ZPOC: The Beginning Page 14

  He whistled as he got close. “Nice shot.”

  “Thanks,” Hector answered, before turning his attention to Taron. “I’ve got a plan for the innards.”

  Hector smiled, before explaining his ideas.

  Not long later, with the deer emptied, skinned, and left in Vanessa's capable hands, the three men headed off in different directions, each carrying with them a bucket of offal and a section of wet deer hide.

  Hector’s plan was simple, and each man nodded as he explained it.

  Henry made his way through the trees to the immediate west of the camp, careful not to spill his goods until they reached the right spot. He found the old path Hector had indicated and began to walk it, letting the contents of his bucket spill to the floor ever few meters. The splash of organs, blood, and general deer juices hit the ground with a sickening splat.

  Once the bucket was empty, Henry looked back at the trail he had left. He could already see flies and other insects crawling out to play. Launching the dirty bucket into the trees, he looked around for anything that would let him finish the final step in Hector’s plan.

  He saw a tree stump, old and long since rotted away to little more than shaped sawdust. It was perfect.

  Draping the wet hide over the stump, spreading it out as much as he could, using the natural tackiness of the bloody skin to stick it in place, he stepped back. It did not look like anything to him, but to the hungry eyes of the dead, it should be enough to at least draw them in.

  Hurrying back to the camp, Henry arrived just moments after Hector and a similar period of time ahead of Taron.

  “Done?” Hector asked.

  “Done,” each man answered in turn.

  “Now we wait. That should be smelling real good to those things and will get a nice group of them hanging out over here. Like you said, those things won’t find us, most likely won’t even know people are living here. So the more of ‘em we can pull to us, the less likely any survivor types are going to come along and take what’s ours,” Hector said, briefly outlining his plan once more.

  It was simple, use one enemy to hold off another. No group of survivors would want to attack a herd of zeds, not anybody in their right mind at least. So it would buy them time, and that was the best commodity of them all in the new world. Time to think, time to rest, and time to come up with a better plan.

  The group finished up their preparations and hurried inside. Henry took one last look around the place they had built. He thought about the nights and months that had gone into building the shelter and digging the foundations for the underground level that was now going to save their lives. He thought of the plans they had and the scenarios they ran through. War, diseases, natural disasters. Only once had the rising of the dead come up, and that was just James, joking around, waving a comic he had somehow gotten his hands onto, in the air.

  Henry took a deep breath, shocked at the emotion he felt, the connection he had already built with the place. He closed and locked the door, turning to face his extended family.

  “Right, let’s get comfortable.”

  Chapter Seven

  Jerry woke with a jolt. The sun was streaming through the windows, and he was as naked as the day he was born. Looking around the room, he felt lost and confused.

  Was it just a dream? He didn’t recognize the room, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything bad.

  He sat up and saw his bloody clothes lying on the ground beside the bed, and everything came flooding back to him. The rising of the dead, the devastation they had seen and caused as they made their way to the city.

  He remembered the car trouble, and the houses, he remembered Maddie. Suddenly the scent of her presence was on him. His head ached as he tried to make sense of what had happened. He stumbled around the room, gathering his clothes, feeling more disoriented for having a good night’s sleep in a comfy bed than he had from every night spent camping in a truck surrounded by the undead.

  Getting dressed, he cringed a little as the blood stains cracked and rust-colored flakes fell to the floor like bloody snow.

  “Rise and shine, sleeping … oh crap, you’re awake,” Lou said, faking disappointment. “We got coffee brewing downstairs. Turns out whomever lived here was a coupon freak or something. You gotta check out the storeroom.”

  Lou left again, breezing out of the room like a man who had had too much coffee.

  “Never figured you for a morning person, Lieutenant,” Jerry said as he stumbled into the kitchen. Even after a good night’s sleep, it took him some time to get his humor going.

  “Nonsense. I’ve been up hours, it’s practically afternoon for me. Besides, who knows when we will get to wake up in a real bed, and start cooking bacon for breakfast,” Lou said, as chipper as a man who had woken up to find some young blonde’s mouth over his cock.

  “Did someone say bacon?” Maddie asked, her voice traveling ahead of her.

  She walked into the kitchen and looked at Jerry, said nothing, and turned her attention to the stove, where a pan was sizzling, distributing a number of delicious aromas through the spacious kitchen. The combination of smells was so good that it made their stomachs hurt just to be close by.

  “Well, it’s bacon adjacent. Some long-life shit. They’ve got powdered eggs too. It won’t be gourmet cuisine, but a damn sight better than what they serve back at the base,” Lou said as he ran the spatula around the pan. “Grab a plate, the first round is ready. Figure we had better load up our bellies as well as the truck. Abuse good fortune when she strikes.”

  As the five sat around the breakfast table, they looked like the strangest family alive. They ate with an insatiable fervor, cooking pan after pan of food, shoveling it into their mouths, along with can after can of bread rolls and croissants. They devoured almost everything in the kitchen cupboards and almost fainted when Benny found a can of coffee and an old-school mocha machine.

  A few moments later, they had a small, controlled fire burning in the kitchen sink, and positioned the coffee pot above it.

