by Dave Lund
“A bunch of dead are making their way toward us, so we shouldn’t take too long. Hold cover, I’ll go first.” Chivo didn’t wait for an answer; he slid off the roof, rotating gracefully as he did, silently falling to the ground below. Soon in view, he signaled for Bexar to join him. Bexar fell loudly to the ground with a curse.
“Smooth, esé.”
Bexar shrugged. They moved forward as a team, first clearing the large main building and then the second large building. The storage units were last. They were all closed and, at a quick glance, appeared to be latched.
Twenty minutes later, the compound was cleared and deemed safe. Frank had been right, very little food, water, or any other supplies besides crates of stolen military weapons were found. They had thousands of rounds of 5.56, a dozen crates of RPGs, another three cases of hand grenades. This group was loaded for war, and Guillermo’s group would have been killed off if not for the crime of being prepared. Chivo didn’t blame either group; he could see Frank’s group’s desperation and Guillermo’s group’s grievance. If Frank, Dan, and the rest of the group had approached Guillermo for help peacefully they might have had a chance, but they didn’t.
“Like the fucking bikers, man.”
“At least nothing exploded this time, mano.”
“The shop did, and I’m getting really damn tired of being knocked the fuck out by shit exploding.”
Chivo smirked. “How’re we going to get all this hardware back up the hill?”
“Why don’t we let Angel and them figure that out; we did our piece. Except we should take what we want first off the top. We’re done here, we’re leaving, we need to arm up. In this fucking world, the dead are the easy ones; the living, shit, Chivo, the living are the worst.”
“Yeah, mano, it’s always people, desperate people who make really desperate choices. Your life, no one’s life matters except to provide for their own.”
Bexar nodded. “So, are you going to show me how to use these RPGs?”
“Dude, I’ve taught people who couldn’t read or write how to effectively deploy an RPG. You can at least figure out a pop-up book, so you’re already a step ahead.”
Bexar flipped Chivo off, but he only laughed as he stacked case after case of 5.56 on the ground to take to the car. They needed a full-ton truck. What they had was a car that was light enough to sit in the bed of one.
Groom Lake, NV
“What can we do about it, Bill? I mean, we’re not exactly a standing army; we’re deep below ground. All we can do is shut the blast door and let it blow over.”
“I don’t know, Jake, it’s just, well...those transmissions really creeped me out. First, one of the numbers stations came back online, then another, and now this. Something is going on, and I don’t like it.”
“How many different survivors have you made contact with so far?”
“What?” Bill was caught off guard by the sudden change of subject.
“With your radio, what is your count up to now?”
“Between the open HAM radio channels and the spark-gap radio, we’ve made contact and plotted over a hundred survivors and groups.”
“Where are they located?”
“All over. You should come down and see our growing map. All the pins are something to get excited about.”
“OK, then reach out to those groups, tell them that you...tell them that we believe something is afoot. They can be our early warning system, our NORAD for an impending attack of some sort. Any of them military units?”
“No, a bunch of former military though.”
“Well that’s a start. If one of our survivors, one of our modern Paul Reveres sounds the alarm, we have to devise a response, some way to get help, to send help, or to be of help. Otherwise, it does us no good.”
“I’ll make contact, but there just isn’t anyway, I mean, what can they do; they’re going to ask.”
“We’ll figure something out. For now, tell them to report anything suspicious.”
“See something, say something.”
“Heh, yeah, sort of like that, Bill.”
Bill looked worried, but he left to do his job. Jake leaned back in his office chair and put his feet on the desk and closed his eyes, concentrating. Cliff would have known what to do; he always had a plan. He always had a simple plan...simple. We need a simple plan, but I don’t have any idea where to even start. We had almost lost the survivors here. If it hadn’t been for a high-school-style lockdown drill followed by Jessie and Sarah cleaning house with their rifles, we would have all been dead. We fought our asses off against the damn homegrown cult and still had to be saved in Colorado. Cliff rescued us, and that was against some low-grade assholes, not a trained invading military force.
