Beginning of the New Beginning, Vol. 2 Read online

  BEGINNING OF THE NEW BEGINNING VOL 2

  by W. Joe Taylor

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, business, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Except when they’re not.

  I changed the names of some nice people to maintain their privacy. Or if I think someone might sue me or beat me up.

  This book is not intended as a substitute for the medical advice of physicians. The reader should regularly consult a physician in matters relating to his/her health and particularly with respect to any symptoms that may require diagnosis or medical attention.

  ©Copyright 2017

  W. Joe Taylor

  All rights reserved.

  Dedication

  To my loving wife for putting up with my random ideas and crazy hobbies. Like book writing. Thank you for allowing me to be me.

  Thank you to my family and friends that gave me encouragement as well as everyone that supported my journey along the way.

  Thank you to Jefferson from First Editing, I had no idea how bad my grip on Oxford English was until you helped me.

  Contents

  Chapter 1. Road to Buffalo.

  Chapter 2. Buffalo.

  Chapter 3. Road to Fort Wayne. Again.

  Chapter 4. Fort Wayne. Still.

  Chapter 5. Road to Red Wing.

  Chapter 6. Campbellsville.

  Chapter 7. Red Wing.

  Chapter 8. Grand Forks.

  Chapter 9. Move to Billings.

  Chapter 10. Billings.

  Chapter 1. Road to Buffalo.

  He was lying on the floor of a United States Air Force C-130H, and they were flying at fifteen thousand feet over Afghanistan. It had been a very long day that had started about fourteen hours ago. They were on the final leg back to the base in Qatar. The heating tubes for the cargo compartment ran down the center of the plane under the floor, and it would get nice and warm there. They’d just gotten done with an engines-running cargo swap, and it was downright cold in the Hindu Kush Mountains in February. He enjoyed helping the loadmasters when he could; it made the days go by faster. It beat just riding around all day waiting for something to break so he could fix it. The crew had dropped off a couple of pallets of food and water to a small Army forward operating base in the northeast region near the Pakistani border. They’d picked up a few guys who were on their way out of Afghanistan for some much-needed R&R.

  Earlier in the day, they had swapped out a couple of HMMWVs that needed service with a couple that were coming back from being serviced. His unit’s main priority, was to move crap from one place to the other based on the needs of the Army.

  Every crew position had an abbreviated name they used to communicate over the aircraft’s onboard communications system. The flight engineer was just called “Eng,” the loadmaster was “Load,” the navigator was shortened to just “Nav.” The term for his job in the Air Force was crew chief, and in flight, he was simply referred to as “Chief.”

  “Eng, Chief.”

  “Go.”

  “Can you throw another log on the fire?”

  “Yea, let me know if you get too warm back there.”

  “Copy. Thanks.”

  That was just a fun way of asking for the heat to be turned up. There was no real fireplace on the airplane. That would be a safety hazard. The flight engineer had control of most of the systems on the plane and monitored the engines to ensure everything operated smoothly. When they didn’t, he told Chief, and he fixed it.

  After lying there for about thirty minutes, getting heat back into his bones, a voice broke through his headset again.

  “Chief, Load.”

  “Yup.”

  “Hey, man, can you come look at this?”

  He begrudgingly got up from the hard but warm spot on the floor and walked over to the back door on the left side (pilot’s side) of the plane.

  “Look out there and tell me what you see.”

  “Looks to me like someone is shooting RPGs at us again.”

  “Yea, that’s what I thought too.”

  “I have a visual too,” Pilot reported.

  “Nav, Pilot.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Make sure you mark the location on the GPS so we can brief intel when we get back. I’m sure the combatant commander on the ground will want this info for future use.”

  “Copy, sir.”

  Something hit the plane. He couldn’t believe it. The fucking Taliban had actually hit the cargo ramp with an RPG. Before he could fully process the thought. The RPG was between the outside skin and cargo ramp floor. It exploded, blowing the back of the plane wide open. Rapid decompression. Subzero temperatures. Ears popped painfully. He was pretty sure both eardrums had just blown out at the same time. Oxygen deprivation would occur and cause him to black out in a minute. Panic. Fear.

  What the fuck do I do now? My children are going to be fatherless. Sam, Sally, Terry, and Mike I love you.

  He grabbed onto the sidewall railing before he could be sucked out. Once the pressure inside equalized with the outside, he grabbed an emergency oxygen kit and put it over his head. Able to breathe again, he looked around as he keyed his mic.

  “Pilot, Chief. We have a shitstorm back here. I’m not sure where one of the loadmasters went. The other is unconscious.”

  “The fuck? You think I don’t know that? You better bend over and kiss your ass goodbye ’cause we’re going down, and hard. ETA to crash landing forty-five seconds!”

  I bet we beat the paramedics by forty-five minutes. Thanks, Ron White. Always there in my time of need, Chief thought.

  The feeling of falling. A load crash. Bright light. Surrounded by fire. Searing heat.

  The next thing he knew, he was standing next the wreckage, looking for his fellow crew members. He found the missing loadmaster on the ground near the back of the plane. His arms were bent at odd angles, and his intestines were falling out though a tear in his stomach.

