ZOMBIE'S DOOM? "Chronicles of Jack Doom" (4 page)

"By all means then, let's clean up this mess," Gin said, without hesitation.

"Gin, hand me one of those spare rifles, I'll use it to pull this crap out."

Seeing me using the barrel of one of the surplus M-4's to clear my vehicle of zombie remains, the boys followed suit and began digging at the oozing sub-human debris that was also stuck in their wheel wells.

After pulling a hand, two mutilated feet, half of an arm, a blood soaked shirt, and something that resembled part of a ground up internal organ from the wheel wells, along with unwrapping a small intestine that was twisted around one of the front shock absorbers, we soon had the hitchhiking residue of the once ferocious cannibalistic monsters removed from the underside of our vehicles and we were once more on our way.

We were able to make our way to the freeway, and with the bodies of the dead zombies now becoming more random, traveling was easier and much faster.

It had been about twenty-five minutes since we had left the armory when I looked in my rearview mirror and saw Billy and Jacob smiling and waving trying to get our attention, when I waved back, they both pointed at some zombies that were several hundred yards away walking through a field.

None of us had ever thought that we would be happy to see a live zombie roaming around the countryside, but considering the alternative of seeing a prehistoric beast that was supposed to have been extinct for millions of years, one that could easily out run us and rip us to pieces, we would take what we could get.

After that, we began to see an occasional group of zombies wandering around in search of food, or us, depending on how you look at it.

"There's some more eaters Jack," Gin pointed out. "We're seeing more and more of them now; I wonder why we haven't seen any of those other creatures since they forced us into the tank?"

"I have no idea, but if I never see another one of them again, it'll be too damn soon," I answered. "I mean unless they show up and save our asses again, and don't eat us afterwards."

"Right!" Gin replied, and then asked.

"What are we going to do if we do see them again?"

"I guess if they're close and pose any kind of a threat, we'll see how effective our weapons are against them? I wish we still had our AK's, bigger bullets ya know."

Gin didn't look too happy with my answer, but there wasn't much we could do if we were attacked by the ravenous gigantic lizards except test our weapons.

We certainly couldn't out run them on foot, our only option would be to stand and fight or find some place to hide until it was safe to continue to travel.

In either case, at this moment our chances of surviving an attack by the merciless reptiles seemed rather grim.

"What do think is going on, I'm mean there's not supposed to be raptors running around out there?" Gin asked, as if I was supposed to have an answer to her question.

"I don't know what's happening. We've got dinosaurs roaming the planet, at least our portion of the planet. We've got dead people roaming the planet with them. Who knows what else the Gods have in store for us?" I answered, knowing that my answer had done nothing to help ease the emotional stress that was consuming her.

We drove all day down highway 77, sticking to our plan that we had made the night before, which was to make our way a little south of Corpus Christi, and see if we could find a spot somewhere around Baffin Bay. Several small towns are close by and might offer food and possibly a permanent sanctuary, if there was any such thing anymore.

We would stay well clear of big cities if possible, our experience with them in the past had not been too pleasant, and the overwhelming numbers of zombies that tend to inhabit large metropolitan areas make it impossible to ever clear all of them out and make the region reasonably suitable for the living.

As usual, we traveled on the highways or interstates; they had their own challenges but were still much faster and seemingly offered a better margin of safety than did the smaller roads.

The zombie population was becoming more and more visible as the hours passed; however, there was still no sign of dinosaurs, although occasionally we would run across pockets of mutilated undead that had been torn apart and scattered about just like the scene around the armory.

"Looks like they've been here too, that's another group of eaters we don't have to worry about," Gin said, as she pointed in the direction of a pile of body parts. "Some snappers too! They've been here all right."

"We don't have to worry about
them
now, but we still have to worry about the raptors," I stated, scanning the area for any sign of the prehistoric reptiles.

At that very moment, Billy beeped the horn to get our attention.

"Is he crazy?" Gin shouted. "He'll get us all killed!"

With no zombies near, I pulled over to see what my son thought was so important that he felt he needed to honk the horn and alert every undead sub-human within earshot of our vehicle, that we had arrived.

As I stepped out of the vehicle, I saw Billy and Jacob pointing into a field. When I looked in that direction, I saw the first dinosaur that we'd seen since we were forced into the tank almost five days before.

"It's a raptor, and he's about three hundred yards away, I don't think he's seen us yet," I said, looking at my wife.

After seeing with my own eyes what one of these prehistoric beasts could do to a human body in a matter of seconds, I decided to take no chances.

I reached into the Hummer and pulled out my M-4, there was no need to rack a round into the chamber because we always carried our guns with a round in the chamber, locked and loaded, or cocked and locked if you prefer, but I decided to do a press check anyway just to make sure.

I ordered my family to do the same, and they complied with my mandate immediately.

I looked around the surrounding landscape and could see only the one lizard and still no zombies close enough to be a threat, and decided to try a long range shot to see the effect it would have on the monster reptile.

I shouldered my rifle and looked through its iron sights at the distant meat-eating dinosaur, and told my family.

"I guess this is as good of time as any to find out if these rifles are up to the task of putting down one of these killers. I'm going to take a shot at him, if he doesn't go down and charges at us, we'll all open fire on him and shoot until he does go down. Then we'll get the hell out of Dodge before the noise brings a horde of eaters our way."

I slowly flipped the safety on the M-4 to fire, took careful aim, and pressed the trigger to the rear.

