Z Plan (Book 2): Red Tides

by Lerma, Mikhail

  “Once all of you were back on the boat, what happened then?” Amun moved on.

  “Pashet. Er, um, ensign Pashet,” Cale corrected himself, “he refused to submit himself to be inspected for infection.”

  Amun nodded.

  “He was infected, sir. He had a bite on his hand, and the man in charge saw it, so the ensign shot him,” Cale explained.

  “What was everyone else doing?” Amun asked.

  “Some infected were approaching the boat at the same time,” he continued, “so they were dealing with security.”

  “And that’s when the ensign shot the man?” the lieutenant commander asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So after that you killed him?”

  “Yes, sir. That’s when I killed ensign Pashet.”

  “Did you do it out of personal hatred for him?” Amun asked.

  “Yes, and no, sir,” Cale answered.

  “Yes, and no?” Amun questioned.

  “I did not personally like the man, but he was infected, sir. He would have brought it aboard, after killing everyone on that boat.” Cale hoped this testimony was enough.

  “Excellent. That’s all I needed to hear,” Amun said.

  Cale eyed his iPod and Zach’s belongings once more.

  “Once you accept that being here isn’t that bad, it gets easier,” Amun said, as he stacked the iPod and knife onto the book and slid it across his desk to Cale.

  “Am I ever going to get home, sir?” Cale asked, picking up the items graciously.

  Amun didn’t know what to say. He wanted to tell him yes, but was sure Selim would never allow it.

  “I don’t know,” he answered, after a few seconds of silence. “You’re free to return to your room.”

  “Sir,” Cale said, as he stood, cradling his possessions.

  The guard posted outside opened the door, and then led Cale back to his room. He was excited to get back and see if the battery on his iPod was still good. He missed the faces of his wife and daughter, and somewhere on the small piece of technology, he had a cache of them. With each step, he grew more excited. He knew the way, and wanted to run past his escort. He felt like a child with a Christmas present, anxious to rip away the shiny paper.

  Once in his small quarters, he saw Naeem was reading a book. He had obviously been given back his possessions as well. Cale scurried up to his bunk and pressed the button on the small device. He held his breath as the iPod powered on and showed a full battery signal. Amun had been nice enough to charge it for him. Cale quickly scrolled to his photos and opened the folder. His hands shook, as he flipped through the pictures. The first was of his little girl. Her big blue eyes were beaming brightly, and a smile shone on her chubby little face. Cale laughed out loud, but then laughter turned to tears. He wanted so badly to be with her now. He thought about what it would be like for her to grow up without him.

  Cale’s parents had been killed in a car accident when he was a child. It was the day before his birthday, when their four-door sedan had been struck by a drunk driver operating a semi. The driver had been issued many warnings about coming to work drunk. If the company had made a stand and suspended him, like their policy stated, his parents would have been there for his eighth birthday.

  He cried softly as he flipped through the pictures of his wife and his daughter, remembering when each was taken. When he reached the end, he looked through them again. He wanted nothing more than to be with his family.

  Part II

  The Miles that Separate

  “Though lovers be lost, love shall not; and death shall have no dominion.”

  -Dylan Thomas

  13.

  Surviving

  Cale rolled over in bed, and looked at his wife. Lauren opened her eyes, and looked at the man she’d pledged her everlasting love to. They kissed.

  “Good morning, beautiful,” Cale said.

  Lauren snuggled up next to him, burying her face in his chest. They could hear Marie in the next room, cooing, as she did every morning.

  “It’s your turn.” Lauren’s voice was muffled.

  “I know,” Cale said, climbing out of bed.

  Marie continued to babble and laugh in her room as Cale walked into the hall, the wooden floor cold under his bare feet. He entered the first door on the left, and there his little girl stood in her crib, excited to see her daddy.

  “Da da da,” she said, as he scooped her up.

  Cale went about the morning rituals of changing her diaper, and playing peek-a-boo as he dressed her. Together, they sat in the old wooden rocking chair that was a family heirloom.

