“We’re not here to harm anybody,” I said. “We are only passing through, heading towards Trout Creek.”
“Trout Creek’s dead,” a shaky male voice answered. “Nobody left,so don’t bother.”
“There was a commune nearby,” I prompted.
“The Jesus-Crispies?”
I heard a smattering of muffled laughter from my group.
“They’re all dead, too,” he called back after I shushed the others. “In fact it was them that brought this crap down on us.”
I was tired of yelling my conversation. “Why don’t you and I talk normal, instead of yelling back and forth? I’m un-armed.”
“Just you,” the male voice said hesitantly. “Come up the road to the school.”
After assuring everybody that I knew what I was doing, and checking on Turk—it was a clean shot—bullet went in and out. That’s not to say that his left calf wasn’t messed up, only that we wouldn’t have to dig out the bullet. Hey, take your plusses where you can.
I walked down the empty street, through the empty town of Noxon. I spied my young negotiator. Jack Whitefoot is seventeen. He is a couple of notches taller than six-feet and thin as a whip. His long, black braid hangs down his back, all the way to his waist. He is exactly what you would picture when imagining a young Indian—or if you insist, Native American—from the Old West.
He had pistols on each hip, a hunting rifle slung over his shoulder, and an old style M-1 carbine in his hands held crossways in front of his chest like he was about to “present arms” at the command of a Marine DI.
We spoke. A lot of what eventually passed between us is his own business. In short, this place fell to the plague much the same as the big cities. By the time folks were figuring it out, it was too late. The zombies we killed when we arrived were the friends and families of Jack and a young lady named Julie Barton.
Jack and Julie are the only survivors. But even more interesting…Jack is immune! He has a well-healed bite to prove it.
They were able to kill off most of the zombies. Only, neither could do away with their closest friends and immediate families. When they realized he was immune to the bite, they decided that, while they would not willingly allow the zombies to get to them, the need to kill those they loved was not a necessity.
To each his own.
Tomorrow, we’ll move on to Trout Creek. The kids will join us. They were given the choice and eagerly accepted. Turk was even a good sport about it and thanked Jack for NOT shooting to kill.
Sunday, July 20
I bet this place was absolutely beautiful before death found it. It sits right on this vast sparkling stretch of what I learned from Jack is The Clark Fork River. Trout Creek itself has a few forks and we want West Fork Trout Creek. Still, no reason to hurry or leave behind a potential danger.
Today, we went systematically through the area and put down every zombie we could find. The only real problem turned out to be a once majestic hotel. We discovered where the residents made their final stand. It is also where the plague seems to have finished them off from within their own ranks.
I’m no forensic specialist, but the trail is almost too easy to follow. It looks like the residents of Trout Creek retreated to this point with most of their guns and ammo (that made scavenging very convenient). Who knows how many bite victims were in that group. They boarded up all the doors and windows on the ground floor while having presence of mind to leave gaps for shooting through.
Likely, several of their own turned at once and in short order. The unfortunate element seems to be that it was the children who turned. I say this because when we were looking in, we saw very little activity. When we pried open the main entrance a dozen children no older than ten or twelve rushed us. They were short enough and the gaps were placed high enough that we couldn’t see them. This was made worse by the fact that many of the adults were torn in half. At least two-thirds were creepers.
When it was all over with, everybody was so completely drained. Even Snoe, who never seems affected by anything, looked drawn and more than a little upset. It will never be easy killing the child-zombies.
We gathered and inventoried enough guns and ammo to supply a small army. One thing about places like this, it is definitely NRA country. Gun-Control fans, Democrats, and vegans need not bother stopping.
In one house, we did find something that I’m sure will be a legacy of our dead generation: A meth lab. The occupants obviously decided to make one last batch and die in the clutches of their addiction. Actually, that find was a bit more gruesome than some of the death-by-zombie discoveries we’ve made.
I had a friend who was into the meth scene. She was so pretty. She had that curvy body that made you so totally envious. A full bust, then a narrow and slender waist that truly exemplified the hourglass figure with perfect hips. Then…she found meth. Her long, shiny, black hair became matted. Her milky white skin erupted in hideous sores and her figure caved in.
I hope that whatever generation rises out of all this never rediscovers such a terrible thing.
Tomorrow we hike in and do what it takes to secure the compound. It’s been seen from above and afar, let’s hope that we continue to enjoy the success we’ve had so far.
God, I’ve probably cursed us.
Monday, July 21
We could not have counted on there being so much death in this complex. I remember when that cult in San Diego thought the Hale-Bopp comet was going to whisk them away to some paradise or something and put plastic bags over their heads after slipping into sweatsuits and tenny-runners.
We are having to go from building to building on extermination runs. Every single building has a basement, and this seems to be where most of them were kept. Each building is done and marked because after a while…it all starts to blend in.
The operation goes a little something like this: we walk the perimeter and look inside any windows. In the case of two-story buildings, we grapple, scale, and infiltrate from the top down. Once we clear the floor, we fan out and, after a rock-paper-scissors process, the loser opens the door to the basement.
Of course we had no idea how bad the basements were until we opened the door to the first one. That was how we lost young mister Gus Miller. He pulled open the door and a stringy-haired blonde missing all of her nose returned the gesture. She latched on to poor Gus before he knew what was happening. All hell broke loose as zombies of all ages came pouring out of that doorway and into a rather narrow hallway that made shooting absolutely impossible. We went hand-to-hand which took almost fifteen minutes. If you’ve never been in a fifteen minute hand-to-hand brawl, put on biker leathers and a helmet, now start swinging a baseball bat hard enough to crush an almost ripe watermelon for fifteen minutes.
We put down the last one and I turned just in time to watch Gus shove his pistol in his mouth and spray brains all over the wall he was propped against.
Three buildings done. Twenty-seven to go.
This could take a while.
Thursday, July 24
Halfway done. The good news is that we are close to halfway…bad news…we are only almost close to halfway. At least we haven’t lost anybody else.
Jack and Julie are just like part of the team. It is nice that this place was preparing for some version of Armageddon. They have a lot of non-perishable food, as well as cases and cases of bottled water.
There are a couple of really large buildings that we are concerned about clearing. The continuous pounding and moans of the undead are beyond description. I’m willing to bet that if there are generators…that is where they will be.