by Dave Lund
“These are the best we have on paper, top notch.”
Clint set a series of large binders on the table and unfolded a large map of Texas that looked a lot like a regular road atlas. The large map was sectioned into numbered squares. Amanda scanned the map, working to find where they were located in the state, which Clint pointed to without being asked.
“Ennis, Waxahachie, Italy, and Corsicana are the four biggest towns near us, although none of them are all that large. There are more small towns though.”
“That’s fine, I don’t need large towns for a farmer’s co-op, I actually need small ones and there’s a good chance the co-op wouldn’t be in the town but just outside, nearer to the farmland. The towns I need for libraries, hell, maybe even some home improvement or hardware stores so besides just crops I can start a garden. Hands in the dirt farming I don’t know very well, but gardening I know. We could have fresh tomatoes.”
“Amanda you’re going about this all wrong. If you’re going to do this then we do it right. You don’t have the first clue as to what you need to start up a farm. Books first, gear second, the last step before planting is gathering the actual seeds, fertilizer, etcetera. I’d look at libraries first. We don’t even have the right kind of trucks to bring back any sort of large agricultural product. We don’t have the tractors or equipment to work a large field; all we have is gear to survive, gear to fight, and gear to start towns back up. Farming was a whole separate group of people, a different compartment to the Lazarus project in a completely different facility.”
Amanda glowered at him, but she knew he was right. Agricultural administration, large scale commercial farming management, the business side of things she knew; how to get out there like some homesteader in the 1840s and make a small scale farm happen was something she did not.
Clint smiled. “OK, libraries first. We can mark locations of any of the other things we might need while we’re out. Happy?”
“No, but it’s a start.”
Groom Lake, NV
After clearing each of the buildings, they secured the doors and an orange circle was marked on the door with spray paint. Erin began driving west, where they found buildings scattered to the north, more large satellite dishes, and an endless dry lakebed. The majority of the buildings were to their left, the south, and they were going to save those for later. As slowly as they had been progressing, Jessie knew there was no way that they would finish in a single day. It might take them a week.
Erin turned right and drove past one large metal building before parking in between a group of buildings next to the dry lake bed where the group climbed out. Erin took her chosen perch on the roof of the truck, giving the team a security overwatch, although so far she had only stood on the roof rack, bored, scanning the area with a pair of binoculars.
The same process as with the first buildings was used, and an hour later the cluster of buildings around the FJ’s parking spot were cleared, orange circles on each of the doors. Jessie marked the buildings on her map, making notes in her notebook for a report she planned to write later. Perhaps one of the more computer savvy of the survivors could make an interactive map. This time last year she would have used Google and placed markers with descriptions, but even the juggernaut of technology that seemed to have run her world before the attack hadn’t survived.
Erin sat behind the steering wheel. “This sucks. I want to just drive around for a bit to get an idea of what that overhead photo really means; I can’t tell what half of that shit is except for the buildings.” She pointed at a brown smudge of dirt on the map. “What is that, is it dirt, is it something top secret, we have no fucking idea.”
Sarah looked at Jessie, who shrugged. Jason sat quietly, looking at Erin, surprisingly happy to have a change of pace from the typical life he led in the facility. Also happy to see another girl about his age, even if she was a few years younger than he.
Jessie rested the map and notebook on the dash. “Let’s go exploring; you’ve got the wheel, you drive us to where you want to go. We have a full tank of gas and another half-tank’s worth of fuel in cans on the rack. I would suggest we don’t drive further than we’re willing to walk home, though. We never know what we’ll find or what might happen.”
Erin nodded, a faint hint of a smile on her face, the first Sarah had seen from her little girl in a long time. She turned the truck left and traveled south along one of the paved roads, slowly driving while each of them looked out the windows at the aboveground base so secret that everyone knew about it.
“Think we’ll find any aliens?”
Everyone glanced at Jason, who hadn’t spoken in a long time.
“No really, do you guys think that there might actually be aliens here?”
