The City: Zombie Transference, #2

Table of Contents

The City (Zombie Transference, #2)

THE LAST THREE DAYS

FIRST DAWN

MORNING

ROLLING OUT

THE HORDE

A NICE AREA

THE OUTSKIRTS

THE LOADING BAY

DEBRIEFING THE CO

THE LOADING DOCK

INTO THE GARAGE

OUTSIDE THE CITY

EVENING ROUTINE

EMERGENCY RATIONS IN A FORMAL DINNER

WAGNER AT DINNER

SUE FINISHES DINNER

AN ATTACK

0600 PREPARE TO ROLL

A SHORT HALT

AN OUTDOOR MEETING

OUTPOST ONE

INSIDE

ON WATCH

DOWN THE AISLE

SECOND OUTPOST

OUTPOST THREE

OUTPOST FOUR

SIGNS OF LIFE

OUTPOST FIVE

OUTPOST SIX

THE WALKERS

OUTPOST SEVEN

THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE

OUTPOST EIGHT

RETURN TO HEADQUARTERS

BACK AT HEADQUARTERS

JIMMY

ANDREIS

STEVEN ON THE JOB

RETURN TO | HEADQUARTERS

DEBRIEF

SETTING UP | FOR THE NIGHT

THE HORDE ARRIVES

THE TRAIN

AUTHOR’S NOTE

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Just a few short days ago they were all on their way home late at night.  Then they stopped at that service centre for a drink and a coffee before continuing their journey.

When they woke up the next morning they were in a post-apocalyptic zombie story and had no idea what was going on.

Now they are heading for the city.  Last area in the region that the military has been able to hold onto.  There is the offer of shelter from the hordes that are waking to the presence of food in their midst.

They have one thing that none of the locals do.  They’ve seen zombie movies. 

What could possibly go wrong?

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ZOMBIE TRANSFERENCE: BOOK 2

THE CITY

Tom Germann

Written and Published by Tom Germann

Copyright 2017

Licence Notes

Thank you for reading this.  A great deal of effort went into the creation of this book.  So, if you would like to share this with a friend please have them visit one of the stores carrying this book.  This work is not to be reproduced, copied, or distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

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Thank you for your support.

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Edited by: A Fading Street Publishing Services www.fadingstreet.com

Cover by:  www.10dollarcovers.com

ISBN-13: 978-1547171569

ISBN-10: 1547171561

Other Books by This Author

Zombie Transference:

The Service Centre

The City

The Train (Coming soon)

The Corporate Marine Series:

Video Game Recruiting

Welcome To The Marines

First Deployment

Stories From The CM Universe Series:

Virtual Reality Start

Virtual Reality Nightmare

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Personnel serving in the military are amazing.  Yet they are not perfect and weird things do happen.  No camera’s, no recording devices and never use the real names of those involved. 

If you enjoyed the book in any format, reviews are always helpful for an author to get feedback on how they are doing.

The Train, book three will be out by end summer 2017 (hopefully).

Book 2

THE LAST THREE DAYS

T

hree days ago, at the end of August at a service centre by the side of the highway in the middle of nowhere, several people came together late at night.  The night staff at the centre, two truckers, a couple on the way home from a large party, and six Canadian soldiers returning home after a large exercise held on a local base.

Fourteen people had ended up at that service centre at that time.

Richard was the night manager at the service centre.  Overweight from eating too many sandwiches that were hitting expiry he just wanted to shift over to a day manager position.  He worked with Susie, an attractive blonde that knew what she liked and had no troubles going after it.  Twenty years old she was smarter than she looked and she played to that, she had a plan to leave the small town behind becoming an executive assistant eventually in a larger company.  Her friend Tracy was the exact opposite to Sue.  Tracy was naïve and easily led.  Slender with dyed hair and a weak willed attitude toward everything except for anger at ‘The System’, she was always going to protest rallies and thought that she was changing the world.  She was only working at the centre for the summer.  Salvatore was the late add on.  He had gotten in trouble joy riding in his father’s car in the city and been sent to live with family in town for the summer.  A ladies man he was not.

Steven, a sales manager in a small company that was into the tech side of things.  He was middle aged but had started working out as he could see the big fifty coming and didn’t want to die of a heart attack like some of his peers.  His wife Janice was a social climber that was desperate to push Steven out of the small company and into a larger one where they could be appreciated for all their hard work.

