Good girl, she was thinking, but changed her mind, when Alexa landed with a loud grunt and followed it with “Hey, you! Zombie! Over here!” attracting the other zombie in her direction.
“Mom, get the fuel,” she yelled over her shoulder as she led the zombie on a chase around the biplane. Annoyed at and frightened for her daughter, she nonetheless ran over to the fuel and lifted each of the three cans, selecting the heaviest one. “Got it,” she yelled. “Now run for the left side of the door, I’ll run for the right.” They got there at almost the same moment, sliding the doors shut and securing them with some wire that Alexa had somehow had time to grab on her race for the door.
“That was fun!” Alexa breathed.
“Fun! I could kill you, Alexa,” Georgia replied, through gritted teeth, frustrated at Alexa’s lack of concern for her own safety.
“It’s a new world, Mom!”
As much as Georgia would have liked to argue and make this a teaching moment, it was critical that they get to the plane and give what they hoped was fuel to Joe.
“Yep, that’s Avgas!” Joe proclaimed after barely opening the can. “Let’s how much she’ll take.” It took up nearly half of what was in the container.
“Okay, let’s do this. Everyone needs to be in place before Joe tries to start her. I imagine the plane is going to be noisy and attract zombies all the way from Osterville! Alexa, you get in behind Joe. Pete, stow the rest of the fuel, and get in next to Alexa. I’ll cover us,” Georgia said, as she pulled out the gun.
“Joe, once they are in, hit the ignition. If it starts, I’ll jump in and you do your thing. Get us off the ground. If not, everybody out and we’ll run for the cars.”
“Well, alrighty, then,” Joe nodded, as he saw the weapon.
Fortunately, the plane started without a problem. They taxied down the runway, and she could see two zombies appear out of the woods behind them.
Go, go, go, go, she chanted silently. They were nearly at the end of the runway when they hit 60 mph and Joe lifted it off the ground. They barely made it over the trees. As they came back around to make the 10-mile trip west, they could see a few more zombies on the runway, bumping into each other, looking up to see the source of the noise.
“Oh, what I wouldn’t give to have a tail gun right now,” said Pete, earning Alexa’s obvious admiration.
“See if you can get Otis, Edwards, Cape Cod, whatever it’s called now, on the horn. It’s 234 or 243 MHZ, or something in that range,” Joe suggested.
“Mayday Mayday. Trying to reach Joint Base Cape Cod. Mayday Mayday,” Georgia called on each channel as she dialed through. No response. Her heart was in her mouth. What if they are all dead? What if we land and are surrounded by zombies? But then her reasonable side took over. Perhaps there’s just no one manning the radio at the moment…they’re a bit busy right now.
Her fears were allayed as they approached the base. They could see folks on the ground, folks that moved with deliberation and intent—no shambling. They flew over the runway, and Joe “waggled” the wings to let them know he was friendly. He came back around to land, and was pleased that they did not get shot at. They landed safely but found themselves with guns pointed at them, not just hand guns, but big semi- and fully automatic weapons, held by big men in Kevlar jackets. Georgia was never so happy to have had a gun pointed at her.
***
Three months later, they had been screened by the medical staff, had their skill sets assessed by some officious fellow in a Marine uniform, given an ID card, and assigned a barracks. Since then, others had arrived, all from the upper Cape. Most came on foot, some in cars, vans, campers, and two people on Goldwings. Only one other group arrived by plane. Everyone who arrived was let in. No more military ID requirement. They were all survivors.
The base renamed itself back to Otis—much easier than Joint Base Cape Cod. The base military took charge. The Air National Guard Intelligence Wing had the ranking officer, so all military ranks were converted to Air Force. Even civilians were given ranks. Those with skills, such as engineers or nurses, were ranked as specialist, cops were evaluated for full ranks, and since the Air Force did not use the rank of private, everyone else was a private, including Alexa. The only exception to this were the local members of the Wampanoag tribe. They set up their own living space in the woods on the Mashpee side of the base, and maintained their own order, working closely with the military to make the base successful. The tribe had deep knowledge of the land and the animals and the making of hand weapons, all of which they shared freely. The military recognized that handling this any other way would lead to dissension, which was never good.
Everyone lived in military barracks, women with women, men with men. There were few children and even fewer complete families. When new ones formed, they were given military housing, which Alexa thought was a step down from the barracks. A medical center had been established, along with a meal center. Food was neither delicious, nor plentiful, but it was sufficient. Work details were created and everyone was assigned to one, depending on skill or interest. Farming detail was mostly gathering nuts, mushrooms, and other items from the forest, and identifying areas for optimum growing in the spring. Fence details either repaired existing fences, built new ones, or installed the poles that sat at 45 degree angles for “catching” zombies that came near before they mowed through the fence. Security patrols typically contained at least one military or former cop, someone good with a gun. They walked the border checking for and removing zombies that got caught in the poles outside the fences. Stationary guards stood sentry at the two active and two dormant entrances to the camp. Hunting parties of three or four typically included a Wampanoag or a trained hunter who led the others in tracking and killing squirrels, deer, raccoons, and other local fauna. The Wampanoag taught survivors how to make bows and arrows, spears, and traps on these trips, and how to use them. The hunters were typically the best shots on the base, and had a gun with them. They could use a single shot to fell an animal lest they attract zombies. The other bullets were in case the worst happened. Any kills were hauled out of there quickly, so as not to be seen or smelled by any zombies if they were near the fences. More often than not, zombies were attracted to and killed near the fences using hand weapons.
