by Jack Hunt
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he said thumbing behind him and urging him to get in. They took off at a high rate of speed and cut through the back of properties, smashing through two wooden fences before bursting out onto the road that led them down to the residence of Wayne Crawford’s mother.
To avoid drawing a cluster of those crazy bastards they dumped the vehicle two houses away in a driveway and hopped out and jogged the remaining few yards. When they made it to the door, Wayne was there to greet them with a wry smile.
“What took you so long?”
Eleven - Quarantine
Jenna slapped Courtney around the face and told her to snap out of it. She’d been screaming hysterically ever since Abe had told them to lock the gymnasium door and barricade it. It didn’t help that it went silent after the gunshots and those inside assumed Abe didn’t make it. Instead of focusing on ensuring that entry point was secure, Courtney had buckled and sat there screaming uncontrollably. Not even her husband, Tom, was able to console her, so Jenna did what everyone else was thinking.
“You… you hit me?”
“Damn right I did, and I have a left hook to follow if you don’t cut that shit out. You’re giving me a really bad headache and I already had one.” She blew out her cheeks. “I need to think.” She scanned the room. Those inside were either huddled together, quietly talking among themselves, or searching for anything they could use as a weapon as burners pounded against the door determined to get in. They’d wound rope used for the banner around the handles, and heaved multiple tables and chairs against the door. Even with all that, some had chosen to keep their hands against the doors, convinced they’d break in at any moment. Besides three entry points, there was no other way in or out of that gymnasium.
“We need to get out of here,” Courtney said.
“No shit,” Vanessa added while following Jenna across the room. “What you did back there. I’ve been wanting to do that for years. You’re Miles’ wife, Jenna?”
“Yeah.” Jenna continued scanning the room.
“Vanessa Swan. I work here.”
“Well Vanessa, any secret tunnels, ladders, emergency exits I might need to know about?” she asked in jest. “Because right about now we could use a miracle.”
Vanessa smiled. “Unfortunately not.”
“That sucks as we’re going to need more than cocktail sticks and empty wine bottles if we want to get out of here alive. That door is not going to hold, and I’m not familiar with the area.”
The steady pounding of fists was only getting louder. From the double door windows at the front of the gymnasium, someone had seen a burner carrying a gasoline can into the building. There was only one thing worse than being trapped, and that was dying of smoke inhalation.
“Miles never brought you here?” Vanessa asked.
“No, this is the first time he’s returned since graduation.”
“Huh. Hal was right.”
“What’s that?” Jenna asked.
“Ah, nothing.”
Jenna shifted her focus to the main entrance. “We need to go out these doors but go where?” Her fingers drummed the side of a chair piled up against the door. Beyond the glass she could see them out there, burners, looking on as if waiting for them. What were they thinking? Some rocked back and forth, groaning as if in pain. Others ran past, focused, driven by something or someone. Something about the pandemic didn’t make sense. The general symptoms of flu, sure, those were present with any form of virus but those infected were exhibiting symptoms of advanced neurological damage. She recalled the way the woman had acted from the previous night, urging them one minute to open the door and help her, and in the next acting erratic and smashing her forehead against the glass. Working as a pediatric physician both in the USA and abroad on goodwill mission trips, she’d seen her fair share of diseases and viruses but nothing to this degree.
Encephalitis often showed up as fever, headaches and epileptic seizures but that wasn’t associated with aggression. Rabies, well it wasn’t common in the U.S., globally it still claimed upwards of sixty thousand lives each year. The symptoms were flu-like and included fever, headache, nausea and vomiting, but in most cases once the symptoms began to show, people often fell into a coma and didn’t wake up.
While she hadn’t ruled it out, it seemed unlikely.
No, these folks were operating, talking, functioning, even demonstrating regular behavior like carrying a gasoline canister. She turned and looked back toward the door that connected with the rest of the school. Her eyes dropped to the ground where she began to see liquid pooling out.
