by Lee Thomas
“Damn. Alright, I am going with the chopper crew to assess the situation. We will radio back if we are going to need more ammo or supplies, but for now I’m going to say get them ready, because that’s probably going to happen.” I said after reading over it quickly.
“Aye, sir.” Chief replied. I let it go this time because in an emergency it was better to stick with procedures, even outdated ones, to make things flow faster and easier. I handed the report back and headed for the stairs to the flight deck to meet the chopper. As I exited the hatch, I could see the response team loading up, so I jogged over to them and climbed aboard behind them. Once the last man was in, which was me, I nodded to the response team leader who gave the pilot the go-ahead signal. The rotors started whining louder and we gave a lurch as we went airborne. The pilot apparently knew the seriousness of the situation and wasn’t going to pamper us in flight.
It was not too quick a flight to the northern gate from the ship, and as we approached we could see the guards on the wall, so we swung out and around to get a view of the far bank. It appeared there were now over a hundred infected milling about near the bridge end, and some of them were mutated somewhat. We were surprised by both the number of them, and the mutants, as we could see the sun starting to peek over the horizon already, and usually the mutants would be holed up by now. After circling a bit, and of course getting the infected’s attention with the noise, we circled back around the long way, trying to draw them away from the bridge. It didn’t appear to work as only one or two of them followed us, and even then, not for very long.
“They’re not following us sir, isn’t that unusual?” the co-pilot asked.
“Yes, very, and it’s probably not a good sign. Land back behind the wall, let’s get out and see what we can do to help.” I replied. twelve more men probably wasn’t going to do much since we were still limited on ammo, and the wall and gate hadn’t been improved on yet from the initial, quick construction. The plan was to build it up nice and thick, but that wasn’t a priority until the land was cleared. Now that that process was moving right along, and the infected were now starting to mass across the bridge, the fortification got moved up my important list.
The pilot brought us down about fifty yards from the wall, close enough to walk but far enough away to prevent damage or injury to the wall or the men. As the team exited the chopper, I told the pilot to go back up and circle some more, and try to get their attention away from the bridge, and possibly follow him off. He gave me a nod and the rotors whined again as the team cleared them and he started to rise once more. As we closed the gap between the landing site and the wall, the leader of the guard here stepped out of the makeshift office to come meet us. He still wore a uniform, which told me he was one of our military people; the rank badge was what we called ‘train tracks’ in the Navy, which meant lieutenant, but since the arm patch said Army, he was a captain, name of Haskins by the name patch.
“Sheldon, sir, I didn’t expect you to come, I was just requesting more men and ammo.” Haskins said, saluting me before reaching to shake my hand. Obviously not one of the ones I dealt with on a regular basis since he still saluted me, but at least he called me by name.
“Well, Mr. Haskins, this is always going to be our most vulnerable spot, even when the expansion is fully complete. I wanted to make sure it was well protected. Have they attempted to cross the bridge yet?” I asked as we walked towards the wall.
“Not yet, though a couple have ventured a couple of steps onto it before turning back around quickly. I think it may be the water preventing them from actually crossing, it’s like they are afraid of it for some reason.” He answered as we came up to one of the viewports. This wall didn’t have stairs or towers yet, just a hastily threw together wall with viewports cut out of it, and a crude gate. It wouldn’t hold up against much of an attack, but I hoped it wouldn’t have to until we could build a good one. I was handed a pair of binoculars to see better across the bridge, and what I saw was the infected simply milling about, all within about twenty yards or so either side of the bridge, and no telling how far away from this angle. We saw from the chopper earlier that even more were filtering in this way, and the chopper was still not getting their attention much, even as low as he was flying. That was troublesome to me, as the infected had always been drawn by sound before, and that was the basis of our hunting blinds. If sound was no longer drawing them, it would make it a little more difficult to draw them where we wanted them.
“They started gathering last night, correct?” I asked Haskins, who was still standing next to me.
“Correct. At first it was only about four, traveling, if not together, then at least close to each other. They stayed in a small area near the mouth of the bridge, and as the night progressed we would see just one or two show up at a time, sometimes four or five, and once we had a group of about fifteen show up at once. They have all stayed, we think. We haven’t seen any leave, but as you can see from this vantage point, it would have been hard to see through that many bodies.”
“Alright. I’m estimating around a hundred or so, think that’s a good guess?” I asked.
“At least, yes.” Haskins replied.
“Ok, tell your men to stand down, get a little rest, I’ll have the team from the chopper take over the watch for a bit. Where have you guys been sleeping?” I answered, looking around since the only building I saw was the shed for the office.
“We have tents set up down the road a little. There is a clearing there that allowed us to set up several tents, and have an open area to have a fire pit. There are enough trees that the light doesn’t show even at the canal, let alone across it. I’ll let my men know they can go catch some z’s.” he replied, nodding at the two men close enough to hear us, one of which started moving down the wall to the right, the other going to the other way to spread the news. I watched as the ten men that were on watch started heading in the direction of the tents, and the team that came with me took up positions along the wall. We each had radios to talk with each other, and the office held the long-range satellite radio that kept in contact with the ship. As we settled into position to keep watch, a loud bang caught our attention, and the black smoke emanating from the helicopters engine as it bobbled back and forth was not something I wanted to see.
