《Zombie Survival》


 Birth Of An Apocalypse

    Prologue


    Birth Of An Apocalypse


    STATIC AND LOTS OF VOICES


    ¡°Quiet down everyone. I said QUIET!!! That is much better. Now welcome everyone to our end of the year planning session of the Meat is Murder coalition. As you know this year we are joined by our brothers and sisters from a variety of different organizations, we have representatives here from Veggies for Life, the Anti-Leather League, and of course, Fur is not Friendly. We also have a special guest today. A true life hero to all of our movements, Dr. Weinstein. Dr. Weinstein has been deep undercover for years documenting the cruelties of animal testing. However, he comes to us today in triumph. Dr. Weinstein why don¡¯t you explain the rest.¡±


    ¡°Alright, is thing on? Can everyone hear me okay in the back? Very well then let me give you a brief history of what I have been doing and why I have finally decided to leave my important work and come and talk to you my brothers and sisters of animal freedom. 15 years ago I too fought on the frontlines to end the cruelty against animals, however after several years of struggle I decided that the only way to truly end the horror that humans perpetrate on innocent animals was to document and change things from the inside. I was just finishing up my doctoral degree in Epidemiology with an emphasis in Animal Welfare, I wanted to be able to cure all of those cute animals and make sure they never got sick, when I was presented with an opportunity like no other.¡±


    ¡°A company called the Zed Corporation approached me and offered me a job to work in their research laboratories. I can tell from your reaction that you too know that Zed Corp is one of the greatest enemies of us lovers of things cute and fluffy. Everyone here knows that though they are on the forefront of medical technology. How did they get there though? By testing on innocent animals. Well I am here to tell you that it is even worse than you think. Zed Corp over the last several decades has expanded from just medical testing on animals to also importing all types of animal products and has recently purchased a string of slaughterhouses to start diversifying into the premium and exotic meat markets. It is almost as if the CEO of Zed Corp Daniel Puffington sat down one day and made a list of what he could do to not only torture animals but kill them and feed them to others.¡±


    ¡°However, I come to you today brothers and sisters of a righteous cause with hope and a solution to the ever growing power of Zed Corp. While documenting the horrors of how they test on animals I came across research that had been abandoned years ago by the corporation. It seems that quite by accident Zed Corp had created a virus that could actually bring a stop to their entire animal cruelty empire. They quickly buried the research and hoped that no one else would ever discover it, but I did. The virus that they created on accident is easily transmitted through the air, touch, and water. Here is the brilliant part my friends, it will only make a person sick if they eat cooked meat. That is right you heard me. It lies dormant in the host for up to 72 hours and will only attack a person and make them sick if they consume protein that has been denatured by heat, or in other words cooked meat.¡±The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    ¡°Can you imagine it my brothers and sisters. This is a disease that when spread will force people to stop eating meat, because eating meat will cause them to get sick. As a bonus side effect it makes those who are sick allergic to the common chemicals used in tanning leather, hides and fur. I can see you are starting to understand. This one little virus will basically make the human population averse to eating meat and using poor animals as fashion accessories. I was able to recreate a sample of this wonderful virus from the research I found and I left Zed Corp soon afterwards. Now the only thing to do is release it into the world. That is where I need your help my friends. You see the virus is not as strong as I would like and I am afraid that if I was the only one to spread it than Zed Corp or another enemy of animals may be able to find a cure before it teaches humanity that it does not need to rely on the death of animals to survive.¡±


    ¡°So today after the meeting I will be giving out small perfume and cologne bottles filled with this virus so you my brothers and sisters of animal freedom can help me spread it as quickly as possible. I have discussed this with the leaders of your various groups and we have come up with a simple and fool proof plan. Everyone who receives a sample of the virus is to travel to as many airports and other transportation hubs and spray this anti-animal perfume and cologne to infect the non-believers. This way destinations around the globe will be infected by travelers within the 72 hour incubation period of the virus, and it will be spread out too far for Zed Corp to possibly fix or stop us. 5 days from now when the majority of those despicable meat eaters and animal killers are just starting to get sick we will release a video documenting what we did and why. This will allow anyone with any semblance of concern for animals to immediately stop eating meat and using animal products, after all we want to make a point not hurt people. For those who do not heed the warning, the consequences will be on them. At that time once people know that animal cruelty is no longer an option and it is all Zed Corps fault for creating the virus in the first place, the end of Zed Corp and a change for humanity will surely follow.¡±


    MASSIVE CHEERING


    COPY OF DR.WEINSTEIN¡¯S INFAMOUS SPEECH NOW KNOW AS THE ¡°ZOMBIE FOLLY SPEECH¡±


    FOUND IN 2086 OLD CALENDAR


    ARCHIVED 42 PA (POST APOCALYPSE) IN THE ISLAND FEDERATIONS NATIONAL MUSEUM OF HISTORY

 1 - I Finally Made It

    Chapter 1


    I Finally Made It


    Now is the moment of truth. You have been working hard and struggling for months for this single moment. Don¡¯t chicken out now Mark you can do this.


    As pep talks go this was one of my better ones that I had with myself. My name is Mark Evans, known by my friends as Doc, and today is my Independence Day, or at least I hoped it was. Independence from what you ask, from the cruelty of dieting. My medical doctor and family had finally convinced me several VERY LONG months ago that my weight was becoming a problem. I mean yes I had gained 20 or 30 or maybe even 75 pounds, but a problem? I don¡¯t like that term. I was quite happy being chubby, I mean at least I got to eat whatever I wanted to.


    However, today was my annual check-up. If I passed my cholesterol test and exceeded my weight loss gains I had been promised that several of my favorite foods, which had been banned from even coming into my house, would once again be accessible. Just the thought of a double, extra bacon, cheeseburger started my juices flowing. Focus Mark, you have been working hard and now you get the payoff. I mean yes I had lost over 50 pounds and was healthier, and could once again touch my own toes. None of that can compare to bacon though. Life without bacon, basically was no life at all.


    ¡°All right Mr. Evans, I am glad to tell you that you have done better than expected and have exceeded your weight loss goals. We already drew your blood for the cholesterol tests and should have the results by the end of the week. I am optimistic after seeing how well you have done with the diet and exercise and think that once the test results are in you can go back to an unrestricted diet if you continue your exercise program.¡±


    ¡°Wait a minute Dr. Phillips, does that mean I am still on the diet restrictions?¡±


    ¡°Unfortunately yes, but only for another week or so until the test results come in. I want you to continue taking the cholesterol medication also just as a precaution. However, as soon as results get here I will call you. I understand how you must feel right now. Don¡¯t worry, I won¡¯t delay my call to you and soon enough you can enjoy the foods you used too.¡±


    ¡°Thank you Dr. Phillips.¡±


    Well that did not go as planned. I should still be able to at least participate in the Memorial Day barbecue coming up this weekend if my results come back in time. As I was gathering my things and about to leave Dr. Phillips spoke up one more time.


    ¡°Before I forget, we have been seeing many new cases of a strange flu going around the last couple of days. Make sure that you wash your hands thoroughly and keep contact with other to a minimum for the next several days to let it burn itself out through the community.¡±


    ¡°Sounds good Doc, I look forward to hearing from you soon.¡±


    Pleasantries out of the way, I made my way back to the front of the clinic. With Dr. Phillips warning fresh in my head, I looked at the waiting room with new eyes. There were a lot of people here, more than I usually saw when I came in for my check-ups. I hope this flu passes soon, I hate being sick and avoiding contact is easier said than done. As a high school teacher I came into contact with others a lot, and let¡¯s just say the hygiene of some teenagers is not what it should be. Luckily there is only two more weeks of school and then it is sweet summer break. Many people probably think that summer break is for the kids, but as a teacher I can honestly say we adults in the industry probably enjoy it more than they do.


    I finish up with my paperwork and bills at the doctor¡¯s office and head out to Betsy. Betsy was my long time dream and project vehicle. A 1969 Nissan Patrol with updated engine and 4-wheel drive. I had first seen one of these when I was 15 years old and it embodied everything I wanted in a vehicle at that age. It looked like a jeep, so the cool factor was there, it was older so it had the retro flair, it had four-wheel drive so I could escape into the wilderness if and when I wanted too. It was my teenage dream car. Many people probably dream of sports cars and such at that age, but I was always a little more down to earth and practical. Don¡¯t get me wrong, if someone offered me a sports car for free or really cheap I would take it and enjoy driving it, but there is something about a solid off road vehicle that screamed freedom to me.


    I climbed up into Betsy and pulled out my cell phone. Time to update the family. I quickly called my daughter and let her know the results. I assured her that no matter what the results of the test said if she could make it home for Memorial Day I would still be barbecuing for everyone at the house. Next up was verifying that my little brother and my sister and her family would be up for Uncle Mark¡¯s annual Memorial Day barbecue extravaganza. After chatting with everyone for a while and updating each other on what was going on I was ready to leave.


    Yep that whole time I just sat in Betsy calling people. Call me old fashioned if you want, but I did not use my cell phone when driving for any reason. Several years ago the dangers of cell phone use and driving hit home hard for me and many others when one of my students was killed in a head on collision. The cause was determined to be distracted driving due to cell phone use. The horrible part was it wasn¡¯t my teenage student that was distracted, but an older man who was driving the opposite direction got distracted and drifted into the other lane and impacted the car my student was in. Suffice it to say, since that day cell phone use and driving has been a no go zone for me.Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    I had taken the entire Friday off for my doctor¡¯s appointment so I decided to head to the local Piggly Wiggly to stock up for the next couple of weeks and get ready for the upcoming holiday barbecue. I pulled into the parking lot and noticed that it seemed surprisingly empty. Oh well, I entered in and saw Billy a former student of mine on the register. ¡°Good afternoon Billy.¡±


    ¡°Hello, Mr. Evans. You don¡¯t look that happy, let me guess, still no bacon.¡±


    ¡°Yep, just got back from the doctor¡¯s office, but there is hope on the horizon Billy.¡±


    ¡°Glad to hear that Mr. Evans, let me know if you need anything.¡±


    ¡°Ok Billy, I will.¡±


    One of the good and bad things about living in a small southern town is that everyone knew everyone else. Personal business was discussed and gossip was rampant. It took one innocent comment to a colleague of mine at school and in less than two days, everyone knew about my dietary restrictions and how I had to exercise. This was both embarrassing that everyone knew, but also extremely helpful. How could it be helpful? Imagine trying to cheat on your diet or not going to the high school gym and having everyone you work with and live close to know and berate you for it. It made you feel good that so many people cared or were just nosy enough to mention it. This support from the community, and their unwillingness to help me cheat on my diet, was why I was doing so well.


    I wandered around the store filling up the basket with my normal supplies and then started in on the picnic supplies and extra meat for the upcoming holiday. After I finished shopping and assured Billy that the unhealthy amounts of meat were not for me, but for the upcoming Memorial Day weekend I managed to get back out to Betsy and headed home. Home was something I had finally found after many years of wandering. I had not always lived in the south. I grew up out west and in my early days of teaching I had wandered around the country and the world teaching science in a variety of places. 2 years in New Mexico, 5 years in Washington State, 2 years in Oregon, 3 years in Virginia, 2 more in North Carolina, and finally 4 years overseas. 2 of them on a little island in the Caribbean and 2 of them in Costa Rica. After that experience I decided it was time to find a place to settle down and had ended up in a small town in South Carolina where I had been teaching the last five years. One more year here and I will have set a record for the longest I have ever stayed in one place since college.


    I loved the area I was in. It was extremely rural, but it was also midway between Columbia and Greenville South Carolina. This meant that in less than an hour I could be in a larger city if needed. It was very convenient. Heck Atlanta was only 3 hours away by car also, if I needed a truly large town or international airport. Travel times to anything I needed were extremely reasonable and I really liked the down home feel and attitude of the residents of my area.


    As I pulled Betsy into my driveway I got out and opened the gate. No it was not some fancy gated community, but rather ten acres of good land with a small creek running through it. I had an extremely large house for just me, but after my daughter moved out and got a ¡°real¡± job I was not complaining. I loved the extra space. I could have several personal projects going at one time and just spread out over the entire place without making anything feel cluttered. The extra space was also nice when family visited, all though that was becoming less and less as both me and family got older.


    I shut the gate behind me and parked Betsy in the pole barn behind the house. 20 minutes later, all the groceries were put away and I had my biggest decision of the day coming up. Was I going to read in the recliner or in my hammock? I struggled with the plusses and minuses of each place and eventually wound up on the screened in porch in my hammock. It was a great lazy day, and a wonderful start to a relaxing weekend. I opened my e-book reader and settled in for what was probably going to be my standard start reading and end up taking a nap in my hammock session.


    Four hours later I woke up to the sound of a log truck honking its horn on the road in front of my house. That nap was great, but it is getting dark and I should probably move inside and make some dinner. I was tempted to cheat, but knew that somehow, someway, someone would find out if I did. Instead I made some white rice, a piece of chicken and a wonderful salad. Once done with dinner I decided to check up on everything in the news. I settled into my favorite recliner and opened up my I-Pad.


    I had not watched the news or read a newspaper outside of a few at friends and relatives houses in years. I had formed a habit of checking everything online when I taught overseas and had kept the habit when I moved back. This actually saved me money and I still found out everything I needed to know. As I was browsing through the msn news feed I kept seeing articles about the current flu scare. Many experts it seemed were calling it an epidemic already and suggesting strict quarantine for individuals. This was unusual, I decided to research some more about what was going on as I had not heard anything except the vague warning about it from Dr. Phillips.


    It seemed that over the past week this new strain of flu had spread across the globe like wildfire. 75% infection rate, violently ill patients, and a higher than normal death rate for flue in this day and age. I assume that is why everyone is freaking out over this strain of flu. I mean people die every year from the flu but these numbers are very unusual. It seems that 1 out of 100 people that get this flu have either died or been admitted with serious complications to hospitals in the U.S. That is only 1% of the population, but seeing as how the normal death rate from flu is usually .0001% of the population I get why people are nervous. This flu is basically 1,000 times deadlier than last year¡¯s strain.

 2 - Quarantine

    Chapter 2


    Quarantine


    Now I am starting to get a little nervous. I mean I have to go back to school on Monday and I will be in germ central. I have a very good immune system, every teacher does, but this new strain of flu seems to overcome just about everybody. I might have already been exposed at the doctor¡¯s office for all I know. I think it is time to isolate myself. Thank goodness I am prepared for situations like this. It makes it easier that I just came home from shopping also. I picked up enough fresh groceries for about two weeks and have enough frozen and canned supplies to last for a good six months.


    Six months is more than most people will have if needed. I am something of a preparedness nut. I have always wanted access to enough supplies to keep me going in case something bad happened. It all started back when I was in in middle school. When I was 12 years old in eighth grade my 3 best friends and I decided that we would go camping. This was nothing unusual as we were all in boy scouts and lived in the mountains. Camping was just one of the many activities that we did. However, this time we decided we could handle a long weekend without supervision and somehow convinced our parents that this was a good idea also.


    So the four of us were dropped off by Tommy¡¯s dad at the river about 35 kilometers from town and we decided we were going to cross it and camp on the far side. Less people over there so we wouldn¡¯t have to deal with weekender¡¯s and out of towners who were not true camp people like we were. Being old hands at this, we went to one of our favorite campsites and started setting up. We were about 20 meters away from the river and had never run into a problem when we camped here before. Late that evening though it started to rain. Not a problem, we were all scouts and had come prepared. The long weekends camping trip would not be as fun, but it still was better than being home.


    We all adjourned to our tents and did not even consider that there might be a problem. About 3 a.m. Stephen started yelling and woke us all up. We stumbled out of our tents and told him to calm down. It seems that the river was rising, much more than it ever had in the past. Stephen had gotten up to pee and noticed that the river was only 5 meters away from us instead of the normal 20 meters. Now folks this was a problem. The original size of the river was only 10-15 meters wide and no more than meter deep in most places. Kind of a really big creek more than a river. Now though it was at least triple its size and still rising. We did not panic, but decided that getting to higher ground would be a good idea. We packed everything up, and then started walking east away from the river and ran into a problem.


    What we had not considered was that we had camped on an upraised spot next to the river. It was about 7-10 meters higher than the surrounding area. The river had not just flooded but surrounded us and left us on a newly made island. In the dark, even with our flashlights, we could not tell how far across the new river on the east side was so we did not know if it was small enough to cross. We decided to head back to camp and move to the highest point on our new island and reassess the situation at first light. So we did exactly that. Every once in a while someone would go and check on the river. It was still rising but not nearly as fast.


    It started to get light around 6:30 a.m., and soon enough it was bright enough to see. We headed down to the original river side to scope that out first. Definitely not getting out that way. The original river was 10-15 meters across and about a meter deep, no it was 75-85 meters across and probably 5-10 meters deep. We couldn¡¯t tell exactly, but we could see some rather large logs and trees washing by. So we turned around and tried the east side of our new island. This side looked better from a crossing point, but was still 25-30 meters wide and at least 2-3 meters deep, maybe more. Not something we wanted to risk.


    So we sat down and talked about what we were going to do. After about an hour of arguing, we finally decided to go fishing. You see we realized we really could not do anything ourselves and were completely dependent on someone realizing that we might be in trouble and coming to get us. Since we could not do anything, why not have fun why we wait. We fished, played tag, set up camp again, and just goofed around the entire day. The water stopped rising, and it finally stopped raining around 4 in the afternoon. We lit our dinner fire and started cooking some ramen. 30 minutes later we heard people yelling from the river side.


    Curious we went down and saw a forest ranger and several of our parents on the far side of the impassable river. You could see the relief in their eyes when they saw us walk out of the trees. After shouting several times, we were basically told we needed to wait for the river to go down before they could come and get us. No problem, we had planned on camping another day anyway. Two days later, the river had not gone down far enough for us to escape, we had run out of food, and it started to rain again. We were starting to get really worried.


    Because of the flooded conditions, fishing was hard. We were lucky if we caught 1 or 2 a day, not really enough food for four growing boys to live on. Our parents and others realized we were in a bad predicament also. They told us not to worry and to just rest so as not to use as much energy. Two very hungry days later, the local National Guard was finally called in and we were helicoptered out. All of our camping supplies were left behind on the island, but we got a free chopper ride and some local fame. It was two weeks before the river went down enough for us to go and retrieve our things.Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    This caused me to realize that if I had not been lucky enough for my parents to know where I was and what I was doing I could have been in real trouble. Since then I have always wanted access to enough supplies, just in case something happens. I am not a full time crazy stocking up for the end of the world, but I have run into situations, usually financial, that have caused me to eat into my six month supply over the years. I decided that enough was enough for today and to just go to bed and do my regular activities for the weekend. I would be able to recheck the situation on Sunday.


    Saturday I spent working in my garden and reading once again. I decided Sunday would be my electronics day this week. I may be older, but I still enjoy playing video games every once and a while. Sunday would be the perfect day for a marathon gaming session. After which I could recheck the news and prepare for school the next day. The gaming session started off well, I had just picked up Dungeons III a couple of weeks earlier and had not really had the chance to sit down and play it like I wanted too. Now I could. 3 hours into my gaming session I got the munchies and decided to fix lunch.


    Preparing a quick sandwich in the kitchen, I soon ate and was headed back for round two of my gaming session when my phone rang. I answered and was surprised to hear an all call announcement from my school. It seems that school would be cancelled for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday due to the flu outbreak. The district would reassess on Wednesday and make a decision on whether to cancel for the rest of the week at that time. This surprised me. Schools shut down for a lot of things, but sickness is not usually one of them. The number of people affected by this must be huge in order for them to make this decision. I needed more information.


    I went and grabbed my I-Pad from the charger and logged on. First stop, the msn website to check new and my e-mail. There were several news stories that talked about how horrible the flu was. After reading a couple I was getting a little worried. I definitely am going to avoid contact with people for a few days just to be on the safe side. I wonder if my daughter is ok. I need to call her and see if she is sick. I better make the phone rounds and check on the rest of the family as well. I just talked to them a couple of days ago after the doctor¡¯s appointment, but it seems like this flu is hitting hard and quick. I continue to browse articles concerning the flu, while talking on the phone with the relatives. My daughter had already caught it but fought it off. Dad was down with the flu and mom was taking care of him. My sister was too busy taking care of her kids to get sick she told me. Finally, my little brother was recovering from his bout with the flu just like my daughter.


    I felt relieved that everyone seemed to be doing okay at the moment. Just before I was about to shut down the I-Pad and get back to my game, a new article appeared on the news feed. ¡°Flu Victims Turning Violent¡± Even though I knew it was click bait I had to see what this was about. I started reading the article and read that at several hospitals people who had been admitted with the flu turned violent and bit or tried to bite any one close by. Doctors were stating this was due to hallucinations and dehydration. The article of course linked it to an outbreak of zombies. You always hear how the newest disease that has infected a lot of people is going to destroy humanity. Good for the author on actually making the link between biting and zombies. That should entertain a lot of people and get him more views. I mean who doesn¡¯t love a good zombie story.


    I shut it down and laughed a little to myself. A zombie apocalypse, how neat would that be. I have supplies and plans galore. I pictured myself as the lone survivor searching for others to help save humanity. I knew that reality would be vastly different than many stories if a disease actually broke out that killed so many people. However, it was still fun to imagine and prepare for. I had zombie shirts, escape plans, and survival books. I was ready as any man could be that did not actually think a zombie apocalypse could happen.


    Why do I have the stuff then? Two main reasons, first it was fun, and second and more importantly being ready for a zombie apocalypse meant you were ready for almost every other disaster out there. Even the CDC in recent years had put a zombie survival page and recommended supplies on their website to encourage people to prepare for all types of disasters. Let¡¯s face it, many people will buy supplies and have fun preparing for zombies, but if you told them to prepare for an earthquake that may or may not happen they would not do it.


    I decided to cook a steak on the grill for dinner that night. I enjoyed my steak, played a few more video games and realized that I could sleep in tomorrow due to the cancellation of school. It was a good day. I went to bed happily knowing that I did not have to deal with hormonal teenagers the next day. Around 2 a.m. I woke up in great pain. My guts hurt, I felt hot and cold at the same time, and I barely made it to the bathroom. What the heck was wrong with me. This felt as bad as the epic food poisoning incident of 2011 involving undercooked shrimp and the buffet which shall not be named.


    I tried to think of the cause of this horrible sickness in between bouts of fluids coming out of both ends of my body. My steak should have been fine. I cooked it the same way I always do. I had some lemonade with dinner, some steamed broccoli, and a small spinach salad. Maybe it was the salad? It was not too long ago in the news that they talked about an E. coli outbreak on spinach. Maybe this was what E. coli poisoning felt like. I knew eating healthy would kill me faster than the desserts. Salad has gotten its revenge.


    The rest of the night was me battling the horrible symptoms I had. I did not think I had that much liquid in me. I kept trying to drink fluids, because I knew that dehydration was my worst enemy when it came to sickness. Somewhere around 6 a.m. I was finally able to keep down a cup of water and a shot of the store brand of flu medicine and I fell unconscious. I woke up almost twelve hours later with a horrible case of cotton mouth and still feeling sick. However, I no longer felt like I was going to die. I hope this was food poisoning, because if this is what everyone is going through with the flu then this is going to be bad. I almost could not take care of myself and younger children and older people definitely would not be able too. I am going to at least quarantine myself through the end of the week just to be safe. I will call into work if need be, but if what I had is contagious and not because of salad poisoning then I do not want someone else to catch it from me.

 3 - Recovery And Planning

    Chapter 3


    Recovery and Planning


    The next two days were recovery and cleaning. I have a habit of cleaning everything as soon as I can when I am sick. I have some weird OCD thing that thinks if I clean and sterilize the house it will prevent me from getting sick. I know it sounds strange, because I am already sick, but no one is completely normal. I just chalk it up to getting rid of any lingering viruses or bacteria so no one who comes over get sick. I also checked up on my family. My daughter had also gotten sick, it sounded like she had the same thing as me, just a milder version. It must be nice to be younger with a better immune system. Everyone else in the family except my dad was ok. It seems the sickness had hit him hard and he was admitted to the hospital. I planned on visiting soon if he did not get better.


    Tuesday night I got another all call saying that school was going to be cancelled for the rest of the week and it would start up again on Monday. While I understood why they were cancelling, I was a little upset. I hate missing school. Not because I want to be there every day, but because for every day we missed of school we would have to make it up. As it stood now, we would be going an extra week into June and that would cut into my summer vacation. Like most teachers, I live for my extended breaks. They help make up for the low pay we get.


    I decided that with school canceled I should actually check the news to see if the situation had changed. I logged on to my laptop and started browsing the news sites. Epidemic and pandemic were being thrown around a lot. Even by respectable news sources. That is not good. I decided to go to the source and navigated over to the CDC website to see what they were saying. The statistics they were releasing were bad. Over 25% of people had contracted the flu. Death rates were skyrocketing, especially in poorer countries with limited healthcare and infrastructure. There was even an announcement to watch the news that night. The president was going to address the nation on the topic of this flu.


    How bad is this thing if the president is getting involved? At 6:30 p.m. I logged onto a streaming news service that was going to have the president¡¯s announcement. The screen was covered in sensational news about the violent flu victims. It seems that if you were bit by a violent flue victim you had a 100% chance of catching the flu if you were not already immune. It seems about 10% of people were immune completely and the rest were immune from already fighting the flu off. There were quite a few wack nuts out there screaming about the end of times, and the zombie apocalypse. I admit it was starting to look bad, but it always looked bad, especially when the news got involved.


    I taught my students this at school. Sensation sells newspapers. I then usually had to explain what newspapers were to some of the younger ones, which made me feel old. However, the premise held. If a news service could sell 10,000 copies of a bad flu story, it could sell 50,000 copies of the same story with the world deadly in the title. I know I was a little cynical, but after living through the E-bola, swine flu, avian flu, SARS, and several other deadly diseases that the news told me I was going to die from and that would end the world I took their reporting with a grain of salt.


    It was soon enough 7:00 p.m. and the president started his press conference. I was not paying as much attention as I probably should have until I heard the words shutdown. When the president shuts things down, stuff is going wrong. I focused intently on what was being said. Scrolling along the bottom of my screen was highlights which allowed me to catch up.


    <ol>


    <li>The stock market would be closed through the end of the week.</li>


    <li>All non-essential government offices will be closed until further notice.</li>


    <li>All national guard and military units are mobilized to help with this unprecedented disaster.</li>


    <li>Because of its sudden symptoms, for safety all air transportation was shut down until further notice.</li>


    <li>The president urged all members of the country to quarantine themselves and their loved ones if they showed signs of the flu for 72 hours.</li>


    <li>Due to being overwhelmed the public was asked not to go to local hospitals unless it was a true emergency or unless the flu victim turned violent.</li>


    <li>All wages and prices are frozen until further notice. There will be no price gouging.</li>


    <li>Please check in every 12 hours to either the CDC website or the Whitehouse website for further updates.</li>


    </ol>


    This was unbelievable. It sounded like this had blown up into a much bigger deal than I ever thought it could be. I need to contact my family and make sure they are prepared. I called everyone and told them it was a code yellow. Code yellow in my family meant to take all necessary precautions and to get ready to congregate in one area so we could support each other if necessary. The rally point could change based on the situation. A code yellow could be because of flooding or other natural disasters, or in case of terrorist attack or other man made disaster. Several of my family argued with me but I explained why I thought this was such a big deal and they soon agreed. We decided as a family that mom¡¯s property would be the rally point.Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    Mom and dad lived on 10 acres outside of Aiken, SC. They had a four bedroom house and several sheds and outbuildings from dad¡¯s hobbies. It was the best place for everyone to meet. My sister and her family would be heading there immediately. My little brother and daughter both worked out at the Savannah Nuclear Power Plant so were deemed essential employees and still had to report into work. The plant and their apartments were only 30 minutes away from mom¡¯s house though, so they were okay. My sister and her husband Roberto were both in education like myself so they were able to take their family to visit Grandma immediately. I was going to stay put for now. Unlike my sister who was 3 hours away I was only an hour and a half drive away from mom¡¯s and did not have to worry about corralling 5 kids. This meant I could wait it out if necessary. There was no reason for me to go down early and add to the chaos unless it was necessary.


    For the next two days I dutifully checked the news every 12 or so hours and the situation only seemed to deteriorate. The smaller local news outlet was not even running anymore. The larger Columbia South Carolina and Charlotte North Carolina news markets were still running stories. The violence shown by victims of this flu outbreak were astounding. It seemed like the high fever burned out or shutdown higher order thinking and reverted victims to aggressive responses to all types of stimuli. They would not stop attacking until the stimuli stopped.


    People were already calling them zombies, but the experts were avoiding the zed word. I guess they acted like zombies, but were technically different. This virus was survivable and could be reversed in some situations. The problem seemed to be that if it was not treated immediately and with several high level antiviral drugs it would cause permanent brain damage. Since the brain damage was permanent officials had even stopped trying to help those who were past a certain stage of infection.


    Some people seemed to be immune or recovered on their own.   I did and so did my daughter. My dad however was not doing well. It did not look like he was going to make it. I think I am going to go ahead and load up Betsy and move down to Mom¡¯s and visit dad. I will head off tomorrow in the morning and load up Betsy with the essentials tonight.


    When I was doing my afternoon news check two new pieces of news caught my eye. First was that riots had started to break out in larger cities due to the lack of supplies in stores. The second was blanket pardon pushed through congress and signed by the President around noon. It seemed that government must know something I don¡¯t. They have never pushed through a bill, voted, and signed it into law in under 72 hours before. They either had prior notice or this was a lot worse than I thought.


    The blanket pardon law was just that. No one would be prosecuted for killing any person found to be stage three or later with the zombie flu. The law did not call it the zombie flu but the announcer did and everyone else was also. This was bad. How desperate must they be to put forth a free get out of jail card for killing other people. I mean I would do it to protect myself and others, but basically they just made it okay to murder someone as long as you could prove they had the disease. They never even mentioned who would oversee proof or when proof was needed. I think it is a last step effort to stop the spread or deal with the situation, but I think it is going to go horribly wrong.


    This new piece of information scared me, and I immediately tried to call down to the family. Cell lines are out. It looks like basic services are starting to break down. I am going into full red alert mode and I will actually move my departure to mom¡¯s house up to tonight. I need to get down with the rest of the family and we need to start moving quick. Red alert mode was the end of the world as we know it. Some things might survive, but basic law and order are predicted to go away. We as a family needed to get to someplace safe where we controlled the area and could limit our interaction with others or dictate to them from a place of power. Looting and societal breakdown should be just around the corner. However, which of my plans should we go with? There are several different ideas and each one is specific to different scenarios.


    I think I will just have to have this discussion with the family when I get there and we can decide together. I am leaning towards the island isolation scenario though. I do not think waiting it out or a mountain fortress is going to work. This thing has spread so far and so fast that recovery may not be quick or easy. I am guessing that after the disruption to society we would be lucky to recover in 50 years. That is two generations. Definitely need to plan for the long term and make sure that the family comes out on top. Always look out for number one but help whenever possible. They may seem mutually exclusive and sometimes they are, but if I can help someone without putting myself or my family in danger I would. Speaking of which I better try and contact the neighbors and check in with them.

 4 - Visiting The Neighbors

    Chapter 4


    Visiting The Neighbors


    Before anything else I need to get Betsy loaded so I can leave at any time. Luckily I have everything prepared for an emergency and I was able to load up in just under an hour. I double check the essentials and decide to add a bit more. I have room so extra toilet paper and food are the first things to enter. Next is my spare crossbow and extra bolts. Finally, I empty the gun safe of all the ammunition. Even if it is too heavy to carry in a pack, Betsy can hold it until I need it. With everything loaded it time to check on the neighbors.


    I have been putting this off for a reason. I realize I live in the sticks, the reality of these zombies reaching me in the beginning is very low. My nearest neighbor is almost a quarter mile away. I am more likely to find people sick and turned into zombies at their house then to actually run into them outside where I live. I decide to play it safe and put my little .22 target pistol in a holster on my hip and take what some would consider a strange looking multi-tool. I called it my axe-bar.


    I had seen one of them at a knife show I had attended a few years ago and fell in love with it. It was basically a large hatchet, with a hammer on the back side and a crowbar coming out the top of it. It was functional, not overly large, and could perform more tasks than you would think.


    With this I could pry open things, bash them senseless, hammer things in, chop or slice, it was the perfect survival multi-tool. It also did not look that scary so came as a surprise to many people with how helpful and dangerous it could be.


    I grabbed a water bottle and started hiking towards the Johnson¡¯s house. I decided that taking the back trail would be the smarter thing to do and went through the stand of trees between our houses. As I got closer I realized that something was wrong. I could hear a thumping sound and crying. I increased my pace, but stayed vigilant. The front door had bloody hand stains on it and the door was wide open. On the roof above the front door were Mrs. Johnson and little Billy. The crying sounds were coming from them. The thumping sounds which were getting louder were coming from inside the house.


    I needed to know what was going on, but yelling questions at obviously traumatized people on a roof would not only be stupid, but dangerous. I decided I needed to get to them as quickly as possible and I altered my course to go to the back of the Johnson¡¯s house before I left the tree line. I did not want Mrs. Johnson and little Billy to see me and scream for help when I still did not know the situation. Behind the house was Ted¡¯s big workshop/garage. I had been here several times both lending and borrowing tools and a helping hand. I knew Ted kept an extension ladder in the garage and I planned on using that to get onto the roof and walking over the roof to where Susie Johnson and Little Billy were on the porch.


    I cautiously approached the garage and saw that the backyard seemed normal. I did what I thought would look like a tactical entry. I had my pistol out and I searched the area for targets when I opened the garage door. In reality it probably looked like a middle aged guy playing soldier with a bunch of kids. I saw nothing and holstered the pistol and grabbed the shortest extension ladder to get onto the roof. I managed to get it out of the garage with no trouble and very little sound. I had a feeling I knew what the problem was, but I needed to confirm it with Susie before I did anything. Sound was my enemy at this point in time.


    I leaned the ladder up against the eaves of the house and climbed as quietly as I could onto the roof. Luckily the crying and thumping noises were covering up whatever small sounds I was making. I half crawled and walked over the top of the house to the front where I could not make out the thumping noise was someone banging on the door leading into the room with the window Susie and Billy had climbed out of.


    ¡°Pssst. Susie!¡±


    Her head swiveled around looking for the source of her name.


    ¡°Up here.¡±


    ¡°Mark, oh thank goodness. Ted has gone crazy. He tried to hurt Billy and now he won¡¯t stop banging on the door.¡±


    ¡°Alright Susie, I will take care of the problem. I want you and Billy to come here as quietly as possible and I will help you up. Then cross the roof and go down the ladder and lock yourself in the garage until I come and get you.¡±


    ¡°You will help Ted?¡±


    ¡°Yes Susie, I will help Ted.¡±


    I hated lying to her, but she obviously was not thinking straight and I needed to get them to safety as quickly as possible. I helped both of them up and sent them on their way to the garage. I had to go through the window they came out of and deal with Ted. Some people might wonder why I was even doing this. Why not just leave and call it good? The main reason was I needed more information. This was the safest situation I could think of where I could actually interact with a zombie. It was a single one. The door was holding, and I had a safe line of retreat. I had to figure out if they could reason and how much damage they could take. Figuring it out now would be extremely beneficial. It was always better to have the information and not need it then to need it and not have it.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    I quickly climbed into the upper bedroom through the window and made some noise so Ted the zombie would continue to stay at the door. I did not want him to become disinterested and leave, which would endanger me and Susie and Billy. I went to the door and looked at the hinges first. Seemed solid enough. First I knocked on the door twice. The zombie hit the door twice. Coincidence or something more. I rattled of shave and a haircut and the zombie just pounded on the door. Ok that means the first was a coincidence. Next test would be pain. I took out my .22 pistol and made sure I put in a clip of round nose target ammunition.


    Many people do not realize that a little .22 bullet can easily go through a pine 2X4 which is thicker than a door if shot at close range. My plan was to shoot three to five shots through the door spaced out to make sure I hit zombie Ted. I would then wait for his reaction. Pop, pop, pop. Three rounds through the door and zombie Ted was not happy. He struck the door with even more force. Alright, so the zombies still feel pain, they just do not react to it like normal people. It seems to enrage them. In fact, this door does not seem like it is going to last much longer. I quickly move to the side of the door and get ready to open it. I want zombie Ted to come barreling through so I can shoot at the back of his head. I place my axe-bar on a convenient shelf nearby for easy access and reload the three bullets that I used.


    I unlock and twist the handle of the door knob and let zombie Ted provide the force to open it. He barrels in just like I was hoping and I line up as best I can and shoot until he stops moving. That took 5 or 6 shots. I am not quite sure. My nerves are shot and adrenaline is pumping through my body at a pace I have never experienced. I close the door and lock it again just to be safe and pick up my axe-bar and nudge the corpse of Ted with my foot. No response. I have seen too many monster movies and I promptly hit the back of zombie Ted¡¯s head with the hammer side of my axe-bar as hard as I can. The skull had been slightly deformed from my shots and this just caused blood and other bodily fluids to splash out.


    It was too much for me to handle at the moment. I threw up all over poor zombie Ted¡¯s body. No matter how well prepared you think you are, taking the life and seeing something like this for the first time will get to you. I just assumed that my brain would classify them as monsters and I would be able to do what was needed and move on. I think I might be able to do that now, but for goodness sake that image of the blood and fluid splashing, just thinking about it caused me to dry heave again. I covered the mess and the body with the blankets from the bed in the room and went downstairs to go tell Susie what had happened.


    I went out and knocked on the garage door calling out my name so Susie would open up. She nervously opened the door and looked at me.


    ¡°Did you help Ted? Is he OK?¡±


    ¡°Susie, I am sorry. He was too far gone. I could only stop him from hurting you and Billy.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean? Where is Ted?¡±


    How do I explain this to a hysterical woman? With as much understanding and care I could muster I tried to explain once again.


    ¡°Sweetie Ted was sick. He was so sick that he tried to hurt you and Billy. The news said there was no cure for his sickness. I tried to talk to him, but he could not understand me anymore. I had to make sure he could not hurt you, Billy or anyone else ever again. I covered his body and left it in the upstairs bedroom. You can go and pay your respects if you like, but I don¡¯t think Billy should see his daddy like that.¡±


    Susie¡¯s eyes started to water. I think she was finally starting to understand what had happened. Many tears later and one very confused little boy was waiting with me at the garage while mommy went to say goodbye to daddy. A few minutes later and Susie came down with two backpacks.


    ¡°Susie would you like to come with my down to the homestead in Aiken?¡±


    ¡°No, Billy and I are going to go visit grandma and hole up and hide there. I want to thank you for keeping me and my boy safe Mark. I may have lost it for a bit, but I really am grateful.¡±


    ¡°If that is what you think is best, I recommend that you fill your truck with as much as it can carry before you go. Once you get to where you going you might not be able to find gas or make it back anytime soon.¡±


    ¡°Ok, thank you once again and feel free to use anything in the house that we leave behind. I hope that your family is safe. Come on Billy we are going to go visit Grandma Violet.¡±


    I hope that Susie knows what she is doing. It is not going to be safe out there. However, I am not going to force anyone to do anything they don¡¯t want too. The only reason they even got an invite was how well I got along with Ted and that I really did not want to leave Billy alone. That is all now in the past though. I need to move on and check one more neighbor before I get out of town. I headed back towards my own place. Widow Allie lived on the other side of my house.


    Now widow Allie was an interesting lady. Pure southern gal the whole way and funny to boot. When I first met her she insisted I call her Widow Allie. When I finally agreed and asked why she said it was so all those cute boys down at the bingo hall will know I am single and ready to mingle. Keep in mind that this is a 72 year old Great Grandmother. I absolutely adored her and her sense of humor. She was a riot. I left her to check on last mainly because I was not as worried about her as I was the Johnson¡¯s. Widow Allie was tough. As long as she had not gotten sick she would be fine. Or at least that was what I believed.


    As I got closer to her house I started hearing yelling though. I sped up my pace while remaining as cautious as I could. I was rather flabbergasted at the sight that awaited me. Widow Allie was banging a skillet against the head and shoulders of a zombie that she had somehow trapped under a variety of random junk it looked like. As she was wailing away I could hear her say thing like, ¡°Threaten my grandbabies will you, I¡¯ll teach you a lesson in respect.¡± That explained why she was so excited. Her kids must have come up to visit or to hole up with her. I took out my pistol and shouted at Widow Allie to step back.


    ¡°Bought time you got here boy now finish off this heathen and then come wash up for supper.¡±


    ¡°Yes ma¡¯am.¡±


    There really wasn¡¯t anything else you could say at a time like this. I got close enough not to miss and put three bullets into the skull of the still struggling trapped zombie.

 5 - Leaving Home

    Chapter 5


    Leaving Home


    After reloading and making a quick check around the property I went to the back porch and washed up just like Widow Allie asked. That is one woman I do not want to make mad. I entered the back door, remembering to wipe my feet, you only make that mistake once at Widow Allie¡¯s house, and was greeted by the sight of nice old lady serving dinner to her daughter and three grandchildren. I knew I had met them before but for the life of me could not remember any names. Well when in doubt go with polite southern charm and speak.


    ¡°Miss Allie, thank you for having me over for dinner. I will take care of the mess outside after we eat if that is alright with you?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s fine Mark. Have a seat next to Stephanie, I need to get the pie out of the oven and then we can start.¡±


    So her name is Stephanie. If I remember right she is the youngest of Allie¡¯s three children and the only one that stayed local. Poor Stephanie looked a little overwhelmed at the whole situation. Her kids, the oldest a boy looked to be about nine or ten years old, followed by a girl who looked around kindergarten age and finally, another boy, a toddler of two or three. Hmm, no husband, I don¡¯t remember her being divorced. That probably means that something bad happened to force her out here to her mom¡¯s place.


    ¡°Miss Stephanie, it is a pleasure to see you and your family again.¡±


    ¡°Good evening, Mr. Evans. Momma said you would be by soon to visit and that you would help us out.¡±


    So Widow Allie has already decided what is going to happen has she? I am going to have to be careful and navigate this situation to the best of my ability.


    ¡°Well Stephanie, I always try and lend a helping hand to others and your mom has been my good neighbor for years.¡±


    That was rather ambiguous. Good, don¡¯t commit to anything until you know what they want.


    ¡°Oh, quit your jawin you two and be quiet for grace. We can after dinner. Mark as the man of the house would you do the honors.¡±


    Sneaky, she already set me up as the man of the house. I said grace and we all dug into what was a fine southern home cooked meal. Small talk was made and the meal passed quite pleasantly. If you ignored the fact that we were in the middle of a zombie apocalypse this was just like any other southern family get together. Every time I tried to bring up said zombies, the widow shut me down and said not at the table Mark. Eventually I gave up and just went with the flow. When dinner was finished, and dessert served Miss Allie gave the marching orders.


