by Bible, Jake
Atlanta, at least the parts that were occupied and developed, was clean, orderly, and the picture of post-apocalyptic efficiency. Running water, solar and wind energy, neighborhood gardens and markets, even trash pickup in large, horse drawn carts. People seemed happy, people seemed content, people seemed satisfied with their lives.
But Platt was trained to look below the surface smiles and fake laughs. It didn’t take them long to discover that the order and efficiency was brutally enforced. Within a day, they saw their first public executions and by the end of the first week, they’d witnessed an entire family lynched because they were growing food in a spare bedroom without permission.
It took all his self-control and discipline to keep from gunning down the “security” men that tightened the nooses. He doubts he’ll ever get the faces of those children out of his mind.
By week three, they had been able to infiltrate a group of single men that stayed close to mid-town. A few bribes with some canned goods and pints of scotch they’d picked up on the trip down and they were given ID badges and assigned work duties, no questions asked. By the end of the fourth week, Reaper had gotten himself a position within the main medical center.
From there they learned that Atlanta was well aware of what was going on in Asheville and none too pleased with it. Officials from the Consortium spent a good amount of time in the medical center, keeping up with the constant breakouts of various diseases that occur when you pack a large population together while also controlling their food and water rations. Even despite the trash pickup, and running water, people were still undernourished and basic preventive medications and vaccines were completely depleted.
John was able to get in with the security team, which gave him access to the munitions dumps, various armories, and security barracks set up throughout the city. In days he had intel that Atlanta was planning a full on siege of Asheville. The only thing in Asheville’s favor, it seemed, was Atlanta’s overconfidence. There were plenty of loose lips ready to sink ships.
Even with all of the information they gathered, there wasn’t a sense of urgency until John came back to the small apartment the men shared with four others and dropped a bomb. A very dirty bomb.
“They have uranium,” John had whispered one night, “and they plan on using it.”
A dirty bomb, explosives wrapped about uranium that would explode and spread deadly radioactive materials for miles, was one way to kill Asheville. So Platt came up with a plan to relieve Atlanta of its dirty, little secret. It took them another two weeks to put the plan into place.
When the night came, the three men quickly figured out they weren’t as covert as they had thought. A security team was waiting for them. Unfortunately for those men, they didn’t have the SpecOps training that Platt, Reaper, and John did. It wasn’t an easy fight, but they were able to get the C4 encased uranium and get the hell out of Hotlanta.
But, as they found out, Atlanta had more than one trick up its sleeve.
And Platt can hear that trick moaning and groaning hundreds of feet up above the river.
Tired of running everything through his head, he stretches out in the raft and watches the tops of the trees sway in the evening breeze. He can’t see the interstate above, but the constant sounds of the Zs make it clear it isn’t too far off. If his memory serves him, they have quite a few miles of cover before they float back into sight of the highway. But by that time, it will be dark and the last thing the Z wranglers will be looking for is a raft floating the French Broad.
Or so he thinks.
The first flicker of light Platt sees near the shore he chalks up to a reflection from the endless amounts of mica rock that the Blue Ridge Mountains are made up of. The second flicker, only a few yards past the first one, makes him take notice. It is too uniform, too much of a coincidence, too similar to the flare off a scope.
“John, Reaper,” Platt whispers as he taps them with his boots, “Company.”
The men are trained professionals and they only open their eyes and neither moving a muscle to give away that they are awake and alert.
“Numbers?” John asks.
“At least two,” Platt says as he eases the barrel of his rifle up onto the side of the raft. “But let’s assume there’s more.”
Platt lets out a quiet laugh as he glances down at John. The hope is that it makes him look like he is casually joking around and not scanning the surroundings out of the corner of his eye. It is obvious the rouse doesn’t work when a loud cough is accompanied by the sound of a bullet whizzing past Platt’s ear.
“Fuck,” Platt snaps, “suppressors. We’re in the shit, boys!”
