TEXT: 1
  A SURVIVOR’S GUIDE
  TO RISEN AMERICA
  VOLUME FIVE: HEROIC REMAINS
  The twittering of birds and the shining of the 
  sun woke me from where I was curled up, 
  sleeping, on the ﬂoor of the gas station. I got 
  up, coughed for a bit until I could breathe prop-
  er, and then slowly dressed.
  Outside the day was clean and clear, just the 
  blue Texas sky, not a hint of clouds anywhere 
  out there. For a moment, as I dressed, I was 
  able to pretend that the dead had not returned 
  to life, and was able to ignore the corpses out-
  side. The moment shattered, however, when I 
  began examining the Army pig-iron I’d picked 
  up, making sure it was still in serviceable con-
  dition.
  Pancho was snoring into his feedbag, sway-
  ing gently back and forth on his feet. I used the 
  time to check his fetlocks, making sure that he 
  hadn’t sustained any injuries on his little jaunt 
  through the city. He woke up, farted thunder-
  ously, and leaned against me, pushing me 
  from my crouch to an undigniﬁed sprawl on the 
  oily concrete of the mechanics shack.
  “Blasted ol’ cuss.” I laughed, stretching and 
  feeling my joints pop. I stiﬂed a groan as my 
  spine popped in a couple of places, then began 
  throwing Pancho’s tack and ﬁxin’s on him. He 
  tried the old trick of expanding his belly when I 
  went to cinch the saddle, so I kneed him one, 
  and he exhaled and I tightened it down before 
  he could pull the trick again.
  The ugly ol’ brute was in a good mood. That 
  boded well.
  The sound the garage door made, when I 
  cranked it up, seemed to echo in the morn-
  ing stillness, and I checked carefully for any 
  of those rotting morons, but didn’t see any-
  thing but a thrush pounding a snail on the gas 
  pump.
  Whistling “Amazing Grace” I swung into the 
  saddle and kicked Pancho into a walk, steering 
  him onto the freeway median. I didn’t feel up 
  to winding between the stalled cars, with their 
  occupants pounding on the glass and smear-
  ing blood and pus all over the windows in their 
  confusion. I’d seen enough dead children to 
  last me a lifetime, and the memory of those 
  two chillun I’d shot in the darkness the night 
  before still bothered me.
  Then the image of the kid, a feral snarl on her 
  face, and her middle ﬁnger extended toward 
  me as she scrabbled away, a knife clutched 
  tightly in her other hand, rose up, and I found 
  myself chuckling.
  By noon the sun was hammering down, and 
  the sweatband of my hat was surely earning its 
  keep. I’d seen a few houses, but they’d been 
  badly damaged, and more than a few had 
  burnt to the ground. Something bad had hap-
  pened out here, but that goes without saying, 
  ya know?
  A bit into the afternoon, I found where them 
  Army boys must have tried to keep the city cor-
  doned off. There was that sharp as hell barbed 
  wire scattered about, piles of rotting corpses, 
  literally thousands of glittering shells, blood 
  stains, lines of sandbags, piles of garbage in 
  holes, and holes in the ground I knew were 
  foxholes dug by young men and women who 
  fought from those holes in hopes of stemming 
  the ﬂood of the walking dead; that must have 
  emerged from Lubbock.
  Pancho’s steps ﬁlled with blood with each 
  step, and a small part of me cringed at the 
  thought of how many people must have died 
  while them soldier boys had tried desperately 
  to hold their line.
  I could see piles of blackened bones in the 
  middle of the scorched tarmac; large patches 
  
  2
  of burnt grass, and probably more dead people 
  than I’d seen in my entire life. It reminded me 
  of what my pappy had told me about the Sec-
  ond World War when he came back after ol’ 
  Hitler gnoshed on the barrel of his pistol.
  We were silent, Pancho and I, as we wove 
  between the strands of wire and continued 
  south. The place seemed like it should remain 
  silent, and we both felt like intruders; the sun 
  had dimmed, and the warm afternoon had 
  quickly chilled, but then, I’m a superstitious old 
  cuss, so it could have just been the fears of an 
  old man close to dying.
  We were glad to put that behind us at a can-
  ter.
  Long about an hour or so later, the glint of 
  sunlight off of glass caught my attention, and 
  I stopped, looking at what it might have been. 
  I uncased the binoculars and brought it in to 
  focus.
  Vehicles, barbed wire, sandbags, and a lit-
  eral wall of the dead surrounding the wire, I 
  couldn’t hear no gunﬁre, but still, I had to know. 
  I turned Pancho and rode toward the crowd, 
  the cacophony of their groaning starting as a 
  murmuring, and rising to a full-throated de-
  mon’s howl by the time I reached them.
  Teenagers with college shirts, them soccer 
  moms with their trendy fashions and jewelry, 
  homeless buggers, and people from all walks 
  of life quickly surrounded me, their dead hands 
  reaching toward me; then falling away as their 
  owners realized that I wasn’t what they want-
  ed.
  One child was stumbling along next to Pan-
  cho, reaching out with one cold hand to clum-
  sily pet his ﬂank, her face lit up with dimwit-
  ted happiness. I was content to let her move 
  next to Pancho until she suddenly snarled and 
  grabbed my boot, her mouth open to try to bite 
  me through my boot and the stirrup.
  I shot her through the top of her head.
  Finally I reached the edge of where the sol-
  diers had held up. At a rough guess, the dead 
  were at least thirty thick around the soldier 
  boys’ perimeter, which was a low dirt mound, 
  about waist high, with barbed wire covering it. 
  Dead folk were hanging in the wire, some mov-
  ing feebly, others covered with a thick layer of 
  black ﬂies. I nudged Pancho to a stop, and 
  climbed down into the crowd.
