by Lundy, W. J.
“Keep your magazines ready, people. We’re going to need a wall of lead to get back to the truck. On three. One…two…”
57
El Paso, Texas
April 24th
“Move it, asshole!” Sidney shouted, pressing the center of the steering wheel for a full five seconds. The driver of the car blocking the intersection flipped her the bird and shouted something back at her in Spanish. She returned the gesture, continuing to berate the woman until the MP directing traffic could clear the intersection, allowing her to continue traveling toward the Army base.
“Damned lunatics,” Sidney mumbled. “You’d think there was a giant mob of infected people coming this way, or something.”
She made it another three blocks before a soldier waved her toward a parking lot. Rolling down her window, she asked, “Hey, what’s the deal? I’m trying to make it to the hospital. That’s the safe zone, right?”
The soldier nodded. “Yes, ma’am. All the FEMA camps in the city are full, so we’re diverting to Fort Bliss itself. The base has almost a forty-five-mile circle of shipping containers surrounding it, and the engineers are working on a second level now. You’ll be safe there.”
She looked in her rearview mirror at the line of cars behind her then thought about what the soldier said. “The FEMA camps are full?”
“Yes, ma’am. There’s an estimated ten million additional people in the city.”
She thought back to her years overseas. “How will you feed us all?”
“Don’t you worry about it, ma’am. They’re working on a plan. For now, you just need to clear the streets. There’s no room for your vehicle on post, so you’ll have to walk from here.”
“From here?” she asked, momentarily forgetting that the soldier had casually waved off her question of whether there was enough food for that many people. She glanced out her windshield in the direction of traffic. “Why are all those people driving?” she inquired, pointing at the cars inching forward along the I-10 access road.
“Commander’s orders, ma’am. No more cars inside the walls. All those cars are just gonna get abandoned along the way and clog up the streets even more. We need to have open avenues of approach for military vehicles, so the engineers are using bulldozers to push abandoned cars off into the ditch or onto the sidewalk, depending on where they are. The commander wants that to stop, so he’s having people leave their cars in parking lots further away then walk the rest of the way in.”
She glanced at the Home Depot parking lot where the soldier directed her. “How far to the base?”
“It’s about four, four and a half miles, give or take.”
“Four miles?” she choked. “Is that safe?”
He shrugged. “It’s as safe as we can make it, ma’am. There are soldiers posted along the route. Look, I’ve got to get this parking lot filled and then move down the road to the next one, so can you please just park and let me do my job?”
Sidney started to say something, but thought better of it. The soldier was not much more than a kid, just following orders. She eased her foot off the brake and turned into the parking lot, taking a space near the exit. She didn’t like the idea of being on foot for four miles when she’d seen how fast those things could run, but what could she do?
Logically, she knew that everyone from across the entire southeast of the country—the ones who were alive anyway—were either already inside the safe zone or they were on their way. All those cars would never fit inside a forty-five-mile perimeter.
“Wait.” The realization that there could be millions of people crammed into that small area hit her like a ton of bricks. How have I not thought about that?
She’d seen it time and time again in the Peace Corps. When a lot of people were crammed into a confined area, nothing good ever came of it. Murder, rape, and theft were usually rampant, not to mention the spread of disease and lack of food.
“What is the government thinking?” she asked the cat as she went through the car’s interior to ensure she had everything she’d need—maybe for the rest of her life.
She felt a moment of panic. Inside the safe zone she’d be defenseless and trapped. What if someone had hidden a bite? If somebody turned inside the perimeter, everyone was as good as dead.
Can I make it away from the city before they get here?
She glanced off to the east. The airplanes and helicopters continued to fly back and forth, dropping bombs on the horde. They were still too far away to tell how far they went, but she thought the explosions were louder than they had been four or five hours ago, when she hit the first Army checkpoint. That meant the mass of infected was getting closer.
Cars quickly filed into the parking lot. People got out and began taking inventory of their things, seemingly much more organized than Sidney was. They looked like they knew exactly what to do, whereas she was lost.
“This was a mistake,” she mumbled. “I can’t do this.”
She sat heavily in the driver’s seat and edged the keys back toward the ignition. She could just leave, and go…where? All those people were coming here because there wasn’t anything left out there.
The rumble of a big engine passing by made her look up. A massive four-door armored truck rumbled by, headed away from Fort Bliss. It wasn’t a military vehicle—or at least Sidney didn’t think it was. The truck had a second set of wheels that could drop down, allowing it to travel along railroad tracks. She’d seen similar vehicles before, but nothing so big as the thing that drove by. The tires had to be over three feet in diameter, and there were dirt bikes in the back, along with what looked like extra fuel tanks, and a…crane? Is that a freakin’ crane? she wondered.
