by Glyn Gardner
“It’s ok,” the woman next to her said. She had placed a gentle hand on the woman’s shoulder. “This is her cross. We’re just borrowing it.” She looked to Kerry, tears in her eyes. “That is, if it’s ok with you,” she said meekly.
Her anger faded as fast as it had risen. No, she thought, this isn’t my cross. She had made it, but it belonged to everyone. It was becoming a memorial for all of us, not just her and Jen. “No, I’m sorry. It’s hard not to get emotional around this thing.”
“But sweetheart, isn’t that why you made it?” the woman asked. “Didn’t you make this cross so we could remember the ones we lost? So we can come here and cry?”
“I… I hadn’t really thought of it like that. I just wanted a place where we could remember those people we love.”
“And when we remember them, we’re reminded they’re gone don’t we? We remember how much we miss them.” It took Kerry a moment to appreciate the object the woman was rubbing between her thumb and forefinger. It was a solid gold ring. The match to it was on the woman’s left hand. She was here to commemorate her husband.
She stood up a little straighter. “I’m sorry ladies,” she finally said. She fought hard to keep her voice from failing her. She turned and walked toward the center of the Island.
The council was seated atop one of the shipping containers. Mr. Westergart was in the center, flanked by SSgt Brown and Jerry. Sam, who was sitting next to Jerry, whispered something into his ear. Jerry stifled a chuckle as he glanced at Tabitha. Her face wore a scowl and she wouldn’t make eye contact with the rest of the council.
An hour before, the council had met behind closed doors at the request of Mr. Westergart. While there, he announced his intention to begin actively liberating the area around the Island from both the dead and the “undesirables,” as he had put it.
The discussion had gotten quite heated. Mr. Westergart and SSgt Brown had discussed the idea after the latter had returned from last night’s mission. The younger man had agreed that it was time to take the fight to the enemy. He agreed to talk to Sam before the meeting.
Sam had been a little harder to convince. He reminded SSgt Brown how safe he and his firemen had felt behind the brick walls of the fire house. SSgt Brown finally had to remind him that those walls had been breached and people had died. Sam hung his head at the memory of his dead daughter. He was sold.
The rest had gone along fairly easily. Tabitha had been the only hold out. She was adamant about it. “I will not ask everyone who comes to this place for refuge to send their men and women back out there to get killed by the very monsters from which they had just escaped.” But, in the end, the council had voted six to one. Tabitha hadn’t said a single word to any of the council members since the vote.
Mr. Westergart stood from his chair. The crowd in front of him had grown to include almost all of the adults on the Island. He guessed he was looking at maybe two-hundred faces. He took a deep breath, straightened his shirt tail, and cleared his throat.
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” he began. “For those of you who are new to the Island, I would like to say welcome. Welcome to one of the last pieces of America still under the control of real Americans.” He paused, scanning the crowd. He couldn’t gauge the crowd yet.
“Yesterday, our country was suddenly and viciously attacked. This attack was not perpetrated by some foreign power. It wasn’t even attacked by the dead. It was attacked by our own countrymen. Americans who have made a conscious decision to take advantage of the crisis that has befallen this country.” Again he paused. He was starting to get to some of them.
“These individuals would have us abandon our property and our supplies. They would take away our safety so that they may live comfortably. I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts that they are not the only people out there who would willingly put you in danger to meet their own ends.”
SSgt Brown was awed by the older man’s speech. He had never been a very good public speaker. Oh, he had done just fine when he was in front of his history class. But he had never felt comfortable trying to motivate others to greatness. It was totally lost on him that he’d been doing it for years as non-commissioned officer and combat leader. He just never felt like he was any good at it. But Terrance, he was brilliant! SSgt Brown scanned the crowd. They were mesmerized by his words. Oh, there were a few, like Tabitha, who would never subscribe to Terrance’s vision for the Island.
Terrance kept the speech short. He closed by inviting people to volunteer for “this nation’s second great crusade!” SSgt Brown watched in awe as a majority of the adults in the audience began to step forward. Before the day was over, Mr. Westergart’s army would number One-hundred-thirty-two men and women and one teenager who absolutely would not take no for an answer. Sam, the newly appointed Marshal, had a force of fifteen deputies.
Mr. Westergart, SSgt Brown, Sgt Procell, and Private Jackson met for lunch in Mr. Westergart’s office. Now that they had the volunteers, they needed to tighten up the rest of the plan. They needed equipment and transportation. They only had enough weapons for each of Sam’s deputies to have a pistol.
The army was a different story. There were only about ninety rifles on the Island, and the two machineguns. It had been agreed that they would be used for Island defense only, until more could be found. The rest of the army would have to be armed with pistols or shotguns for the time being. This did not make Mr. Westergart very happy. SSgt Brown assured him that those weapons would be just fine in a zombie fight.
Mr. Westergart had pressed him about the possibility of running into a group of the living. SSgt Brown assured him that ninety rifles would be more than enough to handle any group they were likely to run into. “Hell, if they’re so big that I can’t take ‘em with ninety rifles; we might want to consider joining ‘em.”