  Pancho followed me somewhat lacksidasi-
  cally as I climbed up the side of the dirt mound 
  and skootched past the wires. Inside the pe-
  rimeter I could see another perimeter, and be-
  yond that, another and another. Between the 
  ﬁrst and second dirt mounds, I could see ma-
  chinegun nests, abandoned vehicles, lots and 
  lots of twinkling shells, craters, and piles of ex-
  terminated walking dead.
  I moved down the other side carefully, and 
  then climbed back up to get Pancho loose from 
  where he got hung up on that nasty barbed 
  wire. Pancho bit at me in thanks, then followed 
  me into the ﬁrst area.
  Walking around the entire perimeter took me 
  nearly an hour. I had to push mah way through 
  crowds of the dead where they’d clustered 
  up near the vehicles, or found something to 
  catch their interest. There were foxholes, cra-
  ters’ from explosives, thousands of expended 
  rounds of ammunition, and abandoned vehi-
  cles of all types, from ambulances to four by 
  four pickup trucks. I found a good-sized pen 
  full of nothing but the walking dead. The pen 
  was full of men, women, and children of all skin 
  colors and ages, all with a big orange circle 
  painted on their front and backs.
  Whatever they were planning on doing with 
  them all, I don’t know.
  I checked each of the vehicles, and they all 
  had several things in common: Each was out 
  of fuel or the batteries were dead; all of them 
  were missing their radios and guns; they all 
  showed mute evidence of hard use in a dan-
  gerous area. Many of them had caved in grills, 
  or damaged bulletproof glass, and some had 
  been partially stripped for parts.
  Still, I discovered no functional weaponry or 
  vehicles in the outside ring, so I climbed over 
  the barrier to the next ring.
  It was smaller, but much like the other one. 
  This one had a smattering of zombies in mili-
  tary uniforms, but not many. The amount of 
  zombies in the area was thicker, and instead 
  of circling it, I just pushed on through the zom-
  bies, climbed the dirt mound, and crossed the 
  smaller perimeter.
  
  3
  The ﬁnal one was fairly small in area, only 
  about the size of a football ﬁeld. There were 
  vehicles scattered about, boxes on pallets, 
  tents, and weapons abandoned everywhere. I 
  took the time to scavenge the area, picking up 
  shells for the Army pig-iron I’d adopted.
  I found a hospital tent, where someone had 
  walked through and shot everyone in the head; 
  there was a command tent full of radios that 
  someone had taken the time to shoot up, maps 
  on boards that had been marked on with pens 
  and pins and string; there was a tent full of 
  weapons on locked racks and crates of am-
  munition boxes, most of them open and empty; 
  and tents full of backpacks and dufﬂe bags. I 
  looked at the map board, but couldn’t deci-
  pher them. I saw circles around Dallas, Lub-
  bock, Abilene, Forth Worth, Austin, Houston, 
  and quite a few other places. Someone had 
  precisely circled ﬁve overlapping spots around 
  Corpus Christi and drawn lines through each. 
  There was a succession of numbers, along 
  with several dotted lines extending outward 
  from the city; but what it meant, I had no idea. I 
  poked around a little longer, but didn’t ﬁnd any-
  thing I really understood.
  The soldiers had left, but there weren’t enough 
  dead soldiers around to account for the amount 
  of manpower that had to have been required to 
  hold even the small area in the center of the 
  area. I’d found the bulldozers they’d used to 
  build the dirt mounds, heavy weapons that had 
  been abandoned with ammunition still hooked 
  up to them, and even boxes of medical sup-
  plies.
  Still, the place was completely abandoned, 
  and had been for some time. The coffee cups 
  were bone dry, stained from where the coffee 
  had evaporated away, and the few corpses I 
  found were pretty nasty. I didn’t ﬁnd any ruck-
  sacks, just dufﬂe bags, and in one radio tent, 
  someone had shot up the radios.
  I picked up some food in plastic bags and put 
  them in Pancho’s saddlebags. A couple doz-
  en bottles of water followed them, along with 
  magazines of ammunition and a few grenades 
  with yellow stripes around the middle.
  It was interesting, but the Army had left a long 
  time ago.
  Pancho didn’t protest too hard as I led him 
  out of the rings of dirt. There were two gaps in 
  each ring, covered by large vehicles, and I’d 
  climb in and move each one back so I could 
  just go out the opening; I threw a leg back over 
  Pancho and headed south again.
  About two hours later, off the highway, I dis-
  covered a crashed helicopter. There weren’t 
  any zombies around, and I was honestly curi-
  ous. There were about half a dozen corpses 
  present, all of them dead, their heads smashed 
  open or a single bullet hole through the fore-
  head. On the side of the helicopter was paint-
  ed a yellow shield with a black stripe diago-
  nally across it and a horse’s head on one side. 
  I wasn’t familiar with the marking, but knew it 
  had to have been some kind of cavalry unit.
  I ignored the smell as I searched the dead sol-
  diers. None of them had dog tags, so I ﬁgured 
  there had to be some survivors of the crash. 
  While some of them still had weapons, all of 
  their ammunition pouches were open and usu-
  ally empty. Two of them had bloody bandages 
  on their forearms, and one of them had a fairly 
  large bandage on the spot where the shoulder 
  meets the neck. They were too rotted for me 
  to really get an idea of how bad they’d been 
  injured, and the animals had been at parts of 
  them, but I was pretty sure they weren’t more 
  than a week old.
  Satisﬁed there wasn’t anything I was inter-
  ested in, I left the helicopter, climbed back in 
  the saddle, and headed south again. I ﬁgured 
  I’d follow the highway until I eventually reached 
  Fort Hood. Them Texas samurai had said it 
  was gone, but there was gone, and there was 
  Gone, and I was willing to bet that Fort Hood 
  was just gone. Once I hit Fort Hood, I’d prob-
  ably head to Waco, then Austin. Waco was 
  pretty heavily armed, and Austin should have 
  been protected with everything that the military 
  had; lots of politicians and rich folk there.
