After The Virus (Book 1): After The Virus

by Archer, Simon

  I didn’t think there’d be anyone in the trucks, but I checked anyway. The keys were still in the number two, which I didn’t think was standard procedure. With a sigh, I slid out of the cab and headed for the door into the offices and barracks.

  At least there were windows and, not surprisingly, emergency lights. The generator was silent, so no one had fired it up. I suppose I wasn’t surprised that it hadn’t automatically kicked in. The firehouse was an older one, after all.

  All was quiet as I searched the firehouse which didn’t bode well for any chance of meeting another person. Whatever had happened, people were either missing or hiding in their homes.

  Of course, it was with that thought running through my head when I found the firemen. Two of them were dead in their beds in the barracks. In the dim light, their skin was pale, nearly blue, and their skin was cold to the touch.

  Charlie let out a plaintive whine and nosed at one man’s hand, then looked up at me with sad eyes. I sighed and rubbed the bridge of my nose. This was definitely not good. I still had the medical center to check, maybe a few houses, but there was a sinking feeling in my gut that said I’d find nothing but more death.

  Just to make absolutely certain, I started the generator. It was natural gas and would flow as long as there was fuel in the pipes. Of course, I didn’t know how long that would be, but I needed power for now.

  Thirty minutes later, I shut everything down. The radio had been as quiet as the phones. There weren’t even any emergency bulletins going out. I’d try later, with grandma’s old shortwave, but the modern FM and cell communications all seemed to reach nothing but dead air.

  I felt a little guilty taking a couple of the EMT bags from the station, but if there was anyone still alive out there, I might need them. Hell, I might need even more gear if I was cut off, but no one else seemed to be out and about.

  “What the hell happened, Charlie?” I asked. I’d fed and watered the poor dog in the station while I tried the radio and covered the two dead men. He just looked at me and panted as I opened the passenger door of my truck.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’ve got no clue either.”

  Charlie barked and hopped up into the shotgun seat. I shrugged and walked around to the driver’s side, then paused and gazed around the neighborhood. Skeletal trees reached for the gray sky, their limbs swaying in the slight, chill breeze. How many people were dead in the silent houses and offices just right here? There were thousands of people in the Opelika area, and I was the only one that I knew for sure was still alive.

  I turned off the CD player in my truck after I started it up so as to better talk to the dog. Hopefully, he’d get along with the girls back at the farm.

  The drive through the silent streets was just as eerie now as it was when I first came into town. Charlie, though, made it easier. He was a good listener, and I had a few stories that he probably hadn’t heard.

  Dogs made me happy. They didn’t ask questions about my military service, what it was like to kill someone or to be shot. I preferred the furry little bastards to most every person I’d ever met.

  That made me think, though. What the hell would I do if everyone was dead? I might have to go through all the houses in the area to look for kids and pets. There was no way I could care for every dog, cat, or whatever, but I could at least open doors and gates so they could fend for themselves.

  Of course, that might create a much worse problem. I rubbed the bridge of my nose as I drove. As my CO had said in Afghanistan, “You can’t save everyone.” It sucked, but it was true. I’d just have to do what I could, and maybe I’d make some small difference. Even if there weren’t anyone around to care, I’d do it, anyway.

  That was how I rolled.

  The medical center parking lot was full. I pulled around to the emergency entrance, where an ambulance sat at an angle, blocking the driveway. The back door was open, but it was empty.

  “This ain’t good,” I told my new furry friend.

  Maybe it was my imagination, but Charlie certainly shook his head and sneezed as I braked and shut off the truck. Through the glass of the entrance, there were lights, but there were also bodies.

  “No stone unturned,” I told myself as I slid from the driver’s seat and made my way to the sliding doors. Charlie followed, staying close by my heels. The doors opened silently. Power was still on here, or at least the generators were running. That was a sign of some sort. I wasn’t sure if it was good or bad.

