Chapter 8

Family Meeting

Roberto and I quickly headed out to the barn to grab some of the stuff I brought with me. No use heading to the house and worrying everyone else. I grabbed a shotgun on a sling and placed it across my back. The lever action .30 .30 was going to be the rifle in my hands and I decided on a .45 colt reproduction for the pistol on my hip. It was nostalgic and only had six shots, but it would get the job done. Finally, I put the .22 target pistol in a shoulder holster and my trusty axe-bar on the hip without the pistol. Roberto just grabbed a couple of rifles, one pistol and extra ammunition. Since he was staying behind he was more concentrated on long range support in case we had to retreat.

When we got back to the front gate, Benji was looking anxious.

“Calm down. We will cut over to the left and climb the old deer stand so we can get a closer look. That should be close enough that we can make out details, but far enough to stay out of sight.”

There was no need for more talk. Benji and I started off for the deer stand. About five minutes later we were up high and looking through the binoculars again. It was worse than any of us could have imagined. There were animals tied to long poles that several somebodies were using as bait. The group outside was indeed zombies. They just looked coordinated because they were moving back and forth from one set of bait to the next. Whenever they would get close to an animal that was being dangled, that animal would be pulled up and another one farther away would be lowered to entice them to move again.

After watching this for about 60 seconds I turned to Benji and just asked, “What the heck do you think is going on?”

“Well whatever it is, you can be sure it is not the Smith’s that are doing it. They love their animals.”

“I can only think of two things. Either the people in that house are mentally deranged and bored or they are trying to train zombies. Both of those scenarios kind of scare me. We do not need nutcases hanging around the family, and if they really are trying to train zombies the only use for them would be to attack others. Either way we need to put an end to it.”

“I agree Mark, but how are we going to do that without hurting ourselves or bringing revenge down on the family.”

“I think what we need to do is go back and let Roberto know what is happening. He can fill in momma and the others. Then you and I will take the long way around and approach the Smith house from behind. It looks like they are only playing with zombies in the front yard. Once we are there we can enter and decide how aggressive we need to be in our discussion with whoever is doing that.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

We headed back and let Roberto know what was happening then we set out as fast and as quiet as we could. It was less than ten minutes later that we were hiding in the tree line just outside of the Smith’s backyard. We saw our first problem. While most of the zombies were occupied in the front yard there were two wandering around back here. Wandering was not the right word. These zombies obviously had injuries that slowed them down and made them stumble, limp and crawl. There slowness was probably what kept them from joining the group in the front. Our problem was even if they were slow, they were still dangerous and could make noise that would attract others or notify whoever was in the house to our location.

“Well Benji, for safeties sake I think that guns are not an option. I’ll take the one in the dress if you take the one with the floppy hat.”

Benji gulped and tightened his grip on the sledgehammer he brought. I thought the sledgehammer was too heavy and fairly useless compared to some other weapons he could pick, but my baby brother loved it.

“Alright Mark let’s do this.” He whispered back.

We advanced out of the tree line and approached our chosen victims. For once in my life nothing went wrong. While both zombies heard us, their broken or hurt limbs prevented them from turning around and attacking before we got to them. Benji swung first and I was just a fraction of a second behind. Two solid hits later and we were alone in the backyard. I signaled to Benji and we both quietly approached the back door. I know it was stupid but I reached for the handle to see if it was locked. Yep it was. Benji just looked at me like I was an idiot. I shrugged back and got ready to show him why my axe-bar was the superior tool for this situation.

I placed the crowbar section in the door and as quickly and quietly as possible forced the door open. Luckily the moans from the zombies in the front covered any noise that I was making breaking in. We both put our melee weapons away. Benji unslung his rifle and I switched out the rifle for the shotgun on my back. We entered as cautiously as possible and were checking each room as we went by. The people dangling animals had to be on the second floor, but who knows if anyone was down here. Our perseverance paid off when we got to the master bedroom. Handcuffed, tied up, and gagged were three people. One boy and two girls. Their eyes went wide when they saw us.

Obviously they recognized that we were not the same people that had put them here. I signaled Benjj to watch the door and approached the nearest young lady, a redhead, and removed her gag. “Listen up.” I whispered. “You need to stay as quiet as possible and tell me what’s going on.”

“Thank you Mr. Evans for rescuing us, the red head sobbed.”

Wait why does she know who I am? She does look familiar. At my puzzled glance, she stopped crying and whispered, “It’s me Tracy. I had you for Environmental Science two years ago.”

“Sorry Tracy, I am getting old and the memory is going. You came down here after graduation to go to the tech school right?”

“Yes sir.”

“Tell me what happened.”

The story came out that her and her boyfriend Alex along with her roommate Olivia who were the other two tied up were looking for a safe place to stay when they were ambushed by four guys. Those four knocked out Alex and tied them all up. It was obvious what they were going to do to the young ladies. The only luck this group of kids had was that the group could not decide who was going to get to go first and with whom. So they decided to go play a game or something and the winner would come get to pick their prize.

