Soldier On: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (12 page)

***

The Aryan Brotherhood, after having been asked to leave Coeur D’Alene, chose Stanley to be the epicenter of their intended Fourth Reich. Dan had had little contact over the years with the rejects that considered themselves patriots. Until recently the group had done little to disrupt the peace in idyllic Stanley, short of a few parades in full Nazi regalia, which were unfortunately allowed under the First Amendment.

Two days prior, Dan had come down to this very same finger of rock. It was his favorite place to rest up before the final leg of the long trek to town. While surveying the camp with his binoculars he watched young skinheads, the foot soldiers of the Aryan Brotherhood, and gun down three men in the center of the compound. Dan looked on in disbelief as the man he knew by the name of Richard Ganz committed the final heinous act. He pulled his chrome Desert Eagle and blew a woman’s head off. All in all he witnessed four murders that day, and they were all committed in cold blood.

Dan had an overwhelming urge to do what was right and tell the sheriff what he had witnessed, but decided, for his own safety he couldn’t risk going anywhere near the scene of the murders.

***

The high powered Bushnells made the compound look like it was near enough to touch. There was no sound coming from within. He guessed the hangovers would take all day to sleep off.

Dan listened to the raucous party taking place during his three and a half hour trudge down the mountain. Strangely, more gunfire came from the compound than all of the previous New Years parties combined. More troubling was the absence of Sheriff Blanda, he usually let the gang get a
little
rowdy before taking action; knowing when to pick and choose his battles was one of the man’s best skills.

Dan’s conscious finally got the best of him and he decided to turn in the murderers so they could answer for their crimes.

Something else was afoot. The total absence of passenger jets or commuter planes during the last few days piqued his curiosity.

Dan was resigned to the fact that he had at the least a days worth of interviews in front of him. He also had a feeling there was going to be a face to face with Richard Ganz at some point. He knew that fingering Ganz and the Skinheads wasn’t going to be as cut and dried as picking them out of a mug shot lineup. The Stanley jail wasn’t equipped with a two way mirror like the one on
Law and Order
.

Dan had a sinking feeling that the accused were going to get to see their accuser; and then Sheriff Blanda was going to read them their rights and call the Feds...he
hoped
.

If everything went as planned Dan was going to get to see his lady friend before the day was over.

***

Elizabeth Paxton and Dan had been schoolmates and then a couple when they were in high school. The Vietnam War and the draft shredded all of that. While Dan was away fighting for his country the local football hero Randy Tolliver started making nice with Lizzie. Dan failed to keep up correspondence, therefore the months and miles apart made it easier for Lizzie to forget about him. The lowest point in his first tour was that damn Dear John letter. Dan almost ate his Colt .45 to erase the hurt; instead he took it all out on Victor Charlie. Dan had really taken it to the enemy during his three tours in Nam. He was a highly regarded member of Marine Force Recon. After Dan received the world altering letter, MACV-SOG became his life and every Viet Cong wore Randy Tolliver's ugly mug.

Dan returned from the Vietnam War in 1970 and worked mostly odd jobs. Lizzie and Randy had a long lasting marriage. Over the years Dan remained alone and mostly kept his distance.

 Randy Tolliver made a widow of Elizabeth two years ago. Dan was still fond of Lizzie and helped her out when he came down from his cabin in the Sawtooth Mountains. Although the spark was no longer there on her part, the man known as Mountain Man still was compelled to check in on her.

***

Dan kept still and listened, nothing moved in the Aryan’s compound. Considering the amount of empties lying around, the party had been as wild as it sounded.

Dan was aware that two vicious brindle Pit Bull Terriers normally had run of the fenced in grounds. Stealth was his first priority; he didn’t want to give them any reason to bark.

Dan heel and toed it past the entrance and hurriedly crossed the open road; becoming one with the shadows again. The man still knew how to move silently, you could take the man out of the Marines, but the learned skills remained. The Colt .45 rode high on his hip, concealed by a black lightweight nylon wind breaker.

