by Dave Lund
Not able to shoot while moving like Clint, Amanda knelt and supported her rifle on her raised knee. Breathing steadily, she quickly fired, giving cover to Clint who, while faster than seemed humanly possible, rotated his rifle, finger-pressing the magazine release while his left hand ripped a fresh magazine out of the pouch on his carrier, thumb striking the bolt release as the rifle came back into action and instantly firing. Although only seen out of the corner of her eye, Amanda was shocked at how quickly Clint worked through a simple bolt-back magazine change, making a mental note to spend time working on reload drills in the tunnels.
As quickly as the threat emerged, it was neutralized and the two dozen dead lay truly dead in the brown grass around the park host’s shelter.
“See, this is why we need to keep you safe and in the facility.”
“No, this is why we need to secure our little pioneer homestead and make it a safe place for others.”
The ten minutes it took to walk to the main entrance to the facility on the north side of the park was made in silence, and with no further undead surprises. Both Clint and Amanda were thinking about how to make the other see the virtue of their own plan, which seemed insurmountable.
Cortez, CO
Sparks followed the truck as it leaned toward the passenger side, driving on the steel rims, shuddering and shaking at thirty miles per hour, the fastest Bexar dared to push the old truck. Even so, it vibrated as if it was the truck’s death rattle and last breath.
Chivo looked behind them for any stragglers, each block seemingly having more and more undead shambling through the streets than before.
“Dammit!”
“What?”
“Mano, that asshole took our fuel cans!”
Bexar looked over his shoulder and swore, looking forward against just in time to swerve, mostly retaining control of the truck, around a small gaggle of undead that turned to follow the smoking, sparking, rattling death trap of a truck.
Continuing south, Bexar had a very basic idea of the layout of the town. If he kept driving south he would hit 4th Street, and a right turn would take him to where they’d killed the remaining cult members.
“Chivo, do you remember any vehicles at the headquarters, their school?”
Chivo thought for a moment. “No, no vehicles, just a small cache of weapons and food and such; basically we took all they had.”
“Cliff talked about a school bus, a jeep, and some other vehicles. Where are they?”
“No idea, mano.”
“So far these assholes liked schools and churches, so we look for either; maybe we’ll get lucky and find a new ride.”
“God, I hope it isn’t another fucking school bus.”
The engine began making a hard metallic clacking sound before steam started pouring out from under the hood, followed by a hard thunk. The engine locked up, stopping the transmission; the rear wheels locked up before Bexar could slam the clutch pedal to the floor and slam on the brakes. The truck spun off the road, bounced off the traffic light pole and stopped, wedged against a low brick wall and a tree.
“Shit, Chivo, you OK, man?” Bexar shook his head a couple of times to clear it before trying to open his door, which was jammed shut. Chivo pulled himself through the hole where the windshield would have been before spinning to sit on the dash, facing the back of the truck and the intersection, his rifle barking sharply in the cold air.
“Bexar, shake it loose guy, we’ve got to un-ass this mess fast, like now … MOVE!”
Following Chivo’s lead, Bexar climbed through the windshield and onto the hood of the truck. By the time Bexar put his feet on the pavement, Chivo stood next to the truck, still firing and in the middle of a magazine change.
Shouting over the rifle fire, Bexar gestured at Chivo. “What now?”
Chivo stopped firing for a moment. “We walk.”
“Walk?”
“Yeah mano, we walk. If we walk we won’t get as tired. We don’t have to be fast, just faster than those undead assholes.”
Bexar couldn’t argue that logic, as with a few more shots to put down the closest of the approaching dead, Chivo turned to walk south.
“What about our bags, the food?”
“Leave it for now. First we neutralize the immediate threat, then we can come back for it. Why, do ya think we’ll get towed for leaving our truck there?”
