by Dave Lund
CHAPTER 15
El Paso, Texas
February 1, Year 1
The old truck sped along the Patriot Freeway northbound towards Fort Bliss, the U.S. Army installation. With the heavy concentration of abandoned vehicles and undead on the road, the thirty miles per hour that Chivo worked to maintain made it feel like they were driving at breakneck speed. As they approached I-10, the roadway became even more congested. Apollo and Odin stopped trying to shoot the undead in their path, their numbers being far too great and the team’s ammo reserves falling dangerously low. Chivo did his best to drive around as many as he could. More than a few times undead bounced across the front of the truck only to be dragged off by the grinding pavement below.
The exchange for I-10 with the flyover ramps above them looked bad, but they could see below that I-10 was much worse off than they were. The Interstate was completely clogged with abandoned cars. It looked like the undead stumbled through the cars by the thousands. Seeing such a large concentration of walking corpses draped a feeling of hopelessness across the truck and it felt like the air was sucked right out of the cab of the truck. Lindsey sobbed, her head buried in her hands. Apollo looked at her and wanted to comfort her, but he simply didn’t know how to or if she would even be OK with a pat on the shoulder from a man she just met.
With a loud thump and crash, the windshield burst into the cab of the truck. A walker had fallen off the overpass above them and slammed onto the hood of the truck, its head crashing through the windshield. Apollo, jammed against the door, had no room to draw his pistol for the jaw snapping at their hands. The glass behind their heads burst inward, the barrel of Odin’s M4 punching through, followed by the deafening report of his rifle firing inside the cab of the truck. The undead’s skull exploded, covering Chivo, Lindsey, and Apollo in black slime and skull fragments that smelled horrific. Before Apollo or Chivo could start cursing their teammate, another loud crunch hit the truck, this time at the back, followed by Odin yelling and rapidly firing his rifle.
“Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK!”
Apollo twisted in his seat and pushed the shattered back glass out into the bed. Odin sat in the bed, rifle by his side, a woman’s rotted corpse bent over the side of the bed. Odin clutched his left shoulder, blood oozing from between his fingers.
“Odin! What the fuck, dude?”
“The bitch got me. She fucking bit me.”
Apollo looked at Chivo, who glanced over his shoulder at Odin and sped up. They knew their teammate was a dead man; it was just a matter of how long it took for the virus to kill him. They also knew it was their duty to their brother to put him down once he turned.
Apollo climbed through the open hole in the back of the cab where the glass had been, leaving Lindsey on the bench seat, curled up in a ball and sobbing. Sitting in the bed of the truck with Odin, Apollo pulled latex gloves out of another pocket, snapped them on and pulled the EMS shears from his chest carrier to cut open Odin’s shirt and expose the bite wound. Moments later Apollo finished with the field dressing to help with the bleeding.
Odin looked sadly at Apollo. “I’m sorry, brother.”
“I’m sorry too. You’re not gone yet, but I’ll make sure you won’t turn when it’s time.”
“Thank you.”
The truck swerved widely around an overturned and burned-out tour bus. Close to thirty undead with charred skin and clothes formed a mass in the road ahead and turned towards the approaching truck. Chivo pushed the truck’s gas pedal to the floor. White smoke billowed from the damaged hood. Chivo drove the truck down an on-ramp and off the highway, and the tires squealed in protest as the truck slid to a stop. The entry gate to Fort Bliss stood ahead, sandbags and a machine gun emplacement blocking the road. A half-dozen hulks of destroyed cars sat on the fire-scorched pavement and were riddled with large-caliber bullet holes. Numerous bodies lay motionless on the pavement, turkey buzzards still peeling flesh off the rotting corpses.
Chivo looked left and saw that part of the brick and iron fence by the gate was missing. He turned the wheel, mashed on the accelerator, and bounced the truck over the curb into the parking lot, passing the entry gate’s last stand.
Behind the gate were two large MRAPS and a burned-out Bradley sitting dormant. More dead bodies lay on the pavement. Apollo pounded on the roof of the cab and yelled over the wind noise. “Go up eleven streets, take a right, go about two hundred meters and stop. It’s been a few years, but they should still store the brigade’s commo gear in that building.”
