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Texas Zombie Reporter: Tales of the Rio Grande	By : TheByronicMan Category: M through R > Newsflesh (trilogy) > Newsflesh (trilogy) Views: 1097 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the Newsflesh Trilogy or any of the related published works. I do not make any money from this story. Any resemblance to persons living, dead, or living dead is coincidental.

Chapter List
- 5
- 6
- 7
Once the barrier had been broken, we didn't stop there. The next several hours were slow and sensual, especially in comparison to the first few minutes. Night had fallen by the time we drifted off to sleep in an exhausted tangle of limbs and bedding on the narrow cot.
The rising sun peeked in through the rear armor-glass window and struck me right in the face. Then as I tried to free myself from my cot, not yet remembering why I was entangled, the floor rose up and struck me on the ass. Someone let out a high pitched giggle at my predicament, and when I threw a handy pillow at the offender she just laughed louder.
“As clumsy as you are, I don't know how you've managed to keep from getting eaten this long,” Anna grinned down at me, sitting up and once again letting the blanket fall to her waist.
The view left me unable to conjure up a clever retort, forcing me to settle for a lame “You weren't calling me clumsy last night.”
She blushed at that, turning red all the way down to her navel. “Yeah, well, I don't think that technique would work on zombies as well as it did on me.” She paused for a moment. “Ew. Now I can't get that image out of my head.”
“Ugh. There are some things even I won't do for ratings.”
On that sour note, we got dressed and opened some plastic pouches containing something that vaguely resembled breakfast. Bobbie keeps a change of clothes in the LAV, and those worked for Anna once she rolled up the cuffs. She was going to have to go bra-less until she could retrieve her own clothing, not that I minded that a bit. Once she was dressed I sent Bobbie a message to start up the camera feed.
A look outside showed the vultures had already gathered around the buffet we'd left for them. I popped open the gun locker, taking out a pump shotgun and a box of bird bombs. I needed to drive the vultures away, and bird bomb rounds were designed for scaring away nuisance birds like pigeons, crows, and grackles. These days, any carrion eater is not just a nuisance but an active danger. When they took off they were likely to scatter virus-laden drops of blood and bits of flesh, better that happen while we were still inside.
I peered outside as I loaded rounds into the shotgun. The rounds would travel fifty yards or so before they went off, and the vultures were closer than that. I wanted to scare them away from the vehicles, so I went to the opposite side of the LAV and stuck the shotgun out through the gunport. Shortly after I fired, the bird bomb went off with a loud report and a flash of light. Looking back towards the vultures, I saw them clumsily hopping away before lumbering into flight.
I loaned Anna one of my backup pistols and gave her a pair of gloves before we went out. I fired another round to keep the vultures away, and we collected our gear. The weapons went into the sterilizer, and our clothing was put into leak proof bags until it could be properly washed. Then we took a look around the area, and I had to fire off a few more bird bombs to keep the vultures at bay. The back door of the store was also open, that explained where that last group had come from. When the bodies piling up in the front door had gotten to be too much of a barrier, they'd been bright enough to find a route other than straight towards us. I took a quick look around inside, not intending to take anything. But on the desk in the store's tiny office there was diary, which I carefully sealed in a biohazard bag for decontamination when I got back home.
That last zombie was fresher than the rest, as best as I could tell he had been alive no more than a couple of days earlier. I hoped this wasn't another missing tourist. Finally, I noticed that the bodies had some damage that hadn't been caused by us and couldn't have come from the vultures. I pointed an example out to Anna.
“See that?” I asked.
“Yes,” she responded. “What could do that?”
“Javelina. Those gouges are from tusks, and they're too close together for wild hogs. And since live javelina mostly eat plants and the occasional small animal....”
“Then they're infected,” Anna concluded. “But where are they?”
“Probably gorged themselves and went looking for shade or water. But we need to move along.”
We mounted up and I led the way to the campground proper, looking for a place to hole up for an hour or so. As soon as I was alone, Bobbie's voice came over the speaker.
“You owe me a massage, loverboy,” she said, and I could hear the self-satisfied smirk in her voice.
“Oh yeah, that's one bet I really hated to lose.”
“I could tell. You clearly weren't enjoying yourself at all last night.”
“And I'm sure you were disgusted watching every minute of it,” I riposted.
