Zomblog II (19 page)

Jeff is gonna show me how to properly maintain my weapons. He said that I needed serious work on my blade sharpening skills, and that he would show me how to strip my weapons more efficiently, also how to keep my crossbow in better condition. He told me that if I didn’t take better care of it, it would probably not last me the year. I thought I’d been doing okay with my basic knowledge. But since these two make fighting and killing a life choice, I plan on using this to my advantage.

Saturday, April 18

Today we spent the whole time looking at that video. I don’t know if it is just because we were high up and things look smaller, but that place doesn’t look so tough. Although there were a couple dozen shapes moving around down there. No idea to tell if they were men or women. Also, it was so early, and there was still that much activity. They are either early risers, or there are a whole bunch of those crazies living there.

The next few days will be about gathering up supplies. I get the feeling that Jeff and Rodney are ready to be done with this place. Maybe I’ve found a couple of kindred spirits. I could certainly do worse than a pair of Rangers.

We’re coming for you, boys. You’d best get yourselves right with the God you claim to serve.

Tuesday, April 21

Wow! What a day. We’re at Sunset. It’s great to see a few faces. Of course they radioed The Compound and told them that I was safe. I imagine they also let it be known about my two new friends.

Right now, Jeff and Rodney are like sailors on shore leave. The women here have a way of making the guys feel welcome, I’ll give ‘em that. Jonathan greeted me with a smile and a hug. Then he ruined it by saying something about how much more “appealing to the eye” I was now that I wasn’t pregnant. That was a little piggish of him, but I guess it can’t be helped. He is a male after all. Jenifer was all smiles. I think she even missed me. Shari continues to avoid me. I’m not exactly sure why, but she just doesn’t seem to like me very much. Whatever.

There were a few faces missing. I guess that skirmish we listened to on the radio took its toll. The saddest is the loss of that little girl, Hope. Imagine surviving something so horrible as a zombie attack, only to die by a stray bullet. It seems that the worst part was that it took two days to find her. She’d crawled under some crates and boxes. They found her by smell. I had no idea that the group of raiders had managed to gain access to the parking garage.

After talking with Jenifer, I get the feeling that there is a handful of people here that believe it was an inside job. The raiders seemed to know too well where to attack. Perhaps humanity won’t be happy until it has completely erased itself.

There is one more interesting development. It seems that the raiders had a dog. A female Rottweiler. The community held a vote and named her Cheyenne. Coach has a girlfriend!

We managed to arrive just ahead of a nasty rainstorm. It was pouring buckets. The okay has been given, and we will stay until it passes. There just isn’t any sense in going out in that mess and being completely miserable. There will be plenty of time for that.

Wednesday, April 22

It’s down to a drizzle. We will leave tomorrow most likely. I was worried that Jeff and Rodney might be so happy that they’d want to stay. Jeff actively sought me out today to confirm we were still ‘go’ for our mission. I think I managed to hide my relief.

Another surprise came at dinner, Jenifer and Jonathan are coming! Both swear they will return to Sunset once the mission is over. Both insist they have no interest in Las Vegas or any other crazy schemes cooking inside my head. What’s more, three others will be joining us: two women and one man. The consensus here is that the world will be a much better place if The Genesis Brotherhood is wiped out.

Thursday, April 23

It took almost no time to get our hands dirty again. We were on the road early this morning before the sky was barely tinged with light. It was decided that each of us pair up; so I was with Jeff, Jenifer teamed with Jonathan, Rodney teamed up with Darla Jones, a nineteen-year-old skater chick with a dozen facial piercings and at least two dozen tattoos, her hair is blonde, but she says it used to be forest-green and dark-blue, which I bet really made her wide, blue eyes stand out. Kenny Wilhelm, a forty-year-old fireplug of a man with a meticulously shaved head—that he keeps clean with a huge knife he wears on his hip—matched up with Shandra Hilton, a constantly smiling, African-American woman who is taller than anybody else in the group at six and a half feet tall, as well as being whip thin at a hundred and seventy pounds.

