by Dave Lund
“Well shit, that didn’t work like I planned,” Cliff said aloud. Staying in his combat crouch with his rifle pointed up, he began to move at a much quicker pace to the right of the group. Like a quarterback flushed out of the pocket, Cliff kept his eyes downfield and continued to pick off undead targets while on the move. Having made a large semi-circle around the group while shooting on the quick-walk, the remaining undead were sent back to the grave with a single shot. Cliff quickly made a tactical reload, placing the magazine from the rifle in the deep back pocket of his pants. The magazine still had unspent rounds that could come in handy later.
Rifle up, Cliff made a slow circle to scan for threats in all directions. Satisfied that he was for now alone on the desolate runway, Cliff took off at a trot towards the wreckage of the President’s aircraft.
The front half of the fuselage had come apart at the wing root, and had rolled to a sliding stop in a drainage culvert near the fire station located on the taxiway. Although lying on the aircraft’s port side, the cylindrical structure of the front section of the aircraft appeared to be mostly intact. There was a chance that someone had survived the crash. Regardless, he would have to verify the President’s status.
Maypearl, Texas
Jessie checked on the children still sleeping in the tents before coming back to the group sitting around the fire. Bexar had given Malachi one of his “spare” flasks of Jack Daniels whiskey, which Malachi had quickly consumed while recounting everything that had happened since he’d received Bexar’s text message. Between the stress of his journey, the horror of losing his wife, his bad injury, and the effects of the whiskey, Malachi eventually succumbed to it all and fell into a drunken slumber. Bexar and Jack were prepared for this, and wrapped him in a blanket covered with a poncho, then handcuffed his left hand to a chain wrapped around the rear bumper of the Scout.
“Well Bexar,” said Jack, “if you’re right and he’s infected, this will give us a chance.”
“Jack, I’m sure he’s infected. I think he’s pretty much fucked and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
CHAPTER 19
December 28th
Maypearl, Texas
The sun peered over the edge of the eastern horizon and the twenty-eighth of December had begun for the new world.
In Maypearl, Bexar stoked the fire to shake the winter’s cold and prepare the coffee for the group. The blue enamel coffee pot was placed on a couple of rocks over one edge of the coals. Rather than wait for the water to boil, Bexar went to his Yeti cooler. These perishables won’t last much longer, he thought, especially with the wide-flung temperatures of a central Texas winter. Out of the cooler came a dozen eggs, a bag of shredded cheddar cheese, a Tupperware of salsa from his favorite taqueria back home, a twenty-pack of handmade flour tortillas from the same taqueria, and a package of Slovacek sausage. Looking at the breakfast in the making, he thought he would probably be able to find eggs again, but the rest of it would be gone forever after this morning.
Thankfully, Will and Keeley had slept through the night, but young children know no snooze button and both were now happily awake with the early morning energy found only in children. Jessie and Sandra awoke with the children and began tending to their immediate needs. Jack soon followed out of his tent and, after stopping in the woods to relieve himself, walked up to Bexar.
“That looks great,” he said. “Have you checked on Malachi yet?”
“No, I was waiting for you to get up if I didn’t hear anything from him before then.”
“Okay, let’s go over there.”
Bexar picked up his AR which had been propped against the camping table and slung it over his shoulder. Jack wore his pistol but let Bexar give cover with the long gun while peeling back the poncho and blanket from Malachi’s face.
Cold lifeless eyes stared back at them, and Malachi’s skin was cold to the touch. As Jack reached to check for a pulse, Malachi’s head suddenly turned and his teeth snapped at Jack’s hand.
Jack jumped back. “Shit, that was close!”
“Well doesn’t this just suck? Sorry Malachi, I love you and will always remember you.” Bexar fired a single shot and gave his friend final rest. Malachi was dead.
CHAPTER 20
NORAD
Major Wright had not been able to contact his wife since the attack. The facility he was in was hardened against the effects of an EMP, even if it wasn’t physically hardened like the former facility in “the mountain.” He knew that the EMP events had disabled most of the electronic devices in the U.S., but that hadn’t stopped him from repeatedly trying his wife’s cellphone using a SAT-phone that was on site.
They were on Day Three of the attack, and he didn’t see how they would be allowed to leave any time soon. Using data from hardened radar installations, he had reviewed the tracks showing that nearly every aircraft had fallen from the sky. He had examined the communications from the National Command Authority and had seen that the nation was in its death throes. Satellite Intelligence (SATINT) showed that just about every major city was nearly engulfed in raging, unchecked fires. The dead roamed the streets, and the living were quickly becoming an endangered species.
Over the past twelve hours, Wright had regained communication with five other government facilities. Some of them were physically hardened against attack, others had some preventative measures in place. As much as he had hated Cheyenne Mountain when he was a young officer, Wright desperately wished he was there now. On hand, in the new facility—away from the mountain and back on base—there were some provisions, but they wouldn’t be able to survive a direct assault by the undead.
The National Military Command Center Reservation at the Raven Rock Mountain Complex, known simply as Site R, was still online. Camp David appeared to be a complete loss to fire, and had been overrun by the undead. Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center went dark with the EMP event, which it should have survived but satellite imagery showed that a large commercial aircraft had crashed through the middle of the command complex.
