Containment_A Zombie Novel

by B. A. Hippsley

  Frank tried to get up to draw the curtains but his legs felt like jello and he slumped back into his seat. The sleeping tablets were taking effect sooner than he’d thought. He picked up the letter from the bank but couldn’t make out the print, so he folded it and placed it into his suit pocket. The last thing he wanted was to litter the room. He tried to force his eyes wide open but his eyelids felt like lead bars.

  If only it could’ve been different, if only it had all worked out. There was nothing left for any of them now; this was the only thing he had the power to do. He clutched his wedding photo to his chest and sighed deeply. Frank was vaguely aware of the smell of smoke replacing that of the gasoline. As he closed his weary eyes, thick black smoke seeped under the door and into the room.

  ****

  Benteen cursed his luck at missing out on some action yet again. Here he was stuck playing baby sitter to that scum-bag drifter when he should’ve been with Brad up at the Jorgans’ place. Not that he had any beef with Frank, but the guy had lost it; he was armed and dangerous. Elle-May was still shaken up by it all and she didn’t spook easily.

  Brad had gotten the call from the hospital as soon as he’d got back from the airbase. He’d taken off out of the door with Mitch and Kate. They were both good peace officers although maybe not the best suited for the task. It should’ve been him standing with Brad, like the old days. Still Brad had left him in charge so he’d best take a look at that lousy punk. Was he now just the nursemaid or something? Angrily he shook his head and walked up to the cell and went inside.

  Taylor was writhing about on the floor, clutching at his throat and gasping for air. Benteen started forward then stopped. It was obvious this guy was choking and he needed aid. But then again, this bum was the cause of all the problems. This was the perfect way to get rid of him and all Benteen had to do was sit back and wait for him to die.

  Taylor stopped convulsing and crashed back onto the floor in a heap. Somehow this was less enjoyable than Benteen had imagined. Sure he wanted this bum dead, but he wanted to do it himself. In any case, Brad would be almighty mad at him for losing his star prisoner. Cursing loudly, Benteen undid his pistol belt and placed it on the desk. Taking the cell keys, he opened the door and went in.

  Taylor lay perfectly still, controlling his breathing to the point where his chest hardly moved. His plan depended upon this creep getting in very close. Benteen was all that stood between Taylor and freedom. Taylor heard the metal door ease open and waited.

  “Okay, I’m gonna help you, but don’t you get any dumb ideas now.”

  Taylor waited until he felt Benteen’s hands on his arm and then sent a lightning blow to the other man’s head. The strike hit Benteen on the left temple, sending him crashing to the hard ground, unconscious. Taylor sprang to his feet and surveyed the downed man. Such a blow could be used to kill or stun: the last thing Taylor needed was a dead cop. He took Benteen’s radio and dashed out of the cell, locking the door behind him.

  Heading towards the outer door his eyes caught sight of the automatic jutting out from Benteen’s pistol rig. His hand snaked out towards the belt... it was bad enough they’d be looking for a guy who’d just broken out of jail, let alone one armed with a gun and a cop’s gun at that. Any excuse for Billy Bob or Billy boy or Billy whatever the hell, to hunt him down with the hounds.

  Glancing over at Benteen’s prone body he made his way to the cell room door and carefully opened it. Checking both ways were clear he made towards the reception area and his long overdue freedom. His objective was to put as much distance between him and the town; beyond that he’d just have to make it up as he went along. His nose twitched as he picked up the aroma of Clara’s home cooking. His escape had come at the right time.

  ****

  The flames shot up way above the house as if the fire wanted to engulf the very sky. The shattering window-panes could just be heard over the roaring inferno. Virdon looked over at the nearby tree line. It was obvious his team could get no closer to the house; even if they’d still got the fire suits, it was just too hot.

