Losers vs. Zombies, page 4
Once the initial flare up of the flames had burned off all of our eyebrows, we watched the zombies burn. It was so weird looking. They weren’t writhing in pain or showing any signs of being on fire.
“It’s spooky how they just stand there while they are on fire.” Steve said. At least I knew I wasn’t the only one thinking it looked weird.
The fire spread even to those who weren’t caught up in the initial flames. The heat was unbearable but I couldn’t take my eyebrowless eyes off of the fire. It took a few minutes but one by one they started to fall. The fire took a minute to do the damage necessary to their brains. It was working though.
I was so caught up with watching the zombies I didn’t notice when the building started catching fire.
“Um, I think we should go now. The building is on fire.” Laura said.
We all jumped into action. We threw the remaining accelerants over the side of the building adding to the blaze. One by one we went down the stairs and gathered around the back door until we were all there.
“Did anyone think to look over the back of the building to see if there were any zombies there?” I asked.
A round of head shaking gave me my answer. Okay, that was one more thing to file away if we ever did this again. I drew my gun and took the safety off. I led the way out of the back door. There was one zombie but he was far enough away to not be all that worried about. Besides, I would never hit him from this distance.
“Everyone start piling in. Steve, you got that crowbar handy?” I asked as he was going by me to get into the Jeep. He handed it to me and I killed the zombie while the others crammed themselves in.
I got in and cranked her up. I was putting it into gear when Laura cried out.
“Stop! We forgot David!” She informed us.
So, I got out and Steve got out with me since it was easier for him. He was in the front seat with Amy in his lap. Together we went back in the building which was quickly filling with smoke. We found David and carried him out to the car. As if my back weren’t hurting bad enough.
We wedged him in and I managed to get back behind the wheel. It wasn’t easy since the seat had been pushed all the way up to make room for David. We looked like one of those little clown cars.
I pulled away from the building and knew the first place to go. We needed at least one more vehicle.
“What kind of trucks y’all want? Ford, Chevy, Dodge, or what?” I asked.
I got two Chevrolets, two Dodges and three Fords. I guess the others didn’t care. I headed for Mullinax Ford on Airport Boulevard. There was a Chevrolet lot right next door. I probably ran over at least eight zombies on the way.
As I entered the Mullinax parking lot, I was watching for zombies. There were some on the road turning in to come after us but I didn’t see any already there. I parked as close to the door as I could get.
“Go inside and find all the keys. We can use the car alarms to figure out which keys go to which vehicle. We are wanting those two trucks out front. They have the cowcatchers and ground clearance like we need.” I ordered.
Surprisingly, no one was arguing. Not even Amy. They all went inside to find the keys and I stayed out in the parking lot to try and kill the zombies.
I pulled my gun and aimed at the closest one. I got him in the head on the first try. I aimed for the next closest and missed completely. I shot again and hit him in the head. Hey, I was improving. I gave myself a mental high five.
Steve led the others out of the dealership office. They all had keys and started pressing the buttons to see which car the keys were for. The problem was they were all pressing at the same time and no one could tell which keys went to which car since five or six cars would beep in unison.
“Stop!” I shouted. “One at a time! Steve hit your button.” I shot two more zombies hitting the head with my first shot at each of them.
A Fusion beeped. Steve threw that key to the ground. The next one was the Mustang right up front. Great car but not what we needed. This continued until we found the keys to the two trucks I wanted us to have. They were both crew cab so the ten of us could all ride comfortably. We left the guns and supplies in the Jeep. Steve and Amy stayed with me while the others split themselves up between the two trucks. Bob and Harold carried David’s still unconscious body to one of the trucks.
“Hey! Where we headed now?” Bob asked.
Shit. I don’t know. Where do we go now? Where to? I needed to think but more zombies were coming and we needed to leave. Where can I at least get time to think?
“Just follow me.” I told them and I got back behind the wheel.
We ended up at the park off of Zeigler Road. The park was empty and the last zombies we passed were too far away to get here for quite some time. We got out and sat at one of the park benches.
“Do we want to do the same as we just did? Find a strip mall or something and draw zombies in for another fire?” I posed the question they needed to help me answer. I looked around at them waiting. Still waiting. “Oh come on guys. Y’all can’t expect me to make every decision. I never volunteered to be a leader. You guys make some choices.”
I sat there while they made the almost unanimous choice of electing me as their leader. Assholes. Amy abstained from the vote. That’s why it wasn’t unanimous. I tried to appeal the vote but I was denied.
Since it looked safe enough, we brought out some food and ate. I fumed as I chewed. How can someone go from being a loner to a leader? This sucked. I sat quietly after the meal until all eyes were on me waiting to see what I decided.
“I think we need to thin out the number of zombies. Everywhere we go in Mobile or the surrounding area will have zombies. We will never have peace until we deal with them. Leaving Mobile might seem like a good idea for the summer but during the winter we don’t want to be somewhere cold when we won’t have electricity. The heat is bad but the cold would be worse.” I began.
“There are so many of them though. How can we kill that many zombies?” Cindy asked.
