TAGGED: THE APOCALYPSE (5 page)

“We need to let
some
of them in,” Brit spoke up. “There’s a fence builder out there with his truck. He can fortify the fence. There’s a guy with a large cache of guns. We may need those.”

“Our guards are armed with M-16’s and handguns…” Kirk looked at his wife Susan for support.
Eve smiled at him again but he didn’t notice. At least Brit seemed to have a good heart. Two weeks ago before all this happened, Eve had gone to a party at a kids house from her high school. She ended up getting really drunk and making out with one of the cheerleaders on the couch. The girl was known for being bi-curious when drunk. She also smoked when she drank. It got heavier and heavier and there was more and more alcohol. The other cheerleaders and the footballers making out with and feeling the other girls up on the surrounding couches were pretending to ignore them but were in fact really focused on Amber and herself. Every time she tried to leave, they would pull her back in and force her to drink more beer and take another shot. Eve must have blacked out because she woke up on a bed with Amber on top of her, feeling up her shirt and tongue-kissing her. It got really heavy after that. There was a large crowd in the hall at the door laughing and cheering Amber on. Eve didn’t know what to do and it was probably all going to be worth it because Amber was a cheerleader and really popular. The next day, no one at school would talk to her. They were all whispering as she went by. It all felt like a set up. They planned it out and set her up and then blamed her for what they did. Probably most of those kids were dead now. People were so mean.

“Four guards
out of fifty left to protect fifty acres. One may be infected. The others brought their families…” Brit had only been working at the plant for a few months. This was the most they had heard him speak since arriving. Eve smiled at Brit. Brit looked down. Eve had almost been with a guy once. She had been drunk then, too. She ended up just watching him from the bottom as he lay on top of her, in some bedroom, dry humping her and feeling her up, under her top. It was like she was watching someone else having sex with her body. When he noticed her just watching him, he was embarrassed and quickly stopped. She hadn’t really felt any passion. No pleasure at all with him, just curiosity. With Amber, at least she had enjoyed it, at the time.

“We have to keep everyone
out! We don’t know who is infected.” Susan sat bolt upright.

All of them looked out the large
wall-sized one hundred and eighty degree windows facing the front gates, at the growing crowd of trucks, an RV and various cars piling up outside the gate. There was even a guy out there with a front loader, complete with digging crane. Beyond that were hundreds of fires blazing unhindered in the dry northern California sky, the soot blocking out the sun. The power plant was surrounded on three sides by water. The gate in front was twelve feet high with razor wire on top. The entrance was fitted with a large guardhouse with several rooms. Installed in the asphalt leading through the gate were retractable metal posts rated to withstand the assault of a large truck. There were additional weapons and ammunition locked in the guardhouse.

“We have electricity to last
five hundred years. Everywhere else is dark. The military and the government have pulled out and gone underground. We have barely seen the sun in 2 months and we may not see it again for several years with all the dust in the air from the fires and the earthquakes. Not to mention the nuke they dropped on Memphis trying to contain the infection…” Brit was passionate.

“We have
at least six months MRE’s,” Kirk was calm, but firm. “The military will come back. We just have to wait it out.”

“They evacuated the entire government! They went underground. We haven’t seen the military
or the National Guard in nine days! The banks are closed. The stock market collapsed. The infection has been reported in every major city on every continent. There are rioters and looters running unchecked in every major city. We’re on our own! We are going to have to grow our own food. We need to barter with these people at the gate. Thank God we found that hippy guy – what’s his name?” Brit pressed.

“Sven” Dennis interjected
from where he had apparently been sleeping in the chair. Dennis, when still, nearly always appeared to be sleeping. At the apex of his mountainous frame, his eyes were heavily lidded with long sensuous lashes, and it was nearly impossible to tell most of the time. He had plump, ruddy cheeks that hid his eyes effectively and large, moist lips. Despite his appearance, Dennis was an encyclopedia of knowledge. On the tip of his tongue were obscure and useful facts relating to virtually any subject. He was possessed of a razor-sharp, exacting mind, and his opinions, when spoken, were rarely disputed. He was probably the smartest person Eve had ever met, except maybe for her dad, Kirk.

“We need to get rid of him. I don’t like him
,” Susan was adamant. “How do you know he’s not infected?”

“He’s not infected!” Brit and Dennis spoke in unison.

“Well, I don’t like him. He’s a drug addict. He’s a bad influence on Eve.” Susan glanced at Eve, who was now draped, spread-eagle, over a reversed chair facing the group. The tiny mini skirt revealed more than it covered. “Honey, can you give us a minute? The adults need to talk.”

Eve shot her mother a smoldering look and then rose noisily
, nearly knocking over the chair, before standing to look out the window with her back to the group. Sometimes she really hated her mother.
The adults need to talk
, she repeated to herself, under her breath, in a singsong voice.

“He smokes a little pot. He’s harmless
,” Brit defended him.

“A
little
pot? The man reeks of it,” Susan tried to keep her voice down.

