by John Chapman
Chris and Ed spent the next hour in the TOC with David, Bones, Chief Stone, Lydia (the Squadron’s Supply Clerk), and Sgt. Wiggins, the 4th Troop commander, planning their first moves. The first priority was the gun store just east of town on State road, because it was the only other place near town to buy guns, besides Walmart. The Chief wanted control of those weapons as soon as possible. Chris flexed his new power by asking Wiggins to send a 10-man team to secure the gunstore and hold it, until Chris could get transportation over there to move the weapons and ammo. Wiggins left the meeting to organize that mission.
Next, they made a list of resources they needed to secure, move, inventory and store. Using the list of critical resources David started on the white board early in the crisis, they decided to focus their energy today on the loaded train sitting on the tracks north of town along Hwy 183, and the large grocery store distribution center a few miles southwest of town, off Hwy 62. These two targets seemed to represent not only the largest payoff in terms of supplies, but also the least risk of problems to secure them. Both the train and the food warehouse were in rural areas, and were not known by the general public.
“The Mayor’s intent,” Chief Stone concluded, “is to secure as much food and fuel as possible, so we can make it through the winter and summer, before bulk crop harvesting, with as much of our population intact as possible. David’s job is to use intel from the Troops and Teams to locate as much of these resources as possible; while Chris, it’s your job to get them secured, transported to a central area if possible, and inventoried. Once you have done this, whoever the Mayor appoints as the supply manager later today will be responsible for allocation and distribution.”
Chris said, “OK Chief. What is my direction if we find supplies that someone else is already claiming?” The Chief replied, “Well, that depends. If it is the property of a locally owned company, leave them be. We won’t be seizing private property when the owner is present; and if someone else has taken it, we will use force to return it to its rightful owner.”
The Chief paused to think, then continued, “If it is owned by a corporation whose headquarters are not in our city, we will be seizing it under the Mayor’s Emergency Declaration. If it’s someone’s personal property, and is not obviously abandoned, leave it alone. If it was bought by taxpayers on any level, federal, state, or local, seize it. If someone else has already taken something that falls into a category marked for seizure, take it back. If you can’t do it with your own resources, call the TOC, and the Squadron will give the mission to one of the Troops Commanders.”
Chris looked up from his notepad, where he had been furiously scribbling, and asked, “Would it be possible to get those rules in writing Sir? I don’t doubt for a second you would back me up if there was a problem, but I am going to need a ton of manpower as this ramps up; and I’d like to have a clear, written order for my people to follow.” Chief Stone nodded and said, “Absolutely Chris. That’s a wise request, on many levels. I’ll have it drafted and get the Mayor to sign it as soon as we are done here.” Chris replied, “Thank you Sir.”
The rest of the meeting was spent allocating resources. David assigned Dan’s 3rd Troop to send a team to secure the ABC Food Superstore distribution center. Chris decided he would go to the train himself and evaluate what they needed to do to get it unloaded. David tasked 4th Troop to provide a five-man security element to watch Chris’ back while he worked. Chris tasked Ed with finding a working mobile crane. They would need it if they hoped to unload the train before hell froze over, and he was sure it would have many other uses down the road.
Within half an hour everyone was moving. Chris sat in while David briefed Dan and 3rd Troop’s Charlie Team leader, Phil, on their mission to the food distribution center. Dan was leading the mission, and would seize and hold the facility until 4th Troop could organize a guard force to come relieve them. Once 3rd Troop pushed out of the gate, Chris helped Ed get two of the dirtbikes ready to go; one for Ed and one for the 4th Troop guy Wiggins had assigned to go with him.
Ed didn’t know the new guy being sent with him, a Sebring cop named Ray who had come in last night; but he claimed to be both an excellent dirtbike rider and a former diesel mechanic before he became a cop. Chris had to get into the vault to get Ray a long gun; apparently, Ray had walked to Alliance in his patrol uniform and didn’t have any gear other than whatever was on his patrol belt.
It turned out Ray had never fired an M4, but was comfortable with a shotgun, so Chris grabbed him an 870P with a sling and Surefire fore end light, and 50 rounds of Federal Flight Control 00 Buck. It wasn’t a perfect setup for someone who was going to be out running around in the apocalypse, but it would have to do.
