100 Days of Death (12 page)

Finally the guy walked back across the roof and behind an air conditioning unit. We could just see the edge of a trap door as he opened it and stepped down, disappearing from view. We had just found our way in…maybe.

At 4:47 p.m., the bikers returned. We heard them coming long before we saw them. As they rolled up to the gate, all hell broke loose. Undead attacked from all directions as the gates opened. The motorbikes rolled in along with the trucks and vans. The bikers managed to close the gates long before the first Infected reached their doorsteps.

We stayed on the roof until 6:35 p.m., but nothing really interesting happened. We just got home a little while ago. We are both cold and tired and still have a lot of planning to do.

DAY 23

Albert and I almost got into a physical fight this morning.

He came out of his room ready to go make our rescue attempt and nearly shit himself when I told him we weren’t ready yet. He glared at me as I explained that we still needed to check on the biker’s routine as well as procure some specific supplies. When I finished he balled his fists. I could tell he was pissed.

“Another day?!” he screamed. “What about Kateri…that little girl?”

Albert had almost said Katarina, the name of his little sister. As patiently as possible, I told him that there was no evidence that there even was a little girl there. I convinced him that we were still going to go anyway but that we needed to be smart about it.

Albert stared at me, his bottom lip trembling. He set his jaw and made a fist again. His eyes were wild. Finally he turned and stormed back into his room.

“Oh, man,” I thought. “He’s losing his shit, just like I did.”

I made sure to hide the keys to all of our vehicles and went back to making my shopping list. Chloe pawed at me nervously. I’m sure she was getting sick of being around crazy humans.

An hour later, Albert came out of his room. “What do we need to do?” he asked.

I laid out my list and asked him to double check it. The items included:

•
four foot ladder

•
Timer device(s)

•
Primers

•
Zip ties*

•
Litter (to carry anyone who might be injured)*

•
Pipe bombs (already made)*

•
Small pry (crow bar like pry bar)*

•
Potassium chlorate

•
Steel casings

•
Bolt cutters*

When Albert asked me about the timers, potassium, casings and primers, I looked at him solemnly and said, “After what those assholes did to that man yesterday, I plan on bringing their house down around their ears.”

Albert asked if I was going to make an explosive distraction. I told him that kind of crap only worked in movies and that people tend to get suspicious when explosions go off for no apparent reason. He looked at me curiously but didn’t push it.

I wanted to hit a hobby shop in Burbank that carried potassium chlorate. We also made plans to visit the Radio Shack just down the street.

When we arrived at the Radio Shack, there were several undead wandering nearby. They raced after us and I was forced to hit one of them with my truck. The trick we learned about rolling down the windows just enough to extend our gun barrels worked perfectly and we dispatched our assailants easily. The Radio Shack’s front window was shattered so getting in was no problem.

Albert went shopping while I stood guard. He retrieved battery powered timers, 6-volt batteries, some wire, alligator clips, and three sets of walkie-talkies. He filled the rest of his pack with other electronic odds and ends.

The hobby store proved to be a little more difficult. Although we didn’t have to contend with any undead, the store was locked up tight. There were metal bars on all the windows and the doors were reinforced. I was about to give up when I discovered that the door to the hair salon next door was unlocked. The two businesses shared a common wall.

We went to the back storage room of the salon (where the sound wouldn’t carry outside) and tore out the drywall with my pry tool. We made a hole through the wall and into the hobby shop. I had to pry open a locked cabinet, but once it was open, I found what I was looking for. The owner of the shop was a model rocket enthusiast and also had a fair supply of sulfur, aluminum dust, and other dry chemicals. I took everything.

We spent part of the day back on the roof of the tire shop in Sylmar observing the wrecking yard. Like clockwork, the bikers made another run around 2:30pm. We have confirmed that they have prisoners.

At 3:48 p.m., one of the bikers went into the main building and came out with a teenage girl. I can’t bring myself to write down the atrocities that scumbag and his two accomplices committed against the poor girl. Albert and I did not speak about it but I know we are both feeling the same thing. I got us out of there as soon as it happened for fear that my anger would make me do something stupid.

When we got back to my house, I went right to work on mixing up something Paul Miller refers to as “Berge’s blasting powder.” I prepped two M60 ammo cans to use as casings.

These are lunch-box sized heavy steel cans that, once filled with blasting powder, should make impressive craters wherever they are detonated. I drilled two holes in the side of each of the cans (for double fuses), carefully filled the cans with the mixed powder, sealed the lids with cold weld epoxy, then wrapped them with several layers of duct tape.

I taped a 6-volt battery along with the timer to the outside of each can, connected the bare wire leads from the timers to the fuses and surrounded them with steel wool. When the timer goes off it will allow power through the wire and ignite the steel wool, which will in turn light the fuses…in theory. I have explained this process in detail only because I may need to use these notes as a reference some day in the future.

