Isn't it Friday?

I'm jonesing pretty bad, it's Saturday and no updates................................

Yeah we had to delay a week as I had a lot going on the last couple weeks. In my defense I did mention it may be delayed after last weeks post!
Only have four chapters left, which will carry it through the end of the year. It will be wrapped up pretty well and then we will have some decisions to make.
I am actually working on it right now as I finally got some free time,

Thanks All

My vote is to make it 40 chapters longer

seconded!

OP, you and your team have a great story going.  Please keep it up and don't rush it.  You could keep it going for a long time if you wanted to.

Thanks for the kind words, and I made some good progress on the story today. As far as 40 chapters..........This story is going to be over at chapter 18 and will end up at over 400 pages. But when you see the epilogue I think you will find that there is some wiggle room.

Maybe 40 chapters is a bit much. I think 39 is a good #

I think he's dead, poke him with a stick. What? Yes I said poke him. Alright then I will do it STAND BACK.

That's pretty funny I am alive and well. Chapter 15 is being sent off to get proof read tonight and will be up Friday.

Awesome can't wait.

Chapter Fifteen: A Line in the Sand
November 12, 2011
Day 47

Slowly the undead horde carved its way West, always West. Food is to be had to the West.
Hungry
So hungry
Snarling and shoving roughly at the others blocking their path, they clawed at one another in rage…
Rage
Rage at the lack of food…
The monstrous army shuffled onward, following the other stumbling creatures in front of them. Lacking the mental capacity to wonder why or where the disgusting creatures before them walked.
They just did.
The food was out in front.
They could smell the pulsing sweet blood.
Hunger drove them to try to get to the front.

Weaving between stalled or wrecked vehicles, the enormous undead plague crept westward. They flowed North and South as well; to wherever the food was. Slowly the creatures marched out of the now dead city of Chicago. As the city emptied of living people, fires began and continued to burn unchecked. Without these living people to stop the advancing flames, the city was consumed as it was over a century ago. Huge skyscrapers were turned into towering infernos which sent huge plumes of smoke skyward to be seen from miles away even at night, leaving behind scorched shells of structures. In some places the buildings collapsed onto neighboring ones, spreading the destruction even further.

In the streets below, the Zombies had long ago lost their food source and began migrating out of the city into the suburbs in search of more living meat. Now the fires drove them all out. As they entered each new city, their force grew larger and larger. Expanding outward like a soap bubble growing in size. Roads and interstates became the arteries and veins for the monstrous undead army. The millions of hungry, howling minions poured down urban and rural streets; but the bulk of them crept along the Interstates.  I-57, I-55, 290 and 90 were filled with what looked like a large ancient army on the move. They would poor off the highways at every exit in search of living flesh. Eventually they reached Interstate 80 along with the Toll Roads 88, 355 and 294.

Town by town, the sheer size and relentless numbers of the hoard annihilated each meager opposition it came across. Screams of pain and fear along with the frantic gun shots of the living were washed away by the hundreds of thousands of howling forever hungry cursed beings that fought and clawed at the creatures in front of them just to get a mouthful of fresh bloody meat.
Just a taste
Just a little blood
Just a little bite of fresh meat
Stopping the ever present, constant hunger that pounded at them was impossible.
So they kept looking and always moving. There wasn’t any need to rest for they never tired, just as their hunger never stopped.
So they howled
And screamed
And moaned as the search for flesh continued…
Death and destruction followed in their wake.
As each location of living bodies were overrun, the thousands that showed up late to feed on succulent flesh screamed their hunger to the heavens when there was no more to be had.
Eventually forgetting the near missed meals, their soulless eyes turned to the West and began their advance once again to search for more delicious; screaming meat…

********

The new dawn light slowly climbed its way above the horizon and shined its golden light onto the frost covered immense stone walls of the old prison. The sounds of activity inside gradually picked up in intensity as more and more real humans began another day protected by the very walls that used to protect them in the past as well, by keeping the dredges of humanity locked inside them. Here and there a rooster greeted the morning light with its call. The small herd of cattle and pigs made it sound more of a farmstead than a compound filled with survivors of a Zombie epidemic.

In a corner of the old exercise yard I am trying to split firewood in an attempt to work myself back into fighting shape. My injuries have made me weak as a kitten and I cannot take sitting on my ass any more. Besides the laughing I get from riding in that damned Wal-Mart electric shopping cart is getting old.
So here I am sweating like I just fought ten rounds. Looking over at the tiny pile of split logs I can’t help but scowl in disgust at my lack of stamina.
Steam rises off my sweat soaked head and shoulders in the frigid air.
Pausing to wipe the sweat off my face, I took a pull from my water bottle.
‘Well I had plenty of stamina the other night!’ I thought to myself and chuckled. 'Of course that would have tired anyone out!'
“No excuses though,” I said aloud to myself, “Fucking Zombies won’t give a shit if I'm tired, they will eat me just the same."
Picking up the axe, I placed another log upright for splitting and got to work.
Soon I got my second wind and the pile of firewood slowly grew as I sweated out my weakness.
The ribs hurt like a bitch, but not much I can do about that. The leg wound hurt as well, but I favored it as much as I could and for the next hour I worked until my hands ached as bad as the rest of me.
Sinking the axe blade into the large tree stump I was using as a base I take another break. Like it or not I am way out of my prime at the moment and need the rest.

Standing there feeling a bit sorry for myself; a cloud of smoke drifts passed me. Looking to my left I see Dan with his ever present cigar, perched on a chunk of wood waiting to be split.
“How long you been sitting there?” I asked.
“Long enough to make me tired just from watching.” He said as he blew a fat lazy smoke ring in the air which drifted right into my face of course.
“You could have given me a hand you know.”
Dan arched his eyebrows at me.
I realized what I said as soon as I said it.
“Sorry, bad choice of words.” I said looking at his stump where his hand used to be. “What did you need? I know you didn’t come out here to stare at my tight ass.”
Dan stood up and looked around the prison exercise yard, “Have you see Stephen around? I have some questions about the Bolingbrook compound to ask him. We don't have a raid out right now and I can't find him.”
Mopping the sweat from my forehead I take a long pull from my water bottle, and then take a large refreshing dip of Copenhagen.
“Nope, haven’t seen him nor anyone else since I been out here." I remarked. "If he isn’t in his trailer, go check Amber’s uncles trailer. He hangs out over there too. I know I need to get up to Bolingbrook myself to check things out. I am waiting to hear back from Casper first.”
“ I hear ya on that and I already looked there, Amber said to look for you, said you might know.” Dan responded.
“No clue brother, have you checked with Logan and Kleaner?" I asked. "I know he wanted to see their results of their .22lr Zombie killing test that they were working on.”
“Good thinking, I had a few drinks with Kleaner last night too.” Dan said, “Have fun with the wood splitting.”
“Are you alright bro?" I questioned, giving Dan a closer look. "You are pale as a ghost and sweating more than me!”
“Yea I am fine.” He answered. “Just the anti-biotic they gave me for the hand doesn’t work mixed with alcohol very well.”
“Maybe you should try not drinking then you goof.” I replied with a chuckle.
Dan just nodded slowly and then began walking with some effort toward Kleaner and Logan’s trailer.
Watching Dan walk away I am a bit shocked. Not once did he call me a derogatory name or swear at me.
Something has him spooked or he really feels like shit, or both.
Fuck it, I am not a psychiatrist or one to ask people how they felt. They can work out their own problems. I have enough of my own to worry about.
Like this damn stack of wood that refuses to split itself for me.
Sighing, I pick up the axe and try to get some more work in before breakfast is served or I pass out.

********

Kleaner woke up with a pounding hangover. Groaning from the spear that is stabbed in his right eye, it takes him a few minutes of slapping his face to realize that the spear is a ray of morning sunlight that perfectly lines up with his eyeball.
Quickly twisting his head out of the way was also a very bad idea.
Now someone with a nail gun is driving home a nail in time with his rapid pulse.
“Logan…” Kleaner gasped, “Will you close that fucking shade?”
Silence answered him back.
Fed up with the piercing sunlight and the pounding headache, Kleaner sat up and knocked over the empty bottle of Jack Daniels that he and Dan killed off last night.
Cursing loudly he reached over and pulled down the shade.
Sighing in relief Kleaner glanced over at Logan’s bunk and saw that his large friend had not returned last night.
“He might have hooked up with one of the girls we saved the other night?” Kleaner said aloud to the Black Labrador they had adopted last week. It had wandered up to the prison and was practically begging to be let in.  

Wincing in pain, Kleaner stood up and with the help of holding onto the walls and furniture, made his way over to the cooler that held some cold water bottles.
Eagerly he twisted open a bottle and drank deeply, feeling very dehydrated at the moment.
Chugging the bottle down and waiting for his stomach to quit rebelling over the influx of liquid, Kleaner wearily sat on his bed and looked around for his boots. His new dog was always running off and chewing on them.
Finding his left boot, he pulled it on as the trailer door opened and Dan walked inside.
Kleaner looked up at his drinking buddy. “I know I feel like shit but I sure hope I don’t look as bad as you do Dan.”
Dan plopped down on top of the cooler and rubbed his face with his hand.
“I feel like shit, I am not going to lie,” Dan grunted, “I think my stump is infected. I’m burning up with fever.”
Dan quickly continued, “But that’s not why I am here. Have you seen Stephen today?”
Kleaner shook his head. “Hell no, I just woke up a minute ago. Have you seen Logan? He never made it to his bunk last night.”
“Negative. When was the last you saw him?" Dan asked. "Was it after the test you two were running?”
Kleaner nodded while still looking for his right boot. “Yeah, that is when I ran into you and we killed Mr. Jack Daniels.”
Seeing his right boot sticking out from under a dirty shirt, Kleaner slipped it on.
“I am going to go look up in the watch tower, try looking for Stephen at the Command Center; he might be playing with the new radio equipment.”
Dan sighed “I already looked there but maybe we are just missing one another. Guess I will look there again.”

Heading towards the command center, Dan's path took him right past the medic trailer. Stumbling alongside the trailer the door flew open as he neared it.
Dan’s favorite nurse, the one with the large chest, exited the trailer and stopped in front of him.
Watching her healthy lungs shake in front of him would even make one of the Zombies feel better.
“Dan you look like day old dog shit!” She said to him sternly. “Have you been taking the meds and painkillers I gave you?”
“Yes ma’am,” Dan replied, “But instead of painkillers I prefer the liquid 80 proof type.”
“My goodness!” She exclaimed. “You know you cannot mix those meds with alcohol! Now it looks like you have a fever and I am guessing your amputation is infected.”
Dan didn’t need to answer; his guilty look said it all.
“Didn’t you listen to anything the other nurse told you?” She asked, shaking her head in frustration.
“Get your butt into the trailer right now, before we have to amputate your whole arm!”
Dan walked into the trailer with more fear than facing a room full of Zombies with a spoon for a weapon.

********

Stephen was currently heading back to the command center after a wild goose chase of his own in an attempt to locate Logan. Stephen wanted the final results of the .22lr experiment he was running. When he had reached the guard tower Logan and Kleaner were using, he had spoken with the current guards who reported that he had not seen Logan all night. They had however shown him the notes and rifle that Logan had left out. 'That was very uncharacteristic of the big man.' Stephen thought. A search of the prison grounds also failed to bring Logan's whereabouts.  

Entering the building of the communication center, Stephen was hoping to try out his new radio equipment again today when the dispatcher noticed him.
“Glad to see you sir, this just came in a few minutes ago from Casper…It doesn’t look good.” She said holding out a note for him.
“How many times have I said not to call me ‘sir’?” Stephen said as he began to scan the message from his scout.
“Holy shit!" Stephen exclaimed. "Are you certain this is exactly what he said?”
The dispatcher looked at him and nodded her head ‘yes’.
Not saying another word Stephen turned and ran out the building at a sprint.

********

As I was finishing up with the wood splitting chores and putting the final pieces nicely stacked into a pile Stephen rushed up to me.
“What the hell are you doing chopping wood?" Stephen exclaimed, short of breath. "I don’t need you to be out of commission again or sick like Dan, not when we have a problem like we have never seen before!”
“Whoa slow down there hero.” I said holding my hands out, “What are you babbling about?”
Stephen who was pacing back and forth like an expectant father, stopped long enough to push a note into my hands and then continued with his pacing.
Confused I started reading it.
The more I read, the more my balls shriveled up into my belly…
“At least a hundred thousand...... Interstates flooded with a river of Zombies..... Are you sure this is correct?” I asked.
“Casper is out on the scout mission. He has no reason to make shit up.” Stephen said still pacing. “If this is what he is saying.. I will believe him.”
“This is not good.” I reply. “No wonder we have lost contact with the other settlements. They didn't stand a chance. If an army of undead that size were to hit the other safe areas they will be utterly destroyed as well. I think we would be safe in the prison, at least for awhile. But we would most likely be stuck in here with no way out.”
“What are we going to do Mike?" Stephen said with a worried look. "These creatures are destroying everything in their path while looking for food; just like a pack of welfare recipients with their benefits cut off!”
I had to chuckle, it was good he hasn’t lost his sense of humor at least.
“I need to get a hold of Romeoville and Bolingbrook on the HAM radio, and warn them about what is heading right for em." Stephen states with a tone of dread. "Judging from the location Casper gave, and the pace that he says the Zombies are advancing at, they do not have much time."
"We have to meet these creatures on the interstate, where they are confined to a small area." I realize as I am saying it aloud. "In the open they would spread out and overwhelm this entire area.
"Meet at the Command Center in thirty minutes. I will pass the info to the other safe zones in the meantime." Stephen said and took off at a jog, stopping only to yell back "When you show up we will go over ideas on how to stop these rotten fuckers!”  

Returning to my awesome man cave RV bus, I climbed aboard shivering from the cold outside. Inside the bus, taking off my sweaty clothes and pulling on fresh ones takes me a bit longer than I planned. Lifting my arms over my head makes me grunt like a bull during mating season, sharp stabbing pain rips through my ribs that were already sore from my exercise earlier. Sitting on the edge of the bed gasping for air with my new shirt stuck onto my head. I was about to make the attempt to put my arms into the sleeves when a small soft pair of feminine hands traced their way up my back to my shoulders.
Groaning with pleasure as the hands began to rub the large knots from my shoulders I began to drool like a baby.
“Wow does that feel awesome…” I grunted as something popped behind my right shoulder blade.
“I love your muscular shoulders and back.” Mattie whispered into my ear.
Knowing that I don’t have time for the wondrous things her hands were doing for my beat up body, I tried to exert my Alpha Male dominance…
I babbled something dumb and realized trying to come up with a coherent sentence while receiving an outstanding massage from her is damn near impossible.
Not sure how I ended up face down on the mattress, but there I was with Mattie straddling my back, still working out the stiffness and soreness in my back and shoulders.
Feels like a reoccurring dream…
Again, unsure how it happened but during the pleasure filled rub down, she has managed to take my shorts off and from what I can feel; it appears that she isn’t wearing clothes as well.
Reaching back with my hands I grab a handful of a wonderfully smooth and tight ass.
‘Yup she’s naked.’ I thought happily as she now has playfully sunk her teeth into my right trap muscle.
A freaking awesome reoccurring dream…
However she has just swapped stiffness in my back to stiffness in another area.
Rolling over to look her in the eyes, Mattie lifts herself just enough for me to rotate onto my back and then straddles me once again.
“Mattie, I am supposed to meet Stephen in twenty minutes, we got a big situation going down.” I whispered as her long hair tickles my face and her hypnotic eyes captured me in their spell.
She grinds her hips into me and grins, “Feels like I got a big situation right here to take care of first…”
‘Dear God’ was the last coherent thought I had until my brain was quickly overloaded with images of hot bare skin and tastes of silky smooth wetness…

By the time I limped into the command center it was way past thirty minutes that Stephen had allotted me. And from the looks of things he has gotten started without me.
'Oh well... To bad..' I muse. "He can manage and I can just blame it on my injuries.'
“You are late and why are you laughing Mike?" Stephen says while glancing up from a map. "This is serious stuff.”
“Hmm… What? Oh nothing…what have we got so far bro?” I asked.
"I made contact with Casper on the Ham Radio and received an update." Stephen said. "He is on his way back here now. I also spoke with Kirk Simms up in Bolingbrook. They will get hit first, probably followed by Romeoville soon after. The Zombie's on the highway are definitely traveling faster and denser than any that are wondering through the side streets. I also directed that our AM broadcast be changed to update the current situation."  
Stephen then pointed down at the map on the table and explained that while the Zombie hoard was now Southwest of Kingery on I-55; the slow pace they were moving at would allow for two or three days before they reached Highway 53 and poured off the onramp right onto the Bolingbrook safe zone and it’s inhabitants, which were now over 300. And that path would then lead them straight through Romeoville and then to our doorstep.
“I am already coming up with a defensive perimeter and a plan to hold a line in the sand.” Stephen says with some new found confidence. “So we have three days to come up with and implement a plan to kill a lot of fucking Zombies!”
“I have been thinking about that and I do believe I have a couple options.” I said, while leaning over the map and looking at the lines Stephen had drawn. “This is what we are going to do…”

********

Lewis sat in his truck scowling at the list of items Jonas requested he find. It took him much longer than the three days Jonas gave him to find the right stuff and once he finally acquired it all, Jonas tells him to wait.
He was not happy.
“Doesn’t that bastard realize I don’t have thirty foot stone walls protecting my ass like he does?” He complained out loud.
Every night he has to move to different locations as the Zombies always seem to sniff him out and force him to flee. He gave up days ago looking for a secure building, preferring to sleep in the truck and move as soon as they show up. Besides it took him several days to acquire the listed items and doesn’t want to lose them by getting separated from it.
Lewis sort of had an idea what the stuff was for, but being a lifetime politician did not give him much time to study anything other than how best to take advantage of constituent’s problems and fears. But he dimly remembered something about a few of the items he gathered as being part of the Homeland Security WMD classes that he mostly had slept through.
Knowing that he had several hours before the next message was dropped by Jonas, Lewis planned on getting some shut eye as he didn’t see any other of those damned Zombies around.
‘Of course that won’t last very long.’ He thought sourly.
However he closed his eyes anyways and was fast asleep in seconds…

********

Matvei drove slowly down State Highway J towards Oates Missouri. He was only about five or six miles outside of town and he was double checking his map and log as he drove. He needed to take County Road 838 South out of the small town, and after a few miles would reach the compound. From his notes Matvei read that the compound had been hastily built only weeks before the outbreak. Unlike other area’s of the country the Cartel did not have a foothold in the area prior to the start of this final operation. Several steel buildings had been built to provide shelter and shipping containers full of supplies had been dropped only days before the country went to shit. The location was going to be used as a fall back location for cartel members, but in the double cross and subsequent coup Matvei did not know if anyone even made it. And Matvei’s final concern was that unlike other more secure and developed safe houses, so many of his men also knew of the location due to the fact that he had his sights set on the area due to it‘s remote location. They probably arrived piecemeal and leaderless, God only knows what they did with the place. This was all a problem for Matvei. Due to all of the bad luck that he had experienced lately, Matvei prepared himself for the worst.
‘I will find out soon enough.’ Matvei thought as the small town came into view.

