The Other Side of the Apocalypse

[FrANkNstEin]

Thank you for sharing this story with us!!

[WildWest]

Day 117

We were ready before dawn; at least we thought we were. How could anybody be ready for the kind of thing we experienced today? Our plan worked beautifully, but it was a plan designed for a different situation than what we found ourselves in.

The assumption was that the pirates would come in from the south. There were fewer zombies from that direction, the roads were clearer, and they had ended their day a few miles south of us yesterday. We would watch the other directions and had some plans for dealing with changes, but this is where we would be setting up the ambush.

They could come up Batavia, which was more likely, but also the river trail. The river trail would leave them far more exposed in a fight. Our primary ambush site would be on Batavia, about a hundred yards south of the car wall and fence. We could easily overwhelm a force of a dozen men from this position or respond to a shift to the river in time to ambush there.

Three teams worked before dawn stirring up the zombies outside our barricades. We played CDs with recordings of engines, glass breaking, and women talking. The zombies responded well and gathered where we wanted them by the hundreds. The Lincoln Bridge, Lincoln Avenue east, Fletcher Avenue, and Taft were all provided hoards before dawn. As light broke, I could see way over a thousand of them up Taft Avenue. The zombies sure like to move in the early hours more than later in the day.

We didn’t hold them in place. Once we knew we had an instant hoard ready on all our approaches, we let them find their nearest hiding places as they saw fit.

Kelsey, Will, and Jared headed out before the zombie play in order to find their perches. Kelsey and Will would cover Batavia two hundred feet south of the ambush point. Their M110 sniper rifles would be in prime range to pick off anyone trying to flank us or beat a hasty retreat. Jared took the big M107 fifty caliber, long range sniper rifle and an M110 to the sand hill at R.J. Noble. He would be able to cover the northern half of our sanctuary and had a clean firing lane down Batavia.

Rex led the ambush team to its site on Batavia. His team consisted of Maria, Eduard, Mark, and Richard. They had two Humvees with them, only one had a machine gun mounted. They took up position on the roof of a two story building and prepped ropes for repelling down the back wall when needed. Eduard and Richard stayed at the Humvee with the machine gun in order to drop some heavy fire on the targets once the firing started.

Lauren and I were the security team. We stayed back from the road to make sure nobody was able to outflank the ambush team during the attack and would come up for support if needed. We had a Humvee with a machine gun, so we could provide some heavy firepower when the time came. Our reserve team would be available from inside the Batavia fence as well. This team was Fabian, Angela, and Vicky in two dump trucks. Patricia and Evelyn were in the third Humvee with a machine gun near the river in case we had an attack come from that route.

Janelle stayed in the castle proper to watch the kids. They were to stay inside Patricia’s living room the entire day. This way they would have the most protection from gunfire that we could provide on such short notice. Janelle would have her hands full watching nine young ones and keeping them occupied with all the noise around them. She took her work very seriously. I could tell by the way she cradled her Predator shotgun and retrieved extra ammunition, just in case.

It was two hours after dawn when Kelsey called in the first siting. She watched vehicles turning north onto Batavia from Katella Avenue. They had an assortment of heavy trucks and one armored personnel carrier that had “Long Beach Police” painted in large white letters across the side. Seven vehicles turned the corner at an easy pace and headed our way.

I checked their station and they were talking about getting up in the morning and making their way to the mall. This wasn’t adding up. They were feeding us the radio chatter!

Uh-oh!

I gave a warning to our teams and got status updates. The river was clear, but Jared saw zombies stirring up past the Lincoln Avenue Bridge. That was their flanking move. Patricia backed out of site onto the canal road, ready to move towards Lincoln. We had cleared the stacked cars so she would have this mobility.

The two pirate units were setting up perfect timing to hit both walls at the same time. If we hadn’t prepped and deployed before they got here, they would have been able to devastate us with the initial assault. Instead, Rex turned Batavia into Fallujah.

A black backpack flew down from the roof. It was a normal enough pack, just like a high school student would use to carry his books. This full backpack didn’t have books. Instead, it had twenty pounds of C-4. Rex was at home setting the timing fuse and hurling it off the rooftop between the first two vehicles.

I felt the explosion before I heard it. A crater was blasted into the center of Batavia. The lead truck, one of those heavy lift tow trucks, flipped forward, and then landed on its side. The Armored car lifted clear off the pavement and came down hard on its other side, crushing its own wheels and axles in the process.

A dozen smaller explosions followed in the coming seconds as Rex, Maria and Mark lobbed grenades down on the other trucks in the convoy. The rear vehicle, a county maintenance truck, had its engine hit and catch fire. Two more in the middle were disabled and the remaining two tried to pull out of line and turn around. They had tires shredded in the explosions and were running on some of their rims.

As the explosions were ripping through their convoy, Richard pulled their Humvee around the north corner of the building and Eduard peppered the enemy with machine gun fire. Men and women were scrambling to get out of their vehicles and escape the deadly fire raining down on them.
Chaos engulfed the enemy group as they tried to seek safety. Dozens of them lay dead or dying in the street. The others scrambled behind the damaged vehicles or fled to the buildings on both sides of the street. Rex had his rooftop team flee the roof as fast as they could so as not to be trapped. They repelled down the ropes and got in their Humvee under covering fire from Eduard.

The two Humvees pulled north on Batavia to the canal, ripping into wreckage of the pirate force as they went.Confusion reigned as fiery explosions burst out of buildings and cars around the ambush site. Lauren, in my passenger seat, was clicking through a series of remotes that were talking with home-made detonators on fire bombs set throughout the perimeter of the combat area. Napalm and gelled gasoline bombs were set inside of tire piles. Their ignition quickly created a thick acrid smoke that clung to our little war zone. They were perfect for concealing the advancement of our most brutal weapon.

On the Lincoln Bridge, the pirate unit hoping to flank us drove to the container wall with three trucks, a commercial armored car, a garbage truck, and a five ton cargo truck. They must have heard the start of the battle, but kept with whatever plan they had. The armored car pulled to the side while the garbage truck rolled forward to shove the cargo containers out of the way. They were so well coordinated in how they operated that Jared thought they must done this a few times before.

This time was probably a little different for them. Jared clicked his remote when the garbage truck started to move the containers. Boom! The truck was engulfed in a pillar of flame, lifted off of the road, and became a burning hulk in the middle of the bridge.

With that as a signal, Patricia unloaded with her machine gun, rounds ripping through the cargo truck. Evelyn slowly moved forward on the river trail until they had partial cover behind the high wall next to the garden. Her gun had no effect on the armored car other than knocking off circles of paint and leaving impact dots on the ballistic glass. This was not good.

The armored car didn’t want to go through the blazing mess of the garbage truck so it turned around on the bridge. At the south rail of the bridge, it stopped. Then, from the back of the armored car, two men with rocket launchers emerged. They didn’t look like the rockets from a Rambo movie. They were a little bit larger.

Will started to take aim with his long range sniper rifle and squeezed off a round, missed. They aimed and fired a rocket at Patricia’s Humvee. It found its target and the Humvee was hit low in the rear. It flipped clean into the air, bounced and landed facing the opposite direction. Patricia didn’t have a chance. She was partially exposed on the gun and suffered a broken back and massive head trauma.

Jared then came into his own with the sniper rifle. Two of the four men were dropped with fatal chest wounds before they could get into the safety of their armored car.

