Zombie apocalypse fiction – Ruth’s story #64 Beginning the assault on the FEMA 1%ers compound SHTF & TEOTWAWKI

This is the second half of the first chapter of the assault on the FEMA 1%ers compound. I broke it in half when the length got too long.

************************************************************************************************************************************************************

In the morning, I again wake on my own. Shack is not in his usual spot hovering over me. I stretch and get out of my warm bedroll. It is chilly this morning, and I can see my breath as I put my boots on.

Recovering my pistol from its usual nightly spot, I drop it in my holster and notice a cardboard box on my driver’s side dash. I recognize the brown cardboard box of an US Army MRE immediately.

I take the cardboard MRE entrée box from my dash and notice stuck to the back of the box, a yellow Post-It Note. In barely legible scrawl, Shack left me a note in blue ballpoint pen that the MRE oatmeal breakfast is for me.

I notice the oatmeal was made in 2012 so it is not terribly old. If memory serves 2012 or thereabouts is also when many of the common MRE breakfast entrees became available. At least Shack did not procure for me one of the scrambled eggs – that is one of the worst MRE entrees available and no soldier in their right mind eats it.

Even doused with an unwholesome amount of Tabasco, any of the “egg” based MRE breakfast entrees are unquestionably horrid. I guess though in a zombie apocalypse facing starvation, almost any kind of protein is welcome. I just wonder if I might be able to choke one of the MRE scrambled “egg” meals down this time.

The apple maple flavored MRE oatmeal is notorious for being a gelatinous, gooey textureless glop when cold. The MRE oatmeal though, when heated, are actually not that awful. Shack also left me some sugar cookies and my old plastic, plaid Thermos filled with more of the sweet, hot Thai black tea.

I use a flameless MRE heater to warm up the oatmeal, and while it warms, eat my sugar cookies and sip hot Thai tea. This morning is starting out fairly well. I note the mechanics are still working on the HEMTT wheel.

I see the Princess is still cranking out some majorly coarse lye soap. While eating, I watch the Princess and her daughter direct soldiers to stack fire wood and deliver bundles of clothing. The Princess appears to have come into her own and looks the best I have seen her since making her acquaintance.

Shack comes around a little after 09:00 and we joke for a while watching the fishermen on the river. One of the fishermen caught a ginormous sturgeon and has a hell of a time getting the twelve-foot long prehistoric fish on to the bank.

I have never eaten sturgeon, not quite being fond of fish, but Shack tells me it is one of the best tasting freshwater fish. I watch as the large pale gray fish is hung from a tree and quickly rendered into steaks which are whisked to the cooler in the former taco truck for storage.

After a lunch consisting of MRE snacks and a cold slab of MRE Spam in BBQ sauce for Shack and I, the colonels call their staff meeting. I am surprised to see Terrance the PJ and Sutton back from the OP on the gang compound.

A little after noon the colonels get down to business. From somewhere they have procured an old-fashioned cork board and a green chalk board. To the cork board, the colonels have attached a large sheet of paper with a crude drawing of the FEMA camp. For now the chalk board is blank.

Sutton opens the briefing reading from a Rite in the Rain outdoor journal. I will not record all the details because they are fairly long and tedious. The condensed version or the cliff notes if you will is that there are about 150 people (non-combatant civilians), with a possible 75 combatants within the compound.

Most of the gang members spend their days and nights stoned out of their gourd (Sutton’s term not mine), so the actual security falls to the former military personnel a few of whom are still fairly competent. Military personnel are less than 20 total, with about a half-dozen serious, hard cases.

The primary military leader is a former Army sergeant and an extremely vicious mother fucker (again Sutton’s term for the sadistic low-life). The sergeant is the one that keeps order and maintains discipline by sheer fear. There is no heavy weapons and only one light machine gun in evidence – an old Canadian Bren Mark 2 which may or may not be a L4A3 conversion.

The camp has a plethora of small arms; pistols, rifles of every type, and a few assault rifles AKs, M4s and M16s. Edged weapons are too numerous to count, and every low-life in the camp has at least one large bladed knife.

For the most part, the 1% bikers intimidate the FEMA camp people and appear to be on one long, grand, continuous party. The FEMA camp is undoubtedly making meth and distributing narcotics as well as trading in anything that sells.

The 1%ers have traded young girls for sexual slavery and have the whole area under their thumb. There is no act too scummy or too perverse for the 1%ers. The initial reports of FEMA camp women and children being held as hostages to keep the men in line in the FEMA camp were accurate.

According to Sutton, the 1%ers and their military cohorts are in the G.O.D. (Guns, Oil, Drugs) business which makes the world go round. The fabulous news is that the various gang members and the Rogues 1%ers are not expecting any kind of armed assault.

The FEMA camp is designed to keep people inside not keep people from entering. The security is designed to resist an internal uprising, not an external assault. The gangsters are arrogant and have gotten complacent as has most of the former military personnel.

Of concern are the sergeant and his right hand man, an equally sadistic former private. Both do not imbibe alcohol or narcotics and are armed and alert at all times. Both of these men are critical targets and must be taken out simultaneously with absolute stealth.

