I'm Baaaack!

Okay, honestly, show of hands, who thought I was not coming back? Seriously? That many? Wow, feel the love. Okay I am tapping this out on a touch screen so any mistakes in spelling are purely the machines. Heh. Where to begin, where to begin? Well I am not home yet, so Odessa, you have to hold the fort a little longer babe.

I will hit some high points while I got time (If you have noticed my writing style has changed, it’s my diet that did it. We found some Jolt cola, pop-rocks, and all sorts of high sugar bad for you things. I feel like Hammy in Over the Hedge) and I will upload some cool action shots, however I did blot out the faces (sorry guys no movie deals for you) so we cannot be picked out of a line up if we do some infiltration work.

The drive to the Richmond area was pretty uneventful. We did see some normal folks moving about on their farms, etc. but as we neared them they hid. Ran into a few packs of Zak nothing major, the most of the hazard was pushing wrecked or empty cars off the road. (again I ask, why leave the car?).

We came in on route 52, which I happen to think is one of the worst roads I have ever been on. Not because it was rough, because of the twists and turns in it. At the edge of town we radioed our new ‘allies’ and we were given directions where to meet them.

Houses along Route 52, bandits, zombies or nature?

Which we promptly had to back track. Apparently the new ‘warlord’ is using the university and the stadium as head quarters and we were damn close to driving up to their front door. Luckily they were busy up north at the BGAD.

Our friends were hiding on a large farm south of some industrial plants including a glass factory. Once we got proper directions, we discovered why they had not been discovered. Talk about off the beaten path!

We pulled into the farm lane and were immediately called to stop by a few guys with assault rifles of all makes. After a few minutes of mistrust by both sides, we realized we were who everyone said they were. The Major went with the 3 men that had lead their own factions,  one group was from Lancaster, who were more than likely the only people still alive to claim that, and the other two groups were from here in Richmond.  I must say we were vastly outnumbered, but we were much better armed, than these people. A lot of women here, makes me almost feel chauvinistic now, helping with the fighting. We were a force of about 500 people. The dead were not much of a problem out here it seems as they seem to like Richmond better. It is also to be noted, that in unlike other places only about 4 or 5 in 10 people died or got the disease. Most all other places it is more like 7 or 8 out of 10 have been afflicted, so a lot of ‘food’ is still loose up that way.

We started unpacking ourselves out of our vehicles as other people came up to greet us. A lot of people here could do with a good meal and a shower. Just from general conversation we found out the power this far west from the dam, nothing worked. Seems the warlord dude has generators and fuel, mostly from taking them from other people. Most of these people were only armed with scatter guns, old hunting rifles and some even had black-powder rifles. I did notice a lot of bows mixed in with everyone. John gave me the look and we went around to the front of the APC where there were no people.

‘Man, and I thought we had it bad…’

‘Goes to show, someone else always got it worse than you do.’ I replied.  We were all just standing around shooting the shit and catching up on news. Seems like the further west and hillier it got, the worse it got. Seems the dead don’t mind the forest and open spaces and since the population density goes down so fast as you move west, we feared for anyone out there alone. One old guy, had to be close to my Dad’s age was sitting at a wooden table some distance off by himself, I pointed my chin at John as he was talking to someone and wandered over there.

His name was Roger. He was 84 years old. He served in WWII. I asked him what the hell was he doing out here?

‘Fighting, what do you think?’ was his reply. His wife long dead, his only son dead in Viet Nam, no other relatives to speak off, he decided to end his time here. He was still clear of eye and quick of wit, but his body was just not there for him anymore.  I tried to get him to come with me on the APC and run the 50 but he declined. He had a few people here he would stick with. I said okay and left him alone with his thoughts. Greatest Generation. Ever.  Word came down we would be moving at dusk, so everyone got their gear ready.

I was moving through the make shift camp when I heard my name being called. I didn’t know the voice but they were insistent.  A guy came up to me and rapped me on the back. It took me a minute to recognize him.

‘Have you forgotten me already?’ he smiled and laughed.

‘Ben? Is that you?’ I said smiling back. He nodded and told me to follow him up to the farm house. Inside was a mess of people and all kinds of electronics. A small generator chugged along just outside the door, spewing fumes into the air. I adjusted to the scarce light in the rooms as I was being dragged from area to area, Ben looking for something. He stopped and pointed over his shoulder. Sitting at a table, working with an old PC hooked to other equipment was Ashley, Odessa’s brother.

‘Damn boy, we thought you were dead!’ I yelled, scaring half the people in the room. Ash looked up and then grinned, and nearly knocked the table over getting out of his chair to come around to us.

‘Is Odessa okay? How about Bruce?’ he asked as we ‘man-hugged’.

‘Odessa is fine, she’s back at the Depot.  I haven’t found Bruce yet. I was more worried about you. I called and left you a message while back.’ He laughed and fished an object off the table. His iPhone. Cracked and broken. Well that explains that. Between him and Ben I got the story. He left Cincinnati a few days before all hell broke loose to visit Ben in Richmond. Ben was a part time bartender and some of the time student. He dropped his phone the day Cincinnati went crazy and broke it. He stayed with Ben and when the virus hit, they kept moving from place to place until they found these guys.

‘Don’t tell me they let you have a gun?’

‘No. I work with the radio equipment, such as it is. Ben here, however, is a pretty mean shot.’

Ben smiled again and grabbed his rifle from the corner. He had an M14. A good long distance rifle. Nothing  fancy but hard hitting. People started moving about with a purpose and we decided it was time to get out. Ash went back to the radio; he would stay here with a few others to keep communications open to us and the BGAD. Ben followed me, shook my hand and went off to find his people.

John was waiting at the APC with Jake and the Major.

‘We are going to spear head the attack on this warlord person. We will wait until dark and Jake and a few others will sneak up and take any sentries out. Seems the attack has stalled. The people in the Blue Grass don’t have enough people to risk an attack, and the bandits are running low on ammo.’ The Major looked around at all of us as he was speaking.

‘From the looks of what we got here to work with Major, I kinda figured we would lead. Half these guys are carrying bows for God sake.’ John looked around and waved his hand at the assembled men in the far field.

‘Yeah, a lot haven’t had a decent meal in weeks either I bet.’ I echoed everyone’s sentiment, ‘so what are we looking at?’

‘About 200 people with fully automatic weapons, maybe more maybe less. They even have some kids in with them about 14 or so all the way up to adults. Apparently they also have some LAW rockets, one or two mortars, but afraid to use them around all that gas.’ The Major replied.

‘That’s more than we got weapon-wise, but we out number them. But 5 to 2 odds, figure in the weapons we come out about even.’ I said doing some quick and dirty combat math. Even is never good, you want the advantage.

‘I place them at better than even, they know the area, are already dug in and will hear us coming. They won’t be afraid to turn the rockets and mortars on us though. I just don’t know how good they are with them, mortars are tricky weapons.’ I didn’t think of that. It is starting to sound like suicide a little voice in my head screamed. I ignored it and listened on.

‘We are going to send Jake and crew on foot the last few miles. They are going to recon the area, I am going to hold everyone else here until I get a report.’

‘Wouldn’t it be smarter to be closer, so Jake can cause a little chaos and while they think they are being attacked from one side we hit them from another?’  I asked, just using some common sense tactics. The Major raised his eyebrows at this thought, like he hadn’t already thought of it. We just starting to have a talk on the best course of action when a man ran up to us out of breath.

‘Our scouts just got back we have a problem…’