“Someone is up ahead…it looks like they’re trapped in some sort of small camper vehicle.” Noah stated over the CB all of a sudden.
As I worked to regain my composure, I glanced ahead and saw what he was talking about—there were seven people inside of a small fenced in area where a large, white 4x4 camper sat; a large mass of dead-heads were attacking the outside of the fence trying to get at them and it looked like the people—whoever they were—were running out of time. I sped up ramming into the mass of dead-heads with the front of our marauder killing most of them as the others behind me arrived getting out of their vehicles and gunning down the dead-heads that hadn’t been killed in my sudden attack; there were five women and two men in the group and they looked beyond relieved at our untimely arrival, the first women who was an attractive blonde ran to the fence unlocking the gate and she ran to me as I got out with my weapons in hand and she threw her arms around me.
“You saved us…those things were almost through that fence and just a few more minutes none of us would be breathing!” She stated as she looked up into my eyes.
She had blue eyes and her hair was wavy, she wore silver hoop earrings and a spaghetti strap top and blue jean shorts—her arms and chest were covered here and there with small cuts and scrapes and dirt and grime was visible; I couldn’t help noticing her large breasts that filled the top she wore proudly and when I glanced back into her eyes it looked like she was embarrassed.
“My name is Angel…Angel Quinn, I’m originally from Fort Worth, Texas.” She stated smiling.
The others of her group arrived and they introduced themselves—the two men were Ham Nelson and Emory Duggenhauser, both of them had long, shoulder-length dark brown hair except Emory’s hair was curly and he had a thin, somewhat well-kept beard; the other women stepped forward and there was a redhead with wavy hair and blue eyes, she introduced herself as Julianna Crue. Next was another blonde with long, straight hair—she looked somewhat manicured until I noticed the same cuts and bruises on her body as I had seen on Angel’s and she introduced herself as Katie Summers; the next female was a somewhat tall woman with light brown hair and blue eyes—she nodded at my group and introduced herself in a Russian accent as Emily Grovovich. The final woman stepped forward and she was a redhead as well, her hair was long—past her shoulders and it was very wavy and somewhat curly as well, she wore a white top and various pieces of leather tied around her wrists and upper arms; she sported a gun belt at her hip and several high-powered revolvers were holstered there, she smiled and introduced herself as Elizabeth Stark.
“My name is Chaz Watkins and these are my women, family and friends—we’re from an area in northwestern Georgia and we’ve been traveling for many long months in an attempt to get to the location of a radio signal that we found stating that there is a last bastion of humanity gathering at Echo Bay here in Northwest Territories.” I explained as everyone’s attention fell on me.
“Same here—we were holed up just north of Saint Luis, Missouri when we heard the same thing…it’s a damned miracle that we made it this far on our own, we were almost toast back there before you guys arrived.” Ham stated with a smile as he brushed the hair out of his eyes.
“Is your camper still able to travel?” Hugo asked as he stepped forward.
“Yeah, we pulled it into this fenced in area the other day to rest and try to gather food from a grocery store that’s not far off but we got trapped here when those dead things showed up.” Ham answered as he gestured to the bodies of the dead-heads nearby.
“You might as well come with us and join our convoy—it’ll be a lot safer than trying to continue on your own.” I stated as my eyes went back to Angel.
“We’ll take you up on that, just give us a moment to get our camper out of this fenced in area.” Emory answered as he and the others turned and headed over to their vehicle.
Angel stayed by me and my women and I could tell that I had more than likely gained another lover—she was talking to Jennifer and Sheila as well as Chloe and it seemed like they were getting along well; that was when the same feeling came over me again and my fight or flight mode kicked in something fierce.
“We’ve got to go—now!” I shouted at the top of my lungs and I waved my arms to get the attention of the others.
Many of them looked at me like I was losing my mind—they didn’t understand what it was that I was feeling; that was when movement far behind us along the roadway that we had been traveling on caught my attention, it was something huge that was moving at incredible speed. I grabbed the binoculars from the inside of our marauder and put them to my eyes and my heart sank at what the incoming object was—it was the Wendigo creature and it looked like it had grown to an unbelievable size.
“Incoming—get your asses in the vehicles and let’s go!” I shouted again as I worked to rally my group.
“What the hell is your problem?” Beau asked as he looked at me and then in the direction I was looking.
“See for yourself!” I answered tossing him the binoculars.