Both Reaper and John roll up to the side of the raft, their rifles ready, but they hold their fire.
“Where am I looking?” John asks.
“Two o’clock and about ten yards down from that,” Platt says, his finger on the trigger, ready to return fire. He has no plans just to start shooting, not until he knows for certain where the targets are.
John dials in his scope and watches the tree line by the riverbank. “Got one,” he says.
“Take him,” Platt orders.
John squeezes the trigger and his rifle barks. A man cries out and then all the shit hits all the fans at once.
Bullets from at least six automatic rifles tear up low hanging branches and vines along the riverside. The water is puckered by slugs as the shooters begin gauging the distance from shore to raft. John answers the gunfire, taking careful aim as he sights on the various muzzle flashes that come from the shadows of the riverbank.
Platt and Reaper don’t bother with John’s finesse and let loose with their M-4s. More men cry out, but the gunfire doesn’t slacken, telling the men that there are more than just six shooters.
The raft hisses once then twice as it is punctured by gunfire. Platt calculates that they have about ten minutes before they take on water and have to swim for it. When a third hiss starts, he tosses all calculations out the window and concentrates on his return fire. Which lasts all of eight seconds before two slugs rip into him.
“Fuck!” he shouts as pain explodes in his left shoulder and then deep into his chest. He keeps firing for as long as he can before the wounds force him to let go of his rifle and slide down to the bottom of the raft.
“Sergeant?” Reaper shouts. “What’s your status?”
“Left shoulder...is ground meat,” Platt says as he struggles for breath. “Also pretty sure...a...slug entered through my...shoulder and hit...my left...lung.”
“Fucking fuck shit,” John says. “They’re moving back into the shadows too far. I’m losing them.”
He nails three more men before he rolls and ducks down into the raft with Platt. Reaper joins them and they cover their heads as bullets continue to puncture the raft again and again.
“Sergeant?” Reaper asks. “Talk to me.”
“No,” Platt gasps. “Hurts...too...much.”
“Good,” Reaper says, “that means you’re still alive. Focus on that pain. FUCK!”
He clamps a hand to his ear then pulls it back to see the palm covered in blood.
“Fucker took off the top of your ear!” John shouts. He grabs Reaper’s M-4 and pops up, emptying the magazine at the riverbank. “FUCK OFF!”
He can hear the bullets, and feel their heat, but none of the enemy slugs hit home. By the time he’s emptied a second magazine the gunfire from the tree line stops. The damaged raft floats around a wide curve and the landscape changes as the river cuts through a large ravine. John listens closely, but can’t hear the sound of Zs anymore.
“We’ve pulled away from the interstate,” he says. “I don’t think they can follow us for now. The sides are too steep.”
“Get us to shore,” Reaper says, his hands pressing a pack of gauze against Platt’s shoulder. “I need space to work and we need a new raft.”
John grabs the small paddle and steers them to the side of the ravine. As soon as the riverbank turns back
to mud and sand instead of sheer rock, he paddles them over and hops out, pulling them up onto shore.
Reaper slices Platt’s shirt off and studies the wounds. Platt’s clavicle is shattered, that’s easy to see, but the other wound, the deeper one that’s in his chest, is near impossible for Reaper to work on.
“I’m going to have to open him up,” Reaper says. “Hold pressure here.”
John switches places with Reaper as the medic digs through his pack for his med kit. He pulls out s stethoscope and places it to Platt’s chest. It takes him a few seconds of searching before he hears the gurgling deep in Platt’s left lung.
“Jesus,” Reaper says. “I don’t know if I can get to it. The entry wound is from above, not through the front. I’d have to open his chest and crack his ribs to extract the bullet.”
“And that’s not happening from the side of the French Broad,” John says. “What now?”
Reaper pulls out a scalpel, some iodine, and a short, plastic tube.
“I insert this and keep his lung from filling up with blood,” Reaper says. “While you get another raft ready. His only chance is to get him back to Whispering Pines and Dr. McCormick. She has what we need in her infirmary.”
