What’s going on? Dan thought. He stopped his car and parked in one of the empty spaces.
A fresh-faced soldier got out of the G-Wagon and walked over, clipboard in hand. Dan met him at the cruiser’s bumper.
“Hi, my name is Private Davis. I’m here to give you a brief run down on how things operate here at CFB Edmonton.”
“Spare me, son. I spent the last decade in the Loyal Eddies, I know how things work,” Dan interrupted.
“Pardon me, but you may remember how things used to work, but our policies here have changed,” Davis countered, lifting a clipboard. “First off, name and rank, please?”
“Dan Simpson, Constable in the Edmonton Police Service, and Sergeant in the Loyal Edmonton Regiment.”
Private Davis’ eyes flicked upwards for a moment then returned to his clipboard. “Years of service?”
“Almost ten with the force, and twelve in the reserves.”
“Good, we can always use more experienced men, Sergeant. Lock the car and come on in. We’ll get you set up inside and once your quarantine period is over, you can join the other police officers here on the base.”
“Other police officers?” Dan replied.
“Yeah, there were about a dozen or so that came out with the mayor, and we’ve picked up others here and there, either when they come into contact with one of our patrols or when they left the city. I’d guess there are maybe three dozen or so other police officers here. Mostly they act as scouts for our units, as they tend to know the city better than most of us,” Private Davis said.
Dan left his weapons in the trunk and followed Private Davis inside. Security inside was tight, with armed guards everywhere, security cameras, and steel doors every few feet. After filling out some paperwork, he stripped off his clothes, took a hot shower and was subjected to a very thorough medical inspection. Every nick, scratch and cut was examined over in meticulous detail. After a blood sample was taken, he was given some coveralls and escorted inside by Davis. He passed several cells and Davis stopped at an empty one near the end of the hallway.
“Okay, this one is yours,” Private Davis said cheerily, turning to go. “You get out in one hundred twenty hours.”
“One hundred twenty hours! Why so long?” Dan asked.
“The longest recorded time it has taken a person to die and re-animate has been four days – ninety-four hours to be exact – so the brass tacked on an extra day just to be safe,” Davis replied.
“What the hell am I supposed to do for five fucking days?” Dan shot back.
“We can get you some books to read or maybe we can find an iPod or something for you to help the time go faster,” Davis said. “Gimme a few minutes and I’ll be back.”
“Thanks.”
Private Davis came back shortly with a cart loaded with books, electronics and even some snacks.
“Take whatever you want, but leave something for the next guy, okay,” Davis said.
“Any idea what’s on any of these?” Dan asked, pointing at the half a dozen iPods on the cart.
“Nope.”
Dan grabbed an iPod from the middle and helped himself to a Tom Clancy novel as well as a package of Oreos.
“Thanks.”
“No problem. If you need anything, just holler. Dinner’s at six.”
“Look, one last thing, Private. Before I left, about a dozen other officers were holed up at the old North Division station at 66th Street and 137th Avenue. Do you think you can mention it to someone and see if they can check it out?” Dan asked.
“Well, I can mention it, but I doubt anyone will check on them anytime soon. The brass is more concerned about holding the base than they are in sending troops into the city. Those units that did go into the city lost too many men to justify more trips. But I promise I will mention it to my CO, who will likely pass it up the chain of command,” Private Davis responded.
As the locked engaged with a loud bang, Davis said, “Welcome to Club Dead!” with a smirk.
After Davis had left, Dan settled in and turned on the iPod, flipping through the music list. “Wouldn’t you fucking know it, most of its damned country and western,” Dan muttered under his breath. “Stupid rednecks.”
Sighing, he picked up Clancy and began reading, munching on the Oreos.
Chapter 20
September 30th
The United States, without a region that the masses could be easily evacuated to, degenerated into anarchy and chaos within three weeks of the first appearance of the undead.
Cities, like TV stations, held out as long as they could. Some cities, like Phoenix, collapsed almost overnight. Others, like New York and Chicago, with huge law enforcement and medical infrastructure, held out longer. New York even went as far as to seal its bridges and tunnels, not to prevent the infected from escaping, but rather to keep more from getting in. It hoped against hope that a cure would be found or that aid would reach them in time. But just like everywhere else, time ran out and the numbers of infected grew unmanageable.
Civil services, like police and fire departments, and national services such as health care and the armed forces, did the best they could. Even with a centralized plan and hundreds of thousands of dedicated first-responders across the country, they were simply overwhelmed by the rapid spread of infections breaking out across the nation. In some cases, police abandoned their posts and fled the large cities, taking their family, seeking safety. In less than a month, in most of the country, it was pretty much everyone for themselves.
States on the densely populated eastern seaboard, the Gulf Coast and California’s southeast were hit the hardest and collapsed the quickest. All three areas were filled with large cities teeming with people and that allowed the infection to quickly grow to massive proportions. The rapid spread of infection in urban areas led those who could to flee as fast as they could, as far as they could. Of course, this spread infection even faster. Lowly populated and rural states, like the Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming and much of the country’s breadbasket fared better, at least until hordes of refugees from densely populated areas arrived and swamped the locals with requests for food, shelter, medical aid and protection from the infected springing up everywhere. By the middle of the month, many residents of lesser populated states were employing Castle Doctrine and shooting strangers on sight. Police in those areas, already over-burdened with 911 calls, essentially ignored it, knowing that juries would never convict these people anyways. It was pessimistic to say the least, but it went with the times.
