Blue Plague Survival

by Watson, Thomas A

  “We have it Bruce, stay there,” Debbie popped off.

  “If this is a group of runners, they will be on you before half are down,” Bruce informed her.

  “Well, get your ass up here and quit talking,” Debbie replied, making Bruce grin.

  Arriving at the front, Bruce looked down the road to the left. He could see over four hundred yards down the road where it ended in a curve. “Jake set up in the middle of the road. Debbie you and your group get in the ditch on this side, my group the other side,” Bruce told everyone as he moved across the road into the ditch. “Everyone shoot any that try to get in the ditch. Keep them on the road and funnel them to Jake. Buffy you watch our back. Everyone in the house keep working but be ready to leave,” Bruce said kneeling down in the ditch.

  Matt radioed, “They’re almost at the curve.” Bruce kneeled down and told Buffy to watch their back. Raising his rifle to his shoulder, Bruce sighted down the road. He only had to wait a few seconds before seeing the first blues come around the corner. In his scope, he had the distance at four hundred and eighty yards, way out of his range. Just then he heard Jake’s rifle cough and watched one drop.

  Jake ran through his first twenty round magazine fast, dropping eighteen before the entire group had even cleared the curve. Aiming toward the group, Jake would gently squeeze off shots at a steady pace until his bolt locked open. Slamming in another magazine when he ran dry, he just kept squeezing the trigger. When Jake slammed in his third magazine, Bruce brought his rifle up and looked through his scope. He only saw six more blues coming down the road. That was when David called over the radio, “Hey, Jake save some for everyone else.”

  From back at base, Mike came over the radio, “David, shut the hell up. Jake, finish ‘em off.” The mob that had attacked them in the woods was still very fresh in Mike’s mind. Jake dropped the last six in seconds. When Bruce looked back down the road he saw no movement. The closest body was barely three hundred yards away. Jake had started the engagement at over four hundred yards and ended it three hundred yards away. Now this was the kind of fighting Bruce could get used to. He was tired of looking the damn things in the eye.

  Matt reported that nothing was even close to them now. The work crew brought out the stuff and filled the trailer up behind Steve’s truck. Then the work group filled the bed of Mike’s truck with clothes and stuff from the house. Once everything was loaded, they moved to the house that was under construction. Only the frame was up. Several pallets of 2x4’s and plywood were stacked around. They loaded them and opened the steel container beside the house. It was full of plumbing supplies, wire, conduit, screws and nails along with other supplies to build a house. Matt called over and said Raven had to come home for new batteries.

  After hearing that, Bruce spread his security team out. He really wanted another Raven. That kind of blanket over you made you feel good. In two hours, they had loaded up everything they could, not leaving much they needed behind. The Raven was back over head and Matt reported all clear.

  It was 10a.m. when they pulled back into the farm. The excursion had taken less than five hours and Matt had steered them around several groups on the way home. That little airplane was worth its weight in gold to Bruce. With that kind of intelligence, they could avoid a lot of problems.

  As they walked back to the house, Debbie stopped Bruce telling him, “Mike needs to lead the next mission out. If you don’t let him, it will be slap in the face.” Bruce knew Mike could do it, but if it got bad, Mike would think with his head and not his gut. Bruce trusted him with his life and the life of his family but worried about Mike when it got bad.

  When they reached the house, everyone came out to hug them. Bruce turned to Mike “Mike prepare and prep a team by 4p.m. for the next mission,” Bruce told him. The same group was going out except Bruce, Debbie and Jake. Mike, Nancy and Matt would take their place.

  The rest of the day guards in the fort shot blues that moved down the road and warlord shot over a dozen in the east field that had moved off the road. No infected made within a hundred yards of the farm.

  True to form, Mike planned everything down to a tee for his patrol. Before they left the next morning, Bruce hugged them all telling them to stay alert. Mike’s mission was taking him twice as far away from the farm as Bruce’s mission. The group left at 5:30a.m.

