Summer in the Urban Civilian Retention Area (UCRA)

By Captain Jacob E. Billet

 

 

 

I remember my youth, wandering the west side streets of Grand Rapids. We'd ride our bikes down Lake Michigan Drive, the hot asphalt sucking at our rubber bike tires. My mother would bring us kids to the West Side Public Library on Bridge Street, we'd get some books, read for a while under the shade on the front lawn of St. James Catholic Church next door. A few bucks saved, my young friends and I would ride or walk over to the Dairy Queen on Fulton Street, get a Peanut Buster Parfait or a Dilly Bar. We'd go swimming at the Lincoln Park pool: ice cold water and heavy chlorine smell.

 

The only smell near that old pool nowadays: the city's local undead.

 

Other than the feeding runs and surveillance patrols, the moment the weather gets warmer, where the heat and sun can start to "bake meat," the city has us load up with 50 gallon drums of cool, refreshing water, an extra air compressor, generator and several heavy duty garden hose. It's not for our sake, to cool down us, or to play "wet habit time" with the nuns at the WSA. (Cripes, Stokes is really getting to me. That's something he'd only say, though not in the company of those battle-hardened, holy sisters.)

 

Shower time is for the UCRA civilians. The folks on the other side of the river, the living populace, with their "care and concern" for their undead neighbors, want these poor, rotting folk on THIS side of the river to enjoy a cool misting of water.

 

Sure, I understand why. Sun baked zombies equals hellacious smell, dried out, peeling flesh (nothing worse than a rotter shedding their skin, or in this case, a entire populace of undead littering the streets with orange-peel flesh...it's like Autumn with leaves blowing about the streets), skin frying and sticking to pavement.

 

So we hose them down.

 

We drive up and down the streets, main ones first--Bridge, Stocking, Fulton, Lane, Lake Michigan Drive, Valley, then sweeps up Butterworth back to downtown.

 

It can be a day long excursion with us doing nothing else but giving the locals a soap-less shower.

 

Still, I'm almost glad the city cordoned off this neighborhood. It has kept most of the places of my childhood from being destroyed.

 

Yeah, I can't simply walk about like the old days, but sometimes it's just nice to see the old places. Though maybe NOT some of the old faces.

 

No one informed me that Mrs. Van Duin was undead and upright, still living in the corner house, two houses down from where I grew up. Used to wear heavy make-up back in the day. Ugh. She could use it now for sure.

 

###

 

For Captain Billet's further adventures in the UCRA and about Grand Rapids, Michigan in 2025, check out TRANSPORT. Available in ebook and paperback through most booksellers.

 

TRANSPORT (Book One)

Amazon http://amzn.to/1DOQNPl

B&N http://bit.ly/1xDXMck

 

TRANSPORT (Book Two) HUNT FOR THE FALLEN

B&N http://bit.ly/1titw5T

Amazon http://amzn.to/1vq0ORF

 

TRANSPORT (Book Three) UNCIVIL WAR

To be released July/August 2015

 

Publisher: Seventh Star Press LLC

 

Info:

grandrapidsaltered.blogspot.com

peterwelmerink.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PETER WELMERINK: Five Things I Learned Writing TRANSPORT

 

The HURON, a 72-ton heavy transport vehicle and an army of four; tracked, racked and ready to roll, to serve and protect the walled metropolis of Grand Rapids — both her living and her undead. Captain Jacob Billet and his crew patrol the byways, ready for trouble.

 

William Lettner, the North Shore Coalition High Commissioner, has enemies from the mainland to the lakeshore. He needs to be covertly transported back home after a disastrous meeting in Grand Rapids. He has no love for a city that give unliving civilians the right to survive.

Assigned to bring Lettner home, Billet finds himself assaulted and insulted by the commissioner's venomous outbursts every mile travelled as they move through the treacherous landscape between Grand Rapids and the shore of Lake Michigan.

 

To complete the mission, Billet, the HURON and her crew will have to face domesticated zombies and the feral undead; marauders holding strategic chokepoints hostage; barricaded villages fighting for survival, and a group of geneticists who’ve lost control of one of their monstrous experiments.

 

Travelling through West Michigan was never so dangerous.

 

***

 

DREAM IT, DO IT
I have been writing stories about epic Sword & Sorcery tales and Military forays for as long as I could put pen to paper. When I got the idea pumping through my system about the TRANSPORT series, and wrote that first manuscript, and submitted it to a publisher, and got it picked up for publication; BAM! Dream come true.

