by Howard, Bob
The second fence was taking shape quickly. As the infected pressed their faces against the first fence, poles were raised and chainlink was stretched between them. Concertina wire was uncoiled to be strung along the top of the fence, but a quick thinking supervisor decided it would go to better use being stretched along the ground between the first and second fence. The wretched creatures clinging to the outside of the first fence didn’t appear to be able to climb.
The cargo container storage area for the State Ports Authority terminal was capable of holding well over a hundred thousand containers at a time. It was only a small wonder that few people had ever noticed when certain containers never moved once they had arrived. When those few people inquired about the containers, they were simply told it was classified information. Military shipments came and went all the time, and occasionally some stayed longer than others. Even if it was a large number of containers, it was no concern to the operators of the shipyard because someone was paying for them to stay.
Now the special containers were open, and tons of supplies were being offloaded. The personnel carriers that had transported hundreds of survivors from Patriots Point across Mt. Pleasant to the State Ports backed up together and opened their rear doors. The bright sunlight and fresh air was a welcome sight, but instead of one processing tent serving a few people at a time, this area was set up to handle large numbers.
A whole row of tents similar to the ones at Patriots Point were between the carriers and the cargo containers, and within minutes people exited from the rear of the tents and were directed by armed guards to join the workers who were already unloading the containers. Families with children were allowed to send one parent of their choice with the children to a special processing area. Child care supervisors took over for as many parents as possible so that the parents were free to begin work preparing meals in the massive mess tents. The workforce grew rapidly, and in less than twenty-four hours after the start of the outbreak of the infection, the zombie apocalypse contingency was in operation.
If bite victims were discovered inside the row of tents, they were removed with as little fanfare as possible. There were some raised voices, and there was crying, but there were no gunshots other than those around the fence. Bite victims were taken away in the personnel carriers for a return trip to Patriots Point.
Some of the containers were stocked with supplies that were needed immediately, including the worker habitats. Crews were assembled and placed under the supervision of uniformed officers who carried manuals that contained instructions specific to their groups, and crews began constructing the habitats in a predetermined corner of the enclosed compound. Within two hours, the area took on the appearance of a refugee city complete with habitats for sleeping, cooking, dining, and latrines.
There was some resistance. As the personnel carriers released their passengers to be screened inside the medical tents, the angry voice of a new arrival carried far enough to gain the attention of everyone within the processing area.
“I’m not moving another step until I get to speak with someone in charge.”
All eyes turned in the direction of a group of people just outside the entrance of a tent. A guard had taken hold of a man by the upper arm, and he had angrily spun his arm in a complete circle to break the guard’s grip. Now he was face to face with the guard and leaning inward as he yelled. His hands were on his hips, which did nothing to protect his vulnerable solar plexus. The sensitive nerves in that area were a tempting target for the guard.
“Are you too stupid to understand what I’m saying?” shouted the refugee.
The man’s voice was even louder in the silence that had descended on the processing area. It was a confrontation that would provide more useful information to the refugees than a formal orientation.
The guard’s shoulders bunched, and his right fist shot upward into the soft spot below the man’s sternum. The man collapsed onto the guard as he tried hard to catch his breath. When the guard stepped aside, the man fell to the ground. Before the man could successfully breathe, the lines were moving once again through the processing tents, and he was loaded back into a personnel carrier. When it left, no one asked where it went.
The sun set, but the work continued into the night. Crews erected gantries with work lights strung between them. As they worked they were followed around by their supervisors who consulted the manuals that were seen by many as a badge of authority. If you had a manual, you were important. The truth was that the disaster plans assumed the possibility that power might be interrupted, so the plans for the construction of the camp at the State Ports Authority would not rely on laptop computers or tablets. The people carrying the manuals needed them as much as everyone else.
One by one the containers were emptied of their contents. Some of the crates inside weren’t unpacked, but they were placed in different locations around the compound. The people unloading them learned quickly that it was best not to be too curious about what was inside the crates, especially the ones that were loaded into trucks and delivered to the Green Zone at the aircraft carrier.
The second fence was finished by midnight, and construction began on guard towers. They bore an odd resemblance to prison towers, and the resemblance was intensified by guards who climbed into the finished towers and faced inward toward the workers. Some guards remained on duty at the fences to shoot the infected that slowly increased their numbers outside in the new Red Zone, and they opened fire from time to time in an effort to prevent concentrations in small areas.
Empty containers were lifted by special cranes that drove over them on both sides and the top. They were then driven to the docks along the river and assembled into a barrier. No one asked why it was necessary to make a barrier along the river, but apparently it would serve more than one purpose. When they were placed end to end with a second layer on top, the workers inside the complex could no longer see what was happening on the river. It was safe to assume the same could be said for anyone who might be on the other side. One by one they were emptied, carried, and stacked until the barrier was four containers high. The inside of the terminal took on the appearance of a fort, and the feeling of safety was an acceptable trade for the hard work.
