“Steve, I don’t know what to say to you. I think you and your son are wrong about this. Dead people don’t rise up to kill the living. You act like you’re living in one of those crazy zombie movies you love to watch all the time. Steve, I do care about you and hope you can come to your senses. Whatever is going on we’ll be fine. The government isn’t going to let anything bad happen.”
“I understand how you feel. It’s a lot to swallow. Just remember, when the shit hit’s the fan, call me. I believe this is real. I hope I’m wrong but I know I’m not. Do me a favor. Don’t talk to anyone at work about this. I won’t be there tonight. I called in sick again and then I’m off the next two nights. And promise me when this starts that you’ll call me. If you can’t call, come to my house.”
“I won’t tell anyone what we talked about. And I promise to call you if this really happens.”
“That’s all I can ask. Okay then, I’ll let you go.”
As I walked out the door, she reached out and touched my arm. When I turned around, she hugged me. And as we parted I kissed her. I knew she still liked me.
Chapter 8
Driving home that night, I realized how tired I was. All I wanted to do was sleep. Tomorrow was delivery day. Everything I’d ordered over the internet was due to arrive and it was going to be a busy afternoon. I would set my alarm for eight and head straight for my favorite gun store. I had lots of ammo to buy.
When my alarm went off at eight, I sat straight up in bed. I’d slept ten hours. I hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in days. I felt great. Then I remembered what was coming and all that I had to do today. I didn’t feel so good anymore.
The day turned to shit fast. Larry’s Guns and Ammo, my favorite gun store, wasn’t my favorite shop anymore. They didn’t have half of the stuff I needed. I spent all morning going from gun store to gun store. After six stops I finally had everything I needed.
Luckily when I got home at a little after one, I hadn’t missed any deliveries. Three different UPS trucks came to my house that day, two at the same time. By the time they were done and gone, my two car garage was just about full.
I’d helped unload all three trucks and was pretty much done for. I was going to go inside and take a nap. As soon as I got in the house my doorbell rang. It was my neighbor from across the street, Al. This was all I needed. I was sure he’d seen all the deliveries and wanted to know what was going on. We’d talked often and got along okay but I really didn’t know him that well. Really all I knew about Al was that he was 62, retired, and ex-military.
“Hey Steve, how’s it hangin’?”
“Most days to the right.”
This was our standard way of saying hello.
“Looks like your opening your own store. Or maybe you’re getting ready for World War III.”
“No Al, no World War III.”
“Well I could see some of the labels on those boxes. I didn’t know you were a survivalist too.”
“You’re a survivalist? You never mentioned that before.”
“You bet I am. It’s not something I tell everyone. People get the wrong impression. They tend to think you’re crazy. This world is fucked up and when the shit goes down I’m going to be ready.”
“Well Al, I can appreciate that. But I’m not a survivalist. I’m getting ready to open an E-Bay store. I’m thinking about quitting my job and going into business for myself.”
“Bullshit. I was watching pretty close while you were loading up your garage. You bought a new Hummer and you’ve got that U-Haul here.”
“Look Al, I’m telling you…”
“Hang on Steve. Tell you what. Come over to my place. I’ll show you a few things. Then we can talk.”
I really didn’t have time for this. But I had a feeling I was going to want to hear what Al had to say.
“Okay. Let’s go.”
When we got to Al’s, we went inside. He went straight to his fridge and grabbed a six pack of beer.
“Here, take one.”
“Al, you know I don’t drink.” I don’t know why I even bothered to say that anymore. I’d drunk more beers in the last couple of days than I had in years.
“Take one.”
So I took one.
We went out back. Al had a small in ground pool in his backyard and a huge shed. We went inside the shed and I was surprised to see how empty it was. There were a few things in it; his lawn mower and a work bench with some tools on it. Mostly, it was just empty.
“When I had the pool put in, I had this done.”
He pulled on a ring in floor and opened the entrance to a stairway. When he opened the hatch a light came on and he started down. We went down some pretty steep steps. It was cramped down there and it was empty except for a wall where it looked like there was a door to a huge safe.
“This is my bomb shelter.” Let me show you inside.”
He opened the door and we went in. I was impressed. He had everything. Along one wall was the living area. It had two sets of bunk beds, a small table with chairs, a chemical toilet, a shower, and a small living area with a TV and a stereo. On another wall was all his supplies. He had canned goods, MREs (ready to eat meals) bottled water, soup, guns, ammunition, and lots and lots of boxes of stuff.
“Through that other door at the far end is my generator and air filtration system. Where we’re standing, it’s twenty feet underground. The shower works off the pool. There’s a pump on that wall to keep the pool chlorinated. The pool fills automatically off county water, that is until it the water shuts down. I’ve got a 500 gallon propane tank buried on the far side of the yard to run the generator.”
“I had no idea you had all this down here.”
“That’s the way I want it. You finished with that beer? Have another.”
I took another beer.
