Welcome To Strange: There and Back.

 

Sunday, March 19th, 2084, 22 miles east of Santa Rosa, New Mexico.

The thing that I truly enjoyed, for the most part, about Texas and New Mexico, was the fact that if you stuck to the smaller highways and avoided the larger more populated cities there were plenty of wide open spaces, and you could see trouble brewing from a long ways off in any direction. Highway 40 had been good to us, and we could follow it all the way to Flagstaff, Arizona before we had to turn toward Utah on 89. We still had a long ways to go, 3 miles down the road we came upon two overturned vehicles in the road, we pulled over at a safe distance, Ashley and I stepped out to survey the scene through our binoculars, beside the road there were two mangled bodies not moving, Grendel appeared on my left, he looked concerned at the bodies, and then back at me. 

"So what's the deal, man? are we going to do something or just leave them lay?" He said in an almost annoyed tone.

Something didn't feel right to me and Ashley was in total agreement, as we zoomed in with the bino's you could clearly see three single file tire tracks leading away from the road.  I handed Grendel the bino's and pointed toward the tracks, He looked at them with growing interest. He lowered the glasses and looked at me.

"Motorcycles?" He asked.

"Probably." I answered.  "They're waiting for someone to stop and investigate."

"And then?"

"And then they kill them and take whatever they have."

Something or someone was waiting for whoever, to stop and try to help those people, and then they were in for a rude awakening. We weren't going to risk it, we were going around, Ashley and I got back into the truck and I crossed over to the other side of the highway with the Land Rover right behind us, as soon as we cleared the pavement we hit the gas and barely gotten past the wreckage when the first two motorcycles roared up onto the road between us and the Land Rover. Ashley and Henry went through the pass-through from the cab to the bed of the truck. They pulled back the tarp away from the tail gate of the cage and began opening up on the two motorcycles, before the passenger could even raise their gun, Ashley shot the one on the left through the helmets' visor causing the bike to flip several times violently throwing both riders into the air crashing into the road violently. On the other bike, Henry aimed first for the legs of the driver, but when that didn't work he went for the headshot, with the same result, both bikes had crashed and burned.

Two more showed up on the about 250 yards behind the Land Rover, we'd thought that they might persist, but seeing the fate of the first two bikes caused them to break off the chase. apparently whatever they wanted from us wasn't as important as they thought. A mile and one half outside of Santa Rosa we turned off the main highway and found a small rest area with bathrooms, we all took turns using the restrooms and cleaning up as the water was still working. As I was checking my map, Grendel appeared on my left, a look of concern in his eyes.

"Ummm Crash, I need to talk to you about something." He said.

I gave him a sideways glance.

"So talk." I answered.

"Well, you know, we don't want to seem ungrateful for everything you've done for us, but some members of our group have expressed concerns over your children." He said nervously.

"You mean Ashley and Henry? first of all, they are not my children, they lost their parents to the virus, and now they are traveling with me to try and survive."

"Well, it's just that you and them are a bit too violent for our tastes.  a member of our group has a friend living in Santa Rosa, and well, we think it would be best if we went our separate ways from here on out."

I didn't even look at him. 

"So go. Good luck to you." I answered.

"So that's it? you're not even going to try to compromise? or at least admit you're wrong?"

I turned to face him more aggressively.

"Let's get something straight Grendel, neither Ashley, or Henry, or Me, owes you a fucking thing, let alone an apology. Compromise? I'm not compromising The safety of those two kids so you can look at yourself in the mirror. You want to go to Santa Rosa? Be my guest, but know this, you aren't getting out of there alive. So, anytime you're ready to leave? by all means, please leave." 

Grendel walked over to the Land Rover, and turned and gave me a scowl. They loaded up and headed back to highway 40, and turned toward Santa Rosa. Ashley appeared on my right. She rested her right hand on my fore arm as she watched them disappear down highway 40.

"So we're not going to Utah anymore, I'm guessing." She said.

"Nope." I gave her a sideways look, neither smiling nor frowning. "and neither are they."

She didn't answer.

"Ashley, there were over 10,000 people living in that town, and if our experiences tell us anything, well then, I'm guessing over half of those people aren't people anymore. and Grendel and his whole crew? Their dead too."

I patted her on the hand and folded the map and put it in its folder. there was a frontage road that would take us most of the way around Santa Rosa. I emptied what was left of the extra fuel we were carrying into the main tank, so we had a tad over three quarters of a full tank, two full reserves and all the extra cans were empty. Thirty-five minutes later, we were almost all the way around Santa Rosa, when a familiar sight made our stomachs turn, we turned back onto highway 40 from frontage road, there with one front tire in a ditch sat the now empty Land Rover, we grabbed our weapons and got out to survey the scene, it was deserted, but there was fresh blood on the fenders. I moved to the back of the vehicle and reached under to tap on the gas tank, almost full. So I retrieved the siphon pump and empty cans and drained it. "We have to stay off of the main highway for a while," I thought to myself. Ashley gave me a concerned look. I looked back at her.

"This wasn't zombies, and whoever did this wasn't after fuel." I said.

"What's more important than fuel?" She asked.

"Women."

As difficult as it was to think about, Merci and the two other girls of their group were all still reasonably young and quite good-looking, and what Henry found while checking the ditch only confirmed such suspicions. There lying face down in the ditch were Grendel and the other three men in the group. All shot in the back of the head. Executioner style, The wind began picking up, so we all loaded the gas cans and got back in the truck and headed back to the frontage road. We had put Santa Rosa 15 miles behind us, it was sometime around sunset, when something caught Ashley's eyes as she looked through her binoculars. We cautiously pulled over and got out to see what Ashley saw, there below us, on highway 40, lying beside the road were the bodies of Merci and the other two girls. Their pants were removed, clearly they were raped and shot and left to rot like roadkill, with no remorse or afterthought. Regular people, it seemed, were becoming as bad if not worse than the zombies themselves. 

~Scratch. A.B.T. Copyright © 2025~

Welcome To Strange: Ironwood.

