Winchester Undead (Book 3): Winchester [Quarry]

by Dave Lund

  The sky was beginning to glow from the rising sun; Cliff was facing the wrong way to see it, but the sky was definitely getting lighter. Checking his watch, he made sure to note what time the sun rose, just as he noted the time it had set the previous night. Watching the days get longer would help him keep track of the season by adding roughly a minute to every day. What about daylight savings? I have no idea what day that is this year. Cliff had a moment of concern before realizing how stupid that worry was. Time zones were basically a thing of the past; local time was all that mattered and it would be set by the sun, until things started to come back together for society.

  SSC

  “No, I don’t know why, but we’ve lost all ability to communicate with any of them; even the communications satellites are only giving me spotty connectivity.”

  “So you’re saying that we can’t see what’s going on and we may not be able to talk to anyone about it?”

  “That’s it exactly, Amanda.”

  “Dammit.”

  Near Mansfield, TX

  “What do you mean you can’t get a lock?”

  “I mean that it’s like there’s no satellite out there. I can’t get any signal.”

  “Are you sure you have everything plugged in right and you’re using the right azimuth?”

  “Fuck you, Apollo. Yes, I’m doing it right.”

  “OK, OK. So SATCOM is down. How likely is it that all of this would fail simultaneously all on its own?”

  “Pretty fucking low, mano. Pretty fucking low.”

  Bexar, standing on the roof rack with the binoculars, called down, “I think if we just go for it we can figure it out along the way.”

  “Sure, for now, but then there’s Fort fucking Worth. That’ll be worse than El Paso, man.”

  Apollo shrugged. “We can’t talk to anyone, and we have to drive through a large city to go help a guy we haven’t seen in years. We can sit around and bitch about it or we can move along, Bexar. What other routes do we have?”

  “I don’t know; the roads around Fort Worth are screwy—I never got used to them. We might be able to backtrack and get a different route, but I’m not sure on that. Pretty much all the small highways and FM roads hit the Interstates and go to the big cities. It isn’t like West Texas where there is nothing and more nothing along the roads.”

  Lindsey stood at the rear of the Defender, keeping guard for any undead tagging along. “I’m not getting stuck on a highway sign again; all three of you can fuck yourselves before that happens.”

  Chivo looked at Apollo, who could only raise his hands to give the universal sign of: “I don’t know what her deal is.”

  “If we go back we might run into that huge herd of those damned things again,” Bexar said before climbing off the roof.

  “White Bread is right, you know.”

  Chivo nodded.

  The early morning was cold. A strong wind blew out of the north, low gray clouds a gloomy overwatch for their dangerous task. They all climbed back into the Defender, Bexar keeping the navigator’s spot up front and Chivo getting behind the wheel again after sleeping for a few hours while Apollo drove through the night. The night drive was slow, very slow; Apollo often had to backtrack and get on the other side of the highway due to collisions blocking the road. Throughout the night the undead would appear like ships in the mist into the green world illuminated by the NODs Apollo wore. Apollo wouldn’t chance driving into the grass off the road surface; if they rolled the truck or got it stuck it could cost them their lives.

  Near China Lake, CA

  The M-ATVs were full of Jet-A, which the manual confirmed they could run on, assuming civilian Jet-A was similar to the military’s JP-8. Aymond thought it was; actually he hoped it was, to be honest with himself. Once the men were up, the sentries were released from guard duty so they could eat breakfast. Just more MREs, but still better than the cold weather MREs since all of them had run out of fuel for their Jetboils over a month ago. In short order, the convoy was moving out, the previous night’s sentries taking the opportunity to sleep in the back of the trucks.

  Ski flipped the clutch lever for the gate opener, and once again the gate slid back easily, but this time he didn’t take the time to close it behind them as they left. There was no need. Five minutes later, the M-ATVs pulled off the road by another gate, this one for the Naval Air Station. It was a simple, low-tech gate with a chain and a lock. Ski made quick work with the bolt cutters and pushed both the gates open. No way to really secure the gates behind them, but Ski wrapped the chain around the two sections to hold them closed.

