The bird lifted off but stayed low and slow as it edged away from us. We realized they were leaving a noise trail heading away from the house to help draw creatures away from where they landed. A few hundred yards away they zoomed up and were gone.
We came down from the roof to retrieve the case. The deck door was a mess of streaks. We both put on nitrile gloves, opened the door and wiped down the case with disinfectant. I don’t care what the radio said; I wasn’t taking chances with our lives unnecessarily. We cut off the plastic wrap. A printed label was taped across the case’s latch.
“By opening this case you acknowledge that it and its contents remain the property of the Department of Homeland Security and will be returned immediately upon request. Any unauthorized use of this equipment will be punished to the fullest extent possible under criminal law including but not limited to five years imprisonment and fines of not more than $250,000.”
It was good to see our government still had its sense of humor.
We brought the case inside and locked up the deck door. We opened the case. Inside was a printed sheet on top of an instruction manual, which in turn rested on a Motorola tactical radio. The printed sheet said we were call sign “Christmas Tree.” We would be contacted by “Lambeau Field” at 1800 hours, not too long from now. We were to use preset one. Preset two, we were instructed, was to be used only in emergencies. I wondered aloud if being surrounded by two million walking dead qualified as being worthy of preset two. There was also a power cord and what appeared to be an optional external antenna. It looked optional because there was an antenna looking thing already attached to the unit but I couldn’t be sure.
We wiped down everything in the case with disinfectant. Looking at the back of the unit there was a receptacle that matched one end of the other antenna marked “External Antenna (Optional).” That settled that question.
We plugged in the unit but kept it off as we were unsure of its power draw (we found that later in the manual). We distractedly ate our dinner and waited for six PM to arrive. Just before six, we powered the unit up. A green two line LCD display glowed saying we were on preset one.
At the stroke of 1800 hours the speaker came alive.
“Lambeau Field calling Christmas Tree. This is Lambeau Field calling Christmas Tree, over.”
“This is Christmas Tree. Can you hear us… over?”
“Affirmative Christmas Tree. Please state the last four digits of your social security number.”
Huh?
“Why do you want my social security number?”
I told Ruth Ann that if they asked for a credit card I was tossing the radio off the deck.
“It is a formality Christmas Tree. We try to identify and keep track of survivors.”
I gave them the last four digits of my national ID number.
“Thank you Christmas Tree. Is Mrs. Christmas Tree also with you?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you Christmas Tree. Are you aware of any other survivors in your area?”
“Yes. We found the son of our neighbors across the road to the northwest. He is in our garage until we’re sure he isn’t sick.”
“Thank you Christmas Tree. Please hold for your handler.”
“OK. Can you stop saying thank you all the time? You sound like a cable company call center.”
“Thank you Christmas Tree. One moment please.”
A new voice came over the speaker.
“Christmas Tree, I will be your contact. You can call me Frank.”
“Hi, Frank. Sorry about that call center crack. Mrs. Christmas Tree and I are a little freaked out about the horde coming our way.”
“That’s partly why we’re reaching out to you Christmas Tree. What we know of your structure suggests you might survive. We have some advice for you to increase your chances.”
“We’re listening, Frank.”
“First it is imperative you destroy the stairs to your deck. Preferably, you should take down the whole thing. I am looking at photos of your house right now; you cannot risk a horde pressing against a sliding glass door. Can you do that Christmas Tree?”
“That’s been worrying us too Frank. We’ll find a way.” Photos of our house?
“Second, it is important that you brace your garage door. It faces the direction of the horde’s march. The door has sufficient surface area to permit enough Zeke’s to press against it potentially causing it to fail.”
I thought about how to do this for a moment but came up with nothing. Ruth Ann shrugged as well when I shook my head at her.
“We don’t know how we’ll do that Frank.”
“If you have a vehicle inside the garage, back it up against the inside of the door and engage the parking brake. This will provide support.”
“That’s a good idea. It sounds like this has come up before.”
“It has Christmas Tree. You say you found a survivor, the son of your neighbors to the northwest? Would that be the house whose roof our folks saw you on the other day?”
“Yes.”
“That’s good to hear. We’ll make a note. Say, there is something you can do for us Christmas Tree. You have enough IR to be lit up like, well, a Christmas tree, hence your call sign. We assume you have cameras?”
“Yes, Frank we have eight.”
“Good. There is a network port on the radio. We want you to jack us into your cameras. I’m told the procedure is simple for a person with your background. The manual contains the information you’ll need.”
“I’ll check it out. Say Frank? Don’t you want to call me Walter?”
We heard a chuckle.
“OK Walter, you know you’re the first person to pick up on that.”
I looked up at Ruth Ann and told her that if I can be Cary Grant, she must be Leslie Caron.
“Walter, use preset 2 only for emergencies. If you need to contact me for more routine business, use present 1, OK?”
“OK, Frank. I’ll probably call you if I get the cameras connected to confirm you are receiving. Say, are you really at Lambeau Field? The radio updates haven’t said anything about troops reaching that far.”
