Apocalyptic Empire: The Hatchery Compound

By Chris Blake

“Every empire has a beginning, this one is a fish hatchery.”

Copyright © 2013 by Chris Blake

Cover design by Chris Blake

Book design by Chris Blake

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

Printed in the United States of America

Prologue

It was the end of January, and it was going just like any other month for Vintago Hawkins. He would go to work and partake in the daily grind that most adults have to suffer through their entire adults lives. Things were not so different for Vintago than they were for anyone else. His life was easy, and like everyone else, he took it for granted. This was when the ordinary was boring and not to be enjoyed at all whatsoever. If only people knew then that dull and unexciting would be a commodity that they would wish they had.

Vintago, or Vin as most people called him, lived with his wife Victoria, and son Grayson in a small home, outside of the Phoenix Metropolitan area in Arizona. Their home was about fifty miles from Phoenix and twenty miles from civilization. It was a small cookie cutter house in a small neighborhood that the builder decided to plop down into the middle of the desert. Their home sits adjacent to miles and miles of open desert landscape and is surrounded on two sides by mountains after a couple miles.

By trade, Vin was an “IT guy” and along with that trade came the usual quirks. He tends to be more introspective and internalized. Certain people like to call Vin an asshole, but Victoria knows he is a good man when he needs to be. Along with those quirks, come an intriguing set of hobbies. Unlike most people in Vin’s profession, he always liked to be outdoors, and he was an avid camper, fisherman, outdoorsman, and gun enthusiasts. If only back then he had known that these skills would become the principles that would keep his family together, and keep his friends alive.

For a guy like Vintago, exciting things just did not happen. When the virus outbreak started it took everyone by surprise, especially Vin. Both Vintago and Victoria’s families did not want to believe what was happening. Vin, on the other hand, had a horrible concern about what was coming, and he was not going to sit around idly while everything went to hell. He figured that he could plan it out, and everything would be just fantastic. If only he knew then what was about to unfold, because, clearly Vin had no fucking idea.

Part One: Outbreak

Chapter One

Initial Reports Abound

January, 2013

On one morning that was no different from any other morning, things got a little interesting. Vin was reading through some news articles on his iPhone and found a ton of articles pointing to a weird virus situation in California. The news outlets were saying that there were at least five people that have this mystery illness currently quarantined in a local hospital there. Apparently, the five people were taken out of the back of a van and appeared to be illegal immigrants.

Upon first glance at this article, Vin just suspected it to be another piece of drama talking about illegal immigration and he did not much care about the virus part. It was probably just another ploy to get people to get their flu shots. Just as he was about to lose interest he noticed something that brought his short attention span back around. The reporters said that one of the illegals had bitten one of the other people. That is why the immigrants had tried to escape the van so quickly and fallen right into the hands of the border patrol as they were crossing into California. The one that had gone ballistic was killed by the border patrol agents as he assaulted an officer, and no kidding attempted to bite him.

The illegal immigrants were then held and questioned by the authorities, and that is how they found out about the disease. They said that their friend had been extremely sick, and had apparently died in the back of the van. They had covered him with a blanket and said their prayers when suddenly their friend “woke up” and started attacking them with his mouth hanging open and limbs flailing.

Since nobody knew what this virus was yet, the authorities sent these illegals to a nearby hospital. The hospital was not at all equipped for what this virus could do. This would be one of the first mistakes in what would eventually turn into a disaster.

Normally things like this would not even make a blip on Vintago’s mental radar. He was not one of those people who gets excited about the news. He is the person that says, “If it’s not happening to me, I don’t much care”. The thing that struck him odd about this was that they called it a virus and said that someone had died and suddenly come back to life. Vintago does not know much about viruses, but what he does know for sure is that they do not kill people, only to bring them back to attack their friends. He decides to keep an eye on the situation to make sure it does not progress past this. It was starting to sound like all those crazy ass people eating bath salts and running around naked mauling people.

After finishing breakfast, Vin decides that it was time to head to the office and start the daily grind. Vintago gives his wife and son goodbye kiss and starts his journey into town. On the drive to the office, he decides to tune the radio to the local talk radio station. It was something that he normally would never do, but that story about the illegals seems to have stuck in his mind. Sure enough they are talking about the story regarding this strange virus. The authorities are not saying much, but apparently the person that was bit by the first “dead” illegal has become deathly ill and they are monitoring him by the minute.

This whole story is starting to get interesting now. It was only a few hours after the initial story was posted online and already the infected person was starting to succumb to the virus. It makes no sense at all. Vin wondered what all of the doctors were thinking about this virus. They have to be worried about the timeframe, average incubation times for a virus are not usually within a few hours.

After he listens for a few minutes, he changes the stereo to the auxiliary input and plugs in his iPhone. Time to focus on the drive and throw on some tunes. He picks out one of his favorite bands and cranks up the volume. What’s the point of listening to music if it isn’t loud enough to damage hearing!

An excruciating hour of traffic goes by, and Vin pulls into the parking lot at the office. Time to punch in and get to work. He gets to work doing the same thing he does every day, which is just as tedious as the day prior and even the day before that.

Before he even realizes it, half the day is gone, and it is time to take a lunch. Vin punches out, grabs his little sack lunch and steps outside. Usually, he brings his iPhone with and listens to music and surfs the web. Today is no different for him.

For whatever reason, Vin just cannot seem to get that damn news story out of his head, and go figure, he goes looking for more information about it. What he finds is particularly disturbing, even for a guy like Vintago.

It looks like the infected person that was on the edge of death while Vin was driving to the office died. The scary part is that he also came back from his death after only a few minutes. He then attacked the other members of his party who were with him in the hospital wing. The reporters are saying that he killed two of them and mauled a third before whoever was guarding him came and in and shot him several times. They shot him seventeen times before a stray round hit him in the head and ended the carnage.

After the massacre had died down, they restrained and separated the rest of the illegal immigrants, or what was left of them.

After Vintago’s corporately dictated lunch break, it was back to the grind. The rest of the day goes by slowly with nothing noteworthy happening. He clocks out for the day, packs up his things, and goes out to his car. Before long, he is on his way home, listening to the same loud, angry music.

As Vin walks in the door at home, he is greeted by his son Grayson who stands all of two feet and some odd inches tall, with brown hair, eyes as blue as the ocean, and the cutest smile ever seen. Next, his beautiful wife Victoria comes over to give him a kiss. She also has brown hair, though being a hair stylist it tends to change, so this month it is red. She is fairly tall for a woman, slender in the waist, and light in the chest. Last to greet him are their two little mutts Toby and Foxy. One is a Terrier mutt, and the other a Chihuahua Pomeranian mix.

Gray is only a year and a half old, so to bring attention back to himself, he strings his two new words together to give his daddy an impressive, “hi da-da” greeting. This makes Vintago’s face light up. Vin walks back over to give Victoria another hug, and she has a strange look on her face. Normally, logic would suggest that it is something Vin has done, or something along those lines.

Instead, she says, “You need to come and take a look at this.”

“Oh lovely, what is it now” Vin replies, thinking the dogs shit on the carpet or something similarly mundane.

Vin walks into the living room, almost tripping over one of Grayson’s toys. The TV is tuned to CNN, which Vintago likes to call “Constantly Negative News”. They are talking about, the illegals in California. It would appear that things have gotten worse since this afternoon. Vin leans over to pick up the remote and turn up the volume. Anderson Cooper is on location. In the background, the entire hospital wing is covered in what looks like a big tent, like the ones the bug guy’s use.

Anderson is saying, “Right now the only thing we know is that one of the guards that originally went in to save the other infected people was bitten before he was able to kill the patient that attacked them. Officials are saying that there was a breach of quarantine by this guard, when he did not tell anyone that he had been bitten. This forced the CDC to quarantine the entire wing of this small rural hospital, to ensure that the infection does not spread any further. As of this time a representative of the CDC estimates that there may be as many as thirty infected patients, hospital staff, and visitors.”

While Anderson is talking about all of the details, three CDC agents all geared up in hazmat suits entering the tunnels leading into the building.

At this point, Vin cannot help but think, “What the hell is going on here? Is this some disease outbreak or something? How did it go from one illegal in a van to an entire hospital wing?”

Victoria says to Vin with a concerned look, “Do you think this is serious? Should we go get a flu shot or something? Maybe it’s like one of those bird flu things going around.”

Vintago just shakes his head, chuckles a little, and replies “Vicky this is no bird flu, the bird flu does not do this shit.” He does his best to try and keep it light with her, so she does not start worrying, but internally, Vin is freaking out a little bit.

Vin turns off the TV and tells Victoria and Gray, “Come on, let's get ready for dinner.”

Mainly because he wants to get his mind off of this story, but also because he is starving.

After dinner, the whole family resumes their normal daily operations, by getting Gray ready for bed and then the husband and wife spend some time together. No hanky panky going on tonight, though, as both of them are clearly, not in the mood.

The next day, Vintago wakes up and begins his daily grind. He takes a shower and stands in front of the mirror to shave. Staring back at him is a man of five seven, slightly portly, but not too out of shape, with brown hair and hazel eyes. After his shave, he has some breakfast and starts reading the news again.

Now it is starting to get weird because the virus outbreak is all over the damn news. It seems like things turned into complete chaos overnight in the small town as the hospital is no longer contained. When the CDC went inside the building, something went terribly wrong, because at some point they lost contact with the outside. Then a few hours later they came back out. The problem is that they did not come out like they went into the hospital.

To make matters worse, with them came about forty other people. The people were patients, hospital staff quarantined visitors, and security guards. They came streaming out of the hospital like flood waters breaking over a dam. The local law enforcement did not know how to respond to this mass exodus of people, so they waited and waited until the infected came close, to close. After the first officer had been swarmed and killed instantly, they got smart and pulled out their side arms. By the time they had their 9mm handguns out, it was far too late, there were too many.

Eyewitness accounts state that the police were overrun within a matter of minutes and left the bystanders fleeing for their lives. One witness said he was sitting in his car watching the whole thing unfold. Vintago watched a video recording of his statement.

The man, George was his name, said “They just came shambling out of that hospital, half of them almost naked because their hospital gowns had come loose. The cops, hell, they did not know what to do. They waited until they could see the eyes on those things and then they finally got their wits about them and opened fire. At first I thought that they might kill them all, but then those...people... just kept coming.”

At this point, the guy chokes up a little bit, and it is clear that he shit his pants about six times today. Still he continues, “After I watched those cops get torn to pieces I wasn’t sure what to do, so I started my car up and I got the hell out of there.”

The news reporter went on to say that everyone had left the vicinity of the hospital and that more law enforcement officers, including SWAT teams from larger cities had been called. The mayor of the small town was urging his citizens to stay indoors and keep the doors closed until the situation could be contained.

At this point, Vin is actually starting to get concerned, which is shown by the look on his face. This does not sound like your ordinary bath salts junky story. This sounds like some fucked up zombie movie where the po dunk town gets to have a showdown in their local mall.

Victoria walked up behind him and just about scared the hell out of him and says, “What do you think about that thing going on over there now!” Using an, “I told you so fashion.”

“I’m honestly not sure what to think about it anymore” Vin replies coolly, not to upset his wife, “but I do need to get to work.”

With that, he gives her a kiss and gives one to Gray, and he is out the door.

The day goes by without event. Vin decides to play games on his iPhone instead of reading the news at lunch. Vintago decides to more or less bury his head in the sand and not care at this point. What’s going on in California is their own business.

When Vintago gets home from work, his in-laws Greg and Cindy Roberts are over and the whole family is in the living room, glued to the TV. CNN of course, what else is anyone talking about right now!

Anderson Cooper is on again, but he is not his calm collected normal self. He is in the back of a van, and they are hauling ass away from something. It is hard to tell what exactly is chasing them because the picture is too shaky. The scene plays out for a full minute as Anderson explains what is going on. Then, the camera angle shifts slightly, and it is clear as day. The thing chasing them is not a thing at all it is a group of people. Not just a bunch, but hundreds of people, chasing after their vehicle.

Anderson is as pale as a ghost as he tries to keep it together, and from the background someone says, “oh my God, oh my God.”

Anderson gains the slightest bit of composure and continues explaining the scene unfolding. He says that the entire town has been overrun with these crazy infected individuals since the hospital quarantine failed this morning. He says that the California National Guard has been mobilized by the Governor, and California has declared a state of emergency.

Anderson starts talking about something else, when all hell breaks loose. The van takes a hard right and tips up one two wheels. Everyone inside the van is yelling and screaming as they careen through the air. The van slams down onto its side, and the camera flies across the vehicle to rest on what must be the side of the van, but it now the floor. The camera is pointed towards the rear windows of the van which are now shattered. Approaching the van just inside view of the camera is the throng of people chasing them. The people inside the van start screaming even louder, and suddenly arms are grappling at the inside of the van. Someone’s leg gets caught by one of the flailing arms, and the person gets dragged out of the vehicle and into the open arms of the infected people. The brutality in which they split open the man’s stomach and pull out his intestines is almost too much to watch.

For Victoria, it is too much to watch. She runs to the kitchen and throws up in the sink. Vintago, on the other hand, watches with a sick curiosity. He wonders in his own mind what illness could drive a person to do such a thing.

After thirty seconds or so and numerous people being dragged out of the vehicle, someone at CNN decides that it is probably not good news to watch their favorite reporter being eaten alive.

They cut to some stock footage taken from earlier this morning after the hospital had been overrun, but before the whole place went to shit. The scene shows the Mayor of the town addressing the media. He is telling people that things were beginning to spiral out of control and that they were going to abandon the town. He also says that the National Guard would be in soon to get the situation under control. About two minutes into his speech, an entire group of infected people roll over the press group and citizens like a tsunami. They start attacking everyone while the cameras are rolling.

They cut back to the anchor, and he explains that in just a few hours this small town has been abandoned by the civilian population and turned into a warzone. He says that citizens of the small town have fled in all directions, some into Mexico, some further north into California, and some even heading for Arizona.

It is at the mentioning of Arizona, where Vintago starts to freak out.

“How can this be happening in real life?” He asks himself.

Vin’s brain starts running at a thousand miles a minute. Things start spooling up in his mind like the distance to this town in California. It could be days before this thing makes it to the valley. They said that it had an incubation period of three hours, and it is too far to drive in three hours. It is only an hour flight, and that is a scary thought. One would think within a day or so the military and law enforcement types would have it contained.

Then he asks himself the next logical question, “Do you trust them to protect you, they did a fantastic job at the hospital...”

That pretty much settles it for Vintago he decides that it would be smart to start thinking about an exit strategy. There needs to be a plan in place in case this shit hits the fan and starts heading towards his home.

Of course, Vin does not tell his family any of his plans. They probably would say he was overreacting. They would want to let the “authorities” deal with it. Vintago, on the other hand, did not put much faith in the government or the “authorities.”

Vintago figures that it might be prudent to call in sick tomorrow and start putting a plan together. His family might think that he is crazy, but if he explains it to Victoria that he just wants to be prepared, she will understand. That should provide a convincing argument for stocking up on food, water, and medical supplies.

Vin just will not tell her that he also plans on purchasing some extra guns and ammunition.

Everyone goes home for the night, and they put Grayson to bed like they usually do. Instead of going to sleep, Vin decides to start looking at Google Maps and plotting out possible routes of escape. The neighborhood the Hawkins family lives in only has one way in and one way out along a main road which leads to a highway. That is a little concerning for Vintago, but if worse came to worse they could bail into the desert behind their house. The highway is another problem. It leads west into the greater Phoenix Metropolitan area, which should be avoided at all costs. It also heads on east into, and a bunch of smaller towns and eventually into the mountains. At least that part is settled I guess, the only smart choice would be to head out east, and then turn north to the mountains.

Next, Vintago starts thinking of possible places to hide out up north. He will need a place that can provide food, water, and protection. All sorts of places burst into his head, hospitals, hotels, resorts, even shelters. The problem Vin has with these places is that everyone would think of them. He needs a place that an ordinary Joe would not come up with.

About an hour into his mental paper toss game he comes up with a stroke of genius. It came in the form of a memory of when Vin was a young boy on a Boy Scout camp out.

Vintago’s Boy Scout troop was camped along a small creek in the mountains north of Phoenix, just outside the small town of Payson. One of the badges they were going to acquire on this campout was for hiking. To earn this badge they needed to hike up a steep, windy, road, which lead to a fish hatchery.

Vintago remembered the hatchery from this camping trip with incredible detail. That’s when it hit him that this would be a terrific place to take refuge. Vin remembered how the hatchery has a large pond full of large trout and all the little hatchery tanks with various stages of new fish. The hatchery is also at the top of the canyon where a small fresh water source starts and feeds the stream down at the bottom of the canyon. Besides the small stream, there is a large grassy area where Vintago remembered picking natural berries with his Scout buddies. The hatchery also had a few small buildings. One of them had a full kitchen and quarters for the crew that managed the hatchery. Another building housed a small museum talking about the different kinds of fish. There were also two other buildings that must have been an office type of environment, and a massive warehouse building.

In his mind’s eye, this would be the perfect setup. It has food, clean water, and a place to stay. Everything that might be needed to hold out until things blow over. Well, pending that things do blow over.

After Vintago decides that this is the place to be, he decides it is time to roll over and go to sleep. Tomorrow he is going to run into town and start purchasing some supplies. He is not quite sure what he will need, but he knows that he better just get everything he can afford. Vintago does not want to be labeled one of those “preppers”, but he does need to be prepared. Hopefully, this whole thing will be swept under the rug, and they can resume their everyday lives. Hopefully, things will turn out OK.

Chapter Two

Time for Preparation

January, 2013

After Vintago wakes in the morning, he does not enter into his daily routine. Instead, he calls his job. He coughs a little bit and tells them that he is far too sick to come into the office today. Vintago talked to Victoria shortly before he finally passed out for the night. He explained to her that he needed to take a day off and put some things together. She gave him a strange look about it, but knew that ultimately, Vin did not make decisions without weighing all the options. She could also understand how intensely worried he felt about the situation in California and was not about to fight him over it. Victoria is an extremely understanding woman and knows when to get her way and when to let Vin have his way. She knows that, in the end, Vintago will always try to make the best choice for her and Grayson.

Vin quickly has some breakfast and kisses his family goodbye. He takes off in their Mitsubishi Outlander and heads into town.

The first stop he makes is to the local Walmart. Normally, he could not be caught dead in a Walmart unless it was a last resort. Today, he has an extensive inventory of things to buy, and he still needs to keep his spending under control. Just in case this whole thing does blow over he does not want to be largely in debt over a stupid decision.

After about an hour and a half, Vin exits the store with not one, but two carts. He even had to ask one of the Walmart representatives to help him out. Vin loads up the back of their Mitsubishi Outlander with five cases of water, cases of canned goods, non-perishable food, extra blankets, flashlights, batteries, etcetera. If it could be thought of, he made sure it was in those carts. Vin looked one more time at the receipt and shuddered a bit, the total was a bit too much to handle. The back of the Outlander is about half full by the end of the Wal-Mart visit. Vintago likes to call it the “mommy wagon”, but the vehicle has it is uses, now being one of them.

After the stop at Walmart, Vin drives over to the local gun shop. Vin is a regular here of course as he has bought his last firearms here. Even the Taurus 24/7 G2 .45ACP that Vin carries daily was purchased at this shop.

The store owners give him a slight nod as he enters the store. They are not too warm, but there are not a lot of options in this part of town.

Vin currently does not have any rifles or shotguns, and he desperately needs to change that. Being on a severely tight budget, Vintago does not have the luxury of buying an AR-15 like he would like. Everybody and their mother has an AR-15 these days, and for good reason, because they are an excellent rifle platform. Unfortunately, they cost about $900 or more at this shop. Vintago just cannot justify spending that amount of money. Instead, Vin decides to go off the grid a little bit and picks up an all-black AK-74. This is not the popular AK-47 that everyone knows. The AK-74 is like its little brother. The AK-74 fires a much smaller and faster round, much like an AR-15. It makes it more accurate while retaining the same gritty durability of the AK platform. The only crappy part about an AK-74 is that the 5.45x39mm rounds will not be easy to find. Vin decides to splurge a little bit and grabs an ammo can with 1080 rounds and an additional six magazines making a total of eight, thirty round box magazines.

Next, Vin starts looking at combat shotguns. He is not looking for the crazy semi-automatic shotguns, but the compact shotguns with no butt stock. He finds a decent looking used shotgun for a reasonable price and also picks up a couple hundred shotgun shells. Additionally, he asks for four boxes of .45ACP for his Taurus, eight boxes of 9mm for his Taurus 24/7 Pro, and three boxes of .380ACP for his wife’s Ruger LCP. Adding to that, he gets one more additional magazine for each handgun making his total three for each handgun.

He spots a couple nice tactical lights that can be mounted to his new rifle and shotgun. These will be good to have as both his handguns already had those, and they are invaluable in dark situations. He also grabs an excellent four times magnification scope for his AK-74. The last things he grabs are additional cleaning materials for all of the weapons he purchased and currently owns.

Grand total at the checkout register is; heart attack! Vintago slowly slides the gun shop owner his credit card and dies within, just a little bit. He is going to have to beat his wife to the mailbox when the statement comes.

It takes Vin about as long to haul all of the ammunition and firearms out to the Outlander as it did the groceries. Once everything is loaded up, the poor little mommy wagon is practically sitting on the ground.

Vintago makes the trip back home a little bit slower due to the full load in the back and not wanting a fireworks plant to go off behind him.

He unloads all the groceries into the kitchen first, and while Victoria is in the kitchen putting everything in the pantry he smuggles the firearms and ammunition into the office. He will have to go through all of it later.

After they get everything put away in the kitchen, with much protest from Victoria of course, it is almost time for dinner.

They eat their dinner in relative silence. While Victoria cleans up the kitchen, Vintago decides to turn on the TV and check the status of the situation in California. He has been too occupied all day to stay in the loop, and he needs to get caught up.

What he sees on the TV makes his demeanor change suddenly. The coverage is coming from a news chopper circling what looks like the small town, and the whole town is on fire. There are military vehicles spread out in a giant circle surrounding the town. Further back in the scene, as the camera pans out the military is setting up barriers miles away from the town. Outside the barrier, a line of Humvees, light tanks, and infantry fighting vehicles are all firing their enormous guns into a lot of people running towards the fence.

“What the fuck is going on over there!” Vin yells out.

“Vintago Hawkins! Not in front of Gray!” Victoria scolds.

Vintago ignores his wife altogether and continues watching the carnage on the screen. The TV cameras switch to a reporter standing behind the line of Humvees, who is reporting on the situation on the ground.

The reporter is saying, “The National Guard troops have been trying to stop the infected people from getting past this line” as he draws his foot in the sand marking an imaginary line. “A military official has told us that some of the people in the initial migration out of the first town have shown up in other towns with signs of the virus and had to be quarantined. The military has now put stopping these infected people priority one, and the chain of command has changed their rules of engagement to shoot anyone attempting to reach this line.”

Before the reporter can finish his report the news anchor in the studio interrupts him, “Bob I apologize for cutting you off, but we have breaking news.” The news anchor looks at the information in front of him. His face sinks visibly, and he continues, “We have just been informed that some of the people that fled the initial outbreak to San Diego have infected an entire hospital.” He lets that sink in for a second and then starts speaking again, “Authorities in San Diego had attempted to stop the infected before they left the hospital, but it has failed as it did before. Residents of San Diego are being urged to take only what you can carry and safely evacuate the city.”

“Holy shit Victoria, there’s over a million people in San Diego!” Vintago yells.

Things were quickly beginning to spiral out of control in California. If this thing got loose in a city that size, it was only a matter of time before it totally fucked the entire state. Shortly after that, it would be a game over for Arizona. Vintago did not want to be around for the end game.

After the sobering report from the anchor, the cameras cut back to the battle going on at what will eventually be called “Ground Zero”. The scene unfolding was a crowd of people armed with civilian firearms, fighting their way to the barriers set up by the military. The military men stopped firing briefly in amazement as these people battled the infected and made their way slowly to the barrier. As they got closer to the barrier one of the officers used a bullhorn to tell them to stop. The civilians who were clearly losing their damn minds did not heed the warning of the military. They kept running towards the barriers, not slowing down in the slightest. The camera is panning around, and clearly there is hesitancy on the faces of the gunners.

The man holding the bullhorn gives them one more warning, “Stop or we will have to open fire.”

The mob does not stop moving as they are clearly running for their lives and have nothing else to lose. Among the mob, there are small children and women. They are just ordinary people, trying to get the hell out of dodge. Unfortunately for them, it was already far too late.

The officer waves his hands and orders his men to engage the civilians. The roaring sound of .50 caliber rounds begins, and the camera soaks in every gruesome detail as the mass is cut to pieces. Arms and legs flying, heads being removed, and complete gore are frozen on the screen forever seared into the brains of people around the world.

Upon seeing this scene, Victoria runs into the kitchen and loses her dinner in the trash can. Gray, in his innocence, is not sure what is going on. Vintago, on the other hand, is having a mental blackout.

“That’s it,” he says mostly to himself, “the shit just hit the fucking fan.”

After mere seconds, the CNN anchor comes back onto the screen, his face looks like every other American right now, his mouth is hanging open, and he has tears rolling down his cheeks.

He mumbles under his breath, “God help those people...”

After what seems like forever, he finally composes himself again and begins to talk about another city that has signs of an outbreak.

The name of this city sends a chill down the spine of Vintago like he has never felt. Cold sweat forms above his brow. At the mentioning of this city, Vintago knows that it is time to leave.

Yuma, Arizona.

Chapter Three

SHTF Scenario

January, 2013

Vintago just blankly stares at the TV for about five minutes. Not moving, not thinking, and not talking. Then after what seems like an indefinite amount of time.

“They are in Arizona.” is all that he says.

Vintago finally gets up and walks into the kitchen. Victoria is still standing in the kitchen holding Grayson. She is in as much shock as he is and her face shows it. Gray, on the other hand, keeps smacking her on the chest wanting to be put down.

Vin walks up to the pantry door and slams it open, grabs a bottle of Vodka, and takes a long swig. He lets that sink in for a minute, takes another long swig, and replaces the cap on the bottle.

"We need to have a serious discussion about getting the hell out of here Victoria," he says to his wife as he wipes the excess vodka off his lips.

“What do you mean get out of here?” she replies with tears rolling down her face, adding, “Where are we going to go?”

“We need to get out of town, because if this thing makes it to the valley we are fucked.” Vintago tells her.

“I know that, but I asked where are we going to go” she insists.

“I think it’s time we sit down with our families, and I will explain my plan and then we can go from there.” Vintago tells her.

She just shakes her head and walks away, ending the conversation.

Vin picks up his iPhone and places a call to his parents Benjamin and Rebecca Hawkins.

They pick up the phone after two rings and immediately ask Vin, “Are you OK sweetheart! We’ve seen all this stuff on the news, and it’s got us pretty freaked out.”

“Of course I’ve seen it Mom.” Vin replies as he rolls his eyes.

“Listen” he continues, “We need to sit down and talk tonight. I’ve invited Greg and Cindy to come as well.”

“Ok, we’ll leave right now” Ben Hawkins replies.

After the phone call to his parents, he places a similar phone call to his in-laws. As they live right down the street, they head over within ten minutes. Within the next half hour, the senior Hawkins family arrives.

Everyone groups around the coffee table with a worried look and Vintago stands up in front of the TV and begins talking.

“Ok guys, listen. I haven’t actually explained this plan to anyone, but hear me out.” he begins.

“In light of everything going on with this virus outbreak and the fact that it has crossed over into Arizona, I think it would be smart if we all thought about getting out of town for a little while.”

Vin looks around at each face and takes in their demeanors. His wife is nodding her head because she knows putting her child in harm’s way is out of the question. Both sets of parents are still skeptical, they all have jobs and lives to worry about.

“Let me explain my plan, and then you can let me know what you all think.” Vin continues.

Vintago explains his plan and how he wants to pack up as much food, water, supplies, and munitions as they can and head up north. Upon hearing the rest of the plan, it seems to go over about as exciting as when he first suggested leaving town.

“I have a place in mind at the fish hatchery up by Payson.” Vin tells them.

He explains how it has fresh water, food, and that it would be an ideal environment for them.

“Well we can’t just go barge into this fish hatchery tomorrow exactly, they have got to be running still.” Greg says.

“I’ve thought about that as well, and I am going to take a trip up north tomorrow, to check it out to see if it will pan out. It’s been a long time since I’ve been up that way.” Vintago tells them.

Vin continues to explain his plan and what preparations they should take. That is if they decide to come along. He tells them that he plans to make his recon mission tomorrow, first thing in the morning.

Then, when he gets back from up north, they are going to get everything packed up and ready to go. That way if this virus gets any closer to the valley, they will be ready to get out of here.

They all seem sure that everything has been discussed, and they say their goodbyes to each other. Vin’s parents leave first, and the Robertses stay behind. Greg in particular has warmed up to the idea. He gets a ton of vacation time from his job, and he tries to explain to his wife Cindy how it will be.

“Listen hon, it will be just like camping. We can take a little trip up north and spend some time in the wilderness. It will be good for us.” Greg tells her.

“It’s got to be in the twenties up there at night, this time of the year Greg.” Cindy says.

“Well we will just have to pack warm clothes.” Greg replies.

Cindy just shakes her head and walks away from them. Vintago knows that is where Victoria gets it!

“Listen Vin, if you think this is smart, then I’m with you. I don’t want anything to happen to my baby girl and my grandson.” Greg tells Vin.

“I don’t think we may have much of a choice.” starts Vin, “I won’t sit by and watch my family get thrown into that chaos.”

Vintago tells him to go into town tomorrow to stock up on 9mm ammunition for his Springfield Armory XD and some 7.62x39mm ammo for his Russian SKS. Greg nods his agreement, and they shake hands.

With that, the Robertses decide it is time to head home, and they go out the door.

Victoria is pacing around in the living room, not quite sure what to do. She knows Vin means well, and that he makes smart decisions, but this is all too much for her.

Vintago can see that she is clearly stressed out and walks over to give her a warm hug.

"Listen," he says to her, “I am not going to let anything happen to this family.”

“Your dad is on board with my plan, and your mom will go wherever he goes.” he continues.

She just nods and buries her head in his shoulder.

They get Grayson ready for bed, and Vin goes in his office to make a checklist of his gear. Victoria walks in on him and sees all of the guns and ammo on the ground, and her mouth hangs wide open.

“How much did all of this cost Vintago!” she half yells.

“Don’t worry about that right now, we need this stuff.” he replies calmly.

She shakes her head and leaves him to whatever the hell he is doing. This whole thing is just way too much for her.

Vintago lays out all of the guns and ammunition he purchased. Then he adds what he already has to make a short list.

AK-74 (1080 rounds) with eight 30 round magazines.

Wilson Combat Shotgun (200 rounds)

Taurus 24/7 Pro DS 9mm (500 rounds) with three 17 round magazines.

Taurus 24/7 G2 .45ACP (500 rounds) with two 13 round magazines and one 10 round magazine.

Ruger LCP .380ACP (200 rounds) with three 6 round magazines.

Tactical lights for both Taurus handguns, rifle and shotgun.

4x scope for AK-74

8 inch tactical knife

Vintago finishes up his list and frowns at it. Not exactly an arsenal by any means, but it should be good enough. He is not exactly starting World War III here.

Next, he goes into the garage and checks out all of his camping gear. He sifts through sleeping bags, tents, cooking stoves with propane bottles, pots, pans, and a variety of gear. Everything looks to be in place since the last time he went camping. He throws the fishing gear on top of the pile. That will come in handy at some point that much he knows for sure.

Lastly, he goes back into the house and starts going through the pantry. They have so much shit in the pantry it is hard to tell what would be useful and what would not.

This is when Victoria steps in and says “What the hell are you doing in my pantry!”

Vin replies as he keeps throwing things into the middle of the kitchen, “Trying to get what we need out into the open.”

After an hour in the pantry, he makes another list of food products that would be useful and hands it to Victoria.

"I need you to run to the store tomorrow and get everything on this list," he tells her, “and do your little price matching thing to save us some money if you can.”

“Oh is this all?” she says as she looks at the list and shakes her head.

“Anything you might need or can think of too” he adds.

“How about food for your son!” she scoffs.

“See that’s why I love you” he chuckles, “you think of all the shit I forget!”

He wraps her in another giant bear hug, and she wriggles out of it and runs to the bedroom.

He chases her into the bedroom and tackles her onto the bed. Then, he begins kissing her passionately and things spiral into chaos of another kind.

A while later after they have both showered and gotten ready for bed, he kisses her goodnight and tells her he loves her.

Normally, Vintago is not much of a praying man, but tonight he says a little prayer to himself, “Please watch over me tomorrow as I make this journey north. Please make this journey for nothing and when I return make this situation go away. Amen”

Chapter Four

Recon Mission

January, 2013

In the morning, Vintago packs his new AK-74 rifle in its case and throws it in the backseat of his car, a Toyota Corolla. He decides to get a little bit better gas mileage on the trip since he is only driving up and back. As Vintago gets in the car, he puts his .45 in the cup holder and his 9mm in the glove box. Vin puts the sack lunch that Victoria gave him on the seat next to him, and he is ready to go.

Vin rolls out of the garage, closes it and stops, only for a second to reflect on what he told Victoria before he left.

“Here’s your Ruger, you wear that on your hip until I get back. The shotgun is loaded by the door. All you have to do is pop the safety off and pull the trigger. It pretty much does the rest.” he explains to her.

“Be careful, and don’t answer the door for anyone. Your mom and dad will be over once they get back from buying supplies.”

He backs out of the driveway, spins around, and off he goes. It is about thirty minutes to the first town along his journey heading east.

On the drive, he puts the windows down, throws on some music, and tries to relax. Of course, that is about impossible, but he figures he will try.

The first leg of the journey ends in a hole in the wall town. Vintago stops for gas to make sure he has enough to make it to the hatchery and back to this town where he can fill up again before heading home.

Vintago gets out of the car, and pops open the gas tank door. He slides his credit card on the pump and goes through the motions. While the gas is pumping he walks inside the convenience store to pick up a bottle of soda and a bottle of water.

When Vin walks in the small store, he immediately hears the news blaring in the background. The store attendant and two customers are all glued to the TV.

The TV is tuned into MSNBC, and they are showing footage of San Diego. It looks like half of the city is on fire. There are military helicopters, gunships even, flying above the city. The helicopters are raining fire down upon everything moving in the city. The camera zooms out, and it is clear how far away the news chopper is. They get a wide pan shot of the entire city, and it is not just half the city on fire, it is the entire city. As the camera zooms back in on a different setting, people are running for their lives and being totally cut down by infected people or military munitions. The whole damn city is wrapped up in chaos.

Vintago finds himself trying terribly hard to look away because he has his own quest to achieve. He gets his drinks, and cannot seem to get the store clerk’s attention, so he just leaves five dollars on the counter and walks out.

Seeing such a large city in such chaos lights a fire under Vintago’s ass, because he gets in his car and slightly peels out of the driveway.

The scene on the TV pretty much cements it in Vintago’s mind that he is doing the right thing. It also tells him that his timetables are being pushed forward unexpectedly fast. If cities as large as San Diego can be overrun in less than a day, what would happen in a significant metropolitan area like Phoenix?

Heading up through the canyons with their hairpin turns, Vin is glad he chose to take the Corolla instead of the Outlander. The Corolla is the sport model, and it nicely hugs the corners as he accelerates, pushing the little four cylinder engine to its max.

The trip to Payson normally would take about two hours, but Vin makes it in an hour and a half. Luckily, he did not get pulled over on the way up. With all the guns in the car, it would make an awkward traffic stop for both parties.

Vintago slows down in Payson and starts looking around in the small town. He is doing recon, just like he planned. There are quite a few shops and convenience stores, a Home Depot, a Walmart, various small mom and pop stores, and one decent sized gun shop. Vin likes what he is seeing and continues through the town and back onto the highway which leads further up the mountains and onto the Mogollon Rim, where the fish hatchery is.

Another twenty minutes of driving and Vin reaches the turn off for the fish hatchery. This is also where the campground he stayed at is located. The campground spreads out into a lovely little grassy valley, and the little creek runs through the middle of it.

Vin keeps driving along the road, crossing the creek several times, and starts ascending the windy road to the top of the canyon where the fish hatchery lies. After a short scenic drive, Vin arrives at the parking lot for the fish hatchery.

