Six Feet From Hell (Book 6): End Game

by Joseph A. Coley

  Larry’s brow furrowed. “What?”

  “Nothing. Just wondering what you were doing here. I know you don’t think that your lack of presence has gone unnoticed, so that means you’re here for a reason. I’m just curious to find out what that reason is.”

  Larry shuffled nervously as he sat. “I just wanted to apologize for what happened all those years ago. I know that I could have come out and checked on you anytime, but I didn’t. After a while, I thought it was just too late to do anything about it, so I didn’t do anything. Years went by and, despite all the other shit that I’ve had to deal with, this is something that I felt needed to be resolved.”

  Kody leaned forward in his seat. “So, why did you come now? What changed? You could have said something when we were coming back to town, you could have said something before we went into the jail, and you could have come to me in the last two weeks since I’ve been here. There have been plenty of opportunities to mend the fence, Larry.”

  Larry held his hand up. “I know, I know. I just wanted to show you something.”

  Kody leaned back in his chair again. “All right, fair enough.”

  Larry turned and snapped his fingers. A moment later, Paige, his wife, and two young boys peeked their head into the room. The boys looked around ages five and seven, meaning their entire life, their existence, had been ruled by the undead. They knew no other life than what had been shown to them inside the walls of Tazewell, Virginia.

  Kody immediately felt a pang of guilt. He knew what Larry was going to say. There was no need for him to apologize. Larry’s two sons were the product of him taking care of himself and not helping Kody that fateful day a decade ago.

  The youngest boy climbed onto Larry’s lap as the older one stood by his side. Paige stood behind him, a small smile on her face.

  Kody was speechless.

  “Boys, this is the fella that I’ve told you about. Kody is the reason that daddy made it back home a long time ago. If it weren’t for him, you guys wouldn’t be here. Can you tell Kody ‘Thank you’?”

  Both the young boys made sounds akin to telling Kody “Thank you.” Neither one made eye contact with Kody, but it wouldn’t have mattered. Kody’s eyes were welling up with tears. He’d carried such a grudge against Larry for so many years, it was surprising him how much he was willing to let that resentment go. All he could do was subtly nod to the boys and manage out a weak “you’re welcome.”

  Larry ushered his family back out of the room. He stopped at the door and looked back to Kody, who was still coming to terms with everything.

  “We survive here by sticking together, not growing apart. I hope that means as much to you as it does to me. I’m not perfect, and I don’t expect you to be, but those are the words that we live by here. I am sorry about what happened, but I hope that we can move past it and figure out how to work together again. You’re welcome in this town as long as I have a say in what goes on around here.”

  Kody remained speechless.

  * * *

  Joe stood with his arms crossed, staring at the SINCGARS radio as Balboa attempted to regain the broken signal. He paced back and forth, waiting for the transmission to come through. It was a longshot for the radio to perform any, but now that something was trying to come through, he was beginning to lose patience. The new guy, Keith, was one of the few people in town that had any kind of communications experience, so when the former police investigator volunteered to go with Curtis, he figured it was an easy win.

  “It’s on the right channel, correct?”

  “Come one, Joe. Give me a little more credit than that, buddy.”

  Joe was nonplussed.

  Balboa grinned and nodded. “Yep. Signal is still a little weak, though. It’s just barely popping in and out on the display. Could be a thousand things blocking the signal. You know how the SINCGARS works with line of sight.”

  “I knew we should have gotten another one to retransmit. The mountains are blocking the signal from getting far. We are gonna need some more radios if we plan on making it a useable repeater system.”

  “Well, if we get a chance to get out to that National Guard unit in Richlands anytime soon, that’ll be high on the priority list. Until then, we work with what we got, and what we got ain’t much,” Balboa said, adjusting the signal on the radio.

  “…is Condor. Come in Condor Nest.”

  Joe stepped forward quickly. “Right there! Check the antenna connection!”

  Balboa tightened the antenna; the signal came in much clearer. “Figures. All else fails, read the instructions.”

  “Condor Nest, this is Condor, come in.”

