A map of the area that Jake has been in the story so far:

The Green Dictates the path going.
The Blue Represents the path coming back

Chapter 9

Day began to give way to night.  The sky was crowded with shades of orange, blue and purple as dusk made its presence known.  Jake rammed the gear shifter through the first three gears, pausing between shifts only long enough to let the needle move past 4,000 and creep into the red.  As they traveled the two lane southbound side of the small highway, Jake would routinely have to swerve around little bands of the undead scattered near still smoking wreckage of car wrecks.

“Did Illinois have any roadblocks?” Kate half turned her face towards Jake as she yelled.

“Only around Chicago and a few along state borders.”

“Did they work?  Is there a safe zone?”

“Sorry Kate, the safe zones fell over a week ago.  Last word I got from the radio said all non-infected civilians and military were evacuated to some kind of remote stronghold.  They were ‘regrouping’…But I wouldn’t count on any help soon, if ever.”

Suddenly, the passenger door flew open.  The loud exhaust did little to muffle the sound of Chuck vomiting.  Jake slowed the vehicle down to a creep.

“Jesus, Chuck are you okay?” Kate leaned away from Chuck, as she empathetically asked.
Chuck wiped his mouth on the shirt sleeve of his good arm.  “I’m fine lady.  My medication is losing its affect.”

“Jake, he is really pale.  I think he’s dying.  He needs a doctor!”

Nearing the next mass of cars, Jake had no time to answer before the back half of a mid-nineties police cruiser pulled quickly in front of them.  Jake slammed on the brakes and found the business end of a rifle pointed directly at his head almost instantly.

“Roll down the window!” Boomed the voice on the other end of the rifle.

Jake grabbed for the gear shifter, but watched as another vehicle pulled in behind him, completely blocking any exit.  He complied with the demand and rolled the window down partially.  He had the sense that someone else was watching, but he couldn’t see any additional people.

“This road is now the Stein tollway.  You pay the toll, and we will let you pass, safe and sound.”

“Yeah, what exactly is the toll?” Jake asked.

“Food, ammunition.  We aren’t trying to rob you blind, but if we are to maintain such a tollway as this,” the skinny and somewhat dirty looking man removed his forward hand from the rifle, and gestured to the expanse of the roadway. “Well, we’re gonna need certain provisions to do so.”

“How wonderful of you to concern yourself with the conditions of the roadways in a time such as this, but unfortunately I have nothing to spare.” Jake mimicked the sarcasm present in the highway robbers voice.

“Well, then I’m going to tell you very nicely to get out of the vehicle so I can verify that.  If you have nothing to pay with, it wouldn’t be very Christian like of me to not let you pass.”

Jake turned his head towards his companions just in time to see Kate raise the pistol, just inches from his face.  As she fired the weapon, it didn’t make the familiar coughing sound of the suppressor.  This time it sounded louder than any pistol Jake had fired.  Metal fragments sprayed throughout the confines of the truck cab, and Jake screamed as hundreds of pieces of his homemade device found their way into his face and neck.  Jake threw both hands to cover his face as a reaction to the blast.   His ears were ringing but he could hear someone screaming.

Kate immediately dropped the pistol to the floorboard of the car after the suppressor exploded.  The round that had been fired still hit its intended mark, as was evidenced from the jagged hole in the driver’s side window, and the sudden disappearance of the ‘toll booth operator’.  She grabbed Jake’s head and shoved him hard into the door of the truck.  She threw the truck into reverse, and while barely able to reach the pedals from her position, sent the vehicle careening into the car behind them.  She immediately put the truck into its first gear, and slammed her foot onto the accelerator.
The sound of bullets hitting the truck sounded like raindrops falling on a  tin roof.  The additional people Jake had sensed were now running towards the truck from several different directions.  Ricocheting projectiles were making holes in every surface of the vehicle, as Kate ran directly over the body of the would be toll-man.

“Jake are you alive?”

“Yeah, I think I’m fine.  I don’t think anything hit that deep.  What the hell were you  thinking?”

“I-I don’t know, I just knew we had to get out of there.”

“Let me have the wheel.  I didn’t get anything in my eyes, thank God.” Jake turned onto a lesser known side street, and went the roundabout way to his house.  He kept an eye on the rearview the entire time to make sure they weren’t   being followed.

“We’re almost there.” Jake leaned forward and looked across Kate at Chuck.  “Chuck, hold on buddy.  We’re almost there.  Look guys,” Jake’s voice changed to a serious tone. “We can’t take this truck all the way to my house.  It’s just too loud, and they might be following us.  We’re gonna have to ditch it somewhere quiet and walk the last half mile.  It doesn’t matter if we get there with a horde or two following us.  Can you guys do this?”

“Yeah, I think I can make it.”

“Kate, I need you to know you can make it.” Jake demanded of the girl.

“I’ll make it Jake.”

“Hold on guys!” Jake suddenly made a sharp turn off of the road.  Hard on the brakes, Jake gripped the steering wheel tightly as the vehicle dropped quickly into a ditch.  As soon as the vehicle had fallen it began to lurch up a small hill.  The truck kicked up dirt as it spun through the knee high corn stalks.  Once the truck was far enough away from the road for comfort, Jake killed the engine and let the truck coast for another twenty yards.

“Let’s move.  Follow me close, and stay quiet!”  Jake was already out of the truck as he spoke.  He threw his bag on and checked to ensure that a round was chambered in the rifle.  He paused to wife away some of the blood that caking in his eyebrows.

Kate embraced the pistol with both hands.  Chuck had difficulty getting to his feet, but managed to follow closely behind Kate.  Jake led the way through the same clearing he had traversed earlier that day.  At this point it seemed like years had come to pass.  Noting that they wouldn’t be able to follow his exact path from earlier, Jake began to look for an unfenced yard or chain link fence.

“Keep up guys, I see a fence we can jump.  It’ll take us out about a half block from my house.  No sweat.  My neighborhood has been quiet.”

Jake posted at the fence and scanned the yard, and immediate area.  With nothing to report he held out his hand to Kate to help her over.  As soon as her toes had flattened on the other side, he dropped his rifle allowing the sling to hold it just behind his leg.  With his left hand grasping Chuck’s only arm, Jake grabbed the back of Chuck’s pants and with a groan pushed him to the top of the waist high chain link fence.  Kate grabbed for him on the other side but did little more than slow down his fall.

“Ahhhhh.” Chuck let out a pain filled cry as he landed on the amputated remains of his arm.  As Kate was helping Chuck to his feet Jake quickly barreled over the fence.

They made their way through the backyard, but as they neared a corner of the house something came at Kate from
around the bend.  She shoved an undead gentleman away, and he hit Chuck as he was falling.  The two men, only one of whom was alive, landed on the ground and began to immediately wrestle for control.  As Jake ran to help, something even worse caught his attention several yards away.

They weren’t just facing one zombie…

Jake quizzed Chuck about the condition of his vehicle.

“It’s solid bro.  It ain’t pretty but it runs good.”

“That’s good, but I don’t know how well we’re all gonna fit in a little truck,” Kate interjected.

“We have to fit.” And with that Jake double checked his pistol to confirm a round was in the chamber.

“You ready to go?”

“Yeah, Kate remember to calm down.  It’s okay to miss a target that isn’t close to me, but you’re gonna have to steady yourself if I need your help.”

“No problem, I got this.  I won’t miss again…just be careful, and try not to rely on me too much.”

Jake hurriedly checked Chuck’s makeshift bandage, and then abruptly stood up.

“Here we go,” Jake paused briefly and then exhaled. “Be ready to move, people.”  Jake crouched slightly and walked through the tree line and into the clearing of the field.  The grass was tall and would provide good cover should he need to crawl.

Chuck kept his eyes pinned on Jake’s back as he slowly made his way across the field in the direction of the parking lot adjacent to the apartment complex.

“There is still a lot of dead out there.  I don’t think he’s going to make it.” Chuck told Kate.

“He’s the only chance either of us have.  If I was him I would’ve left us both to die.”  As Kate spoke, she kept her cheek pressed to the rifle.

“That’s messed up.  I’m usually all about ‘take care of number one’, you know, but not to leave someone to die like this.”

“So what, you think it’s better if we both die?  You get bit by one of them and it’s done.  It’s over.  I saw it happen.  Some people go slow, some fast.  But that’s it.  No coming back.  Why risk your life if someone else is probably already dead?”

“Because I can’t watch somebody suffer like that.  I’ve done some messed up shit in my life, but even I don’t have the heart to let someone die if I could’ve stopped it.  What made you so cold?”

Kate looked away from the scope and straight into Chuck’s eyes.  “I tried to help someone but she turned before I could even stop her attacker.  She changed in minutes.  As soon as I knocked that thing that was killing her down, she came at me.  She almost…” Kate’s eyes began to well up.  “When you watch the only person you’ve ever loved die like that.  When you see the vacant look of one of those – those fucking zombies in her eye, you’ll change.  Then you’ll know why I feel like I do.”

Kate returned to her duty as the overwatch for Jake.  “He’s right across the street.  The crowd is still trying to make it up the stairs.  There is a straggler or two but I don’t see anything he can’t deal with.”

