Winchester: Over (Winchester Undead) Read online

  From what Jack had seen on the news before the power went out, there was widespread looting at area Walmarts and grocery stores, civil unrest, and a police force that was overwhelmed—they needed to stay off the Interstates and try to take a much-less-traveled route, even if it took longer.

  Jack planned to take surface roads until he could get to State Highway 287 that traveled to Mansfield. They were trying to reach a piece of land just outside of Maypearl, Texas, home of the old Assembly of God Royal Ranger’s campgrounds. The group had chosen the location two years ago as a central rally point and the site of their survival cache.

  Jack, Malachi, and Bexar had grown up there, in the semi-obscure, church-based scouting organization, learning how to become woodsmen and men of moral character. They had spent many a summer on the side of the lake, camping on one side and attending the church youth camp on the other.

  Two years ago, without permission and under complete secrecy, the group had found a remote location on those campgrounds and built up a large cache of supplies they might need for long-term survival in the case of a social and economic collapse in the U.S. It would also be a rally point in case of invasion or other major disaster that would leave society and the government in upheaval. Jack knew that, in the worst case, he and Sandra had enough supplies in their GOOD load-out to survive for at least three weeks.

  Living so close to the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, the constant drone of overhead commercial aircraft had become background noise to Jack and Sandra. It was the silence in the sky above him that drew Jack’s attention now. There were no planes in the air.

  He could hear gunfire in the distance. Looking back in the direction of the airport, he could see several plumes of thick, black smoke rising into the air. “Damn,” said Jack, “must’ve been an EMP; it’s the only way that all of this would stop working and cause the aircraft to fail.”

  Sandra looked at him in horror. “There were hundreds of people on those planes.”

  Nodding his head, Jack replied, “If it happened here, let’s hope it didn’t happen everywhere. There's something like ten thousand aircraft in the air above the U.S. at any given time during the day.” Dreading the trip ahead of them, Jack put the FJ in gear and pulled out onto the street behind his house.

  Brazos County, Texas

  It took thirty minutes, but Bexar finally made it home to his wife, Jessie, who had become increasingly anxious. After the power went out at the house, Jessie had begun to worry because her cellphone also didn’t work, and she was now in near hysterics with the sound of the rolling explosions in the distance.

  “Dammit Bexar, you could have called me or sent me a text or something! I’m your wife!”

  “I’m sorry baby,” he replied. “I didn’t expect the motorcycle to die on me, and I would have been home a half-hour ago if that didn’t happen. Once I knew something was wrong, I was running Code-3 to the house.”

  “Can you do that, won’t you be in trouble?” asked Jessie.

  “At this point, I really don’t care. Besides, they were calling us back to the department when I fled for the house. I’m reasonably sure if this isn’t what I think it is, I’ll probably get fired.”

  Bexar changed out of his uniform while Jessie began loading up their old Jeep Wagoneer. Their two-year-old daughter Keeley was still napping, which made loading the Jeep with their GOOD bags much easier. Jessie hated the old 1965 Jeep Wagoneer, but Bexar had owned it since high school and couldn’t bring himself to get rid of it. That old Jeep was like his first love, and it would have broken his heart to sell it. Bexar was happy to have it after he and Jack had started prepping; the old reliable truck with no electronics other than a new CD player had its advantages for a prepper.

  Bexar took off his Kevlar vest and put it aside, along with his heavy police duty belt. Even though neither was part of his planned GOOD load-out, he felt they might be needed. He changed into a pair of green tactical pants with a rigger’s belt that held his well-worn Kimber TLE/RL II Pro with a TLR-1 tactical light in a Raven Systems holster. Two spare Wilson Combat 8-round magazines slid into a mag pouch on his left side, and his trusted Emerson CQC-7 clipped to the inside of his back pocket. Bexar slid his custom-made C-M Forge knife into the sheath on his belt, and went back outside to help Jessie finish loading the Jeep.

  Three hours after the massive power failure had hit, Bexar Reed's family pulled out of their driveway and turned north on State Highway 6 towards the group cache site in Maypearl.

