by S. Ganley
"Can you handle her from here? I am going to walk the perimeter again and see if she attracted any attention."
"Yes, I'll be fine. I think she will sleep for a while now, that little episode probably wore her out." Shellie replied.
He was really starting to like Shellie, they had spent some time talking and getting to know one another since arriving there. He had learned that she was recently divorced, leaving an abusive husband whom she had put up with through seven years of marriage only because they had a nine year old son together. She had been unable to present any evidence of abuse in court. With his family's money he had been able to retain a top notch divorce attorney who had earned his fee by ensuring that her ex was awarded full custody of their son on top of most of their mutual savings and possessions. Shellie had walked away from the entire process broke, homeless and with only visitation rights for her son. To add insult to injury her ex had quickly packed up their home, sold off most of their possessions and moved up to New York to be closer to his family. She had been struggling just to feed herself from day to day and had relied on the kindness of friends to put her up for a couple weeks until she was able to afford the down payment on a small apartment. Ever since then she had put aside every penny she could from each paycheck to save up enough for bus fare and lodging to visit her son whenever possible. She had recently learned that her ex was dating again and that his new girlfriend had two children of her own. On her last visit with her son her ex had approached her with a proposal about letting their son come and live back in Virginia with her full time. His excuse had been that their son just wasn't adjusting well to his new school and their home and that he constantly asked to move back in with her. While she suspected it had much more to do with her ex just wanting to get on with his new life and not be burdened with the task of being a single father any more, she really didn't care how it played out, getting her son back home with her was a dream come true. They had planned on working out the details during her next visit at the end of the month. Ever since then she had busied herself with turning the single bedroom in her small apartment into a boys room in anticipation of her sons return while she would take the couch and they would share closet space. Unfortunately the world had other plans for her, the zombie apocalypse had no sympathy for her plight. While she continued to hold out hope that the entire outbreak was only an isolated incident and that her son was alive and well and just waiting for her a few hours away in New York, Kyle could tell that deep down she really knew the truth. The odds of her son being one of the precious few who had managed to stay alive so far were extremely slim. She had soaked Kyle's shirt sleeve with her tears on three separate occasions while talking about it with him. He had tried to find a way to console her during those times, but giving her any sense of false hope was just not something he was willing to do. If he somehow managed to convince her that everything would turn out ok and that her son was alive and well and just waiting for her to come and deliver him from all the madness surrounding them; she would never recover once the reality actually hit her that none of that was true. He didn't want to be on the receiving end of her hysterics when that finally sank in with her, so he opted to say nothing and to try and talk to her about other things to take her mind off her sons fate. Another thing that he had learned about her was that she was one hell of a tough woman. He had discovered that the day he met her when she had grabbed the shotgun from his patrol car and as smooth and effortlessly as a seasoned soldier had stood her ground against a wave of zombies and knocked them down like bowling pins. Since then she had also been making the best of their meager living conditions and pulling her weight in terms of helping to care for Kimberly and any other duties that came up. She would often join Kyle when it was his shift on guard duty and sacrifice what little sleep any of them were really getting to keep him company as he strolled a wide perimeter around their refuge.
"If she wakes up and starts yelling again you are going to need to put a hand or something over her mouth." Kyle informed her. He hated to have to put it to her like that, but if it came down to it they just might be forced to end her suffering in order to prevent her from inadvertently putting the rest of them in danger.
Shellie looked up at him and met his eyes. He could see that she understood exactly what he was telling her and there was no need for any further discussion on the topic, she simply nodded in understanding and then turned her attention back to Kimberly.
Kyle hefted his rifle, checked the chamber to make sure a round was loaded and slipped out the door to begin a check around the station and make sure Kimberly hadn't attracted any attention to them.
Chapter 5
"Doctor, you have friends in high places. I just got off the phone with the President and have been given instructions to provide you with whatever support you and your staff need." MG Brookover said over the video conferencing call between the base command center and the communications room inside the isolated cluster of buildings making up the science center.
Seeing how difficult it was going to be dealing with the General and knowing that any requests coming out of their little secluded compound would be met with resistance, Dr. Woods had decided to take a different approach in dealing with the man. Having now been officially sworn into office following the death of his predecessor, the President and his staff were still isolated in the secure bunker underneath the Greenbrier hotel in West Virginia. The President was more than willing to work with Dr. Woods in ensuring his people had all the tools they needed to do their jobs effectively. The one ace in the hole that Dr. Woods knew he had in dealing with the military brass watching over him and his people during their stay at Guantanamo was that he knew the newly sworn President and his cabinet were in a precarious situation. With his refusal to leave the Continental United States and basically transfer the flag of leadership of the nation to the soil of a communist country and give the appearance that the nations leadership had simply run out on those survivors still fighting for their lives; it had become even more pressing an issue that their work towards finding a cure move forward. What Dr. Woods had in mind was something that he knew would not sit well with the General. Upon hearing what he wanted to do the President also had some input of his own on how he wanted things done.
