Total Apoc 2 Trilogy (Book 1): Day of the Zombies

by TW Gallier

  While on guard behind the machine gun, I studied the city map and determined where I wanted to go. After we were all topped off, I took the lead and drove deep into Fort Thomas, taking Miami Parkway to the end. The road dead-ended in a wealthy neighborhood overlooking the Ohio River. We stood atop our vehicles and studied the airport across the river.

  "Their dug in good," Charlie said.

  I spotted two dozen helicopters, mostly Hueys. There were even more Abrams tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, M113 armored personnel carriers, and countless Humvees, jeeps, cargo trucks, and other vehicles lined up on runways. GP medium tents were erected between the runways and near the aircraft and vehicles, with men coming and going. Most of the aircraft and vehicles were surrounded by uniformed soldiers doing maintenance, loading or unloading, and even washing them.

  Two rivers provided protection from the zombies on two sides. High fences ran from the Ohio River on the western side, up to another road that cut over to the smaller river. Outside of that fence they'd dug out a wide moat. A dozen or more pumps were pulling water out of the two rivers, up to the highest point in the moat, and releasing twin torrents to keep the zombies at bay.

  The Army unit had created an island of security. I couldn't see any obvious guard patrols, so they had to be very confident in their perimeter defenses. I didn't blame them. Water was the perfect barrier against zombies.

  "What river is that?" Mike asked, pointing at the smaller river south of the airport that emptied into the Ohio. "I see a butt-load of zombies on the other side of it."

  He was right. I checked the map which showed it was the Little Miami River.

  "Now we know why the zombies are hanging around," Terrel said. "They are trying to catch soldiers on patrol on this side of the Ohio. I don't know why all those motherfuckers are just standing along the Little Miami."

  "They aren't very bright," I said. "We saw something like that while on the Mississippi. Zombies would just stop and stare at us as we drifted past. They know living people are on the other side, but for some reason zombies refuse to cross rivers and creeks."

  "Fire and water are the only things zombies are afraid of," Charlie said. "And they aren't that afraid of fire."

  "So, what are we going to do?" Mike asked. "The map shows a bridge over the Ohio back on I-275. Are we going to cross over and scout out a route around the city?"

  I studied the airport base camp a while longer, considering our options. That base was perfectly situated to keep watch all around the Cincinnati area. Even as we stood there watching them, helicopters came and went. God only knew how much fuel they had, and from the number of flights in and out, they must have a lot. The Cincinnati Northern Kentucky International Airport was south and west of the city, in Kentucky, so they could raid it for more fuel. I counted a dozen big fuel trailers parked near a hangar.

  "It's going to be nearly impossible to get around them," I said. "Unless we create a distraction."

  "Oh?" Charlie asked, looking wary. "As in?"

  I pointed down at the river, to our right. There was a small marina on the river. Indeed, I spotted a few of them on both sides of the river. The people of Cincinnati must have really enjoyed weekends on the water.

  "We check the marinas for a boat," I said. "If we find one, then we cross over to the Little Miami. I want to scout out their perimeter over there. I have an idea for creating a bridge of sorts for the zombies."

  "You want to unleash the zombie horde on that airport?" Terrel asked.

  "Can you think of a better way to create a distraction that will keep them busy for many hours, if not days?" I grinned. "And that might give us the time and opportunity to circle around the city."

  Chapter 37

  We stashed three of the Humvees in a backyard with large hardwoods. The thick canopy would hide them from overhead eyes. Charlie took over driving and I read the map, while Mike became gunner. We found Lester Lane and followed it down to the road running along the river, Mary Ingles Highway. We dismounted and left that Humvee at the end of Lester, hidden in the trees.

  Turning south on Mary Ingles, we headed for the marina on the map. Railroad tracks lay between the road and the river, and the Aquaramp Marina was behind the tracks. First, we came upon boat storage. Boats on trailers didn't do us any good. The Humvee didn't have the proper trailer hitch to hook up so we couldn't get them to the ramp. The marina itself was on the water. It wasn't much of a marina, mostly just a place to launch a boat and buy some snacks and live bait.

  The marina did not have boat slots for rent. There were just four ski boats tied up to the long pier running parallel to the shore. The marina might have been a restaurant or something, since it had an outdoor dining area. We didn't bother going inside to check it out. Instead we divided up and each of us checked one of the boats.

  "None of them will start?" I asked.

  "Doesn't look like it," Charlie said.

  "What about that one?" Terrel asked, pointing downriver. "We can paddle that one across."

  There was an aluminum V-bottom boat washed up on short. A small outboard hung off the back. It couldn't be more than twelve to fourteen feet long, but we didn't need much. So we each grabbed a paddle and headed for it.

  "Is it leaking?" Mike asked.

  There was a good foot of dirty brown water inside it. I checked the 20-hp Mercury motor while the other three began bailing water. There was red five gallon tank that was half-full, but the motor looked older than my father. Maybe older than my grandfather. I couldn't get it started, so Charlie took over and pulled off the top while I took his place bailing out the water. He got it started before we finished.

