Winchester: Over (Winchester Undead) (19 page)

Big Bend National Park, Texas

Jack had been stalking his prey through the woods
since before dawn. He wished it had gone up the trail instead of down. If he could get the kill, it would be extra work dragging the carcass back up the mountain. The sun had just began to peek over the top of the mountains to the east, and it would only be a few more hours until the stiff cold winter air was broken by the heat of the sun. Jack stopped to scan and listen to the area around him. Hearing movement in the brush to his left, near a small stream, he raised his rifle and aimed towards the disturbance in the woods. Almost holding his breath, he waited for his prey to be shown. A sudden fury of movement exploded from the brush about twenty yards in front of him; tracking the movement with the muzzle, he fired his rifle, felling a mule deer.

Over the past month of living in the
Chisos Basin, the group had been forced to flee for their lives from an undead horde and take refuge on the desert floor near Cattail Falls. After regrouping and establishing a camp and a plan, they had flushed the roaming undead out of the Basin over the course of two weeks, burning the bodies in a dumpster by the tent camping area. It took another full week of work to clear each of the cabins, the motel rooms, and the support buildings of trapped undead. They had hoped, through all of the dirty fighting and burning dead bodies, to find some survivors, but there were no survivors at all.

Only in the past few days had they been able to relocate from their temporary camp on the desert floor to the CCC cabins at the top of the basin, near the trail for the South Rim and Emory Peak. Their cache of stored food was beginning to dwindle, so Jack had set out to kill a mule deer because he had the most hunting experience. They hoped the cold weather would help the meat keep while they set about preserving it.

While Jack hunted for food, Bexar was at the cabins watching the kids. Sandra and Jessie had taken the Wagoneer down to Panther Junction to scout the homes where the park staff had lived. The girls were looking for any signs of survivors, but they were also looking for any canned food, salt, or anything else that could be useful. The homes hadn’t been cleared of the undead yet, so the girls were playing it safe, using tactics the group had developed during the past month of undead clearing.

After the park personnel’s homes were raided, the next step would be to check the big RV camping spots in the Park, like the Rio Grande Village. Where there were big recreational vehicles there were generators, hopefully some that had been unaffected by the EMP.

Jack finished field-dressing the deer and built a drag using some 550 cord and wood found by the creek. A car horn honked twice from the direction of the cabins. Sandra and Jessie were back from their scouting trip, and he needed to get his fresh kill back up to the cabin. Hopefully the girls had found a large barrel of salt; they would need it to preserve all of this meat.

It took Jack nearly thirty minutes, but the deer was at the trailhead and across the hood of his FJ. A few moments later he pulled up to the front of their cabins. Sandra, Jessie, and Bexar
were organizing the raided supplies, which included a large stack of canned goods, a few large boxes of kosher salt, and a bunch of mason jars with lids, but that wasn’t the most exciting find.

“Four groups of solar panels, probably five feet across, all mounted on poles next to the homes!” Jessie reported excitedly. “We just didn’t know how to take them apart and bring them back. Besides, we haven’t cleared that area or the visitor’s center yet either.”

For the past two weeks they had been trying to come up with a way to power the pumps at the water tanks in the basin. Water pumped up from a well on the desert floor near The Window to a series of tanks, then pumped to another series of tanks, and eventually to two large tanks hidden in the woods behind the cabins. All the equipment appeared to be in good order, it just needed electricity. If they could power the pumps, they would have a lifetime of fresh water on tap. With the water, javelina, and deer in the area, they would have everything they needed to survive for the foreseeable future.

With the group settling into a comfortable routine, they made a plan for two of them to go up the trail to Emory Peak the following week. That couple would hike to the top of the mountain with the ham radio and shortwave radio, enough food and water for their stay, and the charged car battery from the Scout to power the radio. They would spend two days on the mountain trying to reach any other survivors, or gather more information about what had happened to the world over these past weeks. Whoever wasn’t on the mountain would watch the kids and keep up the work at their base camp.

Besides the radio work on the mountain, everyone was excited for the little overnight trip. It had been nearly six weeks since either Bexar and Jessie or Jack and Sandra had had a chance of enjoying a date night. They were, in fact, so excited they had to rock-paper-scissors to determine who got to go up the mountain first. But now with the new find of solar panels, the communications plan might be delayed a few days.

February 3
rd

Groom Lake, Nevada

Lance and Cliff made their way back to the supply room, which was about the size of a high school basketball gymnasium. It was divided into sections by shelving units, with some more secure areas in large locked fence cages that were about twenty by twenty feet. Luckily, the undead quartermaster had the keys on his belt, so Cliff now had the keys to the whole storage facility.

