No Shelter: Book 3 in the Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Survival Series: (Zero Hour - Book 3)

by Justin Bell

  As she turned another corner and prepared herself for the slight incline, she tried to remember what he’d said…the joke he’d told that made it all seem so much more innocuous.

  She couldn’t remember.

  The fast-paced rock song in her headphones abruptly halted as she rounded a cul-de-sac at the top of the gradual hill and began working her way back down.

  “We interrupt your morning music for an urgent news bulletin…” Priscilla narrowed her eyes as her pace slowed. Without music, she ran naturally slower, but the seriousness of the woman’s voice in her ear brought her pause. “Details are still uncertain at this time, but reports are coming out of Boston of a series of localized disasters, many of which involving aircraft. At least three aircraft collisions and/or crashes are being reported deep in the city with rumors that the Hancock building has collapsed and fires are currently raging.”

  “My God,” Priscilla whispered, slowing to a sluggish trot.

  “We have not confirmed all of these reports, though amateur footage has already begun circling on social media showing widespread devastation throughout the capital of Massachusetts. We are hearing of similar reports out of Hartford, Connecticut, but again, these reports must be considered unconfirmed at this time. If the reports are accurate, signs would certainly indicate a possible coordinated attack against the United States, but we are still waiting for all of the facts to come in.”

  Priscilla’s eyes widened and she surged forward, running swiftly down the sidewalk, turning right onto a road that cut through the neighborhood just next to hers. Sliding right, she skipped through a backyard, not really caring if anyone saw her, and feeling happy that nobody back here had any fenced in areas. Slipping beside a new swing set she pushed herself faster, feet pattering on grass, then pavement again, then grass, and she looked left, into the houses as she ran, not seeing much in the way of activity. Off in the near distance she thought she might have actually heard a scream.

  Turning left, she cut between two houses and less than three minutes later was approaching her driveway, running at full speed, feeling a sudden need to see Rick, to talk to her husband, to make sure he was okay, and make sure he knew she was okay. The door was unlocked, as it often was and she flung it open, bursting inside.

  “Rick, have you seen the news?” she screamed before she was even fully inside the house. Jogging through the entryway, she emerged in the living room, opening her mouth to call out again, but the words caught in her stretched throat. “Rick?” she coughed.

  She saw her husband there on the floor, his muscles clenched, his eyes bulging, one hand of fingers reaching toward her, grasping at nothing. The other fingers were clutching at his throat, blood streaked from his lips and over his chin, his normally brown mustache a strange, dirty rust color. His cheeks were pale, almost as white as the non-existent snow outside, and the look in his eyes was of abject terror.

  “Rick!” Priscilla screamed, charging toward him, reaching for his neck, knowing the signs of being unable to breath, but having no idea what was causing it. Her medical instincts kicked in, even as she knew she had arrived too late, and in fact even if she’d been in the house when it happened there may have been nothing she could have done. His mouth opened and he tried to breathe, but it came out as a choking gasp, and then he coughed again, and thick clumps of dark tissue burst from his lips, sending Priscilla scrambling back, tears stinging her eyes, fogging her vision.

  “Rick, don’t give up sweetie,” she pleaded, but she knew right then and there whatever was going to happen in the next two minutes, it didn’t matter how hard her husband fought, there would be no victory. Not today, and not ever. This battle was over before it had even really begun.

  ***

  Priscilla wasn’t sure how she didn’t shriek when she awoke from her spotty sleep, but somehow she’d kept the scream in her throat. The hard metal floor of the truck dug into her back, her shoulder twisted and angled up on the wheel well underneath the fiberglass cap of the old Ford pickup. Underneath, the pavement roared as they drove, her eyes still blurred with tears that she’d apparently shed while she was sleeping.

  She’d been trying not to think of Rick too much in the past few days since she’d found him, but that had been nearly impossible. They’d been married for twelve years, he’d been her best friend as well as her husband and had shared all of her triumphs, and all of her defeats. They hadn’t been two people, they’d been two halves of one organism, a symbiotic pair, and when she saw him, convulsing on the floor, it was like half of her was being ripped away, leaving jagged, open wounds in its place.