The whole incident took too long for these pirates though. By the time they had finished getting back in their vehicle, a sizable hoard had formed on the opposite side of the bridge. Wreckage and the weight of their own vehicle kept them from generating enough speed to break through the many hundreds of zombies that were slowly advancing on them. I could imagine their panic.

Jared was on top of the situation though. He called Fabian. He had Fabian use his dump truck to push the containers back into place so that neither the armored car nor the zombies could get inside the barricade. Within ten minutes the armored car lost the ability to move more than a few inches because of the great press around them as over a thousand starving zombies sought their first bite in months.

Smoke filled the streets farther south on Batavia. I had Lauren get in the driver’s seat of the Humvee and I manned the machine gun. She sped through the parking lots east of the ambush zone and I laid down fire on small groups of pirates, keeping them dispersed and under cover. I only hit a few on our trip through the lots, but it cost them critical time in getting under cover.

Waves of zombies were descending on the area by the hundreds. The pirates became less concerned about Lauren and me; they cared more about the hoard that was around them, only partially visible because of the actively burning fires and thick smoke. Screams were coming from across the area now.

Lauren punched the accelerator and turned north, racing past some pirates running north to the safety of our walls. I ducked down into the Humvee to avoid the small arms fire. It was a good thing too, because a spray of automatic fire popped across the lip of the machine gun port.
She took a hard left down the canal frontage road, following Rex’s team. Their vehicles were not in sight. I told her to go near the end of the access road and stop before coming out at the river. Upon stopping, I got on the gun and waited for them to cross the canal line. They did.
At a full run, eight of the pirates leaped at the wall to climb over. I unleashed the machine gun and got three of them in their mad dash. The others leaped over the wall or laid on top where I couldn’t get at them. The gunfire didn’t stop when I stopped. Two pirates were blasted back off of the wall into the forming hoard of zombies below.

From the top of the wall, they were hit by Rex’s and Fabian’s teams. They didn’t go down without a fight. These guys had automatic weapons and poured out a lot of fire before they died at the wall. One of them found their mark. Rex was at the lead of his team when one of the pirates lay prone and began to fire at them behind the embankment they used for cover. Rex took a hit through the neck and bled to death in seconds.
Richard was quick thinking and yelled at everyone to run for the castle. They did, just beating the runners to the gate. Lauren and I weren’t so fast at it.

We drove up the river trail and saw the destroyed Humvee sitting near the wall. With Lauren covering me, I checked Patricia first. She was dead. Evelyn was alive though. She had been knocked unconscious, but otherwise seemed in good shape. I pulled her out of the destroyed vehicle and put her in our back seat. Lauren buttoned up the hatch and then took care of her.

The radio reports were coming in fast. Will reported the group on the Lincoln Bridge were hopelessly trapped and had runners circling and beating on their truck. The hoard didn’t get through the container wall, but the runners could get over it if they changed their mind on the menu.

Will reported that the two partially functioning trucks tried to head south. He and Kelsey tapped the drivers and the passengers fled on foot. That was a big mistake for them because Will hit his remote controller and set off the sound alarms placed around Taft Avenue, just south of their location. The pirates were quickly caught between the hoard to the north and another from the south. Screams broke through the air as they scattered looking for shelter. Runners were loose in the streets now, so fleeing from them wasn’t so easy.

Kelsey kept watch to the south as the battle wound down. At a distance, she saw the front of a vehicle pull back from the intersection at Katella. Will, wrapped up in his remotes, started up the airplane. Taking off from the roof, he buzzed the south hoard and hit the smoke alarm. It blared south towards Katella with a horrendous buzz. Three runners bolted south after the noise.

Gunfire erupted at Katella as the plane circled the intersection, calling to the zombies. Dozens of shots later, the airplane crashed to the ground in silence. The damage was done. The runners had their direction and a hoard was coming north from the area of the police department. Anybody at that intersection would have to flee quickly to not be caught up in it.

We had a real problem now. Our car and our two snipers were outside the barricades amid hoards of zombies, including dozens of runners. Pirates may still be holding out in some of the buildings, armed and with real bad attitudes after their defeat. Will is also at the top of the sand pile, unprotected from any runners that may come through.

I told will to burrow down and stay out of site. He already had a blanket over him, covered in sand. He wasn’t likely to be spotted by zombies as long as he stayed still. Will and Kelsey were on separate rooftops, but they closed the roof hatches to avoid any nosy runners. They’ll keep out of sight until we can get through to pick them up. All of us outside the wall have enough food and water for a day, but after that it’ll get bad.

I talked with Fabian and Richard into the night making plans for tomorrow. I didn’t sleep much, the runners and shamblers outside the Humvee kept us all awake.

[WildWest]

Day 118

Evelyn was awake in the morning. She took a powerful knock to the head and still felt nauseous from the blow. I’m guessing she suffered a minor concussion from it. She’ll probably be fine. I’m not so sure about the rest of us.

We didn’t sleep at all with the constant pounding of the runners. Amazing, I’m in the same position as the pirates in the armored car. I sure hope it turns out better for me. Will, Kelsey, and Jared all got some sleep in the night and were ready to get home. How was the big question?

Will was the first rescue. He was more exposed than everyone else, but also the easiest to bring in because he was behind the barricades. The adults in the castle scaled the wall on the north end and prepared both a rope and a ladder to lower down for him. Leaving his blanket and supplies, he quietly made his way down the back of the sand mound and out the gate of R.J. Noble. Sprinting across Lincoln Avenue, he met he ladder at the base of the wall and climbed up as fast he could. No runners were inside the barricade to see him apparently. They were all chasing down more certain meals that they had cornered.

Getting us out of our fix was going to be a little trickier. We were parked on the narrow access road next to the canal. Four runners were pounding on the outside of the Humvee without stopping; all of them were fresh kills from the battle. Many dozens, maybe hundreds of shamblers were pressing in towards us. We couldn’t see out the windows past the writhing, grasping mass of dead flesh covering our vehicle. I didn’t know how anyone could get close enough to take the runners out safely.

No matter what we did, it didn’t seem it could get any worse than it was. I told Lauren to strap Evelyn and herself in. I buckled up myself and tried to loosen up the zombies a bit.

Turning the engine on, I pushed forwards a couple of feet, backed up a few more, and went forward again. I did this over and over again to create a gap in the mass of zombies. Several fell off the top of the vehicle at the same time. I could finally see front and back for a short distance. There were well over a hundred out here, but fewer were in the direction of the river.

It took thirty minutes of plowing back and forth through the mob before enough of the one behind the Humvee were turned to messy red goo. Suddenly, we broke through to the rear through the thinned ranks of the undead. I backed onto the river trail and headed south, one runner still on top and three in hot pursuit. Knocking down several shamblers on the trail, we sped to create some distance from the runners. I whipped it into a quick U-turn and charged the runners.

Our clinging runner was flung off and behind us from the force of the turn. We hit two out of the three chasing us at thirty miles an hour. It made a tremendous noise as one of them was shattered. I saw dozens and more shamblers coming out of the canal road looking for us. I performed a quick three point turn and bore down on the three remaining runners. The one I hit before couldn’t move out of the way fast enough and paid the price, permanent rest. Our clinging zombie was next in line and fell under our tires instead of making it onto our roof.

