by Germann, Tom
Sue couldn’t wait. “So, what happened and where are all the rest of the survivors?”
Caisson didn’t stop looking at his hands. “Someone hit this place a while ago. Hard to say when I’m not some sort of super tracking guy. I’m gonna guess a week ago maybe. Can’t even go off the bodies. See, someone came in shooting then blew and burned everything up. There are no useable supplies here so I am gonna say they came in shooting, looted the place then burned it all to cover up as they drove away.”
Sue stared up at Caisson. “That’s nuts. There were close to fifty soldiers here and they were armed. How could something like this have happened? Did the infected do it? Or some sort of gang?”
Caisson shrugged. “I dunno. I can’t see any gangs coming through here being that well-armed unless they had access to military hardware. Gangs tend not to be disciplined. Same if it was another military unit that skipped out. Most of the gear was missing as well, food, water, ammunition. There was nothing useful here at all. So, I just don’t know. To let people get that close to you in a setup like this, it would have to be someone they expected or trusted. What got me was most of the vehicles were missing. The buses and there should have been a fuel truck. Most of the stuff that is sitting there is civvie. At least based on what we were told.”
All their guessing was done for now as the lead vehicle jerked and slowly started rolling forward with a clashing of gears.
The radio clicked on and directions were confirmed. The convoy slowly rolled out heading for the next outpost.
Behind them the dead slowly shuffled along from the first outpost.
While the outpost and surrounding area was burnt out the loud grinding of the lead vehicles gears carried. Further away bodies started shifting and slowly moving. From slumped over positions in alleys or on the floor of an apartment. The bodies moved, drawn toward the sound of life and movement.
The dead moved slowly but they did move.
OUTPOST FOUR
T
he convoy had slowly moved out and headed for Outpost Four. The drive should have been straightforward taking no more than ten minutes. They were close to the outpost when the road was blocked ahead.
A major collision involving a delivery truck and several other vehicles had completely blocked the road before the intersection.
The vehicles sat rumbling quietly while Wagner looked at the maps for an alternate route. The blockage wasn’t marked on the map but given the poor condition of the vehicles had been there for a good while.
They were going to have to backtrack then head away from the city centre for at least two blocks before they could work around main streets and back on path.
“Wagner, the wrecks aren’t on the map. We’re going to work our way back and around the area. The last briefs were the main roads were clear but most side streets or secondary networks weren’t. So, do not try to take any fast shortcuts. I don’t want us stuck. Clear?”
Both other vehicles confirmed then they backed out to the last intersection and carefully turned heading out of the city.
The dead were walking and the rear vehicle hit one that was close then drove over it crushing it. As they pulled forward it was possible to see the zombie, its legs shattered and a tread mark on its chest from where the vehicle had backed over it. But they had missed its head and they could see its arms waving around as the vehicles drove off.
As they drove along the alternate route they started seeing more and undead slowly walking toward them.
They knew the best answer was to drive on instead of stopping and shooting them down. Noise would just bring more of them.
As they headed out of the city they found several more blockages each one pushing them further out. Eventually after a ten-minute drive they found a clear main road and carried on toward the next outpost.
Once they had found the road, the crew commanders had counted upward of a hundred zombies walking after them.
As soon as they came to the clear road they could accelerate away and left the gathering group staggering around behind them.
When they pulled up to the spot on the map it was obvious this had been an outpost like all the others.
This one was in an industrial area. Not the huge factories on the outskirts of the city but smaller factories. The map indicated that the site had been used to make door panels for several different models of cars in the last few years.
When they stopped, what they saw was like the last outpost. There had been a fire and it had been bad. There were more vehicles here but again no school buses or large trucks.
The vehicles had stopped outside of the parking lot again. There was just too much wreckage strewn around and everyone was dreading somehow damaging a vehicle.
Wagner and the other two hopped out of their vehicles quickly and moved in a search pattern over the parking area.
Even the outside layout was similar.
The three men paused then headed into the building. They were back out again in a minute and moved quickly to the vehicles.
It looked like Wagner had something slung over his shoulder and he walked back with his head down and his rifle held loosely in his other hand. He slung the rifle before climbing the outside of the vehicle
Around the stationary vehicles, it was possible to see figures moving toward them in the distance.
The three men climbed back into their vehicles. Inside his command vehicle Major Wagner carefully placed his weapon into a clip in the turret. At the same time, he just dropped what he had carried out slung over his shoulder and it clanged to the floor of the recce vehicle.
He grabbed the hatch and closed it up hard. Even with the rubber seal around the hatch there was another louder clang and he threw the lever securing the hatch. He took the painfully small seat and looked out the forward vision slit.
He brought the walkie talkie to his mouth and started talking.