  Mike had told them to hold the Raven until they got closer to the scout camp. He wanted it there a few minutes before they got there and to stay on station as long as possible. Bruce just wanted the little plane in the air giving him information. Mike tried to deploy his surveillance to maximize the time overhead on target.

  As the convoy neared the camp, Mike called for the Raven. Jake launched the Raven and flew it towards the camp and spotted a large mob heading toward the group. “Big daddy two, you have a large group heading at you, about fifteen miles away.” Jake reported to Mike.

  “That’s ok, we will be gone in thirty minutes. We will take the alternate route home,” Mike called back. Looking at his Dad standing beside him, Jake sent the little plane down the road as the group pulled into the camp. It was two miles down the road when they saw another mob, this one huge, heading toward the camp. Mike and the group were cut off by two large mobs, one coming from each direction down the road.

  Letting out a string of curses, Bruce called on the radio, “Big daddy two you have another mob coming at you.”

  Bruce paused to make sure Mike heard him as Mike came over the radio, “We have time Bruce, they can run fast, but fifteen miles.”

  Fighting the urge to yell, Bruce calmly keyed the radio, “Mike, shut up and listen. You have a group coming from each direction. The one following you is about a thousand. The one coming from the other way looks close to three thousand and are much closer, like two to three miles.” With that, Mike announced over the radio telling everyone to load up, they were leaving. “Mike you can’t leave. There are too many to drive through. Move your team to the field beside the parking lot and set up a circular defense. Have the heavy weapons hit the blues in the legs and everyone else pop them in the head when they stand up.” Looking at Debbie, Bruce told her to immediately launch the Stryker with the backup team. Mike deployed the team in the field as Bruce and those in mission control watched.

  Not taking his eyes off the monitor, Bruce asked how much longer the Raven could stay on station and Jake replied forty minutes. Well by that time it would be over one way or another Bruce thought. The runners from the larger mob reached the group first and everyone at the farm watched the battle unfold.

  They watched as three people opened up with heavy machine guns making the two hundred plus runners fall and rifle flashes as the group picked them off while they were down. Bruce saw the runners from the smaller mob coming through the parking lot heading down into the field. Bruce called on the radio, “Right flank runners,” because no one had engaged them yet. Then on the screen, Bruce and everyone at the farm, watched someone open up with a heavy machine gun on the right knocking the fifty plus runners down and then the group began picking them off as they crawled toward them.

  When the right flank runners were down, the large mob had made it to the field and the group started to open fire on them. Just then, Bruce saw a tracer race across the screen and told Jake to pan the camera out. The backup Stryker was behind the smaller mob blasting away with the 50 cal. When a 50 caliber bullet hits someone, they explode. With targets this close, each bullet was hitting three to four infected, causing them to just blow up. Bruce called Conner over the radio, “Watch your fire Conner, you have already sent several over their head.” Conner replied he understood. They watched the Stryker blast a path through the infected to drive through. It pulled into the parking lot and down onto the field with the group.

  Bruce called over the radio, “Everyone hold your position and don’t run toward the Stryker and try to leave or you will die.” Conner moved the Stryker beside the team as its M2 completely decimated the advancing blu
es then ran dry. They saw someone pop out of the turret on the monitor reloading the fifty caliber while someone jumped out of the back of the Stryker, opening up with a heavy machine gun on the right side. Once the M2 was reloaded the entire left flank was down and only a few hundred were on the right. The ma deuce or M2 made real short work of them.

  Mike called over the radio, “Everyone load up we are leaving.”

  “Mike you can’t leave, with the noise y’all have made, we won’t be able to leave the farm for weeks. Continue the mission,” Bruce yelled over the radio. They could see no blues walking around them but a lot of infected were crawling in the field but they were not a problem. Bruce told them Raven had to come home now but get what they had gone after. Mike replied he copied.