One runner remained. He was quick and didn’t want to be under our tires. I called to Lauren and slowed down to let the runner get closer. Lauren popped the hatch and took aim with her M4 carbine. It took her three quick bursts, but the runner was hit and fell motionless into the dirt. Lauren jumped down and closed the hatch as quickly as she could.

I radioed Angela and Fabian about our situation and location. There was no need to have them come out to retrieve us at this point. We had room for two more passengers and we were their best hope. “How could we reach them? I asked myself. The river!

We raced down the river trail, knocking over several shamblers on the way. I headed for the Katella Avenue Bridge. At Katella, there was an access road blocked by a chain link gate. I remember it from the many times I road my bicycle down this trail to the ocean.

We bowled through the gate and I pulled a hard left to avoid the wrecks in the middle of the road. I took the left onto Main street, one block before Batavia, to keep the slow hoard behind us from tracking where we were and give us a moment to think about how we were going to do this. I parked between two light industrial buildings to stay out of sight.

Calling Kelsey on the radio, I asked her to look up and down Batavia and fill me in on the situation. Runners had a large hoard massed in the Foamex factory lot north of their position, apparently trying to get at some of the pirates who fled during the battle. At least a thousand zombies were assembled in that lot. Another smaller hoard was assembled. To their south around a car parts warehouse, but no runners were visible. Only a few wandering zombies milled around the base of their buildings, giving us a small window of opportunity.

I told them both to tie off their ropes to air conditioning units on the roofs and be ready to slide down onto our Humvee as we pull up. I repeated what I wanted over and in greater detail, then had each of them repeat it. We had only one chance at this.

As we pulled out onto Main Street and turned right, Lauren opened the roof hatch. We turned left Batavia and headed north fast. One block away from their location, I watched Will toss the rope over the side and start sliding down. I stopped underneath him and he jumped onto the roof. He kept a hand on his weapon and pack as he jumped into the hatch feet first.

Once I saw Wills feet hit the floor, I drove the Humvee in a quick, wide turn to the other side of the street. Kelsey was already most of the way down when I stopped. Kelsey was able to do the same, but had some trouble getting her pack and rifle in the hatch. I started moving so the shamblers nearby couldn’t catch us, and then I saw the runners from the south. I yelled “Runners!”

Will yanked Kelsey down into the Humvee hard. She yelled, but he ignored it, popping up, freeing her pack, and pulling the gear inside. The hatch closed and locked a few seconds later and we were all safe inside.

There wasn’t any time to think, I had to choose right away a plan to get us home in one piece. In this case, the enemy I knew was a lot less scary than the enemy I didn’t know. I charged south at the eight runners I saw coming toward us. I could have gone faster, but I didn’t know what damage could be done to the Humvee. I hit them at thirty miles an hour, blowing through their ranks. I know I hit at least three, but Lauren told me only two stayed down. That wasn’t my first worry. I was more concerned about the fifty or more zombies in front of us that had decided to follow the runners.

I had some spare smoke alarms in the back seat. I told Lauren to get one ready to toss out her door. I pounded through the shambler masses at fifteen miles an hour without much trouble since they weren’t tightly packed. Once on the other side of the small hoard, I slowed, had Lauren hit the alarm and she tossed it gently onto the pavement. This distracted the runners coming after us long enough for us to make our turn to Main Street and then back to Katella.

Our problems kept coming back at us. The hoard from the river was starting to flow out of the river trail and onto Katella. This was going to be out way home, so I didn’t let a little thing like this slow us down. I pushed through the zombies, turned right, and gunned the engine onto the access road. The distance the shamblers walked caused their ranks to loosen here, that and they didn’t have a runner whipping them up.

I called in that we were going to make for the southwest corner of the high wall by the river and that they needed to meet us with a ladder. Richard said they would need at least five minutes to get over there. I thought it may even be a little longer.

This would not do. Too many zombies would be on us if we had to sit and wait. It would take some time for everyone to get up the ladder and I wasn’t sure Evelyn could do it at all. I told Lauren to get another alarm ready. Turning around and heading south again, I made for a wide spot near Katella. It had a little green belt and bathrooms near Katella.

We pushed through a crowd of zombies again and when we hit a gap, Lauren dropped the alarm. This worked like a charm. The majority of zombies lost interest in us and we headed back north, to the high wall. I drove at a moderate pace, making sure I hit as many shamblers as I could in the process.

We reached the southwest corner of the wall, near where the wrecked Humvee was laying. The ladder came down to us as we stopped and everyone piled out. Richard dismounted the machine gun and tied it to a rope for Fabian to pull up. Richard and I then did the same to the machine gun from the wrecked Humvee. We could see zombies approach from the canal as Richard and I scaled the ladder. At last, we were all safe.

[maldon007]

The only improvement I would make is, moar.

[walterde]

I'm gonna go ahead and just say what everyone else is thinking. Here is gong to be moar right!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!!!!!!!!!!?!

[WildWest]

Day 118

Part 2

What bittersweet days these are for us. I am overwhelmed with joy to be back in the castle with my wife and son safe, smothered in their hugs and attention as we rejoice in our victory. Yet I am also shattered that our sanctuary is not so safe that we cannot be attacked and suddenly lose everything in a moment, including the lives of those we love. We lost two in this battle. Though this was an overwhelming victory for us, Rex and Patricia are dead.

Our friends are wrapped in blankets, laying in a garage near the castle gate. They are wrapped tight, and as a precaution, we have the bodies tightly bound with rope in case they turn. Nobody expects that to happen really. They were killed in battle and no zombie touched them. We just can’t take a chance.

Vicky hasn’t left the garage since Rex was placed there. Her sobbing is constant and she won’t speak with anyone. She is truly shattered by the loss of her father. Rex had made sure that she and her children survived the onslaught of the zombies when their town and ranch were overrun. Later when their hideout became untenable, Rex that led them here. He brought them through innumerable dangers, focusing on protecting his family. Vicky counted on him, she relied on him, he was her safety. With his passing, she lost the strongest connection she had to her world before the apocalypse. Now she was truly terrified about the present and future.

Mirabel has also spent a great deal of time in there. Patricia had cared deeply for all of the kids from her school, and Mirabel knew how much Patricia loved her. Mirabel only cried for a short time though. She stayed in the garage to look after Patricia to make sure she wouldn’t become one of the bad people. Something inside of her needed to know that Patricia was good till the end, that the trust she gave Patricia was right. Also, I think she was trying to protect Patricia from becoming one of the bad people. Patricia had protected her for so long that she wanted to do the same. It was her way of showing that she loved Patricia.

Most of us paid our respects to them throughout the day. I think it was especially important for all of us to recognize how interconnected we all are. Through this sad time we can find another example of how we are not just individuals thrown together by chance and a world violently out of control. We have become much more than that, we are a family. When one of us is lost, we all feel it. We can share in each other’s hurt and seek comfort with one another.

This is what Mirabel taught Vicky today. It was after dinner when Mirabel brought Vicky something to eat. Mirabel didn’t talk to Vicky, though she had never been at a loss for words before. Mirabel just walked up and wrapped her tiny arms around Vicky’s head and held her tight, caressing her hair. This is something Patricia had done many times before to comfort Mirabel. She now did the same for this woman who had been crying for hours, seemingly not knowing how to stop.

