Operation Z | Book 1 | Uprising

by Szepanski, G. D.

  He ran back to the window, grabbing the sniper rifle on the way. Donald scanned the area through the rifle’s scope. After a minute, Tom ran toward the ATV, but he didn’t see anyone or anything chasing after him. Why the hell was he running? Did Tom do the shooting or had someone shot at him?

  Donald discovered a gun port in the bulletproof glass. He opened it up and took careful aim behind Tom. If anyone dead or alive chased after him, Donald would dispatch them. He won’t allow a repeat of the campground incident. No one else in this group would die if he could prevent it. He took deep calming breaths, and he steadied himself so he would be ready to shoot. Screams from across the room filled his ears. He didn’t understand what the issue was, nor did he have time to care. It’s time for action. No one pursued Tom. Donald had no clue who discharged their weapon or what Tom ran from.

  People yelled and talked ever each other, but Donald ignored the cacophony to concentrate on his potential shot. He would be Tom’s only back up and the enemy he ran from remained unknown. After he raced away from the wall, Tom stopped the ATV in the center of the field. What the hell was he doing now? He looked behind him and then sprinted toward the cabin. When Donald swept the rifle in the direction Tom had looked, he understood what the voices across the room had been yelling about.

  Zombies! There are 50 or more (no time to stop and count them), and they closed fast on both Tom and the cabin. Tom would make it back here first since zombies aren’t swift of foot, as long as he didn’t slow his pace. Donald took careful aim and picked off a few of the zombies who led the charge behind Tom. Nobody would mistake him for being the best sniper in the world, but Donald continued to drop them since there were plenty of targets for him to choose from. The only problem was his rifle only held six rounds. A real life math problem, which he didn’t have an acceptable solution for. Even advanced calculus provided no solution to this life or death calculation.

  He ran out of ammo and stopped shooting to reload the rifle. Donald noticed that Gwen had now joined him with her own rifle.

  “Access doors in the walls on each side of the camp have opened, and zombies are pouring in around us. Something is driving them right at us.” She said in between gun shots.

  Tom’s voice echoed up through the building, however Donald wasn’t sure what he tried to say in all the chaos that erupted around him. Instead, all he could do was mull over Gwen’s words, “Something is driving them.” He returned to the gun port with the loaded rifle and scanned over the heads of the dead. Then he found it. One of Vincent’s boys drove a touring ATV at the rear of the crowd of zombies, and he used a cattle prod to drive the herd forward. He acted like a deranged zombie cowboy.

  Donald aimed for a headshot and he pressed the trigger with a steady force, sending the round down range. The ATV skidded out of control and flipped over onto its side as the boy dropped to the ground, dead. The herd mentality kept most of the zombies moving toward the cabin. A few noticed the fresh meat and stopped at the buffet instead.

  “Where’s the other group of zombies coming from?”

  “Over here!” Betty shouted from across the room.

  He raced to the other side of the building to find another group of zombies storming the camp’s grounds. Donald swept the scope past the group and found another ATV with the other son driving it. After the run across the room, Donald had to steady his breathing before he took aim and fired. He missed the head shot this time, but the round found a vital organ which dropped the boy and caused the ATV to flip out of control too. The zombies appeared confused because of this wreck behind them. Some continued to stumble forward, while others stopped to enjoy the new snack at the ruined ATV buffet.

  As he looked back toward the gate, Donald watched a third touring ATV screech to a stop. Two people sat in this one. Vincent and his wife. Donald took aim and fired. This time his round missed the intended target, but it still found a kill.

  Vincent shoved his wife’s dead body from the ATV as he spun it around to make his own escape. Another man who willingly sacrificed his wife to save his own life. Donald pulled the trigger again, but this round went wide, and missed Vincent. Vincent proved to be as slippery as a snake.

  Tom and Helen arrived at the third floor, and they surveyed the damage done to the camp along with Donald. There are now close to 100 zombies roaming the grounds of the camp. The monsters had trampled gardens, smashed the windows on the greenhouses, and knocked over fruit trees. It would take them days to pick off the crowd of monsters, one at a time. Even from their elevated location were they have excellent fields of fire.

