by Josh Hilden
The Bitch was the university’s combination dump truck and snow plow. The school had been promising to replace the 30 year old behemoth but every year they decided not to. Thus forcing Pat and his mechanics to keep the noxious thing running.
Now it just might be their salvation.
“Do you think she can do it?” Lisa asked looking over at the monstrous thing parked in the far corner of the structure.
“Oh she’ll do it, she’ll plow through a thousand of those things and a dozen wrecked cars without breaking a sweat.” As much as he complained every fall when the yearly rebuild of the plow began, Lisa knew that Pat loved the hunk of junk.
“Then we are leaving at dawn,” she looked at her watch and then added, “that’s less than three hours from now.”
“We’ll be ready Boss Lady.” He said it solemnly.
3
6:25am
“This has to be what hell is like.”
That was the thought being shared by every man, woman, and child that was sheltered within the confines of the University of Michigan Medical Center.
The relentless assaults of the Risen Dead on the makeshift barriers caused the deaths and subsequent risings of more than a 100 people. The fires from the abandoned parts of Ann Arbor that reached the perimeter of the Hospital, and the smoke was pouring into the perimeter, effectively blinded the defenders. Though the smoke and flames didn’t seem to hinder the Risen Dead in the least. Things were moving faster than Lisa and Sam anticipated, they had already pulled their perimeter back four times since the evacuation orders were given. The fighting was now on the steps and courtyards of the Hospital and surrounding buildings.
Lisa ran down the hallway leading from the Parking Structure to the main Hospital. She needed to make sure that everyone that was coming with them were cleared out. She was infuriated by the number of people who decided that staying in the Hospital with the Risen Dead and the fires encircling them was the wiser course of action. She’d begged and cajoled as many of them as she could, but just shy of 300 people were leaving with her.
She could sort of see the points that the others made. The biggest of which was that all they needed to do was shut off the elevators and block the fire stairs. Then the Risen Dead would never get past the ground floor. There would be tons of food and water there because the people leaving could only carry a fraction of what was stored in the hospital.
But secretly, deep down in a dark place that she never would admit existed to anyone, Lisa was glad that so many of them decided to stay. It meant that there were less people that they would have to feed and care for, and less gasoline that they would have to scrounge once they ran out of all that they were carrying. She’d finally decided to leave a quarter of the weapons and ammunition with them. There’d been howls of protest. She pointed out, with the help of Captain Sims and several of the Guardsmen, that since they were going out into the madness they needed the weapons more than people that would be relatively safe behind thick walls.
She rounded one last corner of the abandoned Emergency Department, everyone who was staying were already upstairs, and unclipped the radio from her hip.
“This is Sutton, the ED is clear.” The radio crackled, and then there were responses from the other people that had gone back into the building to check for stragglers and people that might have changed their minds.
“This is Sims, Cafeteria and dining areas are clear.”
“Laundry and Housekeeping clear.”
“Maintenance is clear.”
“Lobby and reception clear.”
The litany continued until everyone was accounted for. Once she was convinced that they’d done their due diligence, she gave the order.
She lifted the radio to her face and spoke the words that sealed the destinies of them all, “All sentries fall back to the Parking Structure, the ground floors and sub levels are now abandoned.” She then began running as fast as she could back toward the temporary safety of the Parking Structure.
She turned the final leading to the connecting the parking Structure and nearly ran into him. She thought he was one of the people who’d decided to stay at the hospital. From the look of the bandages hidden under his coat he’d been hiding a very severe abdominal wound that finally killed him. He was over six feet tall and maybe three hundred pounds. He blocked the entire hallway that was her only sure route to safety.
“Ah fuck,” she said as she slid to a stop 10 feet in front of him. In the distance she could hear the sounds of the dead coming through the abandoned barriers and entering the hospital. There were just too many of the tempered ground to ceiling glass panes on the first floor to even think about securing it from them. Her hand went to the pistol on her hip by reflex. She stayed it when she realized that the rapport would just attract more of them. The man moaned and began to stumble and shuffle toward her mouth agape.
She looked around for something that she could use as a weapon. The problem was that most of the obvious weapons had been scooped up by the other survivors. The man was getting closer. The sounds of the hospital being entered by people that it could no longer do any good for were getting louder. She made a decision.
Lisa ran at the man and at the last second dropped and swept her booted foot directly into the dead man’s knee. The sounds of bones breaking were satisfying as the man stumbled and fell against the wall. His considerable girth propped by the hand rail that ran the length of the hall. She sprung up to the other side of the hall and vaulted over the man. He swung his arms toward her, but only succeeded in causing himself to slid further down the wall. She ran at a full gallop, and as she entered the Parking Structure, two of her people locked the steel doors behind her.
