ZOMBIE'S DOOM? "Chronicles of Jack Doom" (30 page)

Derek quickly moved to the passenger side of the truck and said. "Then let's move before all the piss leaks out."

Now responding to my traveling partners warning, I climbed into the cab of the mechanically unreliable vehicle and we drove off, leaving a trail of warm piss on the road behind us as the hot liquid spewed between the detached teeth of the deceased Cub Scout.

Although we had stopped the roadside target practice, partially because of fear of attracting zombies by the sound it was making and possibly not being able to escape if the truck were to break down (again).

However, our main concern was that with all of the fun and excitement we were having while engaging in the sport of zombie disabling, we committed the cardinal sin of any apocalypse by using up more ammunition than was prudent.

Our only excuse, and it was a weak-tit excuse at that, was that with the surprisingly abundant amount of targets along the freeway, and with both Derek and myself shooting at the sinister savages, we had in what seemed like a very short period of time (time flies when you're having fun), through attrition, reduced our ammo supply to an unacceptably dangerous level.

We made one more stop along the way to pour the remainder of our water into the leaking radiator, and drained our weasels into it once more as well.

By the time we reached the outskirts of Indianapolis in the crippled truck, my once plentiful supply of 9mm ammunition had dwindled down to less than fifty rounds and my water supply was now non-existent.

Much to our surprise, by urinating and pouring the remaining portion of our precious water supply into the truck's radiator, we were able to make it most of the way to Indianapolis before the vehicle finally could take no more abuse, and with the radiator finally empty, its engine overheated and seized up.

We were on foot again.

Derek and I had been having such a good time breaking the bones of the undead along the side of the interstate, that neither one of us was paying much attention to the shrinking ammo supply. An amateurish mistake at best.

However, now that our ride was sitting in the alleged slow lane of North I-65 (I always contended that the speed limit was the same in every lane), ready to be towed to the nearest junk yard. We had no water and less than fifty rounds of pistol ammo between us, one magazine of M-4 ammo, and an old chainsaw that may or may not be operational; we were defiantly paying attention now.

Oh yes, we still had the coach gun with a few slugs for it (thanks to Carla's generosity), we had a couple of empty firearms, a few edged weapons, a half of a fifth of drug-tainted whiskey, and of course my salty tit to tote with us too. None of which I was ready to abandon at that time.

However, without knowing what hellish circumstances might befall us during our hunt for another vehicle, to burden ourselves with heavy gear as we searched was not a cunning tactical maneuver.

We could always make an effort to backtrack and pick up the items that we left behind once we acquired a new set of wheels.

That's provided that we weren't running for our lives in the opposite direction, from one of the many dangers that could materialize at any moment in our brave new world.

"Just grab the shotgun and your cleaver; I'll bring my carbine, Beretta, and tomahawk, we'll leave everything else and come back for it later.

It looks like the nearest vehicles are down the road at least two miles, and we don't know if any of them are in running condition. So I'm not about to burden either one of us with the weight of this old chainsaw, hell I don't even know if it works.

If we're lucky and can commandeer some transportation in the next few miles, we'll come back for it and the rest of the stuff," I said, as I hoisted my rifle up and slid the sling onto my shoulder. "I will however be taking my tit with me, I don't want to leave any skin in the truck, there's always a chance that it might attract an eater that's not on a low sodium diet."

"Not a problem, I'll carry the shotgun and machete," Derek agreed. "I'll carry the ammo for it too, if that's all right with you?"

"The guns are no good without the ammo, and the ammo is useless without the gun, so by all means, carry it all," I declared, as I stuffed Cassandra's rapidly drying out breast into one of the cargo pockets of my multicam camouflage pants.

"Are we sure that we don't want to bring that bottle of whiskey with us?" Derek asked, pointing at the bottle.

I laughed aloud at my hiking companion's offer; knowing that he had no idea what he was asking for.

"You don't want to drink any of this bilge water; I just keep it around for medicinal purposes, for cuts and scratches, that sort of thing. We'll find some of the good stuff in Indy, some good ole sipping whiskey," I told him, not wanting to reveal the secret hidden in my bottle of booze. "Anyway, before either of us partakes in any celebratory libation, we need to find ourselves a new vehicle, and I'm going to need a shit load of ammunition if I'm going to make it all the way into the Badlands."

I had known Derek every bit of 45 minutes, and even though we were getting along just fine, I wasn't about to give away all of my secrets just yet, I wanted to keep an edge just in case.

"I've been meaning to ask you about that Jack, but I got so distracted by the target practice on those cool moving road targets, what is it that you keep calling them... eaters? Anyway I got so caught up in all of the excitement shooting those eaters, that I just plain forgot to ask," Derek claimed.

"Ask about what?"

"About you going into the Indiana Badlands."

"What about it," I asked, as I scanned the neck of the woods we were in for a likely place to acquire more ammo.

"Well, I heard you tell those two dumbasses back in Louisville that you had business with that asshole baby (turd) called the Caucasian," Derek explained.

"So you've heard of him?" I asked.

"I've heard of him, I heard he's a real dick head," Derek answered grinning.

I pulled my tomahawk from my tactical vest and slammed its sharply honed curved blade down on the crown of an almost dormant zombie standing on the road with its back to me.

"
That was kind of weird
," I thought. "
Maybe the eater was deaf, or sleeping standing up or something?
"

Upon pulling my small battle-ax from the skull of the unsuspecting zombie, which was now a twitching pile of road kill, I responded to Derek's statement.

