by Josh Hilden
He ground the gears as he took off, grinning a maniac’s grin and answered the question and the statement. “Sgt. Major Sanford made me a Private, Sir. He has drafted a lot of us into the Army, Sir. He told us that you are a General, and that we had better address you as such.” He glanced over at Liam and then said quickly, “No offence General, but I am way more afraid of Sgt. Sanford than you, Sir.”
Liam wanted to scream, but he held it in and just shook his head. “Whatever son, right now it doesn’t matter. The South gates went down. We have maybe half an hour before those things get here so let’s move it.”
The base was in chaos. He knew that the people inside the former safe zone would hear the broadcast, and that panic would be the result. He was glad that they managed to get so many people out before the gates went down, but there were still several thousand people inside.
He saw a tow truck driving across an air strip crash right into a section of fencing that blew apart. The truck was followed by half a dozen vehicles stuffed to the gills with refugees. As they left the base in search of safety, the Risen Dead began squirming and shuffling through the breach they had left behind. The sight stabbed ice into Liam’s belly. This would be happening all over the base. He could hear the screams and pleas of those that were not fast enough or strong enough to get away. They were brought down one at a time by dozens of the Dead. Gunfire and the smells of death and burning assaulted his nostrils and watered his eyes.
“Hurry Private, for the love of God son hurry.” He was choking back tears.
8
3:45am EST
There were several forms stumbling around the old hanger as they pulled up. Every few seconds they would begin pounding on the sides of the building, moaning and wailing. They were drawing more of their kind toward the structure. In the distance, Liam could see dozens of the Risen Dead working their way toward the temporary Safe Harbor of the Hanger.
“Um sir, what do we do? Those things are blocking the way inside.” Private Williams sounded unsure and looked terrified.
“Drive up slowly son and leave the lights off.” Liam said, unholstering the .45 Colt he’d liberated from the dead Colonel and rolling down his window. As the Hummer rolled forward on the crushed gravel that surrounded the old aluminum building, Liam pulled himself half out the window and balanced on the ledge. There were six of the Dead in the immediate vicinity, and he carefully took aim at them and fired in turn, six shots equaled six corpses laying on the rocks. He pulled himself back in and rolled up the window,
“Holy Shit General, where did you learn to shoot like that?!” Private Williams asked, and Liam didn’t like the awe he heard in the kid’s voice. He honked the horn, three shorts and a long, and the big door in the front of the hanger rolled up. It had been the prearranged signal Liam assumed.
“The Army, son,” Liam said as he reholstered the weapon.
“So you are a General, I knew it!” Shane exclaimed.
“No Private, I never made it that high up.” Liam replied.
Inside the hanger, he saw the convoy put together by Sgt. Major Sanford. There was a beehive of activity around the vehicles as people stowed gear, performed last minute vehicle modifications, and got ready to roll out. The doors closed behind them as they rolled in, when the Hummer was shut off, he could hear moans and the pounding of fists over the sounds of human activity. Time was short.
8
4:15am EST
All of the time that they may have had was now gone. It was now or never if they intended to escape the charnel pit that used to be an Air Force Base. They were all buttoned up and ready to go, 13 vehicles carrying 72 human beings and all of the supplies and equipment that they could stuff inside. Like a similar group that escaped a besieged hospital several days earlier, they were getting ready to leave the perceived embrace of safety and head out into the hungry wastelands.
Like that other group they were afraid.
Liam Harrison keyed the microphone of the radio mounted in the dashboard of his Humvee, “Alright people it’s show time. Remember that no matter what we see outside these doors we keep rolling. The only chance we have is to make it to open country.” He released his thumb from the switch and looked over at Shane. He had decided to keep the kid as his driver. “Let’s do it son.” He said quietly, and then for the first time since his wife died Liam Harrison crossed himself.
Private Williams pushed the button on the small remote mounted on the dash of the Hummer, and the big hanger doors rolled up. Outside the doors were maybe 50 of the Dead and they began to shuffle inside. Shane didn’t hesitate. He put the Hummer in gear without grinding them this time and moved forward and through the loose web of the Dead.
The group of Humvee’s, trucks, and even two buses (a local school bus and a greyhound bus) swept aside the Dead that blocked their path and headed in the direction of one of the lesser gates.
All around the convoy the scenes that assaulted the senses were horrific. Knots of the Dead chased down and devoured the living, men and women were usually able to get away from the pursuers. The very old and the very young were not so lucky. Liam turned his head aside as a little 11 or 10 year old girl was brought down screaming by a pack of the Dead. On the roof of the greyhound bus that the people in the convoy were already calling the “Dog House”, a sniper mercifully put a bullet in the little darling’s forehead and ended her screams.
Fire was consuming everything in sight. The sounds of gunfire overrode the sounds of the Dead and dying. Liam knew that there was no way that the living would be able to do more than delay the inevitable, but he wished them luck.
