“Likewise, bro.”
“Are you still in the ’Stan?” Jack asked.
“Yeah, Jack,” his younger brother answered. “Listen to me. The president is recalling all troops from overseas deployment and bringing us all back to the States. I think they intend to reverse the Posse Comitatus Act and use the forces to augment and then replace the National Guard…at least temporarily.” Tommy paused for a few moments then continued. “We’ve been starting to have firefights with not only insurgents but now with bunches of zombies as well. With the world governments having trouble keeping control, the president is worried that our troops may become trapped at their stations.”
“Wow,” Jack exclaimed, “but that’s good news. You’ll be back in the States finally.”
“Right you are,” responded Tommy warmly. “I hear they’re transferring my company to Eglin Air Force Base on the Gulf Coast of Florida to help act as protection for the fighters and bombers there. It’ll be nice to be back in our home state again, bro.”
“Awesome,” declared his brother. “You’re close to home.”
“Roger that. Hey, the transports are here. I’ve got to run. I’ll call you again when we get stateside, Doc. Love you, big brother.”
“You too, little brother.”
As their brief call ended, Jack sat back, smiling. Well, he thought, finally some good news.
9
Sean stood staring agape at the dark stain. His brain couldn’t grasp the fact that his dead father’s body wasn’t where it was supposed to be. He looked around numbly but didn’t see the corpse anywhere.
“Dad?” he meekly asked.
Sean wandered into his parents’ dining room. His father was standing on the other side of the big cherry table, facing the window.
“Dad?” he squeaked.
His father turned around to face him. Blood from his torn-open throat drenched his polo shirt. With milky-white eyes glaring at his son, he snarled and stepped forward, smacking into the table. The former John Sullivan put his hands on the tabletop and leaned in closer with a vicious, wet, gurgling growl. Blood mixed with saliva hung in long strands from his unshaven chin. He moved sideways and then, toppling a chair, started after his son.
This woke Sean up from his stupor. He turned and ran back into the living room. There his mother was waiting for him. Lips curled up in what he wasn’t sure was a sneer or a smile, she made a guttural sound deep within her throat. With her intestines hanging down in bloody, purple ropes to her feet, she also came after him. Sean screamed and, dodging around her, ran across the living room and into the kitchen area. He came to an abrupt halt, turned, and spun the kitchen table around, pushing it into the doorway he had just come through. It slammed into the doorjamb just as both of his parents appeared. Snarling fiercely, his father tried ferociously to push the table away. Sean used this time to turn and run to the dining room. Still hearing his father’s frustrated growls, he ran into the living room, heading for the front door. His mother already was coming into the room and was too close for him to make it to safety. As he reached the front door and grasped the knob, his mother, reaching her clawed hands to him, stepped on a strand of her own intestines. Her feet became entangled as they pulled her guts out of her abdominal cavity, and she fell on her face before she could reach him.
Whimpering, Sean swung open the door and raced out onto the lawn. He paused for a fraction of a second then ran straight for his car. He jumped in and quickly started it. Looking back at the house, he saw his parents appear in the doorway, loud guttural sounds issuing from them. Sean pressed the gas pedal to the floor and sped quickly away from this nightmare, the back end of the car swaying.
When he arrived home, he sat behind the wheel of his SUV and shook. The adrenaline rush had passed, and he was left with a headache and trembling hands. On his way here, zombies had twice attacked his car on the road. The second time was at a stoplight. One of those monsters had grabbed the door handle with two hands, yanking on it to try to get in. Sean floored it. The zombie fell but wouldn’t let go of the handle. Sean opened the window and was beating on the zombie’s hands, screaming for him to let go, as he sped down the street. He made a tire-squealing right turn, and the ghoul finally lost his grip and slammed into a parked car. As Sean sped on, he looked in the rearview mirror and saw the creature trying to get up.
At last the shaking stopped, and he went inside. Mike and Jack ran to greet him. The three friends sat together, and Sean asked for a beer, which Mike ran to get. After downing the brew in a long, continual series of gulps, he proceeded to tell them of his hellish experience. He had just finished when his phone rang. It was Linda, his girlfriend.
