The following day, Zane and I sat by the radio that we had set up outside, and I began to speak as Zane handled the military grade broadcasting equipment.
'Someone had better hear this. This was a pain to set up.'
"To anyone who might be listening, I am Travis Scott. My group has a bunker which contains supplies and weapons to survive this apocalypse indefinitely. We are looking for further manpower so we can expand ourselves further and create a meaningful civilization in the wake of this sudden chaos.
The coordinates of our base are Lat: xx.xx and Lon: xx.xx… I repeat…"
We broadcasted the same message over and over for the next hour with only a minute of radio silence in-between to allow for responses.
The first response we received was about ten minutes in after several broadcasts: "Hello Travis, my name is Jason Kean. I have a group of four others. We were working to construct a bunker and were pouring concrete when everything happened. After routing out a course on my phone, we will arrive at your location in five hours."
I quickly responded that I had heard him and that we would be expecting his group. After that, we continued our broadcast.
Three more broadcasts passed and my throat was getting dry. I drank a bottle of water and continued. Five minutes later, we received another response.
"Travis, we have heard your broadcast and we are heading towards you. We are a family of five."
Again, I responded to him that I had heard his message and then we continued to broadcast.
Ten minutes later, we received our final response. "Hello Travis, my name is Julian Bane. I am leading a group of five from my church. We should arrive there later today. Expect us."
We made two more broadcasts with no responses. After that, we packed the radio equipment and brought it back down into the bunker.
Something the first man said resonated with me.
"Phones still have service. We have no wifi and our main power has been cut. If we set up our modem and router to our generator power lines, we could contact others around the world to see how many survivors there are."
I went to Zane and told him that. He nodded. "I was thinking the same thing honestly, we just haven't had enough time to do it. Let's do that now. After all, the visitors will probably want Wi-Fi."
We both laughed. We both looked down on technology that relied upon others to work. We liked military equipment.
It took us another hour to route everything nicely for a semi-permanent setup. After all, we had enough fuel to last the generator years of continuous use. A tank filled with thousands of gallons of fuel that could be refilled if we found ourselves an appropriate 18-wheeler.
I pulled out the old phone from my CamelBak and I powered it on. It took over a minute to start.
'Guns have always been more important to me than a phone.'
I opened Google and I went to various forums because there was nothing being broadcasted from the news stations. There were hundreds of posts.
"Zombies have taken over the world while I was asleep? I'm stuck in my three story apartment! Someone help me!"
-"You may as well just jump out of a window."
-"Where are you?"
-"He probably died."
There were others too.
"INFORMATIONAL: Zombies explode after being killed when they have cannibalized another of their kind. Cover your eyes. Don't mess with the stone that drops because it can kill you."
-"Seriously, I wish I could have seen this earlier."
-"Take this with a grain of salt, I have killed several and none of them exploded. Maybe the stones are rare and he wants to keep them for himself."
After glancing through several more, I made my own post and copied it onto several platforms.
"SHELTER NEAR DALLAS TEXAS: My name is Travis and we have established ourselves defensively against the Zombies in our own bunker. We have all the necessities of life. If you are in the area and you wish to survive, contact me at my phone number XXX,XXX,XXXX and I will talk to you before sending you coordinates."
I nodded to myself as I sent it across many platforms.
That should do the trick.
I stood up and walked to Zane to talk with him. "Zane, I finished putting up all the posts. Before people come, we need to handle the situation with our prisoner. We need to kill him. I say we throw him off the bridge on the highway and we let the Zombies tear him limb from limb."
Zane blinked a few times. "Well, whatever you say. I agree that he needs to go. He could say something to the others and try to include himself in our little group. That would be unacceptable. This is our group and he must die."
We both grimly retrieved our rifles and I looked in Susan's eyes. "We have to go and free this prisoner far away. He fulfilled his deal and so we will fulfill our end. We will free him."
Susan nodded at me. "Okay, that sounds good. Be back soon please!"
After that, we entered the prisoner's cage and we brought him out of the bunker and to my new truck. He tried to talk to us. "So, I've held up my end of the bargain. Now you will let me go free, right?"
I nodded. "We are going to drive you a good distance away and we will let you go there to make sure you don't mess with us."
He shook his head. "I promise I won't."
I nodded. "Good."
'He doesn't have to know that he is about to die.'
We drove towards the highway due West across the gravel road I had initially come down. The trip did not take us long. As I parked over the bridge, I could see dozens of Zombies roaming far apart from each other. There had been hundreds of them.
As we dragged the prisoner out, whose name I had never bothered to know, he began to become frightened. "This isn't what we agreed upon! This is inhumane! Let me out somewhere safer!"
'He is about to become even more frightened.'
We lifted him up over the guardrail and he began to scream as loudly as he could. We dropped him. He did not stop screaming until he hit the concrete down below with a soul wrenching thud. There was silence for a moment and then there were screams. The Zombies were running towards his bloodied corpse.
'It's time to go.'
Zombies began to run up the ramp as we started the car. They were much faster. They seemed inhuman in their speed. As I drove, Zane shot with his AK. BANG. BANG. BANG… Seven Zombies fell down with the green light in their eyes extinguished.
Zane screamed. "Cover your eyes!"
I did as he said. I could still sense the brightness of the flashes behind us. There was also a sound like thunder behind us. ZZZZZTT. ZZZZZTT. ZZZZZTT…
As I opened my eyes and swung the wheel to avoid the edge of the road, I noticed the destruction behind us. The whole bridge had vanished. There were large green glowing stones behind us.
I hit the brakes and turned to Zane. "We need those stones."
'I feel anger rising in my heart. I want them. I will have them.'