I wanted to sleep, but my brain wasn’t having any of it.
Sanctuary Base: it sounded tranquil enough. Too tranquil.
We’d been talking about breaking out of the armory now for more than a month while towns and cities burned and the stuff of nightmares clawed at the barred windows on the ground level of the armory. But that was simply chatter between team members. We’d all kept our opinions to ourselves when Sgt. Green was in earshot because he’d have clamped down on that notion immediately. He wanted us focused on just getting through the freaking day alive.
We weren’t exactly going to starve in our location. The armory had at least a year or more worth of rations in the company stores. We had ammunition, lots of it, and weapons. We could rain death onto the creeps at a murderous rate any time we wanted to but even with our guns and ammo, we’d still lost more than 90 percent of those who’d made it to the armory when the call out came. And there was also the matter of fresh water. We’d filled two storage rooms with plastic Jerry cans of fresh water in the days after the siege began. We kept filling them until the municipal water supply finally shut down. But we all knew we’d eventually run out and the closest source of fresh water was from the Bow River – a death sentence for anyone wishing to venture even two hundred feet from the safety of our position.
Surely Sgt. Green had to have realized that we couldn’t stay here forever. I sat up in my cot and glanced at Jo. Her stringy mop of red hair covered her face and I listened to the sound of her breathing when the sheer magnitude of Sgt. Green’s death hit me like a brick thrown in anger through a shop window: I could no longer defer to an adult’s wisdom. None of us could – we just didn’t have that luxury anymore.
“We’re going to figure something out, Jo,” I whispered as I climbed out of my cot and grabbed my flashlight. I snuck out of our room and crossed the hallway into what was Sgt. Green’s billet. On the floor across the room was a half open sleeping bag on an air mattress. His helmet and fighting gear was laid out neatly next to his ruck sack, and it looked like he’d just crawled out of bed to take a leak and would return minutes later. Only that wasn’t going to happen.
I shuffled across the room, placing my flashlight on the floor next to his gear.
“He must have had a plan,” I said quietly as I started fishing through his kit. I found his trusty field message pad stuffed in a pocket of his webbing and started flipping through the pages. There was a list of everyone’s names dating back to Day Zero, most with a line struck through them. I saw a detailed list of rations from the company stores along with a count of ammunition, each one listed by its NATO nomenclature.
I tossed the pad onto the sleeping bag and pulled out Sgt. Green’s junior general kit, an olive drab cotton duck covered portfolio containing maps, plastic coated sheets to write on and china markers. I tore open the Velcro fastener with a loud rip and flipped through the pages. There was a detailed drawing of potential routes of access away from the armory along with a series of scenarios he’d written under the heading THREAT ASSESSMENT: SIMMONS – READ THIS.
I arched my eyebrows and flashed my light on the page.
Simmons:
Congratulations, you found my OPS kit and that means I’ve bought the farm so guess what, kid? You’re in charge now. Before you start protesting that someone else should take command of what’s left of the King’s Own, dig through my ruck sack and look for the ball peen hammer. It’s there for you to club yourself in the head with for being a moron. I picked you as my 2IC because you’ve got a tactical mind and you get shit done. More importantly, I chose you because out of all the survivors of the King’s Own, you have the most to lose and by that I’m talking about little Jo. Your kid sister is going to be the catalyst for a hell of a lot of tough decisions. Because of her, you’ll make the hard choices – the ones that twist your stomach into knots because you know deep down inside you’re ordering someone to their death or to take a life. That’s the burden of leadership, kid. It’s not pretty, but there it is.
We can’t stay here. By my estimation, we’ve got enough fresh water to last us until Christmas and after that we’re fucked big time. So we have to conduct a breakout, got it? You have to get out of the city and then after that it’ll be a matter of finding a secure position with a reliable source of fresh water and game for you to hunt because those rations aren’t going to last forever either.
On the following pages you’ll find a detailed plan. I’ve given it an operational name for now – call it PLAN Z.
