by Gary Chesla
“Whatever they have has wiped out every living thing around as far as we have been able to determine.
The five of us and our wives are all that is left in Twin Rocks,” Silver Beard said. “If you’re going to Johnstown, I’m afraid you won’t find much left there.”
“Shit,” Mike said and dropped back against the Buick.
“You said people were coming here and trying to take your things?” Tony asked. “You weren’t talking about the zombies were you?”
“Hell no,” Silver Beard replied, “All they want is to eat you. There are a few people here and there that survived this plague or whatever you want to call it. Most are decent folks, but they are getting desperate for food and water. There aren’t many, but like I said, they are getting desperate and will kill you for a slice of bread to eat. A few others are just no damned good and are going around killing whoever they can find just for the hell of it because they can. If you run into any living folk on your way home, you watch your back. They are as deadly as the walkers.”
“Why do you call the zombies walkers?” Mike asked.
“Because they are dead and they walk,” the black hoodie guy replied. “Honestly, we don’t know what they are, zombies, walking dead or out of their mind sickos. We had to call them something, so we just call them walkers.”
Their conversation was interrupted when an old Ford pickup came roaring into town behind the men.
“It looks like Billy is back,” Silver Beard said. “He seems to be in an awful hurry.”
The truck roared up behind the men and stopped.
The engine shut down and a young man around twenty jumped out of the truck and ran up to the old man.
“There is another large group of walkers coming this way. They should be her in about half an hour.”
Mike looked at Tony, “Maybe we better get moving?”
“Wait a minute,” Silver Beard said and turned back to Billy. “How are they coming?”
“They’re coming up 271,” Billy answered.
“Could you push through them with a car?” Silver Beard asked again.
“No way!” Billy replied. “There is a lot of them. I was trying to go out 271 to see how far I could go, but when I saw how many were coming, I turned and got back here as fast as I could. I think there are more than came through here on Friday.”
The old man turned and looked at Tony, “If you’re going on 271 I wouldn’t try it if I were you. I’ve seen the walkers surround a car and bring it to a halt. Once they have you stopped, they can break in through the windows in a matter of minutes. You won’t stand a chance.”
“Is there another way to go?” Mike asked.
The old man looked at the Buick, “Not in that. There are a few dirt roads that follow 271 in the hills, but they are even too rough for Billy’s pickup.”
“That road got washed out in that storm last week,” Billy added. “You can forget about going that way.”
“We can’t go back on 219,” Mike said to Tony.
The old man looked at his four friends and motioned towards Mike and Tony, they all looked back at him and nodded.
“You can stay with us until the walkers pass through,” the old man said. “They should be gone by tomorrow if we just get inside and keep quiet. As long as nothing gets their attention, they don’t seem to hang around long. If there are only a few of them, we shoot them to get rid of them. If there is a lot of them, we just hide and let them go through. If there are a lot of them, it’s best to not let them know you are here.”
“Damn, we were hoping to get home,” Mike said. “My wife and little girl are trapped in the attic back home. I need to get home before something terrible happens.”
“If you try to drive through those walkers, something terrible will happen,” the old man replied. “Why don’t you pull your car over in front of the General Store. That’s where we all go whenever the walkers come around. It has a second floor and there is safety in numbers. It’s the only thing you can do for now.”
“I’ll move the car,” Tony sighed.
Mike nodded.
Billy started his truck and parked it behind the store, then everyone went inside.
Mike and Tony watched as the men slid boards over the windows and doors on the first floor.
After they had the first floor secured, they all went upstairs.
The upstairs had been the storage room for the old abandoned store and now consisted of one large empty room, a small office with a desk and a bathroom.
Mike and Tony followed the men into the large empty room where two women and three small children waited, huddled together in one corner of the room.
The three children were around Jamie’s age and sat next to and clung tightly to their mothers.
Mike nudged Tony’s arm and said, a total of ten people.
Tony looked over at the old man who was now sitting by himself under the room’s only window.
“How many people lived here in Twin Rocks?” Tony asked.
“According to the last census, 596 people,” the old man smiled. “But that was a few years ago. There isn’t much around here to keep the young people here. When I was young, we had over thirteen hundred people. Most of them worked in the steel mills, but you being from Johnstown, you know what happened to the mills.”
“This is everyone that’s left?” Mike asked softly.
The old man nodded.
“We’re lucky to still have this many,” he replied.
The old man spoke softly, “What’s sad, was all the children we had. They had their entire lives ahead of them.
The day the walkers came through town, the kids were in school. It was recess and they were out on the playground playing tag, kickball and all the things the kids did during recess. The walkers hit the playground first. They must have been drawn by the sounds of the children’s voices. By the time any of the teachers noticed what was happening, it was already too late.
