by Howard, Bob
The door moved open as slowly as Hampton could make it. If the infected dead walking by outside the fence on their way to the melee on the highway saw it move, it didn’t draw their attention away from the bigger attraction. Hampton was guessing Colleen was hoping the same thing that he was. If there was something inside, and it decided to come outside, just let it be quiet about it.
Just as the door was open as far as it would go, an infected dead stumbled onto the landing. It didn’t see them because they were not at eye level, but Hampton wanted to remove it from the view of the other infected before it would see them and start to groan.
He freed the rake from the door handle and in one swift move hooked the prongs of the rake through the belt that still circled the emaciated waist. With very little effort he yanked the infected dead from the landing, down the steps, and into the tall grass. He pushed it face down and slid a knife into the base of the skull.
It all happened so fast that he was back at Colleen’s side watching the door for more infected before she even knew what he was going to do. There was a wisp of sheer curtains moving slightly inside the door, but nothing else was coming out.
There was no going back, so Hampton crawled up the steps for a second time. From his stomach on the landing he could see under the sheer curtains, and he saw a pair of feet go by. One had a shoe on it, and the other looked like it was mostly bones and shredded flesh. He waited for it to pass by and then dove into the room.
Hampton was ready for more, and Colleen was right behind him, but all he found was the walking remains of what had likely been either the wife or daughter of the man he had dragged into the yard. She never even turned around as he ended her miserable existence.
Colleen helped him move the body just far enough to push it out the door, and they both silently agreed they would wait until dark to move it far enough out of the way to close the door.
The big room they found themselves in was well lit by large skylights. It smelled bad, but everything smelled bad after so many months of the infection, and protection didn’t have to smell good. They were both just glad to be inside.
He knew they still had to clear the rest of the big house, but Hampton couldn’t resist peeking out through a window that faced the highway. Trees blocked most of the view, but he could see enough. The battle was still in progress, but he could only hear the sounds of the living. He couldn’t see them, so there couldn't be many. It wouldn’t be much longer.
Colleen asked, “What do we do if someone else gets away and comes over that fence?”
Hampton hadn’t thought about that, but he was sure it wasn’t going to happen. If anyone was going to live through that mess, they would have needed to do as he and Colleen had done and left early.
“I don’t think it will come to that, but I imagine we would have to shoot them,” he said. “No one is getting through there without being bitten.”
They moved deeper into the house, letting their eyes adjust to the dim light from above. The house had big rooms, and it was obvious that someone had tried to ride out the end of the world in style. In the kitchen there was a Coleman camp stove sitting on top of the stainless steel range.
“Creatures of habit,” said Colleen. “The lady of the house was so used to cooking on the stove that she had to put the camp stove in the same place.”
“I wonder if they were bitten or if they died of carbon monoxide poisoning because she didn’t open a window near the stove,” said Hampton.
“That would be a total shame,” said Colleen. “You have a place to at least try to be safe, and then you do something really stupid that most kids would know better than to do.”
The slight bumping sound from the room above the kitchen froze both of them in their tracks.
“I had hoped for no kids,” said Hampton. “I’ll take care of it.”
Colleen sort of shook her head like she couldn’t expect Hampton to take care of it by himself, and she fell in behind him when he located the stairs and started quietly going up. The stairs ended at a large sitting area where guests could relax looking down on the spacious living room. There were two bathrooms standing open near the sitting area, so guests must have been able to wait in comfort when the former residents had a party.
All of the other rooms stood open except one, and it was directly over the kitchen. There was no doubt where the bumping noise had come from because it happened again as they walked slowly toward the door.
“There’s no easy way to do this,” he said, “so I’m just going to go in with a chair in front of me and try to pin down whatever is in there.”
There were plenty of chairs to choose from, and one was exactly what he needed. He looked like a lion tamer like they used to have at the circus, but he didn’t feel like one. If anything, he probably wasn’t doing a very good job hiding his fear. He had been faced with some bad things since the infected dead had come along, but the uncertainty of what was behind a door was worse than seeing it coming at you.
On his signal Colleen turned the doorknob and pushed it open. He only had to take one step before the chair connected with the first child, or what had been a child, and sent it backward into the second one. He kept pushing until they went down, and he was able to reach around with his knife and finish the job. They had been at the most around nine or ten years old. One was a boy, and one was a girl.
Hampton took a quick look around to be sure they had been the only infected dead in the room, and then he pulled the blanket off of a bed and covered them.
Colleen had stayed in the hall outside the door after catching a glimpse of the first child. Hampton wasn’t feeling too well himself, but he was glad he had been able to spare her the job of disposing of them.
“A perfect life in the suburbs,” he said as he pulled the door shut behind him. “You get your big job, you get married, you save your money, and you get your boy and girl. Then your worst nightmare happens, and you can’t do anything to save your family. It never gets easier, but it’s always worse when it’s kids.”
