The Chronos Plague (Book 1): No Time Left

by Talluto, Joseph

  I turned my attention to the woman, who was shielding her child from me.

  “Who… are you?” she asked. She was trying to keep her emotions in check, and was barely winning the battle. She had just lost her husband in a brutal murder, her child had just watched her father die, and who knows what trauma the dead man in the kitchen had visited upon them while he controlled the house.

  “Just a man passing through,” I said. “Looked like you could use some help.” I looked out at the man on the patio. “Sorry I wasn’t able to be here sooner.”

  The woman turned her head away, and I realized that the best thing I could do at this point would be to remove the body of the husband. I motioned for her to take her daughter away, and I hauled both bodies out of the house area and down toward the water. The father I put in the boathouse, and covered him with a sheet. The other guy I just rolled into the water to let the alligators chew on him.

  Back at the house, I met the woman again.

  “What are you going to do now?” she asked.

  I could read a lot in that question, but I was too old to fall for the obvious trap in it.

  “I’m going to go see about some more supplies, hang out in the boathouse down there, and move on when I’m ready,” I said.

  “What do we do now?” She despaired a little in my direction.

  Were I a different man, I might have thought to take advantage of the situation, but I wasn’t that man. Once upon a time, I took an oath to protect people like her and the best I could do would be to try and steer her in the right direction.

  “Get all the supplies you have, dry goods, canned goods. Put together any guns you have and the ammo that goes with them. If you have any knives, bring them out. Put everything on the counter and I will be back in a bit to see what you have,” I said.

  She looked at me funny, but must have made her mind up in a hurry. If I had evil intent, they’d both be dead by now and I think she realized it.

  Half an hour later, she had assembled a decent amount of supplies. There was a good amount of dried goods, plus some canned stuff. There was a rifle and a handgun, with ammunition for both. She had a small sheath knife and a couple of backpacks that were filled with clothing.

  “Good enough,” I said. “You’ve got enough supplies to see you through a small trip in whichever direction you want to head. I left a group a while back that was making a decent go of it surviving south of here. Not sure if they’re still there.”

  She looked at her daughter. “We’ll never make it. I may as well shoot her now and get it over with.” The despair in her voice was thick.

  “Well, that’s an option, too, and I won’t say I haven’t seen it done more than once,” I said. “But, you could just play it smart, stick around here.” I waved an arm around. “You could set yourself up in that house next door. It has a solid fence all around it, room for a garden, and fish in the river. You could do worse.”

  “I don’t know. We never had a plan. My husband just thought we could wait for the government to get control.” Her voice drifted off again.

  I couldn’t help but snort. “Lady, I was the government, and I can tell you it’s gone. We’re all on our own.” I moved toward the door. “I’ll be heading out, if you need me, I’ll be at the boathouse next door.”

  I left her looking at her supplies. I didn’t need the kind of grief she would bring. God knows she’d probably burst into tears at the absolute wrong moment, getting all of us killed. Or more likely, her daughter would get killed, and then the wailing would make me want to shoot myself. Yes, I’d seen that before, too. Fathers mourning children, mothers stricken with grief, finding no point to go on.

  I spent the next couple of days in the boathouse, actually relaxing. I don’t know where the woman I helped went to, all I know is she didn’t come to this side of the fence.

  On the third day, I spent some time familiarizing myself with the boat in the boathouse. According to the manuals, it was a Tidewater 320CC with a center console and lots of features for the sport fisherman. Apparently, I was supposed to be in heaven the minute I stepped on board. I figured out how to lower the boat into the water, and it seemed that the boat was ready to go. The fuel gauges read full, and all I needed to do was work a hand crank to juice up the battery to start the twin engines. I guess power outages were a thing in Florida. I gave the crank a few turns and gave the batteries something to think about.

  While I was getting familiar with the boat, I kept hearing a thumping sound outside. Looking around the boathouse, I saw that the river had risen slightly and the wooden canoe was now floating and bumping into the furniture out there. I grabbed it and pulled it up higher, securing it to a post further up the yard. I looked at the river and the boathouse and figured the river had to rise about four feet before it got into the boathouse. Was it possible?

  Looking north, I saw that there were a lot of dark clouds, so rain up there was going to put some pressure on us down here. Push came to shove, I was going to have to decide if I wanted to sleep in the boat or move up to the big house.

  After figuring out what to do with the boat, I went to bed and listened to the sound of rain hitting the roof. It came and went in intensity, and at one point, it seemed like all the moisture in the sky decided to come down for a visit. Anything caught outside would have been instantly drenched.

  I slept for a time and was awakened by an odd sound outside. There were a lot of thumps, and then there was a sound like a wet slap. At first, I figured it was one of the large palm leaves smacking into the roof of the house or something. But when I heard it several times, that’s when I knew it was something else. I really didn’t want to see more alligators, especially up here, but the rain may have dislodged them from their normal hunting grounds and pushed them further north. Or, the extra water let them leave their familiar haunts and head into unknown territory.

  I tried looking out a window, but the rain made that impossible. I went over to where the windows opened out under an awning of the roof, and opened one of the windows.

