The Trail
#2 of The Dead Have Risen
Authors note,
Now if the store doesn't seem like it's all that it could be. I'm sorry, as I said before; I'm only starting in writing stories. So I already know that there is going to be things that I need to improve on and/or change. So please bear with me as I learn how to form my stories to make it a little smoother to read. So please feel free to critic me, point out things that could use changing or improving if not both.
Secondly, still dealing with some family issues, work issues and buying of property. So I feel like this is a way to escape it all and have a sense of freedom and time without worry, and a way to express myself. I hope to soon expand on things that aren't as dark as zombies and all the funnels that come with running away from survival.
The Trail
© 2011
Falcon Shaownight
John woke quickly flipping his hat off his face and pulling a pistol and sitting up quickly. Breathing heavy through his nose he sat there look at a startled panther. He had been dreaming that he and the panther were the only two left alive and outside of the safe zone unable to get in, and zombies closing in. That's when he heard a twig brake and was pulled back into reality.
"Hey, easy there buddy. It's me, Brian, the guy trying to stay alive with you out here?" Brain said holding up a paw as he tried to talk the wolf down.
Leaning back against the saddles John sighed and rested the pistol on his chest once he got his bearings. "Sorry man, bad dream is all. Has it been four hours already?" he asked rubbing the sleep from his eyes and sitting up.
"Yeah, guess that means that you have to get the rest of your beauty sleep some other time there bud." Brain said after a short yawn. "Oh I hope you have something to keep you occupied and awake so we don't get eaten alive." He said as they switch places, "Hey this isn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. I mean I thought I was going to have a tree root right in the middle of my back." The feline said happily as he lay down where John had been sleeping.
"Yeah, seeing as I wasn't able to grab me sleeping pad I had to make do with what we had. One benefit of sleeping out in the wild enough, you learn all the tricks to stay comfy without the couch." John said smiling going over to his saddle bags he pulled out the map, compass, and his head lamp. "Now go ahead get some sleep, I'm going to take a look at the map, and try and map out the best way for us to go."
Brian nodded and quickly fell asleep. John looked at the map trying to find the fastest, yet safest way to the air force base. He knew that they had to stay in the valleys as much as possible to avoid being seen by the undead. But that also meant that if the military was doing search and rescue they would be able to see the two servers on the ground. But that was a chance he figured would be better than running into zombies.
So marking out check points on the map to help him keep track of where the needed to go in order to reach their final destination. In the process of doing so he made sure to keep an ear out for anything that might try and eat them.
After about two hours of staring at the map without a break, he put it down and went back to his saddle bags and pulled out his bottles water. That's when he heard movement around the camp, and horses making noses. He quickly grabbed his bow and nocked an arrow. He waited and listened for the nose again, and then the horses started whinnying in fright as whatever it was, was close to them. Pulling the sting tight, John slowly made his way to the horses. He saw their shapes silhouette against the rest of the forest and something up near their heads. He could tell it wasn't a zombie, otherwise the horses would have broke free and bolted
In a voice just above a whisper "Stop right there. Keep your paws off our horses and slowly come to my voice." John said sternly, the figure stopped and stood their almost as though it was frozen soled.
"I am armed and I'm aim right at your legs, so if you try and run, you won't get far." The shape stepped out from behind the horses and started walking towards John slowly. "Ok that's good enough. Now get on your knees and paws on your head."
Once the shape did what he told it to do, John quickly unnocked the arrow and then replaced it with the others and quickly pulled his pistol. Drawing closer to the shape he noted it was a human, a female.
"Who are you, what how'd you get all the way out here alone?" John asked as soon as the dim light of his head lamp showed her futures. Though her face was scratched up from what looked like running through brush. Her clothes where covered in dirt and blood. And her hair was a tangled mess. She wore a tank top, and tight blue jeans and shoes that were not meant for wondering the forest especially at night.
Tears had started to roll down the raccoons face, as far as John could tell she was a college girl that never really had any experience being in nature, other than car camping.
"I had to get away. I don't know what happened, all I heard was everyone screaming people chasing others. It was like a horror movie or something." She explained still to frighten to really know what was happening.
Holstering his piston John helped her get up and move closer to where he and Brian had made their camp. "What's your name?" he asked as he put his jacket around her shoulders.
"Uhh," she hesitated still trying to get a grasp on things. "Chrissie, my name is Chrissie."
"Well Chrissie, your safe now." He went back to his saddle bags and got his water bottle, coming back he offered it to her. "Here have some water."
She quickly took it and started drinking. "So how'd you get all the way out here, where you camping?"
Whipping her mouth, she nodded. "Yeah, me and some friends wanted to do one last get away before school started again. So we decided on camping, and that's when it started. That night, at first we just thought it was a couple people messing around but then it just get scary. I just started running; I didn't know where I was going. All I knew is that I had to get away from there."
