Winchester: Over (Winchester Undead) (3 page)

Bexar changed out of his uniform while Jessie
began loading up their old Jeep Wagoneer. Their two-year-old daughter Keeley was still napping, which made loading the Jeep with their GOOD bags much easier. Jessie hated the old 1965 Jeep Wagoneer, but Bexar had owned it since high school and couldn’t bring himself to get rid of it. That old Jeep was like his first love, and it would have broken his heart to sell it. Bexar was happy to have it after he and Jack had started prepping; the old reliable truck with no electronics other than a new CD player had its advantages for a prepper.

Bexar
took off his Kevlar vest and put it aside, along with his heavy police duty belt. Even though neither was part of his planned GOOD load-out, he felt they might be needed. He changed into a pair of green tactical pants with a rigger’s belt that held his well-worn Kimber TLE/RL II Pro with a TLR-1 tactical light in a Raven Systems holster. Two spare Wilson Combat 8-round magazines slid into a mag pouch on his left side, and his trusted Emerson CQC-7 clipped to the inside of his back pocket. Bexar slid his custom-made C-M Forge knife into the sheath on his belt, and went back outside to help Jessie finish loading the Jeep.

Three hours after the
massive power failure had hit, Bexar Reed's family pulled out of their driveway and turned north on State Highway 6 towards the group cache site in Maypearl.

Virginia Beach,
Virginia

Eric had just finished patrolling the beachfront on his police bicycle and begun riding back to the station when his supervisor’s voice came across the radio, instructing all units to return to their designated patrol zones—NAWAS had issued a warning that an attack on the U.S. was imminent. Not sure what sort of attack that could mean, Eric downshifted and peddled back towards his area of responsibility on the beachfront.

Stopping
at the traffic light, Eric saw some people pointing towards the sky. Looking up, he saw a large formation of aircraft overhead. The planes did not look familiar to him; even though he wasn’t an aviation buff, he was used to seeing large military aircraft in the Virginia Beach sky, but these looked different.

T
he contrails trailing the aircraft also looked different, less like contrails and more like what you would see coming from beneath a crop duster. Still watching the aircraft, Eric pulled out his phone to call his wife, but it was dead. “Figures,” he grumbled, angry that his brand new smart phone was already failing. He had given up his trusted “dumb” flip phone for this new phone two weeks ago because his daughter was about to have her first baby, and he wanted to get photos when it happened.

Then he
heard the sound of tires skidding on pavement and the unmistakable sound of a motorcycle sliding on pavement. The traffic lights were all dark, and a motorcyclist was sliding headfirst towards the intersection where a truck had already come to a stop in the middle. A dark, oily mist was falling from the sky, and Eric knew this was going to be a bad wreck.

Pedaling towards the collision, Eric tried to call
Dispatch on his radio and was surprised to find that his radio wasn’t working either. The accident was bad. The motorcyclist was wearing a half-shell helmet but it was obvious that his neck had been broken when he slid headfirst into the stalled truck. Eric knew the rider was DRT—dead right there—by looking at the rider’s neck, which was bent at an impossible angle, but he pulled on a latex glove and checked for a pulse anyway. There was none.

Looking at the
motorcyclist’s lifeless brown eyes, Eric pulled the glove off and tossed it on the ground. “Sorry buddy, what a shitty way to go.” As he began to stand up, he saw the rider’s head move slightly in his direction. Eric had seen enough freshly dead to know that sometimes the body will spasm slightly as it shuts down, but he was startled by the gargling moan that rattled from the rider’s chest. Pausing, he looked more closely at the rider; the head and eyes had moved and locked onto his, but the eyes still looked dim and lifeless. Without warning, the motorcyclist’s gloved hand shot up, and, with incredible strength, latched onto the lapel of Eric’s police shirt, pulling him down to an impossibly wide mouth.

By
standers who had seen the accident screamed as the downed motorcyclist savagely bit into the police officer’s throat, tearing away chunks of flesh as the officer writhed and screamed in pain. They remained rooted in fear as the motorcyclist stood, head flopping awkwardly to one side, and began stumbling towards them.

U.S. Highway 287, Texas

Jack and Sandra and their son Will were making fairly decent time on the highway in their old FJ. So far the traffic wasn’t too heavy, and the only cars they saw were a couple of older vehicles; everything else had stopped dead in the road. Occasionally Jack had to drive on the shoulder around people who had given up and started walking away from their abandoned cars.

