News Report, June 15th
CDC confirms new reports of the human rabies virus in China, India, Russia, Japan, and South America. Due to the closed nature of some of these countries, information is cloudy at best. Leaked reports and social media posts suggest cases in the hundreds.
News Report, June 17th
Japan declared a state of emergency and shut down all flights in and out of the country. They are the fourth nation in the past 12-hours to do so, following behind China, Russia, and South Korea.
News Report, June 20th
Beijing is reportedly engulfed in flames. Some reports suggest the military is responsible. Some suggest the countrywide riots as the cause.
News Report, June 21st
Reports have trickled in mentioning a nuclear-level explosion in Northern India. No confirmation could be gleaned as to the country of origin of the nuclear device. The Indian delegate present at an emergency UN meeting blamed Pakistan for the attack. The Pakistan delegate left the meeting abruptly. The US has closed its borders and has grounded all civilian air travel.
News Report, June 22nd
Pakistan sustained multiple nuclear explosions around the country. India claimed it was retaliation from yesterday’s attack. Pakistan government officials cannot be reached. It looks to have been a total annihilation to the country. Middle Eastern countries declared solidarity against Israel. They blamed the Israelis for the plague being experienced around the world.
News Report, June 23rd
It is a sad day, indeed, for our country. With our deepest regrets, we inform you now that President Davis has been declared dead. No cause of death could be confirmed at this time and no official statements have been made. It has been speculated that he died from the same infection causing numerous deaths around the country and the world. Vice President Miller has also not been located since the attack on the President. In this troubling time, there has been no official response from the White House regarding the war declared today by the Middle Eastern Union on Israel.
Due to massive EMP interference, we don’t know how many are receiving this broadcast. At this time, we have received word and confirmed reports of an Israeli response to war declared on them yesterday in the form of several tactical nuclear launches. Confirmed hits include Tehran, Iran, Ankara, Turkey, Baghdad, Iraq, and Cairo, Egypt. Unconfirmed reports include Saudi Arabia, and Beirut, Lebanon. Following the Israeli nuclear strikes, Israel has now gone dark. Satellite images confirm the electrical grid in Israel seems to have completely shut down. We don’t know if this was from EMP strikes or from response to their nuclear launches. No communication is possible in the region at this time.
News Report, June 30th
Power outages have spread to over 80-percent of the nation. We are now broadcasting through the Emergency Broadcast System. If you are receiving this message, please secure yourself and your family. Keep contact to a minimum with any outside people. Reports are coming in from nearly every city in the country of massive riots and cannibalism. The government has not issued any reports for the past five days. We don’t know how long we will be able to keep broadcasting. If we go off-air, we will have a shortwave radio broadcast on emergency channels 5236.0 and 4490.0.
We will do our best to keep you informed.
News Report, July 1st
The first official government announcement in almost a week came from the Texas Governor. Texas has officially declared itself sovereign, and is closing all borders, north and south, to control the contagion. Once they have secured their state, they will then assist neighboring states as they can. The only US news they could provide for us mentioned that all nuclear and hydroelectric facilities would be shut down for safety measures tonight at midnight. That is all we have today. Starting tomorrow, we will only be broadcasting via shortwave radio due to power issues and the failing electrical grid.
News Report, July 10th
Reports were heard that the military has begun a massive campaign to take back American cities. A large Marine and Naval contingent landed in New Orleans today to take back the city. No other details are available at this time.
News Report, July 12th
The military has landed in Baltimore and is moving today towards Washington DC in a bid to re-take those two cities. We have no information as to the success of these campaigns.
News Report, July 22nd
The military sent the largest contingent yet into New York City. Over 25,000 troops were last seen to be converging on the Island. All information we are gathering is via intercepted radio communications. No word has been received yet from the government and military if any of these operations have been successful.
News Report, July 29th
Unconfirmed reports have been coming in of a nuclear-level explosion in Chicago. We have no information as to the validity of these statements. We will update when further proof comes in.
News Report, August 1st
First reports coming in from the battle for New York City are not what we had hoped for. It appears nearly all the troops sent in are lost or not responding. Last transmission intercepted from military channels indicated a complete retreat.
News Report, August 15th
The military has takerefuge in South Florida. They have started a campaign to eradicate every infected from a line created just south of Ocala to the Florida Keys. Word has it that Miami is mostly contained already.
News Report, August 30th
Military channels being picked up are reporting the campaign in South Florida is going well with some reports coming in of up to 90-percent containment so far.
News Report, September 15th
There are reports that South Florida has been completely cleared. Some very disturbing stories have been received of massive killings of both infected and non-infected. Nothing can be confirmed.
News Report, October 1st
Massive construction has started on a border wall from the Gulf of Mexico, starting at Tarpon Springs, and being built on top of I-4 to the Atlantic Ocean, ending at Titusville. Stories are also coming in from a splinter group of the military that Alaska has been declared plague-free. Alaskan military has claimed that the new US government will be based in Anchorage. South Florida military has disputed this and claims they are running the country from Key West, with Vice President Miller taking over as president. Still nothing but silence coming in from Texas.
