Here We Stand (Book 1): Infected (Surviving The Evacuation)

by Frank Tayell

Tom stalked back to the computer. He brought up a video, watching someone’s phone recording of a zombie attacking a cop.

  Sending that email had nothing to do with the outbreak. That was the coincidence, and it left two possibilities. This virus had been created in a U.S. or British lab as a weapon to be used against nations who refused the vaccine. A toe the line or be destroyed device that had been accidentally unleashed here. That wasn’t likely. He’d spent years tracking down black sites and off-the-book projects. The conspirators didn’t have the resources to organize two secret biological research projects. The second possibility was that some foreign power had unleashed the virus as a pre-emptive attack.

  He knew for a fact that both the Russians and the Chinese had learned of Prometheus, though he’d been unable to find out precisely how much they knew. However, they had far greater resources than he did, so it was reasonable to assume they knew as much, if not more, than he. Perhaps this virus was some Cold War weapon, left unremarked but not forgotten. Perhaps.

  What mattered was that this crisis increased the chances that Prometheus would be initiated. If he couldn’t warn Max, he had to warn off the cabal. It was an Anglo-American project, and he knew someone on the other side of the Atlantic who could get word to the British government. He gathered all the information he had on Prometheus, the files he had on the vaccine, and the lab that had created it, and sent them to a remote server to which only one other person had access, Bill Wright. He was a speechwriter, spin doctor, and the confidant of a rising star in British politics. He’d be able to get word to their prime minister.

  It was a start, but it didn’t feel like enough. He needed proof. Something he could take to Max that would finally convince the president. There was one logical place to look: Farley’s personal email accounts. So far, he’d not found anything incriminating. Today was different. Someone had emailed him a video. He didn’t recognize the name, but it came from an official NSA account. It was an uncompressed video that would take too long to download, so he sent it to the remote server, with a copy to the online drop box he shared with Bill. As an afterthought, he copied the rest of Farley’s inbox, outbox, and his contacts.

  His stomach growled. He blinked. It was eight o’clock. The background footage on the television had changed, and so had the anchor. He didn’t recognize the woman at the desk. Behind her, more graphic scenes of impossible violence played out. The ticker read ‘America under attack. Stay inside. You are safe in your homes. Await further announcements.’ Despite the message on the screen, he wasn’t safe. Was anywhere?

  He opened the tablet and began accessing the traffic cameras, this time checking the bridges. The ones to the south were filled with stalled traffic and fleeing people, except they didn’t look like people. Their movements were too erratic. The tunnels were worse. To the north, the George Washington Bridge was being cleared of traffic. Giant yellow bulldozers were moving from the New Jersey end, pushing vehicles into the Hudson River. That might be a way out, except it looked like there were military checkpoints at the bridge’s far end. It was unlikely they’d be keeping a specific watch for him, but he didn’t want to end up in a quarantine camp.

  There was one other way out of the city: by boat. He’d discounted it as being too slow and conspicuous when he’d thought he’d be fleeing from Farley and Powell.

  He dialed one of the other few numbers he knew by heart.

  “Sophia?”

  “Why are you calling?”

  “You remember the favor you owe me?”

  “Now? Absolutely not. The FBI came looking for you. Do you know that? They came asking questions. They said you were a terrorist.”

  “I’m not. Was this a guy with blond hair?”

  “No. A bald man with an absurd little goatee.”

  Not Powell, then, perhaps he worked for him. “When was this?”

  “Two weeks ago. He said you were behind those bombings.”

  “I wasn’t. I’ve been set up.”

  “Huh. And now you are calling me. And today.”

  “I’m in New York, Sophia. In Manhattan. I’m trying to get out. I was hoping… well, I thought you might be off the coast, somewhere nearby.”

  “I’m in Puerto Rico,” she said.

  “Oh. Why?”

  “What business is that of yours? Why does the FBI think you were behind the bombings?”

  “It’s a long story,” he said.

  “Tell me.”