It wasn’t as if the teachers could have done anything.
No one could have possibly imagined what had descended on the town. We were all taken by surprise.
No one did anything at first, we were in shock.
Even after we tried to defend ourselves, no one knew what to do.
Why would they, we were being attacked by figments of our imagination. These things weren’t supposed to exist.
By the time we began to fight back, half the town was dead and most everyone else was bleeding.
We soon found out what happens to the people that get bitten by one of the walkers.
That night we tried to attend to our wounded while any able bodies stood guard to fight off the attackers.
During the night, the wounded died and became one of the walking dead.
Can you imagine what you would do if your wife or little girl attacked you during the night?
Could you shoot them?”
Mike sadly shook his head.
“Neither could the people of Twin Rocks,” the old man said and continued.
“By the next morning, the people you see in this room was all that was left.
It had all happened so fast, no one could be prepared for what happened here. How could they?
It was no wonder that after this was first reported on the news, the stations were off the air in a matter of two days.
I can only imagine what it was like in the cities.
Once the walkers hit our town, it was over in a day.
The cites had to be like one big slaughter house.”
Mike shook his head, “We had no idea, did any of the reports say if anyone knew what started it all?”
“No,” the old man replied, “The first report said it was an unknown illness that hospitalized hundreds the first day.
I’m sure by the second day this thing had spiraled so far out of control that no one had a chance to figure out what caused it. If you ask me, I’d say the whole country is going through this. California has been waiting for the big o
ne to hit for years, I’m sure this wasn’t what they were expecting. But you couldn’t get hit by anything bigger than this.
If you ask me, mankind has finally done it, they have managed to destroy it all.”
Mike just sat back and rested his head against the wall as he thought about Linda and Jamie.
Mike wasn’t think about going home at the moment, now his thoughts were wondering if he would ever see Linda and little Jamie again.
If the old man was right, and everything he had seen the last few days didn’t give him any reason to doubt the old man’s sanity or his story, the end was here or at least out there waiting for him.
Tony nudged Mike’s shoulder.
Mike looked at Tony who was holding out the box of Sugar Pops for him that he had brought from Cherry Tree.
“You are going to need the energy,” Tony said.
Mike sunk his hand into the box and pulled out a handful of Sugar Pops and tossed a few in his mouth.
As he chewed, he noticed the three little kids across the room, pointing over at the box of cereal.
“Do you mind?” Mike asked Tony.
“No, go ahead,” Tony replied.
Mike took the box and struggled to his feet.
He walked across the room and handed the box to the little girl that looked like his Jamie.
The little girl looked up at him and slowly reached up and took the box.
The three kids tore into the box like they hadn’t eaten for days.
Mike smiled as he turned and walked back to his place on the floor.
The old man had been watching and smiled at Mike as he returned.
A minute later, a man that had been out front with the others to meet Tony and Mike when they came into town, walked over to Mike and said, “Thank You.”
Mike nodded.
The man took two beef jerky snacks out of his shirt pocket and handed them to Mike and Tony.
“It’s not much, but this if for giving the kids the cereal. It’s Kelly’s favorite.”
“Thanks,” Mike said, taking the jerky and removing the wrapper.
Mike looked over at the old man, “It seems like food is in short supply around here.”
The old man nodded, “We’ve been trying to get into the houses around town to find food to eat, but it isn’t as easy as it sounds. Most of what we find has already gone bad. The other problem is that there are still walkers trapped in the houses. It is dangerous as hell to go in the houses. We’ve been having Billy go out to see if we might be able to get to a grocery store somewhere, but he keeps coming back saying it is too dangerous to go into any of the larger towns where there are any of the larger grocery store chains. We have been getting by, finding a little here and a little there, but it is turning out to be a lot more difficult than we thought.
We have to watch out for the walkers and we have to watch out for the looters that come around from the other towns.
We need to leave enough men to defend the women and the kids, so that means we can only send one or two men out at a time.
We can’t be taking chances because this is all we have left, so for now, food is tight.”
“Another thing that no one thought they needed to be prepared for,” Mike replied.
The old man just nodded and laid his head back against the wall.
“I’m Mike by the way and my friend is Tony,” Mike said.
“Nice to meet you Mike,” the old man replied. “I’m Paul. I’ll introduce you to the others after the walkers pass through town and it’s safe to talk. I hope you understand why we had to make sure you were decent people before we let you come into our town.”
“Forget about it Paul,” Mike replied. “I always knew the world was changing, but I never expected anything like this. It’s a different place now and I’m just beginning to understand that things may never be the same again. Different world, different rules.”
