Zombies! (Book 7): Still Standing

  They passed through the major cities along the route at night. Men had been sent ahead to set fires and otherwise lure the Zombies away from the tracks to make for safe passage. They made good time through North Carolina. After a night spent sleeping sitting up in the uncomfortable passenger seat the intercom in their cabin came on letting them know that they were approaching the Virginia border. Cracking his neck and stretching his kinked-up back Kyler hoped the married couple he’d let have his sleeper cabin earlier appreciated his sacrifice. The intercom notification that they were approaching their destination was their warning to start gearing up. Kyler thought of it as the time to start getting their game faces on.

  At the rate they were moving they’d be at the drop off point for his platoon sometime in the early afternoon. Kyler was hoping they’d be let out in the woods so they could immediately move towards the first target settlement. If they were dropped off somewhere with a house large enough for him to fit everyone in that gave him some options for killing them all. Now that the moment was getting closer, he wondered if he’d really be able to kill these people in cold blood. How do you murder a bunch of men and women who’ve done nothing wrong and are following your orders?

  He was already trying to figure out ways he could get around killing them all. They didn’t deserve to die. He was wondering if they could disarm them somehow and send them on their way. He was trying hard to figure out a way not to kill fifty people who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Fifty people following orders because otherwise their loved ones back home would be murdered.

  Not able to come up with a plan that made sense he decided to wait and wing it. It was the apocalypse so there was bound to be some sort of horrible option that presented itself. Worse case if he made a bunch of noise, he could attract a bunch of Zombies and send the members of the platoon running in all directions.

  Chapter 23: Second Wind

  “Letting the tweens set the pace isn’t going to cut it.” Bryan said sitting down on the ground beside Randy and Phil.

  “What’s the rush man? Afraid we’ll get there too late for the kids to get to shoot anybody? I’m good with walking into a victory party. It’s not like we haven’t done our part.” Phil said.

  “The ship may leave before we get there.” Bryan answered quietly.

  “The carrier you mean. Where the hell’s it going to go?” Phil asked.

  “They’ve got to have figured something out by now. My guess is they’re just waiting to gather enough supplies to start over on whatever island they’ve decided to take over. A nuclear carrier has enough reactors on it to power a small island for a couple of years. If we don’t get there in time, it’s not like they’re going to wait for us.” Bryan answered.

  “That’s why you’ve been pushing for us to hurry?” Randy asked. He was keeping his voice low. Kelly was a few yards away with the kids helping them divide up a bag of mostly melted gummy bears. It was basically a big rainbow blob that Zoey had found and been begging to eat for a few days now. Kelly was finally relenting against her better judgement. Randy didn’t see the problem. No way anybody was going to die from eating a melted giant gummy blob. The universe wasn’t that cruel.

  “Yeah. I didn’t want to get anybody’s hopes up but that’s the reason. At this rate I don’t think we’ll make it. If the ship hasn’t sailed already then it will soon. Especially with the entire New American army coming at them.” Bryan paused for a second then continued in an even lower voice. “I’m really worried we may get there after the ship’s sailed and it’s just a big Brotherhood party. They’ll be rounding everybody up to throw them in camps.”

  The three of them sat there letting that sink in. All of them coming to the same conclusion. They needed a faster way to get to the naval base in Norfolk. Someone also needed to explain to Kelly why they couldn’t just chill in an abandoned cabin making smores for the next few weeks while everything blew over. Randy took it on himself to do that. Phil and Bryan both listening intently when Randy sat down to try and explain the situation to Kelly.

  “Then we need to turn around and march our way over the mountains to California or somewhere. Even if the ship hasn’t left yet it’s going to be surrounded by men shooting at it. The ships going to be shooting back and launching planes that are going to be lobbing missiles all over the place. The bad guys have drones that can blow up cars. I say we cross this idea off the list and head the other way as fast as we can go.” Kelly whisper yelled at Randy. She wasn’t trying to be loud but everyone in the little clearing could hear everything she said. Bryan and Phil found themselves nodding along with her points. She wasn’t wrong.

  Kelly finished and sat there staring daggers at her husband until she realized the real culprits were the morons sitting on the other side of the clearing. She proceeded to walk past the two warehouse guards and over to Bryan. She stood over him staring down angrily. He returned her stare with one of his own albeit with a slight deer in the headlights look . She looked pretty pissed off. He supposed he would be too if someone was looking to drag his kids into a war zone versus grabbing a car and heading towards bunny rabbits and bon fires.

  “We can turn and go west.” Bryan said quietly. “I’ve thought about it too. It’s not like I’d be able to live with myself if I was the one responsible for anything happening to your girls.”

  “Then why push towards the carrier?” Kelly asked. She’d been ready to argue with Bryan and was thrown off when he seemed to be agreeing with her. She knew there must be a ‘but’ coming along.