Chivo nodded and slowed the truck, trying to limp it to their destination. The sun was beginning to set and some of the buildings they passed also had sandbagged positions in place. Undead shambled through the street, turning to follow the truck as it passed by in a cloud of white smoke. Vehicles stood in the roadway at each intersection, clearly marked as Military Police (MP). Some were burned; some looked abandoned. The undead giving chase to the passing truck mostly wore ACUs. Some were geared up with M4s and M16s bouncing on their slings, but all of them had shoulder pieces identifying them as MPs.
Odin watched the undead gather in strength, falling in behind the passing truck. “Chivo, stop for a minute.”
“What?”
“Fucking stop. I have an idea.”
Chivo stopped the truck in the middle of the intersection. Odin and Apollo jumped out of the truck’s bed with their rifles up. “What sort of new fucked up white-trash idea do you have now? See another riding lawn mower?”
“Nope, but our following fan club have M4s, M16s, and magazines on their armor carriers. If we put some down we should be able to gather some more ammo.”
“OK, I can see that. Pick off the first few. I don’t want to get caught by the whole group.”
“Roger that. Let’s go.”
Apollo and Odin fist bumped before moving at angles away from each other, towards each side of the street, M4s up and ready. Chivo stayed in the truck to protect Lindsey, hoping to keep the truck’s motor running. The smoke was getting thicker and the noises coming from under the hood weren’t of the good variety.
Each man’s rifle barked a dozen times before they ran to the bodies of the men they just put out of their undead misery. Some of the magazines they pulled from the carriers were crusted with dried blood, but neither man cared. They desperately needed ammo.
The larger mass of undead bodies was beginning to get close, and they were coming from all directions towards the truck. Before the corpses reached the truck, Apollo and Odin climbed into the bed and Chivo drove away from the approaching horde. Odin’s face was pale, his lips ashy, his breathing fast and shallow. Apollo passed six full magazines to Chivo. Odin pulled all but two of his magazines out of his carrier and handed them to Apollo, along with the ten extra magazines he’d scavenged from the soldier’s bodies.
“I have another idea. The truck is shit-canned. You’re going to need new wheels and you need to ditch our following parade. When we get to your spot, you guys get out and haul ass. I’m taking the truck and leading our new friends in a new direction.”
The truck turned hard without slowing and slid to a stop in front of the building Apollo had described, which sat behind an empty fenced-in area that normally held a large number of Humvees.
Odin climbed out of the bed, hands shaking, and took Chivo’s spot behind the steering wheel.
“OK boys, last stop. See you fuckers in Valhalla!”
Apollo and Chivo both kissed Odin on the forehead before he shut the door and drove back the way they had come, honking the horn and yelling like a madman. Chivo took one more look at the smoking truck speeding away before he cut a small hole in the bottom of the chain-link fence and crawled through. Lindsey followed with Apollo behind her.
Apollo pointed at a small squat building. “That storage building should hold most of the un-mounted commo gear. We can shelter inside with Lindsey while one of us finds our merry little band some new wheels.”
Chivo tested th
e door and found it locked. Apollo pulled a small zippered pouch out of a bag on his chest and knelt in front of the door with a set of picks and rakes.
“This should only take me a few minutes.”
Five minutes later, the desert sky was dark purple from the setting sun, and the unlikely trio were safe inside a dusty storeroom, surrounded by racks of Hardigg and Storm cases.
CHAPTER 16
Groom Lake, Nevada
February 15, Year 1
Major Ben Wright walked through the maze of corridors of the complex deep below the surface in Groom Lake, Nevada. Approaching Cliff’s office, Wright knocked sharply and walked through the door without waiting for an answer. The strong smell of coffee filled the small office.
“Cliff, we checked Nellis AFB first. Surprisingly, there are two C-130s on the ramp. One of them is really peculiar in that it is parked on the helipad on the north end of the field. The helipad where the Pararescue Jumpers (PJs) are based. I believe that aircraft was parked there after all of this started. The consensus is there may be survivors there. We’ve tried raising them on the frequencies we believe they would be using or monitoring, but we have had no luck with contact.”
