“I understand the Air Force is going to destroy all of the bridges between Missouri and Illinois to stop the rioters,” one cop said.
“How many of those rioters are infected, do you think?” the other cop said.
“Who knows? I just know they have the guys downstairs wearing riot gear and face masks. The directive from DHS said not to come in direct contact with anyone’s bodily fluids in their bulletin. That Owasa stuff is nasty.”
“Yeah, I heard it makes most people act like zombies.”
“I heard it makes them die like they have Ebola.”
“Whatever it does, I don’t want to catch it.”
“You don’t live in Illinois, do you?”
“No, I live out west of here. So I wouldn’t be affected by the bridge situation anyway.”
Suddenly a radio crackled. One of the cops mumbled something. “I’d better get downstairs Sandoval. There are protesters gathered outside the building.”
“Be careful Tyrone.”
“Thanks man, you too.”
Randy heard a metal door slam.
He looked at the others. They needed to escape soon if they wished to make it out of Saint Louis.
“What were they talking about? What’s Owasa?” Missy whispered.
“I don’t know,” Randy replied quietly. “Sounds like some kind of disease.”
“You all talking about Owasa Disease?” the cop asked as he walked up to the cell.
Randy nodded. “What is it?”
“A nasty virus son. You don’t want to catch it.”
“What does it do?” Jillian asked.
“It causes terrible pain, vomiting, diarrhea, fever. Then it drives you mad and you become violent. It causes you to bleed from your eyes and your mouth and your nose and your ears. By the time it kills you, you will have likely wished for death many times.”
“That sounds awful,” Randy said.
He nodded grimly. “Yeah. And now we’ve got all those rioters out there, who knows how many of them are infected?”
“How does one get infected?”
“All it takes is exposure to an infected person’s bodily fluids. Then you’re probably going to die.”
“Yikes.”
He nodded. “I’ll be over there if you all need anything.”
“Sir, we live in Illinois. How are we supposed to get back over there if the military destroys all the bridges?” Adam asked.
The cop shrugged. “I don’t know.” He turned and walked away.
“Guys!” Missy whispered. “I have an idea. Just work with me here.”
Randy nodded. “What is it?”
“I’ll pretend to be infected. When the cop comes over here, you all need to pretend that you’re at risk of being infected by me. When he opens the cell, tackle him and we’ll lock him in here.”
“How will we get out of here?” Adam asked quietly.
“We’ll have to improvise,” Randy said.
Missy coughed. “Guys, I don’t feel so good,” she said as she sat down on the floor.
“Officer!” Jillian yelled. “One of our friends doesn’t feel good!”
“Just relax!” he yelled. “She’s probably okay.”
“Officer! I think she’s going to be sick!”
Suddenly Missy vomited.
The cop sighed and walked over. “What seems to be the problem?”
“I don’t know!” Missy screamed, in tears. “I feel terrible!”
“Have you been drinking tonight Miss?”
She shook her head. Suddenly she fell over and began to convulse.
The cop quickly unlocked the cell door and entered. “Stay back all of you!”
Randy locked his fists together and struck the cop in the back of his head as he knelt over Missy. He fell over with a cry as Adam grabbed his gun. Missy jumped up.
“You! You were faking! Get back here!” the cop yelled as he spun around on his hands and knees.
“If you move I’ll shoot you,” Adam said quietly.
“What do you want?” the cop asked.
“Our freedom.”
“I’ll take these,” Randy said as he snatched the cell keys from the cop.
“Don’t worry, we’re not going to hurt you,” Adam said as he and Randy backed out of the cell. Jillian and Missy stood in the hall.
Randy closed the cell door and locked it as the cop stood up.
“You’re not going to want to go out there!” he yelled. “The rioters are worse than this!”
“We’ll have to take our chances,” Randy said.
“Here!” Jillian yelled.
Randy turned and saw that she had several nightsticks in her hand. He walked over and took one. So did Missy.
