Toll City, Colorado. (Part two) Running Scared; The Zombie Wars.

Toll City, Colorado (Part two) Running Scared; The Zombie Wars.

We came out of Toll City, Colorado at about 7:30pm after killing hundreds and hundreds maybe thousands of zombies; four buses held every one of the survivors with a few seats empty on each bus; a grand total of 130 adults and five kids ranging from 3 to 5 years old.

Our defensives had been worked and reworked for nearly a year; we had trap after trap set; diversions and dead ends to snare them; they worked exactly as they had been planned trapping and slowing the zombie advance giving the firing teams clear shots as the hoard was forced to slow and maneuver through obstacles we placed in the killing zones. Buildings surrounding our strong hold had been set with incendiary devices; the attacking zombies filled these buildings trying to find clear paths to breach our walls. They were killed in the hundreds as the buildings were set on fire; zombie bodies rained from the upper floors leaving flaming smoking trails in the failing light as they fell in burning masses. Piles seven or eight deep of fallen zombies in long sweeping rows from over lapping automatic rifle fire caught fire from phosphorous grenades; smoke blocked the view of thousands of advancing bobbing heads.

The ocean of zombies never slowed as the growing tide reached to the horizon pushing through the fires and heavy machine gun fire without pausing; it was the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen in my life. The swarm reached to the horizon flowing in pulsating bobbing rivers; swirling, pouring around obstacles creating eddies then clearing weaving picking up speed climbing over the flaming stacks of their own dead mindless of the roar of automatic machine gun fire cutting lines through their ranks. They pushed up against the twenty five foot walls we build and climbing on top of one another using the first as stepping stones to climb higher; stacks of zombies would build up to nearly the top of the walls then collapse onto their selves just to rebuild again. We poured hundreds of gallons of thickened gasoline on the growing zombie piles burning the zombies in huge stacks as they attacked the walls; the growing piles of undead would just move a few feet to the side of the raging fires and build again in teetering stacks; the walls were breached by their sheer numbers. Topping the walls they’d pour down into the lower areas between the twenty five foot walls and the five buildings we had fortified; windows and doors had been sealed tight and reinforced, there was nowhere for them to go after falling off or being pushed off by the sheer numbers climbing over the walls into the pits. We continued to pour gallons of thickened gasoline into and on top of the teetering piles of zombies breaching the walls; the smoke was stifling.

The local zombie population had taught us well over the previous months how they’d attack; wave after wave had been beaten back in the year working up to the hundreds of thousands of the coming swarm. The zombie army had been tracked moving north for the last six months via short wave radio coming out of South America as they overran one strong hold after another; survivors running for their lives trying to put distance between them and the over whelming hoard moving north like a flood.

Our plan was to kill and delay as many of the zombie swarm as we could; we knew our five building fortress wouldn’t hold against thousands and thousands of zombies on the run for fresh meat; at the last minute we hoped to escape in buses and head due north away from the flood looking for the next sanctuary city or at least another strong hold and again make a stand. We fortified the buses as much as possible; our southern most scouting team ran half the way home on a flaming rim after pushing through a tangle of zombies that surrounded their vehicle a zombie rib pierced and flattening the tire. We decided not to fight the zombies as the security gates opened in the lower level of building five. They filled every square inch of the loading docks within a minute of the gates opening; the screeching sounds of the heavy security electric gates rolling in their tracks brought hundreds of zombies from the streets down into the basement area to our buses surrounding them in a sea of undead. We slowly pushed against the hoard with the buses carefully trying to split the thong without knocking them down and under the buses putting our precious tires at risk. We nearly made it but the zombies were so packed together they started falling as the buses pushed them into tighter groups around the building pillars that held the tracks for the doors at the street exiting through the security gates. The third and forth bus had to climb and run over stacks of zombies as they made their way slowly though the standing grasping hoards; they pushed the tight packed zombies forward then backing up a few feet and getting a short run into the zombie thong they slowly made their way out of the garage pit. Pitching side to side it was a miracle that only bus four had one flat tire as they slowly drove against the growing swarm of zombies blocking the buses to the streets.

We made it just over a mile on one smoking wobbling rim before stopping to change the ruined tire and wheel switching the spare as fast as the crew was able. A line of fast approaching zombies could be seen closing the distance running at top speed as bus four was lowered off the jacks and tools were hurriedly put away. Two fire teams put down a constant spray of suppressing fire towards the fastest of the running zombies; hitting a fast mover the next zombie in line would jump like a hurdler over the fallen zombie just to be hit by the next bullet falling making a staggered pile of dead or injured zombies. Slower zombies had to vault the fallen or go around the stack slowing the running hoard.