“We keep improving on what we did today. They are attracted by sounds. We can use that against them. I will spend some time thinking of new ways to get rid of large numbers of them. There has to some kind of way to do it.” I hoped I wasn’t lying to them.
I hated this. A good week for me meant not speaking to anyone and not being out in public at all. Now these people were depending on me to tell them what to do. Plus, I was burdened by the knowledge that some or all of us would die if I failed.
I began thinking of places in Mobile that would be like Fred’s Dollar Store. A place we could get more supplies and what we needed to kill the zombies. I looked to the east of where we were and knew there was a Dollar General just down the street. I wouldn’t expect many zombies though.
The places with supplies would be hard if there were zombies. We would need to load the supplies without dying. Then we would need to be able to set up to kill the zombies without blowing up the trucks in the process. Maybe I needed to look at these things as separate. We could go to the Dollar General and stock up on supplies, then go find a place to kill some more zombies.
“First thing we need to do is go get more food and water for ourselves. There is a Dollar General less than a mile from here. There shouldn’t be any zombies there. If the store hasn’t already been raided we could get some supplies. Then we can decide the best place to make an attack on them. Does that sound good?” I asked.
“Sounds like a plan. I like it.” Steve said. The others all gave their nods of approval. We headed for the vehicles.
There were two cars in the Dollar Store parking lot. I drew my gun and approached slowly. I pointed to the gun and to Bob, who was behind me. He understood and drew his own gun. I opened the door slowly and shined the flashlight around. I was about to step inside when a gunshot rang out from inside the store.
“We’re not zombies! Don’t shoot!” I yelled.
“Have y’all been bitten?” A woman yelled back.
“No. We are all healthy and want to stay that way. Please quit shooting.” I said in a more normal tone.
I heard whispers and watched as two women emerged from the back of the store. There wasn’t much light coming in but I didn’t want to shine my flashlight in their face. Once they were closer, I could see one was around my age and the other was in her late teens.
“I am Brad. I will introduce you to the rest when we are all together. What are your names?” I was trying to calm their nerves. They seemed really high strung. Since the older woman still had a rifle pointed at me, I wanted to appear as harmless as I could. “I am putting my gun away now. We are friendly.”
“I’m Susan and this is my daughter Katy. How many of you are there?” She asked.
“Ten all together. One is hurt though.” I saw her reaction and raised my hands. “Not bitten, he was in a car wreck.” That helped.
“There aren’t many supplies here. This place had already been looted before we got here.” She told me.
“There are other kinds of supplies we need as well as food and water. We already have some food if you two are hungry. We were holed up in a Fred’s Dollar Store until earlier today. We couldn’t take as many of the food stuffs as we wanted. We only had one vehicle and ten people.” I tried to keep talking as much as I could to calm her down. The rifle was still pointed at my chest.
“Can’t you just go back there and get the food now?” The daughter Katy asked.
“No. There were a lot of zombies outside the store so we came up with a plan to set them on fire. The fire killed the zombies but it also burned down the store.” I explained.
“That must have been the cause of all that smoke I saw earlier.” Susan said.
“It probably was. Anyway, we went and picked up some trucks as you can see. We are planning on trying to kill as many of them as we can. I am trying to think of some places that will have plenty of flammables and have enough zombies there to make it worth the effort. I want another smaller attack before we tackle someplace like the mall.” As I talked, Susan slowly lowered her gun.
“That sounds really dangerous.”
“It is but if we can plan it out well enough, we should be able to stay safe.” I hoped so. I wouldn’t be much of a leader if I get all my followers killed. But then again, maybe Amy could have an accident. “You are welcome to join us. The whole safety in numbers thing is true enough in this situation. By the way, what did you do for a living?”
“I was a substitute teacher. As for joining you, I will think about it. Tell those friends of yours to come on in. I won’t shoot.” Susan said my favorite words. I didn’t want to get shot.
“Thank you.” I turned to Bob and motioned for everyone to come in. “Bob, start looking to see what flammables they have here. The stuff we used earlier would work.”
Once Bob told Harold what to look for, the two of them went through the store gathering for our next fire. I introduced the others as they entered the store. Laura stayed outside trying to take care of her brother.
“…after my husband was bitten he killed himself. He wouldn’t risk turning bad and harming us. We’ve been going around as best we could for the last three days. I am almost out of ammo for this rifle. I have been killing as many of those things as I could. I looked in some pawn shops but all the guns and ammo were gone.” Susan told us her story.
“I passed one pawn shop and could see there wasn’t any reason to stop. I tried to think of another place that would have guns. Cops came to mind. So, I went to the police station and got some pistols and assault rifles. You know, since we have so many people now, maybe we should go back and get more guns. They had plenty.”
“Why didn’t you get them all?” Susan asked.
“It was only me then. I grabbed a bunch and used a cart to get them to my Jeep. I killed two zombies while I was there and wasn’t wanting to see any more that close up. When I left there, I thought of Fred’s. It looked unharmed when I passed it on the way to the police station. I knew they had a food section. Steve and Amy came in soon after I got there. The rest came in groups.”
