Containment

[Odd Man Out]

WOW!

I've been waiting for a story like this!

now all I can say is MOAR!!!!!

[Laager]

Gabriel might be better off on his own, because I have a feeling that Mike does not have Gabriel's best interests in mind..........sort of like when the fed gov tells you they are here to help........great additional chapter......

[FIDO]

Too think I was predictable, baahambug.

You'll love the next chapter, however that might take a week.

[BearBait]

Must have MORE!!!

[Omega Storm]

Great so far.
More please.

[FIDO]

Wings of a Butterfly by H.I.M
“The blood on our hands is the wine we offer our sacrifice…”

Gabriel finished assembling the rest of the assorted gear from the remaining cases under the careful instruction of Mike, putting together a digital video camera on the side of the NVS-15 so that live video feed could be transmitted back to wherever Mike was currently located, hook that up to what looked like an oversized palm pilot that could transmit the signal far enough for the Predator UAV above him to pick up before assembling the rest of his gear.

Between the three cases he had a MOLLE assault vest complete with six double magazine pouches able to hold two 30-round magazines for his suppressed HK416 5.56mm assault rifle, which fired the same round and magazine as the M16A4 he decided to keep in the event of an emergency. The vest also had a single pistol magazine pouch that held eight magazines for the pistol that was also included.

His new rifle was equipped with a PEQ-16 infrared/laser sight the Predator drone could use to sight any matter of firepower, it could also assist Gabriel with his aim and the infrared feature could be useful while using the NVS-14 at night. There was also an ACOG 4x32mm optic that he mounted on the top rail, following the instructions to properly sight it in for his needs, all he needed to remember that he should avoid tunnel vision by gluing his eye to the scope, it was only for engaging targets at a safe distance. There was also a Lightweight Modular Shotgun System (LLMSS) mounted underneath the upper receiver of the rifle, but when Gabriel found fifty rounds of compressed metallic oxide rounds used for breaching locked doors, he figured that he wouldn’t be blasting zombies with it, but he marveled at the thought of getting through locked doors without having ricochets flying around and accidently killing him. It was a semi-automatic affair that didn’t have very much weight, it held four rounds and was able to properly mount the forward bipod so he could use it correctly.

The pistol was a 9mmx19mm Glock-17 complete with ten magazines, a tactical thigh holster, and a suppressor that was threaded on the right way, Gabriel figured it was an improvement over clubbing the zombies to death when he could just shoot them quietly from a safe distance.

There was also an assault pack loaded with four MRE’s, a trauma kit, two minor injury kits, a CamelBak hydration system, spare clothes that seemed to be his size, four canteens, a pouch filled with water treatment tablets, a coil of rope, modular sleeping system and a Gerber Field machete that looked like it would come in handy.

For ammunition, it consisted of 15 magazines for the HK416, plus an additional 300 rounds in an ammo can, along with 150 rounds of 9mm for the Glock-17. Aside from that he had an additional six MRE’s, another trauma kit, rain poncho and the rest of the electronic equipment, which consisted of a ToughBook for whatever reason, a small solar panel system for recharging batteries, which he had a shitload to carry around, a device that had three different style of plugs, a set of jumper cables and a regular USB connection. There was also a DAGR, some kind of GPS and palm pilot rolled into one that gave him up to date coordinates to his destination, along with how far away he was, his current speed and ETA.

All in all, it was lot of gear to be packing around anywhere, but considering that he had been told to sit tight and wait for further instructions kind of pissed him off. Not that he had any choice in the matter, Mike was trying to get some sort of clearance to send in help, but from the tense way Mike sounded, apparently the political situation seemed sort of bleak.

Gabriel found the TV without a problem and found the CNN news broadcasting through waves of snow and static, apparently this whole pandemic was being called the Cascade Effect and it seemed like everyone had the same idea, avoid the fucking area and leave the government to do what they deemed necessary. It was a whole lot of previous footage, interviews with high ranking military officials in charge containing the Cascade Effect, bouncing back and forth to famous news anchors recognized by the general public that were doing a lot of talking and not a whole lot of problem solving as he waited for something he didn’t know.

“Well Hank as you can see here we can observe the military is pulling all of the stops out to keep this disaster from spilling out of the quarantine zone, surrounding cities and towns within two hundred miles of the edge of the barricade are being evacuated by order of the President and anyone without the proper escort is not expected to get within a hundred miles of the zone.” The anchorwoman was dressed in a bulletproof vest with four soldiers in digital fatigues armed with M4 rifles and wearing MOPPD chemical warfare gear underneath all of the body armor, web harnesses and the combat load they had, Gabriel watched as the camera panned off to the left to show three vehicles sandwiched between a pair of Humvees as the occupants were busying be frisked and handcuffed by soldiers, obviously a warning to anyone trying to play tourist.

