Apocalypse Atlanta

by Rogers, David

  As he drove, a small portion of his attention was listening to the radio, as the disc jockey, an outdated term that had nothing to do with what the person did now, but one that hadn’t been retitled, struggled to keep up with the flood of news on this extraordinary day. The voice that normally had a wry note of amusement as he told listeners about some bit of trivia related to the classic rock band just played that die hard fans had known for decades, or who announced which band was touring with half their original members and coming to town, was now reading down a list of hospitals that were still accepting emergencies in an almost monotone.

  “–edmont Hospital, and all Emory facilities except the one on Crawford Long Drive. Officials are urging everyone to follow the CDC guidelines issued a little while ago, and avoid all contact with anyone who appears to be suffering from this disease or risk injury to yourself or the victim. Officials continue to urge everyone with wounds or injuries that are self-treatable to do so and avoid coming going to the hospital, as every facility in the city is becoming overwhelmed with patients.”

  Peter eyed the oncoming lane, then gunned the engine and pulled around a minivan that was traveling the speed limit; cutting back into his lane less than five seconds before the compact car went past in the opposite direction with a blaring horn. He glanced at the GPS, then scowled as he saw the turn he would soon be forced to make that would require him to drive south for almost a mile before he could resume a more westerly direction.

  “Back to the schools, parents if you haven’t heard yet, you need to pay attention to this. All schools, public and private, elementary, middle and high, are closed due to the overwhelming number of victims that seem to be kids. Those kids who are not sick are being held somewhere on or near the school grounds until someone comes to claim them. If your kids are not at the school or at whatever designated evacuation area is listed in your child’s student handbook, then there’s supposed to be someone from the school there who will tell you where they are.”

  “Now, back to traffic, and there’s a lot of it today. I’m going to run through the major snags again, and the known alternate routes to get around them. If you’re just now getting in the car, I gotta warn you the interstates are completely unusable in most of the city. Okay, starting with–”

  Peter saw a figure lurching out into the road less than a hundred feet ahead. He slammed on the brakes, his mind too paralyzed by shock and surprise to remember to pump them to avoid locking the tires. Rubber burned and squealed on the asphalt as the GTO shuddered into the earliest stage of a fishtail, which he quickly corrected before it caused him to lose control.

  The person in the road never looked at him, never seemed to notice the car hurtling towards them, as he desperately swerved right; moving the muscle car half off the road and into the grassy shoulder. It wasn’t going to be enough, he saw at the last second.

  The right front corner of the GTO exploded through a mailbox, fortunately a cheap wooden one that was simply pounded into the ground on its own little stake, rather than one of the more substantial decorative brick ones, or one that had been set into concrete on a sturdy four by four post. Almost immediately after the mailbox, Peter saw the left side of the bumper slam into the pedestrian. The impact seemed to happen in slow motion, as he clung to the steering wheel with his mouth open in horror.

  First the head seemed to roll suddenly toward him, as the body was moved in the direction the car was going, still at forty miles per hour despite the brakes. Then the person was lifted and sent hurtling forward at an angle, spinning with arms and legs flying uncontrollably.

  Peter just had time to think “oh sh–” before he saw the figure slam into the windshield of the SUV in the oncoming lane. He pulled further off the road, hitting another mailbox, though this one only snapped off and was rolled beneath the car with a few thumps and bumps. The GTO felt for a few moments like it wanted to swerve and get loose, but he corrected automatically and kept the car from sliding out.

  When he managed to bring the GTO to a halt, Peter clung to the steering wheel for several long seconds, listening to his pulse beating a tattoo in his ears as he drew heavy breaths. Then he turned and looked over his shoulder. The SUV had come to a stop almost in the middle of the road, and he heard a woman screaming hysterically. There was no traffic coming in his lane, so he set the brake, then opened his door, popped his seatbelt, and ran for the SUV.