“Hi,” he said tiredly.
“Sean,” she said, the hurt evident in her voice, “I can’t believe that with all that’s been going on, you haven’t even called me once today.”
“Linda—” he started.
“For all you knew, I could have been dead. You know…” she continued on.
“Linda,” he said softly.
“…my mother was just—”
“Linda!” Sean shouted. When she was silent, he went on softly. “I’m sorry. My parents are dead. I went to their house, and they were dead. Then they both turned and attacked me,” he said even softer. “I ran out.”
“Oh, my God,” she gasped. “Sean. I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t know. I’m just so scared. Sean, I’ll throw my things in a bag and be right over.” She hung up.
As an awkward silence ensued, Mike glanced at Sean and said, “Linda called earlier. She was looking for you, and I told her you went to see your folks.”
“Yeah, well—” Sean began.
Mike kept on speaking as though Sean never had started. “She was crying. The quarantine police took her mother. She’s afraid for her, and well, she’s just scared, man.”
“Oh, shit,” Sean said disgustedly, shaking his head at the ceiling. He put his hand over his eyes. “Jesus, I’m such a jerk! She tried to tell me…”
Linda Berger’s father had died four years ago, and her mother had moved to Arizona, outside of Scottsdale. Although they constantly argued, Linda loved her.
An hour later Linda walked through the door. The guys were watching television, so Sean excused himself, and he and Linda went up to his bedroom to talk.
Jack and Michael were watching a scientist discuss the attempt to find a cure for the Pandora 2 Mutation. The problem they were trying to overcome was the fact that since the original microbe was of alien origin, none of the researchers had any point of reference at which to start. They were still trying to analyze how it originally had infected humans. It had turned into an enigma of epic proportions.
Jack glanced out the window and noticed the sun was just starting to set. Right then his cell phone rang. He got up, stepped away from the television screen, and answered it.
“Hello?”
“Jack, it’s Nicky,” Nicky whispered.
“Nicky, are you home? Why are you whispering?” Jack asked, puzzled.
“No. I’m still here in New York.”
“Still in the city?” he retorted. “What happened? And why are you whispering?”
“We’re downtown somewhere. I think maybe Little Italy. We’re hiding in a basement stairwell until dark.”
“Hiding?” he said. “Who’s ‘we’?”
“Do you remember the six other people I was trying to get to the ferry with?”
“Yeah,” he replied.
“Well, there are only three of us now. One was attacked as soon as we left the restaurant. Two others were killed by zombies on the way here. Another person, a poor girl named Marianne, was bitten on the leg when we got to the Village. When we found out, we were afraid of her dying and turning into one of them, so we ran.” Nicky sniffed now, still whispering. “She…she was sobbing and trying to keep up with us, but we were so scared that we lost her in the maze of streets. There are more and more of these dead things on the streets now. Th
ey’re attacking everyone they can find. We’re hoping we’ll have a better chance of slipping past them at night. Jack, I have my ringer turned off, so you can’t call me. I don’t want the ring to attract their attention. I’ll call you when I can. I love you.”
“I love you too,” he said. “Please, please be careful.”
The call ended, but Jack was still looking at the cell phone in his hand. He said a little prayer for Nicole’s safety.
Sean and Linda came downstairs holding hands, so everything was apparently all right again. The four of them made dinner together then sat down to eat and talk. It was good for them to be together. All the stress they were feeling lightened a little.
When eleven o’clock came, they all decided to go to bed. As they were shutting down the house, Jack’s cell phone rang again. He looked and saw it was Nicky again. Answering right away, he said, “Hi. Are you okay?”
“Yes,” she said. “We made it to the ferry terminal. I can see it at the end of the street. There are about a dozen of those things down the street, but they’re behind us. It’s dark around here, so I don’t think we’ll be noticed. Look, Jack, my battery is just about dead, so I’m going to turn my phone off until we get to the other side of the river.”
Just then Jack heard the sound of someone knocking over a garbage can.
“Oh, shit,” Nicky hissed. “I’ve got to go. They see us.”
