by Dave Lund
Blood stops when the heart stops, blood pools at the lowest point. If there is an escape from the body, then blood will flow out of the body, but gravity always wins. If there’s blood on his shirt then it happened before or as he died. So they either shot him and hung him or hung him without a drop to break his neck, let him strangle on the rope before shooting him in the head. That would mean they put the dark hood on after they shot him. For a group that seems so happy and timid they sure took care of business with that guy. That’s hardcore.
As nice as they were, as kind as they had been, the gallows gave Bexar the creeps and his gut instinct had saved his life more than once as a rookie working nights on patrol. He sat up, careful to pull his cast out from under the sheet and heavy wool blankets. Slowly Bexar dressed, pulling his pants on over his cast. His leg hurt, his foot hurt, his head hurt and his body ached, but his arm didn’t hurt … or didn’t hurt as bad as the rest.
Bexar held up his arm and looked at the cast. I need to get Doc to cut the cast off; I can wrap it if I need to or use a splint, but this damn thing means I can’t run my rifle, I’m handicapped with my pistol, and I won’t be much good in a fight.
The realization that he might be wearing a cast as a form of control, a restraint, caused anger to flush across his face, but he thought of Chivo and how he’d acted in Albuquerque. Smile, be kind, but have a plan to kill everyone. That wasn’t what Chivo said, what he’d actually said Bexar couldn’t remember, but that was the lesson and that was the example Bexar would follow. The arm cast would be a test. If that wasn’t an issue then perhaps Guillermo and his prepper commune were legitimately just trying to help. If what they said was true then he owed them his life, and Chivo’s, if … when he woke up.
Bexar hopped to the dresser, keeping the weight off the cast and his broken leg. He put his pistol in the holster then drew it, depressing the magazine release, which dropped the loaded magazine to the dresser with a clatter. His left hand useless for the task, Bexar hooked the rear sight on the back edge of his holster and pushed down hard, his thumb holding the slide lock up to catch the slide. A round ejected onto the floor. Bexar held up the empty pistol and gave it a visual inspection. It looked clean, like someone had cleaned it for him. He thumbed the slide lock, letting the recoil spring launch the slide into place. Bexar pressed the trigger and heard the click of the internal hammer falling on an empty chamber. He put the pistol under his left arm pit, picked up the magazine off the dresser, and pushed it into place in the pistol. Bexar heard it click into place, but took the pistol and hit the bottom of the seated mag against his thigh to make sure it was seated before repeating the motions with his holster to rack the slide, chambering a round. Bexar holstered a loaded pistol and pressed the magazine release button, pulling the magazine out of the holstered pistol and setting it on the dresser. After retrieving the ejected round off the floor, Bexar held the magazine under his arm and used his one good hand to press the round back into the magazine before replacing the now fully loaded magazine back into the pistol, slapping the base plate a couple of times to make sure it was seated. Satisfied he would be basically fully functional for one magazine’s worth of a firefight; Bexar took his crutches and made his way to the living room.
Chivo sat on one of the overstuffed chairs, half-dressed, wearing only his pants and a pistol on his belt. With the torso brace covering his midsection, the bruising and cuts on his face, he looked like hell. Chivo smiled and held up a steaming cup of coffee to greet his friend.
“Buenos días, cabrón!”
Bexar smiled. “Good morning to you too, asshole. Apparently you wrecked that awesome truck.”
“Hey mano, you know how it goes, can’t have nothing nice.”
“And we just got evened up after I pulled your brown ass out of the bus in Cortez.”
“Never keep score. With you as my good luck charm I’m sure we’ll keep going back and forth until we finally get welcomed home to the gates of Valhalla. Besides, I think Cliff was the one that came to our rescue first.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah mano, I really don’t remember it, but from what Angel tells me happened and from his description it sure sounds a lot like our favorite asshole super-spook.”
“But?”
“No idea …”
Bexar wished he and Chivo could have just a few moments to talk this situation out, come up with a plan; he looked at his buddy, who sat in the chair with his legs propped up, arm and cast resting in his lap, coffee in his other hand and a smile on his face. Chivo looked at Bexar, and he knew. Bexar nodded slightly. Smile and be kind but have a plan to kill everyone.
SSC, Ennis, TX
Amanda organized the books she’d brought back from their raid. There were some real winners in the group; those went into their own special stack, but there were some serious hardbound trash too.
“Get any zombie books?”
“What?”
Clint smirked, peering over the edge of the desk at the President, who sat on the floor digging through the pile of books.
“Zombie books. Did you get any of those? They might actually be useful nowadays.”
“Funny, you’re really funny, you know that?”
“For all that work, did you find what you need to restart America’s farming and save the world?”
She frowned at him. He was being a dick, but he was also right. She was more angry that he was right.
“What I need are people, lots of people. Without serious mechanizations this is a job that either consumes your entire day or takes a lot of people and still consumes your entire day. I did find some good references for a garden, so I could at least have fresh tomatoes soon. “
Clint just stood there looking at her; she couldn’t read what he was thinking or what his plan was. This man would kill in high stakes poker.