He saw a map on the wall and studied it. “Looks like this door leads to a hallway that leads to a stairwell. We might be able to escape through there.”
They exited the detainment area and walked down an eerily quiet hallway toward a door marked “Exit.”
“Do you think that cop was right?” Adam asked.
“About what?” Randy replied.
“The rioters. What if we get exposed to whatever they have?”
He shrugged. “Just don’t get anyone’s blood on you and you should be fine.” He pushed a steel door open and they walked out into a stairwell. “I guess we’re not going to get our phones back, huh?”
“No, I guess not,” Missy replied. “I wonder how Casey is.”
“Hopefully he escaped and can meet us at his house. I guess we should shoot for heading there,” Randy said as they descended the stairs.
Ten minutes later they reached an exit. Randy opened the door and they walked out onto a loading dock. He could hear protesters nearby, on the other side of the building he assumed.
“Where to now?” he asked.
“You guys are lucky Casey liked to visit Saint Louis!” Missy said, laughing. “This way, down the alley! We should be able to get to Spruce!”
They all took off following her. The alley was dark and there were puddles everywhere. They ran past a sleeping homeless man. As they came around the corner they almost ran into the back of a large crowd of protesters gathered in the police station’s parking lot.
“Give us back our loved ones!” a long-haired man yelled from the back of the crowd. He waved a large sign over his head.
Missy pointed to the parking lot across the street. Randy and the others followed her across Spruce into a parking lot adjacent to a large hotel.
Randy heard a scream from above and he looked up just in time to see a woman falling from an upper floor of the hotel. She hit the ground with a sickening thud, her limbs splayed. Three men leaned out of the window she had leapt from, stretching their arms toward the ground. Something looked off about their gaze.
“What just happened?” Jillian asked.
“She got pushed by those guys!” Randy yelled. “Run!”
They ran below a raised section of highway away from the scene. They were all breathless by the time they neared Busch Stadium.
“Guys! You made it out!”
Randy looked up as his friend stepped out of the shadows. “Casey!”
Missy ran to her boyfriend and tearfully embraced him. “I thought I’d never see you again!”
He laughed. “Here I am! And look! I got this cool gun!” He brandished a machine gun.
“Where did you get that?” Adam asked.
“That cop that was holding me at gunpoint. I knocked him out and took his gun. How did you guys escape?”
“We tricked a cop at the police station,” Randy replied. He walked up to Casey and hugged him. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Me too. Me too man.”
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Randy said. “The military is going to destroy all of the bridges to Illinois soon.”
Casey nodded. “Let’s go! Follow me!” He took off running.
The group followed him through crowded streets full of rioting protesters.
Cars all around were ablaze. They ran past looters throwing bricks through shop windows. Randy noticed they ran past several people who appeared to be vomiting blood.
“This way!” Casey yelled as he turned right on to a street choked with cars.
The group wove around cars stopped in the road; most were abandoned. They ran under an overpass and up the approach to the Eads Bridge.
Suddenly Randy saw why the cars were stopped as he and his friends froze. Several military trucks had blocked the road in a makeshift roadblock. Armed soldiers stood at attention in front of the trucks as a mass of protesters waited restlessly.
“What now?” Missy asked breathlessly.
“I don’t know,” Casey said.
A soldier suddenly yelled something and began shooting at the protesters. The other soldiers joined him in shooting as the armed men fell back behind the trucks. The protesters surged forward, toward the trucks.
“What? Something’s not right here,” Casey said. “Come on! We’ll run down the sidewalks!”
Randy and the others hopped a railing and took off down the sidewalk, parallel to the surging mass of protesters. Many of them looked ill.
“Hey! Get back behind the roadblock!” a soldier yelled, pointing his gun at Randy.
“Don’t shoot!” he yelled.
“You infected?”
“No sir!”
“Then run for your lives!”
Randy ran as fast as he could, the others alongside him. The sounds of the crowd began to fade behind him. He glanced south and saw the city lights reflecting off the river far below. He heard jet engines in the distance.
“Run guys!” he yelled.