Almost as if being cued by Kate, Jake began to combat glide out of the ditch and across the street.  He ducked between the cars as soon as they were close enough to do so.  He moved quickly and silently to the truck Chuck had described.  He scanned the area before tucking the pistol in between his arm and body.  He fished out the truck keys and unlocked the rusty early 90’s Chevy S-10.

He carefully lifted the handle, and heard a barely audible pop as the door began to open.  Jake began to bring the door fully open as he checked around for an undead audience.  Three cars over Jake saw an elderly man, with parts of his skull showing.  He looked like a slow mover and not an immediate threat.  Jake hopped into the driver’s seat, and stabbed the key into the ignition.  He pulled the door until it caught, although it wasn’t completely shut.  Jake pushed in the clutch, and rapidly scanned around.  Nobody else had noticed him yet, but the elderly man was getting close.

Jake exhaled loudly, “Here we go.”

The truck started right away, with the higher pitched sound of cheap aftermarket exhaust blasting through the ear drums of every undead within a half mile radius.  Jake slammed it into first gear, as the no seat belt indicator dinged.   Suddenly the radio kicked into life.  Pantera’s “Cowboys from Hell” screamed through the small interior of the truck, and the suddenness of it alarmed Jake so much that his foot slid off of the clutch as he was rounding a turn to get out of the parking lot.  The music still played but the roar of the tailpipes was suddenly gone.

“Chuck the truck died.  Chuck the truck died!  What do I do?”  Kate immediately went into a panic.

“They are going right at him!  Shoot the closest ones!”

Kate sighted in on a blonde woman wearing tight jogging clothes.  She blew out and then slowly squeezed the trigger.  She could hear her heartbeating, and feel the blood coursing through her forehead.  As she watched the woman’s right shoulder was suddenly violently thrown back.

“Hit!” Kate repeated the process again.  This time the round hit the side of the woman’s neck and tore off a massive amount of flesh.  “Hit!”

“Good girl, keep it going.” Chuck encouraged.

In an attempt to shut the radio off, Jake smacked at it several times with the palm of his hand.  As soon as the music died, he began to pump the gas pedal and try to restart the truck.  The starter could be heard grinding to no avail.

“It’s solid bro.” Jake mimicked Chuck in frustration.  A bloody hand suddenly slapped the passenger side window.  “Shit shit shit!”

Jake continued trying to start the truck.  Suddenly the beating on the window stopped,  Jake looked and saw the torso and head of the zombie fall backwards.  Jake grinned slightly, “That a girl, Kate.”

More beating, this time on the bed of truck as the mob of undead continued their advance.  Jake slammed the gas pedal to the floor and attempted again.  The starter caught but the truck didn’t start.  Jake could see a puff of black smoke engulf the dozen dead men in the rear view mirror.   Now the beating was all around.  Several were shoving each other, all trying to get the best view of Jake through the driver’s and passenger’s side windows.  Some were crowding around the front of truck, and making their way onto the hood.

Jake began to scream and fired wildly at whichever corpse looked the most threatening at the moment.  The windshield cracked, and quickly began to cave in.

Jake turned the key, and the beautiful sound of the engine coming to life could be heard.  He stomped the gas pedal and popped the clutch.  The truck lunged forward,  and the surrounding undead fell to the ground.  Several that were on the hood continued trying to get inside, though the windshield.  Jake slammed on the brakes, and watched as the three creatures fell from the front of the truck.  Without hesitation Jake maneuvered the vehicle so as to catch the head of one of the fallen undead with its bumper.  He drove the truck at a medium pace onto the street and to a raised spot of the ditch.  He felt most comfortable taking the truck onto the field this way.  Jake jumped out of the truck as soon as it had come to a stop in front of his two injured companions.

“Get in.” Jake yelled, as he picked up a thick stick about four feet long.  He climbed onto the hood of the truck and shoved the stick into the new opening at the top of windshield.  With one hard push he pried the entire shield forward and it fell, still mostly intact onto the hood of the truck.

An astonished Kate asked, “Don’t you think we’ll need that?”

“I can’t see out of it.  We’ll have to take our chances with it gone.”

Jake slid the windshield of the truck, and it crumpled next to the truck on contact with the ground.  The three of them piled into the truck, and with a loud rumble tore through the field.

“Working Title – He Didn’t Need That Arm Anyway”

Jake’s eyes had trouble adjusting to the darkness of the apartment.  As soon as he had stepped completely into the apartment a sudden and violent force coming from the apartment’s small kitchen, struck him and lifted him off of the ground.  An arm was suddenly under Jake’s chin, and he felt the thud his body made as he struck the wall just in front of the still open door.  Although Jake was seeing stars, he managed to swing his entire body and thrust his left arm in between his throat and his attackers arm.   Jake’s right hand was trapped between his own body and his attacker’s body.  The attacker dropped his arm, and Jake slid his left arm over and delivered a palm strike to the man’s face.  As the man’s head bobbed back Jake felt the attacker squeeze the flesh and clothing at his chest.  Suddenly, Jake was being thrown to the ground.

“Shit man, I thought you was a zombie.”  The voice was instantly recognized by Jake as belonging to Chuck D.  “Help me get this shut!”

As Chuck slammed the door shut, Jake began to pull the nearby couch over to the door.  It was at this point that Jake noticed the apartment no longer had the smell of stale cigarettes.  The smell of Iron and a strange medicine like smell hung in the hair.

“You know some shit about first aid, right Jake?”

“I know a little, why?” Jake stated, puzzled.

“I cut off my arm.”

“What?” Jake stated, more puzzled than before.

“I fucking cut off my arm, man.”

As Jake walked towards Chuck, who was leaning over the kitchen counter, a few small unscented candles illuminated what remained of Chuck’s arm.  The entire counter was covered with small bits of flesh, and blood stained rags.  Several bloody bottles of rubbing alcohol were placed haphazardly by the sink, where the missing portion of Chuck’s arm was located.

“I was going to the Queen, everybody else was already there…Autumn included.  They had that place barricaded up real nice.  It’s stocked with food and beer.  Everything you would need for the end of the world, man.  I didn’t even make it to my truck before some lady bit me.  I ran back in here, and I wrapped a tourniquet on it.  Then I just cut, and kept cutting.  It felt like shoving my arm into boiling metal, man.  It hurt so bad.  So, about half way through I used some anesthetic.”  Chuck explained quickly, but very calmly.

“What kind of anesthetic did you use?  You need real medical attention, man.”

“I smoked some crack.  I’m surprised you aren’t high off the fumes.  There aren’t really a lot of doctors working at the hospital these days, genius,” Chuck was somewhat agitated by Jake’s question. “Can you just make sure I don’t die of infection?”

“Do you have gas burners or electric?”

“Electric, why?” asked Chuck.

“Shit, go grab clean towels,” Jake didn’t bother to answer Chuck’s question. “We have to dress the wound better, you can’t stay here.  I stirred up a lot of them outside, and this couch isn’t going to stop anything.  If we get back to my place I might be able to do more.”

As Chuck went to find towels, Jake peered through the small kitchen window.  Several of the undead were shambling up the stairway.  They seemed to have a lot of trouble maneuvering over the corpse on the stairs.

“Do you have rope, Chuck?” Jake yelled over his shoulder.  “We can’t go out the front door, and that’s a big fall out your back window.”

“Here’s the towels.  No, I don’t have anything up here.  We will have to jump.”

Jake quickly covered Chuck’s stump with a towel and tied it off tightly with a t-shirt.  Chuck’s original tourniquet seemed to be doing a sufficient job of keeping the blood flow restricted.

“That’ll have to work, for now.  Are you sure you can make it?   It’s like five miles back to my house.”  Jake wasn’t only worried about Chuck.  He was also worried about himself.  He would now have two injured in his party, and didn’t like the odds if things got tense.

“Jake I know this doesn’t sit well with you, but I’m too high to die right now man.  I can go fifty miles.”  Jake had never been a drug user, so he had to take the man’s word for it.

As the moan’s began to creep closer and closer, Jake rushed through the living room of the apartment and slid open the patio door to the balcony.  He eased out on to it, with his head low.  He peeped over the railing  and was comforted by the fact that the grass below was tall enough to somewhat cushion his landing, and also by the fact the tree line they needed to run to was less than two hundred yards away.

“You first.” Chuck sounded almost joyous.

Jake took a deep breath in, and then all at once threw his body over the rail.  As soon as he felt his feet touch ground he began to roll forward to lessen the likelihood of being injured.  As soon as Jake was at his feet he heard Chuck smash into the ground.  Jake turned around quickly, and watched as Chuck attempted to get off the ground.

“Shit, I think I broke something.” Chuck practically yelled.

Jake now had his pistol in hand and was looking for the company he knew would arrive soon.  “Keep it down, can you still walk?”

“Yeah, but not five miles.  Don’t leave me here me, man.   Please, don’t leave me here.”

“Get up,” Jake said as he began to help the man to his feet.  “Let’s just get to those trees.  Can you make it those trees?  I don’t care if you can or not, YOU ARE GOING TO MAKE IT TO THOSE TREES!” Jake commanded of Chuck.

