Trey sat there with a plastic-tipped cigar in his teeth and told us what happened. “Punk asses rolled out on me,” he began. “We was in this sport shop we found on the way back to the Haven, about four miles to the north. I got in, but the alarm tripped and locked all the doors. Wasn’t even no power in the place that we knew of, but the owner must have been mad slick. The place locked up like a bank vault. The windows were Plexiglas, so I was basically stuck. A few of the boys took some shots at the windows and doors to help me out, but the biters came. It wasn’t even a lot of them, but it was enough that they ended up leaving my ass locked in there. I’m just sayin’, it was only four miles, but after the second hour of waiting for them to get back, I was like ‘fuck it,’ and I got out on my own.”
I had to ask, “How’d you manage that?”
Trey answered me matter-of-factly, saying, “I make bombs, man. I been blowin’ shit up since back in the day. Hell, my very first job was on a demolition crew. We used to do those big-ass building implosions in the cities and all that. I just popped open a handful of shotgun shells, pulled out the lead, packed all the powder into a little screw-top canister… fuse, light, boom… problem solved. The guts blew out of the back door lock, and I rolled out. You know, I walked my happy ass all the way back, lugging all the guns and shit I packed up in the shop, and when I got back, them motha fuckas was gon’. I was mad as a bitch. Then I seen the Three Stooges here twiddlin’ their thumbs.”
Wyatt snickered at the comment, but Tom scoffed arrogantly.
Wyatt took over, saying, “When Trey made it back alone and told us what happened to the rest of his people, it didn’t take long to realize they evacuated with the others. We talked about our options and decided to try and catch up to you guys.”
Tom coughed and sniffled a bit before adding, “He didn’t give us much choice when he told us he was taking the car with or without us. You’re lucky we saw that raggedy jeep on the roadside.”
Bizzy told us all that Trey had noticed our slide marks in the mud going down the embankment, and that was how they found us at the railcars.
Rebecca was quick to respond, saying, “Good thing y’all came when you did.”
Tom doesn’t look so hot. Colds, allergies, and all that stuff are an extra pain in the ass these days because simple medicine is so hard to come by. Sure, we could luck up and find a drugstore that hasn’t been looted yet, but the chances are slim. He’s just gonna have to tough his way through it. I just don’t know if I can stand to hear him piss and moan about it the whole time.
I took first watch with Kylee up on top of the trailer, while the others settled in for the night. She spent the first half hour or so teaching me how to use her rifle. Seriously, rifles might be the way to go for me; more so than handguns. You practically can’t miss with the thing. After that, things went really quiet down below, and pretty much everyone was trying to get some sleep.
They were only succeeding in on-and-off catnaps with Tom’s fucking incessant coughing and sneezing. If he didn’t keep it the fuck down, we were all gonna be stink chow. I took some time to ask Kylee about her family, and she wasn’t really into it at first. She just sighed and fiddled with her boot laces.
I had all but given up, but then she said, “Family… what family? The only family I ever seemed to have was this Godforsaken military. All my friends were military brats, and we moved around so much, I never really had any friends that I knew for more than a year or two. My father was always busy being the big shot, and my mom… well… let’s just say she’s dead.”
I felt like asking her more about her mom, but if you had heard her tone, you wouldn’t have done it either. I opted for another route and asked about the guy in her picture.
She pulled out the photo and took a long look at it, sighing wistfully. “Don… That was the last time I was happy. He was good to me, but in the end, he was no different than my father… full of ambition and pride. He would be off for months at a time, and I’d be in a different place on a different mission… and then, one day he was gone for good… They wouldn’t tell me the circumstances. They just said he was KIA, and we wouldn’t be getting his body back in the States. Instead, they buried an empty coffin and handed me a fucking flag.”
She was tearing up but, true to her personality, I never saw a single tear fall.
I asked her how her father took the news and if he had made it to Don’s service.
She laughed through her emotion and told me, “Oh no, of course not. He couldn’t be bothered to leave his post. I guess that’s the downfall of only knowing your father by his rank instead of being able to call him ‘Dad.’”
That fucked with me a bit. Like I said before, my relationship with my parents was really good. I can’t imagine how much it would suck not being able to lean on them when you need someone to have your back.
I felt bad for Kylee just then.