Pulling onto the inside shoulder to drive around another
group, he saw that they were pointing up to the sky. Slowing to a stop, Jack got out of his truck and stood next to it, looking up at the sky. Traveling from the north was a formation of large aircraft that he didn’t recognize, and didn’t look like anything he had ever seen at an air show either. He assumed this was probably the reason Bexar had called “Winchester.” Climbing back into his truck, he saw an oily film suddenly cover his truck and windshield.

“
What’s that, honey?” Sandra said.

“
I don’t know,” replied Jack, “but I think it fell from those planes that just flew over.” Once again climbing out of the old truck, he poured water out of his bottle onto the windshield and wiped it clean. Everything around him was covered in the oil. Jack started the truck, drove around another group of stalled cars, and continued south.

Approaching the city of Mansfield
, the Snyder family came upon a group of people gathered around a man lying in the middle of the highway. They were kneeling around the body, a large pool of blood spreading out around them. “Sandra, get behind the wheel. If something happens, come get me,” Jack said as he exited the truck. Sandra slid over to the driver’s seat, put the truck in gear, and waited.

As
Jack walked up to the group, he immediately knew something was very wrong. There were five of them, and they weren’t administering first aid, they were eating the entrails out of the still-steaming body on the ground. Choking back the bile that rose in his throat, Jack drew the Kimber Pro-Carry he carried in a custom leather holster on his right hip and instinctively pulled the pistol into the SUL position on his chest. “What is wrong with ya’ll, stop what you’re doing!” he shouted.

One of the
group turned his head towards Jack and rose shakily to his feet. He was wearing an Army uniform with a name tag that read Jones, and the insignia on his short-sleeved shirt showed he was a staff sergeant. He also had a horrific gash on his neck. The front of his shirt was covered in blood, and pieces of flesh hung from his teeth, his gaping mouth still dripping blood from the victim on the ground.

As
Jones began stumbling towards Jack, a deep gurgling moan came from the large hole in his neck. Jack’s hands were shaking, but he pointed the muzzle of his 1911 at Jones and shouted, “What the fuck? Stop! Stop or I will shoot you. STOP!”

The thing that used to be
Jones did not seem fazed by Jack or his pistol; Jack fired twice center mass with no effect. Taking a deep breath, Jack raised the muzzle a fraction of an inch higher and fired a single round into Jones’ forehead. Jones dropped to the ground and was still, but the other four that had ignored the exchange while they feasted on the entrails of their victim all stood and turned towards Jack.

“
Holy shit, SANDRA!” Without bothering to holster his pistol, Jack turned and sprinted towards his FJ as Sandra began rolling forward, trying to close the twenty-five-yard distance between them, and slammed on the brakes as she neared. Jack never broke stride in his sprint, placed his foot on the big steel bumper, and jumped onto the hood of his truck. Grabbing the roof rack with his left hand, his adrenaline racing, he screamed “GO! DRIVE, DAMNIT, GO!” Sandra dropped the clutch, pushed her right foot to the floor, and drove through two of the creatures shambling towards them.

W
ith Jack on the hood of the FJ, hanging onto the roof rack, Sandra drove until they were out of the small town of Mansfield. Pulling to the side of the highway, he climbed down, still shaking, pulled the magazine out of his pistol, and traded it for the one on his belt. Tactical reload complete, Jack looked at the dents on the front of his truck and turned to Sandra.

“
I don’t know what the fuck that was, but that guy shouldn’t have been alive. He shouldn’t have been able to get up, he shouldn’t have been able to absorb two rounds to the chest, and he sure as shit shouldn’t have been eating the other guy. What the shit?”

Eyes wide, Sandra replied
, her voice trembling, “I don’t know babe, but the sooner we get to the cache site, the sooner we can talk to Bexar. Maybe he has an idea of what’s going on.”

State Highway 6, Central Texas

Highway 6 was rarely all that busy since it had been expanded from a two-lane highway back when he was attending Texas A&M, but even with most of the cars stopped in the road Bexar was making good time in the Wagoneer.

The original
Get Out Of Dodge plan had the family traveling Highway 6 to I-35 in Waco, where they could make their way to Maypearl in quick and easy time. However, during the drive to the little town of Hearne, Jessie had come up with a good point—if everything with electronics, including newer cars, was dead, Waco might be dangerous, and the I-35 would probably be a parking lot.

Over the years, Bexar had learned many things about his wife, one of which being that she was usually right. Agreeing with her, Bexar decided to take Texas Highway 14 to Mexia, a small Texas town famous for being the birthplace of Anna Nicole Smith.