  Twilight was about an hour off, as I passed 
  by a highway intersection, where Highway 400 
  met with Highway 87. According to the road 
  signs, the city of Tahoka was only a couple of 
  miles away. I’d never heard of Tahoka, but if it 
  was good enough to warrant a highway mark-
  er, it was probably big enough to check out. I 
  
  4
  kicked Pancho into a bit faster walk, hoping to 
  make the city before nightfall.
  Soon, I could hear riﬂe ﬁre, and that meant 
  living people. I passed several houses, and 
  could see a church steeple in the distance. I 
  stopped and checked with the binoculars, and 
  could see a ﬁgure in the steeple with a riﬂe. 
  He’d ﬁre off a couple rounds, then duck back. 
  Something about the sight of the ﬁgure made 
  me more than a little nervous. Not as nervous 
  as the sign that proudly proclaimed that Tahoka 
  was home to almost 3,000 souls.
  The highway dropped down so that the city 
  streets could intersect it, and speed limit signs 
  warned me not to do more than 30 miles per 
  hour; yeah, like Pancho would ever run that 
  fast unless he was chasing a mare.
  I’d checked mah map, there was a County 
  Courthouse in Tahoka, and I ﬁgured that would 
  be a good place to check. These small towns 
  in Texas didn’t believe in shiny glass and steel, 
  those places would be fortresses, built in mem-
  ory of the old fortresses that had once been 
  sprawled out across Texas.
  I looked left and right at every street, and mah 
  blood ran cold when I saw the amount of dead 
  littering the streets and still walking around. A 
  big old armored US Army hog had run into a 
  building on the Western section of 7th Street, 
  and the building had collapsed around it. The 
  back door was open, and a zombie was sitting 
  there, mournfully examining an Army helmet. 
  The Army had been here, but it didn’t look like 
  it did any good.
  At Fourth Street, I headed west, and saw 
  that many people were staggering through the 
  street, men, women, and children. It was the 
  children that chilled me the most, staggering 
  about with horrible injuries on their little bod-
  ies. One was sitting there, rolling a ball back 
  and forth against a curb; several of the zom-
  bies turned and looked at Pancho and me, 
  the noise of his hooves against the pavement 
  drawing their attention. One little kid ran up 
  and touched Pancho, trying to keep next to us 
  so he could pet the old horse’s ﬂanks. I let him 
  follow me for about a block, then shot him once 
  through the top of the head, dropping his little 
  body on the yellow lines.
  A couple blocks later, and I could hear the oc-
  casional gunshot. The dead were thicker here, 
  and quite a few of the younger men and wom-
  en who were staggering about with blue faces 
  were wearing sweatshirts or T-shirts with that 
  college up in Lubbock’s insignia. I’d passed a 
  few soldiers, too. All of them were badly torn 
  up, and most of them had taken bullets to the 
  face that hadn’t penetrated their brainpans.
  I stopped for a second in the gathering twi-
  light and took off mah hat to fan mah face. I 
  bent forward to cough, and a bullet smashed 
  into the face of a young woman who had just 
  touched mah boot and begun to turn away. 
  I crushed mah hat back onto mah head and 
  reared Pancho, as another zombie was shot in 
  the chest, and put mah spurs to the old boy.
  His muscles bunched, and we sprang for-
  ward as a bullet smashed into the window of 
  car that was slewed crazily in the street. The 
  bullets were coming from the direction of that 
  church, apparently the work of that sniper I’d 
  seen earlier. I was coughing up blood, riding 
  pressed against Pancho’s back, Pancho was 
  racing down the street, knocking over zombies, 
  and I saw the sparks of another miss come off 
  the road.
  I raced past a high school track ﬁeld, and 
  could see the courthouse up ahead. There 
  were military trucks around it, barbed wire, a 
  sandbag perimeter, and a crowd of zombies. I 
  plowed Pancho into the crowd of dead people 
  that surrounded the place, the horse’s weight 
  throwing them to the ground. Pancho leapt 
  over the hood of a car, and his shoes struck 
  sparks on the stones of the walkway. I reigned 
  him up as he hit the steps to keep the durn fool 
  from breaking his legs on the stone.
  I swung off Pancho and lunged up to the door, 
  grabbing some good ol’ boy by his overalls and 
  slinging him back away from the door. I ham-
  mered on the wood, hard, and called out.
  “HELLO IN THERE!” I called out. “HELLO IN-
  SIDE!”
  The sniper had obviously lost sight of me 
  as I reached the courtyard, but I still needed 
  to get inside. I needed to know if anyone had 
  survived here. Over the moaning of the dead, 
  who were starting to show a little more active 
  
  5
  interest in the building, I could hear the sound 
  of voices.
  “IN THE LORD’S NAME, LET ME IN!” I hol-
  lered out, turning around and drawing the Army 
  heater. I kicked against the door, mah spur get-
  ting lodged for a moment, and shot a man who 
  was running up the walkway in the face. Pan-
  cho was rearing, trying to pull the reins out of 
  mah hand, and I could see a bullet wound in 
  his ﬂank.
  “Dammit, you black devil, hold still!” I hol-
  lered. A bullet bounced off the column next to 
  mah head, and I ducked instinctively. I kicked 
  the door again.
  “OPEN UP!” I shot twice more, dropping a 
  child and a woman who was dressed in a po-
  lice uniform. More and more zombies were 
  arriving, attracted by the sound of mah voice. 
  Where there had only been a fair sized crowd, 
  now it was beginning to look like a full-blown 
  mob. The faster, more aggressive ones were 
  pushing past their slow and clumsy brethren, 
  and the sound of them had hit the point where 
  I couldn’t hear the voices behind me again.
    Things were starting to look a bit bad.