  What worried him was the real possibility of the fire leaping onto the trees. Despite the recent rain this kind of heat could set the mountain ablaze. The best they could hope for was to dampen the area and wait until the fire burned low enough for them to put it out. The only saving grace was the two fire tenders could use the nearby river to fight the fire.

  Javier Martinez walked over to Virdon. As he removed his helmet it looked as if he’d just stepped out of the sauna. He wiped the sweat from his face.

  “Ron, she’s just too hot for us to get in close. You want I should try getting one of the engines in nearer?”

  “Nope. We still ain’t sure if Frank had propane tanks in there. We gotta keep our distance, Javier. I want you to get some more water on those trees over there.”

  He pointed to the closest of the trees.

  “What you reckon happened in there with Frank. He just gone loco or something?”

  Virdon wasn’t even sure if Frank was in the house. Just before he’d arrived at the scene Eastman had radioed him about the situation at the health center and how Frank and Kurt were to be regarded as ‘dangerous’. If anybody other than Brad had said that he’d have told them where the hell to go, but Virdon had the safety of his crew to consider. Things were going on in the town that just made no damn sense.

  The thought that Frank or Kurt could have a bead on them right now made the situation a whole lot worse. The shrill wail of police sirens made him turn to look back down the road to Jorgan’s farm. Eastman’s white Ford pulled up just behind Virdon’s car swiftly followed by the second car, containing Mitch Chapman and Kate Black. Eastman got out of the car and walked up to the Fire Chief.

  “Frank and his people still in there?”

  “You tell me. This is the closest we can get. Besides I don’t know for sure if there’s propane in there?”

  “Propane! Hell Ron, you need a safety line here someplace buddy.”

  “You’re looking at it. We can’t stay too far back; the hoses don’t reach the trees.” Virdon indicated to Eastman the now steaming tree line.

  “If this jumps over there we gonna have us one hell of a forest fire. We just don’t have enough manpower to cope with this.”

  “Yeah, didn’t help Firth giving all the fire suits away!”

  “As much as I never thought I’d live to say it, but it ain’t all his doing. Frank just about covered the whole darn house in gasoline. It’s just too hot.”

  “So we just gotta sit this one out, eh?”

  “What makes a man like Frank Jorgan do something like this? I just don’t get it.”

  “Desperation.”

  With an ear splitting bang, the centre of the house erupted into a blinding flash of orange and red. Burning debris spiralled into the sky and shockwaves struck the surrounding trees, like the ripples on a pond. The force of the explosion levelled the house, completely destroying the roof but in doing so, substantially reduced the size of the blaze.

  “Guess that accounts for the propane then.”

  “Yep.”

  Eastman adjusted his hat and gently patted his ears with the palms of his hands.

  “Look on the bright side – that bang just did the work for us.”

  “How long till you start sifting through that bonfire?”

  “It’ll be some time before we can get into that and a while later before we can start looking. We gonna be here a while.”

  With that, Virdon ordered his crew in closer. But he knew it would still be some time before he’d be in a position to search for bodies. There wasn’t much point in Brad hanging about. Virdon walked Eastman towards the cars.

  “I’ll let you know as soon as we find any bodies. I know it sounds kinda bad, but I almost hope we got us four bodies in there.”

  “Yeah, I don’t want any more crazy people running about either.”

  Mitch Chapman called over from his squad car holding
the radio mic up, his face grave. “Brad that was Clara.”

  “What’s up Mitch?”

  Virdon watched as the Deputy handed Eastman the mic. He spoke a few short words then cursed, slamming his fist on the roof of the car before lowering his head.

  “Problems there dude?”

  Eastman slowly turned to face Virdon and nodded. “That guy Taylor, he’s escaped.”

