by Dave Lund
Sandra took out the family’s trusty old Coleman lantern and stove, while Jack shut and secured the doors in the building. The family ate boiled deer sausage in silence, then, wrapping themselves in woolen Hudson Bay blankets, lay down on the hard concrete floor to sleep as best they could in their frightening new world.
CHAPTER 8
December 27th
Denver International Airport (DIA), Colorado
Shortly after midnight, Air Force One began a hard fast combat approach to DIA. Instead of the usual gentle gliding approach like an airliner, Colonel Olive pushed the nose of the big modified 747 forward while applying some rudder input to drop altitude quickly, making a large spiral towards Runway 34-L. No lights were visible on the airport grounds, and the runway lights were dark as well, although there were some smoldering aircraft wrecks near some of the other runways. In fact, the only light that Colonel Olive had seen while approaching DIA was from Denver, and it was all from fires.
Colonel Olive hadn’t had to land a plane wearing night vision goggles in some time, but after the many years he’d spent in the Air Force, he was confident just the same; an extraordinary level of skill and confidence had marked his rise through the Air Force ranks, and had paved the way for being given flight command of Air Force One. Olive was confident that the landing would be easy, but he was worried about taxiing across the airport to Concourse C, where the President would exit the aircraft and enter the tunnel leading to the secure structure six stories beneath The Great Hall.
Landing roughly, Colonel Olive pushed the reverse thrusters as far as they would go while giving some rudder input to move past some debris on the runway he hadn’t been able to see on approach. The input was too late, and two of the tires on the right main were ruptured by the bent aluminum, causing the large aircraft to yaw violently to the right towards a large lump that had just appeared out of the shallow depth of his night vision goggles. That lump was, in fact, an overturned fire apparatus, but in the last few seconds of Olive’s life, he wouldn’t know what happened—that the rightmost CF6 engine had struck the fire apparatus, setting off a chain reaction of disaster.
The engine was ripped from under the wing and the aircraft spun violently to the right, still traveling over one hundred miles per hour, and the plane began to roll, digging the left wingtip into the tarmac. The wing succumbed to the force of the strike and broke, causing the fuselage to roll while spraying fuel from the wing tanks. The fuel ignited on the still-running large General Electric turbofans, and as it continued rolling down the runway, Air Force One erupted in a large ball of fire.
Mexia, Texas
Bexar was exhausted. Jessie had woken him to switch places, and as he climbed on top of the Jeep’s roof, he cursed silently. Jessie quickly fell asleep, leaving Bexar to stare out into the darkness.
He couldn’t see anything past the tie-down aircraft outside of their hangar, although there was a glow from the still-burning aircraft at the other end of the runway. Staring into the darkness, his eyes began playing tricks on him, seeing movement in the shadows where there was none.
Climbing off the roof, Bexar found his small backpacking stove and pulled his worn Zippo lighter out of his pocket to light the stove. He’d quit smoking years ago, but had kept the lighter for sentimental reasons. Jessie had given him the custom-engraved lighter for their first anniversary. With the fuel tab lit, he poured some water into an old blue enamel camping cup and waited for the water to boil. Instant coffee tasted like instant coffee, but it was better than no coffee. Seeing movement out of the corner of his eye, Bexar quickly turned, his rifle coming up instinctively towards the threat, safety thumbed off, only to find Keeley standing next to the Jeep, clutching her blanket.
“Hey baby girl, go get some sleep so we can enjoy our camping trip and our drive tomorrow. You might even get to see Will tomorrow afternoon.”
Without a word, Keeley climbed back into the back seat of the Jeep and lay down. “I’m sorry the world is ending, we were just trying to build a nice life for you,” Bexar thought to himself. Climbing back onto the roof of the Jeep to continue watch, Bexar drank his burnt-tasting coffee, all the while fighting the fear of the dark and the pull of sleep.
“WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?”