  The waiting room, however, was a mess. People were bundled up and dead in the chairs. A woman in scrubs was face down behind the intake window. There was no point checking any of them, blue-tinged skin and blank, slack faces told the tale well enough for me. Most of them had blood around their mouths, and in some cases, their ears, eyes, and noses.

  Whatever killed them happened quickly. They’d felt bad enough to come here, then died waiting. Even the nurse at intake must have come in sick, just to try to help. I closed my eyes for a moment and forced my mind back into line before the speculation got too out of hand. There was more to do than I’d imagined when I left the farm this morning. But, on the bright side, none of these people had been gunned down or blown up.

  Small favors, I guessed.

  The intake logs all listed the same symptoms: congested lungs, fever, body aches, disorientation, and vertigo. This was exactly how I’d felt when I’d gone to bed… what was it?... two nights before?

  Damn.

  I took a key card off the dead doctor that lay on a gurney in the triage room and made my way deeper into the hospital. Maybe there was someone in here that was still alive. I couldn’t take the chance that I’d miss a survivor in a place like this.

  At least the power was on. I went room-by-room and floor-by-floor through the hospital, finding nothing but dead, even in the ICU ward and the nursery. This bug or whatever was nothing but thorough. Quite frankly, it was sickening, but the only consolation I could give myself was that the deaths hadn’t been violent. There was no sign of seizure or anything of the sort, and the majority of the dead just seemed like they’d gone to sleep and never awoken.

  There were much worse ways to go. Of course, being stuck as a survivor of this wasn’t exactly how I wanted to spend the rest of my life, but I hung on to the thought that if I had lived through it, someone else must have.

  The place was going to get really bad over the next few days as the corpses decomposed. I was frankly surprised that they weren’t any messier than they were already, but as I had thought before, small favors.

  While the power was on and I had the doctor’s key card, I needed to do something that was potentially unsavory, but there might come a time when I needed antibiotics or something, and there was a treasure trove of pharmaceuticals right here at my fingertips. I gathered some bags from various stations, then went and loaded them up in the pharmacy with everything I recognized, and a few things that I didn’t. I did take a book called the “Tarascon Pocket Pharmacopoeia” that was tucked on a shelf nearby along with a few other medical texts.

  Self-diagnosis, I thought. Probably the worst thing the internet ever brought us, but since I didn’t know of any doctors that were still alive, I’d have to take my chances.

  I loaded my haul onto a cart and headed for the ER again. Charlie stuck to my heels like glue. The little mutt was no fool, and the hospital had started to creep me out before I was halfway through raiding the drug storage room. All the dead seemed to look at me accusingly as I passed them by.

  As I passed the intake station, the doors at the far end of the waiting room slid open. A jeep was parked behind my truck, and a young woman in what I recognized as an Auburn cheerleader’s outfit stood there, wide-eyed, clutching a shotgun in her hands.

  3

  Reflexes carried me behind cover the moment my eyes lit on the shotgun in the woman’s hands. I didn’t draw, though. There’d be time for that later.

  “Hello?” she called out tentatively.

  Ch
arlie took it upon himself to start barking then, placing his fierce little self between the intruder and where I crouched under cover.

  “Shush,” I hissed to the dog, then replied, “Hey there. You won’t shoot me if I step out, will you?” I used my most harmless ‘good ol’ boy’ accent.

  “No, no,” she replied. “I’m just happy to find someone else still alive. My name’s Jackie.”

  I put my hands up non-threateningly and stepped out where she could see me. “Morning, Jackie,” I said. “I’m Henry.”

  Jackie’s eyes dropped for a moment to the pistol on my hip, where it poked out from under my jacket, then met my gaze. She held the shotgun at rest, barrel down, with one finger resting on the trigger guard. Unless it was just a lucky guess, the young woman was familiar with gun safety and trigger protocol. Very interesting, but not too uncommon in these rural parts.

  “I saw you driving this way on the interstate,” she said. “It took me a while to turn around. Then I drove around looking for your truck.”

  “Is it like this further west?” I asked, keeping my hands up and visible. She didn’t look twitchy, but this whole situation was just weird enough that I wasn’t about to make any mistakes that I could avoid.

