Apocalyptic Beginnings Box Set

by M. D. Massey

  “I swear it, guys,” Jase said. “It doesn’t hurt bad. Take your time. I’ll cover the place today.”

  Clutch nodded at Jase’s stick. “Then why are you still using your crutch?”

  Jase pursed his lips.

  Clutch narrowed his eyes. “The only way you’re staying behind is if you can shimmy up on the roof. That way, you can scan while you start replacing the busted shingles.”

  Jase grinned. “Heck, yeah, I can do that.”

  “Be sure to bring plenty of ammo with you. Watching for looters and zeds is more important than patching the roof,” Clutch added. He started to turn, then paused. “Oh, and use a mallet. I don’t want you drawing every zed in a ten-mile radius.”

  Jase gave an enthusiastic nod. “You bet!” He grabbed his stick and hopped back into the house.

  I smirked. “You were planning on letting him stay behind all along.”

  He shrugged. “Ready?”

  I held out my hand. “After you.”

  With a fleeting smile, he headed toward the truck, and I followed.

  On our drive, we came across a group of zeds feasting on a cow while the rest of the herd huddled together in the far corner of the pasture. I gripped my rifle tighter.

  “We need to conserve our ammo,” Clutch said as though reading my thoughts. “They’re still a ways from the farm. Maybe they’ll keep moving on.”

  “We should at least cut the fence,” I said. “Give the rest of the cattle a chance.”

  He sighed before slowing to a stop. “We won’t be able to save all the livestock. The zeds will get to all of it eventually.”

  “I know, but at least we can help these few.”

  He jumped out and opened the back door and pulled out a bolt cutter. I got out and held my rifle at the ready. The fence was a simple barbed-wire, taking Clutch no more than four quick snips to open up a section for the cattle to escape should they find the gap. We were back on the road seconds later.

  We saw a couple dozen more zeds, mostly alone or in pairs, walking aimlessly on roads and through fields. As we entered an older residential part of Fox Hills—what Jase named Chow Town after the Home Depot experience—the area was eerily quiet. With no people or cars, nothing moved except for the occasional zed.

  “Where is everyone?” I asked softly.

  Clutch didn’t reply, just kept on driving.

  When he pulled in between two zeds meandering on the pavement and into the parking lot, I let out a sigh of relief. Mabel’s Garden Center was nothing near the size of Home Depot, meaning that there shouldn’t have been nearly as many people there when the outbreak hit.

  Hopefully.

  Still, my stomach was in knots.

  I kept my fingers crossed that the remaining zeds in the area had already moved on to find food elsewhere. Clutch backed the truck up to the front doors, so we could load and then get away quickly. We moved silently from the truck, knowing that even though the area seemed relatively clear, zeds lurked everywhere.

  He looked at me. “You can stay outside and stand guard if you want. I can cover the greenhouse.”

  I pulled out the small axe and shook my head. “No. Let’s stick to the plan.”

  We opened our doors at the same time. I scalped the first zed with a quick strike to its temple, and it fell lifelessly to the ground. I turned to see Clutch standing over a dead zed.

  We walked up to the front glass doors and looked inside. A cashier still hovered at his cash register. With an axe in one hand and the machete in another, Clutch rapped on the glass, and the zed turned around. Its empty gaze leveled hungrily on us, and it stumbled forward. Another one emerged from an aisle. It had been an older woman, still wearing gardening gloves, and she’d been badly chewed upon. A third, another employee, headed toward the doors.

  We waited until all three were at the doors, before counting down…three, two, one. I yanked the door open and jumped back. Clutch swung the axe and then swung the machete. One of the zeds refused to go down after a glancing blow, but my axe to its forehead finished the job.

  We dragged the bodies out of our way, and scanned the rest of the place, finding only one more zed trapped under a collapsed shelf.

  We wasted no time in grabbing all the heirloom seeds, fertilizer, and fencing we could find. If we could plant enough crops, we could get through the winter and have plenty of seeds for next year. We might even be able to take in another survivor or two, which we desperately needed. Defending an entire farm with only three people was exhausting work.

