Jeff didn’t seem to have a clue. He came and went shaking hands with the men who were sharpening their ideological knives to stab him in the back at the first opportunity. He smiled as they made pointed references to some of the more obscure threats his department had investigated over the years. Yue didn’t miss any of it. A natural people person she read the room easily. While the politicians were obviously in favor of getting rid of Jeff now that he’d served his purpose, the military men loved the guy.
Yue could see why the military men respected the beanpole with glasses. Jeff was a career bureaucrat who’d probably keel over after running a hundred yards holding a rifle. He’d seen the threat coming though. Most importantly he had a sound plan to deal with the threat. Jeff had acted ruthlessly to ensure the defense and protection of the United States. He was constantly putting himself in harm’s way to protect the interests of the United States. The politicians were worried about maintaining their power and their status. It was apparent to everyone on meeting him that all Jeff cared about was saving humanity from this crisis. That result orientation endeared him greatly to the military elite.
Seeing all these dynamics from her position handling hot bowls of soup Yue came up with a new plan. Jeff may be a brilliant scientist, but his social skills could use some serious tuning. He needed an advisor to help him navigate these chum filled waters. An advisor who happened to have lived through the surge. An advisor who had a couple of brothers still fighting for the country back on the continent. If she could befriend Jeff maybe she could leverage that relationship to get LeBron and Drew brought to her. The more she heard about life on the mainland the more she wanted nothing to do with it anyway.
Life on board a ship that never landed was starting to sound really good.
Chapter 6: The Lost Ark
“Are you the only ones here in the hangar?” Drew asked one of the Marines he was standing watch with. Given how many men they were down in such a short amount of time the Marines had opted to continue defying Leander’s orders by giving all of Blaze’s men back their personal weapons. They’d also handed out some other cool toys. Drew was especially excited about the frag grenades and flash bangs. The armory was huge. It’d been intended to supply groups throughout the southeast with the means to fight.
The gigantic distribution center was intended to reinforce survivors in the event of anything from a Red Dawn scenario to the violent pandemic they were currently living through. The team who designed it had actually used a zombie apocalypse as one of the exercises. They’d never imagined it’d actually happen. Row upon row of assault rifles were lined up neatly above crates of ammunition and various grenade types. Need rocket launchers to take out helicopters? No problem. One of those crossbows like Rambo uses to take out the enemy quietly. They didn’t have any of those. Drew had asked. He’d pictured himself strolling around quietly killing off the crawler population without them even knowing he was there.
“There’s an administrative area in the warehouse below with a handful of supply and logistics guys. Otherwise just us. Why you looking to start a band?” The Marine asked. His voice echoed in the cavernous hangar. It was accompanied by the booming drumbeat of the stirred up infected outside slamming themselves into the sides of the massive building. The Marines didn’t seem overly concerned about the infected getting in.
“Why’d they bother having the other building here anyway?” Drew asked. It was a fair question. The warehouse had the capability to support everything needed. The builders could’ve just included a communications center and installed some extra rooms to avoid building the barracks facility.
“Redundancy and security.” The Marine answered sagely. The scout sniper may not have much to do with designing military bases, but he knew everything about taking them out. “If you just have one building it makes it easier to target. One entrance to align mortars with or settle snipers on. People coming in and out all the time creates a security concern. The warehouse part of this base was supposed to be kept secret. You post guys in the warehouse it’s not much of a secret anymore. You post them in the barracks building and tell them to guard the warehouse then it allows you to keep the warehouse more secret. Compartmentalization and all that. Plus, if we lose one of these buildings, we’ve got the other one to fall back to. Although the barracks isn’t going to really help us accomplish our mission.”
“These things ever stop beating on the damned walls?” The other Marine asked. He was a younger guy fresh out of scout sniper training. He wasn’t used to living under the constant threat of death like his brothers in arms.
“Nope. They won’t stop unless they get sidetracked. Not only won’t they stop but they’ll attract other ones. That’s why moving around’s so important. You stay in one place too long you’re eventually going to get overwhelmed.” Drew answered honestly. It was still weird to him that no one seemed to get that.
“Luckily we’re pinned down in a building with enough food to last us the rest of our natural lives. We have enough weapons and ammo to bust out if we really wanted to. Good luck to those things trying to beat their way through a building designed to still be standing after massive world crushing hurricanes or a nuclear war.” The more experienced Marine answered.
“If we’re stuck in here much longer, I might let one or two of the female freaks in and take my chances.” Instead of laughing at what was intended as a joke the three of them actually took it pretty hard. Drew because it reminded him Yue was missing. The Marines because they were starting to really worry that they might not ever see another woman again. At least not one who wasn’t trying to rip their neck open with her teeth and not in a fun way.
