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  I got out and told everybody to stay put. It was an odd thought now that I look back. Strangely enough, the scream had shut everybody up and not even Meredith argued as I ran after the direction of the now dying—no pun intended—screams.

  Perry and I had to slog through this ankle-deep muck that had washed over what used to be the main road into town. We had to round this long gradual bend with tall pines lining either side.

  We came around the corner and almost fell over one another trying to stop. Perry and I each had a pistol on our hip, but that was not going to help much. More than a hundred zombies were, at furthest, eighty feet, and at closest, less than twenty feet away.

  Brittany had Randy by the hand, trying desperately to pull him from a zombified construction worker wearing the tattered remains of a flannel shirt and jeans along with a now-empty tool-belt. Randy was jerking and screaming, doing all he could to elude the gnashing teeth of his attacker.

  However, it was Steve who had been the source of the screams. He—or what was left of him—was under a pack of no less than twenty of those things. Like famished piglets to the belly of a sow, zombies jostled for position as they ripped away glistening crimson globules from his gaping abdomen. One of his arms had been ripped free and was now caught in an obscene tug-of-war between two undead children of about ten years old. Worse, Steve was still gasping, fighting death for as many seconds as he could. I did not hesitate as I drew my .45 and extended my arm. The last thing I saw from him was a moment of clarity where his eyes conveyed the thanks his mouth failed to as a gout of blood exploded from his lips.

  The shot echoed, and every zombie seemed to suddenly realize that Perry and I were there as every head snapped our direction. The best thing about that was the one trying to eat Randy let go sending both him and Brittany falling backwards into the muddy ditch nearby.

  We ran, Perry and I, dragging the stumbling children along. Both were shoved unceremoniously into our respective vehicles and we were moving, slamming through the now increasing number of zombies attracted by the screams and gunshot.

  Bumper-to-bumper we roared through the tiny hamlet, down what was probably the main street. We left it all behind and pushed through the worst of the storm. We stopped a little before dark just as the last of the dark purple storm clouds rolled away to reveal the deep crimson of sunset.

  Randy hasn’t spoken a word since we got him back in the car. The other kids know something bad happened, just not to whom it has occurred. There seems to be this space around the boy now as if they fear he may be infected. Even in such cramped quarters they have managed to squeeze away from him. Of course, as soon as we stopped I took the boy out of the vehicle and checked him.

  Not a scratch.

  Still, he has obviously been outcast from his group. I’ll talk to Brittany tomorrow and see if she can salvage this. As angry as anybody may be…nobody can function alone in this new world. That boy will need his group, but it is clear he’ll have to earn his way back in.

  Wednesday, May 21

  Finally, it looks as though we’ve caught a break.

  We arrived back at Irony the day before yesterday. The other group arrived this morning. Both sites are viable fall back locations. But, at least for now, there is no hurry to move.

  Tim has been reporting back, that while it was obvious that something herded or lured the majority of Spokane’s zombie population east and in our general direction, the horde dissipated eventually. It seems that unless they have a specific target to pursue, they tend to be like water or electricity and follow the path of least resistance.

  Grace has decided to ask for volunteers to undertake some precautionary missions. We will be keeping a vigilant watch on the valley for any unusual activity. Additionally, next week, two ten-person teams will return to the sites we scouted and see to readying them for the possibility of our need to relocate.

  Of course Meredith and I will be taking one team. We will not be splitting up into any scouting parties in light of what happened to Scott and Sasha. Also, any survivors that might be encountered are to be seen as a threat first.

  Snoe is leaving tomorrow with a group to try and rescue the folks from that Wal-Mart in Opportunity. I didn’t feel the slightest bit guilty about not volunteering. Meredith and I deserve a little break. We want to spend some time with Joey and feel out if he’d be interested in making a go at trying to build a family structure.

  Of course we also want a little time to spend just the two of us. Tonight for instance…I’m planning on serenading her with my guitar…naked.

  Thursday, May 22

  Snoe’s team left before I even climbed out of bed. Honestly, I just could not peel myself away from Meredith. Once I did finally get up, we grabbed our towels and a plastic carry bag full of toiletries and walked down to the river. It was a beautiful sunny day, so the brisk water was quite refreshing.

  Meredith, Joey, and I hiked the short distance to a picturesque, ten-foot waterfall. Joey played in the deep pool. After a refreshing waterfall shower, the three of us splashed around or laid down on one of the large flat rocks, soaking in some sun.

  I found myself craving an ice cold beer. Next time we make any run on a town, I think I will be sure to look for a library. It would be interesting to brew my own. Before the Z-plague, I had a friend…acquaintance really, who used to make his own micro-brews. Some of them were atrocious. Still, others were actually kinda tasty.

  It seems strange…but today actually seemed… normal.

  Friday, May 23

  Good days never seem to run in pairs.

  Derrick Arndt, Greg Chase, Larry Bonn, Trent Blake, and I are en-route to the ridge that Tim has kept the lookout post stationed. Late last night, Snoe’s rescue team snuck into Opportunity in an attempt to rescue those folks at Wal-Mart.