In
Hearne, people walked in the streets, around cars that had stopped in the road. Bexar heard gunfire in the not-too-far distance and wasn’t surprised. Hearne, Texas was the only place in the world where Wal-Mart had to shutter their store due to rampant employee theft.

Scanning the
road and side streets for threats, he pushed his Jeep a little faster than he would have liked through the maze of parked cars. Just as they drove past the big new gas station on the north end of town, their front right tire went flat.

“
Well ain’t that just our luck? Jess, we’re really exposed, grab my rifle and pull guard for us while I change this damned thing.” Bexar climbed out of the Jeep, pulled the highlift jack down from the side of the roof rack, grabbed the four-way lug wrench out of the box on the rear bumper, and unbolted the spare tire from the back of the truck.

Jessie
climbed out of the truck with Bexar’s favorite rifle. Last year he had splurged and built it off a Noveske Lower Receiver and a LaRue Tactical Upper with a full length quad rail. A bunch of Magpul furniture was used, and the flat top rifle had a mounted ACOG red-dot sight. It cost Bexar a lot of money to build that rifle, but he was happy to have it and, as a cop, he could write the rifle off on his taxes as a “work” expense.

As
Bexar put the highlift back in its place on the roof rack and began bolting the flat tire and rim to the back of the Jeep, he heard Jessie call, “Stop or you will be shot.” Bexar threw the four-way into the back of the Jeep and turned to see where Jessie was pointing the rifle’s muzzle. In the blink of an eye, Bexar drew his pistol and pointed it at the man stumbling towards them from across the highway.

“
Sir, stop where you are or you will be shot,” she shouted again. “Sir, stop!” The man stumbled closer, his clothes covered in blood, his head flopped to the side at an impossible angle, and bite marks covering his face. His left eye was missing, along with some of the flesh on the left side of his face.

Bexar joined in.
“Dude, fucking stop or you’ll be shot!” The man continued to stagger towards the Jeep, crossing the yellow line on the road. The AR-15 Jessie held cracked once, and a single round tore through the blood-covered chest of the man. Bexar whispered “Jesus” as he put two .45 hollow point slugs into the man’s chest, and then one in the middle of the man’s forehead. The back of the man’s head exploded and the body fell to the ground.

Bexar pulled his pistol into the S
UL position and, as he scanned the surroundings for more threats, he told Jessie, “Get in the Jeep, keep the rifle out, something is really wrong, go!” Jessie climbed into the passenger seat, leaving her seatbelt off, and turned around to calm Keeley, who was screaming in the back seat. Bexar started the truck and drove north towards TX-14 as fast as he could. They had to get to Maypearl, to the safety of the group cache and the safety of their friends.

South of Gunter, T
exas

Malachi had always known that his route to the cache site was the worst out of the three, because he had to drive through or around D/FW, but he also knew there really wasn’t a better site for all the members in the group. He drove south on TX-289 and through Gunter, Texas, trying to avoid the bigger towns in the Metroplex, although he wasn’t sure if it would work. Getting to Gunter was relatively painless; the traffic was light to begin with, so when the EMP hit there weren’t all that many cars to drive around. They passed a number of people on foot and pushing shopping carts. Some had their carts loaded with beer, others had televisions and Playstations and such.
If they knew the truth, they would’ve stuck with the beer
, he thought.

“
NMP,” he said aloud.

“
What?” said Amber, turning to look at him.

“
Not my problem. All these people, Amber, I have to remember that it’s not my problem. We can’t stop to help, and they won’t listen to us if we try to help them make better choices, all of them. I just have to remember they’re not my problem.”

“
Do you think those are our planes?” Amber asked, pointing up through the windshield. A number of large aircraft were traveling in formation to the south from the north.

“
The contrails look wrong, like they’re spraying something, like they’re actual chemtrails,” he responded. Malachi didn’t buy into most conspiracy theories, such as stories of a secret base under Denver International Airport, or that shapeshifting alien reptiles secretly ruled the earth, but he did find them entertaining enough to read about them on occasion. Overall, it was staggering what some people believed, and how large of a following their beliefs could generate on the Internet.

“
Okay, what’s a chemtrail?” Amber asked, interrupting Malachi’s musings.

