by Dave Lund
Bexar stood and walked to where the downed biker lay on his back, his face bleeding from road rash and clutching his shoulder where blood oozed around his fingers from the bullet wound. The biker began to speak but Bexar fired a single shot into the man’s face. The heavy crimson blood flowed out of the hole in the man’s skull, painting the pavement. Bexar was too angry to show mercy. Angry that the bikers ruined everything. Angry that the bikers killed his friends, and angry that the bikers made him flee and hide his family. The motorcycle lay in the sand on the side of the road, still running. As Bexar walked to the bike, the pain in his right leg grew in intensity, each step resulting in a painful limp.
Although the headlight was smashed and the gas tank now had a large dent in it, the bike appeared to be rideable. If it weren’t for Keeley and the gear, he and Jessie would be set for transportation. Bexar flipped the kill ignition switch off before pushing the motorcycle upright. With a deep breath, Bexar switched on his flashlight and looked at his right leg. His pants leg was soaked in blood.
Bexar looked up the hill and wasn’t sure he could walk up it. He sat on the motorcycle, started it, and rode up the hill to the cabin. Careful to park the motorcycle out of view behind the cabin, Bexar limped to the front door and softly knocked four times. “Jessie, it’s me.”
The door latch clicked open and Bexar limped into the cabin.
“Oh my God, Bexar! What happened?”
“Help me get these pants off. I think I’ll be OK.”
The wound on Bexar’s leg appeared to be a grazing wound. Thankfully, they wouldn’t have to worry about a round lodged in his leg. He and Jessie used a washrag from the bathroom and the med kit to clean the wound as best they could. Jessie squeezed about half a tube of antibiotic ointment into the wound and pressed the white cloth hard against his leg before wrapping duct tape around the makeshift bandage.
“Thank you, baby. There were two of them. I killed one, but the other got away. I’m not sure if I nicked him or what, but I tried.”
Outside the cabin, they heard the unmistakable sound of the moaning walking dead.
“God dammit. If things weren’t bad enough, all of the noise brought us more fucking zombies.”
CHAPTER 23
Near Terlingua, Texas
February 16, Year 1
The highway was pitch black. Without a working headlight only the moonlight glowing off the asphalt lit his way. Being so remote, the road would have been just as dark before the end of the world, but that fact was lost on Buzzer. His right hand pinned the throttle of his old Harley all the way back, the motor spinning as fast as it could, but the world around him moved slowly by. For three days, Buzzer had not slept, smoking more meth when he started to crash. He was quickly running out and wasn’t sure when the club would be able to cook more, but that didn’t matter now. What mattered was that he was going to kill that asshole, but first he had to get Russell and some more men for the fight.
While near El Paso, the club had raided every pharmacy they found, taking large bags full of Vicodin, Viagra, Xanax, and pseudoephedrine. The pseudoephedrine was used to cook meth. The rest was just to party.
The old Harley sprayed oil out of the top of the motor, the valve cover having been caught by one of Bexar’s widely fired AR rounds. The spraying oil drenched Buzzer’s left leg, but it was also coating the rear tire of the motorcycle in a thick layer of oil. Nearing Study Butte and the turn for Highway 118, Buzzer flew up on a large gaggle of undead shambling westward, following the path he and Mike had taken earlier. Buzzer pushed on the handlebars and felt the rear end of the motorcycle slide out from under him. He grabbed a fistful of brake lever, but it was much too late. The oil-slick tire slid out from under the motorcycle, violently throwing the motorcycle on its side. Buzzer’s right foot caught under the crash bars. The motorcycle slid into the walking corpses at seventy miles per hour, knocking them off their feet like bowling pins, which could have been funny if the sparks from the sliding motorcycle hadn’t caught Buzzer’s oil-soaked pants and motorcycle on fire. Bodies bounced off the motorcycle and over Buzzer.
Eventually the motorcycle slid to a stop, Buzzer’s right leg shredded from the grinding asphalt and his left leg on fire from the oil. Punctured in the crash, the gas tank caught, and Buzzer burst into flames, trapped under his motorcycle as the undead approached. Buzzer screamed as the dead, unfazed by the fire, bit into his body, ripping away chunks of flesh while he burned. Ribbons of burning flesh hung from the zombie’s mouths as they began to catch fire as well, the burning fat popping amidst Buzzer’s screams until eventually he lost consciousness.
Groom Lake, Nevada
Cliff escorted the three new arrivals to the large cargo elevator that descended underground to the first underground level, where there was a heavy blast door that secured the main entrance to the facility. The door stood open and they were greeted by an angry looking Major Wright, who stood next to the door holding an M4 rifle.
“Cliff, we’ve had an outbreak. I believe we have it contained to the bottom two floors. It started in the lab. I think Lance might be trapped or dead.”
Cliff’s face showed no emotion or reaction to the news, but his anger raged under his disciplined demeanor. Lance was the only remaining scientist associated with the Kali Project–the only person who had a chance at deciphering what the Chinese had engineered from the ancient virus. Cliff’s mission to help stop the spread of the Yama Strain was over, leaving his underground facility in the wilds, like Fort Apache, to give aid to anyone needing it. The secondary plan, the absolute worst case, was now in effect.
