The Infected Dead (Book 1): Alive for Now

by Bob Howard

  “Eddy, a survivalist believes it’s only a matter of time before all hell breaks loose. Whatever it is, nuclear war, plague, or a comet crashing into to the Earth, it’s going to happen any minute. That’s how you have to start thinking if you want to live. You need to believe that you are prepared for anything if it happens one minute from now, but you won’t survive unless you act like you’re already too late. If you don’t start thinking that way, no amount of preparation will do you any good. You’re going to be somewhere else when the shit hits the fan, and you’ll just be another victim.”

  “Now, Eddy, I’ve tried to think of everything, but after you’re done watching this, don’t leave the island unless you have to. Something is coming, and I don’t know what it is. Call it a gut feeling, but every one of my survivalist buddies is saying they can feel it in their bones.”

  “Time is short, so stay on Mud Island, and hunker down for the long haul, but on the off chance I didn’t think of something, I’ve left you some cash in the shelter. If you absolutely must go buy something, be quick about it, but if I’m right you should stay here.”

  I thought to myself, “Okay, I have a Boston Whaler, a seaplane, a houseboat, and now I have a shelter. Where’s the shelter?”

  Uncle Titus continued on the tape, “If I know you, you’re saying you knew this couldn’t be all there is. There’s a path at the end of the dock. It is well hidden if you’re looking from any direction except right at the end of the dock, but if you know it’s there, you can find it.”

  “Follow it about a mile to the center of the island. You’ll notice the farther you go that the ground gets a little higher. The island looks flat from the air, but there’s a hill right in the middle, and the shelter is in the hill. Don’t be fooled by the big door and the combination lock. I got it from a bank, and you won’t open it without the combination, which I had reset to your favorite date.”

  I had jokingly told him my favorite day was the day a new game had been released, and the old sucker remembered it. He also knew no one else would know that date.

  “That’s all there is, Eddy. Like I said, I don’t know what’s coming, but it’s big. A survivalist can feel it deep down in his bones. Go have a look at the place, and don’t leave unless you have to.” Uncle Titus gave the camera a weak smile as the tape ended.

  ******

  I knew I had to return to the mainland for only two reasons. First of all, I couldn’t just not return the Jeep to the rental place. I know Uncle Titus wanted me to start thinking like a survivalist, but I wasn’t quite there yet. After all, he had died long enough ago for the island to almost go to auction. A few more days wouldn’t really matter.

  As for how I would get back to the island after returning the Jeep, the shelter was not a disappointment. It didn’t need a safe, because no one could have opened that door without knowing my favorite date, but just inside the door was a wall safe with my name on it.

  I felt for the key in my pocket then slipped it into the lock. Whatever the world was going to become, cash was still king in this one, and Uncle Titus had left plenty of it in the wall safe. The first thing I needed to do was to go back to civilization and buy myself a new ride.

  The second reason to leave the island was Uncle Titus himself. I seriously suspected when I surveyed the contents of the shelter that there was one thing that was going to be totally missing. Uncle Titus had plenty of hidden talents and lots of imagination, but his idea of entertainment and mine were totally different.

  With or without an apocalypse, if you were lucky enough to have too much time on your hands, you had to have something to do. Uncle Titus apparently felt like there would be enough to keep him busy, and his idle time would be filled by reading and watching old movies. I had to have video games and the internet. I wasn’t sure about getting the internet way out here, but I could fix the video game problem.

  I closed the big bank door behind me. I was sealed in by the total silence as the door separated me from the outside world. Then I began to take stock of the layout and contents my new home.

  ******

  The front door and the safe full of money were right up front. I was just asking myself why someone would even bother with a safe if they were going to put it where anyone could find it. Then I saw the book sitting next to the stack of money. I took it out of the safe and opened it to the first page. Uncle Titus had left me his own handbook on how to survive the end of the world. There was a message in his handwriting:

  “Eddy, these are the rules of survival. This place could get hit by a nuclear blast or a mile high tidal wave, and you would survive. You might be buried under a few tons of ocean bed or a few hundred feet of water, but this place would be able to take it. Rule 1, don’t open that door for any reason once the hammer goes down. Rule 2, you have what other people will want, so don’t break Rule 1. Rule 3, there is nothing that anybody could have that you need, so don’t break Rule 1. If you are not getting my drift, let me make it clear to you. Eddy, don’t open that damned door again!”

  I mentally added, “Except to buy a vehicle, some gaming consoles, and a nice supply of video games.”

  The rest of the book was a catalog of the contents of each room and a folded map of the layout of the entire shelter. I spread the map out on the floor and whistled. I thought this was going to be a one floor deal, but this was beyond belief. The map showed floor after floor descending downward. I was on the top floor, and according to the map, there was a small room to my left.

  I peeked around the corner into that room and I got the impression it was some kind of decontamination airlock. There were wetsuits for scuba diving, a hazmat suit, and something that looked like a suit of armor from one of my video games. I walked over and felt the material and guessed it was really kevlar. There was also a shower stall and some benches. I guessed that Uncle Titus made Rule 1 with the intention that it shouldn’t be broken, but he was a survivalist, and that meant don’t open the door, but be prepared in case you have to.