  ****

  Eastman pounded along the hospital corridor from Benteen’s room. He was beyond furious. He couldn’t believe his best lead to solving this fiasco had escaped and had done so by using one of the oldest tricks in the book. For two pins, Eastman had thought on giving Benteen a crack around the other side of his thick head. Still, he was thankful that Taylor had only floored Gerard, it could have been worse: a lot worse. Taylor could have easily killed Gerard but chose not to; he’d even left the man’s gun behind. Neither of these were the actions you’d expect from a cold-blooded murderer. But this did not alter the hard reality that he was a highly dangerous man, and now a man on the run.

  Eastman rounded the corner and saw Anne and Elle-May standing by the drinks dispenser. Anne had left Eastman alone with Benteen after she’d completed his examination, which was just as well, because Eastman didn’t hold with swearing in front of women.“How’d you feel now, Elle-May?”

  “Oh you know me. It’s gonna take more than a scattergun to put me off.”

  “Well any time you want to trade those scrubs for a star, you come and find me.”“Funny you should say that, but Elle-May’s already turned detective.”

  “How so?”

  Anne looked at Elle-May. “Now’s your chance, I’ll let you do the talking.”

  “Thanks a bunch, you’re a real pal.” Elle-May raised her eyebrows.

  “Well one of you better tell me.”

  “We’ve been losing drugs for some time. More being taken than we got signatures for. It took me a time but I’m damn sure it’s Judy Garcia.”

  “Serious allegations. You got any kinda proof?”

  “’Most every time Judy was on a shift a bunch of stuff went missing. Now I don’t want to point fingers at no one, especially right now, though as far as I can tell it just gotta be her.”

  With everything that had gone on, the possibility of losing trust in a nurse wasn’t good. However, it was apparent that both Elle-May and Anne had cause for concern and he’d have little choice other than to support their judgement. Although the last thing he wanted was to arrest Judy Garcia at this time.

  “Like me to have a word with her?”

  “No, that’s up to us. It’s still an internal matter. But it could go that way.”

  “Okay, that’s fine by me. I’ll be about if you need me.”

  Anne was right of course, they had to stick to protocol and it had to come from her. He’d reached the end of his tether and right now all he wanted was to get back to his ranch. He smiled at the two women and headed home.

  ****

  From his vantage point high above the valley, Taylor watched the buzz of activity behind the rows of razor wire. Squads of soldiers dashed about and military vehicles were everywhere. It reminded him of an ants’ nest, everything with a purpose and a purpose for everything. A number of small pre-fabricated huts made up the bulk of the base and sand bag positions ringed the well defended area. Arc lights stood like huge metal trees around the perimeter waiting for the onset of the dark.

  Although well equipped and heavily armed, he figured there were probably no more than a hundred men. Not nearly enough to secure the whole area. This was a small, low key operation. That could only mean one thing; they had to have another way of containing this situation. The possibility filled him with dread. Somebody wanted this off the books and away from the media. That meant whoever was running the show could pretty much do whatever the hell they wanted.

  An operation to contain a town even of this size would require a huge amount of military resources and forests of razor wire. That kinda high profile activity would in turn produce an equal army of news hounds and be front page headlines before you could yell ‘cover up’.

  The Government had tried to keep the early Ebola containments as quiet as they could, to minimize panic, but it had proven an impossible endeavour. You just couldn’t keep that much manpower and hardware in one place without someone noticing, not to mention of course, sealing off whole communities. But somewhere this far out and with such a small force, you could just about get away with it. The only reason he’d found the camp, was he knew it had to be there someplace.

  His attention was drawn to the group of soldiers he’d followed from the road. In the back of their vehicle were three bodies in black plastic body bags. The men threw them unceremoniously from the back of the truck, whilst another group in yellow bio-hazard suits, lifted them onto a small cart.

  Unexpectedly, one of the bodies forced an arm out from the bag and grasped one of the ‘yellow suits’. The man clubbed at the arm and broke free. The two nearest soldiers poured the contents of their thirty round magazines into the body bag. Two of the yellow suited individuals dragged the shattered remains of the body onto the ground, while a third blasted it with a flamethrower.