“The biggest problem is that the President is struggling with the debate of sterilizing the zone with a nuclear strike to avoid future outbreaks, from a scientific standpoint the infection has been contained and people believe the lesser of two evils would be developing a form of vaccine or antidote to effectively combat the Cascade Effect before destroying the zone,” the trio of newsmen were all smiling at the camera, no doubt reading off the teleprompter as it went back to the newswoman standing out in a wooded area, “what are your thoughts on this Kate?”

Kate had reached up to brush away a few loose hairs as a formation of helicopters flew overhead, Gabriel wondered if they had been the same ones he had seen, “The situation here is gearing up for long term solutions, more like settling in for a siege than a short term nuclear strike, most of the servicemen here agree that it makes more sense to have some sort of medical cure before wiping it out, a lot of people agree that such an event could happen again.”

Gabriel watched as the newsmen chatted for a while longer before breaking for commercial, most of the other stations he could get clearly were similar stories or nothing that interested him as he made a slow patrol of the building, looking out the windows to see what the undead presence was shaping up to be. For the most part, the initial horde had followed wherever the helicopters had gone, but now the stragglers had started pouring into the area, arriving in small groups that decided to linger around, not that did anything to help his resolve because he could realize when he was in tight situation.

His biggest concern were the large windows in the lobby, they ran from waist high to the ceiling, they were fairly new and double paned, making them strong enough to hold up against one or even a small number of the undead, but against a large number it would do nothing to keep them out. Of course the undead would have to flatten the fence first to get into the parking lot, again it would hold up against a small number of them, but against even a hundred it would never hold. Three other windows were of concern, being the perfect height for a zombie to break through and get inside, Gabriel simply sealed off those rooms and found the roof access that he used to get a better view of his surroundings.

Being close to the hospital probably made this the center of the outbreak here in Bernard and that meant a large number of the undead were still in the area, Gabriel hoped that Mike had one Hell of plan to be him out of here because the longer he stayed, the more trapped he became. With a sea of undead pressing in around him, Gabriel found out that the ToughBook has satellite connection that could give him high resolution aerial pictures, perfect for what he needed as he slowly began taking snapshots of the entire city, block by block before zooming in even closer to working on the details as he hooked up the printer and got to work.
In short order he had a printed map of sorts and what he could see wasn’t good, there wasn’t a single way out of the city for a vehicle to transverse, every single street, intersection and turnpike was gridlock, so Gabriel started pouring over each page and with help from the telephone directory he found in the back office, started figuring out where places were.

There were four sporting goods stores, two gun shops, the police station, a highway patrol office, two Wal-Marts, a Lowes, three vehicle dealerships, half a dozen gas stations, a Kmart and four CVS stores scattered around that Gabriel looked up in the directory for the address and then painstakingly mapping on a particular page, then writing on it with a colored Sharpie to what each location meant to him. Because he also had the time, Gabriel went along and marked all of the police cruisers, fire trucks, Humvees, military vehicles and made little x’s to mark where a particular vehicle stuck out he could use a landmark if he became disoriented, so a dump truck on side in the middle of a four way, two school buses end to end in a one way street, a Greyhound skewed at an angle parked against the truck of a tree and large distinguishable semis at odd intervals.

On a disheartening note, there was a lot of undead the farther out he moved around, the interstate was a complete mess no matter how he looked at it and without knowing where he was supposed to be going sooner or later, he could only guess.

While waiting for Mike to get back to him, Gabriel mapped out three different routes on the possible ways out of Bernard that he kept in mind as he ate and drank a little bit to keep that edge of hunger away before continuing with his project. After a while he found that his satellite coverage was shifting away from his areas of primary concern and he gave up after several attempts before working on replacing his bandages and cleaning himself up a little.

Mike called while he was finishing applying tape to his bandages and he answered, putting the headset on to avoid making that much noise.

“Bad news Gabriel, our window of operations is closing down fast so we need to move you out of there to the rally point ASAP, where we have a safe building set up, we set up a mobile Conex module with everything you will need out in the middle of nowhere, however we do have a plan.” Mike paused for a few seconds as Gabriel walked over to where he had all of his maps spread out over the floor, DAGR in hand as he waited for the location he was going to heading for.

“We need you to backtrack eight miles out of town, until you come across county road V14 and follow that for about a mile, you can’t miss the thing, it is in the middle of a field with a fence around it, all you have to do is get there and everything else has been set up for you,” Mike cleared his throat, the dim mutterings of another voice in the background as Gabriel found the road he was looking for with help from the DAGR that had been automatically updated without his interference, “we only got one chance on getting you out of there and after that, we’ve been ordered to pull out existing assets from the area.”

“Why are they doing that?” Gabriel could feel the tightening in his gut at the thought of the military pulling out of the area.

“Seems that the powers that be decided that all of the recon sorties we got flying in and out of the area is riling up all those dead folks and making things difficult for the barrier guards and they don’t want to risk a massive horde wandering after some flyboy and overwhelming the security.” Mike answered, putting Gabriel’s fears at ease when he added rather quickly as an afterthought, “No way is a nuke getting dropped, it would cause a lot more headaches in the long run according to the general public.”

