by Dave Lund
Using a bit of code, they agreed on using another SATCOM channel since neither had any way of knowing who could be listening, if anyone was listening at all. After the channel switch and over the next few minutes, Apollo relayed their status, their location, and a quick rundown of how they’d fled from Mexico.
Cliff turned to Wright. “How far away are they from our friends in the Texas Park?”
Wright took his map compass and ticked off the scale distance with the map on the wall. “Call it two hundred fifty miles as the crow flies.”
Cliff scribbled down a location on a pad of paper and handed it to Wright. “Figure out a way to get Mule Spike from Fort Bliss to this location before they head to the park. Keep them away from ZA2 and away from I-10 if at all possible.” Cliff wrote down a list of instructions, including a twenty-four-digit key he wrote from memory.
Fort Bliss, Texas
Apollo took the small notepad and pen out of his shirt pocket and began taking notes.
“All right, Chivo. We’ve got an op.”
“An op? Doing what, staying alive? We’re a bit understaffed and undersupplied at the moment.”
“Cliff says he has an inland resupply cache. These are the directions and this is the code to get in.”
“Pyote? Where the hell is that?”
“No idea. We’ll have to follow the directions. But he wants us to leave immediately and get to the supply cache pronto.”
Chivo held his hand up to the sky. Four fingers separated the sun from the horizon. “We’ve only got about two hours until dark, mano.”
“Yeah, so we need to hurry it up and we need some containers to siphon the diesel from the Humvee so we can take it with us for our new ride.”
“Do we still trust this guy? It’s been years since he was at The Farm.”
“I caught a rumor that he was with a project called Osiris.”
“What the hell is that?”
“No idea, and I knew better than to ask.”
“Fuck it, my little Mexican buddy. What else do we have to do?”
Chivo packed up the antenna and the radio and put it in the back of the Land Rover before walking inside with Apollo and Lindsey.
CHAPTER 34
Dumas, Texas
February 16, Year 1
The C-130 turned for the downwind leg of the landing pattern over the hangars, the four big turboprop engines roaring through the desert landscape. Arcuni brought the cargo plane across for a short base to final and put the wheels down just before the first hash marks on the runway. Taking the middle turnoff for the taxiway, the big plane taxied alongside the old Quonset hut. The ramp lowered and Rick, Evan, and Chris trotted out of the back of the plane to meet the people running from the hangar towards the plane. Arcuni left the engines running while ten survivors and their four children were met by the PJs.
“Where’s the rest of you? I thought there were fourteen.”
“There were.”
“OK, all of you can come with us, but once we get back to the facility, you will be strip-searched for bites and quarantined for forty-eight hours. All weapons must be declared, but you will keep them and you will be required to be armed at all times. You will also be required to earn your keep on our base. Do you understand?”
One of the men, who introduced himself as Jake, shook Chris’s hand and the group all walked towards the ramp of the Herc. The PJs fanned out, providing security on each side and towards the rear of the group.
Once everyone was in the plane, Garcia pointed to the cargo net seats towards the front for the new passengers before raising the ramp. Arcuni taxied to the runway. Some undead were visible, shambling towards the plane from the highway, but they were far enough away that Arcuni knew he would be airborne before they became a problem. Arcuni pushed the throttles forward and the big plane bounced down the runway until rotating and lifting into the sky as he banked to the right to turn for the next group of survivors on their mission.
Arcuni didn’t have the luxury of a winds aloft report, a full weather report, or even all the charts he needed to fly safely, but he did at least have the charts for his flight today. He’d found them in a big binder stuffed behind the right seat. They were outdated, but at least he had something. The airspace markers really didn’t mean anything anymore and they were ignored, but the elevation markers and the rotating plotter navigation ruler he’d also found were needed and used. Assuming neutral winds aloft, the flight to Cortez should be about an hour. It was also nice that the cabin pressurization system worked and he didn’t have to worry about everyone getting hypoxic from the lack of oxygen on the flight.
