“Sure thing, we’ll get the loading bays opened up and we can load up whatever you want,” Steve replied.
Steve looked over his shoulder and saw a crowd at the door.
“Gary, can you run over to the loading dock and open up a pair of doors, then fire up the forklift and help them load whatever they want?” Steve asked.
“Sure thing,” Gary said and disappeared back into the cavernous building.
Xander noticed the big army trucks near the exit. “Do we have to ride in those, or can we take our own cars, Lieutenant?” he asked.
“Well, we’d prefer if you came in our transports, but if you really want to bring your vehicles, you can,” Lieutenant Miller replied.
Most people decided to leave their vehicles at Costco, but Xander was adamant on taking his truck.
“It’s my truck, it’s full of my supplies, and I can,” was Xander’s rationalization.
Slowly but surely, the transport trucks were loaded up and everyone was tense, wanting to get the hell out of dodge. Occasionally, an infected or two would appear from the apartments across the street, but the troops on the perimeter dispatched them with methodical efficiency.
Finally, the big semi-trailer trucks were fully loaded. Steve and Jessica had volunteered to stay behind temporarily to secure the Costco. A section of troops and their huge APC also remained for security.
The vehicles came to life, engines roaring, and then the odd convoy moved out of the Costco parking lot, military vehicles both in the lead and bringing up the rear, with a motley assortment of civilian vehicles sandwiched in between.
The convoy slowly wound its way onto Manning Drive and headed out of the city. The drive was uneventful, and soon enough the convoy was pulling into the base.
Xander was astounded by the base’s defences, from the triple system of trenches to the huge guard towers and the reinforced fencing, never mind the stunning array of tanks, APCs, and all sorts of other weaponry.
He glanced at Evelyn and smiled. “Looks pretty safe.”
Evelyn nodded, but didn’t reply.
As Xander guided his truck through the gates, under the watchful gaze of a squad of soldiers, he thought to himself, it looks like we’re finally safe.
The End – Sequel forthcoming
Afterword
First off, I’d like to thank everyone who helped me edit this book – Carmela, Christie, Dan, Janis, and Jason were all a tremendous help in finishing this book. Their honesty and straightforward opinions helped me make this the best book possible.
I know that some people that have just finished this book will say that I haven’t really done anything new in the zombie genre (and they’re largely correct) – I didn’t use a first person perspective like J.L. Bourne, I didn’t come up with a way to have fast zombies and slow zombies like Z.A. Recht, nor did I use female characters as the leads like Ben Tripp or Rhiannon Frater. No, my story seems pretty straightforward, where an everyman does his level best to survive the zombie apocalypse. If I wanted to be defensive, I guess I would say I discussed how zombies would fare in cold temperatures and snow, although Max Brooks did mention that in passing in World War Z.
In the sequels, there will be much more action than this one (see excerpt from 2nd Period), as well as a few new twists on the zombie genre. I suppose I could have pulled a George Lucas and written those novels first, and then sucked you into buying my own Phantom Menace, but that’s just not my style.
I originally wrote this book for a few reasons. The first is that there are very few Canadian zombie stories. Every time you watch a zombie movie or read a zombie story, they always seem to take place in the US or UK – although recently I’ve seen a few take place in Norway, Australia, etc. Mostly that is due to the larger markets in the US and UK – as well as the simple fact that there are far more American and British authors than there are Canadian authors.
So I wanted to write a story that would reflect the differences between Canada and the USA. Now, some casual observers might say that Canadians and Americans are the same, but of course that is not true. It’s like saying Brits and Scots are the same or Aussies and Kiwis are the same. Just because two cultures live close to one another and/or sound similar does not make them the same. Canadians, for the most part love hockey, but are rather indifferent about baseball – in the USA, the reverse is generally true. There are of course other differences, but that one is probably the one most Canadians would note – well, either that or our universal health care system.