Vintago gets out of his car, holsters his Taurus .45 on the inside of his waistband, grabs his water bottle, and takes out his iPhone. Vin starts walking up the trail leading from the parking lot to the hatchery and starts taking video of exactly everything, including the surrounding forest, the stream, the holding tanks, and everything. He soon comes up to the large holding pond where they keep the monster trout. These trout are as large, and as hungry as Vin remembered. Some of them are almost two feet long. Vin cannot help but think that they would be good eating if the time arose.

Vin takes a quick tour through the fish tanks. The fish are in all stages of their lives, from little tiny fish, to large fish ready to be released. He takes extra note of the surrounding buildings on the property. There are four buildings, just like Vintago remembered. He takes a peek around at each building and confirms that one is a large warehouse, one is a small visitor center, another is an office building, and lastly, what looks like crew quarters. It would make sense for some of the members to stay on site as the hatchery runs almost all year round. At almost 6,500 feet in elevation and so far off the beaten path, the hatchery must be on a well or water tank. They probably have backup generators to supplement their power grid, as well.

All of this is excellent news for Vintago. He finishes touring the facility because the workers are starting to give him strange looks.

“How interested can he be in this place?” they are probably wondering.

Vin finishes his tour with a quick trip down the creek which runs adjacent to the hatchery. It is just like Vin remembers, it has small patches of grassy flat terrain and covered in vines and bushes. It is far too cold for there to be any berries because there is still snow on the ground up at this elevation.

Vintago himself is getting a little too cold for his berries. He makes a hasty retreat back to his car and starts the trip back home. The trip was not for nothing as he gained some valuable intel and decided that this was the right place. He also learned how many cars can be parked safely in the parking lot, how large the property was how hard it would be to protect, and also where the good spots in Payson are for pillaging if it comes to that.

Vin starts the trip back home with a little music and cracks open his Mountain Dew. When Vin reaches the highway, his iPhone starts blowing up. Victoria is calling.

“Jesus, why are not you answering!” she screams.

“I was up at the hatchery, there must not be very good cell reception. What’s up?” he asks.

“I’ve been watching the news, and it’s getting out of control.” she tells him.

“What do you mean it’s getting out of control?” he asks her.

“They are already seeing infected patients all over the country!” she begins.

She then continues telling the story. It started in Los Angeles, and they are saying it hopped to other cities when people got on planes to get the hell out of California. There have been reports of infected in Dallas, Albuquerque, Seattle, and Portland. Several planes travelling to New York, Chicago, Orlando, and Atlanta also made emergency landings because their entire cabin had been overrun with infected. Most of the flights had landed with the pilots safe behind their terrorist proof doors. Unfortunately, some of the flights did not make it as the pilots opened the doors for the banging fists. Two planes were confirmed to be down, killing everyone and everything onboard.

Victoria takes a breath, steadies herself, and drops the massive bomb, “Vin, they are in Phoenix too.”

This sets Vin’s senses on fire. The virus had spread to within fifty miles of his family, and he was over a hundred miles away in the fucking mountains!

Vin tells Victoria in a raging fury, “Babe you need to tell everyone who is leaving to get their shit together and get to our fucking house. We are leaving as soon as I get back.”

She thinks about that for a minute, and then says “You’re still at least an hour and a half away.”

“Don’t worry about that, get all the winter clothes packed you can find, and tell everyone to do the same. When you’re, done with clothes start packing food. I will handle everything else when I get there.” he tells her.

“Victoria, I love you, please lock the doors and stay inside until I get there.”

Chapter Five

Exodus

January, 2013

Vin hangs up the phone, sets it in its dock, and stomps on the gas pedal. He watches his speed increase significantly quicker than he anticipated. When the needle rushes past one hundred, and a turn is rapidly approaching, he backs it off to a sharp ninety miles an hour. The tires squelch as he banks just a little too hard into the turn. As soon as he is past the turn, he drops the pedal to the floor again and accelerates past one hundred and twenty miles an hour.

Vin continues driving like a madman for another hour, slowing only to pass through Payson and the other two small towns. After he passes the last town, he pushes the pedal to the floor and gets the little four banger all the way to one hundred and thirty miles per hour before he finally chickens out and lets up a bit. No point dying on the home stretch.

Vintago just about power slides into the driveway and opens the garage door only to find Victoria packing the Outlander full of food and water.

“Thank God” he mumbles to himself.

She gives him a kiss when he gets out of the car, and then immediately gives him a disapproving frown.

“How fast were you driving to make it back here so quickly?” she asks.

“I did the speed limit...” he replies to his wife, then to himself “times two.”

She just looks at him with that “you’re so full of shit” face she is so good at making.

Vin takes a peek into the back of the Outlander and finds it surprisingly well packed. All those years of grocery getting in the mommy wagon have trained her for a day like today. The entire cargo area of the vehicle is packed with food, water, luggage, and who knows what else. The seats are lined with clothes, blankets, and personal items. Normally, Vintago would argue this waste of space, but then again this is not normal anymore. He is not going to let her pack the Outlander with whatever she deems necessary. She is going to drive that vehicle with Gray in his car seat. Next to him on the seat is a bunch of his toys, and shit that Vin would not deem necessary, like his pack and play for instance.

“Why are you bringing that thing?” Vin asks his wife.

“What else is he going to sleep in?” she replies coldly.

Vintago just mumbles under his breath and shakes his head, “Should have just left her to do it on her own like he originally thought.”

Vin goes inside and starts packing up the ammo and guns. Vin puts all of these items in the backseat of the Corolla. Then he loads all their camping gear in the trunk. Most everything is compact and fits nicely in the trunk. He takes his rifle and places it in the front seat and unzips the case holding it, just in case he needs it.

Vin takes a quick second to clear out their safe into his backpack so that they have all of their vital documents, cash, jewelry, and family heirlooms. Not that, most of it will matter soon anyway, but who knows. They take a quick look at the inventory in their cars, take a second look at what’s left in the house, and they both nod in agreement.

Lastly, they load up Gray, the two dogs and start the vehicles. Vin steps inside the house one more time to do a quick check, and arms the alarm on the house. At least, it will give him peace of mind. Not that, the police will come to save anything, but maybe it will scare off any potential looters.

They get in their cars and make the short drive down the street to the Robertses house. Vin gets out taking a look at what they have managed to squeeze into their two vehicles. It looks like Greg’s car is full of useful foodstuffs, water, munitions, and clothing in every nook or cranny. On the other hand, Cindy’s car is full of what Vin would consider certain bullshit. She has packed all sorts of “As seen on TV” crap, useless nick knacks, and a variety of equally useless items. To each their own Vin figures, they do not have time to repack a vehicle.

Vintago looks down at his watch, and wonders where his parents are. They should have been around a while ago. Vin pulls out his iPhone and calls his dad.

“Dad, where are you guys at?” he asks.

There is a long pause on the other end of the line and his dad answers, “Son we are not going to meet with you guys. Your mother wants to head over to the hospital to try and lend a hand in whatever way we can.”

Their medical backgrounds were clearly giving them what they thought was their calling, but Vintago did not approve.

“Are you out of your fucking minds? Have you not seen what has happened to the hospitals trying to hold these crazy bastards? Entire cities have fallen to this virus. What makes you think you will be able to help any?” Vin yells into his phone.

“Yes, we have seen what has happened, but we feel we would be much more valuable here where we can help people, instead of running to the mountains to hide.” his father replies.

“Listen, Dad, you guys need to do what you think is right. I’m not going to push you on this, but if you change your minds you know where we will be.” Vin says and hangs up his phone.

Vintago is quite sure that he will regret that conversation at some point in the future, but right now, it is time to go.

The small fleet of four vehicles starts rolling out of their neighborhood and gets onto the highway. About four minutes into the journey, Vin realizes how ridiculous it is to be in four different vehicles with no way to communicate. Since they need to stop for gas anyway, Vin decides to stop at a Radioshack on the way up to get some walkie talkies or something along those lines. He knows that there is a Radioshack on the way because he just drove past it twice.

Thirty minutes later, as their small convoy stops for gas Vin lets them know his intention to purchase some radios, and they all think it is genius. They all fuel up their vehicles and drive two miles down the road and make the stop. Vin runs in the store and grabs four cheap Motorola walkie talkies, the kind used during camping. He also grabs four headsets, so they can all drive and communicate easily.

After they do a quick radio check and everyone figures out how to key their mics, it’s back on the road. They drive in silence for the next hour and a half. It takes considerably longer driving with three vehicles trailing behind. As they are making their way into Payson, Vin speaks on the radio.

“Guys stay real close together through here, I’m not sure what everyone else is going to be doing with everything going on.” he says to the little convoy.

As they are approaching the far end of town, just about to be home free, they come upon the gun store. Vintago, in the lead vehicle notices it at first, but none of the other drivers see apparently. There are people streaming out of the gun store like it is on fire. Since it is clearly not on fire, something else must be going on. Just as, this thought seeps into Vin’s mind, three masked men run out of the gun store carrying duffel bags. They jump into the bed of an idling pickup truck. The pickup driver, not paying attention to what’s in front of him as he is looking in his rear view mirror, just guns his engine. The truck lurches forward and pops the curb flying into the street, right into the rear fender of the Outlander.

“Fuck!” Vintago yells.

He immediately slams on his brakes and gets out of the car. Just as, the men in the truck are recovering from their jolt, they hop out of the truck bed. They begin to train their rifles the Outlander and plan to shoot.

Five shots ring out like a bullwhip and break the silence. The closest masked man takes a bullet directly in the face, totally shattering his mask and blowing his brains all over the side of the white pickup truck. A second round catches him in the chest and knocks him over like a felled tree. The third round catches the second gunman in the shoulder and puts him on the ground, as well. The fourth and fifth shot go wide and hit the pickup truck as the third gunman takes refuge.

Having suppressed the gunmen fairly well with his .45, Vintago dives into the Corolla and reaches for his rifle. Vintago brings the rifle up to his shoulder and stands up ready to fire. He squeezes the trigger and the rifle does not fire. He has never fired this rifle in his life, and it takes him a split second to figure out that the safety is the big bar on the side of the rifle. He disengages the safety and remembers to chamber a round. In that moment of indecision, the third gunman takes the opportunity to raise his AR-15 above the truck bed and starts shooting. Vintago dives for cover behind the Corolla as the shots ring out. The driver leaps out of the truck and starts pulling his downed friend to safety behind the truck.

Vintago, lying down on the ground looks under the car and sees this transpiring. Having figured out the safety, and charging the weapon, he squeezes the trigger three times. Three shots ring out and hit the driver of the truck in the leg, and the downed man in the neck. Blood spurts into the air splashing on the driver as he in turn falls down.

Shots ricochet off the pavement as the last surviving truck bed gunman tries to save his last surviving brother, the driver.

Vintago ducks for cover behind a tire not quite sure what to do from here. Out of the blue comes a higher pitched gunshot.

It is Victoria’s little Ruger .380. Vintago hears one, two, three, and four shots. Suddenly, the AR-15 stops firing. Vin takes a quick peek over the trunk and sees that the last truck bed gunman is down, hanging over the side of the truck, blood running down his face and spattering on the ground. Vintago quickly sprints over to the Outlander and runs behind to get a clear view of the backside of the pickup truck. Standing over the last truck bed gunman is Victoria, smoking Ruger in hand.

Vin runs over to protect her and sees that one of the little .380 rounds found it is place in the nasal cavity of this gunman. Running around to the other side of the truck, Vin finds the driver, scooting off on his ass with a trail of blood following him.

Upon seeing Vin come around the corner, he weakly raises a .38 special, six shot revolver. Vintago raises his AK-74 and shoots the man in the chest four times.

After what seems to Vintago like forever, their hearing starts to return. Victoria walks over to Vintago and looks at him. She still holds her Ruger in her hand, though she is visibly shaking. Vintago, on the other hand, looks calm and collected. One would think after killing three men that he would be more torn up, but he seems to shrug it off and mentally recalibrate. It is like his mind is a computer, simply processing information, completely disconnected from the carnage laid out before him.

Greg finally gets the courage to step out of his car and looks at the dead men lying all around them. He has a mind of disbelief on his face. He looks at his “baby girl”, who just killed a man, and then leans over and starts dry heaving.

“What do we do now?” Victoria asks.

“We grab the bags they stole, their guns, and we get the fuck out of here, that is what.” Vin replies.

He picks up the guns that the dead men dropped, wipes the blood off with a rag and throws them in the back of his car. Then he grabs the three duffel bags from the back of their pickup and with a considerable effort, throws them in the back.

After what seems like forever, they get into their cars and take off towards the hatchery.

Victoria calls Vin on his cell phone while they are driving. Gray is in the background screaming, clearly shaken up from all the gunshots.

“What just happened back there Vin” she asks him.

“What just happened was four armed men robbed that store, probably killing the store owners, and tried to escape, subsequently running into the wrong vehicle.” he explains to her calmly.

“How did you even react that fast? I didn’t know you could shoot like that either.” she says.

“I don’t know, I just saw them trying to hurt you and Gray, I pulled out my gun, and I shot them.” he tells her, then adds, “you didn’t do so bad yourself.”

“I was just trying to save you, like you saved us.” she sniffles as she is clearly broken up. “Why did you take their guns, and why did we leave” she asks, “Shouldn’t we have waited for the cops to show up?”

“We don’t have time to sit and be interrogated by the local police, those men were in the wrong and we stopped them. As for why I took their weapons, that’s because they didn’t need them anymore and we do. I have a feeling things are going to be much different from now on.”

The rest of the drive to the hatchery goes by without event. They make the trip up the windy road and park in the parking lot. Vintago tells everyone to wait by the cars while he checks it out.

He leaves his rifle in the car, just in case some of the hatchery workers are still there, not wanting to freak them out. Vin walks up the trail, past the pond, past the live tanks, and up to the buildings. It looks like there is not anyone around. Vintago checks in the traveler information center, and also the building where the hatchery stores all of its equipment. Next, he checks the offices, still nobody to be found.

Lastly, he checks what he assumes to be the crew quarters. He pops open the door only to have a gun pointed at his face.

“Who the hell are you, and why do you keep lurking around here!” yells a cute young blonde girl.

She stands in the doorframe holding a Colt 1911 .45ACP handgun. Vintago looks her over, admiring her aggressiveness. She cannot be more than ninety pounds soaking wet, so imagine the surprise Vin got by this young woman pointing a gun at him.

“I’m not looking to hurt you miss, I am just looking to get away from town for a little while.” Vintago says calmly.

“Well why do you keep coming here and lurking around, I saw you here earlier today taking pictures of everything? You’re not some terrorist or something are you?” she asks wildly, still holding a gun on Vin.

“No miss I am most certainly not a terrorist. I am just looking to get my family out of the city to someplace off the beaten path.” Vintago explains.

She seems to ponder on his words for a few seconds and then slowly lowers her gun.

“Well, why didn’t you say so then” she replies.

"I think I just did," he says with a bit of a smirk. “Do you mind if my family comes up this way now? We would just like to camp out for a few days to see if this virus thing blows over.”

“Normally, we don’t let anyone camp here, and we tell everyone to use the campgrounds down by the highway, but seeing as how it’s a mess out there right now and everyone else left the hatchery today, I suppose it’s alright.” she tells Vintago.

Vintago releases his grip that he had on his .45 at the small of his back. He extends his hand and introduces himself.

“My name’s Vintago Hawkins.” he says.

“Jessica Owens.” she replies.

They swap stories for a few minutes and talk about how they got to this particular stage in life. After they warm up to each other a little bit, Vintago decides to go fetch his family.

Back at the “convoy”, he tells everyone about the nervous blonde named Jessica and tells them that she does not care if they camp out for a few days. They start unloading their camping gear and only enough food for the immediate future. No need to notify Jessica to their true intentions.

After a few hours, everything is all set up in a small grassy area clear of snow, next to the hatchery.

Jessica comes out of her little house to see what’s going on at the ramshackle village next door. She casually strolls across the asphalt and addresses only Vintago initially.

“It looks like you guys are moving in over here.” she laughs.

“Well, hopefully not, it’s too damn cold to live out here.” he replies.

“Aren’t you going to introduce me to the rest of the family?” she says.

“This is my wife Victoria and my son Grayson.” Vin says pointing to his family. “Those two mutts are Foxy and Toby.” He continues, “That’s Greg and Cindy Roberts, my in laws.”

“Nice to meet you all.” says Jessica.

Everyone says “hello” in chorus, and Grayson says “hiyah.”

“If you all want to come inside and warm up I was just about to cook up some dinner.” she says to the group.

The whole group looks to Vintago to see his reaction.

“Sure, we could use some warm food, and a break from this cold I think.” he replies.

After assuring everyone that it will be fine, they all enter the crew quarters where Jessica is staying. It is surprisingly comfy inside. There is a large kitchen with a table that seats eight. Off of the kitchen is a massive entertainment area with a fireplace, a large TV and a game table. There are two sets of bathrooms, his and hers, and four bedrooms, each with a set of bunks. In each bedroom, there are personal effects from the rest of the crew members that work here year round.

Jessica explained that the other crew members had gone back to the valley to make sure their families were safe or just gotten the hell out of here. Jessica had no family to speak of, and the hatchery had become her life. She chose to stay behind and make sure all of it is essential functions continued. Jessica’s job at the hatchery was routine maintenance and systems operations. She would feed the fish, clean the tanks, fix broken things, and whatever random things needed to be done around the property. She was their Jill of all trades.

After the fifty cent tour, Jessica brought them all back to the kitchen. She got to work making a sizeable pot of chili.

“Great, now our tent’s going to smell like ass all night long” Vin thinks to himself and smiles.

After they had finished dinner, Jessica turned on the big TV in the living room area. No matter what channel she put it on there was an emergency broadcast playing. The transmission keeps repeating;

Emergency Alert: Please be advised, as of this time the greater Phoenix-Metropolitan area is being evacuated. Please proceed in an orderly fashion to the rendezvous point in Tucson, Arizona where each civilian will be tested for the C.Virus. To all military, law enforcement, fire fighter, or local militia members, please proceed to checkpoint Alpha fifteen miles north of Tucson. We need every able bodied man and woman we can get to hold off the infected population and ensure a safe passage for non-infected population. End transmission.

Everyone looks around the room at each other’s faces, and they are all wearing the same face, a face of horror.

Chapter Six

Evacuations

January, 2013

After a few minutes, everyone recovers somewhat from the message. Everyone but Jessica has family down in the valley. Vintago thinks about his parents, wondering if they are OK. He thinks about calling them and reaches for his phone, only to be reminded that there is no cell service on top of the canyon.

Vin brings this up to his group, and after a couple minutes of discussion, they decide to squeeze into one of the vehicles and drive down to the highway where they can place a few phone calls to their loved ones.

Vin runs down to the Outlander and shifts around some of the junk piling up on the seats so that they can squeeze in the vehicle. Greg and Cindy are the only ones coming. Victoria stays with Grayson and Jessica in the crew quarters.

Before leaving, Vin whispers into Victoria’s ear, “Watch your back around her if she does anything weird you have your gun.”

Not quite sure why Vintago does not trust Jessica, Victoria simply nods. Victoria sees no reason not to trust Jessica, but she tends to be more trusting than her husband.

Vintago starts the Outlander and heads down the road towards the highway. The trip only takes about ten minutes, and they all climb out of the car and immediately pull out their cell phones.

Vin takes a step aside and calls his parents. The phone rings and rings. Vin is just about to hang up, defeated, when his father picks up.

“Dad, are you OK?” Vin asks.

“Son,” his father starts and then stops speaking, cries for a minute, and then continues “mom did not make it buddy.”

“What do you mean she didn’t make it? Didn’t you guys evacuate like they said to do?” Vin says with more than a little anger in his voice.

“We were trying to help the people coming in to the hospital, but there were just so many people it was impossible to check them all for signs of the virus.” his father tells him. “They started storing the ones that died in the morgue below the hospital, hoping that would keep them cold enough not to cause any problems.” he continues. “I guess that didn’t work because at some point, the doors were opened and they all came flying out of the morgue.”

His father explains to him how his mother was with him, on the third floor of the hospital when the infected came flooding up the stairways and blocked off their retreat. He tells Vin about how he could hear the gunfire erupting on the floors below as they tried to contain the outbreak. They tried to hole up in a small employee lounge and wait it out, and that is when two of the infected came into the room and attacked him and his wife.

“They got Mom before there was anything I could do” he tells his son, choking back a sob “I was able to take a broom handle and stab one in the eye, and your mom killed the other one with a chair leg.”

Unfortunately, it was too late because she had already been bit by the sick bastard. He tells Vin about how they fled to their home, and he tried to save her.

The memory floods into Ben’s mind, and he is overcome with emotion. Just like the ones before her, she slowly succumbed to the virus, and died in his arms. He moved the body of his poor wife into a closet and barred the door with a chair and waited. After what seemed like an eternity of silence, he could hear shuffling around in the closet. Then, shortly after that a low moaning sound. Suddenly, fists beating against the door, wanting to be let out, obviously sensing something on the other side of the door. It was almost predatory sense.

Benjamin Hawkins, devoted husband of thirty two years sits on the other side of this door sobbing uncontrollably. In his hand rests his Kel-tec 9mm handgun. He sits and contemplates putting an end to her suffering. A little while after that and he contemplates ending his own suffering and places the handgun against his temple.

He holds the gun against his head for two or three minutes and then loses the courage to pull the trigger and drops the gun in disgust.

Upon hearing the loud clatter, his wife starts growling and slamming her fists into the closet door again.

Ben cannot take it anymore, and he does not have the guts to kill her, or himself. He packs up a single bag, throws it over his shoulder and climbs into his Mercedes. As he peels out of the driveway, leaving his wife in a closet, he feels his cell phone vibrate in his pocket. It is his son Vintago calling him.

After reliving the memory, so fresh in his mind, and retelling it to his son, Benjamin focuses back on what he is doing. He is driving erratically now. Not quite sure where he is driving to, but he is driving regardless.

Vintago brings him back into this world, “Dad, what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know son, I could give a fuck about trying to save any of these people. They took my wife away from me and now all I want to do is kill them!” Ben yells into his phone.

“Listen, dad, you need to come up here with us. We have a good place picked out, we have running water, hot food, and it’s safe. It’s not so terrible.” Vin tells his father.

“I don’t have any supplies to bring with me, I would just be a burden on you guys.” his father says in self-pity.

“Dad, you are a doctor, you will bring more than enough to the table. We have enough food and water to go around, just get up here. Stop on the way and pick up whatever else you may need.” Vin says. “Just be careful, the crazy people are starting to come out of the woodwork, and it’s only a matter of time before the looters and pillagers come out in full force.”

“Alright son, if you say so.” Ben complies.

Alright, see you soon.” Vin says and hangs up the phone.

Vintago turns around, and he can hear Cindy and Greg both on the phone still. Greg is talking to his son Donny. They have had an extremely difficult relationship and have not spoken much in the past few years. Now, Greg is pleading with his son to leave the valley and come up north to be with his family. By the sounds of it, Greg is not going to get his way. He keeps telling Donny to think of his mother, sister, and nephew. In the end, he just tells his son that he loves him, hangs up the phone, and cries quietly to himself.

Cindy, on the other hand, is talking to her mother, who lives in Chicago. She is telling her mom to get on the next flight to Phoenix, and if that does not work to get in her car and drive out. If she sticks to it, she could be here in a couple days. Victoria’s grandma is not one to have her feathers ruffled easily, but the idea of driving for two days does not appeal to her.

Eventually, Cindy wraps up her phone call, as well. They both drag their feet on their way to the Outlander and get in quietly.

Vintago gets in the driver’s seat and begs the question “So are either of them coming?”

“Donny isn’t coming he can’t convince his wife that they should come up here, and she wants to be a good sheep and go to Tucson.” Greg says.

“My mom isn’t going to come either, she says it will be too hard on her body to make that long of a drive, and she looked, and all the flights have been grounded.” Cindy adds.

Vintago doesn’t bother replying as he knows that no words will be able to heal these wounds. He also knows that both Donny and Grandma were ultimately doomed. Being stuck in a major city with an outbreak of this magnitude was a certain death sentence. The government might be able to endure it, and they might save some people if they screen them well enough, but for the vast majority of people leaving the cities, it would be nothing, but death.

They make the short drive up to the top of the canyon and everyone piles out. Vintago heads into the forest instead of heading into the hatchery. He walks far enough into the forest where nobody can hear or see him, and collapses on the ground. For a few minutes, he cries quietly to himself and then wipes the snot from his face.

“I can’t believe she’s actually gone.” he says to nobody.

Vintago and his mother shared a pretty decent relationship. He had no ill words to speak of her, and she had none of him. The fact that she was gone, forever, made him die inside just a little bit more. It seems like every time Vintago turned a corner in the past few days someone he knew was dying or he was the one doing the killing.

What kind of fucked up world is this turning into?

Vintago collects himself, cleans up his face a little bit, and treks back into the hatchery grounds. Victoria is standing outside the crew quarters building with a sad look on her face. She cannot know for sure, of course, more than likely she will not see her brother or grandmother ever again.

Vin approaches his wife cautiously he does not do well with feelings, and even less so at helping others with their feelings.

Figuring now was as good of time as any, he explains to his wife what happened to his mother. She quickly loses whatever semblance of control she had previously. It is one thing to know that your family members might not be coming back, but it is another matter entirely to know for sure.

A few minutes go by of Vintago simply holding his wife, and she regains her composure to some degree. Cindy and Greg came out upon hearing their daughter crying, and Vintago explains the situation to them. Everyone stands around, taking in the sounds of the forest, acting singularly somber.

After a little while, Vintago informs everyone that his father Ben is on his way right now, hoping to lift their spirits a bit. Ben was never their best friend as he tends to be hard to get along with, much like his son. Upon hearing that he is coming, it does lighten the mood a little.

Jessica mainly kept to herself during the whole emotional roller coaster, since she has no family to mourn, or to care for. She was raised by her aunt after her parents were killed by a drunk driver when she was a small child. Her aunt had died a few years ago, and that was what caused her to live in this lonely little fish hatchery.

Jessica could see that everyone was starting to wind down from their emotional slump, so she asks if they would like to start winding down for bed as it was more than dark by now. Everyone just nods their heads.

They get ready for bed using the crew quarters bathrooms which Jessica was more than happy to provide, and then, they head over to their tents to settle in for the night.

Vin tells everyone to get a good night’s sleep because things are going to start getting much more complicated.

Chapter Seven

Acclimation and Extermination

February, 2013

Morning breaks on their little shanty town at the fish hatchery, and along with it starts a new month. The last week of January seems to have flown by almost like it was not real. Vintago silently prays to himself that this month will end with them returning to their homes and this whole virus situation being wrapped up. Being realistic, he knows that it is most likely a pipe dream.

In the middle of the night, a new car rolled into the parking lot at the fish hatchery. Vintago decides to walk down to the parking lot and peek inside the car. With his seat reclined as far as it will go, his father sits inside, curled up as tight as he can be, sawing logs like a lumberjack. Vin taps on the window lightly, which startles his father and he rises up and smacks the horn. The sudden noise erupts through the trees and just about scares the shit out of Vintago and everyone else in the hatchery.

Ben unlocks the doors to the car and steps outside. He stretches a few times, working out the kinks. After he has a little bit of flexibility restored, he reaches out and gives his son a hug. Normally, Ben and Vintago would not be caught giving out hugs, but under the circumstances, it feels right.

Vintago grabs his dad’s one bag and shows him to where they are staying.

“It’s not much, but it is what it is.” Vin says.

“I thought you said you had running water, electricity and warm food.” Ben gives him a puzzled look.

“We do, over there in the crew quarters, we just can’t stay in there yet.” Vin replies.

“Why not, are there people in there already?” Ben asks.

“There is one woman, named Jessica, but she is waiting for her friends to come back.” Vin says, even though he is pretty sure they will not be coming back.

“Well, I don’t have a tent or anything, where am I going to sleep?” Ben asks again.

Vintago explains to his father how he plans on running back into Payson today and getting some extra supplies. The Robertses forgot more than a few things, and so did his wife.

“We can pick up whatever you need at Walmart when we head into town.” Vin tells his father.

“Sounds good to me, I guess. We better get a decent air mattress, because my ass is not sleeping on the ground” his father replies with a grin.

Vin chuckles, but knows that it is true. Both he and his wife and the Robertses are sleeping on air mattresses. It just makes it more hospitable that sleeping on the cold ground.

Jessica comes out to let everyone know that she has made up a batch of scrambled eggs and bacon.

When she sees Ben, she says “Uh oh, one more mouth to feed?”

“Jessica this is my father Benjamin Hawkins” Vin replies.

“Nice to meet you” Ben steps forward to shake her hand.

With introduction out of the way, they all pile into the crew quarters kitchen and are served an outstanding breakfast.

“Well at least she serves as a good cook” Vin thinks to himself.

They finish up their breakfast, and Vin tells the group that he is going to go into town and get some supplies. He explains that he would like if it Greg and Ben could come with him. They both nod their heads, and the decision is made.

Before leaving, they empty the contents of the Outlander into the other four cars, mostly Ben’s car as it is totally empty. Vin grabs his rifle from the Corolla and hands it to his father who is in the passenger seat. Ben looks at him with a funny look and asks him what’s it for.

Vintago briefly explains what happened with the armed robbers yesterday, and this fully changes Ben’s demeanor. Now he grips the rifle with a subtle intensity.

They make the thirty minute drive into Payson with no problems and when they turn into the parking lot of the Walmart with their eyes open wide. The scene in front of them is unquestionably chaos. People are running around with shopping carts spilling over with merchandise, running to and fro, bumping into each other and cursing. They wander into and out of the building like wild fire ants.

They leave the rifle in the car, but all three men have their handguns on them in holsters. Ben and Vin both have their guns concealed, but Greg does not have a concealable holster. Nothing like adding a little fire to the gasoline already flowing about, so to speak.

The three men grab one of the abandoned shopping carts and enter the store. They go to the grocery aisles first, and find that most of the shelves are empty. The place has been picked clean in some areas. They look at their list, and obviously they will not be able to get everything, so they pick out what they can and move on. The men move to the back of the store towards camping and sporting goods. The camping equipment has not been picked through as much. People just do not want to go camping right now.

Not sure if it’s the cold, or the whole virus outbreak, Vin just laughs to himself.

Vin says that it would be smart to buy extra sleeping bags and two more tents, just in case Donny and his wife do decide to come. Subconsciously, he knows it will not happen, but the more supplies the better.

They also pick up some extra fishing equipment, lanterns, flashlights, and a few other random things. While it is amazing that they have electricity and plenty of food right now, it may not be that way for long, so Vin decides to be prepared for the future if that is what the future holds.

“The inner Boy Scout is always prepared” he chuckles to himself, thinking about their motto.

Lastly, they stop at the guns and ammunition section of the store. The guns and ammo have been picked through. That is one of the first things people buy in a situation like this. Since Ben does not have a rifle or a shotgun, he advises his father to pick out a hunting rifle. There are only a few left, so there is not much of a choice. His father asks what he thinks would be sufficient, so Vintago asks the clerk to see the Remington .308 long rifle. The .308 round should be enough to take down a buck elk at five hundred yards, let alone a human being.

Vin also picks out a decent scope to place on top of the rifle, and the last five boxes of .308 ammunition.

The 9mm ammunition is nowhere to be seen, but they did have two boxes of .45ACP and three boxes of .380ACP. Vintago purchases all of them. Vin asks Ben and Greg if they have decent knives, and they both shake their heads, so he picks out two long hunting knives with serrated edges for them both.

With the majority of their shopping done, they stand in the hour long lines and check out. Ben offers to pay for everything, and neither Greg nor Vin objects. This is how he can pull his weight Vin figures.

They load up their purchases in the back of the Outlander and start heading out of town. As a last thought, Vin stops at a small gas station and runs in, where he finds two five gallon gas cans. He fills up the two cans and loads them in the back of the Outlander. Being that they are thirty minutes away from town, he figures it would be smart to have a little extra fuel.

The journey back to the hatchery is uneventful, which nobody minds at all. When they get to the hatchery, they unload some of their gear and leave the rest in the back of the vehicle.

Jessica by now has seen all their gear, and can tell they did not plan on just staying a few days, but after spending a little bit of time with this new group, she does not mind having them around. She can tell that they mean her no harm. Besides, her friends had all left, and none of them had returned yet.

The three men finally make it into the crew quarters where the women are getting all settled in and flop down onto the couches to take a break. It looks like Jessica, Cindy, and Victoria are getting along, and they are all acclimating to the new situation.

The women have set up a bunch of toys for Gray to play with, and he sits in front of the fire playing with his trucks. Vintago scoots off the couch, to sit on the floor and play with his son for a few minutes. Gray’s face lights up as his dada comes to see him. Vin wonders what Gray thinks about everything going on lately. Poor Gray is in a new place, running around all over the state, plus he had to suffer through the shootout with the armed robbers. The little guy’s been through a lot already, and it has only been a week.

Vin walks into the kitchen to check up on Victoria and she seems perfectly happy preparing some lunch for the group. Jessica and Cindy are sitting at the table drinking coffee and chatting quietly.

“How are you holding up?” Vin asks his wife.

“I’m doing OK. Just trying to keep busy to keep my mind off everything.” she replies.

“Well, just hang in there, things will get better soon, you’ll see.” he tries to reassure her.

She nods slowly and gives him a hug.

Vin tells her that he is going to look around the hatchery grounds a little bit more and see what he can find. She says that is fine, and he heads out of the building. His father Ben decides to come with him.

They walk over to the edge of the parking lot and start walking down the road a little ways. Vintago is playing scenarios over and over in his mind about how he could protect their little compound if they need be. Being off in the middle of nowhere only works for so long, eventually someone, or something will find them.

Luckily, the road leading into the hatchery is cut right out of the side of the canyon. On one side of the road is a rock wall about twenty feet tall, and on the other side is a vertical drop off into the stream below the road. Vin figures that if they can just block off the road, which will keep anyone from coming up that way. The only way to get to the hatchery after that would require the intruders to be on foot on top of the ridge. Vin climbs up on top of the ridge to see how far out it goes, and it looks like it goes on forever. Unfortunately, there is no way to guard against that.

Ben and Vin walk back to the hatchery and starts poking around in the other buildings. The main storage building has a small Bobcat loader and backhoe, a big truck with a tank on the back, probably for carrying water and fish, an oversized flatbed truck, and two large hunting four wheelers. There are all sorts of tanks, hoses, and an variety of things neither Ben nor Vintago understand. There also is hundreds of pounds of fish food ranging in all sorts of sizes. Additionally, there is a maintenance area with a workbench and mechanics tools, probably for maintaining their equipment.

In the office building there are all the items found in a typical office environment, cubicles with desks, computers, monitors, printers, and all kinds of office supplies. Vintago doubts there will be anything of much use in this building.

In the visitor center, it is the same story. They explore back in a couple rooms and find all sorts of knick knacks, and an assortment of random junk.

Lastly, they find a small shed that Vin did not catch on his initial scouting session. Inside the shed are power tools, chainsaws, shovels, rakes, and all sorts of other tools. This must exist for maintaining the grounds of the property Vin assumes.

Vintago takes a mental checklist of the area and sums it up. While the main road would be easily defendable, the rest of the property is left wide open with positively no way to defend it. The only solution would be to encompass the entire two acre property in a giant fence of some sort. Where they would get that much fencing or material, Vin has no idea. A problem for another day, he figures.

Ben and his son start slowly walking back to the crew quarters when he says to his son, “How are you holding up son?”

“I’m doing OK Dad” Vin answers, but they both know it is a lie.

“You know for such a young man you sure have held it together well through all of this. I wish I was as strong as you Son.” his father says with a quiver in his voice.

“I just process things differently than everyone else, that’s all.” Vin replies.

“Yeah, you don’t process them at all. That’s not exactly good.” Ben says with a worried look. “Listen, I cried all last night thinking about your mother. She turned into one of those things.

I still can’t believe it.”

“I know Dad, we just have to stay strong and hang in there. Somebody will get a grip on this thing, and it will all turn out alright.” Vin says, but not believing it himself.

They both stop talking and walk in silence the rest of the way back to the crew quarters.

When they arrive, Victoria has lunch all laid out and tells them to come sit down. They eat their lunch and get everything cleaned up.

