Pops laughed it off. “We all discussed this. We have much more equipment than we will ever use and the people in Clovis and Fresno are in a desperate situation.” He leaned against the granite counter. “Their efforts down there will directly benefit our safety up here on our hill.”
The doctor scoffed and shook his head again. He took a gulp of his gin and tonic and turned to face us. I noticed he had trouble standing steady and he reached out his free hand to grab the counter. “So you said.” Another gulp. “I don’t recall you taking any votes as to whether it is wise to be giving away our equipment.”
Buck started to respond with one of his trademark reprimands, but Pops put out a hand to stop him. I saw the look on his face, and I knew what was coming. I had seen that expression on my father before, usually when I had done something wrong.
“Dr. Tashnizi, I think you are mistaking what our situation is here at Dragon’s Lair.” Pops took a step closer to the inebriated physician. “This is my home.” He pointed to me. “Mine and Virgil’s. You are here as a guest. I am happy to discuss the views of my guests on these matters, and I will give your input due consideration. But Doctor Tashnizi…this is not a democracy. I have offered you the safety and comfort of my home, but that’s as far as it goes.
“That equipment you are referring to was all bought with my money. I know how much we have and how much we can spare. We have surplus guns, ammunition, and food because that’s how I planned it. It was always my intention to recruit assistance from people who might be caught up in a survival situation, just as we now find ourselves. Providing others with food and weapons is a good way to support and foster a good relationship with them. We are all in a horrific situation, doctor. I won’t sit on my hands as people die when I can help them. End of story.”
The doctor made a face like he had tasted something bitter. He muttered something in Farsi under his breath as he turned to leave. He stopped next to the door that led back to the private rooms and turned back to face us. He straightened up his posture and saluted Pops then snickered while he made his way drunkenly down the hall.
“That man might give us some problems, Dan.” Buck was gathering his gear off the floor in preparation of heading to the shower. He straightened up and gave us a serious look. “I don’t think he’s missed one night getting sloshed.”
I agreed. The man had been growing surlier every day. He had already alienated most of our group by announcing he would not, under any circumstances, stand watch. His opinion was that being a physician, he held more value to our party than the others. He declared that his presence here and his ability to treat us, should we fall ill or be wounded, was enough to earn him a special status. Pops was ready to set him straight, but the others pointed out that he had arrived alone and thus presented us with an odd number of adults. Since we always stood watch in pairs, he was the odd man out. Pepper volunteered to stand watch with him, but the Major decided that since neither one of them had any military training, their usefulness as a surveillance team was limited. In the end, Pops settled for him being a fill-in for anyone who might be too ill or needed elsewhere to stand watch.
As the doctor disappeared down the hall, Pops gave a shrug. “We’ll keep an eye on him.” He took another swig of cola. “When I was recruiting for a physician, our survivalist group had very few from which to choose. On paper, he looked great, good education and record as a doctor. I solicited candidates from the group and asked them to submit applications, of a sort. His claimed he was willing to provide his services for as long as needed until the emergency was over. He further claimed he would be bringing his wife and two daughters with him. With the Major and Emma bringing their two sons, I thought the doctor’s family would be a good fit for us.”
Pops paused to finish his drink then crossed the room to place it in the compactor. He pointed at my soda and raised his brows. I drained the last of it, tossed him my can, and he dropped it into the appliance.
“Anyway,” Pops continued, “when he showed up without his family he told me they were coming to join us in a few weeks. I thought that odd because of the way the Rage situation was progressing, but I had no idea how conditions were up north of the state where he was from so I didn’t say anything. After a week had passed, I asked if he wanted a few of us to convoy up there and retrieve them. He declined and wouldn’t give me any explanations so I concluded his wife must have been against the idea of hiding away from the chaos and might have elected to stay with other family members. In any event, we were committed at that point. We needed a physician, and the survivalist network had already shut down on the internet, so we’re stuck with him.”
I digested his words and agreed that there was nothing to do about the unhappy doctor except keep an eye on him and watch for signs of a deeper problem. Then Pops and I both dragged our gear back to our suite and hit the showers.
✽✽✽
Two weeks after the incident with the two brothers, I staggered sleepily out of the front doors and across the walled compound. The alarm on my nightstand said it was two A.M. and I had the two to six sentry duty. I punctuated my deep yawn with a loud groan as I shrugged into my load bearing vest. The thing was heavy with all those loaded rifle and pistol magazines, but it was comforting at the same time. Buck and the Major both insisted on each of us having a loaded thirty round magazine carried in our weapons but not chambered, ready for immediate action when the T-bar was pulled back and allowed to slam forward. With the additional seven mags we all carried, that gave us 240 rifle rounds each.
The pistol I carried was another matter. When we went down the hill and saved the brothers, I had been amazed by the amount of damage the afflicted could sustain and keep coming at their prey. I saw people with shattered limbs and bleeding torsos all staggering, limping and sometimes crawling their way across the asphalt. Those poor victims of the disease paid no attention to their wounds. Their sole focus was getting to the people they had somehow, in their diseased minds, identified as uninfected. After seeing that, I decided to get a pistol I could count on to stop an infected person should I run out of rifle ammo or the M4 should malfunction.
