A Good Distance From Dying

by David Carroll

  “If you can do that, Charlie, I will name you Grand High Poobah of Wal-Mart Town.” Jack declared.

  “While you’re clearing the inside, we’ll grind off these stairs.” Sass said.

  “You’re good with a grinder?” Jack asked.

  “Yes sir, put it in my hands and the job is done.”

  Jack walked over to where his boxes were and started setting things out onto the ground as he looked for his grinder. The amount of stuff that he had up here was staggering.

  “Jack I know I asked before, but the sheer volume of gear you have is like crazy person scary.”

  Jack looked around at the equipment that was lying out on the roof around him.

  “All of this? This isn’t the mark of a crazy person. This is the preparations of a Boy Scout.” Jack said.

  “A Boy Scout?” Shawn asked.

  “Yes sir, always be prepared.”

  “Are you always prepared or did this happen at just the right moment?” I asked.

  Jack looked at me like he didn’t get the joke.

  “You’re serious, aren’t you? When you woke up this morning you had no clue did you?” Jack asked.

  “No clue about what? The zombies? How could I have known that zombies were coming for us today?”

  Jack laughed, “Do you even watch the news?”

  I told him that I was usually watching movies or playing games on the X-Box. He looked at the others, “Do any of you watch the news?” Nobody would say they did. Jack looked to Amanda, “You’re military. I know you had an idea of what was coming.”

  “I knew something was happening on a global scale, but as for specifics? No, I had no clue.” Amanda said.

  “This whole thing has been coming for weeks, months even. I wanted to get all my supplies up here three days ago, but I couldn’t figure out a way to do it.”

  “You are telling me…that you…just some guy living in northeast Tennessee…saw all of this coming?” Amanda asked.

  “Well, I didn’t know that it would be zombies, but I knew something huge was coming. How could the rest of you not? I mean it’s been in all the news stories.”

  “What news stories?” Amanda asked.

  “Well, to start off, about six weeks ago all trips to foreign countries for the president and vice president, as well as their families, were cancelled. It was within days of the big trip to China that the president was supposed to make.” Jack said.

  “Yes, I remember that. The official line was something to do with food poisoning.” Amanda said.

  Jacked raised his eyebrows, “That was one of the theories. I guess we know the reason now.”

  “You’re saying these things were running around six weeks ago?” Veronica asked.

  “I believe they’ve been around for longer than that. I think around six weeks ago is when it started getting out of hand and the president and vice president began to think about contingency plans.” Jack said.

  “Wow. Just…wow. You put all of this together, just by that?” Shawn asked.

  “Well no. That was just one of the first news stories that put a little question mark up on my radar. The second story was what made the question mark into an exclamation and convinced me that something bad was on the horizon.”

  “And what was that, Jack?” Sass asked.

  “I can’t remember how long ago it happened. I think it was about four or five weeks ago. An entire town up in Canada just disappeared. This was a place with around a thousand people. One day it was there, the next it was gone. No reason was ever given as to where the people went. Nobody knew if they were alive or dead, and as far as I know, none of the people were ever found either way. The news agencies reported this just once. After that if you wanted to find out any information you had to be prepared to do hours of digging. That is what convinced me that there was something shady going down.”

  “That…is just creepy.” I said.

  “Yeah, that’s like horror movie stuff right there.” Veronica said.

  “Did you hear anything about that Amanda?” Shawn asked.

  Amanda shook her head. “No. I wouldn’t have heard anything if they buried something like that. It would have been classified over my level of clearance.”

  “I bet you heard about this next one though.” Jack said. “About three weeks ago all US embassies were evacuated except for voluntary skeleton crews. The government tried to bury it and say it was cycling people in and out as usual, and the new staff just hadn’t been cleared to leave the states yet, but I think everyone could smell it for what it was.”

  Amanda had looked away, towards the dark of the parking lot, as Jack had been talking.

  “What is it Amanda?” I asked.

  “I was there. I was helping evacuate the embassies during that time. It was like a war zone. People were lining the streets. They had surrounded the building and were yelling at us as we left.”

  “That would be disturbing.” Sass said, but Amanda shook her head.

  “That isn’t what got to me. I had seen that quite a few times. I do a lot of missions where we officially were never there so I have seen my fair share of angry mobs. It wasn’t that they were screaming at us, it was what they were screaming at us.”

  “And what was that Amanda?” Jack asked in his soothing voice.

  “They called us murderers and yelled that we were abandoning them to die which is stuff I had heard before, but then I heard something else. I had to stop what I was doing and pay attention to the words for a few minutes before I could make it out. When I finally understood...it chilled me. What they were yelling was, ‘They eat our children and you leave us to them'.”

  That left the group quiet. Everyone just sat there letting the words soak in.

  “This was how long ago?” Veronica asked.

  “Like Jack said, around three weeks ago.”

  Jack stood up and walked over to Amanda. He put his hand on her shoulder and said “You’re not to blame for what happened over there. You had no idea what they were talking about.”