News Report, November 1st
This might be our last update.
We are running out of fuel for our generators, and we just received word of a large group of slabs, as we call them, heading straight towards our location here in the Smokey Mountains. We are soon going to try to make a break for the South Florida base.
We will report if we make it.
The only news update is that the border in South Florida is mostly complete, as every able-bodied person is being put to work.
There has been a lot of chatter on radios about huge hordes of slabs moving southward as the weather is getting colder.
Alaska has gone quiet.
Texas is still silent, but reports of fighter jets seen recently over Oklahoma give hope that they might be safe in Texas.
No word overseas at all. We can only assume they are in as bad a shape as we are.
We wish all of you listening the best and God bless.
Check this frequency regularly, and we will try to be back on-air if we make it safely to South Florida.
News Report, November 2nd
Static … static … static….
CHAPTER 11
THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE CAMP
Kyle
A siren screamed in the distance. Kyle recognized the wail’s pattern as that of an ambulance, once again making its way through the streets. That made the tenth one in the last two hours he had heard. He was beginning to realize how bad it was getting out there.
When he thought back to the attack at his house the night before, and coupled that with the report
s on the news of some mysterious flu outbreak causing massive quarantines, he knew it was only going to get worse. Also, given the fact that Sam had suddenly been called in to work at the hospital. It had been 12-hours since she’d left and six since she’d called to check in with him. He thought it might be time to call and see what was happening. As he reached down to get his cell, it started to ring. He breathed a sigh of relief as he saw Sam’s name and number flash across the screen. “Sam, I was just about to call you. What’s going on there?”
“I don’t know what to tell you.” She was almost out of breath. “It has been utter hell here tonight. I have been running nonstop since I arrived. We are out of almost all antibiotics. People are being brought in by the dozens, wounded and … and worse. Nobody knows what this bug is or how to treat it. I’ve seen 20 bodies wheeled to the morgue in the last hour, and I hear they are shutting down the fifth floor to accommodate more bodies. Are you and the kids okay?”
“Yeah, we’re fine,” responded Kyle. “I’m just worried about you. How much longer ’til you get to leave?”
“I’m leaving as soon as I finish this last run to the E.R. Richie will be getting here soon. I’ll be home after that.”
“Okay. Please be safe and don’t bring it home with you.”
“Don’t even joke,” said Sam. “Let me go. I gotta go get a bandage real quick. One of the patients grabbed me and tried to bite me on my last trip down there. If you ask me, it’s almost like they have rabies rather than the flu. Tell the kids I love them and I will be home soon.”
“Please be careful. I love you.” Kyle hung up the phone.
Darkness followed.
Then Kyle jerked awake and sat up in his bed. “Damn, fifteen months and I’m still having the same damn dream.” Experience had bullied him with the knowledge that he wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep. Not tonight. With no possibility of getting any rest, Kyle slowly got out of bed and made his way over to the oil lamp and ignited it. The soft glow of the light illuminated the bedroom, the same one he and Sam had shared for so many years. Until that one disastrous night when the whole world had went to hell and he’d lost her. Nowadays, it was occupied by him, his son Bryce, whom everybody called Patch, his 15-year-old daughter Renee, and their adult white German Shepherd named Storm. Recently, his oldest, 18-year-old Hope, decided she wanted to go back to sleeping in her old room as a way of injecting a little normalcy back into her life.
After the initial outbreak, Kyle had taken the kids and fled to his friend Ron’s house in the country, its isolation being paramount to their survival. But after their supplies had dwindled and the lack of resources available for them had dried up, they came up with a plan to fortify his former neighborhood. Eventually Kyle’s family and his friends moved back in. It took six months of sneaking in and making modifications to the existing fencing and natural barriers around the neighborhood, but at the end of that six months, they were finally able to secure a large enough area, originally encompassing only four of the houses, to live in and survive through what had been coined the final apocalypse. Now, eight months after moving back in, they had increased the size of the camp to include ten more of the surrounding houses. The later additions had become a refuge for the other 25 people who now lived in Camp H., as they had begun referring to their oldneighborhood.
He said it stood for hope, but others claimed it stood for human.
The camp was secured on one side by the Ochlockonee River, which provided their fresh water. They had secured the other three sides with a makeshift wall constructed of vehicles taken from the roadside and from the junkyard down the road. They used the cars at first, then lumber scavenged from tearing down a few of the houses outside the camp to build a nearly 15-foot-high barrier all the way around the camp. One of the homes in the neighborhood had solar panels installed before the outbreak, which had provided limited electricity to the camp. That allowed them to run a couple of refrigerators and power the tools they needed to continue building the walls and to keep the fleet of cars and trucks they used for supply runs in good repair. Also, they could run the air-conditioning in the home for short periods, which became a huge relief during the heat of the summer.
