Day by Day Armageddon: Beyond Exile

by J. L. Bourne

  *500 rds of .223

  *G-19 9mm (3 mags) plus suppressor

  *250 rds of 9mm (460 total)

  *2 frag grenades

  Survival Gear

  Trekking pack

  Combat knife

  NVGs w/ spare batteries

  Water bladder (100 oz)

  Flares/compass

  Green wool blanket

  Binoculars

  PRC-90-2 radio (no batt)

  Waterproof matches

  1 Bic lighter

  2 large rattraps

  3 packs of AA (NVGs)

  1 tube triple antibiotic

  1 roll of TP

  Hatchet

  Digital watch

  *Satellite phone w/ solar charger

  *Topographical map of Texas

  *100 water purification tablets

  *Mummy sleeping bag

  *Experimental fuel treatment (small bottle)

  **Heed warning on treatment!**

  *Small gasoline siphon

  Stores

  2 MREs

  3 cans of chili *heavy, eat first

  2 cans veg. beef stew *heavy eat first

  100 oz water

  *20 (3 meals each of dried food)

  I’ve decided it’s best to ditch the PRC-90 radio due to not having functioning batteries and the extra weight. The wool blanket and, tentatively, the MP5 are also on the list to discard. I intend to put the weapon and magazine in a safe place and mark it on my new map. I’ve repacked my gear. The ammunition is the heaviest part of the pack, pushing the overall net weight a few pounds heavier than the original weight. Not having the MP5, wool blanket and radio has offset the increase slightly, but noticeably.

  There is a residence not far from my position and now that the gear is packed, I’m moving to a position to sweep it to determine habitability for the evening. The only things I’m leaving behind are the wool blanket, the nearly useless PRC-90 radio and half a parachute. I cut some of the paracord and chute in the event I needed it for shelter. Getting tougher to find military-grade cord these days.

  The plan is to sling the M-4 and give the proven (albeit mediocre) MP5 one last patrol before she’s cached away and reduced to nothing more than a cryptic mark on a treasure map.

  2145

  The sun had a little sky left when I shouldered my pack and left the drop. I could tell the pack was a little heavier, as the extra rifle I was carrying accentuated the weight. I walked south and west to the dwelling I had scouted with the binocs earlier. It was a two-story house with the windows still intact. They were not boarded over but they were too high off the ground for someone or some thing to climb into them easily. The sill of the window was about my head height. Curtains were open on some windows and closed on others. It seemed very typical and nonthreatening. I walked the full 360 around the home, checking for any signs of struggle or gore marks indicating any previous undead encounter here.

  There was no car in the garage. The grass was of course grown up pretty high and the only disturbance in the growth looked like small rabbit trails. I walked up to the front porch and set my gear down. I leaned the M-4 against the wall and made sure the MP5 was fully loaded as I reached out to check the screen door. The screen door was locked, so I pulled out my knife and cut the screen so that I could reach in and flip the switch to unlock the door. As I reached inside and began to unlock the door, something in the window near the door moved. I instantly jerked my hand out of the screen, scratching it as I ran back off the porch and holding back a scream . . .

  It was only a curtain that had shifted in the wind, nothing more.

  I sat on the porch, concentrating and trying to listen for any reason to force myself to sleep on the roof tonight instead of inside where it would be warmer. There were no sounds from inside the house and no movement outside besides the tall grass in the wind around the house. The sun projected the red-orange glow of the approaching sunset as I made my second attempt. I never knew it would take this much courage every time I did this, every time I needed a place to sleep or reorganize or think.

  I walked right up to the flimsy screen door and slid my hand into the screen to open the first barrier to my entry. It took some force to pull the screen door. Some dust and dirt fell on my head as it pulled free, giving me access to the main entry. I reached down to grab the brass doorknob, feeling its cold metal in my hand. I let my hand grasp it for a good while and wondered which way to turn it. Of course, a year ago I would have known this, but the simple, civilized and familiar things get more foreign as time goes on. I slowly turned the knob to the right, and the door swung open with a push from my boot. The room was abandoned, long derelict. No sign of anything for months. It looks as if the people that once lived here left before the outbreak/plague/locusts or whatever.

  I kept clearing the bottom level and opening every curtain I saw so that the house could hide no devilry in the shadows. After clearing the bottom level I made my way up what I thought would be the creakiest stairway on planet Earth. I was right. After getting to the top I knew the home was clear, because there was no reaction to the noise I had made on the way up. It didn’t matter. I had almost been killed many times before today because I had underestimated the low-gear lethality of those things. I nervously cleared the top floor with the same thoroughness and fear I preserved inside from months before. As I moved from room to room, my mind drifted into darkness and daymares of what I would do if I were to become infected tonight. My first thought was of suicide and how I’d end it with a bullet to my brain. Perhaps I would leave an ominous but witty message, like the young stock boy I had killed what seemed like years ago. How long ago was it?

  Snapping out of my morbid thoughts, I kept going room by room, checking in closets and under bathroom sinks to make sure.

