by TW Gallier
I had to make a decision as I approach the Beltway. Head toward Bethesda to get onto I-95 or go the other way toward Joint Airbase Andrews? My decision was made by a radio report of police fighting a large horde of infected where the Beltway crossed I-66. I turned toward Andrews.
Traffic was crazy. All I could figure was everyone was just as out of their minds to get out of the city as me. I had a goal in mind, a hopefully safe place to go to. I wasn't so sure anyone else thought it through that far. I didn't blame them. I just wanted out of that nightmare that was Washington, DC.
Gunfire erupted as I approached the Pennsylvania Avenue turn-off. A mob of people surged across the highway. Cars and trucks plowed into them, bodies flying everywhere. I hit the brakes, and some idiot in a pickup slammed into my rear. That pushed me forward towards the back of another car. Without even thinking, I turned right and took the off-ramp to Pennsylvania Avenue.
"Son of bitch!"
A teenage girl jumped in front of me. Her face was filled with rage. Blood was smeared over her face and her tank top and jeans were soaked in it. I knew she was already gone and undead, so hit the gas and drove over her. My throat tightened and I felt sick. What if she wasn't really a zombie yet?
Others charged my car, throwing themselves at it as I drove. It was suicidal. Crazy shit.
"The whole world's gone insane!"
I tried to avoid hitting anyone else, but that was just impossible. The cars in front of me came to a screeching stop. I turned off the road to go past them, but slammed into a police car blocking traffic. Gunfire erupted again. This time it was all around me.
Zombies surrounded my car. They were focused on the cops and soldiers on Pennsylvania Avenue. I saw cops and soldiers dragged down by zombies. One of the soldiers was torn apart, with zombies stopping to feast on his flesh. Then I noticed two cops and a soldier stand back up with rage filled eyes and turn on their former comrades.
"They are zombies. I can be turned into one of them if bitten."
To see confirmation so viscerally made my body tingle. Not a good tingle, either. In a few minutes I could be one of them. Then my eyes fell upon the dropped weapons of the turned soldier. It was an M-4 Combat Assault rifle. That was the same type weapon I fought with in Afghanistan while serving with the 82nd Airborne.
My training kicked in. The need to survive and reach my family overruled all other concerns. So I opened the door and came out of that car kicking and screaming. I just wanted to kill, kill, kill. Kicking and punching, I fought my way to the dropped M-4 Carbine.
"Yes!" I cried as I lifted it high, and then brought the butt back into the face of a zombie. I shattered his teeth, but barely fazed him. So I shoved the barrel up under his chin and pulled the trigger. Brains, bone, and blood erupted from the top of his head. "Get away from me!"
Fighting my way to the cops and soldiers, I joined them in killing zombies. One, two, three convoys of black SUVs passed by us heading for Andrews. Where else would they be going?
"Come with us, buddy!" a cop called.
Everyone was starting to fall back. I was out of ammo. The soldiers, and some cops, jumped into the back of a duce and a half, while I followed other cops to a SWAT armored car. Next thing I knew we were on the move. Only I wasn't heading home.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
The SWAT officers were passing out full 30-round magazines. I took five. Ejecting my empty, I left it on the floor. I racked the charging handle, ready to continue the fight. It kind of felt good to be back in action.
"Andrews," one cop said. "We're guarding top government officials as they bug out."
Everyone, myself included, was covered in blood. One of the cops across from me started moaning and groaning, holding his left hand. He looked feverish and was quickly becoming incoherent.
"What's wrong, Cooper? Cooper?" a police sergeant asked.
Cooper threw up as he dropped to all fours. He was shaking like a leaf, and making all of us nervous. When he looked up, right into my eyes, I saw nothing but burning, all-consuming rage.
"Shit! He's turned!"
Cooper leapt at me. I lashed out with a foot, connecting with his face. That turned him aside, and he locked onto another target. He attacked the sergeant. The newly made zombie wasn't an effective fighter. All he wanted to do was grab and bite. He bit the sergeant, and then two other cops. I finally got a clean shot, and blew his brains out. Blood and brains covered everyone and everything in that tiny compartment. And then I saw the sergeant looking sick, sweaty, glassy-eyed.
