“Damn those assholes—this is the second time that they’ve attacked us out of nowhere…” Hugo stated over the CB in an aggravated tone.
“We knew that it was something that we were potentially going to have to deal with on this trip—those fuckers are still out there and they’re still no doubt following the will of Darkbourne even though he is long dead.” I stated as I picked up the CB receiver speaking into it.
“Let’s search their vehicles and see what we can find—any supplies that we can salvage will help.” Beau stated on the other end.
Shortly afterward, he and several of the others from the Zetros got out and walked over to the smoldering ruins of the enemy vehicles and started searching—within five or six minutes they came back with a few duffle bags full of ammo and food rations; the items looked like they had been scavenged from somewhere and we took them adding them to our own.
“Let’s get back on the road—that horde wasn’t too far back and all of this noise will be drawing them in from miles around…not to mention that fire spreading, we need to get away from that too.” I stated as everyone gathered around me and my women.
The others nodded and returned to their vehicles and shortly afterward we left the area, I drove on into the night and it didn’t seem long after nightfall when we crossed over into North Dakota; almost as soon as we had crossed the state line we found ourselves passing through the ruins of what had once been Fargo, the town looked like it had been hit particularly hard back in the day and there were a lot of wrecked and burned out vehicles along the streets; luckily interstate 94 was relatively clear through the most part and I didn’t stop knowing that despite the dead look to the town that the undead were around and all it would take would be the least little bit of noise to draw them in. I was about to continue away from the main part of the city when I noticed that the fuel gauge on our dashboard was showing that we were getting low on fuel so I spotted a gas station off to the left of the interstate and I pulled into the lot noticing several dead-heads that immediately screamed that horrible sound and came sprinting toward us; Chloe and Olivia stood up out of the top of the back of our Bronco and opened fire on them splattering their heads dropping them and I pulled up next to one of the fuel pumps.
“This brings back a lot of memories of times years back…” Sheila stated as she and Jennifer accompanied me to the door of the store and checked to see if it was locked.
The door opened with some trouble and we stepped inside noticing that there were several overturned shelves and other debris here and there that looked like they had been placed there in someone’s effort to escape from the infected—my foot brushed against several corpses that were zombies and I noticed that their heads had been destroyed leaving me to wonder if someone was still holing out in this place; further examination of the place revealed that whoever had once used the place for shelter had long since moved on and I found the switch to the pumps and flipped it on, heading back outside Beau reported that the pumps had some pressure although it was unclear as to how much fuel was left.
“Let’s get as much as we can and move on, the gunfire a few minutes ago would have by no alerted any dead-heads or other mutations of our presence here.” I stated as I took the nearby fuel nozzle and stuck it into the tank of our Bronco.
“You guys are welcome to use some of the fuel from the drums we have on the trailer if need be.” Darrell stated as he and several others of his group joined us near the pumps.
“Thanks, that’s nice of you—we’ll save that for emergency reserves when its needed…as long as we can still find it in pumps at stations or siphon it out of abandoned vehicles, we’ll be okay.” I answered turned to face him.
Soon after we finished refueling from what was left in the pumps—several of the others including Billy and Richard were forced to siphon gasoline out of nearby abandoned cars and the rest of us stood guard as they finished with that; finally, after over an hour we were ready to leave, luckily there hadn’t been anymore dead-heads or other mutations show up which was a relief.
“How far do we follow the 94?” Jake asked over the CB.
“Just until we hit Bismarck—after that we take highway 83 north to Minot and then highway 52 northwest on into Canada.” I answered as I glanced over our route on the road atlas.
“Hard to believe that we’re already this close to Canada…” Regan stated on the other end.
“Yeah…let’s hit it, we still have a long way to go and we don’t know how things are going to be once we get up into those vast wilderness areas.” I answered as I started the engine of our Bronco and led the way back to the interstate.
I focused on the roadway ahead listening to the conversation between not only my women around me but also that of the other group members behind us and it seemed like one hour melded into another and soon the morning sun was rising in the east—a cold blast of air was coming in from the slats in the windshield of our Bronco and I shivered violently before turning on the heat on the dashboard; it was getting close to winter again and I wasn’t looking forward to it one bit.
“It’s getting cold…I hope that this weather isn’t going to turn worse than what it’s already been…” Sheila stated as she wrapped her jacket tighter around herself.
As the morning continued it started getting really dark and then before I knew it, it started raining—except it wasn’t rain, it was sleet.
“Shit…the road is getting slippery…” I stated in an aggravated tone as I reduced my speed as to try and not go off the road.
The others behind us were doing the same and as we continued west past Jamestown the sleet soon became heavy snow and I was having a hard time seeing through the wintery onslaught—the road signs were being covered with snow and ice and it was making it even harder to remain on the planned route; everyone was awake and alert at that point and by sometime late that same evening I managed to pull off the 94 near Bismarck and get onto highway 83.
