by Rand, Thonas
“I gave him a bunch of free pot.”
“What? He smoked pot?”
“Tons,” Derek smiled. “God, I miss pot!”
Tom laughed. “That was a great story; you deserve something for that entertainment.” He reached into his box of food. “If you won’t eat any of our stew, then at least have some desert.” He tossed cans of peaches to Ardent’s group.
They all caught the cans and decided to put them away in their bags for later.
“Thank you,” Ardent told Tom.
Derek said, “Yeah, thanks.” He peeled off the lid and offered some to Ardent, who used a knife and plucked half a peach out for himself. Then Bear took one, Lauren after him, and finally, he offered some to Milla. She took some and Derek had the rest. “We’re a unit,” Derek said to Tom.
“I can see that,” Tom answered.
Outside the windows, the sun was setting and outside the walls, the dead were restless—the melting sun stirred them.
When the sun was gone, their vision was best…
It was going to be night of the living dead…
THE PENINSULA
In the southern California night, about fifty-five miles northwest of Los Angeles, was the city of Oxnard and home of the Port Hueneme Naval Base. This place was no different than any other city—it was a decimated shell with destroyed homes and burned out buildings everywhere. Corpses littered the cityscape, ones that were destroyed carcasses and plenty of the ones that were still moving around. Lost, soulless things.
At the south end of town, in the naval base, was something different that the dead didn’t know about. There was a half-mile long peninsula in the base’s harbor, and it was the haven for survivors, lots of them. The people there, mostly military, had blocked off access to the peninsula with a wall of shipping containers a quarter mile long, from the dock’s edge inside the harbor and all the way out to the ocean shore. The containers were triple-stacked and that made a wall of steel about twenty-five feet high.
At the end of the wall on the beach, the containers were lined up until they were submerged in the ocean waves and they were wrapped in concertina wire to catch any potential dead swimmers. The wire did have a few corpses snagged in it, the husks slow-danced to the ocean music and salt water sloshed out of the bullet holes in their heads, some skulls were half-blasted away. Explosive packages were tactically placed every few feet along the sand and on the containers in the water. Near the water’s edge, on the inside of the wall, they built a ramp out of dirt and sand that led up to the shortest shipping container that could serve as jump ramp for small vehicles, to get out in the event of an emergency.
This was a well thought-out fortified encampment.
There were roughly 600 survivors, consisting of soldiers from all four branches of the military, including the National Guard and the Coast Guard. All the ranks were mixed together, but there was order and a definite chain of command. About a third of them were ordinary citizens, the most battle qualified were cops and firemen, which were few, and the rest were your average over-the-counter soccer moms, bankers, security guards, writers, kids that luckily were with their families, but there were orphans, too, lots of them, kids whose entirely families were slaughtered before their eyes, hidden in attics or unseen in cars. The infection refugees were all over this place, dozens of tents were in organized clusters, and there were a few campfires, but only in designated areas that were enclosed by four walls of shipping containers to ensure that they weren’t seen from any angle because that would draw attention.
The kind of attention they didn’t want.
The atmosphere in the camp was of quiet fear; there was no loud talk of any kind, by order, and no laughter. Sound carried, and sound was one of the things that attracted them, so everyone spoke as softly as they could and only talked when necessary, especially at night. The 600 souls here were on constant alert in this shantytown of the displaced. There were numerous vehicles ranging from military to family RVs, eighteen-wheelers, motorcycles, and anything that could be used to get away. There were several helicopters waiting quietly on the ground, military and commercial aircraft, including one that was left on top of one of four circular storage tanks at the far end of the peninsula; that was an Army Black Hawk helicopter, and it looked fully armed. There were also a number of tents on the storage tanks. The buildings were few here, industrial for the most part, and two large warehouses that had the signs of food processing companies on them, some kind of storage facilities. In the harbor were a few boats and two larger vessels, one being a passenger ferry and the other a cargo vessel. Hidden guards were posted onboard.
On top of the shipping container wall, were guards keeping watch every fifty feet or so, but they were out of sight behind makeshift guard shacks, camouflage netting, tents, hunters blinds, and anything else that hid them from sight. They needed to keep watch but not be seen. This place was their secret, and they needed to keep it because their lives depended on it. At what appeared to be the middle of the shipping container wall was a gap that they used as an entry; it was barely wide enough for the eighteen-wheeler trailer that was backed up into it as the wall’s gate. The rear of the trailer that faced the outside of the wall was reinforced with steel plating to cover the space under it, between the wheels, which made it a solid closure. The only way to open and close the gate—was to drive the truck out and reverse back in to seal it again.
On top of the gate trailer was a guard shack and two soldiers were posted in it; they sat there very still as they kept watch over the dark ruins of the city, which lay past a large parking lot that had some abandoned cars, some of which had been stripped for parts for other machines. It was deathly quiet this night, but the soldiers were vigilant. Besides the cars, the parking lot was occupied by a couple dozen corpses that had been taken care of by the guards when they wandered too close to the wall. All the lifeless piles had expertly placed bullets in their skulls.