States with large numbers of troops or military bases lasted longer than those without. Northern California especially did quite well, at least until a massive operation aimed at limiting the spread of infection by US forces was not only stopped, but almost totally annihilated by hundreds of thousands of infected pouring out of the Bay area. After that crushing defeat, military forces in California went on the defensive and focused on creating and protecting ‘safe areas’. Forces in southern California were forced to retreat into the desert, towards Las Vegas. However, given the huge numbers of both refugees and infected, those safe areas usually turned into mass graves for their inhabitants. Other states with large numbers of soldiers, like Texas, Colorado, and Florida also lasted much longer than other parts of the country.
The lower populated and more rural states, such as Montana, fared much better than the states with large urban populations. Alaska, both sparsely populated and physically isolated from the rest of the continental United States, fared the best. Large numbers of well-trained troops were available to crush local outbreaks and the Governor used National Guard units without hesitation when necessary to prevent the spread of infection.
Hawaii too had both physical isolation and large numbers of soldiers to prevent infection from taking hold. At times, the battle against the pandemic was touch and go, but in the end, Hawaii was also able to survive by the narrowest of margins.
By the end of September, the President was ensconced at NORAD HQ inside Ch
eyenne Mountain, guarded by troops from the 4th Infantry Division, while pockets of humanity lay scattered across the lower forty-eight states. Other hardened facilities around the country held members of Congress and the Senate, the VP and other VIPs. Outside, survivalists and biker gangs prowled the streets, taking whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. Increasingly, police and army units began to look out for themselves first and foremost. In a few scattered places, military dictatorships sprang into being, with the military imposing its will on survivors. Citizens might not have liked it, but they far preferred it to being infected or dead.
In Europe, Scandinavia isolated itself and survived the worst of the infection. Scattered mountain passes in Switzerland held out for months. General Bloch’s Reduit plan largely worked and they held out indefinitely. Spain sealed the passes in the Pyrenees, believing they could halt the infection. However, boats and planes with refugees already infected made it through and eventually Spain was overrun. The Pope was evacuated from the Vatican by his Swiss Guards and taken to an unknown island location. The Netherlands flooded parts of their country and many survived on a series of ‘man-made’ islands. The rest of the Low Countries were overwhelmed very quickly. With its large urban centres, Germany quickly filled with infected. Its armed forces, however, did an excellent job of containing the cities and safe zones were set up in Bavaria and other mountainous regions. Eastern Europe, with its weak economies and tenuous grasp on democracy, collapsed within two weeks and millions died. People fled towards mountain ranges and other perceived safe havens, but it was generally too little, too late.
Central and South America devolved into barbarism very quickly, as densely packed cities filled with infected. Military forces did what they could, but in most cases, there were too many undead and too few bullets. A handful of Peruvians returned to their roots and moved back into the mountains near Machu Picchu. Throughout the Andes, South Americans fled, seeking respite from the infected following them. In a few cases, they found it. For many, they didn’t and simply wound up swelling the ranks of the infected. In the end, most of the continent died.
In other parts of the world, the plague had various effects. In many parts of Africa, like Somalia, the Congo and anywhere else involved in a civil war or conflict, AK-47s and other weapons were owned by almost everyone. There, the infected were dispatched with brutally quick efficiency. In many parts of Africa, tribes also used the pandemic to advance their own agendas, which usually meant genocide. By the end of October, dozens of countries were at war and millions were dead. Effort expended on such conflicts meant that the pandemic spread virtually unchecked in most of Africa.
In Australia, the cities emptied and people scrounged in the desert for ways to survive in a Mad Max-like fashion. Within a year, Australia would have less than one hundred thousand people living there, while the infected numbered more than ten million. The few survivors quickly learned that to stop moving meant death, so they travelled the Outback, seeking supplies and safety – however short-lived it may have been. A few dozen enterprising aborigines climbed to the top of Uluru – known to the white man as Ayer’s Rock and destroyed the only route to the top and thereby avoided infection.
In the Middle East, as soon as the US collapsed and stopped broadcasting to the world, Muslims in Syria, Iraq, and several neighbouring countries decided that this was their chance to deal with Israel for once and for all. Their armies menacingly ground towards Israel. Israel, the region’s superpower, deployed its air force and crushed the attacks with almost contemptuous ease. When both sides’ armies clashed, the battle degenerated into a three way battle, between the Israelis fighting for their very survival and the Muslims looking to annihilate them, with the infected forming a third faction that indiscriminately attacked anyone within reach. Iran, not happy with the progress, launched Shahab-3 missiles, armed with chemical and biological warheads at Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Eilat. Israeli Arrow-2 ABMs shot down all but one missile. Within an hour, seventy-five percent of Haifa’s population was dead. Israeli Defence Force officers launched retaliatory nuclear strikes that blotted Tehran, Esfahan, and Qom off the map. Syria and Iraq struck back by launching missiles of their own at Israel, which drew further retaliatory strikes. Soon, most of the cities in the Middle East were either radioactive glass or filled with victims of poison gas or vicious nerve gas. The war disrupted what little agriculture and commerce there was and hundreds of thousands more died of disease and starvation. By the end of the war, Israeli and Muslim armies were fighting hand-to-hand combat with each other, as well as the growing number of infected in the region. In the end, the only winners were the undead, as they swamped the increasingly outnumbered living.