She just chuckled and said to herself, “If you could only see your little girl now, Colonel.”
Letter II to Col. Lang
To: Col. Lang
Fr: SSG Chalmers
Re: Donald Peel
Date: Jul 2nd, 1 AO
Sir,
SSG Kylee Peel is quoted in the preceding entry as saying she was married to a ‘Donald Peel.’ Are we to assume that she is referring to the same ‘Donald Peel’ known as Subject 17? The implications here, if that is true, are immense!
A couple of men in my unit recognized that name from Operation Final Spark. We were under the impression that those subjects were chosen specifically because of their lack of family and emotional ties. Moreover, what if Subject 17 was in close contact with SSG Kylee Peel? Or worse, what if Subject 17 divulged information to his spouse about Final Spark? Please advise.
Regarding the recovery of the remainder of Entry 47, it is futile. It seems that coals from the fire popped onto the page and began to burn it away. Evidence suggests it was worsened when Mr. Baxter attempted to swipe them off. Based on the tone of Entry 47 and the information in Entry 48, it appears there was very little lost and that it was not of significant importance to our mission. Let’s count our blessings that we didn’t lose Entry 49, or we would have missed the reference to Subject 17!
The discovery of this important turn of events has bolstered the resolve of our men, and morale is high. I expect an upswing in productivity.
-SSG Chalmers
Entry 50
This feast or famine shit is getting old. When we have weapons, we have no food… When we have food, we’re low on ammo… On the rare occasion that we have food and ammo, we have very little water. We’re always chasing something or running from something. I’m just exhausted. We’re three days on the road and already falling apart at the seams. The balancing act is much more difficult than any of us expected in that the more people we have, the safer we are, but the strain on resources puts us in another type of situation altogether.
We cleaned up camp and discussed the pros and cons of taking the tractor-trailer if we could get it started. Cutty asked us, “What y’all think ‘bout Trey’s idea of takin’ this here rig? We can pimp out tha traila and turn it into a livin’ space. Might could make it kinda comfy even.”
Rebecca backed him up and said, “Beats the shit out of that jeep. I say we do it.”
Cutty politely told her to watch her language again with, “Mind yo’ tongue, Rebecca… Don’t be needin’ ta cuss all the damn time.”
She balked and gave him a dirty look.
Wyatt nodded his agreement and simply said, “Wasting time here. Let’s do it.”
Tom, who was still looking pale and sickly this morning, looked to Trey and Cutty and said, “I just want to get going. I don’t feel like discussing anything. One of you two, hotwire this thing so I can go lie down.”
Trey and Cutty looked at each other and then back at Tom. Trey retorted, questioning, “Da fuck you lookin’ at us for?”
Tom had no reply.
br /> Cutty added, “Oh! It’s ‘cause we black, Trey… Mista Tom here just assume that ‘cause we of the darker persuasion that we masta car thieves.”
Tom sputtered a halfhearted explanation to the contrary, but nobody was buying it. It was a legit issue, though.
Bizzy asked everyone, “Well, does anyone know how to hotwire a truck?”
Rebecca stalked over to the cab of the rig and popped open the door. Ten seconds later, the truck fired up and was idling nicely. While everyone looked at each other in amazement, Rebecca came back to us smiling to herself.
Kylee said to her, “That was awesome! How’d you pull that off?”
Rebecca winked at her and said, “Keys were in it.”
Facepalm! We all chuckled heartily.
The jeep has a weird sort of sentimental value to it for our original crew. It’s like an ugly-ass good-luck charm that we just weren’t ready to part with, so we decided to keep that as our pilot vehicle. Personally, I would prefer a nice sports car or something.
Note to self: Find and drive a badass car before you die, Dext. Now’s a helluva time to start a bucket list, but what the hell, right?
Kylee volunteered to drive the rig first and switch off with Cutty as necessary since he was able to drive it as well. I made a conscious decision to learn for myself as soon as the opportunity was presented. Plowing a big rig through traffic has always been a dream of mine… and it beats running any day of the week.
As I loaded the last of the bags in the back of the jeep, a scuffle broke out near the rear of the trailer. I could hear Trey and Tom shouting at one another, and it sounded like Bizzy crying hysterically. I looked around the side of the jeep to check it out and saw Trey with a pistol drawn, the barrel placed firmly against Tom’s forehead. I jetted over to them, as did Wyatt and the others, and tried to break it up. I told them both, “Knock that shit off!”
