Day by Day Armageddon (11 page)

  I swung around to see six of them shambling around the fuel truck. I had no choice. I readied my carbine and ran to the aircraft. I jumped up on the wing and started shooting at them. I took out two of them, and missed another.

  I was careful not to shoot at the two that were in direct line of site between the fuel truck and myself. I had two more to take down before I had to carefully handle the other two. Shot another in the head. Its forehead opened up like a spring flower.

  The flash from my muzzle was really playing hell in my night vision. I had to adjust the intensifier; it was much darker through the lens as I took down the fourth ghoul with a head and neck shot. There were two more. The two (that were risky to shoot) closed in. They were at the plane. Trying to climb up on the wing. I shot one in the shoulder throwing it off. The other one almost grabbed my boot before I dispatched it with another headshot.

  The last wounded ghoul got back on its feet and raised its arms like a deranged Frankenstein as it came at me. I jumped off the wing opposite the monster and watched it as it started walking around the aircraft toward me. It was dark, and the thing just kept running into the wing and empennage of the aircraft. I carefully aimed, as to avoid damage to the bird and let one shot ring out. The jaw tore away from the face, letting the orphaned tongue hang freely. Even in the limited colour perception I have with the goggles, it was a disgusting site.

  It slumped back and kept coming at me and let out a gurgling sound in its throat. I shot the bastard again, ending its miserable existence.

  After dragging all the bodies by the legs, out of the way of the aircraft, I began to refuel it. It took almost ten minutes to top it off. During this time, I could now hear the moans of the un-dead carried on the wind. The gunfire excited them. It was a terrible sound. After getting the aircraft refuelled, I made for the tower. No detours. Once again the gimp ghoul was nowhere to be seen. WTF? I'm safe inside for the night right now. The moans continue… another night with earplugs.

  The thought of the night; I killed six of them… that leaves "gimpy" and another four inside the fence. Where are they?

  Awoke this morning to a banging sound on the steel door down stairs. It sounded like more than one of them. John and I crept downstairs to check things out. From the sounds, there were multiple fists banging on the door. Low moans could be heard through the steel. I checked the lock to make sure it was solid. This was the only door in or out of the tower.

  The only other way down was a two hundred foot drop from the balcony. John and I brought down a heavy desk to place in front of the door. I went up top and out on the observation deck. I couldn't see down because of the roof over the door area. Using my binoculars, 1 checked the west fence in the distance. There were more, but the fence was holding. I guessed that the creatures banging on the door were the leftovers from my battle earlier. I don't want to risk opening the door below. I don't know the best way to dispose of them.

  The banging stopped last night, and the un-dead at the bottom of the stairs must have just given up, probably because they never saw us or heard us in here. John and I were still and quiet the whole day yesterday. There was no need to go outside today, as the plane was refuelled and we still had power/running water in the tower.

  I even got a chance at a shower in the bathroom one floor down. There was a deep sink and a garden hose. The floor panel was plastic and had a drain in the centre and the whole room was just a janitor closet, so I rigged the hose up above my head and took a nice shower. Had to use a bar of soap for shampoo, but oh well, beggars can't be choosers, or so they say. I hadn't shaved in a few days.

  The razor felt good on my face. I felt like a new man after I had washed up. I did some laundry (in the sink with the bar soap) and hung it in the stairwell to dry. I told John about my little hose trick, but he wasn't interested. He just keeps getting worse and worse, grieving over his wife.

  I do not know what my long range plans will be. The world is a different place now. The range on the aircraft is just over four hundred miles. That gives us some options. For a little while today, I initially thought about finding what was left of the military. The questions that they would ask me would be difficult to answer. "How did you survive on the base, son?" I almost feel guilty about not dying with my comrades. It reminds me of a twilight zone episode I saw before the shit hit the fan. It was an episode about a Navy submarine that sank with one survivor. The sailor felt guilty and kept seeing his dead bloated shipmates calling him to the deep.

  Please don't let me dream tonight.

  The west fence could fail. There are hundreds around the perimeter. The lights of the city have drawn them. I would hate to be shopping in downtown Corpus Christi right now. I have spent most of the day with the binoculars, studying their movements. I saw birds swooping down at some of them. One of the creatures had no arms, and two buzzards were taking advantage of this by perching themselves on the corpse's shoulders and pecking the flesh from its skull. The corpse just gnashed its teeth, snapping at them to no avail. Serves the bastard right.

  John and I have tried to figure out what our next step will be, but the safety of the tower has lulled us into a semi-false sense of security. With the limited range on the aircraft, and some areas being radioactive (I'm guessing), it's tough to make a decision. I don't know how to fly a helicopter, so if we found an island, I would need a decent strip of semi-level land to take her down. It has been somewhere in the ballpark of a month since the dead walked. I see signs of decomposition in some of them, but some of them look as though they may have bought the farm recently.

  I'm curious as to the effects of ambient radiation on the un-dead. I know for certain that they would be harmful to the touch, but what effect on the corpse itself? Would the radiation kill the bacteria that caused the corpse to naturally rot? I shudder to think that the bombs dropped could have done more damage than intended good. We are running out of food. We have perhaps a week left. I am sure there is food in some of the surrounding buildings, but I am not prepared at this time to risk my life to get it, as I am certain there are more of those creatures trapped in the confines.

