by Lund, Dave
Another whistle and another, mortar rounds were falling and he wasn’t able to get away from it. Keith and Carl never made any trenches or fighting positions and now Ken felt like a fool for not making them.
Carl lay in the open near the house, face down and not moving. Blood began to darken the dirt around him. Another round fell on the house and then the third. The house was in complete ruins. Keith had been inside and Carl was now very obviously dead to never rise again. Ken grabbed his rifle and looked at the old Mercedes before jumping to his feet and sprinting toward it. As he climbed into the car and the diesel engine rattled to life, the barn was struck by a round, which must have been an HE round because the entire thing exploded in a ball of fire. All of the bio-diesel in process and in storage added to the explosion. All the windows in the car shattered. Ken didn’t slow down, he had to escape; it was his only chance at life. He took the butt of his rifle and knocked out the windshield so he could see and kept driving.
All he could do now was flee toward the SSC and hope he made it. In the car, he had his rifle, his pistol, and one bandolier of ammo and nothing. Ken felt royally fucked, fleeing for his life!
Near Italy, Texas
Jason stood on the roof of the MRAP and scanned their path. Their simple plan was once again ruined by the world they live in. The previous evening, they had stumbled across a small PLA force and they began loosely tailing them. This was trouble of the nth degree and as much as Erin and Jason wanted to point toward Big Bend and never look back, they both knew that they couldn’t. Besides, their desire was to drive to the SSC to find out about Jessie and her baby. Even then it was most likely a losing proposition to try to fight such a well-organized invading force, following a smaller contingency of soldiers seemed less risky somehow. Really, they would love to flee and hide, but they could barely keep themselves from the cold, dead grasp of dead hands. If the PLA won, then there would eventually be nowhere safe to hide and it would be too late to fight. They didn’t really have much of a plan except that they wanted to see where the PLA was headed and what they were doing. Erin and Jason thought that they could take that information to the SSC and it could be helpful.
They took shifts during the night to pull security and to watch the PLA forces. Even with three of those radar trucks creating a safe zone, the 25 soldiers Jason counted didn’t seem to be active at night and only seemed to move during the day. Jason took that as the PLA being just as scared of the Zeds as they were, even though they had made them and created this whole shitstorm. It all seemed fairly crazy to Jason, and he hoped that it at least made sense to someone; otherwise, what was the point?
The eastern horizon glowed; sunrise would be in about 20 minutes. It was time to get Erin up and be ready to roll. It took two hours past sunrise for the soldiers to finally finish whatever it was they were doing and get moving. Erin and Jason were quite far away and couldn’t see much detail, just some movement and the shape of their vehicles. The MRAP was parked behind a building and by sitting on the roof, Jason was able to use binoculars and observe more detail. They hadn’t noticed them, so Jason figured his amateur tactics were working. He had never served in the military, but he had fought a deranged cult in Colorado. Strangely, the PLA didn’t scare him as badly as the cult had.
The PLA convoy comprised nine vehicles, the three radar trucks and six APCs that had mounted weapons. To Jason, it reminded him of what he saw on the TV in places like Eastern Europe during conflicts; it was very surreal. They also drove surprisingly slow. The convoy was led by one of the radar trucks, with another in the middle and the other on the end. As they approached groups of Zeds, the undead would fall to the ground motionless and without a sound. That worked great except that they would swerve back and forth to go around all the bodies. If the lead truck had something like a plow blade on the front of it, then Jason thought the trucks could drive straight through. The visual gave Erin and Jason a long laugh.
Eventually, the convoy stopped outside of Waxahachie. The SSC was further north, and they waited. This was earlier in the day that they had stopped than the day before. It was only noon and there were hours left in the day. About a half hour later, another similarly sized convoy of PLA soldiers and vehicles arrived from the south. Now 50 strong, the convoy formed up with all six of the radar trucks and headed north toward the SSC.Trailing behind the second group were what appeared to be hundreds of Zeds, if not thousands. A dark black cloud of flies writhed and churned in the air above them, obscuring their view.