I explained my feelings to Pops, and he led me down to the armory and swung open the squeaking steel door. Inside were the rows and drawers of a collection of armaments that only Pops’ wealth could obtain. My eyes were always mesmerized by the shining steel and polymer of the rifles and pistols. Here and there I would pass other weapons which I was sure would not be legal in any state, much less the liberal and repressive state in which we lived.
Pops stopped at a wall upon which were displayed numerous Glock pistols. I was very familiar with Glocks and had long ago come to consider them as the most reliable pistols on the market with a few exceptions such as the firearms made by Smith and Wesson, Heckler & Koch and the early versions of Para-Ordinance. He unlocked a steel grate and gained access to the racks of pistols. Pops frowned as he considered the choices. I had previously shot most of the Glocks that we owned and was not surprised when he took down two of the largest ones.
“This,” he held up the pistol in his right hand, “is a Model 21. It is in .45 ACP which is a large bullet that has proven itself in war and over time. Very few people have been shot with this round and lived to tell the tale.”
He raised the other hand and showed me a seemingly identical weapon. “This, of course, is the Model 20SF. The SF stands for short frame which means it is a bit slimmer in the grip than the normal Model 20. It shoots the 10-millimeter bullet. The ten mil is regarded by the gun experts as the most powerful commercially loaded round available. It ranks somewhere between the .357 Magnum and the .41 Magnum in terms of power.” He held them both up and smiled. “You’ve shot them both. Either would probably accomplish the task, even with the shock effects of the afflicted being short-circuited. Choose.”
There was no real contemplation needed. Pops and I both knew I would be picking the 10-millimeter. It had been my favorite handgun to shoot at the private
gun range on our hilltop. The recoil was stiff, but I had no trouble controlling it, and I had seen what the round could do to car doors and other makeshift targets we had set up. It didn’t hurt that Pops, himself, always carried one and had stashed away massive quantities of ammunition for it.
Tonight I came outside and around the base of the north tower, marveling at the vividness of the stars and the silence. I was expecting to see Jimmy waiting for me, but instead of his hulking form, I was surprised to see Pepper. She was all decked out in a vest and wearing a Glock 9millimeter on her belt. The whole image was a little funny considering her diminutive size. Pepper barely reached five feet in height and tipped the scales at about ninety pounds. I wondered what weighed more, her or the gear she carried.
“Hi,” she offered as I reached her location by the main gate.
I struggled with, then conquered my natural tongue-tied reaction when confronted with a pretty girl. Luckily, our situation here at Dragon’s Lair had thrown us together, and we had already experienced several brief conversations. Those had mostly taken place in rooms full of other people thus preventing us from exploring more important subjects such as did she want to kiss me as much as I wanted to kiss her.
“Hi, yourself,” I answered, trying to sound funny and unfettered by shyness. “So, where’s Jimmy?”
She put her arms out to her sides with the palms facing up. “Buck told me he wanted me to get some experience in standing watch.” She leaned closer and whispered even though everyone else in the stronghold was asleep. “He doesn’t trust Doctor Tasnizi. He said there were no circumstances under which he would feel safe having him out here protecting us. So I guess I’m in training to take someone’s place if there is an emergency.”
I followed her over to the gate and put my goggles, binoculars and other gear on the narrow table we had placed there for that purpose. Pepper’s equipment was already there, neatly laid out in girl-like order.
One of the most useful purchases that Pops made was a crate containing twenty pairs of night vision goggles. These devices magnified ambient light to the point where an inky black night was brightly illuminated with a green tint. The advantage that the tools afforded us could not be overstated. The Major made sure that everyone on watch had a pair.
“Hmm. I wonder why Buck didn’t put you with Jimmy or the Major for your first few nights. Seems to me like they would want to make sure you learned everything the right way.”
“Funny you should say that because Buck said you would be able to train me correctly. He told me you were a natural at this kind of stuff.” Her eyes sparkled as she smiled. “He enjoys telling everyone about how you operated that…machine gun thing when you rescued those two boys a few weeks ago. The brothers.”
I colored slightly and was thankful for the lack of light. I was also a bit surprised by what the former Marine had said about me. Buck was rough as a cob and rarely gave compliments so I couldn’t help being proud of his assessment of me.
“Yeah, well…there really wasn’t much to it. I pointed the weapon and pulled the trigger.” I paused as the memory of disconnected bodies slammed into my brain. “It’s not something that I’m proud of.”
Pepper realized my discomfort and pretended to turn and look down the hill. With her eyes still averted she took a deep breath and sighed. “I can’t imagine how traumatic something like that must have been.” She turned to face me again, and I could just barely make out the tears filling her eyes. “I’m glad it bothers you, Virgil. I don’t think I’d like it if you enjoyed killing people no matter how mindless and violent they are.”
