by Mike Fosen
Pressing the button on his helmet radio, he ordered his men to fan out their vehicles into a half moon across the roadway. Soon enough, what seemed like hundreds of infected emerged from the web of damaged cars and headed their direction. Matvei ordered his men to hold their fire until he gave the command, and waited until the snarling mass was within ten yards.
“Kill them all!” Matvei cried and opened up with his G36 rifle.
It didn’t take long for the infected to take the full brunt of a screaming wall of lead right in their teeth. Within moments, his hardened mercenaries reduced the large group of infected tangos into a pile of bleeding hamburger. Once the undead vermin were disposed of, Matvei called for a cease fire and ordered his men to fall back into their positions in the convoy. A forward scout then reported that indeed a bridge up ahead had been knocked out, perhaps by the military in a quarantine attempt. Several dead soldiers and a burnt out Humvee remained on their side of the river bank. Glancing at the map again, Matvei chose one of the several pre-planned alternative routes, and cursed the loss of precious time, fuel and ammunition.
After several side roads and even more encounters with infected individuals, the column of vehicles painstakingly made its way back onto their original route and out in the open country. It was dark and Matvei ordered his scouts to move ahead and try to find a defensible location to make camp for the night. His men were tired, but Matvei wanted to get a few more miles up the road tonight. They were now heading northwest on highway 1017 and would take it up to Laredo. Ultimately, he hoped to make it to his ranch in the course of a week.
“This is gonna be a long trip, Captain,” Raul stated after the convoy finally picked up some speed.”
“It’s going to take a lot of time, killing, and hard work to get what I want accomplished completed,” Matvei replied. “But as they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
21
September 1
Day 7
I awoke the morning after our raid to Mattie informing me that Robert decided to take everyone from Vanessa's house in his Tahoe to the high school safe zone. His wife wanted to go and had been pleading since yesterday’s botched raids. Vanessa and Holly wanted to go as well, stating they would feel a lot safer there. Robert wanted to stay but also knew that they did not have the proper weapons or supplies for a sustained run and would just be a burden, draining from our limited supplies. I knew he was right and after going upstairs and meeting him in the driveway, I gave him a handshake as we helped load his SUV with their remaining supplies, so they wouldn't show up empty-handed. At least Robert brought a gun and some common sense to the fight. The drive to the school was maybe eight or nine miles and shouldn't be too bad, at least not yet.
Troy Lundell was again broadcasting on 98.3 FM that morning, reporting that they were still up and running at the safe zone but in need of volunteer personnel and supplies. We all listened to the broadcast from the radio in Robert’s Tahoe as we finished loading.
“He paints a good picture,” Robert said while the women and his kids loaded up. “I hope it is as it seems.”
“It will be Robert, have faith,” Mattie said, giving him a hug. “We will see you all soon, I’m sure.”
Vanessa and her daughter Britney were subdued and only spoke to Mattie before climbing in the back of the truck. Britney gave Buddy a hug; the beagle wagged his tail, unaware of what was happening.
Holly gave Stephen another hug outside the rear door of the Tahoe.
“Thanks again for everything guys,” she said, tearing up. “Please come by sometime and check in on us.”
“Sure thing, as soon as you all get settled in,” Stephen said, shutting the truck door behind her.
The Tahoe sped off, and I came to grips with the fact that we would probably have to bug out shortly as well. In preparation of that eventuality, we spent the day outfitting the school bus for the trip. Stephen and Dan pulled security while we stripped the seats from the bus, leaving only the driver’s seat and two front benches. A pile of school bus seats was left in Paul’s front yard, but I didn’t think the homeowners association was going to care at this point. It was exhausting work loading all of Stephen's supplies and food, which filled the entire back of the bus, floor to ceiling. The ambulance, which was now parked in Stephen’s front yard, was being set up as a camper of sorts, with our day-to-day gear, MREs for quick meals, and most of the ammunition. Chris' truck was loaded down with the supplies he’d brought, as well as the preps that I took from my house, which filled the entire bed of his truck.
"We have a lot a shit!" I grunted as I carried up yet more five gallon buckets of rice from the basement to the bus.
"We also have a lot of company," Dan said dryly from his upstairs perch when I reached the front yard.
I looked up at him, and he motioned with his head at what must have been well over a hundred zombies approaching from all four directions. They seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, drawn by all the noise we were making outside. With us most likely the only living beings in the neighborhood, we were probably now the zombies’ only meal option. They were not moving fast; the creatures seemed to slow the longer they were infected. When we first came across them, they moved at a jogging pace, whereas this current crop of flesh eaters was moving at a fast walk. Their statures appeared gaunt, and they moaned and hissed at a sickening pace. They were becoming harder to recognize as once being just like us.
The infected monsters were also undeterred by the fact that Stephen and Dan had already dropped several from their midst. I watched in shock at how so many had gotten close so quickly. Dan's suppressed rifle was silently ventilating skulls while the report of Stephen's rifle echoed across the quiet neighborhood. In between gun shots, Buddy barked loudly at the unnatural beings coming at us. Mattie, Chris and I were forced inside when the zombies finally reached the yard.