“
It’s a conspiracy theory; some folks believe that the government is spraying the population with some sort of mind-altering chemical from high altitude aircraft. To most people the clouds look like contrails, but to the conspiracy kooks, they say they’re ‘chemtrails’ from the government. They’ve been blamed for everything from the spread of cancer, to boron to promote mind control, and those aren’t even the craziest ideas.”

“
So people actually believe that?” asked Amber.

“
Yup, tinfoil hats and all.”

The
ir conversation was interrupted when, all of a sudden, the Scout’s windshield was covered in an oily mist falling from the sky. Malachi pulled over and used water from his gallon jug to rinse the windshield off. He was surprised to find that the substance smelled slightly like sulfur.

Dodging more cars stopped in the roadway, Malachi started to reconsider his decision to try to split the route between Dallas and F
ort Worth. Arlington and the surrounding area were in the way, never mind Coppell, Frisco, and a goodly number of other cities stacked one on top of another. Looking to the south, it was obvious there were a lot of things on fire, a lot of danger. Turning to Amber, he said, “Babe, this isn’t going to work, we’re going to have to go around. I say we go east, less to go through and less to come back through to get to Maypearl.”

“
Sure, east sounds good,” she replied.

Malachi and Amber
approached the intersection for FM 121, drove around a bad accident in the intersection, and turned east towards McKinney, Texas. The detour was uneventful; they saw a few people riding down the Farm-to-Market road on everything from an old Ford tractor to a small John Deere lawn mower. But as they got closer to McKinney, they were quickly put on high alert. Peering at the looming column of thick black smoke ahead, Amber said, “It’s like the whole town is on fire.”

Entering the city on Highway 75 and getting close to their exit, Malachi had to drive through the grass on the side of the highway to get around a
n accident that had the entire road blocked, while up above on the overpass, people milled around a tanker truck that was on fire.
How they could stand the heat?
Then one of them fell over the edge of the overpass to the pavement below, and he slammed on the brakes. “Holy shit!”

Amber anxiously peered out the window.
“At least those other people are running to help him.”

Three people
had run towards the fallen man from where they had been standing next to a darkened convenience store on the corner. They stopped abruptly when the man suddenly stood up, his right ankle shattered, the bones protruding from his lower leg. The three would-be rescuers stood paralyzed with fear as the crippled man stumbled in their direction with an otherworldly moan. Grabbing the shoulder of one, the man with the shattered leg took a big bite of flesh out of his rescuer-turned-victim’s neck. Blood sprayed from the large open wound, covering the pair in the warm crimson fluid. The good Samaritan collapsed to the pavement with a wet gurgle, as he could no longer scream with his neck severed, while his two friends ran away.

Malachi
stepped out of his truck. Running towards the attacker, who now had ribbons of his victim’s flesh dangling from his wet bloody mouth, Malachi drew the XD .45 holstered on his right hip and fired two shots center mass. The man moaned and staggered towards Malachi, who fired two more rounds center mass before firing a fifth round aimed at his attacker’s head. The back of the man’s head exploded in a rainbow of blood and gore.

Malachi reached for the spare magazine on his belt with his left hand and deftly executed a tactical reload
, all the while scanning for more threats. Amber screamed, and Malachi saw that the man who had had his throat ripped out had begun shuffling in his direction. Malachi raised his pistol and, taking no chances this time, fired a single head shot, felling the second man.

“
Malachi, we’ve got to go, NOW!” screamed Amber.

Malachi
ran towards the Scout, pistol still in hand. Amber was standing on the hood of the still-running truck, pistol out, firing rounds at an approaching group of about twenty people, all with grotesque wounds similar to the two that Malachi had just killed. Malachi closed the distance much faster than the shambling not-so-dead could, and Amber barely made it in the door before he shifted the truck in gear.

Malachi pounded the steering wheel.
“Shit, shit, shit, shit, what the shit is going on?”

“
I don’t know,” said Amber, “but that first guy should never have gotten up, and the second guy was dead from that huge bite wound, and, oh, I just don’t know.”

“
Amber, we’ve got to haul ass, I can only hope that Bexar or Jack know something we don’t.”

They finally
made it through the chaos that was McKinney, Texas, and out into the countryside, but with having to drive around abandoned vehicles in the road, and the general slow-going of an old Scout pulling a trailer, the sun soon loomed low on the horizon and it was apparent they wouldn’t make it to Maypearl that day.

Amber held her hand up to the horizon
. “Three fingers left ‘til the sun drops, so about forty-five minutes of daylight.”