  “You’re such a pretty baby, yes you are,” Cale said, as he began to rock her.

  The floor creaked under the chair’s shifting weight. From her bedroom, Lauren could hear Marie, the baby, laughing at her father. Cale had a boyish charm that could make anyone laugh, and it was one of the many reasons Lauren had fallen so deeply in love with him. He’d tease her from time to time, and just when she was about to get mad and snap at him, he’d give a little smirk, a half smile that melted her anger away.

  “You’re so cute when you’re mad,” he’d say.

  This, of course, drove her crazy, but she could never stay mad at him, not with those bright blue eyes of his. She listened to her husband humming to their daughter, and the rhythmic noise of the rocking chair on the floor. The warm sunlight filtered through the blinds, as Lauren slowly sat up and stretched. Her grey shirt lifted as she extended her arms, stopping just at the bottom of her ribcage. She kicked the blanket off, exposing her short shorts with the word ‘cherry’ scrawled across the back. They were her favorite shorts; she felt they made her ass look plumper, and Cale seemed to like them too.

  “Da da!” Marie yelled, starting to cry.

  The fourteen month old wailed loudly, as if she’d been hurt. Lauren noticed that both the humming and the rocking of the chair had stopped.

  “She might be hungry, babe,” Lauren suggested.

  There was no answer, other than the cries of their daughter.

  “Is everything alright?” she asked.

  “Cale?” she said, as she climbed out of bed.

  Lauren walked out of the bedroom and down the hall into Marie’s room. There, on the floor, sat her little girl. Her blue eyes gushed fat, warm tears.

  “Da da,” she said again, still sobbing.

  Lauren picked up her child and returned to the hallway.

  “Cale!?” she shouted.

  Lauren headed for the living room. Through the screen door, she could see Cale in his US Army uniform, standing on the porch, his back turned toward her.

  “Cale, what are you doing?” she asked him.

  He didn’t reply. She pushed the door open slowly and stepped onto the porch behind him. Marie started to scream frantically. Lauren reached out to her husband.

  “Da da da!” Marie shouted from her crib.

  Lauren woke up in storage unit 215, which now served as their home. Not wanting to disturb the other children or their mothers, she quickly tended to Marie. After a moment of swaying with her in her arms, Marie quieted. Marie had been sick for the past week. She’d been dehydrated from her runny stools, and now she had a bad cough.

  She’d already taken her to see Gary, the compound’s only physician. Gary had been a family doctor for thirty years before the pandemic ravaged the world. Everyone referred to the old man as ‘Doc’. He hated it, but never fussed. He was a kind-hearted gentleman whose wife, God rest her soul, had died ten years before, after a bout with breast cancer.

  After examining Marie, he diagnosed her with respiratory syncytial virus or RSV. Given that Marie was only fourteen months old, the diagnosis was very serious, but treatable. They needed a nebulizer and hypertonic saline to combat the virus, but unfortunately those items weren’t readily available. Doc held a seat on the council, however, and could ensure that needed medicinal items were on the list of supplies.

  All Lauren could do f
or the time being was keep her clean and make sure she drank lots of fluids. Marie wasn’t going back to sleep, and Lauren checked the one alarm clock that the three families shared. It was four in the morning. The other kids stirred but didn’t wake. Lauren looked at the other mothers. Nicole lay in her bed on the north wall, and her two kids, nine-year-old Alexis and thirteen year old Nathan, slept on the mattress next to her. Along the east wall of unit 215, were Julie and her four-year-old boy, Callum. Lauren thought the little boy was the cutest she’d ever seen.

  Nicole didn’t talk to Lauren much, didn’t talk much to anybody, actually. The National Guard had gathered her and brought her, like the rest, to the county fairgrounds. As the virus spread from the cities to rural communities, the government ordered everyone to relocate to the ‘camps’. It was the only way they could think of to limit the number of people infected, especially once they realized what the virus was and how it affected its hosts.

