The Romero Strain (Book 1): The Romero Strain

by Alan, TS

  Sam was as giddy as a schoolgirl on prom night, examining each vehicle with great detail and enthusiasm, telling us civilians what the vehicle was called and what armaments it carried. Sam may have been the facility’s junior maintenance control technician but he seemed to have boundless information on vehicles of the U.S. Military. I would later discover he also had a talent for fixing anything with an engine. Sam, like my father, was a southern boy who had learned auto mechanics from his father. It seemed if you were born below the Mason-Dixon Line, you were born with a wrench in one hand and a grease gun in the other.

  As we made our way back to the elevator, there was one more thing I wanted to do: investigate the train. The locomotive was painted bright red while its undercarriage was black, and the surrounding walkway railings were black and yellow, as were its steps. The nose of the cab had yellow diagonal stripes running across it that alternated with its red paint scheme. Also emblazoned in yellow under the cab side window was the number 4654. Across the body of the locomotive in equally large print was UNITED STATES ARMY. For a change Sam did not know something; he was silent in our investigation.

  The train consisted of the locomotive followed by a black colored caboose, then an armored personnel car, three cargo boxcars, and a biohazard car. Each boxcar had the letters DODX painted in white with a corresponding serial number, such as DODX 295506. The last car on the train was the biohazard boxcar, the one that I had broken into to extract the required genetic materials for Doctor France.

  The biohazard railcar was different from the others. It was an older riveted construction style and was painted boxcar red, though the paint was dulled and washed out. It was also slightly shorter in height and had only two large cargo doors at one end of the car, as I had discovered the night I had ventured out. I had been lucky that night because the car had been uncoupled and moved away from the train allowing the doors to swing open. If it had been still attached, it would have been a very tight squeeze through the doors into the car. I assumed this boxcar was offset from the others for loading, which hadn’t been completed. The final difference in this car was it was inscribed with the words DO NOT HUMP stenciled in white lettering on the side.

  When I asked if anyone knew what the term meant, it was Kermit, oddly enough, who knew its meaning.

  “It is a term used on railroads for cars that are not supposed to be humped,” he began. “Trains that go into a railroad freight yard that is built on an incline have their cars pushed up a hill, the hump, and rolled down the other side where switches and retarders are thrown to put them on the correct track using gravity, instead of fuel, cars with especially delicate contents are marked ‘Do Not Hump’, which tells the yard crew to set the car aside for special handling.”

  I asked, “And how do you know this when Sam doesn’t?”

  “Mainly because my father worked as an engineer/brakeman for thirty years for the U.S. Army’s Fort Eustis Military Railroad. He retired in the early seventies when operations were turned over to civil servants as part of the Army’s divestiture of rail operations and maintenance missions. As a child I often rode on the locomotives with him. He was the one that got me interested in trains. I suppose you could call me an amateur railroad enthusiast.”

  I decided to tap into Kermit’s knowledge base and questioned him on the biohazard boxcar. I wanted to know why that particular car maintained power well after Grand Central’s power source died. After he gave the rail car a thorough examination, checking it from end-to-end and top-to-bottom, he informed us that this type of mechanical refrigerator car, the R570—also used to transport solid rocket fuel for Trident ICBMs—had been modified and fitted with solar technology, instead of being solely operated by power from the car axle.

  There was one car that aroused the curiosity in both Kermit and myself. It was the armored command/guard car. It was a restored and upgraded USAX G-10 Guard Car manufactured by American Car & Foundry Co. Those cars, according to the master sergeant, had been retired after 1947, primarily due to the wider use of aircraft for long-distance transportation of troops. He finished by telling us that he hadn’t seen any of them in a long time, because they had been sold off to the private sector and converted into boxcars or tool cars. The last one he saw was at the San Diego Railroad Museum.

  The car itself was a heavy duty, riveted steel-sided boxcar painted black, instead of army green. There were center entrance doors on both sides of the car as well as both ends. The doors on the sides had internal locking mechanisms only. The end doors also had internal locking mechanisms, but also allowed external locking/unlocking via padlock like the standard boxcars. The doors were not padlocked, but were secured from the inside, which led us all to believe that someone, or ones, had locked themselves in, most likely the soldiers that would have been guarding the train. There were windows on each side of the doors and on the end doors, but they had been covered from the inside. Trying to smash through one would have been a fruitless effort since the glass was ballistic resistant. Breaching this train would have to wait for another time, for it was time for us to head back to the safety of our refuge.

  Our second foray into our lost world was to be a cautionary surveillance expedition around the Grand Central area. It was also another mission of acquisition. We weren’t going to walk around the city leaving ourselves unprotected and exposed or attempt to carry scavenged supplies back, so we sought transportation, the kind that could protect us as well as have adequate cargo space.

  We rose at 6:00 a.m., showered, dressed, and went to the mess hall for a quick light breakfast. There were no more eggs, no more bacon, and the coffee was nearly gone. It was cereal with reconstituted powdered, canned fruit cocktail, and canned orange juice for breakfast. We departed without Kermit at 8:00 a.m. after we geared up and got our carbines out of lock-up.

