Red Dave
“I’m probably the only person over here who had never heard of Big Red. Heck, I never even heard about the
Eastside until that night”, says Red Dave with a ready grin as he rubs his head and then his paunch.
“I’m from Eaton Rapids and the only reason I didn’t become Zack food was cause I was trying to sneak in a
computer game while my little girls were asleep. Me and my wife had decided to bring the girls up here to the
Impressions 5 science museum. We decided to stay the night and take them over to the Historical Museum so we
were crammed into one room in the Radison downtown.
“I’d brought my laptop and I’d settled into playing this Civil War strategy game when I decided since I already had
the headphones on to catch the live stream coming from “WDBM” over at MSU. Back then you never knew what
you were going to get from them so I had them on while I was playing my computer game. I remember that it was
getting late and I was thinking that I was gonna have to keep up with those girls tomorrow and that I should
shutdown and go to bed but this game just had me. I was a Civil War reenactor then and this sorta thing just
fascinated the heck out of me. Like I said, I knew I needed to get some sack time but I just couldn’t give it up. It was
stupid but stupid is good cause my wife and kids are alive today because of it.”
“DBM was going right along then some guy comes on and starts saying that people are being attacked in the
dormitories. He was saying that there was some drug or something that was going around that turned people into
to some kind of crazed animal and that it made them try to bite people. Next some girl comes on and says that all
the dorms were starting to go crazy and that sirens were going off everywhere and that people needed to take
steps to protect themselves. At first, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It had to be a joke or something, maybe
a play they were doing, you know like “War of the Worlds”. I pulled the headphones off and I could hear sirens
going off like there was a ten alarm fire going on. I turned on the radio but there was nothing but music and the
BBC. I got to thinking that I couldn’t wait to figure this out because if something was going on we might have to
move fast. I mean if some kinda of riot was breaking out it would be better to be home in Eaton Rapids then in
Lansing.”
“I woke my wife and told her what I thought was happening and we started getting are stuff together in a hurry and
getting the girls going. We went down to the checkout desk and some sleepy clerk, who didn’t know a damn thing,
checked us out. I didn’t know a whole lot about Lansing back then. I had come off 127 on Kalamazoo so I set off
down Kalamazoo back towards 127. Yep, straight towards the whole mess.”
“By the time I reached 127 everyone who had a car over at MSU or could get one was trying to get on 127. Traffic
was backed up down the ramp and people were honking and acting crazy. I’m stuck in traffic on Kalamazoo with my
wife and kids and I’m starting to get real scared. I tell them to get down in the back and not to make a sound or
move. I go well passed scared when suddenly this huge Mexican guy is gesturing for me to get out of the car. I look
around and we’re surrounded by people with bats and trash can lids and all kinds of stuff.”
“I mean this is bad I’m stuck right in front of Dagwood’s there ain’t no way I can batter my way out and the car is
surrounded. The big Mexican guy opens up his palms to me and says, ”We won’t hurt you but you gotta get out of
that car cause they’re coming. You better get out now cause there ain’t going to be no later.” If nothing else I
wanted to protect my wife and kids so I jump out and move towards them hoping to lead them away from my family.”
“When I get out I hear “WDBM” blaring loudly out of every car radio. It sounds like the voice is coming out of the
sky. There’s like a bunch of teenagers panicking and yelling about people being killed and eaten and that they
were now trapped by some kind of Zombies who were clawing to get into the studio. Apparently some phones were
still working and desparate people were calling in from all over MSU begging for help and telling what their situation
was and what they had seen.”
“The Mexican motioned up the road toward Kalamazoo and said, “That’s what coming up this road.” He then
motioned to a radio. “From what I’m hearing, there’s no where to go either. You can take your chances here or you
can try to make it on your own.” Almost right at that moment, I hear a woman screaming into a phone at WDBM
about the Zachs pushing into a cafeteria and attacking the people. I can still hear her screaming. I ran and got my
wife and kids and they went with some woman back over to fenced in area. I asked him what he wanted me to do.
He shook my hand and told me his name and laid it out for me. I looked at what he was saying and told him it wasn’
t going to work then I explained why. You should of saw the look in Big Juan’s eyes. Don’t get me wrong Juan and
his people were ready to go but this wasn’t a street brawl – this was going to take organization and it was about
only engaging at certain points and blocking everything else.”