Sarah and Jessie both shook their heads no.
“Maybe. Who would have thought we would have fucking zombies or there would be this big underground base. At this point I think some aliens would simply fit in to our new reality.” Erin glanced over her shoulder at Jason, who smiled bashfully.
SSC, Ennis, TX
The big brown MRAP, or Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected military vehicle, rattled up the ramp and onto the surface. Exiting the park, Clint drove the heavy truck south before turning left to head into Ennis. The map sections had been copied and taped to the dash of the truck for reference. Farming supplies weren’t marked on the maps, but libraries were. Most civic buildings were marked, as were military installations; bridges were marked with their load capacity and clearance. The maps were high-detailed and very similar to the invasion maps of the U.S. that the Soviets had created, which Clint doubted Amanda had ever seen. They had all the information a military commander would need to fight his way into or through the country and occupy it.
Highway 34 was basically clear. Clint keeping the heavy truck to forty mph as he drove towards Highway 287. Not that they needed to take that highway, but the last imagery they had showed 287 and the surrounding major highways being completely overrun with a large herd of the undead.
Cars were pushed over the edges of the overpass from 287 to Highway 34 below. Clint turned the wheel a bit to the right and drove up the steep embankment to the highway above them. Scanning the scene outside the vehicle, Amanda and Clint couldn’t see any of the undead, just a clear path of destruction where they had come through.
Clint merely grunted and continued driving, crossing the highway, the median, and then driving down the other side’s embankment before turning back onto the roadway and towards town. Ignoring the map, where no route was marked, his route having been memorized as he’d been trained to do many years before, Clint took a left turn and rumbled past businesses and homes on either side of the highway. Some cars were still abandoned in the roadway, a sign that the herd of undead hadn’t come through this way, but Clint drove on, sweeping the truck left and right, dodging the abandoned cars and trucks. Amanda looked at the side-view mirror on her side and saw a small gaggle of dead turning out from around the homes, trying to follow the truck as it passed.
“Looks like we have some stragglers following us.”
“Yeah, they shouldn’t be an issue for us right now. We’ll have to see how the rest of the town goes.”
Competing chain drug stores, a gas station and a grocery store marked each corner of the intersection they needed. Turning right on Ennis Avenue, Clint drove towards the library the next block up. The parking lot in front of the bright red brick building was empty, which Amanda took as a good sign that they might have the interior all to themselves.
Clint drove into the parking lot and came to a stop beside the large glass front arched entryway. Dozens of undead drew near to the truck, all of them shambling slowly towards the sound and movement of the truck; more seemed to stream out from the surrounding streets like water, starting with a trickle growing and into a flood.
Shaking his head, Clint put the truck in reverse and slowly reversed in the tight parking lot.
“You’re not going to leave
now, after we drove over here?”
Clint grunted, put the truck in drive and turned the wheels to the left. The front of the truck bounced over the curb at the end of the parking spots, putting the front wheels on the sidewalk. He turned the wheel again and put the truck in reverse before backing towards the glass entryway. The rear of the armored truck pushed through the thin metal framing of the doors and windows, glass fragments showering down around the truck as it stopped. At over eight feet wide, the truck took nearly the full width of the entryway, blocking anything from coming through unless it crawled over or under the truck. So far they hadn’t seen any of the reanimates crawl or climb, so Clint felt reasonably safe with this solution.
“We have arrived, Madam President, although I think the local marching band may not have arrived in time to play Hail to the Chief.”
Clint left the truck running, the parking brake set, and opened the troop hatch at the rear of the truck. He climbed down first, M4 in his hands, and quickly scanned the area. Amanda followed, her rifle sweeping the aisles as they passed, quickly clearing the interior of the library. Satisfied that they were most likely alone inside the building, Clint turned towards the idling rig and looked under the truck at all the legs of the dead; they were bouncing off each other and the front of the truck. He looked back at the heavy tables in the middle of the room before dragging one and then another to the back of the MRAP. Each of the tables was pushed onto their sides against the back bumper, blocking the gap between the bottom of the armored truck and the ground. He knew it wouldn’t hold if really tested, but it still made him feel slightly better about their situation.