"I’m sorry General, it gave me no great pleasure to have to go over your head like that. But I hope that you understand the scope of what we are trying to accomplish here, we are the last hope of finding a cure for this thing. If we are not allowed to conduct our work with the full use of all resources available, we are just spinning our wheels."
Dr. Woods watched as the General turned to someone just off screen and muttered something low under his breath. He was reasonably certain he picked up a couple less than complimentary swears directed at him, but he knew a little about how soldiers were and let it go. Turning back to the camera the General continued.
"If I understand you correctly, you want me to have the USS Abraham Lincoln and her escorting attack sub re-tasked to steam up the coast and launch reconnaissance missions over the capital and surroundings areas?"
His original plan had been for the flights to only penetrate fifty miles inland from the shoreline. They wanted to obtain air samples and assess the current state of the original virus and how it was maintaining itself in the atmosphere. Most airborne viruses were short-lived and degraded rapidly overtime when exposed to changing air currents and weather patterns. They knew little about this particular infection and it was important that they start tracking its progression over a fixed period of time. Once the threat from airborne contamination settled down they would be able to move into the next phase of his plan, actually putting people on the ground and obtaining fresh and viable samples. Since the weather patterns in the more southern states within flight range of the air base on Cuba had been experiencing a bout of strong tropical storms, it had been decided to move further up the coast to a location where the weather had been more consistent with average rain falls for the ti
me of year. Virginia had been chosen as their best option and once he had proposed that to the President he had a request of his own to go along with it. The President had insisted that any such flights include overflights of the capital to assess the status of critical infrastructure as well as to provide a visual confirmation to survivors on the ground inside the city that their government was still function and working towards rescue operations. Any extended operation into that region would therefore necessitate the use of their sole remaining aircraft carrier to position itself off the Virginia coastline. Many of the fighter aircraft aboard the carrier had the means to be retrofitted for use in a chemical or biological warfare environment and the carrier itself was equipped with the necessary equipment to carry out decontamination procedures on flights entering those areas. Four of his scientific staff along with three analysts were slated to join the Lincoln along with portable gear for conducting analysis on air samples and transmitting that information back to Cuba for further study. They were anticipating conducting two flights a day, first thing in the morning and just before dusk to obtain the most diverse levels of samples. After the first two days on station they would have a better picture of what the virus' current state was and hopefully be able to determine from that when they could proceed with putting a crew on the ground to obtain live specimens to be transported back to Cuba for further study. That would the most critical part of the mission, it would be from those specimens that they hoped to be able to pick back up and start working towards a cure.
"Yes General. That is exactly what we need to do. All resources must now be focused on supporting our work, otherwise it is just a simple matter of time before we lose the whole game. You don't really think it is possible to keep the entire country of Cuba isolated indefinitely, do you? All it will take at this point is for one of those creatures falling off a ship out at sea and washing up on shore somewhere along the miles of open shoreline for Cuba to become a zombie feeding frenzy."
#
"So, this is how rich folks live." Calvin said with a hushed whisper as he took in the well-appointed living room and adjoining dining room areas, "my entire damn apartment would fit just in these two rooms alone."
"Ok, you've had the tour and we are not here to gawk. Let’s grab supplies and get the hell out of here." Garrett said as he started for the kitchen.
Miranda had volunteered to take Doug upstairs to search for medications and toiletries while Garrett and Calvin scavenged what they could from the kitchen and garage. It came as a stroke of luck when they discovered that Doug was a doctor, although he had stressed that his field of specialty was plastic reconstructive work and not the type of doctor that routinely treated patients in the condition that they had described with Kimberly. He had offered to assist in any way he could by helping to search for medications but he expressed doubt that they would be able to find anything that would do much good in any nearby home. He thought that if he could examine Kimberly in person it might be possible that he could offer a more effective method of treating her. They had all agreed to quickly search the home and gather what they could and then meet back in the living room to discuss their next moves.
Doug had told them that according to Cameron, his mother often purchased bulk quantities of a lot of staples that they stored in a spare refrigerator and cabinet in the three car garage just off the laundry room next to the kitchen. Inside the garage Garrett and Calvin found the cabinets brimming with canned goods, bottled water and sports drinks as well as a host of other food items that they would be able to make good use of.
"You know, we really didn't consider carrying all this shit back." Calvin exclaimed as they continued to rifle through the storage areas inside the garage for other useful items.
Garrett walked over to the far side of the garage where a relatively new Range Rover was backed into the parking spot. He opened the passenger side door and examined the driver’s compartment and ignition.
