by Dave Lund
“It’ll run on car gas. I have some bottles of octane booster in the cabin I mix with the gasoline.”
Warren nodded slowly and looked at the sky for a moment. “Well, come on inside, and we can talk trading. First, I’ll trade you lunch for news or stories, and then we can talk about get’n some gas for your plane.”
“Sounds like a plan, Warren. Thank you.”
They walked in silence, Mary and Oreo ahead of them with his tail wagging while her ponytail bounced with each step. Warren frowned and glanced over his shoulder toward the parked Husky bush plane.
Groom Lake, NV
The peaceful desert morning and cool air grew worse with every passing minute. Bill struggled to finish the riggings for the homebuilt antenna he hoped would give him the chance to communicate over the horizon with other survivors, if only he could complete his task. A radio is nothing without the right antenna.
“I like the fresh air and all, but seriously, fuck this weather.”
“Erin, darling, relax. We’re outside, and Brit isn’t with us...so what if it’s windy.”
“Jessie, it isn’t the wind. It’s the damn sand that’s blowing!”
Jessie shrugged and walked against the howling wind sandblasting the small group on the desert floor. Wind ripped across the mountains and into the dry lakebed, picking up sand and some surprisingly large rocks. Bill’s antenna was finally erected, but it took so long that the nice weather had changed dramatically since he first started.
It isn’t that it took so long; it’s that the weather changed that suddenly. First zombies, now extreme weather...Erin’s right.
Jessie coughed. Goggles that the world had previously seen on the dusty helmets of military men and women in the first Iraqi war were pulled tight against her face, and a dark shemagh was wrapped over her head and around her mouth in a vain attempt to keep the dust out of her lungs. The last thing Jessie needed was to get a lungful of dust and spend the rest of her pregnancy below ground with miner’s lung.
Erin usually liked to lay on the roofrack of the FJ with the big Barrett rifle, but today she opted to stand on the ground, or attempt to in the gusting winds, with her short-barreled M4. It didn’t seem to matter what firearm Erin had in her young hands, she was not only fast but wickedly accurate.
I’d hate to piss her off.
Since the first time Sarah had ridden up on her motorcycle and warned that her daughter was holding over-watch with a rifle, Jessie’d had a bit of a soft spot for Erin. Although a young girl who should be worried about school dances and homework, the bouncing ponytailed country girl in jeans was a stone-cold machine, constructed in the ruins of society out of necessity.
Jessie frowned, not that anyone could see it, and looked at Sarah, who was standing next to Bill. She has the intelligence, poise, and confidence that I know my little Keeley had; she just never had a chance to grow into it.
Bill moved in more of a fast waddle than a walk back toward the FJ. Sarah circled her hand above her head, meaning Time to leave.
At least none of the damned had shown their undead faces this time, Jessie thought.
The last time anyone had seen Brit was shortly after the first attempt to erect Bill’s homebrewed radio antenna. Jake said he’d spoken with her, and she’d said she had the flu. Sarah and Jessie thought she was too embarrassed to be seen in the public spaces after nearly getting bit. Erin took it upon herself to passingly “mention” the episode to all who ventured near her. When Sarah asked her to stop, that it would cause nothing but discord, Erin gave her mother the middle finger and walked off.
The interior of the FJ was warm, which was nice, but not as nice as being free from the sand and dirt that flowed across the dry lake like a monsoon. With every bounce, every jostle, dirt floated off their clothing and covered the inside of the well-used overlanding-rig-turned-bug-out-vehicle.
“So after testing the antenna and the radios, the airmen will broadcast a loop on shortwave that they recorded detailing how to construct a spark-gap radio. The secondary shortwave channel will have a looped ten-minute tutorial on CW,” Bill explained.
“What’s CW?”
“Continuous wave, what they used to call Morse code.”
