Day by Day Armageddon: Beyond Exile (22 page)

It would be getting dark in a couple hours. I was getting a little uneasy. Sleeping on the ground was not going to happen in a million years. If I did not find shelter before dark, I was going to stay up all night and keep moving. Originally, following the crash, I had thought that I would limit my movement only to night, but the lack of batteries for my NVGs and the idea of sleeping during the day when those things can see had changed my mind. I know they can’t see in the dark, as was evident the other night when I departed the top story of the farmhouse. They responded to sound but could not see me.

My choices were lessening by the minute so I looked to the highway for a place to hang my automatic weapon. There were a few options. There was a Winnebago, but I ruled that out because there would be no escape in the event the RV was surrounded. The next option I came to was a UPS truck turned on its side. Once again I felt that this was too small to use since it could also be easily surrounded. The next option I came to was a large semitruck that had a long feed trailer on the back.

Using my binoculars, I scanned the truck for any sign of death. The windows were rolled up on the tractor-trailer. The truck was high enough off the ground that those things could not climb up on the hood and the rig had a sleeper cabin behind the driver. The words “Boaz Trucking, Inc.” were painted on the driver’s door. Two of the tires were flat on my side. The rig was leaning a little because of this. I thought it best not to rush into this and just keep an eye on the area to make sure there was no danger. I listened and watched for half an hour before I dropped my pack and headed for the rig. When my foot touched the asphalt I could see clearly in both directions up and down the road.

An ambulance sat derelict in the distance to the north, and to the south I could see a green sign that I thought could indicate the miles to the next town. I made for the running boards to step up to the cab. On the driver’s side I noticed the door was locked, but
the other side was not. There was no sign of any danger inside the cab. I jumped down and ran around to the other side and opened the door. The old truck smell of fast-food bags stuffed under the seat, and a sun-baked dashboard told me that no one had been in this rig for a very long time.

I climbed inside and looked in the sleeper behind the front seats. The bed was not made but was serviceable. Inside this truck everything seemed normal, other than the faded fast-food bags sitting on the dashboard. I climbed out of the truck, satisfied that it was safe, and went to retrieve my pack. By the time I got back to the truck it was getting too dark to try to read the sign up ahead so I decided it was best to prepare for the night. I placed my pack on the driver’s seat and pulled the privacy curtains so that I could not be spotted easily. With the doors locked, I started to inspect the cab for anything of value. I found a disposable lighter and a can of Vienna sausages along with a nice ink pen and a Sharpie marker. I devoured the canned meat. In order to conserve my flashlight batteries, I intend to check the rest of the vehicle over when the sun rises in the morning. The doors are locked and the windows, I suspect, will never come down again.

13 Oct

0822

I slept well last night despite hearing something outside before falling asleep. I was so exhausted. I thought that I would attempt to remain still and quiet and in doing so, I fell hard into deep sleep and didn’t wake up until about 0630. The light was shining into the cab through the curtains. I kept them closed as I slid my boots on and laced them up and splashed some water on my face. I climbed over to the passenger seat and peeked past the curtains into the area outside. I thought I could see something moving around far to the south. I reached over and grabbed my binocs and checked it out. There was a single corpse in the distance wandering about the abandoned cars. I could see no sign of any closer threat. Cracking the curtains to let more light in, I began a more thorough search of the cab.

The glove compartment revealed nothing but an insurance card that had expired six months ago and a picture of a man and his family standing in front of the Alamo. My mind drifted back to San Antonio and the fate of the Alamo. The area was nuked and is now a wasteland of radiated undead. I wouldn’t go back there even with a thousand AC-130 gunships over my head. The back of the picture was dated December of last year. I looked at the picture and wished that I could go back to that time. I would give many things to have one day of normalcy from before all this happened. Behind the family were others laughing and carrying on. They were oblivious to what the world would be like just thirty days after the tourist photographer depressed the shutter release.

13 Oct

1533

There is so much information to write and process I do not know where to even begin. After leaving the rig this morning, I kept trekking south and checked the sign that I had discovered the day before. I didn’t need to get that close, as the binocs once again saved me some time and energy. The sign read “Marshall 6 mi.” I had heard of the town of Marshall, Texas, somewhere before and decided that if I had heard of it then it must be too large to attempt a scavenging operation. As I headed back to my standard highway offset I heard the buzz again. The sky was clear, so I immediately pulled the binocs up to survey the sky above. No joy. I kept walking south and east, offsetting further and further, so that I could go around Marshall instead of through its center. This was going to add some extra miles to my trip. After about an hour the loudest sound I had heard since the explosion commenced.

In the distance I heard the unmistakable noise of the sound decoys. I remember the distinct tone because they were deployed at the start of the undead infestation to draw the things to the nuclear target packages. My mind immediately wandered to the worst-case scenario as I thought to myself, Am I about to glow in the dark?