Albert wanted to make the raid under the cover of darkness tonight but I talked him out of it. Without force multipliers (things like night vision or thermal imaging scopes) we would have no advantage against the bikers on their own turf. Going tomorrow afternoon once the bulk of them leave (if they leave) is our only chance of survival.

DAY 24

I am writing this while Albert loads up the Yukon.

It’s just about dawn. My eyes are burning, but the adrenaline is helping me through the lack of sleep from last night. We are going to raid the wrecking yard today. Once again, I don’t know if I will survive this. But we have planned this out as much as we can. I have left out all of Chloe’s food and plenty of water, but if I don’t come back, Chloe will only last so long trapped in this house. Our fates are intertwined.

Albert is right though, we have to do this. If we don’t, we will lose our humanity, which I now realize is a precious commodity. I know that what I’m about to write is foolish, and it has no chance of ever reaching who it is meant for, but Dad, I miss you more than anything. And if there’s a Heaven I’m going to do everything I can to get there, because I know that if you’re not there already, you will be some day.

I hope we make it.

We are back home and safe, for now.

We also have three new houseguests (thanks to Albert’s big mouth). So much happened today it has been hard sorting it all out in my head.

We arrived in Sylmar a little after 7:30 a.m. this morning. It may have just been paranoia on my part, but I didn’t want to go back to the tire store we had used as an observation post, just in case. We found a new staging area about a block north of the wrecking yard.

I parked the Yukon behind an abandoned metal fabrication shop. We climbed up on the roof and scanned the area. Our view wasn’t as clear because we were on the backside of the compound, but we could see that there was no movement inside.

After an hour of quiet, I decided it was time to go plant my explosive charges. I left Albert on the roof as a lookout. We had set up a radio protocol for our walkie-talkies. We didn’t know which channels the bikers were using for their radios and even though the odds were slim that we would be on their frequency, we decided that one click would mean stop whatever I was doing, and two clicks would mean someone was coming. Voice communication would only be used as a last resort.

I carefully made my way along the east side of their yard until I came to a steel lamp post almost up against the fence. I placed the back of my ammo can bomb up against the pole and covered it with loose trash. The pole would act as a backstop and (hopefully) direct most of the charge into the corrugated metal wall.

I placed the next charge about thirty feet away at the southeast corner of the compound (near their front gate). I hoped Albert was doing his job because if anyone mounted the guard tower they would be able to see me screwing around on their property. The burnt, charred corpses all around were making me nauseous. There was no music coming out of the gate speakers this morning but there were still a few moving undead loitering around the front gate. I was careful not to make any noise.

I put the charge right up against their fence and packed seven heavy sandbags behind it to divert the charge. I had found the bags in the street a half -block away (presumably used to divert water during the rains). It took me several trips to haul them to the corner. Once everything was in place, I quietly lifted two dead bodies on top as camouflage, almost throwing up in the process.

I set the timers on both of the bombs to go off in seventeen hours. That means that (if they work) they will detonate at a little after 2 a.m. tomorrow morning.

When I got back onto the roof with Albert it was 9:32 a.m. Nobody had stirred in the yard the entire time I was gone. At around 11 a.m. the bikers began to move about. From our vantage point, we couldn’t see much in the way of individual movement other than the bikers who mounted the main tower.

They proceeded to shoot down at the front gate, I guess taking care of the undead present there. Their gunfire attracted dozens more creatures. They came out of the surrounding buildings and converged at the front of the compound and out of our view.

The bikers repeated their gasoline barbeque routine and then were fairly quiet until around 1:45 p.m. Albert and I watched as about three dozen bikers rolled their bikes into the courtyard. They were leaving early today.

We hurried off the roof and moved into position at the back fence where we decided we would breach the compound. I set up the ladder and waited. Our plan was to start cutting the chain links around a section of corrugated panel while the bikers were warming up their bikes, so we could use the noise to cover up sound of my bolt cutters snapping away.

What we didn’t count on was the six undead that were attracted by the motorbike noise and happened to pass by our position. Albert unloaded almost a full magazine of .22 (thirty rounds) and only managed to take down four of them. I had to stop what I was doing and dispatch the other two.

When the bikers finally roared out of the compound I was still not finished. Fortunately, I had started from the top and worked my way down. We covered the last links with cloth to muffle the snapping sound. Opening the cut section was difficult as the makeshift door we made was top heavy and leaned awkwardly outward. When we pulled on it, it scraped against the sidewalk. We waited and listened for five minutes, and when nobody came to investigate, we cautiously entered the compound.

We picked a good spot to breach. There were piles of wrecked cars stacked five to eight high, forming a metal maze around us. We zip tied the fence back in place and made our way toward the front of the compound. I was nervous and sweating, despite the cool afternoon air.

