by Gary Chesla
Tony stepped on the gas and the Buick shot down the street.
Tony turned right to circle back around the block.
As he drove back up Drexel, he glanced at Mike.
“Don’t try to dig through the shingles,” Tony said. “Use the tire iron to pry up the bottom of the shingle then pull up the shingle. Shingles tear easy, but it would take forever to dig through them. Once you have the shingles pulled off a section of the roof, use the tire iron and dig straight into the particle board. It should start to break apart real easy.”
“I think I got it,” Mike smiled, “thanks for the advice.”
Tony sped up to Mike’s house and drove over the fence and pulled up alongside the garage.
Before Mike got out he asked, “Any more words of wisdom before I get out?”
“Yeah,” Tony smiled, “Work fast.”
Mike got out of the car and climbed up over the hood and got on top of the car.
He then climbed up on the garage roof.
“Go,” Mike yelled then turned and ran up the garage roof.
He ran over to the chimney and started to climb up the side of the chimney.
He glanced back down in the yard to see the Buick pull back out of the yard and on to the street.
Mike’s stomach began to turn as he climbed higher to get up on the roof above the bedroom.
“Oh shit,” Mike thought as he looked down into the yard, “If I live long enough, my next house is only going to be one story high.”
Chapter 28
Tuesday, May 11th, Fallon Naval Air Station, Nevada
Rogers and Davis walked back into the monitoring station after the Captain left to go out and inspect the base when the battle against the infected had ended.
The doctor and Chervy were sitting in front of a monitor, quietly studying and talking about something on the screen.
Rogers took off his helmet and dropped it on the floor inside the room, then leaned his rifle against the wall.
Davis did the same, then the men took off their masks and dropped down on two folding chairs to take a break.
“It feels great to breathe normal air again,” Rogers said. “It smells like hell out there, even with these damn masks on.”
“I take it we survived?” Davis asked, looking at Chervanak.
“For now,” Chervy said as he turned and looked up from the monitor.
Chervy turned back to the monitor as the doctor asked him to zoom in on something he was pointing to at the top of the screen.
Rogers and Davis got up and walked over behind Doc and Chervy and looked at the monitor over their shoulders.
“What’s so interesting?” Rogers asked.
Davis looked at the screen, “Where is that? That doesn’t look like any place around here.”
Just then the doctor got up from his chair.
“Keep looking in that area, that’s my guess where it would be.” Doc said. “Just keep looking for some hint of where traffic has been going in and out. You probably won’t be able to see much more than that. If it is there, it will be well hidden.”
“You would think there should be a runway, or at least a place big enough to land a large transport,” Chervy said. “The Airforce landed a C-130 Transport here a few days ago to pick up a crate they were to deliver there.”
“I doubt they would have an airport as secretive as this place is supposed to be, but I think you’re right, there should be at least a natural area where they could land a plane,” Doc replied. “If you don’t see anything that would indicate it’s there, just see if you can find a safe place to set the chopper down. That area on screen is probably going to be at the end of our range limit.
If it’s not there, we’ll just have to look for someplace where we can secure and survive for a few weeks.
The records facility could work for us temporarily, it’s certainly isolated enough, but I don’t think the Captain will settle for anything less than the real thing.
See what you can find and let me know. The Captain agreed to send someone out to look over the area if we come up with anything promising. I suggest you find something interesting in the next hour. If you understand my meaning?”
Chervy nodded, looking serious.
“I need to get back to the infirmary to see how bad our losses were today,” Doc added. “We need to do this now Cherv. In another couple of hours, the Captain is going to need every available man, so if we don’t do it now, we may not get another chance.”
“OK Doc,” Chervy replied. “I’ll do my best.”
The doctor smiled at Rogers and Davis, then left the building.
“What was that about?” Rogers asked. “The Doc looked real serious about whatever it was.”
Davis continued to study the monitor.
“Come on, Cherv,” Davis asked. “What’s up. I thought everything went well today. The Captain’s new strategy seemed to work. Why so serious? Is there a problem we don’t know about?””
Chervy sat back and looked up at Rogers.
“The doctor thinks we need to move on to Plan B,” Chervy finally replied.
“What’s Plan B?” Davis asked.
“It’s an evacuation plan,” Chervy replied.
“A what?” Rogers asked.
“You mean we are going to abandon the base?” Davis asked. “Does the Captain know about this?”
Chervy nodded, “The Captain gave the OK to look into it, but I don’t think he is sold on the idea yet.”
“Where would we go?” Rogers asked.
“Besides, I thought the Captain’s orders were to stay and defend the base?” Davis asked.
