Apocalypse- the Plan

by Gary M. Chesla

  “Somehow I didn’t think it would,” Bill replied. “There have been too many signs since we left the base. I tried to keep quiet, hoping things would be different, but I knew it was going to end up like this.”

  “Any suggestions?” Dave asked.

  “A couple of possibilities, one possibility is that we could go back to the base,” Bill said.

  “I don’t want to go back there,” Michelle said. “I don’t like those people, there is just something about them that bothers me.”

  “Is there anywhere else I could take you?” Dave asked.

  Michelle sighed, “You could take me to my boyfriend Kevin’s place. I really don’t want to go there, I’ve been trying to breakup with him for the last month, but he just wouldn’t take the hint.”

  “If you really don’t want to go there, you don’t have to go,” Bill said.

  “I guess I should at least find out if he is OK,” Michelle replied. “I don’t know anyone else.”

  “You know us,” Bill said.

  “Do you want to drive by his place?” Dave asked.

  Michelle nodded, “He lives over on the next block.”

  They all got into the car and quietly drove down the street, turned at the corner and stopped at the corner of the next block.

  “Which house is it?” Dave asked.

  Michelle’s eyes widened as she said, “That white house two doors down.”

  “The one with all the windows broken and the door lying out in the front yard?” Bill asked. “I don’t think we want to go in there, if he is in there I think it best we just let him alone.”

  “That’s it,” Michelle replied softly. “I’m sorry he’s dead, but I didn’t think he would still be here after I saw what happen at my house. He was good with computers, but he didn’t have a lot of common sense.”

  Dave thought he heard a hint of relief in Michelle’s voice.

  “I have a second option where we could go,” Bill said.

  “What’s that?” Dave asked.

  “We could all go to my place,” Bill replied. “Contrary to what you said, my shelter has been completed. I finished it last month. I haven’t stocked it with a year’s worth of food and supplies like I wanted, but I have enough food to last us for a few weeks.”

  “Wouldn’t your wife get upset if you brought us home?”

  “I’m not married,” Bill replied.

  “But Betty said you were,” Michelle replied. “She told me not to believe you because she said you would tell me that you weren’t married.”

  “I told Betty that I was married so she would stop hitting on me,” Bill said. “You can ask Dave.”

  “He’s right,” Dave replied. “Bill isn’t married. I don’t know why, but Betty did have a thing for Bill. I used to get a kick out of watching how Betty made Bill squirm.”

  “Are you married?” Michelle asked looking at Dave. “Do you need to go find your family before we decide where to go? Betty told me you were single, but Betty obviously didn’t know as much as she thought she did.”

  “No, I’m single,” Dave replied smiling, “I have an apartment over on Willow road and all that’s waiting there for me is a sink full of dirty dishes. I’m in no hurry to go home to make sure they are OK.”

  “Well do you want to go to my place or not?” Bill asked. “It’s my place or back to the base and I agree with Michelle, I don’t trust those guys.”

  “I don’t know,” Dave replied. “We haven’t seen what the rest of the area is like. What if the rest of the area is clean like the Commander said? We might be better off to keep looking for civilization.”

  “By now I thought you would know better,” Bill replied. “The Commander said that they had cleared from the base out to Route 95. They haven’t been out this way and as you have seen, the infection has spread further than they thought.

  This isn’t over, if you ask me this is only starting. Besides, it’s starting to get dark and if I’m right, which I am, you don’t want to be roaming around out here in the dark.”

  “I think we should go to Bill’s place,” Michelle said. “At least for tonight.”

  “I guess it wouldn’t hurt,” Dave relented. “We can go out tomorrow and check out the rest of the area then. I think I can tolerate one night in your club house.”

  “That’s good,” Bill smiled. “Let’s get moving, we can be there in ten minutes.”

  Chapter 17

  Dave drove out Kings Street for five minutes before they stopped seeing any more buildings.

  They spotted movement between some of the buildings, but when they saw the staggering figures moving in the evening shadows, Dave decided it wasn’t worth the risk to stop and see who or what it was.

  Unfortunately, they all had a good idea of what they would find.

  Five minutes later Bill instructed Dave to turn up an old dirt road.

  They drove through a wooded area then finally came out in a small clearing where an old rickety mobile home was parked.

  “Pull the car behind the trailer,” Bill said.

  Dave pulled behind the little silver trailer and shut off the engine.

  The mobile home was old and showed signs of neglect.

  The grass was high, in need of mowing, and empty beer cans could be seen piled up next to the trailer.

  “Do you still want to stay here?” Dave asked Michelle as he saw the dazed look on her face as she looked around.

  “Where is your shelter?” Michelle asked.

  “It’s under the trailer,” Bill replied. “I wanted it where I could get to it fast if I woke up in the middle of the night and had to get to a safe place fast.”

  “You mean if Martians landed next to your trailer?” Dave laughed.

  “No, in case I was getting attacked by zombies,” Bill replied. “I don’t believe in UFOs and crazy stuff like that. That’s your area.”