The men decide that it would be a good idea if they went through their guns and ammo and showed the women how to shoot the guns a few times. Victoria knows how to shoot a handgun just fine, but she has never fired a rifle before. Cindy has never fired any type of firearm. With Grayson, they cannot all just up and leave, so Cindy stays behind to watch Gray and Victoria comes first. Jessica decides to tag along to get some practice in with her Colt. They take some extra bottles and other refuse from the trash bins and walk a reasonable distance away from the hatchery. The canyon has a lovely outcropping which will make a good backstop.

Vin sets up the bottles on top of boulders near the outcropping. First he brings out all of the handguns his own included. They have Vin’s two Tauruses the .45 and the 9mm, Greg’s Springfield 9mm, Victoria’s Ruger .380, Ben’s Kel-tec 9mm, and Jessica’s Colt .45. Though Jessica does not let anyone else touch her .45.

The idea is to let everyone shoot each gun a few times to get the feel for them. Everyone goes through the motions trying each handgun and feeling the recoil. Vintago refrains from shooting as he is interested in doing this on his own when everyone else is gone. Ben is by far the best handgun shooter, with Jessica coming in a close second. Victoria surprises everyone by making a few good shots, and Greg for the most part hits around the targets. That should be good enough for what they will need to do.

Next they bring out the rifles. The have Vin’s AK-74 in 5.45x39mm, Greg’s SKS in 7.62x39mm, Ben’s new Remington .308, and even though it is not a rifle, Vin pulls out the Wilson Combat 12 gauge. Additionally, Vin drops the duffel bag of munitions that he commandeered from the armed robbers. Inside are three AR-15s in 5.56mm, two AK-47s in 7.62x39mm, and an HK MR762A1 in .308. Along with the rifles one duffel bag was full of ammunition for all of the rifles.

Vin lays out all of the rifles and has them pick which ones they would like to shoot. He slides the HK away as he wants to try that bad boy out on his own and the .308 rounds are much harder to come by.

Everyone tries out the AKs, both in the smaller 5.45 round and the much larger 7.62 round, as well as the AR-15s. They also try firing Ben’s new hunting rifle, and the SKS. The consensus is of course everyone wants one of the AR-15s. Even Ben is having a hard time choosing between his brand new rifle and one of the bloodied ARs.

After about an hour and a half of target practice and training, Vin sends the rest of them off to fetch Cindy and send her up. They only leave an AR-15 and a couple handguns for her to try out. She is not the fighting type, so she only needs to know the basics for self-defense.

While Vin is waiting he picks up the brand new HK rifle. The HK is a mean looking black rifle with a twenty round magazine. He settles it firmly into his shoulder before taking his first shot and gently squeezes the trigger. The recoil hits him harder than he expects. Used to firing the smaller 5.56mm and 5.45 rounds, the .308 is significantly harder hitting in the shoulder.

A few more rounds and Vin is starting to like it. He pops three bottles at a hundred yards with iron sights and that pretty much makes up his mind. He will keep the AK-74 as a high rate of fire backup, but this HK is his new friend.

Cindy shows up as he is reloading and he waves her over. He has to go through all of the safety features, how to hold the guns, and how to handle a gun before he lets her put in a new magazine. After he feels confident that she will not kill herself or him, he lets her try it out.

She is more than a little hesitant and jerks the trigger pretty bad sending her first round way off. After about two more magazines and not much improvement, he lets her try the AR-15, and it is the same result. She’s just not cut out for shooting. That much is clear.

Vin packs up all of the guns, and they head back to the crew quarters. By now it is midafternoon and starting to get darker. Vin breaks out the cleaning kits and shows everyone interested how to clean their new rifles. The guys know how to clean their handguns, and Vin cleans Victoria’s Ruger.

By the time all the weapons are cleaned and stowed away, it is time for dinner. Jessica decided not to bother cleaning her Colt and went straight into preparing for dinner. They finish up their dinner without talking much, and then they all huddle around the fireplace in the living room.

Vin reaches over and grabs the remote for the TV and powers it up. After a few minutes of news, he wishes that he had not.

The news anchor is explaining, that most major cities in the continental US have been evacuated to more rural areas and that some of the evacuation sites even had to be evacuated. They cut to scenes of New York ablaze, with thousands of people walking out of the city across the various bridges. Next, they show Los Angeles, where there are hundreds of looters smashing windows and stealing TVs and electronics. Lastly, they show Chicago with helicopters flying above the Sears Tower as it leans over and as the camera pans around there is a large aircraft lodged into the face of it. The reporter claims that the pilots had inadvertently opened the door, and an infected person killed them on their way to land at the O'hare airport.

Cindy is visibly shaken up by the Chicago scene, probably hoping her mom is OK. Even though her mom lives in the suburbs, this scene is just a little too close to home. Both Cindy and Greg were born and raised in Chicago, and they knew quite a few people still in Chicago. She hopes that they made it out safely.

Everyone urges Vintago to change the channel to a local news station to see what is going on in Phoenix. He changes the channel to one of the local stations, and the scene is similar to what they were just watching. The highways are jam packed with abandoned cars as people chose to walk as it was probably quicker, and their cars started running out of gas. In one shot, a military convoy is smashing through the vehicles heading away from the city. This struck the group as odd, why would the military be leaving the city, they were supposed to be staying to gain control of the city?

Another minute goes by showing various scenes of carnage and chaos, and then their questions are answered.

Another Emergency Alert takes over the screen and says;

Emergency Alert: Please be advised at 1200 hours Eastern Standard Time tomorrow the United States Government will detonate tactical nuclear warheads above the following cities in an effort to stop the C.Virus from spreading any further. Please stand by for a list of targeted cities and safe zones located in your region. Please proceed to the nearest safe zone before 1200 hours.

With that, the message repeated three more times and then cut to a screen showing a list of cities.

Target Cities in Arizona include; Phoenix, Tucson, Mesa, Scottsdale, Chandler, Gilbert, Goodyear, Glendale... the list goes on and on, covering all significant cities in the metropolitan area.

Safe Zones in Arizona include; Showlow, Flagstaff, Safford, Kingman, and Blythe.

Five cities, these are the only places in the entire state that will be protected by the military, and they are going to cram upwards of six million people into them?

“There’s absolutely no fucking way!” Vintago yells. “How are they going to fit everyone in those cities? Hell, half of them are not even cities. They are towns!”

“They don’t plan to fit everyone Vin, the whole point is to reduce the population and weed out as much of the infection as they can” Ben replies.

“They are committing mass murder!” Cindy says out loud.

Ben simply nods his head and says nothing. They are practicing Civil War medicine. Hack off the limbs and pray to God that it works. It sounds like a great idea in practice, but if you chop off enough limbs, it leaves a person unable to fight back. It probably sounds like a good idea from a bunker somewhere, but in the real world, it will not work. Even if they manage to knock the population centers out of commission, there will still be plenty of infected people in rural towns and smaller cities to finish taking everyone out.

Sadly, Ben knows now what this virus has in store. This virus will not come and go, they are on the brink of extinction, and everyone is going to have to fight for their lives.

Chapter Eight

Countdown

February, 2013

With the end of the transmission, everyone decides it is time to wind down for the night. They are all in a state of emotional coma. Nobody talks much. Nobody even thinks much. Just trying to comprehend the idea of ending the lives of millions of people is just too much to bear. The other problem is that they are only seeing this outbreak through a microscope, looking only at the state of Arizona.

What if other countries are the world are doing the same thing? What will happen when all these nuclear warheads go off? Even if, they are low yielding nukes, there has to be a certain amount of fallout.

That’s when Vintago comes close to having a heart attack. What if the nukes going off in the valley affects them up here at their hatchery! Are they far enough off the grid to be safe from the radiation?

Vin runs into the room where Jessica sleeps. She spins around trying to figure out who has barged into her room. As she spins around, Vin’s eyes open wide and his mouth hangs open. She’s standing in her room bare ass naked.

Vin just stares at her for more than a second, absorbing her figure. Her bare breasts, slender waist, and long slender legs are engrained in his mind. Then, he catches himself and shuts the door with lighting speed.

“Sorry!” he yells through the door.

A few moments go by and she opens the door with a towel wrapped around her torso, but exposing her cleavage.

“What’s up?” she asks coolly like nothing even happened.

“I uh... what was I coming here for.” he stammers.

She just looks at him with a wicked little grin.

A few seconds go by and his brain reboots itself, and his logic comes back online.

“Oh right, I need to see if you can get one of the computers in the office building on the internet for me. I need to do some research.” he tells her.

“Umm, sure I guess.” she tells him, “Just let me put some clothes on, and I will meet you over there.”

Vintago leaves the crew quarters in a hurry and goes over to the office building and flicks the lights on. He boots up one of the computers and leaves it at the screen waiting for a password.

Jessica walks in a few minutes later, acting perfectly normal and punches in her password. Within a minute, Vin is on the web and searching Wikipedia for everything he can find about low yield tactical nukes.

While he is searching he says to Jessica, “Sorry for walking in on you like that, I should have knocked.”

“Oh don’t worry about it Vintago, it’s not like you haven’t seen a woman naked before.” she replies.

“Well yes, I have, but it’s a surprise seeing a girl like you naked after only knowing you a couple days!” he tells her.

“What do you mean a girl like me? she asks.

“Well you’re a pretty attractive girl, and well you know, I guess it’s a shocker.” he says sheepishly.

“Your wife is a beautiful woman also you know, and thank you for that compliment, by the way” she says with a grin.

“Yes she is, I’m lucky to have her” Vin replies, happy to change the subject.

Jessica, uninterested in what Vin is looking at decides to go back to her bedroom. She leaves Vin by himself and shuts the door.

As she is walking out the door, she cannot help but smile and think that this Vintago is more than he appears to be.

Vintago clicks around through numerous articles concerning the use of tactical nuclear devices and finds in the end since they are more than a hundred miles from the blast zones and well above six thousand feet in elevation that they should be fine. Additionally, since they are in the canyon, they should see no effect. The only harm that could come to them would be a forceful wind carrying the fallout north.

Satisfied that they will be fine, Vin retires to his tent with his wife and son.

In the morning, the group huddles around the kitchen table in silence while they eat breakfast. Cindy and Greg are having the hardest time out of everyone. They realize that their son was heading towards Tucson the last time they spoke to him, and Tucson was marked to be destroyed, as well as the entire valley. It seems no matter what direction he goes he is doomed. With the countdown begun and only three hours remaining, it almost confirms it. This is a bitter pill for any parent to swallow.

With only a few hours remaining, Vintago thinks it would be smart for them to make one more supply run to Payson. Knowing that Payson lies on the road for some of the northern escape cities, it will most likely become inundated with fleeing civilians, who will surely destroy the city in their wake.

Vintago tells everyone this, and they agree with him. The men choose to get everything together to make one more trip into town before all hell breaks loose. Being that it is early in the morning, they should have a few hours head start on anyone coming up from the valley.

The men load up their firearms, Vin taking his new HK and both Taurus handguns, Greg taking his Springfield XD and an AR-15, and Ben taking his Kel-tec and another AR-15. They grab some of the extra gas cans from the building where the vehicles are kept to get just a bit of extra fuel. The rest of the space in the Outlander they leave empty, and head out.

They turn on the radio while they are driving and a voice tells them that the nukes will be falling in two hours and thirty eight minutes.

“For anyone unable to make it out of the cities, God rest their souls.” the unknown radio DJ says.

The DJ continues talking about the events unfolding and covers something the group has yet to pay attention to; the rest of the world. He informs them that the United Kingdom suspended all inbound flights when the United States began to fall, and they remain uninfected for the mean time. The rest of Europe didn’t fare as well as the UK. Some countries in the EU banned inbound flights much like the UK, but that did not stop the virus from spreading across the land. Their train and road networks doomed them, instead of helped them. China entirely closed off their borders after they found out about the virus because risking their entire population would be far too much for everyone else in the world. Russia did the same thing, but they were caught off guard, and the virus made it into their borders, despite their best efforts. They are blaming the United States, and are talking about starting a war, but it may not turn into much as they are currently having to use their weapons in the same way that we are. The middle east is busy praising Allah that the infidels have been killed, and so far they remain untouched. All the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq were pulled at the onset of the outbreak to try and save the United States.

The DJ doesn’t say anything about Africa, but since the middle east remains largely unaffected thus far, Africa is probably doing hanging in there. That is, unless of course people in the EU are fleeing south to get away from the infected, then it might be a whole different story.

Lastly, he talks about Australia. They apparently shut off all incoming flights, boats, and any other form of transportation. They were effectively quarantining themselves from the rest of the world. It was probably smart on their part, Vintago figures.

Upon hearing this sobering news, the three men decide that’s enough of that and shut the radio off. They travel in silence for the rest of the journey into Payson.

As the guys roll into Payson, what they see simply blows their minds. The city that was fairly quiet only days ago is now bustling with activity. There are military vehicles driving down the highway heading north, probably coming from the valley. There are thousands of civilian vehicles and the streets are jammed as parking lots overflow. Everyone seems to be stopping for supplies, much like Vin and his two fathers plan on doing.

Vin pulls up to the local Walmart and spends about fifteen minutes looking for a space before just parking in a dirt lot way on the outskirts of the parking lot. The guys leave their rifles in the car, but again all carry their handguns.

They enter the store and find a scene straight out of a movie. People are shoving and running around like madmen. A younger group of people are literally fighting over a case of Ramen noodles. Upon seeing this chaotic scene, the guys do a double take.

“Well, I don’t know about you guys, but I am not going to kill someone over Ramen. Let’s get the hell out of here and try another store.” Vin says.

Ben and Greg nod their heads, and they do an about face and almost run out of the store. They load back up in the Outlander and drive across town to a smaller local grocery store.

The scene here is quite a bit chaotic as well, but because it is smaller and more expensive, not as many people are trying to ambush the store.

The guys enter the store and grab one of the last few carts. They cruise around the store and pick up whatever they can find. Foodstuffs are extremely few and far between in the mess of a store. Mostly it is just canned goods and a random assortment of things left. The guys are not too picky and just swipe everything they can into the cart. Soon the cart is full and Vin grabs another one. People would not normally think to buy creature comforts like soap, toothpaste, etcetera, but Vin is not a normal person. He goes down the aisles and grabs all kinds of toiletries, baby care items, and even feminine products.

“Things like this will be worth their weight in gold soon.” he thinks to himself.

After raiding the pharmacy aisles and grabbing pain relievers, bandages, cold and cough medicine and all sorts of other supplies, the guys run into the booze area. Now, in a situation like this, one would think it unimportant to have alcohol on your list. That of course would be wrong. The guys grab about twenty bottles of whisky, vodka, rum, and all sorts of liquors.

Lastly, they pick up every perishable item they can get. They grab what's left of the milk, eggs, bread, and meats. The hatchery has a giant deep freeze in the crew quarters, and they intend to fill it up.

At the end of the stop, they have filled four carts full of supplies. Most of the items they found were complete junk, and most likely the women will have a field day, but that was just how men shop. Greg and Vin stand around looking at Ben at the checkout, and he gets the hint and pulls out his Visa. There’s no way Vin or Greg have enough money to pay the massive bill.

It takes the guys about thirty minutes to cleverly pack everything into the Outlander, and in the end poor Greg disappears with stuff on his lap and at his feet.

Vintago starts up the engine and takes off to the gas station on the way out of town. They make it to the station and then they all slap themselves on the forehead. They buried the gas cans under all the groceries!

After a bit of digging and much complaining they get the cans out of the vehicle. Vin goes into the station to grab some water bottles, as they are all thirsty now, and to pay for the gas.

Vin heads to the back of the store where the water is located and takes his time being selective about what kind of water to get. During his moment of indecision, the door chime rings and two men burst through the door.

“Get the fuck down!” one of them screams.

Vin spins around and sees two men with guns pointed at the clerk behind the counter. Vin immediately ducks behind an aisle and fiddles around trying to get his Taurus out of his holster in a hunched over position.

When he peeks back through the aisle, he can see the clerk being shoved out into the open by one of the gunmen. The next man goes behind the counter and starts trying to open the cash register, but he cannot figure it out.

“Come open this fucking thing!” the guy yells at the clerk.

The poor clerk does as he is told and skirts around the gunman to open the drawer, but instead of opening the door he reaches down below the cabinet. He produces a revolver and fires two shots at the gunmen.

Seeing the whole thing unfold the gunman fires back and hits the clerk in the head shattering his skull and sending bone and brain fragments all over the window behind him. The gunman does not get off scot free though as he clutches at his stomach.

Vin shifts his body slightly at the sight of the carnage and accidentally knocks over some of the merchandise.

“Shit!” he thinks to himself.

“What was that?” the unwounded man says to the other.

“I don’t know, go check it out.” the wounded man says.

The unwounded gunman starts walking across the store and comes down the aisle Vin is hiding behind. Vin slides behind the end cap and hunkers down with his .45 in hand.

Just as the gunman comes around the corner, but before he sees anything, Vin stands up and places the gun right in front of his face and pulls the trigger.

The result is disastrous. Half of the back of the man’s head sheers entirely off as the hollow point round expands and exits his skull. Blood, brains, and bone fly across the room in a huge arc of gore.

Stunned by the sudden explosion of his friends head the second gunman just stares blankly at Vin, now standing in the open.

Vin wastes no time and immediately fires three rounds at the man, one nailing him in the arm and another skimming the top of his head, the third is too far off as the man dives behind the counter.

He holds his gun above the counter and sends rounds flying back at Vin and causes Vin to drop behind the aisle again.

“Where the hell are Greg and Ben?” Vin mutters to himself as he hides behind the end cap.

Vin army crawls across the floor to get one aisle closer to the counter. The gunman sends another few rounds down range before peeking his head above the counter.

Seeing movement, Vin fires again at the man and narrowly misses his head once more.

This makes the man duck behind the counter again, and Vin crawls like a madman two more rows towards the counter.

The gunman stands up, and this time he is greeted with a well-placed round right under his nose. Bone, teeth, and gore fly out of the back of his neck as his spinal cord is shattered, and his life turns off like a switch.

Vintago stands in the aisle, adrenaline coursing through his veins, as Ben and Greg finally run in to help. They take in the scene with a look of horror on their face and then stare at Vin, who wears the coldest look imaginable. Within three, days, Vin has killed four men, and it’s starting to show as he stands in the aisle with a smile on his face.

Vintago feels absolutely no remorse. An almost nauseous feeling runs through his mind, excitement. Vin knows that he should not be excited to take a person’s life, but these men deserved it, right? They are the ones who decided to rob a convenience store. They just chose the wrong store to rob.

Ben finally relaxes a bit and walks over to give his son a reassuring pat on the back, and says “It’s OK son. You were just protecting yourself...again.”

They get some waters, and Vintago leaves five bucks on the counter. He’s not quite sure why, but it feels right, if even a little comical.

As the group walks out of the building, guns in hand, someone shouts.

“Stop! Drop your weapons and get on the ground!” a local sheriff yells.

The sheriff has his gun out and pointed directly at Vintago, Ben and Greg, who are coming out of the building. Greg, who walked out of the building, is in front, Vin is in the middle, and Ben is in the back.

In a split second, Vin steps out from behind Greg and fires four shots at the police officer. The officer, not quite ready for the confrontation, is struck three times in the chest and once in the neck just above his shirt.

“Holy shit Vintago, what did you just do?” yells his father as he runs over to try and save the deputy.

Vintago casually strolls over to the young deputy drowning in his own blood in front of him. He pushes his father away. He lines up the sights on his handgun, centers them on the officer’s head, and pulls the trigger just once, ending the poor man’s suffering.

This final act of violence completely sets off his father and Greg. They both have a mental breakdown in the parking lot. They look at Vin like he is some a monster. Which at this point is not too far off.

Finally, Vin breaks the silence.

“He was going to stop us, question us, and probably arrest us until we could convince them that we were acting in self-defense.” Vintago begins, “We simply do not have time for this fucking bullshit right now. In less than an hour, there will be nuclear warheads screaming towards the valley and when that happens I am not going to be anywhere near here.”

Vintago was not wrong at all, the people streaming through the town were becoming more aggressive and had started looting shops. There were so many people on the road heading north that the highway was jam packed with cars.

Vin holsters his weapon and starts walking to the car.

He spins around and says, “You guys coming?”

After a moment of indecision, both Ben and Greg walk over to the Outlander and mount up.

Vintago puts the car in gear and drives slowly out of the parking lot. He gets back on the highway and starts heading east back to the hatchery. They ride in complete silence the whole way. Both Greg and Ben too scared to say anything. How could Vintago be so cold and heartless? They both understood he was acting out of self-preservation, but to kill a man in cold blood, that was just madness. Neither man says a word though, and Vintago just drives to the hatchery.

Chapter Nine

Annihilation

February, 2013

When they arrive the women come out to see what they got, and Greg blows past them and goes inside. Ben takes a walk out into the woods to be by himself.

Wondering what is going on, Victoria asks “What’s gotten into them?”

Not quite sure what to tell his wife Vin says, “We ran into some bad guys again, and I took care of it.”

“What do you mean you ‘took care of it?’” she asks him.

“I shot them both, and we packed up the vehicle and came back here.” Vin replies leaving out the part about also shooting the cop.

Victoria gives him a concerned look, knowing inside that he is not making a significant enough deal about this, also that he seems to be hiding something. Not wanting to push him anymore after such an ordeal, and glad that he is back safe, she decides to leave it.

“You guys need to get the car unpacked and come inside. The news is showing this whole damn thing on the TV, and they have a countdown running.” Victoria tells Vin.

Since both Greg and Ben abandoned him, Vin starts unloading the car by himself. He grabs one of the hulking fish food carts from the warehouse building and starts packing it full of groceries and supplies. One cart at a time he brings everything to the front doorstep of the crew quarters where the women are putting it all in its precise position. They all think that the guys went a little overboard with some of the stuff, and they do not approve of all the alcohol.

After a few trips with the cart, Vin has all of the supplies unloaded. He puts the gas cans in the warehouse property and then he walks back to the crew quarters. Greg and Ben have both come in to sit down while Vin was unloading the car.

As Vintago walks into the living room of the crew quarters, all eyes are glued to the TV. On the screen, the cameras are pointing towards a far away shot of the greater Phoenix area. The news reporters must have parked their van on top of one of the many mountains surrounding the valley. The screen also has a countdown timer in the top right corner of the screen. It reads: 23:43 and continues counting down.

The news reporters are all standing around looking at the valley, pointing and saying things that almost sounds like a joke. Unfortunately, it is not a joke, and they are talking about the shockwave, blast radius, and square miles of impact. These are things that should not be referenced when dealing with discussing complete US cities.

Twenty minutes goes by like the blink of an eye, and now everyone is unquestionably enthralled in the scenes coming from the TV. There are probably millions of other Americans watching these same broadcasts in their cities. The absolute atrociousness of the whole thing is that all these people were consciously preparing to watch the mass extermination of millions of other Americans. Not everyone was able to make it out of the cities in time. There were countless number of people unable to make the journey, which were simply left behind. Along with these people, millions of infected people are also roaming the streets.

The minutes countdown to seconds, and in the end, a final countdown begins.

The timer reads; 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, everyone sucks in their breath, 2, 1. The timer blinks red and fades out. Everyone waits with bated breath.

Another thirty seconds slides by, everyone finally lets out the wind in their lungs and looks around the room. Another minute goes by, with nothing happening. Five minutes slide by like a wicked snake.

The group starts to get up. Maybe they cancelled the launch? The reporters are equally stumped.

Suddenly, the camera pans around and zooms at something flying through the air. The camera spins in another direction, and a second object appears. Lastly, a third object appears behind the first. They are streaming towards the valley with incredible speed.

They curve upward and then stay in a downward slope, blurring the edge of reality.

Within seconds, three separate detonations occur across the valley. The light is blindingly bright, which causes all of the reporters protect their eyes and turn away. The camera is left facing the detonation, and within just seconds, the blast radiates outwards destroying everything in its path. A few more seconds go by as the blast radiates upward, and the TV goes blank. The TV studio broadcasting the event is wiped off the face of the planet, killing all transmissions.

Greg quickly grabs the remote and flicks through the channels trying to find one still recording the destruction. He ends up finding a small regional news station that is still broadcasting. The news anchor is confirming that the major cities in the Phoenix area have been impacted, and likely decimated. He is saying they are getting reports that all principal cities and metropolitan areas in the continental United States have been wiped out.

The anchor is interrupted by someone, and he says “Breaking news folks, the President is going to go live and address the union.”

A few seconds of static and a Presidential Seal comes up on the screen. The President walks into view of the camera and stands behind a podium. He is clearly shaken up by the entire event and a look of concern shows on his face.

“Citizens of America.” he begins, “Today we have tested the strength of our great nation in a way unfathomable to our minds prior to this virus outbreak.”

“Our country is on the verge of collapse, our greatest cities have been annihilated, and our government is failing. I make this broadcast from what was once a secure location. Outside this room, trusted Secret Service men and women are desperately trying to hold off a horde of infected.” he continues.

With this, everyone in the room is shocked. If they cannot even keep the President safe, how does anyone have a chance!

“I am giving this state of the union address, to express my deepest sympathies to the families of those who have lost loved ones in the last week and especially in the last hour. I need every American to know that even as I am gone, and the rest of the government of the United States of America will soon be gone. You must stick together, stay strong, and survive! The heart of America is in its people, and as long as Americans fight this epidemic America will survive.”

The President continues talking for another two minutes or so and explains that the remnants of the military will be under control by the Secretary of Transportation. He explains that the rest of his cabinet members had been killed or were missing in action. He tells them the Vice President and the next few members on the list of succession were all flown out of D.C. to a facility much like the one the President is currently being entombed in on TV. They were eventually overrun as the virus made its way in with some of the cabinet members. Since the Secretary of Transportation was highest ranking member of the line of succession that was able to be confirmed, he would assume control of the military as acting President.

The sad thing was that the President speaks about all of this like it has already happened, and he was already dead. He is just getting his affairs in order it seems.

After finishing his stint on the line of succession, he stops speaking for a moment as someone yells in front of him, “Mister President, they are coming!”

The President speaks extremely fast now, “Remember you are citizens of the United States of America, be strong, be smart, and help your fellow citizens! Stay in your homes and shut up the windows if you can’t get out. If you can get out, try to make it to a military base outside the containment zones.”

With this, the door bursts open and three Secret Service agents run up and surround the President. They have their guns out and are shooting wildly at infected outside the view of the camera. After a fierce battle lasting what seems like forever, but realistically unfolds in a matter of seconds, all of the agents are out of ammunition and run straight towards the infected. They give out a final battle cry and start punching, kicking, and slicing the infected. Eventually, their battle cries turn into cries of suffering and death.

The President picks up one of the Secret Service weapons, slides a single 9mm bullet into the chamber, racks the slide, and steps out of view of the camera. One last shot rings out in the eerily quiet place, and the President of the United States leaves a spray of blood and gore on the Presidential Seal.

The camera keeps recording the scene as blood and brains slowly slides down the Presidential Seal before someone gets smart enough to stop the footage.

The anchor man comes back on the screen and isn’t quite sure what to say. He just stares blankly at the camera. Someone behind the camera must have signaled him because he suddenly slips out of his trance and begins talking again.

“Folks, I’m not entirely sure what to say about we just witnessed, so I am just going to say this,” he begins, “The President is undoubtedly correct...We need to band together if we are going to survive this plague. We need to help each other, get over our differences, and come together for one last stand. This is no longer the survival of a country, this is the survival of the human species.”

That is all he says, and he gets out of his chair and walks away with the cameras still rolling. About a minute into this what looks like a director or producer steps into view of the camera and sits down in his chair.

“We are going to shut down the cameras now to be with our families. The infection hasn’t reached our city yet, but we are going to get prepared. The best advice I have for you now is to run, hide, and pray. In that order.”

This man gets up and walks away as well and shortly after that the transmission ends.

Vintago and his family sit in front of the TV, totally blown away by what they have witnessed. There are no words that can explain it.

In less than a week, Vintago and his family had been uprooted from their homes, lost half of their family members, and forced to watch the destruction of one of the greatest nations in the world.

Part Two: Anarchy Reigns

Chapter Ten

Survival

March, 2013

The last four weeks melted by like the last of the snow in the canyon hatchery.

Immediately after the nuclear decimation of entire cities, and the broadcasted suicide of the President, the shit hit the fan. People had no direction, no news outlets telling them how to live their lives, and most importantly, no police to enforce the laws. Anarchy ensued in full. People were killing each other for food, water, and supplies. The power grid started failing in many places with nobody to maintain it, fires broke out and with nobody to put them out, entire cities burned to the ground. To make matters worse, gangs of marauders and looters had banded togethe1r and started their own little armies.

Vintago and his family were left mostly alone due to the remoteness of their hideaway. A few stragglers had found the road leading up to the hatchery, but Vintago had taken to patrolling since the fall of society. He ran into them halfway up the road and chased them off with his rifle. He did not kill them. He just pointed it at them, and they scurried off.

Vintago one day started calling the plague victims “Charlie” as a joke representing C.Virus infected people. The name stuck and ever since they were always on the lookout for Charlie, like it was Vietnam or something.

The group had run into more than a few straggler Charlie on a couple occasions down by the highway. They had more than likely been survivors on the run when they succumbed to the virus one way or another and had wandered up towards their little haven. Vintago made a sick game out of trying to shoot them several times before killing them. He would shoot them in the legs to cripple them, and then he would try and take out their arms as they crawled towards him mouths hanging open and teeth showing.

He would allow them to get close, and then try to kill them with his knife, trying to sharpen his knife skills. Vintago had exactly zero experience in hand to hand combat, and he figured now was time to learn.

One time, after jamming his knife into the neck of a particularly feisty Charlie, he bent over to pick it up, and the thing actually grabbed onto his leg and bit his foot. Vin about shit his pants and leaped back pulling his Taurus .45. He fired two rounds into the top of its head, blowing its brains all over the concrete.

Ever since then, Vintago stopped playing his game of close combat with the Charlie.

For Vin and his band, things have been pretty good, up until now. After a month, they had begun running pretty low on supplies. For the first couple weeks, since they had so much food, they ate three square meals a day and everyone was satisfied. By week three, they realized that they were going to have to start rationing their food if they wanted it to last longer. By week four, they were seeing the impact of all the waste in the first two weeks. Their pantry was half empty, and the freezer was almost empty.

They also had been running the generators whenever the power kicked off because they wanted to keep their freezer running and all of their electronics. Now, they were almost out of fuel for the generator.

Vintago decided it was time to take a venture into Payson and see what was left to be salvaged. Ben and Greg did not like the idea of that much, remembering the last time they went into Payson. They still had not gotten totally over the whole event, and still viewed Vin in a strange light.

“We need to go into town and at the bare minimum fill up the tanks.” Vin tells the group.

“We have two days of fuel left if we are lucky and if the generator runs out then we lose the freezer and all the food in it.” he explains.

“I’ll go with you son” his father says.

“That’s good. Greg, maybe you should stay here, just in case anybody wanders onto our property.” Vin says.

Vin said, “our” property and he meant it. Jessica had long ago let the group move into the crew quarters and became part of their family. They pulled more than their own weight, and she needed them here for safety and supplies.

“That’s a good idea” Cindy adds.

Vin just nods his head. Thinking to himself, “Its, not like he’s good for anything intense anyway.”

With that settled Vin starts planning for their next outing to Payson. The last one did not go so well, and he does not believe it will be a walk in the park this time. With the whole world going to shit like it has, Vin knows they will have to protect themselves going into Payson.

Vin explains his plan to his dad standing by the big fish pond outside. He wants take a trip to town in the large flatbed truck stored in the warehouse. The problem is that Vin does not know how to drive a truck with a manual transmission. Vin asks Ben if he minds driving, and Ben says that it is OK, so that decides that. Additionally, this way Vin can ride shotgun and protect their asses.

Vintago also suggests that they load the gigantic fuel tank for the generator in the truck. Before they shut down the generator, they tell the women not to use the fridge or freezer to let them hold in as much cold air as possible. The quicker they get this trip over with the better.

They go about shutting down the generator, disconnecting all the fuel leads, and getting it ready to load up. They decide to pick up the fuel tank with the Bobcat bucket and place it on the back of the truck. After getting the tank wrapped in straps for picking it up, Greg operates the bucket on the Bobcat since he has the only significant experience with operating heavy machinery. At first he plays around with the knobs and levers and thinks he has a decent handle on things. Greg starts pulling on the straps and jerks too far lifting the tank off the ground and swinging it towards Vin. Vintago dives out of the way and the tank glides over his head. Vin rolls over and gets up quickly.

“Watch out!” Ben yells.

Vintago spins around, and here comes the tank hurtling towards him! Vin ducks down and rolls away once again just in the nick of time.

“What the fuck Greg! I thought you said you could do this!” Vin screams, over the noise of the Bobcat’s engine.

“I said I could probably figure it out!” Greg yells back.

Vin just shakes his head and stands way the hell back so that Greg does not attempt to crush him with the tank again.

Eventually, Greg does figure it out and successfully gets the tank hovering right over the truck bed. Vin gets up on the truck bed hesitantly and tries to steer the tank down. After a few tense minutes, they are able to guide the tank to the truck bed and tie it down with some straps.

Next, Vin loads up some of the extra gas canisters they have so that they can collect as much fuel as possible.

Lastly, the guys say goodbye to everyone else at the hatchery and they load up their weapons and some ammunition in a duffel bag and throw it in the cab of the truck. Vintago throws both his HK and his AK-74 in the cab, and Ben takes an AR-15 and his hunting rifle. Not quite sure what they are going to get into, they think the more firepower the better. As always both men have their sidearms. Vin holsters his .45 on the inside of his waistband, and his 9mm in a holster on his thigh.

With a final wave out the side windows, father and son back up the truck, and start heading down the road towards the highway. As the guys enter the highway, they see the fallout of the past month. There is litter on the sides of the highway that has been left by travelers on their way north. All sorts of personal belongings, luggage, trash, and an assortment of junk lays in between broken down beater cars. The mountains are particularly unforgiving for vehicles not kept up with regular maintenance. The final push to the hatchery from Payson ascends over a thousand feet in under twenty miles. Being at the high altitude killed some of these vehicles. One car they passed looked like it had overheated, caught on fire and been abandoned to burn. Some of the vehicles they passed, on the other hand, looked brand new. They must have run out of gas, Vintago figures.

As they enter Payson a short time later, the setting changes. Buildings have been burned to the ground, in some places, their skeletal structures are still standing, and fallen over in others. Parking lots are full of burned out cars, and everywhere around, there are bullet casings and dead bodies. The dead bodies lying everywhere is what freaks out both men. No stranger to death over the past month, both men are somewhat taken aback at the number of bodies lying in the streets, parking lots, and even inside cars.

Vintago grabs his AK-74 rifle from the back seat and chambers a round. He sets it next to him with the barrel pointing towards the floorboards. Ben similarly takes out his gun and places it in the cup holder of the truck.

Vin’s head is spinning back and forth, eyes scanning, looking for signs of trouble. The whole scene is unsettling, and the guys just want to get what they need and get the hell out of here.

Since the power is out, they need to find a gas station which also has a backup generator. That will be the only way they are going to get enough gas out of the pumps to fill up their tank. Not many of the larger gas stations have the backup generators, due to them not being needed in today’s generation with the largely reliable power grid of Payson. The guys are going to have to find a smaller mom and pop owned gas station that has been around awhile.

It takes Ben and Vin about an hour to find such a gas station. On the outskirts of town, they find an old station that looks like it has been around for at least forty years. Vin thinks that this might be the place, and has Ben pull into the parking lot.

“Stay with the truck for a minute, I need to take a look around.” Vin says to his father.

“Will do.” Ben replies and places his 9mm Kel-tec on his lap.

Vintago hops out of the truck, wraps his sling over his head and brings up his HK rifle. He first scouts around the outside of the building looking for potential infected, looters, or whatever may be lurking around.

Seeing nothing creepy crawly or otherwise on the side of the building, Vin proceeds. As he turns around the corner of the building, he sees exactly what they were praying for. The building has a large shed with a sign that reads; keep out high voltage electricity. Vin approaches the shed and taps on the door with the butt of his rifle, taking a listen for any signs of noise. Nothing comes back to his ears, so he quickly swings open the door to the shed and takes a peek inside. It looks to be clear, and the generator stands in front of him, in all its glory.

