Surviving The Aftermath (Book 1): The Dead Linger

by Roberts, Liz

  “Knock it off.” Oscar said as he unfolded a map and a couple pages of lists on a large table, that Casey, Oscar, Kurt, Emily and Andy were all huddled around.

  “Fort McCoy, it’s like 3hrs away, on a good day. So, maybe 6hrs with no GPS and no Freeways and pit stops. I’m not sure how blocked the roads might be. Its north of here, we’ll have to go through a lot of rural area but it’s located in a semi populated area, so that might be a problem. And depending on how many soldiers made it back to base, or were left on there, the place could be crawling.” Oscar was looking at each person. “It’s risky, the base is large, there’s housing, buildings, huge fields, but best thing is all the equipment and vehicles they have and weapons that may still be there. The place has a fully equipped hospital, it’s not a public hospital so the chances of it being overrun are less.” He finished up.

  “What do you think?” Kurt looked at Casey. Everyone was quietly contemplating all the information.

  “I say we go for it.” Casey said. “We’ll get crew together, just a few, keep it simple. Head out in a couple of days.” He looked up towards the door and saw Jack peeking in. Casey muttered a curse.

  “Jack get in here.” His voice boomed.

  “What’s up Casey?” He asked walking in casually.

  “How much of that did you hear?”

  “Most of it I guess.” He shrugged his shoulders in a nonchalant way.

  “Do not tell Jill. You are staying here with her.”

  “But . .”

  “No, this is dangerous, and I need you to be here. I can’t be worrying about you and Jill out there with me.” Looking down Jack gave up the fight easy. It’d been a week since the hospital debauchery and Jack definitely didn’t feel like pissing Casey off any more than he was.

  “Ok.”

  “Really? That’s it? No arguments?” Casey looked shocked.

  “No. I’ll stay here. I understand.”

  Focusing back to the planning of the trip, Casey urged Oscar to continue.

  “So I made a list of some equipment, essentials and the weapons we could really use around here. If this goes down good, this place could really move us ahead.”

  “Tomorrow we’ll go get more vehicles from across the street, ones that can be reinforced, take a hit. Who knows what we might run across out there.” Casey said

  “Yeah, I highly doubt Jeff and Tyler were the only rogue travelers.”

  “Exactly.” Added Andy. “We need to stay on point, and we need to have the people left here also being extra vigilant for a possible attack after we leave.”

  “Kurt do you want to pick people tomorrow, we’ll start mapping out a few possible routes and work on the cars.” Then everyone nodded and acknowledged the beginning of a possibly brilliant plan, or something that would get everyone killed.

  Jack quietly left not wanting to be noticed. He went back outside and wandered through the area not really noticing anything until he saw Jill trying to load what appeared to be more housing supplies into the back of a truck.

  “Hey you should be resting.” Jack jogged out and took the bag out of Jill’s left hand and put it in the back for her. He continued lifting the bags into the truck.

  “You’ve been avoiding me. Why?” Jill asked. Jack stood slowing unsure of where to look.

  “I guess I just figured you wanted space, especially from me.”

  “Actually as you can see I really need your help.”

  “You’re not supposed to be doing this anyway, Beth told you it would be weeks before you could really do any lifting with that shoulder.”

  “You’ve been avoiding Meghan too.” Jill added.

  “How do you know that?” He asked clearly shocked.

  “Because she told me. What’s wrong Jack? Is it this?” She lifted her arm in the sling slightly. “Because it will heal.”

  “But it was my fault.” He shrugged. “If I had just listened … . . maybe those guys would be alive and you would be better.”

  “Hey I don’t blame you. Yes it was a bonehead move, and I will admit I was irritated with you, but lesson learned right?” She grabbed his arm with her good one. “That Joan woman is probably alive because you went in there. All three of them were trapped, who knows what the outcome would have been.” She lifted her bum arm again. “And this, will get better.”

  “I just … Casey hates me, Meghan can’t stand me, and I know people stare at me everywhere I go.” He said down on the door of the truck. “I just want to crawl into a hole and die.” She smacked his leg.

