by J. L. Bourne
I could see the creatures standing in and around the team’s RHIB, seemingly waiting for them to return. A large percentage of the landmass had been nuked. The effects of large-scale radiation on the creatures is likely still not understood by anyone, or at least anyone I know of.
I received another cable from John today—more chess moves. The first pair of numbers was intuitive, but the second series was like another I received a few days ago—strange.
Along with the mystery numbers was a question. “Read Tunnel in the Sky?”
Actually I had. I sent Crusow (the man running the Arctic Outpost relay operation) a reply, and we talked a bit afterward. Crusow was my usual contact when I conducted the relays.
Late one night, Crusow and I switched to a higher alternate and clearer frequency and had a conversation about our past and the events that led up to now. Crusow told a harrowing story of recent capers at the bottom of a cliff near the outpost, and how they lost another man as a result of a thawed corpse. The story was disturbing, but did give valuable insight on the undead. Crusow was beginning to seriously worry about his survival up there. His fuel states were running low but he’d taken gruesome measures to produce more. Only four souls remained at Outpost Four with one very sick and close to death as Crusow described.
John seems in good spirits, Crusow informs me. Crusow passes that John says Tara is well also. Even though the vast distance has disabled voice comms in all but the most perfect atmospheric conditions, this is still better than nothing, and keeps me going.
About to catch some shut-eye, Saien is already sawing logs in the bunk below.
37
Hotel 23—Southeast Texas
The four-man team had been out twice since Doc and Billy’s encounter with the river of undead. They were lucky on the first excursion; they didn’t encounter more than a dozen creatures, easily enough for two men to handle under the cover of darkness. The team hadn’t seen the sun since the days before parachuting into the Texas wasteland. Despite that Remote Six had not shown itself thus far, the broken bee stinger of Project Hurricane still remained where it originally impacted, partially destroyed by Warthog GAU-8 cannons weeks ago. This was a daily reminder to the team, an obelisk of warning that they were not alone.
Hawse and Disco grew restless, prompting Doc to let them have the second outing. They followed the same procedure—no radio calls, and stick to the planned route.
The coordinates were a bust, and the drop was gone, or had never even existed. Hawse and Disco decided to scavenge the area on the way back so that the mission wouldn’t be a total loss. They recovered a twelve-volt battery charger, a twelve-volt air pump, some painkillers, and a crossbow with ten bolts. That was it.
They ran into trouble during one of their stops, forcing the mission to go a little longer than expected. Hawse convinced Disco that they should scavenge a home that sat a quarter mile off the main road. The damaged home had visible solar panels and expensive SUVs parked in front—probably rookie preppers with money. Through their optics, they observed that one wing of the home was burned, indicating abandonment or possibly siege. They hopped the fence and approached cautiously, intending to verify abandonment before entering through the damaged McMansion wing. They both hoped that this would be a rescue operation instead of justified theft.
Approaching the wing, they saw charred skeletons scattered about. The corpse nearest the house was also burned, but some flesh still remained. It lay facedown, wearing a military surplus flamethrower. The fuel reservoir on its back was damaged; jagged parts of the tank pointed outward. They neared the corpse.
It began to move.
The creature’s head cocked sideways at the two. Its eyes were burned out, but it somehow sensed their presence. It tried to crawl but what was left of its lower body was buried in rubble and ash. Hawse approached close enough to kill it with his knife. He saw that the creature wore a leather bandolier of ammunition across its chest.
“Looter?” he said.
“Not sure, maybe. Let’s get this over with,” Disco said.
“The walls aren’t as damaged as I thought, we’ll need to get in somewhere else,” said Hawse.
They walked around to the front. The home was much larger than it appeared from the road. There were bullet holes in places, concentrated around the window frames. The front porch was littered with tarnished brass, most of it 7.62x39. AK-47 or SKS, Hawse thought. The screen door sat near the front door, torn from its hinges, covered in grime. A sign hung on the front door.
INSURED BY 1911
“Looks like they needed a better insurance policy,” Hawse said.
“Yeah, something like that.”
Hawse reached for the knob and began to turn. The door was unlocked. He paused, listening.
Nothing.
Hawse turned the knob and pushed the door inward. He caught a glimpse of something, a small wire, just as the door swung open.
Ping
A familiar sound. Both men instinctively dived from the porch onto the ground, and covered their ears before the explosion.
Booby trap.
The ground was two feet below the plane of the grenade detonation. Disco suffered only minor splinter injury from the damaged porch. They both heard the moans as soon as their ears stopped ringing. The sounds came from behind the house. There must have been dozens, maybe a hundred back there.
Hawse and Disco hoofed it back to Hotel 23, pursued by a respectable horde of undead. They beat the creatures, and the sun, barely.
The third outing was an operational order coming from the carrier, and required vehicle transport. Doc and Disco were to acquire transportation and meet another team for supply pickup and intelligence exchange. The other team was stationed at Galveston Island, ninety miles east of Hotel 23. Both teams would split the mileage and meet at midnight at a bridge on a county road spanning the Brazos River. They would each bring high explosives as a precaution, providing them the ability to deal with a sizable undead mass. If a swarm pursued either team, they would rig the bridge and call it even on the safe side.