“Where did they all come from?” Mattie asked as we closed the door.
“From the looks of it I would guess Hell!” Chris joked.
We grabbed our rifles and jumped into the fight.
"Chris, take the backyard with Mattie," I ordered. "I'll help cover the front."
"Roger that!" Chris replied, sliding open the glass patio door and immediately firing at several zombies who had somehow forced an opening through the cedar fence and spilled into the backyard.
The cracks from his rifle made my heart race at the anticipation of yet another full blown engagement as I switched my selector switch to “semi”.
The sound of gunfire was soon deafening with hundreds of rifle rounds fired through windows from inside the house. The smell of cordite and the sound of dozens of empty shell casings hitting the hardwood floors filled the room as I ran between the two front windows of the house firing at the closest targets. Several went down from well-placed shots upstairs, just as I lined them up. Even with the zombies this close the head shots needed proved to be tricky. Several of them lost parts of their skulls from glancing blows and continued forward relentlessly. They also seemed to have the luck of stumbling at the moment I fired, causing me to miss. We were burning through our ammo fast and having the loaded magazines pre-positioned in ammo cans was paying off.
“Loading, cover me, Mattie,” I heard Chris say from behind me. An empty magazine hit the floor and a fresh 30 rounder was slapped home.
Chris began to fire again as Mattie moved up and was standing beside me with her rifle, firing at two zombies who snuck around from the front of the school bus, which was backed into the driveway. Having never shot an AR-15 before this week, she took to it rather well and appeared to be a natural.
"We got the back almost cleared out," she said, continuing to fire at a steady pace. "They’re mostly hitting us from the front of the house now. Chris can handle what’s left."
Twenty minutes and probably two hundred dead zombies later, the attack slowed to the point that Dan's suppressed rifle could keep up, which lessened the noise and allowed us to break contact for
a bit.
Stephen wiped the sweat from his face. "There is no way we’re going to be able to hold here much longer," he remarked, stating the obvious. "After we get cleaned up and get some food, we need to come to some sort of an agreement. And I got to set up my truck, in case we have to bug out in a hurry. Shoulda already done that damnit."
“I agree,” I chimed in. “We can’t stay here much longer. The surrounding houses really hurt our field of view, and with the power out and failing water pressure, this subdivision will be uninhabitable.”
“I’ll help Dan with any stragglers,” Chris volunteered, “and make sure that all those bodies are really down for good. We don’t need any nasty surprises, namely a zombie ankle bitter when we leave.”
Stephen purposely left out enough gear to load his Chevrolet Colorado, which was parked in the third stall of his garage. He wanted to set it up as an emergency fallback vehicle and leave it at his residence. I helped him load three jerry cans of stabilized gasoline into the back, along with six cases of MREs. Two large plastic containers with assorted camping gear were also thrown into the back, next to three six gallon plastic water jugs and two cases of bottled water. In the back seat, we put extra backpacks containing boots, clothing and hygiene products. This mostly filled the truck, and after a long thought, Stephen also put his Polish AK-47 and 2000 rounds in the truck along with his service pistol, the Glock 17 and 500 rounds of 9mm for it.
“I can only carry so many guns,” Stephen remarked. “Might as well leave a couple for insurance, just in case.”
We made sure the truck’s gas tank was topped off and checked the oil and fluids. Confident that he had a well-stocked BOV ready, he hid the keys under the freezer in the garage and headed inside. It was dark outside now, and we were all tired from the day’s work. We agreed to figure out our next move in the morning and to run short two hour guard shifts overnight as there was a slow but steady trickle of zombies now roaming around in eyesight of our watch position. I agreed to go first and shot eleven with Dan's silencer equipped rifle by the time I was relieved by Mattie. I wasn’t completely sure but I thought one of the creatures I had downed outside was Paul.
I couldn’t sleep yet and followed Dan down into Stephen's basement to listen to him get on the HAM Radio, which was still powered by Stephen’s UPS power supply. It came to life with the flick of the switch. Dan started to search the 2-meter band, reminiscing back to the nights when he could make dozens of contacts using the radio. He told me he had always liked the idea of talking to random people and was amazed that they would sit there and listen to his stories, hardly ever interrupting him, unlike the guys at work.
“Well things have sure changed,” Dan remarked as we listened to all the static. He was hoping to at least make one contact tonight, Phil from up in Chicago. The last time he talked to Phil things weren't looking too good for him and his small band of holdouts in the city. Dan sat there giving his call sign, expecting to hear Phil give his call sign in return, and then Dan would start the usual back and forth sharing of information and ideas. Instead, we heard a very frantic reply come over the radio. Phil wasn't using the normal protocol – it was more of a scream for help.
"Dan, we need help badly, we have lost all of the houses in the block except ours and I don't think we can hold them much longer!"
Dan tried to reply, but Phil walked all over his transmission.
“You need to get us help fast; we’re not going to make it!” Phil cried. “Our ammunition is nearly spent and there are only six of us left. We are trying to secure the house, but I think it may already be too late!"