 

If you have an idea, and it keeps burning in your mind, and you can't shake it from your system, or it simply doesn't fade away, then you HAVE TO DO IT! Set some time aside. Put your butt in the chair and your body to the drawing board, keyboard, paper napkin, in front of you and start getting that idea down. Make it happen, because, who knows, you might have a BAM! DREAM COME TRUE.

 

CLICHE? WHAT CLICHE?
I did not set out to write another ZOMBIE-engorged tale when I sat down to write the TRANSPORT series. It was first about writing a fictional, somewhat futuristic, post-apoc tale set in my old hometown GRAND RAPIDS and somehow mix a strong military presence into it with cool soldiers, big armored military vehicles and a lot of action. The zombie aspects were sprinkled in after a thought of: WHAT ELSE CAN I THROW IN THE STORY FOR ADDED CHAOS. I like zombies so, it was zombies.

 

But MY ZOMBIES ARE DIFFERENT.



Bob the zombie service station attendant

Illo by Tim Holtrop

I don't want my characters having to run away from zombies. No mass of brain-hungry rotters rampaging berserkly (new word) killing every living thing. Sure, I have the FERAL "wild dog" zombies on the outskirts of town, like giant biting pesky Horseflies always swarming about, but I also have "civilian" zombies...the unfortunate city folk who have succumb to the virus and trip-shamble about the large fenced-in retention area that is on the west side of Grand Rapids across the river from city central. There are laws to protect those undead, and they are fed doped meat to keep them "tranquil" while City Central tries to figure out what to do with them.

 

And then you have BOB the 1950's gas station attendant zombie.

 

IT'S EASY SOMETIMES WHEN IT'S ALL IN YOUR HEAD
TRANSPORT Book One was all in my head. The beginning, middle and end were all there right from the get-go. I knew what I wanted, when I wanted it, where to put it. I knew the characters though they came even more to life when I started writing them. Some characters and scenarios just POPPED ONTO THE PAGE when my main group entered their locale in the story stream.

 

Basically BOOK ONE was fully imagined before I wrote it. It was easy to write. It just flowed out of me onto the page.

 

Book Two (TRANSPORT: HUNT FOR THE FALLEN) was a bit harder to write. I think sequels are always a little harder to plop down on page because, it's like, you almost know too much about everything, how do you make this all fit now, what can you do to RAMP THINGS UP, escalate the story line, the plot line, to possibly make it even better than the first book.

 

I figured it out and after some heavy duty, thorough reviewing and revising, I really like how Book Two has come out.

 

Book Three (TRANSPORT: UNCIVIL WAR) harkens back to Book One. I know where I am going, where I am taking things, and it has been fairly easy to write, and I'm having fun doing it.

 

A COUNTRYSIDE FULL OF POSSIBILITY
I scaled my story down to mainly the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan, and West Michigan spanning an area on the west side of the state, from Grand Rapids then westward between Holland and Muskegon which are along the Lake Michigan lakeshore. If you look at this area on a map, you can see it isn't necessarily a HUGE area. IT IS ENOUGH FOR MY STORYLINE.

 

Besides having large cities and small towns peppering the region, there are also a lot of wild woodlands, farms, etc., scattered about West Michigan. Miles upon miles of opportunity for both urban and rural chaos.

 

And since I know this region very well, it made it the perfect place for the TRANSPORT series.

 

RESEARCH CAN YIELD NEW RESPECT AND KNOWLEDGE
I did a lot of research in the Military realm of things while writing TRANSPORT. I wanted realism even though the books and characters are works of fiction. I spoke with friends and folks who had either served in the Military or were currently serving. I read a lot of true real stories of battle across WWII, the Korean War, Vietnam and our more recent activities in the Middle East. They all added quite a bit of NEW RESPECT for the men and women in the field, for our veterans both past and present...and most likely, future.

 

I do have some worries about writing about the wins and losses of my fictional military characters as I am hoping I show no disrespect for our war fighters both past and present. I do not think I show disrespect, but when you have a new found respect for the real-life folks who forego a lot of pleasantries we take for granted, to serve and protect (this includes police and firefighters, etc.), sometimes I have a concern if I am doing this right. (I have gotten some feedback from some of these fine folks, and they say I am doing just fine. We all need levity from the real deal time to time.)

 

But then again, my military characters are honorable, fight for justice, serve and protect even in the most dire of situations and locals, just like the real-deal service folk.

 

I suppose, in a way, writing about my fictional MIL-characters, I am giving a respectful nod and salute to the non-fiction "characters" who are out there risking life and limb to assist and benefit our way of life.

