Dead Air (Book One of The Dead Series)

by Schafer, Jon

  "Why do we have live ammunition, sir?" She suddenly blurted out.

  Kramer's smile faded and in a stern voice, he replied, "I'll brief everyone when we get to our destination. Don't ask any more questions about this deployment between now and then because I'm not at liberty to discuss our orders at this time." Bowing slightly, he made a motion toward the Humvee and said, "Shall we go?"

  Instantly remembering who and what she was, Jackie snapped to attention, rapped out a, "Yes, sir. Right away, sir," and hurried over to open the rear door of the command vehicle for her C.O. Before climbing in, Captain Kramer said in a kinder voice, "Don't worry, it'll be all right."

  But she couldn't tell if he was saying it to reassure himself or her.

  Ahead of her now, she could see a glow in the night sky caused by lights reflecting off the low hanging clouds, which had threatened rain since they left Des Moines. They had already passed through the city of Leon and she knew there shouldn't be anything else between there and the Missouri border. Curious that the lights seemed to come from the middle of the Interstate just over the next rise, she withheld any questions directed to Captain Kramer since she’d already been reprimanded once.

  A moment later, Kramer spoke up for the first time since passing through Leon to say, "Slow down, the turn off is coming up on the left."

  Jackie flipped on her high beams to help search for a road or exit ramp, but the only thing visible was a dirt track that the State Troopers used to cut across from the southbound to the northbound lanes of the divided Interstate. Turning in her seat, she gave Kramer a questioning look.

  "That’s it," Kramer pointed to the access road. "Turn there. Pull up to the other side and stop."

  Once the column was halted, the Captain got out of the Humvee and ordered Jackie to follow him. He had the rest of the unit dismount and fall in around the front of the lead truck. When they were all gathered, he climbed up onto the hood of the vehicle and spoke.

  "Due to the outbreak of a highly infectious disease in the central United States, the Governor of Iowa has ordered that the State be closed off to all incoming traffic. Our orders are to shut down Interstate 35 in the northbound direction and to make sure that no one uses the southbound lanes to try and sneak around us."

  A murmur of disbelief went through the crowd of soldiers, so Captain Kramer held up his hand for silence. "We are authorized to use lethal force to insure that these orders are carried out. We are putting this quarantine into effect to protect the citizens of the State of Iowa from what has become a fast spreading epidemic. You are here to keep Iowa safe for your loved ones, friends, and neighbors. You are the only thing that stands between them and possible infection carried up from the states to the south of us. I expect every man and woman here to do his or her duty. We will split up into two groups. The larger contingent will be with me on the northbound lanes, while the smaller unit will patrol the southbound lanes. Anyone wishing to leave via the southbound lanes is free to do so. But once out, they cannot come back in."

  Pointing to the glow that could be seen through the trees, Captain Kramer said, "Those are portable lights that are already in place. That's a checkpoint set up by the State Patrol. Right now, they're screening travelers who are heading north. When we join them, we'll use two of our trucks and their squad cars to block off the road. The third truck will be placed in a position on this access road to monitor the southbound lanes. No one, and I repeat, no one is to pass once the blockade is in place. The people of the great State of Iowa are counting on us to keep them safe."

  He paused for a moment as his eyes scanned the soldiers assembled in front of him before continuing, "Sergeants, form on me for your individual orders. The rest of you need to be ready to go in fifteen minutes. Dismissed."

  Jackie's unit blocked off the interstate a few hundred feet north of the access road so it could be used to send the stopped vehicles over to the southbound lanes and back the way they had come. But even with this foresight, traffic was soon backed up for miles. Impatient with the delay, and curious as to its cause, many drivers exited their cars and approached the road block on foot. In no time, a group of angry travelers had assembled behind a line of sawhorses set up thirty feet from the National Guard trucks blocking the road.

