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“Stay ‘unreasonable.’ If you
don’t like the solutions [available to you], come up with your
own.”
Dan Webre
The Martialist does not
constitute legal advice. It is for ENTERTAINMENT
PURPOSES ONLY.
Copyright © 2003-2004 Phil Elmore, all rights
reserved.
White Fire, Part 01
By Lawrence Keeney — Presented Unedited, Verbatim, as Written
In the
end, it really didn’t matter much what caused the end of the
world, as we know it; however, the truth of the matter is forthcoming.
A group of Al-Quaeda terrorists broke into a factory in the remote
French countryside. The raiders thought the vials they stole were
biological weapons, however, the truth was much more chilling.
The French scientists, in collaboration with a sinister cabal of
intelligence agents and military generals had been secretly working for
nearly ten years on a substance they called White Fire.
The CIA and British Intelligence
agencies thought White Fire was a garden-variety variant of Sarin gas,
also known as GB. The truth is, they were very, very wrong. White Fire
was extracted from the bones of a group of centuries- dead Arab
warriors found buried in Algeria. Stories passed down through decades
from father to son told a tale of strange dead bodies coming back to
life and feasting on the bones of others. Groups of villagers finally
banded together and succeeded in stopping the holocaust.
Five hundred years later, a group of
historians digging in the desert found piles of bones, crude weapons
and scraps of Bedouin robes. They were fascinated to discover bite
marks on many of the bones and indications of cannibalism. Their
excitement drew the attention of French intelligence agents and brought
the plan into motion. Geneticists extracted certain strange chemicals
from the bones and soon realized what they had.
Late one summer evening, a group of
shadowy, masked men delivered a pair of prisoners to the lab to serve
as human subjects. One of the captives, a Libyan who was arrested
on a Paris street on suspicions he was a member of a terrorist group
was forcibly injected with the drug. For at least an hour, the man
showed no out-of-the ordinary symptoms. Then it happened. His eyes
glazed over, and the man apparently dropped dead. Some five minutes
later he began to rise, seemingly in a stupor. When his cellmate
attempted to help him, the man attacked and chewed through the
victim’s neck. Seconds later, the second man arose, and both
prisoners began to pound on the locked doors of their cell. The
scientists knew they had an amazing weapon, and began to formulate
plans to use it against the enemies of France.
As it is often said, more than two
people are unable to keep a secret. Over the years, France’s lax
immigration laws had allowed the population of the once great nation to
balloon to an estimated 45% Muslim population. A maintenance man from
Lebanon saw what was happening, told a friend, who just happened to
know some people.
The terrorist plan was insidious. Not
quite understanding what they had, the men huddled over pots of strong
coffee and cigarettes and laid out the plan of murder.
Anti-globalization protest being staged the following weekend in
Toronto seemed to be just the place. Twenty thousand college students,
hippies and labor activists would be clogging the streets, banging
drums and breaking windows. The police would be occupied trying to
quell any violence and would be less likely to notice a group of
Middle-Eastern males on the American terrorist watch list who had
drifted into town.
Each member of the team was supplied
with a specially modified medical syringe filled with White Fire. Ten
men followed and ambushed ten protestors. The victims’ reactions
ranged from running away, to immediately dying, to fighting for their
lives. The ten infected men and women each died within ten minutes to
four hours. Emergency medical providers attempting to render assistance
were their first victims.
Five days from that date, the virus
raced through the two nations. On the Monday following the terrorist
attack, hospitals in Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland and Phoenix
reported cases of patients with strange wounds who died quickly. At
nearly the same time police in those areas began to battle groups of
marauding “lunatics” attacking shoppers, pedestrians and
motorists at random. Homeowners soon brought out personally owned
firearms and neighborhood streets became battlefields. Grocery stores
and gun shops were stripped bare and gas stations were soon out of fuel.
Governors of ten states immediately
declared states of emergency and called out their respective National
Guard units. Since many of them were deployed in Iraq, the units were
small, but did all they could. A national news network showed film
clips of guardsmen in a Bradley Fighting Vehicle firing their 20MM
chain gun at a horde of advancing ‘zombies.’ What
little bit of social order left in America soon collapsed after scenes
such as that one.
The National Command Authority of the
United States government, namely the president, vice-president, cabinet
members, some congressional members and military authorities were
ensconced behind tall fences in secure facilities and on naval vessels
all over the nation. Soon, many television stations dropped off the
air, as did most radio stations. Some intrepid broadcasters
remained on the air in barricaded buildings, but sooner or later, most
of them deserted their posts to be with families. For some
reason, the electrical grid stayed operational, and stoplights
continued to blink in dead cities. Many highways were clogged with
vehicles, most of which had run out of fuel, or their drivers had been
attacked by the undead. Traffic jams were deadly in that respect. Most
drivers neglected to either roll up their windows or lock their doors.