“Huh.” Sarah’s look was one of curiosity. Although she would have enjoyed a longer explanation, she really didn’t want one as long as Bill was ready to give. She didn’t want a lesson; she wanted the cliff notes, which Bill seemed physically incapable of providing for any subject. The rest of the slow ride was passed in silence. Driving the Toyota, Jessie wanted to drive much faster, but visibility was not much beyond the end of the hood due to the dust storm. Eventually they drove into the gaping cavern of the hanger that housed the main entrance to the underground facility. Jason was standing by the blast door, happily returned to his previous job as greeter. He needs a blue vest...and maybe some shopping carts to go with his shotgun. Jessie smirked at the thought.
SSC, Ennis, TX
Sweat stung her eyes. Panting and trying to catch her breath, Amanda moved with all the energy she could muster. This time she would make it. This time she would succeed. She had to succeed—she could not fail. Failure could be death. Amanda dove under the big armored truck. Rolling to the other side, she stood quickly and jumped as high as she could with her hands stretched far above her head.
Her feet fell to the pavement, her knees bending to absorb the impact. Amanda touched the cold tarmac and jumped as hard as she could, hands reaching toward the roof of the MRAP and back down to the asphalt.
One...two...three...four...
Amanda counted out twenty burpees before dropping to her hands to bang out twenty-five push-ups. On her feet, she began the circuit again. Every single day she worked one of a half-dozen of her own workouts of the day. The extensive facility had a well-equipped gym, a weight room that would make a Division I football program proud, but what she shunned in pushing iron, Amanda made up for in conditioning and body strength. She had a plan. It was a simple plan, but it would require the best of her. Outside the protection of the concrete-lined walls deep underground was the real world, the world that belonged to the dead, and the world she’d unwittingly inherited by being the last one alive in the Presidential line of succession. No, the citizens, her fellow citizens and the U.S. Constitution she’d sworn to protect needed a leader, a strong leader to bring them through this dark time. History would remember her name as someone who gave beyond their best, or history would remember nothing at all but the empty ruins of an extinct civilization.
CHAPTER 3
Saint George, UT
April 1, Year 1
“Brian, do it again, please.”
Brian moved with the practiced poise of someone who had once been an athlete. Obviously his mind retained the vigor of his youth, but the body of a middle-aged man simply didn’t respond as quickly, as gracefully as a younger man, nor did it recover as quickly from such a physical experience as the end of the world as we know it.
A butter knife in Chivo’s hand was the closest thing that the group could come up with for an analogue to a rubberized training knife, but with Chivo, they would be as safe as they could be for the new training.
Chivo glanced suddenly to his left over Brian’s shoulder, who in response turned his head to follow Chivo’s gaze and look of surprise. In less than a blink of an eye, Chivo’s ruse worked, and he was in Brian’s guard, knife to his throat. “Had you scanned the surroundings before we started?” Chivo asked.
“Yeah.”
“Then why did you look when you knew nothing was there?”
“I don’t know.”
Chivo nodded. “Know what you know and act accordingly.”
These sorts of Yogi-isms seemed to gush forth unwittingly from Chivo when he was playing the role of instructor. Ever the quiet professional, he had no problem teaching his peers and fellow Special F
orces soldiers, but teaching civilians was a different ballgame altogether. It required an air of overt confidence that Chivo typically tried to play off, but at least with Guillermo and Angel’s group of survivors, preppers who did it right, he found eager and willing students.
“OK, Brian, set it up again.”
These people have no idea. Their war is coming. It will be brutal, and they will have to be ready to fight. Fight or surrender; if not against this enemy, the opposing group of survivors, it will be the next one or the ones after that. The dead don’t envy the living; they have no mind but to feed. No, the fall of man will be from man’s own mind and flesh...Lord help us all.
Chivo lunged at Brian with the butter knife. Brian stepped off line with a sharp block to the radial, rotating through with an elbow to Chivo’s face. The knife fell from Chivo’s hand, and his hand bent into a hard wrist lock, which Brian used to simulate breaking his elbow.