Jimmy was a long haul truck driver just past fifty with the ability to drive anything and fix just about anything as well.  At five foot nine and almost two hundred pounds he is a calming influence and isn’t afraid to get his overalls dirty sorting problems out.  His new partner is Sam.  Twenty six years old and an electrician he was taking up long haul driving because the pay was consistent and his girlfriend needed that stability.  Of course at just under six feet tall and good looking with longer brown hair and blue eyes Sam shouldn’t have any problem meeting other women.  Like Jimmy says, ‘everyone gets to be young once.’

The last group was the strangest.  Six Canadian soldiers coming back from an exercise in the US had stopped at the service centre for some food and coffee before pushing on again.  They had originally been in their ‘relish’, digitally patterned uniforms.  After several days use those had been getting gamey so they had just switched out to the strange American uniforms that they had found.

Warrant Officer Johnny Wagner was forty five and a supply technician.  Shorter and skinny he was an intense man that had been thrust into the leadership position of the small group.  His dark brown hair had some greying and he had complained that by the time they figured out what was going on it would all be grey or gone.  How he was going to do was still a question in his own mind. 

Sergeant Gus Caisson was acting as his second in command and an infantryman.  Twenty eight years old and six foot tall he is a huge man that projects a presence that most people can feel.  Both arms and his visible body sported different tattoos, his hair was so short it was difficult to tell what colour it really was and his dark brown eyes glared out watchfully looking at the world with suspicion.

Corporal Chris Vajjer on the other hand while just a bit shorter was thirty one and a weapon technician.  His longer hair flopped out from under whatever hat he was wearing but with several tours under his belt in the different sandboxes of the world he had a calm view of everything.  He was the one that had dealt with the initial contact with the infected the best and was accepting everything going on.

The last three soldiers were all new.  Private Adi Toker’s family came from the mid-east and he followed directions.  An excellent shot he always followed his Sergeants orders.  At eighteen he stood at five foot ten and weighed somewhere around a hundred and sixty pounds.  Private Tim Weibe was nineteen and enlisted as a vehicle technician that had worked in his father’s shop as an apprentice.  Private David Andries was eighteen and six feet tall.  His blond hair and blue eyes spoke to his Dutch heritage.

These fourteen people had been in the service centre for different reasons.

They all went into the centre then something went, wrong?  Sideways?

All the outside lights disappeared.  A soldier trying to exit was shocked into unconsciousness.  Then the power went out in the building.  Shortly after everyone fell into a deep sleep.  When they woke up the sun was out and it was hot.  Too hot for the end of August.

There was still no power.  Worse while the service centre was exactly as it had been.  The outside was... different.  All the vehicles were gone and the paving was cracked and looked in terrible condition.  There was no one around.  Even the highway was different looking smaller and in worse condition than what they had been on.  Using battery powered radios they found no stations on air and their cell phones had no signal.  This was not uncommon as they were in a bad signal area.

Stranger still, when they looked around the building they found a short dirt road and a subdivision that was not supposed to be there.

Two soldiers went on a quiet reconnaissance to see what was going on.  They found the subdivision abandoned with houses locked and vehicles just sitting.  There were also some signs of conflict.

The decision was made to grab some vehicles from the subdivision and drive away.  Vehicles were chosen and looked over.  Four decent ones were picked and prepared.  They would drive off the next day with as much supplies as they could take from the service centre.

Early the next morning four of the survivors walked into town looking for people leaving everyone else behind sleeping inside the centre.

When they made it to the centre of town they saw an open strip mall and several larger buildings as well as an army field command post set up.  They didn’t notice the infected coming toward them until they were surrounded.

One person, Sam, made it back.  Richard, Janice and Salvatore didn’t.  The vehicles were readied and a few attackers were fought off. 

They drove down the highway away from a growing horde of infected people that were slowly walking after them. 

At a ‘hunting lodge’ down the road they found two local survivors and took them on.  They were able to grab some more equipment.

They drove off well ahead of the infected.

The convoy of vehicles pulled into a small hamlet where the survivors came from and discovered that there were no other survivors there.

They drove off heading toward a local military reserve base.  They arrived and checked the area over before entering and finding several infected.  They cleared the building and gained access to military rations and weapons along with some ammunition and a large green army truck of a style that they had never seen before. 

More importantly they were able to make contact with the authorities in the city down the highway.

They left ahead of the infected which were still coming and drove until they finally had to pull over for rest.  Luckily they had found a large farm with a truly huge barn that they were able to park all the vehicles inside then secure.

The questions that they have they are just now starting to find answers to thanks to some books they found at the reserve base.

After having shot several of the infected the group had agreed that the correct name for the infected is zombie.  The dead are walking and this small group of survivors needs to find help and a place to rest.

The feeling is that somehow they have become stuck in a horror movie.  The locals don’t know what zombies are or the impact of the infection.  These eleven survivors fully realize what they are facing though.  Or at least they thought they did.