“He’s a professional grower. He knows how to grow plants indoors without natural light. We’re
going to need him. We’re going to need to grow our own food and we don’t know when the sun will break through the haze. It could be…a long time...years…maybe never,” Brit spoke quietly and passionately, his words dropping off to a whisper at the end. Dennis was fully awake now. He nodded emphatically.

“
He’s a drug dealer! I don’t like the man. He’s taken an interest in Eve.” Of course, Susan had noticed her interest in Sven. He was so cool; nothing at all like the cheerleaders and football players. There was a moment of silence.

“Susan, with all due respect,” Dennis spoke diplomatically. His
wet lips smacked and his long, sensuous eyelashes fluttered, “your daughter is your responsibility as a parent. Besides, I think it might be more accurate to say that
she
may have taken an interest in
him
.”

“We need him. He stays
,” Brit was firm.

SAN
JOSE, CALIFORNIA 

“Dixon! Come here boy!” Sven cried to the one hundred and seventy pound male Boxer-Pitt Bull mix sitting expectantly outside of the ordinary-looking rambler in an ordinary-looking development on an ordinary street in the sprawling suburbs of San Jose, California. Images of Dixon shot and Bugs half-eaten had raced through his mind up until this point. He was glad he had found the power plant and really it was because of something that guy Warren had said, but it wasn’t worth the loss of Dixon and Bugs. Sven let out a heavy sigh of relief.

C
hris’ eyes went wide with fear and he involuntarily began raising his M-16 to face the threat. As soon as Dixon stood on all four legs, he was a giant, wiggling puppy overcome with joy at seeing his master. Dixon jumped up to Sven’s chest, draping his paws over Sven’s shoulders and shyly licked Sven’s cheek. Sven laughed and kissed him back, scruffing his neck with both hands. The other guard lowered his weapon and laughed.

“
That’s
your dog?!” Chris was shaken. He looked like he wanted to run. “I don’t like dogs.”

“This is
Dixon. Dixon meet Chris and Adams.” Dixon cocked his head attentively, looking only at Sven. Chris looked fearfully at the dog. Adams stayed on the other side of the truck.

Sven swept his waist
-length blond dreadlocks off of his face with a long, bony hand and retied them with a scrunchy over his neck. Sven had a giant head with an even bigger garden of dirty blond dreadlocks over a long thin body. He stooped a little, increasing the impression that his head was too heavy for his body.  “Dixon, where’s Bugs? Where’s Bugs?” If Dixon was okay, then Bugs was probably nearby.

Dixon
barked in response. The bark was high pitched for such a large dog.

A
large, white rabbit with a pink-rimmed nose and black, liquid eyes hopped tentatively into the open driveway from behind the bushes. “Bugs!” Sven cried, running to the rabbit. Dixon bounded around him. The rabbit showed no fear of either, but stood his ground, waiting for Sven. Sven picked him up into his arms and cuddled him, kissing his head and ears like a furry, fat white baby as Dixon jumped around excitedly.

“This guy is a regular Tarzan
,” Adams quipped, shaking his head, still making no movement to come around the truck.

“Everybody’s hungry.” Sven poured generous helpings of dry dog food and dry rabbit food into side
-by-side bowls labeled “Dixon” and “Bugs.”

Sven
pushed with a single finger the broken side door to the rambler. A powerful smell like a long dead skunk assaulted them. Chris and Adams grabbed at their noses. “What is
that
?”

“Ahhhhh,” Sven took a deep breath and then another.
“I love the smell of napalm in the morning.” He turned to Chris and Adams, suddenly all business. “Ok, everything goes. All the plants, all the soil, the lights, the grid, the generator, the water pump, the ventilator, everything.” Sven paused in the doorway; beyond him, they could see a large, greasy blackened stain where the booby-trapped shotgun mounted in the door had blown a hole in the now dead man. The looter had tried to break in and was killed at the door. Now, there was only a dried trail of blood and a disgustingly rank stain where he had expired before rising again to join the undead beasts in their hunt. There was an additional dried trail of blood leading away across the driveway from a second looter injured by the same blast. All three of them stepped over the very fragrant stain. Sven expertly untied the shotgun, checked the barrels and put it over his shoulder. There were no other signs of forced entry.

“
Well now Shut The Front Door…” Chris whistled under his breath. Beyond Sven lay three floors and three thousand square feet of potted green plants. Thick, green plastic sheeting covered the floor. A grid of lights with electrical cords snaked down on all sides covered the ceiling. Large, flexible air ducts ran here and there among the ceiling grid. The power was out here, so the house was unbearably hot and humid.

“Too hot
; blower’s out; everybody needs water,” Sven ticked off automatically the list of things he would normally handle. His hands went to his head in a gesture of futility. “I’m a grower. This is a grow house.”

“This is
going to take more than one trip,” Adams said, as he hefted the first potted plant toward the waiting trucks.

“Oh no! I forgot the spray
paint. Do we have any spray paint?” Sven asked.

Chris shrugged
. “You can check the trucks,” Adams said.

“I need to tell
Jackie and Candy to go to the power plant to find me.” Sven grabbed handfuls of dreadlocks in his hands. He was hoping to find them here.

“
We’ll have to come back,
if
we can get back,” