Losers vs. Zombies, page 13
“You got it.” Harold said. With a sideways head jerk to Bob, they walked out together. Tom and Jennifer stayed.
They didn’t speak for a few minutes. I knew they were worried. I wanted to tell them they would be okay and things would turn out right. I knew there could still be problems for them down the road. It was better to be honest.
“Look, you two are intelligent. You have a pretty good grasp on what we do. You have been trained better than Colonel Burke was. You can do this. I am not going to say it will be easy. I am just saying it can be done. You have a fighting chance.”
“I can’t even be mad. I remember how we felt before you got here. We were just like the people in Cleveland. You brought us hope and a chance to fight back. We need to be thanking you, not begging you to stay.” Tom said sadly.
“Tom’s right. I was ready to give up. Most of us were. Hunger and fear can do that to people. We owe you guys everything.” Jennifer said. She had a tear on one cheek.
I didn’t know what to say. I never did at times like this. I don’t know if it was because of how isolated I had lived before or if it was from a natural lack of social skills. It didn’t make me feel better as a writer. I’m supposed to be able to make my characters say what they need to in any situation. Maybe it was the real world instead of the imagination that made the difference. I wasn’t sure.
“Hey! We will leave you Amy if you think it will help!” That made them laugh.
Chapter 18
The next day started out sadly. All of the locals came out to say farewell. Many of them were crying. I knew we had done enough to give them a chance so I hardened my heart and ordered Pete to start the caravan moving.
We lost a few of our members. Anthony stayed so he would be closer to home. He still had hopes of helping Brooklyn and trying to find survivors there. He had made one trip down that way with a truck load of soldiers and my blessing but the roads were so bad they couldn’t get through.
I didn’t know it but Anthony and Tina had become an item. She decided to stay behind with him. I would miss her but I still remembered the huge bump on my head from that iron skillet back at Fred’s.
Three more of the soldiers stayed. They didn’t want to leave the Manhattan people without some real fighters. I was okay with that. Guns had been found but they would need someone to show them how to use them.
Amy came with us. Damn it.
Some of the locals wanted to come. Manhattan had become a place of loss and death. They needed a new outlook. For some reason they thought they would find it with our group. Fourteen of them came with us.
The roads were packed with cars. It gave me plenty of time to think.
Brian had established contact with the people in Cleveland. He gave us the address where the survivors were. They lived in a gated community which provided them with some protection from the outside zombies. They had been forced to kill the ones inside the community as well as the ones who died from hunger or sickness.
They knew we were coming. Brian told them we would be there in one to two days depending on how bad the roads were. The people sounded relieved and hopeful according to Brian. He seemed very pleased to have been the one who found them.
“We are going to need to stop soon for gas.” Pete informed me.
We were almost to Youngstown on I-80. I remembered this area well from my truck driving days.
“Youngstown is about ten more miles.” I told him. “They have a few truck stops we can stop at.”
“Alright.” Pete then radioed to the other drivers about our stop.
We took the exit when we saw a Pilot truck stop. We entered the parking lot slowly looking carefully around for any zombies. Pete parked. The other trucks were a little ways behind us. Pete had told them where we were headed.
I sat in the truck. The men had needed to help me get into the truck in the first place. I wasn’t going to go through that embarrassment any more than I had to.
Pete was about to enter the store when seven men, all armed, came out to stop him. They looked scared and angry. Pete held his hands up where they could see he wasn’t being a threat. They kept their weapons aimed at him.
When one of them noticed me still sitting in the truck, he came rushing over.
“Get out of the truck!” He yelled. I rolled down my window.
“I can’t.”
“You get out or I will shoot!”
“I am cripple. My wheelchair is in the bed of this truck. Have a look if you don’t believe me.” I said as calmly as I could.
He eased toward the back of the truck and looked in. He gave a nod to one of the other men in his group.
“This is our store. We took it. We killed the zombies that were here. You need to leave now.” He said it with as much force as he could muster.
I knew when our other trucks pulled in by the look on this groups faces. Their eyes got huge and they looked at each other nervously. My guys saw what was happening and they got out and aimed over forty assault rifles at the small group of men. Needless to say, the tide had turned for our side.
“Who is your leader?” Pete asked.
“I am.” The one who declared the ownership of the store said.
“Drop your weapons and walk over here with me. You guys won’t be harmed in any way if you don’t start any more trouble. Do you understand?” Pete told him.
The leader thought for a second and slowly lowered his gun. His men followed his lead. He joined Pete and walked over to my window.
“What is your name?” I asked him.
“Fred.”
“We don’t want to cause you any trouble. We aren’t in need of your food or water. We stopped here for gas only. Are you and your men the only survivors here in Youngstown?” I asked in as calm a voice as I could.
“No. That’s why we have the guns. People are fighting and killing each other over every scrap of food. The people are more dangerous than the zombies.” Fred said.
“How many survivors are there as near as you can tell?”
