Survivors Series (Book 1): Heroes Aren't Born

by Voeller, Cody

  I walked around the entire building, killing a few Walkers, and checked the emergency exits and loading bays, all locked. It would have been great if I could have gotten a look inside, maybe gotten a count of how many Walkers we could expect to deal with. I didn’t like the idea of going in blind against an unknown number of enemies. Since I had so little information I would have to come up with a plan to handle whatever was on the other side of the sliding bay doors. The firing line that we used when we hit the Safeway might work but the numbers might be too big. I thought how I could make it work with a few changes but it would take some major coordination. We would have to practice it for the rest of the day if we wanted to stay on schedule and do it right. I took one more shot at opening the door and when it proved to be unmovable I decided to go home. I stepped over the sea of blood and rot that made up the parking lot and got on my bike. I stopped on the bridge to take another look at the three swaying bodies. I wondered where they’d come from, if the group of survivors was small or large, and whether their punishment was just. I was hardly one to judge if it wasn’t, not after what I had done to Cole and his men, even though I thought they deserved everything they got and more. I took one last glance at the trio and took off. The rest of the way home was spent thinking about how we could handle, what sounded like, far too many Walkers.

  I got home about twenty-five minutes later and as soon as I walked inside I called out, “Everyone to the living room. We have a problem.” I went to the armory and grabbed a box of shells for my pistol and sat down in the recliner in the living room. I pulled out my empty magazines and started to reload. Anyone can shoot a pistol, it doesn’t take a lot of pressure to pull a trigger, especially the modified triggers on my guns. The hardest part of using a pistol is reloading the damn magazine. The bullets are unwieldy and with each bullet, it becomes more and more difficult to load them in the magazine. In order for my plan to work, this was something I would have to show others to do quickly. As I finished loading my first magazine, everyone gathered around me to listen. I put the finished magazines down and picked up another and started relaying what I learned. “The parking lot was filled with Walkers, they weren’t all that mobile but it doesn’t matter because I killed most of them.”

  “How many?” asked Jason.

  “I don’t know, a couple hundred maybe,” I shrugged.

  “Holy shit.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I said.”

  “You killed two hundred Walkers? How did you have enough ammo?”

  “Well, I used five of my six magazines to kill fifty of them, the rest I used killed with my knife. It took a while but it needed to be done.”

  “Jesus,” murmured Matt.

  “Yeah, that’s not even the half of it. There was a body stuck under one of the doors and when I tried to lift it, it wouldn’t budge. The doors are heavy but not that heavy, something’s stopping them from opening.”

  “What could it be?” asked Carrie.

  “No idea, but that means someone secured them.”

  “Survivors,” whispered Christina.

  “Yeah and that’s not the only sign. There were three people hanging from the bridge. They had signs around their necks describing crimes they’d committed. They were executed, so there have got to be at least a few of them.” Everyone started talking all at once and I had to raise my voice to quiet them down. “Listen, it doesn’t matter if there are other survivors, it has no bearing on the raid. What matters is that there are a bunch of Walkers inside the store and we have to have a way of fighting them. I have an idea but before I take the time to explain it I want to know if the raid’s still on. The danger level has just been amped up and I need to know if you’re all still relatively comfortable with this.”

  There was silence in the room as everyone contemplated my question. As they thought I finished loading the magazines and slid one into my empty pistol. Matt was the first one to speak up, “I’m down.”

  “Me too,” said Jessica.

  “Let’s do it,” said Liz of all people.

  I looked around the room at them one by one and received confident nods from each. Finally, my eyes rested on Sarah and she nodded quickly before looking away. Well, she’s not talking to you but she’ll follow you into a death trap. Wonder what that mean, I thought to myself bitterly. “Ok,” I said standing, “Let’s get to the dining room table and I’ll show you what I have planned, then we’ll go outside and practice. We’ve only got the rest of the day to get this right and if we can’t then I’m canceling the raid. So let’s get it right.”