He put them up to his eyes and within a second later he was shouting for everyone to move same as I had been—Hugo ran to him and inclined on what was coming and Beau only had to say one word—Wendigo—before everyone scrambled for their vehicles and I got into our marauder with my women as well as Angel and I sped up leading the way toward the massive bridge over the lake ahead as the others quickly followed. I arrived at the bridge and started heading across with the others close behind and we had made it more than halfway across to the other side when the Wendigo tore onto the bridge behind us—it was grabbing wrecked vehicles and flinging them through the air as if they were toys and some of them were raining down hitting the bridge around us, I done my best to evade them as glass and metal was raining down around us; that was when I felt a shift in the structure beneath us and there was no doubt in my mind that the bridge itself was about to give way. I put my foot all the way down on the accelerator and sped up smashing into obstructions here and there as I went, the heavily armored front end of our marauder was taking slight damage but I really wasn’t concerned with that at the time as I knew that we had a small window of escape before everything around us would plummet into the lake beneath us. I heard Beau and Hugo shouting from behind us and I looked in my side mirror to see that they both had AT4 rocket launchers in their hands while Amy was at the wheel struggling to keep pace with the rest of our group; I watched as they fired their weapons and the rockets hit the structure of the bridge closest to the Wendigo creature causing the metal, steel and concrete to buckle beneath it—it was at that point when I led the way off the bridge with the rest of the others close behind me that the bridge collapsed into the lake below, the Wendigo creature was now tangled up in the twisted metal and steel of the bridge frame and it fell into the depths of the lake disappearing. I stopped our marauder getting out to check on the damage to the front fender finding that it was only a few small dents and scratches in the paint, then I glanced at the others of the group as they gathered looking down at what was left of the bridge as it sank into the lake.
“I sure hope to God that that thing is gone—damned son of a bitch has been tailing us ever since we first got into Saskatchewan.” Noah stated as he wrapped his left arm around Christina’s waist.
“It was like some kind of gnawing hunger…it would have hunted us to the end of the world before it would have stopped.” Darrell stated in deep thought.
“Let’s get out of here…Rae is just ahead to the left…we’re going to need to keep our eyes peeled for a secondary access road to get us to where we need to go.” I stated as I turned and led my women as well as Angel back inside of our marauder.
Night was steadily approaching and we could all hear the sounds of the undead on the wind as we had our windows slightly cracked, we were coming upon Yellowknife—which was the capital of Northwest Territories and we knew all too well wh
at major cities were like; somehow I knew that we wouldn’t be having to worry about the Wendigo creature anymore—it had been a trying trial that we had finally overcame and I breathed a sigh of relief at the thought. As the night settled in around us I started seeing major signs that we were getting close to the capital, semis were along the roadway ahead of us and some of them were overturned completely making the roadway nearly impassable—that was when Sheila called my attention to a small auxiliary road that looked to head into the wilderness to the north, it looked like a logging road and it wasn’t paved.
“That’s got to be it—let’s see where it takes us.” I stated as I slowed down and turned left onto it.
The others behind us followed and we noticed right away as soon as we got onto the road that it was bumpy and unkept—there was graveled parts here and there but it was mostly dirt and mud and I had the fear in the back of my mind that one of our vehicles might get stuck in the mud but I had to put it out of my mind as we continued; none of us really slept or even remotely got tired that night as the trek down the dirt road continued and it seemed like the night passed quickly giving way to the morning. We were coming upon signs of a small settlement called Discovery and I knew that we were way out of the way of civilization at that point—we arrived outside of the small settlement soon after and seen that it was completely abandoned, there weren’t even any dead-heads or other mutations around which went to point out how far flung we were.
“Let’s see if there’s anything here that we can use.” I stated over the CB as I stopped our marauder grabbing my weapons as my women and Angel done the same.
The others of our group parked behind us and got out with their weapons in hand as well and we spread out around the area checking the few buildings and structures that were there and within an hour and a half we managed to find several small caches of food and drinking water that looked like it had been stockpiled by someone who had long since either died or abandoned the location completely.
“Did anyone find anything else?” I asked as everyone gathered into a circle around me.
“Nope, this is it…” Billy answered as he and Kayla sat down a wooden box full of ramen noodles.
“Wow—I love those things.” I stated with a smile as I stared at the find with warm memories flooding through me.
“Well, you’re in luck because we found a bunch of them too.” Beau stated as he brought over another cardboard box full of them.
“The hardware store down there had some cookware that I figured would come in handy…I found a tea kettle, several sauce pans and a wrought iron skillet.” Morgana stated as she sat a box with the items down onto the ground before us.
“Let’s get it all packed into the vehicles and be on our way—we have to remember the rule that we can’t stop out in the open for very long or we risk our lives.” I stated in deep thought as I started gathering what had been found and loading it into the back of our marauder as well as the other vehicles.
Once we were done there, we left the small settlement getting back on the dirt road and around noon that same day we started getting close to the many rivers and lakes that dotted this province and I started to wonder if there was even going to be a way for us to get across these waterways but I soon didn’t have to wonder as we seen that concrete bridges had been constructed across them—either by the civilized people of the pre-outbreak world or by people since then; it seemed like we passed over countless rivers and small lakes over the next eight hours and strangely there really hadn’t been much sign of the infected. By nightfall of that same day we had started to see signs pointing to Port Radium—which was a short distance northeast from Echo Bay and I knew that we were almost to our final destination; this caused my women and many of the others behind us to celebrate as it meant that we would soon be able to be getting out of our vehicles for good. That was when I rounded a corner and had to slow down as there ahead of us stood a concrete wall about twenty-five feet high—a heavy steel gate blocked entry through what was no doubt a doorway and as I looked over the structure, several powerful flood lights at the top of the wall came on and several dark figures approached our vehicles with weapons in hand.
