by David Spell
“I’m a police officer,” Chuck called towards the roadblock, walking slowly in that direction, his badge wallet open. “I’m the officer-in-charge of the Atlanta CDC Enforcement Unit.”
The muzzles of both rifles lowered immediately. That’s a good sign, Chuck thought. They were still pointed in his general direction, but pointed down was way better than being pointed at his chest.
McCain stopped ten yards in front of the barricade. “I’ve got my badge and ID card right here if you gentleman would like to see them.”
The black trooper, a corporal, glanced at his partner, and then looked back at the big man in front of him, noting his holstered pistol.
“Come on forward, sir, but understand, we will use deadly force if you try anything foolish.”
Chuck nodded and forced a smile, holding out his badge wallet as he reached the two silver State Patrol cars. Corporal Patterson and then Trooper Evans both examined the credentials carefully, finally handing them back.
“You can put your hands down, Agent McCain,” the corporal said. “Sorry for the inconvenience. Who do you have with you in the vehicle?”
“That’s my partner, Elizabeth,” he lied. “We’re on a mission related to the zombie virus, but as you can imagine, travel isn’t easy.”
Both troopers nodded and Evans asked, “Where are y’all going, sir?”
“We’ve got to get to Hendersonville, North Carolina. The plan was to take Highway 187 north. We’ve tried to stay off the interstates as much as possible. Can you let us through? Our turn off is just ahead, right?”
“We have orders not to let anyone cross the bridge,” Patterson said. After a pause, however, he continued, “But, I’m not going to be the one to keep you from your mission, sir. I’ll escort you down to your turn and speak to the officers manning the roadblock there.”
McCain sighed with relief. “Thank you. Why are you blocking the bridge? The little town we just drove through looked clear and we didn’t see any evidence of Zs having come through here.”
The corporal waited a moment before answering. “We can’t really talk about it, Agent McCain. I’m not asking you about your mission and I can’t really give you any info on ours. The best I can tell you is that there is a marina on the other side of this bridge and there are some important people who’ve taken refuge on their houseboats. We’re making sure that they stay safe.”
“Fair enough,” Chuck nodded. “What about zombies? Have you guys seen many out this way?”
“Oh, yeah!” Trooper Evans chuckled. “A few months ago, I thought the world was coming to an end. Now, the only ones we see are falling apart. They’re decaying and can barely move. But, just so you know, we did get a report about two weeks ago of a big group up in the same area that you’re passing through in the little town of Pendleton. The citizen told us that some came from the interstate near here and went north but some others came from Clemson. That’s about fifteen or twenty miles north of here. Y’all be careful.”
“Thanks for the info. Hopefully, we can keep eliminating those decomposing Zs to keep the virus from spreading. I haven’t spoken to the home CDC office in a few weeks,” McCain said, “but they’re in a safe location outside of Atlanta, working around the clock on a vaccine.”
A few minutes later, Chuck was back in the Tundra. “You’re not my wife at the moment, you’re my partner from the CDC,” he told Elizabeth. “I’ll explain later. Follow that police car; he’s going to take us to our next turn. They’ve got a roadblock there, too. I think these guys are OK, but let me do the talking.”
Three state troopers were manning the other location, one of them wearing sergeant’s stripes. Corporal Patterson spoke with him for a few minutes. The other two officers couldn’t help but gawk at the strange-looking vehicle. The half inch steel plating that had been welded to the doors, hood, and grill of the pickup was a conversation piece for the troopers. Elizabeth also got her share of stares from the police officers as they waited to be waved through.
The corporal and a beefy, red-haired man finally walked over to where Beth and Chuck waited, standing beside their pickup. They both smiled politely at Elizabeth and then looked at McCain.
“I’m Tim Robinson,” the sergeant introduced himself, shaking hands with the couple. “You folks are free to go, but Corporal Patterson told me who you work for and I was hoping I could ask you a couple of questions.”