“Amanda, ten minutes tops. Get what you need and we need to pop smoke. The longer we sit, the more dead will arrive. I don’t want to lose a tire or have the truck go down and be trapped with all of those damn things in town coming to visit!”
“OK!” Amanda shook her head. Obviously the computers were dead and the library had transitioned away from a card catalogue years ago. Maybe decades ago? Amanda wasn’t sure; she couldn’t remember when everything went digital, but it seemed like it had snuck up on her. Without a reference, she took a librarian’s cart and walked the non-fiction aisles, back and forth, one by one, scanning for books that they needed or that might be useful. Books she hadn’t thought to look for caught her eye and made it onto the cart, books about medical care, first aid, weather forecasting. She quickly realized that she would eventually need reference material on many subjects if the people who were experts in those fields didn’t survive. Even if they did survive they still would use reference materials. A small town library wasn’t really suited for what she wanted; it was great if you wanted to borrow novels or movies, or even audio books, but not so great for hard-core research. She needed a university’s library. Regardless, this was where she was now and she had to get all she could; they could worry about the rest later.
Quickly Amanda transferred the cart of books into the back of the truck, just tossing them inside, moving quickly to fill the cart again. She couldn’t see the dead, but the truck rocked from being pushed by the bodies.
Clint stood on the rear steps and looked through the truck and out the windshield. “Amanda, that’s it, no more time, no more books, we have to roll. Things are getting ugly!”
Amanda didn’t argue; even though she now mistrusted Clint, they had been through a lot together since that day in December, and she did still trust him when it came to tactics and security. She left the cart, grabbed the small handful of books off the top, and ran to the truck, tossing the books onto the pile in the interior as she shut and latched the door behind her. Climbing into the passenger seat, she was shocked to see the number of dead.
“Do you see the hatch in the roof behind you? Push the big button, then open the hatch.”
“You want me to go outside?”
“Yes, well, sort of. The turret has an M2; it’s a big 50-caliber machine gun. Open the hatch, stand on the platform, pull the charging handle on the right side of the weapon, grab the handles and push the trigger in the back. Only fire four- or five-second-long bursts, sweeping side to side. Best way to do it is grab the two handles, push the trigger button and say ‘kill a family of eight’ while sweeping left, let off when you finish saying it, take a deep breath and repeat the process to the right. You’re not going to get all of them, but you’ll help knock down the mob some so we can get rolling.”
Amanda opened the hatch and found the charging handle; pulling hard she moved it to the rear and released it, putting the 50-caliber machine gun into service. The phrase was horrible, but it gave her something to focus on as she worked the heavy weapon, her ears ringing from the bursts.
Sweep to the right, kill a family of eight, sweep to the left, kill a family of eight. Repeating the processes and phrase again and again, the dead tore apart ahead of her, the large rounds ripping limbs from flesh, bodies seemingly disintegrating before her eyes. Like a giant saw blade had swung through and chopped down the masses. Slowly Clint drove forward, straight across the bodies, across the small parking lot, the sidewalk and grass and onto the street, turning left to head back towards the facility. Amanda rotated the turret, laying waste to the reanimates behind them as they drove off, and sweeping back and forth—kill a family of eight—with each pass. Eventually the heavy machine gun fell silent; the barrel glowed red and smoke rose in the cold air, the belt-fed ammo empty, brass casings falling off the roof as they drove.
Amanda’s ears rang and she could barely hear from all the machine gun fire, but she felt a strange satisfaction in ripping apart the undead with such a powerful weapon. Standing high in an armored vehicle, with an armored turret enclosing her helped her confidence in being outside the truck, but she stood in defiance above the dead, cold air whistling past her as Clint drove back towards the facility. She had a front row seat to see what was left of little Ennis, Texas, feeling almost disconnected, like she was floating above it all as the truck rumbled beneath her feet.