Looking out the windshields at twenty thousand feet and across the expanse of the southwest, it was easy to imagine that none of this had happened and that everything below him was normal. However, if everything were normal, he wouldn’t be flipping through an aircraft’s manual trying to learn the systems while flying for a dangerous operation where others’ lives depended on him. Arcuni turned the last plotted waypoint and toggled the lights in the cargo hold on and off twice to signal his passengers to seatbelt in as he started the descent.
Cortez, Colorado
Black smoke poured out of the twin exhaust stacks of the old Peterbilt semi-truck, the engine pushing the truck as hard as it could. The trailer’s doors were tied open and three men of the group were lying on the floor of the trailer firing the only three rifles they had as rapidly as they could at the trailing pickup trucks. A gray C-130 roared overhead, seeming to float on a string, nose down, hanging on the props as it flew the final approach into the small municipal airport in Cortez.
Two old pickup trucks raced after the semi. Men stood in the beds of the trucks and fired rifles over the cabs towards the fleeing semi-truck. One of the men in the trailer yelled in pain, hit in the top of the shoulder. He accidently dropped his rifle, which clattered out of the back of the trailer only to be run over by the first chasing pickup. The driver of the semi downshifted hard; the truck lurched forward before leaning sharply as the truck bounced and shook around the corner onto Airport Road.
The cargo plane taxied back towards the center of the airport and onto the flightline by the beat-up hangars before turning back onto the taxiway, tailgate lowering towards the approaching semi. The three PJs jumped off the lowering ramp, rifles up and ready for action, as the semi-truck burst through the fence and bounced through a ditch. If this had been an operation before the EMP, overhead air support would have neutralized the threat before landing, but the PJs adapted and overcame for the new world. Impossibly slowly, the big old truck lurched hard to the left and crashed onto its side, sliding to a stop on the pavement by the first hangar.
Chris, Evan, and Rick jogged towards the overturned truck but threw themselves to the ground when the first rifle round cracked overhead, barely audible over the loud turboprop engines behind them. The two trucks bounded through the hole in the fence created by the semi and stopped. The first person to appear out of the semi was a teenage girl, and a man standing in the back of the first pickup shot her. Rick watched the girl drop to the ground, clutching her stomach; he thumbed the safety of his M4 down and squeezed the trigger. The shooter’s head snapped back and his body fell in the bed of the truck. Chris and Evan followed suit, quickly firing their rifles and killing the seven men in the pickup trucks before running towards the overturned semi and the injured girl.
Rick climbed the cab of the truck and found the driver, a middle-aged man, dead, his neck obviously broken. Evan ran to the teenage girl, who rolled in the dirt, crying in pain. Blood flowed out from around her hands as she clutched her stomach just above her jeans. Chris went to the back of the trailer and found twelve other men with various injuries, one of them dead.
“Is anyone seriously hurt?” Chris yelled into the trailer.
No one responded. “OK, everyone out. The plane is waiting. Where is everyone else? Are any more coming? Is there anyone else chasing you?”
A teen
age boy with shaggy hair nodded. “Yes, there are more in our group. They’re not coming. We barely escaped those gunmen.”
“OK, everyone up and move fast. Get to the plane. We’ll be right there with you.”
The group of men, including the teenager, left their dead with the truck and half-jogged towards the waiting plane. Chris jogged past Rick and Evan, waving his left hand in a circle above his head, and got in front of the group to lead them safely into the aircraft. Rick and Evan knelt next to the teenage girl and lifted her off the ground. They fell in behind the group, carrying the injured girl with them, moving towards the open cargo hold of the aircraft.
