by Dave Lund
Terlingua, Texas
Russell signaled the club to stop when they approached the wrecked Wagoneer still sitting in the highway. He shut off his motorcycle and walked to the Jeep’s driver’s door. The corpse sitting in the front seat had a bullet hole in the front of his skull and his lips were missing. Russell knew right then that the body in the Jeep hadn’t been a living person when it was shot, and the walking dead don’t drive. Someone had put the corpse in the driver’s seat.
“You dumbasses! This body was a walker before it was shot and put in the fucking Jeep.”
He looked around and pointed to the small motel a few hundred yards away. “Prospects, go check that motel.” The three prospects left the Scout and moved towards the hotel, pistols in their hands. Russell dug a fresh pack of cigarettes out of the carton in his saddlebag, slapped the pack a few times to pack the tobacco, and lit a fresh smoke. He watched the prospects kicking in the doors to the motel rooms, finding nothing along the way.
Fifteen minutes later, they walked back to the club and to Russell. “No one is there, but there’s two rooms that have been broken into already and there are a couple of dead walkers in the parking lot.”
Russell looked up the hill, scanning for where his rabbits could have run. A small trail of smoke whispered in the wind above the hill. “That’s them. It’s got to be. Prospects, drop the tail gate of the 4x4 and put the deuce together in the back. DD, lead the way. Prospects, follow behind. Let’s get this asshole.”
DD rode up the hill, skirting around a small group of undead who had been attracted by all the noise. The Scout bounced along behind DD’s motorcycle, the thick barrel of the fifty-caliber machine gun sticking past the rear bumper, and the rest of the club followed on their motorcycles.
DD rode slowly, expecting to get ambushed. The road split towards the top of the hill and a few hundred feet in front of him stood a cabin, a light trail of smoke rising from the small chimney. He stopped and shut off his motorcycle, leaned it on the side stand, and stood. DD pulled the M4 rifle slung across his back off his shoulder and pointed the prospects towards the cabin. The curtains by the front door moved. Someone peeked out the window. DD waved at the prospects and pointed at the cabin.
The fifty-caliber machine gun ripped the still air open, chunks of stone exploding off the walls from the force of the large bullets. Some of the club members were firing their M4s at the cabin, the much smaller rounds popping against the stonework, barely audible above the din of the rapid-firing machine gun. The M2 stopped while the prospects tried to clear a misfeed. The sudden silence was startling.
The back door of the cabin flew open and a small girl burst from around the back of the cabin, in view of Russell, running as fast as her little legs could carry her. Russell thumbed his rifle to three-round burst and, leading the running toddler, yanked on the trigger. The girl fell to the ground, tumbling through the dirt, the impacting rounds knocking her over. A woman ran screaming to the girl. The woman made it a few feet and collapsed to her knees, pulling the crumpled little body to her chest, blood pouring out of the limp body onto the woman’s clothes. She screamed in agony, rocking the dead body in her arms. As she brushed her daughter’s hair from her face, the girl’s unblinking eyes stared back at her.
Russell walked to the woman, drew a pistol from his motorcycle vest, pointed it at the back of the woman’s head, and began squeezing the trigger. Then he stopped. He slowly released the slack in the trigger, drew his arm back, and struck the woman in the side of the head with his pistol. Unconscious, she fell over the dead girl’s body.
Russell faced the club. “Toss the house, fucking burn it to the ground, and then get back to camp. Put this bitch in the 4x4 and bring her back. No one else gets to fuck her. She’s my trophy.”
CHAPTER 32
Groom Lake, Nevada
February 16, Year 1
Conference room D-1 was full of people again. Arcuni, joined by Sam Garcia and Ray Johnson, sat across the table from Chris, Rick, and Evan, the newly arrived PJs, who were some of the Air Force’s most elite and highly-trained special operators. Major Ben Wright started the briefing and was quickly joined by Cliff, who walked into the room a little late.
“We have identified two groups of survivors that are close enough to a proposed flight path within the Herc’s range. The first group is located north of Amarillo, Texas, in a town called Dumas, and are requesting an evac. They are in no danger of being overrun, but they are out of food and nearly out of water and have no means to resupply themselves.”
Wright tapped the keyboard and the slide refreshed with a tight overhead view of a small airport.
“This is the Dumas Municipal Airport. They are currently en route to the airfield and are instructed to shelter in the Quonset hut located here.” The view zoomed in, showing an old half-barrel-shaped Quonset hut hangar near the larger of the two runways.
“The group is labeled Texas-Bravo-19, or TB19, and contacted us on a civilian HAM frequency a week ago after picking up our blind broadcasts on the shortwave frequencies. We have not informed them, however, that the undead group Zed-Alpha-2, or ZA2, is approaching from the south. Our estimates have the leading elements of ZA2 reaching Dumas in approximately twenty-seven hours. So for their survival, it is imperative we have an immediate evac.”
Wright tapped on the keyboard and the next slide came on the large screen, showing a wide view overhead with a red blob labeled ZA2.
