Earth's Survivors: Home in the Valley: Earth's Survivors, #4

By Geo Dell

On The Road

Night

Bear and Beth

They came through the roof...

Bear was talking to Beth, leaned against the door frame, staring out at the night black parking lot, when the first zombie dropped from the ceiling of the store behind them. There were four of them outside the vehicles talking or keeping watch on the parking lot. Bear and Beth, Mac and Billy. When the first one dropped Billy spun around and clubbed it to the ground. But the rest came so fast that they could not hope to easily and quickly pick them off.

Beth raised her machine pistol straight up and began firing into the roof. The light from the lanterns didn't penetrate the darkness all the way to the ceiling, so there was no way to see how many there were or even where they were. She found herself wishing she still had the flashlight taped to the rifle barrel.

Six dropped and Bear had to wait for them to come at him so he could be sure of shooting them and not accidentally shooting into the trucks. Billy ran from truck to truck pounding on the doors and window glass, waking everyone up.

Bear reversed the stock of his rifle and ran at the Zombie in front of him. He clubbed his head flat and then reversed the rifle and shot him through the head once he was on the floor. Six more UN-dead dropped from the darkness above, one right after the other. Two landed on Bears truck, and he heard Cammy scream from inside. One stood from the roof, preparing to leap at Billy as he ran towards Don and Ginny's truck, and Bear shot him off the roof of the truck. He fell right onto one of the kerosene lanterns and the flames shot up immediately, running under and up the side of Don and Ginny's truck where the kerosene had splashed. It seemed like less than a second to Bear before the truck and the stock in the aisle behind that truck went up in flames. The line of flame rolled away into the store, catching the merchandise on the shelves as it went.

Beth shot another zombie as it dropped from the ceiling and landed nearly in front of her. Don's truck started, and a second later Don's eyes showed just above the dashboard as he dropped the truck into gear and lurched forward. Bear jumped at Billy knocking him out of the way as the truck roared by with scant inches to spare. They both rolled, came up and Billy fired low, taking the legs out from under one of the dead. Bear gained his feet, spun towards the front and watched Don's truck smash dead center into one of the piles of pallets and tires. It was already burning, flames shooting from under the truck and up the sides, the flames had fanned when Don had dropped it in gear and driven from the store. The truck hit, bounced, and then came back down hard on the tires and pallets.

Sparks flew high into the sky. The truck bounced twice more, Bear saw Don's head bounce off the side window, and then the truck veered sharply to the left and roared off into the parking lot covered in flames. A second later the sound of the crash came to them as the truck slammed into several cars in the lot and came to a fast halt. Bear forced himself to turn away. He couldn't afford the luxury of watching something he could do nothing about.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Writerz
• Release date: Mar 9, 2017
• ISBN: 9798223470380

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EARTH'S SURVIVORS: HOME IN THE VALLEY

Copyright 2015 Geo Dell all rights reserved.

Cover Art © Copyright 2018 Geo Dell

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your bookseller and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

LEGAL

This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places or incidents depicted are products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual living person’s places, situations or events is purely coincidental. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means, electronic, print, scanner or any other means and, or distributed without the author's permission. Permission is granted to use short sections of text in reviews or critiques.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

CHARACTOR BIBLIOGRAPHY

EARTH'S SURVIVORS: HOME IN THE VALLEY

ONE

New Jersey: Bear and Cammy

May 2nd

Somehow it seemed that with John's death they had lost their drive to get out of the city: They had settled into the factory and within a few days others had begun to join them. At first Bear had done his best to dissuade them, silence and moodiness seemed to be his only persona for most of that time, but Madison and Cammy welcomed newcomers and got them set up with sleeping areas inside the factory. They also organized daily outings for supplies, and that enabled Bear to get a better idea of the area they were in.