  The air was pregnant with expectation, and Benny earmarked as being the hero of the day if everything went according to plan.

  “Oh shit, Lou,” Jerry said, as he looked up from the coffee pot and saw the three zeds that had wandered into the side garden of the house.

  “I’ve got it,” Maddie said, grabbing her knife from the kitchen table.

  Jerry fought the urge to go after her, to help her …

  To protect her?

  But he held himself back, knowing the team would look at him and start pushing the issue. They had slept together, and it made no sense to him. It had been awkward, it had been aggressive, and driven by rage more than anything else. There were still too many questions to be answered, so he turned back and watched as Maddie sped around the house to meet the zeds head on.

  The altercation was over in a minute, and the result was never in any doubt. Maddie’s blade split the skulls of the three zeds as if they were the same warm rolls the others were slicing inside the house.

  Maddie turned and made her way back to the house before the third body hit the floor. Wiping her blade on the leg of her pants, she walked back in and grabbed a bacon roll from the plate and took a bite.

  “I could get used to it here,” she spoke with a full mouth.

  “Yeah, shame we have orders to follow,” Lou answered; his words sounded harsh, but everybody could hear the regret in his tone.

  “When do we head out?” Sanjay asked as he poured a cup of strong black coffee, taking his allocated ration, before filling the pot and setting it back on the fire.

  “ASAP. We should load up on as much as we can from downstairs, get some wheels under us and head on up to the city,” Lou replied, as he took another roll and sat down at the head of the table.

  Nobody spoke for a few minutes, allowing the peace of their situation to settle. There was no telling when the next chance to relax would come along.

  The kitchen was a neat and tidy aff
air and had clearly been the focal point of the house. State of the art machines lined the counters on the far side of the kitchen, which seemed very much split between working space and storage.

  A mellow color combination of pastel yellow on the walls with a running green motif, of a similar easygoing shade, running through all the ancillary decorations, gave the room a strange Easter-like feel.

  “Has anybody made contact on the radio?” Jerry asked, finally bringing the subject matter back to their given task.

  “No,” Maddie answered, looking up and across the table at Jerry. “I was trying this morning but got nothing but static.”

  “I had the same yesterday, both during the day and at night,” Benny answered. “It’s like the whole base just doesn’t exist anymore. I mean, even if they were all wiped out, there should have at least been an open comms channel.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Not right now,” Lou answered, his voice begrudgingly leaving behind the sudden bout of suburban bliss, and dragging itself, and them, back into a world of orders, and blind faith in the chain of command. “We have a job to do, and we will do it. We have our orders. We’ll cross whatever bridge we come to when we get to it, and not before.”

  Around the table, everybody nodded. Lou was a level-headed leader, especially in the light of the new world. Yet he made it clear then, that he was still in charge, and his lead would be followed.

  “We don’t need anybody looking up ahead with binoculars, spying trouble we don’t know we will reach, at the expense of missing the fucking problems around us in the here and now.” The air around the table changed. The transformation was complete. It was back to work. Business as usual.

  “Maddie, Jerry, head downstairs and pick up as many supplies as you can get. Benny, fix that fucking truck or find us something else that moves. Sanjay and I will sweep ahead, clear out the path as best we can. Meet back here in fifteen.”

  The group scattered, each given their own task.

  Jerry followed Maddie down to the basement, where he stood in shock at the sight of the supplies.

  Large, industrial quality shelving units had been constructed along all four corners of the underground space. A quick glance was enough to confirm that everything was sorted in the same way you would expect to find them in most supermarkets.

  Jerry ran his eyes over everything, affording himself a few moments to take everything in. His mother had always had a cupboard stocked with supplies, but nothing compared to the size and spectacle that stood before him.

  Not only were there washing detergents and fabric softeners, in all different scents and flavors, but sizes too. Sorted from the bulky budget buy boxes on the bottom shelf, up to the half-liter refill packs on the top.

  Cosmetics and bathroom products, canned goods in the form of soups, vegetables, meatballs, cocktail sausages and more filled the room, each one lined up perfectly, turned to ensure the labels were all square on to the room. There was an entire shelf dedicated to razor blades, and two to shaving creams and foams. Sponges, both of the kitchen and bathroom variety painted a rainbow of colors over one shelf, while bleaches, oven cleaners, and multi-purpose sprays offered a safe haven to almost all levels of germaphobes known to man.

  “Bingo,” Maddie spoke up to his far left.

  She had wandered off into the basement and pulled back a blanket to reveal a supply of water that could have sustained their entire regiment, let alone just the five of them.

  “Let’s start hauling this shit upstairs.” She didn’t look at Jerry as she spoke, even turning the other way as she picked up the first load of water and started walking back.

  Jerry followed her, unsure of how to handle their new situation. Was she ignoring him because she was ashamed? Maybe because she felt guilty for it, or God, perhaps it was simply because she didn’t enjoy it? The thoughts bounced around Jerry’s head like a ricocheting bullet in a cartoon.