Look, I hate Tom as much as the next guy. I think he’s an arrogant bitch, but at the time we needed order and explanations. Trey backed off as everyone looked on, but never lowered his gun. He said to us all, “Look at his ankle, man. Look at it!”
Kylee moved towards a flinching Tom and raised his pant leg a little bit. It was not good.
He had a clear set of teeth marks on his lower calf. It wasn’t a bloody or particularly gory wound. No, that’s not what made it bad. It was the area around the six or eight teeth marks. It was terribly infected and oozing a whitish-green pus. It was red and enflamed around the bite area, but what really got me was this webbed network of black veins just below the surrounding skin that covered his calf. It was like his leg was dying while it was still attached to his body. He was sweating profusely—one of those gross, cold, feverish sweats.
Trey said, “He’s gonna turn soon. We gotta put him down now before he kills someone.”
Bizzy’s crying intensified at Trey’s remarks.
Tom tried reasoning with everyone, saying, “It… it… it’s just a little bite. We can get some antibiotics in the next town, and I’ll be fine. I barely even felt it when it happened. One of the ones at the train grabbed my leg and got a little nibble in before I was able to kick it away. No big deal!”
Bizzy sat next to Tom and attempted to comfort him, but Trey was having none of it. He told everyone, “Bites will kill you. Even if you don’t bleed out, that sickness is gonna get worse. That fever is going to burn you out! And when you die, you will turn. No one gets bit and lives, man! No one! I seen it a hundred times.”
Cutty agreed, “I seen it, too.” He turned to Rebecca and solemnly told her, “That’s how yo’ momma died, Rebecca… an’ she turned like tha others. I couldn’t leave ‘er like dat, ‘Becca. I had to put her down.”
Rebecca covered her mouth and fell into Cutty’s arms.
Wyatt made an attempt to pull Bizzy from Tom, but she jerked from his grasp and hissed, “Get your fucking hands off me! You people are psychotic!”
Kylee spoke up and said, “I think you all are overreacting here.”
She helped Tom to his feet and addressed everyone, saying, “We are not going to kill a man in front of his daughter because he’s been bitten. Do you hear how ridiculous that sounds?”
Cutty and Wyatt both started to argue with her, and it disintegrated into another shouting match with everyone yelling at once. It was Bizzy that finally raised her voice above the others, causing everyone to quiet down. “I know Dad isn’t the easiest guy to get along with… but he put his neck out for you people back at the train! He didn’t have to do that! You all sound so cold and ungrateful! He’s my father!”
Bizzy reached across to my belt and drew my pistol right out from under me. I should have never let that happen. She pointed my weapon at Trey, causing Cutty to whip out one of his blades. He leveled his machete at Bizzy’s neck and said, “Eaaasy, li’l girl, eeeeasy.”
Kylee jumped between the three of them and said, “Here!”
She rolled up her sleeve and showed her exposed arm to the four of them. Wyatt and I craned our necks to catch a glimpse, and I literally felt my own jaw drop. Kylee had a nasty, raised scar on her forearm in the shape of a human bite. She moved from one person to the next, giving each of them a good look at her scar. She spoke finally, saying, “I didn’t die. I got sick… but I didn’t die. We’ll get him some meds up ahead and keep an eye on him until then. Now put down your weapons, and let’s move out.”
Stunned, we all relented a little.
Trey holstered his piece and said flatly, “Well, I ain’t ridin’ with him. He’s your problem now.”
Kylee said, “Fine. I’ll put him in the sleeper of the truck.”
That was an hour ago.
I’ve been reading signs and scanning for a small town before we hit Ohio. Columbus more than likely belongs to the dead now, so we need to stop before we get that far. I hope Kylee was right about Tom. If not, Kylee’s driving with a ticking time bomb, and she should’ve let Trey defuse it for all of us.
About the Author:
Steve Kuhn is a former professional musician turned writer. Raised in Baltimore, Maryland and with a deep seeded passion for horror, he brings a refreshingly raw and witty style to his work. He has been featured in countless online publications as a critical reviewer and has spent the last three years crafting the epic zombie series, Dext of the Dead.
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