The Infected Dead (Book 1): Alive for Now

by Bob Howard

  The crowd’s screams dropped to a murmur as people turned to each other and began telling late arrivals what had happened. Many of them stopped taking videos and made calls to tell friends or relatives that they wouldn’t believe what they had just seen.

  It all reminded me of a fireworks show. First everyone was quiet, then everybody was screaming, then everyone was noisy, then the noise tapered off as people turned their eyes back to the sky for the next skyrocket to blow up.

  This time was no different. Just as the noise dropped to something like a vibration, it escalated into screams again. The screams were accented by several pops, and the crowd surged in all directions. Even though we were across the street in relative safety, there was no mistaking what had happened at the fast food restaurant after the cuffed man had been shot in the head.

  The cops spread out and had all assumed shooter stances. The EMTs were pulling back with their wounded friends, people were literally stepping on each other trying to get out of the door of the fast food restaurant. The log jam that had almost kept the one guy from getting back in was now trying to get out. He was last seen trying to reverse his direction and had disappeared under people who were either trying to get away or were being attacked by people trying to bite them. In my typical warped sense of humor, I thought it gave new meaning to fast food.

  The cops were shooting at anyone who was trying to bite someone else, but there was no shortage of targets. I was pretty sure they couldn’t exactly be positive about which ones were which, and as people went down from head-shots, the log jam got worse.

  Eventually the shooting stopped. On my side of the street, the screaming and running were both at a peak. We hung back at first, but the store cashier came out of his trance first and turned toward the store.

  “I don’t want to be here anymore,” he said.

  I followed him back inside, but even I wasn’t thinking about the videos games anymore. I actually wasn’t sure why I had followed him. It just seemed like I was supposed to. It probably didn’t feel right to be leaving right in the middle of a big purchase. The gamer had disappeared with the rest of the running people outside.

  The game store cashier looked at me as if he was expecting me to do something, and then I caught on that he was also holding the door open, and he was waiting for me to leave so he could lock up.

  I snapped out of the confused disbelief I was experiencing and went out the door. The cashier couldn’t shut it fast enough, and I heard the lock slam into place. There was no sign of him when I turned and looked back at the door, remembering for the first time that I needed the video games and consoles. A quick glance across the street put that stupid thought out of my mind for good.

  It was total mayhem over there. I could see uniformed people wrestling with practically everyone, including other uniformed people. I didn’t see anyone who didn’t have blood on them. I decided there was only one place for me to be, and that was on Mud Island.

  ******

  I never gave another thought to returning the Jeep to the car rental place. From what I was hearing on the radio as I drove south, they would not be waiting for me to bring it back, and they would not be calling the police to report it as stolen.

  I turned on the radio to see if I could find out how widespread the problem was. I remembered the number of times that Uncle Titus had told me to think like a survivalist, and to expect it to be big instead of isolated. I felt like Chicken Little at first and wondered if the sky was really falling, but then I had a really awful thought. I was glad I didn’t stop for some fast food before going to the video game store.

  The first reports on the radio were more cautious about what they reported. They said there were confirmed reports of sick people attacking people who tried to help them. They said that all police departments were responding to multiple calls to 911 asking for help, so everyone should stay calm and be patient if you couldn’t get through to 911 on the first try.

  I tried another station, and the reporter was saying it was happening up and down the area known as the Grand Strand. I didn’t know how long that was in miles, but I knew enough about the area to know it was likely to be in front of me as well as behind me. This station was saying to stay home and not to open your doors for anyone except the authorities.

  Listeners were advised to stay away from anyone who was showing abnormal signs of sickness or had been bitten by someone who appeared to be sick. If relatives or loved ones were sick or bitten, it would be best to isolate them, and it would be a good idea to restrain them.

  I couldn’t help but be amazed by the stupidity that could come out of some reporter’s mouths when they got really excited. “Stay away from people who had been bitten by someone who appeared to be sick?” I thought. “I’m staying away from anyone who had been bitten by someone whether they looked sick or not.”

  There was more of the same on every station. Hospitals that had originally taken in sick people who were either biting other people or had been bitten, started closing their doors and placing armed security guards at entrance and exit. They were all full and couldn’t take in more people.

  At first the radio stations were telling people to go to the hospitals and small urgent care clinics to get immediate treatment if bitten. The messages gradually changed to stay home and wait for help.

  Blue lights came up in my rearview mirror, and I thought I was getting pulled over. As I slowed and moved to the shoulder, the police car sped by me. I resumed speed but he disappeared in no time. I also saw police cars responding to calls in the other direction. I wondered how long it would be before they stopped responding to new calls.

  I made it back to the turn that would take me to my shelter, but I had my doubts about getting there. I didn’t think I would feel home free until I made that turn, and just when I was starting to think I was safe, I came over a small rise in the road and saw two police cars blocking the way. They had the big badge on their doors that told me they were with the county sheriff’s department. There were a few cars ahead of me already in line, and there were some that had passed through that were accelerating like they had just left a toll booth.

