Six Feet From Hell: Unity: 6FFH Book #5 by Joseph Coley

most of what little was available. Southwest Virginia was populated with ample amounts of gun stores, sporting goods stores, and other shops where one might obtain useful items, especially in the post-apocalyptic days. The first one they passed was a sporting goods store that specialized in hunting supplies and other recreational products. As Joe passed by, kayaks and fiberglass boats lay on the side of the road. The plastic kayaks had fared much better than the fiberglass “john boats” and were largely untouched. There were two lakes in and around Tazewell, but were used neither by Larry nor by the townspeople. The closest lake was a reservoir, situated just outside the town wall. In its heyday, it was primarily used as a tourist attraction. Miniature versions of the IronMan triathlon were conducted at the lake once a year and, excluding those competitions, the lake sat unused.
    The second lake was four miles outside town, named Lake Witten. It had been scoured by Larry and his crews several times over the past few years. The lake was adequately stocked before the end of the world, and he’d made sure that it stayed that way. Fishing expeditions to the lake were regulated and kept track of closely as to not disturb the natural order. Lake Witten provided much-needed food and occasional fresh water when necessary.
    Joe slouched in the seat of the Dodge Ram as they continued along slowly. The road was sparsely populated with other stores; a gas station here, a Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) station there, nothing worthwhile or useful remained. The area between Tazewell and their destination outside Bluefield didn’t hold much in the days before, and he was thankful for that now. Wearing out a path between the two towns made up a large part of the transports he did for Star Ambulance back in the day, albeit much less interesting than it was now. Most of the fast food places in Bluefield were things that they could not get in Tazewell. After dropping patients off at dialysis or the hospital in Bluefield, they would frequent the Taco Bells and Burger Kings in town and take a well-deserved few minutes off. After feeding their faces, it was back to the lonely stretch of highway leading towards Tazewell. He thought fondly of the mundane transports, wishing that it could be that simple again. He stayed lost in his thoughts until the first zombie bounced off the left-front bumper of the Dodge, smacking him back into reality as it did.
    “Shit! Sorry, guys. Didn’t mean to do that,” Joe said.
    “Not like you haven’t done it before, cowboy. That’s the third one you’ve managed to run over in the last five minutes,” Captain White absently replied from the back seat.
    Joe’s brow furrowed. He looked to Curtis in the passenger’s seat and could immediately tell that his mind had wandered a bit further than he thought it had. “My bad. Just brings back too many memories drivin’ down this stretch of highway. Last time we came through here I didn’t get time to get sentimental, but now I kinda miss coming through here in the old days.”
    “I can tell. You’ve looked like you were somewhere else there for a few minutes,” Curtis noted.
    “Yeah, I was miles away,” Joe said. About a hundred yards in front of them lay the two wrecked LMTVs. Joe slowed the already pedestrian pace they were going and pointed to the trucks. “Here we go.”
    Boyd and Captain White sat up from their lackadaisical positions in the back seat and peered through the windshield. Rick rose from his position in the bed as he felt the truck slowing to a stop.
    Joe stopped the truck short of the LMTVs and gauged their surroundings. The vehicles were tangled together in a mass of metal and remained largely unchanged from four months ago. Joe knew there would be little in the way of supplies left on the trucks, as they had taken most, if not all, of the useful items off it when they raided it. They were there just for the remaining