Sutton and Randy were able to observe the sister who is decidedly very much alive and supremely pregnant. She is the Rogues leader’s hot momma and does not appear to be under any duress. Of all the women in the camp, the pregnant sister has it the best, as she does hot have to work, but gets to lay around all the time. Sutton estimates the sister is at least six months pregnant.

The pregnant sister like all the other sexual pleasure slaves has been branded on the inside of her thighs. Sutton reports that the day before yesterday they watched a small group of young ladies dragged in, stripped, and then sexually assaulted by all the 1%ers and then the former military personnel.

After their marathon sexual assault in which no bodily orifice was neglected, the ladies were then tied naked spread eagle across an old wooden cable drum and branded on the inside of both thighs with a crude, white-hot iron brand. Providing the sadistic fuck doing the branding did not go too deep and sever one of the femoral arteries, most of the women survived the branding even if most fainted during.

After the unfortunates branding they were chained together and still nude, tossed into a holding pit. In the morning, the ladies whose mind shattered under the strain of the assault were either sold to other gangs, traded to cannibals, or if they were particularly beautiful, kept for the pleasure of the gang and future trade material.

The observers are pretty much sure that a well-timed and well-coordinated assault has the best chance of toppling the 1%ers and their military cohorts. Sutton (and Randy by extension) thinks that by taking out the Rogue’s leader and the sergeant and private with snipers, most of the armed resistance in the FEMA camp will disappear.

The colonels ask some questions about how much oil, gasoline, medicine and consumables are in the camp, as well as particulars about the number of armored vehicles and weapons. I phase out a while as the colonels come up with an assault plan.

When the colonels start to discuss final disposition of the FEMA camp personnel, I listen carefully. There are far too many personnel in the camp for the convoy to accept. The pregnant sister is the priority, as well as gaining as much of the guns, oil and medical supplies possible.

However, the colonels do not want to ride in, kill all the 1%ers and former military personnel, and then leave the FEMA camp personnel to the ravages of the next gang to take over, be they cannibals or zombies.

There follows plenty of argument about possible attack routes and tactics with much scribbling on the chalk board and arguing. I was never that adept at large troop movements, I prefer to work in small Special Forces units. I never served in large infantry units.

Since I was a translator and intelligence officer, I spent remarkably little time on the front lines. Not that, I lack all front line combat experience, but I believe in this instance a small focused attack is better than a broad assault on the stadium FEMA camp.

I much prefer small, intimate units, and if I have to eradicate the enemy, I much prefer a well utilized knife or a suppressed close range pistol shot to storming the castle guns blazing. This will be fascinating as the last time I was in combat like this was the Second Lebanese War in 2006.

So the colonels decide a plan of assault and decide to finalize plans this evening and make assignments later after supper. The military convoy force will be split into thirds. One third will assault the stadium FEMA camp, the second third, will come along as reserve assault force, and the final third will remain in the convoy camp to protect it.

The Quad 50 and the 20 mike mike cannon are broken out and made ready, focused on the bridge across the river. The bridge over the Sammamish River is wired with enough explosives to launch it into low orbit.

Three personnel remaining in the convoy protection force are given remote detonators to the bridge, and a fourth person is given the location of a manual relay to blow the bridge. As darkness falls the SF guys mine and claymore infest the trees and surrounding approaches to the convoy camp.

I offer the suggestion of taking out the sentries and the leadership with suppressed sniper rifles at night. After the sentries and leadership is dead, enter in force and continue using suppressed weapons.

None of the opposing force utilizes NVGs so I offer the suggestion that we attack at night in the awful early morning. The colonels like my idea of attacking in the remarkably early morning while it is still dark.

A modified coordinated assault using knives and suppressed weapons is decided upon as the best course of action. Some discussion ensues about whether to run drills for preparation of the assault or to just attack in force.

Hopefully, by the time we have the FEMA camp in our control, the sun will be rising and we will have the convoy inside the gates of the stadium. If our attack goes wrong and gets extremely noisy, it is likely to attract undead attention.

There is not much of a contingency plan if our attack goes horribly wrong other than to shoot everything and anything that moves and haul ass back to the convoy. There is some speculation that the 1%ers might have established treaties with other nearby gangs.

There is minimal radio traffic from the FEMA camp none of which is encrypted. No current radio traffic suggests anything but the most tenuous liaisons with other gangs.

Shack and I are assigned an assault with Ben as our third member on the FEMA camp radio shack if the first assault fails. Apparently the gang does not either know how to use the radios they have, or they are too lazy to use them.

Shack, Ben and my goal are to acquire whatever radios and ComSec (Communication Security) gear the gang possesses. Failing to acquire the radios, we are to ensure that they are fully destroyed and that no one is able to utilize the radios to call for help.

Should the first assault succeed, me and the rest of the second assault force will get called up to help with the mop up. I am to help secure the radio gear and act as a translator if needed. The observers believe there may be some personnel within the FEMA camp of either Eastern European or Middle Eastern ethnicities.