Jake shook his head and sat up. He needed to go for a walk and think; for once he was at a complete loss as to what to do or say.
Post, TX
Amanda’s map didn’t show more than a small speck in the middle of nowhere Texas for Post, but she knew that this was where the turn onto Highway 380 would be located. That much she had marked on her map, but first she had to drive through the town. The sun was beginning to set on the western horizon. She could stop or go, and the smart option would be to stop, even though Amanda was anxious to cover more ground, log more miles, and get another step closer to Groom Lake.
A small lake on her right glistened in the orange glow of the ending day, making her decision for her; a scenic spot would be a nice change. Amanda turned and drove into the small parking lot for the park. American and Texas flags hung, tattered, on the flagpole outside of an old wooden building that had a sign for WIC services on it. Driving over the curb, Amanda parked in a small grove of trees just because she felt slightly safer than sitting out in the open. The nose of the big truck pointed toward the exit; the side windows glowed orange on the left and she could see the lake on the right. Scanning the area, it appeared that she was free from any meandering dead. After turning off the engine and grabbing her rifle and a crushed roll of toilet paper, Amanda climbed out of the truck and stretched before choosing a low brick wall that doubled as a bench as her spot for now.
Finished and feeling relieved, Amanda left it all uncovered; she didn’t feel it necessary to bury it or even deal with it. With so few living people left, it really didn’t seem like it would matter. A short walk to the lake gave her cool water to rinse her hands off. She hadn’t exercised since she’d left, not more than a few pushups in the back of the MRAP. Checking that the area was still clear and safe from the dead, Amanda set her rifle on the ground and started with some light stretching before completing a series of eight-count body builders, which were finished off with some burpees and a few sprints back and forth; she was careful not to wander too far from the MRAP or her rifle.
Sweaty, steam rising off her skin in the cool air, satisfied, and feeling better about her day, she noticed that darkness crept across the ground, the shadows growing faint as the last light of the day fell from view. Amanda retrieved her rifle and climbed into the armored truck to her dinner of a cold MRE and water.
If Groom Lake has real food, any kind of real food, I think I will feel like I’ve died and gone to heaven.
CHAPTER 8
S4
April 6, Year 1
The commander studied the computer screen with the latest satellite images displayed, and he used the electronic tools to measure the distances. Thirty-five kilometers if they could drive the four-wheeled APC straight over the mountains. Although Groom Lake was a secret facility, the entire area had been used for more than just aircraft development; other secret projects and not-so-secret nuclear weapons tests had been conducted, all contained within the Nevada Test Site. Numerous roads traversed the area, connecting all the different facilities to the nuclear test sites, to the landing fields, and all the other items the corrupt imperialist government demanded. Iron
ically, the easiest and fastest way for the recon element to get there was to drive on a paved road through the field of craters from all the bomb testing, turning off to a dirt road that would put the team at a good position on the mountain ridge to the southwest of their target. Still approximately five kilometers away from the heart of the complex, they would be close enough to establish the sort of eyes-on-the-ground information that he needed. He needed to know what sort of movement and resistance they could expect. They planned biological-warfare sabotage in a simple form, as they wanted to take everything intact, just as the other complex would be; if they weren’t successful, another crater would be added to the numerous others passing by the armored windshield.
Saint George, UT
The compound was a flurry of activity, and the sun was only just now above the horizon. The horses killed by the dead and any chance of fabricating a cart or something else useful destroyed by the RPG attack on the shop, a meeting was held and improvisation was running rampant, just for a single idea. The group meeting the previous evening, after Chivo and Bexar had returned, was one of excitement and lament. The chance to significantly increase the group’s weapons, ammo, and general arsenal was alluring. But the difficulty in transporting so many heavy items using an old, worn-out Beetle with an exhaust so loud that more dead would come just for the car show was a problem they couldn’t grasp for an outcome. That was until John talked about the steel works and large fabrication shop near Frank’s storage-area compound. The fabrication shop had an enormous forklift that ran on diesel, or that was what he assumed, doubting that one that large would run on propane. Regardless, now that morning was upon them, the group opted to send a scavenger party outside the wire and into the wilds of the industrial park for a forklift that may or may not work; if it didn’t work, their plan was to search, improvise, and find a solution.