  Joe’s brow furrowed. “Condor? What kind of call sign is that?”

  Balboa grinned. “A badass one, Joe.”

  Joe closed his eyes and shook his head. “Answer ‘em before we lose ‘em.”

  Balboa grabbed the handset and keyed up. “This is Condor Nest, go ahead Condor.”

  A short pause, then: “Be advised, Condor Nest is about to have a shitload of company, over.”

  Joe motioned for the mic and Balboa handed it to him. He grabbed it and keyed it up. “What do you mean, Condor?”

  “Commo location has given us a good lay of the land for several miles in the direction of Bluefield. There looks to be several thousand undead assholes making their way down the four-lane toward town. By the speed they’re going, I’d say that we have a day, maybe day-and-a-half before we are going to have serious fucking problems. Right now, they’re about ten to twelve miles east of us. Over.”

  “Shit,” Joe said, not bothering to key the radio. For a moment, he was at a complete loss for words. His plan of action ran a thousand steps ahead, trying desperately to figure out where the endgame would be. No sense in trying to compartmentalize, there was too much to do, too many people to have to protect.

  Time for a delegation of authority.

  Joe keyed the mic. “Copy that, Condor. Double-time it back here. Meet at the chow hall at 1900 hours. I need both of y’all to be there, over.”

  “Copy that, Condor Nest. We should make it back in good time. Downhill is a hell of a lot faster than uphill. See y’all in a couple hours. Condor out.”

  Joe tossed the mic back to Balboa. He stood for a moment, absently chewing on his bottom lip. A few weeks back, they’d made a run to the East River Tunnel to retrieve a pair of vehicles that had been left there a few months back. While the trip over was mostly uneventful, there had been a horde of undead just waiting in the tunnel. The next county on the other side of the tunnel was a main thoroughfare for interstate travelers, but the only way in or out was through two tunnels. The bottlenecked zombies made their way out, following the path of least resistance. They had to open fire to save their ass, leaving the tunnel in a noisy hurry. Never in a million years would Joe have thought the horde would make it back to Tazewell. Moving slowly, but with a purpose, the teeming mass of undead had done just that, following the main four-lane highway – Route 460 – right to their doorstep.

  With the proximity of the undead, there would be little time to plan, and less time to execute. He’d meant to put outposts in both Bluefield and Richlands, but they just hadn’t had the time. With the repairing of the wall and general day-to-day tasks, there simply weren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done in a timely manner.

  “You want me to give the rest of the Town Council a holler?” Balboa asked.

  Joe nodded slowly, still chewing on his lip. In the days before the undead, the Tazewell Town Council had been made up of men who were elected to office to serve the public trust. Nowadays, it seemed like they were the few people who were capable of holding their shit together in post-apocalyptic America.

  “Yep. I think it goes without saying, but we have a lot to discuss. I expect you to be there too, buddy,” Joe said, nodding to Balboa.

  “You bet. So what are we going to go over at said meeting?”

  “I’m not sure. It’s a little prematur
e to think about leaving town, but we don’t have a lot of time to discuss options. I know that Jamie and Cornbread talked about putting some defensive measures on the outside of the wall, but I don’t know how much good that’ll do us. Unfortunately, I think leaving town is going to have to be on the agenda, but it’s not going to be popular.”

  “Yeah, no shit. We are just now getting the town put back together. It’d be an awful shame to have to leave.”

  Joe swallowed hard. All the work that had been done in the last two weeks, not to mention all the work done in the last decade would be all for naught if they couldn’t come up with a solid plan for the horde. Joe thought back to his EMS days. One of the popular phrases in his job was “load and go, or stay and play.” He’d always been a fan of the “stay and play,” but this call wasn’t going to be much fun.

  Joe turned and headed back out of the commo room. “See you in a couple hours, dude. I’ll meet with everyone individually before the meeting and get a sense of what they are thinking.”

  Goddamn zombies, Joe thought. Never give you a fucking break.