Bobbie laughed at that. “Okay, sarcasm mode off. Our numbers had slipped a bit, no surprise there, but as usual you nearly getting killed gave us a bump up. Some of the brighter forumites have already figured out that you spent the night with Anna. I've had to call in some extra volunteer mods to help squelch the hate from your fangirls. At the rate things are going, Anna may beat my one-day record for death threats. Meanwhile, pretty much anyone who doesn't want your body wants hers instead, so we're having to stomp on a lot of lewd remarks. And you, sir, haven't gotten this many 'attaboys' since our last trip to Hippie Hollow.”
I chuckled. Hippie Hollow, on the shore of Lake Travis near Austin, was the only clothing-optional public park in Texas. It was established well before the Rising, and the small but dedicated group of nudists that regularly frequented the park have worked tirelessly to keep it open and safe since then. One notable change in the rules these days is that clothing is no longer an option, so if you aren't prepared to bare all you will be politely but firmly requested to leave. Bobbie and I had done a story about the place earlier this spring and interviewed some of the folks that had spearheaded the effort to keep it running. Naturally, we had to adopt the local costume, and Bobbie's appearance earned me congratulations from most of the men and some of the women in our audience. That wasn't a problem, we'd been going there five or six times a year since we started dating, which was why they were more willing to talk to us than to other reporters. But it was the first time we'd brought cameras. The admiration went up to 11 with the closing group shot of Bobbie and I each surrounded by all the members of the opposite gender who wanted to be on camera. And nudists aren't exactly known for being shy.
“Bobbie, time for me to sign off. I've got some boring domestic chores to do.”
“Have fun!”
“Yeah, right.”
We'd reached the campground by then, and I was scanning for the right site. Campsites here were more isolated from each other than the ones in the Basin, so it was mostly a matter of finding one that was still accessible. I finally spotted one where the drive was passable and there was enough open space to work with. It was surrounded by a thicket of mesquite and cactus so dense that any animal large enough to amplify would probably find it impossible to get through, and would make lots of noise trying. I motioned for Anna to drive in first, and then I backed in so that the bulk of the LAV blocked the only opening. Anna spent a few minutes taking advantage of the relative privacy of her SUV and emerged once again dressed in her own clothing, minus her Kevlar, gun belt, and weapons. We needed a couple of hours to clean and recondition our armor and guns. The other clothes would have to wait, I didn't have room for laundry facilities in the LAV. The site's picnic table was rotted away so we spread out a tarp and sat on the ground. We talked as we worked.
“So, what's on the agenda for today?” Anna asked as she struggled to get the broken folding stock off of her SMG..
“Back through the tunnel,” I responded, “Which hopefully hasn't repopulated yet. Then we'll go just past the Hot Springs and pick up River Road East, such as it is. Sometime in the afternoon we'll be on River Road West and follow it until we get back to what's left of the paved road near Castolon. I plan to stop for the night there.”
“Anything to see out there?”
“I'm going to detour up to Glenn Spring, that's on the Park Service wish list. Your Ford won't be able to handle Black Gap Road, so you should stay on River Road and meet me at the Mariscal Mine.” I applied a thin film of gun oil to the working parts of my handguns and re-assembled them.
“Any packs of infected to watch out for?” Anna asked, finally loosening the stuck screw. “Damn, but that zombie had a hard head.”
“Just the usual desert animals,” I replied, twisting a barrel bushing into place. “There's not likely to be any human infected out there, though it's always possible.”
“Not even at Castolon?” she asked, setting aside her SMG and starting to go over her Kevlar jacket with a disinfectant cloth.
“Nope,” I replied, getting out the saddle soap to start working on my leather. “It pretty well shut down during the summers, so there were few people there during the Rising. The Army put down the handful of zombies that were there. Across the river, the people in Santa Elena managed to take care of themselves until the Mexican government made them evacuate.”
“Good. I could use a quiet day. It may be old hat to you, but I normally go weeks without seeing even one zombie, and yesterday we had three different packs of them.”
“Welcome to my world,” I grinned. “Although three packs a day is unusual even for me.”
“Big Tobacco will be so disappointed to hear you say that,” Anna said.
I had to laugh at that.
Anna hesitantly said, “I just have to ask, what was that one thing you did last night?”
