by Bobby Adair
Hours passed. The morning sun began to steal away the darkness in the eastern sky. It was my turn to sleep. With difficulty, I woke Jerome, planted him in the chair, and lay down on my bunk. I was out instantly.
Chapter 18
When I awoke, the room was stiflingly hot. I was drenched in sweat. The bright, late morning sun was shining in the window. The chair where I’d left Jerome was empty.
“Shit.” I sat up. Lightheaded, I swung my feet to the floor and looked at the door; it was closed. In a flash of panic, I looked down to the floor, where I’d laid my gun and shoes by the bed. They were just as I’d left them. I reached down and scooped up the rifle, a habit I figured I’d need to develop. The sound of Jerome’s snoring drifted down from the bunk above.
“Lazy bastard,” I muttered. I considered rudely slapping him back to consciousness but it would serve no purpose other than to satisfy my anger over his irresponsibility. He needed sleep as badly as I did, so I let him lie.
I walked over and checked on Murphy. He was still out. I shook him lightly to see if he’d wake and got no response.
Taking a seat in the chair I’d used for guard duty the night before, I looked out. The window was closed so I pushed it open to let the breeze flow in. It smelled of smoke and tasted of ash. The fires in east Austin had grown while I slept. Huge billows of black smoke hung in the eastern sky, casting an ominous threat over the old houses and ancient trees below.
I flexed the fingers on my left hand. They remained fully functional, though my arm still felt swollen around the bite. I needed antibiotics, or at least I thought I did. If I was going to survive the virus, I didn’t want to get killed off by a secondary infection.
I thought about running downstairs to grab some cold sodas from the vending machine I’d cracked open the night before, but with my two companions still asleep, it seemed like a bad idea. I settled for a breakfast of cold strawberry toaster pastries and warm soda. I leaned back in the chair and let the caffeine and sugar work their magic on my throbbing brain.
Loiterers wandered through the plaza below. As each came into view, I wondered whether they were normal or infected. In the bright morning light, especially with my dilated pupils, it was hard to discern the hue of their skin. It wasn’t until they came upon the remains of one of the fallen soldiers that I knew; they’d drop to the ground and scour for morsels.
Every single one was infected.
Just as when I went to bed, gunfire still rang in the distance, but at an ever-quickening frequency.
Over the buildings in my way, I saw an upper corner of Brackenridge hospital off to the southeast, but couldn’t tell if the military presence there had benefited them or not. I saw no movement. I wondered whether Steph the nurse was still there, still alive.
What appeared to be a traffic helicopter flew over from time to time, but I never saw the Star Flight helicopter land at the hospital. I suspected that was a bad sign for those at Brackenridge.
Alternatively, I spotted a contrail from an airliner high above. That was good. The whole country hadn’t fallen apart overnight, at least not that I could tell. But in truth, I didn’t know. The airplane could have been Air Force One spiriting the president off to safety on an isolated Pacific island.
At least Murphy, Jerome, and I were in a safe spot for the moment.
I wondered how long the crisis could last, how deeply everything would be affected. I felt foolish for even considering it, but I wondered how much of human civilization would be left when it was over. What if it was never over?
I needed information. I needed news. Absent that, I needed to prepare for the end of the world, or at least the end of modern civilization.
And what did that mean for me? I grew up in a city. I had a degree in philosophy; as useless an education as one could have in a world where figuring how to get your next meal and how not to become one might be as difficult as it had been a few thousand years ago. The great “why” questions of life very suddenly held zero importance.
There was only one real question. Did I want to live or not?
The future would tolerate no ambivalence, it would hold no room for anything but a desperate drive to survive another day, at whatever cost. Anything less would likely lead to death.
I considered for a moment how that would affect humanity in general, how it would affect my humanity. What would I become if I survived? Would I turn into a vicious brute?
I wanted to slap myself. I was already doing it. I was overthinking the problem.
If this was the beginning of the end of civilization, the only question was that of survival. That was it.
I amended the thought to include the survival of my friends. With the harpy rotting on her living room floor and Dan doing the same in their kitchen, at least I didn’t have to wrestle with the moral ambiguity of not having added them to the equation.
Information.
It occurred to me that I needed information on everything. I needed to know how to work that damned rifle in my lap. I needed to know about warfare and tactics. At least all those weekends playing in paintball tournaments hadn’t been wasted time...I hoped.
And what about survival in general? I could barely cook, let alone farm and hunt. What would it take to get clean water? How would I know it wasn’t infected? I needed medical supplies, not just for my arm, but for whatever might happen tomorrow or on any of a thousand tomorrows. What if I wanted electricity? How would I generate that? If this was the end of the world, our infrastructure would soon start breaking down. Water, electricity, the phone system would all go away, one at a time. And the internet…
The internet.
That was it. The internet was, if anything, the storage place for man’s accumulated knowledge. All of the information I needed was there, right now. I needed to find a way to get it. That, perhaps more than any other single thing, would be the key to long-term survival. Not just for me, but for anyone.