Bexar jerked awake, knocking over his blue coffee cup and sending it clattering to the hangar floor. Looking over the top of the tarp, he could see the sun coming up, and about a dozen people slowly shuffling from around the tied-down aircraft towards his hangar. How long was I asleep? he thought over and over. He was puzzled by the group of people until one of them moaned—it was a guttural animal moan, a call to feed, and Bexar shivered at the sound.
“Shit shit shit shit, Jess, damnit, toss everything in the Jeep, we’ve got to go! Give me a second and then drive off.” Stepping onto the hood of the Jeep, Bexar pulled the C-M Forge knife from his belt and cut the tarp down. Now with a clear view, he sat back on the roof rack, feet still on the hood of his truck, and raised his rifle, lining up his sight and squeezing the trigger. Left hand out on the end of his rifle, pulling against the LaRue FUG, Bexar stabilized the rifle and quickly drove the muzzle to the next threat as the back of the first undead’s head exploded outward from the energy of the Black Hills 55-grain bullet.
Breathe, red-dot, squeeze, drive, breathe, Bexar continued his rhythm while Jessie started the Jeep and put it in gear. Breathe, red-dot, squeeze … nothing. Nothing happened. Bexar slapped the bottom of the magazine and brought his left hand up to pull the big Badger Latch to cycle his AR, but the bolt wouldn’t move. Bexar rolled the rifle to the left as he stood up on the hood and brought the rifle down to his side. Fuck, bolt over, ran through Bexar’s head as his right hand found the grip of the Kimber on his right hip. Well-practiced, he let the rifle hang on the sling to his left side and brought up his left hand to support the grip of his pistol. Taking aim at the next threat, there was suddenly only blackness.
Dazed, Bexar woke up at the other end of the airport. He could see the blue sky, and could hear noises off in the distance, but everything felt like it was a thousand miles away, like in a dream. Sitting up, he saw he was next to the Jeep, Jessie about twenty feet in front of him, pistol up, shooting.
Crashing back to reality, he heard Keeley screaming and crying from inside the Jeep. The jammed AR was still slung across his torso, so Bexar mortared the rifle to force the bolt over to clear and discarded the damaged round. Swapping in a fresh Pmag from his belt, he stood up, but the world spun and forced him to his knees.
“Jess, what the fuck …?” he called.
“Babe, you hit your head on the hangar as we drove out; you’ve been out cold for about five minutes. We’re about to be overrun, about fifteen more coming our way!” she called back, her voice shrill with tension.
Bexar laid flat on his belly, taking a prone firing position so he wouldn’t get dizzy and could fire his rifle accurately. Trying to slow his breathing, he took aim. Squeeze, breathe, and drive to the next target, he chanted silently. In less than a minute the rest of the shambling threats were down, and Jessie helped Bexar into the passenger seat before pointing the Jeep at the entry gate and quickly driving away from the airport where they had nearly died.
Bexar dug in the glove box and found two packets of BC Powder. Although he knew it wouldn’t help with a concussion, he hoped it would maybe dull some of the pain throbbing between his ears.
CHAPTER 9
Farmersville, Texas
In the small, north Texas town of Farmersville, Malachi found the morning of December 27th bitterly cold, and the lightly insulated metal building didn’t help. He and Amber huddled together, quietly discussing what their next steps should be; specifically, what their plan should be to exit the building safely. They decided on a plan that would see Malachi sneaking through the building to the outside, checking that the coast was clear, and then signaling Amber to roll up the big door.
Amber took her station at the roll up door and waited for Malachi. Two lig
ht taps on the door was her cue, and as she pulled on the chain the door began its noisy ascent. Malachi ran in a combat crouch towards the gate at the front of the property that they needed to open to drive off. Nearing the gate, Malachi heard the Scout’s motor turn over, followed by a loud moan to his right. Turning and driving the muzzle of his rifle towards the threat, Malachi saw a dead person shuffling towards him, arms up, mouth open, and uttering a deep moan that shook Malachi to his core.
With a little bit of distance comes a little bit of time, so he was able to flip the level from the gate and pull it open before raising the muzzle of his rifle. Amber pulled up just as Malachi pulled the trigger to the rear and ended the dead man’s shambling afterlife.