“Hey, hey!”
Those standing nearest had already smelled it but didn’t register where it was coming from until it had pooled around their feet.
Jenna dashed toward them just as a blue flame spread.
She removed her jacket and patted someone’s legs, putting out the flames while a few others did the same. In an instant flames engulfed the table and chairs, licking up into the air, releasing black toxic smoke. Everyone moved to the front of the building. Outside, burners looked on, waiting, almost knowing what they were doing. Those fearful for their life began tearing away tables and chairs to get out. It was either face the unknown outside, or die from being burnt alive.
Behind them the blaze had already begun consuming the doors. Those on the other side continued to beat and now they were breaking through.
“Go. Go!” she yelled. Jenna grabbed a wooden chair and smashed it against the ground to break it apart so she could wield a leg as a weapon. As they managed to clear the doors, multiple things happened, all of which caused them to freeze.
There was an eruption of rapid gunfire from behind and ahead.
Bodies dropped even as burners broke through the door, rushing toward them, their bodies ablaze. Even on fire their drive to attack was strong.
For a second she thought it was Miles and the group but that changed when multiple military personnel wearing CBRN suits appeared, yelling and pulling them out of the building toward a large green truck. There, they were loaded onto the back like cattle, joining others she’d never seen before.
Around them, the steady staccato of gunfire as the Army moved in gunning down anyone that showed resistance or violence.
The four of them stood there wide-eyed and slack-jawed at the contents of Wayne’s gun vault. It was the size of a kid’s bedroom with steel storage lockers on three walls. Crawford entered with the swagger of a gangster, naming different models, the price and history behind them. It was like he was showing off war medals. “And this baby cost me $21,000. Don’t touch.” Rifles, handguns, smoke grenades, vests, knives, he had it all. He took out a key chain and began unlocking each of the cages. “Pick your poison, just be sure you’re man enough to handle it,” he said. When they didn’t move he rolled his eyes and tossed a rifle to Miles. “Here you go, Jonesy, get your chops around the AR-15. It’s a gun wannabe’s wet dream.”
Miles looked at it and handed it back. “I’ll stick with a handgun.”
He burst out laughing. “A handgun? You’re going to need more than that out there. But hey, sissy, whatever gets you off.” He reached in and pulled out the smallest handgun he’d ever seen. From one end to the other it wasn’t any bigger than his palm. Laughing, he handed it to Miles. “Now don’t you go getting carried away with that. That’s some serious Rambo shit.”
He chuckled and turned to Nate. “So Staples, what’s it going to be?” Nate reached in and pulled out an M17 handgun and a few boxes of ammo. He set them on the waist-high table in the middle of the room, then grabbed a vest, and an M4 carbine. “Oh man, c’mon, live a little,” Crawford said, taking the M4 from him and replacing it with an HK 416-A5 with a custom buttstock. Nate looked it over and took back the M4. Wayne laughed. “You Army boys. So predictable. I bet you rub your dick with the same hand too.”
Hal didn’t wait for him to do his shtick, he reached in and pulled out a huge M60 machin
e gun to the horror of Crawford. “Whoa, whoa, I love your enthusiasm, Hal, but that’s way too much gun for your chicken leg arms. Knowing you, you’re liable to kill us all with friendly fire. Besides, you ever seen Rambo before?”
“All the movies.”
“Then you know the little guys carry these.” He took the M60 from him and handed over the AR-15. “Maybe one day you will graduate to this big boy but until your nuts drop you’ll only look silly. And we’ve got ladies in the house.” He eyed Molly. “Well gorgeous, what’s it gonna be?”
She browsed his collection while he scanned her like a bar of chocolate, licking his lips. She pointed and he smiled. “Now that’s my kind of lady.” Crawford quickly unlocked a cage on the other side and pulled out an AK-47 and a box of ammo. He went to give it to her but held on to it. “A gun like this needs to be controlled. I’m gonna have to show you how to use it.”