Bexar shook his head and started walking south. He didn’t know how Chivo kept making jokes when everything went to shit. They walked a few feet apart in the middle of the road. A dangerous tactic when dealing with people, but the only safe tactic when dealing with the possibility of an undead surprise springing out from around a blind corner. Southward they walked, quickly, with purpose, careful to conserve their energy, for they had a gaggle of undead following that would never tire or stop.
Bexar sighed as flakes began to drift lazily from the sky and they crossed the intersection for 1st Street. “Just three more blocks and we can head east; should be just a few blocks up 4th Street.”
“See mano, nothing to worry about! Adapt and overcome, and all the stressing does is fuck up your thinking,” Chivo yelled over the sound of his rifle firing rapidly.
Coronado, CA
“Guys, that’s ballsy, but how are we going to maintain security while the entire team is out?”
“Simmons and Jones can maintain it while we’re outside the wire.”
“Kirk, why them?”
“Chief, they’re motor pool. They can’t dive, they can’t swim, they can’t pilot a fucking Zodiac, but they’re Marines! They’re riflemen and can hold a damn post until relieved.”
Aymond couldn’t argue with those points. Last year, while deployed, if he had presented this plan to his team commander he would have been thought a lunatic. If that commander had presented it up the chain of command, the plan was so under-staffed, ill-conceived and broke so much doctrine that the commander’s career could have been in jeopardy. Special Operations Command, SOCOM, might be the tip of the spear in the fight on terror around the globe, but there were certain short cuts that weren’t taken unless under dire circumstances. Those rules were written into the book of policy by the blood of other special operators before him. Even in the A Shau Valley in the late ‘60s such lunacy wasn’t tolerated. However, he had no choice.
There was no support, no command structure for approval and no command structure to slap him down if something failed. No, Aymond knew the punishment would be the loss of his men, a punishment far worse than an Article 15 could ever be.
“Put the gear together, get the boat teams together, and run practice as best you can.” Aymond looked out the window facing the courtyard at all the containers holding various mission profile gear boxes for the SEAL teams that had previously occupied the building. “Do it fast, but fuck the Chinese. Everyone comes back even if it means the mission fails. We are too few and we will be completely ineffective if we lose anyone else.”
“Especially me, Chief?”
“No Kirk, that might actually increase our effectiveness if you didn’t come back. Now get moving and send Simmons and Jones in here.”
“Aye Chief!”
Groom Lake, NV
“Wow. Just wow. This is like preppers-in-wonderland, we went down the rabbit hole and have found another world fully stocked for any and all.” Jessie stood in the middle of the aircraft-hangar-sized room with Sarah, Erin, and Brit, their intrepid tour guide, as she slowly turned in place, staring in disbelief.
“You could damn near outfit a war with everything that’s here. Do we get to have our pick or are things assigned to us? Bexar won’t believe it … how do we get access to the gear here?”
The tour guide turned to answer Jessie’s question. “You will be given an allowance of basic items, toiletries and the like, but clothing outside of your issued gear will have to be requisitioned through your ‘town’ representative. Anything else, any special requests can be sent through your ‘town’ representative
as well. This isn’t Santa’s workshop, there aren’t little elves making new stuff every night.”
“How much ammo do you have and what calibers?”
“Honey, why would a sweet young thing like yourself need to ask a question like that?”
Erin frowned at the woman, Jessie speaking up before Erin could say what was on all of their minds. “I don’t know your story, but the three of us have been on the road and in a daily fight crossing the country since December 26th. I don’t know if you noticed but the dead rule most of the country and the filth of society rule the rest. How long have you been safe here underground?”
“I was a part of the first civilian group to arrive after the early shortwave broadcasts.”
Erin muttered something that sounded exceptionally offensive, then turned and walked back the way they’d come. The woman looked at Sarah, whose hard eyes betrayed her thoughts. “She has a point. You can’t even keep the lights on; we have to be ready for this facility to fail or to be overrun or both. We are all low on ammo after the fight we endured to make it this far, and we could use some better gear to carry all the ammo we can.”