  Lauren had overheard the kids talking to Nicole. From what she gathered, her husband, their father, had become one of those things, the walking dead. She’d tried talking to Nicole, but she’d only stared at Lauren blankly. She spoke only to her children. Nathan served as the family’s spokesperson, but Nathan didn’t speak much either. The family kept to mostly themselves.

  Despite Lauren’s best efforts, Marie didn’t go back to sleep. Morning rations would be handed out within the next thirty minutes, so she decided to get up for the day.

  The unit was separated from the hall by a curtain on a rod that had been welded up. To open and close the large metal door of the unit would wake the whole building. Callum stirred at the sound of the curtain’s rings scraping the metal bar, and he sat up and rubbed his eyes. He stretched, and then smiled at Lauren. He was a chubby little thing, with thick black hair, and his bright blue eyes squinted as he smiled at her. He had what Lauren called the ‘Superman Curl,’ a small curl of hair that stopped just above his brow.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Shhh,” Lauren said softly, placing her index finger to her lips.

  Callum smiled and stood. It wasn’t uncommon for Callum to follow Lauren around, and she and Julie had become close, like best friends.

  Julie knew all about Lauren, from how she’d met Cale, to his deployment to Iraq. Likewise, Lauren knew about Julie’s own relationship. The guy she’d dated for five months got her pregnant, and immediately swore to take care of both her and his child. They married three months later, and things were good for the first year after the baby was born. Then he started working late, trying to make ends meet, and soon he was never around. She felt bad that he worked so hard to ensure she and Callum always had the best. He worked as a regional manager for a gas station company, and often stayed late doing paperwork to stay on top of the workflow. By staying late, he could get one weekend off at the end of each month. When she planned a surprise tryst, she discovered that he wasn’t really working that hard. He’d been working up a sweat all right, but it wasn’t over paperwork.

  After that they went their separate ways, and he no longer wanted anything to do with Callum, eventually denying he was his child altogether. Even worse, his family went along with the lie, as if she and Callum had never existed. That was fine; the joke was on them. They’d never get to see Callum become the man his father never could.

  “Hurry,” Lauren whispered to the four year old.

  Holding Marie with one arm, and taking Callum’s hand with the other, she led them into the empty hall. The floor was cement, and the walls were lined with various makeshift curtains. Some had heavy blankets strung up, and others blue tarps or black garbage bags cut open and hanging. The small group made their way to unit 230, where the morning rations were handed out. Already a line had begun to form. At one time, rations were dispensed outside, but when the snow came, they’d moved indoors.

  The way the council had set things up, all the supplies that had been collected were pooled. Each day everyone would be given equal rations. Every person, regardless of age, sex, or size, was given an equal amount. An infant received the same amount as a fifty-year-old. If you didn’t eat your entire ration, which was rare, it was up to you what to do with it.

  Lauren took her place in the line, and a man further up waved back to her.

  “Lauren, up here,” he said, motioning her to join him toward the front.

  “No, it’s alright.” Lauren said with a smile.

  Ben was a year older than Lauren. They’d met in an art class they had together at the community college. Lauren didn’t remember this, but Ben sure did. He’d fallen in love with her immediately, but because she was married, he’d always admired her from afar. When her husband was deployed to Iraq, he remembered watching her cry quietly every day in class.

  How could he do that to her? he often wondered.

  If Lauren was his wife, no force on Earth could pull him away from her. He even loved her little girl. Marie was such a sweetheart. She was extremely friendly for a baby and would let almost anyone hold her. When Lauren would bring her to class, he’d make faces at her, and her little laugh made him want to pick her up and just squeeze her.

  He’d been so relieved to see them with the other survivors at the fairgrounds. In an odd way, he was thankful for this plague. Lauren hadn’t ever noticed him until now. Ben always did what he could to help her and Marie out. Since then, he’d stayed close, and kept them safe. Even when the fairgrounds were overrun, it had been Ben who pulled the commandeered minivan up to her group, despite the undead horde’s proximity to them. Ben had been hailed a hero, but the only ‘thanks’ that mattered to him had come from Lauren. She and her baby would have been food for one of those zombies if he hadn’t rescued her.