“Would you?” she replied in a teasing manner.
“Would be my pleasure. Follow me.”
Miles knew she was winding him up. Molly had grown up on a ranch with a father who had a taste for rifles and the Second Amendment. While she tended to keep that side of her life on the down low, he’d seen her fire a weapon or two. She was as comfortable with a gun as she was tearing up the road in that Mustang. Still, she played the part of a gun virgin with perfection. As Hal and Nate geared up, Miles watched her toy with Wayne. “So I press this little button here, you mean?” she said. Wayne nodded. “Oh, Wayne, you really do know your guns.”
“I know a lot more as well, maybe I’ll show you sometime.” He wrapped his arms around her as he assisted in holding the gun.
Miles rolled his eyes. “Guy hasn’t changed one bit.”
“Not everyone has,” Nate said as he filled a magazine with rounds. “And quite frankly I’m pleased he hasn’t, otherwise we would be up shit creek right now.” He pulled the charging handle to the rear, checked the chamber and put it forward again.
“Yeah, but seriously, who the hell needs this many guns?”
“Ever seen a guitar collector?’
“Guitars and guns are very different, Nate.”
Nate laughed. “You got a problem with guns, Jonesy?”
“No. I just didn’t expect us to be gearing up for world war three. My war is fought in a lab.”
“Not today it isn’t.” He palmed in a magazine, then loaded a round in the chamber. While Crawford was busy going through the motions, Nate took the piddly little pea-shooter from Miles and replaced it with an M17 handgun, then gave him an M4 as well. “Don’t worry, I’m sure Crawford can show you how to use it,” he said with a smile as he passed him and walked out of the room.
Miles looked at Hal who seemed concerned.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I just hope Nate is.”
Miles frowned. “What?”
“Ah nothing,” he said walking by him.
Molly returned letting out a fake laugh. She took out a bag and started filling it with ammo, and a few items that Crawford had told her to get.
“Why are you toying with him?”
“Why, you jealous?” she said scooping up the bag and winking at him as she brushed by.
“Me? Please.” Miles looked down at the handgun in his hand and mumbled under his breath. “God help us.”
Twelve - Shots
The sight of military should have instilled confidence, hope even, instead it invoked terror. Grady was seconds away from getting down off the roof and joining those being ushered into a cattle-holding truck when Abe stopped him. They’d watched the slaughter of infected and presumed innocents play out as a convoy rolled through the streets, soldiers firing without hesitation. The strangest sight was a soldier with a flamethrower who seemed more focused on destroying buildings than people. “Why are we waiting?” Frank asked.
“Doesn’t something about this strike you as unusual?” Abe replied, not taking his eyes off the carnage for even a second.
Frank shrugged. “What? They’re helping.”
“They’re killing, innocents,” Abe said.
Frank replied. “No, they only killing those who don’t resist or show any aggression. C’mon, let’s go,” Frank said.
“You want to go, go. No one is stopping you but I’m holding back at least until I can get a clearer picture of what’s happening.”
Grady looked at Frank. “I’m with him.”
“You guys are insane. Josiah, let’s go.” They scrambled down to the lip of the roof and jumped to the dumpster and double-timed it around a corner.
“Grady, put that drone of yours in the air. I want to see where they’re taking them.”
He launched it for a second time and took it higher than usual so the chances of it being noticed would be less. As they pushed it out over the tops of the homes and business, they saw Frank and Josiah heading toward a group of soldiers who were ushering people into the rear of a truck. One of them looked their way, and guns were raised. They couldn’t hear what was happening but Abe figured they were ordering them to get on their knees. Josiah dropped. Frank didn’t. He pressed forward, hands raised, seemingly talking with them and looking back at his son, then pointing into the distance. In an instant, his body dropped and they knew the soldiers had shot him. Josiah bounced up and burst forward toward his father only to be shot twice.
“Holy shit.”
Gripped by the realized that could have been them, Abe pitched sideways down the roof. “We need to get out of here now,” Abe said.
