by Dave Lund
101.5. Well at least the fever has broken.
Overall, Cliff knew he was lucky. First he’d survived the crash, which was due only to blind luck, then he was able to evade capture, and finally he had set up a safe hiding place that provided good shelter. At first, the undead that had congregated around the house were a problem, a big red flag that someone was living inside, but those “people” were now completely dead and piled in the backyard out of sight.
If he was going to complete his mission, he had to conduct reconnaissance on the cult. He needed to figure out if they were still at the school, as the captured member had said. Then he needed to plot their patrols, compile a number of enemy combatants, locate the survivors, and plan a rescue. A rescue, assuming the captured Cortez survivors were still alive. If they were, he knew he would save them. He wasn’t sure how yet, but he would get them to safety. But that plan was in the future. The immediate “now” required his full attention; the immediate now was his road to recovery, and it started with chicken soup.
CHAPTER 9
Big Bend National Park
March 3, Year 1
Jessie took the calendar off the wall and flipped the page back to February. We left the park on Valentine’s Day, the 14th. We came down the mountain the day before, so the 13th, and we had sex the night before, so the 12th.
Jessie flipped the pages of the calendar, counting the weeks as she went, marking the end of each trimester until she stopped on October.
So, October 28th … that’s my due date, assuming the baby doesn’t come early. Keeley was four days early. Oh God, those last few weeks were miserable! I can’t imagine trying to do that by myself, much less going through labor alone. What if I die during delivery and the baby lives? Oh God, alone and crying for food … no. I can’t think about that. I have to live, I will live, I will live for my baby.
Jessie flipped through the pages of an old road atlas she’d found in the saddle bag of one of the motorcycles. She turned to Nevada and found what she thought was Groom Lake. It wasn’t exactly marked on the map, but she knew it was north of Las Vegas. Using her fingers as a guide, she used the map scale and paced out the roads, turning the pages back until she ended back in the middle of Big Bend National Park.
Twelve hundred miles … shit. That’s over twenty-four hours of driving back when the world was normal. It took us three days to get to Big Bend from Maypearl, and that should have taken less than a day. It’ll probably take a week to get to Groom Lake, maybe two. Damn. I have to get ready, I have to prepare, food, water, fuel … diapers. Oh my God, baby supplies. I have to start gathering baby supplies! Clothes, food, formula, bottles, diapers … everything!
Overwhelmed by it all, Jessie curled into a ball and lay on her bed. There was so much to do—too much to do. The longer she waited, the harder the journey would be, and the higher the chance she would get caught going into labor without help, out on the road. She needed to leave soon, she needed a list, a detailed list, and to take care of things one little piece at a time … just like building a Cadillac.
Jessie smiled. For the big parts, I’ll need a buddy with a mo-bile home.
CHAPTER 10
Groom Lake, NV
March 3, Year 1
“Major, SSC reports the same and came to the same conclusions. At the minimum, Cliff survived the crash, maybe others too, and they’re most likely sheltering in this home.” The airman switched slides to show an overhead photo of the house with the large ‘X’ in the snow on the roof. “The OGA team that went through Texas is mounting a rescue attempt, driving to Cortez.”
Wright nodded; he did not have personnel or anyone with the training to conduct a rescue operation. Besides, with the increased and increasing number of civilian survivors in the facility, he had his hands quite full. New survivors seemed to arrive daily. The civilian groups divided themselves into “towns,” the bunk rooms they were in, assigning each of them with names like “North Las Vegas” and “Undeadville.” Regardless what it was called, each town elected a representative, then together they had elected a “Mayor of Groom Lake” to head them all. So far the civilians had been a strong asset. Some of them were quite skilled in jobs that were desperately needed for the facility; others were able to contribute by working as janitorial staff or cooks. There was a concern that, since the civilians far outnumbered the military men, they could attempt a coup and overthrow their authority, or that one of the civilians would try to become a dictator or warlord, but so far the relationship between the military side and the civilian side was quite amicable.
