The Zombie Apocalypse Farmers: The Zombie Apocalypse Call Center, #8

​Chapter 1: Sue Day 1

The day the zombie apocalypse happens, Jared and I are working on our farm. He’s running the tractor over the fields, to make them fallow, while I’m going through the seed inventory to figure out what we need to order. Neither of us were much for watching the news, but I had the radio turned on and I’m listening to some classical music when the music is interrupted.

This is NOT a hoax. I repeat, this is not a hoax. Listeners of KRPB are advised to stay indoors and lock their doors and get whatever available weapons are on hand. Be ready to repel zombies. There are zombies in the streets here, and not the mindless, shuffling zombies you usually think of. These zombies are fast, rapid, and if they bite you and you don’t die, you’ll become infected by them. I repeat, this is NOT a hoax.

You don’t hear that every day, I mutter to myself.

I walk out of the seed shed and wave to Jared. He sees me, and stops the tractor and then gets off of it and stomps toward me with an annoyed look on his face.

I’m nearly done with the field. What’s all the commotion for?

The radio station just made an emergency announcement about zombies.

Jared looks poleaxed.

Zombies. I’m this close to finishing my chores for the day and being able to sit back and enjoy a brew on the porch and you’ve stopped me because your radio show is telling you about zombies.

Come listen, I say. I know you want to relax, but I wouldn’t have gotten your attention just to pull one on you.

Jared reluctantly follows me. The radio announcer is repeating his announcement.

You know they’re probably just running a gag. Let’s see what the other radio stations say, Jared says and steps past me to flick the knob of the radio. It goes to another station and the same announcement is being shared on that station. Jared changes it again and the same announcement is playing on the next station.

Ok, maybe there is something going on with zombies. Go into the barn and get the guns and ammo out. I’ll get the tractor and bring it in as well and then we can fortify the house. I don’t know how close they are to us or if we’ll see them, but it’s to be prepared than to be surprised, and I guess in this case, eaten.

Alright Jared. Don’t take long with the tractor, I nervously say and then head to the old rundown barn. We’ve been meaning to get it fixed up, but we’ve never gotten around to it. Running a farm is enough work that inevitably you fall behind on the things you mean to do. Even so the barn is sturdy enough.

I go into the back of the barn and open the gun locker door. Jared keeps some guns in the house, but he also keeps some out here, just in case. I’ve always thought it a funny reason, but this once I’m glad he’s got some guns out here. I pull out some ammo from the safe he keeps in the barn and start loading up the shotgun and hunting rifles.

I’ve just finished loading the weapons when I hear a sound.

Jared is that you? I call out.

Unnnggrrryyyy!

Jared, I’ll cook you some food when we get in the house. Get the tractor in, I scold.

Unnnngggrrryyyy!!!

That doesn’t sound like Jared. I peek out and see five men. They’ve got blood around their mouths and a couple of them have bites on their arms. These must be the zombies. I wonder if they’ve already gotten Jared. I can’t do anything about it, if they have, but I’m not going to let them get me.

I grab one of the shotguns, and calmly step out from the gun locker room. The zombies spot me.

"Unnngrrryyy!

I wait for them. They rush toward me, and when they’re close, that’s when I shoot the shotgun. The pellets blast out of the barrel and slam into the first three zombies, turning them into mincemeat. Fortunately I’ve got a double barreled shot gun so I blast the last two zombies into shreds with my next shot.

I hurriedly open the barrel of the shot gun and eject the two spent shells and then stuff two more into the barrel. If I’m lucky there were only five zombies.

Unngrryyy!!

Guess I’m not so lucky, I wryly say.

I see more zombies coming into the barn. There’s ten of them now. I grab the hunting rifle and put it by the door. I probably won’t have time to use it, but I’m going down fighting. I don’t want to turn into one of those things. I heft the shot gun in my hands and wait. My heart is thudding against my chest like a snare drum.

Unnngrrryyyy!

All the zombies are framed in the broad doorway of the barn. I can see them looking around, sniffing the air, on the hunt for me, and whatever else is alive. I hope Jared isn’t one of them, but if he is, I’ll shoot him as well. I know he’d prefer that to being a brain eating zombie.

I aim the shotgun and get ready to squeeze the trigger when I hear the sound of the tractor coming into the barn. Jared’s driving it and he’s got a fierce bare toothed grin on his face.

If you’re so hungry, come and get some! he yells over the roar of the tractor. The zombies start toward him, but they no longer possess the intelligence that a regular person would have (maybe). They run into the bladed turbine of the tractor and it tears into them, shredding them. One leaps past the turbine blades, but Jared is ready. He’s got a pistol in hand and calmly shoots the zombie as it lands on the hood of the tractor. It falls back into the blades and becomes part of the zombie jerky mess that the tractor is creating.

Sue, are you still alive? I hope so, because if you’re a zombie I’ll hate to have to put you down.

My husband, the romantic. Still he came in the nick of time, so that’s something in his favor.

I’m still alive, hub. Good timing on the save, I yell out.

Jared turns off the tractor.

Happy to be of service, but we better get into the house. I don’t know how many more are coming, but this barn isn’t the place to fight them.

Agreed.

I toss him the hunting rifle and he catches it and then we run to the house. There aren’t any more zombies right now, but I’m sure more will be coming and we’ve got to be prepared.