Over the past month spent killing the undead in the underground base, Cliff had procured one of the fenced-in cages and turned it into a shelter, removing what was stored and making it a safe place for him to sleep. With a cot, some blankets, a few cases of .223, and two cases of MREs, even if he became trapped by the undead in the cage, he could easily survive while systematically killing them all. He had even hung netting on the fence to obscure the view into the cage.

Now with Lance joining him, Cliff began gathering supplies for the young scientist: A fresh set of BDUs, underwear, socks, boots, t-shirt, and a belt. He left Lance to change and discard his well-abused clothes. Cliff set out emptying the fenced cage next to his own. Lance returned in his new clothes and helped organize his new “room” much like Cliff’s.

“Know how to shoot?” Cliff asked.

“Yeah, well, not really. I played a bunch of Call of Duty, and I shot a friend’s shotgun a few times, but that’s about it,” Lance replied sheepishly.

“Okay, well, let’s get you a pistol and some ammo, and I can start teaching you the basics, but I’ll do the heavy lifting when it comes to taking down any threats. You’re the last guy here who has a chance at the Yama Strain, so you need to learn how to survive, and I need your help.”

“I thought you wanted me in the lab working on our problem?”

“I do,” agreed Cliff, “but first we need to clear the commo-hut and see if anyone else is still showing green, then we can try to find you some help. I know the President’s dead, I verified that personally. The VP too. Hopefully one of the other facilities is up and running and somebody survived. My mission is to facilitate the continuity of government and the restart of leadership, and to help anyone involved succeed in saving what’s left of our country. If I was to guess, I’d say there’s probably pockets of survivors, especially military personnel, out there in the wild, but that’s just a hunch. Since leaving Denver you’re the first living person I’ve spoken with. To be honest, we’re pretty much goat-fucked, but we have to succeed in my mission if there’s any hope of survival at all.”

Lance thought about it. “I get why here at this facility, but how do you fit in, why you?”

“I’m one of a handful of people who were selected and trained to complete this mission, assuming this scenario happened,” replied Cliff. “Although I wasn’t supposed to be here, I was supposed to be in Denver; there’s another member of my team that was supposed to be here. The Denver facility is a tomb; I barely made it out alive. I’m hoping that some others of my team survived and made it to their responsibilities. Mount Weather has a good chance of survival, but it’s also well-known publicly, so if survivors flocked there and turned, it would have easily been overrun. This place is a sealed, secure location, and it was overrun, so who knows. Not counting here and Denver, that only leaves Waxahachie and Napa Valley.”

“
Waxa-what?” said Lance.

“Waxahachie, Texas. Do you remember the super-conducting collider they built underground ringing the city?”

“Vaguely.”

“Okay, well, the collider was real, they really built it, but it was also a cover for the construction of another underground facility. The story was that the boring machines used to build the collider were turned and discarded underground, but in reality they started the excavation process to build something very similar to what’s here. Except that the lake they’re built under isn’t dry, it’s really a lake with water in it, and they’re built much deeper than we are here.”

“Damn, didn’t know about that one!” said Lance. “And I figured it was the shit to work at Area 51. Thought I would learn about secret aliens and stuff. Guess I was wrong.”

“There are no aliens, guy,” Cliff said, shaking his head. “Most of those stories were made up and perpetuated by our own government to give the public something to latch onto and distract them from what we were really doing. Besides, when you have unbalanced people telling the story for you because they deeply believe it, the general public sees it all as crazy, just because of the storyteller. Either way, none of it matters if we can’t get our communications up, or if there’s no one to answer them. We need to get to work so we can get into the
commo-hut tomorrow.”

“So what are we doing the rest of the day?” asked Lance.

“You’re going to learn how not to shoot yourself, or more importantly, not shoot me.”

Big Bend National Park, Texas

The group’s morning began as usual, with breakfast and planning for the day. First they would tackle clearing out the park staff’s homes and the visitor’s center, which should only take a couple of hours. Then Bexar and Jack would continue on to the Rio Grande Village and RV camping area to scout and recon the area for any survivors, or any supplies they might need. Jessie and Sandra would stay by the homes, the kids with them, and attempt to safely remove the solar panels from their mounts. The cabins would be left unguarded, but they believed that with the terrain, if they closed the gate across the road in the mountain, the undead would have a hard time getting up there. Besides, they were relatively confident that the undead in the Basin had been completely eradicated.

The kids played in the back seat of the Wagoneer as Sandra and Jessie loaded Bexar’s tool kit in the back and started out of the Basin. Bexar and Jack followed in the FJ, stopping only to shut the gate behind them, securing it with a length of 550 cord. Bexar and Jack had every fuel can the group owned, along with the hose and the hand-cranked pump. Both the Jeep and the FJ had been topped off that morning, and the gas cans were now empty.