"One bite changes us into zombies," I said, more to convince the other cops than myself. "The sergeant and those two are changing right now."
I wanted to shoot them before they could complete the change and attack us in force. The other cops hesitated, asking their bitten friends one stupid question after another. It was as if they didn't want to believe their friends and comrades could be turned like that.
"Are you out of your minds?" I cried. "Kill them!"
"No, we can't just – "
The sergeant wailed incoherently, and lunged at another cop. I whipped my rifle around and pumped two rounds into his head, and three more into his heart. Then I turned my rifle on the other two changing cops.
"No!"
I fired. Hitting them in the chest and head, I ended their zombie transformations.
"Don't be a bunch of stupid, sentimental fools," I yelled at them. "If someone is bitten and changes, then you have to kill them immediately or he will kill you."
"You can't just kill a police officer like that!"
"They stopped being police officers as soon as they were bitten," I replied. "Hell, they stopped being human. It's kill or be killed, boys. If you don't accept it, then you won't live much longer."
They looked at me like I was a monster. I felt like a monster. I wanted to scream and cry, but I couldn't. I had a job to do: live long enough to reach my family. Nothing could stand in my way of completing that mission. My wife and children depended on me.
Maybe a few tears escaped. I hated killing anyone, and those cops probably had wives and children, too. Because of the all consuming hatred of some foreign terrorists, their lives were ruined. All of our lives were destroyed. I didn't even want to think about what it would take to restore the country back to normal. Could we do it in my lifetime?
Time to live off the grid. Live off the land, I thought. Funny, before the shit hit the fan I kinda liked the idea of it. Now, not so much.
Our mountain cabin was the perfect place for that. Well, it was in a vacation home subdivision of sorts. Everyone had five to ten acre lots. Last time I was up there I only counted fifteen completed log cabins, most of which were much larger and fancier than mine. But there was untouched forest and mountain lands all around, teeming with wildlife. We could live well up there.
The back door opened and a soldier was waving us out.
"Hurry! Make a perimeter," he said. I noticed a black bar of rank. A first lieutenant. I didn't recognize the patch on his shoulder, but he had a 101st Airborne combat patch on his right shoulder.
He directed us to a tall chain link fence. Zombies were pressed up against it, some trying to climb over. Other zombies pulled them down so they could climb up. It was a mess, but an awful lot of them were well up the fence. We opened fire on them, shooting them off the fence. Other zombies pounced on the newly dead, devouring them in just minutes.
It was horrific, and the stench was almost as bad.
Hearing a large jet starting to take off, I glanced back in time to see Air Force One lift up into the air. More jets full of government officials were starting to taxi out. Were they going to leave all of the cops and soldiers behind?
"Where's the president and everyone else going?" I asked the lieutenant. His name tag said "Jefferson."
"Fort Benning," he said. "For now. After that, I don't know. The West Coast wasn't really hit, so maybe to LA or something."
Fort Benning was south o
f Atlanta. It was even close to my mountain cabin. It would be easier and faster to go between Fort Benning and Blue Ridge, than DC and Blue Ridge.
"What about us?"
"Cops are staying to defend the city," he said. "All of the military are heading to Fort Benning on that plane." He pointed to a nearby Air Force jet. "We'll be bugging out shortly."
"What about me?"
"Are you military?"
"Staff Sergeant Roger Gilley," I said. "82nd Airborne."
He looked me over. Okay, I was twenty-eight and four years out of the Army, but I served six years in the 82nd Airborne. I fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. Being an avid sportsman, I hunted, fished, played golf. And I worked out religiously. Yeah, I was still in combat shape.
"Come with us," Lieutenant Jefferson said. Someone called to him. He left me to fight the zombies. A moment later, "Sergeant Gilley, let's go!"
For half a second I wondered if I should tell him that I wasn't in the Army anymore. Yeah, that thought was gone in a flash. We could sort that out after we land in Fort Benning.
