Day by Day Armageddon

by J. L. Bourne

  April 14th

  2357 hrs

  We experienced a blackout here for approximately two hours. The battery backups kicked in, providing some red battle lighting inside the complex. I suppose the power grid may finally be failing in this area. No way to determine. Power came back on at 2330. I am sure the system is automated, as I doubt any faithful electrical plant worker would be manning his/her post in times like these.

  April 15th

  1920 hrs

  I am going out tonight to recon the area with NVGs. I will be avoiding the high undead population area of the front blast door. That area is a quarter of a mile away over a small hill. John will be watching with the remote cameras.

  I told him that if there is any sign of trouble, I would lead them away from the complex and not to worry. It is not like they can see in the dark anyway. Perhaps I am becoming complacent, and I am underestimating them. I know that in large numbers they are lethal. On that matter, they are lethal in numbers of one.

  Today I heard the strange mechanical sound four times. On one occasion I rushed to the environmental control room to see if that was the source. It wasn’t. The sound is coming from somewhere in the bowels of this complex. It may be some sort of pump, or backup system, I cannot be sure. This is the first year I have ever been late on my taxes.

  April 16th

  1409 hrs

  I patrolled the area last night. Before going out, I checked out the satellite photos in detail from the day before with John. The area is surrounded by two fences, and the main entrance is only accessible through an underground tunnel, or by walking up to it from outside the second fence. I also noticed that on the photos, there appeared to be a small group of bodies on the ground at the northeast side of the complex. I went up the stairs to the exterior access. I asked John to shut off the lights in my area to allow them to adjust to the dark before I went out. I waited twenty minutes for full night vision adjustment.

  I slipped on the NVGs, tightened the straps and opened up the hatch. The cool night air smelled of spring honeysuckles. I stepped through the threshold into their world. After dogging the hatch behind me, I took the blanket from my shoulder and flung it over the fence in the same spot we originally climbed over.

  I had the codes to the gate, but I didn’t want to have to work the cipher lock during an adrenaline rush. The blanket was a safer means of traversing the fence in this situation. By now, the blanket had been cut up in many places and wouldn’t be good for anything but a fire after a couple more uses. I left it slung over the razor wire as my boots hit the ground and I started walking counter clockwise around the perimeter.

  I could see the eyes of numerous nocturnal animals in the area when I switched on the infrared on the NVGs. Rabbits and mice, and squirrels were thick in this area at night. This is something to keep in mind for future food possibilities. I rounded the first corner to the fence, and walked.

  As I left the area I was familiar with, I stepped into part of the complex I had seen. There was a three hundred yard gap between our fence and the other fence I had never been to. Right where I stood, I estimated that John was eighty feet below. I could see the bright lights of the security cameras at the corner of our fence as they followed me. They also used infrared, so they were like beacons to my goggles. I approached fence number two after almost a minute of jogging. I edged up toward the northeast corner. The moans and the smell of the dead strengthened as I approached. I was now out of range of most of the facility cameras, sans the main access door.

  I could now see the bodies piled up outside fence number two, and faintly in the distance I could also see the main mass of the dead relentlessly pounding on the main access door. I crouched down, and quietly approached the corpses. The nearer I got, the more it made sense. The fence had numerous breaks in it from what I assume was automatic weapons fire aimed from the inside out. The corpses on the ground fell victim to someone inside the fence firing through at them. The bodies on the ground had been there for a long time. Maggots and other insects covered their bare skin.

  I scanned the interior of fence number two for the gunman that was responsible. I could see nothing inside the fence but tall grass. This fence must enclose something important, but I could not see any large steel hatches similar to the first fence we found. I can’t help thinking that whoever shot these ghouls retreated back into the darkness of the bunker for safety. We have explored the facility and found nothing else inside it, living or dead. My mind wondered to the intermittent mechanical sound.

  I checked the fence where the damage was present, and found that though it was damaged; nothing bigger than a human arm could fit through it. There were dried blood stains and chunks of skin on the jagged edges of the damaged wire, indicating that some of them were in fact putting their arms through it, attempting to reach their executioner.

  Quietly, I turned around and made my way back the way I came. Instead of going straight to fence number one, I crossed over between the two fences, taking a different route. I came out between the fences on the west side of the complex. Again I took notice of the long, level grassy strip. I noticed it when we first found this area. I could easily take off or land a small aircraft here. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to try and find one just in case. After all, flying is not like riding a bike, it is a perishable skill. I jumped the fence, retrieved the blanket, entered the complex and commenced to tell the others what I saw.

  April 19th

  1211 hrs

  I returned last night from a three-day trip to scavenge for supplies and needed equipment. I am injured and once again, nearly did not survive this outing. John faired somewhat better than I with only a scratched face. One of them, in all its flailing, scraped him. We were on foot most of the time.

