Run_Book 3_Long Road Home

by Rich Restucci

  “Oh, yeah.”

  The door rattled again and then opened three inches, everyone looked down into the scared blue eyes of a small boy. “Who’s them?” the boy asked.

  “Friends, Richie. They needed help and will help us back.”

  “K.” The boy opened the door and the group filed in.

  “Shut the door and lock it back up, kiddo, we’re going to go talk in the office.”

  “Can I come, too?”

  Billy got down to eye level with the kid. “Of course! You’re the best guard in the whole world. I can’t leave you down here while we talk about important stuff.”

  The child looked relieved and smiled a semi-toothless smile. He picked up a small backpack and a spear made from an ice pick duct-taped to what looked like a wrought iron curtain rod. Billy ruffled his hair and the boy smiled again.

  The group walked down the hall, the only light coming from skylights in the ceiling. Lockers and other items told the newcomers that they were in a school. All the doors but one were closed and they took a right at the open door, going up a flight of stairs. The stairs were wide and windows were on each landing, but the glass had been covered with various types of cloth.

  “To keep the lights in,” Richie told them.

  The second floor of the school held the offices, and Billy took everyone into the principal’s office; where seven other kids, none older than ten, sat playing with various small toys or coloring on paper. They looked up simultaneously as Billy came in and they jumped up and ran to him, all grabbing and hugging him. They didn’t make a sound.

  When the hugging stopped, the kids looked at the adults. A girl of nine or ten walked forward and stuck her hand out to Abbey. “My name is Jenny,” she whispered.

  “Abbey. How old are you?”

  “Nine and three quarters. My birthday is in October and I’ll be double digits.”

  Abbey looked around. “Billy, where did these kids come from?”

  “Shhhh!” Several small fingers pressed against mouths as the kids tried to silence the adult.

  “We try to stay quiet,” Billy offered in a low voice. “You never know who’s listening.”

  Beneath Vantel Corporate Lab

  “Brenda, Linda, look at this please, Arnold, you too,” Ravi added. He was looking at a computer monitor. Crisp and the ladies looked up from their respective monitors then approached the Indian man. “The code, do you see this?” He pointed to a string of commands on the screen. “The PLC rootkit has been…altered.”

  All four of them were looking at the screen. “Yes! Yes, the SCADA payload is like nothing I’ve seen!” cried Brenda. “This isn’t our work; it has been modified.”

  “What’s PLC and SCADA?” asked Wilcox as he munched on a bag of pretzels. “And payload sounds kinda dangerous.”

  “PLC is programmable logic controller,” Ravi explained, not re-directing his gaze. “It is a computer program that will access and control mechanical devices. It is almost a computer within a computer and can suffice as automation for mechanical processes. Thank you.”

  Wilcox blinked.

  Brenda sighed. “It makes machines do stuff.”

  Wilcox crunched his pretzels. “Why didn’t he just say that then? What’s SCADA?”

  This time, Ravi did look up. “Supervisory control and data acquisition. An ICS…uh…industrial control system to monitor and control computer processes. Usually for large-scale factories or industrial complexes.”

  “Okay, that makes sense.”

  “Thank you. This PLC is years ahead of where we were and we are the top minds in this field, or so I thought.” Ravi looked hard at Crisp. “Arnold, what is this?”

  “You must understand that Stuxnet and its successors were dangerous. Crippling, in fact. Several deaths and the possible loss of a nuclear submarine were attributed to these monster programs. The CIA was infected for Christ’s sake! We tried to alter the PLC such that it could be run via a wireless network. If it could access and control a mechanical system, why not a biological one? We tried for a year, but we were unable to get a working prototype of a biological virus that could use human brainwaves as a transmitter and receiver. The technology already existed, as evidenced by several key systems that had been infected with Abaddon. Human test subjects were examined and their brainwaves were…not normal. This was almost a year ago.”

  Wilcox stopped his crunching. “So you let it out, huh, Doc?”

