Author: J.L. Bourne
Date: 2013-10-08 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Zombies; Horror; Fiction; Science Fiction; Post Apocalyptic; Apocalyptic; Short Stories; Fantasy
Description: A nail-biting short story that takes place years after GHOST RUN. Decades post-apocalypse, a man sets out on a perilous voyage into the undead badlands.

Day By Day Armageddon: Grey Fox

- Day By Day Armageddon: Grey Fox

- Midpoint

A PERMUTED PRESS book

Published at Smashwords

eBook ISBN: 978-1-61868-159-1

Day by Day Armageddon: Grey Fox copyright © 2013
by J.L. Bourne

All Rights Reserved.

Cover art by Travis Franklin.

This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

Author's Note

Time is a very fluid thing. No one really has a grasp on it other than maybe how to measure it. As the maestro of the Day by Day Armageddon universe, I have the latitude of being in control of that time. I can adjust the slider either direction, moving the timeline back and forth along the continuum. This is one of the perks of creation, the benefit in constructing something (albeit small) from nothing. Sort of makes you wonder what the maestro of the universe is up to, no? You have again stumbled upon a ticket with service through the apocalyptic wastes, but this time the train is a little bit older, a little more beat up, and maybe a little wiser.

Keep your doors locked.

-J.L. Bourne

Alabama, 2013

This old Glock has been by my side since the early days. The days that make me wish I were younger again, faster. I’ll bet that if I were to take every round I’ve ever shot through this old pistol in defense of my life and add it up, it would be more than all the ammunition that exists today. Well, I’ll limit that claim to what used to be the United States I suppose. I’ve personally witnessed men die ten steps from me because they were shooting steel-framed guns that relied on maintenance to keep them reliable. The undead don’t give a goddamn if you’re carrying a three-gold-piece custom 1911; they’ll bite your face off when the gun fails and not care how much gold you paid. This old half-a-gold-piece Glock has never been cleaned in the nearly thirty years since it dropped from the sky. It has never let me down; even as the undead closed in all around to finish me off, on more than one occasion I might add.

Lots of people talk about safety and how we’re safer today than we were back then. The truth of the matter is that they’re right, but only half so. You see, government scientists figured out a way to “turn off” the anomaly in one place on the planet. I’m not a scientist, and I really don’t care about the particulars of how it works. I’m too old to learn something new like that, and if I could, I’d have to make room in my head. That might involve me forgetting how to survive out here. Don’t wanna do that.

The bottom line is that what was left of the government back then used some technology that I don’t want to get into too far, but maybe just a little. Some scientist and military folks got together and detonated an airburst payload high over Florida. The delivery missile was borrowed from the Chinese government (long story). The warhead was classified Top Secret—can’t say why. After it detonated, the damnedest thing happened. Within an hour, every undead creature within the blast radius fell to the ground, never to move again. The effect is persistent, or it seems to be. Anytime one of those things walks into the inclusion zone, it deactivates. Just like if you were to turn off a light switch. Been that way for about twenty-five years now I guess.

Back when they first detonated the device over central and southern Florida, they sent an aircraft up to survey the area. The explosion from the deactivator, as some call it, drew lots of those things to the area. The aircraft brought back digital shots of the northern inclusion border that showed piles of deactivated bodies, with more spilling over the forming wall. We had to send burn squads to the north and south inclusion zone borders pretty often to keep destroying the bodies that piled up there.

Even now, if you travel from the inclusion zone to the badlands, you’ll cross hundreds of yards of charred ash, bones, and teeth before your feet touch anything green. Be ready though, as it’s game on when you put the safe zone to your back. Those vile demons are just as lethal today as they were back then, especially the radiated ones.

Whenever things get bad, I write things down. Whenever things are going okay, I don’t. Things are bad.

If you’re old enough, you remember reading about North Korea, the Hermit Kingdom. Back before all this happened and you were on the capital streets of Pyongyang, you’d notice that everything there was old. They had draconian import restrictions; they couldn’t often import newer cars, medical technology, or other modern items of convenience. In many ways, Florida today is much like North Korea then. The undead embargo our imports. There are only a handful of functioning MRI machines, and only one place that can manufacture insulin. Only one hospital equipped to perform heart surgery. Only two LASIK machines capable of safely performing the procedure. This is pretty important because acquiring things like eyeglasses has become a very dangerous profession. It’s funny though, because most young people born inside the inclusion zone don’t wear glasses. All your mothers were right about sitting too close to the TV I suppose.