The President was quite clear that Wright’s mission was to continue what Cliff had started: provide a safe haven for survivors, uphold the Constitution, and protect the people put in his care. Cliff seemed to know the facility fairly well, but Wright didn’t. Currently two of his airmen were tasked with exploring and mapping all the places and passageways belowground that connected to the main facility. Once they were done, they would continue the operation topside. Deep down, he didn’t believe in the conspiracy theory, but there was a part of him that hoped his men would find the infamous S4 facility: a hangar, built into the side of the mountains, that contained an alien craft. Who knows? A few months ago he didn’t know that the belowground facility existed here, and he certainly didn’t know that the facility in Texas was there. Of course, he also never thought the dead would rise to hunt the living, so at this point he wouldn’t be surprised by anything they found in Groom Lake.
Suddenly, the room went dark. Emergency lighting glowed in the hallway, the computers all went blank and off, and the ventilation system’s constant hum was missing in the silence. Before anyone could respond, the lights turned back on and the computers began rebooting.
“What the hell was that about?”
Wright looked at the airmen in the room. They all shrugged.
“Get Texas on the SATCOM and see if Clint knows anything about it. Cliff said that all the generators for this facility were nuclear-powered and would last another twenty years, so if that’s wrong, we might be in trouble—especially if the whole facility shuts down.”
Wright pointed at one of his airmen. “Ask the mayor to check with his people to see if any of them are ex-Navy. Perhaps one of them was a power plant guy on a sub or a carrier and knows something about nukes. If we can find the reactors then maybe he can inspect them.”
With a “yes, Sir,” the man left the room. The rest of the airmen went off to complete their orders as well. Wright leaned against a table. I have no idea how this is gonna work, there’s no way humanity is going to survive all this.
CHAPTER 11
SSC
March 3, Year 1
Bexar walked into the storeroom where Chivo and Apollo were loading M4 magazines out of an open case of ammo. Lindsey was busy stacking cases of MREs next to four large blue barrels, which Bexar presumed held water.
Chivo looked up at Bexar. “Heard you want to ride with us, mano.”
“Yeah, I can’t just sit here. I need to get out and do something useful.”
Apollo looked at Chivo and shrugged, then turned to Bexar. “We better run some drills with you … but first we need to get you kitted up.”
Lindsey pointed at a cart. “Bexar—bring that and follow me.” She placed the last case of MREs on the stack and walked away, down a dimly lit aisle, racks reaching the ceiling, full of various goods and supplies in crates and boxes. Bexar limped along behind her, pushing the cart as told.
A half-hour later Lindsey and Bexar returned the cart, now full of gear. Apollo stood and stretched, a large stack of thirty-round M4 magazines loaded and stacked neatly next to where he had been seated. Standing next to the cart, he talked Bexar through what each piece of gear was for and how to assemble it, explaining why certain pieces of gear went where they did. Once complete, Bexar stood wearing his new gear, most of it foreign to him. Although he was an experienced Peace Officer he had never served in the military; he wasn’t even a SWAT gu
y, he was just a cop. The closest he’d got to most of this kind of gear was bumping into the tacticool wannabes at the local rifle range.
Chivo and Lindsey set out to strip down the MREs from the packaging to save weight and space in their vehicle, while Apollo spent time running some basic tactical drills with Bexar, assessing what he did, and more importantly, what he didn’t know.
“Good. So you can shoot, move, and transition. You understand ‘field of fire’ and ‘area of responsibility;’ that will save us some time.” Apollo put on his lightweight bump helmet and had Bexar follow him into the next room, another large storeroom, extinguishing the lights as they entered.
“Flip down the NODs—the night vision on the front of your helmet. The switch is here … good. Now look at me.” Bexar looked at Apollo, who was mostly visible in the green light glowing from the reticles of the night vision.
“Press this button on the DBAL.”
“What’s a DBAL?”