They had left in the early morning of May 2nd, Bear and Cammy on foot, Madison and Rob, one of the newcomers, in a truck to cruise the fields looking for deer or cows which seemed to be everywhere you looked, at least until you wanted one, Madison had joked. Gina, another newcomer, had stayed to keep things going at the factory which was close to fifty people now. Gina had been one of the first to come along. Tall, young, a shock of red hair that hung well below her waist, but was usually tied back into a ponytail and wrapped around her forehead. Happy hunting, Gina had called as they left.

Bear remembered that aloud as they walked, startling a small herd of goats that had been browsing the inside of a gas station as they passed. They let them go without a shot. Shots sometimes bought the dead. For some reason they didn't understand, the dead seemed to be changing. Less fearful of humans. Faster, out in the daylight. And their use of tools was becoming alarming. More than once they had seen evidence of tool usage by the dead. Here were some they couldn't hunt. He only hoped things were better for Madison. There was a police precinct seven blocks over where they hoped there would be a stash of weapons and ammunition. No way to know until they got there, but they had passed it a few times and it appeared closed up. Like the cops had seen the end coming and locked it all up before they had left. Bear hoped so. They had plenty of ammunition, but more was a no-brainer.

The Police station took half the day to break into. The cops had never left, they had simply become the dead in a prison of their own making. It had been close at first. They had expected a few dead, but not dozens. They had all seemed to be blind though: As if the months in absolute darkness had stolen sight from their arsenal. They more than made up for that with speed and ferocity though. It was late afternoon before they had what they had come for, which turned out to be no more than a few hundred rounds of ammunition Bear wasn't even sure they could use.

They had gone floor to floor, window to window, and it was the same story at every stop. Brass casings piled in mounds. They had fought until they could no longer fight and then they had starved to death or succumbed to their wounds. Something: It was hard to tell. The basement level showed the end results of some sort of huge gun fight. There were blocks of cells down here, Bear saw. All standing open and shell casings everywhere. Maybe that was their answer. At least the only answer they were likely to get.

The trip back to the factory where they had been staying was tough. The light was seeping from the sky and Bear had opted for a small pawn shop they had passed a few times before to spend the night. The shutters were intact. They had shot the lock off the outside, but there were hooks on the inside to lock it from there. He and Cammy fit snugly inside. They pulled down the shutters and ran a padlock Bear carried in his pocket for just that purpose through the latches.

The panels where heavy stainless steel. It would take more than a few dead to get through them. They had sat out the long night, listening to the dead smash and beat themselves against the panels, waiting for sunrise, and it had taken Bear once again back to the night a few weeks before when Madison had killed John and they had waited silently for dawn to arrive. Talk was impossible. Somewhere in the night Bear pulled Cammy close to him and they both drifted off into sleep despite the racket and stench from the dead.

THE FACTORY WAS SILENT as they approached it, but at first it didn't register for Bear. His mind was on Cammy and her silence. She had awakened silent and she had said little.

He had stepped into a browned smear of blood, and printed his boot track across the concrete entryway before it dawned on him that something wasn't right. His boot made an odd sucking sound as it came up from the concrete and Bear looked at it. A sound like tape pulling away from your skin, something like that, he thought. The coppery smell of blood hit him, and something else. The stench of death floated out of the factory, slipping under the canvas. He had back tracked a hundred feet in what seemed like seconds, coming to stop next to one of the trucks, leaning against the fender, his breath ragged and rushed.

"Cammy... Cammy." Bear raised his eyes to the front seat of the pickup truck, and then across the open bed. Empty. His eyes shot back to the bed. Wet, pink puddles. A familiar smell he didn't have time to place. It didn't matter though, the cab was empty, safety for Cammy while he figured out what had happened. He levered the door open and Cammy jumped willingly inside with no resistance.

Honey... Listen... Cammy... If you can't see me, don't open the door... Don't open it... Stay in there. She nodded, her eyes frightened.