“Current estimates is that ZA2 contains approximately three hundred thousand walking corpses. The latest imagery shows a path of destruction left in their wake on par with an Old Testament locust plague. Quite literally, everything in its path is completely destroyed. If we can’t rescue these ten people and the four children, they will not survive. Any questions?”
No one spoke, so Wright clicked to the next slide in his PowerPoint presentation.
“The next group, designated Colorado-Alpha-2, or CA2, is located near the Four Corners region in a town named Cortez, Colorado. Their group contains approximately forty members and some children. Their numbers have fluctuated and we haven’t been able to find out why. They claim to not need extraction and are only in need of weapons, ammo, and some food. Johnson, have you prepared their requested items?”
“Yes sir, forty-eight cases of MREs and ten thousand rounds of XM193 are on pallets and plastic wrapped for transport. A crate of M-16A2s is also loaded.”
Wright clicked to the next slide, which showed a zoomed-in high-resolution overhead image. “This is the municipal airport in Cortez, Colorado. This group has access to a truck that was unaffected by the EMP and will meet the plane here.” Wright pointed to a turnoff from the taxiway on the north end of the hangars. Offload the cargo and remind them they are welcome here and they will be more secure as well. Any questions?”
Wright pointed to Arcuni. “Mr. Arcuni, if you would, cover flight ops, and Rick will follow up with the tactical and medical briefings.”
SSC Facility, Bardwell Lake
Amanda awoke with a start. The privacy curtain on her metal bunk blocked out the low light in the large room, which was lined with identical bunks and lockers. The room was so still and quiet that she started to imagine noises. Only the faint humming of the HVAC system could be heard. It would take her some time to get used to sleeping safely again. In fact, she might not be able to enjoy a deep sleep again for the rest of her life. Johnson’s old M4 rifle lay on her right side. Amanda gripped the rifle before sliding open the edge of the heavy privacy curtain. She didn’t see any movement in the room, just row after row of empty bunks.
Amanda slid off the bed, already dressed in the new ACUs that she and Clint had retrieved from the storage room the previous night. She’d thrown her old clothes in the trash promptly after taking a very long and hot shower the night before. She slid the ammo carrier over her head. It was much heavier than it had been in a long time, now that all of the M4 magazines were full of ammo for the first time in weeks.
She slung the rifle and walked towards the large restroom to brush her teeth and enjoy using a real toilet again. Amanda looked in the mirror and couldn’t believe how old she looked. Forty-two years old and she didn’t look a day younger than sixty. The weeks on the road had left her face hollow-looking and too thin, even though before the attack she would have been happy with all the weight she’d lost.
A few minutes later, Amanda found Clint sitting in the cafeteria, the smell of hot coffee filling the room. His rifle was propped against the table while he ate an MRE for breakfast.
“What’s the plan for today, guy?”
“Well, first we’re going to finish breakfast, and then I’m going to the communications room and attempt to get our coms online.”
“Who is left to talk to? I thought the EMP would have disabled all the radios.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Besides, there are other facilities similar to this one. Chuck and I weren’t the only two members of the project. We should find the Denver facility up and running, and if we’re really lucky, they’ll be able to evac us and fly us there to join them.”
CHAPTER 33
Terlingua, Texas
February 16, Year 1
Miles away Bexar saw the thick black smoke rising above the mountains. The flat tire had cost him valuable time and even though he knew that the tire full of Fix-A-Flat wasn’t really safe on the motorcycle, he rolled hard on the throttle and leaned over the tank, trying to get every last bit of performance out of the old beat-up Harley. Sparks flew with each sweeping turn, the floorboards under his feet scraping against the asphalt as Bexar ignored the highway’s painted lines and took each turn apex to apex as if on a racetrack.
The closer he got to Terlingua, the more the pit of despair grew in the bottom of his stomach. Bexar’s mind raced faster than the motorcycle. If Jessie caught the cabin on fire they might be OK, but if the bikers found her ... The throttle wouldn’t roll any further backward. It was wide open, and Bexar pushed the motorcycle recklessly fast on the narrow highway.
Reaching the turnoff for Terlingua, the back wheel of the motorcycle shuddered with the hard braking to make the turn. After he cleared the turn-off, he saw it. The cabin was a burned-out shell. Only part of the rock walls stood, and over two dozen undead shuffled around the ruin. Bexar stopped the motorcycle where the road split at the top of the hill, shouldered his rifle, and began putting the walking corpses down for good. Thirty rounds and a magazine change later, the twenty-five undead were down. Every time Bexar took aim, he was scared that he would see his wife’s face, snarling in anger and death, but she wasn’t among the walkers. He left the motorcycle in the middle of the road and jogged, limping, to the cabin.
In the dirt next to the cabin lay his little girl, the t-shirt he’d given her the night before from the store next door soaked in blood, her tiny body partially eaten by the dead.
Bexar yelled. Tears poured down his cheeks and he collapsed to the ground. He had no idea how long he sat next to his daughter’s mangled body, but eventually he stood and walked through the smoking ruin of their cabin. Jessie’s body was not in the cabin, and he didn’t find her body anywhere nearby. Bexar walked across the parking lot to the Starlight Theatre, which was empty, as was the store, but large bullet casings and links littered the parking lot. Bexar had no military experience, but he instantly thought of the bikers and that big fifty-cal machine gun they’d used against them in the park.