While the truck didn’t look military, the man sitting on one of the fuel tanks in the back definitely did. He had a crew cut and bulging arms sticking out of an olive green t-shirt. Over the top of everything, he wore a bulletproof vest with all sorts of gear strapped to it, and a massive gun of some type rested across the knee of his camouflaged pants.
“I have got to get me one of those,” she said aloud.
The soldier, or whatever the hell he was, must have seen her watching him because he smiled and waved in her direction. She grinned, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. And then the asshole ruined it by standing and air-humping his gun.
“Dickhole,” she said, still grinning slightly.
While the guy’s gesture may have been obscene, his confidence seemed to strengthen her resolve. He was a fighter and didn’t appear worried about the situation. She was a fighter too. She’d survived a trip across the country, on her own for more than half of it. She’d killed that would-be rapist fuck, hit infected with her car, and learned how to avoid the crazies by hiding and staying quiet, first at her apartment building and then for almost a month at Lincoln’s house. She’d even dumped the body of the father of her child, leaving him by a dumpster to rot so she could keep traveling to where she was now.
More explosions rumbled across the desert. This latest group rattled the Toyota’s windows. They were getting closer. Her opportunity to go it alone outside of the city was gone.
“I can do this,” she said, gripping the steering wheel tightly. “I can take care of myself. I’ll make it to that refugee camp because I’m a survivor.” She patted her stomach softly. “And you’re a survivor, Little One. We’ll make it through this.”
Her pep talk spurred her to action. She got out of the car and jogged over to the cart return, where she grabbed one of the bright-orange shopping carts. Pushing it to her car, she saw others running to the cart corral to follow her lead. Maybe they weren’t as organized as they’d seemed to be. Maybe she was the one who had her shit together.
Sidney put the case of water in the bottom of the cart. In the main compartment, she placed both hers and Lincoln’s backpacks, then Rick James’ food, and the bag of litter that was slowly dwindling away. Finally, she took the cat carrier out of the car and placed it on top of everything.
Epilogue
Pyongyang, North Korea. April 25th
Nampoo Yi looked across the broad plaza toward the open-air expanse of the Victorious Fatherland Liberation Museum and waited for the satellite phone he kept with him to beep. Their suite encompassed the entire top floor of the pyramid-shaped Ryugyong Hotel, one of the most luxurious in Pyongyang, and it was very comfortable, but they had been here for too long; tempers were wearing thin.
He looked at the Western calendar, taking note of the glorious date of March twenty-fifth, and smiled. What he and a few hundred people had accomplished couldn’t have been done by the strength of ten countries combined. Yet here they were, the whole of Western civilization was on its knees.
His phone chirped, and he looked to see it was the only person that he wanted to hear from.
“Dr. Sanjay, I trust that you have good news for me,” Yi said in heavily accented English.
“I’ve been working diligently, Mr. Yi,” Sanjay said. “I want to speak to my family.”
“I am a man of my word, Doctor. If I say that they are fine, then you have to simply trust that I have done no harm to your family,” Yi said nobly while keeping the mental image of his bed chambers this morning and the good doctor’s eldest daughter chained to his bed, nude. He didn’t typically like them young, however, the mother…she didn’t hold up under stress well.
“I have the final components to the formula and should have the first batch completed shortly.”
“That is fine,” he answered. “I need you to start mixing right away and send transcripts to…
Three minutes later, Yi was walking down the hallway to the suite’s main meeting room, where everyone had assembled to hear about the phone call. At one time, Nampoo Yi used to dread these meetings with everybody vying for power and position. However, with only the four of them left, the meeting had become more controllable.
He entered the room, seeing the other three already seated. He walked to his chair and rendered a slight courtesy bow to the facilitator, Hamid Abdullah Sari, though everyone knew that the real brains and power came from the slutty-looking woman on his left, Kasra Amol.
Her gaze was that of a leopard on the prowl, visually stripping the clothing from men and women to savor their discomfort and their knowing they could never touch something so sweet. Puppets…“Cease with the formalities and speak,” the woman ordered.
“Yes, Kasra. Sanjay has the formula and is fabricating doses of the block as we speak.”
“Isn’t it too early to release the antivirus in the United States?” Kim Pujon Hi said, knowing that the results relied upon too many factors for him to be comfortable.
“The American populace, for all practical purposes, is dead,” Hamid Abdullah Sari replied with a gruff smirk. He reveled in the satellite feeds he’d received that showed the millions of people tearing each other apart. It is fitting, he thought, knowing that lust feeds upon itself and there was no lust greater than that of Western civilization. So much money; so much time, they couldn’t help but rot from within and consume themselves. It is poetic justice.
“There are still factions that could turn out to be a problem, Facilitator,” Nampoo Yi interjected.
“Give us a full report upon your speculations, Yi,” Kasra Amol purred as if she had just playfully slapped his ass through the sheets and begged for another hot, fleshy moment.
