Before the Dead Walked, page 10
Actually, they do eat anything.
Chapter 8
Preparing for the Worst
Sandy McClain looked over the emergency survival list one more time. His sons were busy packing up everything they could cram into the cargo space of the pickup truck.
Their father went over everything a second time, calling out the items as he stuffed them into a backpack, ticking them off, “Salt – check, iodine – check, sulfur – check, charcoal – check, antibiotics – clindamycin and amoxicillin, check.”
“The truck ain’t gonna hold much more, Pops,” his younger son Jessie said.
“Roger that, boy,” Sandy said. “See if you can help your brother.
The dogs kept barking insanely.
“What are we going to do about the mutts?” Buddy asked.
“Turn ‘em loose,” their father said with some regret. “They’ll give us away. Besides, they’ll do better on their own.”
Both of his sons looked at him with obvious doubts.
Sandy stopped what he was doing. “I know, I know. We can’t take them with us. It’s too dangerous. They’re hunting dogs, fer God’s sake. I imagine they’ll have an easier time than we will.”
“What if they follow us?” Jessie asked.
“Then I’ll have to shoot them, won’t I?” McClain Senior said with anger. “You just better make damn sure they don’t follow us.”
“Sure, Pops, I get it,” Buddy said, a little wounded by his father’s outburst.
Sandy sighed. “I’m sorry, son. I’m just rattled by everything I’ve seen. Leave a big bowl of food for them and open all the treats we have. That should distract them long enough for us to drive away.”
Jessie grinned. “That should do the trick, Dad.”
Buddy slapped his hands together and faced his younger brother and father. “I never believed in all this zombie bullshit before. We were trained to discount hysterical Hollywood fiction and focus on the facts. It does, however, seem pretty irrefutable that some kind of disease, or virus, or whatever has infected just about everyone. I say we head for Pine Mountain right now and build us a fort.”
“Food may be scarce, scratch that, food will be scarce, Dad, so when we check out the local stores we can’t be too picky,” interjected Jessie. “We’ll just take anything remaining.”
“I got that,” Sandy said with impatience, waving his hand. “I put the MRE boxes in the truck. We’ll have to live off the land eventually, so hunting and fishing will be a daily thing.”
“Hey Pops, are we going to let other people join us up on Pine Mountain?” Jessie wondered.
Sandy McClain nodded emphatically. “Yes, son, we’ll take them in, especially if I know them. There’s strength through numbers, you know that. The first thing I want to do is erect a stockade and the more hands we have, the quicker we can build it!”
“Okay, Pops, we read you loud and clear,” Buddy said. “Let’s be on our way and get to the mountaintop before sundown.”
The dogs, now free to go where they pleased, scampered off down the hill, chasing birds and squirrels. Sandy hoped they would be distracted long enough for him and his sons to drive away without being noticed.
The three men scrambled into the truck.
“Ready to roll, Dad,” Jessie announced.
“If we run across an abandoned grocery store on the way, we’ll jump out and take anything still on the shelves, I guess,” Buddy said. “But that doesn’t mean it has to suck. First off, we get the essentials, including salt, sugar and honey, which never go bad.” Fruits preserved in sugar or honey can last a very long time. So it might be good to carry a little bit of these items to spruce up your cooking!”
As Sandy drove, Buddy made a list of foodstuffs that had incredibly long shelf lives. This included sardines and saltines. These salty little buggers might not be the tastiest, but add them to can of tomato sauce and consider your protein and veggie requirement handled for the day!
Then there was veggie stew. Despite being canned, canned veggies won’t last forever, so throw them on the fire because an opened can makes a great pot! Add a little bit of salt for a nice home-cooked meal.
Then there’s fried eggs and Spam. Sandy’s sons actually loved Spam, which was fortunate, because anyone who really hopes to survive the apocalypse needs to like Spam. It wasn’t the most popular food choice, so chances were good that these survivors would come across a can or two during their scavenging. Sandy later toasted it over the campfire and savored Spam with melted cheese.