  “Stop it. The good you’ve done outweighs the bad, one mistake does not ostracize you. You need to focus on your life and what’s happening in this place, not out there. Changes are being made, we’re getting ready for something major and we need to be up for the new challenge.” He just looked at her quizzically. “I know we’re going to Fort McCoy, I’m not stupid. I know what goes on around here even when Casey doesn’t want me too.” Jack continued to sit.

  “Go talk to Casey, tell him you made a mistake and you learned from it, he doesn’t hate you. And Meghan, she thinks you can’t stand her. So if you want that to work out you need to go talk to her, because it appears that you are the one avoiding people. Now help me drive this stuff over to the apartments.”

  In a matter of weeks the new housing had been claimed, people were still settling into the newly acquired apartments. Once the wall was erected around the complex, people dove into cleaning. Everyone helped, bleach was flowing freely and that’s all you would smell from sun up to sun down. Rotten food tossed, bed linen was laundered, some furniture tossed anything not salvageable, tossed. They knocked down a small section of the between the stores and the apartments to make it easy to go in between the apartment and the stores. A wrought iron gate door had been put in place, just in case either side was to be breeched. The summer continued along, hot and humid with the occasional rain storm to break it up. Nothing like summer in Wisconsin to keep you on your toes, a place where you could have all 4 seasons in one day. Plenty of zombies were in the area and keeping everyone on their toes. Jill and Casey had made it official and moved into together. Jack, Mike and a couple other younger single guys all roomed together, in fact most singles ended up bunking together dorm room style. And Oscar and Kurt decided to get a place together. Some were shocked and appalled, others could have cared less, and some swore they knew the whole time. There was always the rumblings when, but for the most part things continued to remain civil on that front. The previous ideas of gathering animals and somehow growing crops, didn’t seem so farfetched anymore. There were still plenty of wall that could be transported and built up. Casey, Kurt and Oscar now became three of the main idea men, and things started happening. While the summer months raged, so did the zombies. They moaned and groaned outside the walls all day and all night, with all the activity happening they knew something was going on. The excursions outside were minimal and only when necessary, as it attracted too much attention from the Zeds. People still took care of their jobs, burned up the bodies trapped in the barbed wire, shot or killed them to keep the Zeds hordes thinned out. Everyone just seemed very happy, content, more relaxed with the new move, except Vikki. She worked from sun up to well after sun down. She was a flurry of movement, constantly going. It wasn’t until one morning Jill got up early enough to catch her at breakfast.

  “Hey, how are you?” Jill said sitting down across from her at a table all by themselves. Vikki’s head was down over her food.

  “I’m good, moving on right.”

  “How’s Susie?” Vikki had a long pause, when she dropped her fork and put her head in her hands.

  “I can’t do this anymore. She doesn’t talk to me, I don’t talk to her. We just pass in that apartment like strangers. We both miss Tom so much.” She loses it and quickly puts her hand over her mouth. “I haven’t even said his name out loud since he left. I just feel so numb. Part of me wants to go out there and look for him and the other part wishes
he’d never return.” She pauses. “Jill what do I do? How do I go on?” She is beside her self. Jill could only imagine this sort of heartache, the person you love most, voluntarily leaves you, he’s not taken or dead, he just desserts you. Reaching out to hold her hand Jill says the only thing she can think of.

  “It will get better.” Vikki laughs with a touch of hysteria.

  “When? What will get better when? Will my daughter come back? Will my husband? Will the zombies all suddenly die and I can drown my sorrows in shopping?”

  “I guess I don’t know how to comfort you, I’m sorry. I just don’t think it can be bad forever, you know.” Vikki nods her head in agreement.

  “I just wish it didn’t hurt so much.”

  “I know. The pain will always be there, but it’ll start to lessen. I know it will.” Jill reached out and squeezed her hand.

  Jill rose, grabbed her coffee and headed outside to work on whatever she good. She was still technically disabled, being minus the use of her right arm.

