America the Dead (17 page)

I couldn’t have agreed more. As we got back aboard the RV to clean our weapons and secure for the night, I couldn’t help but wonder what else we were going to see on this trip.

16

The convoy out of California had been on the road for nearly three weeks. They had spent considerable time moving around large population areas and combating zombies when necessary. Considering the distance they had travelled, it was a marvel that none of their number had been killed.

There had been battles and some communities were not as welcoming as others had been. Major Thorton was savvy enough to realize when he was holding a losing hand and didn’t press the issue. When some communities showed a preference for fight it was a wiser choice to hold back.

The overall picture Thorton got as he crossed the heartland was there were more survivors than he originally had anticipated, but the lack of effective communication kept them isolated from each other. A few communities had set up runners, but for the most part, they were self reliant. This worked well for Ken, as he intended to make sure no other power came into being after he took over the governing of the country.

For the moment, he was enjoying a little rest and relaxation. He and his men had fought a number of zombies around the St. Louis area, so much so that he had been forced to take his convoy off the designated path and head around the city area. When they reached the river, Thorton realized he had to find a way across as the river was higher than he expected.

Fortunately, the Mississippi is crossed by several small bridges and the group managed to find one in short order. After the crossing, Major Thorton and his men found themselves in a state park, Pere Marquette and were taking a little rest after their weeks on the road. The park was in pretty decent shape and the hotel on the premises gave each man a room to himself and a bed for the first time in a while. There was plenty of water, thanks to the river and the woods provided a good amount of fresh meat. The men had explored the area and had not found much in the way of zombie activity. Down the road a little bit were some homes and a couple of businesses, but they had been looted and destroyed.

Right at the present, his men were combing through the forest preserve and the Major was enjoying a moment on the grand porch of the lodge. His captain was out with the men and Ken was appreciating his surroundings.
Wouldn’t this make a great place to start the new regime?
He thought to himself.
Good place, plenty of resources and if the map is right, damn near in the middle of the country. Just about perfect.

Thorton’s ruminations were interrupted when a very wet and nasty looking creature stumbled into view. It apparently had been hanging out in the river area and finally motivated itself to see if it could get a meal with all of the activity of the men thrashing about in the woods. Water dripped off decaying limbs and the clothing it wore was simply in tatters. From this distance, it looked like pieces of skin were coming off with the water as well.

The Major looked around to see if there was anyone nearby he could order to get rid of this creature blocking his view, but of course, everyone was out of sight.

Naturally
, he thought.
Oh well, gotta do some things myself
. He heaved his heavy frame out of the Adirondack chair he was lounging in and walked over. The zombie, seeing potential prey, let out a gurgling moan and managed to spew water in the major’s direction, not endearing itself at all to the living man.

Ken stopped at a woodpile and selected a suitable club, not wanting to waste ammunition if he didn’t have to. The wood was for the large fireplace inside the lodge, so the logs were about four feet in length and about four inches in diameter. Ken hefted his weapon and turned back to the zombie.

The ghoul was much closer now, moving steadily on squishy feet. Thorton could see its wet progress across the parking lot and again wondered where it came from, since zombies tended to avoid water for some reason.

Moving in, Ken readied his weapon in a baseball stance and waited for the zombie to get closer. Just as it was in range, he swung the heavy club. The log whispered through the air and would likely have knocked the zombie’s head clean off if it had connected. But the zombie fell at the last second and the log passed harmlessly over its head. Overbalanced, Ken spun around and fell on his back, his log spinning away harmlessly.

The zombie, seeing its prey suddenly closer, doggedly crawled forward, grabbing Ken by the ankle and trying to bring it in for a bite.

Thorton was not about to be brought down by a single zombie. He shoved his other booted foot into the zombie’s face and held it off while he drew his weapon. He was going to have to be quick, because the second he moved his foot, the zombie was going to snap forward and bite him. Taking aim at his toes, Thorton suddenly released the ghoul’s head and fired at the same time. The heavy .44 caliber bullet slammed into the zombie, blasting apart its head in a spray of bone, brains and zombie bits. The now fully dead ghoul slumped to the ground and Ken shook his ankle free of the dead fingers.

The sound of the shot brought several soldiers running to the scene with guns drawn, but all they saw was their leader getting to his feet with a dead, wet zombie nearby. Thorton holstered his weapon and glared at the assembled men.

“Thanks for nothing. Where the hell were you morons?” he growled, staring hard at a small man on the far right.

The man blanched at being singled out, but managed to stammer out, “We were watching the trail. Captain Tamikara ordered us to keep an eye out for roamers while he and three others checked out a survivor sighting.”

“Survivor sighting? Here?” Major Thorton turned thoughtful.

“Yes, sir. The captain got a report from a scout party that there might be a couple of survivors up on the hill overlooking the rivers,” the soldier offered.

“What’s up on the hill?”

“Haven’t been there myself, sir. I heard from another man that there was an old government building up there and that might be where they sighted the survivors.”

Thorton looked up at the landscape. “Come with me. I want to see this place. The rest of you get rid of this mess.”

“Yes, sir!” came the chorus.

Thorton and the soldier walked over to the trucks and boarded the closest one. They drove along the park’s main road, dodging deadfall trees and branches and slogging through erosion washes. Everything a normally running park would have crews to remove blocked the passage of the big vehicle.

