“Wire Bender made contact with some brass at Cheyenne Mountain.” Griz said “They got hit pretty hard too. Some of the guys coming off night shift managed to lock down the areas they were in but most of it is lost.”
“Are they in communication with anyone else?” Gunny asked
“A few dozen countries have been on the Ham but it’s just guys like us. Some survivalist type groups. Some remote hunting lodges. Quite a few up in Idaho and Canada. The Russians up in Yamantau Mountain claim to be unaffected but they’re scared. They watched the whole world fall, Moscow included. They had been in contact with Washington before it fell. They hoped we would be able to stop it. Man, there ain’t no Commies and Yanks anymore. Just people wanting to survive.”
“They’re cut off up there without resupply infrastructure.” Cadillac Jack chimed in, drawing on his years of service in Military Intelligence. “The Road of Bones doesn’t even go near them and it’s the only road through that whole area. They’ve probably got their winter supplies laid in but they won’t last forever.”
“The boys under the mountain in Colorado Springs aren’t any better off.” he continued. “They’re not allowed to have weapons in there, so they’re stuck in a big hole in the ground. Unless they have access to the mess area and all the food, they’re screwed. Probably only have what little bit is in the office refrigerators. They don’t even have snack machines down there.”
One of the tourists raised a hand and timidly asked: “We still have military operating?”
“Not really,” Cobb answered. “We’ve talked to NORAD and that’s it.”
He saw the uncomprehending look on her face and elaborated.
“NORAD is who launches the nukes. They’re outside of Colorado Springs, underneath Cheyenne Mountain. They are in the most secure bunker in the world but only a handful survived the initial outbreak as far as we know.”
“So a bunch of Military Intelligence eggheads would have to battle their way out of there with improvised weapons. I don’t give them much of a chance.” Gunny sighed. The news that Wire Bender had been able to glean was catastrophically bad. No word from Washington or anyone claiming to be in charge. No word from the President.
“He probably ate the first Hajji bacon this morning for the cameras. You know politicians.” Griz said and they all had to agree. Everyone Wire Bender had either talked to directly, or anyone the boys in Cheyenne Mountain had told him about, were all in the same situation. Isolated and cut off. Acting autonomously because there simply was no more government. No one was in charge. The soldiers in assigned nuclear bunkers and fortified bases around the world that hadn’t been overrun were just people wanting to understand and live. They no longer had politicians pointing at another country and telling them they were the enemy. Every survivor he had been able to contact had lost nearly everything.
Martha brought Gunny’s burger out with a heaping supply of seasoned fries and he dove in, offering the fries to anyone that wanted some.
“Shakey, go relieve Scratch. Tell him I need him here.” Cobb barked out and went back to his list he’d been looking at. “Anybody know how long the electricity will last?” he looked up and asked the room in general.
After a moment a hesitant voice spoke up. “It depends. But if no one is there to replenish the coal supply, two or three days. Four on the outside,” she said. “Reno gets its power from coal-fired plants, not hydro. So probably about four days.”
It was the girl in the matching clothes with her boyfriend, Gunny noted. He thought they had left with the rest. They all just looked at her, eyebrows raised.
“I was studying to be an electrical engineer,” she said shyly. “We toured some of the local plants. They have huge automated conveyor systems to feed the furnaces directly from the rail lines.”
Cobb grunted and nodded and scribbled something on the paper. “Our biggest concern is going to be water,” he said. “We’ve got generators that will run the place and the fuel tanks were filled up a couple of days ago. They’re three-quarters full still. Guess I won’t be paying that bill. But we’re on city water and as soon as the electric goes out, we’ll be out of water. There’s an old well out back that the old man had before they piped water in but it ain’t been used in years. We’ll have to get a few guys on that tomorrow.” He made a few more notes and one of the women from the surrounding tables asked if there was any place to sleep, glancing at the little girl nodding off in her lap.