As they neared the east bank of the river, an airplane rushed overhead. Suddenly another bridge just upriver was enveloped in a fireball and began to collapse as a missile struck it. The Eads Bridge then shook violently and Randy was thrown off his feet. He looked back as a fireball erupted from the deck perhaps five hundred feet behind him. He stood back up and helped Jillian and Adam up. Then they resumed running.
When they reached the eastern terminus of the bridge the road divided. Casey pointed down. Randy looked and saw a train station below.
“We can hide there until things die down,” Casey suggested.
Randy nodded. “Come on guys.” He looked back toward the city. “We can wait down there for a bit and catch our breath. Who knows what’s next!”
Chapter Three
Andy Gibson
Day 0
The radio crackled as clouds drifted across the southern horizon.
"Bald Point Thirty-One-Thirty-One, this is Ops Houston, do you copy?" a friendly female voice asked.
"Ops Houston, this is Bee Pee Thirty-One-Thirty-One, I read you loud and clear. Go ahead," Andy replied, pressing the button on the microphone.
"Good afternoon Andy!"
"Hi Betty."
"So I just wanted to confirm that we will be evacuating y'all from your platform this evening. The first helicopter will arrive at Eighteen-Hundred hours, you copy?"
"Roger that Ops. Y'all are cutting it close, aren't you?" he asked.
He heard laughter. "I'm sorry, you know we run things on a shoestring budget," she replied apologetically.
"It's fine. We'll be watching for the helis this evening. Anything else?" he asked.
"No sir," she replied.
"Alright, this is Bee Pee Thirty-One-Thirty-One, out."
Andy sat the microphone on the desk and looked out over the rolling sea, wondering if there would be a platform to return to. News had broken a few days before that Hurricane Teddy was going to pass directly over BP3131, necessitating an evacuation.
As the crew waited for the helicopters, Offshore Installation Manager Carl Becker came up to the Communication Room and sat down next to Andy.
"Gibson, I think you've got some great mettle!" he said, patting Andy’s back.
"Thanks sir," he replied.
"Now, we've had this talk before. I want you to call me Carl."
"Sorry Carl," Andy replied.
Becker laughed. "No problem at all! You ready to get off here?"
He nodded. "Maintenance has been working all day on mothballing the platform and Production and Well Services have been working together to taper off production. I think Sappins said at Thirteen-Hundred Hours that extraction had been shut down and that most of the oil and gas onboard had been pumped ashore."
"That's good, yeah, I saw that he had reported success. You live close to shore?"
Andy nodded. "Yeah, in Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi, you?"
"Sort of, I live up in Monroe, Louisiana near my grandbabies. You've got a little boy, right?"
"Yeah, Isaiah Alexander Gibson," Andy said, smiling. "He just had his first birthday back in August."
The older man smiled. "You have any pictures?"
"Have any pictures?" Andy laughed. "Of course I do!" He pulled his phone out and opened up the picture gallery. He showed Becker a photo of the little, chubby brown-haired boy with a toothy grin who was his son.
The older man smiled. "He's cute. He looks just like you."
"Thanks.”
"You're welcome."
"So what's going on with your prostate cancer? Is it still in remission?" Andy asked. Carl had told them he had cancer a while back.
He laughed. "Well, you know it's the craziest thing. I got that treatment from my doctor back in July and when I had my checkup a few weeks ago, they said I was completely cancer free, they couldn't find any sign of cancer in my body!"
"That's insane!"
"Yeah. My wife called me yesterday and told me I needed to make an appointment with my doctor when I get home though. The treatment was recalled a couple of weeks ago. Apparently it causes serious adverse effects in some people."
"That's no good," Andy said. "I hope you'll be okay."
"Well, it did cure my cancer, so I guess if it winds up blinding me or something I can just retire early."
"Yeah, that’s true," Andy said as he watched the waves on the sea intensify.
