The Infected Dead (Book 1): Alive for Now

by Bob Howard

  Despite the warnings, people continued to hide their bitten and torn flesh until it was too late, and another safe haven would fall. I thought about the cruise ship and the sheer numbers I saw getting on board. I didn’t see how they could screen everybody well enough at the end of the gangway without stripping everybody completely naked. Even as they were escaping with their lives, modesty and civility were more important than survival. Uncle Titus would have been standing at the bottom of the gangway with a gun and yelling, “Strip! And I mean now!” Time may have been a deciding factor, but I wasn’t sure which would be worse, running out of time on land or getting trapped on a crowded ship with the infection running rampant.

  I did a search for news from the West and got the same stories. Japan has almost twice the population of the United Kingdom and far less places to go. The news reports from Tokyo were grim, saying that the estimated rate of the spread of the infection was so high that over ninety-five percent of the population would be infected within one week.

  When I switched back to the US mainland, the reports were similar to Japan. The naval bases along the West coast had all put their ships to sea, and the Marines, Army, Air Force, Coast Guard, and National Guard units were all mobilized. The President was reported to be safe, but the reports ranged from alleged bunkers to confirmed locations. One station reported that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had ordered all nuclear reactors to be powered down, and judging by the reports of entire cities without electricity, it was a fair guess that they were getting it done. Since I still had power, it meant I was getting my power from either a reactor that was still up and running, or it was coming from one of the big hydroelectric dams in the state.

  I switched from the internet back to the TV station and saw that most of the screens were still on. The anchorman looked like he could use some sleep and was sipping from a big mug of coffee.

  He was talking about most of the same things I had found on the internet, and there wasn’t any really positive news to report. A young lady came into the newsroom and walked up to the anchorman. They exchanged a few words, and he enlarged the screen that showed the perimeter of the TV station.

  It was dark outside, but the soldiers had set up flood lights aimed at the fence. On the other side of the fence, the infected dead were so deep that you couldn’t count them or see past them, and the fence was shaking so much it was only a matter of time before it collapsed. The soldiers weren’t bothering to shoot anymore even though they all had weapons pointed outward. They were just waiting for the order to go inside and begin trying to fortify the doors. I hoped the doors at least opened outward.

  A sense of guilt washed over me. I was sitting in a very heavily protected room eating sandwiches and drinking beer, and it had taken on the same unreality of a movie. It felt like I could turn it off at any time, go to bed, get a good night sleep, and then watch some more tomorrow. All of that was true. It was just like watching TV, but this was the reality show from hell……and I couldn’t stop watching yet.

  The fence around the station went down and disappeared under bodies. Most of them were trampled by other infected dead pushing from behind, but already there were hundreds pouring into the station perimeter and staying on their feet.

  I was so mesmerized by the sight of so many infected that I hadn’t noticed when the soldiers left the field of vision. The camera began moving with a slight jerk and then winked out. The anchorman turned to face his camera and explained that the outside camera was being moved to the top of the building, and we would have a live view soon. He went on to say that he had received information, probably from the young lady a few minutes ago, that the station had lost all contact with its network. The live feeds they were receiving would be able to give them some information about what was happening around the country and the world, but the network had been passing them live information and updates until the contact was lost.

  I hoped I could keep the internet for a long time, but if the TV station had lost contact with their network, that also had to mean they had lost their own internet connection. They were blind except for the camera shots they were getting, and it was not likely that they would keep them much longer.

  It was probably around midnight when I dozed off. It had only been since the night before that I had slept in a tree, and I was exhausted. When I woke up, it was probably because it was too quiet. The anchorman was gone from his desk, and most of the monitors behind him were dark. The others were too badly focused or pointing at nothing in particular. I turned off my own TV and went back to sleep on the couch. For some stupid reason I felt like I had to guard the door.

  ******

  I woke up the next morning to the sound of soft music coming from the TV. It had turned on by itself, and there was a message across the screen in closed captions.

  A SURVIVALIST NEEDS A ROUTINE

  TO KEEP FROM GOING CRAZY

  I looked at my watch and saw that it wasn’t an unreasonable hour. Eight o’clock in the morning was a pretty good time to get up, and I needed a shower in the worst way. I was almost to the kitchen when it dawned on me that I was acting like this was just another day. It was less than two days from the end of the world. There were still people being chased down and eaten by infected dead people, and I was thinking about what time it was and that I needed a shower.

  I only stopped in the kitchen long enough to find the coffee maker because that was one thing I had to have. The dull headache I felt behind my eyes was probably caffeine withdrawal. Two days since the end of the world, and two days since I’d had a cup of coffee.

  With my cup of steaming hot coffee in hand I returned to the living room and turned on the TV. I found my news channel and was surprised to see the anchorman was back. He didn’t look so good, though. He was also drinking coffee, but he was sitting it down between sips because he was shaking too much to hold it the way I was cradling mine.