Forays were the most dangerous detail. Only a select few, mostly military at first, went on these. They exited the camp and made their way to local houses, stores, and businesses, to take anything useful. Occasionally, besides the food, tools, medicines, and other supplies, they found a person, but there were fewer of those as time went on. In fact, they found mostly zombies now—people who had died locked in their homes. As quickly as the forays filled up the Otis larders, the requirements of its residents began depleting them. They needed to go further afield as the cold began to hit.
In late September, they had embarked on a series of forays to Mashpee Commons in conjunction with the Wampanoag. With all its varied stores, it was a treasure trove of medical supplies, foodstuffs, clothing, and more. In order to get what they needed safely, they had to execute a number of “raids” first to clear out zombies. They started by setting off ordinance in the nearby rotary (the “151 Rotary”) to draw out zombies. Then they picked them off from the treetops and the rooftops. The first time they went, they had all they could do to eliminate the herds that showed up. Suppressors or bows and arrows were used to keep silent so as not to attract more zombies. The noise from the ordinance, however, attracted them from fairly good distances, depending on the wind, so several of them always kept to the treetops to eliminate any late joiners. When they could finally enter the buildings, the raiding parties went in through the employee doors and back doors, to take whatever they needed, eliminating zombies as they went. It was better than going through the front door. Front entrances were often glass, highlighting their approach, and energizing the zombies. Plus, there were fewer employees than customers in any given store, making back entrances less risky.
It h
ad taken four weeks to get what they needed and thousands of zombies were killed.
There were two boards on Otis that tracked zombie kills. One was just the total kill count. That number stood at 12,687 as of last evening. It was a big number until you considered how many people were on the Cape. The year-round population was 215,000. At the height of the summer vacation season, there were closer to 500,000 people. Estimates for September were 300,000. With 5,000 people on the base, there were still over 250,000 potential zombies. They were going to have to get creative if a herd from the MidCape or Lower Cape moved in on them.
The second board was by individual, listing the top 20 zombie killers. Pete was on the leader board. Alexa was jealous—she had only five. Everyone had at least one.
***
Today Georgia was on security patrol on the north side. Joe and Alexa were as well. When she was not chewing her hair, Alexa, it turned out, was a good shot. It was early, predawn, and it was cold—damned cold. The wind cut through her like a knife. Georgia could see her breath and even the inside of her nose was cold. Winter is coming, she thought wryly, harkening back to her old life, sitting on the couch with Alexa, watching “Game of Thrones”—or Dragons and Zombies, as Alexa liked to call it. It’s going to snow soon and we’re going to be trapped. They better finish shoring up those fences and kill lots more zombies.
It was her first time on security patrol. She had mostly been learning about the local area, flora and fauna from the Wampanoag for the past three months. But that had included training with a bow and arrow, and she had become very good at that. So she was assigned to a patrol—learn a skill, use a skill. The last three patrols to this area had come back reporting no zombies. They’d reported no deer, rabbits, or squirrels either, which was too bad, because as an Archer (she liked that title), she could hunt game for the larders. It was not unusual for there to be no zombies here, as there had been little population between the base and the Canal on the north side. However, the lack of game was a little concerning this early into the winter, as this had traditionally been an area with lots of local animals.
As she scanned the woods, Georgia had little expectation of seeing zombies, and, unlike the others, she wished not to see any. She hoped that Murphy and his damned Law would not make an appearance today and send some zombies. She blamed Murphy for the whole zombie apocalypse. But luckily their little base civilization had not had any brushes with “all things that can go wrong, go wrong” for months.
But today Murphy was back. As they came around a corner in the fence with a particularly large beech tree, the three of them saw that a medium-sized maple tree had fallen over and was leaning on a section of the fence, pushing it toward the ground. Anyone could walk a few feet up the nearly horizontal tree and right into the base. Fortunately, there were no zombies in sight, but the fence was weakened and would need immediate repair, as there were no zombie poles on the other side of fences here on the north. They radioed back for a crew to clear the tree, and one to fix the fence. But it would be a half an hour before they arrived. Fifteen minutes later, as Joe stepped around a tree inside the base to take a leak, two zombies came into view in the brush beyond the fence.
“Shit, fuck, damn, hell!” Georgia exclaimed. If they made it to the fence, they could get in. Did I just use my outside voice, she wondered, and was answered by Alexa’s exclamation, “Language!”
Two more appeared, then three more—promoting them from a group to a herd.
“Double damn it!” she exclaimed, knowing that Alexa was staring a snarky hole through her head right now.
