Nation Undead (Book 2): Collusion

by Ford, Paul Z.

  People called it the Airlock. Kahn could see it clearly through the series of fences at the south side of the facility. This side was off limits to most, containing all military and civilian vehicles, the maintenance shop, and the Tactical Operations Center or TOC. This area was housed behind the same twelve-foot-tall chain link fence topped with concertina wire as the outer walls of the outpost. The Airlock itself was nothing more than two chain-driven gates that would be opened in sequence to keep people or vehicles contained.

  Currently, the inner gate was opened and the morning’s patrol was loading into the back of a 5-ton truck. Kahn barely glanced their way, only caring about the patrols when they came back with something on his supply list. Because of his position in logistics, he knew the frustrated soldiers were having a harder time scavenging for anything useful. The colonel had never authorized anything more than a day patrol that returned before dark, and they had never been authorized to go where significant population lived. Soon, they would be forced to venture farther, or venture north into San Antonio.

  Turning the corner, Kahn found himself back in the darkness of the morning with the activity-rich southside to his rear. He drove at top speed along the smooth walkway until he reached the edge of the farthest barracks. He braked and came to a stop, flipping the ignition to the off position as he rolled into place.

  He put his arm up onto the seatback and shifted so he was looking across the passenger side of the cart’s bench. He was located in his favorite spot, at his favorite time of day. The small gravel patch he parked in was the exact center of LOSTOP’s eastern fence. He listened to the silence of the morning, broken by the whirring and rhythmic chirping of cicadas in the trees. The light of the southern gate did not reach this far, and he waited for the sky to alight with the colors of the South Texas dawn.

  He remembered last summer taking his wife and newborn son camping in the hill country north of San Antonio. It was his idea, so they could experience the outdoors and watch the summer sunsets for a few days. Oh, they suffered in the heat. Aisha, in particular, was worried about Daniel getting overheated, even though they had shade and a lake to swim in. Kahn told her to bring the baby in the water and cool down, have some fun. She refused because she was worried about Daniel ingesting the lake water and getting sick. Kahn told her not to worry so much, and she retorted by telling him he didn’t worry about them enough. Back and forth they argued, until he angrily shouted that she couldn’t keep that baby in a bubble, and she’d have to let him live his life…

  The crunching sound of underbrush shattered his daydream. He reached up and wiped his eyes, looking through the fence into the wilderness beyond. The sky had turned a shade of pink, illuminating the edges of the treeline here. The ground was fully overgrown, and a second rustling crunch sounded from inside the dry woods. It sounded like something large, stepping through growth beyond the fence.

  Kahn flipped the key and powered the cart forward. He shouldn’t have lingered here, and this spot was unseen by the towers in each corner of the outpost. Kahn had no reason to be here and didn’t want to explain why he was neglecting to follow orders, so he punched the accelerator and bolted away from the mysterious noise. It didn’t matter if it was real or just his imagination, he fled. Just in case the sound wasn’t an animal but another type of wild, hungry creature.

  Chapter 2

  - Regression

  Regression

  Early in January 2017, as the new year and the winter weeks wore on, the outbreak decimated nearby San Antonio. Lone Star Outpost began to accept all who heard their message and tried to find rescue. The transmission had been cobbled together with equipment found on the post, and was weak even when it was running. The comm sergeant who got the signal to work told the commander he thought their message was making it fifty miles or less.

  Attention, if you can hear this message you are within fifty miles of an Army outpost south of San Antonio. We are isolated and have lost contact with the government and other military installations, but we are safe, we have weapons and food, and our fortification can hold back the dead. If you can hear this, gather up any supplies you have, follow the strength of the signal south, and evacuate to the Lone Star Evacuation Center. If you are still within the city of San Antonio, take interstate 37 south away from the city. If you follow this signal, you will find the exit for Lone Star Outpost. Bring your families here; you will be safe. There is strength in numbers, and we will help each other and stay alive. Stick together with those you know and trust, and be careful of violence of strangers. In these tough times we must stick together and protect those around us. Gather your neighbors and protect each other. To quote the great doctor, it is time to find hope in the darkness and help each other. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Be safe. Be smart. This message will repeat.

  After the third week of January, more dead than alive walked to the LOSTOP gate.

  What the radio message did not convey was that the outpost was the end of the line. Coming there meant sacrificing your vehicle if you had one, your supplies, and your freedom. Calling it the Lone Star Evacuation Center was misleading at best. There was no way to evacuate and nowhere to go. The refugees that came were mostly grateful for the fences, the guards, and the machine guns defending against the marauding undead.

  New arrivals were kept under quarantine for 48 hours following their arrival. Most were unsurprised by this rule, meant to keep the new LOSTOP citizens safe and infection-free. Children and adults were kept in separate areas for this initial period. Necessary, the officers said, for safety and security of the entire base. Oftentimes the children were not traveling with their parents, and there were few incidents stemming from this policy.

