Dead Life (5 page)

             
Al turned the computer off.  “Never leave these things running.  They get in them and root around looking for shit.  If not them then it’s those goddamn hackers.  Let’s go sit in the front room.  Get comfortable, Steve.  We need to talk.”

             
Al wanted to know what I was planning on doing.  I told him my whole story.  He liked the part about Tim.  He thought he was “a hell of a man,” taking the chance he had to let me know what was going on.  He wasn’t thrilled about Gina not believing me but said he understood.  This whole scenario was pretty unbelievable.  I told him I was planning on loading up and getting out of St. Charles; try to find a place where there weren’t so many people.  I wanted to find a place I could defend myself and try and ride this thing out.

             
We talked for hours.  Al’s original plan was to hide in his bunker for a few months and wait for it to get cold.  He was hoping the “bastards” would freeze and then he was going to “head for the hills.”

             
In the end we decided to pool our resources.  Al was going to come with me.  He said “I don’t want to sit in some hole in the ground for six months if I don’t have to.”  So that was it.  Tomorrow we were going to start emptying his bunker and get loaded up and ready to go.  All I had to do was convince Gina.  And I had the flash drive to do it with.

             
“Look Al, I gotta get home.  Tim might try to call soon with more information and I need to be there.”

             
“Yeah, it’s getting late.  We need to get an early start.”

             
“I’ll see you in the morning.”  As I was headed out the door I asked Al, “How much time do you think we have?”

             
“Two days, maybe as many as five.  Not any longer than that.  Once it starts, this country is gonna fall fast.”

             
Al was right.

Interlude

             
At the same time Al was showing Steve his underground bunker, the FAA was making their decision to ground international flights.   The state department had made the decision to recall all international diplomats.  These were the only people that were going to be allowed back in the U.S.  There were two flights out of Japan and eleven out of Western Europe.  The rest of the world had already been over run by the dead.  Embassies in other parts of the world had already been lost or were cut off from rescue efforts by hordes of the dead.

             
Of the thirteen flights, seven had infected passengers.  Two went down over the Atlantic.  Five landed without incident.  From these airports the epidemic spread.

             
The FAA was one day late.

Chapter 10

              When I got home that night I called Gina.  She was at work already.  From what she told me I was on the shit list.  I told her that I really didn’t care and was going to take a weeks vacation.  The way she was talking I could tell she hadn’t bought my story.  I was worried about what was going to happen when the outbreak started here.  I’d just have to wait and let it play out.  No matter what happened I was going to make sure she was okay.  We said our goodnights and I went to bed.

             
The sat phone rang around three o’clock in the morning.

             
“Hi Dad.  How are things there?”

             
I gave him a quick run down of the preparations I’d made and told  him about my new friend Al.

             
“That’s good.  You’ll need all the help you can get to survive this and Al sounds like he‘d be an asset.  They moved our unit to Virginia.  I’m at Fort A.P. Hill   We’re securing the airfield and different areas of the base.  They’re going to move everyone out of the Pentagon and bring them here.

             
“Have you heard anything else?”

             
“Yeah, did you hear the FAA has grounded all international flights?”

             
“No, I’ve been pretty busy.  I haven’t watched any television at all.”

             
“Well, they were too late.  From what I’ve heard, there were several incidents.  I’m not positive but it sounds like some of the flights came back with infected on board.” 

             
“That’s just great.”

             
“I’m surprised it didn’t  happen sooner.  Two flights didn’t make it back.  They crashed into the Atlantic.  And from what else I’ve heard, the Air Force may have shot one of them down.”

             
“Now we’re killing our own citizens?”

             
“Hey, they were probably all dead by then anyway.  I heard only the co-pilot was left and he’d been bit.  I don’t have long to talk so let me tell you what I know.”

             
“Alright, go ahead.”

             
“The government captured some of these zombies and did some research on them.  When they first change, they’re pretty slow.  The more human flesh they eat, the faster and smarter they get.”

             
“How the hell did they figure that out?  Were they feeding them?”

             
“I don’t know.  My guess would be yes.  This research came out of India and who knows what the hell they do on these foreign bases.  I don’t let myself think about it.  All I know is what I’ve heard and read in reports.  If they don’t eat, they stay slow and stupid.  When I said they get smarter I really should have said that they get more aware.  They don’t think at all.  They just react.  Their sight is limited but their hearing and sense of smell seem to be heightened.  If they don’t eat they rot just like a regular corpse.  Eating helps deter their deterioration.  From what they’ve observed, the dead hunt in packs.  It seems like there is a kind of group consciousness.  They get in huge hordes and go through areas and just clean them out.  It’s like a swarm of locust.”

             
“We don’t stand a chance do we?”

