Zombie Apocalypse Fiction – Ruth’s story #107 Adventists back at the convoy’s farm #SHTF #TEOTWAWKI

Adventists back at the convoy’s farm

The meeting broke up at this point. Sam, Jamal and Pastor finalize the details of when the Adventists would arrive in our compound tomorrow. Shack and I grabbed a quick bite, and after a good snog took an all too brief nap snuggled in our bed. I admit that I was a grouchy bitch when Carol came in to wake Shack and I.

It was not entirely Carol’s fault that she and I got into an intense, yet brief yelling match that morning. That woman’s temper matches her hair. I hate it when I lose my temper. When I am truly pissed off I tend to swear in Hebrew, Yiddish and Arabic. All three of my chosen languages are full of rich profanity, but it does me no good if the person that I am swearing at does not understand the words.

Carol left our tent in a furious cloud of light hail. I lightly kissed Shack on his oft-broken crooked nose letting him know that I was not mad at him. After Shack and I were dressed, fed and had made a quick latrine stop, I quietly apologized to Carol in the radio tent. Carol actually stood up and hugged me; she was crying go fucking figure that one out. Hormones and pregnant women – God save us.

A plague of ships …

That night’s radio watch was fairly quiet. Shack and I played cards for the most part. We received one radio packet of information that seems utterly useless, but I will mention here just, so it is recorded somewhere. The very first KCAP plague ships made landfall in remote areas of Ireland somewhere north of Donegal. A few plague ships later also ran aground in the Irish Aran Islands.

Several of the plague ships crashed against the famous rocks and cliffs of Ireland, but far too many zombies survived. Quickly overrunning the sparsely populated Aran Islands, the zombies killed everything. A few hardy Irish sailors made it to their boats. Nobody knows if those hardy Irish sailors survived. From the few radio reports, we get; we assume that all of the island nations are gone.

We know from earlier radio packets that Mexico was the first country to cease receiving refugee ships. Mexico ceased accepting refugees after a zombie-infested, super-sized luxury cruise ship loaded with over 8,000 zombies crashed into the piers at Cancun. This was followed the next day by another luxury jumbo cruise ship (the sister ship to the previous plague ship) running aground on the beach at Rosario in Baja California.

Similar to when the Nimitz plowed through Del Mar in California, this super-sized cruise ship because of its mass and speed, ploughed through a half mile or more of ground at Rosario before stopping. After the two super-sized plague ships landed, Mexico launched her small navy attempting to stem the flood of zombies.

The Mexican navy now sank any ship that entered Mexican territorial waters which failed to heed warnings. The ARM Netzahualcóyotl (D-102) was lost at sea with all hands after she was involved in a collision with a zombie infested Liberian-flagged oil tanker heading for Veracruz. The Netzahualcóyotl had earlier exhausted her supply of torpedoes sinking other ships. The few five-inch cannon shells that she used against the huge oil tanker failed to stop it.

After exhausting her cannon shells, at her maximum speed, the Netzahualcóyotl rammed the much larger oil tanker striking it amidships and nearly cutting it in half. The two ships awash in millions of gallons of crude oil burned until both slipped below the water. Many of the zombies and most of the crew of the Netzahualcóyotl died either in the collision or in the crude oil fire.

The Netzahualcóyotl’s sacrifice and bravery prevented the plague ship from entering the port of Veracruz. Zombies from the plague oil tanker (and a few surviving crew members) eventually made it onto the beaches, but the Netzahualcóyotl’s sacrifice gave the citizens of Veracruz time to evacuate.

Another Mexican naval ship, the ARM Comodoro Manuel Azueta (D-111) was also lost with all hands at sea after she was struck by a large zombie-infested freighter in the Gulf of Mexico somewhere between Cancun and Cuba. The Azueta ran out of three-inch cannon shells for her superfiring main deck guns, and then exhausted her supplies of 20mm and 40mm ammo (she had previously run out of 21″ torpedoes sinking other ships before this vessel sunk her).

