Zombie Rules (31 page)

             
“Sure I have, at least a million times. But even if I made it across the country in one piece, I would have no idea where to look for her.” He pointed to a small laptop with a solar panel hooked up to it. “I know the Internet is not working, but I have it opened to Skype, just in case.”

             
“Tell us about your brother.” I asked.

             
Fred smiled a bit. “He was a big one wasn’t he?” I readily agreed. “He was big even as a kid. He weighed eleven pounds when he was born. He had great potential in sports, wrestling, football, you name it, but he just didn’t have the competitive drive for it. He was just a big overgrown kid with a heart of gold. A gentle giant was a good way to describe him. He was the kind of person that you always wanted to have around. He ended up being an elementary school teacher. The kids loved him. Hell, everyone loved him. He helped me with the greenhouse business when he wasn’t playing with the kids. Somehow, he got the bug and turned. When everything started going bad, we all hunkered down here. We had plenty of food, water, the usual stuff. Everything was going pretty good. No confrontations with any zombies or hostile strangers. We were just keeping to ourselves. We figured one day it would all blow over, the TV stations would come back to life and the news people would tell us order had been restored. Well, you all know how it went.”

             
Fred paused a moment before continuing. “Frank got up one morning and he said he didn’t feel well. I told him to stay in bed and rest.” He paused again and sighed. “I should have known better. He had been a picture of health his entire adult life, hadn’t been sick since he was a little kid. When I got back after tending the cattle, he had already turned. He killed my wife and mother-in-law.” He pointed into the den. “He got ahold of my mother-in-law in there. Connie Sue must have been outside and didn’t hear anything. I found her in the yard. After killing them he took off. I buried them, spent a little time mourning, and then went hunting him. That’s when I met you two. Aside from Betsy, they were the last of my family.” Fred finished the last of the breakfast quietly. He wiped his mouth with his napkin and surprisingly grinned at us.

             
“You two kids are my family now. I hope it’s not something you find disagreeable.”

             
I was stunned, and looked over at Julie. There were sudden tears in her eyes, but she was smiling. “I think I speak for Julie when I say that we’re honored that you have such a high of an opinion of us.” Julie nodded, jumped up, and gave Fred a hug.

             
Fred nodded awkwardly and grabbed his napkin. “You keep that up I might start crying myself.” We all laughed and hugged. The only thing missing were the three stooges sniffing our asses.

             
We spent the morning helping Fred around his farm. At noon we broke for lunch. After, we talked him into showing us his shooting skills. The rain had stopped, temporarily. The sky was still overcast, and we could hear an occasional rumble of thunder in the distance. We went out behind the barn and set up some targets.

             
“Alright kids, you two seem to know the fundamentals of gun safety, but I want to go over them again and make sure.” Julie and I nodded. “First, always assume the gun is loaded, so that means you don’t play around with it and point it at each other, right? Which leads to the second basic rule, always be mindful of where the barrel of the gun is pointed. Imagine there is a deadly laser beam coming out of the end of the barrel and wherever it is pointed that beam will burn right through it. Number three, keep your finger off of the trigger until you’re on target and ready to fire. And finally, rule number four. Always be mindful of what’s behind your target. You don’t want to kill someone you care for accidentally. Okay, are you two ready?”

             
I smiled and nodded. I had basically given Julie those exact same instructions a couple of weeks ago. Which, coincidentally were the same instructions Rick had given me about a year ago. Julie nodded attentively and said nothing. Good for her.

             
He nodded curtly. “Good. Now, I am going to show you two the fine art of the fast draw, a technique called instinctive aiming and the thousand repetition rule.” Fred was amazing with his shooting skills. He would draw his pistol, shoot a round, and then holster his pistol in the blink of an eye. Then he’d do it again and put the second bullet into the hole from the first bullet. It was amazing. After showing off his skills for a minute, he spent a while instructing us the proper techniques for the quick draw. We then practiced with paper pie plates. It was fun. I thought I knew how to shoot, but Fred proved I was still an amateur. We had each gone through a hundred rounds in no time. I questioned Fred about this, but he told me not to worry, he had plenty.

             
Afterword, we went back to Fred’s barn and cleaned the six-shooters. “Fred.” Julie asked. He looked over. “You never said what the thousand year rule was.”

Fred shook his head slightly and corrected her. “Sure I did, but it’s not the thousand year rule, it’s the thousand
repetition
rule. In order to gain proficiency of any act, you need to do it at least a thousand times.”

             
He holstered one of his pistols and drew it out slowly, exactly like he had shown us earlier. “Practice drawing the weapon out of its holster slowly and with perfect form. Do it a thousand times in order to develop proper muscle memory. Once you’ve done that, you can draw the pistol out and put it on target like this without even thinking about it.” Fred drew the gun out deftly and quickly. “Then, once you’ve got to this point in your training, practice it one million more times. Only then will you be able to draw it like this.” He drew the pistol out with lightning speed. He repeated it a couple of more times for emphasis. Julie and I were properly impressed.

             
Fred gave the pistol a fancy reverse spin, holstered it deftly, and glanced over at me. “Okay, enough of the pistol lessons for today. It’s my turn. Zach, I’ve heard you mention a time or two you have some sort of theory about these zombies. I’d like to hear it.”

             
I shrugged as I worked the cleaning brush through the barrel. All the way through, all the way back out. “I’m not sure any of my theories have any type of scientific foundation to back them Fred. Heck, I didn’t even graduate from High School.”

             
Fred pressed. “Even so, I’d like to hear it.”

