ZOMBIE'S DOOM? "Chronicles of Jack Doom" (11 page)

The last transient corpse that was in the parking lot was nearly upon me as I turned away from the one I had just dispatched. I swung my pistol to the head of the remaining vagrant, and leveled the muzzle about five inches from the snarling cannibal's face.

With absolutely no time to spare, and with just inches between me, and my sudden death, I squeezed the trigger on the Italian made gun and forced the zombie's brain out the back of its skull with the utmost efficiency.

"Holy fuck in a cardigan sweater, that was a close one," I said aloud, as I stood alone in the gas station parking lot among a swarm of flies hovering over the five rotting corpses at my feet.

I quickly surveyed the surrounding area looking for zombies, feral dogs, or anything else that might be approaching, and was relieved to see nothing but empty streets and vacant lots in every direction that were devoid of all movement.

I pulled my dented gray pick-up truck close to an SUV that was parked near the front door of the truck stop. Then I checked to see if the SUV had the keys in it, but no such luck. I then unscrewed the vehicles gas cap and pushed hard several times on the side of the SUV causing it to rock back and forth while I listened for a splashing sound made by the gasoline sloshing around in the fuel tank.

"Sounds like there's plenty of gas in this one," I mumbled to myself.

I then went into the truck stop's merchandising area to look for something to siphon out the gasoline with.

As I walked toward the building, I thought.

"
I wonder how many of these eat'in sons-a-bitches are walking around with car keys in their pockets?
"

But I wasn't about to start searching every dead man that I killed in the hopes that one of them just coincidently would have the keys to a vehicle that was close.

After all, some of these bastards had been walking around the country for over a year, who knows where in the hell they left their cars.

Inside the building, I encountered two more of the undead brutes stinking up the joint rather thoroughly, and summarily executed both of them with extreme prejudice using a swift downward swing of my hatchet onto the top of their putrescent craniums and into their brains.

Unable to find what I required to siphon the much needed fuel from the vehicle inside, I made my way out the back door of the shop where a found a garden hose that was used for watering the plants decorating the perimeter of the building.

I chopped a seven-foot section from the hose, and then headed around front to where I had parked my truck.

Upon arriving back at my vehicle, I stuck one end of the pilfered garden hose into the gas tank of the SUV and began to suck on the other end of the hose, bringing the vehicles fuel through the tube.

When the gas reached my end of the hose, I carefully inserted it into the tank of my truck, making sure not to lose the flow of gasoline during the procedure, and the refueling process had begun.

After affording myself a generous supply of SUV gasoline, I pulled the siphon hose from the two vehicles and tossed it into the bed of my truck; I tightened the gas cap and jumped into the cab.

I wasted little time getting back on the road. I was on the trail of my prey, and was following the first solid lead that I had had in months.

I wasn't about to give the Sarge a chance to give me the slip. I was only a few hundred miles away from his last reported location, and if the
Gods
were on my side (that will be the day); I'd be having breakfast with the Sarge in the morning.

So, leaving several
dead
zombies at the truck stop, I waved my trusty tomahawk out the driver's window and let out the loudest
Indian War Whoop
I could muster on such short notice.

While doing so, I rammed into two derelict cadavers that were blocking the entrance ramp back onto interstate 40, as I once more added to my felony hit and run total (abiding by all of the current laws, rules, and regulations of course).

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THE SHAWNEE COMPOUND

After dispatching three more of the unhinged ravenous savages to gain entrance to the building, I acquired an Oklahoma road map at a gas station in Elk City Oklahoma.

Subsequently, I kept on the road as much as possible, stopping only to take a sincere squirt or to drop a seriously heinous deuce or two when need be.

I didn't bother to search for food or supplies along the way, as I was pretty well stocked with everything I needed at the time (guns and bullets), and I was far more interested in catching up to the Sarge than doing anything else.

I even took a hiatus from slapping the living shit, or un-living shit, maybe I should just say maggot infused shit, out of the miscreant road zombies with my truck for a while, for fear I might damage my vehicle and give the Sarge a bigger head start than he already had.

So I force marched so to speak, through every little town, burg, village, hamlet, and whistle-stop the western part of Oklahoma had to offer, on the way to my fateful rendezvous with the one-time friend I intended to kill on sight.

Traveling at the apocalyptic break-neck speed of a blazing 25 miles per hour, give or take a mile an hour one way or another, I covered the vast distance of 120 mile or so in a record breaking time of only five and one half hours, and found myself on the outskirts of Shawnee Oklahoma as the sun began to set in the western sky.

The compound that had been given the name
Way Station
, had posted signs every few miles in every direction, so it wasn't very hard to find once you got within ten miles of the place, no matter where you were coming from.

The Way Station was enclosed by a five-foot cattle fence that didn't do much for security, it mostly just marked off the boundaries of the place and afforded people a place to park their vehicles if they were lucky enough to have one.

