Durham broke into a run towards the two advancing figures. He had his Glock in one hand and a collapsible steel baton in the other.
“Get to the bridge! Get to the bridge!” the police officer yelled as he closed in on the two pilots, one male the other female. They passed on each side of him and Durham kept running, directly at the ten or more remaining infected. His Glock barked and dropped one, two, and three before the slide locked back on an empty pistol.
Thrusting the useless weapon into his gun belt, he brought the baton up in both hands as if he was holding onto the handlebars of a bicycle and pushed the stick out in front of him. He rammed the baton into the first zombie horizontally under the sternum and levered the creature up into the air before crashing it back down on its back.
The officer cracked skulls, broke arms, shattered clavicles, and pulverized knees, but in the end, the fight was hopeless and they pulled him down. The infected covered him and silenced his scream in seconds.
Billy, with his Denver tool, and Stone with a pioneer shovel, killed the last two of the infected while they were pulling clumps of fleshy scalp from the former police chief’s skull as the morning sun peaked at last over the horizon.
— | — | —
CHAPTER 19
October 10th, 9am Gulf Shores City Hall
Major Sara “Moose” Reynolds, late of the 8th Special Operations Squadron “Blackbirds” at Eglin Air Force Base’s Hurlburt Field, sat at the City Council table, still in her bloodstained green NOMEX flight suit. Although the suit was covered with Velcro tabs for unit and name patches, none were applied. She reeked of the strong kerosene smell of spilled jet fuel, mingled with sweat. The chemically organic mixture made your nose burn if you got within five feet of her. Wrapped around her chest like a clamshell was a big green CMU-33/P22P-18 survival vest stuffed with radios, rations, strobe lights, and all the evasion gear needed to survive behind enemy lines. Her empty M4 rifle lay in front of her on the laminate tabletop.
“So what happened at the airport?” Stone asked her. He was seated across the table with George Meaux, Lieutenant Jarvis from the Coast Guard, the only surviving member of the City Council, and the Deputy Fire Chief taking up the other chairs.
She took a deep breath before starting.
“We set down there after engaging your hostiles on the bridge to refuel. We had left Eglin about 2200 last night and had been on fumes by the time we made contact with your TOC. When we overflew the airport, we found that a friggin’ Airbus had emergency landed there, taking out the runway. How they put that beast down in 3,000 feet of concrete is beyond me.
“We landed vertically by a fuel truck loaded with Jet-A, and as my co-pilot and I did a check of the plane, my two flight engineers started refueling the bird. Next thing I know we have a damned mob making its way out of the Airbus right for us. We tried to unhook the fuel line and get out of there, but a spark that turned into a fireball that engulfed everything. I lost Rodriguez in the explosion and Samuels to the mob. Ketch and I ran a damn six-minute-mile, firing the whole way to the bridge. I felt like the Beatles in the opening scene of A Hard Day’s Night,” she said. Her voice was rich with the low-back chain vowels of someone originally from the northeast.
“Ketch was your co-pilot?” Stone asked. He was taking notes in a small green memo book.
“Yes, he was injured on the evade. He stumbled and one of the infected bit him,” Reynolds said. “How is he doing?”
Stone gestured to the Deputy Fire Chief who cleared his throat and answered. “He isn’t going to make it. His BP is down in the 60 over 40 ranges, and we can’t get a good pulse on him. Looks like he is going to be terminal, I am sorry,” the ruddy-faced man said. He still wore his turnout pants and the big red suspenders over his t-shirt were grimy with a multitude of stains, ashes, and soot.
“I am sad to hear that. I didn’t really know him. We only met last night. I am going to need to collect his personal effects to turn over to Graves Registration,” Reynolds said.
“Kind of unusual for a crew to be thrown together at the last minute, isn’t it ma’am?” Stone asked. The fact that the newly arrived Major outranked him was not lost to him.
“Almost as unusual as a group of MPs lighting up a couple hundred civilians at a roadblock I’d say,” she replied.