I’m not what you’d call a spring chicken, but I’m still getting around. I survive. In the nearly twenty-five years since the airburst, bringing the inclusion zone virtual wall online, I’ve been into the badlands (and back again) over forty times. Do I enjoy going out there? I’d backhand your face and deny it if you asked me, but those few that really know me have claimed otherwise—what’s left of them.

I have some advantages. Age and experience have shown me the best routes through the wall, into the exclusion zone; routes that the young bucks don’t think about, or are too impatient to attempt. The best ways are by boat, up the west coast of Florida, into the zone. The inclusion zone inside the virtual wall has been picked clean. Twenty-five years without the threat of the undead does that. What would have been the advantage in braving the maelstrom of the exclusion zone when you were safe looting a drugstore or food-distribution warehouse inside the wall?

After the zone was looted dry, some folks ventured out. Not far, just over the wall into northern Florida. That lasted awhile until the easy stuff was gone. Quite a few entrepreneurs got their asses bit, meeting their end just a few miles north of the wall. Whatever this wall is, it’s our best ally against those creatures. Of course, anything worth getting now is hours inside the badlands, far away from the safety of the wall and its nanomachines.

From the Florida Keys up to Orlando is man’s embassy, our oasis from relentless assault.

I live in the Keys on the southern border of the inclusion zone. My sailboat, the Solitude, gets me where I need to go. Sometimes I find myself in places I have no business poking around, and I blame that on the Solitude as well. She has her own mind; her sails sometimes fill with warm wind and before I know it, I’m looking at shorelines that a living man hasn’t seen in decades. Most of the time dead men look back at me and my boat, reaching for the sail as if they could pick it out of the water like a paper boat floating down a flooded gutter.

Everyone always asks me the best place to go to find useful things. The answer is simple: the deeper into the exclusion zone you go, the more interesting things you find. That’s mostly true but, like an old fisherman, I am keeping a few exclusive spots to myself. No, not for personal gain or even greed. It’s true that my spots yield the best supplies, but it’s also damn dangerous for the inexperienced; they are places that no sane person would dare set foot, or even drop anchor.

Tomorrow, I make sail for the Mississippi coastline, on the fringe of the New Orleans fallout zone. You see, about thirty years ago, the United States government thought it a good idea to drop nuclear weapons on some of the major cities to kill the undead; turn the tables so to speak. True, the detonation probably killed quite a few of those bastards, but the radioactive fallout had unexpected and very adverse second-order effects.

The intense radiation enhanced them. Brain function, speed, and decomposition rates were greatly altered by the nuclear blasts. After thirty years of recorded data, the radiated undead are still as lethal as the day they absorbed the atomic energy; the nonradiated only a margin lesser so. The only thing that neutralizes the anomaly on the molecular level is the inclusion zone. Whatever they detonated over Florida on that warm summer day decades ago is the only equalizer.

I’ve examined all available Farmers’ Almanacs from pre-anomaly. This is the only way to predict weather conditions for the trip into the badlands.

My boat is packed. I’m ready to do this.

It’s still dark.

This old automatic Rolex GMT keeps pretty good time, despite needing to be sent to Europe for a tune-up. The tritium in the hands and numbers is barely visible until I slip on some old night-vision goggles (NODs, or night-observation devices) to see what’s ahead of the boat. The Solitude is cutting through the water pretty good this early morning. Just a faint light in the east now, rising over the Florida peninsula. The stars are beginning to fade there, the light from them ages old; from before man or maybe dinosaur ruled the earth. My old LORAN navigation receiver is picking up strong signals from the inclusion zone. The LORAN enables my sailboat autopilot and navigation to function, allowing me to catch some naps in between long legs of the trip. Some brave soul figured out how to get LORAN up and active for navigation after the GPS satellites burned back into the atmosphere long ago. LORAN is old and fickle, but she works, and you don’t need a team of technicians and two dozen satellites to make it so.