“Someday soon, Walter. Someday soon. Lambeau Field out.”
Ruth Ann turned to me and said, “It’ll be a sweet day when there are cheese heads back in Lambeau.”
“I bet you and I have moved up a lot on the season ticket waiting list. Rough way to do it. Wouldn’t it be great if the first game we played was against the Bears?”
“That would be great. I bet you I know the first thing that every true Packer fan will think when it happens,” Ruth Ann’s native Wisconsin background was showing.
“What’s that?”
“After further review, the Bears still suck.”
We ate our dinner. Then I read the appropriate sections of the radio manual. It would be straightforward to give Frank a feed of still pictures from our security cameras. Best of all, the entire radio is digital so I could send data and still use the device as a radio at the same time.
I hooked up the Ethernet port to the house network and saw it pick up an IP address automatically as I expected. All I had to do was write some scripts to grab stills from the DVR’s own web server and scp them to the radio. A mode on the radio told it to transmit then delete any file copied to it. I didn’t have to worry about how to send it or where, that was all pre-programmed in the radio.
I cobbled together the scripts and verified with Lambeau Field that they were getting two 640 x 400 JPEG images per second. In total each camera sent one picture every four seconds.
Writing scripts was a welcome diversion. For me it was a brief return to “normal.”
Later we went to the roof for a few minutes of chores before dark. I dusted the solar panels to rid them of the dirt kicked up by the Blackhawk. Ruth Ann policed the area collecting spent cartridges and other assorted crap. The greenhouse was closed up tight to conserve heat rising from an opened duct leading up from the basement, a poor man’s geo
thermal heating.
We went back downstairs. I checked on Ryan. He said he was “fine.” I told him he might hear some noise from a military operation that was expected to begin at any time.
Today’s update broadcast said the next Twin Cities thinning operation would be this evening. We figured the horde had reached the Red Cedar River by now and was beginning to bunch up.
Ruth Ann and I went back to the roof to see what we could. The commencement of the thinning operation announced itself with distinct sounds of explosions. Unlike the previous night, these could be readily seen and heard. There were definitely closer.
As a horde comes against a natural obstacle such as Lake Menomin and the Red Cedar River it starts to bunch up before ultimately finding a way over or around.
Killing the dead is way more difficult than killing the living. Except to help increase the rate of decay (a long-term benefit), an otherwise traumatic injury is as good as a miss. Blowing an arm off or creating a gaping hole in a zombie’s chest doesn’t even slow him down. Destroying the brain stem is the only means of putting it down for good. To kill creatures in large numbers you have to pack them together to get a bigger bang from your bomb.
As soon as it was concluded that the creatures rotted over time, the “National Command Authority” determined to limit the destruction of strategic infrastructure where possible. If the dead could be reduced in numbers, thinned, so as not to pose an imminent risk to refugee centers the armed forces used a strategy of defense-in-depth.
There would be no nukes on American soil like in some of the pre-war fiction books I had read. Major bridges and the like would be spared unless absolutely necessary. In fact, major bridges were useful in keeping hordes bunched up longer. Bridges acted as escape valves keeping the horde on the other side moving forward slowly instead of fanning out. Without the escape valve to funnel a horde in a predictable direction, there would be no guarantee of keeping it together.
The sounds and glows of explosions and fires were most intense in the direction of Menominee. We were certain the buildings on the western bank of the unfrozen Red Cedar River were ablaze. Over the next few hours explosions and fires ranged further and further to the north and south of Interstate 94. We thought we heard a steady drone of jet engines that was quite different from the sound of fighters we had seen at airshows. These sounded more like jumbo jets. Judging from an enormous spike in explosions and flames, large amounts of explosives were being dropped west of Menominee WI.
A bridge like the one on Hudson Road might be sacrificed to keep the horde bunched up longer but the main highway’s bridge would be left standing. Eventually the horde would cross but not without being confined as long as possible where bombs and missiles could do the most good.
Nothing could be left alive out there. Unfortunately, leaving nothing alive was no longer sufficient.
The pounding went on for hours. Ruth Ann and I stayed on the roof until we were too cold. The wind really picked up and carried with it the smell of burning wood and a strong scent of something that was repulsive.
We made sure the house was shut down to its lowest level of functioning with the new addition of the tactical radio. We checked on Ryan once more and wished him a good night. He was holding up “fine.” His voice conveyed no hint of sickness.
It was chilly upstairs at night though with plenty of blankets and covers we could still make do if we wanted to. We felt a lot more comfortable upstairs even with the windows blacked out than our first floor or basement. With a big day tomorrow though, we decided to sleep in the basement where it was warmer and no sound or vibration could reach us.
After we rose Monday morning (Day 33), we discussed what we needed to get done for the day. A horde of nearly two million undead was to pass through our area by late afternoon. The horde would cover a big area so we had no way of knowing what the density of the dead would be at our location. From the radio updates and the warnings Frank gave us the day before, the density would be high enough that just pushing and shoving could threaten the integrity of our garage door and the heavy-duty super-duper premium patio door.