  “OK,” Michelle said like she was sorry that she had helped talk Dave into going with Bill to this place. “I guess since we’re here we should at least take a look at it, but it better be clean and there better be more than one bed. And no bugs or snakes, I hate snakes.”

  “It’s clean,” Bill replied. “No one has ever used it before. I’ve been thinking about trying it out, but I haven’t had a chance to use it yet. You have the honor of being the first ones to try it out.”

  This made Dave laugh.

  “We better go inside,” Bill said. “It’s getting dark and if you haven’t noticed, it is very quiet around here.”

  “You’re right,” Michelle said. “There aren’t any frogs or crickets singing.”

  “Yeah, now that you mention it,” Dave said quietly, “it is way too quiet. Let’s go see your shelter.”

  They walked up to the mobile home.

  Bill reached above the door and pulled down the key to the mobile home and unlocked the door.

  He reached inside and flipped the light switch on the wall inside the trailer.

  “The power is out,” Bill whispered. That’s another bad sign, but don’t worry I keep an extra flashlight on top of the refrigerator.”

  Bill reached inside and they could hear something falling to the floor as Bill fumbled around feeling for the flashlight.

  A second later Bill turned on the flashlight.

  He shined the light on the floor so they could walk inside the trailer.

  “Close and lock the door,” Bill said. “Do it quietly, the hair on the back of my neck is starting to stand up. I have a feeling we aren’t going to be alone much longer.”

  As Bill began to shine the light around the inside of the trailer, Michelle whispered to Dave, “The hair on the back of my neck is standing up too, but it doesn’t have anything to do with zombies.”

  Dave chuckled.

  “Excuse the mess,” Bill said. “I haven’t had a chance to clean up the place.”

  “You should have seen the back seat of Bill’s car,” Dave laughed. “I swear he drove ambulance by night
and collected garbage during the day.”

  “How do we get down into the shelter?” Michelle asked.

  “Back this way,” Bill replied. “The entrance is in the closet in my bedroom.”

  They followed Bill back the narrow hallway.

  Something crunched with each step Michelle took, she felt like she was walking over a floor covered with egg shells.

  “Or bugs!” Michelle shuddered and thought. “Oh God this place is giving me the creeps.”

  As they walked into Bills eight-foot square bedroom, Bill shined the light on the closet door.

  “The entry way to the shelter in on the floor in my closet,” Bill said. “You two wait here and I’ll go down and get us some light so we can see down there.”

  “Does your shelter use candles for light?” Michelle asked.

  “I have an entire crate of candles, but that’s only in case of emergency,” Bill replied. “I have a generator out back that supplies electricity to the shelter. Give me a minute and I’ll get it powered up.”

  Bill pulled up a trap door and slowly descended into the area below until he disappeared in the darkness.

  Dave and Michelle stood in the dark room, finally Michelle moved in closer to Dave until their bodies touched.

  “We have the honor of being the first people to stay in Bill’s survival shelter,” Dave said. “You also have another honor.”

  “I’m afraid to ask, but what honor is that?” Michelle asked.

  “You have the honor of being the first girl to ever see the insides of Bill’s bedroom.”

  “Ooh, that’s gross,” Michelle laughed. “If you ever tell anyone that, I’ll never speak to you again.”

  “What’s the matter, you don’t like Bill?” Dave chuckled.

  “He’s not my type,” Michelle replied.

  The bedroom lit up as a bright light came up through the open trap door.

  Bill’s head came up through the opening.

  “We’re up and running,” Bill said. “Come on down.”

  Dave helped Michelle go down first, then he followed.

  When they were both down, Bill crawled back up the ladder and secured the trap door.

  “Well, what do you think?” Bill asked when he came back down the ladder.

  Michelle and Dave just stood, looking around the brightly lit shelter.

  “I didn’t expect this,” Dave said.

  “What did you expect?” Bill smiled.

  “Dirt floors, water over my ankles, spider webs, old boxes to sit on and snakes,” Michelle replied.

  Bill laughed, “Let me show you around. The shelter is eight feet wide and forty feet long, the same size as the trailer above. I would have made it bigger, but I wanted to use the trailer to disguise that it was here.

  The walls are all concrete block and the floor is concrete covered with carpeting. The ceiling is reinforced concrete.

  I wanted to be sure that the zombies wouldn’t be able to dig into the shelter.

  There are five rooms divided by walls made from two by fours covered with paneling.

  We’re in the living area right now.”

  “The couch and stuffed chair is a nice touch,” Dave said.

  “I figured I’d be spending a lot of time here, so I wanted it to be comfortable,” Bill replied. “Take a look through the door on your left. That is the sleeping quarters.”

  Michelle was the first one to look in to the sleeping quarters.

  She was relieved to see that there were two bunkbeds, one against each of the side walls.

  “Nice,” Michelle said

  “OK, lets go to the next room.

  They walked through the next doorway.

  “This is the kitchen on your right,” Bill said as Dave and Michelle looked at the small gas stove, single tub sink over a small refrigerator that filled a small alcove to their right.

  Bill slid open a door on the left side of the room.