“As long as there are rules we may have a chance,” Paul said. “What scares me is after all this is over, if it will ever be over in my lifetime, I’m afraid anyone that manages to survive will forget about rules. I think we can expect one big lawless free for all.
I’ve seen a lot in my life, and the one thing that has been a constant is that it doesn’t take much to change people from civilized humans to barbaric animals.
Those that the walkers don’t kill, I’m afraid the living will.”
“It sounds like you don’t have much faith in mankind,” Mike replied.
“No, I don’t,” Paul smiled sadly. “I’ve seen enough in my time to know that civilization was barely held together by a thread. That thread has now been cut. Now I expect to see released the evil in mankind that has always lurked just below the surface. If you asked me, as bad as things have been the last few days, I say the worst is still to come.”
“I hope you’re wrong, Paul,” Mike said.
“So do I,” Paul replied as he laid his head back against the wall and closed his eyes.
The familiar moaning sound soon began to flood the town.
The old man got to his knees and looked out the corner of the window.
“They’re here,” he said. “Everyone just relax and stay quiet.”
Mike crawled over to the window and looked over the man’s shoulder.
A horde of the dead was now coming into Twin Rocks.
Within two minutes, Mike had seen more of the dead than he had seen in the last four days combined.
“My God, Tony,” Mike said. “You have to see this.”
“No thanks,” Tony replied and stayed seated on the floor. “I don’t want to look at anymore of those things than I have to. Something tells me I’m going to be seeing them in my sleep.”
“Make yourself comfortable, son,” the old man said. “We are going to be here for a while. As long as they don’t know we’re here, they will keep moving.”
“Where do you think they are going?” Mike whispered.
“I doubt if even they know.” Paul replied.
Chapter 26
May 11th, Fallon naval Air Station, Nevada
Chervy turned and saluted as Captain Holman entered the room.
He was followed by Lieutenant Commander Sanders, who would be in charge of the airwing that would be flying the bombing mission against the infected today.
Lieutenant Edwards, who would command the activities at the trenches and Doc Kennedy were next.
“Have a seat in front of the monitor Petty Officer Chervanak has set up for us for this briefing,” Captain Holman instructed.
The Captain stood by the monitor as the four remaining men took a seat.
The Captain began, “I wanted to give you an overview of our situation in real time before we begin operations.
Since failure is not an option, I wanted to provide you with the best intel possible to help guide your decision making when the action begins.”
The Captain pointed to the monitor, “As you can see, a large group of the infected are approaching from the east.
This group has been estimated to be over twenty times larger than the group that surprised us a few days back.
Our search and destroy missions were halted against the infected because the infected were too spread out as they crossed the desert for out missions to be effective.
In other words, we were using too many of our weapons without destroying enough of the infected.
That was the reason for our change of strategy.
As you can see on the screen, the ranks of the infected are moving closer together as they approach the base.
I expect our bombs to be much more effective now that they are moving in a tighter formation.”
“Has anyone figured out why they are coming our way?” Lieutenant Sanders asked.
“Doctor, I’ll refer this question to you,” the Captain said.
“Honestly, we know next to nothing about the infected, fact wise,” Doc replied. “What I say is only my educated guess or opinion, based on wh
at I know of the original Z virus and what I have observed since this all has started. The original virus was made to drive the infected subject insane to the point where they became homicidal. I believe that situation still exists in the small part of the brain that remains active. In other words, the infected have been programmed to kill. There are probably other factors at work here since the original virus has mutated into something more than the original, like the original virus didn’t kill the body as it is doing now.
But as to the question why the infected are coming towards us, I can only think of two possibilities.
The first reason is it’s a coincidence.
The second reason and what I believe is more likely, is that the infected somehow sense we are here.
I believe that is why we saw the infected swarm to the cities first, that and the fact the infection was able to spread so much faster in higher populated areas, the cities were the first to be overwhelmed.
The infected are driven to kill the living and they sense we are here, and so they come.
Again, this is just my opinion.”
“Your track record with your opinions have been damn good so far,” the Captain added. “If nothing else, your opinions have given us some understanding of what we are up against.
Yes, Edwards, you have a question?”
“Yes Sir,” Lieutenant Edwards responded then asked, “With the way the infection is spreading through our base, and the fact there are more and more of the infected showing up on these satellite photos each day, do you honestly believe we can defeat the infected. The numbers are so one sided, it looks impossible. Doc, I was wondering if you had any ideas about how can we can possibly expect to survive this? Do you believe it is even possible to survive?”
The Captain interrupted, “All we can do is keep trying to survive. There are no alternatives.”
Doc looked thoughtful, then began to answer,” First of all, your question about our ability to defeat the infected. It is my opinion that we will not be able to defeat the infected.”