Alright Mark think. Four obviously bad people, that screwed up animal on pole thing must be the game they are playing to decide who gets to rape these girls first. Not going to happen when I am around. I could see in Benji’s eyes that he had the same thought as me. Anyone who could do this does not need to be around anymore. Without any police or authority to call it was up to us to handle the situation. No law and no jail meant that there was only one way for us to make sure that this type of behavior ended. We were going to have to kill them.

Right, when I came to this decision I realized that this was probably going to only be the first of several horrible things I was going to have to do to keep myself and my family alive in this new world. I cut Tracy free and left my pocket knife with her to cut the others loose. I needed to get this next part done before I chickened out. I signaled Benji to follow me. I whispered quickly to him. “We go upstairs, check each room quickly, find them and end them. I will go first into the room with my shotgun. I will walk in and step to my left. You cover me from the door. Only fire if I miss one. I need you to be my eyes in the back. I do not want to eliminate three of them and have the last one come from another room to kill us both when we are not paying attention.”

Benji just nodded and tightened his grip on his rife. There really is no way to prepare for this. I start thinking as I approach the stairs. I have one shell loaded, I have five more waiting in the pump shotgun. All of the shells are buckshot, which has a spread of about six inches every ten feet. My best bet is to fire and pump as fast as possible. Once I empty the shotgun I will pull the .45 pistol from the hip holster to finish off any wounded. Save the .22 with extra bullets for emergencies. With my plan in my head I feel a little more confident. As we get close to the top of the stairs I can hear people talking.

“Hank, you are down four points to two. One more point and Charlie wins first choice of the girls.”

Fantastic, they are still playing their stupid game. Also it is nice to have independent confirmation that they are actually scumbags. Keep that at the forefront of your mind. They do not deserve to live. They are murdering rapists who are going to come for your family next. I try and keep these thoughts running through my head as Benji and I quickly clear the first two rooms upstairs. First room empty, second room, dead body and a girl tied to the bed. I will have to come back to check, no time now. Two more rooms to go. The next room on the left was the winner. I opened up the door and saw four very stereotypical rednecks in camo holding long poles out of the window like they were fishing. There were guns stacked next to each of the windows. Good no one was on guard. I took two steps in and then two steps to the left to clear Benji’s sightline.

In movies this is the part where the hero would say some sort of cool one liner. This was reality though. If I said anything the only thing that would happen is that I would warn the people I am here to kill. I raised the shotgun and aimed at the guy to the furthest right. NO, I aimed at the target on the right. Keep your head together Mark. I pulled the trigger and pumped the shotgun as fast as I could. Each person received a full load of buckshot. The first two were hit and propelled out the window they were fishing from. The third and fourth targets were quicker and started to turn around. All that meant is that the buckshot caught target three in the side and target four in the chest.

There was no way a human would survive those wounds. I did not bother to shoot the last two shells. Instead I watched as the life fled from their eyes as I calmly reloaded my shotgun. As soon as the last one closed his eyes I started to shake. I had just killed real live people. Not zombies, not animals or monsters, but real live people. The enormity of what I had done sunk into me all at once. As soon as I stopped shaking from coming down from my adrenalin high I turned to the side and started dry heaving. Thank goodness I had not eaten breakfast yet. Benji spoke up at that point. "Brother, you need to get it together. I checked the last room and it was clear. We need to get out of here while the zeds are still occupied."

That statement brought me back to reality. Escape? I don’t think so. “Benji, we are not escaping, we are taking care of the problem before it gets any worse. You collect the guns and ammunition from this room and shove the bodies out the window to keep the zombies in one place. I am going back to the other room to check on the girl tied up to the bed and then I will bring Tracy and her friends back up here. We are going to teach them to shoot and eliminate the zombies out front. I do not want to leave a group this close to the house.”

“That makes sense Mark. I will clean up and organize things here. If you are not up in five I will start shooting without you.”

“Sounds good.”

I retreated out of the room. I carefully made my way back to the room that had what looked like a dead body in the corner and a girl tied to the bed. I approached carefully just in case. There was no need. The poor girl tied to the bed seemed to have been the group’s first victim. She had died which is probably what inspired the group to go out and find Tracy and her friends. The dead body in the corner was a male similar in age to the girl tied up. I assume they were together and the group killed him, raped her and then she died from the trauma. I had no way of actually knowing what happened, but it fit with what Tracy’s group had overheard and their general behavior pattern. I covered both bodies with blankets from the closet and headed downstairs.

Before I got to the room I called out quietly, “It’s Mr. Evans.” I am glad that I did. Tracy’s boyfriend came out of the room holding a lamp. That would have hurt if he hit me with it.

“Listen up. The front of the house has several zombies. I want everyone to go upstairs where my brother Benji is. We will give you a weapon and teach you how to shoot it safely. We are going to use the zombies outside as target practice.”

“What about the group of guys that caught us.”

“You won’t have to worry about them ever again. Be aware, you were not the first group captured by them. Don’t go into the first room on the right upstairs. That is where the bodies of their first victims are.”

I made sure to mention this because I wanted them to realize that it really was necessary to kill them. I did not need accusations and trouble right now. They all gulped when they heard me and nodded.

