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

Heading south at around sixty-five miles per hour along the deserted highway, the wind blowing in Candi’s window was bothering Max, who was trying to sleep after eating four breakfast bars. I had about an hour of daylight left, and I was facing a decision. If this outbreak was in both in both York and Frederick, there was a good chance Leesburg, Virginia was going to be infected as well, and I had to pass through the most heavily populated section. The town of Leesburg was the part of the trip I was most dreading. If I could get across the river tonight, there were miles and miles of undeveloped national forest between the bridge and the town.

My first option was to find a deserted fire lane leading a few miles into the national forest, pull off and camp for the night in the truck, with Candi. My second option was to continue on, with one headlight, one fog light, and the two KC style running lights mounted to the roof basket. It was an hour and a half further to my family home-place after Leesburg. I’d been making pretty good time, and the whole incident at Frederick had only taken about forty minutes total. I was going to have to take it much slower from now on, and Max wouldn’t be able to stay in his seat much longer. At the very least he was going to need to get out to go to the bathroom, and the thought of getting him out of the truck frightened me the most. I can’t afford to make any more mistakes. My heart can’t take any more mistakes like Frederick.

Still pondering, I slowed down and stopped at the last curve in the road before the bridge. I whispered to Max that I was going to get out, but that I wouldn’t go far. I was stopped about a mile from the bridge. I wish I had some high powered binoculars, but my rifle scope would have to do.

I scrambled up the embankment, and a couple hundred feet up the side of the hill into the woods. I couldn’t get too far from the truck, but I needed the elevation and cover of the trees up here. There was enough light to see the old blue-green iron bridge, and see that there was another set of cars blocking both ends. I watched through the scope as zombies walked up and down. I watched for as long as I could, not wanting to leave Max alone for too long. I counted five zombies, four of them walking fairly normally, and one who was stumbling. The four were armed with various assault rifles; I was too far away and not knowledgeable enough in firearms to tell what exactly they were from this distance. They were all pacing back and forth, about half the length of the bridge. I watched the road leading towards me, and saw nothing, I looked in the woods on either side of the river and they seemed likewise clear.

I began to formulate a plan as I headed down to the truck, back to Max, back to my reason for surviving.

06. Twin Peaks

By the time I made it back to Max, I had a pretty solid plan in place for clearing the zombies on the bridge, but I had to find a couple of things first. About halfway around the curve ahead of me, there was a downhill road off to the left. It went through a small group of houses, a strip club/biker bar named “Twin Peaks”, and a small shabby looking mom-and-pop hardware store.

I struggled to push the silver SUV to the top of the hill, but with one final heave I managed to start it down the other side and hopped in the driver’s seat to steer us into the bar parking lot. I felt really naked without a handgun, and I was thinking a biker bar might be my best bet for finding one in this general location. The gravel crunched under the heavy weight of my overloaded SUV seemed louder than gunfire, and I immediately wished I’d left it on the pavement

I pulled my truck right up beside the building, as close as I could get Max’s side to the wall without hitting it. He could probably wiggle out, but there was no way anything was getting in his door. Of course, they could come in the driver’s side of the truck, but having the one side blocked made me feel better.

‘Focus, Tookes’ , I said to myself, ‘There’s going to be a mess in there, check yourself .’

“Don’t forget your hatchet,” Max reminded me from the back seat, forcing me to look down and see that it had fallen out of its loop on my belt, and beside the center console of the truck.

“Max, I’ll be right back, buddy. You stay here, but undo your buckles, just in case we need to run.”

“We’ll be fine, Daddy, you can handle these two.”

I’m learning to trust the little guy’s offhand comments, so I prepared myself for two or more. It was imperative that I remain silent, I’m under a mile from the bridge now, and it’s very likely that the zombies up there would hear any gunshots. There was no way I was going in there without a gun though, so I took the black nylon strap off of my 30.06 and tied it to the AK47, and slung the whole thing over my shoulder before walking over to the door of the bar.

Gingerly I tried the knob on the solid steel doors, and in what might have been my first stroke of good luck, I found they were unlocked. I nudged the heavy doors inward, and quickly let them swing closed with a clang. Once closed, I banged on one with the back of the hatchet a couple of times, and stepped a few feet back. This was a twofold test; could they open doors, and were they attracted to sound. As an experiment, I was ecstatic with the results. I heard at least two of them banging on the doors, but they were unable to open them.

From about five feet away, I got a running start and hit the doors low. The doors flew open from the center, sweeping the two zombies apart and throwing them back into the room. My momentum carried me, hatchet in hand, right by one who was struggling to get up when the blade sunk deep into his forehead. With one final convulsion, he was dead again, and my hatchet was free of his head. The other zombie was down and not moving. Was there any chance I was this lucky? I kicked her head, and saw that the back of her head was smashed in, making a mess of her platinum blonde hair. I think her back was turned when I hit the door, and the edge of it split her skull. She was wearing a fluorescent g-string, and a garter with pretty good stack of bills rubber banded around it.

‘She won’t need this’; I thought to myself as I unwrapped the rubber-band and pocketed the thick wad of bills. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever need it, but a wad of cash might still have some trade value. The room smelled horrible. Even after just one day, the corpses smelled terrible, like thirty pounds of rotten hamburger.

Feeling like a badass from my easy victory, I checked through the bar, looking for interesting things. I set three unopened bottles on the bar, one bottle of grain alcohol, a Bacardi 151, and an old looking bottle of scotch. Under the bar, I found a box of match books with “Twin Peaks” underneath a pole dancer on the cover. This was a classy place. I added the match books to my pile on the bar, and headed back towards the office.

I listened at the office door, knocked with my hatchet, and waited. Hearing nothing, I opened the door and peered into the dim room. There was a large, beat up oak desk against one wall. I flipped through all the cups and trays on top looking for keys, before even trying the drawers. I found two sets, and tried the drawers in the desk. The top drawer was the only one unlocked, so I started trying keys. In the bottom left drawer, I found the handgun that I knew would be there. I read the barrel; it was a Smith and Wesson model 629- a nickel revolver with black hand-grips, and what I hoped was matching ammunition, 44 magnum. I pressed the cylinder release and emptied a round out into my hand; it was the same as those in the mostly full hundred round boxes. Replacing the round and snapping the barrel shut, I slid the weapon into my waistband, and quickly surveyed the room, but didn’t see anything else useful.