by Mike Fosen
He next shuffled past his pallet of food grade buckets containing two hundred pounds of rice sealed in Mylar bags with oxygen absorbers. Several other buckets contained pinto beans, oats, pasta, flour, and cereals. Five 40lb bags of dog food rested on the last shelf in the row. Just inside of that was a shelf containing 150 Military MREs and various Mountain House freeze dried hiking meals. The shelves on the other wall contained hunting and camping gear along with several pre-packed bug out bags. Medical and hygiene supplies filled one shelf each. In the far back end of the basement Stephen kept his reloading equipment, HAM radio, and gun safes. An Eaton UPS battery bank kept the HAMs going in the event of a power outage. He checked the power status of the batteries, wondering how long the grid power would stay up with nobody to keep it running.
Not more than a few days, he decided.
Walking over to his safe, he dialed in the combination to the large Sentry 24-gun unit. A string of mass shootings over the last couple of years had led to restrictive gun laws in an ever increasing number of states. Stephen was never gladder to have rounded out his collection before it became socially taboo, and downright expensive. He removed his primary AR-15, a Bushmaster 16” carbine with an Aimpoint M2 and Surefire light. Mike always got a glazed look in his eyes whenever he spouted all the technical gun jargon associated with his hobby of collecting firearms. Chuckling to himself, he also eyed his other two AR-15 rifles, a Stag Arms carbine with an EoTech 512 holographic sight, and a DPMS 20” rifle with an ACOG scope. Leaving the other two in the safe for the time being, he checked to make sure the Bushmaster was loaded and attached the one-point sling that hung from the safe door. Stephen also removed his Polish AK47 Under folder from the safe and seated a 30-round magazine. His scoped Springfield M1A he left in the safe for the time being.
Having finished with the battle rifles, he next eyed his handguns. Being a big fan of 1911s he grabbed his Springfield Loaded from the top shelf in the safe. He had dropped an extra fifteen hundred dollars into the gun at the custom shop and it was set up just the way he liked it. He set the 1911 aside for now however, knowing that since headshots were necessary, the big .45 with its 8-round magazines might not be as effective as his 9mm with its high capacity magazines. He then removed from the safe his Beretta M9 pistol, a favorite of his at the range. He was much more accurate with it than with his police issued Glock and had over 3000 9mm rounds for it, stacked in three ammo cans. Old enough to vividly remember the now expired assault weapon ban, Stephen kept plenty of high capacity magazines on hand for all his firearms, having a dozen 15-rounder's for the Beretta alone. Two Sig's, a 229 9mm and 220C .45 complete his semi-auto pistol collection. He also had several hunting rifles and shotguns in the safe, along with a few revolvers. A Mossberg 590 police shotgun was currently next to his bed upstairs, where it stood guard 24/7.
Also inside the safe were the keys to two cheaper green Stack-on gun safes which held all of Stephen’s ammunition, magazines and spare parts. He had several thousand rounds of rifle, pistol and shotgun ammunition on hand. Prior to today, Stephen felt pretty confident in his ammunition supply. But now, after seeing the enormity of this epidemic, it felt inadequate for the challenge. He wondered if they should try and acquire more here, and was willing to bet everyone else was probably thinking the same thing.
He was betting on some panic shopping today. At least he was better prepared than most.
He was pondering this when the smell of bacon and eggs reached him from the kitchen.
It smelled like Mattie was cooking up some breakfast. He bounded up the stairs with his primary rifle, his stomach already growling.
Sure enough, she had heaps of hot food on the table along with orange juice and toast. Chris had piled up a plate and was headed upstairs to relieve Dan of guard duty. Stephen loaded a plate and asked Mattie to fill him in on the news. It was more bad news as attacks had been reported in all of the lower 48 as well as Canada and Mexico.
“The press conference at the CDC had little to offer,” Mattie told him. “They are analyzing the virus to find its origin, but they have no cure, immunization, or even answers of any kind at this point.”