The truck stop used to have a bunk house for drivers when most trucks didn’t have sleepers on them but it was long gone, the space converted to the various shops in truckers alley.
“We’re going to have to rough it tonight,” Cobb told her. “The most comfortable spots will be here in the diner, at the booths. There’s plenty of Mexican blankets in the store, help yourselves to them. We’ll clear out some areas in Driver’s Alley tomorrow, make something a little more private.”
“I’ve got a pallet of moving blankets in my wagon.” Hot Rod said. “They’ll make good mattresses piled up a few thick.”
“Them doors ain’t being opened up at night,” Cobb growled with finality. “We can fix things up tomorrow when there’s light to see.”
Gunny looked around as he finished his burger and asked “Where’s the Stabby guy? I have got to hear his story. Why was he all dressed up like Halloween?”
Griz chuckled. “Seems like we got us a Rock Star in our midst. He said they had a show tonight in Reno. The rest of the band took off to go party, but he stayed behind in their tour bus to play Xbox. They never came back.”
“He is fried out of his gourd on something,” Stacy said. “He’s strung tight. I’d say Meth, but his teeth are still good. Skin too. So probably cocaine.”
“Probably Coked up.” Sara agreed. “We see it a lot.”
“Well, it’s not booze.” Gunny said “You see the way he took those two out? Like watching a blood ballet. Even when he got knocked on his ass, he bounced up like it was a Michael Jackson dance move.”
“It does have that going for it but unless you’ve been using it for a while, you would likely just get stoned,” Stacy said. “It builds up, affects dopamine levels which affect your muscle and reaction times. Quickens them in some people. Messes up the frontal cortex in your brain, so you don’t feel fear or worry about things. Like being eaten by zombies. So he could be a great zombie fighter when stoned and a huge incompetent blob when straight.”
“He’s still in the shower?” Gunny asked, not seeing him in the diner.
“No,” Tommy said. “Pops turned all the arcade machines to free play. He’s down there with the rest of the kids.”
Scratch came up to the table, overhearing the last of their conversation. “Dude, he’s always on something! Don’t you know who he is? That’s Jody Blades! The front man for Brutal Retort!” he said excitedly. “He’s all over the net, he posts pictures of himself snorting cocaine off of hookers asses! He lives the rock n roll life, Man. Destroys hotel rooms and everything. I caught one of their shows last year in L.A. It was unreal. The whole stage was trashed with all the stuff he was chopping up, I heard one dude lost half his hand during one of his stage slides, the mosh pit was soaked…” He trailed off when he saw all of them just looking at him with those old people looks of ‘We couldn’t possibly care less.’
“Uh, anyway. Yeah. He’s kind of famous for being a coke head.” He finished lamely. “You needed me, Top?”
Cobb went on to quiz him about the behavior of the infected. How long they stayed agitated, what he thought was drawing them to cluster around the truck stop. Scratch had been on duty on the roof most of the night, hadn’t wanted to be relieved. He kept watching for Tiny and Gunny.
Kim would take him a sandwich and cool drinks from time to time and keep him company. Cobb already knew most of the answers but since everyone was listening in to his little meeting, he wanted to get everything they knew out on the table so everyone had as much information as they coul
d.
There were some hard decisions coming up tomorrow and he wanted people to sleep on their choices. They were life and death choices. Stay here or try to leave again. Scratch reiterated what he’d already told Cobb for the benefit of everyone else.
When he was finished, Cobb looked around the room and spotted who he was looking for. “Hey, Bob Marley, show us on this map the roads you scouted again.”
Lars was near the back, talking quietly with a few of the other people, his long beaded braids quietly clinking back and forth as he shook his head ‘no’ again as he was asked about getting through Reno. He chuffed. He knew the old man wasn’t being hateful. That’s just how old First Sergeants talked to everyone.
He’d heard the guys call him Top and judging from his demeanor and scars, it had been earned, not given. He spun the map towards him and scanned it for a moment then, pointing out the different roads he had taken, how far he had traveled down them before turning and the infected situation. It was pretty simple and straightforward.