A loud bang exited the muzzle of the gun and a small jolt pounded into my shoulder as the 5.56mm projectile sped toward the over-grown lizard at nearly 3000 feet per second.

My aim was true considering that this was the first time that I had fired the weapon. The shot wasn't a clean kill shot, but I'd managed to hit the animal just below what you might consider its armpit, that is if the raptor's talon ladened upper extremities could be called arms.

The wounded raptor began to hop around, sometimes falling down, but getting up immediately after doing so.

In its agony, the now wounded and highly pissed-off giant marauding lizard somehow managed to spot us and made a beeline directly for the four of us.

I began firing at the charging creature, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Billy and Gin raise their rifles and begin to shoot at the beast as well.

I guess it was fortunate for us that the National Guard armory had been stocked with an older model of the M-4, the type that incorporated the safe, semi, and the
full-auto
selector switch.

As the ravenous monster lizard came closer at a remarkably fast pace, I switched my rifle to full auto, and when it had closed the gap to about forty yards (now sporting several more bullet holes I might add) I emptied the remainder of my thirty-round magazine into its chest in under a half a second.

Gin was firing on semi-auto, as was Jacob now that the beast was well within the effective range of his 9mm carbine; however, Billy had switched his gun to full auto from the start and was riddling it with 5.56mm projectiles too.

We stopped shooting when the well-perforated carnivore tumbled to the ground in front of us and dropped dead at our feet.

Jacob started counting the bullet holes in the animal's carcass, which totaled fifty-two that he could see, four of which were headshots, but only one had penetrated the skull and punctured the animal's brain. The other three had broken several of the enormous lizard's teeth and shattered its jawbone.

"Holy shit in an argyle sock, that was a close one," Gin said. "I know I hit that thing at least five or six times, and it still landed four feet from us."

"Most of our shots were at a distance, I think the one's that killed it were probably inside fifty yards, it was most likely the head shot that finally did it," I told her, as I dropped the empty magazine from my gun and inserted a full one.

"From now on, head shots for the lizards too!"

Just then, Jacob hollered out.

"Eaters!"

We turned and saw ten or so zombies descending upon our position from the opposite side of the road.

"Okay, here we go again, this is just like old times, all that gunfire is bringing in eaters," I said.

"Yeah, just like old times, these bastards came out of nowhere," Gin agreed, dropping the empty magazine from her rifle too.

"I'll get these dirty rotten bastards," Jacob announced as he raise his Sub-2000 carbine. "I only shot seven or eight rounds at the raptor, so I have plenty of ammo left to take care of this group of undead stinking scum suckers."

"Take it easy son, I'm beginning to think you don't like uninvited eaters, and besides you might hurt their feelings if they hear you talking like that," I said, figuring that a little humor might be good for everybody at this point.

"Hurt feelings is soon to be the least of their worries," Jacob answered smiling.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Jacob's gun sounded three times, and three of the zombies shed their maggots into the air like rice at a wedding, as they dropped to the ground with hunks of their skulls missing due to the impact of his bullets.

Several more shots fired from Jacob's weapon, and several more diseased brains oozed out onto the ground; and our immediate zombie problem had been solved.

"I told you I'd take care of them," Jacob bragged. "One shot, one kill, just like in sniper school."

"Shut up, your sixteen, you've never been to sniper school," Billy taunted, as his younger brother gloated.

"You shut up, I watched it on TV, and that's what they always say," Jacob responded.

"It was still good shooting Jacob, keep up the good work," Gin added, as she climbed back into our Hummer and smacked the bottom of her fresh magazine, seating it firmly in her rifle.

Climbing back into the Hummer myself, I recommended.

"Let's get out of here! More eaters are coming! Let's not waist all our bullets here, I'm sure we're going to need them later."

I looked into my rearview mirror as we drove away from the carnage left by our most recent harrowing episode, and I could see a number of zombies making their way onto the scene that we had just left.

"From the looks of it, eaters seem to crave dinosaur flesh too; most of them walked straight passed the dead eaters on the ground and began to devour our lizard friend. Maybe the downed eaters were a little too ripe for their discriminating palates."

"That was no friend of mine," Gin stated. "I hope we never see another one of those monsters, ever."

Trying to be realistic, I told her.

"That's highly unlikely; I don't know what we're going to see? But I bet we'll see more of those at some point. In this hellish world it seems like if there's one, there's always more than one, no matter what it is."

It wasn't long before my prediction came true.

We had not gone more than five miles when Jacob spotted the silhouettes of three dinosaurs on the horizon. Sticking his head out of the window, he shouted at us and pointed in their direction.

"There's three of them, looks like two raptors and one T-Rex. They're running parallel to us."

At that point, we all saw the three lizards Jacob had spotted. They weren't just running parallel to us, they were chasing down a medium sized horde of freelancing zombies.

That's probably why they didn't pay any attention to Jacob hollering out of his window.

"Look, they're after that group of eaters!" Gin said, pointing to the same gaggle of carnivorous bipedal beasts.

"Better them than us," I said, pushing down on the accelerator pedal and feeling our Hummer lurch forward.

With their superior speed it didn't take long for the dino's to reach the group of staggering living dead, and with their superior ability to rip things apart, it wasn't long before the zombie horde was lying in pieces on the distant hillside.

We kept moving in an effort to put some distance between the killer beasts and our small caravan, and despite their keen eyesight, hearing, and sense of smell, the distraction of tearing their quarry limb from limb gave us ample time to separate ourselves from the potential danger that they posed.