They caught the bus before it was able to get to speed; fighting the no climb wire we’d attached to the sides of the bus the zombies couldn’t find a hold and we escaped without a single zombie climbing and clinging onto the bus; we drove fourteen hours through the night into the following day.

Skirting everything but the smallest of towns we quickly discovered that the roads were filled with abandoned cars. We pulled into a County road maintenance yard and found a huge dump truck with a snow plow; the keys clearly marked and hanging in the office; filling the dump truck with gravel we hoped the extra weight would help clear the derelict vehicles from the roads. The use of the unprotected truck was dangerous but without it we’d be stalled at every town we came too; slowing to a near crawl and lowering the plow the truck easily pushed most cars quickly out of the way of the buses, larger vehicles could be moved by pushing against the rear or front twisting and spinning the vehicle around and clearing just enough space for the buses to drive through. We flattened the gravel in the trucks dump box and put two fire teams up in the box giving them a good view from the height of the huge truck. We had made good progress as late afternoon arrived; we’d need to find a secure spot to make camp for the night; all of our vehicles needed fuel. We’d need to find an outlying station with diesel or risk a zombie attack in the next small town.

They came in the night; the first fire team opened up with everything they had at one a.m. and in seconds every fire team was involved. We were lucky that the team heard them before they got to the buses; we evacuated everyone from the buses and those without rifles or weapons stood in the center of the tight circle of the fire teams reloading and clearing jammed rifles. The sound was deafening as the rifle explosions bounced back to us off of the near bus sides; we were forced to abandon the buses by the size of the zombie attack slowly retreating away from the protection of the buses. We left piles of dead zombies; those cut in half by the automatic weapons continued to pursue crawling and dragging themselves along with an arm or leg left still attached after being hit numerous times. As we retreated we had to be cautious of any zombie laying in the dirt that might bite an ankle or leg as we stepped over them; each zombie had to be shot in the head at close range to be safe to walk past. It seemed an eternity but by my watch the fight lasted only fifteen minutes and cleaning up the shot up zombies an additional ten minutes; we’d lost but one team member by getting blocked and caught in one of the buses. It broke out hearts to have to shoot and kill one of our own but it hadn’t been the first time; cleaning the mess from the bus interior was the worst.

As the sun came up we counted seventy three zombies and added five more before we’d cleaned the weapons and reloaded the buses for the second day. We were in need of ammunition and new weapons; we’d need to find another National Guard Armory to resupply before everything got too low; heading up Hwy 13 keeping our distance from any larger towns Craig had an armory that dated by to the mid twenties, our hope being that it hadn’t been broken into and cleaned out already.

Pulling into Craig at two p.m. we found the Armory on Yampa Ave; with bolt cutters we cut the large chain and padlock and pulled all four buses and our snow plow into the fenced in parking lot. Checking the heavy doors the armory was still intact. The building was old, constructed of brick, windows covered in heavy steel fabric, the roof covered with metal roofing; it was the perfect building to overnight in. A sign coming into town said the population was nearly nine thousand but we hadn’t attracted a single zombie and the town appeared to be deserted but multiple buildings had been destroyed in what had to have been a long drawn out fight. It took an hour to get the heavy buildings door open without destroying them in the process; we’d want the use of them overnight if we ended up attracting more zombies. A huge bonus we found the building had a central wood burning stove left over from the original construction before electric or gas took over as normal heating; we’d have heat and hot water a luxury we’d hadn’t had since leaving our strong hold. As we hoped the armory had a nice supply of ammo and a few old weapons that would supplement what we’d been able to get our hands on that still functioned.

Our new home for the night sat neatly in the center of a half acre lot surrounded by an eight foot heavy wire fence with barbed wire wound along the top. We found everything we needed inside to chain and lock the gate we’d cut opened to access the site; three fire teams sites were chosen and using sandbags built supports for the heavier guns. We were ready for the night with little worry of being overrun again.

