Winchester: Over (Winchester Undead) (16 page)

South of Fort Stockton, Texas

Jack looked at the GPS on his dash. It displayed a local time of just after 3:00 p.m.
Glancing at the western sky, he figured there might be about three hours until the sun dipped below the horizon. The GPS also showed it should take just over three hours to arrive at Panther Junction in the park, so assuming nothing else went wrong on their drive, they would need to find another spot on the road to secure sleep tonight.

Part of the problem on this lonely two-lane Texas highway was that in this part of Texas people had to drive two hours just to go grocery shopping; there really wasn’t much of anything but large swaths of ranch land. On the upside, there weren’t a lot of people living in the area, so the population of undead should be lower as well.

The unending high desert ranch land made it easy for Jack’s mind to wander. Miles of old telegraph wire ran along the top of some of the fences in the area, long since disused but left in place for no other reason than that it would take work to remove them. Jack couldn’t fathom why someone would choose this part of Texas to run a ranch; there was better land to ranch, and better areas to live. The only action he could think of in the area was the illegals and drug runners cutting across the ranches.

Nearly two hours south of Fort Stockton, the group drove up to a tall green and white building and covered inspection area surrounded by concrete barriers. It was the Border Patrol checkpoint; Jack had been stopped there before when he had been coming back from a backpacking trip at Big Bend. Today the station appeared deserted. Gone were the familiar green and white trucks that should have been parked next to the building. Jack slowed and pulled across the highway to park under the covered area, the group following close behind.

They paused to stretch as they climbed out of their vehicles, but unlike a normal road trip, each of them had a weapon in hand, and faced in different directions to give safety coverage. Bexar walked up to the building and found the door unlocked.

“Hey Jessie, let’s clear this real quick and see if they have a chemical toilet.”

“Got it,” said Jessie, following him into the building. It only took about five minutes before they returned outside and declared the building free from the undead. This would be their home for the night. Unfortunately, there were no low-water or chemical toilets in the building, but there were some Porta-Johns outside, which was better than nothing. Someone would need to stand guard outside of the Porta-John while another member of the group took the opportunity to relieve themselves.

They could hear the
javelinas roaming in the brush as night fell and the group broke out their dinner. They discussed their situation in hushed voices, including their worries about the biker gang. Jack was optimistic they had eluded them, and Jessie and Sandra agreed, but Bexar couldn’t shake his worries that they had not.

Groom Lake, Nevada

Cliff set out on foot, leaving his truck hidden off the road just past the abandoned guard shack. The guard shack was unlocked but the power was still on, which gave Cliff some hope, although it was also to be expected since the facilities at Groom Lake ran on nuclear power. This had started in the 1950s with a first-generation reactor under development for the Navy. The last Cliff had heard, there were currently twelve reactors powering the facility, which sounded ludicrous if you didn’t understand how large the facility actually was, and how much power some of the systems inside, especially the computers and labs, required.

None of this was visible to the public because the majority of the facility was built underground, except for a small cluster of buildings and the obvious runways. The facility was built deeper and was more secure than the fabled Cheyenne Mountain nuclear bunker, although their missions were drastically different.

Cheyenne Mountain accommodated a communications, radar monitoring, and command structure for the U.S. military, whereas Groom Lake contained the “black” scientific research projects, and also a large bunker designed to house most of the necessary members of the government and their families. The research and continuity-of-government bunkers were for the most part separate, but there were some underground access points between the two facilities. Most of the government officials who would be whisked to safety underground here knew that Area 51 existed, and had been instrumental in black projects such as the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird and A-12 reconnaissance aircraft, the latter developed in the CIA’s Oxcart program; but only a few knew about the current big project.

The primary research at Area 51 now was code-named the Kali Project, and its mission was to study the Yama Strain. In the mid-1950s, one of the double agents run out of Station Moscow told her handlers an incredible tale.

At the end of The Second World War (WWII), the Soviets had found a drug in Adolf Hitler’s bunker that he had intended to use to be able to return after death as a kind of super-soldier, unable to be killed by conventional means. Earlier in the war, Heinrich Himmler had located the substance used to make the drug, a virus, derived from spores and mined from a meteorite found in a temple near Tibet. He was known to have made several expeditions to Tibet to confirm his occult beliefs about a superior race. There he discovered stories of Tibetan priests who were able to raise people from the dead. Himmler located the meteorite, which had been kept as a sacred artifact in a remote temple, and took it back to Germany.