 

I retrieved my set of bolt cutters from the truck and went back in to cut the locks. When I swung open the door there was a fully stocked tool box, I grabbed whatever we could use, in the corner sat four bright red plastic 5 gallon gas cans, two were full, one was over half, one was empty, I checked to see what kind of fuel was in them, paydirt, again. in regard to us collecting gasoline, we had been very lucky so far. Such would not always be the case, but for now, we were able to keep the wheels moving toward Cold Springs, Idaho. I nodded to the office door to Ashley, She and Henry went inside while I loaded the tools and gas into the back of the truck, and secured them to the bed with lock down ties. Moments later she appeared in the doorway with the biggest smile I'd ever seen, she walked up and handed me a pistol that she'd found in the office desk drawer with four boxes of Ammo, two extra magazines, and a holster.

"Crash? is this what I think it is?" She asked.

"It's a .45 Colt 1911, this will be a good side piece for you Ash, just remember it fires different and has more recoil than the Glock."  I cautioned her. "We'll have to find some time for you to learn how to shoot it. but it's a great gun."    

I watched her confidently replace her Glock holster with the 1911 on her belt, a sly smile slowly spread across her face as she loaded a full magazine and slid the 1911 into it's holster, on her belt. I wasn't sure whether I was concerned or proud of how quickly Ashley and Henry had grown into their roles as zombie, and sometimes people killers. They had both gotten quite comfortable with the firearms that they had been using up to that point, comfortable and efficient. I had no doubt in my mind that Ashley would not only adapt to the 1911, but she would become quite proficient in its use. We loaded up and were back on the road twenty minutes later. The rain began to subside, but the wind persisted and grew slightly stronger. Just before noon, we found a tightly grouped grove of trees on top of a hillside overlooking the tiny town of Grotto, New Mexico. The trees provided us with a bit of a wind break, so we got out to take a look at Grotto. About 150 yards away below us, there was a group of men surrounding another smaller group of people on their knees with their hands clasped behind their heads. In the middle of a circle of seven people or so, there was someone lying on the ground being savagely beaten and kicked.

 I looked at Ashley, and she gave me an annoyed look, as did Henry. We all recognized bullies when we'd seen them, The people on their knees were clearly unarmed and couldn't defend themselves. There were no zombies around to speak of, these were just regular people, doing evil shit. We secured the truck and collected some weapons, and all three of us began walking down the side of the hill, they didn't even notice us until we closed within 75 yards. then the leader sounded the alarm, and right away the group began firing on our position, we hid behind some junk cars and returned fire, I had the S&W slung over my shoulder but was returning fire with one of the AR-15s. Ashley had her Winchester and Henry his Mossberg. apparently they never experienced someone shooting back at them before, and they fell back to a couple of SUVs, we pressed the attack, Henry and Ashley moving around their right flank keeping up the pressure, while I moved to the left switching to the S&W auto, with which I began blowing massive holes in the sides of the SUV's. 

The one whom I was guessing was their leader tried to return fire on me, but I shot him through a part of the SUV and took off the side of his head, I returned to the AR-15 and fired on the remainder of the group and then, down to three left, they tried to run while firing, we took them down clean. I took a round that barely caught the side of my abdomen and Henry got nicked in his right thigh, but we pretty much got away with it. We walked over to the people who were being held up, and introduced ourselves. There were seven of them total. four men and three women. They said that they were just a family in a mini bus trying to get to the other side of Provo Utah where their family had a farm. I explained to them that before the radios went dead we'd heard that Provo and Salt Lake City had both fallen to the virus six months ago, and that both of those places were now crawling with stiffs, weapons still drawn we walked over to one of their dead, they were all dressed in military attire, but they weren't organized enough to actually be military. The father of the mini bus group appeared at my side. 

"Any idea who they were?" I asked him. 

He told me that they called themselves the Zeros, and they were a militant group, from an encampment called Hells Flat about 8 miles from there. they were going to take them there and force them to work farming vegetables and other tasks. I told him that he needed to get his group to gather up their weapons and as much ammo as they could find, clubs and knives would only get them so far, and where ever they were going, one thing was for certain there were going to be zombies. They rounded up the weapons and ammo, and then went through the SUV's and striped them of all the supplies they could carry. Ashley, Henry and I returned to the truck, Henry and I briefly treated our wounds and got in the truck and drove it down the hill to where the mini bus was. They were low on gas, so I gave them one full can and the half, they asked if they could follow behind us and we agreed tentatively. I referenced my map and the next town on the way was a little burg called Ironwood.

He said his name was Grendel and his wife's name was Merci they were living in the heart of Oklahoma when the world went to shit, they watched as their whole town descended straight into hell in a matter of hours, they helplessly watched as their friends and families were all swarmed under by an army of stiffs. Merci watched as her own mother and 12-year-old daughter turned on and attacked her, they barely made it out of Shawnee with their lives intact, three days later in Norman, they lost their youngest son when a group of road agents killed him and stole their motor coach along with everything they owned. they were on foot until they came upon the mini bus, the keys were in it, it started right up, and they had a half a tank of gas, and a hard shell cooler full of snacks, it was enough supplies to get them out of the immediate area, they scrounged for gas and had been moving ever since. We got the mini bus to almost a full tank of gas, and we were 125 miles from Santa Rosa, when we finally hit the road. As it turned out, that little burg called Ironwood just 7 miles down highway 40 would prove to be quite helpful to our new little family. we rolled into the Valero station at about 2:30 in the afternoon, the gas pumps, as usual, were not working, but there were a few cars around to check for fuel, and the best part? there were no signs of any stiffs. 

Henry and Ashley as usual armed to the teeth began to search the area, minutes later an excited Henry came around the side of the building and began to wave his arms at Grendel and me. He motioned toward the back of the building, we both quickly moved around the side to see an unexpected site, it was a newer model military style van, a little shorter than the mini bus, but it sat up higher for ground clearance, and it was 4-wheel drive, and had metal grating over the windows and a front bumper wench, below the hood, it looked like a Land Rover only longer. I opened the door and looked inside, and it was almost like new and had more than enough room for Grendel's whole crew, plus their supplies. I jumped up into the driver's seat and began to look for the keys, they were above the driver side visor, I put the key in the ignition and turned it, the gauges all lit up, and it showed that it had just over a quarter of a tank of gas I turned the engine over and after 3 tries it fired up, Grendel's eyes lit up as I pulled it out into the parking lot.