In the background of Phil’s transmission I heard what sounded like a medieval battle, along with one or two shots. It was obvious Dan didn’t know what to do. He had gotten to know Phil from the nights of talking with him on the radio, and I could tell that for the first time this was personal for Dan, who was now headed up the stairs. I had to run to catch up.
"I need a vehicle and some gas. I’m going to go help Phil," Dan calmly stated as he reached the front door and ran right into Stephen. “How about the Colorado, it’s ready isn’t it?”
Stephen and I both just looked at Dan as if he just asked to borrow the Starship Enterprise.
"Are you out of our mind? That’s a one way ticket, and you’ll do no one any good by going,“ I responded. “You’ll just end up dead!"
Stephen said basically the same thing and tried to reason with Dan. Of course, Dan was never very good at listening to reason and started outside, carrying his backpack that he’d left by the front door.
The next thing Dan knew, he was spitting up a mouthful of grass after he was tackled by me. Thankfully we landed in the small patch of Stephen’s lawn that wasn’t covered in dead zombies. He tried to struggle to his feet, but with both Stephen and I on top of him, it was impossible. Dan fought on for a while but finally snapped out of it.
"I know you want to go help Phil but it’s too late,” I sadly stated. “They’re not going to make it, and you can’t stop it. It’s a long ways from here, it’s dark outside, and there may be a million zombies between us and him. If you really want to help someone make it, stay here and help us."
The more Dan thought about it, the more I saw that he knew Stephen and I were right.
"Damn you guys, I think you might have broken some ribs," Dan groaned.
"Well, we had to get your attention somehow,” Stephen replied. “You old stubborn bastard."
Dan asked one favor of Stephen and me.
"If you guys aren’t going to let me go help Phil, you are going to have to come down and listen to his last broadcast,” Dan asked. “And I won’t take no for an answer.”
Dan drew his 1911 and shot a zombie in the head. It had crawled towards us unseen in the dark, managing to get mere feet from Stephen’s leg.
“Fuck this shit!” Stephen yelled as he jumped to his feet. “I’m getting the hell inside. I’ve had enough close calls today!”
We walked back into the house and down the stairs, garnering some strange looks from Mattie and Chris, especially with the dirt and grass still plastered on Dan and Stephen’s face as white as a ghost. When we got to the radio, Dan keyed up the microphone and called for Phil’s call sign. When Phil responded we could hear it both in his voice and from the sounds of fists beating on a wooden door that the fight was almost over.
"I understand why you couldn’t help; it was way too far anyways.” Phil calmly stated. “Don’t worry about it, don’t take on that responsibility, it’s not your fault and always remember that, friend.”
And that was it. Just before the transmission ended, we heard the sound of something all too familiar to us, the sound of someone screaming as teeth ripped flesh from their bones.
The three of us stood there looking at the radio silently. Dan was the first to speak.
"That’ll never happen again!” His voice was again firm. “If we find someone who needs our help, and are deserving of it, by God we are going to give it a shot."
As Dan was saying those words, he turned on the radio’s scanning feature. It started scanning through the different frequencies while Stephen and I nodded and started to walk away. Dan was sitting on a chair in front of Stephen’s radio when it stopped on an active frequency, catching the end of a transmission. He stopped the radio from scanning and sat there listening. The frequency it stopped at was one that Dan’s brother and Sgt. Ogle had used to talk about hunting, fishing and women. Dan didn’t think he would ever hear anything come across that frequency again but certainly didn’t want to miss a transmission from whoever was talking. The silence finally got the best of him.
"KC9#%# calling anybody!" Dan asked, and then repeated.
Dan almost fell off his stool when he received a response.
"KC9#%# this is KC7@%#, how the hell are you?"
It was Tom Ogle, his sergeant from work.
Dan called up to Stephen and I just as we were reaching the top of the stairs.
<
br /> “Now what,” I asked Stephen, who rolled his eyes.
Dan keyed up the microphone and asked Tom how he was holding up. Tom excitedly relayed to Dan all about his trip down to the hunting cabin. How he went home and filled his Bronco with gear, his wife and kids and headed toward Peoria. His family was in near hysterics, and it was quite the adventure. He explained how the roads were pretty rough traveling, and they came across several groups of stranded motorists, some of whom turned violent.
“People got nasty real quick when they got desperate, Dan. Thank you again for giving me a head start.”
“Anytime, brother,” Dan replied. “Any zombie contact along the way?”
Tom told Dan that whenever he plowed into a disgusting zombie blocking the road with the three-inch steel pipe that made up his homemade brush guard, he would turn to his wife and tell her, “It’s not such a waste of money now is it!”
“Of course she would just roll her eyes and give me that look of annoyance we have all seen,” he joked.
Tom went on to explain that once he got down to the hunting cabin he found everything in order. The orchards were still there along with what was left of his garden from this summer. He told Dan that they were set up pretty good. With the two deer and three turkeys he shot in the last few days, they had some meat to dehydrate. As Ogle was explaining all this to Dan, he heard someone in the background speak up.
"Hey dumb ass what about me?" was all Dan could make out.