There’s nothing quite like standing on top of a former moving truck turned into a tank shooting arrows into the heads of zombies. To be fair it could also be the neck or heart. Z’s are for the most part easy to lay down for their final rest but sometimes a monster Z would pop around and that was when the whole shit show would blow up. They were hard to put down, but we had plans for just about everything and we always expected the worst and hoped for the best.

     The once moving truck was reinforced with metal plates on all sides and a solid metal platform on the roof for us to stand on without falling off a side and being eaten to death or crushed that was a possibility too which would absolutely suck. There were ladders strategically placed, Z’s were not known for thinking all that much.

      My leathers and jeans were chafing every bit of my skin, but it was just part of my daily grind. Clearing an entire state of Z’s is hard work but here we are melting and thrusting or whatever. We would have waited for cold weather, but we can’t, we are on a mission, and we are running out of time. Dale and Tank punched their long-pointed spears into the Z’s on repeat and I shot arrows and bolts at them around the outside of the perimeter of the herd.

     My part was helping to thin the herd before it overwhelmed the van. Sarge sat inside the van watching as the bodies piled up. He would drive the van forward when the pile began to get too high up on the sides of the van. In the back of the van several people sat on couches resting up for their turn up topside.

     They were basking in the AC, eating, hydrating and prepping their weapons for their next round. Every once in a while, they would poke a stick out into a smaller Z. Thankfully this didn’t happen very often because it was demoralizing. The children were the worst. Always the worst. This herd was almost done but my group was also almost done too.

     “Tank, stat?” I yelled.

     “I’m good little sis, D whatcha doin’?” Tank wasn’t even yelling but he could have just about plowed over a whole herd with the barrel of his voice alone. He was not just a large man, but he was gigantic. To say he was broad shouldered and barrel chested was a drastic understatement.

     D or Dale was only a little bit smaller but a whole lot quieter. He looked at Tank and I knew; we were now in the land of challenge accepted. Fucking hell. My arms were about to give out, so I called down inside the van. “Lilly, got some more bolts for me? The men folk have lost their damn minds again.” I could hear her elfishly evil laughter as she tossed another bag of bolts up to me.

     I switched to my handy dandy crossbow and gently handed my recurve down to Lilly who knew the dangers of being mean to my lady. My bow had the two letter Ts an E and a G painted carefully on one side. The first initials of my three children and my grand baby. I would never give up hope of finding them. My team knew this, they knew I needed to fight, I needed to clear areas and search for survivors.

     Tank was in the same situation as me, only he had two sets of twins and four grandbabies to find. Tank and his gorgeous wife Grace needed to fight as well. The rest of the team had lost all of their family that we knew of. Dale simply stopped talking when we found his son, his mission involved rage and reclamation. We all copied that in full.

   Sarge tooted his damn horn again, and we grabbed a rail and waited for the van to stop again. Sarge’s two wives (yes two, don’t question it his wives will turn your eyes into beads) ridiculed those of us topside with jibs we couldn’t hear thankfully. We fearfully called them the Valkyrie because they probably could rip the soul out of an unsuspecting fool and eat it. They knew we would be hurting after this and they were trying to inject humor into the situation, and it was working, as always. 

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

    I looked out over the herd which was comprised of mostly stragglers at this point and saw a child way behind them. Damn. The child was small and half a football field away. I walked over to the hatch and lowered my hand down. I caught Lilly’s eyes and she read my face, she knew and handed Teg back to me, that’s what everyone called my bow. No one else noticed and that was good. I plucked a red arrow from my quiver, notched it and carefully aimed. This one was moving oddly, looking back… Z’s simply don’t do that. I grabbed a rifle with a scope and caught a closer look. 

      ~

     Dale didn’t see a point in speaking unless something bad happened and they pretty much had this down to a science. The second he saw his baby boy wrapped in a shroud he lost it. The woman behind him was the one to find Dale’s son, put him down and wrap him in the very blanket she had made for him for his graduation. She softened the blow just the slightest bit. Mel was not at all his type, but she was his family and he decided right then and there to ride and die next to her and the rest of his team. They were all he had now, besides a very young woman who was going to survive this, come what may.

     Dale didn’t see what was happening behind him and then right next to him before he could even register that something in fact was happening Mel flew over the side of the van in a black leather and blue jean flash like a tiny fucking superhero. Dale reached out to her, grabbing at her jacket and missed by a mile. Dale’s jaw dropped as Mel ran away from them, away from him, she was the glue that helped hold him together and she was running away in an actual zombie apocalypse.

     This was not protocol; in fact, it went against everything they had planned for, and he knew in that moment they had a blind spot. Mel was the type to help with the strategy and she had a brain like a computer and came up with this whole van tank thing and the rules that went along with it. Mel and Brian worked well together formulating tactics for this shitshow. Brian was going to kill Dale along with everyone else and Mel’s husband and wife… Dale thought ‘Shitballs, this is in fact all of the suck.’

      Dale screamed.

     “Goddamn it all woman, what in the whole and actual fuck? Get your scrawny ass back here, MotherfuckingcocksuckingSHITBALLS!” Translation- Drill Sargent mode activated.

     Tank heard Dale along with everyone else and grabbed a rifle, he had no idea what exactly was happening yet, but he was on it all he saw was Mell’s black jacket growing distant by the second in a field trampled by Z’s. Tank marveled at how fast Mel could be in the right situations. Mel would spring forward like a shot and be gone so fast, too fast.  He vaulted over the side of the van holding the rail like a lumbering bear and almost tipped the van over onto its side, both wheels on the left side caught air in fact. Dale followed close behind with more careful thinking down a ladder. Lilly and the Valkyrie hit topside and saw what was happening.

     “Is that a kido?” Lilly asked, shielding the sun from her eyes with her hand.

     “Yeah, we figured this would happen someday. Let’s take care of this herd and everything else will be worked out regardless.”  Jessica said, her flaming red hair blew in the wind. Tabi nodded her blonde head and said,” they got that, and we got this, idiots.”

     ~

    My grandson, my grandson, my babies, was all I could think of. There were three Z’s behind him. Thankfully they were slow walking, but he was tiny and wasn’t much faster than them. They were gaining on him, and he was crying. ‘Not on my fucking watch, motherfuckers,’ I thought. I was not going to get there fast enough so I stopped and let an arrow loose at the closest Z and missed. A shot cracked out and I dipped down out of the way. I zigged to the right to give my guys an open field and ran faster, pushing myself past my known limits. The closest Z fell, good, that’s good. I was almost there, almost, just a little bit more. In the distance I could hear yelling and metal on flesh, I could not focus on that right this second.

     I reached what I thought was my grandson and pulled my saber from her sheath. Fight or die, this child my blood or not would live but my daughter. Where was she?

      I took off the heads of the two Z’s and grabbed the child up into my arms he was covered in dirt and blood, and I could not tell if he was my grandson or not and, in that moment, I was too stunned to register much besides he was alive, and I would now be in quarantine. My sword hung awkwardly in my hand. Dale and Tank ran toward the screaming with the Valkyrie brought up the rear with smiles for the child in my arms. They ran past me to the fight that I now had to let them go running into without me, damn it all straight to hell. I had not thought this through and that was a problem. Emotions are a whole pain in the ass and legs.