“What thing?”
“Well, you know, when....” she trailed off, blushing.
“Oh, that was the dreaded Vulcan Nipple Pinch.”
“What?”
“Have you ever watched Star Trek?”
“Sure.”
“Then you should be familiar with the Vulcan salute, right?”
“Okay, yeah.”
“So, you make the Vulcan salute, grab the breast with the nipple in the gap between the fingers, then pinch the nipple between the finger joints.”
“That sounds way too geeky, but, um, it was very effective.”
“Yeah, I kinda noticed that.”
We continued working in silence for the next half an hour or so. I glued a patch on the back of my jacket where the zombie had chewed through the leather but hadn't penetrated the Kevlar lining. It would hold until I could get home and do a more permanent repair. Anna borrowed my saddle soap to work on her gun belt, then put it on with a sigh of relief, the punch dagger returning to its place disguised as her belt buckle. With her jacket off, I got a better look at the rest of her gear. Wide leather belt, holstered Glock handgun, three extra mags, handcuffs, and pepper spray. Other than the concealed blade, standard kit for all uniformed federal law enforcement officers, including those that work for the Park Service. Having less equipment, Anna finished well before I did. She kept an eye on our surroundings as I worked, then started packing things up as I thumbed rounds into my empty handgun magazines. Anna was spared that chore. She hadn't needed her pistol yet, and the magazines for her UMP25 were factory loaded and disposable.
A few minutes more to wrap up, a short detour to the river to top off the water tank, and it was time to get back on what was left of the road. A few minutes of driving brought us back to the tunnel. It was still a mess, but at least the ceiling was no longer dripping. No new zombies had moved in yet, so the passage was uneventful. A few miles later we passed the turn off for Hot Springs, and while I would have loved to visit there again, we were burning daylight. Then it was time to retrace our path across Tornillo Creek before finally reaching River Road East and heading out into fresh territory.
Roads in this part of the park originally served the small mining and agricultural communities in the area. Unlike, for example, the road to Dagger Flat, these routes were established by people who never expected them to be maintained by heavy equipment. As such they tended to follow the natural contours of the land as much as possible, and with a few exceptions should still be passable for Anna's truck. Not that the going was easy, even after my LAV broke trail for her. Still, if she had to she could manage on her own, and she was going to have to in half an hour or so. About ten miles of relatively easy back country driving, we got to the turnoff up to Glenn Spring. I opened an encrypted channel to Anna.
“Okay, this is where we part ways for a while. I don't suppose your bosses provided your GPS with data for the back roads here?”
“Nope, they figured I would just follow you.” Anna replied.
“That's not going to work,” I explained. “Part of this route was pretty rough even 30 years ago. I'm not entirely sure that I'll be able to make it. So, let me send you the route you need to follow.”
I called up the list of active wireless devices in the area, a shorter list than most people will ever see in their lives. I selected Anna's GPS and started sending the data. She quickly accepted the download, and it was completed in a few seconds.
“I'll meet you at the Mariscal Mine in a couple of hours. And I'll keep this channel open in case you run into trouble.” With that, I headed northwest while Anna drove southwest.
The first leg of my solo trip was fairly easy, paralleling the dry washes draining the landscape, then running alongside a series of low ridges. In about half an hour I arrived at what used to be Glenn Spring. I picked a spot with a good view to park the LAV, raised the camera mast, geared up, and got out. I was kind of annoyed that the Park Service didn't want me to narrate the video I was providing them, because I had done quite a bit of research on Big Bend over the years.
Glenn Spring was the only reliable source of water for about seven miles in any direction. Not only was it handy for livestock, it made wax production possible. The desert was home to the candelilla plant, which secretes a natural wax. Recovering the wax requires boiling it in a solution of acid and water and then skimming the wax off the top. In the first half of the 20^th century, candelilla wax was a lucrative product, especially in wartime when it was used for waterproofing military gear. Even after Big Bend became a National Park, the wax was valuable enough that folks would sneak across the river into the park to harvest candelilla, take it back into Mexico to process it, then smuggle the finished product back into the US for sale.
