Welcome back, I hope you all had an enjoyable Christmas! I’m going to post another short installment of the old “Mutant Zombie Bikers” story that many of you will recall started a long time ago… The link below will take you to the beginning post and you can read or reread the story up until where I’m picking up today! I had kind of grown tired of writing this story and wasn’t sure anyone would miss it if it just faded away? I heard from at least one reader that was wondering whatever happened and wanted me to continue… so, here’s a little more for you!

 

I’m posting the last installment here also, just to remind you all where we left off…

 

http://preppernation.com/mutant-zombie-bikers/

 

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   The sound came in strangled gasps and he thought it was coming from the far end of the hallway, which would have been the master bedroom. The problem was that he would have to pass 3 dark doorways before he reached the one he would inevitably have to enter… Driven forward mostly by the guilt he felt for his own inaction, he slowly entered the hallway. In his attempts to remain silent, he feared that even his breathing would give him away but down the hall he went. Several times he heard the low sound of what he envisioned was one of the parents pained breathing.

 

   As he approached the doorway, he heard the sound once again… A low moan, followed by what had to be the husband weeping quietly. A renewed courage came over the man as he had to fight back the urge to just barge through the mostly open doorway to the young mans aid. From just beyond the door, the man quietly announced his presence and intentions to try to help. When no answer came he decided to go in and let these cards fall where they may. Kicking himself for not grabbing a flashlight, he proceeded to feel his way past the door jam and began searching for the source of the sounds. His feet shuffled as he continued several feet at a time into the dark room… He spoke quietly to anyone listening that he was a neighbor and hear to help… His hands found what would have had to be the bed and as he swept them out across the fabric of the bedspread, he brushed against flesh.

 

   He explained that even though he’d found what he was looking for, it was unsettling to be touching another persons body in the middle of the night in a dark bedroom. As he reached back to discover more details about what he had found, he again spoke quietly to the room. “I’m only here to help, please tell me what happened?” – “Tell me where you are so I can help you?” – “Where are the children?”… He said it was when he mentioned the children that he finally got a response. The leg that he had touched, began to move ever so slightly and he heard the moan again but close this time! The closeness of the sound almost made him run from the room as fear ran sharply up his spine! As it turned out it wasn’t a leg he found after all, it was a shoulder. The sound that came was close because he was leaned directly over the mans head and hadn’t even realized it.

 

   It dawned on him that there had to be a window into this room and if he opened the curtains maybe enough moonlight would get in to allow him to locate the woman. As he edged closer to the outside wall, he continued to ask the man questions about the children… Slowly, soft words began to come from the man on the bed… He continued his questions and proceeded to grope in the darkness until he found and opened the curtains. Moonlight streamed in and he turned his attention back to the man. Clearly he could now see he was in the middle of the crime scene, blood was splattered across the closet doors and running down the wall above the headboard.

  

   You watch the older mans demeanor as he tries to convey the weight of the scene and control what is obviously an emotionally charged life event. The fact that he came to his brothers neighborhood to warn others of this pending peril spoke volumes. It would seem like the easier thing to do would be lay low and not do anything to make yourself a target… Thankfully, there were still people like this man to prove that a couple weeks time wouldn’t turn all men into the kind of desperate animals that very well may be standing all around you – your neighbors!

  

   With the bedroom illuminated, he could see the man clearly laying across the bed. He was bleeding from multiple gunshots to his chest and stomach. Trying to speak was painful but the mention of his children was enough to keep the man making attempts to communicate. With his ear down very near his mouth your story teller heard the details of what had transpired only minutes ago from what would prove to be the only witness alive to tell them…

 

   Through broken sentences and pained speech the dying man explained that it was all his fault! He had gotten his family killed through his own stupidity. As this man was a young husband and father, possibly even a little nieve, he had tried to make a trade with these bikers for supplies he needed for his family. Much as the rest of the neighborhood, their food supply was getting very close to exhausted. With this in mind the man had ventured out to where he had heard from another neighbor that these bikers were running a sort of trading post. A deal was struck to trade several cases of expensive wine for a size-able amount of canned food. This young man was a wine salesman by trade and thought he had executed his best deal yet and positioned his family to survive for several more weeks on what he had secured earlier that morning. As it turned out the bikers had sent someone to follow him when he had returned home. The outcome of that trade was what this neighbor had seen after being awakened less than an hour before… The bikers forced the front door open and proceeded to retrieve the traded food back, took the additional cases of wine the man still had stockpiled… The young man had sealed his families fate when he responded to the threat of one of these intruders entering his bedroom with the golf club he had at easy reach. The club being the closest thing to a weapon the man owned. Without batting an eye the biker shot him… As he was losing consciousness he watched the biker drag his wife off down the hallway by her hair… Through sobs that were the last sounds the man would ever make, he apologised for being so stupid…

  

   You witnessed this older man breakdown as he relayed those details… A long silence hung in the air as this all sank in to the collective body of neighbors standing around you. After what felt like minutes had passed, the man continued with the rest of the details he had come to relay to your group.