Kyle slowly made his way through the bedroom as he tried not to wake anyone else as he slipped on one of his trademark football jerseys. He figured since he was up again, anyway, it would be a good time to make a perimeter sweep. As he traversed the bodies of sleeping kids, Storm roused and followed after him. Storm had been an invaluable member of the family since the beginning of the outbreak. She could smell a slab a mile away and had alerted them many times to approaching danger.
Kyle briefly looked at the crudely drawn map of the camp on the wall. He realized he’d forgotten to label who was on guard duty that night and made a mental note to update it later in the morning.
“C’mon, old girl. Let’s go walk the fence and see how everything is going.” Storm headed to the door and waited patiently for him. He grabbed a flashlight and swung his rifle over his shoulder and the two of them headed out of the house.
Kyle and Storm first walked the western banks of the river, being careful not to get too close. Most of the bank was very high and with a steep drop-off, which prevented anything from climbing up. However, a few spots on the riverbank were accessible, and they’d had to build a couple of fences in those areas to keep out any unwanted visitors. Apparently, water was not the huge deterrent they had hoped for, as they had learned the hard way when they had to fend off a few groups of slabs over the winter when the water levels were low. After checking the riverside with no sign of activity, Kyle and Storm headed over to the eastern wall. As they approached the first guard tower, Kyle tried to remember who was on duty that evening.
Suddenly, a light from the tower shone down and a voice rang out, “Identify yourself!”
Kyle placed the voice’s owner as Kenny. “Darth Vader,” Kyle responded and Storm let out a bark as if to make her presence known as well.
“Hey, man, what are you doing out here tonight?” Kenny yelled down to them.
“Couldn’t sleep. Figured I would check and make sure you weren’t also.”
“Man, if the Marines taught me one thing, it’s to never fall asleep on your watch.”
Kenny was Sam’s younger cousin. He had been around Kyle pretty much his whole life, and Kyle treated him like one of his kids. In fact, all three of Kyle’s kids looked up to Kenny as an older brother rather than a cousin. He had been on leave from the Marines when the outbreak occurred and was not able to rejoin his unit after all the airports were shut down. He had planned to hook up with a unit if one ever made its way through the area, but so far no major military presence, other than a few National Guardsmen, had been seen in the Tallahassee area. He decided that as long as he would remain in camp, he could help keep everyone safe.
“Ten-four. I’m just gonna do a sweep of the area,” Kyle said. “Figured it’s less than an hour ’til sunrise, so I might as well be productive. See ya at breakfast.”
Kyle’s next stop would be the southern main gate, an entrance sealed with a school bus they had boarded up on the side facing away from the camp. Using the bus provided an easy way for the camp to block the main entrance with a moveable gate. The idea was that the bus made the gate wide enough to allow them to drive almost anything through that they managed to salvage from the outside world. As he arrived at the gate, he could see the outline of the only other bald-headed person in the camp—Pete. He was also the only other original resident of the neighborhood. His house, however, was on the opposite side of the neighborhood, so it wasn’t part of the camp. He had been holed up in his house for four months until he heard the racket going on when Kyle started to secure his part of the area. After he realized what was going on, Pete came out and helped keep the area safe while Kyle and his friends built the walls.
“Hey up there, all clear I hope?” Kyle yelled out to Pete.
“Holy shit! You scared the piss
out of me. Yeah, I ain’t seen anything tonight.”
“Alright, just making my rounds. See ya at breakfast.”
Pete waved as Kyle and Storm proceeded on to the west wall.
When they arrived at the tower, Kyle didn’t see anybody manning the post. “Stay here, girl, I’m going to go up.” Kyle patted Storm on the head and as if the dog understood, she sat right in front of the ladder and waited as Kyle made his way up the ladder and peeked over the side of the tower wall to the interior of the guard tower. Just as he had suspected, there was Billy and Tim asleep in opposite corners of the platform. Kyle cleared his throat and Billy jumped up and scrambled to his feet while simultaneously kicking Tim in the leg.
“Hey, guys, see anything tonight?” Kyle wore a smug grin on his face.
“Hey, Kyle,” Billy responded as he sent a harsh look over at Tim, who was still in no hurry to get to his feet. “Man, I’m sorry. It was so quiet, we were gonna just sleep in shifts. Sorry, dude, won’t happen again.”
“Okay, y’all stay alert. Even with the fires going, they could still get a whiff of us in here.” Kyle turned to look at a sleepy-headed Tim. “Why don’t you run down to the kitchen and get yourself some coffee? That will get you through ’til Ron shows up to relieve you.” Kyle then climbed back down the ladder and joined his dog.
Billy and Tim had been inseparable since they were found together about four months ago on a supply run. David and Kyle had decided to check out the local soft drink warehouse and found the two of them holed up in there safe and sound with about 2000 cases of soda left in the warehouse, along with an equal amount of bottled water. The two young men decided they had lived off the canned foods they had scavenged long enough, and besides, they were out of ammo, too. Loading up the last truck with some fuel left, they followed David and Kyle back to Camp H. The truck’s trailer had since been fitted into its own place on the wall. The two young men had also become productive members of the camp. Well, at least most of the time.
Humanity's Hope (Book 1): Camp H Page 4