Soon Matvei saw evidence of a mass exodus that must have taken place. There were basically no buildings in the small town left standing. Garbage was strewn everywhere, items that were once prized possessions now littered the ditches. Matvei saw no signs of life as he prepared to make the right turn onto County Road 838. The town was set in a valley surrounded by tree covered hills. In the spring they would be in full green but now they were bare and cold.
“What the fuck is this?” Matvei swore in his native Russian.
Matvei had come into Oates from the West and as he reached the intersection he saw a slow yet steady stream of Zombies trickling in from the East. Matvei stopped the truck to process the visual. The three closest Zombies suddenly became more aggressive due to his presence and nearly ran up to the truck. They looked ravenous and gaunt.
“Your hungry, you bastards, aren’t you/” Matvei said as he taunted the Zombies through the glass of his drivers window by his mere presence.”
Matvei was now aware of the sound of gunfire coming from the South, in the direction of the compound.
“I would love to stay and play.” Matvei told the howling Zombies. “But I have somewhere to be.”

Matvei ran over two Zombies and left the others in his wake as he covered the several remaining miles in silence. In the short distance he must have passed at least seventy Zombies, slowly shuffling down the road, towards the sounds of battle. Matvei figured they must be on the move from the cities, in a desperate search for food. Once again Matvei had the feeling that the Zombies could sense where there was live human flesh. Finally, after a long journey of 600 miles and nearly three weeks, Matvei came to the gated driveway to the 120 acre property. The buildings had been set far enough off the road so as not to be seen. The gate was open and the steady sound of gunfire was much closer now and much louder. Matvei had wondered during his long trip how to arrive at the compound and not get shot; out of mistaken identity upon his arrival. He had tried to resolve this by installing a make shift flag pole and fixing a small Russian flag to it. Matvei quickly exited his truck and set the pole into a slot in the truck bed designed for side rails.
‘I hope this works!’ Matvei thought to himself.

Finally hardening his will and ready to press forward, Matvei decided just to gun it and began honking the horn on his black Dodge Ram as the structures came into view. Matvei was immediately greeted by several abandoned vehicles that must have been the transportation for his remaining mercenaries. Next he saw that there were three steel buildings that looked tall enough to have lofts and each maybe 80 feet long. They were painted green and sat in the shape of an L with two of them end to end and the third at a 90 degree angle. The Courtyard area they created was walled off with several orange shipping containers. There appeared to be no way in and Matvei saw several men on the roof firing at a large group of Zombies that was massed along the makeshift wall.

Ducking slightly, Matvei hoped that he would not be shot at as he drove up. To be on the safe side he drew his HK USP .45 and rolled down his window, shooting several Zombies as he approached. He was not sure if he made any kill shots but at least it gave the impression that he was on there side. Matvei was now drawing the attention of the larger Zombie group and needed to act fast. Finding a spot along the containers that was not completely covered with Zombies he drove the truck up along side it and stopped with his passenger door up against the wall of the container. Grabbing his back pack and G36, Matvei loaded a fresh magazine into his pistol and exited his truck, killing the four closest Zombies efficient head shots from the large .45. He then quickly jumped into the truck bed and up onto the roof. There were probably not as many Zombies in front of this container due to the fact that there was no one on the roof of it. Without hesitating Matvei threw his pack and rifle onto the roof and then jumped and pulled himself up as well, just as several more Zombies reached his truck in a rage. One even managed to grab his foot for a brief second.

Kicking it free with his heavy boots, Matvei stood up and held his hands up in a non aggressive stance and immediately recognized one of the men who stood 80 feet away on the roof. The man did not return the recognition until Matvei spoke.
“Raul….. It is me, Matvei”
Raul stared for a second in disbelief. “Matvei? Is that you?” He asked. " I thought you were dead?"
"Yes it is." Matvei answered back. "And I am very much alive. Now lower that rifle. I am hungry, thirsty and tired. And I want to know our situation and exactly what the fuck is going on here!"

********

“To really kill these fuckers by the hundreds or thousands we need to get a lot of them together at the same time,” I said to Stephen as he continued to work out our battle plan. “With them packed in so close on the interstate the hard work is done for us by the design of the highway itself, with the fencing on each side and no ditch separating north and south bound lanes.”
Stephen nods in agreement and looks up from his notepad.
“Now here is what I was thinking.” I said as I walked over the dry eraser board set up on the wall.
Drawing a rough diagram of the highway I explained the steps we needed to take.
“First thing I want to do is lay out a welcome mat for them. I want to take two fuel trucks and drive them up I-55 and meet the hoard head on. We may need to clear a path on the highway and need to get on it right away. I want to turn those fuel trucks around and open the valves, and then drive back West bound real slow as all the fuel leaks out. I want those Zombies chasing the trucks and sloshing around in that gasoline real good. When the trucks are empty the drivers bail and we light it off. That should slow them down a bit.”
Stephen nods his head in agreement. “We may be able to touch that off tomorrow. Maybe even get two passes in if we have the time.”
Now this spot here, just to the Northeast of Rt. 53 is where you want to make your stand.” I continue. “At that designated spot we need to rip up some of the concrete barriers that separate north and south bound lanes. Next we have to park either several buses or semi-trailers, set at an angle to funnel the Zombies coming down the North bound lanes into the south bound lanes, which will create a bottle neck of sorts. We can also use bait to draw them into the southbound lanes.” I explained as I drew out my ideas onto the marker board.
“Bait?” Stephen asks. “You mean us.”
“Yeah whatever.’ I respond and keep talking. “Then we can set platforms along the north bound lane near the concrete dividers for our people to fire down into the Zombies as they pass by. By doing this we can form a several mile long kill zone with a buffer, from which we can throw Molotov cocktails and such.”
Stephen interrupted me, “What about explosives? Dan brought back a shit load from that rock quarry from his trip down south.”
“I am glad you brought that up Stephen,” I said, “We need to improvise several dozen vehicle or fuel tankers to explode along the route these creatures will take, make them pay for every shuffling staggering step they take.”
I turned and grinned evilly at him. “And here is the best part. We need to send someone to the landfill and get one of those huge front end loader trash compactors with the huge steel wheels. With that, it can drive up and down both sides of the highway, turning these Zombie fucks into hundreds of tons of twitching hamburger. Between that, blowing them up and burning them like candles, I think it is our best bet. Stop them on the interstate or we will get rolled over out in the open.”
Stephen was also grinning, “I like your style Mike, and you always had a flair for destruction. We need to kill as many as possible.”
“But listen up.” I said. “We need to act fast, remember these bastards might not move very fast now but they do not sleep or rest. They can still cover a lot of ground in two days.”
“I know.” Stephen said. “And I have factored that into the rest of my defensive plans. The Romeoville safe zone is in an industrial park and they are relying more on stealth than anything. We don’t have the time to properly defend it and with that in mind I am going to concentrate on Bolingbrook. I want Dan to lay out a line of explosives several hundred yards in front of their safe zone. Anything that can burn or blowup. I want to create a large kill zone. I would like to spread this over as wide a front as possible, to keep us from getting flanked by the Zombies who are not coming from the highway. I don’t know how many that is for now. In that regard, we need to try and prevent the Zombies on the interstate that make it past your kill zone from getting off at the exits.”
“We can seal the exit’s off.” I offer. “Hopefully keep them flowing right on past us. I don’t know if a few parked vehicles would work though, if they know we are back there.”
“Anyway.” Stephen continues. “The rest of my plan involves a little bit of running, gunning and scorched earth policy. I want to basically set Bolingbrook south of I-55 along with all of Romeoville and Lockport on fire when the time comes. Burn everything, just like the Russians as they retreated from the Nazi’s in WWII. We can have rovers in trucks, lighting the fires and trying to shoot any Zombies that try to navigate through the flames. Again using ourselves as bait, maybe we can force or draw the Zombies around Joliet, further South and West.”
“That is going to take a lot of work and even more luck.” I decide aloud. “But it’s worth a shot.”
“Right, I want you to head up to Bolingbrook safe area, meet with Kirk and begin to set up your plan Mike.” Stephen said, “I will take Alpha platoon on a raid to the Exxon/ Mobile fuel refinery near Wilmington and get as many full fuel tankers as possible to take up to your position. It doesn’t need to burn in engines, it just needs to burn. We will also swing past the landfill along the way to get the heavy equipment you want.”
“Sounds good.” I remark. I will be taking Mattie with me today, and Casper once he gets back. Casper since he was an eye witness to the size of this gathering and Mattie cause she smells really good. I also want to take both Bravo and Charlie platoons with me today. We have a shit load of work to do.”
“I will get a message out over the loud speakers to have all squad leaders assemble for a briefing within the hour.” Stephen says. “This is going to be a logistical nightmare.”
“I’ll see you before I leave then, for now I need to start getting myself ready.“ I said and hobbled my gimpy ass outside and back towards my RV.

Climbing slowly into the RV, I see that Mattie is no longer there, a post-it note states that she has gone over to visit the females we rescued the night of the assault on Kettle’s church. It good that the girls all seem to be adjusting to no longer being some freak’s sex toy. Surprisingly, a couple of the guards have even started courting a few as their girlfriends.
Some are having a rough go of it however, flashbacks and such send them into uncontrollable sobbing and one has no recollection of what happened. Even Mattie herself has spotty memories of how she was captured and what she went through.

Pulling out my rucksack, I prepare the stuff I think I will need to pull off my plan. Other than a few necessities such as a few days clothing and toiletries, the rest will be ammo and firearms, and of course my bat and shield. Hopefully we won’t use too much ammo though, my idea will hinge mainly on burning and squishing more than shooting them.
Finishing my pathetic packing I also throw plenty of first aid supplies that we might need and also for my current healing wounds. Seeing that I have a little time I decide to grab a bit of a nap, for I have no idea when the next good sleep will be available to me, and Mattie can pack her own gear when she returns. Plopping my tired ass on the bed I quickly fall asleep with Mattie’s faint perfume smell still on my pillows…

********

Jonas held the spare two-way radio in his hand; the other was clipped to his belt. He will drop it off with his last message. From now on they will communicate via the radios instead of paper messages. It will only be at a designated time though, for he knew from the long rants that his messages usually contained, Lewis loved to talk.
The time to bring that insufferable prick inside the prison walls was drawing near. For he had just heard that many of the occupants will be leaving shortly due to some huge Zombie hoard that was approaching from Chicago, and from what he had heard they will be attempting to battle it up North somewhere.
With the soon lack of manpower to ask questions or investigate like that idiot Logan had done, it was a prime opportunity to bring Lewis along with the requested supplies inside the walls.

He walked to the main gate and met the other ‘volunteers’ where they gathered for the corpse burning detail and prepared to go about his duty in order to make his message and radio drop.
Along the way to the gate Jonas observed the female Mattie with several other women sitting at the area set aside for a campfire and to relax at during evening hours. They appeared to be having a little morning picnic and talking amongst themselves. Jonas recognized some of the others as being the women that were brought back from Father Kettle’s church. They had never seen him and he was glad for it.
‘It is a good thing that the whore doesn’t remember me choking her unconscious when Father Kettle’s men captured her,’ he thought, ‘otherwise my cover would have been blown the minute they brought her back.’

Jonas stared hard at the ladies as he marched past them, his fingers itching to grab his razor sharp blade he had sheathed under his jacket.
Meeting the other burning detail folks at the gate Jonas quickly pushed the sinful thoughts of the women out of his head…he had an important task to see to as soon as he could get outside.
As they exited the prison Jonas waited until the guards had dropped all the undead that had gathered at the gate and made his way to check on something before the drop. Slowly he made his way towards the old administration side of the prison walls and there he saw what he was hoping to find. The mangled beyond recognition bloody corpse of the former security guard Logan.
“Looks like the fall killed you after all, eh big guy?” Jonas said quietly.
Fortunately the undead had snacked on his body quite a bit, as his weight had shrunk substantially to the point where he was able to drag it unaided to the burning pit.

Once he made it there he had another detail worker unknowingly help him toss Logan’s corpse into the hot flames of the pyre. The worker had no idea, to him it was just another of today’s dozens of disgusting, stinking corpses to burn.
Dusting his hands off, Jonas then made himself look busy until he was able to slip away and drop off the message along with the radio.
Jonas returned and dutifully helped the others collect and toss dead corpses onto the growing mound within the large bonfire.
Things couldn’t be going better; with so many leaving it will be too late for anyone to suspect that Logan was dead. He could always spread a rumor that Logan had left to go fight the Zombies up north as an excuse for him being gone. Besides, if any do begin to think otherwise…they can just be made to ‘disappear’ like Logan has…
Nobody noticed Jonas’ grin, for if they did they would have wondered why he was smiling as he tossed armload after armload of wood and more bodies into the flames to be turned to ashes…

********

"So that is basically it gentleman." Stephen told the group of gathered men who served as squad leaders in the three platoons that were going out today. He had just gone over the overall plan and today's assignments. "We are going to create a massive kill zone on I-55 and thin them out. Next try to create a wedge of steel and fire and drive any surviving Zombies out around and past Joliet. Get them on I-55 south and I-80 west if possible. All entrances need to be sealed and a wall of fire needs to be put up several miles long, extending from Bolingbrook, through Romeoville and into Lockport, with our guns plugging the holes. And finally, I want to turn the battle in front of the Bolingbrook safe zone into a Zombie Waterloo. But be careful, there is a massive hoard of Zombies headed our way, but the same ones we have been fighting all along are still out there."

The men nodded in agreement and then broke off into smaller groups discussing the plan and making final preparations. I watched as they eventually wondered off in the correct direction and I made my way to my vehicle. I was going to lead a twelve truck convoy of over sixty guys up to Route 53 and I-55 to get started on the traps and then meet Kirk Simms at the Bolingbrook safe zone.

The huge diesel engine fired up and sent a plume of exhaust skyward. Outside Mattie and Casper said their goodbyes. Mattie gave Stephen and even Dan a big hug and wished them luck on their portion of the assault and raids. Casper stood off to the side and talked quietly with Holly who stood by with tears in her eyes. It seems that she has taken quite the liking to Casper and he also was infatuated with her as well.
The only good bye I received was ‘the finger’ from Dan, who even though he was suffering from fever, was going to take a couple guys and start preparing the explosives he had recovered from the mine. Charges were going to have to start being deployed today due to time constraints, with the majority tomorrow.  