Another trio made up of two Marines and one of Blaze’s men emerged from the stairs in the corner of the building. They relieved Drew and the two leathernecks he’d been hanging out with. Drew’s companions took off to go crash in their rooms. Drew was pointed down the hallway towards the open area his group had been temporarily assigned. Drew walked into the small space littered with cots and sleeping bags. Blaze was sitting on the floor with his back against a wall scribbling away in a little notebook.
“Making a shopping list?” Drew asked sliding down the wall to sit beside him.
“Taking some notes about each of the men who died today. I started doing it a few weeks back. I’ve been trying to figure out if I should call it a diary of the dead or a ledger of the lost. I need to do something to keep track of them. To acknowledge they existed.” Blaze said seriously. Drew was busy trying to catch up. He’d thought maybe Blaze was doing a crossword puzzle or something.
“You’ve got eight guys here who owe you their lives. That’s not even counting the women who ended up in a nice safe space thanks to you. It’s good that you’re doing something to remember the ones we’ve lost though.” Drew hoped he didn’t sound like an idiot. He was horrible at consoling people. An awkward pat on the back was about as good as it normally got with him. If he’d had any idea what Blaze had been up to, he’d have just said waved and burrowed into the closest cot for a nap.
“Thanks man. Have you seen all the crap they have down here?” Blaze asked in an obvious attempt to change the subject.
Drew had not. Being the first selected for guard duty had meant he got to immediately go back up the stairs and sit in the big hangar for four hours. The space seemed huge from what he’d seen so far. It looked like what he imagined a major Amazon distribution center looked like on the inside. Long rows of shelf after shelf with supplies organized in efficient rows and stacks. You couldn’t see too far since the lights only came on in the sections people were moving in. The lighting was currently the eerie red color the military loved to use to safeguard their night vision.
“How big do you think it is down here?” Drew asked.
“No clue. I’m going to guess a Costco or two once you consider they probably have at least two levels.” Blaze said. He’d set aside his notebook to look around the section they were sitting in.
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br /> “You really think it’s that big?” Drew was trying to picture how that much space could be contained under the relatively normal sized hangar above them.
“They said this place was here to supply the whole southeast of the country with supplies. If you only have one supply depot for the whole southeast, it needs to be pretty big. Especially since you don’t know what kind of cataclysmic event that you’re going to end up having to deal with.” Blaze continued looking around while Drew nodded his head in agreement. Two Costco’s worth might be an understatement given the purpose of the installation. Drew was back to picturing the warehouse at the end of the Indiana Jones movie.
“Too bad all this stuff is going to go to waste the way they’re trying to manage it.” Drew said. He had an idea percolating around in his head. He really wished he had LeBron here to bounce the idea off of. More than likely his brother was already thinking along the same track.
“You mean after the crawlerz rip us all apart?” Blaze asked. He was thinking along the same lines as Drew. If they continued to do things the way Special Agent Leander wanted them done, then this place was going to end up guarded by a bunch of ghosts.
“Yeah. The way they’re doing this seems really dumb. We should be based somewhere mobile and just swoop in when we need supplies. If there’s people here, then the infected are going to end up here.” Drew was pacing now as he thought through different scenarios. There really wasn’t a need to have people stationed here. They’d be better off just coming in as they needed stuff then leaving right away.
“I don’t think Leander’s going to agree to just leave the place unguarded. This is his baby.” Blaze pointed out.
“He’s shaking the hell out of his baby right now. He’s blind and stupid if he can’t figure out this isn’t working. We can’t keep charging back and forth between the two buildings. Unless he wants a dead baby, he’s going to have to listen to us.” Drew said. He was getting worked up pacing back and forth. The problem was going to be how did they make the man listen to them? Leander had thrown them out the front door to fight the surgers in a way that clearly showed he considered them all expendable. According to the Marines Leander hadn’t even wanted them to be given back their weapons. Drew thought Zimmerman may have had a say in the decision to arm them up too.
“As the commander of the cannon fodder I can try to talk to Leander, but I don’t know if he’s going to listen to me or not. We probably need to convince Zimmerman and the Marines first then go from there.” Blaze looked thoughtful as he considered how best to approach it.
The conversation between Drew and Blaze continued for another thirty minutes. They talked about how to approach the topic with each of the different factions. They knew they needed to explain it in a way that didn’t preclude them from getting the chance to find out where Yue and the other women had been sent. The ultimate goal would still be to rejoin them. So far, they’d narrowed down the potential locations to somewhere in the middle of a large body of water. They could totally eliminate about thirty percent of the planet as a possibility so that was good.
“Let’s go rattle some skulls.” Drew finally said. They’d been talking long enough. It was time to do something.
“What do you mean by that?” Blaze asked looking at him oddly.
“I don’t know. Go talk to the lieutenant or Zimmerman if we can figure out where they’re sleeping?” Drew said.