“Shit…” I muttered as I stared at the figures hoping that this wasn’t some kind of a marauder outpost.
The first figure came up to the driver’s side of our marauder and knocked on the outside of my door—I rolled my window down and looked down at the male figure that stood there; he looked like a militia member of some sort, he was wearing camo clothes and he looked like he had seen a lot of sorrow by the lines on his face.
“Who are you people?” He asked with a cautious look.
“We’re a convoy of survivors from northwestern Georgia as well as other parts—we came up here because we found a radio signal stating that Echo Bay was the last bastion of humanity and that the survivors were gathering there.” I answered as I motioned to everyone inside of my vehicle as well as the others behind us.
“Ah—that explains why you’re here…Josiah said that there may be people coming from time to time after he sent out that message.” The man stated in deep thought.
“Josiah…?” Jennifer asked from the passenger seat beside of me.
“Yes, he’s the leader of the human resistance…I guess you could say that he runs Hollow Fate—which is what we call our lake stronghold.” The man answered as he glanced up toward where Jennifer’s voice had come from.
“Forgive our methods, but we’ve been having problems with marauder forces these past few weeks—assholes attacking our checkpoints testing our walls…as if those dead and rotting sons of bitches of the wastelands weren’t bad enough.” A younger man stated as he stepped up beside of the man we had been talking to.
“I understand…we’ve had more than our fair share of problems with them as well.” I stated calmly.
“If we could get everyone to step out of their vehicles, we can get a count of how many of you there are and then you can head through and continue on your way to Echo Bay.” The older man stated as he stepped away from the side of our vehicle.
I opened my door and stepped out leaving my weapons inside as my women and Angel followed—the others of our group done the same until we were all standing in a group before the militia members who took count of our numbers and then got on a nearby radio telling the people at Echo Bay that we were coming; soon afterward we were told that we could get back into our vehicles as they opened the doors. I led the way through and the roadway continued through the thick wilderness and before long any traces of the outpost had vanished behind us entirely, I continued driving and before long I was getting really tired—I wanted to get us to our destination before settling down though; I wanted to make sure that this place we were going to was going to be safe for the people that I cared about. By early the next morning we were arriving at the low areas before the massive Great Bear Lake—looking out I caught a glimpse of a large structure that was built upon one of the nearby islands, it looked like a large castle almost; as we got closer to the shoreline I seen that a sturdy concrete bridge had been built across the waters out to the structure and as we were allowed to pass across I noticed that sections of the bridge were wired with high explosives.
“That’s a little unsettling…” Sheila stated in a worried tone as we passed along the bridge.
“It’s probably a countermeasure in case the dead-heads and other mutations overrun this area—they destroy the only means of getting across it’d take the hordes longer to actually get to the stronghold.” I stated in deep thought as I was still staring ahead at the outline of the massive outpost in the distance.
“I didn’t think of that but that’s actually a pretty good idea—of course if that were to happen then the people at the outpost would be cut off…unless they have other means of getting back to the mainland.” Sheila answered seconds later.
“I wonder how many pe
ople are at this place?” Chloe stated from her seat behind me.
“We’ll soon find out…” I answered as I continued driving.
Within the next half hour we arrived at the gates of the outpost and they were opened once we had all arrived before them and I led the way inside of what definitely looked like a castle—the walls and towers were well fortified with heavy ordinances and most of the walls looked like they were made of thick concrete; it wasn’t what a medieval castle would have been but it looked sturdy and well-fortified. I was directed to a spot where many other vehicles were parked and I put our marauder into park and shut off the engine—I waited until my women as well as Angel were all prepared and then I got out as they followed me, the others of our group done the same and we waited as a built man with long, blonde hair and a small beard approached us; he was well armed and carried an assault rifle over his shoulder and several large-caliber revolvers at his hip.
“Greetings, my name is Josiah Engel—I am the proprietor of this place; I received a radio communique a few hours ago that you all were headed this way and that you had come from the southern parts of what used to be the United States after hearing our radio transmission.” The man stated as his attention focused on me.
“That’s right—my name is Chaz Watkins, these are my women, family and friends…we’ve seen and survived much over the years and when we discovered your radio signal, we figured that the best thing that we could do was to come here.” I stated as I introduced each member of my group.
The man named Josiah listened as I told him the details of everything that we had been through since the beginning—Nicolas Bowman, the Entity, the nuclear fallouts of Chattanooga, Tennessee, Salt Lake City and Los Angeles as well as the trek we had made to Bowman’s lair in Romania; we told him the details of when we had discovered Darkbourne and the virus that had been the Redeemer Strain and he listened with a look of deep interest.
[HGB] Humanity Gone Bad: The Dead Chronicles Page 83