    ¡°Steph honey, you take care of the dishes, Barry you watch the little ones and Mr. Evans and I will take care of the mess outside.¡±


    There was a chorus of yes ma¡¯am, yes momma, and yes nanna. We all knew our place. Once outside widow Allie finally got around to the subject of what she needed.


    ¡°Listen Mark, my daughter lost her husband on the way to my house and I know that I cannot protect them as well as I want too. I need you to help out and make sure that my daughter and grandkids make it through this troubling time.¡±


    I kept silent for a second while I put on the pair of gloves she handed me and started to drag the body of the zombie I had killed off her main property to the side.


    ¡°Miss Allie, I am going to be honest with you. My family is meeting down at mom¡¯s place near Aiken. I am more than willing to take you and yours down with me. However, if we are going it has to be tonight, and you need to understand that there will probably be things done that most god fearing people would not approve of. I will do everything in my power to keep me and mine safe and if you decide to come with me it will include you and your daughter¡¯s family.¡±


    ¡°I understand that things have changed and that circumstances will dictate what will happen. I also know that two women alone are not going to be able to keep those babies safe. We will come with you.¡±


    ¡°Thank you for making such a quick decision Allie. Now, I know Aiken is only about an hour and fifteen minutes away, but we need to pack as if it will take several days just in case. What kind of vehicle did your daughter arrive in?¡±


    ¡°They actually had to walk the last several miles because of no gas and other problems. I have my buick though.¡±


    ¡°That won¡¯t work, we are going to need four wheel drive for the route we are taking. It should keep us safer that way. Load up your necessities in the back of that big 4 wheel drive farm truck of yours and I will be back in about fifteen minutes with Betsy. We can transfer my stuff into the back of the truck and I will drive it while you and your family can drive Betsy and follow me.¡±This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    ¡°Thank you Mark and God Bless.¡±


    With that I started back to my house at a much faster pace than I arrived. Thankfully it had been an early supper and we still had about an hour of light left to pack and get everything ready. When I got home I double checked my load out and locked everything up tight. Who know when if ever I would be back, but I held out hope that I would see my place again someday. I quickly drove over to Widow Allie¡¯s place through the fields and avoided the road just to be safe. When I pulled up I could see her and Stephanie loading what they could into the back of the truck. The kids were nowhere to be seen.


    ¡°Evening ladies, are the kids inside.¡±


    ¡°Yes Mark, they are watching a movie so we can get this done.¡±


    ¡°Alright, let me explain the plan and then we can get packed and on the road as quick as possible. First off we are not going to take the main roads. In fact, we are going to take the access roads for power lines, which is why we need to have four-wheel drive. This should let us avoid most people and zombies that are out there. I will lead the way as I have traveled this route before in preparation. You need to stick close enough to see me, but far enough away that if I slam on the brakes, which I think I will several times due to animals, people, or the condition of the road, that you won¡¯t hit me.¡±


    ¡°How long is this going to take us?¡±


    ¡°If everything goes perfect, around three to four hours. That is much longer than taking the road, but it is also much safer. The big issue is going to be crossing the Saluda River. We have to take the bridge, but hopefully no one will be there this late at night. Once we get past the bridge it will be back roads and trails all the way to the home ranch. When we get close I will stop and use the C.B. radio to let them know that we are headed in.¡±


    ¡°Mark, we only have the clothes we came in and the little bit mom has here at her house. What else should we bring?¡±


    ¡°Clothes won¡¯t be a problem. What we need to concentrate on is food, water, and survival supplies. Miss Allie I want every first aid supply and long term food storage you have in the back of this truck in half an hour. Stephanie, you need to transfer enough from my vehicle into the back of the truck that you will all fit inside. Widow Allie, with your permission I am going to go raid your barns and storage sheds for your late husband¡¯s hunting, fishing, and camping gear.¡±


    ¡°That is fine, let me get you the keys to the gun safe and the sheds.¡±


    I like working with committed southern women. The questions are few and the jobs get down quickly. Once I had the keys, the ladies started loading with a will and I went exploring/shopping through Earl¡¯s collection. Earl was married to Allie for over forty years before he passed on and was the quintessential good ole southern boy. I was able to locate and pack up three rifles, two handguns, assorted ammunition, and a reloading station just from his large gun safe. I also added to the travel pile a bunch of tarps, rope, sleeping bags, most of Earl¡¯s fishing gear, and some assorted tools I knew would be helpful.


    My most important find was Earl¡¯s extensive bow and arrow collection. I knew that Earl was a hunter, but did not realize he was a bow hunting nut. He had five different compound bows, two cross bows, and several older style recurve and longbows. I grabbed all of it and every arrow I could find. This stuff was excellent. Guns are good, but once ammunition ran out, they were useless except as clubs. I had reloading gear and expected that ammunition while scarce won¡¯t be a problem for several years, but having good and quiet back-ups was never a bad thing.


    Everything was loaded up quicker than I thought possible and we were ready to go by 8 p.m. The last of the gear was tied down and each of Stephanie¡¯s kids were tucked into their seats in Betsy.


    ¡°Alright ladies, let¡¯s get this show on the road. Remember to stay close and if you have a problem honk. Please only honk in an emergency as the noise could attract undesirables. We will take a break every 45 minutes to an hour so I can make sure we are on track and everything is going fine. Are there any questions?¡±


    Both of them nodded no and climbed into Betsy. I climbed up into the cab of the farm truck and started it up. To be on the safe side I had one shotgun, two rifles, and a pistol riding in the seat next to me. The shotgun was obviously for close up work. The pistol was for medium range. I had two different rifles for a reason. My first was a .30 .30 lever action rifle that had decent stopping power and range. Obvious enough why it was selected, my second was another .22 caliber rifle. Noise is a relative thing. There is no perfectly silent gun. Even those with silencers make some noise.


    I once again chose the .22 caliber due to its versatility. It would scare off those who do not know guns. It would be underestimated by some uneducated gun nuts. Most importantly though was the sound of it firing only carries about a mile. Some people cannot even identify the sound of its firing after 800 meters. While it is not quiet, it is much more quiet than my other options. So if I had too I could use it and hopefully not alert everybody around that there was shooting happening. My suspicion was that the zombies were attracted to noise and a gunshot would bring both them and survivors to an area. Zombies would be looking for food and survivors could be either looking for help or to cause trouble. I was now responsible for more than just myself which complicated things, but every precaution I took helped reduce the danger.


    The sun was starting to set and I started out slow from Widow Allie¡¯s driveway. I could see the road fine without the headlights for now so left them off. It was the dwindling light that caused me to alter my plan slightly. I knew that I had 30 to 45 minutes of enough light to see by. If we traveled fast, we could make the 121 bridge over Saluda river in 20 minutes. That meant I could scout the situation out with the remaining daylight. This made more sense to me right now than attempting it in the dark. I knew that bridges were natural choke points and anyone good or bad would be attracted to them to limit travel if they wanted to control an area. I hoped that it was too soon for that type of thing to crop up, but I would rather be safe than sorry. I hit the gas and traveled above the speed limit down several back roads until we were within a mile of the bridge.

 6 - Travelling

    Chapter 6


    Travelling


    Stephanie who was driving Betsy had been keeping up just fine. I slowly came to a stop next to an empty field and hopped out of the truck and headed back to the girls to discuss what I was going to do.


    ¡°Howdy ladies, thank you for keeping up. I made a quick change of plan. I want to go check out the bridge while there is still light. I am going to head forward at a much slower pace. When I see the bridge I am going to stop and get out and scope it out on foot. I would like for you to follow me about 5 minutes behind. Don¡¯t go more than 15 mph unless it is an emergency. That should give me enough time to check the situation out. If you come up on the truck before I get back just stop and wait for a few minutes. Before I head out let me get my binoculars from the glove box.¡±


    After being handed the binoculars I headed further down the road until I could actually see the bridge. Everything looked fine at first glance. I pulled over to the side of the road and stood on the hood of the truck for a better sight line. It looked like there was either a wreck or several stalled cars on the far side of the bridge. They were not blocking the route but I was not happy to see them. No one would leave their cars there unless they ran out of gas or something happened. The chances of three cars running out of gas at the same place on a back road like 121 was next to nothing. This was starting to make me nervous.


    I searched the cars through the binoculars and realized that something or someone was moving inside one of them. What on earth was that. I am going to have to get closer. I got off the hood of the truck and grabbed the .30 .30 rifle and the pistol from the cab. Now was not the time for silence. I walked forward until I was at the edge of the bridge and tried the binoculars again. It was hard to make out in the closing dusky light, but it looked like someone was trapped by a seatbelt and moving around in the front red car. Was that a zombie? I need to check this out, but I don¡¯t want to cross the bridge with no cover in the light. I retreat from where I was and head back to the truck. A few minutes later Stephanie drives up in Betsy. I explain the situation and tell them that we would need to wait a few minutes. I wanted it to get dark before I tried to cross the bridge without any cover. They would stay here and wait while I went and checked out what was going on.


    After waiting about ten more minutes I deemed it dark enough to cross. I tooled up with a pistol, and my axe bar. I wanted to be able to fight if necessary, but I did not want to weigh myself down. Widow Allie stood at the hood of the truck with the .30 .30 rifle waiting to cover me if necessary. There was just enough light to see shapes, but it was dark enough that I felt safer crossing. I crouched down and scurried across the bridge as quickly and quietly as I could. As I got closer to the three vehicles I started to smell copper. Not a good sign. Usually a strong copper or iron smell like this is associated with, yep there is blood all over the cars. Whatever happened here is obviously not a good thing. The upside is that it is probably not an ambush.


    I walk a few feet further and hear the moaning grunting noise that I was starting to associate with the zombies. It sounds like more than one. I see what looks like one crouched down in between the cars and I think the moving object that is trapped by the seatbelt is another one. Time for a decision. Do I try and eliminate them or just go back and drive on by? Safety first. I don¡¯t need any supplies. They can¡¯t hurt me or the family following me if we stay in the vehicles. There is no reason to risk it. I back up quietly and explain the situation to Widow Allie and Stephanie. I fire up the truck and pull out onto the bridge with the gals close behind. As soon as we get near the stopped vehicles the zombie outside stands up and starts moving towards the vehicles. I speed up just enough that it won¡¯t get close and we continue on down the road. A couple miles later I find the transmission lines I was looking for.


    What most people don¡¯t realize is that all major power transmission lines have an access road either next to them or running under them. They are not the highest quality road, but are easily driven if you have a four-wheel drive vehicle. Since all power lines will eventually lead to cities, where the power is needed, they make for an excellent alternative route of travel. If gangs or survivors are setting up checkpoints or attacking people it should be on established roads. Everybody just seems to ignore power line roads. They are so common, but since no one uses them in society they are mostly ignored. These alternate routes will be viable for vehicular travel for several years after any disaster. The only issue they have is they don¡¯t install bridges at power line points. The power lines just cross over.


    This is why I had to go down HWY 121. I needed a way to cross the Saluda which was to wide and deep for my vehicle to make it across. Since there are no more significant bodies of water to cross before Aiken, I could follow these transmission roads until I was close to the family farm and then cut over with a minimum of interaction with other people. The next two hours pass easy enough. We took two breaks and I made sure there was no problems with the group following me. After the second break I told the ladies to be especially on their toes for this last part. We were getting close to Aiken which meant that even though we were taking a non-traditional road we may run into problems or people from surrounding houses as it got more built up.This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.


    About five miles from mom¡¯s house my fears were validated. I heard the breaking of glass, a large hole appeared in my windshield with cracks radiating from it and the sound of a gunshot echoed through the night. I slammed on the brakes, turned off the headlights and dove for the floor board. Someone had taken a shot at me. I yelled at the top of my lungs hoping that the following vehicle will hear me, ¡°Turn off your lights and get down!¡± The darkness of night soon replaced the glow that the headlights had produced. I hear another two gunshots, but no sounds of glass or metal being hit. Could it just be idiots shooting or drunken people?


    I better play it safe. I reach up and make sure the dome light is turned off. The last thing I want is to be highlighted when I open the truck door. I leave the truck running just in case and grab the larger caliber rifle. I slowly ease the door open. Good the light did not come on. I slide out of the truck and head towards the darker outline of Betsy which I can see close behind me. As I get closer I make the universal PSSST noise to grab their attention. I explained what happened. All they saw was that I had slammed on the brakes and swerved out of the way. Then they heard me yell and they turned off their headlights and heard the follow up two gunshots. Nobody was hit.


    I told them that I was going forward to check out the situation. Whatever they did they needed to make sure to keep the noise down and the lights off. I quickly went back to the truck and turned it off and grabbed the pistol to go along with my rifle. Since I have heard nothing since the last shots I just crouched and ran ahead about fifteen to twenty meters at a time. I then stopped and listened for any sounds and looked around for light sources. This seemed to haphazard to be an actual ambush. After advancing about 100 meters I could see the flickering of a campfire off to the right. Getting low I leopard crawl forward as quietly as I can to investigate. As soon as I get within about twenty meters I start to hear conversation.


    ¡°Did you see that? I was amazing, one shot one kill like the movies. Shut up Barry and quit hogging the whisky. It was my two shots afterward that stopped all the lights. Do you think we hit anybody? Joe there is nobody else anymore. That must have been ghost lights.¡±


    Drunken idiots with guns. At least two of them. I crawl a little closer and see three guys about my age or at least in their 30¡¯s. They are drunk or well on their way too it. I sneak behind the closest one, which is not as hard as I thought it would be. I am making too much noise but they are loud and inebriated. I stand up pushing the rifle into the gentleman¡¯s back who is in front of me and holding my pistol ready in the other hand.


    ¡°Good evening gentleman. I am the person who you just shot at and I am not happy.¡±


    The person I was holding the rifle against squeaked then slumped over. Did he just faint? The one across from me started swearing after jumping back and tripping on the log he was sitting on and the last one, either wet his pants or spilled the whisky. This was what almost killed me? I am starting to feel a little insulted.


    ¡°Who are you?¡± stuttered the one with damp pants.


    ¡°I told you, I am the person you were shooting at a few minutes ago.¡±


    ¡°But we weren¡¯t shooting at you, we were shooting at the ghost lights.¡±


    They are too drunk to even argue with.


    ¡°Look just stand up and wait over there. Drag this guy with you.¡± I said while nudging the fainted one with my toe.


    With a few stumbles and bumbles the three stooges were lined up on one side of their campfire.


    ¡°Now I am going to make this easy. You with the wet pants.¡± When I said this I could actually see him blush in embarrassment in the flickering firelight. ¡°Carefully take your pistol out of the holster and toss it over here. Don¡¯t make me nervous or I will shoot.¡±


    Pee pants Macgee did what I suggested and carefully tossed over the gun. I collected it two other pistols, one shotgun, and two rifles. ¡°I am going to walk back the way I came and I will leave your guns about 50 meters from here. Wait 30 minutes and then you can come collect them. I just want to drive by without you idiots shooting at me again.¡± The drunken trio nodded their heads and I carefully balanced the now significant load of weaponry and faded back into the night. Luckily the rifles and shotguns were on slings and one of the pistols I collected was in its holster or I do not think I would have managed it.


    Once I was out of sight I sped up a little, just in case they had another weapon I did not see. As I was leaving the area I heard them muttering about ghosts, stupid Barry, and needing to sleep. It may have been wrong, but I was not going to leave the guns like I said. I did not need three hungover revenge seeking people with weapons looking for me over the next few days. I had a suspicion that they would not last long anyway. Anybody that made that much noise, was drunk, and made such bad decisions in an apocalypse situation would most likely be chow soon. Although God does love protecting fools which is why I was going to claim the weapons as compensation for being shot at.


    As soon as I got near the parked vehicles I called out low to alert them of my arrival. I explained once more what had happened and put the extra weapons in the cab of the truck. I started up the truck and kept low while turning on the headlights. Safe, nobody is shooting. I eased the truck into drive and drove another mile or two before I started to recognize the land. Once I realized that I was that close I got onto the C.B. radio and tried to make contact with the family.

 7 - Meeting The Family

    Chapter 7


    Meeting The Family


    C.B. radios have gone out of style in the last couple of decades. Since cell phones came out most people don¡¯t see the point. Cell phone coverage kept getting better and better and C.B. sales kept declining. That was too bad. Us country boys who grew up in the sticks kept the C.B. alive. When you went to town we used cell phones like anyone else. Out in the field or the woods, if you wanted to keep in touch it was walkie talkies or a C.B. radio. Channel 16 was the Evans Family Channel. We monitored that whenever something was going on or someone was out hunting and we needed to get a hold of them.


    ¡°This is Pablo looking for entry at the backdoor. I am plus one on vehicles and am bringing guests.¡±


    No response. That is not good. Someone should be on duty watch with a radio.


    ¡°Once again this is Pablo looking for entry at the backdoor. I am plus one on vehicles and am bringing guests for dinner.¡±


    ¡°Sorry about that delay Pablo, Kumquat reads you and I¡¯ll meet you at the gate.¡±


    The little code words were from when we were growing up as kids. My family called me Pablo Picasso ironically, because I had no artistic talent at all. Eventually it was shortened down to just Pablo. My little brother, who is five years younger, used to want to hang out with my friends and followed us everywhere. Of course it was annoying at the time so when he begged us for a nickname of his own to use on the radio we dubbed him Kumquat. A weird fruit to match up to a weird child. He wore it as a badge of pride now and everyone got a laugh out of it.


    Backdoor, meant that I was not coming from the road and I told him plus one so he knew there was supposed to be two vehicles. One of the scenarios we worried about was one of us getting trapped or captured and being forced to bring a bad group back to the homestead. My use of guests was simple code for new people that were okay. If I had used visitors instead, the whole family would have been put on alert. I drove forward after the contact and saw my little brother standing at the large back gate to mom and dad¡¯s property.


    Now I say little brother, but that guy is five inches taller than me, and since I have lost the weight, quite a few pounds heavier. I was upset about one and pleased about the other.


    ¡°Good to see you brother. Momma was starting to get a little worried. We haven¡¯t been able to get a hold of you. You need to know first off that daddy passed on. Momma is a little in denial and just taking care of the grandbabies trying to get past it, so be careful of what you say.¡±


    ¡°I am sorry to hear about dad. Once I knew how bad this thing was and heard he was sick I was afraid this might happen. He was getting up in years.¡±


    ¡°Who do you have with you?¡±


    ¡°Remember my neighbor Widow Allie?¡±


    ¡°Feisty old lady who yelled at me.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s the one. I have her, the youngest daughter of hers Stephanie and Stephanie¡¯s three kids.¡±


    ¡°That might actually help momma. Someone close to her age to talk to and more grandbabies to smother with love.¡±


    ¡°They are good people so I decided they should come down and be safe. I am going to bunk down with them camping style in the barn for tonight. I will catch up with everyone in the morning after some rest. We have a lot we need to talk about and some decisions to make.¡±


    ¡°Sounds good brother, everyone else is asleep at the house. I have watch until sun-up and then everyone will take turns. I will let them know you came in when I head up to the house.¡±


    ¡°Great, by the way. Ran into three drunken idiots about five miles back that put a hole in my windshield and almost killed me. I took the guns I saw away from them, but be careful just in case. They were shooting at any light they saw so be careful with your light.¡±


    ¡°Okay. See you in a few hours.¡±


    I had the girls follow me and we parked the truck and Betsy in front of the old barn. Pops at one time ran a few cows, pigs, and goats around his ten acres. Now however, only the goats were left. He decided the others were too much work. He kept the goats because in his words, ¡°Son, goats are just about the world¡¯s most perfect farm animal. They mow the lawn, eat about anything, taste good, and provide milk. I also don¡¯t have to watch them as carefully as other animals.¡± Dad was a strange one sometimes. This meant though that there would be empty stalls to set up tents in.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    I introduced Stephanie¡¯s kids to the goats, Puffball, Jabberwocky, Big Mamma, and Benjamin. While they played with them in the lantern light I set up two tents quickly. I then ushered Widow Allie and the kids into the larger one and told them that I would either be in the other tent or bunked in the back of the truck if they needed anything. I promised to introduce them to everybody in the morning. I needed some sleep. I was not as young as I used to be. I drifted off with thoughts of everything that needed to be done running through my head.


    I woke up in the back of the truck as the sun started to shine into my eyes. It took me a minute but the events of the past weeks and last night brought me fully awake. I decided that I better get up to the main house and say good morning to Momma before she came looking for me. It was always better to be proactive. First though is to get our guests up and get them ready to meet everyone else. I went back into the barn and was not at all surprised to see widow Allie already up and ready. Stephanie was next to her blinking the sleep out of her eyes and the three kids were whining just a little bit due to the early morning.


    ¡°Good morning everyone. Who wants some breakfast and to meet some new friends?¡±


    After exchanging pleasantries and with the formidable Allie¡¯s help the whole group was soon hiking the 200 meters up to the main house. I could see Momma waiting on the back porch along with my sister Jillian. That was not good, what were they up to that they were waiting for me to show up with the guests. I could see the grin on my sisters face.


    ¡°Good morning brother. Benji said you had brought a girl home to meet momma and I just couldn¡¯t wait to see her.¡±


    Oh so they were going to try and tease me huh, well two can play at this game.


    ¡°Good morning momma, good morning Jillian. I did bring home a young lady that I desperately want momma to meet. I have known her for years now and my feelings can no longer be denied. Momma, Jillian, I would like to introduce you to widow Allie. The widow finally agreed to run away with me.¡±


    Before I could even hope to see the look on their faces as I introduced the widow instead of Stephanie I was knocked forward by a solid thump to the back of my head.


    ¡°Quit being cheeky young man. It is a pleasure to meet the lady who raised this rapscallion and his family.¡±


    Another good joke of mine ruined by a powerful woman with no sense of humor. Oh well, at least they thought my pain was funny. All four girls, widow Allie, Momma, Jillian, and Stephanie started laughing. I just rubbed the back of head ruefully and glanced over at Barry Stephanie¡¯s oldest. He had a look on his face that struck me as hilarious. It was both man I know what you are going through and feel for you combined with a better you than me look. We shared a short moment of bonding over these crazy female¡¯s behaviors.


    ¡°All fun aside momma, Widow Allie, her daughter Stephanie and her children need a place to stay. I said that we could put them up.¡±


    ¡°Well of course they are welcome here. I can¡¯t believe you made them sleep in the barn last night Mark. They are our guests what were you thinking?¡±


    ¡°Momma I did not want to wake anybody up.¡±


    ¡°Enough sass from you young man. Allie if you will step inside and help me get breakfast finished that would be wonderful. Jillian you go down with Stephanie to the barn and help them bring their belongings up to the house. Stephanie you and Allie will share the room next to mine. Jillian, you and Roberto will move down into the lower guest room. All the kids can have a slumber party in the last guest room together. Mark since you like the barn so much you and Benji can bunk out there until we decide what else we are going to do.¡±


    How in the heck did I end up being the bad guy? Nothing to be done about it, when momma speaks it is law.


    ¡°Yes momma, I will find Benji and let him know. After breakfast I need to meet with Benji and Roberto and after we have a little talk I think the adults need to get together to discuss a few things.¡±


    ¡°Yes, yes Mark, if you think it is necessary.¡±


    She was not even paying attention to me anymore. It was like I had become invisible. Stephanie, Jillian and the kids were walking towards the barn and momma and Allie were headed to the kitchen leaving me bewildered on the back porch. Roberto came out the back door right after the ladies went in.


    ¡°Hiya Mark, you are looking a little confused.¡±


    ¡°Well Roberto I think your wife and my momma just made new best friends and left me out here in the cold. In fact, I don¡¯t even know if they remember that I am here.¡±


    Roberto just laughed. He had married into the family but was treated like anyone else. He was an orphan without a family of his own when he married Jillian and was adopted into the Evan¡¯s clan. We just treated him as another brother who just happened to like my sister.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go find Benji and make one more turn around the property and talk before we head in for breakfast.¡±


    Roberto and I made small talk and caught up on inconsequential family doings while we looked around for Benji. We found him soon enough at the front gate with binoculars looking down the front drive.


    ¡°Hola Benji, what¡¯s going on?¡±


    ¡°I am not sure actually. There is a group of people congregating around the Smith house. At first I thought they were zombies attracted to some noise, but now I am not sure.¡±


    Well that sounds ominous. I motion for the binoculars and Benji hands them over. When I look through them I see several ¡°people¡± surrounding the Smith house like Benji said. However, unlike the couple that I have run across these ¡°people¡± seem to have a purpose.


    ¡°How long have they been there?¡±


    ¡°I first noticed lights in the Smith House around 5 a.m. then people started to show up not much longer after that. I just assumed that some zombies had been attracted to the light or to some noise the source of the light was making. When it started getting lighter after the sun came up I started questioning my reasoning. The people over there seem coordinated in their movements. I mean I don¡¯t know what they are doing, but they seem to be doing something on purpose. I did not want to go investigate without backup and letting someone know what was happening.¡±


    ¡°Good call little brother, I am going to go tool up with Roberto. Then I will go with you to check it out while he stays and holds the fort down.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t take too long. Whatever they are, I think as it gets lighter they may notice our place and come investigate. I would rather deal with them away from the house than here.¡±


    ¡°Amen to that.¡±

 8 - Family Meeting

    Chapter 8


    Family Meeting


    Roberto and I quickly headed out to the barn to grab some of the stuff I brought with me. No use heading to the house and worrying everyone else. I grabbed a shotgun on a sling and placed it across my back. The lever action .30 .30 was going to be the rifle in my hands and I decided on a .45 colt reproduction for the pistol on my hip. It was nostalgic and only had six shots, but it would get the job done. Finally, I put the .22 target pistol in a shoulder holster and my trusty axe-bar on the hip without the pistol. Roberto just grabbed a couple of rifles, one pistol and extra ammunition. Since he was staying behind he was more concentrated on long range support in case we had to retreat.


    When we got back to the front gate, Benji was looking anxious.


    ¡°Calm down. We will cut over to the left and climb the old deer stand so we can get a closer look. That should be close enough that we can make out details, but far enough to stay out of sight.¡±


    There was no need for more talk. Benji and I started off for the deer stand. About five minutes later we were up high and looking through the binoculars again. It was worse than any of us could have imagined. There were animals tied to long poles that several somebodies were using as bait. The group outside was indeed zombies. They just looked coordinated because they were moving back and forth from one set of bait to the next. Whenever they would get close to an animal that was being dangled, that animal would be pulled up and another one farther away would be lowered to entice them to move again.


    After watching this for about 60 seconds I turned to Benji and just asked, ¡°What the heck do you think is going on?¡±


    ¡°Well whatever it is, you can be sure it is not the Smith¡¯s that are doing it. They love their animals.¡±


    ¡°I can only think of two things. Either the people in that house are mentally deranged and bored or they are trying to train zombies. Both of those scenarios kind of scare me. We do not need nutcases hanging around the family, and if they really are trying to train zombies the only use for them would be to attack others. Either way we need to put an end to it.¡±


    ¡°I agree Mark, but how are we going to do that without hurting ourselves or bringing revenge down on the family.¡±


    ¡°I think what we need to do is go back and let Roberto know what is happening. He can fill in momma and the others. Then you and I will take the long way around and approach the Smith house from behind. It looks like they are only playing with zombies in the front yard. Once we are there we can enter and decide how aggressive we need to be in our discussion with whoever is doing that.¡±


    ¡°Sounds like a plan.¡±


    We headed back and let Roberto know what was happening then we set out as fast and as quiet as we could. It was less than ten minutes later that we were hiding in the tree line just outside of the Smith¡¯s backyard. We saw our first problem. While most of the zombies were occupied in the front yard there were two wandering around back here. Wandering was not the right word. These zombies obviously had injuries that slowed them down and made them stumble, limp and crawl. There slowness was probably what kept them from joining the group in the front. Our problem was even if they were slow, they were still dangerous and could make noise that would attract others or notify whoever was in the house to our location.


    ¡°Well Benji, for safeties sake I think that guns are not an option. I¡¯ll take the one in the dress if you take the one with the floppy hat.¡±


    Benji gulped and tightened his grip on the sledgehammer he brought. I thought the sledgehammer was too heavy and fairly useless compared to some other weapons he could pick, but my baby brother loved it.


    ¡°Alright Mark let¡¯s do this.¡± He whispered back.


    We advanced out of the tree line and approached our chosen victims. For once in my life nothing went wrong. While both zombies heard us, their broken or hurt limbs prevented them from turning around and attacking before we got to them. Benji swung first and I was just a fraction of a second behind. Two solid hits later and we were alone in the backyard. I signaled to Benji and we both quietly approached the back door. I know it was stupid but I reached for the handle to see if it was locked. Yep it was. Benji just looked at me like I was an idiot. I shrugged back and got ready to show him why my axe-bar was the superior tool for this situation.


    I placed the crowbar section in the door and as quickly and quietly as possible forced the door open. Luckily the moans from the zombies in the front covered any noise that I was making breaking in. We both put our melee weapons away. Benji unslung his rifle and I switched out the rifle for the shotgun on my back. We entered as cautiously as possible and were checking each room as we went by. The people dangling animals had to be on the second floor, but who knows if anyone was down here. Our perseverance paid off when we got to the master bedroom. Handcuffed, tied up, and gagged were three people. One boy and two girls. Their eyes went wide when they saw us.


    Obviously they recognized that we were not the same people that had put them here. I signaled Benjj to watch the door and approached the nearest young lady, a redhead, and removed her gag. ¡°Listen up.¡± I whispered. ¡°You need to stay as quiet as possible and tell me what¡¯s going on.¡±


    ¡°Thank you Mr. Evans for rescuing us, the red head sobbed.¡±


    Wait why does she know who I am? She does look familiar. At my puzzled glance, she stopped crying and whispered, ¡°It¡¯s me Tracy. I had you for Environmental Science two years ago.¡±


    ¡°Sorry Tracy, I am getting old and the memory is going. You came down here after graduation to go to the tech school right?¡±


    ¡°Yes sir.¡±


    ¡°Tell me what happened.¡±


    The story came out that her and her boyfriend Alex along with her roommate Olivia who were the other two tied up were looking for a safe place to stay when they were ambushed by four guys. Those four knocked out Alex and tied them all up. It was obvious what they were going to do to the young ladies. The only luck this group of kids had was that the group could not decide who was going to get to go first and with whom. So they decided to go play a game or something and the winner would come get to pick their prize.


    Alright Mark think. Four obviously bad people, that screwed up animal on pole thing must be the game they are playing to decide who gets to rape these girls first. Not going to happen when I am around. I could see in Benji¡¯s eyes that he had the same thought as me. Anyone who could do this does not need to be around anymore. Without any police or authority to call it was up to us to handle the situation. No law and no jail meant that there was only one way for us to make sure that this type of behavior ended. We were going to have to kill them.


    Right, when I came to this decision I realized that this was probably going to only be the first of several horrible things I was going to have to do to keep myself and my family alive in this new world. I cut Tracy free and left my pocket knife with her to cut the others loose. I needed to get this next part done before I chickened out. I signaled Benji to follow me. I whispered quickly to him. ¡°We go upstairs, check each room quickly, find them and end them. I will go first into the room with my shotgun. I will walk in and step to my left. You cover me from the door. Only fire if I miss one. I need you to be my eyes in the back. I do not want to eliminate three of them and have the last one come from another room to kill us both when we are not paying attention.¡±


    Benji just nodded and tightened his grip on his rife. There really is no way to prepare for this. I start thinking as I approach the stairs. I have one shell loaded, I have five more waiting in the pump shotgun. All of the shells are buckshot, which has a spread of about six inches every ten feet. My best bet is to fire and pump as fast as possible. Once I empty the shotgun I will pull the .45 pistol from the hip holster to finish off any wounded. Save the .22 with extra bullets for emergencies. With my plan in my head I feel a little more confident. As we get close to the top of the stairs I can hear people talking.


    ¡°Hank, you are down four points to two. One more point and Charlie wins first choice of the girls.¡±Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!


    Fantastic, they are still playing their stupid game. Also it is nice to have independent confirmation that they are actually scumbags. Keep that at the forefront of your mind. They do not deserve to live. They are murdering rapists who are going to come for your family next. I try and keep these thoughts running through my head as Benji and I quickly clear the first two rooms upstairs. First room empty, second room, dead body and a girl tied to the bed. I will have to come back to check, no time now. Two more rooms to go. The next room on the left was the winner. I opened up the door and saw four very stereotypical rednecks in camo holding long poles out of the window like they were fishing. There were guns stacked next to each of the windows. Good no one was on guard. I took two steps in and then two steps to the left to clear Benji¡¯s sightline.


    In movies this is the part where the hero would say some sort of cool one liner. This was reality though. If I said anything the only thing that would happen is that I would warn the people I am here to kill. I raised the shotgun and aimed at the guy to the furthest right. NO, I aimed at the target on the right. Keep your head together Mark. I pulled the trigger and pumped the shotgun as fast as I could. Each person received a full load of buckshot. The first two were hit and propelled out the window they were fishing from. The third and fourth targets were quicker and started to turn around. All that meant is that the buckshot caught target three in the side and target four in the chest.


    There was no way a human would survive those wounds. I did not bother to shoot the last two shells. Instead I watched as the life fled from their eyes as I calmly reloaded my shotgun. As soon as the last one closed his eyes I started to shake. I had just killed real live people. Not zombies, not animals or monsters, but real live people. The enormity of what I had done sunk into me all at once. As soon as I stopped shaking from coming down from my adrenalin high I turned to the side and started dry heaving. Thank goodness I had not eaten breakfast yet. Benji spoke up at that point. "Brother, you need to get it together. I checked the last room and it was clear. We need to get out of here while the zeds are still occupied."


    That statement brought me back to reality. Escape? I don¡¯t think so. ¡°Benji, we are not escaping, we are taking care of the problem before it gets any worse. You collect the guns and ammunition from this room and shove the bodies out the window to keep the zombies in one place. I am going back to the other room to check on the girl tied up to the bed and then I will bring Tracy and her friends back up here. We are going to teach them to shoot and eliminate the zombies out front. I do not want to leave a group this close to the house.¡±


    ¡°That makes sense Mark. I will clean up and organize things here. If you are not up in five I will start shooting without you.¡±


    ¡°Sounds good.¡±


    I retreated out of the room. I carefully made my way back to the room that had what looked like a dead body in the corner and a girl tied to the bed. I approached carefully just in case. There was no need. The poor girl tied to the bed seemed to have been the group¡¯s first victim. She had died which is probably what inspired the group to go out and find Tracy and her friends. The dead body in the corner was a male similar in age to the girl tied up. I assume they were together and the group killed him, raped her and then she died from the trauma. I had no way of actually knowing what happened, but it fit with what Tracy¡¯s group had overheard and their general behavior pattern. I covered both bodies with blankets from the closet and headed downstairs.


    Before I got to the room I called out quietly, ¡°It¡¯s Mr. Evans.¡± I am glad that I did. Tracy¡¯s boyfriend came out of the room holding a lamp. That would have hurt if he hit me with it.


    ¡°Listen up. The front of the house has several zombies. I want everyone to go upstairs where my brother Benji is. We will give you a weapon and teach you how to shoot it safely. We are going to use the zombies outside as target practice.¡±


    ¡°What about the group of guys that caught us.¡±


    ¡°You won¡¯t have to worry about them ever again. Be aware, you were not the first group captured by them. Don¡¯t go into the first room on the right upstairs. That is where the bodies of their first victims are.¡±


    I made sure to mention this because I wanted them to realize that it really was necessary to kill them. I did not need accusations and trouble right now. They all gulped when they heard me and nodded.


    ¡°Alright, everbody upstairs.¡±


    The group trooped upstairs and saw Benji waiting for them at the entrance to the room where I killed the bad people. Should I call them bad guys? I know bandits. He was waiting outside the room where I killed the bandits.


    ¡°There is blood and a bad smell inside, but there are also weapons and the best view to kill zombies. We need to make sure that everyone is capable and willing to help out. If you don¡¯t want to participate, we won¡¯t force you, but you will also have to go your own separate way. We can¡¯t afford to help anyone who won¡¯t help themselves.¡±


    With the minor threat of us leaving them, I could see them get back some of their courage. Benji was always a better weapons instructor than me and I let him run them through the safety, loading, and firing of three of the rifles that the bandits had. While he was teaching I leaned out the window and started taking potshots at the farthest zombies. I wanted them to stay close and not wander off. The noise from the .30 .30 kept them around the house and I was able to eliminate the harder targets before our newbies started shooting. Five minutes of instruction and ten minutes of shooting, surprisingly with only a few misses, and the front yard was cleared out.


    I congratulated everyone, but reminded them we needed to get going soon. I led the way downstairs where we packed as many supplies as we could into a couple of blankets. Tracy¡¯s boyfriend, Alex carried one blanket full of supplies and a rifle and Tracy and her roommate Olivia carried the other blanket full of supplies. We grabbed all the still viable food, toilet paper, feminine products, basic clothes that would fit many people (sweats and large shirts) and anything else we could grab quickly. I still hadn¡¯t eaten breakfast and was getting a little hangry. We exchanged some basic information with the newcomers on the way back.


    I explained who was at the house and that we had enough to supply ourselves for a while. Tracy told me she finished tech school and was actually welding part time at a local metal shop while trying to get a full time job out at the nuclear site where my brother and daughter worked. Her roommate was older than her and was a nurse at one of the local urgent care centers. Strangely enough her roommate was not from the area. In fact, she had a charming kiwi accent. She was here working in the U.S. and taking her Nurse Practitioner courses before she travelled back to New Zealand. She obviously was not going to be able to go home for a while.


    Roberto met us at the gate.


    ¡°Mark, you are the only person I know who can go and check out a situation and bring back not one but two pretty girls and their friend.¡±


    ¡°You be quiet Roberto or I am telling Jillian you were calling other girls pretty.¡±


    ¡°You win Mark, no more teasing. Jillian brought me out some breakfast so I will keep watch. You go and feed the new group and get some breakfast yourself.¡±


    ¡°Thanks, Roberto. I will call for you in a while. We have some decisions to make.¡±


    ¡°I understand.¡±


    I took the group and entered into the house through the front door.


    ¡°Mama, I have a few more guests. Can we please put something together to feed them real quick.¡±


    ¡°They will eat your breakfast and you can have the leftovers. They are guests. Welcome to my house, my name is Kathleen and you kids can just call me Granny Kate.¡±


    That is one of the things I loved the most about mom. No matter what happened she just went with the flow and adapted. About 30 minutes later the story of what happened got out and everyone was fed. Jillian and Stephanie had all the kids upstairs watching a movie so the adults could talk.


    ¡°Alright I call the Evans family meeting to order. I need to go over a couple of things first and then we have some decisions to make.¡±


    I presented a list that I had made quickly over breakfast:


    <ol>


    <li>Zombie Killing is Legal and encouraged by whatever is left of the government.</li>


    <li>In less than 24 hours I had personally run into two situations where law and order had broken down. The area is not as safe as we think.</li>


    <li>The situation will get worse before it gets better. We still have some basic services such as power, but that will probably be going out in less than a week.</li>


    <li>Once the rest of the basic services, power, water and food start going out or becoming scarce survivors are going to start raiding.</li>


    <li>Eventually easy to catch survivors in big cities will be gone and zombies will start spreading out. We can easily overpower and outthink zombies, but they have numbers on their side.</li>


    <li>Good news is that I do not expect the zombies to survive for more than five years at the most. With only instinct to drive them, many will die of disease, open wounds, or lack of water and food.</li>


    <li>After the first year I believe the largest threat will be from other survivors and not zombies.</li>


    </ol>


    ¡°Everybody here knows how long I have been thinking and prepping about ideas and scenarios for this kind of thing. I truly believe we have three options here that we need to consider. First is the hole up and build an agriculture based survival group. I think this has lots of long term potential, but will be difficult for the first few years. Second is the hole up and build a raiding survival group. This is a short term gains kind of thing. Easy to start, but hard to control. Very low long term potential. I don¡¯t recommend it, but it needs to be put out there. Finally, there is the suggestion of island fortress. I think this is the best of both worlds and will protect us the most.¡±


    Widow Allie, spoke up ¡°I don¡¯t understand Mark what is the island fortress?¡±


    ¡°Well in this scenario we move down the Savannah river and either grab an island off the coast or head to a Caribbean island and establish our survival group there. If we clear off the zombies on the island we only have to protect ourselves from other survivors which is infinitely easier on an island than on land where anyone can reach you.¡±


    ¡°Can you list the pros and cons of this island fortress?¡±


    ¡°Great Idea. Pros first:


    <ol>


    <li>Easy to defend.</li>


    <li>Isolated and most likely hard for others to find.</li>


    <li>Mild climate as we will be closer to the equator.</li>


    </ol>


    There are some cons associated with it.


    <ol>


    <li>Isolation means less access to raiding supplies.</li>


    <li>Possibility of more disease due to the warmer climate.</li>


    <li>Seasonal weather such as hurricanes can be severe and there will be no weather channel to warn us.¡±</li>


    </ol>

 9 - Making Choices

    Chapter 9


    Making Choices


    The group quickly started discussing the good and bad points about each idea. I was really pushing hard for the island scenario. I truly believe with the sheer amount of breakdown in societal order we had already seen that this would be the safest and best option for us as a group. It was the best of all worlds. Once we establish ourselves on an island we can set up an agriculture and trading society and still raid for supplies that we needed. After a lot of discussion the group came around to my way of thinking.


    ¡°I want everyone to understand this is still going to take a lot of effort on the part of everybody. Nothing is 100% safe, but I think this is the best option in front of us. Now I think we need to divide up the labor if at all possible to help us move forward. I think we need to set up divisions of expertise. This does not mean that you only do your job, it just means that you are primarily in that group and help out when needed in other groups.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t understand Mark. Can you give me an example?¡±


    ¡°Sure, I think personally we should have six groups. Domestics, Agriculture, Power, Transportation, Supplies, and Safety. My best example is this, Granny Kate and Granny Allie should be in charge of Domestics. Domestics would include taking care of the underage members of the group and organizing the living spaces and food distribution. This means that they are in charge, not that they have to do everything. So if you wanted to work or be part of domestics you would report to them.¡±


    ¡°Alright that makes sense. Who do you think should be in charge of the other divisions?¡±


    ¡°Well right now I think we have Benji and my daughter Brittany head up the power division. They have been working engineers out at the Nuclear site. Olivia is a trained nurse and should be part of the safety group. I don¡¯t think we really have an agriculture person yet. Roberto and I can temporarily head up supplies and transportation.¡±


    ¡°Why do you mean temporarily?¡±


    ¡°I expect us to find and recruit more and better knowledgeable people as we make our way to the island. Our group is not large enough to adequately defend an entire island or handle all the necessary jobs. Several of us can work in a variety of areas and will temporarily help out wherever needed but we are not specialists. For example, Tracy is a welder. She will be useful and necessary in a variety of areas and can help everyone out, but she is not necessarily an expert at any of them.¡±


    ¡°That is true. I can help out with setting up houses, power, and fixing things, but I really can¡¯t say I would be good at being the one in charge.¡±


    ¡°My point exactly. All of us have had some experience with gardens, but no one here can actually say they know how to set up a larger farm or use some of the specialized equipment right?¡±


    Everyone nodded. I think they were understanding my point.


