The Common Cold (Book 2): A Zombie Chronicle-Cabin Fever

by Roberts, David K.

  “Nothing surprises me after what I’ve seen them do under the snow,” Zoë remarked, her trigger finger nervously ticking against the trigger guard. “Crafty little fuckers.”

  “We’ll get through this,” Mike said; it seemed to be an order. “If we just remember our training and keep our heads.”

  His words were interrupted by a loud, electrical click quickly followed by an indignant screech that came from inside the building.

  “I guess we have power now,” BB observed. At that moment Danny, Chuck and Joshua ran around the corner, beaming at their success.

  “I was right,” Chuck stated. “One of the buildings is a generator house. Joshua managed to turn it on so we ought to have power for the lights now.”

  “I left the light switch on in there so we ought to have light the other side of the door,” Rob outlined the situation. “That probably explained the cry we just heard.”

  “Good,” Mike replied. “I want us all to go in as quickly as possible. Don’t fan out; I want us all to be able to protect each other’s backs so stay together at all costs. If these creatures have hunting skills, they might well try and separate one of us from the rest. Don’t be tempted to follow one on your own.”

  “One of them might still be near this door so we’ll have to go in carefully,” Rob warned. “I’ll go in first; I know the layout of the immediate area.” Jeez, did I just volunteer, he asked himself.

  “I’m with you, Rob,” Chuck offered. Knowing the layout as well he knew Rob would need backup if they were to stand a chance.

  “Okay, let’s do it.”

  Rob pushed at the door a little, the crack it revealed showed bright light inside. “Yes,” he exclaimed in relief. He quickly pushed the door fully open so that it slammed against the wall, proving that nothing was lying in wait immediately behind it; meanwhile directly in front of them they could clearly see one of the creatures standing some way off, swaying as it apparently assessed what was coming in.

  “Wait!” Danny urged. “That thing is setting a trap.”

  “What?” Rob asked.

  “While you’re looking at it, I bet there’s another hidden just away from the door but against the wall.” Danny pointed to the wall either side of the door.

  Rob looked at his friend, his face draining of colour as he realised that what he’d suggested had a ring of high probability to it.

  “Stand back in case of ricochets,” Mike announced.

  They stood back and Mike raked the thin steel wall with gunfire, aiming at head height on the first pass. An angry screech sounded followed by scurrying as the tables were turned on their attackers inside the building. Without waiting and wanting to use the chaos of the unexpected, Rob ducked inside closely followed by Chuck and Danny. Down to their right a cheetah was laid out on the floor, dead, a neat hole in its temple proving the accuracy of Mike’s shooting. The three of them stayed near the door, covering each other as they took in the situation in front of them. One of the shelving stacks swayed a little as one of the fleeing cheetahs had scurried up to the top of the column. The rest could clearly be seen as they took refuge behind the shelving.

  “Look at them climb!” Rob exclaimed. “Is this fencing going to be worth anything if they can just climb it at will?”

  “Good question, man,” Danny replied.

  “The fence will hold back the mass of slow ones, so I guess it’s a start,” Mike said after a moment.

  “Perhaps it could be electrified at the top,” Chuck suggested.

  Whatever the solution, it just proved that nothing was going to be handed to the survivors on a platter, no matter how easy it seemed at first.

  “It’s almost like they’ve given up the ambush,” Chuck said, trying to understand their behaviour. It did indeed look like the creatures were cowering in what seemed to pass for fear. Was it possible they could have a leader in their group? Their behaviour certainly seemed to indicate as much. If it was their leader dead on the ground, it showed they didn’t lead from the rear but actively participated in the plan, very much like the wild cats they mimicked.

  “Right, before they regroup, let’s kill them all,” Danny urged. Using careful and deliberate shots, the three began to decimate the ranks of the Infected. Hearing the shooting, Mike and Zoë burst in and contributed to the slaughter. Cornered, the creatures found their courage once more and began to run towards the spitting lead, leaping onto and through the shelving in an effort to get closer before making the final pounce at their deadly prey. By the time the fight was over, no fewer than four of the zombies had managed to get close to their prey and now lay at the feet of their killers, demonstrating their deadly intent and determination. The five Rob and Chuck had originally seen appeared to be the tip of the iceberg; counting the corpses afterwards they had eradicated no fewer than thirteen zombie cheetahs, a couple of them dressed in suits and ties, the others in work overalls. Two wore field jackets with the word FEMA stamped in white on their backs. It appeared that no emergency situation training had prepared the human race for their downfall.

  “We need to split into two teams to sweep this building, in a sort of pincer movement,” Mike explained when the firing ceased. “If we stay together as a single group they can just make their way to the opposite end of the building to us and we’ll never catch them.”

  “I agree,” Zoë said, a look of deadly determination on her face. “Where’s Joshua?” she asked, suddenly afraid for him.

  “He stayed outside,” Mike said. “He doesn’t have a gun.”

