He extended his hand out to me to shake.
“You Steve Hankel? I was just on the phone with command and they confirmed that you’ve already been vetted by Lt. Wilson and are providing them with intel.”
I nodded and shook his hand. He kept talking.
“Ok. We have a base we’re protecting on a barrier island where we have a few hundred civilians and military. We’re super low on supplies. We’re actually out on a supply run right now. Normally, I’d make you all come back to base with us and we’d put you in the base with everyone else. Wilson has said he like having you run around though and as long as you continue to provide him with intel he wants you to stay loose. Unless you are ready to come in?”
He looked around at each of us. None of us did anything other than stare coldly back at him. I was feeling a bit guilty about the very limited amount of intel we had actually provided Wilson. He was apparently covering for us big time. Commander A-Hole or whoever this guy was kept talking.
“So here’s what we’re going to do. My men are going to take what we think they can use back at the base and load it into one of these trucks. Then we’re going to let you leave with the other truck and whatever we don’t take. You guys can move on to the next town and find somewhere to loot for a refill. In the meanwhile, feel good about the fact that you’re helping feed a bunch of refugees and starving US soldiers.”
Left unsaid was to feel good that he wasn’t just taking everything and leaving our dead bodies in the middle of the road. Reeves started to say something and I elbowed him in the stomach.
“Sounds fair enough. Let us know what the refugees need the most and we can help you sort through the gear if you’d like.” I was hoping to get this over with quickly before Reeves said something stupid or they decided we would be better off back at their base or something else happened.
“Thanks for that but my men know what we’re looking for. We’ll leave you with ammo and enough food and diesel to at least make it over to the next town. If you wouldn’t mind I’d like for you all to go sit down in the breakdown lane with a couple of my men to watch you while we knock this out.”
We walked over to the breakdown lane and sat down. Reeves was seething, everyone else was accepting. We’d been conditioned to the government taking half our stuff and giving it to people who didn’t work for it for most of our lives. Why should that change just because we were in the middle of an apocalypse?
Two of the men walked over and casually watched us. The older one noticed how pissed off Reeves was looking. He spat to the side then addressed Reeves.
“Hey man, it’s pretty bad back at the island. We’ve got a lot of kids who lost their parents, we’ve got a lot of people who went through a lot before they made it there. We’re trying to take care of them but we’ve also got a carrier full of sailors and marines. We’ve eaten through a lot. We’ve scavenged the hell out of Charleston but there isn’t a lot of stuff around there. It’s pretty bad. We wouldn’t be taking your stuff if we didn’t need it. You’re actually pretty lucky we’re not taking everything if you ask me. You guys are in a decent situation with just the five of you. You can go squat in a grocery store or drug store or whatever. I actually look forward to these patrols because it’s the only time we get to eat. Back on the base we’re on rations and never know if more is coming or not.”
Reeves seemed to deflate a little after the speech. If they’d led off by telling Reeves we’d be feeding starving refugee children, he would have probably offered to drive the truck there himself. For a guy who worked hard to appear super macho and hard core he had a big heart when it came to kids.
“How far West have you guys been?” Ann asked.
The older guy looked at her, “Far enough to know it doesn’t get any better. Scuttlebutt is that we got some other military pressing us from the West. I’d assume it may be whoever is responsible for this plague so I’m looking forward to kicking their ass. I guess we’re cutting you guys loose to go that way and feed us intel on anything you see. I’m hoping you know better than to let the intel flow in the other direction.”
The conversation went back and forth and worked its way to what happened at the beginning of all this the way it normally does. Both these guys had been stationed at Charleston as Military Police and had pretty much been there ever since. They had seen a lot of desertion in the beginning with people going to try and save their families but the base commander had been quick to put up sentries in pairs and lock down the base to keep them from all just walking away. That had allowed them to have enough men to pretty much clear out most of Charleston from the plague victims.
The Lieutenant walked over to where we were all sitting and talking. He had another soldier with him who had a red cross on a white background wrapped around his shoulder. The two soldiers immediately shut their mouths when they noticed their CO had wandered over.
“I’m sorry about this, we just need all the supplies we can get. That truck of yours will take care of feeding some refugees and servicemen if it’s any consolation to you. We also took some of your medical supplies. We have a corpsman with us, if you’d like him to give you each a once over before we take off? On the flip side, we’re also collecting blood samples from anyone who did not catch the plague so consider that payment for the checkup. Hopefully, it will help us figure out more about the disease and how it was spread.”
The corpsman had his work cut out for him when he got to me. He listened while I ran through the list of injuries I’d sustained in the last year. He kept repeating that he really couldn’t believe any of us had survived this far. He checked out my back and told me that without an MRI he really couldn’t tell me anything else. Take drugs, do some stretches, if the muscle relaxers work, keep taking them. He spent more time on my eye. Took all the bandages off and cleaned it really well with some saline solution then told me to keep taking antibiotics, it looked like the cornea had actually been scratched so my vision was probably going to stay screwed up in that eye unless I had some eye surgery. I told him thanks and that I’d be on the lookout for a Lasik place.
