by Dave Lund
Checking the cabinets in the hangar, Cliff found a few cans of Plexus, some cleaning rags, a garden hose, and three gallons of distilled water. The hose and water were the big find. Distilled water did him no good since he needed electrolytes, but he could pour out the water and the jugs would get him started on his task. A section cut out of the garden hose would be the other piece to the puzzle; with these tools he could siphon gas and bring it back to the hangar. Also in the hangar was a basic set of tools, a socket set, some vice grips, and a variety of screwdrivers. All the tools went in a plastic tote in the van; when you’re driving an old air-cooled Volkswagen, you never know when it might break down and leave you stranded if you don’t have some tools.
Cliff left the hangar and pulled the door closed, leaving the lock off but tying a small piece of 550 cord through the lock hole. That would keep the undead out, and also let him know if anyone else went into the hangar while he was gone.
The sun was getting low on the horizon when Cliff set off at a trot towards the fly-in restaurant he had passed earlier near the ramp. It would have been faster to drive around the airport, but that could bring a lot of attention, undead or otherwise. He had a mission to complete, and he had to be alive to complete it.
First, he needed to find gas. In the small airport parking lot he found a couple of beat-up old Subarus and an old Chevy K1500 Blazer. The Blazer was his first choice, so after quickly scanning the area for threats, he slid under the back of the old truck. Using his Emerson knife, he cut out a section of the hose between the gas tank and fuel filler opening. Lying on his back, he slid the section of garden hose he had brought with him into the tank and began sucking on the other end. The gas flowed quickly, and some got into his mouth. Coughing, he filled the three water jugs with gas, left the hose in the gas tank, and ran back to the hangar. Three trips later, he had completely filled the VW’s fuel tank and had three extra gallons of gas for his trip.
It was now dark. Cliff shut the hangar doors, set the door pin, and tied the doors together from the inside. He was exhausted. He needed to get some sleep, but he still had some work to do first. Setting the alarm on his watch for five o’clock in the morning so he could start out before the sun came up, he pulled out a Phillips screwdriver and removed the bulbs from the turn signals, the dome light in the van, and the taillights. If he was driving at night, he wanted to be completely blacked out, and not accidently illuminate his position by bumping a turn signal. He also disconnected the horn.
Maypearl, Texas
The trucks were packed with all but the essentials the group needed for the night and one of the tents, which everyone was now sharing. The roof racks of both the FJ and Wagoneer were nearly overloaded, and all three trucks sat low on their rear springs. The group’s plan was to wait to review the full route the GPS suggested. Much like everyone who wished Google Maps had a “not-through-the-ghetto” option for directions, they did not want to be routed through a big city like Austin en route to Big Bend. They had to get this right.
Bexar took the first watch, followed by Jessie, then Sandra and Jack. The trucks were repositioned to face the camp’s exit, through their secret gate, so they could make a hasty exit if they needed to.
Dinner was beans, rice, and Gatorade, the last cooked meal at their cache site. The fire dwindled and twilight gave way to darkness, and everyone but Bexar went to bed. The dark winter sky was aglow to the north from the fires. Dallas was on fire, and Bexar knew that their time at the cache site was up; it would be nearly suicidal to stay. Even if the fire didn’t continue to spread that far south, the undead hordes would be pushed this way, like rats fleeing a sinking ship. In a few short days Bexar had decided that if there was still a God left in heaven, he was the angry and spiteful God of the Old Testament.
CHAPTER 26
December 30th
Maypearl, Texas
The orange glow on the horizon persisted throughout the night. Jack said that during his watch he was sure it had actually become brighter.
Sandra had stayed up with Jack during his watch, enjoying the alone time with her husband. It had only been three days since the world ended, but it felt like a lifetime ago. Speaking in hushed whispers so as not to wake the kids, they discussed what their future was, and what sort of future Will would have in this new condemned world. There were no easy answers.