    ¡°Here is what I propose. We take the next week here and build up our supplies and get ready to convoy to the island. During this week we will try to contact and recruit as many people as we can that we feel are competent and trustworthy. So today is list day. I want everyone to come up with lists of people they personally know that would work well in each of the divisions I said. Give me at least three in each division. They need to live within a two hour drive of here or live between here and Savannah so we can pick them up on the way. I need at least three names from everyone, because in reality the chances of us finding everyone and they themselves being immune or willing to come is low. The more people I have to contact the better this will work.¡±


    Everyone agreed and started working on the list while I went out to take a turn on watch. I had been thinking about these kind of situations for a while and I needed to get my thoughts in order. None of my previous thought up plans were going to work perfectly in this situation, but I was confident I could adapt several and come up with one that would work well. The first thing I needed to do was think on transportation and the route we would take.


    We had two major routes we could take. The first was overland and was obvious. We would run into more problems with people that way, but it should be the fastest route. The next and least obvious would be the savannah river itself. In theory it should be possible to navigate down the savannah river from Augusta, Georgia all the way to the coast. While it would take longer, it would definitely be safer in terms of survivors and zombies. The problem with taking the river would be finding enough boats and people to run them to hold everybody and our supplies. Realistically the best option was to convoy.


    The highway between Aiken SC and Savannah GA was rather deserted and a not well travelled area. There are only two towns between them to worry about for larger groups of zombies. Even then they are small towns of hundreds to a couple of thousand people only. Savannah was my ultimate goal for us to find the water transportation that we needed. It was the largest small town seaport that I knew of. Charleston was the same distance, but it had a much greater population and would have a greater risk associated with it. Come to think about it we could try Hilton Head for some private yachts and work our way down the coast and upgrade as we go. That might actually be a safer option. Hilton Head has a population of 35-45,000 people where Savannah has almost 150,000. That means if we can find what we need in Hilton head it should theoretically be safer due to the smaller population. Come to think of it, Hilton Head is more retirement and rich people which will probably translate into less chance of gangs forming in the short term.The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    Alright I talked myself into it. Our goal will be a convoy to Hilton Head to check for water transport. If we find what we need, we will go down the coast in boats. If we don¡¯t locate what we need then we will drive to Savannah. Since I have decided on the route, now I need to think about supplies, vehicles, and recruitment. I think that I will take Olivia, and Roberto with me as my scavenging and people recruitment team. That would leave Benji, Brittany and Alex for the second group. I want Tracy to stay here and work on some projects modifying the vehicles before we go.


    Thinking of vehicles I want to take I better get a count real quick of people. Granny Kate, Granny Allie, Stephanie and her three kids, Jillian and Roberto with five kids, Benji, my daughter Kylie, Alex, Tracy, and Olivia and myself. Wow that is nineteen people already and we will be getting more. We need a large transport for people like a bus, but I am not sure anyone is qualified to drive one. I am sure we could figure it out, but is now really the time? I know, we can get a couple of those minibuses they use for transport around the city or for small education or sports groups. I used to drive one when I worked at a summer camp. They drove just like a large van so regular driver training should suffice. They usually hold 15 comfortably, so two of them would hold all our extra non driver people and some supplies.


    So two short buses driven by Jillian and Olivia, a truck for myself, a truck for Roberto, and SUV¡¯s with a trailer for Benji and Brittany, and Alex and Tracy. The trailer pullers need the partner in case of trouble. Roberto and I can be roaming front and back guards in the pickups. The minibuses will hold clothes and camping equipment. One trailer will be farming equipment, seeds, and everything for agriculture. The second will be generators, fuel, and tools needed. Weapons, food and water will be split between the two trucks. We should only need supplies for two weeks. If we cannot find new supplies within two week¡¯s I don¡¯t think our survival chances will be high. Once we get to our final destination we will start to stock up. We can add more vehicles if and when we add more people. One full tank of gas should get us to both the first and back up destination. We can scavenge gas along the way if necessary also.


    What should our final destination be? I am leaning toward either Dominica or Andros Island in the Bahamas. There are other closer islands but these are the largest islands with good fresh water sources and low population. I am trying to remember my research that I have done on this. Let¡¯s see if I remember right Dominica is small than Andros island and has around 75,000 people. Andros island is quite big and near several other islands and only has less than 10,000 people on it. If I remember right it also has a small military base, and several farms and other necessary areas already developed. We would just have to take over.


    Andros island in the Bahamas it is. With a military base there will be dockage for larger ships. It has fresh water and farms. Best yet with less than 10,000 people the number of zombies we will need to clear will actually be feasible. I mean I am sure we could gather more than 50,000 rounds of ammunition in just Aiken. That means we could clear the island and have enough supplies to protect ourselves without having to scavenge extra. So anything we found on the island already would be bonus. I am sure there will be several survivors on the island also. If we show them we want to work with them and that we are good people we should be able to up our numbers significantly.


    I think that our island should never get more than 200 to 300 people on it. Any more than that without technology would be too hard to govern and watch. So if we gather more people as we scavenge we can spread to the other surrounding islands with fresh water. I know there are several in the Bahamas. The Bahamas are also close enough that we can easily make it back to the coast of the United States for raiding trips in a single day, not to mention the other islands. If we manage to succeed in establishing ourselves we can also try unifying the surrounding areas. I personally think that Andros Island will be large enough for at least five to ten years.


    After that time frame as the zombies start dying off I think we will find more survivors during our scavenging trips and we could invite them into our growing community or ally with them. We should run into more survivors as time goes on because all the easy scavenge places would have been emptied already. Thus forcing those that are left to compete for smaller and smaller batches of resources left over from before this all started. So to avoid some of this we should plan well for long term development and scavenge accordingly.


    Idiots will go for things like money and jewelry at the beginning. That is stupid. You can¡¯t eat either one. Priorities should be long term food until our crops become reliable. After that will be fuel and oil to last at least three to five years. Next would be batteries and battery operated machines, tools, and alternative ways to charge them. Your fancy car won¡¯t help you if there is no gas available. However, if we can scavenge a bunch of solar, wind, and water sources for energy than we can recharge batteries for years after we run out of fuel for cars and other things. Next would be animals and boating hulls and sails. We will need animals for protein and sources of labor. Boat hulls are important because it will be a long time before anyone starts making anything other than makeshift rafts and small canoes. So if we stock pile several boats above what we need then we can replace the ones that wear out over time. Enough thinking, it is time to organize our first scavenge and search for survivors.

 10 - Scavenging Is Fun To Do

    Chapter 10


    Scavenging Is Fun To Do


    I round up Benji and tell the others we are going out to scout the terrain and make sure everything is safe. As soon as we get outside Benji looks at me and says, ¡°Okay, what are we really doing?¡±


    ¡°First scavenging trip of the zombie apocalypse little brother. Gear up and meet me at the barn. We are going to bike around to stay quiet and try and find a few items before they get scarce.¡±


    ¡°Sounds good, I will meet you down at the barn in ten minutes.¡±


    I go down to the barn and pull out a couple of mountain bikes. My dad always has some bikes around. He used to go to garage sales with my mom and to her great annoyance bought just about any bike that was cheap and then went home to fix them up. After they were fixed and ready, as he put it ¡°In case the grandkids need one¡± they would get put in the barn and forgotten about. The whole place would be overflowing with bikes if it were not for the fact that every three to six months mom would send him out on an errand and then get myself, Benji, or Brittany to help her load them up into the back of the truck and she would go down and donate them to be sold at the local second hand stores. Dad must have known what was going on, but he wisely said nothing and was just happy to have more space so he could fix more bikes.


    The last bike run to the stores was around six weeks ago so dad had a good variety of bikes to choose from. Benji showed up a few minutes later looking like some sort of apocalypse warrior. He had a bandolier of ammunition, two rifles, a shotgun, three pistols, and I don¡¯t know how many knives. I couldn¡¯t help laughing.


    ¡°Um, Benji are you going to start a war or something?¡±


    ¡°What you think this is too much?¡±


    ¡°Yes Benji, that is too much. We want to be quick and quiet not start a war that can be heard three states away.¡±


    ¡°I just wanted to be prepared.¡±


    ¡°I understand, but here is the thing, can you even bike and move comfortably with all of that on you?¡±


    ¡°Hmm, I forgot about that.¡±


    I could see him start to get a sad look when he thought he would have to leave everything behind.


    ¡°Benji, try this load out. One higher caliber rifle, two pistols, one to two knives, and a survival .22 broken down into a back pack with ammunition a snack and some water.¡±


    He quickly went to the truck I had driven in and started making adjustments. I had the load out on that I had suggested to him with the exception of a swiss army knife in the back pack and my axe-bar instead of the knives. I still was carrying the .45 pistol on my hip and the .22 in a shoulder holster. The shotgun needed to stay behind for weight and movement reasons. The rifle I chose was still my reliable lever action .30 .30. I had 50 rounds of .45 ammo and .30 .30 ammo in the back pack along with a thousand rounds of .22 ammunition. A brick of 500 hollow points and a brick of 500 target rounds. This was another reason I favored the .22 for survival situations. The thousand rounds for it weighed the same as the 100 rounds of larger caliber ammunition. Yes, it might take two or three shots to put something down instead of one, but unless I was going against some mutated large ogre, a .22 will get the job done and the weight of the rifle and ammunition is less than half of all my other guns.


    Soon Benji had modified his load out and came out with his bike choice.


    ¡°What are we looking for Mark?¡±


    ¡°Well we should probably bring back two vehicles this time and fill them with supplies if possible.¡±


    ¡°What types are you thinking? I know the area better than you so maybe I can think of some different places to look.¡±


    ¡°Excellent idea. Right now I am thinking we should convoy with two 4-wheel drive trucks, two 4-wheel drive suv¡¯s, and two minibuses. The two suv¡¯s will be pulling trailers of items, I still have not decided on the type of trailer, but I am thinking large horse trailers since those are easily available in this area and would protect both supplies and people so if we had extra we had to cram into them.¡±


    ¡°I assume the minibuses are for passengers. Did you pick them just because most people could drive them?¡±


    ¡°That and the space they have for gear.¡±


    ¡°The gas mileage is horrible in those things so why not a van?¡±


    ¡°I was thinking that the bus is a more solid defense in case we get stuck somewhere.¡±


    ¡°Well yeah it would be, but you can take a 4-wheel drive van to places that a mini-bus would never be able to reach. A mini-bus might get stuck just on the side of the road, but a 4-wheel drive van can drive almost anywhere.¡±The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    ¡°Benji, you are a genius. I haven¡¯t seen a 4-wheel drive van since my college days when we had them for the science department trips.¡±


    ¡°We have a couple out at the nuclear site, which is too far for a bike ride, but the USC-Aiken campus is just ten miles away. They might have some just like your college did.¡±


    ¡°Alright we will try the college. If nothing else, they should have the large suv¡¯s I want at that dealership nearby.¡±


    With our destination set we took off. It has been a while since I have ridden a bike. My hind end was in pain in less than a mile. Focus Mark, you are at least in good enough shape now that you can ride this bike, that¡¯s a positive. As the crow flies we were probably only between five and seven miles away from the campus, but our trip had to follow backroads for safety. Everything as we bike along looks like a lazy Sunday morning. Cars are parked, animals can be heard, the only thing out of the ordinary is no sound of vehicles anywhere. As we travel along it is peaceful for a while and then suddenly something will throw it out of whack. The first anomaly was a group of four zombies eating something in a driveway with blood flowing down that same driveway. It made the whole trip seem surreal.


    An amazing Sunday bike ride turned into a house of horrors in less than ten seconds. I signaled Benji and we just rode by. One of the zombies lifted their head and stared at us for a second but went back to feeding. That is actually good to note. If zombies are currently feeding they are less likely to chase you. This alone was enough to jolt me back to reality. No matter how picturesque, the world has changed. I need to keep my head in the game.


    We arrived at the USC-Aiken campus after another 90 minutes of riding. We definitely did not break any speed records getting here, but the bikes got the job done. We arrived faster than walking and did not attract the attention of a group of zombies through car noise. Heading home would be a different story. We were going to have to park away from the house and deal with any followers before making the final approach. The last thing I wanted was to bring a horde of zombies down on my own family.


    I can see several individual shambling people spread throughout the campus. A quick count shows about 35 different zombies wandering around in sight. Let¡¯s double that for safeties sake and say at least 70 zombies. The question is do we deal with them or do we try and sneak past.


    ¡°Hey Benji, where do you think they keep their school vehicles?¡±


    ¡°Well, I see two in that parking lot, but I bet that most of them are near or in the maintenance area.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s sounds like a good place to start. Let¡¯s head out on foot. I can¡¯t ride and fight, and it looks like we might have to fight.¡±


    ¡°Are we going to try and sneak in?¡±


    ¡°I was thinking about it, why?¡±


    ¡°I think we should set up a shooting nest with a couple of different ways out and try and eliminate as many threats as possible.¡±


    ¡°Why is that your recommendation Benji?¡±


    ¡°I think that we are going to be distracted trying to find keys and other things. The less zombies to ambush us, especially when we are leaving the better.¡±


    ¡°I cannot really argue with your logic so let¡¯s do that instead of sneaking in.¡±


    We decide that the stadium would be the best place to set up. The baseball diamond had a press box on top of a set of aluminum bleachers. The bleachers were about five to eight meters high and situated so as long as we were careful we could climb down the back of them or the sides in an emergency. This was our multiple ways out scenario. We force the door to the press box and then reinforced it with the tables and chairs inside so nothing could get in. We climbe the ladder to the rook of the press box and got ready to do some serious shooting.


    ¡°Before we start, I only have 50 rounds for the rifle. What do you have Benji?¡±


    ¡°I decided to go with the .45 semi auto carbine and the .45 pistol so I brought 150 rounds that could be used in either one. I also have the .22 target pistol with a brick of 500 hollow points.¡±


    ¡°I have another 50 rounds of .45 ammunition. That takes you up to 200 rounds for the rifle if needed. You are going to be the primary shooter and I will spot for you. If we see them swarming or anything unusual we climb down and get out while we can.¡±


    ¡°Sounds good brother. Let¡¯s see what gunshots from a rifle do to these zombies.¡±


    We quickly put in some ear plugs, guns are loud, and Benji started shooting as I called out targets. I wanted him to start close by to thin out the numbers in case this caused a group to come together. That way we might have a precious few more seconds to escape. I place both our .22 pistols along with a brick of hollow points out for close by shooting. I was going to try and take care of anything that made it to the bleachers. When Benji started shooting it was obvious that the zombies within 400 meters heard it and associated it with food. Either that or they were just reacting to a loud noise. Heads came up and they started searching for source of the noise. Luck and terrain were in our favor. The echoes from the surrounding college buildings seemed to be confusing the zombies more than 200 meters away.


    All the zombies inside that range took about five shots to understand where the sound was coming from. The speed of the zombies also varied according to distance. The closer the zombie, the faster they moved towards us. The further away the slower they moved. It almost seemed like they responded to the intensity of the sound. If the sound was loud and close by they were almost running. However, if the sound was softer and further away, they still responded but shuffled in the direction slowly. As I watch I can see that when the zombies get closer and the sound gets louder they do increase their speed. Another important piece of information.


    Benji by this point had taken out the ten closest zombies and was reloading. I sighted my rifle at the closest zombie still coming and waited until he was within 150 meters before I fired. I put down three more when they hit that range until Benji whispered that he was ready. We continued this alternating shooting pattern for about five minutes before it started to look like we were going to have to switch things up. I might have underestimated the number of zombies out there. After shooting for a little over five minutes there was a line of dead zombies between 100 and 200 meters out from the press box. The problem was the total number of zombies I saw was not going down. We seem to be pulling in about as many as we are putting down. If this keeps up we will run out of ammunition before the zombies run out of bodies. It is time to try something a little different.

 11 - Vantastic

    Chapter 11


    Vantastic


    ¡°Benji, this is not working. Try and shoot every other zombie this time and let a few through. When they start climbing the bleachers I will try and put them down with the .22 pistols. That should save us some ammunition. If the situation doesn¡¯t change, we are going to have to cut and run in about five minutes.¡±


    ¡°Ok Mark, I will switch it up now.¡±


    When Benji paused to reload this time instead of my rifle I picked up the first .22 target pistol. When shooting at targets I can usually hit a head sized target at around 50 meters with a pistol. Let¡¯s half that distance, because this is the real world and not a shooting range, so 25 meters should be my long shots with the pistol. Ten meters is probably more realistic, but I will find out soon. I guessed that the bottom of the bleachers was about 25 meters away. I would let them get to the bottom before I started shooting with the pistol. The first one had just reached the bottom stair and I was about to shoot when it stopped.


    What now? I stop myself from shooting and watch closely. It is almost like it is deciding what to do about climbing. It wanders along about 3 meters before it reaches the actual steps and not the higher bench. Once it reaches the steps it starts to climb. So the bench of the bleacher was high enough to confuse it. Probably not enough to stop it, but it definitely slowed it down. I aim and fire one shot into the chest of the climbing zombie. I hit center mass but not much happened. Okay, smaller bullet means either more shots or more accurate shots. I aim for the heart area and fire off another shot as it reaches about 15 meters away. This shot causes it to stumble. It is not dead yet, but it can only crawl now. I must have nicked the heart causing it to have problems moving. My final shot I aim for the head and watch as bullet actually ricochets off the skull. Ok note to self, hollow point .22 bullets do not have the penetrating power at 15 meters to get through the skull of a human. I bet it would work on the side of the head as that is thinner bone.


    Oh well, I can ignore that zombie anyway, it is going to bleed out. I continue shooting at zombies as they reach the bleachers. Each one takes at least two shots, some take three, and one large gentleman took five before he went down. My pistols are not as efficient as the rifles, but since I have a thousand rounds of ammunition I don¡¯t have to be. After another five minutes I check in with Benji.


    ¡°Ammo supply and situation.¡±


    ¡°I am down to my last 50 rounds or so and still have your 50 rounds, so about 100 shots left I guess. The zombies are starting to actually thin out. I think if we continue on we will be fine.¡±


    ¡°Alright, I have about 40 rounds for the .30.30 and over 750 rounds of hollow point and 500 rounds of target for the .22 pistols. Let¡¯s keep going.¡±


    About eight minutes later Benji fires one last shot and states, ¡°That¡¯s it, I don¡¯t see another one.¡±


    I finish off the two zombies that have made it to the bleachers and reply, ¡°Let¡¯s wait a few minutes just to be sure.¡±


    ¡°Okay.¡±


    After a couple of minutes, the adrenaline produced from the situation started to wear off. I started to notice not only the sights around me but the smells. Particularly the smells associated with the large amount of dead bodies near us. None of the zombies had showered any time recently. The body odor alone was starting to become overwhelming. On top of the body odor was the coppery metallic scent of blood, with just a hint of released bowels from when some of them perished. Basically it was horrible.


    ¡°I can¡¯t stay here any longer Benji. Please tell me you don¡¯t see anything and we can climb down and move to somewhere that smells better.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t see anything and I second your vote to get out of here. The smell is starting to make my eyes water and my stomach churn.¡±


    We quickly climbed down from the roof of the press box and removed the blockage from in front of the door. When we open the door the smell we thought was bad on top of the press box became ten times worse. To top it off there was a steady dripping sound from the blood of the zombies on the bleachers hitting the ground. Both of us step out and turn, thankfully, to opposite sides and threw up what we had in our guts. I rinse my mouth from a water bottle and don¡¯t even say a word. I just look for the best way down. Since we had let some of the zombies reach the bleachers there really was not a good spot for us to leave the bleachers without going over at least one or two bodies. Forget that, I am not going any closer to that smell. I start climbing over the back fence and down the scaffolding of the bleachers. When Benji sees what I am doing he quickly follows. Two minutes of climbing and a quick 60 second jog away from the overpowering scent I finally start walking and talking.This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.


    ¡°Well Benji, we definitely learned some things from this adventure already. First and foremost is that many zombies and bodies equals nausea and vomiting. We definitely need to make sure to bring not only ear protection like we did for the gunshot sounds but nose protection for afterwards.¡±


    ¡°I agree. I think we learned some other important information also. It seems that zombies don¡¯t climb well and that we should estimate twice as many out of sight then what we can see, just to be safe.¡±


    ¡°I think you are right. Although the extras may have been drawn in by sound also. As long as they are not bunched up, dealing with the zombies seems rather easy. Clean up on the other hand is going to be problematic.¡±


    ¡°I guess that just means that whenever possible we need to eliminate zombies away from wherever we are staying.¡±


    ¡°I wonder if they are drawn to smell as well as sound? Do you think that we should come back by here in a couple of days and check on the piles of dead zombies?¡±


    ¡°Nope, I think that we would have a hard time distinguishing what was eaten by the zombies and what was eaten by wild animals.¡±


    As we were talking, we were walking and soon had reached the supply and maintenance building. I had remembered seeing it the last time I came down to the campus for a school meeting at the business and education center. Something about text book adoption I think. Anyway, as we got closer Benji and I both became quiet and slowly approach the gate to the maintenance shop. I pull out my .45 pistol just to be safe and see Benji do the same. Close quarters means that the rifle will be a liability. Too hard to swing it quickly to cover the different angles. We clear the gate area and see nothing inside of the maintenance area.


    So far so good. Suddenly I stop and Benji lets out a little squeak. ¡°Really Benji, did you just squeak?¡±


    ¡°Shut Up Mark. Why did you stop and scare me like that?¡±


    ¡°Sorry I just realized that we should close this metal gate and then we won¡¯t have to worry about anything from the outside coming into the maintenance department while we look around.¡±


    ¡°Great idea brother, but next time try to arrive at this idea without scaring the bejesus out of me.¡±


    I just grin and start closing the gate. Benji shakes his head and goes over to the other side. In less than 30 seconds we had secured our flank which made me feel much better. I spotted the vans we wanted along with several SUV¡¯s, one minibus, a couple of tractors and several zero-turn lawn mowers.


    ¡°Where do you think they keep the keys?¡±


    ¡°If it was me I would either keep them in the vehicle or in that office over there.¡±


    ¡°Alright let¡¯s check the vehicles first and then the office.¡±


    We carefully check under, around and behind each vehicle before opening it up to look for keys.


    ¡°No keys, they must keep them inside and check them out when needed.¡±


    I make a quick note of the two best looking vans. They each have a rack on top and are labeled USC- A4 and USC- A5. I assume that stands for USC-Aiken van 4 and USC-Aiken van 5. I move towards the office looking building and Benji follows close behind. I line up with my back on one side of the door frame like you see in the movies. Benji instinctively does the same on the other side of the door. I guess we do watch a lot of the same movies. I motion to him that I am going to try and open it on three. I silently count down with my fingers and try the handle, locked. I look at Benji and he looks back at me and we both grin. ¡°On three again¡±, I whisper. He nods.


    One, two three, Benji and I both spin towards the door and kick forward with all of our might. I am glad that this is the end of the world. Both Benji and my feet just make a thudding sound against the door and instead of flying open we both stumble backwards off balance. Luckily neither of us actually fell down. If someone else besides my brother had been there to witness the utter failure of kicking in the door movie style, I don¡¯t know if I would die of embarrassment, but I definitely would not be able to ever return and look someone else in the face.


    ¡°Okay Benji instead of living out our demented film fanasy, which did not work, I do have a solution to this problem.¡±


    I pull my axe bar off my waist and wedge the crowbar section where the lock is. With a minimum amount of effort, I pop the lock and we stare at the inside of the maintenance office. There are four desks and on the back wall is a large pegboard with the words VEHICLE CHECKOUT written on it. Well that is a little anti-climactic, but on the other hand at least we don¡¯t have to waste time searching for what we need. We quickly clear the rest of this building and the maintenance yard itself before we start loading up with what we want to take.


    As we were checking the area for safety we both noticed a variety of useful tools and other things we could use in the future. My big find was the refueling tank they kept in the maintenance yard. They had a 300 or 400 gallon fuel tank that was at least ? full that they used to refill all of their lawn mowers and school vehicles. It was set up on top of a metal framework. I fire up a one of the two forklifts in the yard and lift the whole thing off the ground. I stop the forklift there and Benji and I dismantle the legs on the metal framework with the tools available. Once the tank was free of its legs I set it down on one of the 5 X 8 trailers they used for hauling around the lawn mowers. We tie it down so it won¡¯t come free from the trailer and voila, instant refuel for the trip, no need to stop. Ben backs up one of the vans we are going to take and we hook the trailer up.


    Next we load up every rechargeable battery operated tool we can find on another trailer. I have a few ideas for these things in the future. We filled in empty spaces with anything we thought might be useful. That included tools, hats, jackets, plastic gas cans, extra batteries for the van, and so much more. Once we had everything loaded up I grab the eight walkie talkies and their chargers that I saw in the office and also made sure to clean out their soda machine. I hand Benji one walkie and say, ¡°Channel 4. Are you ready to go?¡±


    ¡°Yep let¡¯s go.¡±

 12 - Prepping For The Coast

    Chapter 12


    Prepping For The Coast


    We have both vans running and set to leave. I jump out and swing open the gate being careful of any zombies that might have wandered over due to the noise we were making. There were only three outside the gate. I quickly put bullets from the .45 into them. No time for precision shots with the .22 right now. Once they go down I hop back up into the driver¡¯s seat of my van and reload quickly. Then our little two van convoy starts for home. As we drove back home I noticed we were drawing attention to ourselves not only from zombies, but from survivors as well. I was driving as fast as I could due to my worry that another drunken group might shoot at us.


    Even at the speed we were driving I could see zombies gathering and following behind us. We were driving fast enough that I could not tell if they were still following once we got out of sight. I saw several people waving from upstairs windows when we drove past. I felt sorry for them, but I was not going to stop. I had enough people to take care of right now. If we did not need them or we did not run into them directly I was not going to go out of my way to help them. This may seem cruel, but we were not yet at a point where we could just help everyone we saw. Besides, we needed to find those people who had the skills to help us survive and rebuild, not that just need protecting.


    It is a new world and some of the jobs and important people from the past no longer have any meaning. What good is a stock broker in the apocalypse? Who cares if you were a billionaire if money is worthless, what we need are people that have practical jobs or at least are willing to help out. Specialists might be helpful, but a generalist or someone who can take care of a bunch of little things in the short term was a more valuable member of society. I hope that eventually we can get civilization back to the point where a person can have an entire career based on being a lawyer. The reality of the situation dictates that the skills of a lawyer may not be needed for a good while. You really can¡¯t tell zombies that it is illegal to eat people and expect them to follow the law.


    Even taking a longer loop back to the family farm in order to throw people and zombies off we still managed the trip in less than thirty minutes. Vehicular transportation is much nicer than riding a bike. I pull my van over in an empty field about half a mile from the mom¡¯s house. Benji pulls up next to me leaving a good amount of space.


    ¡°What¡¯s up brother? Why did we stop?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to risk bringing zombies back to mom¡¯s house from the noise of the engine. Do me a favor run back to the house and let momma know we are okay. Then send Roberto out with a couple hundred rounds of .30 .30 ammo for my rifle. A box of .45 shells would be nice too. I am going to sit here and set up to see if any zombies or people tried to follow us.¡±


    ¡°That sounds like a plan. Someone should be back, if not Roberto, in less than half an hour.¡±


    Benji gathered his weapons and headed off for home. I had pulled the van off into the empty field for a reason. I wanted great sight lines. I climb up onto the top of the van and set up a shooting nest on the roof rack. I stand up and take a look around. I see a few zombies moving in my direction from where we drove here from town. I don¡¯t hear any other engine noise or see anything else that would indicate that a sentient human followed us though. The zombies are at least half a mile to three quarters of a mile away. I wonder will they still shuffle this direction even though there is no more noise to follow?


    I made a three hundred sixty degree scan just to be careful. I assumed that we had taken care of most if not all of the local zombies when we rescued Tracy¡¯s group. There were not a lot of houses in this area. No more than a dozen within a mile or two. It was mostly agricultural fields and stands of timber. Since we had dealt with a little over 20 zombies, that should account for just about everything close by. There might be a couple trapped in buildings or some that have wandered in since then, but it was still early in this apocalypse and I think most would still be relatively close to their starting point. I took another look at the group of zombies that had been following us from town.


    They were starting to disperse and wander off. There originally had been about 30 of them within sight. Now I can only count about a dozen still coming towards me. They were still four to six hundred meters away so no threat yet. In fact, I would rather take care of them now rather than later. However, I do not want to shoot the rifle as that would attract the ones that had already wandered off. I think I will just let them come closer and then take them out with the .22 pistol. Once they are down I can pull the van forward 50 meters to avoid the smell of the bodies.


    With my plan in place it was just a matter of waiting. Ten minutes later I open fire when they are 75 meters away. This was at the edge of my range with a .22 pistol, but I figured that I had bullets to spare, and I could treat this as training. At the sound of the pistol the dozen zombies in the group started shuffling faster. So a .22 at 75 meters is loud enough to get their interest, but not loud enough to get them running yet. I empty my clip and note that I have hit several, but none fatally. I reload calmly and resume firing when they reach 50 meters. This time when they hear the pistol they lurch into a shambling jog/run type thing. That is most likely the top speed they have except for short bursts. It would be hard, but not unreasonable to outrun them in the short term. They most likely will keep going until their bodies or ruined though so endurance or the long race will be in their favor.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    This round of shooting causes four of the twelve zombies to fall down. They will likely bleed out if they are not already dead. I reload a little quicker this time as they are starting to get very close. I am ready to shoot again when they are about twenty meters out. Ten more shots and five more go down. One of them still crawling. I reload one last time to take care of the last three when I hear another .22 start firing from behind me and to the right. I nearly fall off the van in surprise. I look over and see Roberto calmly shooting and taking care of the last three zombies. Man that is a lesson I need to remember. I was so focused on what was in front of me, I forgot to check my surroundings. If that had been an enemy instead of Roberto I may have been in serious trouble. I finish reloading and hop down from the van.


    ¡°I have the ammo you requested Mark, but it does not look like you are going to need it.¡±


    ¡°Roberto, good to see you. You¡¯re right. They started to disperse about 800 meters out. I don¡¯t think the sound of a .22 will attract them from more than about 200 meters at the most if that, so we should not need to worry. When we were shooting at the college though the larger calibers and echoes were bringing in everything from at least half a mile though.¡±


    ¡°So that means use a .22 whenever possible so you don¡¯t get swarmed.¡±


    ¡°Yep, except when up close and you need the stopping power or you have to shoot at a distance a .22 is the safest ammo so far. A bow would probably be better, but it would take longer and you can only carry so many arrows. I figure for a three person hunting team, if one person had a bow, rifle and pistol, one had a shotgun, rifle and pistol, and one had a .22 rifle, a large caliber rifle and a pistol that would work best. That way you have a mix of silent, range, and stopping power.¡±


    ¡°¡¯Good to know, now can we move these vans a bit to get away from the smell?¡±


    We pull the vans forward about 50 meters and then wait another 15 minutes to make sure the brief engine noise was not enough to bring more zombies. Seeing nothing in that time we start walking back to the house.


    ¡°No problems at the house Roberto.¡±


    ¡°Just kids fighting and making up like usual.¡±


    ¡°Good. Is everyone on board with the coast plan?¡±


    ¡°I think that Tracy and her boyfriend, what is his name, Brian or something, are going to leave us and go and try to find her family.¡±


    ¡°Well I hate to see them go, but I understand the need to find family. What about her roommate Olivia?¡±


    ¡°Well as I see it, Olivia is older, a little wiser, has no ties of family other than some on the other side of the world she can¡¯t get to, and may have a little crush on you, so she will stay.¡±


    ¡°Shut up, she can¡¯t have a crush on me, I¡¯m a grown man at 40 with a kid. What is there about me that is crush worthy.¡±


    ¡°Mark she is almost 30, and you did rescue her.¡±


    I had nothing to say to that revelation. She didn¡¯t look 30. This is something I was going to have to think about. At least it would be pleasant thoughts. As we walk back we engage in some small talk and make sure to keep our voices down and to scan around us just to be safe.


    ¡°Did you and the others come up with some local names of people we should check on?¡±


    ¡°Momma has them and wants to talk to you about something when we get back.¡±


    ¡°I haven¡¯t done anything wrong, what does she want to talk about?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know, just remember that you are an adult now and can take care of yourself.¡±


    ¡°Yeah right, like that makes a difference to momma.¡±


    Roberto just grins at my last comment I muttered quietly. Soon enough we came to the house. I left Roberto to make a round about the property and went inside to find out what momma wanted.


    ¡°Momma, Roberto said you wanted to see me.¡±


    ¡°Yes Mark, have a seat at the table and I will bring you snack while we talk.¡±


    A snack would be nice. I left most of my breakfast back at the bleachers when I blew chunks and I was getting hungry again.


    ¡°Thank you, momma.¡±


    I took a seat and watched my mom putter around and put together a few things on a plate and then bring them over.


    ¡°Now Mark, Tracy and her friend Brian are going to go looking for her family. I want you to help them out with some gear and travel arrangements.¡±


    ¡°Yes momma.¡±


    ¡°Next, we have come up with a list of people that would be helpful and some things that we need before we head down to the coast this weekend.¡±


    ¡°That is good, who are we going to look for?¡±


    ¡°Well the Johnsons down the road a bit, you know the soy bean farmers.¡±


    ¡°Okay that makes sense.¡±


    ¡°I think that the Ruiz and Shutter families from church would be a good addition.¡±


    ¡°What do they do?¡±


    ¡°Mr. Ruiz is in construction and one of the Shutters works at the pharmacy.¡±


    ¡°Those sound like valuable people to have.¡±


    ¡°Finally we came up with a group of three families that all have boats or at least some boating experience.¡±


    ¡°That sounds like a good idea momma, who are the three families?¡±


    ¡°The McCoys, they live down in North Augusta near where Benji lives. The Sanders live down near Hilton Head, we can check on them on the way down. Finally, I think that we should go check on the Wilkinson¡¯s.¡±


    ¡°I am sorry momma, I will help the others, but there is no way I am going to check on, invite, or have anything to do with the Wilkinson¡¯s and you should know it.¡±


    ¡°Mark, that happened a long time ago. You need to get over it. The Wilkinson¡¯s have a boat they use on the weekends so they all know how to operate it.¡±


    ¡°That is great, fantastic for them. If they show up, I am leaving. I cannot and will not trust any of those people ever again. You are family momma, so I need you to understand this. I am not joking. If I see a Wilkinson, I might just shoot them on sight. There is no more law and that would at least leave me satisfied.¡±


    ¡°Well I already sent Jillian and Brittany over to check on them so you are going to have to deal with it.¡±


    I said nothing else and just stood up to leave.


    ¡°Where are you going?¡±


    ¡°Momma, I am packing up Betsy. I will have the courtesy since you are my momma to not shoot them if they show up. If I see them however, I am leaving.¡±


    ¡°Get back in here young man!¡±


    I loved my mom, but this was too much. I just shook my head and went out to pack up Betsy.

 13 - Bad Memories

    Chapter 13


    Bad Memories


    Back when I first started teaching I actually taught much closer to home. However, in my third year of teaching I had a run in with the Wilkinson family which changed my life forever. I knew the Wilkinson¡¯s through momma and her church long before I had their daughter in my class. They had even been over for Sunday supper a couple of times. It seemed nice that I could have a student in my class that was known to me. It started out just fine. The young lady in question did her work and caused no problems. After winter break things started to change.


    This young lady stopped doing work or at least stopped turning it in and her attitude became worse. I contacted her parents, we had conferences, and I even tutored her after school a few times. The end of the third quarter came around and this young lady had failed my class. I informed her parents and let them know there was still plenty of opportunities for her to bring her grade up the next quarter and get credit. When her parents confronted her about her grades and behavior it came out that this young girl was pregnant. Now I have no idea what went through that young lady¡¯s head, but she somehow thought if she accused me of doing inappropriate things and being the father of her child that it would all work out somehow. Now instead of questioning their precious babies word, the parents of this pregnant girl went straight to the superintendent of the school district and accused him of harboring a child molester.


    Needless to say when I came in to work the next day I was called into my principal¡¯s office and told I was being placed on administrative leave. I was absolutely flabbergasted, I had no idea what was even going on at the time. I asked my principal why I was being placed on leave and he just said that he was unable to talk about the ongoing investigation. I inquired again about what the investigation was about, but he would not answer me. So here I was, a fairly new teacher, being told that I was put on leave due to something they were investigating and I had no idea what was going on. It was a comedy of errors from the beginning.


    Now if that was all I probably would not be as mad as I was today. I was obviously innocent and the investigation the school and police conducted would prove that. The problem was the parents of young Miss Wilkinson, my accuser, went to the media also. I came home from school feeling very confused and not knowing what was going on to be greeted by a news van in my apartments driveway. The reporter ambushed me and started asking questions about the situation. Remember that I did not even know what was happening.


    Basically my evasive answers due to my lack of knowledge came across as me looking very guilty. The next day I was finally contacted by the teacher¡¯s union I was part of and informed about what was going on. I was furious about how I was being used. My name was being smeared in the media, while the ¡°victim¡¯s¡± name was protected because she was a minor. Eventually the truth came out and the child¡¯s story was proven completely wrong. She admitted to making the whole thing up to avoid getting into trouble. The problem was my name and the story was headline news for two weeks and the retraction and apology from the media was either never given or buried deep in the news cycle where most people missed it. My reputation even though I was innocent was ruined in the local community. I was forced to move and start over in another town and my supposed victim and family just continued their life as if nothing had changed other than a new baby on the way.


    I never did get an apology from the Wilkinson¡¯s. I received an out of court settlement from both the family and the district who did not follow policy when dealing with my situation. That allowed me to own my house free and clear and gave me a good start on my retirement. That was the only positive that came out of that situation. Ever since then I have struggled to trust any person outside of the family and forget about dating and such. Every time I tried, I would start wondering what lies this person would tell about me and then things would spiral out of control. I eventually gave up trying to find a meaningful long term relationship and instead had a string of fortunate encounters on vacations or short term no responsibility hook ups. It was not good or healthy, but it was what my life had become. Now my own mother wanted me to make nice with the people that had ruined most of my life.


    I don¡¯t really think my mom really understood the trouble and difficulty that I went through. I truly believe that in her mind it was a youthful prank that got out of hand and since I was proven innocent then there should be no hard feelings. How wrong she was about that. I start transferring everything around into Betsy getting ready to leave. If I was lucky the Wilkinson¡¯s would already be dead. This was reality though. My luck was terrible, I had probably used all of it up just surviving and not turning into a zombie. I would shadow and follow the family and try to keep them safe, but I could no longer stay in direct contact.


    Maybe I can move ahead of them and prepare a few things to make their trip easier. After I shuffled things around and got Betsy ready to go I went looking for Roberto and Benji. I explain the situation to them and they both understand how I am feeling.


    ¡°Please take care of momma and Brittany. I still think it is safer for you all to travel and move together. I will try to keep an eye on the convoy and prep some things before you get there. For emergencies contact me on channel 11 and used your childhood nicknames so I will respond.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t like seeing you leave, but I understand.¡±


    ¡°Me too brother, keep safe.¡±


    What perfect timing. Just as we finished up our discussion we could hear an engine approaching. I signaled for Roberto and Benji to go and check it out. After about 60 seconds I could hear Benji talking much louder than necessary.


    ¡°Well if it isn¡¯t the Wilkinson¡¯s I have not seen you all in a coon¡¯s age.¡±If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    Thank you Benji for giving me that heads up. Now I don¡¯t have to actually meet them. I hop into Betsy¡¯s driving seat and fire her up and leave out the back of the ranch. I saw momma on the back porch staring at me. It looked like she was crying, but I was already leaving and there was no stopping me now. I left out the back and soon enough I decide that I am going to go ahead and travel down to 278. Then I will go through and clear Barnwell and set up outside of Allendale tonight if at all possible. With my simple goals made I made a few turns and set off alone for the first time since this whole thing started.


    I turned onto 278 and slowed down to about 15 mph. This is faster than the top speed of most of the zombies and slow enough for me to look out for any bad situations. I continue down the road for a few miles and gathered what looked like fifty or so zombies shuffling behind me. I decided that the next exit would be my stop to thin out the herd following me. I pull off on the exit and accelerate quickly and park on top of the overpass. I quickly pull out my favorite .30 .30 and one hundred rounds and place them on the hood. Next to it I place a semi-automatic .45 rifle with another 100 rounds. I am wearing the .22 in a shoulder holster and have the .45 still on my hip. I decide that being over prepared is better than under prepared. I also pull out a 12 gauge shotgun and a box of twenty shells. And lean it against the hood. That should be a good back up in case they get close.


    I start shooting when the first of the zombies cross the 200 meter mark. The result is rather amazing. I see the group or mini-horde of zombies pause. They look like they are trying to figure out what has happened. 200 meters was far enough from me that while they heard echoes of the shot they could not actually picture what was hitting them. They milled around out until I had reloaded. I started shooting another dozen. I am not going to die to some crazy monster. I have plans. 20 down, now 30, reload, now ten more fall, followed by another ten. After seven minutes I had shot out the .30 .30 ammunition and started on the .45 rifle. Ten shots, reload, repeat. Finally, I ran out of my prepared .45 ammunition also. I grabbed my rifles and put them back into Betsy. I put the shotgun in the passenger seat and fired up Betsy.


    I really needed that release. I probably cleared out at least 150 zombies. I know that I missed a few times and some of them took double shots, but at that range with no real obstructions it was surprisingly easy. I am going to need to load up on more ammunition soon. I probably only have 500 rounds of each type of rifle ammunition left. I also have a .308 Winchester deer rifle that will be my sniper rifle. I have 250 rounds for that one. I have an absurd amount of .22 ammunition. If I remember right I put two buckets of a thousand target rounds, three buckets of a thousand hollow points, and several bricks of 500 assorted.