 

    The young man had died literally in his arms. He knew however that this night was still far from over and more was left to discover in those dark bedrooms he had passed on his way down the hall. Without giving it much thought he covered the young mans body with the bloody comforter. His nerves were strangely steeled or maybe numb was a better description, as he moved back into the hall way. One door down he turned and entered the child’s room, this time moving swiftly through the dark to find the window. He pulled back the curtain and turned to face a certain tragedy. This time he found nothing but a child’s room, empty bed and nothing more! Thanking God, he moved back to the hallway…

 

   With tears streaming down his face the older man continued to tell a horrific story of nothing short of brutality at its worst. The three children had all been killed while huddling together in the oldest child’s closet. Apparently the children had all been sleeping in one room under several sleeping bags, it appeared that the parents had been trying to make an adventure out of the unpleasantness… As terrible as this had been up until now, it almost got worse as he delivered an additional detail that the crowd only came to grips with over the minutes to follow – the wife was not found in the home…

 

   After a few moments of reflection, the older man continued his story with the details of the following morning. As dawn approached more of the men began to find their courage. Mostly men but a few women as well came to the young families home where they found the older man digging graves in the backyard. As excuses were made to allow these cowardly men to escape reality and retreat back to the perceived safety of their own homes, one man stayed to help… It was this man that, after the bodies were buried and many long silences, brought additional details of the last few days…

 

 

   Our old story teller seemed to grow agitated as he began to relay what the other neighbor had  shared with him when they finished laying to rest the bodies of the husband and small children.

 

   The 2 men stood facing each other when the chore was completed. Both men had tear stains running down their dirty cheeks. As appreciative as the old man was to have the additional help digging, he could see this helper knew the victims. He explained that he felt sorry for him as it was hard enough doing this deed without having really known the family. He described the younger man’s demeanor was of a man riddled with guilt. He had often heard him muttering under his breath while he dug, over and over he heard the man repeat seemingly to himself, “I should have known, I should have known…”.

 

   After a few minutes of just looking at each other and neither really ready to speak… The young man painfully began the explanation of what this all had meant. He and the husband had been friendly, having played on the same softball team the previous summer. Their homes were only separated by a few houses and their young children would play together when the weather cooperated… In fact his own children had been over playing in this very backyard the previous afternoon. It was with that realization the younger man had begun to cry openly and nearly
uncontrollably…

 

   Several minutes passed before the young man could regain enough control to resume his tale. It all began the first week, the victim had approached him about trading some of his wine inventory for canned goods. Being a wine salesman, his stock would make for good trading or so he presumed. Initially this arrangement was fine because he and his wife enjoyed a few bottles of wine in front of their evening warming fire after the kids had fallen asleep… This was still during the initial days without power while the disaster was still nothing more than a great adventure!

 

   It was when his friend came looking for another trade that he looked at his own inventory… He could easily determine that he indeed needed his remaining canned goods for his own young family and additional bottles of wine wouldn’t be on the menu any longer. He explained that he had felt bad turning him down and had volunteered to ask around about anyone willing to make a trade.

 

   At this point in the story the older man explained to all of us that he questioned the young man as to why the victim hadn’t gone looking for other trade partners on his own already? He explained that the other man was reluctant to spread the word too far about his inventory; it didn’t really belong to him you know. It actually was the property of the man’s employer. The younger man, as one of the neighborhood homeowner’s association members had thought he might be able to make the inquiries on the other man’s behalf without too much trouble, he did know almost everyone in the neighborhood on a first name basis. Tears again welled up in his eyes as he said he wished that he had just let the man find his own solution and never gotten involved…

 

   Leaning on their shovels the old man pressed him for more details on how exactly these murdering bikers had entered this seemingly innocent equation. The answer was nearly as simple… he had asked around and found that one of the newer folks to the neighborhood worked on motorcycles for a living. This guy was also a “hang around” with a motorcycle club. The mechanic had almost jumped at the opportunity to organize a “deal” to try an impress the bikers that he wanted badly to be accepted by. It was as simple as that, the wine salesman would just need to stop by and discuss the deal with the mechanic…

 

   So, he dropped by the victim’s house a few days ago and pointed him in the right direction. He said “that’s all I did, that’s it, that’s all I did”, his voice sounded as if he was pleading with the older man for forgiveness. He said that the next he heard anything about it was the day before when the kids we’re playing in this same backyard. The victim happily told him what a great lead the mechanic had been and even offered to give him a free bottle of wine as a “finder’s fee”. Thankfully he had forgotten to collect that fee before he had hustled his kids back home yesterday, he would have felt even worse.

 

   The bikers had made arrangements to meet the man at the now closed convenience store several blocks from the neighborhood. The wine salesman had almost bragged about the hard bargain he had pulled off on the bikers… They had dickered but when he stuck to his price, they eventually gave in! He got a full case and a half of canned goods for each bottle of wine he wanted to trade. As a side note, he speculated the bikers must have followed him home since he swore he never told the mechanic which neighbor had the wine to trade…

 

   As the old man told the story, your mind was drifting back to the encounter you had yesterday with your own neighbor over the firewood. How vulnerable was your family to this neighbor and or anyone he decided to cut a deal of his own with for the information he thinks he has… OPSEC, OPSEC, OPSEC, there is no substitute for OPSEC, only penalties for the lack thereof.

 

   Your mind turns its focus back on the story in time to hear what the old man relays about a “Conversation” he has with the motorcycle mechanic responsible for his spending the better part of the night burying a man and his children that should never have had to die! The word’s the old man spoke about having rage take over and something about his primal instinct to eliminate evil would never have been believable just a couple weeks earlier but in this new reality… It appeared anything was possible and the sooner we all came to grips with it the better off we would all be!

 

To be continued…  Prepper