that only the extreme cold saved our lives during those two days of hell. Our firepower and level of preparedness helped, but without the cold, we would all have died with the numbers we faced. I am angry that I’m even having to deal with Isaac’s group at all, let alone be questioned by them about something they know nothing about.
Isaac sees my reaction and speaks before I can build the will to answer calmly, “You mentioned you were attacked, and one of your people spoke about your losses. We’re sorry for them, but we have lost people as well. No one alive today has made it here without having someone die, but none of your people would talk about your attack aside from mentioning those that were lost. I’ll willingly wait with you here to show no one is following us, but I would like to know about your attack.”
“Attacks,” I say.
“What?”
“Attacks...We had three attacks, all in increasing numbers over a two month time frame. There was a man, someone I turned away from my survival store the first day of the outbreak that joined with a group of criminals. Together they figured out a way to drive groups of the infected at the ranch to attack us.” I look at each of them as I tell our story.
“The first two attacks were simple enough. Forty-nine infected attacked the first time. They didn’t make it onto the property, and we didn’t lose any people. When the second attack arrived a few weeks later, we had our first clue that someone was sending the infected at us. Music…someone was putting radios in the forest to draw the infected to the ranch with music. That’s why I thought your attack was set-up when you said singing brought your infected to you.”
“Two hundred and seventy-six infected hit us the second time. They came grouped together and managed to breach the fence but didn’t get far into the property. They weren’t a threat to overrun the ranch, and we killed them all without losing anyone but they did kill our dogs. The third attack came a month later during the deep cold.”
“So you lost your people after a third attack behind fences and you knew they were coming?” Jeremiah says with derision, completely unaware of the numbers we were facing. “At least we were caught off guard.”
Simone moves to attack Jeremiah for his insult but Samantha is closer. She walks up to him and punches him in the face, busting his nose, and continuing to swing at him.
Isaac jumps in between the two to protect his brother from the attack but also trying to apologize for what his brother said.
“You have no idea what we went through, you bastards!” Simone yells at Jeremiah and the others.
“Please, Eddie,” Isaac says. “What happened during your last attack?”
Samantha shakes her arms loose from Isaac and walks past me grabbing Simone as she moves by. They go ten feet away, to the front of the truck hooked up to the camper, and wait there. Once I see they aren’t going any farther, I turn back, remove my hand from the pistol at my side, and continue the story:
“We were completely overrun,” I say shaking my head and shrugging. “Every shooter was on the line, and we kept knocking them down. Headshot, headshot, headshot. We kept killing them and more kept coming. The only thing that saved us was the extreme cold that slowed them down to a slight shuffle, that and our ammo supply. Our group went through thirty-five thousand rounds of ammo during those two days, and we killed between twenty-five thousand and thirty thousand infected.”
“Bullshit,” Luke says, but he says it in a sympathetic way. “It would take an army to kill a group that size.”
“I used to think so too, but that’s what we killed. There were four thousand two hundred infected we killed beyond the fence before they were able to break through. We counted all those bodies during the weeks it took to clean up. We had thirty-four shooters on the line, so we only had to average a hundred and a quarter kills
Isaac sees my reaction and speaks before I can build the will to answer calmly, “You mentioned you were attacked, and one of your people spoke about your losses. We’re sorry for them, but we have lost people as well. No one alive today has made it here without having someone die, but none of your people would talk about your attack aside from mentioning those that were lost. I’ll willingly wait with you here to show no one is following us, but I would like to know about your attack.”
“Attacks,” I say.
“What?”
“Attacks...We had three attacks, all in increasing numbers over a two month time frame. There was a man, someone I turned away from my survival store the first day of the outbreak that joined with a group of criminals. Together they figured out a way to drive groups of the infected at the ranch to attack us.” I look at each of them as I tell our story.
“The first two attacks were simple enough. Forty-nine infected attacked the first time. They didn’t make it onto the property, and we didn’t lose any people. When the second attack arrived a few weeks later, we had our first clue that someone was sending the infected at us. Music…someone was putting radios in the forest to draw the infected to the ranch with music. That’s why I thought your attack was set-up when you said singing brought your infected to you.”
“Two hundred and seventy-six infected hit us the second time. They came grouped together and managed to breach the fence but didn’t get far into the property. They weren’t a threat to overrun the ranch, and we killed them all without losing anyone but they did kill our dogs. The third attack came a month later during the deep cold.”
“So you lost your people after a third attack behind fences and you knew they were coming?” Jeremiah says with derision, completely unaware of the numbers we were facing. “At least we were caught off guard.”
Simone moves to attack Jeremiah for his insult but Samantha is closer. She walks up to him and punches him in the face, busting his nose, and continuing to swing at him.
Isaac jumps in between the two to protect his brother from the attack but also trying to apologize for what his brother said.
“You have no idea what we went through, you bastards!” Simone yells at Jeremiah and the others.
“Please, Eddie,” Isaac says. “What happened during your last attack?”
Samantha shakes her arms loose from Isaac and walks past me grabbing Simone as she moves by. They go ten feet away, to the front of the truck hooked up to the camper, and wait there. Once I see they aren’t going any farther, I turn back, remove my hand from the pistol at my side, and continue the story:
“We were completely overrun,” I say shaking my head and shrugging. “Every shooter was on the line, and we kept knocking them down. Headshot, headshot, headshot. We kept killing them and more kept coming. The only thing that saved us was the extreme cold that slowed them down to a slight shuffle, that and our ammo supply. Our group went through thirty-five thousand rounds of ammo during those two days, and we killed between twenty-five thousand and thirty thousand infected.”
“Bullshit,” Luke says, but he says it in a sympathetic way. “It would take an army to kill a group that size.”
“I used to think so too, but that’s what we killed. There were four thousand two hundred infected we killed beyond the fence before they were able to break through. We counted all those bodies during the weeks it took to clean up. We had thirty-four shooters on the line, so we only had to average a hundred and a quarter kills
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