  “No! We were never able to get it to work! Major Mello and his military contacts were beginning to get…threatening. They told us to go in a different direction and some men showed up with a new type of crystal-based computer system that I had never seen before. None of the staff were allowed to even see it, except me. It was beautiful and gave off no heat. I’ve never seen the like. I don’t think anyone has. They took some Rama files and left. A week later, the first newscasts of plague victims began to surface.”

  Wilcox crumpled his empty bag of pretzels, tossing it in a small wastebasket. “Rama is the name of your anti-virus, yeah?”

  Crisp nodded. “Yes.”

  “The timeframe is fairly coincidental, is it not?” Ravi demanded.

  “What’s coincidental?” Androwski asked as he and the others strode into the lab.

  Wilcox gave him the rundown with the scientist’s help.

  The SEAL shook his head. “Can you fix it?”

  The scientists looked at him dumbfounded, “Fix what?” asked Linda.

  “The plague. Can you fix that friggin’ computer virus,” Androwski pointed at the screen, “so that if we get bitten, we won’t turn?”

  “In time, maybe,” Brenda considered, “but this is new and exciting stuff. We’ve not seen this type of programming before.”

  “Fine. Do what you have to do. Just so you know, if the ladder we found leads to an egress point, our little team is splitting up. Rick’s group is heading back to Alcatraz with Seyfert as escort.”

  Brenda looked at Rick. “You’re leaving? You’re leaving now?”

  “Brenda, Sam is back there. Of course I’m leaving. I’ve come to ask you if…if you’ll come with me.”

  “No,” she replied instantly. “I’m needed here. I love my daughter, Rick, you know that, but if I can help end this, or at least slow it down, it would be selfish to leave.”

  Rick shook his head. “I understand. Make sure you write something I can take back to Sam.”

  With that, Rick left. Dallas quickly followed. “Hey, pard, ya know ya ain’t supposed to go nowheres alone!”

  Woodrow Wilson Elementary School, San Francisco

  Billy wiped soup from his mouth with a monogrammed napkin. “I picked up three of them in a candy store. I was the only living adult they had seen in a few days and they were pigging out on gummy bears. Zombies had found them and were starting to bang on the window. The other kids I brought here as I found them.” A small boy got up from the circle they were in, walked over to Billy, gave him a high-five, and sat back down. “I brought in one other adult, but he…he turned out to be not so nice.”

  Jenny did not look up from her soup, but nodded slowly in agreement.

  “Any other adults I’ve sent to Alcatraz. Most of them I get to a boat and send them off. Some of them don’t make it, some of them do.”

  Dave looked at Jenny. “He got me to the island.” He winked at her and she smiled.

  One of the other kids looked up from his bowl. “We want to go to the Alc-traz too.”

  Billy looked at his kids. “That’s why I brought these people, Dennis. They’re going to get you guys out of the city.”

  Tony looked at Abbey. “Uh, Billy…”

  Billy held up his hand. “My price for saving your lives, feeding you, and bringing you into the sanctum.”

  Dave stood up and moved to Billy. He stuck his hand out for a shake. “Done.”

  “Dave, how are we…?”

  Dave pointed at Tony. “Done!” Tony put his palms up in surrender.
<
br />   The boy who had gotten up before walked over to Dave and high-fived him.

  The kids were all asleep on the third floor of the school. Billy had somehow appropriated bunk beds and constructed them for the kids to sleep in. Each child had their own bed, most with colored pictures or stuffed toys hanging on it. All of the windows in the classroom were painted black and had heavy drapes covering them. Billy had screwed large, ornate iron curtain rods into the concrete with concrete screws to hang the drapes from.

  The adults had moved into the class next door, where eight desks sat in a small semi-circle in front of a huge green chalkboard. The board had several simple addition problems chalked on it, along with a dozen spelling words. They sat in a small circle around a battery-operated lantern.

  Abbey started to cry. “All the kids that didn’t make it…”

  Billy wiped his eyes too. “I put them down first if there’s a group of zombies. I can’t stand the thought of one of those things wearing a kid suit.”