But due to the big grin on his face I can tell it was in humor that he flipped me off, and watching him unsuccessfully trying to lock lips with Mattie showed that Dan had begun to break out of his almost suicidal funk he had been in…and was now back to his salty obnoxious self again.
“Saddle up you two, we got work to do!” I yelled out the window and blasted the air horn a few times for good measure.
We are taking the huge city dump truck with V-plow attached to the front. I want to make it there in one piece without having to make detours or stop to kill every damned Zombie along the way.
Mattie and Casper hurriedly finished their farewells and climbed aboard the truck. The gates were already opening from the corpse burning detail returning and we were able to squeeze through with little delay.

The huge truck rumbled through the city streets with little problem as we made our way to Route 53with the others falling in behind us. It is about a ten mile drive to our destination. Heading north, I weaved the big truck through abandoned vehicles and even carefully shoved a few smaller ones aside with the V-plow. Knowing it was going to take some time I tried to get comfortable and put my arm around Mattie as if we were cruising through town on a date. But it was a little hard to be romantic when I was turning the random wandering Zombie that got in front of the huge steel snowplow into road kill. Apparently spraying gouts of Zombie blood along with sickening sounds of bones snapping and squishing bodies that made the big truck bounce as the tires ran them over doesn’t turn women on.

It took nearly two hours to make the trip but we made it without problems. Bravo platoon was going to be pulling security as Charlie started preparing the kill zone. They would then alternate every couple of hours. It was now well past noon and this was shaping up to be a long, cold day. Leaving them to their work and pulling up to the massive fenced in Bolingbrook safe zone, I remembered it used to be a huge car and truck action house for car dealers to buy used cars for their car lots. The place was monstrous and had little for a perimeter other than a tall chain link fence with barbed wire on top and vehicles pushed up against it from the inside.
I can see why they would be worried about the size of the undead army heading their way. It would not take much to break through here. Just their sheer weight of numbers would punch through the fence with ease.

Pulling up to the front gate I was met by several people, and as I shut off the truck and hobbled up to the gate I was met by their top guy.
“How's it going Mike?” He said and stuck his hand out.
“Not to bad Kirk, Zombies withstanding. And you?” I asked, shaking his offered hand.
Kirk was about my height, but very slim. He looked to be about thirty years old give or take a few, and had rugged good looks.
“Oh about the same my friend." Kirk answered. "Come inside and we can get down to business about what you think we can do about what is heading our way.”
I had Casper pull our truck inside as Kirk then went about explaining that he used to be an accountant here at the auction house and had helped several co-workers and family members survive the initial outbreak. The rest of the survivors showed up at random times thereafter and he summed it up by saying that they did not have a lot of firepower but was stacked deep with food supplies from all the warehouses nearby.
"We have made significant progress, implementing some of the suggestions and ideas I learned from your prison while I was down there a few days ago." Kirk mentioned. "And we have put those extra guns you gave us to work. We even found some more of our own, but we in no way match your firepower."  
Once Casper joined us I had him relate to Kirk exactly what he had witnessed during his scout mission.
As Casper repeated his findings, Kirks face became more attentive and then had a slightly frightened look.
“That defiantly is not encouraging to hear…what do you have in mind?" Kirk asked. "None of us here have any police or military training."
Well that wasn’t encouraging either…
So I began to go into detail what our plan on the interstate entailed and what was required of him to help bring it about.
“I do have access to some heavy machinery and tools, I think we have some people who can operate such equipment.” He said.
“Great, get them assembled a.s.a.p., I want to get started now and even then might not have enough time to finish." I ordered. "And Stephen wants a large trench dug about 200 yards off your fence and filled with oil, or anything that can burn. He also wants all those buildings to the North and East set to burn. Also start filling all the area around this place with abandoned vehicles to use as I.E.D's. The explosives should be here tomorrow. I also saw a hospital nearby that we may want to checkout if you haven't already, and a U-Haul store that we may want to hit up for vehicles in case we have to high tail it out of here in a hurry!"  
“That's a lot too handle, but I am on it, good to have you here friend.” Kirk said as he stood up and began yelling orders for bodies and equipment needed.

As I looked around I could see people start to move in all directions. this was a massive complex that could easily hold thousands of refugee's during a normal crisis, perhaps a weather related one. But with the limited fencing and shelter, it is ill suited for a Zombie apocalypse.
Looking over at Mattie and Casper I mention “Come on, let’s get back to the truck, I need to get out to the highway and see that they don’t fuck this up. We are only going to get one chance at this and I want it to be our best shot.”
"Everyone is trying Mike, cut them some slack." Mattie offers along with a reassuring pat on the back.

Shortly we left the compound and our new caravan pulled up onto the interstate which was clogged with abandoned vehicles. Gun shots from the perimeter team rang out as they dropped incoming Zombies, but the traffic was light. This particular area was not near any major residential area. Stopping the truck I began to instruct Kirk’s people to clear away the vehicles. Either pushing by hand or towing them out of the way didn’t matter as long as it was done. Next I directed a skinny man driving a large forklift over to the concrete barriers and instructed him and a small team to begin removal of a large section of barriers, opening up a gap between all North and South bound lanes.
Turning to Casper, I grab him by the shoulder.
“Casper, go get one of these trucks started that has fuel and I want you to assemble a small three man team and send them up the road to get a visual on the location of this Zombie hoard. Give them the portable Ham radio and make sure they keep us updated!”
Casper took off at a sprint, and Mattie walks up next to me. “What do you want me to do Mike?”
“I need you to stand there and look hot…” I said.
When she began to look like she didn’t like the joke I hurriedly said “Just joking, I need you to get someone to locate some buses or semi-trucks and park them at an angle to funnel the Zombies that will be coming south in the north bound lanes into the south bound lanes where we ripped up the concrete dividers.”
As she walked away I took a minute to watch her shapely ass, and turning to check on the progress with the dividers, I see that several other men were watching her ass as well.
Well, I can’t really blame them…
The forklift crew now has several concrete dividers removed and has repositioned them at an angle in front of where the buses will be parked.
Good thinking on their part! While not the perfect solution, the barriers should slow the Zombies down some.  

I walked up to them and asked them to remove about twenty yards of them and set them down next to the others all the way out to the fence that runs along the side of the highway. Any other spare dividers or makeshift barricades need to be positioned on the other side of the highway as well, from the fencing along the ditch up to the south bound lanes. Casper returned not too long after that and stood by as I took a bit of a break. He reported the Zombie's progress and mentioned that they would probably arrive the day after tomorrow. Sitting there I grab my can of Copenhagen and throw in a big dip of chew.
“What we need to do then, since we have the time, is set up some of these cars as I.E.D’s and rig them to blow when the Zombies pass.” I said out loud.
“Leave that to me boss,” Casper said, “I know enough about explosives to make pipe bombs. I am sure I can get what you’re after with car bombs with some of the explosives that we brought up from the rock quarry.”
“Pipe bombs… How the hell do you know how to make pipe bombs?” I asked.
“Don’t ask don’t tell boss.” Casper said with a grin and walked to where the truck was that just arrived with some explosives.
That man has some skeletons in his closet…and it is a big closet that is jammed packed from the looks of it.
‘Fuck it, as long as it kills a shit load of Zombies I don’t care if he dressed in a ballerina outfit while he did it.’ I thought as I spat some tobacco juice onto the pavement.
Rifle fire cracked in the distance in all directions, reminding me that even though a new large Zombie hoard is heading our way, there are still dangers here and now. The same Zombies that have been giving us problems all along.

After some time had passed I hear a loud engine approach me from the rear, turning I can see that it is Mattie who has found a large greyhound bus and a few others were driving bread trucks and a semi-tractor with trailer. Mattie pulled up alongside of me and flashed me a brilliant smile.
“Will these work Mike?” she asked.
“Those are exactly what we need, good job. Park them alongside the barriers across the road up ahead.” I told her.
Casper instructed several people to move abandoned cars out ahead of the bottle neck along the path that the Zombies will use on their approach to our positions. The vehicles were positioned down both sides of the interstate for about ½ a mile.
He then got down to business rigging each vehicle to blow, and having each car be packed with any steel debris that could be found. The detonators used by the rock quarry worked via a radio signal transmitted from a panel. Other fuel bombs were rigged to blow by firing a tracer round into a milk jug of gasoline sitting on the intended target. A few even had old fashioned fuses.

The crews removing the concrete barriers were then instructed to remove another large section 1/4 mile up the road and bring those barriers back here to help with the funneling as well.
They didn’t understand why I needed this I just advised them to trust me and see it done.
While they left to get that done I checked on the scout’s who were monitoring the progress and location of the advancing Zombies.
A very scared stuttering voice answered me and stated the main force was a mile north of the I-355 toll road and there did not seem to be an end in sight.
The man quickly asked to return back to the compound.
“Negative,” I growled back, “I need eyes up front so we can gauge where we need to be when they get here.”
I was answered in silence, and they better not sneak back here or I will personally feed them my knuckles, injured or not.

It was approaching dark when I saw near a dozen sets of headlights approaching from the south. Turns out Stephen’s mission was a success as he had several semi tanker trucks filled with hopefully flammable material and an enormous front end loader (Caterpillar 836H) with huge knobby steel wheels on the back of a large flatbed trailer that was borrowed from Joliet’s smelly landfill.
I met Stephen as he exited his truck, “Glad to see you got what we needed!” I said, “Any problems?”
Stephen shut his truck door, “We ran into some infected bastards, but our guys handled themselves flawlessly! It seems that our little ‘Boot Camp’ training was very effective!”
“Outstanding, things are going along well as can be here." I responded. "Now that we have the tanker trucks we need to back them out past the main area here. I would say just before the I-355 off/ on ramps.”
“Roger that,” Stephen said and left to go tell the truck drivers where to take the vehicles and what we had planned for them to do.
While Stephen was working on that I walked (limped) over to the truck with the huge trash compactor on the trailer.
“Hey guys, I need you to position this monster in the south bound lanes, about fifty yards south of the bottleneck area.” I instructed them by also pointing where I needed the huge machine.
Watching them position my ‘Ace in the Hole’, I see Casper return from prepping the explosives.
“How did it go Casper?”
“It was cake once I figured out how to rig the charges properly, but it is getting too dark and I am not that sure of myself to be messing with high explosives by flashlight.”
“Good point,” I agreed, “Well we will be back up here at first light I want you to finish what you have left to do if your able. The rest of the explosives should be ready by morning, but make sure you leave enough for Stephen, I think he was going to set some charges near Kirk’s compound in case any got through here.”
“You got it boss, I will check with Stephen and see if he is going to need help setting his charges in the morning.”
‘He is a good man, this Casper’ I thought, chuckling to myself as he walked away, ‘as long as you stay on his good side…’
Blowing out a large cloud of visible breath, I didn’t realize it had gotten so cold while I was helping direct the crews working on several different things.

Walking back to the dump truck for my thick flannel coat I see Mattie has climbed aboard to keep warm.
“You got the right idea girl!” I said as I climbed inside and rubbed my hands together. “Got cold as hell out there after the sun went down.”
Mattie looked over at me with a concerned look.
Uh oh, I don’t like that look…
“What’s bothering you Mattie?” I asked
“I am worried Mike,” she said, “If this colossal mass of Zombies is as large as they say, do you think we have a chance?”
Putting my arm around her and pulling her close I try to comfort her. “I will not lie to you Mattie, I have no idea. But this is the best we can do on such short notice. We have to try or a lot of people will die, if not here than some other group of survivors. The more we destroy now, the less we will have to worry about in the future.”
She burrowed herself into my chest, wrapping her arms around my tender ribs, “I know, but it seems like we never get a break. It is always one emergency after another.”
“I heard that, if you want to blame anyone, blame Murphy.”
“Murphy… Who is Murphy?” she asked looking up at me.
“Long story,” I said shaking my head, “but that’s not important. Look we can’t worry about the hand we are dealt, it is how we deal with it.”
Sitting there holding on to each other as if it was all that kept us sane, I swear I could faintly hear far to the north, tortured howling and screams. As if it were the legions of hell coming for our very souls.

Finally Stephen notified me that he had called the Scouts in for the night and we were all headed back to the relative safety of the prison walls. It gets dark around five this time of year and we worked till past 2100 hours. It was just not safe to be out working in force after dark with all of the Zombies just milling about. They seemed to have the uncanny ability to sneak up on you unnoticed and we lost one guard just after dark. They were moving a car to set up as an I.E.D. and failed to see it had a trapped Zombie inside. After opening the car door a Zombie latched on to one of the man's arms, ripping a large chuck of flesh free. The Zombie was quickly disposed of with a head shot with a suppressed AR-15 and the despondent guard dropped his rifle and wondered off into the darkness before he could be stopped. I heard a faint gunshot as we headed the convoy back to the prison.  

********

Jonas stood silently in the dark. He stood in the old off-limits area of the prison where he stored some of the equipment that he will need to bring these cocky assholes to their knees.
Outside the walls, he could clearly hear the pitiful wailing of the hungry Zombies as they battered the massive thick walls with their mangled hands and gnashed their teeth.
Inside the walls, he could also hear the last of humanity in this area go about their useless lives.
Jonas loved the darkness. The darkness hid all of the ugliness that he saw in each and every meat sack that these pathetic survivors represented.
‘How could all of the pure souls that Father Kettle had saved be gone while these wretched sinners thrived without retribution?’ he thought angrily.
Yes, it was only in darkness where everything was pure and equal, no shades of gray to make the weak run astray from the true path that Father Kettle had shown him.
All of his adult life and most of his childhood Jonas had struggled to conform to what society had deemed normal. When he was unable to ‘conform’ it landed his ass in jail.
In jail and later prison was where he realized he didn’t even fit in among the so called scum of society. He was as Father Kettle labeled a ‘special individual’.
He had been sentenced to sixty five years for several aggravated felonies. However even though he was labeled a danger to other inmates, due to the extremely over crowded prison system, he was put into general population.
What the several different law enforcement jurisdictions that had him incarcerated did not know about Jonas, was the multiple cold case homicides that he had a direct hand in.

It was in general population where Jonas had met Father Kettle, and it was from Father Kettle who had shown him that the ‘ends justify the means’. Preached from the holy man himself, Jonas learned that it did not matter what he did or who was ‘hurt’ as long as his missions were fulfilled.
And his last mission handed down by the fallen saint Father Kettle was to make these bastards pay.
Standing there clenching and unclenching his fists, he longed for the pale throat of a lusting wench to throttle; or the worn handle of his knife to plunge again and again into the putrid shell of a disgusting, screaming sinner.
Just as he was beginning to shake with righteous anger, his two-way radio crackled to life that was clipped to his belt.
“Jonas…can you hear me? Are you there? This is Lewis, answer me dammit!”
Jonas slowly unhooked the radio from his belt, raised it to his lips.
“Lewis for the last and final time, if you try to contact me at any other time than I requested I will gut you like a fish and feed you to the fucking Zombies.” He said without a trace of emotion.
“Now for the last time, you just need to be patient. A few more days at most and I will be able to bring you inside the walls. Just be sure you have all items I told you to acquire.”
A few seconds of silence went by then the radio erupted in unintelligible shout of anger.
Jonas calmly shut off the radio and blessed silence returned…

********

Inside the cramped cab of Lewis’ truck, he was currently screaming into the radio that he had found at the message drop off location.
“Patient… What the fuck do you mean ‘be patient’?” he screamed at the radio. “I have been chased and attacked and tormented every damned second of every day by these god damned Zombies! All the while you sit all safe and secure behind thirty foot stone walls and tell me to be ‘patient’!”
No answer…
Lewis stared at the radio, “Jonas are you hearing what I am saying?” he yelled again into the radio.
No answer…
With a strangled gurgle of rage Lewis threw the radio onto the seat and beat the steering wheel in frustration.
Minutes go by and Lewis’ anger slowly turned into despair.
“How long must I put up with that arrogant jackass?” he moaned aloud.
Lifting his head to stare at his reflection in the rear view mirror, he is still shocked at what he sees.
The lack of sleep, proper nutrition, and personal hygiene has once again turned his middle aged good looks, into a poster child for someone who abused Meth or other hard drug.
Deep dark rings surrounded his sunken eyes and thin face that was covered in several days’ growth of scraggly facial hair.
Lewis’ clothing, mismatched and ill-fitting was scavenged from random homes as well as his shoes that rubbed his feet raw and bloody on a daily basis.
“How have I fallen so far?” He cried to his reflection. “Just look at yourself! You were almost Mayor of this town and now you are taking orders from some psychotic killer!”
Lewis’ frame shook with sobs of anguish and misery.
Misery…misery and despair at how events had unfolded; from his failed attempt at a prestigious political career, and his botched safe zone leadership.
Anguish…anger at losing his brother just after getting him back, and how he utterly failed time and time again at ending the wretched life of that asshole cop Mike who he blamed most of his recent hardships on, as well as his worthless comrades.
And now his only hope for vengeance and retribution rested with Jonas.