  Carrying a load up the stairs, they passed one another, Maddie squeezing herself against the wall to let Jerry past. For a second, Jerry thought about pausing and asking Maddie what was going on, but he knew better than to try it. Instead, he just looked at her. She was beautiful, and even a quick glance was enough to remind him of that fact. Their eyes met briefly, and Jerry saw something flash in them. Not regret, not shame, but something else. Something that Maddie was struggling to keep under control. Her amber eyes seemed to glow as if on fire, as if the inferno raging beneath the surface had flared up, threatening to consume her whole.

  Load by load, they brought up the water, pausing to drink a bottle each, enjoying the cool, but not cold, liquid. It was hot in the cellar, and the more stuff they moved, the warmer it became. Both were sweating profusely by the time they were done, and their scent filled the small space like an old-school gym at the end of a summer day.

  “About last night,” Maddie said, speaking up as she passed to take another drink of water.

  “We don’t need to,” Jerry lied.

  “Yeah, we do. It was good, I had fun, but I am not looking for some relationship, or anything. I was stressed, couldn’t sleep, and you were there.” Her words were cold, but there was something behind them, something warmer.

  “Makes sense,” Jerry said, once again confused as to what he should be feeling.

  “In fact, yours wasn’t even the first room I went into. You were just the only one still awake,” Maddie lied, adding venom to the words as a way to distance herself from any personal attachments. Her default setting was to take and then discard.

  “Oh well, I get it. These are crazy times,” Jerry said, knowing he should feel hurt by what she had said. At the very least his male pride should be bruised, but all he felt was a need to move closer.

  Maddie didn’t react to his coming closer, in fact, she seemed to shuffle closer to him in response.

  “I mean it. It meant nothing,” she said, their bodies so close the warmth radiating from one was felt by the other.

  “I believe you.” Jerry paused, and moved forward, his intentions clear, when suddenly, noises from up in the house shattered the moment that was starting to happen. Their quest for something private, in a world that had stripped them of everything; even down to the last shreds of human dignity, would have to wait.

  Maddie collected an armful of canned veggies and soups, while Jerry grabbed several armfuls of long-life milk, instant coffee granules, and sugar. He paused briefly to force a couple of boxes of protein bars into the pockets of his trousers.

  He reached the kitchen to find nobody there. The silence confused him for a moment, but when he saw the table was empty of their supplies, he reasoned they had gotten the cars fueled and ready and were loading things up.

  His mind was still partly distracted by the lingering memory of Maddie, but soon cleared when the first gunshot rang out. Dropping his supplies to the floor, Jerry burst forward, unarmed but ready to rip the undead apart with his bare hands if needed.

  He came to a sudden halt when he saw the rest of his group on their knees, hands on their heads. Sanjay’s near headless corpse lay on the floor, twitching as the final seconds of his life bled from what remained of his skull.

  Behind the body, stood a man with a shotgun. His tattooed arms clutched the weapon across his bloated belly. He stared at the corpse with a cold fascination, before turning his attention to the others.

  “It doesn’t have to be this way,” he spat. “You play ball, and you get to live.”

  “You’re making a mistake,” Lou growled at him. “We’re military, you shoot us, we all come after your ass.”

  The fat man chuckled. “Aw shucks, cap’n. We’re all ex-military here. The world is changing. I did my duty out there and got fucked in the ass when I got home. You think because you serve that you get a pass. Fuck no, son.”

  The reference to the military seemed to agitate the man, but it gave Jerry a moment to back away from the doorway. He had been caught unawares and stranded in a position which, had the man moved a p
ace to his left, would have left Jerry a sitting duck.

  As it was, he hurried backward, disappearing around the corner of the hallway. From there, he turned around and hurried upstairs. Grabbing the rifle from his bedroom, he checked the clip, took off the safety and prayed he wasn’t going to be too late.

  The master bedroom gave the best view of the front of the property, and the two groups that occupied the garden.

  Two four-by-fours and an old, beat up panel van were parked along the roadside. Jerry could see two men inside each of the vehicles, while the panel van was open, with two men loading their supplies into the back. One had long blond hair, which looked like a mullet, while the other was an older man who moved with a pronounced limp. By the house, he counted the fat man, and another fellow who, judging by his build and initial appearance, could well have been a brother. There was at least one more man there, although the house just blocked him from view.

  Training or not, they were at the disadvantage, and any action he took, would have consequences.

  “Thank you very much for bringing the supplies out to us. We appreciate all your hard work,” the voice of the hidden member of the group said. “As thanks, we might just leave the rest of you alive.”

  There was a laugh; a crazy, deranged sounding laugh, which spread through the two other men standing close by.

  “Then again,” the voice continued, “maybe one more is needed, just to get the message across. You know, that you don’t fuck with the New Outlaws.”

  The laugh came again, and as some signal was given, the fat man raised his rifle and positioned himself behind Maddie.

  Time slowed down to a crawl. Jerry felt his world change, an experience he had only had once before, and that was out in Iraq when an IED took out the lead car in their convoy.

  It was as if his senses were heightened by some superpower or another. He saw things in such detail. The look of understanding that hit Maddie’s face, when she heard the crisp click of the shotgun being readied to fire. He saw the look of near delight spread across the fat man’s face.