by Dave Lund
Once the bulk of the back and forth of transmissions had slacked off, Bob keyed in his call sign followed by the shorthand “AR” keyed quickly as a single word. Across the country, Bob didn’t hear Bill as he yelled with excitement, but the return transmission was fast, clear, and the sort of thing that old HAMs would be excited about, which Bob was, and he assumed that the operator using an old Races-style call sign in Groom Lake was too. Twenty minutes later, and Bob had his contact logged, along with the questions he had answered. Keying his station’s signoff from the frequency for the night, Bob left the Groom Lake operator calling himself “Bill” to chat with others, which Bob listened to and transposed to show the others in Lost Bridge Village in the morning. Any chance of going home to sleep was wiped away, Bob being much too excited to even attempt it.
CHAPTER 6
Saint George, UT
April 4, Year 1
The eastern horizon glowed yellow in the morning twilight. At the kitchen table, Bexar chatted with Gary, who wrote quick notes of the conversation that he would transcribe later. After the initial surprise from the group members wanting to know their story, Gary spoke with Bexar about recording the story of who he was and what had happened after the EMP and after the dead rose to hunt the living. Bexar realized he was sincere and genuinely interested, and for the first time in his life while sober the chains fell free of the locks, the doors opened, and Bexar spoke openly of his time as a Texas peace officer. He talked about all the plans, prepping, and training that went into the group’s bug-out plans, the cache site, all the details good and bad: Malachi’s death, the attack in The Basin, burying Keeley, his own retaliation and attempt to rescue Jessie. Tears streamed down his face as he spoke nearly in a whisper as all the guilt, remorse, and anguish of being one of the lucky few to live through the past few months washed over him. Gary’s soft eyes and gentle words, both encouraging and caring, helped Bexar talk about all the memories and feelings that he was running from.
Guillermo stepped out of the kitchen and set a fresh cup of coffee down on the table before quietly ushering the remaining group members out of the kitchen to give the two some privacy. Gary was a special member of their group, a bit of a misfit crew; Gary’s self-imposed title was the “Chief of Good Morale.” Professionally, Gary was a licensed therapist, gentle and caring, supportive, not the stereotype of a person most people picture when they think of a therapist. Gary was an avid outdoorsman, hunter, shooting enthusiast, and general fitness nut. Long multiday hikes across terrain that most wouldn’t want to even fly over was where Gary found his solace. In nature, be it hiking, running, cycling, shooting on a range, or hunting, Gary would have fun no matter what the activity as long as he could be outside. He was one of the last members added to the group, long after John and Brian helped form the original cell, after Heath and Coach joined, after Merylin and Frances began all the intensive food prep, after the other group split off into their own faction, joining just before Jennifer and Doc.
Walking outside, Guillermo found Stan and Chivo readying the horses for another journey, this one an attempt to salvage an old and wayward VW Beetle. Stan, the group mechanic and systems guy, was the obvious choice for Chivo to take. Angel wanted to return with him for tactical reasons, or maybe Angel thought Chivo was cute; Guillermo wasn’t sure, but Stan would be more useful in an attempt to resurrect an old car after the end of the world as we know it.
Stan used the solar array to charge a small car battery that was used with some of the equipment. A roll pouch of tools, some lunch, some water, weapons, ammo, a small can of treated gasoline, a can of starter fluid, and the will to succeed were tied onto the horses, and, just after sunrise, the pair left. Walking across the yard and into the open side door of the shop, Guillermo found Heath with an electric motor disassembled on his workbench. Without a word, Guillermo walked up to him and stood, watching the process.
“Hey, Willy, aerator’s acting up.”
“The what?”
“Aerator. It’s the motor that keeps the septic churning to help the biological processes break down all the waste. The spare unit is in place for now, but I’m rebuilding this one so I can place it in storage as the spare. Without it we would need to be on the hunt for another.”
“What happens if it all fails completely?”
“Then we’re literally up shit creek.”
“Heh, OK, Heath, good work, buddy, and thank you for what you do.”