Finding a better vehicle was always a good thing, but now we had to transfer the gas from the mini bus into the Land Rover, and Grendel's crew wasted no time in transferring their supplies to the new vehicle. Meanwhile, Ashley and Henry watched and waited for anything to move. My little soldiers, Grendel and I finished draining the tanks of the mini bus and transferred it, I popped the hood and checked the oil, and it was full. Just as everyone got inside, Ashley came running over to inform me that there were a large group of stiffs headed right for us, right down the block I yelled at Grendel, don't slow down and don't stop. We all jumped in the truck and tore out of the Valero station, with the Land Rover fast behind us. The swarm of zombies behind us was much larger than we realized, but once again we narrowly escaped, as we turned onto highway 40 we quickly left Ironwood behind us.

~Scratch. A.B.T. Copyright © 2025~

Welcome To Strange: Scorched Earth.

 

Sunday, March 12th, 2084. 10:00 AM, Outskirts of Parkview. 

We hid up on a rise at the southeastern corner of Parkview, we stopped to take stock of our supplies, food and water, we were still in good shape, but we were down to a little over half a tank in the main fuel cell, so we needed to survey the area. We were all out in front of the truck scanning the scene below as it played out like some sick, bloody, twisted opera. It was crawling with stiffs, swarming mindlessly, like angry locusts, over anything that moved. The thing about zombies, the truly disturbing thing, is that when you look at them, when you truly look at them, at least in my case, I couldn't help but wonder who they once were. They were human once, not so long ago, they were someone who mattered, to other people, son's, wives, daughters, fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers. They had lives once, families, hopes and dreams, lives enriched by both love and fear. Now they were just an unfortunate side effect, of a disease that had only served to destroy a once vibrant world, and had left it a shattered dead and dying shell of its former self. Welcome one, welcome all, to the new normal, to the age of the undead. Scotched earth, where all that there is left to live for is one more day amongst the living.

The numbers we watched below were growing at an alarming rate, when we first got there, if I had to guess, I would have to say that there were probably 75 stiffs stumbling around down there, in the short amount of time that we'd spent watching them, their number's doubled, down the street there were even more, sure, we could have rolled up and shot the shit out of them, but we would have run out of ammo before they ran out of stiffs, and the numbers would have won, again. After checking the map, there was a little place just past Parkview where we might be able to score some gas a little more freely and quite possibly easier than to attempt a run at Parkview. There was a dirt road running along the treeline on the ridge above us, if it wasn't too rough we could bypass Parkview completely without losing much time. We got back in the truck and as quietly as possible turned around and made our way slowly to the dirt road, up one rut and down another We slowly made our way around Parkview, an hour or so later the dirt road took a turn downward toward highway 40, and we were back on pavement heading to the small town of Calico. 

We pulled into the deserted convenience store/gas station just outside of Calico around 3:00 PM, the skies were getting cloudy, and it began to feel like rain was coming. There were four abandoned vehicles and I grabbed the siphon pump and two 10 gallon gas cans and began checking the cars for gas, as it turned out one truck had almost a full tank after 3 trips I siphoned it dry, Ashley and Henry made their way inside the store to see if they could find anything useful, within seconds they found themselves engaged with five stiffs, Two tried to swarm Ashley, but she got off two rounds and shot them both in the head before her and Henry made a break for the door, but the last three stiffs were hot on their heels, Henry ended up with a baseball bat and just outside the front door by the gas pumps he swung at the lead stiffs head and the barrel of the bat landed with a wet thumping sound as he splattered its head all over the wall. I took the last two out with headshots with the Desert Eagle, we went back into the store, Ashley found ten, one gallon jugs of water, we got six boxes of ibuprofen, and a couple of plastic jars of teriyaki sticks, and eight rolls of paper towels. We counted our blessings and got back in the truck and headed for the New Mexico border, we would be there before nightfall.

By the time we hit Bixby, New Mexico just across the border, the clouds opened up, and we found ourselves in a downpour. Bixby, New Mexico, just a bump in the road, with a few old buildings and some overturned cars and dead bodies on each side of the road, I found myself holding my breath ever so slightly, almost relieved that nothing was moving. Welcome to New Mexico, The Land of Enchantment. It didn't look too enchanting to me, to me, it looked deserted. Empty fields, stretched out for miles in every direction, I looked over at Ashley, her eyes staring blankly out of the passenger window, at miles and miles of nothing, Henry slept peacefully in the back, the wind began picking up, and I could feel it pushing slightly at the front of The GMC. Four more miles down the road we found a gas station with an empty garage I pulled up in front of it and checking behind for stiffs, I slowly backed the truck into it, I got out and pulled down the overhead door and stuck a bolt through the lock hasp to keep out unwanted guests. I entered the office through the side door and secured the front door as well, Ashley appeared in the doorway behind me.

"No back door?" she asked. 

"No, it doesn't appear so." I answered. "This is a solid brick building, The storm is going to get bad, the wind is really picking up, but we should be okay in here." I told her.

We slept through the night without incident, but just at the break of dawn, Ashley nudged me awake, she had gone to use the office restroom, and when she came back out, over the top of the dunes across the highway she had seen a lot of movement, heading toward us. I started the truck and kicked the bolt out of the hasp lock and raised the door, they were still a good 55 or 60 yards across the highway up on the hill, the wind was giving them trouble, as I pulled out onto highway 40 two stiffs wandered out in front of us, their bodies made a wet, crunchy, thumping noise as they bounced off of the brush guard. I hit the gas and didn't look behind me, twenty more miles down the road we passed by yet another abandoned gas station, Ashley and Henry watched the door for stiff while I scavenged for whatever tools and such we could use to keep us on the road. There was an enclosed metal cage still locked, it had slates in between the chain link fencing so you couldn't see what was inside. there were four heavy locks securing the door. 

~Scratch. A.B.T. Copyright © 2025~

Welcome To Strange: Zombies Look Like People. (But Dirty)

 

Friday, March 10th, 2084. 10 miles east of Middleton, Texas. 