With one arm under Chuck’s half right arm, and the other pointing his pistol in the direction they were walking the two men shuffled quickly to the tree line.  Jake scanned the area, and it looked like their retreat had gone unnoticed.  Jake looked in the direction of Katie, but couldn’t make her out from the trees.

“Okay, I’ve got a friend up the way a bit.  Let’s go find her.  I think I have a plan to get us out of here.  Do you still have your truck keys, Chuck?”

Back to Present Day

Katie kept the rifle trained on the shambling man closest to Jake.  His movement reminded her of a predator stalking its prey.  He was silent, sometimes crouched low.  Sometimes, he would pick up the pace and his legs would glide through big strides.  He was always hidden, never seen by the few undead looming around.  As he neared the building he dropped down to one knee.  He raised his pistol and paused.  Katie followed his line of sight to a series of steps that led to the second story of the apartment building.

“Oh, God.”  Katie barely whispered the words.  She knew Jake couldn’t see what she was seeing from his position.  A large woman wearing a bright flower patterned dress, and missing both of her legs from the knee down was crawling down the stairs.  She studied the woman’s face through the scope.  Her face was covered with dried stains of blood.  Katie was unsure if the blood belonged to the woman, or someone unlucky enough to have met her post death.

Jake couldn’t get a clean shot of the woman.  The railing blocked his view.  From the angle he had approached the building he had decent cover between some cars parked in front.  He wouldn’t be able to shoot the woman from that distance, and he knew that she would see him if he moved closer.  He could easily take her down, but he was afraid that if she made any noise at all any occupants in the building who were less than living might be alerted.

“I’ m not ringing the dinner bell, just yet.” He quietly stated.  He turned back to the direction of Katie and gave a very modest wave to get her attention.  When he was sure she was looking at him, he pointed at the lady on the stairs, and made a rifle motion.

“He wants me to shoot her.  From here.  He wants me to shoot her from here.”  Katie exhaled completely.  “Okay, okay, I can do this.  I can do this.  Round in. On fire.  Squeeze, don’t jerk. Okay.”  She walked herself through the process, and sighted in on the ladies face.  She kept the cross hairs on the woman’s face, and slowly squeezed the trigger.

The small kick of the rifle as the firing pin hit the primer alarmed her.  She almost let go of the rifle.  She pulled it back into position and looked back at the woman through the scope.  The woman had a new wound in her shoulder that was leaking a congealed looking black liquid.  She was still moving.  Katie turned the rifle back to the direction of Jake.  Jake was moving quickly in the direction of the woman.

“He thinks I killed her!  Oh no, oh no.”  Katie sighted back in on the woman and pulled the trigger again.  This time the shot went wildly away from her mark.  She saw a spark fly from the concrete wall five feet from the woman.

The sound of a ricocheting round brought Jake instantly to a halt.  He dropped to a crouching position, and looked back to Katie’s position.  He stood perfectly perpendicular to the stairwell, and couldn’t discern any movement.

“What the hell is she firing at?” He mumbled to himself as he began to pan the area with his pistol.  He heard a crashing sound from inside one of the ground floor apartments.  “Shit, we woke up the neighbors.”

He positioned the weapon at the alert, and glided quickly towards the stairwell, while maintaining a reasonable distance from the building.  He moved diagonally away from the building as he approached the stairs.  He could hear the woman’s moan before he could see her.  Without hesitation two high pitched but low volume “clink” sounds came from the suppressor of his pistol.

“I’ll pray for your soul.” Jake promised as he hurled himself over her body, and up the stairs.  As he neared the top of the staircase a pair of eyes caught his.  A shirtless older Asian man, covered in blood from the chest up, began beating on the window.  Behind him, two more undead began their slow approach to the window.

“Shit. Shit Shit.”  Jake wasn’t sure if he had spoken the words aloud, or only in his head.  His feet seemed to move on autopilot up the stairs, and unfortunately towards the undead man.  As Jake ran past the window the pounding on the glass quickly multiplied.  “His friends are hungry too.”

“She is still alive.  She is alive.” Jake thought to himself as he pounded on Autumn’s door.

“Open the door.  Open the door.”  Jake continued to hit the door, as he heard glass crash down in a shower of pieces.  He turned to see three Asian zombies falling out of their apartment.  His shaking hands, and paralyzing fear made it nearly impossible to bring the weapon to the ready.

“Get down!” Someone shouted from behind Jake.  He dropped his body weight all at once as he turned around to face the voice.

“Go back to Hell, Chinaman!” A very tall, very skinny man yelled as he fired 20 gauge buckshot into the leading creature.  Less than a second a later, another boom followed.  Jake looked back at the approaching undead.  Although horribly disfigured, the leading zombie was not down.  Rapid firing shots as the man reloaded his double barreled shotgun, Jake dropped the first of the three.  He immediately began to fire at the next closest target, but found himself in need of a reload.  He quickly dropped the magazine, and shoved another in place.  The two shamblers were closing in, and couldn’t have been more than fifteen feet away.  Jake heard another very loud boom from behind him.  However, there was no evidence of the shot on either target.  Suddenly, dust and chunks of concrete fell all around Jake.  He fired three shots in the closest zombie, and quickly glanced behind him.

Jake gasped as he saw blood spray from the neck of his rescuer.  One of the undead had the tall, skinny man in a sloppy bear hug, and was mauling on his neck.  The man swung the shotgun in his hand back and forth in Jake’s direction in the chaos.

“I’m sorry.” Jake mouthed the words, as he fired one shot directly into the face of the good Samaritan.

As the sweat began to burn his eyes, Jake refocused on the last approaching zombie from the direction of the stairs.  He fired three shots, two of them hitting their intended target.  He swung back around, and shot the zombie that  was still holding his unnamed defender.  He rescanned the area, and felt somewhat at ease with the state of the catwalk he was on.

He nodded his head in respect for his fallen comrade, even if they’d never officially met.  He changed magazines for peace of mind.  Tapping his homemade suppressor, “I didn’t think this thing would last this long.  Not bad for $20 in materials.”

Before Jake could glorify his own handiwork further, a moaning sound from below caught his attention.  He looked down to see what must have been –

“Thirty.  That’s at least thirty of them,” Katie clenched her teeth as she delivered her self-directed message.  “Oh God, Mister.  Run, run, get out of there!”

Not seeing an immediate exit, and realizing that he couldn’t go back the way he came he pointed the weapon a half inch to the right of the door knob and fired three times.

“Boom!” Jake voiced his action as he kicked Autumn’s door with all of his might.  He quickly glanced back in Katie’s direction, and for a fleeing second wondered why he hadn’t stayed there with her.

With his pistol leading the way, Jake entered the apartment.

“Bro, I need to take a break.  My hands are cramping, and I have stored up a pretty serious urine deposit.”  Kenny glanced at his watch. “Shit it’s already 11.”

Jake was always impressed by Kenny’s obnoxious wit.  “Yeah…And with that, I think I’m done playing for the day.  I haven’t sat on a couch that long in years.  The hordes will wait for us to return.”

Kenny’s footsteps could be heard walking in the hallway to the bathroom.  Jake turned off the game console, and lit a cigarette.  He had quit smoking months before, but always slipped when he was drinking.  He thought to himself, internally this time, about how bad it was to smoke in his house.

This time he was thinking aloud, “that’s gonna ruin the resale value.”

As he began making his way to his garage, he paused and picked up the TV remote from the arm of the couch.  He quickly pushed a few buttons.  The bright light of the TV splashed across the dimly lit room, as one of those major news networks came to life on the screen.  Jake stepped through his tiny kitchen and into the garage, wasting no time in getting his Marlboro outdoors.

He stood there in silence for a few minutes.  The rhythmic sound of his breath and the cigarette attached to his lip was practically hypnotic.

The tobacco at the tip of the cigarette crackled slightly with each puff.  The sighing sound of each inhale.  He inhaled much different than he had when he’d been a constant smoker.  Now, each cigarette was something truly enjoyable.  The exhale followed shortly after.  Jake focused on the smoke that billowed out of his mouth with each outward breath.  Jake loved smoking.  If his father hadn’t died from lung cancer, Jake would still be a smoker.

A scream coming from inside, brought Jake back to reality.  Kenny was yelling to him about something but he couldn’t quite make out what.  Jake threw the cigarette to the floor as he practically jumped back into the house.

Still breathing out smoke as he talked, “You okay?”

“You won’t fucking believe this man.  You won’t fucking believe this.”  Kenny was panicked in a way that Jake hadn’t seen often.  He had that look of someone who was about to get hit by a car.  He had that mix of shock and fear that no actor in a horror film could ever perfect.  Kenny stood at the border of the living room and kitchen.  Jake had to only look over Kenny’s right shoulder to see the TV.

Jake turned his head slowly away from Kenny.  The words he was hearing from the TV began to drown out the still screaming Kenny.  Jake’s neck seemed to not want to work right.  He was finding it nearly impossible to face the screen.  What he could make out with only his peripheral vision was already too much.