  She went to the garage area where people were working on some of the newly acquired vehicles. They went across the street and got a few more cars, one M Series BMW SUV and series 7 BWM sedan, both picked for the horse power, and the room they can offer. Both were being modified, the hope was to create some sort of indestructible car, something that could withstand the on slot of pummeling zombies, maybe a crash into bodies and still keep going. Jill didn’t know much about cars, but it still seem painful to watch the beamers being cut apart and reconstructed. Places for guns mounts were put on all sides of the car, even the driver. Roll bars were added, they reinforced the windshield with polycarbonate Plexiglas. The SUV was fitted with a cattle catcher to help clear the road.

  “Wow you guys are really going to town on these.” Jill said when she came up next to Casey.

  “Well we need them to be ready in a couple of days.”

  “Why, will you guys be ready to go to Fort McCoy that soon?”

  “Yeah, Oscar mapped out where the army base is, …” He paused to stare at her. “How do you know about the fort?”

  “Because I know everything. So when do we go?”

  Casey was shaking his head. “No, uh ugh. You’re staying here. Your arm isn’t healed, there’s no way you could shoot anything or even lift anything.” Jill looked ready to argue, but she knew he was right, she would just be a liability out there. “Ok.” She said.

  “Really? You’re not going to fight me on this?” She shook her head. “I’m shocked.” She gave him an annoyed look. “I just mean usually you’d threaten bodily harm or something.” Jill held up her still bum arm in the sling.

  “Just walking fast sometimes hurts what if I had to run. And you know how hard it is for me to sleep, can you imagine if I had to sleep in a car. I know my limits.” Casey was still kind of uncertain about Jill’s new easy going understanding.

  “So tell me about it.” She asked. They walked over and sat down outside the garage where it was quieter.

  “It’s actually not a bad road trip. With the gas pumps at the base, and possibly functioning fuel truck we should be able to transport gas back along with the weapons and whatever other supplies we come across. We can then fill up and check around the farm land. After talking with some of the others we have a nice map going and surprisingly we aren’t far from some local farms already.”

  “Who else is going?”

  “Oscar is coming, Kurt is staying here with you to help run things.” He paused. “Jack is staying here.”

  “Are you mad at Jack?” She asked. He stroked her cheek

  “On that day yes, I was furious, but your alive, we all are, I know he just wanted to prove himself/show off a bit. So I can’t stay mad forever.”

  “Can you tell him that please? Every time he sees me and this stupid sling all he does is feel bad all over again.”

  “Yes I’ll tell him.

  “Good, now get back to work.”

  Casey kissed her long and lingering, then went back to work with the others. They had no idea how much stuff would be left there to take from the fort, but they removed all the seats except the front two in one SUV to make room for anything long. In two days’ time a pack of people would be geared up and rolling out, and Jill wouldn’t be with, she didn’t know how she felt about that.

  The morning came for the team to leave. They wanted to keep the group minimal so there was more room for potential supplies. Eight people that was it, two in each vehicle. The SUV’s were equipped with CB radios for contact, so hopefully the smaller vehicles didn’t lose their way. Everyone was saying their goodbyes.

  “Jill please don’t cry, this is already so hard.”

  “3 days, that’s how long you’re going to be out there and not here, I’m sorry but I’ll worry every minute.” The team had planned about a half day to get there, a day for searching and loading then the half day to get back. Who knew what other trouble they might find. Oscar said the place was fenced, so it would all depend on if the barrier had held or not.

  “I love you.”

  “I don’t think you’ve ever said that to me.” Casey replied.

  “But I meant, every day.” Jill replied softly. They kissed, Jill put everything she could into it, just in case this was the last one. Casey knew it too.

  “I’ll be back, I promise you.”

  Oscar walked over to Jill and presented her with a folder of stuff.

  “Here’s another map drawn up showing you our possible route, by freeway it takes about 3 hrs. to get there, well I’m sure the freeway is packed so with the back roads add an extra hour. We’ll radio every 10mins after the hour and give you updates of our location.” Kurt was listening too, as he was going to be helping out with the radio calls.