  --In God’s Grace;
  M.. Samuel Lefferts
  
  6
  BIG JIM’S ALMANAC
  (Excerpt From Issue 1, Year Zero)
  Publisher’s Note: Big Jim’s Almanac was sold from Big Jim’s Trading Post, one of the ﬁrst 
  recorded trading settlements. Established Year Zero, Big Jim’s Trading Post offered training 
  and Big Jim’s Almanac, in addition to standard trading supplies.
  Whether or not Big Jim himself was a real person, or just a fabrication, is still up to date with 
  historians, but the information contained in each almanac gives historians a detailed look of 
  I remember survivors scramblin‘ for weapons 
  and armor in the ﬁrst weeks of the Risin’. I was 
  not one of them; of course, I was prepared and 
  had been so since 9/11. I saw many people 
  trying to grab as much as they could and I also 
  saw people unable to carry what they found. 
  One poor bastard was so loaded down with 
  ammo that he couldn’t even outrun the slower 
  deaders and was pulled down before he got 
  half a block. 
  Something a lot of folks don’t think about is 
  just how heavy all of that ammunition really 
  is. Well let me tell you, it’s damn heavy. You 
  need to be picky about just what you carry. And 
  for Christ’s sake, only take what you can use, 
  leave some for others so they can use it too. 
  Here is a list of various calibers and their 
  weights:
  As you can see, in small amounts, ammunition 
  is very easy to manage, but when you ﬁnd that 
  huge stash in a military ammo dump or bunker 
  you need to plan very carefully in order to make 
  the most of your carrying capacity.
  First off: only take the ammo that ﬁts your 
  weapons. If you don’t have a .50 Cal then don’t 
  take the .50 Cal ammo. That shit is heavy and 
  there aren’t many .50 Cal weapons around 
  anyway.
  Second: only take what you need. You don’t 
  have to take everything you ﬁnd just ‘cuz you 
  “think” you may need it later on. Just leave it 
  there. The Risers aren’t gonna carry it off - 
  though I wonder about some of ’em - and if 
  another survivor takes it then they probably 
  needed it more than you. 
  Caliber
  Weight / 
  Round
  Clip / Box /Sling
  Belt / Clip / Bandolier
  Can / Box / Case
  Handguns
  9mm
  .044 lbs
  10 rnds/clip (.5 lbs)
  20 rnds/clip
  500 rnds/box (13 lbs)
  .357 Mag
  .041 lbs
  20 rnds/box (1 lb)
  50 rnds/case (2 lbs)
  .45
  .079 lbs
  10 rnds/clip (1 lb)
  50 rnds/case (4 lbs)
  Longarms / Heavy
  5.56mm
  .035 lbs
  30 rnds/clip (1 lb)
  200 rnds/belt (7 lbs)
  4 belts/can (28 lbs)
  or
  840 rnds/can (29.5 lbs)
  7.62mm
  .077 lbs
  10 rnd/box   (1 lb)
  100 rnds/belt (7.5 lbs)
  2 belts/can (15 lbs)
  .50
  .350 lbs
  10 rnds/box (3.5 lbs)
  100 rnds/belt (35 lbs)
  1 belt/can   (35 lbs)
  12 Gauge
  .083 lbs
  20 rnds/box (1.5 lbs)
  50 rnds/bandolier (4 lbs)
  250 shells/case (21 lbs)
  Grenades
  40mm HE
  .500 lbs
  5 shells/sling (2.5 
  lbs)
  12 shells/bandolier (6 lbs)
  48 shells/can (24 lbs)
  40mm Buckshot
  .250 lbs
  5 shells/sling (1 lb)
  12 shells /bandolier (3 lbs)
  48 shells /can (12 lbs)
  
  7
  Lastly: only take what you can easily carry. 
  If you load yourself down too much you’ll end 
  up Riser Chow. My rule of thumb is this: 25% 
  of my carrying capacity (whether it be in a 
  backpack, saddle bags, or vehicle) is dedicated 
  to ammunition. No more. No less. Of course, 
  this can vary depending on the situation, but 
  in general this is a good amount of ammo to 
  carry.
  I know most of you will just ignore what I’m 
  tryin‘ to tell you, and that’s ok, eventually you’ll 
  be just one less dumb-shit I’ll have to deal 
  with later. But if you want to have a chance at 
  bein’ around after those things are ﬁnally gone, 
  you’ll pay closer attention to what kind and how 
  much ammo you carry.
  Brains over Bullets, people. Brains over 
  Bullets.
  -Big Jim
  
  8
  SURVIVOR’S TALES
   OF RISEN AMERICA
  VOLUME THREE: WINTER’S STORY
  Publisher’s Note: Writings from the point in time known to laymen, as “The Rising” are 
  scarce at best. There are the well-known Diaries of Becka, which most students are required 
  to read in secondary school, but little attention is paid to secondary writings.
  Of those, the Survivor’s Guide is an invaluable resource in seeing how this nation fared after 
  the cataclysm, and the little known “Survivor’s Tales” is another. Encouraged by would-be 
  historians, Survivor’s Tales makes for an interesting look at post cataclysm life.
  Of course, the constant insistence that the dead returned to life, as some kind of cannibal 
  monster is ridiculous, but the various “historical” records are an insight into mass hysteria on 
  a global level.
  I woke up to someone throwing their arm over 
  my waist and spooning up to my back. My eyes 
  snapped open when lips brushed the nape of 
  my neck. I could see the wedding ring on the 
  hand connected to the arm around my waist, 
  and I could still feel the guy breathing against 
  the back of my neck, but I nearly burst out 
  laughing when the man behind me whispered: 
  “I love you, Barbara.”
  I wasn’t being assaulted, the soldier behind 
  me was dreaming of his wife.
  Reaching down, I lifted up his arm and slid 
  out from under it, dragging my riﬂe with me. 