Mirabel nudged Vicky to lay her head down, which she did. Mirabel lay next to her and kept stroking her hair, just as Patricia had done on many a scary night. Vicky, exhausted, began to drift away, still shattered and sobbing, but something had changed in her, something small, but important. It wasn’t something she thought, but something she knew. As Vicky drifted off, she knew she wasn’t alone.

[WildWest]

Day 118

Part 3

Guard duty. Knowing what was going on just outside our walls meant guard duty. Having so many children in our group and not too many adults means that everyone thirteen and up gets a rotation. By including the youngsters, we can field eight pairs of guards. I set up a schedule to have two teams on duty at all times, each team armed with a sniper rifle, .22 rifle, MP4s, and side arms. Working in pairs will help keep them accountable and make it a bit harder for them to be knocked out by a surprise attack.

One team is set on the northwest corner so that the armored car on the bridge can be watched, along with the eastern approach via Lincoln Avenue. The other team patrols the high wall on the south so that the river approach and Batavia are periodically checked. It’s not a perfect solution, I know. We just have too much wall, too many obstructions, and not enough adults. One thing we have plenty of are zombies. They may be our real protection right now from another attack. A strong hoard has formed on the Lincoln Bridge and westward, blocking that approach. We also have them massed all along the southern barricades and wall. Anyone wanting to make trouble for us will need to make a lot of noise getting through them.

Kelsey and Lauren were leading the guard teams late in the day. I wanted to take some time out with Fabian, Will, and Richard to discuss our defenses. This latest attack proved one very obvious thing, our defenses are weak. If Rex hadn’t have made some changes to our defensive plan a couple days ago, we would have been lost. He’s not here now, but we can learn a little from what’s happened and do a better job in preparing for an attack from the living. This is something that needs to be addressed immediately.

Will was our resident sniper expert because he was a good shot. His main concern is that laying on the wall, he’s an easy target. Even if he’s back on the mound in the aggregate yard, he can be picked out pretty easy and would be an easy target. Richard had an idea to build barricades on the wall, a sort of battlement that was used on medieval castles. A good idea, but rounds from a high powered rifle can blow through most junk we could put up there.

Remembering that we are right-smack next to a sandbagging yard for flood control, I beamed about putting up sandbag bunkers. Two feet of sandbags can stop most any rounds we might encounter in a battle with pirates. We could even put some wood roofs on them and sandbag those. That would offer protection from grenades or home-made bombs.

Fabian was concerned about how much labor it would take to do this all the way around, and if there were enough bags available. He did some quick math and I was shocked at the number of bags needed to build a sandbag battlement for the walls. Richard had another stroke of brilliance here. He questioned why we had to do the whole thing, just build bunkers that are spaced out and they would act as wall towers. Will didn’t like it because he couldn’t move from place to place. He worried about getting picked off. We all sighed when we realized the weakness in the idea, at least until Richard chimed back in.

He said “Why walk on the wall when you can walk through it?” Richard got out some paper and furiously started drawing up his idea to cut hatches in the wall and use it as a tunnel to connect the bunkers. He also drew in additional hatches for the upper wall to use as loopholes for sniping. It was brilliant. We could guard and defend while being heavily shielded from enemy fire. Snipers could switch positions under cover in order to prevent effective counter-sniper fire. Fabian was sure we could build it. We had all the welding equipment and supplies necessary and the number of sandbags required would not be prohibitive.

An excitement filled the air. Our team was brainstorming some great ideas that we could implement and vastly improve our defenses. We continued on until the next guard shift, reviewing how to use mobility in addition to static defenses. Our review of zombie tactics was useful in knowing how they could provide a strong defense, but we tried to carry the idea into offense. It wouldn’t take much time before people tried to use them as an offensive weapon. It was best we gave this some thought.

Finally, I pulled up some E-books from my laptop and loaded them on some book readers we had found in the neighborhood. I made sure each person had a handbook on sniper training, infantry tactics, and combat tactics in built up terrain. This was to keep the creative juices flowing and hopefully get us a little more knowledge of how to defend our area and defeat an enemy that is trained and persistent.

[Nancy1340]

WildWest while I usually would not write this in another story. You have been kind enough to listen to us readers about your story.

A passage from the Bible was cool at first and while I'm sure that in a zed apocalypse many non believers would turn to God and I'm sure all the believers reading your story now are enjoying it. But to be honest the emphasis on religion has turned me off to your story. I don't mean this as an insult or attack in any way to your story just voicing my thoughts on it. Me being a non believer I get the feeling your trying to push religion on the reader a bit to much for my taste. While your story was fresh and entertaining it has lost me in all the Biblical talk.

Again I hope I don't come off like a jackass and apologize if I'm out of line.

Warpath, you said this in a lot nicer way than 99% of how most people that don't have faith in a higher power, surpreme being, god, or how ever you want to put it...................but I'm bettin' you would not have said anything if the story had had passages in it about how there is no God or higher power than ourselves, no after life to make ready for.

No ill intent in my post here. I just wanted to see if had thought about that.

[WildWest]

Day 118

Part 4

Kelsey and Lauren found guard duty boring, which meant they were glad for the company. Kelsey had Karl for a partner and Eduard was with Lauren. The four hour shift was slow for both of them. When they got back they chatted a bit about the battle and what had happened over the last couple of days. Their conversation quickly turned to their fears about whether the pirates were still out waiting for them to lower their guard. Not knowing was a horrible feeling to have. They quickly headed to the radio for the evening to see what they could hear.

[Loud with static] “No tengo nada!”

[Faint with a lot of static] “Porque?”

[Loud with static] “Los ladrones de los Estados Unidos tomo todo...”

[Faint with a lot of static] “Vienen sur y vivir la vida pacifica.”

[Loud with static] “No, mi hermana tiene mala salud.”

[Faint with a lot of static] “Pobrecita. Mis oraciones ir con usted tanto.”


The transmission dropped after that but Kelsey knew a little Spanish and got the gist of it. The pirates had a victim that paid out or escaped with little more than their life. Life has become very dangerous for the survivors, even if they are able to avoid being eaten by the zombies.

For most of the remaining evening they listened to static, but were rewarded with their persistence.

“This is Doc Marten transmitting from Moreno valley, is anyone out there… This is Doc Marten transmitting from Moreno valley, is anyone out there… This is Doc Marten transmitting from Moreno valley, is anyone out there…”

“Doc, this is Samaritan Station in Orange California, do you read me?” responded Kelsey.

“I read you. Boy is it great to hear your voice! We’ve been without a radio for months.” Doc said excitedly.

“Where did you find your new radio?” Kelsey asked.

“We just moved into a firehouse in the open county area east of town. Had been holed up at my friends ranch in the hills but we ran out of food. I’d swear we were the only things alive in the whole world till we heard your voice.”

“How many are you?” Kelsey asked.

“Six as of this morning.” Doc sounded somber, “We lost three this morning in the move.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Are you all safe?”

“Yeah, Margy is hurt though. She got bit in the arm. She had a heavy leather jacket on and I can’t see any broken skin. We’re watching her in case she turns. We brought water with us and picked up a good amount of food on the way. We’re okay for now.”

“Sorry to hear about Margy,” Kelsey said in a quiet voice, “I hope she’ll be okay.”

“So, when can we expect a rescue out here?”

Kelsey was stunned. Was he serious?

“I don’t think they’ll be any rescue for some time, if ever. It’s not too wise to move in the open very much.”

“Aren’t you a rescue station? Don’t you have transports? We saw the helicopters fly through the valleys!” Doc said in a distressed voice.