  CHAPTER 4

  Virginia Beach, Virginia

  Eric had just finished patrolling the beachfront on his police bicycle and begun riding back to the station when his supervisor’s voice came across the radio, instructing all units to return to their designated patrol zones—NAWAS had issued a warning that an attack on the U.S. was imminent. Not sure what sort of attack that could mean, Eric downshifted and peddled back towards his area of responsibility on the beachfront.

  Stopping at the traffic light, Eric saw some people pointing towards the sky. Looking up, he saw a large formation of aircraft overhead. The planes did not look familiar to him; even though he wasn’t an aviation buff, he was used to seeing large military aircraft in the Virginia Beach sky, but these looked different.

  The contrails trailing the aircraft also looked different, less like contrails and more like what you would see coming from beneath a crop duster. Still watching the aircraft, Eric pulled out his phone to call his wife, but it was dead. “Figures,” he grumbled, angry that his brand new smart phone was already failing. He had given up his trusted “dumb” flip phone for this new phone two weeks ago because his daughter was about to have her first baby, and he wanted to get photos when it happened.

  Then he heard the sound of tires skidding on pavement and the unmistakable sound of a motorcycle sliding on pavement. The traffic lights were all dark, and a motorcyclist was sliding headfirst towards the intersection where a truck had already come to a stop in the middle. A dark, oily mist was falling from the sky, and Eric knew this was going to be a bad wreck.

  Pedaling towards the collision, Eric tried to call Dispatch on his radio and was surprised to find that his radio wasn’t working either. The accident was bad. The motorcyclist was wearing a half-shell helmet but it was obvious that his neck had been broken when he slid headfirst into the stalled truck. Eric knew the rider was DRT—dead right there—by looking at the rider’s neck, which was bent at an impossible angle, but he pulled on a latex glove and checked for a pulse anyway. There was none.

  Looking at the motorcyclist’s lifeless brown eyes, Eric pulled the glove off and tossed it on the ground. “Sorry buddy, what a shitty way to go.” As he began to stand up, he saw the rider’s head move slightly in his direction. Eric had seen enough freshly dead to know that sometimes the body will spasm slightly as it shuts down, but he was startled by the gargling moan that rattled from the rider’s chest. Pausing, he looked more closely at the rider; the head and eyes had moved and locked onto his, but the eyes still looked dim and lifeless. Without warning, the motorcyclist’s gloved hand shot up, and, with incredible strength, latched onto the lapel of Eric’s police shirt, pulling him down to an impossibly wide mouth.

  Bystanders who had seen the accident screamed as the downed motorcyclist savagely bit into the police officer’s throat, tearing away chunks of flesh as the officer writhed and screamed in pain. They remained rooted in fear as the motorcyclist stood, head flopping awkwardly to one side, and began stumbling towards them.

  U.S. Highway 287, Texas

  Jack and Sandra and their son Will were making fairly decent time on the highway in their old FJ. So far the traffic wasn’t too heavy, and the only cars they saw were a couple of older vehicles; everything else had stopped dead in the road. Occasionally Jack had to drive on the shoulder around people who had given up and started walking away from their abandoned cars.

  Pulling onto the inside shoulder to drive around another group, he saw that
they were pointing up to the sky. Slowing to a stop, Jack got out of his truck and stood next to it, looking up at the sky. Traveling from the north was a formation of large aircraft that he didn’t recognize, and didn’t look like anything he had ever seen at an air show either. He assumed this was probably the reason Bexar had called “Winchester.” Climbing back into his truck, he saw an oily film suddenly cover his truck and windshield.

  “What’s that, honey?” Sandra said.

  “I don’t know,” replied Jack, “but I think it fell from those planes that just flew over.” Once again climbing out of the old truck, he poured water out of his bottle onto the windshield and wiped it clean. Everything around him was covered in the oil. Jack started the truck, drove around another group of stalled cars, and continued south.

  Approaching the city of Mansfield, the Snyder family came upon a group of people gathered around a man lying in the middle of the highway. They were kneeling around the body, a large pool of blood spreading out around them. “Sandra, get behind the wheel. If something happens, come get me,” Jack said as he exited the truck. Sandra slid over to the driver’s seat, put the truck in gear, and waited.