“And go where?” Grady asked.
“Wayne’s place.”
“You know how far that is from here?”
Abe didn’t wait to explain or convince him otherwise, he was already clambering to get off that roof. Grady brought the drone back as fast he could and then took off to catch up with Abe who’d already hauled ass one block. They made it as far as Joe’s Gerlach Club when burners spotted them. There was no communication between the two of them, no urging to run faster or which direction to go. Grady followed Abe like his life counted on it. Abe burst into the front of Joe’s Club and opened fire just as Grady caught up. “Close the door.”
He locked it behind him and stepped back to the sound of burners smashing against it. How many of the eighty thousand were infected? How many had returned to town? The thought of their community being overrun by that many extinguished any hope he had of staying alive. Grady turned to find Abe behind the bar filling a shot glass with whiskey.
“Oh, have a drink, why don’t you? It’s not like the world is ending.”
He gasped and filled another glass. “It’s to take the edge off. You want one?”
Grady shook his head.
Abe frowned.
“My wife’s against it.”
Abe set the bottle down. “You’re kidding, right?”
“She says it destroys brain cells. She has me on a strict diet.”
“Sounds like she has your balls in her handbag as well.” Abe crouched down behind the bar, his head bobbed up and down a few times as he moved along.
“What are you doing?”
A few seconds later he appeared holding a shotgun. “Replenishing.” He took another look underneath and set a few boxes of shells on the counter. “So this wife of yours. She have a name?”
“Yoon.”
“You love her?”
“What kind of question is that?”
Abe began loading rounds into the Mossberg shotgun. “Do you?”
“Of course.”
“You pay the bills?”
“What?”
“Bills. You pay them?”
“Of course.”
“I don’t mean make the money to pay them, do you pay them?”
“She handles it.”
“All of it?”
“Look, I don’t know what you’re getting at but my relationship with Yoon is…”
Abe stopped loading and was waiting for him to finish but before he could, they heard rapid
fire outside. “Quick, this way,” Abe said. They hurried out to the rear, and into a storage room where dry food was kept. Abe pulled out a folding chair and got on it and used the tip of the shotgun to push up on a portion of the ceiling. From there he hauled himself up. “Kick the chair out of the way and give me your hands.”
“How do you know your way around this place?”
“You want to live, give me your hands.”
Outside the storage unit, they heard more gunfire, then a door breaking and a soldier yelling. Grady didn’t hesitate, he reached out and Abe pulled him up as though he was as light as a feather. He replaced the tile and they sat quietly in the dark listening as soldiers cleared each of the rooms. “Clear!”
They remained quiet for close to ten minutes as soldiers helped themselves to drinks and then left. At some point, Grady turned to Abe. “How did you know about this spot?”
“I arrested someone who was hiding in it.”
“Who?”
“A guy wanted for a domestic. He drank a lot, a little too much. He was friends with one of the bartenders. The night we got a tip about where he was, he was a little ahead of the game, you could say. We knew he hadn’t left the bar so we figured he had to be hiding somewhere. Took us all of fifteen minutes using a canine.”
“The lengths people go to avoid arrest.”
“Yeah, the owner didn’t even know. He fired the bartender who hid him.”
“What an asshole. Did you know him?”
“Who, the bartender or the guy we arrested?”
“The offender?”
He paused before he replied. “Yeah. He was my brother-in-law.”
“But you’re not married?”
“Not anymore.”
Grady didn’t know what to say. Fortunately Abe didn’t give him much of a chance to respond as he lifted the tile and lowered himself down. “Come on.” Once he was down on the ground and they made their way back into the bar, Grady went behind it and poured a shot. “I think I’ll have that drink now.”
Abe went to the front of the building and peered outside. “Seems those burners got lucky with a few of those soldiers. Whatever is going on, the military isn’t taking any chances.” He turned to Grady who was on his third shot. “You ready?”
