Get Off My L@wn - A Zombie Novel (5 page)

T
oday (Day 16) the
radio update said the
Wisconsin seat of government had relocated to a naval vessel in Lake Michigan.
Planning was underway to fold the state government into a Midwestern
super-authority to better coordinate resources in the region. This made a lot
of sense as there was a massive duplication of disarray among the dysfunctional
state governments and military commands.

Martial law would be formally declared across
the country on Monday. Guard troops of all branches plus state and local law
enforcement would be federalized. If there were protests about the suspension
of state’s rights, we didn’t hear about it from the government run radio
update.

In international news, the Vatican (as was all
of Rome) had been declared lost. A different kind of mass was being held in St.
Peter’s Square now.

The military command channel was now joined with
the public safety dispatch channel on the police scanner. A few of the tactical
channels were patched together as well. What we heard was not promising.

In the evening, the safe zone at Chippewa Valley
Regional Airport was declared closed to new refugees. Patrols outside the
defensive perimeter were stopped. There was no need to go out looking for the
enemy any more. The enemy came to them.

The defensive line roughly followed the airport’s
own preexisting fencing. The chain link would not hold for very long when
hundreds let alone thousands of undead began pressing in on it. Concertina wire
added to the fence was a waste of good concertina wire. The undead would be
unfazed by cuts but perhaps might be caught up in it long enough to be shot.
Soldiers manned barricades made variously of sandbags, concrete barriers or
both. This was a waste of time. Zombies don’t shoot back but could swarm around
and over low defenses of this sort.

A different kind of enemy means different kinds
of defensive measures. The defenders of Chippewa Valley Regional weren’t
equipped nor did they have time to erect a proper defensive line. It could be a
slaughter in the making.

O
n Saturday (Day 17), Ruth Ann and I couldn’t
resist temptation any longer and the hypocrisy was palpable. Archimedes had it
wrong. He should have said,

“Give me a desire strong enough and a
rationalization on which to base it and I will move the world.”

Three of our neighbor’s homes were open to
nature, having already been violated by the looters we dispatched. For safety’s
sake, we decided to visit only the Olson house because it was closest. We didn’t
know the people well, but they were neighbors, right? And their house was
already broken into, right? Bottom line, we were sure
we
wouldn’t shoot
at
us
like
we
shot at five men for doing almost the same thing
we
were about to do now.

Both of us armed, we drove the car around the
corner to our neighbor to the east. Ruth Ann stood watch while I searched the
home. In retrospect, I was foolish in that I just walked around normally inside
the house, revolver still in my pocket. We hadn’t seen yet how deviously a “dumb
zombie” could hide. I found a number of blankets, bed sheets, bungee cords and
other, what I would consider practical, things. I noted that the previous
looters had torn apart our neighbor’s entertainment center. With them dead, there
was an Xbox sitting idle somewhere. There were some dry and canned goods left,
which I also took.

We spent much of the rest of the day checking
and rechecking inventories and mechanical systems. Ruth Ann drilled me on
handling our various weapons. She took apart all four firearms for cleaning,
oiling where necessary and reassembly. Ruth Ann also thoroughly tested the “new”
rifle. She said it might be a more convenient weapon for me to use than her own
hunting rifle as hers was bolt action and this one was semi-automatic.

The radio update said an invasion of Door County
had begun. Door County is a spit of land sticking out into Lake Michigan.
Surrounded on three sides by the lake and even further south by a river system,
it had a relatively narrow entrance.

Starting with Washington Island at the northeast
tip of the county, Army and Marine Corps units are going to go door to door
combing every inch of ground heading southwest like squeezing a tube of
toothpaste. Their aim is to leave no undead or infected person behind their
advancing line.

T
he radio broadcast on Sunday (Day 18), gave an
update on the progress of the Washington Island campaign. It said that despite
slow progress initially, the military was adapting and developing more
effective tactics for dealing with this new type of fight. Our forces had
control of the Washington Island Airport and were working to improve its
capabilities. The commanders on the ground believed the entire island would be
secure enough by the end of the next day to begin construction of refugee
facilities.

Refugees still on the move were now warned away
from safe zones and advised to seek the best hiding positions they could find.
Safe zones were in fact attracting masses of undead. Zones without protective
terrain were in increasing danger of being overrun. With operations now
underway to completely disinfect islands and peninsulas, staying put (if
relatively safe to do so) was increasingly a better option.

A new segment was added to the broadcast:
advice. If the phone systems were working, it might have been a call-in show.
The progression of the sickness was discussed as well as purifying water and
best practices for killing zombies. Tips about zombie behavior were given.

Interestingly, the advice on the best places to
seek refuge included being in a concrete structure far from a river or lake and
not near major highways. In fact, structures of any kind near major highways
were to be avoided because they were easy routes for mindless eating machines
to follow. The dead were massing in larger and larger numbers. Shorelines were
to be avoided because they were obstacles and caused the dead to bunch up. A
concrete structure in the middle of nowhere was best.

Like right here at home.

Ruth Ann and I listened to our police scanner for
long periods. Military and civilian law enforcement radio channels were trunked
together to provide a common communication network permitting us to listen in
to most traffic. The safe zone was heading downhill.

It was common now to hear weapons fire during
transmissions. Sometimes we heard heavy machine guns. The strategy was still to
defend the airfield to permit the commencement of evacuations. Tactics improved
a bit but the defensive perimeter was simply too long for the forces they had.
Helicopter gunships began operations at the airfield. Ruth Ann and I could see
moving shapes above the field in our binoculars when we looked east from our
roof. That evening as the sun was setting, we saw lines of light extend from
points in the sky which raced to the ground.

