Looking around the roof it was obvious that only three people knew how to put tents together. Of course, two of those three were Jack and Amanda. The third person was Sass. I couldn’t say that I was completely surprised by this. Sass was an outdoorsy kind of guy. He had no clue how to run a computer, but he could gut a fish which was a very important skill to have now a days. Sass had walked over and sat down beside me after finishing his tent. He looked at my tent, still in the box, and then looked at me.
“You going to put that thing together?”
“Nope. I have no clue how to do it and I learned a lesson about tents a long time ago.”
“And what would that lesson be?”
I looked at Sass and smiled. “If you don’t know how to build a tent, but you’re around people who do, eventually the people who can will come help you build yours.”
Sass sat there with me watching Shawn seriously lose it as Veronica sat behind him laughing. Sass looked from them to me and then to my unopened tent pieces.
“You really are a Crackhead, you know that right?”
I smiled at him and put my arm on his shoulder. “You gonna help me put this thing together or what?”
With Sass helping it didn’t take long. I looked over and saw that Amanda was helping Shawn and then she moved on and helped Veronica. Jack had gone back down into the store after getting his tent set up.
As soon as my tent was built and happily standing in the corner Big Lou looked at it then back to me. I unzipped the front of the tent and he strolled inside, walked around in a circle for a few seconds, and then lay down. He placed both of his paws over his face and closed his eyes.
“And that is why I requested a larger tent.” I said to Sass.
I threw my sleeping bag, my two pillows and Big Lou’s pillow and blanket, into the tent and then zipped the door halfway closed so Lou could still get out if he needed to.
I made my way over to the main skylight Jack was using to ferry items to the roof and motioned for Sass to come help me. Jack had left one of the big yard tents on the roof. It was the kind of tent that has the solid top and then the mesh sides to keep bugs out. We placed it just to the side of the skylight and began to put it together and strap it down to the building. Once that was done we carried the table that Jack had left for us inside the tent and placed the two chairs in front of it. As we were doing this Jack walked into the tent and placed a box of items onto the table.
“This is the last of what you asked for Charlie.”
“Were you able to rig up an extension cord?” I asked. Jack smiled and held up a power strip. He then laid that down on the table as well.
“As long as the grid holds you will have power up here.” Jack said. “Now, I’m curious what you wanted this stuff for. Do you plan on showing us tonight?”
“Yes sir.” I said. “Just give me a bit to get it all set up.”
“Time is one thing we have. I need to grab some food.”
“Jack.” I said stopping him before he could hop back down through the skylight.
“That’s my name.”
“Grab a microwave if you don’t mind, and let’s eat the frozen stuff first, at least till the power goes out. That should make the rest of the food down there stretch a bit further.”
Jack nodded, “I like the way you think, me compadre. Your plan will be put into action.”
Jack disappeared back through the skylight.
“I don’t know how he goes down there by himself. It would give me the creeps.” Sass said.
“Yeah all the dead, dead people down there would be creepy.” I said.
“No doubt. What if, instead of a zombie that remembered he liked rap music, you had a zombie who really liked to play hide and seek or something? Or have somebody that had hidden and just now turned? Too many things could go wrong down there.”
My brain had been occupied with what I was doing while Sass had been speaking. Then everything he said solidified itself into one thought. Like Gregory House, I had just had a moment of clarity and I had to share it with somebody before I lost my nerve. I walked over to the boxes full of Jack’s stuff and picked up one of the headsets.
“Jack?”
“Hello, Charlie. What do I owe the pleasure of this conversation?”
“I just had a thought. I wonder if I could ask you to do me one more favor while you’re down there.”
“Name it.”
I told him what I wanted. He didn’t ask why. All he said was, “Not a problem.”
C H A P T E R F O R T Y - O N E
They were all gathered in the tent behind me. The laptop was hooked up and the printer was installed and ready to go. I powered up Internet Explorer and watched the home page load. The top news story was simply titled “The Dead Walk!” I thought of all the zombie movies I had ever watched. How many had that headline in the newspaper? While I was thinking about these movies the timer on the news window told the webpage that it was time to cycle to the next top news story. This one was titled, “DC Falls to Undead Siege. President Feared Lost.”
The timer shifted the window to the next news story. “Last Stand for Freedom!” the words under the headline were even less encouraging. “The brave soldiers of the 111th fight to the last man, buying time for Charlotte residents to flee for the safety of the United States rally point.”
“What is the United States rally point?” Shawn asked. “Not sure.” I said.
“It sounds like the military had some kind of plan to handle a zombie attack.” Veronica said looking at Jack. “Either of our military peeps know what that may be?”
Jack raised his eyebrows, “Who said I was military?”
“Please. You sweat red, white and blue.” Shawn said and laughed.
Jack shrugged his shoulders. “There was never a zombie contingency plan that I was made aware of. If one exists I doubt it was in place until very recently, maybe even not until today. My guess would be that they took an existing plan and retooled it to fit this situation.”