We had a couple of close calls since we'd left the farm behind us, mostly stiffs who were just scrounging for brains or whatever they could get, I suppose, we were never outnumbered, nor in any danger, all they were was target practice for Ashley and Henry. The only time we really faced any tests were at the hands of uninfected people, and even those were getting predictable. We were about three miles east of Weir rd on highway 40.  I saw the truck turned almost sideways in the middle of the road, I pulled over at a safe distance and checked it out with the binoculars, the doors were open, and the hood was up. The whole scene screamed set up, highway 40 has four lanes, two in each direction, two irrigation ditches complete with tall underbrush one on each side. Perfect place to lay in wait, I retrained the binoculars back on the truck itself, more in particular the tires. I zoomed in on them and was able to determine that they were the same size as ours, and we didn't have a spare, they had one sticking up on the side of the bed, and it didn't look secured.

Suddenly an idea began to form in my head, I had Ashley and Henry sit up on the rack on top of the cab, they both had a Glock with extra magazines. I told them to pay close attention to the ditches on either side of the road, if anybody popped up to shoot them back into hiding. all I needed was a couple of minutes to get that spare tire and disable their truck. We slowly rolled up to within twenty feet. I got out with the S&W auto, and walked to the bed of their truck and got the spare, right on cue, two guys popped up out of the ditches on both sides of the highway before Ashley and Henry opened up on them, I put the spare in the bed of our truck, and walked back over to theirs, and shot out both front tires and for good measure shot a big hole in their radiator. They were screaming and yelling from the ditches as I casually walked back to our truck, Ashley and Henry rejoined me in the cab, and we drove around the wounded vehicle. 

I saw them in the rearview mirror, and clearly they were unhappy that their little plan backfired, Within a minute or two we were on Weir rd, and two miles to the left we hit pay dirt, again, we couldn't believe our recent luck, you would think that a place full of gun's, ammo and survival gear would have been picked clean, but Jackman's Hunting and Fishing Emporium was for the most part, untouched, Henry stood watch while Ashley and I went inside, we found heavy-duty canvas black tactical pants, shirts, and boots, and even found bulletproof vests in the back room, we scored three new rifles, including two AR-15s with several boxes of ammo. For Ashley, we picked up a Winchester model 70, and for Henry a Mossberg Patriot and for me, I grabbed myself a lever action Winchester 30-30 and a Desert Eagle. We upgraded our binoculars, and then all three of us had our own pair. Added to our dried goods and four boxes of Sterno with a portable stove. Loaded it all up, and down the road we went. We hit the edge of Middleton at about 2:00 PM.

We did our homework, all the information that we had told us that in the heart of Middleton Texas there were about 53,000 people, that was a lot of bad guys, and a shitload of leg dragging, brain munching, drooling, slobbering undead, zombies. Having recently topped off our fuel tanks, we were good on gas, we still had plenty of food and water, guns and ammo. So, we decided to skirt around the outside the city limits, ahead there was a crowd growing, we pulled over to examine the situation, there were about 20 to 25 stiffs drooling, slobbering, grunting around the bottom of a small gas station, trapped on the roof were two teenagers, a boy and a girl. okay I figured that it was time to test out the brush guard on this baby, on the first pass I ran over 7 of them. on my second pass it was like they were figuring shit out as they spread out so I couldn't do it again, but I still ran over 5 on my second pass, I drove a block down the street and Ashley and Henry climbed up on top of the bed cage and I passed them the Winchester Model 70 and The Mossberg, I took out the 30-30, and we began cutting down what was left. when they were down to 7 or 8, they began dragging their rotting asses in our direction. 

The first one closed to within 20 yards of the truck and I switched to the S&W Auto shotgun I split it in half with my first shot, puss and blood flew in every direction, the second was a bit bigger but just as fast, I blew fat boys head clean off just inside 25 yards, Ashley and Henry were cutting down the rest. It got eerily quiet as we slowly pulled up to the station. Something didn't feel right, I looked up on the roof and suddenly the two teenagers were nowhere to be seen, Henry appeared beside the truck with two plastic buckets a box of soap and sponges. I nodded toward the roof and, puzzled, he shook his head no. We weren't sticking around, we jumped back in the truck and tore out of there, it didn't take long, and we had company, and they were drawing a bead on us, two vehicles appeared from either side of the gas station, we were a good 150 yards ahead of them, but they were closing fast, so I went off-road and headed for the first hill that I could find, I told Ashley and Henry to be ready to bail out on my word, they readied the rifles and then themselves. we skidded to a stop at the top of the hill, and all three of us bailed out with weapons drawn. 

I planted myself behind a large rock and as the first truck rounded the turn at the top, I opened up on them with the S&W auto, my first shot took out the right front tire, most of the fender, the second shot took out their grill and radiator, they skidded left, and the truck rolled several times. It came to a stop on the far side of the hill completely upside down, there was no movement, the second truck had broken off the pursuit and was headed for parts unknown. We cautiously approached the overturned vehicle, there were no signs of life, I motioned for Ashley and Henry to check over the sides of the hill, the two teenagers that were on the roof were thrown from the vehicle when in started to roll, both landed on a bed of rocks and weren't moving. the two inside the cab had their skulls crushed. I made a circle in the air with my fore finger, and we loaded back up and returned to the highway. Aside from the occasional stiff standing on the side of the road, we didn't see much between Middleton and Parkview, and if Middleton was supposed to be bad, what was waiting for us in Parkview was sure to be hell on earth.

~Scratch.. A.B.T. Copyright © 2024~

Welcome To Strange: The Road to Cold Springs.