He wore a pair of 9 mm guns with over-sized clips. He had taken them from a dead man a few weeks back and replaced the heavier .45's he carried with them. That man had been shot through the head. He had wondered about that, but not for long. There were a lot of ways to get dead in this world, he didn't need to think about that, it was a fact. Whatever this man had done had been bad enough that another living being had decided to end his life. Or maybe he had been just another guy trying to survive and some bad men had found him. He doubted that though. They would have taken the guns had that been the case. What really bothered him was the way he began to work the explanation over in his head. No thought for the body that lay in the street. The violence no longer seemed to bother him. How long before he too was just another statistic? Or an anti statistic? One of the ones who simply shot first and never bothered to ask questions? He didn't know the answer. And although that should have bothered him as well it didn't.

The ammunition had been getting harder to find for the .45, but the 9 mm stuff was everywhere it seemed. He supposed some day that would run out too, but for now it was plentiful and he did not relish running out of ammunition. He took both guns out, flicked off the safeties and walked slowly to the factory entrance.

The stench was nearly overpowering as he toed the canvas aside and stepped partly inside. The fire was out, and with the windows boarded up there was little light to see by. Even so he could see the remains of two bodies that lay close by the entrance way. He stood for what seemed like minutes looking down at the bodies, but there was no way to know who they had been. He might have gone on staring, lost in thought, but the nearest one lifted her upper body from the floor with her arms. Gina, Bear saw. The eyes were not the same, but there was something in the face that was still her own.

The eyes were red chips set in a sea of black. Her legs were gone, ripped from the hip sockets it seemed to Bear, yet she struggled to lift her entire body, her stomach convulsing, the muscles contracting, trying to lift her. Her mouth opened and clumps of black blood fell as her teeth gnashed. Bear lowered one gun and shot her between the eyes. Jelled brain splattered to the floor behind her and she lost her animation, slowly sagging back down to the floor.

The sound of the gunshot woke up something or someone else in the farther reaches of the factory. The odd whining sounds the dead produced leapt out at him and the sound of feet dragging against the concrete. Bear stepped back and let the curtain of canvas fall back in place. A second later he was back at the truck where he had left Cammy. She reached over and unlocked the door, Bear ripped the door open, glancing at the ignition as he did. No keys.

He shut the door and ran for the other truck. The keys dangled from the ignition through the glass. He turned and raced around the edge of the first truck and yanked the door open. A second later he had pulled Cammy out when she had seemed to be hesitating, looking toward the factory.

But... Bear, Maddy...., Bear, she said as he propelled her toward the other truck.

He pushed her into the other truck. Cammy... Nothing is alive in there... Nothing. Cammy don't leave... Give me a few seconds... Stay put, Bear told her.

There was no movement of the canvas cover, Bear saw. He had been watching it from the corner of one eye, expecting it to move and the dead to come pouring out into the sunlight. He had seen some who seemed to be unaffected by sunlight, but those were not the newly made. After they had been around for a while they adapted, changed, moved themselves away from that limitation. These had not come running. It didn't mean that they couldn't. He was taking nothing for granted.

He walked back to the first truck. A few seconds under the dashboard and he had ripped away the ignition wires. He twisted two of the wires together, for the circuit that needed constant power, and then touched the other wire to same hot wire for a moment. The starter spun, caught and then the motor began to turn over. A second later it coughed to life. He dropped it into drive and then backed it around until it lined up with the factory doors about eighty feet away.

He had kept his eyes on the factory entrance. Sounds caused the dead to become even more active. They liked the silence, even so, nothing came from the draped canvas. He watched for a few seconds longer. The canvas moved again and a rotting face slipped from inside, hissing as the sun touched it, quickly allowing the draped canvas to fall closed once more. Bear walked down along the pickup bed to the gas cap door. He opened the door, spun the cap from the tank, and the fumes rushed up to meet him. He had no idea how much was in the tank, but they filled them at every chance, so it should be close to full. He let the cap fall from his hand as he drew his pocket knife, snapped it open, and then leaned back inside the cab. A second late he was slicing through the seat cover, cutting long foam backed pieces from it. He took four of the longest pieces, wound them together and then walked back to the tank.