Lewis knew he had no choice but to do as told no matter how bad he wanted to tell the little man to shove his head up his ass.
Otherwise he had to try to bring about the destruction of the prison by himself. Lewis was sure of himself enough to know he knew absolutely jack shit about combat and survival and so he seriously needed Jonas’ help.
Lewis’ mood was somewhat lifted at hearing that most of the inhabitants were heading north somewhere to engage a large group of Zombies and that he was finally going to be able to enjoy safety once he was smuggled inside the walls. At least long enough for Jonas and him to destroy those bastards and their compound.
Shivering in the cold cab of the truck, Lewis was irritated that he couldn’t run the vehicle’s heater because the sound of the engine would bring the inevitable hungry Zombie to him like stink on shit.
‘Once these imbeciles are taken out, I am heading for warmer climates.’ He thought; rubbing his hands together as he attempted to keep warm while the temperature slowly fell.

********

Kleaner wearily made his way back to his camper trailer. He checked all over the damned prison compound for his buddy Logan and came up negative at every turn. He didn’t like not knowing where his friend was and had now become worried for his safety.
He has asked almost everyone that was still here at the prison if they had seen him.
The answers he got did not set well with him.
Logan was last seen yesterday evening while they were arguing over the .22lr experiment they had been working on.
Kleaner had gotten roaring drunk that night with the assistance of Dan and Mr. Jack Daniels and subsequently most of the evening was a blank after that.
The closest lead he had gotten today was from a short wiry fellow who said he thought he had seen Logan leaving in a truck with others to head up to Bolingbrook to fight the Zombies.
After he had the dispatcher at the Command Center radio up to Stephen to check for Logan, they were told he wasn’t to be found up there either.
The more Kleaner wracked his brain the more it didn’t add up.
A man as large of frame and belly like Logan just cannot up and disappear with no trace. He had never done anything like this before. And he loved their new dog as much as Kleaner, having had a Black lab as a child.
‘Well there wasn’t much more I am able to do tonight,’ he thought, ‘I will get an early start in the morning with a formal investigation into his being absent.’
Settling in for the night, sleep was hard to come by, with being worried for his friend’s safety along with all of the other new friends he has recently made that are going to be carrying the fight to the Zombies well outside of the prison walls. The lab, sensing the anxiety, softly whined by and then laid on Logan's empty bed.

********

The next day we were all up early and greeted buy yet another cold day of work. Hot meals were prepared to try and keep the men motivated up on the highway. With the rest of the explosives mixed Dan made the trip North to supervise their deployment. He mentioned that this was the first time he had mixed industrial miming explosives and he hoped that they worked.

Prior to leaving I was approached by Kleaner who stated that Logan was MIA and he had no idea where he might be. Kleaner was beginning to worry that he may have fallen off the wall at some point during the night that he went missing. I wanted to help check it out as it was rather strange, but my plate was full, and so was Kleaner's for that matter. Our AM broadcast was working and the new day brought nearly 30 refugees to the prison. Many reported being pushed out of their hiding spots they had kept for several weeks by a large group of Zombies. They heard our broadcast's on the radio and knew of nowhere else to turn. Kleaner had his hands full trying to process the new refugee's safely and keep the perimeter clear of Zombies as a new vehicle seemed to show up every 20 min. There was now even an overflow parking area outside the prison to the West for arriving vehicles.

Stephen had also left early to pick up more tanker trucks from the refinery and I was to meet him at the Bolingbrook safe zone in around lunch time. I arrived early and spoke with Kirk Simms who was reporting some progress. The ditch was dug approximately 4 feet deep and extended for  two hundred yards in front of the safe zone, to the East. He hopped to have three more machines digging today than yesterday and wanted it a full six to eight hundred yards long. They were lining them with plastic sheeting and had emptied a couple oil change stores of their flammables. They needed a lot more however and were counting on Stephen to bring several tankers. Out in the distance I could see Dan with his missing left hand helping set charges. They had at least fifteen set already and had plans for many more.

Finally Stephen pulled up with a roar and with six additional tankers.
"Four of these are for your trench Kirk." Stephen said as he climbed down from the passenger seat of a rig driven by Eddie, the truck driver he spent some time with in the radio room and who had notified him of the mess up in Wisconsin. "This one here I would like to have dumped into some kiddies' pools or something and used to fill up any container we can find with a lid. We are going to need them to help start some major fires around town when the time comes."
"I'll see what I can do." Kirk says with a sigh and wonders off to find the scarce man power for yet another project.
"What do ya got for me Mike?" Stephen asks
"Well." I reply. "The highway is too jammed up to get tanker trucks all the way up to the hoards current location so we are going to have to settle with one burn off closer to our front. There is just not enough time or manpower to clear them. Your trench is only going to end up being half as long and not as deep as you wanted, so I'm not sure how much good it is going to do. Kirk also said that they did not have time to get over to the hospital at all."
"Well the river is not to far to the East." Stephen remarks. "I hope this trench will be enough to keep them bottled up around the highway."
"To bad our prison is on the East side of this same river." I remark dryly.
"So what's the good news?" Stephen asks sarcastically.
"That with the Bolingbrook and Romeoville people all up here, we have over 400 people working their asses off trying to get this trap set up as best we can."
"Good enough then." Stephen responds. "I am going to have Eddie and the guys unload their trailers and head back for six more tankers. I would like to maybe have a couple more up here for the trench and a couple in reserve to cover a possible retreat. what ever is left we can set up on the highway."
"Speaking of retreat." Mattie interrupts. "I think it might be a good idea to get all of the elderly people and children from Bolingbrook and Romeoville back to the prison today. I don't think it is going to be safe up here in the morning and we should evacuate them now."
"That's a good idea Mattie." I admit. "Why don't you get started on that now. I see that they managed to get some of those U-Hauls I mentioned yesterday. See what supplies you can get down there as well, we are going to need them."
"And Mattie." Stephen adds. "When you get back to the prison I need you to tell Kleaner that tomorrow I want a skeleton crew on the walls and I want everyone else out on raids to gather as much supplies as possible. And I mean everyone. All of the new people we just took in and any that might come tonight or in the morning for that matter. They are going to need to hit all the high priority targets on our books. We are going to need the supplies if we are going to be taking in all these new people, and I don't know how long we are going to have to safely retrieve them. Ask him about Logan’s whereabouts as well, he may be missing. "
"I will let him know Stephen." Mattie responds. “And that is strange about Logan.”
"Yes it is....Ok thanks Mattie." Stephen says, and then announces that he is going to go up to the highway and check on Amber, who is working with Alpha Platoon.
"We are going to work past dark today Mattie." I mention as she goes to start helping with the evacuation. "And we will probably spend the night up here to be ready to meet them in the morning."
"I'll be back up here to wait with you Mike, I wouldn't have it any other way." Mattie responds and returns to give me a hug and kiss on the cheek.
I grab her and give her a long kiss on the mouth...
"Delicious!" I say and hurry off like a school boy late for class.

********

Chad Evanston sat wearily behind the steering wheel of the large white Ford Excursion. Everyone had taken turns driving and it was back to him already. He was supposed to get some sleep while riding in the back seat but the trip was turning into one close call after another. The area between Milwaukee and Chicago was densely populated and it seemed to Chad that every Zombie there must have been bugging out West in search for food. They were now back on 47 South after having to divert West when they approached the I-90 Toll way due to heavy west bound Zombie traffic that had completely overwhelmed the intersection. The Zombie foot traffic was heavy and the trio had to be on constant watch so as not to drive into a dead end and get trapped in their truck with limited supplies. Twice in the last 4 hours alone they had run into a roadblock created by burnt and destroyed vehicles on the roadway and had nearly been overwhelmed, barley able to shoot their way out and around it. If not for the three Ar-15's they possessed they would surely have died at the last one. Now ammo was running low and they would need to stop and scrounge for fuel at some point soon.

"When we hit the I-88 Toll Way I am sure we are going to find the same situation as I-90" Terry said from the front passenger seat. "We are going to need to find fuel before then, that would be a bad time to run out."
"I second that." Bruce chimed from the back seat.
Chad threw the map back to Bruce. "Find us some alternate routes so he have them lined up in case we have to head West again to skirt this wave of Zombies.
"Roger that." Bruce answered.
"I know a place just outside of Elburn where we can maybe find fuel." Terry said out of the blue. "I used to stop there and pick up beer on my way up to the cabin. It was a small service station and the guy who owned it used to be a cop. We always traded old war stories when I stopped in and I believe he had a gravity tank behind the building for filling up his snowmobiles."
"Just point the way." Chad said while chugging his last Monster energy drink. They drove on in silence as the sunlight faded into darkness and they needed to be even more careful. this despite the slow 25-30 MPH pace they were making.          

A short while later Terry was checking 1320 AM for an update from the prison safe zone at home in Joliet. The stations signal had grown stronger as they approached Joliet and they listened intently as the announcer for the small station gave a live broadcast detailing the massive Zombie hoard believed to be approaching the area on I-55 and the steps being taken to combat it. They learned that the battle was expected to commence in the morning in the area of I-55 and Rt. 53 and anyone who could hear this broadcast and respond to help, it would be greatly appreciated. The prison would be able to provide safety after the battle if necessary, and it offered supplies and shelter to all who could help.
"Morning... That's probably about the time we will arrive." Terry said. "Looks like we are going to have a forced march and then get thrown right into the fight."
"I don't think those guys realize the full scope of this Zombie push." Chad remarked. "We are going to have to warn them."
"Out of the frying pan and into the fire." Bruce added. "Let's get some!"      

********

It was dark outside as Matvei and a few others sat around the small propane Mr. Buddy heater in one of the steel buildings. A dinner of canned Progresso soups and Coca-Cola. The bumps and wails of the Zombies just on the other side of the thin metal sheeting made for an uncomfortable setting. Matvei had learned that of his entire command only thirteen men had stayed with the plan and managed to survive the trip North. The small group had plenty of horror stories to share of losing friends along the way, some to Zombies and others to desertion. They confirmed that Matvei's second in command Lt. Calderon never made it out of Dallas. They had also relayed that they had only reached the compound yesterday and had found it mostly looted. It appeared that a large amount of refugee's had flooded the area and there had been no security at the compound as far as they could tell. If there was they had been overran. They lost their last three guys clearing the place and using a small tractor to drag the shipping containers into a makeshift barrier.
"You know the old saying, "head for the hills." Raul joked. "Well it looks like a large portion of St. Louis did just that and came right through here."
"And brought the Zombies with them." His friend Hector added.

Matvei was going over his dwindling options in his head. His dreams of conquest were now long gone. He and the others had heard a radio broadcast from the U.S. Government and their safe zones on the coasts and their plans for eventually linking up. They were not convinced that they could pull it off after seeing first hand the extent of the plague, but were in agreement that they needed to stay clear of the military. Supplies here were almost non existent, and more and more Zombies seemed to be showing up. He only had three things left working in his favor. The first was that the compound did have a working Kenwood TS-590-S HAM radio that allowed him to make contact with his ranch in Arizona. Tamera had been worried sick about him but Matvei was more concerned about his ranch and was relieved to find that his comrades from Russia had not deserted. They along with his best men held the ranch and actually had little Zombie contact till this point. Matvei knew that eventually they would be hit with Zombies coming out of Phoenix some 90 miles away, but he figured they had enough firepower to manage. Matvei needed to get to his ranch, which led him to his other two aces. The men he had left were dedicated and skilled, having made it this far, and would be able to help him make the trip West. In order to do it, they were going to need supplies, and that was the last ace. Although it was 350 miles in the wrong direction, a safe house in Joliet Illinois had been set up in a discrete manner, over a long period of time. Fuel, food, weapons and ammunition were stored in abundance, and the group was short in all of the above. There was even suppressors for the rifles. Those supplies, once recovered, would make the trip West much easier.
"It sounds like a no-brainer then." Raul Stated.
"When do we leave?" Hector asked.
"First thing in the morning." Matvei responded. "Lets load up tonight and shoot our way out of here at dawn."            

********

With darkness upon us and another day of work under our belt, we settled in for a long night of waiting. It was well past midnight. All that could be done was now done. Our plans were set and we had drawn a line in the sand here. As many I.E.D's as possible had been set and makeshift road blocks had been set up at every exit off I-55 from Route 53 to I-80. Stephen had made photocopies on the copier we had running at the command center of our battle plan for the morning and assignments for everyone involved. He had passed them out to everyone after work had stopped and made a joke that it didn't matter if the plans fell into enemy hands as he doubted Zombies could read. That lame joke earned him a few chuckles.

Stephen also informed me that an old ambulance had been retrofitted as a field command center of sorts and we were going to run the operation and manage the radio traffic from it. He had already picked a crew to run it.
Many were going to be sleeping in their vehicles tonight with the engines running due to the cold and ever present Zombie threat. MRE's were distributed for all. Mattie sat with me in the cab of the dump truck helping me stay warm and keeping me company.
"I'll trade you my Chili and Macaroni for your Chicken Fajita?" Mattie asked playfully.
"You know I can't say no to you!" I say and hand over the meal. "I like the chili better anyways."
We are interrupted by a knock on the door. I open it to find Stephen holding a big bag of candy.
"Take your pick guys." Stephen says with a smile. "I am handing out candy to everyone tonight."
"Why thank you Stephen!" Mattie says and takes the bag from me and picks out several bags of gummy bears and a bag of peanut M&M's before handing the bag back.
"Well you guys have a good night. I am going to be watching a movie with Amber in that Tahoe right over there." Stephen says, pointing to my right. "I'm thinking maybe We Were Soldiers or something. Let me know if you need anything."
"Oh and one other thing, Casper is not happy about it but I am sending him on a scout mission to keep an eye on our Southern flank in the morning. I trust him and need his eyes down there." And at that he promptly walked off towards his Tahoe.

Shortly thereafter Dan dropped by offering shots of Jack Daniels to warm everybody up. He pretty much strong armed Mattie and I into a shot and then wondered off to find someone to help him finish the bottle. Finally it grew late and quiet and I think we were going to be able to get a little sleep. There had been little Zombie traffic today and we had sentries posted well to the front to advise when the hoard approached...... The last thing I remember hearing was Dan's truck softly playing a Johnny Cash song, 'The Man Comes Around.'

********

Wails of pain and hunger arose from the creatures in front, sending the thousands behind them into a frenzy of howls and screams.
The slower ones were mercilessly trampled into the unforgiving pavement, and knocked down again and again until they were too mauled and broken to stand.
The crippled creatures were stepped on by countless others, who were now agitated greatly by the smell of fresh meat and blood close by.
Soon the fallen ones were ground into the road surface until they were reduced to a greasy smear that the footsteps of others spread the gore along for great distances.
Even then, the wretched creatures were still cursed with a mockery of life; their mangled limbs barely twitching as rotten teeth still clacked together with all their might to rend and tear at the fresh flesh that was now forever out of their reach.
Food was near
Steam erupted from uncountable throats into the cold night air as they shrieked their unholy agony and hunger.
As if it was one enormous beast, mindless but of one goal, it surged forward.
To eat
To feed
Slowly, so painfully slowly it neared the source of their rage…
They could sense the sweet blood that grew stronger with every staggering step.
And so they howled
And so they screamed their fury
And so they surged forward with their thousands upon thousands until the very earth trembled and shook.
Until at last in the distance the accursed multitude came into view of the very food they had sensed for the last few miles.
Finally they can rend flesh, and gorge on sweet meat and pulsing blood.
Finally there was food to be had.

********

And as the sun began climbing over the horizon, its cleansing rays broke across the incalculable hoard that has just now begun to reach the very outer edge of the terrified inhabitants and survivors’ perimeter of the many traps they had set.
With labored breaths and rapid pulses, every man and woman who was awake gripped their weapons a little tighter. Here and there few checked and rechecked their firearms to make sure it was still loaded, and began waking up their friends.
Inside the huge city street department dump truck equipped with the huge V-plow, I sat in the driver’s seat staring at what approached our position with grim acceptance on my face.
Only response that sums up what I see comes to mind, sadly I have said it too many times lately.
“Fuck me…”

Here is the hand drawn map that was copied and handed out prior to the battle by Stephen.

And here is a Google Earth photo of the Collins Street Prison in Joliet. It is marked to identify key spots inside the prison compound.



This is way too much fun!

wow!!!!

gotta go to work will read this tonight!!!

After I finish Deep Winter I'm reading this!  I have to find out how you got all the zombies out of the prison!  That would be a perfect place to hold up in.  I can't wait to read it, thank you for taking the time to write it and post it.

Out-fricken-standing!!  Thank you for the effort you're putting in to this.  It's fantastic.