“How many MRAPs do we have in inventory?”
Before responding, Clint cocked his head slightly. “Thirty-six, why?”
“With those we have the ability to practically drive wherever we choose, the reanimates be damned, right?”
“Well, sort of. They’re not tanks, they break down. Worse, they get stuck because of how heavy they are. There’s a reason why they were phased out at the end of the Iraq war, replaced with the M-ATV and other variations. What are you wanting to do with them?”
“We need people. You don’t want to broadcast our position like Groom Lake is doing, but we could go there and bring people back. Take two and ferry as many people back as we can, then they all take one and go back for more. At last count there were over a thousand survivors at Groom Lake; with a couple hundred people we could really make use of the plowed fields just on the other side of the HESCO barrier.”
“No.”
Amanda leaped to her feet, furious. The anger had been building for some time, and she’d finally reached her limit, “WHAT THE FUCK do you mean no? You treat me like some goddamned child; I am the President of the United fucking States! No more secrets, no more lies, that world is gone! It died when we were attacked, and it reanimated to chase the living and it has been killed again.”
“It isn’t dead, not yet, it’s only just beginning.”
“What?”
“We’re safe right now for a few reasons. First, the last intelligence reports don’t believe that the Chinese have the imaging technology to really track or find this facility, even with the improvements you made on the topside, but in reality I should not have let you do that. It makes us a target if anyone notes the addition. Groom Lake isn’t safe because they have made their presence known. That was a risk detailed in the Lazarus Project, it was understood and dealt with, except that the project, the entire operation was founded on the core belief that the U.S. military would survive. The low estimates had the survival rate at roughly fifteen percent of our fighting force. We practically have zero. The system problems Groom Lake are having, the loss of satellite imagery, the loss of communications, all of those thing
s were expected, that is why I sent Cliff to Granite Mountain. The problem is they went dark shortly after we arrived here. We don’t know if they died or if their systems were compromised, but regardless they’re gone. Cliff should have returned or checked in from Granite Mountain by now, so I’m not even sure if he made it there.”
Clint interrupted Amanda as she was about to speak. “Now the question is, ‘what are the Chinese doing?’ What they did was start this war, an attack as a prelude to invasion, and now it appears I’m shouldering the entire fucking operation by myself. As limited as I am, with only radio communication, I have no idea if any of our Navy survived; if they did then we have a chance. They can destroy Beijing, they can destroy Pyongyang and then clean up the afterbirth of this failed war. But the President, your predecessor, whose body is rotting inside his crashed fucking blue plane, ordered the Navy to man rescue operations for Americans abroad.”
“It makes no sense, none of it does. Why would they start a war by destroying all the life on Earth? What’s the end game?”
“The end game is that in a hundred years the Chinese and Koreans will own the whole Earth to be remade in their own image, their own beliefs, and all the natural resources they could ever need for the next thousand years as the population rebounds. The grasslands of the prairie, the thick timber of the northeast … in a few generations the United States will nearly be what it was when the Pilgrims stepped off the boat.”
“But the cities, the technology, the infrastructure …”
“Some has been destroyed through the process, but think about it. The dams are still in place, the power plants, the sewer lines, much of the electrical service … all the big pieces still exist and can easily be repaired with a little bit of time.”
“But ...”
“But the dead? We didn’t know, don’t know, but the prevalent theory is that the bodies will rot, and in six months the last of the dead will be gone. As summer approaches, the thaw and natural processes will start up. Their sealed-in freshness from the freezer of the north will be expired. Another theory is that the Chinese had some sort of technology to kill off mass quantities at once or that there was another biological weapon they could use to exterminate the threat. It all just happened sooner than we thought it would.”
“If we knew it would happen, why didn’t we attack first?”
“Think about what you just said, think about it in the context in which you would have framed that statement on December 25th instead of after the 26th and the attack.”
Nothing was said by either of them for a long moment.
Barely a whisper stirred the air as Amanda said, “You’re right.”
“I’m sorry, Amanda, I’m sorry this is how it is unfolding. Everything has unraveled at the seams. All we need is that one lucky break, that one surviving aircraft carrier, that one Ohio Class sub, something. Without a break we will either be overcome by the dead or die in the coming invasion.”
“How long … what … when do you think the invasion will come?”
“I don’t know, I was a part of the group that believed the Chinese would somehow corral the dead then kill them with conventional weapons, bomb runs and similar. So far as we can tell, no attempts to corral the dead have happened, but we just don’t know. All we can do now is sit quietly and listen, hoping to hear it coming with enough time to act, if we can find the fucking means to act with!”
“What about Groom Lake? The survivors, we need to tell them.”
“We can’t even do that now. I’ve tried putting the systems back on line, but the terminal link is down, and all lines of communications have been cut. They’re alone, we’re alone, goddamned everyone is alone.”