Buddy’s favorite Special Forces pick-me-up was peanut noodle ramen. Chances were that just about everybody knows how to make ramen noodles. Add some peanut butter and chili flakes to create ramen for a nutty, Thai twist.
Finally, there was a US Ranger favorite, called campfire cake. Since they were going to spend time hiding out in the wilderness, there’s always room for dessert. Jessie bragged he could mix chocolate cake mix with a can of cola and add a jar of fruit filling. He baked it over the campfire and voila! Just like mom used to make.
As it turned out, thankfully, Sandy’s dogs didn’t follow the departing pickup truck. The McClain clan headed up K Road, cut across several farms and connected with the forest service road. They hadn’t spotted any zombies, which was a good thing. At the crest of Pine Mountain, the trio piled out and began erecting a rough perimeter of fallen trees. Buddy and Jessie set up three military-grade tents, while their father dug rudimentary slit trenches behind the log barriers. They toiled through the afternoon and past dusk, before settling down for dinner.
It was a sleepless night. Huddled together, with their backs to each other, the three men had firearms at the ready. The darkness moaned and creaked with strange noise, but no zombies suddenly lurched towards them. Of in the distance, however, there were the sounds of sirens, gunshots, scream of terror, and silence. This sequence was repeated over and over again.
Sometime before dawn, Sandy McClain drifted off to sleep. His two sons, both highly trained, kept vigil without complaint. As the sun slowly crept up over the horizon, they both sighed with relief.
After a quick breakfast, the trio worked hard. They cut down trees to erect log barriers, dug slit trenches and foxholes, cleared the underbrush in every direction, and took stock of the supplies they had, or would need.
A pall of smoke hung over the valley and the echoes of struggle never abated for long. Jessie tried not to think about it. Buddy shut it out, hoping the forced labor would blot it out. Sandy, on the other, often stopped to listen to the screams of horror.
It was worse than any nightmare he had ever experienced.
As they drove through the backroads, Jessie and Buddy kept vigil, weapons at the ready. It was imperative that they reach the crest of Pine Mountain quickly, so they could make a base camp before sunset.
The gas station looked abandoned.
“I’ll handle this,” Buddy McClain said. “Cover me, Jessie.”
“I got this, bro,” his brother whispered, dismounting and laying prone, his AR-15 at the ready.
Buddy crouched low and, skirting from cover to cover, reached the service station without incident. He waved for his compatriots to come closer.
They filled up jerry cans with fuel and took everything, including spare tires, from the garage. It didn’t matter that the pickup truck was overloaded because everything and anything was vital.
Up the road they went until they reached the crest.
Jessie kept watch while Sandy and Buddy unloaded the truck and set up camp.
Nobody slept that night.
Off in the distance, in every direction, fires burned, sirens wailed, and people screamed. It was a living nightmare.
Chapter 9
The Five Stans
“We have to get from here all the way back to the good ole USA,” Darby said to his men.
“That’s a helluva long way, Top,” CWO Mark Collins pointed out.
“It is indeed,” the sergeant agreed. “And on foot, which means we’ll never make it. I figure our only chance is to get into Russia and board a train heading east. If we can get to the coast, we can hijack a trawler and sail over to Alaska.”
His men looked at each other in turn. Their disbelief was understandable, of course, but Darby had to do something. He couldn’t just give up.
Shoulders slumping a little, the Ranger leader sat down on the sand. “Look, men, I can’t order you to do this. Based on what little intelligence we’ve been able to gather, I think the world is in total collapse. It’s just that if I’m going to die, I’d rather do it closer to home. If we stick together and act rationally, we might just make it. I think it’s worth a try.”
“You’ve never let us down before, Top,” Powers spoke up.
“That’s right, Sarge,” Thomas added. “Just lead the way and we’ll follow. It’s always worked before.”
“There is Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan,” Sergeant Darby outlined the choices for his men. “I’m going to give you a short history lesson before we decide on which route to take. No matter how we do this, it’s going to be a ball-buster.”