NOW

FIRST DAWN

I

t wasn’t even fully morning yet and the sun was still hiding behind the hills but it was already light enough out to see colours.  Everyone was stirring inside the barn and groaning as they stretched out the kinks and pinches caused by sleeping seated in cars and trucks.

When you sleep in a small enclosed space fully dressed in the middle of a heat wave there is no chance you are going to wake up feeling clean, relaxed, and ready to take on the world.  You are more likely to wake up in a pool of your own sweat with the feeling some animal came along and crapped in your mouth sometime in the night and you certainly won’t feel rested.

It is exactly how everyone woke up in morning.  Tired, grumpy and feeling like crap.

The one positive element that came out of waking up was the smell of coffee which slowly made its way through into the sealed vehicles.  The smell did more to wake everyone than any alarm clock would.

At the side of the building standing by the wall and looking through a small knot hole in the barn wall was Warrant Wagner.  He had taken the last shift and as soon as Steven had woken him up at five-thirty in the morning he had carefully climbed out of the truck and fired up a small camping stove they had taken from the hunting lodge. 

He knew there was nothing better to wake up to in the morning and would clear the cobwebs away fast, than a hot cup of coffee with some sort of food. 

Given how hot it was he was willing to hold off on opening the coolers.  At some point the perishable food would turn and the later it happened, the better.  The military rations they had found did not look appetizing when they had opened a can the night before, with oil oozing out of the can and the greasy sausage meat inside tasting of salt and as Sue had put it ‘wow, all the nutritional value of cardboard.’

Warrant Wagner lifted the travel mug to his lips and sipped his hot, sugar laden coffee.  The small amount of farmland he could see through the tiny hole was clear of infected.  It didn’t mean there weren’t millions of infected hiding behind the barn, it just meant what he saw was clear.  Given their luck so far, he was confident that if the infected were not around then at least there were some coming this way.  He could see the road out front and the horde wasn’t there. 

But it was most assuredly coming.

It just moved slow. 

Warrant Wagner took another sip of the hot coffee and sighed.  Thinking back to what had happened and where they were now he was satisfied they had made it this far.  They just needed to make it to the city.

He had checked the doors and the barn was still fully secured.  His forty-five was on his hip with two spare magazines as backup.  They had put several tools they had found out ready so if something started they had a way to quietly dispatch the infected.  If something tried to enter he was ready. Anyone trying to enter would make a lot of noise breaking in and he’d be there before it happened.

Behind him the muffled sounds of everyone starting to move around came from the other vehicles, even though the windows were rolled up. 

He thought back to last night after they had crested the hill and stopped on the road to get out and look ahead.

Last night had taken a turn for the better.  The group’s luck had continued to help carry them forward.  As the convoy had travelled the highway they had stopped in at the farm they had seen from the top of the rise.  It had looked like an excellent choice to hide eleven people, two cars, a station wagon, a pickup truck, and a large six wheeled army truck.

When they pulled up it was like the rest of the places they had been to.  It at least appeared abandoned.

This farm was in excellent shape.  The house was back almost two hundred yards from the highway with a few trees between it and the highway.  It was a huge house, two and a half stories tall with at least three chimneys.  The windows were small and mostly shuttered.  The house was wooden built, painted a bright blue with yellow highlights around the windows.  It should have looked cheerful and bright but there was dust and dirt everywhere.  The flowerbeds at the front and side of the house had burned in the incredible heat.  The fields around looked the same.  Even the orchard to the side of the house looked in bad shape, likely from the searing temperatures the survivors had felt every day they were here.  They had no clue how long the heat wave had been going on but it had been occurring for a while from the look of the dry fields they had passed on their drive.

The driveway was unpaved but had been widened and someone had put down gravel.  There was a large circular drive at the front of the house and an offshoot which lead up to the barn.  Whoever these farmers had been they must have been well off given how much work they had put into the property and how well maintained it was. 

The smaller outbuildings included a tool shed right next to the house, a small shed for smoking meat and storage and a slightly bigger building, a workshop we could park vehicles in.  The last building was a small bunkhouse for maybe a dozen people.

The convoy had stopped short of the house with enough space so they could drive around the roundabout and away if they had to.  Sergeant Caisson, Corporal Vajjer, Private Toker and Warrant Wagner had gotten out and cleared the immediate outside area before going into the farmhouse.  When they had come back out they had been grim faced and quickly carried on clearing the rest of the buildings. 

The soldiers cleared the five buildings before turning their attention toward the barn.  They hadn’t gone toward it but had gone back to the vehicles for a drink and to let everyone know what they had seen.

