Fade to Grey (Book 2): Darkness Ascending

by Brian Stewart

  Muting the radio, he patted the young man on the shoulder. “Good job, BB.”

  The bare beginnings of a smile broke across the young man’s face as he turned and walked away.

  Eric turned the volume just high enough that he could listen again to the message, and then he stood up and walked over to Michelle.

  “Whistle.”

  “Huh?”

  “That unearthly, piercing, shrill that you can make with two fingers and your lips . . . make it please.”

  Michelle looked at him for a moment and then shrugged. A second later, the intense blast of a high pitched whistle shot through the room. All eyes turned their way, and in the momentary gift of silence, Eric held up the radio.

  “Something just came over the radio, and you’re all going to want to hear this.”

  Immediately, the crowd gravitated toward Eric. A myriad of expressions painted on their faces showed everything from hope, to curiosity, to fear.

  “One of our young men,” he indicated the sandy haired child who now sat against the wall next to his mother, “discovered this.”

  Behind Eric, Walter and Sam pressed in close. A glance to the right showed that even Doc and Callie had set aside whatever they were working on and were now focused his direction.

  He held the radio above his head and twisted the volume knob all the way up.

  “…ency broadcast system has been activated. The following is an urgent message from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The United States and other countries worldwide are experiencing a severe outbreak of encephalitis. This outbreak has continued to spread despite control measures. Martial law has been declared in all major cities, and citizens are urged to stay inside. Symptoms of infection are high fever, erratic behavior, and a change in skin coloration. Do not attempt to approach an infected person. Remain indoors, and avoid contact with potential carriers until further notice. If you must evacuate your home, proceed to a local shelter facility. Once again, an outbreak of highly contagious encephalitis is spreading throughout several countries, including the United States. All emergency and crisis management personnel are required to report to the nearest FEMA location for assignment. A boil water order has been issued for all areas. BEEP-BEEP-BEEP. The emergency broadcast system has been activated. The following is an urgent message . . .”

  He let it play through three more times before turning the radio off. Immediately, the room descended once again into commotion.

  Walter nudged both him and Michelle simultaneously. “Do you believe that?”

  They exchanged glances and questioning looks as Sam and Doc Collins joined their huddle.

  “Hey Doc, what do you think?”

  “Encephalitis normally causes fever and brain swelling, which could account for the behavioral changes, but if you’re asking for my medical opinion on what we just heard, I’d say it’s an attempt to shove a big, fat cookie of pacification into our mouths. Besides, our young student nurse over there,” he indicated toward Callie, “has discovered something very, VERY interesting.”

  “What?” Michelle and Walter asked in stereo.

  “For now,” Doc replied, “I’m going to keep it to myself while I do a bit more thinking. Let’s just say that she’s discovered a statistical impossibility.” With that he turned and walked back to where Callie was fiddling with the touch screen of her tablet.

  “Great, more puzzles,” Sam cracked.

  Walter buried his face in his hands. “I wasn’t done reading my list yet,” he spoke through his palms in a muffled, tired groan.

  Eric turned the walkie-talkie back to monitor, and then called Thompson and Bernice on the Fish and Wildlife radio to let them know about the broadcast. He had no sooner hooked the radio back on his belt when Scott’s voice came over.

  “Crow’s nest to everyone, repeat, crow’s nest to everyone, can you hear us?”

  The sound of his announcement blasting out of several radios all at once quieted the audience immediately.

  “What now,” Michelle hissed lowly.

  Eric pulled the radio back to his lips. “Scott, this is Eric, we hear you. What’s up?”

  “We have headlights coming our way. Two vehicles approaching from the east.”

  “Can you tell what kind of vehicles?”

  “No. All we can see are the headlights, but they are definitely heading this direction.”

  “Roger that, stand by.”

  “Maybe it’s the army coming to rescue us,” one of the men from the campground voiced.

  “It might be some of the people who left the campground a few days ago, or maybe the traffic jam out on the road is breaking up,” another lady offered.

  “Whatever, or whoever it is, let’s be a little cautious,” Sam replied as he hefted his shotgun.

  “Everybody try and find a seat away from the windows until we figure out who this is.”

  Michelle strode over to the door next to Lenny and peeked out through a crack in the garbage bag covered window.

  “Sam,” Eric called out in a probably unnecessary whisper, “go towards the front door and cover us from that direction. You got the key?”

  With the jingle of a key ring and a ‘thumbs up’ signal, Sam pushed through the divider curtain.

  “Scott, give us a play by play of what’s happening.”

  “10-4. They’re a mile away and heading our direction. It doesn’t look like they’re going really fast, or really slow either. I guess just normal highway speed.”

  “Have you seen any other movement outside?”

  “Negative.”

