Get Off My L@wn - A Zombie Novel

by Perry Kivolowitz

  Lim began quickly firing double taps to make sure the ghouls ahead of them went down permanently. Bill did the same with those behind them.

  “Reloading,” Bill shouted as they kept moving for the doors on the west side of the building. When they reached the doors, they found none open. Rather than trying the doors, Bill pulled a grenade from his vest.

  “Bob, are you clear of door 3 Golf? I’m going to make a hole.”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Fire in the hole,” Bill yelled as he tossed the grenade at the wall. Lim continued to firing as they both ducked behind cases of BBQ potato chips. Bill had time to say, “Don’t ever tell anyone we used potato chips for cover.”

  The grenade blew door 3G open letting sweet sunlight pour through the opening. Bill and Lim were on the move.

  They ran across the railroad tracks to find Bob and Ruth Ann waiting. Bob had already turned the vehicle around to head towards the exit. Ruth Ann was firing methodically. Bill and Lim tossed their finds into the rear of the car and hopped in. Bill shouted, “GO!”

  Bob accelerated in the direction they had come. Both Lim and Ruth Ann fired forward. Bill watched their flank and rear. As they rounded a corner, a zombie appeared right at Bob’s side. With a quick motion, Bob raised his 9mm and completely opened the skull of the ghoul. Almost to the exit, Ruth Ann, Lim and Bill fired forward. There were many zombies in the area now.

  Unavoidably Bob had to run over several bodies causing his passengers to hold on for dear life. Several zombies nearly reached the open sides of the 4x4. Bob couldn’t spare a hand to use his sidearm. A ragged claw grabbed a tenuous hold on Bob’s uniformed shoulder. Bill drilled it with two rounds, the first splitting the ghouls arm in two the next nailing it in the head as it fell behind. The claw hung on to Bob’s uniform for a moment before falling off.

  As they turned right with the exit immediately before them, they had no choice but to ram the zombies blocking the lanes ahead. Through the gate, the three shooters resumed firing. Thankfully, the short street to the main road was only lightly filled.

  Ruth Ann shouted, “I’m out. Give me another weapon.” Now was not the time to learn the proper technique for reloading an assault rifle. Bill exchanged rifles with Ruth Ann and reloaded what had been hers during the short lull.

  Turning right again onto the main road they saw behind them a boiling mass of hundreds of undead too far back to be a threat. Ahead of them were only a few, easy pickings for the three expert shots.

  Soon, they were on Highway 12 heading home. Moving quickly they needed to de-animate only a few undead.

  They arrived at Christmas Tree barely an hour after leaving.

  When they returned they were greeted by myself, Barry Clark and John Rentmiesters both of whom had come back in the Volvo with a dozen sheets of plywood.

  I all but lunged at Ruth Ann and gave her a bear hug. She gave me a brilliant smile and said, “It’s nice to be home. Let me clean up and I’ll make some lunch.”

  My wife went from zombie sniper to Betty Crocker in a heartbeat. I was still standing there with my jaw hanging down when Bill said, “You heard her, lunch!”

  We ate watching the big screen results of the mining south of Manitowoc. The size of the contour leaving the minefield was considerably smaller than the one that went it. Behind the advancing, now smaller horde, was a mass of slowly writhing pixels. I estimated the MA horde at just 600,000 left. Just 600,000 zombies! It was shaping up to be a good day in Lambeau Field.

  The group left behind at the bend in the Milwaukee River seemed to like it there. They weren’t moving much.

  The band heading west towards French Island continued to oblige by making themselves great targets for mortars and gunships.

  Everybody was having a great day.

  As far as I could tell, CB2 hadn’t suffered a single casualty. It was getting closer by the minute.

  Before lunch Brandt read the directions on the Liquid Nails and brought the cases inside to warm up. Apparently the goo is more effective if it isn’t cold.