They’d also talked about whether Maypearl had been the best choice for their cache site. Malachi had wanted to use their favorite camping spot at Paw Paw Creek on Lake Texoma, but that would have meant Bexar had a much longer drive, never mind that the fluctuating water levels and the popularity of the campsite would have put their cached supplies in jeopardy.
The orange glow of the night sky blended with the crimson of the rising sun. Sandra longed for the heat of the sun. The night had been bitterly cold, and even if it wasn’t much above freezing during the day, it was still warmer than it had been.
A sudden shotgun blast from within the campgrounds roused Bexar from his tent, and sent Jack flying to his feet, both with their ARs in hand.
“Was that one of the trip wires?” Bexar asked.
“Jesus, Bexar, go put pants on, I’ll check it out,” Jack replied.
Bexar went back in his tent and came out a few seconds later dressed in loose pants, untied boots, and a hooded sweatshirt. Sandra took Will, still groggy, to the Jeep, where they were quickly joined by Jessie, with Keeley in her arms crying at the top of her lungs. The sound of the crying toddler was soon drowned out by the gurgling moans of the undead. More shotgun blasts went off.
“Shit!” exclaimed Jack, “there’s got to be two dozen of them—Bexar, grab our shit, I’ll cover.” The sound of the undead trampling through the brush wasn’t nearly as loud as the chorus of moans coming from the dark woods. Bexar threw his rifle over his back and dove inside the tent to gather the last of the gear. He worked as fast as he could, accompanied by the sound of Jack firing his AR and cursing loudly.
Outside the tent, Sandra started the jeep and turned on the headlights. With the wood line illuminated, they could see another two dozen or so undead making their way through the brush. The lead zombie looked horrible, wearing only a pair of soiled and torn jeans, with a large gaping hole where his belly button had been. Only the remnants of intestines that had spilled out of his body remained, dragging on the ground behind him. Bexar exited the tent just in time to see Jack squeeze the trigger of his AR and explode the undead’s head backwards.
Bexar took what he had gathered up from the tent and threw it in the back seat of the Scout. They didn’t have time to take down the tent; luckily, they had packed the other two.
“Jack, wheels up man, we’ve got to go!”
“Right, Bexar, what about the gate?”
“Fuck it, we’ll get to it when we get to it—let’s roll!”
Jack sprinted for his FJ and started the engine. Bexar dropped to a kneeling firing position and began taking out the closest undead threats. “Breathe, sight, and press,” he repeated quietly to himself. The Magpul CTR stock pulling into his shoulder, he systematically drove the rifle to the next target and repeated the process. Having brought down the four closest undead, Bexar stood and moved fast to the Scout.
Jack was leaning out of his open door to cover Bexar’s retreat, and only began to drive once Bexar had started his truck. The three of them started towards the gate. Slowing, Jessie got out of the Wagoneer and ran to the gate; there she stood ready, pistol in hand, waiting for Sandra to pull the Wagoneer through. With her focus on the vehicles pulling through the gate, she didn’t see the old undead woman shamble up behind her from the woods. As the cold, dead hands grasped her shoulders and began to pull her over backwards for the kill, Jessie began screaming loudly.
Bexar had stopped the Scout when he saw the zombie approaching his wife, but didn’t have time to warn her. Instead, he opened the driver’s door and stood in the doorframe, steadying the rifle on the top of the windshield. As the old
woman pulled Jessie off balance, he had the one minute of angle—1MOA—to get the point of his red dot lined up with the bridge of her nose. Before the zombie could bite and kill his wife, the old woman’s head exploded, showering Jessie with skull and brain matter. Jessie ran as fast as she could to the Wagoneer now clear of the gate, and jumped in.
Like it or not, the group was back on the road, and would be until they reached the safety of the Chisos Mountains.
Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport, Colorado
Although this all seemed like some sort of bastard training exercise thought up for the Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) school Cliff had attended ten years prior, Cliff knew that it wasn’t; he was completely on his own, and the enemy gave no quarter. The few hours of sleep that was afforded in the cold aircraft hangar outside of Denver was the best thing Cliff had experienced in the past seventy-two hours.
At least the undead won’t water board you if you’re caught, Cliff chuckled to himself. He lit a chafing dish after bending a wire coat hanger he’d found in the back of the van to make a little cooking stand for his procured can of vegetable stew from Walgreens. He had another long day ahead of him, so he took a little extra time to pack things just right in the van after breakfast, and to relieve himself in the corner of the hangar. Once he was set, he pulled the locking pin for the hangar doors and untied the 550 cord he had used to secure them through the night. Before pushing the door open slightly, Cliff drew his pistol and held it close to his chest in the SUL position. About three to four inches of fresh snow had fallen during the night. Although a curse for the drive, it was a blessing for Cliff’s security. He could instantly recognize that no one, dead or alive, had been near his hangar during the night. This was the first good break he’d had since the facility under Denver International had gone dark.
Cliff pushed the hangar doors open far enough for the van to clear, climbed into the old VW, and started the motor. In a few moments he turned onto Airport Way and continued on his route towards I-70. As he drove, he occasionally thought he could see movement in the dark windows of businesses along the road, but saw only a handful of undead moving out in the open. He had still seen no sign of any living people. He knew the Yama Strain was exceptionally virulent, but surely someone else had also survived.
CHAPTER 27
Maypearl, Texas
Jack led the three-vehicle convoy out of the old Royal Rangers campground and away from their compromised cache site. As they approached the town of Maypearl, Bexar saw that the fire had done considerable damage, but had mostly died out. There was no movement in the town at all; it seemed as if death had swept through the town, laying all living things to waste.
In the lead vehicle, Jack booted the GPS that Malachi had protected from the EMP and selected their destination. The GPS advised the group to turn north back up to I-20, but that would lead them back into the very area they were trying to escape. No, they needed to move south and point west as soon as possible, putting as much distance between them and the undead horde behind them as possible.
On the south side of Maypearl, Jack stopped the convoy for a quick pow-wow and planning session. Walking over to Bexar, who was standing next to Jessie by the Wagoneer, he said, “Bexar, I don’t think there was anything alive in that town.”
“Yeah,” Bexar agreed, “I didn’t even hear any dogs barking.”
Jack continued, “The GPS says to go up to I-20 and head west, but I think we’d be better off hitting I-35, and heading south to get to I-10 somewhere west of Boerne.”
Bexar thought for a moment. “I agree, except that I-35 was a parking lot of death when we crossed it heading up here. We can hit it for a little ways, but we need to get off before we get anywhere near Waco. Then we can see if we can find a highway heading west. I don’t want to get any closer to San Antonio than Boerne, and even that seems a little close.”
Colorado
Cliff reached I-70 without any issues. The number of abandoned cars was surprisingly small, and he found the drive fairly easy even with the fresh snow, but was still concerned that he hadn’t seen any signs of life since climbing out of the underground facility. He really didn’t want to be the last man standing in this hellish new world.
He turned onto the Interstate and headed west towards Groom Lake, Nevada, keeping his speed around forty miles per hour in an effort to conserve gas, and also to drive safely around the abandoned vehicles on the roadway. It would be nice, he thought, if all the people that had been in those cars and were now nowhere to be seen had fled to safety, but he was a realist, and thought those people had probably all been killed and were now wandering the countryside, looking for their next victim.
The drive took Cliff through the heart of Colorado skiing country, and as he passed through Breckenridge and Vail, the thought of a bunch of rich, undead skiers lurching through the resorts in their expensive sweaters and North Face jackets made Cliff smirk. Even though the thought was funny, the threat was real, so he stopped the van in the middle of the highway, clear of any other vehicles, and filled up the tank with the three gallons of gas he had stored in the water jugs.