“Does that crate really have grenades in it?”
“Yup. I have enough munitions down here for a small army.”
“Are you expecting a nuclear war?”
“Nah, just a war. There might be tactical nukes but nothing major. An all out nuclear war wouldn’t make sense. Who would win?”
“Yeah, nobody wins if everything’s gone.”
“I was planning on hiding out down here and waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
“I don’t know. Just see where things end up. Take it from there.”
“So, why are you showing me this now?”
“Because I think we’re on the same page. Let’s go back up. There’s something else I want to show you.”
Chapter 9
Al led me back to his house. We went in and he sat down at his computer. It was a nice one. Everything in his house was nice. About this time I was thinking how bad I’d screwed up as a kid. Al was 62, had been retired for quite a while, and seemed to be living the good life. If I’d have joined the service right out of high school I could have retired years ago. Twenty and out was sounding pretty good about now.
“Hey Al, how long were you in the army?”
“I was a Marine. To hell with the goddamn army.”
“My son’s in the army.”
“Oh, that’s right. Sorry. I just never liked the army. Anyway, I was in for 32 years.”
“Seems like the service would have been a good way to go.”
“Yeah, I retired as a Master Sergeant. The pension isn’t bad plus after I got out, I did some work for the government. That’s why I don’t trust them.”
“What’d you do for them?”
“Nothin’ I want to talk about. You done with that beer? Here have another. You sure pound them down for somebody that doesn’t drink.”
I took another. There were still two left.
“Yeah, I quit a few years ago. This’ll be my last.”
Al looked away from the computer. He looked me straight in the eye.
“So why start back up now?”
I was trying to come up with the answer when he said “Never mind, I want to show yo
u this. I think it may be something you’ve already seen.”
With that he put a flash drive in and clicked the mouse. There it was. Nothing I’d seen already. This was worse. Zombies were everywhere. Groups of them chasing after the living. Whenever someone was caught they were ripped apart and devoured. Ones that were able to get away without being tore up too badly soon joined the hordes. Every once in a while I’d see one go down, shot in the head. There were instances where groups of zombies were walking right into soldiers who were firing point blank into them. They would just keep coming. The only time one would go down was if they were shot in the head.
Al stopped the playback. “You’ve seen anything like this?”
“Yes. But nothing quite as graphic.”
“I thought so. I still got some buddies over there. None in the service but some guys just can’t get the life of being a soldier out of them. They’re mercs. You know, mercenaries. A bunch of these guys are in Africa but they find work wherever they can. I tried it but didn’t like it. Decided to give it all up. Came back to the States. I grew up in St. Charles. It was different then. This was all farmland.”
“How come I couldn’t find anything like this on the internet?”
“All this came straight from the guys I served with. They wanted to let me know what’s coming. Besides, the government’s got their hands in everything. They control the news media and they got pretty good at shutting down anything on the internet. They got guys just sitting at computers waiting for this shit to hit. Then as soon as they find it, it’s gone.”
Al turned the computer off. “Never leave these things running. They get in them and root around looking for shit. If not them then it’s those goddamn hackers. Let’s go sit in the front room. Get comfortable, Steve. We need to talk.”
Al wanted to know what I was planning on doing. I told him my whole story. He liked the part about Tim. He thought he was “a hell of a man,” taking the chance he had to let me know what was going on. He wasn’t thrilled about Gina not believing me but said he understood. This whole scenario was pretty unbelievable. I told him I was planning on loading up and getting out of St. Charles; try to find a place where there weren’t so many people. I wanted to find a place I could defend myself and try and ride this thing out.
We talked for hours. Al’s original plan was to hide in his bunker for a few months and wait for it to get cold. He was hoping the “bastards” would freeze and then he was going to “head for the hills.”
In the end we decided to pool our resources. Al was going to come with me. He said “I don’t want to sit in some hole in the ground for six months if I don’t have to.” So that was it. Tomorrow we were going to start emptying his bunker and get loaded up and ready to go. All I had to do was convince Gina. And I had the flash drive to do it with.
“Look Al, I gotta get home. Tim might try to call soon with more information and I need to be there.”
“Yeah, it’s getting late. We need to get an early start.”
“I’ll see you in the morning.” As I was headed out the door I asked Al, “How much time do you think we have?”
“Two days, maybe as many as five. Not any longer than that. Once it starts, this country is gonna fall fast.”
Al was right.
Interlude
At the same time Al was showing Steve his underground bunker, the FAA was making their decision to ground international flights. The state department had made the decision to recall all international diplomats. These were the only people that were going to be allowed back in the U.S. There were two flights out of Japan and eleven out of Western Europe. The rest of the world had already been over run by the dead. Embassies in other parts of the world had already been lost or were cut off from rescue efforts by hordes of the dead.
Of the thirteen flights, seven had infected passengers. Two went down over the Atlantic. Five landed without incident. From these airports the epidemic spread.