We get inside the house and Jared runs to the hunting room where he keeps the rest of the guns.

Sue, can you open up the ammo safe and start pulling out ammo. I’ve got a lot of it stocked away and I know we’re going to need it. We’re also going to have to get more at some point, assuming anyone’s left to sell it.

We could always just take the ammo if no one’s left to sell it, I reply.

Jared grunts and says, Good point. It may come down to that.

I pull boxes of ammo out and bring them to the hunting room. I’m about to go back for more when Jared looks up at me.

Just those for now. Until we know for sure we can get more ammo, we need to be conservative with what we’ve got. Every shot has to count, especially because we don’t know how many more will be coming. I still can’t believe we had the number of zombies out there that we had. Did you recognize any of them?

I didn’t take the time to look closely at any of them, I tartly reply. I was too busy trying to make sure I stayed alive and hoped you also were still alive.

I appreciate that, but maybe we should go out and take a look at the ones you shot. I don’t think we’ll recognize the ones I ran over with the tractor.

Yeah being turned into turbine fodder is probably not going to leave much to recognize. We’re going to have to clean the tractor carefully. The last thing we want is whatever’s turned people into zombies getting into our soil and food.

Good point, honey. I knew there was a reason you’re the brains in this relationship, Jared says. I’m going to finish loading these weapons up and then we can take a look at those dead zombies.

Jared is loading rifles and a couple assault rifles he has.

You know those anti-gun nuts were going to take our assault rifles away from us, telling us we didn’t need them and that they contribute to the gun violence in this country. Well look who’s wrong now. If we didn’t have these assault rifles, if we just had shotguns we’d be fucked by the zombies, and not in a good way. I bet you the survivors are all going to be people like us, with decent conservative values and most importantly the best weapons to fight off the zombies. The liberals will be zombie chowder and good riddance to them for not sensibly buying assault rifles when they had the chance.

Yes, he really rants like this on occasion especially after he’s watched Tucker Carlson or listened to Sean Hannity. But we are the best armed people in the area and there’s no doubting that.

Jared finishes loading up the weapons and gives me a hunting rifle, pistol and shotgun. You can never be too armed. Jared gives himself another pistol and grabs one of the assault rifles and then walks to the door.

I’ll clear the front porch and yard and then you can come out.

He carefully opens the front door and pokes the assault rifle out and then checks the front porch and yard. I watch while he does. There’s no zombies in sight and it’s kind of silly, but he’s being cautious or something.

Clear!

I follow him out the front door. He cautiously walks over to the zombies I shot and nudges them with his assault rifle to make sure they’re really dead. None of them stir. They stink and not in a way that seems normal. They stink in a truly horrendous way.

After we identify them, I want to burn the bodies and we need to clean the tractor.

Ok. We’ll need to keep a watch in case more zombies come, but that’s a good idea. I don’t want this filth on our land. I’m going to turn one of the bodies over. You need to be ready with your gun, just in case the zombie really isn’t dead, Jared says.

I pull out my pistol and check that the safety is off and then nod to Jared. He carefully grabs a zombie corpse and flips it over.

Holy shit, that’s Jim Renner the weed farmer.

Guess he smoked the wrong kind of weed, I dryly reply.

I guess so, if that’s what caused him to go zombie. I’ve smoked some of his stash on occasion when visiting with him and its left me buzzed but nothing else.

It probably isn’t weed that caused him to go zombie. I wonder what it is though. Alright, turn over another one.

Yep, Jared grimly says and grabs another corpse. He flips it over and swears. It’s one of Jim’s farmhands. What did they get into that caused them to turn zombie?

Should we even bother looking at the others? I’m willing to all bet there all from his farm, Jared says.

There’s no way he had fourteen other people at his farm, unless he was having a party. And since he always invites us to those parties and we didn’t get an invite, I don’t think we can assume that all of the people with him were actually with him. We need to identify all of them, so we know how widespread this zombie thing is.

Ok, ok, Sue. I get it. I’ll turn the next one over.

Jared turns the next body over and I feel vindicated. I don’t recognize the person, but she never worked at Jim’s farm. She looks more like a townie from the small town nearby. I give Jared a look and he nods his head and turns over the next one. This one looks like a teenager and again someone I don’t recognize. I kind of feel bad, but it was him or me and I’ll choose me any day of the week over someone else.

Jared grabs the final one and it stirs. Jared drops the body.

Holy shit! Shoot it, shoot it!

Unnngrryy, it weakly moans.

I fire my pistol at its head and create an excavation wound that will make it impossible to identity the corpse. I don’t really care.

Fuck that thing could have bit me!

Jared, it was pretty far gone, but better safe than sorry. We need to build a fire now and burn these corpses.

Agreed. I’ll get one started.

Jared walks over to the barn, where we have the firewood stored. I keep a wary eye out, looking around, ready to attack if I see or anything that isn’t normal. He grabs tinder and some firewood and makes a funeral pyre for the zombies. Then we both carry the corpses over and put them on the pyre. The entire time I’m worried more zombies might come, but we need to get rid of these bodies. Jared and I both light the pyre up and within a little while it starts burning.

Let’s clean the tractor and keep an eye on the pyre to make sure those bodies burn, Jared suggests.

I nod and we head back to the tractor. Jared gives me a hose and I start spraying the tractor while he