Every hair on his body stood straight up.  The feelings of tension immediately began to dance across his neck and arms.  All at once his entire body shuddered.

On the screen were familiar images.  What was happening on the news had been happening ten minutes ago in the game they were playing.  Several east coast cities had suddenly been overrun by “rabid” people.  The news anchor was talking so fast Jake couldn’t register any of what he was saying.  Suddenly the footage on screen changed.  This time it was an aerial shot of a traffic jam outside of the Miami area.  Cars were jammed into each other.  Some were on fire.  Some had occupants.  Some had occupants who looked dead.  Some had occupants who looked dead attacking occupants who looked alive.  The camera stopped panning the area and focused on a dark blue SUV.  A man was in the driver seat, with what looked like his wife in the passenger seat.  In the back was…

“God Damn it, No!” Jake wasn’t sure if he had yelled or Kenny had.

In the back was a girl of not much more than ten years.  Jake and Kenny could only watch in disbelief as the entire family was pulled from the car.  The Mom was first.  Her husband tried his best to hold on to her.  He could only hold on so long. Soon he and their daughter met the same end.

Watching the entire scene unfold was worse than anything Jake had ever seen at war.  This was worse than anything one man could do to another.

The news anchor came back on, and apologized for the nature of the footage.  He stated however, that what was just on screen was the same scene being played out in almost every major metropolitan area in North America, Europe and possibly even the entire world.

A very tired looking female doctor came on next.  Jake didn’t catch her name, but he did catch that she had just gotten the CDC report on the disease.

“The CDC believes that this virus is most likely, well, was made in a lab of some kind.  It is very sketchy.” She was flipping through the pages as if she hadn’t even finished reading it.  “We do know…We know that the virus dopes the Lamin protein with some kind of contagion that causes the heart to shut down, while leaving the circulatory system in working order…Uh, it, it also hijacks the Sirt One protein, uhm that causes the body to think it is in a famine condition.  The host will become very hungry…and the CDC also believes that the PS Three, which is responsible for regulating cell cycles, like when cells grow, divide, die.  Well, it seems…It seems the virus has shut that off completely.”

The anchor posed the obvious question, “Doctor, are you saying they can’t die?”

“No.  I’m saying that from what the CDC report says, they are already dead…and that they can’t be made dead – ah killed.  They are dead, and can’t be killed.”

Jake looked back over at Kenny.  He was wiping his face with his left hand.  The right still tightly gripped a half full Bud Light.

Jake turned off the TV.  Kenny instantly grabbed for the remote.  Jake snatched his arm back, more out of instinct than spite.  “Why did you do that?  I need to watch that!”

“Kenny, calm down, man.  I can’t watch anymore.” Jake was almost pleading.

“I need to get home.  Jesus Christ, how did this happen?  How the fuck did this happen?  We were playing a stupid game for a few hours and the whole world just- I don’t know.  I don’t even know what the whole world just did Jake.  I don’t even fucking know that.  I left my cell phone in the car, shit what about BJ?  Jake shit, what about Grandma?”

“I’ll go with you.  Call them from my phone, and we’ll head straight there.  I just need to lock everything up and grab some weapons.”  Jake was already in the process of locking his back door.

“Do you think we need weapons, Jake?  We’re kind of in the middle of nowhere.  Do you think its here already?”

“I think I’m not taking chances with my life today, and I’m not going to let you either.  Here.”  Jake said as he threw the cellphone to Kenny.

Kenny dialed as Jake grabbed some things from his hallway closet.  Jake could hear BJ’s voice booming through the tiny cellphone speaker.

“Right now, leaving right now.”  Kenny answered a question Jake couldn’t hear, but assumed he knew.  With that, he hung up the phone and threw it back to Jake.  “Let’s ride, Jake.”

Jake woke up early the morning after visiting the strip club.  In serious need of clearing his mind, he opted to go out for a quick jog.  Although it was early April, the air was still chilly.  He laughed aloud as he put on the ridiculous green on green sweats he’d been forced to wear during his enlistment.

“I’m not wearing the glow belt, atleast.”  He commented to himself, about the yellow reflective belt Marines were required to wear when running.

After quickly stretching in his garage, he began to jog out onto his driveway.  He used his garage door opener to close the big wooden door behind himself.  The house had been built in the late seventies, but the garage door was reminiscent of an old castle drawbridge.  It sounded twice as loud as one of those must have been though.

He hooked left out of his driveway, and waved at the elderly gentleman who lived next door.  Jake had noticed that no matter how early he got up in the morning the old man was already hard at work on his lawn.  Jake made a mental note to formally introduce himself to the man when he got a chance.

Jake picked up the pace, and let his mind focus only on his breathing and the sound of his feet hitting the ground.  He finished up the four mile course he’d committed to memory in decent time, and felt better about the crazy decisions he’d made for a woman who didn’t seem to ready to take him back.

He turned the tv on to the local television, with the volume on far louder than it needed to be.  He quickly undressed and hopped into the shower.  Although, he had never been able to actually make out the news broadcast using this method he had hope that someday he would find the perfect balance of water pressure vs. tv volume.  Today wasn’t the day.

As he turned the water off, he overheard a few words that made him stop singing the catchy pop tune he’d mutilated while showering.  Walking out of the bathroom, he grabbed his towel and began to hastily dry off while moving directly in front of the television.

“Well Diane, nobody at the Department of Defense is saying exactly why they are calling Reservists to active duty,  or why they are suddenly bringing 15,000 troops home from overseas.  The lack of information we are being given is leading many
to speculate.  It could be because of the seriousness of this recent pandemic.  The CDC has already temporarily shut down international airports, and is restricting which ships are being allowed to dock.  I’ve heard some journalists commenting that it is also likely that some of the latest intelligence gathering agencies have evidence of an impending terrorist attack.  At this point, we, uh, we really just don’t know…”

Intentionally thinking out loud for a change, “Shit.”

Jake immediately checked his phone for missed calls.  Although, getting called back to duty wouldn’t endanger his new job it would definitely make it damn near impossible to win back Autumn.  Seeing no indicator that he was in imminent danger of receiving orders to put his uniform back on, he quickly threw on some jeans and a t-shirt.

He stayed glued to the television, until just after noon when he had to leave for work.  The CDC had a big press conference telling people to get a flu shot, to stay calm, and that the airport closings were nothing more than a precaution and wouldn’t likely be up longer than 48 hours.  This new strand of Influenza was being compared to SARS.  The CDC said that although it more closely resembled the Influenza Virus type C it was infecting people, which made it a type A or B.  Jake quickly got lost by the question and answer session.  He was never that concerned with biology.  If it would have been a press conference on the make-up of the sun, he would have been taking notes.

The last bit of news he caught was that FEMA was making headlines for suddenly buying up massive amounts of supplies.  The Assistant Director of the organization commented that they were replenishing supplies that had been sent overseas to aid many other nations during the disasters they had had.

Jake arrived at work early, and poured himself a cup of coffee.  At BJ’s Guns, coffee was the drink of choice.  BJ had once commented to Jake that he would have died in Korea, if he hadn’t wanted just one more good cup of coffee before he went.  Kenny was sitting atop his usual stool behind the main glass counter, along the right side of the store as viewed from the front entrance.

Kenny was already grinning by the time Jake had started stirring his sugar.  “So, let me hear it War Dog!  Were you all like, yeah girl.  And she’s like, oh daddy. And you’re like…”

From in the office in the back half of the store, BJ’s gruff voice quickly cut in, “Cut that shit out.  This is a God Damned place of business, not some sort of home for the perveted.”

Kenny immediately stopped slapping the imaginary ass in front of him and solemnly stated, “Yes sir.  I just wanted to hear about Jake’s date.”

“Then ask him, but keep in mind gentlemen don’t tell the stories about the girls that are worth telling about.  You follow?”  BJ wasn’t really asking if Kenny followed, as much as he was pointing out his own wisdom.

“Before you even start, nothing good happened.  I was just catching up with my ex.”  Jake paused to read Kenny’s face, to see if that was enough.  “I’m hopeful we’ll get back together, but only time will tell.  That is as much of that aspect of my personal life I am willing to divulge.”  Kenny’s face relaxed, and Jake felt he had answered enough of the questions that were going to come without giving away enough information to warrant even more questions.

The office chair creaked and a barely audible grunt accompanied the sound of BJ get to his feet.  As he walked through the open doorway that separated the back half of the store, where the office, store room, and workshop were, and the front half where the merchandise was displayed he paused briefly.  It seemed as if he was trying to gather his thoughts before making some sort of important revalation.

“You boys notice how business is usually slow?”  He paused and looked directly into the eyes of both of the young men.  “We have low overhead, and hell, I love what I do so it’s never been an issue.  We do some fixin’ from time to time for the local PD when they gotta’ weapon that’s too much work for their half assed armorer.  We get by is my point….But in the last week, it seems like we been selling more small caliber hand guns, and rifles than is usual.  Especially, for this time of year.  It seems like people’s buying up the cheap guns, just to have something for home defense.  Does that seem odd to either of you?”