The convoy made it to the isolated gate that Sgt. Sanford picked out for their point of egress and Liam was relieved to see that the gate and fences were still intact. The commotion inside the base had drawn all but a dozen of the Dead away. He was about to give the order to knock down the gate to the big army truck that had a giant snow plow attached when he saw a vehicle coming up the little access road leading toward the gate from the outside. Liam put his night vision binoculars to his eyes, and saw that it was a police car.
“Everyone hold up, we might have local law enforcement heading this way. Let’s keep our fingers on the triggers in case they aren’t cops, but lightly.” He said on the side band they had chosen for group communications.
As the car approached the gate and its dead guardians, the black body and yellow writing of a Montgomery County Sheriff’s car was apparent. On the hood and the sides were the dark brown and red swatches of dried blood that were so common. The vehicle stopped 50 yards from the group of the Dead, and the passenger and two rear doors opened. Liam watched two young men and one young woman get out of the car. They were carrying hand weapons, the girl had a pair of extendable police riot batons, one of the boys had a fire axe, and the other was carrying a baseball bat. Inside the police cruiser another person, maybe a girl, was waiting behind the wheel.
As they slowly approached the Dead, Liam thought that they were insane. Why the hell weren’t they shooting, they all had sidearms on their hips. But these kids and the oldest couldn’t be more than twenty or so, had been surviving out there since this had all started, and they were still alive. Liam and the others had mostly been inside the base, and had not needed to wade through the Dead until now. They approached the Dead and began to smash the corpse skulls in one at a time, the boys were efficient but the girl was a demon. Of the 13 Dead that were brought down, the girl brought six of those down herself.
Liam opened the door of the Hummer and stepped out, his cane doing its job. As he walked over to the gate, he glanced behind him and saw some of the Dead heading their way. He figured there was enough time to figure this out before they got there from the slaughter on the base. He stopped five feet from the gate and looked at them, they were dressed head to toe in thick heavy clothing. Liam figured it was bite resistant, and they looked tough. He couldn’t guess what they’d been before the Rising of the Dead, but he knew they were
survivors and that they might be very useful to him and his people.
“Nice work,” he said to them, it sounded lame to his own ears but it was the best that he could come up with.
The girl and the slightly overweight kid with the bandage wrapped around his head both looked at the tallish skinny kid with the long pony tail. He gave them a resigned look, and then stepped forward and spoke in a quiet voice that wasn’t quite a whisper.
“So I guess this means that this place isn’t safe either, doesn’t it.” It may have been a question in his head but he delivered it as a statement.
“I’m afraid so son, the base has been breached.” Liam said, he noticed that the girl was watching the perimeter, and that her hand always hovered near the pistol on her hip. “That one is very dangerous,” he thought to himself, and that might be a good thing.
“Well shit!” The other boy not quite yelled, “Now what Kye?” He asked the tall boy.
“I guess we move on, we can always head for the river.” He didn’t sound thrilled with the idea. Liam thought it was a pretty good one.
“I am not trapping myself on a damn boat unless there is no choice Kye.” The girl said flatly.
Liam thought quickly, and the words were out of his mouth almost before he knew he was going to speak them. “You guys can come with us, we’re heading north.”
They all looked at him. Liam felt that he was on display in a cage. He fought the urge to start swinging his cane around and singing. Instead, he watched as they went into a quick huddle and hashed things out. When they were done the girl and the boy not named “Kye” got back into the car while Kye approached the gate.
“Alright we’re in.” he said and offered his hand through the gate, Liam took it and they shook.
“Let’s make some miles, son.” Liam said and headed back to the Hummer. They needed to make some miles before the sun came up.
Chapter Thirteen
1
Moraine, Ohio (South of Dayton)
October 19, 2012 AD (Day Two)
5:55am EST
On an average day taking the surface streets and not interstate 75, it took Kyle Carson about 20 minutes to get home from work. This was far from an average day. Kyle and Benny were on the roads for almost two hours when the Prius they liberated quietly glided into the subdivision on the hill that they called home.
The trek was a nightmare journey filled with scenes that would have made the most jaded horror movie fanatic cringe. The Mall was ablaze and the intersection at the entrance was a tangle of more than 50 wrecked vehicles. The Risen Dead were everywhere. When they saw the small car easing nearby they began to shuffle and moan in its direction. It’d taken all of the self-control that Kyle possessed to not just begin running them down willy-nilly.
They used side streets cutting through lawns and parking lots whenever the road became impassable. Every now and then they saw another vehicle picking through the wreckage. Unbelievably there were many people moving about on foot doing their best to avoid the Dead as they attempted to find safety. The radio was broadcasting confused garbage about safe areas then 10 minutes later telling people to avoid the very same safe area because all communications with the people there was lost. The only two places that seemed to be continually touted as safe were Fifth Third Field, where the local Triple A Dayton Dragons baseball team played, and Wright Patterson Air Force Base.