  There were only a few monitors on behind him, and I turned up the volume to hear what he was saying to the camera. He was telling his audience that the lower floor of the building had been breached by the sheer weight of the infected dead pushing on the glass doors. The soldiers had found it to be easier to secure a stairwell because they could drop barriers down the stairs until nothing could get through. They had gone through the offices on the second floor of the TV station and carried the desks back to the stairwells. When the exits were filled with desks from the first floor to the second, they finally stopped.

  The anchorman explained that they felt safe for now, but they were worried about food and water. The soldiers had carried in large amounts of supplies when they had arrived only two days before, but they were already rationing what they had. It wasn’t that they were really in danger of running out yet, but they were beginning to doubt that help was going to reach them any time soon.

  I watched as he gave updates based on what was being seen on the monitors. The camera that had been moved to the top of the building was feeding a live picture to one of the screens again, and it was a pretty ugly scene. There were infected dead everywhere within the field of vision. The only time I saw any living people in the area was when a car went weaving through. The driver was trying to avoid hitting the stumbling infected because there were just too many of them. He couldn’t miss them all, though, and a trail of still moving bodies was left in his wake. He passed from view, and eventually the dead went back to just wandering in all directions. Now that they couldn’t see any activity around the TV station, they weren’t adding to the numbers already inside the downed fence.

  I finished my coffee and with that same guilt I had felt the night before, I headed for the shower. With the hot water turned up as high as I could stand it I started thinking about what to do next. Like most people, I could lose myself in a shower so well that it had become a place where I did my best thinking.

  There wasn’t much sense in going outside for any reason I could think of. Even after it reached a point where I wouldn’t be abl
e to get any information from TV or the Internet, it wasn’t like I had to know what was happening. People were either going to stop the infection from spreading, or people were going to keep dying. There was a third group of people, and those were the ones who had a safe shelter where they could ride this out.

  Feeling somewhat revived by my shower, I got a second cup of coffee. I found some bacon and eggs in the refrigerator and decided to give cooking a try since no one was around to laugh at me. I managed to get everything cooked without hurting myself. I held up my coffee cup as a mock toast to myself for being lucky to have a crazy uncle and for finally learning to cook breakfast instead of ordering at a drive through place.

  With clean clothes on and the need for a routine, I sat down and started working on a schedule, but I didn’t really have a clue about how to schedule free time, especially since there was nowhere to go. The logical thing to do at this point was to keep trying to gather information until there were no more outside sources, so I wrote on my schedule that I should check the TV and internet at least three or four times per day.

  ******

  Despite my earlier hesitation about trying to schedule a routine, I found myself establishing exactly that. I got used to going to bed and getting up at the same time every day, courtesy of Uncle Titus who had the bedroom lights on a hidden timer. They came in nice and bright every morning at 8:00 AM. I gave up looking for the timer after three days. Meals were at the same time, showers were at the same time, and updates from the outside world were at the same time. There was also time in between for the armory, even though I usually had my face buried in the tech manuals for the weapons while eating meals and going to sleep. Each morning I would wake up and find one open near my pillow.

  While I watched the news updates, I got to know the guns by field stripping them, cleaning them, and putting each one back together. I loaded clips and magazines, unloaded and reloaded them. I couldn’t exactly teach myself to shoot inside the shelter, but I was considering breaking the number one rule as decreed by Uncle Titus. I needed to go outside, so I reached the conclusion that I could take the Boston Whaler far enough offshore and shoot at targets in the water.

  So far, I was heeding the rule, but the outside cameras were showing nothing but trees and water day after day, and I was already getting a bit stir crazy, even after only a few days.

  The updates from the only TV station I could receive were getting more and more grim. I felt sorry for the anchorman who looked worse every time I turned on the TV. He had less news from the outside that was any different from what was already known, so he gave frequent updates on their status. They were getting low on food because they had twenty-four mouths to feed, but the water supply was critically low. I noticed his coffee cup was gone.

  The first floor of the TV station was still full of the infected. The anchorman said as far as they knew, there wasn’t a city in the world that hadn’t suffered to some extent. They had reestablished contact with their network office when someone managed to get their email working, but they didn’t know how long that would last.

  The news about New York was particularly disturbing because so few people got out alive, and the place became a hotbed of infection. There were large pockets of people holed up in buildings just like the TV station, but no one had planned for this, and the essentials for survival were running out.

  The anchorman said they had received word that a well armed gang had tried an all out assault on the infected in order to break out of the city, but they had been overwhelmed quickly. Thirty or forty gang members with automatic weapons who didn’t know what they were trying to kill found themselves surrounded by thousands of hungry infected. Even if every bullet was a head shot, they wouldn’t have even been able to carry enough ammunition to make a dent in the never-ending wall of the dead. The sound of their weapons firing was replaced by their screams before they made it two blocks.