The barn was a large structure.  Over two stories tall and painted bright red.  From the outside, it looked in excellent condition.  There were two large sliding doors on opposite sides of the structure for motorised equipment to come in and out through to the other side.  On the side of the building facing the driveway on the second story was a large door with a hoist above it

Warrant Wagner let the others talk and Sergeant Caisson had quickly briefed everyone else who had gotten out of the vehicles and had huddled up around the lead car.  Everyone except for Tracy who was still sitting in the back seat and wasn’t getting out for any reason.

The Sergeant had explained how the front door to the house was closed but unlocked.  Inside, the house smelt like death.  There had been nine people in the family according to a picture over the dining room fireplace mantle.  It looked like the flu had hit hard and five had come down with the illness.  One person had bite marks.  All six had been shot in the head and left where they lay.  Someone had gone through the house quickly and cleared out supplies.  Other pictures showed the family with a car and pickup truck.  It looked like the potential survivors, a young couple and a young girl who looked like she was almost a teenager, had put the infected down, packed quickly and left.  There was no power in the house and the bodies looked like they had been there for a while, but it was hard to say for how long.

While the Sergeant had been talking, Private Toker had drunk a bottle of water then walked to the front of the vehicle where he promptly threw up.  He came back right after and apologized.  He wasn’t feeling sick now, but the smell in the house had gotten to him.  A smell like rotting sewage and it was stuck in his nose.  It’s a smell we all know and none of us will ever forget.

The bunkhouse was one large room with bunkbeds and a small kitchen to the side.  There was no washroom.  It looked abandoned and was likely only used for seasonal help in the summer and fall for harvest.  There was only one way in and out and three small windows.  Not an appropriate choice to hole up in, in case more zombies came from somewhere or if the horde behind them caught up.

This left the barn as the best choice for them.  But it had needed to be cleared first although it looked like it had been sealed up for a while and unless other zombies had come along all the family was likely accounted for so it should have been clear.  It was.

The four had finished their drinks, picked up their weapons and started trudging toward the barn.  Even though it was early evening there were still a few more hours of sunlight and the intense heat was continuously beating down on everyone tiring them out.  Getting into the shade was a priority.

Everyone else got back into the vehicles and locked up again just in case.  The four soldiers had circled the barn and discovered a pedestrian door close to the rear sliding door and had gone inside locked and loaded but not before hammering on it and waiting for a response.

They had entered, cleared the building and found nothing but farm equipment.  A large main floor had a harvester sitting by the back door and not much else. There was a work bench against the back wall with a small room next to it containing different liquids in unmarked containers.  On the opposite wall were two stables that had not been occupied for a long time as they were cleaned out and used for storage.  There were chains and other equipment hanging on the walls around the room.  Upstairs was a hay loft, mostly empty but for some stored furniture and baskets.

There was no basement. 

Checking the doors quickly they realized they could be secured from the inside.  The smaller door couldn’t be locked the same way but they could jerry rig something to hold it.

They had opened the rear doors and been able to push the harvester out.  The squealing from both the door and the machinery was loud enough to be heard in the still running vehicles.  The four closed the rear door and secured it from the inside.  They then went back over to the vehicles and everyone joined them again.

The plan had been discussed to pull the vehicles inside with the army truck going in last given its size and height.  The outside doors would not be chained up from the outside in case something happened and they needed to use an alternate exit.  Everyone agreed and the vehicles were carefully loaded into the building in order.  The cars backed in first, parking close to the work bench.  Then the station wagon and pickup had been parked on the opposite side.  Finally, the military truck was backed in.  It had been tight but there was still enough space for them to get out and move around.

After they had closed the door and secured it with some of the chains they had found they had gotten to work setting up. 

Jimmy had popped the hoods of the vehicles to check them over.  A blown hose, clamp or other normally minor problem would be a major problem for them as, if they lost a vehicle, they lost supplies and the ability to move everyone easily.  The problem was made worse because the hoses and clamps were in poor condition.  Jimmy identified several in need of replacement before they left in the morning.  Two hoses were cracking and starting to leak.

Corporal Vajjer was getting help from Weibe and Andrei to use some chain and lengths of two by four laying at the side of the building, to secure the man door from the inside.  There were no windows on the main floor just small shuttered openings high up and small enough so it would take a lot of effort and make a lot of noise to open them.

Private Toker had gone upstairs with Sergeant Caisson and they were looking out the small windows checking out the surrounding areas for threats.  The open flat rolling fields did not offer a lot of cover for anything to sneak up on them.  The few trees put up by the owners as a windbreak were not so thick as to be impenetrable.  Other humans might be a problem late at night when