Our staff meeting breaks up, and the colonels mention that we never did have the meeting to establish the OOB and ROE. The colonels agree that we still need to establish guidelines and agree that the convoy needs to organize itself better.

Most of the afternoon after the staff meeting breaks up is taken up with weapon checks, weapon cleaning and gear maintenance. As the owner of three of the few suppressed weapons in the convoy, I am tasked with over watch duties with the secondary assault force.

Sam swings by just before supper and gives me two full wooden crates of 9mm NATO FMJ ammo for my little deadly Swiss beauty. This is the most 9mm ammo I have laid eyes on since the KCAP outbreak.

Sam helps me break open the two wooden crates and pull all the cardboard boxes of ammo out. The wire from the ammo crates gets sent to the SF guys for snare manufacture, and the wood gets sent to the Princess for firewood in her laundry and soap enterprise. Even the nails and copper staples are saved to use as wrist rocket ammo.

Sam does not necessarily want me to use my little Bromet-Thomet MP9 sub gun with its AAC suppressor, but he wants me to fully load it and have it ready in case we need it. Sam knows the MP9 will eat a whole lot of ammo quickly, but the firepower may be required.

I spent the evening, after a totally underwhelming supper of another totally tasteless Spam chunk soaked with bland BBQ sauce, loading my B&T clips for the first time in years. Since the MP9 was a non-papered gift from a NSA friend, I kept it securely locked away.

While I have my little desert tan Swiss beauty out, I take the opportunity to strip her and give her a proper cleaning and lubrication. I break out and attach my black nylon single point sling for my MP9, but I am struggling as to how I am going to carry my B&T magazines.

While I am reassembling my MP9, Shack comes by with an O.D. green canvas messenger bag for me to carry my B&T magazines and some extra ammo. The primary assault force is comprised of most of the young SF and Airborne soldiers in the convoy.

Terrance, the PJ and Sutton, headed back to the OP after supper carrying weapons and supplies for the assault. Carol was unhappy to hear that Nikola lost at rock, paper, and scissors (his first time ever playing according to Sutton). So Nikola did not get to come back to the camp but had to stay in the OP.

Shack is disappointed that he is not selected for the first wave of the assault. Shack and I hold hands to comfort each other, and he and I chat for a while before finally falling asleep. I toss and fret through the night, and I do not believe that Shack sleeps well either.

When Shack and I are shaken out of our bedrolls, we are both grumpy. Neither of us slept well, and we both look and feel like shit. The BMX kids are launched first on their scouting missions with their radios.

The two convoy assault forces are fed, watered, and armed before climbing into their respective vehicles. My little Smart car feels gloomy as we follow the colonel’s VW station wagon with the mechanic’s Hummer behind us. I am unaccustomed to having two soldiers riding in the back seat, I have gotten so used to it being just Shack and I.

We park not too far from the arena; close enough for a quick assault but not so close as to alert the guards. It is still fully dark, and if it were not for my NVGs, I would not be able to see a damn thing.

The colonels picked a wise time to assault the FEMA compound, after the moon has set so it is pitch dark. Attacking at 03:00, when the night guards are getting tired, and those sleeping are fully into a deep sleep is the best.

The radio chatter mentions one of the BMX kids took a tumble trying to ride with NVGs. The poor kids did not get much of a familiarization with the NVGs before being sent into the field, I hope they do well enough.

After a little while the radio call comes in that the BMX kids are in position (“the chair is against the wall” was the code phrase) and ready. We are using clear voice unencrypted radio transmissions, just in case someone is listening so we are using preplanned code phrases.

There are a few zombies around the area, but not enough to cause concern. One of the BMX kids has a bloody nose from plowing into a zombie full tilt on his bike. The zombie staggered off, and the kid is Ok even if he is bleeding slightly.

It is comforting to have the BMX kids in observation and recon roles. The bicycles were something I never would have considered. Sam suggested arming the BMX kids and placing them in strategic locations to watch the FEMA camp which was extraordinarily smart and practical.

The assault force moves into ready position. I join the reserve force, in case the initial assault goes wrong. The unfamiliar weight of the full Camelback and my weapons makes me nervous. It has been a long time since I have traveled laden as I am. I desperately want a cigarette.

At least I do not have the weight of the Interceptor vests and all the other gear the other soldiers carry. It was strange seeing Sam in full battle rattle. It was even stranger seeing Doc Jamal also in full battle rattle. For the first time since meeting both men, I got to see them in full kit, not just light weight BDUs.

Doc Jamal is with the secondary assault force, with a full medical kit. Doc has assigned a couple of the BMX kids as stretcher bearers should the need arise. Doc says that in Vietnam, the VC used bicycles as stretcher bearers with excellent results.

Looking at the luminous numbers of my military issue watch, I see that we have less than five minutes to assault time.

At the appointed time, an ordinary plain voice transmission comes over the radio: “climb Mount Niitaka.” A brief moment of silence passes and then “cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war” comes over the radio.

God help us, here we go.