Zomblog: Snoe's Journey (11 page)

Betty is probably the first real friend that I ever had. I mean, sure, there have been people that I have hung out with, people that I did stuff with as a child. But everybody knew me as Sam and Meredith’s daughter. I never knew if they really liked
me
.

With Betty, I have found a friend who could not care less. Seeing her huge frame almost fall off that horse, and then to hear her curse and swear at anybody who reached in to help her up…that made my cheeks ache.

Of course, we had to talk about all of the serious stuff, but after that we just laughed and joked. It was the first moment of normality that I think I have experienced since the NAA originally showed up and attacked the Sunset Fortress.

As for Selina…she has turned into a bit of a bad ass. She has weapons hanging off of her everywhere. It is a wonder that she can walk toting that much hardware.

So here is the update.

I guess General Carson and his men arrived at Warehouse City and did not even bother with a siege. He came at night and just laid into them with his flamethrowers. A lot more people actually got away than those that were killed and/or captured. I guess almost half the people took off the day that they saw the smoke rising from the direction of the Sunset Fortress.

What nobody could have expected was that the tribes in the area would come to see what happened, and then throw their lot in with us. It seems that Ethan Lind has had a change of heart.

Ethan sent word immediately and made it very clear that there will be no trade or exchange with any tribe that did not answer the call. I guess that the tribes have some sort of agreement that they call “The Doomsday Pact” which states that if a situation ever arises again with the dire possibilities as when the zombies first came, that all differences would be suspended until the issue was deemed resolved.

I asked Betty what that meant as far as numbers and made her repeat it. Seriously, I had no idea that they were so numerous. Over twenty thousand souls are a day away from joining us! While we will still be outnumbered, that difference is not nearly as vast any longer. Heck, a few more groups try to ride out and fall into our clutches, this might almost be a fair fight. Of course, you have to take away their vastly superior firepower…but heck, beggars can’t be choosers!

Sunday, September 18
th

The air is dense with smoke; oily, thick, foul-tasting black smoke. There are screams echoing in the gloom and now a fog has settled in, coating everything with a chilled dew that, if the temperature continues to fall like it has the past couple of days, may actually turn to frost.

To say that things have gone poorly would be an understatement. The nicest thing I can say is that we, or at least many of us, are still alive. As to what degree we inflicted casualties on our enemy, I don’t think it was anything close to what we suffered.

We have had to pull back into the foothills. The only thing in our favor right now is the fact that there are fires burning out of control within General Carson’s walled city. The town known as Tillamook is burning. And with it, that cursed factory.

So, here is what happened:

Ethan arrived the next morning along with people from Corridor 26 and even a few small settlements along the way. We had to actually pull back to this little bowl-shaped valley on the other side of the last foothills before you reach the flat, marshland that leads into Tillamook.

Angel and Brian met with Ethan and several others for almost an hour before coming out to address everybody. Since this was largely about deployment of forces and strategy, I was not included. That was fine; I would have had absolutely nothing to offer. Once they finished, they undertook the task of dividing all of the people into various groups with specific assignments.

I actually joined a team that rode to the ridge and kept an eye for any sort of movement that could indicate that the general might be heading out. Once the battle began, our group—about a hundred of us, all on horseback—was to watch for any sign that General Carson might try to break out the Anomalies and get them clear of the fighting.

There were three other such groups. We were placed at the main compass points surrounding the area. I was given the east side. That put the foothills and eventually the Coastal Cascade Mountains on my back.

From where we were, we could watch a lot of the deployment positions of our troops. What we were not seeing, and that should have been a clue or a warning, was any signs of movement from within the walls.

Just as the sky began to lighten and reveal the dark gray cloud cover that has been parked over us for the past three days, the signal was given: a lone flaming arrow shot straight up into the air. Seconds later, it was raining fire within the confines of the walled city/compound.

Not more than a minute later, the gates on the east (facing my direction) and the south flew open and these huge machines came roaring out, belching steam and making this horrific noise. As our people regrouped and commenced their charge, sirens began from within the walls.

What happened next was the first surprise of the day. Pouring out of the open gates were thousands of the undead. They followed the machines out into the open terrain and were promptly lit on fire by nozzles mounted on those huge steam driven behemoths. That put many of the horses in a tizzy. They have been trained well when it came to zombies…not so much when those zombies are on fire.

Things would only get worse.

Many of the Natives, rather than attempt to fight their animals, leaped to the ground and began to try and cut a path through the flaming sea of undead. The Freetown army were all on foot, so they were already almost to the fence when the next set of sirens began to sound.

When those sirens came, the walls were suddenly packed with bowman who began firing these arrows that were tipped with something that made them explode. It wasn’t like they were huge explosions, but when the arrow has already pierced your skin, it doesn’t need to be much to cause amazing amounts of damage.

Even from where I was positioned, I could see men falling, some clutching their bellies, others missing an arm or leg. The zombies began to fall on these people in droves. Between the flaming zombies and the damage already inflicted, we lost a lot of men in those few minutes.

At last, a large group of the Natives made the gate. They disappeared through the wide open entrance…and a moment later, a grate of some sort slammed down, effectively cutting them off from us. I could hear the screams from here. I don’t know what happened to them, but not one man ever exited through those gates again.

