by Bobby Adair
I got angry for being afraid, for giving in to it. I swore to myself when I was twelve, on one of a thousand occasions when I cowered in my room, while the wrathful ogre stormed up the hall to scar my skin with his fists, his boots, and his belt, that I would not let fear rule me. I got up off my knees on that day and stood in the face of Dan’s wrath. Through the years of living with the ogre and the harpy, I paid heavily for that choice, but what I got in return was a defiant strength that was impossible to measure.
So fuck Dan. Fuck the police. Fuck the doctors. Fuck Jerome. And fuck the infected.
I kicked the door wide, reached over to a nearby garden, grabbed a heavy rock, and placed it between the door and the jamb.
Daring the infected to come at me, I stormed out onto the lawn.
I don’t know what wild animals feel when they see strength in other animals—strength that they can’t stand against—but I think they feel fear.
I walked up to the body of a policeman. The infected that were feeding there scampered out of my way. I picked up the officer’s pistol. I was ready to put a bullet in the head of any infected that challenged me. They didn’t. They kept their distance and went back to feeding.
I fished around in the remains of the officer’s bloody garments and came up with his belt. The leather was torn through, but it held his spare magazines. They seemed full of bullets. The poor guy didn’t have a chance to reload before they overwhelmed him.
One of the infected got bold and snarled at me. I ignored him while I looked for anything else of value in the officer’s remains.
With the officer’s belt hanging over my shoulder and a pair of handcuffs in my pocket, I headed for the body of a nearby soldier. Whether my safety among the infected was a result of their fear of my anger or the satisfaction of their full bellies, it didn’t matter to me at that moment. They showed little interest in me.
There wasn’t much left of the soldier. His gory bones, uniform, helmet, and equipment were scattered widely across a red stain on the edge of the parking lot. The infected were done with him and had moved on.
I fell to my knees among the soldier’s remains trying to figure out what to take. The rifle was a no-brainer. I reached over and scooted that over in front of my knees. The soldier’s harness was covered in blood but looked to be intact. He’d have his extra ammunition and equipment stowed in pouches on the harness. I wanted it.
On hands and knees, I crawled over to the harness. Coming down off of the rage I felt after thinking about Dan, I started to think clearly. I glanced around quickly to assess my situation. I saw nothing out of the ordinary, out of the new ordinary, and naturally assumed that if I couldn’t see a danger, then it didn’t exist.
I stuffed the pistol into the front of my pants, picked up the soldier’s rifle and harness, and stood.
“Hey,” someone yelled out of the darkness. The voice startled me. I froze, but the head of every infected in the parking lot turned toward a doorway at the end of the building across the street.
Suddenly, running seemed like a good idea. I turned and bolted away from the sound of the voice. A waist-high hedge cut across the lawn and would offer cover in case I needed it.
My intuition to run proved correct, because in the next moment, I heard the sound of gunfire. One, two, and then three shots shattered the relative calm in the quadrangle.
The infected were on their feet and staring at the source of the shots.
I jumped, rolling in the air as I cleared the hedge and landed hard on my back. Out of breath, I rolled immediately, then crawled away as fast as I could from where I landed.
Three more shots echoed and I saw the ground erupt in divots where I’d landed behind the bushes.
In a singular wave, the infected broke into a run toward the shooter. Howls from more of the infected carried up and down the street. Hundreds of running feet pounded on the asphalt.
I ventured a peek over the bushes and saw at least a dozen infected frozen in their poses, standing and staring straight at me.
It was time to go. I hoped the shooter came to that same decision and was bugging out in the other direction. I grabbed my equipment and sprinted for the dormitory’s door.
Chapter 16
Back on the fifth floor, I knocked lightly on the dorm room door. “Jerome?”
Feet shuffled softly. The locked clicked. The door eased open. Jerome’s face showed neither relief, nor surprise. He was a cold prick.
I stepped into the room, angry, but not sure at exactly who or what.
Jerome picked up on my mood as he closed and locked the door. “We both knew it was dangerous, your going out to get the guns.”
Because you were too big of a pussy to do it, I didn’t say.
He stepped toward me, expecting me to hand him one of the weapons.
I didn’t.
I was planning to. I was going to. Just not at that moment. Jerome and I were going to have to figure out who the alpha was and I’d lost the first few rounds in that stupid game already. I didn’t want to play, but I absolutely wasn’t going to be subjugated by Jerome, either. I sensed that with him, there were only two choices: lead or follow. Cooperation wasn’t on the table.
But at that moment, I had all the guns. I had all the power. I wanted that to be clear.
“Did anything change with Murphy while I was downstairs?” I asked.
Jerome shrugged and looked toward Murphy, leading my eyes along. Murphy hadn’t moved.
I dropped the soldier’s harness to the floor and fished a pair of handcuffs out of my heavy left pocket. “I got these for Murphy.” I held them out to Jerome who just looked at them.
“That’s a good idea, but he’s your friend,” said Jerom. “You put them on him.”
“Whatever,” I muttered, petulant.