“What about the military?”
“Still trying to seal off the large cities to contain the outbreak,” Mattie replied. “Every time they try to cordon off an area they seem to get overrun, though. The talk now seems to be what areas they can hold on to, not whether or not they can contain the virus.”
“That’s not good,” Stephen replied, digging into his food. “But I saw it coming after yesterday.”
* * * * * * * *
I slowly dragged my tired ass awake to the smell of bacon, which instantly grabbed my attention. Someone must be doing some cooking there, and after walking up the stairs I was happy to see that Mattie had put together a small feast, and managed to do it while also looking like a million bucks. She normally had to wear her hair up for work but now had it down and her thick silky black hair nearly reached her waist.
"Food looks fantastic, Mattie, as do you," I cheerfully said, grabbing a plate.
"Why thank you, Mike!" she replied. "Dig in; you’re the only one left that has to eat. And there is plenty left.”
"Where’s everyone else?” I asked after realizing that there was nobody else in the kitchen with her and the family room was empty as well.
"Chris is upstairs on lookout, and I think Dan went to sleep upstairs after he ate,” Mattie replied. “I know I heard him out in the garage earlier with Stephen. I think they were playing with a generator and fired it up for a minute. Stephen said that he wanted to go check on Jamere and Robert and see if they were okay and set up some kind of meeting for this afternoon. I wanted someone to go with him, but he said he’d be fine, and it would just take a minute.”
Jamere Banks and Robert Ackerman were both fellow Joliet officers that lived within six houses of Stephen. Jamere was single and lived to the north; Robert had a wife and small children and lived just to the west. As far as I could remember, both Jamere and Rob were not at work yesterday and may be safe and sound at home. I thought about the upcoming meeting and what plans needed to be arranged as I ate my breakfast.
Mattie updated me on the news reports coming in on the TV this morning. More of the same, with large scale rioting and looting in all major cities, and the authorities were powerless to stop it. Overnight it became clear to the entire nation that we were dealing with a virus that, for lack of a better term, was turning people into zombies. People seemed to be disregarding the suggestion to remain at home, and the residents of the inner cities were pouring out into the close suburbs, overwhelming what roadblocks existed and carrying the disease with them. A few “experts” had come on from the CDC in Atlanta, as well as a few major universities, but they basically knew nothing about what it was, where it came from, or how to stop it. It did appear, though, that it was not spread through the air or water, but through bodily fluid. They also confirmed that the president and vice president were both indeed dead, and that the speaker of the House was now the president.
“Well, it looks like everything is falling apart, so we should have a lot to work out at this meeting,” I finally sighed. “I think I’m going to work off some of this stress in Stephen’s basement until then. Care to join me?”
“I’ll have to take a rain check on that, maybe next time,” Mattie replied. “I promised Chris I’d stand watch for him so he can unload his truck into the garage.”
“That’s okay,” I replied. “I’ll just use your rejection for motivation.”
“Glad I can help!” Mattie said laughing as I made my way back downstairs.
Although not nearly as complete as my setup, Stephen did have an Olympic bench press and preacher bench in his basement that would allow me to get a good workout in to start my day. I was not sure how much longer I would be afforded the luxury. Knocking out the reps, I again found my rhythm and the sets flew by. Eventually Stephen came downstairs and informed me that Jamere
and Rob were okay and coming over for a meeting around dinner time. His neighbor Paul was also coming with his family. Some kind of security plan needed to be set up, as well as an idea of what our next move should be. Until then, Stephen wanted to spend the time loading every magazine that we had in our combined inventory. I settled in to a chair and begin loading the AK47 magazines with ammunition while Stephen started with the spares for his Beretta pistol.
“Still nothing from Nick or Brooks?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“Nope,” Stephen replied, finishing up a magazine and setting it on the table. “And we’ll miss their trigger fingers if they don’t show.”
