Annihilation - Hope (Annihilation, Book 2) Read online

  Steve snuck up behind the next zombie and stabbed him in the head to make the least amount of noise. They dragged this one over behind the bushes also. They stayed still to see if they saw any other zombies in the area.

  They sat there for about half and hour with no movement anywhere. They signaled to the women inside that they were coming back in. Gwen ran for the door and waited for the secret knock then she opened the door. The men ran inside and collapsed when they were both in the clear.

  They all went to the conference room to regroup. They wanted to come up with a plan for leaving the hotel in a few hours. They were afraid that more zombies would be around when they were trying to leave.

  It was around 5 am when the guys came back inside. They wanted to get up at 6 am so they decided to stay up and work on organizing and loading the supplies.

  ~Chapter 3~

  The women found a coffee pot, coffee and powdered creamer the evening before. They started two pots at one time to help save time.

  They also found pastries and donuts in the supply closet for the conference room. There were also plenty of plates, napkins, and plastic utensils that would last them for a very long time.

  They all ate but Judy thought they all should try not to eat too much so the food would stretch. They had a lot of food right now but they didn’t know when they would find more.

  The kids came running into the conference room, saw the food and went a little crazy. Before they could reach any of the food, Judy yelled, “Wait! Only two things per person!” Sharon was stunned when she heard this.

  Sharon asked Judy what was going on. Judy explained her concern but Sharon thought it was going a little bit crazy. Sharon told the kids they could get more if they were still hungry. Judy walked away shaking her head and mumbling.

  The women packed some bags to bring in each car. They thought it would save time so they wouldn’t have to stop so much. Gwen tried to make all the bags the same but there wasn’t enough of everything to go in each bag.

  The men started loading the two trailers using the hand trailer. It only took three trips to get all the supplies. While the men loaded the trailers, the women loaded the vehicles with the stuff they needed. Each woman looked at their food bag as they put it in their vehicle.

  Sharon and Gwen had a problem with what was in their bags. Sharon’s had peanut butter bars but Zach was allergic to peanut butter. Gwen’s had lemon flavored cookies but Gwen hated lemons.

  Sharon and Gwen started to complain about the bags but decided they would just switch instead of causing a scene. They felt there was enough of a scene at breakfast.

  When all the supplies were loaded, they felt like they were ready to leave. They looked at the map one last time to make sure they knew where they were going.

  Steve and Gwen led the line of vehicles, then Zach and Sharon, John and Tammy, Judy & Vicky, and then Tom in the tractor-trailer. They headed south again on Highway 93.

  Highway 93 would bring them right into downtown Boston. When they got there, they were thinking the survivor camp will be big enough to see or there will be signs.

  They had been on the road for about half an hour when Steve’s car got a flat tire. They pulled over to the side of the road and everyone followed.

  Steve got out of the vehicle to change the tire. He popped open the trunk to get the spare and the jack but couldn’t find them because the trunk was full.

  As he started pulling things out of the trunk, Tom and John were there. John stood guard with his shotgun and Tom helped him empty the trunk.

  As soon as they had the spare tire and the jack out of the trunk, Steve went to change the flat and Tom put the items back in the trunk. They figured they would just leave the tired on the side of the road since it had a large hole in it.

  John saw a zombie walking on the road below them but it hadn’t heard or smelled them yet. He told the guys to be quiet. He watched the zombie go under the bridge they were on and he ran over to the other side.

  He saw him come out and keep walking. Just as the zombie was almost out of ear shot range, Steve accidentally dropped the crow bar he had in his hand and it hit the ground with a loud clank.

  They all ducted behind one of the cars. All they could do right now was to sit and wait until they heard the shuffling of the zombie’s feet or their deep growling as they search for someone to eat.

  They sat for what felt like 5 hours but it was really only 5 minutes. The zombie heard the noise and changed direction to the area where the men where hiding.

  They heard the shuffling of its feet getting louder. They all sat very still but had their hands on their weapons.

  They saw the zombie walking past them. Tom stepped quietly behind the zombie and stabbed it in the head with his knife.

  They immediately got to their feet and started searching for more zombies. The coast looked clear.

  They returned to finish changing the flat tire. Once they finished, they quickly got everything back in the trunk as fast as they could. The men rushed back to their vehicles.

  They continued south on Highway 93. They were hoping to get all the way to Boston before dark. They kept running into roadblocks that were not passable.

  Each time the road was blocked, they would have to search the vehicles and then they would have to use the suburban or the tractor-trailer to move them out of the way.

  Each time they ran into a roadblock, it delayed their arrival by an half an hour to an hour. It all depended on how many vehicles they had to move.

  At one roadblock the vehicles were so close together and there were no shoulders on the road, so they had to move fifty vehicles out of the way.

  They didn’t want to just move the cars off the road and open the road up entirely. Tom and Steve thought it would be a great idea to make a barricade like the military makes at a border crossing.