“Too bad we don’t have a chainsaw,” I said over a hot cup of tea.
“Why, do you want to go all “Doom” on the zombies?”
“As fun as that may sound,” I said sarcastically, “we could really use one to take down the deck.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to take down just the stairs?”
“We don’t really have the tools. I think it will actually be easier to tear the whole thing down taking the stairs down with it.”
“Frank did say it would be better to get rid of the whole thing. He sounded like he knows what he’s talking about.” Ruth Ann said.
“Plus, getting rid of the deck gives us better views on cameras one and two. The problem remains, how do we get it down?”
“Ryan has a 4x4. Maybe it has a winch.”
“If he doesn’t have a winch that kind of car usually has a towing hitch or heavy duty bumpers. We have rope we can tie around the legs of the deck and drag them out from underneath.” This seemed like a good solution.
We talked about letting Ryan out of the garage early. We wanted him to stay in there for a full 24 hours, which would be early afternoon. However, we needed his help now.
I looked directly into Ruth Ann’s eyes and asked, “If he looks sick at all, if he’s sweating or has puffy eyes, a runny nose, anything; we agree we’ll kill him right?”
She looked at me. Then she looked through me.
“Ruth Ann? We can’t take a chance. If he’s sick we kill him where he stands. OK?”
“And by “we” you mean me again, right?”
I nodded.
We didn’t have to rouse Ryan from slumber. He sounded awake and alert which made us hopeful we would not go near the decision we had just made. Ruth Ann held the carbine in a ready position.
“Ryan, we have some TP for you. Stand away from the door and we’ll toss it in.” We discussed not telling Ryan we were checking him out to determine whether he lived or died. Some things are best left unsaid. In truth, I wasn’t even holding toilet paper. I was holding the snub-nosed revolver.
“Tell us when you’re on the other side of the garage.”
“I’m fine. What’s the big deal?”
“There’s no big deal. We are just being careful for ourselves, OK. You can understand that, right?”
“Yeah, it’s OK. This was way nicer than what they do in the camps.”
We heard movement in the garage away from the door. His voice sounded more distant when he said “Fine. I’m ready.” One more “fine” out of him I’d have shot Ryan if he was sick or not.
I unbolted the door, carefully listening for movement while I did so. I turned to Ruth Ann and she nodded. I opened the door. Ryan was near the garage door across the room from us. He was in the clean clothes we had put out for him but obviously needed some soap and a sponge bath. His color was normal. No sweating, no redness in his eyes, no sign of sickness.
I turned to Ruth Ann who was hidden from Ryan’s view, nodded, and said it was OK. Ruth Ann stepped to the doorway keeping the carbine obscured by the wall.
“Actually Ryan,” she said. “We have decided to end your “quarantine” a little early. We have been in touch with the authorities in Door County. A Blackhawk landed right outside, you probably heard it. They gave us a radio. There are almost two million zombies due to walk through here this afternoon. We could use your help to get ready.”
Ryan’s eyes got big when he heard that. I was still on guard – as his eyes got big, they were clear and sharp.
“Did you talk to them about me?”
“We told them a neighbor’s son was here. It sounded like they didn’t want to use names. They said they’d make a note of you being here.”
I wondered if he was expressing concern for the horde or that we had talked to Lambeau Field about him. We still didn’t know why he left there.
&nb
sp; “Oh, OK – that’s great. Can I have some real breakfast? I’m kind of tired of energy bars.”
“Sure. Come on. Do you like tea?” I said as we moved to let the first person other than Ruth Ann and me into our fortress in more than a month.
“I’d rather have coffee.”
Damn. Less for me.
While Ryan ate we explained what we had learned from Frank and the radio update the night before. We checked the cameras and made our plan.
Ruth Ann would man the roof as top cover with the long range of her hunting rifle. I’d drive Ryan’s 4x4 while he connected ropes to the legs of our deck.
“We should unbolt the joists,” Ryan said.
“The what?”
“The deck is probably bolted to the house. We should remove the bolts first before we try pulling the deck down. If we don’t, pulling the legs out will just collapse the deck. It won’t pull it away. Do you have a socket set?”
I turned blankly to Ruth Ann. She was keeper of the tools in this house.
“Yes, we have a set,” she said.
“Yes, we have a set,” I repeated so as to maintain the appearance that I knew what I was doing.
“Maybe you should remove the bolts as the first step. It won’t make much noise. Who knows what you’ll attract when you drive Ryan’s car over,” Ruth Ann added.
When we were ready to start, Ryan and I opened the deck door and peered down between the slats to ensure nothing was waiting for us like under Flynn’s deck. With Ruth Ann providing cover and keeping watch of the cameras on a tablet, Ryan and I loosened the heavy bolts. Even helping just this first time, saving Ryan proved worthwhile. I could not have undone the bolts by myself. The deck wobbled not being attached to the house. Bringing it down would be easy.
Get Off My L@wn - A Zombie Novel Page 9