“Good job,” Chivo said, while shaking his hand and retrieving the dropped butter knife.
Step by step. Knife defense, disarming, escape, survival, fighting...this is an unconventional force of conventional people.
Chivo’s face betrayed nothing, but he doubted whether their new friends and one-time saviors would be able to become saviors unto themselves.
Lost Bridge Village, Beaver Lake, AR
Burning wood popped and hissed in the fireplace. With the fire pushed to one side, the other side glowing with the white hot coals gave heat to a medium-sized dutch oven. The living room’s dark shadows belied the afternoon sunlight outside. Wool blankets were tacked to the walls, stretched over the windows, and old newspaper in thick crumpled clumps filled the space between the blankets and the windows; the homemade insulation helped to keep the fire’s meager heat from escaping the home too quickly.
“Come summer, we’re gonna have to pull down the blankets and hope to get some air through, but these modern homes just weren’t meant for it.”
Andrew nodded, wrapping his hands around the mug of hot tea, a wonderful treat after the weeks of hopping from camp to camp via his airplane.
“You’re not the first to say that to me, Warren. A number of others I’ve found have all said the same. They wished for the old homes, but with that said, the old homes aren’t as well insulated, and many of them are near the center of towns, historic homes and neighborhoods. It goes without saying that being close to downtown anywhere is a bad idea.”
“Most folks been accommodating?”
“Eh, well, I’d say most have been cautious. Some groups were quite reluctant to allow an outsider in their midst; one couple seemed to want to cook Oreo here for dinner. I couldn’t even imagine. Needless to say we took flight very quickly after that suggestion. It isn’t all death and despair though. I found a group of farmers in Georgia who’d banded together and have established an intermittent mail route between about a half-dozen smaller camps. They even have a trade day every other Sunday!”
“Amazing, how can they do that safely? We tried to venture out toward Rogers, near Bentonville, using the lake, but all we found were the dead. Not one sign of another living soul that way. The other way up the lake are a few other groups. All in all they been the friendly sort, but then some of ‘em we knew before too. The damnedest thing was ole’ Highway 12. One day, I saw what had to be a thousand of the dead marching ‘cross the bridge. They even pushed some cars over the edge and into the water, the dead going with them. They sank like the cars, but I don’t think we’ll be swimming in the water come summer. Not with the dead mucking about in the water.”
“You should see the giant migrations of dead; massive, miles long. Some of the other groups have seen them, a couple even talked about other groups they had contact with wiped off the earth by the mass of migrating dead.”
“You bump across any government or military or anything like’n that yet?”
Andrew tilted his head. “Sort of. Nothing what I would have hoped for, but I’ve seen some groups of military vehicles, tents, and such. I’ve steered clear; they make me a little uneasy, Warren, and truth be told that is what I’m searching for. There are survivors, more survivors than I could have imagined when I flew out the first time, but nothing is organized. I don’t know if it could be organized. There just aren’t the resources or the people...I take that back, there might be enough people if we had someplace safe to center the efforts. A leader, a mission, equipment, and purpose, but no, so far everyone is just trying to keep their friends, their families, and their own little communities alive as long as they can.”
“What about them fellers over in Nevada? You listen to them yet?”
“Listen how? I don’t understand, the others said there was an EMP, and my radios didn’t work anymore.”
“I suppose that’s true, Andrew, but...Princess, go grab my shortwave out of the pantry. Some things survived. I don’t know why, but this guy was in an old metal ammo can in my garage, stuffed in with my hunting gear. Bought it years ago for the weather radio, but it picks up the shortwave stuff too.”
Mary left her warm and cozy place sitting on the hearth to quickly return, handing Warren a crank-powered radio before returning to her warm spot and checking on the meal cooking in the dutch oven. Oreo yawned and lay back against her legs.
Warren cranked the radio while explaining the looped broadcasts, starting with the BBC news broadcast from just after the attack, which had since gone off the air. “Then some station came on blabbering nonsense, just a bunch of numbers or letters, and then it disappeared, no idea what was the reason, but strange all around.”