There were two gas stations in the Park, one near the visitor’s center, and another in the Rio Grande Village. Neither had been checked for fuel in their underground tanks, as there hadn’t been time until now, so Bexar and Jack would fill the group’s gas cans if possible. Worst case, there would hopefully be some abandoned vehicles or gas-powered RVs they could siphon gas from in the RV park.

The group convoyed down the mountain and towards the visitor’s center, passing the gas station on their right. The first task was the undead in the visitor’s center, then clearing the homes behind it. The kids stayed in the Wagoneer, and Sandra climbed onto the roof for watch. Jessie and Bexar took firing positions in the parking lot, while Jack pulled the piece of rebar out from the door handles to unlock the visitor’s center. Jack pushed against the doors, holding them closed, and looked back at Bexar and Jessie.

“You guys ready?”

“Yup,” Bexar replied.

“Yeah,” echoed Jessie.

“Okay, here we go!” Jack pounded on the doors then ran perpendicular to the line of fire to clear the doors. Within seconds the first undead burst through the unlocked doors, and the group held their fire, letting the walking corpse clear the doorway. As the third zombie came out of the visitor’s center, Bexar fired the first shot, exploding the skull of the zombie closest to them. Systematically the process continued, with Jessie and Bexar methodically killing each undead that shambled out of the dark building until a dozen bodies littered the parking lot and no more emerged.

Rifles up, Bexar and Jessie moved slowly towards the doorway and paused long enough for Jack to join them, then banged loudly on the doors again and held them open. There was no
response from inside. Bexar and Jessie switched on their weapon lights and walked into the darkness. A few minutes later they came back out and declared the building clear. In the Basin they had taken the time to burn the bodies of the undead they’d killed, but here they would leave them where they had fallen, and let the animals of the desert take care of the carcasses.

They loaded back into their vehicles and followed the road into the first group of homes in the housing area behind the visitor’s center. Repeating the process they had used with the visitor’s center, they had
cleared all the homes within three hours. They hadn’t found any survivors, but thirty walking corpses were put down for good. The service buildings and other homes further on would need to wait for another day; there was still work to be done.

Jessie and Sandra fed the kids and tried to get them to lay down for a nap in the back of the Jeep before starting their project of dismantling the solar panels. Jack and Bexar drove back to the gas station in their FJ.

The small service station had a selection of fan belts and radiator hoses, as well as a good selection of gas station snacks, so the few belts and hoses that would fit their vehicles went in the back of the FJ, as did boxes of beef jerky, some candy bars, Gatorade, and Red Bull. The keys for the underground tanks were found in the service station office, next to the chart the attendants used to keep track of the tank stick measurements, which saved Bexar and Jack the effort of having to cut the locks. It also gave them the ability to re-lock the tanks and take the keys with them.

Twenty minutes later the red gas cans were full and the underground gas tank was secured. They used the measuring stick they had found to measure the tank,  and by referencing the chart in the office, noted that there was another seven-hundred gallons of fuel in just that one tank, so they should be set for some time, at least until the fuel started to go bad. Loaded back in the FJ, the boys headed out towards the Rio Grande Village.

Ignoring the forty-five-mile-per-hour speed limit signs, it took about thirty more minutes to reach the ranger’s station just outside the Rio Grande Village. Jack stopped the truck in the road and they both exited with rifles in hand. In the parking lot was a single Park Services truck, which was to be expected. The window next to the front door was shattered and dried blood covered the sidewalk. With no movement outside the building, Jack held cover on the front door while Bexar walked up, opened the front door, and propped it open with a rock from the parking lot. He then banged loudly on the door and yelled inside, and was instantly answered by a loud and angry moan. Bexar ran quickly out of the line of fire before making the loop back to join Jack, keeping his rifle in the SUL position while scanning the area for any other threats and leaving Jack to engage the emerging zombie. Two shots later the zombie lay truly dead by the shattered window on the sidewalk. They quickly searched the ranger’s station but didn’t find anything except for some stale donuts, a lot of dried blood, and some park maps.

Safely back in the FJ, they drove the short distance to the edge of the Rio Grande Village. The convenience store and
laundromat were on the left, with the parking lot in front of them, and the smaller RV park to the right, through the trees. The parking lot had a handful of vehicles, and it looked like there were a lot of RVs parked on the other side of the trees. They couldn’t even see the main RV park, which was further down the road. Jack turned the FJ around, pointing it towards their exit in case they needed a quick escape.

“Cars first, or the store?” asked Bexar.

“Let’s do the store,” replied Jack. “If they’re in the cars they’ll stay in the cars.”

“Good call.”