We spaced ourselves out using hisses and arm signals to communicate. Nothing fancy, just basic stuff. Being spread out like we were was actually a nice way to move. You only had to worry about the person right beside you.

Two hours in, we got the signal to stop from Jonathan and Jenifer. Everybody froze, and Jeff did a quick check of his weapons, so I copied. An overpass up ahead seemed the likely location for trouble by the way Jonathan and Jenifer had pointed before disappearing from sight.

After ten minutes I caught a flash just to the south of us. It looked like light reflecting off of metal. No sooner had I spotted movement when gunfire erupted. Not from us, but whoever was up on that overpass. My hands instinctively tightened on my trusty hunting rifle, but Jeff tapped me and shook his head. When the shooting stopped, we waited, making sure it was clear. That was when a few zombies decided to crawl up to the highway from the surrounding neighborhood.

I don’t know who saw the first one, but all of us got busy in a hurry. Jeff and I had been positioned in the rear and found ourselves surrounded. I laid my rifle on the hood of a car with one of those poor bastards still strapped into the front seat. It just stared at me with dead eyes as I brought my spear into play.

It really did go easier than I was used to. I was jamming the business end to one, then setting up for the next. I glanced over at Jeff who was only a couple of strides away from me facing in the opposite direction. It was something to see…watching him wield a very sturdy longsword with lethal efficiency. While it was going on, we did hear a couple more shots fired from the south of us in the direction we’d seen those other people go.

Our first test went well in my opinion. Tonight we are in an apartment complex that suffered from a nasty fire. Jeff and Rodney did a recon walk-through just to be sure there weren’t others wandering the expansive grounds. They are pretty sure they know what caused the fire. One entire four-unit building had been a meth lab.

Friday, April 24

That sucked. Just about dinner time, Jonathan came hurrying to where everybody was getting comfortable. He’d heard a noise that sounded like crying. Of course we all thought he meant that eerie baby-cry sound that some of the zombies make.

Everybody grabbed a sword, axe, or spear, and headed out. Since we all wear handguns these days like it is Tombstone or OK Corral, weapons are never a problem, and sometimes you can actually have too much. We paired up and let Jonathan and Jenifer take point. Only a few units from the one we’d been camped, we started hearing sounds. There was definitely crying, but it wasn’t zombie sounds. This sounded muffled…and belonged to a girl.

Out of the blue, Jenifer took off at a sprint. That settled it for everybody else. We all took off after her. Running through the dark ruins of an abandoned apartment complex during a zombie apocalypse is not something I recommend.

I heard what can best be described as a scream of rage from ahead and around a corner. My flashlight was bobbing—as was everybody else’s—and I really couldn’t see a damned thing. Somebody behind me cried out, and I heard a thud, then the clatter of metal skittering across pavement. Not a thing I could do for whoever it was. Jenifer was just ahead; I heard her swearing and screaming threats, most of them unintelligible.

My flashlight found Jonathan first, he was on his face with one of those things wrapped around his ankles. I could hear Jenifer in trouble, but Jonathan was closer, and I could
see
him. I veered left, coming up with my spear raised. I didn’t even think as I kicked what used to be a teenaged boy in the head, knocking it away from where it had been trying to gnaw through the ankle of Jonathan’s boot. I drove my spear down, plunging it through what remained of a mostly skinless face.

