The Event Series (Book 1): Life After the Meteor

by Thomas Larson

  Sept 24th

  I packed up the truck this morning, I just wanted to get away for a little bit. We have not really done much scouting around the area for some time and I figured that the ride might do me some good mentally. I am missing something, a detail, there is something going on and my little voice is giving me a warning but I am just not seeing it.

  I took a radio, one of the police type, thinking that there may still be some repeater devices available and I would still be able to call in to the camp if I was so inclined. I loaded a 55 gallon drum of diesel, just in case. I am going to drive west to the Hudson, get some feel for the river and what bridges might be open to the north. While I am at it will be a scavenger run.

  I left about 8 am after breakfast and just headed west on the Mass Pike. I wanted to recheck what the I-90 Bridge and the rail bridge looked like. When I got there, I did some measuring and found that it could be crossed but it would be kind of tricky and you really needed a large wide vehicle (like my F-350) to do it but I figured today was not the day to try to make that crossing, especially alone.

  When the Fly Boys were up a couple of months ago they had given some reports of some other bridges up in the Albany area so I headed a little further north and found that there were a couple that were intact.

  The bridge from Rensselaer to Albany was still standing but completely blocked and not passable. It looks like they tried to open all lanes coming out of the city for evacuation purposes. The cars and trucks on that bridge were burned out so it had to be near to the blast site.

  I continued further north and found a second bridge, the Patroon Bridge that goes from Troy into northern Albany. Like the first bridge it also had been opened up to traffic only aimed at allowing escape from the city. I was going to turn around and start back south but I saw a sign that caught my interest. It was for the Waterlveit Arsenal; I decided to go just a little further north and see if there might be one more bridge that I could get across.

  I came to the Menard Bridge which is about 20 miles to the north of Albany. The outbound lanes were completely blocked. But the inbound were not so bad and with a little weaving I was able to get through. The idea of a potential arsenal had really made me curious. It might be a memorial, or an old Revolutionary War site, but I had to see. Even if it is a museum a big ass old claymore sword would be a cool thing to have.

  I twisted my way back toward Albany and was able to find the main gate. It was partially blocked by various light armored vehicles. It appears that a stand was made here. There were a lot of bodies, military and civilian. Most had been burned but the burning looked more like it was done recently, long after the nuclear detonation. My guess was that the military held this facility for a long time. Perhaps there had been underground bunkers where they were protected. Maybe they figured it was safe or they ran out of supplies and had to come out. I had better step up my game because this could be a risky place to be. The dead seemed to be, well dead, quiet and still.

  I found a bronze plaque near the gate and was able to get some historical information on the place. The Arsenal was founded during The War of 1812. It turns out it is about 8 miles north of Albany and is very near the Hudson River. On the grounds are offices, storage areas, and a museum tracing weapon types from the 17th century through modern times. It also contains the Army’s Benet Lab which did product development, improvement, research, and testing. It was still used to aid in the development of high powered weaponry for tanks and mortar systems.

  I doubt that I could or for that matter would want to take one of the armored vehicles at the gate. But I did take some time to scavenge through the Humvees and other vehicles. I had to be careful with that because a number of them were still ‘occupied’. I was able to come up with about 500 rounds of 50 cal belted ammunition, a bunch of 223 rounds for M-16s, a half dozen hand held rocket launchers and about 20 claymore mines. They could be very useful at the camp if we found we were being overrun by a large horde.

  I had all of that equipment loaded up by about 2 pm and figured I still had an hour to look around. I thought it might be good if I could find the infirmary and maybe the commissary/PX. The infirmary was going to be a no go for today, there was a large group of Zoms surrounding it. So I tried to find the PX, I did and it was looted already. It amazes me that in the end of the world some people were worried about the next pack of smokes.

  That infirmary thing bothered me, why would there be so many Zoms around that building unless there was someone in there. But how could I find out without alerting the surrounding Zoms I was there.

  I drove back toward the front gate and found a HumVee with a radio in it. The hummer had enough battery life to get the radio working. I tried transmitting on the original frequency that the radio was on. Just a simple “Hello, can you hear me.”

  At first nothing, then suddenly there was a desperate female voice on the radio. “Yes, yes, I am here, I am alive. But my situation is not good, almost a Broken Arrow. They are close.” I could hear the fear in her voice.

  “I am guessing you’re in the infirmary”

  “Yes, and I am the last one.”

  She told me that her squad had managed to get back there and secure themselves but that one of her squad had taken a bite and had turned. He had infected the rest of the squad and they were all dead.

  “As they turned, I had to kill them, one, by one.” I could tell from her voice that she was in tears.

  “Have you been bitten or scratched?”

  “No,” She whispered.

  I asked about the doors and exits from the infirmary. She said that there were three. One was the main door, which I had seen and it was zombies four deep, not an option.

  The second entrance was on the west side and there also was a garage door to the rear for deliveries. I looked at the side door, it was two deep, not a good option. I could see also that the one story building had movement on the roof. There had been a squad on the roof trying to hold that and use it as a defensive position but that had failed.

