by Mark Rounds
“Mama!” said Maria plaintively, “please don't leave me!”
“Hush, Maria,” said Fátima kindly. “I will just go away for a while, until I get better. You stay with Abuela, si? And Slider will come by. I have to go.”
“And you,” said Slider tapping his shotgun on the step-dad's head, “you thought that the coming of the Plague and a little thing like the fall of civilization meant that the court order didn't matter anymore, didn't you? Maybe you thought that we didn't care anymore? You are really stupid, aren't you? Let me spell this out for you. We don't have to mess with the sheriff anymore. If you had done anything other than run off, like the coward you are, I'd have shot you. As it is, this is your last warning. If BACA sees you, anywhere at all, we’ll kill you. Now run!”
June 3rd, Wednesday, 5:19 am PDT
I-90 West of Vantage, WA
Chad Strickland, his family, and his friends old and new, were in a gravel pit at the top of the Vantage grade in central Washington. Chad’s hotrod Camaro had been shot up pretty bad by the Plague-infected people holding the bridge, as had his friend, Chris Vaughn. But his friends and family and the Bikers Against Child Abuse chapter out of Wenatchee, Washington had banded together to cross the Vantage bridge across the Colombia which had been defended by a gang of infected thieves. The BACA members had gone off to rescue one of their kids, and Chad’s family was looking to find a new home after being hounded out of the Tri-Cities by Special Agent Macklin and his Plague infested band of druggies and bikers.
Their world had collapsed when they took in Chris Vaughn and Amber Hoskins. Amber was a remission case from the Plague that was bringing civilization to its collective knees. Her remission had brought down Macklin’s minions on their home. Chris was her fiancée and protector. Now this unlikely band of allies was facing a new day.
“We sent part of our chapter off to Royal City,” said Smokey, the leader of the BACA chapter. “One of our riders, Voodoo, came back. The little girl we told you about is safe. Her mom has the Plague, but was doing all she could keep the girl safe and uninfected. There are now ten big-ass bikers with pistols and shotguns hanging around her house. The step-dad is nowhere to be seen.”
“What about the mom?” asked Amy in a very small voice.
“As soon as she knew her daughter was safe with us,” said Smokey quietly, “she took off. We talked a little before she left. She said that she couldn’t trust herself anymore and would we please take care of her daughter? We are honored and have taken that charge. We also told her where she could contact us if things … changed. Some of our guys, Slider and Voodoo, decided to settle down in Royal City to keep an eye on things for a while.”
Amy nodded and began crying softly. Connor gathered her up in his arms and led her away.
“Smokey and I have cooked up a plan,” said Dave. “They can get us as far as Royal City. It’s their SOP to make a show in force when there is a problem with one of their kids. That means the whole club rides in and makes sure everybody knows who is protecting the child. They will be making that ride and offered to take as many of us as need be to Royal City riding two-up. They will also take care of the truck. Sparky and the Grease Monkey think they can fix it up, either with a new engine or welding up this one enough to get it to Moscow, but it’s going to take a few days.
“We can either head up to Moscow or hang out with these fine folks. I figure we can load up the Subaru with enough stuff that it won’t seem like your brother is taking us in on charity. Once we get our transport sorted out, Smokey says he can get us from Royal City out past Othello. They have friends near there to help us avoid the gang that took that town over. After that, well, there isn’t that much fuel and they will need it to take of their kids.”
“We certainly won’t take the gas to keep them from that!” said Mary with an air of finality. “We can walk or something for the rest of the distance if we use the Subaru to carry our supplies.”
“Walk?!?” said Chad incredulously. “It’s got to be a hundred miles or more.”
“One hundred and seventeen miles,” said Mary primly. “I just checked on the maps in the glove box. Besides, mostly we won’t walk. I am going to Royal City and see if I can trade for some bicycles or maybe a trailer. If we can get Connor and the younger kids on bikes, we can cover a lot of ground quickly. Tonight though, we are going to Royal City and rest up a bit.”
“We think we can tow the truck,” said the Grease Monkey with Sparky nodding. “We have a couple of nylon tow straps and if we take it slow with your Subaru, we can get everything to Royal City. We’ll take care of the truck after we unload what we need from it and the Camaro, if that's OK with you?”
June 3rd, Wednesday, 5:23 am PDT
The Watergate Hotel, Washington DC.
“Did you feel it?” asked Macklin’s control. He was seated in a well-appointed conference room in a luxurious Washington, DC hotel. The current tenants had vacated and so it was ripe for the taking. With the use of their own security personnel, other squatters had been removed or terminated and very aggressive security measures were put in place.
“Yes,” said an older man in an Armani suit. He was seated in a leather chair with a cup of coffee that had an aroma that could be described as ambrosia. “It didn’t come from the immune in our control either. I doubt the Others are involved yet.”
“This is the third time you have mentioned the Others recently. I thought they are all gone, just myths and fairy tales.”
“Oh, they were quite real,” said the older man. “We fought each other to virtual annihilation a very long time ago with only a few survivors on each side. For our part, we made extreme efforts to hide all trace of our existence and it apparently worked, apart from a few folk tales. Apparently, our adversaries did likewise. But there are too many things going wrong with this plan to be mere chance or the acts of the cattle out there.