The dead had all day to find and infect everyone. If there were people, there were zombies. He hadn’t seen anyone alive but it wasn’t out of the realm of possibilities if someone had burglar bars on their windows and doors and had been inside.
Cobb went back to scribbling notes and Gunny took the opportunity to ask Tommy about his truck. He still wanted to leave, still had to try to make it home to his family.
“I’ve got some ideas,” he said. “After that fiasco with Tiny,” then paused, remembering the screaming, clawing, gnashing masses…Tiny being drug off of the hood. The unbridled fury and raw strength of those … those … those monsters. The fear he had felt, the nearly incapacitating fear.
He realized he had stopped and everyone was staring at him. He gave his head a half shake and took the last swill of his beer. “Right, I need to armor up my truck, build a cowcatcher and reinforce the windows.” He continued. “I don’t care how much truck you’ve got, if you run into a horde, they will overwhelm it. You need to be able to shunt them aside, not let them pile up and over the hood. That’s how we lost Tiny. They were up and over and smashing through the windshield, breaking their way in.”
“Like a snow plow,” Tommy said, and flipped over a paper placemat and started sketching. Between them, with Tommy knowing what was practical with the iron pieces he had on hand and Gunny having just been through a horde of zombies and gridlocked cars abandoned on the road, they came up with a pretty good design.
The weakest point was the front tires. If one of them blew from debris on the road or from bouncing a car out of the way, the truck was stopped. No way around it.
“We’ve got some industrial tires we keep on hand for the local construction trucks and there are plenty of old dump trucks out back with the oversized wheels on them.” One of his mechanics chimed in. “It wouldn’t handle very well at high speed but they’re just about bullet proof.”
Tommy quickly added the oversized extreme duty tires to the drawing and erased part of the fenders so they would have clearance.
“Looks like Mad Max.” Scratch said. “How many can you build?”
“None tonight,” Tommy replied, “I’m going to bed. It’s going on two o’clock.”
Chapter 18
Gunny was asleep in his bunk. Just by the sheer dumb luck of pulling his rig in for a service, it was safe in the mechanics bay and he got all the comforts his truck had to offer. He’d told Cobb and Martha they were welcome to use it but they’d refused. Scratch said he would use it, as a matter of fact he needed it, because of his arm and all.
Gunny just gave him the finger as he had walked towards his truck and his comfortable bed. There was a knocking on the side of the sleeper. He was awake instantly, listening. It wasn’t a lot lizzard, that much he knew. Not here inside the bay.
“Gunny.” He heard. It sounded like the British guy.
“What’s up?” he said. No drowsiness or confusion in his voice.
“That Wire Bender bloke needs you, mate.”
Geez. Doesn’t he ever sleep? “Tell him I’m on the way.”
When Gunny walked into the shop a few minutes later fully dressed, armed and alert, Cobb and Griz were there also. Wire Bender was the only one looking frazzled and red-eyed. Stabby was on one of the computers loading up USB sticks.
“He’s here, Sir. Transferring the coms now.” Wire Bender said and slid the big silver table top Ham radio microphone over the counter towards Gunny.
He just looked at it and held his hands palms up in a “What?” gesture
“It’s General Carson at NORAD,” Cobb said around his unlit Lucky Strike.
“Who? What’s he want with me?”
Cobb gestured to the mic, “Just answer the radio, Gunny,” he said.
Looking a little frustrated at the lack of answers, he hit the push to talk button and said “This is Gunny. Go ahead.”
“Is this Sergeant First Class Meadows formerly of the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment?” the voice came back through the mike.
What did these guys want? Gunny thought. The old anger in him rose up to the surface faster than he thought possible. He went from frosty to insta-pissed in half a second. These officers and political appointees had ruined his life for a while and being called by his old unit and rank brought it all back.
