From a Dying World to New Lands

by Electrician

Chapter 4: Remember the Alamo

Chapter 4: Remember the Alamo

Perspective: Eddy Culivin
Location: Southern United States, 25 miles from home
Date: October 26, 2025

Bags were thrown inside, doors slammed, and wheels screeched. Not one fuck was given about orderliness, following road rules, or speed bumps for that matter (we just cut across the parking lot). I guess that’s what happens when a big ass mob of undead is chasing you down! I found the other exit to the side of the store just in time and turned down the street perpendicular to the one the Infected had been on. As much as I just wanted to punch the throttle and drift to escape faster, the trailer we were towing wouldn’t fare so well if I did that, and would even cause us to fishtail. Adding to the fact that we were severely outnumbered was the fact that the mob was wailing and howling incredibly loudly, and was drawing out even more Infected from within the buildings. Not. Good.

“Anyone remember how to get on that God-damn highway!?” I yelled over the gunfire. Mike, who had climbed into the ‘shotgun’ seat, directed the car.

“Make a left here.”

“I can’t, the Infected are blocking it off!”

“Shit! Ok, just make a left whenever possible then.” I punched the throttle get to the next street. The vehicle was fully loaded and towing, but the two powerful electric motors brought the Model X to speed quickly. Glancing over to the 17-inch display (which was set in drive analysis mode), I was able to see the current power consumption and range remaining. I was flooring it on the straightaway we were on, so the power consumption meter was maxed out, and a mere 19 miles remained at current power draw. If we didn’t escape soon and reduce our consumption, there was a very real possibility that we’d end up stranded, having to fend off the horde with what we had left. I’ll spoil the ending of that scenario for you; we wouldn’t survive. There was another even more real possibility that we’d likely have to deal with even if we escaped. After all, Infected don’t tire when chasing prey.

Even if they can’t catch us, they’d still follow us down the highway. Guess what said highway eventually leads to? That’s right, the town just down the road from us! Phoenix would need to know; well, assuming we get out alive anyhow.

Turning aggravatingly slowly so that the trailer didn’t fishtail, I finally managed to get us away from the main mob and ended up on a particularly deserted intersection. It wouldn’t stay that way for long though; they knew where we were, and they would reach us soon enough.

“Which way Mike?” I asked.

“Right, then just follow the road. It’ll take us to the exit,” he answered. At this point, the mob could be heard clearly again, so wasting no more time, I turned right and after straightening out the vehicle, floored it. The car lurched back as the tires screamed in protest, too much power surpassing their traction limit. They quickly fell back in line, and we sped away from the intersection.

“Guys, heads up!” Jonathon pointed out. Looking up, the rest of us noticed Infected on the rooftops and in the upper floors of the surrounding buildings. I knew they couldn’t harm us from up there, but the looks they were giving us were still enough to instill fear in m…‘oh my god one of them just walked off the roof!!’ That’s right, it just freaking causally stepped off the rooftop and plummeted 10 stories to its demise. That was perhaps even more frightening than the stares, that they were so desperate to get to us they’d walk of the roof instead of descending the stairs. The creature impacted the ground feet-first in a pile of destroyed body parts and blood, a sickening crunch heard over the mob as bones shattered and flesh tore. Everything below the stomach was completely obliterated, but that wasn’t the worst part, not by a long shot.

You see, the vitals were still intact, so the Infected was regenerating! It had purposefully fallen feet-first so that its own lower half would cushion the fall, while the important bits remained unharmed. Then it could quickly regenerate its limbs and just come after us; I would admire their cleverness if I wasn’t so God-damn scared out of my mind right now! By the time we passed, it was close enough to reach out and leave a bloody hand streak on the car. A streak made with its own blood. The others were following suit, a cloud of death hanging over us as the sheer number of undead dropping blotted out most of the sun.