“Well, shit, sir.  Have you seen the news today?” Jake enquired.

“Seen it.  Worse yet, I’ve got some buddies that are pretty high up in the food chain, if you know what I mean.  And the word is, a storm is a-brewing.  I gotta’ feelin’ you’d do well to invest your paycheck in ammunition and MRE’s.  Kenny lets lock up early today.  Jake, I’ll pay you for a full day’s work.  Why don’t you head on home, and keep the news on.  If I’m just being paranoid, it’ll be business as usual come Monday.  I wouldn’t recommend any far off travel though.”  Without waiting for a reply from either of them, BJ packed up a small tool bag with several boxes of ammunition and left through the front door.

Jake spoke with a good old boy, sort of chuckle.  “Your grandpa can be really scary sometimes.”

“Dude, I’ve been dealing with it my whole life.  He pulled me out of high school for the entire month of December in ’99…because of that whole Y2K thing.”  Kenny rubbed the back of his head, for effect.  “There is a lot of weird shit going on right now, but isn’t there always?  I mean hell we got robots fighting wars, people living in space stations, genetically engineered corn…What’s next, zombies?  Oh, shit, speaking of zombies  you got that ‘Left for Dead’ game for Xbox right?”  Kenny was sporting his trademarked grin.

“I do.  What say you, sir?  Shall we knock back some ale and teach those zombies a thing or two about fisticuffs?”  Jake even nailed the perfect bad British accent.

Kenny was quick to remark, “Dude, no wonder you haven’t made any friends here yet.”

The two of them closed up shop, and convoyed to Jake’s house for an afternoon of carnage on Jake’s big screen tv.

The distant sound of gunfire snapped Jake back to reality.  If people were still alive out there, still shooting two days after the collapse of civilization, maybe, all was not as hopeless as it seemed.

He thoroughly scanned the area through the small basement window.  It looked clear enough.  ”No time like the present,” He said, with a sigh.  His Camelback was full, as were the two cantines on his sides.  He double checked his three day pack.  He had spare underwear and socks, a few MRE’s, a gas station fold out map of the area, a toothbrush, tons of extra rounds for the AR, as well as an extra box of 9 mm for his little Beretta.  He zipped the bag and then slung it up over his head and onto his back.  He clipped the waist belt, as well as the shoulder strap.  He picked the AR up, loaded a magazine, and chambered a round.  He double checked to make sure the round had fed. He took a quick glance at his homemade silencer, and took a long slow breath.  As he exhaled, he started up the steps that led from the basement to the upstairs.

The sweat already began to form on his forehead as he walked the ten paces to his garage door.  It was the only interior door of the house he hadn’t boarded up.  He reached out for the handle with his left hand, and brought the rifle to the ready with his right.  He stood there in silence, staring at the handle for a brief second.  ”Five miles, no sweat, ran that far in boots plenty of times.” He thought out loud.

He slowly turned the handle, and cracked the door slightly.  He peeked through, with the barrel of the rifle leading the way.  The garage was empty, save his beat up Camaro.  He’d opted to walk the distance to Autumn’s apartment, rather than drive the loud piped car, fearing that would alert the world to his presence.  He walked through the garage, to the door that led into the backyard.  He stood on his toes to look through the glass pane that sat at the top of the heavy wooden door.  Once he was positive the coast was clear, he slowly opened the door.  He crept outside, into the cool April air.  The sun was just beginning to come up.  The wind blew the big Oak tree in his backyard gently.  It was as peaceful as you would expect the world to be, with hardly any living inhabitants.  There weren’t even birds chirping.

He held his rifle at the ready, and while keeping his back against the wall, he glided to a few feet before the edge of the house.  He turned to face the corner.  He crept to it.  He held the rifle across his chest.  Remembering his training, he took a quick glance around the corner, barely exposing himself and his rifle.

Something leapt out at his face.   He fired two times.

“Shit,” He whispered in frustration.  He had just shot the large shrub that sat in front of the chain link fence.   Once, he regained his composure he hurriedly raised himself to the top of the fence and swung himself over.  He was careful to be quiet, and not snag himself in the fence.

He walked to the next corner of the house, the one facing the street.  He cleared the area with his rifle.  There was nothing.  There weren’t many cars parked in the driveways in the quiet residential neighborhood.  Most of the people must have fled the area.  Probably, only to get stuck on the highway somewhere, Jake thought to himself.  He made his way across the street.  He was going to cut through the backyards of the next row of houses, and cut through a large field.  Trees surrounded the field, and he knew it would provide him some level of concealment from the main road.

He walked to the wooden gate of one of the houses.  The house had been vacant for a few weeks, waiting its new owners to move in.  He gave the door a pull.  When it didn’t give, he realized it was locked from the other side.  Not seeing an easy way over the fence, he walked fifteen paces to the fence surrounding the neighboring house.  When he stood in front of the door, he quickly turned around to review the 50 yards he’d travelled.

Noting he needed to pick up the pace a bit, he unlatched the door, and swung it open.  He walked through the entrance.  The sound of flesh being torn caught his attention.  He turned the barrel of the rifle to face the threat.  Two of the undead creatures, that had once been the very nice couple across the street, were eating what remained of the golden retriever they’d had.  The poor dog had been put on a chain, and simply couldn’t get away.

Jake raised his rifle.  He sighted in on the undead woman’s head.  He slowly squeezed out a round.  She dropped.  Her husband, in life and death, took no notice of the woman now slumped down at his side.  Jake dispatched him as well.  He tried to remember if the couple had children, or anyone living with them.  No, just the two of them, he remembered.  He jogged through the yard to the back wall of the fence.  He took another quick glance around his area.  He climbed up the fence, and while exposing only his head, he thoroughly scanned the field.  Once he was sure the coast was clear, he climbed over the fence.  He fell quit ungracefully and landed with a thud.

Jake moved at a quick jog through the clearing and to the tree line on the other side.  He only had four miles to go.  He was going to stick to the wooded areas, hoping to avoid any further contact.  He only had one small obstacle.

Jake saw the movement through the trees.  He dropped to the ground, and crawled only as fast as he dared in the direction of the two lane highway.  He crawled his way to a small hill that would keep him unseen but give him a better vantage point of the road.  Jake counted eight cars, an ambulance, and a cop car.  In the mass of cars he spotted two of the zombies milling about.  North of the wreck, he saw fifteen, maybe twenty of the undead.  To the south, it was a similar scene.

Jake decided to go through the cars, since they would provide cover from the others in the area.  He paused briefly, to let his breathing return to normal.  Then he fired two well aimed shots dropping the two in between the cars.  He made his way to his feet, and edged to the roadway.  No one had seen him yet.  He pulled his pistol from its holster, in case he needed it in the close confines of the space between cars.  As noiselessly, as he could he briskly maneuvered through the first few cars.  He had to dodge open doors, and a stretcher.
A blood curdling moan made him pause where he stood.

Jake found the source of the noise.  A woman, with only half her torso sat struggling to reach out for him.  She was oblivious to the seatbelt still locking her in place.  Jake instantly decided she wasn’t an immediate threat.  The ambulance driver that was now coming straight for him definitely was.  Jake fired two rounds with the silenced Beretta.  The first hit the monster perfectly in the nose.  The second went wild, hitting the ambulance behind its target.  Jake heard more moans coming towards him from the distance.  From both sides, the undead were coming to get him.  He ducked low, hoping they wouldn’t be able to follow him if they couldn’t see his hasty exit.  He moved as fast as his legs could carry him behind the ambulance, and over the trunk of the cop car.  When he landed, a hand grabbed at his leg.  Jake spun, while falling to see the terror filled eyes of a young black woman.

Jake got up quick.  “Are you bit? Have you been bitten?”  He asked with desperation in his voice.
“No, no, please save me.”  Tears were already running down the woman’s face.

Jake grabbed the woman by her hand and pulled her out from under the car.  The zombies hadn’t figured out where he’d moved to.  They were all fighting their way in to the opening he’d been in.

“Ungh.  My legs broke.” The woman informed Jake, while also broadcasting their location to the mass of undead.

He helped her stand up.  He threw one shoulder in to her groin and hoisted her on his back.  “Be quiet.” He ordered the woman.  He continued to the trees on the other side of the road.  He stopped when he was almost there.  He turned and saw the zombies struggling to get over the cop car.

“If we go in to the woods here, they’ll see it and they’ll follow.  We need to throw them off, so they go in the wrong direction.”   He told the woman, sensing the question she was about to ask.

He turned to his left, and walked north up the road.  The zombies were just now beginning to follow.

“Those things are slow right?” Jake asked the woman.

“Yeah, stupid too,” I was underneath that car for two days, and they had no idea.” She replied, encouragingly.

Jake continued walking as fast as he could.  When he’d made his way to a slight bend in the road, he ducked into the woods.  He lowered the woman back to the ground.  She threw her arm around his neck and they continued the slow advance away from the road way.  Once they’d gotten about twenty yards into the trees Jake told the woman to get down.  She complied, as Jake dropped with a knee next to her.  He watched the road as the slow progression of zombies continued up it.

“They fell for it.” The woman whispered to Jake.