Like myself, the Solitude is showing her age. The hull patches and other minor repairs tell stories like my scars, but she’s still the most seaworthy boat in the harbor. I make sure of that. Even when I get a high-priority list from the mayor, I still find time to pick up repair supplies for Solitude before running back to her and getting the hell out of dodge and back to the inclusion zone.

This is my last run. I must admit that I’ve said that before, but I really don’t think I’ll say it again. Venus is starting to get some friendly competition from the rising sun now. I can barely make out the Florida coastline as I make best speed northwest to Mississippi. The list from the mayor (a dear old friend) isn’t much different from the other lists I’ve been given dozens of times before, but this time it’s personal. This is why I was made a liar when I said on the last run that it was, in fact, my last. Priorities change when people you care about need something. Yes, usually folks need glasses, or insulin, but how likely is it that I could find some usable insulin thirty years post-pandemic? Zero is the answer. This is why we make our own insulin in the inclusion zone, but from time to time I’m sent out to acquire the equipment needed to manufacture more of it. No easy task, but I’ve never been the single point of failure.

BOLO list:

Pacemaker, any and all

Amino acid sequencing machine (large item)

Radiation suits (no shit)

Solar panels (warehoused if possible)

Glass beakers/containers (assorted volumes and shapes)

Copper wire (genny)

Rare earth magnets (genny)

That’s the short “be on the lookout” list. I usually end up finding only a few things on the BOLO, and a whole lot of other random shit that people didn’t know they needed until I show up with it strapped to the deck of my boat.

The wind is picking up now, and there is nothing on my charts for a hundred miles. The sails and the autopilot are set. I’m going to spend a little time belowdecks to go over my maps and make sure my weapons are ready for the incursion.

***

I’ve caught up on some shut-eye but was jostled up by my Furuno radar CPA alarm. I hit my head on the shelf above my bed and ran to check the screen. Furuno said that there was an object in front of me about two miles out. More often than not, the watchman mode of radar gives false readings. I’d still rather it be wrong and wake me up than not warn me of a giant supertanker that was tossed into the Gulf sometime during the past thirty hurricane seasons. The sun was high in the sky when I opened the cabin doors to the deck. My eyes adjusted as the sails cast long shadows across the midship and passing sea.

I was making about seven knots. My solar panels on the aft end were soaking up the sun, providing my battery banks some charge to handle the Furuno, LORAN, and autopilot—all essential for “single handing” my way across the Gulf of Mexico. I grabbed my ratty old Steiner binoculars and took a look to the horizon along the bearing of three three zero.

I could barely make out the mast through the binos. The sails appeared faded and torn as they trailed and flapped in the distant wind. I didn’t think I’d hit the boat, but I’d probably get close enough to get a good view of it on my port side as I passed.

I made way belowdecks to grab my carbine. I should have checked it first before taking my nooner. The old M4 has been with me since the early days. It’s been rebarreled twice, gone through a few gas tubes and bolt carrier assemblies, but she’s reliable. I guess about the only thing that is all original on it is the lower receiver, except the hammer spring. My suppressor wore out a decade ago in the exclusion zone, not far from where I’m headed. Some ingenious bastard in the zone figured out that old Caterpillar tractor oil filters make pretty decent sound suppressors (silencers), so he made an adapter that screws on the barrel of a rifle and accepts oil filter threads on the opposite end. Looks pretty fucking silly with a coffee can–sized cylinder hanging off your gun, but silence comes at a premium. Make too much noise and you’re done. They’ll come for you and pick your bones clean; leave you writhing there forever if they didn’t kill your brain while they were eating you alive. Think about it.

I grabbed my carbine from the bulkhead, detached the oil filter suppressor, and racked a round into the chamber. The old red dot sight still functioned. There were lithium batteries out there that still had charges on them if they were stored in cool places. A boat arrived from Halifax last winter with a good haul of batteries. I paid the captain fifty rounds of .22 Long Rifle for ten of them after fluking the charges to make sure they were good. There was no telling what that Halifax sailor had to endure to get those supplies. The Canadian bitter cold would have slowed the creatures, but still; it’s damn dangerous work. I should know.

