The Shores Of The Dead: Omnibus Edition

by Josh Hilden

  “Umm, we’re heading north. I talked to my Father when everything started, and he is going to meet us in the Upper Peninsula.” She seemed hesitant to give any details on her destination, so Lisa tried a different approach.

  “If you have a destination in mind, why are you here and not on the road? Things have been pretty clear outside of the cities. I would have thought you’d be making good time.”

  “The water pump on my car went out. We walked the fifteen miles to Hession. We have been trying to figure out what to do next. They are really nice here and it’s pretty secure, but I need to get to White River.”

  From the way she said that, Lisa was sure that she had not realized she’d just let something important slip. Before her deployment to Afghanistan, when she’d just been a Lieutenant, Lisa had done a six month tour at the White River Facility.

  Trying to sound casual she looked over the potted meat on biscuit sandwich that was better than anything the Army had served in the field and said, “If you wanted to you could come with us. We are heading to White Harbor, and as long as you are willing to pull your share of the load, we’d love to have you two with us.” She hoped to God that it sounded normal to Nancy’s ears, because all Lisa could think was, I wonder what you look like in candlelight.

  “Are you sure it wouldn’t be a problem?” Nancy asked and Lisa knew the tone. It was the same one that dubious villagers in Afghanistan had used when the Army had promised to protect them.

  “Can you shoot that?” Lisa asked gesturing to the .357 clipped to Nancy’s hip.

  “Dad was a Ranger. He made sure that I could use it and just about anything else you wanted to test me on.” She grinned and Lisa felt heat rising up her body at the sight of it. It felt good, it had been a long time since a woman made her feel that way, but it was damn inconvenient and distracting as hell.

  “Rangers lead the way.” Lisa said and smiled.

  Nancy looked at her asked, “Are you in the Army?”

  “Reserves, Medical Corp, I did two tours in Afghanistan.” She could still hear the pride in her own voice. “I’m a Captain,” God, why did she feel like she had to impress this woman who’s closest experience with girl on girl romance was probably watching The L Word.

  “That’s kind of cool,” Nancy said, “I never really appreciated all of the stuff my dad taught me until this happened.” There was no need to explain further.

  “Why don’t I wait while you two gather up your stuff, and I’ll take you to where we are bivouacked.” Lisa said as she downed the horrible lukewarm coffee.

  Nancy nodded and Lisa tried to ignore the tears shimmering unshed in her eyes.

  That was two days ago. Now the Wolverine Caravan was lined up in front of the closed northern gate of The Compound waiting to leave. Nancy and Charlie were as welcome as anyone at first, but when Nancy was assigned to the supply department of the group, everyone wondered how they had gotten along without her. She’d been an accountant before the rising of the Dead, and her skills transferred easily to her new task. By the time they were ready to roll out, Gabriel Shady, the head of the supply department and formerly the manager of the University of Michigan food court had gratefully taken the number two position to Nancy.

  Lisa talked with Estelle as she walked up the length of the Caravan inspecting the vehicles. Sam already had done a head count and inspection, but Lisa liked to look things over herself before heading out.

  “You are all welcome to stay.” Estelle was saying for the umpteenth time. Lisa knew that she desperately wanted more fighters to man the defenses for when the inevitable swarms of the Risen Dead worked their way up from the cities of the south.

  “And you know that you are all more than welcome to join us.” Lisa replied.

  They both looked at each other and laughed. They knew that neither wanted to take the other up on their offer. They hugged, and then Lisa climbed into the bus command vehicle. It had spent the entire time in Hession being retrofitted to better suit its new existence. She turned and pulled a gas station map out of her front jacket pocket and handed it to Estelle.

  “I’ve marked the approximate route that we will be taking, and all of the frequencies that we will be monitoring have been written in the margins. If things get too hot for you and your people down here you can always join us.”

  Estelle took the map without saying a word, and slipped it into her own jacket as the bus’s door closed. When the caravan was ready, the big gate was moved out of the way by a pair of bulldozers, and they headed off to the North. More than a few of the residents of the Hession Compound wondered if they should have joined them as the last of the vehicles, all repainted for better camouflage, disappeared in the distance and the gate was seated back in place.

  7

  The Mackinaw Bridge (Northern Tip of the Lower Peninsula)

  October 31, 2012 AD (Day Fourteen - Halloween)

  5:35am EST

  The sun had not quite risen in the east and the air was cold and sharp. Looking through the binoculars, it was clear that the Michigan National Guardsmen put up a hell of a fight at the bridge before being overrun by the dead. Armored trucks, tanks, and infantry fighting vehicles were scattered all around the barricade erected in a 100 yard arc around the bridge’s southern anchorage.