Super story! Stupid question: Given that it is winter and people would have on heavy coats, how do you bit through them? Even a leather jacket would be difficult to bite through. Always wondered.

dude.................GIMME MORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!




thats some great stuff

I agree with the coats and mentioned it in chapter 14. We have had mild weather this year and the story takes place in November at this point. Temps in the 40's. With the amount of Zombie's inbound at this point they would just overwhelm you. Thanks for reading

Good Save! Subtle but well worded  
   
Even Mattie herself has spotty memories of how she was captured and what she went through.

Keep up the great work!!


AKASL

LIVE ZOMBIE FREE OR DIE

Excellent as usual!

god I wish Jonas and lewis would die.

so now we have an interesting confrontation fixing to happen in Joliet. the russian guy, the idiot Zealot and of course, the zombies.....

Great story, thanks for the work that you've put in so far.

Absolutely fantastic chapter!

THIS WILL BE A BATTLE OF EPIC PROPORTIONS



ETA.. PAGE 10 IS MINE

Awwwe Mmmmmmaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnn . I hate cliff hangers.

MOAR I NEED MOAR!

great job, I am loving it.

good job man, you got me hooked on this story like no other!

Great update! sounds like they need a MOAB from Uncle Sam................

Daisy cutter!

GAAA!!! I've been reading this at work for the last 6 days.. I just realized I'm at the end of all the updates!!!!!! I'm sure glad tomorrow is Friday. This is actually some very good writing. Good, fast paced, and full of enough stuff to keep one locked in. Thank you very, very much for this!

JONAS NEEDS TO GET OWNED!!!! I also need more to read

IT'S FRIDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!








give it up!

Chapter will be up today but not until my shift is over. Proof reader still had it and I'll get it back after I'm off tonight.

Thanks all

Chapter Sixteen: The Best Laid Plans
November 14, 2011
Day 49

“How do I manage to continuously get myself into cluster fucks like this?” I wondered aloud.
It seems every time one crisis is over the shit hits the fan from another direction. And the last couple months have been a bitch! Climbing down from inside the cab of the dump truck, I take care not to wake Mattie who is still fast asleep. No sense in scaring her yet. Although getting closer with every second that passes, the hoard is still quite a distance down the highway. Yet as it is coming into view it is obvious that it is a much larger mass of undead than I have ever seen. Grabbing my Motorola two way radio I chirp Stephen, who if I didn’t know better was still asleep and spooning with his girl Amber.
“Stephen, this is Mike…wake the fuck up man! Our guests have finally arrived!” I yelled into the radio.
No answer…
“Stephen!” I tried again.
No answer…
“Damn” I curse. “What good are all these two way radio’s we passed out nobody answers them.”

Continuing with a string of expletives that would wake the dead, if they weren't awake already, I limped over to a small Chevrolet S-10 that we had been using to run messages and equipment around with. I climbed in and headed off to where Stephen’s truck was located. I remember him saying that it was over on the right, near the off ramp. A short minute later I found his Tahoe parked in the grass and pulled up to a stop. Walking over to it I can see that the windows were totally fogged up, screams were coming from inside and the truck was rocking from side to side.
'Christ…those two are like a couple teenagers.' I murmur under my breath as I heard something about “Oh my God yes!”
Kicking the truck door I yelled out Stephen’s name.
The truck stopped its movement and an irritated male voice yelled back, “What the fuck you want? I am a little busy.”
Followed by a female voice demanding. “Don’t stop!”
“No shit, hey the Zombies are here. I am heading back up to the highway.” I yell, now just as irritated.... And slightly jealous.
A moment of silence followed “Oh...Ok, thanks Mike.” Stephen yelled back.
Before I could even turn to walk back to the truck I could see the rocking motion had started back up at about double the previous speed…

I returned to our defenses and met briefly with the truck drivers who were a vital part of our operation and again went over our plans on what they needed to do. I had each of them repeat back to me their task. Satisfied with what I heard I send them off with a firm handshake. Making my way back to my dump truck I opened the door and crawled back inside. Mattie was still asleep and whimpered slightly as a blast of cold air snaked across the bare skin of her back where her blanket had fallen away.
Closing the door gently and cranking up the heat I waited until she fell back into deep sleep. Reaching over I gently pushed back a few errant hairs from her face, and just enjoyed staring at her.

Wow, she was truly a beautiful woman. Too bad I have to wake her; she appears to finally be sleeping through the night without the nightmares that have been plaguing her after the Kettle debacle. Outside of the truck I can see dozens of our people scrambling here and there to get to their positions.
I let out a huge sigh; ‘why can’t we just have a few weeks of peace and quiet for once?’
Oh well can’t cry about how unfair life is. I have to look at the positive things. Like for instance; I am currently not a flesh eating Zombie…at least not yet. And sleeping to my right is yet another positive.
Reaching over I gently shook Mattie, “Hey Mattie, wake up babe, we got company.”
She opened her deep brown eyes and looked at me with sleepy eyes and then sat up and looked out the windshield, gasping at what she saw.
I had to remain calm, if she or others saw how badly I wanted to just say ‘fuck it’ and leave, then all chance of holding here would be lost.
“Relax sweetheart, they are still a ways off yet.” I said. “You have plenty of time to tell me what a great guy I am before they get here.”
Laughing Mattie punched me lightly on the arm. “Don’t you ever get scared?”
Scrunching up my face to think I finally said “I think the closest I came to being scared was when I found out you were taken by Kettle’s men, but even then I was so angry and busy with getting you back that I really didn’t have time to be scared. I had to be strong. Just like I need to be strong now, and I need you to be strong too. If we don’t hold these bastards here, then they will run through this area unchecked and a lot of people will die.”
Mattie nodded and took a deep breath. Letting it out noisily she shook her entire body. “Ok, I will try and make you proud of me and be strong.”
“That a girl!” I said and leaned over and gave her a quick kiss on the lips. “Just stay close to me today, if we need to bail out of here fast, I want you near so we can get to the truck in a hurry without trying to find each other in the confusion.”
“Get dressed and meet me on the roof of the bus out front.” I continued. “That will be our observation post for the battle.”

After she said yes I opened the truck door and hopped down and went on retrieving my weapons. Once they were all located I transferred them to the bus rooftop. My aluminum bat and ballistic shield I left at ground level as they would be useless way up on the roof of the bus.
Standing up at this height I can clearly see in the distance the extent of the Zombie force that is descending upon us. For as far as I could see it was a solid twitching mass of rotting bodies slowly inching its way closer and closer towards us. Seeing the fear and terror on many of the faces around me, I decide to give them something to keep busy with, to keep their minds off the horror that is heading our way. Grabbing the small handheld Motorola I try and raise Casper. At least he answers.
“What do you need boss?” He asked.
“I need you to go out to the tanker trucks and make sure the drivers don’t fuck up their jobs.” Pausing I continue. “Take a small team with you as well for security.”

Hearing a noise behind me I turn and find that Mattie has arrived.
Walking up next to her I slip my arm around her waist. She wrapped her arms around my ribs and we both stood there watching our enemy inch their way closer and closer.
“Still think we have a chance Mike?” Mattie whispered, looking up at me with those huge brown eyes.
“Damned if I know babe…but I do know I am going to make them pay for every fucking inch they take!” I growled. “If you are the religious type, you might want to say a few prayers now, I will take all the help we can get, but I will not hold my breath. The only thing I have faith in is what I can hold in my hands.”
Mattie looked up at me again, “Your hand is on my ass…I don’t think my butt will win this fight.” She said with a smile.
Laughing I said, “I would not bet against it…have you ever seen your ass in tight pants?”
So there we both were, giggling like kids as uncountable numbers of undead stumbled and shuffled towards us, howling their undying hunger all the way…

********

Lewis drove around the neighborhood slowly in the large bread truck he was told by Jonas to acquire. In the back of the truck were all the items and materials he had located as well.
‘He better get me inside those walls soon.’ He thought, ‘There are a shit ton more Zombies showing up every time I stop for more than a few minutes.’
And it was a fact, for behind him was a group of undead several dozen strong, and more kept joining in with their slow pursuit of his truck as he circled each block.
Lewis squinted as he made another turn onto a side street and the bright morning sun shined right into his eyes. The sudden blindness made him jerk the wheel and his truck slammed alongside an abandoned vehicle slightly causing the truck to weave back and forth until he regained control.
The rocking of the truck caused many of the items he had collected for Jonas to roll around inside the cargo area. Some of the liquids sloshed noisily as well.
‘I will be glad to offload all of this crap as well, some of this stuff reeks pretty bad.’ He thought as he once again made another loop around the neighborhood.
Any minute now he expects his radio to come alive and hear Jonas’ voice telling him it was clear to enter the prison.
And every minute that passes begins to make him sweat a little more.

** ******

Kleaner was finishing up his appointed rounds of the perimeter guards and watch towers. Even though many of the occupants have gone North to battle the Zombies, they have sent many truckloads of their survivors down to his location. Finding shelter for them was a huge added chore that he really did not want or need right now. There was a large building on the north end of the prison that was being used as a large dormitory for the new arrivals. There was just not nearly enough campers to go around.  Even meals were turning into a mess as many of the new folks wanted to eat whenever they felt like it and expected the mess hall cooks to whip them up a meal at a moment’s notice. Thank God the old prison cafeteria was finally up and running. These new people were going to have to start chipping in ASAP.

Kleaner had to reach deep for self-control as he played moderator with all the petty disputes that arose when the new people bumped heads with his remaining Delta platoon, the security team.
‘Maybe this is what police work usually entailed…’ He thought as he pretended to listen to the current disturbance involving two ladies in front of him.
Finally he had enough of the arguing…
“Enough!” he roared.
“If you two cannot come to an agreement, then you both will be pulling kitchen duties for the rest of the week!”
By the time he had walked away the two women were chatting about their respective children and what the fates of their husbands were.
‘Sometimes I guess people like to be told what to do.’ Kleaner thought as he made his way to his trailer.
“And on top of all this I need to get out on a large supply run today!” Kleaner tells his dog upon entering his camper. The Lab seems to show him some of the pity he was looking for and walks over and rubs against his leg.

Kleaner pets the dog and then throws his tired self into the chair and took a deep breath of relief.
Looking over at his missing friend’s empty bunk brought Kleaner back to reality.
“What the hell happened to him?” He muttered out loud.
It doesn’t make sense, and now three days he feared that his friend was most likely dead as nobody knew of his whereabouts.
‘When I get the time, I am going to tear this fucking prison apart until I find something that tells me what happened to him.’ He thought as he stared at Logan’s empty bunk.

Outside his camper Kleaner could hear the huge prison gates clanking open yet again as more subjects were escorted inside from the Bolingbrook and now even the Romeoville compounds. Kleaner sighed and stood and winced slightly. All of this walking was killing his feet and a nasty headache was brewing from all of the petty complaints. Squaring his shoulders he exited his camper and went off to welcome the new folks, get them cleared medically and direct them as where to set up.

********

Jonas stood next to the prison gates and watched the latest group of refugees enter the prison with concealed disgust. Mastering the burning rage within him, Jonas turned and stalked to his trailer and closed the door.
Retrieving the two way radio from a duffel bag Jonas turned it on and tried to reach Lewis.
“Jonas it is about goddamn time you answered me! Lewis’ frantic voice screeched back at him. “You have to get me inside today; I have several dozen Zombies trailing me all over this damned city!”
“Relax Lewis…do you still have all the items I asked you to acquire?” Jonas answered calmly.
“Yes I have your fucking precious items, now for god sake get me inside those walls.” Lewis screamed back. “ Or I will up and leave your stuff for the Zombies to play with!”
Jonas took a deep calming breath. “Your chance will present itself soon. There is a major operation underway up in Bolingbrook and I’m sure it will fail. You just have to wait until there is a large number of vehicles returning with their tail between their legs to enter, so yours gets lost in the confusion.”  
Before that whining worm Lewis could start to bitch again, Jonas continued. “Now you will just need to keep near but still out of sight until I see the opportunity presents itself. Until then radio silence is paramount. They use these same radio‘s all around the prison, just usually not channel 13.”
Jonas turned off the radio before Lewis could respond, knowing that the worthless man would most likely just be bitching. Standing at the window of his trailer Jonas watched the prison doors clank shut and nearly shivered in pleasure at the thought of what his plan was going to do to this cesspool of unbelievers.

********

Mindless howls and screams echoed off the nearby buildings and surrounding structure as thousands upon thousands of Zombies now could clearly smell that unbelievably seductive scent of living flesh and blood ahead. The sheer size and numbers of the undead hoard was so large that the ones far to the rear that began their own chorus of shrieks could not yet smell the nearby food, but sensed it within the calls from the ones up front.
The shambling combined weight of bodies that were shoved up against the hundreds of abandoned vehicle eventually shoved them aside with squeals of tires and crashes of breaking glass. The mindless creatures didn’t know nor cared that dozens of its brethren were mangled and flattened after they were stuck up against the vehicles from the intense pressure of the countless others pushing and clawing their way past the obstacles.
All that mattered was the food ahead.
Nothing will stop them from feeding.

The very front Zombie, who used to be a union electrician and still wore the shirt, howled in hunger. Behind him a female Zombie who was a former bank teller clawed back at the others, wanting to be the first to feed. Next to her a hideously mangled creature that once was a stock broker in Chicago, pushed another Zombie to the pavement wearing a McDonald’s uniform complete with the visor. Yet this was all the humanity the Zombies had left, their old clothing. The souls of their previous life was long gone.
Thousands of jaws dripping with discolored fluid unlike saliva screamed as they closed in on the tantalizingly close fresh meat.

The howls of hunger turned to shrieks of rage as the meat slowly moved away from them. Mindlessly the hoard followed, the creatures had no choice but to follow even if they had the power of choice for behind them unimaginable numbers of others pushed their way forward relentlessly. As the creatures stumbled after the living flesh in front of them, another annoying smell filled the air. This new scent nearly overwhelmed the smell of meat, which just enraged the mob even more.
So step by step they moved after the frustratingly close meals, not even having the intelligence to wonder at the sudden splashing liquid that the creatures now were slashing through…

********

“Now Eddie!” I yelled into the radio.
Far ahead of my position I see the puff of diesel exhaust billow from the two large fuel tankers as they were put into gear and inched forward. The large trucks now began to slowly moved south bound, one on each side of the interstate. Each truck also had a subject standing on the rear of the trailer.
This person needed to have a seriously large pair of stones for he had to remain within yards of the front ranks of the undead screaming for his blood.
Each of these volunteers had a very important job to do.
For while the fuel tankers crawled slowly back towards where the rest of us waited at the bottleneck we made; the men on foot held the large hose that led back to the fuel tanks. As they marched back to us, they held steady the hoses that spilled the contents of the fuel tankers all over the roadway in front of the hoard which unknowingly trampled and splashed its way through it. Moving it slowly back and forth the men coated the pavement with fuel.

Step by stumbling shuffling step the mob moved deeper and deeper into the liquid covering the roadway. The fluid gradually coated the legs and eventually the torsos of the creatures; some were covered head to toe as they fell on the suddenly slick surface and got back to their feet to continue their march forward. The stupid mindless mob had no idea that the powerful scent that mixed in with the meat smell and the liquid that they stomped and stumbled in was gallons and gallons of flammable high grade gasoline…

Back several hundred yards on top of the make shift observation post (rooftop of a greyhound bus) I watched the first part of my plan go into effect as the fuel trucks slowly made their way back to us, leading thousands and thousands of undead deeper into my nasty trap. It was nerve wracking to sit there watching the ungodly huge mob of creatures get closer.
I keyed up the radio to give Stephen a update.
“Yea, what is it Mike? We are still working on finishing up the trenches and traps for the base over here.” He said. “I got another surprise load of fuel this morning from a random trucker who heard our broadcast and drove one up here.”
“Well you had better speed it up, our visitors are here and they look pissed.” I replied.
Several choice swear words came across the little radio speaker. Wow he must have taken notes from Dan…
“Listen up jackass, we got a whole lot of pain heading our way, just be ready to send reinforcements if we need it.” I growled.
“Sounds good, and fuck you very much.” Stephen said.
Yep, he has definitely been hanging around Dan too much lately.
I then got Casper over the radio and asked him to check personally on the progress with the fuel trucks. As he reached them there was a few moments of delay before Casper informed me that the trucks were nearly done emptying their cargo.
I nodded and turned to watch the huge mob closing in.
“Good enough, tell them to wait for both trucks to be empty and then set it off.”

For a few minutes nothing happened from our perspective.  Eddie, who was driving one of the large Mack trucks, was signaled by the man at the rear of the truck to speed up as the tanker trailer was finally empty. Seeing that they put a safe distance from the front of the hoard behind him, he parked the truck and got out.
“You ready for this friend?” The man asked Eddie.
Eddie could see that the guy was holding a flare gun.
“Hold up a second, let’s make sure the other team is ready. A quick look over to the other north bound lanes told him that they were also done and waiting for the signal to begin.
“They are set, let’s do this!” Eddie said with a smile.
The man grimly took aim with the flare gun and fired it at the large pool of gasoline that was in front of him.