    So I could do this stop and shoot two or three more times before I think I would have to refill. I am probably about twenty miles from Barnwell at this point. If I remember right there are a couple of pawn shops, a Wal-mart, and a hardware store I went to with my dad once that carry guns and would have ammunition. I decide to watch my mini horde in the mirror and plan to stop every five to ten miles to repeat. That would leave me with more than enough ammo to feel comfortable fighting in Barnwell if needed while I try to resupply. The rest of the afternoon was spent doing just that. I drove about ten miles the first time before I decide that the group following me is large enough for a repeat performance. I found an exit and repeated my stand. I fire two hundred rounds between the rifles and then move on. I drive only six more miles before I decide I have enough the next stop. I think I am drawing from the town of Barnwell now. It is not a big town, but even a town of 3,000 people if 25% turn into zombies, and 50% of those zombies survive and move around that is close to 400 zombies.


    Since I don¡¯t know the actual infection and survival rates it could be higher or lower, but the number I am using seems reasonable when compared to the rates of infection and survival I was hearing on the news before it went off the air. I made a very large tactical error on this stop. I start shooting just like before when I had a gun jam. No big deal, just clear the jam and continue. Then it happened again. I realize that I have put an absurd number of bullets through each of the rifles without cleaning them. They were not designed to be used this heavily without maintenance. I quickly threw everything back into my vehicle and left before the group could overwhelm me. I took the next exit and tried to use some backroads to get into Barnwell and lead the zombie horde following me in the wrong direction.


    When I finally see a gas station I decide to take a few minutes and clean the guns and gas everything up. I pull up to the underground tanks and remove the covers with a crowbar. I then dig around and pull out my hand driven sump pump. Before I can start pumping I need to clear the area. I grab the shotgun and both my pistols and start towards the store. A few snacks to go along with the stop would not be a bad thing. I find two zombies inside stumbling around. A few .22 shots to the head region and those are taken care of. I fill several bags with sports drinks, jerky and pistachios nuts. I can be picky this early in the apocalypse. I carefully clear the bathroom and use it and then the stockroom. When I head back outside to place my loot in Betsy I see about five more zombies stumbling around.


    I decide I need to practice my up close combat. I take my axe-bar and start running and swinging. Ten minutes later I have learned a couple of things. It is much harder to crack a skull then I thought. Next, is that it is better to handicap a zombie by breaking arms and legs so they can¡¯t attack and then come back and deal with them rather than trying to take each one out with a monster swing at its noggin. I receive a couple of scrapes and bruises, but nothing life threatening or that would require a major first aid stop. First Aid. That sparks my thinking. I go back into the convenience store and clear out their over the counter medication and first aid supplies and move them to Betsy. A couple of cases of water join the new supplies and then it is time to clean the guns and pump gas.


    My hand powered sump pump is just a glorified straw that sucks up gas from the holding tanks on a ten-foot plastic hose and transfers it. I fill Betsy up and make sure my two five gallon gas cans are topped off. I spend the next half hour thoroughly cleaning all of my weapons and studying a map of Barnwell I found in an older telephone book behind the counter of the convenience store. I feel confident that I can find both pawn shops and the local hardware store. The Wal-Mart is easy to find as it is off of the highway, but I am saving that as a last resort. Too many people will go there looking for supplies.


    I cruise on over to the first pawn shop without trouble and park Betsy. I am about to get out, when I realize that the doors have been reinforced and barricaded and I can see movement on the inside. Not worth my trouble. I jump back in and take off at top speed. I hear a gunshot as I pull away, but I don¡¯t hear it hit me or the car. Note to self, take one lap around the block and study the building before parking. Either that or park away from the building and make your way to it on foot.

 14 - Lone Wolf

    Chapter 14


    Lone Wolf


    I slow down my driving speed and make my way to the next pawn shop. It should be a couple blocks over from here. I make a lap around the place before deciding where to park. I study the building as I drive around. It looks like any other closed store. I think I should go through the back door. That makes more sense and keeps Betsy hidden. I pull into the adjacent alley and see the door that has to lead into the interior of the shop. I cautiously park and grab the shotgun, the .45 pistol, the .22 pistol and of course my axe-bar. If anything is going to happen it is going to be at close range. A rifle would just be a liability. I am just about to pry open the back door when I realize that I have not even checked to see if it is locked.


    I try the door handle and yes it is locked. I knew it probably was, but then I would have felt like an idiot if it was unlocked and I tried to force it open. I use my axe-bar to force the door open. It was a steel security door, but luckily they had placed it in a wooden frame. That was a major flaw in many people¡¯s security system. They buy this expensive and trustworthy crime free door and then place it in a regular wooden frame. Well a thief may not be able to get through a steel door easily, but shattering the wood frame it is in and forcing a door open is. Since they had secured it on the cheap and I was the first one to force it open I have high hopes for finding what I need.


    I place my axe-bar back on my hip belt and get my shotgun ready. I slowly enter the pawn shop to very dim light and darkness. I quickly back out. Stupid Mark. Of course it is going to be dark. No one is in there to turn on lights. Lights are only going to work for another couple of days anyway. I walk back to Betsy and find a head lamp and put it on. Let¡¯s try this again without mistakes hopefully this time. I reenter the pawn shop to search for threats first and then to hopefully loot the place. There has to be a better and safer way than stumbling around by the light of a flashlight looking for zombies. I know, I remember this from a zombie novel I read years ago. From what I have observed of these zombies it should work. Zombies respond to noise, I just need to make some noise and they should come to me.


    I don¡¯t have to be too loud as I don¡¯t want to attract them from outside the store, but a whistle of some kind or some quitter thumping should get a reaction from anything in the store zombie or not. I whistle a little bit and then listen. No moaning or movement sounds. This might not be perfect but it should work. I still start exploring carefully, but I feel a little more relaxed now that there was no response to my sound trick. After exploring for a few minutes I find the display case I am looking for.


    There are several pistols, rifles and shotguns with ammunition below the rifle and shotgun case. I scrounge around the store and find some plastic totes and three empty military ammo boxes. I place two 9mm glocks, a semi-automatic .45 pistol, another .22 pistol, two .38 revolvers, along with a lone .357 magnum into one of the plastic totes. I also put in cleaning kits, holsters, and as much of their ammo as I can find. I grab two 20 gauge and another 12 gauge shotguns. I also find several rifle of similar caliber to what I already have and grab a back up of each. I load the second tote and metal ammo boxes with as much ammunition as they can hold. As a bonus I grab a couple of compound bows and arrows and several rifle telescopes. I have to shift some of my supplies to the rack on top of Betsy, but I would rather have too much than not enough.


    All told I significantly increased my ammo to the tune of thousands of rounds for my main weapons and hundreds of rounds for some of the others. It is time to move on. While I am enjoying my lone wolf routine I realize that long term this is not going to work. I know eventually I will have the family following me, but I want to have a few things ready for when they get down to the island. For that I am going to need a little help. My main problem is how to go about recruiting and vetting people. The vetting process is probably not going to happen. I will have to take some risks and hope for the best. People that I help out will be more likely to respond well to me, so from now on I need to think about rescue of people I see instead of ignoring them.


    With my new save the people policy in place I start for Allendale. My plan is to find an abandoned house and hole up on the outskirts of the city tonight. It is the largest town between here and Hilton Head, so I can also scrounge for survivors that might help and supplies if needed. Allendale is about 20 miles further down 278. I decide I will pull another stop and shoot about halfway around the Kline area and then look for a place to hole up.


    My plan surprisingly worked quite well and around dusk I find a nice house outside of Allendale with an open garage and no car in it or the driveway. I back Betsy into the garage and close it behind me and easily clear and check the house. Nothing and nobody here. I lock everything up and then drag a couple of mattresses to the garage. I want to be comfortable, but I also want to be close to my supplies. I need to relax and do some math.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    I was not seeing enough zombies. I know that sounds weird, but for the end of the world and the zombie apocalypse it was strange. I need to do the math to try and figure out what is going on. Okay Mark try and remember the numbers they quoted on T.V. Around 80% of people were getting infected with the zombie virus. That means 8 out of ten people got the virus, so 20 % of the population was not infected. That alone is 70 million uninfected people. About 10% of those infected were immune, and it tended to run in families so some genetic reason probably. That is another 35 million survivors. So far one third of the country should be okay. However, it also means that two thirds of the country should be zombies.


    That means in a town of 3,000 like Barnwell that I passed through there should have been almost 2,000 zombies. There was nowhere near that many. I mean I know I did not cruise up and down the streets, but my engine noise should have drawn a lot more zombies than it did. Even the ones following me on 278 have been less in number. Where are all the zombies? Wait a second not everyone that was infected could have become a zombie. Some of them must have just passed on due to the severity of the infection. Someone with a weak immune system probably would not survive long enough to turn into a zombie. So let¡¯s be generous and say 15% of those infected just died. That takes my 2,000 zombies in Barnwell down another 300 to only 1,700 zombies.


    I bet another 15% of them give or take are trapped in places they cannot get out of or have been killed by people, animals, or other zombies. That means Barnwell should have had 1,400 zombies. Still more than I can account for. Something else is going on. Think Mark. Migration! People must have tried to get where they felt safe. I would guess about 10% would probably move to where they felt safe, a family members house, military base, or big city with good health care. That would mean another 200 zombies would not be in Barnwell. Down to 1,200 zombies now. If I am generous I would guesstimate around 900 to a 1,000 zombies in Barnwell. I lured probably 100 out with my shooting and engine noise and killed them.


    My math gets me close enough to the number of zombies I estimate I have seen to be happy. Now however is the problem of people. I have seen survivors but also not as many as expected. It has only been a week and the power is still on if spotty. I bet many people are holed up still and will only venture out when they have too. Some of the others probably have gone to shelters set up by the government before the system broke down. They won¡¯t stay there long. I probably have a window of two to three days before a mass exodus of survivors comes out to loot and make things more difficult. Around 5% of the population is in nursing homes and probably did not make it. Several people have become zombie chow. Humanity is dwindling fast.


    Ah man I am going to have to speed things up and go looking for help. I guess tomorrow will be looking for evacuation shelters, probably schools and trying to recruit people that I need. How can I get them to come along and cooperate though? I guess I am going to have to make that trip to Wal-Mart after all. Nothing says join my group like a mountain of supplies that can take care of your family. I go to sleep thinking about everything I need to do tomorrow to get ready.


    I wake up in the morning and head into the house I am staying at to scrounge for fresh food. No need to dig into my supplies if not necessary. I find some eggs in the fridge and fry them up on their stove real quick. I was about to try to make some pancakes when the power went out. That should be it. The power plants are starting to fail. This is going to speed up the exodus of people and make things a little more difficult. I quickly eat my eggs and several bowls of cereal. Who knows the next time I am going to be able to have fresh milk. With breakfast over I start up Betsy and make my way towards the Wal-Mart. Hold on, I need to get something to haul stuff in first. I remember this as I see the trailer section outside of a tractor supply store. I quickly pull into the parking lot and use some bolt cutters to liberate a nice large 6 X 14 foot trailer. I hook it up to the back of Betsy and decide to try and recruit first and hit Wal-Mart with back up.


    After five more minutes of driving I see Allendale-Fairfax High School home of the Tigers come into view with barb wire and sandbags around the entrances. I can see at least a dozen zombies wandering about in the parking lot and with the two dozen or so following me this should provide a great introduction and demonstration of my power and commitment. I pull up in front of the main entrance and make sure nothing is within fifteen feet before getting out. I quickly grab my .45 carbine, .45 pistol, and fill my pockets with shells to refill my weapons. The .22 is still in my shoulder holster. I step out and set the rifle on the hood of Betsy. Zombies are closing in, I have enough time to grab the two now loaded 9mm pistols from the passenger seat and proceed to eliminate the zombies as they approach. 28 9mm bullets later there are 15 less zombies and I toss the now empty pistols back in the vehicle and close the open driver¡¯s side door. I now pick up the carbine off of the hood and use the ten bullets in it to clear the immediate area. I use the pause to reload and then finish off the last six zombies that I see.


    I reload the rifle one more time and then look to the school entrance. Standing there looking at me are several people including at least two police officers. Oh man, I hope this goes well. I approach the group and speak in my most confident voice.


    ¡°Hi there folks. My name is Mark Evans and I am looking for some volunteers. I want to go and get some supplies from the local Wal-Mart and I need a few people to help. I am willing to trade half of whatever we get to this group for the help. I am also looking for anyone with skills that would help set up a survivor group down in the islands. If either of these things interest anybody please come out and talk to me.¡±

 15 - Recruitment

    Chapter 15


    Recruitment


    The two police officers followed by a couple of other people step outside.


    ¡°Mark is it?¡±


    ¡°Yes officer.¡±


    ¡°You realize that you just killed over a dozen people.¡±


    ¡°Whoah, stop right there officer. The president himself declared that anyone in stage 3 or later of the infection was to be put down by any citizen without repercussion. This went out before communications went down. Did you people not get that word?¡±


    ¡°No we got that, but you still killed people.¡±


    ¡°No sir I did not. When the law of the land says you are no longer a person and gives me permission to put them out of their misery I am not going to object. Do you think that I should have just let them walk up and kill me?¡±


    ¡°Well no, but why did you not subdue them?¡±


    ¡°Are you serious? They are ZOMBIES! There is no subduing. There is running, hiding, and fighting. That is it.¡±


    ¡°They used to be human.¡±


    ¡°A corpse used to be human too. A steak used to be a cow. There are a lot of things that used to be something. The point is they are NOT that thing now. If you are just going to argue with me than I can go and find some help somewhere else.¡±¡¯


    ¡°You can¡¯t just leave, I am going to place you under arrest.¡±


    ¡°For what.¡±


    ¡°For obstructing justice.¡±


    ¡°Your serious aren¡¯t you. You really think that everything is going to go back to normal tomorrow or something. You do realize that social order has broken down, zombies are wandering the streets, and even the power went out this morning. Have you even had any contact with your superiors lately?¡±


    The other cop who had not spoken yet chimed in, ¡°Nate let it go. This man here is correct. We need to figure out what we are going to do next. Let him take anybody that wants to go.¡±


    He then looked at me. ¡°Mr. Evans we would appreciate any supplies you could give us. Most of the people are staying on cots in the gymnasium. Let¡¯s head over there and give them the option of joining you or staying here.¡±


    Man I was thankful that at least one of these people had a modicum of common sense. There was no way I was going to let some hick town bleeding heart cop arrest me. Seeing as how I outgunned him severely it probably would have gone bad quickly. Luckily it did not get to that point. The other police officer had ¡°Nate¡± head back into the building and he personally led me over to the gym. I repeat my offer to the people there and add that I am not willing to split up families, if one comes then all come. This goes over well with everyone and soon I have four women and five men volunteer to go with me on the supply run. I escort them out to my vehicle and give them a quick speech.


    ¡°First off, my name again is Mark Evans. We will be going to the local Wal-Mart to secure some supplies. After that you need to make a decision whether to stay here or to continue to travel with me down to the islands to help start up a survival group there. I will explain more about that to those who wish to travel with me.¡±


    They all nodded their heads.


    ¡°Now we have three options as I see it. First if you have a vehicle here you can bring it to Wal-Mart and we can travel in a convoy. Second, you can ride in the trailer and we can go and liberate some vehicles from the local dealership first and then go to Wal-Mart. Finally, we can just go to Wal-Mart with you all in the trailer and then fill it up around you and come back.¡±


    ¡°Will we be able to keep the vehicles we get?¡±


    ¡°I am not going to stop you and I already have Betsy so my vote is yes.¡±


    I could see several eyes light up at this. They have a quick discussion and then announce. ¡°We would like to ride to the dealership and then pick up some vehicles to help transport supplies.¡±


    ¡°Alright here is the deal then. I will give out two shovels, one pick axe and everyone can have knives from my supply. I would like them back when we are done. I do not know any of you well enough to give you a gun yet. However, I am willing to split the weapons we get out of Wal-Mart with you whatever they may be. When we get to the dealership you can help me deal with any trailing zombies or you can just wait for me to clean them up. Your choice. Load up.¡±


    I was planning on using the dealership as part of their trust test. If they stepped up and tried to help, even if it was to point out danger than that meant they were at least a little trustworthy. If they watched me do everything then I really did not want them to join the group. I drove as quickly and as safely to the dealership I saw on the way here and pulled over in front of it. I only had about six zombies trailing me. I made sure they were at least 10 meters away from every part of the vehicle and jumped out with my standard load. There were two more now coming from the dealership in addition to the six from behind.


    ¡°Can you make sure to distract the two from the dealership while I take care of the six in the back.¡±Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    I say three gentleman and one lady move forward to do what I asked. I raised my rifle and took six quick but well aimed shots. All six zombies went down.


    ¡°Those may not be down permanently, someone go finish them off. Without waiting, I turned around and checked on the two from the dealership. I saw two guys beating on the head of one zombie on the ground with the shovel. My pick axe was embedded in the other zombie and the other two people were running around it in circles keeping it confused until it bled out. I walked up slowly and pulled the .22 pistol out. I placed two shots into its head and then one into the one the guys with shovels were hitting just to be safe. I checked back on the other group and saw that none of them had moved to make sure the other zombies were down. Oh well, I won¡¯t be bringing them along. These four that stepped out to help though did excellently.


    ¡°Pick your vehicle and note the dealer tag. We will then go in as a group to get the keys. If you have a family, I recommend a van or SUV. If you are alone or with one or two people, I recommend a truck to haul more stuff.¡±


    The nine people split up into two groups. Interestingly enough it was the four that got out to help and then the other five. Within ten minutes I had broken a door open and everyone joined me in finding the keys. Soon enough we were a convoy of ten vehicles instead of just one and a trailer.


    ¡°Alright everyone, to make things easier on all of us, we are going to drive into Wal-Mart then make a single lap around the building to check things out. If nothing horrible stands out then I suggest we use the loading docks for entry in the back.¡±


    ¡°Why should we listen to you?¡±


    Well if it wasn¡¯t one of the idiots who did nothing but watch.


    ¡°You don¡¯t have to. Feel free to take off at any time. I am not you mother and I am not going to watch over you if you are going to do something stupid.¡±


    He just huffed and then said, ¡°Come on guys we don¡¯t need this guys help.¡±


    ¡°You sure seemed to need it to get here.,¡± I said.


    He did not say anything else and him and the five that stayed in the trailer left. The four that helped me just watched with me as they left the dealership in four sports cars and a truck. I could not believe it.


    ¡°Well you four don¡¯t seem like total morons like those people so welcome to the team. By the way, does anyone have any idea what that was about?¡±


    They all laughed. ¡°That was the mayor¡¯s son. He has been a thorn in our side for the past week. He thinks he is royalty or something. I am sure that he is going to either try and get to Wal-Mart first and say it is all his or his group will head off and try their luck in the big town of Charleston. He could not shut up about Charleston in the shelter.¡±


    ¡°Well let¡¯s hope he picks Charleston, because I really don¡¯t want to shoot him no matter how much an idiot he is.¡±


    I am not sure if they believed me as they just chuckled. I was not kidding though. My group consisted of the three gentleman taking trucks and the lady grabbing an SUV. We headed out and I followed the plan that I gave them. I drove around the Wal-Mart and did not see any of the vehicles that had left with the other group. That was one less complication. I pulled up behind the Wal-Mart and reloaded my weapons before climbing out of Betsy. I called out, ¡°Same plan as before.¡±


    There were a few more zombies than at the dealership, but they were trickling in by ones and twos so it was not overwhelming. After we put down around fifteen there were no more.


    ¡°I recommend that we stick together at least until we clear the store.¡±


    ¡°That sounds like good advice.¡±


    ¡°We will clear and then head to sporting goods after grabbing shopping carts up front. Once we have you all geared up, then we can focus on supplies.¡±


    My little group started out. One zombie stock boy in the back, put down with .22 pistol, reload. Exit the back through dairy, work our way through grocery, put down two more workers and five other zombies. We make it to the front where we each grab a shopping cart and I throw a few boxes of slim jims in. The others look at me.


    ¡°What I love slim jims and I don¡¯t know how to make them. I will never give up an opportunity to refill my stock.¡±


    They just smiled and shook their heads. We headed back through apparel, jewelry and then into electronics. Nothing. When we moved over to toys a young zombie came around the corner and knocked down one of the guys. The others quickly pulled it off and I put a .22 into its head.


    ¡°Damage report.¡±


    ¡°Twisted ankle and a minor cut.¡±


    ¡°Good, keep your eyes peeled, we are almost done.¡±


    We finish off another ten zombies in the store before I am satisfied.


    ¡°Alright everyone, we may not have gotten them all, but I think we got enough that we can either split up or at least split our concentration after we get you all some real weapons.¡±


    We headed over to sporting goods and I force open the register to get to the keys. With the keys I made sure that each person had a shotgun of their choice, and one rifle of their choice, no pistols were available at Wal-Mart. We all filled our shopping carts with accessories and all the ammunition we could fit and then take our first load back to the vehicles. After loading everything from the first trip up I asked them to split up.


    ¡°Remember that you can get some fresh food as the power just went out this morning, but it would be better to concentrate on things that last a long time like cereals and canned foods. Junk food is okay, but does not supply the nutrients you need. Avoid soda pop and stick to juices and water for liquids. If three of you would work together out front, I would like one to stay with me in the back. I am going to put some pallets together and then wrap them up and put them on the trailer. This is what I am going to leave at the school.¡±


    One of the gentleman by the name of Hank volunteered to stay in the back and help me. The work was easy in the back as we just had to stack and then shrink wrap.


    ¡°Mr. Evans can you tell me a little more about your plan to go to the islands?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t mind since you are working so hard. The plan is to head down to Andros Island in the Bahamas. It is one of the largest islands and is only 150 miles from Miami. It has fresh water, an established agriculture base and less than 8,000 people pre zombie so it should be easy to clear. It should be safer than most places and within scavenging range of a bunch of places.¡±


    ¡°You have really thought this one out haven¡¯t you?¡±


    ¡°Yep I used to come up with these elaborate plans as a type of escapism. I never really thought the zombie apocalypse would actually happen though.¡±


    ¡°Why are you looking for more people?¡±


    ¡°I have family and a small group of people that is about two to three days behind me. For personality and conflict reasons with some of the group I left early to try and clear the way and prepare some stuff ahead of time. The main reason I am looking for more people is security. It will be much easier to rebuild and protect ourselves with a group of 50 to 150 people. Any smaller and security watches and labor become an issue. Much bigger and labor division and rules enforcement get more difficult. From everything I have researched and studied it seems like in an apocalypse scenario, 100 people is the ideal size for establishing a tribe with 25 to 50 new people added in each year until you reach between 500 and a thousand people. At that point it is better to split the group in two and start a new village and then trade between them. Keep doing that until civilization is rebuilt.¡±


    Our discussion was interrupted by gunshots from the front of the Wal-Mart store.

 16 - On To The Coast

    Chapter 16


    On to the Coast


    Hank and I looked at each other and then ran towards the front of the store. We skid to a halt before going through and peek out to see what was going on. I can see one of the other guys we brought with us holding a bleeding arm and I cannot see anyone else.


    Hank and I are in a relatively safe position so I decide to yell out to get information rather than go out where I might get shot.


    ¡°What exactly is happening?¡±


    ¡°Mayor¡¯s kid showed up and tried to rob us. He was smarter than we thought and waited until we had done most of the work gathering it up. He got some weapons from somewhere and has Phil and Andrea pinned down in the cereal aisle. One of his jerk friends winged me.¡±


    ¡°Are they all towards the front of the store.¡±


    ¡°As far as I know yes.¡±


    ¡°Good stay where you are.¡±


    ¡°Hank come with me. We are going to head up to the Deli and Bakery and flank them.¡±


    Hank nodded and we made our way forward. We quietly looked out from bakery and saw three people lined up ready to shoot further into the store and one person trying to go around to apparel to flank our two who were pinned down in the cereal aisle. Well we can¡¯t let that happen. I signal Hank to shoot on 3 and then aim and slowly count down in a whisper. Three¡­¡­two¡­¡­one¡­¡­ I then pull the trigger on my shotgun and pump and pull and pump and pull for all I am worth. Hank joins in and all three go down. The one trying to flank our group screams out a name and then just starts crying. I reload before leaving the protection of the bakery counter.


    I first approach the crying man who was not hit in the initial volley. I try and swallow down my disgust and feelings and shoot him in the chest from about three meters. His crying has stopped forever now. I reload the shell and try to ignore the horrible thoughts running through my mind and the stare I am getting from Hank. I pull my .22 pistol and approach the wounded people. The first lady is not going to make it. No use wasting a bullet. Same for the second guy. The final victim is the mayor¡¯s son that started this whole thing. He is shot but only winged in the arm and leg. Potentially lethal, but he could survive. I can¡¯t have that. I aim my pistol at him and try to ignore his pleas. ¡°I am sorry, just let me go and I promise never to say anything. I can help you. You can¡¯t just murder me.¡±


    Before I have to listen to even more I pull the trigger and silence him. With my hands starting to shake, I reload my weapons while I can. I walk over to Hank and signal for him to follow me. He just numbly nods and falls in behind me. I call out, ¡°Hey guys it is just us. The situation has been dealt with. I think we all need to have a talk.¡±


    I gathered everyone back in the store room in the back.


    ¡°I realize that this may change things for some of you. All I ask is that you hear me out. What just happened up front is probably going to happen over and over, at least for a while. With law and order being out the door, some people will start trying to force their way on other people or rob and kill them. Yes, we could have just left, but here is the reality of the situation. If we let them go today, they would have come looking for more in the future. Maybe not from us, but definitely from someone. Their shooting first solidified in my mind what needed to be done. I don¡¯t like it, in fact I am shaking and nauseated just like some of you, but it has to be done. If you have an enemy that was trying to kill you it is stupid and ignorant to think that if you let them go they will change their ways. There are no more jails or correctional facilities. We have to decide how we are going to punish people on our own.¡±


    ¡°Did you have to execute them like that?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know any other way. I did not stop them from leaving with the vehicles earlier. I will not force my beliefs on anyone. However, when they came back and threatened me and my group I reacted in the best way possible. I eliminated the threat. I will probably have nightmares about this for weeks, but it needed to be done. I understand if you will not be able to continue forward with me. I will not stop you from leaving. I do hope that you will at least help me finish loading and delivering supplies to the school.¡±


    ¡°I think that we all agree that we should at least accomplish that. We will give you our individual decisions when we get back to the school.¡±


    ¡°That sounds fair. Now I think the division of labor was working well. Let¡¯s keep the groups we had and get out of here as fast as possible.¡±


    Hank and I finish loading pallets and we are able to get three well stacked and wrapped ones onto the trailer. The other group was bringing out cart after cart of supplies and dumping them in the back of the trucks and the back seat of the single SUV. It only takes another fifteen minutes for us to wrap up our little raid for supplies. This was good timing as the front group noticed new zombies wandering around in the front of the Wal-Mart parking lot. I signal the others to load up and carefully lead the way driving around 15 mph. I can easily go faster than this, but I am afraid to go too much faster on account of losing the pallets when trying to corner.This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.


    Luckily for us the zombies are blessed with endurance not speed. We quickly leave behind the few zombies starting to gather around us and head back towards the school to deliver supplies. A few short minutes later I pull up in front of the school. I quickly check the area around me before hopping out. Two zombies, nothing to worry about. Before I can even approach the zombies Hank from the group that went with me called out. ¡°We will get these Mr. Evans, go ahead and unload the trailer.¡±


    Well it was nice to have a few people around you that seemed halfway competent. Instead of unloading the trailer I just go and unhook it from Betsy. I don¡¯t need a trailer at the moment and if I do I can always just go pick up another one. I look around one more time before I finish unhooking the trailer just to be safe and notice that the group I was with is killing the zombies in melee without shooting. Smart folk. No noise, and no wasted ammunition. I think I will take anyone they want to bring with them.


    After some quick back and forth with the two police officers at the school I gather up the group that went with me.


    ¡°You four did excellent on this trip. If you are interested I would like to extend an invitation to you and whoever you want to bring with you to travel with me.¡±


    ¡°Well we discussed it Mark and Susan, Charles and I will be going with you.¡± Hank replied. ¡°Shane has family up north that he wants to look for.¡±


    ¡°That is completely understandable. Why don¡¯t you three gather up who you are going to bring and let me give Shane some quick advice.¡±


    ¡°Yes sir.¡±


    ¡°Shane, a couple of things before you head off. First, always clean your guns as soon as you can. If you don¡¯t know how there are instruction on the cleaning kits we picked up. Second, gather supplies soon. The longer you wait the harder it will be and the more competition you will have. Third, go buy a hardware store and pick up a hand sump pump, hose, and crowbar. This is what you can use to open up the storage tanks of gas stations and pump out the gas you need. Finally, if you decide to join us later in the islands, remember it is Andros Island and give the password Pablo Picasso sent me. That way if I am not around others will know that you really know me.¡±


    ¡°Pablo Picasso sent me?¡±


    ¡°Long story short, basically I can¡¯t draw very well and my brother and sister used to tease me and say I would become as famous as Pablo Picasso one day.¡±


    ¡°Thanks for giving me a chance Mr. Evans. Who knows I might see you soon.¡±


    With that exchange I was ready to move on. The others brought back five people to join us. Hank brought his wife and three kids and Susan brought her dad, Franz. Franz was retired, but still spry in his sixties. The most interesting part about Franz was that he used to be a commercial fisherman. I finally had someone who knew something about boats bigger than a bass boat you took to the lake. I sure hoped Franz remembered his training.


    We left the school as quickly as we could before others could try and talk their way into our little convoy. I continue to do my travel an hour to an hour and a half driving and then stop and find an overpass to thin out the zombies. It is much easier with others to help and watch out with you. Travel continued like this for two stops before we were getting close to Hilton Head. I wanted to make one more stop and try and find another set of people to join us to find somebody else who could help on a boat. This is when Franz first showed his usefulness.


    ¡°Mr. Evans I have an idea if what you truly are looking for are people to help out on a ship.¡±


    ¡°Go ahead Franz, I will listen to all good advice. Well instead of looking for random fisherman or boat captains why not go to the source.¡±


    ¡°Sounds good Franz, but I am not following you completely. What source?¡±


    ¡°Why don¡¯t you just go to some of the marinas around and check for survivors. If they made it to the marina the likelihood of them being people that can be helpful on a boat increases.¡±


    ¡°Well Franz, that makes perfect sense. I kind of feel like an idiot now, but that¡¯s okay. It isn¡¯t the first time someone has pointed out something obvious that I missed and I am sure it won¡¯t be the last.¡±


    I could actually see some of the tension leave the group. I guess they were not sure how I would take to being either corrected or how I would deal with suggestions. My willingness to not only listen, but recognize a good suggestion seemed to calm the group down a bit.


    ¡°So do you have a couple of recommendations for where we can go and look?¡±


    With that single question I learned that there was a lot more places that boats docked and people gathered than I ever knew. I finally got the top three spots to look for people who had experience with ships out of Franz and why he ranked them that way.


    ¡°Franz those are excellent suggestions but I think we will actually go in reverse order. Your number three spot might have some farmers or others that might be useful in starting out on the island. Your second spot is smaller so there should be less problems with zombies and others interfering.¡±


    ¡°I hadn¡¯t considered that aspect Mark.¡±


    ¡°Alright everyone gather round and let me explain the plan before we head in and look for our ships and people to operate them.¡±


    I proceed to explain what I wanted.


    <ol>


    <li>I wanted at least one barge or another form of boat that we could literally just drive onto and off of. This would make loading supplies and other things easier.</li>


    <li>I wanted a small container ship. Something that had its own crane to load and unload containers. This would be a major source of goods that many people would be unable to access.</li>


    <li>I wanted two or three easy to use yachts for transport of people and raiding purposes.</li>


    <li>Long term I wanted to raid and gather at least one smaller diesel fuel transport ship and one normal fuel transport ship. This should last us for years with a smaller population.</li>


    <li>Finally, I would love to have seaplanes and someone who knew how to fly them for emergencies and exploration.</li>


    </ol>


    Everyone listened to my wants and agreed that everything I said was reasonable. However, finding and getting people to run them would be much more difficult.

 17 - Start Of The Island Navy

    Chapter 17


    Start Of The Island Navy


    My little group headed towards our first target, Sunshine Marina. Sunshine Marina was a smaller out of the way marina where a lot of retired, former ship handlers kept some smaller boats to still enjoy the water. It was surrounded by mostly farmland, which gave me hope to find some skilled farmers and even possibly mechanics to help fill out my group. As my group pulls up I see some very encouraging signs. First, there are two tractors, no wait those are combines, pulled up to and abandoned at the beginning of the dock. Second, several of the boats are not at the dock but rather anchored together a little way off shore in a little boat island.


    The bad news is that there are at least three dozen zombies wandering around the marina. That is a lot more than I would expect for this remote of an area. I wonder if the loud slow moving combines brought them. Oh well, I guess how they got here really doesn¡¯t matter. I pull off the road and the other three vehicles follow my lead. The sound of our engines has pulled at least half of the zombies from the marina towards us. There should be several following us as usual also.


    ¡°Hank, you and Susan take care of the followers. Charles you are on over watch for any leakers from any direction. I will deal with those in front. Any questions?¡±


    ¡°Nope, understood.¡±


    ¡°Alright, sooner started sooner done.¡±


    With that statement I opened up with the .45 carbine first and dropped eight zombies with ten shots. No time to reload, the .30 .30 comes up and nine zombies go down with these eleven shots. The closest zombies have been cleared and I have a chance to reload. I reload both rifles and then finish off the four zombies still coming my way. With the immediate zombie problem sorted I settle down with my new small caliber sniper rifle. Basically I put a really large and ridiculous scope on top of a .22 semi-automatic rifle. I was hoping that with the scope I could improve my accuracy enough to use single or double shots to put down zombies at a distance without wasting the larger caliber ammunition.


    In that vein I had loaded each of my clips with alternating hollow point and target ammunition. The idea was to take one body shot first, trying to hit the heart. I would follow that up with an attempted head shot. The target ammunition should be enough out of a rifle to break the bones in the head at least 50% of the time depending on where they hit. The firing all around me had stopped by this point and nobody was yelling so I assumed that it was safe enough to focus on long range shots. I have at least fifteen targets that I can check this configuration out on and I have plenty of time, ammunition, and ten preloaded clips. That is one hundred shots.


    I had not sighted in the rifle yet so I spent the entire first clip on two zombie doing just that. By the time I was done with the second clip I was confident my little plan was going to work. My next two clips proved me right. It was very rare that hollow point bullet alone would take down a human target. I don¡¯t know if I wasn¡¯t hitting the heart or what. I was going to have to check on that. The combination of a body shot and then a head shot was very effective. Usually the head shot would cause them to crumple up and go down. Dead or not they would at least bleed out in the near future. I loaded my .22 with another clip and proceeded to eliminate the final few zombies around the marina.


    ¡°Good news, the .22 sniper rifle seems to work with a two shot combo. That should save us a lot of ammunition in situations where we can wait and take our time.¡±


    ¡°That is good to hear Mark. The surrounding area is clear and it looks like someone from the group of boats in the marina is heading our way to talk to us.¡±


    Hmm, I had been so focused on the shots that I lost situational awareness. Not a good thing if I was by myself. In fact, it could have been deadly. However, with people to back me up it really was not a big deal.


    ¡°Alright who wants to go down with me to meet the natives?¡±


    They all got a little laugh out of that. It was decided that Susan and her father Franz would go down with me. There was at least a little hope that Franz might be recognized by a few of the people in the boating community. We walk towards the dock the dinghy was making for. ¡°Franz, feel free to interrupt if they say something unreasonable about boats. Susan, if you notice anything off just tug on my arm and say we should check with Stan before making a decision.¡±


    They both nodded and understood my little precautions.Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    ¡°Good afternoon, boat people, or whatever you want to call yourselves. My name is Mark Evans and with me Is Susan and her father Franz. We would like to talk to you about recruiting some or all of you to join our little group. If no one wants to, then that is fine. We don¡¯t force others like some people do. We just ask that you leave us alone and we will leave you fine folks alone.¡±


    ¡°That is a heck of an introduction young man.¡± The gentleman speaking had to have been in his 80¡¯s at least. When they came up with the term weathered, they could have used this gentleman as their model. His skin was leathery and he had more wrinkles than I could count. However, to think that he was old or useless would be a mistake. He radiated a calmness and sense of security. In short he was fascinating.


    ¡°Well sir, I have found out that time is precious, especially when dealing with zombies on the loose. I prefer to get the major points out of the way and then I know whether it is worth staying or moving on rather quickly.¡±


    ¡°That sounds fantastic. So can you explain what your group is doing or is trying to do so I can pass on the message?¡±


    ¡°We are trying to put together a group to head on down to Andros Island in the Bahamas. It is one of the largest islands with fresh water, has a low indigenous population so it should be easy to clear, has established agriculture, room to grow, and mild year round weather. I feel that this would be the safest place for my family and friends and we be able to stay safe and even prosper there.¡±


    ¡°Excellent summary. Why would you need our help or anyone else¡¯s help for that matter?¡±


    ¡°Well the thing is, I am good with ideas, I can even help out with most tasks that need to be done. I could probably even navigate a ship to Andros Island. However, truly larger ships, multiple trips, and maintenance are beyond me and my group. That means we need to find like-minded individuals who have these skills and other skills we may be lacking to help us out.¡±


    ¡°Well that was the best sales pitch that I have heard in a long time. Here is the problem though, trust.¡±


    ¡°Old man you do not know how happy I am to here you say that. Umm, by the way may I please know your name so I can call you something other than old man or wrinkly guy in my head.¡±


    At my last statement everyone around me and the old guy burst out laughing including him.


    ¡°I guess I never did give you my name. I don¡¯t mind the old man, but let¡¯s leave my wrinkles out of our discussion. You can call me Gerald. My friends call me Captain G. or that dang pirate if they are particularly close to me.¡±


    ¡°This is great, I love pirates. Now about your trust issue. You are the first person in this whole stupid apocalypse that has put into words what people need to function as a group. Trust. I wish there was an easy answer to your question but there isn¡¯t one. As I see it you have three ways of forming a group that can work. Personal Power, Group Power, or Mutual Benefits and Trust. I don¡¯t like the first two and the last one is difficult to earn and easy to lose. I think the best thing we can do is start with mutual benefits and over time develop trust.¡±


    ¡°Son, that is perhaps the best answer you could have given. If you had demanded anything or spouted some hippie nonsense about being brothers in humanity or some crap we would have asked you to leave. What exactly is your plan and who is going to lead this shindig?¡±


    With that set of questions I knew that this group would be joining us and probably for the long term. I explained to Gerald my rough outline of a plan. Every time I thought about it I would be inspired to add more details and/or things we needed for it. As for leadership I proposed that whoever was the expert in that field would lead that leg of the journey or activity. Anyone not happy with it could leave, propose someone else with a good reason, or just deal with the situation like an adult. I think the both of us knew it would not be that easy in the long term, but it would definitely work for now.


    After a few more minutes of discussion Gerald went back to talk to everyone out on the boats and I signaled my small convoy to come on down. I put everyone to work immediately. This marina was out of the way and more rural than most. However, from what Gerald told me it was deep enough for anything besides large tankers. It would make a perfect outpost on the coast. From here we could organize supplies and runs into the interior of United States for what we needed.


    Long term I was hoping to set up something like this in each state or country nearby. I figured that if we went no farther north than North Carolina and no further west than New Orleans we should have access to everything we needed and avoid the largest groups of zombies and people from bigger cities. Outside of Florida there were no truly large coastal cities until you hit Washington D.C. up north and New Orleans in the gulf. I was hoping if we limited our area of supply raiding it might work to our advantage at least until we expanded and built up our forces. Most of the Caribbean was not as militarized as America so was not as worrisome as groups from the continent. The only exception to that would be Cuba. That was a whole different ball game. I hate to say it, but I was seriously hoping because of its government and situation that the virus would hit it hard and the whole thing would implode and leave us alone.


    I knew I was probably not that lucky, but I had much more immediate worries and plans to deal with. By my most conservative estimate I expected the zombie and survivor situation to explode in two to four weeks. If I was being pessimistic, it could happen as early as one week. What I meant by this is that people rarely had more than one to two weeks of food and or water stored up in their houses. We had seen very few people on the road and several waving at us from windows. My best guess was that within the next month when other survivors of the zombie virus started running out of food it would cause mass migrations, confusion, and violence. Death by zombie would rise as people had to leave their homes to find food. Death by other survivors as they fought over food would probably be even worse.

 18 - Operation Collection

    Chapter 18


    Operation Collection


    I directed Hank, who by this point was my go to person in the new group to start collecting everything they could to make walls to protect the marina. We wanted one entrance with a moveable gate, and the rest just good enough to hold of zombies. My first suggestion was to go out and collect every car they could in a half mile range and bring them back. They should head out in pairs for safety. If they could not find the keys, then they should break a window, pop the hood and disconnect the battery first. This was to silence any alarms that might attract zombies. After that you can shift the car into neutral and tow it back if needed.


    A giant line of cars lined up bumper to bumper is a good temporary fence and a solid base to make a higher and more permanent defense. One out of every three people would stay behind and guard the new base. I told all of this to Susan and put her in charge of organizing our small group and the people that would be joining us from the boats. I took Hank with me and we started the collection. Especially at the beginning of anything new, I as one of the leaders needed to demonstrate to everybody my willingness to pitch in and do any task that I asked of the others. That might change as our group got larger and started to specialize, but it was essential at this point in time.


    Hank and I unhooked my trailer and gave a few of the shotguns plus ammunition to Susan to hand out as needed. This cleared up space for Hank to ride in the front seat with me in Betsy. I decided to head out farther and work my way in. The collection of vehicles was actually easier than I expect. We target neatly parked cars in driveways or on the side of the road first and then break into the houses. The key is generally placed in an easy to find area like a key holder or on an end table near the door. After we had retrieved ten different cars Hank finally spoke up.


    ¡°Mark why don¡¯t we just go to a dealership with everybody like we did before and take everything there is on the lot?¡±


    Well terrific. Now I feel like an idiot. I forgot my own original plan of raiding a dealership. We could have finished this task by now.


    ¡°Hank, that is a brilliant idea, and I am ashamed to say that the only reason we have not done it is because I did not think of it. Thanks for bringing it up. I think we will wait here for the other teams and then take one of two vehicles crammed full to the closest dealership and follow your suggestion.¡±


    As soon as Hank and I slotted our latest acquisition, a lovely used Toyota Corolla, into place we check in with the group that has stayed behind to guard the place while we wait for the others.


