Free Zombie Rules by David Achord

whiskey than he was about picking up women, but we certainly could use some more dog food. Those little bastards sure could eat. “If you knew this was coming, why didn’t you build a still?” I asked.
                  “I did.” He responded sheepishly. “It blew up. Damn near killed me. I was going to build another one, but never got around to it.” I laughed. He glared at me. “Shut up.” He quipped.
                  We worked the rest of the afternoon preparing the farm truck. We took some spare wood and made frames around the windows. We then stapled hardware cloth to the wooden frames. Much like we had done to the windows of the house weeks before. The idea was to keep anyone or anything from breaking out the windows and getting to us. It was not bulletproof of course, but we did not have anything for that issue. We cut out holes in the middle of each door window so we could stick our guns out. Murder holes.
                  “Why don’t we just go up to Fort Campbell and steal a tank?” Rick pondered while we were working.
                  “Might be a good possibility in the future. Do you know how to drive one and work on it? Did you mess with tanks when you were in the Army?”
                  Rick grunted. “No, I was infantry, an Airborne Ranger. Well, it was a thought. We’ll try to find some tank manuals for you to read up on. So, you got a route planned out?”
                  “I do. Let’s say we ride over to the Riggins’ house first. If there are any more zombies, we’ll need to kill them off.” Rick glanced up at me. “Well somebody sure bit her.” I said.
                  Rick chuckled. “No, I agree with you. It’s just, listening to you talk. It’s not the same as it was just a short month ago. You’ve changed kid. You’re all hard core now. You’ve put on some muscle in the shoulders too. Maybe when we get into town we shop for some clothes as well.”
                  I smiled tightly as I finished stapling the last of the hardware cloth. “Well, you’ve certainly helped me along.” We admired our work for a minute and complimented each other with effluent gushiness. We then took an inventory of items we were going to carry with us. We each armed ourselves with a handgun, rifle, and knife. Extra ammo, water, and a cooler full of food were stored in the cab. We had pry bars, two spare tires, a gas operated Sawzall to cut open stubborn doors, rope, and chain with hooks on each end.
                  “Why don’t we take the taillights off?” I suggested. “There’s not going to be any cops writing tickets, and if we need to run away from someone we don’t need to make it easy for them to follow us.” Rick shrugged, took a hammer and busted them out. I frowned at him. “I was thinking more like using a screwdriver and remove them carefully, but whatever.” I took the license plate off as well and removed the registration from the glove box.
                  “Why’d you do that?” Rick asked.
                  “If we have to abandon the truck, we don’t want anyone to figure out where we live by checking the registration.” Rick nodded and slapped me on the back.
                  “Nice thinking. Alright my man, we’ve got a lot done. Let’s go eat dinner and get to bed early.”
                  We got up early the next morning, fixed ourselves some breakfast, fed the dogs, and the other usual stuff before heading out. The sun was peeking out as we crossed the creek. It was promising to be a sunny day. The start of our reconnaissance mission did not go as planned. The John Deere’s battery was dead. A quick trip back for jumper cables fixed the issue. We moved it out of our way and moved it back once we crossed the bridge.
                  “You know, a functioning gate sure would be nice.” I said