Phobia: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller

by Jack Hunt

  “Money?”

  “Of course. Think about it. It is the quickest way for the infection to spread from person to person. Coins, paper, it’s all being exchanged all day long across the country in gas stations, grocery stores, tollbooths and the list goes on. Hell, you don’t even need one person who is infected to travel across state, the infection can be carried on the money that is exchanging hands every minute of the day. And at the rate this is spreading, that’s what I’m thinking is happening.”

  “But we just bought a whole shitload of stuff. Heck, you just withdrew all your money.”

  “I know,” then Frank lifted his hands. “That’s why I wear gloves and change them multiple times a day, and keep my hands clean.”

  Frank took a seat on the edge of the couch. “People just don’t think about all the ways this could travel. Imagine. Restaurants, malls, offices, hospitals, nursing homes, supermarkets, laundromats, pets, elevator buttons, public phones, handrails, turnstiles, cab doors, sinks, toilets, doorknobs, handles, think of all the ways you come in contact with people, objects and places. That’s why this is so damn deadly. That’s why I harp on at you to use sanitizer.”

  “No, you harp on at me as you are obsessed with bacteria.”

  “Fair enough but my point stands. People generally aren’t thinking about these things when they are out there. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if half the people who have died from this disease didn’t catch it through simply not being careful with who and what they came in contact with.”

  “Okay, you have me officially freaked out.”

  “About time,” Frank said.

  “Any word from Ella?”

  “What?”

  Frank’s mind was already consumed by the next report online of a hospital in Watertown having two patients with the Agora virus. That was forty minutes from them. Who else had they come in contact with?

  “Ella.”

  “Right. Yeah, she’s going to catch a ride with the guys who helped her at the crash site.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “About?”

  “Does she know them?”

  “No, but the transportation system is closed, her vehicle is a write-off, and well one of them lives in Watertown.”

  “Right, well that makes a lot of sense.” Sal shook his head. “Some days you make me wonder.”

  “What?”

  “You worry about contracting a virus but yet you are willing to let her travel with strangers.”

  “Oh for goodness sakes. She’s nineteen. She’s not a kid. I trust her, and under these conditions it might be the only chance she has of getting back.”

  “Well you have left out one other option.”

  Sal stared at Frank and he knew what was going through his head. He turned back to the TV in the hopes that he wouldn’t probe any deeper on the issue.

  “C’mon, Frank, you know you could pick her up.”

  “Look, it appears that a hospital in Maine has someone with the virus.”

  “Don’t dodge the issue, Frank.”

  “I’m not going.”

  “She’s your daughter.”

  He knew in his mind what was the right thing to do. Hell, his entire life he had been struggling inwardly with the ridiculousness of his phobia and OCD. It wasn’t like he avoided going out, though that did increase his anxiety. It was crowded places that were the worst but even that was nothing compared to what Sal was suggesting; driving away from safety and into the eye of the storm. Here he could control who he came in contact with. He could minimize the risk factor dramatically but out there anything could go wrong. What would happen if he got into an accident? It wasn’t just the idea of being taken to a hospital like Ella that worried him, it was coming in contact with people who might stop and try to assist. Then there was the fact that if and when martial law did come into effect, would they be facing angry mobs who refused to give up their weapons? There were just too many variables to juggle inside his head. His marriage had failed, and he was popping anxiety meds for good reason. This wasn’t like asking someone to get over their fear of going on a fairground ride, it was like asking someone to jump off the edge of the Grand Canyon without a parachute. At least it was in his mind.

  Frank moved across the room, slipped off his gloves and went into the washroom and began washing his hands. Once, twice, three times… by the time he was satisfied in his mind, he had washed and dried them fourteen times. He pulled out another pair of surgical gloves and slipped them on before joining Sal again. He leaned against the doorway and Sal gave him a look, the same one he did every time he had caved in to his urge to sanitize.

  “Don’t judge me. I love my daughter and I would shift a fucking mountain if it meant making sure she was safe but…”

  “But?”

  His skin began to crawl. He had gone back and forth in his mind about taking the truck and heading down to pick her up but every time he would tell himself he could do it, the thought would be replaced by another that was terrifying.

  “You know, Sal, I did two tours in Iraq. I walked through IED kill zones and saw my buddies’ limbs get blown off. I’ve been pinned down in a hostile environment where the stench of waste and garbage filled the air, and bullets zipped over my head and I’ve been chased down by insurgents and yet still, that doesn’t come close to the fear that this gives me. It’s got worse over the years. I know you have helped and I appreciate that but I don’t even know how to put this into words.”

  Sal stepped forward. “Frank, this is good. Look, you might not think you have made progress but I’ve seen it. Compared to where you were, I’ve seen it. You’ve exposed yourself to situations and prevented acting on those urges. You know as well as I do that it’s a daily battle but you are winning it.”

  “I don’t know about that. Most days I feel like I can barely keep my head above water.”

  “But at least you are in the water. There are a lot of people who just won’t confront those deep-rooted fears.”