Mexia, Texas
Bexar and his family made the short drive from the airport into the center of the little central Texas town in very little time. They found the town burning and overrun by the undead. It was amazing how quickly the dead had taken over the living. The drive through town took longer than Bexar had wanted, spending much of his time in second gear, dodging the shuffling hordes. Each gaping mouth they passed would turn and stumble in the direction of their vehicle, blindly looking to feed. Bexar didn’t know how far or how long they could follow his Jeep, but he hoped they gave up soon.
Mansfield, Texas
Cold MREs with instant coffee was the breakfast of choice for Jack, Sandra, and Will. After breakfast, they reloaded the FJ and prepped to leave.
Jack walked out of the “smoker’s door” and into the cold north Texas morning to scout their exit route. He brought his AR up and slid along the side of the metal building towards the roadway, stopping short of the building’s corner, then slowly sidestepping while slicing the pie to check the blind spots behind the building’s corner. Seeing movement, Jack stopped and dropped to a kneeling shooter’s position.
Across the road, aimlessly milling about, were twenty or so undead. If he began engaging the threats, he knew Sandra would burst through the door and assist, but he felt their best bet would be to get the truck out, take care of the immediate threats, and flee in the vehicle. Slowly sliding back the way he came, Jack went inside and outlined a quick operational plan to Sandra.
Pulling on the chain and opening the large overhead door seemed to take forever; it also made an incredible amount of noise. Will was in the back seat of the truck with his seatbelt on and both doors were locked. Jack knelt next to the open driver’s door, rifle up, ready to engage any immediate threats. Sandra worked the chains, pulling the door up. Once the door was high enough to clear their vehicle, she ran to the passenger door, climbed in, and slammed the door shut, locking it. Jack waited until his wife was secure before he broke cover and climbed into the driver’s seat of the running truck.
Pulling out of the bay and around the front of the building, he saw that, predictably, the undead had been drawn towards the sound of the opening door and the running vehicle, and were lurching towards them in the hopes of a fresh meal. He was able to miss most of them, but struck the last straggler with the front right corner of the brush guard on the FJ. Jack didn’t slow down, didn’t even look back, he just kept driving.
Driving from Mansfield to Maypearl would normally take just under an hour, but today Jack wasn’t sure how long the trip would take. Luckily, the small Texas back roads provided them with some security. There were very few disabled cars on the roads, and since their encounter that morning, he hadn’t seen another undead. In fact, they hadn’t seen anyone living or dead since leaving their temporary shelter. Jack kept the speedometer at forty miles per hour the entire way until they came to the outskirts of Venus.
The old downtown of Venus looked like every small town in north Texas: a couple of open shops and a few abandoned buildings. It was easy to forget that the world had drastically changed the day before. When Sandra suddenly yelled “STOP!” Jack slammed on the brakes, nearly catching another undead in the brush guard on his truck.
Moaning loudly, the creature began clawing at the passenger window, making Sandra scream. The lost soul pounded on the side of the FJ, slowly following the truck as it pulled forward. Neither Jack nor Sandra saw the forty or so undead that came stumbling out from the side streets, crossing into the center of Main Street and directly into the FJ’s path. Their attention was quickly brought forward again when the first of the undead swarm collided with the center of the brush guard and landed on the hood of the truck.
Jack slammed his right foot back down on the brake while his left foot pushed the clutch to the floor. Shifting into reverse, he backed up as fast as he could, swerving around the first undead he had missed, then stopping and turning onto a small side street to carve a path around the swarm. After three more blocks, the living dead man on the hood, who looked to be about twenty, was still beating on the windshield, trying to get at fresh prey. Jack stopped the FJ, leaned out of the driver’s door to get the right angle, and fired a single shot into its head. He then grabbed the man by his blood-soaked jeans and pulled him off the hood of the truck, leaving a sticky blood smear.
They were getting close to the cache site and the safety of like-minded friends. Jack feverishly hoped they all made it to the rendezvous.
