by David Rogers
‘Dead everywhere.’ the headline read. Peter ignored the article beneath it, instead scanning across the screen at the other headlined articles. Another read ‘Military gone’, a third ‘Federal Government evacuated from Washington’, and a fourth ‘Updated list of Evacuation Points’.
“So it’s not just us.” Smith said soberly.
“Nope.”
“Doom 3.” Smith said without humor. “Told ya.”
“Shut it.” Mendez said without turning. He clicked over to the next tab he’d opened. The screen changed to the Los Angeles Times’ website, which was effectively a mirror image of the New York Times’. The picture was smaller, and was of a street Peter didn’t recognize, but it was also covered in zombies.
Another click, and the screen changed, this time to one with a FEMA heading. “Wait, what’s this?” Peter asked.
“Supposed to be a list of camps or something that FEMA is setting up around the country. I was going to check our area.”
“Well, check.” Whitley said tightly.
Mendez didn’t say anything, didn’t look away from the screen, but he clicked on a drop down box and selected Georgia. The screen changed again, this time to a picture of the state on the left side that had colored shading and some dots covering it. Peter noted almost immediately that Atlanta was covered in red; not a dot, but a blob of red. He was betting he knew what the red meant, since he was standing damn near in the middle of the shaded area.
“Hmm.” Mendez said, leaning in closer to the monitor. “Let’s . . .ah, there it is. This says it was updated two hours ago. He scrolled, and the picture slid up out of view as he went down the list that was on the right side. “Okay, this says there’s evacuation points in Cartersville, Cumming, Buford, Monroe, Griffin, Newnan and Villa Rica.”
“What’s at the evacuation points?” Smith asked.
Mendez clicked, waited for the screen to change, then leaned in to read. The text was coming up very small. “Hmm, it’s not real clear.” He clicked back, then tried another, then another after that as well. “Okay, they claim there’s food and water and shelter. If it’s a FEMA operation then that means they probably took over a school or something and set up a tent city on the football field.”
“Guards?” Peter asked quietly. “Military units providing security, anything like that?”
“Doesn’t say.” Mendez shrugged.
“Try to get into NIPRNET.” Peter said after a moment. “We need to know if we’re cut off or if there’s anyone left who might can get us out of here.”
“How?” Mendez said, looking over his shoulder at Peter with an expression of rebuking confusion. “I’m don’t have my login information with me.”
“You don’t have it memorized?” Whitley demanded.
“Hey, sue me.” Mendez shrugged. “They make me change the password every week, so I stopped bothering to remember it and just kept it written down.”
“Where?”
“In a notebook I keep in my locker at Clay.”
“Fat lot of good it’s doing us there.”
Peter reached into his pants pocket and pulled out his wallet while Whitley was berating Mendez. Opening the well worn leather billfold up, he rummaged around in one of the many little pockets and produced a folded piece of paper. “Try this.” he said, handing it to Mendez.
Mendez unfolded it carefully. The paper was old enough and had been folded up long enough that it was sticking a little to itself. It made a lot of noise as he got it flattened out, the paper creaking and crackling in protest. “Okay, sure.” he said, propping the paper up against the monitor and grabbing the mouse. A few clicks opened up a fresh browser screen, and he typed something into the URL field.
The computer hesitated for several seconds, then loaded a page that had some National Guard logos and text scattered around the two boxes in the middle of the screen. Mendez clicked, then typed from what was on the paper, then clicked again. Another pause, a long one, then the screen cleared and went to one Peter was familiar with from before he’d retired.
“Yup, Nips is up.” Mendez said. “Where’d you get the login?”
“Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you fewer lies.” Peter said, reaching for the paper. “And give it back. It’s a trade secret, and I might need it again.”
Mendez grabbed it first and shook his head. “Hang on, let me copy it down in case I get kicked out.”
