Zombies!

  Book 7

  “Still Standing”

  R S Merritt

  Text Copyright © 2020 Randall Scott Merritt

  All Rights Reserved

  This series is dedicated to my beautiful wife and family. My reasons for waking up in the morning and not wanting to go to sleep at night.

  Cover Design By:

  Harry Lamb

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1: There and Back Again

  Chapter 2: Iron Man

  Chapter 3: The South Will Rise Again

  Chapter 4: Suicide Mission

  Chapter 5: Island Life

  Chapter 6: The Hub

  Chapter 7: Secrets Within Secrets

  Chapter 8: In Hindsight I’d Have Put All My Chips on Red

  Chapter 9: Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day

  Chapter 10: Capture the Flag or Die

  Chapter 11: Back to Reality

  Chapter 12: The Kill Zone

  Chapter 13: Fool Me Once

  Chapter 14: Back on Solid Ground

  Chapter 15: Dead Serious Small Talk

  Chapter 16: Squirrel Kabob

  Chapter 17: Willy Wonka’s Wild Ride

  Chapter 18: Bits and Bytes

  Chapter 19: All Aboard

  Chapter 20: Scars, Walking and Whiskey

  Chapter 21: The Front Lines

  Chapter 22: Loco Locomotive

  Chapter 23: Second Wind

  Chapter 24: Tightening the Noose

  Chapter 25: Fish in a Barrel

  Chapter 26: A Short Time to Get there

  Chapter 27: A Vicious Cycle

  Chapter 28: Isn’t It Ironic

  Chapter 29: Hiding in Plain Sight

  Chapter 30: Theirs but to Do and Die

  Chapter 31: The Last Mile

  Chapter 32: On the Road Again

  Chapter 33: Attacking the Armpit of Virginia

  Chapter 34: Made it Back, Again…

  Chapter 35: When You’re Going Through Hell

  Chapter 36: We Attack at Dusk

  Epilogue: Haze Grey and Underway

  Author’s Note

  Other Series by R S Merritt

  Chapter 1: There and Back Again

  “How long do you think we’ll have to sit here?” Kyler asked.

  “You sick of the air conditioning and great food already? Looking forward to getting back out on the road eating dented cans of botulism beans while trying not to be eaten by the infected?” Chief Presly answered. He was enjoying his third large glass of wine. Kyler assumed that whoever originally set the table had intended for each of them to have a glass with their meal. The chief had decided otherwise and laid claim to the whole bottle once it was obvious that they weren’t going to be having a sit-down lunch with Commander Hartfield anytime soon.

  “I really miss the smell of mold and decay. Plus, we’ll just get fat eating all this non-diarrhea inducing food. Especially since without anything chasing us, we won’t even be getting any exercise. I wish I could get my hands on a fit bit because I’m pretty sure I’ve got an unbelievable number of steps racked up by now.” Kyler threw in the last part about the Fitbit thinking of his mom. She’d been adamant about counting her steps every day. Kyler wondered if she was wandering around for eternity now with the fit bit still dangling off her bra strap. He smiled thinking she’d really want to know how many steps she racked up as a mindless Zombie.

  “I’m going to get some exercise hunting down some more booze if no one shows up soon.” Presly said noting that Kyler had faded out for a second. People suddenly going vacant was a pretty common occurrence in this new normal. Pretty much everyone had lost loved ones in horrific situations. You could be talking to someone or hanging out doing whatever and they’d just disappear for a minute. It was normally pretty easy to tell something had reminded them of a lost loved one from the dying times. The time when no one knew what was going on. The time when a loving mother might suddenly have had something click in her feverish brain making her viciously rip her teeth into her own baby.

  Things like that were never really forgotten. It drove weak people completely crazy. It mentally crippled even those who were better equipped to handle it. The only ones who didn’t have major cases of PTSD were people who’d been born sociopathic. People who’d been loners to begin with also seemed to do ok. Kyler fit into that latter category. He’d kept his distance from most people after the death of his father years before the apocalypse happened. He’d still had people in his life he’d cared about though. Losing them had left deep scars on his soul that matched up with the physical scars covering his body.

  Kyler snapped out of his random Fitbit induced mini breakdown when someone knocked on the door to the conference room turned dining area that they were in. The door opened seconds after the loud knocking and a small group of hard looking men entered the room. Kyler and Chief Presly both scrambled to their feet to stand at attention as the commander of the armies of the settlements walked into the room. Technically the settlements still just considered themselves part of the United States but since their enemy to the south had adopted the name of New America it’d made figuring out what to call themselves super awkward.

  “At ease. I see we have some food left but it looks like the wine evaporated.” Commander Hartfield said with a tired grin. The commander was wearing a slightly rumpled khaki uniform. Kyler did a quick doubletake looking at the officers insignia and noticing the extra stripe.