“The Captain hasn’t had any contact with Command or anyone else on the outside world for a few days now. His orders were to defend the base and the Captain has every intention of defending the base until he receives orders otherwise. However, the Captain is also a realist. He said that the loss of communications with Command and any other units on the outside could mean they are no longer able to function or they have been lost,” Chervy replied. “The Captain said he intends to hold the base as long as he feels it is possible to do so. But he also expressed concern that we may not have enough weapons to fend off more than one or maybe two more attacks by the infected. After that, we will be practically defenseless.
If we find ourselves in that position, the Captain said he would have to consider what is best for the men he has left.
The Doc said the only way we can survive is to abandon the base. Doc convinced the Captain to allow us to look into the possibility while we have the time.”
“If it looks like we are going to have to abandon the base, why don’t we do it now before we lose any more men?” Davis asked.
“Even if the Captain decided that we should leave now, the problem is we don’t have any transports at the base large enough to evacuate everyone,” Chervy answered. “We also don’t have enough men or weapons to fight our way out through the desert.
It would be hard enough to just cross the desert without having to fight the infected to get across. So, I believe the Captain plans to hold out and hope we will hear from someone or the dead stop coming out our way, unless something changes his mind.”
“What is going to change between now and say a few days?” Rogers asked. “If we can’t transport everyone out now, how are we going to do it later? I know we have lost a lot of men, but we still have, what, five hundred men to evacuate?”
“Two hundred and forty-three,” Chervy replied.
“Holy shit,” Davis said. “I didn’t realize we had lost so many men already.”
“The base was in transition when the infection hit us. A lot of men had completed their training and had been reassigned to permanent units. The new units that were assigned to Fallon for training hadn’t arrived yet. So fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, we didn’t have as many men at the base as we usually have,” Chervy replied. “I honestly don’t know if we would have been at ou
r normal full complement of men, if it would have made our situation better or worse. According to the Doc, the more people there are, the faster the infection is spread.”
Rogers just stared in disbelief and shook his head.
“So even if the Captain wanted to evacuate everyone, he has to wait until we lose more men,” Davis said. “That must be tearing him apart.”
“I think what finally convinced the Captain to let us look into finding a place to evacuate the base survivors was when the Doc told him that even if we didn’t have to fend off another attack from the infected, we were still going to lose all our men in another few days to the infection,” Chervy said. “The Doc says our biggest problem is the base and the air around the base is now so contaminated, we will all eventually become infected before long if we don’t evacuate.”
“So the Captain has to figure a way to keep us all alive until our numbers fall to where the survivors can all fit into a few helicopters?” Davis asked.
“Unfortunately, that about sums it up,” Chervy replied. “But we also have to find somewhere to go. It’s not as if we could all just fly out and go to San Diego.”
“Any idea how this would work?” Rogers asked.
“If we could find someplace with an air strip, the pilots could all leave in the jets,” Chervy replied. “The rest of us would follow in the helicopters. If we can’t find a place where a plane can land, we would all have to go in the helicopters. If there isn’t enough room, the Doc suggested the pilots could fly out in the jets and bail out over our destination and parachute down to the surface. But we have to find somewhere the Captain will accept before we have to make any decisions like that.”
Chervy looked at Rogers and Davis.
“I need you two to keep quiet and not say anything about this to anyone,” Chervy said. “Until the Captain decides on what we are going to do, we don’t need the men worrying about anything but doing their job. This whole thing could blow up in our faces. Our men are all good men, but if everyone starts to feel that all they are doing is biding their time until they can get out of here, this place could fall apart or turn into total chaos.”
“You don’t need to worry about us talking,” Rogers replied. “Besides, no one believes a word we say.”
Davis walked back over to the monitor.
“Can we help,” he asked. “What are you looking for on this screen. Where is this?”
“That is a view of Utah, south of Salt Lake City,” Chervy replied. “You remember we were talking about Granite Mountain.”
“The place where the government has been stocking up supplies in the event of a major disaster?” Rogers asked. “I thought it was secret and no one knew where it was located.”
“Yes,” Chervy replied. “What you see on the screen is the Granite Mountain Records Facility. The Records facility supposedly belongs to the Mormon Church. It’s five hundred miles from us and about twenty miles outside of Salt Lake City. It is believed to be where the Mormon Church stores their records, but no one knows for sure if this is where the Government survival vault is located. Rumor has it that it is here too, but no one has been able to prove it. The doctor suggested we search around this area to see if we could find any evidence that the survival facility is also here or somewhere nearby. But it could be located a few hundred miles to the north for all anyone knows.
The Doc suggested we look for evidence of roads or trails that could have been used to move supplies from the records facility to another location on the mountain.”
“I would think the survival facility would be in with the records facility,” Davis said. “It would have been a massive effort to dig into that mountain just to build this place, If it is here, it could have easily been built at the same time and no one would have known. I think that would be the best way to build a secret vault by doing it right under everyone’s noses. You how magicians work, get the audience focusing on your left hand while your right hand is pulling a fast one.”