“Fine, hurry up.” Peter said. There was a coffee mug of pens next to the monitor, along with a stack of several Post-It note pads. Mendez scribbled the information down quickly, then gave Peter’s paper back to him.
“Okay, Mendez, you stay here with your guys and start figuring out what the fuck is going on. I’m going to rally everyone up and we’re transferring into this unit so we can all be together while you’re on the computer.” Peter said, turning for the hallway.
“Uh . . . how much gas is in whatever’s powering the inverter?” Mendez asked.
“Don’t worry about it.” Peter said. There were enough vehicles around the complex that he was sure they could probably keep the Bronco running for the near future. Idle didn’t use much fuel. “Whitley, you’re with me. Smith, get your team and follow. We’ve got some stuff to carry over. Roper’s been cooking, and there are some other supplies we need to bring too.”
* * * * *
Chapter Fourteen – Wait, what?
Darryl
“That it?” Joker asked, straightening up and not hiding the hope in his tone.
Darryl glanced around the basement. It was a dank and dark place, just about literally a square hole in the ground. It dated back to the initial construction of the house, and the only thing that was different now as opposed to then was concrete block had been used to construct proper walls, and a slab floor poured.
Usually it was empty except for the two refrigerators that lived down here, which were old ones the Dogz had picked up from the curb of someone who was throwing them out. One had worked just fine, basically having been surplus for whoever had owned it. The second just needed some fairly simple repairs, which were easily accomplished. They were no longer being used for beer though; now they were stuffed to the gills with meat.
Next to the fridges was a newly built shelf. It was large and hastily slapped together, even rougher than the fence outside, but it served its purpose just as adequately. The coolers that were being used to stretch out their cold storage space were now stacked up on the new shelf, condensing them into a smaller area instead of being spread out across the floor. And the shelf let them at least partially open the coolers’ lids, which made swapping cold packs out much easier and quicker.
The remainder of the space was now covered with stacks and piles of things. More shelves had been assembled in place without regard for cosmetics or niceties, letting them get some of the food off the floor. But there were still lots of piles. Stacks of cans, loosely sorted by general types, reached four and five feet off the floor in some places. One corner had a rather substantial pile of bagged potato chips. Stacks of pasta boxes, stacks of bagged rice.
There was still room in the basement for more, but it was definitely getting crowded. So much so that they had used Tank’s trick of a human chain to hand things down the stairs and into place. Only four people were in the basement; Darryl, Joker, Needles, and Jody. Everyone else had been going from the vehicles to the house above, leaving the freshly looted items for the stairwell team to hand down from one to another.
“They saying that all the food.” Smoke called down from the top of the stairs.
“Oh good.” Joker said, rubbing his back and headed to the stairs. Needles followed, and they clumped up behind the others who were retreating upstairs. Darryl lingered, seeing that Jody was still fussing with the placement of things.
“You need any more help?” he asked after a few moments.
“Um . . . maybe.” she said, sounding thoughtful as she studied the shelves of coolers. “Do me a favor. Go check an
d see if there any more totes lying around up there.”
“Sure.” Darryl said. He went up the stairs more slowly than he might usually have done; the day had been pretty damn exhausting. The fence had gone up quickly, but it had not been a presto-magic event. It had been damn hard work. Then he’d gone on another run out with most of the Dogz; first to the same Wal-Mart from the previous night to fill in some of the things on Jody’s list, then a longer run out to another grocery store that was about twice as far from the clubhouse as the Kroger, but in the opposite direction.
Music was playing on the sound system, though at a fairly sedate volume. Quiet enough that it wasn’t carrying down the stairs. He couldn’t really hear it until he got to the top. And when he went past the doorways to the lounge and pool room he saw some of the Dogz chilling, almost acting like they were hiding. There were more people in the kitchen, though they were all busy with food related things.