He reset Thomas’s arm. Then he put a real cast on it. He said he couldn’t be sure it was right without X-Rays but it should be better than it was. Thomas was passed out from the pain. We hadn’t had anyway to knock him out so had just fed him some valium and Oxy. The breakfast of champions.
Getting his arm set was fair payment for the truckload of supplies to me. I mentioned that to Ann and she kissed me, hugged me and blubbered all over my shoulder. The corpsman pronounced everyone else “reasonably healthy considering” then shook all of our hands, wished us luck and disappeared into the night. A few minutes later one of our trucks coughed to life and drove up the highway without us.
The Lt shook each of our hands as well. Wished us good luck and reminded us to check in periodically, especially if there were any signs of other forces on American soil.
“You should be good heading West on 26. It’s been cleared out reasonably well of cars in the highway and such up to Columbia. Don’t plan on getting any supplies or anything out of there. The place looks like it did back after Sherman got through with it.”
A bunch of blank stares me this Sherman reference.
“Sorry, towards the end of the Civil War Sherman burned the place to the ground. Looks like that now too except it was probably random electrical fires or refugees trying to fight Zombies with fire or something. Whatever it was, place is a burned-out husk. Pretty creepy actually. Anyway, we’re rolling back to Charleston now. I left you enough supplies to keep you going for at least a week or two. We have a ton of ammo and that kind of thing so I left you most of that as well. Good luck!”
He walked off and we heard another vehicle come to life and speed off. We got up and walked over to the Penske. I’d never actually seen how much stuff they had looted from the last town so it looked like we were good to go to me. The rest of the team seemed a bit irked, but whatever. Only thing left to decide was who g
ot stuck riding in the back. Turned out the walking wounded get stuck in the back because that’s the best place for them to stretch out. Which we did. With Nurse Ann watching over us.
Nurse Ann does not have a sense of humor and could really work on her bedside manner. Just because I thought she’d do a better job in a more nurse like outfit was no reason to smack me in the chest. I had forgotten to ask the corpsman what to do about my broken ribs. Sucks to have so much damage to your body that you forget about minor stuff like broken ribs!
Entry 21: White Wasteland
Not much of a view from the back of a Penske. We had a bit of a green glow from some of the glow sticks we had cracked open. We weren’t using the Walkies anymore except in emergencies. We needed to find something a little more secure so we wouldn’t be broadcasting our info for the world to hear. We’d just found out how expensive that could be.
They had left us a decent amount of supplies. We had a barrel of diesel, a few crates and boxes of random canned foods, a stack of tools and ammo with my sword laying on top, and some blankets and pillows kinds of stuff. We also had a few new hunting rifles, some tents and tarps and other miscellaneous camping gear including some camp stoves with a couple of the propane containers to snap onto them. Overall, it filled up a good third of the back of the large truck, it seemed like a lot to me, until Ann told me that both trucks had been completely full. They must have put some of our stuff into their supply trucks as well when they ‘taxed’ us for the good of our fellow citizens.
The barrel of diesel should be able to get us anywhere we wanted to go East of the Mississippi. We didn’t have that much further to go. Assuming the mountains weren’t closed off to us, we should be circling around mountain roads trying to find my parents cabin in a day or two. We needed to find supplies first. Columbia was supposedly burnt to the ground, but there were other cities and towns along our path we could try our luck in. Wouldn’t do us much good to go through all this hassle, only to starve to death in my parent’s cabin because we weren’t stocked up and ready for the snow.
The truck lurched to a stop and the back door got pushed up. Reeves was standing there, covered in some kind of snow or something. Everything behind him was also coated.
“I thought you should check this out boss. It’s pretty surreal. It’s why I’ll be driving us slow as dirt for the next little while. Can’t see more than ten feet in front of us.”
I maneuvered myself over to the edge of the truck and carefully climbed down. Reeves was right about the surreal part. Everything was covered in ash. Visibility was minimal due to the volume of ash floating around in the air. It was abnormally quiet all around us. Creepy.
I walked with Reeves to the front of the truck and sent Ginny back to hang out with Ann and Thomas for a little while. Young love and all that. Plus, I was tired of laying around in the back of the Penske not being able to see anything. Turns out that can make you pretty nauseous. Reeves went back to put the back of the truck down then came back and hopped up into the driver’s seat. He started the truck up and we started rolling forward into the dense ash.
Windshield wipers working overtime we drove slowly through the dense ash. Dodging around large white humps in the road we assumed were stalled out cars, we kept on driving forward. We were moving slow; the sound dampening of the ash should keep the Zombies off of us. If any Zombies were even still hanging out in the ash covered wasteland we were driving through. I wondered out loud what was on fire if all this ash was still raining down.
“Probably the woods caught and with no fire department to cut in fire breaks or dump water on it there isn’t anything to stop the fire from spreading. Figure there’s a ton of stuff to burn now that there isn’t anyone to stop it from burning. This fire could theoretically just keep burning forever. Hopefully, it doesn’t burn over the top of the mountains and take out your cabin.”
