Frank began to realize just how many Biters were in their area. There were hundreds at the site already and still more poured in from all directions. They all watched in amazement and a bit of horror.
“Base to alpha,” Steve called over the radio.
“Alpha here,” Frank said.
“How’s it going out there?”
“I wish you were here to see this. You wouldn’t believe how many are out here already. More are still coming. I don’t think our trap is going to get all of them,” Frank admitted.
“Seriously? How many are there?”
“About four hundred so far. I believe most of these are the ones that passed the house before.”
“Holy shit… What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know yet, base. I’m going to feel out the situation. I’ll come up with something.”
“You always do. Just make sure you stay safe.”
“Will do.”
Another hour passed and Frank estimated that the Biters were about five hundred strong now.
“This is enough. Check around the truck and see if we have any stragglers,” Frank ordered.
They searched around the truck through the windows.
“I have one to our six but that’s it,” Tommy advised.
“Ok. Anna get ready,” Frank said.
Frank decided to wait patiently for the last straggler to make it to the rest of the massive horde.
“Base, stand by for detonation,” Frank called out over the radio. He looked at Anna who nodded. “Fire in the hole.”
Anna pressed the button on her initiator. All four barrels exploded and spilled the fiery liquid on the horde. Frank watched carefully to see how many were missed. It seemed that the flames only reached about three quarters of them. As the fire ridden Biters began to drop, more moved into the noise of the speakers that were still partially functioning and lit themselves on fire. The generators blew and spewed more fire out but none of it reached the remaining horde.
“Come on…” Frank whispered to himself.
He hoped the fire lasted long enough to get them all. It didn’t. There were still about sixty or so left after the flames had burned themselves out. Some of them were still partially on fire but Frank didn’t believe it would be sufficient to put them down for good. Frank jumped out of the JERRV and turned on the power switch. He jumped back in and started the JERRV. The sound of the massive vehicle alerted the Biters. They turned toward the new noise and began to walk towards it.
“What are you doing, Frank,” Anna said.
“This is the safest way to take care of the problem,” Frank said then started to drive forward, straight for the group of Biters.
The truck slammed into the Biters at thirty miles an hour, crushing many of the Biters on impact and many beneath its massive tires. After passing what was left of the horde, he slowed the vehicle down and went to the outer edge of the site and turned the vehicle around to face them once again. Frank guessed that he got about half of them.
‘Thirty left,’ he thought.
The remaining Biters were scattered throughout the field. Frank waited to see if they would gather together a bit more before he made another pass at them. They did a bit but not as much as Frank hoped. He began another pass slamming into the larger groups. The JERRV plowed through them with ease. Frank went to the other side of the field to survey how many were left. Some of the second pass were still moving and a few even got to their feet. There were about twenty left.
“That should be good enough. Weapons free. Jesse, Craig? Watch our backs. Tommy, Jim? You’re with me. Anna? You’re on the roof. Let’s finish this.”
The group positioned themselves as ordered. Frank checked under the truck before taking his position. The remaining Biters were thirty feet away. More than close enough for the group to make short work of them. Frank began firing and the rest of them followed suit. It didn’t take long for them to bring the remaining Biters down.
“Clear the area and watch yourselves. The Biters may be down but might not be dead,” Frank ordered.
“Frank,” Jesse yelled.
Frank turned and saw more Biters coming from the wood line behind them. There were a few dozen of them. They rushed over to Craig and Jesse’s position.
“Light them up! Jesse, watch our six,” Frank ordered. They all began firing at their new targets, bring down one Biter after another.
‘Fish in a barrel,’ Frank thought. In the moments between gunfire he could hear his radio. Steve was trying to get in touch with him. He ducked down and moved away from the gun fire.
“Alpha here,” he yelled over the sound of the gunfire. He put the speaker to his ear to listen for the response.
“We can hear gunfire. You guys ok?” Steve said.
“We’re good! Just got some stragglers coming in late to the party! Mopping them up now,” Frank said and put his radio away.
He rejoined the firing line. There were not many left. Once they had been put down, Frank reissued the order to mop up any survivors. After they had cleared the area, Frank was satisfied that it was a job well done.
“Good work, everyone,” he took out his radio. “Alpha to base.”
“Base here,” Steve called over.
“We’re heading home. We will clear the area when we get there. No one comes out until we give the all clear,” Frank said.
“Copy that,” Steve sounded delighted.
“I think Steve’s been in that basement too long. Load up. Let’s get out of here,” Frank said.
When they returned home they found one Biter that was wondering around the yard, which was taken care of, swiftly. The rest of the area was clear. Frank went to the basement door.
“Ok guys. You can come up now,” he called out.
Steve was the first on up the stairs.
“So? How did it go,” Steve asked.
“Pretty well,” Frank said and recalled the events for the group.
“So how many did you get,” Kim asked.
“I would say about five hundred if you include the ones that showed up late,” Frank answered.
“Five hundred,” Steve exclaimed.
“Yeah,” Frank said.