Just before she turned off the phone, Jack heard someone yell loudly, “Run! Here they come. Just run!”
Jack looked at his friends, who were watching. “There’s trouble, but Nicky is resilient. She’s tough. If anyone can get through this, she can.”
With that somber closing note, they all retired for the evening.
The cell phone on Mike’s nightstand was ringing. Bleary-eyed, he reached for the offending device. He saw it was quarter after two in the morning.
“Mmm, hello?” he mumbled.
“Michael?” a female voice asked.
“Yeah.”
“Michael, it’s Sue.”
Now awake, Mike sat up. “Sue, is there a problem? Is there trouble there?”
“Yes,” she replied. “Some of the infected got free of their bindings and attacked the other patients. Betty Pasko, one of the RNs on my floor, was bitten and killed. We finally succeeded in killing the undead that broke away, when the other victims started turning also. The head of the ER, Dr. Patel, and some other doctor from the CDC had made it up here earlier, and they tried to hold off the zombies so we could get away, but soon there were too many. They pushed a hospital bed across the doorway to the wing and held it there, but the zombies came up and just climbed over and fell on them like animals.”
“Sue, you’ve done enough there,” Michael said firmly. “It’s time to get out of there before they kill you too.”
“I know, I know,” she agreed. “Several of us have fled and made it to a passageway used by maintenance. It leads out to a door by the right side of the emergency-room receiving area. There’s a tree near there and a pipe that runs up the wall at the side of the door. Mike, can you get here and pick us up?”
“Of course I can,” he said. “Let me throw my clothes on, and I’ll be there in twenty minutes or so.”
“Great, Mike.” She exhaled in relief. “When you get here, pull up the ramp and to the right. When you see the door, blow the horn, and we’ll come running out.”
“Okay, babe, see you soon,” he said. He hung up and quickly dressed. He opened his bedroom door and quietly walked down the stairs and out the front door. After starting his car, he pulled out of the driveway and made his way to the hospital.
The trip there was frightening. Although all the streetlights were still on, the nighttime darkness was unnerving. Mike noticed a number of zombies roaming the streets—not a great horde but enough to worry him. Fortunately he was able to drive by them and kept the gas pedal pushed hard so he wouldn’t wind up leading a zombie parade. There were a few fires too, but only one had a fire company fighting it. The firefighters were protected by armed soldiers who were firing at any zombies that got close. A few miles down, he passed a late-model car that had rammed into a tree. Steam was rising from the broken radiator. Mike slowed down then stopped. Both the front doors were wide open, and there was blood smeared on the upholstery. A rustling came from the bushes nearby, and a number of zombies lumbered out. All had bloody hands and faces, and several seemed to be carrying body parts. They were heading for him. Mike sped away.
Finally Mike arrived at the hospital. He pulled up to the entrance ramp and stopped. The normally busy emergency room was deserted. A sign that stated emergency room closed lay on its side at the edge of the ramp. A single bloody handprint dripped over the two Os. Mike switched off the SUV’s headlights and slowly made his way up the ramp. He stopped again when he reached the entranceway to the brightly lit waiting room. Several figures were standing inside. Idling where he was, far from the doors, all he could discern was that they all seemed to be blood smeared. Mike also saw that one of them was wearing a police uniform.
Slowly continuing to roll down the pavement, as far from the doors as he could get so he wouldn’t draw any attention to himself, he reached the far right side of the building. It was dark and unlit in this part of the lot, but he did notice a door farther down. It had a single bulb over it and a pipe running up the wall, near a tree. Aiming for this, he slowly rolled toward this target. His headlights were still off.
After pulling parallel to the door, he stopped and then, in three short bursts, sounded the horn. Two seconds later the metal door opened about a foot, and Susan Tolliver’s head peeked out. Seeing Mike’s GMC Yukon parked outside, she pushed open the door, and she and several others ran out. As they quickly piled into the vehicle, a young male nurse, the last to exit, paused briefly under the door’s light.
Suddenly he was attacked by two zombies who appeared out of the blackness. Everyone was yelling and screaming at the same time. The rear door was still open as a nurse turned and yelled, “Brandon!”
