The radio was on the lowest volume setting so he turned it up a notch.
“Come in, come in. Are you there Cade?”
It was Harry’s voice.
Click, Click, was Cades response. He policed up his pack and weapon and then took a different route back to the two men waiting for him.
*****
His leather jacket was starting to catch fire when the man came to. He knew that the “pops” that he was hearing weren’t due to enemy gunfire; still he kept his head down as he crawled away from the immolated Humvees, lest a stray bullet do what the booby trapped camp failed to. Richard Ganz was blessed that he had to piss when he did. Several of his lieutenants also stopped to provide security. He was a survivor and always would be, save for a few bruises and a wicked headache he was unscathed. Richard Ganz swore to himself that he would track down the son of a bitch that took out his second in command and most of his foot soldiers, if it killed him. The giant red head wasted no time; he started barking out orders to his surviving underlings.
Chapter 34
Day 2 Detour around Fayetteville, North Carolina
Carl was getting used to the basics of driving the race tuned production truck. It was borderline dangerous how fast he could drive the thing while off road and still feel in total control. They had made the decision to take a hundred mile detour around Fayetteville to avoid the majority of the traffic and the growing number of undead.
The route took them west and then north. Route 1 sliced through a rustic town, a green sign at the entrance read “Aberdeen founded in 1893. Pop. 3900” it appeared that nearly all were not of the living, breathing variety. They passed the old train station that was now a tourist site. A static red caboose sat on the grounds. Stranded on the roof of the train car was a blonde boy, his arms waving frantically. He was dressed in shorts and tank top and appeared badly sunburned. Undead were crowding around the wheels of the converted caboose, reaching upward towards him.
Raven noticed the boy first and elbowed her mom, while wildly pointing in his direction.
“Look Mom, look on top of the red train. We need to help him. Uncle Carl, stop…”
“We can’t risk all of our lives for a stranger, sweetie” he said looking past Brook at his niece.
Grimacing at the site of Carl’s wrecked face, Brook said, “Put yourself in that boys shoes Carl…” her voice trailing off, her eyes boring into his.
“Sis…you always did bring home the strays.”
“Come on Carl. It’s two against one. Turn this beast around.”
Raven added, “he really needs our help. Come on Uncle Carl.” She could have talked her way into Disneyland with the look she gave him.
Slightly crestfallen, Carl maneuvered the orange Raptor back towards the tourist trap. Dirt, gravel and rocks spewing from the tires, pelted the small group of walkers. They didn’t flinch or seem affected in the least.
The boy was pacing back and forth from one end of the caboose to the other. It was a large train car that housed a gift shop and snack bar.
“That roof is at least fifteen feet from the ground. The little guy would probably get hurt from the fall or pounced on by those monsters the minute he hit the ground” Carl said.
“Then we need to lure as many of the dead away from the boy that we can and double back and somehow get him to jump into the truck bed” Brook said, seeming to want to stay in the middle of the action.
Carl aimed the trucks brush guard at the zombies and turned on the trucks stereo, he scanned the FM stations finding nothing. Next he tried the AM stations, still nothing then he punched the CD button hoping that a disc had been left in the changer. After a brief pause, four long drawn out tolls of a church bell spit forth from the ten speaker system, followed by AC/DCs heavy metal song Hells Bells. That got the undivided attention of the undead; they nearly broke their necks trying to locate the source of the music.
The railway museum on the far side of the gravel parking lot began to disgorge more of the ghouls; they were attracted to the new meat in the noisy vehicle.
A portly walker, stomach bloated and distended, entered the trucks path and was promptly introduced to the bumper. Like a pudgy bowling ball the zombie bounced and rolled, knocking down three other walkers in the process, finally stopping face down in the dusty gravel. Carl whirled the truck into a complete one eighty, and for good measure, took the opportunity to drive over all of them.
Brook had ahold of the grab handle on the roof as the trucks suspension absorbed the bodies. Raven had nothing to hang onto and bounced around the interior like a rag doll. Brook powered down her window and started hooting and hollering at the walkers, further enticing them to follow.
They hesitated long enough to let some of the undead get tantalizingly close, and then Carl gunned the truck forward a few more feet. It proved to be a smelly game of cat and mouse but it was working. The stink was becoming unbearable with the windows down. Pinching her nose to ward off the stench, Raven joined in on the chorus of catcalls. The orange Ford Raptor acted like a rolling Pied Piper, leading the rotting stinking corpses away from the kid on the roof.
All of the solitary walkers that got in the way were promptly mowed over. Carl charged through a particularly large group of the creatures with the truck, it proved to be too much and a number of them became wedged underneath.
“Oh no. Please shake loose…come on!”
Carl turned the steering wheel hard to the right throwing the truck into a series of tight donuts. Several dizzying revolutions later the corpses that had been stuck in the undercarriage were expelled. After being reduced to a bunch of skinned carcasses one stubborn zombie miraculously arose and slowly limped after them, dragging one mangled leg behind it.
