Against Zombies Box Set, Vol. 1 | Books 1-4 Page 19

  ZITs – 1

  Company D – over 300.

  Zombie count for our unit was about three hundred, if used ammo was a correct measurement. At this rate, the zombies would overtake us long before we could clean them out, but we had to try.

  Linc

  After I drove away from the town, I knew that I was going to have to tell Jessica and Trish the truth. Well, as much as I could anyway. This was so going to hurt my chances at getting laid tonight, but I had to make sure that everyone was safe.

  At the gate, one of the guys raised a hand in greeting, but didn’t leave his spot hidden by a few well-placed bales of hay.

  I acknowledged him, and instead of heading for the gate, I pulled over even with his position.

  “Pass the word to the other three that we need to meet in the next hour. Some idiot has decided that he’s going to control the town and may pay us a visit if he doesn’t like the way I act around him.”

  “So we should stay undercover as long as possible? Even if you get into trouble?” Josh asked, staying close to the ground.

  “Just make sure that the group here is safe. I’m going to have to tell Jessica about the four of you, but that’ll mean you get some home-cooked meals in exchange. Plus, with all of the extra kids, it was only a matter of time before they found out about you guys. I still don’t want you out in the open in case Jim Danvers comes calling, but you’ll be able to help train the older kids, along with Jessica and Trish, about how to stay safe.”

  “You think he’ll come out here?”

  “I do. He won’t be able to stay away now that he’s remembered that I’m out here. His thought will be to get me out of the way, and then he can have Jessica and the farm.” I shook my head regretfully. I didn’t want to fight anyone if I didn’t have to, but I was certain that he would be out within the next day or so.

  “I’ll pass the word along and have the other three meet you so that someone’s still on lookout.”

  “Well, I’ll be at the cabin, but I can only hope I’ll make it in one piece. Jessica and Trish aren’t going to be happy with what Cooper and I have been doing.”

  Josh tipped his hat toward me with a grin. “I sure don’t envy you that conversation.”

  I pushed the bike up toward the gate, opening it just enough to get through. It was unlocked, but I closed it shut and slid the chain around it. The lock clicked shut, but it wouldn’t hold up against someone who was determined to come through with a vehicle. It might make them think twice, but a pair of bolt cutters would only buy us a few extra minutes.

  The barn doors were shut, which was good since the kids were outside playing. Even though it had only been a week since the four cousins had arrived and met Jessica’s two for the first time, they had all become fast friends.

  It felt like I was dragging my feet, but I knew that Jessica and Trish needed to know as soon as possible. They had also been out there, and I needed to know what things had been like out in the real world.

  They were sitting on the porch watching me walk up to them.

  “Did you get your mom settled back in town?” Trish asked innocently.

  “Yeah, I did. There was a problem, though, Jessica. Do you remember Jim Danvers?”

  “Yeah? What’s that dumb man done now?” Jessica hadn’t had much use for him since he’d been trying to catch her eye for the past few months since her husband had been gone.

  “Well...” I tried to begin, but just couldn’t do it.

  Jessica got up and stepped down until she was eye level with me.

  “What’s wrong?” Her eyes showed that she knew it was more than just some townie with a self-inflated ego.

  “He’s chased off the police force and the mayor isn’t going to stop him. There are barricades at the roads stopping anyone from coming inside with bites, or anyone who’s sick. He’s made all those that’ve even sneezed in the last few days stay at the clinic.”

  “Crap. Now that he’s got the power, it’ll go to his head. Did he let your mom back into town?”

  Jessica’s forehead scrunched up in a frown.

  “Yes, but we had to show them that we didn’t have any bites. Thankfully, they didn’t think about making us strip, but give them time and they will. I don’t think he wanted to make too big of a scene in front of everyone. Although, given a chance, I have no doubt that he’ll come after me, and thus for you and the farm.”

  “Do you really think he would do something like that?” Jessica’s hand went to her mouth in shock.

  “I give him a day. Since it’s close to evening, he’ll wait until tomorrow, right about breakfast time, so that we wouldn’t be watching for him.”

  Now Jessica was pissed, as she started to pace the porch in front of me and Trish.

  “Why can’t he just give up? I don’t like him. I’m interested in someone else.” She sent a covert glance in my direction, not even pausing to make sure her sister didn’t catch onto it.

  “Once he manages to take me out of the equation, he assumes that you’ll see him as the hero for saving you. There’s something stopping him, and he’ll just find a way to get me out of the picture. Which brings me to something that you both are not going to want to hear.”

  Jessica’s head whipped around toward me, as Trish leaned forward expectantly.

  Knowing it was better to just get it over and done with, I figured that it couldn’t hurt to blame Cooper just a little bit.

  “Cooper thought that you needed to have a protected place to come in case things went bad and he had to leave for his job. He hired me a few months ago, when you and Jessica found each other. He wanted me to keep an eye out for any problems and start working on making sure that this was a safe place he could bring his family.”

  “That son of a…” Trish trailed off in case the kids were close enough to hear her.

  “I feel like he knew something was going to happen and wanted to get a jump start on getting things set up. So, I hired four guys to help out, and we’ve been taking turns watching out for you guys since he’s been gone.”