  The heavy armored trucks drove along the dirt road south of the runways, dust billowing behind them, before their wheels reached the paved runway surface. Aymond made the decision to break into the facility and to use the runway instead of driving onto the facility in the normal fashion. Given the lack of flight activity yesterday afternoon, throughout the night, and still this morning, Aymond’s hopes that the facility was intact and had survivors was slim at best.

  The runway seemed to stretch on forever, but eventually the convoy pulled onto the flight-line. F-18s sat on the stained concrete. Some of the tires were flat; one of the aircraft’s nose gear had collapsed, and their Super Hornet sat nose down with some serious damage from the fall. There was no activity—no flight ops, no personnel, and no movement. Only the heavy diesel rattle of the three M-ATVs filled the desert air.

  Aymond pointed and Hammer drove. The convoy followed towards the other side of the maintenance bays, off the flight-line, and eventually onto Sandquist Road, southbound towards the housing, commissary, and headquarters. If the runways were long, this road seemed never-ending. But eventually they reached Inyokern Road and turned left towards the main base facility. Looping around the traffic circle, they pulled alongside of the commissary and the exchange. The parking lot was roughly half-full. Hammer drove towards the front of the building. “Chief, they look open! Look at all those people inside.”

  Aymond squinted to peer into the dark building just as the first of the undead stepped through a broken door. He keyed the radio. “Heavy weapons—go hot, follow out.” The air burst with heavy machine gun and grenade fire.

  Scores of undead streamed out of the shattered doors as the convoy shagged ass out of the parking lot, bouncing over the curbs and back onto Inyokern Road.

  “Secure weapons, check in.”

  “Two’s good.”

  “Three’s good, but there’s a metric fuckton of Zeds that followed us out of the parking lot. Think they’ll keep coming, Chief?”

  Aymond had no idea. “No they’ll stop shortly. Don’t worry about ‘em.”

  Hammer slowed the convoy down to forty-five mph as they turned onto southbound 395 again.

  After a few moments, Hammer, normally quiet, glanced at Aymond. “Chief, some of those Zeds were kids. Like, little kids.”

  Aymond didn’t respond, he just frowned at the windshield, focusing only on the desert that was in front of them, and the thought of reaching a large city, like San Diego. We’re so fucked … but we have to keep trying.

  Near Fort Davis, TX

  Jessie woke before the sun rose. She had to pee again. All of the unpleasant parts of being pregnant are quickly forgotten once you finally hold your child, but quickly return to mind once pregnant again. She remembered how often she had to pee when she was pregnant with Keeley. She peeked out of a side window and saw that there was no movement in the fenced equipment yard, so she unlocked and opened the door into the frigid desert air. She tossed her bag into the passenger seat of the FJ, pulled her pants down, and squatted against the front fender to pee, her AR across her lap. Toilet paper. I need to scavenge up some damn toilet paper. Well, at least I don’t have to worry about needing any other feminine products for a few months. Jessie would have taken the toilet paper from the restroom inside, but the toilet was overflowed with so much nastiness that her sensitive nose couldn’t handle it right now. For once she wanted
to try to keep down the MRE crackers she had eaten for breakfast.

  She unsecured and opened the gate to the highway, climbed into the FJ, took a left and continued north on her journey. A half-hour later she quickly drove through Fort Davis. There wasn’t any visible movement besides a handful of shambling dead, but nothing like Alpine had been. Zig-zagging through the desert mountains twenty minutes later, Jessie passed the McDonald Observatory on her way to I-10, and what she hoped would be smooth sailing. This part of Texas made BFE look like a thriving city, but only another hour passed before Jessie had to stop at the intersection of 118 and I-10. Cars sat on their roofs, having been pushed over the metal railing and falling to land wrong side up. Pieces of bodies and gruesome red smears on the pavement punctuated the twisted metal. Jessie drove around the vehicles to reach the westbound side of I-10, only to be greeted by a gas station that was abandoned long before the end of the world. More vehicles were on the pavement on the northern side of the road, likewise appearing to have been pushed off by some coordinated force.

  Jessie threaded the needle before taking a left to get on I-10 towards El Paso. The highway here was clear; no corpses roamed the road, and all the vehicles were off the pavement. The wrecked traffic looked to have been pushed towards Jessie. The sides of the vehicles were smeared with blood and gore, pieces of the undead littered the pavement, and flesh had melted into the asphalt as the sun heated the surface. Well, maybe this is good; maybe they all went towards San Antonio. Just maybe I’m catching a break, for once.