Just when I began to worry that something was wrong, that maybe Murphy had made an early visit, the interstate in the distance exploded in flames. Fire and smoke screamed skyward as the flammable liquid was ignited.
All around me the waiting men and women all gave the same reaction as me.
“Oooooo…”
“Well what do you know?” I said aloud.
“That worked nicely.” Mattie responded.
The results were unbelievable.
On both sides of the interstate a fireball roared skyward and screamed away at an incredible speed along the trail of fuel that they had left.
Thousands of Zombies that had soaked themselves from trampling through the accelerant instantly became screaming burning torches.
The flames hungrily consumed the flammable liquid as it raced from subject to subject.
Thick black greasy smoke billowed into the air. The blast of heat pulsed out like waves of the ocean to beat on our faces even at this distance.
Even as those initial creatures were incinerated, hundreds and even thousands more Zombies were pushed into the flames. Up ahead I could see Eddie and the others making a bee line for our location.

Lifting the radio I chirped Stephen, “Hey Stephen, Phase one has been put into motion, will be setting up Phase 2 shortly. How’s it looking at your end?”
“No contact as of yet beside the occasional random roamer.” Stephen said. “the fireball looked spectacular from here.”
“Very good.” I responded. “Keep your eyes open I am sure these are not all of them, but hopefully most are concentrated on the major Interstate arteries out of the city.”
“Hey Mike one other thing.” Stephen added. “Send Mattie down here. I have rounded up some more people that are not going to be able to help out much up here, for various reasons. I would like her to take em down to the prison now, so they are out of the way up here, and maybe they can clear up some chores at the prison. She also needs to make sure Kleaner gets out on that raid today.”
“Roger that.” I respond.
Clipping the radio on my belt, I looked around for Casper. Seeing him standing near the front of the bottleneck I climbed down off the roof of the bus and walk up to him just as Eddie and the others are arriving.
“Well done Sirs!” I say, offering a hand shake to the out of breath crew.
“With how well the fuel trap worked I wished we had a lot more to dump out. While I’m at it I might as well wish for a small tactical nuke or MOAB too.”
They nod their heads in agreement as I ask Casper to begin Phase 2, Which was to begin with the just used tanker trucks which Casper had wired to blow. Watching Casper rocket down the highway on an ATV, I couldn’t help but be proud of how well this unassuming former postal worker has become a dependable warrior in the short time span I have known him. Turning to walk back to the bus I find Mattie has climbed off as well and walk over to her.
“Enjoy the show?” I asked.
“Spectacular!” She responded.
“I’m glad you liked it.” I say, then drawing a more serious tone. “I need you to do me a favor. Go see Stephen down by the Bolingbrook safe zone. He needs you to run some folks down to the prison for him.”
“I hate to leave now.” Mattie said.
“It won’t take long and hurry back.” I respond. “We could probably use some extra ammunition anyways.”
“Ok, see you soon then.” Mattie yells while hurrying off. “I don’t want you to start without me!”

********

Lewis anxiously paced back and forth alongside the large bread truck that he had acquired to haul all of the items that Jonas requested. He had managed to loose his Zombie pursuers momentarily, but he was sure they would locate him shortly.  Lighting up a cigarette nervously, he took a long hard drag on it and then coughed raggedly. After several years of kicking the habit, Lewis had fallen off the wagon due to the recent stress of the past few weeks. The former delivery man had a fresh new pack inside the truck when he had ‘borrowed’ it and had lit one up the moment he had found them.
Plus with the last time he ransacked a store he had come across several cartons of them, he had plenty to support his now two packs a day habit.
Checking again to make sure the two-way radio was on for the fifth time today, he snarled when he realized it was and that Jonas still has not bothered to make any contact to check on his status.

From where he was parked Lewis had a decent view of the prison and could see a lot of activity near and inside it. Several convoys had arrived from other places and many vehicles had also left.
‘Hopefully I will be able to tag along with a group arriving and sneak in that way.’ He thought to himself. ‘With the confusion of many new people arriving, I should be able to easily blend in amongst them.’
Tossing his cigarette down onto the ground he fished the crumpled packet out of his jacket and shook a fresh one out. Lighting the new one Lewis took a long drag and exhaled the breath with a string of curses aimed at Jonas for taking his sweet fucking time making contact with him…

********

Mattie exited the school bus she rode in that was ferrying the last non combatants from the Bolingbrook and Romeoville compounds back to the prison. Taking a few moments to say hello to some friends, she then went off to locate Kleaner, finding him outside the Command Center looking like he needed a long vacation.  
‘Well we could all use a little vacation right about now.’ She thought to herself.
“Kleaner, glad I found you. And where is Logan? Did he turn up since last night?”
Kleaner looked up angrily at hearing his name, then seeing it was Mattie, softened his expression.
“Mattie, you are a sight for sore eyes.” He said sighing. “As far as where Logan is; I have no idea. He has been missing for days now. Nobody has seen him.”
“That is disturbing, but right now we can’t worry about him, even though he is missing we have bigger problems.” Mattie responds. “Don’t forget, Stephen wants you to take a team and go raid the warehouses south of town and get as many supplies as possible. With the huge influx of mouths to feed, we will run short of food within a month if we don’t find more.”
Kleaner sighed. “And who am I supposed to take with me on a raid again? You folks took all of the trained fighters with you and left a bunch of sheep here with me.”
Mattie ran her fingers through her long black tresses, “I don’t know Kleaner. Maybe take just enough of your guard platoon for security and make the new arrivals go with for loading the supplies. I know it isn’t what you would like or want to do, but we must do it. The option of starvation is worse than the fear of failure at this point. It‘s the new people that will need the food so they are going to have to chip in.”
Gradually Kleaner agreed with her and came to accept what he had to do.
“Fine I will do it, but I can’t make promises it will be pretty. Some of the ones you left me here with hardly know which end of a firearm to point at the enemy, and they are the better half!”

Mattie took Kleaner’s hand and looked at him seriously, “We need you to do this. We know that you are not staffed how you would like, but we need you to roll with the punches. Now I have to get back to the battle up north. Please be careful but get it done.”
Kleaner squared his shoulders and shook off his feeling sorry for himself attitude, “Consider it done, I won’t let you down!”
Mattie grabbed the man and drew him into a big hug, “I got to go, take care of yourself; I promise to help look into Logan’s whereabouts when this is over.”
Quickly Mattie left, saw that several extra cases of 5.56, 5.45x39 7.62x39 got loaded, and then boarded the school bus that was headed back up North with a few new volunteers that had just arrived and wanted to fight.
As the huge steel doors opened and the vehicle began to move, She could not help but worry that no matter what they do it will not be enough…

********

Pain and screams erupted from thousands of throats as the flames eagerly devoured the flesh and clothing of the Zombies.
Howls of hunger from the damned far to the rear drowned out the many burning up front.
So they pushed
And shoved and clawed at the creatures in front of them that dared to stop them from feeding.
At the front of the hoard the Zombies being pushed to their doom had some slight flicker of intelligence that told them to avoid the biting flames.
But that didn’t matter.
For behind them, moving like an unstoppable juggernaut, uncountable numbers moved them closer and closer to the flames, eventually adding their unwilling corpses to the blaze.
Slowly the bodies that were trampled and more shoved into the flames and then trampled over again, began to smother the fire and provide a platform to walk on.
The hoard surged forward once more…

Casper braked hard and skidded to a halt next to his partner for this part of the operation. The now empty tanker trucks were a mere 200 yards in front of them. As the flames shrank and the smoke lessened, Casper could see in the distance what was first blocking his vision.
Grabbing his radio, he informed Mike of the large group that was reforming in the burn zone.
Mike’s reply was curse laden to say the least, but gave him one order…’Make them pay’.”
“Well alright then,” Casper said to himself as he reached back for the large duffel bag, “That is one thing I can do.”

Grabbing two detonators that had taped numbers on the sides, marked 1 and 2. Handing one to his partner Casper stated," On three." as the Zombies swirled around the two empty tankers. But even 'empty' tankers still have fuel in them, and on three they were turned into giant fireballs which again consumed the lead elements of the Zombie hoard.
Turning the ATV around Casper retreated a good distance to be safe and waited for the flames to be extinguished.

He didn’t have to wait long and the damned creatures spilled past the scorched bodies and moved directly at him howling every step of the way.
Casper sat there patiently on the machine and waited for the roadway to be jammed full once again.
When the time was just about right, Casper retrieved from the duffel bag a detonator clearly marked by him with a large number three, for the proper explosive that he had previously set.
“Hmm this one is a gas bomb if I remember correctly.” He muttered and tripped the switch.
A huge fireball exploded in front of him as well as on the opposite north bound lanes.
It wasn’t near as impressive as the gas truck bombs, but still managed to kill and set afire a large number of Zombies.
Using the distraction as cover, Casper and his partner pulled back a bit more and readied the next detonator.
Staring at it Casper thought for a minute, ‘I think this one was a shrapnel I.E.D…’

Again, waiting for the flames to die and the road to once again to be filled with a target rich environment; Casper triggered the remote.
Another huge explosion rocked both sides of the interstate. Whereas before there was a huge fireball; this time there was little flames but much smoke. Even from his vantage point the concussion wave knocked his breath away and made his ears hurt.
The results were quite impressive. Scores and scores of undead that had just been howling for his blood were for the most part chunks of meat on the road surface. Many more were missing limbs and were quickly trampled by the unharmed creatures still moving forward from the rear.
When Casper had been rigging the explosives he had sent out scavengers for metal pieces. One team had discovered a huge machine shop filled with bins and tubs of all assortments of nuts and bolts and even a large pile of railroad spikes, set for scrap.
Looking back to where the bottleneck area was, Casper tried to do the math of how many each explosion killed, how many I.E.D’s remained, along with the amount of Zombies left standing.
Not liking the answer he came up with, he set himself to do his job anyway of making them pay.
Moving back again to the next point down the road, Casper waited for the next inevitable wave of Zombies to arrive.......

********

Chad again had to steer his vehicle around yet another large group of the disgusting creatures on the roadway.
“Goddamn things are everywhere!” he swore out loud. “This is freaking out of control. Where the hell are they all coming from?”
Terry was currently hanging on to the ‘oh shit’ handle as Chad ran evasive maneuvers on the road to avoid collisions.
“Our turn is approaching Chad.” He said, “We need to turn east onto 119'th up ahead, and that should take us across Rt. 59 and over by Weber Road, near to where the guys have set up for the battle on I-55, according to what was said on the radio transmission.”
Seeing the street up ahead, Chad gunned the engine and cranked the wheel hard and sped off east bound at a high rate of speed.
Barring any major detours from more large groups of these infected creatures, they should be there within the half hour.
Looking out the side windows, they could see several dozen random groups of them and they were all heading Southeast.
“It looks like we aren’t the only ones heading to the battle.” Chad said nodding his head to show the others what he was talking about.
Bruce leaned forward to point out something as well, “And there is probably where they are going and where we need to as well.”
Far in the distance they could see several pillars of thick black smoke trailing skyward.

Chad gave the large SUV a little more boost of the accelerator, “Hmm, looks like the party has started without us, we better hurry before all the hot girls are taken…”
Terry let out a laugh as he checked over his Colt M4. "I'm sure there will still be plenty of action when we arrive, lets just get there in one piece!"

********

The large school bus finally made it back to the Bolingbrook safe zone and Mattie could see that the battle has already begun in earnest due to the large amount of smoke and occasional loud explosions as she made her way back to where Mike was at near the bottleneck.
Finding him standing on the rooftop, she climbed up and made her way over to him. Before she was able to surprise him she got her first look at what they faced on the road before them.
Spread out as far as the eye could see in simplest terms was complete carnage and destruction.
Shredded vehicles that had been detonated smoked as they were swarmed over by the Zombies as they neared them.
Several fires still burned in the distance and she could see many of the smaller blazes were moving. The mindless creatures still were making the attempt to kill them even while engulfed in flames.
‘Such hatred and anger to want to kill us for no reason.’ She thought. ‘Of course mankind has been doing such things to itself all through history. This is really no different when you break it down.’

Shivering at the thought Mattie slid up to me and slowly hugged me from behind. She felt the tenseness in my ridged frame that gradually relaxed when I realized that it was her after a few moments. My attention was so captured by what was going on down field from me that when a pair of arms wrapped around my torso I almost instinctively began to prepare to break them painfully…
Luckily before that happened; the delicious smell of Mattie’s favorite perfume washed over me.
Taking a deep breath of her sweet scent I let out a big sigh knowing that she had safely returned and I no longer needed to worry of her whereabouts.
“Welcome back Mattie,” I said, “You missed the opening credits, but the main event is about to begin shortly.”
“I missed you, you big meathead.” She said jokingly.
“Same here babe, and as soon as Casper is done playing with our friends out there it will get messy real fast. So if you have a weak stomach I suggest you wait elsewhere but still close by please.”
“I want to remain at your side Mike. I can still contribute to the fight; remember I used to be a police officer, not some fragile china doll.”
I chuckled and handed over my SWAT issued Colt AR-15. “Okay Officer China, please remember the ‘happy’ setting is full auto and has a bit of recoil when used that way.”
Mattie laughed as well and punched me in the arm after she took the assault rifle from me and added in “Jerk” in doing so.
I watched her check the magazine, chamber a round and make sure the weapon was on ‘safe’.
‘Good girl’ I thought proudly then turned to watch Casper wreak havoc on the Zombies still pouring down the road towards us…

********

Casper retreated once again ever closer to the bottleneck and retrieved yet another remote detonator.
Glancing at it he made sure again that he had the proper remote and waited for the right time to initiate it.
Again he thought of what type of I.E.D he had planted. Looking at the detonator, he had numbered and marked it with the letters ‘G’ and ‘S’… meaning ‘gas bomb’, and ‘shrapnel bomb’.
“Oooo... this should be impressive to see.” He said excitedly.
Judging the proper time, Casper flicked the trigger switch.
He was correct in his assumption; it was a very impressive combination. The resulting hail of metal parts shredded all undead within a twenty yard area, turning them into ground undead hamburger. Moving out farther more were disabled from missing limbs and severe injury. Plus with the accompanying added fireball to the mix; unknown scores more were killed and or set ablaze with the makeshift Napalm of gas and soap mix.
However much to his dismay, Casper could see that the I.E.D he had set off on the other side of the interstate failed to have gone off.
Shit!
Casper tried toggling the switch back and forth repeatedly but to no response.
“Well I did set most of these when it was getting dark, must have forgotten to arm it somehow.” He muttered to himself as he spun the ATV around and retreated with his partner once again.
Before he knew it, Casper was reaching into his bag of detonators and retrieved his last one. As if that wasn’t the problem, he now had several hundred Zombies in the north bound lanes snarling and howling for his blood on the other side of the concrete median divider. Because of the malfunctioning I.E.D he now had a shit load of Zombies in the north bound lanes far ahead of the ones approaching him from the south bound lanes.
“Need to stall these bastards for a little bit.” He said.
Whipping up his rifle Casper began firing into the mass of creatures clawing at him over the chest high barriers. His partner joined in and the Ar-15’s they were carrying made quick work of the hoard.  
Chunks of brain matter and bone shards with clumps of greasy mangy hair was blasted away from the previous owners who then fell like puppets with their strings cut. Casper had to swing the rifle barrel back and forth to engage targets as some of the infected were shoved over the barrier due to the amount of shoving and pushing from the other side.

So focused on causing the creatures in the north bound lanes to halt their advance; he almost missed the other half in the south bound lanes. If his rifle had not run dry and he wouldn’t have had to reload, he might have become a statistic. Swinging the rifle behind him on its sling, Casper gunned the ATV and pulled back for the final car bomb.

Moments later he was able to deliver several pounds of high explosive goodness mixed with a large amount of carpenters nails into the very teeth of the unnatural enemy before him. Not waiting to gloat over his kill tally, he headed back to the bottleneck. His part here was done…for now. He had to now use the two ATV’s that he and his partner were driving and scout out positions well to the South for Stephen, who was worried what he might find.

Gunning up several side roads Casper looks out at the overpass of the I-355 toll road, where a huge chunk of Zombies have been funneled onto it and were moving south bound. The mindless things were still following the path of least resistance and were shoved onto the road by the massive group in front of him and could not get off.
Even now he could see several dozen were climbing off the sides of the bridge and plummeting onto the heads of more on the roadway below them, still trying to reach him. Stretching away for as far south he could see down I-355 were untold quantities of the enemy.
“That doesn’t look good.” Casper’s partner says.
Turning South, Casper guns his ATV. “Lets see where they are heading!”
     
