by Wood, Gareth
It’s cold out there now. Frost is common on the cars in the mornings. We expect snow any time, and it’s only the very start of Fall. I have the feeling this is going to be a long, terrible winter.
September 22
I am so tired. The training is severely short so they cram a lot of things in to our 10 hour days. I have learned that suppressed weapons are a wonderful thing. How I wish I’d had silencers before. And the C7A1? Sweet hell, that’s a great weapon, and now that I have an idea how to use it I think I’ll hang up the carbine I have been lugging around. And radios! How cool is this?
The other primary weapon we have been trained on is the 9mm Browning, similar enough to the Glock that I have no trouble using it. Plentiful ammunition for the Browning, so I think we’ll be carrying those on salvage runs.
Jess got her hands on a LRSW (Long Range Sniper Weapon) that one of the Army guys here has. She was in heaven for the hour she got to play with it. She gave it back, but told me she was going to talk to the base and see if she could get into the sniper training they do. I think they’ll take her, with her record so far. She’s already scheduled to take the 3-week course starting next Monday.
The cast is itching. The skin under it, I mean. I can’t wait to get this thing off.
September 25
We had an emergency last night. Someone died down the street and it was unreported. So, zombie outbreak in town with a few casualties, and of course I was right in the middle of it. I was home with Jess, and we had put the two kids to bed a few hours before. Jess and I were working on interior barricades that we could slip over the door frames and windows, and seal in case of an emergency, when I heard a sound of breaking glass though the window. Jess and I immediately looked at each other, then outside. I closed the window, and Jess picked up the Glock that I had hung on the wall nearby.
First things first. Check on the kids, who were sleeping peacefully. Check all the doors and windows downstairs, and the basement. Jess took up her rifle and shut off the lights, while I got geared up with the Browning, Glock, and flashlight. We checked outside, all around, and saw no motion, so I went outside on the front step and listened. It was very quiet, and I was hoping someone had just broken a window. That would be great. Then I could go back inside and have some more dinner, a beer, not shoot anything.
It was not to be. I smelled the decay right before the first one shambled into view. Jess was still inside, so I opened the door and told her to call the Body Squad. Then I locked the door and shut it, and stepped down to deal with the undead walking towards me. The shambling horror approaching me was one of my neighbors, Mr. Hamlyn. As I waited for him to get within range I saw another one step out of his house, three down and across the street. Shit, it was his wife, Barb. God damn it. They had a grown son in the base, but I think it was just them in the house. Doug Hamlyn, or what used to be Doug before tonight, shambled over my way. His wife was faster. There was blood on her mouth and hands, and a whole lot of missing tissue on Doug’s neck and shoulders where she’d bit him. He’d leaked a lot, and his flesh was eerily pale in the streetlight. I shot him in the top of the head when he was about twenty feet from me, one shot that passed through his forehead with a wet smack. I aimed at his wife and hit her in the face before he even hit the ground. She spun around and got back up, and her face was a real mess now. The bullet hadn’t been gentle, and it had torn out one eye and half her cheek when it hit. She was far faster than her dead husband had ever been, living or undead, and she was coming right at me as lights were going on in the houses nearby. I aimed again, and just as she stepped over Doug’s body I shot twice more. Both rounds went clean through her skull, and she fell on top of her husband.
The living neighbors arrived, mostly armed, and within a few minutes there were a dozen of us searching the Hamlyns’ house. It was empty, and we were leaving again when the Body Squad arrived with a truck full of troops. It was pretty obvious what had happened to them, and their son arrived after they had taken the bodies away. We had to explain to him that his mom had died of a heart attack, and that his father had been killed by her when she rose. It wasn’t fun at all, and he was glaring at me when he found out it was me who shot them.
I went back inside once it was obvious the situation was under control. Jess and I sat in the kitchen and talked for a while. We are going to work on some more barricades over the next week, and I want to get the Jeep fuelled up again and restock our bug-out bags. Maybe we’ll stock the Jeep with some non-perishable foods and have a rotating water cache in it too. This incident just made me really paranoid.
September 27
After an x-ray today at the hospital here, I got the cast removed. My arm is pale and felt a bit clammy when I touched it, but the bone set nicely. The skin is all smooth. It feels kind of neat, actually. I kept the cast. The medical staff had a few raised eyebrows when they saw the tooth marks on it.
Training is interesting. With the constant weapons drills, radio lessons, basic tactical classes, and vehicle familiarization, it’s a wonder we have time for field first aid, biology, and weapons maintenance. The instructors keep complaining that they want more time to train us. Three weeks isn’t enough, apparently. They want five or six weeks. But the base CO said three, so we get three. Jess has started her classes too. It’s a good thing the school doubles as a daycare with both of us in this.