  “Let me check on him before we do this,” Danny said. He felt uncomfortable that one of their number was alone outside. He should be safe but should wasn’t the same as the definitive article. Popping outside he saw Joshua, pressed hard against the wall, trying to make himself as small as possible. “Hi, Joshua. It’s okay, mate. We’re just going to do a final sweep of the building and then we’re ready to do what we came for. I’ll call you when we’re done.” Joshua nodded and visibly relaxed a little. I’m going to have to teach him how to shoot, Danny thought, we can’t afford to have him completely depend on us for protection, for his sake as much as ours. Come to think of it, we have quite a few people in the group we need to teach to shoot. They would have to address that need as soon as possible - everyone had to be capable of killing, and doing it well for survival.

  Ducking back into the building, he took up position with Zoë and Rob, while BB, Chuck and Mike formed the second group and made their way across to the other side of the building. With the lights on it was going to be much harder for the undead to hide themselves; that in itself might well make them more desperate in their defence, like cornered rats. Standing away from the stacks it enabled them to see the surface of each shelf; the planking that formed the surface left gaps through which movement could be detected if one of the cheetahs was occupying the higher layers. Danny noticed there were four light blue doors on their side of the warehouse. Making sure they were locked, he made a mental note to come back and check them once they had cleared the main area.

  After fifteen minutes of painstaking search the two teams met up in the middle. Not a single zombie had survived.

  “I just want to check the side-rooms I found at the beginning of the search,” Danny said. “You want to come with me, Rob?”

  “Sure, let’s see what we can find.”

  “While you’re doing that, we’ll get the front main door open and start looking for what we need,” Mike said.

  Danny trotted over to the doors they had discovered earlier. With no keys to be found they kicked them open, checking them one at a time, but their search revealed nothing but a kitchenette and a couple of storage cupboards, one full of cleaning equipment and the other with more MREs, neatly packed into brown boxes. The fourth door was more heavily secured but the lock was still vulnerable to a bullet and in no time gave way. It revealed a small armoury containing a couple of guns but a lot of ammunition boxes.

  “Can we eve
r have too much ammo, Rob?” Danny asked.

  “Wow. I think the answer is no.”

  “Once we have this fencing malarkey underway, we’ll have to get going on with that shooting training we discussed. Get us some brownie points with the ladies.”

  “What?”

  “English expression, don’t ask. Just know it’s a good thing.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “You know, when I went outside to check on Joshua, he was making himself as small as he could, trying not to be noticed; he looked terrified. I think he’ll be happier when he can shoot, at least for self-defence. Same with the others.”

  “I agree with you, buddy. With this lot it’ll be easy and we shouldn’t run low for quite a while.”

  Satisfied with their search they went around to the front of the building. The main roller door was up, letting in the sunshine. BB had found a fork-lift truck and had driven it into place. The fencing was obvious and the fact that it was packaged together with all the ancillary components bagged up and tied to the rolls of chain link wire was a serious benefit to their immediate needs. Clearly someone had given it a great deal of thought.

  “Hey, guys. Check this out!” Zoë called excitedly across the building.

  “What is it?” Rob asked. There were two large, black wooden boxes lined up together on a single shelf. It looked like the type used to transport sound systems for rock bands.

  “It’s an LRAD,” she offered enigmatically.

  “And what the hell’s that when it’s at home?” Danny asked.

  “It’s what’s called a Long Range Acoustic Device.”

  “Still none the wiser,” Rob said, tiring of this game.

  “It’s like the most powerful music system ever devised, only it’s intended for the military and some police forces,” BB said, clearing up some of the confusion.

  “I’m guessing it’s not for great beach parties,” Danny offered.

  “Ha-ha. Very good, Danny,” Mike replied. “No. it was designed for crowd dispersal and search and rescue. If it’s aimed in your direction you can hear announcements and other sounds from easily a mile away. It’s like the sound is inside your head, there’s no escape from it.”

  “Do you think the zombies would react to it?” Danny wondered. “They seem to be drawn to the sound of the helicopter. How powerful is this thing?”

  “Well, it can be used by the military to incapacitate people.” Mike paused for a moment, thinking about what Danny had intimated. “I wonder if it could kill these mothers,” he continued, thinking out loud.

  “If it could, it would be in greater numbers than we could shoot in a week.”

  “It would be guaranteed to clear an area; you can’t hide behind a tree to avoid its effects.”

  “Damn. We have to take this back, and today,” Danny said enthusiastically. “This might just be more valuable than a fence. Where does the sound come from? Does it play music? Would it zap the bastards under the snow?” Danny’s mind was in overdrive, thinking about their defence over the coming winter. He was as freaked out as everyone else at the thought of zombies crawling under the snow. Next they’ll be able to swim and grab us as we’re fishing, he thought, we’ll never be able to swim in the lakes; they’ll overshadow the whole area like sharks in the water.

  “All you need is an MP3 player.”

  “Or an iPhone with music?” Danny asked, continuing the train of thought.

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “I’ve got everything from Everlast to Beethoven on my phone; there must be something the buggers don’t like. Something with a lot of bass I’d guess would do the trick.”

  “Who knows, but I like the idea. Let’s get this onto the helicopter and do a run with some other supplies to make the trip back worthwhile.”

  “Well, there’s loads of ammo in one of the side rooms,” Danny suggested. “We need to train up the non-shooters among us and that’ll take loads, I’m sure.”