“We’ll have to go native, then,” Sergeant Ramirez surmised.
“Tucked between India, Russia and China, those five countries are a congregation of mountains, steppe grassland, and desert. They were once a mix of feudal kingdoms and nomadic peoples, but were formed as republics under Joseph Stalin’s tyrannical rule.”
“Do the Russians still play a part?” CWO Collins asked.
Darby nodded. “That’s why we have to be extra careful.”
“Go ahead, Top, your students are paying close attention,” Sergeant Ramirez said.
There was some muffled laughter.
“Okay, first there is Kazakhstan,” Darby began. “They are a resource-rich boom country, including oil, gas, uranium, because you name it, and Kazakhstan’s got it. Kazakhstan is the ninth largest country in the world. At over a million square miles, Kazakhstan has it all, including mountains and glaciers, vast steppes and deserts, new urban centers and remote villages, and over a hundred and twenty different nationalities. There are stunning landscapes and ancient architecture, which conjure images of nomads and warriors, falconry and poetry, silk-robed horsemen and exotic buxom beauties, while the capital of Astana sets new standards in architecture and opulence. In the cities, high-rise construction is relentless, although there’s little fear of overcrowding in a gigantic country with a population of less than sixteen million. We’re going to stick to the countryside, where we’ll find tulips stretching across the steppes and clear blue lakes in the mountains. For the past two decades, it has been run by President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who managed the transition from former Soviet strongman to democratically elected premier with incredible skill. Old habits die hard because political opposition is mysteriously absent.”
“It doesn’t sound so bad,” Specialist Thomas voiced his opinion first.
Darby continued, saying, “Then there is Kyrgyzstan. Long known as an island of democracy in the region, it recently underwent a peaceful power transition. Stunning mountains and a nomadic horse-riding culture are its main assets, because in late spring the hills are alive with wild flowers, and the nomads emerge from apartment blocks to head for their summer pastures. If you fancy drinking fermented mare’s milk and sleeping in a yurt, this is the place for you.”
There was more laughter from his men.
“Tajikistan is the mountainous southern neighbor of Kyrgyzstan,” Darby recalled from all his extensive training. “Apart from incomes from Tajik workers living abroad, its main resource is water, a source of dispute with downstream neighbor Uzbekistan, which relies on the supply to irrigate its cash-crop cotton fields. Consequently, tit-for-tat is the order of the day. Tajikistan might control the water, but Uzbekistan controls the Tajik supply of gas and electricity, and frequently turns it off, just to remind everybody who’s in charge. They fight all the time, border skirmishes. That aside, the country’s mountains are spectacular and the way of life is simple. Photos of a holiday here would make you the envy of your Instagram friends, though not in Tajikistan itself, where the authoritarian president intermittently blocks the site.”
“Rule by Internet,” CWO Collins said.
“Turkmenistan is a large desert state where income from an enormous gas field is used to keep the population happy with cheap flights, gas, electricity and food,” Darby went on. “As with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the president - a former dentist - is wildly popular, according to the government. Dissent is not tolerated and Internet access is severely limited, but on the upside, the country is home to the world’s largest carpeted and indoor Ferris wheel. There are also breathtaking sights, including Merv, a desert city once sacked by Genghis Khan, and the sandy Kopet Dag mountains on the border with Iran.”
“Let’s not go anywhere near Iran, Sarge,” Sergeant Stillwell said emotionally.
“We won’t, Bailey, I promise,” Darby said reassuringly. “Finally there’s Uzbekistan, which lies in the heart of Central Asia and is the historic hub of the region. The most settled of all the states, it is home to the romantic-sounding cities of Samarkand and Bukhara. Like the rest of the region, much of its beauty lies in its friendly people.”
“Does it have any drawbacks? Chief Collins asked.
Darby nodded emphatically. “The political system sucks, because it behaves like a police state. To succeed there, it helps if you are related to the president, particularly if you are his daughter, who is a multimillionaire with her own fashion line and pop music empire.”