  “Auburn is,” Jackie said with a brisk nod of her head. She was a natural brunette, with her shoulder-length, wavy hair bleached blonde and showing roots. Her blue eyes were bright and intent as she focused on me. Beneath the cheerleader outfit, she wore black tights and a long-sleeved T-shirt, with practical black cross-trainers on her feet.

  I couldn’t help notice she was pretty, too, with a face that went several steps beyond cute, and a body that looked to be quite toned and athletic. Since she was a cheerleader, I wasn’t surprised by this. I shot her what I thought was a friendly smile, then sighed.

  “Can we head outside?” I asked. “This isn’t exactly a good place for conversation.”

  Jackie looked around at the dead cluttering the waiting area and chewed on her lower lip for a moment, then nodded. Without another word, she backed out through the sliding doors, keeping an eye on me as I gathered up the cart and rolled it carefully through and out onto the sidewalk. Charlie, once again, stayed right at my heels.

  That was one well-trained little dog. He kept an eye on the girl as we rolled the cart of medical supplies out and over to my truck. She just kept a safe distance and watched me, her eyes unreadable.

  “It’s that bad?” Jackie asked suddenly.

  “What?” I looked over at her as I finished loading the last bag into the truck bed.

  “This whole thing,” she said, flapping a hand towards the hospital, then around at the town nearby. “I was the only person still alive in my dorm, there was no power, and I couldn’t reach my family on the phone.” Jackie sniffled and shook her head. “Meanwhile, here I am talking to some dude I just met in a hospital full of dead people.”

  I nodded slowly. “It’s bad,” I said at last. “I’ve tried phones and radios and got nothing.”

  Jackie closed her eyes for a moment and sniffled again. “Mister Henry,” she said. “I know we just met and all, but I’m not going to be able to hold it together much longer, and I don’t want to be on the road or here at the hospital…”

  “You’d be welcome,” I told her, reading between the lines. “Are you up to following me? I’ll take you back to my farm, but I’ve got to get some things done.” Yeah, I had things to do, all right. I had to bury my grandma, then check on the neighbors. I couldn’t leave the young woman to her own devices, though, not when I could help, maybe.

  “I can drive,” she replied, then came to a decision and slung the shotgun over her shoulder before she knelt down and held a hand out to Charlie.

  He looked up at me, then at her. I nodded and smiled faintly, and the dog trotted over and politely sniffed Jackie’s hand before consenting to let her pet him. She looked relieved as she did, running her fingers through Charlie’s rumpled fur while she talked nonsense to him. I just watched for a bit, smiling. It was good to see that little bit of positivity in the sudden weird world we found ourselves in.

  “Jackie,” I said. “I ain’t going to drive fast, and I have to warn you that my grandma died at the house. I mean to go ahead and bury her today. I also wanted to check on the neighbors, but I ain’t holding my breath after talking to you. You good to go?”

  The girl looked up from the happy mutt and nodded, then rose and stretched a bit. Charlie stayed by her feet. I guess the guy was easily won over, not that I blamed him.

  “Also, if Charlie there wants to ride with you, go for it. He’s from the firehouse,” I added.

  A broad smile crossed her face. She looked down at the dog, and I swear he grinned back.

  “Charlie, huh?” Jackie said. “You wanna ride with me, boy?”

  Charlie wagged his tail and barked happily. I guess I had my answer.

  “Traitor,” I muttered under my breath, then said louder, “Okay, Jackie. Stay close.”

  She nodded and headed for her Jeep with Charlie tagging along after her while I clambered into the cab of my truck. A few minutes later, we were on our way back to the farm.

  My mind was still reeling, but I had to keep it together, not just for me, but for the livestock and pets back at the farm, and for Jackie. The whole situation was a lot more complicated now. How old was the girl? Eighteen? I couldn’t tell from first glance, but she was fit, together, and seemed to know her way around a firearm.