  After all their vehicles were past the point of the barricade, they put the abandoned cars back in a strategic position. That way the highway looked blocked from a distance but it was actually easy to get around them because knew exactly where they could get past and where they couldn’t get past.

  They were losing light and they were still about 50 miles outside of Boston. The group started looking for a place to spend the night that would be safer than staying in their vehicles.

  As they got close to each exit ramp, they were looking for any type of shelter. Steve and Gwen saw signs for a new subdivision in Peabody. They could see the houses from the highway. They radioed to the others and everyone agreed to get off the highway.

  As they approached the subdivision, they could see that there were only about 10 houses that were complete. None of the homes seemed to be disturbed. They decided to try the first house.

  The houses looked huge from the outside. They all were brick homes and had four-car garages. As they pulled into the first driveway, Tom drove the tractor-trailer past the house and turned it around in the cul-de-sac so he could park it right in front of the house.

  The men got out first to search the house for zombies. They started on the second floor and worked their way through to the main level and garage. As they were coming down the stairs after they cleared the second floor, they heard something on the main floor.

  They came down the stairs slowly so they could hear exactly where the noise was coming from. They narrowed it down to the kitchen area.

  Steve and Tom walked over to the kitchen door together but looking at different parts of the kitchen. Tom spotted someone bent over looking in in the pantry.

  ~Chapter 4~

  As they entered the kitchen, it turned around and they saw that it was a zombie. Tom said, “I got it!” He grabbed the knife on his belt. He walked over to it and stabbed it in the head and it fell to the floor.

  They all stepped over it and continued to search the rest of the main floor. The back door was open so they closed it. The garage was right by the door and looked like it had been ransacked. They searched the entire garage and
storeroom off the back of the garage.

  They opened the garage doors and motioned to the women to pull the vehicles in the garage. They got all four vehicles in the four-car garage except for the Suburban.

  Zach and John ran out and had Judy pull the Suburban up to the garage and stop. They unhooked the trailer and had Judy pull the Suburban into the garage.

  The house had six bedrooms. There was enough room for every family to have their own room. They were thinking they could stay here for a few days to rest up.

  Zach turned the faucet in the kitchen on to see if they had water and they did. It actually started getting warm also, so he turned it off fast as to not waste any water.

  John figured that these houses were on a well so they each had their own source of water. They saw a shed out back. The door was partially open.

  John and Zach went to search it. The plan was for John to open the door and Zach to kill anything that was in there. They walked slowly to the shed and over to the side so they couldn’t be seen from inside the shed. John walked on one side and Zach on the other.

  When they got to the shed, John grabbed the handle and Zach got ready with his knife. John pulled the door open fast but they didn’t see anything. Zach looked inside. He looked on one side and as he turned his head to the other, something grabbed him and pulled him into the shed.

  John was completely surprised. He jumped inside the shed to see a zombie about to bite Zach’s neck as Zach was struggling to keep it off of him.

  John grabbed his knife and was trying to stab him but Zach was struggling and moving the zombie around. Tom finally got an opportunity to stab it in the head. The zombie fell on Zach and completely freaked him out. He started screaming very loud.

  Tom and Steve came running outside as John put his hand on Zach’s mouth to quiet him. Zach calmed down some and John pulled the zombie off him just as Tom and Steve got to the shed.

  John helped Zach to his feet and Tom and Steve helped him back to the house. Sharon saw them coming back to the house and saw that Zach had blood all over him. Their kids were playing in the living room. She quickly took them into the bedroom

  where they would be staying so they wouldn’t see their dad covered in blood.

  As she got into their room, she threw a shirt and pants out into the hallway so Zach could change clothes. Tammy grabbed them off the floor and brought them to Zach in the kitchen.

  John secured the shed and saw there were lots of supplies they could use. There were a lot of garden tools that could be used as weapons.

  There was also a lot of grass seed and different types of vegetable seeds as well as fertilizer and plant food. John’s mind started thinking about their future and how they were going to survive and grow their own food.

  As John was returning to the house, he saw something that caught his eye on the side of the house. He walked to the side and saw tons of pipes running from the roof into the basement on the outside of the house.

  John grabbed Tom and Steve and told them what he saw and that they needed to see what the pipes were for. First they went into the basement and saw that the pipes led into three large hot water tanks and into something else they had never seen before.

  John started reading the labels on the side and then realized what it was. It was a new generation generator. It was powered by solar panels and as the water ran through the pipes it would be heated. He figured that it was solar panels that were on the roof.

  The three men went outside in front of the house and looked at the roof. They saw half of the roof covered in solar panels. This excited John and he couldn’t wait to tell Tammy and the others.

  Tammy and Judy were helping Zach get cleaned up in the kitchen. He changed into his other clothes quickly. Tom and Steve took the bloody clothes outside to the patio and burned them on the concrete.

