The night passed in peace, the only disturbance having been caused by a bear that had paused to employ the fortress as an oversize scratching post. When the external floodlights came on, the creature took the hint and ambled in to the darkness. Nastia had only chased the creature away because it looked like it was going to settle down to take a nap. Mother Nature was doing just fine and had been an interesting sight that brought laughter as she filled them in over breakfast. The planet would go on just fine if humanity didn't make it.

Park’s Army Base, was massive according to Robert and with only the five of them to cover its expanse, they could search for days before finding exactly what they wanted. Robert had made it clear that he was more familiar with the officer housing and the more “civilian” areas of the base and could only give them a rough approximation of where they needed to look: The base administration.

It was the logical place to start searching for maps and inventory lists. At worst, they would find the former and not the latter. Being the skilled driver that he was, Robert parked the Fortress, bringing the side door in to near perfect alignment with the door of the building. That meant that they would have to be concerned with whatever was inside the building, or smart enough to crawl under the Fortress to get at them.

Cameron jammed the curved end of the crowbar just above the lock and slid the metal wedge down a centimeter or two and yanked hard. The lock popped with a clang and he stepped back and to the side, letting his comrades who had covered him advance first in to the building. Jaira led the rapid but cautious advance, the dark interior thick with the heady scents of humidity and abandonment that radiated towards them. The curtains and blinds had been drawn on all the windows blocking light, and the dust was inch thick upon the floor with no disturbances apart from theirs, “Odds are building’s clear,” muttered Natalie.

They riffled through a dozen desks before finding what they wanted, and retreating back to the well-lit safety. They studied the maps and learned the lay of the land, discussing briefly before deciding on numerous areas of interest to explore including the base exchange, hospital, cafeteria and the warehouses that were the reason for their presence, “You reckon there military just left all their equipment behind?” asked Robert.

Cameron thought back to the early days, the first day of Armageddon when he had been home watching television, looking for any kind of useful information - as the saying went, nature abhors a vacuum and the looped television broadcasts were enough to make it clear that California had fallen within the first few days where other large cities had held out for almost a week and in some cases, two weeks before the tide of death had washed over them, “Not likely. California fell to the hordes in less than a week. Makes sense that most of the equipment and material would have been left behind.”

Natalie shook her head, “It would depend upon the evacuation protocol issued. The base is still relatively intact and if all the doors are locked like those of the admin building then it makes sense that the base is empty too.”

“What do you mean depending upon the evacuation protocol issued?” asked Nastia.

“There are dozens of different protocols and evacuation procedures. I can tell you what happened to New York and the five Burroughs: Hammer Down.” she paused, “It meant everything in the target area is to be considered expendable. Everything would have been bombed flat and glassed.” That brought a moment of stunned silence from them. “But California fell quickly enough so it’s more than likely they got the troops out and left whatever they couldn’t move behind.”

“So there should be plenty of stuff,” said Robert.

“Should be.” agree Natalie, “But the question is whether or not we can use whatever has been left behind.”

They proceeded to find out, Robert simply followed the map and drove on to the base and parked with precision, again leaving a narrow gap between the door of the fortress and the warehouse doors before they stormed the building.

Upon breaching the first warehouse, they stopped to stare in slack jawed amazement. Crates lined up in neat rows, all filled with firearms, ammunitions, explosives and other military toys. But they quickly turned their attention back to business and swept the warehouse splitting in to uneven groups as Natalie mounted the stairs that lead to the offices on the second floor, Nastia close behind.

The door squeaked on its hinges, and revealed a lifeless interior that told of a heroic last stand. Judging from where the corpses had fallen, somebody had flipped desks to create cover and barricades, killing at least several dozen before turning his pistol on himself. Whether he had gone insane or he had been bitten, at least he had not become the very thing he had killed.

The detailed inventory logs of the warehouse were scattered all over the floor. Yellowing, curling and scattered all over the floor but what they pieced together made it clear that they had found a mixed cache of firearms from pistols to squad level support weapons, explosives. The list went on for several pages to include grenades, LAWS, Mortars and several manpack missile systems and crates of ammunition. Natalie could only smile in delight as the other three swept the warehouse, killing the lone zombie pinned by fallen crates.

Having cleared out the base motor pool earlier in the day, they made a series of round trips, clearing a warehouse, taking whatever they wanted and making as many trips as was necessary to collect anything and everything that they could possibly want or need. It was clear that they were going to spend at least a week sorting through everything they took, and that was before they even got round to making the modifications necessary to outfit the Fortress.

Nastia had followed through on her arguments about their need for bigger, better and a variety of weapons as she cautiously loaded up crates of ammo, cases of different grenades, flares, and several cases of anti-armor weaponry. With the five of them, it still took them the remainder of the day, hard at work as in the late afternoon with the sun starting to set; Jaira maneuvered the forklift in to position, loading the rack of pallets on to the back of the truck as Robert kept watch. He was as relaxed as the rest of them, weapon holstered as he waited for Jaira to finish up. Their presence had attracted several lone undead in military fatigues from all over the base and all had been blessed with a second, permanent death, “That’s the last of it!” called Jaira, it was just before dusk when they cleared the warehouse.

They relaxed in the coming days as they sorted out numerous issues they had to deal with. Economies of scale came in to play as they standardized their weapons as Natalie explained, “Lots of changes between this” gesturing towards the M16A4, “and its predecessors: The M16 – which is a relic from the Vietnam War. Unless you’re a gunsmith, don’t worry about the changes. They’ll go over your head. Just remember three things: Shoulder strap, silencer and flashlight attachments come standard. M202 Grenade launchers and XMS-22 LWS systems are available but I’ll show you all how to use those later. Lastly, you have a clip of thirty, that's three-zero bullets that you can fire in single or here round burst only. There is no full automatic spray and pray crap.” The same standardization took place for other weapons, taking the Mossberg P-590 Combat Shotgun, and the 9mm Beretta M9 as their sidearm. The only place where they didn’t bother standardizing was with their Sniper Rifles - Natalie had taken five different rifles, and even to the most unenlightened, it was clear she was suffering from a severe case of weapon envy.

With their personal armament needs met, they moved on to the Fortress and adopted squad level machine guns for Fortress gun ports: The FN Minimi machine guns also chambered for NATO 5.56mm. The roof gun port was a closed up steel bulb on a revolving collar that they would outfit with a MK19 40mm grenade launcher. They would also finally have enough shotguns shells to fully outfit the close quarter defense system that had been installed on the rig months ago.