  A lady from the crowd spoke. “We need to make sure they know we’re here. What if they drive by and leave us . . . I don’t want to stay here. Please, let them know we’re in here.” Her words began to trail off into hysterics and sobs.

  “They’ll know we’re here, ma’am. My truck is sitting right outside with the headlights turned on.” Eric keyed the radio, “Thompson, you and Scott need to stay quiet. You’re our ace in the hole if something goes bad, OK?”

  “We’ll be church mice, until the hammer needs dropped.”

  Eric edged up to Michelle. “I’m going outside to flash the lights on my truck when they get close.”

  “We’re both going outside.”

  No reply was necessary, or in Eric’s opinion, would have in any way changed Michelle’s mind; so with a final request for silence, he and Michelle slipped out the door.

  Max immediately stood up in the bed of the truck and swished his tail in low, wide arcs.

  “Hey Max, good boy.” Eric reached over the side of the Dodge and thumped Max on the rib cage. Sliding past, he reached through the open window and turned the key, starting the truck just in case it was needed. As soon as the engine caught, the headlights, no longer dependent on battery power alone, brightened.

  They crouched beside the truck and watched as the twin set of headlights approached. Scott’s voice came through again.

  “OK, it looks like they’re slowing down a little bit . . . yep, they are. The, uh, first one, um . . . I can’t really tell for sure, but maybe it’s longer, like a truck or something. Alright, they stopped about a quarter mile away. The first vehicle is definitely longer . . . these binoculars are hard to use at night, by the way . . . anyway, they’re just sitting there.”

  Michelle picked up her own radio. “Sam, are you in position?”

  “Yeah, I’m just inside the front door . . . I can see the headlights, kind of, from here. Ready and waiting.”

  Michelle nudged Eric’s elbow. “What do you think?”

  His shoulders shrugged in reply. “I don’t know, maybe another RV from the campground?”

  “No matter who it is, we’ve got to make sure they’re not bringing any infected people with them.”

  Scott’s voice came over the radio. “OK, they’re moving again, slowly though.” There was a pause of open aired silence that lasted about fifteen seconds before he spoke again. “they’re slowing do
wn . . . I’ll bet they’re seeing the bodies on the road.”

  Eric craned his neck partway around the side mirror for a better view. Two sets of very bright headlights were angled towards the scattering of bodies they had put down earlier. From the top of the lead vehicle, a bright spotlight clicked on and swiveled towards the closest corpse.

  “Hey,” Scott’s voice pitched up in excitement, “I think that’s a fire truck.” At that moment, the second vehicle cut its wheels and reversed slightly, temporarily illuminating the bright red paint and gold lettering of the front truck. “It is, it’s a fire truck,” Scott exclaimed.

  “Stay below the roofline. Don’t give them an opportunity to see your silhouette any more than necessary,” Michelle keyed the radio, and then turned toward Eric. “What do you want to do?”

  “You tell me.”

  “I think it’s time to reach in and flash your high beams a few times. Let them know that someone is alive.”

  Eric slid his shoulder upwards over the door panel and reached in, flicking the high beam lever several times. Immediately the spotlight on the fire truck swiveled towards them.

  “Thompson . . . Scott, can you make it any more details? Can you tell how many people are in the truck?”

  “Hold on. OK, I can see a guy on top of the lead truck, the fire truck. I guess he’s running the spotlight. I can see some movement inside the cab of the fire truck, but I can’t make out any details. I can’t tell anything about the rear vehicle other than it’s smaller—maybe a pickup or SUV.”

  “We can’t just stay here behind your truck, especially with that big light blinding us. Besides, if there are more of those things out there . . .” Michelle let her sentence trail off. It didn’t need to be finished—they both knew the answer.

  “The Lord watches over angels and fools, right?”

  “Why, are you planning on doing something stupid?” Michelle shook her head as she answered.

  “Not stupid, mathematically calculated.”

  “Eric, you’re an idiot. You failed math twice.”

  “You wouldn’t let me copy your homework,” he smiled as he stood. “Besides, as far as they know, I’m the only one back here. Stay down.”

  Standing up to his full height of almost six and a half feet, Eric slowly crossed his arms above his head in the attention getting, repetitive ‘X” pattern. He noticed through squinted eyes that the spotlight shifted ever so slightly. Good, that’s what he wanted. Sliding to the left took him out of any protective cover, and he took several steps forward. Changing his arm position into the universal football signal for ‘time out’ brought another change. The spotlight darted right, and then back left, from the lake through the parking lot, across the building and out to the road before snapping back on him. He made another ‘time out’motion, and then gradually took the Fish and Wildlife radio off his belt and held it in front of him. No bullets slammed into his body so far—a good sign. Walking slowly, Eric pointed at the radio and then brought his hand up into the pinky and thumb cradle at the side of his face that indicated ‘call me.’ He kept walking across the gravel parking lot, and further to where it met with the pavement near the road. Every ten steps brought a repeat of the ‘call me’ signal. The heavy rumbling of the fire truck’s diesel engine reverberated in the cool night air as he approached the faded white line at the edge of the westbound lane. By his guess, he was now a little over half way. Eric stopped. Pointing again at the radio, he walked a few paces forward and set it directly between the yellow lines, and then reversed direction and headed back. The spotlight followed his progress like a brilliant shadow the entire way.