The entire team gathered near me at the gate, which was next to the shed, and we watched in horror as the chopper lost altitude as it headed away from the bridge area and wobble along the canal edge, apparently trying to crash on this side of it. Another loud bang sent even more black smoke bellowing out of the engine area and the chopper dropped even faster.
“Mayday, mayday, I’ve lost the main engine and am going down. My position is just north of the canal, going down into the trees.” We heard the pilots voice over our radios. I sent a man to the shed to make sure the ship heard that, because I didn’t think the choppers radio would reach. We lost sight of the chopper as it finally dipped below the trees, but the explosion that followed shortly after told us the fuel tank must have finally ruptured. With no way to help him, we watched in silence as the black smoke poured into the sky.
“What are the chances they survived that?” one of the men whispered.
“Not great.” Another one answered. I was too absorbed in my own head to recognize the voices, thinking of how we would tell their families and friends.
“We can hope that since they were over trees, maybe they jumped early, landed in the trees, and are making their way back to us. Let’s not get our hopes up on that, but we will pray that’s what happened. Unfortunately, we now must focus on our current problem. We need to fortify this gate and protect the bridge.” I answered in a low voice.
“How do you propose we do that?” one of the men asked from the gate guard. The explosion had got their attention and they came running back to see what happened.
“Since the bridge is slightly elevated, we can’t just build a wall across it and out, but we can build a gate across it that
’s slightly over the water. That way it will be less to protect, and any infected or raiders trying to cross and attack us will be bottlenecked as they approach. Let me show you.” I replied, walking towards the current gate to go out on the bridge and show the men what I was thinking.
“Look here, with the structure of the bridge, we can put a gate on side of this center divider, and a solid wall on the other. The divider itself, as well as the upper frame of the bridge will provide support for the wall and gate, and we can focus all our defenses in one centralized location.” I said, pointing out the various ideas as I was talking.
“That could work well, but what if it’s people trying to attack us? Couldn’t they simply walk across the top of the frame? We may not even see them before it’s too late then, and they could just drop right down on top of us.” Haskins retorted.
“We can prevent that with two methods. First, we wrap the frame, well ahead of the wall, with barb or razor wire, whichever we can find. That will deter anything from walking on it. Now, if it’s people, of course they will have shoes on, so that won’t be much of a deterrent. The second method is simply to build a tower in the middle here as part of the wall, higher than the frame. That way we can watch the top as well, and fire at anyone trying to cross the top.” I answered. Haskins looked like he was thinking about it, and several of the other men were obviously discussing it, and apparently getting ideas on how to make it work. That was one thing I liked about having so many veterans available to us use was that they all thought on their own, and gave ideas if they thought it improve the basic plan.
“What would we use to build it with?”
“Wood frame, simply because it will be easier to acquire and use, but if we can find enough steel, we still have welders that can weld some braces in, and maybe even some spear tips along the top to discourage any movement up there. This is a doable plan, and with this route secure, we can rest assured that nothing will get onto this land without our knowing about it.” I informed them.
“That sounds good and all, but what do we do about the current problem?”
“Watch, and wait. If they do start to cross the bridge, we shoot them. We will start sending supplies this way immediately to build and fortify the wall. These men will stay here and help watch, and I will make sure we send more help and supplies as soon as possible.” I answered. Haskins and the others started discussing watch rotations, and the ones that decided to cover the night watch headed off towards the tents to try to get some sleep, or at least some rest. I sent a message off to the ship to send some supplies and trucks this way, and I would stay until they got here. Haskins decided to cover the night shift since I was staying and would be up, so he went with the others to find a tent.
Chief Brandon sent a message back that another team would head up with the trucks and supplies as well so we should have enough people to guard the bridge for good. I figured it would take most of today to gather the needed supplies and load them on trucks, and then take at least two to three hours to drive here, so I decided to settle in and see where I could help. There wasn’t much to do right now, as there were only two viewports cut into the wall, and both of those were already manned. After making sure the response team that came with me was set for the time being, I wandered down to the camp to see if any of the guard detail was still awake. The smell of smoke as I approached told me that the fire hadn’t been put out yet from overnight, which made sense since it had ben starting to get chilly at night.
Several people were sitting around near the fire talking quietly as I walked up, and one of them motioned to an empty chair in greeting. I sat down joined in the conversation, which was mainly passing ideas back and forth on how best to build the wall and gate, what kind of shift rotations would be needed, and even contingency plans if the wall was somehow breached. I let them talk for a while, making notes to myself for some of the ideas, and trying to remember names so when it came time to build it, I could hopefully remember who to give the credit to. The conversation drifted over into other topics finally, the main group splitting into two or three conversations on their own. I sat and listened to them for a while, adding something to one or another of them if I was spoken to directly. Eventually they started heading off to the tents to get some rest, although I doubted anyone would sleep since it was daytime, but even just laying down and resting would be good for them.
