Battlefield Z (Book 6): Bluegrass Zombie Read online

  BATTLEFIELD Z

  BLUEGRASS ZOMBIE

  Book 6

  By

  Chris Lowry

  Copyright 2017 Grand Ozarks Media

  Orlando FL

  All Rights Reserved

  Direct all inquiries to [email protected]

  Get great tips on Twitter @Lowrychris

  Visit www.ChrisLowrybooks.com

  Have you joined the adventure?

  Battlefield Z

  Battlefield Z – Children’s Brigade

  Battlefield Z – Sweet Home Zombie

  Battlefield Z – Zombie Blues Highway

  Battlefield Z – Mardi Gras Zombie

  Battlefield Z – Bluegrass Zombie

  Battlefield Z – Outcast (June 2017)

  More adventures in the series

  FLYOVER ZOMBIE – a Battlefield Z series

  HEADSHOTS – a Battlefield Z series

  OVERLAND ZOMBIE – a Battlefield Z series (June 2017)

  Get your Free Copy of FLYOVER ZOMBIE here

  Lightning pace, sparse style, fans of Elmore Leonard love the first book in the new series based on the Battlefield Z world.

  They built a wall to contain the zombies in the middle of America. But when a powerful man’s daughter gets lost in the beyond, he sends a crack unit of soldiers to rescue her and they find more than they bargained for.

  Now the survivors form a ragtag fleet to fight their way across a vast wasteland where zombies aren’t the worst thing to survive.

  Grab your Free Copy Here

  CHAPTER

  Flying. I sat in the passenger seat and watched my son handle the controls of the tiny Cessna like he was a pro.

  I suppose he was, though he had only played with a flight simulator on his computer.

  But in a world where we had to escape using a plane, he became a pilot by default.

  It’s not like I could do much, other than hold the yoke, and probably spiral us down to our death into the pine forests below.

  They stretched out to the East as we pointed the nose of the plane toward Alabama and my friends at Fort Jasper.

  I planned a quick stop there, and sending Byron and his boys out to find more jet fuel so we could keep hopping in the plane toward the East Coast and the refugee camps where my youngest was supposed to be.

  The hunt for Bo Bistan, I joked with the Boy and Bem.

  All nicknames for the kids, all variations of their names, just with the B from that song.

  “Nick, Nick, Bo Bick, Banana Fana Fo Fick,” or however it went.

  Playing around with them when they were younger, and a decade later, that’s all I called them.

  “Dad,” the Boy nodded out of the side of the plane. “That it?”

  We had used the Interstate as a guide as it cut across Mississippi and Alabama, and turned North on 22 when it cut through Birmingham.

  We passed over the depot where we had established the camp, and the Boy circled looking for a landing strip.

  “Interstate?” I yelled over the roar of the prop.

  He nodded, and lined up on a straight section for a landing.

  It was five or so miles away from the camp, but after hoofing halfway across the country, five miles would be an easy hour and half hike.

  He leveled off the wings, brought the plane in low and then I noticed the sweat on his brow, dripping off the end of his nose and splotching onto his pants.

  He was nervous.

  They say any landing you can walk away from is a good one, and the Boy squelched onto the empty Interstate, screeching the tires as the plane bounced off the asphalt and slithered to a stop after four hundred yards.

  He killed the engine and leaned back in the seat.

  “Good work,” I told him.

  “My first landing,” he wiped his forehead.

  “Make it a little rougher next time,” Bem added from the backseat.

  “I’ll probably get better with practice,” he said.

  There was hope in his voice, and a little trepidation.

  I didn’t blame him.

  We were lucky.

  I’d been up in a couple of Cessna’s with experienced flyboys. The takeoff and landings were the hard part.

  We had a wide empty roadway that was mostly flat.

  If we had to make due with a grass landing, or dodging stalled cars, the ending might have been different.

  “Let’s move,” I told them as I climbed out.

  Those five miles weren’t going to hike themselves.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “The gate’s open.”

  “I see.”

  “That’s not a good sign.”

  I shot a glance at my daughter and saw the tight grin on her face. She was nervous and trying hard to mask it with a joke.

  “Maybe they think we’re barbarians at the gate?” I suggested.

  They didn’t laugh.

  “No guards,” the Boy pointed to the corners of the wall.

  He was right.

  There should have been two people on the gate, if Brian had followed the instructions I left.

  The compound itself, Fort Jasper, was at the end of a dirt road on the edge of a ridge. It was hard to approach in mass, and protected on the back side by a couple of thousand yards of sloping pine forest.

  Even though we reinforced the gate, it should have been watched at all times, at least to warn the rest inside of what to expect.

  The rolling fence was partially open. The tin walls weren’t peppered with bullet holes, so at least we had that. Whatever happened.

  It was time to find out.