  A Deputy stepped out from behind one of the cars and held up one hand while he used his other hand to brace a shotgun against his hip. I could see other cars already had armed deputies looking inside and talking with the drivers. One of them was waved through, but the second car was directed to the side of the road. The driver looked like he was arguing with the deputy, but when the deputy stepped back from the car and began to lower his shotgun, the driver unhappily complied.

  My deputy approached the driver’s side of the Jeep and made a circular motion with his hand. I took it to mean roll down the window, so I did it immediately. The last thing I wanted was to be kept here. All I could think about making it to the shelter.

  The deputy approached, and I expected him to ask for my license and registration. Instead, he asked, “Are you alone?” He leaned in closer to get a better view off the back seat. “Are you injured, or have you been bitten by anyone?”

  I said, “Yes sir,” and two quick, “no sirs.”

  “Where are you heading?” The deputy asked without skipping a beat.

  I answered, “I don’t live very far from here, sir. The radio stations are all saying to stay home and don’t open your doors. That’s what I plan to do.”

  Without a word he turned from me to the car coming up behind me. He only glanced at me long enough to point at the opening between the cars forming the roadblock.

  I started forward at a roll and navigated the opening. As I was about to enter the gap I checked out the car that had been told to pull over. Two deputies had joined the first, and it sounded like they were telling the driver to turn around or to have someone in the back seat get out of the car. The driver was yelling something about his constitutional rights being violated, but the deputies were not going to bend.

  I passed between the parked cars and lost sight of the exchange
, but there was no mistaking the sound of a shotgun blast followed by the screaming. I didn’t know if someone had been shot, and I doubted if I would ever know. I hit the gas like the cars ahead of me and didn’t look back.

  I reached the turn that would take me to the safety of Mud Island, but I only drove until the road entered the trees. I wanted to stop to see if there was anything new on the internet or the radio stations. The cellphone connection was a bit slow when I opened the web browser, but it eventually connected.

  It was no surprise to me when I saw the headline banner on my home page. I tapped the screen to go to the website and saw that the police had teamed up with FEMA and Homeland Security. There was a nationwide alert warning everybody of what I already knew. I skimmed through the warnings looking for something new.

  The National Guard had been mobilized, and the headlines were saying that the military forces had gone to the highest alert status. The Navy had put all ships to sea that were in port and could muster enough crew members. The Air Force had ordered all planes to go to the most remote bases. Ground forces in the Army and the Marines were told to report for extended duty.

  The first reports were saying to stay calm and order would be restored, but other reports followed those by saying that the police would not be able to send help. Hospitals weren’t a safe place to go. Shelters were open at most public schools, but communications were being lost between the shelters and the Red Cross. There were reports of widespread looting, and fires were burning out of control because people were shooting at the fire fighters.

  One report said that the hardest hit areas were populated places where more people were being either bitten or shot. The one report that was missing was any kind of explanation for why people were biting other people.

  There was nothing about how they got sick in the first place, and after they got sick what would happen. There just wasn’t any information that was being passed along through the media, and maybe that was because no one who knew what happened was living long enough to tell others about it.

  There were three things that seemed to be facts. If you got bitten, you were going to die, if you died you were going to get back up, and the only way someone could put you down and keep you down was to deliver some serious head trauma. Having seen it all first hand, I would add a fourth fact to the list…when you got back up, you were going to try to bite someone else.

  They were calling it a mystery virus, but they weren’t sure where it had come from. Research centers, especially those run by the government, were claiming they could stop the spread of the virus. People just had to give them the chance.

  A radio broadcast out of the Middle-East said that several groups were claiming responsibility for the outbreak of the mystery virus, while here at home, local reports were claiming the likelihood that the virus had escaped from a research facility, and that’s why they were so sure they could stop it.

  The most frightening report was the one that said this wasn’t isolated to South Carolina or even to the East coast. As a matter of fact, there were plenty of news sites from other countries that were reporting the same scenario that I saw play out in Surfside. England was evacuating the Royal family, just as the President of the United States had gone to a secure bunker at an undisclosed location. There were no longer any official reports coming out of European countries, and the Chinese mainland was in total in total chaos. One astute reporter pointed out that it was unlikely to have originated in the United States because the progress of the virus was so much more widespread on other continents.

  I knew that South Carolina was home to several military installations. The Army was in Columbia at Fort Jackson, the Marines were near Beaufort at Parris Island, the Navy was in Goose Creek near Charleston, and the Air Force had bases in Charleston and Sumter. If any state could mount a military effort to push back the spread of the virus, it would be South Carolina, and I found myself wondering if I could reach any of the military bases before things had gone too far.

  I had just started to get into the mental grip of a day dream when there was a thump against the side of the Jeep. I looked across at the passenger side window and saw my first infected person close up.

  This person had once been a local elderly woman. She looked like the old black lady who wove sweetgrass baskets and sold them to tourists out along the highway. I had stopped out of curiosity on my first trip to Mud Island. I didn’t need a basket, and I didn’t really want one as a gift for someone else, but I was curious about how someone could sit under a little shade all day and weave baskets.