He paused mid-step. Someone was stirring inside the cheaply constructed dwelling to his three o’clock.
Go back to sleep Nazi boy.

The rusty screen door made a long drawn out screech when it opened.

Dan froze instantly mid stride.

A squat, shirtless man stood framed in the doorway, he stretched, yawned and scratched his billiard ball head before crossing the threshold into the crisp morning air. He clearly forgot he had three steps to navigate. A surprised look crossed his still drunk face when his foot didn’t contact terra firma instantly, the sudden bone jarring contact with the ground made him curse.

“
Motherfucker, shit...goddamnit
.”

Dan suppressed a chuckle and remained statue still.

It appeared to Dan that the man was having problems with his fly, the expletives continued. Finally he extracted his shriveled manhood and left the contents of his full bladder steaming on the ground. After fumbling to put things away, the man put his suspenders back over his shoulders, scratched his ass and limped back to the shack. The groaning screen door once again tried its best to wake the camp before slamming shut with a resounding bang.

The stars dancing in front of his eyes alerted Dan that he was holding his breath. A slow exhale and a greedy gulp of air later, things were back to normal. Dan willed his body to stay still for another five minutes. Satisfied that the coast was as clear as it was going to get, he continued past the cluster of one story dorms.

The dogs were sleeping in plain sight, right on the same spot where the executions had taken place days prior.

As silly as it seemed to him, he still recited some words in his head.
Do not open your eyes. I am not here. Keep sleeping.
He wouldn’t admit it, but deep down he was a superstitious man. The words did the trick, Dan was sure of it. The truth was, the dogs had been slurping up spilled beer all night and were as hung-over as the Aryans.

The main road snaked from the base of the mountain and ran straight through the town of Stanley. Dan walked along the shoulder, a few times he noticed the smell of death lingering near the road, but quickly dismissed it; assuming it was nothing more than road kill in the ditch.

It was a twisting three miles before Dan arrived in front of the sign reading, “
Welcome to Stanley, Idaho. Population 100
.” He was parched, sore and had been walking on the two lane road for ninety minutes. As remote as the mountain town was, he still expected to see the early morning delivery drivers. A refrigerated truck usually brought fresh seafood and meat a couple of times a week from Boise. Dan also thought the absence of the white Econoline van, that without fail delivered daily newspapers to the sleepy town, was a very bad omen.

Outbreak Day 5

Hanna, Utah

Rapid fire banging resonated from somewhere downstairs, followed by the tinkling of breaking glass.

Cade followed in Daymon’s footsteps, down the dimly lit hall to the head of the stairs, while leaving a few feet of separation between the two of them. Daymon padded down the stairs, crossbow aimed over the handrail, cocked and at the ready.

Somewhere in the house a door slammed, followed by the metallic snick of a deadbolt being thrown. The sound echoed off of the plaster walls, amplified by the narrow confines of the downstairs foyer. Cade noted the focused look on Daymon’s face, locked eyes with him and raised his carbine as a show of readiness.

Even over the muted moans from outside, the sound of someone or something breathing heavily downstairs was unmistakable. The gasps for air were interspersed with grunts and groans of pain. It instantly reminded Cade of his class of Ranger hopefuls, sucking wind between evolutions, during the qualifying course at Fort Benning. His intuition told him one or more people were downstairs seeking sanctuary from the walking corpses. The two story house was situated prominently near the entrance to town, which made it an attractive place to hide out.

Cade noticed Daymon cautiously poking his head around the door jamb. He was positioned at the far end of the hallway which ran from the front door, dissecting the expansive house. Cade kept watch on both Daymon and the locked front door behind them.

Another loud crash, followed by more breaking glass resounded from the rear of the old farmhouse. Instantly the smell of death invaded the house. With a flurry of motion Daymon raised his crossbow and sent a missile flying down the hall towards the commotion.