 

We rolled through the outskirts of Ridgeway without stopping, to say that the truck took significant damage would be an understatement, it wasn't zombies that were waiting for us, it was people. We had to plow through several abandoned vehicles and were hit with a barrage of bricks and rocks, most of the windows got cracked, but they held. Luckily for us the one thing that they didn't have were guns, but we did, and surprising even me Ashley took the bull by the horns and used The S&W auto shotgun, and Henry even used one of the Glock's, when we started firing back the people made themselves scarce. All except for one dude who found himself on the front bumper of my truck, which he ended up under as I ran him over, through the cracked glass of the side window, I could hear the snap and crunch of his bones, as the tires passed over him, muffling his screams. Unknown to us at the time, he'd left behind a little trinket for us as we discovered 10 miles down the road. We pulled over after we found a spot that we deemed safe, so we could assess the damage to the truck, and it was pretty much screwed. There, stuck between the bumper and the grill, was a working two-way radio, and as we listened to the crosstalk it became obvious the people in Ridgeway were working with Aaron Trickle in Cranston. We limped along highway 40 until 35 miles later, when we crossed over into rural Texas. Our luck was about to seriously change for the better. 

We turned off the highway onto a small pothole riddled dirt road that went out into what looked like empty fields, we pulled over where there was nothing on all sides, we found a good spot, we could see in every direction for miles, nobody could sneak up on us. I used the binoculars to scan the area off in the distance, there was a large group of trees at the end of a narrow gravel road, sticking up over the treeline was what looked the top of a grain silo. We drove to it and turned slowly onto the gravel road heading for the trees, when all at once steam sprayed upwards from the front of the truck, the radiator had been punctured, we weren't going to be getting too much farther. When we finally pulled up next to the silo there was a house and a barn along with two other smaller trucks in the driveway, water and steam poured out from our radiator, we needed a new vehicle. Cautiously I took the S&W auto, Ashley and Henry armed themselves with two of the Glock's with extra magazines. We slowly made our way up to the front porch, pausing slightly after every ten feet. No sound, no movement, I went to the front door and tried the knob, it turned easily as it swung open wide with a slow creaking noise.

I stepped inside and motioned for Ashley and Henry to move toward where I saw a long dining room table. I stepped into another room where there was a large desk with a man laying back in a chair, arms dangling off to the sides, a slight strange smell hit my nostrils causing me to cover my mouth, he'd been shot to death, judging from the smell, probably awhile ago. on the desk I found a tall, thick black leather-bound book with papers sticking out of it. As it turned out, the book was his journal, and it was loaded with tons of useful information. We were on the farm of Dr. Noah Crosby, and according to his diary he had returned to Texas a year ago, after working in a lab in New Delhi India, where a new, more deadly strain of the flu virus broke out, he helped to develop a new vaccine To help fight it, however later discovering that the vaccine only mutated the virus making it stronger and more lethal without ever curing it. His warnings however were ignored, so he packed it in and returned to Texas to begin preparing for what he knew was coming. He thought that he would have at least a year to prepare, but the virus got out into the wild, and nine months later it began to burn its way across the globe.

The economy collapsed, on a global scale, governments struggled to retain power, many declared martial law, many people died, the one's who weren't bitten stayed dead, the one's who were bitten, refused to die. The virus tore through Europe in a matter of weeks, everything collapsed, cities burnt, the militaries in most of Europe became infected, the parts that weren't were forced to retreat into pockets of civilization, within a few months, Great Britain, Germany, France, Russia, Italy, Poland. Spain and Portugal, ninety percent of Europe and Asia fell. Ireland maintained for the longest, before it finally lost the battle. The virus wasn't done there, it found its way onto the airlines and their passengers, 15 different cargo ships, bound for several different ports in America, each with a crew of 30 to 40 people, and another 10 ships headed for Mexico, and 9 to Canada, all turned into undead monsters, just itching to reach out and bite someone. By the time those planes and ships reached their destinations, Ninety percent of the crews were already infected but had not yet turned. America, Mexico, North America as a whole and Canada, within a year it all fell to pieces. And nobody could stop it, those who survived, were left with bits and pieces of a world we no longer recognized. Now it was a day-to-day struggle. with no rules but the ones we'd made for ourselves.

  

I came into the dining room where Ashley walked through from what I guessed was the kitchen, she said that there were a lot of canned goods and such that we could use as long as no one was still there. I told her about Dr. Crosby and about how he had been shot to death and there didn't appear to be anyone living with him. We scoured the area for anything we could use, Ashley and Henry found a few more guns in the closet along with several boxes of ammo, we gathered all the food that we could carry, several gallons of fresh water, but it was in the locked shop behind the house that we found the mother lode. A one ton 4 X4 GMC truck completely outfitted as a bug out vehicle. We went from a 25 gallon fuel tank with one reserve, to a 45 gallon main with two 15 gallon reserves, plenty of side compartments for supplies and a quarter of an inch thick steel cage over an eight-foot six-inch bed, covered by a heavy canvas tarp, and a cutout over the tailgate, for firing weapons on the go. a full covered steel brush guard over the front grill with an electric wench, and bulletproof glass and covers on the side windows. Basically, the thing was a road ready tank.

The keys were still in the ignition of the new truck, so we put water in the radiator to get the old truck started long enough to move it in front of the shop doors, I opened the hood and hooked up battery cables, and turned the key on, the gauges all lit up showing that the main gas tank was almost empty, but the two reserves were full, as soon as we got it started, the battery indicator showed it was taking a charge, so I pulled it out of the workshop and beside of the old truck, and let the engine run to charge the battery, We finished the charge and turned it off, and I proceeded to drain the fuel tanks of the old truck while Ashley and Henry loaded up the food, water, new guns and ammo, the next town we were due to hit was a place called Middleton, about 195 miles to the Northwest of Pemberton, however it being late in the afternoon, Henry and I dug a hole in the backyard and gave Dr. Noah Crosby the best burial that we could, beneath an Alligator Juniper tree, Ashley even made a makeshift cross. We backed the truck inside the attached garage next to the house and opted to try to head out the next morning. The kids slept, I read through the journal of Dr. Noah Crosby.   