“Of course,” McCain answered. “I might even be able to answer them.”
Robinson smiled. “Could I offer you a cup of coffee? We don’t have much in the way of hospitality, but we do have a good supply of that.”
Both Chuck and Beth nodded at the unexpected offer. “That would be great. Thanks.”
The corporal asked how they took their coffee, walked over to the sergeant’s police car, and withdrew a large thermos out of the backseat along with a pack of styrofoam cups. As he prepared coffee for their guests, Robinson dove in with his questions.
“Is there any progress on a vaccine for the virus?”
“When I left over a month ago, no, there wasn’t. My team and I rescued one of the key scientists involved with that research a few days after the simultaneous attacks in Atlanta, DC, and New York. She was trapped inside the CDC headquarters. We managed to get her out, but in the process she lost most of her data. The samples she was working on, her computer, and her notebooks—all gone. The only bright side was that one of my agents retrieved a memory stick that he saw sticking out of a computer in her lab.
“It’s a long story, but her assistant had gotten infected and tried to kill her. In all the confusion, Dr. Edwards left the memory stick behind but my guy grabbed it. So, at least she has that. But now she’s having to recreate all that lost data. Dr. Edwards told me that she was just starting to see some real progress in her lab mice before all that happened. And now, with the power outages and communication grid down, it’s a tough environment to work in.”
“You left Atlanta a month ago?” the sergeant asked, surprise in his voice, as Patterson returned to hand Beth and Chuck cups of steaming coffee.
“Almost two now,” Chuck answered, taking a sip of the hot liquid. “Thanks, Corporal. It’s like the wild west between here and Atlanta. I’m starting to lose count of all the times that I’ve been ambushed. We were attacked this morning just inside South Carolina on Highway 29. Three guys tried to bushwhack us.”
After it was clear that McCain wasn’t going to give any more information on the incident, Corporal Patterson asked, “I guess those criminals aren’t going to be causing any more problems?”
“No, they won’t,” Chuck conceded. “They had a camp set up in one of the little parks right on the lake. As we approached, they pulled their Escalade out to block the road and started shooting at us. After we dealt with them, we checked their camp. There were five bodies tossed nearby. Two of them were women who looked like they had suffered terribly. Three males had been shot in the back of the head. The scumbags had one of their tents set up as their rape pad.”
These revelations of horrific criminal activity, less than an hour away, shocked both of the hardened state troopers.
After taking another drink of his coffee, McCain looked the corporal and the sergeant in the eye and said, “I’ve got a confession to make. Corporal, I lied to you over at the roadblock when I said that Elizabeth was my partner. She’s actually my wife.”
Chuck saw Beth smile as he came clean. A look of confusion crossed both of the police officers’ faces.
“It’s been a rough couple of months,” McCain explained, nodding at his wife. “Beth was kidnapped after several of her friends were murdered by a nasty gang thirty or forty minutes inside Georgia off of I-85. They kidnapped her and, well, thankfully, I was in the area and was able to step in before they could rape and kill her. That was two months ago. We got married Monday.”
Most state troopers are hard to surprise, having seen a little of everything in their law enforcement careers.
The sergeant and the corporal, however, were both hanging on every word of McCain’s, their mouths open.
Chuck paused to finish off his drink. “The leader of that gang was a dirty cop, he had credentials from the Franklin County SO. We found out later that he was running prostitutes, drugs, and stolen property. That particular officer and a large number of his gang won’t be causing any more problems but, needless to say, Beth and I both have some trust issues.”
Sergeant Robinson raised his eyebrows. “I can understand that. I’m glad you’re OK, ma’am,” he nodded at Elizabeth. “And congratulations on your wedding.”
She gave him her sweetest smile. “Thank you, sir.”
Corporal Patterson looked at Chuck. “Are you still working for the CDC, Mr. McCain?”