The undead had discovered the open door of the caboose and were now cramming themselves inside. This left the outside, for the time being, virtually zombie free. Because of the music and commotion many more walkers streamed from the Railroad Museum, their moans almost drowning out the AC/DC and the Raptors growling engine. Ignoring the truck, they all headed for the stranded boy.
Brook racked the slide on the shotgun and then gestured by pointing her finger towards the backside of the caboose.
“Go around back. It looked like there were less of those bastards back there.”
Carl plowed the truck through a small mob of undead between them and the stranded kid. One of the ghouls cartwheeled up onto the hood of the 4x4, the windshield buckled from the impact, black hair and blood stained the glass. In the rearview mirror Carl saw the ghoul land hard, roll and lay still. Carl threaded the truck through more walkers and pulled alongside of the train car. Brook poked her head out of the window and yelled for the boy to jump.
His terrified face made an appearance over the edge, a moment later he reemerged. With a display of amazing courage, he leaped and cleared the space between the roof and the truck bed. He landed with a clatter, ending up sprawled facedown.
As soon as the boy landed in the truck the walkers changed direction and continued their relentless pursuit.
Too many zombies had accumulated in front of the truck for them to drive forward. The monsters were frantically crawling over each other to get into the vehicle. The ones nearest pounded on the windows with their numb bony hands. Brook shot a newly turned female zombie in the face and watched her drop, dark blood seeped into the gravel. She chambered another round and with a pull of the trigger dispatched one more stinking corpse. I think I have found my calling, Brook thought as she dramatically blew the smoke from the barrel of her stubby shotgun.
While Brook was dispatching undead, the boy found his footing and peered into the trucks rear window to see who his rescuers were. Carl threw his head around to look out the rear window of the truck. The boy screamed at the sight of the bloody, buckshot and glass peppered face staring at him. All he could see were white eyes and teeth. If it weren’t for the glass separating the boy from the thing looking at him, he would have jumped out o
f the trucks bed. Much to the boy’s amazement the zombie spoke.
“Stay down and hold on to something” Carl said through the glass at the top of his lungs. Wide eyed and openmouthed the boy silently nodded and disappeared from view.
The trucks transmission whined as their speed reached thirty miles per hour, in reverse, Carl whipped the wheel around while inadvertently hitting the brakes, resulting in a perfectly executed bootleggers reverse. It looked as if he knew what he was doing.
The boy bounced off of every side of the truck bed before finding a hand hold.
Dodging walkers and wrecked cars they made for the highway. At the Interstate they turned left on the final push towards Fort Bragg and hopefully safety.
Carl looked at the gas gauge as the sign urging them to “Return to Aberdeen Soon” flashed by. “Over my dead body” Carl said in response to the request on the sign. Noticing that they still had a half of a tank gave him a reason to be somewhat grateful.
Chapter 35
Day 2 White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia
The four Special Ops helicopters put down on the meticulously manicured lawn that separated the granite and marble architectural marvel from the thirty six-hole golf course. The Greenbrier in West Virginia was built in the fifties and was totally remodeled during Reagan’s years in office. Originally a country club, it was now the seat of power for the US government. It held vast underground caverns and stored everything two hundred people would need to survive for three years. An aquifer ran under the property and the air inside was scrubbed and constantly replaced every twelve hours. Rumor had it that during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 President Kennedy took refuge here.
The Greenbrier was from where de-facto President Valerie Clay now presided over the United States.
Captain Mike Desantos, flanked by the surviving members of his Delta Team ducked his head and rapidly covered the distance from the Pave Hawk to the group awaiting them.
President Clay was flanked by her Secret Service Detail. It consisted of four fit looking men with SCAR machine guns at the ready, heads swiveling on the lookout for any threats. Each man had an earpiece and the obligatory dark sunglasses.
Valerie Clay was still getting used to being POTUS. She reached out her hand only to be greeted by textbook salutes from the operators.
Well I am the Commander in Chief now. President Clay reciprocated to the best of her ability and then got down to business.
“Captain Desantos you were tasked to retrieve the football because we have reason to believe that the Chinese released the virus. Currently eight of our carrier groups are at sea. What is most distressing is that they are all being shadowed by the Chinese Navy’s new submarine fleet. They have near silent hunter killers and have already used them to sink one of our boomers. I and the remaining brass believe that this may go nuclear. As much as it’s not the American way to strike first, it might be our only option.”
“I know that it’s probably way above my pay grade but how bad has China been affected by the virus or whatever it is?” Mike queried the new president.
