| Empty Graves Part Three: The Invasion of Fort Severn The following day brought little comfort to the small fishing town or to the lives of Jake and Mary who, at the crack of dawn, both woke and proceeded outside to witness the rising of the sun. It seemed to them that in this new world, which was lumbering towards them everyday, such a natural spectacle would be lost on them and the whole of humanity. It was time to soak up the last of their lives before the stench of death would seize their souls and capture their hearts. Neither of them had gotten any sleep that night, they were both too busy thinking of what was coming to them shortly and how their lives were about to be torn apart. The houses on the street were all boarded up, the occupied ones at least, and the police department made regular sweeps of the area each day to keep law and order in check. The supermarket and all the shops had closed down, but they were bare on the inside of their steel security gates that adorned their facades, the contents having been either looted or scratched away in the panic sprees of people grabbing whatever they could to last them out. As if this was some sort hurricane or some other natural disaster, the residents of Fort Severn who remained were digging in for the duration. The few gun enthusiasts had even set up posts in their first floor windows to shoot any unwanted guests from. It seemed that in this time of national crisis, the gun freaks were called upon to save their country. The looks on their faces, the glee at potential senseless slaughter was stricken across their wide-eyed ramblings as they prepped their bunkers and gun posts, all clubbing together in each other's houses like some ram shackle army who live in caves bashing their clubs against the heads. To Jake and Mary, they were the only two sane people in the whole of this mess. Both their sets of parents were running around their homes like headless chickens, rationing the food so meticulously that Jake had not eaten in over 30 hours. He was tired and weary, as was Mary, but they still found the energy to witness what was to become their last sunrise they could ever appreciate again for a very long time, or perhaps ever. Slowly, as the day dragged on, lumbering away as if it was one of the undead walking towards the fishing towns on the edge of the Hudson Bay, it became clear that the dead had found them. The observation teams on the tallest buildings in the town had been waiting there for over two weeks now, searching the landscape ahead of them, scanning for any sign of life, or death for that matter. Today they had found their greatest fear, mercilessly shuffling towards them. "How many do you count now, Chip?" asked one of the two men on the make-do observation deck for the whole town as he fastened his walkie-talkie to his belt. "Since this morning when they popped their ugly heads over the landscape, I'd figure we've now go something like a couple a dozen zombies coming this way, and I think there'll be more soon. I don't think this is going away any time soon, Ed." "You're right there buddy. These fuckers look like they've got one thing on their minds." "What's that?" "What your flesh tastes like!" "Very fucking funny, now hand me that walkie-talkie. I wanna make a call to the Sarge," mumbled Chip as he dropped the binoculars he had been holding to his eyes for two hours straight so far to his chest, the leather strap rubbing on his neck as the device limply scraped back and forth once across his jacket. "Come in Sarge, this is watch tower alpha, come in over." The radio remained blank during a gap of pink noise. "Come in Sarge, this is watch tower alpha. Come in over!" The radio again displayed the pink noise. "Come in Sarge you bloated sack of shit!" shouted Chip. The radio fizzed and eventually the pick up noise came through. "Watch your mouth you slack-jawed mamma's boy!" buzzed the voice at the end of the radio. "Jesus Christ! Where in hell's name were ya? The john?" asked Chip. "That's none of your business smart aleck! Now what you got for me?" "About two dozen of those things walking our way, Sarge. They look quite hungry." "How far, son?" "About one, two miles away. Do you think we'd better roll out the trucks?" "Do you think we'd better roll out the trucks? What do you think asshole? Of course we roll out the blockades you dull shit! Do it now!" The radio fizzled off and Chip depressed the speak button once more. "Come in squad, this is watch tower alpha. We got two dozen and more of those things heading this way about one or two miles ahead of us. Start pulling the trucks into position, over." "Roger that," replied a fuzzy voice over the line, shortly followed by a sharp buzz as Chip turned his radio off for a moment. The sound of the engines of multiple trucks in the distance could be heard as well as that of a number of family vehicles from across the town. There was a blockade in progress, it was half finished and they were just waiting for the signal to finish the job. Once they placed those trucks in position at the entrances to the town there'd be no easy escape. Whoever hadn't left Fort Severn by now was in for the duration. Slowly, several trucks came into view as many family saloons rolled out onto the streets with them. The trucks were the large, refrigerated kind and could withstand a hoard of the undead easily, it was these trucks that would provide the backbone to the blockade, the cars making the outer ring whereby it would be difficult for any zombies to crawl underneath them. To help this, all the tyres were being slashed to lower them down a little, the same with a couple of the trucks. "What do those dullards think they're doing? What if we need to move those things in a hurry? What the hell are we going to do then? We can't move those things on flats!" snapped Ed. "I guess we'd better find out what frequency Superman's transmitting on then, huh?" Ed let off a mildly amused smirk and expulsion of breath that stunk of Jack Daniel's as Chip lifted the binoculars to his eyes again. He scanned the area he had done so before and saw that there were even more of the undead on the horizon lumbering their way towards them. The situation was becoming desperate. "I think we'd better call the squads down there to put every single piece of weight against those barriers. We've got company." Chip reached for the walkie-talkie once more and depressed the speak button. "Ground squads. Come in. This is watchtower alpha. You'd better put your backs and everything large and heavy into it. We've got more and more company by the minute. If we want to keep this town mostly zombie free, we'd better get a lot of large and heavy things behind those barriers. Use anything you can, just get it blocked off now!" Chip let go of the speak button and set the radio back down to the floor of the make-do watchtower again as he lifted his binoculars to his tired eyes. "Jesus dude," gasped Chip. "What?" "Did you ever see that Michael Jackson video where he wears the red suit?" "Why?" Chip glanced over to Ed's bemused face and smirked at him. "Never! Let me get a look!" he replied as he clawed for the binoculars tied around Chip's neck. Sure enough as Ed glanced through the binoculars he could make out in the distance a slightly torn red suit, exactly that of Jackson's 'Thriller' video. "God damn. Figures," muttered Ed. |