He and his wife had a long term plan worked out that included him retiring after 20 years, drawing a nice pension and finding a quiet little town to live in. A place where he could get a job as a deputy or patrolman and she could find work at the school.
There they would reap the benefits of a comfortable life after the grueling years of active duty. The long separations, all of the missed birthdays and Christmases and Thanksgivings. The constant danger he found himself in obeying orders and doing ops all around the world.
It would have all been worth it with a small town life, where all he had to do was break up a few bar fights on the weekends, maybe catch a speeder every once in a while and get in plenty of fishing. Hang out at the local café with the rest of the town folk. Maybe build himself an old school hot rod. But Uncle Sam was finished with him after he gave them fifteen years.
No benefits. No retirement. No Medical. Just Dishonorable walking papers. They had very little savings and it went quickly. Lacy had finally landed a good job in Atlanta while he floundered. He couldn’t go to the police academy with a dishonorable discharge. Hell, he couldn’t even find work driving a forklift in a warehouse once the background check was run on him.
He didn’t have the stomach to join up with some of the contractor outfits like Griz had done. He just wanted peace and quiet and to be left alone. That’s when he stumbled on the idea of driving a truck. Money was good.
You were your own boss so there were no embarrassing questions about your past and the inevitable “I’m sorry sir, but our policy …” He and his wife were used to separations and at least it would only be for a few weeks at a time, not months. And most important, nobody was shooting at him. Now they were calling him by his old rank, the one they had stripped from him.
“No Sir,” he finally responded. “That would be Private Meadows. But I’m not even that. I’m sure you have the paperwork right there in front of you, General. If you need a military man, may I suggest First Sergeant Cobb or Sergeant First Class Grizzwold. Both fine men.”
The General wouldn’t be deterred that easily. “Funny thing, Sergeant. I’m looking right at your file. I have page after page of glowing performance reports, awards, medals, a few purple hearts, bronze stars, a silver star…. Hell, son. You’ve got a Distinguished Service Cross. I don’t even know anyone that has one of those. Then I have a one page DD214 where it shows your rank as private with a dishonorable discharge and that’s it. No reason given. Everything redacted. Can you clarify?”
Everyone else was staring at him now. Griz stroking his beard and looking quite impressed. Stabby asking “Is that good, all those stars and thingies? Are you like
a hero or something?”
Gunny didn’t like to talk about his military life. None of these men knew much about his former career except what little they had gleaned over the years. They knew he had been a grunt and had seen some action. A lot of guys who had seen too much over there were like that. Quiet. Observant. Rarely talked about their tours. They knew not to pry. Everyone had secrets, some darker than others.
“I punched a General,” Gunny said and released the button. That ought to shut him up, he thought.
There was laughter in the background when the microphone came back to life “Well, if you did, I’m sure he deserved it.” General Carson said. He knew Gunny wasn’t being honest. There would have been a court martial in there for that and some jail time but it didn’t matter. Everything else in his jacket told him this was the man he wanted. And he had a strong hunch this was the man he needed.
The General’s voice came over the speaker again. “But I didn’t wake you up to talk about that. Sergeant, I’m going to put you on speaker here. My counterparts in Russia, China and Germany will be listening to us. Unfortunately, these are the only governments that any of us have been able to raise. We’ve contacted a number of ships at sea and most of the submarines, but as far as friendly governments, we four are it.”
The General paused for a second, where they assumed he was patching in the others, then finally got to his point. “Tell us how you came to the determination that the Muslim extremists were behind this attack through infected meat products.”
Gunny was taken aback. “I … I don’t know if it was,” he said, trying to adjust to the change in the direction of the questions and suddenly aware there were a lot of people listening to him. “It was just a logical conclusion I came to and asked Sergeant Kowalski to see if there was anything on the news about it, to see if it was even within the realm of possibility.”
“You hadn’t had any inside information, something leaked to you by any of your former military associates?” The General asked
Zombie Road (Book 1): Convoy of Carnage Page 16