In the end, what should have taken an easy ten minutes to the top of the hill wound up taking a half an hour. By the time they reached the top, Major Thorton was short on patience and feeling rather frustrated. He stepped out of the vehicle and forcibly shut the door behind him. The slamming door startled a series of birds who protested as they soared to the skies. He paid them no mind as he looked over the facility. It was a small building, roughly thirty feet on a side, made out of poured concrete. It had two small windows and a single steel door. A large radio tower stretched upwards and the entire building was surrounded by a barb-wire topped chain link fence. A small sign near the single gate simply read “U.S. Government Property–No Trespassing.” The area was much more overgrown than the surrounding park, suggesting that this little area had been abandoned years before the Upheaval. What its purpose was, Thorton could only guess.

The major walked around to the front of the building and looked inside. It contained what appeared to be three rooms. The first had a decaying couch and a couple of broken chairs. The second room was the galley kitchen with a small bathroom and shower along the back wall. The third room was the bunk area, long abandoned. The place was dusty but the elements had been kept out and the concrete had kept out the most persistent of creatures from getting in. The place had been cleaned out, obviously by its previous occupants and the lack of debris and other castaways usually left behind when people left places in a hurry suggested to Thorton that this place had been occupied by former military.

What the place was for and what it was doing in the middle of the state park was still a mystery. Thorton was curious, but not that curious and was about to holler for his driver when the man stuck his head around the corner of the door which led to the kitchen.

“Sir?” The soldier, named Cody Ransom, seemed excited about something.

“What is it?” Ken didn’t hide the impatience in his voice.

“You gotta see this, sir.”

“I don’t have time for games, what is it?”

“Sir, this one I have to show you.”

Ransom’s insistence got Thorton’s curiosity aroused again and that won out over impatience. He followed the private through the kitchen and into the bunk area. There were three bunks, suggesting a rotating shift of some sort between three men, doing God knows what in this empty place. That in itself wasn’t as curious as the stairwell in the back corner that led down into the ground.

The opening was simple and was easily covered with a metal door. The floor rug had been pulled back, exposing the trapdoor into the secret of the bunker.

“Well, well. What have we here?” Thorton asked out loud, peering into the darkness.

“It’s interesting, sir. Follow me.” Ransom stepped down the small spiral staircase, quickly dropping out of sight. The Major was thoroughly curious and quickly followed. His heavy bulk caused the stairway to squeak in protest. At the bottom of the stairs was a room roughly the same size as the bedroom upstairs. A table and chair sat over by the side wall and a large desk occupied the far wall. A strange metal cabinet sat next to the desk, but the equipment on top of the desk got Thorton’s attention.

In the light of Ransom’s flashlight, Ken could see a large radio transmitter. There were numerous dials and switches, a microphone for broadcasting and three sets of headphones. Everything looked in excellent condition, despite its age and Thorton could only wonder as to why it was here.

Back in the late 1940s, the US military was coming home from Europe and Asia with a lot of ponderables and what ifs regarding the security of the United States. It was decided that a communications network needed to be set up securely from coast to coast, unreliant on local power grids and manned by military personnel. The mission and purpose was to provide communication to troops and vital personnel in the event of a nuclear attack from a hostile nation. An electromagnetic pulse, generated by an atmospheric nuclear explosion, would effectively cripple a nation by knocking out its power and communications. The military had it in mind that if such an event were to happen, they would be in a better position to coordinate a counter attack if a system of communication was still active. Across the nation, small structures were built and manned in remote areas, outside the normal prying eyes of the public. Men were stationed in theses places and rotated in and out on a three month rotation. These little buildings had their own power sources and were capable of transmitting messages hundreds of miles to the next station. What was not generally revealed, however, was that these stations had a darker secret. They were designed not only to be able to send messages, but to be able to listen in on nearly every wavelength used by professional and amateur airwaves. Essentially, these places were the listening posts of the nation, keeping an ear out for subversive activity and for reporting to the authorities any activity of a suspicious nature.

These listening posts were highly useful during the Red Scare days of the 1950’s and 1960’s, but as other methods of communication developed, they began to fall by the wayside. In 1968, the program was quietly scrapped and the system was shut down. But several posts still remain and some, undisturbed.

“Well, it’s interesting, I’ll give it that, but why are we down here, looking at a pile of old equipment?” Thorton asked.

“Sir. I thought the same thing,” Ransom answered. “But then I did this.” The private reached out and flicked a large black switch on the side of the metal cabinet. The dials of the radio suddenly glowed with life and dozens of red and green lights lit up under frequency dials.

The major took a step back as he realized what he was looking at. Something he hadn’t seen in nearly two years.

“Holy shit. There’s power here.” He said quietly. “But how?”

“Sir? Remember that little dam we drove over to get to this side of the river?” Ransom asked, walking over to the stairwell and turning on the light switch. The room was bathed in a yellow glow as an ancient light bulb slowly came to life. Thorton marveled at the bulb as Ransom continued. “I would guess that little dam has been providing power to this little station since they built it and no one ever figured out where the generators were.”

“Freaking amazing,” said the major. “Well, let’s see what this thing can do.”

“Yes, sir,” said Private Ransom, sitting down at the desk and placing the headphones over his ears. He sat there for a few minutes, adjusting a few knobs and dials. After a about ten minutes, Ransom took the headphones off and looked up at the major.

“There’s a lot of chatter out there, sir, more than I thought there would be,” Ransom said.

“Let me hear.” Thorton took the headphones and put them on. Over the airwaves, he could hear dozens of people talking to each other, mostly discussing mundane things like planting food and foraging for supplies. Some talked about trying to set out for the cities for stuff, others talking about how bad the zombies seemed to be in their area. On other channels, he overheard some people who were getting desperate, hoping someone would come to the rescue as zombies broke down their defenses. He chuckled at that, then looked over at the panel. There was a “Transmit” switch and he pointed to it as he took off the headphones.