  The only option was the garage door and that would be tricky, there were a half dozen Zoms back there, and I could eliminate them quickly, but in doing so it would be sending a lunch bell to the Zoms nearby.

  “Ok, I have a plan”

  She started to tell me who she was but I cut her off, “Not until you are safe,” I told her.

  “The cavalry is going to roll up in a big red truck, I am going to take out the Zoms by the door, as soon as you hear the first shot, open the garage door and make for the truck, passenger side, jump in and we roll on out, Got it?”

  “Yep, I scared!”

  “Piece of cake,” I was scared too, just had to be strong.

  As I am writing, this I obviously was successful in not getting myself killed, the pick-up actually went pretty smoothly and we were on our way out of the facility. She was a petite thing, about five foot tall, but in the uniform it was hard to tell much else about her. She was well, cute I guess, as many Asian women are.

  It was then that I finally asked her who she was. Corporal Asuna Yagami, she had been part of the MP team that was assigned to guard the main gate. Her CO had taken a bullet to the arm, or so he claimed. She and a few others had brought him to the infirmary and that was when they discovered he had actually been bitten. It was too late.

  We made our way across the Menard Bridge and I stopped the truck in a nice open area on the highway. It gave us a view of the river, but more importantly plenty of open space to see Zoms if they started coming for us. I was not sure if she was going to come with me back to the camp. I needed to get to know her a little more. So I brought out a couple of sandwiches and we ate. We talked a little about what she had seen, what had happened in the area.

  “I am here from the Japanese Defense Forces, I was in training at the Arsenal when the shit hit the fan. Our people were assigned to help with holding the Arsenal.”

  She went on; “We had moved into the underground bunker complex on the day o
f the detonations. The army had deemed that they would be safe there and protected from the blast that was scheduled.”

  It had in fact worked and the troops survived. They had plenty of supplies and were able to do quite nicely for months, although it got pretty boring and close in the bunker. Over time the brigade begin to break down and split into different groups. The regular army and my unit were not too bad, they held together the longest, but the reservist and the Guard (National) guys begin to separate themselves and eventually they decided to leave the bunker.

  “We had been in regular contact with West Point, not so much the military academy but the part where the silver reserves were stored. They had also been tucked away in a bunker.”

  She said that the communications were regular between the two bases as well as some others that were tucked away in secure facilities in the Northeast. Fort Drum was far enough away from any atomic explosions that they had not sought to go underground feeling that they could hold their own. They were the first to go silent. That was back in May or June.

  Fort Indiantown Gap in Pennsylvania was the next of their contacts to blink out. They had been in a mountain area about 25 miles from Harrisburg. I remember going to a couple of law enforcement training classes there back in the 90s. That base was used as a helicopter training facility.

  It was a nice facility, but really not much of a fort. It was more an airfield. The aircraft there were mostly helos so they could have escaped to other locations. But there were a couple of brief messages about high radiation problems.

  “I think that they left or were overrun, that was in July.”

  By mid-August the reservists made a break and left the bunker at Waterlveit. The CO, Colonel Johnson had let them go. He saw the writing on the wall and supplies were starting to get a little thin. The original plan was that the army (and her unit) would remain in the bunker to the beginning of September. The army figured that 6 months was long enough for things to settle out and then they could begin the clean-up process. The clean-up did not go as well as planned, and well, it was the Army that got cleaned up.

  We had finished eating and it was time to go. “Do you want to continue back to my camp, or is there somewhere else you want to go?”

  It was kind of a dumb question but it needed to be asked. So we piled back into the truck and started back toward camp. We talked on the drive and she gave me some biographical information on herself. She was a mortar systems specialist. She had been up in the area for the year.

  “I have been divorced about five years ago and am 32 years old.”

  “Do you like red wine and walks on the beach?” I asked.

  I got this incredulous look, and then she laughed, hard, and broke down. I pulled over and while she cried I just held her. The pressure valve just popped. I held her as she sobbed uncontrollably but just holding on and letting this person touch me made me feel guilty, I missed Anne and felt I was kind of being unfaithful just being close to this woman.

  After a while she regained some control, then there was quiet. I started the truck and we continued on back toward camp. We arrived at about 7:30 and it was getting dark. I introduced Asuna to The Three and then to the other “campers”. I could see from Arcelia’s face that she was a little unsettled by my showing up at camp with a woman. Margo seemed okay with it, I think she saw it for what it really was; I had found a stray in danger and took her in. When we got to Major Barkley, Asuna snapped to attention and gave him a crisp salute. It kind of surprised him and he told her to relax, his command had ended and he was just “Doc” now. How or why she recognized him I am not sure, but that would come out soon enough.

  We unloaded the truck with the items that we brought back. The munitions and supplies were put in their proper place. I talked Nick into warming up some leftovers. We set up a little sleeping space for Asuna in the “Girls Dorm”. I headed off to my cabin about 9:30. It had been a long day. But that only left me victim of 20 questions by Margo. The first was why I had taken the ride in the first place.