  “Seriously, come on,” he said to her again.

  He didn’t want to take no for an answer.

  “Thanks so much, but we can wait. It’s only fair,” Lauren assured him.

  “Fine. I’ll come and stand with you,” he said.

  Ben joined her and the two children in line.

  “How are you this morning?” he asked.

  “Good. But Marie is still sick,” she replied.

  “Can I?” he said, as he reached for Marie.

  Before Lauren could answer, Marie reached back.

  “Sure. Thanks,”

  “What’s the matter, little girl? You not feeling good?” he said sweetly to Marie.

  She simply smiled and cooed. Marie wasn’t quite talking yet.

  “No. She’s been coughing all night again,” Lauren told him.

  “Well that’s no good. We’ll have to fix that,” he said, tickling Marie a little bit.

  She smiled, and then squeezed his face between her tiny hands.

  Ben had been extremely helpful to them, and always among the first to volunteer to go on supply runs. He’d found diapers, wipes, and formula for all the babies of their little community. Anything anyone needed, he’d find it. He was well liked by everyone, especially the council. They’d ask for volunteers to find supplies, and he was the only person to step up. They’d have to comb their rosters for others to send, because no one else ever wanted to go outside the gate. The council ensured that it was fair. Everyone was required to go. Providing they were sixteen years or older, all were on the list. It had been eighteen originally, but had to be changed because of their small population. By opening up the roster to sixteen year olds, it more than doubled the number for search teams. Even the council members themselves went out.

  “Doc said something about sending a party out to the grocery store,” Ben said to Lauren.

  “I thought it was empty,” Lauren stated.

  “Yeah. We’ll be going to the next town to the south,”

  After fleeing the fairgrounds, what was left of the survivors fanned out across the area. Their group now occupied the storage facility about three quarter miles from the edge of town. It had been a farming town that housed a community college, as well as a school that hosted K-12. The surr
ounding towns were between ten and twenty miles away, but there were a lot of them. Luckily, they weren’t near any major cities, since those had been overrun quickly.

  “To the south? Really?” Lauren was surprised.

  “It’s the only one with a larger store, and a pharmacy.” Ben explained.

  Lauren knew that it was because of her and Marie that they were going to attempt it. It was the town that served as the county seat. It was large, with a population of thirty thousand before the epidemic. Now it was a large town with a living population unknown, and an undead population of about thirty thousand. The last team that had gone had barely made it back, but that was before the snow. They noticed that as it got colder, the infected became slower, and then just lay down and froze. Many speculated that the cold killed them; others believed it only sent them into hibernation, like a mudfish when there was no water left.

  “Just be careful,” Lauren said, sounding concerned.

  The look she’d given him made him melt. His heart raced anytime she showed concern for him, or anytime she thanked him for anything.

  “I will,” he replied with a smile.

  For a moment, Lauren thought he was charming. The way he smiled almost reminded her of Cale; except Ben’s hair was light brown, and he had eyes that were a brown-green mix.

  “Good,” she smiled back.

  “Mommy!” Callum shouted.

  Lauren turned to greet a tired looking Julie. They’d all been having nightmares, but Julie’s had been intense lately. This whole zombie apocalypse thing had given everyone posttraumatic stress.

  “Hey, little man,” Julie replied, “Thanks for letting me sleep in,” she said to Lauren.

  “No problem. He’s such a sweetheart,” Lauren said as she tousled his hair.

  “Hey!” he objected.

  The group laughed as he straightened his hair.

  “Good morning, Ben,” Julie greeted him.

  Julie had a schoolgirl crush on Ben. He was good looking and charming and always helped people; a genuinely nice guy, something Julie had always lacked in her life.