   ********

Seeing my boy Casper do his thing damn near flawlessly without the showing the tiniest bit of fear; I was almost sad to see him finish.
But Casper has more work to do ahead of him for Stephen needs him to do some more scouting to the south. As he rode away I turned and signaled to another defender who was patiently and most likely nervously waiting for his time to move. At my arm signal the driver fired up the huge trash compactor. It was a monstrous machine. It is a Caterpillar 836H, sporting 523 horsepower. It weighs in the neighborhood of 57 tons and has a large bulldozer type blade on the front and huge steel tires with spikes to push trash and get traction in landfill piles. It was almost perfectly designed for crushing annoying undead that won’t go away.

With a loud roar the huge diesel engine fired up with a large blast of exhaust blasting skyward from the exhaust pipes.
The ground actually shook as the machines huge steel tires chewed up the pavement as it charged forward. By now the front lines of the Zombies spilled into the bottleneck, screaming their unholy hatred of the living and clawing at the living just out of their reach. Up on the roadblock and on platforms just behind it our Alpha platoon with it’s 30 odd AR-15 rifles sat at the ready.

So intent on getting to us that the stupid creatures don’t even look at the juggernaut heading their way. I purposely had the driver keep the bulldozer blade about three feet off the ground…I don’t want to push them. I want to knock them over and crush them into the ground.
Fifty plus tons of steel slammed into the front ranks of the hoard.
Simplest way to describe what happened is they simply disappeared.
The machine didn’t even slow down. Deeper and deeper into the unending hoard it plowed and churned.
The huge steel knobby tires crushed and maimed and pulped whatever got under its massive weight.
Still the machine drove deeper into the enemy.
The carnage left behind was amazing. It was like watching a lawnmower drive through the middle of tall grass, leaving a flattened section behind it.

As the compactor passed the bottle neck area I could see from the fresh burst of exhaust that the driver had to give it some more power to press on, however it did not slow in the least bit. Hundreds of undead were forever silenced and utterly destroyed every second that it continued its path of destruction up the south bound lanes. Taking a quick glance around I could see I wasn’t the only one with my jaw hanging open in shock. But I don’t have time to stare, for once the compactor passed the bottleneck point the Zombies in the north bound lanes spilled into the bottleneck breach unopposed…at least that is what it appeared.

At my signal, Eddie who was now in my huge city street department dump truck with attached V-plow, screamed forward and slammed into the new batch of Zombies. The destruction wasn’t nearly as awe inspiring at the compactor, but scores were slaughtered in the first pass without even firing a single shot. Once the truck made it to the opening of the bottle neck Eddie quickly stopped and reversed back to the starting point. Rifle fire thinned out the stragglers while Eddie waited until the area was again filled with infected. Eddie then once again accelerated into the howling masses with abandon. After the third pass the amount of twitching bodies began to cover the road way. Lowering the blade to ground level Ed slammed the big truck into the gooey mass of undead corpses and cleared the path once again.

By this time the huge compactor had made it to the turn-around point where I had the concrete dividers pulled up and was now coming back to us in the north bound lanes. If Moses parted the Red Sea in the Bible, then our man in the compactor was parting the Undead Sea. Seeing the carnage from the front was something truly awesome to behold. Best way to describe what I saw would be a combine harvesting a corn field. As the huge Caterpillar tractor made it back to us, an enormous cheer bellowed from every throat amongst us.
We can do this! We can hold these flesh eating bastards!
I waited until the roads again were filled with uncountable numbers of our implacable foe and sent the man back to sow destruction once again into their midst. The men and women around me from Alpha platoon began to pick off the few lucky survivors that managed to avoid both the compactor and the V-plow. Now after much time had passed the V-plow truck was sent forward to smash again and again into the new front ranks of the hoard.
Even as we killed thousands upon thousands and the mangled bodies began piling up, there still seemed to be as many unharmed ones in sight as there was before!

My concentration at the battle in hand was interrupted by my radio. Stephen was informing me that Zombies were starting to pile in from the smaller roads just South of the Interstate and things were about to heat up in front of the safe zone as well. He reminded me to make sure that Charlie platoon kept an eye on our exposed flank to the North and West. I assured him that it would be done and that they could be reinforced if necessary by the AK-74’s of Bravo platoon as things were going quite well up front.
“Everything is going smooth so far.” I offered as Stephen broke radio contact.

********  

Kleaner was not happy.
First he was asked to lead a raid, which he has never done before. Then he was told he had to do so with less than desirable troops. The men and women he brought with were pathetic when one broke it down and looked hard at it.
Several of the ‘volunteers’ were old enough to be his grandparents.
If so many were not counting on his acquiring these supplies, he would have scrapped the whole mission on account of safety reasons.
His raid started to go sour when the troops made it out to the Wal-Mart distribution center in Elwood, which is a small town due south of Joliet near a huge train yard shipping center.

Pulling up to the huge facility, it took them quite some time before they could even breach the security gate. It seems nobody thought to bring the breaching tools. After wasting more precious time scavenging nearby trucks for tools, Kleaner had had enough stalling. He managed to find an operable semi-truck and drove it directly through the front gate.
Once inside, Kleaner sent a small team to find at least two, preferably three semi-trucks with trailers to load with supplies to return to the base with.
Now they needed to breach a door to the warehouse. Luckily they did locate a maintenance vehicle and with the tools inside it they were able to pry open a side door.
And that’s where the shit hit the fan.
Apparently when the virus broke loose, many had decided to secure themselves inside the warehouse. What they must not have known was they locked themselves in with an infected subject.
For when the door was finally and with much noise pried open, a large group of undead over a dozen strong poured out onto the raid members.
Since many had never battled Zombies before and Kleaner had sent some of his best men off to locate trucks, nobody was prepared for what happened.

The first anyone knew there was a problem was when the breaching man holding a crowbar had his throat torn open by one of the attackers. This in turn sent a spurting gout of blood directly into the face of the man holding the door open. Now temporarily blinded, that man was quickly taken down and swarmed over and set upon by the hungry mouths of more undead.
To her credit, an old woman in her late sixties who was holding a Mossberg 500,  lifted it to her shoulder and cranked off a round of 00 buck into the teeth of another lunging undead, ripping away its cranium.
The recoil of the large caliber also launched her off the small set of stairs she stood on and onto her back, breaking her collar bone from the weapon recoil and her hip from the fall.
She was subsequently swarmed over as well by more Zombies…
The rest of the raid members ran off screaming. One particular heavyset man was slower than the rest and was pulled down from behind and within seconds his exposed spine was showing.
Kleaner could only stare at the unbelievable cluster fuck that unfolded before his eyes. Slowly he backed up and gave himself some distance as the Zombies began to feed on the fallen souls.

Finally breaking free of the paralysis, he raised his Bushmaster ACR and began slaughtering the attackers one by one. After multiple mag changes he put down not only the Zombies but also coldly shot the newly infected before they could change.
The last of the bite victims was the elderly woman with the broken bones.
“At least you tried sweetheart,” Kleaner said with sorrow, “This is for the best, God bless you ma’am.”
The last shot fired seemed to echo in his very soul…

Entering the huge structure, Kleaner managed to open a few of the empty docking bay doors. With the added lights he could see down several rows of stacked pallets of supplies. Supplies of everything a Wal-Mart store would carry. This was a literal jackpot! It appeared that some of it had been looted, probably very early on, but much remained. The sounds of truck engines broke him loose from staring, and he returned outside to find his perimeter team had arrived with an additional two trucks. Kleaner helped guide his men in the trucks back into the open bay doors.

The first man got out of his truck and noticed he was alone. When asked what happened, Kleaner grimly explained the mess that just happened.
“If any of those cowards return, they will definitely not be riding back with us!" Kleaner angrily stated. "They all left me to die so I will return the favor of leaving them to fend for themselves. That is if I don't shoot them myself first!”
Kleaner then took some of his men, after leaving two pairs of guards at the door, went in search of some forklifts and to locate the most critically needed supplies to load up. After finding the prime pallets of goods, and marking them with cem lights, Kleaner located some hand pulled floor lifts to move them and the group began the laborious job of dragging the goods to the trucks. While working, Kleaner checked in a secure section of the warehouse where he located the ammunition storage area. It was located behind a chicken wire cage and it was easily breached, with the alarm long since dead. Inside he found cases of all of the common calibers of handgun, rifle and shotgun ammunition. Not an over abundance in any one caliber but a well rounded score. On top was a case of Remington UMC in .30 carbine. Kleaner knew that one of the guys on this very raid was using a M1 carbine and was low on ammunition. There was also a decent amount of 00 buck and 12 gauge slugs which were always in short supply. The Federal one hundred round value packs of .223 would also come in handy. Pleased on scoring some good luck for once, Kleaner grabbed some help and made the ammunition a priority.  

Even with the extra trucks it did not take long to fill up all the space. They could not carry as much as they thought and had to prioritize even more. This was made more difficult by the arrival of fresh Zombies who seemed to come out of nowhere. Some of that new .30 carbine ammo was already traveling down range at 2000 fps. It seemed a few of the cowards had returned and brought some friends with them. The gunfire eventually lulled and after screaming at the people who returned and making them look at the old woman who died with her boots on, Kleaner reluctantly agreed to let them return to the prison. The raid had been costly in lives but hopefully lessons could be learned from this and they could all move on. There was no other choice really.

After securing the warehouse doors again when they left in case they had a chance to come back for more, the overloaded trucks slowly made their way back to the prison in a convoy, as fast as they safely could. Kleaner knew that Stephen and Mike would be impressed at their haul. The supplies would prove to be invaluable in helping many others. They had paid for it however, losing at least a dozen people along the way.
Kleaner was ripped out of his thoughts by a passenger in his truck.
“Holy Shit....Look at that!” the man said.
Looking over, Kleaner sees a large group of Zombies slowly milling this way from the east.
“That is more than I have seen since the outbreak first started.” Kleaner states as fact. “Lets get the fuck out of here!”
“As he led the way back to the base everyone could see the black smoke rising up from the north, 10 miles distant, were the battle still raged.

********

Stephen clicked his selector from safe to fire and rested his 20" DPMS rifle with the ACOG on a sand bag directly in front of him. Stephen, along with 400 fighters from the Bolingbrook and Romeoville safe zones, were lying on the dirt that was piled behind the trench directly in front of them. Everyone was well dressed for the occasion, as there was plenty of warm clothing just lying around. The ground was hard and cold, but Stephen was grateful that it had stayed as warm as it had, in the mid 40's. If it had been much colder the crews would probably not have been able to dig the trench at all. Now the four foot pile of dirt and accompanying trench served as a firing position for a motley assortment of men and women from a wide variety of backgrounds and shooting skills. Stephen had been talking with several as the action on the highway was heating up, and had met school teachers, stay at home moms, car salesmen and office managers along with construction workers, cooks, and warehouse workers. Stephen even talked to a guy in his early 70’s who claimed that prior to the Zombies he owned a multi million dollar import/export business, but now only had to his name a cot and foot locker in Romeoville, the clothes on his back and a Blaser F3 Luxus over-under 12 Gauge that Stephen guessed used to be worth around eight thousand dollars.
“Better wait till they’re in close.” Stephen remarked while eying up the beautiful gun. “Even with that 28” barrel you are going to have to be close to use that number 4 shot.”

Overall Stephen had been happy with the weapons he saw deployed today. While not having the standardized assault rifles of the prisons three platoons, with their AR-15’s, AK-74’s and AK-47’s, he did see several semi-auto rifles along with lever and bolt actions in the group. A beautiful National Match M1 Garand had caught his eye as well, and the proud owner had several ammo cans of M2 ball and AP-M2 rounds for it, all loaded into Enbloc clips. Many of the rifles had scopes as well, which helped with the head shots. This group also outnumbered the three platoons nearly 4 to 1 and Stephen hoped they would be able to mass enough fire downrange to help make a difference.
 
Unlike Dan’s and Amber’s Ar-15’s, both of whom were laying next to Stephen, and Stephens Bushmaster which was in his truck, this 20” rifle was not suppressed. But this rifle had in its magazine 30 rounds of M196 tracer ammunition. Stephen also had two more magazines of the 55 grain FMJ tracer rounds in his ACU chest rig. He rested the cross hairs on the head of a Zombie that was shambling in his direction at a determined pace. This Zombie was walking alone, slightly ahead of the large mass that was, according to the Ranging reticle on his TA01, now 200 yards from their position and just starting to enter the field of fuel bombs that had been set up in layers in the distance. The bombs were mostly metal trash cans and steel drums with several gallons of gasoline inside of them. As the Zombies flooded the field, Stephen and a few select others with tracer ammunition would set off the bombs. The five layers of fuel bombs totaled about a hundred yards in depth and the hundred yards directly in front of the trench was left open for rifle fire.

With the sound of the battle already raging up on the highway, Stephen slowly exhaled and touched off a round. The tracer round flashed a path right through the lead Zombies head, dropping it instantly. The rifles unexpected report caused Amber to jump and then hit Stephen, yelling at him that she did not have any earplugs in.
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me you were going to start shooting!” Amber demanded. “Dan said to wait!”
“That’s right kid.” Dan said, slowly puffing on a cigar. “You have the tracer rounds, quit wasting them.”
“Relax...Just a little excited kids.” Stephen shot back. “ I’ll take care of business.”
Stephens round also caused several others along the line to fire, and shots slowly petered out as the Zombies closed the gap. The sight of so many Zombies was unnerving. Although not as thick as on the highway, a flood of several thousand now descended among the fuel bombs.

Finally Stephen aimed at the farthest row of barrels, which had all been hastily painted bright colors and fired at it. A large fireball erupted and caused a chain reaction setting off several other barrels as well. Everyone saw the flash, moments before they heard and felt it as well. As the others fired at their fuel bomb targets a wall of flames went up which engulfed the Zombies.
“Get some.” Dan said after removing his cigar long enough to let out a low whistle.
“Wow!” Was all that Amber said.
As the flames continued to burn, sending thick black smoke billowing into the air, nothing could be seen from the Zombies. Slowly however, burning corpses started to emerge from the flames before stumbling to the ground. As the flames began to die down more Zombies wadded through the flames undeterred by the sight of their burning comrades. Soon they engulfed the next layer of fuel bombs and the cycle was repeated, with the explosions and the Zombies both being a little closer. And yet again the Zombies pushed through.
“My God, they just keep coming!” Amber exclaimed as Stephen and the others prepared to light off the third set of bombs.

This set really thinned out the hoard and as the flames died down Dan passed the word to use the rifles to knock the closer ones down until the kill zone could fill back in. The defensive line then erupted with rifle fire as the 400 combatants eagerly sent a wall of lead at the coming Zombies. within seconds the closest thousand had been cut down. Several fuel bombs were also accidentally hit as well and exploded early. All too soon however the rifle fire slowed due to reloading and a new wave of undead swirled among the remaining fuel bombs. They hit so fast this time that Stephen and the others were forced to set off the two remaining layers at once to stem the tide. An orange fireball erupted a mere hundred yards from their position and caused the defenders to duck behind the earthen berm for cover.

Stephen wrapped his arm around Amber to shield her from the blast as the heat and smoke then reached their position. After a minute Stephen raised his head and watched the flames as they slowly began to die down. The burning Zombies were now much closer and Stephen watched in amazement as several continued to crawl towards them while still burning, oblivious to any pain, before finally succumbing to the flames. The smell of burning flesh also began to fill the air as all to soon the bodies of the fallen Zombies began to be trampled by a new wave. Several along the line broke down into tears, knowing that the undead in front of them were once human. Others became disillusioned that despite all the carnage, the field was once again filling up.

Stephens plan from here called for sustained rifle fire with the defenders themselves serving as bait, drawing them to the fuel filled trench. Now the entire line opened up and yet another thousand Zombies had their heads turned to mush in the first minute. With the distance now inside a hundred yards, the effectiveness of the riflemen increased. Heads turned into mist as the Zombies fell by the hundreds.
And yet still they came on.....
And on.....
And on.....
The Zombies paid for every yard they gained, yet seemed all to willing to pay the price. The twice killed corpses covered the ground behind them.

Dan now slung his rifle after he had emptied a full fifteen magazines from his suppressed AR-15 in under a half hour. Drawing his Glock 21, Dan began to walk up and down the line shouting words of encouragement to the fighters along with curses and disparaging remarks towards the Zombies. Some of his comments would make a sailor blush and Dan got some disgusted looks from a few of the female fighters. Yet they stayed on the line, firing into the massive Zombie wave. Even Amber had gone through nearly a dozen magazines, making every shot count. Stephen counted down the range markers as he shot and as the hoard crossed the 25 yard marker Stephen ran down the line to Kirk Simms position. He asked the leader of the Bolingbrook safe zone to take the forty pre assigned men and pull out to the right and begin to light the nearby buildings on fire. The men were going to be set up into teams of four and drive trucks up next to the buildings, light the fires and then move on. They would also thin out the Zombies with rifle fire as much as possible before driving on. Stephen called it his ‘Burn, Shoot & Scoot’ plan.
“Our right flank is in the air Kirk.” Stephen said. “You have got to slow em down and thin em out for us.”
“I’ll do my best!” Kirk said while shaking his head. “This is what it’s come to. I have to burn down my own town!” And at that turned to gather the men.
As Stephen watched Kirk leave he looked to the South and wondered when Casper would return with news from his scouting trip.
‘Not soon enough.’ He decided.