  Betty and Matthew figured out how to remotely close the doors so no more of the dead could enter the camp. As they discussed the best way to dispose of the remaining zombies, they heard an engine roar to life.

  “What now?” Tom asked.

  Jogging to the other side of the building, they watched the armored personnel carrier as it pulled out of the garage.

  “Who’s driving the tank and where is it going?” Helen asked.

  Donald took a quick look around and noticed only Doc and Natasha were missing from the group. Which one of them could drive an APC? The M113 headed toward one group of zombies and crushed them with its tank treads. The APC made quick work of pulverizing the crowd of the dead into a bloody pulp.

  “Why didn’t I think of that?” Tom asked.

  “Tom grab a rifle, and we can take out any stragglers the APC misses. We’ll make quick work cleaning up now.”

  The M113 continued to squash the dead underneath it while Donald and Tom shot any remaining zombies who avoid the crusher. In minutes, the dead returned to being deceased and unmoving. When the APC came to a stop after it finished mashing zombies, Natasha climbed out. She stood on top of the deck of the M113 and took a bow to those gathered in the observation area.

  “Where did she learn how to drive an APC?” Tom asked.

  Donald shrugged. “There is obviously more to her story than what meets the eye.”

  “I don’t know, but looking at her makes my eyes happy!”

  ###

  After the excitement of the attack finally died down, Tom told the group what he found in the woods. Zombies roamed in the pit and the possibility of living people still caged out there. How Vincent and his family had been responsible for all the destruction.

  “Doc, you are coming with Tom and I to see if we can find any survivors out in the woods.”

  Donald noticed the glance Tom gave him. It said, “Why are we going to take the drunk?”

  “I’m a doctor and I’m way too valuable to go out there with those things.” His words were hard to understand because the alcohol caused him to slur.

  “That’s why you’re coming. If anyone survived out there, they will need a doctor.”

  “I can come.” Helen spoke up to volunteer her expertise.

  “No, Doc is going this time. You ladies can stay behind and make sure the cabin is secure.”

  Donald and Tom kitted themselves out with AR-15 assault rifles, Glock 41 sidearms, knives, and extra ammo. They gave Doc a knife, because Donald didn’t trust him with a gun (the knife might have been pushing it), in his current intoxicated state. They took a pickup truck and traveled out of the gate where the zombies had entered the grounds. This allowed them to drive to the clearing rather than hike the path like Tom had done earlier.

  They entered the clearing and found the scene as Tom described it. A pit with zombies inside it and a cage with naked people locked inside. Only three survivors remained alive in the cage. One man and two women. They were all sunburnt, scarred, and dirty.

  “We won’t hurt you. We’re here to help you. The people who locked you up won’t bother you again. We have water, clothing, and this man is a doctor. When we open the cage, please don’t run away. We would like to help you.” Donald spoke these words in a commanding but non threating manner.

  He noticed they had the same look on their faces abused war prisoners had. Big blank eyes wh
ich stared off into space and didn’t acknowledge their saviors. The best survival mechanism when you have lost all hope is to shut the outside world out.

  “What about the zombies in the pit?” Tom asked.

  “We’ll take care of them in a minute. Let’s save the living first.”

  They approached the cage with clothing and water bottles for the survivors. Dehydration and exposure would be the captive’s biggest enemies to survive. They made the offerings to them before they opened the cell to build trust. Three sets of wary eyes looked at the items like they were being offered poisonous snakes rather than the necessities of life.

  “Those things are for you. Please don’t panic, we will open the gate now.”

  Donald used bolt cutters to cut the lock holding the door shut. Bit by bit, he pulled open the door. Before he had it halfway opened, one of the two women leaped up and charged at him. She pushed Donald out of the way and ran straight for the pit.

  “No!” he yelled as she threw herself down into the depths of the pit. Zombies stampeded over each other to get just a morsel of the fresh flesh to quench their never ending hunger. Her screams echoed throughout the clearing. It left them with only the sounds of shuffling and the inhuman moans from the zombies.