“The accident itself, for one: how did the Plague get out of the lab, a year before it was ready? We understood the virus well and had taken all manner of precautions. Then there was all the resistance in government to some of our appointments. Finally, what about all of these enclaves that are resisting the infection? Some are surely just a natural reaction, but there are so many of them and they are so well prepared. I know there are preppers out there, but even that is now a concern. Is there someone orchestrating this?”
“Surely they would have made some misstep or something to make us aware of them,” said Macklin’s control.
“Maybe they have,” said the older man, “but in our own hubris, we may have overlooked them. In any event, we need to move quickly on this one. Do you have any resources in the area we can send?”
“Once Macklin’s therapy is complete, we could use him,” said Macklin’s control. “Our other major asset in the area became unreliable and was terminated.”
“Pity, still, get him moving now,” said the older man. “I have a feeling in my bones that we will be meeting an old enemy sooner than we think.”
Chapter 2
June 3rd, Wednesday, 5:32 am PDT
Joint Base Lewis-McChord, WA
“Colonel Antonopoulos,” said the young Air Force senior airman. “Please wake up, sir.”
Andy Antonopoulos awoke with a start. He had apparently fallen asleep at his desk again. This had happened often enough that his wife, though worried, had stopped calling, realizing that he probably really needed the sleep or the work absolutely needed to be done. She had been an Air Force wife for twenty-four years and knew the tone of voice when the mission was driving her husband as it was now.
“What have you got for me?” said Andy as he shook himself awake.
“The drone, sir,” said the airman. “Based on the report we got yesterday from Gunny Epstein, we had a drone over the Vantage Bridge. That same white pickup that was with the Stricklands when they spoke to the Gunny was observed breaking up a barricade over the Columbia River. There was a firefight of sorts’ sir.”
> “Any casualties?” asked Andy.
“A significant number of the Infected, sir,” said the airman. “The Stricklands also seem to be caring for one of their own party. They appear to be augmented by a number of people on motorcycles.”
“Anything else?” asked the Andy.
“Yes sir, two of their vehicles seemed to be damaged. They have unloaded one and have arranged to tow the other.”
“Damn and blast!” said Andy forcefully. “We need to get that party to a secure location as intelligence assets. I need to talk to them. What assets do we have in the area?”
“None close enough sir.”
“It will have to be by air then. What’s the alert bird?”
“A Chinook, sir.”
“No good. If we sent a Chinook, we would have to pick them up. I need them as eyes and ears out there and I don’t want the locals suspicious. Do we have any drones available?”
“The Navy has a couple of M-Q8B’s standing by.”
“OK, not much of a payload, but it will do. Get the pilot to the briefing room along with Captain Willis from supply. I will likely need a special package to drop to them. We brief in twenty minutes.”
June 3rd, Wednesday, 9:42 am PDT
Cheney, WA
Macklin had spent the night in his van outside the Health Clinic at Eastern Washington University. He was mildly surprised when it did actually open at 9:30 as advertised. When he walked in, he was sure they would throw him right back out the door. In their shoes, he would have.
The right side of his face was so badly swollen that he couldn’t see out of one eye. He had fashioned a crude sling for his right arm as his shoulder was dislocated and the nail wounds were still bleeding from time to time if he moved the arm too quickly. To top it all off, he was visibly infected with lesions on his face and hands.
But when he walked in and asked for Dr. Saunders and requested the influenza B inoculation, the nurse at the reception desk, who first recoiled and then put on a mask and gloves, led him to an examination room. He was ruminating about the turn of events when the door opened and a rather tall man in surgical scrubs and mask came in and closed the door.
“Dr. Ned Saunders, I presume?” asked Macklin.
“Yes, it is,” said Dr. Saunders, “but I don’t want to know anything about you. Your boss sends a truck load of medical supplies and along with some food every other day. His only stipulation is that I provide medical care for trash like you.”
Doctor Saunders began his examination. He was professional, but not gentle and Macklin stifled exclamations of pain several times as he manipulated Macklin’s joints.
“Your shoulder is dislocated,” said Dr. Saunders, “and you have three superficial wounds. Because you are infected, they will heal in three days at most. Your shoulder will have to be manipulated to correct the problem. I am not wasting any of my precious muscle relaxants on you. You’ll just have to grin and bear it.”
The doctor had him lie down on the examination table. Then he firmly pulled Macklin’s arm toward the ground. As there had been some swelling, there was a significant amount of pain. Macklin remained silent, and when the doctor gave him a ten pound weight to hold. Then it began hurting in earnest. The doctor then adjusted the shoulder slightly and there was an audible click. The pain was gone. After Macklin got up, the doctor gave him an injection.
“This is euphemistically called the influenza B inoculation,” said the doctor. “I really have no idea what it is. My personal experience with this is that your visible symptoms, such as the lesions and the desire to bite people, will be curbed. The need for Slash will also disappear. Do note that the actual addiction will not go away so easily, so I suspect you will have some rough days ahead.
