The Beginning, Part Eight

After we had the tractor, backhoe and bob-cat we made good time with our defenses.
We leveled the grounds around us, and expanded our chain link fencing to include the high school ball field, no easy task, but with the machinery it went pretty well. The noise did attract some unwanted attention once and a while, but nothing on a grand scale. For this we were extremely fortunate. In what would take a little less than a month, we had doubled our living space and quadrupled the amount of fenced in area. We had planted crops and were even starting on the idea of concrete walls. We started by looting the county resources of concrete ‘Jersey Walls’ and placing them outside the fences. This would slow a mob crush and also give us time before they actually got to the chain link. Dad and the Major thought of leaving deliberate holes in the walls to funnel any of the dead to a ‘kill zone’. This created a place where a few people could destroy many of dead. They even took my idea of a digging a moat around the area to heart and we have a five foot deep, ten foot wide earthen ring in the ground. Only the main road to the Depot is not ‘dug under’. We need to get heavy equipment in and out, so that also would be a ‘choke point’ defense area. They nixed the idea of water and alligators however. (I guess just in case one of us fell into it. Plus where would we get the alligators?) We were lucky that the man in the minivan, Jeremy, was an engineering student from UK, and his help was invaluable or we may have collapsed the road or the entire Depot if we dug in the wrong way or in the wrong spot. He was glad and a bit relieved he was an asset to us. But I get ahead of myself.

We found out that the dead were attracted to shiny items like crows. We also noticed they would stop and claw at their own reflection in the few remaining windows in town. We believe our own security lights were attracting them like some giant bred of undead moth. John and I one day took two pieces of scrap metal, shined them up with some sand paper, so they reflected like a mirror. We took these, some scrap lumber and a bit of nylon rope, walked to the nearest hill within line of sight of the Depot. We made a crude tripod and suspended the pieces of metal together inside it. When the wind kicked up they would bang and clang together, the sun reflecting from their polished surfaces. We hurried back down to the Depot and kept watch. We took turns that afternoon keeping watch and about an hour later the first dead head showed up. Then more. We had gathered eight total to the ‘Zbait’ as I named it. The Major came out to look at our little experiment with us and commended us for our tactic. The wind shifted from us to them and they started to do that little circle thing, like they were trying to figure out the direction the smell was coming from. The Major called for Jake to bring his rifle over to us. Jake’s rifle is an L82 sniper rifle outfitted with a ten inch noise suppressor on it. He takes his time and in about 30 seconds everyone of the Z’s are on the ground, not ever getting back up. Glad he is on our side. The Major orders me and John to go out and get our Zbait, so we do not get anymore unwelcome visitors.

We also discovered we were running out of food, quickly. The Major had it figured we had maybe two weeks left before it ran out. The stream inside the fence supplied water (which we filtered to kill any bacteria, etc.) but until the crops and probably even with them, we needed to find more food. I was assigned to go out the next day as one of three crews looking for food. I was assigned the Southern end of town which included Wal-Mart. We had been by there before and all the windows were broken out and a good amount of cars in the parking lot yet. I figure this to be Zombie Disneyland, especially if the lights were left on. It was about this time several people thought of using a big indoor building for crop raising. We picked the Lowes building because it had few windows, metal gates and most of the suppliers were there. One of my future assignments would be to rob Tractor Supply of most of its stock and transfer it to Lowes which was luckily only a quarter mile away. This also about the time we started looking for more trucks and fuel. We have several gas stations around town, but with the power still on and most everything abandoned, most were bleed dry. During this time the Depot had only a skeleton (no pun there) crew left to defend itself as 90% of us were out scavenging food, fuel and materials. We found an old single axle tanker truck at the local truck-stop, and filled it with as much diesel as we could gather for the stop and the surrounding trucks. In the days ahead this would be harder and harder to come by. We did find, bonus of bonuses a nearly full gas tanker truck just sitting on a side road, the door hanging open. It was itself out of diesel and the batteries were dead, but a few hours work and we brought it home. We have been incredible fortunate so far for fuel, but the food situation was getting worse. Wal-Mart was ransacked very well, no canned goods, and most boxed goods gone. We hit the remaining supermarkets and brought back what was left, a three quarters full 6X6 truck containing mostly boxed goods and some canned goods. Cereal and water would be the main stays for the days ahead.
We started to find cattle grazing in fields, not a care left in the world, and we found a lot of dead horses. We had no place to keep cattle, but marked the locations and would be back for one or two to supply us with protein.