“OK, Ben, how many?”
“Eight if you count the specimens that Lance kept in the lab,” said Wright, just now noticing the three newcomers to the facility. “Who are these guys?”
“Sir, we’re with the 66th Rescue Squadron. This guy stole our plane so we hitched a ride with him.”
“Well, welcome aboard. We are in need of medically trained people, so it would seem.”
Cliff looked at the PJs. “If you guys wouldn’t mind giving me a hand, we need to take care of this problem before it gets any worse.”
Once Arcuni and Garcia walked past the heavy blast door, followed by the airmen who were providing above-ground security, Wright pushed the big red button on the inside wall. Hydraulic rams pushed the door closed, and heavy steel pins pushed outward into the steel and concrete doorframe with a resounding deep thud.
Cliff guided the trio of Air Force special operators to the south stairwell and began making his way down the stairs. “The bottom floor is a research lab. They were working on the Yama Strain, which is what caused all of this, since before the attack.”
“So there’s a cure?”
“Not yet, and now it doesn’t seem like there will be if Lance is dead.”
On the landing above the second to the bottom level, the floor above the lab, Cliff found an airman standing with an M4 pointed towards the heavy metal fire door. The new arrivals could see dents pushed through from the other side of the door. The sound of pounding fists from the other side of the metal door resonated in the concrete stairwell, punctuated by the muffled moans of the dead.
Standing at the top of the landing, Cliff spoke to the young airman. “Greg, when I give you the word I want you to open the door, sprint up the stairs, and stand behind us. Got it?”
“You want me to let them out?”
“Yes. We need to put them down, and the stairs will give us some safety. They usually trip on the first step and have to crawl up the rest of the steps.”
Greg gave Cliff a look of disbelief, but nodded and walked down the stairs to the door.
“Guys, hold fire until the first one trips on the stairs. We need to let the first few out of the doorway so they don’t jam up, making us go in after them. Also, head shots only please.” The three PJs each responded with a thumbs-up.
“OK Greg, now.”
Greg pushed the door handle down, turned, and sp
rinted up the stairs to stand behind Cliff and the other three. The door exploded into the stairwell, the first walking corpse falling forward from the door suddenly giving way. The second undead stepped through the doorway and tottered towards the stairs only to trip on the first step.
Cliff fired the first shot, a single shot, and the corpse on the stairs stopped moving, its head cracked open by the M4 round. Rick fired his rifle, as did Chris and Evan. Four undead lay dead for good in the stairwell, skull fragments and black rotted brain matter covering the painted concrete.
“Greg, after we go inside secure the door. We’re going to clear the lab before doing secondary searches of each level.”
Greg replied that he would and followed the four men down the stairs, careful not to slip in the oozing black brain matter that lay on the floor.
“OK guys, lab level. There should be four more if Wright correctly accounted for everyone. Beyond the landing are some offices followed by a slightly open area that leads to the lab’s sealed doors. I had to clear this damned place by myself the first time and the way to do it is like we just did. Give the undead a path, make some noise, and let them come to you. It’s too easy to get swarmed if you try to enter and clear a room fast.”
The metal fire door on the bottom and last landing also had dents from the inside, but this time there was no banging on the door and no moaning dead to greet them.
“All right, stand easy for a minute. Let me get the door ready and then come back up the stairs with you.”
Cliff walked to the door and pulled a large rubber doorstop out of the cargo pocket of his BDUs before quietly opening the door. He propped the door open with the door stop, trotted up the stairs next to the PJs, and used the muzzle of his rifle to bang on the pipe-metal handrail of the stairs. The stairwell resonated like a gong, and out of view on the other side of the open doorway, moans immediately erupted in response.
The first zombie that shambled through the doorway was Lance, part of his right forearm missing. It appeared that he wasn’t a recently killed undead. His left eye hung out of his face, held on by parts of rotting flesh, and part of his lips were missing. Cliff fired a single shot, putting Lance down for good. Three more undead staggered out of the doorway into the stairwell, each put down with single headshots by Cliff.
“Damn. Well, you three do a sweep of this floor and the next, then get Greg to show you to your bunks and get some showers. On the way, stop by the storeroom and get some new BDUs. You guys smell like ass. Meet me in conference room D-1, Delta-One in ninety-mikes. We’ve got to discuss some stuff with the rest of the crew.”
The PJs looked at a clock on the wall and mentally counted off their ninety-minute deadline.
Cliff didn’t wait for an answer. He turned and jogged past Greg, tersely saying, “Stay put,” as he passed.
CHAPTER 24
Cortez, CO
February 16, Year 1
“Jake, I think this could be our golden ticket. We can’t do anything but take them at face value. I mean, what else can we do?”
“I’m not sure what good it would do us. They say they’re in Nevada, Sara. I can’t even start to wrap my head around how we could move all our families safely across the country to what is basically a mystery group who ‘claim’ that they are the good guys. They could be anyone and anywhere for that matter.”