He snapped back from wherever the bitch’s games had brought his mind and spoke. “I do not think there will be a problem in El Paso. There are too many of the infected converging there. The plan states that the deserts of Texas would be a good location to thin the herd before we release the blocking agents that Sanjay will provide. We’ll inoculate the population north of the Yucatan Peninsula in order to protect any potential allies we may have there when this is all said and done.”
“We can’t have any more of what happened in Brazil,” Kim remarked.
“Remember that Brazil was the staging area. We had planned on there being complications,” Nampoo Yi replied.
“The annihilation of an entire country’s real estate is hardly a simple complication. Do not forget who we work for as well as our ultimate goal. Everyone is aware of that complication.”
“I’m sorry, Facilitator, but I had no choice,” Nampoo Yi protested.
“We all know the rules, Nampoo Yi. Eliminate the people, but leave the real estate and infrastructure intact. What are these groups you mentioned, and how do they concern us?” Facilitator Sari asked.
“There have been certain private militias that survived quite well in the mountain states in both the Appalachian and the Rocky Mountains,” Yi replied, half expecting their response. They didn’t disappoint.
“Redneck cowboys? You want us to worry about a bunch of cockgobblers with AR-15s and camouflage? Get a grip, little Nampoo,” Kasra sneered.
“I am aware that they were below the radar when we were dealing with the US Military, but now that they are all but destroyed, these privateers are bringing people in, and they could be a threat,” Yi protested.
“People? What people are they bringing in?” the Facilitator asked with alarm.
“They are gathering them up twenty and thirty at a time. They are ragged at first, but there is still a lot of food around, and if they have safe shelter, which a lot of them seem to, then they thrive.”
“Once again, Yi, I feel that we are operating on different wavelengths. You say they are getting people, and I worry that Poland or Turkey has sent troops, but no. Instead, you are talking about the general population, which has no training and has been run ragged. Please try to get on the same page as the rest of us, Nampoo Yi,” the Facilitator admonished.
“Yes, Facilitator.”
“So, keeping on track, now that we have the formula to the vaccination, it is imperative that we stop this virus a hundred miles from the Russian border. They have repositioned their arsenal upon our countries, and they will not understand any mistakes on our part. They know where we are, and they are close enough to both of our countries to make life uncomfortable. We also have to stop the spread in South America. There are a lot of valuable workers down there that we will need to reestablish control in the north,” the Facilitator stated their objectives.
“What about Australia and New Zealand?” Pujon Kim asked.
“We are sending a salvo over to Australia that will ensure it will burn for a thousand years, and—”
“And nobody gives a fuck about New Zealand,” Kasra interrupted just as the satellite phone in Nampoo Yi’s pocket chirped. Everyone fell silent so he could answer.
“Yes,” he said, not recognizing the caller. His face drained of color, and his eyes grew wide. Sweat began to form all along his hairline. Without a word, he hung up. It took him several seconds before he could meet their eyes.
“Dr. Sanjay is dead.”
“What about the formula?” Kasra demanded.
Yi typed his twenty-four-letter password into the phone’s keypad to access his email program. “It’s not here. He didn’t send it.”
The small Asian jumped at the sound of Kasra Amol’s unearthly screech of rage. It sounded much too similar to the screams of the infected.
This is the end of the Phalanx Press collaborative effort Five Roads to Texas. Look for the stories to continue on their own as each author tells their characters’ stories.
_________________________________
Sixth Cycle
Carl Sinclair & Darren Wearmouth
Nuclear war has destroyed human civilization.
Captain Jake Phillips wakes into a dangerous new world, where he finds the remaining fragments of the population living in a series of strongholds, connected across the country. Uneasy alliances
have maintained their safety, but things are about to change. -- Discovery leads to danger. -- Skye Reed, a tracker from the Omega stronghold, uncovers a threat that could spell the end for their fragile society. With friends and enemies revealing truths about the past, she will need to decide who to trust. -- Sixth Cycle is a gritty post-apocalyptic story of survival and adventure.
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Aliens have planned against us for centuries... And now the attack is ready.
Charlie Jackson's archaeological team find advanced technology in an undisturbed 16th Century graves. While investigating the discovery, giant sinkholes appear across planet, marking the start of Earth's colonization and the descent of civilization.
Charlie and the rest of humanity will have to fight for survival, sacrificing the life they’ve known to protect themselves from an ancient and previously dormant enemy. Even that might not be enough as aliens exact a plan that will change the course of history.
Dead Island: Operation Zulu
Allen Gamboa
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Ten years after the world was nearly brought to its knees by a zombie Armageddon, there is a race for the antidote! On a remote Caribbean island, surrounded by a horde of hungry living dead, a team of American and Australian commandos must rescue the Antidotes' scientist. Filled with zombies, guns, Russian bad guys, shady government types, serial killers and elevator muzak. Dead Island is an action packed blood soaked horror adventure.