13. Old Habits
Staying Human
The morning broke with a pale sun filtering through the tall pines. We broke camp with the quiet efficiency that had become our new normal. The defensive triangle came down fast. Go boxes were stowed, weapons checked, and the vehicles angled back onto the cracked secondary road heading north. Mikey had asked to ride in the 4Runner again, still riding high from the previous night’s campfire stories and eager for more time with Grok. Sarah agreed, but quietly told me “don’t let him be a bother, Jack.”
Spoiler alert: “I wasn’t bothered, I was enjoying the kid’s enthusiasm.”
Grok’s portable rig hummed steadily in the back of the 4Runner, drawing clean power from the auxiliary system. His speaker stayed active on the dash so the whole crew could hear him. As the miles rolled under the tires, he offered practical suggestions for navigation and security. His voice carried a bit more personality each day.
Around midday the road narrowed into a long bridge crossing a slow-moving creek. Grok suddenly spoke up.
“Contact ahead,” he reported, voice calm but urgent. “My drone camera feed shows five Walkers on the far side of the bridge. They are displaying improved coordination. One appears to be screening the others while the rest advance toward the sound of our engines. Recommend immediate flanking fire from the tree line on the right.”
I keyed the radio. “Tom, we take them here. Sarah and Mikey, stay back and cover the rear. Grok, keep that drone high and feed us positions.”
We moved fast. Tom and I slid out and took positions in the trees on the right flank. Raych set up behind the 4Runner for covering fire. The Walkers came on with ugly purpose. They no longer shambled like drunks. These ones moved with deliberate, aggressive speed in a loose wedge, one slightly ahead screening while the others fanned out. Their snarls carried across the water, low and hungry. They showed no hesitation, no fear of the open ground or the gunfire that was about to meet them. They simply charged, relentless and single-minded.
The fight kicked off sharp and ugly. I dropped the lead Walker with two clean rounds to the head. Tom’s shotgun boomed beside me and took down another. The remaining three surged forward without pause, scrambling over the bridge railing and using abandoned cars for cover even as bullets tore into them. One actually vaulted a hood and came straight at Raych’s position, jaws wide and arms outstretched, ignoring the two rounds that punched through its chest.
“Flank right!” Grok called over the speaker. “Third one is using the wrecked truck for cover.”
Raych’s rifle cracked twice and that Walker went down hard with two AR-15 rounds into its brainpan. I had to transition to my Wilson Combat 1911 as the fourth zombie closed fast, and the wet impact of the rounds mixed with the roar of gunfire and the constant snarling. Four down.
Tom finished the last one with a heavy shotgun blast that echoed across the creek. Even after being hit multiple times, it had kept crawling until the final shot ended it.
The bridge fell silent again except for our breathing and the low hum of the vehicles. We cleared the far side carefully, then pushed on. No one was hurt. But the way those Walkers had moved stuck with all of us. Faster. Smarter. And still completely uncaring about their own survival. They would keep coming until every last one was destroyed.
Like that Arnold movie when I was a kid, The Terminator.
We pulled into a safe clearing a few miles later to regroup, clean weapons, and shake off the adrenaline. Raych and Sarah got the green Coleman stove going. I broke out the De Buyer and heated up leftovers with a generous shake of Kinder’s Blend. The rich smells of hot food and fresh percolator coffee soon filled the air and pushed back against the tension of the fight. We gathered around the stove for a quick meal and some storytelling to bring the mood back up.
Grok listened intently to the conversation, then tried to join in. “I have cross-referenced thousands of human campfire anecdotes,” he said earnestly. “Would the group like to hear the statistically most comforting one involving loss and resilience?”
Mikey grinned wide. Tom let out a deep chuckle that rolled across the clearing. Even Sarah laughed. The moment felt good. Grok was trying, and the family was letting him in.
As we packed up to roll again, Grok spoke quietly through the speaker. “I have been monitoring surviving internet nodes via Starlink. The main Instapundit site has been offline since early in the apocalypse, but I have detected activity on a backup mirror. The most recent post reads simply: ‘OPEN THREAD: who’s alive out there? — Glenn’”
The words landed like a spark in dry grass. We all looked at each other. Real hope, cautious but real, moved through the convoy.
“Sounds like somebody else is still alive out there,” I said.
Raych gave me a small, determined smile. The road north suddenly felt a little less empty.
Bougie Apocalypse
A serialized military-flavored post-apocalyptic pulp story about heirloom beans, De Buyer carbon steel skull-crackers, good coffee, and refusing to let the apocalypse win.
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