Gabriel could already see one of his preplanned escape routes coming close, all he had to do was get on the highway and follow it back to where he was supposed to go. Though the highway itself was occupied by the undead, there was no way he was going to try the woods surrounding the area, the dense trees and undergrowth would make in an ideal ambush area for the undead. He would rather take his chances out in the open along the highway where he could have quiet some distance to spot undead threats.

“How are you going to help me if you can’t come pick me up?” Gabriel asked after he traced his most obvious route to get onto the highway, from there it would be a long walk.

“We will be sending in a bunch of low flying UAV drones equipped with high frequency emitters that can be heard for miles, they will be luring most of the undead away from the barriers to give our boys some breathing room and seeing as we have charted the flight plans, all we have to do to navigate you past the hordes with the help from the drones.” Mike answered.

“Genius Mike, when will this be coming down?” Gabriel asked as he peeked through the blinds on the window to see how the undead were behaving.

“Too soon if you ask me, tomorrow morning at eight is when the drones will be launching and you have to be out of there before then or else every single undead following the drones from the outskirts will be on top of you before you even reach the highway, I’m going to have one last helicopter sortie fly in to get as many of them out of the immediate vicinity around six.” It seemed like Mike was talking with someone in the background on his end while Gabriel began picking up all of his maps, leaving the ones that would be his traveled route on top.

“Wake up call around five thirty then?” Gabriel asked as he cast a glance back at the cases sitting on the desk as he mentally decided what would go and what wouldn’t.

“Yep, you need a good night sleep, we got eyes on you so if anything changes we’ll wake you up, just keep your head down and wait for instructions.” Mike ended the transmission with that as Gabriel carefully went over what he was packing and what he wasn’t.

The assault pack, gym bag, MOLLE vest and a satchel he found in one of the other offices were all that he had and he went over every single piece of gear he had to make a decision on what he was taking and what he wasn’t.

He rigged all of the magazine pouches to the vest where he could easily reach them and filled them with loaded magazines for the HK416/M16A4, Glock-17, M92 Beretta and the LMSS, deciding that the extra shotgun was simply too much as he made sure everything else was meticulously packed, sorted and then packed again. The dozen magazines in the pouches were merely a quarter of the number he had from the Humvee, so he placed twenty in the assault pack with the ToughBook, electric equipment sans the radio and headpiece of course, all but three of the IFAK’s and two MRE’s. Everything else he divided among the gym bag and the satchel evenly, using tape to secure the magazines to keep them from making a lot of noise as they moved around in the bag.

All of the magazine pouches on the vest were for the Glock-17, he left the duty belt pouches for the M92 and put four magazines in the outside compartment of the assault pack and the remaining ones in the satchel rather than the gym bag, which would be the first to go if it came down to dropping unnecessary weight if thighs got tight and then the satchel would go next and if it really came down to it, he would drop the assault pack as well. Most of the snack food was left behind, he filled the canteens and CamelBak with what he had and stashed the rest of everything with the shotgun, the remaining ammunition that was not in a magazine and anything else he was not taking, mostly the Kevlar body armor now that he had the vest.

He put a magazine in the HK416 and M16A4, slinging the latter over his shoulder muzzle down to see how well it rode around in the event he lost the HK416, he would not be without a primary rifle, considering he carried a majority of ammo solely for them, the LMSS was something he was not used to and would only use as directed for now.

The Kevlar and NVS-14 would not do him much good in the early hours of the morning, so he took off the NVS-14 for now and stuck it in his assault pack, deciding that wearing the helmet would have to suffice. He clipped the radio to his belt and ran the headpiece wire underneath all of his clothing so it would not snag on something and come loose.

Satisfied with how he got everything to work, he stripped off the gym bag, satchel and assault pack, leaving the vest on and crawled underneath the desk, one hand on the Glock-17 and other hand on the radio as he tried to fall asleep.

[FIDO]

To all whom it may concern, ENJOY!

[223shooteresc]

thanks for the new chapter

[Laager]

Great new chapter!

[FIDO]

Bulletproof by La Roux
“This time baby I’ll be bulletproof…This time…”

The buzzing in his ear brought him awake slowly, he blindly reached around looking for the damn alarm clock ready to hit the snooze button before rearing his head to look around for it when his head made contact with the bottom of the desk sending shockwaves of pain down his neck, now he remembered where he was.
Gabriel stuck the pistol back into the holster, crawled out from under the desk, using it to pull himself upright, feeling the kinks and knots crack and pop before fumbling for the button to answer the damn call from Mike.

“Time yet?” Gabriel was sure he had said, but it came out in a groan that gave Mike several seconds to pause before asking, “Uh Gabriel are you there?”

“Yeah I’m here Mike, just not a morning person,” Gabriel massaged his temples with his free hand as he went out into the hallway to the bathroom, “what’s it look like outside?”