“After the past 24-hours I would say everyone’s definition of unusual is slightly skewed,” George Meaux said before Stone could answer. The City Manager had spent a sleepless night in the Community Center. From there he and everyone else had heard the all-night gunfire at the bridge like kid’s firecrackers going off a block over.
“Is the Air Force sending more planes here from Eglin? We need to evacuate the injured,” asked the only remaining City Council member.
Reynolds shook her head where short bobbed hair was plastered to her forehead from sweat. She was not an ugly woman but she was not really a pretty one either, or so Stone thought.
“No, we were the last working bird to get away from Eglin. The 15s and 22s were sent to Shaw. Most of the spec ops birds went out piecemeal on missions in the past couple days. We were a training bird taken out of the hangar and put together to with an ad-hoc crew on a tasking. When we left Eglin, the base was already being overrun. They somehow got through those huge 8,000 lb. gates and past the Security Police. Not that it mattered, because we had outbreaks on base already that were not contained. We circled back after our mission and there were hundreds of infected all over the runways,” she said.
“What about Pensacola?” Jarvis asked, referring to the large Naval Air Station only twenty miles to the east of Gulf Shores.
“The whole city is infected and on fire. We buzzed the landing strips there. The F18s are gone, but I don’t know where they went. We couldn’t get anyone on the horn from Tyndall or Keesler either. We were going to put in at the Coast Guard air base in Mobile but ran out of fuel,” Reynolds explained.
Jarvis explained what the Coast Guard command structure was and more importantly, what it was not anymore, in the area before mentioning the Elephant in the Room. “So we are officially at war? Is that what you understand Major? Do we have to worry about Russians or Chinese intervention?” Jarvis asked. The man looked as if a black Oscar statue had come to life and put on a blue coast guard uniform.
“From what I gathered TACAMO was running the whole show as of last night,” she said, referring to the network of Navy command and control aircraft that roamed the heartland on eternal patrol, waiting for the end of the world.
“I’m not sure the chain of events and this is not to leave the room,” she continued, looking around the table at each member of the meeting, stopping at each face as she dropped every word of the preamble, “but I do know that ICBMs labeled as being Russian hit Cheyenne Mountain, Washington, and a few other locations.”
Stone whistled. Jarvis did not blink. The three civilians exchanged looks and tried to talk but did not know how to begin.
“Do they think Disease-K is a biological attack, so that they wouldn’t have to use as many nukes on us to take us offline?” Jarvis asked.
“That, Lieutenant, is above my pay grade, I’m just a flight instructor two years before getting my ticket punched. I’m just passing on what I know, not what I think,” Reynolds said.
“What was your mission, ma’am?” Stone asked.
“Not really at liberty, Captain,” she said coolly.
“So what’s the plan now?” the City Council member asked.
Stone took the question, “As it stands now, we have a solid platoon of fifteen MPs at the bridge sealing it off. At this point, it’s about one-third of my company. The rest of my unit is here at the Town Green, on roadblocks, or back at the armory with the TOC. They have the rest of the ammunition the Fish Hawk brought, courtesy of Lieutenant Jarvis here, and we should be able to operate on that for the time being.”
The Coast Guard Lieutenant Jarvis nodded, “My last orders were to return to Station Dauphin Islan
d once you were squared away here, so I’ll be shoving off soon. I’ll remain in contact with your TOC and any information we can pass, we will.”
“Tim,” George said, addressing the Deputy Fire Chief, “I have a couple police officers left wandering around the station across the street but all of their supervisors are out of pocket. I need you to take over the police department along with continuing your role as Fire Chief for the time being.”
“I don’t know anything about being a cop, George,” the man protested. He looked visibly sick.
“That’s okay, you know people, let the officers worry about being cop. All I need you to do is worry about being guidance for them,” George said.
“Speaking of guidance,” George continued. “Are we now considered under martial law, and if so, who is in command?” he asked, staring across the table at the three officers.