When he went out the back door, Darryl found most of the Dogz and the other people that were now staying at the clubhouse. Another cooking fire, a bigger one this time, was going in the fire pit, and every bit of space on the grill grates had a burger or hot dog or slab of ribs sizzling away. Bobo was tending the fire pit, a pair of tongs in one hand, a beer in the other, as he flipped and adjusted the food.
Near the pit some tables were set up, with platters of what Darryl assumed was food either cooked or waiting to be cooked visible beneath towels that were draped across them to keep flies away. He saw several large bowls that were probably coleslaw or baked beans or something like that. And below them were several coolers, apparently waiting for food to cool and be packed away for later.
Most of the people were starting to settle down, many of them in new lawn chairs. It was summer, and the Wal-Mart had no shortage of them. They had managed to cram a whole bunch into the vehicles during their earlier loot run, and they were being put to use now. Darryl looked around, but didn’t see any piles of ‘loot’ that looked like they hadn’t been sorted yet. He was squinting over at the various trucks and vehicles parked behind the barn when he heard someone behind him.
“Excuse me DJ.” Tamera said, bumping him aside with her hip as he started to turn to see who it was.
“Sorry.” he said.
“No problem sugar.” she said. She had a platter of hamburger patties in her hands, which she added to the table and covered with a towel. Darryl stepped out of the doorway and looked over at the vehicles again, then shrugged mentally after about ten seconds and decided to walk over to make sure.
When he got to the barn, he found it had been reorganized somewhat. They had grabbed too much concrete, so that had been restacked into a smaller pile. Most of the wood was gone, having been used up in the fence and other projects they’d completed. Tools and nails and what wood was remaining had been sorted and stacked neatly as well.
But the freed up space had been overtaken by new items, mostly clothes. A lot of clothes. The tired Dogz had gone through the Wal-Mart’s clothing and fabric departments without regard for size or color or style. Jeans and shirts, men’s and women’s underwear, towels, shoes of various sorts; all had been dumped into piles to be dealt with later. There were other things, like toilet paper and a bunch things from the ‘housewares’ sections, but he didn’t see any more of the tote containers Jody had asked about.
At least, none that weren’t full when he opened them up or nudged them with his boot. Darryl checked around a little more, trying to be sure, then headed back toward the clubhouse. He was about halfway between the barn and the back door when he saw a kid suddenly stiffen and fall over on his side.
Darryl stopped, surprised and shocked, as he saw it happen. The boy had been standing with a hotdog in his hand, in a group of other kids who were talking about something or another. None of them had bumped or pushed the one that fell. And, Darryl realized with a sudden cold chill, the kid on the ground had a big white bandage taped into place on his forearm.
“Move!” Darryl heard someone shouting, realizing only when he drew his Glock and brought it up in a two-handed grip that it was him. “Get away, get back!” With his peripheral vision he saw some of the children moving away from the one who’d fallen, though a couple seemed too confused or maybe too scared to obey. He heard other shouts, men, a few of the women, but they didn’t seem to register with him. Not as words. It was just background noise that didn’t really matter.
Darryl settled his sights on the kid on the ground, felt his breath slow like it did when he was on the range, and waited. He felt a second crawl by like it was mired in tar, then another twice as slow. Just as he was beginning to question himself, thinking maybe he was more tired than he thought, the kid sat up abruptly. The boy’s head turned and seemed to almost snap as he centered his view on the closest person to him. He reached out for the little girl with both hands, hands that didn’t hold the hotdog anymore.
The gunshot surprised even Darryl, and he was the one who’d fired. He blinked and saw the boy was back on the ground again, once more not moving. Darryl peered through his sights for another couple of seconds, then looked over them with both eyes and saw some blood and stuff on the grass next to the motionless little body.
Abruptly he could hear properly again. He heard shouting, yelling, as people who hadn’t had a clear view of what had happened demanded to be told. A few folks were screaming, their voices rawer with more anguish or panic in them. He heard someone shouting aggressively for quiet, and dimly recognized it as Bobo.