  Two semi-trailers had been used as a rolling gate to close off interstate 75 and create a choke point to control the traffic. There’d been radio chatter in the first days of the rising that the state government was relocating to Escanaba on the southern shore of the Upper Peninsula in an effort to turn the entire UP into a safe zone.

  They failed.

  Stalled cars choked the interstate for dozens of miles south of the bridge and hundreds, maybe thousands, of the dead milled about the area. The bridge itself was clear of all but military vehicles and very few of the dead were in immediate evidence.

  “I don’t know Doc,” Rich said handing the binoculars back to Lisa, “My people said it was bad and I guess they weren’t kidding.” He had pride in the Scouts. Getting the Caravan to the bridge via dozens of back roads and access routes with a very limited loss of life made his feeling justified.

  “We have to get across and keep the barricade in place.” Lisa said absently. She’d been sleeping poorly and the dreams were getting worse. To add to her burden, they’d lost the signals from Hession two days ago.

  There was nothing that could be done for the people down there. She needed to put it out of her mind and hope that if they were overrun some of them would follow the Wolverines North. They’d made the offer enough times during their stay.

  “I know boss,” he said, “But I don’t think you are going to like the idea that I have.” He was grinning as he said it. She knew that he wanted to try out that theory of his. Rich had not shut up about it since Hession. He theorized that the dead only followed vehicles until they lost sight of them. But that they followed people on foot relentlessly until they were run down or the dead person was stopped by external means.

  The Scouts had all taken to the idea and been pushing for Lisa and Sam to let them try it. They would send half a dozen volunteers out to make as much noise as possible, jog ahead of the Dead until they were far enough away that they wouldn’t be a problem, and then the scouts would run like hell to rejoin the Caravan.

  “It’s not like there is a better idea, boss. We lead those things a good mile away and then high tail it back. You guys move the barricade and get the Caravan onto the bridge. Then we head north. Easy as pie, besides don’t you want to get that tanker truck rolling?” He sounded excited, it was at times like these that Lisa was reminded that he was still only a kid at heart. But he was right. The National Guard fuel tanker parked near the barricade was worth the risk of hanging round the bridge for a while.

  “OK,” she said with some resignation. “But we are going to need to have enough time to salvage as much of that hardware over there as we can.” She gave him a hard look, “Can you and your crew do it?” sh
e asked.

  “You know it boss,” he said, and he had to fight to keep quiet lest he attract unwanted company from the road.

  “Go pick six people and get them ready. They are going out there to distract and not fight. Make sure that they know that.” The last thing she wanted was one of those kids thinking that they were Rambo, and getting eaten because they were shooting when they should have been hoofing it.

  “Yes ma’am,” he said and hustled back to the caravan to get ready. It was going to be a long day.

  8

  7:20am EST

  The six of them were dressed lightly with a pistol on their hip and a “Fang” on their back. They looked eager. They might have been college students 15 days ago, but they had seen and done enough to give them the maturity of people twice their age. Lisa marveled that none of them seemed terrified, she had seen danger before the Rise of the Dead and she still had the jitters whenever they had to fight. They might be scared on the inside, but externally they were calm and collected.

  “We need you give us as much time as possible to transit the barricade and search the area. But that does not mean that you are expendable.” She looked each of them directly in the eye before she continued.

  She needed them to know that she was serious. “Optimally we would like half an hour once we have penetrated the barricade to do this, but realistically 15 minutes is the minimum we think we will need to at least gain the bridge and get supplies.”

  There was some murmuring from the rest of the Wolverines as they listened to this. Lisa demanded that all plans be openly discussed if they involved the entire Caravan, but none of the six Scouts said a word. The most they did was nod in her direction.

  “Alright people, take your positions. When you see the flare go up, it’s time to run.” She was shocked when all six of them snapped very close approximations of military salutes before they trotted to the brush at the edge of the Interstate.

  “We are all becoming soldiers now.” Sam said from behind her.

  “It shouldn’t be this way Sam. Those kids should be worried about grades and whether or not they are going to get laid at the Halloween party tonight. Not how to go about being bait for a horde of the dead without becoming a snack.” She slammed her fist onto a tree but did not cry out.

  “If it weren’t for you, Doc, these kids would all be dead and walking around right now. You took charge in Ann Arbor and got us out of there. They would all charge naked and unarmed into the dead for you.” She did not know what to say.

  “Sam … I’m not worthy of that kind of loyalty.” She was quiet, and she did not look at this man who was a true friend.

  “If you are referring to what happened in Afghanistan that gives you such terrible nightmares, I don’t need to know. I was a Marine in Iraq in the first war, and I know the kinds of things that happen in war.” He hesitated for a moment and she could almost hear the wheels turning in his head before he continued. “If, however, you are referring to the fact that you prefer the private company of the fairer sex, and that it seems that you have a powerful crush on our Caravan Quartermaster.”