  “Congratulations on your promotion sir.” Kyler said.

  “Thank you. They wanted to make me an admiral, but I didn’t see the need to fly that far in the face of tradition. Especially since as far as I know there aren’t any admirals alive anyway. If no one outranks you then getting promoted really just means having to sew new patches on your uniforms. Who needs all that work right?” Captain Hartfield replied moving towards Kyler with his hand out. His response sounded a bit canned and the joke a little tired, but his obvious passion shone through. This was a man you wanted on your side.

  Kyler reached out and grasped Hartfield’s extended hand. It hadn’t been that long ago that the captain had sent him off on a mission that had life or death consequences for Kyler. Now Kyler found himself wrapping up the handshake and wondering to himself if the trip had even been worth the effort. He personally had no regrets because he’d saved Randy and his family from the Brotherhood. As far as the big picture went though, he doubted that was going to be something Hartfield cared about. Would anything he’d learned actually help them prepare to defend against the onslaught coming their way from the south?

  “It’s good to be back sir.” Kyler said as Hartfield pumped his hand a few times before letting go. The captain indicated everyone should sit down. He introduced the men he was with as his advisors and personal guards then after picking a few French fries off a plate asked Kyler to tell them his story. Kyler asked how long he should take, and the captain told him he wanted to hear every bit of it if it took all night.

  “Sir. There’s no need to humor me. I’m happy to have gone on the mission you sent me out on. I just don’t know how much valuable intel you’re going to get out of my story, and I don’t want to waste your time.” Kyler said. He felt good about having put it out there. He sat down uncomfortably waiting to see what Hartfield had to say to that.

  “I appreciate that. If you could humor me though and just start talking, I think there’s a lot we can learn about the people down south from the interactions you had with them. For instance, did you ever get close to the Senator?” Hartfield asked.

  “I saw him once when we flew in to support the surrender of that warlord in Tennessee, but I didn’t talk to
him or anything. We were just there with Krantz to support Roberts.” Kyler said. Hartfield grinned and shook his head. The rest of the men around the table stared incredulously at Kyler. The chief was looking at Kyler with his mouth hanging open in complete shock. They hadn’t really talked in specific about what Kyle had accomplished on the spying mission he’d been sent on.

  “You were in on the expansion of the Senators forces to Tennessee. You were riding around with Commander Krantz who’s most likely the person now in charge of all the New American militia. If my sources are right, you also helped the family escape who was responsible for killing the Senators sister. Not to mention you got yourself initiated into their Brotherhood club somehow.” The captain paused to shake his head admonishingly while looking Kyler in the eyes for a couple of seconds before wrapping up. “I’m actually going to have you hold off for a minute. I want some more people in the room for what I’m sure is going to be a remarkable and extremely insightful debriefing. You are in no way wasting our time. Now have a couple of those onion rings. The chef grows the onions himself and they’re delicious.”

  Kyler dutifully munched on the fried onion rings while the captain sent for a few more people to come to sit in on the debriefing. Kyler hadn’t realized how much information he’d actually collected until the professionals in the room began questioning him to extract every last drop of data. He’d been thinking of his spy mission and data collection like it was a James Bond movie. He felt bad that he hadn’t stolen a flash drive wristwatch from somewhere to bring back the plans for some new type of weapon or something. He began to understand that the intel he’d gathered around how the Brotherhood functioned and how supplies were hidden was huge. The intel around weapons and capabilities and tactics they’d used to take land away from the infected and uninfected alike.

  It was extremely late when Kyler finished his story and the captain called it a day. He thanked Kyler again before telling him he’d more than earned any reward he might want to ask for. On hearing Kyler just wanted to reclaim his former billet with the rovers he said that shouldn’t be an issue. He said it but Kyler sensed there was an objection there. The party broke up with everyone getting up from the table and walking out of the conference room. Each man taking the time to thank Kyler and welcome him back. Chief Presly sighed once everyone had left. He’d been looking sadly at the empty wine bottle for the latter half of Kyler’s story.

  “You did good. I kind of thought you’d either end up getting killed or come back with a bunch of useless trivia. You somehow managed to nail that mission though.” The chief said standing up and dumping his trash in the can at the end of the room.

  “You think they’ll assign me back to you or a different team?” Kyler asked.

  “I think you’ll probably get rewarded for your hard work by being given even harder work. You’ve violated one of the number one rules in the military which is to never volunteer for anything. Now that you’ve not only volunteered but managed to somehow do an unbelievably great job at it, you’re probably going to be given something either extremely dangerous or extremely boring to do.” The chief answered.

