Kyler and Ritz were running side by side through the forest when the bombs hit. The flight had been held up as the pilot tried to raise the chief on the radio. Unable to successfully raise the chief the pilot made the call to lock onto the transponders and let fly. Saying a quick prayer, he flipped the toggle switches and watched as the massive bombs began their descent. He slowed to be able to verify the bombs actually detonated.
The navigational computer in the bombs latched onto the transponders guiding the massive ordinance to the target. Once there the bombs buried themselves deep in the earth above the bunker. Once they’d settled, they exploded with a deep and resonating bass. High in the air the pilot could’ve sworn he saw the air shift invisibly as the sound wave traveled through it. Close behind the sound wave came the wave of debris flung into the sky by the energy released from the two bunker busters. The elevator shaft leading from the cabin down into the bunker was immediately crushed. The soldiers in the elevator were crushed before they even had time to notice anything was wrong.
Deep underground the bunker cracked. Dirt and water poured in. Explosive shock waves ripped through the earth shattering everything they slammed into. All of the cabling and piping that supported life in the bunkers was destroyed. The secondary tunnel leading to the surface for emergencies collapsed in on itself. A few people survived the initial explosion. They lived off the mountains of supplies in the parts of the bunker they could still access. They breathed bad air in the darkness until they finally succumbed. The pilot banked and flew north radioing ahead to confirm the strikes looked good but that he’d been unable to raise the ground forces to confirm the target had been in the structure.
Kyler and Ritz dug themselves out of the tree that’d fallen on top of them. All around them trees were lying on the ground. The earth itself had reared up and sent waves into the forest surrounding the site of the explosion. Like a rock dropped into a pond the ripples had gone out concentrically heaving trees and rocks into the air. Zombies had been tossed off their feet as well. Kyler looked out through the pine needles lining the branches he’d just crawled out from under. Ritz crawled up beside him to look out as well.
Judging by how horrible Ritz looked Kyler figured he must look like death warmed over. The tree limbs around them began to sway as Zombies rose to their feet and began jostling around. They were trying to locate the prey their hazy memories were telling them was somewhere nearby. Zombies who’d been closer to the blast site started showing up with their eyes and ears bleeding. A few had their eyeballs literally hanging out of the empty sockets. Kyler couldn’t hear anything beyond a distant ringing in his ears. If his ears had been working, he’d have noted the massive roar of Zombies running though the forest towards the source of the massively powerful explosion.
Seeing there was nowhere for them to go Kyler sat down on the ground beside Ritz. They sat with their backs to the rough trunk of the tree that’d narrowly missed killing both of them. The pine needle covered branches formed a shelter over the top of them keeping the Zombies at bay for now. Kyler suddenly found himself feeling extremely dizzy. His arm was soaking wet. He put his head down on his chest and passed out.
He woke up when Ritz tried to feed him a couple of pills. His pack was lying open on the ground. His right shoulder and arm were throbbing painfully. He wasn’t wearing a shirt at all. His clothes had been shoved in a pile down by the bottom of the little pine straw shelter they were huddled in. Ritz had been doing some sort of surgery on his arm. He swallowed the pills Ritz was trying to get him to take then washed them down with a big swallow from the canteen Ritz held up to his lips.
He still couldn’t hear much more than a high-pitched ringing noise in his ears. Some other sounds were slowly starting to filter through. Ritz must’ve given him the good stuff. The pain in his arm seemed to melt away. He put his head back against the tree trunk to sleep some more. It wasn’t like there was anything they could do until it got dark. Considering his physical state there may not even be anything they could do once it got dark unless Ritz decided to leave him there. Kyler fell back asleep thinking that no matter how much his arm hurt at least he wasn’t dead.
The next time he woke up it was dark. It was so dark he panicked at first thinking he may have lost his sight along with his hearing. Getting himself under control he marveled for a moment that he could hear again. Even though the only sounds he heard out in the darkness were horrifying it was still gratifying to be able to hear them. He assumed Ritz was sleeping. It wasn’t like they could’ve whipped out a game of monopoly to pass away the time. There wasn’t even much use in one of them standing guard. If a Zombie found them and screeched, then they were dead. The only thing they could really do was cower behind the thin wall of pine needles and hope none of the infected chose to crawl in to try and spend the night in the same small space they were currently occupying.
He was in plenty of pain, but he was hesitant to take any more pills. He had no desire to overdose and make everything even more complicated. On the other hand, he’d much rather sleep through the healing process than endure the pain. He tried moving all the fingers on the impacted hand. He was relieved to determine each of his fingers seemed to be working the way they should. He thought about waking Ritz until he realized there was no safe way for them to communicate. They couldn’t even type messages out on tablets to show each other for fear of the light being seen through the pine needles. Hopefully they’d be able to work out a good way to communicate in the morning so that they could come up with a plan.