  As Jack walked up to the group, he immediately knew something was very wrong. There were five of them, and they weren’t administering first aid, they were eating the entrails out of the still-steaming body on the ground. Choking back the bile that rose in his throat, Jack drew the Kimber Pro-Carry he carried in a custom leather holster on his right hip and instinctively pulled the pistol into the SUL position on his chest. “What is wrong with ya’ll, stop what you’re doing!” he shouted.

  One of the group turned his head towards Jack and rose shakily to his feet. He was wearing an Army uniform with a name tag that read Jones, and the insignia on his short-sleeved shirt showed he was a staff sergeant. He also had a horrific gash on his neck. The front of his shirt was covered in blood, and pieces of flesh hung from his teeth, his gaping mouth still dripping blood from the victim on the ground.

  As Jones began stumbling towards Jack, a deep gurgling moan came from the large hole in his neck. Jack’s hands were shaking, but he pointed the muzzle of his 1911 at Jones and shouted, “What the fuck? Stop! Stop or I will shoot you. STOP!”

  The thing that used to be Jones did not seem fazed by Jack or his pistol; Jack fired twice center mass with no effect. Taking a deep breath, Jack raised the muzzle a fraction of an inch higher and fired a single round into Jones’ forehead. Jones dropped to the ground and was still, but the other four that had ignored the exchange while they feasted on the entrails of their victim all stood and turned towards Jack.

  “Holy shit, SANDRA!” Without bothering to holster his pistol, Jack turned and sprinted towards his FJ as Sandra began rolling forward, trying to close the twenty-five-yard distance between them, and slammed on the brakes as she neared. Jack never broke stride in his sprint, placed his foot on the big steel bumper, and jumped onto the hood of his truck. Grabbing the roof rack with his left hand, his adrenaline racing, he screamed “GO! DRIVE, DAMNIT, GO!” Sandra dropped the clutch, pushed her right foot to the floor, and drove through two of the creatures shambling towards them.

  With Jack on the hood of the FJ, hanging onto the roof rack, Sandra drove until they were out of the small town of Mansfield. Pulling to the side of the highway, he climbed down, still shaking, pulled the magazine out of his pistol, and traded it for the one on his belt. Tactical reload complete, Jack looked at the dents on the front of his truck and turned to Sandra.

  “I don’t know what the fuck that was, but that guy shouldn’t have been alive. He shouldn’t have been able to get up, he shouldn’t have been able to absorb two rounds to the chest, and he sure as shit shouldn’t have been eating the other guy. What the shit?”

  Eyes wide, Sandra replied, her voice trembling, “I don’t know babe, but the sooner we get to the cache site, the sooner we can talk to Bexar. Maybe he has an idea of what’s going on.”

  State Highway 6, Central Texas

  Highway 6 was rarely all that busy since it had been expanded from a two-lane highway back when he was attending Texas A&M, but even with most of the cars stopped in the road Bexar was making good time in the Wagoneer.

  The original Get Out Of Dodge plan had the family traveling Highway 6 to I-35 in Waco, where they could make their way to Maypearl in quick and easy time. However, during the drive to the little town of Hearne, Jessie had come up with a good point—if everything with electronics, including newer cars, was dead, Waco might be dangerous, and the I-35 would probably be a parking lot.

  Over the years, Bexar had learned many things about his wife, one of which being that she was usually right. Agreeing with her, Bexar decided to take Texas Highway 14 to Mexia, a small Texas town famous for being the birthplace of Anna Nicole Smith.

  In Hearne, people walked in the streets, around cars that had stopped in the road. Bexar heard gunfire in the not-too-far distance and wasn’t surprised. Hearne, Texas was the only place in the world where Wal-Mart had to shutter their store due to rampant employee theft.

  Scanning the road and side streets for threats, he pushed his Jeep a little faster than he would have liked through the maze of parked cars. Just as they drove past the big new gas station on the north end of town, their front right tire went flat.