He wrote about a place in the upper northwest corner of Idaho, he called Cold Springs, in his journal he wrote, it was supposedly deserted, and there were no infected people there, There was a massive compound that could be easily fortified, built on a river with a working hydroelectric river dam that generates electricity, it supposedly had a large seasonal vegetable garden and there was an abundance of wildlife living there including Deer, Elk, and wild game birds such as chukar, grouse, pheasant, and wild turkey, and free-range chicken running everywhere, the only real problem we would face, would be getting there, the 1575 miles that they would have to cross to get there was going to be a problem. I would be discussing this with the kids. Dr. Crosby wrote that he'd learned about this place after listening to several ham radio broadcasts, over a period of two months gathering all the clues to figure out where it was, then one month ago the transmissions stopped. The night we spent at the Crosby farm was one of the most peaceful rests that any of us had had in the past year, Ashley and Henry slept through the night, and I managed to get a full 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep myself, the next morning we rose before the sun and helped ourselves to some breakfast, before I went to the garage and warmed up the truck engine. We left Crosby farm behind us at 5:30 AM, and headed for Middleton.

~Scratch.. A.B.T. Copyright © 2024~

Welcome To Strange. Zombie's in The Land Of Milk and Honey.

 

Tuesday, February 29th, 2084.

They had been with me just long enough for me to get to know their names. She was a whopping 17-year-old blonde haired and blued stunner, and her name was Ashley, her younger brother was fourteen, his name was Henry, and they were both raised in a family of hunters, and both were familiar with the use of firearms. Prior to Louis Taft and I, finding them trying to fend off a pack of drooling flesh hungry stiffs, they had both suffered through the experience of watching the virus take each of their parents-turning them before the siblings were forced to flee for their lives without any weapons. Never having been one to have a great deal of trust in adults or the rest of the world to begin with, the first time that I had turned my back for more than twenty minutes-Ashley had scooped up her younger brother and was gone like the wind. In spite of my search efforts, I never saw them either of them again-until yesterday. I had passed through several small towns between then and yesterday, and surprisingly had little trouble with refueling the truck whenever necessary, I had a few run ins with some more stiffs, a few of them alive but mostly dead. Welcome to the land of milk and honey. Paradise. Zombie Central.

I stuck to the highways mostly, they were passable for the most part, so I headed East toward the mountains on highway 10. In the foothills beneath a small little shithole called Cranston, I caught my first sight of snow. I pulled into a small little rest area just off of the freeway to catch my breath and stretch my legs-when I rolled out of the cab of the truck, I caught a whiff of a familiar scent, not to mention two sets of fresh footprints in the snow heading away from an old beat up Honda Civic with steam coming from the engine. I studied the scene carefully before pulling the S&W out from behind the seat, I closed up the truck and took the keys out of the ignition just in case. there were no drag marks near or behind the footprints, which told me whoever had made them was very much alive. One set went into one of the restrooms, the other went around the back of the building, I decided that I would wait them out and got back into the truck to get a couple of extra clips of ammo and that's when I caught a glimpse of the one in the restroom.

“So are you going to come out here and get something to eat, Ashley, or are you just going to stay in there and starve?”

Slowly she appeared in the doorway, stared at me for a time but didn’t offer much in the way of conversation.

“So where’s Henry?”

“He’s going to the bathroom, so how did you find us Crash?”

“I wasn’t looking for you, I suppose we just happened to be moving in the same direction. How did you get so far North of Vicksburg?”

“That gas station that we stopped in, when you went inside we went around the corner there was a car there with the keys still in the ignition, I can drive, and it had a full tank of gas so we took it and headed East.”

“To do what exactly?”

“We went to our grandparent's house-they-”

“Dead?”

She lowered her head.

“We think that they took their own lives rather than wait for the virus.”

Henry appeared from out of the restroom and seemed genuinely surprised to see me, I shared some food with them, and told them I was going to carefully roll into Cranston to see what I could find. they could continue to take their chances on their own, or they could come with me. Ashley rode shotgun and Henry climbed into the rear seat of the king cab, and we headed to Cranston, never dreaming what we would find.

Cranston.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was just one of those types of things, just a feeling that tugs at you sometimes for no particular reason, and not in a good way. I pulled over to the side of the road just about two miles from the town limits. Ashley passed me my binoculars from the glove box, and I opened the door and slid out from the seat to take a look. There were fences with barbed wire wrapped across the top stretched out across the highway and across the empty fields. A few overturned cars blocked the road and seemed to be acting as a main gate into town.  A town, in which I'd guessed were more than a few uninfected people who were trying to stay that way. I didn’t see any sign of any stiffs, but they were definitely trying to keep something out. that’s when I saw something coming at us fast from across the field, the smell hit me hard before they even got close, I pulled out the S&W just in time to splatter two stiffs all over the highway. But something was different about these-these two seemed to move a lot faster than the ones I encountered before, and they were white as snow, in the distance towards Cranston I heard a motorcycle headed toward us. I held up the S&W and waited.

He pulled up next to me just as I was standing over the two stiffs giving them the side eye, he cautiously rolled up beside me, with no particular aggression, upon closer inspection these stiffs were something way different from the ones we'd encountered before, they were faster, more agile. the guy standing on my left told me his name was Aaron Trickle, and he was one of three mechanics in Cranston that kept all the vehicles running. There were all told about 35 people living there, and for the past three months they had been fighting off what they were calling the frosties. He'd guessed like everyone else in Cranston that they'd made their way down from a place in the mountains called Cleffton, it was a town bigger than Cranston, there were about 620 people living there at last count, and there was no telling exactly how many of those had been turned into frosties, and they'd usually only came in small groups of seven or eight, and always from the same direction across the fields down the mountain from Cleffton.

They had been surviving in Cranston for three plus months with no outside help, but people were starting to get the itch to move, and the frosties were starting to wear on their nerves. They hadn't been to any other towns for fear of what they'd find. I told him everything that I knew, and that if they at any time need to venture out to scrounge for supplies to have at least three or four people and to stay away from highly populated areas as the bigger cities had mostly fallen to the virus, and they weren't safe. After Aaron Trickle had decided to return to Cranston, and watching him leave, something began to gnaw at me, that little voice in my head that I had grown to trust so much was telling me, that he didn't come out because I killed two frosties, he came out to see if I was armed and alone. I put Ashley into the driver's seat and told her to pull the truck into the far lane of Highway 10 and to drive as fast as she could past Cranston, as she did, another smaller truck pulled out behind us, there were four guys that I counted in the cab and bed, I sat on my knee's in the back and kept the S&W out of sight.