“
I don’t know about you,” said Malachi, “but I don’t want to pop up the AT tent; I’d feel better if we drove through the night or found someplace more secure.” Amber nodded in agreement.

Just outside of Farmersville, Malachi found what they needed.
A squat metal building with large overhead doors, it appeared to have belonged to some sort of earth-moving company, though he couldn’t tell what company because the small sign by the fence had been painted over to say, “Closed for the end of the world.” The paint was still wet. Malachi didn’t care, just as long as they found a safe place to hole up.

He
stopped the Scout on the side of the road and extinguished the lights, but left the truck running. “I’m going over the fence to toss the emergency lever for the gate,” he said. “Pull the truck through and I’ll secure the gate behind us. And Amber, while I’m going over, cover me with the AR.”

Malachi jogged to the chain
-link fence and climbed over. Amber stood on the driver’s side of the Scout, AR braced on the door frame, muzzle pointed towards the dark metal building. Malachi opened the metal cover for the electric gate, flipped the lever that clutched the electric motor, and slid open the gate. Amber drove the Scout and trailer into the yard and Malachi closed the gate, re-engaging the lever to secure it.

The sun had set
, and with dusk the temperature started to fall as well. Amber exited the Scout and formed up with Malachi to clear the building and area so they could figure a way into the building.

It was eerily quiet,
just like the days following 9/11 when there had been no air traffic in the sky, and it seemed that the whole world had stopped. Relying on their training, the couple used good tactics to cut the pie around the building’s corners—Amber with the long gun in front for immediate threats, Malachi holding onto her belt with his left hand, walking mostly backwards to give rear security. The southeast side of the building had an employee door that was propped slightly open with a brick. There was a butt can and a bench next to the door.

“
Smoker’s door,” whispered Malachi. “Looks like they forgot to lock it up when they painted their new business sign.”

Malachi and Amber stacked on the door, Amber pulling on the end of the
Vicker’s Blue Force sling to tighten it, and they waited, breathing quietly through their mouths. Listening for threats, listening so hard he began to hear his own heartbeat in his ears, Malachi whispered, “I love you,” in Amber’s ear, squeezing her shoulder with his left hand as they exploded forward and leapt through the door.

Last
year Malachi and Amber had spent a week with Jim Smith at Spartan Tactical on his compound in Jacksboro. They had learned an incredible amount from the former Delta Operator, including the value of accuracy and smooth movement, but Jim also taught them how to clear rooms precisely and with lightning speed.

Amber pushed straight through the door, running the wall to the right; Malachi planted his foot in the doorframe and crossed over to the left, running the wall to the corner while sweeping back towards the middle.

“SHOW ME YOUR HANDS; SHOW ME YOUR HANDS NOW!” Amber had found someone, but Malachi had to finish clearing his area of responsibility, trusting his wife to be okay and to trust in her training. Three rapid shots erupted, echoing loudly in the metal building, followed by Amber yelling, “Clear!”

Malachi responded
“Clear,” and walked over to Amber with his pistol in the SUL position. Fifteen feet in front of Amber on the floor was a man in blue Dickies coveralls. A name tag identified him as “Flea.” Flea looked dead, but he also looked like he’d been that way long before being shot by Amber. There were two neat holes in the center of his chest, and a single hole just above the bridge of his nose. Black gunk spilled onto the floor from the hole in the back of his head.

Amber was still staring at the corpse in front of her.
“It’s like he was a fucking zombie or something.”

“
This is some crazy fucking day,” Malachi said, shaking his head.

He
released the chains of the large overhead door and pulled it up. Amber went to get the Scout while Malachi grabbed Flea’s pant legs and dragged his body out the “smoker’s” door.

Less than five minutes later
, the Scout and trailer were safely inside the large workshop, and Amber had lit their old trusty Coleman lantern. The lantern had belonged to Malachi’s father and had to be at least forty years old, but it still worked using white fuel and glowing mantles.

They
tried to enjoy their light meal, but the carnage of the day had extinguished most of their appetite. Malachi cleaned up their dinner, and Amber took a multi-tool to the taillights of the Scout and removed the bulbs. The brake lights were a tactical liability, broadcasting their location to the world where electric light appeared to be a thing of the past.

Malachi looked at the black smudge on the floor where Flea had been killed
for the second time, and took off his hat, remembering the morale patch velcroed on the front. He had found it on the Internet; it had a body in crosshairs and the words “Zombie Killer.” He removed the Velcro-backed patch and threw it onto the black stain. The patch wasn’t as funny anymore.