It was also valuable enough to attract bandits. In 1916, Mexican bandits raiding across the border were a frequent problem. Requests for more US troops along the border were denied, so the troops that were already in the area did what they could. There were nine troopers from the 14^th Cavalry stationed at Glenn Spring. In May of 1916, the force of bandits that raided the camp had them outnumbered at least 10 to 1. The soldiers abandoned their tents and took refuge in an adobe building from which they were able to hold off the raiders for several hours. But then the bandits set fire to the building's roof and the soldiers were forced to retreat. Three of them were killed and others were wounded or badly burned. The bandits looted the general store, burned the wax works, and killed four civilians before returning to Mexico. The Glenn Spring raid goaded the US government into stationing over 100,000 troops along the border. The community rebuilt and struggled along for another three years before the post-war drop in wax prices spelled the end.
I wandered the area pretty much at random, lost in thought. There wasn't much to see here other than the spring itself. Early in the park's history many of the older structures were destroyed in a misguided attempt to 'restore the natural beauty' and a wealth of history was lost. Surprisingly, there were no infected animals near the spring or sheltering under the small grove of cottonwood trees that surrounded it. A closer look at the spring revealed why. There were burro and boot prints in the damp soil. Somebody had been here recently and must have cleaned out the local zombies. I wondered if it was some of Anna's smugglers.
I sent a text to Bobbie: Send this part of the video to Anna when you get a chance, otherwise keep it under wraps.
Will do, I got back.
I took another loop around the area, farther from the spring, and now that I was looking for it I could see where candelilla plants had been pulled up. Looks like the wax smuggling industry was still alive. I headed back to the LAV and had a quick lunch before starting down Black Gap Road. This was the reason Anna had to take an alternative route. Parts of this road were known to be challenging even to hard core four-wheeling enthusiasts when the park was still open. The Park Service stopped maintaining it and discouraged people from driving it. The few blogs that remain from that time agree that its easier to take the road from south to north. Naturally, I was going north to south.
The first half mile wasn't so bad, but after that I found myself driving along the top of a ridge and then down the side. A large dry creek bed, not as large as Tornillo Creek but big enough, wound snakelike between and around the hills. The road was more or less straight here and therefore crossed it several times. More than once I had to stop and get out to pick my path. Then after about four miles of this, I came to the Black Gap itself. It was a narrow cut through a high sharp ridge, and was named for the black volcanic rock. The ridge was actually what is known as a dike, a volcanic intrusion through a crack in the earth. The softer dirt and rock erodes away, leaving just the dark igneous wall protruding.
I stopped for a moment, then entered the gap. Those old blogs were right, coming the other way would have been easier. Good thing I wasn't limited to four wheels or I never would have made it without moving some rocks around to build ramps. There were spots where I had to climb rock steps more than two feet high. It was a difficult passage, and it took me about half an hour to cover a few hundred feet. After that the road got a little easier, still challenging but not nerve-wracking. It took another twenty minutes to get down to Talley Road and backtrack east a bit to the Mariscal Mine. I pulled into the rough circle of packed gravel that had once served as a parking lot and found Anna waiting in her truck. She'd probably been there about an hour, having taken a shorter and easier route. After I had gotten my gear on and grabbed a duffel bag that I'd need later, she met me between our vehicles.
“Wow! I thought this road was pretty bad until I got here and Bobbie started sending me the live feed from your little detour.”
I chuckled. “Can you believe people used to drive that for fun?”
“Yes I can,” she smiled. “And I bet you had fun.”
I thought about that for a moment. “I guess you're right.”
“So, what's the plan here?” Anna asked.
“This is one of the most extensive historical sites in the park, a mercury mine that operated for over forty years. I'm going to need to get some good video, so I'd appreciate it if you would hang back until we turn around. It also has the most buildings we've seen since the Basin, so keep an eye out.”
With that, I led the way about a quarter mile back the way we drove in, to some buildings that were near the turnoff from the main road. These were mostly worker housing and a store from the World War II period, though there was a warehouse and the mine superintendent's residence from around 1920. I made sure to get some solid footage, though the structures were showing the effects of decades of neglect. I retraced my steps, examining each of the older worker homes clustered around the parking lot. Near by was the remains of an old Chevy that had to have been there for nearly a century. It had been stripped to just the body, frame, and engine block, but those had stood up remarkably well. The trail led from the parking area past a pile of tailings that I had learned actually covered some of the earliest structures at the site. Above the tailing pile was the massive brick furnace where the ore was heated and higher still was the series of the condensers that cooled the mercury vapor back to liquid for collection. Behind the main condensers was the secondary condensers, ore bin, and the rail bed for the tracks that carried ore carts from the mine to the furnace. Farther back were the old blacksmith shop and the foundations for the somewhat higher-tech machinery used in the final years of the mine's operation.