Heath smiled and went back to work, Guillermo leaving him be.
The rest of the group was fast at work with their daily chores. Guillermo’s chores for the morning were complete. Kitchen rotation was one of his favorites because he got to cook. He had to clean, too, but he didn’t have to do any of the harder outdoor chores or sit safety watch at night. Walking back into the house, he found Gary and Bexar still chatting, now sitting on the sofas in the living room. Gary motioned to the rocking chair and nodded, so Guillermo sat.
“You’ve not just survived, you’ve battled, fought, scratched, and just flat-out forced yourself to survive damn the odds. It is easy to dismiss things as circumstance or luck, but luck favors the ready, and the ready don’t favor luck. You aren’t lucky, you’re ready. I have no doubt that you will succeed, that you’ll rejoin your wife, and your child will survive. I strongly suspect that no matter what could possibly happen your family will be whole, and you’ll make sure that child lives to see us reclaim this world for the living.”
Guillermo smiled. Gary was really animated, genuinely excited, and he meant what he said. Missing out on the majority of the previous talk, he would have to read the story after Gary transcribed it and wrote it out, with Bexar’s approval of course, but something about the gimped survivor cop from Texas really had Gary fired up. This was going to be a good day. It had already started well, and in a few hours Guillermo would start cooking dinner.
I need to ask Merylin and Frances for something they can spare from the cache; a special day today means tonight should have a special meal.
Smiling, Guillermo excused himself. Gary and Bexar were laughing and, if John wandered in at some point, they might start pouring beer even though it wasn’t even past eight in the morning.
Stephenville, TX
Stretching her neck, Amanda sat up. The bed of boxes and troop carrier seats wasn’t exactly what her weary body needed, but uncomfortable sleep that is relatively safe is better than no sleep at all. Another storm had ripped through the area during the night. The wind had rocked the heavy truck hard enough to cause concern, but all the stress of the previous day left Amanda so weary that she couldn’t keep her eyes open for just a little bit of weather. She figured that if the MRAP tipped over she would wake up and deal with it then, but as sturdy as the truck was she would probably be OK inside if that happened.
After snacking on the crackers left over from the previous night’s MRE dinner and downing a half-liter of water, Amanda stood to look out the windows. She needed to pee; preferably she could squat against a tire, but if it wasn’t safe, she wasn’t above hanging her ass over the edge of the turret and peeing on the roof while the dead world watched from below.
The scene outside the heavy bullet-resistant windows was surreal. Half of the church building to the south was gone, and debris filled the parking lot. The metal church buildings at the back of the parking lot were leveled, which was probably the source of much of the debris. Bodies littered the ground. Most of them appeared to be reanimates that were thrown by the storm and hit by debris. Some were mangled, still twitching with movement, the virus holding onto the last vestiges of ability from the destroyed bones and flesh.
“Oh my God.”
Amanda released the hatch for the turret, climbed up the slung nylon step and pulled herself onto the roof. Standing on the roof and in the cool air, she turned slowly, looking at the scene around her. It appeared that a tornado had come through or had been cl
ose enough to destroy the buildings. Trees had been uprooted and overturned. The few cars and trucks she had seen on the highway were tossed aside like discarded toys. She counted seventeen dead in the parking lot.
I can’t fathom being caught in a storm and being struck by a flying reanimated body like a fucked-up remake of The Birds.
The thought caused Amanda to shiver before she grunted, frowning at the destruction. It didn’t matter; the seventeen in the parking lot were seventeen that no one would have to deal with in the future after she got the country back on its feet. Holding onto the edge of the turret, Amanda hung her ass over the edge of the truck to pee. There were few moments that she envied men, but being able to stand up and direct pee at will was something she envied at this very moment.