  “Well ain’t that just our luck? Jess, we’re really exposed, grab my rifle and pull guard for us while I change this damned thing.” Bexar climbed out of the Jeep, pulled the highlift jack down from the side of the roof rack, grabbed the four-way lug wrench out of the box on the rear bumper, and unbolted the spare tire from the back of the truck.

  Jessie climbed out of the truck with Bexar’s favorite rifle. Last year he had splurged and built it off a Noveske Lower Receiver and a LaRue Tactical Upper with a full length quad rail. A bunch of Magpul furniture was used, and the flat top rifle had a mounted ACOG red-dot sight. It cost Bexar a lot of money to build that rifle, but he was happy to have it and, as a cop, he could write the rifle off on his taxes as a “work” expense.

  As Bexar put the highlift back in its place on the roof rack and began bolting the flat tire and rim to the back of the Jeep, he heard Jessie call, “Stop or you will be shot.” Bexar threw the four-way into the back of the Jeep and turned to see where Jessie was pointing the rifle’s muzzle. In the blink of an eye, Bexar drew his pistol and pointed it at the man stumbling towards them from across the highway.

  “Sir, stop where you are or you will be shot,” she shouted again. “Sir, stop!” The man stumbled closer, his clothes covered in blood, his head flopped to the side at an impossible angle, and bite marks covering his face. His left eye was missing, along with some of the flesh on the left side of his face.

  Bexar joined in. “Dude, fucking stop or you’ll be shot!” The man continued to stagger towards the Jeep, crossing the yellow line on the road. The AR-15 Jessie held cracked once, and a single round tore through the blood-covered chest of the man. Bexar whispered “Jesus” as he put two .45 hollow point slugs into the man’s chest, and then one in the middle of the man’s forehead. The back of the man’s head exploded and the body fell to the ground.

  Bexar pulled his pistol into the SUL position and, as he scanned the surroundings for more threats, he told Jessie, “Get in the Jeep, keep the rifle out, something is really wrong, go!” Jessie climbed into the passenger seat, leaving her seatbelt off, and turned around to calm Keeley, who was screaming in the back seat. Bexar started the truck and drove north towards TX-14 as fast as he could. They had to get to Maypearl, to the safety of the group cache and the safety of their friends.

  CHAPTER 5

  South of Gunter, Texas

  Malachi had always known that his route to the cache site was the worst out of the three, because he had to drive through or around D/FW, but he also knew there really wasn’t a better site for all the members in the group. He drove south on TX-289 and through Gunter, Texas, trying to avoid the bigger towns in the Metro
plex, although he wasn’t sure if it would work. Getting to Gunter was relatively painless; the traffic was light to begin with, so when the EMP hit there weren’t all that many cars to drive around. They passed a number of people on foot and pushing shopping carts. Some had their carts loaded with beer, others had televisions and Playstations and such. If they knew the truth, they would’ve stuck with the beer, he thought.

  “NMP,” he said aloud.

  “What?” said Amber, turning to look at him.

  “Not my problem. All these people, Amber, I have to remember that it’s not my problem. We can’t stop to help, and they won’t listen to us if we try to help them make better choices, all of them. I just have to remember they’re not my problem.”

  “Do you think those are our planes?” Amber asked, pointing up through the windshield. A number of large aircraft were traveling in formation to the south from the north.

  “The contrails look wrong, like they’re spraying something, like they’re actual chemtrails,” he responded. Malachi didn’t buy into most conspiracy theories, such as stories of a secret base under Denver International Airport, or that shapeshifting alien reptiles secretly ruled the earth, but he did find them entertaining enough to read about them on occasion. Overall, it was staggering what some people believed, and how large of a following their beliefs could generate on the Internet.

  “Okay, what’s a chemtrail?” Amber asked, interrupting Malachi’s musings.

  “It’s a conspiracy theory; some folks believe that the government is spraying the population with some sort of mind-altering chemical from high altitude aircraft. To most people the clouds look like contrails, but to the conspiracy kooks, they say they’re ‘chemtrails’ from the government. They’ve been blamed for everything from the spread of cancer, to boron to promote mind control, and those aren’t even the craziest ideas.”