  It was only then that Taylor noticed the two six wheel rigs with the jamming equipment on the back. The jammers resembled oversized ghetto blasters and were about as big as a station wagon. The type he’d seen used in Syria had been a fraction of the size and they’d devastated the opposition’s communications for miles. He was no electronics warfare expert, but these monsters looked big enough to block the whole of Montana. No wonder the town had blacked out. He took a mental step backwards; that wretched town’s problems were no concern of his.

  He shifted his position as he reminded himself of why he was here. He had to find information on the location of Dr Tellermine’s new base. He wanted to give this guy a whole bucket load of payback. But this was a hell of an expanse to search and without even the most basic map he was near clueless.

  Eastman had been less help than a New York cab driver with double the attitude. According to his views, there was nothing in the vicinity that would fit Taylor’s ideas. But then, it was hardly surprising, since it was supposed to be a secret base. The first base had been a huge complex with an even larger budget. No need of secret locations.

  What if this new base was not hidden, what if the base was in plain sight? A disturbing question hit him, could this camp be what he was looking for? Were these guys here to stop the hicks from getting out or getting in? There was only one way to find out; he’d have to go and take a look.

  This was the last thing he wanted to do but he was running low on options. He’d need to wait for nightfall before it would be safe enough to infiltrate the camp. Taylor settled himself down and prepared for the long wait for sundown.

  ****

  Eastman had his back to Anne, with his arms resting on the corral fence. He looked different in his jeans and shirt: during the last few days she’d hardly seen him out of his uniform. However, he was still wearing his gun belt so she decided against any untoward surprises. After the recent events, the town’s nerves were in tatters, it was best to avoid accidents. She announced herself well before she reached him.

  “Sorry Brad, but I tried the house first. Gerard said I’d find you here.”

  Eastman spoke without turning around.

  “I used to spend hours here with Helen putting the world to rights. Guess you could say it was kinda our spot.”

  “I didn’t mean to intrude. I’ll call you later. Sorry.” She turned on her heel and started back down the long track.

  “Anne, wait on there. How’d all that go with Judy?” He turned about to face her, placing his elbows on the barrier and leaning backwards.

  She smiled and moved to stand next to him. “Elle-May was right. Judy confessed under our ‘good cop / good cop’ interrogation.”

  “Hate to correct you, it’s meant to be ‘good cop / bad cop…’ ”


  “I know, but neither of us wanted to be the bad cop.”

  He raised his eyebrow. “Well that’s new. What you get?”

  “Judy was supplying Peter Firth with the medication.”

  “Now why aren’t I surprised at that? Bum’s been running a black market. I knew it.”

  “Maybe not.”

  A look of puzzlement spread across his face. “Okay, so you got me hooked. Carry on.”

  She pushed her sunglasses back on top of her head. “Firth had a hold over her and she stole to order.”

  “Why’d a good Catholic girl like that get mixed up with him?”

  “Brad, if I tell, you’ve got to promise not to go all legal on me. Will you do that?”

  “Oh, I hate these.” He sent a heavy scowl at her. “That kinda depends on...”

  “No. No conditions.”

  “Is there any point in arguing this?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Okay, like what I think matters already. But this had better be good.”

  “Did you know Judy had her brother staying with her?”

  “Brother? Say where’d he come from?”

  “Across the border and he forgot to bring his Green Card.”

  “Oh boy.”

  Eastman moved away from the fence and cupped his hand over his mouth.

  “Firth got to know about him and said he’d report him if she didn’t help out.”

  “So it is the black market then.”

  She held her finger up and shook her head. “She said something about Peter wanting to help his family. Now she gave him a lot of antibiotics and strong pain-killers but not enough to sell wholesale. I think your idea about Conrad may be right.”

  “You think Peter was giving them to his brother?”

  “Could be. Tony was very interested in how to treat this virus. The antibiotics would be used to fight the infection but when that failed, he’d try the pain killers.”