  The last two prisoners sat in the cell and stared off into space, not moving. Neither made any attempt to take the clothing or water set before them. Donald stepped into the cage. He took two blankets and covered the two remaining prisoners. Tom handed each of them a bottle of water.

  “Doc, come give these two a quick exam before we take them back with us. Tom dispatch the remaining zombies in the pit.”

  Why would she have committed suicide by zombies after being rescued? It was one of those things Donald didn’t understand or had a logical answer to. The only person who could answer his question had become zombie chow.

  After Tom killed the last of the monsters, Donald fired up the backhoe. He used it to fill in the pit of death. This machine would come in handy to bury the bodies that laid around the camp. Things would start to stink if they left the bodies outside to rot.

  “Tom, you drive the truck back. We can take those two inside and get them cleaned up, feed and clothed properly. I will drive the backhoe back so we can use it to clean up the bodies back at the camp.”

  CHAPTER 23 - VINCENT

  VINCENT ALWAYS KNEW their deeds of darkness would become exposed to the light. Then they would get caught and forced to fight for their lives. He thought there might be some time before everything went haywire and their exit plan would need execution. The fine home-cooked meals and the crap about his wife having the sight were the smokescreens meant to throw the group off their trail. His creative tale of being the camp’s caretakers should have given him some credibility and helped to disarm Donald and his crew. Given enough time, they might have taken out the entire group. One victim at a time, or one grand gesture to kill them all at once. That would have been a fine day!

  None of Vincent’s family ever met Donald’s father, and they never applied as caretakers for Joey’s property. True, they took care of the grounds. But they had invaded the camp and made it their home. Some rich crook from Virginia had no right to own this much land in Maine (their adopted home) and not share it with others. Yes, he didn’t know Joey Bishop in person, but he made it his business to know about him, to prepare for the day someone might show up.

  His family moved onto this land two years ago, and Vincent had been sure no one would come to visit anytime soon because the place had been vacant for years. Vincent’s assumption had been correct until zombies rose from their graves and ended the world. Now it was only a matter of time before Donald or someone else claimed the land for their own. They figured if Donald showed up, he would be alone so he would disappear just like all their other victims. What kind of threat is one man to a family of psychopaths? To assure their continued survival, they developed their own emergency evacuation strategy. All smart CEOs developed an exit strategy to protect themselves for when the shit hit the fan.

  Vincent, Kathryn, and the boys had a hankering for pain and death. Not their own pain, no. They liked to inflict unending agony on other people. Torturing and killing were the family’s favorite past times. Like the old saying goes, the family that maimed and killed together knew how to live a full and complete life.

  The remote location of the camp provided a perfect location for their new headquarters of terror. It sat in the middle of the woods with no neighbors for miles in any direction. Only acres of trees surrounded them. No one would ever hear the screams, and they had the uninterrupted privacy they needed to perfect their deadly art. The zombie apocalypse should have been their time to thrive. In some strange twist, Kathryn and the boys are now dead, and Vincent ran for his life.

  The zombie horde they released on the camp should keep Donald and his friends busy for days. They must fight the horde, and then they’d need to dispose of the rotted bodies. If they survived step one. It had been a brilliant idea that he thought up. They gathered a group of about 50 zombies, each on three sides of the camp, corralled in hidden locations behind the camp’s maintenance access doors. When the time for their escape had come, they would open the doors and drive the herd inside like brave cowboys from the old west. The one flaw in the plan had been not accounting for the sniper rifles and the skill to use them. No one should have hit a target from that extended range.

  Now Vincent paid the price for his lack of planning. Sure, it gave him a head start to run, but where could he run to now? There wasn’t another camp like this one anywhere nearby, and he lost all his demented allies. Rumors abounded of various militias who hid out in fields and mountains around the area. Some of these people were downright crazy! Vincent might be mad, but he possessed a super genius mind and wouldn’t submit to these violent simpletons.