  “This is the pantry,” Bill said as he let Dave and Michelle look inside a small six by eight room.

  The walls were lined with shelves.

  “I’ve only been able to fill one shelf with food,” Bill said. “I’ve been trying to fill a shelf each payday. If we’re here more than a few weeks, we’ll have to go out and look for supplies.”

  “What is that?” Michelle asked pointing to a small metal box that sat in the back corner of the room.”

  Bill smiled, “That’s the toilet. With water being a valuable commodity during the apocalypse, I didn’t put in a shower, but I knew I would need to go to the bathroom, so I found a small RV toilet in town and installed it in here. It’s a real working toilet, so when you have the urge, feel free to use it.”

  “All the comforts of home,” Dave laughed.

  “Now to the final and perhaps the most important room,” Bill said. “Let’s go into the control room.”

  “Control room?” Michelle asked looking puzzled.

  “I need to know what is going on outside,” Bill replied. “The control room lets me see what’s going on outside so I know when it is safe to go out. We can’t stay in here forever, a time will come when we’ll would need to go out to find supplies. This room will let us know what we have to deal with when that time comes.”

  Bill opened the door and led Dave and Michelle into the final room.

  The room was eight feet wide and ten feet long.

  In the room was a desk with a computer sitting on it. A small table sat off to the side with an atlas on the top opened up to a map of Kingsland, Georgia.

  The room also had a gun rack on one wall that contained three rifles and a dozen boxes of ammunition.

  “This is all very nice,” Michelle said. “But I hope we don’t have to stay down here very long.”

  “How long will the generator run?” Dave asked.

  “I have a five-hundred gallon tank of diesel fuel buried out back. The generator uses about ten gallon a day, so we will have power for fifty days. After that, we have to use the candles for light,” Bill replied. “The shelter wouldn’t help us in case of a nuclear war, but I’m not worried about that.”

  “How does your computer let you know what’s going on outside?” Michelle asked.

  “I have it connected to four cameras mounted in the trees around the trailer,” Bill replied.

  “Can we take a look?” Dave asked.

  “Sure,” Bill replied and sat down in front of the computer and hit the power button.

  The computer whined as the machine powered up and loaded the operating system.

  Finally the screen lite up.

  Michelle jumped back away from the computer when she saw the desk top wallpaper that filled the screen, it was a zombie standing in the middle of the screen that slowly raised its arms and began to moan.

  “Pretty neat wall paper don’t you think?” Bill grinned.

  “Too realistic,” Michelle laughed.

  Bill turned back to the computer and clicked on an icon of a camera that was showing on the top right corner of the screen.

  The screen changed to four squares, each square with a view of the outside from each one of the cameras.

  They all stared at the screen in silence.

  Bill clicked on the one square for the camera that was aimed at the trailer from across the clearing.

  The trailer was surrounded by staggering bodies that appeared to be pounding against the mobile home.

  More staggering bodies were making their way towards the trailer from out of the woods.

  The gray and black picture from the night vision camera made the image appear even more eerie than it actually was, if that was possible.

  “I told you it was too quiet out there,” Bill said after a few minutes.

  “God, the hair on my neck is really standing up this time,” Michelle said.

  “We are a good five miles beyond Route 95,” Bill said. “The Navy cleared out the small area around their base and out to Route 95, but from what I can see, all the
y did was waste their time. This thing is spreading and it’s spreading fast.”

  “Do you think the Navy will come out this way tomorrow?” Michelle asked.

  “I don’t know, maybe, but I honestly don’t think it will do any good,” Bill replied. “This thing will probably spread another five hundred miles by tomorrow. I honestly don’t think anyone can stop it now.”

  “I was hoping after last night that this was finally over,” Michelle said.

  “I hate to disappoint you,” Bill replied. “But the way I see it, last night was just the first night. This is just getting started. There isn’t any way this can be stopped until it runs its course. It’s just like the Black Plague that spread across Europe during the middle ages. The people were helpless against it.”

  “How did the Black Plague end?” Michelle asked.

  “The best anyone could tell, it was by people locking themselves inside their houses and not coming back out until the plague had run its course, sort of like what we are doing.”

  “What happens here when the zombie plague runs its course?” Dave asked.

  “Just about everyone will be dead or be a zombie,” Bill replied.

  “It doesn’t sound like letting it run its course is much of a solution,” Dave said.

  “Do you think those Navy guys lied to us about everything?” Michelle asked.

  “No, I don’t.” Dave replied. “I just don’t think that Ensign Adams knew what he was talking about. He was trying to sound like he was in charge and knew what was happening, I think he had seen or overheard a few things but he only knew some of what had happen. You know the old saying that a little knowledge is dangerous because you take what you know and guess at the rest and think you know it all.”

  “I still think they were trying to cover something up,” Bill said. “I think they knew exactly what happened and just didn’t want us to know the real story.”

  “I felt that way at first,” Dave replied. “But after talking to Commander Lewis I changed my mind. I believe that Commander Lewis was being honest with us, I got the impression that he wasn’t trying to cover up anything.