End Days Super Boxset (84 page)

The quarantine on the city continued as other cities with increasing Ebola numbers began to take similar measures. These included the big three: Los Angeles, Dallas, and Tampa, and Ebola was spreading in such a way that vaccinations simply weren't keeping ahead of it. Serums and antibiotics supplies were dwindling as well. The Department of Health and Human Services scrambled to contain the disease and bring calm to the public. The CDC was overwhelmed, and the White House did its best to distance itself from the disastrous delay in response to the growing threat. It also faced harsh criticism from Congress, which accused the administration of downplaying the spread of the disease, though Congress was trying to create a substantial amount of cover for itself.

The US hadn't seen a disease outbreak of such magnitude since the early twentieth century. No one even believed that such a thing was possible in America. Ebola was a West African disease that thrived in poorly developed towns among impoverished people of the Third World. Such a disease couldn't possibly flourish in the United States.

Somehow, the virus adapted to the advanced development of the first world and was determined to unleash hell. The symptoms of patients had accelerated, advancing from weeks to days. The CDC could not determine why the disease was spreading with such ease. Headaches were followed by a bloody nose within a couple of days. That was usually the first sign. And by then, the patient was contagious. Then followed a loss of appetite, muscle pain, and red eyes. By the end of the first week, most patients were already vomiting, displaying skin rashes, and experiencing a painful destruction of their digestive systems that resulted in bloody diarrhea.

Ebola had unleashed a frightening horror across the US, and the only way, it seemed, to control it was by enacting extreme containment measures in all the infected regions. They were in a race to contain and eliminate the disease before things got any worse. In the week since it was reported that Laura Walsh, the up-and-coming CBN reporter, escaped quarantine from the Carson Tahoe hospital, the number of reported cases had risen from fifty nationwide to over one thousand.

Greg and Veronica's routine stayed pretty much the same throughout the week: hunkering down, watching the news, exercising, eating, reading, and keeping the place clean. Three days had turned into seven once the number of infected in Carson City had risen so sharply. It had gotten so bad that people had stopped traveling to some states, or anywhere near infected regions. Certain areas were quickly becoming more and more isolated, and not just within their homes; the cities themselves were being cut off. No trucks in or out. No way to stock the shelves or continue necessary commerce.

The role of providing services within infected areas rested solely on FEMA, in conjunction with the CDC, in conjunction with HHS, in conjunction with Washington. It was, as Dr. Hansen described Carson-Tahoe on TV, “a clusterfuck” from the highest level down.

Greg and Veronica adamantly stuck to the hunkering plan as the best option. They had not ventured out of the house in seven days with only the news reports on TV to offer updates. Cell reception had went out, and Greg feared that the power would soon follow. There had been pockets of protest throughout the city, some escalating to riots, and in response, those areas had become effectively militarized. Veronica researched the effects of epidemics on infrastructures like power and utilities and found that such outbreaks had tremendously negative effects on basic resources, due to lack of manpower and support.

“I wanna strangle that reporter!” Veronica said, pounding on her laptop from the dining room table. Captain was at her feet and perked up.

Greg was looking out the non-boarded-up living room window from behind its thick curtain. He had been monitoring the neighborhood for some time that day. It was a Sunday, and the area was eerily quiet. He half expected a helicopter to drop a relief pallet of supplies in the middle of the street as if they were in a war zone. But he didn't see any helicopters. He didn't see much of anything.

All of his neighbors on the cul-de-sac had left. It was like they simply vanished. Greg assumed that they probably tried to flee the city, only to be apprehended and sent to quarantine. His neighbor, Larry, was no longer outside drinking beer on the front porch. Larry’s wife, Loraine, was nowhere to be seen either. The area had become desolate, even depressing. Over the week, the nagging question in both Greg’s and Veronica's minds was: how much longer?

They did their best to remain friendly to each other and avoid any awkward encounters. Though Greg did like Veronica, pursuing a romantic relationship could prove problematic. They played cards together, talked, watched the news, and at the end of the night, slept in separate rooms. Greg steered clear of talking about the past, even though it was getting more challenging each day with Veronica's probing.

“These reporters think the rules don't apply to them,” said Veronica. “That woman gets put in quarantine and just runs off. Now we all have to pay the price,” Veronica continued, still upset. Laura Walsh was public enemy number one according to the media, and the entire outbreak in Carson City had been pinned on her.

Greg thought about his going to the hospital and the risk he had taken of getting infected. A week had passed, and he displayed no symptoms. Maybe he was one of the lucky ones. Veronica closed her laptop, clearly frustrated as Greg continued looking out his spy hole.

She sighed and looked over at him. The TV continued its ’round-the-clock Ebola coverage. “What's the plan today, Greg?”

“Huh?”

“I've been reading about Ebola so much I feel like a walking encyclopedia.”