“Holy shit!” I screamed, turning the car towards the least occupied street on the right. There were so many of them still; we couldn’t gain speed as we weaved through the crowd. Edgar and Jonathon abandoned their fruitless efforts at shooting them through the window and just rolled them up. We’d occasionally hit one of them, grimacing as the several-ton vehicle rammed the unlucky bastard out of the way, sometimes crushing it in the process. Let’s just say that I’m glad the windshield wipers worked.

A few turns later, the exit was right in front of us, with the horde close behind. With the exit in sight, I gunned the drained Model X one last time and shot through the death cloud and back on the highway. A quick glance in the rear-view showed they were still following. ‘Shit.’ Settling on an 80mph cruise, I rechecked the touch screen; 54 miles remaining. Satisfied, I focused on keeping the car on the road as I let the adrenaline bleed from my system. A good 5 minutes passed in absolute silence before I decided to speak up.

“Someone get on the radio with Phoenix, we have a hell of a problem now.”

---

Perspective: Edgar Worthington
Location: Southern United States
Date: October 26, 2025
4:00p.m.

There be a Shitstorm brewing, son. All throughout college, that had been my favorite line for some reason. I had always looked for an excuse to use that line, and now that I have a perfect reason to use it, I wish I didn’t. So much had happened in the hours since we arrived home. Weapons maintained and loaded, windowed reinforced, and back-up radioed for. Hell, we didn’t even unload the entire car or trailer, too much to do when you’re expecting the Angel of Death to come knocking in the form of an undead mob. Phoenix had left after we discussed battle strategies to alert the town and gather reinforcements. He and his group left us all the ammo they carried with them at our house, insisting that they could get more back home. They should be back any time now. Before he left though, he did mention to us something about the lights beginning to dim out and asked if this was natural. Great, just adding to the list of things to fix…

“Home Base, this is The Cavalry. Do you read?” the speaker on my walkie-talkie blared.

“Read you loud and clear Cavalry, What’s your status?”

“20 cars strong, all occupants armed. ETA two minutes.”

“We copy Cavalry, Home Base out.” ‘Damn, only 20 cars? This is gonna suck!’ With that I clipped the walkie-talkie to my jeans and continued to work on our ‘bail plan’. It wasn’t something any one of us wanted to resort to, but being the only stationary target in this fight meant we would be the easiest to overrun. The ‘Cavalry’, as they called themselves, were going to ‘herd’ the horde off the road and shoot them from the moving vehicles. They would try to split the mob into more manageable groups by giving them more than one target, and then divert each smaller group in a different direction. Though this would get the horde to stop advancing on the town, they would instead advance upon the vehicles and our house instead, and our house can’t exactly move like a vehicle. Because of this, we had to up our defenses.

While I finished replacing the drywall, Mike was cleaning the remainder of our weapons and loading mags, while Jonathon and Eddy were setting up the auto turret. The auto turret was set up at a window at the rear of the house, facing where the Infected would be coming. The turret, made mostly of junkyard parts, consisted of a spare AR-15 with a double drum magazine. A motor/gearbox assembly is mounted near the trigger, with a cam coming from the output shaft of the gearbox actually touching the trigger. When spun, the cam hits the trigger once per rotation, and the current voltage setting gives us around 200 rounds per minute. The entire assembly is mounted to an old oscillating fan assembly, with the oscillating mechanism driven by a separate motor that makes the oscillation much faster. If needed, the auto turret will be activated and will spray lead into the crowd, and keep those pesky undead from climbing through the window.

“We’re here boys! You guys all set on your end?” Phoenix’s voice came through the walkie-talkie.

“Ready as we’ll ever be I suppose. We’ll try not to shoot you guys too much,” I snickered as I answered.

“Well gee, thanks,” came the sarcastic reply. I glanced around, noticing that everyone had finished their task and had assembled in the living room. Mike addressed the group.

“All jokes aside, we’ve got cars out there, so watch your aim and minimize stray bullets. Jonathon, warn everyone via walkie-talkie when you’re going to switch on the auto turret so that they know to avoid the south side of our house. Now let’s kick ass!”