    ¡°Hi Gerald, Hank had a brilliant idea to speed things up so I thought I would check in with you while we wait for the other car scavenging groups to show up.¡±


    ¡°Oh what is his idea?¡±


    ¡°Something I should have thought of, we are going to load up one vehicle and drive to the nearest dealership and bring back a fleet of cars together. I figure two maybe three trips and we will be done with the basic outline of the wall.¡±


    ¡°That is a smart idea to speed things up. Everything here is going well. We have a few zombies straggling in that are easily dealt with. It seems that you brought and killed everything that was close by when you first arrived.¡±


    ¡°It is most likely due to the marina being on the outskirts of the city. I still have not gone into a big city and frankly I am dreading having to go.¡±


    ¡°Well why would you have to go in to a big city?¡±


    ¡°I am not sure that we will find everything we need in smaller towns or on the outskirts, but I am hopeful. By the way have you sent out scouting teams on the water yet?¡±


    ¡°Yes Mark. I sent out three teams. One to each of the closer marinas and one to the commercial port. They will bring back a list of ships they think might help us and update us on zombie and survivor numbers.¡±


    ¡°Speaking of numbers I would like to talk to you about settlement numbers. I was thinking, while more is usually better, it might not be in this instance. I was hoping you would agree to limit the intake of new people for say three months to six months while we get established down on the island.¡±


    ¡°Keep talking young man.¡±


    ¡°Well I think that anything over 200 people would be quite difficult for us to deal with organizational wise while we set up. I actually think somewhere around 100 people would be better, but I am not going to turn families and such away if we start going a bit over. 100 adults will provide enough manpower for us to clear out and set up the island. Depending on when we finish we can then go out recruiting.¡±


    ¡°That is coldly logical and I agree up to a certain point.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t understand Gerald, what do you mean up to a certain point?¡±


    ¡°You are forgetting to take into consideration that others might find us. Do we turn them away or do we accept them?¡±


    ¡°That is why I think we should keep the original group small so we can accept anyone that shows up and proves themselves.¡±


    ¡°What about expansion and those that want to find their families, friends, and others?¡±


    ¡°After we are stable, say three to six months down the road, I would send organized expeditions to find supplies and recruits. Every time we reached around 500 citizens I would split the group and send 100 to 200 of them off to settle another island. This would allow us to expand, separate people that have conflicts with each other, and eventually start to reclaim larger areas. How many people per island would depend on resources and the size of the island. I would try to keep each island under 2,000 people maximum in the long run, unless we are able to restart technology.¡±This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    ¡°Why the cap on citizens?¡±


    ¡°Think about how much we relied on technology, especially in urban areas. Without it, maintaining order and health with a large group in a small area will be impossible. This may be an apocalypse, but that does not mean I want to lower my standard of living to a slum like existence.¡±


    ¡°That does make sense. What about government and responsibility, because you know people are going to ask?¡±


    ¡°I think we continue like I suggested before with each person who knows the most in charge of that aspect for the first six months to a year. After that if we reach 200 or more citizens I say we write a new constitution and give democracy another go. We will be in the unique position of still remembering what worked and what didn¡¯t and actually have the means to change what we want. As for crime and such, I think any three adults over the age of 21 who were not involved or related if possible can judge and carry out a sentence. I think the punishments will be harsh at least at the beginning. I think that there should be only three punishments. Hard labor, banishment, or death.¡±


    ¡°Enough of this talk. I see that the other groups are all here. Go and finish your car collection and fence building Mark. By the time you get done I should have information on the other two marinas and the port. We can sit down tonight for dinner and talk about it then.¡±


    ¡°Sounds good Gerald. Keep everyone safe and working here.¡±


    With that taken care of Hank and I round up 12 people and basically shove them into an SUV and take off for the closest dealership. We are not comfortable, but the ride only lasts for seven minutes so the complaints were minimal. Once at the dealership we decide that the minivan and SUV section should finish off our wall easily. The first trip is ten minivans for the wall, one truck and two cargo vans for supplies. With a quick ten-minute zombie clear out our total time getting these vehicles was under half an hour. This was a vast improvement on sending people out piece meal, and it was safer. Our group makes six more trips before everyone is satisfied with the wall and the vehicles we have for supply runs.


    Including the boats and trailers that some enterprising individuals added to our wall back at the marina we now had a fairly solid wall that was at least 200 meters long. This enclosed a very large area. More than enough for us to set up camp and stage supplies for now and in the future. Every vehicle in the wall¡¯s keys were kept in the car to the left under the driver¡¯s mat. This simple precaution should confuse any actual human opponents that might try and breach the wall in the future. They just might assume that the keys are not there.


    With all of the activity throughout the day, several zombies had approached our little fort, but were easily repelled. As the day went on fewer and fewer zombies were attracted to the noise. It seemed we had taken care of almost everything local. We would still post a watch, but there were enough boats that we could all cast off and probably catch our first real safe sleep in days. I had watched the boat group closely throughout the day. My group had eight people in it when we arrived. Now our combined group was closer to thirty people. There were around ten kids and twenty adults or teenagers old enough to be considered adults. With the ten to twenty people that were following in the family that put us around 50 people. I wanted around 75 to 100 for the initial entry onto the island. So we have some room for more survivors. I need to talk to Gerald and some of the other adults and make a list of professions that would be useful. I don¡¯t think I will be able to actually turn anyone away that is willing to work hard, but identification of needed areas would possibly help us target where to look for survivors that might be helpful.


    I walk over to the barbecue area where Gerald was holding court and talking to many others. ¡°Good evening Gerald, everyone, may I join you?¡±


    ¡°Ah, Mark, just the person I wanted to talk too. We have some questions and some information. I think now would be a good time to share and hammer out the rough details of where and how don¡¯t you think?¡±


    ¡°That sounds fantastic. Let¡¯s get to it.¡±


    Over dinner and the following two hours the adults in the group came up with several ideas and adjustments for the plan. One of the exploring groups reported that the closest marina to us was empty. The second marina had another group of about ten to fifteen people that were willing to talk to us tomorrow. The final exploration group went to the port and found no organized group, but saw several individuals moving around, but more importantly they brought me a list of the types of ships that were in port. With that list I along with input from actual people who could run ships came up with a list of what I wanted to take to Andros Island.


    <ol>


    <li>Two barges with accompanying tugs full of fuel tanks, farming equipment and supplies, and a couple of larger tractors/backhoes.</li>


    <li>One small passenger liner that usually does local sunset tours and such, but could hold 50 to 100 people easily.</li>


    <li>One small container ship with its own crane.</li>


    <li>One smaller tanker filled with diesel.</li>


    </ol>


    While I knew that Andros Island had agriculture, I had no idea what kind of shape their tools or farming equipment was in. That was the main reason I wanted at least one barge full of whatever we needed to run farms to feed 500 to a 1,000 people. Why that many when I am trying to limit the amount of people that would come with us. Simple, I was going to need trade goods and the reality of the situation was that we could easily grow quickly. I would rather have more than needed than not enough. The tractors and backhoes were for building defenses quickly and moving wreckage more easily than by hand. We obviously needed supplies, fuel for our vehicles, and of course seeds and everything necessary to start growing crops.


    The smaller container ship with its own crane would allow us to raid ports all over the world and claim any container we wanted. I know there were several that would help us at the local port and we could fill empty containers with other supplies and then just lift them onto a ship. The container ship had to be small to get into a variety of ports. The giant container ships you see on t.v. were no good for what we needed. They were too large to go to smaller ports and required to much manpower to operate. I also wanted an entire container full of ammunition and one of toilet paper before we left. The ammunition was obvious for our needs, but I bet several people forgot that toilet paper would become scarce in the next few months. I was willing to live without the internet and t.v., but having adequate toilet paper was a must.


    The group also identified the key needs of professions we should target.


    <ol>


    <li>Anyone with medical experience</li>


    <li>Anyone with farm experience</li>


    <li>Anyone with boat or ship handling experience</li>


    <li>Anyone with maintenance or equipment fixing or usage experience</li>


    <li>Anyone with law enforcement or military experience</li>


    </ol>


    That was it. We would take others, but those were the necessary areas to start up a solid outpost. As the outpost grew, the needs would change. Teachers, carpenters, and masons for new construction, plumbers, and more would be needed, but before we could specialize, we had to survive.

 19 - Leaving Directions

    Chapter 19


    Leaving Directions


    After having the long discussion with all of the adults I decide it is time to turn in. While waiting to drift off to sleep I thought about car ferries and duck boats and then sweet darkness took a hold of me. I woke up to Hank shaking my shoulder. ¡°Mark, it is morning and we need to get going.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m up, I¡¯m up.¡± I groggily replied. Man, I had great dreams last night of exploring the world and being an adventurer. It was right then that I realized that it did not have to be a dream anymore. The world had changed, and I could literally now travel and explore and report back into the base in Andros Island when it was done. I suddenly was reinvigorated with life. All of those stories and dreams I had of being an explorer when I was young, could actually happen now. With this awesome thought in my mind I head over to the cooking area to grab some breakfast.


    ¡°Good morning all! What feast are we having today?¡±


    ¡°Well Mark, it is Mark right?¡±


    ¡°Yes dear lady and your name is?¡±


    ¡°My name is Angela. Since you slept in the adults have finished the eggs and bacon. Thus you are banished to the kids table for cereal and milk.¡±


    ¡°Slept in, I will have you know that I was engaged in a high level planning meeting with my two compatriots Senor Eyelid and Mr. Snore.¡±


    I had decided to play along when I see the kids watching from the table. I have always had a soft spot for kids, probably why I became a teacher in the first place. The giggle I receive from the kids at the table was worth me goofing around.


    ¡°Very well I will retreat from you this morning dear Angela, but don¡¯t think you have won. I will soon plot my revenge. The bacon will be mine.¡±


    With a little villain laugh I walk over and sit down next to the children and reach for the Lucky Charms. What can I say? I may be over 40 but those dang marshmallows in the cereal are still magical. My festive morning mood is overshadowed by my reality when I realize that the number of times I can enjoy cereal with milk may be severely limited in the future. I mean I know how to milk a cow or goat, but I don¡¯t have one with me. Dang it, I need to add farm animals to the list. We could take several to island. In fact, I remember reading somewhere that there were some islands that had no humans but were overrun with animals. I think there was a pig island and a goat island at the very least. We need to get a set of charts and books about the Caribbean also.


    Every time I think about this stuff it gets more and more complicated. Alright enough, what do I need to get done today? I need to set a message for my family that is following that they will see. I need to help find supplies and other useful survivors and bring them in. Finally, I need to find my own boat and crew and head down ahead of everyone else to check out the situation. I don¡¯t want to be here when that family arrives. Once everyone is down on the island I think there will be enough people around that I will be able to curb my feelings, but the group is too small right now for me to ignore that family. I look around for Gerald and spot him talking to a group of people from my group and the boat group.


    I walk over. ¡°Good morning Gerald. Good morning everyone.¡±


    ¡°Good morning Mark.¡±


    ¡°I need to borrow a local to help me out this morning. Gerald I was wondering if you could recommend someone.¡±


    ¡°What exactly do you need to do Mark. If I know what is going on it will make recommending the right person easier.¡±


    ¡°Oh yeah I guess it would. Well first I need someone who can lead me to a construction site, power company, or anywhere else that would have a truck with a cherry picker. I need it to go and write a message on a couple of highway signs to bring my family here to the right place. They could be down as early as today or in the next few days and I don¡¯t want them heading into town looking for me.¡±


    ¡°Alright that makes sense. Are you planning on anything else?¡±


    ¡°If there is still time I thought about going for a raid for supplies and possibly looking for any useful survivors.¡±


    ¡°That sounds good. We were thinking about sending half the people out today for the same reason. A few of us are going to go down and talk to the other marina group and try to bring them in with us. Other than that we just need to collect supplies and ships before we head out.¡±


    ¡°Yeah about that. One of the families coming down with mine I really don¡¯t get along with. Very long story and I would rather not go into it right now. I was thinking that this evening I would go shopping for a nice yacht to take down to the island and head out tomorrow morning. I would scout the way if you will. Would you also see if you have one professional ship handler and perhaps another person who would like to go down early and help set things up?¡±Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.


    ¡°This is kind of sudden, but I will see what I can do. That means tonight we will be up late hammering out some details.¡±


    ¡°I know. I will also have to load up whatever boat I decide to take also, but that is on me. So a recommendation for this morning to go with me.¡±


    Gerald sat there contemplating for a moment when another person at the table spoke up, ¡°What about Michael? If they get along then Michael might go down early with him to the island also.¡±


    ¡°That is a very good idea. You can find Michael at the gate.¡±


    ¡°Thanks Gerald. I will see everyone later today.¡±


    With that I went and gathered up my essentials. Two pistols, my axe-bar, .30 .30 rifle and a backpack full of snacks, ammo and water. I walk over to the gate, which is basically two vans parked nose to nose. When the gate needs to be opened you just need to back one or both vans up depending on the needed size of the opening. I call out, ¡°I am looking for someone named Michael.¡± A younger gentleman probably in their late teens or early twenties hops down off one of the van gates and says, ¡°My name is Michael, what do you need?¡±


    ¡°Well Michael I just talked to Gerald and his group and you were recommended as someone with local knowledge that could help me out this morning. I am also going to be heading down to the island early and it was suggested that if we got along that you might accompany me with at least one other person to help scope the situation out.¡±


    ¡°Well I will definitely help you out today. Let¡¯s just wait on the other part.¡±


    ¡°Fair enough. Do you know of anyone else heading out today?¡±


    ¡°There is a group leaving in a few minutes to grab a few more vehicles before going out to get supplies.¡±


    ¡°Great, we need them to take us to somewhere that would have a cherry picker truck.¡±


    ¡°What exactly are you trying to do?¡±


    ¡°I need to spray paint instructions on the overpass signs for the last couple of intersections before the marina to make sure my family turns in here.¡±


    ¡°So any vehicle that is tall would work?¡±


    ¡°I guess so, as long as I can reach the signs.¡±


    ¡°Are we going to go for supplies afterwards?¡±


    ¡°Yep I thought we would go exchange the cherry picker truck for a cargo van or truck.¡±


    ¡°Why don¡¯t we just go and get a couple of moving vans and then you can put a ladder on top to paint from and we could fill them up a lot more than a regular truck with supplies.¡±


    I just stared at Michael. This kid was brilliant.


    ¡°I want you on my team. That is a fantastic idea.¡±


    Michael just smiled. I led him over to Betsy and made sure he was capable of at least basic gun safety. It turns out he was raised on a local farm and had been hunting since a kid. Unfortunately, he was the only survivor from his family. They had been caught away from their farm and unprepared. He had made his way back home over the last week and then had found this group while exploring a couple of days before I arrived. I set him up with my standard load out. I gave him a .22 pistol, a .45 carbine, 9mm pistol, and a small hand axe. I gave him one of my spare backpacks with some ammo, snacks, and food just like mine.


    Soon enough we were in the back seat being driven to a local U-Haul rental site. It was fairly near where the dealership was so it was not far out of the way for the group we joined. In fifteen minutes our driver let us out at Phil¡¯s Self Storage and U-Haul rental center. ¡°Michael, I think we should trade off clearing out the zombies. We both need to learn how the other works. My only suggestion is to keep it quiet. At least until we find the keys.¡± Michael just nodded and headed to the right. It looked like he was going to circle the building first to be safe. I approved. I follow close behind in case he needs help and I see him efficiently take out a lone zombie with the hand axe I gave him. ¡°Very good, now it is my turn.¡±


    I took the lead and rounded the corner to see two more zombies in the back of the building next to the dumpster. I walk up quietly and trip one and hit the other with my axe-bar. I stepped on the chest of the one I tripped to prevent it from getting up to make sure the one I hit was dead. Once I verified the kill I leaned down and put the crowbar piece through the eye socket of the zombie on the ground. Quiet and efficient just like I was hoping for. I may have been showing off just a bit. ¡°Not bad for an old man Mark.¡± With that one statement Michael put me back in my place and brought me back to reality. The next five minutes was quickly used to clear the outside of the business and the few zombies brought in by the noise of the SUV that dropped us off.


    Once the outside was clear I signal Michael and walk back to the rear entrance. Before I pry it open, I knock loudly. Michael was clearly confused. ¡°Are you trying to see if anyone is home?¡±


    ¡°Nope, this gives any survivors a chance to respond before things escalate out of control. It also draws any zombie on the inside to the door and usually will make them let out a sound so I know if something is waiting for me.¡±


    ¡°Smart, I am going to use that trick in the future.¡±


    I force the back door open and check the surroundings. Everything is clear. I approach the customer service desk carefully and easily see a rack of keys behind it. Well this is certainly turning out easier than I expected. Michael and I decide that the 20 foot moving vans with the low deck and loading ramps will be the easiest to use. I search the place and grab what few snacks and drinks there are, waste not want not and then throw in a bunch of the moving blankets. As we are searching the place I find some paint and brushes and two cans of black spray paint, while Michael found a two ten-foot step ladders. One will be used to get on top of the moving truck and the second will be placed to reach from the top to the sign. With everything we needed found here we are ready to set out and leave some directions.


    A quick hour later and phase one of today¡¯s goals have been complete. On three overpasses I wrote, ¡°Pablo Picasso says visit Sunshine!¡± That should tip off my family to where they need to go and let them know that I am still alright. With the first task done I ask Michael to lead the way to the first supply stop. The local dollar store.

 20 - Getting My Boat

    Chapter 20


    Getting My Boat


    Now many people might wonder why the dollar store. I have several reasons. First is that it is smaller and less popular than big box stores, but carries a lot of the same stuff we need. The food and items might be limited, but they are available. Next is that the competition or chance of meeting other survivors is lower than going to other places. Finally, I figured there are a lot more dollar stores so there are a lot more places to check for supplies. Michael and I drive up to our first looting stop of the day. Mighty Dollar prepare to be looted.


    We take fifteen minutes to clear the area both inside and out and then back the trucks up to the loading dock in the back of the store. I quickly make a list of the top items we are looking for. I want some of each on both trucks in case we have to abandon one somewhere. That way no matter what we should get back with some of everything I want. The quick list I give Michael is simple and easily explained.


    <ol>


    <li>Toilet Paper- I refuse to use leaves.</li>


    <li>Non-perishable foods ¨C cans, pasta, jerky, chips, granola bars and such. Only a little candy as rewards for the kids as we need to save space.</li>


    <li>Communication equipment and flashlights plus the batteries for them.</li>


    <li>Matches and spices for food.</li>


    </ol>


    I figure this is all we will be able to get out of a dollar store. Some of them have more and some of less selection. There are so many types of dollar store¡¯s now that I cannot keep them straight. In less than an hour we had found and loaded our targeted items and Michael was now leading us to my next target, Tractor Supply. I loved this next store. I could wander around in it for hours sometimes, even though it was not that big. This time I had to be more ruthless and when we arrive after clearing out another group of zombies I give Michael the new target list.


    <ol>


    <li>Five sets of basic tools.</li>


    <li>2000 feet of garden hoses, and all hand pumps that can get gas out of tanks.</li>


    <li>Every seed and gas container they had.</li>


    <li>A good supply of oil and a wide variety of clothes and footwear.</li>


    </ol>


    Once again everything went much smoother than I expected. This was starting to make me nervous and jumpy. ¡°Michael, do you feel like this is just a little too easy?¡±


    ¡°I know what you are saying Mark. I feel like we should have had more of a challenge or something. Either supplies not there or more zombies. This is kind of eerie.¡±


    ¡°Well if both of us are on guard when the crap hits the fan we should be alright.¡±


    With this we finished loading and I gave Michael our final destination after we snacked on some of the supplies we brought along for lunch. ¡°Last stop Michael is for self-defense. We need to hit every gun store you can think of before others wipe them out.¡±


    ¡°Well Mark there are only three large ones in this area. There are a few pawn shops, but only three dedicated gun shops.¡±


    ¡°Alright Michael lead the way. I have a feeling that this is where we are going to finally be challenged on our little expedition.¡±


    After 20 minutes of driving I got on the walkie talkie with Michael. ¡°Michael how much longer do you estimate the trip to be?¡± ¡°About five to ten minutes Mark, why?¡± ¡°You probably can¡¯t see them from the lead position, but we are attracting a much larger group of zombies than I am comfortable with.¡± ¡°What do you want me to do?¡± ¡°When we get close to the gun shop I want you to speed up and then park one or two blocks away. Clear out the building you park next to and set up a shooting stand on the roof. I will slow down so I am just faster than the zombies following us to give you more time and be the distraction. When you are ready, let me know on the radio. Then I will speed up and park next to you and join you on the roof. Make sure to leave us an escape route if this doesn¡¯t work.¡± ¡°Okay Mark I can do that.¡±


    About 2 minutes later I see Michael accelerate and soon he was out of sight. I slowdown from my original speed to about 15 mph. I figure I need to give Michael at least five minutes get everything done. A little over four minutes later Michael come back on to the radio. ¡°Mark can you hear me.¡± There was a little static on the line, but he was understandable. ¡°Yes I can Michael go ahead.¡± Be careful as you pass the gun store. I heard a gunshot and when I pulled over there was a bullet hole in the side of my moving van. I am not sure it was intentional, but be careful.¡± ¡°Copy that. Don¡¯t start shooting until I join you unless it is to protect your life or mine.¡± ¡°Understood.¡±


    Another couple of minutes roll by and I see a sign advertising for the gun shop. I am nearly there. I gas the truck and speed up. 35 mph does not seem fast but when you have been going 15 mph for almost ten minutes and then go more than double it sure feels like it. I quickly pass the gun store and hear a gunshot. No glass shatters and I feel no pain, so I am okay. I see Michael waving from an office building roof a couple of blocks down, but I don¡¯t see his truck. He must have parked on the side or behind. I make a left turn when I reach the building and sure enough, there is Michael¡¯s moving truck. I pull up behind it and notice the fire escape on the side. Great positioning Michael. I quickly climb up the ladder with my weapons and ammo and join Michael on the roof.


    ¡°I saw the people this time when they shot at you. I don¡¯t think they were trying to hit you, but rather warn you or scare you off.¡±


    ¡°I really don¡¯t care about that. I don¡¯t like being shot at. Here is the plan, we sit here and do nothing and let them do most or all of the work, whoever them is.¡±


    ¡°Sounds good.¡±


    That is precisely what we did. I can see the now mini zombie horde coming down the street I had just left. There had to be at least 150 zombies in that group if not more. We had collected a few more followers than I thought. This should be interesting. The best strategy for the people holed up in the gun shop would be to just stay quiet and let the zombies go on by. However, since they shot at us I have a feeling that they feel pretty secure and will believe that they can handle it. Whoever they are they are amateurs though. They don¡¯t have anyone on the roof and are just holed up behind a barricade in the store. Soon enough someone in the store could no longer resist the temptation and started shooting the zombies in the mini horde.This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    The results were as you might expect. The zombies turned their attention completely to the gun shop. I wonder how many they are going to be able to take out? I don¡¯t think with their preparations that they are going to survive this.


    ¡°Michael, what do you think? Should we help them?¡±


    ¡°Mark this might sound a little cold-blooded, but since they shot at us I say let them deal with it. We can clean up the mess and get what we need afterwards.¡±


    ¡°I was kind of leaning that way also. If they hadn¡¯t shot and we had met them while going into the gun shop I might be more inclined to help, but I think you are right. We should just see how things play out and then go from there.¡±


    It took almost an hour, but the zombies won in the end. They had the numbers and the tenacity. It only took one mistake. I don¡¯t really know what happened. We are listening to the people in the gun shop shoot regularly when suddenly there is a silence. My best guess is that there is a horrible weapon jam or somebody didn¡¯t reload right. After an awkward pause of about 15-30 seconds with no gunfire the zombies are practically inside the store. They must have fixed the problem but it was too late. There is a flurry of gunshots, probably from close range and then nothing else. The good news is that they have killed about 2/3 of the zombies that were attracted to the area. I thought for a second that they might actually make it.


    ¡°Alright Michael. There are about 50-75 zombies left. You start with the close targets and I will start with the far ones. We will meet in the middle. There is no rush, so stay calm and don¡¯t waste ammo. We only have a little more than 200 shots between us for the rifles. After that we have to go in close. I would rather use up all of our long range ammo first before we try that. Understand?¡±


    ¡°Yes sir.¡±


    Michael was a decent shot. Not great, he would never be a sniper, but definitely competent. If it was within 50 meters he could nail the center of the chest every time. Beyond that range he could still hit the zombie, but his accuracy in shot placement dropped. I corrected a couple of things I saw that he could improve and then got down to shooting zombies myself. Since we were up high and had a much better view of the situation we were able to clear the area of what we could see in about 30 minutes. The people that were inside the gun shop had the disadvantage of only being able to see those zombies that were directly in front of them.


    When the last visible zombie dropped I have Michael stop shooting and teach him proper care and maintenance for his rifle. I do not want a jam or misfire, like what might have happened to the gun shop people. In the end we did not do so bad. I estimate we took down 70 -80 zombie with a little over 100 shots. That means we have half our ammo left in case there is an emergency. Better than I hoped for. After the guns are cleaned we descend the fire escape and move the trucks into the alley behind the gun shop.


    I wonder why the people inside didn¡¯t try to escape through the back? When we reached the back door I find out. The people inside were obviously not the owners of the store. The back door was forced open. To protect themselves they barricaded the back door with as much stuff as they could. I can actually see one zombie inside still eating someone collapsed on the barrier in front of us. They must have been trying to clear the way out when they were overrun. I pull out my .22 pistol and put the zombie I could see down with a couple of shots.


    Michael and I start to clear the debris blocking the back entrance. We make sure not to repeat the mistakes of the people inside. Every piece we remove is moved somewhere where it will not block our escape route. Every minute or two a new zombie is attracted by the noise from their feast on the inside of the shop. We then pause and take care of the problem with our pistols and then continue. It takes us about an hour to clear the mess and make sure the inside of the shop is safe. However, all the work is worth it. There is enough weapons and ammunition to last our little group a long time. With a couple of more raids of this size we should have enough to last for years.


    Once everything is loaded up, Michael and I head back to Sunshine Marina with our spoils of war. Once there I formally ask if Michael would join my expedition team. He agrees. I like this kid. We head back towards Gerald to see if there is a boat captain he can recommend. After a quick talk and a few suggestions, we are on a bass boat with a lady named Trika. Captain Trika was from the other Marina that Gerald had gone to negotiate with today. The basic gist of her story that I got from listening to others was that her family was killed, and she really wanted to leave the area where all the memories were.


    ¡°Captain Trika. We are looking for a larger yacht that could be operated by the three of us to scout and hold a large number of supplies. I want function over prettiness. I would like to use this a long time. If it has an onboard crane or something to help with loading of masses of supplies that would be helpful.¡±


    ¡°How many crew?¡±


    ¡°Just us three for now. I hope to expand it to five, but no more than seven in the future.¡±


    ¡°Distance.¡±


    Man this lady did not like to talk.


    ¡°We need to get down to the Bahamas safely with the three of us. After that it will be island hopping and raiding of the mainland.¡±


    ¡°Anything special besides the crane?¡±


    Michael spoke up at this point. ¡°How about the ability to get to places that others can¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t understand that one Michael, please explain.¡±


    ¡°Well we want it big to carry a lot of stuff, but it needs to be agile enough to get into smaller ports. Over time the big areas will be targeted first and we will need to get into smaller areas sooner or later.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re thinking of draft. You want a shallow draft to get closer to shore and up and down rivers and other places.¡±


    ¡°Yeah that¡¯s it a shallow draft.¡±


    ¡°How you planning on refueling?¡±


    ¡°Generator operated sump pump to clean out diesel tankers and storage tanks.¡±


    ¡°Okay I will be your captain. I have a boat in mind.¡±


    I looked at Michael and we just kind of shrugged at each other. That was one of the weirdest conversations/interviews/get to know you sessions I ever experienced. I guess it really doesn¡¯t matter as long as she was capable and willing to help us. I decide to just relax and enjoy the ride while I can. This would have been a beautiful day on the water during any regular summer. It still is as long as you ignore the occasional moans and cries from the shore as we go past. After a rather enjoyable 45 minute boat ride Trika slowed the boat down and grunted. ¡°That one. She will do what we want.¡±


    I was looking at some type of weird hybrid boat that was in between some very luxurious yachts. So no premium yacht for me. ¡°Um. Captain Trika, what exactly is it?¡±


    ¡°Called yacht tender. New type, here to be shown at boat show. Holds five times the fuel, comes with two-ton crane and large deck space, draft of under five feet fully loaded.¡±


    ¡°So this was designed to follow and hold the toys of the rich yacht owners so they wouldn¡¯t have to see them?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Where would we find the keys?¡±


    ¡°Should be on the boat. This was a boat show that got canceled last minute due to plague. They have to fire up all yachts and other ships to show all bells and whistles.¡±


    With that wisdom imparted to us, Captain Trika pulled us up behind the Yacht Tender. The name on the side of the boat was just YTX. Probably stood for Yacht Tender X. The new owner would have the pleasure of naming her.

 21 - Last Night In Port

    Chapter 21


    Last Night In Port


    Michael and I both prepared our weapons and crossed to what I hoped would be my new vessel. The first thing I noticed about this was the large swim/storage deck that is only a foot to two feet above the water. There is nowhere to hide which makes clearing the place easy. While we head toward the main deck Trika ties up the bass boat and steps onboard. I signal Michael that I would take the left set of stairs up and he should take the right. We advance cautiously and see a large tender on the main deck tied down. A tender is a smaller boat that runs from a large yacht to shore. It usually carries guests and supplies when it is not feasible for the yacht to time up directly to a dock. This one is brand new and probably here to show off how easy the crane works and how much space there is.


    Once again I head up the left side of the ship and Michael takes the right. Nothing on the main deck. Right before I am about to talk to Michael I hear some distinctive thumps from the cockpit. I glance at Michael. He hears them also. I put the rifle away and draw my .45 pistol and signal Michael to stay back and cover me. I carefully head up the stairs to the cockpit of the tender and peer inside the window to see a zombie staring back at me and pounding on the door. It scared me so bad I almost fell back down the stairs. I checked both sides to make sure that the trapped zombie was the only one on the cockpit level.


    ¡°Michael, there is one trapped in the cockpit. I am going to step to the side and open the door. I should be able to make sure it falls down the steps. Use your axe if possible, but the .22 if not. I don¡¯t want any holes in our new boat.¡±


    ¡°Alright Mark I understand, Trika please stand back in case something goes wrong.¡±


    Our new captain wisely listened to Michael and backed up several steps. I holstered my weapons and pulled out my axe-bar. As smoothly as I could I pull open the door right before the zombie hammered on it again. Its forward momentum sends it tumbling down the steps. It sprawls out on the deck. Michael dashes in and soon there is one less zombie. I take a quick peek in the cockpit. There are some human remains but no other zombies.


    ¡°All clear up here.¡±


    ¡°All clear down below. Trika found the keys on this guy.¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s clear below decks before we fire it up.¡±


    We cautiously made our way down into the bowels of the ship while Trika stayed up top and disposed of the body and cleaned up. Ten intense minutes later we were back on deck. It seems the former captain was the only one on the ship. After the search was complete Captain Trika patiently showed Michael and I how to untie and tie up a vessel of this size properly to a dock. Once she felt we were minimally competent she moved on to teach us how to use the crane. We lifted the bass boat we had come in and placed it on the aft deck. My job was running the crane and young Michael got the envious job of learning how to tie up whatever I was lifting to the crane properly. Let¡¯s just say with as much work as he was doing I was glad I was assigned my position as the crane operator.


    When teaching time was done, the docks had filled up with zombies who were responding to the noise we were making. Not as many as I expected. I guess the docks are really not the place most people think about going when they are sick. We were probably seeing the die hard workers who reported when ill and then passed away along with a few boat and yacht owners. The great thing was the zombies couldn¡¯t climb. Once the stairs on the dock were kicked away we were perfectly safe except from their noise and constant banging on the hull. In fact, this might be an easy way to eliminate a lot of zombies.


    During this whole thing we also discovered that zombies cannot swim. So if we lured a large group of zombies out onto a long dock we could potentially cut down their numbers significantly when they fell off and drowned and save ammunition and time. We saw several instances of new zombies coming onto the dock where there was not enough room and one of them getting pushed into the water. If it was shallow enough they stood up and went back to shore. If it was deep they flailed around until they drowned and then either floated on top or sunk to the bottom. Occasionally the flailing led them back to the dock or the shore, but not often. This leads me to conclude that those that do make it ¡°swimming¡± are actually just lucky and are not planning ahead. I was afraid when I saw it the first time that there might be smart zombies developing. That would be a true nightmare. These dumb zombies are very easy to trick, kill and get rid of. The only thing they really have are stamina and numbers. I bet if the disease had not spread so quickly that we could have stopped it before it caused the end of the world.


    Trika started us back to the Sunshine Marina so we could gather our things and load up the boat tonight. I wanted to be out of there early in the morning. Trika said we have enough fuel to go over 5,000 nautical miles and the tanks were just over half full. We could stop and resupply and fill up along the way as we headed down the coast to the Bahamas. I wanted our vessel to be as full as possible before we landed. The more we take now the less we have to find later. The only down side to our new boat was that it was not the fastest thing. However, it could make 16-18 knots top speed and cruised at around 10-12 knots. We might not get there quickly, but it would not take a long time.This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.


    Andros Island is a little over 500 miles from Savannah GA. So we could make it in two days if we took a straight shot. Since we were going to be bouncing down along the coast and checking for supplies I figured a week was probably a better estimate. It could possibly take as long as two weeks dependent on what we ran into. We arrive back at the sunshine marina just as dusk was starting to hit. I could see what looked like several people waiting for us on the dock. Either they knew we were coming in or they were here to welcome a different looking boat. When I glanced up into the cockpit from the main deck I could see Captain Trika on the marine radio. So it is to great us, she must have let them know we were coming in.


    As we get closer I recognize Benji and Olivia standing on the dock along with Hank and Gerald. Does that mean the family has made it here? I wasn¡¯t expecting them to arrive for at least a couple more days. I wanted to be gone before they got here. I was not ready for the confrontation that was sure to happen. I said nothing as we pulled up and got to work with Michael tying the boat up to the dock. Once everything was done Trika came down from the cockpit. I spoke up, making sure that the people on the dock could hear and told her and Michael to be ready to move out by 9 a.m. I would load supplies tonight and in the morning. They should get their personal gear and move onto the boat tonight.


    As soon as I got to the dock Gerald spoke up. ¡°It looks like you found what you were looking for. I will have Trika tell the others of good boats she saw and you and I can talk over dinner. First however you have some guests that would like to talk to you. They came in today with that Pablo Picasso nonsense being said so I let them in.¡±


    ¡°Thanks, Gerald. This is my brother Benji and Olivia, a yong lady I met under not so ideal circumstances up in Aiken. They are part of the group I told you would be following me.¡±


    ¡°As long as you know them then that is fine. I will see you at dinner in about fifteen minutes.¡±


    Gerald walked off to give us some time alone.


    ¡°Hello Benji, evening Miss Olivia. How are momma and the others doing?¡±


    ¡°Brother, everything is just fine. We should be here in a couple days as a group. We picked up a few more stragglers and are moving rather slowly. Momma was worried about you so I volunteered to come check on you and deliver a letter. Olivia was kind enough to join me.¡±


    ¡°Mark, I will be going with you on the boat. Tracy and her boyfriend headed north to look for her parents. I don¡¯t know anyone else except your family. You and Benji saved me and I really don¡¯t feel safe without either of you around. Since I don¡¯t like large groups, that means I am going with you.¡±


    I must have had a baffled look on my face, because Benji and the others started to laugh quietly.


    ¡°Well I know better than to argue with a lady that has made up her mind. This is Michael and over here is Captain Trika. They will be on the boat with us. Arrange your bunk with them and I will make sure we have enough gear for you also.¡±


    With that said Olivia grabbed Trika¡¯s arm and started walking off and talking. Good lord what have I let myself in for.


    ¡°This is going to be an interesting trip. You know some strange people Mark.¡±


    ¡°Oh be quiet Michael and go and get dinner and pack up.¡±


    Benji and I caught up while he walked me over to the dinner area. The family was doing fine. They had picked up Doc Steven¡¯s family along with four others and were headed down. Their lack of speed was for raiding supplies and nothing else. They wanted to have the maximum amount when they arrived to contribute and to be able to leave as soon as possible. Benji also let me know that those people were keeping quiet and to themselves causing no problems. I let him know what signals and marks to look for in the future. He nodded his understanding and left to go back and meet with momma¡¯s group.


    When I arrived at the dinner area I saw Gerald waving me over to his picnic table.


    ¡°Okay Mark I will make it quick. We will help you load up with supplies. Over the next couple of days we will grab the boats that we want. When your family and others get here we will load them up and start after you. We may take another day or two to make sure we have the maximum amount of supplies. What I need is a way from you to contact you or at least make sure we are tracing the correct route.¡±


    ¡°Well that is easy enough. Ship to ship radio should suffice for 20 nm or less. So you can contact us before you come into port when you reach Andros Island. I have been thinking about our route. We are going to stop at the five major ports along the east coast of Florida. Jax Port, Port Canaveral, Port of Palm Beach, Port of Everglades, and the Port of Miami. Each will have several tie up buoys offshore. Because I am a little bit of a geek, I happen to have several pirate flags that are about 3 feet by five feet each. I have several red ones and several black ones. If you see red flags on the buoys that means the ports are too dangerous for the group to raid. If you see black ones then we have scouted it out and believe you should be okay. Keep in mind that things could change so you should still be careful. If we have a chance we can even leave pre-staged supplies at those ports to help you out.¡±


    ¡°You have really thought this through haven¡¯t you?¡±


    ¡°I had a lot of free time and find planning this kind of stuff to be fun.¡±


    ¡°Alright we will set out after you in a few days.¡±


    ¡°Thanks for all the help Gerald and especially for being someone others can depend on. I am trusting you to help get my family down to the island safely.¡±


    ¡°Speaking of family, I have a letter here from your momma. Your brother Ben said not to give it to you until after he left.¡±


    I take the letter and get up to go and load up the boat.

 22 - The High Seas

    Chapter 22


    The High Seas


    The next two hours I spent transferring everything from Betsy onto the new tender. After that I placed Betsy in a corner of the makeshift fort and covered her up with a tarp. I hope that someday that I can come back and retrieve her. Then I walk over to the moving vans we brought in earlier today and start taking a portion of ammunition we scavenged today along with extra clothes, tools, and food. I wanted enough for at least two weeks to a month for all of us. That would hardly even touch the capacity of the tender. I wanted to leave the rest for the big group. Our small scouting party will find it easier to raid for supplies along the way. I hope to fill up the entire tender before we actually reach Andros Island.


    It was getting to dark to load anything big and most of the small stuff had been transferred. I decided to call it a night and head up to my cabin that I am going to share with Michael. There is not much space on these boats for crew members. However, as a toy for the rich the area was definitely bigger than it would be on a commercial boat. Just as I was about settled in and ready to read momma¡¯s letter Michael came in and seemed surprised to see me. ¡°Mark why are you here and not in your cabin?¡±


    Now I was the one with the surprised look on their face. ¡°I thought I would be sharing a cabin with you and the girls would be sharing the other one.¡±


    Michaels face relaxed when I said this. ¡°I forgot that when we cleared the tender you took aft and I took the bow.¡±


    ¡°What does that have to do with ¨C¡°


    Michael interrupted me. ¡°There are several more cabins in the bow. These two cabins with space for two people are for the common crew. Up front there is a captain¡¯s cabin, two medium cabins, and another split cabin like this one. This tender can hold nine comfortably if they are single or perhaps more if a married couple took one of the larger cabins.¡±


    ¡°Let me guess, Trika is in the Captain¡¯s cabin, Olivia is in a medium, and I am supposed to be in the other.¡±


    ¡°Yep, you are the brains of the outfit so you get bigger digs.¡±


    ¡°Alright smart aleck then since I am the brains that makes you the brawn. You can help me transfer my stuff to the new cabin.¡±


    I wonder what else I had missed. Michael was right. I cleared the back part of the boat which consisted of the engine room, a large storage room, the laundry room, and the two crew cabins. He had gone forward and cleared the rest. I trusted him enough that I did not follow up after he declared them clear and I did not explore the ship on the way back. I should have plenty of time to discover and explore the ship on our trip. I believe that this will become one of our primary raiding ships also. Its configuration is just too convenient towards what we need to do.


    A couple of trips and about ten minutes later I was now in m more luxurious cabin. It was by no means large, but it was definitely noticeably larger than the crew cabin. It even had its own head with shower. The good news is that since I have lost all that weight over the last couple of years I can actually fit in and use the darn thing. If it was me of the past, I don¡¯t know if I could even fit inside the petite little bathroom. With everything moved and taken care of I lay down and once again bring out the letter than momma wrote.


    Dear Mark,


    I want you to know that while I might never understand your dislike or even hatred of that family, I will always love you. You are my son and no matter what happens, nothing can change that. When you leave I worry about you and what you are up to. I know you are a grown man now, but you should understand. I bet you think of your daughter often even when you know she is perfectly safe or capable as an adult now. Speaking of which, the rest of the family is doing fine. I hope that you can forgive me for running you off this time. If it takes me breaking off ties once we get to the island with that family, I will. I think that you and the rest of my children and grandchildren are worth it. Speaking of grandchildren, when are you going to find a nice young lady to settle down with again. We used to joke around and you promised that you would find one if the world came to an end. Well guess what son, it has.


    How about that nice young nurse Olivia? She seems like good people and seems determined to be by your side. You could do worse you know. I know that you have a lot of responsibility and things going on right now so I will cut this shorter than I would like. A couple of things that might help you though son. I think if you could get the Duck Tour from Miami it would help all of us out a lot and you need to call me soon. There must be a way, so figure it out.