  Groom Lake, NV

  Wright stood in the radio hut, staring at the consoles in disbelief. “What do you mean you can’t connect to anything? What about the SeeMe?”

  “Nothing, Sir.”

  “What about the SATCOM link to the SSC?”

  “That’s down too.”

  “Well, what do we have that still works, Sergeant?”

  “We can still conduct line of sight comms, spotty high frequency signals over the horizon, and broadcast on shortwave bands, but we’ve lost all satellite connectivity.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, Sir.”

  “Fuck.” Wright stormed out of the room.

  In the hallway, Wright looked at the clock on the wall and realized he was now late to the welcoming reception for the newly arrived civilians who had just been released from quarantine. Running down two flights of stairs and traversing a long hallway, Wright entered what they had begun referring to as the “civilian side of the house.” It had a real name, but since that facility had basically been given over to the civilian leadership while the military stayed in the other facility, it made sense. To be honest though, Wright didn’t care. He was frustrated and preoccupied that he was now cut off from communications.

  Wright walked into the auditorium just in time for the Pledge of Allegiance to be recited, followed by a speech from Jake. Originally from Cortez, Colorado and now the elected leader, they called him “Mayor” of the civilian house. Seeing Jake at the podium, Wright was reminded of Cliff. He couldn’t even check on Cliff using overhead imagery or make contact with the rescue party headed his way from Texas. Effectively, Wright was isolated from everything outside of the dry lake bed, except for broadcasting a shortwave message, which amounted to nothing more than a beacon to any rogue survivors to come join his merry band of misfit toys. What is behind all of this? Or is it ‘who’ is behind all of this? Shit!

  Wright stayed just long enough for Jake to point him out so he could wave at the civvies before he turned and walked briskly back towards the radio hut. If the problems did turn out to be because of a who, they were in trouble.

  Westbound I-10, TX

  It all made Jessie uneasy. The roadway completely clear: vehicles, cars, trucks, semi-trucks, all pushed into the ditches, all of them smeared with dried blood and gore. Crushed bodies, undead bodies, she presumed, lay against the vehicles. There is no way anyone could survive a massive push like this. Trying to conserve fuel, Jessie kept her speed at a steady fifty-five mph. She could have driven as fast as she wanted, she could have even traveled the posted speed, which she thought was eighty mph, but all the road signs had suffered the same fate as the vehicles. Not a one was left standing.

  Approaching Van Horn, Jessie decided to take the exit onto what she thought would be Business I-10, which went through the middle of town, presumably. Her guess was correct, and the tiny town of Van Horn filled her windshield. Vehicles sat abandoned in the middle of the road, but no blood, no gore, nothing to show that the massive herd of walking corpses had taken the exit off the Interstate. She slowed, staring at the truck stop on her left. Numerous semi-trucks sat next to the bright yellow building. Squinting into the shadows, Jessie saw movement between the trucks. She stopped the FJ and watched to see if it could possibly be real people, survivors. The first of the group stepped around the front of the large Freightliner and shambled towards the FJ. Jessie rolled her eyes, frustrated with herself for even hoping that there could possibly be any chance of finding another survivor. There have to be more like me, there have to be others. It just can’t be that I’m all alone. Jessie let the clutch out and quickly drove away from the truck stop, into the heart of Van Horn. She saw walking corpses milling about in the parking lots of small, long-abandoned businesses, seemingly permanent residents of the middle of nowhere Interstate hotels.

  Swerving around an abandoned oil field truck sitting on flat tires, Jessie slammed on the brakes. The yellow and black sign of a dollar store was in front of her. Wiggling the shifter into neutral, she set the parking brake and climbed out of the FJ with her AR-15 and walked towards the glass front of the store. The irony wasn’t lost on her; before the attack it would have been odd to go shopping with an AR slung across her chest, but now it was the norm. If a mall ever opens up again, there should be gun racks hung in the dressing rooms for your convenience. Jessie shook her head and tried to focus. Too familiar was the threat that dealing with the end of the world had become routine, nothing but a joke and a nuisance. She knew that it would spell her death, and her unborn child’s death, if she got too comfortable. She looked back over her shoulder. The local undead population had left their hotel rooms to bid her a fond welcome to Van Horn. I better hurry.

