Lottery

  I awake in the morning because the sun is shining through a window, and I can tell Kayla is awake. Her breathing is quicker and deeper when she is awake.

  "Morning." Kayla says to Kyle as he walks in the room.

  "Morning. Steve, I've been thinking about what you said last night about armoring the Sand Rails. I agree, if we do this, we will have to add anti-roll bars to the sides to keep us upright, because if these roll, they will be a little too heavy to roll back quickly."

  "Good thinking." I reply

  "How long have you been awake?" Kayla asks

  "About a minute." I throw pants and a shirt on.

  "Redneck's breakfast is in the warm fridge." I kiss Kayla and get up to get myself breakfast; when I open the fridge and see 2 or 3 cases of beer. I grab one and start drinking.

  "How are we going to do this?"

  "Generator."

  "How are we going to fuel it? Gas station outside is kind of out of power to pump with."

  "Generator can power a pump."

  "Oh."

  "Is there a way on to the roof?" Kyle points to the ladder in the corner, I drink the last of my beer and I grab seconds, my .280 and a box of ammo, and climb to the roof. Once I’m up there I see a few zombies.

  "Yell when you are ready, and I’ll start clearing the area."

  "Ok, give me a minute." I take a few sips, and then I hear someone climbing the ladder. A head pokes through the opening in the roof. Then a gun."

  "What are you doing Kayla?"

  "Going to help you, Mind if I use this assault rifle I stole from you backpack?"

  "Go ahead." I drop the clip out of my sniper and load five shot into it. I then work the action so one is in the chamber, and I put one more bullet into the clip so that I have six bullets in the gun.

  "Ready! Someone is going to need to close the door behind me." then there is the roar of one of our buggies. Kayla frowns.

  "Well I guess it is all up to you, I am needed elsewhere." she leaves the gun up here for me, but I don't have any ammo for it, nice thought, bad fallow through. I pull up the rifle and look through the scope. First undead that is in my sights is an elderly looking fellow who is missing an arm. With a kick like a mule, a noise that rivals most sonic booms and the zombies' head explodes.

  "F**k." I hear someone yell, but before anything else can be said I work the bolt, keeping a hold of the brass, Kayla must have opened the door because I hear the engine rev. I see another undead near the pump and I splatter it's brains all over the pump. I work the bolt and look over the area, empty.

  "Go!" the engine revs high and I see Kyle drive out of the garage with a trailer attached, the door slams behind it. he pulls up to one of the pumps, and pulls a plate off the pump, then pulls a cord out , he plugs it into the generator, he then cuts a few wires and grabs the hose and starts to fill one of the two 55 gallon drums that he also put into the trailer. Another undead pops up along the road out of a car or something, and I line up a shot and squeeze the trigger. That zombie is dead, again. Behind it I see something brown run, the "White Flag" Gives it away, and it was a white tail deer, named dinner. After a while, he moves to the other barrel. I look across the way and see the store that I forgot about. After a few more uneventful minutes, he is full and he unplugs the generator from the pump, and he caps the barrels, and turns the generator off. Finally he pulls into the garage. I climb down the ladder with both guns, the rifle slung across my back, holding the sniper.

  "Damn that thing is loud."

  "No s**t." I frown, "I left my beer on the roof."

  "Ehh, plenty more, but not now, we need to get working" with a piece of paper and a pen we found we figure out how to do what we want. There is a stick welder that we can run off the generator. It will take a while to do, but it will be stronger than a MIG welder. we grab a few pieces of medal and tubing and start taking measurements for armoring, and the roll bar, we decide against the antiroll bars as it will make them wider than we want, we will just have to make do with the ones that are on there, Kyle uses an air gun to cut the metal.

  "What do you want me to do?"

  "Hun, we are going to need water, but other than that, if you want to ask Kyle to show you how to cut, and he will be able to help me weld if this generator can take it. I clamp a few pieces of metal to the buggy, but once I touch the welder to the metal I blow a hole into the sheet metal.

  "F*****g hell!" I unplug the stick welder and I grab the MIG welder and I go to town and in twenty minutes, the side part of the hood is on, next twenty, the second half is on, before I can put the top on, Kyle comes over, and tells me to weld the metal to a hinge and weld the hinge onto the truck, I do as I’m told and I weld up the rest of the car, for doors we do a similar process as the hood, only we add a bolt to hold the door closed. After a few hours and a pack later, we have a buggy ready, the upper half isn't solid metal, but instead it has cargo mesh attached from the metal to the roof. The roof extends back and down the rear of the car, with a hole cut so you can use the rear view mirror to check on the person behind you.

  After that first car I decide on lunch, I want solids. I tell Kyle to stay here. I grab my AR-15, my back pack, and I walk out the door, and over to the store, I lean into the door and it opens. I walk down to the far end of the little store and grab a few bottles of Mountain Dew, and I walk down isle three the canned food area and load my back pack almost to capacity. I walk behind the counter and load my back pack the rest of the ways with cigarettes, keeping Mentholated out, Kyle hates them and so do I, if we get desperate, we will grab them later. I turn around and I am immediately shoved, I keep on my feet, and see a zombie. I shove the undead, I smack it with the butt of my rifle, I level my rifle with and unload on it, two bullets to the head, and it drops dead. Before it hits the ground I’m on my way out, before I get out I grab a can opener. As I run across the gas station I see a few zombies around, nothing scary. Once I get in the door, I drop my back pack.

  "Dinner." I pull out about twenty to thirty packs of cigarettes, and about the same number of cans, and about fifteen bottles of mountain dew. We all crack open cans of corn beef hash, and bend the lids to use them like spoons, and we eat. When I get done with my can I grab a smoke. 

  "Think that I got enough?"

  "Ya, before this that would have been about two hundred and fifty bucks worth of smokes." they both fallow suit.