  Her heart hammered as she pushed herself upright, her thoughts going from Rick to Bonnie, to Beth, to Kate. She honestly didn’t know if Bonnie was even alive at this point, but she feared the worst. Feared the worst for her sister and for her sister’s entire family. Bonnie’s three kids had been the absolute world to her, and part of Priscilla hoped she’d died before she saw what happened to them. Because she knew it had happened to them. Somehow she knew.

  Although she was still breathing, still seemingly okay, she’d spent twenty-four hours after Rick’s death going door-to-door in her small town and finding horror after horror. She estimated that ninety percent of the inhabitants of her town had died instantly, almost all at the exact same time and almost all of the exact same cause.

  A vicious sudden liquefying of the lungs. A whole and total genetic disintegration of their basic respiratory system. She’d even checked the family practice, knowing what she’d find. Beth had gotten to work early that morning and was laying prone next to the nurse’s station, a splash of dark crimson spewed all over the false wood panel of the counter. Kate hadn’t quite gotten there yet, she’d been running late apparently, but Priscilla found her behind the wheel of her old Buick, the hood dented against a power pole, the woman slumped over the steering wheel, unmoving. Pris didn’t know if she’d died of the mystery illness or of the collision, but she was dead just the same.

  Her entire world was a strange black and white haze of unreality, this strange, plodding existence where she roamed the streets of the only town she’d known for the past fifteen years and went from house to house, seeing dead body after dead body.

  Some had survived. Some had survived and had banded together, swearing to figure out what was going on and to provide security for whatever was left. She’d hid from them mostly, trying to avoid them and trying not to cross their paths, especially as they armed up with weapons and started to roam the streets looking for food and fuel. It had only been thirty-six hours since it had all began, and she could already see the wild animal in their eyes, the fear and thirst and crazed instinct. Priscilla wanted no part of it.

  Jackson’s group had been the first normal people she’d seen since her husband had coughed his lungs up on their plush living room carpet, and it felt natural to go along. But here they were, cruising along the trees, heading to yet another small town with no idea what horrors might lay beyond, and she couldn’t help but have some second thoughts.

  Thankfully most of the rest of the group shared her concerns. They were dropping Jackson off, then moving south to Maryland.

  Everything was going so fast. Too fast. Dangerously fast, and Priscilla struggled to keep up. Not infrequently, she’d see Rick’s face in her memory, feel his breath as he lay next to her in bed, smell his smell, and she’d have to blink away fresh tears and try to push him back down, deeper into the locked box. If she thought about him too much, she’d lose it, and if she was going to survive she had to hold it together.

  Did she even want to survive? What was left of this world? She’d called Bonnie’s cellphone two dozen times while the cell towers still worked and had never reached her. She’d called their mother a few times as well.

  This world was a world she no longer knew and she wasn’t convinced she even wanted to be a part of it. But Javier had needed her. And she suspected it wouldn’t be long before the rest of them might need he
r, too. Many were dead, and those who were left were descending into madness… she’d seen it first-hand.

  “Are you okay?”

  Priscilla looked, seeing Melinda Silva sitting up, looking over from where Javier lay.

  “I’m okay, Mel, honey, I promise,” Pris told the ten-year-old girl, hoping she sounded better than she felt.

  “Thank you,” Mel whispered.

  Priscilla cocked her head.

  “Thank you for helping Javier.”

  Pris nodded and reached out, touching Mel’s hair, patting it softly. “You’re welcome, of course, honey. Any time.”

  Melinda returned the smile and laid back down, snuggling close to Javier, a man she hadn’t even known three days ago, but who was as important as family now. Drastic events did strange things to people, and the trauma of what had happened to her parents had apparently forged this unbreakable bond between her and Javier. Priscilla wasn’t sure if that was good or not, but for the time being, it seemed to be helping.