  Jessie peered into the dark interior of the dollar store. The shelves looked ransacked, which would make sense, but at least she didn’t see any movement. She banged on the glass of the last remaining window with the muzzle of her rifle and waited, slowly counting to ten. No movement: good for me. The front doors had been pried open and broken off their hinges. Broken glass crunched beneath her boots as she stepped into the store. She scanned the aisles and grabbed a shopping cart. Fortunately, the selection of diapers and baby formula was still there; she quickly filled her basket with everything on the shelves.

  Diapers of every size, from newborn to size five, baby bottles, nipples, everything that would fit was tossed into the cart. Jessie’s baby shower would be one of action and need. She glanced towards the FJ and saw that the first of the undead welcoming committee was arriving, interested in her running vehicle. As long as they haven’t seen me yet, I’ll be OK. As quickly as she began the shopping trip, it was over. She pushed the overflowing cart towards the ruined store front, stopped at the doors, stood in the shadows of the store interior, raised her rifle, and braced her arm on the red plastic handlebar. One by one, with each press of the trigger, the undead in the street fell to their final rest. Breathe, aim, squeeze, breathe, aim, squeeze. Jessie kept a steady pace until something pulled sharply at her ankle. Startled, she screamed in fright.

  The torso of a corpse clung tightly to her ankle, pulling itself towards her thigh. Its face had rotted away, and its lipless mouth snapped with blackened teeth, its nose a gaping hole. Without thinking, she pulled the AR to the front, flipped the selector switch all the way around, and yanked on the trigger until the bolt locked back. The crawling corpse’s skull lay ruined in a heap of black gore, and a s
ingle hole smoked from the toe of her boot. Jessie stared at the hole in her boot, holding her breath. No blood came through, it didn’t hurt, but her heart rate was so high and with the adrenaline dump she probably could have cut off a hand without feeling any pain. Jessie sat on the cashier’s counter, ignoring the undead shambling towards the front of the store, and pulled her left boot off. There was no blood and no marks on her sock. Removing the sock, she was glad to see all five toes wiggling on her foot. She stared at her boot and realized how lucky she had been; a round had punctured the toe of the boot, but passed just beyond her actual toe. Jessie pulled her dirty sock and boot back on, angry at her mistake but happy that God smiled on children, drunks, and idiots.

  Her shopping cart crashed to its side as the first of the horde of undead closed in on her position, the wheels catching debris on the sidewalk. Jessie pulled her AR to her shoulder, aimed, and squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened. The trigger didn’t move. She leapt to her feet, standing on the counter, rotated the rifle right, and saw that the bolt had locked back on an empty magazine. Depressing the release, she rotated the rifle back the other way while reaching in her cargo pocket for a fresh mag. Slamming the magazine into the well, Jessie thumbed the bolt release, slid her left hand along the forestock, and pulled the trigger, ripping through the face of the closest aggressor with a full auto burst. Realizing her mistake, she thumbed the selector back to semi and jumped off the counter to retrieve her spent magazine. Quickly, she took aim and fired as another dozen undead staggered across the parking lot towards the front of the store. The nearest threats put down, she pulled the shopping cart upright and quickly reloaded as much of the looted baby supplies as she could back into the basket. Pushing hard, Jessie nearly ran with the cart into the street and to the waiting FJ. Driver’s door open, Jessie grabbed and threw everything across the seat and into the floor of the passenger’s side. Just as she threw the last jug of baby formula into the FJ, the cart bumped and pressed into her side. She turned and, drawing the pistol from her hip, fired a single round at point-blank range into the skull of a very large dead man, who wore a blood-stained flannel shirt and a John Deere ball cap. Blood and blackened brain matter sprayed back at her. She had no time to care. A seemingly infinite line of undead trudged towards her from all around. She climbed into the driver’s seat, slammed the door shut, and drove west, dodging the advancing mob as she went. Jessie found I-10 just as she’d left it, barren of all life—cars, trucks, and everything else shoved into the ditches and desert around her.