“Contact up ahead.” Miguel turned his gun to face a group of figures visible beneath a flickering streetlight. While small groups of zombies could be ignored, it was military policy to fire on large packs, which were not only a danger to convoy teams and DDCs, but maximized the effectiveness of remaining ammunition.”
“WDs… open up,” Carl ordered casually. He recognized the shambling gait and slack-jawed motion of the undead from a mile away.
“Copy,” came back in the same unemotional monotone.
The machine guns atop the three hummers erupted in a rattling torrent of firepower. The group of undead was pulverized. Carl watched body parts and gore explode in every direction. His eyes caught the form of a figure standing in the second story window of a nearby house. Framed by the yellow light behind her, she was dressed in a nightgown, middle aged, and expressionless — almost ghostlike. She held back a curtain as she watched the vehicles drive past… until they were out of sight.
Carl’s mind wandered. There were still living people hiding in barricaded houses and office buildings in this city. The Convoy couldn’t help everyone it encountered, but people like the woman in the window were, day by day, surviving against the odds. Their chances were slim, and food and supplies were limited, but—for the moment—they were alive.
“We’re approaching the DDC. Stay alert.” Pam’s voice came over the communication network. They approached a part of the suburbs that had started to grow thick with the walking dead. The clatter of machinegun fire and cacophony of moans punctured the serenity of the beautiful San Diego morning.
As they continued their way down the empty road, the community began to look less like a residential zone and more like a war-torn no-man’s land. Abandoned sandbag fortifications sat next to empty armored personnel carriers. The charred black frames of burnt-out houses poured gray ash into the air. Metal husks of overturned cars with broken windows littered the street and driveways. The ground was riddled with craters, and among it all lay the countless bodies of the deceased. There were no survivors here, only the dead and the undead.
Rising up from its cruel surroundings stood a school. The multi-storied brick building once filled with perhaps several thousand students, now stood as a battered but implacable bastion against the swarms of undead that assailed it. Snipers nests lined the roof placing the approaching convoy in their sights. Several dozen yellow school busses were parked front-to back and served as a defensive perimeter around the front of the school. With their tires deflated and their roofs lined with razor wire, their ten-foot-tall steel walls served as perfect protection from the lifeless hordes that raged below. More soldiers patrolled atop the wall and trained their rifles on the approaching vehicles, wary of imposters or raiders. Several hundred writhing, screeching, and angry dead packed themselves around the wall, clawing and scraping in frustration at the living flesh that stood just out of reach.
“Holy fuck…” Pam said, not realizing her microphone was on. This DDC was not the largest that they had seen, but it was by far the most battered. While every DDC gradually devolved from a friendly, clinical, civilian living area to a harsh militarized defensive entrenchment, this one had seen more than its share of horror.
A soldier on top of the improvised wall directed them to enter into an alley created by two buses. Once inside, a third bus drove into place to block the entrance before a fourth bus drove forward to provide the convoy access to the DDC; a makeshift zombie air lock.
Signage on the sides of the buses and walls of the school had been left in place from when the DDC was taking in refugees. The classic image of a pointing Uncle Sam asked, ‘Do YOU need to be here?’ with subtext that read, ‘You may be safer on your own.’ Another sign depicted an image of a family atop a shining hill with text that read, ‘There’s a place for everyone! Turn your home into a safe haven.’ Imagery of independence and self-reliance disguised the true intended message: The DDCs could not take in any more people, please go away.
It didn’t take a sign to communicate the sense of hopelessness that pervaded the DDC. Tents were scattered about a muddy field. Lonely figures sat alone or in pairs on bleachers, watching the convoy as it parked. Soldiers glared at them with menacing eyes.
“We aren’t welcome here, are we?” Carl asked himself out loud.
Chapter 12
Carl, Pam, and Miguel, stepped out of their Humvee into a muddy field. It was dominated by a large pole adorned with an American flag, flapping in the gentle breeze. Soldiers all around them either ignored or glared at them. A chorus of moans echoed from beyond the wall of buses that protected the school, and the stench of death hung in the air. The other convoy crews gathered together in silence behind their lead team, taking in the scene. The Defensible Detention Center looked ragged and worn, but—at the moment—it was safe.
A titan of a man emerged from the school entrance. He was clad in gray fatigues from the waist down, but his powerfully muscled chest was bare. He took a long drag off a cigarette, assessing the convoy before setting his jaw and walking over. From behind him, emerged a woman in a white lab coat and thin, black-rimmed glasses. Her slight form was dwarfed by the giant beside her, but she possessed an aura of authority communicating that she was in charge.
Carl and the convoy crew walked toward the two figures. A mob of several dozen men and women erupted from the school and rushed toward the soldiers. The convoy team stopped dead in its tracks and cautiously readied their side weapons.
“Please,” the lead man shouted, “I will give you one hundred thousand dollars to take my family out of here!” The man was dressed in a tattered and wrinkled suit. His eyes were wild with desperation. “I have it right here! See, look.” He motioned to a brief case he had handcuffed to his wrist. “A hundred grand! Please!”
A woman in her late twenties wrapped her arm around Miguel and pressed herself against him. “Hey, honey, I’ll give you a ride if you give me a ride. What do you say, handsome?”
“No, I…” Miguel began.
The shouts and pleas of the men and women grew louder, and the crowd pressed in around them. Mothers and fathers waved pictures of their children in the face of soldiers. People offered money, insisted they were important, claimed to have some vital information, or simply dropped to their knees and begged.
“Back off!” a shout from the half-naked colossus crashed through the noise like a sledge hammer. The man stood head and shoulders above everyone around him, and a path cleared for him as he continued toward Carl and his team. The pleas from the desperate civilians trailed off, and the crowd reluctantly dispersed.
The man came to a stop about a yard away from them, took the cigarette out of his mouth, and abruptly saluted. “Sergeant Keal at your service, sir!”
The tension diminished slightly when Carl saluted back. “Sergeant First Class Carl Harvey.” He said with relief.
“We’ve been expecting you, Convoy Nineteen. Please follow us.” The small woman in the doctor’s coat seemed almost invisible next to Sergeant Keal, but her authority was unmistakable. Abruptly, she and the sergeant turned on their heels and headed back toward the school.
Carl looked around at his team. “Stay with the cars. Miguel, Pam, and I, will be back.”
Private Barona, Specialist MacAfee, Sergeant Quinn, Private Richards, and Sergeant Ornstein hesitated to leave their commander in the hands of strangers, but they reluctantly retreated back to their vehicles. Civilians quickly converged on the men who remained outside and resumed pleading, begging, and bargaining for a way out of the DDC and into the fleet.