O
n Monday (Day 19), the news from Door County was
good. Supplies from ships in Lake Michigan and hence out to the Atlantic were
being ferried into the small harbor facing Rock Island. Construction of the
first “truly safe” large refugee center in the Midwest had begun. The full-scale
invasion of Door County proper was started. Because the area had been lightly
populated to begin with, and with improving tactics, casualties among our
troops was said to be minimal.

The Federal government finally declared martial
law as expected this day. Seven states including Wisconsin were collapsed into
the Midwest Administrative Zone. Wisconsin’s controversial governor was finally
out of a job. Running the Administrative zone was a military function.

The Air National Guard and civilian volunteer
pilots started airlifting refugees out of Chippewa Valley Regional. It was
clear the safe zone was going to fall. The only uncertainty was if its
defenders could hold it together long enough to get everyone out.

Helicopters brought in a newly developed
adaptation to this new type of enemy: the portable pillbox. Recognizing the
crudeness of the zombie assault and that all immobile defensive positions will
ultimately be overrun, the devices are portable steel boxes carrying an
enormous amount of ammunition feeding a light weight battery operated Gatling
gun, the GAU-19.

These were the same guns, but mounted on
helicopters, that shot so quickly they made the continuous streams of light we
saw last night.

The pillbox had a hook assembly on top. When the
gun jammed or  ran out of ammunition, a helicopter came along and whisked it
away. If the box was overrun, the gunners were safe inside out of arm’s and
harm’s reach. A rescue helicopter ‘simply” needed to sweep away any ghouls
covering the hook assembly which could be snagged if the box was upright or on
its side.

Simple, safe and effective.

And in too short of supply. Exotic weapons such
as these Gatling guns had to be spread across the country. No new ones were
going to be made for a while.

I had an idea today to allow Ruth Ann and me to
remain in contact with one another if we were separated (but in or near the
house). Having walkie-talkies or those little FRS radios would have been better
but as a Secretary of Defense once said, “You go to the zombie apocalypse with
the tech you have not the tech you want.” Of course Donald Rumsfeld didn’t say
exactly that, but the meaning is similar.

I took one of the Raspberry Pi’s out and set it
up to be an email server on our house network. Now, all of our WIFI devices
including our phones can send and receive email as long as the device is
connected to the house network. This was the first email system I’d been on
since the early 1980’s where I was confident of not receiving any messages from
the widows of deposed oil ministers or persons with an overly large interest in
my male parts.

O
n Tuesday (Day 20), things were terminally grim
at the safe zone at Chippewa Valley Regional Airport. Over our police scanner
we heard that evacuations continued by plane until it was unsafe to operate
aircraft from the main runway for fear of actually ramming undead walkers on
the field. Another defensive line closer to the river was organized. Those
remaining in the zone were ferried across the Chippewa River to farms on the
other side. Evacuation by helicopter continued from the farms. When the last
civilians had been airlifted out, a convoy of trucks and Humvees carrying the
remaining troops and portable equipment slipped onto Wisconsin 29 and left the
area.

Our police scanner was quiet after that. As far
as Ruth Ann and I knew for sure, we were the last humans in this part of
Wisconsin. We didn’t do much of anything today other than listen to the scanner
even after it went silent. We were depressed. We argued about nothings. We
spent the remains of the day in different parts of the house.

I
t is Wednesday (Day 21). We found out today
where the next capital of the United States of America will be. Puerto Rico.
And like the abandoned District of Columbia, Puerto Rico still won’t get to be
a state.

According to the national section on today’s
broadcast, a task force comprised of much of our country’s returning European,
African and Central Asian based forces have converged on the island’s eastern
end along with forces already to sea in the Atlantic.

There was no activity anywhere on our police
scanner today. There were still digital bursts happening up in the ham radio
bands but we had no way of knowing where in the world they came from or what
they said.

We felt very alone today. Perhaps more so than
any other day described in this book. While the Chippewa Valley Regional camp existed,
it was like they were neighbors just over the hill and through the dale. We
couldn’t see them but we knew they were there. Now they’re gone.

It wasn’t shocking that the safe zone had
failed. Never the less, that it
had
failed was a big blow.

H
ippies and liberals had an age old question
answered today, Thursday (Day 22). During the international news segment of the
daily update we learned that North Korea nuked Seoul, South Korea and then
invaded their neighbor. The question that had been answered was “What if you
threw a nuclear war and nobody showed up?”

North Korea’s use of a nuclear weapon evoked no
response at all. If, by “no response,” one overlooks the opening of the border
for the undead to go north. There hadn’t been a single case of infection in the
isolated north until they figured they would seize the opportunity to grab the
south. We can be certain that the results were not what the dear leader had in
mind.

Troops in Puerto Rico were finding rough going
in trying to disinfect an island of more than three million people. Puerto Rico
had forewarning of the outbreak so relatively few cases developed there.

“Relatively few” in this case meant only a fifty
percent mortality rate compared to more than ninety percent in other densely
populated areas. Isolating living humans long enough to ensure they were not
infected grew to be one of the force’s largest tasks.

Closer to home, our forces were making steady
progress through the lightly populated area of northern Door County above
Sturgeon Bay. Reaching Sturgeon Bay would be a milestone as the county is split
in two there by a natural waterway and canal. Once Sturgeon Bay was secure, more
than a hundred square miles of beautiful land would be available to host
refugees.

Closer to home there were no sounds emitted by
the police scanner again today. Ruth Ann and I were resigned that we would not
be hearing anything more from it until Johnny came marching home again.

Would we still be alive to hear it?

We took stock of our supplies and situation
feeling the strong tug of self-doubt. Certainly, there was no alternative now but
to stay put. Supplies were fine, water and electrical systems were working.
Hell, we had some bargain basement DVDs still in shrink wrap and dozens of
books we hadn’t read.

And we had each other.

All day.

All night.

We were sick of each other frankly.