Vin taps the tank with his rifle, and it sounds hollow. He keeps tapping it and follows it to the bottom where it sounds a little different, confirming there is some fuel still in the generator. It probably has not been used in forever, Vin figures.

Not quite sure how long the fuel will last, Vin decides to get everything else done before starting the generator.

Vin goes around the front and tells his dad to get the truck parked near a pump and get it all ready to pump gas. After a few minutes this is done, the pump is ready, now they just need juice.

Vin heads around back and hits the button to start the generator. Nothing happens.

“Shit!” Vin exclaims.

He takes a quick look at the knobs and levers and finds a lever labeled fuel shutoff, in the off position. Rolling his eyes, he flips the lever back and hits the start button again. The engine cranks over a few times and springs to life.

With the power turned on suddenly all the lights in the building come on, the freezers, and the pumps in front. Vintago can hear music playing from some device inside. Vin walks around the front and gives his father the thumbs up to begin pumping gas. Ben tries the handle, and nothing comes out. They both freak out a bit, trying to figure out why it is not working. Then they realize they did not pay for it!

Thinking quickly, with all the noise behind him, Vintago knows they need to get this over with and get out of here.

There must be a switch on the inside that controls the pump for cash customers!

Vin sprints to the front doors of the small station and peeks inside. With all of the lights on he can see the entire store. It looks clear, but Vin drops his rifle in his sling and pulls out his 9mm from his tactical holster all the same.

Vin steps gingerly inside the store avoiding some broken glass and takes a look inside. Last time Vintago was in a store like this it ended with four dead bodies. Hoping not to repeat the same mistakes, he takes a look around the whole store. Seeing nothing, he runs over to the counter and looks behind it. Sure enough there are switches for all the pumps. Vintago flips the switch for pump three, where Ben is parked. He also flips switch four. He figures he can fill the smaller cans while his dad fills the large tank.

Vintago spins around to go outside, and standing behind him is the last thing he expected to see.

An extremely tall man hovering over him.

The man takes a look at Vintago, and his jaws open wide exposing yellowed nasty teeth. He lunges at Vintago and shoves him against the cigarette shelves and pins him. Vintago drops his gun as he reaches up to defend himself, and his gun clatters across the floor.

Vin has the man’s shoulders in his grip and pushes off with all of his strength, but the tall man is clearly stronger than Vin and his head inches closer to Vintago. Thinking fast, Vin grabs a bottle of vodka off the shelves behind him and hits the man over the head as hard as he can. The sudden impact knocks the man off center slightly, just enough for Vin to escape his grasp and Vin ducks down and slides in between the man's legs. Vin gets up and runs to the other side of the store, pulling his .45 from under his shirt as he goes. With incredible speed, the tall man leaps towards him from the counter and Vin spins and brings up his Taurus. Vin fires, once, twice, three times and the tall man collides into him.

The impact of the man hitting him and pinning him to the ground knocks the wind out of Vintago. His weapon drops out of his hand again and falls just outside his grip. Vin has one hand keeping the man from biting him, and the other hand inches towards the grip of his .45. In the last moments, just before the man takes a bite out of his neck, Vin feels his gun. He’s never felt something so beautiful in his life.

He grabs the gun with his left hand, and places it against the temple of the infected man and pulls the trigger one last time. A hollow point crashes into the man’s skull and comes out of the other side with dramatic effect. The left side of the man’s head disappears in a swatch of blood, brain, and bone fragments. Vintago is covered from the waist up in the man’s filth during the process, and the man slumps down on top of Vin.

Vin quickly scrambles out from underneath the vile putrid body and scurries away from it. He runs over to the counter, grabs his 9mm, holsters it, and gets the hell out of the store.

Ben, who heard the gunshots runs up with his Kel-tec and sees Vin covered in blood and gore, and stands looking at him with that same look Vin has seen before.

“Thanks for the backup again Dad! Holy shit!” Vin screams.

“I grabbed my gun and came as fast as I could!” he pleads.

“Not fast enough! That thing nearly took out a chunk of my fucking neck!” Vintago yells at his father. “Let’s just get these fucking gas tanks full and get out of here before we get any more company.”

With that, Vin grabs a rag from the back of the truck and wipes off some of the blood on his clothing. His favorite damn shirt is ruined. His mistake for wearing it, he guesses.

Ben begins pumping gas into the huge tank in the back of the truck, and Vin grabs some of the smaller cans and fills those.

After about fifteen minutes of pumping all the small cans are full and the large generator tank is just about full.

That’s when they hear it.

A loud growling noise is growing in strength. Vin jogs over to the edge of the gas station and peeks behind the fence. Approaching is a group of about twenty infected, all bundled together in a big swarm. This is the most infected that Vin has seen by far. They must group together like this in urban environments.

They must have been drawn out by the sound of the gunshots and the generator, Vin guesses.

“Dad, we need to get out of here. We’ve got company.” Vin explains.

“The tanks almost full, how long do we have?” Ben replies.

“I’m not waiting any longer, I am going to go shut the generator down, and we are bugging out.” Vin says.

With a sigh of acceptance, Ben returns the pump to its proper place and gets ready to leave. Vin runs behind the station and shuts down the generator. He wants to be able to use this facility again in the future.

The two men pack up their belongings and start the truck. They drive as quickly as possible away from the group of infected and back towards town. With a sigh of relief as they put distance between them and the infected, they both look at each other.

“We need to see if we can get some supplies to, we are running pretty low” Ben suggests.

“I understand that, but don’t you think we should get out of here with that pack of Charlie coming?” Vintago asks his father.

“Yes I do, but we will be coming back in a few days if we don’t do it now. I would rather just get it over with.” Ben reasons.

Vintago knows he is right and nods his head.

They decide to stop at one of the smaller local markets instead of a large grocery store. Figuring all the chain grocery stores would be cleaned out by now and hoping the smaller market has not been picked as clean.

They jump out of the truck, and Vintago takes a look around observing his surroundings. After the last stop, he is not taking any chances. He didn’t even know where the hell that group of Charlie came from, they appeared out of thin air, or so it would seem.

“Sneaky little bastards.” Vin thinks.

Father and son enter the store, and do a full recon of it before touching anything. They soon discover that the store has quite a bit of supplies still, the things that people do not think to loot, and they do not see any Charlie lurking around.

Satisfied that the store is clear, they take two shopping carts and sweep everything off the shelves into the baskets. In a matter of minutes, both carts are filled, and they start with two more. They do this for about twenty five minutes and fill up eight shopping carts. Some of the stuff may have no use to anyone, but who knows.

The guys wheel their carts outside and start literally throwing the stuff into the back of the truck. No point being space conscious with this vehicle, the truck bed is massive.

The guys go back in the store and resume their looting and pillaging. About fifteen minutes into this trip they hear gunshots in the distance and people yelling. Smart enough to take a hint, the guys wheel their carts outside and immediately start throwing everything into the truck.

Just as, they are about to put the final shopping cart full of stuff into the truck bed, a group of people run around the corner of the shopping complex. They are all carrying a variety of weapons. Some have shotguns others rifles while others have handguns. The rag tag group of people is at a full out run towards Ben and Vin.

Vintago automatically shoulders his rifle and takes aim at the group, not sure of their intent. As he brings his sights in line with the group he sees that two of the collection are children, not more than eight years old.

The group sees Ben and Vin and starts hauling ass towards them waving their hands.

“Stop where you are!” Vin yells.

The group keeps advancing towards them, and Vin fires a warning shot which skips off the pavement five feet from the leader of the group.

This stops them in their tracks and the head of the party starts bringing up his rifle.

“If you so much as move that rifle one more inch I will kill you in front of those kids!” Vin yells.

The man complies with Vintago as he clearly has them dead to rights.

“There’s a group of about thirty infected chasing after us! Our car broke down, and we just need a ride out of town!” the man replies.

Vintago looks at his father and Ben nods his head.

“Shit.” Vin mumbles under his breath.

Vintago tells the group to come forward and drop their weapons. They comply, simply looking to get the hell out of here. He tells his father to pick up their weapons and throw them in the cab.

Just as, Ben places the weapons in the cab, the pack of Charlie round the corner. Spotting the two groups of people enrages them, and as a single collective mind, they charge forward.

“Get in the fucking truck!” Vin screams.

The group of people immediately start loading up the truck. First, goes what looks like an eight year old boy and girl, who look exactly the same, almost like twins. Next, goes an older girl, possibly fifteen, and along with her goes an attractive woman probably in her forties. Lastly, a teenage boy, probably thirteen and the leader of their group a grisly looking man in his forties.

Just as, Vintago is about to turn and run to the cab, the grisly man yells “Look out!”

Vin turns around, and the pack is within fifteen feet of the vehicle. To close to make it! Vin brings up his rifle and starts taking shots into the group of Charlie. He hits three or four of them, and they go down immediately, but the group is getting close now and Vin is not even slowing them down.

“Give me a gun!” the grisly man yells above the sound of gunfire and the infected.

Vin stops shooting for a fraction of a second, pulls his 9mm from his holster and throws it to the man.

“Get in the truck! I’ll cover you!” the man yells.

Vin quickly slings his rifle and hops up onto the truck bed. The grisly man starts pelting the Charlie with 9mm rounds, and just as Vin is about to slide his legs into the truck bed, something grabs a hold of him.

Vin tries kicking and flailing his legs, not to sure what else to do.

A round zings by Vin’s head so close he can feel the heat, and suddenly, the hand grabbing his leg lets go.

“Drive Dad!” Vintago yells with all the voice he can muster.

Ben puts the pedal to the floor and squeals the hulking truck tires as he powers the truck onto the highway. The passengers in the back of the truck are thrown around as the truck bounces over a curb, they cry out in protest.

Ben guides the truck out of Payson with everyone else in the back of the truck holding on for dear life.

Vintago finally recovers from the event and looks at the grisly looking man.

He reaches his hand out and says “My names Vintago Hawkins, thanks for saving my ass back there.”

“The name’s Logan Black” the grisly looking man extends his hand, holding Vin’s gun. He gives the gun back to Vin and shakes his hand. “This is my family” he begins, “My wife Christine, my oldest Robert, my middle child Rebecca, and the twins Sarah and Timothy.”

“Pleasure to meet you all.” Vintago says, meaning it.

The group rides in silence until they are a little ways out of Payson, where Vin tells his father to stop.

Vintago gets out of the truck bed and walks up to the cab and tells his father to come talk to him for a minute. They walk away from the truck, keeping an eye on the cab where all of the guns are, and just above a whisper Vintago speaks.

“What should we do with them now? I don’t like the idea of bringing them back to the hatchery, but the guy did save my life back there.” Vin says with a concerned look on his face.

“Isn’t that enough proof that they do not mean us any harm?” his father answers.

“Why don’t we see if they can offer anything good to the group before we make any decisions?” Vin suggests.

With that in mind, Ben and his son walk back to the truck and around back.

Vintago asks them all to step out of the truck and says “Let’s have a quick discussion.”

Chapter Eleven

New Family

February, 2013

The Black family dismounts the truck and stand near Logan Black. Clearly, he brings a sense of security to his family. Ben and Vin stand at the head of the group and put it all out in the open.

“OK, so here’s the deal. We saved you guys back there, and obviously, Logan you saved me to.” Vin begins, “The problem is our home is quite secretive, and we do not want everyone knowing about it. We haven’t found anyone else to bring into the fold, and we’re not entirely sure how to do that safely.”

Christine gives Logan a concerned look, but Logan just stares at Vin with a piercing look.

“I guess the biggest thing we want to know is what your intentions are?” Vintago asks Logan.

“Look buddy, we are just looking to get the hell out of dodge and find somewhere safe. If you don’t want to help us out, then please just give me my weapons back, and we will be on our way.” Logan replies.

“It’s over 40 miles to the next city, what do you plan on doing, humping it up the mountain?” Vin says with a puzzled look.

“I’ll do whatever I need to do to keep my family safe, same as you will.” Logan replies.

“Fair enough I suppose. Can you two bring any valuable skills to our group? I don’t need six more mouths to feed if you can’t help us out.” Vin says coolly.

“I am a retired US Navy Seal, and my wife was a nurse in the Navy.” Logan replies, getting sick of the questions, but rolls up his sleeves to show the emblem tattooed on his arm.

Vintago looks at his father Ben, and they both nod to each other.

“That settles it then!” Vin exclaims.

Vin walks over to the cab of the truck and hands Logan their weapons. They have a fairly common Winchester hunting shotgun, a Glock 19, a Smith and Wesson .38 Special revolver, a .22 rifle, and go figure, an AR-15. His AR-15 looks more like an actual M416 that the military would issue.

Vintago hands him the rifle and asks, “Is this your service weapon?”

“Yep, that’s my baby. Like hell I was giving it back to Uncle Sam.” Logan replies with a smile.

“You guys have any additional ammo for those weapons?” Vin asks.

“We have a few extra rounds of 5.56 and a box of .22 shells, but other than that just what’s left in the guns.” Logan says with a sad look.

That is what Vintago was thinking since they all had only what they could carry on their backs.

“Well, let’s load up and head back to the compound.” Vin proclaims.

The family loads up in the back of the truck, and Vin gets up front with his father. Ben starts up the truck and they start cruising the rest of the way back to the hatchery. After the short trip, they arrive to see Greg and the women standing outside with concerned looks. Everyone hops out of the truck, and Logan stands away with his family.

“Who are these people?” Cindy asks right away.

“These people are our new friends Cindy.” Vintago shuts her down as soon as he can.

“They needed help getting the hell out of the city and Logan here saved my ass.” Vintago explains.

Victoria has a more accepting look on her face and waves everyone forward.

“Come on in guys, we’ve got a fire going inside, and as soon as the boys get the genny running again we’ll cook up some dinner!” she says.

Christine looks at Logan, silently asking for permission and he waves them away. Go on in guys, I’ll help these guys get everything unloaded.

“Robby, you stay with me and help us out.” Logan says.

Robert, or Robby as his father called him, nods his head and stays put.

The women and children all go inside to warm up by the fire, and leave Greg, Vintago, Ben, Logan, and Robby standing around looking at each other.

“Well, I guess it’s time to see how helpful they are.” Vintago thinks to himself.

“Come on guys, let's get this stuff off the truck.” Vin waves them over.

Ben moves the truck near the warehouse building and the guys use the carts to unload all of the supplies. After several trips back and forth by Robby and Ben, the supplies and gas are all unloaded.

Lastly, Greg has to try his hand at the generator gas tank one more time. Vintago gets the straps all hooked up to the Bobcat bucket and Greg slowly starts lifting it upwards. This time it seems like he has a better understanding of it, and he lifts it with ease and drives it close enough to the generator that the guys can hook up the fuel lines.

They get all the lines attached and power up the generator and everything springs to life inside the crew quarters. The rest of the functions for the generator have all been but cut off. Jessica moved all the fish down the line towards the giant pond and cut off the power to all of the holding tanks. The generator only powers the crew quarters, the warehouse, and the office buildings. Since the visitor center building is utterly useless at this time, they leave the switch for that building off. The last thing receiving power is the well pump. The well provides them with an unlimited supply of fresh water, which has been an absolute Godsend.

Logan takes a look around at their operations and nods his head in approval.

“You guys have been roughing it up here haven’t you.” he smiles.

“Well it hasn’t exactly been a slumber party for us, but we’ve done OK.” Vin tells Logan.

“This batch of fuel should last another month before we have to worry about going back into town.” Vin explains, “We have an unlimited amount of fresh water with our well, food for at least another month, even with the addition of your family, and we have the hatchery to support us if we ever do run out of food.”

“I hate trout” Logan replies with a smile.

“I don’t mind it, but I wouldn’t want to have to live off them!” Vin laughs.

“Come on, let's go inside, and we’ll show you how rough we’ve been living.” Vin adds.

Vintago and the men go inside the crew quarters and show Logan and Robby the guided tour. The other Black family members were given the tour by the women no doubt.

Out of unused bedrooms, Jessica decides to bunk with Ben. She says it’s no big deal, and they have all lived together for a month now, so it is like they are family.

Vintago shows the Black family Jessica’s old room and explains that since there are only two beds some of them will have to sleep on the floor, but that they have plenty of sleeping bags.

“Trust me, Vintago, this is much better than we have fared thus far. We are so lucky we ran into you guys down there.” Logan says with much admiration.

“Well, it’s worked for us so far. We welcome you to our humble abode.” Vintago says with a mocking bow.

The Black family starts unpacking what few belongings they have and settling into their new room. They all look worse for wear and they decide to all take showers and clean up a bit before dinner.

An hour or so later, the Black family are all showered and in some new clothes that Jessica gave them. Her former coworkers left all their belongings when they left the hatchery in a hurry, and the extra clothes have gone to good use.

The kids, however, have to wear clothes much too large for them and roll up sleeves and pant legs. Cindy says that she will perform her magic and modify some of the clothes for the kids to wear. She had already worked her magic and made Grayson some new baby outfits. Since it is difficult to just go pick up a new outfit, her seamstress skills had come in handy when the guys had torn their clothes, or someone needed to hem up their clothes a bit. Everyone had lost weight over the past month, even eating decently. The extra work around the hatchery burns extra calories!

Greg and Ben carry over the table from the living room and put some folding chairs around it to accommodate the additional members of their group. Jessica lays out a prodigious meal, which looks more like a welcoming feast.

The Black family members have not eaten a decent meal in weeks, and they look like it. They all seem to be skinny and have the sunken face look.

The kids scarf down at least two helpings a piece before they are so full they are going to explode. The parents eat just enough to be satisfied and stop, not wanting to waste food. They know how hard it is to come by food these days.

Jessica, on the other hand, encourages them to take seconds. Don’t be shy, we have plenty of food thanks to the boys and pats Vintago on the shoulder a little too delicately. Victoria catches it and eyeballs Vin. He just smiles and shakes his head slightly.

After dinner, everyone sits around in the living room swapping stories while the kids play video games on the big TV.

Logan tells them the story about how they had come all the way from Tucson before the bombs came down. They abandoned their home and took side highways the entire way, skirting around the valley. They took their time, not wanting to move to quickly and trying to stay off the radar. After more than a week, they decided to head north towards the refugee camps. On their way, they stopped in Globe, the next large town Vintago and his crew drove through on the way up. He says that, in Globe, they were trying to fill up with gas when a group of thugs set fire to their car. Logan was able to kill some of the thugs, but the others forced Logan and his family to flee. They grabbed the first car they could find and jumped in the vehicle. Apparently, it was a piece of crap because it took a dump on them about forty miles from Payson and they had been forced to hike the rest of the way into Payson.

After the long hike up the mountain and into Payson, the group was totally exhausted. Logan decided that they needed to rest for a day and then get back on the road. They stopped at a small hotel inside of town and took refuge in one of the rooms. Logan went out of the room, to the lobby to try and scrounge up some food. What he found instead was a whole shit load of infected.

Logan grabbed as much food as he could carry and hauled ass back to the room where his family was located. They barricaded the door with furniture, and that is where they stayed. For two full weeks, surviving on what scraps they had left and what Logan had found in the lobby. It took two weeks for Logan to break down the walls of three rooms adjoining theirs and clear each room before he found a way out. Three rooms later, when he peeked through the peep hole, there were no infected to be seen. He knew they were only a matter of feet down the hallway, but his family was out of food and this was the best he could do. Logan rounded up his family and had them crawl through the holes he had made in the wall with Robby, and they prepared to run for their lives. Robby and Logan grabbed their guns and launched into the hallway. The infected were only feet from them, and immediately they turned to chase after them. Making sure that his wife and other three children were safe, he told Robby to flee first, and with one last spray of bullets from his AR-15 he took off running. They ran and ran, for what seemed like forever. They ran down the main drag of Payson, and the noise from the infected caused even more to come out of their hovels. They came upon a small shopping center and could hear voices. They came flying around the corner, and that is when they saw Vintago.

At the end of Logan’s story, Vin’s group all had to pick up their jaws. They had things easy up here compared to the shit this poor family had gone through in the same amount of time. Now, it made sense why they were so happy to make this place their new home. It offered food, shelter, and most importantly, security.

After the story, Logan Black told the group Ben decides to call it a night, and along with him most everyone else. Logan Black and Vintago, on the other hand, stay behind watching the last embers of the fire in silence.

Eventually, Logan turns to Vintago and says, “I want to thank you again for bringing us here. You didn’t have to do that. You could have just left us by the side of the road back there.”

“Yes, I could have, and I almost did.” Vin tells him, being honest.

“Once you told me you were an ex-Navy Seal and your wife was a nurse, I couldn’t resist. I’ve needed a guy like you the whole time I’ve been here.” Vin explains.

“See I have a plan for this little fish hatchery, and it’s going to take men like you to help me achieve it. I’ve done you an enormous favor by bringing you guys here, and I expect that you will honor that with your help.” Vin says to Logan.

Logan seem to process this information with a little hesitancy, but ultimately says, “Whatever you need Vin, I’m your man.”

“I was hoping you would say something like that.” Vin says with a smile.

Vin stands up and shakes Logan’s hand, and says “Welcome to my army soldier.”

With that, Vintago gets up and walks down the hall to retire to his bedroom.

Logan stays behind with a slightly puzzled look, not quite sure what he means. What army only has two people? He decides to shake it off and go to bed. After the past few weeks, he could sleep forever or so he felt.

Chapter Twelve

Army of Two

February, 2013

It is mid-morning before the Black family begins to rise in their bedroom. The rest of the group saves them some breakfast but start going through their daily chores. Everyone figures they deserve to relax after what they have been through.

Logan, always the Navy man is the first one to rise. He rubs the sleep out of his eyes and cleans himself up in the bathroom. A cold shower always worked best for him.

After cleaning himself up, he goes into the kitchen where only Cindy, Victoria, and Grayson remain. Everyone else is outside working on projects.

“Good morning.” Logan says.

“Did you sleep well?” Cindy asks.

“Like a baby!” Logan exclaims.

“That’s good. We left you some breakfast here.” Cindy waves towards the powdered egg scramble they made for breakfast.

“Where’s everyone else at?” Logan inquires.

“They disappear outside all day, just about every day, we don’t usually pay attention to it. We make sure everything in the house is taken care of, and they do what they do.” Victoria replies with a wave of her hand dismissing the idea of outside work.

Logan nods his head, skips breakfast and heads outside in search of the men, particularly Vintago. The statement he made before bed still sticks in the back of Logan’s mind.

After talking a walk around the hatchery and taking in all the sights, he runs into Jessica. She is feeding the fish in the big pond with some of the extra fish food from the warehouse building.

“Hey Jessica, have you seen the guys?” Logan asks her.

“Yeah, they are probably walking around down by the highway. They go there a lot.” she replies and points to the road leading down to the highway.

He starts walking down the road, and she calls out to him, “It’s about three miles to the bottom, why don’t you take one of the quads down there.”

Logan thanks her for the advice and walks over to the warehouse where the last four wheeler is located. He finds it, hops on, and turns the key to start the ignition. He speeds across the hatchery and down the road. He takes the turns in the road a little too fast, almost like he is having fun. Before he realizes it, the highway is coming up, and he starts to slow down, not wanting to go too far away from the hatchery, and not knowing what lies on the highway.

Sure enough as he gets to the edge of the highway, there rests the other four wheeler. Vintago, on the other hand, is nowhere to be found.

Logan hops off his quad and starts looking around for him. He walks out to the highway and finds him looking through the trunk of a broken down car a little ways down the road.

“What are you doing out here?” Logan yells down to him.

Vintago turns around and brings his HK rifle up to his shoulder and points it at Logan.

“Whoa buddy, it’s just me!” Logan throws his hands into the air.

Seeing that it is just Logan, Vin drops his rifle back into the sling and shakes his head, waving for Logan to come over.

Logan sprints over to where Vintago is looting.

“You’ve got to be more quiet man, there are Charlie all over the highway.” Vin tells him.

“What do you mean?” Logan asks.

“Infected, we call them Charlie.” Vintago catches himself and explains the name.

“Oh ok, gotcha. Gotta keep an eye out for Charlie eh.” Logan says in a deep mocking voice.

“Yeah I come down here to look for anything I can find, but I run into them all the time.” Vin says.

“I think it’s because the highway is the path of least resistance. On both sides you have a cliff wall or a drop off, so they just follow the highway through the mountains.” Vin explains to Logan.

“Makes sense to me. Have you found anything good today?” Logan asks.

“Not really, but I was just going through this luggage here and check this out!” Vintago holds up a stringy see through women's lingerie collection.

“I think I’m going to give this to my old lady!” Vin laughs out loud.

“Don’t tell her I found it in the trunk of a car with a dead chick inside!” Vin tells Logan with a serious face.

Logan takes a look into the car, and inside is a blonde bombshell with double D’s and the body to go with it. Well, at least that is what he imagined she looked like before she took a bullet to the head and rotted for over a month.

“Well I don’t think she will need them again.” Logan chuckles.

Changing the subject, Logan says, “So what‘s with this ‘army’ you are talking about.”

“I was waiting for you to bring that up.” Vin replies coolly.

Vintago explains to Logan that he wants to make the hatchery an outpost and build himself an army of trained survivors to start taking back the smaller towns. He tells Logan that they have food, water, and electricity, but what they need is strong fighters. He needs more men like Logan to help him achieve these goals.

“We can live a long time up in the hatchery without needing to go into town much, but you’ve seen my dad, and my father in law, they aren’t fighters. Every time I go into town I am risking my ass, and I need some backup.” Vintago says.

“If we run into another group of Charlie and we have to stand and fight, we are totally fucked. We need to level the playing field a little and add more lead down range.” Vin says with vigor.

Slowly, Logan understands what he is trying to accomplish. He is not just trying to survive. The man before him wants to try and rebuild civilization. This is something that Logan has never stopped to think about, his life since the outbreak has only been about surviving the day and protecting his family.

“I understand what you are trying to do Vintago, and I want you to know, anything you need I will do if I can.” Logan says proudly.

Vintago sees the look in Logan’s eyes, and at that moment, he knows that Logan will be his most valuable soldier.

The two of them shake hands one more time, almost sealing some agreement, or some pledge.

“Come on, let's get out of here and go find my dad and Greg. I think they went fishing over on the creek.” Vintago says.

“Why don’t they just go fishing in the big pond by the hatchery?” Logan asks with a laugh.

“They like going fishing for fun, not to throw an empty hook in the water and catch a fish.” Vin replies as he shrugs his shoulders.

Just as, Vintago is about to turn around and head off back to the quads, a hand reaches out from under the car he was looking in and grabs his ankle.

Vintago cries out for help. Logan spins around and sees an infected man grabbing Vin.

Logan didn’t carry a gun with him since he did not plan on coming over here. He looks around and finds a sign post lying on the ground. Vintago is crawling backwards with the infected man trying to pull him back under the car. He’s scrambling to get his gun out of his holster. From out of nowhere, Logan leaps over Vin’s head and crushes the skull of the infected man with the sign post. He lifts it over his head one more time and brings it down violently all the way to the man’s neck. The hand grabbing Vin does not let go, however, and Vin reaches down to pry it loose.

Vin finally gets loose and scrambles away from the car.

“Holy shit!” Vin exclaims.

“Yeah no kidding!” Logan yells back.

Then the two men look at each other and simultaneously, they both burst into laughter. An onlooker might think that the incident had caused them to go crazy. For these two men, however, the idea of death was exhilarating. Neither one of them was entirely rational though, so crazy did fit perfectly.

After their ordeal, Vin and Logan cruise back up the road and decide to go back to the hatchery instead of interrupting the fishing session. They get back to the hatchery and all the women, and children are up now and stirring around the crew quarters.

The two men walk in the kitchen and declare that they are going to go back into town to both get more supplies, and to look for more survivors.

The women all look concerned and look back and forth at each other.

“You just went into town.” Victoria pipes up.

“Yes and we saved this families’ lives, and we got much needed fuel. Now we are going to go back and raid the gun shop again and also the pawn shop.” Vin tells the women.

“You never know, we might run into someone else that needs help, and we can help them.” Logan says.

The women give the men looks, but it is already decided. The guys have to do these little missions in order to achieve the ultimate goal. Vintago wants to add more people to the group, and if they are going to do that they need more food and guns.

The guys take their rifles and some extra ammo this time and load up in the Outlander. Robby sprints outside and volunteers to come along.

Logan immediately tells him “No way in hell.” and shoos him away.

“Dad, come on, I’m sixteen, and you need all the help you can get.” Robby says.

Vintago looks at Logan and nods his head in agreement.

“Can you shoot well Robby?” Vin asks him.

“My dad was a Seal, are you seriously asking me that question?” Robby says with a shit eating grin.

Reluctantly, Logan agrees to let him come, but tells him he has to ask his mother first. Robby comes back out five minutes later with a huge grin on his face. Apparently, Christine said that if Logan was going to keep an eye on him he could go.

Vintago grabs an extra AR-15 from their stockpiles and hands it to Robby.

“You know how to shoot one of these right?” Vintago asks but already knows the answer.

“Of course, I do Vin!” Robby replies.

Logan also hands him the S&W .38 Special and tells him to hang on to it.

The boys all pile into the car and head down the road, once again heading into Payson. What they will find this time, only God knows.

Chapter Thirteen

Abundance

February, 2013

The drive into Payson passes by like all the other drives into Payson. The guys make small talk and try to keep their minds off immersing themselves in the chaos of Payson again. It has only been a full day since Logan and Robby were saved from the town, and now they were going back. Neither one of them liked the idea of it, but Logan knows that it is necessary to get all the supplies they can get.

Vintago pulls up to the border of town and stops the car.

“Ok guys, so we need to hit the gun store and the pawn shop, see if we see anyone else, and get out of here.” Vin explains the plan one more time.

Logan and Robby both nod their heads in understanding. Vintago gets rolling again and heads into town. He takes a left on the highway and heads towards the gun shop. They arrive at the gun shop and all three exit the Outlander. They have their rifles out and at the ready. Logan and Vintago enter the gun shop first and take a look around while Robby watches the door.

The scene inside the gun shop is exactly what Vintago expected. It’s all but picked clean. All of the semi-automatic rifles like their ARs and AKs are all gone. The only things left are hunting shotguns, some bolt action rifles, and two SKS rifles. Not being totally picky, the guys take everything they can and start loading up the Outlander while Robby stands guard.

The grab all of the ammunition they can get their hands on, which is not a whole lot. They find a few hundred rounds of ammo for the guns they already have, and a fair amount of ammo for the new guns they found. Logan looks at the fifteen or so rifles and shotguns they collected and frowns. He knows that they are going to need more than this to make a dent. The bolt action guns were not exactly ideal either. They may have been OK during World War II, but this was the apocalypse and they needed better technology.

Vintago walks into the manager’s office of the small gun shop and starts rummaging around the office. He pushes some things around and finds a small metal door. Outside the metal door are scratches, like something tried to get inside. Probably Charlie, and lots of them, Vintago assumes.

He turns the knob on the door, and surprisingly, it opens to a small chamber. Vintago is immediately overcome by the smell of death. Inside the chamber is a man holding a pistol that apparently blew the top of his head off. He sits next to a gigantic door in the ground that looks like a bank vault.

“Logan! Get in here!” Vintago yells.

Logan comes running into the room and back pedals a bit at the smell.

“Whew that’s some nasty shit right there” he says.

“Check this out” Vin begins, “I think it’s a big gun vault.”

Logan takes a look at the door and nods his head, “We need to get into that vault, there could be extra munitions in there.”

Vintago tries to crank over the large wheel of the vault with no success.

“Well the good news is it’s still locked. The bad news is that it’s still locked.” Vin laughs.

In a gesture of genuine interest Vin walks over to the dead man and rummages through his pockets. He pulls out a giant key.

“Logan, this guy must have been the owner!” Vin exclaims.

The poor guy must have barricaded himself in with his vault as the infected trapped him in here. Realizing the futility of the situation, he took his own life, rather than stand and fight.

Vintago quickly tries the key on the massive vault and sure enough it disengages something. Vin turns the large wheel and the vault unlocks itself.

Logan reaches over to help Vin lift the heavy steel door, and what they find is a stairway, leading down into the ground.

They climb down the steps and turn on their flashlights. What they find below looks like a military armory. There are hundreds of rifles, fully automatic machine guns, grenade launchers, hand grenades, explosives, and all sorts of illegal shit.

“This guy was preparing for a damn zombie invasion!” Vin laughs, “Looks like he missed the party though.”

“I think we are going to need a bigger vehicle.” Logan tells Vin.

“Why don’t you and Robby go find us a truck we can use, and I’ll work on getting some of this shit out of here.” Vin says.

Logan turns around and heads up the stairs and finds his son waiting for him. Logan leads the way out of the gun shop and starts looking around for a decent pickup they can use. Logan and Robby walk across the street to a small shopping center and scout around. Tucked away behind one of the stores is just the truck they need. It’s one of those big Ford F350 trucks with the dualies in back. Logan approaches the vehicle and finds that it is all clear. He pops the fuel door and sticks a piece of string in the gas tank and finds that it has more than enough fuel to make it back to the hatchery.

“This day keeps getting better and better” Logan tells his son.

They pop open the door to the truck and look around hoping to find the keys. After a couple minutes of searching, no luck.

“Well, on to plan B.” Logan tells Robby as he rips open the steering wheel column.

Logan quickly pulls out a multitool from his pocket and gets to work hot wiring the vehicle. A little trick he learned in the Seals. His son looks on in amazement, watching his father do something that a month ago would totally be illegal, but now was just a matter of survival.

After about a minute, the truck springs to life, and its engine begins rumbling. Robby hops in the passenger side and rolls down the window sticking the barrel of his rifle out. Logan hops in the driver seat and throws the truck in gear. They drive over to the gun store and put the ass end of the truck near the door where Vintago is already located piling weapons into his Outlander. Vin has the seats folded down, and the entire back half of the vehicle is almost full.

“Help me pile as many rifles as we can in the Outlander, we will put the ammunition and the rest in your new ride.” Vintago says, admiring their choice of pickup.

The two men and Robby quickly make trip after trip to the vault, passing the dead man. It takes about two hours, and at the end of it, all three of them are sweating profusely. The Outlander is jam packed with rifles, and a few of the machine guns, which Logan called “SAWs” or squad automatic weapons. The poor Outlander is nearly sitting on the ground from all the weight. The Ford, on the other hand, is piled to the top of the bed with large ammunition cans, and it seems to barely feel the weight. The guys load the back half of the dual cab with as many rifles and shotguns as they can fit. The rest of the equipment they throw on top of the ammunition cans and cover it all with a few camouflage tarps that were also in the bunker.

The guys finish loading up as much gear as they can fit and seal both the vault door and the steel door leading to the vault room. Vintago attaches the key ring to a chain around his neck and drops it down his shirt. He is keeping this key close, and next time they are in town, he will finish raiding the gun shop vault.

On the seat up front with Vintago is an assortment of explosives and hand grenades. Vintago hops in the front seat and turns over the Outlander as he flinches a bit, like the entire car will explode.

“Let’s get the hell out of here.” Vintago yells out his window.

Logan and Robby jump in the Ford and Logan reaches over to hotwire the truck again. He gets it started again and they get rolling.

Vintago wanted to stop for some extra food supplies, but since they are pretty much full with ammunition and guns, he decides to head towards the hatchery.

On the road out of town, he sees a group of four men walking down the road. They look as though they have been through hell, but it is clear as day to both Logan and Vintago that they are soldiers. All four men are carrying M4A1 rifles and are wearing tattered ACUs. Upon hearing the trucks approaching they spin around and raise their rifles at Vintago and his band. Logan immediately stops his truck and tells Robby to bail out, and Logan hops out and aims his rifle at the men. Vintago stops right next to them and does the same.

“State your intentions soldiers!” Logan yells in a commanding voice.

The soldiers freeze for a second clearly recognizing a voice of command.

“We’re heading north to the base, and just trying to get the fuck out of here.” one of the soldiers replies.

Logan lowers his rifle slightly and signals to Robby and Vin to hold back at the ready. He walks towards the men, and they drop their weapons slightly.

After a few minutes of deliberating, all five men visibly relax, and Logan walks back over with the four soldiers in tow.

“These are good boys Vintago. I knew their commanding officer before the shit hit the fan. We used to drink at one of the military bars in town.” Logan explains.

Logan tells Vintago how they have been on the run since the bombs dropped just trying to make it somewhere safe. He tells them how their company was overrun by Charlie, and they fell apart and split in every direction.