Loading the magazines took longer than I expected, even with Mattie eventually helping, and my fingers were killing me from pressing on the top of all those metal feed lips. It was comforting to see them all loaded and stacked in ammo cans in the living room, ready at a moment’s notice. Around the same time, Chris bellowed from upstairs of the first zombie contact we had since arriving at Stephen's. Two zombies that were once delinquent teenagers were chasing a man down the street. The man had what appeared to be a small revolver and was firing wildly as he ran from the creatures. The gun’s hammer clicked loudly off the spent casings after five shots when the zombies caught up to the man, latching onto his neck. Chris was unable to get a shot as they pulled the doomed individual to the pavement. The distance didn’t stop the bloodcurdling screams from reaching us. At a hundred yards away, he could only watch until they started feeding, which then presented Chris with head shots. His rifle barked three times and both zombies slumped unmoving to the street. Chris added a shot into the now dead man for good measure. The noise drew in two additional zombies, an elderly couple, this time from the south, and Chris dispatched them as well with hundred yard head shots.
"Looks like things are gonna start finally heating up here!" Chris changed out his mag for a fresh one just to be safe.
16
August 27
Day 2
With Jamere, Rob, his wife Deb, their two kids, along with Paul and his family, there were thirteen people in Stephen's house for the meeting. Stephen was trying to empty his freezer, so Dan had been cooking steaks on the grill and was working on his third Coors Light. With plenty of food and conversation, the mood of the meeting was light, all things considered. Mike, stuck upstairs on guard duty, dropped several zombies, probably drawn by the noise and smell of cooking food. Mike borrowed Dan's suppressed AR-15 which was much quieter, and did not draw as much attention. A few gunshots could be heard sporadically throughout the surrounding neighborhoods. Buddy made a pretty good zombie spotter as well. He seemed to sense them before Mike could see them and stared in the general direction in which they appeared while letting out a low growl, the hair standing up on the back of his neck.
The mood turned less festive when the television was turned back on. Almost all stations were now offline, but NBC 5 in Chicago was still broadcasting. The same reporter from yesterday was still on the air, obviously exhausted and wearing the same clothes. She sat bravely behind the desk informing her audience that she was going to stay on the air as long as possible, as she and her remaining staff were now trapped in the building by a large group of what she called “infected” subjects. Video footage from a helicopter showed a large military convoy leaving Chicago after nearly being completely destroyed at a staging area near Soldier Field stadium.
She again repeated the address of NBC Tower in Chicago. "455 N City Front Plaza Drive. If anyone can help, if anyone can reach us, there are many survivors trapped inside."
Her exhausted blue eyes stared pleadingly at the cameras, yet you could tell that she realized deep down that help was not coming. The latest reports that she had in a large disorganized stack of papers stated that the military had been spread too thin, completely overwhelmed in every major engagement.
The reporter dutifully turned back to the news and relayed that the NBC field office in California reported that the former speaker of the House and now president of the United States was having a press conference from a police station in downtown Los Angeles to try to calm and reassure the public. As they went to a live feed, all you could make out was a large mass of bodies thrashing about like an ocean of torment. The caption at the bottom of the screen stated: "New President to calm America's fears," but it definitely had the opposite effect. Gunshots echoed amidst the screams of terror as people tried to flee when in fact there was nowhere to run. We looked closely, and saw that the newly sworn president was being eaten alive by one of his former Secret Service guards who was still wearing his suit but was most certainly no longer on the job. Everyone watched in silence, but the evidence was clear. If they could not protect the president of the United States, the country was in a world of shit. The camera shifted back to the studio in Chicago, and the reporter stated she needed a minute and hastily left the camera's view. The screen was replaced by a scene recorded earlier that morning of Marines on the West Coast in action, carving their way out of southern California. With their weaponry, they could get almost anywhere; they just couldn’t hold large fixed positions in the densely populated portions of the state.