  What if one of them was under the bed? What if it was a little child?

  I had to stop myself. Did I check under all the beds? Obsessive-compulsive, are we? I swept the upstairs again and did the same downstairs before bringing my gear inside and closing and locking every door and window in the house. I noticed four different decorative candles placed in various locations in the living and dining room areas. I brought them upstairs with my gear and picked what I thought was the master bedroom as a base of sleep operations. There were no sheets on the bed and no dead little children under it.

  I lit two of the larger decorative candles and placed them on the empty chest of drawers at the foot of the bed. I put my gear near the window that I would use to make my escape if things were to go badly for me tonight. I also shut and locked the bedroom door and pushed another chest of drawers in front of it to buy me some time. I checked the window to ensure that it would open in my second of need. At this point it was dark enough that I could use the NVGs to do a quick 180-degree scan out the window for any sign of them. There were none.

  Sitting in the darkness listening to the house creak in the night wind, I began to think of today’s events in more detail, and this only brought more confusion.

  Why didn’t the C-130 cargo plane pick me up at a nearby airfield or cleared strip of land?

  Who are Remote Six?

  Instead of counting sheep, I count unanswered questions before I drift into a deep sleep, guarded by the flickering light of fortunate candles . . .

  Candles used against odds for their intended purpose.

  Thread the Needle

  14 Oct

  0800

  I slept solidly last night, with no interruptions. I dreamt of the noise barrage beacons, or perhaps it was the wind shifting just enough for my subconscious brain to actually hear them. The sun is rising in the eastern sky and I have had plenty of time to inspect some of the other documentation that dropped with the gear as well as have a go at some target practice with the M-4 and G19. Enclosed in the documentation is a map of the predicted hurricane noise suppression target set. The three units were deployed to Shreveport, Louisiana, Longview, Texas, and Texarkana, Texas/Arkansas, and
they were set to varying intensities, judging by the SATphone transmission.

  I’m currently a few miles north of Marshall, meaning that I’ll need to split the distance between Longview and Shreveport in half to attain maximum threat avoidance. The noise suppression modeling on the map indicates areas of suppression, with red circles surrounding the target areas that show danger zones. There is a green safe corridor area that depicts a recommended path south between danger areas. The circles are not perfectly round where the suppression devices are located, possibly due to terrain and other factors that limit transmission of sound. This map was obviously modeled via computer. Also of interest are the orange overlay areas over Dallas and New Orleans, with the international symbol for radiation displayed on them. The areas cover a significant radius around the cities, trailing eastward at the small end like a teardrop. Looks like the orange shows the boundary for radiation fallout with winds factored.

  The Texarkana noise suppression zone is at least 30 percent larger than the other two for reasons unknown. The recommended evasion path takes me skirting southeast of Marshall, across Highway 80 and twenty more miles south by southeast. The safer green area ends fifteen miles east of Carthage. I do not know what will happen when the batteries run out on the beacons in the three cities. The last time these devices were deployed they were blown to bits by nuclear warheads, taking many of the living as well as the dead with them. My best guess is that when the batteries run out the dead will simply start spreading out again in search of food. I can make fifteen miles in a day at best with this gear on my back. I’ll run out of noise cover in about twelve hours, judging from the garbled SATphone transmission.

  Also included in the documentation are the estimated infection and casualty rates for North America. Calculations estimate infection and/or casualty rates to be at around 99 percent. The last census I remember had the U.S. population at over three hundred million people. Using some basic math for threat analysis, I think I am outnumbered by more than 297 million undead. That number is undoubtedly growing daily. The undead can afford to make mistakes, they can afford to fall off a cliff or get hit by lightning or get shot in the chest. The living do not have this luxury. Any mistake on the part of the living results in us getting closer to 100 percent infection. My numbers do not include the countless undead I have exterminated or the millions that were instantly disintegrated in the nuclear blasts early this year.

  A large folded topographical map of eastern Texas is also included in the documentation. The map is made out of waterproof material and contains illustrations of the common edible plants for the region as well as water-gathering techniques. GPS is gone. This map, coupled with a road atlas that I intend to scavenge, will help me find my way south, back home.

  After examining the documents once more I went outside to check the perimeter so that I could test-fire the new weapons. The area was clear, so I locked and loaded and commenced a very short torture test of the M-4. I looked through the optic and immediately noticed how intuitive it was for aiming. I wasn’t going to be hammering nails with this, but it was easily accurate enough for a head shot. I was hitting golf-ball-sized rocks fifty yards out with no difficulty, shattering them into dust. After shooting forty rounds through the carbine I broke her down to check the components, then put her back together and shot ten more rounds to make sure everything was running as it should. I was now down to 450 rounds of .223, which made the load a little lighter in the pack.