Reynolds was quick to shake her head. “My time is only temporary here. I have to get in contact with senior leadership and be extracted for debrief. I need access to the long range set back at your TOC, Captain. Other than that, I suggest you work it out as you see best gentlemen.”
She stood up and excused herself while advising Stone to escort her to the armory to use the radio.
“Please collect Major Ketch’s personal effects for me when he expires,” she advised the room as she left with her rifle in hand.
— | — | —
CHAPTER 20
Community Center, Gulf Shores.
Billy sat on the dropped tailgate to his truck and smoked one of Lance’s cigarettes. Billy had not held a smoke since before Cat was born. Even though there was not an infected anywhere in sight, his hands shook uncontrollably.
Everything in his world had changed, and for someone who had known as much change as Billy had known, that was something. The sun never seemed so bright, even through the grey whips of cigarette smoke.
“Shit, welcome to the brave new world,” he said to himself and thumped the smoldering butt out into the roadway.
He had hitched a ride from the bridge with Stone and asked to be dropped at the Marina so that he could grab a change of clothes before Cat saw him. He was covered with gore from his chin to his ankles, and could go for a Rambo-style hosing just to get the human chum off his skin. A quick scrub-down in the Fooly Involved’s sink, an exchange of clothes, and a handful of generic aspirin had him feeling better within minutes.
Most importantly, he retrieved a half box of shells for his .38. After the previous day’s activities, it was better to have them and not need them, than need them and not have them.
He had found the Fooly Involved in perfect condition. Lance had tied her up and hosed her down. The young smart-ass however, was nowhere to be found. Billy had spotted the man’s cigarettes and zippo uncharacteristically left behind on the table by the galley’s stainless steel sink and slipped them into his pockets along with the bullets. With his head down and cigarettes puffing, he walked quickly the half mile to the Community Center. It was there he stopped at his truck to steady his nerves before collecting Cat and continuing the search for his son.
The Community Center had become an outdoor insane asylum. The crowd had more than doubled since Billy had left only twelve hours ago. The electricity had been off for a while, and in the absence of air circulation, the dank odor of unwashed humanity polluted the air. The smell was like old fried chicken but without the comfort.
Most people did not know each other’s real name. After the Red Cross volunteers had been attacked, the center was on autopilot. The lists for new people coming in seemed to be more of a suggestion than a rule. Many were just going by nicknames and nom de guerre. Often citizens had lost their wallets or left them behind while escaping from zombies coming through their window at 2am in the dark. People had to fight in their Mickey Mouse underwear. People had to fight naked.
“Daddy,” he heard Cat from behind him in the crowd. She had her hair pinned up on her head and he could not ever remember seeing her like that. Her neck was getting so long.
“Hey, baby girl,” he said and hugged her. It had been a long night.
“Did you go home and change clothes? Were you in all the fighting last night? What does the house look like? Have you been smoking?” she asked rapid fire.
“No, yes, I don’t know, and no,” he replied mechanically. “Have you seen or heard from your brother?”
Her eyes drooped and she shook her head.
“Have you seen any of his friends?” he asked.
She shrugged her shoulders, “He doesn’t have any friends. At least any I would know. All he does is play video games all day.”
“Ok, let’s go home. We will come back this afternoon and look again. He may home waiting for us,” Billy said. It was a far-off hope as they lived twenty miles down the old Fort Road from town and, on foot, Wyatt was not very likely to be able to cover that. The boy swam a lot but running was never his calling.
««—»»
The drive from the Community Center down Fort Road to their home was surreal. They had lived in Biloxi during Hurricane Katrina and surviving that aftermath, while soul-depleting, did little to prepare them for what they saw on the twenty-mile trip down the length of the island. This was an entirely different experience.