“Dual Beam Aiming Laser—the boxy thing on the rail of your rifle … watch me.”
Apollo raised his M4 and pressed the button on the top of the DBAL mounted to the quad rail of his rifle. It emitted a bright laser beam. “You use this to aim and shoot while using your NODs, since it’s damned near impossible to use the traditional sights on your rifle with the NODs flipped down.”
They set up a stack of new Humvee tires across the aisle and took turns firing their rifles at it, sighting in the DBAL’s laser to match the point of aim with the point of impact. Afterwards, they spent another hour practicing some small group tactical movement skills. The training finished up with a lesson on the basic operation of the radios the team used for intra-team communications. Returning to the neighboring room, they found Chivo and Lindsey finishing the stripping and prep of the MREs.
“Alright mano, the check list is complete. We’ve got the trauma bag, some extra parts for the M4s, a spare rifle, pistol, and general load-out for Cliff, if he needs it, but I’m not sure how we’re going to get this all to fit.”
Bexar looked at the large pile of gear. “What about extra fuel for the vehicle?”
Chivo looked at Apollo. “The kid’s got a point, you know.”
CHAPTER 12
MWTC
March 4, Year 1
Aymond plotted a primary route, a secondary route, and a tertiary route, and marked all three on his maps. Normally he would have refrained from drawing the route lines, but he wasn’t too worried about the OPSEC, or operation security. The enemy was already dead and couldn’t read a map. The rest of the team were done prepping the M-ATVs and gathering the rest of the gear they needed for their overland expedition.
“Hey Chief, we didn’t even roll this heavy when transferring FOBs in the Stan.”
“I know, but then all the gear we needed was already at the Forward Operating Base. We have no gear but our own; the trucks are the FOB. This is going to be more dangerous than driving across to the Hindu Kush.”
“If the Zeds wore some fucking man dresses then it would be just like old times.”
Aymond smirked but tried to ignore the remark. “Ops brief in thirty mikes. Spread the word.”
“Got it, Chief.” Gonzales walked out of the door to tell the rest of the team about the briefing.
Aymond took the time to inspect the fully armed, lightweight, 4x4 transports, aka M-ATVs, checking off items from the list he’d created. They were set for everything but water and fuel, even though those were priority items. They could only carry two hundred gallons of water, so they would have to find clean water at some point. With all the fuel cans they could find, they only had one hundred gallons of spare diesel. That would fill two of the big armored trucks only once. One of the guys mentioned that they should watch for tanker trucks on the highway and snag fuel from those; Aymond had to admit he hadn’t thought about civilian tanker trucks transporting diesel when the EMP hit. They should be found abandoned in place and easy to get fuel from. Even just one semi-truck with its saddle tanks could probably refill all three of his trucks at once. If this was a traditional Marine Corps operation, then refueling bowsers would either follow his convoy or be strategically placed for fuel stops, but this was no traditional op. There would be no mobile fueling depots every three hundred miles, there was no logistical chain of command—hell, he wasn’t even sure there was a Marine Corps left, much less anyone else.
Slowly the rest of the MSOT members wandered in and took seats in the folding chairs around Aymond’s desk.
“As you all know, we’re departing the MWTC and checking bases starting with Twentynine Palms and on through to Coronado if we need to. We’re still operating in the blind. We have no support, we have no intel, and from what we’ve seen so far, we should consider this a convoy headed into enemy-held territory. If we end up going all the way to Coronado and our SOCOM family is gone, we’ll set a temporary FOB while we stock up from the Naval supplies, then point to Camp Lejeune. We’re wheels up at sunrise; get some sleep, double check your gear. I don’t know what we can expect, except that I think this trip might suck. It looks like civilization is broke dick and our mission is to find anyone left who can help us unfuck it.”
“Hoorah, Chief!”
The men stood and continued going through their gear, getting mentally ready for the task ahead and getting some sleep. Aymond looked through his maps again. “Goddamn, this is going to suck ass,” he muttered.