The plan was simple. Mike and I would ascend to the second floor, while Eddy and Jonathon would remain downstairs. Mike, armed with a scoped FN-FAL, would pick off targets as they approached, then remove the scope and switch to iron sights when they were close. I would join Mike in shooting closer targets with Jonathon’s Sig 556. Downstairs, Eddy would blast any that tried to get through the barricades with the XM17-E4 while Jonathon would supplement the auto turret window’s firepower with a Vepr 12 gauge mag-fed shotgun (civilian version of the Saiga 12). The table beside the auto turret was filled with 12-round mags for the Vepr, and Jon carried a few on him should he need to move.

“Hey Eddy, come here a minute,” I called out. As he walked over, I retrieved a black aluminum cylinder from my pocket. The cylinder housed some circuitry, a single red light, and two switches. Eddy’s eyes widened at the recognition of the object; after all, he did build it.

“Look, I know it’s an ugly thought, but…but if we get overwhelmed, then…well, you know. I just figured you’d want to be the one to do it, this being your house and all.” The displeasure he was feeling at the moment was clearly written on his face; nevertheless he took and pocketed the instrument. I prayed it would stay in his pocket. Sadly, Life hasn’t exactly been kind to us at all since the Infection started; guess it saw no reason to start.

---

Perspective: Mike Britowski
Location: Southern United States
Date: October 26, 2025

It started out as an almost imperceptible dot in the scope, and grew as they approached. The death cloud had rained down into a sea of destruction. The horde had grown quite a bit, which isn’t surprising considering the huge ruckus we made on our way out. It was still a ways off from our position, but I guess now was as good a time as any to start causing some damage. After all, with a massive cluster of heads gathered together like that, it wasn’t hard to hit something.

*BANG!! BANG!! BANG!!* Each shot rang across the flat countryside as hot brass and lead separated within the rifle. They started dropping to the ground, but I guess a single rifle doesn’t put much of a scratch in such a massive mob. I was on my third magazine when the horde got within 500 yards, and the Cavalry was unleashed.

“Let’s move, GO GO GO!!” The roar of diesel engines was heard next to the house, and 12 pickups, 6 SUV’s and 2 cars took off into the fray. I adjusted my aim so as not to hit anyone, and continued my assault. Flesh and machinery collided as the battlefield erupted into a hell-storm of gunfire. As per the plan the vehicles circled the Infected while shooting at them to draw their attention. As soon as the mob’s attention was redirected, the vehicles immediately broke formation and scattered, and any order or structure within the horde collapsed entirely as the undead scrambled in all directions to chase the cars. All the while, they were getting pelted with bullets from the multiple passengers in each vehicle.

Occasionally a vehicle would swing by close to the house, allowing us to get in on the fight. Keeping those things out was no easy feat, but was made possible with the steel plates on the doors and windows. The ¼ inch steel plates are bolted to the floor and walls, making them difficult to remove, even with the Infected’s much stronger mutated muscles. The plates have a small ‘viewing port’ cut into it so we can shoot whatever is trying to pull our defenses down.

“Hell yea, they’re going down!”

“Keep pushing everyone, we got this!”

“Take that you freaks!”

From the radio chatter, everyone was optimistic of our fate, and I had to admit, the optimism was contagious. Everything was going according to plan. With any luck, this’ll all be a distant memory soon enough.

4:30p.m.

What the hell went wrong!? It was perfect at the start, but as the fight dragged out, our guys out there started making some dumbshit-level mistakes, ones that ended up costing lives. Four cars, probably too focused on their groups, crashed into each other. The accident killed some of them, the fire killed more, and the Infected got the rest. One car radioed in it ran out of fuel and they had to bail. How the fuck did that happen; did their car not warn them somehow of the impending power loss!? We weren’t doing so hot either; our plates were dented and the support beams the plates were anchored to had a few cracks. The Infected smartened up, and noticed that instead of pounding on the plates, they could grab it by the viewing port and yank on it, planting their feet on the outside wall for leverage. This placed more stress on the defenses, and their fatigue was beginning to show.

