Free TEOTWAWKI: Beacon's Story by David Craig

most people found one of the little hollow points in the face or neck worthy of instant attention. Stumbling around holding their faces or throats they were not only dead men walking but, more importantly, out of the fight.
     
     
    Taking aim at a gap between two of the vehicles that seemed particularly popular to the invading marauders Beacon began empting the first to his twenty-five round magazines into the gap. Not having to worry about identifying friend or foe he simply popped a round into every face that showed itself in the gap. Soon the marauders had to pause to climb over their fallen comrades making it easier for Beacon to shoot the next one in the face. He'd plugged two gaps that way and was working on a third when he ran out of ammunition again.
     
     
    He jumped back down and was putting both the Colt and the Randall to good use as he fought his way back to the trailer for the Mini-14 when three whistles sounded from somewhere along the tree line. One whistle was high pitched another low pitched and the third warbled quavering up and down the musical scale. The marauders began flooding out of the settlement as quickly as they'd entered it.
     
     
    Picking up one of Old Bill's six-guns Beacon crammed a few rounds in the loading port as he followed the retreating Blue Heads to the edge of the circle of vehicles and was carefully emptying it into the backs of the retreating horde when Maggie; echoing her parent's admonitions of peace, love and brotherhood demanded he stop shooting because they were running away. Beacon opined that they were just regrouping for another charge but the revolver was empty by then anyway.
     
     
    Maggie changed her tune when she discovered her parent's dead bodies inside the tent they had set up at the base of the tower. Beacon was reloading magazines when he heard her scream. She took up a pick ax and began attacking the bodies of marauders as she screamed curses at them.
     
     
    At dawn, as Beacon finished tending to his and Old Bill's weapons, Maggie began tying dead marauders to each other by their necks then to horses. Beacon hurriedly searched the corpses for guns, knives and ammunition before Maggie dragged them out of the camp.
     
     
    He'd relieved the rest of the marauder corpses inside the corral of anything of value by the time she got back for the next load. Then he started on the bodies outside the settlement. He had to finish off a few, but all items of value had been removed from the corpses before Maggie got to them.
     
     
    By the end of the day Maggie had built a mountain of corpses down at the trailhead where it came up from the village by the lake. She'd stuck a stake through a couple of the bodies with a sign on it: "GO TO HELL ZOMBIES!"
     
     
    Maggie never again referred to outsiders as anything but zombies. Her parent's peaceful coexistence policy was buried with them. Maggie somehow blamed Beacon for not stopping the attack that killed her parents, but realized she needed his help to kill the zombies.
     
     
    The surviving men of the Sanctuary Settlement spent the remainder of the winter felling and trimming trees for a stockade. In the spring when the ground thawed they planted the logs in a trench dug, more or less, where Old Bill marked the outline of a frontier style fort in the dirt.
     
     
    Some wanted a second gate at the bottom of the fort where the stream exited the encampment for easy access to the corral and one fellow even quoted some OSHA fire regulation which caused Beacon to break out laughing.
     
     
    Old Bill and Beacon wanted two story blockhouses at each corner extending out from the walls to keep attackers from hiding against the walls out of reach of the defenders in the fort who would have to expose themselves leaning out over the top of the walls to shoot down at them. Old Bill also wanted a gatehouse extending over the single gate for the same reason, but necessity and available manpower allowed neither blockhouses nor two