Free Dawn of the Apocalypse: A Zombie Apocalypse Novel by TW Gallier Page B

that bad.
                "Keep your eyes out for a better option," I said.
                We went into that town like it was full of Taliban fighters.  Our caps were replaced with Kevlar helmets and all weapons ready with the safeties off.  We took our time and did it right.  No house was passed without checking inside.  Most of the houses were unlocked.  I could imagine how they never had to lock their doors.
                Of course there was no power.  I wanted to refill my canteen, but there were no water, either.  That was odd.  Every house showed signs of a quick departure.  The furnishings were mostly in order, but we found the odd piece of clothing or boxes of food on the floors.  Closets and cupboards were mostly empty.  Many of the doors were left open.
                I didn't see any old cars or trucks, just 1980 models up to present.  Some still had the keys in them and on.  The EMP hit them hard, too.
                We went into town through a residential area.  There were just three streets of houses.  On the second street we spotted the first zombie.  She was a middle-aged woman, naked, and bloody.  From about a hundred yards away, it looked like her hair was burned away, and much of her exposed skin badly burned.
                "That sucks big time," I said.  "I just want to put her out of her misery."
                We watched her test a door.  It was locked, so she pounded on it a moment.  She moved over to look in the window, and then moved to another.  She pounded on the second window, but didn't break it.  Then she vanished between two houses.
                "If there's one," I said, before darting across the street.
                I took a position to defend Charlie as he came over on the run.  He continued on past me, to check out the next street over.  Mike ran up to me, and then we looked in the windows, checked the back door.  It was locked.  So we hurried over to the back of the house Charlie was waiting next to, finding the back door wide open.
                "Bottled water," I said, and twisted off a cap.  I drained it quickly. There was a case of them.  It was probably overlooked when they bugged out.  Mike took a bottle to drink while we looked through the house.  "We'll set the rest out on the street to pick up on the way back."
                The house didn't offer anything else useful.  I carried the water out to the street, and took a bottle to Charlie.  While he drank the water, I ran across the street.  It was commercial and the main road through town.
                I looked down their main street.  It was two blocks of Great Depression era redbrick facades and sidewalks.  The block of shops across the street looked burnt out.  There was only a single red Chevy Silverado parked on that street.  The truck looked new.  I wanted it so badly, but knew its electronics were all fried.  The driver's side door was open, which meant the owner was trying to start it before abandoning it in a hurry.
                On the far side of downtown was a country store with pumps out front.  One of the signs displayed the price for diesel.  Bingo.  Except for the five zombies.  I waved Mike and Charlie up.
                "We have diesel and zombies, boys," I said.  "The question is, are there too many zombies in this town for us to handle?"
                "There's another issue we haven't discussed," Charlie said.  "How do we get the diesel out without electricity?"
                I felt like a total idiot.  Of course, in the Army, tanker trucks brought us fuel when we needed it.  They'd set up somewhere, and everyone in the unit would swing by and top off.  We had people whose only job it was to make sure we never ran out of fuel.
                I looked around the corner at the Chevy pickup.  It did not say