That night we turned off all the exterior lights except those over the doors. We started using the few pairs of night vision goggles (which I cannot use because of my glasses) and the three night scopes that attach to rifles (Which I can use, so I still pull night duty) that were left in the Depot. I was lucky and did not pull night duty because of the next days’ forage mission. Of course, we did not much sleep again.
The Depot fire alarm was ringing me out of my sleep after midnight. I stumbled around getting my shirt on (I learned to sleep mostly dressed by now) on and my glasses. I grabbed my rifle and hooked the always filled ammo bag over my left shoulder. Odessa was following me with her trusty shotgun. People were coming into the hall way around us armed and mostly dressed as we made for the front door.
John caught up to us as we got close.
‘What’s up Hoss?’ he said as he loaded his rifle with a magazine. I shrugged my shoulders as we approached the front double doors. I heard a strange whine by my ear, like that of a mosquito, and then a small shower of glass struck my head. I ducked and most everyone around me hit the floor. A strangled cough sounded behind me and I knew someone behind me had gotten shot. I checked Odessa and John and then looked around us, noting a man I had seen but never spoken too, laying on the floor, blood pouring out of him. Odessa moved before I thought of anything and went to him, wading his shirt up over the wound. John joined her as the door opened in front of me, one of the night guards, still wearing the night vision goggles pulled the door shut behind him and got down.
‘What the Hell is going on?’ I asked as he pulled up the goggles, sweat pouring down his face. Two more windows shattered and a high pitched whine echoed in the large room. People we moving towards the walls without being told and staying clear of the windows. The RN, Katy, was now next to Odessa with a bag of supplies trying to stop the bleeding. Odessa caught my eye and shook her head.
‘We’re catching fire from the ridge and across the road. My buddy caught one in the head and I saw another corner guard go down. They will probably try to keep us pinned in here while they do whatever they are gonna do.’ I suddenly remembered his name was Sam.
‘Sam, can you stay here and watch the door?’ he nodded he could and I moved off to the downed man, keeping low. For all I know they had night vision gear too.

He was dead. Katy was hurriedly putting her stuff away when I had made the extra fifteen feet out in the open. Two more bullets cracked the tile near us.
‘Get the Hell out of here, all of you. Odessa, go back to the room and get my jacket, John go get yours. See if you can find us some helmets while you’re at it. I am going to the radio room, meet me there.’ The both nodded and skulked toward the walls as more bullets chewed thought the windows and into the flooring. I hustled myself back into the hallway, where luckily there were no windows, and then moved as fast as I could to the radio room. I met Jake there with another man and a woman, the Major hustled up a second later.
‘I am glad to see great minds think alike.’ The Major said as we went into the small room. The radio room was a tiny twenty foot square, but it had roof access from inside, so if the antennas needed servicing you could do it from here. Jake was at least in his armor and had a helmet on, the rest of us did not. Another two people came in the room running their arms full of armor vests and helmets. The Major and the rest got theirs and were putting them on when Odessa showed up with my armor vest and helped me strap into it. Damn thing was heavy with the trauma plates in it. Large pieces of plate steel and laminated plastic that *should* stop a bullet. John joined us a half minute later, and tossed me a helmet. By this time the rest had went up the ladder to the roof and I could hear the unsuppressed rifles barking. I looked at John and had noticed a smiley face on the front of his helmet done in permanent marker. I shook my head and he smiled at me before going up the ladder. Odessa stopped me and pressed something into my hand. A pair of ear plugs. I kissed her, told her to guard our backs and went up the ladder.