Soldier On: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (17 page)

“Come in.” The disembodied voice sounded from the far side of the thick door and echoed around the in stairwell.

Clark took out his collapsible mini mirror, extended it halfway and used it to inspect what awaited beyond the door. Dressed in white lab coats, a man and a woman stood a few feet from the entrance, waiting to greet the intruders.

A man’s voice said, “It’s safe to come in, we’ve been waiting for the cavalry to come calling.”

The door was easier to open than it looked. Desantos estimated that it weighed at least a ton. “Back away and keep your hands where I can see them.” The doctors complied while Desantos kept his weapon trained on them. In a blur of motion the other five operators fanned out and cleared the room.

 “
Don’t go near the patient on the table
,” the woman shouted.

“We know full well what your
patient
is capable of. If I get any closer to that monster I promise you it won’t be to make friends.” Clark had long ago stopped feeling empathy for who the undead used to be.

“
Take it easy
...this one has to be studied. You’re looking at the Alpha carrier,” to protect it, the doctor stepped between the soldiers and the undead creature.

Clark bristled, “No better reason than that to put two in its brain.”

“
Stand down soldier
.” Desantos turned his attention to the scientists and started asking questions. “Tell me doctor, how did he get infected?”

“Judging by the track marks on his arm, he injected himself with the virus. I believe someone with a security clearance much higher than mine is calling it the Omega virus...or something like that. At any rate, it is aptly named. We may be looking at the end of the human race as we know it.”

“How did the infection spread from Alpha to the population? Does anyone know what happened?”

“We were only privy to the police report. Alpha infected two people at an Italian restaurant. They both received minor bites...”

Desantos interrupted, “Why weren’t they rounded up and quarantined?”

“That’s the sixty-four thousand dollar question. The first two refused to be taken to the hospital. They didn’t even care that he could be carrying hepatitis and might have given it to them. There was apparently a little bit of a language barrier, which may be why they refused.”

“Illegals?” Lopez asked.

Fuentes took a swig from his bottled water and replaced it on the stainless steel autopsy table. The alpha specimen intently eyed his every move. “We will never know. They left as soon as they were bandaged up, a little boy and his mom.”

“So they took the bug with them.” Desantos processed the information for a second. “What happened next?”

“Well...one of the waiters held him down until the ambulance crew arrived. After a little more of a struggle-during which time the ambulance drivers were infected-they strapped him to a gurney and transported him to Bethesda.” Fuentes stopped at that, he had a feeling that the General knew the rest of the story.

Mike rubbed his tired eyes. “I heard that the hospital was like a war zone. Seven SF operators died getting this monster out of there. That was where the shit really hit the fan. It was the beginning of the end. Washington D.C. was teeming with tens of thousands of deranged flesh-eaters before nightfall.” Mike stared at a spot on the floor. “I saw Washington from the air with my own eyes...the city was on fire. It all still feels like it never happened...like I’ll wake up any second and find the world back to normal.”

Fuentes waited until he was certain the General was finished and then continued his account. “I was here when the soldiers, led by a Captain, I think he said his name was Gaines-delivered the Alpha. We received the police report and a top secret folder containing instructions from President Odero to drop everything, study this one and find a way to stop the spread of Omega. The Captain had me destroy both of the documents as soon as Hanson and I had finished reading them. I’ve never even seen a burn bag before-pretty effective.”

Desantos was done reflecting on the past. He issued orders for his men to collect any and all documents pertaining to the outbreak. “Doctor Fuentes, will you please help my men properly prepare the specimen for transport?”

“Yes sir.” Fuentes fetched the straight jacket and hood the Alpha was wrapped in when it arrived.

“Hanson, please help my men collect all of the flash drives and remove the hard drives from the computers.”

“Consider it done.” Hanson hurriedly peeled off her lab coat and immediately went to work. It was apparent that she was eager to get some fresh air.

***

Lopez held onto the ghoul’s restless legs, he couldn’t stand to watch as the thick burlap sack moved and undulated on Maddox shoulder. He and Maddox lugged the Alpha specimen up the seemingly never ending flights of stairs. Lopez was a very religious man and he found it unsettling to be so close to one of the demons without putting a bullet in its brain.

“It’s a shame we can’t just cut the bastards head off. It would be easier to hump up the stairs, that’s for sure,” Lopez said, as he shifted the moving bag to a different pressure point on his shoulder.

“Hey Doc, have you seen one of these things lose its head? It’s eerie how the eyes still follow, even with no body attached.” Clark shuddered at the mental image.

“I hate to break it to you, but we need the whole package,” Fuentes said, brushing off the initial question. If only Lopez could have seen the experiments they’d conducted on other infected; people they used to work with, as well as walkers they plucked off of the street. The things that he had done in the name of science will haunt him for the rest of his life.
The soldier didn’t know what he was missing
, Fuentes thought,
and his ignorance truly is bliss
.

Desantos issued an order. “Calvin, take point. I’ll watch our six. Clark, you and Brent collect Haskell’s body when we get to the fourteenth floor.”

Clark was honored to carry his fallen team member to the helicopter. He would walk through lava for “Cowboy” and he certainly was glad that he hadn’t been ordered to carry the hissing, bagged and gagged monster to the waiting helo.

Outbreak Day 5

Stanley, Idaho

Stanley was quiet, way too quiet for Dan’s liking. Even if the state fair was going on in Boise, with its draw of games of chance and greasy food, there would be some people out and about at this hour.

Mountainview Boulevard was usually festooned with colorful flags and banners year round, advertising upcoming holidays, bazaars or festivals. Dan hoped that the person strung up alongside the vibrant “Summer Days Classic Car Cruise In” banner wasn’t his old friend Sheriff Blanda. The closer he got the tighter the knot in his gut constricted.

