Total Apoc Trilogy (Book 2): Fighting the Hordes (13 page)

            "We're on the way!" Jake said.

            The jeep bounced out into the street.  Jake turned on the headlights.  Not sure why he did it now.  The other trucks turned on their lights, too.  They were coming at full speed.  Jake got that jeep up to speed a lot faster than Olivia.  Ralph was hanging onto the M60 for dear life.

            They would be there at any moment and all hell would break loose.

            "We need to get off this roof," I said when a round hit my left calf and left a long grazing wound.  Hurt like hell, but I was loath to show weakness in front of Mike.  But, damn, that hurt!  "I've been hit twice."

            Yeah, I counted the hit on my helmet.

            "Really?  Are you all right?" he asked.  Mike sounded truly concerned.  "Do you need help?"

            The convoy arrived.  I spotted Olivia, Billy, and Travis running down the sidewalk towards the armory.  Ralph opened up on the building as soon as he had line of sight.

            "Wahoo!" I cried when Jake turned into the drive and headed straight towards the building.  The drive circled around in front of the building, but had a secondary drive that split away and went around to the back.  I could see fenced off parking lots full of military vehicles and equipment.  "I'm good.  Let's get the hell out of here."

            Mike waved me down the ladder first.  We quickly moved around to the side, and then charged across the street with guns blazing.  I felt like I was in a Rambo movie or something.  Only, there were no bad guys to be seen.  That didn't keep me from emptying four magazines.

            Mike ran straight up to the front door.  It wasn't locked.  If it was, I don't think we could've forced it open.  They were pretty heavy-duty doors.  Still, I think we were the first ones inside.

            "Follow me and do what I do," Mike said as we entered.  He held his AR15 differently now, kind of high.  I remembered seeing evening news footage of the wars where the soldiers were advancing through the streets holding their weapons like that.  Felt awkward to me, but I followed his example.  "Shoot anything that moves."

            Most of the inside doors were open.  We went from room to room, taking our time.  First thing, we checked the rooms that men had been firing out of, but only found the brass left behind.  Mike said the brass was from 30-06 hunting rifles.  It was just brass to me.

            Jake led a bunch of men inside through a back door.  We heard their footsteps echoing through the building.  It was an old, red-brick structure.  Just a single story, and probably built back before WWII.  It had wide corridors and glass transoms over the inner doors.  Ralph entered with Jake, now carrying an AR15.

            "Did you capture any of them?" Jake asked Mike.

            "No one dead or captured," he said.  "There weren't very many.  They must've bugged out when they saw you coming in."

            Jake had us fan out and find the arms room and NBC room.  I didn't know what he meant by "NBC room" until I found it down in the basement.  Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical room.  It was stenciled right there on the wooden door.  We smashed it open and found lots of gas masks.  There were other things, but all I cared about was the masks.

            When Jake arrived to inspect it, Olivia was with him.

            "Travis, get all these masks into a truck.  See if there are any more," Jake said.

            Mike's voice came over Jake's walkie-talkie.  "Found the arms room.  Those other men were trying to cut through the steel cage with blow torches."

            "Location?" Jake replied.

            "I know," Olivia said, and hurried away.

            I followed her and Jake before Travis could make me help load the masks into a truck.  I didn't want to be their pack mule.  I was just a guide, and I didn't trust Jake that much.  Besides, I might be able to switch out my AR15 for a fully automatic M16.

            Olivia led us up to the ground floor, then to the other end of the building, and down into another basement.  We found Mike and two others checking out the blow torches.  It didn't look like they really knew how to use any of that stuff.

            "You don't need that," Olivia said, turning into another office.  "Supply Room" was stenciled on the door.  "SSG Roberts" under that.  I wasn't sure what "SSG" stood for, but guessed it meant supply sergeant.  "The keys are in here."

            She went over to a big, steel desk.  It was locked.  Jake sent everyone off to find a crowbar and something to break open the desk.  Olivia and I looked around the supply room while we waited.  There were boxes of desert camo uniforms and hats.  She snatched an army cap and stuffed it in her back pocket.

