It’s going to be a problem.

Yeah, I could thought about it before I took this girl with me. Seriously I should just leave her and run by myself but it felt wrong. Unfair. You know, all of her friends were slaughtered.

You can say, it’s not my problem and you would be right. People are dying everyday, even from my hands, this is how world look now. So why did I saved her? I don’t know l, maybe I wanted to prove something to myself or… Why do I even need to explain it to you? I did what I did, lets focus about what I will do next.

So, the girl, I can’t really tell how old is she. Maybe eighteen? About  1,6m tall, short almost jet black hair, pale skin and pretty face. She doesn’t look like she could survive in zombie apocalypse but looks can be deceptive, don’t forget that she tried to shoot me.

So, I somehow managed to run away with her and backpack but I have to admit, it wasn’t nice exercise. After what happened in wood fort, coming back to my previous camp and taking car was only reasonable decision.

Right now I am driving car trough the forest, girl is sitting on passenger sit next to make. Fortunately three years it’s not enough for mother nature to take back what belonged to her, there are only young trees growing on the middle of road, nothing to hard for 4 wheel drive pickup.

The girl is sitting next to me, but don’t worry, she is still unconscious there is no danger and even if she wake up, I tied her up tightly. I need to talk with her and explain few things before I will give her freedom back.

But fact that she is still unconscious, worries me a little, maybe I hit her to hard? At least I can focus on driving, it’s almost dark and it is heavy raining, so I can’t see much trough the windshield. In addition I can think in peace about, what to do with her when she woke up.

After another hour, new sound different form deep engine noise appears, muffled moaning could be heard, I guess, my new friend is awake. Ah, I didn’t have told you, I sealed her mouth with duct tape, I don’t like when someone is screaming in such a small place like car interior, zombie apocalypse teaches you to enjoy silence.

Oho, it’s time to find out, how our future relations will be looking.

“Hello there, so you are finally awake and yes I will release you soon but firstly you have to promise that you won’t scream after I remove tape from your mouth.”

The series of moans and strange sounds doesn’t sound promising but after few seconds she finally calms down. With one smooth movement I remove tape.

“You fucker…”

At least she is not screaming.

“So, I guess we can move forward. Firstly you need to understand that I don’t want to harm you.”

“Of course you don’t want to harm me, this fucking rope and huge swelling on my head are proof of your good will.”

Ok, I admit, she may be a little right, but I saved her life in that place.

“ Hey, don’t be like that I saved your life. Those guys who butchered rest of your camp have heard you shooting at me and came back.”

Oho, she looks little surprised for a moment but after a second her face gives me another suspicious look.

“Why should I believe you?”

“Let’s see… Why you should believe me? I don’t know, maybe it’s because you don’t have other choice? Of course if you want to live. If you don’t mind dying, I can leave you in this forest, you will be able to survive for about week or two.”

It looks like she believed in the last one, good, at least she is not stupid. There is another thing, her eyes, she don’t have a look of someone who have seen to much, it looks like she is a tough one.

“Why are you helping me?”

Oho, she even ask right questions.

“Trust me, there is no special reason. I am just really nice guy.”

I can see in her eyes that she doubt in my words but she stays silent.

“So, I can assume that you won’t do something stupid if I release you?”

Quick nod, she is definitely to silent but I can’t keep her tied up forever. Ok, I set her free and… she didn’t try to kill me. I guess it’s not bad. She is not a talkative person, or maybe she finally start to feel shock. It takes her about 30 minutes to say something more.

“I want them dead.”

???

“Those people, who killed my friends, I want all of them dead.”

 “Yeah sure, why not?”

Another 5 minutes pass and she speaks again.

“Will you help me?”

What is she talking about?

“With what ?”

“With killing them.”

I understand now, why she is so calm after seeing her friends getting slaughtered, there is definitely some problem with her mind.

“Sorry, but I am little confused right now. You ask me if I will help you with killing group of dangerous and well armed people?”

