Zombie apocalypse fiction – Ruth’s story #100 Reinforcing their position on the farm, dealing with the Adventists SHTF and TEOTWAWKI

 

I do not think that Shack has my proclivity for being able to love a person regardless of their sex. Shack like most young men raised in a predominately male and military environment has a strong dislike of gay people. Some of our discussions in the radio tent during the slow times, especially in the middle of the night when we are both tired, have ranged widely in topics.

Thankfully, Shack the lovely brilliant lad, rigged an old hand crank charging apparatus from a broken emergency radio and spliced it to a broken car A/C charger for my MP3 player. We often sit with an ear bud in one of our ears enjoying the music something I thought I would never hear again. The music helps pass the time although we have to be careful with the music player lest someone else discover our boredom fighting secret.

To remain awake and fight boredom, there is almost no discussion topic that is taboo. Shack asked about my first female lover. I avoided the question, which now as I write I realize was foolish. I am ready to share my body with Shack, the least I could do is let him know my past sexual history.

Shack has been completely honest with me even causing me to blush a few times with some of his teenage sexual escapades. I am amazed what children these days learn about sex, even while they are still technically virgins. At Shack’s age, I did not have even an inkling of what are some of the more adventurous sexual practices Shack has experienced.

I certainly was not letting boys finger me in the back of the school bus on the way home! Computers are highly regulated in Israel, with the state blocking anything that is not wholesome or is critical of the Jewish state. My family, particularly my father, despised computers and the internet, as sources of nothing but porn, filth, perversion and an absence of God.

Despite my father’s feelings, he still ensured that all of his children were at least adept with a computer. I can type quite well, which has come in handy now many years later as I sit in Iain’s bunker transcribing my journal notes from all the little scraps of paper I hoarded. I fear that I may have lost some of my journal notes, but that may be a story for another time.

Sitting with Shack and company in those early days of the KCAP outbreak, it was hard to imagine the imminent changes to our life. It was hard to believe that it had been less than six months since the world died.

Back then there was still sporadic radio traffic from survivors, some of it actually worth listening to. Before they went silent with a deathly finality, the survivors underneath Ft. Dix transmitted the last few data packet bursts.

From the Ft. Dix bunker we learned that mosquitoes are for the most part unable to carry the KCAP virus. Once the virus infects a human host, it begins to grow very rapidly. There are only a few seconds, perhaps as much as 30 seconds, when a mosquito might be able to ingest the KCAP virus.

Because of the KCAP virus’s rapid growth, it greatly limits the virus’s ability to be transmitted by mosquitoes. Even the larger, mutated Asian Tiger Mosquito cannot transfer KCAP after a minute or so because the virus is too large to pass through its thick midgut.

KCAP also has the disturbing feat of being able to trick the body into accepting the virus and not trigger antibodies. The researches underneath Ft. Dix felt that KCAP might have some of the characteristics of shingles. KCAP hides from the body’s defense mechanisms similar to the way that shingles (Herpes Zoster – thank you Doc Jamal) hides.

For some reason that is still not understood (as far as I or anyone else that I could ask, anyway) the KCAP virus does not trigger any of the self-defense mechanisms within the body. An antibody-titer test will not reveal the presence of KCAP.

Other than the radio packets of medical information which really is not much help to us at present, radio has been fairly quiet. The colonels have come in and talked with me on occasion as I am still the titular S4 of this outfit. Sitting with Jeff who assumed the role of bookkeeper and quartermaster, Nikola, Rick and Shack the most pressing discussion is what weapons to give to the Adventists.

Another concern is when to give weapons to the Adventists group. Nikola and I offer a suggestion of half of the weapons and ammo, now, the rest upon completion of the foraging trip to Kayak Point. I suggest giving only the older M16A2 rifles to the Adventists. However, the Adventists group lacks anyone with military experience.

The Adventists do possess quite a few bladed weapons so at least they have some weapons to defend themselves against the zombies. It is the living vultures of the two-legged variety that the Adventists need to protect themselves from. A pickaroon is an excellent tool for killing zombies, but it fares poorly against someone armed with a gun.

We are going to have to train the Adventists how to use military weapons. Training was one of the first things that the small religious group requested. During one of the first trade meetings, they also asked for crew served weapons. I am not all that thrilled about handing over crew served weapons. The Adventists also ask for personnel protective clothing, body armor, grenades and medical supplies.

Nikola mentions that he has a couple crates of fucking ancient Soviet RGD-5 (Ruchnaya Granata Distantsionnaya) grenades that he is willing to trade to the Adventists. He also has a pair of equally ancient DShKM “Dushka” 1938/46 12.7mm heavy machine guns that he is willing to part with. Nikola slyly mentions that he only has a few of the 50 round 12.7mm belts.

If the Adventists intend to attack us with our weapons, which none us believe is very probable, giving them odd, and ancient Soviet weapons with little or no repair parts and limited ammo makes sense. Other than the ammo that the Russians might provide, the Adventists are not likely to find 12.7mm ammo anywhere.

Nikola states that both Dushkas are packed in wooden crates encased in cosmoline. A problem with the Dushkas is that both lack a suitable mounting bracket or even a mount to hold the weapon. Neither machine gun has the typical Soviet two-wheeled trolley which unfolds into a tripod. Nikola ponders how to set up the Dushkas.

Another problem teaching the Adventists weapons handling is going to be noise. With all of the shooting the training requires, the noise attracts too much attention wanted or otherwise. We shelf the training of the Adventists for a while and concentrate on property chores.

The soldiers have been quite busy setting up perimeter defense. Quite an effort has gone into ensuring our early warning and intrusion alarms are effective as well as deadly. In the surrounding woods and brushy areas on the edges of the property, many creative and deadly booby traps are set.

I worry that some poor innocent is going to blunder into the booby traps, but I am told that the way the traps are set and their location, they will most likely only be found by someone attempting to either flank our position or sneak into our compound undetected. I am not sure just how the Russian lads are sure about the wrong person not blundering into one of their traps and getting killed, but there are more pressing concerns.

The sneaky Russian bastards, assisted by our own soldiers including my darling Shack collected an eclectic array of junk. Dead aluminum bodied flashlights, empty colored glass liquor and beer bottles, empty US Army rucksacks, and aluminum crates. The lads pushed abandoned cars alongside the road leading to the farm leaving them in strategic places.

At first I thought the lads had gone daft, until I realized that the points they pushed the abandoned vehicles into are carefully plotted on the artillery grid. The cars are also filled with booby-trapped intruder bait. I was amazed to learn that the little white Toyota Tercel carefully parked half off of the road in the opposing lane of traffic is now a deadly trap.

Next chapter: Just what traps do you think the convoy laid? Is the convoy justified in resorting to guerrilla warfare? What happens if an innocent is killed by one of the traps? Is anyone truly innocent in an apocalypse?