“Do you think that more will join up if they’re going to attack the SSC?” Erin asked.
“I would think so, but maybe they’re not going after the SSC. Maybe they’re an advance force to prepare for that battle? I mean, they could zap all those Zeds following them and it’s like they’re leading them somewhere on purpose.” Jason shrugged with his statement. He didn’t know, but neither did Erin. They didn’t really cover battle tactics in John Wayne’s war movies, which were some of Jason’s favorites.
SSC
“Alright, mano, just an easy meet and greet, but we have to be cool. Andrew said the homestead has been fortified with sandbags and maybe more.”
Gonzo nodded; this wasn’t their first rodeo or even their dozenth. They had become the community outreach coordinators of sorts, which was right in line with what Chivo had done most of his special forces career. Gonzo had similar experiences and training, even though his typical mission profile as a MARSOC Marine was a little different; he knew how to handle himself quite well. Regardless, this was an odd mix of feeling like traveling through war-torn Afghanistan while making peace with local leaders to build alliances and what a police officer would call a “knock and talk” with a suspicious home.
They climbed into the M-RAP and drove up the ramp on the northern end of the lake. These routes were well known to both of them, as was the surrounding countryside. Soon, they were rumbling down the road toward their day’s mission. The topside improvements were coming along very nicely with security in place behind well-built fighting positions. The war was coming to them; it was only a matter of time.
The procedure that Gonzo and Chivo had established was a simple one: they would park a safe distance away and hump it to a good observation area so they could remain unnoticed. If after being watched and observed Chivo felt like they could make contact, they would walk from their observation post to the homestead and attempt contact. If they both felt it was unsafe to do so, they would wait and make contact in a neutral location outside of the homestead. Assuming the people left their compound, which they all almost always do.
The homestead in question was only a few miles away from the SSC and Chivo was surprised that they hadn’t seen it yet, but there were still pockets of survivors that hide well. Overall, the response has been positive, the majority of survivors opting to come join their community of survivors underground. The process has been a huge boon for President Lampton’s plan. All sorts of people with all different backgrounds had joined their community, including a couple of farmers who happily took over the farming operations topside. They were hoping to have their first good winter crop in a couple of months. It was all very exciting and gave everyone a lot of hope. Things were going much smoother under Aymond’s steady leadership than it had at Groom Lake with a hodgepodge of people trying to do their best, which wasn’t good enough. Chivo had real hope for the survival of everyone there, assuming that the PLA couldn’t drop ordnance that would penetrate the lake and continue more than 50ft below that through layers of what he thought would be reinforced concrete.
An hour later, Gonzo pulled to a stop below the ridgeline of a hilltop in the middle of a pasture. An old oak tree stood defiant to the changes that had occurred around it during the past 75 years. The tree also broke up the silhouette of the armored truck, which was more than they would have anywhere else in farm country. After a harrowing experience a few months prior, the two of them wer
e much more cautious when trying to make first contact with survivors.
They were approximately three miles from the homestead and according to their topographical maps, they would only have to cross one creek before reaching the hill that they would use as their observation post. The sun hadn’t reached directly overhead yet and they still had half the day’s sunlight left to get their mission completed. The sky was clear and the temperature outside felt to be in the low 80s, perfect weather to be topside and working.
I-35, North of Hillsboro
Ken pulled behind a ravaged truck stop, sat quietly for a moment, attempted slow his breathing, and attempted to control his runaway thoughts. Back in the 1970s, they didn’t call it PTSD, but that is what he had battled his entire life. Mostly, he did OK, especially the last 20 years, but since the fall of society and the rise of the dead, the PTSD was particularly bad, bad enough that he was experiencing flashbacks. Smells were the worse. The smell of burning flesh and HE mortar rounds spun his mind back to a dozen different hilltops he fought for, was hurt for, and lost friends for in Southeast Asia. After a few more deep breaths, Ken pulled the Mercedes forward, out from between two abandoned semi-trailers and back toward I-35 before slamming on the brakes and waiting.