  Outside the truck, the trees streaked to colored blurs against the pale sky and they moved onward toward Aldrich.

  ***

  Normally her husband returning from work didn’t disturb Leeza, he’d worked third shift for nearly ten years and she’d grown used to their opposite schedules, even if she didn’t like it much. This morning however, she heard the front door scrape and bang and heard him stumbling his way into the living room, shoes clawing at the hardwood floor in a series of strange, clumsy scrabbles.

  Blinking away sleep, she rolled over in bed, trying to ignore the stiffened pain in her back, then finally gave up and pushed her way into a seated position. Through the narrow blinds of the bedroom she could see the pale shine of light outside and knew it was probably close to time for her to get up, anyway.

  “You’re late, Brad,” she said from the bedroom, hearing him scuffle around in the hallway leading from the bedroom to the living room, passing the bathroom along the way. Besides the noises he was making, the house was silent, Leeza and Brad’s youngest child now a freshman in college, leaving their house empty for the first time in a very long time.

  “Rough night,” Bradley Burns replied, his voice hoarse and ragged in the echoing hallway. There was a bump of closing bathroom door and Leeza could hear him moving around inside. Drawing a deep breath, she slid from the bed, reaching to her bedpost and snatching a bathrobe from it, then wrapping it around herself and cinching it at the waist. She stood and stretched, walking to the blinds and pulling the string to ease the vinyl up, revealing the window looking out onto her peaceful backyard. A swing set glinted in the early morning sun, a reminder of the days she used to sit out on the back patio and watch the girls swing, slide, and climb the rope ladder. It had been many years since anyone had done it, but she kept the swing set there, both as a reminder, and just in case she ever had any grandchildren that might enjoy it.

  She shook her head, turning from the window. Forty years old and thinking about grandchildren, what was going on with her life? Walking around the bed, she saw her husband push his way through the bathroom door and stopped for a moment, catching her breath. His face was gaunt, showing his cheek bones, and his eyes were puffy with lack of sleep. Even through his dark skin, she could tell he was a little pale and his steps were somewhat unsteady.

  “Bradley are you okay?”

  He’d taken off his security guard uniform and left it in a pile in the bathroom as he always did when he returned from his third shift at the shopping mall, but normally he at least took a shower before stumbling into bed.

  “Yeah, I don’t feel real hot,” he said, his voice strained. Brad had been working a lot of extra hours in the few days since the busiest shopping day of the year. He always tried to pull some extra shifts after Thanksgiving, as it helped them get some extra cash for the holidays. Leeza’s communications job at Fort Detrick paid relatively well, but they enjoyed their life in upper-middle class Maryland and scratched and clawed every moment they could for some extra breathing room financially.

  “Seems to be going around,” Leeza said. “Lots of people sick at work. That time of year, I guess.”

  Brad nodded sheepishly and walked past her toward the bed, picking up speed as if he might collapse if he didn’t get there soon enough.

  “Get some sleep,” Leeza said, easing the bedroom door shut and walking out into the living room. She veered left toward the kitchen, plucking the remote from the counter separating the two rooms and clicked on the television.

  The moment she saw the screen, she knew something was very, very wrong.

  A city skyline was visible, she didn’t recognize which one, but the thick plumes of black smoke consuming the tall buildings in the frame told her all she needed to know. Since September 11th, anyone who served in the United States military had been silently bracing themselves for the next image of an American city on fire, and here it was, live and in full color.

  She started turning up the volume when the small pager on the kitchen counter belted its shrill, rapid beeping alarm. Scrambling over the tile, she scooped it up and silenced it, reading the narrow screen. If she hadn’t guessed by the news report, she had by the message on the pager. Something was happening. Something big.

  Leeza turned off the TV and vacated the kitchen at a swift stride, moving toward the bathroom. She halted for a moment and pushed open the door to the bedroom where her husband was sleeping and leaned her head in.