  “I’ve been doing the roving patrols all the way to the mountains for the last couple of years now. It’s not getting better out there. It’s getting worse. The Brotherhood is going to own the east coast before too long and start pushing west. They’re already in Tennessee and Alabama. For all we know there are even worse people on the other coast coming this way. We make it to the carrier those girls have a shot at a real life. From what I understand you guys aren’t super popular with the Brotherhood so getting rounded up wouldn’t end well.” Bryan finished his pitch and waited to see what Kelly had to say to that.

  Randy waited for Kelly to process everything so she could tell him what his opinion should be. He liked the idea of getting on the carrier. He thought it was an unrealistic pipe dream, but he did like the idea. He also liked the idea of heading west looking for someplace everyone else had forgotten about. Kelly still hadn’t responded to what Bryan had said.

  “I say we go for it.” Caitlyn whispered. Myriah nodded behind her.

  “Go for what?” Kelly asked her.

  “Go for the ship. If it gets too hard, we turn around and run the other way. It leaves us with options. Plus, do we really want to scrape by alone in the desert somewhere or sail away to help rebuild the world?” Caitlyn said.

  “Did they mail you a pamphlet or something? What do you think babe?” Kelly asked Randy.

  “I think we should go for it. It’s not like any where’s really safe. If we’re going to risk our lives regardless why not go for the biggest reward?” Randy said. He waited to see how Kelly took his response. She looked thoughtful instead of irritated which was a good sign.

  “How do we get there in time without the drones blowing us up or the Brotherhood catching us?” She asked Bryan. Evidently, she’d decided to go with the group on this one but was holding back her verbal approval in case she wanted to change her mind later. They all looked at Bryan expectantly. All of them glad they had someone with military experience there to guide them through this next stage.

  “I honestly have no idea. I was hoping we’d be there already. Phil, you have any ideas?” Bryan asked. Kelly rolled her eyes and sat back down.

  “Planes, trains , cars, hot air balloons, subways, rocket ships, helicopters, walking…” Randy said. He stopped talking when he saw everyone staring at him like he was crazy.

  “We have none of those things.” Phil said.

  “Just brainstorming. Question for you
guys. You said Zombies chased you across the road earlier right through a Brotherhood motorcycle rally. Did they get any of the guys on the bikes?” Randy asked. The brainstorming had jarred loose an idea.

  “No clue. We were too busy hiding in a hole filled with poop.” Bryan said having spotted Zoey and Ali eavesdropping. Zoey giggled and poked Ali who started giggling also. Kelly smiled at the two little girls then held up her finger in a shushing gesture.

  “So, backtrack and check for bikes?” Phil asked.

  “Why bikes? Why not a car or a truck?” Bryan asked. “Driving the girls around on bikes is going to be hard. Do any of you even know how to ride a motorcycle? Hell, I haven’t ridden one in forever. Instead of backtracking to possibly find a couple of bikes with their fuel tanks emptied out on the side of the road I say we look for vehicles in garages somewhere. Four wheelers or a pickup truck would be perfect.”

  No one responded. They were all trying to think of the best way forward. The decisions they were making tonight would impact the rest of their lives. The wrong choice could also impact how long the rest of their lives turned out to be. If they weren’t careful, they’d be frozen into inaction by the weight of it all. They were all familiar with the concept of paralysis by analysis. One of the big reasons they were still alive is that they always kept moving.

  “Moonlights wasting. Let’s go hotwire something.” Randy said standing up. Bryan and Phil stood up as well. Randy stuck his hand down to help Kelly up.

  “You really know how to hotwire a car?” Phil asked Randy. That’d make the next part of the plan so much easier. Poking around musty old garages and rifling through dead people’s pockets were the two ways he was used to finding the keys to get a car running. The only technical piece he was any good at was swapping out the batteries since that was a pretty common chore to get a car going.

  “No clue. I normally look around in the garage for one of those little hook things people hang keys on.” Randy answered a disappointed looking Phil.

  Chapter 24: Tightening the Noose

  Forrest and his team broke into a secure telephone office on the outskirts of a small town. Lugging batteries and laptops and connectors the men rushed inside the concrete building with the AT&T logo emblazoned on it and slammed the door shut behind them. Forrest helped brace the door with a couple of long pieces of wood they’d brought with them. The portable drill was used to quickly secure the broken door to keep out the infected who were following them. Once they’d locked themselves into the windowless building, they started looking for the equipment they were supposed to connect their gear to.

  Forrest was taking a very active role in the operation since half the team was made up of networking IT types. They were having enough problems trying to lug the heavy batteries and other equipment. These weren’t men who’d been bred for the apocalypse. These were the type who really missed twitter and seven-dollar coffees. How most of them had survived this long was a mystery to Forrest. The powers that be in the New American government must have decided they’d need people with networking skills to help with the expansion into other regions.