The Germans tried for several years to produce results that mirrored the legends of the Tibetan priests, but were unsuccessful. Upon the collapse of the Nazi regime, the meteorite and the research was discovered by the Soviets, who spent considerable resources trying to do the same thing the Germans had attempted. The Soviet scientists were able to reanimate small primates, but did not have any success with humans or other animals.

When the Soviet Union fell, factions within the KGB—the Soviet security agency who knew of the project—smuggled the data and some of the scientists out of the chaos that was Russia at the time, and into North Korea. Kim Il-Sung did not have the technology to host the research, so he ordered the former KGB officers executed, along with the Russian scientists. The North Korean leader then traded the meteorite and the research data to China in return for the raw nuclear material he needed to start his country’s nuclear program.

In 1964, a single spore sample from the meteorite was smuggled out of the USSR and into the U.S. The research started immediately, which gave way to the Kali Project. Through
primate research, American scientists found that reanimates lacked most of their higher brain functions, and also turned cannibalistic. The only way to destroy a reanimate was to destroy the brain.

At the time, the Kali Project found that infection was not transferred through a scratch or bite, but only via blood contact with infected brain tissue. The final update that Cliff had read on the Kali Project revealed that the research team was approximately twenty-four months away from finding an antidote that would neutralize a reanimate and inoculate the living. Cliff hoped he would find the science team alive and well, and working in the underground facility. If not, he assumed the data would still be there, but had no idea who would be able to use it.

January 1
st

Groom Lake, Nevada

Cliff spent that entire evening, and most of the night, concealed in the mountains above the lakebed, observing the aboveground portions of Area 51. He saw no movement at all. Although society as they knew it had ended, he still expected there to be some movement at the base.

The lights were on all around the base, which he considered a positive sign, even though with the redundant systems the lights and other services at the base would continue to function long into the future without intervention. In the early morning hours he finally left his post, hiking back to his truck for a quick combat nap.

After a breakfast of cold Vienna sausages and a protein bar that he had stolen from the gas station, he decided to simply drive onto the base. No amount of surface observation would tell him what he really needed to know about the underground facilities, but if the facility was overrun, he would need to retrieve the hard drives from the Kali Project’s lab.

There were a few other similar secret facilities around the country, not counting the overrun facility at Denver, but if he was going to trek to Texas he needed to raid the military storage facility here. More ammo, more MREs, and better clothing topped the needs list; a cold weather sleeping system followed close behind. The hotel blankets helped, but it was still damned cold in the old truck.

He hoped for breezy access but expected the worst, so he took the time to clean his rifle and pistol, adjust his combat load out on his carrier, and check his magazines. It took an extra thirty minutes of prep time before Cliff finally pointed the truck down the mountain road towards the base.

Near Marathon, Texas

The group woke at sunrise, which was now the norm since the dead had risen and started hunting the living. Bexar was on the last security watch for the night and surprised the group by having a kettle of instant coffee hot and ready for them. It was a cold morning in the Texas high desert, but barring any sort of disaster, they should be in the National Park in a few hours. If they were lucky, they might find other, peaceful, survivors; if not, they’d find the Park overrun by the undead. It was a toss-up since winter was historically Big Bend’s busiest season.

If it was overrun, it would most likely be in the busier sections such as The Basin or near the Rio Grande, but there were a lot of areas the undead could still be hiding. They could even have set up at one of the old homesteading sites, also popular because they were usually near a natural spring or well.

One week earlier most of the group would have groaned at the thought of being forced to use a
Porta-John, but this morning they were all thankful for the luxury. Morning rituals complete, coffee consumed, and cold breakfast eaten, the group was back on the road without any other delays.

Within forty-five minutes they had reached Marathon. They hadn’t seen a single vehicle, person, or undead creature on the road. Entering the town, Bexar flashed his headlights to signal a stop, and the convoy slowed to a halt in the middle of the highway.

Jack met Bexar at the girls’ Jeep. “What’s up Bexar, something break?”

“No,” Bexar said, “but I remembered there’s a little bookstore about a half-mile into town. We should raid it. Some reading material would be nice for a change, since it might get boring, and some park guides for wildlife, trails, and fauna could come in handy.”