The Otis Patrols hadn’t cleared the areas north of the base. The threat from the south and east was considerably more, since that’s where the majority of Cape Cod’s residents and vacationers lived. Something had attracted this herd south. It wasn’t loud noises—it had been weeks since they set any ordinance off in the 151 Rotary (which was on the south side). The tree falling couldn’t have been that noisy. What exactly it had attracted the herd was and would remain a mystery.
As she notched her arrow, taking aim at the front-most zombie, Georgia thought something was different about this group, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. She took out the first one easily and watched in growing fear as the group grew larger from behind. The math looked very bad. They were going to be overrun. As she took aim at a second one, her fear made them seem to be walking in slow motion. Then, on her left, Joe pulled back from his weapon and mumbled, “What the…hey!” Alexa fired her weapon, blurting out, “Holy shit!”
The three of them realized that the zombies were walking slowly. It wasn’t fear-induced perception of slow motion, at all. They were not imagining it. It had to be the cold. Zombies were affected by the cold. It slowed them down.
They handily killed 34 zombies—Georgia got 10, and Alexa and Joe split the other 24. While they waited for the tree and fence crews to come, they radioed back to headquarters and shared what they had learned. When they returned to the main base, new “Kill” crews had already been set up for the next morning. People were lining up to join. The folks of Otis were going to exploit this new advantage and take out as many zombies as they could while this cold snap lasted.
The military were talking about possibly using one of their three helicopters. They could hover over the Bourne Rotary to draw zombies in, and then pick them off from the helicopter, and from nearby trees and buildings.
Georgia learned that while they were gone, there had also been radio contact with the nearby Maritime Academy in Bourne. A number of people had survived, but needed to get out of there. Rescue plans were being considered that used a boat or a helicopter, or trying to scale the remaining bridge—the Train Bridge—to get over the Canal. Between the news about the cold and the survivors in Bourne, there was hope radiating through Otis.
6 The Treehouse by Stanley B. Webb
Don’t shoot yet, I want to tell you my story.
I awaited my friends at the trailhead, sleeping bag under my arm, ready for our treehouse campout. The forest behind me rustled in the evening wind. Night gathered. I pretended that I was not afraid. A twig snapped. I backed away. A squirrel chittered, and I felt foolish.
My gang arrived then. My best friend, Art, was fifteen like me. Art’s brother, Gordon, was a high school senior. With them were Gordon’s best friend, Clarence, and Clarence’s thirteen-year-old brother, Lester.
Clarence and Lester hauled an aluminum ice chest between them. When they rested, Lester sat down on the lid.
Clarence sighed with exasperation. “Get up, or you’ll dent it!”
“I’m tired!”
“You’re such a baby. Go home, you’re still too small to climb the tree.”
“Am not!”
Gordon interrupted the siblings’ dispute. “Did you get it?”
Clarence pushed Lester off the cooler, and raised the lid. Inside was junk food, a slim, brown paper bag, and a twelve-pack of beer.
Art said, “Groovy!”
Clarence glanced at Art and me. “Do you kids drink?”
“Sure,” said Art. “All the time.”
I had once borrowed a sip from my father’s beer, and found the taste horrible. I didn’t admit that to my friends.
Clarence closed the lid, and asked Gordon, “Give me a hand with this?”
We followed the seniors into the woods, along a trail which only we knew. The forest floor, covered with a thick layer of dead leaves, crunched softly underfoot.
I tripped on something hidden, and hard. “Ouch!”
Clarence snickered. “Watch out for the rocks.”
Art walked beside me. He had a flashlight, and played ray-gun, zapping the beam around.
Gordon snapped, “Get that out of my eyes!”
Art and I chatted about ghosts and murderers. Lester, overhearing, moved closer to his brother. I thought that it would be fun to scare Lester, and surreptitiously signaled Art. He and I were lifelong partners in mischief, having launched f
ake UFOs over the highway, and chased trick-or-treaters while disguised as monsters. Art understood my intentions, and nodded back. I quietly left the group, following in the darkness thirty feet behind, awaiting the right moment to spring.
However, my sneaky imagination backfired: I started thinking that a real murderer might be stalking me as I stalked Lester; he would smother my cries with a chloroformed rag, and drag me off, and my fate would remain a mystery until some future hunter discovered my bones. I scared myself so much, I imagined hearing footsteps behind me. I considered fake-stumbling to alert Lester, so I could return to the safety of our gang, but Art would have ragged on me for chickening out.
The city’s noise faded to a murmur behind us.
We arrived at the treehouse tree.
She grew a quarter of a mile into the woods. My father once told me that his grandfather said that the tree had germinated alone in a field. She was the mother of the whole woods. The old maple’s trunk bulged six feet in diameter, grotesque with burls and ridges of bark. Four subsidiary trunks branched eight feet up, each of them as large as a normal tree, and the treehouse sat between them. Gordon and Clarence had built it out of discarded lumber. Moss stained the old boards, a black tarpaulin covered the flat roof, and bent, rusty nails studded the corners. The house had a vacant doorway in one wall, and a window frame opposite.
Apoc Series (Vol. 1): Whispers of the Apoc [Tales From The Zombie Apocalypse] Page 10