"Hi, handsome," she said through a flirty grin. "You okay?"
"Yeah, I suppose.”
She abruptly changed the subject. "It's about lunch time. You hungry?"
"Not really, but I probably should eat."
"Where were you headed before I stopped you?"
"My room. I feel like taking a shower and then kicking back."
"The kitchen is putting together a sandwich buffet for lunch. Let's grab some and then go take that shower."
My eyes widened, and I felt new vigor. "You and me, together, in the shower?"
"Yes, handsome. You need to unwind and let the bad stuff go. So it's you and me, soap and water, and nothing else. Is that alright?"
She grinned mischievously again. I put my arm around her waist and resisted asking more stupid questions.
OUTNUMBERED volume 4
Prologue
At the beginning of the Zombie Apocalypse, there were approximately three-hundred-thirty-five million people in the United States of America. My gut feeling is there are far less than fifty thousand humans alive now. Even that equates to only one thousand people in each of the fifty areas previously known as states.
A year after their inception, zombies outnumbered humans by about 7,000 to one. Each man woman and child must terminate that number of zombies before the undead horror ends. Now, say we do eliminate the undead menace in the next decade, what then? The national electric grid is down and deteriorating; it can never be recharged. No power plants or oil refineries remain operational to supply energy. All modern manufacturing throughout the world has ceased completely. Fuel to run generators, vehicles, and furnaces will be contaminated or depleted in the next decade. Horses will replace fossil-fueled vehicles. Robotics and assembly lines will be replaced by manual labor on a miniscule scale. Of necessity, homes will be smaller and will be made of stones, logs or mud.
Mankind will revert to conditions of the fifteenth century; we are not emotionally or materially prepared for that upheaval. Everything humans need to survive will be handmade by people in centralized communal settings. We prepare for the new old world because we are on a downhill run to the past.
Tom Jacobs – 2023, the fourth year of the Zombie Apocalypse.
CHAPTER TEN
We left Deliverance before dawn heading for Ames, Iowa. Jeff Tanka drove from the compound for two hours before I slid into the driver's seat. Occasionally, zombies hurried to the road, drawn by the headlight beams and the sounds of the tires and exhaust. At the second group I saw, I slowed to run over and crunch three of the decayed devils that tried to block the road. Each of the bare bone terrors couldn't have weighed over fifty pounds. Stopping in the dark by ourselves to shoot the chomping, scratching, monsters was unwise. We'd accepted that one bite or deep, blood-letting, scratch was enough to turn any human into one of the bloodthirsty zombies in a minute or less.
An old disk of Credence Clearwater Revival played at low volume; it let my friends snooze and still took the edge off driving along the zombie-infested roadway. Under the faint glow of a quarter moon, I had a lot to think about as my two passengers slept soundly. A smile creased my face as I reveled in the thought of Kira. We had been a couple for over six months, and she and Paige made my life complete once more. Emma still claimed a place in my heart, but her memory hovered peacefully at the far reaches of my mind. Life is for the living. Time spent dwelling on past love affairs, no matter how wonderful and precious, is simply clinging to a past that is long gone.
Two recent happenings crowded family matters aside. The discovery of two feral livestock that had been attacked and killed within three weeks of each other was cause for concern. A medium-sized hog and a young calf had been brought down and eaten three hundred and five hundred yards from our compound. We attributed the kills to wolves moving into the area, or possibly a dog pack that reverted to its wild heritage. Attacks on these once domestic animals meant our supply of wild game was in peril and our penned domestic animals were likely vulnerable, too. Yet, we hadn't seen evidence of canine marauders or heard their plaintive howls at night as they hunted.
As the sun rose to light our day, I took comfort that the area around the Ford Excursion appeared clear of danger for several hundred yards in all directions. Dead ahead a group of about twenty zombies swayed to whatever tune played non-stop inside their diseased brains. I stopped the truck in the middle of the highway to engage the group of undead at a safe distance. My passengers woke as the truck eased to a stop and the road noise diminished. Instead of plunking away at targets and wasting bullets on practice, we preferred to put slugs in a zombie's brain and eliminate another threat to our fragile existence. The three of us exited and threw a withering wall of lead at the stumbling zombies. When all lay flat to the roadway, we continued our trip into Ames.
With everyone awake, a discussion of the undead menace ensued. Frances Halcom put forth an observation based on several recent trips away from our compound. "The overall number of zombies we've encountered seems to be less on each trip even though we traveled to different areas each time." She paused as if struggling through a quandary. "I don't like to bring this up because it may sound ridiculous.... In the past we've quietly come upon zombies, alone or in groups, standing starkly still as if in temporary hibernation. But several times in the last six months, I swear several slow moving zombies have fallen down and stayed down for no reason. Each time, we were driving along at