    With all my love,


    Your Mother


    That is a lot to take in. So momma wants me to hook up with Olivia. No surprise there, she has been trying to remarry me off for ages. Although that Olivia is really cute, and focus Mark. End of the world first. Romance second or even third. I am glad to know she is willing to compromise and drop that family once they get to the island. I would prefer they never come, but no contact is enough for me to reconcile with her. Now what is she talking about when she says the Duck tour in Miami. We had travelled Florida in the past when I was much younger. I don¡¯t remember any tours about ducks. Did she think they would make a good animal to bring and raise on the island? Somehow that did not feel right. Think back Mark. When the family went to Miami what did we do? There was the Heat game, the beaches, the downtown tour, the tour of the city and the harbor in that funny vehicle. Wait that¡¯s it. It was called a Duck Boat and momma¡¯s right. That would be perfect. If I remember right it is a combination car/boat decommissioned from the army. It had six or eight wheels and you could drive it around and then directly drive it into the water and it would float and operate like a boat. That would make getting supplies from areas much safer.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    Momma comes through again. I had completely forgotten about that thing. I wish I could call her like she wanted but without cell towers, that was impossible. Or wait was it? Satellite phones don¡¯t use towers. The satellites didn¡¯t fall out of the sky just because the power grid turned off. I mean I even saw Captain Trika still using GPS. The satellites should still be good for a few years if nothing else. Maybe I could call momma. I will worry about it in the morning. It is time for some rest. I can figure out the details tomorrow.


    When I wake up I feel refreshed like I haven¡¯t been in a while. It must be a combination of a real bed and safety. I like living on a boat so far. It is 6 a.m. early enough for me to get some breakfast and make a quick supply run into town and still get back in time for my 9 a.m. cast off time. I head up to the deck and find Captain Trika already up and about and checking out her new vessel.


    ¡°Good morning Trika.¡±


    A grunt comes my way.


    ¡°I am glad we could have this conversation. I am going for breakfast and then a quick supply run before we cast off. I am looking at a 9 a.m. departure will that be ok?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    She is a woman of very few words.


    ¡°Do you need anything while I am out?


    ¡°Cleaning supplies and first aid supplies are low.¡±


    ¡°Ok I will work on that. Can you please send Michael and Olivia down for breakfast soon so I can give them some jobs before we go?¡±


    Another grunt, I sure hope that meant yes.


    At breakfast I finally complete one of my most important goals in life. I ate bacon. I don¡¯t care what the doctors say, it is the apocalypse and dang it I am going to eat it while it is still available. Just as I am finishing up I see a bleary eyed Michael and a much more awake Olivia coming over from the direction of the tender.


    ¡°Good morning you two. Michael it looks like you could use some coffee or more sleep. Miss Olivia you are looking lovely today.¡±


    I received some standard replies and I waited until they had dished up their breakfast before bothering them again.


    ¡°Olivia, I am going to make a special run into town for some medical supplies and I would like for you to come with me if possible. Michael, Captain Trika said the tender was low on cleaning supplies if you could help her grab some this morning. Also if you could help out with anything else she needs so we can cast off by 9 a.m. that will be great.¡±


    They both nodded their acceptance and started eating faster. While they finished up I went to go and locate us a vehicle we could use for a quick supply run. I did not want to take Betsy as I had already store her away carefully and did not want to have to repeat the process. Fifteen minutes later I went and picked up Olivia at the food tent and we hopped into the cargo van that I had borrowed.


    ¡°We are going to loot a CVS pharmacy today Olivia. I will grab all the non-prescription stuff we need and you are responsible for identifying any prescription medicine that would be helpful. I am thinking antibiotics, prescription pain killers, and things of that nature that don¡¯t take too much training to use or figure out what they are for. When you are done you can come out and help me.¡±


    ¡°What exactly is your target for today Mark.¡±


    ¡°Feminine hygiene products, toothbrushes, soaps, towels, Tylenol, batteries, chocolate, vitamins, and some other random stuff. I am also going to be looking for solar chargers and special phones, but I think I am going to have to hit a radio shack or something for those.¡±


    ¡°Do they even still have radio shacks?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t think so. I probably will have to stop at an extreme sports store or a large cell phone outlet provider store. I say a Verizon store the yesterday when Michael and I were driving around.¡±


    The CVS stop was really quick. We are able to get everything I want and more. Olivia and I work well together and I could definitely see why momma would think she would be a good match for someone. Head back in the game Mark. We have more shopping to do. I was able to find 6 satellite phones at the Verizon store. The most important part was that I found 10,000 minutes worth of prepaid phone cards. Without those the satellite phones would just be bricks. I grabbed several waterproof covers, USB cable rechargers and those smaller solar panel phone and electronic rechargers.


    Hmm, that gets me thinking. One more quick stop before we go. We need entertainment. DVD players and t.v.¡¯s don¡¯t need anything but electricity and there are several electronic games that will run independently. Also card games, board games and other things of that nature would help pass the time and allow us to bond together. So we stop by a GameStop store and loot some stuff and then a quick run into a Wal-Mart for some DVD players and a wide selection of laptops and movies and we were done. We barely make it back to the sunshine marina with time to spare. My quick little jaunt had taken more than an hour and now it was 8:30 a.m. We need to get this stuff loaded and get going. I pull right up to where the tender is tied up and Michael and Trika help us unload. I carry four of the satellite phones over to Gerald and explain my thought process. We will have ours on every night from 7 to 10 p.m. if they need to contact us. I also ask him to give one to my mom so she can call me when she arrives. With everything taken care of it finally time to go.

 23 - Jaxport

    Chapter 23


    Jaxport


    We were finally on our way. Trika was navigating us out onto the open ocean. The swells are getting larger and my stomach was starting to get a bit queasy. I don¡¯t know if I have ever actually been out on the ocean in a smaller vessel. Not that this boat was small, but compared to cruise ships which I had been on before it was tiny. I had made sure that one of the medications we packed was Dramamine for motion sickness, but I only wanted to take it as a last resort. It would be better if I could get my sea legs and not be dependent on drugs.


    We finally made it out of the protected part of the port and into the real ocean and larger breakers and swells around 10 a.m. Jaxport our first destination was one of the large international shipping ports on the coast of Florida. It was about 175 to 200 miles away. That should be about 15 ¨C 20 hours of boat time. That means a late arrival, anchor off the coast and then proceed in during the early hours of the morning. Captain Trika has the final call as if this will be a safe plan, but that is what I am hoping for.


    Trika took turns showing each of us how to operate the tender in case of an emergency. Basically we learned how to start, stop, and turn. Much more than that and I did not want to know. During my ¡°training¡± time she confirmed that we should arrive off of the coast of JaxPort around 3 a.m. or sooner. As soon as we set anchor we would lay down with the radar on for a six-hour wait. We will move in and scope out the port at around 9 a.m. tomorrow. Hopefully we will have a full and productive day of looting and then we can sail through the night to our next port of call.


    Time continues to pass. Olivia and Michael show no signs of sea sickness and luckily I only had to empty my stomach once and then my body settles down. I am even able to eat a little in the afternoon. When 7 p.m. rolls around I turn on the satellite phone and try to call Gerald in Hilton Head. He picks up relatively quickly and we exchange greetings. I close the call rather quickly. We have limited resources and wasting them is not prudent. My family had not made it in that night. Gerald promised to send out a party to look for them tomorrow if they had not made it in by noon. Since I was already in the cockpit for the call I offered to take over for Captain Trika. She thought about it a second and agreed.


    ¡°Let the auto-pilot do its job. Only change if radar shows something unsafe. Wake me in 6 hours.¡±


    After she finished her instruction in her customary clipped fashion she vanished, and I assume went to take a nap in her cabin. I wasn¡¯t actually steering the boat. I was a glorified human alarm system. The auto-pilot kept us on course and my entire responsibility was to occasionally check the radar and scan manually with binoculars to check for any problems. This was a nice quiet time I can use to plan out what needs to be done. First thing though is to set up one of the laptops I acquired. I may not have internet anymore, but word processing is still available. 30 minutes later I had my new laptop ready to go. Alright, first thing is to create divisions and lists. My favorite.


    On Andros Island we are going to need:


    1 ¨C Food and Energy Division


    2 ¨C Construction and Repair Division


    3- Water and Sanitation Division


    4 ¨C Health Division


    5 ¨C Supplies Division


    6 ¨C Safety and Rules Division


    Alright that should cover the major needs of our group for a long time. I need to break each one down individually into smaller chunks.


    Division 1 Food and Energy:


    <ul>


    <li>Farms</li>


    <li>Fishing</li>


    <li>Animals</li>


    <li>Electricity Generation and Maintenance</li>


    </ul>


    Division 2 Construction and Repair:


    <ul>


    <li>New Construction</li>


    <li>Port and Dock Maintenance</li>


    <li>Housing Construction and Repair</li>


    <li>Equipment Maintenance</li>


    <li>General Maintenance</li>


    </ul>


    Division 3 Water and Sanitation:


    <ul>


    <li>Water Maintenance</li>


    <li>Storage and Distribution</li>


    <li>Sanitation Maintenance</li>


    <li>Sanitation Disposal</li>


    </ul>


    Division 4 Health:


    <ul>


    <li>Medical Checkups</li>


    <li>Emergency Response</li>


    <li>Medication Distribution</li>


    <li>Child Control Division</li>


    </ul>


    Division 5 Supplies:


    <ul>


    <li>Food and Material (small) Raids</li>


    <li>Weapons and Ammo</li>


    <li>Boats and Boat Maintenance</li>


    <li>Food and Material (large) Raids</li>


    <li>Distribution</li>


    </ul>


    Division 6 Safety and Rules:


    <ul>


    <li>Rules of the Colony</li>


    <li>Zombie Defense and Offense</li>


    <li>Human Defense and Offense</li>


    <li>Training and Fortifications</li>


    </ul>


    This should be enough to cover the new island for many years. Eventually we will need expansion and entertainment divisions. However, those can wait for now. Now do we hope that everyone can get along or do we need to have an elected leader. Probably elected, people are used to democracy. So let¡¯s say we modify the constitution and have a main leader elected every five years with three term limits. That will allow them enough time to get actual change done if they can win three elections. Each island or territory will have its own leader that is elected. All rules are the same in each island and territory. There will be one Group Leader for every ten islands or territories. This will continue for every ten areas. So one Super Group Leader for every 100 islands or territories, and say a Mega Group leader if we ever reach 1,000 islands or territories. Each division has a leader over it and reports to the island leader.  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    As for laws I think we should keep it simple.


    Law 1 ¨C Everyone is created equal no matter their race, religion, creed, orientation, sex, age, or any other reason to discriminate.


    Law 2 ¨C Age of Majority is 18 for voting


    Law 3 ¨C Everyone trains and serves in the ready defense force from ages 15 ¨C 55 in times of emergency or defense.


    Law 4 ¨C Nothing is illegal as long as you do not harm others or their property physically or mentally. (Drugs Don¡¯t Care as long as you are only hurting yourself. Theft harms people so is not allowed. Etc.)


    Law 5 ¨C Any change to the laws other than clarification has to be approved by ?¡¯s of islands or territories.


    Law 6 ¨C There is a flat tax of 12% of goods and money (if we ever have some) to help make everything run right.


    Law 7 ¨C A person or individual can choose to perform volunteer service to lower their tax rate. Every month of volunteerism decreases your tax burden by 1% up to 10%.


    Law 8 ¨C People on raids earn 10% of the value of what they find. The rest goes to the group. This law will be extended every ten years by vote or done away with once the world has stabilized.


    This should be enough for now. I save my work and make a couple of back-up copies on some jump drives and head on down to wake up Captain Trika. Once Trika is back on the bridge I head down to my bunk for a nap of my own. I wake up to Michael shaking me gently. ¡°Mark it is 8 a.m. and Jaxport is in sight.¡±


    ¡°Thanks Michael.¡±


    I head over to the galley and put together a quick little sandwich. That will have to do for breakfast. I grab my regular gear so I will be prepared and then head on up to the bridge. The other three are already present. ¡°How does it look?¡±


    ¡°One container ship is partly sunk at the dock, a warehouse looks to be smoldering after being burned down, but the rest looks okay. Not very many zombies, no more than a hundred in the entire port area.¡±


    ¡°What about the ships? Are there any zombies spotted on them?¡±


    ¡°A few, so there are probably some out of sight.¡±


    ¡°Okay here is what I want to do. If you spot any flaws in the plan or improvements that can be made please speak up. Captain Trika, I would like for you to get us in range of one of the container cranes and drop anchor. Olivia you will be on over watch with a radio. Michael you and I are going to head into the port quietly at first to look for a few things. We will first take a battery pack and look for the shipping and receiving office. Hopefully there will be paper copies, but the battery pack should start up any computer. If we can get a list of what is on each ship and container then we will head back here to the tender to regroup.¡±


    ¡°Okay Mark, say we find what we need, what is the next step.¡±


    ¡°We identify the location and area of the supplies we want and then it will be a matter of transferring them to a set number of containers. They have the smaller half containers here which is what we should fill up. We locate the backup generators and then fire them up which should allow us to use the smaller crane and transfer the containers we have prepped onto the tender. Trika, how many containers can we hold?¡±


    ¡°Two layers of half containers. Each container no more than 2,000 pounds. Total of 16 half containers on main deck.¡±


    Right, the main dock crane could lift heavier, but our own crane is only rated for a ton. Glad she remembered that. It would have been embarrassing to have this work and then have to unload everything by hand when we arrived at the island.


    ¡°If this works, we can also prep containers of materials for the follow up group or for our future runs before we leave. We ignore all zombies except for threats. If everything works, we will perform the same operation down the coast of Florida at each major port until Miami and then head South East until we hit Andros Island. Questions or comments?¡±


    Nobody had anything significant to say and operation JaxPort was underway. Trika brought us in to the perfect position. Olivia had a pair of binoculars and a walkie talkie on the bridge deck to watch over us. Michael and I used the secondary tender crane to load our small ship to shore boat in the water. We double check our supplies and then off to JaxPort land we go. I tie up the runabout to the ladder at the pier and then Michael and I cautiously climb up. Coast is clear. There are enough ambient sounds of creaking metal, waves and other things that the zombies did not react to our small engine.


    I start heading in the direction of the closest office looking buildings I can see. Five minutes later and three melee kills of zombies the building is in front of me. Michael knocks on the door. Great, Michael remembered my little trick. This time it pays off as there is a moan from inside and the sound of movement heading towards the door. I grin at Michael and he grins back. He quietly counts down from three and opens the door and two different zombies stumble out into the light. I take the first one down with my axe-bar and Michael uses his favorite axe. It is actually bigger than a hand axe but smaller than a full one. More of a tomahawk really. I have no idea where he picked it up, but it works just fine.


    On the inside of the door is a map of the port. We are actually at receiving. Shipping is a different building. Huh, I would have expected them to be together. Maybe the port is just that big. I make note of the area where the shipping building is. It is completely on the other side of the port. Probably 800 meters away. I guess that actually makes sense. You would need to keep the outgoing material separate from the incoming material. Well let¡¯s see what we can find here.

 24 - Loot The Port

    Chapter 24


    Loot The Port


    With flashlights we carefully clear the rest of the receiving building and then start looking for the information we need. God bless organized businesses. There is a chart on the wall with incoming ship names. Nearby is a file cabinet with shipping manifests. I radio Olivia and ask for all the names of the ships she can see in port. I want to know when they stopped receiving to narrow down what we have to go through. It seems like the majority of the names are from ships that came in seven to ten days ago. I look through the files and grab the files from that week and the two previous weeks.


    As I signaled Michael that we had what we needed he whispered over. ¡°What about the secure site?¡±


    ¡°What secure site?¡±


    ¡°I watched some t.v. special about shipping ports and the large cranes a while back. They usually have three areas. Receiving where we are at, shipping where I think we are headed next, and finally a secure site for more sensitive shipments.¡±


    ¡°What kind of sensitive shipments?¡±


    ¡°Usually expensive incoming or outgoing classified electronics, precious metals, and the like. However, it also has a separate bunker for anything that is classified as dangerous to store, such as fireworks and ammunition.¡±


    ¡°You mean that somewhere in this place is a bunker full of ammunition?¡±


    ¡°Maybe, I don¡¯t know if every port has it. I just know the one in the special I watched had it.¡±


    Alright time to be a little more methodical. I walk back to the door and study the map of the port more closely. Shipping, Receiving, Wood Products, Liquids, Outgoing Bulk, Agriculture, and there in a corner is a smaller area labeled Secure Site. Well I¡¯ll be a monkey¡¯s uncle. This kid has more than paid off with just this knowledge. I am sure glad that we paired up and actually work well together. I guess Michael must have seen my grin.


    ¡°Was I right?¡±


    ¡°Well there is a secure site. I have no idea what¡¯s in it though. It probably has a separate little office in front of it for its own version of paperwork. We are just going to have to head over there to find out.¡±


    We radio the Olivia on the tender and tell her we will be back shortly to drop some things off and then we will head out again. She says the way is clear. No more zombies have wandered into the area where we are. A short ten minutes later we are back on the tender and telling the girls about what we found. Trika and Olivia tell me that they will start going through the receiving manifests looking for things we could use. I tell them to focus on non-perishable foods, medicines, and farm equipment first. We can take the foods and medicine and stage the farm equipment for later.


    Michael and I head back towards the shipping side this time. We decide to cut down on the amount we have to walk by travelling most of the way down the dock in our little boat. There seem to be a lot more zombies down on this end of the port. I wonder if something attracted them down in this direction. Just as I was thinking that we both start twitching our noses. What in the world is that stink? It smells like massive amounts of rotting food. Think of every horrible odor you can then add fecal matter and rotting flesh on top. Multiply that by ten and you might get the idea of what we were dealing with. Michael couldn¡¯t take it and stopped the boat and threw up over the side. This set me off and I start blowing chunks opposite of him. Once we were done we just looked at each other.


    ¡°Maybe they ship organic fertilizer?¡±


    ¡°No I am guessing they ship refrigerated foods and with the power down it has all started to rot at once.¡±


    ¡°Oh that is disgusting.¡±


    ¡°It also explains why there are so many zombies on this side. They are attracted to the rotting smell.¡±


    Our little discussion had allowed us to somewhat get used to the stench. It was still horrendous beyond belief, but it did not induce nausea anymore. We once again tie up to the dock and peek our heads over the edge. This one is definitely going to be harder than the last little trip. If we go wide and then to the left, we should stay further away from the smell and thus the zombies. Yep, let¡¯s try that.


    I crouch down and as quickly and as quietly as possible make my way behind a set of containers on the left to screen us from the sight of most of the zombies. Step one complete. It looks like we did not attract any attention. Where to next? Over there behind that pile of pallets and then behind those blue containers. Quick crouching run to pallets, look around still safe. Run to the blue containers and as soon as I went behind the container I tripped on something, which propelled me into a zombie that I had not seen. I try and turn my fall into a mighty shove. If I go down I need space in order to have time to get back up.This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.


    Michael must have seen me stumble. As I approach the ground much quicker than I notice out of the corner of my eye him running around me. I hit the ground with an audible thump and try to roll over. Man I can barely breathe, wind knocked out of me. Get up or die Mark. I struggle to my feet to see Michael starting to be overwhelmed. There are at least six zombies still up right and it looks like Michael has killed two already. No time for quiet. I shuck out my .45 pistol and start letting loose. Six shots and three more are down. This has taken a lot of pressure off of Michael. He manages to finally have enough time to take out his own pistol and the rest of the group goes down.


    This was way too close. We need to figure out a better method, than just running around with our melee weapons. I have to remember this is not some game or fantasy. Real mistakes equal real and horrible death in this world. I can hear the sounds of other zombies moving in our direction. They must be a little confused right now. They heard sounds that mean a meal, but we are hidden behind the containers. We need to get somewhere safe fast. My thoughts were interrupted by a new voice.


    ¡°Hey mister can you get us down?¡±


    I panic a little and aim my gun towards the voice above me and see a teenage girl flinch back from the edge.


    ¡°Whoah I am sorry about that. You scared me. I am not going to shoot. How did you get up there?¡±


    ¡°The ladder you tripped on fell over when we got up here to avoid the zombies a couple of days ago.¡±


    I look around and sure enough it was a ladder that I tripped on. They must have either been looking for supplies and got caught so they decided to climb up out of reach, or this was some weird elaborate trap. Probably the first one. I signal Michael to be careful and then grab the extension ladder and set it against the containers. The containers here were stacked three high. That is at least 25 feet tall. Probably why they did not just try to jump down. You know that and there are zombies all around.


    ¡°Hurry up we need to get to cover, I hear more zeds coming our way.¡±


    My encouragement caused the young lady to move much quicker down the ladder. Following her was a middle aged lady who looked remarkably similar to her. They have to be related.


    ¡°We can talk and get each other¡¯s stories in a minute. First we need to get somewhere safe.¡±


    ¡°We can hole up in the receiving building over there.¡± Pointed out the middle aged one.


    That¡¯s perfect. Exactly where we wanted to go. This should kill two birds with one stone. I just nod my acceptance and our now group of four takes off. The two girls are not in the best of shape after being stuck on a container for two or more days, but they get to a side door of the office quick enough. Before I can even think about prying the door open the older lady pulls out keys and unlocks the door. So I guess she worked here? That could be useful. As quick as we could we all ducked into the building. I was the last one in and Took a glance around before heading in. About a dozen coming this way. We need to take care of it before they draw in more.


    ¡°Michael .22¡¯s and axes, at least 12 incoming.¡±


    ¡°Roger that.¡±


    I duck into the building and check around to make sure we won¡¯t be taken by surprise. Nobody is in here except us four. Good. I shuck off my pack and grab a two boxes of .22 shells from inside. I hear Michael open up with his .22 pistol. Ten shots later I step up and give him one box of shells. ¡°Reload and switch.¡±


    He steps back and I start my targeted shooting. It looks like Michael took two of the twelve down and wounded several others. I try and put one in the chests of each of the closest zombies and then try for one in the head as a follow up. Three more go down. ¡°Reloading, one more turn then melee.¡±


    Michael steps forward and I step back and thumb new shells into my magazine as quickly as possible. Once I finish I step forward one more time. Michael took care of three more. I aim and fire and fire until I go dry. Four down that time. I holster the gun and step even further out and unsling my axe-bar. Five more zombies. Michael steps to my side. He takes the first swing and I push the next one back into the other charging zombies. This trips them up, giving Michael enough time to remove his axe. My turn is next. I swing down at the closest skull and hear a crack which indicates I was successful in damaging the brain. Another indicator is the now lack of movement from the zombie I hit. Three more to go.


    Michael swings and makes contact. Two more. I swing and there is now only one left. Before either one of us can do anything a red missile travels between us and smacks the last zombie straight between the eyes. What the heck? Where did that fire extinguisher come from. I hit it one more time just to be safe. ¡°Michael reload and check them please.¡±


    ¡°¡¯Yes Mark.¡±


    ¡°Well ladies first of all some introductions. My name is Mark and the young gentleman with me is Michael. Thank you for the help with the fire extinguisher.¡±


    ¡°It is good to meet you Mark. My name is Helen and this is my daughter Sally. Thank you for the timely rescue.¡±


    ¡°Well now that names are out of the way, I saw that you had keys to the building Helen. Did you used to work here at the port?¡±


    ¡°Yes Mark I was the manager here at the shipping office.¡±


    My luck is just too good. I did not just save any worker, but the actual manager of the shipping office.


    ¡°Well Helen I am part of a group that is migrating down to Andros Island in the Bahamas. We are the lead ship and are exploring ports along the way for safety and for supplies. You and your daughter are more than welcome to join us if you would like. No matter what you decide I wonder if you could help us sort through the paperwork to figure out if there is anything in the shipping containers that would be useful for a group of survivors.¡±


    ¡°Mark, that sounds wonderful and I would be glad to help. I came in to check on an emergency with my daughter and then we got stuck. After raiding the offices for supplies we decided to make a break for it before we ran out of them. We were unlucky and you know the rest. The list of shipping manifests is over here.¡±

 25 - Experts Make Life Easier

    Chapter 25


    Experts Make Life Easier


    With Helen¡¯s specialized help we grabbed the necessary information to sort through back on the boat very quickly.


    ¡°Helen do you know anything about the secure site?¡±


    ¡°I know a little, what do you need to know?¡±


    ¡°I have heard that it holds things like explosives, fireworks and ammunition. Is that true?¡±


    ¡°I believe so. I know that we do ship some of those out of this port and they do not go through my office so it makes sense that it would be out of that group.¡±


    ¡°Fantastic, do you think you could lead us there. We would really like to go through that information also to check for usable supplies especially ammunition.¡±


    ¡°It is almost half a mile from here. Can we make it safely?¡±


    ¡°It really should not be a problem. We will take it slow and easy and be very careful. If it gets too dangerous than we will turn back.¡±


    ¡°Okay.¡±


    With that I made sure everyone ate something and had something to drink. There is no reason to start this trip hungry or thirsty. After each of us making a final trip to use the restroom, no flushing at this point, but I doubt we will be back to smell the mess any time soon, we were ready to go. We left out the back door this tie and saw only one zombie within 20 feet. Michael ran out and took care of it. Why is he so eager all of the sudden? Oh wait, he is young, Helen¡¯s daughter is pretty. Yep he is showing off a bit. I have no problem with that as long as it does not cause a danger to anyone. I was young once. Before I follow him out I remember to quickly contact Olivia on the boat. I told her we found two female survivors and were heading to get the paperwork from the secure site. We should be back in an hour or so. Can you please set up the other crew cabin so they can clean up when we get back?


    My casual mention of cleaning up almost brought the girls to tears. I forgot that it had been probably five to seven days since they have had that chance. We easily made our way to the secure site and grabbed another set of paperwork. After a quick break with snacks and water we head back. The girls have not had anything to eat in days, so small meals and drinks over a long time is better than one large one. We run into several zombies on the way back, but they are all singles or doubles. No large groups. Easily taken care of with our experience at this point. I don¡¯t even get nervous anymore unless it is an unusual situation or there are more than four zombies.


    My estimate is very precise and my little group makes it back to the tender just under an hour after I called Olivia on the radio. When we arrive at the boat, Olivia meets us with sandwiches and then escorts the new girls down to get washed up. We agree to meet in the cockpit in an hour. An hour later Olivia comes up to the bridge followed by a very refreshed looking Helen and Sally. The next two hours are spent explaining our group, our goals, and our needs. Helen helpfully points out several things both Trika and I missed in the paperwork and helped identify where the containers were that we wanted.


    ¡°So now that we have our containers identified, we need to get rid of the zombies so we can work in peace. Helen am I right in thinking that this whole place is surrounded by fencing?¡±


    ¡°Yes Mark, this is an international port so it has to be separated by twelve-foot chain link fencing covered with barbwire.¡±


    ¡°That means if we deal with the zombies in the port, we should not have to worry about new ones coming in. After time the fencing might break down, but it should be enough to keep new zombies out no matter how loud we are. So what I think we should do is move off the end of the long skinny dock over there.¡± I pointed to the south. ¡°The wood products dock?¡± Asked Helen.


    ¡°Sure whatever it is. We then play music really loud. The majority of the zombies should be attracted to the noise. Just like we saw in Hilton Head the back zombies should push the front ones off the dock causing them to drown. We will then have a much easier time shooting the remnants.¡±


    ¡°That will work?¡± Sally asked incredulously.


    ¡°It has in the past. We can only try. If it works, it makes everything easier. If it does not work then none of gets hurt and we try something else.¡±


    We implemented the plan as soon as possible. It turns out that the tender has an amazing sound system for the main deck. It seems that the main deck was also designed to be a large dance floor for rich people. It was a much larger open area than you can find on any yacht so it made sense. In order for you to host a dance, you need the sound system to entertain with it. I gave my I-Pod to Michael and he decided my 80¡¯s mix would be the best thing to draw in the zombies. Boy did it work.This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.


    In less than five minutes we already had over a dozen zombies in the water drowning. Another 40- 50 were on the dock trying to reach us. I look in the distance and see at least that many more headed in our direction. I think another fifteen to twenty minutes just to be safe would be the ideal time. I bring out a .22 rifle from storage for everyone to use. This elimination of zombies would be an all hands evolution. We had over 20,000 rounds of .22 ammunition. With us parked only fifteen or so feet of the dock, even the occasional miss with the waves meant we were close enough to do a lot of damage even with the smaller caliber. I would rather shoot 5,000 rounds of .22 than 500 of another caliber, at least for now. It was smaller, easier to pack, and much easier to replace than some of the larger rounds. Even when we looted the guns and ammo store. No one had taken any of the .22 ammunition, when they had taken or used a quarter of some of the more standard large caliber rifle and pistol ammunition.


    Another advantage to this plan was time. We had a lot of it. We could shoot and wound a zombie and then wait for it to bleed out rather than having to finish it off. I use the next few minutes making sure everyone is up to date on gun safety and how to use a rifle. How to reload, where to aim and most especially how to clean. That was my least favorite part of guns, the cleaning. Then again I have never liked cleaning in any fashion. Twenty minutes go by and I cannot see any more zombies headed in our direction. The number of zombies being pushed into the ocean has also gone way down. We have probably 30 zombie left on the pier. I give the order to shoot. What happens next is the sound of a cute little war.


    I never thought I would describe war as cute, but volleys of .22 rifles after hearing larger calibers is just that. It sounds like a toddler trying to act like an adult. Don¡¯t get me wrong it works. I watch and see several of the zombies fall off the pier when we shoot. Some slump down from damage, and others just continue moving forward trying to get to us. It takes us five rounds of reloading before the thirty or so zombies go down completely. Six guns, times ten rounds each, times five reloads, is 300 rounds of ammunition. It took 300 rounds to kill just 30 zombies. That seems so wasteful, but when you factor in the amount of .22 ammunition we had it was nothing. In fact, we did not even have to open a second brick of ammo. Each .22 brick has 500 rounds in it.


    I have everyone clean their rifles and then store them in their cabins. Every one now has a personal .22 rifle. I make them each take 50 rounds with them. This is for emergencies. If Michael or I are not around I want them to have something to defend themselves with. A .22 is not much, but it is better than throwing rocks. Wait we don¡¯t even have rocks, were on a boat. Once everything is cleaned and put away, Captain Trika moves us to the dock that is about half the distance from both shipping and the secure site.


    Trika and Sally will be staying with the boat. Olivia and Michael are going to start locating and marking containers that are useful with spray paint. Helen and I are heading to the secure site to check it out. Once we have everything prepped, we will have a crash course, hopefully not literally on using forklifts and the crane. I make sure that everyone is geared up before we leave the boat. ¡°Everyone be careful. Our little trick with music and the dock should have cleared more than 90% of the zeds. Some however may have been caught in between containers, or have bad hearing, or something else that means that they are still present. I don¡¯t want anybody to get bit because they were careless.¡± A chorus of Yes Marks and okay come back at me.


    Helen an I split off from Olivia and Michael and start towards the secure site. I whistle along the way and explain to Helen that this is a way attract any left-over zombies. In reality, I was feeling good.   The zombie thing was just a bonus. Everything was going according to plan and I had high hopes for the secure site. A fifteen-minute walk and we are at the secure site. A double wall of chain link and a gate mean that there are few if any zombies inside. I search the security hut for keys and find a set. Helen helps me open and then close the gate. I don¡¯t want any zombies walking in behind us. Inside the secure compound is a small building. Helen indicates that this is where we would find any paperwork. The compound is full of containers so without the paperwork we are going to have to open each one. Please let it be inside.


    We open up the building with the set of keys I found in the security hut and in less than five minutes Helen has pulled everything that I want to know. It is great working with someone who knows the business. It makes everything easier. As I go through the manifests with Helen I discover that my plan is even better than I thought. According to the manifests there are 22 containers full of assorted ammunition, three containers of Remington firearms. 2 containers of specialty firearms, and one container of believe it or not silencers and gun accessories. This is just the weapons manifests.


    Helen points out that there are 42 containers of fireworks waiting to be shipped. Eight containers of industrial explosives, 12 different containers of assorted medication. This place is like my dream come true. I thought that I would have to raid up and down the coast for months in order to find stuff like this. I had made lists of where different manufacturers were. I expected I would have to mount an expedition and go and raid factories to find this type of stuff. My apocalypse life just became so much easier. I run outside and check the first container on the list just to be sure. I cut the lock and look inside. All I can see is pallet after pallet of cases of rifles secured to the walls of the container. There must be 10,000 rifles in this thing. I check the manifest. This container was headed for the Remington distribution center in Europe. Jackpot.

 26 - Load Up And Move Out

    Chapter 26


    Load Up And Move Out


    I quickly close up the container and calm down. I need to locate empty half containers. Next I have to relearn how to drive a forklift. It has been years since my last job that required it. Then we have to decide what to take and what to leave for the group behind us. I want to take it all, but that is impractical with the capacity we have right now. There are enough containers in this port that it would take literally years for our little tender to be able to transfer them all. It seems like after we get settled I am going to have to put a crew together and go find an actual container ship. I want all of this on my island. We may not use some of it for years, but I want it where I can keep an eye on it. It is only a matter of time before someone else has the bright idea to raid the ports for supplies. I want to make sure we have what we need before that happens.


    I spent the next few hours taking care of the to do list. Helen pointed out several half containers filled with furniture in shipping. The group then spent an hour locating and then figuring out how to drive and use container forklifts. I don¡¯t know why but when I tip a container and empty it out letting everything hit the ground I get this great feeling. It feels like when you are a child and you do something naughty and you know you are going to get away with it. It is a lot of fun.


    A lot of repetition now occurs. Olivia and Captain Trika even join in to help things go faster. Michael, Helen, Sally, and Olivia are on forklift duty. Myself and Trika, are driving semi-trucks with containers from the far areas to the receiving area where we have decided to stage everything. Olivia is working with me, Michael is working with Trika, and Helen and Sally are in the receiving area. The way we have it set up is very simple. I drive to the secure site. Olivia then loads a container on the trailer. We don¡¯t even bother to tie it down, I am not going that far. Then I drive to the receiving area where Helen unloads the container. Michael and Trika are repeating the same thing but coming from the shipping area. Sally is moving the containers we want by forklift alone in the receiving area.


    5 p.m. rolls around and I realize that this is going to take more than just today. We have made great progress and are over halfway through the list, but we have not even tried to put anything on the tender yet. I decide that we will knock off at 6 p.m. and then clean up and have some dinner. We will make our satellite call to Gerald at that time and update him. Soon enough it is time. We all park our various vehicles in preparation for finishing tomorrow and make our way back to the boat. After a great dinner of casserole, I love having a full kitchen and refrigeration, I call up Gerald.


    ¡°Gerald can you hear me?¡±


    ¡°Yes Mark.¡±


    ¡°We found everything we need at the first port. Do you have enough people for a container ship?¡±


    ¡°We are now up to around 200 people Mark. Your momma¡¯s group came in with around thirty and we have picked up a few more survivors. We will be bringing a small cruise ship, one tug boat with refueling barge, two large yachts, and a small container ship. The container ship can hold about 30 full size containers. We plan on loading about ten containers worth of material before we leave.¡±


    ¡°That sounds great. Say hi to momma and give her my love. Stop at Jaxport first. There should be over 100 containers waiting to be transferred. Green spray paint is food, red is weapons and ammo, and black is miscellaneous. If you would grab ten food containers and five each of the others that would be very helpful.¡±


    ¡°We can do that.¡±


    ¡°After that go straight to the island. No need to stop anywhere else. We will explore the other ports at some other time. My group is going to finish loading up tomorrow and make our way down to Miami for one quick pick up and then on to the island. We should be on the island in two to three days maximum.¡±


    ¡°We plan on leaving in two days ourselves Mark so we should arrive 48 to 72 hours behind you.¡±


    ¡°Sounds good we will see you then.¡±


    After talking with Gerald I explain the plan to the rest of my group.


    Sally was confused on one point. ¡°What do we need in Miami that we don¡¯t have here?¡±


    ¡°Have you ever heard of a Duck Boat?¡±


    ¡°You are going into Miami, which is probably filled with zombies, for a boat shaped like a duck?¡±


    I had to laugh at that. ¡°No Sally, a Duck Boat is from world war II. They are military vehicles that have six wheels and can drive on land and on float and move on the water. I want one to make entry and exit of unexplored areas and island much safer.¡±Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    ¡°Well that makes sense, why didn¡¯t you just say that in the first place?¡±


    Kids these days. After that exchange we all break off and head to our own cabins. I read a little on my kindle. I have over a thousand books downloaded, but even that will run out eventually. I wonder if my kindle will last longer than my books. It¡¯s not as if I can just switch them to a new device like I used to. The world is going to have to switch back to pen and paper soon. I start to wonder about how many other innocent things we take for granted in our technological world are going to disappear soon. With those thoughts running through my head I drift off to sleep.


    When I wake to the alarm in the morning I realize that either the new generation is going to have to use our old slang for things as stuff disappears or they will have to come up with new slang term. For once in my life I might actually understand what teenagers are saying around me. I then decide that the universe is not that kind. With my morning contemplation of the universe done and my shower and other business taken care of I head to the kitchen for a quick bowl of cereal. That reminds me. We are almost out of milk and I am going to have to raid another country to get more.


    It may seem strange to many Americans but milk does not have to come in a plastic jug and expire without refrigeration. For many year¡¯s milk has been packaged in foil boxes and placed on unrefrigerated shelves around the world. The expiration date is usually six to nine months later. Yes, you have to refrigerate after opening it to keep it fresh, but until then it can just sit on your shelf. This was one of the most bizarre things I had to get used to when I worked overseas for a few years. Convenient, but it went against everything I knew about the universe up to that point. Long story short, we should not run out of milk before we set up goats and cows to get fresh milk from on the island.


    The crew and I headed back to the port to finish off our tasks. I wanted to leave the port before sunset if at all possible. I did not like being stationary in one place without defenses. I finish my staging of containers after about 90 more minutes. The shipping and receiving groups still have a bunch to do. I finish early due to the secure site being smaller and having less containers that we actually want. I switch myself and Olivia from container transfer into repacking. We located several empty ? containers and we need to shift the material we want into them so the crane on our tender can lift it on board. Even if we could get one of the large cranes working at the port, there is no guarantee that there would be a corresponding crane on Andros island. So switching to a container size and weight that our crane on the boat can handle is just common sense.


    Wait a second, just how heavy is a shipping container. I stop everybody so I can figure this out. ¡°Helen, how heavy is a standard shipping container?¡±


    ¡°A little over 3,000 pounds I think why?¡±


    Son of a gun, my whole plan is sunk with that statement. We can¡¯t even use half containers. They are too heavy for our crane. I just assumed that two tons was a lot of lifting power, and it is. However, it is not enough to life loaded containers. It could barely lift an empty half container. I see Trika¡¯s eyes get big also. She must have also just realized what I figured out. This is what can happen if you don¡¯t have specialists. We all made assumptions based on what I wanted and not what was realistic.


    ¡°Ok, new plan. We still will load up what we can, it will just have to be on pallets and stored carefully on the main deck. The containers are too heavy for our crane. We may not be able to take as much as we originally planned, but we should still have more than what we can use quickly and we can always come back.¡±


    When I announce this, everyone else suddenly gets the look that Trika and I had a few seconds ago. Well Gerald said the group was bringing a small container ship. Those should have a crane that is powerful enough to get the job done. Our situation became more complicated, yet easier at the same time. We are going to have to load essentially by hand. Well to be honest by pallet jack, but it should go quicker. Olivia and I start opening containers and staging the pallets we want. By lunch time everyone else had finished their sections and would be able to help us in loading the tender after lunch.


    We eventually finished loading up around 6 p.m. We left so many supplies on the dock, just waiting for the next group. I wish I could somehow just magic them to the island. For many they might look like conveniences, but to me it represented either success or failure in our new life in the islands. We did come out with everything we needed even if I did not get everything I wanted.


    On our tender we now had over 300 rifles of varying calibers. 500 pistols and over 200 hundred silencers that would fit those pistols. 100 shotguns and a huge variety of accessories and cleaning materials. My biggest joy was the ammunition. We were able to load over 100,000 rounds of every caliber of rifle and pistol ammunition. There are still three containers full of ammo on the dock. We should be set unless a miniature Zombie World War started. I was seriously worried about ammunition before we loaded up our finds. We had thousands of rounds that we brought, but the simple fact is that you go through ammunition much faster than most people think. First you have training, then you have multiple shots on the same target, missed shots, etc.


    If we ever had to fight other people, the expenditure would go up severely. I had read an article that in the Vietnam it took an average of over 100 bullets to kill a single person. Most of the ammunition was used to keep the opposing side in place and behind cover so they could not shoot back. Not being professionals we would probably use even more than that. That means our thousands of rounds would not get us very far at all.


    We also managed to get about three tons of food, various miscellaneous tools, and most importantly five giant pallets of the best quality toilet paper. I don¡¯t know about others, but this was very important to me. I really do not want to wipe with a leaf. I don¡¯t know how long it will be until the world can produce more 2-ply extra soft quilted wonderfulness, but I was not going to suffer while waiting.

 27 - My Very Own Duck

    Chapter 27


    My Very Own Duck


    With everything loaded we had a quick bite to eat and then Captain Trika moved us over to the refueling dock and taught everyone how to hook up and operate the pump for refueling the tender. With full tanks we soon headed out of Jaxport. Destination Miami and hopefully my new duck boat. We actually only travel about two hours down the coast before we come in closer to land and drop anchor for the night. Since everyone was working hard today there is no reason to push things and risk an accident by traveling through the night. We can get a good night¡¯s sleep and continue on in the morning.


    I don¡¯t know if it is the sea air, the security of being on a boat where zombies can¡¯t get to us or what it might be. My sleep has not been this good in years. I wake up refreshed and ready to go. A quick breakfast and we are soon on our way down to Miami. The trip is about 350 miles long and we are travelling at about 11 knots so we should arrive in about 30 hours or so. It might be shorter or longer depending on currents and many other things I really don¡¯t understand. However, Captain Trika is using this time to teach us all what we need to know to be a minimally competent crew. First up is radar, spotting and standing watch. If everyone contributes than we will only have four hour rotations. That is nothing.


    After that is the harder stuff. Trika decides we all need to understand why it is important to keep boats organized and clean. While we are at sea we all have an eight-hour shift. Four of those hours will be spent on watch and four will be spent on cleaning, inventory, and organization. Any time after that is your own. As much as I want to be lazy, this lady is a professional and deserves my best effort. Besides what I learn now might help me in the future. To help us stay fresh and safe it is decided to break the trip into two days. We will cruise for 20 hours today and then take four to six hours off until it turns light again. Tomorrow we will go for as long as it takes to reach Miami. We should reach Miami in the evening and be able to scope out the situation through the telescopes.


    The trip goes well, and I rediscover my hatred of cleaning bathrooms. In order of hatred in my world it goes first cleaning bathrooms, second vacuuming, and third doing dishes. I don¡¯t mind doing other chores, but those three are my nemesis. One of the happiest days of my life was when I finally moved into my house which had a dishwasher. The apartments I lived in before that did not have one and I had to do all my dishes by hand. It was horrible. Enough about the past. After our cleaning and watch sessions everyone was free to work on their own projects or just relax. I decided that I was going to start an armory on the boat.