The two soldiers had radios—all of the ones on guard duty did—but there was no open speaker chatter, because all of them wore earpieces for silence. The black soldier was in his late thirties, but you couldn’t tell by looking at him that youth was on his side. This was Hayward Coombs. He noticed something out in the parking lot then signaled his partner, who saw what Hayward pointed at to the left.
A dead walker…
It emerged from the distant darkness of the parking lot as it shuffled along toward the wall, it was so badly decomposed that its gender wasn’t identifiable. It slowly zigzagged through the maze of fallen undead and crept closer to the shipping container barrier. At one point, it stopped and stared at the crescent moon that was blood red and draped in dark gray clouds; it wanted to go there and walked toward it, away from the camp. It lost interest when it couldn’t reach it and turned back around toward the wall.
And then the two soldiers heard a crackle from their radio pieces, followed by the whisper of a soldier at another guard post. “Guard One, this is Guard Three, I have a wanderer in my sights. Over.”
The soldier with Hayward replied in his microphone, “Guard Three, this is One, take it out. Over.”
“Copy that. Over,” the soldier responded and went silent.
Two seconds later, a silenced rifle reported its soft sound, and the walker’s head violently jolted as the bullet passed through its skull. It dropped and joined the others.
“Wanderer down, Guard Three out.”
Hayward’s partner was a man in his thirties, short black hair, and a hard face that was set with dark blue eyes. His quietly raised his sniper rifle and slowly scanned the parking lot for any other creatures through the military-grade night scope, but there was nothing for his silencer to whisper to. This same man drove the chromed muscle car up to his home and saw his mother burst out the front door in the beginning days of the infection.
This was the same man that watched his mother turn into a “thing,” as she ran by his windshield with enraged, strange eyes.
He
looked at all the dead bodies in the parking lot, but that’s not what he saw—
He remembered calling her…
Mom?
He shouted…
Mom!
She didn’t answer and then disappeared over a fence.
He walked toward the house with his pistol…
Lightning struck, and it chilled his spine…
John Mandall closed his eyes and shook the memory off.
“You okay, John?” Hayward whispered.
“Yeah,” he quietly answered. “Yeah, Hayward, I’m fine.”
“What were you thinking about?”
“Truth?”
“Yes.”
John lied. “I’m thinking that we should leave this place.”
“Why? It’s secure here, and we have food and water that should last for a few years.”
“That’s what the commander said when we first arrived three months ago, that they had enough food stored in the warehouses to last about seven years if they rationed it carefully.”
“I remember.”
“Hayward, that was back when there was only 200 of us. Now there’s about 600. How long will that food last now?”
“I see your point.”
“No, you don’t,” John continued. “The food is the least of our worries.”
“What do you mean?”
“A high number of people like this produce a lot of waste, especially body odor; that really attracts those dead bastards. I’m surprised that they haven’t found us yet.”
“We’ve been lucky.”
“Luck always runs out, you know that.”
“You gotta try to be more optimistic,” Hayward said.
“Fuck optimism, I make my own way, and I’m only concerned about two survivors.”
“I got your back, too, bro.”
“I know, man, that’s why we should hit the road,” John said.
“And go where? The blackbird’s low on fuel.”
John thought about it. “Maybe south. Look for some chopper fuel or switch to a vehicle.”
“A vehicle is too dangerous.”
“So is being sitting ducks.”
Hayward was uncertain. “I don’t know, man.”
“I do.”
A distant echo reverberated slightly off the plastic of their tent; they kept quiet and listened as they scanned the dark horizon, but heard nothing.
“What was that?” Hayward asked.
“I’m not sure,” John said as he looked through his scope.
It came back and they realized what it was—the roar of a car motor—it was distant but quickly came their way and John saw the car, an SUV, as it rammed through one of the parking lot’s closed gates in a screech of burning rubber.
“Oh shit,” John said.
Hayward looked through his scope. “Goddamnit.”
They watched the SUV speed toward them, and it was out-of-control—muffled gunshots burst from within the vehicle, piercing the passenger window—the SUV clipped a couple abandoned cars and then it didn’t turn fast enough to avoid the next one; it hit the compact car, ripping it open as it plowed over it, sending the SUV into the air. It corkscrewed sideways, hit the ground, rolled over a couple times and came to a halt in a broken mess about sixty feet from the wall. The wreck became quiet for a moment, except for the hiss of the cracked radiator, and the liquid that was leaking out of the bottom of it, that was possibly gasoline. The driver door was kicked open, and a man crawled out. His face was bloody from the accident, and it looked like he had bite marks on his arms and legs. He had a pistol as he stood up and backed away from the SUV as another person, a woman, crawled out after him.
It was obvious what she was with a few gunshots in her chest.
She growled at him from her hands and knees, her eyes were vicious and they were focused on him. “Baby, stop, please!” the man said. “Stop this! It’s me!”
The thing didn’t acknowledge him as she sprang to her feet and charged him.
The man fired at her, multiple times, until he hit her in the head and she dropped.