  American citizens are not used to being told they can't go where they want to, when they want to, and tempers flared. A few fistfights broke out in the crowd and three middle-aged men on their way to Minneapolis for a convention assaulted a National Guard soldier. Tensions continued to build, and it was only two hours before the first shots were fired.

  Jackie was sitting in the passenger seat of the Humvee sipping coffee when two hunting rifles opened up on the roadblock from the darkened field off to her right. Her hand scrabbled for her pistol as she rolled out the open door onto the gravel shoulder.

  Tentatively, she stuck her head up over the hood to look for where the shots had come from. A bullet ricocheted off the road and thudded into the passenger side door, causing her to duck down quickly.

  Someone yelled at her to lay down covering fire with the .50 caliber, but to Jackie that was out of the question. There was no way she was going to make a target of herself by standing in the open hatch at the top of the Humvee. Instead, she held her pistol up over the hood and pointed it in the general area the shots were coming from before emptying the clip in that direction. More incoming fire struck the far side of the Humvee, causing her to crouch down with her back against the tire.

  When the first shots rang out, most of the Guard troops opened up randomly with their M-16's into the fields and woods on both sides of the road, causing Captain Kramer to run around screaming at them to cease fire until they had a positive target. Frustrated when he saw that no one seemed to be obeying his order, he exposed himself by climbing up on top of the Humvee and standing in the gunner’s hatch. Pulling back the charging handle of the heavy machine gun, he pointed the barrel into the sky and fired off a long burst.

  The shattering noise of the .50 got everyone's attention and the incoming and outgoing gunfire stopped abruptly. The crowd of civilians clustered around the sawhorses looked on with fear from where they lay flat on the ground or crouched down for cover.

  "We are here to uphold a lawful order from the Governor," Captain Kramer yelled at the top of his voice, as people on both sides of the barricade picked themselves up off the ground and looked fearfully in his direction.

  Kramer continued in a voice tinged with anger, "You are Americans, and you're acting like a bunch of Iraqi refugees. I'm telling you now, this Interstate is closed! No one is to go past, and if anyone tries, they will be met with lethal force."

  Confident that he had regained control of the situation, Captain Kramer stood up straighter in the gunner’s hatch and half turned to begin giving orders to his men. The high-powered rifle bullet that hit him in the side of the chest cut cleanly through his Kevlar body armor and still had enough force to push his body backward out of the Humvee’s hatch. His foot caught in one of the door flaps, arresting his fall and leaving him dangling upside down, his sightless eyes looking into Jackie's as she crouched just a foot away.

  Seeing their commanding officer shot down by a sniper enraged the National Guard troops. Fear, anger and frustration at the situation they found themselves in caused them to find something to vent on. They opened up indiscriminately at the only target in view that they could see. The civilians clustered around the roadblock.

  The battle was short and one sided. The mostly unarmed people in the crowd were slaughtered by the overwhelming firepower brought to bear on them. The shooting died down and finally stopped when the Guard troops ran out of live targets to shoot at.

  Summoning the courage to stand, Jackie surveyed the carnage in front of her. In shock at all the dead and wounded lying only yards away from her, her mind didn't even register when one of her fellow troopers ran by and yelled, "C'mon Jackie, were getting the hell out of here. This shit is crazy."


  In a daze, she could only stare, her mind not comprehending that this could be happening in the United States. Her shock was broken by the regular army Sergeant who had assigned her to drive the Humvee. As he approached, he said to her in a loud commanding voice, "Stay at your post soldier. Do not abandon your post." The Sergeant then turned to argue with a group of five troopers who, horrified by what they had just done only wanted to abandon the killing field. The exchange between them quickly grew heated and the Sergeant reached for his sidearm to ensure that his order to hold in place was obeyed.

  Seeing the Sergeant's movement, one of the Guardsmen raised his automatic rifle and yelled out, "Don't do it." The Sergeant ignored this and continued to try to un-holster his pistol. The trooper opened fire with a short burst, hitting the NCO twice in the neck. Jackie, who was standing behind him, caught a stray bullet in the side of the head, killing her instantly.