Christie stopped by for dinner today, and we all spent a while playing with Michael and Megan. She’s been provisionally accepted into the Air Force, with a group of other young and not-so-young recruits. She passed the aptitude tests, and was able to offer some real-life anti-zombie experiences to help get her in. She seems pretty happy about it. I also got a call from Sarah in Athabasca. We talked for about an hour, catching up on the latest news. A group of about sixty undead were destroyed less than a kilometer from the main barricade into town, and the next day thirty more were seen and destroyed. They had both come from the south, and there is a worry that more will show up. She sounded pretty confident though. More survivors have been brought in, and another group will be coming out here fairly soon. We said goodbye, each wishing the other good luck.
Darren is thriving in this town. He’s doing really well in the classes, and has made some friends among the youngsters here. I think he has a girlfriend, but he’s not saying.
September 29
Some more survivors were brought in from the south in a plane today. The plane landed at the base while I was there for training, so we heard all about it. The plane was a passenger jet, about a twelve seater, and had come from Montana. Apparently the pilot had scrounged enough avgas for the trip after hearing a radio signal from the last Hercules heading to Comox. He and seven others had gathered what they could and scrounged all the avgas they could find, fuelled up this plane, and flown here. They landed on fumes, and had no idea what to expect when they arrived. I heard they were so overjoyed to find a large enclave of humanity that several of them broke down and had to be taken to the base medical center.
I’ve heard tales from other survivors. There’s a man in Cold Lake here who survived from the start on his own, traveling from Victoria on the day the outbreaks started there, by boat up to the Alaskan shore, and from there he took a car south, ending up here after three months.
There’s a woman and her son who survived in Edmonton for six weeks before fleeing on a motorcycle. They made it to Vermilion before they ran out of luck. They spent another month trapped in a small grocery store while the population of the town tried to get inside. They were rescued by some passing survivors who belonged to some bike gang. They’d picked up these two and they had all made it here, picking up another three survivors on the way.
And the news from the rest of the world is trickling in. There’s a group in Michigan that managed to get hold of a really powerful broadcaster, bounced a signal off a satellite, and told us that they had about fifty people safe inside a housing project.
The US government in Hawaii has a
lso shown itself again, making promises to the American people that they’ll rid the continental US of the undead within ten years. I laughed when I heard that! No mention of Canada or Mexico. And ten years? Good luck! And I really have to wonder who they were talking to. I doubt more than ten people in the US were even listening.
I also heard today that Britain was silenced within a few weeks of the initial outbreaks, but has recently been heard from. A British submarine surfaced somewhere in the east, off Newfoundland, apparently, and managed to resupply with a raid on Halifax. I don’t know where this story comes from though, so it might be bogus.
It’s quite relieving to hear that this isn’t the end of the world after all. We’ve suffered a massive depopulation, there’s an enemy we can’t reason with that’s trying to eat us, and the global society we once had has been shattered, but there’s still hope. Always hope.
October 2
Time to get to work now. Classes are over, and three days from now we are heading south to scout out the area around Vegreville. Captain Couper came again to talk about this mission. We are looking for fuel, food, and whatever survivors we can find. There are several towns in the area that we are to check out, and anything that we can find we are to mark and secure if possible, and return with if we can. A lot of “if’s” in that, eh? Too many, I think, but with the world in this state, it is the very best we can do.
The crew, other than Darren and I, consists of:
Cpl Eric Craig. He’s an Army guy, tall and skinny, can drink like a fish, but is a really good shot and a wicked hand-to-hand fighter. He’s from Edmonton, and ended up here when they abandoned the infantry base in the city.
Laura Howard, a former mechanic from Saskatoon. Met her on the course we just finished. She’s a bit shy, but a survivor. She can make any engine purr.
Todd McGee, a local civilian. He’s about 50, but taught karate at the Cold Lake Community Center and speaks a little German and Japanese. He’s in good shape and isn’t in denial like some of the locals appear to be.
Jim Ramsland, a journeyman electrician and our scrounger. He’s also a former firefighter, and has paramedic-level first aid training. He’s a big guy, but in great shape.
Kim Barber, a student of jiu-jitsu, and maybe 19. She’s tougher than anyone else in the crew. Met her on the course too. She’s from Vancouver, and made her own way here on a motorcycle when the undead killed everyone else she knew. It was her that passed us that day. She made it all the way from Vancouver with no guns. If she had to fight the undead she used a crowbar.
To keep it simple, we are taking only three types of weapons. Each of us will have a Browning 9mm, and either a C7A1 or a 12-gauge shotgun. Other weapons will include knives, a crowbar in each vehicle, and whatever we want to pick up while out there. We’re also using military clothing, for the most part. It’s durable and has lots of pockets. Ammunition comes in cases, and we are taking lots of it. Also two vehicles, a Dodge Durango that used to be an RCMP cruiser, and a Toyota Tacoma 4x4. Kim has said that if she can find a motorcycle in decent condition she’ll try to salvage it as well.
We are going to carry water purification equipment, and a lot of food and water as well, but we’ll be scrounging water and food as we go. Gas cans are going to be secured into the Tacoma’s truck bed along with supplies and extra clothes. We expect it to get cold while we are away on this little excursion.