“We don’t have any military out here.” Kelsey explained, ”They headed out long ago. We’re all on our own. We’ve been transmitting a message to help people if they can get to us, but we’re not part of the government. We’re just trying to help people as best we can.”

“Where did they go? Why did they leave us behind? Will they be coming back?” Doc was almost pleading.

“They couldn’t hold anything on the continent worth mentioning. There are some outposts in the highest elevations and the far north, but they’re going to have a rough go of it trying to stay fed. Some of the small towns in the far north are still okay too, but they’ll have the same problem this winter. Most of the military from the west coast headed for Hawaii…”

“Leaving us for their own paradise, eh.” Doc said with some sarcasm.

“The islands died along with every other part of the world. I think it was the only area that they thought they could take back that could also support a decent number of people.” Kelsey said supportively, “I hope they make it, they helped us a lot before they left.”

“Did they leave you supplies?”

“No, they took care of some bad neighbors. We still had a run-in with them, but nothing like it would have been if they hadn’t cleaned their clocks a few weeks earlier.”

“Any chance your bad neighbors would head out this way?”

“Not likely. We cleaned their clocks pretty good too. I don’t think they’ll be feeling like moving inland for a while.” Kelsey was proud of that fact.

“If we were to head your way, how would we get there?” Doc asked.

“It’s almost straight west of your area. The 91 west from Riverside gets you here but you don’t want to be anywhere near a freeway. They’re nothing but zombie farms. You need to get some strong trucks and find back streets that can get you out here. I’m partial to dump trucks myself. They do a good job plowing the road.”

Doc laughed at hearing that. “I bet they do, a lot better than my Nissan I’m sure.”

“Doc, are you a real doctor or is that a nickname?”

“Just a nickname. I’m really a nurse, but I can do a lot of stuff.”

“Good to know. Maybe we’ll see each other some time.”

“Looking forward to it.” Doc said with a friendly voice, “Time to call it a night. I hope to talk to you tomorrow Samaritan Station.”

“We’ll be here” Kelsey responded.

[WildWest]

Day 119


The zombie horde is still pressing against the barricades at the bridge and to the south, but they've gone back to the homes on the east side. This is some relief for us. I've asked the guards to take out any runners or fast walkers with their .22s and keep a count. We had 36 dropped through the course of the day. This included two fresh runners.


Apparently the men in the armored car couldn't take the thought of dying of dehydration. The popped open the back door and tried to force their way out. One stepped on the bumper but that's as far as either of them got before being mauled by the horde. Jared had sniper duty on his team and took down the runners when they popped up. From 150 yards he popped them with ease. They were badly mauled and were too physically damaged to pick up speed.


Richard and Fabian kept busy putting together the details of the new wall defenses. They spent the day drawing up detailed plans for the bunkers, loopholes, and sandbags for all the fighting positions. They even came up with some new ideas that have some merit, including building a new gate for vehicles to move through. This has some real possibilities.


I had Sean and Eduard help me with a more difficult task, digging the graves for Rex and Patricia. I chose a grassy lawn under some trees, just inside the outer wall. It would make a cool place to visit in the afternoon and would not need to be disturbed if we had any future building projects.


Maria and Vicky worked on the markers with Sean, Karl, and Mirabel. They used hand tools to fashion some nice wooden crosses for the graves. On each cross piece they engraved their names and the years of their lives. They were truly well done. Vicky is very good with wood and put a lot of love into the task. Everything was ready in the late afternoon for the service.


Everyone not on guard duty gathered at the grave side while I and the boys brought our dearly departed friends.

I said a few words about God and how Jesus' sacrifice on the cross gave us the right to go to heaven if we just believe and trust in Him. Continuing, I talked about how we all have the hope of seeing them again someday. Our life on this planet is not all that there is, it’s just a place we’ll be for a time, like a pilgrim on a journey to the Promised Land. I know Patricia would have approved of the message. I think Rex would have too, judging by the approving smile Vicky showed through her tears.


I didn't leave the service at that. I let people know they had the opportunity to speak in remembrance of our friends if they chose. Vicky immediately stepped forward and spoke for a few minutes about her dad and how he was always a source of strength and safety for her. Next, each of her kids spoke through their tears about their grandfather.


Then Richard stepped up. Choking back tears, he described their first meeting and how Rex had saved his life. He was grateful to have known Rex. He also said he was determined to live a life of courage in protecting those he cared about, just as Rex had done.


The speakers for Patricia were no less heart wrenching. It was clear that these two had profoundly impacted those around them. Their ideals and character are already a part of those they have left behind.


As the service ended, everyone headed back to the villa. My helpers and I finished burying our dead. Then we too slowly walked back home.

[TheOrder45]

Fantastic story, keep it up.

[maldon007]

^^^

[WildWest]

Day 119

Part 2

Jared and Janelle had guard duty on the south wall during and after the funeral. Both of them armed with MP4s slung on their backs and 9MM side arms on their hips. Jared cradled his M110 sniper rifle in his arms. Janelle had laid her .22 rifle next to her as she picked up binoculars and scanned the scene down Batavia.

A horde was moving up their way. Some fresh runners were bolting north at a sprint, right for them. Following behind the runners as fast as they could manage were hundreds of walkers and shamblers. The runners were about 150 yards out when Jared grabbed the .22. Repositioning himself in a prone position, Jared sent a round down range. He saw a feint wisp of dust kick up from the chest of a runner. He quickly corrected his aim and sent another small round into the forehead of the lead runner. It skidded to a stop as if sliding into third base.

Jared caught on more as it scaled the gate on Batavia and another as they ran to the wall. Hundreds of the zombies pressed against the gate trying to reach the fresh meat. Only the two remaining runners had gotten through. They were trying to leap and climb up the wall just below the young duo. Janelle pulled the .22 back from Jared and finished off the last two with top shots.

“Why did you take my rifle?” Janelle demanded.

“I’m a better shot at long range. I’m the sniper.” Jared barked back.

“Don’t be a jerk about it!” Janelle let loose, “I’m getting better, but how am I supposed to get practice if you’re hogging all the shots, huh? We’re on the wall. Those things can’t get us up here. That means this is target practice. Don’t you get it?”

Jared sheepishly responded “Okay, okay, I get it. Sorry about that. I just don’t like the idea of them getting too close. The farther out I can get them, the safer I feel.”

“Well, if I can get some more practice I’ll be able to hit them farther out too.”

“I bet you’re right.” Jared smiled, “Let’s see if we can make that happen. See the one at the gate with the yellow T-shirt? Let’s use him as a target.”

Jared spent the next ten minutes coaching Janelle on how to make shots at a hundred yards. Janelle wasn’t a natural at shooting, but was eager to learn. Even more, she showed that she could improve with practice. Her first target took her eight shots to bring down. The last two targets took three shots each.

The remainder of their shift they talked about shooting.

[WildWest]

Day 119

Part 3

Conversations over dinner ranged far and wide. The dinner itself was served as a buffet and people milled about talking about Rex and Patricia. The younger children played through the house and in the front yard. The older kids mostly listened to the adult conversations and looked out for the little ones.

Fabian and Richard were keen to talk about their plans for wall defenses. They worked out a system for cutting through the containers and making it into a tunnel system. Richard added the idea of bolting together the containers from the inside so that it would be more resistant to impacts or explosions that could separate the containers. Fabian also gave though as to clearing the contents of the containers and laying down carpet to muffle the noise of moving through the tunnels. It was going to be a lot of work and take time to complete, but I have confidence in them. I told them to grab Mark and Janelle to help until the project was done.

