Mount Weather: Zombie Rules Book 5

by David Achord

  “Sixteen hundred, that’s four o’clock in the afternoon to you civilian pukes,” he said. Peggy stared at him in silence. “We made better time than I thought.”

  He’d departed two days ago from Mount Weather. Normally, the trip would’ve only been a few hours, but zombies, bad roads, and abandoned cars slowed him considerably, which was the norm these days.

  His mission was rather simple in design, but was going to be a little more complicated when put into action. It was a twofold recon mission. The location of part one was a building down the road less than a quarter-mile away containing the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, which was run by the Department of Energy. The second location was the famous, or infamous if you will, Y-12 facility. It was south of the city.

  But, one step at a time, he told himself. He retrieved his tools of the trade for searching buildings; an M4 assault rifle with a light attachment and three-point sling, his Glock model 21 holstered on the left side of his hip, a tactical vest with a trauma plate which also held a knife and spare magazines, and his favorite toy, a Chinese Da Dao war sword, which he had slung over his shoulder. He carried a Dewalt canvas tool bag, which held various tools for building entry, reasoning he could simply drop it if he had to fight or run.

  He started with a building identified as an Army Reserve Center. As soon as he tapped on the front door, two zombies, still wearing military uniforms, suddenly appeared, and tried desperately to force themselves through the same broken-out glass door. Melvin dropped the tool bag and readied his war sword. He had no problem severing the necks of the two zombie-soldiers with the razor-sharp edge.

  There was nothing else of consequence inside the building; everything had been pillaged long ago. The same went for the rest of the buildings within the intersection. There was a standalone building containing a law office and some other business, and further down was a five-bay auto mechanic’s business with a detail shop next door.

  He carefully went from building to building, using the same protocol each time. He’d give a gentle knock before making entry. Then he’d whistle, which sometimes elicited the response of feral dogs looking for a meal. Finally, he’d call out, just in case there was a real live human inside.

  He only shot if he had to, for obvious reasons.

  Clearing each building was slow, meticulous work, but Melvin planned on being here a couple of days. So, it went without saying that he wanted the area to be zombie free.

  He made an assessment and chose the detail shop for his OP. It was a concrete block building with a single garage bay, which was empty, and the view allowed him to observe the intersection. He backed his truck into the solitary bay, and as quietly as he could, pulled down the bay door.

  There wasn’t much to the business. In addition to the garage, the building had a front office, a back room with a separate entry door, and a restroom. The back room had a cot and the back door was fixed with three heavy-duty deadbolts.

  The front window was still intact, but the main door had been pried open at one time. That was no problem; he already figured a way of securing it. Overall, it suited him. If any scavengers or marauders were to wander into the area, this would be one of the last places they’d look.

  If anyone had thermal imaging equipment, well, they’d easily spot his heat signature, but there wasn’t much he could do about that.

  He walked over to Peggy and looked at her to see if she had an opinion on the matter, but she merely glared at him.

  “Yeah, this’ll do,” he muttered. He got his binoculars out of the truck and sat in a chair in the front office. With the exception of a few stray pieces of trash being blown by the wind, there was nothing moving outside. Nor did he see any artificial lighting or telltale smoke, sure indicators there were humans around. It was going better than expected, although Melvin knew from experience it could all change within minutes.

  He checked his watch again: 1730 hours. It was dark now, with the exception of bolts of lightning. The corresponding reports of thunder told Melvin the storm was getting closer.

  “Just a few more minutes,” he told himself. He stood, went back to his truck, and drank some water from a canteen. Looking at Peggy, he took her helmet off, grabbed a handful of her hair, and pulled her head back. She gagged a little as he poured some water in her mouth, but she swallowed a couple of times.

  “Good girl,” he said quietly. “I’m going to be gone for a little while, so don’t go wandering off.” He’d used the same line many times, but it still brought a sardonic grin to his face as he patted her head.