  “Bad stuff happening, Brad,” she said in a voice so calm it surprised even her. “I need to go to work.”

  Brad half turned, looking out toward her through the thickened flesh of his crow’s feet. “Bad? Like real bad?”

  “Looks pretty bad. Turn on the news if you want, but I need to get to Detrick pronto.”

  “S’allright,” Brad replied, flopping back over in the bed. “Lemme know what’s up when you can.”

  “I will, sweetheart,” she replied, and withdrew, shutting the bedroom door. She moved toward the bathroom and started the shower, knowing already that it was going to be a long, hard day.

  ***

  Leeza Burns had no idea just how long and hard it would be. Her heart sputtered as she jerked awake, sweat streaking her face and stinging her eyes. The room was dark and hot, almost oppressively hot, her t-shirt clinging to her body as she pushed herself upright on the narrow, uncomfortable cot in the conference room.

  Her eyes danced around the small, dark room looking for some indication of time or place, confusion throwing her post-sleep mind into further chaos. Finally she remembered that she was wearing a watch and she thumbed the light to look at it, seeing that she’d only been asleep for maybe three hours.

  Three hours more than Yolanda had gotten. Breathing slow and heavy, she steadied her heart, spinning into a sitting position on the cot, the canvas bed sagging low beneath her weight. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness she could see her jacket hanging on a chair. Her knees bent on the cot and she pushed herself up into a standing position, trying to push aside the dizzy sensation that swarmed through her head, a clear sign that she hadn’t gotten nearly enough sleep. In a perfect world she would have gone back to bed for another four or five hours, but the world was no longer perfect, and sleep was a luxury she could no longer afford. Yolanda needed some rest, too, and at this point there weren’t enough comm officers to go around. She wasn’t sure there ever would be again. Swinging the jacket over her own shoulder, Leeza suddenly thought of her husband. Brad. The last time she’d seen him, he’d been lying in bed, feeling under the weather, dark covers pulled up over his shoulder, his breathing ragged.

  Knowing now what she didn’t know then… Leeza had almost gotten to the point of acceptance. It wasn’t just about Boston or Hartford, it was nationwide, and it went way beyond a few scattered plane crashes. It was some kind of wide scale biological attack, and she understood now that her husband was one of its victims. Three days later she was starting to understand and accept this outcome, abso
rb it and realize it as fact, especially as every call she made home went unanswered. Every text garnered no response. Every story she heard from others in the command center just seemed to reflect more and more death. Certainly Brad had died. There was no other possible outcome.

  She stood in the dark room, resting her back against the wall, her legs feeling suddenly weak. No, she had accepted her husband’s fate. But she had not accepted her children’s. Their texts remained just as silent. Their calls went just as unanswered, but Leeza longed for them, her heart tore into three ragged pieces for them, parts of her that were no longer part of the whole. Every moment she found herself thinking of them she also found herself rationalizing their silence, convincing herself that they were okay. They were too young and vibrant to fall victim to some biological attack. They never went out on Black Friday, they took their vitamins every day, they were smart and careful and capable.

  They were hers.

  It was then that she realized tears were streaming down her rounded cheeks, carving narrow trenches through the drying sweat. Her shoulders shook with the fury of her uncontrollable sobs, her chest heaving and mouth gasping. It was one of those cries that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere all at once, ravaging her body, forcing her to move back to the cot and sit down again, otherwise she might collapse and fall over. Planting her face in her hands she continued the relentless sobbing, soaking her hands and fingers with tears, reduced to sucking breaths and snorting after only a few moments.

  Then it passed. Then she sat there in silence, the noise as vacant as the light, huddled on the cot, breathing regulated, priorities slowly sliding back into their proper order. Leeza stood, pushing back the thoughts that had brought her to tears, forcing down the emotions that had nearly torn her down. She pulled a sleeve across her eyes and strode from the conference room, hanging a left toward the command center to relieve Yolanda Hayes and get back to work.