Later, Andy walked down to wait for the helicopters in the galley. Some crew sat around playing cards, the Well Services team was discussing procedures to bring BP3131 back online after the storm and others occupied themselves with reading. Andy split his attention between looking at pictures of his wife and son on his phone and reading old issues of Wired Magazine.
At 6:05pm they were all still waiting when Third Mate Dale Speith entered the room. "Hey, Gibson! We need you up in the Comm Room," he said, motioning at Andy.
Andy stood and followed him out of the galley and up to the Communication Room. Carl, Carlos, Mitch, and Mike Speer, the Well Services supervisor stood around Sterling. Sterling was sitting at the desk with the radio unit and he had a scowl on his face.
"We've been trying for twenty minutes to reach someone," Sterling said, glancing down at his watch. "They're now ten minutes late! I can't get a chopper, I can't get Operations, I can't even get HQ!" He threw his arms up.
"We need to be off this platform by Twenty-Hundred Hours or we'll have to ride out the hurricane," Mitch said darkly.
"Anyone ever rode out a hurricane on a platform?" Dale asked.
No affirmative response came.
"Ops Houston, Ops Houston, this is Bald Point Thirty-One-Thirty-One, do you copy?" Sterling said, microphone in hand. "Ops Houston, Ops Houston, this is Bald Point Thirty-One-Thirty-One, do you copy?"
He turned a dial on the transmitter and muttered something under his breath.
"HQ Nola, HQ Nola, this is Bald Point Thirty-One-Thirty-One, do you copy? HQ Nola, HQ Nola, this is Bald Point Thirty-One-Thirty-One, do you copy?"
The only sound that came from the radio was a faint hiss punctuated occasionally by a soft crackle. The team murmured as tension grew.
"Okay, Andy, I need you to do me a favor," Carl said.
"Yes sir?" he asked.
"We need to make secondary preparations in the event
those helicopters don’t come. I want you to grab another crew member and verify that everything out on the open decks is secured. Likewise, I want you to double check that oil and gas production are shut down."
"Yes sir," Andy said. Then he turned and descended the stairs to the galley.
"Hey, what's going on?" Milo Jennings asked. He was one of the cooks. Andy’s best friend Royce had introduced Andy to Milo during his first week on the platform. Royce had insisted Milo knew the secret for barbequing perfect ribs.
Milo did know the secret, actually. His biological father lived in Memphis and had once worked at a restaurant called Rendezvous. He had taught Milo how to barbeque as a high school graduation present.
Milo lived on an old plantation with his mother and stepfather just outside Mobile, Alabama. His great-great-grandfather had been a former slave who remained on his plantation after the Civil War, working as a servant for his former master. Milo's grandfather managed to save up a sizable amount of money and buy the plantation in 1981.
"We’re still waiting on the helicopters," Andy said. "Hey Royce! Take a walk with me."
The short muscular man laid his cards down on the table and followed Andy out of the galley. They walked through a bulkhead to the stairwell and descended to the main deck.
"What's up?" Royce asked as they walked.
"Becker wanted us to make sure everything is secured out on the open decks," Andy replied as he opened the door.
"What's going on with the helicopters?" Royce asked as they walked out onto the main deck. A warm wind blew steadily from the south as the sea roared below.
Andy shrugged. "They've been trying to get in touch with Ops for almost a half hour. They haven't gotten a response, so no one knows. Maybe the helicopters are on their way."
"What if they don't come?" Royce’s concern was apparent.
"Then I guess we'll ride out the storm," Andy said as he glanced up at the derrick towering over the deck.
The derrick towered high over the deck, reaching more than two hundred feet toward the sky. It was flanked by two red cranes. In front, the safety flare apparatus reached out over the Gulf. Behind the derrick, the accommodation module stood five stories high. The control room was on the first deck, the galley was on the second, the communications room on the third, and the helipad on the roof. The rest of the module was filled with crew quarters. Theoretically the platform could accommodate up to one hundred and twenty crew but it rarely had that many due to CPG's staffing policies.
Darkness and The Grave: A Zombie Novel Page 3
