“Thanks for your offer Lieutenant. My wife and I are committed to riding things out here at home. We’ll be fine.”
“Mr. Handsman, sir, you do know what is coming right? You know what’s been going on?”
“We do. Maybe “riding things out” makes it sound like we aren’t being realistic. We know what is coming. We want to be in our own home when it gets here.”
“OK. I understand. I need you to sign this sir, if you please.” I could see in his face he was done thinking about two crazy homeowners too.
He handed me his clipboard. I removed my bloody gloves and took the clipboard to read over. It was a waiver of liability.
Both Ruth Ann and I signed the waiver that said we had refused the government’s offer of “limited liability” sanctuary and if anything happened to us we couldn’t sue for damages.
When I had handed the clipboard back to Lieutenant Mancheski he said, “Maybe you folks are making the right choice. There are too many people at the airport already. There is talk of hordes forming in the Twin Cities, Milwaukee and Illinois. How are we supposed to defend against them?”
He looked exhausted and sad.
“It’ll be OK young man. Things will work out,” Ruth Ann, the kindly woman who had just killed three guys, comforted the man sent to rescue us.
We parted shortly after. The Lieutenant offered “free haul away service” of our four unwanted guests. We did not volunteer the rifle we already stowed in the car and the Guardsmen politely didn’t ask for it. Each of the Humvees left with a mason jar of Ruth Ann’s homemade strawberry preserves.
I want to revisit and expand why Ruth Ann and I had decided days ago that we would refuse every invitation to go for a ride. As I’ve described before, it isn’t that we didn’t trust the government. We didn’t trust our fellow citizens.
Why would we leave? Surrounded by concrete we had more than 1200 square feet of solar electric panels on a flat parapet style roof. Shielded by the parapet wall, we could be on the roof hidden from anyone or anything on ground level.
The solar array fed battery storage in the basement. Used judiciously, power was not a problem.
We are on well and septic. The water pump only took 600 watts. We could top off the bathtubs, sinks and other containers each day without killing our power budget. We use stored water rather than the taps for routine usage.
Next to the solar panels, Ruth Ann kept a small greenhouse useable all year round. She grew various greens, onions and a barrel full of potatoes. These were hardy, resource efficient and mostly self-sustaining crops.
We stored up a large amount of homemade canned goods. We had all the survival food we recently purchased in addition to stores we had accumulated over the years. A prudent California family keeps some emergency food in case of earthquakes. A nervous California family keeps a lot of emergency food in case of earthquakes.
The garage, front, back and sliding doors were all commercial grade and set in steel frames. One too many break-ins experienced as a child convinced me of the value of investing in doors that would stand up to baseball bats. The first floor windows were fakes and the upstairs windows had shutters and were out of reach.
If something can be used as a weapon, Wisconsin had a dedicated hunting season just for it. We had three guns in the house, now four, with plenty of ammunition. Ruth Ann was her high school’s varsity archery team captain. We even had Ruth Ann’s brother’s black powder musket, (but with no black powder, it would be useful only as a club).
With eight day / night security cameras around the perimeter of the house, we had great ‘situational awareness.” The cameras were hooked up to an SSD-based DVR. The whole system consumed less power than a hundred watt light bulb. In fact, with regard to technology, we could be our own big box store. Add tablets, WIFI, phones (the WIFI on them worked even with cell service gone) to the Pi’s, we had an enormous low power information processing capacity. I was not sure how all the IT would translate in this dead new world but at least we’d be able to keep up our skills launching birds at pigs.
We trusted each other, Ruth Ann and I, more than we trusted a few thousand strangers. Inside our house, we had the opportunity for self-determination. In a camp, we would be members of a herd. If this seems nakedly arrogant, call us “flawed protagonists.” Every person who has ever started or helped start a business suffers from the same flaw.
Today (Day 16) the radio update said the Wisconsin seat of government had relocated to a naval vessel in Lake Michigan. Planning was underway to fold the state government into a Midwestern super-authority to better coordinate resources in the region. This made a lot of sense as there was a massive duplication of disarray among the dysfunctional state governments and military commands.
Martial law would be formally declared across the country on Monday. Guard troops of all branches plus state and local law enforcement would be federalized. If there were protests about the suspension of state’s rights, we didn’t hear about it from the government run radio update.
In international news, the Vatican (as was all of Rome) had been declared lost. A different kind of mass was being held in St. Peter’s Square now.
The military command channel was now joined with the public safety dispatch channel on the police scanner. A few of the tactical channels were patched together as well. What we heard was not promising.
In the evening, the safe zone at Chippewa Valley Regional Airport was declared closed to new refugees. Patrols outside the defensive perimeter were stopped. There was no need to go out looking for the enemy any more. The enemy came to them.
The defensive line roughly followed the airport’s own preexisting fencing. The chain link would not hold for very long when hundreds let alone thousands of undead began pressing in on it. Concertina wire added to the fence was a waste of good concertina wire. The undead would be unfazed by cuts but perhaps might be caught up in it long enough to be shot. Soldiers manned barricades made variously of sandbags, concrete barriers or both. This was a waste of time. Zombies don’t shoot back but could swarm around and over low defenses of this sort.