He finally turned and looked at her. “We need to figure this thing out. It's the only way.”

“I just don't know how much longer I can do this. I'm sick of being scared all the time cooped up in a house like an invalid. And meanwhile, people are dying out there, and there’s nothing we can do about it.” She stopped and placed her face in her hands, rubbing her forehead.

Greg got up, concerned, and walked over to her. He placed a hand gently on her shoulder. “We're doing the right thing, trust me.” He could see that she was still a tad distressed.

“Have I shown you my HAZMAT suits yet?”

She looked up at him. “What?”

“HAZMAT suit,” he said. “You know, hood, mask, gloves, and boots?”

“Wow,” Veronica said. “Where do you get one of those today?”

“Connections,” Greg said with a smile. “I reached out to an old associate, and he hooked me up for a fair price. You’re lucky I got two.”

Veronica tilted her head in response. “What would compel you to purchase
two
?”

“Just in case I found someone to hunker-down with.”

Veronica smiled. “I do appreciate you letting me stay here. My frustrations have nothing to do with you, Greg.”

He suddenly pulled a chair out from the table and sat next to her. “We can do this. I know we can.”

Veronica’s eyes moved around as Greg’s hands got closer to hers. Their eyes met as one of their hands touched. Veronica took a nervous breath, when suddenly, an engine roared outside. Greg jumped up and immediately went to the living room window. Veronica stood up and followed him, and Captain followed her.

“What is it?” she asked, waiting her turn to see.

“Shhhh,” Greg said, raising one hand, palm down.

There was a large, dirty, four-door 4x4 pick-up truck circling the cul-de-sac slowly. The windows were so dark that the passengers weren't visible. The back of the trunk was filled with tables, boxes, and other random items. The truck passed each house at a near idle speed, finally stopping at Larry and Loraine's house. Greg pressed his eye against the hole, trying to get a closer look, but everything was blurry.

A group of scraggly-looking men jumped out of the truck, brandishing crowbars and shotguns. There were five men in all, and they moved swiftly, with little hesitation, as if they knew exactly what they were doing.

Greg backed away from the spy hole and looked at Veronica. Captain barked as if sensing trouble.

“We got company,” Greg said.

Veronica quickly moved in to take a peek. She could see a group of men hustling to the house across the street like a coordinated tactical team, though they were wearing street clothes and a hodgepodge of protective equipment: motorcycle helmets, flak vests, and knee and elbow pads.

They took positions at the front of Larry and Loraine’s house and were armed and determined-looking. They were certainly not there to solicit donations or sell vacuum cleaners.

One of the stockier men ran up to the wooden front porch deck and kicked the door open, sending a big chunk of wood flying to the side. His compatriots stood guard at different points of the front of the house. As soon as the door was breached, the group rushed in.

Veronica leaned back from the window. Greg had turned off every light in the house and locked Captain up in his room. “Who are those people? What do they want?” Veronica asked, nearly shaking.

“I’m not sure. I’d say from the look of their truck, they’re looking for supplies.”

“What kind of supplies?”

“Food, water, medical stuff. Maybe more. They’re thieves, and we need to be ready for them. We have to defend this house.”

Veronica nodded at him, shaken.

“It’s okay,” Greg said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “They’re not getting in here, and if they do, they’ll be plenty sorry.”

Greg had set up the traps around his small suburban home just days before the roving mob of intruders circled his cul-de-sac looking for homes to break into. He expected as much. The worse the news got on the TV, the greater the danger. Massive fear, stoked by the very real spread of the disease, had led naturally to an uptick in crime and home invasions, like those occurring throughout Greg's neighborhood.

From the window in the living room, he had a vantage point of the front of the house, and from the small kitchen window, he had a view of the back. The traps were to alert him to the presence of intruders, but there were other advantages as well. Before going outside, he had taken the proper precautions, dressed in full HAZMAT suit, like some biochemist in a lab, and had set a series of trip wires at key entry points around his house.

Depending on the type of trap, they served to confuse and distract intruders, and had the potential of even scaring some away. The mini-sentry trap at the front door set off a loud charge the moment the wire was tripped. The startling blast of a blank .22 charge could be enough to scare any potential intruder off. Greg was hoping that his sentry traps—located at the front, rear, and side doors to his home—would do the trick.

Greg had placed remote tripwire alarms in the bushes near the windows in the front and some between trees in the back yard. He may have gone a little overboard with the traps, but wiring things was his specialty. His tripwire alarms were pieced together from rat traps, buzzers, and battery-operated transmitters; he used electrical wire for the buzzers, thin wire for the traps. Once tripped, the rattrap would snap shut while also setting off the buzzer in the house.

In addition to Greg's simple but numerous traps around the house, he had motion sensor lights and a home security alarm system. However, those systems were only as reliable as the power to his home, which risked compromise following the epidemic. Nothing, of course, could have been stranger for any of Greg's remaining neighbors than to have seen him outside in the front yard, wearing an orange HAZAMT suit while setting trip wire throughout the perimeter.