“What a lovely little thumbnail sketch you have given us to ponder,” Sergeant Stillwell snickered. “I opt for Pakistan.”
The other Rangers all just looked at him. They knew Bailey was joking, or at least they hoped he was.
Darby knelt down in the dirt and used a stick to make rough outlines of the countries just discussed. “I’ve spent some time thinking this over. The safest route is through Turkmenistan to Kazakhstan, but we would have to deal with the border forces. The shortest route is Tajikistan, through Kyrgyzstan, and into Kazakhstan, but the weather is inhospitable this time of year and there is lots of unrest. The most direct path is right through the middle of Uzbekistan, but it is also the most dangerous. If we’re discovered, we’ll have to fight and if captured, we’ll be executed or imprisoned for life. Our final option is to cut diagonally across Turkmenistan and grab a boat on the Caspian Sea to Aktau, Kazakhstan. I think we could fake it that we’re oil line workers. Remember, our goal is to reach Russia, where we hitch a ride on the Siberian Express.”
Each Ranger pondered the choices. They were well aware that the decision wasn’t going to be democratic, but they felt better that Darby was including them in his thought process.
Chief Warrant Officer Collins took all this quite seriously. “Is there any chance, with any of these routes, we might get the opportunity to steal some reliable transportation, to cut down on our travel time?”
Darby liked his thinking. “Kazakhstan is the most modern, so there will be helicopters and airplanes, but we’ll have to see when we get there.”
The CWO grinned.
“Any other questions or input?” the First Sergeant asked. “Once we pick a route, I won’t tolerate any complaining.”
Nobody else said a word. They wanted the responsibility to be on Darby’s shoulders.
Maxwell stood up and brushed off his pants. “Okay, we’re going to cut along the width of Turkmenistan, staying far away from Iran, but not cross the border with Kazakhstan. I plan to use the Caspian Sea as our backdoor approach and enter the country by water at Aktau. It will make for blending in a bit easier.”
There actually was a collective sigh of relief.
“We’ll have to use the trip across Turkmenistan to ditch these uniforms and replace our weapons,” Sergeant Ramirez reminded everyone. “No bathing and you’ve got to let your beards and hair, grow long. We’ve need to look and smell a lot less like Americans and a lot more like Taliban.”
His comment brought groans mixed with laughter.
It was good to let off a little steam, because this trip seemed impossible at worst and a longshot at best. The handheld GPS mapping system’s batteries had run pretty low, but could be recharged using the little solar panel attached to Sergeant Stillwell’s helmet. For now, First Sergeant Darby was comfortable with the old fashioned way, using a map. The six men set off in single file, with Specialist Thomas taking point. They needed to make their way into the mountains before dawn, so they could lay up in one of the million caves that dotted the Afghan passes.
Just before sunup, the exhausted Rangers crawled into their holes and tried to get some sleep. The smell of stinky feet wafted through the air.
“God, what is that?” Sergeant Stillwell demanded.
The others all looked in the direction of Sergeant Ramirez.
Sheepishly, Pedro looked back at them, with a boot in his hand. “I’m sorry guys, but it itches like crazy.”
“Yeah, and it smells like shit too!” added Specialist Powers.
Everyone started to laugh, but the celebration was cut short.
“Pipe down, you idiots,” Darby scolded. “And put your fucking boot back on, moron. What if we had to bug out in a hurry? Now shut up and get some sleep.”
The Rangers begrudgingly obeyed, settling down almost immediately.
For First Sergeant Darby, however, it was a sleepless night. He crawled out of his hole and let his eyes acclimate to the moonlit darkness. This was an extremely dangerous place to be in, as Taliban patrols used these same goat trails to travel through the mountains of Afghanistan.
Maxwell yawned.
He looked down at the scar on his left wrist. Sometimes, for no apparent reason the implant itched. Tonight Darby felt it buzzing.
Somebody, somewhere, was tracking them.
The sergeant probably should have felt a sense of hope, but in this case, it was just the opposite. His handlers might have considered Team Echo a liability, which meant, as an asset, they would be written off.