His shots rang loud throughout the city night…
“That sonuvabitch is gonna give us away!” Hayward whispered angrily.
The man walked to her, dropped to his knees and cradled her as he cried.
Then they heard more of the dead coming from the night beyond…
The SUV driver staggered back to the car and pulled out a machine gun, and then he noticed that his car was leaking gas. He hobbled away and then saw the two-dozen or so dead runners that were coming his way.
John clicked his radio. “All guards on the wall, this is Guard One, hold your fire. Over.”
They watched as the dead honed in on the man’s location, they were just a couple hundred feet from him as he readied his rifle and opened fire. The rifle had no silencer and automatic gunfire tore through the night.
John couldn’t allow this so he quickly took aim and fired one silent shot that hit the driver in the back, he arced forward and fell dead, but his finger was caught in a death grip and the rifle continued to fire until it was empty. The group of corpses piled on the dead man, clawing and biting into his flesh. Over twenty of them fought each other for a morsel.
John looked but didn’t see any more coming.
“Turkey shoot, you ready?” John said to Hayward.
“Yeah, let’s do it, fast.”
John spoke into his radio. “This is Mandall, guard posts six, seven, and eight get ready for a quick shoot on my mark. Over.”
“This is eight, we’re ready. Over.”
“Six here, we’re good to go. Over.”
“Seven is ready. Over.”
John and Hayward took careful aim. “You ready?” John said.
Hayward closed his left eye and looked through his scope with the right. “Affirmative.”
“Now,” John said into the radio.
Eight silenced rifles fired down, in unison, at the group of the undead and multiple heads were hit, bullets went through splattered brains and impacted into the ground. They all dropped, one-by-one, until they killed them all. The shooter that got the last one hit it in the head perfectly, but the bullet went through and struck the brake light of the SUV, causing a spark that popped and ignited the gas. The flames reached the gas tank and it exploded into a loud fireball that reached high into the night sky.
“Oh fuck,” Hayward said.
Then from out in the city of the dead, they heard it—
Roars and screeches from many of them…
The sound stretched through the night and when it reached them, it shivered everyone’s souls in the camp.
A familiar voice came through the radio. “John, what’s going on? Over.”
“Commander, a car crashed in front of the wall and it’s attracting the dead, I don’t know how many are coming, standby. Over.”
John and Hayward scanned the area with their rifles looking for any trace of movement. They didn’t see any, and then they heard them. It was a large horde moving fast in their direction.
“There they are,” John said.
“I see them, Jesus Christ, I see them!” Hayward muttered in fear.
Running through the busted gate and jumping over the parking lot fence, were dozens of them, and that quickly became hundreds.
“This is Mandall, everyone hold your fire. To all stations, quick quiet in the camp, I repeat, quick quiet in the camp. Over.”
The entire camp went quiet, campfires were extinguished in a hurry, and everyone froze in anticipation. Six hundred pairs of eyes were all locked toward the wall, the only thing that protected them from them.
They rushed in like biblical locusts and surrounded the burning SUV in search of something to eat, anything at all. They smelled something under the pile of dead corpses and dug through until they found the driver’s body. They tore it apart in splats of blood. The rest of them ran around wildly, in a crazed manner, bloodthirsty and hungry for warm flesh. Man
y of them ran against the wall, crashed into it, and kept moving along it—
Searching…
Searching…
John, Hayward, and the rest of the hidden soldiers watched the spectacle, and a lot of them were scared, no, all of them were, as they watched a whirlpool of thousands of the dead take form in front of them. One corpse in particular, a wiry woman with a sterling silver serving fork stuck in her scalp, ran up to the wall and looked up. It saw nothing at the top of the three-high shipping containers but night sky. The creature breathed in deeply and smelled something that caught its interest. It kept looking up there for any sign of food. The soldiers in the guard shack directly above it sat there quietly and out of sight, but what they didn’t know—was that one of their spent rifle shells had fallen out of the shack and was sitting at the edge of the container—the vibration from the pounding feet of thousands of the dead moved it closer and closer to the drop-off.
It shimmied to the inevitable and then it fell off…
The casing somersaulted down and hit the fork corpse right in the forehead.
The thing immediately dropped to its knees and stuck its face in the asphalt to smell what had hit it. It breathed in the metal of the case and smelled the fingers that had touched it.
And it knew.
It stood up, looked up at the wall and released a bellowing howl that caught the attention of all the ones around it. They all looked and saw it trying to claw its way up the wall and then dozens joined it…
Until ALL of them ran at the wall and began pounding for a way in, it was a blind rush of thousands.
“Oh no, no, no!” Hayward said.
“Keep calm.” John said and then spoke into his radio. “This is Mandall, wall soldiers keep out of sight. Over.”
“John, gimme a sit rep. Over.” the commander asked on the radio.
“Sir, they’re at the wall and they know that something is in here, but they haven’t seen us yet. Over,” John answered.
“How many? Over.”
“A couple thousand, sir.” John said. “I recommend an immediate prep for camp evac. Over.”