Jake pulled off one of his canteens and handed it to the woman.  He unslung his bag and opened it, pulling out an MRE.  He handed it to the woman in silence.

“Thank you.  I’m Katie, by the way.”  She said, happy about her rescuers kindness.

“I’m Jake.  Eat up, and keep an eye out.  I’m going to take a look at your leg.”  He began to roll up her pants leg, not waiting for a response from the woman.

The shin looked bruised and swollen.  Jake felt around it hoping not to find some sign of breakage.  Once, he was sure it was a hairline fracture at most, he rolled her pants leg back down.

“I don’t think it’s broken, and until you get somewhere safe you’re going to have to use it.”  Jake explained.

“I don’t have anywhere to go.  I’m from Milwaukee, and I had to get out of there.  The whole city has gone completely insane.  When the Mayor asked the Governor to call in the National Guard, I thought it was best to go before it got too bad to leave.  I was trying to drive down to Texas to stay with some friends.  I just can’t believe what has happened.  This is crazy.  I would have made it down there, but I got tangled up in that wreck back there.”   Jake listened to Katie’s story, and wondered how much help he’d be able to give the girl.

“Look, I have a somewhat safe place, not too far from here.  I can’t take you straight back there.  I have to go and find someone first,” Jake paused before continuing. “It’s going to be quite a hike to where I’m going and back.  I can make it back here in a few hours, assuming I don’t die along the way, or you can come with me.  It’ll probably be a lot safer for you to stay.  Those things seem to just wait around for something interesting.  If you stay here and you are quite, you’ll be completely safe.”

“I’m not staying here.  I understand that I might be slowing you down.  I’ve spent two days trapped under a car.  I’d rather risk it with you.  Besides, I can help.  I’ll be an extra set of eyes, at the very least.”  She knew that would make a stronger argument, than just bursting in to tears and begging him not to leave her alone.

“Fine, you can come…Just be quiet, and do what I say.”  Jake was didn’t want to admit it, but even though the girl was going to slow him down he felt safer having another living person along.

They continued the hike through the woods.  Jake’s plan was to have them skirt around the town, and pop out of the woods not more than three hundred yards from Autumn’s apartment.  He’d considered trying to swing the long way around to BJ’s to pick up supplies, and more guns.  He decided against it, because he was already carrying as much as he felt comfortable running with.  If he was able to get a small truck in the near future, he might take the risk.

They walked mostly in silence.  The difficult terrain, combined with Katie’s injured leg slowed the journey considerably.  They managed the two miles in just over an hour and fifteen minutes.  They came to the end of the tree line only a block from where Jake had expected to come out.  The sun was now directly overhead, and the day was unseasonably warm.  Jake had Katie kneel down, and he inspected the clump of buildings that made up the northernmost part of the small town.

He saw fires burning inside one of the buildings.  It was a small family owned pizza place.  The smoke was barely escaping the window seals, and cracks in the large doorway.  Jake wondered if the power was still on in this side of town.

Jake turned to face Katie.  “Okay, that building right there,” Jake pointed to the small two story apartment building.  “That’s where I’m going.  I’m leaving you with the rifle.  Can you shoot?”  Jake asked.

Katie stared at the man, unsure of the answer to the question.

“Okay, look this is the magazine.  Here is one extra magazine.  They go in here like this.”  He explained while dropping the old magazine, and putting it back in place.  “Give it a little tug, to make sure it’s all the way in.  Then you rack this back, I’ll let you try it in a minute.  Then you want to check to make sure you see brass.”  He pulled the charging handle on the rifle back a small way, showing the round that had been in the chamber.  “This is the safety.  You want to make sure it’s on ‘Fire’.  Now we’re going to quickly go through weapons safety rules.”

Jake made her repeat the four weapon safety rules he’d learned in Marine Corps Boot Camp, before pulling the magazine back out of the weapon.  He then pulled the charging handle all the way back discharging the round that had been chambered.  He caught it in the air, and put it back in the magazine.  He handed her the rifle, and walked her through the rifle again.  This time letting her is the one to insert the magazine and chamber a round.

“Okay, I’m going to leave my pack here, so I can move quicker.   I’m only taking the pistol and the spare magazines for it.  I’m going to walk down a ways so that if any zombies see me coming out of the woods, they won’t stumble on to you by accident.  If I get bit, and wind up in a group of them, I want you to shoot me in the head.  Do you understand me?  Just like I showed you, you sight in, and shoot me in the head.”  Jake waited for the girl to say something, but she simply nodded, almost against her will.

“Okay, if you don’t see me again for one hour, inside my pack is a map of the area.  I’ve circled my house, and I’ve even sketched out how to get back there from here.  Follow it, lay low, try to avoid any confrontation and get to safety.  I should be back soon, but just in case, you aren’t dependent on my survival.”  Jake instructed the girl, while reloading his pistol magazine.  Once he had it loaded, and all of the magazines for it tucked safely in either his magazine holders or cargo pockets, he began to walk away from the girl.

Almost in shock, the girl watched as he walked away.

Chapter 2.

“If I can make it through combat, I can make it through this.  It’s only a few hours, a few drinks.  And worst case scenario, she can set me up with one of her hot friends.  Oh, Jesus, I got to stop talking to myself so much.”  He meant everything he’d said aloud, except for the part about being set up with her friends.  He was starting to feel alone.  He’d met a few new people, but he was missing the guys from his unit.  He was missing the guy’s he could talk to about anything.  He was missing the guy’s that in one breath could make him feel better about his marriage, and make him feel like a woman for showing any emotion at all.

He scooped up his car keys, and walked out the door.  As he drove, he noticed more than the usual amount of law enforcement, and emergency vehicles out on the roadway.  “I better not drink too much tonight,” he warned himself.  Following that he quickly, repeated his earlier statement, “I’ve got to stop talking to myself so much.”

He pulled in to the parking lot, at a little past four thirty.  He parked in the first row of cars away from the big boat building.   He breathed in deep.  He exhaled completely.  He shut off the engine, locked up the car and walked to the door.

He swung open the dark tinted glass door that kept the scantily clad women safely tucked away from the outside world.  He found himself in a narrow passageway, with one side leading into what appeared to be a bar area, and the other side leading to a swinging restaurant style door.  He stepped towards the door, his eyes attempting to adjust to the dim lighting.

“Hey, how are you doing tonight?”  Jake turned his attention to the service window that had been cut into the wall.  A pretty young woman was sitting at a desk, tucked away in a small room.  She looked to be at least half way through her pregnancy.  Her make-up was done in a youthful way, and her smile reminded him of a girl he’d dated in high school.

“Hi, first time here.”  Jake spoke with a half hearted joking tone.

“Ten dollars cover after six, but you got here early, so if you’ll just let me check your ID, you can be on your merry way.”  The girl had a youthful, almost flirtatious tone.  She must have been having a good pregnancy, Jake thought.

He handed her his military ID, without thinking.  He was supposed to turn it in when he left Camp Pendleton for the last time, but decided to keep it as a souvenir of his past life.  She smiled at it, and instantly flipped to the back to see where his age was represented.

“You need to shave Devil Dog!”  The girl mocked the old crusty Marines he thought he’d left behind.

“I, uhm, I’m on terminal leave.” He stuttered, just before realizing he was in the civilian world now, and the explanation was hardly necessary.

“I’m just playing with you, my ex boyfriend was a Marine.  He left me with a car payment, and a baby.  Hopefully, you are more of the old fashioned kind of Marine.”  She said, while obviously reliving old memories.  “Be off with you, and the first drink is on me, just tell them Makayla’s buying you one.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”  He searched for something else to say, but realizing the stress he was about to endure, he turned back to the swinging door.

He pushed it open, and was amazed at how much louder Bob Dylan’s Hurricane was in the room, than it had been in the hallway.  He scanned the room, looking for a certain girl.  A naked woman was laying face down on the stage.  He quickly looked away, and continued walking to the bar on his left.  He pulled out the four hundred dollars he’d brought along.  He never spent that much money on anything, and even though he knew it wouldn’t impress her, he had brought it in case he needed to buy a lap dance from another dancer to get out of the dangerous conversation that he might have with her.  He wasn’t really looking to get beat up by a couple of bouncers that night.

The bartender walked her way down the long half circle bar.  “What do you need sweetie?”  She spoke with a southern drawl, that he hadn’t heard since he left Texas for the Marine Corps.

“Bud light, no make it a pint of Guiness…And uh, Makayla, said she was buying my first drink.”  She began to turn when he was halfway through his order, grabbing up an empty glass from a nearby tray.

He was obviously nervous.  It wasn’t like he was a stranger to exotic clubs.  He’d practically lived in a few when he was younger.  It wasn’t that he was shy with women.  He was just so nervous about seeing her again.  He leaned his left arm on to the bar top, and turned to face the large open room.  Their were only a few men in at the moment.  Most were sitting at the bar.  Still, a thick cloud of cigarette smoke hung in the air.  He counted about six girls, but none of them were the one he was looking for.  The woman on stage began to thrust her hips up and back down.  He was far enough away that he could only see the top of the arc she made, as the decorative brass bars lining the circular stage sat too high for anyone in the room, save those sitting close and tipping, to see the entire show.