The numbers of police and MP roadblocks were thick and very curious until they got away from town itself. In several places, bodies lay in the streets. Some of the cadavers were covered with bed sheets or blankets, bloody stains blossoming across their cotton fabric, while other bodies were exposed. A fire raged along a block of elevated beachfront condominiums set side by side. Their bright Caribbean pastel paint jobs bubbled and streaked with soot and the occasional flame. Smoke billowed up into the morning sky as pelicans flew curious overwatch.
Once outside town, the road narrowed to two thin lanes between sandy shoulders. It ran the ribbon of the island as it tapered to less than a half mile wide. Just over the sand dunes and sea oats, you could see both the water of Mobile Bay out the passenger window, and the surf of the Gulf of Mexico out of the driver’s side. Short, dead-end streets branching off the main road held dozens of beach houses and bungalows, some dating back to the Civil War. Most were either unoccupied seasonal homes or rentals, but from those that were not, an occasional figure would be standing in the window peering out like a specter among the dunes.
Cars lay abandoned along the roadside in places. A solitary leather boot rested in the middle of the fort road about five miles outside of town, its owner nowhere in sight. Occasional gunshots echoed across the narrow island. Billy had to weave around an ice chest with an axe stuck through the lid in the road at one point. Just past the ice chest was a minivan that had burned and from it, a charred arm hung lifeless from the shattered driver’s window.
A little girl in a Scooby Doo t-shirt, no more than eight years old, walked down the middle of a side street, holding a yellow lab puppy by one paw. After Billy drove past her, his mind continued to analyze the girl and it pointed out to him that the reason the puppy looked so odd was that it only had the one paw.
Cat worked the truck’s radio on both the AM and FM bands, scanning for any stations still broadcasting. Only the island’s weak AM station, WGSH, could be found and it simply repeated the same prerecorded emergency announcements that it did the night before on a loop.
The twenty-mile drive home from town normally took just under a half hour, but that morning lasted more than twice as long. The far western end of the island stopped at Fort Morgan, built just after the War of 1812 and site of the Battle of Mobile Bay where Admiral Farragut proclaimed, ‘Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead.’ As the huge redbrick fort came into view on the horizon, Billy looked to his right and saw his neighborhood.
An ancient silver giant in a cotton button-down shirt and threadbare khakis stood against a roadblock and smiled. The roadblock looked to be made of a collection of sawhorses and lawn furniture.
“I was wondering when you kids woul
d make it back,” the silver giant asked in a clear voice, with all of the gravity of Charlton Heston. Not the overbearing Ten Commandments Charlton Heston, but the chattier NRA-version. Your grandfather, only with better breeding and capped teeth.
“Kind of a long story,” Billy said to Edgar Wallace, his next-door neighbor and closest friend on the island. Ed had moved to Gulf Shores a dozen years ago, after the death of his wife. He had never remarried and had been childless. The 87-year old orphan had largely adopted Billy and his brood as his own for lack of a better choice, although he would argue it was vice-versa.
Once, while helping Ed install a new ceiling fan, Billy had eyed a number of framed photos in a cardboard box. All were of a younger version of Ed either in a suit or judge’s robe, with a vaguely familiar face shaking his hand in that formal way known only to practicing politicians.
“How did everything go here last night?” Billy asked as he stepped from his truck.
“We had a little excitement here,” Ed said, white teeth shining. An ornate Beretta Silver Pigeon 686 double-barreled shotgun leaned against a folding lawn chair.
“Nice shotgun,” Billy said.
“First time I used it was last night. A man who gave it to me was a better baseball team owner than a President, but the sucker works,” Ed said.
“Have you seen or heard from Wyatt?” Billy asked, his tone hushed.
Sadly, Ed, rarely silent, shook his head from side to side.
“The phones went out about lunch and the lights went just after dark,” the old man finally said.
“He was missing from the school. I got Cat from the high school but when we made it to the elementary school…” Billy trailed off.
Ed clasped Billy on the shoulder, “It will be ok. You will see. I am sure he is fine. He is too much like you not to be,” Ed said deliberately in full grandfather mode.
Last Stand on Zombie Island Page 12