By the time I got back on deck, I could clearly see the boat at my eleven o’clock. Even from this distance I observed that it leaned to starboard. I did a press check on my carbine to make sure I saw brass. I’m a forgetful son of a bitch these days. She looked like a thirty-five footer; maybe a Catalina. I was starting to make out details.

She had a couple solar panels on the back end. This immediately turned this situation into a salvage operation. As I neared her stern, I slacked the mainsheet and cast the headsail, stopping the Solitude. My boat began to turn around into the wind. I was only about thirty feet from the stern when I saw her name—Liquid Asset.

I slung my grappling line, trying not to damage any of my own rigging as I tossed it over. The grapple took purchase on the fantail handrail and I hauled my boat closer to the derelict vessel. The thump of the grappling hook on the aft boat deck would have caused a stir belowdecks if any creatures were aboard, or at least in the aft part of the boat. I was fairly sure she was abandoned. I hauled her in and tied off. There was old blood on the decks, rigging, and what was left of the lower sails. According to my charts, we were still inside the inclusion zone, but not far. I’ve observed that the wall is a little less stable over water. Sometimes the wall fluctuates over the water, forming a variable oblong spheroid, providing more protection—sometimes the opposite. The sea state was good enough to leave the vessels tied together so I decided to go ahead and board her.

I took out my old Spyderco folding knife and began to salvage the lines, cutting away damaged sails and anything else I might trip over during the salvage. I wouldn’t want to trip and hit my head out here. The stop was costing me some valuable underway time as it was. I was still about forty hours from the Mississippi coast at seven knots. When I began to cut the mainsail from the mast, I saw a small black flag underneath. Untangling it from the tattered main, I could see that it was only an old black T-shirt. Still, it was a black flag to a mariner in these times. It meant that death was aboard. Avoid.

I decided it was a good time to check the cabin doors. I went back aft and down the steps. With the butt of my rifle I tapped on the sun-bleached wood. No response. I put my gloves on, turned the small handle, and gave it a shove. Only the top half of the door opened and I was immediately hit with the odor of old flesh.

Flashlights wasted a lot of batteries and my NODs would white out from the bright sunlight, so I used an old Zippo to light the small candle I keep melted to the right side of the rail of my carbine in front of a small signal mirror. It wasn’t the three hundred lumens of old, but you can make candles from animal fat. It’s a good measure more difficult to make batteries and LED lights. I stepped slowly down into the cabin; my eyes adjusted to the darkness. Mayhem. A decomposed corpse lay half out of the head, its skull split in half from a fire ax. At least they didn’t waste the bullet. This meant that someone killed that corpse and made it off this boat. Judging by all the blood up top, they didn’t make it far.

I left the cabin and went back to the Solitude to get my work light and a paper air filter mask. Using a cracking, old orange extension cord, I ran the light from my inverter over to Liquid Asset’s cabin. Now the interior was lit completely. The body was in late stages of decomposition. There was some line tied to his leg. I saw maggots, but not a lot. From the looks of it, the poor bastard got infected and someone locked him inside the head.

Checking the cabin, I noticed an ice pick jammed into the forward table, securing a piece of paper to the tabletop. It laconically read Sorry with an arrow pointing forward. I didn’t check the forward hold, as my gut told me to stay out. That might seem irrational to most on a salvage mission, but I’m alone. I can’t risk it.

As I suspected, there wasn’t much worth salvaging inside the rest of the boat. I found an old flare pistol with two rounds, some long-expired emergency rations, and some SCUBA gear. I grabbed my lamp and stowed it back on the Solitude before heading back with a socket set to take the solar panels. They would bring me at least four troy ounces of gold, two per panel if their output was still good. The panels didn’t take long to detach and snip. I glanced at the batteries—trash. The inverter might be good so I removed that with my multitool. I was back onboard Solitude and on heading three two five degrees inside of ten minutes.