“Fuck it,” was all she said after pulling her pants up and tightening her belt. Climbing back into the cab, she pulled the heavy roof latch closed, dogging it in place. Rotating the switch to RUN, Amanda waited for the gauges to come online and for the motor to be ready. She pushed the momentary button for the starter and the turbo diesel belched to life, ready for another day in the modern world of combat against the dead. The fuel gauge showed a half-tank left, so the day could start, but she would need to fuel at the first opportunity so things wouldn’t turn into an emergency. After consulting with her road maps, Amanda drove to the end of the driveway and turned right onto the highway. Driving south on Highway 377, the route seemed wrong, but the map showed her connection, Highway 6, would be after the next town, and that would point her back in the right direction. To avoid a direct route involving an Interstate sometimes meant that the wrong direction had to be traveled on a small highway.
Amanda wanted to see Dublin, Texas to see if it had any Irish pubs, but the highway split and routed her away from the city, which was fine since it still intersected Highway 6. Another right turn and into the countryside she went. Instead of a gas station, Amanda was watching for a construction site or farm with a fuel tank on a raised platform. She had a universal key, also known as bolt cutters, in the MRAP, so a padlocked gravity-fed tank of diesel for tractors or road equipment would be even easier to get into than an electrically powered tank of diesel for trucks.
The storm damage in the area along the new highway wasn’t as severe as the path of destruction that had been carved out next to her overnight spot. God smiles on children, drunks, and idiots.
Smirking for her dumb luck in parking near the future path of a tornado and then surviving without any damage, Amanda figured she must be a favored idiot; she had too many gray hairs to be a child, and a glass of wine felt like an ancient dream. The Texas countryside rolled by her windshield; small homes were carved out between pastures and farmland, and wooded areas dotted the landscape.
The sign said De Leon, home to a celebrated peach and melon festival, with slightly over two thousand residents, but Amanda had to take its word for it because she had never heard of the town. Passing a cattle trailer pulled by a large dually pickup that sat abandoned in the road in the opposite lane, she stopped the truck. In the bed of the truck was a diamond-plate toolbox, but there was also a tank of fuel with a fuel spout. It was common for farmers and ranchers to have up to about a fifty-gallon tank of fuel for farm equipment on a farm truck; they usually all ran on diesel. Most of the pumps were electrically operated with a simple DC-electric motor, which could be a problem, or it could still work. Most of the ranchers wired the pump up themselves by running a hot wire directly to the battery, so it could be possible to run it off the MRAP’s battery too. Amanda wasn’t sure if the MRAP’s system was twelve volt, twenty-four volt, or something else that she couldn’t fathom, but she figured the worst that could happen was that it wouldn’t work.
Or you catch it all on fire while trying to fuel.
Amanda shook her head and hoped for God’s continued providence on her idiot ways. Idling in the middle of the road, she climbed down from the driver’s side of her big truck and cleared the immediate area. No dead were seen; nothing seemed to be reacting to the sound of her truck’s loud motor. The cap on the auxiliary fuel tank in the bed of the truck was locked with a padlock, as was the nozzle. Returning with the bolt cutters, she quickly relieved the locks of their duty. Unscrewing the cap, she was happy to see the tank was nearly three-quarters full. The placard stated that the tank did hold fifty gallons, so she might net approximately thirty-five gallons. The pump was electric, and it was held in place with worn electrical tape. The pickup was unlocked and unattended; Amanda pulled the release inside the cab and walked to the front to open the hood. The battery connections were a rat’s nest of extra wires, a fine example of cheap redneck engineering on an expensive farm truck. The toolbox in the bed of the pickup did not have any jumper cables, but it did have a small spool of thin red electrical wire and a roll of duct tape. The battery for the MRAP was on the wrong side of the truck for an easy connect, so Amanda decided to siphon the fuel out of the unscrewed cap. Ten minutes later, the MRAP was buttoned back up. Amanda drank water in an attempt to get the taste of diesel out of her mouth, but no dead had come to investigate, and the fuel gauge was nearly full.
“Life is good; today will be a wonderful day.”
By the time she was in the town, she was exiting it again. Overall, the town looked quiet, as if everyone was on vacation; there wasn’t much visible damage to the buildings or anything that she could see. If most of small-town America had survived this well, Amanda held hope for the future chances of the country.