  Her hair used to be blonde, but now it was dark and matted. He tried to brush it out one time, but she kept trying to bite him, so he never attempted it again. She looked a lot different from back when he first met her. Back then, she could’ve passed for Pamela Anderson’s little sister. Now, her face was covered in scar tissue, her blue eyes were now a milky black, a common side effect of the infection, and her teeth looked like they belonged in the mouth of a meth addict.

  She still had her tits. Big, fake, beautiful 34DDs. They stuck out like ripe melons. Melvin had loved them at one time. He started to give one a playful squeeze, but decided against it.

  He moved to the back of the truck and unloaded a carbon frame mountain bike. He’d found it fastened to a bike rack on the back of a wrecked SUV on the interstate outside of Richmond. It was quiet, didn’t use any gas, and was easily maneuverable.

  He made another equipment check and transferred the Da Dao sword to a scabbard on the bike. He’d found the sword the same day as the bike. The specifics were a bit of a blur on account of the bottle of tequila he found two hours before the sword.

  What he did remember, sort of, was how he went buck wild when he found it. He was so excited, he began running down the streets of the city, screaming like a rabid drunken samurai. He chopped off a few heads before rounding a corner and coming head on with well over a dozen zombies. A moment of lucidity struck, and he hightailed it back to the safety of his truck. He was still uncertain what was worse the next morning, the raging hangover or the memory of how stupidly suicidal he had behaved.

  A bolt of lightning streaked across the sky and there was an almost immediate clap of thunder. Within seconds, a torrent of rain descended. It was loud and thick.

  “Alright, here we go,” he said and peddled the bike out of the front door. As he neared the Department of Energy building, a bolt of lightning struck a telephone pole not more than a hundred feet from him. The flash momentarily blinded him and the clap of thunder sounded like an explosion.

  “Fuck me,” Melvin mumbled, but kept pedaling. He reached the building in question and rode around it. This evening was about assessing the building itself. Was it still intact? Was it occupied? If so, by whom?

  A lone zombie emerged from between two cars about twenty yards away and began loping toward him. Melvin pulled the sword out, aimed his bicycle, and decapitated him as he rode by.

  “Olé, shit bag,” Melvin growled. Another one emerged, and then another. Melvin dismounted and made quick work of them, six in all. When the last one fell, he waited in silence while focusing on breath control. Nobody else wanted to play, so Melvin got back on his bike and pedaled over to the first objective, a government building housing the Office of Scientific and Technical Information.

  The building was dark, silent, maybe even a little foreboding. He began checking doors and windows, finding an unlocked door on the back of the building, but did not dare go in. It was too dark. All he had was the light on the end of his M4, and the thing about lights, even though it allowed you to see in the dark, it also gave away your position. And, it was easy to get disoriented in a large, dark building. He’d done it once in an office building in the nearby city of Sterling. It wasn’t fun. Hell, it took him almost twenty minutes of fevered searching before he found the exit.

  No, he was going to wait until tomorrow to explore the inside. He made a mental bookmark of the location of the door on
the building and then looked around until he found a rock weighing about ten pounds. Heavy enough to prevent a gust of wind from moving it. He put it in front of the unlocked door. If it was moved when he came back in the morning, he would know there was someone around.

  He continued reconnoitering the nearby area. The lightning had abated slightly, but there was still a heavy downpour, which Melvin liked. The diminished visibility effectively masked his movements if anyone were watching.

  There wasn’t much of interest. In fact, the things he was seeing were commonplace now; abandoned cars with flat tires and open gas caps, doors left open, broken windows, dead corpses, mostly decomposed down to skeletons hidden in rags that used to be clothing, broken windows, the shells of buildings that had been ravaged by fire. Melvin had seen it everywhere, and he imagined the rest of the world looked much the same.

  He checked his watch. Time to head back. He carried his bike inside and secured it back in the bed of the truck.