However, with a rotting zombie snapper (head) on every fence post adorning the perimeter of the property, there was no doubt that you had found the place when you finally arrived.

The doubt was whether or not you wanted to be admitted to a place that used human heads to announce its existence.

As I approached the main gate at the compound's entrance, a short man with an AK-47 greeted me and informed me that I could keep my weapons, but that they had people watching, and the penalties for killing someone without do cause were very harsh.

I figured that the fly engirdled rotting snappers on the fence posts all along the perimeter of the property that the man alluded to with a slight sideways head gesture and a quick glance, might be the harsh punishment that he was referring to.

He failed to inform me on just what
do cause
might consist of, and I figured that if I found the Sarge hanging out here at the Way Station, that would be
do cause
enough for me, and I would deal with the punishment if any when the time came.

Another man sporting a similar rifle as the short man at the gate, guided me to the spot that he wanted me to park my truck. So, not being one to ever want to cause anyone any trouble, I obliged him in his efforts to do what he thought was probably his apocalyptic calling.

As I shut my truck's engine off, the man approached me and pointed to the storage containers that Jason had mentioned before he had forced me to kill him.

"Go over to the black container, that's the main door, the guard there will tell you where you can stay until you leave, and take anything that you don't want stolen with you. Cause I'm not here to guard your shit," he said, not noticing that hidden under the jacket that I was carrying was I my suppressed Beretta which was pointed at him the whole time.

I carefully collected my belongings and headed for the front door of the station, being careful not to let the man see my pistol that was still pointed in his direction.

The Way Station as it was called was a bunch of shipping containers placed in a square configuration with twenty containers on each side and stacked five high. Jason's description of the place didn't do it justice.

I had envisioned the Way Station as just a little fort that could house a couple of dozen people and supply them with a meager excuse for safety and some semblance of
peace of mind
for a short time.

What I found was more like a small town set up like a mall with a carnival like atmosphere.

However, their security was anything but meager. With armed guards patrolling on the roof of the makeshift metal city, one guard on the top of every upper level container, and an M2 machine gun at each corner of the compound, they seemed to be more than prepared for any type of threat. Dead or alive.

In fact, they were prepared enough to cause me to rethink my previous mindset about dealing with the punishment if any, when the time came.

Even if I could make it outside the compound after committing something that they considered a crime, there was no way that I would be able to make it across one hundred yards of no man's land to my truck without being ventilated by several different calibers of bullets.

Therefore, I decided that if I found the Sarge inside the Way Station, I would play nice for the time being, and act like all was forgiven and I was so happy to see him that juice was literally running down my left leg.

Then as we traveled together as the best friends that we used to be, and when we were far from this place or any other place that might be able to save him. At that point, I would take great pleasure in watching him squirm as I carved him up from ass hole to belly button with a dull deer antler, and that's just for starters.

"How long do you plan to stay?" The gruff man at the entrance to the black container asked.

"Not long, I'm just looking for a friend, I heard he might be staying here," I answered. "Maybe you've seen him, he's traveling with a girl that has blonde hair."

"Lots of guys are traveling with girls, lots of girls are traveling with guy, some have blonde hair, and some don't.

Go straight down there and go up the stairs, you'll find a compartment where you can sleep for a couple of days," the man said, pointing to a stairwell at the end of the compound. "You can fight all you want, but no killing, we take a dim view of kill'in around here unless it's a sanctioned event."

"I wouldn't think of killing anyone, I even have a hard time putting those poor dead souls to rest, even when they're trying to kill me," I told him, conjuring up the most pathetic look of a beat down sissy that I could put on my face without laughing.

"Keep moving then, you're blocking the doorway," the man said, just before he put a "
you pussy's make me sick
" smirk on his face.

Sometimes a humble demeanor is the best way to stay out of trouble when you find yourself in a new and unfamiliar place that has a fair amount of alpha males on the prowl.

However, you've got to be careful not to show too much weakness, or some of the predators will think that you're an easy mark and kill you just for the fun of it.

Or you might get lucky, and they'll try to make an example out of you by beating the holy piss out of you, just to show everyone just how tough they think they are (if you can call that luck).

In any case, I decided to keep my eyes open and my mouth shut, except of course when I asked about my best-est friend in the whole wide world,
the Sarge
.

The Way Station, as I said, was nothing like I had pictured it would be. The circus-like milieu of the place reminded me of some of the post-apocalyptic movies I had seen before the real apocalypse had darkened our world.

Some of the entertainment that the station offered during your stay there was rather tame, and some was downright brutal.

There were club fights where you could bet on which man, or woman was going to
club
the living shit out of the other one first, using a real club of course.

There were several naked women dancing saloons, and some naked men dancing saloons too (if that's what you're into).

Many whorehouses were available for a price (everything had a price); they weren't really houses, just a shipping container with dividers to separate the horny as they fornicated to their hearts content.