A different kind of enemy means different kinds of defensive measures. The defenders of Chippewa Valley Regional weren’t equipped nor did they have time to erect a proper defensive line. It could be a slaughter in the making.
On Saturday (Day 17), Ruth Ann and I couldn’t resist temptation any longer and the hypocrisy was palpable. Archimedes had it wrong. He should have said,
“Give me a desire strong enough and a rationalization on which to base it and I will move the world.”
Three of our neighbor’s homes were open to nature, having already been violated by the looters we dispatched. For safety’s sake, we decided to visit only the Olson house because it was closest. We didn’t know the people well, but they were neighbors, right? And their house was already broken into, right? Bottom line, we were sure we wouldn’t shoot at us like we shot at five men for doing almost the same thing we were about to do now.
Both of us armed, we drove the car around the corner to our neighbor to the east. Ruth Ann stood watch while I searched the home. In retrospect, I was foolish in that I just walked around normally inside the house, revolver still in my pocket. We hadn’t seen yet how deviously a “dumb zombie” could hide. I found a number of blankets, bed sheets, bungee cords and other, what I would consider practical, things. I noted that the previous looters had torn apart our neighbor’s entertainment center. With them dead, there was an Xbox sitting idle somewhere. There were some dry and canned goods left, which I also took.
We spent much of the rest of the day checking and rechecking inventories and mechanical systems. Ruth Ann drilled me on handling our various weapons. She took apart all four firearms for cleaning, oiling where necessary and reassembly. Ruth Ann also thoroughly tested the “new” rifle. She said it might be a more convenient weapon for me to use than her own hunting rifle as hers was bolt action and this one was semi-automatic.
The radio update said an invasion of Door County had begun. Door County is a spit of land sticking out into Lake Michigan. Surrounded on three sides by the lake and even further south by a river system, it had a relatively narrow entrance.
Starting with Washington Island at the northeast tip of the county, Army and Marine Corps units are going to go door to door combing every inch of ground heading southwest like squeezing a tube of toothpaste. Their aim is to leave no undead or infected person behind their advancing line.
The radio broadcast on Sunday (Day 18), gave an update on the progress of the Washington Island campaign. It said that despite slow progress initially, the military was adapting and developing more effective tactics for dealing with this new type of fight. Our forces had control of the Washington Island Airport and were working to improve its capabilities. The commanders on the ground believed the entire island would be secure enough by the end of the next day to begin construction of refugee facilities.
Refugees still on the move were now warned away from safe zones and advised to seek the best hiding positions they could find. Safe zones were in fact attracting masses of undead. Zones without protective terrain were in increasing danger of being overrun. With operations now underway to completely disinfect islands and peninsulas, staying put (if relatively safe to do so) was increasingly a better option.
A new segment was added to the broadcast: advice. If the phone systems were working, it might have been a call-in show. The progression of the sickness was discussed as well as purifying water and best practices for killing zombies. Tips about zombie behavior were given.
Interestingly, the advice on the best places to seek refuge included being in a concrete structure far from a river or lake and not near major highways. In fact, structures of any kind near major highways were to be avoided because they were easy routes for mindless eating machines to follow. The dead were massing in larger and larger numbers. Shorelines were to be avoided because they were obstacles and caused the dead to bunch up. A concrete structure in the middle of nowhere was best.
Like right here at home.
Ruth Ann and I listened to our police scanner for long periods. Military and civilian law enforcement radio channels were trunked together to provide a common communication network permitting us to listen in to most traffic. The safe zone was heading downhill.
It was common now to hear weapons fire during transmissions. Sometimes we heard heavy machine guns. The strategy was still to defend the airfield to permit the commencement of evacuations. Tactics improved a bit but the defensive perimeter was simply too long for the forces they had. Helicopter gunships began operations at the airfield. Ruth Ann and I could see moving shapes above the field in our binoculars when we looked east from our roof. That evening as the sun was setting, we saw lines of light extend from points in the sky which raced to the ground.
On Monday (Day 19), the news from Door County was good. Supplies from ships in Lake Michigan and hence out to the Atlantic were being ferried into the small harbor facing Rock Island. Construction of the first “truly safe” large refugee center in the Midwest had begun. The full-scale invasion of Door County proper was started. Because the area had been lightly populated to begin with, and with improving tactics, casualties among our troops was said to be minimal.
The Federal government finally declared martial law as expected this day. Seven states including Wisconsin were collapsed into the Midwest Administrative Zone. Wisconsin’s controversial governor was finally out of a job. Running the Administrative zone was a military function.
The Air National Guard and civilian volunteer pilots started airlifting refugees out of Chippewa Valley Regional. It was clear the safe zone was going to fall. The only uncertainty was if its defenders could hold it together long enough to get everyone out.