A voice over a loudspeaker called for everyone to stop working shortly before sunrise and to gather at the mess tents. Tired men and women who had started their day by climbing into personnel carriers dragged their worn bodies and numb minds in the direction of the tents that had been erected in the center of the complex. They gave little thought to anything except for the fact that they had been told to stop working. Food was a good idea. Sleep was even better. As hungry as they were, they were almost too tired to eat.
They waited in line and barely had the energy to talk. Those who were still with someone they knew leaned on them to keep from falling down. Some even sat down in line, but they weren’t on the ground long before someone told them to get up. It felt like prison, but the alternative was far worse.
The food turned out to be worth the wait, and the tired workers felt their spirits rise as they got to know fellow refugees gathered at the long rows of tables. It was contagious, and mealtime took on a celebratory mood. As they finished their meals they were surprised for a second time when they were given assignments for quarters. The tents housing the cots were crowded, but they were successfully partitioned to allow a small living space for families. It wasn’t much, but it was far enough from the fences.
By the end of CEL Day Two as survivors climbed onto their cots for much needed sleep, the refugee city at the State Ports Authority was functional. Someone made a sign and hung it over the entrance to the quarters.
It said, “Welcome to the SPA.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Jed & Matilda
Contagion Extinction Level Event - Six Years Later
Jed was forced to travel slower now that he had Mattie to look after, but it didn’t take long for him to realize his faith was still intact. He decided Go
d had put Mattie in his path to slow him down. Also, he had to be serious about the way he approached the infected. He was so angry before that he might have gotten reckless. Keeping Mattie safe was a priority. He still planned to find out who was behind the strange thing that was calling the infected, but he could do that and protect Mattie too.
Mattie was good company, and she was good for his soul. The loss of the colony was unbelievable to Jed, and he kept thinking about the friends he had lost. Yes, God made him slow down, but he also made sure Jed didn’t feel alone in the world. Mattie was a talker. She told Jed that her parents promised to take her to Dizzyworld when there were no more ‘fected, as she called them. She asked him if he had ever been there, and he had to admit, he had grown up with the dream of going there himself. Of course it wasn’t the infected that had prevented him from making the trip. If he could put the world back to the way it had been, he figured he would take Mattie to Dizzyworld.
It was comforting to hold Mattie’s hand as they walked, and eventually he saw her stifle a yawn. He scooped her up, and she laid her head down in the curve of his neck. Her small arms circled his neck, and Jed experienced that remarkable feeling every parent had when they felt a child hug them. It made his heart swell to feel her breathing evenly as she drifted off to sleep.
There were several hours left in the day, and Jed wasn’t nearly as tired as Mattie, so he decided to walk as long as he could. There was always the question of how far to go if you were on the move because you had to be thinking about shelter for the night before you were ready to stop. It was like the old days of traveling on the interstates. You always had to ask yourself if you needed to stop at that rest area, or could you wait until you came to the next one. Sooner or later you wished you had stopped at the last one.
Walking along the interstate since the first day of the infection had always been dangerous because the infected followed the path of least resistance. Then again, the wide open spaces made traveling faster, and Jed could spot trouble further away. If he saw any infected, they were going the same way, and he could avoid contact most of the time. He came to one overpass that had collapsed, and he wasn’t sure what could make an overpass collapse, but it didn’t appear to have been done with explosives. It looked more like it had been bulldozed.
Jed climbed over the rubble and stood at the top of the pile of debris. From his higher vantage point he could see the massive piles of vehicles where they had collided with each other years ago. Some had simply been abandoned as people either ran out of gas or became boxed in behind the wrecks.
He sat down and laid Mattie on a flat piece of asphalt. He slid his rolled up blanket from his backpack and gently placed it under her head. Sometimes Jed felt like he had to make some sense of it all, so he would sit down and study what he saw. What amazed him was the way everything looked the same on both sides of the interstate. On the day it all began, he imagined that people all felt like the best place to be was somewhere other than where they were, but no one really knew where they should be.
Jed checked behind him to be sure nothing was coming his way, and he thought about what was in that direction. About eighty miles away would be Columbia, and another fifteen miles along I-77 was Fort Jackson. If he had been on I-26 that day, there would have been some people surrounding him who were trying to reach the Army base, reasoning that it would have been the safest place to be. In his mind he pictured what it was like at the front gate of the base. The Army would have been frantically rushing civilians through the gate, and he doubted they would have realized that every car was a Trojan horse. The infection probably rode right in through the front gate, and by the time they learned of their mistake, the infection would have been spreading inside, already too far gone to stop. Eighty miles away there were still at least two living people trying to reach an already dangerous place to be.
