Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse (Book 3): Salvation

by Scott, Joshua Jared

  “There are not enough people to support that level of industry,” commented the captain, “and most of what limited high tech we can produce is military or communication based in nature, none of which approaches pre-zombie level.”

  That was no surprise either. You know, if not for the speed of the collapse, we wouldn’t have been able to recover all that we did. There were virtually no riots, few cases where people began to horde supplies or fight others to take theirs. For the most part, the vast majority of the human race was dead within days, leaving their belongings lying wherever, ready to be picked up by anyone who passed by.

  “I will send what we can,” he told Briana.

  She didn’t respond. My wife was probably afraid to. The bouts of nausea had grown severe. This sort of thing had happened before, and hopefully everything would calm down in a few more days. But how she wished for a pill that would fix everything, or at least make it a little better.

  “We can bring the prisoners to the airstrip,” I announced. “It is going to be a pain in the ass, and these people will be tossed in the back of trucks and locked in. I’m not going to worry about comfort or humane living conditions, not for a drive that should take less than a day. Make sure the people coming to collect them are aware that they might have to delay long enough to get the prisoners cleaned up and fed.”

  “You’re not going to feed them?” asked the sergeant, surprised.

  “There’ll be water and whatever we recover from the island, probably fresh baked bread, if they are at all like us and make it each morning, or maybe vegetables. Since we are only going to catch and move them to the airstrip, I see no reason to plan beyond that. Worse comes to worse, I will give them some of our supplies, but, if so, it’ll be minimal. I’m not serving three nutritious meals a day.”

  “Having them weak, hungry, and scared may make it easier on the personnel transporting them to Hawaii,” said Renee. “You can also use the situation to play good cop / bad cop. That may help with integration as well.”

  “Fucking starve them on principal,” laughed Lizzy, “not for logic’s sake.”

  Marcus looked as if he agreed. I likely would think the same if our positions were reversed.

  “We will get them to the pickup point alive and without any damage beyond what’s necessary,” I clarified, “but I’m not going much beyond that. They don’t deserve it.”

  Interlude – Carter & Carlson’s Story

  Old men can be so trying at times. They love to play dominoes. They play with the grandkids. They take lots of naps. Yes, they are super difficult to deal with, so much drama, so much stress. Then we have men like Carter and Carlson who take these issues to an all new level. In case you’re getting names mixed up, Carlson is our resident demolition expert who after leaving the military spent several decades working for various mining companies keeping his skills sharp and up to date. Carter is the uncle of Mary’s friend, Michael.

  Having served in Vietnam and gotten out of that country mostly intact, the pair quickly formed a friendship which was centered on war stories and drinking. It’s as good a basis for a relationship as any other, and the two were soon inseparable with Carter, to the extent his severe arthritis and bad leg allowed, helping Carlson in his duties. Unfortunately, Carlson’s expertise was not required all that often, giving him plenty of time with which to get into trouble.

  “Where we going?” asked Carter. He took a swig from the bottle he was holding.

  “Pass me that.”

  “You’re driving.”

  “So what?” demanded Carlson. “Not like anyone is around to see.”

  That made sense, and there was plenty more, so Carter took another gulp of the beer and handed it over.

  “We’re going up to Crazy Horse.”

  “I saw that on the way in, big statue. Rushmore’s better.”

  “Crazy Horse would have been if they’d finished it, and it had trailers and shacks full of dynamite.”

  “Oh?” Carter liked the sound of that. “We going to be blowing stuff up?”

  “Not a chance. Jacob had me inventory everything right after we moved here. It’s all in the valley in an underground bunker we’d dug. That’s for safety.” Carlson ran a hand through his short, white hair. “I don’t have the keys and can’t even experiment anymore.”

  “That’s a crying shame.”

  “But I got us something special that needs testing. It’s in back of the truck.”

  “What’s that?”

  “One of them new rocket launchers.”

  Carter chortled, not sure if he should believe Carlson or not. “No way Bruce would have let you take it.”

  “I didn’t say he let me.” The words were slurred. The pair had been drinking since early morning. “I was using initiative so the testing wouldn’t have to wait.”

  “Initiative is good. Not enough of it nowadays. The kids and youngsters are all lazy, just waiting to be told what to do.”

  Carlson nodded his agreement. There were very few in the Black Hills capable of taking care of business without getting orders from up above. It was sad.

  “There’s an empty shed off by a bunch of rocks. We’ll test it there. It’s empty.”

  “We should double check,” said Carter. “Wouldn’t want to blow up someone on accident.” He burped. “Gotta be responsible.”

  * * *

  Upon reaching the spot, Carlson drove to the shack in question, peered out the driver’s side window, decided no one was around, and headed up the service road that led to the top of the Crazy Horse Monument.

  “This is far enough,” he said, cutting the engine.

  Carter took a final swig from the bottle, emptying it, before he clambered out. The loose gravel shifted under his feet, and he tumbled to the ground.

  “Shit!”

  “You okay?” asked Carlson.

  “Mostly. Help me up.”