  Judy went up to Sharon’s room and offered to watch and play with the kids while Sharon came down to be with Zach. When Sharon walked into the kitchen and saw Zach, she ran over to him and gave him a huge hug and wouldn’t let go. They went into the living room to be alone with each other for a minute.

  Gwen and Tammy wanted to help keep everyone else’s mind off what had just happened so they started making some food. They asked Tom and Steve to go to the trailer to get the food supplies.

  They had John come with them. John and Steve kept watch for zombies as Tom grabbed the food the women asked for. The women had organized the trailer so it would be easy to grab things for one meal at a time.

  Gwen and Tammy were searching the kitchen for all the utensils they could find to help them cook dinner. This kitchen was fully stocked with all the utensils you could think about in a kitchen.

  They had all the fixings to make a full course meal. They found some steaks and hamburger that must have been delivered just as the world was ending because it was still in the boxes in dry ice. This meant that it was still good.

  When the men came up from the basement, they were very excited to tell the women about the generator. Everyone was in the kitchen and the living room. John was calling for Tammy as soon as they hit the middle step. The women thought there was something wrong.

  Tammy couldn’t understand what John was saying because he was talking so fast. He thought maybe he would just show her.

  John walked over to the stove and turned one of the burners on. It started getting red hot in just a few seconds. The women all figured it out at the same time. They had power!!!!

  The men immediately thought of hot showers! Tom had the idea to check the other houses on the block to see if they had the same utilities. If they did, this could be a great spot to come back to after they made it to Boston.

  They could build tall fences and fortify this area very easily. They still wanted to go to Boston to see what it had to offer. This neighborhood will be a great second option.

  The women immediately started thinking about dinner. Since they had power now, they could defrost the steaks and cook them in the oven.

  As the women were getting dinner ready, the men started a small search party of the other houses. They grabbed enough hand weapons as they could carry as well as a handgun for each of them.

  The men started with the house across the street and worked their way through all the houses. They were all built similar and would be great houses for them to come back to after they made their way to Boston.

  The men did gather all the supplies they could by loading up four wheel barrels full of items. They loaded these supplies into the tractor-trailer.

  They ate dinner as a family for the first time since their adventure had begun. The women went all out on this dinner. They had candles lit, nice dishes and a tablecloth. It felt good to let their guard down for a little while.

  They laughed, ate and talked for hours. After they ate, they all chipped in on the cleanup to get it done quickly and share in the chores. Instead of putting everything away, they got it ready to travel and packed up.

  The men decided on a schedule for watch that night. Tom and Steve would take the first watch and John and Zach would take the watch that started around 3 a.m.

  Everyone except Tom and Steve went to bed. The women had changed all the sheets while they were cooking dinner so everyone would have fresh sheets to sleep on.

  The two men that were on watch would walk around the house, looking outside during their entire watch. They would stay on opposite sides of the house so the house would be watched from both sides at all times.

  During the first watch, there was a loud noise outside by the trashcans. Tom and Steve went outside to inspect the noise. They thought for sure it was a zombie so they had their knives out and their crowbars in the other hand.

  ~ Chapter 5 ~

  As the men walked outside, they were scanning the yard in all different directions. They slowly made their way to the side of the house where the trashcans were sitting.

  As they peaked around the corner of the house, they saw the trashcans moving. They
paused for a few seconds to try to see what was behind the trashcans but they couldn’t see anything.

  Tom volunteered to go and move the trashcans. He walked slowly toward the cans but was over toward the side so he could get out of the way if there was something behind them.

  As Tom moved the trashcan and jumped out of the way, Steve and John lunged toward something that was bent over behind the can. They were startled for a few seconds because when it stood up, it was a zombie child.

  Steve was frozen with shock. He had never seen a child that was turned into a zombie yet. John jumped at it with his crowbar and stabbed it in the head. It dropped to the ground limp. John kicked it to make sure it was dead.

  Steve was still in shock and still not moving. John kept going like nothing happened. He got used to doing things he didn’t like to do on the farm. Especially, after his dad died, he was it.

  Tammy would help with some things when she could but she couldn’t do any heavy lifting. She used to do some of the dirty work but now that she was pregnant, she just couldn’t help with that stuff right now.

  John was daydreaming that he was back on the farm right now. What they had been going through over the past few weeks was nothing that any of them could have every dreamt in their worst nightmare.

  Right now John would have done anything to be back doing the mundane chores the farm required to keep it going on a daily basis.

  As John and Steve were returning inside, they heard what sounded like a vehicle out front. Everyone got excited because they knew that zombies couldn’t drive so it had to be humans. Tom was the first one to look out the window. He saw four vehicles driving very slow down the street.

  His first thought was to run outside waving his arms to get their attention. Then his first responder training kicked it. He wanted to see who this was driving down their street before he gave up their location.

  The four vehicles drove down the street and stopped by the tractor-trailer parked on the street. The man in the first car got out and walked to the back of the tractor-trailer and tried to open the back door. Tom thought the men should go out and see what these people were like before they introduced their families to them.