“Cool. I thought you meant go smack around a fire team of Marines and a handful of Navy SEALs. I was going to let you go try that on your own.” Blaze said grinning.
Blaze stood up and they started walking down the corridor towards the rooms the Marines stayed in. They were assuming that’d probably be where the SEALs were bunked up also. As huge as the place was it seemed like there should’ve been enough rooms for them to fit in somewhere as well. Either they were so far down the totem pole they only rated cots in the hallway or there was some other reason they hadn’t been invited to the sleepover.
The door needed a badge for them to go in. Drew and Blaze didn’t rate badges either. Wondering if they should try knocking or just give up and wait until morning, they were both startled when the door opened. Drew had to take a step back to let the man get out. Feeling like a couple of idiots they stepped out of the way as Zimmerman looked at them oddly. He was probably wondering what the hell they were doing standing there.
“You guys gonna say Trick or Treat or just stand there?” Zimmerman finally said after they’d all stared at each other awkwardly for long enough.
“We were actually looking for you.” Blaze said. He’d recovered his normal cool nature. Drew was thinking they shouldn’t have run over here to try and talk these soldiers into something when both him and Blaze were in serious need of some sleep. It was going to be a battle of wits and they were low on ammo. Drew wished again that they had Yue or LeBron with them. This was the kind of stuff they were really good at.
“That works. I was coming down to grab you guys anyway. We just got off a call with Leander. Between the lieutenant, me and your brother we talked him into working on a more mobile strategy. Sitting here’s not working. Anyway, I wanted to make sure you both got some sleep tonight. We’re going to meet up in the morning and have a pow wow to figure out the best way to accomplish the mission. The current plan isn’t working.” Zimmerman said.
Drew and Blaze stood there like deer in the headlights. Blaze had once again lost that cool demeanor he pretty much always possessed.
“What time?” Drew asked finally.
Chapter 7: Improvise, Overcome, Adapt
“The main armory is on the top level. You never know how fast you’re going to need access to your weapons. Below that’s a storage level that includes some workshops and the galley and living quarters for overflow from the barracks. That’s us. Below that’s the vehicle level. That level has additional supplies already loaded into trailers for easy transport by truck. That level also has our gas and diesel reserves. The level below that contains the generators and power plant for the warehouse. There’s also a massive holding tank full of fresh water. This place is effing ginormous. It’s stocked with everything needed to get our corner of the country up and running again.” The lieutenant finished his summary.
They were meeting in the common room of the living quarters for the warehouse. Like every other space in the warehouse it was oversized. They were sitting in a big circle of chairs in the echoey chamber. A pot of coffee and an open package of Oreos up on the counter. Everyone looked tired and most of them were in dire need of a trip to the barber shop. It’d be really hard to convince anyone seeing a picture of them that they weren’t in the middle of an AA meeting. Instead, the motley looking crew was sitting around trying to figure out how to save their corner of the world.
“What are the workshops for?” Blaze asked.
“Basically, repair shops for the trucks and prep areas to build shelters and such before rolling out. All your standard tools plus welding equipment and all of that. Pretty much a handyman’s dream setup. We haven’t done much with them yet except for the space to calibrate and maintain weapons.” Lieutenant Murdock answered. He had no problem telling them about what the setup was like in the formerly secret facility. As a leader in the Marine Corps reconnaissance group he was used to working with the locals to accomplish his objectives. He’d had plenty of training and even some intense real-world experience arming people in third worlds to take the fight to the local warlord.
“Are you thinking about tie wrapping some stop signs over the windows on the big rigs?” LeBron joked over the conference phone they had sitting on the counter. The base phone system was getting a lot more usage now that they couldn’t all easily meet up in a room somewhere. The infected crawling all over the base pretty much eliminated the face to face option for the time being.
“Stop signs?” Zimmerman asked.
Drew and LeBron then had to explain to everyone how they’d tie wrapped signs over their windows
to keep the crazies from bashing into their vehicles. The Marines and SEALs in the room nodded along.
“Those are great ideas. I think maybe we could apply that concept to the vehicles we have downstairs. I’ve got a room full of guys who were more likely to have taken shop than calculus in high school.” The lieutenant was obviously building out some designs in his head.
“We’re right here sir.” One of the Marines joked in response to the shop versus calculus remark.
“How many of you took shop?” Drew asked. He hadn’t even had the option at his school. Which was too bad since it seemed like a pretty cool class. Most of the Marines and SEALs raised their hands with chagrined looks on their faces.
“Calculus?” Asked Blaze. He was only joking but it was impressive that a good portion of the men kept their hands up. It was less impressive when half the ones with their hands up started laughing and put their hands down.
Crawlerz | Book 2 | Batten Down The Hatches Page 6