  Tim reported a flash and a huge fireball that rolled skyward. Something big blew up. Just prior to that, Snoe radioed that she thought she heard vehicles fire up in a nearby building and was on her way to investigate. Nobody has heard anything since. To make matters worse, the first relay station—we have six set up to keep contact between Tim and Irony, sorta like the kid’s game “post office”—lost contact with Tim less than an hour after he made that report.

  We should reach Tim’s station just after sunset at the rate we are able to travel. I can actually see a time when travelling on foot is going to be faster than by car. One of the main roads we have been using has been totally blocked by a huge landslide. I think all the melting snow is the chief culprit. Whatever the case, the roads are definitely facing extinction in some of these hilly regions.

  Saturday, May 24

  Opportunity is on fire. The entire town seems to be burned or burning. It appears deliberate. From our vantage point, it looks like there are at least nine blast sites where, in some cases, city blocks are almost leveled. One such area is right by where the Wal-Mart used to be.

  Zombies by the thousands are radiating out in every direction, moving away from the multiple infernos. Interestingly, it has sent a wave of them back west into the Spokane Valley. Many of them are actually on fire. That is setting off grass fires in places. I’ve sent word back to Irony. While I do not think that fire is an immediate threat, we will have to watch this unfold for another couple of days.

  My team that will head for the compound near Noxon and Trout Creek is going to postpone for a few days. Initially, Grace was going to replace me with Perry, but Meredith objected and Perry flat out refused. He’s not getting past what happened to Scott and Sasha. Not that I blame him. Still, his new mindset can be dangerous at best and infectious at the worst. I hope he will be okay.

  Sunday, May 25

  Radioed back to Irony this morning. The five of us want to at least search the outskirts of the area near the Wal-Mart for any signs of our people. Our response came back in less than thirty minutes. Grace was emphatic.

  NO!!!

  We’ve been told that a new team is being sent to relieve us
. Both Trent and I are on the expedition to the Noxon Com-pound. Grace wants us back so we can gear up and be gone by June 1st.

  So, today we will simply wait and watch…and hope.

  Monday, May 26

  Today is the first time I considered just openly defying Grace’s requests. I’m not alone. Even Derrick climbed into the deuce-and-a-half begrudgingly to return to Irony.

  The fires are starting to burn out down in Opportunity. Sadly, we saw no signs of a living person either in the city or as part of the exodus.

  It was Greg who made another interesting obser-vation as we were leaving. There is no movement in the direction of Spokane. We were certain we would see aircraft at the least. Perhaps even the helicopters and their dangling human lures. But…nothing.

  Tuesday, May 27

  Back in Irony.

  No time to rest as we load two of the deuce-and-a-halfs with tools, supplies, and of course, weapons. We will leave on Saturday following the map I made on the way back from the last trip. The roads are roundabout, but at least we’ll be able to ride versus hike.

  Still, it should take a couple of days to reach our destination. Once we get there, I expect we will be busy securing the perimeter. Ten of us should be enough to perform the tasks needed to create another haven like Irony.

  The team will consist of me, Meredith, Antonio Rosillo, Trent Blake, Caren Pilgrim, a late thirty-something, copper- haired, freckled, former pizza joint manager with one of the most happy-go-lucky attitudes you could ever hope to meet all bundled into about five-feet-seven inches and a hundred and sixty pounds. Bill Steiner, a six-foot-plus, two hundred and fifty pound slab of meat with hands the size of a large pot-roast, he was actually some minor league pro-wrestler who went with some sort of Frankenstein’s monster gimmick. Roy Haines, a mid-fifties, average guy who doesn’t talk much, but happens to be one hell of a mechanic. Shannon Wizer, a no-nonsense gal who was a cop in Boise and an army reservist who did not one, but THREE tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and happened to have just returned to her “civilian” job a week before all this began. Jimmy Mitchell, at nineteen, he is the youngster in our group, at five-two…he is also the shortest. Jimmy was really just drifting through life before all this, but it seems he has a real knack for shooting with amazing accuracy. Last is Kyle Danson, a television news anchor, also from Boise. Looking at him, you would expect some sort of stuffed shirt prima donna. I don’t know anybody who works harder on keeping the buildings repaired and the fencing in place where we use it. It seems he worked part-time construction in college, but spent his childhood growing up on a ranch. Once we reach the new compound, he’ll actually be the one spearheading the efforts.

  We all have sat down to get better acquainted. Grace said that we should plan on being no quicker than a month on our set up if things go perfect. We all know better than that. So, she believes we should get to know one another since we will be trusting the other nine with our lives.

  Everybody wanted to know more about Scott and Sasha. Meredith and I told them what we knew which was little more than what was already common knowledge to the adult population of Irony. Still, I believe it strengthened everyone’s belief that zombies are just a fraction of the danger out there beyond the idyllic bubble that is our little community.

  Saturday, May 31

  Just as we were saying our farewells, the radio message came. Tim returned to the lookout. He, Snoe, three survivors from Opportunity, and five of the combined fifteen members of their teams are returning to Irony! Wish I could stay...details were sketchy. But at least we left knowing some of them were safe.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 6

  Sunday, June 1

  Back in the wilderness.