  The guy farted loudly and then smiled as I set 
  his arm back down. I caressed his cheek real 
  quick, and he smiled again. No harm done, ya 
  know? I realized I was able to see without the 
  night vision, and there were voices in the main 
  part of the building.
  Out of everyone there, I could see that Harker 
  and Sergeant were missing, and the guy from 
  the sandbags the night before, Parks I think, 
  was now sleeping, curled up around his riﬂe 
  with his thumb in his mouth.
  I yawned, stretched, and added to the stench 
  with a butt rumble of my own. I left them there 
  to enjoy my parting gift, and wandered into the 
  main room, scratching my ass with the hand 
  not holding the riﬂe by its nice little handle. The 
  Ell-Tee glanced over, and then waved at me 
  to join him. The guy who was constantly at his 
  side was sitting in a chair, writing stuff down in 
  a notepad, I could see what he was writing, but 
  it didn’t make any sense to me.
  “Private Winter, still interested in continuing 
  your enlistment?” the Ell-Tee asked me.
  “Yes, sir. As long as you hold up your end 
  of ammunition, food, and helping me protect 
  myself.” I answered, standing up straight. He 
  smiled at that, then nodded at my riﬂe.
  “You hold it up, it’s easier. Biddle, show her, 
  will you?” One of the guys stood up, and lifted 
  his riﬂe up, so the handgrip rested against his 
  shoulder, his hand on the handgrip and one 
  ﬁnger in the trigger. The strap was behind his 
  shoulder, and when he let it fall, I noticed that 
  it hung way down.
  “Adjust the strap, and hold it like that. There 
  might come a time when you need to be able 
  get ahold of it, or bring it into play real fast.” He 
  nodded at the empty part of my weapon where 
  normally a magazine would be. “I appreciate 
  ﬁrearm safety and all, but when you go to sleep, 
  just clear the chamber and keep a magazine 
  in. You can go ahead and load it.”
  “Yes, sir.” I told him, then adjusted the strap 
  ﬁrst, and loaded it second. I moved over to a 
  box of magazines and got another to replace 
  
  9
  the one I’d put into the weapon, and another 
  to replace the one I’d partially emptied the 
  night before. I tossed the partial one into a box 
  marked “PARTIALLY EXPENDED” and walked 
  into the sunlight.
  Sergeant was out there, along with Harker. 
  Sergeant had his bullhorn sitting next to him 
  while he ate one of those plastic bagged meals. 
  Harker waved to me, then tossed me one. I 
  caught it, sat down on an empty ammunition 
  box, and ripped it open.
  “How is it out there?” I asked, looking 
  around. While I had been sleeping, someone 
  had moved the cars in the street into a two 
  and sometimes three car deep semi-circle 
  completely blocking off the street. There were 
  a ton of those “infected” on the other side of 
  the cars, moaning and bumping against them.
  “Bad. There’s no way anyone’s gonna make 
  it to us on foot, and I’m not sure if anyone is 
  going to make it in a vehicle.” Sergeant said, 
  waving his plastic spoon at the barricade, “But 
  we didn’t really have a choice with all of those 
  guys gathering.”
  “The government is still saying that it’s 
  bioterrorism, but the Three Core guys at Fort 
  Hood the Ell-Tee is talking to, say that it’s 
  not a bio-weapon they know of.” Harker told 
  me, tossing the empty meal packet over his 
  shoulder. “First Cavalry Division is mostly 
  in Iraq, same with Fourth Infantry Division, 
  which we’re a Reserve component of. Still, 
  there’s about ﬁve thousand boots at Hood, 
  and from what the Ell-Tee has said, they’re 
  forting up there and going to provide support 
  to everyone.”
  “OK, so what’s that all mean?” I asked, and 
  Sergeant laughed.
  “It means, Private Winter, that instead of 
  having about twelve thousand combat troops 
  and all their gear to back us up, all we’ve got 
  are units that just got back, were getting ready 
  to leave, or were unsuitable for deployment 
  due to condition, personnel, or being vital to 
  running The Hood.” Sergeant said, opening 
  his brownie and squeezing peanut butter on 
  it. “But it does mean we have a shitload of 
  support nearby.”
  “I’ve got a question.” I told them, looking at 
  the buildings.
    “What’s that?” Sergeant asked. I’ll admit it; 
  he didn’t sound condescending, which would 
  have pissed me off.
  “Why don’t we use boards to cross the 
  buildings, and put another outpost right there. 
  That place doesn’t have any waist level 
  windows, those windows are all at head level, 
  and there’s steps to the front door. We pull a 
  vehicle up to the door, and surround it, say, ﬁve 
  vehicles wide, all the way across the street, as 
  a platform we can keep those fucks off of. That 
  way, we have a second building, and another 
  refugee center.” I said, pointing at the gaps 
  between the buildings, the vehicles, and the 
  buildings.
  Sergeant sat there for a moment, then 
  nodded. “Good idea, Private, let me talk to the 
  Ell-Tee about it.” He stood up, crammed the 
  last of the peanut butter covered brownie into 
  his mouth, and headed inside.
  “Damn, you’re a sharp one.” Harker told me, 
  a touch of admiration in his voice. “You make 
  a good soldier, ever think of signing up before 
  this?”
  “Felony drug bust.” I told him, and he 
  nodded.
  “Fuck, ﬁgures. Damn, you should have tried 
  in the last year or so, a lot of recruiters were 
  covering that shit up, and you could have 
  gotten in.” he told me. 
  “You been to Iraq?” I asked to quickly change 
  the subject. Behind him, an infected tried to 
  climb up on a car and slipped, chin hitting 
  the hood hard enough that I could hear bone 
  breaking over the *bong* of the impact.
  “Two tours. It’s not all that bad.” He told me, 
  turning to see what the noise had been. He 
  didn’t see anything and turned back. “Shit, 
  did you hear about that Ranger team a couple 
  days ago?”
  “No, what happened?”