  The outpost had not been built for security. It was a maintenance area, well stocked with tools and spare parts but short on defensive items. Except for firearms. There was a cache of weapons kept and maintained on post, meant as overflow for several National Guard armories in and around the San Antonio area. The Army’s wisdom meant that there were rifles, pistols, light machine guns and plenty of ammunition for all. Enough weapons so each soldier on post could have two rifles and a pistol. Enough so that the outpost commander could reassign non-combat roles into security and have plenty of firepower, and plenty of personnel for daily patrols into the undead region.

  The first patrols requisitioned preserved food and building supplies from nearby towns. At the time, LOSTOP soldiers were isolated but still in contact with several other outposts and armories around the state. Once the phones died and the radios quit garnering responses, LOSTOP had a functioning gate, built into what the soldiers quickly dubbed the Airlock, and 12-foot tall heavy duty fencing around the entire post. Additionally, they used the machine shop to cut scrap metal into razor sharp edges and ran this makeshift concertina wire around the entirety of the base. Nobody, alive or dead, had gotten in without permission.

  The isolated garrison began with 301 soldiers. In the first several weeks, they accepted 257 civilians. Captain Louis was one of only two officers on the outpost before the infection. The other was the outpost commander, Lieutenant Colonel Harry Johns. The commands of the colonel were usually executed by the senior non-commissioned officer on post, First Sergeant ‘Mac’ Rodriguez. The two career soldiers maintained the discipline and operations necessary to keep over 500 people alive and well within the tall fences.

  Eventually, the living refugees were replaced by the marauding dead. Colonel Johns kept the radio transmission alive despite not accepting any new evacuees for a week. On the morning of the presidential inauguration, he took down the picture of the previous commander-in-chief in the TOC even though he didn’t have a picture of the new president to replace it with. Eight years that man’s picture had been on the wall, and the change he had promised never happened. A different type of c
hange was here, defining the new undead nation.

  Less than an hour later, Kahn and Kimble drove to the gate in a damaged Ford Escape that had seen better days. The men at the Airlock left it on the side of the road instead of adding it to their growing civilian motor pool. The two soot-covered men were welcomed with a shower, a meal, and a medical inspection to check for bites.

  They were the last living people to come to the gate at LOSTOP. Shortly after, the commander coined the phrase the Army’s Lost Op and shut down the radio message.

  The outpost was small, but had the facilities to care for itself and was isolated enough that no large groups of walking corpses ever came. There were several barracks buildings that had been updated recently before the outbreak, half of which were given to the civilians. There was onsite water storage and a potable water truck, a dining facility, a small clinic, and a generator building wired to power the post without external utilities. These amenities were all in addition to the maintenance gear, weapons, and personnel. Under Colonel Johns and First Sergeant Mac’s direction, they built the fences and a watch tower with a machine gun in each corner of the outpost. The soldiers kept 24-hour watch on the surrounding area.

  Colonel Johns had soon come to greet the last men to arrive. He didn’t know they’d be the last, of course, but it was a courtesy he personally extended to each person that had found their sanctuary. He shook Kimble and Kahn’s hands and welcomed them to the Lone Star Outpost, asking their names and if they had former military experience. He was recruiting, he explained, as he did all newcomers, and wanted to make sure that the civilians here were fulfilled and given work if able. He was seeking current and former soldiers to reenlist if necessary to bring them into the chain of command, assign them leaders, and give them a bunk in the soldier’s barracks.

  Kimble answered first and revealed that he was currently the administrative sergeant for one of the nearby National Guard units. The colonel immediately assigned him a position on his command staff and thanked him for serving.

  It took several tries to get a traumatized Kahn to answer. He somehow felt that his mind was both racing and had no thoughts at all. He saw flames behind his eyes and felt the burn of the fire on his skin. He shakily lied with his answer. No, he had no military experience. He worked in a gun shop and sold pistols and rifles. He could already hear the doubt and fear that would come from these people if he told them he was Assyrian, his family was from Iraq, his name was Halwende Kahn. The replay of the Neighbors coldly assassinating his brother-in-law, his wife, and his son terrorized and paralyzed him. He pictured undead teeth piercing his flesh and feasting on his blood after being exiled from the safety of this outpost. He was too numb to face that possibility and would surely die.

  Kahn had run his hands through his recently showered hair and beard and told them his name was Lupe Garcia.

  The lie to Colonel Johns came naturally because of his recent experiences. Feelings of guilt and shame came later when he started to get to know the people at the post, becoming friends with several. He had hid his military experience and ancestry in a moment of fear. He only told the commander the truth about working in a little gun store in San Antonio because he couldn’t think of an alternate profession that he could fake his way through.

  That night, the dead approached the Army’s Lost Op.

  Captain Louis had never left the outpost since the fences were constructed. He had a 19-year-old private named Diaz working in supply, and the captain started sending the young soldier out with the patrol teams to scavenge for food and other supplies for the refugees on post. Diaz left that morning and never came back, along with the 6-man patrol.

