Day by Day Armageddon: Beyond Exile (14 page)

The last known place on the planet where men could die in peace . . . until it surfaced.

The man who had died of natural causes and had been stored in the freezer came back after only two hours of exposure. Luckily, they had it strapped to a crate of low-grade beef. The ship’s cook discovered it when he went down to the freezer to retrieve the last of the ship’s food stores. The cook nearly had a heart attack when
he walked by the corpse and noticed its head tracking him across the reefer, gnashing its teeth.

The submarine intends to follow the battle group until it can acquire enough food to stay submerged for a useful amount of time. Its mission now, instead of blowing up large foreign cities, is to scout coastal areas and discourage piracy on the high seas. The status messages that are sent weekly state that most of the nuclear ships won’t need to be refueled for twenty-plus years. After that, all bets are off. I doubt there will be enough qualified people to refuel them even in one hundred years.

I’m sending all our LAVs out tomorrow to meet the other survivors at the halfway point and to escort them the rest of the way here. From that point it will take every man, woman and child to expand our safe boundaries. We will have no choice but to make perilous trips to the surrounding interstates to retrieve concrete barriers so that we may better fortify our compound.

Tara and I have been spending more time together than ever since my return from the Gulf. Dean has been dubbed the official teacher of this compound. Of course there are only two children to teach, but soon there will be more. Annabelle is allowed to attend class, on the stipulation she does not bark and disrupt the instruction. I sat in on one of the classes last night. Laura is becoming pretty decent at her multiplication tables. Danny is a little better due to age. She is learning her sevens and Danny is up to division and fractions.

Jan is still the resident nurse and helps out a lot when some of the men come back with bumps, scratches and bruises. John and I have not had much time together lately. I remember in the beginning he was all I had. I suppose I will never forget that. Sometimes when I daydream, I can see John on his roof with his thermos and large rubber yoga band. I can only see it in black and white in my mind, as if it happened ages ago.

I wonder what the response will be from the carrier now that they know we had to destroy the creatures to save the rest of the crew.

05 Sep

2036

Sixty percent. That is the number of survivors we have here from the other Marine outpost. Many are civilians. It was a constant battle to get them here. The chain-link fence surrounding the silo area is packed with makeshift tents and survivors. Hotel 23 is very much over capacity for the interior to handle. After their arrival ten days ago, an accurate muster was taken. We came up with 113 souls. The Marines sent to rendezvous with the other camp at the halfway point met extreme opposition. The convoy was moving slowly to accommodate the civilians who were on foot. Many rode scavenged bicycles to keep up with the armored vehicles in the front and rear of the convoy. The women and children were first to be allowed to ride. The bulk of the casualties came from attacks perpendicular to the formation line.

The undead came out of the thick underbrush and picked off many men with only scrapes and bites. Most men held on and kept contributing to the security of the convoy despite the death sentence dealt to them by the bites. Others simply walked off into the underbrush and committed suicide. The convoy was low on ammunition by the time it pulled into Hotel 23. They were in constant firefights the whole way, pushing back the surge of cold hands reaching over the railings of the vehicles. The convoy did its best to distract the dead away from Hotel 23 before circling back to the compound. The tactic seemed to work, but I have noticed a steady increase in activity since the others arrived. I have been forced to order squads of “fence men” to the chain-link perimeter to kill them. In large numbers, they could buckle the fence. This is the main reason I have organized a team of individuals for missions to the interstate. That gridlocked infinity of concrete barriers holds the key to our temporary survival. We needed the hundreds of concrete barriers present there to reinforce our boundaries to hold the new survivors safely within the fence line.

The most difficult part was getting the equipment needed to transport the barriers. We needed flatbed tractor-trailers and forklifts. Only a few men in the compound were former forklift operators. We were able to acquire four propane-powered forklifts
from a lumberyard near the interstate. We have also scavenged and repaired two flatbed tractor-trailers to transport the barriers. Only two truckloads of barriers have arrived since the operation started. The progress is slow but steady. I estimate the fence would hold up to five deep. Any more ghouls than that would force the fence to cave inward, and our new citizens would surely perish. I have given up my living space to the women and children. I have only permitted women who have volunteered to remain topside. Tara insisted that she stay with me. I am okay with this because I cannot let the other women volunteers stay here and discriminate against her.