Kelsey brought up the subject of Doc Marten and his group in Moreno Valley. She had a good feeling about them and wanted us to help if we could, especially if we could find a way to get them all the way out here. I agreed in principal since we desperately need someone that can practice medicine. I’m fully aware that we’d been fortunate so far not to have an illness or accident that claimed the lives of some in our community.

The last time we went out and about town was when we brought back Evelyn. We almost didn’t make it back that day. I still get shivers from seeing that runner hanging onto the door of the dump truck and me having to blast it off. Still, the pirates were able to move about with a certain amount of freedom. Perhaps we could work out a way to do it as well?

I told Kelsey that I’d work with Will and Vicky to see how we might manage it. After all, they both survived out in the open for a long time, and Vicky had travelled here all the way from Nevada. If there was a way to do it relatively safely, we would figure it out. With that, I asked Kelsey to talk with Doc tonight and share any lessons learned on how to survive the zombies. I also asked her to start broadcasting the rescue message again.

[WildWest]

Day 119

Part 4


“Doc, are you there?” Kelsey asked by the glow of the radio.

“Sure am young lady. I’ve been waiting for you. I listened to some gentlemen in Spanish, but I don’t understand a bit of it.”

“How are you guys holding out today?”

“We’re doing alright. We have food and water here in the firehouse. Not much light inside, so we spent the afternoon up on the roof. Margy’s feeling better too. I gave her a clean bill of health today. If she were infected, she would have died and turned already.”

“That’s a relief.” Kelsey then changed the subject, “What are your plans.”

“We don’t really have any. We can hold out here for a month and a half, but then we have to go get some more food and water. We don’t have a lot of ammunition and they swarm on us when we shoot at’em anyway. I don’t think any of us want to go outside. I guess we’ll just play it by ear and just wait till the monsters start rotting away.”

“I think there’s a lot you need to know, things you missed hearing about when you lost your radio.”

“Like what?” Doc sounded concerned.

“Like nobody is expecting them to rot away any time soon. They seem to have stopped decaying and they also seem to hide from the elements and save their energy. The zombies could be with us for years.”

“Ooh! That’s not good.”

“It gets worse. Something’s different about their metabolism, their biology.”

“I’ll say! I never heard of anything else getting up while it was dead.” Doc snickered.

“Doc, this is serious! They like the cold. I mean, they really like it. When it cools down into the forties for a while they’ll start winding back up and becoming runners again, all of them. Southern California will be filled with twenty million runners.”

Silence from Doc.

“You’ve got to have walls that are strong and high, and your own food and water supply, if you’re going to survive the winter. Your group doesn’t have that and I bet you aren’t going to be able to do it in the next two months either!”

“You’re right about that. So, are you saying we should say our goodbyes to each other?”

“No Doc, I’m not saying that. It looks bad right now, but we’ve got some hope. I think Samaritan Station can make it through. We’ve got the walls, supplies, and firepower to stay safe. Anybody that can make it here will have sanctuary.”

“I don’t think that will do us any good out here. We lost a third of our group travelling only four rural miles. You’re twenty miles away across two counties.” Doc lamented.

“I already asked my uncle about this. He’s working on a plan.”

“I hope it’s a good one.”

[WildWest]

Day 119

Part 5


The lights were out and everyone had gone to bed.

“You are not going out there again!” anger filled her words.

“I have to.” I said in a low voice.

“No you don’t! I need you, we need you.” Tears ran down her face as she pleaded.

“You know it’s the right thing to do.”

“I don’t care. I…I…” she stammered

“I know you’re scared. I am too.” I said, trying to calm her.

“I’m pregnant! We’re going to have a baby.”

I was stunned by the news. My heart churned in my chest and I felt a deep pit open up in my stomach. “How long have you known?”

“Just a week now. I wasn’t sure, but it can’t be anything else. We’re going to have a baby.” She said, obviously worried that I would be angry.

I smiled and hugged her. “This is wonderful news. I love being a daddy. It’s what I do best.”

“Then you’ll stay?”

“You know I can’t. It’s not just about them, it’s about us. We need them and what they have. Our children’s lives depend on it. It’s also about who we are. I want our children growing up in a world ruled by faith and love, not ruled by fear and an attitude of walking away from others. This is right, and you know it.”

“I know it.” She said quietly, “I just don’t like it. Hold me!”

Angela fell asleep in my arms.

[TheOrder45]

Amazing!! And damned if that Wasnt a cliff hanger.. Wow.

[WildWest]

Day 120

The morning watch reported that the zombies started to thin out on the south side. That meant it was time to roll out and do some cleanup. Will and Lauren took up position with M110s in case there was an accident. Kelsey and I were going to drive the dump trucks. Jared got the privilege of opening the gate and running out of the way. Jared wasn’t too happy with this, but he became more of a sport when Rachael and Eduard offered to cover him with .22s.

The whole operation went well. A couple of walkers had been between the gate and car wall, Jared popped them in the head before opening the gate. Jared unlocked and opened the gate. He then picked a spot on the wall to clear with a forklift and pulled the cars inside. That opened the floodgate and I got to work in the lead truck. Jared got way out of the way as I rolled back and forth over the intruders, making crimson slurry on the road. Rachael and Janelle kept the sidewalk clear with headshots so I didn’t need to worry about any getting behind me and harassing Kelsey. It was better not to have both trucks rolling in the same spot; we didn’t need an accident that could knock them out of service.

The river of zombies eventually gave out and Jared needed to clear more of the car wall for us. This didn’t go as planned though. The slurry was too deep for the forklift and the wheels started to spin. I had him run back and get a dozer to scrape off the asphalt. This took another fifteen minutes, but it was better than ramming through the wall and messing up a perfectly good barricade. He finished clearing the opening for the trucks and we went to work.

I drove up a block to do my mad truck stomp on the living dead while Kelsey took the area closer to the gate. Jared closed and locked the gate behind us and repositioned on the wall along with Rachael and Janelle. We were able to stay occupied on Batavia for two hours before they stopped coming in from the side streets and parking lots. Then it was music time!

We baited more of them in with our music so we didn’t have to chase them through side streets. It sure would make cleanup easier. I felt like annoying them with something new for their final song, so I picked a Gloria Trevi CD, No Soy Monedito De Oro. Kelsey had a much more pleasant CD in mind, Tommy from The Who. This gave us another two hours of work before we called off the grinding.

Next came the even less pleasant task of cleanup. I directed Jared to use the dozer to scrape the road and pile up what remains he could on the roadside. What a mess, it was like plowing a road after a blizzard, except the drifts were red and black with arms and legs protruding. Blood flowed out of the drifts and into the storm drains. I know it is heading into the river and to the sea. I just hope nobody is drinking the water down river, it will be diseased for a week.

We still had half the day left, so we refueled and did the same trick down Lincoln Avenue to the East. It was truly gruesome work, but it cleared the path for anyone who might make their way out here. It was also the first step towards fixing some more outer defenses and doing a bit of travelling.