"Well at least your still alive, and in one peace. Why don't you get some sleep now, you need it. We're going to be striking out early. I know there are only a couple more hours of night time but some sleep is better than none." He said putting his paw on her shoulder. She laid down and shut her eyes. John got up to get the map again, "Please don't leave." She whispered as he opened her eyes and looked at him.
"It's ok I'm right here, I'm not going anywhere. I'm just getting a map." He said trying to put her mind at ease. Moving to the saddle bags he pulled the map out and looked at it some more. He wanted to try and figure out where her and her friends could have been camping. After about five minutes of looking over the map he found the camp ground.
Looking at the rout that he had plotted he had to replot their path. So with a heavy sigh he started replotting. By the time he was finished he took a look at his watch. It was five o'clock. Going to his saddle bags, he looked for a pot, he was going to make some breakfast. But coursed himself for not packing a pot. So it looked like they would have to go to the camp ground in order to find one.
"Brian, Chrissie, time to get up." John said as he faced the two as they slept. Slowly the two woke up. Reluctant to want to wake with so little sleep, rubbing the sleep from their eyes they released that it was still dark out.
"John, it's far too early to be waking up." The panther argued groggily, slowly standing and stretching.
"I know but we need to get going, we have a few miles of rough terrain ahead of us. So we need to get started early. To make it up to ya, I'll take first when we bed down for the night when we're done for the day." John said as he moved and got a saddle and placed it on one of the horses.
"Who are you?" Brian asked as he saw the new addition to the party.
"Well hello to you too." Chrissie said bluntly, not pleased that she didn't get a warm welcome from either the males.
"Sorry, didn't get much sleep, so I might be a little moody today." Brian stated as he went over to where his saddle bags where and pulled out a water bottle and took a few sips.
"Ok, not to break up this romantic moment, but we need to get ready to move. Those things are still out there, and we still have ground to cover. So Chrissie I want you to take this water filter and fill up the water bottle you drank from. We all have to pull our own weight out here. And Brian, you're going to learn out do saddle a horse this morning." John said, he didn't want any one feeling like he was playing favorites and he knew that they would need to know how to do these things if something happened to him.
He showed Chrissie how to use the filter and pointed to the creek that was less than ten feet away. She reluctantly did it; she was still shook up from what happened at the camp ground. But John reassured her that he and brain where nearby and not going anywhere. Once she was settled down John turned his focus to Brian.
"Ok Brain, watch me saddle my horse, because you're going to be doing your own." John said as he made his way to his horse. He quickly brushed the back and side of his horse with his paw. Making sure that it was clear of all dirt, leaves and anything else that may cause discomfort while the saddle is on, then he got one of the saddle blankest folded it in half and centered it on her back. Making sure that the ties are facing up, he gets the saddle making sure that the stirrups are secured he lifts the saddle up and gently places it onto the back of the horse. He then walks around making sure everything is still in place and lets the stirrup down. Then comes back to the other side and lets the other stirrup down. Once he's happy that everything is as it should be, he secures it to the blanket. Then he reaches under and grabs the cinch and slowly starts to tighten it as not to make the horse feel uncomfortable. He runs a finger under the cinch to make sure it's not too tight. Once he's down with that, he works both the front legs and makes sure that the saddle isn't cinched to tight.
"Damn it." John says, as he walks back. The cinch being too loose and everything shifting on him, forcing him to take the saddle off and reposition the blanket. But with the second go round he got it right. "Ok, Brian, your turn." John said as he stood back to watch the panther go to work.
Brian started to put the blanket on, when John stopped him. "Did you get all the dirt and daubery off the back and sides?" He asked, as Chrissie came back with a full water bottle and the filter.
"Come on man, there's way to much stuff to remember about doing this. How am I supposed to remember even half of it?" Brain moaned, dropping the blanket and brushing off the horse.
"Well what if something happened to me and I couldn't do it for you, then what? You'd end up pissing the horse off and most likely casing to do any number of things to you. Most of which could kill you, so do it right." John said, knowing that it was a lot to remember, but also knowing that it would take them even longer to get to the base if they didn't learn how to do it on their own.
After a good deal of grumbling from the large cat and correcting form the wolf, the second horse was saddled. Then the three of them start getting the last of the camp picked up and put away in the saddle bags.
"Ok, let's mount up and get out of here and try and get a little closer to the base." John said as he got into the saddle.
He offered a paw to Chrissie to help here in to the saddle. Once everyone got in the saddle John leads the horse north west towards the base. They were going a slowly pace due to it still being dark out. After about an hour of ridding, they stopped ridding to get some breakfast. Join lead the horses over to a creek so they could get a drink. He had Chrissie watch the horses.
