Dead Life (2 page)

             
I got up, put some shorts on, and went to the door.  When I looked out the peep hole, no one was there.  It was just as well.  Who wants visitors when they first wake up.  I don’t.  There was work to done so I decided that since I was already up, I might as well  get started.  It was supposed to rain the next few days and the gutters needed to be cleaned.  I hadn’t cleaned them in about two years and every time it rained they overflowed.  I went out to the garage and got the ladder out.  I leaned it up against the house and went to get the hose.  There was a package on the porch.  I stopped and looked at the little brown box on the edge of the concrete step.  The gutters had already waited this long.   They’d have to wait a little longer.  So that was the end of cleaning the gutters and about everything else that was normal in my life.

             
The shipping address was from Washington D.C.  It was probably from my son, Tim.  Tim was a lieutenant in the army.  He is a liaison officer to Major Stevens.  They’re both under General Simmons who is some big shot at the Pentagon.  Tim was 10 when his mother and I divorced and since she had remarried and moved away a year later, it had been hard to stay in touch with him.  He had grown up a very serious young man and entered the military.  It seemed like a good fit for him.  We spoke sporadically and saw each other even less.  Since I hadn’t seen Tim for a few years it seemed unusual to be getting a gift from him.  It wasn’t Christmas and my birthday was 10 months away.  I wondered what was up.

             
I went in the house to open the package.  Inside the box was a satellite phone with all the accessories.  I didn’t know much about satellite phones but I could tell this was an expensive one.  The instruction manual said it was a “Disaster Preparedness Kit”--a 9555 Iridian Satellite Phone.  A disaster preparedness phone?  I hadn’t heard of any disasters on the news lately.  But then, this country seemed to always be on high alert, what with all our foreign enemies and such.  We were always sticking our noses into other people’s businesses.  I was curious what this was all about so I decided I was going to call Tim.

             
I dialed his cell phone but all I got was a recording telling me Tim’s number was no longer in service.  That’s when I decided to take the sat phone out and see if calling him with that would work.  Following instructions was never my strong suit (just a waste of time) and electronic things were always a mystery to me so it took me awhile to get the phone set up.  When I finally got everything ready, I’d pretty much figured out I wouldn’t be able to call Tim unless I had a number to call him at.  Also, I’d read in the manual that I was going to need to buy minutes.  I started looking for a number in the case the phone had come in.  That’s when I found the envelope with the SD card in it and a note that said “Put this in your cell phone.”

Chapter 2

              Of course, I had no idea how to make an SD card work on my cell phone.  I didn’t even know where to plug it in.  That’s when I had the bright idea of calling Gina to see if she could help me.  Hey, any reason to talk to her was good enough for me. 

             
“Hey Gina, it’s Steve.”

Click

She’d hung up on me.  However, she had caller ID so she had known it was me when I called and still picked up.  I was encouraged.  The next time I called it went straight to voicemail.

             
“Look, I know you’re mad at me and don’t want to see me anymore but I need to ask for your help with something.  My son sent me an SD card with a note saying to put this in my cell phone and I have no idea how that works.  Would you please call me back?  Thanks.”

             
I went to the kitchen to get something to drink while I was waiting for her to call back.  A half hour later my phone rang.  It was Gina.

             
“I have no idea how to do that.” She said.

             
“Really?”  I knew she was lying.

             
“That’s right.  Call your cell phone provider.”

             
“Aw, come on.  Can’t you just help me out here?”  I wasn’t above a little begging.

             
“Alright.  Open the back of your phone and it should go in somewhere by your battery.”  She said.  “Is that all you need?”

             
“Yeah, thanks.  Hey, I was wondering…”  Click

             
Okay, well at least she’d talked to me.  I took the phone apart and put the card in.  From there it was fairly easy to get my phone to play the card.  I’m not stupid.  There are a multitude of things I can do that the average Joe can’t . I can use power tools to build all sorts of things.  And I can even fix most things that are broken such as appliances, electrical gadgets, furniture, plumbing, etcetera.  It’s just cell phones, computers, and things like that.  I am limited in how to use them.  I can make a phone call and surf the internet but that‘s about it.  Anyway, I got the card in and played my message.  The screen on my phone came on and it was my son talking to me.

             
“Hey Dad.  First of all, don’t try to call me.  My phone’s been shut off.  I over- nighted the sat phone to you so I’d be able to call you tonight.  If your schedule is still the same, you should be off tonight.  If not call, call in sick.  This is important  and it’s bad.  I’ll call you at ten o’clock your time.  If I can’t call at ten, I’ll try again at midnight.  Just leave the phone on.  I’ll call when I can.  Things are crazy here.  Go on the internet and look for international incidents, riots, uprisings, things like that.  The news on TV won’t tell you anything.  Don’t bother with that.  They’re not letting any of it through so the TV is useless.  Don’t try to call me on the sat phone either.  You can’t get through.  Charge the batteries and wait.  By the way, I bought you five hundred minutes.  And Dad, don’t talk to anyone about this.”

Chapter 3

              What the hell?  Tim takes his job very seriously so I knew something was very wrong.  The first thing I had to do was call in sick to work.  I never missed work so this wouldn’t be a problem.  At first the internet wasn’t much help.  Most of the information on the websites about anything international had been shut down.  There were a few things out of Egypt but they shut down after a few minutes.  From what little I saw, people were running around chasing each other.  There were groups of people scattering in all directions.  They looked panicked.  One guy looked like he was eating a lady.  Wait.  What?  Bullshit!  What did Tim think I was?  A fool that would fall for this realistic looking mob scene from a B-rated movie?