  We were heading back to the front doors to close up the greenhouse when we saw them. All four men wore military fatigues—much like ours—and had automatic rifles slung over their shoulders. With shaved heads, the men looked all the same: white, dirty, and mean.

  And they were currently in the back of Clutch’s truck, stealing our loot.

  Clutch threw me a quick glance, then whispered, “Stay inside, and be ready to run in case this goes to shit.”

  “Be careful.” I pulled the rifle off my shoulder and leaned against the door, aiming at the men busy moving things from our truck to theirs.

  Clutch fired a shot into the air, and they froze like skittish deer, one of them dropping his stolen cargo. They scrambled to raise their rifles as Clutch took a couple steps forward, keeping his Glock leveled on them.

  The cleanest looking of the men relaxed and grinned. “Clutch! It’s good to see a familiar face.”

  Clutch narrowed his eyes. “What are you doing here, Sean?”

  One of the other men stepped forward. “You’re taking things that don’t belong to you.”

  “And it belongs to you?” Clutch countered. “I knew Mabel, and she’s lying dead inside.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Clutch. It’s the rules,” Sean said. “All supplies must go through the Fox Hills militia for reallocation. We divvy them out to citizens based on need.”

  Clutch chuckled, though there was no humor in the sound. “Based on whose need? Yours or theirs?”

  “You’ll turn over the truck, the supplies, and that girl with you,” another man called out, pointing at me.

  “Good luck with that,” Clutch said before turning back to Sean. “Where’s the government order establishing a militia?”

  “There’s no government anymore,” Sean replied.

  “Camp Fox has fallen?”

  Sean stammered. “We—we’re working in collaboration with the National Guard. We’re helping them out.”

  “And who’s in charge of this little militia?” Clutch asked.

  “Doyle,” one of the men said. “And he’ll kick your ass for getting in our way.”

  “Let me see the government order from Camp Fox instating Doyle as head of the militia,” Clutch said. “Until then, you’re all just bandits. And, I’ll shoot any man who tries to take anything of mine.”

  The men kept their fully automatic rifles raised.

  “But Clutch…” Sean pleaded

  “You going to shoot me, boy?” Clutch guffawed at the man who looked about my age. “You might get in a lucky shot or two, but I guaran-fucking-tee that I’m taking every last one of your sorry asses with me. And I don’t give a flying fuck that you’ve sold seed corn to me before, Sean.”

  “Let’s just kill this asshole and be done with it,” one of the men said, and I leveled the rifle to aim dead center in the middle of his forehead.

  “Dibs on the girl,” the third man added.

  “Fuck you,” I called out, keeping my aim steady.

  “Soon, girly,” the man with the toothy grin said.

  Sean patted the air. “There’s going to be no shooting today. We’re leaving.” The men around him raised an uproar. Sean snapped around to his compatriots. “We’re leaving! This place is going to be crawling with zeds soon enough the way it is.” Sean turned to Clutch, looking exasperated. “You can keep this stuff from today, just because we have a history. But the militia is in charge around here. You’d be best to
join up or get out of our way. And your little girl over there needs to be moved in with the other civilians at our camp for protection. The rules have changed. I’d watch your back if I were you.”

  With that final warning, they climbed into their truck. One of the men in the truck bed fired several shots into the sky. They whooped and one flipped us off as they sped away, kicking up rocks.

  “Assholes,” I muttered, coming around to stand by Clutch.

  “Sean was right.” He looked at me. “We’re going to have to watch our backs. They’ve seen us. Sean knows where I live. And they know I won’t play along with their games. That makes me an enemy. As for you…” He looked me up and down.

  I shivered, even though the sun shone brightly in the sky. “Then we’d best avoid them.”

  He locked the lift gate and headed to the driver’s side. “These guys are nothing but Doyle’s dogs, using the façade of a militia to take what they want.”

  “Who’s this Doyle guy?” I asked. “Someone to worry about?”

  “He’s a cocky asshole who’s owned the surplus store for decades. He’s also one hell of a survivalist. Armageddon would’ve been a wet dream for him.”