  When he drew near, he saw the windshield was completely caved in, with a pair of legs sticking out and lying on the hood. Stopping at the driver’s door, he wrenched it open and blinked in shock. The upper half of the pedestrian’s body was lying in the seat. It was a man, perhaps seventy or seventy five years old. His neck was at an angle that just looked wrong, and Peter knew instantly the man’s spine was broken.

  Feeling sick about it, Peter looked at the driver. She was sitting behind the steering wheel panting heavily, her face white with terror as her breath whistled in and out between clenched teeth. There were shards of safety glass in her hair and stuck to her blouse from the broken windshield. Her eyes were darting around with a jerky motion. She seemed to not be able to decide what to look at.

  It was obvious in an instant she was not dealing well with what had just happened. To be fair, Peter wasn’t entirely sure how well he would handle having a person just suddenly appear and crash through the windshield of his car with such abruptness. The woman’s head was moving a little in time with her eyes, tracing a circuit from where the windshield had been to the man’s body in the passenger seat, over and over, so Peter surmised she didn’t have a spinal injury of her own.

  Reaching out, he grabbed her by the shoulder and shook her. “Are you okay?” he said loudly. She stopped panting; but her head didn’t stop its circuit. Peter shook her harder. “Ma’am?”

  Finally she responded, turning to look at him with wide, unblinking eyes. “What happened?” She whispered.

  “You’ve been in a car accident.” Peter said as gently as he could. “Are you okay?”

  “I think so.” she said. “What happened?”

  Peter realized she was in, at least mild, shock. He shook his head and hit the button on her seatbelt, then tugged her from the vehicle. As he pulled her out, he saw the man, the pedestrian, blink his eyes and fix them immediately on Peter and the driver.

  “Shit!” Peter blurted, stumbling back and only barely remembering to keep a grip on the woman. She sagged against him as he pulled her out of the vehicle, and he got his hands under her arms to keep her from collapsing to the asphalt before looking in amazement at the zombie.

  It had to be a zombie. Surely nothing else that was, or that had used to be, human would still be . . . whatever the zombie was right now after having gone through the windshield.

  He noted, almost immediately once he was paying attention, that the skin of the man’s face and neck was pale and white, and not from a lack of sun. It looked just like Amy’s had. There were also cuts on his face, but Peter now saw none of them seemed to be doing more than oozing the barest hint of blood.

  Yes, the neck was broken. He could clearly see a bumpy angle that foretold of a snapped spine. Yet the man’s eyes were open, and he was watching Peter and the woman with a now sickeningly familiar air of rapt attention. Other than the eyes, the zombie wasn’t moving.

  “Jesus Christ, are you two okay?” Peter heard from his left, and he turned to see a luxury sedan stopped just short of the SUV. A man wearing a suit was standing next to the car, behind his open door, and staring from them to the windshield of the SUV where the legs still protruded.

  “I’m fine, but I think she’s in shock.” Peter said, shaking his head again and turning to the man. He hefted the woman in his arms and sort of dragged her sideways, her feet not really doing more than scraping along the asphalt, as he approached the passerby. “She doesn’t seem hurt, physically.”

  “Fuck, what happened?” The man was still staring at the SUV. He seemed fascinated by the half of a per
son he could see draped across the hood.

  “That guy walked out into the road.” Peter said, deciding to go with the shortest version that might stop the questions long enough for him to get back under way. “Can you look after her for me?”

  “Why?” the man said, suddenly switching his gaze over to Peter. “Where are you going?”

  Peter reached the man’s car and leaned the woman against the hood. As she slumped against it, still looking dazed, Peter jabbed a thumb at his fatigues. “I’ve got to report to my unit.”

  “You’re going to leave?”

  “Orders.” Peter said with a shrug, taking his hands off the woman and letting them hover as he waited to see if she was going to fall over. She seemed able to stay mostly upright with the car as support, so he stepped back and pointed at the SUV. “The guy, there, the one half in and half out of the car?”

  “Is he dead?” the man asked, still sounding a little annoyed that Peter was apparently not going to stick around.