The FAA was one day late.
Chapter 10
When I got home that night I called Gina. She was at work already. From what she told me I was on the shit list. I told her that I really didn’t care and was going to take a weeks vacation. The way she was talking I could tell she hadn’t bought my story. I was worried about what was going to happen when the outbreak started here. I’d just have to wait and let it play out. No matter what happened I was going to make sure she was okay. We said our goodnights and I went to bed.
The sat phone rang around three o’clock in the morning.
“Hi Dad. How are things there?”
I gave him a quick run down of the preparations I’d made and told him about my new friend Al.
“That’s good. You’ll need all the help you can get to survive this and Al sounds like he‘d be an asset. They moved our unit to Virginia. I’m at Fort A.P. Hill We’re securing the airfield and different areas of the base. They’re going to move everyone out of the Pentagon and bring them here.
“Have you heard anything else?”
“Yeah, did you hear the FAA has grounded all international flights?”
“No, I’ve been pretty busy. I haven’t watched any television at all.”
“Well, they were too late. From what I’ve heard, there were several incidents. I’m not positive but it sounds like some of the flights came back with infected on board.”
“That’s just great.”
“I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner. Two flights didn’t make it back. They crashed into the Atlantic. And from what else I’ve heard, the Air Force may have shot one of them down.”
“Now we’re killing our own citizens?”
“Hey, they were probably all dead by then anyway. I heard only the co-pilot was left and he’d been bit. I don’t have long to talk so let me tell you what I know.”
“Alright, go ahead.”
“The government captured some of these zombies and did some research on them. When they first change, they’re pretty slow. The more human flesh they eat, the faster and smarter they get.”
“How the hell did they figure that out? Were they feeding them?”
“I don’t know. My guess would be yes. This research came out of India and who knows what the hell they do on these foreign bases. I don’t let myself think about it. All I know is what I’ve heard and read in reports. If they don’t eat, they stay slow and stupid. When I said they get smarter I really should have said that they get more aware. They don’t think at all. They just react. Their sight is limited but their hearing and sense of smell seem to be heightened. If they don’t eat they rot just like a regular corpse. Eating helps deter their deterioration. From what they’ve observed, the dead hunt in packs. It seems like there is a kind of group consciousness. They get in huge hordes and go through areas and just clean them out. It’s like a swarm of locust.”
“We don’t stand a chance do we?”
“Not if you stay where you are.”
“What about you?”
“I don’t know. I’ll go wherever they send me. They’re making plans now. From what I’ve heard, nothing they’ve tried has worked so far. By the time an infection breaks out and the army responds, the hordes are too large. They just over run whatever is front of them. I’ve been on here too long. I gotta go. You take care. Don’t wait too long. Get out of there before it’s too late. Bye, Dad.”
“Good bye Son. Call me when you can.”
I thought about calling Gina but she didn’t believe me anyway. I’d just talk to Al in the morning. I hoped I could get back to sleep.
Chapter 11
Al was at my door before six that morning. I told him about my conversation with Tim that night. He wasn’t surprised that the army had done testing on the zombies. It was “just like those assholes to sacrifice a few civilians for the good of the nation.” Al had a healthy disrespect for the army.
We decided to make some modifications to the Hummer and the U-Haul truck. We took the seat out of the U-Haul and cut through t
he cab to attach it to the box in back. Then we took the back off the seat and made it so we could remove and reattach it from within the cab. Now we could get to the back of the truck without getting out. Both vehicles got wooden bumpers on the front . We’d be able to run over the son of a bitches without putting holes in the radiators or losing headlights. Then we strapped ladders to the tops of the truck and the Hummer for getting to higher ground when necessary.
The rest of the day, we spent moving supplies out of his bunker and loading the trucks. We left some guns and ammunition in the bunker just in case something happened and we got trapped down there. We also left half the food and water. Al and I went through the things I’d purchased. He didn’t think we’d need everything and we ended up needing the room anyway. We’d built shelves in the truck and it was packed pretty tight. But there was a walkway from the back of the truck to the front. Then we rigged the rolling door on the truck so it could be opened from the inside.
We kept the radio on while we were working. Stories were filtering in from around the country. Most were about single incidents including shootings all up and down the west coast. A riot had broken out in a casino in Las Vegas and it plus two other casinos had burnt to the ground. Many of the first responders had been injured when the rioting from the casino had spilled out into the street.
Two hospitals, one in Cincinnati and another in Atlanta, had to be shut down because of an “infectious outbreak.” The CDC had been called and the news media was awaiting further details. Until further notice the FAA had suspended all air traffic. There was rioting at several airports.
Al said he thought it was mostly just pissed off people. It was obvious to Al and I that the outbreak had definitely begun. It wouldn’t be long before the infection would spread to St. Charles and we’d need to get going if we were going to beat it.
“Al, I need to talk to Gina. Do you think we’re almost done for the day?”
Dead Life Page 3