***

I’ve been sailing for forty hours or so. I’ve seen no signs of anything but water since salvaging the Liquid Asset. I’ve temporarily integrated the salvaged solar panels into my system. I knew the batteries on the other boat were useless. I could see that they were bone dry, and I didn’t have any distilled water to try and revive them. Wouldn’t be worth it for ten percent efficiency anyway. I may have mentioned the batteries earlier, but I don’t tend to go back and read what I write. I used to do this a lot more often.

Funny how the new economy works. A G-10 pen in good condition with full ink goes for a tenth of an ounce of gold. That would have been well over a hundred U.S. dollars back when those were in circulation. A good notebook goes for about half that. The prices only go up every year as supply diminishes. Sure, every now and again you come across an eccentric gold miser who will happily pay you a hundred gold pieces to find him something absurd. Old game systems, flat-screen TVs, microwave ovens, toilet paper, etc. I once was paid eighty-five troy gold to head into the badlands to a specific address near the Alabama coast on the edge of the radiation zone. The target? A simple picture on the wall above the fireplace. I’m not saying this was an absurd request because I’d love to have a picture of my mother or anyone else from way back when. With all that being said, I am saying that I wouldn’t have paid eighty-five troy for it.

It’s been ten years, but I still remember that bounty. I went in on a moonless night incursion with NODs, suppressed carbine, folding bike, Geiger, etc.; just like the old days. I paddled my dinghy (an old ten-foot, one-person kayak) to the shore and made sure to tie her off this time; this was my second dinghy. Won’t go there, that’s another story, but it involved a cold, bloody, and terrifying swim back to the Solitude. After tying off my orange kayak, I looked back at my boat for a few moments to make sure she wasn’t drifting anchor. She seemed at stable anchorage, so I continued inland.

I quickly unfolded my bike. I remember oiling all the moving parts to avert noise. The bike was new then, before I added a few mods. Checking my street maps again, I went over the directions in my head. With my carbine slung across my back and my Geiger set to vibrate at two hundred mSv, I started pedaling the route inland. Time has faded some of what happened ten years ago, but I remember making it to the house, only leaving my bike twice: once to lift it over some wreckage and the second time to engage half a dozen radiated creatures that sat dormant inside a bus. I drove over a piece of metal making some noise, probably a street sign. I neared the bus at about the same time my Geiger started to vibrate my hip like an old pager. The bus must have come from near ground zero. It was hot and so were the creatures coming out the side door.

Thank goodness they were inside the bus, as I was able to shoot them quite easily as they came through the door. If they had already been on the streets when I passed by . . . best not to think about that. I wouldn’t be recalling this fond memory right now. Shaking off my nerves, I got back on my bike and got the hell out before more reacted to my suppressed shots. I think the street name was something like Byers. I can’t really recall. It could have been Myers. Anyway, I arrived at the house, but it was difficult to find with all the foliage. The door was locked so I climbed the fence into the backyard. I remembered that I didn’t want to stay near the street given the time it would take to bump key the front door. Don’t know why I remember that detail.

It was like a rain forest in the backyard; trees were sprouted everywhere. The sliding glass door was locked, but I brought a custom glass cutter along to keep things quiet. I cut the glass near the latch and used a small rubber hammer from my bump key B&E set to knock the glass in. I unlatched the door and remember being thankful that my client hadn’t wedged a piece of wood in the sliding door track. Years of neglect made the door difficult to move along the track, but I was inside. It smelled like old paper. I suppose that’s a bit cliché, because if you’ve ever been in an old house, they all smell like old paper—unless there are corpses inside.

When I got to the fireplace, I couldn’t help but laugh. Dogs Playing Poker. Why wouldn’t it be? I probably would have been a tad upset if I hadn’t been paid half bounty up front. I grabbed the painting, placing it carefully in my pack as if it were the Mona Lisa itself. The house was barricaded at the front door; glad I went to the back. I checked the rooms and found an old photo album full of pictures at the bottom of a drawer. I decided to bring that along as well.

I can see the Mississippi coastline now so I’ll make this quick.

The man paid the rest of my bounty for the Dogs Playing Poker, plus fifty troy to burn the album I found.

He killed himself a year later. I went to the funeral and afterward handed his younger sister a shoebox full of pictures. I left without giving my name.