On the interstate, he saw a dozen APCs and some odd trucks that had large radar panels on them. What was odd was that the radar panels were up and appeared to be in operation while the trucks were driving. Ken estimated the convoy to be traveling about 35 mph northbound and wondered if it was the same element that had attacked his home and killed Keith and Carl. Trailing the convoy was a massive herd of Zeds, a staggeringly large cauldron of death moving and flowing while following, like some perverse mice of death following a magical flute.
Ken dug around in the car and found a handful of hand-rolled joints in the glove box, took one out, and lit it. He took a deep pull while watching the PLA continue past before he broke into a coughing fit. Ken had never tried marijuana until recently with Carl and it was the first time in his life since returning from Vietnam that the pain and images slowed down and relaxed their grip on his psyche. Now he understood why so many people swore by pot for their mental health.
He continued to sit there, after finishing the joint, for about 10 minutes after the PLA convoy had passed and the following Zeds began to taper off before he had a noble thought.
If that convoy is going to the SSC, then they should be ready for the attack, but if that was the same group that attacked his homestead unprovoked, then others are in serious danger.
Anger swelled up from the pit of his stomach and Ken knew what had to happen. He closed his eyes and said a prayer before accelerating out of the parking lot and toward I-35. He wouldn’t let another survivor die without retaliation.
Accelerating sharply, Ken pushed the old deep-fryer-grease-smelling diesel wagon to 50 mph, which was much faster than he would have normally of traveled, but the PLA left a swath of dead Zeds in their wake. The radar trucks appeared to kill off all the Zeds within range, so Ken decided he could take the chance. He would follow the convoy and engage in harassing attacks until he could get the intel to the SSC and President Lampton. Ken had never felt so focused and sure of what he had to do in his life as he did at this moment.
This, Ken thought, was what I was meant to do. I was meant to save his fellow citizens from the same fate as my friends.
Near Waxahachie, Texas
Jason parked the big MRAP under a lean-to that housed two ancient-looking tractors. Erin was already wearing her normal tactical loadout, vest carrier, pistol, magazines, drop pouch, and other things in addition to her M4 rifle. Jason had his normal loadout with his shotgun, but he also carried an extra 100rounds of ammunition for the big .50-caliber rifle that Erin had thrown over her shoulder. That was a huge number of rounds and they were heavy, but they decided that when the convoy stopped, they would do their best to destroy the vehicles and kill anyone who appeared to be a leader before killing every last one of the invading assholes they could.
The PLA had stopped a short distance away from a farm that had a house and a barn along with a couple of lean-to-type structures. The PLA formed a protective circle with their vehicles in an inner circle and the radar trucks placed on points outside of that. Two rings of protection from the Zeds they brought to the party and any attacks. Erin shifted focus and peered through the binoculars at the teams setting up mortar tubes. She then shifted focus and tried to take in what was happening at the farm. The house appeared to be covered in multiple layers of sandbags; the same with the barn. Whoever had setup that home had really taken their security serious, very serious.
A distant “fwomp” sound came from the PLA and even though Erin had never heard the sound in person before, she knew instantly that was from a mortar being fired out of its tube. She watched as the first round landed near the barn and exploded in a fireball. Some of the sandbags were ripped apart, a lot of the surrounding ground was on fire, but the barn still stood. The sound of a series of mortar rounds being fired reached their ears. Erin had given up on her binoculars and was already lying on her big .50-caliber rifle and peering through its powerful optic.
More mortars were launched, this time targeting the house. The house did not fare as well as the barn. Four separate rounds screamed out of the sky and leveled the farmhouse. The sandbags appeared to work some, but even with the reinforcements, the house never had a chance. Erin hoped the people were alive still, but it didn’t matter; she was going to kill every last soldier she saw. Zeds churned around the PLA position, but were kept at bay by the wagon circle of radar trucks. Erin watched a PLA soldier stand on the roof of one of the APCs with an odd-looking bazooka. It was large and gangly, not something that she had seen, even compared to those Stinger missiles they found in Pecos. She took aim at the man and waited, trying to figure out what the weapon was. Erin waited too long and he fired the rocket. A moment later, the round landed near the rubble of the destroyed farmhouse and began to emit a loud klaxon horn sound that hurt their ears even though they were so far away.