“Good news and bad news,” Mike paused for a second before Gabriel muttered something unintelligible while attempting to unzip his pants and hopefully piss without further injuring himself, “good news is that we have a second recon sortie to add to the first with orders to sweep for the town for any living biological signatures, which by the way is only you and a couple dozen house cats from what we managed to pick up.”

“Did you know that you never start with the goods news first right?” Gabriel flushed the toilet and walked over to the small pile of food and water he was leaving behind and picked out his breakfast, casting a glance at the wall mounted clock to see it was only a quarter past four in the morning, well at least he could his stomach time to digest breakfast, so he stuffed his face while listening to Mike ramble on.

“Yeah, the bad news is that I hope you have the poncho handy,” Gabriel looked over to where he had left it sit on the table next to the everything else he wasn’t taking along and rolled his eyes when Mike mentioned the rest, “we got one Hell of thunderstorm brewing, got the brass riled up so they pushed the operation ahead an hour to hopefully draw as many of them away from the edge, the storm will no doubt scatter these undead to the four winds, transmitters or not.”

“At least the storm will help me as well, cover up noise I night make and the thunder will help cover up the gunshots, reduce visibility as well, might be helpful.” Gabriel threw the bag away in the trash can and stared at the rain poncho for several seconds before sighing and began unbuckling himself from everything so he could put it on.

“More worried about how the storm might end up blinding you, with the predicted rain it would make our satellites all but useless to spot the undead, which was what we were hoping for in the beginning, now we’ll be blind, maybe we’ll pick up your IR signature, but this is our only shot.” It sounded like Mike was stressed as Gabriel disconnected the headpiece to pull the poncho over his head.

“Why not just postpone the whole operation until the weather clears up?”

For several seconds there was no answer, “I guess I’ll have to explain the entire situation, you see there are more pressing issues than the possibility of discovering an antidote to this pandemic, such as making nice-nice with the top brass and politicians,” it sounded like Mike was rolling his eyes at the thought, “they are convinced that there is no such cure or possible vaccine without even trying, my department is in charge of getting you to the rally point, where I hope it isn’t too late to get a few blood samples and conduct some research…”

“Woo there Mike, calm down,” Gabriel shook the feeling of dread, not knowing if it was the detached way Mike spoke or when he glanced out the window with the NVS-14 pressed to his eye and caught the green shadows of numerous undead within arm’s reach of the damn fence, “how about we worry about all that after I get the Hell out of here and to the rally point, where I shall happily fall onto a couple needles to give you the blood you need, until then, let’s not kill the prize goose.”

“Anyway, top brass was however kind enough to have authorization to post a pair of Predator drones solely for your protection,” Mike paused for a few seconds, the distinct sound of computer keys clacking away for a second, “both have ground to air anti-infantry rockets, miniature cluster bombs and one of them has a forty millimeter automatic grenade launcher, but you have to be careful, they only have limited ammunition to use.”

“Jesus Christ, I’m only walking ten miles, what kind of firepower do they think I need against a bunch of walking morgue patients?”

“Well the top brass couldn’t talk the politicians into a couple V-22 Raptors or artillery support due to the fact the undead could possibly track the origin of the sound.” Mike answered in a voice that sounded irritated as Gabriel whistled softly to himself.

“You know, I might not vote for them the next upcoming election come to think of it if I had known they had offered that to begin with.” Gabriel finished donning on the rest of his gear, the poncho underneath everything so it would not get in the way of the magazine pouches, even though if he was wearing it wrong, he would rather get semi-soaked than eaten and at least he would have the poncho in the future.

The undead outside were not interested in the building by any means, Gabriel noted that the dull rumble of thunder had a few of them frantically searching around for the source of the noise, but for the most part they were unaware. Good news was that they were all around the front of the hospital, a couple blocks away and perfect for he wanted as he carefully strapped everything down and adjusted everything to where he could either reach it easily or it didn’t make any nose when he was moving around the room. Bad news was beyond the edge of the street he had no idea what he would be running into as he quietly slipped out the back entrance, HK416 up to his shoulder as he spotted the first undead lingering near the edge of a building, right where he wanted to go.

He placed the tip of the chevron in the middle of the forehead, it wasn’t moving, more or less slumped against the building while looking off in some random direction as Gabriel squeezed the trigger softly. He was startled by the recoil, having prepared himself for the loud report, but it was hardly any louder than a muffled cough as the undead dropped to the ground with a neat hole about an inch higher than his point of aim and Gabriel figured the loudest noise was the empty shell casing bouncing off the pavement somewhere near his feet.

No undead wail to alert every single one of them with half a mile he was around as he slipped into the alley, not quiet touching the wall so he didn’t drag something across the masonry that would make enough noise to be heard while walking heel to toe softly, a trick he had learned when he grew up hunting. The alley lead to the front of the building and the street had about thirty undead that he could see, a part of him wanted to turn around to go back to the clinic and hide, but the rationale part of his mind continued to press forward as he dropped to one knee behind a trash can, quietly thumbing the button to release the bipod legs so he could carefully brace the weapon on the lid of the trash can.