  “Did you miss me, honey?” he asked facetiously. She responded with a guttural growl. He ignored her and found one of his soda cans which he’d rigged to hold a candle. He lit it, set it beside his truck, and rigged some rope to hang his wet clothes. Satisfied, he stripped, hung his clothes, and used a towel to dry himself off. He held off on putting on fresh clothes; his intention was to wash up, but he was going to eat first.

  Dinner consisted of an MRE. While he ate, he spotted a stack of shop rags. Some of them still looked fairly clean. He grabbed a couple and disturbed a nest of baby mice. The mother scurried off, leaving her babies helpless. Melvin’s first instinct was to kill them, but then he left them alone and used the two rags he’d grabbed and wiped down his weapons while the momma mouse squeaked at him in protest.

  He normally slept in his truck. He’d grown used to it, but tonight he thought he’d take advantage of the cot. It’d be nice to be able to stretch out, he thought. His knees wouldn’t be stiff when he got up in the morning. He unloaded some blankets, a pillow, and some mosquito netting and fixed it all up.

  He checked out of the back door. It was pitch black outside. He took a chance and shone his flashlight for a half of a second, hoping it resembled a flash of lightning if anyone saw it. There was nothing back there. Looking out the front door again, he saw a broken gutter where a stream of water flowed out. It gave him an idea. He went to his truck, retrieved a bucket, and put it under the streaming water. It filled quickly.

  He then went back to his truck and assembled his most important find since it all went bad: a Berkey brand water filtering system. This one was the plastic version. It consisted of two cylinders. They were both about nine inches in diameter, and when assembled, a little over two feet tall.

  He grabbed the bucket and poured the water into the upper cylinder. The filters went to work, and within seconds, clean water began dripping down into the lower cylinder.

  He was about to set out his noise alarms and turn in for the night when he heard an unusual sound, like something had bumped into one of the abandoned cars out in the street. He worked his way to the front office and peered out of the window. The lightning strikes illuminated the roadway in a strobe light effect. He could see zombies running down the roadway, and as he watched, one of them jumped onto the hood of a car, almost slipped off, and then scrambled up onto the roof. When it started kicking at the zombies, Melvin realized it had to be a human.

  He didn’t think twice. He grabbed the war sword and flashlight, and yanked on the door. He forgot he’d already secured it, spent a few long seconds unwrapping the chain he’d used, and sprinted out.

  Melvin still had his mil-spec flashlight from his days in the Army. It was nine hundred lumens of blinding light, and Melvin had learned a neat trick with it when hunting zombies. He switched it to the strobe function and jogged up to the nearest zombie, a haggard-looking woman wearing jeans and a heavily soiled orange Polo shirt with a college logo over her breast.

  He made a backhanded swing with the sword, burying it in the left side of her head at the top of her ear. His actions got the attention of the taller one, an adult male, who made a beeline toward him.

  Melvin activated his light. The blinding strobe froze the zombie in place. Melvin pulled the sword out of the female’s head, raised it high, and brought it down. It made a satisfying crunching sound as it split the male’s skull open and traveled downward, stopping right about where the zombie’s nose formed nostrils.

  The third one, he looked like a teenaged male, charged Melvin. He reacted instantly and lashed out with a snap kick to his chest, sending him barreling backwards. He cast a quick glance at the person on top of the car as he worked the blade out of the dead zombie’s skull. He couldn’t see much; he was small framed with long hair, probably a kid, and he was breathing heavily.

  Melvin freed up the sword and used the flashlight trick again as the teen came toward him. This time, he got the blade into the neck and made a clean separation. His head came off with little difficulty and gnashed its teeth impotently as it lay on the asphalt.

  Melvin then focused the strobe light on the smallest one of the bunch. It was a child, probably no older than eleven or twelve. He stared at Melvin, or rather the bright strobe light, in a kind of hypnotic zombie trance. Melvin almost felt pity, but it didn’t stop him. The kid’s head hit the asphalt a split second before the rest of its torso.

  Melvin crouched in a fighting position and pivoted in a circle, utilizing the lightning strikes to search out other potential threats. Seeing none, he focused on the boy standing on top of the car.