  We spent the next two weeks converting the farmhouse into a fortress and planting gardens, all the while killing any zeds that made the mistake of stumbling too close to the farm. We set up a sniper’s nest not far from the gate to watch for Doyle’s Dogs—what we’d nicknamed the self-proclaimed militia.

  Jase turned out to be a great asset. Even though he slept until ten every morning, once awake, he was boundless energy, and his ankle healed quickly. Between the two of us, we could lift nearly as much as Clutch could.

  We covered the first floor windows with chain link fence to hold back zeds and fastened strips of fencing up to the second floor windows, giving us a way to get inside in case the front door was blocked. We even boarded up the front door, leaving the only entrance in and out through the cellar door, which could be better secured from the inside. We reinforced the gate at the end of the drive so that intruders with anything less than a tank or heavy bolt cutters would have a tough time cutting the chains to get through.

  Using the fertilizer we’d picked up at the greenhouse, Clutch introduced Jase and me to the art of setting explosive booby traps, multiplying the reliability of our existing perimeter protection tenfold.

  But the three of us worked together only when absolutely necessary. Most of the time, we rotated shifts to have one person on guard duty. No more zeds passed through the yard, but more and more were showing up on the roads and in the fields. Only Clutch scouted the woods. Jase and I were neither gutsy enough nor good enough yet to go deep into the acres of tangled trees alone, though Clutch regularly reminded me that I needed to get familiar with those woods sometime. If the Dogs came at us, hiding in the woods could make the difference between life and death.

  We figured that, at the speed zeds shambled along, it would take only a few months before they started spreading outward from Des Moines in a mass exodus. The four or five thousand zeds in Fox Hills were another story. We had to be ready for them now.

  One thing that bothered me was that we hadn’t seen signs of any more uninfected humans. Clutch had said that they’d hide out as long as they could, but it had been three weeks since the outbreak. Most would’ve run out of food by now and would be forced to loot. Not hearing any other traffic made me wonder exactly how few of us remained.

  The hours not spent on fortifying the farm were spent training for self-defense and killing. My strength and skills improved quickly, though I had a long ways to go. I could now do fifty diamond pushups without stopping. And, my caffeine headaches had finally gone away. Jase was already in good shape from playing in sports. Even with his still-healing ankle, he could run up to windows, check out a house, and be on his way back to the truck before zeds had a clue he was there.

  Where Jase was our designated runner, I learned I had a natural affinity for being a sniper. Clutch, of course, was our diplomat should any Dogs show up. He excelled at hand-to-hand combat and could handle any weapon. He was also our strategist. Building on our areas of specialty, Clutch began to lay out plans—for both offense and defense. We were transforming from three individuals into a team.

  Hoo-fucking-rah.

  Clutch gave both Jase and me our own rifles. They were matching M24s with all the accessories. I hadn’t even heard of an M24 before the outbreak. Now, I spent hours practicing dry shooting, disassembling, and cleaning until I could use it in complete blackness. I could load the cartridges blindfolded.

  Only when I’d perfected dry shooting—aligning my body position, sight picture, breathing, and trigger squeeze—did Clutch let me fire a real round. Rather than setting up a shooting range, Clutch had taken me several miles out until we’d come across zeds. At each outing, I was only allowed to use one cartridge to conserve ammo, which meant that I had to make every shot count.

  The only differences between dry and real shooting were the noise and the recoil, both of which I’d been expecting and was ready for. It was during that first time, when I took out three zeds back-to-back at a hundred yards, that I saw the rare glimpse of pride in Clutch’s eyes.

  Back at the farm, I’d studied the art of learning my surroundings. I trained myself to look and listen while remaining focused on something else.

  I could stab the sandbag head every time, better than Jase, and I’d even dodged a couple of Clutch’s moves. But I was nowhere near Clutch’s class. He could still take me down any time he wanted. I gained a worship-like appreciation for Army Rangers after seeing what he was capable of.

  “Every corner poses a risk,” he said after knocking me on my butt. Again.