  That’s not right. He fell out while we were still flying. He shouldn’t be here.

  The loadmaster opened his eyes, and they locked with Chief’s for a second. Milky white pupils and bloodshot sclera. Then the Loadmaster started to stand up. Chief stared in amazement, mouth agape. Frozen in place. The air was bitter cold. Ears bleeding. Panic. Fear. He forced himself into action, placed his hands on the loadmaster’s shoulders and pushed him back down.

  “Hey, man, just lie down. We’ll get the para-rescue guys to come pick you up.”

  The loadmaster grabbed Chief’s face—with amazing strength for someone with two broken arms—and bit a chunk out of his cheek. He could feel the burn of his skin being torn and the meat separating away from his cheek bones. Then he let out a scream from the depths of his soul.

  Bill woke with a start, confused and sweating. He looked around to get his bearings and realized he was in his camper. He felt the presence of a person next to him. He looked over and tried to recognize her as he came out of his dream state. Wife? No, it was Charity. He wished it was his wife, oh how he missed her. They were in Ft. Wayne. The zombie apocalypse was real.

  Bill turned off his C-PAP machine and pulled off the mask. This was the other reason he was thankful for the solar panels and battery bank he’d installed shortly after he and his wife had purchased the camping trailer. He didn’t have to worry about dying in his sleep from the apnea he’d developed during his time in the service.

  He looked at his watch and noted that it was only 2:45 in the morning, and he reminded himself it was ZP8 (zombie apocalypse day eight). He’d been asleep for less than
five hours, but he knew there was no going back to sleep now. He’d rarely slept that long before ZomPoc, but since, short nights had been more frequent. He lay there and waited for his heart rate to return to a normal pace. It was then that he remembered the conversation he’d had with Cootch just before he’d fallen asleep.

  Fuck, how am I going to get up there and not risk everyone?

  He carefully got up, trying not to disturb Charity, walked over to the dinette, sat, and opened his laptop. He stared at Google Maps for an hour in his sleep-deprived fog until finally he came up with a genius idea—or so he hoped. He made some coffee and sat back down to further research the idea. Another couple of hours later, he noticed movement in the other campers as well as in his own.

  “Good morning, sleepy head,” he said.

  “Mmmm, good morning. That coffee smells amazing. Didn’t sleep well again last night, huh?”

  “Yea, I had a fucked-up dream that I was in a 130 crash, and my buddy tried to eat my face off.”

  “Wow, yea, I heard you get up this morning, but I needed my beauty sleep.”

  “How did you sleep?”

  “Oh, I had normal dreams of being chased by people trying to eat me. Except that my feet felt like they were stuck in cement buckets so I couldn’t get away.”

  “Bummer.”

  “Yea. So, what have you been thinking about your friends’ family?”

  He turned his laptop to show her the map, pointing to the route he had chosen.

  “Well, that will definitely be the safest, but it will take longer.”

  “I know, but with all the large population centers along here, I’d rather be safer. And the caveat is I’m only taking a small team.”

  “I’m going, right?”

  “I didn’t plan on it. I need you and Q here to get everyone going if I don’t come back.”

  “Bullshit. You’re coming back. And besides, I have no idea where I’m going, so you have to show me the way.”

  “I’ve marked it on the maps, and you have skills that will get you all there. Plus, it will be beneficial to mankind’s future.”

  “Fine. Whatever you say,” she said with a roll of her eyes.

  “Hey, you can’t do that to me. I’m supposed to be the asshole in this friendship, not you.”

  “True, but I’m the bitch in this friendship.”

  They both laughed as she sat down with her coffee opposite him at the dinette. Bill got up and started making their breakfasts.

  Once the eggs had been eaten, the dishes done, and showers taken, they headed out to meet up with everyone else. Bill called a meeting and once again gathered everyone around the dining room table of Charity’s childhood home. He informed everyone about the phone call he’d received the night before, and Q and D were happy about that. When Cootch and Tess had lived in Texas, all of them had spent quite a few holidays and special occasions together with Cootch’s parents. Next, Bill laid out his plan for how to retrieve the New Yorkers. They worked out some of the bigger issues over the next hour.

  “Ok, so it’s settled, then. Let’s recap: Steve and Brandy have volunteered to go since they are the newest members of the group and want to contribute in any way possible. I’m going to take Jake and Terry as well. The five of us will run up, grab everyone that’s there, and be back here in hopefully two days.”

  “You sure you don’t want me to go?” Q asked.

  “No, man. Like I told Charity, I need y’all to press with the convoy should we not make it back in three days. I know where you are going, and hopefully, we can catch up if we get delayed for some reason.”

  “Fine. I don’t like splitting the group though.”

  “I get it, man. Neither do I, but it’s faster. This way, we get in, get out, and get back on track to the great white north. Plus, it puts less people in danger. I don’t like how populated that part of the country was. Millions of thrillers roaming aimlessly, following whatever catches their attention. How many followed someone fleeing from New York City? How far can they walk in eight days’ time? That’s why we’re going the way we are.”

  “Daddy, please be safe.”