Another reason is that I’ve yet to see a zombie novel examine what happens when the snow flies. Max Brooks’ World War Z had a couple of paragraphs about the issue, but no one has really written what might happen during a zombie apocalypse during a full blown winter – much less a very harsh Canadian winter.
A second major idea I had always wanted to explore was how the police and military would deal with a pandemic that induced violent behaviour and spread rapidly amongst its victims. Some authors have written about the topic, but it was almost always in passing and with little or no detail. Other authors portrayed the military as psychotic madmen out to take advantage of the collapse of society, while the others described the police and/or military as cowards or incompetents.
The final reason is that a good friend came up with a pretty kickass title – Zombie Night in Canada. Now for anyone who knows anything about Canada and/or Canadians, they’ll know that this is a play on the popular Hockey Night in Canada broadcast coast-to-coast for decades in Canada every Saturday night. It is as important as Monday Night Football is for Americans or soccer is for pretty much everyone else on the planet. As acknowledgement, he will be tuckerized in the sequel. If you don’t know what tuckerization is, go to Wikipedia as I’m too lazy to explain it here.
For those of you who want to critique my writing, please do so. Feel free to tell me my dialogue sucks, or my plot line stinks or my characters are clichés or whatever other flaws you feel it may have. But, please do not bother telling me that I spelled labour, centre or defence incorrectly. Remember, this book is called Zombie Night in CANADA, not Zombie Night in Cleveland.
I’ve tried to be as accurate as possible in the details in this book, but there may be some minor errors – but hopefully there aren’t. I’ll admit I have taken a few liberties in describing geography, buildings and so on. For the most part, they are either planned but not yet completed in real life, or just something that I think might be built at some time in the future.
Finally, I hope that you enjoyed this book. I’m already working on a sequel (or two). I guess how many all depends on how popular this one is.
Read an Excerpt from Zombie Night in Canada – 2nd Period!
November 12th
The flight of CF-188 fighter-bombers flew through the grey skies. Bought almost forty years ago, they were considered nearly obsolete when matched up against high tech fighters from most other nations. These days that mattered little. Few planes anywhere in the world were flying, and those few that did were generally those of their allies.
The flight leader and his wingman carried a variety of weapons, a pair of CRV-7 rocket pods and two GBU-12s, which were basically Mark 82 500 lb bombs with a laser guidance package attached. The other pair of planes each carried four ‘dumb’ 1000 lb Mark 83 bombs.
They flew in relative silence, not because of any need for radio silence, but simply because there wasn’t much to say. They had a vital mission and they would succeed, no matter the cost.
“Coming up on Hinton, Major,” Captain Moore said.
“Okay, gentlemen, we’ll be over the target area in 2 minutes. Drop speed to Mach point five. Hill, activate your laser designator. Moore and Wilson, you will launch your bombs if we don’t get the job done,” Major Lewis said. “Let’s hope those grunts are ready to bug out.”
Lewis keyed his mike. “This is Spartan Flight, Commander, Task Force Leonidas come in, over.”
His radio crackled. “Go for Task Force L
eonidas, Spartan Flight.”
“Execute bug out, Leonidas, repeat, execute bug out, over,” Lewis replied.
“Copy that, Spartan Flight, roger wilco. Will execute Bug Out in three minutes, over.”
“Check, Leonidas. Spartan Flight out.”
The planes slowed down considerably and each pilot began his preparations. In less than a minute, they passed Jasper and headed across the Rockies towards British Columbia.
Below them, the Yellowhead Pass was full of infected, streaming northwest from Vancouver and the Okanagan Valley. A ragtag group of various police forces, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Army reservists, and a platoon from the 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia Canadian Light Infantry had been deployed several hundred metres further back, firing at them, trying in vain to stall them. Now members of Task Force Leonidas were scrambling for their vehicles to retreat, lest they be caught in the maelstrom Spartan Flight was about to unleash. The sheer numbers of infected had prevented Task Force Leonidas from taking more than a small tithe of their overall numbers, and their efforts were akin to bailing a boat out with a teaspoon.