  Whatever gods watch over fools and children was keeping an eye out for me when I did that. I caught a brief look as to what was making the unusual noise and I closed the window as quickly and as quietly as I could. I gathered my supplies and put my pack on. My rifle was loaded, and my pistols were ready. I went over to the boat and got ready to winch it into the surging water below. I took a deep breath and got my senses back. Going back out in the weather like this was stupid, and I never lived this long being stupid. Best wait it out and see where things were in the morning.

  I stretched out in the boat, figuring it to be the best place should things get interesting. It took a while to get to sleep, given what was going on outside. The rising waters in the north must have flooded some areas, washing hundreds of zombies downriver. The bad luck for me was I was downriver. The slapping sound I heard was zombies reaching out of the water, grabbing at the shore, and hauling themselves out of the current. Dozens of them were coming up out of the water near the boathouse, and dozens more were coming out up near the other houses. I couldn’t figure out why they would beach here until I realized that beach was exactly right. People with their houses had private beaches, and that brought the river bottom higher in this area.

  The night passed slowly, the thunder alternating with thumps of zombies as they ran into the side of the house and the pier. Most of that didn’t bother me, but the splashing underneath the boat I was in was a concern. I peeked over the side and groaned inwardly. There was a zombie under the boat, washed up against one of the pylons that held up the house. The water surged around it, pinning it to the wood beam. It struggled against the beam and thumped its free hand against the floor of the boathouse.

  I didn’t need the noise attracting others, so I took a life preserver and leaned over the side, placing it in the hand of the zombie. It grasped it like it was a piece of fried chicken and took it into the water. The extra leverage the preserver gave the water pu
shed the zombie away from the pylon and back into the current. Chances were someone down the line would kill a zombie and wonder where in hell it got the floatation device.

  In the morning, I carefully gathered all of my supplies, and slowly lowered the boat into the water. The storm had subsided sometime before sunrise, and the morning was bright and new. Water glistened on the trees and the homes were polished stone in the light. The grass was a lush green that you only see after a rain. The trees were shining in the sun, and the zombies were all freshly washed. Their clothes were a little waterlogged, but the blood and dirt had been washed out of them after their drenching.

  As I looked out, I could see two zombies that looked even fresher than the others. I was curious enough to pull out my binoculars, and after a brief look, I wasn’t glad I had. The two new zombies were the woman I had saved the other day and her daughter. Both had been caught by the zombies and turned. Not much I could do at this point. It wouldn’t even be worth the time to shoot them both. They were beyond feeling at this point.

  I opened the outer doors, and tried to start the engine. It caught on the fourth try and after my heart went back to where it was supposed to, I eased it out into the river and current. It took a little more throttle than I thought to get control of the boat, but the current was stronger than I expected. The dugout canoe I had used to get me here bounced along behind the boat, and I hauled it up by the rope I had tied to it the other day. It had been far too useful to leave behind now. I positioned my rifle to be near at hand should the need arise, and my pistols were concealed under my vest.

  I was back on track, and it was a decent day.

  Chapter 4 – 10 Weeks BTEOTW

  “What are you doing?”

  “Exchanging some cash for local currency.”

  “Why?”

  “What’s our cover here?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Two large-ish Caucasians, not able to blend in, don’t speak the language, and have no real reason to be here, despite the fact we told that nice immigration officer we were here on business. What is our option, then?”

  Conner thought for a minute and I swear I could literally see his brain heating up.

  Suddenly, the light went off.

  “Tourists! Of course!” he said.

  “Christ, keep your voice down, will you?” I said. “I want to become a millionaire without distraction.”

  “Wait. What?” Conner was confused.

  “The Vietnamese Dong is the local currency. The exchange rate is around twenty-three thousand per dollar. So fifty bucks gets me a little over million local,” I said, handing over the money to the bored exchange agent. He looked at the money and handed me a five hundred thousand dong bill, two, two hundred thousand bills, and a series of fifty and ten thousand dong bills.

  I pocketed the cash, and I was pleased to see Conner took out some of his own cash and traded it in as well. He only gave forty bucks, so he didn’t get to millionaire status like myself.

  “Where do we go from here?” Conner asked.

  “We’re tourists, so I booked us in a decent hotel,” I said.

  “How decent?’

  “You’ve never been here before, have you?”

  “Nope.”

  I smiled. “If your frame of reference is the Holiday Inn, you’re about to be surprised. Let’s get our ride.”

  “A taxi?” Conner asked.

  “The hotel sends a van if you are staying more than a couple days,” I said, heading down the long escalator to the pickup lanes outside. The airport was fairly empty for this time of night. I wanted to get here when the immigration lines were small and we would be able to see anyone acting like they were very interested in us. I wasn’t overly impressed with Jester so far, but my respect was growing.

  Nearing the exit, the place got very crowded. There were dozens of people waiting for relatives and there were quite a few drivers holding makeshift signs with names in a variety of languages. I found the one for us and headed over.

  “Windsor Plaza?” I asked. “We’re Simpson and Flanders.” I ignored Conner’s groan.

