“Beau—we have a lot of them outside of the hangar right now; go ahead and make a pass.” Hugo commanded into the CB radio that he held.
“Roger—coming in for the kill.” Beau’s voice answered on the other end.
We listened as the plane passed over low and we could hear the mist from the sample base falling down on the massive horde of zombies—as we continued listening it actually sounded like they were screaming in pain; the screaming continued for what seemed like the better part of an hour until everything got deathly silent except for the plane passing overhead continuously.
“Beau—what’s going on outside, can you see?” I asked as Hugo handed me the CB.
“Yeah, Chaz—it looks like they’re all gone…I don’t see any of them down there.” Beau’s voice answered after a few seconds of silence had passed.
“They’re not out there…are you sure?” I asked again—this time with a hint of worry.
“Yeah—there’s no sign of them around at all and I’ve flown over the entire area and not seen a single hint of movement.” Beau answered shortly after.
“I wonder if it worked or if it just killed them all…” Jennifer stated as she and Sheila clung to me.
“What else did you mix the antitoxin sample with?” I asked turning to Amy.
“Just water…that’s it.” She answered with slight chuckle.
“Maybe it melted them all into puddles of bloody goop.” Noah stated with a smile.
“I doubt it, but that’s a colorful idea I must say.” I answered turning to glance at him.
“I’m landing…I need to get out of this thing—I feel like a sardine locked up in a tin can.” Beau stated over the CB as sounds of his plane approaching could be heard.
Seconds later he landed outside and we all cautiously unbarred the doors of the hangar and stepped outside to greet him—there weren’t any zombies anywhere to be found outside, nor were there any bodily traces of them that would have suggested they had been destroyed in the attack.
“I wonder if it actually worked…it would be great if it did.” My dad stated with a smile as he wrapped his arm around my mom’s shoulders.
“Yeah…it would…but somehow I have a feeling that it’s not that simple—time will tell I guess.” I answered as I stared off into the distant rolling hills and fields around us.
[Chapter Seven: Holocaust]
The sound of our newborn son crying woke some of the others as Jennifer gave birth to our first child—it had been many long months of tiring travel on the road and fighting off hordes of undead and finally a small glimmer of hope had come; Sheila had found out that she was pregnant also and she was more than six months along. Jennifer and I chose to name our new son Xavier and of course he carried on my last name too since Jennifer was pretty much like a wife to me. We had spent over a month and a half at the old airfield hangar waiting and watching to see if signs of the undead would return and so far we had found nothing—it was like every single zombie that had been there that day and been doused with the antitoxin sample base had just up and vanished without a trace; the area was quiet and it seemed very odd not to hear the sounds of the undead on the wind that blew through the trees and woods around where we had been staying.
“Babes—I’m gonna go talk to the others; will you be okay in here?” I asked turning to glance at Jennifer and Sheila.
“Yeah, we’ll be fine—I just need to get some rest.” Jennifer answered as she rested her head on the pillow of the pallet that we had made inside the small loft office of the hangar.
“I’ll keep an eye on her and the baby.” Sheila stated smiling as she sat down with some trouble due to her own swollen stomach.
I nodded and left the loft room closing the door behind me, the others of the group had spread out around both the inside of the hangar as well as inside of the lab truck which was still parked inside of the hangar—I walked down the wooden stairs and met up with Noah, Billy, Richard and Beau; they were discussing what had no doubt been on everyone’s mind.
“Hey Chaz—we were just discussing what we think that we should do next; I mean we can’t continually stay here—we need to get out there and see if what we done a month and a half ago has even paid off.” Noah stated as he turned and glanced at me.
“I was thinking the same thing…I think that we ought to head west toward the west coast and try to find a permanent location to set up a base of operations.” I stated as I joined them in a circle.
“I’ve been thinking about that myself and it seems like according to the notes and information that we have found before that Bowman and his cronies were mostly based in Oklahoma City, Wilkes-Barre and New York City—I’ve never heard of anything along the western seaboard yet so maybe that means that we’ll find a safe haven.” Beau stated in deep thought.
“My only hope is that we can find a safe place where we won’t have to be cooped up inside of a barricaded structure all the time—a place where the kids can go outside and play without having to worry about anything.” I answered as I paced around to the side and then back into the circle.
“That’s a damn nice picture…a world without threat of the undead…it would be great if we could find a place like that but the way things have become I don’t know if there’s any hope left of ever restoring this world back to the way it was.” Noah stated folding his arms.
“What do the others think of this or has it been discussed yet?” I asked turning to Beau.
“Not yet—we need to get everyone together and talk it over; by the way I heard that Jennifer gave birth this morning—congrats.” Beau answered turning to me with a smile as he lightly punched my shoulder.
“Thanks—we have a new son now; we named him Xavier.” I answered smiling.