“Five hundred Biters were floating around here? Jesus…”
“Yeah. We’ve been lucky here. We need to get a bulldozer out there to get rid of the bodies,” Frank said.
“No shit,” Steve agreed.
Later that night, they were having a small meeting with the senior members of the group: Kim, Tommy, Anna, Steve, Jim, and Frank.
“If we want to keep doing these traps. We need to make them more efficient. Sooner or later we will run out of all the components we need for it,” Anna said.
Jim leaned on the table. “Be nice to get a flamethrower or something put together. That way we won’t keep having to replace the speakers and generators every time.”
Frank thought about it. They definitely needed something different. While the others were chatting about different ideas, he opened his note book and started to doodle what he pictured in his head to help him think it through.
“Why don’t we just shoot them,” Jim asked.
“We don’t have enough ammo. Think about the skirmish we had. We went through a thousand rounds just to take down a couple hundred. We don’t have the resources for that either,” Anna answered.
‘What can we use to kill them that we don’t have to keep replacing,’ he thought, racking his brain for the answer. The answer hit him. Electricity. He stopped paying attention to the others and focused on the idea he was drawing. Anna noticed.
“What do you think, Frank,” Steve asked.
Frank didn’t respond, still lost in his thoughts.
“Frank? You ok,” Anna asked. He still didn’t respond.
She touched his hand, snapping him out of his train of thought. “Hey. You ok?”
“Huh? Yeah. Sorry. Got lost in a thought,” Frank said.
“What is it,”
Anna asked.
Frank hesitated. He was still midway through thinking his plan through. He decided to wing it and bounce his idea off the group.
“Well, what if we moved away from fire? It’s too inefficient and we don’t have the resources to keep this up. Steve, how much electrical power would we need to fry a human brain?”
“What? Well, you only need about a quarter amp to kill a normal person. They used about two thousand volts in the electric chairs but that was directed at the brain. Not really sure what we would need to kill Biters though. What are you getting at?” Steve said.
“The hospital has industrial size generators, right? If we disconnected all of the lines going into the building and made an electric fence. That would be more than enough power. We could lure them in and they would fry their brains trying to get to the speakers,” Frank said.
Steve thought about it. “How hard would it be to do that? I can’t imagine that it would be a plug and play type of thing.”
Jim cut into the conversation. “They do have industrial mobile generators. Same power but on wheels. You see them all the time on construction sites. There’s one sitting off of highway 24 near town. That thing can put out about 800 kilo-watts per hour. More than enough to kill a Biter.”
“You know about how long a tank lasts in those,” Frank said.
“I think they run about a two gallons an hour at full steam. They usually have a twenty gallon tank if not bigger. So, ten hours, give or take,” Jim explained.
“Ten hours should be more than enough time. We could bring that out to the field we used today and do this once a week if we wanted to,” Frank said.
Steve looked at Frank. “God damn, that’s inspiring. Just don’t shock the shit out of yourselves. Anyone ever accused you of being a genius?”
“I have been called many things, my friend, genius was not one of them,” Frank said, smiling. The group laughed.
Jim leaned forward and looked at Frank’s drawing. “Something like this will take some work and time. We will have to anchor the fence down, otherwise it will just fall over. I think we should pick up an auger from the hardware store. Digging the holes will be a breeze if we do and save a ton of time. We have to make sure that the poles aren’t in contact with the ground. If it does the current could ground out and not be of any use to us.”
“True. Then we just let the concrete set and we’d be good to put the fence up. Think a chain link fence would do the trick,” Tommy asked.
“I have no idea. The main problem with this plan is someone may have to stay inside the fence.”
“Wait, what? Why,” Steve asked, confused.
“We can’t turn on the generator and close the gates. Whoever did would get shocked,” Frank said.
“Shit. I don’t like the sound of that,” Steve said.
“I can stay in there,” Jim said.
“No. If we do this, I will be the one to stay. My plan, my risk. If the plan falls to shit then I will be the one to deal with the consequences,” Frank said, sternly.
Everyone looked worryingly at him.
He sighed. “If we can find some thick rubber gloves, we could try that but as much power as we are going to be pushing, I wouldn’t trust it.”
The group’s faces didn’t change.
“Listen guys, this is the best way to deal with the Biters, wouldn’t you agree?”
The group nodded.
“Then it’s worth the risk to make us safer. I’m willing to take that risk. I will try the rubber gloves if it gets those sad looks off your faces.”
The group giggled.
“Alright guys, let’s give it a few days and see if we can poke more holes in this plan. We can go Friday to pick up all the supplies for the first leg. We don’t need to try and do this all at once. Until then, I believe we have a vacation day to make up for,” Frank said.
That night, Frank and Anna were sitting on the front porch for night watch, sipping on coffee like always.
“You know, Frank, I like the way things are going. We’ve been doing some good work lately,” Anna said.
“You think so,” he asked for reassurance.
“Yes. That, and blowing stuff up is extremely satisfying.”
Frank laughed. “God, I love you.”
