by J. L. Bourne
2018 hrs
I dont know why we didnt think of this before. They placed bags over the cameras to disable, not destroy them. John switched the camera view from normal to thermal. We were able to see any and all living human movement through the cloth bags as if they werent even there. We have been panning the cameras back and forth, getting head counts on their numbers. Their orange and red glow can be seen swarming around numerous vehicles in their group. Multiple gunshots are apparent. As they fire, I can see the hot flash of their muzzles through the thermal cam. Their weapons dont look military. They look more like hunting rifles.
They keep moving, drawing the dead away from this area, then back again. I suppose they cant stay in one place due to the overwhelming number of undead in this area. They seem to be systematically herding them away, then back. Pretty ingenious. I suppose they have been surviving on the run since the beginning.
I bet they had been casing us for days, and they may have even been outside when we were testing our weapons. I dont hear any cutting tools or anything that would lead me to believe they were trying to force entry. The main camera in the front of the complex is still fully functional and shows an empty parking area on night vision mode.
These marauders have successfully cleared out our front door for us, but I have no idea if they are just waiting in the shadows to kill us at first opportunity. I placed my ear against the steel silo access door. I could hear them shuffling and moaning and beating the walls on the other side.
Johns Deception
May 19th
1932 hrs
On the night of the seventeenth, they made their assault. We were watching on thermal cameras, and also on the unhindered front main camera when it happened. They brought crews of men to the launch bay pit where many undead had already fallen in. Johns thermal cam had whiteout after a few minutes in the vicinity of the silo launch bay. After ten minutes went by, I used my gloved hand to feel the lower silo access door. The door was very thick and sturdy, but the heat from the fire on the other side was immense. They were burning out the undead in the pit. They wanted down below, and on the other side of the door I was standing at.
We had to formulate a plan. John told me that he saw on thermal, just before the whiteout occurred, four men carrying a large box toward the broken area of the chain link fence. It was probably some sort of cutting tool. Over the previous 24 hours (night of the sixteenth, to the seventeenth) I had observed them continuing to use the herding tactic to keep the undead manageable.
They had also brought a large eighteen-wheel gasoline tanker with their convoy. We saw this on the satellite image, before it became cloudy. I now estimated that their numbers to be fifty men, and nearly twenty vehicles.
We monitored the citizens band radio for any intelligence. We could definitely hear them communicating. The code they were using sounded very familiar. Much like the brevity code we were hearing on the radio a couple of weeks ago. It might as well have been Chinese. It didnt matter at this point. Judging by the thermal whiteout, the fire was still raging. I had to think of a way to get topside without detection, and then somehow disorient them to the point of surrender. It was going to take all of us to pull this off.
Here was the plan; I instructed Jan to make a radio call to the marauders at a certain time. The call was to inform them that this was an official government base and that there are more than a hundred soldiers based here, all well armed. If they did not pull out, the soldiers would be authorized to use deadly force. She was instructed to make the call on the marauders frequency exactly forty-five minutes after we left the compound.
John and I remembered back to when we first came to Hotel 23. We slept in a small, enclosed chain link fenced area with a large manhole lid on the inside. In our days since the discovery of this place, John, Will and I found out that it was, in fact an escape scuttle, designed as a redundancy exit if the others were knocked out. It was quite a ways from the silo doors and main entrance and chances are it went unnoticed.
The girls armed themselves with the carbines, and the shotguns. I instructed them on the proper use of the shotgun in a steel living area. If they aimed the shotgun down at the floor at approximately 45 degrees, the twelve gauge pellets would ricochet and destroy anything in front of them in the steel passage. I was taught this tactic in anti-terrorism training designed to repel terrorist boarders from U.S. naval vessels. They didnt even have to see their target when using this tactic.
I grabbed the M-16 with the M-203 launcher, all the ammo I would need, a blanket and my NVGs. John and William took M-16s and two M-9 pistols, and the binoculars. We headed for the emergency exit, approximately ⅓ of a mile down a dark access tunnel.
Some of the bulbs were burned out down here, and I constantly had to switch to night vision to lead John and Will to the hatch. Johns hand stayed on my shoulder as I led them through the darkness. I could smell the fear in the air. We were all afraid. No one wanted to kill another human being, but this was our survival at stake.