Sunset / 200+ miles from inclusion zone border

The radiation risk area has shrunk somewhat since the nuke went off in New Orleans. Rain, time, and other factors have cleaned up some of the particles, or at least diluted them. Most people don’t bother taking the time to find this out for themselves, but most of them would call me a damn old fool trying. I’m not that old, but as they say it’s not really the age, it’s the mileage. Either way, I’ve taken great pains to document and monitor the radiation levels on all my exclusion zone incursions over the years. The deadly zone has shrunk about seventy miles since detonation. I’ve noticed the radiation abatement and use it to my advantage. I never would have set foot where I’m going thirty or even twenty years ago, and yet here I am now. I’m looking on the shore of what used to be a place that would kill you without a bite. As long as I avoid large metal objects, I should be fine. Metal near the blast soaked up massive amounts of deadly radiation particles, like a Soviet fire truck or Mi-8 helicopter fighting the Chernobyl blaze.

Because of historical wind patterns, I’m going to have to wear a gas mask to filter out any radioactive dust. It doesn’t take much to kill you once you breathe it in. I don’t like wearing a mask because it fucks with my field of view and NOD employment. A suit won’t be required, as I’m not spending the night outside. A close doctor friend of mine gave me some meds to take for thyroid protection before going in. Took those with my meal this morning.

I’m targeting a university hospital that did a lot of diabetes and heart work before the collapse. Water, dried deer meat, M4 carbine with one mag of subsonic and five mags of regular 5.56, Glock 19 with five G17 mags, a fixed-blade Fallen Oak Forge knife, a folding Spydie knife, NODs, and some B&E tools make up the backbone of my load out. I made sure my oil filter suppressor was screwed on tight, feeling the exit end to make sure it was fresh. New filters were a little quieter on the first shot. After that, I would need to slap a strip of tape over the tip of the can to help muffle any single follow-on shots. I normally coat the can with some mud or dark spray paint when I can find it, but something tells me that I won’t be encountering looters this deep in the badlands. The undead don’t care what color your suppressor might be. I prefer Caterpillar yellow and black tonight.

There are a few of them on the shore, but they don’t seem to notice me. They are in hibernation, but I’m not taking any chances. The creatures are close enough to shore that I’ll take my crossbow with me on the kayak and shoot them on the way to the beach. Saves ammo; much quieter too. If it weren’t large and awkward, I’d bring the crossbow inland with me. I just can’t afford to get snagged on a stairwell or other tight place. It would be too valuable a tool to discard in the badlands. Best to be light and always know where the water is.

My battery bank is sitting on a full charge. I’ve turned off my radar. The LORAN signal is coming in strong, making me wonder the limits of the system’s range. How far could I navigate from the inclusion zone before losing navigation? Sure, I could get around with binoculars, a compass, and some charts, but good technology makes things a lot easier when coupled with a reliable autopiloting system. I couldn’t sail single hand without the technology. I didn’t use a drop of diesel fuel on the way out—plenty of wind. My tank is full if I encounter a no-wind day, or if I just want to push it a knot faster than hull speed on the way back home.

I’m going to take a piss off the fantail and then go inland to shoot some zombies. How’s that for a Facebook update? Makes me happy that the kids born in the zone don’t have a damn clue what that means.

***

I’m inside the hospital now. Just like I planned, I took out the four creatures at the shoreline with the crossbow. I recovered the nasty bolts, swished them in the water, and placed them with the crossbow inside the kayak. After putting the canvass cover over the cockpit, I unbungied my trusty old folding bike, taking note of the modifications over the years. I have a small electric motor and clutch installed with two restored golf cart batteries. I brought along the bike’s trailer, an aluminum frame 3 x 5 footer with CO_2-actuated flotation. The trailer is thirty pounds and attaches to the bike seat pedestal.

The suppressor thumped against my head as I pedaled to my destination to avoid using any of the bike’s juice. Through my NODs, moonlight was magnified across my face, but I’ve found over the years that I prefer wearing them anyway. Yes, the creatures can see you a bit better, but they can see you anytime they want, and usually when you don’t want. My old doctor friend says that they have some sort of rudimentary thermal vision adaptation. Visual spectrum is best for them, but up close they can see your heat and will attack. Don’t get close. Besides, I like one eye adjusted to the moonlight, the other adjusted to glorious NOD green tech.

