Aftershock: A Collection of Survivors Tales (24 page)

We ditched the Humvee in some town called New Gretna. It was the kind of place that I’m guessing looked run down even before the world went to shit. According to the map, we were moving west on route 542 which would take us right to the location on the flyer. I planned on taking a detour through the woods once we got close. William and I agreed that it would be a good idea to scope the place out before we just walked up to the gates.

I was honestly impressed with how quickly William picked up on the whole soldiering thing. He listened intently when I explained some basic hand signals, practicing each one until he had them memorized and I have to say he shocked the shit out of me when we worked on his marksmanship. We stopped in a field just over the New Jersey border to practice, and when I put that rifle in his hand it was like he was born carrying it. I let him fire about fifty rounds which brought us down to three hundred or so, but it was worth it for him to get acquainted with the weapon. I had a feeling that if it came down to a firefight he would do better with more than just some theoretical knowledge of how to shoot. The question remained as to whether he would be able to squeeze the trigger with a human at the other end of the sight, it was that way for everybody, but I really didn’t have much doubt that he would be able to take out a corpse.

So we were moving on foot, each of us loaded down with gear, slowly making our way toward what I hoped would be an end to this fucked up little journey. There was a chance we would get there and the place would be empty, or full of psychos, or burned to the ground like a lot of places we had seen on our way here. I figured we would drive off that bridge when we came to it. For now, I was holding out just a little hope that this would work out. I could hear my captain’s voice in the back of my head, “suspicious fucking alertness you asshole”.

I figured it would take us a day to make it out there on foot at the pace we were going. I wasn’t going to push William too hard, plus I wanted to show up before dawn and get a good look around before first light. There were plenty of woods around to hide in if we needed to get out of sight. There was another area where William excelled, camouflage. We worked on that one for a few hours driving through Delaware and we stopped off for the night. The next morning it took me fifteen minutes to find the little bastard, and then it was only because he started laughing the fifth time I walked right past him.

If we got to this place and everything was cool, I could take them back to the Humvee to get the rest of our supplies, if not we could beat feet back to it and take off for… Well for fucking Canada for all I knew. Once or twice we had to duck into the tree line when a vehicle would pass. I didn’t know if that was a good sign or not, but I wasn’t taking chances.

It had been a while since we had run into any corpses, apparently even the dead hated New Jersey. At least these people, whoever they were, were trying to clean things up around here. The roads were pretty clear, nothing was actively on fire, and like I said, no bands of roving cannibals.

We walked through the night and just like I planned about an hour before sunup we were just outside some place called Batsto Village. It looked like one of those Ye Olde village reenactment places where they showed middle school kids how to dip candles or spin cotton, a bunch of rundown buildings and an old cedar mill. William and I ditched most of the gear in the woods and moved in a wide circle to the northeast, around a row of what looked like old bunk houses.

They had a pretty sizable motor pool of jeeps, pickups, and other assorted vehicles. From what I could see most of the activity was around the main house on the other side of the river. A couple of big deuce-and-a-half’s were parked over there. At one point, about a dozen people came out of the one of the side buildings, eight of them got in one of the transports and it took off down the road. The other four started to patrol around the lake and William and I faded a little further back into the woods.

William tapped me on the shoulder. “We should go invisible now,” he said, fading back into a dense pile of brush.

I wanted to get a closer look at these guys so I let him hide while I crept forward through the trees. They moved well, like a proper military patrol. They swept north along the river bank constantly scanning the forest and the paths. Each carried a carbine at port arms. As they neared my position, I fell back in the thicket. They moved past without a second glance and I resumed my recon of that main building. There were piles of ash in several spots like they had been having bon fires. Thin wisps of smoke were coming out another one of the small buildings and as I moved a little closer I swear I smelled cooking meat. My mouth filled with saliva as I thought about eating a meal that didn’t come out of a plastic and foil pouch.

Another truck came into view rumbling down the road that led to a parking lot off to the side. This one was a cattlecar like they used to use to drive around grunts during basic training. It came to a stop and the driver jumped out and ran to the side to open the door. At least twenty people poured out onto the blacktop looking dazed. The driver and his partner herded them gently toward one of the outer buildings. Three women in fatigues came out to greet them. I couldn’t hear what was being said, but nobody was shoving or acting aggressive. Maybe there was hope in this place after all.

I was brought out of my reverie by the snap of a twig behind me, but before I could turn I felt the muzzle of a rifle against my ear. I didn’t have to turn to know it was a carbine, or to know that there were three others probably pointed at me as well.

“Put down the weapon, slowly. We aren’t going to hurt you unless you make us.” The voice was calm, and not entirely unfriendly.

I complied, laying down my M-4 slowly and raising my hands to show I wasn’t going to try anything.

William picked that moment to reveal himself. He slid out of the brush with his rifle up and aimed at the guy closest to me. “Drop your fucking weapon, you fucking asshole fuck,” he said.

The other three swung their carbines in his direction and I shouted that it was okay.

“I don’t know if they’re friends yet William, but you should put your weapon on the ground.”

“You said I should never let my weapon touch the ground. You said I would have to do push-ups if I did.”

I had to laugh a little at that. “It’s okay this time William. They aren’t going to hurt you.”

William hesitantly laid his rifle on the ground looking at me the whole time. The four lowered their carbines and seemed to be relieved to be able to do so.

The lead one spoke up first, “We should start with introductions. I am Major Michael Schmidt, you can call me Mike, and this is Franklin, Rich, and Teddy.” Each waved a brief greeting.

“Corporal Ian McCellan, sir. This is my partner William,” I said, moving to attention out of habit.

“At ease Corporal. We don’t much stand on tradition out here anymore, though it is nice to see.”