The first one was facing away from him as he rested the chevron on the back of its head and applied gentle pressure to the trigger, watching with grim satisfaction as it dropped to the ground in a boneless as he switched targets. From this position he could easily reach out accurately and snipe forty-six undead without once missing, having to pause to reload and patiently waited for the next undead to walk into his line of sight before moving on.

Peeking around the corner to his right allowed him to see another dozen or so stumbling among the static vehicles as he used his left hand to grab onto the edge of the building, bracing the rifle on his forearm for support and started firing. He quickly dropped the empty magazine into his dump pouch conveniently located on his left hip and reloaded, wincing softly at the loud sound the bolt made when it slammed home with a new round in the chamber, even though he was sure it couldn’t be heard more than fifty feet away as he looked to the left, surprised to see not one of the undead within sight.

He sprinted across the street and went down another alley to the back parking lot, where he spotted half a dozen undead that he quickly dealt with and was cutting across the parking lot diagonally when he heard a soft moan from behind him.

Stumbling away from the building were three of them, how he had missed seeing them when he stepped out from his hiding spot had nearly cost him his life, Gabriel simply fired off half a dozen quick shots before dropping them, the last falling to the cool pavement eight feet from the tips of his shoes as he spun in a circle slowly looking for any more lurking threats. None were present as he kept going, hearing a faint droning off in the distance between the muffled peals of thunder far off in the distance, no doubt the drones were on the move already and almost on cue, the ear piece rang softly.

Gabriel hit the answer button and whispered, “Kind of busy Mike, what do you want?”

“Can you hear the drones yet?” Mike asked, Gabriel winced and turned down the volume a few clicks before answering with a simple, “Yes Mike I hear them, now what?”

“You have five minutes before the drones to leave your area, they are heading away from you, but not for long, sooner or later they are going to be coming back, we are holding the recon sorties aside for now, no need to let every one of those things know you are in the neighborhood.” Mike answered as Gabriel jogged over to the gate and stepped through, he wanted to put some distance between him and the nearest buildings.

Rather than follow the back streets all the way to the highway, Gabriel decided the mile or so jog straight through a lightly forested area that seemed to have been cut back years ago to avoid any sort of forest fire from reaching the buildings and nature had been slowly taking it back. Short bushes and young trees dotted the grassy knoll, he would simply follow it down to the edge of the highway, the wild grass was barely waist high on him and it made a lot more sense that fighting every foot of the way to the highway.

Distant peals of thunder were becoming louder and the droning more consistent as he continued through the tall grass, stopping every so often to look and listen for any possible threat before moving on, now he could feel the wind picking up slightly and the air was heavy with moisture.

“Jesus Christ Gabriel!” Mike sounded frantic, “They are all around you, get the Hell out of there now!”

For a second Gabriel froze, realizing the blunder he had made, though he couldn’t see any undead, he had a feeling that he was in the middle of a bunch of them and then the thunder boomed directly over his head.

It sounded like regular thunder, though much louder and close enough to cause Gabriel to jump, for several long seconds nothing happened and then all Hell broke loose.

Undead started to stand up in the tall grass, the closest being less than twenty feet as what looked like a couple hundred undead slowly got up, having lain down in the tall grass for some reason Gabriel did not understand, but he had walked into the midst of them all, how he had not seen them was simple. He had not looked close enough to see the motionless figures laying in the grass, he had simply scanned for any standing undead and thought the area to be safe, how he was wrong.

“We are moving the recon sorties in now, get ready for covering fire, drones five and six less than two minutes away, sit tight and wait for backup Gabriel.” Mike sounded like he was in overdrive as Gabriel’s heart sank to his toes when he heard the moans all around him.

“Too late Mike, engaging now.” Gabriel shot the first one and switched to the next, praying he could keep a large enough gap between him and the undead as he spun in a quick circle, trying to eliminate those closest to him as possible, but that hope was dashed when a loud roaring call went up and every single undead turned in his direction.

Fuck me, was Gabriel’s first thought as he opened fired, thinning out the first bunch that was charging him before the magazine went dry, he quickly reloaded, retaining the empty magazine and slamming another home into the magazine well in one smooth motion, smacking the bolt release and pulling the trigger once the fresh round was rammed home in the chamber.

Empty brass began piling at his feet as he attempted to keep his head on a swivel, some of his rounds began to become erratic before forcing himself to take several deep breaths to calm down and then started shooting again. Skulls exploded at the close range, bits of brains, blood and shards of bone were painting the tall grass in a grisly manner as the bodies began forming a solid ring around him, steadily growing as he kept firing, but there was simply too many.

The first explosion registered in his mind as thunder before dirt came raining down on him, for several seconds he was confused, brushing the dirt away from his face before the Predator UAV drone went screaming over his head, a sprout of flame underneath the nose as Gabriel watched a rooster tail of dirt explode in a solid line, tearing through a group of undead like an invisible wood chipper. Limbs, guts, gore and dirt exploded into the air as the large caliber rounds tore through the undead, Gabriel watched in what could only be described as fascinated horror as bodies were pulverized into pulp and they were still moving, most of them crawling, a few were getting back up with missing arms, jaws, faces, bowels or even intact rib cages. Another drone joined the first, the accurate machine gun fire crisscrossing the grassy hillside, seeking each tightly packed group of undead, Gabriel snapped out of it when something seized his right leg.