“I’m still the OIC of the Atlanta office, but my mission at the moment is finding my daughter. After the cell towers went down, I lost contact with her. When the chain-of-command fell apart at the CDC, and really, the entire government, I sent my agents home and told them to get their own families somewhere secure. Once I find Melanie and verify that she’s safe, then I’ll try to figure out how to get the Atlanta CDC office up and running again.”
“One more question, please, Agent McCain. How bad is Atlanta?” Robinson asked. “I’ve got an aunt, an uncle, and several cousins there. They live up past Marietta. The zombies are bad enough, but we have a ham radio here and we keep hearing these crazy reports about a Mexican cartel setting up shop in Atlanta.”
Chuck shook his head and shrugged. “I don’t know anything about the Mexican cartel. The pastor that performed our wedding gave me the same info this morning as we were leaving Hartwell. He’s got a ham radio, too.
“As for the Zs in Atlanta, it’s bad. Me and my men, some local cops, and a few FBI agents were set up near the Braves stadium on I-75 after the car bomb and the suicide bomber detonated downtown. The President ordered us to make a stand and we killed hundreds of zombies but they steamrolled over us and just kept going. I lost a man, Atlanta lost a lot of officers, and all but two FBI agents were killed. Police were set up on every interstate around the city, but there just weren’t enough cops to stop the thousands of Zs.
“Our roadblock was also unlucky enough to be the one where three Muslim terrorists attacked us from the rear while we were fighting the zombies. Two suicide bombers and a guy sniping at us with an AK. One of the bombers took out our Blackhawk just as it was landing. Most of us were wounded and lucky to have survived. It was a bad day.
“You know the rest. After that, the Zs began spreading out up and down the interstate system. Now, if those reports of a Mexican cartel moving in are accurate, that’ll probably be my first order of business after they get communications restored.”
“Wouldn’t that be the FBI’s jurisdiction, sir?” the sergeant queried.
“Normally, you’d be correct, and they may have a role to play. Let’s just say that I have some insider information that the FBI has lost the confidence of the President because of some serious security breaches and leaks inside of the agency. Their failure to act was actually why the CDC Enforcement Unit was created in the first place.”
The two South Carolina troopers were surprised at this revelation. The Federal Bureau of Investigation had long been considered the top law enforcement agency in America. If what McCain was telling them was true, that was about to change.
“It looks like you guys fared pretty well when the Zs swept through here?” Chuck asked, clearly impressed. “This part of South Carolina looks so normal.”
Sergeant Robinson nodded. “Our governor gave the evacuation order pretty quickly. From the law enforcement perspective, we learned from watching how things were handled in Atlanta and the other cities. Instead of trying to make a stand, the state patrol, local cops, and even some armed citizens, we all kept up a fighting retreat, killing as many as we could and then retreating.
“The zombies kept chasing us and we kept putting them down, all the way across the state. When we got to North Carolina, we went east and west and let those Tar heel cops have their fun. Of course, there are still a lot of stragglers up and down the interstates and in the interior.
“We did receive a report two weeks ago of a big group north of here, in the direction that y’all are going. Highway 187 dead ends into Highway 76 about fifteen minutes up the road where you’ll turn left. The town of Pendleton is maybe another two miles after that. Supposedly there were quite a few people there who didn’t take the governor’s evacuation order very seriously and now there’s a big group of hungry zombies that want to eat them.”
“How big is big?” Chuck asked.
Corporal Patterson answered. “The guy I talked to estimated around two hundred but it could be more than that by now. Clemson is only a few miles from Pendleton and that campus got hit pretty bad, kind of like that mess you guys had at the University of Georgia. And, I also heard that Hendersonville was overrun, sorry.”
The corporal saw the federal police officer close his eyes at the mention of UGA and changed the subject. “Do y’all have maps of the area?”
“We do have maps,” McCain answered, taking a deep breath and looking at Elizabeth. “Sounds like it’s going to be an adventure.”
She shrugged and gave a slight smile. “It looks like life with you is going to be one adventure after another.”