“Alright, everbody upstairs.”

The group trooped upstairs and saw Benji waiting for them at the entrance to the room where I killed the bad people. Should I call them bad guys? I know bandits. He was waiting outside the room where I killed the bandits.

“There is blood and a bad smell inside, but there are also weapons and the best view to kill zombies. We need to make sure that everyone is capable and willing to help out. If you don’t want to participate, we won’t force you, but you will also have to go your own separate way. We can’t afford to help anyone who won’t help themselves.”

With the minor threat of us leaving them, I could see them get back some of their courage. Benji was always a better weapons instructor than me and I let him run them through the safety, loading, and firing of three of the rifles that the bandits had. While he was teaching I leaned out the window and started taking potshots at the farthest zombies. I wanted them to stay close and not wander off. The noise from the .30 .30 kept them around the house and I was able to eliminate the harder targets before our newbies started shooting. Five minutes of instruction and ten minutes of shooting, surprisingly with only a few misses, and the front yard was cleared out.

I congratulated everyone, but reminded them we needed to get going soon. I led the way downstairs where we packed as many supplies as we could into a couple of blankets. Tracy’s boyfriend, Alex carried one blanket full of supplies and a rifle and Tracy and her roommate Olivia carried the other blanket full of supplies. We grabbed all the still viable food, toilet paper, feminine products, basic clothes that would fit many people (sweats and large shirts) and anything else we could grab quickly. I still hadn’t eaten breakfast and was getting a little hangry. We exchanged some basic information with the newcomers on the way back.

I explained who was at the house and that we had enough to supply ourselves for a while. Tracy told me she finished tech school and was actually welding part time at a local metal shop while trying to get a full time job out at the nuclear site where my brother and daughter worked. Her roommate was older than her and was a nurse at one of the local urgent care centers. Strangely enough her roommate was not from the area. In fact, she had a charming kiwi accent. She was here working in the U.S. and taking her Nurse Practitioner courses before she travelled back to New Zealand. She obviously was not going to be able to go home for a while.

Roberto met us at the gate.

“Mark, you are the only person I know who can go and check out a situation and bring back not one but two pretty girls and their friend.”

“You be quiet Roberto or I am telling Jillian you were calling other girls pretty.”

“You win Mark, no more teasing. Jillian brought me out some breakfast so I will keep watch. You go and feed the new group and get some breakfast yourself.”

“Thanks, Roberto. I will call for you in a while. We have some decisions to make.”

“I understand.”

I took the group and entered into the house through the front door.

“Mama, I have a few more guests. Can we please put something together to feed them real quick.”

“They will eat your breakfast and you can have the leftovers. They are guests. Welcome to my house, my name is Kathleen and you kids can just call me Granny Kate.”

That is one of the things I loved the most about mom. No matter what happened she just went with the flow and adapted. About 30 minutes later the story of what happened got out and everyone was fed. Jillian and Stephanie had all the kids upstairs watching a movie so the adults could talk.

“Alright I call the Evans family meeting to order. I need to go over a couple of things first and then we have some decisions to make.”

I presented a list that I had made quickly over breakfast:

Zombie Killing is Legal and encouraged by whatever is left of the government. In less than 24 hours I had personally run into two situations where law and order had broken down. The area is not as safe as we think. The situation will get worse before it gets better. We still have some basic services such as power, but that will probably be going out in less than a week. Once the rest of the basic services, power, water and food start going out or becoming scarce survivors are going to start raiding. Eventually easy to catch survivors in big cities will be gone and zombies will start spreading out. We can easily overpower and outthink zombies, but they have numbers on their side. Good news is that I do not expect the zombies to survive for more than five years at the most. With only instinct to drive them, many will die of disease, open wounds, or lack of water and food. After the first year I believe the largest threat will be from other survivors and not zombies.

“Everybody here knows how long I have been thinking and prepping about ideas and scenarios for this kind of thing. I truly believe we have three options here that we need to consider. First is the hole up and build an agriculture based survival group. I think this has lots of long term potential, but will be difficult for the first few years. Second is the hole up and build a raiding survival group. This is a short term gains kind of thing. Easy to start, but hard to control. Very low long term potential. I don’t recommend it, but it needs to be put out there. Finally, there is the suggestion of island fortress. I think this is the best of both worlds and will protect us the most.”

Widow Allie, spoke up “I don’t understand Mark what is the island fortress?”

“Well in this scenario we move down the Savannah river and either grab an island off the coast or head to a Caribbean island and establish our survival group there. If we clear off the zombies on the island we only have to protect ourselves from other survivors which is infinitely easier on an island than on land where anyone can reach you.”

“Can you list the pros and cons of this island fortress?”

“Great Idea. Pros first:

Easy to defend. Isolated and most likely hard for others to find. Mild climate as we will be closer to the equator.

There are some cons associated with it.

Isolation means less access to raiding supplies. Possibility of more disease due to the warmer climate. Seasonal weather such as hurricanes can be severe and there will be no weather channel to warn us.”