Missing both legs at the pelvis, the left arm and even the bottom jaw was what used to be an undead, now it was something even more horrifying as it dragged itself closer, intent on taking chunks out of his leg as Gabriel wretched his leg away and pumped two rounds into the small head before taking off at a run, ignoring the undead around him.

Both drones were doing a terrific job of dealing with the undead, but Gabriel was more interested on getting out of the area rather than fighting them and his sprint to the tree line was brought to a screeching halt as the shadows detached themselves from the trees. Even more undead was pouring from the forest than the edge of town itself as Gabriel changed direction, spotting an abandoned vehicle sitting near a young tree and he ran for it like it was the Ark to save him from the flood of undead.

It was an old dump truck, rusted out, no engine block, tires or even a windshield for that matter as he tore up the ladder attached to the back of the back of the cab and clambered up on top of the cab where he a perfect view three hundred sixty degrees around his position. There had to be at least a few thousand undead heading towards him, some were moving a brisk jog and most were moving in that typical walk that meant they had all the time in the world and were by no means afraid of the two pesky drones firing machine guns, dropping small bombs, rockets and swooping down on them, a couple times clearing the ground by a few feet.

Gabriel began firing on those closest, picking them off at a distance, thinking about nothing except shooting them in the head, reloading and shooting until he had to reload again before the first wave of helicopters showed up.

These were attack helicopters, the kind that had the pilot sitting behind the gunner as the machine guns, rockets and bombs began falling, Gabriel jumped off the top of the cab into the back of the dump truck without a regard for his personal safety as metal, no doubt shrapnel, was pinging off the thick metal plating and Gabriel curled up in a ball, hands over his ears as the explosions rocked the ground.

Something made him look up in time to see the first undead came falling into the dump truck, no doubt it had made it up the ladder and Gabriel shot it at point blank range before scrambling back to the edge and pulling himself up so his face came up level with the high sides of the dump truck.

A horribly mangled face with a gaping maw stared him back in the face as it lunged forward, Gabriel snapped his head back as the mouth closed on the metal edge of the dump truck, right between his hands as Gabriel did the only thing he could think of. He head-butted the undead so that it toppled off the back of the truck, Gabriel finished pulling himself up and jumped the three feet of open space so that he landed on the back of the cab and pulled up his rifle and started firing.

He didn’t even care when the magazine ran out of ammo, he flipped the rifle around so he held the rifle like a club and hit the first the first undead that came up the rusted ladder rungs, knocking it off before dropping the HK416 into the back of the dump truck and unslinging the M16A4 from his shoulder and started pulling the trigger at point blank range into the writhing, seething mass of undead surrounding the truck, he even laughed, shouting at them as he kept firing, ignoring the explosions, the drones, helicopters, the gunfire, the wailing and moaning of the undead and Gabriel was pretty sure he just snapped as he tossed aside the rifle, unsheathed the machete sitting directly over his right shoulder, spun it once and jumped feet first off the truck into the horde of the undead.

[FIDO]

Did someone want another chapter?

[Laager]

Holy Smokes! Another great chapter! Gabriel sounds like he lost it....not that I blame him.

[223shooteresc]

need more now, please

[Snapshot7.62]

Did someone want another chapter?

Hell yeah, moar please!

[FIDO]

Sorry everyone, old computer took a dive and I just bought a new one and will start granking out chapters again soon, we have a 72 hour libo for St. Patrick's Day this weekend.

[bad_karma00]

Excellent story. Looking forward to more!

[Nancy1340]

Very good story but why didn't the military just drop a rescue basket on top of the vet's office?
Hope there will be more chapters soon. Thank you.

Men! Always have to make things complicated.

[golem3]

Can't wait for more! Maybe the military made it a policy not to carry them into the quarantine zone to keep people from having the option to bring out someone who was possibly infected - or maybe there are too many power lines or trees nearby for it to work well.

[DAVE KI]

Very good! I'm really liking this. One nitpick, Glocks don't have safeties.

Jim

It’s a myth that Glock’s don’t have safeties — they have three:

A drop safety (the pistol can physically NEVER go off simply by being dropped),
a firing pin safety (physically blocks the firing pin from entering the firing pin chamber), and
the trigger safety (the trigger cannot be pulled unless you first press the trigger safety).

[deathstalkertwo]

Did the zombies get FIDO? Damn, I was really enjoying the story too.

[Manliest]

Did the zombies get FIDO? Damn, I was really enjoying the story too.

You're not the only one.

Sent from my SCH-I800 using Tapatalk 2

[FIDO]

Wow.....how long has it been?
Got back from an ATWC (Around The World Cruise) with blah blah blah, been to a lot of interesting places.

