Day by Day Armageddon: Beyond Exile

by J. L. Bourne

  Going north could put us close to a larger city as we attempt to go around the lake. The only drawback to option two was the unknown material condition of the bridge. After discussing various pros and cons we decided the bridge option made the most sense. Yesterday in the A.M. we adjusted our course south and a little west to rendezvous the bridge. I was taking the lead with the buggy as Saien trailed not far behind. The landscape was so monotonous that it barely warrants description . . . abandoned wrecks, packed SUVs, scattered emergency vehicles and of course the dead. Many times I have caught myself canceling them out like an expensive noise-canceling headset—a dangerous habit.

  When the sun reached its highest point in the sky, I signaled from the buggy that it was time to pull over. I picked a spot at an abandoned group of rail cars. This system of shelter had not let us down to date, causing Saien and me to rely on it when possible. We attempted to warm up as we sat in the sun on top of a boxcar marked “Northern Railroad.” The exterior of the car was decorated with much precollapse graffiti. Gang signs and cryptic hobo signals made up the bulk of the markings. After I finished inspecting one side of the car and started on the other, Saien called for me to come up. As I climbed the ladder to the car and looked up over the top I spotted Saien lying on his drag bag staring out to the east. I came over and asked him what was up.

  He extended his bipod legs, rested the butt of the rifle on his jacket and said: “Look.”

  Peering through the powerfully magnified Japanese glass, I could see the reason for Saien’s concern. Out to the horizon I could see a great cloud of dust swirling about. Without looking through the optic of Saien’s rifle, one could mistake the dust cloud for a small rain cloud surging on the horizon. It seemed that we were seeing firsthand a possible undead swarm. It would be nothing like what we had encountered the day I met Saien. The mere presence of a swarm roughly ten miles in the distance did not mean they were headed directly to our position. It would be prudent to assume that they would be moving southwest in our general direction and upon contact with the river’s edge would move either up- or downstream. The river could cause them to funnel in our direction or they could move upstream as a collective. We spent the rest of our shortened lunch attempting to verify the direction and speed of the mass, without success.

  Later//

  We made the best time we could to the ingress point. Stopping short of the bridge on a high knoll we conducted some reconnaissance. A rusting Abrams tank was pulled crossways in the road right in front of the bridge. The paint still held, but rust marks streaked down the thick armored steel portions. Shooting a reading with the Geiger revealed that the tank was emitting medium amounts of radiation. It was nothing immediately deadly, but I would not want to spend a few nights inside. There were gore marks all over the tank and civilian vehicles in the vicinity were heavily damaged, much like to the old town Main Street we had passed through days before.

  Before heading down the hill to the bridge we surveyed the dust cloud. The cloud was visibly growing and there were very faint sounds on the wind that unsettled me to the point that I had to make a conscious effort to remain in the game. Moving down the hill, I was demoralized by the size of the bridge. It was so long that the vehicles on the other side looked like specks in the distance.

  Nearing the rusting Abrams’s hulk I could see that the hatch was barely open. I jumped onto the tank and strong-armed the hatch. Geiger readings remained constant. I shined my light inside, causing a bird to fly out of the opening, scaring the hell out of me. The tank was clear.

  There was no way to get our vehicles past the tank without moving it. Towing the tank was a nonstarter. Its weight was many times that of the truck. There were operating manuals tucked into a storage cabinet near the controls. I followed the instructions and was able to start the turbine after three attempts. The tank was still operational, but it seemed that the jet fuel inside was contaminated, as I never got the turbine speed up to optimal operating temperature as indicated in the manual. This caused all movements to be delayed and sluggish. The controls on the tank were like bicycle bars with a hatch open light, master caution, panel dim, reset and master warning light mounted above the steering controls. Right below the handlebar was a small lever with R, N, D and L transmission settings.

  After a short warm-up period I put the tank in D and activated the throttles, causing the tank to lurch forward. The smell of burning jet fuel permeated the tank and everything inside it. After stopping the tank I was able to leave it running so that I could help Saien get the vehicles onto the bridge.