“You think he’ll live that long?” John asks.
“I can...hear you,” Platt says, his eyes looking at Reaper. “But answer...the question.”
“If I can drain your lung and you don’t bleed out?” Reaper replies. “Yes, sir, I think you’ll make it.”
“Good,” Platt nods. “Then start cutting. We wait until full dark before getting back on the river. We’ll be lucky if they aren’t searching for us.”
“THEY’VE BREACHED THE hill in Phase Two!” someone screams. “Run! RUN!”
“Jesus,” Dr. McCormick says, “we still have a dozen wounded in the infirmary.”
“They’re lost,” Lourdes replies, pushing Dr. McCormick up the cliff stairs. “I need you to focus on the living.”
“I can’t just leave them!” Dr. McCormick shouts. “They’ll die!”
“How many do you think will die without you around, Doc?” Lourdes shouts back. “All these people that rely on you every day? How many will make it a week, a month, a year without your expertise? You aren’t going back! No one is!”
“You cold hearted bitch,” Dr. McCormick snarls.
“Call me what you want, lady,” Lourdes replies, “but you’re a doctor, you should know better. Sometimes you have to make the tough calls even if they suck. That’s why they’re tough.”
“I was a proctologist,” Dr. McCormick mutters.
“What’s that?”
“I fixed assholes!” Dr. McCormick yells. “I wasn’t an ER doctor or heart surgeon! The toughest call I had to make was what steroidal hemorrhoid cream to prescribe!”
Lourdes shakes her head, but can’t help smiling. Even with all the destruction and death around her. You take it where you can.
“Get going, Doc,” Lourdes says, “I’m not telling you again.”
Screams from down the hill make everyone stop for a second prompting Lourdes to start yelling and screaming at them to move. Most do, but some at the top are frozen in place, the view allowing them to see what’s coming for everyone.
Zs. Hundreds of Zs.
Lourdes gets to the top and turns as she shoves people up into the field. Her jaw doesn’t drop, she’s too much of a pro for that, but her heart gives a little skip and she can feel her adrenaline kick up a notch.
“They must have piled up on the fencing and razor wire,” one of her PCs says. “They just overwhelmed everything.”
“How many are still in the subdivision?” Lourdes asks. “How many residents?”
“Hard to say,” the man replies. “Never had an accurate count to begin with.”
“There have to be a couple dozen,” Stella says as she comes up to Lourdes, “maybe more.”
“Shit,” Lourdes says, glancing at Stella, “they’ll never make it.”
“Make it?” Stella says. “They have time. They can get up here.”
Lourdes pulls two grenades from her vest; the PC does the same. Stella stares.
“No,” she says. “Lourdes? What are you doing?”
“We have to blow the stairs or the zeds will follow us,” Lourdes replies. “We don’t have enough vehicles as it is, Stella. Some of us will have to wait for more to pick us up or start hiking it out. We need time to do that.”
“Oh, God...,” Stella whispers, “you’ll trap them in there.”
The herd of Zs can be seen coming from Phase Two and into Phase One. What they thought were a few hundred quickly turns into a thousand as the monsters crest the far off hill with no end in sight to their numbers.
“I don’t want to do this,” Lourdes says, “Jesus; I don’t want to do any of this.”
Stella nods, knowing that there are no easy answers in the zombie apocalypse. She leans across the railing and looks down at the residents still climbing the stairs.
“Hurry! All of you hurry!” she cries. “We’re going to blow the stairs! Move, people! MOVE!”
Lourdes takes her gently by the arm. “Get to your kids. You don’t need to see this. Get them in a Humvee.”
“Where are we going?” Stella asks. “I heard that the route to the Grove Park Inn is cut off.”
Lourdes looks at the PC and frowns. “I find out who’s doing that chatting and their ass is mine.” She looks at Stella. “I think we have only one option. And I doubt you’ll like it.”
