Zombie Chaos | Book 4 | Scout's Horror

tree in thirty-five years—long before arthritis and extra poundage had become serious impediments. No, I wasn’t in tiptop shape, but I wouldn’t rest without knowing if my family was alive… or not.
Clare stepped beside me and gently touched my shoulder. “So, what do you need to make this work?” She nodded toward the radio sitting on the van floor.
After explaining my harebrained plan, I figured she’d protest. Instead, she giggled.
“Um, Joe, I hate to burst your bubble, but perhaps it would be better if I climbed the tree instead.”
As a longtime practitioner of yoga, Clare was undoubtedly more agile and more flexible than I, but nonetheless, she was in her late thirties, a bit heavier than she once was, and not always known for physical grace under pressure. Besides, I figured it had been at least twenty-five years since she’d attempted such a feat herself.
Now was not an ideal time to risk breaking a limb—or something worse.
“OK, tough girl.” I chuckled. “Actually, it might be best for someone even younger to give it a go.”
Young… and fearless.
Somebody had to climb the stalwart tree and string up the wire, and it wouldn’t be my fat ass—or my wife’s smaller but no less fragile one. I nodded toward the most likely candidate, who was currently leaning against the battle wagon, a few inches from his mother.
Clare pouted, but reluctantly agreed.
Casey, naturally, seemed overjoyed by the request. His mother, not so much.
“Please be careful,” she implored as her beaming son readied himself at the base of the pine tree. “You could break your neck falling out of a tree that big.”
“Don’t worry, Mom. I can handle this.”
Ah, to be young and stupid again.
I’d certainly pulled a lot of crazy stunts as an adolescent, not to mention during my late teens and early twenties—crap that my forty-five-year-old brain simply wouldn’t allow me to do anymore. Casey, however, didn’t give the tree’s nearly hundred-foot height a second thought.
As he began his ascent, I asked George to turn on her headlights, then I shifted the radio to the hood of her station wagon. Besides a portable battery and a hand crank (in case the battery died), the unit had come equipped with a power cable, which I plugged into an exterior outlet I’d installed on my rig. By the time Casey reached the top of the tree and secured the wire to several branches, I had already powered up the shortwave and started dialing through the myriad frequencies.
Thanks to my limited research, I understood that reception could be less dependable on autumn nights, but I refused to give up hope. Not until I’d heard a familiar voice.
George and Clare, meanwhile, stood on either side of me, monitoring our campsite for any undead interlopers. But I knew they were both listening closely to the radio static.
Not surprisingly, the first channel we picked up belonged to a U.S. government station. Though heartened to hear someone was still broadcasting, I realized it was simply a lame, repetitive emergency message warning everyone to fortify their houses and shelter in place.
I continued turning the dial until I reached the frequency I’d instructed our families to use. Assuming I’d hear the same static I’d already discerned on countless other channels, I was surprised to hear nothing but silence.
Quickly, I plugged in the mic and pushed what looked like the talk button. Not that I knew anything for certain.
Yep, shoulda spent more time researching this damn thing.
“Anybody out there?” I tentatively asked. “Uh, calling John… James… either of you guys around?” Then, with even less faith, I tried our folks. “Mom? Dad? Eddie?”
Clare pivoted toward the radio, a hopeful look on her face.
But no reply came.
I tried again and again, but nothing responded except silence. Complete, utter silence.
Hell, even if I was operating the radio correctly—which I highly doubted—I couldn’t possibly guarantee that either of my brothers, much less our parents, would be listening at that precise moment.
I turned to Clare and shrugged. “I’m not really sure how this thing works.”
Grinning impishly, she patted me on the back. “Yeah, babe, we kinda figured.”
I smirked, then gazed up toward Casey, whose silhouette I could barely see in the murky moonlight. “Hey, Casey,” I hollered, just loud enough for him to hear. “Can you stay up there for a bit? We may need to rearrange the antenna to boost the signal.”
“No problem, Joe,” he shouted in return.
George shot me a steely-eyed glare. My request might not be problematic for her son, but it obviously was for her. At eighteen, though, Casey could make his own decisions.
Still, I understood her motherly concern, and I certainly would feel guilty if the kid plummeted from such a height. Cuz George was right: He could easily break his neck.
But while I couldn’t see Casey’s face in the gloom, I’d certainly caught the enthusiasm in his voice. The kid would’ve likely offered to stay up there all night. Though technically an adult, he surely relished the chance to climb a tree on a moonlit evening. Probably made him feel younger, more liberated, and more impervious to zombie bites.
I couldn’t rightly begrudge him such a carefree moment… until I imagined him slipping off a limb, slamming into the ground, and busting several bones. Maybe even rupturing a few necessary organs, too.
All fun and games til somebody goes splat. Damn, I really am a grumpy old man.

Chapter
7
“Is there some higher force at work here?” – Valentine McKee, Tremors (1990)
As I stood in the relative silence of our wooded campsite, contemplating my next move, I discerned a humming engine on the nearby road, shortly followed by a metallic clanking several yards away. Thanks to my preoccupation with the stupid radio, it took my brain longer than it should’ve to recall the significance of such a sound. Jangling beer cans during a windless lull meant trouble—of the intruder kind.
But by the time I heard my wife’s gasp on one side and George’s