  Using the atlas and the air navigation chart I had from before, we were able to determine the location to the nearest airfield. According to our chart, a small private airstrip called Eagle Lake existed 20 miles NNE from Hotel 23. The night prior to our departure, John and I were able to pull up a satellite photo of the general area, and sure enough, two parallel concrete runways could be seen on the satellite visuals. A hangar and what appeared to be two small aircraft were parked near the small tower. As we zoomed out, the faint thread of I-10 could also be seen roughly eight miles north of the airfield. We knew transportation might be necessary to return safely, so we zoomed in on the strip of I-10 directly north of the airfield. Cars were haphazardly stopped all over the interstate. This was the main vein that ran between the ruins of San Antonio, and the city of Houston.

  There were droves of undead on the interstate. John and I thought it highly unlikely that going to the interstate would be fruitful in any way. The cool morning air of April rushed into the hatch as we turned the locking crank. The flowers were blooming, and it looked like a beautiful day. John and I were loaded down with equipment. He entered the cipher lock code that unlocked the gate, linking us once again to a world where we were not welcome.

  Sticking to the grassy and wooded areas, we made our way. As we neared the main entrance for the first time, we were able to see our door greeters in person, without the help of digital enhancement. John and I took turns with the binoculars as we watched from the distant bushes. Two words could probably sum them up; hungry, angry. I doubt anyone could fathom where their undying grudge toward the living originated. I didn’t care to know either way.

  I was repulsed as they clawed and pounded on the heavy steel blast doors, breaking fingernails and leaving a brown liquid behind with each scratch and thud. Some of them were clearly agitated and were shoving others out of the way so they too could get a chance at turning their arms into stumps.

  Another startling fact worthy of mention was that one of them was using a rock as a bludgeon on the steel door. The rock was the size of a baseball, and the creature steadily and unrelentingly pounded away. I knew why we had never heard it before. The exterior blast door was just one of three doors that separated the outside world from
our group inside Hotel 23. These creatures clearly retain some sort of primal sense about them.

  John and I continued our northerly track toward Eagle Lake. Prior to leaving Hotel 23, we attempted to print out the satellite photo to bring with us as a visual reference. For some reason the security feature inside the control console would not allow printing operations that accessed the image intelligence (IMINT) folders. We were forced to draw notes and sketches on our existing atlas depicting landmarks of interest.

  After contemplating the bludgeoning corpse for a few minutes, we continued our journey northward toward Eagle Lake. The terrain was rough and unforgiving as we dredged our way through, intermittently cutting our legs on nature’s barbed wire. After an hour of hiking, careful to remain just out of sight of the two-lane road, we came upon a group of crosses erected in the center of a field. There were four crosses of varying height. There were three undead corpses bound to the crosses, as the fourth was dead. It appeared that the local avian life had picked a majority of this corpse’s brain right out of its head.

  Eerily, the other three corpses locked onto us simultaneously as we approached. Their snarling heads swiveled laboriously as they struggled to hold them up and follow our movements. One of them was not restrained as well as the other two and its legs flailed wildly in an attempt to free itself from the prison of crossed timber and restraints. John and I knew that if we shot them, it would without a doubt bring more to our position. The crosses swayed in their makeshift holes as the dead struggled for freedom.

  We decided to leave the area and continue north. As we left this cursed field, I wondered what treacherous group of miscreants bothered to take the time and make the crosses, post them, and then crucify four dead on the cross. My mind then stumbled upon a very disturbing thought: What if they weren’t dead when they were crucified?

  I didn’t reveal this to John, as there was no point at us both being terrified of nothing. As we approached the boundaries of the field, we climbed the barbwire fence, and headed out into the open plains of Texas.

  I don’t know if it was the prospect of flying again that forced me out here among them, or if it was just the need to see what was happening. I knew what was going on well enough. We were fucked, and there was nothing that could be said or done about it. Even a large spider is no match for an army of ants.

  We headed toward the hangar for the simple reason that we needed some specific supplies, i.e. hacksaw for the weapons locker, and because, having an aircraft at Hotel 23 would be a very good escape vehicle. Another reason was that if we managed to clear out the undead in front of the blast doors, it would also be a good means by which to scout.

  I thought back to the satellite photos of the airfield. Of course, they were taken from a straight down angle due to the fact that the camera was in space. I was decent at recognizing aircraft silhouettes, however, just being able to see the top view wing profile, I was not sure if I was looking at two Cessna 172s, or 152s. It didn’t matter. The thought of being able to fly again gave me a positive feeling. John and I continued our journey to Eagle Lake airfield. It was 1900 hrs when we first smelled the aroma. It wasn’t the rotting dead smell. It was the familiar smell of lake water being brought from the northern afternoon breeze. As we topped the next hill, a great watery expanse appeared before us.

  According to the atlas, Eagle Lake was not a very big body of water. It seemed to welcome us, although after my experience on the docks, god only knew what was lurking in its dark depths. We were near the airfield, but John and I knew we needed to find a place to sleep before it got dark. There was a road on the other side of the lake. I took out my binoculars, and saw that a large steel greyhound bus was pulled over on the side of the road along with several other smaller cars.