  Still looking at the monitor, Debbie slapped him on the shoulder. When Bruce put the mic down, Debbie yelled at him, “You tell them to come home now!” Bruce told her to shut up so he could think. Mike radioed back and said they had the trailers loaded. After thinking it over, Bruce told them to head out the direction the large mob had come from, making a large loop to pick up the septic system. Then Bruce told the Stryker team to stay with them. When they reached the house that sold septic systems, finding nobody home, they loaded four systems and equipment from the shop then started home.

  Bruce sent them further out in a loop after seeing a mob building behind them. He then had the Stryker separate from the group telling them the roads to follow. The group pulled into the farm at 5p.m. almost out of ammunition. When the Stryker pulled back into the farm at 7p.m. it was almost out of fuel, having traveled almost three hundred miles.

  With everyone home, Bruce sent the Raven back out to fly a large circle around them. They saw several large groups to the east where the group had been but they were all headed away from them. The closest mob was over twenty miles away and heading south. Only a few scattered infected were even close to the farm. The closest was over a mile away chasing a deer.

  The next morning after the camp raid Mike found Bruce at the kitchen table before the rest of the clan woke up. Plopping down in his chair, Mike told Bruce, “I screwed the pooch on that run.”

  Shaking his head, Bruce stared at him. “How do you figure? You completed the mission and brought everyone home,” Bruce told him.

  “Bruce, I lost control and was just fighting the battle not leading it. Actions like that get people killed,” Mike replied.

  “Brother you might have made a mistake or two but so have I, don’t worry about. Just don’t make the same mistake twice,” Bruce told him.

  Mike replied, “I should have sent the Raven out earlier like you did. Then we would have found the groups before we even got close to the camp. I over planned, Bruce. I don’t want to take another group out.”

  Bruce had just sat there studying his brother and best friend before replying. “Mike, if the drone had been up, we might have found them but the mob could’ve changed direction and hit you elsewhere. Even worse, it might have followed you home. Hind sight is 20/20 and you can’t play ‘what if’ in this game,” Bruce had told him.

  Mike shot back, “Bruce I don’t think I could live with myself if I lost someone. These are our kids and family, not troops in the military. From now on you are in command and I’m your second, the way it’s always been.”

  “Let’s get something straight right here and now. We are going to lose people, probably some of the family, maybe, even you and me. We can only do our best; giving it everything, at all times, taking only manageable risk. Fight battles on our terms or as close to our terms as we can get them. This is the last time you and I will speak of this. If I’m in command, you will lead groups again. Now let’s go over the work schedule,” Bruce had told him. Then they poured over the supplies making list for everyone to complete. Bruce could see from the look on Mike’s face that it was not over but he would fix that later. Bruce could not afford to have Mike sit on the side lines leaving this up to him.

  Sixteen days later at 4:30 a.m. in the morning, Bruce collapsed in his chair at the kitchen table. No one was awake yet, he had even beat Lynn to the kitchen. Looking down at his notepad, he replayed in his mind what they had done over the last two plus weeks.

  It took ten days to get the loft ready for the new members of the clan. Twenty bunk beds lined the walls to the right and left with foot lockers under each bed. At one end of the room was a men’s restroom at the other end a women’s. Each restroom had toilets, showers and sinks, two of each.

  Paul had taken the backhoe to the machine shop and built a shroud lined with insulation over the engine and put a muffler damper on the exhaust. Unless you were within 20 yards, you couldn’t hear the engine. Paul told them he had seen a man do that in Baton Rouge when he was in college studying agriculture. The man had a field beside a suburb and got several noise complaints so he designed a way for his tractors to run quietly. They did tend to overheat so you had to watch the temperature real close in the heat of the day. Bruce and Mike copied his design on the tractor, then on several of the ATV’s. That made the ATV’s very quiet. You could hear the knobby tires before you heard the engine.

  Paul used the backhoe to dig the hole for the septic tanks and the hole for the A/C units for the loft. Then leveled an area to put up the rest of the solar panels that were stored in case of an EMP. Bruce had told everyone that if they were hit with an EMP then it would be back to the pioneer days and they would all die. Intelligence and technology were how they were going to outlast the blues and fight the gangs.