             
“Not if you stay where you are.”

             
“What about you?”

             
“I don’t know.  I’ll go wherever they send me.  They’re making plans now.  From what I’ve heard, nothing they’ve tried has worked so far.  By the time an infection breaks out and the army responds, the hordes are too large.  They just over run whatever is front of them.  I’ve been on here too long.  I gotta go.  You take care.  Don’t wait too long.  Get out of there before it’s too late.  Bye, Dad.”

             
“Good bye Son.  Call me when you can.”

             
I thought about calling Gina but she didn’t believe me anyway.  I’d just talk to Al in the morning.  I hoped I could get back to sleep.

Chapter 11

             
Al was at my door before six that morning.  I told him about my conversation with Tim that night.  He wasn’t surprised that the army had done testing on the zombies.  It was “just like those assholes to sacrifice a few civilians for the good of the nation.”  Al had a healthy disrespect for the army. 

             
We decided to make some modifications to the Hummer and the U-Haul truck.  We took the seat out of the U-Haul and cut through the cab to attach it to the box in back.  Then we took the back off the seat and made it so we could remove and reattach it from within the cab.  Now we could get to the back of the truck without getting out.  Both vehicles got wooden bumpers on the front .  We’d be able to run over the son of a bitches without putting holes in the radiators or losing headlights.  Then we strapped ladders to the tops of the truck and the Hummer for getting to higher ground when necessary. 

             
The rest of the day, we spent moving supplies out of his bunker and loading the trucks.  We left some guns and ammunition in the bunker just in case something happened and we got trapped down there.  We also left half the food and water.  Al and I went through the things I’d purchased.  He didn’t think we’d need everything and we ended up needing the room anyway.  We’d built shelves in the truck and it was packed pretty tight.  But there was a walkway from the back of the truck to the front.  Then we rigged the rolling door on the truck so it could be opened from the inside.

             
We kept the radio on while we were working.  Stories were filtering in from around the country.  Most were about single incidents including shootings all up and down the west coast.  A riot had broken out in a casino in Las Vegas and it plus two other casinos had burnt to the ground.  Many of the first responders had been injured when the rioting from the casino had spilled out into the street.

             
Two hospitals, one in Cincinnati and another in Atlanta, had to be shut down because of an “infectious outbreak.”  The CDC had been called and the news media was awaiting further details.  Until further notice the FAA had suspended all air traffic.  There was rioting at several airports.

             
Al said he thought it was mostly just pissed off people.  It was obvious to Al and I that the outbreak had definitely begun.  It wouldn’t be long before the infection would spread to St. Charles and we’d need to get going if we were going to beat it.

             
“Al, I need to talk to Gina.  Do you think we’re almost done for the day?”

             
“Yeah, I’m beat.  I need to figure a way to seal off the hole we made in the cab of that truck.  I’ll figure out something and fix it up tomorrow.  You need to get your girl convinced and have her here tomorrow afternoon.  I think it’s time to get out of Dodge.”

             
“Can I borrow that flash drive?  I was going to show her that.  If it doesn’t convince her then nothing will.”

             
“I was thinking the same thing.  I’ve got it right here.  You take that and get over to her place.  Call me and let me know how it goes.  I’ll see you tomorrow.”

             
Al took the U-haul over to his place so he could work on it over there.  I went in to take a shower.  It was already eight o’clock and I needed to get over to Gina’s place before she went to work that night.  When I called her apartment there was no answer.  I tried her cell phone and it went straight to voicemail.  I left her a message asking her to call me back.  If she didn’t, I’d try her at work later that night.  I spent the next few hours watching the news and browsing the internet.  We’d be lucky to make it until tomorrow.   And even though it was apparent the news wasn’t telling the whole story, I could tell the outbreak was everywhere.  Time was running out fast.

             
I called Al and told him I hadn’t been able to reach Gina.

             
“All you can do is keep trying.  Have you been watching the news?”

             
“Yeah, it doesn’t look good.  Pretty soon they’re going to have to start telling the whole story.”

             
“CNN already is.  One of the news anchors even used the word zombies.  The story was out of Chicago.  It showed footage of a cop and a fireman.  The cop was eating the firefighter.”

             
“I’m going up to the store.  I’ll wait for Gina to get there.”

             
“Did you see the story on the local news about your store?  They closed at eight and weren’t re-opening until nine tomorrow morning.”

             
“No, I didn’t see that.  I’m going up there anyway.  Maybe she’s already there.”

             
“Okay.  I found an air bladder to put between the cab and box of the U-Haul.  I’ll finish putting that in.  Call me when you know something.”

             
“Yeah, I will.  Talk to you later.”

             
“Steve, take a gun.”