“Finally, take one of these capsules daily. Again, I have no idea about the chemical composition so coming in here demanding more will just get you killed if you have crossed your employers. They will hold the infection at bay. Stop for any period over three days, and you will become psychotic and the physical symptoms will reappear. Now pick up your phone and call your boss and tell him that we took care of you. If you live long enough, I suspect I will be refilling that prescription in a month.”
Macklin pulled out his special phone and was only mildly surprised when it worked.
“This is Macklin; I am at the clinic and have received good care.”
“Was Dr. Saunders his usual warm self?” said the voice of his control with a sardonic chuckle.
“He was very … professional,” said Macklin.
“Very well, call me when you are in a secure place. I have work for you.”
The next sound he heard was the connection breaking.
“Why do you do this?” asked Macklin as he got up to leave. “It’s clear you detest this whole process. What hold do they have on you?”
“Well, just for you,” said Doctor Saunders as he sat down, suddenly looking much older, “because you actually asked a question that showed that you might have a shred of humanity left in your soul, I’ll tell you.
“At the beginning of the Plague, we locked down like everyone else. It was at the end of spring semester and most of the students had already left for home. There were still upwards of a thousand kids on campus and in the surrounding community getting ready to go to summer school, working, or just hanging out and avoiding their parents. We gathered most of them into the dorms and fed them, gave them medical treatment, and isolated them from the rest of the community.
“But it wasn’t enough, and some of them came down with the Plague anyway. Several of them escaped and many were taken to the gym which was being used first as an infirmary and then as a prison for the Infected. Then they broke out of gym and ravaged the town. Now, despite the fact that the majority of the Infected in the gym were from the townie population, the townies blamed the students and came to hate the University. Even when it was explained that the breakout happened all around the country at the same time, the local population still blamed the students for the rampage that followed the breakout. The four hundred or so who remained healthy are scared to death of having anything to do with leaving their buildings.
“Eventually, like everybody else, we ran out of everything. The first was toilet paper, then power and water, and finally food and medicine. But these poor kids had nowhere to go. Many of their parents were dead, or they were estranged from their folks for a bunch of reasons. Some didn’t want to go home so they wouldn’t burden parents who were strapped with caring for younger siblings. We were desperate.
“Then a man called me on a cell phone that started miraculously working after two weeks of no signal and said he had medical supplies and food available for the kids here. Like an idiot, I jumped on it, and the first truck load arrived the next day. After a few deliveries, we got so we depended on them, couldn’t get by without them. Then they dropped the bomb, I would have supply ‘medical care’ for special patients, like you, or the deliveries would stop. They had me; the kids would be cast out and run off by the local folks if we didn’t supply them. God only knows what would happen to them once they were away from here, so I kept my deal with the devil, knowing that sooner or later these deliveries will stop.
“Now leave. Go out the back, drive away and hopefully I will never see you again. We will scrub this room down until it groans, burn this gown, mask, and gloves, and later this evening, I will try to burn you and your kind out of my mind with what remains of my brandy.”
June 3rd, Wednesday, 2:17 pm PDT
Royal City, WA
They had just finished towing the loaded pickup to Royal City using the fully loaded Subaru as the tow vehicle. For the first part of the journey, they actually had to push to get it up the long slope from the river. Then, with Dave steering the pickup and Mary driving the Subaru, they managed to get it up to a spritely fifteen miles an hour while everyone else rode two-up with the BACA riders.
They had parked it in the parking lot of a service station right off
the main highway. There was no owner present and no working gasoline pumps, but the place had not been vandalized too badly, and had a garage to work in that was out of the sun.
Chad had unloaded his tools and along with Sparky and the Grease Monkey was looking at what they would need to do to pull the engine. There was no engine hoist but they figured they could brace some kind of block and tackle system from one of the roof joists that looked pretty solid.
Then Chad heard something. It sounded like a helicopter, but he hadn’t heard anything like that in a month. It came around again and there was no doubt. Chad went out to look and a strange looking helicopter buzzed the service station. It was done up in Navy colors but there was no pilot and in fact there wasn’t even a place for a pilot to sit. It hovered for a bit and then landed in the parking lot across the road from the service station with the engine still running. Chad came out, as did everyone else, because, after a lifetime of taking most aircraft for granted, it was a wonder that people were actually still flying.
Chad walked slowly over to the aircraft, He was afraid to get too close and too much in awe to go away. A quick look up the at the rest of the town showed that everyone else felt the same way for many of the residents were streaming down the hill. Dave caught up to Chad as he crossed the street and pointed to one of the cargo pods on outriggers from the aircraft.
“Chad,” shouted Dave over the rotor noise. “Look at the pod on the left.”
Chad did and read the big block lettered printing that was stenciled on the left pod.
CHAD STRICKLAND
OPEN ME FIRST
Chad and Dave went over to the pod, walking crouched over to avoid the rotor. It was kind of silly as the rotor was over nine feet in the air, but it felt like it was whistling around their ears. They fumbled a bit with the quick release fitting and when it opened, they found a printed note in a plastic protector that read:
