They were frazzled, maybe even a little shell-shocked. The surviving four delegates identified themselves as Raymond Easting, Earl Hunter, Earl’s wife, Sheila, and Seth Kitchens. All of them were in their late twenties and wearing civilian clothes, identified themselves as Congressional aides in their past lives.
“There were six of us originally,” Raymond said. He was what you would call an average Joe. Nothing about him particularly stood out. He was skinny, his brown hair was a little oily but freshly combed and his three-day beard growth was not particularly thick. His demeanor was pleasant enough but he spoke with one of those voices that made you think he grew up in a mansion with nannies and butlers and he only went to the finest private New England schools.
“We started out three days ago. It was pretty slow going, as you can imagine.
“When we got to Mount Juliet it was already late in the day, so we decided to stop, rest up, and make a fresh start in the morning.”
“You were on I-40?” Justin asked.
“Yes, that was our route through most of Tennessee. Gerard had shot a deer the day before, so we thought it’d be nice to grill some venison.” He looked around at all of us.
“With the exception of an occasional zombie wandering around, we hadn’t seen a soul throughout the entire trip. We thought it was safe.”
“What happened then?” Ruth prodded.
“They came out of nowhere,” the one who introduced himself as Seth said. He was calmer than the other three. A lean but muscular build on a six foot frame, and he had a smooth yet authoritative tone to his voice. I scribbled furiously as he spoke. “I’d estimate the number at around three hundred, maybe a few more.” He paused and waited for me to catch up. Another one of them, Earl, chose the moment to speak.
“The trip itself was pleasant enough, considering the condition of the roads.” He looked to be a couple of years older than the others, a few inches shorter than his companion, even leaner, with wisps of premature gray in his brown hair.
“The location where we stopped had a scenic view and there was a nice breeze coming from the east. The venison was on the grill and the aromas were mouthwatering. It started out as a very pleasant afternoon.” He sighed heavily and his wife, a short brunette who appeared to have been sporting a lot of weight at one time, reached out and grabbed his hand.
“I sure hate to interrupt your reverie, Earl, but I believe they want to hear about the specifics of us getting attacked.” Seth looked around. “Where was I? Oh, so there were about three hundred of them. They swarmed us from the west, right at sunset.”
“They were running,” Earl interrupted again. “We’ve never seen them run before. Have you guys?”
“Not anything worthy of winning the Olympics, but yeah, we’ve seen a few of them run.”
“Yeah, these weren’t fast, but fast enough. They caught Gerard and Clyde before they could reach the safety of the vehicle. They put up a good fight and we shot as many as we could but there were too many. They overwhelmed them and ripped them apart.” Raymond shuddered.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’d seen similar things, but it doesn’t make it any easier when you witness your friends being killed like that.”
“What’d you do next?” I asked. Seth pointed at their military vehicle.
“Are you familiar with one of these?” he asked. I shook my head.
“It’s an Armored Combat Vehicle, commonly called a Stryker. They’re very sturdy, virtually indestructible against small arms fire, zombies, and things like that. When we first started out, we stayed inside it at all times and only got out when we had to answer the call of nature.” Earl again spoke up.
“We were very vigilant at first, but we became complacent, I guess you’d say.” He looked around at us. “Trust me, when you’re stuck inside one of those things for hours on end, bumping up against your friends and smelling their body odors, tempers get short.”
“I can imagine,” Marc said. Earl looked at him and gave an uncertain smile.
“Long story short, we started out with six good people, and this is all that is left.” He focused on a knothole on the picnic table he was sitting at for a moment and then looked around at all of us again.
“They took us by surprise and there were simply too many of them.”
“Did you kill all of them?” Justin asked.
“I believe we killed a sizeable number,” Seth responded. The other three murmured their agreement.
“But not all of them,” Justin pushed. Seth shook his head.
“As it got dark, the ones left alive kind of faded away and left.” He looked pointedly at us. “Damned peculiar behavior, if you ask me. We waited until morning before heading out.” Cutter snorted. I looked up from my notes and waited for his derisive comment.
“I hope you didn’t lead those damned things to our doorstep,” he remarked. I glanced sharply at him and then at Justin.
“He makes a good point,” I conceded. Justin gave the delegation a hard stare.
“What route did you use to get here, after the attack?” Justin demanded. Raymond looked a little uneasily now and hastened a glance at his three companions.
“We got turned around once or twice,” Sheila replied. “But, there wasn’t anyone or anything following us.” Earl nodded in agreement with his wife.
“Those things aren’t that smart,” he declared.
“But, you people didn’t take any active countermeasures, now did you?” Justin rejoined. Three of them looked pointedly at Seth but didn’t respond. They probably didn’t even know what countermeasures were.
“They’re regaining their cognitive processes,” I said. “You can’t underestimate them.” True stood suddenly, then thought better of it and sat back down.
“What is it, True?” Justin asked.
“Maybe it ain’t my place to say,” he said to Justin. “But we don’t need to be taking any chances. We need to go on a recon patrol ASAP.” he said. “We’ve got to find out if them things are close by.”
“Yeah,” Justin replied. He stood as well. “Goober, Blake, Ruth, gear up.” They nodded and hurried off. Cutter and Shooter stood.
“We’re in,” Shooter said without being asked. Justin gave him a look before focusing on me.
“Are you going?” he asked.
“Not if those two are.” The two brothers glared at me but wisely remained silent.
Justin pointed at Earl. “You’ll be driving that fine-looking car.” Earl paled as he shook his head nervously. Seth stood and stretched.