She turned towards the west again and wiped at her eyes with the backs of her wrists. “When all of this started, Dad and Mom were certain it was a temporary tragedy, one from which we would quickly emerge once the military got organized. We had always belonged to one survivalist group or another, Dad enjoyed it, and Mom said having a hobby helped take his mind off of the stresses at work.” She picked up her NVGs and held them to her face, examining the bare fields below us.
“When things got bad, we had no idea what to do. Dad had put away a lot of food, and he had a couple of rifles and a few cases of ammunition, but that was about the extent of his preparations.”
She took the goggles away and turned to look at me again. “When Dad found out about your father’s compound up here he got excited. He immediately called Mr. Cole, and they talked for over an hour. After he hung up, Dad told us to pack.”
I nodded while thinking to myself that, whatever the process had been, I was happy about the result. I couldn’t stop myself from noticing Pepper’s black hair and long eyelashes as she talked. She was a beauty.
“What?” She had caught me staring.
I stammered a bit then decided to act as if I had no idea what she was asking about. “Uh, nothing, I was just considering what you told me. I never really knew the story of how everyone came to be here.”
Her expression told me she knew exactly where my thoughts had been. She gave me a sweet smile, a little shy, and turned to examine the decline of the hill below us. I saw her shoulders tense.
“Virgil…what is that?”
✽✽✽
Pops showed up a few minutes after I alerted him on our radio. Each of us had a hand-held model, and the base station was in the main observation room on sub-level one. He was joined immediately afterward by Buck, Jimmy, Gayle, and the Major.
Everyone brought their NVGs, and they all glassed the slope that led up to our compound. Some two hundred afflicted individuals were milling about. Most of them were at the base of the hill, but about fifty of them were slowly making their way upward. I watched as several of the ones on the ground would turn to see their brethren climbing, then copy their actions. Fifty turned into sixty. Then seventy. Then more.
This was not good.
Pops turned to the Major. “How do you see this?”
Major Morrison sighed and ran a hand over his chin stubble. He looked at the sliding gate and lowered his NVGs. “Why is this gate open?” He demanded. When no one answered he cursed under his breath. “Well, it’s too late to close it now, the noise would draw them like flies. Let’s watch them a bit. If we light them up now, we stand the chance that the noise might attract others. Lots of others. We would also wind up with the problem of having to dispose of dozens or hundreds of dead bodies before they started stinking and spreading disease.”
It sounded logical to me. Pops signaled his agreement, and we settled in to watch. Buck called the others in the mansion to respond with full battle rattle. He instructed Toni Johnson to stay inside and watch the kids and assigned Jaime to grab two ammo boxes of .556 from the sub-level storage area.
Everyone answered the call to arms except, of course, Dr. Tashnizi. Buck fumed when he was a no-show. The Marine took a quick look over the wall and decided he had time for what he had in mind. He told us he would be right back and stalked his way back toward the mansion.
A few minutes later he was back, muttering under his breath as he made his way over to us. Pops grinned and asked where he had gone.
“I dragged his sorry ass out of bed and told him to go to the clinic and be ready to treat us in case anyone needed it. He tried to argue that he could get ready in plenty of time should the need arise.”
“What did you say to that?” I asked, knowing full well what Buck’s response was going to be.
“I told him the need had just arisen. I dragged him out of bed by his foot and told him I would be checking the clinic in a few minutes and that he had damned well better be in there.”
We kept watch on the hillside, hoping the horde would follow the path of least resistance and lose interest in climbing. Fortunately, most of them did just that. After about forty minutes of milling about aimlessly, a few started making their way to the north. Others soon noticed and followed. An hour and a half after we first saw them, all but nine of them were out of sight.
The nine who had not departed were still
climbing toward us and gave no indication that they intended to change direction.
“Damn!” The Major lowered his goggles and shook his head. “We’ll need to take care of those, but we need to do it quietly.”
We decided we would keep ourselves out of sight as the meandering Rage victims drew closer. Pops, the Major, Buck, and Jimmy would try to terminate the infected once they entered the compound. The infected headed toward the main gate, and we had not had not been able to close it. The gate mechanism is not quiet, and the motion of the sliding steel gate might have caught the attention of one or more of them.
Pops and the Major armed themselves with large survival knives sporting ten-inch blades. Jimmy carried a heavy crowbar and Buck had a sharpened entrenching tool. All of them had handguns on their belts in case the situation mandated the use of firearms. That was our biggest fear at this point as we dreaded the expected consequence of drawing more afflicted to us.
Jaime, Emma Morrison and I were to stand by and jump in only if it looked like we were needed. I was hefting a large ball peen hammer, resting the head in my left hand while grasping the handle in my right. I tried hard to control my breathing because I could feel myself starting to hyperventilate. My eyes cut over to where Pepper was hiding with the others. I said a quick prayer that I would not pass out or show fear in front of her once everything started happening.
The night was incredibly quiet around us as we waited for the first of the infected to walk through the gate. In our previous forays into town, we had learned that the Ragers would react with loud growls or screams upon detecting the presence of uninfected people. For this reason, we intended to take them down one by one as they entered. The plan was to kill each one while they were still out of sight of the others. It sounded like a good plan.
Virgil's War- The Diseased World Page 4