Pouring rain and fog would have helped us, but of course, the skies were clear and the sun was bright. We encountered another fence amongst the scrapped cars, this one just chain link. We tried to get around it but couldn’t find a way. Someone was playing heavy metal music but it wasn’t very loud. Albert pulled a ratty seat cover out of one of the cars and we used it to wrap each link we cut. Although it wasn’t very loud, we cringed each time the bolt cutters snapped shut.

To get to the building we wanted to access we had to cross almost thirty yards of open ground. There were a few obstacles we could use as islands of cover, like a discarded washer and dryer, and a tow truck, but we’d look pretty silly if someone spotted us hiding behind a washer.

We had discussed this beforehand and decided it would be best to hide in plain sight as much as possible. I was wearing dirty jeans, combat boots, and a dark green hoodie under my beat-up leather bomber jacket. I pulled the hood up to hide my features. I kept my carbine on its single- point sling away from the direction anyone might be looking from.

Albert wore a ratty jean jacket (at least it was after I made him roll around in the dirt with it first), torn black jeans, boots, and a bandana, worn Aunt Jemima-style over his bald head. We found a pair of Elvis sunglasses that fit over his coke bottles. His weapon was carried the same as mine.

We looked around carefully for a few minutes and then as casually as possible, strolled out across the grounds. We were almost to the main building when someone came out of a nearby trailer. It was a fat biker chick, obviously drunk or high.

She looked across the lot at us, shielding her eyes from the sun. We ignored her and I started a conversation with Albert. She lost interest and crossed to one of the other buildings. From the smoke coming out of the chimney of the building and the smell, I assumed that she was headed for the commissary.

As soon as she was gone we went around to the far side of the main building. The back of the building was about fifteen feet from the perimeter fence, but there were cars and junk densely packed there, leaving only a narrow four-foot wide alley along the building. Several palm trees were fighting for space amongst the debris, forming a shaded canopy overhead.

We found a door and several blacked out and barred windows along the building, but none were unlocked. I told Albert to keep a look out and as quietly as possible, scaled up a pile of stacked cars. The top of the car pile was still four four feet shorter than the top of the building and the distance was about five feet from the roof. It didn’t seem that tough until I attempted to jump the gap.

I hadn’t counted on the car pile shifting when I leapt, or the fact that I was weighted down with about forty pounds of weapons and gear. I almost missed, hitting the building with my body and just barely managing to catch the roof with my arms. I hung there like a spider for a minute, trying not to panic.

I got some traction with my boot on the stucco wall and slowly and painfully pulled myself up. I laid on my back catching my breath, and then rolled to a crouch and checked out my surroundings. No one was on the guard tower and, other than a man and a woman working on a car in the repair garage across the compound, there was no one in sight.

I looked over the edge of the roof down at Albert. He had removed his Elvis specs and blinked at me nervously. When he shook his head vigorously to let me know he couldn’t do what I had just done, I almost laughed. I held up my finger motioning him to wait and then made my way to the air conditioning unit where the trap door was located. It was locked from the inside, but after less than a minute I had pried it open with my pry bar.

I went down the stairs into the building, shutting the door as I descended. The stairs took me to a loft loaded with boxes and crates. I sat for a minute to listen and let my eyes adjust to the darkness. I climbed down the ladder from the loft to the first floor of a storage room. I exited the room and found myself in a pitch-black hallway that bisected the entire building.

To my right was the main front door and all the way down the hall to my left was (what I hoped) the door leading out to where Albert was waiting. Along the hall were three doors on the left side (including the door I had just come out of) and five doors on the right.

When I reached the back door my heart almost stopped. As I shined my weapon mounted Surefire light on the door, I discovered that the deadbolt was locked and keyed on both sides. I closed my eyes and forced myself to slow my breath. I put the light on the hinges and breathed easier when I saw that they were open pin style. I used my pry tool to lift the pins out one by one, the whole time worrying about the noise I was making.

I pried against the edge of the door just under one of the hinges and was rewarded with a shaft of daylight. The door was heavy but I managed to lift and shift it out of its frame. I leaned it against the wall and stepped out to find Albert cowering behind one of the palm trees. When he saw it was me he stepped out, looking at me sheepishly.

“Who the hell did you think it was?” I whispered to him.

I looked around at the trash on the ground, found what I was looking for, and then went back down the hallway to the front door at the other end. I wedged the angled chunk of wood I had retrieved under the bottom edge of the door, forming a crude doorstop. It wouldn’t hold someone back forever but it would give us a moment of warning if someone tried to open it.

Albert and I examined the first door we came to. It had a padlock hasp with a lock on it. I put my bolt cutters to the lock but could not get enough leverage to snap it. I stared at the lock, frustrated. I was starting to worry that we were taking too much time.

Albert suggested prying the hasp off with my pry tool. Although it made more noise than I wanted, once I managed to dig under the edge of the hasp, it pulled off without too much resistance. Thankfully, whoever had installed the hasp used nails instead of screws.