SURVIVORS OF THE DEAD: FROM THE ASHES (5 page)

“Thank you, Commodore.
Can you start by telling us who you are and what you’re doing here? Who are all the people with you? And all these ships and boats? What are your plans? And how have you survived the zombie apocalypse?”

“Those are a lot of questions to handle at once,
Chet, but I’ll give it a shot. My name is Scott Allen. I’m in command of this Survival Flotilla by authority of the CDC, FEMA, and the Department of Homeland Security, with assistance from the Coast Guard and the U.S. Marine Corps. My current mission is to assist survivors on boats and ships along the coast of Southern California and to establish coastal safe havens for as many survivors as possible in the aftermath of what you are calling Z-Day, or the Zombie Apocalypse.

“
My ship is called the Sovereign Spirit. She is a former cruise ship and ferry, converted into an expedition yacht before this crisis. Now she’s the Flag Ship of the Flotilla and serves as our command center and mother ship for amphibious rescue and recovery operations. As for the other boats with us, we’ve collected a growing number of what we call boat people who survived the zombie outbreak by going to sea. They have become my primary responsibility. What we’re doing here is securing a source of supplies to keep the people with us alive.”

“We’ve isolated a small area in this port as a safe haven for the Flotilla and we’re loading cargo that will help us establish more safe havens on islands and isolated anchorages along the coast.
So, for the people listening, if you are on a boat right now and need assistance, you can come here to get it, or wait for us to come to you. But there is no way to get here by land anymore, unless you can fight your way through tens of thousands of zombies surrounding us.

“And even then you wouldn’t be able to get past the barriers we have built to keep the zombies out.
In the future we hope to be able to open some sort of supply line to survivors inland too. But that isn’t possible right now. So, at least for now, only those who have access to a boat or a helicopter can come here for supplies. Otherwise, you won’t be able to get here, so don’t even try.”

“That seems a little unfair, Commodore Allen. What about all of the people trapped in their homes? Don’t you have any plans to help them too?”

“I’d like to be able to help everyone who’s listening to me now, Chet, everywhere.
But you know I can’t do that. What I can do is tell them how to survive on their own, or preferably with the help of other survivors near them. There are a few critical things that we’ve learned since Z-Day. First, zombies don’t swim and are afraid of water. Use that knowledge to your advantage.

“Secondly, zombies prefer to walk down hill, unless they get attracted to something up hill.
If you can get to high ground and avoid attracting attention, your chances may improve. Hilltop strongholds are a good place to organize a defensive community; not as good as an island or a boat perhaps, but much better than a house in a city or suburb.

“Third, and perhaps most obvious, we need to eliminate as many zombies as possible and the best way we know to do that is to shoot them in the brain. If you don’t have a gun, try to get one, or improvise a weapon to defend yourself.
However, if our Flotilla is the only organized resistance force in this area, then Los Angeles is doomed. So get it together people!

“
Don’t wait for the police, or the government, or the military to come and rescue you. They won’t. They can’t. The closest organized military resistance is in San Diego, and the only thing they can do for civilians right now is put them into crowded refugee camps on Coronado Island. So don’t expect help to show up here any time soon.”

The
re was more to the interview but it related to what was currently happening around their specific area in Southern California. Harry had understood though, very clearly, the basic concepts that Commodore Allen had been trying to get across. This was not a local, regional, or even national crisis. This was on a world-wide scale, and there was no assistance imminent for anyone. Except maybe those lucky enough to be in close proximity to this
Survival Flotilla
.

But the interview
had given Harry optimism, and at least the initial building blocks of a plan. But, more importantly, it had given him a reason to live. All was not lost, as he had initially thought, and there were other people out there. Now those survivors needed to act, to help themselves and others when possible, or they would simply
not
continue surviving. Humanity was being pushed toward an extinction level event, and it needed to start pushing back if anyone was to survive this madness.

Okay Commodore Allen, I
may not be able to get to your flotilla or your stronghold,
Harry had thought with passion,
but I have a very large bay, my own marina with boats, and several islands in the middle of that bay. Let’s just see what we can do about setting up our own survivor stronghold.

8

Stepping from the shower, clearing those thoughts, he looked in the wall mirror of the dimly lit bathroom, two small candles being the only light source. At fifty-four years old, soon to reach yet another birthday, his 6’6” frame was still in decent shape thanks to regular gym visits, eating well-balanced meals, and, as he had always said, “just plain ole good Midwestern genes.”

He still maintained a fairly youthful appearance, with piercing hazel eyes, which had most people thinking
him at least ten years younger. He had started going grey by age twenty-five, which he had felt gave him an air of maturity. Now, looking at the short-cut, mostly grey head of hair, he thought it gave him an air of just being
old
. “Still, all things considered, not too bad, but
am
I really too old for this shit?” Harry asked his reflection, then turned away and headed toward the bedroom to dress.

He pulled
on jeans, a well-worn and broken-in pair of tactical boots, and a heavy, long-sleeved shirt. From the closet he took out a lightweight leather jacket, along with a pair of Kevlar-lined leather gloves. Foregoing the much heavier, and bulkier, duty belt he had routinely worn while in uniform, he selected a lightweight nylon tactical belt.