  Bill and I checked in with Frank. Bill explained his successful raid on the home supply distribution center. He mentioned the grace exhibited in battle by his team especially Mrs. Christmas Tree.

  “You took her with you?”

  “Affirmative sir. She was amazing.”

  “Well, I glad it worked out. I have enough problems with Walter as it is. I don’t want to think about how difficult he would be if Mrs. Christmas Tree didn’t come back.”

  “I’m standing right here you know, Frank,” I said.

  “Yes, Walter, I know that. I said what I said specifically for your benefit.”

  “That’s enough. Man to faceless voice on the radio I’m tired of the shit you’re giving me. My wife and I are working our asses off and making a difference. Even if you’re not telling me, I can see the number of children we’ve put back with their parents around the country and my guys tell me the automatic rifles and Claymores I made for you are saving lives. I’ll take responsibility for being a prima donna before but I think I’ve earned some slack from you. And if I keep arguing to be evacuated you can’t blame me for wanting all the people here to live through CB2.”

  “Are you finished?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you will be pleased to know we are making arrangements with the North Western Administrative Zone to shift assets our way. Many people are trying very hard to keep all of us alive, including Christmas Tree. You have to keep your computers running. We’re hooked up to all the Administrative Zones now. Your data center is handling analysis for the entire country and Puerto Rico too. You have to keep your computers running. Agreed?”

  That made me feel a lot better.

  “Agreed.”

  “Good. One last thing, have you been backing up your systems right?”

  “Of course, why?”

  “Send us a copy, will you?”

  That made me feel a lot less confident.

  “Sure thing Frank.”

  “Good. Lambeau out.”

  I did not intend to send Lambeau the backup. If they had it, there would be one less reason for rescue.

  Starting with the windows overlooking the fuel cell system, the men took down the shutters, slathered adhesive on both the concrete and wood, and held the wood in place while the goo set. The first attempt was a fail, perhaps due to the cold weather. The second and subsequent attempts succeeded by holding the wood in place for a much longer time. Two soldiers at a time balanced on our ladder to accomplish this.

  Brandt said the rated curing time for the adhesive was seven days. We would have two days, but it would be better than none.

  About 8 PM, those off duty gathered around the TV again to watch the day’s second strike against MA unfold. The nature of the strike was somewhat of a surprise to me. A squadron of B-52s from North Dakota was to bring their unique form of thunder down on Milwaukee A.

  From our seats on an orbiting satellite, this one was really something.

  Milwaukee A was now north of Manitowoc near the Maribel Caves. The absence of favorable terrain was irrelevant in face of the density of the bombing. High explosives fell in a deluge causing an area of solid intense glowing in the infrared stream. In normal color, the explosions glowed equally brightly. So brightly, in fact, that the shockwave of each successive explosion was visible in the light of the last.

  The massive pounding continued for only a few minutes. The targets, being soft, slow and exposed didn’t necessitate going longer.

  In morning’s light helicopters would take a close look at the results.

  Before Ruth Ann and I turned in, I checked on what was happening down in the datacenter. I opened the door to the machine room to find Brandt inspecting the equipment. I was sure he looked like a person who had hurriedly gone into a “Who me?” pose. My hunch was confirmed when he turned towards me with his right hand unnaturally buried in his pants pocket. When his hand reemerged, Brandt had a
bulge in his pants. I am certain it wasn’t there because he was happy to see me.

  “Ah, Specialist. What brings you down to my toy room?” I said without letting on about my suspicions.

  “I’m just admiring your set up sir. I still can’t believe this small room in a concrete house is the biggest datacenter in the Midwest.”

  “It isn’t the biggest Specialist. It is the most convenient. There are huge datacenters in the cities that make this look like the closet it is. But that’s just it. They are huge. It would take a lot more than a fuel cell to keep them cool and powered up. You know I heard a talk once from somebody at one of the big search providers. The guy said that by 2050, half of the electricity in the United States would be used by datacenters.”