  “I can send you an email with some files that will explain everything,” he said. “Is the internet still working there? Do you still have power?”

  “Of course.”

  “The files will explain everything.”

  “And then you want me to come north and sail into New York?” she asked.

  “How about you look at the files, and if you come this way, you call me. And if I make it out to sea, I’ll call you.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe I’ll call the FBI and they’ll be the ones to collect you. Except after today, I think they’ll be too busy to do anything.”

  “Just look at the files,” he said, and hung up.

  She might not show up, but she wouldn’t betray him. Sophia was a fisher; so were her parents, her grandparents, and as far back as any history had recorded. She’d borrowed money from the wrong people to expand her business. When the ships were sunk in a storm, those people came asking for a repayment she had no way of making. He’d dealt with them partly with violence, but mostly by ensuring that they were arrested in possession of so much uncut cocaine that they were all still in jail. He’d funded Sophia’s trawlers himself, using funds he’d taken from the same thugs that had threatened her.

  No, she wouldn’t send the FBI. She might not come at all, but if she did, it would be days before she arrived. He had to get out of the city and couldn’t wait that long to do it. Get out? And go where? Like Julio, Sophia was part of his plan for getting out of America. He doubted distance offered safety any more.

  The clip behind the anchor changed. This footage was shot in Times Square. Six of those inhuman creatures were clustered on the ground, tearing and ripping at some unseen body. One cricked its head. Its empty, lifeless eyes stared right into the lens. Slowly, it stood. The camera didn’t move. The creature staggered closer. Behind it, the others began to rise. The zombie’s red-stained mouth gaped open. The image abruptly changed to an aerial shot of a road crammed with cars.

  The anchor didn’t say what had happened to the person who’d shot that footage. Since someone had uploaded it to the television network, Tom assumed they’d survived, but for how long? How long would anyone survive in this city? Where was the official response? Where was the CDC?

  And then he knew where he had to go. Max needed proof of the conspiracy, but he also needed answers as to what this outbreak was. Tom tapped at the laptop, cursed the slow connection, and finally found the file he was after, the one that contained information on Dr Ayers.

  She was insane, though a court had ruled she wasn’t. He’d first come across her when looking for the scientists behind Project Archangel. A decade ago she’d been employed by the CDC. During a viral outbreak in West Africa, she’d smuggled infected tissue samples back to the United States. She’d found a cure and tested it on her grad students. That they’d knowingly volunteered for it, and that the anti-viral had worked, had kept her out of prison. It had also led to her being barred from going within five miles of a high school laboratory, let alone anything more complex.

  The address was near the Allegheny National Forest, on the western edge of Pennsylvania. Would she still be there? From outside came a long, high-pitched scream. She might not be there. She might be unable to help. She might already be in some government lab. Her house wasn’t so much a destination as a direction in which to head. On the way, he would look for a refuge where he could go through all the files, and attempt to decipher what was going on.

  It wasn’t a great plan, but as if to underscore the need to get out of th
e city, there came another scream from outside. It was time to leave Manhattan, and the best way out was still going to be by boat.

  Chapter 3 - Supplies

  Harlem, New York

  The suit was barely warm enough for a summer’s evening, let alone a wintery trek across the city before a midnight boat ride into the unknown. However, it was what he had, and almost all he had. The sat-phone and tablet were in one pocket, with five thousand dollars in another. The money was another breadcrumb. The bills were marked, in the hope that Powell would take and spend them. With access to most of his bank accounts cut off, it had been a real hardship not dipping into the fund during the lean days of the last month.

  There were no weapons in the apartment. Though he’d identified Powell and a few of his goons, many of the people hunting for him were legitimate officers of the law. If he had a gun, he might use it, and suspected that was what Farley wanted. Now he regretted that prudence. He pulled his collar up and left the apartment building.