“We’ve been struggling to make it north since it happened, picking through scraps of food and we’re about outta ammo too.” one of the army boys says.

Vintago waves Logan over to the back of the pickup and says, “What do you want to do with them Logan?”

“You’re the boss and it’s your compound, it’s your call.” Logan replies.

“Can they be trusted?” Vintago says with a look of concern, “Remember it’s my family back there, we can’t bring back anybody I can’t depend on.”

“It looks to me like these boys are just looking for a place to hunker down, but like I said it’s your call.” Logan says, not answering his question entirely.

Vintago walks over to the military boys and says to them, “Listen guys, we don’t have any room in our vehicles here as you can clearly see, but let us run back to our compound and grab another vehicle, and we will come back for you OK.”

Vintago explains their condition at the hatchery, how they have food, water, shelter, and security. By the end of it, the four men are nodding their heads.

“Sounds good to us sir.” the highest ranking man, a Corporal, replies.

Vintago grabs a handful of additional M4 magazines and an ammunition can full of 5.56 rounds and hands it to the men. Their eyes open wide as Vintago lifts the tarp exposing all of their munitions.

“Where did you get all of that!” one of the Privates exclaims.

“Like I said, we can offer security to.” Vin laughs.

He tells them to continue hiking up the road towards the hatchery, and that they would be back for them as soon as possible.

Logan, Robby, and Vintago wave to the men and mount up. They pick up their pace a little bit and head towards the hatchery. The Outlander’s four cylinder engine struggles to keep up, heading up the steep inclines with a full load. Logan simply waves as he passed him with the hulking V10 engine on their Ford.

When they arrive at the hatchery, the families are standing out front, wondering whose truck they are driving. Vintago drives over to the visitor center and waves Logan over to follow.

They both park the rear ends of their vehicles towards the door of the visitor center and jump out. Their family members come over and as Logan lifts the tarp on the Ford, their eyes open wide.

“Holy shit, where did all those guns come from, did you guys raid a military base?” Greg says out loud.

“Listen, Logan can tell you guys, the story, but I need to go back and pick up some more survivors we met along the way. Ben and Greg help Logan and Robby unload all of this into the visitor center. It’s going to be our new armory.” Vintago says with a smile.

Vintago waves to everyone and sprints over to his car and hops.

He throws it in gear and hauls ass down the road back towards the soldiers.

Twenty minutes later he rolls down his windows at the sounds of gunfire.

“This can’t be good” Vintago tells himself.

As he rounds a corner, the three soldiers are running toward him, the Corporal covering their rear shooting at a group of Charlie about twenty strong.

Vintago hauls ass towards them, pulls the e-brake and slides to a stop within ten feet of them, opens his door and stands up. He starts hosing the Charlie behind them with .308 rounds from his HK rifle. The men sprint towards the car, its trunk already open for their packs, and they hurl their packs in the trunk. Vintago drops the mag on his HK and slaps in another one from his pocket and chambers a fresh round. He keeps dropping Charlie as the guys pile in the tiny car. Once everyone is in Vintago jumps in and slams the door. He jams the car into gear and pushes the pedal to the floor. It takes a second for the tiny four cylinders to respond, and the Charlie get within grabbing distance. They start slapping the car, just as the Corporal leans out his window with his Beretta 92FS and drops two more Charlie.

The car leaps forward and speeds off up the hill leaving only a few straggler Charlie behind. The men look around at each other, and all four burst into laughter.

Vintago only shakes his head, soldiers.

The Corporal leans forward and pats Vin on the shoulder.

“Thanks for coming back.” He tells Vin.

“I told you I was coming back, and I am a man of my word.” Vintago tells him.

“Good thing you didn’t stop for a shit first.” the Private First Class says with a laugh.

At this, all five men crack up loudly.

Vintago makes the short trip back to the hatchery and watches in the rear view mirror as the men eyeball the compound.

Logan is waiting for them at the entrance to the parking lot, rifle slung around his body. He waves to them and Vintago pulls into his spot.

The men climb out, and collect their bags after Vin opens the trunk.

“That was quick” Logan says to Vin.

“The boys ran into some Charlie along the way, and we had to hightail out of there.” Vin explains.

“Well, glad everyone made it out OK.” Logan says.

Vintago gives the guys only a brief tour of the compound as it is starting to get dark now. Greg hooked up the power to the visitor center again so they can see what they are doing, and they are still unloading all the munitions into their new armory. The whole inside of the building is lined with ammunition cans, fully automatic military style M4A1’s, SAWs, sniper rifles, tactical shotguns, and all sorts of small arms. There are Berettas, 1911’s, HKs, Glocks and FNPs. There are also some submachine guns coming in an MP5 variant.

The hand grenades, rifle grenades, and explosives, Vin decides to lock up in the small shed ways away from the munitions. Logan has some explosives training from the Seals, but even he is a little hesitant to mess around with all the high explosives. Vintago does not want the whole compound to go up in flames if something were to happen to the explosives.

Since the crew quarter rooms are full, the soldiers are given the office building to call home. It has eight minute cubicles, a small break room with a kitchenette, and a single bathroom. The guys are more than excited about this, and they roll out their sleeping bags each in their own cubicle, making mini bedrooms. Vintago also invites them over to the crew quarters to take showers and get cleaned up.

“After you guys get cleaned up, we will have some dinner and get to know each other.” Vin tells them.

He leaves them to get settled in and exits with Logan. A few feet outside of the building he grabs Logan's arm and stops him.

“I want to keep our eyes on them for a while until we can make sure they can be trusted.” Vin tells Logan.

“I’ve only been here a full day now, why do you think you can trust me?” Logan says, playing Devil’s advocate.

“You’ve proven your worth to me, and joined my cause. That’s enough evidence for me.” Vin tells him.

“Fair enough. I’ll keep an eye on them boss.” Logan says.

Vintago walks over to the armory building and starts helping Ben, Greg, and Robby finish unloading everything. Just as, the sun sets and it starts getting truly dark, both vehicles are done being unloaded. Everything is nicely packed in the armory building. Vintago explains to Greg how he wants him to shut up the building and make it more secure.

“Throw some bars on the windows and reinforce the door and its locks.” Vintago says.

Greg just nods, as he understands what Vin is trying to do. It makes no sense to keep all of these weapons if they cannot keep them safe. Especially since they have been bringing in new people every day.

Chapter Fourteen

Expansion

February, 2013

After the soldiers had gotten cleaned up, they changed into some of the extra clothes from the crew quarters. Looking more like civilians than soldiers, they emerged into the family room.

Dinner was already prepared by Jessica. She had to prepare meals that could easily be expanded to fit their group that was growing in size. With the new members, their company had surged to eighteen people. That was a lot of mouths to feed. She made a lot of soups, casseroles, and dishes that could support more than ten people.

These new members were hungry mouths to feed too. They ate enough food for two people, and by the end of the meal, everything was eaten. After dinner, the group piled into the living room. At one, time, it seemed large, but now it was starting to look small.

The group went about introducing themselves to the new members, and soon it was time for the soldiers to introduce themselves.

The Corporal, being their natural leader introduced them all. Private Nathan Jenkins, the young looking soldier. Private First Class Jose Gomez, a tough looking Latino fellow. Specialist Anthony Smith, their radio operator.

Finally, he introduces himself, and of course myself, “I am Corporal Trevor Steele.”

Trevor begins telling them the story of their squad, “We are all that’s left of our platoon, for all we know. We got overrun in Tucson trying to hold the line so survivors could make into the camps. The line fell, the camps were overrun, and the army bugged out. We grabbed the first Humvee we could find and got the hell out of there. We’ve been on the move ever since, just trying to make it north away from the valley and Tucson. It has been a pretty tough month. We originally had another two Humvees full of our guys with us. The problem was the vehicles ran out of gas from constantly running on the line. When we took off, our Humvee had less than a quarter of a tank. After that, we started humping it up the hill searching for other vehicles. That’s when the shit started hitting the fan. We lost a lot of guys on the way North.”

The four men had a sober look on their faces at the end of the short retelling of their story.

Vintago’s group was starting to get used to these stories, and they take it all in without a word.

Finally, Vintago speaks up, “Well guys, we are glad that you made it this far. I’m not sure what your plans are from here, but you’re welcome to stay with us.”

The four men thank Vin and Trevor stands up to shake Vin’s hand. The group decides to start winding down for the night, and the army boys go over to their new quarters while Vin’s family and the Black family all bunk down in the crew quarters.

The next morning, Vintago decides that it is time for a little R&R. He has been going at a breakneck pace for far too long, and with the recent additions of supplies, food, and ammunition he thinks everyone deserves a break, even him. The newcomers, including the Black family, are more than happy to take a day and just relax.

Vintago and Logan decide to take the children fishing. Vin loads up Grayson in the jogging stroller that his wife just had to bring along, but for times like today he does not mind it. The stroller is more than capable of handling the rugged terrain down to the stream next to the hatchery.

Logan brings all four of his kids, and they all huddle around a small fishing hole. Logan helps his kids throw some worms on their hooks. Vintago grabs the smallest fishing pole he can find and gets it all ready and tosses the line in the pond. He lets Grayson hold onto it like the other kids, but he gets bored quickly and drops the pole and runs over to play in the water.

“Buddy,” Vin says to Grayson, “that water’s freezing!”

Grayson just giggles and splashes in the water.

Logan says to Grayson in a playful tone, “You’re scaring all the fishies away!”

"Uh-oh," says Grayson.

He gets up and starts running around in the tall grass, chasing a butterfly that caught his attention. Vintago keeps an eye on his son, but ultimately lets him have some space to play.

“He needs more time to run around and be a kid these days.” Vin says.

“I hear yah brother, my poor kids have gone through hell and back in the past month.” Logan replies.

Vin just nods and goes back to fishing, enjoying the outdoors.

Timothy is the first one to catch a fish, and he goes totally crazy. Grayson runs over, not quite sure what’s going on as Timothy reels his line in a little too quickly. Timothy gets the fish all the way up onto the shore and Logan grabs it. He takes out his multitool and takes the hook out of the fish’s mouth. It’s a small little trout, not even worth keeping.

“OK guys, we’re going to send this one back to its mother.” Logan says with a smile.

“But Dad!” Timothy says with a sad face.

“He’s not a big strong fishy yet, we have to let him grow more.” Logan tells his son.

Grayson waves goodbye to the fish as Logan lets it go back into the pond.

After another hour or so the younger kids are getting stir crazy and the guys decide to pack it in and head back to the crew quarters. They take the kids back to the crew quarters and let them play in the house.

Vintago suggests that, with all their new weapons and ammunition, they should have another range session and check some of it out. Logan checks with the new army boys and all four of them light up at this idea. The army guys had just been sitting around the house resting all day, and they were getting a little stir crazy.

Greg and Ben decide to come along as well after they hear about the plans to hit the range

Vintago grabs one of the quads from the warehouse building and straps on a large storage container. He cruises over to the armory and they start loading in rifles, handguns, and some of the new fully automatic weapons. They also pack in a couple thousand rounds of ammunition for all the different calibers.

By the time they are done, the men all look like it is Christmas, especially the civilian men. None of the civilian men have gotten the privilege to fire fully automatic weapons before now.

The guys walk over to their little firing range, which is just a rock wall about 500 feet away from the hatchery where the sound is dampened and provides a decent backdrop. They set up some of the junk they brought with them to shoot, and get out all of the new shiny weapons.

They choose not to bother taking turns this time. Everyone stands up to the line holding whatever tickles their fancy and they all start unloading on things. Vintago lies down in the dirt behind one of the M249 SAW machine guns and thoroughly lays into the junk facing the wall. He watches as the tracer rounds chew up the cliff face and he about loses his mind. Shooting the fully automatic weapon is about the best fun he has had in a long time.

Logan is shooting one of the MP5s, Ben and Greg just try out one of the fully automatic M4s, and the soldiers are using an array of handguns, shotguns, and long rifles.

After what seems like forever, the gunfire dies down as there is nothing left to shoot. Everyone takes a break to reload their magazines, and they set up some new targets.

During the eerie silence, Logan hears rustling in the woods and spins around. Approaching Logan and the men from the woods behind them is a group four Charlie shambling their way over towards the guys.

“Contact, Charlie!” Logan says and grabs a fresh magazine for his M4. He slaps it in the mag well and charges his rifle. He brings it up to his shoulder and fires precisely four shots, striking each infected person in the head, killing all four Charlie before the others even realize what the hell is going on.

“Holy shit! What just happened!” Vintago screams, the ringing in his ears causing him to speak far too loud.

“They came out of nowhere.” Logan replies.

The group takes a few minutes to process the whole event. In the end, they are more than a little shaken up by Charlie within farting distance of their compound. They decide to pack it in and head home before they lure any Charlie lurking around.

They pack up the remainder of the munitions and firearms and put them on the back of the quad. Vintago rides the quad in, and everyone hikes back to the compound.

The guys put everything back in the armory, and Vintago tells every man to grab a rifle of his choosing and at least one sidearm, two if they prefer. Vintago watches as each man picks out a rifle, finds a suitable handgun and holster, and loads ammunition in both guns.

After everyone has their rifle and sidearm, they stand outside the armory, waiting for Vintago.

“We need to have a serious discussion about what just happened.” Vintago begins.

“We can’t have Charlie walking into our compound, we have women and children running around.” he says.

The men all nod their heads in agreement, especially the men with families. The four soldiers understand the idea of protecting civilians.

“Let’s hear what we are going to do about it.” Vintago says to the men.

There is an awkward silence as everyone thinks about his question and nobody responds.

Finally, Corporal Trevor speaks up, “I think it would be smart if my men and I started patrolling the area surrounding the compound using the quads.”

Figuring that the military training his men have, Trevor figures they would best be suited as a security force.

“That’s a good start. We were patrolling regularly down by the highway to make sure they didn’t come up the road, but we have never seen them up here before.” Vintago explains.

“We need to put up a fence of some kind, to create a safe zone around the compound.” Logan tells the group.

Vintago nods his head. This was part of his plan. He just wasn’t sure how to accomplish that.

“How do you propose we do that Logan, the compound covers quite a bit of space. It would take thousands of feet of fencing to enclose it all.” Vintago tells him, hoping he has more insight.

“I think between the two trucks here, and our new Ford we should be able to get enough chain link fencing and posts to encompass the entire compound. It might take us a couple weeks to put it all up, but it will keep out the Charlie.” Logan explains.

“Another thing we could do would be to put up battery/solar floodlights all around the compound so that at night, we will know if there is movement.” Logan continues.

Vintago never thought of the floodlights, but he thinks that is an excellent idea. The chain link fence idea would also be awesome. It may not stop intruders, but it would stop infected from reaching their compound. Plus, it would be something that Greg could work on, and that would help him out.

Vintago says, “The other thing we need to do is have more firearms training. I think you need to teach everyone how you shoot like that Logan. I want to have everyone in the group carrying a firearm. I don’t want anyone getting caught unarmed.”

“That’s just Seal training, and years of practice bud, but I might be able to hand out some pointers.” Logan says with a grin.

“Alright, so first things first, Greg, Dad, get a bunch of those Glocks out of the armory and give them to the women, I want them to carry a holstered 9mm as well.” Vintago says.

“Next, let’s get our shit together boys because we’re heading back into town. This time, we’re going to stop in at the Home Depot.” Vintago grins.

With that, the group disperses and they begin to carry out their job roles. Greg and Ben fill up a bucket with Glocks, extra magazines, and boxes of 9mm ammunition and go into the crew quarters to distribute them. The women are not too happy about the new rules concerning firearms, because of the children. In the end, the women choose to arm themselves, mainly because the children are not exactly gun shy and they need to be protected.

After that’s been handled, Logan, Robby, Vin, and the soldiers start loading up the vehicles. They get the large flatbed truck, the pickup truck from the hatchery, their Ford F-350, and Vintago pulls around in the Outlander. They get all the vehicles fueled up and ready to go. They grab an ammunition can for each vehicle. Vintago decided while everyone was getting ready that, for ammunition swapping purposes, they should all carry M4 rifles when going on their little excursions. He leaves it up to each man to decide to bring a secondary rifle. Vintago keeps his HK rifle, and swaps out his AK for an M4A1, and throws it in the Outlander. Vintago and Ben pile into the Outlander and lead the way as a command and control vehicle. Logan and Robby follow behind in the Ford. Next come Trevor and Tony in the flatbed truck. Lastly, in the rear follows Jose and Nathan in the smaller Chevy Silverado.

They leave Greg with all of the women and children because they think it is smart to leave someone behind to protect them. Just in case a group of Charlie wanders into the compound. They also tell them to stay inside the crew quarters building and not to roam around.

The convoy makes its way down the windy road to the highway and start rolling towards Payson. Along the way, the group is conversing on their walkie talkies, talking about random shit. The whole group is a little tense about going back into Payson again. Vintago does not particularly like going into town three times in a week, but he knows that they need certain things. Unfortunately, the town is the only place to get most of these items.

Shortly before, they enter town Vintago tells everyone to stop and hold up. He wants Tony to man the M249 in the back of the flatbed truck. He wants to have heavy fire if the shit gets real. He also tells everyone else to get their weapons ready, especially the passengers.

They all chamber a round in their rifles and place them in various areas, in their vehicles. The convoy is using the term riding “shotgun” to the fullest potential.

After everyone gears up, and Tony hops into the back of the truck and straps himself to the cab for stability, they are ready to go again.

They make the short trip through town to the Home Depot without any problems. Tony aims a fairly pissed off look at Vintago for making him eat bugs the whole way for nothing. Vintago just shrugs his shoulders. Better to be safe, than sorry.

They pull up to Home Depot, park out front, and everyone dismounts their vehicles. They leave poor Tony in the back of the flatbed to guard the vehicles with the machine gun. He takes the opportunity to clean the bugs out of his teeth while everyone laughs at him.

Everyone else, however, files into Home Depot, to try and find what they need. The military men all check their sectors looking for Charlie, or any possible threats. Ben and Vintago stroll in more casually. Neither man has ever been exposed to this setting, nor do they have any formal training.

The group makes their way over to the fencing section of the store and they find what they are looking for, big spools of chain link fence.

Before leaving the hatchery, they did a quick guesstimate of how much footage they would need to enclose the compound. They figured it would be safe to say that they would need about 2500 feet of fence to surround the entire compound. The chain link fence at Home Depot comes in sections of fifty feet. They count off all the spools here and can only find thirty two.

“Well, this could be a problem.” Vintago says.

“Let’s just get everything we can and worry about the rest later. This should be enough to surround all of the essential buildings. We don’t need to enclose the parking lot and the outlying areas right away. We can always add extra layers later.” Logan explains with a level head.

Vintago is good with that plan, and they start loading up the hefty sections of fencing. They also grab all the couplings, and hundreds of the poles needed to anchor the fence. Ben also hunts down a small cement mixer to help create the cement faster. It takes the men several hours to load all of the fencing materials, concrete, and the mixer into their vehicles. By the end of it, they are all exhausted and ready to get back to the hatchery.

Before rolling out, Logan stops in the lighting section of the store and grabs every automatic flood lamp he can get his hands on. He finds battery operated ones, solar operated ones, and some that need to be hooked into electrical. Satisfied that these will work well, he throws them in the back of the Outlander.

The guys all pile into their respective vehicles. Tony has to sit on top of the spools of fencing to keep manning his gun, which he shows a good amount of protest in doing so.

Vintago leads the way out of the parking lot in the Outlander and starts heading towards the hatchery.

As the convoy rolls through the streets of Payson, they hear screaming and gunshots erupting in the distance. Logan speaks over the radio and asks Vin if he wants to check it out. Maybe it is a group of survivors trying to get away from some Charlie. They need all the people that can get right now, so Vintago decides to check it out. Besides, Vin is feeling fairly secure with eight armed men and four vehicles.

They adjust their course towards the noise and pick up the pace. The loaded down trucks have a hard time keeping up with the smaller Outlander. Vintago quickly takes too much of a lead, not entirely paying attention to his group of vehicles behind him.

As Vintago rounds, a corner, he sees a group of people running towards him, shooting behind them at a pickup truck loaded full of armed men. The armed men are shooting back at them.

“What the fuck?” Vintago asks his father.

“Are those guys nuts? Those are regular people, not Charlie.” Ben says back.

Vintago decides to haul ass up to the truck and head them off. He puts the pedal to the floor and starts flying towards them, playing chicken. He slams into his horn, to let the fleeing people know he is coming, and they jump out of the way just in the nick of time. Just before, the truck would crash into the Outlander. Vintago cranks the steering wheel to the left narrowly missing them. Clearly, they intended to ram him directly in front. He brakes hard and slides the little SUV sideways. The pickup truck also slams on their brakes and stops.

The men immediately hop out of the back of the truck and start shooting at Vintago and Ben, peppering the side of the Outlander with bullet holes.

“Get down Dad!” Vintago yells and leaps out of the vehicle. He runs around to the rear of the vehicle and returns fire. He takes out one of the men with his first shot, catching the guy right in the chest. He fires over and over, dropping another one of the men, before ducking back behind the Outlander as shots are returned. Vintago lies down on the ground behind the tire of his vehicle and looks under towards the enemy. They are advancing on his position, and fast. Vintago shoots four or five rounds from underneath his vehicle, and nails one of them in the leg, causing him to crash into the pavement. Vin fires one more round and sprays his head all over his buddy behind him. The last two men open up on Vintago and shots ring out, puncturing the tire Vin is behind, and peppering the side of his vehicle once more.

The sound of gunfire intensifies as the men get closer and closer. Vintago is unable to move and huddles behind the axle. Not in fear, but to keep himself from getting killed. The sound continues to intensify, almost like it is never ending. Vintago realizes that this just might be the end. He cannot safely return fire without getting shot, and there are too many of them to run.

Then, Vin hears various new firearms being fired. Vin peeks out from his hiding place, for just a split second, and watches as the two men get sliced in two by several rounds striking them at once. They must have been hit ten or fifteen times all within a few seconds.

Suddenly, the shooting stops and Vintago can hear Logan call out “All clear.”

“Vin are you OK!” Logan yells out.

Vin pokes his head out and sees his friends standing in the street next to their vehicles. He gets up and walks out from behind the vehicle and waves to the guys, indicating that he is fine.

“Thanks for showing up guys!” Vin yells.

“Better late than never.” Corporal Trevor laughs.

Vintago walks around to check the tire on the Outlander and finds that the tire is flat, and the vehicle is sitting on the rim. Adding to that, the whole side of Vintago’s Outlander looks like Swiss cheese.

“Hopefully nothing is too badly damaged,” he tells himself.

As Vintago looks towards the front of the vehicle, he sees liquid dripping from the passenger door. He walks up closer to the liquid and sees that it is red. Vintago’s throat seizes up. He hasn’t heard Ben move one bit during the entire exchange. Vin pokes his head over the passenger door and finds his father crumpled up under the dashboard clutching his stomach.

“Shit, Dad are you hit!” Vintago says, even though he can see the blood all over the inside of his vehicle.

Logan sprints over to the vehicle hearing this and assesses the situation.

“Trevor grab the first aid kit from the Ford and get it over here now!” Logan yells.

Trevor does as he is told and hauls ass with the med kit. They open the door slowly and slide Ben out of the vehicle and onto the ground. Logan opens his shirt and finds that there is a bullet hole entering Ben’s stomach. He rolls him over gently and finds no exit wound.

“Listen guys, the bullet is still inside his stomach, we need to get it out of there, but this is not the place. Right now we need to stabilize him and get him back to the compound, where Christine can take it from there.” Logan explains to the group.

Vintago is just looking at the men lying in the street that did this to his father. He is clearly losing his mind in the moment. Then, one of the men moves, ever so slightly. Nobody checked to see if they were still alive during all of the commotion.

Vintago gets up slowly and walks towards the man lying in the road. He walks right up to the man, and finds that he is not a man at all. He is just some punk teenager, who probably used to be some skateboarder or druggie. Now he is part of this little rag tag thug group. Vintago has positively no remorse as he pulls out his Taurus .45 and aims it at the boys head. He pulls the trigger three times, exploding the boy’s brains all over the asphalt.

The sudden gunshots cause everyone to spin around weapons at the ready. They see Vintago standing over the boy's body, holding his gun with a smoking barrel. On his face is a sick and sadistic smile.

“That’s revenge mother fucker.” Vin says to mostly headless boy.

At that point, everyone in his group knew that Vintago was no longer a civilized man, he was a cold blooded killer.

Chapter Fifteen

Triage

February, 2013

The remaining men in the group patch up Ben’s wound as best they can and load him into the back of the Ford. Since the Outlander has a flat tire, Logan, Robby and Vintago are going to haul ass back to the hatchery in the Ford. Vintago leaves Corporal Trevor in charge of getting the tire changed on the Outlander and getting all of the vehicles back to the compound.

In their hurry to leave, the thing Vintago did not tell Trevor to do was make a decision about the people they saved from the band of thugs. The group of survivors was seven strong. There are three men, all armed with shitty weapons, two women, and two children, both older probably in their teens.

The oldest man came up to Trevor shortly after Vintago and Logan had hauled ass towards the hatchery. The man looked like he had to be in his sixties.

“Thank you so much for saving us from these idiots.” the older gentleman says to Trevor.

“No problem sir, that’s our job now, I guess.” Trevor says hesitantly.

He wasn’t exactly sure what the hell his job was anymore. A little over a month ago he was a reservist working a normal job like everyone else. When the shit hit the fan, he was called in for active duty to defend Tucson. Everyone else stationed at Fort Huachuca was called into action. A month ago he was on Uncle Sam’s payroll. Then, that all fell apart, and he was not under anyone’s supervision. Now, it seems that he had walked into the hands of a crazy civilian, and he was carrying out his missions. It did not bother Trevor much. He only cared about what was best for his three remaining squad members, and Vintago provided what they needed. For the time being, he would be part of Vintago’s mock “army.” Being part of that charade meant that he had to at least pretend to give a shit about this group of survivors.

The old man waved his party over, and they all looked happy to be alive.

“Do you guys have an army base or something we could hitch a ride to and get the hell out of town?” one of the younger men asked Trevor.

Not quite sure how Vintago would want him to proceed from here, Trevor just nods his head and waves them over to the vehicles.

Ten minutes later, Jose has the tire changed on the Outlander, and he hops in and starts it up. Trevor tells Nathan to hop into the pickup truck and has Anthony get on the M249 in the bed of the flatbed with all of the survivors.

They get their slightly smaller convoy rolling and head out of town and back towards the hatchery. The trucks have to take it considerably slower on the way up the hill due to them being extremely overloaded.

Forty five minutes later after the trucks chugged up the hill, they make it back to the hatchery and park the vehicles outside the warehouse building.

Trevor tells the survivors to stay put and has Tony stand by them, not necessarily because he is worried about them, but just in case. He heads into the crew quarters, to find Logan since Vintago will most likely be occupied with his father, and just as he gets to the door, Logan walks outside.

“Are these people the ones we just saved?” Logan asks Trevor.

Logan thinks to himself, “What sort of stupid ass question is that?”

Instead he replies, “Yes sir, they needed a safe place, and I figured this was as good as any. Seeing as how Vintago likes taking in stragglers, I figured he wouldn’t mind.”

Logan was not exactly sure how Vin would react, but he hoped he did not mind. Logan believed in Vin’s cause, and trusted the man, but he was also seeing a side of him that he did not much like.

Logan walks over to the survivors and sticks out his hand to introduce himself, “My name’s Logan Black. Nice to meet you all. Welcome to our home.”

The older man reaches out and shakes Logan’s hand.

“My name’s Harry Steeple, and this is my family.” says the old man.

He introduces his family. Firstly, his oldest son Henry and his wife, Missy. Next, he introduces Henry's two children Emily who is sixteen, and Riley, who is thirteen. Lastly, his son Mitch and his wife Gloria are introduced.

They all shake hands with Logan, thinking that Logan is the leader here. Harry presumes as much and asks the question.

“So are you the leader of the group?” he asks.

“Not exactly. Vintago the guy who saved you, he is the de facto leader around here.” Logan tells the Steeple family, “Vintago brought us all here, this was his hideaway when the shit hit the fan.”

Harry accepts the knowledge Logan has given him with a nod and continues, “So where do we go from here?”

Logan thinks quietly to himself for a second, not exactly sure where to go from here as he had never initiated anyone into their group.

“Well if you don’t mind, I am going to have you guys hang out outside while I check with Vin and see what he thinks we should do.” Logan says. “Trevor, please show the Steeple family around the compound while I discuss it with Vintago.” Logan says to the Corporal.

With that, Logan walks briskly back to the crew quarters and finds Vintago hovering near his father. Christine was able to safely remove the bullet from Ben’s stomach, and they had managed to stop the bleeding. No main arteries or organs were hit. Ben got lucky Logan figured most belly wounds did not go as well, especially in older men. Christine was able to give him some antibiotics that Jessica rummaged up from their medical supplies, but there were not many left. That was a little concerning for everyone. He would need to keep a strong dose of antibiotics onboard to keep infection at bay.

Logan taps Vin on the shoulder softly, and speaks into his ear telling him about the new survivors.

Vintago spins around and has a cold look on his face. Vin stands up and leaves his father in the care of his wife and family. He walks outside and finds Trevor showing these unknown people his entire compound.

“What the fuck is going on here?” Vintago exclaims. “Who authorized these people to come back here, and why are they being given a grand tour without my consent.”

“Well I guess Trevor made the call to bring them back here, and I didn’t want to bother you about it yet, but we didn’t know what to do with them.”

Logan begins, “Isn’t this part of the mission though? To build a colony of survivors? Well, this is how we achieve that mission, by bringing in survivors.”

Vintago looks at Logan, and part of him wants to punch him in the face, but the other part knows Logan can probably kill him with a toothpick, so he mellows out.

“You’re right Logan.” says Vin, clearly shaken up by the ordeal with his father.

“Do they have any valuable skills? We need to have a type of initiation checklist. I don’t want to be grabbing a bunch of idiot mouth breathers that are going to do nothing but undermine my work here.” Vintago rants.

“Let’s interview them, and learn what they have to offer.” Logan reasons.

“Not right now, get them situated in the office building with the soldiers, and we will sit down with them later, I need to get back to my dad.” says Vintago, and he walks away.

Logan finds Trevor and tells him the plan. They round up the Steeple family and herd them into the office building. They give them sleeping bags and tell them to pick their cubicles. The two kids take one cubicle. The two couples take a cube a piece and the father takes his own cubicle. Just like that, the office building is at full capacity.

Logan realizes this and starts thinking about where to house more people. They need the warehouse for storage and vehicles. The armory is out of the question, and the shed is full of damn explosives. Any additional survivors are going to have to camp out, or they are going to have to start building new housing alternatives. They can’t exactly keep expanding without space to accommodate people. This was one crucial downfall of the hatchery. It was small and had almost no room for expansion.

Logan tells the Steeple family to get settled in and leaves them to get cleaned up using the bathroom in the office building. He walks back to the crew quarters where most everyone is currently at. They are all hovering around Ben, filling the entire kitchen, wishing that he gets magically better. Ben is sprawled out on the kitchen table, and there is a substantial amount of blood everywhere.

“Why don’t we move him to his bed, and let him sleep.” Christine offers.

Vintago nods his head silently, and him and Greg gently lift his father and bring him to his bed so he can rest.

The ladies spend the better part of the next few hours cleaning the kitchen from all the blood. Then, they turn the MASH unit back into a MESS unit and start cooking dinner for upwards of twenty people they were now going to have to feed. Jessica looks in the pantries at her supplies and frowns.

“I’m not sure how long this food is going to last if I am going to have to be cooking for twenty people.” She says out loud.

“You let me worry about that Jessica, you just keep doing an awesome job in the kitchen.” Logan tells her.

She gives him a smile and nods her head.

Logan leaves the kitchen to check on Vintago and finds him sitting by the side of his father’s bed.

“You need to let him sleep Vin, watching him sleep is not helping him any, and it’s hurting you. Take a break and let's get ready for dinner.” Logan coaxes Vin.

Vintago begrudgingly gets up and leaves the room. He goes to the bathroom and cleans the caked on blood from his hands and arms. Staring at him in the mirror is a man that Vintago does not know, a man that has been hardened by death, by war and strife, and most of all, a man that has no fear or remorse. Only the shell of a man remains, and all that remains of that man, is hatred. Hatred for the things he has to do, hatred for the things that he has done to this point, and hatred for the world that has gotten him to this point. Staring back at Vintago is the man that he will become the man that one day will be feared by many.

Chapter Sixteen

Indoctrination

February, 2013

The following morning breaks on the compound and all is quiet. Nobody leaves their beds, reluctant to leave the warmth of them. Most of the group still sleeps quietly. Everyone, except for Benjamin Hawkins.

Ben woke up at first light and lay in his bed in intense pain. He tried to sit up to look at his stomach where the pain radiates from. This created too much pain, so he decides to stick to slightly poking and prodding around instead.

He lay in bed for over an hour trying to keep his eyes closed and resting, but then the pain became too much for him to bear. He calls out to Jessica on the bunk above him, and feels the bed stir as she moves around. A moment later, her long slender legs fall over the side of the bed, followed by a pair of pink panties covering her firm ass and she plops down to the ground. She at least has the decency to sleep with a t-shirt on. Ben does not exactly mind the gorgeous blonde running around half nude in the bedroom they share, but right now it just strikes him as uncomfortable.

For Jessica, it must be business as usual because she responds with, “Hey Ben, how are you doing buddy?”

“I feel like shit, Jess.” Ben replies coldly.

“I hear yah. You took a damn 7.62 round to the belly. That shit will mess you up alright. Don’t worry though, they got it out, and it didn’t hit anything worth dying over.” She says with a sick and twisted smile.

In too much pain to contribute to her sadistic games, he just tells her, “Can you get me some more painkillers, this is kicking my ass.”

Without another word, she skips across the room, little ass jiggling on the way out.

What a strange girl, Ben thinks.

A few minutes later she arrives with a small bottle of pills.

“They aren’t the good shit, but they should do.” Jess says and sets the bottle down on his chest and places a cup of water next to his bed. Then she climbs back up into her bed, and within minutes she is passed out again.

Ben struggles to sit up and grabs the pill bottle. Vicodin, that should take the edge off at least he figures. He pops the top off the pill bottle, grabs his water and downs two of the pills.

A little while later as the pills kick into action, they make him extremely tired and send him into a drug induced slumber.

While he is sleeping he has a strange vivid dream. They are back in the Outlander on the road in Payson, just before Vintago stops in front of the truck full of thugs. Vintago jumps out of the vehicle and Ben looks to his right as one of the men starts shooting. He tries to duck down under the dashboard, thinking that the door will stop the bullets and save him. He clears the door frame and scrunches into a ball, and then suddenly, white hot pain lashes into his stomach. Ben twists around to look at his stomach and finds a single hole in his shirt with blood oozing out. He tries to hold pressure on the wound, but in his crumbled up state it’s extremely difficult. It seems like forever goes by, with bullets flying, and striking the vehicle. The pain becomes extremely powerful, and eventually, he passes out.

Strangely, when he passes out in this dream world, he wakes up in the real world. His eyes adjust to the light and he finds Christine looking over him and taking his vitals. Sitting in a chair next to his bed is his son Vintago.

Upon seeing his father wake up, Vintago stirs from his chair, and he comes to stand by his bedside.

“Hey Dad, how are you doing?” Vin asks.

“I’ve been better.” Ben replies.

“Yeah, I bet.” Vin tells him.

The father and son talk for a little while going over what happened yesterday and also where they are going to go from here. After a little while, Vintago decides that he needs to let his father rest, and also because he has work to do.

Vintago grabs a quick bite of breakfast since everyone else has eaten and goes outside. He runs into Logan and asks him to round up the four soldiers, the Steeple family, and meet him back at the crew quarters.

Vintago goes back inside and asks his group, and the Black family to gather around. A short time later everyone from the office building is inside with them, and the entire living room and kitchen are full of people.

Vin stands in front of the TV and raises his voice so everyone can hear.

“Listen up everybody. We have taken on quite a few new faces lately, and we need to get to know each other. I want everyone to state their name, any skills that might be worthwhile to our group, and a brief background about yourself.” Vintago tells the group.

He also tasks his wife to help by writing everything down and make a roster so that they can keep track of everyone’s information.