On the night of the mission, Doc and Disco checked and re-checked their gear. They had a fully charged car battery—heavy but essential in starting a long-dead vehicle. They also had two gallons of good stabilized fuel that Hawse had scavenged on the previous mission.
Forty-five miles on foot would be a death sentence; there was no doubt that a vehicle would be an absolute requirement. There was only one type that would give them the speed and power they needed with two gallons of fuel—a motorcycle.
• • •
Both men said their good-byes to Billy and Hawse and closed the hatch behind them. They moved east to the nearest road, eyes open for vehicle possibilities. The weight of the car battery and fuel pulled heavily on their backs as they tried to keep a good pace. Their NODs had fresh batteries, and the stars lit the cool December night quite well.
The first prospect they found appeared to be a winner. A black Kawasaki KLR 650 sat parked on its kickstand between two cars. There was no undead movement in the immediate area, so the two decided to make a move on the bike. Doc led and kept his carbine high, adjusting his optic brightness to his NODs. The bike’s tires were low. The men modified the twelve-volt air pump with alligator clips so that they could connect it directly to the car battery they had with them. There were drawbacks, as the modified battery-powered air pump made a hell of a lot of noise.
There was no point in pumping the tires if the engine wouldn’t start. They checked the oil via the window on the right side of the engine. Probably old, but it would work. The keys were missing but these bikes didn’t have overly complicated ignition systems. Disco was able to defeat the ignition and the gas cap with his multi-tool and some ingenuity. The bike battery was confirmed dead—no surprise to Doc. He was a motorcycle rider and every time he returned from deployment, he would need to charge the damn battery, even after some of the shorter, ninety-day detachments.
Re
aching under the headlight, Disco snipped the wires for light discipline. He did the same for the brake lights and turn signals as they were often accidentally activated while riding. They poured a quarter gallon of fuel into the tank and shook the frame, sloshing the good gas in with whatever was left in the tank. Looking inside, Disco could see that it was about half full. They’d need more at some point in the night. Disco checked the tank switch, verifying it was switched on.
They ripped the plastic side panels off, revealing the dead bike battery, so they could quickly attach the alligator clips from the charged battery. The bike had a choke, so Doc preemptively pulled the lever; it would need it after sitting out in the elements this long. They decided to air the tires and start the engine simultaneously. Both would make noise, so they might as well save time. Before they began either, Disco took point and started the watch—they would definitely attract undesirables now. The tires were not completely flat but would need a lot of air to support their combined weight and keep the motorcycle stable.
“Okay, Disco, here goes,” Doc said quietly, attaching the clips from the charged battery to the dead motorcycle. Nothing happened, Doc thought. Then he remembered—gotta push the starter button. He depressed it and the engine cranked over but didn’t start. He repeated for a minute or two, adjusting the choke lever. He also managed to air both tires in between attempts.
The engine started to show promise. Doc was not startled by the sudden sound of Disco’s suppressed carbine—the dead were near. The engine finally started fully, prompting Doc to remove the clips and stow the car battery in the side pannier compartment of the bike. The dead were still blinded by the darkness, reacting to Disco’s carbine. What Doc wouldn’t give for a huge pack of Black Cat firecrackers to toss down the highway. He adjusted the choke lever and the bike began to sputter, but soon adapted to the new setting, growling with health.
“Get on, bitch!” Doc said to Disco.
Disco didn’t seem to care; he worried more about the approaching mob. They jutted forward as it began to get crowded on the road. Doc called back to Disco to go over the memorized directions again. They had forty-three highway miles to clear with a fuel stop somewhere in between.
The road was as they expected, cluttered with debris and abandoned cars and the undead. They had to move at least thirty miles per hour, or the engine sound would draw the undead to the road ahead of them. All along the way they noticed the details of desperation. SUVs that had attempted to go around traffic jams and were stuck in medians; cars flipped over, burned out, and filled with undead. Ambulances sitting, back doors wide open, with undead strapped to gurneys. Huge, unserviced potholes were also a menace to them on the motorcycle. If they had been riding a sport bike, they would have already dumped it in the numerous foot-deep holes in the road.
At the top of a hill, they saw a fuel truck jackknifed at ninety degrees with mostly flat tires. There were bullet holes in the cab, but the tank trailer appeared undamaged.
Doc remained on the bike, keeping it running. Putting the kickstand down would activate the engine cutoff, and Doc didn’t trust the battery. Not worth it to take any chances.
“Disco, knock that tank and let’s see if there’s any juice. I’ll cover.”
Doc fought the bike into neutral—a difficult task while the engine ran—activating the bright green light on the display panel of the bike. The light burned out his NODs for a moment. Doc covered the light with his glove while Disco checked the tanker.
“She’s got gas, man!”
“Okay, what are you waiting for then?”
Disco started the transfer process. Hopefully the fuel sitting in the tanker had not gone bad. The bike didn’t have a gauge on the panel so they were guessing at this point. Doc reached down to the reserve lever to make sure it wasn’t actuated. He wanted a failsafe.