“Holy shit! Watch the house. I’m going to ruin these asshole’s day.”
Jason grunted his acknowledgment just as the first round from Erin’s big rifle ripped across the pasture from their hilltop position and toward the mortar teams that were set out away from the circled vehicles on an adjacent hilltop. Dirt bounced into the air around them from the concussive blast. Erin shifted slightly and fired again, then again. A massive explosion waved over them. The blast made their ears pop even though they were close to 1,000 yards away.
“Got some of their explosives to set off, fuckers.”
The PLA reorganized quickly. Some of the PLA survivors that had been assembled back in the circle of their vehicles took firing positions and killed off their compatriots that had begun to reanimate before they mounted their vehicles and began driving from their position toward the farmhouse. The rest were on foot, with the armored vehicles flanking them for protection as they walked, a radar truck at the front and rear of the advancing element to protect their own troops. Erin turned her rifle toward the house and saw movement through her optic. A man climbed out of the rubble and desperately began digging. Shortly after, he pulled a woman from the rubble who clutched a baby to her bare chest.
Erin gasped. “FUCK!”
Ken
Ken cursed the car his luck and the Germans; the old Mercedes wagon decided that it was done with this world. Smoke poured out from under the hood, thick black smoke that continued to grow in intensity. He abandoned the car and began walking as an explosion rumbled from a short distance away. He cursed under his breath and began walking faster. Twenty years ago, he would have jogged or run, but he was too beat up and felt too old to run like that.
Chivo and Gonzo
“What the actual fuck was that?”
Gonzo didn’t know the answer to Chivo’s question, but it sure
sounded like mortar fire and the following explosion wasn’t a good sign for their original mission.
Chivo began running toward the sound. They were about 500yards from their observation post. Gonzo followed. Eschewing safe tactics, he ran nearly to the hilltop and took out his binoculars and was still for a quick moment.
“Fuck. Goddamn it all.… FUCK! GONZO, GET THE FUCKING TRUCK!”
Chivo dropped the binoculars to the ground and began sprinting down the hill as fast as he could with his combat loadout. Gonzo hadn’t asked any questions; he trusted his friend’s judgment and had begun sprinting back toward the MRAP.
Ken
Ken wheezed, trying to breathe as he stopped; he saw a mounted and dismounted patrol approaching a destroyed farmhouse. It was partially on fire, and a barn near it was starting to burn as well. The smell of the battle, fire, and diesel fuel began to reach his nostrils and Ken began running toward the fight.
Anger burned white hot in his chest. He wasn’t going to let it happen again, he wouldn’t let it happen ever again. Ken stopped and raised his M-1, shouldered the rifle, and took aim at the trailing radar truck. Disregarding his limited ammo supply, Ken fired until the metallic ping of the ammo clip being ejected could be heard. Smoke had begun coming out of the large flat radar transmitter and Zeds began filtering past it into where the dismounted patrol was. Ken began running down the hill toward the farmstead; he needed to get closer if he was going to have a chance to hit man-sized targets.
Erin and Jason
Erin continued to fire, first destroying the lead radar truck and then taking aim on the front APC, not being able to get a clear shot at any of the soldiers between the armored carriers. One of the large mounted weapons on the lead APC fired. Erin shifted her hips and turning the rifle toward the house. She saw Bexar pulling Jessie and their baby out of the rubble. He was hurt, she didn’t look great, and blood trickled out of her ears and mouth. Through the powerful scope, Erin could see the baby screaming. Erin had no way of warning her friends about the incoming round. A tear squeezed out from behind the scope and streaked down Erin’s cheek.