Darryl lowered the gun slowly, aiming down at the ground in front of him, but kept it out, in his hands. He stared at the child lying on the grass, not sure what exactly he was looking for. The kid had to be dead, surely. No one could survive that sort of damage to their head and live. He abruptly felt a sickened, and had to lift his eyes from the sight quickly.
Other people were staring at the broken little body. Some were looking instead at him, with a mixture of expressions. Darryl saw a lot of shock and surprise, some anger and disbelief, and, just on a bare few, sympathy. Bobo shoved through the crowd with his Beretta naked in his hand, glanced down at the dead kid, up at Darryl briefly, then spun around to face the crowd. Darryl thought he saw a bit of determined satisfaction on Bobo’s face before the biker looked away.
“Where the other one?” he demanded.
There was silence for several seconds, then Vivian spoke up from near the back door. “What other one?”
“There was three children that got bit yesterday.” Bobo said loudly. “One died, another just now tried to eat someone, where the third?”
Suddenly there was a mass shuffling of feet on the grass as onlookers stepped away from a woman sitting on the far side of the fire pit. Darryl had to squint to make her out through the heat shimmer and swirl of smoke that arose from the pit between him and her. She had her arms around a fairly tall boy who was on the cusp of puberty. He was standing looking confused and afraid as his mother clutched at him, his eyes fixed on Bobo like the old biker was an oncoming truck.
“No!” the woman sobbed softly. “He ain’t like them on the news.”
“Shirley.” Bobo said, holding out his left hand, the one not holding the gun, placatingly. “Ain’t nobody like what going on, but it is how it is.”
“But he ain’t like them!” she insisted, hugging the boy tighter.
“He gonna be, probably soon.” Bobo said reasonably. “We all seeing what happens, here with our own eyes. It ain’t just something everywhere else. It here too. It why we all here now. We gotta stay safe and try to survive this thing. You gotta let him go.”
“No!” Shirley cried, burying her head against the boy’s back.
Her son swallowed slowly. “Uh . . . what about the two Dogz that was hurt?”
Darryl blinked, then automatically started searching the crowd with his gaze. The kid was right. It hadn’t just been three zombie kids and three injured kids yesterday. Three Dogz had been hurt by the zombie children as well
. Ratboy was dead, his neck ripped open so badly he’d bled out in minutes. But the other two Dogz, Ape and Hooligan, they’d lived through the attacks.
“I up here.” A voice spoke loudly enough to be heard.
Lifting his eyes, Darryl saw Ape sitting in a lawn chair on the roof of the clubhouse. His arms bore bandages where he’d been wounded the previous day, stark white bindings that clearly contrasted against his skin and clothing and the shotgun he held propped up against his hip. Darryl was far enough away from the clubhouse to be able to see two of the other three guards that were up on the roof with him, all assigned to maintain a watch on the surrounding area.
“Ape, bro, he right.” Bobo said carefully.
“How we sure?” Ape asked. Darryl frowned a little, then decided it wasn’t an entirely unreasonable question. He tried to think of how he’d be acting, what he’d want to be done, if he was the one who’d been bitten and was now facing the same circumstance. It was fair to want to be sure. This was all pretty new. Scary, terrifying, like something out of a late night horror flick; but still . . . this was life. Not a movie, but life. It was fair to want to be sure.
“That kid done changed.” Bobo was saying, gesturing behind him at the boy Darryl had shot. “He was about to eat whoever he could get his hands on.”
“We sure about that?”
Heads turned back to Darryl, and he was suddenly uncomfortable. “He fell over, just up and fell over. Then he was trying to grab one of the children.” Darryl said, trying to keep his voice even and sure. He could feel the faint quiver within his chest that was threatening to spill out into his words, and had to focus to sound confident. “He didn’t try to get up, just reached for the nearest person.”
Ape stared at Darryl from the clubhouse roof, his expression obviously troubled and unhappy. “So what, you saying he was a zombie when you shot him?”