I followed the lieutenant to the jet. There were other soldiers in civilian clothes, so I didn't rate a second look. The jet loaded up quickly, and they even brought in more than we had seats for. At least two dozen men sat in the aisle. And that jet was moving even before they closed the hatch.
Once we were airborne, I stared out the window. The landscape looked like something out of a disaster movie. Columns of smoke were everywhere. I could see the Capital building on fire. I noticed countless small planes in the air, and out at sea all of the boats and ships were sailing away from land. Everyone was bugging out of DC.
The jet veered to the west as it continued to climb higher and higher. I watched and waited for it to turn south and toward Fort Benning. It never happened. Spotting an officer, I waved at him. He worked his way back to me.
"Sir, we're heading due west. Shouldn't we be going south?" I asked.
He looked grim. "We can't. Just before takeoff we received new orders. Fort Benning has been hit, so we're heading for Salt Lake City."
I just stared at him. They were taking me away from my wife and children. I promised to save them. I promised to go straight to them. Now they were on their own in a zombie apocalypse.
Chapter 4
I ended the call with Roger and fought the need to scream. How the hell did he get himself on a plane to Salt Lake City!
He'd called just as I finished unloading the SUV. The boys were down by the pond behind our property. I was in the process of opening the shutters and getting the house in order. There were suitcases and boxes in the small living room, and the three hunting guns were leaning against the wall next to the front door. I had the 9mm semi-automatic pistol Roger bought me for personal protection, as well.
The pistol was holstered on my belt at the moment. I normally kept it in my purse, but the situation had me rattled. Better safe than sorry.
Glancing at the clock, I noticed it was still midmorning. How had so much happened so fast? In fact, it all went to hell before I could even feed the boys that morning. So I fired up the propane stove and put a tea kettle on the burner. There wasn't any milk, so I couldn't give them cereal. Fortunately, they considered instant oatmeal a treat.
Setting out two paper bowls, I dumped a packet into each. Brown sugar and apple was their favorite. When the tea kettle began to whistle, I turned off the stove and poured boiling water into the bowls. After stirring, I let them set and absorb the water.
"Timmy! Harlan!" I called from the back door. Their little faces turned toward me. "Come here! Breakfast!"
And they came a running. A smile spread across my face. Some things should never change.
After a glance at the dark smoke to the south, I turned back to putting everything up. When I opened the coat closet, I spotted the pile of packs on the floor inside. There were two large packs, one for Roger and one for me, and two smaller, bright red book bags for the boys. That reminded me to put together bug-out bags. Just in case.
"Woo-hoo! Oatmeal!" Timmy cried as he climbed into his chair.
Harlan sat opposite him at the small round table. Feelings of peace and well-being flowed through me. What was it about my children being so happy that made me tingle? Every time.
Pap. Pap-pap-pap.
My heart stopped. I couldn't breathe. The boys looked up with curious faces, too young to understand the danger. They looked to me for answers, before more gunfire drew their eyes to the front windows.
"Stay in the cabin," I said, rushing to close and lock the back door. "Don't let anyone in except me."
I grabbed the 30-30, which was my personal hunting rifle. Opening up a box of ammo, I filled my front pockets. After ensuring I had the keys, I locked the front door before stepping out and closing it.
"I'll be right back," I told the boys. "I just want to find out what is going on."
If we were being attacked by zombies, I needed to know. My parents didn't raise me to be the shy retiring type. As Daddy always said, the best defense is an offense.
Our cabin was higher than most. In fact, there were only two others higher up the mountain than ours. One was owned by an elderly couple from Arlington, Virginia, that I'd never met. The other belonged to a retired military man, Sean Andrews. A Marine. I barely knew him. Roger had actually gone hunting with Sean a few times. As I recalled, he lived up there. He got the cabin and his ex-wife got the house in Marietta in their divorce.
I moved quickly, but cautiously down the steep street. The road twisted and turned through the heavily wooded mountain terrain. After a few minutes I started to regret not driving.