“Yes.”

I am sure she is insane.

“Are you out of your mind!?!”

Silence, silence again. She is only stares at me intensely, the look in her eyes sends chills down my spine. Another few minutes and she speaks again.

“If you don’t want to help me, I will do it by myself.”

It’s my turn to remain silent. I just stare at road and try to look like I didn’t heard what she said but my new friend is stubborn one.

“Don’t treat me like an air! Will you help me?”

She even tries to grab my right arm. I guess it’s time to give her a little lesson. Without any warning I smash breaks and car stops instantly. The girl next to me is not prepared for such a maneuver, her forehead meets windshield with dull noise. Zombie apocalypse or not, you should always wear the seatbelts.

I don’t give her time to recover, I grab her arm tightly with one hand and pull out my gun with another. The view of weapon stops swears pouring from her mouths.

“Listen to me little kid! I don’t know how you spend the last three years and I don’t care, but it’s pretty obvious that you barely know how to survive. That’s why I am trying to help you. I even risked my life to safe your life, so it would be nice if you won’t try to make it harder for me. Do you understand ?”

Oho, I can see that all her courage disappeared, maybe I was a little to harsh. I don’t want her to be afraid of me, don’t I?

“Those people, in that fort, they were friends of yours?”

Quick nod.

“And you really want to avenge them.”

Another nod.

“And you are sure, that you will be able to do anything it takes to get your vengeance?”

Without any hesitation she nods again. Oh fuck me, I know I will regret it later, but what can I do, when I see such a death wish in her eyes.

“Ok, I will help you, but there is one condition. You will do everything I tell you without exception. Do you understand me?”

She nods with hope in her eyes, oh it’s so annoying, is the gun in my hand, reason why she forget how to speak?

“Say it out loud.”

“I  will do everything you tell me to do.”

Ok, I guess we have a deal, the terms of it may be a little harsh, I don’t have a fucking idea how to get to that guys, but I can be sure of one thing, she won’t kill me in sleep.

So, I turn back a car in direction we came from, to be honest I still believe that it’s wrong decision but I made my promise, at least it stopped to rain.

I feel a little bad that I scolded her like a little kid, but don’t blame me, she needed that if she want to survive. There is another reason why it feels bad, I treated her like a kid but I am probably three or four years older than she.

Girl next to me stays silent, I won’t complain but there is still one thing I don’t know.

“Hey, what’s your name?”

It takes her a few seconds to answer me.

“Anna.”

Ok, I know that we haven’t a greatest start and my social skill may became a little lacking while I was travelling by myself but she could at least try to make some conversation.

“This is the moment when you ask me what’s my name.”

She wants to stay silent but look at my face force her to change her decision.

“So, what’s your name?”

“ Thank you, I’m Stefan.”

Ok, don’t laugh at me but now, I don’t know what to say. I could ask her about how she survived those three years, but even I know it’s not a good idea. Oh, just let it be, silence is alright too.

After spending night in the car, hidden in the bushes near road, I and my new friend Anna started to track down guys who slaughtered her friends.

It wasn’t to hard, those guys were specially careful, they left a lot of kinds of traces which guided us out of forest.

I have to admit humans are impressive creatures and zombie apocalypse couldn’t rip them from their cleverness and ingeniousness. Fort build in the forest was first and now that.

Hidden inside bushes on the edge of the forest I have great look on base of our pray. They turned ordinary village in zombie shelter. But let me describe it for you.

Firstly, village. It’s small, about dozen of houses and another dozen of buildings for animals and agriculture stuff. Buildings are located on both sides of asphalt road going straight through village. It typical arrangement for a small village in my country. Add little store and bus stop and that’s all.

But all fun starts when we talk about how they secured their village. Firstly, there is high fence or wall, I don’t know how to call it because it’s basically made from everything. There are two gates in places where fence crosses the road.

