Authors: J.A. Crowley
Jim loved Tom’s armored and armed Hummer but thought his two .30 cals were too light. He swapped them out for a .50 cal, and mounted the .30 cals on the Expeditions. He had improved the mount on the .50 cal in the pickup. He gave us another mounted .30 cal for the van.
He saved the best, I thought, for last. He had carefully checked out our arsenal and decided to upgrade us a bit. We had twenty Ruger .22 pistols for the smaller people and twenty Colt .45s for the big people. Each handgun had at least ten magazines. Each vehicle had a rack with two 12 gauges mounted with tactical lights and a second rack with two full auto M4s in .223, one with a night scope and one with a hunting scope and a mounted grenade launcher. He loaded crates of grenades, Claymores, and ammo into the vehicles and the trailer. He had built a gun locker in the rear of the bus and loaded it with M4s, 12 gauges, and .22 rifles. He gave us two silencers and six scopes for the M4s. He fitted us all out with tactical vests.
Jim was more than generous and, like Robin Hood, shared his goodies with the less fortunate. We spent the day admiring our new setup, the night partying, and got up early to leave. A few hugs and promises, and we were gone.
Chapter Eighteen: North to Vermont
We crossed Jim’s temporary bridge and started to head north and west. Our goal was to reach Vermont. We figured there wouldn’t be many zombies there since the state was so sparsely populated. We hoped to find a protected spot on the coast of Lake Champlain in an unpopulated area where we could do some dairy and cattle farming and live off the land.
The going was slow. Lots of people had tried to evacuate. I had no idea where they thought they were going, but the Mass Pike was jammed both ways. We decided to use our GPS units to pick our way down smaller roads. The satellites were still working fine.
Sean had discovered that all of the cars had DVD players in them and he really wanted to see some movies. He had brought a couple from home but insisted that we get some more ASAP. I thought sadly that it would be a long time before anyone would be making movies again. In the meantime, I was forced to listen to “Talladega Nights” and “The Stepbrothers” about a hundred times each.
I thought about raiding a Target or Wal-Mart store. It sounded dangerous, since everyone had probably headed there. We’d have to wait and see. Sean wanted to raid a GameStop for video games. He still had handheld video games which he somehow always kept charged. I told him that risking our lives for GameStop was not likely.
We traveled slowly, not more than twenty miles per hour, with about fifty yards between vehicles. We’d have to stop every once in awhile to move cars out of the way. Many of the cars had zombies in them. They couldn’t operate seatbelts or doors and were trapped. Almost all of the cars had something dead in them. We would carefully evaluate which cars would need to be moved. If it was a zombie car, we’d have to clear it, then reach in get it in neutral, then roll or push it out of the way. All of the cars stank. Stan, Jake and I took turns doing it with the help of Darnell, Jake’s new buddy, and Cleveland, Christina’s friend. It was not pleasant duty, but we did find the occasional useful item, including a nice 1911 .45 with a metal can full of ammo and a case of 12 gauge double ought shells with a nice double-barreled Benelli. It was amazing what people had brought with them—big televisions, booze, bags of cash and jewelry, drugs, electronics, and other useless stuff. Some had clearly died of dehydration because they didn’t bring enough water. Stupid.
We saw hundreds of zombies. We would run down those on the road and ignore the rest. We stopped every couple of hours at a gas station and topped off all of our tanks. We would quickly grab water and food to replace what we’d eaten. For the time being, supplies were simply not a problem. So many people had turned, and zombies did not eat or drink.
We started to look for a place to sleep at about 3:00 p.m. each day because finding a safe place took time. Some nights we were lucky and found an isolated house that we could quickly clear and barricade. Other times, we’d sleep in the cars. Those nights, we’d circle the wagons, with each car facing a different way. Some would sleep and some would keep watch.
