John had one last surprise up his sleeve. Earlier that afternoon, he had led a small team to a nearby fire station during the day and found just what he was looking for: a set of maps. They had another more serious meeting later in the evening.
THE MEDIA ROOM WAS now officially their operational center. Somebody had dragged in a large desk, which now sat in the middle of the space. Most of the other furniture had been cleared, except for the television, the radio set-up and two large stacks of chairs.
They stood around this desk now, looking over the map that John had liberated. This one was a large map of southeastern United States. Jack had helped out by using his app again and transposing an “X” onto the paper map.
“We don’t know what we’re going to find there,” John started, “but we owe it to ourselves to go investigate. We owe it to Maddie, too.”
Everybody agreed, curious to find out what the “X” marked. It was decided there would be a single vehicle going on this mission. They didn’t want to send too many people and leave the Ren poorly defended.
John pulled the map off the table and folded it quickly, then placed another map on the surface. This one was equally large, but to a much closer scale. It was a map of their community. Everybody around the table spent a solid minute scanning the map, finding the Ren, the gates (there was a second gate leading out of the community) and various other interesting locations.
“I’ve been pouring over this map all afternoon. Here’s what I think we ought to do,” John said, before going into his rehearsed spiel.
Over the next few minutes, the team was to find out that John had audacious plans: He wanted to clear the entire community and improve their current security.
“There are roughly fifteen hundred houses inside the wall.” He ran his hand over the entire map as he spoke. “On top of that, there are three condominium complexes. Here, here, and here.” John pointed at the differently shaded areas of the map. “I’ve been trying to figure out how many people that translates into. My best guess is that somewhere between five and six thousand people used to live here.”
He let that number hit home. Six thousand zombies. Surrounding their frail island of not even thirty living souls.
“But it’s not all bad news,” he continued. “I know that we have cleared hundreds of them since arriving here. And I did overhear Matheson talking to his sergeant on the day that we arrived. They had spent the previous two days clearing out the dead. So, I imagine they took care of most of the roamers.”
John didn’t even have to explain what he meant by the term “roamer.” Everybody remembered how the government had continually insisted that people stay inside their houses during the pandemic. The roamers were the ones that got out.
“We might have thousands of zombies to deal with, but most of them are probably still stuck inside their houses.”
He surveyed his audience. Jack didn’t quite know what he was looking for, but it appeared to him the ex-soldier was measuring them up against this challenge.
“Urban combat is a bitch,” John continued with a knowing frown. “I wish Melissa were good to go. She would kick ass at this. Not that we can’t handle it ... I think that if we go street by street, with both vehicles, we can execute this operation safely and efficiently. Position the vehicles with a good line of sight, and leave a driver, a spotter, and a shooter.” He pointed to potential spots for the Humvees on the map. “Furthermore, each vehicle has a three-man team, for clearing houses. It will be tight in the Humvees, but I’ve jammed eight in there once, so I know it can be done.”
He smiled at some past memory.
“We move up the street, on both sides.” He traced a street with his finger to mimic the house-clearing progress.
They agreed to recruit people in the morning and practice a bit inside the school before heading out into the real world.
Another topic for the meeting was the wall.
“Look,” John said, “we know that the wall is not impenetrable. I think we need to set up an excursion to trace the wall around the entire perimeter of the community. Shore up any weak spots — or at least mark any areas of concern so that we can come back to, and bolster.”
Everybody agreed with that thought. There might be a thousand or more zombies inside their community, but there were hundreds of thousands of zombies outside the wall.
“Problem is,” Mike said, “we’ve only got the two Humvees, which I think you want to use for your house-clearing mission.” The veteran grimaced. “I think a mission like you’re suggesting would require another hardened vehicle.”
They mulled it over for a minute, before coming to the agreement that the community perimeter mission would use a Humvee. John’s house-clearing teams would take the other Humvee and the mini van, which would hold six more comfortably anyway. Mike agreed to trace the walls with BB, Abi, and one more volunteer.
They had a brief argument about which mission should take precedence. Joe was firmly in the camp of securing their community, while John wanted to discover Maddie’s marked location. Nobody lost their temper, which Joe duly noted as “possibly the first time.” That was good.
They held a vote and ultimately agreed on an alternative. The first mission would be to find out what the “X” marked. But John and his team would not leave for at least a couple of days, during which they could keep clearing any straggler zombies and maybe even head out for a few excursions through the neighborhood.
The meeting ended shortly after that. Everybody was excited about their tasks. Excited about the future.
Chapter