A tank turret at the Russell Rd Military Museum

 

###

 

TRANSPORT (Book One) can be found here:

 

AMAZON

Paperback

Kindle

 

BARNES & NOBLE

 

SCHULER BOOKS

Paperback

 

 

  

###

Peter Welmerink (www.peterwelmerink.com) was born and raised on the west side of pre-apocalyptic Grand Rapids, Michigan. He loves his hometown and West Michigan, which is why he writes about it. He writes Fantasy, Military SciFi, and other wanderings into action-adventure. His work has been published in ye olde wood pulp print and electronic-online publications. He is the co-author of the Viking berserker novel, BEDLAM UNLEASHED, written with Steven Shrewsbury. TRANSPORT is his first solo novel venture. He is married with a small barbarian tribe of three boys.

M213 Ridgerunner-class HTV (Heavy Transport Vehicle)

Hello All.

 

I would like to share some history and stats with you regarding the M213 Ridgerunner-class HTV. The in-story vehicle, the HURON, with CO Captain Jake Billet, is one of these massive beasts, and I thought you'd like some detail on this beautiful American-made monster.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#

 

HISTORY

 

When the H7N9 pandemic first took solid hold, in the U.S., to get vital medicines, personnel and other hard and soft transferrable and transportable goods between infected lands, GDG&M Land Systems LLC (Grusnis, Dietrich, Gilmore & Myszak Land Systems LLC) offered the beleagured

U.S. DoD a new concept in HTV (Heavy Transport Vehicle) design.

 

A combination between a tracked APC (Armored Personnel Carrier) and wheeled HEMTT (Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck), the M213 HTV was offered as a workhorse vehicle that could be up-armored with a variety of small arms and weaponry, including larger turreted weapons like 25mm

chain-fed autocannons.

 

Initially the project was put on hold as there wasn't a need for a juggernaut land vehicle like the M213. Still, the first five vehicles were built at DATP (Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant) in Warren, Michigan. They rolled into service September 2013 as the pandemic worsened.

 

Further vehicle assembly was halted as Detroit filed for bankruptcy in December 2013.

 

With the global and national crisis strangling the United States, Canada bought Detroit and a section of the east side of Michigan, north to Mt Clemens, south to Rockwood, west to South Lyon and Ann Arbor. It was called the Detroit-Windsor Providence starting in May 2014.

 

The already-built and rolled-out M213 transport vehicles stayed in Michigan, stationed first in the Lansing area under the command of Major J. Golczynski and A. "Sonny" Saenz, then the full unit was transferred to Grand Rapids, the second largest city in Michigan. (Detroit had been the

largest.)

 

 

The M213 Ridgerunner-class HTV's were named after the five great lakes: MICHIGAN, SUPERIOR, HURON, ERIE and ONTARIO.

 

With room to seat 24 men, a CO, and supplies in the main body of the vehicle, plus a driver and navigator, it beat out APC's. Typically a commander, front gunner and rear gunner were part of the crew and held topside positions. With four roof-top hatches, these stations could be fully utilized as gun ports.

 

Towing capabilities rival its own weight, the M213 beats the HEMTT and the HET (Heavy Equipment Transport) vehicles when it comes to payload hauling requirements and needs.

 

With wheeled and tracked mobility available on the spot, the M213 is the prime armored transport for any tactical environment.

 

 

STATS

Weight:   72 tons

Length:   32 feet

Width:    14 feet

Height:   12.5 feet (from ground to roofline)

Speed:    Road 52 mph (83km/h) Off-Road: 30 mph (48km/h)

Engine:  Twin Cummins VTA-903T diesel, 1200 hp total

Fuel Capacity:   155 US gal (587 l)

Operational Range:   220 mi (354km)

Transmission (tracked):  XT-1410-5A cross-drive (3 speed forward, 1speed reverse)

                      (wheeled): Allison 4500SP/5_Speed automatic (can be synced with track transmission) 

 

#

 

At the time of this writing, only the ONTARIO and the HURON remain in service.

 

(Illustrations by Tim Holtrop, Jason Conley and Google)

 

 

 

 

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Read about the HURON and her crew in the TRANSPORT Series.

TRANSPORT Book One is available now online and wherever books can be ordered.

 

Kindle

Amazon (paperback)

Barnes & Noble (paperback and Nook)

 

 

9/11 and why I write military fiction

I was on the road traveling the other day, realizing it was the 12th anniversary of that awful day. It was on the news, the big memorial event in New York. I watched it for a while before heading out. Said a little prayer for those lost, the families of the deceased and injured, and remembered our military guys and gals out there fighting the good fight.

I passed Camp McCoy as I drove through northwest Wisconsin.