  Today felt like summer. Driving through the church-like silence of the woods reminded me of camping trips with my folks when I was very young. Of course, I wasn’t sitting in the cab of a deuce-and-a-half with a rifle resting between my knees and a pair of pistols under each arm in quick-draw holsters.

  Roy Haines drove most of the day. He’s not very talkative so it was quiet except for the droning snarl of the big engine that propelled us along the increasingly harder to navigate roads. Three times we were forced to stop to move a fallen tree. Twice required the motorized cable winch.

  We may not have slowed to the pace of the wagon trains that settled this country two hundred or so years ago, but the express lanes don’t exist in the back woods. It made me wonder how much of our nation’s infrastructure took care of all the mundane things that we never gave a moment’s thought to.

  Still, it beats walking.

  Tomorrow is when things will start getting dicey. We will leave the relative safety of the logging and forest service roads for a paved and most likely populated route. It is the only way to get the big deuce to our destination.

  Monday, June 2

  Nothing that happened today can bode well for anything resembling a future of peace and the chance to rebuild humanity. Of course after today…who can really know what is worth saving. And strangely enough, those of us who remain are now more determined than ever to get to the Trout Creek area and clear the compound.

  But where to begin…how to begin with what exactly happened today as I sit here on the charred remains of one of the deuce-and-a-halfs and watch Roy checking out the other deuce to make sure it’s going to get us safely to our destination.

  We woke up, and I mean all of us, to the blood-curdling scream that can only be a person being eaten alive. We’ve all heard it enough. Friends. Family. Adults. Children. Men. Women. When the pain and terror reach that point as a person is being devoured alive by the undead, often times it is impossible to tell if it is man or woman. Adult or child.

  Instinctively I grabbed a long blade and both my holsters carrying my loaded .45 Colt semi-automatic pistols. All around me, those that had bedded down in the back of my deuce were similarly engaged when the first set of blue-gray hands reached through the flap of canvas at the rear. I had no time to shout a warning as those hands grasped Antonio who was on his knees trying to find his baseball bat in the nest of blankets he’d been sleeping in.

  Those hands grasped the collar of his shirt and yanked back cracking his head hard on the metal tailgate. Then his body lifted and seemed to slither backwards through the gap in the dark cloth much like an alligator propelling itself from a muddy bank into the water.

  Kyle was closest and dove for Antonio’s leg, missing by a hair. More hands were now clutching at and pulling away the canvas covering of the cargo area. I heard a pair of shots fired and quickly guessed them to be in the direction of the other deuce.

  All of this was in the first five or ten seconds from the scream that woke me and the others.

  Kyle yanked the canvas with the ‘brrrrrap’ of velcro tearing away. It was like some sort of ghastly magic trick. Appearing to be at least five deep and as far as our view allowed left and right, zombies were pressing against the rear of the big truck. The only thing saving us this very moment was how high up the clearance of the deuce sat. But, with hands slapping and clawing at the sides as well, I knew they had to be thick out there. It would not take long for them to start climbing in, and all of our combined ammo in the weapons we held wouldn’t make so much as a dent in their numbers.

  In the cargo area of the deuce with me were Caren, Meredith, Bill, Kyle, and Jimmy. Of course Antonio had been with us, but the hunched over knot of zombies identified his current location, or what was left of him anyways. Shannon, Roy, and Trent had the other deuce. One of them was supposed to be on watch. My guess is that whoever was the owner of the scream is who got the day started. That left eight of us—hopefully—to deal with this and try to get out alive.

  Caren was scrambling up the back side of the cab, slicing through the burlap overhead with a long buck knife and pulling herself up using the support above her head. Just that quick, everybody was scrambling to follow, mostly in an every-man (or woman)-for-themselves mode. Nobody jost
led or pushed another aside. It was just a simple case of each of us knowing the consequence of stopping at this particular moment to be a hero.

  Bill was the last to pull himself up with Meredith and I grabbing him by the scruff of his shirt and hoisting. The scene that greeted us was truly horrifying.

  We had pulled well off the remnants of the road we intended to take, but those damn things had found us. They were pouring through the woods and had our three vehicles totally surrounded. I could see Roy and Shannon in the front seat of the other deuce staring back at us in total shock. The hummer sat empty between us and them.

  Jimmy suddenly yelled something about having an idea. Before long he had handed us everything but a long sword he had strapped to his back and a pistol on his left hip. He reached up and grasped an overhanging branch from some monstrous pine tree and began working his way to the trunk. In a moment he had climbed up and his eyes were on a tree only a few feet away. But, and this is where I was thinking he had lost his mind, it was much thinner. In fact it couldn’t be much bigger around than my leg at the thickest part of the thigh. Most of the nearby trees were similarly young and less sturdy.

  We all watched, even Roy and Shannon were leaning forward, necks craned and straining to see what the hell the kid was doing. On yeah, and the zombies were in a tizzy. All his movement had them interested and agitated.