  She didn’t look like she was going to sell any more baskets. There was a huge gash on the side of her face that caused her jaw to be unhinged on one side. It was hanging down at an angle, and it was my guess that she had been hit by a car. Despite her inability to close her mouth, she was doing her best to bite the window on the passenger side. I was grateful for the fact that I needed the air conditioning more than fresh air, so the window was all the way up.

  I put the Jeep in gear and drove forward. There was a little guilt as I watched the forward motion throw the old lady into a spin, ending with a face plant in the road. I slowed just a bit and saw her getting back up and half walking, half falling in my direction. I didn’t need to see more to know she was beyond help, and I drove into the thicker trees. I hoped I would make it to the island before she got to where I had to leave the Jeep.

  She was nowhere in sight when I reached the end of the road. I also didn’t have the expected burden of carrying what I had originally set out to buy. No video games and no game consoles were going to slow me down. I ducked under the rusty sign and dove into the brush. All I wanted was to be back in the safety of my shelter.

  My long night in the tree was the result of first getting lost, and second making so much noise that I drew the attention of what was probably the only infected person for miles other than the sweetgrass basket weaver. This one looked like he had been bitten right on the side of the neck. He was missing a chunk where the artery had been and had probably bled out in under a minute, but that didn’t stop him from closing in on me.

  It was his constant groaning that gave him away. He saw me and moved in my direction. I heard him and immediately began trying to increase my speed through the dense brush. If I hadn’t already gotten turned around in the wrong direction, I probably would have found my boat in five more minutes, but I didn’t see anything familiar that would tell me which way to go.

  I originally planned to climb a tree just to try to see the beach or the boat, but the “groaner” showed up under the tree before I could get high enough to see. I didn’t realize that my view would get worse as I went higher, but my stupidity probably saved me. The infected groaner didn’t see where I had gone, so I carefully pulled myself higher into the tree. I didn’t know at the time that I was going to spend the night in the tree feeding mosquitoes.

  CHAPTER 2

  Mud Island

  As I tied the Boston Whaler to the dock on Mud Island, I thought about the warnings Uncle Titus had given me. I did need to start thinking like a survivalist. If I didn’t, I was going to end up like the fast food worker and the basket weaver. He had thought of so many things in advance. He may have run out of time, but if he had been able to hang around a little longer, he also would have been able to appreciate just how ready he was.

  The boat, the shelter, the incredible inventory, the seaplane, the wonderful isolation of the island, the houseboat…what was the houseboat for? Okay, it was a good place to put a VCR and a message for me to find, but it was completely stocked just as if it was a survivalist’s hideaway, and I was wondering why.

  I walked the few feet across the dock from the Boston Whaler to the houseboat and stepped onto the narrow deck that ran the length of the cabin. At each end was a foredeck and afterdeck. Both ends looked like a great place to relax and pass the unlimited time I was going to have on my hands.

  As soon as the thought of free time and relaxation c
rossed my mind, I put it aside. That wasn’t thinking like a survivalist, and Uncle Titus was right that I had to think like one to live. The houseboat couldn’t be for relaxation. It had to be for something else.

  I opened the door and stepped into the main cabin. I didn’t know what I was looking for, but I had a feeling Uncle Titus didn’t put a houseboat next to a remote island as a big, floating TV stand. “Now, I’m thinking like a survivalist.”

  The cabinets were stocked full in the kitchen, but there was far more food in the shelter. The toilet and sinks were functional, and the stove was connected to a full propane tank. “I must be missing something.” It was almost like you could live on the houseboat if you had to, but I would be safer in the shelter.

  There were sleeping quarters for six, and there was a supply of clean sheets and blankets. I searched the entire houseboat and couldn’t escape the thought that it was better than my old apartment. Even the location was great with or without an apocalypse. Unless the dead groaners could swim, it looked impossible for them to reach the dock where the houseboat was parked. Judging by the depth of the water and the current, a live person would be crazy to try to swim across. If not for the shelter, I would be happy to live out here instead of inside the shelter. The fresh air wouldn’t kill me……or would it? “Think like a survivalist!” I scolded myself for the slip.

  Just when I was ready to put the puzzle of the houseboat aside for another time, I glanced upward. In a corner where the overhead of the main cabin met with a piece of decorative trim I spotted something gamers appreciate……tech. Any kind of technical equipment, or ‘tech’ as we call it, is worth playing with and is appreciated for what it does. Gamers just seem to have a natural attraction to tech. In this case it looked like a tiny glass lens.

  I climbed up on a tall chair and studied the little circle of dark glass that was just barely visible. It looked exactly like what I expected it to be, but, “Why is there a camera in the houseboat?” I said out loud. A camera could only mean one thing, but there were too many variables to consider. Someone would be or had been using the camera lens to spy on someone else, but there had to be a power supply to send the images to wherever the ‘watcher’ would be located. “Who was the watcher?”