4
7:05am EST
Lisa stood on the open roof of the Parking Structure. Watching as the sun broke over the eastern horizon. Its rays fought through the thick smoke and haze from the fires consuming the three largest cities in Southeastern Michigan. Below her, the streets were full of the recently Risen Dead as they prowled and looked for prey.
The sounds of gunfire were constant. It boosted her flattened spirits a bit to know that the people of her city were still fighting back. The radio communications they had with people around the city crystallized her decision to not try and dig anymore survivors out to join them. They did not have the firepower or the manpower to accomplish the task. She looked at the jury-rigged device that Pat Rowland had brought up to her.
“Will this thing do the job?” She asked him.
“It’ll broadcast over most frequencies out to about 20 miles and step all over any radio inside of the city. But boss, it’s getting thick down there. I think we should hurry up if we are going to do this.” He didn’t smile as he said it. The sight of so many dead had taken all of the levity out of most of them.
She picked up the mic and keyed it, “This is Doctor Lisa Sutton of the University of Michigan Medical Center. The Hospital has officially been abandoned. Do not attempt to reach it. The Dead now control the entire campus.” She stopped for a second and fought back tears. The reality of the hospitals fall did not hit her until she spoke the words. She continued, “We are evacuating north. If you can hear my message and wish to join us please respond on the following frequency,” she gave a frequency that they would monitor 24-7, “we will arrange to link up with you as we trek north. Good luck and God bless.” She unkeyed the mike and looked down at the Risen Dead below.
“Let’s get the hell out of here.” Lisa said and didn’t bother to try and hide the tears running down her face.
They headed down to the vehicles that were ready to roll, fully stocked and manned for the trip. All they had to do was roll up the main gate and let The Bitch clear them a path. Pat climbed up into the cab of The Bitch and Lisa joined Sam Sims and a dozen others in the command bus. She slammed the door behind her, and settled into the passenger seat next to a university student named Rich who was driving.
“OK Rich, let’s get this sho
w on the road.” She said and the exhaustion that she’d been fighting with willpower, fear, and caffeine threatened to overwhelm her. She sat up straighter and shook her head. She could sleep when they were away from the city.
“You got it boss,” he said and picked up his CB mic, “The Boss says let’s roll people.”
In the cab of The Bitch, Pat Rowland punched the button to open the gate of the Parking structure. The whine of steel and servos split the air, and even managed to drown out the moans of the Dead for a minute. Then the gate was fully up and the Dead were coming in. They swarmed around the lead vehicles like rats pawing at the steel carriages and trying in vain to gain entry. The Bitch moved forward and for a second Lisa though that there would be too many of them and the massive machine would be stalled under their weight.
Lisa had a hard time identifying the sounds that she was hearing from in front of the plow. Then she realized that it was bones, specifically skulls and their contents, being crushed by the enormous vehicle. Watching the back of The Bitch she was fascinated and revolted by the bits and chunks of human bodies that were mashed and expelled as they exited the Parking structure. She heard the sounds of vomiting from the back of the bus and then she smelt the rich bogginess of the half-digested hospital food.
“Somebody please crack open a window,” she said distractedly to the passengers at large. She heard the sounds of somebody wrestling with one of the reinforced windows. The outsides of all of the windows were covered with chain link fencing appropriated from the Grounds Department at the Hospital.
The hatch in the roof of the bus opened and a young National Guard Private stuck her head down into the cabin. “Doc you’re gonna want to see this.” She said and then disappeared back up the hole.
Lisa unbelted from the seat and walked back to the rope ladder strung up to the hatch. When she climbed onto the top of the bus she was at a loss for words. They were pushing their way through a sea of thousands of the Risen Dead. It was clear now that some force had been smiling on them, or that they had the greatest luck in the world, to have the giant plow/dump truck in their arsenal. If it was not there to clear the path, they would have been overwhelmed by the Dead. She looked behind them and saw the mixture of ambulances, vans, trucks, and sport utility vehicles that they had cherry picked for the exodus. They were all doing a steady 10 miles per hour, and that seemed to be considerably faster than the Risen Dead were able to stumble and shuffle after them.
The sounds of gun fire from the vehicles in the convoy startled her at first, until she realized that they were just clearing the ones closest to them. She keyed her mic and spoke to the other vehicles, “everyone go easy on the ammunition, we have no idea how long it will be until we can resupply.” The gun fire slackened following this admonition but did not stop entirely, she was satisfied nonetheless.