After Ed and Ray pushed out, Chris gathered up his little 4th Troop security element and showed them how to run a pre-combat equipment check. Once he got through that little piece of hip pocket training heaven, made better by having to give one of the guys some extra training on not pointing his pistol at his friends while using his fat little fingers to attempt a press-check, Chris gathered the team around and briefed them on the mission. He ended the briefing with a hearty, “We’re all we got!” The team just stared at him.
Chris sighed and explained, “Guys, here at the Black Knight Squadron we do a little thing to remind ourselves of who we are. When someone says ‘we’re all we got’ you reply, all together, with ‘we’re all we need’. Got it?” A couple of the guys nodded their understanding, but Fat Fingers objected, “What kind of high school football hoo-rah BS is that? That’s dumb.” Chris stared at him for a moment then said, “We do it to remind ourselves that in this shitty apocalypse, all we have is each other, and that’s enough for us. While you’re a member of this Squadron you will do it. If not, I’m sure Lydia could use help counting ammo or something.”
Fat Fingers looked offended. Who does this kid think he is, Fat Fingers thought, I’m a cop, and twice his age. Screw this guy. As he was about to open his mouth, one of the guys he worked with at Louisville PD told him, “Shut up Bill. This kind of stuff is important, trust me. Be part of the team or go away.” Fat Fingers reluctantly followed the advice, and when Chris hit them again with a, “We’re all we got.” he even participated in the, “We’re all we need,” that followed. With that behind them, they loaded up in Ed’s old Chevy pickup and headed for the train.
After passing out of the ECP, they turned right and sped up Rockhill to Hwy 183, the guys in the bed of the truck freezing their asses off the whole way. It took about five minutes for the team to make it to the first locomotive engine of the southbound train. Chris pulled the truck up onto the right-of-way and parked, then got the team deployed. Wiggins hadn’t appointed one of them as team leader, so Chris was having to do that job too.
Once he was fairly certain the team could protect themselves and the truck, he walked to the lead engine. As he got close, a short middle aged white guy in a Norfolk Southern uniform opened the crew door on the engine and stepped outside. Chris was surprised; it never occurred to him that the train would have a crew he would have to deal with. That was dumb, Chris thought, Of course the crew isn’t going to just say ‘well, I guess our train don’t work, lets walk away’.
Chris decided he’d have to play it by ear, and said, “Hello sir. I’m Chris Mason, and I’m from the City of Alliance. I’m here to check on you guys.” The crewman looked relieved and said, “Thank God.” He climbed down off the engine and walked to Chris, sticking his hand out and saying, “Hello sir, I’m Roman Stewart. I’m the Conductor for this beast.” Chris nodded and said, “Nice to meet you Mr. Stewart. How many of you are there in the crew? Is everyone alright?”
“I’m fine, thank you. Just a little hungry,” Stewart replied. Chris nodded as Stewart continued, “The Engineer took off last night. Said he was walking into Atwater to steal a bike and ride home. He and I were the only crew. I manage the train with remote sensors and a drone these days, so we only need two crewmen for a train this
size.” Chris let his carbine hang on its sling and pulled a protein bar and water bottle out of his right cargo pocket, handing both to Stewart and saying, “Take my lunch. It will hold you over until I can get someone to bring us some food.” Steward thanked him and invited Chris into the engine cab to get out of the wind to talk.
Once inside the cramped cab, Chris asked Stewart, “So, do you know what you’re going to do? I assume the train engines are fried, right?” Stewart nodded and finished chewing a bite, then said, “Yeah. Whatever happened it killed all our electronics, even my cell phone and our radios. I read a lot of end of the world type books, and figure this was an EMP. If it had been a CME, it probably would have caught the engines on fire, and I didn’t see any northern lights last night. So, I figure the North Koreans finally got one off on us. When you showed up I was trying to figure out what to do. I live in Iowa, so walking home in the winter is a non-starter.”