  “Who the hell are you?” Melvin growled. The boy didn’t answer. Melvin risked it, changed the setting on the flashlight to a steady stream, and pointed it at the boy.

  Only, it wasn’t a boy: it was a girl.

  Chapter 5 – POTUS

  “Hold up, Zach.”

  I turned at the sound of my name as I was walking down the hall. It was Raymond hurrying to catch up. I reluctantly stopped and waited for him.

  I stabbed a finger back down the hallway. “What’s wrong with those people?” I asked him.

  “Ah, well, it’s hard to explain their behavior sometimes.”

  “That one who looked like a prune with hemorrhoids, who is he?”

  Raymond frowned. “That would be Senator William Rhinehart from Ohio. A staunch conservative.” From the tone of Raymond’s voice, it was apparent he didn’t like the good senator either.

  “Well, I’m done with these silly debriefings. There’s got to be more productive things to do around here than sitting around gabbing all day.”

  “True,” he replied, and looked at his watch. “It’s too early for lunch, but I bet there’s coffee.”

  “Yeah, sounds good,” I said.

  It must have been bad mojo or something, because no sooner had we sat down in the cafeteria than Raymond’s radio barked.

  “What’s your twenty?” the disembodied female voice asked him.

  “I’m in the cafeteria,” he replied. “What’s up?”

  “See if you can round up Zach and bring him to the range. POTUS is requesting.”

  He replied with a ten-four and looked at me. “I believe POTUS wants to meet with you.” He stood. “C’mon, I’ve got a golf cart parked outside, we’ll ride over.” He paused. “Um, you’re not armed, are you? You’re not allowed to be armed in his presence.”

  “Nope. All of my weapons are stored in my truck.” I had my hideout gun, a three-eighty caliber semi, stuffed in my crotch, but I didn’t let him know it. I wanted to keep at least one assault rifle in the room, but my son’s insatiable curiosity prevented it.

  “Okay, good.”

  We got in one of the golf carts lined up in front of the building, and Raymond took off toward the exit before making a hard left at a helicopter-landing pad. There was a small group of people there. I recognized Earl and Sheila Hunter, a married couple who were part of the delegation. Sheila grinned and waved as we drove up.

&nb
sp; There were a couple of Army soldiers, both armed with assault rifles, and there was POTUS, President Harrison Richmond. He was a boisterous billionaire businessman who, with no experience in politics whatsoever, managed to become elected. Gloom and doom had been predicted by the idiots in the media, but he seemed to be doing okay, up until it all went bad.

  Currently, he was hitting golf balls. And Callahan was chasing them.

  We got off of the cart and watched in silence as he addressed the ball. He brought the driver back and then struck the ball as hard as he could with a loud grunt. The ball travelled about a hundred yards before it began fading to the right. He frowned in consternation as Callahan took off at a full run. He chased down the golf ball, ran it back, and dropped it at the president’s feet. The president patted him on the head and was about to tee up again when Earl whispered something to him. He looked up and saw me.

  “Good morning, Mister Gunderson,” he said.

  “Good morning, Mister President.”

  “Do you play?” he asked, gesturing with his golf club.

  “No, sir, never have,” I replied.

  “It’s a wonderful game, isn’t that right, Earl?”

  “Yes, sir, it certainly is,” Earl replied. Callahan barked impatiently and crouched. The president grinned as he teed up the ball and took a practice swing.

  “One of our goals for this year is to rehabilitate a golf course that’s located a couple of miles from here. There’ve been a lot of obstacles, but maybe now with the extra manpower, we can finally get it accomplished.”

  I hastened a glance at Raymond as if to say, what the hell? He made brief eye contact with me before looking away.

  “What do you think of the idea, Zach?” he asked.

  “Sir, if you had been with us at the debriefing, you would know my diplomatic skills are nonexistent. If you don’t want my honest opinion, it would be best if you don’t ask the question.”