He turned as the bartender began to walk back towards him him with the now full pint glass of Guiness.  “You need anything else, sweetie?”

“Yes Ma-Oomph,” A hundred pound woman had nearly tackled him, mid sentence.

“OH MY GOD! JAKE!”  A sweet, familiar voice yelled, completely drowning out Bob Dylan’s final verse of the song that had been playing.  He turned towards the girl, barely able to move through her tight grip.  He wrapped his arms around her, and felt the bare skin of her back.

She was the girl who had been on stage.

He locked eyes with her, and grinned his big dumb grin.  He glanced up to see everyone in the room staring at the two of them.  Autumn followed his gaze, and saw the chair laying upside down that she had knocked over.  “Yeah, I kind of jumped off stage when I saw you…Get your drink, and come sit down with me!”

She turned, away from him, and like nothing out of the ordinary walked completely naked back to the stage to grab her clothes.  Jake paid the bartender, making some change, pocketed the money and walked over with his drink to the table Autumn was standing next to.  She was still naked below the waist.  She’d already slipped the bikini top on.  He only glanced at the woman he’d known so well, but he could have drawn a picture of what he saw.

The white leather boots she wore came nearly to her knees.  The bottom of them added a good six inches to her height.  Her legs, were as perfect and athletically toned as they’d always been, only much more tan than Jake had ever seen them.  She now sported a landing strip, instead of the bare shaven look she’d worn all the years Jake had known her.  Her hips were just as nice, and her waist was still the kind of perfect you’d see in a Britney Spears video, only now she had a single diamond stud pierced through her navel.  Her breasts seemed fuller, but not by much, than the small B cups he’d loved so much.  And her face was still the face that had made his heart stop four years earlier.  She had a small diamond stud glittering from the side of her nose.  Her hair was much longer than he’d ever seen, and with streaks of a dark crimson red running wildly throughout.  God she is more beautiful now than she’s ever been, Jake thought to himself…This time remembering not to speak out loud.

The two sat at the table talking for nearly two hours.  They were only interrupted when she had to get up on stage.  She’d told him all about the difficulty she’d had finding a regular job, the troubles she had had with her parents when she’d started stripping to pay for school, and how she’d ended up sleeping on Chuck D’s couch.

“It’s just like that asshole to act like we were together.”  She had replied to Jake’s brief narrative of his encounter with the man.  “I’m not going to lie to you, Jake.  I slept with him once.  A lot of liquor makes for bad decisions, especially, when you drink it to forget about the bad decisions you already made.  I really shouldn’t have left you.  We just got married so young, and you were always gone.  Even when you were home, it was like…”  She sighed, as if hoping the words would come in the brief respite.  “Jake it was like you were always in Iraq.  You never really came home after the first time.  You spent all of your time training, and getting ready to go back.  You volunteered for two deployments Jake!”  She said, barely masking the feelings of disapointment she still had.  “I just wish I was important to you.  I got tired of waiting to be something, not even the center of your universe, just something to you.”

“I got out.  I’m done with the dope game, baby,” He laughed, she hated it when he started joking just as the feelings began to come out.

“I bought a house here.  I have a job here.  And God Damn it, girl, I will come in to this club and harrass you every night for the rest of my life if it is what it takes to get you back.”  Jake paused briefly, “Look, I’m sorry I wasn’t the husband I should have been to you.  I know this sounds selfish as hell, but I just thought you knew I loved you, and that you’d wait for me.  I thought you’d just kind of do your thing, and wait.”

“Jake, I did wait for you,” Autumn pleaded.  “But after so long, I realized you weren’t coming back.”

“Okay, well, again I’m sorry.  Can we put the past to bed for the night, and just try to enjoy this little reunion while we can?”  He had asked a question, but had meant it more as a statement.  He waved to the waitress who had been on shift for several hours now.  He told the waitress to keep the drinks coming to the two of them and slid her one of his hundred dollar bills.

A young, bleached blonde, with a feminine, yet seriously athletic body came over and stood in front of the table they were sitting at.

She had a tattoo of Johnny Cash on one of her arms.  Jake could tell she wished she was alive in the fifties from the Elvis Presley themed tube top, and red bandana she wore in her hair.  The solid black thong did little more than accentuate the tight butt of the girl.  Jake and Autumn both turned their heads to face the girl.

“Okay, so I don’t know who the hell you are, but you look like you’re giving my girl here a hard time.  I’ll drop a man if I need to.”

The girl spoke, obviously unfazed by the smile that quickly spread across Jake’s face.

“No, baby, this is Jake.” Autumn’s words instantly seemed to bring the girl down from the alert position she’d taken.

“I’m Angela, that’s my real name,” The girl dashed around the chair between her and Jake, and sat down rather roughly on his lap.  “I’ve heard so much about you!  Garcon, another round of drinks for my friends, and two more rounds for my lovers!”

The waitress, who was obviously used to the girl’s antics, simply asked, “So, one shot for each of you, two shots for each of you, one shot for him, two for her, three for you?”

Angela laid her body across the chair, nearly flipping Jake over, he quickly brought one hand down to the girls waist, the other to her thigh, to steady themselves out.  “No, dear,” Angela began speaking to the waitress who had now turned her head upside down to match Angela’s.  “No, Two shots all around, with an extra for me, since I am both my own lover and friend.”

Angela raised back up, making no attempt to hide the way she dug her ass into Jake’s crotch.  She smiled at him, “So, I put you down as a lover…Keep me honest.”  Jake could feel himself blush, but at this point, the alcohol had probably already turned him red.  It was getting later than Jake had planned on staying.  Jake finished up his drink, and slammed the two fruity shots the girl had ordered.
“Ladies, I’d love to stay longer, but I’ve got to work tomorrow…And I don’t think either of you are going to make any money sitting here with me all night.”  He wasn’t lying about any of it.  He really did want to stay longer, but he figured if he came in and made his presence in the area – and more importantly his intentions clear, the ball would be in her court.
“Sweetie, their isn’t really anyone else to sit with tonight.  This place is really dead for a Friday night.  It seems like all of my regular customers are home sick – and those guys could lose an arm and still come in for a lap dance.”  Angela explained, almost defensively about the less than packed club.
They said their goodbyes, and Jake went home for the night.
A few hours later, the girls dressed quietly, and quickly with barely a spoken word between the two when Angela finally broke the silence.  “Autumn, baby, he is too damn fine to just let go.  Are you sure you are okay with seeing him again?”

“I think I’m still in love with him, if that’s what you’re asking.  I always had a feeling we’d get back together, but nonetheless, I need to see that he has changed before I just go running back into his arms.”  Autumn held nothing back from the other girl.  They were as close as two best friends could be.  They’d actually both had their first lesbian encounter together.  In fact, they had had more than a few.  At one point Autumn had considered asking Angela if they could be girlfriends, but had realized it as a horrible idea shortly after.

“Well, then is he fair game for a quick fling?”  Angela asked, and then quickly collected herself realizing the liquor had taken away her usual gift of gab.  “I mean, he’s so cute, and his jokes are so lame, but adorable.  I don’t want to take anything from you, but I’m in to him.  It’d be totally harmless, I promise. ”

Autumn stopped listening to the girl midway through her first sentence.  Even though she was on the drunker side of buzzed, her mind continued to run through thoughts of Jake.  Hopefully, someday soon he’d be the husband she’d always wanted, Autumn thought, as she grabbed her bag and led the way out of the dressing room.

Five Miles
by Justin Skaggs

Jake sat quietly, clutching the pistol grip of the AR-15 tightly.  His palms were sweating.  His left hand nervously tapped the hand grip of the rifle.  His heart felt ready to give out.  The constant surge of adrenaline coursing through his veins was playing hell on him.  Every noise, every creak of the lonely house above him caused his heart to pound so loud he could hear it in his ears.

“I gotta do it sometime,” he thought to himself.  It had only been three days of solitude.  He had been trapped in his house, with little sign of the outside world.  Other than the occasional moaning sound, and distant gunfire, it was hard to remember exactly why he had tucked himself into the small corner of his basement.

“Okay, I planned for this.  I trained for this.  I am the weirdo survivalist freak that has waited a lifetime for the dead to walk, this is it, and this is my time to shine!”  He stated proudly with growing momentum in each passing word.  ”And yet, her I am. Alone. In the dark. In my basement.”  He spoke the words aloud, albeit softly, trailing slightly at the end.

Chapter 1.

He began to play out the previous weeks in his head. Hoping that somehow when he was done with what were probably his last memories of other living people, he might somehow find himself in a different situation.  Maybe, it was just a bad dream.