  Before checking the laser designator, I made sure to clip the beacon to my vest over my left shoulder. I then flipped the designator on and hit the pressure switch on the side of the hand guard. As soon as I depressed the switch, I heard a beeping tone that increased in frequency the longer I held down. I quickly released the switch after counting to three Mississippi. I wanted to make sure the thing worked, not drop a bomb near my position. Satisfied with the M-4, I moved on to the Glock and shot thirty rounds with no difficulty. The last ten rounds I used the suppressor to judge how it affected the accuracy of the weapon. No concerns were noted, sans the time it takes to screw on the suppressor. I am not certain I have what it takes to do this quickly at this time and will need practice. The threads seem fine and one must get it right in the beginning to attach the suppressor correctly.

  I found some plastic shopping bags under the sink in the kitchen. Saying good-bye to the MP5, I wrapped her up with the empty magazines in plastic bags with a fresh coat of motor oil from the old rag I had salvaged. I checked the refrigerator in the kitchen, but it had been cleaned out a long time ago. It didn’t even stink and had not one bite of old food inside. I yanked out the shelves of the fridge and put them in the pantry. After placing the weapon in the fridge barrel up, I marked it on my map and wrote a note that simply said: “Kilroy was here. Check the fridge.”

  I left the note on the kitchen table weighted down with a candle I had used the night before.

  Rearranging the equipment in my bag, I was reminded of the Iridium satellite phone so I decided to turn it on and give it a shot despite the known time gate. I sat and watched it for five minutes as it attempted to search for a satellite lock. No joy. I set the alarm on my watch to remind me of the gate. I want to ensure that I remember to have the phone switched on with clear view of the sky thirty minutes before the comm window.

  I plan to leave in a few minutes and shoot the hurricane path between Longview and Shreveport, but not before I eat two cans of food to lessen the weight of this pack. A can of chili and a can of beef stew should give me some energy for the grueling hump I have ahead of me.

  1300

  The weight of my pack is really taking some getting used to. I estimate that I have covered about six or seven miles since this morning, moving at an average of one and a half miles per hour. I have consumed about half my water, motivated by the fact that the weight is taken off my shoulders and put into my stomach. I have not seen movement since I left the drop zone. Not a bird. The wind is light and variable, causing the lack of anything to be even more disturbing. I know that the noise beacons are either dead or very near depletion, causing who knows what kind of result. Every now and again I get frightened and raise my rifle to a phantom target that turns out to be nothing. The last nothing was a shirt left hanging on a long-abandoned backyard clothesline. I thought for sure it was one of them.

  Chernobyl . . . I remember something significant from before all of this. I remember reading a news article on Chernobyl and reading an explorer’s account of how quiet and spooky it was to her. She carried a radiation measurement device with her and explored the dead city. People had actually booked tours there to see it for themselves. Many requested to leave before the tour’s completion due to the quiet. Now most of the continent is dead and will stay that way.

  There’s no discharge in the war!

  I stopped an hour ago to wait on the Iridium comms but there were no texts. I tried to call in to Remote Six by scanning received calls and using the callback function . . . busy tone. I am sitting on top of an old armored car in a ditch with a corpse inside, in the driver’s seat. Almost nothing left but bones and a uniform now . . . must have killed himself early. I scan the 360 from here but see nothing around me.

  I am feeling sick from the two cans of food eaten earlier this morning and wishing I had already found a safe place to hole up for the rest of the day and night. I plan to keep moving for another two hours before finding a hideout. Sleeping in a vehicle, like the corpse in the seat below me, is not an option. The gore marks around this truck tell me that. This poor bastard was probably surrounded for days and maybe weeks before he gave up and killed himself. My map is folded to the area I am in. The map was not printed recently and is therefore not a completely accurate representation of the region, but it is far better than nothing.

  Storm clouds are gathering on the western horizon and chances are that it will be a wet night if I end up sleeping under the stars this evening. I feel like I may be catching a cold and I just hope that
’s as serious as it gets.

  2134

  Someone is following. After I left my rest area this afternoon the SATphone rang. The time was approximately 1355 and I almost missed the call. The phone was tucked under the top portion of my pack with the antenna sticking out the right side. By the time I took off the heavy pack and unfastened the pack buckles the phone had rung three times. I hit Talk and listened for the familiar sound of digital sequencing as the satellite text data was compressed for downlink.

  . . . SITREP follows:

  Project Hurricane: Successful. Evasion route acceptably clear southwest w/ light undead density.

  Reaper: Remains FMC w/ two LGBs on rails for deployment.

  Threats: Unidentified armed male trails from north. Thirty undead w/ two hot located ten mile radius current location via Reaper sensors . . .

  The phone lost synchronization immediately after the last word and I quickly brought out my binoculars and began to scan the area behind me to the north. I saw no sign of an unidentified man following. The phone gave me no chance to ask any questions or direct the text communication. Something isn’t right about this relationship between myself and the unit on the other side of the phone. Perhaps there is a problem with the satellite network only enabling remote relay or something of that nature. There must be a data link from the Reaper overhead to a control area where the aircraft is piloted and the screens are monitored. “Thirty undead with two hot.” This can only mean one thing—Dallas, Texas. I have seen what these types of undead can do and I will double my efforts to evade contact with any of those things now that I know that there are two of the radioactive creatures in my area.