Hasif remembered that day. He had been there in the village, working with him. It was supposed to be a neutral town and they were resupplying after weeks of chasing insurgents in the nearby mountains. Meadows had a small team with him when they got word that a group of the 1st Marines had been cut off. The firefight was fierce, air support wasn’t available, and they were pinned down. They were outnumbered, outgunned, and taking casualties. Sergeant Meadows hadn’t hesitated. He’d taken his six-man team and driven as close as they could, then run the last city blocks toward the sounds of the firefight as the locals fled. He joined up with a crew of contractors from Blackwater who were rushing in to help the Marines. They had been trading shots with a handful of insurgents on the outskirts of the skirmish, battling their way to the center of the action. Together they had the firepower to blast their way in hot and heavy, running and gunning. They were tossing grenades, popping smoke and laying down a withering hail of gunfire. The big contractor, Griz, was there with full-auto shotguns. He was blowing doors off their hinges and bodies of insurgents into misty fragments with his Chinese drum-fed automatic grenade launcher. Hasif knew him from before, too. He’d been in some Tier 1 group. You could never really tell which one because they didn’t exactly advertise it, but he’d gotten out of active duty and came back as a civilian. Together, the teams were unstoppable.
They kicked in doors and laid waste to nearly thirty ISIS fighters that day in an incident that never officially happened. The same ones they had been tracking through the mountains for the past weeks. The smoke from all the grenades and dust from the explosions was thick and cloying, a swirling cover from where Lady Death could take you in her cold embrace. Sometimes she came to you silently and hidden, a knife in the kidneys or across the throat. Sometimes loud and in your face with 12 gauge blasts ripping you to shreds. But she came and she collected and she smiled at the men who gave her so many souls that day. Or at least that’s how Johnny Meadows saw it. He had been shot twice, the vest taking the brunt of the damage, leaving huge black and blue bruises, and a cracked rib as a daily reminder for months. It was her little tap on the shoulder, telling him it could have just as easily been him.
They made it a point to toss the bodies from the rooftops when they found them up there. Preferably still alive and screaming. Meadows always carried an ammo pouch full of bacon jerky he mail-ordered. A little trick he’d picked up from General Black Jack Pershing. He crammed a piece into the mouth of everyone he killed. It was his calling card. They wouldn’t be going to Jihadi rape heaven to get their 72 virgins. That day he ran out of bacon, even after he had started breaking the pieces in half.
The Marines were down to their last few rounds of ammo when the firefight was finally over. They would have been swarmed, beheaded, and drug through the streets if Meadows and his men had been a few minutes slower in arriving. The entire city block was a ruin, windows were blown out from the grenades, bodies of Jihadis littered the streets, bullet pockmarks scarred the walls. After the sounds of one last scream and the crunch of a body hitting the pavement, the battle was over. With the thick, misty swirls of the smoke grenades still hanging in the air and obscuring sight, the Marine lieutenant called out to them.
“Who do we owe that little bit of assistance to?” he asked, coming out of the fog of churned up dirt with another soldier helping him to stand, his leg bandaged and splinted.
“I should have known,” Meadows said, as he materialized out of the curling haze. “Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children need help again. When are you girls going to learn to take care of yourselves?”
He was sweat stained and grimy, sprays of blood on his clothes and equipment from some of his up-close kills. Dust and dirt streaked his face and there were new tears in his vest from the bullets, the plating beneath shining dully. The young lieutenant recognized him from seeing him around the Green Zone. Others had pointed him out, telling of the bounty he had on his head and the nickname the Haji’s had given him. He doesn’t look so tough, he had said.
Now, he did look like an angel of death out here in the kill zone. This was his environment. This man was nothing at all like the Sergeant he’d seen in the mess hall: soft spoken, polite and freshly showered. He could understand why they called him Shaytan now.
The lieutenant looked at him as he approached. He was not tall, but not short. Not muscular, but not skinny. An average man in every aspect. Except he had just led a charge into dozens of heavily armed fighters with only a handful of men. Except he carried himself straight and tall and his eyes never ceased to wander, to assess, to search for hidden danger. He was an E-7. What the Army called a Sergeant First Class. What the Marines called a Gunnery Sergeant.
“You can thank the Army,” Meadows said as he approached them.
“I don’t think so,” the Lieutenant smiled. “Ain’t no damn dogface ever saved a Marine. You must have some Parris Island in you under all that dirt.”
He paused, considered his rank again then continued, “Gunny.”
“I’ll take that,” Meadows grinned. “Has a better ring than ours. You girls always get the pretty dresses and titles.”
“Yeah, well, officially you were in the way. We had them right where we wanted them till you showed up and messed up our plan. Off the record,” he stuck out his hand to shake, “Thanks. We owe you.”
“’Tweren’t nothin’ Ma’am,” Gunny said, then they got down to the business of getting transportation out of there.