He really needed to know how messed up his arm was. That was going to impact how soon they could reasonably make a run for it. Operationally they were in no hurry. The rest of their team was dead. There was no extraction point for them to get back too. There was nowhere for a plane to land in this forest and they were too far away to risk a helicopter extraction. They’d all known it was a one-way ticket when they’d boarded the plane. The idea was that if they survived the attack on the bunker, they’d murder their way back to rejoin the settlements.
The whole team together could’ve wreaked some serious havoc on supply lines and such while proceeding northwards. As it was now Kyler and Ritz would be stuck hiding in the fallen pine tree wreckage until at least the next night. It’d take that long for the local Zombies to calm down enough for them to have a chance at being able to sneak past them. This was all assuming Kyler didn’t contract some kind of weird arm infection. Hopefully the massive doses of antibiotics Ritz had given him while he was out of it would kill any infections off. He must have a fairly strong constitution considering how many times he’d suffered life threatening wounds in completely unsanitary conditions and managed to walk away.
Kyler sat in the darkness cringing every time he heard a noise. He sat there until the pain and tiredness finally got to him. He tried to sleep but he couldn’t get comfortable leaning against the tree trunk with his arm all messed up. He just about wet himself when a pair of hands suddenly clamped down on his shoulder. When the hands weren’t followed by a set of teeth biting into him, he relaxed. Ritz gave him another round of pills then wrapped him up in a blanket to try and get him more comfortable. He shoved a bunch of pine straw over for Kyler to be able to recline on.
Once that was done there was absolutely nothing else either of them could accomplish in the darkness. Knowing they needed to rest in order to be more alert during the day when the Zombies may be more actively poking into the tree branches Ritz went back to sleep. Kyler didn’t think he’d be able to fall asleep, but the medicine eventually worked its magic. His last conscious thought being that he hoped he didn’t wake up with a Zombie munching on him. That was going to become a recurring nightmare after seeing the way his teammate had gone out.
Chapter 11: Back to Reality
Being stuck under a tarp on the hard deck of a boat trying to keep kids quiet all day sucks. Kelly even tried handing out Benadryl like it was skittles, but nothing seemed to do the trick. The kids just cou
ldn’t sleep for that long. Especially not when there were screaming monsters running by them constantly. The warehouse fire was miles away, but enough ammunition was still exploding periodically to make it sound like the Alamo after Santa Ana had decided to stop screwing around.
So far all of the Zombies had been fixated on running up the bank towards the sounds coming from the warehouse. None of them had stopped to try and figure out why a couple of pontoon boats with tarps covering them occasionally emitted human like sounds. The occasional groan of pain from the guy who’d lost half his butt cheek to the flying molten metal, a quickly stifled sneeze, snoring, and the occasional noises made by children being asked to contain their childishness for way too long. It was almost impossible for a large group of people to remain completely silent for a long period of time.
If there hadn’t been a giant, exploding warehouse right up the road Kelly would’ve been a lot more concerned. As it was, she just wanted the sun to hurry up and dip behind the horizon. She wanted the warehouse to run out of noise makers. After the island paradise they’d been on this return to reality was a hard slap in the face. Keeping the kids quiet was made even harder by the fact that they’d gotten out of practice back on the island. Noise discipline was a learned trait requiring constant practice. She was paying now for that lapse.
The screaming Zombies were an excellent reminder of why it was important to maintain that noise discipline. As the day wore on the faint staccato pops from the overheated ammunition exploding at the distant warehouse finally ground to a halt. Once that’d stopped the steady stream of Zombies wound down as well. By the time the air started to cool down and the sun dropped lower in the sky there weren’t any infected visible from the boats.
They’d established a couple of places around the boats where it was possible to peek out to see what was going on. These spots were normally taken up by the guards but when they weren’t there anyone could look out. Looking out now you could see that the Zombies weren’t visible anymore. That was one of those good news, bad news kind of observations. The good news was there weren’t so many Zombies outside the boat anymore. The bad news was that given the sheer volume of Zombies that’d tromped by it was highly doubtful there wasn’t a pile of Zombies holed up somewhere between them and the supplies they needed to get to.
Frank had been a busy beaver during the daylight downtime. He’d whipped out his handy dandy notebook and written out instructions for everyone. He’d also provided an overall agenda for the next few days. Kelly thought about writing something along the lines of “man plans, god laughs” on the top of it and handing it back to him. He seemed like the kind of guy who needed to have a plan though. She guessed it beat the normal approach of running really fast until a bunch of Zombies showed up and you had to hide for a while. Which was what most plans boiled down to these days.
The plan wasn’t overly detailed on what they would do once they made it to the vehicles. At that point it just turned into the standard drive and shoot and hope you didn’t die before you make it to the settlement kind of scenario. The plan for once the sun went down today though was meticulous and well thought out. It had a timeline as to when they’d send people to collect the supplies from the warehouse and a roster of who’d be going. It listed in order the items to be taken from the warehouse.
