Zombie Dawn (23 page)

Kate, Christina, and Stan took off as soon as they were loaded.   Tom, George, Mike and I stayed in St. Albans to clear it.  We took turns standing watch for the rest of the night and got a few hours’ sleep.  My last thought before I got to sleep was that I was happier to be out here risking my life than back home finding beds for twenty totally freaked out kids!

I can’t say that we got up early the next morning, because we didn’t.  When I woke up, all of us were asleep and it was past eight.  It would have been my watch then, but Tom hadn’t woken me up—because he was dead asleep.  I carefully checked things out before I woke everyone up.  It was clear.

George and Mike went and got the Hummer and pulled it up to the house.  These guys were losers, but they did have a pretty good stock of baby and children items, baby formula, diapers, and food.  They even had a bunch of crib mattresses down in the basement.  We loaded it all into the trailer.

They also had cases of MREs and canned goods and a decent supply of bottled water in 5 gallon jugs.  We grabbed all of that as well.  There were no weapons other than their personal stuff but we did find some radios and a nice pair of binoculars, which I claimed.  We left the Nazi literature and porn behind.

Our plan was to drive the Hummer through the streets and see if we noticed anything, smoke from a chimney in particular.  St. Albans is right on Route 89 so it’s pretty built up, relatively speaking.  There were too many buildings to clear all of them so we needed some help to find other survivors.

About an hour in we noticed smoke coming from the chimney of a big colonial house sitting well off the street.  There was a black Hummer parked on the lawn.  We stopped far enough away so that any occupants wouldn’t be able to see us from the house.  We decided that Tom would stay with the Hummer and that George and I would approach the house.  Mike would cover us with the M24 from behind a landscaping wall in the front yard.  Tom would be in sight of Mike and could support him with the .30 cal if necessary. 

We walked a few houses down and then through back yards to approach from the side of the house.  We ran into a high wrought iron fence that had been beefed up with barbed wire.  George carried some bolt cutters and I had wire cutters so we quickly cut an entry through the fence.  I noticed activity in the house and the distant sound of an alarm.  We had clearly tripped something in the security system.  We pulled back, sat, and waited for awhile.

Mike radioed that he saw a teenager looking out a window but no other action.  A few minutes later, she came outside into the front yard.  When she opened the front door, we could really hear the alarm.  It must have been driving them crazy in there.  According to Mike, she was “totally hot.”  I told him to calm down and stay put.  A few more minutes of that alarm and we’d know something.

It went on for a few more minutes when we saw a few more teenagers come out the front door.  They couldn’t handle the alarm anymore, and they couldn’t turn it off.

I told Mike to stand up for a second and wave, then drop back down, but to do it really quickly and when the people were looking his way.  He did, and a few of them waved back.  Either they were friendly, or they needed help.  I told Mike to move to another spot and do the same, then keep doing it.  George and I moved right up to the corner of the house while Mike distracted them.

We could overhear the kids talking.  “Maybe that guy will help us” was the sentiment of some.  “Or maybe he’ll be the same” was voiced by a substantial minority.  They didn’t talk about what had happened to them but we could imagine.

Finally, one of them got close enough to the corner that she’d see me if I didn’t speak up.  I whispered “It’s okay.  We’re here to help.  Is anyone inside?”

Mike was right, she was hot.  She was quick, too.  No tears, no freaking out, she just responded in a whisper.  “There were five of them but four left.  We killed the last one this morning.  He was drunk and we stabbed him.  There aren’t any more.  Help us!”

“We killed the other four last night.  Are you sure the house is empty?

“There are nine kids here, all teenagers.  The young kids are somewhere else.  So a few kids are inside but that’s it.”

“Where are the adults?”

“They killed them all.”  She filled up when she said it.

“Okay, we rescued about twenty kids last night and killed the guys who had them.  Those kids are with my wife at our farm.  Would your group like to come with us?”

“Yes.  If we’re safe.”