United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) had been responsive for the first eighteen hours after the attack, but had since failed to respond. One of the enlisted men had been able to patch into their systems and gain access to the video feeds for the security systems—the lights were on, but they were completely overrun by the undead. No living survivors could be found, and the same appeared to be the case with the facility under Denver International.
Wright could only assume that Air Force One had suffered a fatal incident while attempting to land at DIA, after losing the aircraft’s transponder and judging by the complete lack of radio traffic. The other VC-25 never made it off the ramp, the Vice President presumed dead with all others onboard.
It was staggering how quickly the virus had propagated and spread. There was still a lot of data to review, but at first glance it appeared to Wright that nearly every city in the lower forty-eight states had suffered a major system failure, compounded by additional major damage from crashing aircraft, uncontrolled fires, and the rapid spread of the undead.
Besides the handful of secured facilities still operating in the U.S., three carrier strike groups (CSGs) were returning as fast as their support ships could sail. Three CSGs had been in port in the U.S. when the attack happened, and the other three had gone dark shortly after the attack and were presumed to be lost to the undead.
CHAPTER 21
Cache Site near Maypearl, Texas
To Bexar and Jack it was obvious that they were in trouble. After burying Malachi next to his wife Amber, the group sat in the still winter air, trying to keep warm near the dwindling fire. Even the children were subdued while they played together.
“Malachi said that Amber hadn’t been bitten, though I’m assuming they were covered in whatever fell from those chemtrails,” Jack said.
“Yeah Jack, that’s a problem,” replied Bexar. “We’ve seen that the dead rise again to feed on the living. The living are then kill
ed by the dead, and reanimated by whatever the dead are carrying, but if someone dies any other way they rise from the grave as well. That’s fucked up.”
“Bexar, what do we do? How do you make it through something like this? We always planned on riding out the storm and then rejoining society as it clawed up from the ashes, but how does the human race even survive something like this?”
“Jack, all we can do is stay here and do what we planned. Ride out the initial storm, then try to find other survivors.”
“Okay, well, we better go through Malachi’s stuff and figure out what he has that we can use.” Jack stood and walked to Malachi’s Scout and trailer. Bexar joined him, and soon the contents of Malachi’s vehicle were laid out on the ground.
In the Scout were Malachi’s rifle, pistols, and some ammo, along with his med-kit, two full five-gallon jerry cans of gas, ten cans of Coleman fuel, two Coleman lanterns with twenty extra mantels, three cases of MREs, and ten gallons of water in two blue water jugs. In the back of the truck were two plastic ten-gallon gas cans full of fuel. The clothing that Malachi and Amber had packed didn’t fit anyone else in the group, but they kept useful items such as shoelaces, belts, and a few cotton shirts.
Bexar was amazed at how much stuff Malachi had stuffed in his little Scout and trailer, but the really interesting items were found in the cache site. Besides more MREs, water, and batteries, buried underneath some of the other gear were a handful of homebuilt Faraday boxes, which were designed to shield electronics from an EMP event. They were amazed Malachi had thought to construct them.
The group had generally believed that society would fall due to a global economic collapse resulting in rapid inflation, followed by mass starvation and civil unrest. Ever the geek, Malachi had prepared for an EMP. The first Faraday box contained a Yaesu mobile ham radio with microphone and speaker. The antenna was found outside the box. The second box contained a high end Garmin Global Positioning System unit, not the typical small GPS for daily travel, but one used for expeditions. The last Faraday box contained a Voyager shortwave radio that could be hand-cranked. The radio also had an attached solar panel.
Assuming that the Faraday boxes worked as they had been designed, the group now had a way to navigate. Hopefully, there were still others in the world able to broadcast on shortwave radio, and maybe still some HAM operators with working gear who had survived. Besides the electronic gear, Malachi had also stashed another four thousand rounds of Black Hills .223 ammo, along with another two dozen Magpul thirty-round Pmags.
By the time they had finished pulling all the cached items out of the bottom of the modified water tank, the sun was high overhead. The kids went to the tents for their afternoon nap, which gave the adults more time to play with the newfound gear.
Bexar loaded each of Malachi’s Pmags, while Jack wired the Yaesu radio into his FJ and mounted the antenna on the roof rack. Sandra put the shortwave with the solar panel out to charge, while she and Jessie broke down the MREs from their boxes to save weight and space before packing half of them in the FJ and the other half in the Jeep. The task complete, Jessie grabbed the shortwave and climbed on top of the Jeep’s roof rack, Sandra following behind her. They began scanning through the shortwave channels.
“Wait Jessie, go back, I heard voices on that channel,” Sandra suddenly said excitedly.
Jessie went back to Channel 15,260 and called, “Bexar, Jack, come here quick!”
“… with that news I am sorry to inform you that it would appear the first cases of the virus have been found in the U.K., and the efforts to contain the outbreak to the continent have failed. We at the BBC have been instructed to inform all citizens that they should not leave their homes. If any family members take ill with the virus or are bitten, quarantine them immediately and notify local authorities. Do not try to aid them, you will be exposed. Globally, we have reports of mass outbreaks across every continent save Australia and the Antarctic. We have lost all contact with the North American continent, and it is now assumed that the United States, Canada, and Mexico are completely overrun. South America reports widespread panic, riots, and looting.