Chris nodded his understanding and said, “Well, you are welcome to stay here in Alliance. The reason I’m here is I was just appointed to head up the City’s salvage operations. I could use your help; and it seems like you’re now unemployed, at least temporarily.” Stewart looked at Chris and said, “I don’t suppose it pays much, but money probably won’t matter much after today or tomorrow. I reckon it’s the best offer I’ve had all day.” Stewart stuck out his hand and they shook on it.
Stewart spent the next 45 minutes answering Chris’ questions about the train and cargo. Chris learned the 214-car train was a mixed cargo of double stacked Conex shipping containers, 15 full cars of processed coal, and 14 full DOT-111 34,000 gallon diesel tanker cars. With the cargo management computers not working, Stewart couldn’t see the manifests that would tell them what was in the individual Conex containers. They would have to unload and search every one of the 370 individual Conex boxes to discover what was in them.
“Well, Stewart,” Chris said, “This is going to suck. Where do we even start?” Stewart blew out a long breath and said, “Yeah it is. Unloading a train by hand is crazy.” He paused to think for a second, and Chris said, “I have a guy out looking for a mobile crane that will run. He knows of several that are stored inside large metal buildings that may still work.” Stewart looked confused and asked, “Metal buildings?” Chris said, “Yeah, we’ve found that things that were inside a properly grounded metal building at the time of the pulse still work.
Stewart nodded and continued, “OK. First, we need to figure out how to get the Conex’s off the cars. If we can find a crane it’ll be pretty straight forward. If not, it will be a cast iron bitch. I have no idea how to do that.” Chris said, “I guess we should go look at the cars and see what we can come up with.”
When they jumped down Chris called to his security team, “I need two of you to stay with the truck, and the other three come with me.” It took a moment for the guys to get their stuff together and three of them to walk to Chris. “What’s up?” one of them asked. Chris said, “We are going to go look at some of the train cars and try to figure out a way to move Conex’s off of them by hand.” All three of them looked surprised, and one of them said, “You mean, like, take the Conex’s off the train by hand, without a crane?” Chris nodded and said, “If we have to, yes.” One of the guys in a Sheriff’s uniform shrugged and said, “I suppose if the Egyptians could move big ass rocks up, we could move big ass boxes down. Lead the way Chris.”
When they turned to walk north, along the length of the train, Chris was immediately struck by its enormity. Sitting in his car waiting for trains to go by, while parked at a railroad crossing, was a part of daily life in Alliance. But only ever seeing trains from that perspective hadn’t prepared him for just how big everything was when you were standing next to it. He mentioned this to Stewart, who said, “It still boggles my mind every day.”
It took them several minutes to walk past the three locomotive engines that had pulled the train until yesterday. Once they reached the first Conex car, stacked two-high with grey 40’ long Conex boxes, Stewart gave them a quick safety briefing on where to climb, what to hold, and where not to step. They carefully climbed up on the cars and Stewart showed them how the boxes locked into the car, and one another.
As they walked to the back of the car, Chris noticed that the bottom Conex sat in a tub in the train car, and asked, “I don’t suppose there is room to just open the doors on the bottom Conex and unload them?” Stewart grunted and said, “Unfortunately no. The bottom box sits in a tight space, and there isn’t room to even get to the door mechanisms, much less open the doors.” One of the 4th Troop guys with Chris asked, “But we could open the doors on the top box?” Stewart started to reply then stopped himself.
By now they were at the back end of the train car and were looking at the doors from up close. Stewart looked around, then said, “We could use a ladder anchored there,” pointing at a flat spot on the edge of the car, “But once you got the doors open, how would you sort through what’s in the box to see if it’s even worth taking? Most of these boxes will be loaded with palletized goods, stacked to the ceiling, all the way to the doors. Even if we could get them sorted, the pallets would have to be broken down inside the box and moved out by hand.”
Chris grimaced and said, “Well that shoots down my first idea. I was thinking we could just cut the hinges off the Conex doors and move them out of the way with block and tackle, but that won’t work if we still can’t sort them.” Stewart nodded and said, “I don’t think we are going to be able to get away with not unloading the Conex’s, Chris. I hope your man can find a crane that works.” “Me too,” Chris replied. The next couple of minutes were spent with Chris and Stewart looking the cars and boxes over, trying to figure out a way to do it by hand.