"Damn, no keys. This would sure make a nice upgrade to my truck, much more room and better mobility." He said. "Let’s just stack everything up by the door, if we can find the keys to the Range Rover inside we can trade up, otherwise I will make a run back for the truck as soon as we are ready."
The two men began filling trash bags they found on a shelf with food and other supplies and stacking the bags just inside the garage door.
#
Miranda and Doug reached the top of the landing on the second floor and peeled off to the right, carefully checking inside each door as they approached it. Miranda noticed that the entire floor had the strong odor of lilacs, not the fresh cut flower type but the artificial scent she recognized from either a heavy dose of potpourri or some type of automatic air freshener. The doors they had checked so far led into to small bedrooms as well as one very nicely set up game room, complete with air hockey table, large screen television and all manner of video games and Blue Ray movies. Doug explained that Cameron was an only child, and his parents pampered him and would often host get-togethers with groups of his friends in the home. Seeing all of the expensive electronics and other high-end toys, Miranda thought to herself that pampered was not exactly the right word, she would have gone with spoiled, but then again she had never spent any time with those that lived in this top tier of the economy so she chided herself a little for being judgmental. If she had a child and the money to spend, she was sure that she would be no different in giving her kid everything they ever wanted. It would be a way for her to ensure that her own child did not grow up in as neglected a situation as she had. The next room they came to looked like a seldom used guest room, a pair of twin sized beds, night stand and two plain dressers were the only furnishings in the room. Miranda spotted a doorway next to one of the beds leading into a bathroom shared with the bedroom next door and she stepped inside hoping to find a medicine closet or other source of supplies. Right inside the door to the bathroom was a long skinny closet door that once she opened it revealed a very well stocked supply closet; towels, toiletries, cleaning supplies and even a pair of brand new bathrobes were all neatly arranged on the various shelves. She helped herself to a folded laundry bag and began stuffing toiletries, baby wipes, washcloths and other necessities into it. For medications she was only able to locate some generic aspirin, cough syrup, some ointments for rashes and stings as well as band aids and other dressings for minor injuries, all of it went into the bag. She could find nothing in the way of antibiotics that would possibly be strong enough to help Kimberly's situation. The aspirin might help with her fever but that was not going to get her back on the road to recovery if it was even still possible to turn the tide of her infection. Digging a little deeper into the bottom of the closet she found several rolls of toilet paper stacked on the floor as well as two unopened boxes of sanitary napkins, she crammed it all into the bag. She was just about to close the door and move on when she spied a small box of condoms hidden behind a stack of magazines. The magazines were what you would expect from a teenage boy, car and driver, fishing and hunting as well as several dedicated to video gaming. She went ahead and added the magazines and condoms into the bag, she told herself that while she had no immediate plans to make use of the condoms in light of their current situation, it wouldn't hurt to have them on hand. They were after all stuck in the woods in a coed situation with a lot of idle time on their hands and she was pretty sure that Garrett was starting to develop feelings for her just as she was for him. If something were to happen, the worst thing she could think of was for her to actually end up pregnant in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. The laundry bag was just about at the weight limit she was able to carry on her own so she sealed it shut and hoisted it over her shoulder and moved on to the next room. The remaining bedrooms on that end of the hall offered little in the way of useful supplies, but she did take a look at Cameron's own personal bedroom and was once again amazed at the lavish spending his parents had clearly put into giving the kid everything he could possibly want and more in life. His b
ed alone probably cost more than she made in a year at her last job. She had never heard of a teenager with a king sized bed and for that matter couldn't recall anyone that she knew personally who had one that size. She wasn't a connoisseur of furniture but one look at the multiple dressers, vanity and night stands in the teens room and she could easily tell that it was all very high end and custom made. She had to at least give the kid some credit for keeping his room neat and orderly, but then she figured it was probably a maid service that was responsible.
Stepping back out into the hall from Cameron's room she discovered the source of the strong lilac odor that was wafting through the air. An electric air freshener had been knocked free from the socket and was laying crushed on the thin carpet inside the middle of a dirty footprint. More footprints led from that point down around the corner of the hallway and out of sight, turning to look behind her she found a second smaller stairwell that led up to that floor recessed into the back wall of the hall just past the door to Cameron's bedroom. Considering the layout of the floor below her from their initial walk through she judged that those stairs must lead to a door just beyond the kitchen pantry. They were probably intended for residents to slip in and out of the kitchen without going through the main foyer and living room area by using the main stair case in the center of the house. Miranda thought it was probably planned that way for dinner parties and other events the family hosted where the children were not necessarily welcome so they could have a discreet way of coming and going from the kitchen while avoiding party guests. The dirt on those footprints appeared to have already dried and she guessed them to be at least a day or two old, but it was a clear indication that someone else had been inside the house since the outbreak started.