Scanning for threats, he chose another truck to steal gas from about two hundred feet further up the highway. This time he drove his van close to the fuel source and left it running while he slid under the Dodge Ram to repeat the same fuel siphoning process he had done the night before. He wanted a full tank and a backup, since he didn’t want to stop again until he was on the other side of Vail.
Hillsboro, Texas
Hillsboro was a sad town long before the dead rose from the grave to hunt the living. The once well-stocked outlet mall had withered away years ago, with much of the retail space sitting vacant. For Bexar, the best part of Hillsboro was that it was the last stop for a Braum’s hamburger and shake. There weren’t any more Braum’s south of here in Texas. Not that it mattered now; any Braum’s food or ice cream in the store would have gone bad by now.
The convoy stayed on the Interstate through the town, passing several clusters of undead. Each turned to follow their new prey, stumbling down the road behind their vehicles. Although the group quickly outpaced them, Bexar worried that the undead might not ever stop the chase; that he and his family and friends would never be able to stop and rest, or they would be forced to fight for their lives. Won’t they get distracted after they can’t see us anymore and wander off somewhere else? thought Bexar.
His mind continued to wander as they drove. The convoy was keeping pace between forty and fifty miles per hour, driving around undead and abandoned vehicles, but even those obstacles weren’t enough to keep him from becoming sleepy and distracted. He wished the group had some sort of two-way radios so they could talk to each other, and he really wished the radio in his truck would still play music, not that there was probably anyone left in the radio stations to broadcast it.
When the group reached the outskirts of Whitney, they stopped to survey the area. Jack could see movement across the roadway, but from that distance he couldn’t tell if the person was dead or alive.
CHAPTER 28
Glenwood Springs, Colorado
Cliff made good time, considering his situation, but once he reached Glenwood Springs he had to slow down because there were a lot of abandoned cars in the road. He had expected to find some sort of signs of life as he came into civilization, but there was a complete lack of people. If anyone was still alive, there should be some signs of their survival, cooking fires or something, yet there was nothing.
If they were all dead, truly dead, he would have seen bodies. There was nothing, not even the undead. Glenwood had burned, and although it didn’t look like any large fires were still burning, much of the typical urban sprawl—shopping centers, restaurants, stores, and apartments—had obvious and significant fire damage.
As he neared the Highway 82 turnoff, it was apparent that a massive battle had preceded his arrival by a couple of days. He couldn’t tell if the fight had bee
n between factions of the living, or between survivors and the undead, but for all the damage and all the carnage, there was a distinct lack of bodies. Further down the road though, there were at least one hundred bodies strewn about on both sides of the river, obvious battle casualties that also appeared to be covered in bite marks.
Cliff had downshifted and slowed the van even more to survey the carnage when out of the corner of his eye a movement caught his attention. With a loud curse, he slammed both feet down onto the clutch and the brake pedals while jerking the wheel of the old van to the right. He was able to miss the first two undead, but hit the next three while skidding on the snow, front wheels still turned to the right.
In his mind, time slowed, and he chastised himself both for being distracted and for reacting incorrectly. He knew a driver can either evade or brake, but can’t do both and expect to retain control of a vehicle. Striking the three walking undead, physics once again proved master and the van lurched hard onto its left side. Cliff’s head bounced off the side of the van and hit the windshield hard.
Central Texas
Children do not trouble themselves with the worries of the adult world. They simply have no concern for what time a parent went to bed; they will still wake up at a ridiculously early hour. Children don’t care if you’re hungover or sick, they will awake with the need for attention, love, and breakfast. Young children especially will have no thoughts about the total collapse of society, or that the dead have risen to hunt the living.
Will and Keeley slept through the encounter with the handful of undead in Whitney. The convoy managing to drive away from the threat with no problem. They napped as they passed through the small towns of Meridian and Hico. As the group approached the east side of Dublin, Texas, however, their good fortune lapsed, and both children awoke and demanded to be let out.