“Chaz—dude, it’s getting dark really fast…I’m starting to wonder if we shouldn’t try to find some shelter—this weather is getting worse.” Hugo’s voice stated over the CB.
“I know, but with those dead-heads and other things scattered everywhere it’s not a good idea to stop—let’s try to get to Minot at least and if the weather hasn’t settled down by then we’ll try to locate some shelter; let’s just watch our asses.” I answered speaking into the microphone of the receiver.
I continued driving and navigating as best as I could but it was soon dark and the dead-heads and other mutations could be seen wandering around the sides of the highway and off in the woods and fields that we passed, they seemed like they were being slowed down and effected by the weather which was good for us; several hours later I was still trying to see through the snow and there had been a point a little while before when I had had to go around a major pileup of wreckage in the road and a sense of doubt and confusion was starting to settle into the back of my mind and I could tell that my women were also starting to wonder if something was wrong. By that time, we were surrounded by thick, deep wilderness and the snowdrifts were getting so deep that our vehicles were starting to not only have trouble traversing the thick snow but the engines were starting to sputter and act up.
“Chaz—we’re going to have to find somewhere to hole up until this weather clears, if we continue at this rate we’re going to get stranded out in the middle of the open.” Beau stated on the other end of the CB.
“I know…let’s stop up here and look around—it looks like there might be a structure of some sort up ahead.” I answered as I strained to see through the falling snow.
I soon after stopped in the road and got out with my M16 in hand shielding my eyes with my left hand as my women and the others clustered around me—it looked like there was a structure up ahead, what it was I couldn’t tell but it was a good sized building and the first thing that came to my mind w
as that it might offer us enough shelter until the snow stopped and melted a bit for us to continue.
“Let’s check that building up ahead—we need to be careful, even though we haven’t really seen any of those things the past several hours doesn’t mean that they’re not around.” I stated as everyone checked their ammo for their weapons.
The others nodded and I led the way toward the building ahead, my women followed and I knew that the safest place for them at the moment was at my side—we arrived at the front of the building shortly after and discovered that it was a residence; it looked abandoned but I cautiously pushed at the door with the barrel of my assault rifle and waited as it creaked open, it was dark and silent inside and I quickly flicked on my flashlight leading the way through the doorway into the structure. As I looked around the inside of the building, I noticed traces of blood and gore here and there that looked like it was very old, but there weren’t any zombies or mutations anywhere in the building and we all breathed sighs of relief.
“It looks like this place has an old barn as well as a garage—we should bring the vehicles inside as soon as we can while we can still get them through the snow.” Hugo advised as he and the other Covenant One members stepped forward.
“Yeah, that’s a good idea—let’s get this place fortified and hopefully we won’t have to be stuck here for longer than we have to be.” I answered in agreement.
Jennifer, Sheila and Chloe accompanied me back to our Bronco and helped me get it started and brought up to the yard of the place we had found as Hugo and the others scouted the barn and garage to make sure they were safe before doing the same with their vehicles; once we were all able to get our vehicles inside of the barn and garage we gathered our supplies, food and weapons and brought it all inside of the main structure while Billy, Marco, Richard and several others gathered firewood and built a hot fire in the fireplace that was located inside of the living room. There was an abundance of kerosene lanterns inside of the barn and candles here and there in the main structure that we used to bring light to the place—it seemed strange to be stopped but I knew that with the weather as bad as it was that we really didn’t have any other choice.
“Might be a good idea for a few of us to head out into the nearby woods at daybreak and see if we can’t hunt something—it’ll help our food stock.” I stated in deep thought as I stared into the flickering flames of the fire.
“Yeah—it’ll also help give us an idea of where exactly we are…I know that we were following the 83 toward Minot but with that blizzard coming in as quickly as it did, we could have easily gotten off the road and at this point we could be just about anywhere.” Richard stated in deep thought.
“We’re lucky that we came upon this place—it should give us enough cover until this storm subsides…” Hugo added with a chuckle.
I listened to the other talk and we ate and then I settled down inside of the small tent that we had set up in a corner of the room with my women and soon after fell asleep—during the sleep I had a number of odd dreams, in one of them I distinctly remember seeing a shadow standing over me, a shadow of a figure but I couldn’t see their face or anything else and I woke with a start as the bitter cold air from the outer door opening sent a chill all over my body; Richard was bringing in more firewood from the barn and it looked like he was covered with snow. I settled back down with my women clustered around me still sleeping, I thought of the dream I had just woke from trying to understand it but I couldn’t no matter how much I tried, I soon after fell back asleep.
[Chapter Two: A Gnawing Hunger]
Weeks later I checked the markings I had made with my hatchet on the nearby tree trunk and looked around at the snow-covered landscape—I had been hunting for the past several hours and I was getting ready to call it a day and head back; there didn’t seem to be much if any wildlife in the area which worried me because I knew that if we continued to be stuck in the area that we were going to need more food. That was when a slight sound ahead alerted me and I quickly aimed my AR-15 in the direction that the noise had come from only to see that it was a clump of snow falling from what looked like a road sign—that was when my eyes just about popped out of my head—the sign read “Williston City Limits”.