Last week I transmitted a formal request for a helicopter equipped with antipersonnel weapons and a pilot to be transferred to the compound to help police the perimeter against a large influx of undead. I overjustified the need to ensure that our request be met. We needed some form of air power for both security and reconnaissance in this area. Fixed-wing would be out of the question and more trouble than it’s worth due to maintenance and the requirement for five thousand feet of runway. We’ll see what happens.

07 Sep

1837

This morning I received a message indicating authorization of a rotary-wing aircraft, one pilot and one maintenance person to be transferred to Hotel 23. The message did not state what model, but it did state the aircraft was due for arrival tomorrow morning. This aircraft will not only strengthen our perimeter defenses, but will also make it easier to scout for essential supplies. Depending on the range of the aircraft, I plan to fly northward to scout nonradiated cities. I will post a notice in the common area both above and below ground for people to list items of which they are in dire need.

Certain medical prescriptions, eyeglasses or possibly female products come to mind. I’m excited to take to the air again. I have not flown in ages and the Cessna parked at the edge of the field is probably not safe to operate. I know one of the gear brakes is not functioning properly and the engine needs a detailed check-up that it most likely will never receive.

I almost feel as if I’m putting the cart miles before the horse by thinking of ways to use the helicopter. It isn’t even here.

John and I played a nice game of chess today in the control room. Dean has a respectable-size class of young men and women now. Including the original two, she now has fourteen students. Annabelle does not fancy all the new children in Dean’s class. Dean will have to break up the time spent by age groups as I have noticed that ABCs are a little too elementary for some of the older kids. I stepped in today and heard Mozart flowing through the air.

The children were listening attentively. Who would have thought? A year ago, the whole room would have been moaning
in protest. Considering the terrors these children have witnessed, the beauty of the music was actually making them smile. I thought back to the last time I had listened to Mozart . . . but didn’t hang on to the thought long.

Secure space is at a premium inside the compound and Jan has her medical tent set up topside. Only the really sick or injured get to stay down below within the safe steel sanctuary. Not a bad system. Lately, the only thing she has had to deal with is minor cuts and abrasions. I have a standing order to be notified of all injuries reported to the resident medic. I have tasked the
originals
with the duty of drafting a book of rules for Hotel 23. Of course the Uniform Code of Military Justice will be followed, but I feel a need for this compound to have its own bylaws that the people should follow. Seems silly, the need for rules these days. I almost feel like I am rebuilding a government within the compound. Of course any regulation created and imposed will be based strictly on the Constitution of the United States.

08 Sep

1800

Today one MH-60R Seahawk helicopter, along with the allocated personnel, arrived. The pilot, a retired Navy commander by the name of Thomas Baham, was the pilot in command. His maintenance person, an active-duty Navy petty officer, was to be the noncom in charge of keeping the aircraft airworthy until more parts and personnel could be flown in.

My first action was to inquire about the condition of the aircraft, as I planned to execute some airborne recon in the coming weeks. CDR (ret.) Baham was a volunteer. He willingly gave up his safer job with the carrier battle group to relocate to southeastern Texas and work with us at Hotel 23. Although an older man in his late fifties, he still had the fire and drive in his eyes. I had secretly wished he were active duty, and thus would be lawfully in command of Hotel 23 as the senior officer. The Seahawk was a rather large helicopter. The petty officer told me that the range was 380 miles. On the way to the compound they flew by numerous
abandoned military airfields that they suspected had at least some JP-5, a common military aircraft fuel.

This type of fuel had its advantages, as it didn’t spoil nearly as rapidly as conventional gasoline. It would still be usable if found inside a fuel truck. I had a message drafted to HQ the moment the chopper reported. Although I did thank them for the aircraft, I also requested more parts and personnel to maintain it. Tomorrow I would like to head out with Baham and the flight engineer to survey the surrounding area for useful intelligence.