CHAPTER 10
South of Farmersville, Texas
After turning onto Highway 78, Malachi decided they were going to be in a lot of trouble, pretty much screwed, whichever route they took. They should just make a run for it with the fastest and most direct route. The biggest problem would be traffic, he figured, but he also felt that as long as they didn’t stop for too long, they should be able to outpace any zombies they came across.
After all of the bad movies, the books, and the jokes, it had actually happened—the dead had risen to hunt the living. He couldn’t believe it. He even had a couple of boxes of the zombie killer Hornady ammo that had come out a while back, but now the joke just wasn’t funny anymore.
The trip to Rockwall was quick and effortless, but he was feeling nauseous from the stress. The handful of small towns they drove through were eerily quiet, with no signs of anyone living, dead, or undead. They finally made it to the I-30; the westbound lanes appeared to be relatively clear, but the eastbound side was a parking lot of disabled cars. So many new cars laid to waste, left to forever rot on the asphalt in Texas. The only vehicles Malachi had seen on the road that were still running were at least thirty years old, mainly old CJ Jeeps and K-series Blazers. Someone might have taken steps to protect the electronics on their more modern vehicle with some sort of large Faraday cage, but he knew that was absurd. If you were willing to take the steps to EMP-proof a modern vehicle, you might as well just build and maintain an older vehicle that would be more robust after an EMP event anyway.
Maypearl, Texas
Jack pulled off the small highway into the ditch where he, Malachi, and Bexar had constructed a semi-hidden gate onto the property. They had split a cedar fence post, lashing the two together but leaving one side unsecured so it could be moved like a gate, but wouldn’t be obvious. Jack opened the gate and stood over watch with his AR while Sandra pulled the FJ through. After securing the gate behind them, they drove the quarter mile through the property to their big blue water tank. The tank held no water and had hopefully remained unmolested; it held the group’s cached supplies.
State Highway 171, Texas
Bexar and Jessie encountered few problems in the back country of central Texas after making it out of Mexia, but their luck changed as they approached the south side of Hubbard, Texas. It was obvious that several large fires burned uncontrolled in the town. Bexar needed to get to a Farm-to-Market road on the other side of the town, but before driving into a potential threat, he grabbed the binoculars and climbed onto the roof of the Jeep. In his magnified view he could see a jackknifed semi-truck across the center of the roadway, and it looked like someone had been in one hell of a firefight. The truck was riddled with bullet holes, and shell casings littered the roadway. Then Bexar finally realized w
hat he was looking at—an ambush point.
With his family in the vehicle and no backup available, the last thing he wanted to do was engage in some sort of prolonged gun battle, but after watching the roadblock for nearly fifteen minutes and not being able to think of an alternate route, Bexar decided to chance it.
Keeley lay down on the floorboards of the back seat with Bexar’s Kevlar vest spread over her. Although it wouldn’t stop a direct hit from a rifle round, it would hopefully be enough to protect her from rounds slowed down by coming through the truck. Jessie hung out of the passenger window with the AR as Bexar inched the Jeep forward. Getting closer, Bexar saw that he could drive into the ditch to the left of the roadblock, turn right, and hopefully make it across the road to the other side of the ambush point. He saw no one; it was possible that the roadblock was abandoned, that they had been overrun, or that the undead had triumphed.
Abruptly the Jeep’s windshield shattered with a pop; the rifle report was heard immediately after. Keeley began screaming and Bexar put his right foot to the floor, shifting through third gear. Jessie was yelling something, but he was too focused on evading the threat to hear what she was saying.
They cleared downtown at sixty miles per hour and didn’t stop until a couple of miles north of the town.
“Holy shit, everyone okay?” he finally managed.
Jessie said, “Bexar, you’re bleeding, but I’m okay, and Keeley’s just scared.”
Touching his head, looking in the rearview mirror, Bexar realized that glass from the windshield had cut his face. He could also see daylight filtering through the small hole left by the bullet’s path through the roof of the Jeep.