It was easy for the deanimated to attack and kill them while the
drivers were trapped behind seatbelts. The only relatively safe
areas were rural communities in the mountains and off the Interstate
highway system. In these small towns, people knew their neighbors, and
kept an eye on them. This “nosey neighbor” atmosphere
allowed local law enforcement officers to quell the rise of most undead.
One of these areas that were
relatively unscathed for the time being was the coalfields of Southern
West Virginia. These areas kept in contact through still operational
cellular phone networks and satellite Internet links. Sooner or later,
the rest of the nation would figure this out.
Uncle Frank, hope all continues to be
well. We are all doing well here, and God willing, we will be ok. I
pray you and Aunt Julie and my cousins are ok.
I remember the first time I saw a zombie, The television news was
broadcasting emergency messages over and over warning people to stay in
and lock their doors. Being as we live in the country, I didn’t
think it would be a big deal to try and drive to the convenience store
down the hill, in case it was still open. I pulled my Colt Gold Cup off
the top shelf beside the door, made sure it was loaded, grabbed an
extra magazine, and jumped in my Explorer.
When I turned off the highway into the Tiger Mart parking lot, things
didn’t look right. Sitting by the road was a Wayne County
Ambulance. The back door was open and the vehicle was wedged between a
road sign and the guardrail. As I drove into the parking lot and up to
the gas pump, a pickup was sitting there with the hose still sticking
in the gas tank, as if the driver had abandoned it. I looked in the
truck window and there was a double shotgun lying in the seat beside
two open boxes of shells. If I had been smart, I would have gotten the
hell out of there right then, but I didn’t.
With one hand on my 45, and the other on the nozzle, I proceeded to
fill my tank. Then I walked into the store looking around and realized
I hadn’t seen a living soul. “Hey, anybody here,” I
asked? Almost immediately I heard a crash, as if someone had backed
into a rack of potato chips and knocked it over. Suddenly, a person
rose up from behind the counter, and I knew he didn’t belong
there. The person looked like they had slept in their clothes for a
month and hadn’t bathed during the same period. The being, a
male, turned around, and I knew I was in big trouble. The man, now a
zombie, was splattered with dark blood. The side of its face seemed
gone, and the thing’s right eye was hanging out of the socket. It
was having trouble navigating around the store counter, stumbled, and
fell down. Faster than I imagined, it got up and plodded toward me,
arms outstretched. I was backing up, not thinking, and stumbled into
the newspaper display, falling back into my ass.
I grabbed at my gun, drew it, flipping off the hammer and putting two
rounds into the thing’s chest. I remember hearing the
ejected casings clinking when they hit the tile floor. It stopped
looked down at the holes as if to wonder what that was, and kept
coming. When it was ten feet from me, I aimed carefully as well as my
shaky wits would let me and fired one round between the thing’s
eyes. The back of its head sprayed onto the counter, and the body hit
the ground in a heap. The bullet, which exited the thing’s head,
went on the blow out the glass on a walk in refrigerator. I
didn’t realize it until later, but I immediately grabbed my spare
magazine and did a tactical reload.
Right then, I wondered where the clerk was. I peered behind the
counter, pistol leading the way, and saw the young man I had talked to
in passing most mornings for the past year. He was lying there, with
his neck torn out, and his intestines torn loose for all to see.
Amazingly enough, the poor bastard was crawling my way, making an eerie
groaning noise, lifeless eyes staring at me. I took careful aim
and fired a round into his right eye. Behind him I noticed a holstered
Ruger 9mm pistol. He brought a gun with him, but didn’t even get
to use it. I grabbed it and stuck it in a plastic garbage bag I found
under the counter. I filled the bag with batteries, matches, canned
goods, candy and all the bottled water I could carry. I never found
where the owner of the pickup was, so I took the shotgun, shells and a
large hunting knife that was also there. In the background I heard a
series of shots fired from what had to be a high powered rifle or
a shotgun. I didn’t want to be involved in that, so I got the
hell out of there and went home. Dad was sitting in my driveway when I
got there, cradling his Winchester Model 97 Trench gun and looking very
nervous. “I shot some crazy looking bastard who tried to bite me,
“ Dad noted as if it were an every day occurrence. “What
the hell is going on,” he asked. “Dad, haven’t you
watched the news for the last week,” I asked. “Hell, I told
you I don’t watch the news,” He replied. “You know
they have a bias toward the friggin democrats. Besides, I only like the
movie channel and the fishing shows.” We boarded up the windows,
pushed furniture against the doors and deposited ourselves on the
second floor for the next four days. That Saturday, a message came
across the scanner telling people to come to Madison and that they
would be protected there. Since we own a rental garage in town with
steel doors and good locks, dad and I decided it might be a good idea
to move to town, so to speak
Downtown Madison, West Virginia, 22 April, 2005
In the beginning, things were bad, but they have gotten just a little
better lately, at least in this side of the county. When it hit the fan
all those weeks ago, refugees from the state capitol in Charleston came
flooding down U.S. 119. Luckily, they also brought their guns. I never
figured that many people in such a liberal city would have so many
guns, and so much ammunition, but it sure has come in handy.