  “Depending on the condition of the fort, we may be able to stay in the housing units there, the base is pretty big, it could be over run and this is a wasted mission, or it could be empty or re-fortified by any soldiers left. I’m hoping for empty, that way, no questions.”

  “Is everyone ready?” Casey asked the group. With the final hugs and farewells being administered the group of 5 men and 3 women, loading into their designated vehicles. 2 had roof turrets mounted with the 50cals and all the shells it could hold. Casey in the lead vehicle with Oscar driving, were given the all clear by the gate crew and they rolled out.

  These fuckers were ruthless. Jeff thought, as they left the room finally after his latest beating, shortly they’d come back to give him his daily ration of food, god how he looked forward to that. He’d lost track of time, he had no idea how long he’d been here, last outside thing he remembered was being in that ghost town with Tom and the others, then he woke up here and so began the beatings. Every so often, they would come in asking questions about Jill and their base of operations as they called it. Every day was the same questions over and over again, but he only had so many answers. He knew they were going to kill him, they were just keeping him alive to get enough info. He wondered what happened to Tom.

  “Here’s your food.” One of the numerous nameless men came in with some bread, a scoop of beans and glass of dirty water.

  “When can I get out of here?” Jeff asked the same question every time they brought the food. And they all always gave the same answer.

  “When we get our answers.” And he left. Ah, so was life.

  Tom knew they were beating the shit out of Jeff almost daily, and starving him. They made him prepare the meals, but he didn’t care, he was not giving them anything. He knew as long as he kept his mouth shut he held the trump card. Upon their arrival back, he was methodically planning his escape. Keeping quiet and mostly to himself, he observed, people watched, learned routines and the pecking order around this place. Most people were creatures of habit, and even with a zombie-apocalypse happening, habits still formed. The days were slowing starting to get shorter, his window for escape was dwindling. He feared if he didn’t escape during summer and the early part of fall, without
a car, he didn’t think he’d survive the harsh wintery weather. He was maybe 70 miles plus away from their rebuilt stronghold. Maybe they would take him back if he admitted what an asshole he’d been. He could learn to live with Jill, maybe forgive her and himself. It was amazing how living here had changed his perspective on things. Seeing the unholiness in this new place really makes a man do some soul searching about what’s right and wrong and what’s really important. He missed his family every day, and if he got out of here he’d never leave them again.

  He continued loading and moving boxes around, sometimes it felt like busy work just to keep him active and from plotting with others. They kept him segregated from most people if they could help it. They would have him clean inside the house, or do gardening or maintenance out around the house. Just useless activity that didn’t matter anymore, but always kept him within sight of the house. But Luke hadn’t realized, the room where they were scheming and planning their raid on the rebuilt fortress, was on the far side of the house where no one could see Tom stand and just listen. This is how he knew he only had weeks left. They had worked out most the details, they were able to get a general direction of where this place was, south, but was it southeast, southwest or directly south. That’s a lot of miles to cover in all directions, and how far do they go? 20 miles, 50, 100? Now they just needed to break Jeff or Tom do get the exact location.

  “Fuck it! Let’s just ride down there and start searching. I mean how many Menards can there be around here right?” Some nameless man said.

  “We tried that idiot, remember? That shit didn’t work and we lost 3 guys and a car. Dumbass.” He said with distain.

  “Hold it.” Luke held up his hand for silence, the room stilled and everyone looked at each other. “Just thought I heard something.”

  “Look, Jeff is dying, I think we’ve gotten all we could out of him, if he knew more he’d tell us. Let’s just kill him now and start on Tom.” A murmur of yes and head nods went around the room.

  “Beating Tom won’t help, he’ll gladly let us kill him to protect his family at this place. We’ve got do something creative, flip it up on him.” Luke had an idea, a good one, in fact to date it was probably the best idea he’d ever had, and it was going to keep them alive and in the lap of luxury they had become accustomed to.