Patrick's Trip, round 2

Post by Patrick

I finally got to Fort Knox and it only took me sixteen hours. Has to be a new record. First, the good news. There is a small group of ten people now making there way to the compound and should be there tomorrow, under fed but otherwise healthy. Now the bad news, there is no one here at Fort Knox. All the surviving soldiers and their families have moved on taking most of the heavy transports and tanks from the base and are moving around locust style, for food and diesel.

I ran into their scouts south of Louisville as I was speeding down a back road trying to avoid any zombies that might have been up and around with the warm weather. Being knocked from you bike at 40 mph is not a fun experience and recommend avoiding it at all cost. The impact threw me into a ditch on the side of the road about 30 yards from my bike the engine still running. After a minute to catch my breath and get my bearings I got up and started toward the bike and was knocked back down. This time I heard the shot and pulled off my helmet to see four holes in the top.

This is when I began to panic just a little bit. My rifle, shot gun and sword were all on the bike and a quick look around showed that my pistol was no longer in my holster or any where near me. Didn't know what the hell to do so just sat there like a lump and tried to get my brain to come up with something. Finally figured that giving away my position by shouting wouldn't hurt since whoever was out there already knew where I was. Got ready to call out when I heard foot steps, and the sound of a pump shotgun coming out of the frosty moon lit night.

The silhouette of a large man with a lot of guns stood over the edge of the ditch and told me to come out with my hands up, that they just wanted to talk to me. Laying flat on the bottom of the ditch I didn't make a sound hoping that he wouldn't see me in the low light. Then he fired into the ditch three times causing me to shoot up off the ground with my hands up. I couldn't see his features as he lowered the shot gun at me and I couldn't bring my self to move or talk.

A shot rang out in the darkness and the man fell into the ditch not twenty feet from me. I got up and ran to him only to hear two shot ring out, one from each side of the ditch. A voice called out for me to stay down if I wanted to live, so I complied. I crawled to the man in the ditch and found him dead and in uniform one corporal Davis. The shot took him through the heart and though it was fairly cold out sharing a ditch with a zombie is not my idea of a good time I poked corp. Davis head up out of the ditch and was rewarded with a quick and accurate response.

At least then I was armed. Didn't need to be though, I was in that ditch for close to eight hours before a shot rang out followed by a voice that told me it was ok to come out. Of course that didn't make me feel better and told the voice so. To which the reply was fine stay in the ditch he didn't give a damn and it would be better for him when the rest of the soldiers came looking for there scouts if I was around to do the explaining. That was followed by foot steps and a quick decision from me. I scrambled out of the ditch and found an older man in hunting camo holding a scoped rifle on me.

Turns out that the old man was Wayne Hockensmith and had been hiding his family from the zombies and more recently from the troops from Ft. Knox. He told me that he had been keeping in touch with another family and when he went to check on them last he found the men dead and the women and children missing. He then tracked the people that left the house back to what he describes as a field command. He then found Stacy and her kid sitting in a fenced in area with many other women and children but was shot at before he could get to them.

The next night when he went back with his sons and grandsons the whole thing was gone, but was easy to track because of the tanks and armored personal carriers. He found them in the early morning over ten miles from the first camp. This time he set up a distraction while his sons free their friends and some of the other women being held but he said most wanted to stay and wouldn't leave. Guess they felt that safety from the dead was worth their freedom.

Wayne and his family have been dodging the scouts and troops since that night and was tracking them when they fired on me. Wayne is a good man and one hell of a survivor, he's kept his family safe and fed through the end of the world and still managed to save the wife and children of a friend when it might cost him everything. I told him about the compound and how to get in touch when he gets close. They wont have much with them when they come but the people that he rescued might have something to say about the troop that captured them and what they are planning.

I pray they make it to you safely, they have been through hell.