            I found a tool box, with a large screwdriver.  With that and a hammer, we broke into the desk.  Olivia didn't have to rifle through it at all.  She went straight to the key ring.

            "How did you know?" I asked.

            "Sergeant Roberts was my escort when I toured the armory, and we came in here to get the keys for the arms room," she said, shrugging.  "He was a very friendly man.  I hate knowing he's probably dead."

            Jake almost crowed with joy when she handed the keys over.  It took a little while to figure out the correct key, but the guys from Emory swarmed into that arms room like kids in a candy store.  Rack upon rack of what Mike called "old M16A2 crap" filled the front half of that caged off section.  They were locked down by steel bars, so Jake gave the keys to Billy and had him unlock the racks while the rest of us explored.

            "Ammo!" someone called.

            Wooden crates full of ammo of all calibers were stacked in back.  Jake ordered them all loaded up.  We all turned into pack mules at that point.

            Mike took charge of all the gunners, setting them up around the perimeter.  Everyone else loaded trucks with guns, ammo, and gas masks.  They had cases of MREs, which Jake said were only to be taken if there was room.

            It was hard work.  By the time the trucks were about half full, I realized we didn't have room for everything.  And I didn't care.  I was exhausted.  I shed my camo shirt, and even my brown t-shirt felt too hot.  Olivia stripped down to her t-shirt, too.

            Jake hauled weapons and ammo with the rest of us.  He shook his head when he saw how rough we looked.  I was too tired to be embarrassed.

            "Kyle, you and Olivia come with me," Jake said.  "We'll let the big boys take care of this."

            I was too tired to be embarrassed.

            "Where are we going?" I asked.

            "Motor pool.  They have some pretty old vehicles here, so we might find one or two that we can take," he said.

            The motor pool was a fenced off parking lot that Jake opened by driving his Trailblazer through the gate.  Inside were lots of familiar vehicles, mostly jeeps and old trucks I remember seeing in WWII movies.  Jake referred to them as "duce and a halfs" and "five-tons."  A five-ton was just a bigger duce and a half.

            "Why is it called a 'duce and a half'?" Olivia asked.

            I was so glad she asked that question.

            "It's a two and a half ton truck," he said matter-of-factly.  "It's a M35A2 cargo truck, but everyone calls it a duce and a half."  He pointed at a bigger version of it.  "That's a M939, five ton truck."

            Both versions looked similar, painted desert camo with canvas covers over the cargo area.  To me the canvas made them look like old wagons from cowboy movies.  Except they were really big.

            Jake grinned at me as he opened the driver's door of a M939.  "Kyle can
probably
drive the five-ton, since it's automatic."

            "Haha, you're funny," I said.

            We looked inside.  Everything looked like it was made of steel, and the seats didn't look any better than what we had in the jeep.  I was more than a little worried that Jake would have me drive one of them back to Emory.  Besides being separated from Olivia and Ralph, that thing was enormous.

            "The Army doesn't believe in comfort, does it?" Olivia said.

            "Jump in and start her up, Kyle," Jake said.

            He motioned me up, so I reluctantly climbed in.  That truck scared me like the zombies didn't.  The dashboard, if you could even call it that, was just as bare-bones as the jeep.  Like Jake said, it was automatic, though I wasn't sure what the difference between 1-5, 1-4, etc meant.

            "I don't have the key," I said.

            Jake just grinned.  He climbed up in the door next to me and had me start flipping switches.  One above the other to the right of the steering wheel.  The top switch was labeled "Battery" and the other "Start – Run."  I had to flip the battery switch up, and then the start-run.  He indicated the lights that came on.

            "I guess it's old enough the EMP didn't screw it up," I said, kind of disappointed.

            "Military trucks mostly don't have keys," he said.  "Now push that switch up to the Start position, and release after it starts."

            The truck started.  He patted me on the shoulder.  "See how easy it is?  Now, start moving the three five tons out and parking them in line.  We're taking them.  While you're doing that, I'm going to show Olivia how to start the duce and a halfs."