  I didn’t see another real door, but there was a round, steel hatch with a big wheel in the middle of it. I consulted the map and saw that the hatch led to a stairwell, so I walked over to it and gave the wheel a hard spin to the left. The door was heavy, but I was able to swing it on its big hinges until it was wide open. I thought I would have to turn on a light or something, but as soon as I shoved my head through the hatch, the stairwell lit up while the lights in the decontamination room dimmed.

  “Energy efficient,” I said out loud. It made sense. I didn’t know what the power source would be, and I didn’t know how long the reserves would last, but leaving the lights on in an unused room was a waste. Uncle Titus must have put motion sensors somewhere.

  I crawled through the hatch and pulled it shut behind me. There was such total silence as I spun the wheel into the locked position that I could sense the whole place was air tight and probably had a positive pressure. I wasn’t the scientist Uncle Titus was, but I knew there was one way to keep bad air, germs, and fallout from getting in, and that was by pressurizing the inside higher than the outside. My ears popped about a minute later.

  One flight of stairs downward, and I was thinking of one thing. “How did Uncle Titus keep the ocean out?” The air didn’t feel damp, so I wouldn’t have known if I was still surrounded by earth or if I had gone down far enough to be below sea level.

  I had plenty of friends with basements in their houses, and some of them fought a constant battle with water. I decided that Uncle Titus had taken into account the fact that water needed to be kept out. How he had done it didn’t matter, especially since he claimed this place could survive a nuclear blast or tidal wave.

  As I put my foot onto the floor of the first level down, the lights came up in a circular room that was as comfortable looking as any apartment I had ever seen. The furniture, the decorations, the bookshelves, even the rugs all looked like a showroom in a model home. There was a TV hutch on the long wall to my left, but the ob
vious lack of a video game console was almost distressing. As I planned from the start, I knew I would have to correct that if I was going to stay here for any length of time.

  The book I had pulled from the safe said this was the first room of the residence, and there was a complete list of everything in it. I scanned the list and confirmed that the game console was missing.

  Across from the TV was a huge leather sofa that would be a great place to fall asleep, which is something I tend to do when I play video games until my eyes bleed. Behind the sofa was a dining room table that could seat eight people.

  At the end of the sofa against the wall was something that looked like a computer workstation, but it wasn’t just for the computer. There was also a shortwave radio set. Despite the lack of video games, there was plenty of tech to play with.

  The map showed that the next room would be located somewhere behind me, and I found the entrance behind the stairs I had just come down. It was only one set of stairs down from the top floor of the residential part of the shelter, so I felt almost like I was in a split level ranch house. The lights dimmed behind me as the lights came up in a kitchen that looked like it had been designed for a master chef.

  Uncle Titus probably had a good laugh when he pictured me walking into this room the first time, and if I knew him as well as I thought, I was probably going to find a large supply of Ramen noodles in the pantry. Not because they were great for survival, but because Uncle Titus knew I could get into trouble just trying to boil water.

  Once when he visited my little apartment, he had nearly fallen apart laughing when he had watched me try to crack an egg. It seems like I have the same thought every time I crack an egg. I always wonder, “Exactly how many eggs do you have to crack before you feel like you’re doing it right?”

  I opened a few cabinets to see what goodies they held, and I figured I had better learn to cook because there was a large supply of ingredients I couldn’t identify, but I also guessed that Uncle Titus was pulling my leg. He was a survivalist, and somewhere in this place I would find survivalist food. Things you didn’t have to cook that probably came from some kind of easy open package but would last a hundred years without refrigeration. There was a refrigerator, but refrigerated foods don’t last as long as packaged foods, so I knew that wouldn’t be the main food supply, and I didn’t even bother to look inside. I could save that for later.

  I checked the guidebook to see what he listed in the kitchen, sure enough it said that the main food storage area was in a lower level of the shelter. There was a smiley face at the end of the entry.

  The next level was located down a hallway with a sloping floor. It was the bedroom, but the guidebook said, ‘main sleeping quarters’. I saw on the map that it was designed just like any normal master bedroom with a master bath attached to it, but there were several round hatches like the one at the top of the stairs. They were all labeled the same way……Emergency Exit.

  I looked around the room to see where they were located and couldn’t spot them at first. Then I realized they were so well made they were seamless, and the handles were recessed so that they were practically invisible. I figured it could wait for now, but it would be a good idea to find out where each one of them went.

  I only took a quick peek in the bathroom because I was eager to see if there were any other big surprises. It occurred to me that I wasn’t thinking like a survivalist yet, because I was already taking hot water for granted. With all this luxury around me, that really wasn’t a surprise. My apartment in Charlotte was functional, but it would have fit inside the shelter several times over.

  The next level was beyond belief. The stairs went down to a room that was labeled in the guidebook as the armory, and the inventory list was impressive. I had been to a shooting range once with a friend who had taught me the basics, but my knowledge of guns was pretty much limited to pointing and shooting.

