It had been 18 months since the official announcement of Z-day back in June of 2012. The fatality rate was unfathomable in terms of those who had died the first death. Estimates had come in specifying that somewhere between 90- to 95-percent of the world had died at least one death. In a normal world that would have been enough, but lately it took two deaths to put someone into the eternal afterlife.
Hutch stood for a minute as he looked out at the Kansas City skyline before him, and was amazed at how badly the city had fallen in such a short time.
He would never be the largest man standing, as he came in just a hair under 5’10”, yet his athletic frame was as solid as it could be, especially considering his age at 42. A few scars emblazoned his smoothly-shaven head, lending him an air of intimidation. Most who saw him judged him as the type of man with whom you didn’t want to be on the receiving end of a bad mood. Laid out before him were his clothes for the day. A fresh set of military fatigues, bullet-proof vest, standard issue combat boots, long-sleeve mesh-material shirt, gloves, and his good-luck camo bonnie hat with the Navy Seal anchor embroidered across the front, which coincidently matched the Navy Seal tattoo across his right bicep.
After he was fully dressed, he reached for his equipment and did one last check to make sure all was in proper working order. Satisfied all was ready, he made his way down the stairs. As he progressed through the building, he cleared the booby traps he had laid out to ensure he would be the only person walking through the building.
As he approached the boarded up lobby, the growls and groans from outside became quite noticeable. The crowd was large and hungry, which made Hutch smile. The hanging carcasses of a few pigs and a goat were quite adequate to garner the attention of the slabs, as they had been dubbed in the media. As it turned out, flesh was flesh, the slabs didn’t care if it was human or animal. It appeared that the consumption of meat was all they needed to keep on existing their second non-lives. It was not yet known how much or how little they needed or how long they could go without, but it did appear that the longer they went without food the worse the body decomposed. It seemed as though even eating just a little was enough to get them moving again.
Hutch eyed the rope above his head that ran across the room and was attached to several pins that held up his barriers, securing all the entrances to the building. After one more equipment check of his holstered handguns and the M-14 slung over his shoulder, he was ready. With a tug of the rope, all the pins that held up the wooden barriers released, and the large plywood sheets fell free from the entrances and stirred up a huge cloud of dust and debris as they hit the floor. Once the dust cleared, the four entrances to the lobby were wide open and letting in the sunshine from outside which was quickly followed by the gathered slabs. Hutch grinned again and then started to scream and wave his arms. “Up here, you SOBs. Come on, here I am!” He had a raspy, gravel-like voice that relayed the years of abuse his vocal cords had taken being a drill instructor during his stint in the Navy.
His intentions were well-received as he gained the attention of the first slabs as they made their way through the new openings. He knew the first ones through would be the fastest, because they would have been the ones able to gain access to the hanging meat he had put outside the night before. Having recently eaten, they would have a little more energy than ones who hadn’t been able to reach the meat.
As expected, the first wave through the door made a surge toward the stairwell where he stood. Hutch turned and started his ascent up the stairs with the slabs in hot pursuit. As he rounded the first corner, he peered over his shoulder to make sure his plan was working and was quite pleased to see the lobby of the building filling up with slabs. As he hit the 2nd floor marker, he reached over and pulled on a rope that hung against the wall. The rope was attached to a series of pulleys that ran up toward the ceiling, which were then tied to a couple of latches that held five shopping carts aloft at the top of the stair landing. With a quick tug, the latches released and the carts came crashing down and rested at the top of the stairwell just as the first wave of slabs made it to the top. The slabs slammed into the carts, but quickly adjusted and began to climb over them. Good, Hutch thought, the carts were doing their job. They weren’t meant to stop them, just slow them down, and it appeared to work as he had planned. Hutch turned and continued his ascent. He eyed the No. 2 on the wall of the stairwell and sighed. “Alright, sailor, 26 more to go.”
A few minutes later, he looked up to see that he had reached the 15th floor. He reached up and grabbed another rope on the wall. This one, he had really been looking forward to. He turned and waited with the rope gripped in his fist. He listened to the groans getting closer, and figured by then the slabs had to be on the floor below him. He was listening to the groans and scuffling as they closed in when, finally, the first of his pursuers made their appearance around the corner. He readied himself, and as soon as the rest of the group showed their faces, he pulled the rope. The rope again ran up to the ceiling, then back down to the baseboards at the top of the 14th floor landing. As the latches released a safety pin, the sound of two springs twanged loudly in the stairwell as they released their built-up tension. Suddenly, two sturdy 4x4s swung from around the corner on each side of the stairwell at the top of the stairs. The boards connected with such force that the slabs they hit were literally torn apart as they impacted. The boards, staggered in height, made an improvised barrier that caused the horde to bottleneck.
Then with one more tug, the second part of the trap was sprung, and the net that was secured to the ceiling released and dropped two-dozen bowling balls down on top of the group. Hutch took a second to grin as over a dozen of the balls made solid contact and crushed their victims. He was very happy he’d found the stash of bowling balls on the 16th floor in the offices of a bowling ball manufacturer.