“Okay, not a bad idea, but only if the town isn’t overrun,” Jack replied. “I don’t think it’s worth the fight since we could raid the ranger stations; they usually have some park guides. The selection would probably be small, but it’d be better than someone getting bit for a book raid.”

“Right
, Jack,” Bexar replied. They all returned to their trucks, and the convoy drove into town.

Marathon looked like a ghost town, but to be frank, it had looked like that even before the zombies had come. The small bookstore was in the squat row of shops on the right side of the main road, but it was past the turnoff to drive south towards the Park. Planning for a quick exit, Jack made a wide U-turn in the street so that they were pointed in the direction they wanted to go.

The kids were awake and watching out of the windows of the Jeep. Jessie climbed on the roof of the Jeep to provide security for the kids, and Sandra and Jack decided they would be the ones to go into the bookstore, with Bexar holding rear security outside. So far they had seen no movement and no people, alive, dead, or undead, but that didn’t mean they were alone. The power was out, which was no surprise to anyone in the group, but it did show that even in the remote wilds of Texas, there was trouble.

Jack checked the front door and found it locked. Sandra and Bexar gave rear security watching from the door for any undead or other threats approaching while they were in the store. Jack knocked loudly on the door and pressed his face to the glass. There was no response, so he walked a few feet down the sidewalk and picked up a potted cactus, then walked back to the storefront and threw the cactus through the large plate glass window at the front of the store. The window exploded inward with a loud crash, startling Sandra and Bexar.

Bexar looked at Jack, who just shrugged and crawled through the broken window into the store. Sandra followed Jack into the store; their first priority was to clear the store of any threats. Declaring the bookstore clear, they began filling shopping bags with various books. There was no time to browse, so large portions of the fiction section went into the bags, as did a large stack of newspapers, which could be useful for toilet paper or fire-starting material. Sandra took more time to select informative books and maps of the Park, while Jack began carrying out the loaded shopping bags. When they had more time they could sort through what they’d stolen, but for now speed was their friend.

They worked quickly and quietly, but the quiet was shattered by a single rifle shot. All heads turned towards Jessie standing on the roof of the Jeep.

“Guys,” she shouted, “we’ve got to get the fuck outta here! There’s a whole shit-ton of zombies that just turned the corner and they’re headed this way!”

As if on cue, the stillness of the mid-morning desert filled with a chorus of moans from the approaching horde. Jessie began taking more shots, putting down the faster-moving zombies, and Bexar ran out into the street to start giving cover and help Jessie put down the first of the
approaching undead. Jack and Sandra ran behind Bexar to their trucks. By the time the group was in their vehicles, the horde, which looked to be about one hundred strong, had almost reached the convoy.

Jack and the girls had left their vehicles running during the raid, but Bexar had turned his off. Jack began to pull forward and Sandra followed, but all Bexar heard from the Scout was the click of a starter that wouldn’t turn over. Three more times he tried, and three more times the starter clicked but wouldn’t turn over. He had only a
few more moments before he would have to abandon the Scout and try to evade the undead on foot, hoping that the group would notice and come to his rescue.

With one last try the starter turned over and the Scout roared to life. The tires chirped as Bexar dropped the clutch, and he felt something hit the back of the trailer. Working through the gears, he took the turnoff towards the Park and began catching up to the group. As he did so, he felt the trailer move against the Scout. Checking the side mirror, he saw he had picked up a passenger. The bump he’d felt as he was leaving must have been this undead falling onto the trailer. Amazingly, it hadn’t fallen off yet.

Bexar sped up and pulled alongside Sandra and Jessie, waving and pointing to the back of his trailer. Sandra was behind the wheel, so Jessie climbed into the back seat, rolled down the window, and drew her pistol. It took three shots, but Jessie put the zombie stowaway down for good, which luckily fell off the trailer after being re-killed.
Problem solved
, Bexar thought. He slowed the Scout and fell back into the rear position of the convoy.

Once again the road was quiet, and the group passed no other vehicles and saw no signs of life or the undead along the lonesome Texas highway. About an hour after taking care of the undead hitchhiker, they passed the entry gate to Big Bend National Park. There were no vehicles at the ranger’s station, and the entry booth was abandoned. Driving a bit faster than the forty-five-mile-per-hour speed limit, they reached the main visitor center about thirty minutes after passing the abandoned ticket booth. This was one of the busier spots in the Park, but they had to pass it to get anywhere else. Before cresting the hill and driving into the parking lot, Jack stopped the convoy to hold a quick conference.