“Yeah, and when the secret about the survival facility was leaked, all the government needed to do was lie about it not being located here at the record’s facility,” Rogers added. “They lie about everything else, why not this.”
“You could be right,” Chervy replied, “Who could prove they were lying, it’s a restricted area and not just anyone can go there? It makes perfect sense, they probably made a deal with the Mormons to dig a records vault for church records and use it as a disguise for the secret government facility. The Mormons have a lot of money, but I find it hard to believe that they had the kind of money needed to build something like this on their own.”
“I would go there and ask them,” Davis said. “Even if they didn’t know where the survival facility was, I’m sure they just might have enough supplies for a few helicopters full of men to live on for a couple weeks. If the doctor is right, all we need is a place to hold up for a month until the infected start to fall apart. Up there on the mountains certainly looks secure enough for us get away from it all for a few weeks. But my guess is that someone up there knows where the government vault is located.”
“Is there any way to contact the facility?” Rogers asked.
“Not that we know of,” Chervy replied. “For all we know, there isn’t even anyone there. Just a large sealed secure granite vault. I haven’t seen any activity on the satellite photos around the records facility to indicate there is anyone there.”
“Well, compared to what’s heading our way, it looks like paradise to me,” Davis said. “Even if we have to sleep out on the mountainside, I think we would have a better chance to survive a few weeks there than we would here.”
“I don’t think we would have to worry about the infected climbing those mountains,” Rogers added. “The picture on the screen looks like there isn’t anything around but steep rocky cliffs.”
Chervy nodded, “I agree but the Doc wants us to keep looking for evidence of the survival facilities.
He said if we can find the supply vault, he hopes to get the Captain to start transporting men out to the facility now.
The Doc says if the Captain sees a chance to save everyone instead of just a few of us, he is sure the Captain would jump at the chance, but the Captain isn’t convinced a deserted spot in the mountains is where we should go, even if it is a place where the infected can’t get to.”
“If we could send out two choppers full of men at a time, we could evacuate the entire base in twenty hours,” Roger said. “When do we expect the next wave of infected to get here?”
“Sometime early tomorrow morning,” Chervy replied.
“That would be cutting it close even if we started now,” Davis said.
“Yeah,” Chervy said. “That’s why the Doc wants us to find something he can use to convinced the Captain and he says we have to find it in the next hour. The Doc feels we should evacuate now, but the Captain wanted something more than a deserted records facility in the mountains to go to. He said he wants to know we will have the means to survive once we get there.”
Davis studied the screen.
“Cherv, did you see this?” Davis asked.
“What?” Chervanak asked.
“This,” Davis pointed at the screen. “If you ask me, I’d say this looks like a trail from this road in front of the facility to the other side of the mountain from the Records Facility. The satellites can’t see what’s back there. That’s where I would have put it.”
Chervy looked at the screen.
“It could be,” Chervy replied. “It also makes sense that the two facilities would have been built at the same location. The records facility would be the perfect cover for the government’s secret vault. The activity of building the records facility would have also been the perfect disguise for the men working on the government’s project. You might be on to something, Davis.”
“The way I see it,” Rogers said, “you and Doc were over thinking the complexity of this. Davis doesn’t have that problem. He doesn’t think,
he just acts.”
“Screw you,” Davis growled.
“Hey, I meant it as a compliment,” Rogers smiled.
Chervy ran his finger over the screen, tracing the possible trail.
“Davis, go get the Doc,” Chervy said. “Tell him I think we found something. Do it now.”
Davis slid the mask over his face and put his helmet on.
He grabbed his rifle and ran out the door.
Chapter 29
Tuesday, May 11th, Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
Linda laid on the blanket which she had spread out over the hard floor in the attic.
It helped some, but her resting place was still hard and her back was hurting.
It would have helped if she would have been able to stand up and stretch, but the attic was only three feet high at its highest point.
The pillow at least gave her a comfortable place to lay her head, but the attic was like an oven with the mid-day sun beating down on the roof above her.
Without any electricity, the attic fan they had installed to push out the hot air when the temperature got over ninety, the attic just kept getting hotter as they day moved on.
Her hair was soaked and the salty sweat kept running down over her face, making her eyes sting.
The sleeve of her shirt was wet and discolored from wiping her eyes and forehead.
Linda wanted to scream to get out all her frustrations, but she had to try and look like she had everything under control for Jamie’s sake.
Fortunately, Jamie hadn’t been too scared or asked her a lot of questions.
She just assumed that Linda would handle everything until Mike got home.
Jamie was sure that when Mike got home, the bad people would flee for their lives.
Her dad was big and strong and he always protected her and her mom, only Linda knew this time things were a little different.