  The chief headed to his barracks to crash for the night after agreeing to meet back up with Kyler the next day if he heard anything. Kyler ate a few more of the cold, greasy, delicious onion rings then tossed his trash in the bin and stood up to leave as well. The table had been cleared off pretty well by the men who’d sat around it. Hartfield didn’t bother having people come in to clean up after him. He threw away his own garbage and had even wiped down the top of the table where he’d been sitting before leaving. In a way Hartfield reminded Kyler a lot of Krantz. He wondered if Hartfield would be leading the New American forces now if he’d been in the position Krantz was in at the beginning of all of this. Accidents of geography accompanied the impact of gradually slipping into the depravity that was the nation being constructed by the Senator.

  The enlisted quarters Kyler had been put up in weren’t as spacious as the chiefs and officers’ quarters, but they were still luxurious compared to life out on the road. He had a small room he shared with one of the base cooks. Being in that line of work the man was basically working all day everyday which meant Kyler had the room to himself most of the time. When he walked in this time the cook was just getting into bed.

  “How’d you like the onion rings?” The man asked.

  “They were freakin’ awesome.” Kyler answered.

  “Excellent man. Doing my part to bring back some of the good in the world. Keep the partying down to a minimum if you don’t mind. I’ve got to wake up in a few hours and get back to work. We really need some more cooks around here. Let me know if you’re interested in peeling potatoes all day. I know people who know people.”

  Kyler assured the cook he’d keep the offer in mind then sat on his own bunk to think. Having spent a couple of days not running or fighting for his life he wasn’t as physically exhausted as normal. His mind was spinning way too fast for him to easily fall asleep. He lay down regardless and found himself seriously considering the cooks offer. Compared to the dangerous work a lot of men did today the idea of living in an air-conditioned room and peeling potatoes all the time sounded pretty awesome. Overthinking it he realized that there probably weren’t even a ton of potatoes to peel. Where would they get them from?

  He lay in the small room listening to the cook softly snoring while he considered his options. He was worried that Chief Presly was right and the captain may have other plans in mind for him. What he wanted to do was go back to the roving patrols. It was a miserable, thankless existence but he liked being out in the woods doing good. If he didn’t get assigned to the patrol, he didn’t know what he’d do. He didn’t see himself hanging out here peeling potatoes or painting the sub or doing whatever the people stationed here did all day. Knowing what he knew his big worry was that he was going to be put in the front lines of the assault on the Brotherhood.

  He wasn’t scared of fighting. He just didn’t like the idea of killing people who were just doing what they’d been ordered to do. In a lot of cases the soldiers they’d be killing were only attacking them because if they didn’t their families would be punished. They really didn’t have a choice in the matter. Kyler knew that if their positions were reversed and they had his mom locked up in a camp he’d do what he was told to do as well. He’d actually already done it as part of the invasion force into Tennessee. The soldiers in the army coming at them didn’t deserve to die. They were going to if they kept pressing the attack though.

  Lost in his thoughts he gradually drifted into a restless sleep. He woke up shaking from a dream about his infected mom hanging onto the truck door as he drove away before she could bite him. That’s the last memory he had of her. The cook had already left for the day to pick onions or do whatever he did that resulted in the highly addictive onion rings. Yawning Kyler sat up and pulled on his boots. He didn’t need to sleep fully dressed here since they were in a fairly secure base. Fort Monroe was across the bay from Norfolk, Va. which was the main US Naval base for the east coast. It was on a spit sticking into the bay where the bridges and beaches in and out had been heavily walled off to keep out the infected.

  Boots pulled on he realized he had nowhere to go. With no better destination he could think of he wandered down to the mess hall. He was still having issues processing the fact that the people here were used to eating three hot meals every day. That seemed insanely gluttonous to him since he was used to a daily helping of whatever random, long expired canned food he could find. Arriving at the mess hall he grabbed a tray and helped himself to some coffee and a tray of eggs with a small stack of pancakes. He sat down at an empty table and began eating.

  “You Kyler?” A uniformed man asked.

  “That’s me.” Kyler answered.

  “Ok. I’m here to take you over to the town hall building when you’ve finished your breakfast. The captain wants to talk to you.”

  Kyler scarfed down the food
while the soldier stood behind him impatiently waiting. Kyler would’ve just dumped his tray and left immediately but the thought of wasting good food made him cringe. He assumed once the soldier dropped him off at the town hall he’d just be waiting around anyway. He didn’t want to regret not eating if he was stuck there waiting for as long as he’d been stuck the day before waiting on the captain to show up. When he’d finished the soldier walked him across the base towards the large building that served as the administrative center for operations for the settlements.

  “Any idea what he wants to see me about?” He asked the soldier.

  “He didn’t consult with me about it. He just told me to go find you.” The soldier said before opening the door to the large building and walking Kyler inside. They walked past a large reception area then continued almost all the way to the back of the building before Kyler was finally dumped into a chair in a nicely appointed hallway to wait. Before he’d even had a chance to get bored the door was thrown open and a pissed off looking Chief Presly burst out. He looked down at Kyler sitting there and his expression lightened up slightly.