  At the dining room table, I drew a rough sketch of the store and what we needed to do. “Here’s what we have to do. I need two people out front with pistols, flanked by two with bats or anything they can use as a melee weapon. Behind the two out front, I want another two with pistols. Those four will switch out when each pair runs out of ammo. There will be a third line that will be responsible for reloading any empty magazines. This is going to be a crappy job, it’s hard to load the magazines and you’re probably going to be doing it a lot. We’ll have one person to watch our backs. The two on the flanks would be responsible for taking out any Walkers that get too close and if necessary, take on the primary attack if anything goes wrong. I’ve already designated who’ll be doing what and there will be no arguing. You’ll do the job I assign you. We can’t afford to have you get upset if the job you get isn’t the one you want. Agreed?” I looked around the room. None of them looked happy but they didn’t raise any objections. “Good. Sarah, Carrie, Hannah and Jessica. You’re my primary force, you’ll each be armed with a pistol. Matt and Justin, you get to reload. You’ll collect any dropped magazines and reload them. If this means crawling to get them then that’s what you’ll do. Jason and I will be armed with bats and shotguns on the flanks. We’ll use the shotguns first and reload if we have time, if not then we’ll use whatever melee weapon we bring. Liz, you’ll be guarding our rear. You can use a pistol or a shotgun, I would suggest a pistol because we’ll have more ammo available and it’ll be more suitable for you. Each person’s role is key, the plan won’t work if anyone fails to do their job. The most dangerous part will be when the four have to switch. Each one of you will have a pistol and four magazines, after you four run out I want you to yell out to switch and the person behind you will take your place. You then have however long it takes for your replacement to fire off her magazines to get another four and be ready to shoot again. You need to listen to each other carefully. There will be a lot of gunfire and you need to pay attention to your partner. A big part of this will be knowing how many shots you’ve fired. There are ten to a magazine, that’s forty bullets and that should mean forty dead Walkers. Reloaders, you need to make sure you get all ten bullets in the magazine. We can have them counting on a tenth bullet and only finding nine. Liz, you’re going to need to watch our backs. It would be absolute devastation if even one Walker came up behind us and got close enough to bite one of us. I killed a bunch today and most if not all of them were immobile but we can’t count on that. You four, we’ll be close to your line of fire and I need you to make sure that you don’t shoot Jason or me. Please?”

  “No promises,” muttered Sarah. It was the first thing she had said to me today. I laughed lightly for appearances sake but everyone knew we were at odds. “Any questions?” There were none, “Well, let’s get outside and see if we can’t get this down. Someone grab every magazine we have and empty the bullets into a box or tray. We’ll use them to practice firing, reloading, and reloading. Liz, since your part, doesn’t really have to be practiced do you think you could make something for us?”

  “Sure. What?”

  “Well, the four girls are going to need something to store their extra magazines. It’ll take too much time to have them digging in their pockets or a bag so it would be great if you could rig a few vests or something with pockets for just the magazines. Something that would make it easy for them to grab from and reload quickly.” />
  “I think I can figure something out.”

  “Great. Make sure that all the pockets are on the right side so they don’t have to switch hands.”

  “No problem.”

  “Perfect. I knew I could count on you. Why don’t you come practice for a little while so you know what it’ll look like and then you can start on the vests?”

  “Ok.”

  We headed outside and stood in the formation I had drawn. “Ready?” I called out, “Go!”

  There was a symphony of clicks as they fired at imaginary targets. “Switch,” yelled Sarah.

  “Switch,” yelled Hannah half a second later.

  We ran into our first problem when they actually tried to switch with their replacements. They ran into each other and did that little dance people do when they both try to pass the same way. “Stop,” I called out, “When you need to switch I want the person behind to be able to walk straight forward and start shooting. Let’s have the person up front on the left turn to their left and the person on the right to the right. Think of it as you’re rolling out of the way for your replacement. Let’s try this again. Ready? Go!”

  The air was filled with clicks and then yells of “Switch.” This time, they were able to make the switch without running into each other. The next two girls, Jessica and Carrie, moved into position and began firing, while Sarah and Hannah mimed picking up four new magazines and preparing to switch again. Once again they executed the switch with no trouble and Sarah and Hannah were once again on the front line. “Stop. Looks great. Like I said this is going to be a crucial and dangerous part of the plan. Matt and Justin, how’s the reloading coming?”

  “Fine. But you weren’t kidding when you said this sucked,” said Matt.

  “Yeah. It’s going to be hell doing this over and over,” said Justin.

  “Suck it up, guys. Guns don’t work without bullets,” I told them, “Jason, do you know what you’re going to use as a weapon?”

  “Probably a bat.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I figure I’m going to use. I would use Sam’s club but I think it’s too heavy for either one of us.”

  “No shit.”

  “So Liz, think you could start on the vests?”

  “Sure.”