  The grizzled vet assisted his companion in getting back to his feet, this taking longer than it should even with Carter having a bum leg. Carlson was finding it somewhat difficult to maintain his own balance.

  “There you go. Now, don’t fall over again.”

  Carter scowled. “Should’ve brought my cane.”

  “Don’t need it. We aren’t walking anywhere.” Carlson retrieved another beer from their cooler. “Here you go. Let me get the SMAW.”

  The shoulder launched multipurpose assault weapon was essentially an infantry fired rocket similar to the bazookas used in World War II. The maximum range against a tank is around five hundred fifty yards. There were no tanks for them to blow holes in, and this was unlikely to change. It was one of the reasons the weapons had been placed in storage after they were delivered by the island government.

  “Looks heavy,” observed Carter.

  Carlson was struggling to get it in position.

  “You need help?”

  “I got it. I’m just not as fit as I used to be.”

  That earned him a laugh. The pair wouldn’t say so when around others, but both were feeling their age. The primitive living conditions, such as residing in log cabins with no heat or air conditioning and limited electricity, did nothing to help.

  “Don’t miss,” cautioned Carter.

  “I won’t be missing.”

  Carlson managed to brace himself by leaning against the side of the pickup. He glanced to his side to ensure the back of the rocket launcher was not obstructed by anything – that would have been bad – and lined up the sights.

  “You ready?”

  Following another sip of the homemade brew, Carter nodded. “I am ready. How loud is this thing?”

  “Don’t know.”

  Both men found out a second later. They were also pleasantly surprised to see that Carlson, who’d never touched a SMAW before and had not fired anything similar since the early seventies, had struck his target. The weapon was made with quality and ease of use in mind, and the manual that came with it was simple and straightforwar
d.

  “We know it works,” stated Carter. “Got splinters all over.”

  “Not as good as what I did to the raiders a few years back. I tell you about that?”

  “Yep, a good dozen times.”

  “Well, I plan on telling you again. How many more beers we have?”

  “Seven or eight.”

  Carter drew an arm back as he prepared to throw his empty bottle, but stopped when Carlson shrieked.

  “We gotta take that back to be washed out and sterilized.”

  “Oops.” The giggle was amusing coming from someone his age. “Forgot all about that.”

  While crafting a decent beer was not at all difficult, manufacturing new bottles was beyond our capabilities. Therefore, all bottles deemed suitable, meaning those that could be easily sealed, were reused after being washed and disinfected. Plenty of extras were sitting in old U-Hauls in Custer, which was the only town of note inside the Black Hills, but Jacob and Briana still stressed the need to conserve. Having shards of glass lying in what they considered their backyard was unacceptable as well.

  “Be more responsible,” lectured Carlson. “Now, get me one.”

  * * *

  “Briana,” began Renee. Carlson and Carter were sitting on a bench behind her, holding each other upright. “You are going to love this one.”

  “How much did they drink?” she asked.

  “Only two or three,” answered Carter.

  “Dozen,” finished Carlson.

  Both men broke into laughter.

  “What did they do? Shouldn’t they have been taken to their cabins to sleep it off, or do they need to visit the hospital?”

  “Those two should be in the stockade,” replied Renee, “and they will be going there shortly. Remember that explosion I called in about, the one our watch near the southern border heard?”

  Briana nodded. Then she began to glare at the pair of vets. “Them?”

  “We are now short one rocket launcher.”

  “How did they get it? Don’t we have security in place?”

  “Not enough,” mumbled Carlson. He began to whisper to his friend who broke into hysterics.

  “Want to deal with it, or should I find Jacob?”

  “I’ll take care of it.” Briana looked at them again and sighed. “There really isn’t much to do. Go ahead and toss them in the lockup and keep them there for a week. Find out how they got hold of the weapon too. Then get with Bruce and make sure it can’t happen again.”

  “Will do.”

  “No alcohol of any sort for either. Let’s just put them on bread and water, maybe some vegetables. See if Steph knows what kinds they hate the most.”

  Renee grinned. “I’ll see to that right away. Only a week?”

  “A week for now. I’ll reconsider before they get out. It’s a shame they’re both too old to send off on work duty.”

  “Not too old to show a lady a good time,” called Carlson. “That’s all that matters.”

  “Damn straight,” agreed Carter. He lost his balance and fell off the bench, still laughing.

  “Two weeks, Renee. Let’s make it two at the very least.”

  Chapter IX

  Going to war, going to war, I was going off to war. This was getting old, but there weren’t a whole lot of alternatives. The Brotherhood, to the north by Lake Sakakawea, had to be dealt with. They’d killed three of ours without cause or justification. Correction, they had a justification, but their reason for feeding people to zombies, forcing them to turn, was not only irrational, it was downright evil. These nut jobs could not be left to their own devices, and when I was finished, they would be a footnote in history, just like the raiders.

  Traveling with me was Mary. Taking her into danger had always been a point of contention between me and Briana, but following her seventeenth birthday the arguments against her tagging along had diminished significantly. Did this lessen the danger? Of course not. Mary might very well be injured or killed. So many others had suffered that fate. Even so, when you came right down to it, the girl was an asset. I depended on my daughter, and the odds of the rest of us getting out alive would diminish if Mary was absent.