The gang had finished raiding Larry's house, and facing no resistance with anyone there, they were in and out quickly. There wasn't much for them to take, beyond some canned food, flour, and bread in the pantry, but they found a nice jewelry box in the bedroom and added it to their score. There were six men, all of varying sizes, and hidden, as they were under all the mismatched gear they had thrown on. They stormed out of the house and went to the next one over, a mere two houses from Greg's place.

The pattern seemed clear, and it would only be a matter of time before they stormed into his yard with the same disregard for the law and other people they had shown all afternoon. Greg watched them from the living room as Veronica stood nearby. He kept a watchful eye on them from the window to track their movements. He didn't know what kind of threat they posed beyond pillaging, but he wasn't ready to take any chances. Greg's rifle was leaning against the wall nearby, and he was ready to use it at the slightest hint of trouble.

He spoke to Veronica while staring out the window.

“They're getting closer. Maybe you should go in your room and lie low. You'd be safer in there. You can take Captain in there.”

She didn't immediately respond and glanced over at his coffee table, where a line of weapons had been placed within reach. There was a Ka-Bar bayonet, a cold steel leatherneck blade, a fully loaded pistol, a shotgun, a box of 9mm rounds, and 5.56mm loaded magazines. She hadn't spent much time around knives and guns, but if she knew one thing about Greg, it was that he rarely took chances with anything. As Greg continued watching, she walked over to the table and picked up the pistol. He turned to see her holding it in the air.

“I've fired a gun before. I used to shoot at my Aunt Tilda's ranch.”

“Just keep it pointed down, please,” Greg said nervously.

Veronica pointed the barrel to the floor. “Relax, Greg, I've shot at plenty of trees before.”

“That’s great for practice, but we’re talking about a gang of men who, at any moment, are going to try to get in here.”

“I'm not going anywhere, certainly not to hide in some room and wait for them to get me,” she said.

“All right, I get it. If you're gonna stay with me, we've got to suit up.”

Veronica gave him a funny look.

“I'm talking full HAZMAT suit. If this house gets compromised, we have to be protected ready.”

She walked forward and looked through the window. The men were in the house next to Larry's. Suddenly they heard a woman's scream, followed by a gunshot blast, which caused Veronica to jump. Another gunshot followed. Captain immediately began to bark loudly in the living room. Greg walked over to Captain and led him off the couch to the bedroom. Greg shut the door, slightly muffling the dog’s barking.

Veronica turned to him as he walked back into the living room. “You don't think they…”

He looked down, concerned. “I had no idea they were even home. That's the Jenkinses’ house. An elderly couple, real nice people.”

“Could we have helped them?”

“I don't know. I told you, contact with others has to be kept to a minimum.”

“I don't care about any of that right now. Your neighbors might be dead.”

“I'm sorry, Veronica. There's little we can do about that right now.”

Veronica shook her head in disbelief and gripped her pistol tightly. She looked scared. Greg could tell that she was trying to muster the strength to face whatever awaited them. He suddenly, and boldly, took her hand in his.

“Just stick with me and stay low. We're going to get through this. Now let's suit up before they get here.”

Inside the Jenkinses’ house, standing over two bodies, were Jake and his rag-tag crew of thieves. Jake was an unusually tall man, with acne scars across his sagging face. His wild eyes seemed to stare through whatever he was looking at. He wore a black hat over his clean-shaven head, and he had an ammo belt slung over his shoulder and across his chest, packed with shotgun shells. He held a shotgun in his hand, but had not yet fired it that day.

Those honors had gone to Pete, an overweight man who had just done ten years for a failed bank robbery. There were .22 casings on the ground at his feet, and the bodies of an elderly man and woman lying face down were surreal even to the group of ex-convicts.

Newly paroled, they had fled their halfway house when things started to get more chaotic because of the epidemic. There were also Josh, Juan, and Fernando. Once the halfway house emptied out in a panic, the group found themselves left behind. They were running out of the basics, but worst of all, the disease had them in a stoked panic, and desperate to grab anything they could get their hands on and try to flee the city.

They had already stolen a truck and broken into countless homes, but these were their first murders since their looting spree started. Jake hadn't told anyone yet, but he hadn't been feeling well. He was looking for medicine and lots of it. He had been wearing glasses to cover the slight redness in his eyes.

“Pete, you fucking idiot, why the hell did you shoot them?” Jake asked.

“They ran at us, didn't you see?”

Josh, a stocky red-haired man with a matching red beard, cut in. “They were trying to run away, dumbass. Don't you know the difference?”

“You can never be too sure sometimes,” Pete said.

Suddenly, Fernando, a darkly tan and sleek Mexican with a goatee, sideburns, and moussed black hair, appeared to admonish Pete with a string of Spanish curse words.