“Bexar, what do you think about checking the visitor center before driving right up to it?”

“That would be smart,” agreed Bexar. “Who knows, maybe we’ll find survivors, but regardless, they have a potable tap outside the building so we can top off our water supply.”

Bexar elected to stay with the vehicles to hold security, and Sandra decided to stay with the kids for their snack time. Jessie and Jack set off into the desert about a hundred yards away from the road to sneak up to the visitor center. Bexar stood on the roof of the Jeep, as had become the typical security arrangement, and scanned the visitor center’s building with his binoculars. If anyone was looking they could see him, but he was also confident that he was far enough away to not be shot.

Watching Jack and Jessie approach through the desert, Bexar was amazed at how quiet the world was around him. Even in the middle of the National Park, he could always hear passing motorcycles or vehicles during past visits. Not now. There was no sound but the wind blowing across the desert.

Jack walked in a crouch through the desert brush towards the visitor’s center, his rifle tucked into the SUL position. His hatchet was back in his belt, retrieved from the undead fight the previous day. They might need to kill a zombie quietly, and sound attracted more of the undead. Where there was one there were two, if there were two there were six, and if there were six they would quickly have a horde. Jessie followed about twenty yards behind Jack, also crouching, which was good tactics for an ambush. Jack really hoped that the undead weren’t capable of staging an ambush.

He neared a break in the brush next to the road in front of the building and took a kneeling position. He really should lay prone, but he wasn’t too keen on lying on the desert floor with all the scorpions and snakes that were often out. Jack smirked to himself, thinking that was yet another on the list of why he wasn’t a Navy SEAL.

Jessie took a kneeling position about twenty yards to Jack’s right as he took his binoculars out of his cargo pocket to survey the building and area. There were a few vehicles in the parking lot, but no movement around them. The front doors to the visitor’s center were closed, and a thin piece of rebar was bent through the handles. That seemed odd, since it looked like anyone could take it off and walk inside, unless there was something inside they were trying to keep from getting out.

Jack continued watching the dark windows of the visitor’s center. After a few minutes he thought he could see shadows moving behind the glass, but it was hard to tell because the windows were tinted and the building was dark. He guessed that there were undead locked inside the building—hard to tell how many. On the upside, he couldn’t think of anything of value that they would need in the visitor’s center. The potable water tap was outside the building near the parking lot, and the restrooms were accessed from the outside as well, so there would be a chance to use a normal toilet again. Well, semi-normal, they were super-low-flow biodegradable chemical-based toilets, but that still beat everything else they’d used over the past week.

Jack and Jessie watched the area for about thirty minutes, and when they felt comfortable with it, returned to the rest of the group.

“So, what’s up Jack?” Bexar asked when he walked up.

“Well,” Jack said, “looks like there isn’t any activity around the building. There’s a few cars in the parking lot, and it looks like there’s probably undead in the building, and someone locked the doors from the outside using a piece of rebar.”

“Do we actually need anything out of there?” Bexar asked.

“No, I can’t think of anything of value,” replied Jack. “It’s mostly an information desk and a gift shop, but it does look like we’ll be able to get to the water point, and we might be able to use the restrooms since they have a separate entrance.”

The weary travelers climbed back into their vehicles and drove towards the visitor’s center. Jack led the convoy into the parking lot, and they left the vehicles pointed towards the other parking lot entrance in case they had to leave quickly. After his experience in Marathon, Bexar also left his vehicle running.

Their first priority was to see if the water still worked out of the water access point. Bexar guessed that it was gravity-fed from tanks further up the mountain, but he wasn’t sure. Jack tested the tap and found water flowing easily, so they were in luck. It only took about ten minutes to fill all the water jugs, and now they had enough to last them a few more days. They would continue using this water source as long as it lasted, but there was no guarantee it would last at all.

As the last water jug was lifted into the FJ, something hit the front doors of the visitor’s center from the inside, causing the doors to flex outward against the rebar lock. Even from a few yards away in the parking lot, they could hear the moans coming from inside the building. There was no doubt what was locked in the building, and it sounded like there were more than a few. The bathroom breaks would have to wait—they needed to move on from the parking lot rather than risk that the improvised door lock would hold.