On the continent, most of Eastern Europe has gone dark after the nuclear exchange and the Ministry of Defense is still monitoring the nuclear fallout and radiation as it drifts to the west. We are told that we are not in danger of receiving any direct radiation, but we will continue to update as we can.
Ministry satellites continue to track the risen dead as they spread out from the major metropolitan locations in the infected areas. If you are listening to this broadcast from Western Europe, northern Africa, or even the United States …” The station turned to static.
“Jack, what happened?” said Jessie.
“Jessie, shortwave can be weird, but anyway, it looks like we lost the reception we had.” Jack turned to Bexar. “We might be in more trouble than we thought, and we’re still really close to D/FW.”
CHAPTER 22
Denver International Airport, Colorado
Cliff was not having a good day. Being forced to navigate the interior of an aircraft hull that is lying on its side is harder than it would seem. The plastic trim used throughout the aircraft was slippery, and Cliff had a hard time keeping his footing. More often than not, he had to crawl on his hands and knees. Thankfully, he didn’t have to crawl through a commercial 747 with hundreds onboard who were now undead and would now be trying to eat him, he thought. At least he was crawling through the destroyed hulk of Air Force One.
After what seemed like an eternity, Cliff found what he was looking for. The First Lady was dead and would not reanimate; an unsecured drink cart had crushed her skull. The Speaker of the House was also onboard; Cliff thought he had already been evacuated to one of the other secure locations.
The Speaker was also dead, well, undead actually, straining against his seatbelt trying to reach Cliff. A single round from his suppressed P90 put the Speaker in his grave for good.
The President’s body took longer to locate, but he was also undead. Someone had bitten a large chunk of flesh from his torso, and his intestines spilled from the large hole in his midsection. Another single shot from his P90, and Cliff became the only living person to have killed a sitting President. Not guilty, thought Cliff, the President was already dead, I just put down his walking corpse.
Done with the gruesome task on Air Force One, Cliff tried to quickly exit the wreckage. The President was dead. The Vice President was presumed dead, and the Speaker was dead. There was a long road ahead; he hoped there was still someone alive in the chain of succession to lead the country.
To complete his mission, Cliff had to reach one of the secure facilities that hopefully hadn’t been overrun with the undead. To do that he needed food, water, and shelter, but what he really needed was transportation. He had to find a vehicle that would have survived the EMP, one that was old enough to be free from having an electronic ignition and a computer. Luckily, he had an entire airport parking lot full of cars to search.
Cache Site near Maypearl, Texas
Sandra cranked the generator handle on the shortwave radio while walking around the cache site, trying to catch any more transmissions from the BBC, but she was having no luck. Jessie maintained watch at the camp over the sleeping children, while Bexar and Jack took their rifles and patrolled through the church campgrounds. They hadn’t cleared the campgrounds yet to ensure the fence was intact and there were no other people. Speaking in hushed whispers as they walked, Bexar said, “Honestly, Jack, I don’t know that we’re safe here. We’re not far from Dallas, we’re very close to Waxahachie, and I don’t know if this barbed wire fence would hold off more than a few undead.”
“If we have the time and could scare up the equipment, we could get shipping containers and build a wall around the camp.”
“Yeah, but we’d need a crane and a truck. I don’t think we have that sort of time right now. I think we’re too close.”
“Okay Bexar, then what, wha
t’s the answer? Do we wait and hope, or do we leave; do we plan and be ready to leave, what?”
“I think we should plan to leave. We might have warning, or we might have to flee immediately, but we should plan for both.”
“Yeah, but where to, Bexar? What would be safe? Everything in this part of Texas is near something else, even in the Panhandle there are cities everywhere. East Texas is full of pine trees and meth heads. Hell, we probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the undead and the meth heads.”
“What about west?” Bexar replied. “Not the Panhandle and not all the way to El Paso, but maybe a bit off the Interstate somewhere outside of Junction or Marfa. Wide-open nothing out there.”
“It’s wide-open nothing because there is nothing. What would we do for resources once our stores run dry? Besides, what if the undead keep walking, what would keep them from walking right over us out there?”
“What about the Davis Mountains, Jack?”
“No. But what about the Chisos Mountains? Get up in the basin, there’s wells in that area, fresh springs, plenty of mule deer, and even javelina to eat. There’s one road into the basin and we could block that easily enough. The couple of trails that lead into the basin would also be really easy to block, if a Zed could even walk up those trails.”
“Zed!” Bexar stopped and looked at him. “Really Jack, we’re calling them ‘Zeds’ now?”
“Hey!” said Jack, laughing, “what would you call them, ‘tangos,’ ‘food-pyramid challenged,’ or what?”
“Anyways,” Bexar said, “Big Bend National Park, that’s a good idea, but even before the end of the world it was a smooth twelve-hour drive from here. We’re going to have to get through the Hill Country before we can get out on the Interstate. This’ll take some work, we can’t let any more of us die.”