“What the hell's he saying, compadre?” Pete asked Juan.

“He's calling you a stupid son-of-a-bitch,” Juan said. He was a fairly rounded man with a crew cut, a tight-fitting black shirt, and a long gold chain.

“What the fuck did you call me?” Pete said, advancing toward Fernando.

“Break it up!” Jake shouted. He jumped between the two men and pushed them back. He had grown weary of constantly keeping the gang from killing each other. He was also exhausted from his growing illness, even though he played the role of leader.

“Now you shitheads listen to me. We got two corpses on the ground that could have Ebola for all we know. I told you what we need, and we need to search every house until we find it.”

“What's that again?” Josh said sarcastically.

Jake moved over to him and smacked him across the head with his massive hand as if he was a child. “You damn well know what I said. We need medicine, money, weapons, ammo, masks, and suits. This Ebola shit is spreading like wildfire.”

“What do you want me to do with the bodies?” Pete asked, pointing down to his victims.

Jake whipped his head around and gave Pete an intense glare. “Don't fucking touch them! You been listening to a damn word I say? Now let's get what we need and move out. Five minutes is almost up!”

The group complied and stormed the house looking for anything of value. Before long, they were onto the next house, where there was no resistance, since it was vacant. However, there was little worth taking in the previously pilfered house.

Greg and Veronica had just finished suiting up, and their fully covered and masked appearance was sure to baffle anyone who tried to get inside the house. They might even send their unwanted intruders running, though Greg was doubtful of that. He watched the stealth with which they came and went from nearby houses and the small handfuls of supplies they had taken in haste. Their efforts had not yielded a large haul. If they were to get inside Greg's house, they would hit the mother lode. It had to be defended.

Greg wondered about his neighbors. Maybe Veronica was right, that he should have done more to help them. But the current Ebola epidemic was unprecedented. Normal rules no longer applied, and survival was the game. Most of his neighbors had either fled or had been placed under quarantine at the hospital.

Greg grabbed his rifle and shut the TV off. With most of the lights in the house off and plenty of doors and windows sealed and marked with trip wire, he was ready. Veronica had hoped and suggested that the boards on the windows would deter the intruders from wasting their time with the place.

“They might even just move onto the next house,” she said, as they walked into the living room.

“There’s a slight chance of that, but we have to consider the worst-case scenario at all times,” Greg replied.

Veronica clutched Greg’s pistol as he took a deep breath, cracked his window open, and steadied his rifle.

He then called to her. “I want you to get in the corner behind the bookcase.”

Veronica breathed through her mask with a heavy sigh. “I can take care of myself.”

Greg leaned in closer. “Have you ever killed a man before?”

She paused. “No, I haven't. Have you?”

Greg didn't answer and simply pointed to the fortified spot in the corner of the living room. “I need you to have my back if anything goes down. That means watching the back door and kitchen window.”

Veronica reluctantly went to the spot where Greg had pointed and crouched down behind a small bookcase, which had been moved and angled out. They could hear windows being smashed, closer to them, maybe just one house over. It seemed as though the group was getting sloppier with each house. Or perhaps they were just frustrated that so little had been left behind. Greg looked back and scanned the living room.

There was virtually no way to see in from the outside. With any luck, the traps would scare them off, and it wouldn't have to come to anything serious. On instinct, Veronica had suggested calling the police, but without reception there wasn’t much they could do. It was as if the cell towers had simply shut down.

Greg looked back at the window and hunched down, with his rifle pointed out. Everything was quiet. He no longer had eyes on the culprits, but suspected them to be next door. He had trouble seeing the house because the neighbors had put up a privacy fence a while ago. He looked to the middle of the cul-de-sac and saw their truck idling, with nobody inside and a heaping of piled junk practically spilling out from the back.

“How much did these suits cost you?” Veronica asked, noticeably uncomfortable crouching in her fortified position.

Greg turned to her. “I got a pretty good deal on them, five hundred each.”

“I should have listened to you and tried the suit on a few times more over the past week to get used to it. It's hard to breathe in this thing.”

“Just stay calm. It'll all be over soon.” He kept his rifle aimed, and he could feel the belt around his waist that holstered two knives. He looked like some sort of vigilante from a post-apocalyptic time. And maybe he was.

Suddenly, the improvised trip buzzer sounded from its mounted position on the wall. Then came the snapping of the rat traps, followed by the motion lights. The intruders had undoubtedly entered the front yard. Despite her prior gung-ho attitude, Veronica sunk behind the bookcase with the pistol shaking in her hand.

“Make sure you're watching my six!” Greg said, indicating the area behind him. He had seen their tactics with each of the other houses, and knew that they went straight for the door, counting on the sheer element of surprise. The traps so far had startled them, however, and sent them regrouping.