CHAPTER 19
Coronado, CA
March 22, Year 1
The Humvee raced north along Strand Way. The Zeds were restless, they moved in packs, aimlessly, seemingly on the hunt for a fight. Simmons knew that was a ridiculous thought, not once had the dead shown any sort of thought or planning, just impulsive reactions, but the air was electric. Chuck and Hammer wore wetsuits under their utilities, the MK 25 rebreathers already donned; they were in full combat load and all of their battle rattle ready for a fight, but ready for stealth to get to the fight. The Humvee lurched left and right as Simmons dodged the groups of Zeds attracted to the truck roaring by. Eventually they were on Ocean Boulevard and still racing towards Halsey Field.
The gate for the Naval Air Station at the end of the road wasn’t a problem; expecting to have to demo the gates to drive through, Hammer had a group of small, rigged explosives really to slap onto the hinges and lock, but one of the gates stood open. Simmons barely slowed as he wedged the wide combat truck through the narrow gate, the passenger side mirror slapping the concrete gate post, snapping inward and shattering the glass.
Simmons looked over his shoulder. Neither Chuck nor Hammer noticed or cared, they were in full operations mode. The jokes were over, the horseplay was over, and this was serious business for serious operators. Pipe hitters about to go do work. He checked his watch. Simmons had a tight schedule to keep. Playing taxi driver for the dive team was neat, but it was a hurdle to cross, something that had to be checked off his list before getting back to the rest of the team for the push.
The Humvee took a right at the end of the golf course, then a left and made it to a gate, the easiest crossing for the fence onto the flight line and runways. The unused small explosives were applied to the gate and moments later the gate fell backwards to the ground.
“That’s impressive. I was expecting something like a movie, but that was smooth.” Simmons only had silence as a response. Onto the taxiway and then to the runway, Simmons pushed the pedal to the floor, the big diesel motor roaring, geared for combat. The Humvee wasn’t exactly a sports car, and in the wide expanse of the airfield it seemed even slower.
“Watch out for the bomb crater in the middle,” Hammer said without looking up. Now done with his personal gear check, he was checking Chuck’s gear, the rebreather, everything, and Chuck would reciprocate immediately after. Simmons swung wide around the dark spot quickly approaching. Without lights and with only the green glow of his NVDs it was hard to see the bomb crater for what it was at a distance, but as they came closer the damage was impressive, as it should have been for what they had exploded. These runways would be out of commission until some serious work could be accomplished.
Swinging to the right, he saw the fuel tanks were also surrounded by a fence, which was against another fence that separated the runways from the road on the perimeter. It may have been easier to drive the long way, but this was the fastest. Simmons drove around the small office building to the north side of the fuel tanks and where the gate for the fuel trucks was located. This time luck shined on the trio of merry men and the gate stood partially open, enough for Chuck and Hammer to squeeze through, but not large enough for Simmons and his Humvee. Both of them climbed out and dashed into the fuel farm. Simmons looked at his watch again and drove off. He had five minutes to get to the Coronado Bridge, his first waypoint.
Coronado Bridge, Coronado, CA
Kirk brought the M-ATV to a stop under the bridge. He hadn’t even noticed the signs on the small sidewalk-sized path prohibiting their access to the bridge. On the remote turret, Davis was watching the Zeds they’d passed. He felt uneasy; during the planning of the operation the decision was made to refrain from firing a shot, if at all possible, before the explosives fired, just in case a patrol was near or a helicopter was close. Not that either would have missed the three vehicles scurrying across Coronado at high speeds, but they only wanted to press Mr. Murphy’s grace so many times, for they knew eventually that a roll of the dice would play out poorly.
Disembarking from the truck, Kirk watched the timer counting down on his watch. He stood overwatch while Snow and Gonzo rigged the massive concrete structure of the bridge. They’d spent time that afternoon shaping charges just right to get the maximum effectiveness, both of t
hem also making the calculations for how much C4 it would take to accomplish the job and then doubling the amount. “If anything is worth doing, it is worth doing to excess” was the unofficial life motto for men like these. The fourth minute flashed by on Kirk’s dim-faced watch. The Zeds shambling out of the nearby park and softball fields continued to close. Seeing that the gate stood open for the bike lane, which opened up to the park, Kirk ran to the gate, closing and latching it. They might get close, but the Zeds are too stupid to open the gate. We have some time now.
Sweat dripping from their faces, steam rising from their exertion in the cool air, Snow and Gonzo finally finished. They traded a quick fist bump and climbed back into the M-ATV. Kirk followed and drove quickly forward and away from the approaching softball Zeds; skipping the maintenance road he took the wide bike lane and drove hard.
“Dagger-Two, set, moving.”
“Dagger-Actual, good copy Dagger-Two.”
Halsey Field, Coronado, CA
Chuck and Hammer placed a ruck sack against each of the big white fuel tanks, det cord running out of each to a central ruck sack, which held the timer. Hammer worked quickly, arming the system, setting the triggers, and starting the timer. He winced slightly every time he used one of the timing systems; deep down he didn’t trust it, but if it failed he wouldn’t know anyway. The explosion would kill him instantly.