As the sun was setting we could clearly smell smoke; wood smoke from a camp fire or a wood burning stove. The wind was coming from the north directly down Yampa Ave south bound; how far up the street we could not tell. With the sun going down it was much too dangerous to go out on foot so we sent out the snow plow with two fire teams to investigate. Moving slowly with the huge flood lights of the snow plow glaring in the fading light they discovered the smoke was coming from the chimney of another brick building two blocks from the armory; the sign said Calvary Baptist Church; worried faces could be seen through the high dirty windows peering out at the bright lights. They were too scared to come out of their brick fortress in the fading light and warned of bands of prowling zombies that came every night assaulting the doors and windows of the church. Our team gave them as many rifles as they could spare with ammunition and promised to return the following morning and hurried back to the armory.

As we were having dinner with smoke pouring out of the chimney heating shower water and warming the building a single zombie walked slowly to the fence his face pressing the wire. He stood staring at the fire team behind their sand bags not twenty feet from him. He was in good shape without many injuries from his turning; his clothes were rumpled dirty but not torn to shreds like so many of them. No one moved an inch; he swiveled his face to the side looking up Yampa Ave the wire pushing his nose against his cheek; shuffling his feet he slid along the wire and slowly walked north towards the Church in the distance.

Twenty minutes later; “We’ve got trouble!” Everyone spilled out of the armory; in the distance you could hear pounding and an occasional zombie screech; that sound froze your blood in their veins. It meant the zombies were close to getting fresh meat and in their excitement they’d scream a high pitched bloody screech that meant fresh meat was close at hand. One zombie after another began to pour from the neighborhoods south of us heading quickly towards the sounds of a feast; the numbers grew into the hundreds as the street and front yards filled with zombies. Our fenced in yard was an island in the river of zombies as they flooded past scraping the wire in their hurry to feed; everyone was frozen in place watching the entire city of Craig sweep past heading for the church. “OH my god!” was enough to stop two zombies as they slid along pressed tightly against the fence by the moving hoard. Zombies behind them unable to continue stopped also; slowly their heads turned as they realized fresh meat was just feet from them. One zombie turned screeching at the top of his lungs; he jumped climbing the fence catching the attention of several zombies ten or so deep in the moving throng; they stopped pushing towards the fencing following the climbing zombie. Our fire team not twenty feet away began shooting zombies as they reached the top of the fencing; some fell back into the crowd as others fell inwards pulling the barbed wire loops down and away from the fence top. Looking over my shoulder towards the corner where the fencing turned ninety degrees and headed behind the building zombies were falling backwards off the fence as others climbed over the fence landing inside the wire as the second fire team poured bullets into the climbing zombies.

“Get inside get inside!” The single person wide door clogged with people trying to get back inside of the armory; zombies poured over the fencing. I watched from forty feet away as the double gate fell under the weight of the zombies giving a clear path to our front door clogged with people. Twenty feet of fencing on both sides of the gate fell pushed down by the weight of hundreds of climbing zombies; rolling springing to their feet the zombies were on our people in seconds.

There was nowhere to go so I ran to the closest bus yelling to those near to me to follow as ran past people pushing to get inside the building. Two zombies ran past me ignoring me jumping on the backs of our people clawing towards the jammed door; I watched as zombies pilled four deep, some walking on top of the screaming crowd, no one followed me; I stood alone at the door swing handle as the hoard smothered and covered our people. I closed the door locking it tight; I pressed my hands against my ears to silence the screech of feeding zombies.

I’m quite alone as I pencil this final report; oceans of zombies surround my sanctuary eight feet wide by forty feet long. Someone has the keys; maybe in a pocket or lying on the ground somewhere, who knows, it doesn’t really matter anymore. I’ve got no water or food; my every movement excites the zombies into a rage and they beat the bus walls for hours trying to get to that last piece of fresh meat.

I’ve finished my report there’s nothing further to add; the sea of zombies must be in the thousands; one window is broken and hands reach looking for a snatch of clothing to pull to their mouths. A crack and a zipper like sound as one roof vent is torn away; rivets pop falling into the bus floor. A zombie head and then shoulders wiggle through the small vent opening; the fit is tight but he’s making it.

I smile as I hold the Glock .45 auto not taking my eyes off the struggling zombie; it’s heavy and mean looking the bore is huge; I’ve got one chance to do this right; the cold metal front sight digging into the top of my mouth, the zombie is almost through, pulling tighter on the slack in the trigger, he drops hitting the bus floor head first, rolling over turning towards me our eyes lock, jumping to his feet h……..

From the Ramblings

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