  CHAPTER 4

  April 18, 2022 – 1604 Hours – Bristol, Tennessee

  Bristol Motor Speedway had been dubbed “The World’s Fastest Half-Mile” in its heyday. The steep-banked curves of the racetrack gave drivers the feeling of being in a fishbowl at 150mph. Over 200,000 people would be at the track for the two annual races held in March and August; most of them were completely shitfaced, but it made for good fun for two weekends in Northeast Tennessee.

  In the first few days that the undead began to rise, the track was made into a FEMA center, complete with food, medical attention, and sleeping arrangements. Thousands of citizens from both the Virginia and Tennessee sides of Bristol came to the track in the hopes that they would be taken care of, or at least pointed in the direction where they could find help.

  None of it turned out so well.

  The track was quickly taken over by the U.S. Army as a staging area for several detachments from the 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment (Tennessee). The Third Tennessee had tried in vain to make the area secure, but the undead far outnumbered them within 24 hours. Most of the vehicles that weren’t destroyed remained in the interior of the track until being taken over by the men who occupied it now.

  And they couldn’t give a shit less.

  “Gawddammit, Mikey! I swear to God if you eat any more fuckin’ beans imma beat the shit out of you!” Wesley Rollins yelled. Wesley watched as his stomach-cramping cohort ducked down behind an old MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected).

  Mikey fumbled with his pants before finally dropping them and taking a massive shit behind the armored truck. With what little they had left, dried pinto beans had become a staple food for Mikey, Wes, and Trevor Boykin, their “commanding officer.” What was once a fortress guarded by the best soldiers in the South was now a fortress nearly abandoned.

  Bristol Motor Speedway was difficult to access during race weekend, and now made a formidable castle of steel and concrete. In the early days, the gates had been welded shut, with only one useable entrance left untouched. The undead pounded on the steel cages surrounding the track, but to no avail.

  It was a nearly impenetrable structure guarded by three idiots.

  “Ah, dammit! I got shit on the back of my pants! We got any clean ones left?” Mikey hollered, still finishing his afternoon constitutional despite the mess he’d made on himself.

  “No we don’t, fucktard. I swear to God, I’m gonna shoot both of you and leave this shithole to the fuckin’ zombies,” Trevor Boykin replied from atop his vehicle.

  A goofy-ass grin permeated Wesley Rollins’ face. “Aw, come on, Cap! You know you wouldn’t make it ten minutes out there! Me and Mikey kept your ass alive this long! We…damn, that fuckin’ reeks, Mikey!”

  Mikey was already flossing his ass with an extra shirt. Toilet paper was in short supply nowadays.

  Trevor shook his head disappointingly. He hopped down from the top of a desert tan M1 Abrams tank. He was the only one left of the three that still remembered what it was like to drive one of the massive armored tanks. He was a captain in the Third Tennessee before the world went to shit, and he never forgot that, despite the two backwoods idiots that he was presently stuck with.

  Captain Boykin had a dozen more men at his disposal at one point, but hadn’t seen Captain White, Lieutenant Edwards, or any of the men that had gone to Virginia in over five months. Throughout the course of this tenure at Bristol, he’d lost numerous soldiers. The lack of communication from Captain White or any of the others sent with him gave him the impression that they had taken the high road and found something better.

  Little did he know, Captain White had found exactly what he was looking for.

  And today was the last day he would have to worry about Mikey and Wes.

  Captain Boykin meandered around the Abrams, kicking a rusted, empty can of Spam in front of him as he did. He hated being stuck in Bristol. Why couldn’t he have a job like that boy in Beckley? What was his name? Mike somebody, and the other fucker that turned on the ZBRA team from West Virginia. Wagner. That was his name. If those two assholes had managed to succeed, then maybe he wouldn’t be watching a grown man take a shit on Pit Road at Bristol Motor Speedway. Captain Boykin looked to the sky, mainly to take his vision off Mikey’s ass.

  Goddamnit, this job sucks. Think I might just head on over to…

  A rumble in the distance interrupted him.

  Trevor Boykin strained his hearing.

