During one of our reconnaissance missions into the jungle, we witnessed a small village become afflicted with one of Africa’s infamous strains of Ebola. As men and women fell ill, surrounding tribes did their best to quarantine and isolate themselves from it; but as the disease spread and killed with quick and cold precision, the remaining unafflicted peoples took action, burning homes and even entire villages in an effort to contain the deadly infection. We wanted desperately to intervene; however, all we could do was sit idly by and watch as the chaos unraveled.
The area that Richard and I walked was eerily silent; come to think of it, I don’t even think we heard so much as a lonely cricket chirping in the distance. That thought made me once again think of my wife. Why, you ask? Well, I’ll tell ya. My wife, the little four-foot-nine powerhouse that she is, was deathly afraid of crickets, not grass hoppers, not spiders or snakes. Her biggest fear in this entire Earth, aside from being abducted by aliens and shot face first into the red planet, was crickets. I know it’s irrational, but it’s true. She grew up in an area around Georgia where to hear her speak of the insect, they were the size of Mac Trucks, sported fangs, and carried 9 mm handguns. Anytime we were outside tending the lawn or weeding the garden during the summer months, I would give it almost exactly ten minutes before I would have to go and rescue her from the evil little buggers.
The sounds of gunfire erupted in the distance, bringing me back to the here and now, snapping my mind to the present like a taut rubber band. I exchanged knowing glances with Richard. If there was gunfire then almost certainly, Homeland’s attempt to quell this disease had most likely failed. Unless we were lucky, and it was just your good old-fashioned, run-of-the-mill, Baltimore-style violence.
As if we had been choreographed by Paula Abdul herself, Richard and I simultaneously checked our sidearms. We continued to walk the remainder of the devastated roadway, navigating our way around charred hubcaps and fenders, and headed for the adjoining town surrounding the airport and directly toward the sounds of battle. I wasn’t sure what would be worse, infected crazed people, or another run in with Homeland. At least as far as I could tell, the infected didn’t shoot rockets at you. I shrugged whatever was going on lay directly in our path, and we would have to deal with it one way or another.
Chapter 14
Marvin stepped through a door leading into the gas station’s adjoining garage. The smell of old oil and gasoline flooded Marvin’s olfactory senses, bringing back memories of sitting in his father’s garage as a kid. The room was small, only set up to handle at most four vehicles at a time from the looks of things. Dim light permeated the area through windows situated in heavy garage doors illuminating an old dusty blue Dodge Charger. The car set atop a hydraulic lift in the garage’s center. It appeared as if some bodywork was being done to the old car as patches of primer were visible among the remnants of blue paint.
Marvin swept the area with the shotgun, making certain that nothing was going to come barreling out at him from behind one of the large, red and silver tool boxes that lined the gray cement block walls. When all seemed normal—well, as normal as things were going to get in this situation—Marvin turned and shut the entryway to the storefront. Securing the door, Marvin searched the area until he found a workbench residing in the far corner of the shop.
He approached the bench and set the strange case atop its surface, knocking over coffee cans full of loose nuts and bolts, sending the fragments of metal scattering to the cement floor. Ignoring the noise, he leaned his shotgun against the workbench’s side and studied the dented case’s exterior, trying to figure the best way to gain access to it. Looking it over, he noticed the hinges that held the lid in place were recessed and impossible to jimmy open by simply popping out the pins that held them together. That would be too easy, he thought, scowling. However, the small cracked LCD screen had just enough space along the panel’s edge to perhaps fit a small tool into and pry it away from the case’s bent edge. At least the rocket that had struck his truck had been good for something; Marvin doubted seriously that if it wasn’t for the humongous dent on the top of the case, the panel would have absolutely no flaws in its security, period.
Marvin stepped off to the side and began to rummage through one of the toolboxes until he found a small flathead screwdriver and a pair of needle-nosed pliers. Smiling, he stepped back over to the workbench. Leaning down, he inserted the edge of the screwdriver between the infinitesimal gaps surrounding the LCD screen and gently worked it up and down, and side to side, until he felt the satisfying pop of the panel’s retaining pins. Using the pliers to grasp the LCD’s edge, he gingerly pulled it away from its housing, taking care not to sever any of the leads that connected it to the circuit board that lie beneath.
Marvin wiped sweat away from his forehead that threatened to run into his eyes. He smiled, reminded of the days he used to disarm bombs in very much the same way he was working this lock. Of course, the technology had changed, a lot, but the premise was still pretty much the same. From what he figured, if he could locate the panel’s main power supply, the one that powered the LCD and the biometric scanner, and somehow manage to overload it even if for the slightest of moments, it may just complete the circuit in similar fashion as if someone had actually placed the correct appendage to it. It was only a theory, of course, but it was all he had lest he wanted to try drilling into it for several hours, which, by the sounds of things in the store, he didn’t figure he’d have that long. The sounds of the infected’s assault on the door seemed to intensify as if more were drawn to the noise that their brethren were making.