  Sept 25th

  After breakfast I was dragged before The Three and although I was praised for the munitions and things that I had brought back to camp I was also given a “stern” talking to about my going out scavenging on my own. They did not like my “well, everyone was busy and I was bored” excuse. But like what were they going to do, take my keys away and ground me.

  I have decided that I am okay with the cabin but I want to experiment a little and design a place of my own. I asked if there was a little spot I could use and was granted permission. I had a couple of ideas in mind. The first was to try to create a yurt. I had years ago, actually not that many, had considered buying a little piece of property in the Southwestern US and living in one.

  At first I was not certain that the idea of a tent type structure was all that practical in the Northeast but then the design was from the steppes region of Mongolia. So I guess that is really not that insane an idea. I spent the morning kind of drawing out what I was thinking for a plan, and trying to put together ideas for materials. I remembered that in the original design layers of felt were used for the walls over a wooden frame. I am certain that felt in that quality would be a problem to find. But I was also thinking that a raid on the local Home Depot or Lowes would provide some viable alternatives like fiberglass insulation as well as other traditional building materials.

  I was sitting over in the corner of the lunch room playing architect when I noticed or sensed someone looking over my shoulder. It was Asuna. She bowed slightly. I saw that she had a couple of cups of coffee and asked if she could sit down. I asked her how she slept and how she was doing. She smiled and said it was the best night sleep that she had experienced in about a month, and commented that Chelsea snores like a chainsaw.

  She asked what I was doing and I explained that I was designing a kind of tent thing that would be good in winter but also fairly easy to move. She listened and smiled. She hung out with me for a while and then said that she had to report to the Major to see if there was any Army stuff she was needed for. I chuckled because at this point the Army stuff was done.

  The Major, acting as the Major asked her a bunch of questions about what was or had happened in the bunker. The question of how they might have communicated with other such units came up. It was via a satellite link that had been set up in an array at the base. Asuna could not tell him a lot about the workings or if there was a lot of air traffic, but she did know that the CO was becoming increasingly concerned over time because one by one the other bunkers were becoming quiet.

  In the beginning there was chatter from about 20 locations in the Northeast. But as time went on there was only one left, that was in the Pittsburgh area where the Iron Mountain underground storage facility was. Fort Knox was or seemed to be in the mix somehow also, but she was not sure how.

  I finished the yurt design by about two in the afternoon and looked around the camp for the proper site to build it. There are a couple of design issues that I am not sure make this workable. The first is that if a horde showed up it is not likely that it would offer much resistance or security. The design would be able to resist a few Zoms pushing at it, but there would be limits.

  It would also have the issue of only one escape route. I think that it would be cool looking, and it would have some real advantages in terms of heating and in ease of relocation. But I need to think more about it.

  Sept 26th

  We lost Arcelia last night. She just went to sleep and did not wake up. It was our first “natural causes” death. Cyril is lost and I fear that he will not be far behind her. It seems that in nature that when one of a bonded pair dies, the other loses their will to live. We are all sad, and quiet. Biter is staying very close to Cyril. Even Skittle and Rosy, the cats, seem to know. Matt did a really nice ceremony for her at sunset.

  Margo and I are doing ok with it, or as much as can be expected. Arcelia had always been there for Margo and this loss on top on the recent loss of An
ne has to be harder on her that she is showing. Delaney, Jan and a couple of the others are circling the wagons around her and it seems to be helping.

  Sept 27th

  It is still quiet in camp. There was not much to report, it was a rainy day and not much work of any kind got done. I am still thinking about the tent (yurt) idea and wonder if instead of the wooden lattice a chain-link fence type structure would work. The other option is to make change from a tent to a sort of Navajo Hogan, but that would be permanent and as a result there would be no mobility advantage.

  I checked in with Margo and she is doing ok. We talked about Meme (Arcelia) a little, her love of the Red Sox, the casino and some of the vacations that we had all taken. I was reminded of the many times that we managed to get ourselves in hot water over things. We laughed over the time we were in Arizona and Margo and her grandfather were fighting over a squirt bottle. In an effort to gain control I pulled over to the side and did a theatrical exit from the car faking that I was angry over the situation. I took heat for that one for a few days.

  In the end Margo told me that she understood that it was her time, and that we all face death sooner or later. “It was good that she died the way she did, so peacefully, not like Mom.”

  But that did not make it a lot easier, she was gone and it hurt. Oh, how I know the feeling.

  At dinner Asuna sat down next to me. I realized that for whatever reason I have of late been a kind of hermit to everyone. I sat in my corner, alone, and ate. I wandered the camp alone.

  She asked, “Are you okay?”

  It was kind of weird. We talked for a little while about nothing in particular. It was just nice just to talk.

  Sept 28th

  I think last night taught me something, so as I had breakfast, actually after my first coffee, tried to get involved in chatting and being a little sociable again. I talked with Teckla and Frank, complemented Nick and Grace on their breakfast efforts and I sat down and ate with Margo and Cody. When Asuna came in, I invited her to sit down with us. I am trying and although at times the conversations and efforts felt forced it was good.