Vintago starts with himself and he tells everyone his skill sets first. Next, he tells them about how they had gotten to this point. After that, he passes to the next person. They go around and around until everyone has had their time, and Victoria has it all written down on paper.

After the roster is complete, Vintago tells them that this is how he wants each new member of the group to be initiated. They need to know what skills they have and a brief history of their events. This is both to make sure they are not full of shit, and to figure out what they can do to be helpful around the compound.

With that done, the next order of business is to assign job duties.

“Ok guys, with this recent scare of Charlie coming into the compound we are going to have to crack down on security. Along with that, there is a ton of work that needs to be done around here.” Vintago explains.

“We need to assign everyone to certain jobs to ensure that everything gets done, and we don’t run into any problems.” Vin continues.

He looks at the roster and contemplates things for a few minutes.

“OK, first things first, Logan, Robby, and the four soldiers are going to be with me. We are going to be the security force, reconnaissance force, and fighting force of our group.” Vintago begins, then looks back at the roster and adds, “Mitch would you like to be added into that group as well?”

Mitch nods his head and figures that is the best place to use his skills as prior law enforcement.

“OK that’s settled. Next, we need to figure out who is going to start putting up the fencing, floodlights, and clamping down our security.” Vin says.

“How about Greg, Jessica, Harry and Henry.” Vin asks.

With no objections, Vin continues, “Greg I want you to lead that team, and Jessica you help them figure out the best way to protect the vital buildings. We want to be able to walk freely between all the buildings, without having to worry about getting attacked.”

They both nod and Jess gives Vin thumbs up.

“Also as soon as my father is better, he and Christine will be our medical team.” Vin adds, without asking as they are the only ones with real medical training.

“Lastly, the rest of the women and children will be part our, let’s call it upkeep brigade.” Vin laughs.

“We need you guys to make sure that everyone is taken care of with good food, clean clothes, warm beds, and clean living quarters. With all of the new mouths to feed and people stomping around in our living spaces, that is going to be a full time job.” Vin says.

“Victoria and Cindy will be in charge of getting everything done, I have no idea what those jobs entail.” Vin chuckles.

“Any questions or concerns on these job assignments?” Vin asks.

Everyone looks around and ponders on it for a bit, but they all seem to be OK with things for the moment.

“That settles it. Let’s get to work guys, we have a lot to do.” Vin tells the group.

As everyone starts to file out of the building, Vin asks the Steeple family to follow him to the armory. Vintago opens the door on the armory, flicks on the lights, and invites them in.

They all look at it with a sense of wonder. In a small pile, in one corner of the room, are the weapons they came into the compound with and were subsequently taken from their possession until they could be briefed.

“That pile of guns over there is yours obviously, and you are welcome to take them or leave them. We do have a mandate, however, that everyone carries a firearm at all times. We need everyone to be prepared around here.” Vintago explains.

“You don’t have to give the kids any guns. That is entirely up to you, but all adults need to carry a gun.” Vin says.

“If you’re not too keen on carrying a gun, or aren’t sure how to safely operate one, please let me know, and we will provide training at the next range session we have. For now, just grab one of these.” Vin says and picks up a Beretta, loads a magazine into it, chambers a round and clicks the safety on.

“Just remember that as long as the safety is on, it is perfectly safe.” He says as he slides it into a holster and hands it to Gloria, assuming she is one of the gun shy people.

She takes it from his hand. Sets it down nicely on the pile, and grabs a Colt 1911, instead. She grabs a magazine, rams it into the grip, chambers a round, and holsters it, leaving the safety off.

“I’ll do fine with this.” she says.

She is the wife of a cop Vin figures.

Eventually, everyone has been armed, even the sixteen year old Emily. Vintago leaves them to start working as part of their new job details.

Vin walks over to find Logan and the boys, and they are all standing around bullshitting. He walks up to them, and they all stand and look at Vin.

“Let’s get going guys. We need to get out and run some patrols to see if there is any other Charlie looking around.

Vintago tells Trevor to split his guys into two groups and have them take out the quads, one driving and one riding on the back facing to the rear to have twice the coverage. They shuffle off and Trevor rides with Tony on the back. Nathan rides with Jose on the back and the two groups take off. Vintago did not give them instructions on where to patrol or what to look for, but he figures they are smart enough to figure it out.

Vin, Logan, Robby, and their new member Mitch, pile into the Chevy pickup truck. The Chevy has four wheel drive, which will come in handy for their recon mission. Vintago wants to take the trail that leads north of the hatchery and further up and out of the canyon. Vintago wants to know where it leads, and if it’s a backdoor for Charlie, or other unwelcome visitors to use.

The guys follow the trail back into the woods and before long, it turns into more of a goat path than a road. There is just enough room for the truck to squeeze through, so the guys keep following it. Eventually, they have to put the truck in four wheel drive to continue, but they push onward. After a little while longer, in what seems like forever, but realistically is only about a mile and a half, they see a road. It’s a dirt road, but it used to be graded and it can fit two cars side by side.

They drive up onto the road and follow the road out east. After about ten miles they see signs for Bear Canyon Lake. Vintago remembers fishing this lake when he was younger, and immediately knows what road they are on. This road spills back out onto the highway after about twenty miles. Vintago is both happy to find an escape route out of the compound, but worried that it may also be a backdoor into their compound.

He tells the guys this, and they agree that the road needs to be secured somehow.

With that, they turn the truck around and head back down the bumpy road to the trail leading back to the hatchery. They stop at the trail entrance and put the truck in four wheel drive. The four men bump and jostle their way along the trail and come out at the end, near the hatchery.

When they arrive, Trevor and his men are waiting for them. They look like they have some urgent news, so Vintago and his team jump out and walk over to them.

“Vin, there are people on the other side of the highway.” Trevor blurts out.

“What?” Vin exclaims.

Trevor tells the story of how the two groups went exploring around the road leading to the highway. The road splits off in two directions along the way, one heading east and one heading west. At the end of the east road is a summer camp that has all sorts of cabins, and a few other outlying buildings. The road west ends in a neighborhood full of houses and another small camp.

“That’s not the exciting part though,” Jose chimes in, “When we went further south and crossed the highway there is a big resort down there and a huge group of people holding up there.”

Jose explains to the group that this resort is full of cabins and when they rode into the parking lot, they were greeted with guns pointed at them. After talking to the people and explaining that they were the good guys, which the people were reluctant to believe, they calmed down a bit. The group told Jose and Nathan that there were forty eight people camped out in the resort. They had started like Vintago’s group, just a few survivors who were at the resort when the shit hit the fan, and they had stayed and collected more survivors along the way.

Vintago just looks at them in disbelief. He can’t believe that there was a group within miles of his compound, and he had never seen them.

Jose confirmed this when he tells the group that their neighbors have been keeping to themselves and largely being dependent upon the resources the resort had to offer.

After hearing the story about the people to their south, Vintago pulls Logan aside and asks what he thinks they should do.

“Well we certainly need to tread carefully, we aren’t strong enough to pick any fights. I think we should be diplomatic with them, maybe join forces.” Logan says with more wisdom than his forty two years.

“I think you’re right, but we absolutely can’t let them know what we are doing up here, and we need to get our defenses up ASAP.” Vin replies.

Logan nods his head in agreement, and they step back to the group of fighters.

“Let's gear up and head back down there, I want to meet our neighbors.” Vin says.

The guys gather their M4s and sidearms, and they mount up in the two pickup trucks and head down the hill.

Vintago is hoping that the show of force on their keep the people submissive, and will keep in their minds that they are outgunned, even if they are not outmanned.

The two trucks roll down the hill, cross the highway, and enter the resort perimeter. The resort group, clearly on the alert now, meets them with mixed feelings. There are about twenty of them, all holding an assortment of weapons. Some have hunting rifles or shotguns. Others have handguns, and only a couple have decent semi-automatic rifles.

Logan sizes the group up immediately, and calculates the odds if things do not end well. His group of eight men with superior firepower more than likely could take the group out, but there would be heavy casualties, and they may not make it out alive.

Logan expresses as much to Vintago, and Vin nods, trusting the advice of his second in command.

Vintago’s group stops thirty feet short of the neighboring group, and they dismount their vehicles. They let their rifles lay slack in their slings, just like Vintago is doing.

The resort group does a double take at seeing the well-armed men step out of their vehicles with military style rifles and holstered sidearms. Vintago can see that his show of force has the right effect. Vintago signals for his men to hold by the trucks and approaches the group by himself.

He says to them at about fifteen feet away, “Hello, my name is Vintago Hawkins. Which of you is the leader of this group?”

A middle aged man steps free from the ranks of his group and says “I guess that would be me. The name’s Roger Wilson.”

The two men step forward and shake hands, sizing each other up as they do it.

After a moment of awkward silence, Vintago speaks up, “So how long have you guys been calling this place home?”

Roger tells Vintago that they have been here since before the outbreak and have made this place their home. He says that the original group of employees and guests numbered about twenty people, but they picked up some stragglers along the way and now there are forty eight of them.

“What about you guys?” Roger asks Vin.

“We have some more guys back at our compound, this is just my main recon group.” Vin replies, stretching the truth, not wanting to play all his cards yet.

Roger accepts Vintago’s answer and continues, “Where did you guys come from exactly? We haven’t seen anyone in this area in weeks.”

Vintago takes a minute to think about his response and says, completely dodging the question “We are just down the road from here. My guys were out patrolling the area and ran into you.”

“Hmm, well it’s good to know that there are other good people around these parts too.” Roger says, with a little hesitancy to his voice.

“Yes, it is good to know. Perhaps we should sit down someplace and discuss how we could help each other out.” Vintago replies.

Roger figures that would be a good idea, and leads Vintago and his group into their main building, what used to be the lobby of the resort. Inside it looks like a tornado has swept through. There are boxes of supplies both empty and full, equipment, trash, and all sorts of other junk.

Roger leads Vintago over to a small table and chair and offers him a seat. The two men sit down and discuss what their situations are. Roger tells Vintago that he is critically low on just about everything, guns, ammunition, food, and clean water. They have to boil all of their water since the well running the resort has been without power for weeks. They had a backup generator, but it ran out of fuel a long while back. Roger tells Vintago that they have a decent group of fighters, and the rest are women or children.

Roger also explains to Vintago how they desperately need someone with medical experience, because they have a few people who are sick or wounded.

Vintago tells Roger that the main thing he is lacking is fighters. He needs to have more rifles at the ready to be able to gather more supplies quickly and efficiently. He tells Roger that maybe they can work something out where the resort boys tag along with his team and they can split the spoils. Roger says that he will run that by his guys, but it sounds like an excellent idea.

At the end of their discussion, they shake hands and Vintago leaves with his men. Roger promises to speak with his group and ask for every able bodied man or woman to accompany Vintago on supply runs.

On the way back to the hatchery, Logan speaks with Vintago, “They look like a bunch of rag tag civilians Vin, do you want to throw them out there as backup for our guys?”

“No, I don’t, but I need more men and vehicles on our supply runs to efficiently stockpile. If we are going to keep feeding just the twenty something people we have, we need to have a massive stockpile of food, not to mention everything else. Don’t even discount that we need more fuel soon, more medical supplies, and we need to start considering building some more buildings for housing people. All of that takes manpower and time to get. The more people we have, the faster it goes.” Vintago explains to Logan.

Logan ponders on that for a couple minutes and agrees with Vintago. Their team of eight fighters is not enough to man all the vehicles they already have.

“We will need to be careful how we approach this situation. While I do want to use their men, I do not want to be feeding their people and dealing with their problems.” Vin says.

“I made the agreement with them that if they helped us make supply runs we would share some of the supplies.” Vin says, “I did not, however, explain what share we would give them.”

“The other thing we might want to consider is recruiting their good people and bringing them over to our side of the fence.” Logan says.

Vintago never thought of that, simply dangle the carrot in front of their faces and more than likely, they would abandon the resort group all together. Though, this could be viewed as a hostile action and could cause them to attack Vintago’s compound. That would have to be handled deftly.

“Let’s just head back tomorrow and see what they are thinking first, maybe take a few rifles with us and see how his group does.” Vintago says.

Chapter Seventeen

Dry Run

February, 2013

The next morning Vintago and his group of fighters rally at the trucks again. They bring with them a dozen M4A1 rifles, extra magazines, and a box of 5.56mm ammunition. Vintago gets in the lead vehicle with Logan driving, and they head down the road towards the highway. Logan brings the truck to a stop at the highway, looking both ways before crossing. Some old habits die hard.

They make their way across the highway, and as they arrive Roger and his band of survivors come out of the resort lobby building. Roger waves to Vintago and his group.

Vintago steps out of the truck and shakes hands with Roger. He asks Roger if they have made a decision, and Roger informs him that fifteen members of his group would like to volunteer.

“Sounds good to me Roger. I only brought twelve rifles, so they will have to be distributed evenly.” Vintago says and pulls out an M4 from the back of the truck.

“My guys all use the same rifle when running operations for ease of use, and ammo swapping capabilities.” Vintago explains.

“Can you guys all step down here real quick and show me your skill with one of these rifles. We just want to make sure everyone knows how to use one.” Vin tells the group.

Logan grabs a box of ear plugs and lets everyone put them in since they are the cheap disposable kind. The guys looted them from the gun shop, and they are invaluable for range sessions.

Logan also runs over to a tree about twenty meters out and uses his knife to mark it with a big X.

The first man from Roger’s group steps forward and holds out his hand for the M4. Vintago explains only to fire about three or four rounds, just to show proficiency with the weapon. He slaps in a magazine, charges the rifle, aims carefully, and fires all five rounds remarkably quickly. All five rounds strike the tree with no problem.

Vintago and Logan both give the man a strange look, which the man answers “I know my way around quite a few guns, and this one is one of my favorites.”

Vin lets the other fourteen people take turns firing at the tree. Some of them are not too bad, and some of them are even pretty excellent. It would seem that the old saying, only the strong survive, is mostly true. Sometimes, just having enough of the strong in your group will save you too, Vintago figures.

Figuring that they proved themselves, Vintago accepts them and tells the group they will be back within the hour, and that they are going to have their first dry run. Vin wants to go into town again for fuel, food, and medical supplies. He asks if they have any working vehicles and learns that they have two working pickup trucks, and three small cars, but all of them are low on fuel.

Vin tells them that he will bring some fuel down to at least get them into town and then they can fuel up all of their vehicles. He also says he will bring them three extra rifles, and one handgun each and to leave their personal weapons behind. The group all nod in agreement and go back inside to get their gear together.

Vintago and his team mount up and head back to the compound. After they arrive, they tell their families, and everyone else what they plan on doing, and they get mixed reviews. Ultimately, everyone knows what must be done, so nobody complains a whole lot.

Vintago has Logan get the vehicles together. They are going to take the flatbed truck, the two pickups, and Vin wants to break out the fish hatchery’s fish transport truck. The truck has a twelve hundred gallon tank on the back of it, and it is powered by a burly diesel engine. Vin wants to fill the truck up with at least a few hundred gallons of fuel and let it be their fuel reservoir. The only problem is that they do not have any diesel, and the truck is sitting on a quarter of a tank. Hopefully the gas station Vin and Ben went to originally has some diesel fuel also, or they may not make it back with the fuel they need for their generator.

He makes the decision to drain twenty gallons of fuel from their generator tank to fuel up the cars of their neighbors.

After grabbing the fuel, Vintago has the guys load up three more rifles and a handgun for each member of their assisting force. The guys pile into their respective vehicles. Everyone waves goodbye to each other, and they start the trucks to head down the hill once again.

When they get back to the resort, the group of fighters are standing around waiting. Vintago’s guys give them the rifles, handguns, and a few boxes of ammunition for the handguns. They are all highly thankful for the gifts, and more than one of them asks where they got such nice rifles. Nobody gives them an answer.

After the resort group refuels their vehicles, they are ready to go. The new convoy, consisting of nine vehicles rumbles down the highway. They enter Payson shortly after, and Vintago leads them to the old gas station where him and his father went the first time they needed fuel.

All nine vehicles pile into the small gas station and park. Both groups get out of their vehicles and stand by waiting for Vintago.

Vin gets out and signals for Logan to follow him. They go around back, and Vin shows Logan the generator. They crank over the generator, and it spurs into action. The fuel gauge on the generator’s gas tank hovers just above E.

Logan and Vin tell the group to get the vehicles fueled up in a hurry. Vin goes inside and turns on the switches for all the pumps.

They have both sides of the pump going for the fuel truck, and the other pumps are being used by the other vehicles. The new group of fighters are ecstatic about getting full tanks of gas. They obviously didn’t think of this idea on their own.

Thirty minutes go by, and the vehicles are all full of fuel, except for the fuel truck. The gauge on the tank of the fuel truck shows about a quarter full. The fuel tank on that actual truck itself reads about an eighth of a tank left. They need to get this thing some diesel before leaving, but the diesel pump is on the other side of the lot. Vin decides to go and get some diesel from the pump and feed both the generator and their fuel truck. He grabs a few five gallon containers and walks over to the pump. Vin walks to the front of the pump and grabs the handle. He selects diesel fuel and tries the pump handle. Nothing happens.

“Great.” Vin says out loud.

He tries it a couple more times, trying to figure out why it is not working. The damn pump must be broken.

“Logan, we may have a problem.” Vin yells.

Logan sprints over to see what the issue is, and Vin shows him.

“This is the only diesel pump they have?” Logan asks, already knowing the answer.

Vintago just nods, trying to figure out a solution to their problem. The generator needs diesel to run, and the fuel truck needs diesel to run. The way Vin sees it they have two options, either they can use the fuel from the truck to run the generator and leave the station pumping gas into the fuel tank, or they can limp the truck back to the hatchery and leave it there until they find more diesel fuel.

Vintago explains both scenarios to Logan and asks what he thinks they should do.

“I don’t think there is anybody around to mess with the truck if we leave it fueling up and take the keys. I say we use the trucks’ gas to fill up the generator and let it keep on pumping gas into the back of it.” Logan says, “Besides we have plenty of other shit we can be doing besides sitting here.”

Vintago ponders on this for a few minutes and figures that this is a decent enough plan and decides to do just that. They siphon the rest of the diesel out of the fuel truck and take it behind the gas station to fill up the generator. Vintago figures that the generator should have enough fuel to run for another few hours now.

They get all of the vehicles rounded up with everyone loaded in them, and they decide to start looking for the list of items that are needed by both parties. They need medical supplies first and foremost. They also need to find an electronics store for more radios, batteries, flashlights, and a few other items. Additionally, Vintago wants to hit the pawn shop since they did not make it last run, to see if they have any firearms left. He also wants to hit the gun shop one more time, clean out the rest of the vault, and anything else they can find. Even though, their armory is pretty well stocked, he wants to make sure they have it all.

Vintago explains the plan to the resort group and his own men, and the two groups head in a convoy pattern to a small Walgreens pharmacy on the corner of the highway and a cross street. Everyone parks their vehicles and gets out. Vintago asks two of the resort crew to watch the vehicles and cover their asses and everyone else files into the store.

Vin immediately heads back to the pharmacy section of the store and goes behind the counter. The place has been pretty ransacked, and pill bottles lay all over the floor and counters. The drugs are the first things people go for it would seem. They scavenge around and find what they need, some antibiotics in several flavors, powerful pain killers, and a few other items Christine asked for.

Next, they raid the over the counter aisles. Vintago scoops up every bottle of aspirin, ibuprofen, and acetaminophen he can find. These little pills would be invaluable to fight off headaches, muscle aches, and who knows what else. The simple things that the American society always could take a pill to relieve. He grabs bottles of allergy medicine as well, mostly thinking of himself. The constant dirt and pine tree surroundings was playing hell on his allergies. If a little pill every day could alleviate that, he would be damned if he would give that up.

They also collect every bandage, wrap, tape, and other first aid supplies. By the time, they are done they have a couple shopping carts full with medicine and first aid supplies. After that, they head over to the real creature comforts section of the store and grab toothpaste, toothbrushes, shampoo, soaps, and all the little things people miss being in the middle of nowhere without being able to run to the store. They also gather all the feminine products they can for the women, to make their lives easier. Vin also thinks to get a ton of condoms as well, thinking that nobody needs to get pregnant right now, but it might promote a little normalcy in the married couples’ lives.

After they are done getting the items from their list here, they pack everything up in one of the vehicles, and everyone mounts up. They take a quick drive, less than a quarter mile north, and they find the Radioshack they need to visit.

Vin tells everyone to sit with the vehicles as they would not need ten people for this stop. Logan, Vin, and Robby enter the store by themselves. They know what’s on the list and they go about getting the items. Vintago grabs a small handcart and fills it to the brink with every type battery he can find. They raided all the batteries at the Walgreens to, but there just are not enough batteries these days. Next, he fills another hand cart with flashlights of every size, shape and color. He finds some small lanterns as well and grabs those. Every light source they can get their hands on the better.

Meanwhile, Logan is getting his hands on all of their shortwave radios, headsets, and accessories. They need a better way to communicate, and the radios will go a long way towards that goal.

Robby picks up all of the stores GPS devices. They want to have a GPS installed on each vehicle so that they can strategically start marking off routes, places they have scavenged, and other notable landmarks. Then, they plan to sync all the devices together each night using the computers at the compound.

Lastly, Vintago grabs a few tablets, laptops, and printers. He wants to digitally enhance the way that they plot out their missions. He figures the best way he knows how to do that is with computers. The tablets will be an excellent way to get his people on the same page. Most people in this situation they are in would think that these electronics were worthless and that they should just operate using stone age technology. Vintago, on the other hand, thinks that as long as they work and they are reliable, technology is a tool to be leveraged efficiently.

The three men leave the store and load up their new gear in the back of one of their pickups. This stuff is not for the resort crew, and it will not be shared.

Next, they need to head over to the pawn shop to check that out. Everyone piles back in their vehicles and they cruise a couple miles down the street to the pawn shop. This time, everyone gets out to take a look inside. Who knows what will be left inside a store like this.

They go inside the shop and find that it has been largely cannibalized. There are some guitars, power tools, and some jewelry left, but none of that is useful. The groups are both looking for firearms. There are a few guns left over, but they are old bolt action military surplus rifles. Vintago and his group pass them up, but the resort crew grabs them and takes them all. Logan grabs one of the acoustic guitars on the way out and smiles at Vin.

“Been awhile since I’ve played, but it would be nice.” Logan says.

Vintago just smiles and chuckles at Logan’s choices. Vintago takes a page from Logan’s book and scoops up some Xbox games that were left over. He figures they would be fun for the kids, and secretly he would not mind dissolving his mind into a good game.

The groups get back to the vehicles and decide to head to a small grocery store across the street. They make the quick trip across the road, and Vin tells the same two men to stay with the vehicles. Everyone else piles inside the building and they find the place a mess, but there are still good things to be looted.

They form a shopping cart convoy and go down each aisle sweeping everything they can find into the shopping carts, much like Vintago and his father did when they ran into Logan and his family.

This goes on for about an hour, and at the end of it, the resort group has a pickup full of groceries, and the compound group has the back of the Ford loaded up, and some of the Chevy.

Satisfied with their spoils, they decide to make the last stop at the gun shop. Before heading out, Logan spots a big rig sitting in the parking lot of the grocery store. He decides to see if he can get some diesel fuel out of it so they can get their fuel truck loaded up. He grabs his siphoning gear and heads over to the big rig. Robby accompanies him and watches his back as he opens the gas tanks on the side of the vehicle. They look to be quite full, so he sends Robby back to the trucks to get more fuel cans. Fifteen minutes later, Logan has twenty five gallons of diesel fuel ready to go. Vintago is satisfied that this will be enough to get the truck back to the hatchery, and they can worry about returns trips later.

The groups mount up and head over to the gun shop for the last time. Vintago pulls out the key to the vault as he exits his vehicle. He tells the resort crew to wait outside, which they do not like one bit.

Vintago, on the other hand, does not give a shit. The vault is their property as far as he is concerned. Vin and his team enter the gun shop, head down to the vault, and crack it open. Inside there are probably another fifty rifles that had to be left behind last time. Along with the rifles are at least thirty handguns, and God only knows how much ammunition. They start making trips back and forth to the flatbed truck, loading everything up. An hour goes by, and the resort crew are voicing their complaints, making it well known that they want in on the spoils.

“Listen,” Vintago finally tells them, “this shit was found by us, and the rifles you are carrying were given to you, by me. I will do what I please with the weapons in here, and if you guys don’t chill out, you may not get anything out of here.”

This served to upset the fifteen resort members even more, since they had put their asses on the line coming here today.

Vintago is just testing their loyalty and patience at this point because he has every intention of giving them some guns. He is just not going to give them the cream of the crop.

Logan and the guys finish looting what they consider relevant, extra magazines, extra holsters, carrying cases, cleaning kits, optical sights, and tactical lights. Then, they tell the resort crew to have at the rest of the store.

They rush into the gun shop and start picking through everything. There is still plenty of things to be had, but not the nice items. The good stuff is already in Vin’s armory, or in the back of his trucks.

The guys watch as the resort crew makes trip after trip, and after another hour, they are ready to go, satisfied that they have what they need.

Over four hours into their excursion, Vintago decides it is time to head back to the gas station and pick up their fuel truck. The truck should be about full by now he figures.

Chapter Eighteen

Gas Station Showdown

February, 2013

They all get in their vehicles one more time and head over to the gas station on the edge of town. Vintago’s truck, being the lead vehicle sees them first.

There are about twenty five Charlie standing around the fuel truck, gas station, and generator. Clearly drawn by the noise the generator made.

“Fucking A! I forgot about that shit.” Vintago exclaims.

Logan didn’t think about it either as he was a firm believer in leaving the truck.

“Well we can’t just leave the damn thing, we need to clear out those Charlie and get the truck.” Vin says.

Logan takes a look at the Charlie and runs the math, twenty or so of them, twenty three of us. We have high powered automatic rifles. They have hands and teeth. Not to underestimate hands and teeth, but they should be alright.

“Yeah let’s take them out and get the truck.” Logan says.

Vintago has Logan stop the truck about five hundred feet shy of the gas station so that the group of Charlie is not alerted to their presence. Everybody else stops their vehicles and gets out. Vintago explains the plan to them, and Vin’s guys are good to go. The resort team, however, has mixed feelings. Some of them are all for it, and some of them just want to leave the truck and head back. It isn’t their truck after all.

After a few minutes of indecision, the resort team splits up, and one vehicle takes off with five passengers inside.

Well, eighteen of us now, Logan thinks.

The remaining members of the resort group follow Vintago and his guys towards the station. They hold a tight formation as they go. Everyone stands shoulder to shoulder, rifles facing forward.

Tony has a firm grasp on his SAW, and at about a hundred feet out, the Charlie realize that they are coming. Tony lies down on the ground and pulls out the bi pod for the SAW and gets ready to provide suppressive fire. Well, it used to be called that. Now it was more like defensive fire, to cover a retreat if needs be.

The rest of the group trudges on, and when the Charlie get within fifty feet, they all start opening up with their rifles. The group of Charlie gets pelted with 5.56mm ammunition and stops them briefly. Quite a few drop right there on the spot, but the rest advance in a wave.

From behind the station comes another wave of infected, adding to the mix. The guys work their way toward the truck in a flanking maneuver. They are trying to lead the Charlie away from the truck and also keep taking them down. The group of infected keeps trundling onward and away from the truck. All the while being torn up by their rifles.

It seems like every Charlie they take out gets replaced by one coming from behind the station, or from out of the woods surrounding the station. The guys quickly realize that they may have bitten off more than they can chew. Already committed, however, they wave Nathan forward, and he cruises up in one of the pickup trucks and parks next to the fuel truck. He hops out of the cab and grabs a gas can, quickly filling the truck. Jose stands up in the bed of the truck to cover his ass while he fills the fuel truck.

The rest of the team keeps picking away at the larger group of Charlie. It’s starting to get a little too close for comfort and the guys start backing up a little too fast. One of the resort crew trips over something and goes down. The Charlie get within feet of him before one of his friends runs over to help him up. Just as, they turn around to flee back to the group, a large female Charlie leaps forward and tears into the saviors’ neck.

Logan saw it before it happened, and tried to react, but his shot went wide and the female just ripped out the poor guy’s jugular. With nobody to help the man who tripped, he quickly gets overrun and torn to pieces by Charlie. The group can only look on in horror and empty everything they have trying to save the man.

Running low on ammo, the group starts retreating towards their vehicles.

Jose yells to the rest of the group, “Almost done, get ready to get the fuck out of here!”

As the group starts making their way back towards the vehicles, another pack of Charlie comes out of the woods. This pack is much larger, probably thirty or so strong. Adding to the ones already chasing them, there are now over fifty following after them.

Behind them, Tony opens up the SAW and starts firing in their general direction. Wanting to know why Tony is shooting towards them, Vintago spins around. There is another pack of Charlie approaching them from behind, it is a smaller group, but they are about to be overrun and surrounded. Vintago and Logan make a quick decision to run directly through the small group, and they wave everyone forward. They start running straight at the small group of Charlie, spraying them with bullets as they go. Vintago’s rifle goes dry, and he is out of spare magazines. He pulls out his Taurus 9mm and starts shooting wildly. The group starts dying off in front of them, and they charge right into the middle of them. Vintago slashes out wildly with his empty rifle using it like a club to knock Charlie out of his way. Logan pulls out a giant combat knife and stabs it into the neck of a particularly large male. The rest of the guys see this and follow the lead, using whatever they have to beat the Charlie group down.

Eventually, Vintago and his men reach the trucks and do a quick head count. All eight of his men are accounted for, except for Jose and Nathan. He checks their status and Jose is in the front seat of the pickup, and Nathan is behind the wheel of the fuel truck. They both step on it, and head out of the parking lot smashing through bodies as they go.

The resort team is another story. Only three of them made it back to the vehicles, and the other five are standing on top of an abandoned car shooting at the infected quickly surrounding them.

Logan, thinking quickly, hops in the big Ford truck and waves Vintago and his son over. They both get in the truck, and Logan slams the pedal to the floor. He hauls ass into what’s left of the small group of Charlie sending them flying every which way, some of them being crushed under the weight of the vehicle. The big cattle guard on the front of the truck does its job and slices through the group.

He keeps on barreling ahead and up ahead is the much larger group of Charlie and the rest of the Resort crew. Logan screams like a crazy asshole and just rams right into the mass scattering them all over. He tries to stop, but slides right into the car the guys are standing on. One guy falls off the backside, into the group of Charlie, never to be seen again. The other four hop onto the hood of the Ford and literally run and dive into the truck bed with several thuds. Logan throws the truck in reverse as hands slap at the windows, spattering blood everywhere. As he backs up, Logan crushes several Charlie under the trucks monster dually tires. He power slides the truck around in a circle, crushing more Charlie along the way, and slams the gear selector into drive. Peeling out on the face of a female Charlie, he hauls ass out of the group and towards the rest of their convoy. Jose and Nathan are ready and waiting, and the rest of the group pile into whatever vehicles they can get in, and they all step on it. The entire convoy barrels down the highway at breakneck speed trying to get the hell out of Dodge.

Fortunately, they do not run into any other surprises, and the two groups make it out of town and back towards safety. They ride in silence the rest of the way to the cutoff for the hatchery and the resort. They stop here, and everyone gets out switching to the correct vehicles. Vintago knows that everyone is far to stressed out to haggle over who gets what supplies, so he just lets them have what they collected.

Before letting them go Vin says, “I’m sorry about your friends back there. That’s a shame what happened. You guys did fantastic though, I want to say that. I also want to say that if any of you so choose, we would be more than happy to have you over at our camp. We need more men like yourselves.”

Vintago knows it is not the appropriate time to try and enlist the resort’s fighters, especially since they just lost three men, but he has to admit to himself that the seven who did make it are damned good.

He doesn’t let anyone else know, but this whole day was one gigantic test, a test to see how his men functioned under pressure and combat, and how this new group of survivors functioned. He knew exactly what would happen when he left that generator running because he had already seen it happen once. It made Vintago felt good to know that his team had functioned flawlessly, and hopefully it would increase by seven more within the coming days. It was a shame that the resort crew had lost three men. They may have even been good men, but if they were that good, they would have made it out. Vintago did not want men that were pretty good. He wanted the best men. In this world, only the best would survive, and Vintago intended to have the best.

The two groups say goodbye to each other, shake hands, and mount up. Vintago and his group head back to the hatchery to unload their supplies and have a mission debriefing. Vintago thought about this on the way back. It would be a way for them to discuss a mission in its entirety and discuss failures and successes, and how to improve next time.

When the guys arrive, everyone from the compound gathers around. As the guys dismount, there are more than a few sighs of relief. Everyone knows how dangerous it is for them to go out like this. After today, even Vintago knows that. His plan had figured in twenty or thirty Charlie, not seventy. He had no idea there were that many around since they are almost never out roaming around. The mission gave Vin valuable information about how they operate, which he will bring up during the debriefing.

Vintago walks over and gives his wife a hug and a kiss and does the same to Gray. Logan does the same with his family. Mitch greets his wife in a similar fashion. The four soldiers, they just walk away.

Vintago takes a look around and sees that the guys have been hard at work putting up the fence and security spotlights. The fence was coming along nicely, and it was already giving Vin a much needed boost in security.

Vin asks his guys to help unload the supplies and asks Henry Steeple to stop putting up the lights and help out.

They get all of the guns and ammunition put into the armory first and get the building locked up again. The new additions to their munitions supply makes about half the building covered in ammunition cans while the other half is lined with guns of all shapes and sizes. Their armory was now effectively maxed out. They probably had enough munitions to arm at least two hundred people or more.

Next, they offload the electronics, putting them all in the crew quarters for Vintago to mess around with later. They also stockpile all of the batteries in the crew quarters to keep them warmer and hopefully increase their life. They do, however, give everyone at the compound a radio, a flashlight, and a battery powered lantern.

After that they get all of the medical supplies and hand them over to Christine, who has been taking care of Ben all day. She is extremely pleased to have the extra antibiotics and painkillers as Ben has been consuming them like candy. She tells Vin real quick that his dad is doing much better, and she thinks he will make a full recovery. Vin takes this as good news, and continues working.

Lastly, they take all of the new foodstuffs they scavenged and put it all in the large pantries inside the crew kitchens. Jessica organizes everything and puts it where it needs to be. She also keeps an inventory going on her iPad so that they know exactly what they have. Yet another piece of evidence to prove Vintago’s technology theory. Seeing her inventory the kitchen like that makes Vintago want to do the same with his armory, medical supplies, and everything else. He will have to speak with Logan about that, perhaps it is something Henry Steeple could do. He’s good with numbers, Vintago figures.

Vintago decides to round up his men for their mission debriefing now. He gets everybody together, and they go over to the warehouse. The workbench area has some chairs and tables that they all sit around. Vintago starts the meeting once everyone is sitting down.

“OK guys, I want this to be fairly informal, but we need to discuss our supply run today and go over the finer points.” Vin begins, “I want to discuss the failures and successes and how we can turn those failures into successes in the future.”

The men talk back and forth for about an hour going over the details of the mission. Obviously, everyone sees leaving the truck pumping gas with the generator running was the colossal failure. Logan brings up that he did believe that might happen, but figured the Charlie would be less in number and more manageable.

None of the group expected to see such a large group of Charlie. Everyone has thus far has been on the run, and nobody has had much time to study the enemy. Logan brings this fact up, and they explore scenarios for researching Charlie to try and figure out more information concerning their whereabouts, patterns, and weaknesses.

The following critical failure they go over is the breakdown in discipline, or lack thereof during their skirmish with the infected. The resort crew are not trained in unit cohesion, and their performance showed. They got three of their guys killed during the skirmish, due to lack of discipline.

The best solution they can come up with for this issue is tactical training led by Logan and Trevor. Everyone, including Vintago who has no formal training, could use it.

Lastly, the guys quickly go over the successes of the mission which include over one thousand gallons of gasoline, another month's worth of food rations, the armory being full to its bursting point, and the medical team having plenty of supplies.

After their mission debriefing, they decide to discuss where to go from here. Vintago mentions that the security needs to be beefed up still, especially now that they know they have neighbors, and Charlie are lurking about.

Logan asks Vin if he thinks the resort group will be a problem, and Vintago tells him that they might be a little pissed off about losing three of their men. Logan figures that is a good point.