  She sucked in a sharp cold breath, this was the thing she’d feared for so many years, being outed and having her friends reject her.

  “Then you need to grow up, everyone knows it and nobody gives a shit. Or if they do, they wouldn’t dare say anything, the Scouts would feed them to the Dead if they did.” He finished.

  She turned and stared at him, the bastard was grinning like the cat that had gotten the cream. “Why didn’t you tell me that you knew?” She demanded.

  “Same reason nobody else’s has I suspect, it’s none of my business who you sleep with.” Now he looked serious as he looked through the field glasses at the bridge, “If we are going to do this Doc, I think that we need to do it now.”

  “Alright, let’s saddle up and give the signal.” She replied. They headed back down into the gulley where the Wolverine Caravan was parked on a dirt trail.

  “And Doc, when we make camp you might want to think about talking to Nancy.” He laughed at the expression on her face as he headed to the communications truck. Sometimes, she thought, he could be a real jerk.

  9

  8:00am EST

  The flare flew into the air and burst in a shower of green and orange sparks. The dead walking around the outside of the barricades and amongst the silent cars looked upward in fascination. Lisa made a note to herself on seeing their reaction to stockpile fireworks, and see if they could be used as a tool to distract the dead. That was a project for after they had gained “Big Mac” and made the crossing.

  The six scouts broke cover and began running in the general direction of the dead. They barraged the corpses with a litany of taunts and jeers as they approached to get their attention.

  “Hey pus bags how about some fresh meat!”

  “Hey you stinky mother fucker come get me!”

  “Hey you dickless sons of bitches come and get some!”

  As a mass, the dead began to moan and shamble toward the jogging forms antagonizing them. Lisa experienced a few seconds of terror when it seemed to her that one of the scouts, a former U of M Hockey player, was getting too close and that the rotting corpse of a soldier was going to get him. But at the last second the young man broke to the left and began the journey south and away from the Caravan.

  Lisa kept glancing at her watch as the minutes crawled by and the groans and moans of the dead receded to the south. Aside from the ones trapped inside of vehicles, and the few that were too damaged to walk, the area was devoid of the dead that still walked. Their absence revealed the scope of what the National Guardsmen had done. There were thousands of fallen corpses spread in a thick band around the barricade.

  “Let’s roll people, and lets be quick about it.” She said into her radio. The vehicles of the Caravan headed for the mouth of the bridge. The speed of the Caravan was limited to that of the slowest vehicle, specifically “The Bitch” which usually ran point for the group plowing through most obstacles. The Scouts sprinted forward on their dirt bikes and motorcycles to secure the area at the mouth of the bridge. Eliminating the few stragglers that were still in the area in the process.

  “They’re getting better at this.” Lisa said as she watched the 20 Scouts efficiently dispatch the Dead and search for any surprises.

  “Rich was a SEAL before he enrolled at U of M. He knows what he’s doing.” Sam said from his position watching the action through the roof hatch.

  When the Bitch reached the barricade the driver lowered the oversized snow plow and pushed the riot control walls and over turned semi-trailers out of the way. The sound of the plow ripping through the metal was loud. Lisa had weighed the option of taking longer to do the job quieter and decided that fast and messy was better. The vehicles of the Caravan followed onto the bridge and started toward the Upper Peninsula. Their orders were to get within a 100 yards of the northern mouth of the bridge and wait for the rear guards and salvage parties to catch-up, The Bitch led the way to the Promised Land of the UP.

  10

  8:10am EST

  Lisa watched from the roof of the bus that Rich had dubbed “Wolverine One”. He may be useful as all get out, but sometimes the young man drove Lisa crazy. Below, 30 of her people were stripping the former Michigan National Guard post of all useful materials. Food, medical supplies, weapons, ammunition, body armor, fuel, communications equipment, and uniforms were loaded into trucks and vans as fast as possible. As the process continued the Scouts that had acted as human bait began to return to the Caravan. In the distance the moans of the Dead could be heard on the wind. Lisa figured they had maybe 10 minutes until the vanguard reached them.

  “Alright folks we need to get moving, everyone saddle up and head out. Pat, let’s get the barricade back into place.” She indicated for Pat Rowland to bring the Bitch back around and begin blocking the mouth of the bridge so the Dead couldn’t follow them.

  Two of the abandoned Hum
mers were jump started and fueled from the tanker which started on the first turn. The Hummers both had 50 caliber machine guns mounted on them and were armored. There were blood splatters on the sides and hood, and it was obvious that the gunners had not met a gentle fate. The vehicles all began the trek north strung out along the bridge.

  The cold October winds were causing the massive structure to sway back and forth.