We could take no chances with those that wished us harm. We were at the hatch. Jan would be starting her watch countdown now. I checked the time. It was 2155 hours. At 2240 she would be making her radio call. We couldnt risk using the hydraulic motor to open the heavy hatch. Everything in this place had a backup it seemed. We cranked the hatch open exactly two feet with sixty-two revolutions of the manual crank handle. There was no moon and it was cloudy out that night. I could see the distant glow of the silo fire just over the hill near from the fence we were in.
Together we climbed over the razor wire fence, using the blanket I had brought from the complex. We were on the other side. There was no undead movement to either side of us at this side of the fence. We low crawled up the embankment to level our vantage point with the bandits. There they were. Using the binoculars, I started a head count on them. I counted forty-five in all. Many of the vehicles they were driving looked rather expensive. Many had Landrovers and full sized Hummers. They were all gathered around the fence near their vehicles and the large fuel truck used to re-supply them with dead dinosaurs.
At this point I was at a loss. We were grossly outnumbered and would easily lose in a firefight. All we could do was wait for Jans radio message and hope they would pull out. It was 2215 I could hear them talking faintly. I switched back on my NVGs to check the darker areas outside the burn of the silo fire. Funny, I could see the bags illuminated by the infrared beam of the camera inside them. The bags on the cameras looked like a green version of those old propane camp lights that used the cloth back and propane to generate light.
It was 2235. Minutes seemed like hours. In five minutes we would know what we were up against. The marauders were dressed in a mixture of blue jeans, and camouflage pants. Many of them looked fat and out of shape, their guts hanging over their pant line. It didnt matter, you dont have to be skinny to pull a trigger and hit your target.
Go time, 2240. I checked my watch and nodded to John and Will to remain very quiet. Nothing. No sign that they heard Jans call. Then it came. I heard the group make the sound Shhhh! all in unison, signaling their fellow bandits to be quiet. Then loud laughter from the group and one person shouting, FUCK YOU BITCH! YOU HAVE IT, WE WANT IT! Then came loud laughter, cursing and weapons fire into the night sky.
I had to grab Williams arm to keep him from standing up in anger. The flames were disappearing, and I could no longer see the tops of them as they sunk below the lip to the silo doors. Time was running out. Using the binoculars, I could see some sort of welding/cutting device being lugged inside the fence. These men wanted us dead.
It was a matter of survival of the fittest. I made the decision. Rather than wait for them to overpower us inside the complex, I decided to hit them while they were all close together. It is a decision that will haunt me forever. I told John and Will to get down as I loaded the M-16 mounted grenade launcher. I knew how far I was from the tanker. I adjusted the s
ights for my one hundred meter target. I sat there meditating for a moment, pondering on my decision. No more time to think. No more time to hesitate I pulled the trigger.
The grenade whistled through the air toward the fuel tanker. It landed about two or three meters from the middle of the trailer and detonated, sending hundreds of steel shards into the metal skin holding the thousands of gallons of gasoline. Then came a huge explosion. I dont remember what happened after that.
My next memory was of John and William taking turns giving me CPR at the base of the razor wire fence. I later found out that the concussion of the blast knocked me off my feet and threw me backwards ten meters into the bottom section of the fence. They noted that I was lucky to hit a center section of the fence, and not the post, or the razor wire.
I have been in bed since that day, recovering from burns and a probable concussion, according to Jan. John and William carried me back to the command center and made the radio call out to the rest of the marauders. We assumed that some were out on herding duty. John broadcasted the following message on all available frequencies:
For the rogue group that has recently carried out hostilities against the government launch facility: Be advised that four Apache helicopters were dispatched to this area to neutralize all hostile forces in the vicinity. Any further hostilities will result in maximum retaliation to your faction.
Afterword
Thank you for traveling with me into the world of the undead and I hope that you enjoyed reading Day by Day Armageddon as much as I enjoyed writing it. This is not the end of the story and rest assured that you will hear more from our survivor at Hotel 23. Although the Global War on Terrorism has taken up much of my time, I still find time to delve into the mind of the man on the run, trapped in a dead world. I owe the character and the fans of this novel that much.
There will be a sequel.
Keep your doors locked,
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