  The streetlights worked, but the road outside was quiet. The silence was unsettling. Where were the sirens? The police? Where was the National Guard? Halfway down the block, a delivery truck had crashed into a parked sedan. There was no sign of the passengers, nor, unsurprisingly, any towing service. A narrow stretch of road was visible between the erratically parked and abandoned vehicles on this street, but he knew gridlock was only a few blocks away. Opposite, a couple hastily loaded a beat-up hatchback. He thought of warning them that there was no way of driving out of the city. He doubted they’d listen. Instead, he crossed to the bodega on the corner, pushed at the door, and was surprised when it opened. Rami, the middle-aged co-owner of the store, was behind the counter, just as he always was during the evening shift.

  “Hey, are you open?” Tom asked.

  “Cash only,” Rami said, not taking his eyes from the small television next to the register.

  “Fair enough.” Tom grabbed a six-pack of vitamin water from the shelf, and placed it on the counter, adding a box of candy bars that claimed to have thirty-three percent more nuts. He wasn’t sure what they were using for comparison, but that gave him protein, water, vitamins, sugar, and carbs. It was almost a balanced diet.

  “Do you have bleach?”

  “What? Bleach? Yes, over there.” Rami jerked a thumb toward the back of the store. The clerk’s eyes stayed glued to the screen, on which military uniforms were setting up a checkpoint. The ticker read ‘City In Lockdown’, but the footage wasn’t of Manhattan. Tom wasn’t even sure it was in America.

  He wandered through the store, vaguely looking at the shelves. His brain switched gears from the mystery of what had happened to the puzzle of what was going on. More precisely, to why no official response seemed to be going on anywhere that he could see or hear. Did it change his plans? No. He picked up a bottle of bleach, then another, wondering if any commercially available disinfectant would be strong enough.

  The bell above the shop’s door jangled. Tom moved a few inches, so he could see who’d entered. Two men, in their early twenties, both dressed in dark denim, black hoodies, and bulky sneakers that were more logo than style. One had a baseball cap covering his eyes, the other a gold chain so large it was obviously fake.

  “Rami, how are you?” the one in the baseball cap said, with menacing cordiality.

  “We’re closed,” Rami said. Tom could sense what was coming. He looked around for another way out, but the only other exit was behind the counter.

  “Good,” the one with the gold chain said, Eastern Europe clear in his accent. “We’re taking payment in advance. Two years in advance.”

  “I can’t pay that.”

  “Then we’ll take goods,” baseball cap said.

  There was a moment’s silence. “Fine,” Rami said. “Take what you want.”

  Tom relaxed. There was a limit to what the two thugs could carry. As soon as their arms were full, they’d go, and then he could do the same.

  “You don’t understand,” gold chain drawled. “We’re taking your store. Everything here is ours.”

  Baseball cap walked to the door, and slid the bolts at top and bottom. He glanced toward Rami, gave a feral grin, and flipped the sign to closed. Tom mentally cursed. This was the last thing he needed.

  “I don’t… I don’t understand,” Rami said.

  “You seen the news?” gold chain asked. “The city’s in lockdown. No food’s gonna come in for days. Maybe weeks. It’s like my man says, he who controls the supply controls the demand.”

  This wasn’t going to end well, but Tom didn’t panic. He’d been in far worse situations than this. His family had died when he was a child. He’d spent his teens helping smuggle drugs and guns through a heavily policed city. That life ended when he walked into a bloodbath and was the only one to walk out alive. He’d taken a bag of cash, and another of forged passports, and fled to America. Though in recent decades information had been his weapon of choice, it hadn’t always been his final resort. Two callow youths could be swiftly dealt with. No, he wasn’t worried, not until the man with the gold chain pulled out a revolver.

  Tom swore. Perhaps it was exhaustion, or perhaps it was an angry externalization of all that had happened that day, but he swore out loud.

  “Who’s there?” baseball cap called, drawing a weapon of his own.

  Tom stepped out from around the shelves, bottle of bleach in one hand, nothing in the other. “Just buying some bleach,” he said. “It’s good for infections.”

  “Infections? You infected?” gold chain asked, taking a step back.