  After getting the buggy and truck safely on, I ran back to the tank to repark the beast. As I approached I noticed that someone had spray-painted the word “TROLL” on the side of the turret. I climbed back in and attempted to put the tank back. I destroyed the guardrails on both sides of the bridge and nearly drove off into the water before giving up and accepting a 90 percent solution. There was a gap large enough for a motorcycle to squeeze through on one side. Before leaving the tank, I flipped on the radio and put on the headset. Every frequency I tuned in on the SINCARS radio returned with static not unlike a jamming-type signal. I could hear RF energy but nothing was being relayed. I sent out a distress call on 282.8 MHz and 243.0 MHz to Hotel 23, letting them know my situation and position. If this area was being jammed it did not mean H23 was also. For jamming to be effective, the jamming emitter must be directed at the receiver, as jamming the transmitter would do nothing on the receiving end.

  I repeated my transmission three times before shutting down the gas turbine and heading back to the vehicles. The dust cloud was still present on the horizon. I thought of the tank and how useless it would prove as its lack of fuel economy, coupled with its crushing weight, rendered it a hindrance. I doubted the bridge could take the weight. We were halfway across the bridge when we first made visual contact with the swarm. The sound billowed like great tubas reverberating in my chest.

  In a stroke of merciful luck they broke into view two miles upstream. On Matagorda Island during my stint at the docks, I observed the creatures standing at the water’s edge, hesitant to enter. I know that when they hit the shoreline they will follow it until they come to a crossing point. Saien and I kept clearing the bridge roadblocks, fitting the wrecks where we could on the left or the right. It was like the old sliding puzzle game where you tried to fit fifteen tiles in chronological order with only one empty space with which to rearrange the numbers.

  When we were three-quarters of the way over the bridge the creatures hit the water’s edge. The wails and moans jabbed at the front of my brain and nearly knocked me off my feet. There were thousands. Later I would discover via SATphone text message that over five hundred thousand undead were part of Swarm T-5.1 as designated in a cryptic Remote Six message text.

  As the head of this long, terrible viper hit the water in the distance upstream, I could see the wake of white water, and the wails of frustration and primal hate intensified. Saien and I kept working, careful not to make too much noise. Using my multitool, I disabled the horn on the truck so that it could not be accidentally pushed during our clearing operation, as has happened before.

  An armored car with four heavily damaged run-flat tires was giving us trouble because of its weight. We worked the problem for nearly thirty minutes as the legion of undead built up on the shore upstream. Their radius was growing so large that I could make out individual creatures in the distance. While attaching a tow chain to the old Ford next to the armored car, I heard a familiar shrill and instinctively reached for the M-4 slung across my chest. Checking the clear plastic viewport on the polymer mag I knew I was as ready as I could be.

  I scanned the area around the vehicles and heard the undead moans loud and overlapping. Some of them sounded like gurgling. I stepped to the guardrail of the bridge and peered over. In the deep-flowing, chilly water below I could see dozens of creatures thrashing and moaning. Water had freely seeped into their dead lungs, causing their sounds
to be even more frightening. Looking upstream I could see the waterway heavily dotted and clumped with the creatures flowing downstream from the mass and under the bridge where I stood.

  A handful of the creatures drifting at the whim of the river current caught sight of me standing above them. Their clawed hands reached skyward as they passed below the bridge. Despite our best efforts we were unable to budge the Ford, as the armored car was wedged too far into the other lane. The cars that we had repositioned behind us gave room to retreat but there were too many undead to consider that option. The number and size of the swarm less than two miles upstream was growing in our direction and soon we would no doubt be in detection range, if we weren’t already. I made the decision and instructed Saien to put the vehicles in a line in front of the repositioned cars, giving me a clear shot to the armored car. If we could not make it over the bridge without our vehicles the undead would pace us indefinitely and eventually get us.