The county office of emergency services, along with some troopers and
deputies have organized roving teams of “flying squads”
that patrol the area day and night on the search for the undead. So
far, we have only lost a couple of the team members, and occasionally
they will run into one or two zombies, or even a pack of four or
five. Due to the September 11, and all the Homeland Security
funds available in the past couple of years, the sheriff’s
department invested a hell of a lot of money in weapons and ammunition.
I knew about this stuff from being a newspaper reporter, but I never
really realized the scope of what they had. Apparently, stored in
secure warehouse were some 100,000 rounds of 223, and a similar amount
of 12 ga and 45 ACP ammunition. I don’t know what they thought
they would need all that ammo for, but it sure was a good thing they
got it when they did. I served as a crime scene photographer for
the department, and they all knew I could shoot, so after some
convincing I was given my share of ammo, along with a Colt Commando M-4
style carbine and a bag full of magazines. I started carrying this
rifle everywhere, along with my Glock 17 and Colt 45.
Some older fella came to one of our meetings and announced that he
could supply some reloaded ammunition if needed. We didn’t think
much of it until we heard what he had. Our mouths dropped open
when he told us he had, which included seventeen cases of 9mm
ammunition, two Barrett 50 caliber sniper rifles and as much 50 caliber
ammo as we might need. Mr.Stollings was a member of some club that did
long range shooting with these types of rifles, so the sheriff made him
our sniper. I knew him all my life, and never knew he was into
that sort of a hobby. Shows how much of a reporter I was, doesn’t
it?
We traveled to some parts of the county, collected all the folks we
could and brought them into Madison, as sort of a fortress. They
brought canned goods and stuff from their pantries, so we are in fair
shape for food. In addition, just outside of town, there is a coal mine
where some enterprising guy started a business raising Salmon and
Telapia down in the deep shafts. These folks have been a great help in
feeding our people and the foreman says we have enough fish down there
to last a couple of years. At last count, we have 1,854 mouths to feed.
A mining company superintendent has a helicopter sitting on a pad
at the top of the hill, and deputies fly reconnaissance up and down the
interstates and the back roads looking for the deadies. A couple
of hunters hang out the sides of the chopper with deer rifles and shoot
every zombie they see. In the first week of patrols, the teams shot
over four hundred poor deanimated souls.
Oh, let me tell you what I saw today. This morning I was on the
roof of the jail checking a connection on our antenna array and saw at
least two dozen different sets of contrails in the sky. So we know
someone is still flying over. In the past couple of weeks people
have also seen C-130s flying over and even three Pave Low helicopters
in the distance. Maybe help is coming. They haven’t tried
to contact us though.
People who know more about such things than I do monitor radio bands
from all over the world. They report military units requesting
assistance for days on end, then nothing. Ham radio operators call from
all over the planet seeking information on loved ones and when someone
is going to rescue them. I don’t think anyone is coming to help
these folks. Some ministers here say this is the verdict of God on the
conduct of man. I am not much of a bible expert, so I cannot say, but
it seems to me that a lot of children who did nothing wrong are being
hurt. This is not the work of the God I was raised to know.
I know one thing for sure. There are a lot of good people here, and we
are doing the best we can to survive. There are doctors, dentists,
lawyers, coal miners, and retired folks. The armed senior citizen
patrols with a teenager packing an M-16. Kids have grown up fast in the
past ninety or so days, and adults who have never held a gun soon
become expert shots. Our parish priest even carries a 357 magnum and a
12. Ga. shotgun with a very short bbl.
The chance of being eaten by the guy down the street has transformed
these folks into warriors. It focuses ones mind when you come upon a
group of undead mailmen eating one’s next door neighbor.
Back in the rest of the world, things were not going well for U.S.
armed forces. Last week, the Joint Chiefs reported that seven out of
ten American servicemen stationed in CONUS was dead, or unaccounted
for. The majority of larger American cities were overrun by the undead,
and several had been bombed by Navy strike aircraft. On March 1,
Four C-130 aircraft released fuel air bombs over downtown Manhattan, in
an attempt to assist groups organized from surviving NYPD officers. The
police, along with firefighters and well-motivated and armed citizens
were holding Rykers Island, Liberty Island and several large ships
positioned in the river. They were having some relatively good luck
stopping the onslaught.
The cops sped through city streets in armored trucks searching for
survivors but having relatively little good luck. Most officers
believed this to be a fool’s errand and wanted to just leave, if
they and their families could find a safe place to go.