“Probably at least fifty. Some of them took over the warehouse and won’t share the food. There are two other groups like mine. They grabbed stores like this so we did too.” Fred said angrily.
“How about I make you a great deal, Fred. We have food. We have water. We don’t fight against other humans. We kill zombies. We are headed to Cleveland to help some survivors who are running out of food. We are going to try and cleanse that area of zombies so those people can get to the food and supplies they need. It is what we do. We just finished doing this for around six hundred people in Manhattan. Why don’t you and your men join us? You won’t go hungry again.”
“But if you are fighting all the zombies, we might get killed.” Fred said.
“No. We do things a little differently. We build traps and lure the zombies into those traps. We have killed as many as forty thousand zombies in a single trap before. We set them on fire. It is a lot easier than trying shoot them all.” I explained.
“How many of your men have died doing this?”
“None. We lost one of ours to a woman who died of heart failure. That woman was one of those we were trying to help. She turned without our man knowing it. He was bitten. In the field, we haven’t lost a single person.”
Fred looked around at our group. He looked back at Pete with questioning eyes. Pete smiled and nodded.
“He’s telling you the truth, Fred.” Pete looked at me and asked. “Should we round up the other two groups he told us about?”
“Yep. We will leave the warehouse people. If they are the kind to lock these men out, we don’t want them with us.” I turned back to Fred. “What do you say? Come with us and help people or stay here and fight amongst other groups of people?”
“We’ll come with you.” Fred declared. His men all relaxed and smiled.
“Pete, you guys get these trucks filled and have someone look for a couple of more trucks. Fred, will you go with them and help explain about us? Plus, we need to know where the other groups are.”
“Yes. I will show them.” Fred said happily.
Our caravan grew from eight trucks to twelve. Both the other groups joined with us. Our journey to Cleveland continued without any more hitches.
Chapter 19
While I was glad to be done with the agonizing ride, I dreaded getting out of the truck. My back was in a state of pain worse than it had ever been. My feet still weren’t able to hold me up. I kept downing pills but there was only so much they could do.
Pete followed a map to the survivors’ address. They had been told to expect us in one or two days. We made the trip in just over one day. About twenty-six hours. When we pulled up to the gates, we heard the shouts of joy.
They opened the gates too early though. There were quite a few zombies milling about. When I saw the mistake I made Pete call for the men. Our soldiers ran up and opened fire. We got all of the zombies but I would need to warn these people about things like that.
We brought enough food to feed the people here. At least for one day. We knew we would need to start scouting and setting our traps quickly. We would need to find these people a lasting source of food and water.
Once everyone was outside and enough food was brought out for a meal, we located the people who were acting as the leaders of this group. Bob pushed my wheelchair over to them. I hoped they would be as intelligent as Tom and Jennifer had been. A lot of how things went would depend on the leaders.
“This is Lenny and I am Mark. We were part of the city council. It made sense for us to act as leaders.” I wasn’t of the same mind as he was. Most politicians are the last people that should be acting as leaders.
“We are going to need to get as much information as we can from you and your people. We have certain things we look for when we set up one of our kill zones. You guys will need to give us the information so we know where to go.” I told them.
“I thought you guys just went around killing the zombies? What do you mean by kill zone?” Mark asked.
“We would run out of bullets if we tried to shoot every zombie. We would end up losing a lot of people if we tried hitting them on the head in close fighting. We use fire to kill them. I want you to assign one of your people to each one of mine. We will be showing you how to do what we do. This way, once we have gotten rid of enough of the zombies here, we can move on to another city and you can finish what we started.” I explained.
“Unacceptable! You want us to put our own people at risk. I will not allow that.” Lenny was definitely a politician.
“Okay, we will reload our trucks and leave. I am sure Chicago would appreciate our help!” I said.
“Wait, you can’t just abandon us! That would be wrong.” Mark said.
I sat there fuming. Lenny and Mark were two wonderful examples of why I lived as apart from the world as I could. Compared to these two, Amy was a wonderful person. At least she was willing to help. She whined and cursed us, but she helped.
“Bob and Harold, go around to some of the locals. Try to find some equivalents to our people. I won’t be able to work with Mark and Lenny unless it is to use them as bait. Try to find good people who are willing to help and learn.”
“We are the leaders here. You will do what we decide!” Lenny demanded. That was the wrong thing for him to do.
“Sir, I would shoot the two of you if I knew it wouldn’t piss Brad off. I’ve listened to assholes like you my whole life. Take my advice, shut up and go away. Brad might get pissed but he is the forgiving sort.” Pete said with conviction. I had to force myself not to laugh. Mark and Lenny turned three different shades of red and walked away.
“That was hilarious! Great job, Pete.” I said.
“Let’s hope the rest of them aren’t like these two were.” Pete was impressing me. He would make a good leader himself.
