Zombie apocalypse fiction – Ruth’s Story #183 Trading Baker City, OR for Robert’s Place #TEOTWAWKI #SHTF #WROL

Iain shows me some of the data that he has collected. He did not really have to as I believe him and his reasoning for wanting to move Flower’s clan. As far as I can tell, Iain has never lied to me. He knows that I believe that if you lie to others or lie to God you are only human; but lie to yourself and you never will remove the stain from your soul.

He is particularly interested in the twins. I ask Iain why the twins are so important. Are they some kind of canary?

“If a kid is a little shorter than others or missing some IQ points, it’s tough to see. But with identical twins you can compare them to each other,” Iain explained. “The growth of one of the twin sons seems stunted, while the other was about average height. One has also suffered an unusual number of rashes and staph infections, as have most of the people living here.”

“Iain, how are you going to convince these people to move?”

“I’m not sure, Ruth but I hope to have that answer by the time we are back here from Robert’s place.”

The next few days are spent packing gear and traveling to Robert’s place, an old abandoned cement plant on a hill overlooking the Powder River. During the four-day trip to the cement plant, Redhead was surprisingly quiet.

Riding up the dirt trail leading towards the front gate of Robert’s compound, we are greeted by BUF (Big Ugly Fucker). Nearly as tall as Iain, but much wider, BUF was burnt badly as a child. BUF suffers pupula duplex in his left eye, and constantly wears sun glasses. BUF suffers badly from migraine headaches.

Iain says that BUF reminds him of Sloth from the old Goonies movie, but I do not see the resemblance. For one thing, I am not sure if Sloth smells as bad as BUF does, but they are both lacking in the teeth department.

BUF is a large, loveable giant of a man who has the intellect of a 12-year-old boy despite being some 20 years old or so. As we pass underneath the rock pile that serves as BUF’s vantage and lookout point, I see that BUF still wears the Fitter Family medals from an ancient eugenics judging contest.

I do not know where Iain got those old medals and one medal even has some holes as if someone once used it for target practice. BUF loves the medals, and will not part with them, but I do not know if he realizes what they represent.

BUF stands guard over the old cement plant. He carries a M79 grenade launcher, which looks small in his giant hands. I know that his favorite close quarters load is a 40mm Hornet’s Nest load that fires ten, 22 Winchester Magnum rim fire rounds at once through ten, individually rifled cylinders.

The bottom of the Hornet’s Nest shell unscrews revealing a firing plate set off by large pistol or rifle primer. BUF likes the other, usual 40mm shells but for some reason loves that bright red Hornet’s Nest shell.

We pass through the main gate into the old dusty court-yard passing the Villar Perosa twin submachine gun on its pintal mount. I am not sure where Robert got the rather rare and unique Spanish machine gun.

I climb off of Mary Margaret with a groan watching her foal scamper around the place smelling. Once the gate is closed behind us, the children explode from hiding startling the little foal, which darts back to the safety of her mother’s leg where she stands shaking.

Surrounded by the children I am struck by how much several of them have grown. After the children, came their pets are we are surrounded by dogs while the compound’s cats, who would not deign to greet visitors look down upon us from their lofty perches.

You would think that with this many damn cats that they would wipe out the fucking pigeons that infest this old cement plant. However, the pigeons are a major food source so Robert does not want too many cats around. I was never quite clear how exactly the cat population is controlled – perhaps I do not want to know.

Seeing pets at all after KCAP is rare. Most pets were either killed, ate or lost. The FEMA camps with military-like discipline, immediately confiscated pets which were then taken away to be euthanized as soon as possible. Those entering the FEMA camps were summarily disarmed, so they could not offer any resistance when their pets were killed.

Once, both Safeco Field and the Seahawks Stadium FEMA camps each held more than 20,000 plus people. The last time that Iain and I checked both were still heavily infested with zombies.

We discussed at length attempting to get into either of the largest FEMA camps ever in the area. We are fairly certain that a significant amount of weapons, food, medicine, and other supplies are probably still in the two infested stadium which are directly across from each other.

During one Seattle scouting mission, we ate lunch sitting on the street corner between the burnt out remains of the Pyramid beer garden and Safeco Field. While eating, we watched zombies crushed against the industrial grade fencing by the press of bodies behind them.

Sometimes the press of bodies against the fence got so great that a zombie or two was actually squeezed through the fencing like meat through a cheese grater. Once a zombie is killed, it becomes instant meat for the surviving zombies around it.

I nearly lost my lunch as I watched a zombie munch with relish on a large, yellow lipoma on the shoulder of a dead, Asian woman zombie crushed against the fence.

A grossly fat, female zombie with long heavy dreads, dressed in skin-tight black capris, and a pink tube top about three sizes too small grabbed the large chunk of meat with the lipoma trying to take it from the other zombie.

A brief struggle between the two zombies resulted in ghettopotamus zombie getting some small pieces of the lipoma while the original zombie got to keep most of its prize. I shudder at the memories.

As Robert and his ladies descend to greet us, Iain and I pull out the turmeric root we brought along for trade. We also brought lots of dried yucca root for soap making. I have not been here in several months. Coming here brings back some painful memories.

I smile and try to make the best of the situation as Iain and Robert coolly stare at each other.