William stepped forward, “I am a soldier too sir.” He attempted a salute and Mike returned it with a grin.

“Well on behalf of those here at Outpost Alpha, welcome.” There were handshakes all around and for the first time since I could remember, I let my guard down just a little. If these guys were planning on torturing and killing us, they were at least lulling us into it the right way.

Franklin picked up William’s rifle and handed it back to him butt first. William accepted it smartly and slung it over his shoulder like I showed him. Mike scooped mine up, made a show of inspecting it like we were running drill and ceremony and handed it back to me with another of those grins.

It was Rich’s turn to speak up, “You guys hungry? We got venison in the smoke house should be just about ready to come out. Your welcome to come and eat with us.”

William’s stomach rumbled an answer and we all laughed, all of us except William who just stood there a little confused at what just happened. And just like that, we were part of the group. We all walked back toward the main house as Mike explained the deal.

“You will be quarantined for three days, understand this is necessary for the safety of everyone here. After that, if you show no signs of infection, you will be transported to a secondary location where the bulk of our force is stationed. It’s not as noble as it sounds, mostly we are just trying to hold things together until someone can figure out a way to deal with whatever the hell has been going on.”

“Who were those people in the cattlecar?” I asked.

Teddy answered, “We have been sending out flyers for a while now. We get ‘em out as far as we can. The chopper don’t run no more, but we’ve had a couple groups go out in vehicles to the north, south, and west. Usually we get groups of two or three, today we picked up almost twenty. You’ll meet them in quarantine.”

I nodded thoughtfully. “I came all the way from North Carolina. I picked William up along the way.”

“I was on my way to Grandmother’s house, but Ian had Mars bars,” William added.

Mike leaned close to me and whispered, “What’s up with him? Is he retarded or something?”

“Something like that,” I responded, “I don’t think he’s retarded or even slow. His brain just works a little different is all.”

Mike nodded thoughtfully, “Gotta wonder how he made it around before you picked him up. With those things out there, they move it packs you know, I’ve seen them take down entire units. That kid’s gotta be one tough mother fucker.”

“Oh he’s tough alright, Sir. I think the way his mind works, the way shit just kind of happens around him and doesn’t get in his head, I think it helps. We went through some shit a couple weeks back in some shit town in Virginia, ‘those things’, they aren’t the only thing you have to worry about. Anyway, the situation was beyond completely fucked up, but that kid,” then a thought occurred to me. I turned around and walked backward as I called out to William, “Hey William, how old are you anyway?”

“I was born on Thursday, June 16th in 1988 making me twenty-four years old.”

Mike and I both laughed, William looked at us quizzically which just made us laugh harder.

“Anyway, as fucked as things got, he just kept going with that same look. I don’t know how to explain it. He makes the same face whether he’s eating a candy bar or if he’s hiding in a trash can. Like he’s figuring things out.

“When we got out of Virginia, he asked me to train him to be a soldier. So I did, or started to at least. He just sort of soaks everything in. I taught him marksmanship. Driving through Delaware, I told him all about how to charge the weapon, aiming center mass, clearing jams, all that shit. When we got into Jersey, I put a rifle in his hands and it was like he’d been shooting for years.”

“We can always use good soldiers,” Mike said. “Here and at the compound.”

“Compound, Sir?”

“Where you’ll be going after your quarantine, Corporal. You didn’t think this was all there was did you? That four men with shitty carbines were all that was left of civilization? We gave these coordinates as a security measure. That way, anybody wants to try and fuck with us, can never find the base.”

“Has anyone tried to fuck with you?”

“So far only twice. Last time was at least three months ago. Some Mad Max fucking biker gang. They came in from the north armed with AK’s and zero sense. We used to get more of the dead here, but we run regular sweeps. Our outer perimeter runs through some heavily wooded terrain, gives us a decent advantage. This area wasn’t real heavily populated before Hell threw up on it.”

“That explains why you’ve been so welcoming.”

“Fuck with us and see how welcoming we are, Corporal,” Mike said smirking.

They led us to a couple shitty, old picnic tables. Franklin went into the smokehouse and came out a minute later with a steaming pile of meat and several plates. Rich offered us bottles of water and the six of us sat down to an honest-to-goodness meal for the first time in as long as I could remember. Talk was light, Rich explained that he used to live in the area. He told us how he used to bring his kids to this place in the summer. I didn’t have to ask what happened to them. Franklin wasn’t from too far away either. We traded war stories, ate and I felt like a human for a while. William, as usual, wasn’t overly talkative, but he seemed to be enjoying himself nonetheless.

After we ate, Mike got back down to business. “Time to check you two in officially. Nothing too painful, little bit of paperwork, inventory your gear, check you for injuries, or bites.”

“Bites?” I had to hope he didn’t catch the crack in my voice.

Rich answered, “You ever seen what happens to somebody who gets bit, or even just scratched by one of those things? Two days, three tops, they die. Then they get back up again; and not in the miracle, praise Jesus-y kind of way. Happened to a buddy of mine, had to put him down myself.”

My scar didn’t look too much like a bite mark anymore, but I wasn’t sure how close they were going to look.

Mike continued, “I’m going to be straight with you, Corporal. This is not some kind of Shangri-La. Life at the compound probably won’t be any easier than out there in what’s left of the world, just less lonely. I’ve seen plenty of people come through here not understanding that. They think they’ll latch on to our group and everything will be hunky dory. Everyone at the compound has a job to do. If you slack, we drive you as far out into the Pine Barrens as you want to go, and we leave you there. That’s how it has to be. Resources are too scarce right now to tolerate any buddy-fucking gold brickers. If you make it through quarantine, we will take you to the compound. You will be assigned a task, your friend will too. From then on you are just another cog in the glorious machine. Hooah?”