The sound of gunfire drawing near pulled my attention back to the now. I couldn’t guess how many people were shooting, but it was more than a half-dozen and probably less than twenty. I stood and tried to discern a direction, but I couldn’t. There were too many large buildings on campus, too many flat surfaces to echo off of.
I wondered if rescuers had arrived. I wondered if all of my thinking and planning were just wasted speculation.
Movement in the bushes down and to my left caught my eye. Between the cars, out of doorways and gaps between buildings, I saw dozens of heads pop up. Through the broken windows of the gymnasium across the quad, I saw movement...lots of it. The gym was brimming with the infected. Just as they had done the night before, they flowed out of the broken windows.
The blast of loud rifle fire caught my attention and I looked left. Coming around the corner on the east side of the gym was a squad of soldiers, weapons up, shooting the infected as they came into view.
The rate of fire increased as the soldiers filed into the plaza. Every infected in their line of sight was going down.
The soldiers were hunting them and killing them.
Holy crap.
Up close, the infected were humanoid monsters. At a distance, they still looked like normal people.
I was taken aback. Any doubt I had was erased. It was open season on the infected.
People like me.
The soldiers confidently moved into the quad, killing the dozens of infected that they had disturbed there. They shot at the mass flowing out of Gregory Gym. From the west, a growing trickle of infected ran in from the center of campus.
The eight soldiers stood in a rough line across the quad about five or ten feet apart and shot down the rabid infected as they appeared.
The rate of fire increased to a steady din. I looked behind me. Murphy lay as comatose as the night before. Jerome snored as though nothing was going on. It was time he woke up.
I stepped over and let some of my frustration toward him out in a slap across the face. It was mean, but it fe
lt good.
Jerome sat up immediately. A hand went to his cheek and he looked blearily at me. “Wha–?”
He heard the gunfire and looked to the window.
“Something’s happening,” I said. “Time to get up.”
I knelt in front of the window, giving me a good view without making my presence too easily visible.
More and more infected were funneling into the quad from the west.
The soldiers started to glance toward one another and move closer together. They were getting nervous. I would have been too. The hunt was turning into something they hadn’t expected.
From my high vantage, I saw the beginning of the end.
From a gap between the buildings to the rear of the soldiers, I saw a few, then a dozen infected running up behind them. The soldiers were so focused on defending themselves from the flow of infected in front of them that they were unaware of those behind.
I flung the window open wide and leaned out. I yelled, waved my arms, and pointed, but the tunnel vision that focuses your attention on the mortal threat right in front of you prevented them from noticing me.
I vainly yelled some more as the infected behind the soldiers closed the gap.
I raised my rifle and pointed it toward the now solid mass of infected people flowing between the buildings behind the soldiers. There were thousands.
I pulled the trigger and a burst of several bullets ripped toward the horde. Whether I hit anything or whether the mass flowed over my downed targets, I couldn’t tell. The mob surged ahead in blind hungry rage.
I fired again.
Jerome’s lips were in my ear, yelling, “Don’t. They can’t know we’re here.”
Whether he was talking about the soldiers or the infected, I didn’t know or care in that moment.
The soldiers, like the ones the night before, were going to get slaughtered. I had to help.
I fired again but the soldiers were already doomed.
The first of the flanking infected jumped on one of the soldiers from behind. The soldiers beside the downed soldier turned and saw the horde coming. I tried not to imagine the terror he must have been feeling.
I thought to run downstairs, swing the dormitory door open, and find a way to get the soldiers to come in, but they were surrounded before I completed the thought.
The soldiers’ formation collapsed as they tried to retreat under the onslaught, but there was nowhere to go.
The frequency of gunshots rapidly diminished as one by one the soldiers fell.
I pulled my gun back in the window, squatted, and watched the horror of another eight humans getting shredded and eaten by a mob of rabid monsters.
“Jesus Christ,” I muttered.
“I told you,” Jerome said. “It gets ugly.”
I turned my back to the wall, set my rifle down, put my face in my hands, and leaned back. There were tears in my eyes. The shock of what I’d just seen had gotten to me; all that I’d seen was getting at me. I had to get my emotions under control. I had to toughen up if I was going to survive.
The ogre and the harpy.
The ogre and the harpy.
They were shitty parents, but if anybody was emotionally prepared to deal with the world the way it was at that moment, it should have been me.
Chapter 19
Not far away, four or maybe five blocks, the sound of another battle echoed through the gaps in the buildings. Whether the gunfire represented a failed rescue attempt for the soldiers in the quad or another doomed hunting party, I would never know. All of the infected who couldn’t squeeze themselves close enough for a bite of one of the dead soldiers in the quad turned their attention to the sound of the new gunfire and ran off in that direction.
“How can there be so many, so fast?” I asked.
Jerome said, “I told you what Kenya was like.”
I nodded like I understood. Sure, I’d heard his description, but I hadn’t assimilated it. I didn’t believe it could be that bad.