  “You mean, this whole time, you’ve been working for Cooper instead of me?” Jessica spat angrily.

  “Nope. I’ve been working for you with a bonus from Cooper. Jessica, when he suggested that you needed a field hand and my background would be helpful if anything ever happened, it was godsend. I was going crazy trying to fit into society. When I left the military a few weeks before that, I thought I’d find a job and everything would be just fine, only it didn’t work out that way. Everything I applied for made my skin crawl because I would have to be nice to people instead of trying to kill them.”

  I paused to gather my thoughts instead of just spewing all of my pent-up frustrations onto the already worried women.

  “When I found out that I would be doing manual labor and would only have to talk with you occasionally, that suited me perfectly. My mom already lived nearby, and it would allow me to keep an eye on her without smothering her. The unexpected bonus was getting to work for such a beautiful boss.”

  Since neither one of them had torn my head off yet, I figured they didn’t hate me yet, so I continued.

  “These past few months have been therapeutic for me. The guys out there helping me guard all of you were recommended by Cooper and are all ex-military. When Trish showed up, these guys were all at my cabin the next morning before I woke up. I don’t want to hide things from you, and in case something happens with Jim, they’ll be a good defense for the farm.”

  Jessica exchanged a look with Trish, and she must have gotten an okay because she turned to me.

  “I don’t like the fact that you had ulterior motives, but Cooper knew something that he didn’t see fit to tell any of us. He’s going to have a lot of explaining to do whenever he comes back.”

  She fixed me with that ‘mom’ stare. “Is there anything else that you’re keeping from me about who you are?”

  “No, ma’am. I’ve been up front with you about everything
from my end. I still have a few things that I know about Cooper.” I threw an apologetic look Trish’s way. “I can’t tell you anything about him because it’s not my stuff to tell. When he comes back, he’ll tell you if he can without jeopardizing national security.”

  Trish just grinned at my statement. “Oh, he won’t be jeopardizing anything but his life if he doesn’t tell me the whole truth. He promised me, no more secrets, and then he hasn’t even been gone for a full day when more stuff comes out.”

  I started to speak up in his defense, but Trish cut me off.

  “Don’t apologize for him. He got himself in this mess and at the moment, you’re only in warm water. He’s just jumped from the boiling pot into the fire and he doesn’t even know it. This is going to be so much fun if he comes back safely.”

  “He will. He has the best team with him available, and hopefully, they’ll have a solution before things get too crazy. If he doesn’t get this sickness handled, then we’re going to see a lot more men like Jim who are willing to take advantage of the situation.”

  “Can you show us what we need to do before Jim shows up tomorrow?” Jessica asked hesitantly.

  “Well, there’s one thing in our favor, and that is that he’s not remembering that your sister and her children have moved in with you. So, let’s be real nice to him and invite him to breakfast when he shows up. I think we can make him feel very welcome, especially if Trevor can spill his drink on him. The others can be completely obnoxious and start fighting so that he’ll think twice before wanting to take over here at the farm. In fact, a little smoky air with burned toast might not be the worst idea when we see him drive up.”

  Trish got up and placed an arm around Jessica’s shoulders. “I think you’ve found a winner in this one. He just might be able to keep the farm intact without starting a war to do it.”

  “Uh-huh. You’re just planning to pick his brain so that you can exact your revenge on Cooper when he gets back.” Jessica grinned mischievously. “But I think we can come up with something to make our current problem think twice before he messes with our kids. It’s not like he can send them off to boarding school.”

  “You get the men together once it gets dark and we can go over somethings once the younger kids are sleeping. We’re going to have to be ready for those zombie things, and even though I don’t want the kids to have to do what we did today, they need to be prepared. If any of them get sick, we’ll have to make sure one of us can do what will need to be done.” Jessica seemed to be processing everything, but when she walked over and kissed me in front of her sister, I knew everything would be just fine.

  “Yes, ma’am. We’ll be here in a few hours. See you then.” I turned around, feeling a sudden urge to whistle as I made my way to the trail between the house and my cabin.

  The evening with Jessica didn’t go exactly as I’d planned. We did spend time together, but it was going over our best defensible positions with the men and seeing what they had brought back from their run to town.

  I tried not to drool when I saw the number of guns and ammo they’d managed to acquire in one trip. I might have to send them out again, but now that people were realizing this was serious, they were going to start hording.

  If we were attacked by either people or infected, it wouldn’t take long for our stockpile to run out. Thankfully, they’d also picked up a few BB guns. While it wouldn’t stop a human, much less one of these infected things, it would give the oldest children a chance to practice so that when things went to hell, they might be able to hit something.

  Until now, we hadn’t really had lookouts overnight because I’d gotten some cool surveillance equipment from Cooper. Now that things were looking more serious and could get messy very fast, I would have to setup some extra measures after the little visit from Jim in the morning.

  Josh and Ray had been out all day with me, so I told them to get some sleep. Tyler and Sam were going to setup some spots to watch from inside the fence.

  I was worried that we would start seeing infected more often, and while it was only barbed wire fencing, I hoped it would stop them long enough for us to take them out.