Stopping, Warren extended the antenna and turned on the radio. “The reception is better at night, but maybe we can find you som’thing right now, and then we can try again after supper.”
The radio hissed, static rolling between each change in frequency before Warren stopped on a tinny voice that sounded miles away with the weak reception “...the letter D is dash, dot, dot; the letter E is dot; the letter F is dot, dot, dash, dot...”
“Hey, that’s Morse code!”
Warren nodded. “Sure’nuff is. First time I’ve heard that on the radio. Usually they talk about how they’re a safe haven, all are welcome. They also say we got ourselves a new President...a woman.”
Andrew quickly dug around in his pockets before pulling out a bright orange Field Notes notebook and a pen. “Would you mind letting it play. I want to write this all down. Maybe they’ll start over, and we can get what we missed.”
Warren nodded and set the radio on the end table next to his recliner. The transmission continued through the alphabet, following some basic protocols for when transmitting so messages could be understood. An example broadcast of Morse code was transmitted very slowly along with what it all meant.
“This has been an official United States of America radio broadcast, authorized by the President of the United States Amanda Lampton and broadcast from the safe facility in Groom Lake, Nevada. For information on how to construct a radio and antenna out of parts scavenged from everyday items you can find in your home or neighborhood, please tune to the shortwave frequency...”
“President Amanda Lampton is her name, so they say. Ever heard of her, Andrew?”
“Warren, I have no idea, but if you wouldn’t mind, I would like to try to make contact. Would you change the frequency so we can get the assembly instructions?”
Warren looked at Mary. His soft eyes betrayed a kindhearted man contained behind the hard weathered face. Her possible future broke his heart every time he considered it. Silently nodding in response, Warren tuned the radio to the second frequency, turned the generating crank a few more times, and set it back on the end table. Andrew smiled, excitement from a glimmer of hope twinkling in his eyes as he took careful notes in his small durable notebook.
CHAPTER 4
Yuma, AZ
April 2, Year 1
&
nbsp; The beep crackle of a radio transmission snapped Aymond awake. The hardened structure that was his berth inside their HESCO built firebase was the safest he had felt since leaving the Mountain Warfare Training Center. Faintly glowing, the hands of his analog wrist watch, a classic military field watch, showed 0400.
Rifle fire filled the radio transmission. Aymond was not awake enough to understand the words, but the gunfire in the background coming through the handset vividly brought back memories of deployments in northern Afghanistan.
What the hell?
“No copy, say again your last, over!”
Now standing, Aymond squinted in the darkness at the other Marines that weren’t on patrol or holding fire watch.
“Chief, contact, PLA, request QRF, repeat Quebec Romeo Foxtrot, how copy?”
“Good copy!”
Aymond turned his head and yelled “QRF, SHAKE IT LOOSE!”
A small chorus of mumbled “fucks” was heard as the Marines leapt off their cots, shrugging on their battle rattle and slinging rifles.
“Clear copy, QRF, location, status, over?”
“The eight north of the river, at business eight, mounted patrol, one dozen APCs, one radar truck, about a platoon in strength, how copy?”
“Clear copy, strobe friendly, ETA ten mikes.”
“Roger, ten mikes, out.”
The hard thump of a 50-caliber rifle was heard in rapid succession over the last radio transmission. Hammer, Happy, and Snow were the patrol team in contact. Jones and Chuck held fire watch, leaving Gonzo, Kirk, Davis, and Aymond in a rest cycle with one M-ATV and their lone radar truck. Jones and Chuck came running toward the M-ATV, Gonzo already behind the wheel, the diesel engine rumbling and ready to go. Two minutes later, the armored truck tore out of the compound, leaving it open, unguarded, and in a condition Aymond would have preferred not to leave it, but there were only nine Marines left, counting himself. Master Gunnery Sergeant Aymond had no other choice.