Dan stood at the base of the light standard and shed a tear. The man’s leather boots, spit shined at all times, were directly at eye level; swaying from each gust of wind that rolled off of the mountains warming flanks. Dan caught fleeting glimpses of his own bearded face reflected in the brilliant hand buffed sheen. Someone, probably the Aryans, had hoisted him off of the ground, tightened a coiled noose around his neck and left the cities only lawman to be eaten by the crows. Dan considered shooting the feeding opportunists but decided that he didn’t need the unwanted attention gunfire might bring. If he could talk to the animals, like Doctor Doolittle, he would tell the noisy birds where they could find Mikey Connell’s cooling corpse.

Dan had no way to reach the rope, to cut his friend down, so he reluctantly left him swinging and trudged up the narrow street towards Lizzie’s house. All of the houses, on both sides of the side street were still dark inside.
Strange
, no kids watching cartoons and not one lady of the house cooking breakfast at this hour. The pieces of this puzzle were still scattered all over the card table in Dan’s mind. He was baffled. A few times he detected shadows flitting by closed drapes, but not one person came out to offer a greeting. Dan was no social gadfly, but neither was he a pariah in Stanley.

As he walked, he found himself deep in thought rehashing the events of the last few days.

He was a little troubled that he felt no remorse about killing the Connell kid. His dad and mom had been nice enough and Dan wondered to himself where they went wrong? It had been more than thirty years since he had killed another human being and he had a feeling Mikey Connell wouldn’t be the last; Sheriff Bob Blanda’s murderers were the perfect candidates.

The years of outdoors activities had left the man a minor case of arthritis that made it necessary to stop every so often. Elizabeth Paxton’s house was one block ahead on the left. The Victorian era painted lady shone in the morning sunshine, the old three story house was painted in yellows and oranges with dashes of purple thrown in. It truly matched Lizzie’s personality.

Dan pinned his hopes on her being up and willing to talk to him. God was he feeling lonely, and after what he had been through at Bo’s store he really needed to talk to another human being.

Gosh darn steps
. Three flights meandered up from the street to Lizzie’s purple door. If knees could talk, Dan’s would have screamed, “No way.” Finally standing in front of the door, Dan wiped the perspiration from his face. After taking a much needed breather, he stood and listened for movement inside the home.
Nothing
, Dan rapped on the door three times. Given the stillness of the town the knocks sounded like he used a baseball bat. There was still no movement from inside.

He wrestled with the decision to turn around and go home or test the door and see if it was locked. The latter won out.

“Elizabeth, it’s me Dan...” in mid sentence the sickly sweet odor hit him full in the face. He flashed back to Nam and the smells and sights he could never purge from the deepest recesses of his mind. Dan silently vowed to himself that when the day was done he was going to call the VA hospital in Boise and see if he could have his head examined-so to speak.

Crossing the threshold into the parlor of Lizzie’s home was the hardest thing he had done in years. Fully afraid of what he was going to find, he forced his legs to propel him deeper inside the dimly lit residence.

Dan knew the layout of the house from previous visits. He went directly to his lady friend’s bedroom, the disgusting odor intensified the closer he got.

Hundreds of loudly buzzing houseflies ambushed Dan when he set foot in the bedroom. His worst fear was realized, Elizabeth Paxton’s corpse was the source of the throat constricting stench. Lizzie was dressed in her Sunday best, an empty bottle of pain pills sat on the bureau next to a half empty glass of water. There was no evidence of foul play, but what really troubled Dan was the absence of a suicide note.
Why in the hell would the old gal want to go out like that?

Dan was trying to make sense out of it all when he noticed the rifled through Idaho Statesman newspaper. From where he was standing he thought the headline read, “
Dead Walk
.”
Impossible
, his eyes had to be playing tricks on him. Dan worked his way around the bed and fetched the newspaper and found he had, in fact, read it correctly. Even more troubling, the paper was dated days ago, not April 1.

Sitting down, he read and reread the article. Dan could only fathom the editor of the Statesman allowing something this outlandish to be front page news, as a prank maybe, but only on April Fools day or Halloween.

The remote control for Lizzie’s Zenith sat atop the comforter which was tightly wrapped around her bloated legs. Dan fanned away the flies and grabbed the remote; intent on seeing what had happened, that was so catastrophic, which still warranted having all of the passenger jets grounded. Dan pressed the power button,
nothing
. It finally dawned on him that he hadn’t seen any lights on in town; interior or porch. He had assumed that Bo’s store was without power because of the foul play. Dan didn’t profess to be a detective, but he didn’t often miss details like these.

Dan turned his head and craned his neck in the direction of the main drag that cut through town. He noticed the distinctive sound of Harley Davidsons, the loudly throbbing motorcycles approached from the west. Dan parted the yellowed lace curtains and took in the spectacle passing by a block away.

Bikes of all types careened through town, followed by dozens of civilian SUVs, mostly Suburbans, Cadillac Escalades and Hummers all of the vehicles not easily obtained before the apocalypse.

Soon the air was filled with hoots and hollers. Rebel yells, cat calls and war cries sounded from the passing procession of black leather and gleaming chrome.

United States military vehicles brought up the rear of the convoy. The people manning the turret mounted armament on the passing Humvees looked nothing like soldiers. An M1 Abrams main battle tank played caboose for the Mad Max parade. It lurched along, slowing down and speeding up like a drunken sailor on liberty. The thing that made the scene all the more maddening was the black and red Nazi flags flying from many of the vehicles-including the military hardware.

Revulsion washed over Dan followed by a searing white hot rage that invaded his every cell. It felt like he was in the midst of a Twilight Zone episode and he knew Rod Serling wasn’t going to bail him out of the surreal nightmare.