  “Fuckin’ A! Your shit smells worse than the rotten dead ones do, Mikey! I told you…” Wesley Rollins yelled, waving the stench away from his face.

  “Shut the fuck up, you goddamn retards!” Boykin yelled, interrupting Rollins.

  Wesley’s shit-eating grin disappeared quickly. He heard the distinct sound of a running engine, a turbo diesel. A few seconds later, he felt the ground rumble beneath him. Something was coming. Something big.

  And something was bringing friends.

  Captain Boykin ran over to the Abrams. He climbed onto the top of the turret and racked the M240B light machine gun. As he manned the 7.62mm gun, he felt the ground rumble more and more. Whatever was coming was fucking huge and moving with a purpose right towards them. He swung the M240B back and forth, trying to get a fix on where the sound was coming from.

  “Rollins! Get in here and turn the turret toward the main gate!” Boykin yelled over the din of slowly approaching death.

  Rollins didn’t have to be told twice. He was already moving as fast as his thirty-five-year-old frame would let him. He was no spring chicken, but fear has a way of injecting itself into the body when necessitated. The ground shook even more, announcing the arrival of something at the main gate.

  The main gate – such as it was – was a wrought iron gateway. The gate itself had been reinforced over the years with a dozen or more chains and locks, mostly brought back from scouting missions or other ventures. It became a badge of honor to wrap a chain and a lock around the gate to signify the completion of a successful mission. The large military vehicles in the interior of the track were brought in underneath Pit Road, and it was also the exit that Captain Boykin, Rollins, and Mikey had used before to take out vehicles. It was a tight squeeze for the Abrams to move in and out, so the gun was mainly used as a preventative measure. Boykin thought of it as a giant, armored security blanket.

  After a few more seconds, the rumble ceased. Captain Boykin gripped the M240B tighter. In the past few months at the track, there had been only one attempted intrusion. Two months ago, a group had tried to talk their way in, and when that didn’t work, they tried by force, neither of which proved to be especially successful. The group leader had been killed, and the rest scattered. This group, however, sounded like they meant business.

  The engines ceased, and with it, the rumble in the ground. It was eerily quiet as the seconds passed, each one feeling like a lifetime in of itself. Beads of sweat po
pped up on Boykin’s forehead.

  “Captain Trevor Boykin! By order of General Andrew Wyatt, you are ordered to open up! If you are inside this area, make yourself known!”

  Boykin’s heart rate quickened. General Wyatt? The General had never visited this far north, and Boykin had only spoken to him a half-dozen times in the five years since he had been recruited. Even the recruiting process had largely been at a distance or done through proxies.

  Wesley Rollins stuck his head out from underneath Boykin.

  “Did he say General Wyatt? Isn’t that the guy we answer to?” Rollins asked.

  Boykin let go of the M240B. “Yeah, it is. I guess we better let him in.”

  Mikey, who had been cowering underneath his shit-smelling MRAP, slowly peeked his head around the front of the truck.

  “Should I let ‘em in?” Mikey asked, unsure how to proceed.

  Boykin quickly let go of the M240B. He hurried down from the hatch of the Abrams, waving fervently as he did. “Yes! Go to the gate and tell them to go to the Pit Road entrance!”

  Shit, Boykin thought. This can’t be good.

  * * *

  For the last ten years, he had tried to instill some sort of pride in the men. It simply wasn’t enough to just live anymore, but to thrive as well. Merely eking out an existence day by day through the doldrums of survival wasn’t enough to keep even the strongest of wills going. You had to give the men something to attain, some sort of goal to work towards. Without purpose, motivation would slack, as would the men. Certainly, there would be some slacking and dereliction of duty in the post-apocalyptic world. Nothing, however, could have prepared self-appointed General Andrew Wyatt for what he now gazed upon.

  Mikey, Wesley Rollins, and Captain Trevor Boykin stood in front of the General as he inspected the last three men alive at Bristol Motor Speedway. The track was in shambles, the vehicles were barely running – some not at all – and the men looked as if they had all but given up on their cause.