Enough fun, he thought as the unaffected slabs started to squeeze through the makeshift barrier. “Alright, over halfway there. Let’s go,” Hutch muttered to himself. The last 13 floors went by fairly fast, and as he reached the final floor, he paused just long enough to check on the progress of his followers. Should be about two floors behind … plenty of time. He knew it really didn’t matter how far ahead he got. Their sense of smell would keep them coming. That was the one thing you couldn’t hide from them.
Hutch opened the door to the roof at the top of the final stairwell, and the sun greeted him with its entire morning splendor. He sprinted over to the edge of the building and looked down to the street and found that the entire horde had made it into the building by then.
Good.
He made a couple of final preparations and was all set just as the first of his pursuers exploded through the open door in front of him. As they poured through the opening, they spotted their prey and made a beeline right for him.
Hutch grinned as they approached. They weren’t fast, but since they didn’t ever get tired, they didn’t have to be. Sooner or later their prey would run out of steam, and then it would be over. He watched as they steadily poured through the door and the roof began to fill. When they were almost upon him, he simply lifted his feet up and slipped away on the zip-line above his head. As he steadily glided toward the building at the opposite corner of the street, he watched, as the advancing slabs didn’t stop their advance. One by one, they tumbled over the edge of the building only to fall 28-stories to the concrete and asphalt below.
Slowly, Hutch finally came to rest on top of the slightly shorter building next door. As he settled his feet onto his new viewing platform, he unhooked from the zip-line and walked back to the edge of the building to watch as the slabs kept going right over the edge to what would hopefully be their second and final deaths. As great as it was to watch the stupid slabs plummet to their probable demise, it wasn’t his only plan. He reached into his jacket pocket and produced a remote detonator. He flipped open the safety cover and braced himself as he pushed the button.
A series of several explosions were hear
d starting around the middle of the building and going down toward the bottom. Windows were blown out on each floor as the explosions headed downward. Then suddenly, the building lurched and the top half started to collapse and pancake onto the lower floors, and in mere seconds, the whole building collapsed into a large cloud of dust and chaos.
Hutch dove for cover just as the dust cloud consumed the roof he was standing on. When the dust finally settled, he reappeared from the maintenance shed on the roof he taken shelter in. He walked over to the edge and eyed his handiwork. “Wow!” he exclaimed. He found the former 28-story building was now no more then a pile of rubble roughly 30- to 40-feet-tall. He detected no movement from the slabs that had been occupying the building moments ago.
“I honestly didn’t think that would work the first time.” .
Quite satisfied with the entire operation, Hutch figured this particular mission to have taken out an estimated 8,000 slabs, possibly as many as 10,000. This mission ranked in the top five of his eradication campaign, but just barely.
Hutch walked over to the opposite edge of the building and looked down to make sure the coast was clear. He reached down to the rappelling rope at his feet and threw it over the side, and watched it fall all the way to his awaiting vehicle below.
After the 20-story rappel to the roof of his modified armored black van, he entered the vehicle through his homemade hatch on the top, then slid into the driver’s seat and cranked up the engine as he slowly drove away toward his next operation. “Ah, St. Louis. Always wanted to visit the arch and see what that’s all about.”
CHAPTER 16
David, Brian, and Kyle
Kyle retracted the siphoning hose as David and Brian kept watch for slabs or bandits on either side of the bus.
David looked over. “So whatcha think?”
“I like it.” Kyle grinned. “It’s a whole lot safer and cleaner to siphon this way versus the old. Looks like we got about eight gallons out of that tank. Let me add some octane boost and gas refresher and I think it will be good to use.” Kyle reached into the floor storage and pulled out two bottles of fuel additive.
Over time, the fuel they found was losing its potency. More often than not, the gas was sludgy and unusable.
Thankfully, they had recently found several cases of fuel additives and gas refresher at a local auto parts warehouse. The cache had made it possible to keep their fleet of vehicles and generators running.
“Alright, I think we’ve filled both tanks as much as we can. Let me mark this truck here and let’s go. I’m dying to see if Leon’s hot tip is going to pay off this time.” Kyle reached through the hatch and spray-painted an H on the side of the pillaged truck.
David shifted into drive, and the trio continued on their way. “Hang on. I’m going to push through up ahead. It looks like we’ve got another jammed intersection.” David edged the front blade into the cars blocking the road. With a little punch of the gas, he easily slid the cars blocking their path out of the way.
They continued on their way, skirting the inner city of Tallahassee. Kyle looked out the window at the largest building in town. For the decades he’d lived there, it had been the capitol building of the State of Florida. It saddened him to see it in its current shape. The top five floors were missing altogether where a small commercial plane had collided into it. In Kyle’s mind, he could clearly see the early days of the chaos, when the power had gone out, and he’d guessed that the plane must have lost contact with the ground on approach and slammed right into the pitch-black building. Debris was scattered over more then 10 city blocks and several fires sprang up from the wreckage, essentially gutting the center of the downtown area, until a fierce summer storm came through and helped contain the blaze.
This had been the closest he had come to the building since they’d moved back in, and he thought that since they now had a safe house on wheels, they might be able to get down there one day soon and see how bad it really was.