             
I removed the brass cleaning brush and replaced it with some clean gauze before I answered. I took a deep breath. The smell of gun cleaning solvent was heady. “Okay, well, how to start. Somehow a person becomes infected. There was a lot of speculation about the cause and origin, but I don’t think I ever heard a definitive reason given. Something takes over the body. I don’t know if it is a parasite, a virus, or perhaps something altogether different. There were some news reports and computer blogs saying the infected person actually dies and then is somehow reanimated. I’m not so sure about that, but again, I don’t have the knowledge or enough data to determine if it’s true or not. What I do know is an infected zombie is decomposing. They’re rotting. The fact they are decomposing almost begs the question, do they need to eat live meat in order to regenerate? It’s possible I suppose, but we’re not seeing any regeneration. I believe the desire for living meat is just a consequence of the infected person’s brain reverting back to its primal state. Again, I don’t have anything to back up my hypothesis, only some deductive reasoning based on very limited information. For instance, they don’t seem to attack each other, at least not after the infection has set in. Why? Is it because they instinctively know when a person is infected? It’s odd behavior for which I have no explanation, but it’s not really relevant to my hypothesis.”

             
“Okay, I’ll bite. What is your hypothesis?” Fred asked.

             
“So, here it is, they are going to die out in a relatively short time.”

             
They both looked at me in surprise. “Are you kidding? How is it going to happen?” Julie asked.

             
“A decomposing organism is going to have a limited life. A living human is comprised of a lot of stuff, mostly liquid, and as you know, liquid evaporates. The body is dependent upon many things, air, water, sustenance. All of those items are essential for life and regeneration. The cellular structure of a zombie is presumably dead and rotting. It doesn’t appear there is any type of functioning circulatory or respiratory system. At least, not in a normal manner. I’m betting the digestive system doesn’t work either. I bet they don’t drink water anymore. Therefore, I don’t think a body in such a state is capable of cellular regeneration, which means they can’t keep going. Eventually they’re going to drop and not get back up.” I looked at them pointedly.

             
“They’re all going to be dead, really dead, by this time next year. Especially if we have a good hot Tennessee summer. Hot weather will speed up the decomposition process exponentially. We just have to survive until then.” I paused for a moment. “If we really want to know the answers, it will require capturing a few of them and performing experiments.” I looked at them and grinned. “I don’t know about you two, but I have no desire to be up close and personal with any of those stinky things.” They laughed and readily agreed.

             
“But, I’m sorry to say, other real problems will be manifesting themselves. There are more things than zombies we have to worry about.”

             
Fred grunted. “You know Zach, I believe your logic is sound. But you’re right, the problems are just starting.”

             
Julie was obviously confused. “What are you two talking about?”

             
“The infrastructure of the country, for that matter most of the civilized world, is entirely dependent on human upkeep and maintenance. Without it, everything will be going to shit.” I said.

             
Julie rolled her eyes. “So, we’ll have more potholes in the roads and the street lights won’t work, big deal.” I chuckled. “What?” She asked.

             
“More than that, much more.” I counted with my fingers. “Nuclear plants melting down, dams busting, factories with dangerous machinery which weren’t properly shut down will be exploding.” I thought for a minute. “There are going to be numerous fires and explosions. There will also be natural disasters. All of these have the potential to cause massive damage, and none of it will be repaired.”

             
I listened to the rain. Fred spoke up. “Remember the big flood here in 2010? It caused a lot of damage. Let’s see, we had a big tornado in ’98, and a huge ice storm in ’94.” Fred snorted. “I guess the ice storm happened before the two of you were born. The point I’m getting at Julie, they all caused a lot of damage. Those particular disasters were confined to the Nashville area. Now imagine the same stuff happening worldwide. You know, Hurricanes, massive snowstorms, forest fires, and there was a big Tsunami in Indonesia in 2004. Those are just some examples. All of those natural disasters won’t stop occurring. They’ll keep happening, but the collective recovery efforts will cease.”

             
I nodded and spoke up. “There are going to be a lot of hazardous material issues as well. I suspect the ground water is going to become a lot more toxic for the next year or so. Also, a toxic nuclear cloud could come through and kill us all as well.”

             
Julie frowned. “How can something like that happen?” She obviously had not thought of all of these issues.

             
“If a nuclear power plant is not properly shut down, it’ll melt down. The byproduct will be a toxic nuclear cloud.” I said.

             
“Is there a plant close by?” Julie asked.

             
I nodded. “Watt’s Bar in east Tennessee is the nearest. It’s a little over one hundred miles from here. I think we’re mostly safe. Prevailing weather patterns should keep any toxic cloud away from us. Unless of course there is a major storm off of the east coast around the Carolinas at about the same time a plant melts down. Then it’d push it all this way.”

             
I pulled my miniature notepad out of my shirt pocket and wrote down the need for a weather station with some type of radioactive monitor. I also added water testing kits for the well water. When I was finished, I continued talking. “You know Fred, it’ll be the responsibility of the survivors to recreate a semblance of modern society. If it does not occur, then what is left of civilization will regress back to pseudo Iron Age hunter-gatherers. All of the tremendous strides mankind has achieved over the past four thousand years will be lost. It will only take about a hundred years to revert, give or take.”

             
Fred grunted. “And we haven’t even discussed what the survivors are going to do. We can most likely see a lot of lawless gangs. We’re definitely going to need to expand our group if we want to survive.”

             
After a minute he tilted his head toward the barn door as if someone were going to walk in. “What does Rick think about your theories?” Julie inhaled sharply and inadvertently dropped her pistol. I looked at her. She knew. Yeah, she had figured it out, but never said anything.