  The man smiled and took our bags and placed them in the rear of the van. We climbed in and he offered us bottled water for our trip. As we drove off, I could see Conner looking out over the city.

  We drove past hundreds of shops and small cafes. Ho Chi Minh City was a crazy place. We passed glamorous shops next sitting next to tiny mom-and-pop stores full of tourist junk. The streets were full of scooters, and several times we had to brake hard to avoid a collision. But the traffic kept flowing, aided mostly by the fact that there weren’t many street lights.

  Outside, the sidewalks were mostly deserted, but here and there were some people sleeping on their scooters. Those were the ones who didn’t have a place to store them for the night and didn’t want them to be stolen. Capital crimes were rare, but robbery wasn’t.

  We passed a huge hotel, and Conner looked at me. It was out of place in the neighborhood, but it looked fantastic.

  “They build them where they can, and fence off the rest of the city. Step in there and you’ll never know there’s a city outside,” I said.

  “You’ve been here before?” Conner asked.

  “Couple of times. Nothing more complicated than an observation,” I said. That wasn’t entirely the truth, but things were less complicated the more I kept from Conner.

  We drove on and finally reached our hotel. From the street, it didn’t look like much at all, just a large sign and driveway. But we had an idea of where we were when a man dressed in a red uniform took our bags inside. I tipped the driver a hundred grand and he smiled at my generosity. People in Vietnam didn’t like foreign currency because the banks charged them a percentage to exchange it. Once you got used to the math, it was pretty easy to figure out.

  The door was opened for me and my luggage, held that way for Conner and his. We left our baggage at the street lobby, and took the elevator up to the fourth floor where the real lobby was.

  If Conner thought the lobby below was grand, this one beat it by yards. There was a huge chandelier in the center of the room, pressing down with hundreds of crystals to form a dome of light. Black marble pillars funneled us toward an expansive desk, manned by smiling hotel staff. I took the opportunity to order a meal while I was checking in; it would arrive moments after I got to my room. Conner was busy taking in the luxury surrounding us, and didn’t think to learn a very valuable lesson. Always eat when you can.

  We were shown to our rooms, Conner taking a junior suite down the hall from mine. My room was located down at the end of a hallway, while Conner’s was nearer the middle. I went in and relaxed on the bed, not getting too comfortable because I knew the door was going to ring. The suites in this hotel all had doorbells.

  Right on time, the bellhop brought my bag in, and a few minutes later, my dinner arrived. It was quite the thing to get an Australian steak in Vietnam. While I ate, I called a friend of mine who worked here, and we chatted about nothing until we got down to business.

  “What’s going on around here, Mac?” Tran asked. He was an officer in the People’s Public Security Force, following his father’s footsteps. The PPS was the only game in town after the war, and his father had to feed his family. My father and Tran’s father had become close friends during the war, and when it was over, he switched sides to survive. They kept in contact and Tran and I became friends as well. We both took career paths in Intelligence, and always respected each other’s territory. He always told me when he was in country and I always did the same. We’d never actually worked together before.

  “Got a lead in Prague about a group looking to cause some sort of disaster for humans. Thought they were a bunch of goofballs but they’re getting good intelligence. Already killed one person and I’m hoping they don’t get the chance to do another,” I said.

  “Tattoo like a hat with bells on it. Not seen around here, at least not so far,” Tran said.

&n
bsp; “Well, it’s likely they’re using locals. Might be a good idea to get one of your internet teams on to Jester,” I said.

  “On it. What are you going to do?” Phuc Tran asked.

  “Visit a local doctor and then get out of the country. I’m trouble you don’t need.”

  “Amen, brother. Call me when you’re done. We’ll get some beef noodle pho before you go. I know a place,” Tran said.

  “Deal.” I loved pho bo. You’d never know it from the steak I was eating but I did enjoy the local broth.

  I finished my meal and went to my bag. Hidden in the hard sides was one of my 1911s, some mags, and a large, hunting-style knife. It wasn’t the best choice for covert work, but it was intimidating as hell. It looked like a bowie knife, but it was sharp on both sides. The bags were designed by a young lady at Langley who was miles past brilliant. They defeated any scanner and search, unless you knew how to unlock them.

  I put the 1911 back and left the knife on the bed. I decided to take a shower and then figure out where the good doctor lived so we could check her place out tomorrow morning. I crashed on the bed and slept soundly. In the morning, I went into my expansive bathroom and took a well-deserved shower.

  A knock on my door caught my attention after the shower and I went to answer it wearing just my shorts. I figured it was Conner since anyone who worked here would have used the doorbell.

  I opened the door and then leapt back as a knife slashed the air where my neck used to be. I stumbled into the wall at the end of a little hallway by the door, and ducked again as my attacker slashed a second time. I punched upward into his ribcage, knocking him back and inconveniently closing the door. I used the two seconds it gave me to jump for my bed and retrieve my knife. I whipped it out of the sheath just as the man came around the corner. He slid to a stop as he saw my blade, and his eyes narrowed, judging his next move.