Lewis’ mission was quite simple – stop them by dropping enough ordnance to cause a massive avalanche to totally barricade the pass. Originally, it had been thought that the task could be completed simply by destroying the road bridge at the west end of the pass, near the edge of Moose Lake. It allowed vehicular traffic to transit the pass, while rail traffic ran beneath it. However, planners worried that the infected would still be able to make it over the rubble, as the lake wasn’t very deep at that point and the wreckage would likely rise up out of the water and allow the infected the pass through.
Once engineers surveyed the area, they concluded that it would be necessary to cause avalanches and fill the valley with rubble and snow instead. The bombing run was necessary because despite the best efforts of engineers from CFB Edmonton, the pass still hadn’t been blocked. If the infected got out of this pass in large numbers, it would be virtually impossible to bottle them up and hold them off.
“Okay, Hill, you’re up. Target the peaks on the south end of the valley. I’ll take the north. Make sure you hit west of Moose Lake, we don’t want any debris in the lake where it won’t help us.”
Hill and Lewis split up and began their bombing runs. In a real conflict, they would have had to deal with enemy fighters, anti-aircraft artillery, surface-to-air missiles, radar jamming, you name it.
This mission was almost too easy for such veteran pilots. Hill sighted his two GBU-12s and released. His plane leapt upwards slightly after dropping the pair of 500 pound bombs. They streaked in and hammered both mountains. Each, already fully snow capped, crumbled under the assault, with snow, tree trunks and boulders sweeping down into the valley below, crushing and burying hundreds of infected.
Lewis’ bombs did much the same to northern peaks, but the amount of debris was nowhere near enough to block the passes. The highway through the valley had dozens of huge boulders on it, but the infected were stumbling in between the gaps, seeking the living flesh on the other side.
“Okay, Hill, let’s use your CRV-7s right above the blockage,” Lewis ordered.
Originally designed to destroy heavily fortified Warsaw Pact hangars in the Cold War, they were simple fire-and-forget rockets that lacked any guidance capabilities. They did, however, have extremely powerful engines and should penetrate several inches into the rock before exploding. Hill ripple fired both pods at the south peak.
The rockets roared into the mountainside and pulverized it, causing next to no avalanche, although a dozen or more huge tree limbs tumbled down the hill and added to the rough barricade.
“Looks like the CRV-7s are no good for this. I’m going to pass over them and see how well they work on the infected,” Lewis said flatly.
His plane swooped down and he unleashed his CRV-7s. They landed several hundred metres west of the crude barricade and immolated dozens of infected. Still, that was an infinitesimal amount when compared to the horde advancing down the valley.
“Moore and Wilson, you’re both up. Target the mountainside just above the roadblocks our strikes created,” Major Lewis ordered.
One by one, they each dropped four 1000-pound bombs, causing more damage to the mountains and filling the valley with more debris. The debris towered almost fifty feet into the air. It would suffice. Barely.
Below them, the infected pawed and strained against the massive barrier in their path. A few began to try and climb, but not one made it more than 10 feet off the ground before tumbling back in to the masses.
“Spartan Flight to base, over,” Major Lewis said.
“Sitrep, Spartan Flight.”
“Our strikes created plenty of debris, and the pass is fully blocked. The CRV-7s are essentially useless in creating barricades, but are excellent for use against the infected. As insurance, I recommend another strike with Mark Eight-Threes, not Mark Eight-Twos, just to make sure. Repeat, Mark Eight-Threes, not Mark Eight-Twos. In the meantime, we’ll close and empty the last of our ordnance on the horde and then RTB,” Lewis replied.
“Understood, Spartan Flight, will send out another strike package. Out.”
Lewis and Hill both took turns strafing the valley with cannon fire, hoping to take out a few hundred more if possible.
Books by the Author
If you enjoyed this and want to continue, check out these other books by the author
The Saga of Micky Wheeler
Zombie Night in Canada: Face-off (forthcoming)
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Zombie Night in Canada (Book 1): First Period Page 27