[WildWest]

Day 120

Part 2

The cutting was going quicker than he expected, thought Fabian. He’s been able to use a cutting torch since he was seventeen and knew how to make quick work of it. The slow part was clearing the containers. This is where Richard, Mark, and Janelle earned their keep. A full sized entry way was cut for access one container over from the southeast corner of the outer wall. It was through this that they would pull out all of the junk and load it into the back of a truck to dump.

Fabian was usually the person that kept people motivated during a construction job, but this time it was Richard that kept everybody rolling. Mark and Janelle could see his vision of a castle to protect from the monsters outside. They wanted to be a part of building this fortress and being that much safer inside their home. It didn’t hurt that they got tremendous pride in being involved in something that could directly save the lives of their friends.

They worked a long day, clearing out five containers in the process. Not all the goods were disposed of. Some were seen to have some value, such as camping equipment, toys, blankets, and clothing. Angela and Maria came to help get these sorted and organized while the others moved out the junk. They were excited about having all this extra storage space, as well as finding household goods in a way that didn’t involve risking the lives of their friends and family.

At the end of his day, Fabian had a good idea. He was going to save the plates he removed in order to weld a tunnel between the first and second walls. This would allow free movement to us in case explosives were being used outside. We would also have mobility in case zeds entered our perimeter or an escape route if we had to leave in a hurry. Overall, it was a stroke of brilliance.

[WildWest]

Day 120

Part 3
Vicky was watching the kids today. Mirabel talked her into it.

Sarah and Jackson started to fit in well with the other kids. Some of the kids were older and some were younger. Most of them played well together. Karl and Sean were the oldest of the group now and played well with the younger ones, though they often just kept to themselves. That’s the way today was.

It was Dakota and Mickey that tended to set the tone for the pack. Both of them had a strong sense of right and wrong. To go with that, they were both very outgoing and could see beyond just themselves. Sarah and Jackson fit in with this culture very well. Their parents and grandparents had taught them self-control at an early age and expected it to be on display daily. The kids welcomed them into the heart of their group quickly, aided by Mirabel insisting on them playing a central role in their game.

Vicky was happy to see her kids fit in so quickly. She would sometimes let her mind wander off when she saw how she didn’t need to worry so much about her children. She spent every waking moment terrified for them over the last four months and she had forgotten how to turn that off. She had never been an over-protective parent. She liked the idea of her children being independent and responsible citizens. Her husband Bill wouldn’t have it any other way.

Losing her father is what snapped her out of her terror for her kids. She was shattered herself at the loss and it forced her to focus on fears other than what might happen to Sarah and Jackson at any given moment. She didn’t get any comfort from how she was able to let go of her fear. It was more that she had fallen so completely and a little girl had brought her back, a total stranger really. Somehow she found comfort in the arms of little Mirabel, a sense of safety. It wasn’t really Mirabel herself that made her feel safe, it was that this group had taken them in so quickly and completely, and then they had a sense of safety that Mirabel was able to reach out to her without fear.

It was a powerful example for her to follow. She probably couldn’t have followed Mirabel’s example if it weren’t that she had given up on herself for a moment. Vicky remembered her moment of despair, leaning over her father’s body in the garage, thinking that all was lost and there was no purpose in going on. Her children didn’t even enter into her mind. In her despair, Vicky had let go of them and had died to herself on the inside, if but for a moment. Mirabel’s loving caress made her feel like a baby born into a new family, a family that would protect her and her children.

Watching them play in the yard made that clear now. The fog on her heart was starting to lift. She thought that Bill would approve. Oh how she missed Bill. He saved them all by getting them to her dad’s ranch, only to be killed by two of the neighbors as they were fleeing to the high country to wait out the madness. The neighbors wanted their truck and all the supplies. They pulled their guns on him as he was stepping into the truck. Bill caught the movement from the corner of his eye and dropped on of them, only to be shot by the other in the stomach. Bill gave dad enough time to shoot them both though. He died in my arms the next day, she thought to herself.

Bill wanted us to be safe. He would want us to be here.

Vicky walked out of the front door and joined the kids for a game of kickball.

[WildWest]

Day 120

Part 4

Tonight I’ll be taking a turn at the radio. Kelsey just stopped the recorded message and brought Doc Marten on the line. She said hello and asked how they were doing before introducing me to him. He seemed eager and friendly enough.

“So Doc, are you interested in going on a trip before winter sets in?” I said, trying to get a sense of where his heart was at.

“We’ve been listening to the radio since last night and have heard some of what Kelsey told us yesterday. Not too many people are left in the world, and those that are aren’t looking forward to winter too much. We all want to get out of here, but I don’t think we would make it very far. We’re not equipped to deal with the city zombies, we could barely get through the ones scattered in the country.” Doc said disappointed.

“What kind of vehicle do you have?” I asked.

“Two pickups and a minivan.”

“That won’t do. You wouldn’t get two blocks in the city.”

“No kidding!” he said in a gruff voice.

“Why don’t you hitch a ride with us then?” I offered.

“You bet. Are you on your way yet?”

“We’ll need a few more days to get ready for the trip. I need to make sure I get home in one piece or my wife will have my head.”

“What do you need from us to help out?” Doc asked.

“Nothing much, just where we might get some breeding pairs of farm animals and stores of feed. Some seed and fertilizer would be nice too.” I said.

“Where are you gonna carry it, in your back pocket?” Doc poked back at me.

“You just leave that to me, I have a few tricks up my sleeve.”

“Anything else?”

“Yeah. Have you ever delivered a baby before?”

“Only a few dozen. Looks like it will be a fun winter.”

“You betcha! Out”

[WildWest]

Day 121

It was time to move around town this morning. I took Will, Kelsey, and Jared for this one. I see all three of them have a good understanding of how to defend an area. I want them to have a hand in resetting our outer defenses. I put all of the other older kids under Richard’s direction to clear out containers and help organize the supplies we would keep. I want Richard to make some good progress through the morning because I have something to keep everyone busy through the afternoon.

We left out of the Batavia gate in two dump trucks around nine in the morning. We’d spent the first couple of hours getting alarms wired up, remotes programmed, and handling some other interesting items. We didn’t have enough to do everything I wanted, so our first stop was a military hobby store on the corner of Taft and Batavia. Will kept our visitors busy under his wheels while the rest of us cleared the store and found what we needed. The store was in great shape. Apparently nobody thought about looting a hobby store on their way to fighting a zombie army.

It worked out well for us. We were able to place alarms a mile out from Samaritan station. We couldn’t transmit out to many of them at that range, at least if we didn’t have the signal repeaters Fabian had stashed away. We covered the southern and eastern approaches to Samaritan station before lunch time. Then we placed them near the wall on all sides. This gave us the ability to draw hordes into our wall as a buffer, or move them out again when we were done with them. I’m sure it won’t be perfect, but the idea worked really well when we fought the pirates last week.

While we were out, we also placed incendiary remotes to start burns in selected areas as well as dropping tire pyres that we can light for smoke screens that would reduce visibility for attackers when we let the hordes loose on them. Overall it’s a pretty nasty affair, but I don’t intend to lose even a single battle.

One of the things I’ve given some thought to over the last couple of days was how zombies could be used offensively, so we could defend against such attacks properly. One of the more obvious uses would be to create a horde and use sound to direct them to an enemy. We can defend against that will the staged alarms and alarms on RC airplanes. Drawing them to the river would then have them head north or south, away from us.