  We took the paddles anyway, shoved off, and Charlie headed for the mouth of the Little Miami. I sat in the bow, low and finger on the trigger. Mike and Terrel manned the SAWs during our crossing. Charlie kept the speed and noise down low. The engine was very quiet at low speed.

  We eased into the Little Miami, all eyes on the western shore. The eastern shore was packed with silent, staring zombies. Our passage caused more than a little stir among them. Some tried to pace us up the river, but that was impossible. The zombies didn't bother me. The dark, foreboding woods to the west did, because it could hide soldiers.

  After rounding the first big bend in the river, we came upon a marina. The map labeled it the Harbour Towne Yacht Club. Ye olde yacht club had a small harbor dug out of the shore, with a shit ton of large boats. The peninsula wrapping around to cut it off from the river was packed with zombies, but not so much in the marina itself. There were five sets of docks, all uncovered, with maybe slots for twenty-five to thirty-five boats each. Most of the slots had boats in them. Few were what I'd call a yacht, but they were mostly large pleasure boats.

  "Keep going upriver," I said when Charlie started to turn into the yacht club harbor. "Move closer to the other shore."

  "Closer to the soldiers?"

  "Yes."

  That brought us within view of the first of two bridges I saw on the map. That bridge had been destroyed by the soldiers. That surprised me. I expected it to be heavily guarded, maybe with fencing up to keep the zombies out. But I expected a military unit with armored elements would want to keep all avenues of escape intact.

  Massive numbers of zombies waited there. They must've come up the road and expected to cross the river, only to be thwarted. Maybe their simple minds struggled to grasp the situation, so they waited for it to correct itself or something. There were no soldiers on the other bank for them to stare at and dream of eating. But the sound of men working, metal on metal clanging, helicopters and ground vehicles coming and going, filled the air.

  It was a very active base.

  Charlie maneuvered us through the bridge wreckage, and we continued slowly up the river. The zombies filled the shore the whole way to the next bridge, which was also blown up and destroyed. The base commander was more interested in security than access to the other side of the river. Or maybe they had access further upri
ver.

  "The river is getting shallower and tighter up here," Charlie said. "How much further are we going?"

  We were passing by a sandbar jutting most of the way to the far shore. Zombies packed it, all silently staring at us. The idiots didn't know how easy it would be to wade across. They might have to swim a short ways, but it wouldn't stop me in a full loadout.

  "Turn around," I said. Looking at the sun, I estimated it was late afternoon. Still a good four or five hours until sunset. We had at the very least three hours of sunshine. "Time to give those bastards a rude awakening."

  "What are we going to do?" Mike asked.

  "We're going to build a couple of bridges," I said. "And give the zombie horde a little meet and greet with the evil soldiers."

  Chapter 38

  We quietly boated into the Harbour Towne Marina. Staying in our boat, we went between the piers and looked the available boats over.

  "Okay, boys and girls," I said. Terrel gave me a curious look, but Mike and Charlie grinned. "Here's my idea. Tell me what you think.

  "I want to go through these boats and find one or two larger boats that start and run. I really need one big enough to take upstream and wedge into that narrow space at the sandbar. Or at least something big enough to tow one of the larger boats up there. And once that spot is bridged, then I want to start towing boats out of here and over to the bridge ruins. There's enough wreckage in the water for us to create a logjam of boats for the zombies to cross."

  They looked at me like I was the village idiot speaking in tongues.

  "You're joking, right?" Mike asked.

  When the craziest man in the squad asked if you were joking, you had to rethink your plan. Yet, I thought it a great idea. Execution might prove difficult.

  "I am serious."

  Their eyes glazed over as they gave my ideas serious thought. I watched them and the zombies. There weren't very many on the piers and boats, but that would change once we started checking out the boats. One man with a machete could defend one of the gangways from shore, but there were more access points than I had men. Also, all of the piers were connected by floating walkways.

  "It's doable," Terrel said, but still sounded doubtful. "How are we going to deal with the zombies?"

  "We can quickly jump on the end of the pier, and work our way down cutting the boats loose," Mike said. "And then pull them out of the slots to test."

  That would work. I wasn't sure if we could cut them loose fast enough, but worth a try. There weren't that many zombies roaming around the marina. Most were on the other side to stare at the far shore of the river. It wouldn't take them long to come around and attack us.

  "Can you hotwire a cabin cruiser, Mike?"

  "You betcha, boss," he said. "I can teach you all pretty fast, too."

  "One other thing," Charlie said. "I think the plan needs a little more tweaking."

  "As in?"

  He paused, looking the boats over a moment. Charlie checked the map, and nodded.

  "Okay, I like the plan overall," he said. "But… The execution might create enough noise those soldiers will hear us. So we have to do this faster and more efficiently. Here's my thoughts."

  Charlie had some really good ideas. He wanted to complete most of the lower boat-jam first, and then take a large boat up to create the other zombie boat bridge. That way if the soldiers were coming out to fight us, we just had to escape though a gap in the boat-jam while pulling the last boats into place.