  With only my M-4 and extra mags I sprinted back to the other side of the bridge. Leaving the hatch open I jumped into the tank and started the massive turbine engine. A Christmas tree of fault lights illuminated: “Low Turbine Temp. Hatch Open.” Pushing the throttle, I steered away from the bridge, impacting the metal guardrail. The screeching of metal was deafening even over noise from the undead.

  The sound caused an audible retort from the creatures below and I forced myself not to waste valuable time looking at the physical reaction of the mass. I took the gamble and rolled the tank onto the bridge, pushing the throttles forward to gain momentum. I could feel the bridge shake below the treads as the vehicle’s speed reached 30mph. I clipped one of the cars as I sped past Saien on a collision course with the armored car.

  Throttling back to 10mph to avoid injury, I was reminded of physics and the mass differential between the puny paperweight of the armored car and the behemoth tank. Like brothers at a poolside cookout, the war machine easily pushed the car over the guardrail and into the river.

  I made every attempt to throttle back to idle but the spin-down time of the turbines was not responsive like that of a car or truck engine. What I thought were the brakes only complicated my problem by yawing the tank at an awkward angle.

  The tank followed the armored car into the deep below.

  Time slowed to a crawl as the steel brick of a vehicle rolled over the guardrail, tipping like a seesaw. As the tank free-fell ten feet to the water’s surface, I tried to leap through the hatch. I was halfway out as the cold water rushed inside, holding me in place, taking me into the green murky abyss of the river.

  After the water flow equalized and the immediate shock of the cold water abated, I swam to the surface, following the air bubbles. I could make out the bodies in the water, their legs moving as if they were trying to walk as they floated down river. My rifle slapped my back and head as I sidestroked to the surface. When I hit the air I wiped the water out of my eyes, brought my rifle above the water and took shots at the undead around me. After killing three I noticed the river was taking me under the bridge. I screamed for Saien to move the vehicles off the bridge as I made for the shore, kicking and brushing past the corpses that I had just shot.

  After I hit the beach I could see the horde approaching the bridge. The tank crash, the gunshots and the truck noises obviously had had a hand in making them crazy. Saien had parked the truck and was making for the buggy to get it across. There was no time. Whistling loudly, I signaled him to fall back and cover me. The buggy would be an acceptable combat loss.

  Taking cover behind a deadfall on the bank, I surveyed the bridge. Carefully picking a spot between support pillars on the undead side, I lased the target. Forcing my body to stop trembling from the cold water, I held the dot on the bridge as the tone increased in frequency until it was steady. Four seconds later a five-hundred-pound bomb rocked the bridge, collapsing a section of it forever. I was sitting there surveying the damage when I was startled by a corpse hitting the rocks ten feet behind me, a half-second before I heard Saien’s shot. Saien waved and signaled me to come toward him up the bank.

  The river seemed to be full of bodies as I ran up the bank to the truck. Through my binocs I witnessed numerous joggers on the opposite bank, many with severe radiation burns to their exterior, verified by Geiger.

  Rally

  15 Nov

  0730

  Today marks the first contact with Hotel 23 personnel in over forty five days. A week has passed since our departure from the bridge, and we are currently sitting northwest of Houston, Texas. We started monitoring the CB radio at night after noticing that there was less static present. Last night Saien and I found a telephone company utility building surrounded by a high chain-link fence. After picking the padlock (with a tire tool) we spent the night inside the perimeter sleeping in the truck, listening to the fading static. At about 0100 hrs we heard the signal key but no voice. We instantly keyed back with a distress response. There was no intelligible reply for an hour but we kept transmitting.

  The signal faded in at about 0215 with: “. . . this is Gator Two on search and rescue in Sunny Side Texas over . . .”

  I replied with the Dragonfly call sign and was greeted by Corporal Ramirez, United States Marine Corps.

  “Sir, good to hear your voice. We picked up your distress signal on the ninth and departed the following day in the direction of the coordinates you relayed. Movement has been slow due to the large groups of those things we have encountered and road wreckage. What’s your position?”