11 Sep

2354

Today marks another anniversary of the day I thought it couldn’t get any worse. I suppose times like these make me wish I were back in that time, when the world had no idea what terror was. Undead movement is still growing in the surrounding areas. I feel that there is virtually no chance of survivors in any major city at this point. Of course, the ones that were nuked would be void of survivors. My reasoning is simple. The undead seem to be fanning out away from major areas into mass mobile formations. I am sure the cities that are still intact have a concentration of undead, but they have probably been out of food for a couple of months. This could have prompted them to leave their native areas and search for prey. I could be totally wrong in this theory. Baham has conveyed that the aircraft is ready for recon missions. We have discussed the areas that would be good candidates for survey. Ruling out any areas that have been bombed, we have decided to head north by northeast. Our destination will be Texarkana. This is the safest area to survey while avoiding the undead and radiated cities. According to the charts, Texarkana was not a high-population area and the nearest nuked city to that destination is Dallas, Texas. This gives us roughly 120 miles of safe distance.

Unfortunately, due to the distance, we will need to find fuel. It’s 240 nautical miles one way from here to Texarkana.

15 Sep

2219

The aircraft performed well in today’s scouting mission. We did not make the long journey north to Texarkana; however, we did find a suitable area to refuel the helicopter. We went north to Shreveport, Louisiana. We had nothing to guide our way sans the inertial navigation system (INS). The INS is a self-contained gyroscopic navigation device that does not rely on any outside information for aircraft navigation. As long as you give the INS a good latitude and longitude before you take off, the INS will keep an accurate gyroscopic position the entire flight. Since the GPS satellites have long failed, it would have been nearly impossible to find Barksdale AFB in Shreveport without the INS. We would have run out of fuel long before we reached our destination. We only had forty-five minutes of fuel left when we were over the base.

The fence was damaged in some areas, but still held. The undead were heavy on the northern side of the base perimeter fence. As we neared the aircraft parking spots, I could see numerous B-52 bombers parked in neat rows outside the hangars. Some of the planes still had bombs sitting on carts underneath. I was not certain, but I had a feeling the bombs that were sitting under those aircraft were not conventional. The pilots just never got the chance to take off and accomplish their assigned bombing package. The aircraft are useless in our current situation. They would require too much fuel and maintenance to be of any survival value. I suppose if we had a qualified or suicidal pilot to fly the bomber we could remove the extra payloads and fly it overseas, but it would be a one-way trip, as I was certain that it would require professional maintenance after such a long flight. I did feel a sting of patriotism as I gazed upon their decadence. I wondered if any of them had flown over the Hanoi Hilton, giving at least some comfort to the guests. We were hovering over a forgotten piece of United States diplomacy. Now the BUFFs were a decaying museum exhibit.

We counted twenty-seven corpses inside the airfield perimeter. There were two fuel trucks, one marked JP-5 and the other marked JP-8, sitting on the median between the runway and taxiway. Since we were on a skeleton crew to conserve fuel we only
had the pilot, the flight engineer, the Gunny and myself on board. The Gunny and I had to cover the flight engineer (FE) while he fueled the helicopter. This was an operation that would require the aircraft to remain running. This is not a normal procedure, but no chances can be taken. As we fueled the chopper, a dozen undead approached, attracted to the sound of the rotors spinning.

That sound was extremely loud, and the Gunny and I had to rely solely on sight to detect and eliminate them. I stood aft, a safe distance from the tail rotor, and the Gunny held the forward position. Our shots could barely be heard over the turbine engines and the swinging blades. I was wearing my helmet with the visor down. The helmet served multiple purposes onboard the aircraft and off. It helped shield my ears from the harmful decibels that pierced the immediate area and saved my eyes from flying FOD. Using my weapon, I was able to neutralize most of the undead with only single shots. None of them moved with the same quickness as their radiated counterparts. The Gunny was using the MP5 SD. I hated that weapon for its accuracy and lack of stopping/piercing power, but it was useful because of the silence factor. The only other advantage it had was the ability to interchange ammunition with the Gunny’s M-9 pistol.