  We loaded our backpacks with the bare essentials: two bottles of water, some individual size cans of peaches that Kermit took from the pantry, extra ammunition, and medical supplies that I added to my pack. This time Joe voiced no objections.

  It was dark as we emerged from the old freight elevator onto Track 61. I immediately took point. We headed south with me at the lead, turning on the lights as we traveled along.

  The terminal, like the day before, was cast in a ghostlike glow. However, the early morning sun greeted us and revealed a beautiful and clear Fall day, as I led my team onto 42nd Street.

  Acquiring a vehicle was the easy part; finding one that would run was another. Sam informed us that all vehicles appeared mechanically sound, except for a few with low battery power. Most were out of fuel. Evidently the U.S. Army lets their vehicles idle.

  Sam wanted to try repairing two Stryker ICVs with slat armor, even going so far as to bring a toolbox and a siphon with him. However, when I asked if he or Joe knew how to operate one, neither had any clue. I told him to concentrate on getting two Humvees running, which we could drive, but Sam strongly urged me to reconsider.

  He began a recitation on the Stryker ICV’s specs, and when he started to explain the variants—apparently there were ten—I interrupted him and asked why we needed the vehicle. Was it because it looked really cool?

  He said, “The ICV has a shoot-on-the-move Protector Remote Weapon Station, with a universal soft mount cradle, which can mount either a M2 .50-cailiber machine gun, MK19 grenade launcher, or MK240 7.62mm machine gun that is operated from inside the vehicle. It is also armed with four M6 smoke grenade launchers. It has the ability to carry nine-man infantry, the CBRN Warfare system—that’s Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear—keeps the crew compartment airtight and positively pressured, the fuel tanks are externally mounted and designed to blow away from the hull in the event of explosion, and the tires are of a special design so they can run flat.”

  He continued excitedly, sparing little detail in regard to the vehicle’s description, pointing out its exterior features. He informed us that the armor provides integral all-round 14.5mm protection against ma
chine gun rounds, mortar and artillery fragments, though I doubted the living dead would be shooting at us. Of course, there was Bub in Day of the Dead who was able to shoot a Smith & Wesson 59; I hoped that was just a movie.

  The ‘cage’ of slat armor, which surrounded the vehicle, roughly eighteen inches from the main body, was designed to disable the high-explosive anti-tank warhead of a RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) by squeezing the angled sides of the metal nose cone and shorting out the conductors between the detonator at the tip and the explosive charge at the back.

  He concluded with the armor being constructed of components of ballistic steel and appliqué panels of lightweight ceramic/composite armor, with additional undercarriage protection against landmines and small arms.

  “That’s why we need one,” he said, ending his sales pitch.

  I agreed with him that he made a strong argument, but the fact remained that no one knew how to drive it. However, Sam really wanted the big toy. He added another buying point.

  “I saw a television show on the Military Channel called Anatomy of a Stryker,” he began. “One of the drivers said it was just like driving a Cadillac, except you have three periscopes and an AN/VAS-5 Driver’s Vision Enhancer for navigation instead of a windshield. Then there are the seven periscopes and the thermal imager display with video camera the vehicle commander has. Or the port if you want to stick your head out.”

  I conceded, on the condition that he had thirty minutes to get the big green machine operational, or we’d all be crammed into the Humvee together with Joe and him sitting in the back on the floor. I wasn’t sure who was happier with my decision, Sam with his truck to play with, or Joe who wanted to be the gunner.

  By the time Sam managed to get the two vehicles up and running and being barely able to navigate the Stryker using a monitor—he refused to use the view hatch to look out of—it was two in the afternoon.

  Our presence attracted several undead. They were gaunt, their skin stretched tight, and their motion slow and confused. It was easy for David to eliminate the stumbling, befuddled walking corpses before they got within one block of our position. It was his way of testing out the machine gun mounted on top of the Humvee; David was my gunner. The Stryker had been actually easier to repair than the Humvee, and the Stryker produced less noise; nearly silent. The Humvee sputtered, choked and then roared to life, churning out billows of black smoke. The noise was loud enough to literally wake the dead, and as we pulled away from the building, David thought he saw several undead running toward us, but the Stryker was blocking his way. As we rounded the corner he could no longer see their location. He swore to me, as he stood perched in his gun turret that he saw them. I had no doubt that he did; however, I questioned his visual observation to their reported hurried approach. David stuck to his running zombie observation.

  There was only one place we had time to go to and it was the place which held the highest priority, the 69th Regiment Armory that lies on the west side of Lexington Avenue between East 25th and 26th Streets. The armory was last utilized as a functioning military base during 9/11, where it served as a supply depot and for logistic support. Though it still functioned as an army reserve facility, it was largely utilized as an event space.

  If it were anything like the days following the attack on the World Trade Center, the armory would have been secured along with the surrounding area with barriers and a heavily armed military presence. During the aftermath of the World Trade Center tragedy, it had been a restricted area with high security, and if you lived in the zone that had been cordoned off and you didn’t have identification proving you lived within the borders, you weren’t getting in.