As they cruised through the downtown drag of West Carrolton, they saw the Junior High School was lit up like the fourth of July. There were barricades erected at all of the entrances. Snipers were positioned on the roof and in second and third floor windows keeping the encroaching hoard at bay. There were large burned out areas around the school, where it appeared that the Dead had been doused with a flammable liquid and set aflame.
“I always hated that fucking place, but damn if they aren’t giving those things a kick in the teeth.” Benny grinned and stared transfixed at the school where the two of them spent three years as punching bags for the bigger, stronger kids.
“Try the phone numbers again.” Kyle said to his best friend as they popped the little Japanese car over the curb and onto a lawn to avoid yet another smashup.
“Alright man, but every time I try, it just screams that all circuits are busy shit at me.” Benny punched in seven numbers and put the phone to his ear. After a few seconds, he threw it down in disgust and shook his head at Kyle. It was all that needed to be said.
“It’s not your fault Ben. I think pretty soon all cell phones are going to be completely useless.”
“Why’s that?” He asked, honestly interested.
Kyle would have been dumbfounded if anyone ever told him that one of things that Benjamin Franklin Millett loved about him was how much knowledge he had crammed between his ears. It wasn’t that Ben was dumb, when it came to things like cars and machinery he was almost a savant. He’d spent the summer between his 15th and 16th birthdays rebuilding a 1965 Mustang that he brought home from a junkyard for $500, with the owner laughing openly at him the entire time. Five months later, after he’d gotten his license and tons of cool new scars on his arms and hands, he’d driven the same car back to the junkyard so the owner could listen to it purr. But Kyle just knew things, sometimes it creeped people out just how many facts were buried in his gray matter. Benny just thought it was cool.
Kyle entered what Benny and Jennifer referred to as his “Teacher Mode”. It would have horrified Kyle if he knew this little fact. Benny knew that “Teacher Mode” tended to calm Kyle’s nerves when he was upset.
“With nobody to man the power plants, they will begin to shut down. When that happens, the cellular towers will no longer boost the signals. That means the signals will no longer be beamed to the satellites and all communications will cease. That goes for the internet as well.” He stopped for a minute and then continued, “We need to think about getting a CB radio before we get out of the valley.”
In front of them, a man who was wearing a blood spattered set of coveralls and whose leg was dragging at an unnatural angle tried to reach for the car as it passed. They both saw him and then ignored him. It was a little scary how quickly the mind compartmentalized things. They both knew that their dreams would not be their own for years to come.
“Where are we going to go Kyle?” Benny asked. He’d not even contemplated anything beyond rescuing Scarlet and then trying to find Jen. Although in his heart he was already beginning to suspect that his Jenny, and their unborn little Tina with her, might be dead. He pushed even the ghost of the thought from his head.
“Well the way I see it is we have two choices. Either we hold up somewhere and wait for things to blow over. Or we run and don’t stop running until we find someplace where we can hunker down.” He jerked the wheel sharply to avoid a pile of debris in the middle of the road that might or might not have been a person at some point in the near past.
He continued on, “I’m not sure where we should go if we decide to run, but I think that if we are going to hole up, the Air Force Base is our best bet.” He was pretty familiar with the base, they both were. Kyle’s Dad’s company had had the cleaning contract for the civilian portions of the base for years. He and Benny had both done stints working there for a little extra cash, Benny more than Kyle in recent years.
“Alright,” Benny said, “That sounds better than hiding out in the attic. I figured that maybe Scarlet had the right idea, and that we should probably just join her.” He did not mention Jennifer.
They passed the Pinnacle Road Landfill as they approached their home neighborhood from the back. On the top of the manmade hill, they could both see the flurry of activity that was earth moving equipment raising a berm around the crown of the hill. Around the base, hundreds of the Dead pressed against the 10 foot high fencing that surrounded the landfill. They were unable to put much mass against the fence due to the sharp ditch in front of and behind the fence. Kyle kept the headlights off. The noise of the bulldozers allowed them to pas
s by without attracting any unwanted attention.
They turned right, then left, and then they were on the short feeder road leading into German Hills. The subdivision where they lived. Debris was scattered all around the roads, pieces of furniture, clothing, books, food, and other household goods made up the bulk of it. Every now and then, they saw a body lying on the road or in a yard that no longer moved. Some were ripped apart and surrounded by congealed pools of gore. Doors hung open on houses, or in some instances looked to have been kicked in. Some homes had a boarded up, fortified look. Kyle couldn’t be sure, but he would have bet a million dollars that there were people watching them from behind the boarded up windows and doors with weapons trained on them.