  “Silence is my friend,” I replied, coming to my feet.

  “What is your best weapon?” He lashed out.

  I dove to the side. “I am.”

  “What is your second best weapon?”

  “Anything I can use to shoot, stab, blow up, strike, or throw.”

  Clutch moved, and I found myself in a choke-hold.

  “OODA?” he asked, loosening his hold somewhat.

  “Observe. Orient. Decide…” I pushed back into him, but he anticipated my move and pushed forward, and I elbowed him in the stomach. He relaxed his grip, and I twisted away. “Act.”

  He stepped back a safe distance and crossed his arms over his chest. “And your mantra?”

  I smiled. He’d given me an assignment the night before to come up with one rule, which I could meditate on to prep for any mission, to keep from getting too nervous. His was Hit ’em hard and hit ’em often. I wanted something that spoke more to my own internal muse. “Get ’em where I want ’em.”

  “Meaning?”

  “To never be stupid. Never let them get me where they can overpower me or take me down. Turn my opponent’s actions to my advantage.”

  Clutch nodded. “That’ll do.” He looked around the yard. “That’s enough for today.”

  I tugged off my leather gloves. Clutch was adamant that we wore gloves any time we worked or trained so that they became like a second skin. They made me clumsy at first, but I preferred them now, even with the rifle. If they could keep me from getting a cut that could get infected, or worse, a zed bite, they were priceless.

  Walking back to the house, I scanned the yard. Jase would be at the end of the lane right now, checking the gate. He ran six laps a day down the long lane to scout for zeds and raiders. He’d turned into a regular grunt. Even though we all were decked out in military gear, Jase took the style to heart. He practiced running, crawling, and combat like he was at boot camp. I’d even found him trying out different types of mud to camouflage his face the other day.

  But I also knew what he did at the end of the lane. He’d pause at the gate, and stare wistfully down the road, in the direction of his old home. It was a hard reminder of what he’d lost.

  Keeping busy helped me to not think about my parents.
<
br />   I kept very, very busy.

  We remained vigilant, day and night, watching for intruders, especially for Doyle’s Dogs. At night, we took three-hour rotations, to give each of us a solid six-hour sleeping break. With the physical labor, I could fall asleep the second my head hit the pillow on the sofa. I’d gotten into a routine and was pulling my own weight next to the guys. We needed more people, but the simple fact was, aside from Doyle’s Dogs and possibly Camp Fox, we’d come across no one else in some time. Even the house with boarded windows now appeared abandoned, with its front door broken wide open.

  As for our house, even if zeds could get inside, which I doubted, Clutch had jerry-rigged the stairs with C4 that he could blow at a moment’s notice. I never knew C4 was even legal, so I had no idea how he had come to own it. Fifty foot of paracord was placed next to each upstairs window in case the house was overrun. In the cellar, we’d built a fake wall in front of the shelves to hide our food just in case looters managed to break in.

  In the gardens, Jase stood watch while I planted, and then we rotated every hour. We’d planted nearly all the seeds we’d taken from the greenhouse. We’d even planted a few herbs so we wouldn’t be doomed with overly bland food all winter, though salt was already missed.

  Even with all the food in the cellar, we only had enough food to get us into the winter. We had to grow a hell of a lot of food if we wanted to survive. The fields weren’t safe—too much open space, and we couldn’t eat the corn or soybean seed as it had all been treated with pesticides and herbicides. So we planned to plant by hand seed corn and soybeans in rows closest to the farm since he had all the seed already on hand.

  Clutch estimated that we’d converted the backyard into one and a half acres of garden. Within a year, living off the land would become our only source of food. It was terrifying yet empowering.

  After the quick seven-step process—which had to be done in order—of getting into the house without setting off a trap, Clutch headed to the kitchen and I turned on the small battery-powered radio and began my routine during every break of slowly scanning both radio bands. Like every other day, FM was quiet. AM had a couple of transmissions, but they must’ve been too far away because static drowned out the voices. As I continued to scan stations, Clutch said, “Wait. Go back.”