  “That much?”

  “Yeah, and that’s just the U.S. Well good night, Specialist. I’ll close the door behind you.” I said this with my arm outstretched in an obvious gesture to have him leave.

  “Uh, good night Mr. Handsman.”

  I closed the door behind Brandt and gave my equipment a quick but thorough looking over. I didn’t expect to see any new boxes with blinking red lights wired into my rig. Whatever it was that Brandt was doing would be invisible to the eye. Physical access to a machine is the surest way to have malware deployed on your system. Brandt had had such access for who knows how long or how many times.

  I wish I could say that I sat down at a keyboard and in a moment, found “a computer virus with recursive encryption, very hard to crack” to the people who were not there to watch me. The truth is, in the end, the bad guys always win. Computer security is like a hockey game. The goalie can block a hundred shots on goal and still lose one to nothing.

  It really didn’t matter if Brandt was installing some kind of malware to, I would assume, give complete control of the machines to Lambeau. If they wanted to do that sort of thing, there was little I could do to stop them.

  What concerned me is whether the malware would be well written. If it was quality bad guy stuff, I didn’t care. If it was crappy bad guy stuff, it could hurt my machines and jeopardize the important work they do. If Frank had found his other rock star, he hadn’t insulted me about it yet.

  I talked the whole thing out with Ruth Ann later in bed. She agreed, with CB2 expected through here soon we had other things about which to worry. She also, as usual, had good advice. Also as usual, with me at least, she began bluntly.

  “Back in California you know you acted like an ass. I can say that because I love you, right? You were a grade-A A-hole. Back there that was OK. I accepted that because that was your element.”

  I looked at her, paying attention, and keeping my mouth shut. Objecting when Ruth Ann was making “heartfelt observations” would only prolong the agony. I say agony not so much that it was annoying to hear her jabber on, no. It was annoying to hear the truth.

  “When we moved back here, back to my element, you kept right on in your California mode. People were put off but you and I have thick skins. Neither of us really gives a poop what people think but after a while, it really started grating on me. Making friends in California was easy being married to an asshole because you were a powerful asshole. You were expected to be a jerk.”

  Being a jerk comes with the territory in the Valley. The bigger a prima donna you were the bigger your paycheck. Perceived value and all that. Nice people can’t possibly know what they’re doing.

  “Besides, our friends weren’t real friends. They were assholes on the rise. Sucking up to us to get ahead themselves. That one guy, you know the guy with the cheese name… Mario Ricotta, he was an aspiring ass. I bet he went home to that bleached blonde bimbo of his and said, ‘You know honey, I want to be as big an asshole as Doug Handsman someday. Then people will really respect me.’”

  “You made your point. I know you have another one.”

  “I’m getting to it. Every day lately, I am more and more amazed that it took the end of the world for you to become more human. You been showing empathy and compassion, attributes that could have gotten you fired in the Valley. You were excited about helping parents find their children. Where’s the money in that?”

  “My point is, Doug, you are growing as a person with everybody except Frank and Lambeau Field. You are still in A-hole, game playing, conniving, scheming, screw you mode. Just stop it all ready. Give it a rest.”

  “But hon, if I give him everything he wants there’s less reason to rescue us.”

  “Doug, you caught Brandt fiddling with your rigs. You said yourself you can assume he already compromised your systems. If that is true, Lambeau is going to get what they want whether you give it to them or not. The smart thing to do is volunteer what they want. Give them everything before they have to ask again. Consider this a test.”

  “So this is a game and your observation is that I’m not playing it with the right strategy? Who is the scheming one again?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  I hate that on so many levels. I hate it when the women in your life say that with an intensity that says they really think men do know what they mean. With that said, I knew what she meant.

  Wednesday (Day 42), was a good news / bad news kind of day.