  “What do we do? What do we do?” baseball cap asked. He was shifting agitatedly from foot to foot, the gun’s barrel drawing a circle in the air. If he fired, there was a good chance he’d miss. Tom wasn’t willing to take the bet.

  “Glass windows like that aren’t going to offer you much protection,” Tom said. As he spoke, he extended his arm toward the front of the store, using the movement to take a surreptitious step closer to the two men. “You need to take the supplies and find somewhere high up. The top floor of a building with at least two stairwells would be my recommendation.” He shifted his stance again, sliding another step forward. Another three feet and he’d be able to topple the set of shelves onto the pair of them. “And,” he added, “you need to act quickly, before the army comes rolling down the street.” He’d said something wrong.

  The man with the gold chain sneered. “Army’s not going to come. Not here. No cops, neither. Ain’t you heard? They’ve gone.”

  “What do we do?” baseball cap asked again.

  Gold chain shifted aim. “The cops won’t care. We kill—”

  There was a shot. Gold chain flew backward, slamming into the aisle. Baseball cap pulled the trigger, but Tom was already diving forward. The bullet sailed past him. He reached out, grabbing the man’s wrist, twisting the hand up and back. The gun fired again, the retort muffling the sound of bone snapping. The thug screamed. Tom jabbed his left hand into the man’s throat. The screaming stopped as the man collapsed, sobbing for air. Tom grabbed the revolver from the ground. He took a step, and another, backing around the shelves so he could see the thug with the gold chain. The man was dead.

  “Okay,” he began, uncertain what he was going to say next. “Okay, I—”

  There was another loud boom. The face underneath the baseball cap disintegrated. Tom turned around. There was a young woman next to Rami, a shotgun in her hand. She looked terrified, but her hands were steady, and the gun was now pointing at Tom.

  “It’s over,” Tom said, slow and calm. “It’s over.”

  Rami came out of whatever shock had been gripping him. He grabbed the gun from the girl. “I shot them,” he said. “Me. Not her.”

  “It won’t matter,” Tom said. “That man was right. The police won’t care. Fire another shot into that man’s head and say they were zombies. Like on the news.” He walked over to the counter and picked up a tote bag. The water went in, and t
hen the box of candy. “If I were you, I’d drag them outside, turn the lights off, and lock the doors.” He slung the bag over his shoulder. “Then paint the windows so no one can see in. Barricade them. The police aren’t coming.” He took a step back. “Not for days. Maybe weeks. You’ve got food here, and water.” He took another step back. “Enough to last you until this is all over.”

  Rami nodded. “You think weeks?”

  “I really do,” Tom said. “But you can keep your family safe. Take the bodies outside.” He took another step, and now he was at the door. “Block the doors.” He raised the hand, pointing at the shelf behind the counter. “Do those cameras work?”

  “What?” Rami turned around to look. Tom opened the door and stepped outside before the spell had a chance to break.

  He began a slow jog along the sidewalk, wanting to put distance between him and the store. He took the first alley he came to, then kept on jogging down the next road, only slowing when he was three blocks away.

  He could be wrong. The police might come. Part of him hoped they would, that any minute now, he’d hear sirens. He didn’t. The streets were deserted. There were lights in some windows, but just as many were dark. From the occasional glow of a screen, he could tell there were people in there. Watching. Waiting. Hoping that dawn’s first light would bring an end to the nightmare. He knew it wouldn’t.

  Chapter 4 - Leaving

  Manhattan, New York

  The Seventy-Ninth Street Boat Basin was a marina on the west of Manhattan where people could live in their boats year-round. Thanks to a city ordinance a few years before, those boats had to be sea-worthy even if their live-aboard owners never untied them from their moorings.

  He’d taken a walk down to the basin during a tense afternoon two weeks ago, when he had nothing to do but wait to see if his plans would work or collapse. He’d looked at the boats – some new, some old, some desperately in need of repair – and imagined sailing away to someplace warm. He’d turned around and walked back to the small room, knowing that if he stayed there looking at the boats for too long, he’d succumb to the ocean’s siren song.