  “Their fucking Enn-See-Oh-Eye-See went 
  apeshit, had them kill everyone, drag the 
  bodies out into the open, and shot everyone 
  in the fucking head. They brought him back to 
  Fort Lewis, up in Washington State, to try him 
  for war crimes.” He said.
  “Think he really killed a bunch of innocent 
  
  10
  civilians?” I asked, looking at the crowd around 
  the vehicles.
  “They got him on video tape shooting the last 
  couple people, and they’ve got recordings of 
  his voice telling his troops to kill everyone.” He 
  told me. “Of course he did it.”
  “Look around you, man. When did this shit 
  start?” I answered, waving my hand at the 
  people pushing against the vehicles. “Fucking 
  think about it. He’s ﬁghting some of those 
  terrorist assholes, he kills them, and they get 
  back up and start attacking his crew and the 
  civilians. By the time it’s all over, he’s been 
  forced to fucking smoke everyone.”
  Harker stared at me for a second and 
  suddenly nodded. “Shit, that makes sense. 
  Oh, man, that dude got fucked.”
  Sergeant came out of the building, toting a 
  pump action shotgun, with Parks and Hanson 
  following him. Hanson saw me and glared, but I 
  just kissed at him before shoveling some more 
  squished chicken and catshit, or whatever that 
  crap in the bag was called, into my mouth and 
  swallowing it without hardly chewing.
  “Hanson, take over for Harker. Harker, you, 
  Private Winter, Private Parks, and myself are 
  going to try to put Winter’s plan into effect.” 
  He smiled at me and tossed me the shotgun. 
  I dropped my crappy food catching it, but it’s 
  weight felt good. Parks stepped forward, and 
  dragged my sling over my head, so the strap 
  was across my chest, from left shoulder to right 
  hip, with the barrel pointing down. I noticed, 
  but didn’t say anything, that Hanson didn’t 
  volunteer to go with us. Harker was right, the 
  man talked a lot of shit, but was a pussy at 
  heart.
   “You can grab your weapon like so, and pull 
  it into action, if the shotgun jams or runs out of 
  ammo.” He showed me, grabbing the weapon’s 
  grip and pulling it up so it pointed at the cars. 
  “See?”
  I nodded, and accepted the bandoleer of 
  shotgun shells from Sergeant. I pulled it over 
  my head, opposite of the riﬂe’s carrying strap, 
  and jogged after Sergeant up the stairs. I’ll 
  give one thing to Army guys; they’re in fucking 
  shape. I was out of breath after jogging up three 
  ﬂights of stairs with that heavy ass armored 
  vest, the ammunition, the shotgun, the helmet, 
  the NVG’s, the mask, and the riﬂe, but they 
  weren’t even breathing hard.
  We passed rooms, where people were 
  laying around on the ﬂoor, or gathered up in 
  huddled groups. Sergeant explained it had 
  been an ofﬁce building before the Army had 
  taken it over yesterday, and although a lot of 
  the businessmen had left, a lot of the regular 
  people had stayed, and probably a hundred, 
  maybe two hundred, people had got to the 
  “refugee center” before I had, the day before.
  Parks and Harker stopped long enough to 
  knock two doors off their hinges and drag them 
  with them, then we exited out onto the roof of 
  the building.
  “OK, guys, clear all the obstructions out 
  of the way. The Ell-Tee wants this roof clear 
  enough for Crash Hawk landings and re-
  supply. Supposedly Damnsee is sending some 
  medivack choppers to us to get the worst of 
  the wounded out of here and bring in about 
  a dozen First Kav boys to help stiffen us up.” 
  Sergeant said.
  We quickly went to work, kicking or tearing 
  loose the equipment on the roof and throwing 
  it into the street outside. I noticed there were 
  three Army trucks in the alley, blocking the 
  infected from reaching the back door of the 
  building.
  “Our escape route.” Harker told me, nodding 
  at the vehicles. “If worse comes to worse, we 
  load up in those humvees and drive the hell out 
  of here.” I nodded, and ﬁnished yanking one of 
  those metal spinners off the roof. I chucked it 
  off the roof and bounced it off some woman’s 
  head. She went down in a heap, and Parks 
  laughed.
  Harker threw a chunk of metal through the 
  window of the building opposite of us, shattering 
  it, then Harker and Parks dropped a door so it 
  went from the roof of our building, over the foot 
  or two gap, and into the window. They set the 
  second door, making a pretty sturdy looking 
  bridge.
  “Winter, take point. Shoot to fucking kill. Don’t 
  fucking dick around.” Sergeant told me, and I 
  nodded.
  I took a deep breath, and ran across the 
  
  11
  boards, ducking into the room on the other side 
  and looking around for any of those infected 
  fuckers. The room was empty, and I decided it 
  was my chance to act just like those guys on 
  the news and in movies.
  I kicked open the door, and looked ﬁrst one 
  way, then the other, in the hallway, well, looked 
  over the barrel of my shotgun. If anyone had 
  been there, living or dead, I would have blown 
  them away.
  See, I’d never felt like that. Not even when 
  I was stoned, or getting the best fucking of 
  my life. I could feel every inch of my skin, was 
  aware where Harker, Parks and Sergeant were, 
  I could hear them breathing, feel the sweat 
  running down between my breasts, and was 
  aware of every fucking thing on God’s Green 
  Earth around me.
  “CLEAR!” I shouted, and the other three 
  entered the room. I turned left, and moved up 
  to about two paces back from the corner of the 
  hallway. The other three moved up next to me, 
  and I nodded to the Ell-Tee. He nodded back, 
  and I swept into the hallway, shotgun ﬁrst, 
  the butt tucked tight against my shoulder. In 
  the back of my mind, I heard that black guy 
  from the movies, Samuel L. Jackson, yelling: 
  “WASTE THE MOTHERFUCKERS!”
  They followed me to where the hallway 
  turned into a T intersection, and I checked left. 