Zombies from these and other zombie-infested vessels sank in or near the Gulf of Mexico by Cuba, the United States Navy and the US Coast Guard as well as the Cuban Navy eventually waded ashore in Mobile AL, Houston TX, New Orleans LA, Havana Cuba, Miami FL, Corpus Christi TX, and Coatzacoalcos Mexico. I may not be an expert in naval warfare, but the laws of physics still apply.

Zombies do not need to breathe, so they are able to walk across the ocean floor. Fortunately, many of the plague ships sank in water deep enough to crush the zombies by the time they reached the bottom. It is also believed that zombies sunk at depths where no sunlight reaches, may remain on the bottom of the ocean in the near catatonic state zombies enter during the dark nights. The thought of the bottom of the oceans being littered with millions of zombies just waiting to awaken that scares me.

Among survivors, there is heated debate whether or not the submerged zombies will eventually die. There is also some debate about whether or not the ocean’s animals such as crabs and fish would eat the zombies. We now know that the zombies are not truly dead. The dead, for lack of a better word, are hosts to a parasitic virus which uses the zombie’s body in order to spread the virus. Thinking of the early dark days of the KCAP virus is sure to give me nightmares today.

The Adventists are back …

While Shack and I eat breakfast, we are joined by some of the Adventists who arrived at first light. The first to sit with us is a very tall, muscularly broad-shouldered and large-boned woman named Phyllis. A farrier and blacksmith, Phyllis, is one of the most valuable members of the Adventist’s group. For Pastor to send her to us for training indicates, at least to me, that he truly desires our help.

Phyllis is well into middle age with thinning, very short mouse brown hair shot through with gray. Her large hands are rawboned and rough, with thick calluses and cracked nails with dirt underneath them. Phyllis smells like hot iron and heavy, thick smoke, probably coal or charcoal. Just as I take Phyllis’s measure in a glance, she takes mine.

Phyllis’s handshake is firm and very dry. I am sure that she could have shattered my hand easily. I note that other than a small belt knife and a wooden handled blacksmith’s hammer shoved through her leather belt; Phyllis appears unarmed. Her impressive physique could hide several more weapons on her person, but Phyllis strikes me as more the craftsman than warrior.

We are joined for breakfast by another Adventist, this one, a young woman. Another brunette with a wondrous wealth of thick brown wavy hair, she is one of the few women, who like the Princess and I, has refused to cut off all of her hair. I immediately felt for this woman who tries to maintain her feminine looks in this bastard of a life.

This younger woman has the bad nervous habit of continuously fidgeting with her hair. She curls her hair around her shoulders, and then twirls it around her fingers and is just constantly fussing with it. The young woman constantly huffs at her hair, especially her bangs which fall into her face irritating her.

She has several colorful fabric covered elastic hair bands on her left wrist. She impatiently snaps the hair bands into her hair then immediately decides that she has to rearrange her hair once again because something is not correct. The hair, for its part, behaves itself for a little while before the wavy mass slips its bonds requiring her to fuss with it again.

Phyllis makes the introductions startling me slightly as I was so distracted by the young woman’s continuously fidgeting with her hair. Phyllis’s voice is rough and gravely like that of an old drill sergeant. I am surprised to see that Phyllis has a wonderful set of perfectly straight pearly white teeth flashing through her thin, pale lips.

“I am assuming that you are Ruth.” (I nod my head at her in answer.) “Pastor described you well enough and your boyfriend Shack.” I glance at Shack, to see if he is affronted by the offhanded way that Phyllis describes our relationship. Shack shrugs at me so I turn back to Phyllis and the new woman.

“This is Kelly our princess, heir apparent and Pastor’s daughter.” From her tone and general body language, I gather that Phyllis does not care for Kelly. Other than the very overblown wavy brown hair which she constantly fucks with, Kelly is dressed conservatively. Her khaki long-sleeved shirt underneath a faded and ripped black hoodie is functional. One thing that I do notice is that Kelly is apparently unarmed, a distinct rarity these days.