Obviously this was not the case, or I would not be alive to write this now. The sound was not deafening, because it came from so far away from where I stood. It seemed to come from the east, far in the distance. It was not nearly as loud as the decoy I heard when they dropped the nukes, which leads me to assume that the device
was deployed a considerable distance further than the first one I had encountered.

Nervous and confused, I kept my pace south and east until I heard the unmistakable sound of aircraft engines approaching. Looking to the eastern sky I saw the shape of an aircraft flying very low directly to my position. I immediately reached for my pencil flares and launcher but before I could screw the launcher onto the flare to fire, the aircraft pulled up and began a steep climb, shrinking quickly back into the big empty sky. I nearly cried until I was almost killed by a huge pallet falling to the earth attached to a large green parachute. The drop landed twenty feet from where I stood and threw wads of dirt and grass into my face. The chute went horizontal and I quickly ran over to the drop and gathered up the chute before it pulled whatever all this shit was across the field. After disconnecting the chute I haphazardly folded it and placed a big rock on top. This drop was wrapped in very thick layers of plastic wrap and measured about four by four by three feet.

I pulled out my Randall knife and started to cut away the plastic wrap. Spray-painted on some of the plastic layers were the letters “OGA load-out 2b.” After removing the plastic, I clicked open the carabiners and pulled off the webbing that held the items in place. On a plastic pallet were numerous hard plastic Pelican cases of various sizes. There was a bright yellow case on top of the others labeled simply with the number 01. I checked the perimeter, reached for the case and flipped the latches open. Opening the lid, the first thing I noticed was a cellular phone. I could tell that this was no normal phone simply by looking at the large antenna folded down the side. The word on the front of the phone read “Iridium.” I pulled the phone out of the case and hit the menu button. It came to life, indicated a full charge and gave a notice that stated, “Acquiring Lock.” I set the phone aside and inspected the yellow case in more detail. On the lid of the case was a chart that seemed to indicate Iridium satellite orbital paths for this region dated for this month with 80 percent of the satellites out of service. According to the chart, only two hours of satellite coverage per day were available.

The hours were from 1200 to 1400 daily with an error of plus or minus seventeen minutes depending on atmospheric conditions.
There was an asterisk that warned that the availability would shift to the right two minutes and twelve seconds per year with the current satellite configuration. Sitting in the foam below where the phone was fitted was a small solar charger. As I reached for the next case to examine the contents the phone began to ring . . .

I sat in shock for a few seconds before I hit talk and said hello as the noise faded into solid connection from a digital modem shrill. A slow and mechanical voice emanated from the speaker: “This is a remote six recording. Please monitor text screen.”

I followed the onscreen text, as instructed.

I responded yes.

The SATphone screen went blank. The sound decoy in the distance seemed to get softer until I could barely make out a sound. The sound decoy now seemed to emanate sound all around me . . . just barely audible.

The text screen asked again:

Yes.

The sound faded from my detection and the text screen once again asked:

I responded no.

No.

The text screen immediately scrolled with:

Apparently the device that was used to attract the undead to nuclear demise was also designed to make a safe radius by drawing
the undead away from the quiet center safe area. Aptly named Project Hurricane, no doubt due to the serene nature of the eye of an actual hurricane when compared to the turbulent hurricane wall. The voice on the phone in the beginning before the data went to text sounded as if it was mechanical, but there is no way this whole operation could have been automated. John must have immediately reported the helicopter missing the instant we were overdue for return.

Many months ago, radios at Hotel 23 intercepted transmissions from a person claiming to be a congressman from the state of Louisiana. Aside from his grim report on the effects of radiation on the undead, he mentioned that he was in limited high-frequency radio communication with a government base equipped with prototype UAVs and a surplus of explosives.

There were numerous boxes on the drop that I needed to inventory and inspect before sunset.

The first case was small and had the symbol for laser engraved on the lid. I unfastened the clasp and opened the case to find a rectangular black device with common pic rail equipment mounts on the bottom. Packed with the device was a one-page sheet of instructions printed on plastic paper and a box of CR123 lithium batteries. The instructions stated what the SATphone comms had referenced. Also inside was a small folder with documents, including a satellite hybrid map of Texas with strange numbered markings indicating various locations. I took a quick second to check the laser device compatibility on the MP5 with no success.

There was a small hex wrench included to adjust the laser beam, but the instructions stated that the device was precalibrated for accuracy within five feet if mounted on the T6 pic rail. Even if I decided to attempt adjustment I would only have about five seconds at a time to do so before a five-hundred-pound LGB detonation wasted something. A very small clear plastic beacon device was pinned to the lid of the case with instructions on how to wear it. The device appeared very similar to the avalanche beacon reflector that I had on my ski jacket, which would have helped rescue personnel find me if a ski trip had gone bad. The Reaper beacon battery life was advertised at six months and the stated purpose was Reaper escort tracking and escort self-destruct
avoidance. No boom-boom when accidentally lasing your foot as you trekked cross-country.