The plan is to drive south towards Vermilion, and take the #16 highway into Vegreville. There are a lot of things in that area to check out, and we might be able to get a survey of the local population of undead to see how many we could be dealing with in the future. We’re taking a radio in each car to keep in touch with each other and Cold Lake, and whatever other roving military outfits might be out there. There’s a group of the PPCLI returning from that way in a few days, so we might get some intel from them.
Now, I plan to enjoy the rest of this day outside with Jess, the kids and Christie and Darren. It might be the last chance I have in a while of seeing them all together and happy.
October 3
I talked to Sarah on the phone again today. She said they are thinking of moving a lot of the sick and injured to Cold Lake for the winter, and that a disturbingly large number of undead had been spotted in the area recently. Small groups have been seen within ten kilometers, wandering through the fields and trees, and far more of them farther south. I worry about her, but she assures me that they town is well fortified.
One thing that everyone has been curious about has been denied to us. We were hoping that the freezing temperatures at night would freeze the walking dead solid, but so far it hasn’t happened. The observed undead (a group that they keep on the base in a secure field) just kept trying to get at the guards outside the fence. They only have a dozen there, and they are guarded constantly. They are trying to find out what it is that animates them, but so far they have had no luck. The virus theory has been disproved, but that’s all we know. Or all they are telling us.
Darren has brought all his gear here, and we are loading up the vehicles. Going over and over our loads, because we don’t want to miss anything. Once we leave we won’t be back for weeks. Tomorrow we are all scheduled for a medical and dental exam to see if there’s anything dire we need fixed.
One thing that has recently sprung to my attention is the mental health of people exposed to this nightmare. The people here who haven’t been out there amongst the dead are either in denial about it or coping well, despite it being something they can’t quite grasp. They know what happened; they can’t just quite see it as real though. The ones in denial bother me the most. They seem sure that tomorrow things will be back to normal. We’ll be bitching about Ottawa and cheering on the hockey games anytime now.
Survivors have a few issues too. The strain of surviving tends to either make or break people. We’ve seen a few of the broken ones, who mostly survived because they were with others and had help. Sarah and I fall into the category of people who thrived, I think. Jess too, and Darren. The people who break down get paranoid, isolate themselves, or go catatonic. And that’s just the ones I know of.
It’s cold today. We’re packed up and the whole crew is coming over for dinner tonight. Jess wanted to meet everyone at the same time. We are making a huge chili, and baking fresh bread. It really smells wonderful in here.
October 4
Medical checks all went well. We are all in pretty good shape, plus I got to see Jay for a few minutes. He’s doing well, and has a lot of patients coming in. He gave us all new toothbrushes and told us what to watch out for while we are out scavenging. Similarly, the doctors who checked us over gave us stern warnings about close contact with the undead. What a strange world.
October 5
We set out this morning. Jess came out to see us off, then went to her course. We were both pretty sad that I was leaving, but we’ll be able to talk to each other at least. Once the vehicles were fuelled up and fully loaded we proceeded to the checkpoint at the west side of town, the same one we entered when we all arrived as refugees.
There, we signed ourselves out on official business, all of us signing a form indicating destination, radio call signs, and intended return date. The officer at the gate wished us good luck, and he seemed sincere about it too. The town needed the supplies we were hoping to find.
So, with Darren and I in the Durango, and Laura in the back, we left Cold Lake. Eric, Kim, Todd, and Jim are in the Tacoma, and we are leading. It felt really wrong to be leaving a safe and secure area to deliberately go back into zombie infested areas, but the need outweighs the risk. We turned south and headed towards the #28 highway, which led us towards Bonnyville, the town the Air Force destroyed to stop a horde of undead from approaching Cold Lake. The farms we passed were surrounded by high fences, and patrolled by well armed guardians. We saw no undead until we passed the town of Fort Kent, a blink-and-you-miss-it town that was abandoned months ago. Passing through it we could see the remains of
a fire ahead. Probably from the blast that destroyed Bonnyville, which we were fast approaching. And sure enough, just as the desolation and ruin came into view, we saw a lurching figure in the field to the right of the road. It was an elderly female, skin blackened, clothing crispy. She must have been on the far edge of the blast, and wasn’t destroyed when the FAE went off. We passed her and kept going. Wrecked cars and trucks appeared on the road and in the ditches, all showing fire damage and shattered glass. We saw bodies soon after that, the rotted corpses lying like felled trees where they had been tossed by the explosion. Not one was moving, so we pressed on. Entering the town, or what was left of it, we saw a few moving undead, burned and blackened, who didn’t even look in our direction. Darren said they probably didn’t have eyes anymore. I tended to agree. The town itself was absolutely destroyed. Since an FAE had been dropped here, it was kind of impossible to pinpoint the center of the blast. The roads were clear through to the other side, and we just kept on going, our tires leaving a trail of soot on the pavement on the other side of the town. Eventually we passed all sign of the conflagration, and were back onto regular roads. We had to slow many times to wind our way past blocked areas, and once had to shoot a walker that got too close while we were refueling. We elected to keep the tanks topped up, so if they got down by a quarter on either vehicle we stopped and refueled.