“I’ll go,” he said. “Earl isn’t the best driver in the world.”
After gearing up and going over the route with us, Justin led his patrol out. Ward volunteered to man the radio in case they got into trouble and needed help.
“Alright, let’s get back to the purpose of your visit,” I said to the three remaining delegates after the patrol had left.
“Oh, the usual horse-hockey,” Raymond said nonchalantly. “Get a census, establish lines of communications, and try to convince Zach here to come home with us.”
“Why is that?” Jorge asked.
“Here we go,” I retorted under my breath. Raymond heard me, but was unfazed.
“I’m sure you all are aware of Zach and his children apparently having an immunity to the zombie virus. The President and the surviving members of Congress have been told by our scientists they believe they can create a cure, with his assistance, of course.”
“What about the rest of us?” she asked. Raymond held his palms out.
“Our directive is simple regarding who’s invited and who’s not.”
“It should be, you’re the one who thought it up,” Sheila said snidely. Earl chuckled.
“We are to evaluate all survivors we come into contact with. The benchmarks are skills, health, and most importantly, content of character. I believe all of you pass muster.”
“You see,” Earl interjected. “We’ve created a paradigm of the best course of action for rebuilding society. We are going to attempt to recruit as many able-bodied survivors as we can, and then reestablish an agrarian and industrial base. You know, get the farms producing, the power-grid operational, the factories online, the oil refineries booming, the usual. Simply put, get the country going again.”
“Along with a formal government,” Tonya remarked.
“Yeah, and who wouldn’t want that?” Gus asked scornfully. Raymond shrugged.
“You better believe they’re doing it in Russia and China. If we don’t do the same, there will come a day when somebody, be it the Russians, Chinese, or some Muslim country, they’ll show up on our doorstep and claim the U.S. now belongs to them. Not a pleasant alternative, if you ask me.”
“Why did they send Congressional aides?” Sarah asked. “Are there no military personnel left?”
“We’re expendable,” Sheila replied after a pause. Earl frowned at her but she ignored him and focused on Sarah.
“In answer to your first question, there are still military personnel, but they’re guarding the base, the town, the President, and what’s left of Congress.”
“How many civilian and military altogether?” I asked.
“Approximately 133 with four more on the way.” He saw at least one confused expression and explained. “Four of the women are pregnant.”
“There’s one other thing,” Raymond added, almost as an afterthought. He looked around at us and gave almost apologetic smile.
“We’re not at Raven Rock, we’re actually located in Mount Weather.” Tonya sat up quickly.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Where the hell is Mount Weather?” Gus added.
“Any contact we make with the outside world, we tell them what is left of the government is located at Raven Rock, just in case someone with access to nuclear weapons is listening in.
“Raven Rock is basically an underground bunker that is designed for a small contingent. Mount Weather, although it too has a sizeable bunker system, it was also specifically designed to house the executive branch in case of an emergency for a sustained period of time. It has everything you can think of. Fresh water, living quarters, fresh food, stored food, just about everything you can think of.”
We conversed with the three delegates at length through the afternoon. They explained they’d had sporadic radio contact with other pockets of survivors all over the United States. Raymond was hesitant, but I pushed him into giving an estimate.
“We believe it to be approximately a half million,” he said. “Our ultimate goal is to get the majority of the population within a hundred mile radius of Weather.”
“I’ve heard of Mount Weather,” I said. “It’s located in northern Virginia, correct?”
“Yes, about seventy miles from DC.” He looked at all of us. “Obviously, we don’t want everyone stacked on top of each other, but if we could consolidate, it would go a long way to reestablish America’s infrastructure.” The delegates discussed it at length. I had to admit, it sounded good in theory, but there were a lot of unforeseen variables. It didn’t stop me from taking extensive notes though.
The patrol returned late in the afternoon. All of us were anxious to hear about it and gathered around them as they unloaded.
“One hundred and seventeen dead zombie motherfuckers,” Shooter proclaimed and looked at Kate smugly, as if he were the one who killed them all by himself.
“There were ten to fifteen malingerers, we took care of them. The rest of them had already been killed by these guys,” Justin said, pointing at Seth.
“So, if Seth’s count is accurate, there are still a little over a hundred of them wandering around the Mount Juliet area,” Tonya opined.
“It would seem so,” Justin answered, “but other than the fifteen we killed, we didn’t encounter any others.”
I started to question Seth, but he wasn’t looking very well.
“Would there happen to be somewhere to clean up?” he asked nobody in particular.
“We have a locker room,” Marc responded. “Give me a minute to get it going and I can have the shower up and running.”
“That’d be nice,” he replied quietly and followed Marc inside. Justin cleared his throat.
“Clyde and Gerard were hardly recognizable,” he said somberly. “Seth is taking it pretty hard.”
“The three of them were very close,” Sheila said. She hurriedly wiped away a tear.
“Would it be possible for us to shower too?” she asked.
“Of course,” Tonya replied, and motioned for the three of them to follow her.
“We could be wrong, but we’re fairly certain none of those other zombies made their way here,” Justin said. “I think we’re going to head over to the tower and get cleaned up as well.”He made a small motion with his head before getting in his vehicle with Ruth and True. After making some small talk, Kelly and I loaded up.
“We’re going over to the radio house. Justin wants to talk to us,” I said to Kelly as I turned onto Concord Road. The three of them were standing outside, waiting on us.
“There’s something odd going on here,” Justin said.
“What do you mean?” Kelly asked.
“That Seth dude is military,” True declared. “And he’s an officer. I can smell an officer a mile off.”