He went into the saddle bags and quickly found what he was looking for, a length of rope so he could tie the horses to tie them off with. He tied it off between a two trees, once the line was secured he ties the horses off once they had their fill of water letting Chrissie sit on a log and try and stay warm in the cold morning air.
"Hey Brian, why don't you start a fire for us as I go and rustle up some grub for us." John says as he pulls the shotgun out of its sheath and slings it over his shoulder, and starts walking into the brush. The two that were left behind look at each other for a seconds then Brian starts working on getting the fire going
They sat there and brought it up from just a small flame to a nice big fire. They sat there and enjoyed the heat from the fire that they had started. It was about thirty minutes before John got back from looking for some food. As he walked out of the brush he stopped died in his tracks.
"What on earth are you doing?!" John yells as he drops the quails he had caught and runs over to the fire. Quickly throwing dirt on it to smother it and bring the flames down.
"Hey what the hell are doing, we worked hard to get that thing going?!" Chrissie screamed as she watched John throw dirt on the flames.
He soon stopped short of putting it out completely, "We don't need a big boned fire telling those zombies where we are, and we don't need to start a brush fire and spook the horses." John said hotly, as he went back and picked up their breakfast. He sat down next to the hot embers and started to get the birds ready to cook. Setting them on a rock to let the blood drain he found a couple go sturdy stick and made them read to secure the birds. Once that was down he started to cook the meat up.
Once one was done he passed it to Chrissie and then one to Brian, and took the last for himself.
"Ok kids, once we're done with breakfast; we set out to get to the base. Hopefully we can get the main gate maybe an hour after dark." John said as he eats his breakfast.
"But that means that it will be harder to see anything." Brian said looking at John, not wanting to ride when they can't see.
"Well it shouldn't take too long once we make it through the town."
The three of them sat and eat as they thought about the ride ahead of them when the horses started to get antsy. As soon as John saw them getting nerves, he dropped his breakfast. Running over to his horse he grabbed his shotgun and slung it over his shoulder and making sure that the horse was tied off tight. Brian quickly did the same, pulling his mini-14 out and shouldering it. Chrissie just sat there, not knowing what to do.
John pulled his pistol, kneeled and shot, hitting the zombie square in the chest. A puff of pink sprayed out of its back. It only stumbled back a few feet and then started its slow march towards the trio. John fired two more shots; the first of the second hit its neck, ripping a big hole in the zombie's neck. The third and final shot found the head, the back of the head being turned into mush and flying way form the body and the zombie fell into a lifeless heap down for the count.
"Brain get my back, I have a feeling that these things are going to be coming out of the wood work." John says as he couches down and watching the brush line.
Brain quickly gets behind John watching the other direction. Chrissie just standing there not knowing what to do.
"For crying out loud Chrissie, get over her." Brian says as he moves out a little to let her get between him and John. As she is making her way over to the two of them, Brian fires off two rounds.
A zombie head being split open and the two rounds that had hit it. Pieces of gray matter sent flying as the undead fell to the ground into a motionless heap. John fired just a split second later John fired and another fell.
"Looks like we're in for hit John. Think we'll make it?" Brian said as he fired another round at an undead basset hound that came out of the brush, moaning and shuffling towards them.
"Just keep your eyes open, if they get in to close then we're done for." The wolf responded firing another round, a bobcat falling to the ground.
The horse broke loose from their tie offs, and bolt. Chrissie watch in fear as she saw their only means of transportation run off and leave her stunned. "No!" She cries out and runs to try and grab onto the ropes that trailed behind them.
"Chrissie, get back here!" John yelled, not wanting to see her succumb to the undead. He turns to try. Starts after her, shooting a husky that had come into his sights, then a badger. Chrissie jumps to try and grab the rope of one of the horses, but is unable to grab it. Brian sees a wolf moving in on the prone raccoon, he squeezes the trigger on his pistol, all he heard was click. "Shit!" he yells as he realizes his gun is empty. Pressing the release, ejecting the spent magazine, keeping the pistol in his right paw he pulls a new magazine out of its pouch, and slams it into the pistol, and releases the action, and fires. The wolf is hit in the leg, slowing it down and shifting its body enough so he could get a clean shot at its head without hitting the raccoon. He fires, the round finding its marks.
The now motionless and lifeless wolf falls on top of Chrissie. John quickly runs over, pulling the wolf off her, he grabbed her wrist. "Come on, get up." He said helping her up. Once one her feet, he pushed her behind him as they made their way back to Brian. But as soon as she started, she screamed in pain and fell to the ground. She had stepped into to a gofer hole and broke her ankle. John tripped over here not having enough time to maneuver around her. As he fell he hit his head on a rock and blacked out