Update: 30 Jun, 1055

Tyler Collins
South Atlanta QZ/ARTCC, GA, US

Just got back. I have an hour or so, so here's an update.

After notification of the crash, myself and five of the eight Nat Guard guys packed up on the bikes and headed north to search for the wreck. It was easy with a large plume of smoke, but I confirmed using a radio tuned to 243.0MHz (the plane was using an old ELT that still transmitted on this freq, not 406MHz, which I couldn't catch with my type of radio). The plane went down in a pair of softball fields in Duncan Park northwest of here. It was maybe twenty-five miles by bicycle to get there, and the way was jammed with groaners. Most of 'em we just outran, but there were plenty of roadblocks and to get through we'd set up a small perimeter, sterilize a crossing point, lift our equipment over, and continue on. It was incredibly taxing, especially since the most direct path was through some hefty suburban areas.

We didn't reach the crash site until sundown, and that made things a lot worse. It looks like the plane was aiming for the farther field and fell short, instead plowing into the fields after skimming the trees of the forest to the north. The fuselage was intact, more or less, with the tail still on. The nose was bent underneath the front of the aircraft and the cockpit bulkhead was split.

After dismounting and carving through a ring of groaners, we came upon the crash from its port side wing root. The wing was maybe twenty meters away, wedged into the ground, spilling a bunch of fuel that was burning rather brightly.  The crash had attracted a whole lot of groaners, and they were flooding the aircraft. We didn't have enough people to handle them quietly and floods of them were closing in behind us anyway, so we went ahead and used our firearms. It was difficult in the dark, but there was a large fuel fire nearby around so we managed to get the outside clear in about two minutes.

The inside was more troublesome, since a number had squeezed inside through the split fuselage. We dropped the rear door with an emergency lever and let Shawn take out each of the groaners as they came. Two were trapped in cargo netting and were difficult to get rid of. The worst part, however, was the crew chief.

He was likely the only survivor of the crash, since the pilots were both dead in their seats. It's also likely that he was bitten shortly after the crash, because we arrived just as he was turning.

The guy heard us and started pleading for help immediately. We almost got to him before Shawn yelled a warning, seeing the ragged bite on his hand. The guy was pleading for help and then started getting louder and more upset until it devolved into incoherent screaming. Shawn shot him shortly after that.

The pleads weren't for help for his condition, but for us to kill him. It was everything we could do to....I haven't slept a whole lot since then.

With the craft secured, there were a whole lot of groaners still closing in on the light and the sounds. Under normal circumstances, we would have just abandoned the crash until morning and let a bigger group sterilize it to get the supplies. That night, though, we had far too many groaners all around us to make it out without help. Instead we settled in for a long night.

Because of the crash location, we were able to set up some great choke points with the softball fences and the entrances. At one point, they had me sprint out to a tree with a hatchet and chop it down over a fence breach--I ended up chopping it down in what felt like ten seconds and sprinting back before the thing even toppled. The hatchet broke on my sprint back when I used it to stop a groaner.

Because we were able to funnel them into basically two points, four of us could cover both points while five and six took care of the leaks. It also meant that none of us got any rest. I wondered why we hadn't gotten any help by the time the sun came up. Turns out that the radio repeater was out and no one had heard us until about noon on Friday.

By that point, we were nearly out of ammo. I carry an M4A1 that I took from a dead National Guard guy on my way out of Atlanta. I held onto it since any civilian AR-15s are as hoarded by their owners as the military-grade weapons are by the higher-ups. The convenient thing is mostly because of ammunition: everyone around me keeps .223/5.56mm NATO so we can exchange in an instant. I have two packs that I usually grab: the first is a light pack with two spare magazines that I use for our transits back and forth between ARTCC and the QZ. I have a "heavy" load with a bunch of camping gear and some longer hand weapons, and five magazines. Each magazine is underloaded with 23 or 25 rounds. I also always carry an off-brand modified Beretta 92 with one spare magazine.

On Thursday, I took my heavy load and thus had 122 rounds spare, plus 25 in the rifle and  one in the chamber. I spent every single round that night and morning, and darn if I didn't drop 125 zombies with 148 rounds. I also spent a magazine of pistol ammo, 16 rounds, for double-tapping. I never claim to be a great shot; I did barely well enough to qualify in training, but even if I'm inflating the numbers I feel really proud of that. At midday I was down to my pistol and the hand weapons, of which I had broken my two favorites. The Wal-Mart grade machetes and hatchets fell apart after maybe fifteen or so groaners, so they became the throw-aways that we only used in a rush. Our mainstays were the ones from sports stores. Gerber ones held up the best, but got dull rather quickly. You can still kill with blunt force, though.

Anyways, it was Friday night before five vehicles from the South Atlanta QZ showed up like the cavalry. The passenger, maybe ten or fifteen, sprinted out and started mauling their way through the small crowd of uglies around the fences. It was like something out of Braveheart, and frankly rather hilarious at first. Two of our rescuers got bitten in the process, though and...

We loaded the supplies onto a flatbed and headed out post haste, going straight to the QZ. As soon as we got there, they let the flatbed through and then put the six of us in quarantine through to Monday morning. None of us talked and we all tried to sleep. None of us succeeded for very long.

Well, we're back now, and the supply load turned out to be food and meds heading to somewhere in South Carolina. If you're reading this, SC residents, know that two men and one woman sacrificed their lives to try and deliver several tons of antibiotics and MREs. Dozens more succeed every day, but the dangers are real.

If you see a Hercules flying over, thank them.