Three weeks before, he had just made the cross country drive from Camp Pendleton, CA to Rockford, IL.  He’d bought a house, had a decent job lined up, he’d even applied at the community college.  Life was looking up.  He’d done his time in the Marine Corps.  Now he was ready for a life without the ever impending deployment to the Middle East.  He’d done three trips to Iraq, when he was in, and it wasn’t that he minded it all that much…It actually felt right for him, it just didn’t work out well for his marriage.  He was in love with a girl, who could not have been more different than him.  She was sweet, and caring, and concerned about saving the world.  He was a gun toting Republican.  She hardly even agreed with the Democrats.  She wanted hemp to be legalized and western medicine to be made illegal.  He was happy with her.  She made all the bad memories he’d accrued in his life just disappear.  She was his personal ray of sunshine.  But she couldn’t deal with him constantly being gone.  She couldn’t deal with his total lack of social skills with non-military types.  He had a habit of alienating civilians.  He was a little too cocky for her…But she had tried to make it work with him.  She’d tried to be the Proud Marine Wife.  When she served him the divorce papers, he’d made up his mind to get out and try his damndest to get her back.  He had shown up unannounced.  Other than the local VA employment Representative, his wife, Autumn, and her family, he didn’t know anyone to announce his moving in to.  Debbie, his mother in law, thought he was crazy moving half way across the nation, to try and rekindle things with Autumn.  They’d been legally separated for 11 months.  In another seven, the divorce would be finalized.

After unloading the boxes, and returning the rental truck, he’d walked to her apartment.  It wasn’t far from where he lived, and conveniently, it was right up the street from the U-Haul place.  He hadn’t seen her in just over a year, and he hadn’t spoken to her for most of that.  He’d tried to send her emails, even messages on those social networking sites…but she never got back to him.  He had rehearsed everything he was going to say to her a thousand times on the long drive.

Trying not to grin, and realizing he was already turning red, he had walked up the flight of stairs on the front of the building and turned left, counting the apartment numbers as he went.  Apartment 23.  He stood for a minute, with his heart pounding almost as hard as it had the first time he’d seen her.  He knocked, just a little too hard the first time, a little too soft the two times afterwards.  He heard rustling inside.  He saw a shadow move through the peephole.  Then the door opened, only part way.

His heart sank.

As the smell of marijuana began to pour through the door, a tall, incredibly wide and shirtless man stood staring at him.  ”Yeah?” The ogre said, with a clear tone of condescension.

Jake stood, simply blinking in disbelief.

“Hey, you need something?” The man asked again.  Jake snapped back to reality, realizing he’d been just standing there, with his mouth half way opened.

“I’m looking for Autumn.” Jake was able to say, without adding the “You son of a bitch” he’d wanted to.

Spitting on the cement walkway just inches from Jake’s foot, the man answered Jake’s next question before he asked it.  ”She just left for work, who are you?”

“I’m Jake.” Normally, Jake would have been ready to pound the dumb man, but his head was starting to spin.

“Oh, Jake, right.  Debbie said you’d probably be stopping by.  You want a beer, or a joint or something?”  The man’s question only served to further confuse Jake.

“Fuck it,” and just like the tattoo on the inside of his lip read, “Why not?”

“I’m Chuck D. by the way.” The man said, while putting his hand out to Jake.  Jake shook it, and tried not to squeeze too hard.  Chuck pulled the door open, and turned to walk into the kitchen.  Jake walked in to the small apartment.  He looked around the room to see a small TV on a small TV stand, a couch that was much too large for the small room, and a small end table pushed against the wall, next to the couch.  The end tables legs had been chewed by a dog at some point.  An overfilled ash tray sat in the center of the table.  Jake sat down on the couch as the shirtless man came back into the room with two beers in hand.

Bud light.  At least, the fat bastard is trying, thought Jake to himself.

They sat, and Chuck D. talked.  Jake drank.  Chuck told Jake all about how Autumn had began working at the “Queen” strip club.  How she’d moved in with him, when she couldn’t take living at her parent’s anymore.  How she drank almost every night. The constant party her life had become.  Jake fought back tears through most of it.  It was as if the girl he’d loved, and left for war, was gone.  The only thing Chuck said that Jake could take any pleasure in was the mention that he and Autumn had only briefly dated, and that as far as he knew she wasn’t looking for a new boyfriend.

Jake thanked the man for the four beers he had shot gunned, and walked the five miles back to his house.   He had the route memorized from the days he’d spent looking at online maps of the area.

Debbie didn’t appear to be on his side in all of this like he’d thought.  She had clearly announced his presence to the newest ex-boyfriend.  He stopped off at a drug store a few blocks from his house.  He bought a bottle of Jack Daniels, a two liter of coke, and a copy of the local paper.

He spent the night drinking and smoking cigarettes, wishing he would have just stayed in Iraq.  At least there he’d known what to do.  There he was in his element.  Here in Illinois, a place he’d only been once before when he’d gotten married, here he had nothing it seemed.  He left the newspaper in the bag until the next day, when the hangover made it difficult to read…But the headlines screamed through his fog, “Pandemic Death Toll Rises to 1,000,” “Pandemic Flu Reported in Canada”.

He was already worried about the winter.  This would be his first real winter.  He’d never even seen snow.  He gave a voice to his concerns. “Great, new flu to go with the new scenery.”

The next weeks had been fairly uneventful.  He’d started work at BJ’s Guns, a local gun shop that had hired him on, primarily because of his veteran status.  He spent the majority of his days cleaning the weapons that lay in glass display cases in the store.  He was trying to muster up the courage to make the drive north up the small two lane highway that ran through town.  He must have fought back the urge to go there a hundred times in that week.  Twenty minutes up that road, just past a power plant, there was a large boat shaped building.
They called it the “Queen”.  It was the best strip club in the area.

“All nude,” Jake caught himself muttering.  He had no idea how he’d been so stupid to think that life would just stop until he was done with the war business.  He knew she would probably have a job, hell, even the thought of her having a boyfriend had crossed his mind a time or two.  But he’d never thought it would be like this.  He thought he would just slide in and all would be well.  That’s how it had been when they met.  He just walked in to her life, and everything was perfect.  ”Not this time I guess.” Again, letting himself think out loud.

Kenny, BJ’s grandson, overheard Jake’s ramblings.  ”All nude? Are you going to a strip club?  I would ask which one but the only all nude club around here is the one up 251.”  Kenny stated, very knowledgeably.  ”Mind if I tag along?  I kind of don’t have a driver’s license.”

Jake thought for a second, and decided it best to change the subject without really giving an answer, “Why did you lose your license?”

Kenny smiled, and almost proudly stated, “Apparently, you aren’t allowed to drink and drive in this state.  Who knew?”  He paused for a second checking Jake’s reaction.  When Jake chuckled, Kenny continued back to his proposition. “So, tonight the Queen?  I’ll pay for the cover to make it worth your while.”

Jake attempted to explain himself, while not really saying anything about his situation.  ”No I don’t really think tonight would be the best night for you to come with.  I’m meeting a girl there.”

Kenny grinned, “Well, you old dog, you.  I thought you seemed like my kind of guy.”  And with that, Kenny walked over to the phone hanging from a wall behind the cash register.  He dialed a quick familiar number, and waited for a response.

Jake could hear the rasp of the old Korean War vet on the other end of the phone.

“Hey Grandpa, Jake here has got a hot date tonight.  The shops been slow today, can I cut him loose early?”  Jake leaned forward in his chair, across the room, staring at Kenny’s back.  He was hoping to hear the old man’s response.  He was already dreading the night enough, and now he might be getting his nightmare realized a little earlier than he’d planned.  He was excited to see Autumn, but not excited to see her there.  He’d tried to call her, but Chuck had always answered the phone, and made excuses for Autumn’s whereabouts.  He had no idea if she even wanted to see him.   “Sure thing Grandpa, no, I’ll switch shifts with him…I’ll tell him.  Okay,” Jake heard the old man say bye, and hang up.  ”Yeah, no I love you the most, Grand pappy.”  Kenny muttered, obviously to himself.  He hung up the phone, and spun around to face Jake.

Kenny spoke with triumph in his voice.  ”BJ said to make sure you take out the trash and that if you make it to work before noon tomorrow you’d better have stories ready to tell.  I told him we can just switch shifts.  You close tomorrow evening, and I’ll cover for you in the morning.  Deal?”

Jake’s stomach began to turn, but he managed to stand up from his chair.  He gently laid down the Dirty Harry style .357 he’d been cleaning on a cloth on the display case.  ”Thanks man, yeah for sure, deal.”  He said with as much enthusiasm as he could fake.

He took out the trash, and jumped in to his beat-up, old Camaro.  The car had three different shades of rust, with a few primer painted spots.  He could afford a better car.  He’d been saving money since before he’d left on his last deployment.  Even after the down payment on his house, he had nearly $30,000 in the bank.  He kept telling himself that one day when he had time he’d work on the car.  It was going to be a real terror.  It was already fast and pretty soundly taken care of.  He just never got around to the outside, or the inside, really.  The seats sported cheap seat covers.

He put the car in gear and drove back to his house for a quick shower, and a change in to some nicer clothes.  He even sprayed on some cologne.  He had no idea why he was trying so hard.  He talked himself out of going, and laid on his bed fully dressed.  It was barely four o’clock.  He knew that Autumn would already be there, though.  Debbie had told him she alwas pulled doubles on Friday.  Maybe she was on his side after all.