Using a piece of hose he cut from the trailer, Disco was able to siphon gas from the tank access. He filled the fuel can up, topped the bike off, and then filled the can once more. The markings on the tanker did not indicate whether or not the fuel was mixed with ethanol additives, important for the shelf life. Disco closed the access and suggested that Doc mark this wreckage on the map. Slightly relieved, and with fuel concerns out of the way, they reset their odometer and kept riding to the bridge between them and Galveston Island.
38
USS George Washington
“How far along am I?” Tara asked Jan.
“Well, hon, it looks like you’re fast departing your first trimester and everything is looking great,” Jan said, presenting her most positive tone as she examined the ultrasound image. Onscreen, the baby was deceptively large. Its actual size was a little larger than a grape.
“I’m going to tell him.”
“You sure about that? He probably has a lot going on right now. He’s not expected back until February. Tell you what, why don’t you sleep on it tonight and then, if you think you need to tell him, ask John to send the message tomorrow. Whatcha think?”
“I think that sleeping on it is always a good idea. I’m just so excited. It’s that, well, this is the most positive thing to happen to me since before. Since before . . . you know.”
“I know, honey. You don’t have to say it, I know. I’m excited for you, too. Can I ask you something personal?”
“Sure, I mean of course,” Tara said, almost annoyed that Jan would even need to ask.
“Why didn’t you tell him before he left? You knew already. Maybe it wasn’t official, but you knew. Why not then?”
“I don’t know; it just didn’t feel right. With so much loss, so many gone—I felt that if I told him, we’d lose the baby. Don’t ask me why. I know it’s a terrible thing to say, but the only thing we have left to hold on to is life, what little is still out there. I didn’t want to jinx it, I guess.” Tara frowned and then started to cry.
“It’s okay. Let it out. You’re pregnant, this is allowed. You’ll be in your second trimester when he gets back. Here are some prenatal vitamins and this book to read up on in the time being. Get excited, you’re going to be a mom. Believe it or not, you’re the only one onboard that’s pregnant. At least the only one I know of.”
“Jan, I can’t thank you enough.”
“Don’t, I’m here. We’ve been through a lot. I’ll be here for you when you need me. I mean it.”
“Thanks, anyway.”
“I want to see you every week to monitor your progress and make sure you’re okay, got it?”
“Yeah, I got it,” Tara replied with a Mona Lisa smile.
39
Southeast Texas
The road was a desolate, unforgiving place. Doc and Disco rode the long curled highway as if on the back of a giant black eel. The continuous potholes, debris, and hulks of abandoned cars and trucks caused near-accidents at every turn. They were not far from their rally point now—a bridge named by the Galveston Island team as the halfway point. Keeping an eye on his odometer, Doc realized that Galveston might have gotten the better end of the deal. The bike trip meter read fifty-five miles when the two men crested the hill that overlooked the bridge spanning the Brazos River.
Doc squeezed the front disc brake, stepping on the rear brake simultaneously, jerking the dual sport bike to an abrupt stop. Both men looked down the hill to the bridge, where they could clearly see muzzle flash erupting from unsuppressed weapons. The flash was like lightning, revealing a hundred creatures clearly engaging the gunmen on the bridge. Doc hoped that the men down there were not the men they were supposed to meet, but he knew that their luck had run out back at the fuel truck.
“Let’s ride up and shoot at two hundred meters,” Doc said over his shoulder to Disco.
“Yeah, two hundred meters, and lean the bike against something to keep it running.”
Doc rode the bike down the hill, turned it around, and leaned it in neutral against the sandbag barrier of an old pill box from a time when the living outnumbered the undead and men were still fighting,
not hiding.
“Okay, Disco, fire at will. Check your six every five rounds and I’ll do the same, staggering on your count.”
“Roger, boss, engaging.”
Both men began to surgically target the heads of the creatures below, using the other group’s muzzle flash to avoid fratricide. It was a game of timing and speed. If both teams hurried, they could neutralize the mass of dead before more replaced them, responding to the unsuppressed report of the weapons on the bridge.
Suppressors dramatically reduced undead response radius, meaning less reaction on Doc’s position. Unsuppressed weapons extended the response radius exponentially, reducing the ability to escape before undead reinforcements arrived to replace the fallen. It paid to be fast, and they were.
It took seven minutes of constant shooting by both the hill crest and bridge valley teams to clear the hundred or so undead. After the last creature dropped, Doc and Disco sprinted down the hill to a scene of carnage. Only one man remained standing out of the three-man bridge team. The others were dead or dying from mortal wounds.
They had also arrived on motorcycles.
“Let’s get this over with. Those were my friends,” the survivor said to Doc right before moving over to his mortally wounded comrade, administering his last rites.
He whispered a good-bye and took a bloody piece of paper from the dying man before shooting him in the head at point-blank range. He didn’t face them for a moment, but eventually turned in their direction, face flooded with tears.
“You guys are from the silo?” the survivor asked.
The sounds told of more dead approaching.
“Yeah, listen, we’re sorry about . . .” Disco offered.
“Save it, I don’t want to hear it. Those bikes were theirs,” the man said, gesturing over to the dirtbikes leaning against the guardrail of the bridge. “Take ’em. They’re full of gas.”