“Major Wagner,” his voice was heavy and tired, “the outpost had the same thing happen as last time. Someone shot the shit out of it and killed the troops here. Too many supplies are missing from here so they were raided. But this time they were in a rush or were sloppy. The fire didn’t take inside. I could grab a bandolier with some pistol mags from the body of one of the officers. Everything else was gone or too badly damaged. Let’s get the hell out of here. One of these outposts must have survived. Out.”
Wagner clicked the radio off.
After a second the lead vehicle slowly started rolling away followed by the other two.
There was no conversation between the vehicles just a growing sense of doom.
The first outpost had been a carefully laid trap to get them killed and while they had easily survived with a bit of help from Sue and Tracy, finding the next few outposts completely destroyed did nothing to help the mood.
As they drove, the shapes moving in the early morning light in the distance as the dead struggled to move and follow the first live people who had been through in days or possibly weeks hammered home what they were facing.
As the convoy turned left at the end of the street the feeling of gloom was broken.
“Holy shit! Eyes right as you come to the intersection!”
Caisson’s voice came on immediately. “Caisson, watch your comms procedure. We must know who said what and saw what. So, ID and talk. Over.”
“Vajjer, there must be a couple hundred zombies coming from the right. I guess they could make it past the accident. Over.”
The rest of the vehicles turned left after the first vehicle. Everyone could see the dead with outstretched hands slowly coming toward them. As they ‘saw’ and ‘heard’ the vehicles the dead started moving faster. The first zombie was just able to touch the third vehicle as it slowed for the turn but was left behind as the vehicles picked up speed.
“Wagner. I would say it was well over two hundred zombies. I also saw lots of movement around us back there. There were a lot more coming. Since we m
ake so much noise we are going to pull everything in hearing distance along with us. We must move a bit faster. When we stop, we get out, do a quick recce, then bug out. I am hopeful at least one of the outposts must have survived. Everyone just stay calm. Confirm, over.”
“Caisson, confirm, over”
“Vajjer, confirm. Sir, what do you mean one of the outposts must have survived? Maybe a small army came along then gunned down everyone. They may have cleared out most of the city except for just the few following us. Over”
Major Wagner laughed while they sped down the road toward the next outpost. He had pressed the walkie talkie switch and his laughter carried over the channel. “Wagner. In the orders the CO gave me he stated that ‘light indiscriminate fire had been heard in the distance occasionally, as of a rifle firing’. Whoever did this targeted the outposts. It was an army. They knew the outposts were there and were getting extra supplies and vehicles to get out of the city. I bet you the last armoured column that went out met up with whoever it was and rolled out of the city to someplace else they knew about. None of the REMFs back there were invited along. So they must have missed someone. You can pull a fast one a few times but the more times you do it the more likely someone else catches on. There are survivors out here hiding. They just may not trust us enough to come out and say hi. Wagner out.”
SIGNS OF LIFE
T
he drive to the outpost was uneventful. The loud diesel engines made it hard to hear inside the vehicles and the inside was turning into a sauna. Even in the early morning with the sun just starting to really rise in the sky it was brutal outside. Almost everyone had finished off their second canteen and the crews were thankful they had brought jerry cans of water inside the vehicles.
The next outpost was located as most of them were, near a grocery store. On the map, there was a small warehouse and power distribution network for the neighbourhood there.
As they drove into the area they could see huge batteries of solar panels on top of several buildings.
Every building seemed to have some. Mostly used for heating water they also generated excess power used in the local area where they were set up in.
The solar panels in place here were much larger and the network of cables seemed more complex.
As they pulled around the front of the grocery store, Caisson in the lead vehicle saw movement on the warehouse rooftop ahead of them.
There was a man in uniform jumping up and down to get attention. Caisson rotated the turret so the machine gun was clearly pointing off to the side then moved the weapon up and down several times. He left the barrel facing as far down as he could then went back to watching the man.
He had stopped jumping around and was now pointing downward with both arms toward a large roll-up door at the side of the building.
Caisson gave directions to his driver and as they came to the door it quickly creaked open just enough to let the vehicle in. They drove quickly in and the other two followed.
As the last vehicle entered the door clanged down behind them.
The vehicles had entered a long narrow room with workbenches to the side and mechanics trenches in the centre. At the far end was another roll up door but there were no other vehicles in the building. The work area only took up one side of the building and with not much space. It was not well lit but there were several skylights above allowing in enough light to see another man standing by the far door. In uniform pants and a t-shirt, he was waving his hand across his face.
“Caisson, kill the engines. We don’t want to call the zombies to the building, over”
The rumble of the three vehicles engines died off quickly.
“Wagner I’ll head out and see what the story is. Stay buttoned up.”
He opened the top hatch and climbed out carefully closing the hatch which he heard being secured behind him.