  “And there’s more coffee in the kitchenette,” Rob announced. “And some powdered milk.”

  Danny grimaced at the thought. “Yuck. Better than nothing, I suppose.”

  Loading up the helicopter without the external fuel tanks, BB flew the contents back to the cabin while the others prepared the fencing for airlift. It was heavy work in spite of the fork lift truck. Positioning the airlift straps under the rolls of fencing, Mike estimated each chopper would be able to lift ten rolls each as well as the associated posts and fixtures. A couple of lifts for each helicopter would see the job completed. Joshua had managed to find enough suitable components from which he would be able to construct an early warning system. It was all coming together nicely and it was only mid-morning.

  BB arrived back at the warehouse about forty minutes later, looking pensive.

  “There’s no problems at the camp, all’s well it seems. I dropped the stuff off and we’ve put it all in Tom’s cabin - he wasn’t happy with that, I can tell you, it’s getting pretty crowded in there. At least it can easily be guarded against anything untoward.”

  “What’s bugging you, BB?” Mike asked, detecting some reticence in this normally outgoing man. “What’s the problem?”

  “I took a swing over towards Denver on the way back here and I couldn’t see anyone on the streets, not even around the shopping mall. Where have they all gone?”

  Everyone stopped what they were doing at hearing this news. What next, Danny wondered, are we ever going to catch a break? To where could nearly a million people disappear? Did they return home? That didn’t seem very likely to be the answer. If they didn’t go home then they were out somewhere. By logical deduction, if they weren’t in the city, they were in the countryside. That conclusion wasn’t much use really, raising more questions than answers. Did they prefer the flat plains, following the rivers, or did they prefer the hills?

  Their movement en masse would depend upon their imperative really, what drove them? Food and procreation were the usual drivers for any animal migration, but did these things actually need food? They certainly weren’t likely to procreate, at least Danny hoped not. What an appalling thought. Their bodies being near to freezing temperature at most times during the cold weather, it seemed logical that food was not top of their list; residing in basal metabolism, if that’s what you could even call it in the dead, would enable them to go for long periods without sustenance. They were certainly hardy, and the cold had little effect upon them, so they could definitely survive in the mountains. Their snow diving trick gave Danny the creeps and made him wonder if the mountains were the best place to make a stand after all, even if it was just for the winter. Right now it didn’t seem as if they could ever complete the fencing in time.

  “Come on guys,” Danny was the first to speak. “Whatever they are doing doesn’t change our own needs. If anything it means we need to move faster.”

  “You’re right, old buddy,” Rob replied. “Let’s get this stuff up the hill.”

  While capturing the enclave and collecting equipment for their base camp in the mountains, their activity had attracted large numbers of the slow Infected on the other side of the fencing. They now completely surrounded this treasure store enclave. While they were unable to resolve how to get past the fencing they would be effective watch-dogs against anyone on foot, probably keeping the warehouse secure. Many of the zombies wore lab coats or had pocket protectors indicative of their technical role at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Many more looked like ancillary workers; clearly the Institute had employed many hundreds of staff. If it was a twenty-four-seven facility then there were likely to be many of its people trapped here as the infection struck and they had either turned having succumbed to the infection or had attacked those who didn’t, either way the outcome was the same.

  A surprisingly large number of the white coats that could be seen were severely blood-stained and torn, the wearer most likely infected through an attack; they had not succumbed to the primary outbreak. It appe
ared to lend credence to Danny’s idea that Rob had avoided the initial exposure on the first night by working in a clean-air room. Did that make him more vulnerable to infection than someone like Danny and Janet who had either not been infected because they had a cold which had raised their immunity at the right moment, or turning the argument on its head, was it possible that the symptoms of the infection mimicked those of a common cold and somehow, like in any statistical group, they had a natural defence against it. Would they turn if bitten? Neither would be willing to test that hypothesis.

  While helping hitch the lift straps to the helicopter under Mike’s guidance, Danny had been nervously watching the zombies in the field around them.

  “Looks like the staff are revolting, Rob,” Danny said watching them lumber over to the tall fencing, clutching the wire as if to hold them upright. They would then just stand there, staring and moaning quietly. It appeared they were making a beeline directly from the Institute’s buildings. Was it telepathy or could their odour be detected from that distance, Danny wondered. If they could it implied they should wear more perfume and aftershave and more frequently. Maybe the zombies they had killed up at the cabins had detected their odour all the way from one of the other holiday camps nearby and made their way in search of fresh, warm meat. They were really going to have to get a handle on what attracted and made the creatures tick.

  “They do look bloody revolting,” he replied, smiling wryly.

  “You know,” Danny said. “This looks to be a really well contained area, not just around the warehouse, but around the whole Center. Perhaps we could conduct some controlled experiments on them, see what makes them do what they do, study what kills them, how long they live without sustenance. Anything we can think of really.”

  “Maybe we could. I think we’re a hell of a long way from understanding how to protect ourselves from them; they keep on showing us new tricks. I thought winter would see an end to them but they seem to have some form of antifreeze in their bodies.”