    There was a storage room between the crew cabins and the larger cabins that only had a few extra linens in it. I emptied it out and started filling it with rifles, pistols, shotguns, magazines, and ammunition. By the time I was finished it looked like something out of a low budget war movie. I loved it. New rifles gleaming on the wall with filled magazines underneath where appropriate. Ammo stacked up on the floor neatly. It was just begging for us to have some sort of encounter so it could be used. Whoa Mark, don¡¯t jinx yourself.


    After another night¡¯s sleep we depart on what should be the final leg to Miami. A few hours before sunset we approach Miami. Or should I say we approach what is left of Miami. Something happened here that resulted in Miami being gutted. We could see the black smoke for hours before we even arrived. It looks like fire has swept through a large portion of the city and surrounding areas. I am not feeling very good about this. Most of the damage looks intentional. I mean there is one cruise ship partially sunk at the dock. Another one is still spewing smoke. Two others are untouched and pristine. There is no rhyme or reason to it which suggests humans had been responsible.


    We don¡¯t have to dock, and I think it would be a good idea not too. I signal Captain Trika to just go farther down the coast. I see a few beach hotels that are untouched. All I want to do today is run our little boat in to a hotel and pick up one of those brochures they always have on display that list the businesses and tours in town. They are sure to have the address of the duck boat tours. Then tomorrow we can cruise by in the tender and see if the duck boat is still there or if we are just moving on.


    We drop anchor off the coast near two resorts that look like they have not been touched. There are a few zombies wandering on the beach, but not many. I am going in with Michael and we are going to be packing heavy. Shotgun, Rifle, and two pistols along with melee weapon of choice. Miami makes me nervous. I just want to get in, find the stupid brochure about the tours and leave. Michael and I head to the boat. We aim for the closest point to the newest looking hotel. It should have what we need. The few zombies on the beach hear our boat engine and start wading out to meet us. They stop about waist to chest deep. They seem to realize instinctually that deep water is bad.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.


    Michael just cuts the engine and allows us to drift closer. We both pull our shotguns. Pistols would be quitter, but with the waves, our aim would be everywhere. With a shotgun, we just need to be close. Several booming shots later, the water is red, and there are floating corpses in the surf. It sort of looks like a war movie of storming the beaches in WW II, except the bodies are not soldiers. Weird thoughts done we paddle in the remaining distance and watch for new zombies that might have heard our shotguns. Nothing. That is weird. There should have been at least a few more drawn by the loud sound of the guns.


    I guess it doesn¡¯t really matter. We drag the runabout boat far enough on shore that it should not go anywhere for at least an hour or more. If we take that long, then something has gone horribly wrong. Michael and I cautiously make our way up the access point into the first resort we targeted. Following the signs to the lobby I see the doors closed and it seems to be packed with zombies. How in the heck did they all get in there? I mean if they turned in their hotel rooms they should still be stuck in their hotel rooms. How did so many get down to the OH. It looks like this was a makeshift medical camp of the city or government. I can see several cots littering the lobby behind the wall of zombies. Yeah, not going in there. We could probably clear it, but what is the point in risking our lives when we can just go to the next hotel.


    I signal Michael and we retreat and start jogging along the beach to the next resort. A couple of minutes later we arrive at the lobby of the next hotel. I see only three zombies in this one. I pull my new silenced 9mm pistol. I feel so much like a spy or assassin right now. There was a large shipment of silencers for a variety of different guns waiting to be shipped to Europe at Jaxport. I grabbed ALL of them. Noise is the enemy when dealing with zombies and these silencers allowed us to shoot a higher caliber pistol with more stopping power with a smaller noise than even the .22 pistols gave us. I still had the .22 pistol with me, just because I can carry 500 rounds for it in my pocket and not even blink about the tiny weight. It was my old trusty .45 that I replaced with this guy.


    Michael had the same gun and we proceeded to clear the lobby just like it was a movie. Open the door, two in the chest, one in the head and suddenly no more zombie threat. I headed over to where I could see the giant display of tourist brochures. Beaches, theme parks, restaurants, clubs, water parks, and there it is Duck Boat tours. I grabbed several copies and handed a couple to Michael. I also grabbed some on the museums for a possible idea that might work on in the future. With the deed done we retreated to the beach and started to head back to our dinghy when Michael¡¯s younger eyes spotted a problem.


    There were four, no wait five people surrounding our little runabout boat. They had rifles and did not look like they were the welcoming committee. Well crap. We retreated back up out of sight before they saw us. I pulled out the walkie and turned it on. ¡°Olivia can you hear me.¡±


    ¡°Yes. Those people arrived about 60 seconds after you went into the second hotel. Trika has brought up the anchor and we are moving down the coast in case they decide to try and board us.¡±


    ¡°Alright, tell her to use the GPS and try to get as close to this address as possible.¡±


    I proceeded to give her the location of the Duck Tours. ¡°Michael it looks like we are going on foot. I think we need to get out of here quick, that group does not look friendly. I have the sneaking suspicion that they are not the only ones.¡± We head back into the lobby of the hotel and search behind the check in desk and find a set of keys to the hotel shuttle. Transportation has been acquired. We headed out to the front circle and there it was Hotel Miami¡¯s finest mini-bus. ¡°Dibs on driving!¡± I grab the keys from Michael and head in.


    The vehicle starts right up. ¡°Okay, Michael you are the navigator, how do I get to the Duck Boat tours?¡±


    ¡°Why am I the navigator?¡±


    ¡°Well I am driving so you have to be the navigator. Me Han you Chewie.¡±


    ¡°Shut up I am not Chewbacca and I have never been to Miami before.¡±


    ¡°Then off to a gas station for a map we go.¡±


    I drove around for about five minutes dodging stopped cars and taking several detours due to zombies and other things before I saw a gas station that was not swarming with zombies, on fire, and was easy to get too. It seems like people in Miami lost their minds and either rioted just as the apocalypse started or a large number of closet pyromaniacs survived the zombie virus. This is becoming a little ridiculous. I pulled up in what I would like to think was an action hero type slide, but in reality was me being cautious not to break our only vehicle. With silenced pistols Michael and I cleared the area and grabbed some snacks, water and a map.


    A measly two hours later and only God knows how many wrong turns, detours, one spot of fleeing from a zombie hoard, several shots exchanged with looters and two bathroom breaks we finally arrive at the destination. Hey, I am getting older and when I am nervous it makes me need to pee more. No sign of the tender yet, but that¡¯s okay. We need to find the Duck Boat first. In front of me is a small building with a large garage next to it. Michael and I get out of our hotel transportation for the last time and proceed to search the area. A couple of zombies later I am finally looking at my Duck Boat.


    ¡°It¡¯s bigger than I thought.¡±


    ¡°Yeah several people have said that.¡±


    ¡°Is it powerful?¡±


    ¡°One of the strongest in its day. It has seen a lot of places and who knows how many people have sat on it.¡±


    Our little moment over, Michael and I head into the garage to check out our new ride.

 28 - Ferry Magic

    Chapter 28


    Ferry Magic


    It was painted in what I can only describe as eye catching color. Bright yellow like a rubber duck to be exact. Well there would be no sneaking up on anything in this vehicle. You could probably see it from space. It had been modified to have eight rows of benches with space for two people on each side if they were big or three people if they were small or squished together. There was a small gap in the seating in the back that was taken up with two extremely large coolers. That would be handy for snacks and other things. The whole seating area was covered by a canopy that looked like it could be removed if wanted.


    Other than the color this was exactly what I wanted. I can tear out some of the bench seating to give myself room to store and load in cargo. Before I could climb in and check out the inside personally Michael stunned me with his next question.


    ¡°So what do you think are in the other two garage bays?¡±


    Wait what? I had been so focused on the glorious duck boat in front of me I had not realized that when we opened up the garage it did not open up into a large open area like most garages. Instead it was a single vehicle bay. We had seen three doors on the outside of the building. Does that mean that there are two more boats?


    I quickly hurry outside with Michael right behind me. We open up the next bay and see an identical bright yellow duck boat. We just glance at each other. We open up the last garage bay and see instead of a third boat a fully functional shop to maintain them. Jackpot! Now how do I get all of this onto the tender boat? The tender can definitely handle the weight of both of them, but they are too heavy to lift with the crane. What if I partially drive them onto the five-meter water deck? The whole duck boat is about 10 meters long so that really would not work.


    Can I just tow them behind the tender? Yeah that seems to be the best idea. I will have to check in with the captain though to make sure it is actually feasible. With that that I turned my walkie talkie back on and tried to contact Olivia. No response. They are probably still out of range. While it may have seemed like it took us a long time to get here, in reality it was probably pretty quick compared to how roundabout the route will be for the tender boat. I can use this time to load up both vehicles and make sure that Michael and I can drive them.


    Michael and I set a routine and get started with the work. We work for half an hour, loading up any and all spare parts and tools that we find. Next, is a quick break and a five-minute search around the area for incoming zombies that might hear us working. Finally, I use the walkie after every five-minute patrol to check and see if the tender is in range. We continue this pattern for two hours before I get a response from the tender. ¡°Mark can you hear me this is Sally.¡±


    ¡°Yes Sally I can hear you. Are you guys close?¡±


    ¡°Uhh, the captain says we should be there in about 30 minutes to an hour depending on boat traffic and wrecks.¡±


    ¡°Boat traffic?¡±


    ¡°There are a few other people sailing around the area. We had to scare one group off and another just talked to us on the radio. That is what took us so long.¡±


    ¡°Roger that, we will see you soon.¡±


    I guess that does make sense. Miami has a ton of watercraft. Somebody else that survived had to have had the idea to get on a boat for safety. I am not happy to hear that some people are already playing pirate though. I am glad that I loaded up the tender with weapons. Although with ship to ship combat we may need something better than just rifles. Dang it I am going to have to go to a military base aren¡¯t I. I have been avoiding them like the plague for a good reason. Many people probably travelled to their closest military base for safety. Even if they didn¡¯t, a group like ours will not be able to compete with trained military personnel and their access to higher powered weapons.


    I am going to have to pick the military target wisely. It has to be minor enough that it had fewer military personnel, but large enough to have the supplies we want. In a perfect world the base will be abandoned. Let¡¯s face it though, if this was a perfect world we would not be experiencing a zombie apocalypse. Enough of this, I need to focus on the here and now. Michael and I need to finish loading up before they arrive.


    Forty minutes later the tender and the girls pull up to the nearby dock. Michael and I walk down to greet them.Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.


    ¡°I hear the trip was interesting?¡±


    ¡°Pirates and survivors. Not what we were expecting.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll get details later.¡±


    ¡°Captain, can we tow these duck boats behind the tender and make it to the Bahamas?¡±


    ¡°NO!¡±


    Well that was not the answer I was expecting. I finally got the captain to explain in her say as few words as possible way that towing them for a few miles might work. Towing them for a long time would put too much stress on the tender¡¯s frame. Furthermore, with the possibility of waves over four feet high the cables could rip out from the tender causing us not only to lose the duck boats, but irreparably damage the tender. So after much discussion there were two alternatives identified that we could use.


    The first was simple. Find a tug boat and haul them behind. Unlike the tender, a tug boat was designed to haul things and was set up for it. So hauling them should not be a problem. The second alternative was the one that intrigued me. It was an offhand comment from Olivia that sparked the idea. She said something about if it was in New Zealand we could just drive them onto a ferry and motor them across. A car ferry. That was brilliant. Miami was a big port and if I remember right it did have a couple of ferries that operated between it and some of the closer islands. It might be a stretch, but if we could find one then not only could we take the duck boats, but we could load up all sorts of other driving equipment we needed.


    It was decided that we would look for a ferry. Michael and I both requested a co-pilot to help us with the duck boats. I took Olivia and Michael took Sally. Helen would stay with Trika on the tender and be her assistant. The tender would lead the way and we would follow in the duck boats. We made sure to switch over a few more weapons and ammunition to our duck boats in case we ran into the proto pirates they had before. If they face gunfire from three vehicles instead of one, it would probably cause them to leave us alone permanently.


    In a city with a lot of waterways, a duck boat is the only way to travel. Whenever we would get to a large bend or peninsula with houses that Trika had to go around we would just drive up onto the shore and then back down the other side as a little short cut. I could tell that Trika was getting annoyed with us by around the third major turn. ¡°You should have just met us at the ocean!¡±


    A whole sentence. We forced a whole sentence out of her. However, she was right. There was no reason for us to do this leapfrog with her except for protection. We talked about it and decided to go ahead towards the ocean entrance and scan the docks and the port for a ferry. Trika looked relieved and we took off before we started laughing. I do not want to make our primary captain mad. That would just be stupid.


    We kept in contact through the walkies and made quick stops at several abandoned stores for anything that caught our fancy. The only essential pieces of equipment we picked up were easy to find in a big town. We grabbed four 55 gallon drums to hold diesel fuel and took out the two back seats to fit them in. Then we stopped by a giant hardware store and collected four hand pumps, two electric pumps, assorted hoses, and a generator each. These duck boats had a fuel capacity of about 100 gallons, but only made about 5-10 miles per gallon. We must have stopped at twelve different gas stations on the way to the port. Not just to fill up the duck boat and keep it topped off, but to fill up the 55 gallon drums also.


    We soon have a system that works well to get what we need. We pull up to a gas station and park next to the underground storage tanks. Two people clear the zombies, two people use a pry bar to remove the caps of the tanks and set up the pumps and generator. We then pumped fuel for five minutes and cleaned up. Anything longer than five minutes and we started attracting too much attention from locals and zombies. Anything shorter than that and the amount of fuel we pumped really was not worth it. With an electric pump we are getting about 50 gallons per stop. That is 10 gallons a minute which is not bad. That let us fill all the drums and keep the duck boats full of fuel in case we had to make a break for it or skip a few fuel stops.


    Soon enough we could see the docks. There were tons of ships, containers, boats, yachts, and just about any type of floating device you can think of. I mumbled, ¡°How in the heck are we supposed to find a ferry in all of this mess. This is going to take forever.¡±


    ¡°No it won¡¯t, follow the signs to cruise ship port four.¡±


    ¡°Wait you know where one is?¡±


    ¡°I just grabbed a phone book at one of the gas stations and looked it up. Carib Ferry is supposed to be run out of Port Four.¡±


    Olivia is really starting to find a place in my heart. Smart, cute, resourceful, and just a bit sassy. For some reason she seemed to like me too. Wow could this be the famed end of the world romance? I will keep things low-key for now. It really is not an appropriate time for exploring these feelings. I call over to Michael in the other Duck and also let Trika know are destination. Ten minutes later I was looking at it. A massive ferry that could accommodate dozens if not more vehicles. It seemed a little extreme for what I wanted but it should do the job.


    It is going to take forever to clear this thing and make sure it is safe. Not only that I have to figure out how to drive it. I mean Trika taught me the basics on the tender but this thing is at least three times bigger than that. It has four decks and is at least 200 feet long. Is that a semi on it? It is, that mean we can just pull a fuel tanker straight onto the boat and not have to worry as much about fuel. I wonder how many cars and semi¡¯s this thing can actually hold. The more I think about this the more I realize that we are not going to be able to accomplish this without more people. The questions is where should be get them from?

 29 - Bahama Bound

    Chapter 29


    Bahama Bound


    Two hours later, Trika had pulled the tender up and dropped anchor about 50 meters from the ferry. Everyone then started in to clear zombies and anything else from the ferry that we deemed dangerous or unnecessary, that included vehicles we didn¡¯t want. Every deck takes an hour or more to clear. First up is original zombie patrol. Then it¡¯s clear out the vehicles we don¡¯t want and park them out of the way on the dock or farther. Finally, we have to do a secondary sweep and check all hatches, rooms, closets, and any other space we think might possibly hold a zombie. Olivia and Trika both had close calls with small rooms and zombies falling out at them. I change the order up and have everyone partner up to be safe.


    It is after 9 p.m. when we finish. The call to the main group was missed. I really hope they don¡¯t overreact. When we are finished up Trika shows us how to operate the loading ramp and we raise it so nothing else can get on during the night. I do not want to go through this mess again tomorrow. We all wearily returned to the tender for a good night¡¯s sleep, or at least a partial night¡¯s sleep. I don¡¯t feel comfortable and safe here in Miami and choose to implement a watch system. Everyone partners up and takes a three-hour shift. Myself and Olivia are from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m., Helen and Sally are taking 1 a.m. to 4 a.m. and Michael and Trika will take the dawn shift from 4 a.m. to 7 a.m. That should give everyone at least six hours of sleep.


    Tomorrow will be a little more, low key as we accumulate vehicles to transfer in the ferry and also plan and figure out how we are going to even get the ferry to Andros Island. I should probably use my watch time to work on that. Let¡¯s see the ferry is about three times the size of the tender so it probably needs at least three times the crew. We started with Captian Trika, Michael, and myself. So we need nine to ten people to operate the ferry. I think we can cut that in half, because we are just making a one way trip to Andros Island right now. If we use it again in the future we can try and staff it like it should be. So I need five people for the ferry.


    I obviously need a captain and probably a first mate who is familiar with large boat driving. At least one mechanic or engine room person, and one to two general people for watches, maintenance, and general help. Now where can I find these people? Miami is a little chaotic to go around and recruit. I could call down to the main group and see if they have the required people and they could meet us here in Miami. That would delay things a day or two though. Hmm, I just don¡¯t know. I guess I will sleep on it and discuss it with everyone in the morning.


    Olivia and I finish our watch shift with no problems. We go and wake up Helen and Sally around 1 a.m. and let them take over. I say my good nights to the ladies and head to the bunk. I need my sleep and a chance for my brain to slow down and process everything. Soon enough the blissful darkness of dreamland welcomed me.


    While chasing after a mutated squirrel woman named Sylvia who had stolen my lucky charms I started to shake and vibrate. ¡°Mark wake up there is trouble.¡±


    ¡°Huh, what? Where did Sylvia the squirrel lady go.¡±


    ¡°Mark you need to get up. There are two boats that are approaching slowly and Trika is worried and wants everyone up to deal with it.¡±


    Shaking the last of the dream from my head I acknowledge Michael and start to dress and gear up for a confrontation. What dang time is, 6 a.m.? I still could have been asleep for another hour. Maybe I would have caught that squirrel and punished her while eating my luck charms. Wait what was I even thinking. Man my brain is all over the place this morning. I finish dressing and head on up to the main deck.


    Trika meets me there. ¡°Two boats coming in from the North. Look damaged. Moving slow. Be careful.¡±


    Ahh classic Trika speak, is there anything else like it? I make sure I have everything I need weapon wise and then ask Olivia to help find a megaphone. I know I saw one when we were cleaning. Michael remembers where it was and brings it to me.


    ¡°Ahoy, vessels from the north. This is the independent vessel¡­¡± I paused right there. What the heck was the name of the ship? I had just been calling it the tender. It did not have anything painted on it as it was a prototype that was being shown at yacht shows. Trika shouted down, ¡°New Hope.¡±


    ¡°Once again this is the independent vessel New Hope representing the Islands Alliance and South Carolina Association of Freedom First Organization Leading Delegates.¡± I felt good, I had not been able to B.S. like this for a long time. ¡°Please state your intentions before we decide that you are hostile and have to take appropriate measures.¡± Yeah that sounded good. It sounds official and is forceful without being to confrontational. Michael at least is getting a kick out of my improvisation as he is having a hard time keeping a straight face. ¡°What is it Michael?¡± I hissed quietly.


    ¡°You named us S.C.A.F.F.O.L.D. We are representing building equipment.¡±Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    Huh, that was kind of funny, not intentional at all.


    ¡°Keep it together. We can change the name later. We have to look strong in front of this group in case they are itching for a fight. You laughing is not going to help.¡±


    ¡°Sorry.¡±


    ¡°Ahoy, New Hope. This is Captain Bob of the Sea Dancer and the other vessel is the Moonlight Dream. We are looking for a doctor or a nurse. We have wounded on board that need treating.¡±


    I could see Olivia about to volunteer. ¡°Olivia, gather what you need but don¡¯t say anything yet. Let me get a few more details.¡± She nodded her acceptance and departed to collect a medkit.


    ¡°Captain Bob, we do have someone that can help, but I am going to need to know a bit more. How did your wounded get hurt and what types of injuries do they have?¡±


    ¡°We have a couple of broken bones, some internal injuries and a few gunshot wounds. We ran into a pirate vessel called the Sunset Skipper. When she fired on us we ran and fired what few weapons we had back. After a half hour chase she gave up and we are low on supplies, ammo and need help.¡±


    I was about to answer them back when Micahael interrupted me. ¡°Trika says that was the name of the boat that harassed them yesterday.¡± So they were probably telling the truth.   This could work to our advantage.


    ¡°To make things easier and safer for the both of us why don¡¯t you tie up on the west side of the dock here and I will have our captain tie up on the other side. Any walking wounded can come down to the dock first and be looked at then our physician can check on anyone else.¡±


    They agreed and soon enough all three boats were docked a few meters away from the ferry. ¡°Michael you stay back while Olivia and I check out the situation. If you see anything funny warn me if you can. If you can¡¯t then just start shooting.¡±


    ¡°Aye Aye, Sir.¡±


    ¡°Knock it off smart aleck.¡±


    I disembarked the tender with Olivia. I was armed to the teeth, but Olivia was only carrying pistols and lots of medical stuff. Several people were coming onto the dock from the other two ships. There were a couple of pistols and at least one person who stayed on board that had a rifle that I could see, but nothing that would suggest that they were trying to set us up. Olivia moved to the first person who seemed in pain and started her triage and treatment. O person who I could only assume was Captain Bob was approaching me determinedly.


    ¡°Hello Captain, my name is Mark and the young lady helping everyone is Nurse Olivia. Can you tell me a little more about your situation and then I can trade or give you all some supplies or maybe even provide something better?¡± I think it was the offer something better part that stopped him in his tracks.


    ¡°¡¯Yes Mark, I am Captain Bob. I thank you for your assistance.¡±


    Bob¡¯s story slowly came out. It seemed that they had a very similar idea to Gerald and his group at the beginning of the zombie trouble. They however, ran into a problem that Gerald did not have as he was much more rural. It was a case of too many chiefs and not enough Indians. Most of the boats belonged to very wealthy people who were used to ordering others around to do things. They were not mentally or physically prepared to actually work and survive. Their bossing people around and demanding things lasted about a day before someone got sick of it and realized that they did not have to listen to the rich people anymore. In most cases the rebellion against the rich was fairly benign. The captains, workers, staff and assorted others who were being ordered about just left. Some of them only went as far as the nearest unclaimed boat with keys, and some left the docks entirely.


    The big problem came a couple days later. The rich and entitled people were running out of food and started travelling and demanding others supply them with the rations they had scavenged. Almost everyone ignored them and just got on with surviving. However, for some reason one newly liberated captain by the name of Phillip decided something more drastic than ignoring needed to be done. He gathered a bunch of like-minded individuals and then went on a brief rampage. Phillip was smart enough to limit his victims to the rich people and avoid the actual workers. This meant that the competent people left him alone. When Philip realized no one was going to stop him he switched from terrorizing the rich to terrorizing everyone. People paid him off with material goods and then left.


    It took Philip a couple of days to realize his victims were disappearing. It took him another two days to realize that all his wealth was useless. Who cares about diamond necklaces when you are starving. Thus the pirates were born. Philip started raiding all over the port demanding supplies. For some reason he would rather fight humans than risk the zombies and go and collect his own supplies. Last night we approached our two vessels and just started shooting. There was no warning or anything. We returned fire with what weapons we had and then tried to escape. After a brief chase they stopped following us. They either thought we were not worth the trouble or spotted new prey.


    After chatting with Bob I felt confident enough to invite him to our group and explain what we were doing. Bob had nine people on the yacht he was captain of and the other boat had eight. With seventeen more people we could finish loading today probably and be gone by dark. There would no longer be a problem with manpower. This timing was heaven sent. I extended the invitation and both groups accepted. Every person who was ambulatory started collecting the supplies and vehicles I wanted to take down to the islands.


    Now that locals had joined us finding everything turned out to be easy. I took the first group out with one duck boat and Michael stayed behind and started handing out weapons in case the Dread Pirate Philip showed up. In less than six hours our little group had killed over 500 zombies and relocated a huge variety of vehicles. The top layer of the ferry now held 20 different types of diesel trucks, filled with random looted supplies they grabbed on the way back. The second deck was filled with a variety of john deere tractors and implements. The third deck was just a variety of vans, SUVS and minibuses for transportation. The bottom deck was the best for me. One of the people on the moonlight dream knew where a fuel depot was and we brought back three tankers full of diesel, one tanker of gasoline, and somehow crammed in two dump trucks also.


    We had been making a lot of noise and attracting a lot of attention. It was time to finally leave the mainland.

 30 - Im A Better Pirate Than You

    Chapter 30


    I¡¯m A Better Pirate Than You


    Our little convoy of boats now consisted of three. The large ferry, the medium tender, and a smaller personal yacht. The smaller yacht was one claimed from a nearby dock. Since the two boats that the other group came in were damaged it was deemed safer just to grab another one. As we headed out of the docks Sally pointed off to north. ¡°There is a boat approaching.¡± I took a look through the binoculars, SUNSET SKIPPER. Great the pirates that had messed with the other group are now heading in our direction.


    Luckily I had distributed weapons and ammunition to the new group as well as my entire group being armed. I am actually quite curious as to what this Pirate Phillip thinks he can accomplish against three boats full of people. I mean his ¡°pirate yacht¡± was about the size of our tender, but we also had the much larger ferry in our group. Just from the size of the boats I would think that he might skip trying to rob us. Unfortunately, my wisdom was not shared by pirate Phillip.


    ¡°Unidentified vessels this is the United States Coast Guard. You need to stop your engines and prepare to be boarded for inspection of contraband.¡±


    So he was going to try to pretend to be legitimate and then rob us. I guess that might actually work against stupid people, but any normal person should realize that the US Coast Guard does not travel around in yachts. I decided to mess with him and see what would happen.


    ¡°Ahoy U.S. Coast Guard Vessel. You are talking to the sovereign flotilla of the Islands Alliance. According to the treaty of 2006 you have no authority to board our vessels once we have disembarked from the mainland. Any attempt to do so will be seen as an act of war by my nation and we will respond accordingly.¡±


    Let¡¯s see how he is going to play this one.


    ¡°Islands Alliance Vessels, due to the emergency state of the union decree all treaties are null and void until stabilization of the situation has occurred. We suspect that criminals have infiltrated your crew and respectfully request you stop your engines and allow us to inspect your crew and remove any criminals that might be hiding amongst them.¡±


    Oh so now they were doing me a favor. I was starting to get tired of this banter.


    ¡°Hey Phil enough of this. I know you¡¯re a pirate and if you get any closer I will open fire and then loot whatever is left when were finished.¡±


    ¡°If you know who I am you should stop your boat before you regret it later.¡±


    I have had enough of this. I got on the radio to the other boats. ¡°Captain Bob, have your group go to the top level and shoot down at anyone on the deck. The height advantage means your group should be safe. My group will target the cockpit. Captain Jo of the yacht Summer Waves please hold your group in reserve. Don¡¯t stop shooting until you run out. Reload then wait for further instructions.¡±


    The next 30 seconds to a minute were awesome. It was like some low budget action movie. Bullets were flying, glass was breaking on the other ship, and there were definitely wails of pain. I don¡¯t think that the pirates even got a shot off. After our group emptied their magazines a silence fell across the water.


    ¡°Hey Phil, you still alive.¡±


    No response.


    ¡°Is anyone alive over there? Speak up or we will start firing again just to be safe.¡±


    With that statement I finally get a response.


    ¡°Stop shooting please. You killed Phillip. This is Justin, I don¡¯t want to die can we just leave please?¡±


    ¡°Stop your engines and prepare to be boarded.¡±


    I was going to punish the pirates in the only way I knew how, take all their stuff. I have Trika pull the tender up beside the pirate boat and cross over. ¡°I will make this quick and easy. Anyone still alive can get in the dinghy and make for shore. You have ten minutes. Don¡¯t take any weapons or anything else with you. Just get in the boat and leave.¡±


    ¡°You can¡¯t do that. Without weapons we will be k¡­¡­¡­¡± Before that pirate can even finish I shoot him in the chest.


    ¡°My patience is limited. You now have only nine minutes.¡±


    I watch as four people scramble to help two others into the dinghy and leave. Once the boat was clear I signal the yacht Summer Waves to pull up on the other side of the boat. We start looting everything we want and need from the pirate vessel. Thirty minutes later I splash almost ten gallons of fuel all over the deck of the pirate boat. I cross back over to the tender and we all start pulling away. I take a flare gun I stole from the pirate boat and fired it at the pirate boat. WHOOOSH!!!The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    The flames that start are much larger than I thought they would be. I have never really set something large on fire before. It kind of feels good. I mean everyone enjoys a good fire, there is just something primal about it. How many of us though can say they set a really large one, a car, boat, or house and then watched and enjoyed it? I knew that this was probably one of those unique moments in my life. I really could not see a reason for me to set large scale objects on fire in the future. This might be the only time.


    My little flotilla left Miami and the mainland while a pirate ship burned to the waterline behind us. It was beautiful, sad, and memorable all wrapped into one feeling. Who knew when we would be back to the U.S. It could be in weeks, months, or if everything goes well, maybe not for years. This bittersweet moment was interrupted by Michael when he reminded me I needed to call Gerald and report in. I had missed yesterday¡¯s call so they might be worried. I was a few minutes late today, but I should still be able to get a hold of them. I quickly went up to the cockpit and picked up and turned on the satellite phone.


    A few rings later and I indeed have Gerald on the line. ¡°Hi Gerald, sorry about not calling yesterday. Things were a little hectic.¡±


    ¡°I understand completely. If you miss more than two nights in a row though I think your momma will come find you and beat some sense into you.¡±


    ¡°Yes sir, she probably would.¡±


    I start catching Gerald up on everything our group had done and accomplished in the past 48 hours. He seems suitably impressed with our acquisitions, supplies, and new recruits. I let him know that our group should be at Andros Island some time tomorrow afternoon. Once we check out the situation we will decide on how to proceed from that point on.


    Once I was finished with my update Gerald starts in on what the main group has been doing. They reached JAXPORT that morning and the situation was still safe and stable there. They decided that they would spend at least two days there transferring supplies and containers that we had staged for them. He was even cautiously optimistic that they might be able to get another small to medium container ship running to carry even more supplies. He estimates that they should be down to Andros Island with the rest of the group in no more than four to five days.


    I also receive the numbers of survivors and housing needs from Gerald so we can try and have some things ready when they arrive. The main group now has 45 single males, 52 single females, 21 intact families, and 12 orphans, for a total of 200 people. Including our new friends that we helped from the pirate attack my group has 8 males, 14 females, and 6 children. I really don¡¯t know how many of our group is family yet. So I am going to need housing for just over 200 people. There are two options here and I think I am going to have to go with one I have been avoiding.


    I could find individual housing, possibly a motel, and definitely clean out some apartments. However, I think the safest option would be to have everybody in a centrally located area. I am aiming to take over the military base on the island. Andros Island is home to AUTEC which deals with testing and evaluation of several types of technology for the navy and other branches of military. There is a small base on the island and it would provide all of the housing and other materials needed for our group to establish themselves. I have been avoiding military bases due to the fact that people on them if they survived would be better trained than my rag tag group and may not be friendly.


    With us needing housing and a central place to establish ourselves though the AUTEC base is ready made. If I remember from my research it has basic facilities, a gym, housing, and a variety of other things to help with not only starting a new life but keeping people entertained. Being a military base it should be on its own power grid and have back-up generators for essential areas. This should allow us to reestablish power quickly and have some of the comfort of the mainland. The base is also located on Fresh Creek, which is the largest fresh water source on the island.


    Even if it is a small base it should have an armory which means we should be able to upgrade some of our weaponry and thus protect ourselves better also. It might even have other equipment that we can use. We should easily have food for six months for the 200 people we have and can raid ports and other areas for more. So if we can get a crop in within a month we should be set. If we slowly spread out from the base, we should also be able to contact any locals that survived and invite them into a mutual defense pact. I don¡¯t want to come across as imperialistic and just assume that they will agree to what we need, but if we show them the benefits of working together they should come around. It would be nice to have local knowledge of the area.


    Alright, I need to rank my priorities.


    <ol>


    <li>In bad weather the average human can only survive 30 minutes without shelter. That usually refers to cold or blistering heat. We will be in the mild tropics, but hurricanes and other weather phenomena do come through the area.</li>


    <li>Clean Fresh Water. A human on average can only survive three days without water. There should be enough supplies of fresh water on the island to support thousands of people let alone the few hundred we will have. Plumbing and sanitation will have to be monitored so as not to mess up our water supply. In the event of a worse case scenario we can fall back on the water makers that the various ships have installed until we locate a new source of fresh water.</li>


    <li>A human can last up to three weeks without food. They may not be in good shape, but they can survive. Between the two groups and every container we have loaded we should be covered for at least six months. I think we will have more than that. The variety might stink, but we should have the calories to get us through the first crop. If we go and raid more long lasting food from stores, and ports in the surrounding area we could realistically survive years on just canned and preserved food before we needed to source a local supply of fresh food.</li>


    <li>Entertainment and Government. I put these together just because I don¡¯t know which is more important. We are trucking along just fine for now with responsibility split between groups, but I think the sooner we can get a system of rules and government in place the better. As for entertainment. If there is not some sort of entertainment or release than people start to get weird. It does not have to be complicated or dependent on technology. It could even be as simple as a day off to mingle and have a barbeque and talk to others. People just need social interaction and release.</li>


    </ol>


    That should take care of everything in the near future. All that is left is the actual landing on Andros Island.

 31 - Land Ho

    Chapter 31


    Land Ho


    Our little flotilla of ships came into sight of Andros island early the next morning.  The western side of the island is undeveloped and we are going to have to sail around to the east to find docking facilities.  I am hoping that we can actually just sail right into the AUTEC facility and up Fresh Creek and dock at the base.  We will find out soon.  It is actually a large relief to see the goal of all that I have been planning right in front of me.  As we sail around the island I watch for areas that might be opportunities or trouble spots for our group.  Things such as resorts which may give us housing, but also may hide trapped zombies, rough terrain, and any place large enough to hide and protect zombies.


    I am also pondering what our opening move should be.  I think it would be a mistake just to land with guns blazing and a hope for the best kind of attitude.  I have always favored planning and a more meticulous approach.  I think our best bet in this situation is to clear the beaches and announce our presence at the same time.  The easiest part of that will be that I don¡¯t have to translate.  One of the benefit of having the Bahamas as my goal is that the official language is English.  Yes many locals speak a patois of English and other languages, but since English is the official language anyone still alive should be able to communicate effectively with us.


    To clear the beaches, I think we will fall back onto our discovery of loud noises and music to draw close zombies to the dock and drown strategy.  If we do this at every set of docks we come across until we get to the AUTEC base then we should be able to lower the risk of zombies on the island by a significant number.  With only 8,000 people on the last census plus say a generous 1,000 tourists and people on the base we should not see a large amount of zombies.  The numbers I saw on t.v. and have experienced in real life suggest that only 10 ¨C 20% of the population successfully turns into the zombies.  About 60-70% of those infected with the original virus just die.  This leaves anywhere from a 10-30% survivor rate, which would be further reduced as zombies chowed down.


    Realistically we should see between 700 and a thousand zombies and probably no more than 100 to 200 survivors.  Our little three boat flotilla has killed more zombies than that.  When the main group gets here we should theoretically outnumber any survivors if the infection and conversion rates were the same as the United States.  It is that last part that worries me.  I know that there can be a lot of external influences on diseases and there spread and lethality.  So what was devastating in one area could have been mild in another.  The news we received worldwide said that everywhere was suffering like we were or even worse, but in reality if one group was doing well would they really tell someone?


    If I were in charge of a country and we somehow got an advantage over a killer disease that was devastating the rest of the world I would lie and report that we had trouble too.  The last thing I would want is to have the rest of the world know that there is a sanctuary.  We would be overwhelmed by survivors in that scenario.  It would be better to lie about it and survive and then help the rest of the world recover than to be overwhelmed and go down with everyone else.


    June 13<sup>th</sup> 11 a.m. was the start of the Island Alliance clearing of Andros Island.  This day in the future would be equal to the Fourth of July in what used to be America.  We pull up to a set of fishing docks first and implement the noise reduction of zombie¡¯s plan.  I ask someone from each boat to try and get a rough estimate of how many zombies we killed at each area so we could get an overall idea of infection and spread in the Bahamas.  There were only 25 zombies at the fishing dock.  Ten minutes of music and two minutes of gunfire and they were cleaned out.  Onto the next set of piers.


    The next set of piers was also a fishing village.  We cleared out a few less here than at the first stop.  After that though we hit the commercial and main docks of Andros town.  Our stop here took much longer.  The population here before the zombie plague was over 2,000 people.  The number of zombies here reflected it.  We were able to attract almost 300 zombies to the docks and eliminate them with the noise plan.  This was a higher amount of zombies than I expected.  The 10-20% zombie revival should mean that there is only around 200 zombies at most.  Either the island had a higher conversion rate or perhaps people came to the main town after they got sick.  That might have inflated the numbers artificially.


    Whatever the cause for the abnormally large number of zombies we were still able to clear the area in less than two hours and saw that there was a small fuel tanker and two smaller container ships docked in the port along with several indeterminate boats of smaller size.  They could prove useful in the future.  We need to secure any and all sea craft for use as soon as possible.  It would be a tragedy to lose a vessel to neglect that we might need later.  The minimal amount of time to secure them against random loss is worth the investment in time.


    When we had finished clearing out the commercial and main docks of Andros town there were a few people who wanted to land and explore.  I explained my plan to the whole group at this point and pointed out the advantages of the AUTEC base.  The best thing about the zombie apocalypse is that it has weeded out the dumb people.  Everyone left is able to reason and plan.  If they were not capable of this, they would not have survived to this point.  I know that is an overgeneralization but it works in the short term.  Basically everyone agreed and we headed on to the docking points at the AUTEC base a few kilometers down the coast.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.


    There it was.  The goal I have been working towards for the last few weeks.  This military base would be the start of our new society.  Who knows, in the future I might even become famous and have a statue erected for my work and planning?  Better yet they could name a high school after me.  Enough daydreaming, it is time for action.  I make sure that we are ready and start the now familiar process of loud music zombie attraction and eradication plan.


    Music started blaring and zombies started approaching.  Too many zombies.  There should not be this many zombies here, what is going on?  First there was an abnormal amount of zombies in Andros town.  Now there are too many zombies here.  What exactly happened on this island?  There are at least three times the normal zombies here than the infection rates predict.  Was the infection milder here which resulted in more zombies surviving the initial sickness or is there something else going on?  My biggest worry is that it is a hardier mutation of the virus and that my surviving group could still get sick.


    I suppose that there is nothing that can be done about it until after we clear the zombies and search for answers.  Time to start the zombie shoot.  Three hours later, and thousands of rounds of ammunition we have killed over 2,000 zombies.  The normal infection rate that I knew of meant that there should have only been 800 to a 1,000 zombies total on the entire island.  The ones that we have killed here at the AUTEC base along with the stops that we have made add up to over 2,500 zombies.  Either Andros island got a sever bump in population before or during the initial infection or the survival rate of zombies is higher here on the island.  Either one is a little worrying.  I hope that we can find some survivors to help clarify the situation.


    Now that the zombies have been cleared out and dealt with we can approach and land the ships and start exploring and claiming the island.  I signal to the other ships that we will be the first to land and secure the area.  I make sure that my group is entirely kitted out with everything that we need.  This initial landing will consist of myself, Michael, and Olivia only.  I figure the three of us have worked enough together that we can stay safe and quickly scope out the situation in all the nearby buildings.  I want to have at least a 400 to 600 meter cleared area before I let the others off the boats.  That way if anything happens there should be enough time for them to re-board and escape if necessary.


    My little group landed our dinghy about 200 meters from the dock.  The main reason for our landing so far away was to avoid all of the bodies that were left on the dock from our extermination of the zombies.  It looked like a charnel house.  Once we tied up I signaled Michael and Olivia to follow me.  We were travelling in a standard V formation.  I was leading and I had each of them about 2 meters back on either side of me.  I decided to start on the right hand side of the base and work my way around in a large semi-circle clearing buildings and areas as we went along.  When we came back to the dock we would signal the others that it was safe to land.


    Our little sweep was going well.  We had cleared several buildings so far and had only found two more zombies which were trapped inside buildings and thus could not get out when the music was played earlier.  As we approached the fifth building I noticed that it seemed different.  I couldn¡¯t quite put my finger on what was different though.


    ¡°Michael, Olivia, something is up with the building in front of us.  It seems different than other buildings, but I don¡¯t know why.  Can either of you spot something wrong before we try to enter?¡±, I said.


    After a couple of minutes Michael spoke up, ¡°It is too clean.  Someone has been taking care of it, or at least they were taking care of it longer than the other buildings.¡±


    That was it.  It was hard to spot actually.  There was enough trash and other things around that it was hard to actually spot at first but Michael was right.  There were signs all around that this building was taken care of more recently than the others.  Less mold on archways, fewer pieces of trash, etc.  If it was just one of those things it could be a coincidence, but having more than one took it from the realm of coincidence into the realm of survivors.


    ¡°Let¡¯s be very careful here.  There is a possibility of survivors, we have all had both good and bad experiences with survivors.  We can hope for the best, but I want us all to be prepared for the worst.  Lock and Load.¡±


    I decided to be direct but smart about this.  I walked up to the door and stood to the side in case someone fired through it, and then I knocked.


    ¡°Hello is anyone still alive in there.  My group and I are survivors from the mainland and are willing to help anyone that needs it.  We will be coming in no matter what in thirty seconds if we don¡¯t hear a response.¡±


    I heard some shuffling inside and then a young voice called out, ¡°Are you army men like Uncle Billy?¡±


    ¡°No sweetie, we are not, is there an adult there we could talk too?¡±


    ¡°No sir, Aunt Maddie is sick in bed and Uncle Billy went to get her some medicine and has not come back yet.  I am not supposed to open the door for anyone else.¡±


    ¡°Well how about this, I have a friend here who is named is Olivia.  She is an honest to goodness Nurse.  If my other friend Michael and I go away will you let her come in and help your Aunt Maddie?¡±


    ¡°Okay, but don¡¯t tell Uncle Billy.¡±


    ¡°Of course not.  You can watch me and my friend walk away from the window and then you can let Nurse Olivia in to help you okay?¡±


    ¡°Yes sir.¡±

 32 - First Bahama Contact

    Chapter 32


    First Bahama Contact


    I saw the blinds on the right hand side window move and Michael and I moved back like I promised. The blinds fell back down and after a short wait the front door opened. An adorable but dirty young lady, somewhere between six and ten years old if I had to guess, could be seen in the doorway. Olivia said something to her and the girl replied and then started crying and hugging Olivia. I took this a good sign.


