Ted Erikson: Musician and Zombie Hunter

They made it to their destination in an hour and a half. At this point it was 2:17am. They were still late, but Steven had definitely made up some of that time. The town was extremely small. The population, according to the sign that welcomed them to the city, was only 63 people. Depending on when that sign was put up, the number could be too low. As they drove into the town, they figured that the number was pretty accurate. The place was too small to contain any more than that.

They drove down the main road, recognizing the signs of zombie in numerous places. Windows were shattered, stores had been looted, and the road was bloody. Despite all the signs, there were no zombies nearby.

“Where are they?” Steven wondered.

“They go where there is food,” Karoline reminded.

“Alright. So your town is infested by zombies, where do you go to survive?” Ted mused.

“Some people would go to a church,” Gage pointed out.

“The zombies were made by a virus, not by magic. They invade the church. You died. Where else?”

“The nearest Wal-Mart?” T-bone suggested, knowing that was their plan if the zombies ever hit their town.

“The nearest Wal-Mart is two hours away. You made it out of town and survived. The zombies didn’t follow. Next guess?”

“Local hardware store or supermarket,” Jesse guessed.

“There’s probably a few survivors at both,” Steven agreed. Ted began searching for the nearest hardware store on the GPS. It was at the far end of the town. The supermarket was down a side street and nowhere near the other location. Looked like they were splitting up, which was nothing new to them. They often did it to cover more ground while they were hunting. It was an effective strategy so long as they never split into more than two groups.

Steven parked the Bronco at the intersection of the main road and the side road that the supermarket was down. It was an older vehicle, which meant there was no remote unlock, so he didn’t bother to lock it at all. The zombies would leave the car alone and if the hunters needed to flee in a hurry, it was better to have it unlocked.

The group split like it usually did. Jesse, Gage, and T-bone headed toward the supermarket. Steven and Ted went to the hardware store, bringing their new companion with them. Their weapons were out and ready to fire. Each group had a radio to keep in touch with the other, for emergency use only. The less noise they made, the better.

It wasn’t very long before Ted’s group spotted the store. The only real indication that they had reached their destination was the large group of zombies clustered outside the store, trying to break their way in. The group contained about twenty zombies, which meant either forty people were hiding in that small building (unlikely) or there were zombies elsewhere.

There was no discussion. They didn’t need it after doing this for so long. Even Karoline knew what to do. All of them fired upon the hoard of zombies, instantly gaining the attention of the ones they didn’t shoot. That was always when things started getting scary, when the zombies noticed them.

The three fired again and Ted noticed that Karoline was a pretty good shot. Six months of zombie killing experience wasn’t that much (his team had two years), but she was holding her own. Maybe she’d stick around a while. That’d be nice. This whole three person sub-team felt a lot safer than when it was just Ted and Steven.

The zombies started getting closer, so they started moving backwards. Eventually, it would come down to hand-to-hand combat, Ted knew, but they would avoid that for as long as they could. It was much harder to get infected if the zombies were at least twenty feet away.