I’ve taken some fire hose and, with a figure-eight knot, secured the three double doors leading to the second floor where I am now. I can hear them stumbling in the darkness at the bottom of the stairs. It’s pretty safe to assume the elevators will never be back in service, but one of the shaft doors is open and there is a creature on the bottom floor with broken legs looking up at me. Not a place I want to fall, so I placed a gurney in front as insurance in case I take up sleepwalking.

I had to clear out the floor in this wing before I could do any searching. I started in the sequencing lab because cardio was one floor up. I killed five former gang members judging by their tattered, rotting clothing and tattoos. The first one was easy, as they were all hibernating. After that it started to get tricky as they stumbled all over themselves in the darkness, reaching for the noise. I brought the boom down on the last four as fast as I could and sat still, listening in the darkness for a reaction. After a few moments passed, I tested the radiation levels. The creatures were hot, but not that bad. Only enough for preservation, not higher function—just a few mSv over nominal. One of them had a rusted pistol tucked into his belt. The gun was pushing a few more mSv so I left it there.

After scouting the lab, I’ve found the needed components of an amino sequencer in good condition under a heavy plastic cover. This is a high-priority item, but only to the peninsula. I’m here for something else. I scooted the sequencer away from the wall, noticing that it was on a wheeled cart. After pulling the plug, I lifted one end of it to see how much of a bitch this was going to be. It wasn’t going to be easy, but it never is. That’s why this thing will bring two hundred troy gold. I’ve staged the sequencer near a fire exit on the far end of the wing. I’ve also gathered up some other supplies that I’ll need to try to fit on the small trailer. It seems the clinics always need more vials, syringes, gauze wraps, etc., but never put them on the list. Like a child, they ask for a Ferrari for Christmas—like that sequencer. It’s my job to make sure they get a few pairs of socks thrown in too.

I’m going to spend the night in one of the offices tonight and go to the third floor in the morning. I’ve already fortified it. Nothing can get in without making noise. All I’d need to do is move to another exit, cut the hose from the door, and get the fuck out. You never really get used to sleeping in places like this, knowing that there are undead below and probably above you. I can hear the one moving around in the elevator shaft now. I keep imagining that it’s climbing up after me. Not much sleep will come to me tonight.

Sunset / 190 miles from inclusion zone border

This is it. I’m stable for the moment, but I don’t have long to live, I’m afraid. I knew that my luck couldn’t last forever. I don’t really care about myself in any of this. I care about my beautiful wife and my expecting daughter. I’ve started my diesel engine and dialed in autopilot for home. I’m moving at seven and a half knots, wind at my back. My sails are down but if I’m conscious enough, I can crank them up quickly if my motor dies. Twenty-five stabilized gallons, a half gallon per hour. Hull speed. Math. No.

The third floor was what did me in. I was so fixated on finding them . . . pacemakers, redundancy. I found the new pacemaker parts and pieces, gleefully stuffing them into my pack as my Geiger counter began to vibrate. A second later it was on top of me. My mask kept it from chewing off my face, but it still got a piece of my arm. Not much, just about the size of a quarter. The creature brought back those bad nightmare memories, its rotting, demon-like face staring down at me with recessed eye sockets, snapping its jaws together. It wore only a hospital robe, covered in radiation burns. I was bleeding badly and wasn’t able to reach my sidearm, so I pulled my folding knife, thumbing it open. I jammed the blade deep into its jowls up to the base of the brain. Not enough blade. I was miraculously able to get some leverage to push it off so that I could reach my gun. I put three rounds into its head and checked my wound.