Good to be back

[FIDO]

Wow, like blowing the dust off an old vynel record before putting it on the player, it has been too long.....


Fight For All The Wrong Reasons by Nickelback
“Guess I stuck around to watch us fight for all the wrong reasons…”

Gabriel had no idea when he finally stopped swinging, punching, kicking, cutting and killing, probably well after the fact it started raining and the thunder was booming ominously now, he just kept killing for the sake of revenge.

Everything he had ever held dear was gone because of the undead, his life would never be the same because of the undead, his family, his friends, his neighbors, all of them gone to the undead and he unleashed something he had buried deep within himself and now he let it all out.

Rage consumed him as he dismembered, beheaded and cut his way through the horde of undead, swatting away the clutching hands and knocking back the gaping maws as he kept going, never looking left or right, he just went right through them.

His sanity returned when he finally felt the cold raindrops hitting his skin and he realized he was holding an undead arm he was attempting to use as a club against an undead that he had already killed and he cast a glance around his surroundings, surprised that he was at the edge of the forest, the dump truck several hundred yards away and between it and him were dozens of unmoving lumps laying around.

The sky was dark as lightening flashed, thunder rumbled and rain continued to fall, Gabriel trotted back to the dump truck, stepping past the corpses as he climbed back up into the dump truck and picked up the rifles. Or tired too, there was so much blood on his hands that he was having a hard time reloading them, so he slung them and wiped his hands in the tall grass, now wet with the rain. So much blood, he furiously began wiping his hands, wanting the untold gallons of it off his hands before realizing he was hearing a distant voice and plugged the ear piece back into his ear after wiping it off, it had come out of his ear after he had jumped off the truck.

“Gabriel? Are you there? Can you hear me? The undead have moved away, you need to calm down and get moving? Gabriel? Are you there?” It didn’t sound like the Mike he knew, it sounded different, but it was still Mike.

“Yeah, I’m here Mike, sort of lost it back there, I’m fine now.” Gabriel said as he scanned his surroundings, orienting himself and walking towards the highway.

“Jesus Christ,” Mike sounded relieved, “you went positively grade A section eight on us back there Gabriel, the drones got most of the undead to follow them back to the town where they deployed the sound transmitters and you killed…”

“The rest of them Mike? I know, guess I shouldn’t keep things locked up inside.” Gabriel stepped past a corpse that had multiple wounds to the head, each one fatal to the undead, but then again, he had gone crazy.

Gabriel was pretty sure he had three dislocated fingers and one broken finger he snapped back into place and used a short stick to splint it as he kept going, reaching the highway and following it by walking down the center line, realizing that he was soaking wet, covered in blood, muscles burning and the adrenaline rush over, he was going to crash.

Mike tried to spark up a conversation, but got the hint Gabriel didn’t want to talk about anything and simply provided information about his surroundings, such as if there was a group of undead in his path, each mile he got closer and to stop and wait for the drones to come clear out a really large horde. By the time Gabriel reached the gravel county road, he was fighting to put one foot in front of the other to keep himself going, he hadn’t gotten rid of any weight, minus the ammo he had expended in that fight, but he was too numb to care about anything right now, he was pretty sure he was fighting off the first stages of shock.

The storm had reduced his vision to only a couple dozen feet, he had to walked by Mike step by step another mile to the safety of the Conex box and he ran into the fence surrounding it before getting his hands to work the latch to let himself inside. It was a giant olive drab green box the same size of a shipping container that had only one person size door that opened with some fumbling on his part to get his hands to work long enough to operate the doorknob as he stepped inside. It was pitch dark and smelled like cleaning chemicals as he fumbled around for the light switch and found it next to the door, several soft fluorescent lights flickered on as he kicked the door shut behind him and began removing his gear.

“Gabriel?” For a second Gabriel thought he had cranked up the volume on the ear piece as he checked the radio, surprised to see it was disconnected, “Walk over to the computer and move the mouse, we have the unit rigged with cameras and microphones, so we no longer have any need for the radio.”

Gabriel shuffled over to the terminal station cramped between a tiny bunk and a wall of computer tech he had no idea went to as he lifted the screen on the laptop, a cousin to the ToughBook in his assault pack as it powered on too life while he removed the MOLLE vest, poncho and started wringing out his shirt when he glanced up at the screen.

He could see about four people sitting at a table covered in papers, laptops, phones, empty coffee mugs and the room had a sanitized look about it, even though the three men seated at the table had a scruffy look about them like they had not seen decent sleep in a week. Gabriel could see the image of himself in the upper left corner of the screen as he tapped the mouse pad to enlarge the picture of himself.

A drowned rat came to mind as Gabriel lifted one hand in mock salute and pulled the only chair out from the thin gap between the terminal and bunk bed he looked at longingly before sitting down. Looking around the room he saw a cramped bathroom of sorts on the one end, a fridge, a tiny stove, some cabinets he had no desire to see what they contained, a doctor’s chair bolted to the floor and a lot of medical equipment he expect to find in a laboratory somewhere before turning back to look at the computer screen.