While Chris, Stewart, and the three security guys were walking the train, Fat Fingers was trying to convince the guy who stayed with him to guard the truck, one of his Louisville PD co-workers, to leave with him. “Come on Rich,” Fat Fingers was saying, “the keys are in the truck. This whole ‘Black Knight’ thing is bullshit. We could take the truck and head to my dad’s place over in Columbiana County. He has a small farm. Besides, we are armed. I’m sure we could ‘acquire’,” Fat Fingers used his fat little finger quotes, “some supplies in between here and there, one way or another.”
Rich Masters was shaking his head, and replied, “No way dude. I know Kyle, and this group here in Alliance is far and away our best chance of surviving. You have no idea how lucky we are they let us stay. Things haven’t really even gotten bad yet, but when they do I want to be part of the biggest, baddest dog on the block. I’ll stick with them, man.”
Both men were standing at the tailgate of the pickup, about three feet from one another. Fat Fingers weighed his options and made a decision. He nodded his head and raised his eyebrows as if to agree with Rich, and making an exaggerated move back from the truck and stretching, he pointed over Rich’s shoulder and said, “What the hell are those guys doing?” When Rich turned to look, Fat Fingers made his play.
Fat Fingers was able to draw his Glock 22 .40 caliber pistol and fire four rounds into Rich’s body from less than two feet away before Rich knew what hit him. Three of the 180 grain Gold Dots’ found their way into the open space of Rich’s soft body armor under his left armpit, and one of them blew the center out of Rich’s aorta. Rich let out a terrified scream and fell down. He was dead within 30 seconds. By then Fat Fingers was in the truck roaring back onto Hwy 183 heading north.
Chris and the rest of the team heard the gunshots, followed closely by the sound of the Chevy truck starting up and peeling out in the gravel. Chris jumped off the train car and grabbed his carbine off his back, where he had cinched it down with his Blue Force Gear VCAS sling. Looking to the south, he saw Ed’s truck pull out onto Hwy 183 and turn towards him. He ran to the edge of the elevated railroad bed and stopped. Chris saw the truck was only about 75 yards away, and was closing the distance fast. He brought the T1 optic up to his eye, st
abilized his stance, and started shooting at the driver.
He got six 5.56 mm rounds launched from the BCM carbine before the truck passed him, no more than 50 feet away. Chris pivoted with the truck’s motion, continuing to pour fire into the driver, who he could now clearly see was Fat Fingers, his face contorted with rage and fear. When the truck was beyond him but still at a shallow angle, Chris saw one of his rounds connect with Fat finger’s head through the rear truck window.
He watched as blood and grey matter misted out of the driver’s window like cigarette smoke, and the truck immediately went out of control. Chris watched as the truck slammed into a tree on the east side of the road, about 60 yards beyond where he was standing, driver’s door first. He watched the truck break in half from the force of the impact, debris flying in all directions.
Chris reloaded his carbine and turned to give orders to the rest of the team. Everyone had looks of shock on their faces and seemed frozen in place. “Hey!” Chris shouted at them, “Someone go check on the other security guy at the truck, and someone come with me. One of you stay here with Stewart.”
No one moved, and one of them said, “What just happened?” Chris gave the guy a withering glare and said, “This is the apocalypse bro. Try to keep up. Now move!” The guy nodded jerkily and turned and ran to where the truck had been parked. One of the other guys came to Chris and they jogged down the right-of-way embankment to the road, then up to the wreckage of the truck. Before he got there Chris remembered he had a radio.
“Knight TOC, Knight Eight. Shots fired. Splash one, and unknown friendly injuries. I need some help here at the south end of the train.” He didn’t hear anything and re-broadcast the same message. When they got close to the wreckage, he noticed his ears were ringing and thought, That’s weird. My ear pro should have blocked the gunfire noise… Crap! Looking down Chris saw his MSA ear pro / comm set swinging by the carabiner attached to his plate carrier, where he had stashed it after taking off his helmet and headset to climb on the train. That would explain why I can’t hear anyone answering me on the radio, he thought, and quickly donned his headset.