Finally I reached the mine entrance got some good video of the steel grating sealing off the entrance. Some firm prodding demonstrated that it was still solid. I motioned for Anna to come ahead and join me. “I got footage of everything the Park Service wanted, but I've got one more chore to take care of before leaving.”
“And what would that be?” Anna sat down on a rock and looked at me quizzically.
I set down the duffel and pulled a small weatherproof camera from it. “I need to place some wildlife cameras at all the mine shafts we can find. When the mine stopped operating, several species of bats moved in. The Park Service sealed off the mine to keep tourists from killing themselves, but they used grates with large enough gaps for the bats. Since I was stopping by here anyway, Bat Conservation International asked me to set up some cameras to monitor the bat population.”
She perked up at that. “Great! I've been a member of BCI since I was a little girl. I'd love to help.”
I blinked at that.
Anna grinned back at me. “Grew up in New Mexico, remember? We'd visit Carlsbad at least once a year, and always stuck around 'til sunset to watch the bats come out. Built my first bat house when I was 11.” She paused for a moment, looking at the mine entrance. “What kind of bats live in there? Mexican free-tailed?”
I shrugged. “That's what BCI wants to find out. Last time anyone looked, there were four species living in the mine. Sorry, don't remember the names, but I think that was one of them.”
“No problem, I can look it up.”
I briefed Anna on the procedure and we moved out, finding mine entrances and ventilation shafts, hammering in stakes at the specified distance and direction, then attaching the cameras and solar charging panels. Solar was sufficient for this purpose, the panels could charge the batteries all day and the cameras only needed to operate for an hour or so around sunset and sunrise. Once we'd found all the known holes and set up cameras to cover them, I set up the monitoring station and its larger solar array. I made sure it was picking up the wireless signals from all the cameras, and had to send Anna to reboot a couple that weren't on the network. Finally I had it send a test message to BCI's headquarters in Austin and got a reply back.
“Whew!” I wiped my forehead. “We're going to have to hustle to get to Castolon before nightfall.”
Anna looked at me with a credible impersonation of puppy dog eyes. “Is there any way we could stay here and watch the bats tonight? Besides, it would be easier to carry out my other duties if we aren't having to rush across the landscape.” She thought for a moment. “Never mind, you go on ahead. I'll stay here overnight and catch up tomorrow.”
I smiled at her. “Tell you what. I've got some leeway in my schedule I haven't used up yet, and without your help by the time I'd gotten all these cameras set up I'd have had to stay here overnight anyway. How about we take a nap now to make sure we'll be rested enough to leave at first light in the morning?”
“It's a deal.”
With that we packed up our gear and returned to the parking lot. Anna started towards her Ford until I pointed out that it was going to be dangerously hot inside in the desert sun. We both went to the LAV, which had enough battery reserve to keep the AC going until dark. Not that we went to sleep right away, Anna insisted on expressing her gratitude with much vigor and enthusiasm.
When we were inside the LAV, Anna pushed me down into a sitting position on the cot. She slipped off her boots and socks, then tossed her jacket into the corner. Her blouse followed, revealing a tight white tank top. She hadn't bothered putting on a bra, and her nipples stood out clearly under the thin fabric. She dropped her pants to the floor and stepped out of them, revealing lacy pink panties this time. She gracefully turned around and bent over, causing the fabric to stretch even more tightly across her ass. Anna hooked her thumbs into the waistband, slowly inching the pink lace down. She bent over further, rolling her panties down to her knees before they fell to the floor. I could see her lips glistening with moisture through the gap between her thighs. She turned back to face me, standing upright, and quickly pulled off her tank top.
Finally seeing her nude form in good light and with the leisure to properly appreciate it, I was entranced. No one had affected me that strongly since I had first met Bobbie. I had encountered lots of very attractive women, but the competence and intelligence inside that lovely package made her all the more beautiful. She stood there for about a minute, letting me take in the view, then straddled my legs as she knelt on the cot.