  “That’s just the thing; I knew they were telling the truth. There was something in their voices. Something that made you believe. I didn’t know they were talking about zombies. I thought they were talking about local gangs kidnapping children and killing and eating them. I really can’t imagine which would be worse, but I did know that they were not lying. I knew something was eating their children, and you know what I did with that knowledge? I loaded up the last of the office staff, climbed aboard the helicopter and returned to base. I left them there defenseless against this nightmare. I left them to die just like they said I would.”

  This was the most vulnerable I had seen Amanda all day. She seemed to be on the verge of losing it and crying her eyes out. Jack put his other hand on her other shoulder.

  “Soldier.” Jack said, his tone snapping Amanda back to her disciplined self. “You did your duty. You followed your orders. You have nothing to be sorry for.” He had spoken in a tone of authority. It was a tone that commanded respect and obedience. It was the sound of Jack Nicholson playing some badass military commander and telling Tom Cruise that he couldn’t handle the truth. It was Jack, as he later told me, from his former life. And it was exactly what Amanda had needed. She looked up at him and asked what he used to do before he became a full-time conspiracy theorist.

  “Secrets, secrets, secrets, my dear Miss Asare. I have to have a few of my own every so often. Let’s just say I had to work really hard to realize that I didn’t have to work at all.”

  “What happened after the embassies?” Sass asked.

  “Well this just happened last week. If the lot of you tell me you didn’t hear about this, I will lose complete respect for your generation and just accept that the whole world has gone to pot.” As he said this he looked out at the interstate where you could still see some zombies wandering around under the street lights. He added, “Oh yeah, it’s already gone to pot, never mind.”

  I laughed again; I r
eally liked this guy and hoped he didn’t turn out to be some psycho like the king.

  “Just last week the United States closed off all of their borders to anyone except US citizens returning to the country. Everybody else was being turned away and sent back to their country of origin. All returning U.S. citizens were made to undergo a health screening upon returning to the country. It was rumored that some of those people disappeared. I remember at least two stories with family members claiming that their loved ones had never made it back home. The news got hold of this story and it blew up. It was everywhere. The official line on this one was a new flu virus was out there and there was no cure at the moment. They said they were trying to keep it from spreading into the states. The disappearing people were already infected with the virus and they had been quarantined by the C.D.C. while they attempted to find a cure. Nobody really bought this story even though during the same time there were commercials for flu vaccinations everywhere. There had also been stories about some new strain of the flu that was wiping out whole villages in Africa and China. Flu hysteria was ramping up to an all time high. None of you noticed any of this?”

  “Yeah, I saw something about it on the TV in the break room at work, but I didn’t pay any attention to it.” I said.

  Jack sighed. “And people wonder why the government thinks they can hide everything from the masses.”

  “Amanda, had you heard anything about any of this?” Sass asked.

  “Bits and pieces, here and there. Nothing that would make you think that this was going too happen until after the fact.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “There was this landing strip in Africa. It’s not on any official map and the only planes that would ever be landing on it would be from the military. I had a mission into that region about a month ago. At the last minute it was scrapped. They said that there was a local uprising and that the landing area wasn’t safe. The locals in this area don’t even have bows and arrows, but it wasn’t safe for us to land a plane under armed guard? I asked about it and was quickly told to mind my business. After that I received my new orders which were to oversee the evacuations of some of the embassies.”

  “I could see how you wouldn’t immediately think zombies when you hear that.” Shawn said.

  “There was more. A small town in Russia was supposedly buried under an avalanche, but there was no rescue mission being prepared because the area had been deemed to risky. I was told they were afraid another avalanche would bury any rescue personnel and that the town’s people would most likely be dead before we could get to them anyway.” Amanda sighed and shifted her weight against the skylight she was perched on.

  “Then there was a naval vessel that had taken on refugees from some slaver ship out in the Atlantic. Hours after rescuing the slaves, the ship had lost contact with everybody and was sitting dead in the water. A crew from a nearby carrier went to offer aid to the vessel. I never got the full story of what was found when they went aboard, but I do know that seven of the boarding party was killed and the carrier was given the order to set fire to, then sink the vessel with all men and refuges still on board. I got that story from a five star that thought of me as a daughter. He told me this right before he gave me the mission that brought me out here. I think it was his way of warning me that big things were going down. I just never put it all together. I figured it was some mutated form of the flu like the news was saying. I guessed that it was a new plague that they were trying to contain.”

  “In a way you were right,” Jack said. “It is a new form of the plague, and I am very sure that not only the U.S. government but the world governments were trying to contain it before it got out of hand.”

  “Day late and a dollar short.” I said.

  “No doubt,” said Sass.

  “So, Amanda, you ever going to tell us what your mission was? What were you doing when you bumped into our boys here?” Veronica asked.

  “I really can’t.” Amanda said. “It’s nothing personal. It’s just classified and I don’t feel comfortable breaking protocol.”