  Right then Gloria poked her head in the door and Frank rolled his eyes. “Oh great, why don’t I just put out an invitation for a party?”

  Gloria poked her finger in the air. “Sorry, was I interrupting something?”

  Sal rose to his feet. “No, we were just wrapping up here.” He crossed the room and led his wife out realizing how much it bothered Frank. The reality was even though Sal was right about them not being a threat, and he knew that might be true, he couldn’t take a chance. Masks, disposable suits, gloves and goggles were good at preventing the spread, but there was nothing better than isolating.

  IT SEEMED as though everyone had the same idea. Vehicles were parked all down the road. Students looked like criminals trying to break into what was becoming a fortified, off-limits location to anyone who had left the university grounds.

  “This is insane, them trying to stop us from getting in.”

  “Thankfully they don’t have enough security to keep everyone back.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Ella said casting her eyes towards three security guards who were sprinting towards students and trying to get them to stop entering the area. One of the guards was shoved to the ground by a student. Tyrell laughed. They had no chance of stopping them all but they grabbed a few.

  “I think this is the first time I have actually wanted to get into the university instead of escape it,” Tyrell muttered as they crossed the baseball diamond and headed towards the group of residence buildings.

  “What are you majoring in?” Ella asked.

  “Accounting. I kind of wish I had taken something else now. I hate it.”

  “Why did you sign up for it?”

  “My father wanted me to do it.”

  “Oh, one of those.”

  Tyrell chuckled. “You have one too?”

  “No, but he can be overbearing at times.”

  They made their way over to Century Hall residence. She learned there were six residences and townhouses. Century Hall w
as a five-story brown building with over four hundred rooms. As they approached the doors, a sign on the window served as reminder to students: Do you have your Storm Card? Ella came to learn that was their identification card.

  As they passed through the doors, they could hear a commotion coming from down the corridor.

  “You might want to stay here while we go check it out,” Gabriel said, before he and Tyrell shot off into the darkness.

  FOURTEEN

  In all the years Frank had owned the island property he’d never had people just show up out of the blue. It was Sal that had spotted them. He came rushing in and alerted him to a boat that had pulled in by the boathouse.

  Frank immediately scrambled for his weapon. “How many of them are there?”

  “Three by the looks of it.”

  He kept talking while he pulled out a box of ammo. “Who are they?”

  “No idea, I couldn’t see clearly from where I was.”

  Frank picked up the new Benelli M4 and put five rounds in before chambering and bursting out the rear door. He was more than ready to unload a round or two if it meant keeping back home invaders. Frank figured it would only be a matter of time before all types started showing up day and night looking for a place to escape the horrors spreading across the country. It was now that he wished he had built an electric fence around the perimeter of the island.

  He didn’t have to make it far before his unwanted guests came into view from around a cluster of trees.

  “Whoa!” Hands went up and then he instantly recognized who it was. Butch Guthrie and two of his brothers.

  “We’re not here to cause any harm, we just wanted to see if you folks were okay. Did you hear the gunfire?” Butch said.

  Frank nodded, eyeing them carefully and keeping his shotgun on them.

  “You want to lower the gun, Frank?”

  “You want to get off my island?”

  Butch smirked. Frank noticed that he was packing. As Butch turned to his brother, he saw the holster inside his jacket.

  “Frank. We don’t mean any trouble, just being neighborly.”

  That was a joke. The guy spent more time harping on about all the idiots in town than going out of his way to get to know anyone beyond his family. From behind him Sal’s kids came rushing into view.

  Butch smiled. “Ah, I see you have your family with you, good. How are you, Gloria?”

  Gloria pulled her two kids behind her but didn’t reply.

  “We’re all doing okay.” Frank nudged the end of his barrel towards the boathouse. “So you can be on your way.”

  They began backing up, all of them except for Butch. He sniffed and eyed the property as if trying to determine what kind of defenses they had in place.

  “Any others with you?”

  “Not at the moment.”

  He nodded slowly, his eyes narrowing. “Things are getting rough over in town. Just a heads-up, you might want to get what you need before all the stores are cleared out.”

  “We should be good.”

  “Right. That’s what I like to see, people thinking ahead. Glad to see you listened to me. You know, Frank, I always figured that when the shit hit the fan, you would be the first to be prepared. It’s the quiet ones that catch my eye. Well you have good day now.”

  He turned to join his brothers and walked a few feet down the embankment before he turned back. “Oh Frank, by the way, you wouldn’t by any chance have any medical supplies that perhaps your wife left behind? You know, with her being with the CDC and all?”

  There was something menacing in the way that he asked. A sense that they hadn’t shown up because of gunfire but to scope out his property, see what defenses he had in place and find out what he would be willing to divulge.

  “No. Just the basics.”

  “Pity. Well, take care.”