“Thanks man. Here I was just worried about getting stuck in the snow and starving to death. Now, you’ve added another element to worry about it. Awesome.”
“No problem boss. I wanted to make sure you weren’t so fixated on the Zombies you forgot there were about a hundred-other way you could get us all killed.”
Reeves was talking junk like he normally did but he had a point. There were about a million ways we could die today that would not have been a concern a year ago. The corpsman had alluded to it when he brought up me needing an MRI and Thomas needing an X-Ray. Things that were ten minutes and a co-pay away a year ago were now out of reach. The supplies they had taken from us may have been what we needed to survive. Now, we needed to find more and take them for ourselves.
The first time it happened, I think I may have pissed myself. Not saying I did, but I definitely was trying to figure out afterwards if we had gotten to keep the box of underwear in the back. We were driving along, zero visibility, and a solid white Zombie jumped up on my side of the truck out of nowhere and began screaming and beating on the window. Beating on the window hard. Reacting on instinct I screamed like a little girl, possibly whizzed myself and fumbled my gun out of its holster.
Reeves grabbed my arm before I had the chance to drill some holes through the window and summon every other Zombie within hearing. Then he slammed on the brakes, throwing the Zombie off the side of the truck and down on the ground hard enough to knock him out temporarily. We kept going. In the mirror, I saw the Zombie getting up and running back for the door again. I took out my sword and rolled down the window. Once the Zombie caught up and jumped for the ledge to boost himself up to get to the window I poked him hard in the chest with the sword causing it to fall backwards off the truck. The Zombie landed on its head at an awkward angle and didn’t get back up as far as I could tell with our limited visibility.
We kept on, the occasional Zombie coming at us out of nowhere, screeching loudly and leaping for us. The ones on my side were no issue. They couldn’t seem to get the concept of holding on with one hand and trying to attack with the other. As soon as they saw me, they inevitably were reaching with both hands while trying to stand on the narrow ledge of a moving truck, making it easy to knock them off.
The ones who ended up on Reeves wide were a bit more challenging. He had to be focused on driving, to keep us moving at a decent speed on the murky, zero visibility, desolate interstate. The natural reaction for Reeves was to cuss and swerve wildly when a red eyed, white demon jumped into the window right beside him while he was focused intently on driving us through the obstacle strewn roadway. The first time it happened, his natural instincts had us crashing into a guard rail. Crashing into a guard rail is a pretty good way to throw a Zombie off the side of your truck. You probably won’t find that kind of advice in your fortune cookie.
Since crashing into guard rails every time a Zombie jumped up on Reeves side didn’t seem practical we went with rolling his window down a little bit. He’d scream in terror every time a Zombie tried to attack him. I’d put the sword in the little crack afforded by the open window and shove the Zombie off the truck. That worked great until the third Zombie who jumped up got his hands inside the little crack and started trying to rip the window out. I was pumping the sword as hard as I could right in front of Reeves face and directly into the Zombies face.
Its eyes were pulpy messes leaking all kinds of nastiness. One of the eyeballs was hanging on the things face, swinging back and forth while it still tried to rip the window out to get at the human it sensed was sitting right in front of it. It didn’t get Reeves. With a loud, shattering glass sound, the window shattered. The blinded Zombie went flying backwards into the white void. Reeves no longer had a window shielding him from the initial Zombie onslaughts though.
That wasn’t going to work. I told Reeves to stop and let me go grab either Ginny or Ann to watch his window while I focused on mine. He brought the big Penske to a stop, leaving the engine running, shutting the doors we both jogged to the back of the truck. Reeves unhooked the back door and shoved it up. We were greeted by the round b
arrels of two rifles and a shotgun. Ann spoke up first.
“Sorry, we felt the slamming and didn’t know what was going on. Next time bang on the back of the truck three times before you open it.”
Sounded like a plan to me. At this rate, we’d need to swing by a Target or something so I could pick up even more clean underwear. We explained the situation briefly. Ann told me to crawl in the back of the truck and rest with Thomas for a while. It made sense that her and Ginny would go up front since my back could go out again at any second. Especially with the weird angles and stress I was putting it through trying to stab through the windows. I climbed into the back and lay back down.
Up front, Ginny took the middle seat and Ann settled into the passenger side. Thomas and I huddled in the darkness. Shielded from our various aches and pains through the miracle of some tiny pills Ann had given us. We tried to rest and let our bodies heal up a little bit while Reeves, Ann, and Ginny pressed us forward through this newest nightmare scenario.
Entry 22: Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires
The truck started getting warmer. Thomas and I looked at each other with concern. We’d talked about what we would do if we ran into the fire causing all this ash. None of us had any real experience with forest fires other than Ann. She had dealt with seasonal fires down in Florida where they flared up once or twice per year bad enough to singe a few houses and shut down the highways. She had the training and experience the rest of us were lacking.
Zournal: Book 3: Scorched Earth Page 12