The two guys in the bed of the mini truck came up over the top of their cab with two hand guns and fired off a couple of rounds at the back of my truck, Ashley slowed down a bit to let them catch up just close enough for me to fire off three rounds from the S&W right into their radiator, they immediately broke off any further pursuit, and we pretty much got away unscathed, my hunch was correct, they wanted our gas, and whatever else we were carrying. Ashley put a comfortable distance between us and Cranston before she pulled over. she was shaken but quickly recovered and moved to the passenger seat, passing me the binoculars. There were three buildings ahead of us on our right, no cars, no people, but there were what seemed to be fresh tire tracks, I slowed the truck as we passed, but didn't stop. We pressed on until we arrived at an abandoned rest area, Ashley and Henry used the restroom, while I checked the map to see where we were headed next, the next town was a shithole called Ridgeway. We rolled into town around 1:00 PM, Big Mistake.

~Scratch.. A.B.T. Copyright © 2024~

Welcome to Strange.. Population Zero.. Or- How I survived the Zombie Apocalypse.

Friday, February 23, 2084 

 Sometimes you know-you hear about really bad shit before it actually happens to you on the TV. Like take for instance this whole situation that the world currently finds itself in- they’re calling it the real zombie apocalypse. some nitwit lab tech got infected by some stupid virus that some bio chemist had been working on for some fucked up government agency. He got out-went bonkers and bit somebody and infected them, and it just kept spreading from there. Sure, Sure, it was a bit more complicated than that, but that was the gist of it. Next thing you know it's all over the news, in every major city, riots, mass hysteria, people getting infected by the thousands. End of the line-Zombie apocalypse, front and center, live and in technicolor. Hell, even though I saw a lot of it on TV before everything went off the air, I still either found myself not believing it or not caring about it. That was 13 months ago, then it came to my neighborhood, I lived in Pleasant city. on Primrose street, see, the first one I actually saw was what was looking a lot like my neighbor down the street, Fred Boxner. kinda tall, skinny lanky whatever, always did walk a bit slow, never noticed the blood on his shirt or the drool dripping down his chin, still had that same vacant look in his eyes that he always did though. 

I remember it was just before breakfast on a Monday morning, the sun was out and there was a little chill in the air as I stepped out onto the porch. I sat my coffee cup down and watched ol Fred drag his sorry undead ass up the empty street, and then it struck me- I never liked that prick much anyway. Fred was the type to always have an angle on everything, the rotten bastard never ever bought his own shit, if you had something that he could use he would borrow it by hook or by crook, and now that I was thinking about it that prick still had my weed whacker that he’d borrowed from me over ten months ago. So here he came, lumbering down the street, and that’s about when I had my first epiphany. If this really was the end of the line for the whole damn human race, and there really wasn’t any more law and order to be had, I suppose that left me with the only option that I had left, if ol Fred really was now a full-fledged zombie I guess that left me with little choice in the matter but to go into survival mode. See-the problem most people have always had with me was what many of my neighbors considered an unhealthy appetite for automatic weapons. and I own a LOT of automatic weapons. 

So I walked back into the house not panicking at all, I went into my special room and retrieved The S&W automatic 12 gauge shotgun and loaded a fresh clip into it before returning to the street to greet ol Fred. So he was still about halfway down the block when he first saw me, I could tell right away by looking into his beady little undead eyes that he was getting excited at the prospect of having a brain sandwich at my expense. So I stepped down onto the sidewalk and called out to him. “Hey Fred? unless you’re coming down here to return my weed whacker and lawn mower, you might want to take your scrawny-ugly slobbering undead ass in a different direction! this isn’t going to end well for you ol buddy” “Gaaaaaaaaahhh... Gnnnnning… Raaaaaawr!” “Think it through, Fred, you don’t want none of this.” “Arrrrrrrgh... gnaaaaaaagh!” “C’mon Fred... You know I have issues.” So, ol Fred, yeah, he never was the sharpest knife in the drawer. So I raised the barrel of the S&W And the first round that I fired off took his left leg, it made a squishy crunching sound as he fell, the blood oozing out of his severed leg wasn't even red anymore, it was black, and thick... like oil.. He dropped to the ground, still making those nasty gurgling noises. But I could tell the pain wasn’t registering, he was way too far gone. 

I could already smell him from down the street, and he smelled like a combination of rotting flesh and pure shit, his skin had this slimey green color to it, and it looked like it was sliding off his body, exposing rotting muscle tissue, Fred had been gone for awhile now it seemed, and whatever this was looking back up at me through those dark souless eyes, it wasn't Fred anymore, now it was something else.  I calmly walked up to him and took off his head with the very next shot. I looked around and didn’t see anybody else, and I also decided that I wasn't waiting around either, so I went home and packed up the king cab Truck with supplies and enough guns, and ammo along with a few other weapons that I had lying around & whatever food I had to last me awhile. I had a reserve gas tank installed on it awhile back in case of emergencies, the primary and the reserve were both full. So I got it packed up and decided to head out for the country, strange I didn’t recall seeing much of anybody on the way out of town, I guess they were just faster than me to see the urgency of the situation and high tailed it out of there. So with an uncertain future ahead of me and one dead ex neighbor behind me, I headed for the sunset. My name is Jacob P. Callahan and this is my new life now here in the zombie Apocalypse. things are gonna get strange I suppose, even stranger than before, my name is Jacob- but you can call me Crash.

Tuesday February 27th, 9:37 AM. 2084, Gastone Kansas, ten miles from Wichita.

She was kinda hot, you know- for a dead chick. A slobbering- drooling dead chick that was running her dead little ass off. I knew that I was safe for the moment,  being locked inside of a moving vehicle with the windows rolled up, and so my morbid curiosity was beginning to get the better of me, and then- seeing as how she was all alone, I just had to see for myself where exactly she was running off to. That’s when I spotted the short pudgy fat guy running HIS ass off right down the middle of Fordham road- Peckham County,  just twenty yards ahead of her. Sure he had twenty yards on her at least, but she was gaining on him fast. You know- sometimes when you see that a situation is dire, maybe not for you per se, but you can tell by watching events unfold that someone is about to have a really fucked up day. The fat guy- yeah, his morning was definitely heading downhill fast, his morning? Yeah, it was gaining on him fast, and it looked hungry. So I pulled the truck in behind her about 150 feet back, and I know that she must have been really hungry because she didn’t even break stride to look back at me.  So I took a deep breath and carefully assessed fatty’s situation, and it had become readily apparent that I was his only shot at survival at that moment. I gave the truck a little more gas as I reached for the Glock nine on the passenger seat.  I pulled up beside her about fifteen feet away as I rolled down the window and trained the Glock on her head.