Amanda looked at Jack like she had been smacked. “That will never work. The dynamics would be completely different.”
Jack nodded. “Yes, but I am sure they would have taken that into account. I imagine that the rally point is somewhere out west. Somewhere with a lot of wide open spaces to build a secure area and start stocking it with government issue supplies.”
“You sound like you don’t think it will work.” Sass said.
“No matter how many people they project making it to safety they will still not have enough room. I would bet at least three times their highest estimations will show up. The military has the bad habit of underestimating the resourcefulness of civilians. They will have to institute rationing from day one. They won’t have enough medical supplies either, and before very long, sickness will run wild in the compound. That is if they are still alive.”
I took my eyes from the computer screen and looked back at Jack. “What do you mean if they are still alive?”
“Think about it Charlie. Massive groups of people showing up and the soldiers at the rally point are going to have to medically examine each and every person before they let them into the base. Any scrapes or cuts will be scrutinized. I would imagine anything hinkey would make a person an unacceptable risk. This is unless the military has found a way to determine who is and who isn’t infected by now, which I doubt would be possible in this short amount of time. They will have to turn people away. Imagine we got there and they said, ‘You’re welcome to enter, but Amanda, Shawn and Sass have to remain outside the walls. They are a security risk.’ What are you going to do or say about that?”
I saw the point. “I would raise hell. I wouldn’t accept it.” I said.
“Exactly. You would voice your argument against them excluding those you care about. Now the soldiers at the wall have a decision to make. They aren’t sure if the three people you are vouching for are infected or not. They know that they fit the government sanctioned guide lines of a pos
sible risk, but in reality, they really aren’t sure. Now you stand before them saying that you know they aren’t infected. You swear that they are safe. That’s when the soldiers doom everyone inside. They take your word for it. They believe you.”
“Wait. How does the soldiers believing this doom everyone?” Veronica asked.
“Because they didn’t maintain military discipline. They didn’t stand their ground and say it’s this way or no way. They believed a civilian, and they potentially let the infection into their rally point.” Amanda said.
“You agree that they should just turn people away? People’s family?” Veronica asked.
“They have those cards for a reason. They tell them what to look for. Maybe ninety-nine point nine percent of the people they turn away won’t be infected. But if they let them all in then that point one percent is all it will take to kill everyone inside the base. The infection spreads like wild fire, today has shown us that. They won’t be able to get ahead of it, especially in a fortified compound.” Amanda said.
“The walls that keep them out also keep you in.” Jack said. “If the infection got inside the compound, you would have nowhere to run.”
“You’re saying that the soldiers will have a moment of weakness and will allow people they shouldn’t into the rally point?” Shawn asked.
“Of course they will. It’s human nature to want to help people. They will feel guilty and will slip up and maybe everyone inside the base will pay for that mistake.” Jack said.
“But why would somebody lie about a member of their group and sneak them into the rally point when they know they’re infected?” Shawn asked.
Jack looked at Shawn. “How long did it take your group to realize Judy was infected?”
“Amanda noticed it pretty quick, but even at that, I would say at least ten to fifteen minutes. If not for her, it would have been an hour or more before we even began to seriously look at that possibility.” I said.
“Yeah, I thought she had a concussion from where she hit her head.” Shawn said and everyone grew quiet.
“I’m not saying a person would do it on purpose. I am saying that we always give the benefit of the doubt to people that we care about. That’s also human nature, and as much as I hate to say it, in this world, that will get you dead.” Jack said.
Shawn asked, “But why wouldn’t the infected person tell the guards and keep the rest of their group safe?”
“Because they’re scared.” I said.
“I don’t think that would keep me from telling.” Shawn said.
“It would. You would be terrified. You would be desperate to cling to any type of connection to your humanity. Scared of dying. Scared of being abandoned if the others found out. Scared of nobody knowing you were ever alive because everyone you loved is already gone. Scared of your next breath because it may be your last. You would lie because telling the truth would mean accepting that you are going to die. To tell the truth means that you’re dead already.” I said.
“You would lie because that would be the only card you had left to play.” Sass said quietly.
“I just don’t think that everyone would be that way.” Shawn said.
“They wouldn’t. Some people would own up to it. But it would be a small percentage. The fear of death is strong. It can make people do things that they never thought themselves capable of. Both good and bad.” Jack said.
The news stories had cycled through quite a few times as our discussion had been going on. There were only five top stories. Number four had been “Cause of Madness?” with the text under the headlines reading, “Top scientists confirm that the disease is not a naturally occurring phenomena.” The fifth news story, in my opinion, is the perfect example of how America had gone straight to hell. The fifth top news story on the day the dead began eating people was “Five fashion don’ts for surviving the zombie apocalypse.” God help me, I almost clicked it just to see what they had put on the list. The picture accompanying the story was a sexy woman wearing a World War Two army helmet, a flak jacket, a mini skirt with leg warmers and high heels. She was holding a machine gun in one hand and a katana in the other. From behind me I head Veronica say, “Hey, that’s cute. Well, except for those shoes.” I looked over my shoulder to where she stood and she said, “What? You like the shoes?”