They were also going to eventually need transportation. SSgt Brown had assured Mr. Westergart that transportation could and would be secured long before his little army was ready to stray too far from its Island nest.
Sgt Procell had come up with the design for the deployable bastions. They had found a large number of 20 foot corrugated steel containers in the dock area. He and the Navy Seabees had developed the idea of using them as deployable bastions, or DB’s. The sailors soon took to calling them Little Debbies.
The idea of the Little Debbie, SSgt Brown thought, was elegantly simple. The door to the container would be sealed and a ladder would be cut into the side. The inside would be packed with enough food, water, ammo, and other supplies to last fifteen people for four days. A trap door would be cut in the roof and a ladder lowered to the inside. A CB radio, an antenna, and a few car batteries completed the load out. This way, Debbie would be a self contained unit.
The weight of the container was just at the limit of the crane that was mounted on the HEMTT. Little Debbie would be loaded on the big truck and moved to wherever she was needed. The crew would climb aboard, and begin making noise, lots of noise. The idea would be to attract all of the nearby zombies to Debbie. The soldiers would stand atop the 8 foot container and slaughter the monsters at their leisure from the protection of a giant, impenetrable, metal box.
There were still a few details to be worked out. How would the crew make the noise? What noises attracted zombies best? How long should Debbie remain in one place? From how far could they attract a hoard of zombies? There were other questions. They needed a trial run.
Their first test would be the gate. Sgt Procell led ten men and five women to the gate. The others watched as the sixteen mounted the blue and orange boxes. Soon they were hammering the top of the containers with the ends of the spears. Even from the end of the bridge, the onlookers could hear the collective moan that arose from somewhere beyond the gate.
Soon, Sgt Procell and his people were stabbing downward with their spears at the unseen enemy. It didn’t take long for one woman to put down her spear and back away. SSgt Brown could tell she was panting as she bent at the waist and put both h
ands on her knees. Soon two of the men assumed the same position. SSgt Brown made a mental note.
Within ten minutes it was over. The group leapt from the containers and slowly walked back to the Island. He could see that all of them were breathing heavily, even Sgt Procell.
“Shit!” Sgt Procell announced as he approached the group of onlookers. “That’s some hard work. We got about sixty of them.” He tried to slow his breathing down.
“I’m thinking we’re going to have to work in shifts. Or, maybe we just let them sit down there while we take a break,” another long deep breath. “We’ll have to toy with it, but I think we’re on to something.”
SSgt Brown and Jackson climbed to the top of the container that acted as a gate. Both were astonished by the number of dead lying motionless on the pavement. SSgt Brown honestly thought he’d see twenty or thirty. There must have been a hundred bodies below them. It was obvious that many of the dead had attempted to climb over those who had fallen in front of them. Little Debbie was a go as far as he was concerned.
A few minutes later, the duo had been joined by the rest of their assault platoons. The ninety men and women were lined up on the bridge a few hundred yards from the fence line of the port facility. Several zombies inside had taken notice of the group. They were pawing at the chain links of the fence, moaning loudly.
He knew he needed to address them before going in. He noticed several were getting restless. “Ok, people. Today we take our first step.” Jesus, he thought he sounded like a sad excuse for Mr. Westergart.
“Ok, fuck that bullshit!” That was more like it. “You see all those containers in there? They’re full of supplies. See those dead assholes there?” He waived a hand towards the dead.
“They ain’t gonna use any of it. We need it, they don’t. It’s that fucking simple. We can sit on that Island and continue to scrape by until too many people show up and we end up starving. Or, we go in there, and liberate everything useful.”
“Now, each and every one of you has been forced to kill these things to get here. This time, we have the numbers. We have the guns. And, most importantly, we have a plan. We’re not improvising like we have been for the last month.”
He walked close to the fence. “If you have a bayonet for your weapon, fix it now.” He saw several people snap bayonets to the end of their rifles. He reached down and did the same with his blade. “You’ve been put in groups of five. That is your fire team. Stay with your fire team. Nobody should be alone at any time.”
He turned to the fence and drove his bayonet into the face of the closest zombie. The monster, a man with a short haircut and black blood oozing from his mouth, slumped immediately to the ground. He nodded to Jackson; who flipped the latch on the gate and pushed it. As the gate swung open, “Now get in there and kill some fucking bad guys!”
Indira stood next to Jen and the two medics on the bridge. They prayed that there wouldn’t be any casualties. SSgt Brown had assured them that anyone who was wounded would probably not be brought back to the Island.
The shooting lasted for about ten minutes. It had begun with a sharp crescendo, but had tapered off quickly. After that, there were only a few sporadic shots fired at any one time. As the would-be soldiers gained their confidence, the number of rounds fired at any one time decreased. Finally, the shooting stopped completely.
Ten minutes later, the medical staff saw the army triumphantly return to the Island, SSgt Brown at the head of two equal columns of troops. A column of thick black smoke rose behind them and began slowly drifting east.
“Where is the rest?” Indira asked. Jen looked again. She was right. There were only about fifty or sixty troops following SSgt Brown.