Chivo smiled. These sorts of by-the-seat-of-your-pants operations happened more often than not in the Special Forces world; despite all the training and planning, sometimes the guys would have to head out, hunt for bad guys, and break stuff.
Bexar wore a new chest rig to hold his pistol and rifle magazines. Jennifer had done a wonderful job with the supplies she had on hand. Black and basic, it fit well and seemed to function just as it should. In heavy-duty work pants, work boots, and a T-shirt, Bexar felt more like himself than he had wearing all the high-speed tactical gear that Chivo still wore. For all his days in training, courses, and department in-services, Bexar was still just a cop, not some tactic-cool SWAT guy.
The morning was perfect, with clear skies, cool but not cold. Bexar was ready to get the party started. Brian and Stan were joining the expedition to adventure. Each person carried a small day pack that held water, some snacks, and some medical supplies, all matching; a group standard item. The bags belonging to their lost friends were given to Chivo and Bexar. The VW sat in the courtyard, a small oil drip under the rear of the car staining the concrete, and there it would sit until Chivo and Bexar left for Groom Lake. The one thing they did take was the battery out of the Bug. No one in the group knew anything about forklifts but they all assumed that it probably required a battery to start and run.
After the walk down the long driveway, the jokes and talking came to an end. The seriousness of exiting the relative safety of the fenced compound now became paramount. The gate was opened and then closed behind them and locked. The threat of Frank’s group was eliminated, but after some discussion, Chivo convinced them that others might spring up when they least expected it.
The walk down Old Dump Road didn’t take long. With a set of borrowed binoculars, Chivo could see movement on the Interstate further down the road, but so far, they hadn’t encountered any of the dead face to face. Chivo had a shortcut planned, the layout committed to his memory from his recon and sniper skills the previous day. Cutting through a dirt parking lot, climbing down a short retaining wall, walking through another parking lot of yet another business housed in a dirty metal building, the team of four stood at the chain-link fence of the steel-fabrication business. Large sections of steel pipe, bars, beams, and other pieces of steel sat rusty in the yard.
A whispered discussion as to whether they should split up or move as a team was quickly ended with Chivo’s not so tactful statement that they stay together, move together, and work as a team. Quick work with a pair of bolt cutters and Stan had the group inside the fence line. The main fabrication shop, a massive metal building, stood to their right. In a covered area to their left sat an oil-stained, greasy, and dirty forklift larger than some cars.
“Well, John, there’s your forklift, mano. Get to work.”
John looked at Chivo and then at Stan. Stan shrugged and walked to the forklift. Under faded yellow paint, obscured by rust and dirt, “CATERPILLAR” could barely be discerned on the back of the beast. A large rusted muffler stood erect on the side of the roll cage of an operator’s cab. The engine compartment was under a vented cover behind the driver’s seat. Stan lifted the engine cover and inspected what they’d found.
“Uh, I have no idea guys...maybe we should just try it first. If that doesn’t work, we’ll have to figure out where the battery is and swap ours in. Which one of you knows how to run this thing?”
No one spoke; Bexar shrugged. “Can’t be too hard, can it? I mean you drive it, and the forks go up and down. Guess I’ll try.”
After climbing into the operator’s position, Bexar was met with three long handles, another on the side of the steering column, a small handful of gauges, and one key sticking out of the dash. If any of the controls had been labeled when the forklift was made, the labels were long gone. With a pedal on the left of the steering column, another on the right, and another long one that looked universally like an accelerator pedal, the big machine was intimidating, more so than Bexar realized before he’d volunteered to be that guy.