Mindlessly, he kicked the shell casings around before walking into the store and returning holding a souvenir beach towel. Bexar walked to his daughter’s dead body and wrapped her in the cheap towel. He gently picked her up in his arms and walked down the hill towards the old Terlingua Ghost Town cemetery and found an empty space. The rocky soil was too hard and he couldn’t dig a grave, so Bexar spent the next three hours gathering rocks from a crumbling wall of a long abandoned house in the ghost town, gently laying the rocks on her body, making a mound of a grave the best he could.
The sun hung low against the western sky when Bexar was finished and walked back up the hill, his clothes covered in dirt and dust, his face wet with sweat and tears. Bexar walked into the Starlight Theatre and behind the bar. He only had the supplies in his go-bag, he had no idea where his wife was, but he guessed she was probably dead. Or maybe the bikers took her. If they took her, possibly they went back to The Basin, but a dark blanket of depression fell over him, realizing that his little girl was dead, and he blamed himself. Bexar took the bottle of Gentleman’s Jack down from behind the bar, poured three fingers of the brown liquor into a dusty glass, and downed the whiskey in one long drink before pouring another one. The whiskey burned his throat and he started to feel his muscles relax. He needed a plan. A plan to rescue Jessie. But first, he had to find her. He tried to concentrate, but he couldn’t focus. His sweet little girl’s body, half-eaten by the dead, filled his mind. Bexar drank the second glass and poured another.
Groom Lake, Nevada
“Where’s Cliff?” Wright asked the airman that walked into the radio hut.
“I think he went topside to see the mission off and he isn’t back yet.”
“Get up there and bring him to me. He’ll want to see this.”
The airman nodded and walked out the door. Wright leaned in towards the computer monitor. The SUV was on the road and looked badly damaged; the trailer was off the road and quite obviously destroyed. A body lay in the road behind the Jeep and two more bodies were in the parking lot of the buildings to the north. Wright had no idea what it was, but the building looked like it could be a hotel or maybe some storage units. For all the power the satellites had, Google would have made finding out more information easier.
Cliff burst through the door and walked to Wright and his computer.
“Here is the SUV; it’s about twenty miles west of the park. It looks like it wrecked, but with those two bodies in the parking lot away from the wreck, I think someone survived.”
Cliff nodded. “What about the park and the motorcycles?”
“The interior of the park is here. Looking at past overheads, our best guess is that our friends were set up in these cabins on the south side of the parking area. You can see now, there are a number of motorcycles near the cabins and a pile of bodies to the north in this other parking lot.”
The airman at the radio console snapped his fingers sharply to get Wright’s attention before waving him over. The airman scribbled notes on the yellow pad of paper in front of him, but his handwriting was so bad the major couldn’t read it. Wright pushed the button on the console that activated the external speaker. The man transmitting refused to give his location and referenced a handful of code words that meant nothing to Wright or the airman. The airman shrugged at Wright, but Cliff reached for the handset and keyed the mic.
The airman pointed to the computer screen. The transmission was being made over an emergency SATCOM channel that was reserved for theater-wide communications in Afghanistan. That was peculiar, but Wright assumed there had to be military survivors all across the globe. The airman made a few clicks with his mouse and located the geostationary satellite being used for the transmission, which was positioned over the United States. So that meant the transmission had to be from inside CONUS, or at least North America. The communications system should have a GPS lock as well, but that feature wasn’t functioning for some reason.
Fort Bliss, Texas
Chivo sat on the roof of the Humvee after moving up there for safety when Apollo left to explore the rest of the area on foot for supplies. The sound of an engine approaching caused an instant reaction from Chivo. He spun towards the sound on the roof while simultaneously raising his rifle. Off the end of his barrel, he saw an old Land Rover drive around the side of the building and towards the Humvee. Apollo was behind the wheel, grinning like the Cheshire Cat, Lindsey in the passenger seat.
Chivo lowered his rifle and turned back to the radio to continue trying different channels on the SATCOM. The first f
ew hours Chivo tried the predetermined channels to contact the project director and handler for the anti-drug mission they had been on in Mexico. Those had no response. Chivo tried some of the theater-wide channels from when he was in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the channels used in Afghanistan some ten years ago had a response. He didn’t know who it was, but at least there was someone else out there. The clipped conversation went back and forth, but Chivo was unwilling to reveal too much about himself or his location without positively identifying whom he was speaking with. Luckily, he had remembered to disable the locater.
Apollo climbed out of the newly found Land Rover and walked to the side of the Humvee where Chivo was waving frantically at him.
“Apollo, this guy says he’s Lazarus Actual.”
“You’re shitting me. He trained me at The Farm. Let me have that.” Apollo climbed on the roof of the Humvee and took the handset from his teammate.
“Lazarus Actual, this is Mule Spike Six. Do you still have that scar?”
Groom Lake, Nevada
The external speaker activated, Wright and the airman looked at Cliff, who seemed to recognize the voice and showed a rare smirk. “Mule Spike Six, yes I do. And your mother says hi.”