  I looked at each type of rifle and pistol and was amazed by the differences. Next to each was a manual that had a picture of the weapon on the cover. In cabinets beneath each weapon there were cases of ammunition. The inventory book had ‘K’ after the numbers of rounds, and any video gamer knows that means ‘thousand’.

  There was enough ammunition to fight a war in this one room. So far, I had to see where those emergency exits went, how to handle these weapons, and learn how to cook.

  I picked up one of the pistols and just felt its weight. I felt a little sick wondering why Uncle Titus thought I would need so many guns, and maybe for the first time I took this whole thing just a little bit more seriously……But I still wanted some video games.

  Across from the armory was a door with a big red cross painted on it, and a sign that said Medical Center. I expected a little room with cubbies and cabinets loaded with bands-aids, rubber gloves, and tissues. There would be a sink and an examining table. It occurred to me that I was picturing an examining room at my doctor’s office, and I knew about the cabinets and other stuff because I liked to snoop around while I waited for the doctor. Experience told me I would have at least thirty minutes, so I snooped to ease the boredom.

  As expected, there was an examining room where a nurse could take your vital signs and a doctor could have you sit on the examining table and listen to you take deep breaths. The cabinets, the band-aids, the tissues, and rubber gloves were all present. What was different from a normal examining room was the other door across from the examining table. It said Surgical Suite.

  I stepped through that door into a room that had a long sink where a doctor could scrub up before doing surgery. There were lockers for changing clothes, and fresh surgical clothes in plastic wrapping. Beyond the scrub room was a totally stainless steel room that would be the envy of any hospital. Big lights, operating table, trays of surgical instruments, and cabinets full of supplies dominated the room, but the real shocker was the X-Ray machine that could be swung over to the table from above.

  I thought out loud, “Let me see……master chef, gunsmith, or doctor. Which one do I want to be when I grow up?”

  I figured I would get around to doing a complete inventory of the medical rooms when I had time, but I doubted I would ever need it for anything more than a band-aid or some aspirin.

  A quick check of the map and guidebook showed that I was just about to drop down to a level that had several rooms all arranged in a circle under the armory. There were nine rooms total.

  Two were smaller bedrooms and one was a bunk room that could sleep as many as six people, and one was like a dorm type locker room, complete with a community shower. This pair of rooms told me something about Uncle Titus. He may have been crazy. He may have written a rule that said you can’t open the door for anyone. But he had provided for the possibility that someone else may need to be given shelter. Between the armory and the bunk room, the shelter was beginning to have a sobering effect.

  One of the most impressive rooms so far was the exercise room. Uncle Titus obviously planned on bring in here forever, because this was more than a serious home gym. There were heavy duty treadmills with TV screens at the end of each, weight machines, and free weights.

  After a good workout, there’s nothing like a recovery room so there was a large hot tub and a sauna, and of course there was a TV that could be seen from either.

  There was a row of stationary bikes, and they faced TV screens too, but I noticed there was also large collections of music with the option to listen through headphones or by cranking up an awesome sound system.

  I flipped through the titles of the music selection and saw a pretty good mix of tastes. There was a CD in a player ready to go, so I hopped on a bike just for the hell of it. The music started just as I started to peddle, and I had to laugh at my Uncle’s ironic sense of humor.

  Uncle Titus had always been fond of this really enigmatic TV show where a plane crashed on an island, and the survivors kept finding more puzzling problems and places than they did answers. One of the places was something like a fa
llout shelter located at the bottom of a long ladder, but they spent several shows just trying to get through the hatch at the top of the ladder. Anyway, in the fallout shelter was an exercise bike, and there was a guy riding the bike while listening to The Mamas and The Papas. The same song was playing on this CD player as I peddled the bike.

  The remaining four rooms were massive storehouses of supplies. I went from one to the next reading the labels on the boxes and marveling at the contents. Uncle Titus thought of everything except video games.

  There was enough packaged food to last years. There were hundreds of cases of MRE’s, short for Meals Ready to Eat. The military had invested a fortune in meals that could be prepared while in extreme battlefield conditions, and while they didn’t live up to the expectations of their names, they were at least edible. There were meals like chicken parmesan and turkey with all the trimmings. Uncle Titus probably figured I would starve to death before I learned how to cook, so it was a good idea for me to have something that only needs to be opened for it to be called food.

  Uncle Titus must have bought everything they had at an Army Navy surplus store. There was spare clothing, medical supplies, personal hygiene items, and an endless supply of DVD’s. The titles didn’t give me that ‘run to the box office’ feeling, but I wouldn’t get bored.

  The last storeroom was cooler than the others, and I found it had a large walk-in freezer. I looked inside and saw shelves of frozen food. A note on the inventory list said, “Eat frozen foods first. You never know if the power will last as long as you live.”

  That’s when the gravity of this craziness really hit home. I hadn’t even thought about what powered this place or how long it was going to last. As a matter of fact, I had just pictured myself living in the lap of secluded luxury, happily playing video games and not having to worry about bills. I looked at the map again and saw that there was one more flight of stairs, and it was labeled Physical Plant……also known as power.