They both sat down in the sitting area where they could see over the vast living room. They were both hungry, but more than anything, they were both just needing to rest.
CHAPTER FOUR
Oconee
The de Havilland Beaver rotated into position and then began its mad dash toward open water. Kathy was pinned back in her seat as the Chief brought the plane to full power, and the noise was too deafening for either of them to hear the other. Not to mention the RADCON gear they were still wearing, including the head piece that made her feel claustrophobic.
She felt like making herself useful, so she rummaged through her supply pack until she found a fresh radiation monitor that was still sealed in plastic. She unwrapped it and sat it where she could keep an eye on it, and they were both pleased to see it was reading a very low level of contamination.
“Where are we going, Chief?”
Kathy was acutely aware of the fact that the Chief hadn’t started turning toward land yet, and each passing second carried them further out to sea.
The Chief pointed slightly to the right and said, “See that gray area to starboard? That’s a nice little rain storm, so we’re taking the plane to the carwash. Before we get there let’s open the windows and let the wind blow through the plane. Some of our trace radiation readings are because of contamination in the air vents, and some is on our clothing. We can blow the dust out of the plane.”
The sound was incredibly louder when they opened the windows, and Kathy reached into the back of the plane to force the cargo door on the passenger side to open for a couple of minutes. She repeated the steps on the port side, and even though she couldn’t see or feel radioactive dust, she mentally felt cleaner.
When it was quiet enough again, the Chief continued, “After we wash the plane, I’m going to land so we can jump in for a bath of our own. It should be safe to remove our RADCON suits after that.”
Kathy had to admit, even after everythi
ng she had seen the Chief do over the months since the apocalypse that had brought civilization to its knees, she was still impressed by the things he thought of. So far he had been handed one challenge after the next, and he always came out of it in one piece.
She thought back to the day she and her friends had watched the Chief crash their first plane into Charleston harbor. She knew he wasn’t invincible, but she felt like he was closer to it than anyone she had ever known.
The plane was rushing into the rain storm, and he was right. It was like going into a carwash. The rain slapped at the plane in sheets, and she half expected to see the big brushes appear out of nowhere. Just as quickly, they burst through into the sunlight behind the storm, and the Chief lowered the plane toward the surface of the ocean. The storm was moving away, and the sea beyond it was fairly calm.
As soon as the plane was bobbing on the water, Kathy jumped through the door trailing a safety line behind her. She wasn’t likely to need it, but she wanted to be out of the suit and back into the plane as quickly as possible. The Chief leaned out and tossed her a heavy duty plastic bag for her to stow the suit in. Then he stepped onto the float on his side of the plane and dove into the water.
It didn’t take five minutes for them to get washed and back into the plane. The cool water felt good to Kathy, and she would have stayed longer, but she had acquired the Chief’s sense of urgency. She still didn’t know where they were going, but it wasn’t hard to tell the Chief wanted to get there fast.
The radiation monitor was reading zero, and as soon as Kathy had her door shut, the Chief began to power up again. He pointed the plane slightly to the north and increased the throttle.
“I don’t mean to rush you, Chief, but any time you are ready to tell me why we left the shelter so fast, I’d really like to know.”
“There’s a good chance Hampton is still alive,” said the Chief.
Kathy didn’t have a clue what she expected him to say, but that wasn’t it.
“How do you know, Chief?”
“You know that source Captain Miller had who told him about the Oconee Nuclear Plant explosion? He said the guy’s name was Hampton. What are the odds it’s another guy named Hampton?”
Kathy had to admit, if it was the same man, Hampton was worth going after. He had shown them an incredible kindness by escorting them through Georgetown when they had become stranded at a private dock further south. They had been forced to abandon their plane when it had taken a bullet through the engine. The damage was just bad enough to keep the plane from flying, and they were making their way back home in a borrowed car.
What they didn’t know until later was that they might not have made it home if not for the fact that Hampton took a chance and not only let them pass through Georgetown, but he did it quickly. North of Georgetown near the road that would take them to their shelter on Mud Island, the infected dead were beginning to break through a tangled road block and head south in large numbers. They made it to that road ahead of a horde that would have swarmed them if they had been too late to reach the road.
“When we were riding through Georgetown with Hampton, I remember that he said he had a private plane stocked and ready to fly out on short notice,” said the Chief. “That must be how he managed to reach Charlotte, but I wonder what happened to Georgetown that made him leave, and I wonder how he got separated from his plane.”
“I guess we’ll find out when we get to Charlotte, but what makes you think we can find him, Chief?”
“He was broadcasting from a radio station in Charlotte that had a generator, according to Captain Miller. He said Hampton told them he was going to be moving on because the station looked like a bad place to stay permanently. It was safe enough, but there was no way to resupply without the risk of getting cornered.”
“He also said there was a group of people who had been holed up at the football stadium where the Carolina Panthers played. He said they had a lot of guns, and they were going to try something crazy.”