Many countries tried to isolate portions of their population and military strength inside mountainous regions within their nation. Unfortunately, many planners of these last ditch efforts to prevent the extinction of their nation forgot one major fact of mountainous regions. In most countries, such areas were usually the sites of exclusive resorts, ski hills, hiking trails and holidays, not farming or industry, so when people fled there, they found a region that was isolated from the hordes of dead chasing them, but which could not sustain them, either agriculturally or industrially. Hundreds of thousands of people more worldwide starved to death from such short-sighted planning.
Densely packed Asia collapsed almost instantly. On the continent, heavily populated cities seemed to fill with infected almost overnight, overwhelming medical services and preventing effective quarantines. It was rumoured that Chinese leaders had fled to Tibet in the first week of the crisis, guarded by several divisions of crack troops. India and Pakistan went to war two weeks after the pandemic started and it quickly went nuclear, killing tens of millions with atomic fire. The infected, unchecked by either nation’s military, consumed most of the survivors on the subcontinent. A few thousand survived, hidden in the Kashmir Mountains, choking on the fallout and suffering radiation sickness from the nuclear holocaust. Other third world countries in Southeast Asia disappeared almost immediately, while richer, developed countries like Japan lasted longer. Major General Daisuke Matsuyama took steps to ensure all of Japan did not go into that gentle good night. He filled the Seikan Tunnel, which connected Hokkaido to the main island of Honshu, with train cars and then blew several explosive charges overhead, sealing almost one full kilometre of the tunnel. Then he deployed his troops throughout the island of Hokkaido to stamp out those infected. The prefecture of Hokkaido was unique in that it was both sparsely populated and grew most of its own food. It also had a small mining industry, and a limited manufacturing base. Seoul was overrun, but mountainous central Korea soldiered on, protected by units of the well-trained Republic of Korea armed forces. North Korea, meanwhile, fell apart days after the first infected appeared in its starving population.
In Afghanistan, the NATO forces there quickly wiped out undead wherever they could be found. The Taliban was mostly just a nuisance, but once Afghanis saw that fighting between them and the NATO troops just created more infected, they picked a side. With the loss of their safe havens in Pakistan, the Taliban was routed. Overwhelmingly, Afghanis chose the government in Kabul and by default, NATO. Without volunteers to flesh out their ranks, and lacking people to hide and feed them, the Taliban turned to banditry and basically occupied a couple of out of the way mountain passes. NATO forces could have eliminated them once and for all but were restrained by the Afghan government.
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In central Canada, the great population centres of Toronto and Montreal were in trouble in the first few days after the pandemic began. Both cities had Militia units, but neither one had a major military base nearby. That meant each was essentially on its own for the first week of the epidemic. By the time the regular units of the Canadian Forces reached both cities, the battle was nearly lost. Local police forces and reserve units never really had the chance to organize and deploy, and in many cases, were either overrun by the infected or forced to eva
cuate the city.
The Maritimes, with much smaller population centres and a more spread out populace, had a much slower spread of infection. By the end of the first week, the Canadian Forces had designated Prince Edward Island a safe zone and blocked the twelve kilometre long Confederation Bridge with heavy equipment. Dozens of checkpoints, each with heavily armed troops, sealed the island off from the infected, while roving patrols eliminated them as soon as they appeared. Naval forces from Halifax deployed to Prince Edward Island, docking at tiny Souris Port, offloading their boarding parties to act as infantry to halt the spread of infection. Other smaller towns and cities in the region isolated themselves, but eventually they turned into ghost towns too as infected from larger urban centres eventually swamped them.
Winnipeg was able to contain the spread of the infection, and survived largely unscathed for weeks. With both reservists and the 2nd battalion of the Princess Patricia Canadian Light Infantry, they worked hard and contained the infected in quarantine zones and sealed off the city. Then, six weeks after the initial outbreak, a horde of tens of thousands of infected were sighted near the border by an aerial patrol from CFB Winnipeg. Two companies of troops were dispatched to eliminate the threat. They fought a desperate rearguard action to hold off the horde, which seemed to grow in size every day. Still, within two weeks, they were within sight of Winnipeg.
Regina and Saskatoon were small urban centres, but the Saskatoon Police Department was larger than normal and well-equipped, mostly because of the recent rise of aboriginal gangs in that city. While Regina lacked a large municipal police force, it was headquarters of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which meant that it too had a large force of well-trained and capable officers to deal with the crisis.
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