CHAPTER 13
Cortez, CO
March 4, Year 1
Cliff stood in the garage of his new home, as he had grown to consider it. Whoever used to live here didn’t have many tools, but they did have a stud finder, hammer, nails, and a utility knife. That was all he really needed at this point. Returning upstairs, Cliff looked at the rooms and guessed that the master closet probably wasn’t a load-bearing member of the home. He marked the stud locations and neatly cut out the long strips of sheetrock between each one. Once the sheetrock strips were stacked in a pile, Cliff began prying the studs out of the closet wall. Two hours later, Cliff had a pile of strong used lumber and sheetrock.
Cliff cut the strips to length and covered the two large windows of the master bedroom, nailing the sheetrock in place. Now no light could enter, but more importantly, no light would leak out if he was using a candle at night. Using the 2x4 studs and nails, he barricaded the exterior doors, except the door to the garage. The sliding glass door to the backyard was covered with sheetrock and crossed with more of the used lumber. Someone might break the glass of the sliding door, but they would have a hard time getting inside.
Still sick, Cliff took numerous breaks throughout the process of fortifying his home, but finally the task was complete. He could enter and exit through the garage by unlatching the garage door opener and sliding the door up by hand.
Although he still needed time to fully recover, Cliff knew he couldn’t stay in his new home/fortress forever. Wright either found his message or he didn’t. Cliff had to assume that he didn’t. He would need to conduct more raids for supplies and medicine, but first he needed to start a detailed reconnaissance of the area and the movements of the cult. He wanted overhead imagery, but that not being an option, he needed a local map. In the digital age, it would be tough to find a detailed paper map of a town; they were becoming more rare with each passing year. If he could find a phone book there would probably be a small map in the front, but those were scarce as well. A police car or a fire truck would probably have one, as both police officers and firefighters tended to keep detailed paper maps as backups to the computer systems in their vehicles.
A spotting scope or high-powered binoculars were also needed, so he planned to raid a sporting goods store or a hunting supply shop. Even a camera shop would be an option, although the EMP would have broken all the digital cameras. He could still use one with a long lens as a spotting scope. His concern was that if the cult had RPGs, wouldn’t they also have night optics? So far the members he’d killed didn’t have any, b
ut he couldn’t rule them out.
Cliff found a blue school kid’s backpack in the house and stuffed it with two bottles of water and a few cans of Vienna sausages, then began digging around the closets for some blankets that weren’t brightly colored. Thirty minutes later, Cliff had a dark red and a dark grey wool blanket; he cut a hole in the middle of the grey one so he could wear it like a poncho. It would keep him warm and break up his outline, helping him hide. Even in March, Colorado was quite cold, so the red blanket went into the backpack as well.
Geared up and ready to leave, Cliff looked out an upstairs window and saw the sky burning bright red with sunset. He walked downstairs to the garage, shut the door to the house, and slowly raised the garage door as quietly as he could before sliding into the bitterly cold wind and quietly lowering the door back down.
At least it isn’t as bad as Chechnya. But then again, I had a satphone and could call in the Calvary if I got stuck … focus. Got to focus.
Cliff crouched next to the trash cans and scanned the area.
Walk too close to the homes and chance a corpse surprise attack; walk in the open and I’ll have nowhere to hide if I’m surprised by a patrol.
Cliff scanned the neighborhood and thought about the truck hidden in the trees behind him, but decided he would walk the neighborhood to recon the area before coming back for it. He picked up a rock and threw it at the galvanized metal trashcan across the street, which fell over with a loud crash, breaking the silence in the still neighborhood. Crouched and well-concealed, Cliff slowly counted to thirty, waiting to see if there would be any undead responding to the sudden noise. When no reaction came, he decided to stay close to the houses in case a patrol drove by. Walking through the yards, he was sometimes startled by a dead face thumping against a window, snarling and snapping its teeth at him as he passed out of reach beyond the glass.