Mike shouted, “Close the goddamn door!” and flipped on the headlights. As the lights illuminated the formerly pitch-black area, everyone saw that there were a half dozen walking corpses in front of them. Mike was about to shift into drive when his muscles turned to water. There, directly in front of the Yukon’s grille, stood Brian Dunn. Brian’s white button-down shirt was hanging open, and both it and his pallid body were smeared with blood that started at his chin. Dark veins were evident on his gray skin. Mike sat there, his mouth gaping, as his former friend and housemate opened his mouth widely. Gore and blood ran from it, down his chin and onto the hood of the car. The new passengers were yelling at Mike to drive and pounding the back of his seat.
Regaining his wits, Mike shifted the transmission into drive and, as Brian was rounding the fender on his way to the driver’s-side door, floored the gas. Wheeling expertly around and down the exit ramp, Mike looked in his rearview mirror to see Brian and the rest of the walking dead head toward the kicking feet of the male nurse, who now lay under a growing pile of zombies.
10
Throughout the world, the slow deterioration of official authority often left important and usually crucial decisions to local commanders. The rich and powerful were no more immune to the Pandora virus than the poor and vulnerable. The very rapidly increasing infection rate included national leaders and government and military personnel. This in turn led to either political impasse regarding what to do or critical choices being made by the less capable.
Russia’s criminal underworld was having a field day, as different vory v zakone vied for control of Moscow. The Russian military was too busy dealing with the undead to pay much attention to the mob war ensuing. Mass desertions also put a stranglehold on the armies, as individual soldiers, worried sick about their families, left to try to save their own.
India and China already were being written off. In the ensuing days, new Chinese Communist leader Xi Jinp
ing, former chairman of the military, took it upon himself to use small tactical nuclear bombs on two large interior cities where the dead had taken control. This wasn’t a national decision but a personal one, and its vast unpopularity was evident from his immediate assassination. Meanwhile the country’s fragile infrastructure was falling apart. Communication and media came to a complete halt; transportation, both public and commercial, stopped; and the power grid in that part of the world winked out, one block at a time.
The rest of civilization also was having a hard time staying afloat. All essential services were being maintained by less-than-skeleton crews. As impossible as this situation seemed, it grew even direr as existing workforces were reduced by attrition from zombie attacks or workers just giving up and going home. Amazingly the Internet still worked. And although television did too, the number of active stations shrank to only the four major networks; cable was all but nonfunctioning. Brownouts were commonplace in all of the large industrial countries. Not only were there not enough people to operate the energy superstructure, but also there was the fact that heating and air-conditioning and electrical appliances still operated nonstop in homes now occupied only by the dead. This led to a number of gas and electrical fires in towns and cities around the globe. As local fire departments were severely depleted of capable members—and in some cases were unable to respond because their firehouses were besieged by zombies—a great number of these small fires soon raged into giant infernos. Sometimes whole neighborhoods were consumed.
The Middle East was in turmoil as extreme fundamentalists placed all the blame on Israel and the “infidel West,” and soon rocket attacks and suicide bombings escalated to carpet bombing and then nuclear solutions.
As the weeks rolled by, Europe was turning back into a continent of besieged, walled, feudal cities. The mortality rate of the Pandora 2 Mutation now had surpassed that of the Black Death of the Dark Ages.
In the United States, the borders were completely closed off, except for the one it shared with Canada. Along its southern border, army tanks and vehicles constantly fired on the masses fleeing north to perceived safety. People both undead and alive were strafed and slaughtered on sight. With the United States being a nation of constitutionally armed citizens, ad hoc militias formed, and their members fanned out throughout their localities to kill zombies. From highly organized ex-military to redneck yahoos, from renamed street gangs to neighborhood vigilantes wanting to help, the United States became a very dangerous place to be. Unfortunately, as many of these untrained zombie hunters were entering abandoned houses and apartment buildings, either to look for survivors and supplies or just to loot, as was their wont, they encountered an increasing number of walking dead behind closed doors. Having freed the zombies, who fed upon their liberators, they became just more zombies.
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