Pap. Pap. Pap-pap-pap.
It sounded like pistol fire to me.
Rounding a corner, with an overlook to the entrance to the development, I stopped and saw them. My heart sank to see zombies. Was there any escaping them?
Three older men were fighting the zombies. Two of them had pistols, and the third was using a baseball bat. I was surprised how effective he was with that bat, too. Apparently bashing in their brains did kill zombies, but he had to hit them many times to accomplish it.
Dropping to my belly, I snugged the rifle butt to my shoulder and took careful aim. Three zombies, two of which looked like teenage boys, were going after the man with the bat. For some reason he was the one closest to the zombies. Aiming at the center of the zombies closest to him, I squeezed off a shot.
Blood exploded out of the back of the zombie's head. He dropped like a rock. So I took aim at the next, and blew his brains out. The man killed the third, before looking back and up toward me. I noticed it was Sean. I recognized one of the other men as Bill Connor, a successful small business owner in Atlanta.
More zombies came into view, rushing up the road. The men below started shooting. They were pretty good shots, too. Zombies started dropping. It was hard to not think of them as poor people, infected by a terrible virus that turned them into homicidal maniacs.
"They aren't human anymore," I whispered, needing to hear it if I was going to continue.
I took a deep breath, and then started shooting again. I missed a few. They had a bad habit of bobbing their heads when moving quickly, and their movements were frequently rather jerky. I discovered shooting them in the heart did kill them, but if I missed the heart or head the zombies didn't even slow down.
Scary shit.
When the zombies stopped coming, I stood up and waited for the three men to join me.
"How many were there?" I asked Sean.
"About thirty, I think," he said. "You're Jenny Gilley? Roger's wife?"
"Yes."
"Is Roger okay? Is he here?"
"Roger is on the way. I just spoke to him a few minutes ago," I said, afraid to admit how far away my husband was from home. Afraid one of those men might go barbarian and claim me as his own. "I brought the boys up, and he's meeting us here." To change the subject, "How many families are up here?"
"Not sure," Sean s
aid, looking weary. He looked back downhill. "We need to gather everyone together and come up with a defense plan." He looked me, then Bill, and finally the other guy dead in the eyes. "Those infected are going to keep coming. If we don't organize, and fast, we're all dead meat."
Chapter 5
I sat on a cot, inside a GP Medium, outside of Salt Lake City. There was a green wool blanket folded at the foot of the cot. Nothing else. I only had the clothes on my back and my phone. I'd even forget my wallet back at the hotel.
"What a day," I whispered.
I was exhausted, physically and mentally. On the trip from Washington, between calls to Jenny, I'd learned the current situation. The US was in dire straits. All of the states east of the Rockies were considered contaminated by the weapons of mass destruction. Bio-agents were released in every state. It looked like the first volley of ICBMs were aimed at the western side of the country, but were all intercepted by the missile defenses. Unfortunately, there was either a system failure or we shot our complete load. No one knew for sure. That failure let the next volley hit the eastern half of the country.
News reports on our phones showed that India and Pakistan were exchanging nukes. So were the Russians and the Chinese. Just about every nuclear power launched at someone. Really, the Russians and Chinese were shooting at any and everyone. The president had managed, so far, to keep them from shooting nukes at us.
Zombies were running amok throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. There weren't any reports of zombies in South America or Africa. Maybe they were spared. Maybe there wasn't anyone left to report their apocalypses.
Word was the US concentrated its nuclear response to the Middle East, taking out every city from Syria to Iran. Everyone on the jet was stunned to silence for the entire trip. We just stared incredulously at our newsfeeds.
Upon landing, I quickly informed them there was a big mistake. I wasn't in the military any longer. Hell, I got out four years earlier. I wasn't the only one in the group who was ex-military and was caught up in the fight back in DC. But instead of letting us go, we were trucked to Camp Williams to the southwest of Salt Lake City. More former military men soon joined us. I learned the government was rounding up all able-bodied ex-military.