He studied it for a moment, pushed some wound up rag down into the tank, but he knew that wasn't going to cut it. He returned to the cab and came back a few seconds later with a tire iron. He hooked the cloth with it and shoved it down into the tank. Once nearly all of it was in, he slowly pulled it out. It came out soaked with gas after the first few feet. He turned it around and stuffed the dry end back down into the tank. A second later he bent and drove his knife into the gas tank where it rested below the body panel for the pickup box. Gas began to splatter to the ground as he withdrew the knife.

He stood, looked over the factory entrance once more and then picked up the gas soaked end of the cloth he had wound together where it had pooled onto the blacktop. The puddle of gas was growing quickly, rolling toward the factory. He probably could depend on that alone to get the job done, but he hated to leave things to chance. He reached into his pocket, liberated his lighter: Spun the wheel and lit it, then dropped the shift lever into drive. In one quick movement he lit the tail of the cloth and then dropped it into the gas that was spreading across the blacktop. The truck lurched as he quickly stepped back, and then crept slowly across the cracked pavement at idle, dragging a trail of fire as it went.

The cloth had set the pooled gas on fire and it raced just behind the truck as it rolled across the lot. The fire ate its way upward on the cloth, reaching for the tank opening at the same time. The truck slammed into the entrance way, seemed to hang up for a second, and then broke through partway into the interior. Bear caught just a glimpse of dead scattering from the heat and flame before the gas tank blew up. By then he was in the other truck, passing by the front of the factory as he sped away. He could see the flames running into the factory. A few blocks away he had turned back and seen black flames creeping from the roof. A few miles later the flames had been eating through the old roof; another fire in a city full of fires.

Bear and Cammy

Madison had found them later that afternoon as Bear drove aimlessly through the streets that were cleared, following the routes they often took for supplies. He had seen a shadow by the mouth of an alleyway and slowed the truck a block away, unwilling to get ambushed. He sent Cammy around the city block so she could come up on the other side of the alleyway on foot, leaving the truck somewhere out of site.

He had made the slow walk to the alleyway alone, both pistols drawn, ready. He had nearly shot her when she leapt out of the alleyway. Torn, bloodied, desperation in her eyes. Cammy had screamed from somewhere behind her and they had both avoided the mistake their nerves could have cost them. Cammy ran to her and they both collapsed to the ground in tears. Rob was in the alleyway dying. Madison told the story once Cammy had got some liquid into her and they had all calmed down for a few moments.

She spoke with a voice heavy with emotion, her eyes leaking slowly. They came in the late afternoon. I had built a fire by the entrance, we had two deer, flesh blood, I wanted to make sure everyone stayed away, but it didn't stop them, Madison said. They leapt the fire and took us easily, we were completely unprepared. The only reason Rob and I made it out was we were outside when they hit, cleaning the back of the truck, blood. She took a deep breath and tears began to spill faster from her eyes.

We went for the entrance, but both of us had left our rifles inside, She shook her head, We had... She shook her head again as if to negate what had happened. It was only seconds, we thought, maybe minutes, so we left them. We had our pistols, we thought, what else did we need? She stopped talking and took a few moments to get herself under control.

It was too late when we got there. They're strong. Stronger than two men, two strong men, maybe stronger. We killed a half dozen but it didn't slow them down, except they were now also thinking of us, she shrugged. We spent last night hiding in the old school where you found us, She laughed nervously, Still standing, what a wonder. No ammunition, nothing. I got a piece of pipe, Rob found a fence stake, you know, one of the construction site type, metal stakes you see all over the city? Sharp, heavy. We huddled together. She shook her head.

"Maybe just after dawn, it was dirty light through the windows. Gray. Makes everything look like it's black and white... They came out of nowhere. We heard them coming down the street outside, making noise to scare they dead, maybe, who knows. Sometimes enough noise scares them, usually attracts them though. They came in and there was nothing we could do. We were right in