    ¡°Mark and Michael do you want to meet my new friend?


    ¡°Of course we do.¡± I answered for the both of us.


    Michael and I walked slowly towards Olivia and the young girl, who by now was hiding shyly behind her legs.


    ¡°Mark and Michael I would like to introduce you to Amanda. Her friends call her Mandy. Mandy these two are some of my bestest friends.¡±


    ¡°Hello.¡± Said a very shy girl still hiding behind Olivia.


    ¡°Mandy I need you to tell Mark and Michael where your Uncle Billy went so they can go look for him while the two of us take care of your Aunt Maddie. Can you do that for me?¡±


    ¡°Sure Miss Olivia. Uncle Billy said he was going to the base doctor to get medicine. He left this morning.¡±


    ¡°Very good Mandy. Now run along boys. It is time for us girls to get to work. By the way Mandy what is your favorite vegetable.¡±


    ¡°I like pickles.¡±


    ¡°Alright, not really a vegetable but it will work. When you two get back our super secret password to let you in to the house will be Pickles.¡±


    I saluted Olivia and said with a straight face. ¡°Yes ma¡¯am, password is pickles. Permission to go explore and find Uncle Billy.¡±


    The little giggle that came from Mandy was worth me looking like a fool.


    ¡°Oh quit joking around and go already.¡±


    Michael and I both looked at each other and without any words being said we smartly turned and put our rifles on our shoulders and started marching off.


    ¡°Hup two three four, Hup two three four.¡±


    As we marched away a little voice could be heard ¡°Your friends are silly Nurse Olivia.¡± ¡°I know but they are also lots of fun. Now let¡¯s go check on your Aunt Maddie.¡±


    ¡°Psst Mark, where are we headed?¡±


    ¡°Well I have a sneaky suspicion that the large building in the distance with a big red medical cross on it is the base hospital. We are going to head over there and look for Uncle Billy while trying to stay safe. We clear out anything between here and there and then head on back.¡±


    ¡°Sounds like a plan.¡±


    Our little duo did precisely that. I estimated that the hospital was close to 800 meters away. As we walk towards the building we stop and kill around six more zombies that are ¡°stuck¡± and were not able to get to the dock. Four of them were behind chain link fences. They seemed to be struggling to get out of a corner.


    They would travel along the fence about ten meters in one direction and realize that they were getting farther away from the noise that was attracting them, which happened to be us, and then return the way they came until they reached the corner of the fence and then travel about five to ten meters the other way. When they realized once again they were getting farther away they would turn back around again. This lack of problem solving actually made me feel pretty good. It seems that either these zombies were dumber than I thought or maybe it was just little group of four.


    Michael and I quickly put them down with silenced head shots and continue on. The next two zombies we ran into were actually caught in concertina wire. They would die on their own soon from blood loss. The closer we got to them the more they would struggle. The more they struggled the greater the concertina wire damaged them and cut them up. We put the two struggling zombies out of their misery and move on. While the barb wire was an effective deterrent to the zombies I foresaw a problem in the near future when we would have to try and remove the bodies from the same wire to deal with the stink and keep disease vectors low. So while it was effective it was also flawed for long term use.


    We approach the hospital and see several relatively fresh corpses and a multitude of spent brass. These definitely could have come from Uncle Billy. Let¡¯s see add up the number of corpses and we get 12. Alright Uncle Billy is a little bit of a Badass. That means that there is an actual chance of him being alive. Also we are going to have to be careful that he doesn¡¯t shoot us first and ask questions later.Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.


    ¡°Michael we need to step up our search and be careful. I don¡¯t want to have survived this whole time and then get shot by mistake.¡±


    ¡°I understand. Should we just call out? I mean we have cleared a huge portion of zombies off this base. Any that we still attract y shouting we should be able to handle. That will give this Billy guy a heads up and we should be safer.¡±


    ¡°Not a bad idea. Let¡¯s give it a try.¡±


    As we approach the entrance to the hospital we both begin to call out. Billy, we are looking for Billy. Don¡¯t shoot we just want to help. We continue this for about five minutes as we slowly clear the bottom floor of the hospital. Soon enough we actually hear a reply.


    ¡°In here. I am trapped in here.¡±


    I rush over the door that the voice is coming from. I line up on one side of the door and Michael lines up across from me.


    ¡°Billy is that you?¡±


    ¡°I assume you met Maddie and Mandy. They are the only ones who call me Billy. I am trapped under a shelf and don¡¯t have enough strength to lift it myself.¡±


    I cautiously open the door and peer inside. It looks just like Billy said. There is one person moving, but they are trapped and being crushed under several shelves of medical supplies.


    ¡°What on earth happened here?¡±


    I signal Michael that everything is okay and start to move things with his help off of the trapped man underneath.


    ¡°Man am I glad to meet the two of you. I was afraid this was the end of me and what a stupid way to go. Are Maddie and Mandy ok?¡±


    ¡°We left our nurse with them so they should be fine. We got the envious job of heading out to look for you. By the way my name is Mark and this is Michael.¡±


    ¡°Like I said before I am glad to meet you both.¡±


    As we were clearing the debris to free him Billy told us his story and gave us a little background on the situation of Andros Island. It seems that since there was a decent airport on the base that Andros Island became a secondary evacuation point for several of the nearby islands. This swelled the population and caused things to spiral out of control once more and more people started to turn into zombies from the virus. It seemed that for some reason that more people survived the transition into zombiehood here in the islands than on the mainland. Where we had between two or three for every ten people turn into a zombie, the island was experience a rate of four or five conversions out of every ten people. Well that explained the abnormal numbers of zombies we had been seeing.


    Billy was an honest to goodness STO, Special Tactics Officer. He was here visiting his brother and his family along with his girlfriend Maddie. They were on a little mini vacation from his base in Florida and had gotten trapped here on the island during the mess. Mandy¡¯s folks did not survive virus, but the little girl herself was an immune. Both Maddie and Billy came down with a mild version but were also okay. Maddie however had cut her leg deeply a few days ago scavenging for supplies and the resultant injury had become infected. Billy had made his way to the hospital today for antibiotics and anything else that they might need from the medical supplies.


    After dealing with the zombies outside he had made his way into the hospital where unfortunately his gun jammed. Ducking into this supply room he tried to fortify the door before trying to clear the jammed bullet. Murphy had come calling at that point and the set of shelves and supplies had come crashing down. He was pretty sure they knocked him out for a while, because the next thing he remembers after falling to the floor with tons of supplies on him was zombies pounding on the door. He figured he was a goner when suddenly the zombies left. The strangest thing was he swore he could hear music playing as they left and for a good thirty minutes after that.


    Michael and I laughed at that point and filled him in on our dock clearing strategy with noise and rifles. He was relieved that the music he heard was not the result of head trauma. It was at this point of his story that we finally moved enough things to get him free from the debris. Billy quickly grabbed his rifle and cleared the offending jammed round. The three of us then continued on his original mission and started towards the pharmacy to pick up and gather supplies. Once we reached the pharmacy it dawned on me that none of us knew what exactly Maddie needed other than some antibiotics for an infection.


    I pulled out the walkie-talkie and contacted Olivia for advice.


    ¡°Bring some amoxicillin and some Keflex just in case. If possible I would also like you to bring lots of fresh bandages, gloves, and even an IV and saline solution if you can find it. Maddie is very dehydrated.¡±


    ¡°All right, we should be back in a little less than half an hour. Make sure that cute girl is ready to open the door when she hears the password.¡±


    ¡°Gentleman, why don¡¯t we finish our little shopping trip and then escort Billy back home. We still need to finish clearing some buildings so we can bring everyone else onto the base in relative safety.¡±


    We gathered up the medical shopping list and just over twenty minutes later we arrive back at the house that the girls were in. I solemnly walk up to the door and knock three times very loudly.


    I could hear a little giggle from inside. ¡°What¡¯s the secret password?¡±


    ¡°The secret password is PICKLES.¡±


    ¡°You remembered.¡±


    With that announcement the door opened and a little angel flung herself at her Uncle.


    ¡°Uncle Billy you are ok. I was so worried. I met a real nurse and she helped Aunt Maddie, and I found out I am a secret princess of the island, and I made the password pickles, and ¡­.¡±


    Once she started this little girl just did not stop. What happened to the shy little girl who was so quiet and adorable just an hour ago? This chatterbox seemed like a completely different person. Billy was obviously used to this though as he weathered her onslaught of storytelling with appropriate comments and somehow managed to invite us in at the same time.


    Once inside I saw Olivia standing behind a couch where a tired and weary looking lady in her twenties was lying down. This must be Aunt Maddie. Introductions were soon given and I soon had to explain to an almost crying little girl that we would be back very soon, but we had to leave right now to finish our job. She stopped tearing up when I explained that there were even more people coming and soon she would have some friends her own age to play with. After she heard this that little girls basically pushed the three of us out the door and told us to hurry, because she needed new friends so we needed to be fast okay?

 33 - Consolidation

    Chapter 33


    Consolidation


    After leaving the little family and promising Mandy that we would hurry the three of us continue on our sweep of the base. After clearing three more buildings Michael brought up a point that I had totally ignored. How are we going to remember which buildings we have already done if we need to switch out or take a break. Okay, that is kind of important. After a quick brainstorming session, we just decided to find some spray paint and paint an X on any door that we had personally cleared. We went back and tagged the buildings we had already checked and then continued our sweep until almost four p.m.


    I decided that we had done enough for today and had enough buildings cleared that if anyone from the boats wanted to sleep on land then they would be able too. We would finish sweeping the base with more groups tomorrow. We start heading back towards our little flotilla and make a quick stop by Bill and Maddie¡¯s house to let them know what we are doing and then it was back to the boat.


    As soon as we reach the boat dock we are met by several people all shouting questions at once.


    ¡°Everyone calm down. I will answer everyone¡¯s questions to the best of my ability.¡±


    After the group had calmed down I start explaining what we know.


    ¡°My group has tagged every building that we have cleared with a spray paint X. I personally recommend that you stay on the boats for one more night just to be safe. However, you are all adults you can make your own decisions. If you decide to spend tonight on land, please stay in the cleared area. We cannot guarantee your safety in the buildings currently so you will want to check out a weapon just in case.¡±


    The murmuring started up again and I saw some enterprising individuals start to leave from the back of the group.


    ¡°Before any one leaves there is a couple of more points I need to raise. First we have made contact with at least one surviving family. There may be others, so be careful. Sometimes people are more dangerous than zombies as many of you know from dealing with the Miami pirates. Next, I don¡¯t want anyone to start looting. We will be finishing the sweep of the base and fortifying the position tomorrow. We need everyone to help out in some capacity. For the foreseeable future we are going to be distributing work and supplies communally until we are sure of the safety of the island and the situation normalizes. If you don¡¯t like this you are more than welcome to leave the group. However, this island and the local group have been claimed by my group. You will need to travel somewhere else.¡±


    This last statement caused some grumbling and someone finally had the nerve to call out.


    ¡°Why do you get to decide what gets done? Who put you in charge?¡±


    I had been expecting this for a while and had my answer ready.


    ¡°First off this was my plan and I organized the whole thing. No one here was forced to join. If you don¡¯t like me being in charge or what I am doing I am willing to listen to constructive criticism and arguments. I have family following and another group that will be here in the next few days. If all you want is to argue or take over than you can just leave. I plan on appointing people that are experienced in specific areas to run certain aspects of our new little colony. After a certain amount of time which has not yet been decided we will come up with a common set of rules and then vote on them and hold elections for important areas of responsibility. However, that is far in the future. Right now instead of complaining you should be thinking about how you can help us set up the greatest, most well defended area ever. If you are not 100% behind my plan, I personally or someone I trust will get rid of you. I don¡¯t mean kill I mean exile from the island. I and the other people who are depending on me do not have the time to deal with petty crap like this. I want my family and friends safe. That is my overriding goal and ambition at this point and nothing else.¡±


    It seems my speech has reached most if not all of those that came with us. One of the good points of this apocalypse is that it has reduced the number of idiots. If you are not able to recognize what is good for you then that means that you probably did not survive. There will always be dissenters and those that think that they can do better. That is fine with me. If they follow the rules and oust me legally according to what we set up I will be fine with it. I really don¡¯t like the responsibility that I am taking on. I would much rather just be in charge of myself and a small group than have to try and get everyone to get along.


    After all my talking only a few hard headed people spent the night on shore. I set the watch and crashed out as soon as reached my cabin. Tomorrow was going to be a long and difficult day. I woke up well rested and a little bit anxious. Today will decide a lot of what is going to happen in the future and I need to get a jump on everything.This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.


    I head down to the galley and grab a quick breakfast and notice that everyone else is already up. They must be as anxious as me to get this right.


    ¡°Good morning all. Is everyone ready to start securing our future home?¡±


    ¡°Yes we are Mark. We were discussing it before you came in. What do you think we should concentrate on first?¡±


    ¡°Well I have been thinking about this for a while. With our increased numbers from those that joined us in Miami I think we should split into three main groups today. The first group will be responsible for finishing clearing and securing the AUTEC base and making sure all defenses are sound. The second group will be the supply group. They will be responsible for two major areas. First is to start unloading the supplies we brought and organizing a distribution area. Next is the clean-up of the corpses and the base in general. The last thing I want is somebody who has survived this long to get sick from decaying corpses or other mundane things like that. The final group which I think of as the command group will be securing supplies on land and scouting the general vicinity outside the base to get an overall idea what is happening on the island.¡±


    No one had any objection to my plans and we left the captain on the boat to help with the supply group while the rest joined me on shore. Michael and Olivia will join my command group while Helen and Sally will be in charge of the land portion of unloading and distribution of supplies. I am hoping that Captain Bob will have at least six to nine people that would be willing to do the house to house clearing of the base. Everyone else will be helping with supplies and unloading.


    Once I have a chance to talk to everyone else from the rest of the boats we break into the groups that I designate and get started on are individual tasks. First task for my command group is to go and see how Billy, Maddie and Mandy are doing. This would also be my information gathering session. I needed to get map of the base, figure out how to get into the weapons storage, and any local knowledge that I could get from the little family group would also be great. I was not expecting much local knowledge because Billy and Maddie were just visiting, but who knows, they may visited before and know things that I never would.


    My little group arrives at the house soon enough. I knock on the door and Billy answers.


    ¡°I have been expecting you.¡±


    ¡°I do have a few questions that I hope you can help me with.¡±


    ¡°I figured as much. Come on in. Miss Olivia if you would check Maddie again just to make sure things are going ok and then help her with my crazy niece I would appreciate it.¡±


    Olivia headed off down the hall. Her time here yesterday obviously allowed her to become familiar with the house and where she needed to go. Billy led myself and Michael into the living room and we sat on the couch.


    ¡°First off Billy, I have a group of people I brought here from the mainland and I am expecting another set in the next day or two. There is no organized government anymore and I had this plan that securing an island against the zombies is a more practical and safe idea than doing the same thing on the mainland. I chose this island for several reasons, including fresh water and the military base here. That brings us to what I need to ask you about.¡±


    ¡°Let me guess you need my help to find and secure the armory and weapons.¡±


    ¡°You got it in one. I will also welcome you to join our group and help out, or if you are so inclined to leave to help you in securing a safe mode of transportation to do so.¡±


    ¡°Can you please explain your groups short and long term goals and then I will talk to Maddie and make a decision. Regardless of what we decide as long as I get a share of the weapons to protect my family I will gladly take you to the armory and help you get inside.¡±


    The next half hour was spent giving Billy the details of what I envisioned. Olivia joined us after a few minutes and Billy questioned both her and Michael about our adventures. After getting the information he wanted he left to go say goodbye to Maddie and Mandy and then came back prepared to lead us to the armory and hopefully a supply of weapons that would defend us and allow us to expand as necessary in the next few years.


    As we walked through the base we spotted and stopped to talk to three different clearance groups. They had taken our method of clearing and then spray painting an X on the building to heart and were doing a fine job of cleaning up the remnants of zombies on the base. It seems that between the three groups they had only seen four wandering zombies and triple that amount caught in buildings and unable to get out. It seems that the zombie numbers on the base were definitely manageable and I high hopes that the last few would be cleared out today. We would of course still check on a regular basis to prevent any accidents, but the thought of being somewhere safe where we could go outside and not be worried about being eaten was rather appealing.


    Another fifteen minutes of walking and my group was standing in front of a series of Quonset huts covered in earth.


    ¡°This is a standard set of buildings for a minor overseas base armory. If my past experience is valid we should find that the minor things such as rifles, pistols and ammunition will be behind locked doors. However, the lock should be easy enough to just cut through. If there are more serious types of weapons such as explosives they will be behind doors that we will need a plasma cutter to get through.¡±


    ¡°Well Billy as much as I want to play with explosives, I think that rifles, pistols, and ammunition will take care of our immediate needs. In fact, we probably have enough of each of those now to clear and defend the island for 6 months to a year at least. I just want to have control over supplies that could be misused.¡±


    ¡°Understood.¡±

 34 - Setting Up The Base

    Chapter 34


    Setting Up The Base


    We approached the first Quonset hut and saw that there was a large padlock on the shut doors. I brought out my trusty axe-bar. I am hoping that I can pry it open and not have to admit to anyone else that I forgot to bring a pair of bolt cutters. I feel kind of ridiculous. I am supposed to be the prepared one. The one with the answers and the plan and I forget something as simple as bolt cutters. Things are becoming more and more complicated though. I have discovered that planning is much easier than doing.


    Real life people have a tendency to mess up my nice neat plans. It is quite frustrating. I struggle to pry open the lock for about thirty seconds before Michael speaks up.


    ¡°Mark maybe you could let me try the bolt cutters I brought. It might go faster.¡±


    ¡°Why you little. Why on earth did you let me struggle so long before saying something?¡±


    ¡°Well to tell the truth it was funny. I wasn¡¯t sure what was going to break first, the lock or you so I decided to wait and see.¡±


    ¡°You know I will get even for this, but until then wipe off that smug grin and open this thing.¡±


    ¡°Aye Aye, SIR!¡±


    ¡°Just do it.¡±


    Michael took his bolt cutters and snipped the lock off the door. Billy grabbed the door and flung it open and stepped back. We all looked at him like he was crazy.


    ¡°What, I would rather be safe than sorry. For all I know someone locked an infected person in here and they turned into a zombie.¡±


    ¡°You know as silly as that sounds that is actually a good piece of advice. I think a lot of us are becoming a little complacent, myself included. We need to treat every situation at least for a few more weeks as deadly. No one wants to be the person who survived the zombie apocalypse and then died because of doing something stupid.¡±


    I see everyone nodding their heads at this statement.


    ¡°Alright now that I have finished my little speech, let¡¯s see what goodies are behind door number one.¡±


    We entered into the hut and turned on flashlights. Note to self, get generators fueled and running as soon as possible. Solar panels and other forms of power generation soon after that. I miss the convenience of electricity all ready. I was a little spoiled on the boat. It has generators and I can take hot showers and everything. Second note to self, stay on boat until I get electricity taken care of.


    As I look around I see several crates of weapons, or at least what I assume are weapons from their labels. M4¡¯s, 1911 pistols, shotguns, even some old M16¡¯s. I thought those had been phased out of the military? Probably just keep some on hand just in case. It does not really matter. There must be hundreds of unused and unopened weapons in this hut alone.


    ¡°Billy is this a normal amount of weapons for a base? I mean I am grateful that there are this many here, but I thought this was a small base with only a few hundred soldiers.¡±


    ¡°It is a small base. Standard protocol on bases outside the U.S. in friendly territory is to have at least one replacement for each soldier just in case. Often times they have more than that to help out transient soldiers or to help with resupply. The military has always had excess supplies of material. The only problem they have had is getting the material they do have to where it needs to go.¡±


    Alright, one little mystery solved.


    ¡°So if there are this many weapons than the ammunition?¡±


    ¡°In the other huts. Should be at least 1,000 rounds per weapon stored and for a transient base like this probably more as people will come through and need to recertify on their way to or from another area.¡±


    Oh this is grand. I did not expect this much. There is probably enough weaponry stored on this base to invade whatever is left of the Caribbean let alone protect this island. This will seriously help out my plans and speed things way up. I mean we will still have to go and secure as many weapons and as much ammunition as we can just to be safe, but the priority of it just went down on the list. We can focus now on things that will help us set up and keep a high standard of living and technology.This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    Hmm, technology. Why is that percolating in my brain right now? Something to do with islands or the Caribbean? No that¡¯s not it. Ah now I remember. I was reading articles on those Google mystery barges that people think are floating data centers. There was one in California and one of the coast of Maine. I guess if we wanted to we could go and see if they are data centers. If they are then hauling them back here would ensure the capacity to keep technology running for a while. In fact, if they actually are in use than bringing them would potentially give us a limited internet and access to whatever useful data is stored already in their servers. Another long term plan to bring up later.


    Enough scatterbrain thinking. I signal everyone to leave the building and then I place the broken lock back on the door to prevent it from swinging open in the wind. My group proceeds to check three other armory huts at random just to make sure. We find one ammunition hut, one explosives hut, and one hut full of random large gun parts that Billy thinks are decommissioned or storage for vehicle and boat mounted weapons. The explosives hut is especially eye opening and a little bit scary for me. It is the last inspected hut.


    ¡°Ok we are stopping here. I want Michael and Billy to run back to the boat or anywhere else close by and get some replacement locks for this hut and the others. We were not well prepared for this. I do not want this hut to stay unlocked. That is just asking for a bad accident.¡±


    After seeing what was inside those two take off at a jog to go and find a replacement lock. Inside this hut were dozens if not more crates of different types of grenades, antitank rockets and what looked to be anti-aircraft rockets. Just one of those can and would cause a nightmare¡¯s worth of problems right now. I know that they have their uses, but frankly if I need to use a rocket, then I probably should not be in that situation.


    After about a 30 minute wait I see Michael and Billy approaching in the distance. Once they arrive we lock up the explosives hut and back track and lock the other huts up as well. We have enough weapons at the moment. We can distribute or figure out the situation with these new ones later. With the current exploration done I lead my little group to help with the clearing of the base. I also want to know what needs to be done to make sure that it is blocked off and nothing new can get in.


    Three hours later my squad has put down several zombies which were on the far side of the chain link fence surrounding the base. Luckily it looks like that the fence is strong enough to keep them back for now. We just need to block off the three gates that lead onto the base from the rest of the island. I think that will be a project for tomorrow morning. With that done and another round of clearing zombies from buildings we should be ready for the influx of new residents coming from South Carolina.


    With some time away and a chance to cool down I have started missing momma and my daughter. I even miss my brother and sister, which means that I really have been a little stubborn. I do think that I will distance myself from Andros Island in the future just to make things easier on myself. I can always come back and visit. However, seeing those other people on a daily basis will probably drive me insane.


    My little group drops Billy off at home and says our goodbyes to Maddie and Mandy and then proceed to the docks where our flotilla is. I see that several tents have been set up on the docks and supplies and vehicles have started to be unloaded. As I get closer the captains of the other vessels along with Trika spot me and come to talk.


    ¡°Mark, is it safe for us to debark everything and everyone?¡±


    ¡°I think so, but let me address everyone here before we spread out.¡±


    After a few minutes of gathering the entire group together I start my little speech.


    ¡°We have arrived on Andros island and have secured a forward base of operation that will hopefully allow us to clear the entire island and make it safe for you, your families, and those that are following us. I want to point out a few things before everyone decides what to do. First and foremost, you need to understand that there is no 100% guarantee of safety in this world anymore. That being said, our groups have cleared the base of immediate threats to the best of their ability. Until we check every foot of fencing and put up barricades there is a small chance of zombies still wandering in. You need to understand this before making a decision to move of the boats.¡±


    A lot of murmuring is going on in the crowd. I cannot tell if it is positive or negative.


    ¡°Second important point to bring up. We still have not restored power to the base. So if you want a hot shower or warm food it might be better to stick with the boats for tonight and possibly tomorrow.¡±


    Okay, that is definitely negative grumbling.


    ¡°Listen up, you all need to understand a few things right now. There is no more free lunch. There is no established government that guarantees your rights and responsibilities. If you don¡¯t like what I am saying then fix the problem yourself, come up with a solution that we can use, or leave. That¡¯s it. No one is going to hold your hand and walk you through things. I think that we can make a great new start on this island and its surrounding islands. However, if you stand in the way of keeping my family and friends safe I will take action.¡±¡¯


    That little tirade shut up a few people.


    ¡°Finally, tomorrow we need people to do another security sweep, check the fences and block of the entrances to the base. I need anyone qualified to start setting up and installing the solar panels and other electricity generating devices we brought. I need at least three people to finish collecting and removing the dead bodies before they cause a health hazard. Last but not least we need to finish unloading the major portion of supplies for easy access and then make room for the next wave of boats. The group that was following me originally should be arriving sometime tomorrow and we need to be ready for them. I propose we have an early dinner and then work until sundown to get a head start on everything. In three days we will have a large town hall meeting in the base gymnasium and can address any problems or concerns at that time. Are there any questions or constructive comments?¡±

 35 - Settler Wave Two Arrives

    Chapter 35


    Settler Wave Two Arrives


    Now that this had been taken care of I go and have a quick dinner and follow my own advice. I use the final two hours of daylight making sure every vehicle is offloaded from the ferry and parked in a reasonably defensive area. It seems that the majority if not all of the people took my speech to heart and also pitch in. I hope that this is a sign of good times to come. Now for the most important part of the day.


    I head to the cockpit of the tender and pick up the satellite phone. I punch in the code and soon enough I have Gerald on the other end.


    ¡°Gerald what is the situation with your group?¡±


    ¡°24 ships, a little over 200 people including children and elderly, we should arrive around noon tomorrow, and your momma is seasick.¡±


    I focused on the most important point he gave me.


    ¡°How seasick?¡±


    ¡°Enough that everyone around her will be glad when we reach land as much as she will be.¡±


    ¡°So basically she is going to arrive in a brand new place, after not seeing me for a while, and be sick and grumpy?¡±


    ¡°Yep, boy are you in trouble.¡±


    ¡°Hmm, you may be right. I guess I could go on patrol until she feels better.¡±


    In the background I could hear Benji.


    ¡°Don¡¯t even think about escaping brother. If you are not there to meet the boats, I shudder to think at the punishment momma will bring down on you.¡±


    Well either Gerald has me on speakerphone or my brother knows how my mind works.


    ¡°All right Gerald, I will be at the docks tomorrow at noon to wait for you guys. Remember to sail around the island until you see a large car ferry and the military base. That is where we are setting up shop.¡±


    ¡°Ten-Four Mark. We will see you soon enough. I will talk to you and the others tomorrow.¡±


    With that exchange I have finished my obligations for the night and I head down to my bunk a little more tired than I thought I would be. Either the responsibility is starting to get to me or my age is finally catching up with me. It is probably a combination of both of those things. I cannot slow down though. There is still so much to do. I start listing the things I need the group to accomplish in the morning tomorrow and soon enough darkness envelopes me and I sleep.


    Morning comes bright and early and I stumble around and take care of all of my morning duties. Showered and now more coherent I make my way to the galley for breakfast. With so much to do for today I settle for a large bowl of grits which is quick and easy to make. Hmm, I do love grits. Most of my settlers are southern. I should probably secure a way of getting southern comfort food including grits for the little colony we are setting up. I know we have to have some in supplies, but probably not enough.


    After breakfast I head to the dock and see several people already waiting. Should I give another speech? No too much speaking is just as bad as not enough.


    ¡°I need security sweeps, barriers built at the entrances, and people to start setting up our power grid. Divide yourselves up into the appropriate group.¡±


    I motion to my regular henchmen Michael and Olivia. Wait Oliva is a girl so would it be henchpeople? Do people that have henchmen even care about being politically correct? I am not going to call them henchmen out loud any way as that would probably have a negative effect. So since it is only in my head I am going to stick with henchmen.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go pick up Billy and figure out where the emergency generators are for the base. We need to see if there is space around them that we can set up our solar and wind farm or if we need to move the generators.¡±


    ¡°Why would we move them?¡±


    ¡°Convenience mostly. If all our power generating stuff is together it makes guarding it and maintain it much simpler. It is also easier to run electrical wires to only one place.¡±


    ¡°Oh, that makes sense.¡±


    We troop over and knock on Billy¡¯s door and explain what we want to do this morning. It turns out that he has no idea where the generators are, but he does know where the administrative offices are and they should have maps of the base. That will help us tremendously and definitely speed things up.Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    Thirty minutes later finds us searching through desks and files in a two story office type building near the main entrance to the base. This is where everyone who came onto the base had to check in and where the CO of the base had his office. Somewhere in this mess has to be maps and information that we can use. The problem is finding it. Whoever was in charge of this place used their own unique set of filing criteria or just did not know how to do their job. It is a mess and seems like it might almost be impossible to find what we need. I decide to give it another half hour of searching before we just start searching buildings or tracing power lines. Tracing power lines would probably be faster, but some of them are probably buried to protect them.


    Luckily fifteen minutes later Olivia lets out a cry of victory. ¡°I found them! There are a ton of maps in this file cabinet. It seems like they were filed under B for buildings instead of M for maps.¡±


    Well that makes no sense to me, but I guess it didn¡¯t need to. As long as the person who filed it knew where they were it was probably just fine. However, it does mean that finding information about this base just became a lot harder.


    ¡°We need to hurry. I only have two more hours until I need to get back to the docks to meet momma and the other new arrivals.¡±


    ¡°I thought they weren¡¯t supposed to get here until after lunch.¡±


    ¡°It is better safe than sorry. I just know that if I am not down by the docks by 11:00 a.m. some special current or wind will have pushed the boats here faster and I will miss them arriving. I am already in enough trouble for leaving momma the way I did. I definitely do not want anymore.¡±


    Everyone started to laugh at me. They can laugh all they want. They were not raised by that woman, she scares me. With the mocking laughter of my little group surrounding me, okay to be truthful it is a few snorts and a giggle that I hope came from Olivia as it sounded very high pitched and feminine, we set out to the generator shed. A few minutes walk leads us to a building about the size of a pretty large house. Say twenty meters by twenty meters. We enter inside and I see six of the largest diesel generators that I have ever seen.


    My group pokes around and explores and tries to figure things out for the next few minutes. After we gather back together at the entrance I ask the most important question I have.


    ¡°Does anyone know how to turn them on?¡±


    Everybody shook their heads.


    ¡°It looks like they still have fuel and are ready to go. My guess is that they were never switched on as things broke down too quickly. I think that this is going to be a job for a specialist. Time to head back and see if anyone knows anything about generators or diesel engines.¡±


    I hate leaving a job half finished, and that is exactly what this situation feels like. I was hoping to get the power on so the arriving group of people would have access to the modern conveniences at least for their initial stay. Now it looks like my plans will have to be altered and the inconvenience of no power will continue on land for at least a little while longer. We trudge back towards the docks and I decide that the rest of the morning should just be spent getting ready to receive our new guests and settlers. I think that it will be the most efficient use of my time.


    ¡°I am going to stick around the docks and make sure everything is ready for when the rest of the people get here. You all can stay with me or go help out around the base building barriers or cleaning buildings.¡±


    Olivia decides to stay with me at the docks and Michael and Billy join a group heading to the east entrance to set up a barrier against wandering zombies. The rest of the morning passes rather quickly. The groups who are out among the base start wandering back in for a lunch break and those of us at the docks stop moving supplies around and help out with the cooking and distribution of the food. I really enjoy this. It seems that surviving the zombie apocalypse has brought out the best in people. Sure people may still grumble and complain a little, but that is human nature.


    After they are done grumbling everyone pitches in and just gets things done. They may not like, or even be very good at it, but it does get done. Once again I get the impression that those that can do things or at least are willing to try are the majority of those that survived. This makes sense as it takes a certain mindset to deal with the horrors that are wandering around and actually not just survive but strive to make things better.


    There are definitely people that have survived that deal with the situation differently. They usually become the bandits or the pirates of the world. They survive and even thrive sometimes. However, without them building an infrastructure or trying to improve the world and situation they are doomed to failure and obscurity eventually. The world only has so many resources you can plunder before you have to replace them. If they over use or over raid an area than eventually they will starve.


    If they limit their raiding, at some point their targets are going to get stronger and rebel. At that point they will either succeed and kill of the bad guys or fail and die thus also preventing the bad guys from getting supplies. My guess is that bandits and pirates will only be viable in small groups for two to three years. Then I suppose they will join together and make larger groups that can last another three or five years. Eight to ten years down the road I think that the survivors will be able to suppress any raiding group that show up.


    I am hoping that with our preparations that we can skip this cycle and hold our own against anything that comes at us. In fact, I think we might actually be able to help others and speed up the demise of any raiding groups near us.


    Horns, blow in the distance. I look up from my mental ruminating and see several ships approaching in the distance. My family had arrived. It takes almost an hour for all of the ships to dock and unload their passengers. We have barely enough room to tie up all the ships. Even then we had to unload them one at a time. Momma was the first one off the ships and Gerald helped her down the gangplank. Is he holding her hand that long to help her or is something going on. Momma it has only been a few weeks since pops passed, we are going to have to have a talk.


    I gave mom a big hug and my daughter Brittany who was right after her.


    ¡°Don¡¯t walk off like that again son. We can always talk about things.¡±


    ¡°Yeah dad, it has been hard these last few days not knowing what was happening with you.¡±


    ¡°Alright I know when I am outnumbered. Just remember though that in the future I am going to have to leave to help out with a variety of different jobs.¡±


    ¡°We understand that, we just want them to be good partings and not bad ones.¡±

 36 - Energy and Expansions

    Chapter 36


    Energy and Expansion


    With the entire family here and the huge expansion of people the next couple days were extremely chaotic. I convinced everyone to register themselves and their skills with Gerald and Momma who it seems were becoming quite close. They were also the two people that everyone seemed to look up to and trust the most. With this population survey, things became quite a bit easier.


    Andros island now had 312 residents on the AUTEC military base. 253 Adults, 41 teenagers, and only 18 kids. However, that was enough to accomplish what we needed done. I located several power and generator technicians and led them over to the generator shed two days after the population survey. Instead of turning the power on like I expected they ask me to show them to the nearest sub-station. I look at them like they are talking another language.


    They explained to me that if they turned on the generators now those generators would be trying to power the entire island, not just the base. It turns out that when the generators normally get used the base is already cut off from the islands main source of power. However, with the zombie disaster they were afraid that we were still hooked up to the main power station. If they used the generators they might be overdrawn which would cause a whole bunch of issues. If they find the substation they can isolate the base from the rest of the power grid.


    This is why I looked for experts. There is no way that I would have considered something like this. I would have just turned everything on and hoped for the best. While it would have worked short term, in the long run it would have ruined or seriously damaged our power grid on the base.


    Two of the electrical specialists left with two guards to track down the substation for the base. Everyone else started asking me about long term plans.


    ¡°Look, I hope to one day go back to normal power distribution. The reality of the situation is that we are going to have to rely on alternative energies for a long time. I collected as many solar panels and wind turbines as I could from Jaxport and I believe you all brought some with you also. You are the experts. You need to figure out a way to integrate them so we have power on the base even if it is only during the day. If we have to spend the nights in the dark so be it, but we have to at least have power during daylight to operate machinery, charge batteries, and do things to improve our situation. I would like to save the generators for emergencies like night time raids and such. Fuel is limited and will become more so in the future.¡±


    With all the nodding heads it looks like they agree with my overall plan even if I don¡¯t know how to put it together personally. This group breaks up and starts discussing placement of panels, wiring, loads, and finally start getting into specifics that I can¡¯t follow. This is where I give up and go look for something else I can help with. My first group was a success and I am pretty sure we are going to have power on the base in the next few days.


    I head back to the docks and look for my brother Benji and my daughter Brittany. Once I locate them I give them a long term task that I hope will pay off someday.


    ¡°Look I know you can¡¯t just throw something together, I am not asking for that. What I want you two to do, along with anyone else that you need to help, is in your spare time design a small nuclear reactor. There are hundreds of tons of usable material and it would provide a stable long term solution to our power needs. If you manage to get something put together in the next five to ten years I will consider it a win. Like I said it is a LONG term project. The materials are not going anywhere, we can go pick them up with radiation suits whenever we need too.¡±


    I think that they are actually starting to understand my point. Solar panels and wind turbines will last us for quite a while. The only problem with them is that eventually wear and tear is going to ruin them no matter how well we maintain them. The chances of us being able to make new ones anytime soon in the future is not very high either. However, a small pebble bed reactor just uses radiation to heat water and turn a steam turbine. The hardest part will be putting in safety measures. We don¡¯t have to worry about radioactive material either. No one is going to go around stalling radioactive stuff in the apocalypse so we can go pick it up whenever we need it.


    The other consideration is that I want a small reactor. Just something large enough for 1,000 to 5,000 people. A normal nuclear reactor provides power for tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of businesses and households. Our needs for a long time will be much less. That means any stored radioactive material at just one of these nuclear plants will last us decades if not longer.


    Now that I have short term and long term power being worked on it is time for some island sweeps and agriculture. Most people will be confused as to why I am combining both of these activities, but to me it is rather obvious. I need to find some locals who know the land and seasons so we can make the correct decisions on where, what and when to plant. It would do us no good to clear and plant enough land to support us only to have it die due to soil conditions or weather we did not know of.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    I check in with Gerald and momma and look over the list of people so I can put together a group to head out tomorrow. I think one driver two shooters and a nurse should be sufficient. That means I can stick with my normal group or I can start to meet new people. I will go with my normal group, if I need to meet someone they will be introduced to me and I know I already work well with my group. So tomorrow I will have Billy, Michael, Olivia and myself go and search the island for survivors. Come to think of it, to be more efficient I should take an agriculture expert with me just to speed things up. They can observe and take notes on the types of crops they see and scout for close locations we can set up fields. I can even take my duck boat out, that way if there is a problem we can always retreat into the ocean where the zombies can¡¯t follow us.


    The next morning saw my little team gathering at the vehicle carpark that was set up. Everyone had brought an extra rifle and triple our normal ammunition as it could be stored in the vehicle. Joining us today was Nan. Nan was a country girl through and through and a 3<sup>rd</sup> generation farmer from the piedmont region of South Carolina. I figured Olivia being outnumbered by guys all the time must be getting old so when I went looking for the ag expert last night I tried the female ones first. Nan introduced herself to the rest of the group and I outlined our objectives for the day. First try and find any survivors within five miles of the base before lunch. Talk to them and see if they would be willing to join our group. Second to map out the area and allow Nan to observe the types of crops and plants that were being raised locally. If the morning went well, we would extend our search range after lunch.


    No one had any objections to this and we set off in high spirits. The first hour we managed to keep our high optimism. By the end of the second hour with no survivors being found our pep from this morning was starting to dwindle. We had at least come across several hobby farms of a large enough size for Nan to make some notes and figure a few things out so the trip had not been a total waste. I figured another hour or two at the most and we would stop for lunch and regroup. Maybe this wasn¡¯t that populated of an area. There were occasional houses, trailers, huts, and farms, but no large clusters. It could be that our luck is just bad.


    Another 90 minutes saw me and the rest of the group becoming increasingly frustrated. We should have run into something by now. First we have the unusually large number of zombies on the island, and now we have only found three survivors who were the only ones on the base. I was just about to give up and pull over from lunch when Michael shouted contact 4 o¡¯clock. We all swiveled our heads in the indicated direction and saw a person waving a makeshift flag on top of a roof of a house. The house itself was surrounded by at least a dozen zombies and probably a few more that we could not see. Finally, we had a survivor. The numbers were easily dispatched by my veteran group.


    After arriving and clearing out the zombies the gentleman who had been waving the flag to get our attention climbed back through an upstairs window and we could hear several people inside coming towards the front door. The first out was the gentleman who had signaled us and behind shuffled a raggedy looking group of survivors. There was a total of nine survivors in this group. Two men, three women, and four kids. The lead guy spoke up.


    ¡°Thank you for your kindness, my name is Dajan Cox. Behind me are my brother, his wife and her sisters and their four kids. Without your help I do not know how long we could have survived. We only have enough food and water for a couple of more days.¡±


    ¡°Well I am glad we could be of help. We are a group of survivors that came down from the mainland and have set up camp at the local military base. We have over 300 people with us and we would be glad to have you join us, especially as we need some local knowledge.¡±


    They could not climb onto the duck boat fast enough. I guess the past week or two had been relatively hard on them. They did not even want to bring anything with them. It turns out that the house they were in was not even theirs. They were trapped in it while scavenging for supplies and looking for a safe place. As we drove them back to the base for processing I learned a few things that filled in my gaps of knowledge about the island and its weird zombie numbers and lack of survivors. It seems that they were part of a large group of survivors, more than 80 when they last counted, but over a week ago the group decided that they should travel to the capital Nassau and seek help there from the remains of the government. A mass breakout was planned.


    The entire group would travel down to the closest fishing village and get on boats and then make their way to the capital. On the day of the break out three of their family members were sick so they decided to stay behind and join the group in a couple of days. This decision turned out to have saved their lives. It seems the whole plan was thrown together without much planning or scouting. After being left behind the family group heard many sounds of fighting and then silence. A few hours later two of the group that left stumbled into the original compound covered in wounds. It turns out that there was only enough working boats and space for eight to ten people at the fishing village and people started fighting over the spots. The fighting attracted more and more zombies and soon the group was overwhelmed. No one actually made it off the island and the two that returned suffered great injuries escaping. They later passed on the next day.

 Notice Of Suspended Writing

    Many people have asked if I died or dropped this fiction.  Unfortunately that would be a No to death, but a yes to dropping the story.  As I was writing it started becoming less and less fun.  I do this as a release and for no money.  So when it started to become more like a job, that I was not getting paid for I just couldn''t do it anymore.  This story still lives on in my brain and I hope to come back one day and finish it up.


    It was just not this story either.  I was wrapped up in the editing of my other two stories and had even started writing a new one to see if it was just this story that I could not deal with.  None of it worked.  I had a good run and I enjoyed the time I posted with my stories on Royal Road.You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    I will leave my work up for people to read and I hope that I get reinvigorated to write again soon.  There is a huge amount of stories inside my head, getting them out is hard.  Writing them down is even harder.  I am sorry for the non ending in this story, and I hope that I can at least try and finish this up this summer when I am away from school.


    Who Knows What the future holds?


    Tenqui