I made the decision to come down and join in the fight. We were supposed to act as a sort of rear guard, but when everything seemed to be falling apart, I saw no other choice. We charged down, and that is why I had to rely on what I heard versus what I saw for everything else. I can’t vouch for the accuracy, but I will relate as much of the other stuff that I heard as possible in these few pages.

I wish that I could do better. If anybody is reading this and the struggle endures because we have failed, I hope that you find at least one thing…one tiny snippet that helps you in your struggle. Lord knows, if anybody is reading this and the fight continues, then at least there is some hope. Seize it and do not let it fade, no matter how grim things look.

So, here are some of the events as they were related to me: A group from the Freetown contingent fought their way to one of those steam-powered machines. Two of them climbed up and discovered a hatch. You had to turn this big wheel to get the
thing to open, and then, once you did, you found yourself in a very dark and confined compartment with a handful of zombies and four Anomalies who were busy operating the thing.

Both of those men ended up being bitten, but they did manage to kill the zombies inside as well as the Anomalies. The problem they faced after was having absolutely no idea how to make the machine do anything. I am sure that, given time to study it, anybody could get it to do what needed doing. Unfortunately, the two men did not have that kind of time as the zombies outside overpowered the other men that had helped them get to the thing in the first place.

Zombies were seen pouring in the hatch as the one man from that group who survived managed to fight his way out. Fortunately, he is also immune to the bite, so the few injuries that he suffered were painful and unfortunate, but not fatal.

One of the groups of Natives riding in on horseback was just about to go through the gate on the south wall when that barred portcullis dropped and cut them off. They could not see too much because it opens right at a T-intersection, so all they could see were the walls of the two buildings that made a sort of avenue and the long warehouse-type building that was about thirty feet inside and created the ‘T’.

What they did see were (their estimate) well over a hundred people on the roof of the buildings on either side. They were waiting, and as soon as the portcullis dropped, they let loose with four flamethrowers. Men and horses went up in flames. The scream of a man is awful, but if you have never heard it from a horse, then consider yourself lucky.

One of our groups that was on a slight bluff and responsible for firing volley after volley of flaming arrows said that they fired over a thousand. Perhaps it was the sheer quantity that gave us any results. I only wish we had a couple thousand more. I don’t think we really and truly realized the logistics of what we were undertaking.

Seriously, when you look at a thousand arrows, you really do believe that is a lot…until you run completely out. And it is not like you can just hack off a tree limb and whittle one real quick. From what I have heard around camp, we were completely out of arrows within the first hour. There is not a single one to be found here.

One of our groups made a run for a bunch of the general’s men who charged out from an opening that seemed to just appear. And that was when we discovered that they had these little escape tunnels, or whatever you want to call them, located all over the place.

I don’t know how many other of these tunnels there are, but within minutes all of our people who were close to the walls and preparing to climb them were suddenly cut off. The slaughter was on a massive scale, but I was told that a lot of prisoners were taken as well. Nothing good can come from that.

So, here is the more personal news on the day. I can’t find Selina. It is rumored that Jimmy Stonekiller was with the group caught on the other side of the portcullis on the south wall, and Brian was seen falling under about fifty of the undead when one of those explosive-tipped arrows caught him in the thigh. Supposedly it practically blew his leg off just below the hip, so he would not have survived if anybody would have been able to get to him.

His second in command was also lost in the battle. While the Natives suffered about thirty percent casualties, the Freetown Army lost close to ninety percent. They are now being led by a man named Michael Rouse, a nerdy looking fellow who looks like he would be more comfortable anywhere but here at the moment. I have been told that his biggest asset is the fact that he has an amazingly analytical mind and will be vital in the planning of our attack.

You read that correctly. We will attack again just before dawn. This is one of those times where it will be better for us to die to the last man trying and hoping for that one stroke of luck than to simply give up.

On the plus side, we still have three functional flamethrowers and will be using them on the eastern wall. That is about the only part of the plan that I know so far. Angel had me with her when the meeting began, but a messenger came and said that Betty had arrived, otherwise I would have had to mention her AND Selina just a few paragraphs ago.

She looks like hell and took a few nasty cuts. She has one slice that starts on her left cheek (it could not have missed the eye by more than a half inch) and comes down to the corner of her mouth. It almost looks like she is smiling on one side of her face in a very creepy and over exaggerated way.

When I saw her, I felt like I was going to cry, but the strangest thing happened: nothing. I could not manufacture one single tear. I might be in shock, or maybe I am just to haggard to cry. I feel like I have been awake for about a month straight.

When I told Betty about the fact that Selina’s group was missing and presumed lost, she wanted to turn right around and go out looking for her. She said that she last saw her in a skirmish over on the west side of the town.

Once I got her to see the reasoning in how it would not be a good idea to go down there at night, in this thickening fog, with zombies milling about and goodness knows what else, she demanded that her group be sent that direction tomorrow. I don’t see any harm in that.

So, the two of us have been sitting on this ridge, blankets wrapped around our shoulders, hot fermented cider to sip. The landscape below us is a mix of blobs of orange and yellow light that ebb and pulse. Some eventually die, but others remain and even grow stronger.

Tuesday, September 20
th

I am camped in a small grove. There are probably a few thousand others here. We have been blessed with torrential rain, fog so thick that you cannot see your hand if you extend your arm fully, and wind that seems to sap every ounce of strength from you the moment it whips up and begins to buffet your tired, wet body.