The name had stuck, the Marine Lieutenant had even written up papers recommending “Gunnery Sergeant Meadows” for a Navy Cross. The story spread and all the Marines started calling him Gunny. It was their way of acknowledging what he did, showing respect, without actually admitting they had needed Army help. His own men started calling him Gunny to poke fun at him, but it stuck. He liked it better than Shaytan, anyway.
Hasif brought his mind back to the present, to the recording he’d heard of Sergeant Meadows leading a band of survivors to the heartland of America. Back to the discussion of what they could do. They all agreed the war was over. The West had lost without firing a shot. Nothing could be gained by protesting it now.
The Mahdi had told the fervent believers that all they would have to do is wait. The leaders promised them the whole world. In a few years, the undead scourge that Allah had shown them how to use would be gone and they could go forth and multiply. The lands already cleared, their houses already built. The spoils of war would be plentiful and everyone would live in the luxury owed them after so many centuries of western oppression.
The men and women gathered all agreed that the victory party would be over very soon. The great wrong would right itself, and there was no way to save the fanatical masses. Now was the time for these few at the meeting to stockpile as much food as they could while it was still available. They would have the last laugh, but it would be bitter and hollow. By winning, the Muslim world had lost. The men and women in the room were the merchants, the thinkers, the movers and shakers who owned businesses and were Western educated. They knew in another few weeks, famine would be rampant if there wasn’t a massive influx of food on a daily basis. The religious leaders of this worldwide jihad hadn’t thought much past the conquering and killing phase of their plan. Maybe they didn’t truly believe it would work. Maybe they thought it would be stopped. There were millions more people crammed into the cities that had come to the mandatory pilgrimage this year. That was fine for a month, but after that, what? A whole season's crops had been lost in many parts of the world. Millions of tons of rice and wheat were rotting, unharvested. Egypt had the fertile Nile valley where almost 50% of the world's barley and cotton was grown, but you couldn’t eat cotton. They could plant food crops next season, but that would be too late. Nearly all of the harvesting and planting equipment was manufactured in the West. How would they get replacement parts? The food economy wasn’t sustainable as it was and it would take a few years for the regions to be self-sufficient.
It
only took three missed meals for people to become desperate and tear apart storehouses looking for food. A man might not kill his neighbor for his food, but if that man had children, he would do anything to feed them. There was plenty to be had beyond the walls, warehouses of it, if they had some way to get to it. But even then, how long would it last? Another six months? Some of the men in this group had been in the government before the Imams had taken over and filled the posts with their friends and other strict Sharia adherents. The new Caliphate was on a high, a honeymoon, but in a matter of weeks it would be over. The high-ranking officials who had amassed the supplies and equipment to throw the wall of defenses up overnight, were now aghast at the way they’d been used and kept in the dark as to what they were actually doing. Nearly any one of them could have pointed out the numerous problems with the plan. The biggest being they had no long-term plans. They had no short-term plans for that matter. They had shared the zombie virus secret with as few people as possible. A few thousand in the know was all it took. Many more knew something was going on and pledged complete obedience under threat of death, but just a small handful knew the extent of the damage the virus would bring. Decades of learning the secret ways of terrorism and small isolated cells of people had finally paid off. They had succeeded. In their blind hatred and surety they were doing Allah’s work, they had failed to plan for the aftermath. They were probably more surprised than anyone when they realized it had actually worked. The West hadn’t thwarted them.
When the store shelves were empty and there was no way to refill them, the people would turn. But it would be too late. In a year, the entire Middle East would be dead unless plans were being made to harvest the crops from farms in India, China, and America. There was no more UN to send them food and the breadbasket of the world was overrun with millions of flesh-hungry undead. They would be worse off than the Americans.
26
Night 14
That night there was another joyous party inside the circle of trucks. Adult beverages liberated from the town flowed freely after dinner and the musical instruments came out. Jimmy Winchell and the boys played their hearts out and the whole thing felt like an old-timey barn dance. They didn’t even try to keep it quiet, the area had been cleared for miles in every direction. That didn’t stop Cobb from posting guards, but he rotated them in every few hours so everyone could join the fun. More undead may wander in or maybe a migration of them may invade, but not tonight. Tonight, they celebrated the living, toasted loved ones lost, and made resolutions to put it all behind them. Start anew in the morning. House shopping, picking out cars, trading furnishings with neighbors, and starting a brand-new America.
Deputy Collins and McBride kept their uniforms on and quietly made the rounds, turning down many a proffered drink. A lot of people had joined the convoy as it made its way halfway across the country. After weeks of being on their own, not knowing if anyone else survived, they were hungry for any news and happy to meet other survivors. Living through the end of the world alone was a terrifying prospect. They were jubilant to be joining a solid group of good men and women who were doing what was best for everyone, not just themselves. They weren’t asking what their country could do for them, they were asking what they could do for their country.