  I have been fighting off the shock of this for some time now, and I don't know how much longer it will be before I break down. I suppose it is the natural course of things and I just don't wish to be a basket case at the wrong time. John isn't any better. I played with Annabelle today, as she needed it. She is a good little pup. She can sense that both John and I are on edge, but she doesn't know how to make it better. John and I have decided that one of us needs to be up checking out the perimeter at all times. Going to get some rest and this is not to be confused for sleep. My shift is in four hours.

  Using a variation of the square knot, I tried three lengths of one hundred foot nylon line together to form a sort of escape line, if it were needed, 'lying knots into the line every three feet (including the milling knots) caused the three hundred foot length to shorten some, but still allowed it to touch the ground when tied to the balcony and thrown over. I am almost certain these things cannot climb, but still, I pulled the escape rope up and left it neatly coiled outside the balcony door, tied to a sturdy exterior pipe.

  The fence is still holding them out, but that is only because they have no evidence that food exists inside. I suppose if they were to see us, or figure out that we were here, they could knock the fence down with ease, making a bad day for John and me. I think we are too far from the west fence for them to see. Cleaned the weapons today, I also showed John how to operate the CAR-15. I also noticed a roof access on the tower. It was probably so that maintenance personnel could get up there and repair the numerous antennas and beacons. I checked it out and climbed up there. It was at least ten feet above the balcony.

  I know it has been at least a month since any maintenance has been performed on any of the aircraft, so I went out today, and crept over to the aircraft and pulled out both the pilot and the passenger parachute to make sure they were in good working order. If something happened to the engine, at least John and I would have a choice. I never spotted the loose ghouls that were inside the fence (at least four plus the incapacitated "gimp" creature). Of course, I wasn't looking for them either. I took the parachutes back to the tower. After giving them a good visual inspection, I felt better about taking the plane (number 07) up again, when the need should arise. I keep looking west, making sure our life barrier holds.

  There are dead birds on my side of the west fence. I could see them today with my binoculars. I counted six in all. They did not appear eaten; they just look as if they died there. They are on the ground, about four feet from the fence with the mass of the ghouls. I can't tell what kind of bird. They are black, so that rules out most birds of prey. Not a big deal I suppose, but I keep thinking about the black buzzards that were perched on the shoulders of the armless creature, pecking its flesh. Today was uneventful. The fence was still holding.

  I am going out tonight to load the extra ammunition/supplies in the avionics bay of the aircraft. I will be especially quiet and leery of the unaccounted for dead that are lurking inside the perimeter.

  Only one thing drives these creatures, and that is living flesh.

  I have not seen them attempt to eat each other.

  Something must be drawing the inner perimeter creatures out of my view.

  Annabelle is sleeping. I wish I had the carefree thoughts of a dog right now.

  Ignorance is bliss.

  I'm shaking right now. I haven’t been afraid of the dark since I was a child, however my fears were renewed tonight. I loaded the items into the bay of the aircraft. It was cloudy out and barely a moon, so it was pretty dark. It was then that my goggles went black. I had some batteries with me if this happened, but I didn't anticipate the goggles would die that quickly. I fumbled with them in the dark, well over a hundred yards from the tower. As I sat there in the dark trying to find where to insert the batteries, I kept hearing shuffling sounds. My mind was playing tricks on me.

  The fear was mounting. I finally got the batteries inserted correctly and slammed the NVGs over my head and adjusted the intensifier. As soon as the grainy green image came in, I checked my perimeter. Nothing. This shit is getting to me. I ran back to the tower, up the stairs and sat there. John was looking at one of the charts we had found a few days before. Looking over his shoulder, I saw a place that he had circled. "Mustang Beach" was not very far from us at all.

  It's dark outside, and very cold, especially up here in the tower. I suppose if we were to turn on the lights it would warm things up, but it would also excite the creatures on the other side of the west fence. I'm sure they would see it. I went up to the roof access at sundown, and marvelled at the stars. There weren't any lights on inside of the perimeter, (John and I had taken care of this when the dead started massing on the west fence) and this made for a fine view of the Milky Way.

  I think John is pulling out of his emotional low, and starting to recover. He actually joked around with me today. I didn't leave the confines of the tower today, but I do need to get those parachutes back to the aircraft so we have less to carry when we leave. I'm still sort of freaked out about last night, so I guess it can wait until later. It is still puzzling to me why the creatures are on the west end of the fence, and no other. I would love to have some real food. When monitoring the radios today, John heard a broadcast from an Air Force aircraft scouting the area. One key thing that John noted that disturbed me, the pilot had to turn back to base because he wanted to conserve his fuel. The pilot remarked about the limited supply back on the base. This tells me they are rationing jet fuel; therefore, they are confined to an area where it is not readily available. The government (or this part of it) is trapped just like we are.

  An island off the coast of Texas is starting to sound better and better. The only problem is that supplies would be difficult to come by with just the two of us scavenging.

  The fence is buckling inward and I don't know how much longer it will hold. It's today or nothing. Looking at the windsock, there is a strong wind blowing east to west toward the airstrip. We will take to the air as soon as we…