  There were five piers with slots for boats. I dropped them off in the middle of the five, and they spread out. Each man took a different pier, running up it and cutting all mooring lines with his machete. As expected, the zombies surged around the small manmade harbor. I waited in the boat and picked them up at the end of the piers as they finished. Then I took us over close to the north shore of the harbor, and all of those idiot zombies came rushing back to stare menacingly at us.

  It was simple enough to pull the boats out and test them. None of them started on that northernmost pier, so we tied three together bow-to-stern and towed them out of the harbor and above the bridge wreckage. It proved a little more difficult getting them wedged in the rubble than anticipated, but once we got the boat-jam started it got progressively easier. The zombies quickly began climbing into the boats, working their way toward the end.

  We slowly built up the floating bridge for the zombies, from both shores. It wasn't until the third pier before we found a large cabin cruiser that would start. Then we could tow a lot more boats at once. It went a lot faster after that. We found another five boats that would start, but they were all smaller ski boats.

  The boat-jam bridge ended up about five boats deep. The eastern side was packed tight with zombies by the time we were ready to execute the final phase of our plan. We had three larger boats tied together side-by-side, with the longest in the middle to create a triangular shape to fit into the open space in the boat-jam. Then we took the cabin cruiser upriver, followed by a ski boat.

  I drove the cabin cruiser with Mike, while Charlie and Terrel followed in the ski boat. Halfway up the river we took fire.

  "Shoot them!" I shouted at Mike.

  He had the SAW and opened fire at the muzzle flashes in the dark woods. Charlie and Terrel opened up in the ski boat. I throttled it up to full speed. We quickly sped out of the soldiers' field of fire, but I was worried that they'd call others in. There was a chance we wouldn't make it out of there.

  It wasn't that far upriver to the sandbar. Within a minute or two I spotted our objective. The zombies all looked agitated. They probably heard the gunfire and thought it was dinner time or something. Who knew how zombies thought? They really got excited when we came around the bend.

  "Hang on tight," I shouted.

  I continued straight into the gap at full speed. At the last second I spun the wheel and the cabin cruiser wedged in between the sandbar and the wooded far shore. We hit hard, and for a second I thought the boat was going to flip over. If it capsized, Mike and I were toast. But it stayed upright, and immediately Charlie brought the ski boat up alongside.

  "Hurry," I said.

  Zombies were already climbing up on the stern. I vaulted over the side and landed painfully on the bow of the ski boat. Terrel grabbed me before I tumbled into the water. Charlie sped away even before I could get over the windshield and back with the rest of them.

  "It's a beautiful thing," I said, watching the zombies working their way quickly up the boat and then onto the far shore. "Those asshole soldiers are about to have a really bad day."

  We sped down the river at full throttle. The soldiers that fired on us before, shot at us again. Two SAWs and a few 40mm grenades answered them that time. I think we outgunned them, but we didn't hang around more than a few seconds. We were gone before they pulled themselves back together.

  The three-boat-wedge was anchored off their sterns. We left them waiting aimed straight at the gap. We passed by their rear and cut the anchor lines, and moved around in front and grabbed the tow line. It was easy to slowly pull them into place, as we passed by zombies just a few feet away. Terrel and Mike stood ready with SAWs if any of them tried to jump. One did, but I stepped forward and jabbed a paddle into his chest.

  The zombie was wailing and splashing around in the water as we moved past and got the three boats wedged in nice and secure. Zombies were surging across before we could even finish and release the tow line.

  "I think we made their day," Mike said. "Shall we retire to yonder hilltop and watch the fun unfold?"

  "In a perfect world," I said. "But no. Let's get our asses back to the others, and get everyone rolling. We have to get past before they fight off the zombies and recover." I looked back at the zombies crossing the bridge we made them. "Those soldiers are really going to be out for blood after this."

  Chapter 39

  We stopped out of sight and sent Mike to let everyone know we were back and driving captured Humvees. They opened a bay door and we
drove the four captured vehicles inside.

  "What are we going to do with those?" Sean asked.

  I shrugged. "They give us options."

  I spread the captured map out atop the hood of my Humvee. We showed him all of the markings the scouts had made indicating where other units were patrolling, and check points and such. Then I showed him the route we took, and explained what we did.

  "You did what?" Sean said. "You should've cleared that with me. We're not prepared to move out right now."

  "We thought we'd have all night," Jenny said. "It could take a while to take everything down and load the trucks."

  I didn't know what to say to that. If I'd come back to discuss my plan it would've taken another day to implement, at the very least. Granted, it did take two hours to work our way back to the others, so the base might've already dealt with the zombies. But maybe not. All of their questions made me second guess everything I'd done.

  "We're in a bind," I said. "We have to leave sooner or later. Our chances of bypassing them are slim, but we just gave them a little setback. Maybe that is enough to get us past them, but it's just as likely they already dealt with the problem and are back in operation. Question is, do we want to take our chances now or later?"

  "What are the advantages of waiting?" Jenny asked.

  "There are none," Sean said. "We're in dire straits no matter when we make our move."

  "They have all of the advantages," I said. "Our best chance to get by them is to move slow and carefully on foot. Our vehicles are big targets and much easier to locate from the air. Also, ground forces might overhear our engines."