“Great, Ben. Put together a two-man team, including Arcuni of course, who are willing to take a road trip with me. I’m going to lead a quick expedition outside the wire to see if that aircraft will fly, and if it does, bring it back here. Tell the men we’ll take my truck and the meeting to go top side is at 0600. They can check out any gear from the stores that they need, but remind them we’re moving fast and not planning on staying the night. Heavy on the ammo, light on the food.”
Wright nodded, turned and left the office to find Arcuni. Although the major had grown to know his enlisted men quite well since the attack, he couldn’t guess who Arcuni would want to take with him for such a dangerous trip. Cliff almost seemed excited to get above ground and outside the wire, and after the harrowing trip to get to Groom Lake, Wright simply didn’t see the allure of the “adventure.”
Cliff watched the office door close as Wright left his office. He stood and drew the pistol quickly from the holster on his right thigh, his whole body quickly setting into a strong shooting stance that spoke of thousands and thousands of repetitions. His right thumb depressed the magazine release button and Cliff set the loaded magazine on his desk before locking the slide open and catching the live round ejected from the pistol’s chamber. Quickly Cliff fieldstripped the pistol before retrieving a rag and a small bottle of Break-Free from his top desk drawer. Cliff wiped down his already spotless pistol and oiled it before putting all the pieces together. The pistol empty, Cliff reset the trigger, stood in his shooting stance, aimed at the 6 of the clock on the wall and smoothly pressed the trigger to the rear, dry firing the pistol. A resounding click seemed to echo in Cliff’s ears and the front of the muzzle didn’t even move a fraction of an inch. Cliff reset the trigger and did the dry firing practice again. Then again and again, a dozen times more, each time the front of the pistol never wavering or flinching with the trigger pull. Cliff seated the loaded magazine, chambered a round, and replaced the now-missing round from the magazine before verifying the weapon was loaded with a press check. He reholstered his pistol.
Reaching for the M4 rifle leaned against the corner of the wall behind his desk, Cliff fieldstripped the rifle and repeated the same process he’d completed with his pistol. After lubing the working parts and reassembling the rifle, Cliff repeated the dry firing practice with his rifle before inserting a loaded Pmag and making the weapon ready. The fire selector flipped to “safe,” Cliff slung the rifle across his chest and walked into the corridor to the stairwell and down two flights of stairs to where his berth was located. Each piece of gear that Cliff had on his mental checklist came out of his footlocker and was laid on the blanket of his rack. The chest rig, each magazine, bump helmet, NODs and med kit all lay disassembled. One by one he cleaned and checked each piece of gear to make sure that it contained all it needed and functioned properly, all the while in Cliff’s mind he could still hear the gruff voice of his instructor at The Farm “gently reminding” him of what would happen if he failed to complete his proper preparation for each mission, no matter how routine it may seem.
As hard as that training was, as tough of a time in Cliff’s life as it had been, the emotional and physical challenges beyond what he could have ever imagined, his instructor was right. Besides, Cliff’s prior missions proved harder than the training ever was, and his current mission was harder than his worst nightmares.
An hour later all of his gear was cleaned, reassembled and verified to be complete and working. The rifle magazines were reloaded and placed in a row on his rack with the rest of his gear. Ten minutes later Cliff walked into the cavernous storeroom, found a medium-sized ALICE pack, opened a box of thirty-round M4 magazines, and claimed ten more, loading each one full with XM193. The loaded magazines were placed in the three large outside pockets of the ALICE pack. In the main space went a poncho liner, space blanket, two chem-lights, three sets of spare batteries for his NODs, and two MREs that he promptly stripped to save room. Cliff wasn’t sure what he would encounter on the road to Nellis Air Force Base, but if it was anything like his trip to Groom Lake, the more ammo he could carry, the better.
Loaded for his mission, Cliff dropped his new gear by his bunk, taking his M4 and pistol with him, which was the standing rule for everyone in the facility in case of a breakout of undead. He found Arcuni coming out of the radio hut. “Hey Arcuni, got a sec? Walk with me.”