  As Kahn and Kimble rested in quarantine, a fire guard in the northeast tower saw movement in the thin trees topping the hilly area to the north of the Lone Star Outpost. He squinted nervously at the lone figure staggering over the hilltop in the dusky evening light. The figure was walking unnaturally, directly toward the north fence. The nervous guard called on the radio while more and more figures filled in the horizon with their broken shapes. The guard towers opened fire and began to tear apart the desiccated bodies of the undead. They knew enough to focus their fire on the head as the only way to stop the dead. Body parts and blood stained the clay earth, but more of the former living continued to draw toward the noise of the melee like moths to a flame. Gnashing jaws and growls filled the air as the dead slogged instinctively toward the living flesh of their adversaries.

  Sixteen hours later, the soldiers keeping the dead out of LOSTOP were finally able to declare victory as the last body fell and the steady rattle of automatic fire ceased. Colonel Johns visited his office in the TOC alone for a respite from the hard-fought triumph. The old soldier’s eyes were sunken and he was exhausted from the day-long effort. He looked at the framed photo of his former commander-in-chief, taken from the wall the previous day. He picked the frame from his desk and looked at the smiling face of the man there. His soldiers had fought well, despite most being mechanics and drivers and not infantrymen. He knew after the night’s action that the Army’s Lost Op would survive to rejoin the government’s efforts to cleanse the nation of the undead scourge. It would just take faith, and trust in his leaders in the time it would take to reconnect with the rest of the chain of command. He prayed. He thought about his duty. He thought about the hundreds of people that would rely on his decisions to survive. He thought of the toughness it would take to survive and prayed as he unceremoniously dropped the old picture in the trash.

  That day the post’s denizens, military and civilian, had to begin to gather the dead bodies littering the killing fields around the post. It was impossible to know the exact number, but they estimated over 4,000 corpses had fallen in the battle. The soldiers had fired over 120,000 rounds of ammunition to keep the horde away from the walls. The colonel realized then that their isolation was key to their survival. Another 500 or 1,000 corpses might have depleted their ammunition and allowed for his people to be overrun and torn apart. He shut down the radio transmission, working to keep both the living and the dead away from their operation. He knew his walls were necessary, but his actions were most important to protect them all.

  Lupe Garcia was assigned to Captain Louis’ supply and Sergeant Sole Kimble assumed his duties in command operations. They both joined the rest of LOSTOP as they watched the flames from the burning corpses set the horizon aglow.

  Chapter 3

  - Attention to Detail

  Attention to Detail

  Kahn shoved the door to the dining facility open with his hip, swinging the two propane tanks around as he entered the room. He had parked near the rear of the building. His cart sat in between the service entry to the kitchen and the bay door of the food storage facility attached to the DFAC. It was there that all provisions were stored, sorted, and issued. The outpost had pallets of MREs, meals-ready-to-eat, packed in thick cardboard boxes intended to survive the apocalypse.

  Food was not yet scarce, although LOSTOP had mostly processed items available for its sizable population. Powdered eggs, dehydrated potatoes, and shelf-stable potted meats fed civilian and military alike. Additionally, patrols had brought boxes and cans of food taken from abandoned homes and commercial buildings over the last seven months. There were a surprisingly large number of restaurants with foodstuffs that were easily transported back to the Army outpost for rationing. Planning ahead with sensible, sizable meals kept Colonel Johns’ people healthy and happy. The fact that the outpost remained relatively hidden from others, living and dead, meant the population’s daily life was stable and somewhat pleasant. The dead horrors of the outside world had barely intersected with the group at Lone Star.

  “Took you long enough, man!” a voice shouted from the busy kitchen. The rattle of cooking equipment could be heard over the din of conversation. Kahn waddled toward the shouting and set the propane tanks down in front of the large stove in the middle of the room.

  “I ran over here as soon as I
could,” Kahn said. Specialist Theodore Jones snatched the clipboard Kahn retrieved from his armpit and scribbled on the recipient line indicated with a condescendingly large red X from Captain Louis. “He woke me up and I drove right over.”

  Jones tapped the pen against the hard plastic of the document holder and frowned his displeasure at the orderly. He watched quietly as two of his cooks began to install the propane tanks to the connectors beneath the gear. He held the clipboard out to Kahn and then quickly pulled it back when the orderly reached for it.

  “I sent a runner over there an hour ago to talk to your boss and Captain Supply sent him back empty-handed. Said he’d get to it. I have hundreds of people to feed, man! He expect me to just tell them ‘no food today’ or what?”

  Kahn had dealt with his captain’s treatment of Jones previously. Jones was a skinny 22-year-old from Louisiana who joined the Army to get away from his family’s agricultural legacy. His mother boasted that the Joneses had been working Louisiana plantations since the 1850s, and every Jones child had a duty to continue that legacy. Her youngest son Teddy hated everything about it. That wasn’t work, momma, that was slavery!

  He hated the heat, the machinery, the people, and the rich assholes who took advantage of families like his. Joining the Army was his way to escape his inevitable existence working for other people and preparing food for his entire life.