Helicopters brought in a newly developed adaptation to this new type of enemy: the portable pillbox. Recognizing the crudeness of the zombie assault and that all immobile defensive positions will ultimately be overrun, the devices are portable steel boxes carrying an enormous amount of ammunition feeding a light weight battery operated Gatling gun, the GAU-19.
These were the same guns, but mounted on helicopters, that shot so quickly they made the continuous streams of light we saw last night.
The pillbox had a hook assembly on top. When the gun jammed or ran out of ammunition, a helicopter came along and whisked it away. If the box was overrun, the gunners were safe inside out of arm’s and harm’s reach. A rescue helicopter ‘simply” needed to sweep away any ghouls covering the hook assembly which could be snagged if the box was upright or on its side.
Simple, safe and effective.
And in too short of supply. Exotic weapons such as these Gatling guns had to be spread across the country. No new ones were going to be made for a while.
I had an idea today to allow Ruth Ann and me to remain in contact with one another if we were separated (but in or near the house). Having walkie-talkies or those little FRS radios would have been better but as a Secretary of Defense once said, “You go to the zombie apocalypse with the tech you have not the tech you want.” Of course Donald Rumsfeld didn’t say exactly that, but the meaning is similar.
I took one of the Raspberry Pi’s out and set it up to be an email server on our house network. Now, all of our WIFI devices including our phones can send and receive email as long as the device is connected to the house network. This was the first email system I’d been on since the early 1980’s where I was confident of not receiving any messages from the widows of deposed oil ministers or persons with an overly large interest in my male parts.
On Tuesday (Day 20), things were terminally grim at the safe zone at Chippewa Valley Regional Airport. Over our police scanner we heard that evacuations continued by plane until it was unsafe to operate aircraft from the main runway for fear of actually ramming undead walkers on the field. Another defensive line closer to the river was organized. Those remaining in the zone were ferried across the Chippewa River to farms on the other side. Evacuation by helicopter continued from the farms. When the last civilians had been airlifted out, a convoy of trucks and Humvees carrying the remaining troops and portable equipment slipped onto Wisconsin 29 and left the area.
Our police scanner was quiet after that. As far as Ruth Ann and I knew for sure, we were the last humans in this part of Wisconsin. We didn’t do much of anything today other than listen to the scanner even after it went silent. We were depressed. We argued about nothings. We spent the remains of the day in different parts of the house.
It is Wednesday (Day 21). We found out today where the next capital of the United States of America will be. Puerto Rico. And like the abandoned District of Columbia, Puerto Rico still won’t get to be a state.
According to the national section on today’s broadcast, a task force comprised of much of our country’s returning European, African and Central Asian based forces have converged on the island’s eastern end along with forces already to sea in the Atlantic.
There was no activity anywhere on our police scanner today. There were still digital bursts happening up in the ham radio bands but we had no way of knowing where in the world they came from or what they said.
We felt very alone today. Perhaps more so than any other day described in this book. While the Chippewa Valley Regional camp existed, it was like they were neighbors just over the hill and through the dale. We couldn’t see them but we knew they were there. Now they’re gone.
It wasn’t shocking that the safe zone had failed. Never the less, that it had failed was a big blow.
Hippies and liberals had an age old question answered today, Thursday (Day 22). During the international news segment of the daily update we learned that North Korea nuked Seoul, South Korea and then invaded their neighbor. The question that had been answered was “What if you threw a nuclear war and nobody showed up?”
North Korea’s use of a nuclear weapon evoked no response at all. If, by “no response,” o
ne overlooks the opening of the border for the undead to go north. There hadn’t been a single case of infection in the isolated north until they figured they would seize the opportunity to grab the south. We can be certain that the results were not what the dear leader had in mind.
Troops in Puerto Rico were finding rough going in trying to disinfect an island of more than three million people. Puerto Rico had forewarning of the outbreak so relatively few cases developed there.
“Relatively few” in this case meant only a fifty percent mortality rate compared to more than ninety percent in other densely populated areas. Isolating living humans long enough to ensure they were not infected grew to be one of the force’s largest tasks.
Closer to home, our forces were making steady progress through the lightly populated area of northern Door County above Sturgeon Bay. Reaching Sturgeon Bay would be a milestone as the county is split in two there by a natural waterway and canal. Once Sturgeon Bay was secure, more than a hundred square miles of beautiful land would be available to host refugees.
Closer to home there were no sounds emitted by the police scanner again today. Ruth Ann and I were resigned that we would not be hearing anything more from it until Johnny came marching home again.
Would we still be alive to hear it?
We took stock of our supplies and situation feeling the strong tug of self-doubt. Certainly, there was no alternative now but to stay put. Supplies were fine, water and electrical systems were working. Hell, we had some bargain basement DVDs still in shrink wrap and dozens of books we hadn’t read.
And we had each other.
All day.
All night.
We were sick of each other frankly.
On Friday (Day 23), the weather continued its inexorable march towards deep freeze. We didn’t mind too much as we had a constantly livable temperature in the basement and some electricity to run small heaters. That and plenty of layers kept us comfortable.
Get Off My L@wn - A Zombie Novel Page 4