Marvin followed the lead wires until he located what he perceived to be the main power conduit. Red was always the obvious choice on these types of things, he thought, drawing on his demolitions experience. Using the needle-nosed pliers he had obtained, he snipped the red wire in twain. He looked around the workshop until he found a small length of generic speaker wire; this he would use to connect to some sort of power source. He would need to find a way to regulate the incoming power, or he could risk completely frying the circuit, which would then render the mechanism useless. He would also, in turn, have to connect the thumbprint scanner into the circuit, crossing the leads to complete the connection. He wasn’t quite certain if this would work, but he figured, what the hell? If anything else, he could always resort to plan B and simply nail the thing with a hammer until he could pry the fucking thing open.
Marvin used the pliers to strip away the plastic sheath on the speaker wire, exposing the copper beneath. He found what looked like a charging cord for an electric drill and snipped the head of the cable off, figuring the adapter at least would regulate the power to a low nine volts, a bit less than if he were to plug this thing up to a car battery. Marvin snipped the lead connecting the biometric scanner, spliced the cabling into the speaker wire, and subsequently infused that wire with the power relay and the adapter cord.
Marvin stood poised to plug the adapter in when a loud crash reverberated from within the store. The bastards managed to get in, he thought. The sounds of shelving units and product hitting the floor as the mass of crazed people stumbling about could be heard in the relative quiet of the garage bay. Marvin looked down and made certain his shotgun was still within easy reach; he’d been moving around the workshop so much he had all but forgotten where he’d set it exactly. It rested right where he had left it, propped against the workbench that he now used.
Marvin jumped as the first of the infected slammed into the door, as if they could sense him somehow inside of the room. That’s not possible, Marvin thought. Had they seen him come in here? No, they couldn’t have between all the crap in front of the door. There was absolutely no way they could have known where he’d disappeared to. The pounding on the garage door’s entryway grew more and more insistent as if more of the infected were following suit. Figuring he didn’t have much time, Marvin thrust the power adapter into the wall. Sparks showered the concrete floor, and the smell o
f burning metal fumed into the air with slight wisps of white smoke. To Marvin’s surprise, the locking mechanism actually disengaged, and the case popped open. “Holy shit, it actually worked,” Marvin said with amazement. He quickly yanked the power cord from the wall plate as the silicon circuit board began to sizzle, as if about to catch fire.
The door to the garage began to shudder with each resounding impact as the infected waged war upon it. The frame began to splinter under their assault.
Marvin jerked opened the case. These assholes would be through the door any minute now, and he wanted to get this shit done and bug out before they made it inside. He cast a quick glance over at the garage’s bay doors and hoped against hope these things had not managed to figure out that it led in here. Marvin peered into the case, a simple manila folder set in its center, stamped with the seal of Homeland Security and marked “Classified” in large red print across its surface. A small flash drive set off to one corner of the case secured in by what looked like a Velcro strap. Marvin threw off his backpack, let it rest atop the workbench, and fumbled with the zipper. He opened the bag, then snatched up the flash drive and the contents of the folder, and tossed them unceremoniously inside and resecured the zipper. He didn’t have the time to look at the folder’s contents here; he wondered briefly if he even should, then shook off the thought, knowing that he damn well should look at it being they just blew up half a city block trying to get at it.
Marvin shouldered the pack, grabbed his shotgun, and moved his way across the garage to the bay doors. He cringed as he pushed the up button located on the wall next to the door. The bay doors slowly began to rise; the sound of the garage door opener and chain seemed to scream in his ears as the infected on the other side of the door worked themselves into a frenzy, like piranha’s sensing prey as it entered the water. As soon as the door was at an acceptable level, Marvin quickly clambered underneath just as the doorway adjoining the storefront burst outward. About six infected stumbled over one another into the garage at first, looking lost and confused, until one spotted Marvin making his getaway, and then the six men and women seemed to polarize onto his position.
“Shit,” Marvin spat and racked a round into the chamber of his newly acquired, albeit antique-looking, Winchester shotgun. He pumped his aching legs as fast as they could take him and turned opening fire on the first of the infected to stumble through the doorway. The scattershot caught the man dressed in a ball cap and torn Orioles baseball shirt center mass, virtually blowing apart his ribcage—sending bits of bone and deep viscous red blood spraying into the mass of infected beyond. Amazingly, the son-of-a-bitch kept coming. Marvin racked the slide again, ejecting the plastic shell and sent it clattering to the gray asphalt while simultaneously loading another round.
He adjusted his aim slightly and pulled the trigger once more. This round went a little high, blowing the top of the Oriole fan’s ball cap laden head off. The man fell to the ground in a heap, tripping up the remaining infected behind him. Marvin retrieved another round from his pocket and slammed it into the weapon as he ejected the spent cartridge. He knew looking at the old nineteenth-century shotgun there was not a snowball’s chance in hell that he could hold off the remaining five having to load each individual round into the weapon. Man, he wished he had his Mossberg, but he had sent that out with Kyle, thinking that he was safe and sound in his nice armored fortress. “Yeah, that lasted long,” he muttered to himself.