"Come on dude, I thought we were friends, here you go sugar coating things again, no kidding, you can tell me what you really think of this Caucasian character that I've heard so much about."

We both laughed at my slightly amusing attempt at humor, in spite of the heavy burden that we both were bearing as we approached the first vehicle we would try to appropriate.

Just so you know, any burden is a
heavy burden
when you're walking through a zombie apocalypse. No matter how light it is.

"Couldn't see'um from back there, but look at all the vehicles in the medium and down in the ditch," Derek observed.

"There must have been an attack here, and from the looks of things it probably happened on day one of the outbreak," I contended, surveying the scene of abandon cars and trucks.

"Looks like we've got our pick of vehicles if we can get them started," Derek surmised, as he peered down into the shallow ditch.

In our search for a vehicle that could get us at least as far as the border of the Badlands, wherever that was, we began inspecting the abandoned cars that had been left on the road.

If we could make it into the heart of Indianapolis, there we could formulate a plan and decide if the supplies we would scavenge along the way, and our vehicle, were adequate to make the dangerous journey into the Indiana Badlands.

We of course,
meaning me
, as I had yet to ascertain whether Derek would be joining me in my quest to track down Beth and the Sarge in what I knew would surely be a very precarious undertaking.

We cacked a couple of the undead cannibals that had chosen to seek shelter in their cars during the onset of the zombie plague. Of course, they weren't undead when they made that decision.

However, once their vehicles were at our disposal, the inside of said vehicles were not only covered with dried slime and rotting ooze from their occupant's lengthy incarceration within, but the sickening stench left behind by the encapsulated prisoners, along with the quantity of maggots squirming everywhere was a little too much to bear. Even for a couple of veteran
serial zombie killers
like Derek and I.

Besides, the massive amount of flies that the maggots had begot, left the whole interior speckled with fly dung, which rendered those vehicles even more unacceptable for our needs.

"We might as well not even bother wasting our time with the ones that have eaters in them, they're going to be useless to us," I ordered.

"Yeah, they're all going to be the same, nasty as hell and unusable," Derek agreed, as he ignored a ravenous female zombie in a small red sports car, who had her face pressed up against the side window, and was clawing at the glass in a feeble attempt to devour him.

The first thing on the agenda was to check the cars for keys.

With the newer computerize vehicles it was useless to even bother to check the battery if the keys weren't in the car, for without the key to stick into the ignition, the computer would not let the engine start anyway, even if the battery was fully charged.

Unless maybe you happened to be a mechanic or a professional car thief in the zombie free world of the past. Then you might know a trick or two to get the cars to run, but neither Derek nor I was either one, so we had to do things the old fashion way.

We had opened the hoods of the few older modes of transportation that we deemed useable, only to find that their batteries were completely dead.

Then Derek spotted it.

It was a completely restored 1951 Chevy Deluxe fastback, flat black with chrome fender skirts and a gray interior.

"Look at this Jack," he yelled.

"Shut up! I softly yelled back. "The eaters will hear you."

"Sorry," he whispered back, as I approached the vintage ride.

"It looks like someone just didn't have the heart to leave their pride and joy setting in their garage while they made a run for it; instead they decided to make it their get-a-way car." I said, admiring their choice in automobiles.

"Is there an eater inside?" I asked, expecting an affirmative answer.

"No, there's no eaters in it. This beauty is cleaner than a nun's cunt," Derek answered grinning ear to ear. "And the best part is that the key is in it too, and it looks like it's got a manual transmission, three-speed on the column."

"Which means if the battery is dead, we can push start it," I said, hoping that the battery still had some juice in it.

"Roger that," Derek agreed, lifting the heavy metal hood.

One trick that everyone learns rather quickly when they're thrust into a zombie apocalypse, is that a really quick way to check to see if a battery still is holding any amount of a charge, is to lay a piece of metal between the two posts on it and see if it sparks.

I bent the radio antenna on the old Chevy until it broke off in my hand (radio stations had stopped broadcasting over a year ago), and tossed the radio wave receiving wire across the battery posts.

To both of our amazements, sparks flew in every direction as the silver rod began to glow red-hot.

I quickly knocked the antenna from between the lead polls on the rapidly discharging black storage cell.

"We've got power, now let's see if we have enough to start this beast," I asserted, as I turned to implant my tomahawk in the skull of a walking disease carrier Derek had inadvertently called in by his earlier caterwauling.

I heard a thump, as the tomahawk split the forehead of the advancing brute, and as it began to drop, I shoved it to the side of the car so it would not impede our progress, as we would soon be attempting to flee the scene.

"Turn the key and see if it will start," I ordered.

Derek quickly turned the key that was already inserted in the ignition slot to the right.

"Nothing," he said, as he jiggled the key.

"There might be a button that you have to push, sometimes these older cars have a push button starter along with the key," I indicated. "Look around on the dash for some kind of a button."

I had no sooner finished my sentence, when I heard the engine begin to slowly grid.

"Pump the gas pedal," I suggested, slamming the hood closed.

The engine turned over slowly several times but didn't come to life. It slowly gridded and began to turn slower and slower.

"Enough!" I called out as I rushed to the driver's window. "The battery is too far gone, we'll have to try and push-start it."

"There's no way we'll be able to push-start this heavy beast," Derek, complained. "The grade of this hill isn't that much, just a few degrees, but it's still up hill."

"Get out of the car and let a real man take the wheel," I jested, knowing that Derek would retort in kind.