To that belt
he added the respective lightweight nylon cases containing an expandable baton, Streamlight high lumen LED flashlight, and four polymer magazines loaded with .45 caliber 230-grain brass-jacketed hollow point rounds, and finally a high rise break front holster. The final piece of equipment, and undoubtedly the most important, sat on the desk in front of him – a Glock, Gen4 G21, .45-caliber autoloader that held a thirteen-round magazine.

Over the years he had found the Glock
21 to be one of the most reliable and durable service sidearms he had owned. The stopping power of this weapon was impressive, and it had a manageable weight and reasonable recoil. Picking the gun up, he pulled the slide back to chamber a round. Holstering the Glock, and locking it in, he thought,
you’re a beauty, but I am going to need more than just you.

Harry had a
total of sixty-five rounds loaded in magazines, thirteen per mag with four of those on his belt and one in the Glock, and only fifteen boxes of twenty to reload from. He knew that more fire power needed to be located if he was to have a chance at surviving for any length of time. Refilling the magazines was a bit time consuming, even though the springs in the five mags he had were fairly well broken in, allowing rounds to slide in a bit faster. But with zombies trying to bite his ass he had to increase the amount of firepower he carried. “I know just the place to get it, too,” he said with a slight smile.

The last items he
picked up were his badge, a seven-point star he had already attached to a belt clip, and his wallet. The only difference between an active duty officer’s star and a Reserve’s were the small letters spelling out the word RESERVES just above the center badge number. He slipped the clip with the badge on his belt in a location designed to hold it securely.

Opening
the wallet briefly, he saw the familiar police credentials, both with his picture on them, showing through behind opposite compartments covered in clear plastic. One was his active reserve officer ID and the other a regular police ID with the word RETIRED stamped on it.
These just might come in handy at some point,
he thought, closing and placing the wallet in a rear pocket on his jeans.

Turning to the
laptop on the desk, with the intention of placing it in a backpack to take with him, Harry had a spur of the moment idea. Sitting down, he brought up Internet Explorer and then the Google search page, which loaded extremely slowly. Once the search page finally loaded, he typed in
Scott Allen
and
Sovereign Spirit,
then pressed the enter key. After staring at the screen for almost a full five minutes, watching the little
working arrow
spin indicating a search was in progress, he started to think the Internet had finally failed.

Just as he was
reaching to turn the laptop off to conserve what battery was left, he was shocked to see search hits suddenly pop onto the screen. There was only one site that even remotely matched what he thought he was looking for, and that was
sovereignspirit.net
. He clicked on the website and impatiently waited while the server once again attempted to connect, his anticipation growing by the second.

To his relief, the website
finally downloaded and opened. The homepage indicated it was originating directly from the ship
Sovereign Spirit
, and that they had their own web server with direct satellite link. Looking over the page, Harry located another link on the site that he clicked on. That brought him to a blog page, with the current date, inviting survivors to post information on their particular locations and what was happening!

Excitedly s
crolling down the page, he read post after post from people across the nation detailing what was currently happening in their areas. Several seemed desperate, others seemed to have things under control for the time being, but what struck Harry was that he saw only one other post from San Francisco. This concerned him a great deal, and he wondered if maybe there had just not been that many people who had survived the zombies in the Bay Area.

Reading further
, he saw that the posts were being answered by Billy Allen, onboard the Sovereign Spirit
,
who apparently was Scott Allen’s son
.
His replies were supportive but it was clear that the Sovereign Spirit would be unable to help most of those who posted or needed help. They were inland and Scott Allen had made it clear in his GNN interview that his focus was on the western coastal areas for now.

Harry decided to add
to the blog the limited amount of information he had gained since the infection had hit, what he had observed in San Francisco, and what his plan was.
For all the good it will do
, he thought as he sat typing. “If nothing else, it will let them know there
are
survivors in this area, and they may decide it worth the effort to reach us at some point,” he muttered to himself.

My name is
Harold Lancaster and I am in San Francisco. I have watched as the City has been flooded with the infected. Seemingly hundreds have died right before my eyes as a result of that ever-rising horde or whatever these things are. People have been torn apart in the streets and devoured. Or worse, have risen from attacks with horrific injuries to join the ranks of the infected. It has been like watching piranhas in a feeding frenzy or the worst horror movie ever made! There has been no sign of military assets anywhere in the City, and the police that initially attempted to control the storming masses of infected were quickly decimated.

All
the established ‘safe zones’ set up by the local government have been completely destroyed. There must be other survivors, I am certain, but I have no idea of the numbers or their locations. Unfortunately, I know for a fact that weapons, guns of any type, are almost impossible to locate with this City’s strict anti-gun laws. I doubt folks were able to react quickly enough with other forms of weapons to defend themselves before being overwhelmed.

I
listened to the rather unorthodox interview between Commodore Allen and GNN. Because of what he had to say, I am taking responsibility for my survival. It is my sincere hope that other survivors in the City were able to hear that interview and act accordingly. Our local city officials have accomplished little in helping San Franciscans and, as typical, many mixed messages were sent out about what to do. That included instructions to shelter in place, which I believe caused the direct death of many more people.

I am a retired cop and have weapons in my possession.
Not the level of firepower to do much at this point, but enough I believe to help accomplish a plan I have been roughing out. Upon completing this email I am headed to the closest police station from my location which is about ten blocks away. If I am able to breach the station I will attempt to locate additional firepower which will greatly aid my ability to get through the City.