A more exotic attack would be to transport them in a semi-trailer and drive it through our barricades, gates, and walls. I have a take similar t what Federal buildings did, they put poles and concrete barricades in the way so trucks couldn’t gain speed. I don’t want to block the approaches though. We need that space to clear out zombies like yesterday morning. Instead, we put some stacks of cars on the road farther out to cause a bottleneck, something like a steel berm. The area immediately around the gates is clear, but there is not enough room to accelerate a big truck to dangerous speeds. In addition, we rigged explosives on the telephone poles down Lincoln Avenue and Batavia. We can blow ten poles on each street and they’ll block the roads off quickly. The Lincoln Bridge is packed with ruined cars and trucks, so its already impassable without a timely clearing effort.

Our lunch break was a welcome treat for everyone. We all had a picnic in the front yard and relaxed for an entire hour. The crews on the containers were really tired. They needed a short rest before doing our afternoon training.

After eating, I broke the teens and older into four teams of four. Using unloaded weapons, the loaded ones were slung, we practiced clearing houses properly. One team would be the fire team and the other would be security. The fire team would enter the house, clear doorways, identify kill zones, pie corners, clear rooms as a team, and maintain a high carry to target between the eyes.

It proved to be way too much to learn in a single afternoon. Some of us picked up on it quickly, but others would need a lot more practice. We did this for four hours and then I cut loose most of the group to do some target practice with .22s on the Fletcher Avenue barricade. I kept Will, Jared, Kelsey, Lauren, and Richard till dark.

The six of us went over sniper tactics. Nothing advanced, it was just the basics. We practiced some basic concealment and why it was important. This included wrapping the rifle and making sure no shiny surfaces were exposed on the weapon or the person. We practiced selecting positions back from windows, doors, and loopholes so that we would minimize our visibility when positioning or firing. Finally, we practiced using ingress and egress routes to ensure our safety when operating as snipers.

I didn’t tell anyone, but I intend to repeat this training over the next few days to help it sink in a little bit. We won’t be a group of Rambo’s because of the training, but I do expect that we’ll be a bit more effective at fighting if we ever get in a scrap again.

[WildWest]

Day 122

I took a different crew out this morning. Riding with me were Kevin, Evelyn, and Mark. We were going to spend the morning gathering vehicles we needed and supplies from local warehouses and truck depots. The first stop was getting the Humvees organized and then the other vehicles and equipment we had already gathered. Then bringing in the five trailers we had already identified and left behind at the truck depot we had already been through. We hooked up the trailers and brought them inside the gate before nine in the morning.

After that, we hit the second trucking transfer station, ConWay Trucking. We had no difficulty clearing the lot of zombies and locking the gate behind us. The lot had one hundred and ten trailers stored and turned out to be a much better find than the USF Redaway lot we had been to before. Apparently ConWay gets used for stocking Target, Rite-Aid, and a number of other major chain outlets.

Half the trailers in the lot were empty. Of the other trailers, most had full loads. Six trailers were loaded for Target stores and another four were fully loaded for Rite Aid. This meant an assortment of clothing, household goods, medicines, and foods. Three more trailers were loaded for distribution to JC Penney department stores. One trailer was loaded with tools and parts for Ace Hardware stores. Other trailers included loads apparently contracted for Radio Shack, Staples, Trader Joes, Michaels, the Gap, and Big 5 Sporting Goods. Only a small fraction of the load was food and drink, but these supplies would be almost as important in maintaining our quality of life through the winter.

We were able to label the trailers, but only brought six back before having to stop. I’ll have Kevin, Evelyn, and Mark pick up the others tomorrow morning. I’ll lead a different team tomorrow on a different task in the industrial area tomorrow.

Training went a little better in the afternoon. Everyone seemed to get why we used fire teams and security teams, at least in general. Everyone got to do a few rounds at clearing houses with their teams. In addition to reinforcing the basics of entering, and clearing rooms, halls, corners, I had them work on team communication.

Later training also was similar in that I split people between snipers and basic marksmanship. The marksmanship training split between the barricades on Lincoln and Fletcher. I had Fabian make them practice on setting fields of fire for their teams and covering each other for reloads. Again, communication was the biggest part of the training.

Sniper training was more about fundamentals of shooting from concealment. We also practiced spotting and working in teams. This was a new idea for us, but we could see the power of working in a team. It gave the sniper far better security so that it could operate offensively and try to dominate the field. In these days, security is everything so that the zeds don’t take you out before you can engage the enemy.

[WildWest]

Day 122

Part 2

The gunfire started around seven in the evening. It was very distant, but intense. We had to listen carefully to fix the direction, southwest of us. The distance was hard to tell until we started to hear the small explosions. The explosions were grenades of some sort, about ten miles away. The battle went on for hours.

Whoever was fighting, both sides had some significant resources to bring to bear. Small arms fire was almost continuous for the duration of the battle. Dozens of grenades were used as well. One higher caliber machine gun was used for a brief time early in the battle, but it went silent after half an hour. I wondered how two sides could fight for so long generating so much noise. They must have a horde tens of thousands in size surging through their area.

Our own battle was loud and intense, but the firing didn’t last near as long, so our horde was only in the thousands. There was a new strategy at play here. I wanted to know what it was so we could defend against it. I got Kelsey and we headed to the radio for the evening.

We got our question answered on one of the police bands that night.

“Samaritan Station, this is Westminster PD, come in.” a ladies voice called.

“Samaritan Station here, go ahead Westminster PD.” I replied.

“Samaritan Station. We’ve been listening to your broadcasts and want you to relay a message as part of your regular broadcast. Can you do that for us?”

“What’s the message”

“Broadcast the following message: Survivors within ten miles of the coast should prepare against hostile action by pirate groups asserting control along the coast. Incursions are frequently occurring up to ten miles inland. Pirates attack using explosives to breach defenses and drive zombies into strongholds. Ensure you have an evacuation plan in case of a wall breach.” The officer said. “That’s all.”

“Is that what they did tonight?” I asked.

“Yes. They had a large force, maybe fifty in all. They hit us with rockets initially and breached the lobby and one wing of the station. Then the zombies started in. They weren’t expecting a counter attack though. We lobbed flash-bangs behind the zeds to move them back at the pirates. That backed off most of them, but they left a couple teams to keep up pressure on us. Once their main force was safe, they tried breaching our walls again, but we stopped them.”

“How did you stop them?”

“We just outlasted them. Our police station is a lot stronger than the other buildings in the area. It wasn’t as hard for us to damage the buildings they were in so the fifty-thousand zombies surging around us could greet their hosts. There were some runners in the group, we just had to blow out the windows on each floor and they would scale floor to floor.”

“Are you safe?”

“We’re alright. We have supplies to last and I don’t think they’ll mess with us again. We’re blasting out the windows of all the building with a line of sight to us so they can’t be used by them again. We don’t expect them to be so bold with us again.”

“You think they’re a threat to others though, right?”

“They’ve hit at least three other small groups near the coast this week. The only defeat they had was with you guys up in Orange. That was a bloody nose that they don’t want to repeat.”

“Thanks for the encouragement. We’ll add a warning for the survivors along the coast. DO you think you guys want to bug out and head up here?” I asked.

“No. We don’t have any heavy transportation left, just a few patrol cars. There’s no way we could make it inland in those. We wouldn’t want to try crossing the 22 or the 5 in anything less than a tank. We’re a little short on those.”

“I understand. Take care of yourselves.”

“Will do. Westminster PD out.”