She climbed back down and saw Sam sitting in her seat fiddling with the radio. He turned and looked at her.
“Well just 500 miles and one big fucking bridge to go before we get to the Promised Land, boss lady.” He said and grinned at her as he made air quotes with his fingers.
“Oh shut up and get out of my seat!” she said and then laughed tiredly as she sat down. They had miles to cover, but she was sound asleep less than a minute later.
Sandy visited her again, but she still couldn’t understand her.
Chapter Ten
1
Government Center
White Harbor, Upper Michigan
October 19, 2012 AD (Day Two)
9:05am EST
The cold gray dawn brought little relief to the residents and refugees of White Harbor. All night they labored in a herculean effort to prepare their small corner of the world for the onslaught that was heading their way.
The emergency council ordered constant surveillance by the half dozen light aircraft that were hangered at the small airport outside of town. The news they brought back was not encouraging. Everywhere they went the Risen Dead ruled the land. As one of the pilots put it when he had almost fallen exhausted and frozen from the cockpit of his vintage bi-plane, “White Harbor might be the last place in the Uppah where the living outnumber the Dead.”
Every piece of excavating machinery available was commandeered and set to work erecting a series of earthen walls around the village and several of the large, family-owned farming compounds. So far the combination of earth and whatever could be added to reinforce the walls, such as wrecked cars from the junkyard, were almost four feet high and growing. The hope was to have a hastily thrown together 10 foot wall around the half circle of the town stopping at the lake shore by sunset the following day, and for the people to keep reinforcing and improving the structure afterwards. Eventually, the top was to be crowned by a fence and a walkway. With towers every 50 yards, but the important thing was to get the wall and gates built before they were overrun by the Dead. The best estimates gave them two to four days before the mass of the Dead from either Marquette or Duluth would reach them.
All of the food, medicine, fuel, and weapons of the township had been gathered in the community center and other large buildings. The original owners were issued vouchers from the emergency council. They would be reimbursed after the end of the crisis. A lot of people complained about that, but when Thornton Hilstrand turned all of his assets over to the common good, and told those that were reluctant he was going to propose to the council that anyone who did not contribute to the common good would be left outside the walls to their own devices, there was very little complaining.
The White Harbor Emergency Council had issued a series of emergency decrees during the night. They had all stayed up till the break of dawn trying to get as many of the irons in the fire moving as they could. The orders had been;
1. All residents of the Township White River and the Village of White Harbor were to move within the safety of the new walls. Housing would be made available to everyone who previously resided outside of the Village proper.
2. No groups of less than three were to leave the walls without council permission.
3. All personal firearms and ammunition, along with all such items currently on the shelves in stores, were to be turned in to the emergency council to be distributed to the White Harbor Militia.
4. All Residents of 16 years of age and over were hereby conscripted into the White Harbor Militia, unless physical impairment prevents service (Medical Personnel would make this determination).
5. All residents not able to serve in the Militia would be assigned other duties.
6. All children ages five to 15 will continue to attend school, but would also be assigned appropriate duties when not attending classes.
7. Anyone who died was to be decapitated and immediately burned with no exceptions. Anyone unable to accomplish this task was to notify the militia.
8. Anyone who was bitten by one of the Risen Dead was to report it immediately.
9. Hoarding of essential supplies would result in expulsion from the community.
Police Chief, and now head of the emergency council, David Hall walked into his office washroom, and groaned as he caught sight of his reflection in the cracked and cloudy mirror. Like everyone else on the council he’d been up all night going from location to location and making plans for the continued survival of the community.
The first act was to send a detachment of the new White Harbor Militia out to the White River Hydro Electric Plant and secure it. They’d radioed in that the plant staff and their families were there and denying them access. It took almost an hour of negotiation with the plant manager to get them to agree to join with the people of White Harbor for mutual survival. Three hours later, the families of the plant personnel and some of the redundant workers arrived in town. Following this several of the precious pieces of construction machinery were dispatched to help erect defenses around the power plant.
David rummaged through one of the drawers and pulled out his electric razor. Sighing, he proceeded to get the worst of t
he stubble off of his face. That they still had electricity, and may very well be able to keep the juice flowing even if things did not go back to normal, was a miracle of sorts.
The reports that he was getting through the Homeland Security Radios spoke of massive power outages, rioting, and fires. It was chaos on a scale that was impossible to imagine in an American city. That was from the places with somebody alive and in nominal control, from the cities that had officially gone off the air shortwave, CB, and intermittent internet traffic painted a hellish scene of violence and horror.