The next order of business is scouting missions. Vintago wants his guys running scouting missions to the camps to their south, and west. He wants the guys to check for survivors, food, supplies, and anything else of value, even vehicles. Vintago wants to fill the parking lot at the hatchery with good working vehicles. Having ten or fifteen maintained vehicles would be preferred, in case they need to leave in a hurry. He tells them to take priority on trucks, and anything with four wheel drive, thinking of the path leading out to their north.

Vintago also wants to head over to the resort group tomorrow to see how they are holding up. Additionally, he wants to speak with the seven fighters and see if any of them have made the decision to come over to his group.

After they complete their business, they decide to wind things down for the day and get some rest. Tomorrow, Vintago wants to start enacting the plans they just created, wasting no time at all.

The whole group turns in for dinner as the sun sets, and everyone is exhausted after a long day. Before long, everyone splits off and goes to their respective housing situations.

Chapter Nineteen

New Recruits

February, 2013

Dawn breaks over the compound, and already people are milling about performing their duties. Jessica is awake and preparing breakfast for their quickly growing group of people. She is getting better at preparing large meals and makes pretty decent food with the supplies she has.

The guys all scarf down some breakfast, and they head out of the crew quarters to get to work. Trevor and his guys load up in one of the pickup trucks. Logan, Robby, and Mitch are waiting for Vintago in the big Ford.

Before leaving, Vin pulls Greg aside and speaks with him for a minute.

“Greg, I need to start thinking about building some additional sleeping arrangements for any future people we bring onboard. Do you have any idea how to build a type of structure that will hold up?” Vin asks him.

“Well, I’m not going to say I’ll build you a four bedroom house with running water and plumbing, but I think I could throw up four walls and put a roof on it. How big are you thinking?” Greg replies.

“I want it to have at least ten small rooms, and I want to line those rooms with bunk beds on both sides. If it works out how I’m envisioning it, we should be able to sleep forty people.” Vin tells him.

Greg whistles, “That’s pretty damn big Vin. I don’t know about that. We don’t even have enough open land here to do that.”

“We would need to clear some of the trees out and expand our compound. I need you to think about that when you are building the fence. Leave some extra room over there.” Vintago says and points to a nice flat area of land across from the main hatchery compound.

“I’ll do it Vin, but where are we going to get the lumber to build a building that large, we can’t exactly build a log cabin.” Greg says.

“Actually,” Vin says, “that’s exactly what I was thinking.”

Vintago explains how he wants to use the logs they clear from around their compound to build the basic structure. The rest of the building supplies they will run to Home Depot in Payson to get. He tells Greg that they just do not have trucks large enough to haul enough lumber to build an entire building, and he does not want to make twenty trips into town.

“Any tools or building materials you need for the inside of the building we can get from the store. Plywood and two by fours I think we can get no problem.” Vin says.

Greg tells him “I’ll get to work on putting a plan together, and work with my guys to see what they think. We need to get this fence done first before we start another large project though.”

Vin agrees with him, and they shake hands and go their separate ways.

Vintago sprints over to the waiting Ford and hops in the passenger seat. Logan cranks up the engine and pulls out of the parking lot and heads down the hill. Vin sent Trevor and his men to the western neighborhood and camp to see what was over there. Vin and his men are going to check out the summer camp and cabins.

Logan heads down the road, only two miles or so and takes the turnoff for the summer camp. He heads back into the camp, and they park in front of the main building for the camp.

The guys get out of the vehicle and fan out, weapons at the ready. Vintago approaches the main building and walks up to the door and tries to open it while the others cover him. The door is locked and does not budge.

Vin looks over at Logan and shrugs his shoulders. He takes the butt of his rifle and smashes in the glass panes on the front of the double doors. Vin sticks his hand through the glass and unlocks the deadbolt holding the doors closed.

The swings the doors open, and what he sees causes him to bring his rifle up and start looking around. Logan, sensing his change in behavior, does the same and enters the building to Vin’s left.

Inside, there are clear signs that someone has been living here. There are supplies all over the place, sleeping bags in the middle of the room, clothing draped across chairs to dry, and the most obvious sign, the remnants of a fire burning in the fireplace.

Vintago calls out quietly to Mitch and Robby and has them come in as well to help scout out the building. The guys clear the building room by room, finding a large kitchen stocked with a decent amount of supplies, bathrooms, classrooms, and a small church chapel. What they do not find, however, is any people.

They leave the main building and start scouting the grounds of the camp, checking each cabin and outlying building. Most of the cabins have been picked clean, probably by whoever is living here.

After thirty minutes of searching, they return to the main building and decide to wait for a little while. Whoever is staying here will come back eventually. The guys move their truck to a more inconspicuous location and stake out the building.

They hunker down in one of the cabins directly across from the main building and wait. Another half hour goes by and soon they hear whistling and laughter. Approaching the main building is a group of seven people. There are two adults, one male and one female, and five children, probably in their early teen years.

Between the adult male and two of the bigger kids is a small deer hanging upside down on a large tree branch. The man has a large hunting rifle slung around his chest, and it is clear what happened, and how they have been surviving. The man appears to be a decent hunter.

Vintago and Logan watch out the front windows as the group approaches the main building. They see that the glass is broken on their front door, and the man calmly sets the deer down and raises his rifle. His eyes scan the surrounding area, and he spots their pickup truck.

Quickly losing the element of surprise, Vintago decides to step out of the cabin, rifle hanging in his sling.

The man sees Vintago, then his gun, and raises his own weapon, pointing it at Vin’s chest.

“Whoa, buddy. Don’t shoot!” Vintago says and puts his hands up.

“Who are you and what do you want.” the man says.

“We were just coming to see what we could find here, and stumbled across your camp.” Vin replies coolly.

“My name’s Vintago Hawkins and I operate a small group of survivors up near the hatchery. We are practically neighbors.” Vin says.

“Yeah, we hear you guys heading up and down the road, and shooting your guns. We have left you alone this long, why don’t you leave us alone now.” the man says.

“We don’t intend to cause you any harm. Hell, we kept to ourselves for the first month too, that’s why we didn’t even know you were here.” Vin tells him.

“Why don’t we just put the guns down and have a casual conversation? I would like to see if we can help you guys out. It looks like your supplies are getting pretty meager, and we could help you out.” Vin says.

The man reluctantly lowers his rifle and extends his hand to Vintago.

“My name’s Pastor Luke Abrams and this is my wife Amanda Abrams.” the pastor says, “these kids were left at the camp when the outbreak hit, and we have unofficially adopted them.”

The pastor tells Vintago how he and his wife lived at the camp year round, doing maintenance and taking care of everything. He tells Vin that when the outbreak happened, they had a group of teenagers staying at the camp as part of a boy scout troop getting some winter training in. Most of the parents had come to collect their children in a hurry, but it would seem that some of them did not make it because these five got left behind. The pastor and his wife had been caring for them for the past month. They had been living off the land mostly, and rationing what supplies they did have stocked up.

Since the pastor was the only one with a gun, and not wanting to leave the children and his wife unprotected, he had not made any provision runs anywhere.

After hearing his story, Vintago gives them a brief summary of what they have going on at the compound and invites them to become part of his group. That’s when a stroke of genius hits Vintago. Why have them come sleep in tents at the compound when they could stay here in the comfort of these cabins? The cabins did not have running water or electricity, but they all had fireplaces and would be perfect quarters for anyone who needed a place to sleep.

“How many cabins do you guys have here, and how many people can they hold?” Vintago asks the pastor.

“We have twenty usable cabins, and some of them are full sized homes. We could probably sleep a hundred people if we packed them in.” Pastor Luke replies.

Logan sees where this is going, and the same idea pops into his head. He smiles at Vin, and realizes that by befriending this group, their people would have a new sleeping arrangement. It would also give them room to grow for any future members of their group.

Logan looks around and sees that the area is vast, and utterly impossible to fence in like their relatively small in comparison compound. This area would not serve well as a defensible position, but if the shit hit the fan, they could always fall back to the compound, being that it is less than three miles up the road.

Vintago explains his plan to the pastor about how he would like to use their cabins for housing his people in return for food, water, weapons and ammunition, and being able to use their facilities.

Pastor Luke takes a second to discuss it with his wife, and in the end they both agree. The prospect of a warm meal, hot shower, and arming themselves better is far too much to refuse. Plus the idea of having additional armed men staying in the cabins nearby, adding extra protection is hugely appealing to both the pastor and his wife.

Vintago shakes Pastor Luke’s hand and offers to have them ride up to the compound with them to get initiated, cleaned up, and armed. The pastor looks at his wife. She nods her head, and they decide to come along. The group walks to the truck with Vintago and his team, and they jump in the back for the short trip back to the hatchery.

Logan eases the truck out of the camp area and back onto the road towards the hatchery. As they get on the road, two vehicles full of people are straight ahead of them. Logan immediately goes into combat mode, revs the engine, and catches up with the vehicles. He cuts them off and jumps out of the truck aiming his rifle at the lead vehicle. Vintago, a second or two behind Logan does the same. The vehicles stop and everyone inside throws up their hands. The driver of the first vehicle gets out with his hands up.

“Hey guys, it’s just us.” says one of the fighters from the resort group.

Upon seeing the man, Logan and Vin both drop their barrels and relax. The camp group are all looking around in confusion, trying to figure out what’s going on.

“Four of us decided to pack up and come join you guys.” the man tells him.

Apparently, they liked the idea of having the creature comforts and organization that Vintago and his group offered. Along with the four fighters, they brought five family members also. Two of the fighters had wives, and one had three kids. The other two were single or widowed.

“We’re glad to have you and your families. We just recently acquired a whole new living arrangement thanks to this group of people here.” Vintago says and waves at the people in the back of his truck.

“Sounds good to us! Where do we sign up?” the man replies.

“Just follow us up the hill, we were about to get this group initiated as well.” Vin says.

Vintago and his team mount up again and start heading up the hill. The short two mile drive ends quickly, and everyone gets out of their vehicles. The resort group brought two of the pickups. They will be sorely missed by the rest of the resort group Vintago assumes.

As Vintago and his team get out of their vehicles, he notices that Trevor and his team are also back at the compound. Thinking that it was weird, he immediately heads up the hill towards the buildings.

Standing in the middle of the compound is a group of people seven strong that Vintago does not know.

Walking up to Trevor, Vin gives him a quizzical eyebrow.

“We found this group of survivors hiding out in one of the homes in the westerly camp we were checking out. They were almost out of food, had almost no water, and they had a few hunting rifles, two handguns and one shotgun between them.” Trevor explains.

Vintago looks at the group, four adults, two teenagers, and a small girl. He sizes them up and looks them up and down. They are all famished, dirty, and in sad shape.

Vintago does a quick mental tally of everyone that just walked into his life. This group of seven, plus the four fighters and their families, totaling nine, and the camp group of six. That’s a total of twenty two people, in one day that would bring their group total to almost fifty people. How the hell did this happen? They had only been actively looking for survivors for less than a week, and already his group had grown exponentially. Would this always be how it was when they ran scouting missions and reconnaissance? Vintago wasn’t sure he could keep up with these numbers. He did say he wanted to start an empire, and this was the way to do it, but growing too soon could cripple them just as easily.

“My name is Vintago Hawkins.” he says to the new group, “Welcome to our home. This of course can be your new home as well if you choose to stay.”

The entire group of people are all nodding their heads. The way most of these people have been living pales in comparison to how they live at the Hatchery Compound.

“Let’s get everyone initiated, cleaned up, fed, and armed.” Vintago says to his men.

Logan and the guys round up all the new members and they head over to towards the crew quarters. Since they cannot all fit inside the crew quarters anymore, Logan brings out a few chairs and asks everyone to make a line. Victoria comes out with them and helps build a new roster for all newcomers.

Firstly, they have the fighter group line up and go through them first, getting their skill sets, and their family members names. Next, they go through the camp members, even though they already know about them and their situation. Lastly, they get the information from the western camp group since they are largely unknown to Vintago and his fighters.

After all the information is collected, they bring everyone over to the armory and go through the motions. They ask who is comfortable with firearms and who is not. They tell the new members the rule about using M4s on missions, and they can keep their personal firearms or trade them in. At the end, all adults have either chosen to upgrade their firearms, or added on extra firearms like a handgun. All of the teenagers over fourteen have been giving a handgun and shown how to use them as well, which substantially satisfied Vintago. The more armed people in his camp the better he figures.

Once everyone that needs to be armed is ready. They start assigning people to their jobs.

Pastor Luke and his group will start preparing their camp to be hospitable to as many people as they can fit in there. Vintago wants them to clean up the lodge, and start preparing the outlying cabins. He also wants them to make the lodge more defendable. The lodge will be used as a fallback position if the camp gets overrun and they need to be extracted by the hatchery team. It will serve as their stronghold so to speak. The munitions, food, and gear from the hatchery will be stored in the lodge, and everyone will meet there.

The pastor understands what Vintago wants and is fine with the jobs laid out for them.

The resort fighters and their families will be staying in the cabins nearest to the lodge. Vintago wants the women and children to make the cabins hospitable, and he wants the men in the group to work on securing the camp as well as possible. He wants them to work out patrol patterns and wants them to work on a fallback plan in case Charlie get into their camp.

Vintago tells the western camp group that he needs them to support the pastor with reinforcing their new home and also wants Cliff, Nelson, and Nelson’s son to be part of the fighting group. He wants Jerry to help the pastor work on securing the main building by putting his carpentry skills to use.

Vintago is going to provide radios, weapons, food, water, and supplies to get the church camp compound up and running. He dismisses all of the family members to go ahead and get themselves cleaned up and ready for dinner, which now is going to be one hell of an endeavor.

He asks that everyone that will be part of the fighting force to hold off before going inside.

“OK guys, since our fighting force has effectively doubled, I think it is time to add some structure to it.” Vintago begins, “Firstly, I want Colonel Bradley to be part of my command team. I am going to need your help to organize our fighting teams and can use your knowledge of battlefield tactics and military structure.”

“The next thing I want to do is divide everyone up into three teams. We are going to have the Command team which will consist of Logan, Colonel Bradley, Mitch, Robby, and I.” Vintago explains.

“Next, we will have Alpha team which will be led by Trevor Steele, and consist of Anthony, Jose, and Nathan.” Vin says.

“Lastly, we will have Bravo team, which will be led by Quinton, and will consist of Joey, Jade, Nick, Evan, Nelson, Cody, and Freddie.” Vintago explains to the group.

“The last thing I want to do is assign everyone a rank, to serve as a title. I want to create a chain of command around here, so that we know who is supposed to be leading which aspects of our missions.” Vin tells the group.

Vintago hands the men a copy of the roster they just created, and it shows clearly what job assignments everyone has been assigned to, what ranks the fighters will be, and who is in charge of each team.

After everyone has a look at it, Vintago asks, “Any problems with that setup guys? I know I’m not a military man at all, but my second Logan has more combat experience than all of us combined, and Colonel Bradley will be my personal advisor when it comes to command and control decisions.”

The guys look at the list, and Trevor and his guys clearly have some reluctance towards being in a rank structure with Vintago at the top. Everyone in Bravo team is perfectly fine with letting the only military man in their group lead them. Vintago kept Alpha team consisting of only the four original squad members because they already had unit cohesion and work well together. Additionally, Trevor and his boys just do not seem to play well with others.

After a few moments, everyone tells Vintago they are OK with the new arrangements and want to know what’s next.

Vintago tells them that he wants Alpha team running recon and scouting out the area further, trying to find more survivors, supplies or vehicles. He wants to have Bravo team getting the Church Camp Compound up and running. They will need supplies, and they will require protection. Bravo team is going to provide security, and they will be in charge of keeping the twenty something people safe 24x7.

Vintago also tells the group that tomorrow he wants everyone up at the Hatchery Compound, for drills and training. Commander Logan is going to teach the new guys how to function as a team, how to perform tactical maneuvers, and also allow them some range time with their new M4A1 rifles.

After the plan for tomorrow is laid out, Vintago dismisses everyone and tells the new members to get cleaned up for dinner.

A little while later, the whole group files into the crew quarters kitchens in a long line to be served buffet style by the women of the group. They can’t all fit inside, and most of them have to sit outside on whatever they can find, and some of them go back to the other buildings. Greg sees the problem and decides to devote some manpower to building tables and benches outside for feeding everyone. Since he can hold off building a new crew quarters building, he can focus on other projects to improve their living situation. He is about halfway done with the fence surrounding the compound, so he wants to start other projects soon.

After dinner, Vintago decides to go check on his father. He goes into the bedroom where Ben is staying and sits down next to his bed.

He pats his dad and says, “How are you hanging in there dad?”

His dad lifts his head and looks at his son. He has a look of horror on his face.

“I had a terrible dream about you Vintago, I dreamed that you were falling and falling. Something horrible happened to you, and you were falling.”

Vintago was taken aback by this random message from his father. Most people have dreams about themselves falling, not other people. It was probably just the drugs talking. Christine had given him some narcotics they had recovered to help him with his pain. He had been taking long drug induced naps, and it was beginning to get a little weird.

“It’s probably just the drugs dad. I’ll be fine, and I’ll stay away from anything tall alright?” Vintago tells his father.

“Yes, that’s good. Stay on the ground son.” Ben tells him.

Vintago just pats his father again and walks out of the room. He stops to talk to Christine and talks to her for a minute.

“You need to take it easy on the pills for that guy, he’s talking all kinds of crazy shit.” Vin tells her.

“Well he’s perfectly fine, I can’t control what he dreams about.” she tells him.

Christine tells Vin that his dad will probably be fully healed in a few weeks and be back to himself in a matter of a week or two at most.

Vintago figures that is good news and decides that he will leave her alone. He goes to his bedroom and finds his wife waiting for him, their son already tucked into his bed. Victoria waves Vin over with a funny look on her face.

He walks over to the bed and she lifts the covers off, exposing her naked body. Vintago has a double take and realizes that he’s about to get lucky. He shuts off the lights. Strips naked and joins his wife.

Part Three: War

Chapter Twenty

Declaration of War

February, 2013

In the morning, all is quiet, and nobody is stirring. The new groups of people grabbed a decent amount of supplies and loaded them into one of the trucks last night. Some of Vin’s guys helped them get ferried over to the Church Camp, and get set up. They spent most of the night getting their gear unpacked and cleaning up some of the cabins. At least making them hospitable enough to sleep in one night.

At the Hatchery, Vintago decides it is time to get up and untangles himself from his wife. He enters the kitchen and starts a pot of coffee. A few minutes into the roast, the smell brings out some of the group members like flies on poop. Logan comes out first, grunting and shuffling his feet across the floor like a zombie.

“Be careful I might think you’re Charlie and shoot your ass in the face.” Vin chuckles.

“Don’t shoot!” Logan says with a smile and throws up his arms in surrender.

Vin hands Logan a batch of freshly brewed coffee, and he sniffs at it like a freshly bloomed flower.

“What’s on the agenda today boss.” Logan says and then chuckles, “Or should I say, Commander?”

Vintago just rolls his eyes and responds, “I think we should get everyone together, run some drills, and do some exercises like we said yesterday. That western camp group especially, they haven’t seen much action by the sound of it.”

“Sounds good, I’ll start getting everyone up and get them moving.” Logan tells Vintago.

Before Logan heads out of the crew quarters building he stops and wakes up his son Robby. Robby moans and groans, but gets up when his father tells him too.

With his cup of coffee in hand, he heads over to the office building to wake up the rest of the guys. He steps quietly into the building to avoid waking up the Steeple family and rouses Trevor.

“Wake up Lieutenant.” Logan jokes.

“Ugh, what is this boot camp?” Trevor responds, one eye open.

“Today it is! We’re going to have us a good time.” Logan chuckles.

Logan turns around and leaves the building, expecting Trevor to rouse his men. Logan walks back over to the crew quarters. When he gets inside, Vintago tells him that he radioed Quinton and told him to round up his men and start up the hill for training day. Quinton apparently told Vin that they would be up in twenty minutes.

Exactly nineteen minutes after the radio call, Quinton and his boys arrive in two vehicles. Shortly after Quinton and his men pile out of their vehicle, Trevor and his guys come out of the office building.

“How is it that Quinton can get them all out of bed, dressed, and driven up the hill before Trevor can step outside the damn building?” Vintago says quietly to Logan.

“They’re like a bunch of women, waiting on each other to take turns putting on their makeup in the bathroom” Logan laughs.

Logan makes a joke about it, but he is concerned about this. Trevor and his crew do not seem to have the same loyalty that some of the other survivors have. It’s almost like they stay here because it is convenient and not because they want to. They may need to be cut loose eventually, but right now their experience was needed.

Everyone gathers around Vintago and Logan, waiting for Vin to say something. Vintago misses the signal for a second, and then realizes that they are all waiting on him.

“How’s everyone doing this morning?” Vin says.

He gets mixed grunts, a couple “greats” and some “fines” in response.

“Today we are going to do some training. We think it would be fantastic if everyone gets to know their team members, and if everyone gets to learn some basic skills. It will also give us an idea of what skills you already have.” Vin tells them.

Vintago waves Logan forward since this is going to be his baby.

Logan takes a step forward and tells the group how he wants to first check everybody's fitness levels with a run down to the highway and back. He explains that if they cannot make it, or need to quit Greg will be riding along in one of the trucks. He tells them that is not a competition or something that they will be judged on. It is simply to see what sort of fighting condition the men are in. Logan and Robby will be joining them as well.

Logan and Vintago generally want to see who has been keeping in shape, who is malnourished, and who will need some work. They need to know these things before sending their new guys out into the field.

After the run, they will be participating in firearms training to get used to the M4 rifles and side arms they will be carrying on missions. Logan also wants to get Alpha team on the SAW and a sharpshooter rifle. He wants Alpha team to be the fire support for Bravo team. The heavy weapons guys, so to speak.

Lastly, Vintago wants to give them some team cohesion practice by letting both Alpha team and Bravo team do some scavenging in the rest of the houses surrounding the hatchery. There are two more unexplored housing areas off the main road into the hatchery, and Vintago wants to know what’s in them.

While the two teams are out on their missions, Vintago wants to sit down with Colonel Bradley and Mitch and get to know them better. Mitch had been riding with Vin, Logan, and Robby, but they had not gotten to know him exceptionally well yet. Today would be their opportunity to get to know each other, and develop the brain trust that would be the command structure for both compounds. It would be the decisions made from the command team that would be carried out. The decisions they made would potentially affect the lives of all of their families, so it was imperative that they thought on the same wavelength.

The guys spend a few more minutes talking and then Vintago dismisses Alpha and Bravo team with Logan to lead them. The guys drop their gear off and change into clothes more suitable for fitness. Not all of them are excited to go running down the hill. Vintago realizes that the run is not going to inspire the men, or make them happy. He is simply doing it to know who can handle the intense fighting, scavenging, scouting, and in the worst case scenario, run like hell on foot.

Logan gets everyone to the edge of the parking lot, and Greg pulls the truck up. Some of the guys roll their eyes, obviously thinking that Logan is going to hop in the truck and follow them. Instead, he just starts jogging down the hill. He stops after ten feet and waves everyone forward.

After a couple looks at each other, they all start jogging to catch up with him. Robby catches up with his father and the two men set the pace for their jog. They start out steadily, not wanting anyone to get to bad of muscle cramps from not having warmed up or stretched. Logan wants to see how they perform unrehearsed and unprepared. The main thing they are trying to figure out is if they can depend on these new recruits to hold their own and be able to keep up if the shit hits the fan. Vintago and Logan don’t want to see their men get split up and killed by Charlie.

The group of men jog down the hill at a decent pace, and as they get past midway to the bottom of the hill Logan starts picking up the pace. Some of the guys start slowing down a little bit, clearly getting tired by the end of the second mile.

Logan yells back to them, “Keep the pace until you can’t go any longer.”

The idea here is to see how long they can keep a decent pace and keep going. He isn’t as interested in their long term persistence. Theoretically, if they were humping it away from Charlie, eventually they would hunker down or find a vehicle.

At this point, Nelson Brooks decides to tap out. He signals Greg to stop, and Greg pulls over. Nelson hops in the back of the truck and lays back. Nelson, being older and out of shape from chain smoking and unhealthy eating habits before the outbreak, is clearly not holding up so well after the outbreak.

The guys keep trundling down the hill, and not too much further down the road Freddie decides to tap out. Freddie, being a computer nerd before the outbreak, did not have much endurance. Whatever he did have he had lost in the past month.

Jade is the next one to give up at mile three. Having ridden a desk most of her adult life, she just did not have it either.

A little while later, just as they reach the highway Nick calls it quits. He made it to the highway which was his personal goal, and he was not trying to impress anyone.

Logan stops everyone at the bottom of the hill and lets them rest for a few minutes. While they are all taking a short break at the bottom of the road, a truck flies up onto the road coming from the resort. It hauls ass across the highway and comes to a stop near Vintago’s men. The window rolls down, and Roger sticks his head out.

His face is covered in fury and anger as he yells, “Where is Vintago.”

Logan steps forward casually and replies, “What do you need Roger, I can see if he can speak with you.”

Roger simply pulls his head back into the truck and floors it up the hill.

Vintago, Mitch, and Colonel Bradley are all sitting around one of the tables in the warehouse. Their informal operational command center was covered in maps and charts. The three men were discussing where to go from here. They had discussed making some supply runs into Heber, a small town about forty miles up the highway from their compounds. They mainly wanted to see the state of this town compared to Payson. Vintago wanted to see if Heber was as deserted as Payson. The group could expand now that the Church Camp was being prepared, and Vintago wanted to get as many new people as he could find. Along with the new people, they would need a ton more supplies.

The guys were also having a terrific time getting to know each other. Colonel Bradley had been telling them some war stories, and had been giving them strategies that Vintago had not even thought about. He was proving his worth to Vintago by simply being a wealth of knowledge. Mitch, on the other hand, coming from law enforcement had provided expert advice to the team about keeping peace and order around the compound. It was not so much an issue now, but if they kept adding on members to their group, there would have to be rules, punishments, and people to enforce them.

In the middle of their discussion, Henry Steeple ran into the building yelling.

“Vintago, Roger from the resort camp is heading up the hill, and he’s not happy!” Henry blurts out.

“What do you mean?” Vintago says.

Henry quickly tells Vintago about the call they received from Logan over the radio. He said that Roger was on his way up, and he was not coming in peace and they needed to get their shit together. He also said that they were driving back to the hatchery in a hurry, but Roger had a lead on them.

Immediately after Henry explains it to them, they hear tires squealing in the parking lot.

“Let’s go see what the hell this is all about.” Vintago says, and then he adds, “Get your side arms ready, just in case things go south. Henry, get your father and the builders to come out as a show of force as well.”

Vintago walks briskly towards the parking lot with Mitch and the Colonel in tow. They all have their holsters unbuckled and the safeties off.

Just as, the three men arrive at the parking lot, Roger steps out of his truck with four other fighters. They are all carrying rifles, and some of them even have Vintago’s M4 rifles.

“Hopefully he doesn’t intend to kill us with my own guns.” Vintago says under his breath so Mitch and the Colonel hear.

Mitch chuckles slightly, but the Colonel is all business.

Roger and his men walk up to Vintago, and Vintago extends his hand to shake Roger’s.

Roger just looks at him, and leaves him hanging. Vintago puts his hand down by his side, sensing there is a serious problem.

Roger points his finger at Vintago and yells in his face, “You got three of my men killed, and stole four more of them! You came to me under the pretense of peace and helpfulness and instead you backstabbed me and stole my people!”

Vintago looks at Roger for a few seconds before responding, and then says, “Roger, your people knew what they were getting into before they came into Payson, and I sure as hell didn’t ‘steal’ the other four men.” Then he continues, “The four of them came to my camp asking to be part of our group. They wanted strong leadership, food, and the amenities we have to offer.”

“I don’t give a fuck what you say snake! You came in and stole my people, and now we are seven fighters down, and those four were my best.” Roger screams.

“Well,” Vintago says with a smile, “I’m glad I got your best fighters then.”

The colonel shakes his head at this comment. He likes Vintago, but he was young and inexperienced in the art of peacekeeping.

“Listen here you son of a bitch,” Roger yells at Vintago, “I want my men back, and I want supplies and guns as compensation for the three men you got killed.”

Just then, Logan and some of the men come sliding to a stop behind them. Logan jumps out of the vehicle and assesses the situation. He already has his handgun out in his hand as he stands in the open.

Upon seeing the men approach, cutting off their exit, Roger changes his attitude. He raises his rifle and aims it at Vintago’s head.

Everyone that was able to fit in the truck jumps out and pulls their sidearms aiming them at Roger and his men.

“Whoa boys!” Vintago yells, “Let’s all chill out here.”

Roger escalates the situation further by charging his rifle in an act meant to make himself look more serious. Instead, he ejects a round from his already chambered rifle, which clatters across the pavement. He must have been trying to act out some scene from a movie.

Sensing how stupid this man is, Logan runs up to Roger, pistol whips him in the head and takes his gun away from him. Roger’s guys all freak out. Logan disarms two of them in under a second in what played out like the scenes in a kung fu movie. The other two spin their rifles towards him and prepare to fire. Vintago finally draws his weapon from his holster, raises it, and shoots one of the men in the head. The other man is shot in the chest by Mitch, who had his 9mm Glock out.

Roger lying on the ground holding his bleeding head looks up at Vintago with a sad defeated look. Then the look turns to outrage, and he tries to get up. Vintago kicks him in the ribs and tells him to stay down.

“You listen to me now.” Vintago says, “Two more of your men are dead, and if you and these other two want to leave this hilltop alive, then you best calm the fuck down and get out of here while you still can.”

Roger thinks about this as he lies on the ground, and then he feigns obedience and slowly rises. Logan waves him and his men to their vehicle and tells them to leave their guns since they will not need them anymore.

“I want you all to go home, and think about this, and decide how you want to proceed from here. I don’t want to start a battle with you Roger.” Vintago explains.

“You haven’t started a battle, you’ve started a war!” Roger says as he jumps in his truck and speeds off down the road.

Everyone looks to Vintago to see if he wants them to follow or not. Vintago just shakes his head, not wanting to proceed. For all, he knows this could be their entire strategy, lure them into a chase and then ambush them. Vintago decides it would be best to prepare for a counter attack and get everyone ready. He tells the group what he wants to do, and his command team is in agreement.

Logan quickly tells everyone to gather their gear. One rifle, six extra mags, one handgun, three additional mags, and the rest would be brought down later. Logan sends Greg down the hill to get the rest of the fighters that had been left behind when they made a dash up the hill.

Logan told the group to stay off the road and start heading back to the hatchery, but he hopes they listened.

Alpha team is the first team ready to go, and Vintago has his four men pile in a truck and waves Alpha over. They all jump in the back of the truck, and Logan hauls ass down the hill.

As they drive down the hill, Greg passes them heading back to the hatchery. Thankfully, all their men are fine. They look a little shaken up, but they must have hidden off the road like Logan told them to.

Vintago calls Lieutenant Quinton, whom they left back at the hatchery and tells him that the rest of Bravo team will be there shortly and to get them ready.

Logan makes the trip down to the road quickly, and he pulls the truck perpendicular to the highway. The five command team members and four Alpha team members get out of the truck in a hurry and spread out. They check across the road for signs of the resort group and see nothing. Vintago radios back up to Quinton and asks where they are at. He says that they are almost done loading up and will be down in ten minutes.

“We need to get a barricade put together so they can’t just drive up the road. This is the only road into the compounds, and unless they intend to take a hike up the canyon, this is where they will come from.” Vin tells the group.

Logan begins issuing orders to Alpha team, Mitch, and Robby. He wants them to bring boulders and logs down from the surrounding forest to create a thrown together palisade. The men start rolling down massive boulders and carrying heavy logs to construct a barrier across the road. The road leading to the hatchery is only two lanes and has a ridge on both sides so it will be fairly easy to block off.

After what seems like forever, but realistically is nine minutes Quinton and Bravo team arrive in two more pickup trucks. They all pile out of two vehicles and form up near Vintago and Logan.

Vintago immediately gets them working to help strengthen the wooden palisade. Thirty minutes go by, and the guys have constructed a standard four foot high rock and wooden defensive position. If a truck rammed it, they might make it through, although the boulders would wreck the hell out of it.

Vin takes a step back to admire their handy work, when he hears another vehicle approaching from the rear. He turns to look, and it is the big flatbed truck. The truck is piled high with munitions, and people. Both the builder team and the maintenance team have loaded into the truck and driven down to the highway. They brought enough guns and ammo to start a real war.

As the truck pulls to a stop, Greg leans out the window and waves, “Thought you boys might need extra guns, and men to hold them!”

Vintago just shakes his head. He’s not quite sure he wants the entire camp down here at the highway. Someone needs to protect the compound and the women and children. Vintago speaks with Logan about this, and Logan agrees. They decide to send Greg and the men back up the hill and tell them to arm up. They also need to get everyone from both compounds located at the hatchery, that way they can all be protected easily.

As Greg loads his guys back up in the truck, Vintago takes him aside and talks to him privately.

“If something happens to us down here, I want you to pack everyone up in the trucks and get the fuck out of there. Take the back road, and don’t come back.” Vin says quietly.

“Where should we go?” Greg asks with a concerned look.

“Just load up and head towards Heber. If we make it out, then we will regroup outside of Heber.” Vin tells him.

Greg just nods slowly and gets in the truck. The idea of having to leave their new home and run for the hills was not something either of them wanted to seriously consider.

Vintago, Logan and their men spend the last few remaining hours of daylight expanding their defenses to include improvised pillboxes on each side of their line. The pillboxes did not constitute more than logs stacked on top of each other with rocks in between to make shooting space, but they would do. They had put one M249 in each pillbox which enabled them to sweep the entire highway across from them.

If the resort crew was stupid enough to come up their road and storm the hatchery road, they would be literally cut to pieces by the two machine guns.

After their makeshift defenses were constructed, they decided to hunker down and settle in for the night. A nasty looking thunderstorm was coming, and with temperatures in the high twenties at sundown, they were looking at snow tonight. Not the best night to be sitting out on the highway in the open.

As night approached, so did the storm, and just after the sun went down, the first snowflakes started falling. Vintago and his men were freezing their asses off, and the guys wanted to start some fires to warm up. Logan knew fires were not smart in a combat situation, but decided to keep that to himself. These men were not soldiers, and letting them sit and freeze all night would make them combat ineffective, so either way they were screwed.

The guys gathered up whatever wood they could scrounge up from the forest nearby, and made a large pile in the middle of the road near their defenses. The wood, being slightly damp from the snowfall refused to light. They did what any hillbilly would do, and doused it all in gasoline. Within minutes, they had a roaring fire going in the middle of their position and everyone huddled around it to warm up.

The hours went by without incident, and everyone started to get tired. The men wanted to get some sleep and perform shift rotations for guarding the highway. Vintago decided this was a reasonable idea, and they split the group up. Logan decided to stay behind with the first group of guys and keep an eye on things. Logan decided it would be good for Mitch, Robby, and Alpha team to take the first watch. Vintago also thought it would be wise to have half of the command team at the Hatchery as well, so him, and Colonel Bradley decided to take off.

The rest of the command team and Bravo team piled into the trucks and left to get some sleep at the hatchery. They waved to the remaining men and said their goodbyes. Vintago told Logan that they would be back in four hours and to call him on the radio if anything came up.

Logan sat back down next to one of the fires and tried to get warm. As he sat down, he could not help but think that night was going to be a long one. They may only be defending the road against a bunch of civilians, but he knew what people could resort to when they were trying to survive. This was going to complicate their plans indeed.

Chapter Twenty One

Assault

February, 2013

Roger Wilson walked quietly through the new fallen snow. They had followed the creek under the overpass and were slowly but surely approaching the position that Vintago and his men had constructed. Roger had been watching Vintago and his men build their defenses all day, and as night came, he knew there was no way that they could take them head on, especially after he watched them load up two machine guns.

Roger went back to his people, and they began to formulate a plan. There were thirty of them total that were willing to take out their neighboring enemies. Everyone but a few adults and the children had left their camp. Once Roger explained what Vintago’s group had done, what kinds of supplies and munitions they had, it was an easy sell for him.

Roger was never a fighting man. He was a boring person before the outbreak. He sold used cars and dabbled in other sales related positions. That’s mainly why his group had chosen them as their de facto leader. He was a smooth talking man and could create a good story. The people were more than willing to fight with him, once he told them the grass was greener on the other side.