Daymon was in the act of reloading when he was knocked to the floor. The blur of blubber hurdled over him and scrambled down the hall, screaming as he went. The man was severely overweight, yet exhibited speed that belied his girth. He was obviously being propelled by adrenaline, a basic human instinct for survival and a heavy dose of sheer terror. The shirtless man scrambled a few more feet, fingernails clawing and scratching on the hardwood floor. He came to an abrupt halt eye level with Cade’s combat boots. As if in slow motion, the big man swiped a curtain of sweaty hair from his eyes, slowly raised his fleshy head and peered up the barrel of Cade’s M4.

 Between gasps for air, the pasty man begged. “
Nooo...Don’t shoot. I don’t want to die...please help me
.” It was an embarrassing display. The man grabbed the bannister and shakily pulled himself up from the floor. Cade looked the man over, searching for any bite marks or wounds. The big man was now on his feet with his back against the wall, his head hanging like a spent marathon runner.

“
Oh my God
...I came around the corner thinking your friend here was going to put one of those barbed arrows in me. The thing nearly parted my hair.”

“
I’m going to put a few rounds in you if you don’t move it
.”  Cade shot back while manhandling the sweating middle aged man out of the way.

From his vantage point, Daymon could see an undead mob surging onto the back porch. All at once they came to an abrupt halt.

Momentarily repulsed by the closed door, the bloated beings began to amass on the back stoop, it groaned and creaked sounding like it was close to collapse.

The wretched odor of decay wafted into the house, like the tentacles of a giant squid it sought out and displaced every last pocket of fresh air. Rotten arms flailed in the broken window, sending the few remaining shards of jagged glass onto the tile floor.

The full pressure from the jostling corpses made the sturdy door flex inward. Daymon knew that eventually the press of flesh was going to splinter the door jamb. He shouted a warning without removing his eyes from the path that the Zs would eventually flood, “There are at least twenty of those things on the porch and the door is about to fail.” Daymon backpedaled down the hall in the direction of the stairs, keeping his weapon trained on the kitchen entryway.

The crack of splintering wood, followed by the sound of sliding furniture, resonated down the hall.

The frantic intruder screamed into Cade’s face, “We’d better run man. Those things, they never quit and they don't tire.
I’ve been running for blocks
.” his jowls swayed and his bloodshot eyes bugged out. He was the poster boy for
losing it
.

Cade recoiled from the man’s sour breath. “It looks like you’ve been running for
miles
not blocks,” Cade replied coldly.

The man had on expensive slacks and leather wingtips that were once highly polished. Cade passed quick judgment and pegged him as a politician or lawyer before the Omega virus rendered those titles obsolete.

Before the outbreak Cade could find little sympathy for people who let themselves get morbidly obese. Sure there were the “medical” situations but Happy Burger didn’t force the grease bombs down their gullets.

Even after he had been home and out of the harsh environment of Afghanistan for more than a year, at thirty-five-years-old he still found the time to run a few miles to keep trim.
Maybe some people didn’t possess the discipline needed to keep fit. It was a totally different ballgame now, run or be eaten was a hell of a motivator. Pretty soon,
he thought,
there aren’t going to be very many like this guy left alive
.

Cade ceased the one sided conversation with an open palm to the man’s face. He raised the rifle, aiming down the hall past Daymon.

The first moaning zombie filled the opening, one of its eyes dangled and bobbed, swaying to and fro by its useless optic nerve. The remaining good eye was intently focused on the meat it so hungered for. Its pale arms were outstretched, straining to reach Daymon.

Both men fired at the same time. The crossbow bolt embedded four inches into the ghouls remaining eye. A millisecond later a triple tap from the silenced M4 punched the crossbow bolt the rest of the way through the zombie’s head. Tumbling lead, shredded fiberglass, bone and brain matter splattered the cupboards.