Truck batteries and keys were at the top of the list. Kelly assumed that meant the batteries and keys for the vehicles that were hidden over by the interstate. They must’ve disabled those and hidden the components here. That explained why Frank had been so adamant about them needing to raid the supplies at this secondary warehouse before continuing. Gas containers and weapons were next on the list. Medical supplies came before food and water. It was almost guaranteed they were going to run into trouble on the way out of there. Food and water shouldn’t be a big deal if they were able to make good time. If they got swarmed by a herd and had to hide in the vehicles for a day or two though then not having water would rapidly become an issue.
Overall, she was fine with the list of supplies they were supposed to get. It was who was supposed to get them that had her raising her eyebrows. Randy had been added to the second phase of runners to carry back the supplies. Kelly understood they all needed to pitch in and help to make the operation successful, but she thought it was pretty presumptuous of Frank to assume he could just include them in the plan without even asking. She was getting herself all worked up over Randy being sent out when she questioned herself on why it bothered her so much. Mulling that over she came to the uncomfortable conclusion that it was more about Randy than Frank.
Randy hadn’t been having the best luck lately in the field. The last couple of times she’d let him out of her sight he’d almost gotten himself killed each time. It didn’t help that Randy hadn’t seemed bothered at all when she showed him the piece of paper with his name on it. He’d been more concerned with how much stuff he was going to have to carry. She’d reminded him there’d be plenty of things out there trying to kill him while he was pushing a dolly full of batteries down the road. He’d just kissed her and closed his eyes to try and squeeze in one more nap before having to get to work.
A comprehensive plan well executed is a beautiful thing. The problem is that plans tended to unravel quickly in the apocalypse. It wasn’t like their enemy was rational. The Zombies temperaments ranged from the burn outs who just stood there staring at you to the wildly insane adrenalized ones that came at you going a million miles per hours out of nowhere. In the midst of all that chaos there were a lot of random variables that tended to hose up even the most well-conceived operations. Randy really hoped this mission would prove to be the exception to the rule. All they had to do was go about a quarter of a mile up a service road, grab a bunch of stuff out of a warehouse and then load it back on the boat. How hard could it be?
Once Frank deemed it dark enough to get started the tarps were pulled back and carefully stowed away. A man stood at the bow of each boat pulling on the rope to slowly bring the boats up to the docks. Once beside the dock the boats were secured in a way that’d make them easy to untie for a quick getaway if needed. Kelly was shown how to untie the knot so that she could do it quickly if needed. It wasn’t the biggest role in the operation, but she was determined not to mess it up. If the men came back with Zombies tearing after them then how fast she got it untied could mean the difference between life or death.
The man with the burnt bum was in charge of the rope on the other boat. Everyone else geared up and vanished quietly into the night. Randy gave each of the girls a quick kiss before leaving. Kelly hated watching him leave. She was trying to be optimistic he might be able to pull this off without almost getting himself killed.
In an attempt to avoid attracting any unwanted attention the men split into different groups at the end of the dock. Randy was in the second group that’d be traveling up to the warehouse. The first group was responsible for recon and getting the warehouse opened up for the subsequent teams. They’d post up at the warehouse and guard the area as everyone was loading up. Once the other groups all left, they’d grab whatever was left from the list and carry it back to the boats. Bryan was leading that group. His team noticeably smaller since the ill-fated trip to get Kyler up to headquarters to report in.
Randy and the other men in his group waited nervously at the end of the dock while the first group headed up the small blacktop road leading into the woods. Randy held his new rifle in his hand. There’d been a weapons cache on the island that he’d been allowed to raid during their stay. He’d talked Frank into letting them take enough to be able to properly defend themselves. Frank had initially acted like Randy had asked him to hand over his first born but eventually relented.
Randy nervously checked to make sure the safety was turned off. In the darkness he couldn’t tell if it was set correctly or not. The new rifle he was carrying felt odd in his hands. He hoped he didn’t have any reason to use it on this mission. He’d acted like this was no big d
eal in front of Kelly, but his heart had been thumping like crazy ever since he found out he was going to be one of the ones making the supply run. It wasn’t like his wife was the only one who’d noticed his recent run of horrible luck. Randy was acutely aware that he hadn’t been making the best decisions lately. He needed to get back into the survival warrior groove and he needed to do it soon.
The timer in Franks head counted down to where he needed it to be. Without any indication to the rest of the team he started walking up the road. Randy and the others hurried to fall in behind him. Eyes scanning all around them in the darkness they moved as a group up the road towards the warehouse. The lack of any noise from in front of them was reassuring. If the advance team had run into something, they’d have more than likely made some noise taking care of it. The silence was golden.
Clouds obscured the mostly full moon. That was nice since a general apocalyptic rule of thumb was if you couldn’t see the Zombies then they probably couldn’t see you either. Sight wasn’t the sense any of them were currently worried about though. Sound carried way too far in this new normal. The Zombies didn’t need to see you to know there was a human around. Any unnatural noise triggered their predatorial brains to look for prey. If the Zombies heard something, they’d be screaming their way over in no time. With as many people as they had headed up to the warehouse it was inevitable that there was going to be some sort of run in with Zombies at some point.
Zombies! (Book 7): Still Standing Page 9