“You three are going to be trouble.”
“No, we just want to be prepared. That’s the point, isn’t it? Prep for destruction, train for the worst, and hope for the best … now more importantly, besides ammo, what are the chances there are either some maternity pants in this giant cache site or some spandura or something I can use to modify pants to fit? I’m not very far along and these BDU trousers are already uncomfortable.”
Cortez, CO
Even with the freezing temperatures, the brisk movement, although only a walking pace, caused sweat to drip from Bexar’s brow. While wiping his face with the back of his sleeve, Chivo stopped suddenly and caught him by surprise.
Standing in the middle of the road, halfway between intersections, Chivo turned in place, rifle raised slightly, careful not to flag Bexar with his muzzle as he turned. “Did you hear that?”
Trying to hide how hard he was breathing, Bexar took two deep breaths before answering, “Hear what?”
“What did it sound like?”
“Shush dude, give me a sec.”
Bexar turned in place, scanning around him, rifle tucked tight into the SUL position. The harder he strained to hear, the more all he could hear was his own heartbeat banging in his ears.
A few seconds passed, the following undead closing the gap to Bexar and Chivo with each step they weren’t taking.
“I don’t know, Bexar, I thought I heard … something, but I can’t hear anything but the dead now. We better get moving.”
The next intersection was 4th Street. Chivo started to turn left to head to the destroyed cult headquarters, but Bexar held up his hand to stop him. “School zone sign another block up. We burned the school they were using practically to the ground, and we know nothing is left in the other school that had the radio. Cliff said the cult was using schools, so I say we check this one out en route; it’s only a couple of blocks.”
Chivo nodded and the two continued south before stepping over a low gate and into an empty parking lot. The single-story building’s windows appeared to be intact, the blinds closed, so they were unable to see inside.
“Why do schools always seem to look like a cross between an office park and a prison?”
Bexar didn’t even have a response, only a shrug.
Both men spun in place at the sound of a head slapping the frozen asphalt, like a watermelon falling to the pavement. The following parade of death had caught up to them. The chain-link fence was erected on only a portion of the parking lot perimeter and not the whole length, for some reason unknown to Bexar. Although his attention was momentarily drawn to the strange security measure, the dead lacked the cognitive ability to recognize the lack of fence, but they also lacked the mobility to step over the small pipe gate across the drive.
Both men, growing accustomed to the dead’s constant threat, were beyond being nonplussed by the shambling corpses. Chivo tilted his head towards the gathering numbers at the fence, and Bexar nodded in response. Silently they understood the plan; Bexar would hold rear guard while Chivo picked the lock on the heavy metal doors. The reinforced glass in the upper half of the doors would be a non-starter, the wire mesh able to withstand a lot of abuse.
Bexar knelt to brace his support arm, his AR-15 raised, the tip of the triangle-shaped reticle in the combat optic holding steady on the tip of the closest skull. The rifle was sighted for two hundred yards. At one time Bexar would have had to calculate the hold over distance based on how far away his target was, but weeks and weeks after the world ended, the adaptation wasn’t even a conscious thought any longer.
Instead Bexar concentrated on his breathing before reminding himself to scan. Lifting his head slightly off the rifle, he looked left then right, breaking the rule to follow his eyes with the muzzle of his weapon.
“Shit!”
Bexar fell backwards, trying to move out of the kneeling position. On his back and driving his rifle as quickly as he could, he jerked back on the trigger three times before making contact with the corpse less than ten feet away.
“Talk to me, mano.”
“I’m good, we’re good, keep working.”
Bexar clambered to his feet, angry at his lack of attention and quickly engaged the rest of the trailing dead gathering in number. Bexar quickly cycled through a full thirty-round magazine until two dozen dead lay motionless in final death, pools of dark blood surrounding them.