In front of Jed was the road to that dangerous place……Charleston. One of the hottest tourist spots in the country, famous for its history, its food, and its friendly people. Refugees would have reasoned that the Navy base at Goose Creek and the Air Force base in North Charleston would have had enough power between them to stop the infected, and of course they would both have a way to escape. Less than thirty miles away, people frantically carrying injured family members to safety would be thinking that they would survive if they could reach the Navy base before all of the ships were full, and the Air Force must have been evacuating people to secure places in their huge C-17 transports. Thirty miles of people thinking the same thing. It was an obstacle that would lead to thousands of deaths.
The grass had grown tall in the years since that first day. It didn’t take long for it to become a landscape of wrecked vehicles, and the only things moving were the infected that searched for more victims, occasionally finding someone who had hidden in a car or bus, and more often being drawn by the sounds of the big black birds that were feeding on a seemingly endless supply of food. Jed could still see the birds circling over something up ahead. That would probably go on for years. He had seen predator birds land on the infected and tear off strips of flesh before retreating to a tree branch.
When the horde had recently passed through, their numbers had been enough to flatten the tall grass, but here and there the green jungle that used to be a median maintained by the highway department was bouncing back again. A little rain was all it took to get the grass to stand up, and he thought it would only be a couple of weeks before there would be little evidence that the largest horde in the world had passed by.
Mattie stirred next to him, and her eyelids fluttered open. Jed felt so protective of her that for a moment he considered abandoning his quest to find out who had called the horde to them. He silently hoped it had been one of those times where the people behind the atrocity would pay for what they had wished for. How could they have not been overwhelmed by the response?
“Mr. Jed? I’m hungry.”
Jed hadn’t left the colony that morning with a lot of supplies, but he had put together a backpack the day before that was his idea of essentials. A few MREs, first aid kit, sleeping and cooking gear. He rummaged through the bag and made a show out of picking the right one. Mattie sat up as straight as she could and tried to catch a glimpse of the inside of the backpack. She was undoubtedly holding out some hope that another candy bar was hidden in between the MREs.
“Let me see. This one looks like it would be good for breakfast, and this one isn’t something that kids like. It’s something called pizza.”
Mattie managed to catch a hold on his sleeve as he was putting the MRE back in with the other supplies.
“I think kids like pizza, Mr. Jed.”
Every time she called him ‘mister’ he felt like telling her she could just call him Jed, but it sounded so funny that he kind of liked it. Not surprisingly, it reminded him of that TV show with the talking horse, and Jed realized hearing her call him Mr. Jed always made him think about a time before the infected dead. In the end he decided it wouldn’t hurt a thing for her to keep calling him that.
“Kids like pizza?”
He put as much surprise in his voice as he could, and she laughed in that way kids laugh when they really know you’re just kidding them.
Motion in the distance reminded Jed that they were still in a dangerous place. When it was quiet, and when you caught yourself doing something that made it feel like things were the way they used to be, it was easy to forget that you were always just a breath away from dying. It also reminded him of what he had lost back at the oxbow island, and he felt the sadness wash over him again. He was tired of death and tired of the dead.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Jed. I’ll let you have the pizza.”
Mattie held the package out to him, mistaking the expression on his face as disappointment that she wanted the pizza.
“Oh, no Mattie. It’s fine if you want the pizza. As a matter of fact, Mr. Jed was just teasing you. I was just thinking about my friends.”
“I think
about my mommy and daddy all the time, but I have you to worry about now, Mr. Jed.”
Mattie had given Jed the wake up call he needed. If he didn’t have her to help him keep things in perspective, he was likely to wallow in his own pity. She had never known a day in her life when she was free from danger. She had lost her parents just that morning, but she was trying to make him feel better.
Jed snapped himself out of the dark place he had slipped into, and helped Mattie heat up her pizza. His was labeled as pulled pork and sweet potato fries. He didn’t think it would compare to the pulled pork his mother made for him his whole life, but it turned out to be close enough to satisfy his appetite.
The food lifted their spirits, and the movement he had seen in the distance stayed just far enough away to let them eat in peace. Jed also found himself doing what needed to be done. He thought about how far they had to go and what they would have to do when it was time to get some sleep. If they didn’t find a place that guaranteed their safety while they slept, Jed would be forced to carry Mattie and move through the entire night.
Some of the anxiety that Jed had felt earlier returned as they continued their journey toward Charleston. The infected were still visible in the distance, but there were fewer than he could have hoped, so Jed patiently stalked them to find the easiest routes through the wrecked vehicles. From time to time they had to leave the highway and creep through the trees to avoid contact with infected that had become snagged on the twisted metal hanging from cars. If it was one or two, Jed would quickly dispose of them with his hatchet or a knife, but twice they approached within a few yards of infected that had become trapped only because they weren’t capable of doing simple problem solving.