  II

  Life without People

  We drove down Park Avenue at a moderate pace. I expected to find cars blocking the roadway, but there were no civilian vehicles on the road, and the only military vehicles we saw were the Humvees that guarded the exit and entries to the Murray Hill Tunnel.

  Park Avenue was not as heavily littered with bodies as I expected. Not to say there weren’t corpses. Parts of the avenue were flooded, for there were no city workers to clear the debris from the sewer drains, and no city engineers to make repairs to waterline breaks. A few buildings had become burnt out shells. Fires had run rampant without the FDNY to put out the blazes. New York City had begun to look like a war zone.

  I spotted a UD—UD was the designation Sam had given the undeads as he watched them from the GCC command center—near the intersection of 32nd Street on the northbound side of the street. It was lumbering near the crosswalk of the meridian. It was slow in its approach onto the street. A moment after we passed I heard an explosion. I looked in my rearview mirror only to see that Joe must have been trying out his new gun, but had missed his target and blown apart one of the planters, which lined the center of the meridian. At 30th Street I crossed over onto the other side of Park Avenue.

  As I slowed my approach to the intersection of 26th Street, I could see there was a chain link fence barricade had been erected to prevent vehicle traffic. I stopped to go examine it. David, from his gun perch, kept careful watch of the surrounding area as I made my approach to the barrier.

  I was amazed at the depth of security that had been established. Long concrete barriers, accompanied with twelve-foot fencing, had been extended across the street and secured onto the adjacent buildings, topped with razor wire. There was one small gate that led onto the side street, which was for pedestrian use only, but it had been pulled off its top hinges and bent outward toward the street. Its padlock was still secured to the anchoring poles, but the large bent section certainly could have allowed the living dead to climb through. There were two Humvees with mounted machine guns. As I peered down the block, I could see a small tanker truck and more fencing. I stood momentarily transfixed at the end of the block where the fencing had been torn down. I hoped the armory hadn’t been destroyed.

  As we passed 25th Street it was the same––no vehicle access, only pedestrian with two Humvees guarding the fenced off-street entrance. We continued south to 23rd Street where we turned left and then left again, heading north on Lexington. We immediately saw military vehicles partially blocking the avenue at 24th Street. The army had set up what appeared to be a checkpoint. We passed in between them, which led us to concrete barricades and fencing across the road. I slowed down as we approached; there were a lot of corpses near the perimeter. I wasn’t sure if they had been the living or the undead. It was mass carnage. We were forced to stop our vehicles before we could get to the corner and walk to the armory. There were hundreds of carcasses stacked up along the perimeter of the fencing, one atop another like someone had intended to make a wall out of the remains. At some points the corpses were nearly chest high. There were more inside.

  There had been initial armed checkpoints at both ends of Lexington Avenue at the approaches from 24th and 27th Streets, with a secondary inner defensive perimeter at the intersections of 25th and 26th Streets utilizing Strykers. The infantry carrier vehicles that had been strategically placed inside the perimeter had not been able to stop the hordes of UDs from breaching the large Lexington Avenue security gates. The concrete barriers, which secured the tall chain link fencing and barbwire, had been torn apart. The gates were completely ripped from their mountings and lay bent and twisted on the ground.

  Large holes in the ground riddled the street as we made our way behind the twisted and toppled fencing. Sam said it looked like grenades had been used. Bodies were everywhere, too many to count. Dismembered bodies were scattered around, torn apart from grenades and machine gun fire. As we made our way through the once highly secured area, we discovered that the bullet-riddled corpses were those who had become the living dead. The dismembered corpses were mainly those of soldiers.

  The formidable tactical vehicles inside the defense perimeter had been useless against the raging undead. Light medium tactical trucks for moving troops and cargo, Humvees equipped with heavy caliber weapons, an
d Strykers for easy maneuverability in close and urban terrain, would one day become the relics of the past in man’s final battle of survival, all standing as a ghastly memorial to the destruction of the human race, silent and as motionless as the corpses that surrounded them. All were reminders of the mass carnage that we had escaped.

  There was the odd scattered M16 assault rifles with and without grenade launchers, a pistol still gripped tightly in a hand of a dismembered arm, different varieties of heavier caliber machine guns, one still upright behind a make-shift sand bag bunker mixed in with the dead, and a soldier still clutching the trigger handle of his flamethrower.

  Sam pointed out a 60 kilowatt tactical quiet generator, enclosed in a cage of fencing. It had run out of fuel. Four diesel powered light towers with telescoping masts had been advantageously placed to provide maximum situational awareness for the success and safety of the base. There was also an Oshkosh Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck (HEMTT) fuel tanker that could store twenty-five hundred gallons of diesel or aviation fuel, used to refuel tactical vehicles and helicopters in forward locations. The Army had been prepared there for the long haul.

  There was a ramp overspread with bodies, covering the stairway leading up to the entrance of the armory; many of them lay charred and burnt. The foul smell of scorched, rotting flesh still hung heavy in the air. Since the facility had no loading dock, and the freight/vehicle elevator on the 26th Street side of the building was far too small to accommodate any vehicle larger than a Humvee, I assumed the ramp was used to load in whatever was needed for their long-term engagement.