  I got up early and prepared all the code and scripts I’ve written and sent them off to Lambeau. In addition, I backed up the virtual servers and with them the databases that had been growing steadily. I sent all that off to Lambeau, a very large upload under any circumstances but made easier by an otherwise empty Gigabit connection. They now had a duplicate of the environment that existed here early this morning.

  I did all this before talking to Frank in our late morning meeting. This way I could claim those altruistic team-player bennies Ruth Ann didn’t quite say I should go for. This proved to be the right course of action as Frank’s demeanor changed dramatically.

  The really good news was that Milwaukee A was eviscerated by the B-52 strike the night before. Only an estimated hundred thousand creatures remained. Pretty soon they wouldn’t be able to call it a horde.

  More good news about MA, the remaining ghouls had been deflected slightly west. This meant they would run into the Fox River sooner. By the time MA reached the Green Bay area, it would undoubtedly be smaller due to the TO’s that had already begun. Coming from the southwest rather than due south, what is left of MA may not even notice the Lambeau safe zone at all.

  The overarching bad news was that while Lambeau was considerably safer, they would not be resuming TO’s on Chicago B 2 until after they were sure they faced no significant threat. A B-52 strike like the one that was so successfully applied against MA would not be used in our defense. It was deemed that there was no “compelling strategic interest in expending the resources necessary for that kind of strike at this time.”

  There was no avoiding it. CB2 would be here for lunch around noon tomorrow.

  As I helplessly watched CB2’s inexorable march towards us on the satellite feed, I noticed something peculiar near Eau Claire. CB2 would trample the nearly demolished city that had already been the site of thinning operations and the eastward march of the Twin Cities horde. The horde would be through there early the next morning, a few hours before they hit Christmas Tree.

  I was watching a lower-resolution stream. In the mostly brown and white landscape, some bright yellow dots stood out.

  Ruth Ann was next to me at the kitchen table, practicing field stripping and cleaning a suppressed automatic rifle given to her by Bill Mancheski in recognition of her contribution to the home supply warehouse raid. She was as proud of her new acquisition as I was proud of her.

  “Hey, look at this.” I switched to the full resolution of the satellite stream. I centered on Carson Park in Eau Claire.

  “Wow, that’s a front loader and a bull dozer,” Ruth Ann said.

  Sure enough, in the magnified view we could see two pieces of heavy construction equipment tearing up Carson Park Drive, the only road leading into the park. The park itsel
f sits at the end of a little peninsula jutting into Horseshoe Lake.

  Little bits of the road disappeared with each fifteen-second update of the area.

  “Look there. They are piling all the rubble and earth up there to make a berm behind the torn up road.” Ruth Ann poked at the monitor with the pipe cleaner thing she was using to clear her weapon. It left a mark on the screen.

  “I saw some infrared dots coming from there after we first got set up with the satellite but I thought it was small fires left over from the TO.” If I had known to look more closely, I would have seen the fires burned in the same spot night to night, likely signs of survivors. I made a note to tell Frank that I could include specifically looking for campfires to the thinning operation optimization process without additional computational cost.

  Spotting the earthmovers is how we learned of the encampment at Carson Park that I described earlier.

  The survivors found construction equipment and were cutting themselves off more completely from the direction of CB2’s progress. The daily radio updates kept everyone listening, including them, current on the horde’s position and direction of march. While the survivors could not succeed in making an island out of the peninsula, cutting the easy access of the road left only dense woods leading into the heart of the park.

  In cold weather, the dead typically follow a path of least resistance. With Carson Park Drive blocked by a high berm, the path of least resistance now led past the park. Stealth would keep them hidden.

  The earthmovers moved off late in the morning. We could see where the yellow vehicles stopped through the partially denuded trees from our bird’s eye view. The vehicles were driven back into the park quite a way so they would not be visible from the “mainland.”

  “We’re not the only ones getting ready for CB2,” Ruth Ann said.

  “Speaking of getting ready, I’m off to find Bill and see what he’s got the troops doing.”