Garcia stood at the tail ramp, M4 in his hands and his headset plugged into the communication port at the rear of the plane. Once Evan’s boots hit the ramp, he half-yelled into the headset for Arcuni to taxi. Arcuni hadn’t seen the firefight behind the plane, but he did hear the excitement in Garcia’s voice. He also saw three more old pickup trucks driving towards the airport at a high rate of speed. He put two and two together and decided it would probably be best to take off as quickly as possible. Arcuni didn’t bother to taxi to the runway. He pushed the throttle all the way to the stop. The big plane rumbled down the taxiway and into the dirt before he pulled back hard on the controls. The powerful plane, lightly loaded, launched into the sky and quickly left the pursuing trucks behind.
In the back of the plane, Garcia got the cargo ramp closed just before the C-130 leapt into the air. The newly arrived passengers fell onto the floor, exhausted and dirty. Chris and Evan knelt over the teenage girl, an EMS trauma bag open between them. Chris started an IV while Evan cut off the girl’s shirt, bra, and jeans with a pair of shears. They rolled her on her side and checked for an exit wound, but found none and rolled her back face-up. The girl cried in pain before Chris could get a dose of morphine injected into her arm. Evan packed her wound with gauze and applied pressure, trying to stop the bleeding. Normally, they fought to keep someone alive to get the patient to a field hospital for immediate care, but there was no hospital. There was no other help. They were the only ones who had any chance at saving this girl’s life.
Chris wrapped a blood pressure cuff around her arm. Her breathing was getting shallower. She was going into shock. They both worked hard and methodically, doing all they could to help the girl, but it wasn’t enough to save her. A loud gasp followed by a rattled breath, and the girl was dead. Evan closed her eyelids and pulled the silver space blanket over her head. They didn’t have half the gear they normally carried in the Pave Hawks, much less a body bag.
The teenage boy hung his head and cried into his hands while the man beside him hugged him and tried to comfort him. The two pallets of supplies turned out to be worthless. The large group of survivors they’d come to resupply now sat in the cargo hold of the aircraft in silence and in much smaller numbers. Rick wanted to ask them some questions about their attackers, but there would be time later. There were some ground rules he had to tell the new arrivals. Rick walked to the group, who now huddled close together around the teenage boy.
“I’m sorry to bring this up now, but there are a few things I need to tell you. When we arrive, everyone will be submitted to a strip search for bites and quarantined for forty-eight hours. You will be given food and a change of clothes and you will be able to bathe. You will be expected to contribute and earn your keep in our facility, but you will be safe there. All weapons must be declared, but you will be allowed to keep them and will be expected to be armed at all times. Do you have any questions?”
One of the men gasped and pointed behind Rick. The dead teenage girl sat up, the silver space blanket falling off her face. Chris pulled the knife out of the sheath on the front of his armor and jammed the blade deep into the girl’s temple. The girl fell over, dead for good. Chris retrieved his knife, stood, and stomped off towards the cockpit, cursing loudly. Evan pulled the blanket over the girl’s head again. Blood seeped out from under the blanket across the non-skid floor.
CHAPTER 35
Fort Bliss, Texas
February 16, Year 1
The diesel fuel from the Humvee’s tank now filled the tank of the Land Rover, and the dozen gallon-sized milk jugs tied to the roof rack were also full of diesel. Apollo, Chivo, and Lindsey wasted no time in packing their new vehicle. Besides siphoning the fuel, all they had for supplies was the radio and what they had found the night before. Chivo took the first turn at driving, Apollo sitting in the passenger seat with the handwritten directions. Lindsey sat sideways in the fold-down seat in the back.
They all believed that getting out of El Paso would be the hardest part of their eastbound journey to Pyote. After their harrowing drive through the middle of El Paso to reach Fort Bliss and then escaping the middle of the Army post and the horde of walking corpses, none of them had any desire to travel back into El Paso ever again. The sun hung low against the western horizon by the time they drove the Land Rover past the ranges and down the gravel drive to the chain-link fence separating them from the Purple Heart Memorial Highway. Apollo exited the truck, bolt cutters in hand, and made quick work of cutting the fence before holding the section of chain-link back for the Land Rover to pass through.