  With none of the other non-com's willing to order the men to hold their position, and possibly get the same treatment, the terrified National Guard troopers quickly climbed aboard their trucks and headed north, leaving their own dead and critically wounded behind.

  Armed with a collection of hunting rifles and pistols, a group of civilians approached the battlefield. Seeing that the soldiers had gone, they cleared the bodies from the Interstate, tossing the unclaimed ones into the ditch at the side of the road.

  Jackie Dupree came to end up sprawled on her back in the weed filled gully, her sightless eyes staring up at the Interstate as the first of the cars carrying the healthy, and the infected, rolled north.

  Columbia, South Carolina:

  It started as a lark.

  Terrance and Billy were sitting on Billy's couch drinking Stroh's beer and watching TV as they always did after finishing their shift at the mill. A breaking news story interrupted Wheel of Fortune, reporting that locals just outside the city of Newberry had seen a large group of people who were believed to be infected with the snapping fits, as it was being called in the south, crossing a field.

  The reporter went on to say that the Governor vowed to call out the National Guard if any confirmed cases were reported in the state, and at that very minute was waiting at the capitol for word on this latest suspected outbreak.

  "Why the hell should we let those soldier boys have all the fun?" Terrance asked.

  "What fun?" Billy replied. He was already on his fifth beer and had trouble making the connection to what Terrance was saying.

  "Shootin' them rabid people. Hell, we could do that."

  "We could," Billy agreed. "Might even be fun."

  "That's what I said."

  "What you said?" Billy asked.

  "That it'd be fun," Terrance answered, now slightly annoyed.

  Billy thought about this for a minute before saying, "Let's go do it then. I got me that new Remington for my birthday last week and I still ain't had a chance to test it out yet. We could drive out to where them news people said they were and blast 'em."

  "Blast the news people?" Terrance asked.

  Billy sighed. "No, blast them rabid things."

  Terrance ran the idea through his head. He didn't actually believe they'd see anything worth shooting at but he was bored doing the same thing every night. Beer and television. Maybe a little road drinking was just what the doctor ordered. "Let's do it," he said.

  After loading Billy's truck with the rifles, ammunition and a case of beer, the two men felt they were adequately provisioned. When they thought they had reached the general area from where the reports had come, they found themselves driving aimlessly on a series of back roads. Terrance wasn't quite sure that they were in the right place but the night was warm and the beer was cold and that was all that mattered.

  As they drove past an abandoned barn, Billy announced, "Gotta take a leak."

  "Time to drain the monster," Terrance agreed.

  "Throw a piss," Billy added.

  "Drain the main vein."

  "Take a squirt."

  "So pull over then, damn it." Terrance said.

  Billy obliged and they piled out of the truck to stand shoulder to shoulder at the side of the road.

  "Bet ya a dollar I can go further," Billy stated.

  "Why would you want to bet on something like that? Got to be better things to bet on. Besides, I got volume, not range."

  Billy laughed, "Hell, gambling's fun. I imagine in the prehistoric days that if a group of cave men would a been out hunting and come across two lizards sunning themselves on a flat rock, the leader would have grunted out, 'betcha two arrowheads the one on the right moves first’.“

  Terrance contemplated this as he relieved himself. He never realized Billy was such a deep thinker.

  When he finished, Terrance returned to the truck and took his rifle out of its case. Laying it on the hood of the truck, he popped a fresh beer and said, "I don't think we're gonna find any of them things tonight, so why don’t we just hang out here and do some shooting? Ain't nothing around for miles so there ain't no one to complain."

  Billy agreed and soon they were shooting at trees, rocks, empty beer cans and a road sign that was already so full of holes that it came apart before they fired half a dozen rounds through it.

  Drawn by the shots, the dead making their way toward Billy and Terrance didn't realize that they should avoid drunken rednecks firing weapons into the night. But even if they had recognized the danger, their overpowering urge to eat would have squashed any hesitation they felt and kept them moving toward what they perceived as a source of food.