  On the fourth day of my new routine, my anchorman friend said they had received information that the military was successful in evacuating large groups of people with helicopters. Unfortunately, they had also learned that too many of the rescued had already been bitten and had caused widespread infection throughout military bases and even the ships at sea.

  They had confirmation that an aircraft carrier was adrift and not responding to hails from other ships. A flyover of the deck of the carrier was all anyone needed to see. The pilot described the scene as the worst thing he had ever seen, even in combat. There were infected dead crewmen wandering around the flight deck until they reached the edges of the huge ship. Then they simply dropped over the side into the ocean.

  There were probably pockets of survivors on board, but the likelihood of gaining control of the ship were terribly slim. There were over five thousand crew members on a carrier, and they had taken additional people on board when they left port.

  The military announced that they were suspending all rescue efforts in the United States because they didn’t have the facilities for mass care available in secure areas, but the real reason was probably related to the number of secure areas that had been lost due to families not disclosing that a loved one had been bitten. It also wasn’t just loved ones who didn’t get reported as bitten. It was the military, too.

  News stories were plentiful about military units establishing secure zones only to be overrun from within. I asked myself, “Would you tell the guy next to you that you had been bitten by an infected dead if you knew the guy was going to react by giving you a head shot?” I didn’t think so. I’d probably just keep telling myself it was only a scratch, and it would get better.

  I sat down the Glock I had just finished cleaning and thought about how many times I had cleaned it already. I had a nagging feeling that Uncle Titus was wrong about one thing. It was’t enough to think like a survivalist. You had to demonstrate survival. It wasn’t enough to be able to clean a gun. Eventually you had to be able to shoot the gun.

  I knew my mind was made up to violate Uncle Titus’ rule before I even decided to do it. I had been thinking about going outside for no other reason than to just go out and breathe the fresh air, but I could also teach myself how to survive by shooting guns at floating targets.

  It only took about an hour get myself ready. I used one of the large cases I found in the armory. It was made of some kind of durable plastic that would float if something went wrong, and it went overboard. It was also light enough for me to carry without help even after loading it with several weapons and an assortment of ammunition to match the guns.

  For targets I gathered a collection of water jugs, bottles, and cans from the food and water I had already consumed since taking up residence in the shelter. There was a disposal area in the kitchen that would compact the containers when I was ready to do so, but I had put it off. It was a good thing I had, because there would be enough garbage for me to use as practice targets.

  I had considered shooting on the island so I could position the targets at various heights on trees. I figured if I used the side of the island that faced the ocean, the sound wouldn’t attract anything stumbling around in the woods. The problem was that I wouldn’t know if my plan worked until the damage was already done. Even though I could shoot an infected dead before it even left the beach, and even though it would most likely be eaten by sharks if I missed it, there was still a chance that the gun shots would attract the attention of living people.

  If the living people were just decent folks trying to escape the infected dead, I wasn’t so sure about who I should take in. I had the space for at least six more people, but I had a feeling that I should choose carefully. Then there was the possibility that the people were infected but not dead. I wondered, “Could I order people to strip naked on the beach so I could inspect them for bites?” I wasn’t so sure I wanted do that even if they turned out to be uninfected.

  Then there was the other possibility……the people who would try to take what I had whether they had been bitten or not. The w
oods were crawling with predators on four legs, but the two legged predators would be a bigger problem if they were also armed and were able to slip up on me while I was doing target practice.

  So, the floating targets would have to do, and I would enjoy the time out in the boat while I became a better shot. The prospect lifted my spirits, and I pictured the satisfaction I would have cleaning the guns later. The smell of cordite would make it all real, while up until now the only smell was cleaning oil.

  I strapped on a shoulder holster and slung one M-16 across my back, and then I towed the crate up through the rooms and out through the hatch that led to the bank vault door. All together I had a dozen different weapons in the crate, and I had a huge plastic bag full of targets. I checked the security camera views around the island, saw that it was all clear, and headed for the big door.

  In a matter of minutes I had the crate and bag in the Boston Whaler and was happily casting off the mooring lines. I gave the key a turn and the engine purred to life.

  The sun was shining so bright, and the air felt wonderful as I steered the boat straight out to sea. I pulled the throttle back as far as I could and felt more alive than I could remember ever feeling in my life. It felt so ironic that the world had to come to an end for me to feel this free.

  When I was far enough off shore, I throttled back and brought the Boston Whaler into a smooth turn facing Mud Island. It looked small enough from where I was that I didn’t think the sound would carry back to shore. I began dropping targets and then idling the boat gradually away until I had dropped all of them.

  I looked back along the line of targets and decided I would shoot at the closer ones with the pistols and the others with the rifles. I had to be reasonable about what I could hit, and if I did well enough, I could always try to hit something further away.