A safety wire separated the travel lanes of the highway, so for now they were trapped on the wrong side for the way they were traveling—not that it really mattered anymore. Chivo drove slowly, trying to keep the speedometer near thirty miles per hour while navigating around the disabled and abandoned vehicles. All of them were happy to be in an enclosed vehicle for their journey. The open bed of the pickup truck was a major factor in Odin’s death, and none of them wished his fate upon themselves. Chivo and Apollo just hoped they’d made the right choice in switching vehicles to the old Land Rover and that it wouldn’t break down or get worse gas mileage than the abandoned Humvee.
Traveling eastbound, the number of undead on the roadway wasn’t too heavy, and they were easily avoided by the quick reactions of Chivo behind the wheel. Some of their bony fingers dragged down the side of the truck, clawing at the flesh inside. Some bounced off the front fenders as they passed. None of the walking corpses fell off the overpasses as they cleared the last of the base’s major buildings. They drove down the on-ramp to turn onto Montana Avenue and passed a Super Walmart. The parking lot teemed with undead swarming through the cars like ants. Chivo guessed that there were close to two thousand dead bouncing around the mass of cars left forever in the large parking lot. Apollo thought that number was low. Luck favors children, drunks, and soldiers on hopeless missions: the mass of undead didn’t turn towards the passing SUV, nor did any of them follow out of the parking lot. If that horde had noticed their vehicle driving past and they got stuck, there would be no way to survive.
A tense twenty minutes passed before civilization began to spread out as they reached the edge of the city and started into the desert mountains. The further they drove away from El Paso, the sparser everything became. There were fewer vehicles on the roadway blocking their path and even fewer undead shambling across the road. Compared to their harrowing journey through El Paso, the open desert was a pleasant evening drive. Once clear of most of the signs of civilization, Chivo pushed the Land Rover to sixty miles per hour; the road was mostly empty and the sun sat low against their backs, pushing the three eastward.
The heater in the Land Rover worked well, and for the first time in a while the three of them felt warm and comfortable, finally protected from the cold winter air. Idle chat occupied their time and eventually Lindsey began to come out of her shell and open up about her life.
“I was studying journalism and photography at UTEP. I grew up in Van Horn, and after I ran out of food in my apartment, I really thought I could ride my scooter back to my parents’ house. I figured they would know what to do.”
“How far of a drive is that?”
“About two hours. It’s just down I-10. I didn’t know how bad it was out there. Before the electricity went out, the
re were warnings on Twitter and TV about an attack. So I locked the door to my apartment and hid inside until I just couldn’t anymore. It wasn’t bad around my apartment, and after the first couple of days. I didn’t hear any more gunfire. So I thought it was getting safer and I left. What about you guys? Where did you come from?”
“Apollo here is from outside Denver, and when he left for boot camp after high school, his town was down to only one other black guy.”
Apollo snorted loudly in response. “Chivo’s family started in south L.A., but after jumping one fence, they kept going and ended up as the only Spanish-speaking family in North Dakota.”
“Fuck you, mano, we were in South Dakota. That’s where the real shit goes down.”
Lindsey stared in horror at the two of them. “Do you guys really hate each other that much?”
“No way, Senorita. We’ve just been through a lot of shit together off and on over the last fifteen years. I’m actually from Laredo and Apollo really is from outside of Denver. We met when we were wet behind the ears baby-Rangers in the 75th from Ranger School. We were both selected for The Unit at about the same time and both left the Army at the same time for new adventures. Although we’ve been bounced around with different assignments here and there, this man is my brother from another mother.”
“Yeah, same father though. You can see the resemblance.”
Apollo and Chivo grinned wildly, both looking over their shoulders at Lindsey as she quickly looked back and forth at them, trying to see if there really was any resemblance—which there quite obviously was not. Chivo and Apollo laughed loudly at her reaction.
The Guadalupe Peak passed to their left, but the spilled ink darkness of the night enveloped the desert floor, and only the reflective green sign on the side of the highway gave them notice.