On that note, Stephen started the meeting. Chris began by raising his hand and asking the poignant yet obvious question. “Well, we made it here, now what are we gonna do about all this?”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here,” Stephen responded, and went on to explain how he first wanted to just get a feel of everyone's situation and any immediate concerns anyone may have.
He learned that Jamere had spent all of Monday at home on his PS4, spent the night with a girl, and didn't even know there was a problem until Stephen knocked on his door. The girl, terrified, had taken off for home to find her parents. He had very little food in his house, only his Glock duty pistol and the issued 50 rounds of 9mm. With a sigh Stephen turned to Robert, who painted only a slightly better picture. Rob had an extra hundred rounds of practice ammo for his duty pistol and fifty .38 rounds for his off duty Smith & Wesson revolver. Rob only had maybe three or four days’ worth of food in his house as his wife had planned to go shopping today.
Turning now to Paul, Stephen repeated the question in a semi-accusing tone, which only made things worse.
"Y-you know I don't have any guns b-because I never believed I would ever need one,” Paul, already turning red and getting an accusing stare from his wife, stammered. “I do have plenty of food though, enough for a couple of weeks. The problem is that Britney has pretty bad asthma and is almost out of both of her inhalers. She uses both Xopenex and Zyflo. Xopenex she uses on a daily basis and the Zyflo during an asthma attack. I have been meaning to get over to the pharmacy and pick them up.”
Stephen didn’t cut Paul any slack and just shook his head. “Remember at that neighborhood picnic in June when I told you to always keep extra of any essential medication on hand? This is what I was talking about!” Stephen barked back, his voice raising. "The goal being to stay as ready as possible, not just a liberal drone."
“Well I did add some food, you self-righteous asshole!” Paul snapped. “Excuse me for not wanting to live with a cloud over my head all the time!”
“Alright guys, that’s enough,” Mattie interrupted, stopping an eventual one-sided fist fight. “We’ve got other things to worry about.”
“Out-fucking-standing shot! Did you see that, Buddy?” Mike yelled from upstairs, unknowingly calming the situation.
Buddy answered with an appreciative bark. Everyone laughed, and the tense mood was somewhat lightened again.
“I’m just glad he is upstairs shooting out the window at them and not running in my front yard dressed like Spartacus, waving his baseball bat like a sword,” Stephen chimed in, drawing even more laughter.
With Mattie negotiating, it was eventually determined that due to Paul having the most food, Jamere and Rob, with family in tow, would spend the next few days at Paul’s house to provide combined protection. P
aul had four bedrooms at his place and a finished basement which had a fully stocked bar. Dan suggested a trade of alcohol for guns. It involved a transfer of Stephen’s lever action Marlin 30/30, his scoped deer slug gun and a 6” Smith & Wesson 686 revolver along with the accompanying ammunition. It was quite a package deal for Paul’s three bottles of Jack Daniels, three bottles of Jim Beam and three bottles of Southern Comfort. Stephen knew it was a terrible trade, but he had no use for the guns at this point. Plus, it provided extra bodies with some firepower, and Dan promised to make it up to him later.
The meeting ended, and Chris elected to go help Jamere get anything from his house that he might need. Jamere was also given Officer Sherman's police issued shotgun along with a mixture of buckshot. Jamere did not have much to grab other than a few personal items and some clothing, and they completed the chore without incident. Stephen and Mattie did the same for Rob and his family, moving in what food they had along with some hygiene products and creature comforts. Rob got deer slug gun along with extra slugs donated by Chris to supplement his duty pistol. Stephen also needed to give Paul a crash course in firearms. Chris assisted, having helped equally inept local recruits while stationed in Afghanistan. The scene of a liberal operating a gun for the first time reminded Stephen of a monkey fucking a football, a little awkward to say the least. It was slow going, but eventually Paul showed a basic understanding. After an hour of constant repetition, both Paul and Vanessa could load and unload the lever action rifle and revolver, and were able to at least dry fire them without flinching.