see anything which we might be able to use, we’ll grab it.”

             
He nodded. “What kind of car do you think they’re in?”

             
Fred did not bother asking if I thought they were on foot. That’d be stupid with all of these zombies around. I answered his question. “One of the men, Chad, had a baby blue BMW four-door. It wasn’t in the garage and I didn’t see it parked on the street. That’s what I’m guessing.”

             
“I’ll keep an eye out.” He said with heated emotion. Well okay, not really.

             
We drove a route in which I assumed Janet might have driven in order to go to Nashville. The truth be told, there were multiple routes from Brentwood to Nashville. I just picked one and went with it. Julie did not know any better, Fred kept any opinion he had to himself.

             
We encountered zombies here and there, aimlessly wandering the roadways. I drove around them while they moaned and reached for us.

“Why do they walk along the roads?” Julie asked.

              “I’m guessing they’re merely following a path of least resistance, at least until they sense something edible.” I just discovered another zombie rule and made a mental note. “I don’t think they are communicating. More likely, they are randomly encountering each other and then stick together. A pack mentality type of behavior so to speak.” We either drove around them or, if we could not, we would turn down side streets. Fred agreed the best course of action for now would be to avoid them, if possible.

             
There were a few houses on fire when we drove down Franklin Pike, multiple wrecked or burned cars, a few corpses. Occasionally we saw a pack of dogs roaming.

             
“Those dogs could be dangerous when they get hungry enough, as if we don’t have enough to worry about.” I said, mostly to myself. Julie and Fred seemed to be in their own respective worlds. I knew what Julie was thinking about. I could only assume Fred was thinking about his daughter and the recent loss of his family.

             
We did not see a single blue BMW anywhere. At one point, we passed a tow truck going the opposite direction. “Hey look! Live people.” I stopped the van and waved out of the window. I was kind of hoping they would stop too, and maybe we could make some new friends. There were two of them in it, an older man and woman. They did not even slow down and passed us by without even a wave. I grunted. Fred was so devastated he could not even speak.

             
I eventually worked our way over to Harding Place. There were no less than three pharmacies at the intersection of Trousdale and Harding. Two of them had been burnt to the ground. The third one, a CVS store, was still mostly intact. The windows were broken out, and it was obvious it had been looted. I avoided some large potholes and stopped in the street.

             
“There might be something left that we could use. What do you think Fred?” I asked.

             
“Sure, let’s give it a look.” Julie stood guard outside while we cleared the interior. We slowly rounded each aisle one by one. Suddenly Fred gave a small hiss. I glanced over and he nodded at the next aisle over. I peeked through a crack in between the store fixtures. Then I saw it. It used to be a middle-aged man. He was wearing a white lab coat. I wondered if he was the store’s pharmacist. I held up one finger to Fred and pointed where the zombie was. I started edging closer when Fred gave another hiss. I looked back at him, wondering what was going on.

             
He held up a finger and then gave a small grin. He stepped out into the main aisle and pulled his duster back with his left hand. He stood facing the aisle where the zombie was. He started whistling some unknown tune. I stifled a chuckle as the zombie started moaning. He slowly shambled out into the main aisle. Fred was standing with his feet spread apart.

             
“Draw.” He said in that raspy voice of his, and then did something quite amazing. He drew his pistol with his right hand, shot the zombie pharmacist between the eyes, and then holstered the pistol before I even realized he had fired a shot. If I had blinked, I would have missed it.

             
“Holy shit!” I exclaimed under my breath as the zombie fell to the ground. “That was incredible!” Fred winked. I edged around the zombie and we finished clearing the store. I trotted back to the front entrance. “All clear.” I said to Julie. “You want to look around and I’ll take watch?” She shook her head. She had not said more than one or two words since our encounter with Trina. I nodded and went back inside.

             
The store had been severely looted, but it was not totally bare. I grabbed a shopping cart, found some plastic bags behind the counter and started in. The first place I headed was the birth control section. Sure enough, there were a dozen boxes of condoms left. Whoever had looted this place had emptied the store of all of the food products, beer, and pain medication, but there was still inventory on the shelves a competent survivalist could make use of. I loaded the condoms into a plastic bag and looked up to see Fred watching me.

             
“Ah, to be young again. So, is there anything special you want, besides those I mean?” He asked.

I smiled sheepishly and nodded.
“Antibiotics. Are you familiar with any of them?”

“A little bit, my mother-in-law was a nurse.” His voice caught a bit at her memory, but he recovered quickly. “I’ll head back into the pharmacy and concentrate my search there. Any particular brand name I should look for?”

“Anything that ends in i-l-l-i-n, anything that starts with c-e-f or c-e-p-h, anything that ends in c-i-n…”

He interrupted me. “Okay, okay, I got it.” He snapped his fingers. “I just thought of something. Without the government around, nobody is going to spray for mosquitos anymore. It’ll be like a jungle this summer. Find any and all bug repellent you can. I can’t think of anything else at the moment, but I’m sure you will.
By the way, good idea about the birth control.” He grabbed a plastic bag and walked off without waiting for a response.

             
Our looting ended with just one half-full shopping cart. There was nothing left. He was right about the mosquitos. They were responsible for more human deaths than any other animal, combined. I located several plastic spray bottles of repellent and took them all. When we finished, we left the pharmacy and continued on Harding. I was about to suggest heading back when suddenly Fred sat up.

             
“There is a National Guard headquarters on Powell Avenue and Sidco Drive, not too far from here. A couple of gun stores are also nearby, and lots of businesses. We might find some good supplies.” I nodded and proceeded ahead. There were indeed a plethora of businesses.

             
We came upon the National Guard location first, or Houston Barracks as it was known. We had to stop about one hundred yards away. There were several bodies lying about. I stopped the van and we stared. “Lots of decomposition. They’re zombies, no doubt about it. I don’t see any are normal looking ones.”

             
“It looks like they’ve all been shot all to hell.” Julie opined. She was right. Each zombie had multiple gunshot wounds.

             
“A lot of wasted ammo.” Fred mused. He retrieved the binoculars and began scanning the various buildings. He handed the binoculars to Julie. “Your eyes are younger than mine. Look up at the roof of the largest building. I think I see little puffs of steam.”

             
Julie looked. “You’re right. I see it too.” Julie looked at me. “What does it mean?”

             
“It means the building is probably occupied.” I said. “The steam is coming from a vent stack for the heating units.” I pointed toward the scattered corpses. “They’re the ones who killed the zombies. It must be soldiers.”

             
Julie handed the binoculars back to Fred. He did another scan. “I believe you’re right Zach. In fact, we have someone checking us out right now.”

              After a moment, he lowered the binoculars and turned to us. “It looked like he called somebody. He’s got a walkie-talkie radio and he spoke into it for a spell.”

             
“Let’s see if we can talk to them.” I tried CB channel nine and nineteen several times, but received no response. I grunted and retrieved a can of spray paint out of the van.

             
“What are you doing Zach?” Julie asked me.

             
“It’s a good time to introduce the rules.” I walked in front of the van about ten feet where there was a spot in the road not covered by zombies or gore. “Poor shooting discipline, wasted ammunition, a lack of knowledge of Zach’s Rules of Zombies. Time to help them out.”

I gave the can a good shake and sprayed out all of my previous rules. Then I added a few more:

RULE NUMBER 8: BURN THE CORPSES!