Additionally gates are guarded by two wooden towers. I bet that those guys have raided some military base or something because there are machine guns on top of towers.

But that’s not all, whole area around village looks like freshly plowed. I guess this guys are trying to grow some wheat. In addition fields around are protected to. This guys somehow managed to dig trench around it about 2,5 m deep and 2m wide. The parts where trench is crossing road are secured by fence gates.

Once again I have to admit I am impressed, but it shouldn’t be that surprising, the ones who survived are the strongest and the most clever ones.

Anna is with me and I can see that this view make an impression on her.

“You know we don’t have to kill them, it won’t be bad thing if we leave it be like this. We tried to avenge your friends but enemy is very strong.”

Oho, there is this killing intend look.

“You promised! You..”

I use my hand to close her mouth, screaming at me near enemy camp is not the best idea.

“Yes yes, I remember, now please stay silent. Don’t worry I have a plan.”

Ok, maybe a word plan is a little overstatement but have some idea how to deal with this guys. Oh, and I have to admit that it’s no exactly my own idea. It’s something that I have heard about year ago.

“Ok we are done here. Now we need to find nearest town.”

Anna seems to be little confused.

“Town? We will be looking for weapons ?”

“Not exactly, but I guess you can call it that way. Don’t worry I will explain it later.”

Once again map of area became priceless help. About 10 kilometers away from enemy camp is a little, about 5000 people town.  Of course it was countless time looted by our friends in village but, loot is not a thing I am looking for.

Ok, recipe “how to fuck up enemy camp”. First ingredient is a truck. Sounds easy, but finding a working one after three years of zombie apocalypse I pretty hard. But don’t worry, don’t forget I am a specialist.

It took us about hour to find special building, a fire station. You know three years is a lot of time for a truck if it’s kept outside, but if it’s hidden garage things are different. Yeah, and easiest place where trucks are kept in garage is fire station.

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Just like police station in previous city, fire station was already cleared from zombies and loot but that makes things easier for us. Of course fire engines could be taken already but honestly who would ride huge, red truck in zombie apocalypse.

As expected all garage places are taken, there are two buses, one let’s call it standard fire engine and something I was looking for.

On the last place is truck with huge water tank on back. Differently form other vehicles, which are fairly new, tank truck look like it could remember soviet union times and it probably do.

Age of truck makes it even better for me, it will be easier to start the engine. Main problem with cars in zombie apocalypse are batteries which after three years are almost always dead.

There are three ways to deal with that problem. Firstly you can try to jumpstart engine from another car but unfortunately our pick-up have 12V installation and truck got 24V one.

Another idea is to recharge the batteries, but you would need power generator and special charger. Normally I could find those things in fire station easily but someone already took them.

Finally there is the way which I will use. There are two types of dead batteries, ones which are totally broken because of the time they were unused and ones which only needs to be recharged. The second one is the type I am looking for.

You may ask why do I need dead batteries when I can’t recharge them? You know I got that idea, that I will connect number of batteries together and maybe, I will get enough power to start engine. Even dead batteries got about 1,5V in them so I will need 20 of them.

Kill me, seriously fucking kill me. I am dying. Ok, I am not,  but I am deadly tired. Fucking car batteries. I took me about 5 hours to gather 23 of them, 5 fuckin hours. In addition parking near fire station was filled with zombies.

Anna wasn’t much help, but after I found high enough van, clearing parking was a matter of time. Another problem was to carry all of them to fire station, car batteries are pretty heavy.

But after all I gathered everything I needed. Of course I checked all batteries if they got any power inside. How ? With little help of wire and my tongue. It should be enough for you to understand.

With help of wire taken from walls of the garage, I am connecting batteries together. This wire isn’t the best option, it’s to thin, but few of them connected together should do the trick.

 Anna is standing next to me, with annoyed look on her face. I haven’t told her my plan yet.

“Why are we trying to start this truck?”

“Not we, it’s me who is trying.”

I guess it’s time to tell her how I plan to attack enemy village.