  Jack laughed, “Amanda, do you still think there is a United States of America?” Amanda looked at Jack with complete shock on her face. You could tell by her expression that the question had never entered her mind. She had been as positive now as when she woke this morning that the good old U.S. of A. was alive and well. Jack watched her expression sharpen as the answer formed in her mind, then he spoke again. “Do you think that there are any world governments left?”

  Amanda looked shell shocked. Jack was making her look at things in a way that she didn’t want to. Career military. That meant she accepted the truth that she had been given. The truth that the United State would always be here. That we would always be the good guys and that we would never give in to defeat. Even in the face of death we would persevere.

  “The world has changed in many fundamental ways today soldier. Countries have fallen. World powers have been snuffed out of existence. There are no more classified documents. There is no more protocol. As much as you wish there was, and I know you wish there was, that world doesn’t exist any more.”

  Amanda closed her eyes and leaned her head back, pointing her face at the rising moon.

  “I refuse to believe that, Jack. I refuse to believe everything that I have made my life stand for, everything I have sacrificed for, everything I have believed in, is simply gone. Wiped out because the dead won’t stay dead. I can’t accept that.”

  “Want to or not, it is something that you will have to come to peace with in time. But, I guess, not tonight. Tonight we still have a lot of work to do and all of this talking isn’t helping it get done any faster.” Jack said.

  “I was thinking the same thing. It’s just getting later and I’m getting more tired.” Sass said, “Jack if you can give Shawn and Veronica a flashlight the three of us will go start hacking your steps apart.”

  “I’m helping?” Veronica said. I had expected a tone of distaste, but it came out as excitement. Jack handed her and Shawn a flashlight, and they wandered off with Sass asking how they were going to help him.

  Jack and Amanda stood in front of me. Big Lou looked at them, then to me, then he walked over to where Sass and the others were and laid down.

  “Okay, me compadre, time to tell me about this plan for clearing out the store.” Jack said.

  I smiled at the two of them.

  “I’d be happy to.”

  C H A P T E R T H I R T Y - S E V E N

  “Zombies love noise.” I said. “They thrive on the sounds of the world around them and they can differentiate between what should be human and what is naturally occurring.”

  “You want to draw them out with noise?” Amanda asked.

  “You got it. I assume that you have some kind of harness system that you were planning to use to get through one of these skylights and down into the store.” I said. Jack nodded that yes, he did. “Okay. I say we get our two best marksmen, which would be you two, stationed where you can look down through the skylights and just blast the bejeezus out of anything that comes into view. Then the bait, that would be me, starts yelling, singing, or screaming. In short, I do whatever it takes to draw the zombie’s attention. They follow the noise to where I’m hidden away, which will be above their heads, up in the rafters. They come for me and walk right into your bullets. Case closed.”

  “Won’t they ignore you once they see they can’t reach you?” Amanda asked.

  “No. I don’t think they will. Remember back to the car alarm at the bridge. There were hundreds of zombies standing under the bridge looking up trying to figure out how to get to where that sound was. I think as long as they believe there’s a possibility of a meal they will stay on target, just like red five.”

  Amanda looked at me with a bit of confusion on her face. “It’s a Star Wars reference.” I said.

  “Yes, I know.” Amanda answered. “I just don’t get your constant need to plug in useless jargon when you’
re explaining things.”

  Jack smiled. “I like it, the jargon and the plan.”

  “Yes, it is a good plan. I will feel much safer searching the building once we have wiped out the majority of the walkers this way. I do not share Charlie’s optimism of such a high percentage being removed, but even if we get half of them, it will present us a much safer environment to conduct our search.” Amanda said.

  I looked at Jack. “That’s Amanda’s way of saying let’s do this.”

  Amanda gave me that mean look again, Jack just laughed as he walked back towards the boxes.

  “First I want to check out one of the harnesses. I don’t want you to be hanging up there in something that may have a defect in its safety lines.”

  Once Jack was gone I motioned for Amanda to walk towards the other end of the building with me.

  “Opinions?” I asked.

  “He seems okay to me. Why do you ask?”

  “After the whole Gray episode, I guess I’m a bit guarded in who I want to trust the lives of this group to.”

  “I can see your point. I think my opinion may be a bit biased. I have no idea how high he’s ranked, but he is, or was, military. That fact in itself makes me trust him.”

  “Yeah, I kind of figured that. However, you were the only other one that smelled rat in the King of Gray. I’m not stupid enough to think I have all the answers and I wanted, I guess you could say, a professional opinion of this guy before I do what I plan to do.”

  “And what is it that you plan to do, Charlie?”

  “Well, we’re here. We’re safe. My job is over. I was leader because I was the person who knew how to best keep us alive. I don’t think I fit that bill any more. Jack is a much better candidate for the job. I am turning leadership over to him. He can do this job better than I can.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I never wanted this to start with. It just kind of happened. Despite what Daniel spent the entire day preaching I am not power hungry. He’s better for us. It’s just that simple.”

  Amanda seemed to think about it then shrugged like she was saying it wasn’t her decision to make.