I don’t really know how long I have. Some people turned in hours, some in a day. I grabbed everything related to pacemaker technology from the third floor and made for the second floor fire escape. As I ran, I pulled a long-expired package of QuikClot out of my medical pocket and slapped it on. Wrapped it in a small bandage and kept moving. Some of them were coming up the stairs as I was coming down so I shot them in the face, thump, thump. I was getting low on subsonic ammunition anyway so I tossed the suppressor and changed mags. It didn’t matter anymore. It wasn’t about me surviving now, it was about me getting back to Solitude. I slung my carbine and lifted the heavy sequencer down to the first floor and escaped out the side fire escape door after smashing the knee of another horribly disfigured creature.

My bike wasn’t far. I wheeled the haul to the cart, loaded it up, and engaged the motor on the bicycle. I didn’t lose that much blood (I thought), but I blacked out completely from the hospital to the kayak. All the pacemaker supplies were in dry bags stacked on top of the sequencer. My carbine sat empty with the bolt locked back, the barrel searing hot when I woke up on the shore. Looking behind me, I had a lot of company. Maybe a hundred. I actuated the trailer’s flotation and tied it to the kayak. I could see my vision tunneling in and out but did my best to keep it together. I am dead, but I could still save her, and others.

I rigged the davit to lift the trailer full of medical supplies and brought them onboard as fast as I could. Although they couldn’t reach me, their howls from the shore nearly drove me insane. I brought the medical supplies belowdecks quickly and then started the engine.

The truth is, I never really cared about the gold. I have enough of it to make Scrooge McDuck envious. I donate most of it to charity anyway. The only thing that brought me out here was Tara. She developed a heart condition a few years back and had to have a pacemaker. Those supplies are running critical in the zone. At first I left it to the younger ones to find, offering ridiculous bounties. Most of them either never made it back or reported that any accessible hospital was picked clean. Tara’s pacemaker needed to be replaced, and there was only one way to do that; go into the badlands myself.

From San Antonio, to Hotel 23, to Hourglass, to Phoenix, to all the time raising our daughter on a sailboat cruising up and down the coast. End of an era.

I’m going to check the autopilot and fuel level, up the throttle, and lay down for a bit. Maybe use some of that rope I took from Liquid Asset to tie myself up in the head; I guess it makes a lot more sense now. My distress beacon is functioning, full power. Radar on power-save mode. Note to wife. Check autopilot. Note to wife. Tie self up.

***

For wife only:

Tara—

I wasn’t on a fishing trip in the Keys. I’m sorry for lying to you, and sorry for making John lie to you too. I wouldn’t let him come with me. Jan would never forgive. In the cabin of Solitude, hopefully is something that made this worth it. Please take care of Bug, tell her I love her, and know that I’ll be waiting for you on the other side, wherever that may be. Take your time (Haha).

I love you,

—Kil

***

Fever, sick. Sixty-five miles, fifty-six nautical miles? Diesel still working. Making eight and hlf kts. Autopilot reprogrammd once. Not sure rason. Tough concentrate.

Insnt coffee. Jan’s go pils. Stay up.

Twenty miles inside inclusion zone

A coastal patrol picked up Kil’s distress beacon and moved to intercept his vessel. The boat never responded to radio hail or signal shots. As the sailboat tracked along its Floridian course, Kil’s friend John was first onboard the Solitude; he didn’t hesitate a second before barging into the cabin below. What John saw nearly ripped the heart from his chest. His long-time friend, Kil, tied to the bunk, pale as snow—gone. John noticed Kil’s journal on his chest, one of many he knew of. His friend was dead for certain, and he knew what had to be done. Their mutual friend Doc boarded just after John, and removed his hat out of respect. John pulled his Mark III from his worn leather holster and put it to Kil’s head.

Just before squeezing the trigger, John reached down to brush the grey hair from Kil’s face. Warmth!

***

The mysterious virtual wall is what saved Kil that day, most believe. After checking his electronic autopilot logs and working the equations backwards, Kil determined that someone, or something, made critical alterations to the autopilot system. These alterations saved him precious minutes along his route to the inclusion zone. Maybe there was a glitch, or maybe there was a problem at the LORAN station on the mainland. It didn’t matter—the wall targeted and eliminated the anomaly in his system, allowing his body to recover. Shortly after Kil’s journey, Tara received her new pacemaker leads and was on her own road to recovery.

Kil never lived down his lie, but he cherished every second of rebuke from his beloved wife.