“You see the easiest way to do something is to find someone who will do it for you.”

The confused look on her face, priceless.

“We don’t need to kill them by ourselves, it’s dangerous, so we will make someone else do it instead of us.”

Ok, now she thinks that I make fun of her.

“Fortunately, this town is full of zombies willing to cooperate with us.”

Finally, she understands.

“You want to lure zombies to the village!”

Oh, she is pretty clever.

“Why are you so shocked? It’s only way to get this guys. Honestly, chances that we will survive this are pretty low, but still it’s more reasonable than trying to somehow sneak on them and shoot one buy one.”

“But it feels wrong to feed zombies with them.”

“ Feels wrong? Hahah,  and what doesn’t feel wrong in this world? It was you who wanted to kill them. It was you who agreed to do everything what is needed to do, to get your vengeance. Don’t even try to give up now, not after I carried all this stuff here.”

Last wire is connected, no its time for a little test, positive to negative and here it is. A nice spark shoot out of wires. Now, the question is if it will be enough to start engine.

Huge diesel engine which is in our truck will work by itself, even without charged batteries but it needs a lot of power to start. I am about to take a try, suddenly I remind myself a little trick.

It takes me few minutes but I manage to find some air freshener in the office next to garage.

“Come here, I need your help.”

Anna, who was siting next to window to watch for any threats from outside, walks near with confused look on her face.

“Take this and spray it to this hole, when I turn on starter.”

I give her air freshener and show pipe, which is coming from air filter to engine.

Ok, the moment of truth. Starter is working but engine isn’t starting. 10 seconds pass, 15 seconds, I can hear that batteries are getting weaker and wire that I used to connect it is starting to release a little of smoke.

20 seconds. Come on, you fucking, stupid piece of shit, come on. And then with last drop of power, engine starts.

Engine works well, but huge amount of exhaust is quickly filling the garage. Few more minutes and we will smoke ourselves.

“ Anna come here!”

There is no time to was right now, who knows how long truck will be working.

“Look at this.”

I show her map of local area.

“You will take our pick-up and you will hide on the other side of the village. But remember don’t drive to close, we don’t want them to noticed anything.”

I am pretty sure that she think that I am insane, look on her face is full of doubts and hesitation.

“And what about you ?”

It, sounds almost like she is worried about me.

“I will break trough the village from the other side, bringing horde of zombies with me. We will meet on the other side, I will block the road with the truck, so we will have better chance to escape.”

“Escape? From what?”

“Tell me that you didn’t thought that zombies will kill everyone. Of course most of them will be dead until morning, but I believe that the few who will survive, will start to chase us. You know, they will want to avenge their friends.”

That’s how it is, blood brings only more blood, or not if you only manage to kill all of them. Once again I became a little dramatic.

While Anna is leaving to reach our car, hidden in bushes before the town, I decide to add a little armor on my truck. Zombies are already gathering around fire station and air in garage is getting more and more polluted, so I have to haste.

By saying armor, I mean something which will at least give me some cover from those machine guns on the village towers.

Thick steel plate on the wind shield would be great, but it’s impossible for me to find one, and even if there will be one I wouldn’t have enough strength to attach it.

Fortunately, while searching trough station I find canteen with big, oak wood table. The top shelf f table is really thick and hard, I hope it will protect me a little bit.

Who, I want to deceive? Machine gun bullets will pierce it like a paper. Few more minutes and I chop table legs with axe, I found hanging on the wall.

Now, the I have to carry it to garage and attach it in front of the windshield.

Somehow I did it. I attached table top using some wires from earlier. Some of you may laugh at me right now, what a stupid guy!.

How is he going to drive this thing with windshield covered by table top? Don’t you worry, young fellows, I got everything covered.

I just need to rotate huge, side mirrors and instead of showing what’s behind, they will show what is in front of me. But, enough praises, I feel like I will throw up my lungs, if I will spend a little more time in this place.