“Just between you and I, we have lost all contact with our human intelligence on the ground. China has gone quiet as has most of the Asian continent. On the last nighttime pass our Keyhole satellite relayed imaging that indicated massive power outages, even in Beijing. The last contact with our eyes on the ground was day one of the infection here stateside. He indicated that the government had gone underground and that most of the population was being confined to their homes. The most chilling intel that he forwarded was that he observed Chinese death squads shooting and bagging anyone in the streets.”
“First of all, with all due respect, Madam President the death squads were culling the infected...right?”
“No, our man said that the majority of the people killed in the first wave were all healthy citizens. The government knew how virulent the bug was that got away from them. Knowing how ruthless the Chinese are, they were just being proactive. Hey, they’ve done it before…albeit on a much smaller scale.”
“Well then why on earth would they want to attack us with their superbug, why not just use a nuke or an electromagnetic pulse?”
“As the saying goes soldier, misery loves company. The agent, we’ll call Buddha, mentioned the city of Xinxiang as being the epicenter of their outbreak. Curiously enough that is where a major bioweapons lab is located. His Intel also suggests that they sent sixteen credentialed Chinese national couriers with diplomatic pouches to multiple cities in the CONUS. Four of the couriers apparently arrived in DC just hours before the first confirmed cases of what the CDC in Atlanta has taken to calling the “Omega Pathogen.”
“What does the CDC have to say about this Omega Pathogen?”
President Clay put her hands over her face for a short while. When she brought them down and looked at Mike she was speechless for a moment. Tears welled in her eyes as she recounted the staggering numbers of dead and infected Americans.
“The Center for Disease Control estimates that the CONUS will be depopulated by ninety five percent…”
“Forgive me Maam. You said depopulated. Didn’t you mean repopulated…by the walking dead?”
“They assume that the risen will lose their ability to walk as they decompose and therefore after a few weeks they won’t be able to infect any more of the population”, the president said staring off towards the 18th hole.
Mike noticed that she had developed the thousand yard stare that a person acquires when they had seen too much in too short a time.
“You know that old saying, what is the definition of assume?”
The new president testily answered “assuming makes an ass out of you and me…what is your point soldier?”
“Until I see one of those dirty walking corpses die from anything but a bullet to the brain, I will take nothing for granted.”
“I agree. For now your main objective is containment, followed by securing all of the information about Omega that we can” President Clay said.
“What are my orders now?” Captain Desantos asked.
“I need you to take your team to the CDC in Atlanta and collect any living personnel, the research notes and any samples that they have archived and then escort them to Schriever Air Force base. Use force if necessary. Capture, don’t kill.”
“Yes Madam President, anything else?”
“I have bad news. While you were in transit from the White House I was informed of Fort Bragg’s dire situation. The base is surrounded and under siege and waiting for a full airlift. Any personnel that get out before the undead overrun the base are going to rendezvous at Schriever AFB. The 50th space wing controls all the Department of defense satellites from that location. We are going to reestablish the United States government and the CDC in Colorado Springs.”
Her last few words garbled together as Mike thought about his family and unborn son. Hopefully they all would be reunited soon. In a moment of clarity he also thought about Brook and Raven. They were like family to him. An icy fist hit him in the gut as he calculated the odds of all of them surviving.
President Clay gave one last salute to the men in front of her and then approached the operator that had retrieved the football hours earlier. She reached out and removed the Captains bars from Mike Desantos uniform, replacing them with the silver two star cluster of a Major Generals rank.
Mike remained stoic. He saluted the president, turned and reentered the waiting helo. Engines spooled up and the four birds leapt off of the beautiful country club like grounds and accelerated to maximum speed, heading for another much needed aerial refueling before setting waypoints for Atlanta.
Chapter 36
Day 2 Fort Bragg, North Carolina
Their vantage point afforded them a view of the north gate and watchtowers. A large brown wooden sign with the words "Fort Bragg Home to the 82nd Airborne and Special Forces, Welcome" carved into it, loomed next to the entrance. Three fifty foot tall guard towers spanned the front
of the base with a fifteen foot tall chain-link fence capped by razor sharp concertina wire ringing the entire facility. There were hundreds of the walking dead milling about or trying to gain entrance, the moaning was loud enough to be heard at their semi secure location half a mile away. The blood slickened grass in front of the fencing was littered with the bodies of fallen undead; some still moved and clawed their way mindlessly towards the living. Every few seconds one or two of the undead would suddenly collapse, unmoving, felled by the snipers in the towers.
Fort Bragg was a huge base sprawling over several thousand acres. From one corner of the base thick black smoke curled up into the crystal clear blue sky. Very far off, what appeared to be a large cargo or transport plane orbited, belching solid streams of red tracers ground ward. It appeared that unbroken chains of light anchored the plane to the ground. This effect was due to the high rate of fire coming from the multiple Gatling guns as they rained tracer bullets down into the masses of undead. Thankfully the wind was at their backs, it helped to drown out the incessant, maddening sounds coming from below; also it helped carry their rancid odor elsewhere.
Trudge: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse Page 16