It was Jack’s turn for door duty, so Bexar took a firing position, resting his rifle across the bed sides of a pickup parked sideways in front of the store. The windows to the store were intact and Jack found the doors unlocked. Taking a rock from a planter outside, he propped open one of the doors and banged loudly on the other door before running around the front of the truck Bexar was using as a shield.

“Holy shit,” was all Jack said as he recoiled and fell to the ground, his rifle clattering on the pavement.

“What the hell, are you okay?” Bexar asked, reaching down and handing Jack his rifle.

“Yeah, look,” said Jack, pointing at the truck’s passenger window where a toddler was beating at the window and moaning.
An undead toddler.

“Damn! Hey, look alive, they’re coming out.”

Jack turned and took a firing position next to Bexar; five undead had already come through the door, unnoticed due to Jack’s excitement. Quick rifle work and the undead were permanently dead on the ground in front of the store. Bexar swapped magazines in his rifle, putting his slightly used magazine back into his chest rig last in line for use, in case he needed the couple of rounds left in it later. He and Jack walked into the store.

“Damn, everything’s gone.”

“Probably the folks in the RV park, Bexar. They probably raided the store after this all started.”

“Yeah.”

A few minutes later the pair exited back into the midday sun only to see three undead stumbling across the parking lot from the RV park.

“They must have been drawn by the gunfire, or you yelling like a girl,” Bexar said.

“Fuck you,” said Jack, “and it was probably the gunfire.”

“Where there’s two there’s three, and where there’s three there’s thirty … stay or go?”

“Stay. You’ve got left and I’ve got right?”

“Sure.”

“Great, ready? Annnnnnnnnd GO!”

The friends snapped their rifles up from the SUL position and began taking shots in their area of responsibility—Bexar the left half of the parking lot, and Jack the right. The first three undead were killed
quickly, but more kept streaming out of the RV park.

Bexar and Jack had spent considerable time practicing with their ARs over the past five years; both had attended top-quality tactical rifle courses more than once. With that much practice you became accustomed to how your rifle feels when something changes, like when the recoil buffer pushes against the spring in the buffer tube but fails to fall forward back into battery, due to being stopped by an empty magazine.

Bexar yelled, “OUT” while he rotated the rifle in front of his face, depressing the magazine release button with his right index finger, his left hand dropping to the next full magazine on his chest rig.

Jack replied, “COVERING” and began firing at the closer zombies in Bexar’s area of responsibility. Bexar slapped the fresh magazine into the magazine well and thumbed the bolt release to drop the bolt forward, while bringing his rifle back into a firing position and yelling “UP!” Jack went back to covering his half of the parking lot with Bexar covering his half for only three more shots before the process restarted with Jack yelling, “OUT!”

Three magazine changes apiece later, with their rifle barrels smoking in the cold winter air, no more undead came out of the RV park.

“Holy shit, were you counting, Jack?”

“Nope, but damn, that’s a lot of people.”

“
Gather, and I’ll cover.”

“
Rog-o,” Jack replied, bending down to gather the pair’s empty magazines, “let’s top off and then we can check the crowd.”

Jack gave Bexar his spent magazines and they walked to the FJ to reload and top off. Walking back to the parking lot now scattered with bodies, Jack took his hatchet in hand and Bexar grabbed a large flathead screwdriver, and they began checking the undead for any that were still moving. Two of the dead were still undead, which was quickly remedied.

“How many more do you think are in the RVs over there?” Jack asked.

“Shit Jack, I have no idea,” Bexar replied, “but maybe a couple of the travel trailers are in good shape and don’t have any bodies in them. If we needed to leave the park, we could do it in style! But if we’re going to clear them, we need something to mark the ones we clear so we know if we come back.”

“Yeah, tell you what, I’ll hold cover if you want to check the store for something we could use,” Jack said.

Bexar nodded and walked back into the store. A few minutes later he came back out into the parking lot holding a roll of duct tape.

“We can use the tape to make an ‘X’ across the door frames of the RVs we clear, then we’ll also know if they were opened by someone else when we come back.”

Jack and Bexar climbed in the FJ and moved it closer to the RVs. Once again they turned the truck so it faced the exit and began to clear the mobile homes. It took ninety minutes of banging on the sides of twenty-two different pull travel trailers and fifth-wheels, but thirteen more undead were freed from their aluminum tombs and sent to their final resting place in the parking lot. During the process they found two nice Honda generators that still worked, and ten more five-gallon red plastic gas cans.

Even with the access to the underground tanks at the gas station, they would need as many gas cans as they could carry in case they needed to leave the Park. Their thoughts now turned to using one of the generators to run a refrigerator or a freezer to help stretch their food supplies. The sun was setting in the mountains, so they loaded the FJ with the new supplies and drove towards the sun and back to their camp in the Basin. The much larger Rio Grande Campground RV area would have to wait for another day.