I didn’t have any time to spare for Jonathan, because I could hear Jenifer going totally insane. I heard other skirmishes nearby, but all I wanted to do was get to Jenifer. I rounded this corner and ran face first into a big, dark plastic tarp. That totally freaked me out and had me busy trying to tear it away while keeping from getting wrapped up in it. Something on the other side barreled into me and knocked me to the ground. Worse still, something heavy landed on top of me. I felt something sharp jab me in the shoulder, and I barely rolled out of the way as something buried itself in the ground where my head used to be. Whatever it was on top of me—separated only by a plastic tarp—shifted, and I bucked my hips and tossed my head back the other direction. I guessed right, and a wet swish-thud sounded next to my left ear. I was certain it was a living person on top of me after my bucking sent it over my head and I heard a grunt of pain. Before I could take advantage of the situation, somebody stomped on my chest. That was the bad part. The good part is that they cleaved the person who’d been attacking me.

I got out from under the tarp to discover Darla standing over a boy who couldn’t be more than sixteen. She’d buried a foot-long blade in the kid’s neck. She hadn’t quite chopped off his head, and he was still convulsing and thrashing about. Darla didn’t even blink as she put a booted foot on the boy’s shoulder and yanked her blade free. I think I said “thanks” before she turned and dashed off towards Jenifer. I followed.

I still don’t truly believe what we found. Chained and gagged, each one on a five-foot lead that was attached to an iron manacle on one ankle, were a dozen women and girls. The youngest is about Dominique’s or Jenifer’s age. Somewhere between twelve and fifteen. The oldest is twenty-six. Most are in varying stages of pregnancy.

Five males, including the sixteen-year-old that Darla almost decapitated, had been holding them prisoner. Sadly, the worst part isn’t that they were regularly—and by the looks, roughly—raping these women. They were using them as baby factories.

For a source of meat.

Yeah. These women were kept pregnant so they could give birth. The children were raised for varying lengths of time until demand called for it. Judging by some of the skulls we found being used as decorative tops for walking sticks they let some of those children get several months if not a year old. Then, they were slaughtered.

The most recent victim was laying on a legless table-top. It had been split open; arms, legs, and head removed. It was a newborn. We could tell because the young girl who’d had him was dead a few feet away. The umbilical cord still hanging from between her legs. They’d strung the girl up by the wrists. No idea if it was before, during, or after she’d given birth.

The other females won’t talk, so we don’t know more than we’ve been able to piece together from what we’ve seen. None of the males survived.

Rodney and Kenny left for Sunset. They will be coming back with a van or something. These females will be transported back. We’ll just wait here. It’s not the best plan, but it’ll have to do. We cleared out two second-floor apartments and herded everybody inside. A couple had to be carried.

Jeff and Darla went out on a scavenging run and brought back some food and water. These people didn’t have much. That was not a surprise, but it was tough going through their camp, seeing things in the light of day didn’t help. Oh, and that thing that my attacker tried to kill me with? Sharpened femur.

Jenifer hasn’t said a word. I can’t get her to clean up. She’s got blood…and other stuff…splattered all over herself. She’s just sitting in a corner staring at the wretched-looking females all clustered together in the opposite corner. I’m actually a tiny bit scared to even say anything to her, or so much as approach her. I’m not even sure exactly what she saw, other than the obvious horror of cannibalism and rape, to set her off like what happened. She was a crazed lunatic. I can’t really describe it other than when I finally arrived with Darla, three men were dead. One of them missing his head. She was hacking at the last man standing. HACKING! She had an axe in her hand going all “Lizzy Borden” on this guy. She didn’t care how he cried, begged, or pleaded.

I’m not sure I was cool with Darla grabbing me and keeping me back either. She basically kept watch and let Jenifer wear herself out on that last guy. I haven’t spoken to Darla yet about it. I will say that I’m less concerned on how people will handle themselves when we reach The Genesis Brotherhood’s complex.

Every time you think you’ve found the bottom of humanity’s barrel, there’s a new layer of scum revealed! Yay! So we’ll sit here and stay low. We’ll wait for our team members to return. I for one, need the day or two this will probably take. I feel like I was put in a burlap bag up to my neck and beaten with a baseball bat. Also, I seem to be having a bit of a ‘girl’ problem. Doesn’t that just put the cherry on the sundae.