“She’s staying for a few days. Today I help your guys and then I’ll be back tomorrow. Pastor wants us to take some of the weapons back.” Phyllis does not appear to appreciate the taste of the Spruce tip tea either as she grimaces every time she takes a sip. “I drove the flat-bed wagon over here, but I doubt your boys have ever handled a team of horses, so I better get out there. I brought half a wagon load of coal and four empty, clean 330 gallon IBC liquid totes.

Phyllis passes Sam and his entourage as they enter the chow hall coming downstairs from their quarters on the second floor. The words are too soft for me to hear, but a brief conversation passes between Sam and Phyllis. While we eat, Junior and Shack speculate on how much coal we need in order to get hot water for bathing again.

Towards the end of breakfast Pastor rides in with four more young men on horses. Brenda rides in driving the one horse cart that she used yesterday. The Adventist’s horses are turned out into the fields. I hope one of the damn beasts does not step in one of the graves and break a leg. Then I pause to think again that if a horse breaks a leg then, maybe, we can eat it after all.

The mere idea of fresh meat has me salivating. No wonder the Adventists had to fight so hard to keep their horses. When everything including the dogs, cats and any poor bird has been eaten, horses suddenly look mighty tasty, as Shack says. In the cities, the mere rumor that someone possessed a cat or other pet caused their neighbors to kill them so that they could eat that pet.

After all of the pets and city pigeons were gone, some of the people turned cannibal which was much easier than starving. Maybe there were not enough Bodhisattvas among us, because there sure seems to be a lot of cannibals. Society was always three meals away from disaster. At least trading with the Adventists offers not only more food, but also more importantly, a greater variety of food.

Junior and Shack fool around with an ancient Bushnell Powersync Solarwrap they found in some rubbish pile. They have been trying to get the damn nearly useless thing to charge equally ancient lithium-ion batteries for the portable radios. Even if they get the damn thing to work, I do not believe that the little solar panel will provide enough juice to charge even one battery.

Deploying our Scouts with the traditional shout of “Scouts out!” they are sent today searching a recently located hot tub and spa store. They are instructed to look for pool shock which contains between 68%-78% calcium hypochlorite. Other products are on their list, but pool shock and iodine are critical for water purification.

Planning for Kayak Point

Pastor sits at the table and begins the haggling over the Kayak Point trip. Apparently the cannibals are watching both us and the Adventists, but have made no hostile actions yet. There is nothing quite as disturbing, such as the feeling that you are being watched by wolves. The mere image of the cannibals sitting out there watching us with their tongues hanging out, gives me the chills. We still have not decided what to do about the damn cannibals.

From her small wagon, Brenda carries trade goods into the house. Looking at Brenda’s swarthy complexion with her raven black hair, I wonder if it is better to be pale these days. Pale people evolved in the colder climates where sunlight was rarer. While I am not as darkly skinned as Brenda, I wonder if even my light almond colored skin might be a detriment in the cold with the lack of sun.

Thinking of the sun, or rather its absence causes me to notice that Junior and Shack have given up on the little solar panel. Joining us at the table, Pastor nibbles on some crackers. Doc Jamal hands Pastor some bottles of pills. Pastor has high blood pressure. He had used up all of his blood pressure medicine a while ago.

Jamal happened to have some of the prescription medicine that Pastor needed and even in the correct dosage. Maybe Pastor will live longer than he thought. Really, though, who knows how long any of us will live.

Brenda, again, is a source of wonder with her trade goods. Pastor and Brenda asks us not to reveal it to anyone that the Adventists also have several dogs which they rescued as well as other livestock. I understand from their words and body language that the animals are the main reason that they fought with their neighbors. I understand their resentment of us for coming in here and butchering what they considered their animals. Had we been less well armed than we are, the Adventists might have attacked us.

I wonder just what else they have fought with their neighbors over …