We were sitting on the floor in somewhat of a circle. Harold said the circle was best since we would have eyes pointed in every direction. It sounded good to me. We gave Susan and Katy some food. They ate while I tried to think of another place to go.
“By the way, what happened to all of your eyebrows?” Susan asked.
Chapter 4
We ended up spending the night there. I went to bed early to try and ease some of the pain in my back. I made sure they knew to post a watch. They assured me they would.
Trying to plan strategy was like writing a book. You needed to see all the angles and make sure you didn’t leave anything out. Unfortunately, I was finding out that writer’s block came in many forms. I couldn’t form a cohesive plan. Everything I thought of had loopholes. I kept laying there hoping some revelation would hit home but none did. It made me wish I was still writing for Josh and Seth, two characters from my books.
I fell asleep somewhere just after the mental cursing and the prayer for guidance. I woke with a plan. The prayer must have worked. This time we would use a house instead of a business. Set up a small generator and play loud music to draw the zombies into a house that was drenched in lighter fluid. Seemed simple but effective.
I stood and winced from all the pain. My back and feet were at war trying to see which could cause me the most pain. It was a very painful draw at the moment. I made my way to where the others were. Katy and Tina were still asleep but the rest were up and looked ready to go. I smiled when I approached them.
“You’re smiling. Does that mean you have a plan?” Steve asked.
“Yep. I woke up with it in my mind. We are going to use houses instead of businesses. We need a small generator and a stereo system loud enough to be heard from as far away as possible. Also, a flare gun might help.” I told them.
I took a few minutes to tell them my idea. They seemed to like it. There would be less danger than we had at the store. Bob really liked that we could hit several houses in one day. We could set up one house and move on to another house and do the same thing while the first one still burned.
“A hardware store will have the generators. I can’t help with the flare gun or the stereo.” Bob said.
“Well, I love music and have worked with stereos before. I’ll see if I can do that part.” Steve said with a smile.
“That just leaves the flare gun. Where--. A marine shop! Boats need flare guns.” I figured it out! Woohoo for me.
We spent the next two hours driving around town finding the things we needed. I happened to look down at my gas hand and pulled over to talk to the guys.
“Do any of you know how to get gas out of a gas station when the electricity is out?” I asked when the others came up.
“I do. There’s a hand pump…” I tuned him out. Steve and Bob were listening closely enough. Those three would be the ones handling that anyway. I was having an idea to improve on our plan.
If we got a car with a great stereo, we could lure zombies from one place to another. Once we got them close enough to the house we set up, the stereo from the house could lure them in. I could envision a car leading dozens to the house.
If we picked the right area, we could get as many as a hundred or so zombies with each house. I knew I was blowing this out of proportion. We might only get twenty or so no matter how hard we tried. I thought it was worth a try though.
“Hey you guys. I just added to the plan…” I filled them in on my new idea. They seemed to like it too.
We concentrated on getting the gas first. That wasn’t as bad as I feared. The rest of the stuff took a little time to gather since we needed to fight off zombies as we went. The cowcatchers would need to be cleaned soon since they were covered in blood and had body parts stuck in them. It took Steve a little time to set up one of the trucks with a good system. It took longer for me to decide which house to start in. At least we were smart enough to get multiple sets of the things we would need.
I thought it was too late to try my plan out once we were ready.
“Why not do it now? It shouldn’t matter if it gets a little dark. We will be out of the house and in the vehicles by the time enough zombies get here to be a threat.” Harold argued. It seemed I was being outnumbered.
“We should be able to stay safe and we really want to do this.” Steve added. The others were nodding in agreement.
“Fine. We will use one of the houses off of Airport Boulevard. I figure there will be plenty of zombies we can lure to one of the houses there.” I gave in. It was going to be dark before long. I hoped we would be fast enough.
We headed over to that area with me in the lead. I turned off of University onto Airport and started looking for a good house to use. There were large groups of zombies here as well as many who were scattered out individually. I drove down a little ways and saw what I thought to be a perfect house to try. We would need to hurry though.
I pulled around to the back of the house and jumped out with my gun drawn. There weren’t any zombies close enough to be worried about yet but I wanted to be as safe as I could. I stood guard and gave instructions as the others piled out of the trucks.
“Steve, you get upstairs and get that stereo going. Open the windows so the sound can get out. Tina, Susan, Katy, Amy, and Angie, you guys are in charge of dousing the house with lighter fluid. Remember to go all through the house and try to form a pool of the stuff on both sides of the back door. Harold, go with Steve and get the generator going for him. Laura and Cindy, take the truck with the stereo system and drive back past University. Then turn on the stereo as loud as you can stand it and drive back this way slowly. When you reach this house, turn off your stereo so the zombies will be more drawn to the stereo Steve is setting up. Be very careful, ok? Don’t roll the windows all the way down, about this far would be enough.” I put my hand against the window where I thought enough sound would get out but a zombie couldn’t get his head in to bite them. “Leave the front door closed until we are ready to leave. Bob, you’re with me on guard duty. Everyone understand?”