“Probably securing the port facilities,” Donaldson answered. He chuckled. “Did you think we were going to just walk in there kill everything and leave again?” The smugness in his voice was difficult to miss. Jen and Indira simply shook their heads and tried to ignore him.
The HEMTT rumbled as Jackson revved the big diesel engine. The big ten wheeled truck began to slowly roll forward. The shipping container on the back deck was the fourth and last that he would move today. He glanced to the west at the rapidly setting sun. It was now a dark orange and was low on the horizon.
SSgt Brown waved his right hand as he directed Jackson. The truck backed up slowly until it almost touched the shipping container behind it. SSgt Brown held up a fist. The truck rocked back and forth as it stopped. He pointed a finger toward the ground and made a twirling motion with it. The container began sliding off the back of the truck. Jackson slowly pulled forward as the container came to rest next to the one behind it and against the fence. Tomorrow, he would probably finish reinforcing the fence line.
SSgt Brown set the guard for the night. He and Jackson would remain inside the port facility with thirty of his people. He assigned each of the six fire teams a container to sleep on. He gave them two rules. One, at least one person per team would be awake. Two, no one would get off of the container without two other people.
Day 45
The Island
SSgt Brown, Sgt Procell and Jen watched as Jackson dropped the last shipping container along the fence line. A loud scraping sound and a sudden thud announced the 40 foot metal container had reached its destination. The HEMTT pulled away to the cheers of the rest of the people looking on.
SSgt Brown was actually amazed at the amount of work his little army had been able to accomplish in one day. Not only had the entire port facility been surrounded by a wall of multicolored 40 foot corrugated shipping containers standing eight feet high. But, Sgt Procell and the two sailors had been able to fashion three of the Little Debbies from the smaller and lighter 20 foot shipping containers.
SSgt Brown couldn’t help but notice that no two looked the same. He turned toward the younger NCO. “Not much for standardization, are you Ed?”
The young former Screaming Eagle chuckled. “Well, what happened was that each of us took charge of one of the Little Debbies.” He nodded towards the two sailors standing a few feet away. “First, Paulson started welding that giant swing arm onto the front of his. Said he would snap it shut on anyone in front of it.” The contraption had a 12 inch roller on a spring loaded arm. When activated, it would slam against the side of the Little Debbie at about head height He smiled at the sailors who were now walking towards them.
“Then Erikson went and welded those big fans out front of his.” He pointed to the Little Debbie with four large fans welded to the roof. The fan blades had been replaced by five feet pieces of chain. Jen could see that when the fans where turned on, the chains would create a virtual wall of spinning metal six inches in front of the Little Debbie. It would be like a giant zombie blender.
“So, you thought it would be a good idea to cut a bunch of holes in yours?” the big NCO asked.
“Don’t think of them as just holes,” the younger man said. “Think of them as modified loopholes or murder holes.” He tried to put his hand through one of the holes. It was far too small for him to insert more than three fingers. Then he grabbed one of the pikes. He jammed it through the hole. He showed them he could thrust several times at differing heights and angles. “See, we can just sit inside; all safe and sound and stab them in the face.”
SSgt Brown nodded his head. He wasn’t sure which one of the Little Debbies would be the best. But, he was pretty sure that whoever was inside of them would be safe from zombies. That was all he needed.
Erikson and his team of ten had been standing on top of the Little Debbie for most of the day. The black kid, his name was Jackson or something like that, had dropped them off several of hours ago. They were about a mile outside of the wire. Just off of the main east-west highway.
The idea was simple. Once deployed, they would make as much noise as possible, drawing zombies from near and far to their location. Once the local zombies had arrived, then they would simply climb on top of Debbie, and turn on the fans. The local zombies would pret
ty much be standing in the middle of a meat grinder. They could continue making noise and killing zombies for as long as their food and water held out, or until the zombies stopped showing up.
There had been quite a bit of speculation on the last point. No one knew exactly how good a zombie could hear. So, there was no way of knowing how close a zombie had to be in order to be led to the trap. SSgt Brown was pretty sure they would come from a mile or so away. Erikson wasn’t so sure. He wouldn’t have put his money on anything over a half of a mile.
A car horn hooked straight to a car battery created the noise. At first, they had just hooked it up and let it go. After several minutes of constant buzzing of the horn, they agreed to just sound it every few minutes. Within ten minutes, it was clear the local zombies had taken the bait.
Soon there were zombies clawing at the Little Debbie’s grey corrugated sides. The moans they produced were the eeriest sounds Erikson had ever heard. He was soon convinced that they wouldn’t need to use the car horn anymore. The moans of the dead were doing more to attract the rest of the dead than anything else they had done.
When Erikson was confident that there were enough zombies around the Little Debbie, he ordered the fans turned on. The sound of the fan motors momentarily drowned out the sound of the incessant moaning.
Soon the chains were slicing zombies down in droves. It was like watching a weed eater tear into the edge of someone’s lawn. One minute a zombie would be clawing at the metal, the next minute a pink mist was filled the air as the monster was vaporized. Then another would step into its place. Everyone on the roof of the Debbie was covered in fine pink mist.