Roger knew that he was extremely outgunned by Vintago’s group, but he had more men than Vintago by almost double. That being said, Roger knew that Vintago had some highly trained men, even a couple of his own highly trained men. That’s what pissed Roger off the most. He lost four good fighters to that asshole, and it was going to cripple his camp in the long run. What if they ran into more groups like Vintago’s? Roger needed to end this right now, and he was prepared to do so. He regretted having to shoot at men that were until yesterday part of his camp, but in the end, they chose the wrong side.

Roger got everyone packed up and assembled in the lobby of their resort. They grabbed whatever firearms they had, and all the spare ammo. They didn’t need to conserve it because when they were done, they would have more than enough.

Roger didn’t want to kill everyone, he was not a murderer. He was hoping that they could take them by surprise, get them to surrender, and then take their supplies. What he would do with them after that he did not know. He just figured that he would cross that bridge when he got there.

They all stalked out of the lobby and trudged down to the creek below their resort. It was a two mile hike along the creek, under the overpass, and to the bottom of the hill where Vintago’s men were waiting. It took his group about three hours and well into the middle of the night to get setup.

It was about two hours from sunrise when Roger finally got everyone in position and ready to attack the group from their right flank. Roger’s plan was to overwhelm the group quickly and prevent them from calling the rest of the group at the hatchery.

Roger and his party slowly creep up the hill. At about thirty yards out, he gets down on his belly and starts low crawling towards them, like he had seen in the movies. He got so close that he could see the men sitting around the fire, their silhouettes casting shadows across the forest behind them.

A single stick breaks in the distance and Logan spins his head around. His senses, trained like an animal, had not been dampened by his years of retirement from the Navy.

Logan stands up, clicks on his flashlight, and walks towards the edge of the road. His son stands up looking groggy, but still sharp. Logan waves Robby to back off a bit and his son complies.

He walks a few feet into the edge of the forest, and within a heartbeat, all hell breaks loose.

A bullet zing past his head, so close he can feel the heat, and suddenly the forest erupts in gunfire.

Logan dives to the ground and yells to his men over the gunfire, “Everyone get down! They are coming up from the creek!”

Logan grunts as he pulls his rifle out from under him and returns fire. While he is shooting, he slowly scoots back towards the fire and his men.

“Cover me!” he yells back to them.

When he gets within a few yards, he hops up, turns, and runs like hell. He dives behind the embankment and keeps shooting into the forest. It’s way too dark to see into the woods, and all they can see is muzzle flashes. He mentally kicks himself for letting them have the fire because it is outright killing their night vision right now.

“Put out that fire as best you can!” Logan tells his son.

Robby hunches over and runs towards the fire, kicking it over and spreading it out with his boot. Nathan and Jose finally manage to get the M249s moved to the embankment and fully open them up on the resort group. Suppressive fire to the maximum should keep their heads down Logan hopes.

Just as Nathan gets the gun set up on its bi-pod and starts firing the weapon he takes a bullet to the neck. The round slams into his neck and comes out the other side spraying blood all over his Lieutenant.

Trevor immediately drops to the ground and tries to stop the bleeding. He grabs a Quikclot from his pocket and splashes it into the wound on his young friend’s neck.

Logan watches in dismay, but orders Anthony to get on the M249. Anthony drops his rifle and worms over to the M249 to keep the weapon firing.

Mitch is huddled behind the engine block of their truck and has the radio pressed to his lips with one hand and his M4 rifle in the other hand firing blindly over the top of the truck towards the forest.

“Hatchery come in!” he yells into the radio, “We are under attack, and need assistance!”

Before the radio call even came in, Vintago heard the exchange of gunfire down by the road and was already moving. He was running through the compound telling everyone to get out of bed and collect their gear.

Within two, minutes, every man he had was armed and stumbling out of their quarters. He waved them towards the vehicles and jumped in the driver’s seat of one of the trucks. Before even checking to ensure everyone was loaded in the truck, he slammed the gas pedal down.

As the first turn in the road approached to quickly, Colonel Bradley yelled out, “Slow down Vintago! You killing us on the road is not going to save our boys!”

Vintago slams on the brakes and power slides the weighty truck around the corner, sending everyone in the back of the truck flying across the truck bed. They all slam together and land in a big pile, grunting and cursing.

It takes what seems like an eternity, but realistically is only minutes to reach the bottom of the hill. They can see muzzle flashes coming from the forest. It looks like there are hundreds of them in the forest shooting at his men, and there are only a few weapons returning fire.

Vintago’s heart jumps into his chest as he wonders who is hit, and hopes that it is not Logan, Robby or Mitch. The three of them are far too valuable to him.

Logan heard the trucks approaching from the north, and turns to look as Vintago, and the rest of the men pile out. It looks like every single individual has come to their rescue, and Logan needs it.

Lieutenant Trevor had taken a bullet to the chest while performing compressions on Nathan trying to save him. Trevor was now bleeding out on the ground next to his brother he was trying desperately to save. Nobody has time to tend to Trevor, and his wound was quickly draining his life.

Jose had been shot in the shoulder, but continued to fire the M249 like nothing had happened. Anthony had been caught in the eye by some shrapnel as a round nicked a rock. He was blind in one eye but fired his M249 anyway. The two men were tough soldiers. They watched two of their friends go down, but continued to provide suppressive fire, knowing that it was the only thing keeping the enemy at bay.

Logan and Robby had made it so far without getting hurt, but Mitch had taken one to the leg and he laid in a pile behind the truck he was using for cover. He was lying on the ground still calling out over the radio.

Roger Wilson, on the other side of the embankment, was about to lose this battle. He had lost nine men to the far superior firepower. He had thought that with only seven men guarding the highway, it would be an easy fight. The mistake had cost him almost one third of his men, and he saw the trucks pull up and Vintago jump out. He knew that all was lost as Vintago brought another two dozen men into the fight.

Roger quickly tells everyone to keep firing, but to make a run for it underneath the overpass and back to the resort. They would have to fight them from the lobby of the resort and hope that they could kill enough of them to make them give up.

Vintago watches as the gunfire slows down and starts getting farther away. They must be retreating, and he knows, now is the time to strike.

Vintago, Bravo team, and the rest of the men all run towards their friends. When they get there, the scene is unreal. There is blood everywhere, illuminated by the remnants of the fire. Nathan is clearly dead, and Trevor looks to be barely holding on. Two other men are wounded pretty badly.

Logan stands up and tells Vintago they need to counter attack and finish this off once and for all. Vintago tells Bravo team to follow them and tells the builders to get the wounded men up the hill for triage.

The two commanders, Robby, and Bravo team all start running towards the highway. They want to cut them off as they come out from under the overpass. They should be able to cut them down from an elevated position.

Vintago leads the way and runs as fast as he can towards the overpass. As they approach the wall, bullets ricochet into the top of it, causing them to duck down. Not to be dissuaded, Vintago pops his head up over the overpass and fires down into the men and women. He sees at least two of them drop dead in the breaking light of dawn.

The rest of Vintago’s men arrive, and they pour lead into the resort group as they all flee towards their home. The enemies go from twenty survivors down to ten in under a minute. The smart ones take cover behind boulders and return fire.

Vintago takes careful aim and shoots at one of the men, when round from a high powered hunting rifle slams into his chest. The impact causes him to stumble backwards, look down at his chest, and trip over his feet. He lands on the wall and pitches forward over the edge.

Logan sees his friend falling over the wall and reaches out for his leg. In a split second, he grabs Vintago’s boot, just as he goes over the edge. Logan ends up with a boot in his hand, and Vintago drops over the edge falling over thirty feet to the creek below.

Vintago has one of those falling dreams and feels like he is flying. He falls head first into the frigid water below and blacks out altogether as he hits the water. As he sinks to the bottom of the deep hole under the overpass, his vision changes from falling to his family leaving him. They pack up the Outlander and drive off into the distance, leaving Vintago standing by himself. Then, out of buildings all over, hundreds of people emerge. They all walk up to Vintago, salute him, and stand in formation.

Chapter Twenty Two

Executions

February, 2013

Logan watched as Vintago fell over the railing and splashed into the water below. Luckily, the water was deep enough here, so he was not seriously injured, but Logan had to get to him quick or he would drown.

“Cover me! I’m going to get the commander!” Logan yells.

Bravo team opens up with their weapons raining lead on the enemy below while Logan sprints to the end of the guard rail and starts sliding down the embankment.

Logan tries to slow himself down, but just scrapes up his hands and legs. He slides down the embankment and crashes into the creek. The creek still has ice on the edges, and the frigid water takes the wind out of Logan. He comes up for air and immediately there are bullets striking the water around him.

Logan drops below the surface again and swims towards the direction he last spotted Vintago. He is floating directly towards the enemies. Logan quickly paddles up to Vintago as his men above return fire trying to buy him some time.

Logan reaches out, and grabs Vintago by the collar of his shirt and pulls his head out of the water. He drags Vintago to the edge of the creek and pulls him out of the water. Bullets zing all around and narrowly miss both of them. Logan quickly pulls Vin behind a large boulder and takes cover. He checks his pulse, which is strong, despite the blood loss and bitter water. Next, he checks his breathing, and Logan can tell that he has sucked in some water. Logan rolls him over and slams him on a back a few times. This causes Vintago to cough and sputter, water dripping from his mouth. His eyes open slowly, and then wildly look around.

“What the fuck happened!” Vin says to Logan.

“You were shot, and then you fell off the overpass.” Logan tells him.

Bullets come crashing into the boulder behind them, causing them both to duck reflexively. Logan tells Vintago to stay down so he can check him over. He does a quick once over and does not find anything broken, and after finding the bullet hole in his left shoulder, he shakes his head.

Vintago, thinking this is the end, says, “Is it fatal!”

Amidst all the chaos, bullets flying, and blood all over, Logan chuckles, “No buddy, you will be fine.”

After knowing Vintago will be ok, he tells him to keep his head down, and stay there. Logan gets up from behind the boulder and sprints to a big outcropping in front of him. Shots ring out from his right and he spins with his rifle and engages, taking out the shooter. Not letting up, he shoots another man that popped his head up at the wrong second.

Next, he crashes through some bushes and comes up next to another one of the shooters. The man looks at Logan with fearful eyes, and Logan places the barrel of his rifle in the man’s face and pulls the trigger, sending the remnants of the man’s head crashing into the rocks behind him.

Logan peeks out from behind another rock as he changes out his magazine and is met with a hail of gunfire from fifteen feet down the creek. Return shots come from the overpass and take the man out before he can even duck down again.

Logan takes this opportunity to move forward again, he sprints forward and dives behind a downed tree. He pops his head up to take a peek, and twenty feet in front of him, the rest of the resort group is flat out running away. There are only three men, two women, and Roger Wilson.

Without an ounce of sympathy, Logan stands up and fires twenty rounds into the backs of the group. Four of the group go down before they realize they are being fired upon, the fifth spins around and fires his gun, subsequently catching a bullet in the nose. Roger Wilson stands in the open, brings up his M4, the M4 that was given to him by Vintago, and tries to shoot at Logan.

Logan shoots him in the knee, and as his leg gives out underneath him, he falls to the ground. His rifle clatters into the water next to him. Roger crawls towards the rifle, splashing in the water with his hands, and Logan casually walks over to him placing his rifle in his sling as he goes.

Logan walks up to Roger and what remains of his men. One of the women is still alive, and she reaches towards a pistol. Logan pulls out his sidearm and shoots her in the head.

Normally, he would be against killing women, but today, these women chose to be soldiers, same as him.

Logan walks over to Roger, just as Roger gets his cold hands on his rifle, and he shoots Roger in the arm.

Roger reels back in pain and looks at his mangled wrist. His hand hangs awkwardly on torn and damaged ligaments.

“Roger, what the fuck were you thinking man? Honestly, what did you think you would achieve here.” Logan scowls at him.

“I wanted justice! Justice for my men, and for myself! He used us, and he got my men killed. Then on top of that, he stole more of my men.” Roger yells out in a panic.

“All your justice got you was a few bullet holes and the rest of your men and women dead.” Logan explains to him very calmly.

Logan grabs him by the good leg and starts dragging him on his back towards the overpass. He drags him through the rocks, tree branches, snow, and water. Roger pleads and cries the whole way. By the time Logan has finished dragging Roger to the overpass, the rest of the men are at the bottom tending to Vintago. They have his wounds field dressed, and he is sitting up against a rock.

Logan pulls Roger in front of him and drops him.

“I brought you Roger so you can decide to do with him as you like.” Logan says to Vintago.

Vintago looks at Logan, and then looks at Roger. He pulls out his Taurus 24/7 and sets it on his lap.

Roger looks at Vintago with red, crying eyes and pleads for his life.

“I wanted to make you a friend and an ally Roger. Instead, you betray me and kill two of my men and wounded several others.” Vintago says.

Internally, Vintago is fortunate that only two of his men were killed. Considering the force they were attacked by, they made it out fairly well.

“What should we do with him Commander?” Logan says.

“Get me out of here so I can get some dry clothes. Restrain him and throw him in the back of a truck, then go into the resort and clear the rest of them out. I want them all brought back to the Hatchery. Leave someone to pick up all the bodies and weapons too.” Vintago orders his men.

The men do as they are told, restraining Roger, and helping Vintago out of the creek area and into a nearby truck. They take him up the hill toward the Hatchery with Roger in the back of the truck.

Logan leads Bravo team into the resort area and is met with zero resistance. Apparently, they thought they did not need to defend their home and took all the guns and ammunition with them.

Logan rounds up the remaining women and children into the backs of their trucks. They are all crying and screaming about their husbands and lovers. Some of the children cry out for their mommies, mothers that will never return.

It’s heart breaking for Logan to watch, but these are difficult times, and these were hard lessons. If you wanted to attack another group of people, you had better win that battle.

Logan and the guys drive back to the Hatchery Compound in relative silence. They have the women and children screaming in the back of the trucks, being guarded by some of the Bravo men.

They arrive at the hatchery, and it looks like a warzone triage unit. Logan’s wife is running around patching up their men and trying to get everything under control. Even Vintago’s father Ben forced himself out of bed to help her out. The two of them were covered in blood up to their elbows, and the wounded men were yelling out for painkillers and help.

On the ground nearby, covered in bloody sheets, were undoubtedly the bodies of Lieutenant Trevor and Corporal Nathan, their only two casualties. The two men had been wounded within the first few minutes of the fight. It was an offence for men that had been through so much.

Vintago was sitting in a chair with his shirt off. He had a blanket wrapped around his shoulders for warmth. His wound had been patched up the right way, and he looked like he was not in much pain. Maybe it was the hardcore painkillers too, but either way he looked stoic.

The Bravo men rounded up all the women and children and forced them into a circle in the middle of the parking lot. Colonel Bradley brought Roger over and placed him in front of the women and children.

Vintago gets out of his chair with a little too much effort and walks over to the group of people in the middle of his parking lot. They all looked scared and feared for their lives, rightfully so.

Vintago pulls out his Taurus once again and waves it towards Roger.

“This is the man that you have followed since the outbreak!” he yells, “Today, he saw fit to attack me, my men, and my family.”

“As you can see, that did not turn out as well as he had expected it.” Vintago continues.

“Instead of whatever he promised you, he got all of your men and women killed, no doubt some of your mothers and fathers.” he directs towards the children.

“I was more than willing to help your group, and eventually take you into the fold. Instead, you have failed me, and I cannot let this go unpunished.” this time more directed to Roger.

Vintago walks up to Roger, places his pistol against the top of the man’s head, and blows his brains out all over the ground, directly in front of the women and children. Then, he wipes the blood off his Taurus on the side of his pants.

“Now, I don’t know who you women are, but you have one of two choices.” Vintago tells the now screaming women and children.”

“You can either join this group and be good, or you can choose to be shot like this piece of shit in front of you.” Vintago explains, kicking Roger’s corpse. “I can’t let you leave and further compromise our mission, you must understand.”

“I am not, however, a child killer, so the children will be taken care of either way.” Vintago tells them.

“You have ten seconds to make a decision.” he says and walks to the group of three women, coddling the screaming children.

He places the gun in the face of one of the women, and unilaterally, they all make a decision.

“We will stay with you and keep out of trouble, just don’t hurt us!” one of the women tells Vintago.

“Good, that’s excellent news.” Vintago says and walks away.

Logan catches up with him a second later and whispers into his ear, “That was pretty fucked up Vintago. You didn’t have to kill his ass right in front of them!”

“I want to let them know that I will not tolerate any more bullshit. They either fall in line and get with the program, or they will not be around any longer. I am done negotiating with people. They can either be part of our group and follow our rules, or we are going to get rid of them.” Vintago says coldly.

Logan takes a second to contemplate what Vin just told him, and nods his head slowly, leaving it there. Logan isn’t sure where they are going to go from here, but he is confident that things are going to get uglier. While he still has faith in Vintago and the empire that he wants to forge, but he also knows that he will have to keep an eye on Vintago.

Clearly the shot to the chest and the fall has flipped some kind of switch in his mind.

Epilogue

March, 2013

The rest of the month passes by without incident. Vintago and his men take their time to heal and recover, which takes quite a while. Logan, Robby, Bravo team and the rest of Alpha team had been looting nearby homes one by one. They had found tons of useful supplies and equipment. They also hit the jackpot on one house that had an underground bunker full of food, clothing, and equipment. They figured it must have been one of those “preppers.” A lot of good it did them, go figures.

The new group of people from was left of the resort group had been placed in one of the cabins down at the Church Camp Compound. They were under constant watch from one of the Compound members at all times. Their loyalty could not be trusted, especially under the circumstances of their addition to the group. Vintago debated just getting rid of them and dropping them off in the middle of Payson to fend for themselves. In the end, he just could not put himself up to abandoning a bunch of women and children in an infected town. He may have turned a corner on his morality, but he was no monster. Not only that, he did promise to take care of the children, and it was not the children’s’ fault that their families had been so careless.

Vintago gets up out of his bed and heads outside to take a walk around the compound. His chest still hurt him, where the bullet entered and exited. It was more or less his shoulder, but it felt like it was his whole chest. Both Christine and his father told him how lucky he was that it had not actually hit him in the chest, or he certainly would not have made it. He told them that he did not feel extremely lucky.

While Vintago was walking around, Sergeant Anthony Smith poked his head out the door of the office building and yells to Vintago, “Commander come listen to this!”

Vin walks over to the office building, which had been totally renovated and turned into actual quarters. The Steele family and the rest of Alpha team wanted a little more privacy than cubicles, and Greg had helped them out. He built new walls, and they had built some bunk beds. They didn’t have proper mattresses, but they were better than sleeping on the ground.

When Vin walks in, Anthony Smith waves him over to take a look at his radio. The radio had been scavenged from the resort after everything had cooled down. Unfortunately, the radio was a mess, and it took the Sergeant a fair bit of time to get it all fixed up.

Vin approaches the radio and the sergeant turns it up so Vin can hear. Over the speakers, he hears a person talking.

“Transmitting from the Camp Navajo Military Base. We have food, water, clothing, munitions, and security. We are currently taking in survivors. Make your way west of Flagstaff off I-40. After being screened for infection, you will be accepted into our camp.”

Vintago listens to the recording two more times, analyzing it in his own mind. After a minute, Anthony looks up at him and asks him what he thinks.

“Is this the first time you’ve heard this?” Vin asks.

“I was going through the channels one by one listening for anything interesting and I stumbled on it. I was just about to come find you.” Anthony replies.

Vintago ponders on it another minute and then decides to go find Logan. He leaves the building and walks around the compound looking for his second in command. Just as, he is about to give up and ask someone where he is, he hears gunfire coming from the range. Knowing that must be where Logan is he heads over that way.

After a short walk, Vintago finds Logan and some of his men. They are spending some time on the range, which Vin has no problem with at all.

Vin waves at Logan and beckons him forward. Logan says something to the guys that Vin can’t hear, and they nod as Logan walks away.

“What’s up boss?” Logan says with a smile.

“Anthony found an interesting radio transmission supposedly coming from an army base near Flagstaff.” Vin explains.

“You talking about Camp Navajo?” Logan asks with a funny look.

“Yep, that’s what they said.” Vin replies.

“That’s not an army base Vin, that’s an army ammunition depot. It was one of the largest ammo dumps in the country.” Logan tells him.

“Sounds like the perfect place to hold up and create a survivor camp then.” Vin says.

“It’s not really a base though, unless they added additional defenses, it wouldn’t make a very good defensible location.” Logan explains.

Vintago thinks about that for a second and then says, “Maybe they just set up there because of the readily available ammunition.”

Vin continues, “I mean it makes sense, it is right next to Flagstaff, and they could use that as a staging ground and housing area if needs be.”

Logan thinks about that and then replies, “I suppose that’s why they setup Flagstaff as one of the original safe zones.”

“You don’t think that they kept it together this entire time do you? I mean it’s been over two months now.” Logan says.

“Who knows, if they got organized quickly enough, and supplies weren’t an issue.” Vin says as his voice trails off.

“Do you think we should check it out?” Vin asks his second.

“I’m not sure, it may very well be a trap that some goons have put together to lure people in.” Logan says with much suspicion.

“Maybe we could just go check it out, I mean it’s less than three hours from here, even if we take the back roads and stay off the highways as much as we can.” Vin says.

“It’s your call Vin.” Logan tells him.

Vintago thinks long and hard, and in the end, he decides that it is too good of an opportunity to pass up. If they can find a large group of survivors or even true military personnel, it could tremendously help his cause. Vin wouldn’t want to join their group of course, he would mainly try and expand his own company.

Vin decides to get everyone rounded up and explains the plan. A little while later, everyone is assembled in the general area between the compound buildings and Vintago explains his plan to them. His plan is met with mixed feelings mostly, but in the end they all let him make the decision. Vin tells them he wants two vehicles ready to go in an hour. He plans on making the trip today.

Vin wants to take four members of Bravo team, and his command team, spare for Colonel Bradley. He tells the guys to bring extra ammo, food, water, and a few of their tents as they will probably not make it back tonight.

The hour goes by, and everyone is packed up and ready to go. They load up in their vehicles, say their goodbyes, and get on the road. They stick to the highways and stay off the interstates. The drive turns into a long journey as hour after hour goes by. They pass countless number of vehicles burned out, riddled with bullet holes, and occupied with Charlie. There are numerous deposits of dead Charlie along the way.

Vintago wanted to take the smaller highways to avoid all this, but it would appear that, in the mass exodus from the valley, all roads looked the same.

Around midday their two vehicle caravan is finally approaching Flagstaff. Ahead of them lies a wasteland of burned out homes, buildings, cars, and complete chaos. There is litter and refuse everywhere. School busses line the sides of the highway heading into Flagstaff and piles of rotted corpses take up entire parking lots.

This was not what Vintago had expected at all. He thought that the military and the government was going to protect Flagstaff. They even called it a safe zone!

It would appear that nowhere was safe any longer.

The two groups stop their vehicles just on the outskirts of the city and get out. They walk up to Vintago and ask him how he wants to continue. They will have to cross right through the middle of the city to get to the army camp on the other side.

Vintago looks around, takes in the grotesque sights, and chuckles to himself.

When they ask him what’s so funny, he replies, “Gentlemen, this day marks a new beginning for our little group. We now know for sure that we are alone, outnumbered by infected, and on our own for surviving this mess.”

Without saying anything else, Vintago gets back in the truck and sits down. Logan enters the vehicle and asks what he wants to do.

“Drive us through the gates of hell my friend, and when we get to the other side, we better pray that it was worth the drive.” Commander Vintago Hawkins replies.

A word from the Author

This is only the beginning for our group of survivors as they have many more trials ahead of them. This is the beginning of an empire, the forging of a new breed of nation, and it all starts...at a fish hatchery.

This book was written because of my obsession with the zombie apocalypse genre. There are so many good writers out there that inspired me to write this book. My attempt to write my own journey was inspired by several writers. I hope that you have enjoyed the first leg of my journey. Expect that there will be many more stages in our apocalyptic empire!

Also for more information about the group of survivors please see the roster.

Roster of Hatchery Compound Survivors

Hawkins Family

(Original group members)

         Vintago Hawkins (24 years old)

o        Before the outbreak, he was an IT guy. After the outbreak, he fled with his family to the hatchery and started the compound. His skills are shooting, fishing, camping, and generally being an outdoorsman.

         Victoria Hawkins (24 years old).

o        Vintago’s wife of five years. Before the outbreak, she was a hair stylist. Her skills are generally cleaning, organization, cooking and taking care of their son.

         Grayson Hawkins (1.5 years old)

o        Son of Vintago and Victoria Hawkins. He is a happy go lucky toddler, confused about what is going on around him, but overall pleased to have his family around.

         Benjamin Hawkins (54 years old)

o        Benjamin is Vintago’s father. Before the outbreak, he was a doctor and surgeon. After the outbreak, he stayed behind to try and help the infected, eventually losing his wife to an infected patient. Afterwards, he fled to the hatchery to be with his only son. His skills are general medicine and advanced surgery.

Roberts Family

(Original group members)

         Gregory Roberts (54 years old)

o        Before the outbreak, he was a truck driver. His skills are general mechanics, welder, builder, generally good with his hands.

         Cindy Roberts (53 years old)

o        Greg’s wife of thirty years. Before the outbreak, she was a housewife. Her skills are seamstress, cleaning, cooking and organization.

Hatchery Crewmember

(Already at the hatchery)

         Jessica Owens (22 years old)

o        Before the outbreak, she maintained the hatchery and all of its vital systems. After the outbreak, when Vintago and his party arrived, she still takes care of the hatchery but also is their main cook. Her skills are hatchery maintenance, cooking, and shooting.

Black Family

(Added after Payson supply run)

         Logan Black (42 years old)

o        Before the outbreak, he was an Ex-Navy Seal who turned to personal training. After the outbreak, he led his family north to get away from the valley and endured a grueling month long battle before running into Vintago. His skills are extensive survivalist skills, firearms expert, explosives training, field medic training, and the list goes on.)

         Christine Black (40 years old)

o        Logan’s wife of twenty years. Before the outbreak, she was a Navy Nurse. Her skills are triage, minor surgery, and general medicine.)

         Robert Black (16 years old)

o        Logan’s oldest son. Before the outbreak, he was an Eagle Scout, a member of JROTC, and a competition shooter. His skills are expert level shooting, fishing, hunting, and everything else his father has taught him along the way.

         Rebecca Black (13 years old)

o        Logan’s oldest daughter. Before the outbreak, she was a member of the National Academic League. Her skills are in math, science and writing.

         Sarah and Timothy Black (8 year old twins).

o        Logan’s fraternal twins. Before the outbreak, they were just two normal kids. They are too young to have many skills.

Fort Huachuca National Guard Squad

(Added after Payson supply run)

         Private Nathan Jenkins (23 years old)

o        Before the outbreak, he was a member of the National Guard in Arizona and was a competition shooter in civilian life. His job duty with the National Guard was a marksman due to his excelling at long range shots. After the outbreak, his unit was called into active duty to defend Tucson, which failed. He and the three other members of his squad barely made it to Payson where they met Vintago. His skills are excellent shooting skills and military basic training.

         Private First Class Jose Gomez (25 years old)

o        Before the outbreak, he was also a National Guard member in Arizona. His job was as a military mechanic, and he was able to work on all of the military vehicles, diesels included. His civilian job was working at a body shop in Phoenix. After the outbreak, he followed Corporal Trevor. His skills are mainly mechanical in all sorts of vehicles and military basic training.

         Specialist Anthony Smith (24 years old)

o        Before the outbreak, he was also a member of the National Guard in Arizona. His job with the National Guard was a radioman and electrical systems expert. His civilian job was at a small computer company repairing computers. His skills are electronics, radio systems, generally a tinkerer.

         Corporal Trevor Steele (26 years old)

o        Before the outbreak, he served two tours in Iraq and Afghanistan as active Army. After his tours, he went National Guard in Arizona and worked as an investment banker. After the outbreak, he was called into active duty and was forced to retreat with the remnant of his squad, leaving him in command of the three other men. His skills are combat hardened, military advanced training, and very good with numbers.

Steeple Family

(Added after Payson supply run)

         Harry Steeple (63 years old)

o        Before the outbreak, he was a retired US Forest Service Firefighter. He lived outside of Payson and was an avid outdoorsman and hunter. After the outbreak, he called his family and told them to flee to his cabin outside of Payson, and they lived mainly unharmed until they had to gather supplies in Payson where they were attacked by thugs, and saved by Vintago. His skills are shooting, hunting, fishing, and camping.

         Henry Steeple (39 years old)

o        Harry Steeple’s oldest son. Before the outbreak, he was a personal banker. After the outbreak, he fled with his wife and two children to his father’s house. He has no applicable skills.

         Missy Steeple (38 years old)

o        Henry’s wife of eighteen years. Before the outbreak, she was a housewife. Her skills are cleaning cooking, and organization.

         Emily Steeple (16 years old)

o        Henry’s oldest daughter. Before the outbreak, she was a hugely athletic girl, participating in all the school sports. She has no applicable skills.

         Riley Steeple (13 years old)

o        Henry’s youngest daughter. Before the outbreak, she was a student and a girl scout. She has basic survival skills taught through girl scouts.

         Mitch Steeple (34 years old)

o        Harry Steeple’s youngest son. Before the outbreak, he was a Phoenix Police Department Detective. He was an avid shooter, outdoorsman, hunter and camper, much like his father.

         Gloria Steeple (36 years old)

o        Mitch’s wife of eight years. Before the outbreak, she was a lawyer. She has no applicable skills.

Roster of Church Camp Survivors

Church Camp “Family”

(Originally at the Church Camp)

         Pastor Luke Abrams (52 years old)

o        Before the outbreak, he was the pastor of the summer/winter camp. He was also an avid hunter, fisher, and outdoorsman. After the outbreak, he and his wife Amanda have been taking care of five children left behind as their parents either abandoned their children, or did not make it out alive. He and his wife have essentially adopted the children into their family. His skills are hunting fishing, camping, and survival skills.

         Pastor Amanda Abrams (48 years old)

o        Pastor Luke’s wife of twenty four years. Before the outbreak, she was the Associate Pastor. She was primarily the camp cook, caretaker, and mom for hire. After the outbreak, she takes care of the children while her husband provided for them. Her skills are cooking, cleaning, and organization.

         Johnny Chandler (15 years old)

o        Before the outbreak, he was a student. His skills are everything Luke has taught him.

         Jacob Chandler (13 years old)

o        Before the outbreak, he was a student. He has no applicable skills.

         Sophia Perkins (12 years old)

o        Before the outbreak, she was a student. She has no applicable skills.

         Ethan Reeves (13 years old)

o        Before the outbreak, he was a student. He has no applicable skills.

         Olivia Bridges (14 years old)

o        Before the outbreak, she was a student. She has no applicable skills.

Resort Group Fighters

(Added after deciding to abandon the resort group in favor of Vintago’s group)

Grymes Family

         Quinton Grymes (39 years old)

o        Before the outbreak, he was a former Air Force machinist stationed in Arizona. After the outbreak, he fled north with his wife and three children. He had been surviving with the resort group ever since stumbling upon them when they were looking for a place to take shelter for a night. He was one of the most experienced fighters the resort group had, due to his military training. His skills are basic military training, machining parts, and generally being able to create objects from metal.

         Dana Grymes (40 years old)

o        Wife of Quinton for eighteen years. Before the outbreak, she was a housewife. Her skills are cooking, cleaning and organization.)

         Freddie Grymes (17 years old)

o        Quinton’s oldest son. Before the outbreak, he was a student, computer hacker and programmer. After the outbreak, he has been fighting with Quinton and has become one of the resort groups’ fighters. His applicable skills are shooting and survival skills.

         Jackie Grymes (15 years old)

o        Quinton’s only daughter. Before the outbreak, she was a student and gymnast. She has no applicable skills.

         Austin Grymes (12 years old)

o        Quinton’s youngest son. Before the outbreak, he was a student. No applicable skills.

Allen Family

         Joey Allen (29 years old)

o        Before the outbreak, he was a sheriff’s deputy for Pinal County. After the outbreak, him and his wife fled north in search of a place to stay. They went to a resort that he had stayed at during a hunting session and found the beginnings of the resort group. He quickly became one of the first resort group fighters. His skills are hunter, fisher, camper, and shooter.

         Jade Allen (34 years old)

o        Wife of Joey for five years. Before the outbreak, she was a social worker attached to the sheriff’s office. They helped the deputies from time to time. Her skills are the same as Joey’s, largely because of him, hunting, fishing, camping, and shooting. She also believes that she may be able to help some of the survivors deal with the trauma of the outbreak.

         Nick Bark (42 years old)

o        Before the outbreak, he was a stockbroker. He was also a gun collector, shooter, and three gun competitor. He was staying at the resort on vacation when the outbreak came. After the outbreak, he stayed with the resort group and became their first fighter. His skills are shooting.

         Evan Spader (21 years old)

o        Before the outbreak, he was a student on a camping trip with his buddies in the nearby campground. After the outbreak, he found the resort group and Quinton taught him how to shoot, which he excelled at. His skills are shooting.

Western Camp Group

(Added by Trevor and his team after a scouting mission)

Brooks Family

         Nelson Brooks (49 years old)

o        Before the outbreak, he was a US Forest Service Ranger stationed south of the hatchery and overseeing the surrounding territory. After the outbreak, his family and their two neighbors holed up in their houses and tried to stick it out. They lived with no running water, electricity, and little food, for over a month before Corporal Trevor found them. His skills are mainly outdoors related skills, large game hunting, and woodsman.

         Catherine Brooks (42 years old)

o        Wife of Nelson for eighteen years. Before the outbreak, she was a housewife taking care of their youngest daughter and middle son. Her skills are cooking, cleaning, and organization.

         Jessie Brooks (19 years old)

o        Oldest daughter of Nelson. Before the outbreak, she lived from home and worked at the Starbucks in Payson. She was attending community college trying to get a degree in art. She has no applicable skills.

         Cody Brooks (16 years old)

o        Only son of Nelson. Before the outbreak, he was a student and an avid outdoorsman with his father. His skills are large game hunting and shooting.

         Claire Brooks (9 years old)

o        Youngest daughter of Nelson. Before the outbreak, she was a student. She has no applicable skills.

         Jerry Cambridge (47 years old)

o        Before the outbreak, he worked at the Home Depot in Payson. His skills are wood crafting, and carpentry.

         Cliff Bradley (68 years old)

o         Before the outbreak, he was a retired Army Colonel. He served in Vietnam, as an officer, and later in the Gulf War. He stayed on with the Army and was promoted to Colonel where he stayed until retirement. After retirement, he has spent his years hunting and fishing in the woods near his home. After the outbreak, he was essential to the survival of their group by assisting Nelson put food on the table.

Job Assignments

Command Team

                     Commander Vintago Hawkins

                     Lieutenant Commander Logan Black

                     Colonel Cliff Bradley

                     Sergeant Mitch Steeple

                     Corporal Robby Black

Alpha Team

                     Lieutenant Trevor Steele

                     Sergeant Anthony Smith

                     Corporal Jose Gomez

                     Corporal Nathan Jenkins

Bravo Team

                     Lieutenant Quinton Grymes

                     Sergeant Joey Allen

                     Corporal Jade Allen

                     Corporal Nick Bark

                     Corporal Evan Spader

                     Private Freddie Grymes

                     Private Nelson Brooks

                     Private Cody Brooks

Builder Team

                     Team Supervisor Gregory Roberts

                     Harry Steeple

                     Jerry Cambridge

Maintenance Team

                     Team Supervisor Jessica Owens

                     Henry Steeple

                     Pastor Luke Abrams

Homemaking Team

                     Team Supervisor Victoria Hawkins

                     Cindy Roberts

                     Missy Steeple

                     Gloria Steeple

                     Pastor Amanda Abrams

                     Catherine Brooks

                     Jessie Brooks

                     Dana Grymes

                     Jackie Grymes

Medical Team

                     Team Supervisor Benjamin Hawkins

                     Christine Black

Children - No Assignment or Light Duty

                     Grayson Hawkins

                     Rebecca Black

                     Sarah and Timothy Black

                     Emily Steeple

                     Riley Steeple

                     Johnny Chandler

                     Jacob Chandler

                     Sophia Perkins

                     Ethan Reeves

                     Olivia Bridges

                     Claire Brooks

                     Austin Grymes