"Hey baby... Sup?”

“Gaaaaaaaagh!”

She turned toward me and all it took was one shot in the head to drop her like a stone. I eased my foot off the gas pedal not wanting to catch up too quick, I stopped to study the body of the person I just shot in the head, the person who used to be a vibrant beautiful young female. I thought about it for a minute, how in the fuck does this kind of shit happen here? this is small town America, we were ten miles from the nearest major city, How did it get here? Meanwhile the big guy- yeah, him, he’d turned onto Valley Creek road and was running toward an open field but still in the middle of the road. I pulled up beside of him and he was wheezing really heavy, covered in sweat, his face was red as a beet, I thought he was going to drop right there in the middle of the street. I left the window rolled down he didn'’t even look at me. I swear the poor bastard looked like he was ready to drop. I imediately tried to recall everthing that I'd ever heard about zombies, either real or imagined, maybe there was some truth to some of it. I tried to play it out in my mind, what to ask him. Obviously this shit was contagious, I was going to have to be careful. 

“Morning.”

He didn’t break stride to look over at me, I think something akin to shock had set in. Then his face was getting paler by the second.

“She isn’t chasing you anymore man, I put her down about a half a mile back.” I Told Him.

I slowed down the truck as he slowly staggered to an eventual stop, before he collapsed against my left front fender trying to catch his breath. I studied him for several minutes trying to determine whether or not he’d been infected. there seemed to still be too much intelligence in his eyes, intelligence mixed with fear and uncertainty.

“Have you been bitten?” I asked almost casually.

He looked up at me shaking his head no.

“Scratched?”

Again no.

“You got a name?”

Still half out of breath he told me that his name was Louis Taft and that the woman that was chasing after him, the woman that wanted so desperately to eat his brain- the one that I shot in the head. That zombie that had once been a fully functional human being-  was his daughter. Sometimes- you can say I’m sorry a million times, and no matter how many times you can hear those words coming out of your own mouth, it never seems to be enough. Louis Taft was broken now, much like the rest of the world, or what was left of it. I still couldn’t be certain or not whether he’d been bitten, So I told him to climb in the back of the truck and I threw him a box of Granola bars and a few Terryaki sticks in case he was hungry. It would have to do for the time being. We sat in the middle of the road, the truck still running exchanging bits of information, what we knew to be true and filling in the gaps on what we weren't quite clear on, he and his daughter had been downtown when the shit hit the fan, they were one block from the train station where it all seemed to start from, his daughter had been bit, before they jumped in his car, she turned within minutes right there in the back seat, she freaked out, he hit a tree and bailed out of the car and took off down the street, when he looked back she was hot on his heels. The rest I knew. I turned the truck down Valley Creek road and headed for State route 6. there was a small little gas station/general store not too far from there, we would be needing supplies soon.

In a different light.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The General store for the most part was a pretty good haul, the electric was still not working, the gas pumps were still useless so we used my hand siphon pump to drain the tanks on four cars that hadn't been raided yet, I scrounged enough gas to refill both of the tanks in the truck and filled a couple of cans that we'd found in the garage part of the building. While everything was clear we went into the store and scrounged up a box of canned goods and some crackers and canned juice,  it was obvious that someone had all but cleaned out whatever they could carry, we loaded the rest into the back of the truck and headed for the county line. We crossed over into Crooke County at about 5:15 PM, it felt strange not seeing a lot of cars going down one of the most traveled roads in Cooke County, on State Route 6 we passed a few here and there that had went off the road for whatever reason, but mostly it just felt like Louis and me were the only two people left in the world, then, six miles from Vicksburgh we found out different.

There was a little country store with one Jeep CJ in the parking lot, I slowed the truck to a stop when we saw the ten lumbering figures trying to claw their way into the store. inside the front window there was  a young blonde haired girl- probably a teenager judging from her size, she looked to be a shade under five foot ten and what I’d guessed was her little brother, they were trapped by the drooling mob. I pulled the S&W auto shotgun from behind the seat in the king cab and opened the door the first two saw me and started stumbling toward the truck.  I told Louis that I would distract them while he got the kids out of the store and brought them back to the truck. He nodded and jumpped down behind me. I splattered the first two all over the road, the blood and guts spraying in every direction, the stench of rotting flesh hung in the air, but the rest knew that we were there then.  I grabbed another clip for the S&W and drew them away from the store there were only six of them left, six snarling –drooling bugs, I had more than enough rounds to take care of the problem.  I cut the last one down as Louis was pulling the kids from the store. One more straggler came running around the corner, headed for the truck. I put two rounds in its guts almost cutting it in half, as it made a wet plopping sound as it landed on the hot pavement.

I took another stray out with  a shot from the Glock Nine. The kids made it to the back of the truck just as the next wave of bugs came running out from the behind the store, I fired whatever I had left in the the auto shotgun into the snarling crowd, Louis was still about 75 feet from the truck when he stopped in the middle of the parking lot, he looked at me and yelled at me to run, he picked up a club from the side of the road, for a split second I froze as I saw him running into the crowd of zombies swinging the club violently. they stopped their advance and all of their attention was on Louis Taft, they swarmed over him like an army of angry ants, making slurping and crunching sounds as they ripped off chucks of his flesh. I jumped into the cab of the truck and slammed it into gear and headed in the opposite direction. The two kids in the back hung on for dear life, and as I looked into the rear view mirror I couldn’t see him anymore, they had fed. I paused if only for the briefest of moments in my mind to give thanks to someone that I barely knew, but sacrificed himself so that I could escape. Louis Taft- was a broken man then.. or at least he was.. Now? he’s one of them.  

~Scratch.. A.B.T. Copyright © 2024~