I turned my attention back to the computer typing the web address for one of the big cable news outlets. When the page pulled up, it was dominated by a huge map of the United States. The words above the picture read, “How Deep Behind Enemy Lines Are You?” The map was color coded. There was a section tinted green which marked the infected areas of the United States. The next section was shaded blue. The blue color represented how far the infection was predicted to spread in the next four to six hours. Beyond that the map was its normal color for the uninfected areas and there were four gold stars that noted the four rally points that had been set up. There were also black stars around the map which noted points that they had somehow confirmed as start points for the infection.
“How did they figure out where the infections originated?” I asked.
“Probably using what time the first reports of activity came in.” Jack said.
I looked at the map and the truth of our situation was hard to refute. We were hopelessly screwed. The black stars were on a good number of cities that you would expect. Chicago, L.A., New York, Boston, Dallas, New Orleans just to name a few of the bigger cities. But there were also some stars in smaller cities or areas of the map. Jack pointed to those sites and frowned. “These are, or were, military instillations. Some are big areas now and some are an important part of our history.”
“What do you see Jack?” Sass asked. Jack pointed to the map. “Right here, this is Site Y. You probably know it as Los Alamos, New Mexico. Los Alamos sits just a little north west of Santa Fe.” Santa Fe had a black star on it.
“Los Alamos was originally designed to be a secret planned community. It was part of the Manhattan Project during World War Two. It helped us make the bomb that ended the war, at least in Japan.”
“Does that mean something? Do you think this thing has ties to the Manhattan Project?” Veronica asked.
“I’m not really sure. There are other sites on here as well. Over here on the east coast we have both the Naval Academy in Annapolis and West Point which sits about fifty miles north of New York City.”
“Hey! They were on the news earlier.” Sass said.
“Yeah, I remember that the reporter was going to cut to some General at West Point to do an update about how the cadets were taking back the school.” I said.
“Not surprising. West Point sits on around sixteen thousand acres of land. That would give the brightest military minds of the next generation a lot of wiggle room to get a defense up and running.” Jack said.
“What aren’t you telling us Jack? I can see Amanda is putting two and two together. What does she see on that map?” This time it was Sass talking. Amanda looked up at him.
“I’m not putting two and two together, but I am seeing something troubling in some of the sites that are on here, and I have a better understanding of why we were overrun so quickly today.”
“And why would that be?” I asked.
“I think I will let Jack explain it.” Amanda said.
Jack, to his credit, didn’t hesitate a second. “First I would like to point out this star up in Washington State that is all by itself. This is interesting because almost every one of these smaller areas are twinned with a large city that is fairly close to them, but this one is all by itself. This is Richland, Washington, home of B-Reactor. This fun place was commissioned under the Manhattan Project as well to produce plutonium. It was the first large scale reactor we brought online. The fact this place was targeted as a start point gives me pause. I’m not sure what it means, if anything. I just know it puts a beep on my radar. I find myself wishing I knew more about the specifics of the Manhattan Project. If I knew more, I would feel more com
fortable saying whether this is something to pay attention to or not.”
“Tell us why Amanda thinks we were hit so hard so fast today.” Shawn said.
“Okay, these last two smaller areas I want to point out serve our interest for two different reasons. They are both tied to the Manhattan Project, and they opened the floodgate that poured a river of dead down on top of us. The first place is Oak Ridge which was the first reactor designed to run continuously. It was designated the X ten pile. This was the reactor that supplied Los Alamos with plutonium and it sits almost on top of us. The second place is just down the road.” Jack said.
“The Eastman.” I said. I knew the history of the chemical plant well. My dad had worked there. My dad’s brothers had worked there. My mom and my dad’s fathers both worked there and my dad’s mother had worked there as well. When I was young I figured that I would work there, but by the time I was able to apply they wouldn’t even talk to you unless you had a college degree. Guess what I don’t have?
“Yes Charlie. The same plant that blew sky high earlier today. It was responsible for making an explosive called RDX during World War Two. This stuff has some major mojo with a bad temper to keep it honest. What I find interesting about this particular site is that some of the Eastman personnel were responsible for managing the National Security Complex at Oak Ridge.”
“Wow.” Shawn said.
“It all ties together.” Sass said.
“Now calm down, all of you. There are over a hundred stars on this map. Jack has only told us about six of them. Don’t start seeing connections when this could just be coincidence.” I said.
“This is no coincidence. This is the Nazis getting some payback on us.” Shawn said.
“God no, don’t even go there.” I said.
“Charlie is right. This doesn’t mean anything. It could have been something as simple as whoever started this found that security was more lax around some of these older places. It could also mean absolutely nothing. It could just be how things worked out. Somebody sprayed their fifty-two cards into the air and these are the sites those cards landed on.” Jack said.
A Good Distance From Dying Page 34