I knelt by Murphy’s bunk, careful to lay the rifle on the floor beside me. I cuffed Murphy’s wrist to the bed frame by the wall.
“He’s still burning up,” I said.
Jerome hadn’t moved an inch from his spot near the door. “It’s the fever.”
“He’s starting to lose his color,” I observed. “Why does that happen?”
“It’s a complicated process.”
“When you guys were studying this in Kenya, did you learn anything that might give us a clear indication of what Murphy will be like when he wakes up?” I asked. “Should we take his temperature?”
Jerome shook his head. “No. Temperature is one of the first things we looked at as a predictor. The ones that max on body temperature but regain their mobility quickly tend to be the ones with the greatest loss of intellectual capacity. The ones that linger, like Murphy, tend to have a better chance of coming out as a slow burn, like us. They also have the highest mortality rate. But what you have to understand is that nothing is clear-cut on this. Anything could happen.”
I took a seat on a bunk across the room from Murphy.
Jerome grabbed one of the desk chairs and sat down near me. “That was a good idea, getting the cuffs.”
I took the compliment at face value and thawed a bit. “Thanks.” I reached into my waistband, withdrew the policeman’s handgun, and held it out toward Jerome. “Are you cool with the pistol?”
“I think I’d prefer a pistol.”
“Cool,” I said. I hefted the rifle. “I think I’d rather have this thing for now. Oh, I think I’ve got three more clips for that pistol. I don’t know how many bullets come in a clip, though.”
“Depends on the gun, I guess,” said Jerome.
“Oh.”
“Zed, I don’t really know that much about guns.”
“Great,” I laughed. “I don’t know anything about them either.”
Jerome looked down and started to explore the pistol in his lap.
“Be careful,” I said.
Jerome’s expression made it clear that he didn’t want my trite advice.
I shrugged and started fumbling around with my rifle, realizing quickly that I
was out of my depth. I certainly knew what the trigger did and from which end the bullets came out, but I didn’t know anything about how to eject or load a magazine. I didn’t know how or when to clean the thing. I knew that it was necessary. Gun people always talked about cleaning their guns. I didn’t know what kind of gun I had. It was some kind of military rifle, I knew that. Perhaps most importantly, I didn’t know whether or not it was empty, or even how to check, aside from pulling the trigger.
After some time spent experimenting with his weapon, Jerome said, “Thanks for going out and getting the guns. I didn’t really think you’d get shot at. I figured the only danger was from the infected, and most of them were feeding.”
I gave Jerome a nod. “I didn’t want to go out, but it had to be done.”
“And now we have guns we don’t know anything about.”
I smiled at the irony of it. “Jerome, why does it feel like we’re screwed anyway?”
“Possibly two reasons,” he answered immediately.
“Those would be?” I asked.
“One, we are screwed.”
I chuckled. Sometimes laughter is all you have to deal with stress. I asked, “Is the other one better?”
“We don’t have a plan,” said Jerome.
“A plan. You might be right about that. What did you guys do in Africa? I mean, you made it out of there alive.”
Jerome nodded. “I don’t know. I think we got lucky. First, when it became obvious that the infected were crossing borders into the other countries, then especially when we lost containment in the camp…I told you about the corrals, right?”
I nodded.
“The military came in and just started killing anyone that looked infected. I think I got out because I was white. I think I only made it onto the plane because no one else on the plane knew any more than I did about the infection. All of the doctors and other CDC personnel were as frightened as I was. I thought I was going to end up like the other infected. I figured that if I could get back to the states, I might have a better chance.”
“It’s just lucky genetics that have saved you?” I asked.
“So far,” Jerome added.
“So far,” I agreed.
“The CDC didn’t know what to do with me except quarantine me,” said Jerome. “They left me in isolation until Austin started to blow up. By that time, they figured I wasn’t contagious, but they also figured I wasn’t going to get any sicker. So, I was the best candidate to send here. Well, a lot of other guys came, pretty much the A team. Austin is ground zero for the first outbreak in the states.”
“I guess that’s why I didn’t hear about it,” I said.
“You said you don’t watch the news,” Jerome chided.
“I’m not completely oblivious,” I said. “But like you said, news stories about people dying in Africa don’t register with me as unusual events. Like everybody in the western hemisphere, I’ve built up a tolerance to it. Why do you think the virus hit Austin, and not some place like New York, or Los Angeles?”
“Maybe it has by now,” Jerome said, “if Africa can be used as any kind of template for the spread of the disease. As far as LA and New York go, the international airports have been shutting down and commerce came to a halt as the infection broke out in Europe and Asia. I think it came to Austin with a slow burner like you and me, only one that finished turning. There was a church group from Austin that was doing some kind of charity work in Uganda over the summer. They escaped on a chartered plane and got back to Austin a few weeks ago, before people here knew the extent of the problem. I think it was someone in that group.”
“A church group?” That piqued my interest. “Which church?”
“It was a long name. The Blood of Christ the Holy Redeemer Church or something like that.”
“Christ.” That was a surprise. “That’s where my mom and stepdad went to church.”