  He cleared the second gate which led out of the camp’s grounds. The battery level indicator on his ATV fell below the halfway mark. With all his ill-gotten money, why couldn’t Joey buy some real ATVs? Vincent would make it through this last field, but the fading battery power wouldn’t get him very much farther before he ran out of juice. He hoped Donald and his friends still dealt with the horde and hadn’t started chasing after him. If they chased him, he would be doomed.

  Vincent approached the last gate of the camp. He would love to leave these gates open so others (living or dead) could sneak in and do the job he hadn’t been able to finish. It’s only a happy dream, because the gates would close after a maximum of 5 minutes with no one passing thorough them. Vincent and his family should have thought harder about their plans for self-preservation and escape. Too late for Kathryn and the boys, but not for him.

  As the ATV hit the state highway outside the camp, Vincent needed to decide if he should head north or south. Which direction would be the best to choose? He determined south would be his best option since it allowed him to head into New Hampshire. The White Mountains would have abandoned hunting camps for him to hide in and even find some new victims or allies like himself.

  After he traveled another ten miles south, the battery on the ATV died and he rolled to a stop. He gathered his limited supplies from the dead vehicle. A compass, canteen, hunting knife, two protein bars, and a rifle with four rounds left in it. Not much to survive on while out here alone. In the past, he had experienced both better and worse odds. Vincent hoped for a miracle to come his way. He considered himself to be a god of death who couldn’t lose in whatever task he tried.

  He continued to walk south along the highway for an hour or two before his miracle found him. Yes, now he knew for sure now that he was an unstoppable god.

  The unmistakable rattle of an old VW engine’s melody came down the road from behind him. As the vehicle approached, Vincent identified it as an older VW Bus. A smile spread across his face as he heard the engine slow, and the Bus stopped right next to him. He counted four people (new victims?) riding inside the van.

  “Mister, are
you OK? Do you need a ride?”

  “Yes, I got separated from my group, and I’m trying to get to safety. I think they’re all dead. Please help me.” Vincent tried hard to look like a scared old man. The driver who had spoken looked like a modern day hippie. Skinny, long hair, unkept beard, and no physical conditioning. Two women and a teenage boy rode in the van along with him. What a lovely selection of victims for Vincent to enjoy working over. He might let the boy live and then teach him how to awaken the evil locked within him. A new protege?

  “We heard about a safe area in New Hampshire that we are headed to. You are welcome to join us.”

  “Thank you so much. I’m so scared being out on the road on my own. We all got attacked by those monsters, and I’m lucky to have escaped with my life.”

  “Bummer, man! You will be safe with us. More hands and eyes make the trip safer for all of us. Jump in!”

  Vincent climbed into the back seat of the van and smiled to himself while he wondered if these people would become his allies or his next victims. He secretly hoped they would become his next victims.

  CHAPTER 24 - AMY

  AMY AWOKE BECAUSE of the tremors that racked her body. Her teeth chattered as consciousness returned. An itch on her nose drove her crazy, and she tried to quench the feeling but found her arms wouldn’t respond. She worked her legs and Amy found they wouldn’t move either. As the fog cleared from her brain, she discovered her body ached everywhere. The worst of her pain radiated from the back of her head, her breasts, and from between her legs.

  Reality crashed down on Amy as she realized she laid naked and had been tied spread eagle to a bed in some small room. Amy put two and two together, and she now understood what all the aches and pains meant. Where was she and how did she become imprisoned here?

  As Amy tried to concentrate, some details punched through the haze in her head. She remembered reaching the survivalist camp with her brothers and they found everything and everyone gone. Only a few scraps remained from the once abundant store of supplies at the survival camp. Amy and her brothers hatched a plan to take Donald’s RV caravan by force at the state border. When they got to the bridge, they found another crew had already blockaded it. Before she could develop a different strategy, two morons tripped the booby trap, and Donald showed up to play the hero. Amy hatched another idea on the fly. She engaged the group on the bridge with a grenade launcher they took from the survival camp. Her brothers failed at their simple task of capturing the RVs, and then they both disappeared. Amy remembered the angst of losing everything at the bridge, and she had almost broken down crying. A sharp pain to the back of her head completed her memory. Then only blackness until she awakened tied up here.