“Why?” Stella asks then narrows her eyes. “No, I don’t like it.”
“No choice,” Lourdes says. “They have the best defenses around. Now get. Go be with your kids. I’ll join you in a minute.”
“God,” Stella says as she turns and runs through the field, making her way around the barricades and ditches as the sun sets over the hills. “Jace, where are you, baby? Where the fuck are you?”
Chapter Five
Pain to the left of me, agony to the right, stuck in the middle with FUCK!
I can’t sleep. Stumpageddon is raising hell from all the fighting earlier and my shoulder is ten kinds of fucked. I need to get up and look at it, but I’m afraid to turn on a light and wake Stuart.
The sisters put us in one of the guest rooms on the second floor, one with a working toilet, albeit an ancient looking one, so I get up and tiptoe to the commode. I need to piss. But I look at the thing and think that with my luck I’ll pull on the chain that hangs from the tank above and bring the whole thing crashing down. I tend to have shit luck with plumbing sometimes.
Ha, shit luck with plumbing. Funny.
So, downstairs I go. The Call of Nature will be answered outside as it was intended.
“Oh, hey,” I say as I stop at the bottom of the stairs. “I didn’t wake you up, did I?”
Cassie is standing there, stretching and rolling her head on her neck. She glances over and gives me an amused smile. “No, Long Pork, you didn’t wake me. My shift is next so I’m limbering up first. Can’t have cold, slow muscles when on the estate.”
“Shift? What shift?” I ask.
“You aren’t as smart as you think, are you?” she says.
“Just answer the question,” I scowl, “and don’t call me Long Pork. I hate that name.”
“Do you? You don’t seem to mind when Carly calls you that.”
“Elsbeth,” I correct, “she goes by Elsbeth.”
“Her real name is Carly Michelle Thornberg,” Cassie says.
“And my real name is Jason Stanford,” I reply.
Cassie nods. “Fair enough. Jace, is it? That’s the nickname you like?”
“Yeah, that’s cool,” I say. “So what’s this shift? Security? I thought you ladies had the estate locked down pretty tight. Even if you don’t, there’s a lot of land to cover out there. Plus all the Zs staked in place. How can you even know if someone gets in?”
“The situation isn’t perfect or foolproof,” Cassie admits.
“But you’d be surprised what you notice at night when you have to rely on other senses than your eyes. You’d also be surprised how many survivors think night is the time to go sightseeing. We detect more breaches between two and three in the morning than any other time.”
“Survivors? Breaches?” I say. “What do you do with the survivors when you find them?”
Cassie gives me a cold look. “What we have to.”
“Jesus...”
Cassie lets out a short laugh. “We don’t kill them. Not right away, at least. Most we scare off by letting some of the Zs loose. The rest we take down and dump them outside the estate while they are unconscious.”
“Why don’t I think that’s all you do?” I ask.
I cross my arm across my chest, but it doesn’t have the same effect when half an arm is missing. Looks more like I’m comforting myself than trying to act tough and stern. Plus, my shoulder protests and I wince, which ruins everything quickly.
“You alright?” Cassie asks. “Were you wounded?”
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” I say, “just sore from the day.”
“You should stretch more,” Cassie smiles.
“Thanks, Richard Simmons.”
“Who?”
“Right,” I smile, “I forget you’re almost twenty years younger than me. Doesn’t matter.” I take a seat on the stairs as Cassie continues her stretches. “What does matter is the shit you told us earlier tonight. That’s a pretty wild story. Kinda falls into the ‘fantasy’ realm of stories.”
“If it was just me, I’d agree,” Cassie says, “but you met the others, you spoke to them too. They confirmed it.”
“Not the first time I’ve come across a brainwashed cult,” I say. “You seem pretty persuasive. I wouldn’t put it past you to be able to wrangle some other girls that are desperate for security and fill their heads with BS. Make them think they’re special in some James Bond evil master plan way.”
“Why would I do that?” Cassie asks. “Why go to all that trouble?”
