Kirk Allmond - What Zombies Fear - A Father's Quest

Marshall was in charge of clothes. His orders were to fill as many carts full of whatever clothes, socks, shoes, underwear and belts he could find. Specifically he was looking for warm clothes, or clothes that could be layered for warmth.

Leo was in charge of food and hygiene products, she loaded up cart after cart of rice, beans and pasta, as well as toilet paper, napkins, paper towels and feminine products. Next she hit the soap isle, emptying the shelves of every type of soap she could find.

John, of course, went to the sporting goods counter; he loaded up every rifle and bullet in the store, plus enough reloading equipment and materials to keep us in bullets for a long time. I’d noticed he always picked up his shell casings, but just then figured out why.

I had a special project in mind. I stopped first at the kids bicycles, and put four into a cart, and grabbed every spare chain on the shelf. My next stop was the toy section, where I picked up a bunch of large kites. Step three was to automotive, where I loaded up three carts with deep cycle RV/Marine batteries. I packed forty-eight batteries into the carts. The last thing I needed was behind the automotive counter, the keys to the auto parts room. Inside there, I found the truck alternators. I was looking for the big ones, I was hoping to find four, but could only get three big truck alternators, so I grabbed three smaller ones for cars.

It took us about an hour of shopping, plus an hour to clear the zombies out of the store room door. We dragged them to the edge of the loading dock and threw them in a pile out in the parking lot. Once we’d loaded our haul into the semi-trailer, we doused the bodies with lighter fluid and tossed a brand new Zippo lighter onto the pile of corpses.

We used the big rig to push some of the cars out of the way, Leo and I jumped into the Jeep, while Marshall drove the rig home. There was going to be a party at our house tonight! We were exhausted, weary, bruised and battered, but we’d managed a great score, our people would use the stuff we found to survive well into winter.

We walked into the house feeling happy and good about our days work. Tomorrow was the meeting with Colonel Frye; I didn’t believe many of our people would want to go with him.

34. Frye’s Return

I spent the better part of the morning unloading the trailer from the previous night’s haul. We passed out clothing to everyone that needed it; almost everyone got at least three pairs of socks, and a pair of pants. Most people ended up with two pairs of pants and a couple of shirts as well. We were short on a few sizes, mostly kids stuff and larger women’s sizes. Everybody had shoes that fit, pants to work in, clean socks and underwear. We’d have to work out clothes washing, but there were so many logistical details to work out.

I spent the better part of the morning using the rope and pulley system to lift the deep cycle batteries up into the loft, while Marshall and John built a wooden frame against the back wall to hold them. I had forty 12v batteries on four shelves. I cut apart two long jumper cables from the barn office and wired each row of ten batteries in series, and then connected all four series, giving me 120 volts, and roughly 2500 amp-hours of electricity. Enough electricity to light up the top of the hill for most of the night. Once all of the batteries were wired, we fitted plywood sheets over the front of the shelves to keep the kids from getting to them, and ran the wires out a hole in the roof.

By the time we’d finished that, it was almost ten-thirty in the morning, and we had some work to do with the tractor-trailer. There was a dirt road that ran up one side of our property. We didn’t want to block the entire highway, but I didn’t want anyone to be able to go up that dirt road in a vehicle. Secondly, there were tall embankments on either side of that road where it met the highway, and I estimated a tractor-trailer would be just a little longer than the width of the road.

Leo met us down there at the dirt road with the back hoe. Once Marshall had gotten the empty trailer jockeyed into position, it took all four of us nearly half an hour to figure out how to unhook it from the tractor. Eventually the tractor was free, and Leo used the bucket on the backhoe to knock the trailer over onto its side. It got a little smashed in the process, but the frame, the strongest part of the trailer, and the wheels were facing the highway. Leo’s last job was to use the bucket to fill the small space at the front and back of the trailer with dirt, and to push a large mound of dirt against what used to be the roof of the trailer. Nothing could easily walk around the trailer, and it would take several tanks to push it out of the way, effectively blocking that road.

It was nearly time for Frye to make his appearance. Marshall parked the big tractor inside the gate, with its flat nose pressed just against it. They could still hook a chain to the gate, but then the rig blocked almost the whole driveway. The gates were connected to very large, solid brick entrance markers.

The rest of the frontage along the highway had very steep, very high banks. Not even a military humvee would be able to climb them. If anyone was going to get on the property, it was going to be on foot, or because we let them drive on.

Leo appeared with a bucket full of cold sodas, with ice, having parked the backhoe, run up to the house, and then run back down here. Mom had really outdone herself showing off; the ice was a nice touch. The four of us had just cracked our sodas when we saw the Colonel coming down the road. He had, true to our agreement, only one truck.

When he got out of the truck, we were sitting on the bench outside the gate. We stood as he approached, and I stuck my hand out in greeting.

“Hello, Colonel Fry. It’s good to see you well.” I said.

“You too, Tookes,” he said, as he shook my hand.

“Colonel, I made your offer to the people, I thought you might want to go up and see if anyone wanted to come with you, but I think you’re going to be disappointed. Care for a soda? They’re cold.”

“I’d love one, and I would like to come inside the wire, Tookes.”

I handed Frye a cold Coke, which he drank while we walked up the hill, the five of us. Frye’s driver stayed with the truck. When we got to the top of the driveway, we veered to the left towards the barn. I stepped up onto the mounting stone, and whistled loudly. Slowly, in small groups of twos and threes, the survivors who were not out in the fields or off on a mission for Bookbinder, gathered.

“Everyone, this is Colonel Frye, the man I told you about.” I said projecting my voice. “He’s offered safety and shelter to anyone who would like to go with him. They’re staying at Mount Pony, right outside of Culpeper.”

“Colonel, would you like to add anything?”

The army leader stepped up on the mounting stone as I stepped down. “Tookes here has done a great job of keeping you all safe up until now. We have word of a very large group of infected heading this way. We think it’s from northern Virginia, heading south. This group has been heading south for almost a week now, they never stop, they don’t sleep, and they don’t eat. They’re making about twenty-five miles per day. They’re just above Warrenton, Virginia right now, they’ll be in Culpeper tomorrow, and pass by here sometime tomorrow night. They’ve been following Route 15 all the way from Leesburg. We happened across your place scouting in advance, trying to clear the living out of their path. We can hide from this horde of infected in the Mount Pony facility. We can lock it down and they’ll pass right by us. If not, we have methods to fight them off.”

“In addition to that, the remnants of the U.S. government are there. The Vice President of the United States is there. The Speaker of the House is there. There is still a United States, and you’re still citizens of it, bound by its laws.”