By the time Stephen returned to Dan and Amber the Zombies had pressed to within fifteen yards. Stephen had made the decision to only have the 400 defenders bring roughly a third of their ammunition out and the rest was left along the makeshift wall of vehicles and chain link fence that defended the safe zone. Rifle ammunition was now running low and many had resorted to their shotguns and sidearm’s. Stephen could now clearly see the distorted and gaunt faces of the Zombies as they fell to well placed shots from his M9 Pistol. Some of the Zombies who had turned in the beginning stages of the outbreak were now so haggard and starved that they were hard to recognize as once being human. Clothing mostly gone, yellow skin stretched tightly over bone, and always the dried blood. Yet they came on.....
And on.....
And on.....

Some of the people started to break and run on their own back towards the safe zone. Dan grabbed one young man by the back of the neck just as he turned to run and face planted him.
"Your never gonna get any pussy if you run like one." Dan growled. " Now get back on the line."
The boy looked down at the ground ashamed and returned to his position. Shortly thereafter a woman latched on to Dan in terror as he walked past. He had to peel the sobbing lady off him and reassure her with some gentle massaging. Dan happened to noticed she had a great ass.
"See kid." Dan said as he shot the boy who just tried to run a reassuring wink, while starring down at the nice C cups that were pressing into him.

Yet amazingly the line held for several additional minutes among the blast of shotguns, curses of the defenders and moans and shrieks of the undead. As the first Zombie fell into the pit, Stephen gave the order to light it off and a sudden wall of flame went up along the entire front. The heat was intense and thick black smoke crawled into the sky. Stephen, Dan and the other defenders were no longer able to see anything moving on the other side of the flames and Dan ordered a general retreat back to the safe zone. Stephen hoped that the fuel filled trench would kill a lot of Zombies and also provide time for an orderly withdraw, plus the chance for the defenders to rest and refit. The sounds of the moaning undead were now even temporarily masked by the roar of burning fuel.
“I bet we killed over 30,000 Zombies in that field.” Dan told Stephen as they walked back towards the safe zone, crossing through the large parking lot now littered with Dan’s vehicle I.E.D’s set with the remaining mining explosives. The woman Dan comforted was still attached to him at the hip.
“Now what?” Amber asked with a tired gaze as she seated the last full AR-15 magazine on her person.
“We are going to have to be stubborn.” Stephen offered as he swung his full dump pouch over his shoulder. “It’s kill or be killed out here. And I’m not going down today.”
“Don’t worry Amber.” Dan said with a air of confidence while lighting a fresh cigar and pointing at one of his car bombs. “I will kill just as many in this very parking lot as we have killed so far. I will not let them touch a hair on your pretty little head.”
     
********

Taking the time to refuel the gore covered machines while waiting for the slow moving Zombies to reach us, I was caught off guard when a very dented and blood splattered Ford Excursion skidded to a stop near our position. One of the last people I had ever thought to see again, my good friend and work out buddy Chad Evanston, got out of the vehicle demanding to the men standing nearby ‘to take him to their leaders.’

I slightly limped my way over to him with a huge grin on my ugly mug and wrapped him in a huge bear hug. With much laughing and back pounding we greeted one another.
“Holy shit, how did you guys find us? I thought you all beat feet for Wisconsin.” I asked still laughing.
Chad looked at my new scars I sported, “Yea we did, but it wasn’t a defendable position and we had no idea what we faced. We were getting ready to move when we heard your radio transmission and decided to make our way back and give you bitches a hand.”
That’s when I realized he had two others with him, Terry and Bruce, both former cops like myself, with a lot of experience and talents to draw upon.
After greeting them both roughly as Chad, I let my better looking partner Mattie grab each of them into huge bear hugs as well.
“This is fantastic news; Stephen will be stoked to see you guys. In fact I will send you down to help him out. He is shorthanded as far as talented trigger men go and will gladly get you into the shit fast. We seem to be holding our own up to this point as you can see.” I said waving a hand to the heaping piles of undead mush that were now over ten feet high and extended down the road as far as they could see.
“Sounds like a plan Mike,” Chad said, “But first you need to hear what I have to say because you have no idea the extent of the Zombie infestation you are facing.”
He went into great detail about the many times they were forced to detour around huge waves of Zombies and near the end of the trip, the sheer size in numbers of the groups heading to the nice big smoke signal we had earlier burning.
My previously grinning face took a sour and pained turn then finally one of anger.
“Dammit we just cannot get a break!” I cursed throwing my hands in the air.
Turning back to Chad I again gripped him by the shoulder, “At least you got here in time to warn us, it’s all we can do now to handle the ones we have here now. Go to Stephen’s location and fill him in. He should get to be as stressed as I am.”
With some more handshakes and farewells they got back into their SUV and tore off down to find Stephen at the Bolingbrook base just as the sound of multiple explosions could be heard from that position.

********

“Well that was impressive.” Stephen says to Dan as the first set of V.I.E.D’s Dan tried to detonate in the parking lot didn‘t go off as he hit the switch.
The Zombies had pushed through the trench after suffering heavy losses and were now entering Dan’s personal ‘mine field.’ He had all the charges wired to a panel he had taken from the quarry and was now trying to set them off.
“Fuck off!” Dan mumbled and quickly hit the next switch.
A massive set of explosions went off, shredding a large group of Zombies.
“See, much better!” Dan says with a smirk.
This parking lot was also close enough that people were opening up along the line with well placed rifle shots.
“Got another one babe!” Amber chimed in after dropping a Zombie at an estimated 150 yards with a single head shot.
“You are much improved darling.” Stephen adds with a smile.
Stephen’s flirting is interrupted first by Dan’s third set of explosions and then by a tap on his shoulder. Turning he is face to face with Chad Evanston.
“Holy shit!” Stephen exclaims with a smile. “When did you get here?”
We will have time to go over that later.” Chad offers. "You have a shit storm heading this way from the North."
As Chad fills Stephen in he realizes that plans will have to be changed quick.
"Ok Chad. Thanks for the heads up." We will need to hold hear for a minute so we can get organized for a withdraw.
"Sure thing." Chad responds. “Lets kill some Zombies first. Were would you like us?”
Seeing Terry and Bruce unloading Colt M-4 rifles from a White Expedition Stephen says with satisfaction. “Out fucking standing.... Take up position on our right flank. It is in the air and we could use the fire power.”
“Pointing to the Tahoe he was driving, Stephen tells Chad that Mattie had brought him up two extra cases of 5.56 and it was in the back.”
“There is also 500 rounds of .45 in there for that Kimber of yours.” Stephen adds with a smile.
Now it was Chad’s turn to smile.  

********

Once the refueling was finished the huge trash compactor took off once again tearing through the undead ranks like a scythe cutting wheat at harvest time. We watched in amazement for what seemed like an hour as it continued to make mince meat of the Zombies pressed together on the highway.
“We could do this all fucking day.” I heard someone say behind me.
“It’s like the wine presses of the grapes of wrath in the Bible” Another added as the gore poured off the highway filling the embankments.
And it was at that very moment that Murphy decided to join in the fun.

What we did not know was that one of Casper’s I.E.D’s did not go off. And it was on the return trip back down the south bound lanes that the operator of the compactor accidentally struck the vehicle that is was positioned in.
It was also a gas/ shrapnel bomb of course.
The jarring of the vehicle set off the I.E.D which exploded in a ball of fire. Chunks of metal filled the are, which ripped through the machine’s glass windows, adding glass to the shrapnel that tore into the poor doomed driver. Bits of steel also ripped into the huge machine’s engine and hydraulics. As if that wasn’t bad enough, liquid fire splashed over the entire cab section of the compactor as well. Good thing the driver was already dead, cause the machine banked hard to the right and slammed into the concrete dividers of the interstate and got hung up on it. It was immediately flooded with Zombies trying to get at the driver who was violently torn from the cabin.

As I stood there feeling like I just got mule kicked in the nuts I watched the machine jerk and shake as the engine finally stalled as it burned from the makeshift napalm that coated it. The sounds of crackling fire were soon replaced by a multitude of hungry voices screaming and howling for our blood. Alpha platoon reacted on queue and opened up, sending a hail of lead into the now advancing hoard, dropping several hundred in mere seconds. My next command over the radio was to pull back Bravo and Charlie platoons to cover the immediate area around our location.
“We are in trouble Mike.” Mattie said with a concerned look in her eyes.
“Yes we are hun....” Was all I could say.

********

“This is the last of em!” Dan yelled over the gunfire as the radio controlled panel he was operating detonated the last series of charges. The explosions rock the air again and shredded hundreds of additional Zombies that were hell bent on tasting human flesh at any cost. Now only the rifles, shotguns and pistols positioned behind a chain link fence and a row of cars stopped the Zombies from reaching their goal.
Sensing the urgency of the situation the volume of rifle fire increased and no Zombie had yet been able to reach the fence. Yet, while seemingly impossible, the Zombies appeared to also sense that victory was close at hand and pressed the attack.
Smoke, sulfur, fire, hissing lead, screams, moans, explosions, gunfire, Molotov cocktails being thrown by the hundreds. It overwhelmed the senses.

Glancing down the line, Stephen could see Kirk running in his direction, and Stephen for the first time noticed all the smoke coming from the buildings to the south and east of their location. Arriving out of breath Kirk informed Stephen that all the buildings nearby had been lit but Zombies were poring in from the right.
“Take your men and stack em up on the right flank, along the southern wall of the safe zone.” Stephen commanded. “We need to buy us some time! Look for a red head with tats on the flank, his name is Chad. Have him help position the guys... Now move!”
As Kirk left Stephen was relieved to see Casper tearing up to him on the ATV.
“What do ya got for me Casper?” Stephen cries over the sounds of battle.
“I got Zombies pouring off Lockport road and heading down Collins towards the prison. I got Zombies pouring down Maple Road of I-355 and approaching Briggs street.” Casper relates with dread. “I also got Zombies Pouring off I-80 near Route 30 and approaching Briggs street as well. We are going to be cut off from the prison if we don’t move quick. The whole area is flooding with em. What we see here is just the tip.”
“We are fucked!” Stephen says. “We need to keep up a tight masking fire. Go up to our left flank and tell them to keep a tight hold on the boys up on the Interstate. We can’t split the line between us.”
“Got it!” Casper says and tears off before Stephen can ask him what happened to his partner.
“I’m gonna go find Mike and coordinate a withdraw.” Dan yells as he heads towards the command truck which is supposed to organize the withdraw. “Hold here at all cost for now!”    
Stephens only response is to turn and dump a full 30 round mag from his Bushmaster into a advancing Zombie and 29 of his closest friends.

********
 
I now had all three of our platoons covering the I-55 from the north and east and had them linked up with the Bolingbrook guys to the south. The amount of rounds we could bring to bare was impressive. The training had paid dividends. Zombie after Zombie had their heads emptied by a lead projectile, leaving a red mist in it’s wake. However I was soon faced with two large problems.
Zombies were starting to arrive from the north west and were soon flooding onto the highway, threatening our rear.
Secondly we were burning ammunition way to fast. Casings littered the ground as magazine after magazine was expended to buy us precious minutes.
There was just no way we could hold them for much longer.

I knew that back at the command truck Stephen had organized a fancy diagram with vehicle assignments, planned routes of escape and detailed instructions on an orderly withdraw. The command truck even had several means of communication, HAM, CB, and two-way Motorola’s to facilitate the withdraw. I also instantly knew there was no way we had time to keep it that organized.
I grabbed my radio and screamed for Stephen to sound the alarm for retreat, unable to make out any reply, or if he even copied.
“Everybody Go!”  I screamed into the radio and also aloud for all nearby to hear.

Turning, I grab Mattie and dragged her off the bus rooftop and over to where the V-plow dump truck sat. Eddie was currently standing outside the truck firing his rifle at several large Zombie who were climbing over the V-plow. Grabbing him I yelled at him to ready the remaining tankers to cover our retreat. We had two tankers held in reserve to drive down I-55 in both lanes and soak the Interstate with fuel and light it to cover our withdraw. Eddie nodded and ran off to find the other driver and their helpers.
“Luckily these infected bastards don‘t run, or else we would be dead already!” I yell at Mattie, who is putting on a brave face, and is helping several fighters up into the back of the dump truck.
“We need to get everyone off the highway now!” She yells back. “Light this bitch up Mike!”

As the fuel tankers began to move everyone realized the gig was up and ran south off the highway, racing for their parked cars. It was like a game of musical chairs and nobody wanted to be left standing. The Ar’s and Ak’s bought us enough time and soon the highway went up in a wall of flames. This also detonated several fuel bombs that had been pre positioned in the south bound lanes, south of the barricade.
Giant explosions and fireballs once again filled the sky.
"Hell of a show Mattie!" I said while hitting the gas on the large truck.
"Better than the Fourth of July" Her response.
Grimly I steered the big truck still dripping with the gore of countless Zombie body fluids and headed south, intent on cutting a path across the Bolingbrook safe zone and back home to the prison. I nearly ran over several of our own guys but managed to make it off the highway and raced towards the safe zone.
"Look at that!" Mattie said, pointing ahead.
53 South was covered with twice dead Zombies piled in front of the fence that guarded the safe zone. The fence itself was just now falling and Zombies were flooding the perimeter A traffic jam of sorts was forming as several hundred people tried leaving in vehicles out the two small gates of the safe zone.
"Looks like they could use a hand!" I exclaimed. "everybody hang on!"

********

Stephen, upon seeing the fuel go off on I-55, realizes what is happening and gives the orders to withdraw. Vehicles are already pre-positioned behind the fences and it becomes a scramble to find a seat as the trucks began to peel away at high speeds. Without the sustained rifle fire the Zombies soon hit the fence and it causes a brief respite. Stephen empties his M9 into the mass of undead out of spite and then loads a fresh magazine and holsters the pistol onto his thigh rig. Grabbing Amber Stephen leads them towards the Tahoe and finds that Dan and Kirk Simms, along with the radio guy from Bolingbrook Derrick Booth, had already arrived and were waiting.
“Thank God they waited!” Amber cries as she jumps into the back while Stephen heads for the driver seat.
“I would never leave you guys!” Dan yells back at her from the front passenger seat. “Now get ready to use the Sig-Sauer missy!”
“Let’s get the hell out of here!” Derrick chimes in.
“Gladly!“ Stephen says as he fires up the Tahoe just as the perimeter fence begins to fail and Zombies pour into the safe zone.
They all look on in amazement at the chaotic scene when a large blue Joliet city V-plow dump truck tears through the fence and smashes a small import car out of the way. It then proceeds to rip a gash into the stream of undead flooding the former sanctuary.
“That must be Mike and it looks like he has the same idea.” Kirk says in amazement."
Stephen guns the engine of the Tahoe as Mike's plow truck crashes through the south fence clearing an extra escape route for the fleeing vehicles.
“Looks like we might live to fight another day!” Stephen remarks and joins the mad dash of vehicles headed south. “Now hang on to your ass everybody. I've gotta try and keep up!”

Got stuck on a double shift and got the story up late tonight.
Here is a picture of our Zombie slayer.

CAT 836H

It won't be long now

It was Moses that parted the red sea, Noah built a boat.

Otherwise great story.

this story has it

Rockin good times

THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love the story and I think you are a great writer.....however, in regards to this last chapter, it feels like you are trying to rush it.  For me, there are to many story breaks and scene changes.  I keep getting lost and have to go back and re-read the previous paragraph/chapter to make sure I have the story straight.  It's been great so far but thought I would throw out a little constructive criticism.

this story is so full of awesomeness

Most excellent update, keep it flowing!

Fucking kickass, awesome chapter!! Great work!!

NICE!!!

I thought it was a great chapter as well Keep it up, don't fail me now

Thanks for the input. After the story is complete we are going to go back through it and work out some of those issues.

As far as the rest of the posts, thank you much for your replies. I do not want want quality to suffer by time constraints and may need to delay chapter 17 till the weekend. Overtime and the holidays are taking up a lot of my time the last couple days. Although the chapter is done, I don't have it cleaned up enough to get it to my proof reader before Christmas. He should be able to read it and get it back to me by Sunday at the latest. Maybe sooner.

Thanks for your patience and we want to put out a quality ending as well. Chapter 18 is already well underway and we will have it laid out shortly!



I'll do my best... I think you will enjoy the way it all plays out