“This enemy wasn’t afraid, could infect you quickly and had enormous numbers. 127 and 496 gave us natural
barriers but the openings that were there were too large and they would flank us. Hey, I was a Civil War guy. I’d
enacted battles all over the country and the one thing I knew was how ground was supposed to be fought. This
ground had advantages but we had to get these Zachs to flow to a point where we could put the maximum stop on
them. We also needed to move our line of battle to the East Lansing side of Kalamazoo and try to hold them there
and use the Lansing side as are last line of defense.”
“We were lucky because of Juan. Everybody knew him and respected him. He was a natural leader and with the
connection to Big Red he knew, unlike the poor cops, what to expect. He also knew I knew what I was talking about.
I immediately was promoted to RedDave the General. They threw me in a car and took me to all the crossing points
and then back down Saginaw and we worked out what we could defend and how.”
“The Zachs were coming through everywhere by then. They were moving across Grand River but were being held
back by all the fences. Lansing’s Eastside was mostly single family homes then and the only way you could move
was to come up the streets. Zacks don’t hop fences well. They tend to flow down till they find an opening then
move ahead. The damn things are crazy hungry and severely stupid. They don’t open doors they just push against
it. If there’s another opening they’ll go that way eventually they’ll just be moving up the street. If you think of them
like water, you can practically make them go anywhere you want them to. You better be damned ready though,
when they get there.”
“There’s one thing a Zach won’t fuck with and that’s fire. We had taken cars and blocked up all the over
passes into Lansing from East Lansing but they were still pushing up the embankments and coming down. They
were threatening to envelope us if they kept coming like that. We needed them to come only at certain points and
what they were doing was making it hard on us.
We had these two gas stations back then that sat on Kalamazoo. The one sat on the East Lansing side and
the other sat over on Lansing side. I didn’t know then that Zach’s didn’t like fire and frankly I didn’t care but you
figure with a little gasoline sprinkled on them, the fire would like the Zachs.
I told Juan that we needed to make a barrier across the top of the highway to keep the Zachs from coming
over. We had gas on our side but that was our supplies and who knew what we were going to need in the future. If
we could just find a way to get to the other station and use that gas and make kind of a river of fire on the eastside
of I-27. Didn’t seem possible through cause the Zachs were gathering fast on that side. Juan grabbed some of the
young guys and we started jabbering trying to figure out something fast and then this fucking huge moan starts
and the Zachs and start moving away. It turns out the cops were trapped over at Kirchner and they had turned on
the fucking ballpark lights.”
You should a saw these shitheads. Next thing I know they had bolted towards the underpass and were
clambering over the car blockade headed straight towards the gas station and the back of the Zacks. They were
hacking a slashing and it looked tight for the young guys. Next thing you know these fucking cops burst through
firing bullets, hacking and mowing over the Zacks then they did the damndest thing. I understand now what they
were doing but back then it was something.
They burst through and pushed this cop towards the youngins and then they all turned held their shields
together made a wall and began driving the Zacks back. There was another bit of luck. Bombero, his real name is
Asmad, was the attendant at the station and he was hiding down in the station wondering what the fuck to do. He
heard all the commotion, peaked out and turned on every pump then bolted out the door. The youngins had the
pumps on and they came scrambling back as the cops held the line and went down swinging one by one.
The Zacks came surging then. They hit our barrier with a moan. There were so many of them they were
crawling across and underneath the cars. We punctured the tires and the cars dropped down but that lowered the
cars so more were coming over the top. Juan held up his hand and nobody moved. They crept closer, their moans
filling the air. Juan dropped his hand and a flaming bottle arced overhead and down into the barrier.
Whoomp! The damn thing just took off. Zacks got hurled everywhere like flaming fireballs. It started a chain
reaction. The Zacks on fire and covered in gasoline went back into the other Zacks catching them on fire. The cars
sitting in the barrier began to burst into flame. Juan wasn’t finished though. He figured that we would be losing
electric power so he had been pumping all the gas he could out of the station on our side. He had the youngins
take some of the stuff up to the freeway and splash it around. Juan gave another signal and more flaming bottles
arced into I-27. The whole length of the freeway, as far as you could see, went up in flames.”
Big Juan, who was standing there listening, starts laughing, his large squat body spasming as tears come out of his
eyes.
“I can’t help it. You shoulda seen his face. His mouth was open and his eyes were all wide and everything. He
looked like a kid seeing his first fireworks. I didn’t start laughing at him till later cause when the freeway went up
that was the sign to take the Zacks out at all those points Red Dave had showed us.