  Of course, that could be wishful thinking on my part. I’d been in a significant famine for the last year or so, what with taking care of the farm and my mechanic business. I shook my head. We were both traumatized, possibly in some sort of mental shock, and this wasn’t the time for those kinds of thoughts.

  I was instantly protective of the young woman, but that was how I’d been raised, and where my background and experiences led me. It wasn’t that I was some ultra-alpha special forces murder machine, but I had training, experience, and, to be honest, I’d seen stuff worse than this, at least somewhat.

  My mind wandered a bit as I drove, cataloging the things I needed to do. There was no knowing if anyone in authority would show up. Without radio, cellphone, or even landline, there wasn’t much that I could do, and I didn’t want to go too far afield until I made sure that my little homestead was safe. If Jackie wanted to check on her folks, though, I’d make time for that. She needed to find out if they were alive and to get closure if they weren’t.

  I firmly suspected the latter.

  Once again, I wondered what the hell had happened, then scowled as I imagined the sheer monumental effort ahead of me. There wasn’t much to be done for the dead, and I was a fool if I thought I could clean out every house and business in just Opelika. That was thousands of corpses.

  We’d have a vermin boom soon. Disease and scavengers would spread, and the safest bet would be to keep isolated. I could do that on the farm, and if Jackie was willing to help, I could get us power. Solar, wind, or generator were all options. The gas generators were the place to start. I’d need to gather as much fuel as I could, which meant looking for a tanker truck. First, though, we’d need food. Frozen stuff that was locked away might still be good, but the main target should be cans, bottles, and survival rations.

  I knew a shop that catered to hunters and survivalists, and they’d have plenty of MREs, water purification tablets, and other sorts of things. I could lay in a good supply of feed for the livestock and the pets at the feed store.

  First, though, I needed to lay grandma to rest and check the nearby farms. Second, I needed to figure out what the hell my limits were. I knew I couldn’t take care of all the animals nearby, not and have time to do much of anything else. Without help, I could probably manage a handful of cows, goats, and sheep, not to mention a coop of chickens. That should keep Jackie and me, if she chose to stick around, in a relatively self-perpetuating supply of food.

  Maybe she’d been studying something useful a
t Auburn. She didn’t look like a liberal arts kind of girl, not that there was anything wrong with that, but the survival skills taught in that particular curriculum were sorely lacking. Maybe she was agricultural sciences or engineering. Hell, I’d be happy if she were pre-med or veterinary, too. I could handle engineering and mechanics, but I didn’t know a whole lot about taking care of the sick or injured.

  I spared a glance into the rear-view mirror. She was certainly good at following directions, I’d give her that. At the moment, she was two car lengths behind me. We’d pulled off the interstate at my exit and were rumbling down the two-lane back roads in the direction of the farm. The houses we passed looked dead and empty, which, I mused, they probably were.

  With a sigh, I returned my attention to the road ahead. It wouldn’t do to hit a deer or a dog, or anything else, for that matter. Fortunately, we encountered neither and turned off onto the dirt road leading to the house a short time later. Off in the distance, I could see vultures circling. Something was dead where they could get at it. More than likely, it was a deer, but the thought that it was a camper or transient did cross my mind.

  Eyes forward, Henry. Keep it straight, get the work done. There’d be time to mope later, maybe. I felt tired already, just from the city and the hospital, so the sooner I took care of everything else, the sooner I could rest.

  I parked the truck at the main house, and Jackie pulled in beside me. Dogs swarmed us the moment we got out, barking and sniffing. Charlie held back, the whites of his eyes showing as he looked from me to Jackie, then at the five large mixed breed females that surrounded us.

  “Jackie and Charlie,” I spoke up. “I’d like you to meet Anny, Jenny, Suzy, Maggie, and Penny.” The girls all wagged and grinned as I said their names. “Girls, meet Jackie and Charlie. Y’all are going to have to help them feel at home, okay.”

  Suzy, the nominal alpha of the little pack, let out a bark that could have been a “Yes, sir!”

  “Don’t call me sir,” I muttered. “I work for a living.”