  The nerds started connecting things and powering stuff on. Lights flashed and a small ruggedized laptop was turned on and connected. In less than an hour the men signaled for Forrest to join them. Forrest walked away from the door that was shaking from at least three Zombies on the outside of the building busily banging away on it. The loud screeches of the infected raking over his ears like nails on a chalkboard. If he died in the vault of this nerd bunker giving Krantz a freakin’ status update he was going to be pissed.

  The technician waited for Forrest to walk over then handed him a pair of headsets to put on. Once Forrest had those on the man started to explain what to type to start the call. Forrest stared at him with one of his eyebrows arched. The man gulped and typed in the command needed to make the call. He pressed enter and waited for the other side to answer. Once he saw Commander Krantz pop up he walked over to the other side of the bunker. The tech kept his eyes on Forrest to see if he needed any additional help. The techie was in awe of the people who’d setup the secret communications hub. The money and manpower and secrecy needed to build the network they were leveraging was beyond impressive.

  “How’s it going up there?” Krantz asked as soon as Forrest finished putting the headset on over his ears.

  “The party’s definitely getting started sir. We’ve got Zombies and settlement soldiers all over us.” Forrest began. He reported everything that’d happened since their last call including the soldiers in the hummers attacking the alpha base and chasing him to the beta base.

  “You got the spec ops guys out to press the attack from the alpha base, right?” Krantz asked. He wanted to make sure that part of the plan was in motion. Those guys were trained to do serious damage to enemy infrastructure. Forrest assured him the majority of those guys seemed to have made it out. He hadn’t heard anything other than the brief transmission during the ambush for sure though.

  “Any intel for us sir? We’ve started interrogating those men we captured. It sounds like the settlements are pushing out to try and slow us down. To keep us from tightening the noose on them. They know they’re getting surrounded. From everything we’ve heard so far the carrier’s still docked.” Forrest stated.

  “No. We just need to keep pushing. The Senator’s already looking past the settlements to how we’ll take the next few states before pushing westwards. I’m hoping the carrier just takes off with our problems aboard it.” Krantz said. He was sipping on coffee in a clean uniform in a nice-looking conference room Forrest noticed. Good for him.

  Krantz took in Forrest’s disheveled appearance. His commanding officer for the field was looking pretty beat up. His face was covered in scratches. The bit of green t-shirt peeking out though his BDUs was stained with what looked like blood. He kept shifting around with a pained expression on his face like something was wrong with his feet. He’d said he was fine though so Krantz hadn’t pressed the point. He wanted to get Forrest off the phone as soon as possible. He could hear the Zombies in the background trying to break into the communications vault. He was all too aware of the extreme comfort he was in while his men were literally dying out in the field. Maybe he should switch these meetings to audio calls.

  “Sounds good sir. I’ll keep the men engaged to keep tightening the noose. What do we do if they don’t sail away sir?” Forrest asked.

  “Let’s just go with them sailing away. The alternative’s pretty messy. I’ll look forward to the call tomorrow. Take care of yourself commander.” Krantz said.

  Krantz clicked the disconnect button on the shiny tablet in the middle of the conference room table. He took another sip of his coffee. He’d fortified it with a generous amount of Crown Royal. At this point he’d stopped even pretending he was anything more than a functional alcoholic. He avoided the inevitable hangover by staying drunk all the time. It helped keep his mind off things like the question Forrest had just asked him. What would they do if the carrier didn’t sail away? Per the Senator they’d kill every single one of the settlers if they didn’t get the hell out of the country.

  Killing women and children didn’t seem to bother the man. The fact that he was relentlessly stripping the honor from his men by asking them to commit those kinds of atrocities didn’t faze him in the least. Lately he was leaving handing out those orders to Krantz. Krantz could’ve delegated that duty as well but he felt like he owed it to the men he was commanding to give the order himself. He tried to stay active since in his downtime he spent way too much time fantasizing about eating his service revolver.

  His call the day before with the Senator had been a really strange one. He’d learned that the bunker up in Georgia the Senator spent a good deal of time at had been destroyed. Destroyed by bombs dropped by a plane launched from the settlements was what all the evidence pointed at. That explained why the Senator was so adamant about taking them out. Where Krantz would be happy if the settle
ment people cruised away the Senator wanted them all dead. The Senator hadn’t come right out and said it but the reason for the radio silence from him had been to see if Krantz had anything to do with the attempt on his life.

  Tom had been observed trying to ping the video equipment in the blown-up base in Georgia. Krantz had to explain why he’d had him do that to keep the Senator from ordering Tom killed. The call had lasted way too long. Krantz hung up thinking the Senator had gotten even crazier. Sam must be feeding his paranoia as evidenced by the Senator knowing Tom even existed. It confirmed to Krantz that the base was crawling with spies. That made sense considering the strategic importance of the hub. No way Sam would allow it to be compromised.