Fresh magazine in his hand, Bexar ripped the empty magazine from his rifle, slapped the loaded magazine into place, his thumb skipping across the bolt release as he stowed the empty magazine. A few weeks ago he would have let the empty magazine fall and not worry about it, but magazines were rarer than ammo now, and he had to keep the ones he had.
The nearest walking corpse was a mere five feet away, most of the macabre face covered by the glowing red triangle in his optic. Bexar squeezed the trigger and nothing happened.
“Ugh!”
Bexar let go of his rifle, jammed his left palm into the chest of the dead woman and knocking her back. The rifle swung by the sling across his body while his right hand fell to the pistol on his hip; the pistol out and up, Bexar began pulling on the trigger while the pistol was still at hip level, stitching rounds up the woman’s torso with no effect until he grasped and supported with his left hand, driving the muzzle of the pistol forward. All Bexar could see was the faint glow of the green dot on the front sight as he pulled the trigger twice, one round entering the woman’s left eye. The back of her skull exploded, the blow back covering Bexar in rotting, pus-filled brain matter. Adjusting slightly, Bexar took aim at the next closest corpse, nearly in hand’s reach, and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.
Too late he realized that the slide of the pistol was locked back on an empty magazine.
“Fuck, Chivo, tag in!” Bexar slapped the skull of the reanimated elderly man with his pistol, which did nothing to help his situation. The man didn’t stagger or react, merely wrapped his hands around Bexar’s arm when suddenly his head erupted. Chivo had fired his pistol right next to Bexar’s head, and now all Bexar could hear was a loud ringing sound. Chivo tugged on the back of his carrier. Essentially deaf for the moment, Bexar turned and saw his friend climbing through a broken window, ripping through the blinds in the process, the attempt to unlock the door abandoned. He followed his comrade swiftly and they stepped into a classroom, desks askew. Bexar quickly changed magazines on his pistol, still not sure what the stoppage was in his rifle and with no time, cover or concealment nearby to dick with it. The pistol was going to be it for the moment.
Through the window, Bexar saw the parking lot was now teeming with the dead, as if he had stepped in an ant hill. More and more dead seemed to appear out of nowhere, and some were falling through the broken window and into the classroom with them. Quickly they exited the classroom and shut the door behind them. I
n the hallway, Bexar saw Chivo’s lips moving, but his ears still rung. Realizing that Chivo was probably talking at normal volume, Bexar didn’t attempt to talk for fear of yelling; he simply pointed to his ear and shook his head. Chivo nodded, pointed at Bexar, pointed at himself, patted the top of his head and then pointed towards the interior of the school.
You follow me; we are going to clear the school to make sure we’re safe.
Bexar held up a finger and pointed to his rifle. Chivo nodded.
After holstering the pistol, Bexar looked at the ejection port on the AR and saw he had a bolt over; the round hadn’t ramped out of the magazine correctly and had become lodged between the bolt carrier and the inside of the upper receiver.
A few moments later, the malfunction was corrected, the round caught by the bolt discarded on the floor with a badly dented casing. Now Bexar was back in service.
He looked at Chivo, using his fingers to mime someone running and then someone walking. Fast search or slow search?
Chivo shrugged and tilted his hand back and forth. Bexar guessed that meant half and half or somewhere in between. If there was some universal hand signal chart out there for Special Forces types, he didn’t know it. Bexar flashed back on when he used to make fun of his department’s SWAT guys; he’d made up all sorts of ludicrously complicated and outrageous hand signals to communicate the information that was of the upmost importance to a Texas motorcop, like which taqueria they’d grab breakfast at after morning school zones.
At a moderate pace, Chivo and Bexar made their way through most of the school, taking about a half hour to search. There was no one living and the only dead they found were completely dead. The gym was another story, though. In the gym they found three women, their legs tied, hanging from their ankles from the ceiling just over center court; Bexar swore as he saw an alter similar to the one in the school they’d destroyed a few days prior.