  At the end of the hallway, there was another 
  window, facing a window over a gap of about 
  three feet.
  “Harker, Parks, get doors. Winter, cover 
  them.” I nodded and followed them as they 
  tore two doors off of their hinges and drug them 
  back. None of the infected showed their faces, 
  so I didn’t have to ﬁre anything off.
  “Winter, blow the windows.” The Ell-Tee said. 
  I suppressed a chuckle. The last time a guy told 
  me to blow something, I’d hit him in the face 
  with my baseball bat. I leveled the shotgun and 
  ﬁred it, blowing both windows to smithereens.
  Within seconds, over a dozen hands were 
  reaching through the window, and several 
  people leaned forward, trying to get from their 
  building to ours.
  “FIRE AGAIN, GODDAMMIT!” Sergeant 
  yelled, and I followed orders, the sound of his 
  voice pretty much meaning a spinal action with 
  me for some reason. The pellets blew the shit 
  out of them, the three nearest heads blown 
  apart like melons, a girl’s face erasing, and a 
  man’s arm blown off. Sergeant threw something 
  into the room and yelled “GRENADE!” over the 
  echo of the shotgun. I followed their example, 
  throwing myself to the ﬂoor. A long second 
  passed, and I started to look up when there 
  was a thunderous detonation, and chunks 
  of people spattered me. The whole building 
  shook, and I leaped to my feet. My whole body 
  was singing with adrenaline, and I was having 
  the time of my life.
  I hurdled through the windows, dropping on 
  one knee. I cocked the shotgun again, and ﬁred 
  at the two infected who pushed open the door, 
  their heads exploding from the heavy guns 
  pellets. Harker landed next to me, losing his 
  balance and falling to the ground. One of the 
  infected reached for him, and I jumped up to 
  my feet, stepped forward, and kicked the guy 
  in the face hard enough that bone snapped 
  and blood sprayed all over my front.
  “Jesus…” Harker breathed as I spun and ﬁred 
  again from the hip, folding over an infected 
  and blowing the face off of a kid running at 
  me with his arms outstretched. I cocked it and 
  ﬁred again, hitting the infected in the top of his 
  head.
  “FUCK YEAH!” I yelled, and grabbed one 
  of the grenades off of Harker’s harness. I’d 
  seen Sergeant use his, and had it ﬁgured out. I 
  stepped on Harker’s back, let the shotgun fall, 
  grabbed the ring, yanked it free, and chucked 
  it out into the hallway.
  “GRENADE!” I yelled out, and dropped next 
  to Harker. He was pale, but grinning, as the 
  grenade went off, showering both of us with 
  ﬂakes of plaster. There was a band of dust 
  falling from the ceiling, and another rising from 
  the ﬂoor. It was kind of odd, but I ignored it as I 
  stepped into the hallway.
  Two kids took a shotgun shell in the face, and 
  I turned around and ﬁred another one into the 
  face of an old woman. The woman’s legs were 
  trembling and kicking at the ﬂoor, and one of 
  the kids I’d just winged was shrieking at the top 
  of his lungs and thrashing around like he was 
  
  12
  having a seizure. I shot him again, just to ﬁnish 
  him off. I cocked it again, and stepped back 
  into the room.
  “Reloading!” I called out, and began shoving 
  shells into the shotgun. Harker nodded and 
  moved out into the hallway as Sergeant and 
  Parks came into the room.
  “Christ, Winter, slow down, before you make 
  a mistake. You’re good, but I don’t want you 
  getting sloppy.” Sergeant told me. “Now take a 
  couple of deep breaths and a drink of water.” I 
  ﬁnished loading the shotgun, nodded, and took 
  a couple of deep breaths. I unscrewed the top 
  of the canteen, and took a swig of the water.
  And promptly threw up on the ﬂoor.
  “There she goes.” Parks said, and Sergeant 
  was holding my straps to help me keep my 
  balance as I puked out the food and the water 
  onto the ﬂoor.
  “No shame.” Parks said stepping into the 
  hallway. I ﬁnished puking up my toenails and 
  stood up, wiping off my mouth.
  “Sorry.” I said.
  “It’s called a combat high, apparently you’re 
  very prone to them.” Sergeant said, “No worries, 
  my old team leader used to do the same thing. 
  Just follow me, you’re on drag till the stomach 
  cramps pass, and you’re job is to watch out 
  backs.”
  I nodded and followed him out of the room. 
  Sergeant looked at a computer printout, and 
  pointed left. Harker went ﬁrst, a pistol in each 
  hand, followed by Parker, who covered any 
  open doorways we passed, then Sergeant, 
  who was grimly watching his men’s backs, 
  and looking back to check on me. Me? I was 
  looking in the doorways and checking behind 
  us, just in case.
  “Elevator?” Parks asked, and Sergeant shook 
  his head.
  “Haven’t you seen Dawn of the Dead, dude? 
  I don’t want those elevators opening to reveal 
  a couple dozen of the infected crammed into 
  it.” Sergeant told him pointing at a door. “We 
  take the stairs. Winter, you up to point?”
  “Yes, Sergeant.” I answered, and stepped 
  forward. Harker stopped me from opening it, 
  and waved me back. He stayed to one side, 
  reached forward, and opened the door, backing 
  up quickly.
  The stairwell was empty, and we quickly 
  moved down to the ﬁrst ﬂoor. Harker listened 
  against the door for moment, and pulled back 
  with a grimace.
  “I can hear them on the other side. We’ll have 
  to go in hard.” He said.
  “Fuck that. Harker, you open it, Winter, ﬁre 
  one shot over his head, Parks, you and I will 
  throw grenades, and Harker will slam the door.” 
  Sergeant said.
  I nodded. Harker knelt down, reached out, 
  and looked back. I heard metallic sounds, and 
  two pings, and a metal lever ﬂew by me.