More open country rolled by through the heavy windows. Barely any cars were left on the highway. Only a handful of dead roamed along the deserted Texas highway, nothing of interest appeared, and the town of Gorman scrolled past without incident, as did the next small town. Lulled into a bored sense of safety, Amanda felt like she was nearly standing still, but her map showed progress, progress and I-20 approaching.
Stopping abreast a lonely, small truck stop where Highway 6 crossed I-20, Amanda studied her map. She had two routes marked on her atlas. The first and presumably faster route took I-20 west through Abilene, turning on Highway 84. The second crossed I-20and stayed on Highway 6 until catching Highway 180. The two routes met again near Snyder, Texas, and the safer route would be to stay off the Interstate, but Amanda couldn’t put aside the desire to save a little time.
Ahead of her a semi-truck and trailer lay on the berm of the overpass, appearing to have been knocked off the Interstate. A car lay on Highway 6 below the bridge; it also appeared to have been pushed off the bridge. Amanda hadn’t seen damage like this before, but it would match what was described weeks ago as damage from one of the massive roaming herds of the dead. Clint said they amassed along the Interstates; his theory was that the dead ended up attracting each other by the sounds of their movement. The larger the group, the louder they were, the more dead would be attracted. Interstates went through large cities, and large cities had lots of people, so it all snowballed together. Like wandering cattle, nothing and no one was in charge, just the herd following the herd in an infinite loop of meandering destruction.
Amanda didn’t have the desire or the need to see more or to encounter a herd. She knew it wasn’t here right now; she had no idea if it was heading east or west and if she would catch up to it or run into another one. Her choice to take a faster route was immediately removed; the back roads and smaller highways would remain her choice. She drove around the crumpled car, under the overpass, and toward Eastland, Texas.
Lost Bridge Village, AR
Andrew woke up to Oreo nudging him. The room was dark from the heavy blankets over the windows, but the kettle sat on the hearth of the fireplace, and the breakfast fire was already reduced to white coals. Somehow he had slept late, but if he was lucky there was coffee still left in the kettle. He had no idea what time it was, but after checking the house, he found himself alone.
At least they trust me enough to let me sleep unattende
d; that’s nice.
The kettle had coffee. It was a little stale from sitting next to the fire for too long, but as little coffee as Andrew had been able to enjoy over the past few months, any coffee was better than no coffee. Relaxing with Oreo on the couch, sipping the coffee, Andrew looked for his atlas, which was missing. Assuming he’d left it at the community building, Andrew didn’t worry about it. This group didn’t seem like the type that would steal from him. Another warm sip of the bitter coffee and Andrew felt more relaxed than he had at most of the other survivor camps. Others were better armed, better staffed, and better protected, but this group had better people. Or this group had kinder people at least; they were quite pleasant. The potluck lunch yesterday had been a treat, even if Bob’s radio was unsuccessful. At least he’d tried. Some groups wouldn’t have even tried; most wouldn’t have for lack of a shortwave radio that still worked. Andrew made a mental note to tell others about Groom Lake and the shortwave broadcasts. Even if Bob’s radio didn’t work, the shortwave broadcasts might be a way to get some new information. He leaned his head back, held his mug in one hand, absentmindedly petted Oreo with the other, and closed his eyes, visualizing the map in his head, trying to decide where to fly next.
Groom Lake?
“What do you say, Oreo, want to fly to Nevada?”
The dog lazily opened his eyes before shutting them again.
“I know, but I want to go to Area 51. That’s where that facility is supposed to be. If not, we can look for aliens. That sound fun?”
Oreo gave no response. Andrew tried to remember where Area 51 was located. He thought that it was near Las Vegas because he remembered a Popular Mechanics article years ago about people commuting via a private airline from Las Vegas to work in Area 51. He would have to look at his atlas, except that he was sure a top-secret government base wouldn’t be marked on it.