“I love you too, Frank.”
A week later, they were putting the finishing touches on their fence. Jim was inspecting the near finished product when he realized something.
“Hey, Frank,” Jim called out.
Frank walked over to him. “What’s up, Jim?”
“I’m seeing a problem.”
“What’s that,” Frank asked, afraid of the answer.
“Well, if I remember this right, if you start a generator without it running a current, it can damage the machine. We have to have a closed circuit going before we start it, hence the gate needs to be closed.”
“Shit. Just when you think everything was going so well,” Frank said.
He started looking at the gate, looking for any options.
“Do we have any poles left?”
“I think we have two left,” Jim answered.
“Ok. Run a pole over the top of the gate. That should be good enough. Duct tape it if you have to.”
“Ah, duct tape, a rednecks first love,” Jim said.
Frank laughed. “Let me go grab a roll out of the JERRV and I will give you a hand.”
Once it was completed, Frank went to start the trap. “Alright, guys. Clear out. Head back to the JERRV.”
After everyone was clear, he started the smaller generators that powered the speakers and turned the music up full blast. He went to start the large generator.
‘I hope this works…’ Frank thought then pushed the starter button.
The generator started in seconds and sounded like it was running fine. He started moving towards the gate, slightly frightened at the thought of having to close the gate. He literally looked at his hand to make sure he put the industrial rubber glove on. Once he was outside the gates he put his ungloved hand in his pocket and tapped the gate. Nothing happened. He grabbed the gate and closed it, locking it into place. Frank sighed in relief. He ran back to the truck and jumped into it.
“So, do we want to wait here to see if it works or go home,” Frank asked.
“Going home would be nice but I’m curious to see if it will work,” Anna said.
“I think we are about to see firsthand,” Jim said pointing at the gate.
A Biter emerged from the wood line. Everyone watch in anticipation and some anxiety as the Biter approached the gate. The Biter reached out and grabbed the gate with both hands. It started to convulse as the flow of energy shot through its body. Once the brain and nerves were dead, it finally let go. The group watched for minutes to see if the Biter would get back up. It didn’t.
“Well, I think it’s safe to say that this works pretty well. Let’s go home,” Frank said.
Ten hours later Frank, Anna, and Steve pulled back into the field were their trap was set. What they saw was both satisfying and horrifying at the same time. There was a mound of bodies surrounding the fence and nearly taller in some places. Part of the fence had buckled under the weight, spilling bodies inside. A few dozen live Biters were heading toward their vehicle.
“Frank. We have Biters coming,” Anna said.
“I know. They must have got here after the generator ran out of gas,” Frank said.
Frank started moving forward, heading for the small horde.
“I can’t believe there are so many still in this area,” Steve said.
“Well, I think we are starting to whittle their numbers down. There were much more of them last time,” he said.
The JERRV bucked slightly as they started to run over the horde. He drove over to inspect the damaged side of the gate. The chain link gave way. It seemed the poles were mostly intact.
“This shouldn’t be too hard to fix. Just got to get the bodies off of it,” Frank said.
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br /> He made a few more passes to run down the rest of the survivors. Frank jumped into the bulldozer and pushed all the bodies into a single mound then doused them with a few gallons of gasoline. He lit them on fire and watched them burn, making sure that the fire didn’t spread. Satisfied that the job was done, they headed home.
When they got to the house, Tommy was outside helping Jim work on the suburban. When he saw them enter the drive way, he called to Jim. The two of them approached the JERRV, rubbing the grease off their hands with shop rags.
“So, how did it turn out,” Tommy asked.
“Pretty good. I would guess that we got over two hundred,” Frank answered.
“Nice. It worked,” Jim said.
“Yeah. We’ll have to make some repairs to the fence but not much. Some of the chain link gave way,” Frank advised.
“Yeah. Five minute fix at most,” Tommy said.
“Right. It can wait until tomorrow,” Frank said.
Later that day, Frank was helping Gloria and Kathy wash laundry outside. Without power, they had to do it by hand. Anna walked up behind him and handed them all bottles of water.
“Here, guys. It’s getting hot out here,” Anna said then joined them in washing. “I can take over this if you want to start wringing them out.”
“Sure. Here you go,” he said as he got up, handing her the shirt he was currently rinsing out.
“You know, Anna, I have to say I’m a bit jealous of you. You got a man that’s great with kids, willing to die for you, and helps with the laundry. Wish Jim helped with laundry,” Kathy said.
Anna laughed. “I’m sure that Jim would if you asked but I don’t think you’d really want him too. His hands are usually covered in grease and oil.”
Kathy laughed. “Very true. There would be black fingerprints all over our clothes. I used to make him scrub his hands and arms whenever he would come over to my place. Otherwise, everything in my apartment would have oil on it.”
Frank heard a rustling of leaves behind him. A Biter was emerging from the tree line. Frank took out his knife. Gloria and Kathy gasped.
Life In Death (Book 1): Surviving Death (The Struggle) Page 24