“You’ll be safe.  We have a bunch of men, women, and children.  No one is locked up or beaten.  Everyone works, though.”

“Okay.  I’ll tell the others.”

I told her to get all of the kids together, dressed warmly, and out on the front lawn.  I wanted the house empty.  I told her that her group would be searched and then we’d search the house.  I asked her if she knew where the keys to the Hummer were, and she did so I told her to bring them out to me immediately.

She went back around the corner and made the announcement.  Kids were crying, yelling, and trying to come around the corner to see me.  When they did, they saw an armed man dressed in black pointing a scoped automatic weapon at them.  They kept coming!  I yelled at them to stop and repeated my instructions.

Finally, they got it and went into the house.  Ten minutes later they were all on the front lawn, dressed in reasonably warm clothes.  I had George pat them all down while I covered them.  I got the Hummer started and told them to get in it and they eagerly crowded in.  George drove that Hummer down to the street and around the corner and I radioed Tom to roll up in our Hummer and cover the house with the .30 cal.  I told Mike to stay with George and get the kids squared away.

With all of the splitting up, I was a bit nervous about going into the house alone, so I had Tom come in with me.  It was a good thing I did, because the house was booby trapped with Claymores.  How the kids avoided them I don’t know, but Tom dismantled them and we moved carefully through the house.

The kids had really done a job on the last bad guy.  He was totally hacked up.  I gave him a few healthy whacks with my hammer to avoid surprises.

Once again, the house was loaded with supplies and water and this time we found weapons—a dozen matched KRISS .45 carbine rifles and Glock 21 pistols, plus 5,000 rounds of ammunition and ten 13 round magazines per weapon.  Great find. The rifles and the handguns used not only the same ammo but the same magazines.  Not great at long range, and not high capacity, but a sensible setup with great stopping power.   

 I radioed back to Mike and asked him if any of the kids could shoot.  Three of them could—a fifteen year old boy, Ben, and female sixteen year old twins, Courtney and Brittany.   Mike’s hotty was actually two hotties!

In addition to Ben, we had three other boys—Jonathon, Brandon, and Luke.  In addition to Courtney and Brittany, we had two Chelseas and one Sara. 

They were all filthy, but relatively healthy.  They had been well fed.  They had bruises and scrapes and had been through a lot.  Only time would tell how they were able to deal with it.

When we were done clearing the house, I had George drive up with the other Hummer.  Tom checked out Ben, Courtney, and Brittany on the .45s and we decided that they were very competent with them.  We issued them each a Kriss and a Glock and four magazines and told them to stay with George and Mike and do whatever they said.  I saw Mike grin at this and I gave him a cautioning look.

Rather than load up the supplies, I decided to secure this house.  It was pretty well set up for defense.   Completely walled, with good open fields of fire, plus it was faced with brick.  A bunch of working fireplaces and some woodstoves as well and a decent supply of firewood.   I decided that this could be our base when we cleared St. Albans, which I knew we had to do.   We removed the body and threw it over the fence in the back yard, secured the house, and prepared to move out.

The city was right on the highway and it would be too easy for a horde to travel through here, add to their numbers, and stumble on us at the Farm.  There could also be more survivors.  I decided that we needed to make it as difficult as possible for a horde to do that, by blocking off each access point heading towards the lake.  I also figured that we’d need all of the supplies that we could get.

            We drove home in the two Hummers.  It was a bit crowded but spirits were high.  I felt much better to have found nine “useful” people to help with the twenty children that we’d just rescued.  The kids were happy to be free and looked forward to seeing their siblings again. 

It was a wonderful scene back at the Farm.  Miraculously, all of the siblings were reunited.  Of the younger kids, there were two sets of twins, four year old boys and eight year old girls.  Naturally, they “belonged” to Courtney and Brittany.  Somehow, Kate, Marj, Stan, Susan and the rest had transformed part of the attic into a cozy nursery for the young ones and created boys and girls sleeping areas in the basement for the older kids.