Time to hit the road.

What can I say? It’s fucking boring. I have gathered almost all zombies from town. Easy thing, I just turned on flashy lights and horns, few circles trough town center and I got whole army of dead bodies.

I have to admit, it was pretty fun, old soviet truck drives like a tank and when I found levers to turn on, all wheel drive and differential blockades it became almost unstoppable.

But after I left the town, things became boring like hell, I can drive to fast or my new friends will get lost.

So, I am basically driving about  5km/h, unbelievable speed of marching human. Because of unknown reason zombies don’t want to move faster.

The sun is setting behind me, crowd of zombies, following my truck, look truly impressive in such a light. Only 20 more minutes and  should reach my goal.

Ok, time to start the party, earlier I knew keep only lights on, now I need something to wake up this crowd. Sound of fire engine horns will warn my enemy, but staying silent won’t help me to much.

My old soviet truck won’t go over 70 km/h, but to be honest it’s even more than I expected. As I thought, noise encouraged zombies to run faster and even they are left about 500m behind, they will definitely follow.

First gates are not a problem, truck went straight trough them, I need to admit my idea with reversed mirrors doesn’t work well when you drive this fast, I almost missed gates.

About second after I breached first barrier, machine gun located on tower starts to shoot at my truck. Fortunately distance between gates its not long, so they don’t have much chance to shoot.

Table top is big disappointment, machine gun bullets are turning it into strainer. Fortunately truck is made from better kind of material and somehow hidden behind dashboard, half sitting, half kneeling, I manage to survive.

I don’t have much time to celebrate my luck because second gates painfully reminds me about reality. Powerful collision trembles whole vehicle, driving wheel breaks at least two of my ribs, but soviet machine wins once again.

Ok, half of work done, but it doesn’t look like it will be easier from now. I lost a lot of momentum and people are shooting at me. In addition radiator is broken and steam makes almost impossible to see what in front of me.

Two more minutes, and everything will be ok, just two more minutes. Noise which engine is making sounds little like wounded animal, but it’s still running. Another huge collision and I am out of village, it was only 10 seconds, but it felt almost like hour.

Second machine gun, from other tower is shooting long series of bullets, but water tank on the back of truck is protecting me.

 In second mirror, which I left directed to the back I can see zombies reaching first gates, another 2 minutes and village will be full of them.

I feel almost safe now, old vehicle pierce trough last gates like an arrow, opening way to my escape. Another minute and village disappears form view in mirror.

“Hahahaha”

You have to admit, that was pretty cool….

KABOOOOM

Truck was smashed from behind with huge force. I doing everything I can, but it looks like forest on the left side of road, will be end of my little trip.

After breaking few trees vehicle finally stops. Broken radiator gave up completely and steam is all around. I guess that the end of this great machine.

I am not in the best shape to, I can’t see with my right eye, blood is dripping from wound on my forehead.

I try to move a little, but it seems that I really broke some ribs. Ok, what now? Focus, something hit my truck, a missile or some grenade launcher?

Wait, wait it’s not important what hit my, but who hit me. In last flash of consciousness I try to take out my gun, but world goes black.

Pain, a lot of pain. I open my eyes, it looks like, I am lying dawn on the road and some two guys are kicking me vigorously.

Oho, they notice that I am awake. One more heavy kick in my stomach and they put me on my knees. One of them is taking out knife.

 It looks like things are going to get really ugly. I don’t blame them, like I said before, blood brings only more blood. But something is strange I can’t hear them, maybe one of them kicked me in head?

Guy with the knife, grabs my hair and want to stab me, but suddenly his head blows up. Second guy can’t do anything because there is nice hole in his chest.

I can’t admire this look much longer, because my consciousness fades away one more time.

I wake again, Anna is trying to pull me inside our pick-up, my hunting rifle lies on the ground next to her. I looks like she can shoot, if she needs.

Maybe, she isn’t that bad after all.