“Baby, I’m not sure that the vote to stay was the right one. Right now the attacks are light, but I don’t think the problem of The Tribe is going to go away on its own. I think it will only get worse.”
“I know, and I’m starting to agree, but the group voted on our course.”
“It’s time for another vote.”
“Maybe.”
Jake wasn’t sure anymore. Bill, one of the older survivors, had spent the last four weeks slowly scavenging all the pieces he needed to repair his HAM radio to the point of finding butane-fired soldering irons and physically replacing pieces damaged by the EMP. The solar panels and deep-cycle batteries needed to power certain desired amenities was another pet project of Bill’s, and with no surviving family members, he was generally left alone to work on his projects in his spare time and off-duty days. No one believed he would be successful until he received a news broadcast from the BBC on a shortwave radio frequency. Quickly, the group came to realize that the broadcast was old and on an electronic loop, repeating every three hours. However, it did give everyone hope of finding other survivors outside of their small Colorado town. Contact with a group claiming they were authorized government agents operating out of Nevada shot through the Colorado group like a bolt of lightning. Initially, many of the members wanted to immediately leave for Nevada and the promise of a better life, but then the magnitude of the logistics, the realization of how hard an overland journey would be set in, and the original spring of hope was quickly replaced by a deep well of despair.
To make the low morale worse, the attacks on the scavenging teams by members of The Tribe were increasing in frequency, as were probes into the group’s defenses. Jake was certain that before long they would have to fight off a full-scale siege by The Tribe.
Bill burst into the room. “Jake! Part of the fence is down and there are walkers in the compound!”
Jake bolted out of his chair, joined by Sara. They ran out of the room, each armed with a machete or an axe. Bill continued through the old middle school, raising the alarm with all the other members before joining the group on the south side of the school grounds where the fence was breached. The children remained in the school, secured in an interior classroom with two of the older women, who gladly took the job of protecting the group’s young.
Outside, Jake found that nearly fifty feet of fence was down and approximately sixty walking corpses shambled through the opening. Down Pine Street, he saw men in an old truck herding the zombies towards the school and anger raged through his veins. The religious cult had gone too far.
The fight for the school’s courtyard lasted for nearly an hour. Two of their group were lost to bites, a man and a woman. Each of them left behind a spouse and a child.
After the fight, drenched in sweat, Jake turned to Sara. “This is too much. The Tribe has gone too far. Once the team repairing the fence is done, have everyone meet in the cafeteria for another vote. It’s time we hunt these jackasses down.”
CHAPTER 25
Fort Bliss, Texas
February 16, Year 1
After each building they passed, more and more undead appeared around the edges, closing in on the sound of the Humvee rumbling by slowly. The group found each intersection manned by a now dead or missing MP, only the vehicles or dead bodies left behind. The bridge over the Liberty Expressway was not blocked, but after crossing it they ran into the fenced western edge of the Army Air Field’s flightline.
“Around or through?”
Chivo shrugged and looked at the shambling horde that was just starting to crest the top of the bridge.
“Those fuckers just won’t quit. They won’t give up, will they?”
“No Chivo, they won’t.”
“The airfield looks clear and we’ve got to get on the other side of the runways.”
Apollo gunned the motor and the big desert tan truck lurched forward towards the fence before following the road left and to an open gate that crossed the road. He stopped the truck just past the gate and both men climbed out of the Humvee. The undead horde, relentless, still approached, but they had a little bit of time.
Chivo closed the double gate and set the pin in the asphalt before wrapping the chain hanging on the gate around the gate poles twice. His last pair of flex cuffs went through the chain and through the fence to secure the gate the best he could.
“Too bad they didn’t leave the lock. That was my last pair of flex cuffs.”
Apollo shrugged. They returned to the Humvee and continued north, crossing over the rail spur that the Army used to transport their vehicles, and sped along at a blistering speed of forty miles per
hour. They could see no movement in the dark desert around them, dead or alive.
Driving through the rail depot, Chivo pointed to a dark strip of road on their left. “I’m not sure this road makes it to the range, but I seem to remember that one does.”
Apollo took the next left and the next right to turn onto Chaffee Road. With the moonlight, they could see a large number of undead trying to turn and follow the passing Humvee on the other side of the fence that lined the perimeter of the Army Post.
“Chivo, this whole fucking place is dead. How are we going to find any survivors?”
“We survived. Lindsey survived. There have to be others that survived too.”
They drove in silence across the large expanse of the post for twenty minutes before they approached a highway crossing over their small road. Cars and trucks sat dormant on the road and Apollo never slowed the Humvee, trying to clear from under the bridge as quickly as he could after losing Odin to a falling corpse. Apollo slammed on the brakes and turned onto a dirt road; Chivo watched in the sideview mirror as three bodies fell off the bridge to follow them. He didn’t see if any of them got back up and he hoped their legs were shattered from the fall and they were unable to walk or follow their passing truck. One more fence was all that separated them from Purple Heart Boulevard. More dormant and abandoned vehicles lined the road.
“Left here.” Chivo pointed to a dirt road to the north and Apollo followed.