  At no point in time did Frank lower his weapon. Years of experience and training in the military had taught him to never trust anyone who carried a weapon and had unknown motives. They looked back briefly as they rounded the cluster of trees. Frank walked down to the tree line to make sure they got back into their boat and hadn’t circled around. He was acting a little paranoid, he knew that, but it was better to be on his guard. Once he saw them leave he returned to the house.

  “I don’t trust that guy.”

  “Me neither.”

  Frank passed by Gloria and Sal and headed on into the house.

  “Hold up, Frank. What now?”

  “I’ll show you.”

  Frank led him to the basement door. He pulled a cord before he went down the stairs and the darkness illuminated with an amber glow. Wooden stairs wound down into an unfinished, partly damp basement. As the foundations were over a hundred years old, fine cracks had formed letting in small amounts of water when there was a heavy rain. Fortunately, not much came in and the little that did was pumped back out into the river. Frank went over to a thick wooden workbench. A fine layer of sawdust covered the surface. Behind it along the wall was a rack of hand tools. The bench was cluttered with half-finished projects. He pulled out a large box from under the bench and opened it up.

  “What have we got here?”

  “Surveillance equipment I bought a couple of years back but never got around to installing.”

  Sal looked genuinely confused. “Why did you buy that?”

  “Are you serious?”

  The fact was he had got it when he was going through a rough patch with his OCD. He was paranoid about anyone showing up on the island and the thought of having the north, east, west and south side displayed on screens gave him peace of mind. He’d just got so busy that he hadn’t got around to putting it up. That was his life, moving from one thing to next, sometimes not even finishing up the first thing he had in mind.

  “You want to give me a hand?”

  He shrugged. “Sure. Not much else to do around here.”

  They spent the next couple of hours mounting six surveillance cameras in various spots, two on the house to cover the front and rear doors and the rest attached to trees in different areas. Once they were set up, he tested it all out.

  “Perfect,” Sal said, stepping back to take it all in.

  “Ah, it will do.”

  “You don’t seem very convinced.”

  “If someone wants to get on this island they can.”

  In honesty he didn’t want to upset Gloria and the kids but he was beginning to think that the Guthrie brothers’ visit wasn’t going to be the last.

  “Does Gloria know how to use a gun?”

  “Nope.”

  “It’s pretty simple really. Perhaps I can take a moment to show you guys.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

  Frank stared back at him. “You know if push came to shove and those Guthrie boys had decided to use force, you would have had to use one. Might as well learn how to shoot accurately.”

  “Uh, I don’t know, Frank.” Sal was reluctant but Frank persisted. He didn’t want to be the only one who knew how to fire a gun. There was no knowing what might happen to him, then what? They needed to be able to protect themselves. The only way he was able to convince Sal was by telling him that if he and Gloria were going to stay on the island it was a requirement to at least know how to discharge a weapon.

  “I’ll be outside. I expect to see you in a few minutes from now.”

  Frank trudged off leaving Sal to go speak with Gloria. He didn’t have an actual firing range but there was a nice large oak tree on the west side of the island that he used to pin up black and white firing range targets. While he waited for them to join him, he couldn’t resist the urge to take a peek through his high-powered, long-distance binoculars. He went inside a small shed he had a few feet away. Inside it contained mainly yard tools. He pulled out a drawer and retrieved an old metal container. They weren’t modern binoculars; in fact, they had been stolen off a dead German in the Second World War and had been passed down through the
family. He had night vision ones inside the house but he’d always been fond of these. He went out and stayed close to the tree line so he was out of view. Frank peered through over to Grindstone Island. At first he didn’t see anything as he scanned from left to right. He adjusted the zoom until what was in his sight became sharp. That’s when he saw Butch and his brothers returning to their dock. Assholes! As they tied off the boat and stepped out, they joined six others on the dock. Some of them he recognized; people from the town, and family. He was about to turn away when he saw them turn and point in the direction of his island. He had no idea what they were saying but he knew one thing for sure, he didn’t like being this close to them.

  “Frank!” He heard Sal’s voice from within the trees. He lowered the binoculars and made his way back. Over the next hour, he took both Sal and Gloria through safety and the proper handling of a weapon, keeping their finger off the trigger, keeping the firearm pointed in a safe direction, the correct stance and so on until he could tell that they weren’t going to blow a hole through him. The people he’d seen mishandling weapons over the course of his time in the military even after they had been trained were too many to count.

  Once they were comfortable loading and unloading, he had them fire off a few rounds. Gloria looked as if she was about to shit herself, and Sal wasn’t that much better. It didn’t matter if a person was female or male, young or old, there was nothing like unloading a round for the first time. Some said they couldn’t believe how loud it was, others would say they didn’t realize how much kick it had or how hard it was to aim accurately.

  The key, and he’d found it worked for everyone, was making sure that they had the right grip. If someone had the wrong grip on their gun, it could mean the difference between hitting the bull’s-eye or shooting just off to the left or right. The next important thing was squeezing the trigger slow and breathing out as they did. In essence it was the small, almost overlooked things that a person did that could determine if they would hit the target or simply waste bullets.