Arcuni turned and followed Cliff back into the radio hut.
“Hey Wright, when’s the last time you heard from our friends at the national park in Texas?”
Wright picked up a clipboard and flipped through a few pages before finding the notation he was looking for. “Looks like it’s been two days.”
“OK, when is the next SAT pass there?”
“Should have one tomorrow morning about 0700 our time.”
“Great. Do me a favor and try to reach them. If you can’t reach them, check the SATINT and try to figure out why, I just remembered the bikers and I’m concerned about them.”
“Got it.”
Cliff turned and walked out of the radio hut with Arcuni in tow. “Alrighty, Arcuni. Have you decided who you want to come with us tomorrow?”
“Garcia is my pick if he’s up to it.”
“Have you checked out any gear yet?”
“Haven’t had the chance. The major broke the news to me just before I saw you.”
“OK, let’s get Garcia and make sure he’s on board. Then I’ll take both of you to the storeroom and help you get kitted up. Then we need to go topside to prep the truck and get a bunch of extra gas from the fuel bowser.”
CHAPTER 17
Terlingua, Texas
February 16, Year 1
“Daddy, I’m hungry.”
Keeley’s little hand patted Bexar on the leg. Bexar lurched awake with a gasp, still sitting in the chair by the door. His dreams were a constant loop of his having to shoot Jack and Will in the head to keep their dead bodies from returning to life. It took Bexar a few moments for his head to clear and to realize where he was and what had happened. The unfamiliar interior of the new cabin confused him before he focused on his daughter climbing into his lap.
“I went potty and now I’m hungry.”
“Went potty in here?”
“Yes.”
“Good. You need to stay inside the cabin unless Mommy or Daddy are with you.”
“I want waffles.”
“We don’t have any waffles, baby. We have some MREs left and that’s just about all we’ve got.”
“I don’t want an RME. I want waffles!” said the toddler, stomping her feet.
Jessie stirred and walked unsteadily into the sitting room of the little cabin suite before kissing Bexar on the forehead.
“How’s your head, babe?”
“Hurts. I still fe
el dizzy, but at least I don’t feel like I’m going to throw up anymore.”
“That sounds better. Here, take my rifle. I’m going over to the trading post to see if there is anything in there I could scavenge for breakfast. If possible, I want to try to save what little we have left.”
Bexar handed his rifle to Jessie, who took his spot in his chair. He pulled the corner of the curtain back and peered outside, watching for a few minutes before pulling his heavy knife out and slowly opening the cabin’s front door into the cold morning air.
Moving slowly, Bexar scanned the area around him. The bodies of the zombies he’d killed last night still lay on the porch of the Starlight Theatre and the trading post. Walking onto the porch, Bexar stepped over the bodies and stopped at the front door of the store. He tapped on the glass with the butt of his knife. He couldn’t be too careful. He couldn’t risk getting bitten by some undead body he had missed the previous night.
Waiting and seeing no reaction to his noise, Bexar opened the door and stepped inside. The store looked different in the daylight. It had a lot of knickknacks, tourist stuff like gemstones, walking sticks, t-shirts and the like. The store also had a small selection of camping and hiking gear. In the middle of the store sat a small cooler with sodas, bottled water, and Gatorade. Bexar slid the cooler door open. The air smelled stale, but nothing smelled rotten. The sealed bottles should be fine.
From behind the counter, Bexar retrieved two shopping bags and filled them with Gatorade and bottled water. On a shelf near the cooler were some dry goods and camping food, including pancake mix and a handful of small cast iron skillets. Another shopping bag was retrieved and in went the food, skillets, and pancake mix. Next to the camping supplies were some cheap binoculars for sale. Cheap binoculars are better than no binoculars, so Bexar removed them from the package and hung them around his neck.
On the way out the door Bexar saw a small stuffed javelina and some t-shirts. Bexar had never been able to resist buying his baby girl a new stuffed animal, so the javelina went into the bag, as did two t-shirts in her and his wife’s sizes.