  Instead of pacing the cabin, I went to take a walk so that the others might be able to sleep. Not really planning to walk up to the house, I started in the other direction and managed to end up standing next to the barn, watching the lights go out all over the house as everyone settled down.

  The kids had been excited with our plan and couldn’t wait to make Jim Danvers’ life hell.

  A figure emerged from the shadows of the house, and I felt my body go on alert. There wasn’t really any moonlight, and even though I’d been in many situations in the military, I still didn’t have impeccable eyesight.

  The shape moved liked it was alive, and it stopped at the edge of the house before creeping toward the barn.

  I slid back to hide in the shadows, waiting to see what the person was doing.

  The barn door creaked open and the light hit Jessica’s face.

  Now that there wasn’t a threat, I decided to have some fun with her.

  I snuck up behind her and grabbed her around the waist.

  She kicked down on my instep so fast, I dropped my arms quickly. I was so distracted by her reaction that I almost missed it when she threw up her elbow, headed for my nose.

  “Jessica, it’s me.”

  My voice made it through the fog around her and she stopped her attack.

  “Linc, I was looking for you. I just didn’t expect you to sneak up behind me. Did I hurt you?”

  “No, steel toed reinforced boots. If you’d connected to my nose, it would’ve been a different story.”

  “That would have drastically changed the idea I had for a make-out session.”

  Jessica walked around me and shut the door so that the light didn’t escape, giving those outside an unintentional show.

  Her fingers gently caressed my arm, and then she pulled me over to the stack of hay bales. As she leaned in to brush a stray piece of hay from my forehead, I met her lips, taking control of the situation.

  As her body seemed to melt under my touch, a voice spoke from the door next to us.

  “Hey, Linc. I think you’d better get out here and bring your gun.”

  “Crap, we can’t ever catch a break,” Jessica muttered as she rolled off me. Reaching over to the guns we’d hidden earlier, she picked up a Beretta M950.

  “Oh, no. You’re not going out.”

  The protest had barely left my mouth when she shushed me.

  “Did you hear that?”

  She took off running for the light switch by the door and flipped it off, cracking the barn door slightly.

  “There. What’s that noise?”

  I strained to bring my focus back to a reality where I wasn’t about to get laid. Then I heard the moans of the dead coming from the direction of the main road.

  There was no way to use the radio now because it would just alert those things to Tyler and Sam’s presence.

  “Come with me but stay behind me. And don’t shoot unless you absolutely have to agreed?”

  She nodded yes, looking very nervous.

  No time like the present to pop her battle cherry, I thought regretfully as I buckled my pistol belt and unlocked the snap over my gun.

  The open space between the house and barn weren’t ideal, and it was something I would need to worry about later.

  We followed the sounds out to the place Sam had hidden in so he could keep watch in two directions at once.

  My eyes had adjusted a little to the darkness surrounding us, but I hadn’t expected to see a group of about twenty infected things pushing up against the fence, trying to reach the cows that had been roaming nearby.

  “I think they can smell fresh meat.” Sam’s voice spoke from just above us, making Jessica jump, but she didn’t move the pistol’s aim from the ground in front of her.

  “When the first cow, well, mooed, those things hadn’t really notice
d them. They were walking down the middle of the road, and then they shambled after the first one toward the fence and the cows. It only made the cows worse because they sensed those zombie things wanted to eat them.”

  “Well,” Sam drawled out quietly, “there was only one cow out that way, and they passed it heading directly toward the ten that were hanging out here in the corner. They didn’t just want a steak for dinner, they wanted a few pieces.”

  “They need to be taken out.” Tyler spoke directly behind me, but I’d heard him approaching so I wasn’t shocked like Jessica was.

  Me and the guys were going to give her and her sister a heart attack if this stealthy stuff kept up.

  “We can’t just start shooting them. It could bring more to us than we can handle at a time.”

  “She’s right, you know,” Sam agreed from his perch in the tree. “I can take down a few to see how they react since I’ve got the quietest gun at the moment.”

  “Staying out here, hoping for the best isn’t the solution, and the children can’t see any of this until they absolutely have to become involved. Light ’em up, Sam.”

  I stood there with them as the infected began to drop, as the slight pop of Sam’s gun did its job.

  Slowly, a pile collected at the corner of the farm where the cows had been only a few minutes before. The moans faded away, and the silence suddenly seemed threatening.

  “Boss, what are we going to do with the bodies out there? If we’re protecting the kids, shouldn’t we get rid of the evidence?”

  “That should wait for daylight because we don’t know how many more might be straggling behind it. I’ll have Josh and Ray use the tractor to make a hole in the empty field over there. I just hope to get it done before our guest arrives.”

  Frustration had me running a hand through my hair, when what I really wanted to do instead was scream. Solutions weren’t going to get easier and would be harder to come by very soon, but we couldn’t just leave bodies out in the open or take a chance that this virus could be transferred to the rest of us on the farm.

  “We’ll bury them this time, but in the future, we may just have to pile them up and hope for the best. Let’s get through tomorrow and see what kind of situation we’re dealing with. And if anyone has any ideas, please let me know.”