             
The longer I looked, the more I could see a pattern developing.  These sites would come on line then after a few minutes they would shut down.  It was like someone was watching for something to come online then shutting them down.  One clip from Brazil lasted about five minutes.  It was gruesome.  There was a lady stumbling down the street with her intestines hanging out of her stomach.  It looked like something straight out of a classic horror film.  When a man tried to help her she attacked him.  I could have sworn I just watched her rip his throat out with her teeth.  I wonder how he thought he could have helped her.  I would have ran my ass off in the opposite direction.  The site disappeared, replaced with the message “You have been blocked due to national securities. Your username has been logged.”  What the fuck?  My username has been logged?  What did that mean?  Who was logging it?  Where was it stored?  Why?  When I tried to go back, the entire computer shut down.  I had to do a restart.

             
It seemed like there was nothing unusual coming out of the European countries.  Third world nations were a different story.  Either there was absolutely nothing or it was like Egypt and Brazil: riots, fighting, total chaos, and then nothing.  The sites were gone.

             
I’d seen enough.  It was hard to believe.  Did that lady really rip a guy’s throat out?  With all the you tube videos out there with the hoaxes, it was hard to distinguish anymore between what was real and what was fake.  Just last week the news reported that the viral video of a gorilla floating over the zoo in a hot air balloon was a college produced prank.  And it got over a million hits!  But who was shutting the websites down?  It had to be the government.  I needed a beer.  There was none in the house.  I’d quit drinking a few years ago to keep in line with staying in shape.  So a run to the liquor store was in order.

             
The liquor store was crowded so I decided to listen to see what people were talking about.  I overheard men talking about the latest sports news.  Which teams were projected to go all the way this year and who was being traded this week.  Women were laughing and talking about who wore what to where and who was sleeping with who.  Laughing was a definite sign that nobody was saying anything about what I just saw going on around the world.  Everyone seemed like I was a few hours ago; oblivious to what was happening.  People were just out having a good time.

             
When I got home it was around seven o’clock.  I thought about calling Gina but she probably wouldn’t talk to me anyway.  I decided to drink a few beers and wait for the nine o’clock news.  There was nothing about the attacks.  The only international news was out of England and the story was about a miner’s strike.  I searched for a different channel for the ten o’clock news and waited for Tim to call.

Chapter 4

The phone woke me up around one o’clock in the morning.  I wasn’t used to drinking and had fallen asleep.  I was confused at first and tried to answer my cell phone.  There was no one there.  Then I saw the sat phone and it all came back to me.  I was wide awake.

             
I answered the phone.  “Hello?”

             
“Hey Dad, were you able to watch the SD card?”

             
“Yeah, Gina told me how to put it in my phone.”

             
“You didn’t tell her or anyone else about this did you?”

             
“No Son, not yet.”

             
“They’ll kill me if they find out I told you about this.”

             
“What the hell is going on?  Why the big secret?  People need to know about this so they can try to protect themselves and their families.”

             
“Look, you have to understand what I’m trying to tell you.  If the government finds out this information is getting out to the general public, anyone leaking this will be killed.  Major Stevens has already disappeared.  No one can find him and even his family hasn’t seen him in days.  I think he’s dead.”

             
“What happened?”

             
“Just forget about that.  I don’t have much time.”

             
“Okay, go ahead.  I’m listening.”

             
“About three days ago a virus came out of Saudi Arabia.  It’s one hundred percent fatal.  No one survives once they contract the virus.  We’re pretty sure this is bio-engineered.  It’s not an air-borne virus.  You can only become infected through blood or saliva.  And the thing is, Dad, the dead aren’t staying dead.  The dead ones are going around attacking other people and spreading the virus.  They’re calling them zombies.”

             
“Zombies?  Aw, come on son, that’s a bunch of horse shit.  There is no way the dead are rising up and attacking the living.  You’ve been watching too many horror movies.”

             
“I know it sounds crazy but it’s true!  Were you able to find anything on the internet?”

             
I told Tim about the websites I’d found, what I’d seen, and how they all shut down within moments of opening up.

             
“Well then, Dad, you have to believe what you’ve seen and what I’m telling you.  I’d advise you to do something while you can.  Don’t wait for one of these things to come up and bite you in the ass.  And certainly don’t wait for the government to deploy armed forces to stop any of this shit either.  They’re too busy playing cover up to be concerned about the welfare of the people.” 

             
“You think this is going to happen here?”

             
“Yeah, they’re pretty sure it’s going to spread through the entire world.  It’s all through Asia, Africa, and South America.  There have even been reports of outbreaks in eastern Europe.  It’s only a matter of time before it gets to the United States.  I’m going to have to go soon.  I can’t let them find out I’m not in my barracks.  Look, you have to get prepared.  You need to get away from the cities.  Stock pile food, water, guns, ammunition, and anything else you think you’ll need to survive.  Get a 4 wheel drive and just get the hell away from other people.  I know you’ll need help.  Be careful who you tell about this.  It won’t matter once the breakout starts.  Everything will fall apart pretty fast once that happens.  Just be careful.  They’ll try to shut up anybody they think is going to start a panic.  That’s what they’re afraid of.  I think they have a hell of a lot more to worry about than that.  Look, I have to go.  I’ve been on here way too long.  Watch the internet and the news.  Once it breaks out here, you’ll only have a few days.  Get ready Dad.  I’ll call you when I can.  Oh, and Dad, I nearly forgot to tell you.  The only way to stop them is to destroy their brain.  Shoot them in the head, smash their head in, do whatever it takes to stop them.”