“We’ll be right back,” Tommy said to the rest of the group as he and Justin went out the front door, “fix yourselves something to eat. I’ll take a hot dog if you don’t mind.”
“But there’s no power,” said Eric to deaf ears as the door shut behind them, “what are we going to make? What the hell was he thinking?”
“Obviously there is food that isn’t only cooked in a microwave,” I replied, “he has a gas stove, so there’s plenty of options for making something to eat.”
Eric looked confused. I wasn’t sure if it was the word ‘stove’ that was foreign to him, or if the fact that food could be made without a microwave was something he had a difficult time comprehending. Before I had a chance to start Eric’s cooking lesson, the power had come back on. Eric’s home economics course would have to wait.
Tommy and Justin returned and said that they had not run into any zombie trouble, but heard their shrieks in the not too far distance. Tommy was happy he was able to get the generator running but voiced his concern about the noise it was producing. While it may not have been proven that the zombies would be attracted by sound, there was a definite threat of looters that would come looking for supplies at a home with such an elaborate whole house electrical back-up system.
Justin took it upon himself to work as a short order cook, seeing to it that Tommy got his hot dog and everyone else was fed. Eric opted to microwave a HotPocket, which validated his need for electricity. Tommy even broke out some dessert, which amounted to Gummi Bears and M&Ms. Justin, in a sense of entitlement for being the chef of the day, opted for majority stock in the gummies. Claire and I took clean up duty when everyone was finished, and it allowed me the moment I needed to address my behavior in the basement.
“Claire, I want to apologize,” I started off as I rinsed off the plates, “the way I reacted to Eric in the basement was inappropriate. I just want you to know that I want to make sure you are safe. It’s just that I…we…have lost so much so fast. I shouldn’t have lost it with Eric and I’m sorry for that.”
“I know, it’s okay,” Claire replied, “I lost my parents when I was six and my papa had been raising me ever since. I remember less and less of them every day, my papa was all I had left. He kept their memories alive by telling me stories about them all the time. Now that I have lost him, I don’t know what to do. I heard what you said about joining your wife. I don’t want to die, but I feel like I can’t live without my papa.” Claire began crying again and I walked over to her, hugging the child as she wept.
“I miss Kate too,” I said as I held her while she sobbed, “I am so sorry to hear about your parents. Things sure are getting ugly in the world, but I promise that you won’t be alone. You’re with us now and I’ll do everything I can to keep you safe.”
“I know,” Claire said as she looked up at me with tears streaming from her big brown eyes, “I just don’t know how long we can keep this up before they get us. It seems like there’s more and more of them every day, and less of us.”
“I know Claire, which is why it’s important we go out and find more people. We need to get out there and save as many folks as we can. I am sure we will find a place we can secure well enough to call home.”
I hugged Claire tight and we finished cleaning up the dishes together. While I may have lost my wife and unborn child, I had an obligation of guardianship since we had rescued Claire. She was obviously no stranger to loss and could handle her bow well enough to keep her alive. I wanted to make sure that there was a safe balance of keeping her safe and letting her help us survive.
We walked into the living room together and Tommy, Eric and Justin were busy huddling over a map of the southeast area of Michigan. Tommy was shading out some areas with a red colored pencil as Eric and Justin looked on.
“What’s up?” I asked as Claire and I sat down.
“When I came up earlier and got on the ham radio, I received some information on where there are people mobilizing. Some are setting up safe camps and quarantine zones. There have been some other areas confirmed as hot or danger zones due to the high concentration of zombies. I’m marking off the confirmed controlled safe zones in green and the danger areas in red.” Tommy advised.
“What about the government,” I asked, “and the military? Aren’t they helping? What about all the earlier reports about the CDC and their efforts?”
Tommy looked at me, looked over to Claire, and returned his gaze to me.
“Tommy,” I continued, “if there’s anything we need now it’s honesty and openness. Claire is as deep into this as we are, and at her age we need to keep her informed and a part of this group. She is beyond growing up quickly and needs to be part of the discussion.”
Claire looked at me and smiled, appreciative of vouching for her ability to function as an active member of our group. Tommy took a deep breath and sighed before dropping a bombshell on us.
“You have all seen firsthand how quickly people turn, right?” Tommy began as we all nodded in the affirmative, “Well…the information I am getting is that the virus has spread so rapidly through the military and government operations out in the field that they don’t exist anymore - at least not technically.”
“What do you mean? There’s no military and no government?” asked Eric.
“We have the most powerful military power in the world! There’s no way a bunch of zombies could wipe out our armed forces!” Justin added.
“It’s all about sheer numbers of the enemy,” Tommy continued, “there are simply more of them than there are of us.” Tommy went on in detail as to what happened, as the last bit of new information had indicated that the CDC was acting quickly. The response appeared to be too little, too late.