Shortly afterward, everyone gathered together in the main room of the old hangar and we started discussion on what our next move would be—I helped Jennifer and Sheila into comfortable chairs and turned to all of the others.
“Our next order of business is to travel to the west coast and find a permanent base of operations—just because those dead-heads have vanished from the area for the past several weeks doesn’t mean that this place will remain safe and secure.” I stated as I folded my arms.
“I agree on that plan, and you’re right—just because the undead have vanished from the scene here don’t mean that it will stay that way for very much longer.” Hugo answered in deep thought as he got up and walked over to the nearby window looking out.
“You’re talking about traveling across country again—what happens if the west coast is just as bad as the east coast…or worse?” Cedric asked with a stern expression.
“We have reason to believe that Bowman’s operations were centered around Oklahoma City as well as Wilkes-Barre and New York City on the east coast—we have found no evidence that anything at all was going on along the west coast.” Beau answered as he glanced toward Cedric.
“You guys better be sure about this…I’ve lost more than I can count in this mess…I lost my daughter…” Cedric stated in a choking voice as his gaze went to the floor.
“I lost Angie too Cedric—but Angie would want us to keep going; she would want us to continue on and go wherever we had to in order to find safety—that’s the kind of person she was.” I answered as I stared off into the distance remembering her in my own way.
“There’s another issue that also tells me that we should leave—and leave soon.” Amy stated as she stepped out of the lab truck nearby.
“What’s that—have you found something?” I asked turning to face her.
“My recent research suggests that the antitoxin sample base that we doused those things with weeks ago might have had the opposite effect as to what we were hoping for.” She answered as she came over and stood before the group.
“What do you mean?” Billy asked as Kayla clung to him.
“So…I’m guessing that a person who was bitten several times in the beginning in several different areas of the body then that would make that particular dead-head more likely to simply mutate further rather than reverse in the effects.” I stated in deep thought as I cupped my right hand on my chin.
“That about sums it up I’m afraid—hell—there’s no way of knowing whether or not it worked on any of them and if it did they would have been attacked and infected all over again—if not killed by now by other outlying hordes of the undead.” Amy stated as she strolled over to the window beside of Hugo.
“I hate to admit it, but you’ve got a strong point there—even if any of those fuckers had been cleansed of the infection that day they would have just been attacked all over again and if you think about it our efforts were for nothing.” Beau stated in a grim tone.
“That’s right—further more reason why we should clear out of here as soon as we can; there’s no telling how many more of those things might be out there and we also have the heavily mutated ones to worry about as well.” I answered as I turned and walked over to stand beside of Jennifer and Sheila.
“Well…if we are going to go then let’s hurry it up—I would rather be somewhere where I know that we’re not going to have to worry about those things infiltrating our parameter.” Hugo stated as he walked over and gathered his weapons and gear.
We all went about gathering our weapons and gear as well as what we had brought out into the hangar from the lab truck and soon everyone was inside of the lab truck and we were ready to pull out; Beau and Hugo unlocked and opened the doors of the hangar and then got into the truck as I drove us out of there hitting the road that we had used to travel south to Winterset before when we had been searching for the airfield—after about an hour we arrived back on interstate 80 and I turned left heading west.
“I plan to get off of this interstate once we pass into Nebraska and pass Omaha—there’s just too much wreckage through here and it’s making navigating a pain in the ass.” I stated as I glanced at the others in the rear view mirror.
While we had been at the hangar for those six weeks we had added a few things to the inside of the lab truck—for example, there was now a comfortable seat welded and bolted down to the floor of the truck that was directly between the driver’s seat where I sat and the front passenger’s seat where Jennifer sat holding Xavier as well as the road atlas; Sheila sat in the new seat between us and next to her were Remy, Mace and Ember. It felt good to have my family close to me as I stared directly ahead at the low hanging storm clouds that seemed to inch across the drab sky—I continued driving on into that night and by that time it had already started raining hard and I could tell by the signs that we were passing that we were getting close to the state line.
“You need me to take over driving for a while?” Noah asked as he stepped up behind us.
“Yeah—go ahead, I think I’m gonna get some sleep for a while.” I answered as I came to a complete stop putting the truck into park as I got up out of the driver’s seat.
Jennifer and Sheila followed me as well and we went back to the rear trailer where we settled into the small twin bed together after putting Remy, Mace and Ember to bed—Jennifer made a comfortable pallet for Xavier and she had breastfed him and rocked him to sleep shortly before coming to bed with Sheila and me. We fell asleep and must have slept maybe three and a half hours before Xavier’s crying woke us up—Jennifer got up and tended to him before returning to bed and then we slept till daybreak before he was awake and crying again; I got up and took care of him as Jennifer and Sheila rose from bed as well. As soon as we were dressed and Xavier was taken care of, we returned to the front of the truck where the others were—some of them were still sleeping in various places in the floor as well as in the seats; my mom was up cooking breakfast on a propane camping stove that we had picked up earlier and my dad was drinking a cup of coffee.