“What the…it can’t be…” I said to myself as I took several steps toward the sign.
That was when a horrible scream off to my left got my attention as several dead-heads appeared on the other side of the edge of trees and spotted me—it looked like they were having some trouble sprinting toward me due to the deep snow but they were still coming; I pointed my AR-15 at their heads and opened fire killing several of the ones in the front but more were coming and I knew that I had to figure out how to get back to the others. I turned and quickly ran away from the dead-heads into the trees but it wasn’t long before I found myself running through the streets of the familiar small town of Williston—the memories flooded through my mind of what had happened the last time we had been here and I stumbled falling to my chest in the snow; I heard a bark and a growling sound and I spotted several wolves that looked like parts of their bodies were rotting away, their eyes were almost a reddish color and I knew that they were infected.
“Fuck…I’ve got to get out of this place!” I shouted as I fought my way to my feet.
I quickly pointed my assault rifle at the oncoming wolves and opened fire sending rounds into several of their heads dropping them but more were coming and they were almost on me and I slipped on the ice falling on my ass, that was when a figure suddenly appeared from out of nowhere and fired several shots with a combat shotgun that hit and blew the heads off of the infected wolves; the figure turned to me and offered their right hand to me which I took, once I was on my feet I stared at the mysterious person—their face was covered with a gas mask and they wore a heavy winter coat that was made of fur.
“This way if you wanna live…” The figure stated in a muffled tone as they turned and headed off to my left through an alleyway.
I followed after them wondering in the back of my mind as to who this person could possibly be, several times I was forced to duck down and crawl through rubble and it was hard at times to keep up with them; at one point we passed through a large open area where the burned out ruins of a vehicle could be seen sticking up out of the snow as well as the ruins of a larger one not far away that had clearly been a military transport truck. I knew where I was at that point—this was the very same spot where Noah and his family had been killed all those years back when the marauder forces had attacked us, I spoke up at that point not knowing what to think.
“Who are you…?” I asked as I stopped firmly in my tracks refusing to go any further until I knew who this person was and where they were taking me.
They turned back to me and slowly removed their gas mask and I just about choked—there standing before me was Noah.
“Noah…?” I asked in a cracked voice—one that I was having trouble even getting out of my mouth.
“I don’t know you…but I know that is my name…” The figure answered with a blank expression.
“It’s me—Chaz…we were survivors traveling together with a large group of others years ago…we were trying to find the man responsible for the zombie apocalypse and make him answer for his crimes…we were ambushed here in this very spot by marauder forces and you and your wife Christina and son Jude were…all killed…or so we thought.” I explained as I paced around the area.
“Chaz…I remember you now…has it really been that long?” He answered with an amused look.
“It’s been several years now…we managed to make it to Romania where Bowman was hiding and we made him pay…but then we found out that his marauder forces had brought back a clone he had made of himself—a clone that called itself Darkbourne and we were forced into another ordeal for survival until finally we destroyed him and we’ve been trying to survive up until now…” I continued with a d
istant look.
“I’m glad that you guys found him and made him pay for everything that he took away from us…how I survived that attack I’ll never know, but we woke up awhile after it happened and learned that our bodies healed quickly and that we had an immunity to the infection of those things…Jude wasn’t so lucky though—he never woke up…” Noah answered with a pained expression.
“I’m sorry to hear that—where is Christina?” I answered as I took a few steps toward him.
“She’s at our shelter…I take it that you were out hunting or something?” Noah answered as his eyes roamed over my clothes and weapon.
“Yes—I was trying to find some game to hunt, me and the others got snowed in weeks ago at a building to the southeast I think it is and we’ve been stuck there ever since…” I answered with a troubled look.
Noah led us to a brick building with a set of steel stairs on one side that we climbed until we arrived at a door that he opened and I followed him inside—it took a minute for my eyes to adjust to the dimness of the room but then I saw Noah wrap his arms around a smaller figure that was dressed in a tattered white sweater and jeans; the female figure turned and noticed me and it looked like she thought she was seeing a ghost.
“Chaz…?” She asked taking several steps toward me.
“Yeah—it’s me, me and the others of my group got stuck in the blizzard weeks ago and we’ve been staying inside of an abandoned building that has a barn and a garage…we’re on our way north to the Canadian Northwest Territories—to a place called Echo Bay.” I answered as she wrapped her arms around me in a hug.
“Why are you going all the way up there?” Noah asked with a curious look.
“We found a recording of a radio signal back at this abandoned place near where what we used to call home and it spoke of this placed called Echo Bay up near Great Bear Lake and it sounded like survivors are gathering there…with those fucking dead-heads and other mutations getting so numerous and widespread we decided to head that way ourselves.” I explained in deep thought.
[HGB] Humanity Gone Bad: The Dead Chronicles Page 76