While the CDC was concentrated on responding to containment of highly populated epicenters in which the virus was running rampant (mainly densely populated urban areas), this resulted in them being literally surrounded by the enemy. As the CDC and military went in to a major city with responsive measures of containment and control, the virus spread outward from their focal point. Like the spokes on a bicycle tire spreading outward, so did the virus. As the virus spread, the infected then collapsed back inward on the responders and the only living human flesh they could feed off of – those highly concentrated in a position at the center of that wheel.
Each city was falling as rapidly as the next, and as reinforcements arrived they were overcome by the sheer numbers and voracity of the undead. It was a vicious cycle that crippled our domestic armed services. As Rome fell in a day, so did our own government and for the most part, the military. There was limited organized command of the military, which had requested reinforcements from those who were previously stationed overseas. Those who were able to flee from their overseas assignments, as well as the surviving domestic forces, were all ordered to ‘fall back’ to one place – the Hawaiian Islands.
Tommy explained that the remaining military quickly shifted their strategy and response to the virus. They were realizing that they had suffered an epic domestic defeat and that they would not recover from through the use of conventional war fighting tactics. Hence, they ordered all personnel to respond to the Hawaiian Islands. It was a tactical maneuver that would allow them two advantages. First, they would have enough personnel and armament to secure a major base of operations in order to regroup. Secondly, they would have a natural border to ensure that enemy which had overcome the homeland was unable to attack - the Pacific Ocean.
This was a military defeat our armed forces had never anticipated. It was now every man, woman and child for themselves. I couldn’t help but reflect on all of the Second Amendment arguments that raged on before this had happened. I had only hoped that a people who became so comfortable with never being prey, would now find a way to survive as the hunted.
All of us sat their silently, taking in what Tommy had told us and realizing the severity of our situation. The silence was broken by Justin, who stood up suddenly and yelled out “Wolv
erines!” while holding his AR-15 up over his head. We all got a good laugh out of the Red Dawn reference, but Justin appeared a bit let down. I think he was actually serious in trying to motivate everyone with a battle-cry, but it actually had more impact as much needed comic relief.
Chapter 3
We began our planning to venture out and search for survivors. Tommy, Eric and Justin were transplants from other states. Tommy was originally from Mississippi, while Eric and Justin had their roots in Illinois. Claire didn’t have any living relatives left that she knew of. She stated that she was an only child when her parents had died, left to be raised by her grandfather. If there was any other family out there, she wasn’t aware of it. That left me as the only one having friends and family locally. It was agreed we would start here and work our way elsewhere.
I could relate to Claire in the sense of being an only child, and my parents had passed several years ago. While I didn’t have any immediate family I was close to, I did have a few cousins that I kept in touch with. They were scattered all over the tri-county area and a few had entered the field of law enforcement as I had. They were the ones I was most confident had the skills and abilities to survive this horror. Our chances for survival would be greater if we could connect with them and bring them on board. My first priority would be to get to those who I knew wouldn’t fair as well.
I had received a text from my cousin, Jamie, shortly after Kate had passed away. He was working in Downtown Detroit at the Gentleman’s Club as a DJ. Jamie was a retired Detroit fireman, on disability from an injury he had sustained while fighting a warehouse fire a few years back. I’m sure there are worse jobs to have after taking an early retirement.
Jamie had texted that he was trapped in the club, with no means of escape. I am sure that he was hoping that I could somehow get to him. He must have figured I was called into work for the outbreak and was close to the downtown area. He probably called the Detroit PD, but even in the days before the virus hit their calls for service overextended their ability to respond in a timely manner. They were the most unappreciated and overworked men and women in the thin blue line, but they did the best with what they had.
I texted him back at the time telling him to stay put and to stay alive. I didn’t get into details about what had transpired in recent weeks. I hadn’t given him much of chance of survival based on the report Tommy gave of how the urban areas had fallen so hard.
This morning I got another text – “Still here. Still waiting.” The unspoken urgency in the message told me that we needed to make our way to him. I didn’t want to call him, taking the text messages as an indicator that he was trying to be as discreet as possible and couldn’t risk the making a voice call. Seeing as the power had just gone out at Tommy’s, I was hoping that the cell towers were still working. I was thankful that my phone indicated that I still had phone service. I took a moment to respond “OTW” and to my astonishment he actually replied, “K”.
The first order of business was to reinforce Tommy’s truck and the SUV for long trips. I don’t care what movie you may have seen where cars were able to hit people and carry on without a scratch, but the reality is that striking any object does some damage. I can tell you from firsthand experience as cop who had seen his share of pedestrian accidents, the impact of a vehicle into a person can leave considerable damage to both. If we were going to stay mobile, we were going to have to fortify the vehicles. I didn’t want us travelling and failing NASA style. We had no time for problems on launch and even less for issues on reentry.
Tommy’s truck had sustained minor damage when we travelled out to the drugstore and found the Lopez brothers. Chances are we were going to be travelling much farther than that, and needed to make sure that his truck was better prepared for the journey. You couldn’t simply pimp out the ride like something out of Road Warrior either. While the truck was capable of towing heavy objects, it simply wasn’t designed to have a lot of extra weight welded to its body and frame.
