I will be having nightmares for weeks to come. Last night we stayed in a small town called Henderson and we had found the Henderson Guns store. We pulled our convoy into their parking lot and circled up. Next we set up our perimeter and sentries, then we sent two five person teams into the gun store to see if anything was left. Turned out, not much. Aaron reminded the teams that if anything is left, it will probably be hidden so don't forget to search everywhere. We found some ammo when we broke into the basement, several cases of multi caliber rounds. We also got a couple of scopes that can be used on rifles we already have.
Once the search was done, we all returned to our camp and continued to make it more secure. We had gotten into the habit of putting the vehicles on the outside of our circle to form a barrier. Then the sentries can post on the roofs and lay comfortably flat for their shift. It helps our people not be so exhausted from standing for their entire turn at sentry.
Amanda, Jesus and Anthony set up or central kitchen and began to prepare food for our group. Suddenly, there was loud music blaring from down the street. An old Winnebago with covered over windows squealed around the corner and flew into our parking lot. The Winnebago stopped and a group of hippies poured out of it like it was a clown car. One of the women had a guitar and a man lugged a set of bongo drums out and set up their stands. Several of their group started singing loudly and dancing in circles. A small delegation split off and started to approach our perimeter, which did not go over well with us.
Aaron ordered them to stop ten feet from the vehicles with the threat of being shot.
Comments came from their group including: "Wait, dude. We mean no harm." and "We come in peace." One of their group stepped forward and tried to reason with us. "Hey, I am Moonglow. We can all live together without guns getting involved. The parking lot is big enough. We would love to join your group for the night and pool our resources. We found some fruit in an orchard outside town and some fresh veggies from the garden in the yard."
Aaron held up his hand to stop the verbal diarrhea pouring out of Moonglow's mouth. "We are not interested in any joining of our groups and would appreciate you all moving on to another parking lot."
"Hey, it's still a mostly free country. You don't own this lot, so we are going to stay." Moonglow responded and the music swelled in volume from their group of flower children.
One of the women stepped up even with Moonglow. "I am Sunshine Rose. Would you like to hear some stories? I know some about axes or you can suggest a subject and if I know a story that fits, I will tell it to you."
"Hey, shut up. Don't you know anything? Sound is one of the things that draws the undead to you. If you keep up that racket, you will have every undead freak in the area converging on our location. And no, we don't want to hear any stories. What is wrong with you people?"
Several more hippies piled out of the old Winnebago and brought more instruments to join the horrid cacophony they considered music. A tambourine, a banjo and even a trumpet started warming up and no tune could be heard through all the noise. Next thing you know, they were playing folk music and a couple of the women were singing along. A big red headed women in a tie dye dress began barking out a song sounding like Snooki trying to sing for her booze. From down the street, the howl of the undead could be getting closer and Aaron tried again to get them to be quiet.
"Shut the fuck up! You are bringing all the undead in this shit splatter of a town to us. You need to fucking quit making such a racket!"
Moonglow made a peace sign towards us and started dancing with the others to their supposed music. The moans kept getting louder and louder. Linda and Aaron got our groups attention and we had a quick impromptu meeting at the edge of our circle of vehicles. It was decided that five of the women would take all the children and put them onto the bus we had found in the last town. Our supplies were repacked up and every available adult who knew how to handle the firearms were given a spot on on one of the vehicles and we prepared to defend our camp from the oncoming undead onslaught. We loaded the guns and got into position within ten minutes of the hippies starting up their noise.
It did not take long for the group of undead to be in sight. There was somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty undead walking together from one side and around fifteen came from the other side. We were screwed but not as bad as the hippies were. We had at least set up our perimeter and were prepared to defend our people. The hippies continued to make music and dance like death was not staggering towards them from both sides.
Aaron yelled them to get back in their vehicle, but no one paid any attention to his suggestion. The guy playing the trumpet started playing louder and faster than the others and being that he was on the edge of the group, he was the first victim of the undead mob. A large zombie in overalls reached the trumpet player and sank his teeth into his left arm. Blood spurted out and the smell had several of the undead group turning towards this new source or food. Within moments, the trumpet was silent and the only sound coming from the player was a strangled scream and some wet tearing noises.
By then, the rest of the hippies were fighting for their lives with whatever they had on hand, which wasn't much. The banjo was smashed over the head of a zombie, but did nothing to stop it's reach for the player. A few crunches and screams later and all the instruments were silent, even if those who had been playing them were not. The hippies screams made me think of those Halloween recordings of screams and shrieks that people played at their parties. A couple of the women tried to run to the R.V. but they didn't even get close to the door before being pounced on by a group of child zombies and were torn apart. Sunshine Rose was using one of the bongo drum stands to try to keep the undead back but she should have been looking behind her as well. Two zombies came around the back end of the Winnebago, walked right up behind her and attached their teeth on neck and shoulder. She went down in a flash and the rest of the undead jumped onto their new chew toy.
The red headed woman was backed up against the side of the R.V. and was swinging a broom handle back and forth to keep the undead at bay. Unluckily for her, a legless zombie crawled out from under the Winnebago and latched onto her right calf muscled. This distracted her from swinging the handle and the zombies in front of her joined in on the gobble fest. She shrieked like a banshee of old for about thirty second before it was cut off abruptly.
"Man, this is such a bummer!" could be heard from under a pile of moving zombies before it changed into a mortal scream. Within minutes, the zombies had devoured the entire group of hippies and were turning their attention to our camp.
We braced for impact and made sure we were locked and loaded. It took about twenty minutes for us to take out the entire group of undead and we did not lose anyone in our defense. This was the first real test of placing our sentries on the vehicles and it worked wonderfully. We stayed out of their reach and were able to aim and fire rapidly without any friendly fire incidents occurring.
Once the gun shots stopped, we could hear more zombies headed our way. This was turning into a cluster fuck and we reloaded in preparation. It took less than five minutes and another group of fifteen came down the street. Another round of firing and this group was mowed down, too.Linda made the suggestion that we move on from this location, because if any other zombies were near, they would be headed this way. We packed up and pulled out within ten minutes and moved our camp to the Post Office parking area for the rest of the day and night. This put us at the other end of town and we made sure to make as little noise as possible while setting up so we didn't draw another group of zombies to us. The children were happy to be able to get off the bus and be able to quietly play together. The rest of our day was uneventful, thankfully.
Tomorrow we make the last push to get to the airport. I really hope this wasn't a fantasy, finding other survivors and supplies there. Time to sleep and get ready for tomorrow.
As a writer and artist, I appreciate
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this blog. Please, come read the other blog I write for our artisan
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www.ravencastlecreations.com. It includes posts on art, the mythology
of symbols we use in our art, history and more! Also, come see the
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