Each time, we’d have to kill zombies because they were active all night. Not many, but a steady stream of them. We’d use what we called our “hand weapons.” Sean called them his “melee weapons” because he was a big Left 4 Dead fan. Since he was only eleven, we did not let him get close enough to use them, but he was ready. His was a military entrenching tool with a sharpened edge. He practiced with it all the time.
The kids slept okay in the cars, but it was hell for the adults. A few times we slept in commercial buildings or gas stations. Sometimes we stopped for a few days to rest. We always had plenty to eat and drink but we were always exhausted on the road, so the rest times were necessary. One time we camped out for a few days in a big Barnes & Noble bookstore. Everyone loved it and we all stocked up on our favorite books. We also grabbed a selection of books about farming and raising beef and dairy cattle. Sean chose a book about chickens, Mike took pigs, and Bobbie took rabbits. Bobbie was my little cutie, but I had no doubt that she’d “share” her rabbits around the dinner table without hesitation.
I took the time to teach Mike to drive and he caught on quickly. He’d try to get going too fast from time to time but his mother would quickly get on the radio and tell him to slow down. To his credit, he always listened. The guys tried to let all of the kids over 14 learn to drive. No need for learner’s permits anymore.
We’d constantly play with our GPS maps and try to figure out where we should settle. Stan would propose a site and Marj would shoot him down. I’d propose a site and Kate would point out something wrong with it. Jake would propose a site and Darnell would come up with a better site. One of the kids would propose a site and all of the other kids would jump ugly. It was sort of funny but we also learned a lot about what we were looking for.
There were really two camps. One camp wanted to settle somewhere, fast, and get ready for winter. They figured that we could make it work, but wanted to feel at home ASAP. This camp also grumbled from time to time about returning to Jim’s. The other wanted to wait for the perfect place with the low population, isolation, water, and farming that we’d been talking about. It never got to the point of mutiny.
I thought it was probably explained best by the concept of cognitive dissonance or rationalization. The human mind wraps itself around what it decided to do and supports that as having been the right idea. One example is that a person who pays $10 for an item thinks it’s better and more useful than someone who pays $3, who likes it more than someone who got it as a gift. So those who had decided to come with us decided they’d made the right call.
I was thinking about trying to find an island in Lake Champlain, maybe something connected by a causeway that we could barricade. Big enough to farm; small enough to defend. Maybe a nice farmhouse and a forest for firewood. An artesian well with a hand pump. Nice and simple. Playing around on the GPS made me think that Grand Isle, in the middle of Lake Champlain, might work. It was kind of big, but isolated by water and limited road access, full of working farms, and completely out in the boonies, population under 2,000. I proposed it to the group and they agreed to take a look.
To get there, we had to go through Burlington, a decent sized city. We decided to take a look at the city and stock up on supplies before we got to the island. We really had no idea what we’d find up there. We also decided to check the Coast Guard station in Burlington to see if that installation had survived.
Chapter Nineteen: The First Battle of Burlington
We’d had some discussions at Jim’s about trying a large-scale zombie eradication in an urban area. We decided that we’d build a few platforms, make some noise, draw as many zombies as we could in, and kill them. Ultimately, we wanted to end as many as we could; we knew we, or some other survivors, would have to deal with them eventually. We decided to target Brains and Speeders in particular.
As we entered Burlington, we saw plenty of zombies. It had been a city of about 40,000 people. It seemed like most of them were still around in zombie form. We simply couldn’t afford to allow them to horde and attack us on the island. We decided to try a few different approaches and see what worked best.
First, we cleared a small police station of zombies. It had a sally port so we could park the smaller vehicles inside. The station had been barricaded but clearly had fallen when those inside the barricade had turned. It was sad to have to end all those former police officers but we needed a safe base for our operation. We cleaned it up as well as we could. No running water, heat, or electricity but we were only going to be there for a few days.
First, we decided to see how many zombies we could shoot in one day. Mike and I set up a few blocks away in the middle of a big traffic intersection. There was a large structure over the intersection for signs and traffic lights. It was about sixteen feet off the ground. We mounted it with aluminum ladders and each set up facing a different way, pulling our ladders up after ourselves. Each of us had a .22 with 1000 rounds and an M4 with 500 rounds, plus our handguns.