I suggested something that would be simple, lightweight and functional – wrap around push bumpers. I knew that police vehicles had wrap around push bumpers in the front, which enabled us to push stranded motorists from the roadway and to perform the ‘pit’ maneuver in chases. They were designed so that they would not have a negative impact on the performance and maneuverability of the patrol car. They also provided protection to the body panels and engine block of the car as well. If they could handle car-to-car impacts, hitting zombies should go smoothly. Think of a functional full sized four wheeled carnival bumper car and you get the general idea.
I knew that my department had equipped our vehicles with them, but didn’t recall ever seeing the same equipment on vehicles driven by agencies this far out from Detroit. We simply couldn’t risk driving all the way there to get them. Surely the truck wouldn’t survive the trip there given the zombie reception we were experienced the last time we were out.
It was agreed that we would try the local county sheriff’s office as they had the largest fleet. Maybe we would find the equipment we were looking for, but we also had the chance of finding a better equipped vehicle along the way. A tactical vehicle or military grade Hummer sounded like a good idea, but the tradeoff for durability would be very limited gas mileage. Getting additional weaponry would be an added bonus if we were lucky enough to come across any.
The second issue that we discussed as a group was how we were going to aid any survivors and establish our safe haven. We wouldn’t be able to use Tommy’s house for more than a base of operations given the limited space. If the military found the devastation so massive and widespread that they succumbed to establishing the Hawaiian Islands as the new Garden of Eden, what were the chances of sustainable survival for the remaining human race? It seemed to be such a daunting task that it was almost impossible to wrap your head around the predicament we were in. Out of these thoughts of desperation it came to me.
“Why not model the military response but on a smaller scale?” I asked the group, trying hard to contain the excitement of where my mind was taking me.
“What do you mean?” asked Eric.
“Well,” I continued, “if the military had to fall back and use a large island chain in order to gain a foothold, why couldn’t we do the same thing here?”
I asked Tommy for a larger map of the entire state, which he retrieved from the bookshelf behind him. As I opened the map, the nodding of heads let me know that my point was being understood.
“Look,” I said as I pointed to the map, “Michigan is basically a mitten shaped island, with plenty of smaller islands within. The state is surrounded by water on 3 sides, the only problem is that the south side would be difficult to secure and defend without a significant barrier and the manpower to guard it. There’s the Upper Peninsula, but the western border becomes an issue.”
I took the black marker that Tommy had out and began circling some of the most obvious island formations around the state.
“There are quite a few islands that offer the same protection that the military sought out with Hawaii. Look,” I said as I began to list the areas I had circled, “there’s Harsens Island nearest us, Belle Isle, North and South Manitou Islands, Grosse Isle and Mackinac Island. All of these are fairly defensible once we get them secured.”
“The problem is,” Tommy said as he began taking a closer look at the map, “the majority of those islands require a ferry or some sort of boat to get to. The ones with bridges would be easy enough to transport people to and from, but the others would be difficult in the winter months. I would also assume that there are smaller military regiments set up there as well by locals.”
“Not to mention what happened in the large cities,” Justin added, “where the military was overrun at the epicenters. What happens on some of these islands if the virus gets out of control? People would be trapped there and have no way to get out.”
“Kind of happening already bro,” Eric said, “the whole continent is infect
ed and all we are really doing is creating distance from the zombies by hiding away in our homes. Eventually they are going to outnumber the living and then what?”
Justin did have a valid point. Establishing a safe zone on an island could be the equivalent of backing oneself into a corner with the enemy. The fact was that something had to be done, and any secure area free of roaming biters was better than nothing. In the event there was no military presence established there, and the locals hadn’t been successful in securing it yet, we may have a chance in buying in to our own piece of security.
“Tommy, I know that you are getting decent intelligence information on the military actions,” I said as I turned to him while pointing at the map, “but can you find out if anyone has already started to work on establishing any of these islands as a safe zone? I can’t believe I would have been the only one to think about this as an option, and I know that there are people living in most of these places who would surely try to shore up their defenses once they had eliminated the immediate zombie threat. The last thing we need is to arrive with the travel bus, only to find out there’s ‘no vacancy’ and we’re turned away. If the military has established Hawaii, it’s very possible they have secured these areas as well.”
“I’ll get right on it,” said Tommy as he turned away and disappeared from sight. I imagined that he had a special fake wall containing a hidden room somewhere in the home that would enter when he used that radio of his. I’m sure it would contain his prized weapons and secret spy gadgets that he would never acknowledge ownership of. If I wasn’t preoccupied I would have followed him to learn the truth.
“So, Griff, who are we going after first?” asked Eric.
“My cousin Jamie is trapped in a club downtown. He’s been there for some time, but he’s still alive. Just for your info, I don’t have a sister if that is what you’re getting at,” I responded wryly.
Zombie Reign (Book 2): Rescue in Detroit Page 2