  Bruce shook himself out of his day dream looking down at his note pad for the day’s activities. It was September now, but the heat would stay until November at least. It was not uncommon to wear shorts at Christmas here.

  Today he was leading a group to the Snead farm to give them ten M-4s, twenty Berettas and a SAW all with suppressors. They were also taking thirty thousand rounds of ammunition and NVGs to give them. He had watched the Snead farm with the Raven as it was slowly beginning to turn into a walled camp. They were cutting down trees to build a fence around the house and barn. Bruce could not tell how high the fence was with the Raven but it looked well over ten foot.

  The Raven was sent out two times a day, once in the morning and once at dusk to see what was close before work started and what had been attracted by the work of the day. So far, only sixty-two infected had found the farm and all were shot before making the fence. After the area was called clear, they would take out an electric buggy or modified ATV with a trailer to load the bodies and dump them in the scrap pond. Bruce had seen several alligators in the scrap pond before the plague but after they started throwing in bodies, holy shit. The alligators must have called their friends. Yesterday when they had thrown in the three infected that had been shot he could see several dozen sets of eyes across the water. The alligators must like them because the bodies that had been thrown in over the last few weeks were gone. Bruce just hoped the virus did not affect them, just the idea of an alligator that could run that fast made his skin crawl.

  With that thought, Bruce felt something bump his arm, making him jump. Looking up, Bruce saw Lynn setting down a cup of coffee. She had scared the shit out of him. Bruce told her thank you looking at the clock seeing it was almost 5 a.m. The rest of the clan should be up soon and he knew several were already in the gym. He was going to wait until Mike came down before working out. Breakfast was served at 6:30a.m., after workouts. Everyone listened to the day’s briefing while they ate breakfast.

  Matt and Jake were turning into quite the little intelligence team. Mission control now looked like a true command center. They had put a huge ten by ten foot satellite map of the fifty miles around the farm on the wall marking, infected sightings, moving vehicles, and points of interest, like fuel tanks on local farms and such. They had seen several biker gangs move along Louisiana Highway 1. The range of the Raven after the boys put an antenna on the top of the barn and boosted the signal output was almost forty miles out then it
had to come home. It was not the signal that was the limiting factor now it was the battery life. When they found the limit a few days ago, the Raven did not make it back home but landed on the road a mile from the farm. Bruce and the boys jumped into the beast driving like a bat out of hell to get the precious equipment. The normal range was only line of site or roughly seven miles. Leave it to the two computer geniuses to improve that.

  The next time the boys sent out the Raven, he told them to send it to the dam. Bruce wanted to check out the military check point. Since the check point was twenty miles away it took several trips to video the entire area. At the west end of the dam was a large collection of military and police vehicles. On the north side of the road was a large collection of civilian vehicles. Bodies surrounded the entire site with the largest pile from the road leading to the dam. Nothing other than animals had moved at the scene in the four days they had watched it.

  It was the military vehicles that Bruce wanted, two HEMTTs, three Strykers, four Hummers and one RG-33L. The RG-33L was a monster of a vehicle weighing in at twenty-eight tons, it was a 6x6 mine resistant vehicle or MRAP (mine resistant ambush protected). Twelve troops could sit in the back and look out of bullet resistant windows. The HEMTTs were cargo haulers and both were loaded down, with what, he didn’t know. Also, Bruce knew if the position was overrun then the equipment should still be there lying around. With the clan giving the Snead farm all the extra M-4’s, they needed replacements, and new equipment never hurt anyone. Not to mention, Bruce wanted more toys. Bruce also did not want a gang to take the equipment. He knew there was military equipment lying around everywhere but this was too close and needed to be secured for the clan.

  They would bring back all the military vehicles but if the HEMTTs were loaded with crap then they would leave them. Bruce figured it would take them several hours to gather all the equipment and jump off all the military vehicles. He had called Marcus yesterday and told him to expect company at 8:30a.m. He told Marcus they would call and give him the name of his wife before turning into his farm in case someone was listening on the CB. Marcus said he understood.