“What does that mean?” asked Kathy.
“Captain Miller was the one who called it crazy, but Hampton said it was better than sitting there waiting to die. He said the people with the guns were running out of supplies they could forage in the immediate area of the stadium, and they decided they could walk right up Interstate 77 all the way to the mountains if they had enough ammunition. He didn’t say how many people they had, but Hampton said it was an army.”
Kathy looked like she was working through a math problem as she tried to wrap her mind around the idea of confronting the infected dead out in the open.
“Chief, I know none of us have forgotten the horde we saw on Highway 17. The only way they could have stopped that parade was by walking them into the river at Georgetown. If they didn’t get stuck in the mud forever, they got washed out to sea with the current. How many guns and how much ammunition would we have needed to stop that many infected?”
“There isn’t enough ammunition to do it out in the open, and I’m not sure about how much it would take from a stationary place of safety. Every time you pull the trigger of a gun, you might as well consider it a dinner invitation. The problem is that one bullet, one gunshot, would equal dozens or even hundreds of the infected dropping by for dinner.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” said Kathy. “I wonder why Hampton would even consider going along with such a crazy idea.”
“Captain Miller said he had enough time with Hampton to actually say the same thing to him. He said Hampton told him he was tired of doing nothing, and that he wanted to reach the mountains. He said if things didn’t go well, he would find a way to break away from the group in time to strike out on his own again.”
“So, how does that help us find him, Chief?”
“Hampton has a short range walkie-talkie that will be broadcasting on a specific frequency, and he’s going to try to make contact with anyone who is listening every six hours. At noon and six in the evening he’s going to stay on the air longer than the other times. I got the frequency from Captain Miller.”
“Speaking of which,” said Kathy, “It’s about time that we checked in with the rest of the gang. Did you even think about how worried everyone else would be when you bailed out of the shelter?”
She gave him a stern look and tried to wither him with a stare, but all he did was smile.
“What? You don’t think I’m mad enough at you already, Chief?”
“I don’t suppose you took the time to discuss it with everyone else before you snuck out to follow me,” said the Chief. He could barely keep himself from laughing.
Kathy looked like a deer stuck in the headlights of a car. She had considered telling them, but she knew what would have happened, and in a flash of understanding, she knew the Chief couldn’t have talked it over with them first. There’s nothing he could have said to them that would have made a difference, and there was nothing she could think of that she could have said to the others to make them let her follow him.
They both stayed quiet for a few minutes while they each thought it over. When Kathy was a little cooler, she had to admit that checking in with the shelter meant she would at least catch a bit of grief from Tom.
Since the day they had closed the shelter door against the impending death that was drifting in on the wind, Tom and Kathy had started spending more and more time together. Molly missed her mother, but she got a sense of security from Kathy, and she loved seeing her father happy. It wasn’t hard for anyone to tell he was happy when he was near Kathy.
They had been sealed inside the shelter at Mud Island far less time than they had expected. By Kathy’s best guess, it had only been about two months, and during that time they had a wedding and would soon have a baby born in the shelter. Kathy jerked from her thoughts with a start and even surprised the Chief.
“Chief,” she practically yelled, “we can’t leave. Jean’s going to have her baby in about a week. It could be any day now.”
“I think
it might be a little too late for us to worry about that. We’ll be there in a couple of hours. If Hampton is anywhere near Lake Norman, we’ll find him and get back home before Jean even has a chance to get over being mad at us.”
“That doesn’t help, Chief.”
Kathy knew what was going to happen when she keyed the microphone and called back to the shelter, but it was better to get it over with. Besides she planned to say exactly what the Chief had just said. They would be back in no time. What she didn’t expect was the answer she got.
Molly had the radio ready for them to check in, and all she said was Aunt Jean wanted to know how long they planned to be gone, and that they didn’t need to hurry back. Kathy asked Molly if anyone was mad at them, and all she said was everyone was fine and not to hurry back.
Kathy looked over at the Chief and was just as confused as she was.
“Do you think they knocked Tom out and tied him up?” he asked.
She shook her head and said, “Must have.”
Then she remembered one of the rules they had given Molly, and that was to never give information over the radio that would compromise their location. There was always the possibility someone was listening or even on Mud Island. If there was someone on the island, they would need to land somewhere away from the island and scout the area first. The plane was much too loud for them to make a pass to see if it was safe, so they had to do it on foot. They would also have to do it from the other side of the moat.
Kathy took a moment to think of what she could ask Molly when Tom came over the speaker.
“You’re going to be seeing an old friend, I hear.”
Kathy was sure Tom wanted to be mad, but he was keeping it neutral because there was a situation of some kind.
“Yes, Tom, is there something we can bring back with us?”
Kathy didn’t know what to ask, but she hoped he could use her question to give them some idea of how bad the situation was.