We have two fully functional fighting vehicles and enough Jerry cans of diesel to refill the tanks once and that’s it. The quick and dirty is pretty basic: use both APC’s to break out of the armory and head out of the city. West – preferably to the mountains where there’s lots of game and hundreds of streams with fresh water that will keep you all going. You’ll have a hell of a fight on your hands just getting out of the downtown core and any number of things can go wrong. The carriers are old but serviceable. They each have a cruising range of about 700 KMS in optimal conditions. Use them until your fuel runs dry and depending on where you’ve made it to, you’ll have to scrounge for diesel. You might have to abandon them, which would be a shame because once the combat locks on each carrier are engaged; nothing can get you so they’ll be a solid last line of defense. They’re the Alamo.
You could all pile into one carrier but I recommend taking both because if one breaks down you’ve got spare parts. You should split the team into two squads, each with a squad leader and a 2IC. Kate Dawson should be your second and Pam Cruze should take the other carrier. Sid Toomey will give you push back and you’ll need that for sober second thought. Doug Manybears and Kenny Howard are both qualified drivers and Mel Dixon is a damned fine shot not to mention being machine gun qualified. Put her in the turret of one carrier and Toomey in the other. Once you’re out of the city, keep an eye on your fuel levels and try to stay on relatively even ground because you can’t afford to throw a shock absorber or blow a tire. Fix a toboggan and tent group onto each carrier because you’ll need them for shelter when the snow flies. It’s the middle of October right now, who knows when the snow will hit us. Pack as much naphtha as you can for the stoves and lanterns.
Pack light and medium anti-armor weapons, a 60 MM mortar for each carrier as well as rounds to spare. Bring pyro. Para-flares and trip flares. You’ll need smoke for the dischargers on each vehicle and bring M1 frag grenades – there are five cases in the company stores.
I wish I could offer you something better than this. Maybe light at the end of the tunnel or a beacon of hope, but I got nothing, kid. I don’t know what caused Day Zero and at this point I don’t want you or anyone else wasting a minute thinking about the why’s of your situation. The only thing that matters is staying alive. Now, a warning: once you’re on the road the creeps aren’t going to be the only threat. You can deal with creeps if you keep your wits about you. The real danger will be other survivors. They’ll do whatever it takes to get your food, fuel and weapons. They’ll drag you into the weeds and cut your throat just for the boots on your feet, got it? Trust only in the team and if you come into armed conflict with survivors, wipe them the fuck out and take their shit because that’s what they’ll be planning on doing to you.
I’ll close off this letter for now. I’m sorry about your mother, kid. She hit the wall hard and couldn’t deal so try not to hate her for what she did. Take that anger you’ve got bottled up inside and put it to good use – by fighting to survive.
Soldier on, troop.
I started at the letter as a wave of nausea threatened to flatten me. Wipe them the fuck out? Kill other survivors? Holy shit!
Sgt. Green had never talked to me about breaking out of the armory but I knew him well enough to know that he’d have simply ordered both APC’s to be loaded with gear and he’d have delivered orders to everyone with the expectation that our team would follow his plan to the letter. He was a regular forces infantry sergeant – the mere fact that he wore three chevrons on his sleeves absolutely demanded obedience. But how the hell could I even hope to get the team to follow me in the same way they did with Green? I wasn’t even the oldest member of the King’s Own. I didn’t have enough time in to command the tiniest amount of respect and obedience from everyone else. And what if I presented his plan and just read the letter to everyone? How would Sid Toomey react to Sgt. Green appointing me as his successor?
Cruze said everyone would follow me, and maybe she was right. But follow me to where? Green said head to the mountains but what if we actually managed to break out of the city and headed to Sanctuary Base? If the place was creep-free, they must have implemented some damned good security procedures to deal with them. Or maybe their location was secluded enough that creeps hadn’t stumbled onto the place yet.
“Well we’re fucked if we do and fucked if we don’t, aren’t we, Sarge?” I said to the letter. “But you’re right. We’re going to die if we stay here.”
I stood up and grabbed my flashlight. I glanced at my watch, it was 01:15: a little more than five hours until the broadcast. Cruze was trying to figure out the location of whoever sent the message and I decided that come hell or high water, in the next twelve hours we’d make a decision. Whether we headed west or east: the most important thing was to get out of town alive.
Plan Z was Sgt. Green’s plan. Now all I had to do was sell it to the team.