  Tony looked around at everything. “Billy, are you teaching the kids?”

  Billy perked up. “Yeah! I figured my kids needed some semblance of normalcy, so we learn some stuff each day. There’s a ton of books here.”

  “Your kids?”

  “Yeah, mine. I found them, they’re mine. And I’m theirs, at least until you get them to Rick and Pittsburgh,” he looked wistful, “and Sam.”

  “What you’ve done here is amazing,” said a guy Billy didn’t know. He squinted at the man.

  “Oh man, sorry, Billy, this is Derek, Tony, and Steve.”

  “Charmed,” Billy quipped in his best Bugs Bunny voice.

  “How did you do all of this?” Derek asked, looking around.

  “Had to. The kids needed the stuff. I needed to help the kids. I wasn’t going to let them sleep on the floor. Not when there’s an IKEA store on the next street over.” He tipped Derek a wink and Derek smiled back. “I found that Caddy we climbed through; it was full of gas. Had a dead woman in it. Well, sort of dead. I got rid of her and used it to bring the beds and curtain rods and drapes and the dresser in there. It was easy. Whenever the zombies come for the car, I turn it off and open the windows. They come over to it and then shuffle off after a minute or so.”

  “Where did you get the food?”

  “It’s everywhere. You just need to know where to look.” He screwed his face up a little in thought. “Pickings are getting slimmer out there though. Kinda funny when you think of it. There were zillions of people here a couple months ago, all wanting food…well, I guess that’s still true…but now that all the living people are dead people, you would think there’d be tons of food just laying around. All the outlying little mom and pop stores have been cleaned out, but the inner city is loaded with packaged stuff. Unfortunately, anybody going on a food run has to go deeper into the city and they usually come out stumbling. There are just too many zombies downtown. I’m lucky, I guess.”

  Steve looked up. “How so?”

  “Zombies don’t like me,” Billy pinched up his face again, “or maybe they like me too much. I must admit, I haven’t figured that one out yet,” he ended to himself. He looked up at Tony suddenly. “How’s Ali?”

  “She’s good. She and Sam have hit it off huge. Actually, she’s hit it off with everybody, especially the kids. They love her.”

  “Lotta kids then?”

  “Twenty-two kids under the age of sixteen, including me,” Dave whispered.

  Billy nodded and looked at the door to the next classroom over. “Good. Going to get a few more, too.”

  Steve finished his Diet Sprite and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “What did you mean zombies don’t like you?”

  “Wow. Nobody has been forthcoming about my super-power?”

  Steve gave him a blank look.

  “Well, sir, I can…” Billy went stock still. “Everybody quiet. Douse the light and follow me to the window.” Derek picked up the light and switched it off, everyone following Billy across the darkened classroom. He went to a specific drape and moved it to the side. He pulled on a room-darkening shade and brought it slowly up then a set of mini blinds. They looked out across a field toward the street, approximately two hundred yards away. Two vehicles, large, probably trucks, were moving slowly down the road, headlights piercing the evening. “They’re getting closer.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Bad guys. They call themselves The New Society.”

  Tony chuckled slightly. “Gangs? Lots of gangs in San Francisco? Did they used to be gay waiters?”

  Billy didn’t look away from the trucks. “They’re from L.A. There’s about two hundred of them and they aren’t nice. Don’t know if they were waiters. They pick up everyone they can. Some they let live, some they don’t.” He looked at Abbey. “Bad luck if you’re a girl too.” Billy shifted his gaze to the left. “Uh oh. Abbey, could you please go sit with the kids? Get them down below the windows against the walls. I think this is going to get loud.”

  “What is it?”

  He pointed to the left and out of the gloom, a throng of undead were stumbling their way toward the sound of the trucks. Hundreds were crossing the street, moving through the playground on the corner. The moans were just becoming perceptible.

  “Billy!” one of the kids whisper-yelled.

  “Abbey, go, please. The kids know what to do.”