I drove by the Russell Rd Military Museum while driving home.

Thinking a lot about our military personnel both present and past. Thanks you all. I salute you.

Why do I write military fiction?

Because I love the vehicles, the action and adventure in the old stories transcribed by veterans of all those wars. I know it is a grim world, in a world at war, in the fighting man and woman who has to endure being far from home, possibly smack in the middle of an enemies homeland, under fire, or simply enduring a sandstorm and having to literally take your vehicle apart to get all the grit out.

When I write, about my fictional characters and fictional situations (after all, I am writing about a slightly future flung world, post-zombie apocalypse), I often think if anyone in the military might enjoy this craziness in which I write. I write to entertain, to get the story out. And when writing military fiction, more than say sword and sorcery, I often stop and think about our military folk of today and in the past. I appreciate YOU and what you are doing, and our veterans, what you have done.

The fighting spirit. Perhaps that is really what is enduring. Out there, against the odds, probably more often with the odds against you, and yet you endure. You are strong. You keep pushing forward.

Besides the cool military vehicles and the adventure, that is what I am writing about: the fighting spirit, the push to survive against the odds, fighting the good fight, pushing forward.

Anyway, I thank you, those soldiers of today and those soldiers of yesterday, for inspiring me, to write my crazy adventure tales in this Military Thriller genre. Hopefully it is enjoyed. Hopefully I can throw some light moments in there, maybe get a chuckle from time to time. But will always push the fighting spirit, because, like you, this is what my underlying character story is about, pushing back against the odds, and surviving.

(I know in war, not all survive. It's not always pretty. We don't always win. But we will still go out fighting the good fight.)

Pete

TRANSPORT 2 novella underway...and potential cover art?

Okay. I need to share this.

I have the first TRANSPORT novella completed, and subbed to a publisher.

I started the second TRANSPORT novella (tentatively titled TRANSPORT 2: HUNT FOR THE FALLEN) around May 13th, and about 3/4 done writing it.

I haven't started the third TRANSPORT novella, but have a good idea for the gist and guts of it including the ending.

But I wanted to share with you some very very cool cover art sketches for TRANSPORT 2 penned by the very talented Mr. Tim Holtrop. This is all concept art. Not sure if it will be used or not. (If I self-pub this stuff, hell yes, will be working with Mr. Holtrop for some finished cover art.)

The setup for what you are looking at:

Big ruckus between APC Ridgerunner Huron (the massive armored personnel carrier vehicular star of the stories) and an Abrams tank, churning up and spitting gravel and dust about a gravel pit off Butterworth SW, Grand Rapids, Michigan. A hit from the tank's 120mm cannon would be the end of the Huron so the APC keeps up close and personnel to the Abrams. Spc. Loutonia Phelps decides the only way to end this tracked madness is to make like a pirate and board the Abrams. Perhaps dual .45's shoved down the turret hatch and a "Please cease and desist your actions against us, or I'll let off some hot lead like bouncing bumblebee inside your interior."

An Altered Grand Rapids begins here

Happy Holidays Folks!

A few announcements...

If you are interested in reading some good and dark fantasy adventure, you need to check out FADING LIGHT: An Anthology of the Monstrous.

The BIG book has a slew of great authors as well as great stories within. If you have a e-reading device like a Kindle or a Nook (or iPad, etc.), you can pick up the little BONUS book with yours truly within. The tale within is the FIRST "altered Grand Rapids" short story I have written and have to offer.

Link to the BONUS ebook with my altered Grand Rapids tale FINAL RIGHTS can be found here:

http://www.amazon.com/Fading-Light-Anthology-Monstrous-ebook/dp/B0094IC7XC/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1356284985&sr=1-2&keywords=fading+light

The ebook edition of the BIG book is here:

http://www.amazon.com/Fading-Light-Anthology-Monstrous-ebook/dp/B0094IC60G

The print edition can be purchased here:

http://www.amazon.com/Fading-Light-Anthology-Monstrous-Marquitz/dp/1479213489/ref=tmm_pap_title_0/187-9833996-3311019

 





Next, if you are still hungry and interested in some great action-adventure tales from the mixed up mind of Peter Welmerink, you can find another alt-Grand Rapids tale set in the 1950's and featuring a Cthulhu-esque beastie rising out of Lake Michigan.

SIGNAL IN THE DISTANCE is currently offered in e-format only, and can be found here:

http://www.amazon.com/Signal-In-The-Distance-ebook/dp/B00AGFISN0/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1356285049&sr=1-1&keywords=welmerink

There is more to come with tales centered around Grand Rapids and West Michigan.

Stay tuned!