The fire had burned down very low, and was little more than embers now, but since it was day, and the others had ignored it, I didn’t put more wood on it, letting it burn down on its own. I went back to the radio room and got back in contact with the Nimitz and found that most of the supplies they had on hand were loaded onto trucks and they planned on heading out in another hour or two. Hopefully that would put them here shortly after nightfall, and even though we couldn’t start building at night, the extra people and ammo would help. I asked for them to find out from the other groups how the searching was going, and to give me an update, and Chief Brandon promised he would get back with me as soon as possible on that. I decided then to climb on top of the bridge frame and go forward some, to see what I could see of the infected group and see if it was getting any larger yet.
I stepped through the gate, much to the objections of all the men, but I was armed and had my body armor on, and I didn’t plan on being anywhere the infected could reach me anyways. Since this gate was built farther back on the bridge, but the upper frame extended back from the waters’ edge some, I didn’t have to walk too far away from our gate to reach the gate allowing access to the frame. It had a padlock on it, but the fence was only about six feet high, so instead of trying to break the lock, I simply climbed the fence and swung over it. The upper frame was made of steel I-beams, like most construction uses for strength, and they were placed so that the wide part of the “I” was facing up, which allowed a decent walkway. I walked up the incline as it rose above the bridge itself, and then followed one of the beams to the middle of the bridge and started walking down the center to be a little less visible. As I approached the middle of the canal, I could start to see the curve down of the far side of the frame, and as I got to where the heads of the infected were visible, I crouched down and started moving slower so they wouldn’t see me. Since they weren’t human and not smart enough to look high, I figured that would keep me hidden enough, but I was ready to flatten out if I needed to.
Creeping up as close as I dared, I flattened out on my stomach finally and pulled out the binoculars I had brought with me and started looking out over the street. The infected were still just milling about with no real direction, but it did seem like there were still more shuffling in. a quick estimate now made me guess between 150 and 200 infected now. Obviously something was controlling them, and gathering them. The assumption had to be made that whatever, or whoever, was controlling them was planning an attack on the bridge. If this bridge fell, it would open a lane for the infected to just pour into the region, and defeat the entire purpose of it.
As I watched, the sun had finally risen to the point where the area they were gathering was starting to be touched by sunlight. I expected the mutants to run for cover finally, but as the rays hit the first one, it flinched a little, hissed at the sun, but didn’t run away. The part that scared me the most, however, is the fact that it didn’t start blistering up like they used to. If the sun no longer stopped them, that was a point in their favor and one against us, as we had been counting on the sunlight’s advantage. I made a mental note to inform the ship of that as soon as I got back to the gate, but I continued watching for now. They continued to simply walk around, bumping into the median and the trees, but not leaving the roadway much. Even after the bridge was level with the ground, and there was no longer a retaining wall, they didn’t venture out into the woods much, or when they did they didn’t seem to stay for long.
Once my watch said it was almost noon, I decided to head back to the gate since nothing new seemed to be happening. I put my binoculars back in the ca
se on my belt and started scooting back to a crouching position. Moving slowly back towards the wall, I kept glancing back to see if any of the infected had seen me, but it didn’t appear any of them had, or at least didn’t react to me.
As I approached the gate in the chain link at the end of the raised frame, I climbed over once more and the gate opened as I approached. They closed it behind me, and several of them were waiting for me.
“How does it look out there?” Haskins asked.
“There’s probably 150 to 200 of them now, but that’s not the biggest problem. The mutants did not run from the sun, and they don’t seem to be blistering either, like the sun isn’t bothering them anymore.” I replied, giving a look to Haskins. He nodded like he understood what that meant as I headed towards the shed. I needed to pass that along to the search teams, as mutants were harder to take down since they were faster and smarter than regular infected, and we used to rely on the sunlight keeping us safe from them. Once I passed along the message I made sure the others here knew about it so they could plan accordingly.
“The supplies and men should be here around sundown, barring any problems with the trucks or travel. Once they get here, we will start planning on the construction of the new wall. Do we have any hunting rifles here? Anything with a scope on it?” I asked, after informing the group of the new developments.
“A few, yeah, but not much ammo for them.” Haskins replied.
“Ok, get them, and let’s get the best shooters with them up on the top of the frame, far enough forward to shoot from, but far enough back to keep fairly hidden. We can start taking them out, with a priority on the mutants. Let’s see if can’t thin that herd out a bit, shall we?” I answered. This was the first time we would be proactively going after a large herd as we usually let them go their own way, but this time they were posing a real threat to our safety, and didn’t appear to be going away anytime soon. Haskins and I stood around watching and making plans while another man went to get the shooters and the guns.