  I studied the bus for several minutes, making damn sure there was no movement, in or around it. I handed the binoculars to John and he did the same. We carefully edged our way around the shorter side of the lake that led to the road. The sun was getting dangerously low as we neared the two-lane highway. There were numerous cars strewn about, but no undead movement. I knew they were out there, I just couldn’t see them. John and I held our weapons ready as we edged toward the Greyhound. No chances. I knelt down on my knee, weapon pointed outward and whispered to John to stand on my shoulder and look inside the bus to make sure.

  After repeating this in six foot intervals all the way to the back of the bus, we were satisfied it was empty. We were edgy. I wasn’t particularly looking forward to seeing another one of these rotting fuckers, but I knew it was going to happen sometime on this trip. I walked over to the door of the bus, and easily pulled it open. The locking bar wasn’t set at the driver’s seat, and the keys were still in it. I highly doubt that the battery still worked, but I didn’t care, this was just our hotel for the night.

  I stepped onto the bus, still careful. John followed. We shut the heavy steel/glass door, and pushed the locking bar in, making it impossible to open the door from the outside. The hair stood up on the back of my neck as my eyes caught a glimpse of something in the aisle on the back row. A human arm was lying across the walkway. It appeared in the advanced stages of decomposition.

  John stayed back, making sure to keep an eye on the perimeter of the bus as I checked it out. Weapon trained, I approached the rear of the bus. At two-thirds the length of the bus, I saw that the arm was just that, only an arm. I put on my nomex gloves, and quietly opened a window and tossed the fleshy bony piece of shit out. It appeared that someone had wiped their ass all over the back seat, but it was only dried brown blood. I gave John the thumbs up and we proceeded to quietly set up camp in here (after I checked under every single seat twice).

  I had two sets of AA batteries for the NVGs, but I was rationing them, and only using NVGs when absolutely necessary, so that night was spent in darkness sans the moonlight. John and I whispered to each other, talking most of the night about how we were going to handle the next day. The airfield was not marked on the road atlas. We were going to have to extrapolate the location of the airfield by the air navigation chart that I still had. The atlas and the air chart were in two totally different scales, so we knew it could take some time to find it exactly.

  That night I went to sleep to the sound of rain on the steel roof. It wasn’t until 0300 hrs when I was startled awake by lightening flash and thunder. I wiped my eyes, and regained consciousness as I peered out the semi-tinted windows of the bus. The lightening was becoming frequent, and I was glad that we were inside. Then another flash, and I could see the outline of a human roughly 20 meters away. This was one of those necessary times, so I quickly donned the NVGs. It wasn’t a human; it was the lone corpse of a drifter that still wore a pack on his back. I could see his cheekbones jutting through his leathery skin as the thing shifted its weight back and forth. The backpack seemed to be of the type that not only fastened over the shoulders, but also with a chest strap to keep it steady while he walked. The creature’s teeth were showing in an eternal grin as the water dripped from its lifeless body.

  It couldn’t see us. John was still asleep. I didn’t bother to disturb him. It wasn’t long before the drifter moved on, into the darkness of the Texas night to the next stop.

  The next morning (17th), we quietly packed our things and started to head out. On the way out the door, I asked John to cover me as I tried to turn over the bus engine out of sheer curiosity. True it would make noise, but I just wanted to know if the battery still worked after all these months. I turned the key and held the starter switch. The bus made not one sound. It was dead like last night’s drifter. John and I left the scene in search of the airfield.

  After a couple of hours of searching, we found the runways. It wasn’t that far off the main road. It looked exactly like the satellite photographs portrayed it, so I was nearly certain we had the right field. In the distance, I could make out the shape of two aircraft parked near the tower. Cautiously, we approached the airfield perimeter fence, making sure to stop and listen at
regular intervals. This fence was not topped with razor wire. John and I easily climbed it and set foot inside. We could see for hundreds of yards. There was no movement anywhere. We felt confident about our safety for the time being.

  This area seemed to be nearly devoid of all undead activity. I knew that I-10 was a few miles north of our position and the satellite photos indicated a large undead population there. Perhaps they drew each other to I-10 in a similar way that water drops seem to attract one another. It might have been the noise they were all making. It could have been my imagination, but every now and then I thought I could hear the wind carry their familiar macabre sound from far into the distance.

  My main concern were the two aircraft, and if they were flyable. We edged closer and closer to the tower, eyes trained on the two birds, both parked close together. One of them was definitely a 172. The other was a 152, the slightly less powerful Cessna. I was no expert on how to repair them, but they seemed to look in decent shape from where we stood. Once again, I pulled out the binoculars to examine the perimeter from our vantage point. The hangars were closed and I heard no commotion from that direction. The tower’s tinted windows were very intimidating, as I could not tell whether or not one of those things was frothing at the mouth at us from up there. It had to be done though, as we knew we were going to spend the night of the 17th inside the tower for protection.