  “Stay here,” I took a step forward and they both followed.

  “We’re watching your back, Dad.”

  My heart swelled with pride. I didn’t want to tell them it would be easier if I wasn’t watching out for them, in case there were Z inside. But if there were Zombies outside the walls, that would have me worried too.

  Worry was a distraction we couldn’t afford.

  Better to have them with me so I could keep them safe.

  I nodded.

  “Stay tight. Eyes up.”

  They both bunched up on my shoulders, a pace back as we went through the gate.

  The compound was empty.

  I could tell by the sound, the noise, just that feeling from being inside a vast open space where the only thing you can hear is the wind.

  No feeling of being watched.

  No feeling of anyone around.

  No zombies.

  No Brian, Anna, Byron, Hannah, none of the boys.

  “Where is everyone?” my Boy whispered.

  I searched the walls for a sign.

  There was no sign of a fight, no streaks of blood and body parts left that would have indicated a Z outbreak inside.

  “It’s like they opened up the gate and walked out,” said Bem. “Maybe they didn’t expect you back.”

  “They would have left a note,” I said and we headed for the giant building we used as a communal space.

  CHAPTER THREE

  If there is one thing my divorces taught me is that you can't rely on anyone.

  Or anything.

  The origin of the story is sad, or at least if I felt like throwing a pity party it would be.

  When the second and I decided to split, she got to keep the money, the condo, the new car, and I got the POS sedan. It wasn't my first stint at being homeless, which I just called being between homes.

  I would go to work in the morning, go to the gym for the evening, sit under a streetlight in the park to read until I was tired, then sleep in the backseat.

  Then it was back to the gym in the morning
for a workout and shower, over to work, and so on.

  I had to do this for two months as I saved up meager pieces of my paycheck for a deposit on a new apartment.

  It was more about timing than anything.

  I'd get the deposit saved, and the soon to be ex would need something for my daughter.

  I was a living embodiment of the working poor.

  No one to help me.

  I asked my Dad for some help at the time.

  He said no.

  No to moving in with him. No to a loan.

  Then I found out he offered his spare bedroom to a guy he worked with who was down on his luck.

  That was the lesson I needed to learn.

  No one is going to help you.

  The only person who can do anything for you, is you.

  And I vowed then to become a guy who can help others when they asked.

  Eventually I moved up at my job, I was paid more, had a place to live and went from sleeping in my car to a queen size bed. I kept moving up in title and income, but I never lost that lesson.

  Self-reliance is the only thing that can carry you through sometimes.

  No matter what lies you have to tell yourself to get up and keep fighting, it was always a matter of getting after it every day.

  Someone told me they felt like they were going through hell because they scheduled their days too busy, had to do dishes after cooking dinner, and had a four thousand square foot house to clean.

  I laughed and told them to keep on going.

  I didn't share with them that I ate a pouch of tuna sitting on a park bench watching the moon rise over a lake before going to sleep in my car the night before.

  Lesson learned.

  I just didn't realize I was prepping for the Zombie apocalypse at the time.

  "What are you thinking about?" the Boy asked.

  I glanced over and saw his eyes shining in the firelight. Moist.

  "You won't remember, but when you were a toddler, we did a lot of camping like this."

  "Zombies outside the tent then?" he smirked and wiped the end of his nose with the back of his hand.

  "There are always wolves out there. And bears. And skunks. But I was thinking about the last time I camped with

  all three of you."

  "I don't remember."

  "We should have done it more. I was thinking about spending more time with you, how I wished I would have."

  He adjusted the way he was sitting in the nest of blankets.

  "I was thinking about mom," he said just above a whisper.

  I almost asked what happened.

  But Bem said his name.

  Soft too, like a partially warning laced with regret.

  "I miss her."

  Bem sobbed into a blanket.

  And I regretted feeling sorry for me.

  Maybe that was one of the sources of my rage, maybe even the main source. Who was I to throw

  a pity party for myself when there were other people out there suffering, kids who had it worse

  than me.

  Homeless? Sure, but I had a tin roof rusting over my head back then and food to eat.

  There were dads who had to sleep on the ground.

  Sad I didn't spend more time with my children?

  My mom had died when I was twenty-one, so I had been alive longer without her than before.

  That scar had healed, but it was fresh on Bem and the Boy.

  Raw.

  They needed to be protected, they needed routine and safety.

  I thought we might find it at Fort Jasper, but the empty rooms, the empty walls, the open gate

  and everyone gone meant it wasn't here.

  Even though we didn't know what happened, I needed to skip wondering about my little group

  of survivors, and focus on the mission.

  Get my youngest.

  Get these kids someplace safe.

  Keep them safe.

  Let them heal.

  Be the rock they could rely on always.