He was standing in a large vehicle bay poorly lit by a few dirty windows high on the wall. The air had a musty smell to it made worse by the heat.
There were workbenches and tool boxes against the wall and there were tools all over.
At the far end of the room was a small door with a dirty glass window in it. While he had been standing on top of the vehicle looking around and before he had time to climb down the door had opened and a smaller man had come in. He waited by the door.
Wagner climbed down the side of the vehicle careful not to burn his hands on the armour. He could hear the ticking from the hot vehicle.
When he was down he walked over to the man standing in the dark. When he got closer he could see he was wearing uniform pants and boots but he had a dirty white t-shirt on instead of anything army issued.
The small man started speaking quickly.
“Hi, Sir. I’m Corporal Hentz. I was, or am a cook and I was pushed forward to join the companies when we got here and I am mighty glad to see you.”
The Corporal looked nervous. No. Terrified.
He hadn’t come to attention and saluted or demonstrated any real military discipline.
Wagner smiled.
“Glad to see you Corporal. We just made it into the city yesterday and the CO sent us out on recce to find the outposts then get everyone ready. The last train will be in tomorrow then we are all leaving and heading for the Refuge. So how many of you are there and do you have transport so you can get to headquarters early tomorrow morning? Or tonight if you want?””
The Corporal shook his head.
“We ain’t got no vehicles to go anywhere sir. We were part of one of the local outposts that was set up then collecting people and any vehicles were there. So we can’t drive anywhere and none of us are qualified to drive anyway. Do you have room in those tanks? Or are you sending vehicles tomorrow, Sir?”
Taking a deep breath Wager smiled before continuing.
“So where is your outpost, Corporal? Why are you here and are there more of you? We saw someone else on the rooftop waving.”
“Yes sir. It was Private Jeffries. He’s real smart. Thought it would be good to get someone’s attention cause we’re running out of food and we need to be quiet cause the infected are all over out there. Mostly just sleeping.”
Before Wagner could ask anything else the Corporal seemed to perk up.
“Is it just you coming out of the tanks sir? You only have a pistol? Why don’t we go and meet with Private Jeffries and he can explain everything?”
Wagner paused. This would be an easy way to ambush him then have a hostage but none of this made sense and they needed to leave sooner rather than later.
“You know what Corporal? It sounds like a good idea. I only have my forty-five and three magazines. Why don’t you take me to Private Jeffries so he can explain? I’m going to tell my driver I’m going and that they should wait so no one gets worried okay?”
Corporal Hentz bobbed his head quickly and Wagner walked back to the vehicle. He spoke clearly into the vision slit letting them know he was going in then he turned and walked into the building.
The crews sat in their vehicles and waited for just under twenty minutes before Wagner came back out and mounted up.
He was terse over the radio and they fired up their engines and backed out as soon as the large roll-up door started opening on its own.
As soon as they were rolling forward to the next outpost Vajjer was on the line.
“Vajjer. So, what’s the story? Everything okay? Talk, oh leadership sir.”
Wagner’s snort of laughter could be heard over the line. His voice grew serious while he passed on what had happened to this group of survivors.
“There were five of them out on a patrol in the local area. They were seen by a large group of infected and chased into a building where they hid after fighting. Two of them had been bit and turned. They locked them into a room and left them secured. The third one just disappeared. They thought maybe he snapped and was trying to go home to his family somewhere in the city. So, the last t
wo were going to start working their way back to their outpost but there was a lot of infected activity and it was taking much longer. A few days ago, they saw a convoy of vehicles including some army trucks and two tanks like ours, heading for their outpost. They tried to get their attention but it didn’t work. Half an hour later they heard lots of shooting then saw the smoke.”
Wagner paused and uncapping his canteen took a deep drink, sealed it, then continued.
“They made it back to the outpost and saw infected everywhere and everyone was dead and the place burned to the ground. They had four rifles and the ammunition so they turned around and tried working their way back to another outpost or base. Then they found some other survivors. I think there are seven of them. They weren’t all in the room and they weren’t very trusting. They weren’t pointing their weapons at me but they had them ready to use and there were three people there armed. I asked them about the people driving the trucks and tanks and was told they were dressed like army people. I’ve marked their location down on the map and we’ll have to make sure they are picked up tomorrow even though I don’t think they need it. They look like they have full store rooms of food there. I think this is a distribution point for the local grocery stores. So off we go to the next outpost. Any questions? Over.”
No one had any and the convoy rolled off to the next marked spot on the map.
OUTPOST FIVE
T
he drive to the next outpost was quiet.
It was obvious there were more dead moving toward them from side streets and from behind. With all the shifting around it wasn’t possible to count but a quick guess put the total well into the hundreds and climbing.