  “That could have turned to crap very quickly, you know,” Michelle whispered loudly.

  “I know.”

  She mumbled something unintelligible in reply. “Stay hidden, but hand me your radio,” Eric said, lowering his hand toward her.

  The searchlight began a series of deliberate sweeps, overlapping and repeatedly illuminating every area it could reach. Apparently satisfied, the fire truck slowly crept forward, stopping just a few paces from the radio. Again, the bright beam swiveled left and right, blasting the night into daylight for a brief second before moving on.

  As the light continued to search, Scott’s voice came over the radio. “OK, the door to the fire truck is opening.”

  “Shit,” Eric and Michelle muttered at the same time, both of them reaching the same conclusion. “Scott . . . and everybody . . . radio silence. Do not transmit. Listen only.”

  “Maybe they didn’t hear that over the sound of their engine.”

  “Maybe.”

  Still standing behind his pickup, Eric took a breath and keyed the button. “Attention fire truck, attention, fire truck. Please pick up the radio I have left for you so we can communicate. Repeat, please pick up the radio so we can communicate.”

  The glare of the spotlight prevented him from seeing the exact action, but he noted a disturbance in the shadows cast by the fire engine’s headlights as a figure darted in and retrieved the radio.

  After a slow count to five, he repeated his broadcast. The reply came back immediately. “This is Richland Fire and Rescue, we copy. Repeat, this is Richland Fire and Rescue, what is your status?”

  Michelle reached up from her crouched position and laid a hand on the outside of Eric’s thigh. “Be very general for right now, OK?”

  “OK.” He paused for a moment, and then keyed the radio. “Fire and rescue, this is marina. Our status is currently stable. What are your intentions?”

  The radio remained mute for almost a minute before the answer came back. “Marina, is anybody sick at your location,” the space of two quiet heartbeats passed before the voice finished, “anybody at all?”

  “Negative. All of our personal are showing no signs of infection. What about you?”

  “Also negative. Can we do a face to face?”

  Michelle tapped him on the leg. “Get his name first. Find out how many people he’s got with him. They may say they’re not infected, but the less exposure we have, the better off we’ll be.”

  “Fire and rescue, this is Eric Coleman. Who am I speaking to?”

  “This is Lieutenant Wayne King of the Richland Fire and Rescue.”

  “Lieutenant King, how many personnel do you have with you?”

  Silence filled the airwaves for a solid thirty seconds before the answer came back. “Mr. Coleman, we are fully staffed on board the pumper truck, and in the RRV. Why?”

  “I don’t think he liked that question, Eric.”

  “Do you know how many firemen are normally on one of those trucks?”

  Michelle shook her head. “No, and what’s an ‘RRV?’”

  “Rural rescue vehicle. It’s kind of like a cross between an ambulance and a Humvee, with a little bit of pickup truck thrown in as well. You’ve seen them before.”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t know they were called RRV’s.”

  “Repeat, Mr. Coleman. We are fully staffed. How many personnel are at the marina?”

  “Lieutenant King, we are currently sheltering over twenty civilians, but are rapidly running out of resources. We have been able to repel several incursions so far, but our main light source is not functioning. Do you have enough personnel to keep your searchlight running while we do a face to face?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Come to the side door. I’ll wait for you.”

  “10-4.”

  “Stay down until he gets to the door. I’ll call you once I’m sure that everything is on the up and up. I imagine there’s a lot of itchy trigger fingers out there, mine included.”

  Michelle hefted her Glock, “Be safe.”

  “Always.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  A few moments later, a pair of men crunched across the gravel toward Eric, now standing at the side door of the marina. They were both wearing what appeared to be the standard protective gear of fire and rescue personnel, and both were armed. Black rifles
on single point slings were held ready as they closed the distance. From behind, the searchlight scoured back and forth across the area. A dozen paces away the men stopped. Both were average height, but the man on the left was built fairly thick, and sported a dark brown beard and mustache. The clean shaven man shifted his rifle to one hand, and shined the light of a heavy flashlight toward Eric, noting the patches and insignia on his duty jacket.

  “Why didn’t you mention that you were a law enforcement officer, Mr. Coleman?”