Holding his breath, Bexar turned the key. A clicking sound came from the engine behind him, which then belched to life, black smoke pouring out of the exhaust stack. If the VW was a problem because it was loud, this massive forklift was a serious problem because it was even louder! After a few moments, the engine settled down into an idle that shook the whole beast. Turning the steering wheel back and forth, Bexar realized that the hydraulic system pushed the rear wheels left and right; the dual front tires were rigidly mounted. Testing each lever, Bexar found that one slid the huge fork assembly left and right, another tilted the whole lifting tower forward and back, and the third raised and lowered the forks.
Bexar yelled over the engine, “Hop on; we need to get our shit and get home before we attract a crowd with this big yellow bastard!”
Chivo stood next to Bexar in the large open cab, steadying himself by holding onto the protective cage over the cab. John and Stan stood on the steps on either side of the cab, holding onto the handles used to climb into the cab. Like a low-budget zombie-killing A-Team, Bexar raised the forks off the ground and drove forward slowly, trying to get the hang of the rear-axle steering. More than once, he had to stop and reverse, getting caught driving into the large pieces of steel in the facility. Amazingly, the forklift turned tightly, almost like a zero-turn lawn mower.
An off-road vehicle it was not, so after driving out of the fabrication facility, Bexar stuck to the paved road, taking the long way around to the south and cutting through a paved parking lot to travel north on Red Rock Road. Every couple of minutes, one of them would have to take a few shots at the approaching dead. The loud old diesel forklift was Saint George’s Pied Piper of the living dead. Finally reaching the storage unit and fenced-off compound, Bexar drove the forks into the section of chain-link fence by the parking lot, tilted the forks back and raised them, ripping the fence off the posts and out of the ground. There wasn’t room to drive the forklift inside the compound, so Bexar spun it to the left to point toward the road home. Chivo and John pulled the fence off the forks, and Bexar lowered the
m to the ground and shut off the engine. The sudden silence was unsettling, but not as unsettling as the growing moans of the approaching dead.
“OK, we better make this quick. John, you and Stan are a team. Start grabbing the wooden crates and stack them on the forks, and Bexar and I will do the same. If things go sideways, we can get on the roof and thin the herd if we need to, but I think if we work fast enough, it won’t be that big of a problem.”
John and Stan didn’t have to be told twice. They trotted into the compound, grabbing the first wooden crate they found, carrying it as a team back toward the forklift.
“Won’t be a big problem? You had to fucking say it out loud, didn’t you?”
“Bexar, it either is or isn’t, you superstitious dick. Now get your white ass moving so we can get the fuck out of here before the big problem arrives.”
Bexar grunted, walked into the compound, and team-carried one of the crates with RPGs back to the forklift. After the first two loads, each of the two teams was having to put down one of the dead that was getting too close. The sun marched across the sky and was nearly overhead when the last crate was loaded. They had a pile of crates that reached the end of the long forks and was piled high enough that all of them had to team up to lift the last few over their heads to reach the top of the stack. Dozens of the dead lay in crumpled heaps in the parking lot; many more were approaching, slowly shambling with singular focus.
“Fucking pop smoke, mano! Time to roll.”
Chivo didn’t have say it twice. Everyone climbed aboard the forklift. Bexar couldn’t see past the load, and all of them were glad that the engine coughed to life once again. After tilting the lift rearward, Bexar slowly raised the forks until he could see under the stack of wooden crates. Somehow they’d been able to fit every single one of the crates holding weapons, ammo, explosives and who knows what else onto the forklift. Moving slowly, Bexar guided the forklift out of the parking lot, making a right turn onto the road to head for home. Their pace riding the giant old forklift was slower than the group’s pace walking down the hill that morning, but it was slightly faster than the growing number of followers. Chivo turned around to face the rear, kneeling on the metal floor, and held his rifle against the driver’s cage to steady his aim. One by one, he took careful shots to put down the closest of the following dead. None of them spoke, the loud diesel engine making it annoying trying to yell and hear one another.