  The twins were coming as well. Briana, true to form, instructed them, in no uncertain terms and in my presence, to do whatever was necessary to keep both me and Mary alive. She then went further and told them that I could not countermand this order, barring some extreme crisis, and any attempts on my part to do so were to be disregarded. Under our settlement’s charter, Briana and I could veto the other’s decisions. So, technically, I had the legal right to order Tara and Dale to do otherwise. However, that would be pointless. Those two were not going to go against Briana, so I would simply accept my wife’s decision and thus maintain the illusion of authority.

  Rounding out the leadership team was Marcus, the only person we had with direct knowledge of the area; Renee, who was acting as my second in command; and Xavier and Ronnie, who would be serving as our pilots. As far as troops go, we have three squads of ten each. With the command team, that took us to thirty eight total. Thirty eight men and women marching off to face several hundred. It was what we’d come to expect. Still, this time we would have the element of surprise, coupled with our greater firepower and experience.

  Lizzy was to remain in the Black Hills, managing security and making sure the people were kept safe. She was rather unhappy and let us all know, repeatedly, that there wasn’t a single damn reason why she shouldn’t come along. I responded by saying it was Renee’s turn and that I needed her to stick close to Briana in case anything unexpected happened. That didn’t help, so I shifted tactics and told her she was our reserve and would be expected to fly in should assistance be required. That didn’t help much either.

  Michael was staying in the Black Hills as well. He’d volunteered, and the lad was capable. However, his training wasn’t anywhere near complete. Additionally, I felt he was getting a little too close to Mary, and much too fast. While I liked him just fine, some apart time would be best for both. It would also keep Mary focused on the job at hand and not worrying about him getting shot or killed.

  Harvey was denied a part, and he complained almost as much as Lizzy. Still, as before, I had to keep some experienced, capable people at home, and he definitely qualified. Tim Myers also volunteered, but he was still on the punishment work details. I had spoken with his father, Alan, who assured me that Tim was behaving. There had been no issues of any sort since I laid down the law, and I hoped the matter was done with.

  As to the squad members accompanying me, Briana and I made the selection based on which individuals we thought capable of killing, not necessarily in the heat of combat but killing in cold blood. This had the potential to get very messy, and while everyone pretty much hated The Brotherhood, there wasn’t the same long history as with the raiders. Slaughtering them would be more difficult, psychologically speaking.

  There was a little grumbling about the entire force being composed of Black Hills folk, but that was simple enough to squelch. This was our fight. It was our people who were drugged and fed to the zombies. That made it our responsibility. Of lesser concern, but still valid, was the fact the Yellowstone militia had suffered far greater casualties. They really didn’t have the men to spare right now.

  When it came to weapons, we were armed to the teeth. Each man carried a M-16, half of which included grenade launchers, one or more pistols, and a sniper rifle. A few preferred hunting rifles, which served the same purpose even if they did not appear quite as deadly at first glance. Three SMAWs were also taken. Now that we knew how effective they were, I decided to give them a real test. On a side note, I’m willing to bet the two weeks Briana gave Carlson and Carter gets increased. If they were younger, she probably would’ve had them whipped.

  For vehicles, we had several tractor trailers – these were to move the prisoners – with Marcus driving one. He was a truck driver by trade and could handle that duty, although his injuries would keep hi
m out of the fight itself. One of the rigs hauled a flatbed to which a commercial helicopter was strapped, the same converted news chopper we used in the battle for Yellowstone. This ensured we could quickly evacuate any wounded to the Black Hills. Accompanying us were both Cobras. These spent most of the time in the air scouting the roads. Our Pave Hawk had been left in Baltis in case it was needed there, or to shuttle Lizzy and Harvey over should we call for reinforcements.

  * * *

  “What do you want to do?” asked Renee.

  I hesitated, staring at the map which rested on the hood of my Jeep Wrangler.

  “The zombies will reach us in the next twenty or thirty minutes,” she pressed.

  “How many? Best estimate.”

  “Xavier and Ronnie are in agreement that we have over eight hundred moving down the road, straight for us, strung out for a distance of roughly a mile and a half.”

  “We can take them,” commented Mary, “especially if they’re that spread out.”

  “Or we can have the choppers lead them away,” I countered, “although there aren’t any really good roads in this area. They might drift back or circle around. We might run into them a second time, maybe while we’re leaving the lake.”

  “I say we put them down,” suggested Renee. “We move the vehicles out of the way. Then we establish a firing line and shoot them as they approach. Mary is correct. The way they’re positioned means it shouldn’t ever be more than fifty or so at a time.”

  We could handle that, and there was more than enough ammunition on hand to prevent this diversion from hindering our upcoming assault.

  “We’ll pull back to the curve for the actual shooting.” The spot was a half mile behind us. “There’s that big grassy area. We can make use of it so the bodies aren’t piled up on the highway. Stash the trucks and vehicles here.” I tapped a nearby intersection. “Leave a few guards.”

  “Woo Hoo!” exclaimed Mary. “We get to do a zombie hunt.”