  “I don’t know.” Peter answered truthfully, thinking of what the doctor had told him about Amy, and what he’d just seen as a person with a broken neck showed no sign of pain or shock and remained seemingly conscious.

  “How can you not know?”

  “You been listening to the radio?” Peter demanded abruptly. “The teevee? Anything? You know what’s happening today?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  Peter pointed again. “He’s one of them. A victim, a disease victim. Don’t go near him, at all. Just leave the car there, leave him alone. Get her somewhere, I don’t know. See if she’ll tell you where she lives, or take her home with you. Whatever you do, don’t leave her here.”

  “You’re leaving her with me?” the man said, his annoyance obviously growing.

  Peter drew a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and gave the man the same look he’d perfected for use on Marines who complained at being assigned fatigue detail or some other task they didn’t want to do. “I’m a United States Marine, and there’s a goddamn emergency. I need to report to my unit. You will put this woman in your car and take her with you until you have a safe place to leave her. Do you understand?” he barked.

  The man regarded him hesitantly, and a few moments passed. Peter lost his patience and took a step as if he were going to come around the car at the driver. The man threw up his hands. “Okay, okay. It’s just, I mean, a lot to deal with.”

  “Take care of her.” Peter repeated, giving him another dose of the look before turning and jogging back to the GTO. He took a moment to examine the front of the still idling car, but other than the right headlight being destroyed, and some dents in the bumper and grill, the car looked okay.

  Sliding back behind the wheel, Peter revved the engine experimentally and eyed the gauges. Nothing was showing trouble, and he shut the door and rebuckled his seatbelt before glancing behind him. The man was at the front of his car with the woman, just getting her off the hood. Peter waited a moment, and saw the man start around to the passenger side of his car. Nodding absently, Peter pulled back out onto the road and resumed his meandering track through the north Atlanta suburbs towards Marietta.

  * * * * *

  Darryl

  Darryl’s head turned when the clubhouse door opened again. Dogz had been trickling in for the last half hour, well Dogz and some extra people, but this time he finally saw Bobo’s form filling the doorway. He paused there, just inside the door, looking around at the people in the clubhouse, before catching Darryl’s eye.

  Straightening up, Darryl grabbed his current beer and the empty from the one before that and headed for Bobo. The older man pointed at the television room. Darryl grimaced, but headed that way. Bobo beat him to the doorway, and stood looking at the crowd of kids who were clustered around the two game consoles. Both were running fighting games, and the noise level was high as the kids reacted to the on-screen violence with cheerful enthusiasm.

  “Bobo, maybe we should talk outside?” Darryl suggested after a couple of seconds.

  Bobo glanced back at him, then into the room again, before sighing audibly. “Yeah. Out back though.”

  Surprised, Darryl followed Bobo over to the back door, and outside. About thirty feet from the house was a large fire pit. The shallow depression had been dug down about eighteen inches below ground level and encircled with stones to a diameter of four feet. Scattered around the pit very haphazardly were lawn chairs, some barely holding together while others looked newer and more sturdy. Bobo grabbed one of the newer ones and dropped down into it.

  “How many kids here now?” Bobo asked without preamble, before Darryl had even had time to do more than glance around for a chair of his own.

  “Man, I ain’t kept no count.” Darryl shrugged. “Maybe ten so far.”

  “Shit.” Bobo said, shaking his head. “You look at the news yet?”

  “Naw, I been keeping an eye on the front door like you said. Plus the kids stay out of trouble when they busy playing the games, so . . .” he shrugged again.

  “Look. Sit down, I need you to listen to me.”

  Darryl moved one of the chairs to face Bobo’s and sat down. His beer he set on the ground nearby, but the empty he’d brought as an ashtray he nestled in the cup holder on the arm.

  “You listening?” Bobo asked.

  “Shit Bobo, I’m fucking listening.” Darryl said, annoyed. Bobo was acting like he was one of the kids, rather than pushing towards forty.