They quickly heard the tales of the Three Flags Crew and how they pulled together this whole race against time. How they had figured out the cause of the virus, had warned everyone of the nuclear plant meltdowns, and pinpointed the safest area to be. Now they were leading the charge to get there, unstoppable in their armored convoy. They were a rough bunch, truckers and veterans for the most part, but chivalrous and brave. They risked their lives to save the lives of strangers. They put themselves in danger to get the radio broadcasts out to anyone listening. Old man Cobb ran this convoy like a military operation and didn’t take any guff from anyone. But they knew this dangerous new world needed two-fisted men, not some wishy-washy pencil pusher. That trucker called Gunny, as unlikely as it seemed, was the new president and it was all legal. It wasn’t some power grab by a wannabe dictator. There was still a military command in Cheyenne Mountain and the General there had made sure the Constitution was upheld, this wasn’t some Banana Republic takeover. America was badly bloodied, but she was still here, still fighting. These survivors had been through the worst weeks of their lives. Had seen family and friends torn apart in front of them and didn’t know if they were going to live to see the next sunrise. They knew they were lucky to be alive and lucky to have joined the Three Flags group. They knew there were no more jails if you acted a fool and no one here would risk paying the price. It was too high. The only punishment was banishment, and that was enough. It wasn’t necessarily a death sentence, but it would be a lonely and dangerous life with the Mark of Cain on you.
Cobb gathered up his key people and took them into one of the offices of the grain elevator. He had all manner of lanterns lighting up the place and every map he could find laid out on the desk. Carl of the Prius and his girlfriend were there, along with a few people Gunny didn’t recognize. Cobb had put Liza in charge of going around and getting a list of all the people that were constantly showing up. She was the woman with the two children that had been caught in the Three Flags when all of this started. She had been an executive assistant for a parts manufacturing firm in Los Angeles and was on a day trip with her kids. She had great organizational skills and had already started a spreadsheet on her laptop with names, ages, skills and a host of other things she thought might be important to know. She had agreed with Cobb and General Carson that it was important if they had a plumber, that he get the plumber’s house and all his tools and parts that would be there. If they had carpenters, they got the lumber yard. In theory, they had unlimited supplies of everything for the foreseeable future, but in reality, all they had on hand was what was in the few square miles they were planning on walling off. They couldn’t afford to waste anything because running out to get a box of nails from the next town over could cost lives.
“At ease,” Cobb said when he wanted to get started. “Let’s get this going so we ain’t here all night. You can get to know each other later.”
“First off, Gunny. Is the town cleared and ready for all these people to wander in there tomorrow? No surprises?”
The meeting went smoothly. Collins went over some security details. Tina had been in the hydroelectric plant at the dam and was fairly sure they could get it up and running. Gunny laid out their plan for the wall and even though everyone considered it dangerous to go into Dallas, all agreed it would be a formidable barrier and quick to build. Tommy said he could rig up something to get the container loaders off the train so they wouldn’t have to take Griz’s truck into the city. When Gunny found out about Liza’s spreadsheet, he wanted her to send any farmers or vets they had out to the farm to take care of the cows. She consulted her lists and said they didn’t have anyone that knew anything about trains, but Griz quipped again, “How hard can it be? You don’t even have to steer.”
“Well, you have to make sure the switches are the way you want them,” Carl said quietly, barely heard by Gunny.
“Wait a minute!” Gunny said loudly over some of the people that were talking. “You know how to drive a train?” he asked Carl.
Carl looked like a deer in the headlights as all the attention suddenly focused on him in the now quiet room.
“Well, uh no. Not really. I kind of played some train simulator games. On the computer.” He trailed off, mumbling and feeling dumb for even opening his mouth, knowing these men were going to laugh at him.
“Those were some hard games,” Tina came to his defense. “They were just like real life. People actually used them as training aides when they were testing for their license. You had to actually learn all kinds of things, it wasn’t just pushing the X button and driving.”
She didn’t know if that was entirely true, but she had seen him play them and they did look pretty complicated. Besides, Carl needed t
o stand up for himself. Just because he wasn’t some gun-toting Army Seal Team Green Beret Commando didn’t mean he didn’t have something valuable to contribute. From the sounds of it, these guys might wind up in Mexico if they didn’t have a little help. And Carl really did know a lot about trains, even if it was only through games and books.
“Really?” Gunny asked. “We need 400 rail cars. Can we pull them all at one time?”
“How much do they weigh?”
“No idea,” said Gunny. “A lot.”
“Uh, well,” Carl said, looking at the ceiling in thought, “you could, but without knowing how much tonnage you’d be pulling, the safest way would be to put some locomotives in the middle and some on the end as pushers. You have to consider the tractive values and adhesion factors and inclines of the grades and, of course the coupling classifications are another aspect.” His mind was reeling, remembering hours he’d spent hauling freight and meeting time schedules sitting at his keyboard. “Without other locomotive traffic to consider, you could certainly extend the standard length because you wouldn’t have to worry about fitting onto the sidings to let other trains pass.”
Gunny looked over at Griz. “You understand any of that?” he asked.
“Yup,” he replied. “I understand we have us a train engineer who’s going to Dallas.”
The Zombie Road Omnibus Page 54