Kirk Allmond - What Zombies Fear - A Father's Quest

I was fuming. It was underhanded to wait until now to pull that out. I didn’t know what his game was, but I wasn’t giving in just yet. I didn’t like this guy. It might have been just a case of two alpha dogs going head to head, or it might have been that he was up to something, but either way, I just didn’t trust the guy.

Stepping back up on the stone, I said, “Thanks for that intel, Frye. I know it was difficult for you to share with civilians. I also am here to say, I’ll believe in the U.S. government when they finally do something about this problem. If you have the means to defend your fort, you have the means to take this horde out before it gets to us. If you’re the U.S. government, do your job and eliminate this threat walking on our soil. Otherwise, I’ll take my chances, and I’ll put my faith in my own defenses and my own people. Any of you who would like to go with Colonel Frye, are welcome. If you would like, please come forward.”

Sarah, a woman in her early twenties I’d met the night before, came forward. “Tookes, I don’t want to go, I don’t want to leave, but my parents and husband are dead, and I’m about four months pregnant. I got pregnant the night the world ended. I haven’t seen a doctor, and I’m so afraid.”

“Sarah, no one will blame you for going and doing what’s right by your baby.”

We waited fifteen minutes in silence -no one else came forward.

“Looks like this is it, Colonel. I’ll walk you back to your truck.” I said flatly.

“You’re all making a big mistake!” the Colonel said, as we walked away.

If his intel was valid, we had a little over twenty-four hours to prepare for a huge wave of shambling undead.

35. The Horde

I met with my team in the dining room. We radioed for Bookbinder to join us.

“Bookbinder, Frye gave us some intel on a large horde coming our way from northern Virginia. He said it’s coming down 15, and that’s going to lead it right across our front gates. I need to know if he was telling the truth. According to him, they’re just above Warrenton right now. I need a pair of scouts to go check that out.”

“I’m on it, sir,” said Bookbinder, as he stood up.

“Hold on, Charlie,” I said. “I need you here; I need you to help me coordinate the defense of this place. I need you to send someone. This is a hard thing to say, but I need all the best guns here, Charlie.” Bookbinder stepped out into the hallway and spoke rapidly into his radio. When he came back in the room, he said “I’m sending Jimmy Spencer and Tom Johnson.”

“John, how many guns and rounds did we get at Wal-Mart yesterday?”

“We got about fifteen thousand rounds of .22, and nine .22 rifles, bringing us to twelve operational rifles of that caliber. We have three hundred rounds for Sammie, and I found something you’ll flip for, Tookes. I’d been saving this, but I found twelve round magazines for your rifle. We have twenty-five rounds for the .50, but they’re range grade, not match. Not going to be as accurate as Sammie, but a lot more power. We have two-thousand rounds of .9mm, and fourteen 9mm guns, four hundred rounds of .45, but only Pearl here shoots .45,” John said, patting his revolver. “Every one of the fire team members has a 30.30, and a thousand rounds in each magazine. That was the best haul, twenty-five 30.30's I sniffed out in the storeroom, and almost a complete pallet of ammunition. I could only find six scopes, so the leaders of each fire team each have a scope.”

“How about .40 for my pistol?” I asked.

“About a hundred fifty rounds. You have ten magazines, so you’ll have about thirty rounds loose to carry around.”

“John, that’s balls man, nice work. You might have saved all of our lives. Make sure every civilian who’s ever fired a gun is armed. .22's for anyone over ten who’s ever shot. When that’s done, please come back here, and we’ll brief you on the plan, and get your input.”

“We’re going to need all those not shooting up in the hay loft. Hopefully they can’t climb a ladder. I want two with small caliber pistols and all the ammo we have up there.”

“Marshall, if we take the well pump offline, do we have enough generator to power the welder?” I asked.

“I think so. We’ll have to take the fridges off, too.”

“Good, coordinate that with Mom. I want to take the plow off the old pickup in the carriage house and weld it to the front of the big rig. Its gotta hold, Marshall. When was the last time you welded anything? I haven’t since we fixed the front bucket on the backhoe, but that’s held for what, three years?”

“I welded a bunch last summer, I can handle it.” said Marshall.

“Marshall, its gotta hold.”

“I got it, Vic.”

“Leo, you’ve got the worst of this. You’re going to be doing a lot of running. I need you to kill the ones on the flank, as they walk back. How many miles do you think you can run and fight? Could you cover the last three miles?”

“I could go out six miles, that’s twelve miles round trip, and still be able to fight. I could probably do thirty-five or forty miles, if I was just running, before I had to stop and rest, but that would be mostly to eat.”

“Okay, I want you, starting about five miles north of here, to start attacking their west flank. In and out, your job is not to kill them, although there’s nothing wrong if you kill a few. Your job is to draw them off. I need you to pull as many as you can west of here, all the way to Highway 29 and then get them headed south on 29. If we can misdirect them, all the better. Its eight miles of cross country running from Route 15 to Route 29. If you can drag them off, that’s great. If you try for two miles and they’re not following you, I need you back here. Most importantly, if you see any sign of a super, get back here immediately, that’s going to change the entire game plan.

“My idea is that we drop ammo at four stations between here and one mile north of here. The four of us, plus Bookbinder’s team, fight a backward action. We line up and shoot until they’re at fifty feet, then run back until they’re a hundred yards away, shoot until they’re fifty feet, repeating all the way back here. With luck, we can kill a couple of thousand before they get here to the other four fire teams waiting on the edge of this property. We’ll open up here, trying to force them to stay on the road between the river and the banks. We’ll have elevated shooting positions. That’s when I’ll hit them with the big rig. I’ll be parked back on the Robinson River Bridge, that’ll give me a half mile to get up to speed, and then I’m going to plow right up the middle of them.”

“Victor, not you. That’s a suicide run. Let me do it, at least I can outrun them.” said Leo.

“No, Leo, I need you here. I need you to pick up Max and run with him if I don’t make it. If none of us make it, I need you to take him and run. Farther and faster than you’ve ever run before.”

“Vic, don’t talk like that,” said Marshall.

“I’m not; I’m just covering all my bases.” I said.

“We’re not even sure if Frye was telling the truth,” I said, knowing he wouldn’t lie about something I could so easily check.

“There’s a chance that Jimmy and Tom are going to come back and say they couldn’t find anything.”

“We’ve got work to do. I suggest we get to the preparations. Best case scenario, we pick up the ammo tomorrow afternoon.”

“Anyone else have any ideas? I’m all ears. This is a plan I’ve had in my head for weeks. It’ll work. We have enough ammo, we have enough shooters, we can do this.”

We spent the rest of that day preparing. John took care of the ammo dumps; Marshall welded the plow blade to the front of the big rig. Leo took charge of stepping off lines of fire, and marking them in the grass with white spray paint every hundred yards from the main house. I went from spot to spot, but I was in the workshop down by the barn when I heard Tom come over the radio.