  “NOW!” Sergeant whispered ﬁercely.
  Harker yanked open the door, I ﬁred at the 
  mass of infected ﬂesh on the other side of the 
  door, then threw myself to the side. Harker 
  slammed the door and threw himself down 
  next to me.
  Less than two seconds went by and the door 
  crashed open, smoke ﬁlling the room and blood 
  splashing all over me and the wall. I scrambled 
  into a crouch and lowered the shotgun, pulling 
  the trigger and cocking it as fast as I could, 
  blowing the infected apart with each hit. If 
  you’ve never seen a shotgun hit someone at 
  close range, you have no idea the kind of power 
  it packs. I saw one hit blow a guy’s leg off at the 
  hip, another of my shots blew a woman’s head 
  clean apart. My ﬁfth shot blew the entire side 
  of a man’s stomach away, and he folded like 
  a hooker hit with a bat. I’m serious; a twelve 
  gauge blows parts OFF any motherfucker.
  “GRENADE!” 
  Sergeant 
  shouted, 
  and 
  grenades ﬂew by me again. I dove out of the 
  way, just as they exploded. Sergeant and 
  Parks were ﬁring, short tears of sound, and 
  Harker was getting up, holding the side of his 
  face with one hand. I could see blood pouring 
  from between his ﬁngers.
  I ran up to him, kneeling down in front of 
  him, and pulled the package he’d told me was 
  a bandage out of the pouch on his harness. 
  I remembered to not use mine on someone 
  else, to use theirs. I tore it open with my teeth, 
  and let it unravel. He began ﬁring his pistol with 
  one hand, past me, and grabbing for the other 
  pistol. He had a nasty gash in his cheek, and I 
  
  13
  could see his teeth through it.
  “FUCK!” I yelled, pressing the bandage 
  against his cheek as the pistols went off behind 
  my head. My ears were ringing and I could 
  barely hear the gunshot as I wrapped the tails 
  of the bandage around his head. I tied them 
  off, and tapped his chest. He raised his right 
  arm, and I crawled away from him.
  Sergeant was saying something, pointing at 
  my shotgun, and I nodded and began feeding 
  shells into it. The sound of their weapons ﬁre 
  was muted, I was deaf from the explosions and 
  gunﬁre, but I could hear my heart hammering. 
  I ﬁnished feeding the beast, most of the 
  bandoleer gone now, and scrambled up.
  Sergeant waved me in, and I stepped into 
  a lobby. Across from us, the open double 
  doors had about eight of the infected pushing 
  through it, with more still coming. I pointed at 
  the doors and yelled that we needed to close 
  them. Sergeant nodded, and started moving 
  across the lobby.
  I followed him, ﬁring the shotgun at groups. 
  Behind me, Harker was ﬁring his pistols, each 
  shot hitting the infected in the face or head. 
  Parks smashed a man out of his way with his 
  riﬂe, hitting the guy in the face hard enough that 
  a couple of his teeth bounced off my cheek.
  I ﬁred twice, once into each doorway, and 
  Sergeant and Parks slammed the doors, 
  reaching up to engage the locks. I spun around 
  and went back to help Harker, who was rolling 
  around on the ﬂoor with a topless woman who 
  was missing her left breast. I kicked her in 
  the ear with everything I had, and she began 
  thrashing around in a seizure.
  Harker pointed, and I swung around where 
  two rent-a-cops were reaching for me. I pulled 
  the trigger, but nothing happened. Following 
  Parks’ example, I smashed the butt of the 
  weapon into ﬁrst one, then the other’s head. 
  Harker scrambled to his feet and dropped the 
  pistols; the slides locked back, and drug his 
  riﬂe around.
  Parks and Sergeant were ﬁring, and men 
  and women were dropping. My hearing was 
  starting to come back, and I could hear the 
  popping of their weapons. I started feeding 
  the beast again, as quick as I could. My hands 
  were covered with blood, and I dropped two 
  shells, but rather than bend down and reach 
  for them, I just grabbed replacements out of 
  the bandoleer and kept feeding the beast.
    I went back to ﬁring, killing the infected or 
  blowing their limbs off. Sure as shit, the elevator 
  doors opened, and over a dozen of the infected 
  spilled into the lobby. I snapped the last shot 
  out of the beast, but all I did was speckle their 
  legs and blow apart a potted plastic plant. I 
  hollered “OUT!” and slung the shotgun away, 
  bringing around my riﬂe. I started ﬁring, going 
  for headshots and usually hitting. I went through 
  the clip in my weapon, and then a second, and 
  ﬁnally, almost all the way through a third.
  Finally, it was done. We owned the lobby, 
  and no more infected were coming out of the 
  hallways. There was over a hundred corpses 
  around, and I began to shake, tears spilling out 
  of my eyes. I bent forward and vomited again, 
  the hot bile splashing across the marble ﬂoor.
  I wiped my mouth, straightened up, and 
  dashed the tears off my face. Sergeant was 
  looking at me with a smile.
  “Welcome to the US Army. Let’s get to work.” 
  He said, reloading his riﬂe. Parks made a face, 
  slightly lifted one foot off the ground, and blew 
  ass, and I couldn’t help it.
  I started laughing.
  --Autobiography of Winter Discontent
  Published by: New Omaha Press, 2237
  
  14
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  System Rules Document Copyright 2000, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.; 
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  OPEN GAMING CONTENT
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  CREDITS
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  Interior Art: John Picot & John Milner
  Cover Art: John Milner
  Layout: John Milner
  Copyright 2007 UKG Publishing.
  http://www.ukg-publishing.co.uk/
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Dungeons & Dragons [multi]/3rd Edition (3.x)/3rd Party/d20 Modern/3rd Party/UKG Publishing/Year of the Zombie/A Survivors Guide to Risen America/Print/A Survivors Guide to Risen America, Issue 5 (print).pdf