Dead Surge by Joseph Talluto Page B

plow, but the scene was still nice. Sarah pointed out that on the three mailboxes on the east side of the road all had the same name on the mailboxes. I guess around here people really don’t get too far from the homestead.
    We took a moment to eat some lunch, and then we all gathered around the truck bed to look at the map. The towns we were concerned with were circled in black, and I knew everyone was concerned that it looked to be spreading east, whatever it was. The only thing that was a comfort was the thought that if it were zombies, they would be stopped at the Mississippi River.
    The maps we had were pretty large, being little more than state road maps, but they had nearly all of the roads save for the county back roads that only locals and former county police officers knew about. We didn’t have any of those handy so we had to do what we always did and just wing it.
    “All right. We’re about a mile or so from where the whole mystery started, so we need to figure out how we’re going to approach this. We know there’s zombie activity around here thanks to the little episode back north. Since we haven’t seen anyone on the road to investigate Duncan’s handiwork, I’m going to assume this town is dead. Based on the map info, there may be anywhere from three to five thousand zombies in here,” I said.
    “Any good news?” Tommy asked.
    “None that I can think of, except this isn’t an extermination mission. We go to take a look, try to figure out what’s going on, see what the threat might be, then get back to Leport. If there’s something on the way to our families, I want to be in front of it, not chasing it.” I explained.
    Charlie nodded. “Okay, but what if we can’t figure out what happened here, or what happened to the teams sent out filled this way?”
    I pointed to the map. “We move to the next town and search for clues. Nothing else we can do.”
    Sarah spoke up. “If we do that, then we’re not standing in the way of what might be moving around, but coming up behind it.”
    Rebecca nodded. “Best way to ambush whatever it is.”
    Charlie looked at his wife, then at me. I shrugged.
    “You trained her, pal.”
    Charlie blocked the playful punch Rebecca tossed at him. “That’s what scares me,” he said.
    “All right, we’re going in slow. Radios on and keep them low. I want everyone’s eyes looking for anything that might give us a clue as to why these towns are falling off the grid.” I rolled up the map and we all separated to get our gear ready. I filled up my magazines to capacity and added three more to my belt. I loosened the zipper on the top of my backpack, so I could get at the tomahawk in there. I had to admit Charlie had a good thing with his, and it had impressed me enough over the years to get one of my own. While his were more traditional, mine had a polymer handle and grip, and the blade of a spike on the other end balanced the weapon. It was light, sharp, and awesomely deadly. I couldn’t throw it nearly as well as Charlie could, but I was getting better. In a major fight, though, I would revert to my long handled pickaxe, which rode in its accustomed place.
    Sarah was focused on her gear, which looked better on her anyway. She kept things light, preferring movement to brute force. Her weapon of choice was a spike on a long handle. Sarah liked to poke her zombies on top of their heads, and if they needed finishing off, she had her long knife. She had gone back to her Ruger .22 for a sidearm for this trip, and carried my old GSG-5 for a long gun. We had proven time and again the .22 was effective on zombies, and Sarah was nothing short of lethal.
    She teased me again how she could carry ten times as much ammo as I could and still have it weigh the same, and in private, I wondered sometimes why the hell I used a .45. But the upside was anything I shot with it stayed very dead.
    We regrouped and moved into position. From what I could remember, Glenwood was a town