Stan had gotten a huge DPW dump truck started. It had a huge, V-shaped plow on it. The plan was that Mike and I would shoot as many as we could. If we ran out of ammo or something went wrong, Stan would drive the truck under us and we’d jump down into it. Stan could then drive us away. We figured he could use the plow to smash through any crowds.
Jake and Christina were stationed about 50 yards away in a couple of telephone poles. Each had a scoped M4 with 500 rounds. Their job was to cover us and shoot any zombies that got up into the superstructure. We didn’t think any would, so Jake and Christina would take turns. Stan would pick them up the same way.
Darnell and Cleve would ride in the truck and pick off any strays and try to spot Brains and Speeders.
Mike started things off by blowing one of those air horns that makes a loud sound. Action picked up immediately, and Mike and I started shooting rapidly. The .22s with 30 round magazines worked great, since the zombies’ heads were only 10 feet beneath us. We worked quickly and the crowd picked up. Jake and Christina were wreaking havoc as well and we could hear frequent shots from the truck. Stan was tooling around, herding the zombies towards us and smashing as many as he could.
After a bit, Mike noticed that the zombies had started to stack up a bit and were now only six or seven feet below. We called Stan and he came in with the dump truck and plowed them out of the way. We did this time and again. Stan was actually building a high wall of zombies at the south end of the intersection, since most of them were entering from the north. We didn’t want them to escape.
Mike and I were running through our thirty round magazines at about one every minute. We’d slow down a bit from time to time to let our barrels cool and to reload magazines. It only took us about an hour to run through 900 rounds apiece. We decided to keep going and again called Stan. He had another 2,000 rounds in the truck and delivered them to us. The truck was so big that Julie, who was riding shotgun, was able to climb onto the roof and hand them to us.
We continued shooting. I tried to figure out how effective we were. I watched Mike closely. He was killing about nine out of ten with one shot apiece. Once in awhile, it would take two shots since the little .22s could deflect off the skull bones. Or, he might miss. In any event, I figured him for about ninety percent. I was about the same. I was trying for shots between the eyes or through the temple. Those shots were less likely to deflect, but Mike was a better shot. By the time we were done with 4,000 rounds, I figured we’d nailed maybe 3600. It was totally exhausting.
Jake and Christina had been shooting slowly but were probably closer to 100 percent. They’d used about half of their ammo so that was another 500 or so. Their job was to protect us so they needed to keep most of their ammo handy.
Mike and I switched to our M4s and took another 400 shots each, also scoring close to 100 percent. Stan had made a bunch of runs through the intersection and was nailing at least 20 to 50 on each run. Julie was plinking them with a .22 pistol and she got about 100 herself. The walls of dead bodies were amazing. Finally, we figured we’d ended about 5,000 and that it was time to head home.
We called Stan and the pickup worked beautifully. Mike and I jumped down into the sand in the back of the truck, followed by Jake and Christina. We were able to retrieve the ladders, too. We drove slowly away to draw the zombies away from the police station, picking off a bunch more from the tailgate. We got to the spot where we’d dropped off six police patrol bikes and took an indirect route back to the station. The plan had worked perfectly, but we still saw plenty of zombies on the street. We clearly had more work to do.
Things had been quiet back at the station and there was news. During the day, four new survivors had come in. One seemed like a homeless guy; his name was Skeeter. He said he’d been hiding in a dumpster. The other three were a mother, Sally, and two young daughters, Megan and Krista. They had been hiding in a vacant office across the street, watching the station for signs of activity. When they saw us, they came in. We were glad to see them all but told them that we’d have to lock them in a cell for the night to make sure they were okay. They understood and agreed. We gave them fresh clothes and shoes because they were filthy. In fact, Skeeter actually stank worse than a zombie.