  "Kayla, it freaks me out to see you smoking, you always wanted me to quit before this."

  "Ya, we all need a way to deal with this right now, I blame you." she says with a smile. 

  "Gee, thanks. No rest for the wicked, we need to finish the rest while we have energy." Kayla was feeling confident enough to be able to use the cutter without Kyle, so he grabbed the other MIG welder and started to help me.

  By the time that we finish, it is well into the night, and the generator only burn through three tanks of fuel, leaving us with about a hundred gallons left, with the ability to get much more. Kyle goes into the brake room that the garage has and brings out a few chairs and a few cans of beer. We marvel at our handy work. each of the buggies has the cab protected until about half way up, we fashioned on some cargo netting that has a break strength for about a thousand pounds as windows so you can see out of it, while being protected, then over the engine we have metal covering the sides, and top, but on the front we fashioned some angle iron into a grill to protect the radiator.

  "Next step is to paint them, I’m thinking black, or midnight blue, we need to protect the metal."

  "Tomorrow." Kyle agrees through a lung full of smoke

  "Defiantly." 

  "Also, if someone covers me tomorrow, I can get three sets of off road lights, that will be better than our current lights. They are on the tow truck out back."

  "I think I can cover you." while we have tools here, we should put together a few sets of tools, one for each machine, just for roadside fixes."

  "Not a problem, a few wrenches and a few screw drivers, easy."

  "Well, sun went down, I’m tired, time to sleep, got any better places than on the floor of the workshop?"

  "There is that apartment, if you don't mind running out side for a minute."

  "I don't, there is enough weapons that we will be ok. Let’s see if we can do this stealthy though, no need to attract unneeded attention." I sling my AR-15 across my back and grab my crossbow, the tomahawk, and my katana. Kyle grabs a sledge hammer and a knife, Kayla grabs a baseball bat that was next to Kyle's tool box.

  "We will just lock all the doors before we leave, and lock the last one after we are out." 

  "Wait, I want to grab a few of the attachments that I grabbed in the armory." I walk over to where I dumped my pack and I grab a pack, and all the attachments, tomorrow I’ll put them on when I wake up. "Lets go, I c**k the bow and put a hunting arrow into it. I have 9 others, if I fire one; I have to retrieve it, save them where I can. We walk out of the door, I am first because I have the night vision, and there aren't any near us.

  "Got your Keys?" I ask

  "Ya" he whispers

  "The zombie closest to us must have heard it, because it turns to us and walks closer, I put my bow across my back and it makes a noise against the rifle

  "F**k." I whisper, I grab my katanna, and the quarter moon makes it so I can see a few feet, and the zombie is close, I take a slash at its neck and I cut it clean off. We turn right and tip-toe around the corner and there isn't any movement. So we walk the two hundred or so feet and take another right around a corner, again, no movement, another ten feet, and 20 or so steps and we are inside of the apartment. I’m the first in, again, I set my katanna in a corner, as I don't want infected blood in its sheath, incase if I ever cut myself with it. I grab my bow and sweep the house, I walk through the kitchen, nothing, and look left into the living room, where I see a zombie lumbering away from us, and I shoot it in the back of the head and I set down the bow, it will take too long to reload, I grab my tomahawk and walk through the house, right into the dining room, nothing. First bed room I walk into and instantly I get latched onto and I feel a vise close on my left arm, I can feel moist lips close on it, and dull teeth. I take my right hand and plant the hatchet right down onto what latched on. It instantly let go and I fall back, against the wall, shaking and trying to understand what just happened, after a minute, Kyle walks in

  "What they f**k was the noise?" and he flicks his light my way, "You ok?"

  "I...I...I don't know." he shines his light at the body, defiantly a zombie, and before I have time to think he grabs me and pulls me to the sink.

  "Where did it get you?

  "Arm." I grab the soak and start to rub it in, and I turn on the water knowing that there is pressure in the tank that will give me a gallon or so, and I clean it off and look, skin wasn't broken, but I keep scrubbing, and keep scrubbing "I'm not going to turn, I’m not going to turn, I’m not going to turn." I keep whispering to myself.

  "Dry yourself off." I hear Kayla say, but I ignore it," the water stopped a minute ago, stop this, you will be ok, no skin was broken." I grab the towel and dry it off, and grab the Germ-x and put a squirt on.

  "Can't be too sure." I manage a shaky a smile and I pull out a smoke and light it up. Kayla can see me shaking because she comes over and hugs me "If you start to change, I’ll kill you myself she laughs."

  "Gee, thanks." she lets go and walks into the house, Kyle is dragging the bodies out and drops them off the stairs, when he is done, I am done with my smoke.

  "Two beds, and I ain't gonna share one with your dumb a*s. Here is your bolt by the way. I cleaned it up, here is some oil, clean the bolt, you sword, and your tomahawk." 

  I do as I’m told and then I put them into their sheaths then, unable to sleep, I begin messing around with the different attachments, I grab my gun, I figured out that I grabbed a laser, a flash light, and a fore grip and a red dot scope, I put them on and I test it all out, the flash light works, as does the laser, both of them are activated by buttons that I taped to the fore grip. I light another cigarette, before I go to bed. I get halfway though before Kayla walks out, in nothing but a bra and panties.

  "Going to come to bed anytime soon?" she asks in a sexy voice

  "Depends, can I sleep naked?" I ask through a hit of a cigarette.

  "Can I?" and with that she turns around and goes into the room. A minute later Kyle walks out

  "What the f**k are you doing, why aren't you in there."

  After a minute "I think I love her." is all I manage

  "While you were waiting on the roof for me, she said the same." he whispers

  I put out my cigarette and go to bed with a huge grin on my face, because i won the lottery, twice.