As the World Dies by Rhiannon Frater Page A

bed and began to laugh.
        
        The old guy looked quite indignant and a cat sauntered past the camera and looked into it for a long moment, then walked on. Once the screen was clear of the cat, the old guy came into view sitting at his mish-mash of equipment.
        
        "I'm watching them, survivors. Oh, yeah. I’m watching them. I know what's going on. I can't keep broadcasting forever to you ‘cause they'll find me sooner or later, but I'm telling you, I got my eye on them. Oh, yeah," he said reassuringly.
        
        Suddenly the lights in the bunker turned bright red as an alarm started to peal.
        
        "Gawddamn, clones!"
        
        The old guy sprang to his feet, ran to the camera, picked it up and ran back to his desk. Propping up the camera so it was filming what appeared to be a security monitor, the old guy's long dirty finger came into view as he pointed out what was happening.
        
        "See, there come the clones again. Always coming up on the east side of my property. I'm telling you, they know where I am. And they're sending their damn messed up clones."
        
        On the screen a bunch of the dead were pushing against a barbwire fence.
        
        "Hate those guys," the old guy muttered as he pointed to each zombie individually on the monitor. "All screwed up and spilling guts on my land."
        
        Though Eric couldn't see what he was doing, he could hear the old man typing away on a keyboard.
        
        To his amazement, on the monitor screen, what looked like some sort of robotic arm made out of farm equipment rose out of a haystack and opened fire on the zombies with an Uzi.
        
        "Gawdamn clones," the old man was muttering angrily. "Good thing I got my security system up before it all went to shit. And that is where they fucked us, didn't they? They didn't tell us they were out there. The clones. Doing what they do. They hid it ‘cause that's what they were supposed to do. But I knew! I knew!"
        
        The camera continued to film the scene on the monitor as the robotic arm swept back and forth with the Uzi strafing anything standing outside the fence. In just a few short minutes, all the zombies were dead.
        
        "Gotta go, kiddies. Gotta go put more ammo in the Uzi. Gotta keep alert. Don't let the government do nothing for ya. Don't go to those rescue shelters. Keep hiding. Stock up on food and ammo, cause boys and girls, them clones are doing the work of the Amazonian Queen and her alien overlords and we gotta be ready to fight back." The old guy swiveled the camera so his face filled the screen again. "Calhoun, over and out."
        
        The screen switched to what looked like a cardboard box that had the words "Truth is Here" written in magic marker on it.
        
        Eric sat on the floor for a long moment then began to howl with laughter. He didn't stop for a long time.
        
        

Chapter Thirteen
    An Unexpected Turn
        
        The hope that was born in Eric when he first made communication with what was being called "the Fort" in Ashley Oaks, Texas, grew each day that his surroundings remained zombie free. It was also a relief to talk to Peggy on the Internet. She was funny and warm in her chat and he felt comforted by the fact she was out there. When she told him the fort was actually talking to quite a few people that were holed up in their part of Texas, it was an enormous relief to know that pockets of humanity was still surviving. Even though the phones were down in the area of the fort, the cable was still working and Peggy explained they had a communication center up where they were talking to survivors over CBs and ham radios as well as the Internet.
        
        At one point, Peggy grouped all the survivors that still had access to the Internet into a chat room to explain what was going on at "the fort" and Eric was amazed to see