I’m going to make this work, Chinese be damned, North Koreans be damned, the invasion … Clint … damn it all, I will make this work.
Groom Lake, NV
The FJ rolled slowly past the rows of twin blocked dormitories; they knew the number of rooms by looking at the overhead, but looking at them from the ground, windows gave view into how many rooms they would have to clear. It would take the four of them weeks to clear all of them and make sure that the dorms were safe for people to move into. Jessie strained to see inside the dark windows, seeing hints of movement in the shadows, but she couldn’t be certain that it wasn’t just her eyes playing tricks. She looked out across the desert mountains, the sun already high overhead, reaching midday, and smiled. She was happier outside than trapped far below ground.
They passed more buildings, more hangars, and large aboveground tanks that were fenced off from the rest of the facility. That struck Erin as odd; already they were in a top secret fenced-off facility that had supposedly been heavily guarded before the attack, and yet they felt the need to fence off the giant fuel tanks? It all seemed silly to her.
The road ended at what appeared to be a quarry operation; mounds of sand, dirt, and rocks were piled high, ready for construction. Erin turned the FJ around and drove back north. She could have followed the roads east and out towards the runways, but she decided to go left and travel a dirt road to the west. More fenced-off sections ...
“Stop the truck!”
Erin stopped, surprised at Jessie’s outburst. The last half-hour of driving had been dead silent as each of them watched the abandoned aboveground facility go past, each wondering how many dead were left that they had to kill.
Jessie climbed out of the truck and walked to the fenceline on the right, opened a gate and walked past the chain-link fence. Sarah joined her, Jason staying with Erin, who sat in the idling FJ. A few minutes later Sarah and Jessie came back out of the fenced area smiling before walking a few hundred feet further west to another odd-shap
ed low structure. After a few more minutes they walked back to the FJ, still smiling.
“We’re done for the day. Head back to the hangar.”
“Why, Mom?”
“You saw those dorms, right? All the buildings. Do you think the four of us can handle all of that?”
“Yeah, it would just suck and take forever.”
“Well, we won’t have to. Over there is a rifle range, and that is a pistol range. We have a place to train. Jessie and I think that we could hold training out here and just have a couple of spotters for any approaching undead. We’ve been out all morning and not a one has been seen, so maybe we won’t even need that.”
“So what now, get a bunch of people together and train them? What are you going to do?”
Jessie turned in her seat. “Jason, we start with pistol skills, basic safety handling, then we teach how to shoot from cover and concealment, then we teach movement and then we do the same again with rifles. You’ve seen what we have in storage; we have enough of everything to outfit everyone living underground. Once we get enough people trained, then clearing the top side and using it for housing will be a snap! First we need to get back and talk to Jake, then we have to get volunteers, figure out transportation to the ranges from the hangar … we have a lot to do before we can even fire the first round.”
Coronado, CA
On the mainland, the remaining helicopters continued to circle and move from spot to spot. From what the observation post had been able to track, it appeared that a systematic search was underway, most likely looking for them and the stolen Zed-killing radar truck. Since the raid, Aymond had kept his team on lockdown. As Recon Marines, they continued doing what they did best, staying completely hidden and taking detailed notes of enemy movement, strength, abilities, vehicles, and material. The previous raids had been risky, ballsy, and run really loose. Now that they’d kicked the hornet’s nest, Aymond wasn’t ready to run any more raids like that. He wanted detailed planning; the stakes had been risen and it would be days before they were ready to strike again. One for gathering as much intelligence on their enemy as they could, but two for the enemy forces to become lulled into routine and boredom. Once enough time passed without an attack, they would become lax, and Aymond was counting on it. In the meantime, Aymond tasked Jones and Simmons to go over the M-ATVs. They didn’t have all the tools they needed, they didn’t even have any parts, but he was confident in those two to improvise as needed to keep their only two remaining armored vehicles reliable.