“Mark look out for the horde in front of you! Turn turn!!!”

“Wha-oh shit!” *CRASH!* The SUV slammed into a group of about 50 undead. The vehicle was no match for that much mass, and was eventually brought to a stop…right in the middle of the group.

“G-guys!? The car isn’t s-s-starting, I…OH GOD!! HELP! HELP! HEL-AAAAHHHHH!!!!” The radio went quiet for only a second before Phoenix came into view, his car hurtling for the disabled SUV. The vehicle ended up close to our window, and Edgar and I tried to shoot the monsters around the car, but we…we just couldn’t save them. The SUV’s windows couldn’t keep them out, and they got to the crew before we could stop them.

“Mark?...Mark are you still there!? MARK!?...Fuck…Cavalry, this is Phoenix, we got to get our shit together, we’re dying out here! Drivers, pay more attention to your surroundings, focus on pointing the vehicle in the right direction. Gunners, look out for trouble spots and report them to your drivers. All vehicles, switch on your lights now, high beams and everything. We need something to identify our friendlies and their positions.”

“Home Base to Phoenix. How’s it looking out there?” I asked.

“It’s hell out here, there’s still so many of them. Crap, speaking of which, heads up! Undead advancing to your position from multiple directions.”

‘Damnit, not what we needed right now!’ “Thanks for the heads up, Home Base out.”

“Guys!” I yell from my position. “We’re surrounded! Start up that turret and cover the other windows, Edgar and I’ll be there shortly!” *Click* ‘Fifteenth empty mag. Man our pile is dwindling.’ Grabbing and inserting yet another magazine from the ever-shrinking pile, I pull the bolt back, letting it slam forward to ready the rifle. I didn’t even fire the first shot when-

*BEEEEEEP! BEEEEEEP! BEEEEEEP!* Since when did the turret beep? No wait…that’s not coming from the turret.

“Guys, I’m not hearing that turret firing!” I call out.

“Give us a freaking minute!!” Jon yelled back.

What the fuck was going on down there?

---

Perspective: Jonathon Burley
Location: Southern United States
Date: October 26, 2025

It all makes sense now, like the pieces of some sick puzzle clicking into place. The dimming lights, the eerie silence during my watch this morning. I knew there was something wrong, but only now as I hear the critical power level alarm from the Ultracaps do I realize what that something is. The generator. While it is normally quiet, the generator could still be heard if one was standing outside. The absolute silence this morning meant the generator had stalled, for reasons unknown. As such, the Caps had to keep the house running throughout the night and all day without being recharged. And now any available power was being routed for minimal lighting and fridge/freezer operation. There was no power left for the turret.

I wheeled around to find Eddy standing there, a look of shock, confusion, and most of all, fear on his complexion. Understandable, but in this current situation I need his full cooperation if we’re to survive this somehow.

“Eddy, I need cover!!” I screamed as I slung my Vepr over my shoulder. This seemed to snap him back to reality, and the lower floor once again erupted into a cacophony of noise as red mist went flying. I grabbed the turret and undid the wing-nuts on the bolts securing the rifle to the turret and pulled the rifle free. The turret might have failed, but the 100 rounds in the AR were still ready for action.

“Jon, what the hell happened!?” Mike hollered over the gunfire as both he and Edgar descended the stairs.

“We’ve got no power, the generator died somehow! Go cover the other windows!” I yelled back. The two scrambled to the other windows, while I directed my attention back to clearing the window the turret was supposed to have covered. Down the hall more gunfire could be heard; guess they’re covering the front. Together Eddy and I stood, a hailstorm of brass raining down from our weapons as a wall of lead stopped our enemies. Or just slowed them down it seemed.

Suddenly the window to our left exploded outward, the twenty or so undead having successfully ripped out the plate. Twisted metal. Splintered wood. Shattered glass. That’s all the window was physically. But to me, that window was so much more. It was our safety net, our last saving grace. Now it was gone.