Kyle watched the capitol building grow smaller and smaller through the rear window until David announced their arrival at the destination for the run. It was a small suburban neighborhood just on the outskirts of Southern Tallahassee. The formerly new neighborhood bore the scars of the past year, as did most of the neighborhoods they had been through. Rows of houses in the neighborhood that were previously well-kept, and had once held perfectly manicured lawns, were deserted. Broken windows, doors, and other debris littered the yards. Lawns that in some spots were so overgrown with weeds and grass a person could barely see the houses through them.
David slowly piloted the Devastator through the maze of deserted cars and other junk that filled the street while he checked each mailbox they drove by for their target.
“There it is!” Brian yelled from behind David. He pointed with his digit-deficient hand that had earned him the nickname of 9-Finger Brian, over David’s shoulder.
“Ew, don’t touch me with that thing.” David pushed Brian’s hand away from his face.
“You know you like it when I do this,” Brian remarked as he playfully ran his hand all over David’s head and face while the pair of them laughed about it.
David quietly pulled up to the front of the house and all three of them keep an eye out in all directions to see if their arrival had caught any attention. After a couple minutes of no activity Kyle finally spoke up. “Alright, let’s do it. Looks like we’ve arrived unnoticed.”
David maneuvered the Devastator around in the street then backed it up to the front door. After a few glances in the mirrors to make sure he had positioned the Devastator correctly, David came to a complete stop and shut off the engine. “Okay, let’s see how this works.” He stepped to the back and started to crank out his armored tunnel. It perfectly unfolded into place and created an armored walkway to the front door of the house.
The three friends exited the vehicle and made their way to the door. Kyle reached up while the other two covered the opening and checked the door. “Locked. Damn it. Why can’t the door be unlocked just once?” He then slid over to allow David to step forward with the universal key, as they called it.
The universal key was not a key per se; it was a hydraulic hand pump with an alligator clamp attachment on the end. They would then wedge the clamp into the doorframe and pump the hand pump until the pressure would build up enough to pop the latch and make the door give way. David jumped right to work, and within seconds the sound of the wooden doorframe cracking loudly in the dead silence let them know they had gained entry.
David put the key back in the bus as Kyle gave one big shove into the door and swung it open. The three men then began the process of clearing each room the same way a tactical police force would while searching a house for a dangerous criminal. The guys moved in unison. Each man knew their specific roles and could perform them in their sleep, after having done so dozens, if not hundreds, of times over the last year. With the city almost completely devoid of life, every house had become their personal mini-mart for supplies. Since most of the stores had been emptied at the onset of the infection, they had stocked up on everything they’d needed almost exclusively from houses and apartments around town.
After they cleared every room and felt comfortable they were alone, Kyle spoke up first. “Alright, let’s check the kitchen then we’ll go for our main objective.”
As they checked the cabinets for canned goods or any other food they could use, Kyle started to open the bottom cabinets and found a special treat. “Ah, Storm will be happy tonight.” He pulled out more than a dozen cans of dog food. Kyle threw them into one of the duffle bags draped over his shoulder and then tossed the bag to David. “Grab some good pots and pans. Your wife needs them.”
David complied and finished filling up the bag with the kitchen supplies. They then moved to the back of the house, depositing the full bag by the front door on their way.
When they entered the master bedroom for the second time, David and Brian took up a defensive position to
keep the area covered while Kyle moved into the walk-in closet. He went to the back of the closet and slid all the hanging clothes to one side while he felt along the edge of the wall until he found a very small button in the corner. As he pushed the button inward he held his breath. He could hear springs releasing their tension as the wall popped backward and then started to slide up into the ceiling. Still holding his breath, he grabbed his flashlight and shined it into the hidden room.
“Holy Shit!” Kyle exclaimed as he exhaled quickly. “We’ve hit the jackpot!”
David and Brian both looked through the closet doorway and eyed a small room full to bursting with weapons neatly displayed on the walls and shelves from one end to the other.
“I don’t think we brought enough bags.” David tossed the bags on his shoulders into the room at Kyle’s feet.
“Ya’ll keep an eye out, and I’ll start loading up. This might take a little longer than we thought.”
CHAPTER 17
EIGHT MONTHS PRIOR TO THE CAMP H INVASION
Heng and Xavier
A large metal gate that had recently been installed blocked the cave entrance. It didn’t creek or make a sound when the guard swung it open. Xavier entered the cave and found that his guests had arrived while he had checked the perimeter patrols.
Xavier made his way down the metal staircase. His footsteps echoed off the large cave walls alerting his guests to his arrival. He was immediately greeted by Heng, a very robust man in his late 50s dressed in a traditional Chinese Hanfu. Heng was well-known for being quite fond of the traditional long silk dress as well as the traditional Chinese sandals, and was rarely seen dressed in anything else. This particular Hanfu ran all the way to the tops of his sandaled feet and was adorned with deep red and gold edges. As if the outfit wasn’t a dead giveaway to his Chinese lineage, his Fu Manchu mustache would’ve been.
Humanity's Hope (Book 1): Camp H Page 7