  “I will, baby. While you’re waiting for us to come back, have Memaw teach you about all the medicine we have and their uses. Also, anything she can teach you about first aid would be helpful.”

  “Ok, I will. I love you.”

  “I love you too, Sam.”

  With everyone’s fears temporarily abated, Bill grabbed his trusty backpack and double-checked the magazines in his tac vest. He had eight in the vest and one in his Sig Sauer 556. Each member of Team Buffalo would carry the same. Each person would have 270 rounds for their M4s and a few magazines for their pistols. They each had a backpack with food, water, a med kit, and some other odds and ends they might need. Bill wanted them to be as light and mobile as possible in the event they had to travel miles on foot.

  Bill walked into the garage and was taken aback by the wheels they were about to take with them. Charity’s dad had owned a Mercedes G63. Five hundred plus horsepower, four-wheel drive luxury at its finest. Team Buffalo threw their packs in the back and said their goodbyes.

  “I’m actually going miss you,” Charity said.

  “Yea, who’s going to cook your breakfast for the next couple of days?”

  She punched him in the arm, and as she walked away, she looked over her shoulder and shot him a sly smile that said everything was going to be just fine.

  “Yea, yea, I’m going to miss you too,” he said to her back.

  Team Buffalo got in the G wagon, with Bill behind the wheel, and they headed out. It had always been a bucket list item of Bill’s to drive a $150,000 Mercedes G wagon. That made two bucket list items the ZomPoc had provided him.

  They took the loop around Fort Wayne because, even as fast and agile as they were, Bill still didn’t want to go through downtown anything. Their first stop of the day was not but forty minutes later because the G wagon had held less than half a tank when they’d backed out of the garage. Just north of Woodburn on Highway 24 was Bill’s favorite truck stop chain store. Everyone got out and posted as security, but nobody went into the store. There was no point; they had what they needed for now. It was a quick gas and go.

  Team Buffalo continued to follow Highway 24 until Highway 6 split off. Then they followed 6 around Bowling Green Ohio and were impressed with how well the “mostly for looks” grill guard held up on the front of the G wagon. They had pushed through a few small pockets of thrillers in a few small towns and clipped one while going ninety-five mph. Bill knew his time with the G wagon was limited, so he was going to enjoy it while he could. He clipped the thriller at ninety-five, but that was with the brake pedal on the floor because they had been going 127 mph only seconds before that. Terry laughed because he was used to his dad being crazy. The other three about shit their pants.

  Once they got past Helena, they headed northeast, towards their first destination. They had been on the road only two hours and would be there soon. When they pulled up to the Turtle Creek Marina, there were less than a hundred thrillers around. Bill had chosen this area because it was halfway between Toledo and Sandusky. The area had been lightly populated before ZomPoc and had a high density of boats. His plan was to avoid as much land as possible, get another vehicle in Buffalo, make the rescue, and then boat safely back. Little did he know at the time how true the words of German military strategist Helmuth von Moltke would be: “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.”

  “All right, Steve, this is your time to shine, man. Find us a good boat that will get us to Buffalo and back.”

  “I’m going to start over there at that fishing charter. Those guys usually have very dependable boats they keep serviced. Those boats are their livelihoods, and if a boat is broke, they don’t make money.”

  “Cool, man, just let us know when we are good to go. Meanwhile, we’ll give these fuck faces with shit breath the runaround.”

  Steve and Br
andy got out of the G wagon by the nearest charter company and hid in the bed of a nearby pickup truck. Bill drove up the road a little bit further. They attracted the thrillers that were on that pier Steve wanted to investigate by slapping the side of the G wagon and hollering out. A block up the road, Terry and Jake got out of the G wagon and started slicing and dicing thriller heads right off their bodies with the swords they’d picked up on ZP1.

  Bill could see a marked improvement in Terry from that first night just over a week ago. Terry was never the athletic type, but he’d always been naturally strong. ZomPoc had leaned him up, and his skill with a sword had increased exponentially. He still didn’t have the stamina that he would need for the future, but Bill was proud of the progress he’d made in such a short time. In a few minutes, they had liberated forty heads and hopped back in the G wagon. Bill turned it around and went a block the other way. The two young men repeated the process and had most of the thrillers in the area cleared out. Bill had figured there wouldn’t be many because everyone had been out fishing on the Saturday ZomPoc had started. God knew he had been. Good thing too; if he’d been home, his wife probably would have eaten his face for lunch and then his kidneys for afternoon snack.

  Steve found an excellent boat with recent service records and called the other fellas over. Bill parked the G wagon. He and the boys grabbed all the gear that was in the back and headed down the pier.

  “Man, she’s a beauty, Steve. I really hope you know what you’re doing. I swear to God if you get us killed out there, I’m resurrecting both of us so I can kill you again,” Bill said with a smile as he approached the boat.

  “Thanks for that vote of confidence.”

  “I’m just messing with you, man. Seriously, if it weren’t for you, I’d have been fucking around way longer than need be trying to figure this shit out.”

  “Well, all right, then. Let’s get underway. I need you guys to throw off the lines, and then we will be gone.”