Free ZOMBIES: "Chronicles of the Dead": A Zombie Novel by Will Lemen Page A

boat.”
    “Oh yeah,” Jacob said sheepishly as he and Billy continued to release the stern of the boat from its trailer.
    “Look out dad!” Billy yelled, just as the cracking sound of Jacobs's carbine ripped through the calming sound of the small waves breaking on the shoreline.
    Boom! Boom! Boom!
    "Got'em dad," Jacob proclaimed, smiling.
    “Where did those two come from, I didn’t see them until Billy yelled and they were almost on me,” I said, feeling my heart pounding wildly in my chest. "They scared the shit out of me, figuratively speaking of course."
    “They were behind that tree, they must have just been standing there until they heard us,” Billy said.
    “We are going to have to be more aware of our surroundings if we want to stay alive, we of course meaning me," I said aloud this time.
    "Let’s get out of here,” I said, as I gave the boat a shove and hoisted myself up and onto the bow.
    “Start it up Billy. Jake, open the air valves on the gas tank," I commanded.
    Billy started the motor as I made my way through our hurriedly packed supplies, and took my place at the boat’s controls.
    As the sky became dark and the warmth of the sun abandoned us, I slowly maneuvered our little craft toward the middle of the river where the current was the strongest.
    I took one last look back at the dock, and at my mini-van that I had abandoned there.
    That solitary vehicle left there on the boat ramp. That familiar mini-van that I had driven for so many miles, sitting there alone by the water's edge, sadly reminded me once again that we would never be returning to this place.
    The river was high, but not even close to flood stage as we putted out to the middle, and as we did so, a cool breeze began to blow in from the north. We were on our way to parts unknown, and we even had a tail wind to help us on our journey.
    There was no turning back now.
     

     
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    THE RIVER
     
    "We didn’t have much time to organize our stuff back there, so let’s get some of these things moved around a little and everyone find a spot to bed down for the night. Billy, go up front and watch for anything that we need to be concerned about, and take an extra drum magazine up there too,” I said, pointing at the shoreline with one hand and handing him an AK drum magazine with the other.
    “Do you want me to shoot at the eaters on the shore?” Billy asked, looking a little puzzled.
    “Not unless they pose a threat to us, and out this far that is highly unlikely,” I answered. “But that doesn’t mean we'll never shoot one of them on the shore. There are going to be times that we will be in very close to the shore, and I don’t know how far these diseased dead people can jump, or even if they can jump, and I don’t want to find out.”
    Turning to Jacob, I said. “You make sure you help your brother keep watch, especially keep an eye on the bridges we’ll be going under, who knows what will be on them.”
    “Okay, the currents pretty strong here, time to turn off the motor and drift," I said as I turned off the Morphadite's outboard and our boat began to sluggishly float down stream. "We only have so much gas, and we don’t know when or where we can get more. So we’re going to stick to the plan and drift most of the way. The only time we’re going to start the motor is when we get too close to the shore and we can’t paddle back out into the current, or we need to high tail it out of Dodge in a hurry.” I said, trying to get my point across before they were told that one of us was going to have to stay awake, and on watch at all times.
    Then Gin inquired. “Are you saying we’re going to just drift along at this slow pace, it's going to take forever to get anywhere?”
    “That’s right, it will, but if we run out of gas we’re going to end up drifting anyway, and we won’t have any way to get out of trouble quickly if we need to,” I replied. “And I have a feeling we’re going to need to at