  I rolled up onto my knees and crawled across our little campsite to plop down between them, then reached for both to drag them into an embrace.

  They cried against my sides then, the Boy starting and Bem following.

  Great heaving sobs that poured their grief, and despair and anger out onto me, dripping like tears across my shirt, soaking the layers.

  I may have cried too. Sad for their loss, and sad for the loss of a woman I loved once.

  And maybe for what I had lost again.

  There was too much gone in this new world.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  "Someone's coming."

  The Boy lifted his rifle and sighted on movement in the woods.

  I moved away from the kids and out in the open from the shadows to be a target and draw focus on me.

  "Stay back," I said out of the corner of my mouth.

  "I got him Dad," the Boy said, a hint of exasperation coloring his voice.

  I wondered for a second if he thought I was being too overprotective, then decided I didn't care.

  Since I found them, we had been captured, chased, shot and left for Z food in the middle of a football field.

  I didn't think I was bad luck for the kids, but the reason behind our string of bad situations was my fault.

  It's not every day you get to piss off an insane militia man masquerading as a General, who declares a personal vendetta against you and chases you halfway across the country.

  I was sure we had lost them by stealing an airplane from Vicksburg and flying East.

  But if there was one thing I had learned in the zombie Armageddon was to always expect the unexpected.

  Which is why I smiled when Tyler stepped out of the trees.

  "You were making a lot of noise," I lowered the rifle and reached out to shake his hand.

  "I wanted you to know it was me," he cradled a hunting rifle in the crook of his arms, bundled up in layers of long sleeves, long pants and a hunting poncho.

  he had a branch with leaves stuck in the straps of his pack, a moving piece of shrubbery,

  and the coloring of his clothing meant he had to work to make sure we saw him.

  "Where is everyone?"

  He stared at the gate over my shoulder.

  "I've been out a week," he said and shrugged.

  Tyler was somewhere between fifteen and seventeen, small boned, razor thin made more so by hunting and scavenging to survive.

  He was also one of the best woodsmen I had ever seen, skills honed to a sharp edge by constant use since the Z came.

  "Place is empty," I informed him. "No sign of struggle."

  He took it well, and stepped past me to inspect the interior of Fort Jasper.

  I watched him stutter step as he caught sight of Bem, a typical teen boy reaction, despite her lumpy clothes and shapeless jacket.

  I had a mini-war of pride and protectionist because my girl was still quite beautiful even under layers of dirt, grime and looking like homeless person.

  Say what you will about everything else I've done wrong in the world, I made gorgeous babies.

  I started to clear my throat and noticed the Boy glaring too.

  He was taking being an overprotective brother seriously, so my pride swelled again.

  Tyler recovered and marched through the gate.

  Bem played with a strand of hair and tucked it behind her ear.

  I decided to let it, followed the teen into the compound, and watched as he cast around quickly and came back to stand in front of me.

  "No struggle," he said. "No blood."

  "No Z."

  He shook his head and studied the ground.

  "Rain a couple of days ago cleaned up the dirt. Let's look outside."

  "Gear up," I told the Boy.

  He glared at Tyler and began to clear out our little campsite from the previous night.

  Bem and I trailed Tyler as he made ever widening circles from the gate to the road, searching for signs of pass
age.

  "Got something," he waved me over.

  Boot prints under overturned leaves, pointing away from the compound.

  "We could have figured that out since there's only one way to go," the Boy snarled as he caught up, huffing under the weight of three packs.

  He passed one to Bem, the other to me and adjusted the one he had on his back.

  Tyler shot him a look and nodded, biting back any comment he might have made.

  "Shut the gate?" Bem pointed.

  Our scout watched her move toward the gate and kept watching as she pulled it closed.

  "Where to next?" the Boy brought his attention back to the ground.

  We fell in line behind Tyler as he moved to the main road.

  "No tire tracks yet," he said. "Still walking."

  He pointed to scuffed tracks in the dirt, more than a few, all moving in the same direction.

  There wasn't much more to see, but we walked on the blacktop as he tracked whatever happened, our eyes and ears listening for zombies, and anything else that seemed out of place.

  The Boy watched Tyler, as he kept glancing at Bem out of the corner of his eyes, and she blushed when he caught her staring.

  I sighed.

  Human nature didn't give a damn about the zombie plague.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  We hit the railroad tracks and still hadn't found anything.

  Just boot prints on the side of the road, all headed in the same direction. Scuff marks in the leaves, overturned twigs and branches.

  Sign of a large group passing through, normal walking patterns according to Tyler so not zombies, but nothing more.

  "Where are they going?" I wondered aloud.

  "If it's even our group."

  I hadn't considered that. What if we were on the wrong trail? What if it wasn't Anna or Brian or

  the others, but some marauders or bandits that came along after.

  "Tracks," I said.