My hands went around her waist and then slid down to cup her ass, purely to keep her from sliding to the floor of course. Anna put her arms around my neck, pulling my face to her breasts. My lips found her left nipple and I sucked it into my mouth, biting down on it gently at first, then with increasing pressure. She gasped and ground her pussy against the bulge in my pants. After a few minutes, she pulled back to start unbuttoning my shirt and kissing her way down my chest. My hands reluctantly released her ass as she slid to the floor, but quickly found solace on her breasts. She was soon on her knees in front of me, and she unbuckled my belt with her teeth. Then her hands went to work on my button and zipper, and to my immense relief she freed my aching cock from its cloth and leather prison.
She teased the tip with her tongue, then wrapped her lips around the head. She gently sucked my cock into her mouth, slipping a hand into my fly to caress my balls. She took me in deeper, her throat muscles working as she struggled to swallow my full length. She held me there until she had to back off to take a breath. The next passage was easier, and she was soon voraciously deep-throating me at a rapid pace. Her hair fell in front of her face, and I brushed it back so I could see clearly. She backed off and took a deep breath, then swallowed me all the way one last time. Her throat muscles, lips, and tongue caressed my cock until I came hard. She kept up an intense suction until I started to soften, then raised her head, gasping and choking a bit. She smiled up at me, then helped me finish getting undressed.
We found time for a few hours of sleep, and my alarm woke us with enough time to eat and pick out a good bat watching spot before sunset. Not being entirely sure where the bats would emerge, we settled on a hilltop with a good view of the main entrance and several of the ventilation shafts. I set up a couple of field cameras and we settled down to wait.
The sun had just dropped behind the hills when the first bats appeared. Within a few minutes, there were swirling columns of bats rising into the sky from at least half a dozen points, including a shaft barely twenty feet from us. I used one of the field cameras to get a closeup of the bats rising out of ground and silhouetted against the darkening sky. Anna leaned against my shoulder, watching raptly. We sat like that for a few minutes, until I noticed some movement on the ground. I nudged Anna and pointed.
A herd of javelina was approaching the nearby shaft from the opposite side from us. They walked directly onto the grate covering the pit and went up to the small structure in the center that allowed the bats access. This was not normal javelina behavior, and my suspicions were confirmed when they started snapping at the bats as they flew by. Most of the time they missed, but on the rare occasions they did manage to bite down on a bat they quickly swallowed it down. They hadn't seen us, javelina have notoriously bad eyesight and I was sure that the eyes of zombie javelina were even worse. It was entirely possible that they would eat their fill and leave without noticing us at all.
But then Anna drew her sidearm and started shooting. I sighed, then got up and unholstered both of my .45s, aiming and firing at the javelina while I stepped to the side. Anna was a decent pistol shot, taking down three of the 'musk pigs' before I joined the fray. Between us we got a dozen more before they even figured out where we were. They must have been confused by the gunshots echoing off of the hills around us. Most of them charged me, either they saw my movement or they heard the rocks crunching under my feet. Or it could be that I was a little more fragrant due to wearing leather in the desert heat. They'd been dead quite a while and were probably dehydrated, so they weren't moving very fast, and the sky was still light enough to see them clearly enough to aim. Only the last one got close enough to try for my legs, and a quick step to the side and steel-toed boot applied firmly to his ribs sent him skidding away from me. Anna finished him off, having already taken care of the few that had come her way.
Keeping a careful watch in the fading light, we picked up our gear and headed back to the vehicles. With no discussion at all this time, Anna joined me in the LAV rather than returning to her truck.

July 27, 2014
Rio Grande Village Store
The power went out this morning. I'm surprised it lasted this long. Its been 3 days since the Park Service called and said they was coming to get us. I guess that aint really gonna happen. Lucky the water still works, and we got a Coleman stove thats been gathering dust on the shelf as long as I worked here and plenty of fuel for it. We prolly got a couple of weeks worth of food for the 3 of us. This sucks. Our car is right outside but Johnnie got the keys in his pocket and he'll eat us if we try to go outside and get them from him. I useta think that carpooling would help save the Earth. Maybe so, but looks like its gonna kill me.
- From the diary of Kathy Smith
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Texas Zombie Reporter: Tales of the Rio Grande