“Where are we Noah?” I asked turning my gaze toward the front of the truck.
“We’re on US highway 275 and we just passed a small town called Ewing.” Noah answered as he glanced at me in the rear view mirror.
“That’s a pretty good start so far—how has the roadway been?” I asked as I sat down in one of the seats nearby with a plate of food as Jennifer and Sheila joined me.
“This particular highway has been moderately decent—there have been a few wrecked car pileups here and there but nothing that I couldn’t handle; there still have been no sign of the dead-heads anywhere around.” Noah answered staring ahead at the blank road.
“Still no sign of the undead…this is starting to feel very wrong.” Sheila stated in deep thought.
“I was thinking the same thing—it seems like we should have encountered swarms of them by now already because we’re at least a couple of hundred miles from Winterset where we doused that horde with the antitoxin sample base.” Jennifer added.
“We’ll just have to keep going—hopefully it can only mean that many of those dead-heads are gone for good; it’ll save us on ammo.” I answered wrapping my arms around the both of them reassuringly.
“Something else I’ve been thinking of the past few hours is that fact that we don’t know if there’s even any way of restoring those things to the people that they were—the T.H.C.A.I.A Toxin destroyed their white blood cells, pancreas and finally their brains; that would mean that who those individuals were in life are gone now.” Richard stated with a thoughtful expression.
“That’s true…the more that I think about what we tried to do that day, the more it seems like it was a waste—now the undead have all but vanished which doesn’t set well with me at all.” I answered as I glanced around at the others.
“I’m sure that we’ll discover something as to what has happened soon.” Hugo stated sipping his coffee.
Noah continued driving until sometime past noon when the highway we were traveling on became highway 20—by then we were passing through the outskirts of another small town called Wood Lake; that was when a horde of zombies suddenly appeared on the left side of the highway ahead of us and it looked like these were the heavily mutated ones as there were jumpers among them that leapt down off of nearby buildings and started leaping toward us.
“Shit—I guess we now have our answer; those things aren’t gone after all—just more spread out.” Noah shouted as he gunned the engine and smashed into one of the jumpers running it over underneath our lab truck.
That was when something big suddenly dashed out at us from off to the right and struck the outside of the lab truck with a powerful jolt that sent several of the others who weren’t sitting to their knees on the floor—part of the wall near the front side door was dented in slightly and a few of the side windows in that area had been cracked by the impact; that was when Hugo hit the side panel and climbed up the steel ladder into the gun torrent on the top of the lab truck as whatever had hit us outside was starting to use its brute strength to try and tip the lab truck over onto its side.
“Shit—it’s a fucking dozer…heads up people!” Hugo shouted down as he opened fire with the gun torrent.
I watched as the hail of ammo hit the dozer creature and tore it to pieces—Hugo then turned the torrent on the swarm of zombies and other mutations that were headed straight toward us; within seconds several waves of them had been cut apart by the powerful .50 caliber gun torrent and several large explosions had rocked the area as well—a number of wrecked vehicles that still had fuel in their tanks had exploded when they had been hit by the bullets.<
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“Step on it Noah—we need to get the hell away from this spot!” I shouted as I dashed to the front of the lab truck and gazed out the windshield.
Noah wasted no time putting his foot all the way down on the accelerator and we sped out of there and within the next few minutes we had left all traces of the small town of Wood Lake behind—I sat back down with Jennifer and Sheila and wrapped my arms around them as we all watched out the side window as what seemed like endless fields of wheat and corn that looked like it had been planted and kept harvested by possible survivors spread out around us; I found myself lost in thought for quite some time during that period—I couldn’t help wondering in the dark recesses of my mind whether or not we would ever find a safe location to set up a base of operations. I then found myself wondering a depressing and somewhat angering thought—had Angie’s body stayed buried where we had left her to rest or had she returned as one of the same things that we fought and fled from for so long? If she had returned as a zombie—how the hell would I ever have the courage and the will to destroy her? I had to stop thinking about it at that point because I knew that if in the off chance that she had reanimated and was out there somewhere as one of the undead then I would have no problem pulling the trigger…after all, I had known her well enough to know that she wouldn’t have wanted to still be walking around after a clinical death. As I came out of the thoughts I was having I glanced around at the others and noticed that many of them were lost in deep thought as well—the topic of the hour as soon as we were able to stop and rest was going to be the ultimate failure and waste of time that the crop dusting operation had been; I could hear it already I thought as I shook my head slightly with an amused look on my face, we had wasted our precious time and effort on a futile plan that we knew deep down was as pointless as it had been reckless—the people that the undead hordes and mutations had once been were gone and there would be no bringing them back.
[HGB] Humanity Gone Bad: The Dead Chronicles Page 31