We spent a couple of days settling in and getting to know one another.  The house was clearly too tight to serve all of us but it worked OK in the short term.  I knew we would have cabin fever in the spring, though.

Whoever had built the house must have had a huge family.  Six large bedrooms, a huge kitchen and dining room, and a massive family room plus an office and a formal living room.  We created another two large bedrooms in the attic (babies and toddlers) and two more in the basement (boys and girls).  There were plenty of beds and blankets.

My family, all of us, had one bedroom, although lots of times the kids would crash with the other kids.  They loved the triple bunks that Darnell built all over the place.

Stan and Marj had a room of their own, as did Tom, Li, George and Sumner.  Our new couples, Darnell and Jake and Christina and Cleve, took one room and divided it into two so they could have some private space.  The Johnsons had their own room.

Sally Hixon and her two daughters, Megan and Krista, usually slept up in the attic and watched the nursery.  Of all of us, they felt the need to be with others constantly and they had plenty of company up there.  Megan was eleven and Krista was thirteen and they were already a huge help.  Another of our Burlington survivors, Susan, a student, helped out constantly with the younger kids and slept up in the attic as well.

We had so many people in that house, we hardly needed heat!

We had rescued twenty-nine kids from St. Alban’s, seven when we saved Jenny, and a couple more in Burlington.  Our “core” group had another five kids.  Kate and Sally were or had been school teachers so we decided to hold school for the kids. 

Darnell and Jake found a large construction trailer on a neighboring farm and brought it over next to the house and set it up as a school.  By the time they were done, it had lights, a wood stove, and plenty of desks and chairs.  There was no shortage of books and materials, either.  We divided it into two rooms, one for smaller kids and one for older kids.

Stan and Tom fortified the trailer with chain link and a firing platform on the roof.

The school came out so well that Li and Nancy demanded a medical trailer.  Darnell and Jake had to range a bit further this time but finally located a large house trailer and set it up on the other side of the house.  They also found two ambulances, loaded them with medical and dental supplies, and parked them next to the trailer.   We fixed this one up with primary and backup generators and fortified it.  When we were done, Nancy had two beds and two examining tables and Li had a pretty legit dental setup with a real dentist’s chair and a waiting room, right down to the old gold magazines.

We started to call Li the dental Nazi.  She forced all of us to use fluoride, floss, and brush and would check us randomly.  She set up a schedule so that everyone got dental cleanings every couple of months rather than twice a year.  She wanted to avoid dental emergencies.  She even made everyone from the Spiller and Lynch spreads come down for periodic cleanings and maintenance.

When the school and the medical facilities were set up I decided that we needed to spend some time cleaning St. Albans up and re-routing traffic away from the lake and the Farm.  Stan and Tom would stay and lead the defense of the Farm.  Cleve would continue work on the defenses with Sumner’s help.

I’d bring Darnell, Mike, Ben, Jake, and George with me.  I wanted to have two people in the house at all times plus a team of four to clear individual buildings.  I had a plan for Darnell to do some work on the highways, too.

First, we went back to the Cat dealer down in Burlington.  Darnell grabbed a huge forklift and we loaded it onto a trailer, hooked it to a truck, and headed north to St. Albans.  When we arrived, we jumped onto Route 89 North and ran up 3 exits.  The highway was littered with cars.  Northbound was okay, but Southbound was a mess.

The plan was simple—we’d use the big forklift to build walls of cars.  We would light the “walls” on fire after we’d put them up.  That would kill the frozen zombies locked inside them.  We decided on quick visual checks only for the cars, assuming that there couldn’t be any survivors.  We would check box trucks and larger vehicles for supplies and weapons and we’d fill up our vehicles using hand pumps whenever we could.

The plan worked great.  Darnell was amazing with the forklift.  He’d prod the larger cars and trucks into a line that was three vehicles wide, and then load a layer on top that was two wide, and then top it off with a single top layer.  I can’t say the wall was particularly safe, but it really cleaned the highway up and created major blockages.