"If what you're saying is true then that's a worse case scenario."
"The reason why I came here was that a few days ago I was camping just east of here. I ended up hearing a lot of gunfire. I was curious and waited until the next day before coming here."
"You waited?"
"I wanted to wait for the dead to leave. They like noise and your gunfire was certainly noisy. I needed some time to pass for the gunfire to be forgotten about and the dead move on. So, what actually happened here?"
Trevor sighed. "We had this idea that it was time to clear out the dead. To put it in a dramatic way, we decided that it was time to take back what is ours. So we set up the base right here. This place is convenient being just across the river from our main camp. We brought in some people, some fire power and tried to dig in. At first the noise of building this base attracted only a few dead. They didn't really attack. They just stood outside the walls and stared at us. They just waited while we got ready. It was rather unsettling. It came as a relief when we started shooting."
"What happened then?" asked Dave.
Trevor looked to Holden. "You've got that twenty-two pistol?"
Holden pulled out his sidearm. "Right here."
"Loaded with sub-sonics?"
"Yep. Even though they are damn useless."
Trevor turned to Dave. "Mind if we borrow your dead friend for a moment?"
"Go ahead," said Dave.
"The sub-sonics will be enough for this demonstration," said Trevor to Holden. "Take some shots at the 'Charlie' chap down there."
Holden gave Trevor a questioning look before switching the pistol safety off. Holden racked the pistol and using two hands aimed down at Charlie. Holden pulled the trigger and fired at Charlie's chest. Holden then manually racked the pistol again and fired at Charlie. Holden then repeated this procedure for about half a dozen times.
Charlie just stood there showing little interest as ragged bullet holes appeared in his chest. No blood or other fluid poured from the wounds. Charlie gave no impression that his wounds were affecting him at all. While Holden turned the pistol safety back on and holstered it, the wounds on Charlie healed up leaving Charlie's chest smooth and unharmed.
"Damn," said Dave. "Is that why you abandoned this place?"
"As we continued shooting, more of the dead would turn up. We had quite a large crowd and yet our shots did nothing. We were using full powered rifle rounds instead of these sub-sonics so the damage was greater. But just like you saw with Charlie, the damage would heal and it was as if we had done nothing.
"A sense of panic appeared amongst us and really started to get out of hand. Before we started this operation everyone had a swagger to their step. We all sort of thought that we'll murder the lot and return to base as heroes. But the numbers of the dead grew and it sort of seemed that we weren't able to do a thing, then everyone got really afraid."
Dave frowned. "What you just said sounded weird."
"Yes. Most of our shots did nothing. We poured a lot of gunfire onto the growing crowds and to no effect. Except that every now and then one of the dead would stagger, fall down and turn into dust."
"What?"
"I don't really understand myself. In fact it was so rare that I'm not actually sure that I saw what I saw. And afterwards, when talking to the others, no one else had seen what I saw."
"Did their healing powers run out?"
"I don't know. And I hope that isn't the case. We fired off a lot of firepower and if all we achieved was to destroy one or two then that's not a sustainable approach."
"I heard vehicles driving off south, so what happened?"
"The panic almost got out of hand, but we vaguely acted as a cohesive unit. The more we fired our weapons, the more dead turned up. We ended up getting a large crowd mostly from the east and north although there were a number from the west. I guess the river provided a screen because I don't think any came from that direction. And that was lucky for us as our trucks were parked to the south.
"We nearly ran out of ammunition when we made our attempt to break out of here. I'd like to claim that we left in a controlled manner but at some point someone yelled 'Retreat!' and we just fled. There was no controlling it, and I'm still surprised that everyone got out unharmed. Well, physically unharmed. We might have started with confidence, but now there's a dark mood back at our base. You can see real fear in people''s eyes now."
"How bad is it?" asked Dave.
"I just don't know. To be honest, one reason why I'm here is half to reassess these defences, the other is to just get away from the base and get some fresh air. There's a sense of hopelessness that I don't know what to do about. People were previously upset about what had happened. Now they were losing their hopes for the future. What's left after you've lost all that?"
"I was worried about that," said Dave. "When I first saw crowds of people dying and how so many people were converted so quickly, I sort of lost hope myself. In my wanderings I've found a few living people, but only a few. Then I realised that my lack of hope was because I lacked knowledge. I slowly came to the idea that ignorance was our greatest enemy. I think that knowledge will give us confidence."
"So how do we take on this 'enemy'?" asked Trevor.
Dave held up a notepad and randomly opened it up. He then showed the open pages to the two Army men. Trevor was clearly interested.
"We need to study the dead," said Dave pointing to his notes. "Observe the dead. Record