  “Okay, here the thing.” Bobo said, ignoring Darryl’s frown. “You know I been overseas in the Army, right?” Darryl nodded. “Lot of places in the world ain’t got the kind of infrastructure and services we take for granted here in the States.

  “Been around when all sorts of fucked up diseases broke out and washed over everyone in the area, things we only read about in books here. Shit like cholera and malaria, and other things that make them look like a case of the sniffles.”

  “Yeah, we lucky.” Darryl shrugged, dropping his finished cigarette in the ash can and pulling out his pack.

  “I think our luck done run the fuck out.”

  Darryl paused, fresh cigarette poking out of the pack and halfway to his lips, eyeing his brother Dog. “What that mean?”

  “You just been chilling, but I kept up on the news on the way out here. Whatever this is, it bad and getting worse by the minute. I think they already lost control of it, they just don’t know it yet.”

  “What do you mean, lost control?”

  Bobo grimaced and leaned forward. “They’re trying to deal with this like it a normal disease, just isolate everyone and wait for doctors or whoever to figure out how to treat it.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Well, I’m thinking that ain’t gonna work.”

  Darryl didn’t snort, but he did stick his fresh smoke in his mouth and traded the pack for his Zippo. “Man–”

  “I’m serious.” Bobo insisted.

  “Yeah, I see that.” Darryl nodded, lighting his cigarette and drawing on it deeply before snapping the cap down on the lighter. “This only been going for a couple hours now. How come you’re so sure its gonna be so bad?” Darryl paused. “Hold up–how bad you saying it gonna be?”

  “Bad, real bad. Like everything collapse and the end of everything bad.”

  Now Darryl did snort, not quite in derision, but definitely with a strong dose of dismissiveness. “You totally tripping.”

  “Not even.” Bobo shook his head. “Let’s go look at the news. Better, pull that fucking fancy ass phone of yours out and look at the headlines.”

  “So tell me how you figure it gonna be the end of days or whatever.”

  “They running out of police and ambulances to send into downtown. Hospitals are turning away anyone who ain’t sick with this thing, or hurt real bad from a regular sort of accident. The governor calling up the military and starting to deploy them, they ain’t even waiting for full units to show up. They just grabbing anyone wearing a uniform and throwing t
hem out to start trying to help.”

  “Sounds like they just taking shit serious.” Darryl shrugged. He ashed his cigarette over to the side, away from his chair, then dragged on it again. “For a change.” he added, thinking of all the things that so called ‘leaders’ in American argued about instead of just getting on with fixing.

  “Yeah, they taking it serious, but they already losing.”

  “Now we back to how you know that when they don’t. You out here chilling with me, they in the capitol dome or wherever with information we ain’t got.”

  “Damnit!” Bobo said sharply, then stopped and took a deep breath. “Look, call it a hunch if you want, but things about to get bad and I think we ought to be ready.”

  “So what’s ready mean?” Darryl asked, trying to sound conversational instead of skeptical.

  “We need to keep an eye on what’s going on around here, for starters.” Bobo said. “No strangers, no one we don’t know good.”

  “It ain’t like we ever had much of a problem with walk ins.” Darryl pointed out.

  “Yeah, but if brothers go thinking this is some big ass party weekend, they’re gonna start inviting folks in that could cause problems.”

  “Okay, fine. I’ll help you pass the word around. This a Dogz weekend, only Dogz and family and close buds.”

  Bobo looked like he wanted to argue with the phrasing, but he nodded tightly after a few moments. “And we gonna need to lay in some supplies.”

  “We fixed pretty good right now.” Darryl shrugged. “I mean, we probably need to do another beer run tomorrow, but that ain’t nothing new.” There were already nearly twenty Dogz at the clubhouse, and if every member of the club turned up they’d have nearly fifty on hand. Figuring probably about a twelve pack per Dog just for tonight, yeah another beer run would be needed, possibly tonight. He wondered if maybe they should send a few guys out to pick up a keg.