Turning around, Marvin limped his way on bad knees to a derelict Chevy Nova parked at the gas pump, hose still situated in the tank. He walked around the car as the infected began making their way back to their feet, seemingly unsure of how to do the action. He glanced inside the window, hoping that there were keys or something still within the confines of the old car that he could use to get as far away from this place as he possibly could. After a brief search, he came up empty.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” he hissed as he aimed the shotgun once more and opened fire on another infected that had managed to get too close. This one, a young teenage boy, fell to the space in between the store and the gas pumps; the others sidestepped the corpse and kept coming. Marvin ejected the spent casing and loaded another round. He couldn’t keep this up for long, he thought as he glanced at his surroundings and noticed another ten or so infected-looking people cresting over a hilltop to his rear.
“Holy shit!” he shouted, knowing if he didn’t do something, he was completely and utterly screwed. Where in the hell were they all coming from? he thought. Only a few short hours had passed since this all began on the highway; he wondered briefly if all of these people had managed to escape the blast, fleeing from it like cockroaches from light. He wasn’t quite sure how many souls were on the highway that he had previously occupied, but with the amount of gridlocked cars, he had to assume it was upward of a thousand or so people. Marvin looked around frantically for another avenue of escape; he knew he wouldn’t be able to run for long or even far for that matter. Damn artificial leg.
Funny, he thought, when he had received the implant, he imagined he would be like the Six Million Dollar Man. He had even joked with his wife while he was in physical therapy, making the “ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch” sound effect from the show as he moved his legs, learning how to use the implant, but unfortunately for him, nothing could be further from the truth. In all honesty, he was fairly certain that his knees ached more now than they ever had before.
“Gotta love tech . . .” his voice trailed off as he noticed a nearby cell phone tower hidden on the opposite side of the gas station, in a small copse of trees. He would have to make it somehow past the remaining four infected that were still approaching him, but he figured even on his weak old bones he could manage a short sprint and outrun them, at least he hoped. Marvin fired another round into the advancing group, not particularly aiming but using the scattershot to knock them back a step or two and slow them down a bit to buy himself a small measure of time.
Marvin slammed in another round and took off like a bat out of hell, or at least he thought it was like a bat out of hell. In all actuality, though, it was more like a turtle out of purgatory, but he still miraculously managed to slip past the remaining infected. He made a beeline for the dumpster corral positioned aside the gas station, slipping through a chain-link fence that had green strips of plastic running through its links, and scrambled to the top of the dumpster. The cell tower lay just beyond up and over a small wooden fence.
The infected had turned toward his direction and found him within the enclosure; one of the bastards caught the heel of his boot and tried to grab him. Marvin kicked out and watched as skin literally peeled away from the older woman’s scalp; her hair and skin fell away to the pavement with a wet slap. Marvin recoiled, clambering back away from the woman as she continued to claw at him, not even noticing that her grizzled skull was now exposed to the elements. Marvin backed into the wooden fence that the dumpster had been sitting against. He turned his body and latched onto the top of the fence with the palms of his hands, and hefted himself up. The cell tower lay just five or so feet away. He glanced over his shoulder, taking notice that the other infected, who had joined their little party, had managed to slip in rather quickly.
Marvin’s pulse quickened as one of the infected attempted to climb the dumpster. It failed, and then tried again. It was only a matter of time until it actually made it to the top and came within biting distance. Marvin took a deep breath and jumped over the fence, landing hard at the base of the cell tower. He pulled himself to his feet as another two infected made their way around an opening in the fencing.
“How did I not see that?” Marvin cursed. “I’m getting too old for this shit,” he stated as he reached for the utility ladder and began his long ascent. By the time Marvin had reached the first maintenance platform, he had drawn quite the crowd; his arms and legs ached from the constant assertion. He pulled himself up and over the landing’s railing and found that there was just enough room for him to sit if
he dangled his legs over the edge. He sat down hard, panting like a dog, while sweat seeped from every pore of his body. Marvin pulled off his backpack and rested it on his legs. He retrieved a Lexan water bottle from the pack, popped the top, and took a long pull on the lukewarm liquid. He wiped the sweat from his eyes and looked down on the massing horde of infected that gathered at the base of the cell tower, roughly a hundred or so feet below. Marvin cleared his throat and spat a massive ball of phlegm onto one of the onlookers’ upturned faces. It didn’t seem to mind as the grotesque ball of yellowed snot dripped down its face and mingled with its own nasal secretions. He heard them making strange keening noises below, formless mutterings and guttural growls almost like animals.
“What the fucking hell is wrong with you people?” The old man spat again, this time unable to work up a good projectile from his lungs. He took another sip of water, the tepid liquid sliding down his throat doing little to quell the adrenalin fueled thirst that brewed within.
Exhaustion began to set in as his body’s defense mechanisms relaxed, and his chemically induced stamina ebbed and faded away. The remembrance of battle fatigue from his glory days in Nam flooded his memories. He knew it well, and they were old friends you could say. He also remembered the warnings of succumbing to such afflictions while on your post could often be met with dire consequences.
Dead Pulse Rising: A Zombie Novel Page 15