“Guys, we have a breech, south side!!” I shouted as Eddy and I were driven back. The guys were here in a heartbeat, and helped us significantly thin out the numbers. But their help came at a price; the unguarded windows in the front were broken down, Infected now pouring in from the hallway. We had to get out of this house fast.

“Everyone, master bedroom now!” Edgar commanded. Running towards the room, I pointed my rifle back and fired aimlessly at the horde to cover our escape. About halfway there I heard an awfully familiar sound originate from my rifle. *Click* ‘Fuck my life!’ I sprinted into the master bedroom, throwing the AR onto the bed while simultaneously unslinging my Vepr. Several crashing sounds caught my attention. Books, papers and other personal items were strewn across the floor as the room was given an emergency makeover, the furniture suddenly very aesthetically pleasing when all of it was placed right in front of the door.

“Everyone check a window, they’re our only way out now,” instructed Eddy. Each of us ran to a different window, only to recoil back slightly when a ghastly and disfigured limb stuck itself through the viewing port, a furious howl following close behind it.

“Yea, my window’s not gonna work.”

“Neither will mine.”

“My window’s pretty bad.”

“No dice with mine…”

…I…I guess…I guess this is it then…

“Sorry guys, I…I don’t think we’re making it through this one. Looks like we’re gonna ‘bail out’ the hard way,” Eddy said, withdrawing a very familiar looking aluminum cylinder.

---

Perspective: Edgar Worthington
Location: Southern United States
Date: October 26, 2025

No, No, NO! It wasn’t supposed to go like this. This shouldn’t be happening, can’t be happening. Yet, the cracking door and failing plates were all sickening reminders that this was in fact real, and in less than two minutes, we’d all be really dead, one way or another. At least we can take those bastards with us to the afterlife.

The house is rigged. Heh, guess what I did with all that black powder? We were supposed to have cleared the area before blowing this place up sky high. Pretty effective weapon, considering there has to be at least 100 Infected surrounding the house now and 60 within. Should put a nice hole in their numbers. Guess Phoenix and the Cavalry will have to mop up the rest without us.

“Come on guys, one last group hug,” I said, tears threatening to spill. Everyone came together for a final time. My senses seemed heightened, taking in every sensation, as they were the last I’d ever feel. The refreshingly cool breeze touching my skin. The all-too-familiar smell of sweat and gunpowder. The horrible splintering sound of a wooden door that was seconds from giving out. The stinging trail of salty tears as they ran down my cheek, passing minor cuts on the way. The comforting warmth radiating from the bodies huddled together.

These used to be my friends, but in these four years of hell and nightmares, they’ve become my brothers; not a replacement for my family, but an extension of it. If anyone had my back, it was these guys, and I would give my life for them as they would for me. Now, Life was about to take that away from me, the only thing that I really lived for anymore. It may as well kill me, and mercifully, it planned to do just that.

“G-goodbye guys, I’ll m-miss all of you, I really will,” I cried, unable to hold back these feelings of anguish and sorrow.

“Don’t worry man,” Eddy said. “This ain’t goodbye, we’ll meet up somehow, wherever we end up.”

The door exploded, as did the window. The furniture scattered. Eddy raised the detonator.

“Catch you on the flip side guys.”

An intense light poured into the room from seemingly everywhere. Loud howling could be heard from the creatures. ‘Yea take that you fuckers! I hope you like hell!’ The light got even brighter, until it was blinding even though clenched eyelids. For a moment, there was a feeling of weightlessness.

Then there was nothing at all.

Comments

[Dark starlight]

Boondock saints is that where you got " catch you on the flip side" from?

[shy sad jaded shard]

holy crap im glad I pushed through (what was for me at least) a slow start in the first chapter and um I have never gotten teary eyed about some dudes in a group hug about to die wtf

[zooba]

I liked that chapter. You just gained +2 writer points.

[Arexander]

Vepr 12 gauge mag-fed shotgun

The link goes 404 on me, same with ya?

[Electrician]

5890326

Fixed it, thanks for pointing it out!

[Just Sandy]

shit happens if you have no melee or silent weapons