“Do you know how many people are in Austin?” Jerome asked.
“In the city limits, or in the area?” I asked.
Jerome told me, “Diseases don’t see political boundaries.”
“A million, maybe more.”
“You can round off the numbers any way you want.” Jerome pointed out the window. “If there aren’t around a million infected out there right now, there will be by the end of the week.”
“That’s a pretty bleak outlook,” I complained.
“I’m just telling you what I know.”
“You don’t think––”
“No. I don’t think,” Jerome interrupted. “There is no hope. There is no cure. There is no way to stop it or slow it down.”
“Is that the CDC’s position, or your opinion?” I asked.
“It doesn’t matter right now, does it?”
“Yes, it does,” I argued. “It tells us what we need to plan for.” Regardless of how much I agreed, I didn’t want to let go of the hope that this wasn’t the end. I liked drinking beer on Saturday night. I liked watching football. I liked casual sex. I loved air conditioning. I liked living without fear.
“Plan for the worst.”
I turned my attention back out the window.
We sat there and silently watched the infected feed.
After a while, I said, “We’ll need more weapons and more ammo.”
Jerome nodded. “Are you going down again?”
“Of course.” I made little effort to mask my irritation.
“I don’t think you’ll get shot at again,” Jerome told me. “I doubt there are any soldiers around that would mistake you for a zombie or a looter or whatever. It should be safe.”
“Provided the infected don’t eat me.” More sarcasm.
“They didn’t last time,” Jerome countered. “It should be safe.”
“But it’s still going to be going down there.”
“I could go,” Jerome said. “But you and I both know the unfortunate truth. I’m an epidemiologist. Expertise like mine isn’t going to be easy to come by in the future. If we as a society ever want to have a chance at returning to normal, we’re going to need people like me. You decide, Zed. I’ll go if you want me to.”
I turned away and picked up my MOLLE vest. I wished I’d taken the time the night before to rinse it off in one of the shower stalls. At least the blood on it was dry. It was serviceable.
As I checked my ammunition magazines, I told Jerome, “I agree that we need to prepare for the worst-case scenario. I thought about it a lot this morning.”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t know if this is where we’re going to end up for the long haul, but in the absence of an alternative, we need to hoard as much water, food, and ammunition as we possibly can. Do you know anything about this end of the world stuff? You don’t happen to be a closet survivalist, do you?”
Jerome shook his head. “I’ve killed zombies in video games, but that’s about it.”
“Did you grow up on a farm? Do you know anything about agriculture?”
“No, nothing,” Jerome answered.
I opened the door and said, “A couple of things. I think that if this really is going to get as bad as it looks right now, and if we manage to live through the first six months or a year, you know what is going to make the difference between long-term survival or starvation?”
“Lots of guns?” Jerome answered.
“No.” How could this guy have a PhD in anything? “Information.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Jerome, we don’t know jack about how to take care of ourselves once the grocery stores empty out. We don’t know how to farm. We don’t know how to hunt. We don’t know how to preserve food. We don’t know how to purify water. We don’t know anything about providing for ourselves that doesn’t involve a grocery store, an electric bill, or the internet. We need to gather up as much information on those subjects as we possibly can, before the internet goes down and
we’re stuck with nothing.”
“But what good will it do in digital form?” Jerome asked. “There won’t be any electricity.”
It was time to talk to him like he was a child. “Jerome, there are solar chargers for laptops out there. We just need to find them. Hell, maybe we can even set up some solar panels on the roof and have electricity. But we don’t have any idea how to install that stuff. My point is that we can download a ton of information onto a flash drive. We’ll be able to work out a way to read it later when we need it, but we need to find a way to get busy on that as soon as possible.”
Jerome nodded. “Yeah. I agree.”
“Oh, and one more thing,” I said. “I’m not going to prop the door open downstairs with all of the infected running around. They could wander in here.”
“And?”
I tapped my index finger on Jerome’s sternum none too gently and said, “You need to come downstairs and mind the door while I go outside. If I come running back in a big hurry again, you need to be ready to open it up for me.”
Jerome just looked at me for several long moments as though I’d spoken another language.
“Jerome?”
“Who’s going to keep an eye on Murphy?” He asked.
“We have bigger problems than Murphy right now,” I told him. “I need your help here.”
“Yeah, fine.” Jerome nodded as he looked away from me. “I’ll take care of the door for you.”
Stepping toward the door, I said, “Then grab your gun and c’mon. Do you know how to work it yet?”
Touching his finger to the pistol’s trigger, he testily said, “I pull this.”
“Did you figure out how to change the clips last night,” I asked, “and turn the safety on and off?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“I hope so,” I said as I opened the dorm room door. “Our lives are going to depend on these guns.”
“Yeah,” Jerome conceded. “I know.”
By the time we got downstairs, most of the infected had wandered off to chase other noises and presumably other prey. Less than a few dozen were still in the quad, squabbling over the scraps of the dead.