  The group of walking corpses had originally been part of a historical tour, which started out from Columbia early that afternoon with a driver, a guide and thirty-seven members from the Society to Preserve Civil War Battle Sites. They had just reached the halfway point between Columbia and Newberry when the bus driver went into a seizure and started convulsing in his seat. The bus was moving at a fast rate and started to swerve. Disaster seemed imminent, until a quick thinking passenger jumped forward and grabbed the steering wheel. The bus stayed on the road but the driver's foot also stayed on the accelerator, goosing it in rhythm to the spasms that racked his body.

  The fit only lasted a few seconds before the driver slumped down dead in his seat, and his foot came away from the gas. The passenger with a grip on the steering wheel aimed the bus down the center of the road, relief showing on his face as he saw the speedometer needle start to drop. Looking out the front windshield, he saw the two-lane blacktop road was clear of any other traffic. All he had to do was hold on until the bus lost its momentum and slowed to a stop.

  The bus was still moving at thirty-five miles per hour when the driver suddenly sat up in his seat. He shook his head rapidly as if to loosen it from a bad memory. Then, leaning forward, it sank its teeth into the forearm that stretched in front of it. The man steering the bus screamed and wrenched his injured arm free, leaving a chunk of it in the driver's mouth, before jumping back in terror, pain, confusion and a spray of blood.

  The bus was still moving at twenty-five miles an hour when the dead driver, now oblivious to the fact that someone needed to control the swerving vehicle, stood and turned toward the passengers. Baring its teeth in a bloody rictus, it moved toward them.

  Those near the front that could see over and around the tall-backed seats screamed in terror at the sight that confronted them. Some jumped up to scurry toward the back of the bus, while others stared unbelievingly at what they assumed was some sort of hallucination.

  Heedless of the uncontrolled bus veering from side to side, the driver managed to bite and infect five people before the slaloming coach left the road and rolled down into the dry drainage canal. In a cloud of dust, the stricken tour bus ended upside down in the deep narrow ditch that ran along the side of the road. Two people were killed outright, and in this situation they would soon be considered to be the lucky ones. To die naturally before the disease took control of your body meant that you stayed dead.

 
Stunned by the crash, the passengers slowly extracted themselves from the strewn luggage and each other before facing the danger still posed by the infected driver. Two brave souls tried to overpower him, only to be driven back in a flurry of teeth. While those heroes were on their way to becoming walking corpses themselves, the other passengers tried fruitlessly to find a way to escape the death trap the bus had become.

  When the bus had flipped and landed in the ditch, it had wedged itself upside down into the culvert, blocking off any escape through the windows or roof. The infected driver stood between the passengers and any possible egress through the front, where the windshield had popped out during the crash, while the rear exit was blocked by the walled off port-a-potty that the bus company had installed. When the bus had flipped, the enclosure had come loose and now leaned across the width of the rear of the bus, effectively blocking any exit in that direction. Cell phones were tried but no one could find a signal with enough strength to make a call for help.

  The dead driver found an unconscious passenger hanging down from where she was wedged under a seat and started to rip chunks of flesh from her upper chest. Some of the survivors tried to distract it from its grisly meal by throwing luggage at it but all this succeeded in doing was to draw its attention to where they huddled near the back of the bus. With a squeal of outrage at having its meal disturbed, it advanced on them, causing them to fall back. The disturbance over, it returned to its meal.

  The survivors were then forced to watch the creature eat, vomit up bloody chunks of meat and then return to gorge itself once again on the wounded woman. With three more people lying alive but immobile between the passengers and the flesh eating being, the passengers thought they would have at least a little time to find a way to escape the abomination that was slowly devouring the tour. This respite was cut short though, when the man who had grabbed the steering wheel when the driver had his seizure died and was reanimated minutes later to rip and tear at the flesh of his former friends and society members. Another woman, who had been bitten in the original attack before the bus flipped over, died and reanimated to join him.