Over the course of the next hour, Bob and Harold found the people we would work with. These were more the kind of people I liked. I knew Cleveland was a mostly blue collar city and our new helpers fit the mold. They were respectful and willing to do what was necessary. We spent some time filling them in on our ways.
“Now that you’ve heard our basic strategy, does any area come to mind? Remember, we want a place where we can trap large numbers of zombies in a controlled way.” I said as I finished giving them an overview.
“The Quicken Loans Arena, it’s where the Cavs played. I think that would work.” One of them said.
“That sounds good. A large basketball arena would hold a lot of them. That will definitely be used.” I told him. We were now talking to the people who would be of use. The rest of the day was informative.
We learned of several other buildings and areas that could be good for us. Some of the locals went out with our soldiers to look for food. They came back with several truckloads of food and water as well as dozens of survivors along the way. Plans were set in motion for Bob and Harold to begin setting up our traps the next day. All in all, we were off to a good start. At least I thought so.
The next morning, we learned of a plot by Mark and Lenny to turn the locals against us. We gathered the entire local population as best we could. I spent time explaining things to them. I told them what we were going to do and how we would do it. I asked for volunteers and warned them that we would not be staying here forever. The people who volunteered would be taking over the killing of the zombies when we left. We were going to teach them well enough to feel certain they could handle the job. Then we would leave for the next city. The locals cheered my efforts.
Mark and Lenny tried to make counter speeches but were threatened by the locals and told to shut the hell up. I was glad that wouldn’t be a problem any longer.
Bob and Harold got started on the arena. That was going to be our first fire here in Cleveland. I basically sat in a house the locals provided. That was mostly all I did. Bob and Harold ran the set up without needing me at all. I was very happy to see it.
Laura and Angie began running the home front. They found the doctors and nurses and set up a makeshift hospital. Laura and Angie organized the people into very useful groups. Locals were found to take care of the food distribution. They kept the soldiers busy with supply runs. They kept me in pills too.
I wasn’t needed. That was a good thing since I felt useless anyway. A nurse, Miranda, was assigned to me. She was twenty-five and beautiful. I fought against it but Laura and Angie wouldn’t relent. They told the nurse they would shoot her if she didn’t keep taking care of me. The nurse could see their smiles and knew she wasn’t in danger. I was important to them.
I spent the better part of the next few days thinking on my importance. I didn’t see anything special in my decisions or ideas. I had been somewhat creative during my writing days and didn’t consider the use of fire to be creative at all. Fire has been destroying things since the beginning of time. It worked out for us though.
The people of Cleveland were adapting to their new lifestyle with enthusiasm. They were eating and making contributions again. Life was worth living once more. I watched their faces as the days passed and was delighted to see their smiles returning to them.
My pain was nonstop agony. For so many years I limited what I did every day. I knew the consequences. Once this started, I was no longer able to rest when I wanted. No longer able to restrict how much I did. Now, I was paying the price.
I was given a motorized wheelchair. It made it easier for me when I was outside going between the houses in the community. Miranda was able to help me with the day to day things I would have struggled with. I was glad Laura and Angie insisted on her.
Pete collected and distributed the guns he could find in Cleveland. He set up units of locals that were being trained how to shoot and on zombie killing. Pete was doing a great job of everything. He was becoming more and more indispensable.
The guys in Steve’s unit that lured the zombies with the trucks, taught a group here to do the same. Steve had taught his guys well. Even after Steve’s death, this unit still functioned without any problems.
For the entire first week, I never left the gated community. All of my group still insisted on reporting in every night. I might make a suggestion now and then but that was the extent of my contributions.
The second week started with a problem. One road pit was being built. They had a logistical problem they couldn’t figure out. I was loaded into a truck to go see if I could solve the problem. I was kind of excited to get out and help, even with the extra pain it would cause. By the time I arrived, the problem was solved and a local was being congratulated for his ingenuity. It was too good for me to be disappointed. It meant Cleveland would have someone who could think outside the box.
I sat thinking once I was taken back home. Now they had some training. Maybe it was time for us to move on. When my group came to give their reports I asked them whether they thought the locals were prepared enough.
“Well, Simon is reminding me of you. He’s the one who solved our problem today. He is taking to these traps with a passion. He is impressing the hell out of me.” Bob said.
“The rest of them still need to be told what to watch out for better. They aren’t catching on to some of the things to be careful of.” Harold commented.
“We have two ladies that are excellent. They’ve even helped give me and Laura some better ideas.” Angie reported.
“Fred is doing great. I basically promoted him to be my assistant. He really likes being able to help people. He is smarter than we thought too. He is working with the locals really well.” Pete said.
“Then let everyone know we will be leaving in two or three days. Harold, make some notes about the things they are forgetting. Tell them to study those notes until it becomes second nature to watch out for those things. Laura, find their radio person. See if he knows of another city with survivors. It looks like Cleveland will be alright now. Pete, make sure you ask Fred and his group whether they want to stay here or go with us. I believe they should have that choice.” I told them.