This got a laugh from the two troopers. Patterson nodded. “Most of your route up to Pendleton should be clear, after you get under the interstate a mile from here. You’ll see some abandoned cars and bodies lying around that haven’t been removed. And, of course, we have straggler Zs that come through all the time even though we’ve worked hard to clear the area. Like I told you, we have some VIPs here that need to be kept safe at all costs.”
“Thanks for your help and for your hospitality, Sergeant,” Chuck said, extending his hand. “And I’d like to apologize for lying to you, Corporal. It’s good to see that the thin blue line is still intact.”
South of Clemson, South Carolina, Wednesday, 1215 hours
The troopers had spoken the truth. The couple didn’t see any infected as Beth drove them north on Highway 187. The state highway was a rural, two-lane, tree-lined road. The homes were spread out, most sitting well back from the street. After fifteen minutes, Chuck reached over the seat and touched Elizabeth’s shoulder.
“Let’s stop and eat?”
A redbrick, Baptist church appeared on their left. McCain directed his wife to pull around behind Mount Tabor Church where they would be hidden from view. The area looked safe and it felt good to be out of the vehicle again in the warm sunshine. Chuck lowered the tailgate of the pickup and they sat, legs dangling, sipping water and munching on protein bars.
“Those police officers were nice. I’m glad there are still some good ones out there,” Beth commented.
“They really were good guys. In reality, most cops are. They get into that line of work because they have a desire to serve their communities. It’s really a calling more than a job. The zombie virus changed everything, though. There were just too many infected for police departments to deal with.
“Then, when everything broke down, officers decided to abandon their posts and get their own loved ones to safety. Who could blame them? I did the same thing. We worked for weeks with no communications and no support before I finally pulled the plug. A few of my guys chose to stick around and moved their families onto a remote CDC site outside of Atlanta in the suburbs.”
Elizabeth remembered something she had been wanting to ask him and grabbed his arm excitedly. “You know what? You haven’t told me about your house! Is that where we’ll live after things return to normal?”
Chuck smiled. He had proposed to Beth on Monday. That night, he had asked Pastor Ben Thompson to perform the ceremony when he and Elizabeth went over for dinner. It was definitely an unusual set of circumstances, the couple only having known each other for a little over a month.
“Well
, it’s our house now, and bonus: it’s paid off. When I was working my first contract with the military in Afghanistan, I saved almost every penny of my salary and paid off my mortgage. After my second contract, I bought a really nice pickup truck for cash and put the rest of the money in the bank. So we’ve also got a nice chunk of cash put away. I wonder if that money will still be there when all of this gets sorted out?”
“I haven’t even thought about that,” Elizabeth admitted. “I’ve got some money put away in a money market account. I was saving up to have a big down payment to buy my own place one day. I hope the banks are still solvent.”
McCain shrugged. “We’ll be fine, either way. But, back to your question: our house is nice. I think you’ll be happy there. It really needs a woman’s touch, that’s for sure. It has three big bedrooms, a huge living room, and a basement where I have all my workout equipment. I just had the kitchen completely redone with new counters and appliances a couple of years ago.
“My favorite spot is the back deck. It overlooks the woods and the backyard has a small creek running through it. It’s where I like to sit in the evening to unwind. A cigar, a glass of scotch, and now you sitting out there with me is something to look forward to.”
“Do you think your…I mean our house is OK?” Elizabeth asked, still getting used to the idea of being married. “Did the zombies make it out that far?”
Chuck shrugged. “Who knows? I live about ten miles from the interstate just east of the little town of Dacula. When I left a couple of months ago, no Zs had been seen out there. I spoke to a couple of my neighbors and asked them to keep an eye on it. I think most of the people in my subdivision stayed. Thankfully, the folks on my street all got along and looked out for each other. I think it’ll be OK.”
Beth looked into Chuck’s eyes and smiled. “I’m looking forward to playing house with you,” she said shyly, leaning against him.