  Abbey moved from the room and started getting the kids out of bed, each one waking up instantly and performing a pre-assigned task. A few got food and water out of the IKEA pantry, others went about securing the door with an iron bar set in the floor. The two biggest kids began moving mattresses, pillows, and blankets from the beds to the floor. All had been done with military precision and in total silence.

  The trucks stopped in front of a boarded-up house and living men descended upon it. Searchlights from the trucks snapped on and began to survey the area. Gunshots began to break the eerie silence of the abandoned city.

  Billy turned to face the group. “We should probably get away from the windows.” He dropped the blinds, pulled the shade, and let the drape fall back in place. The adults moved back to the room with the kids, who looked scared. Billy sat on a mattress and the kids all came to him, getting as close as they could. He put his arms around as many as possible. “What do we do when we see them?”

  “Stay quiet, stay low,” the children responded together in a whisper.

  “And if they find us?”

  The response from the kids was immediate, “They won’t.”

  Billy looked at the rest of the adults. “Welcome back to San Francisco.”

  The gunfire increased from sporadic to sustained. For a solid five minutes, several different weapon sounds were heard, from auto fire, to heavy machine guns, to explosions that were undoubtedly grenades. All at once, the shots subsided and the trucks moved away. They tactically withdrew several minutes before the dead reached them, but it was still close.

  Dawn came with the kids and Billy sleeping on the mattresses. The other adults stayed awake in fear of the horde that was now traipsing around their sanctuary. Their host woke with a yawn and extricated himself from the tangle of children. He looked at Tony and smiled. “No sleep at all, huh?”

  “Are you kidding? Did you see the size of that swarm?”

  Billy stood and stretched, the kids rolling over or scrunching together, but not waking. “I sure did. Not the biggest that’s passed through these here parts, but it was large. I’ll give the kids another hour then it’s up and at ‘em! In the meantime, you folks and I are going to talk about getting my new family out of here.” He looked at the window. “It’s becoming unsafe.”

  Tony folded his arms and leaned against the wall. “So, what’s your plan, chief? How do we get the kids to the boat? And don’t say we go through the sewers, cuz that ain’t happenin’.”

  “No way! I’m all kinds of done with the sewers. Stinks down there.”

  Abbey and Tony both nodde
d in agreement.

  “But I do have a doozy of a plan. A doozy.” He smiled a wicked smile.

  “So?”

  “We’re going to rob a bank.”

  Beneath Vantel Corporate Lab

  Androwski and Stenner performed recon on the ladder the morning after Crisp’s computer revelation. As indicated on the schematic, it led into a series of concrete vents, which, after they cut the locks on several grates and a steel door, led to the surface. A small smokestack, hidden in the trees toward the far end of the facility vented white steam exhaust from the geothermal plant a hundred feet below. Stenner waited inside the base of the stack behind an exit door, as his SEAL partner climbed the ladder all the way to the top. He was up there for a solid ten minutes with his binoculars before he came back down.

  “Well, it definitely leads to the surface. Actually about forty feet above it.”

  “So why do you look like your dog just died?”

  “Because the place is crawling with Limas.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah.” Androwski wiped his forearm across his brow. “Hot in here. “Let’s get back with the intel.”

  Androwski and Stenner returned to one of the small rooms to discuss the plan with everyone.

  Seyfert had found a bag of chips. “So it’s up a hundred feet of ladders, then we fight off a horde of infected, get to the cars, then to the airfield, and figure out if we can fly a plane that nobody here is rated on. Easy peasy.”

  Androwski shook his head in the negative. “From what I could see, the vehicles have all been destroyed by heavy weapons fire. Vehicles will need to be appropriated off-site.”

  “Keeps gettin’ better n’ better.”

  Crisp had been interrogated on where the aircraft that Bob spoke of was located. Dr. Crisp had given Bob the stink-eye when they all came barging in on him, but had reluctantly given up the information. The plane was at a defunct Air Force base on Cape Cod, approximately forty-five miles away.