  After I gave my position to Ramirez he gave me instructions to sit tight while he planned a route for the two-vehicle convoy to meet. I asked for an update over the radio of the situation at Hotel 23. The corporal replied by telling me that it was not a good idea to give the update over the radio and that there were some things happening that he needed to tell me about in person.

  After some radio silence, Corporal Ramirez came back up on the CB.

  “Sir, time for payback. I get to save an officer’s ass, just like before the world went to shit. The rally point I recommend is San Felipe, not far from your position. I propose we meet at the north end of town at the 1458 before the bridge. There is a field three hundred meters southeast of the bridge. The town is small and there should be a minimal hostile footprint.”

  I consulted my maps and agreed to the rally point, in a nonjoking manner, on the radio.

  1200

  We rallied to Corporal Ramirez at 1000 hrs. After a short firefight with a dozen or so of those things, we set up a small perimeter and debriefed for a bit in the safety provided by the LAV. While the gunner manned the crew-served weapon, Ramirez told me of the oddities going on back home. From the armored vehicle, he took out a small binder of written reports and a few photographs. I recognized John’s handwriting. Ramirez stated that a few weeks back an aircraft started appearing in the skies above Hotel 23. I immediately identified the aircraft as a Global Hawk UAV. The picture was marked as having been taken with a handheld digital camera with an 18-200mm lens and I could just make out something large mounted under the fuselage. The picture was not clear enough for me to identify the payload, and I didn’t remember the Global Hawk being weaponized.

  We continued to generally debrief and I introduced all the Marines to Saien and told them the stories of how he had saved my life more than once since we had met. The Marines seemed to be very friendly toward Saien, but he was visibly nervous around them for reasons that I could not waste time trying to discover. I also warned the Marines that there was an undead mass unlike any they had ever seen about eighty miles northeast of where we were now. We had destroyed a section of the bridge and tried to line cars up in roadblocks behind us along the roads we traveled when possible. This would slow them down but not stop them. I told them of the C-130 drop plane, dead drops and the unusual equipment that I had attained from a group known only cryptically as Remote Six.

  This prompted everyone into action, and we decided to roadblock the 1458 bridge wi
th abandoned cars before we did anything else. Using the LAV, we put four cars into position and smashed them together. This would slow any oncoming mass of undead and increase the gap between us. This bridge was too close to Hotel 23 to destroy, as it may prove logistically valuable in the future. I saw a billboard a few hundred yards away, threw Saien my binocs and asked him to climb the board and check out the area. One of the Marines went with him for backup.

  I asked everyone to pull back from the bridge a few hundred yards south. After Saien returned he told me of a dust cloud at the very edge of his visibility to the north. We decided that this could mean the mass of undead or it could simply be weather. We were roughly fifteen miles from Eagle Lake Airfield, according to the map in the LAV. Incidentally, we were also close to Interstate 10. Before nightfall we’ll attempt to cross the I-10 threshold and head south a few more miles to add a safety buffer from the interstate.

  2100

  It had been seven months since I had been on foot in this area of Eagle Lake. Not much has changed. The moon illuminated the road and abandoned cars and airport tower and also the more frightening things in the dark. Earlier today when we caught sight of the I-10 overpass in the distance, we sped up, weaving to avoid the wrecks. The LAV was moving at 60mph in front of us and we were keeping up. As we roared under the overpass I heard a thump hit the truck and looked back. One of those creatures had walked off the overpass, hit the closed tailgate of the truck and tumbled behind into the ditch. As I kept driving more of them fell from the overpass. Some got to their feet and some didn’t.

  After we put I-10 far behind us, things got a little easier. We stayed on county road 3013 until we were on the outskirts of Eagle Lake, very near the airfield. I consulted the notes I had on the area and we decided to convoy into the airfield complex, set up a perimeter for a couple of hours and then plan the rest of the short trip back home. Upon arrival at the airfield and exploration of the hangar, I saw the dark smudges of the remains of the creatures I had killed months ago still under a blue tarp in the corner. The summer heat had really done a number on the remains. Using my flashlight, I could see the deformed copper-jacketed bullets that I had fired sitting in the rotting liquid goo of the dead.