  “Thanks. Ok, we’re going to do a little target practice out back. I’ll set up forty full cans of pop so all of you can practice with one magazine.” Using Duct Tape to secure forty cans of Coke to a bunch of trees, I gathered the shooters in the backyard. “So there are forty cans, between the four of you, you have forty bullets. I want to see forty exploded cans. I’ve spaced them so they’re in approximate groups of twenty. Keep to your side. First pair ready? Fire!” Cans started bursting and pop started flying everywhere as they each took their time and lined up their shots. A steady rhythm was found and soon the both yelled “Switch,” and their replacements moved forward. The rhythm was quickly found again and in no time they too were done. “Let’s see how you did,” I said walking to the soda drenched trees. “You missed one there and there and there,” I said pointing to at the undestroyed cans on the left. “There are four misses over there,” I said pointing to the right, “Not bad for how quickly it was done. You girls want to try again?” Quick head nods followed, “Ok, I’ll grab another two cases of Coke.”

  “No, wait. Use the store brand Cola, it’s not as good,” said Carrie

  I laughed, “Ok, I’ll be right back.”

  I grabbed several cases of Safeway brand Cola and when by the time I got back to our shooting range the girls had the trees cleared of the burst cans. I taped the new cans to the tree and stood back. “First line ready?” I repeated, “Go!” This time, they only missed one can on the right and zero on the left. “Perfect. Now all you have to do is do that while Walkers are coming after you and we should be fine. I’ll grab several boxes of ammo if you girls want to keep practicing but I think that if you can keep your cool then you should all be fine. Are any of you going to keep practicing?” All four said yes. “Ok, I’ll get the ammo but I don’t want you to use too much and I don’t want you destroying all the pop.” I grabbed a couple boxes and put them out back for the girls. Back inside I had to work on a way to not only get one of the bay doors open but to possibly knock out a few Walkers so our lines aren’t overwhelmed right off the bat. Getting the door open wouldn’t be all that big of a deal. Our trucks were powerful enough to rip the thing off of its rails. If I wanted to take out a couple Walkers before opening the door then I would need a bomb or two.

  Making a bomb can be pretty easy, it all depends on what kind of blast you want and what kinds of materials you have at your disposal. You can make a bomb out of dry ice and nails or you could make a pipe bomb out of household items. What I was going to make was fairly simple and I could use the stuff lying around the house. The main components would be cans of hairspray, fireworks, tinfoil, Play-Doh, Duct Tape, marbles and ball bearings. What I wanted to create was a bomb that would take a large chunk out of the Walkers and hopefully incapacitate several of them. Clearing off the dining room table I started setting up a workstation. I started to gather the necessary materials. The hairspray from the pantry, we had a dozen cans snagged from the Safeway, the fireworks from my closet and everything else I needed. The construction of the bombs was very simple. The hairspray was extremely flammable and under pressure, it would explode. That alone wouldn’t be much of a bomb, just a bunch of flame and a tiny bit of shrapnel. I wanted to up the damage by adding ball bearings. To create an ignition source I removed the powder mixture from multiple fireworks. Fireworks are composed of a fuel, an oxidizer, a color producing chemical, often a metal, a binder and a chlorine donor. The two I was interested in was the fuel and the oxidizer, these two allow the firework to burn bright and hot, these would be my ignition source. The powder was finely ground which, in this case, was less than desirable. The larger the pieces the hotter they would burn, so to make up for it I would have to use more powder. This wasn’t a big deal because we had a healthy supply of fireworks. I set out two large sheets of tin foil and layered them. I poured a large amount of the powder, about a cup and a half, onto the sheet and cleared a circle in the middle of the pile and placed a can of hairspray in it. I took out a sparkler and snipped away the excess wire, this would be my fuse. It would burn for about a minute before igniting the powder, plenty of time to get to a safe distance. Before adding the sparkler I covered the can in Play-Doh and stuck ball bearings in it, this would be the lethal part of the bomb. I placed the sparkler so it was in the ring of powder and folded the foil up and around the can, securing it with tape and making sure the sparkler was still accessible. I wrapped the base of the bomb in tape to make sure it held secure when burning and looked at my completed weapon. I would make a bunch of these but I wanted to make sure that this one worked so I decided to test it outside. I radioed that I would be testing a bomb outside and that everyone should stay clear.

  I walked outside and down my driveway and placed the explosive just inside the tree line. If it worked like I had designed it too there would be quite a bit of metal flying in every direction, the trees should stop most of it. I lit the fuse and began running up the hill towards the house. I counted off in my head, Fifty-nine, fifty-eight, fifty-seven… as I ran. Soon I stood at the edge of my lawn and looked down at where I had placed the bomb, I stood there with a small group of people who came to watch.

  “Is it a dud?” asked Matt.

  Forty-nine, I thought. “Just wait,” I told the group.

  “What’d you make it from?” asked Justin.

  “Hairspray.”

  “Hairspray?” said Hannah skeptically.