“Probably where they caught it,” Jerome said as he glanced toward the window as though looking for something. It was probably just nervousness.
We stopped talking and I collected my thoughts for a few moments. “So, the bottom line is that it was luck that got you out of Africa alive.”
Jerome nodded.
“Too bad,” I said. “I was hoping you guys had some proven protocols for getting through this kind of crap.”
Jerome shook his head. “We need to figure it out as we go along.”
I nodded. “I don’t know what the worst case scenario is, but after everything I’ve seen since Sunday and after hearing about what happened in Kenya, I think we need to prepare for that.”
“I agree.”
So, plan we did, for the next few days anyway. The first decision we took was that we needed to take turns standing guard at night. It looked like literally anything could happen at any time. It wouldn’t do for us both to be sleeping when a bad situation developed.
We needed to store water in case things got really bad and it stopped flowing from the taps. Our most convenient source of food was the dozen vending machines in the recreation room on the first floor. With the fall semester just a week from starting, I hoped that those were fully stocked and waiting for freshmen’s quarters. Vending machine food would not be nutritious, but suffering through weeks of zero nutrition would be far better than suffering through long days of zero calories.
We needed information. The virus was in Europe, Asia, Africa, and now in the western hemisphere. The world was changing, and all we knew about it was what we could see through the dormer windows. That wouldn’t do.
My smartphone was somewhere in the police station. Jerome’s cell phone was dead, and we had no cord with which to charge it. There were televisions in the rec room, but the rec room was on the first floor with lots of large windows. Turning those televisions on would attract the infected. There were a few computers, presumably with internet connections, in the rec room as well. They were set up for student access and required a password, so they were useless to us.
We were going to have to leave the dormitory and venture back out among the infected again. That was an unappealing thought, especially with the sound of gunfire ringing across the city.
Aside from brainstorming, we came up with few specifics. The hour was late. I was tired. I was hungry. In fact, I felt starved. I thought about when I’d last drank or eaten anything. Was it the tequila shots I’d drunk on Sunday morning? No, perhaps the sports drink from the fridge on Tuesday.
I needed to eat something.
I said, “We need to go down and raid those vending machines tonight.”
“Do you think that’s wise?” Jerome asked.
“If not, then we need to chase down one of those infected bastards so we can eat him.”
“Are you serious?” Jerome asked, nervously.
“Dude, it was a joke.”
“You never know, nowadays.” Jerome smiled weakly.
I rolled my eyes. “I haven’t had anything to eat in days.”
Jerome said, “One of us should stay here and keep an eye on Murphy and one of us should go down.”
I looked expectantly at Jerome.
“What?” he asked.
“What, what?” I responded, “I went out and got the guns.”
“We talked about that. Not to say that my life’s more valuable than yours, because it’s not, but I have expertise that can help us fix all this.” Jerome shrugged. “You don’t.”
This was going to get old in a hurry. “Whatever.”
I stood up and headed for the door, then turned. “I don’t suppose you know how to break into a vending machine, do you?”
Jerome shook his head.
“Great.”
As it turned out, the damned things were resilient as hell. Kicking in the glass fronts, like they always did in the movies, proved to be a futile, noisy waste of time. I tried beating one with a fire extinguisher. Again, useless noise. What I finally settled on was a seat cushion I had pulled off of one of the couches in the r
ec room. With that folded around the barrel of my rifle, I pressed it against a vending machine’s lock and pulled the trigger. The front of the machine popped open.
It was louder than I’d hoped it would be, but not as loud as the kicking and beating I’d already tried.
I crept over to each of the nearby windows and checked on the state of the infected outside. None seemed to be paying the building any special attention.
I repeated the process on the lock of a soda machine, gathered up what I needed, and headed upstairs with ten thousand calories of assorted junk foods and carbonated drinks.
Chapter 17
Back in the room, I had first watch, so Jerome wasted no time in lying down on a bunk and closing his eyes. I took some pleasure in his squirming for twenty minutes as he tried to find a comfortable spot on the narrow, thin mattress.
The tower that stood at the center of campus showed that the time was close to three a.m. I drank two colas and ate a bag of chips, a candy bar, and some mixed nuts. I hoped the caffeine in the sodas would keep me awake for the next several hours.
I sat near the window, with Jerome’s light snoring and Murphy’s heavy breathing behind me. Gunshots sounded nearby and more rang from far away.
At around four in the morning, a battle erupted to the southeast near the hospital involving many guns and countless gunshots. Eventually it petered out, with no hint as to its resolution.
Far on the east side of town, I saw the glow of orange fire against a rising column of smoke. That was not good. Well into our third summer of drought, any fire, if not quickly controlled, would grow out of hand.
The smoke column rose and drifted to the north with the winds that flowed inland off of the gulf during the summer.
Fires were inevitable. Severe watering restrictions and months without rain left most lawns in Austin dry and brown. Non-native trees were dying all over the city. Even the old live oaks were under stress. For the first time in my life, I’d seen oaks killed by a drought. Any random spark from a gunshot had a chance of finding dry tinder on which it could feed.