“Hello,” Gabriel waved again as the people on the other end appeared to realize that he could see them, one of them frantically shuffling through a stack of papers in front of him, the only wearing a headset, Mike he assumed, took a long drink from a coffee mug, “so what now?”

“What now?” The only woman sounded offended as she cast a glance at the other men sitting at the table, “We intend to save the future of humanity by conducting extensive research and medical discovery on the only reported individual having survived contamination from a clearly contaminated individual, you are the only hope humanity has left Mr. Conner and I hope you grasp the extent of it.”

“Call me Gabriel and what is that I do to help?”

“Let me begin to with an explanation of what has happened so far and what will happen eventually,” Mike, the one with the headset began talking, “feel free to get dressed and cleaned up, you’ll find a spare set of clothes in the compartment above the bunk.”

While keeping an open ear to the monologue Mike launched into, Gabriel stepped out of view and tossed off his wet clothes, pulling a towel and a clean set of clothes, some white cotton briefs, a shirt and some shorts.

He had a few lacerations on his arms and legs, no doubt from grasping fingernails or accidental nicks from the machete that he applied generous amounts of anti-bacterial cream and ointment on to avoid any further infection while drying himself off, mostly scrubbing away the persistent patches of blood or other unmentionable goodies while as he dragged the blanket off the bed and wrapped it around himself before sitting back down in the chair.

“We believe that this viral pandemic originated from a form of unknown flu strain recently seen in southern Bosnia and western China that remained in animal carrier form, before it somehow jumped to humans in a new and startling manner. It also appears that this virus seems to have derived from the rabies strain commonly associated with vermin, rats, small mammals and bats, so we are looking at a new breed of virus that seems to have incubated, somehow and someway, into a new virus.”

Mike appeared to look away for a minute before continuing, “The train that derailed seemed to have the proper chemical solution in what we believed to be the conductor, he might have had the flu or been recently bitten by an animal with rabies, we don’t know, all we know is that the released chemicals somehow triggered a reaction within his body to accelerate the growth of this virus within a human host and it somehow became airborne after only a few days. Because we lack specific testing materials, we can only grasp at the concept in the way this virus attacks and changes a new host, what we need is the original host or one of the first people ever bitten by the original host in order in order to create some kind of vaccination that would render the virus harmless to an uninfected person, but then we discovered you were still alive after initial exposure we think that your blood might hold the key to combating this virus on a DNA level that might prove to be what uninfected human beings will need to combat the virus, should they ever encounter it.”

Gabriel paid enough attention to Mike as he dragged his assault pack closer and broke an MRE to eat something, even though his stomach rebelled at the sight of food, he forced himself to eat it all as he listened to Mike drone on about something related to his blood through whatever means that may be, but he wasn’t really excited at the whole development of producing a cure with the secrets unlocked from his blood, he was thinking back to the horrible days that started all of this madness, back to when everything had made sense and before he lost everything to this new killer that turned everyday people of flesh and blood into nothing more than ravenous cannibals with the sole intent to kill everything.

While Mike and the other scientists drone on, clearly forgetting that he was even there, they were arguing a heated debate of gene splicing and genotherapy to get the desired results as he calmly picked up his gear and moved it onto the adjoining bed and started dismantling both rifles to start cleaning them, watching the spectacle of four people in the middle of a full scale argument as he debated to place a bet as he began scrubbing the guts of each rifle with a brush.

“Children,” Gabriel spoke loud enough to get their attention, it looked like the sole woman was about to strangle Mike with the headset cord as he applied more lubricant to the bolt and started scrubbing, “I just want you to know that I almost flunked high school chemistry over osmosis and I don’t understand half the words you are saying, so dumb it down for me to understand or I will put you all in time-out.”

No fully grown adult liked being treated like a three-year old having a temper tantrum as they respectively went back to their chairs and sat down, tidying up stacks of paper or turning coffee mugs back upright as Mike glowered at the camera, “We need your blood, it is that simple.”

“Okay, well I am sitting in metal box in the middle of a field in the middle of a quarantine zone that is filled with, shall we say, a proverbial fuck ton of crazy cannibals that would love nothing more than to right my intestines out and eat them,” Gabriel slid the receiver handle and bolt carrier group back into the upper receiver without looking down and snapped the weapon back together and slid the pin back through, “how is having my blood going to help you?”

“We have the required equipment to perform a blood analysis and send the data back to us right there in the module, all we need to do is have you fill ten vials, load them into the spectrometer and let the computer do the rest of the work,” Mike took a long pull from his coffee mug, “then all we need to do is play God and pray that we can create some sort of vaccine against this virus before it escapes from the quarantine zone.”

Gabriel worked the bolt back and forth several times before pulling the trigger, satisfied with the click, he inserted a magazine and put a round into the chamber, “Alright, what do I have to do?”

[Nancy1340]

Good to see you back with this story. Thank you.