            "They're different?" she asked.

            "Yes.  Much more complicated."

            Jake wagged his brows at me.  Jumping back on the ground, he slammed my door and led Olivia over to the five duce and a halfs.  I eased the truck into gear, giving it a little gas, while I tried to remember how many extra men they brought to drive more trucks.

Chapter 15

            Jake gathered everyone down in the basement and announced that we would leave for Emory at 0500 hours in the morning.  So we had time to rest up for the return journey.  Everyone would take one guard shift, one third of the people on at any given time.  With the number of new trucks we acquired, there were only three people on each vehicle after our acquisition of the Army trucks.  Driver, gunner, vehicle commander is what Jake named up.

            "I'm commander," I told Ralph and Olivia with a wag of my brows.  "You work for me now."

            "I got something you can command," Ralph said, grabbing his crotch.

            "Very mature," Olivia said.  She smiled at me.  "I'll obey your orders.  As long as it's what I want to do anyway."

            "So nothing has changed," I said, shaking my head.

            We were feeling good.  The water was still running in the armory, and there was a communal shower room.  Two, actually, one for men and one for women.  So during our down time, if we wanted, Jake said we could take showers.  He suggested we sleep, but it was our time to do what we wanted as long as we didn't leave the armory.

            We were in a pretty good position.  There was both gasoline and diesel fuel in the motor pool, so we filled up all of the tanks.  Then Jake filled some water tank trailers, that Mike called "water buffalos," with gas for the return trip.  Though, honestly, I was glad I didn't have to pull a gas filled trailer.  All I could see was it being shot and blowing up.

            Didn't want any part of that.

            Once Jake had the cargo trucks filled with what he came for the rest of us were set loose to loot.  We filled the jeep with more ammo cans for the M60, M1911 pistols, and the new M16A2s we all had.  Ralph also
acquired
what Mike called a M203, which was a M16 with a 40mm grenade launcher on it.  Ralph snuck it and a bunch of grenades for it into the jeep, without Jake knowing about it.  You know Jake wouldn't let us have those.

            We strapped and tied stuff across the hood, and to both sides and the back.  You could barely see the jeep under all our new gear.  Everything was secured and out of sight inside military green packs and other kinds of canvas carriers.  If it would hold food or ammo, we took it and strapped it to the jeep.  The guys in the pickups were doing the same thing.  Mike even found a big ice chest, but I wasn't sure what he put in that.  There was no ice.

            Jake assigned a few men to go around and straighten out the makeshift cowcatchers.  Our jeep's cowcatcher was the most mangled.  I really didn't think they could fix it, but they did a pretty good job.

            Mike came around during that time installing Army radios and antennas on every vehicle.  He showed us how to use it, and then gave us the manual.  We had manuals for the weapons, the jeep's maintenance, and the radio.  Ralph might've even gotten some others he found interesting.  He could really geek out on military stuff sometimes.

            "Since it's so late, we're dividing the guard shifts into three shifts," Jake said.  "Everyone will pull just one shift."

            We groaned.  He split us up.  Drivers took the first guard shift, gunners the second, and vehicle commanders the last.  Jake wanted the drivers to have uninterrupted sleep.

            Earlier, each of us had been given a new set of BDUs to replace our bloody, filthy clothes.  We'd already eaten, but hadn't put on the new uniforms since we hadn't had our showers yet.

            So Olivia immediately had to leave for guard, before her shower.  She was not a happy camper.  Mike gathered everyone else and put us to work cleaning the weapons we used on the trip down.  He and Jake were adamant about it.  And we weren't finished until one of them said our guns were clean enough.  Jake wouldn't abandon them, and wasn't going to take dirty weapons back to Emory for someone else to clean.

            The two ex-military men moved around showing us how to disassemble, clean, and reassemble the weapons.  I even got Mike to show us how to do the same with the M16A2 we were given.  It looked similar to the AR15, but there were some differences.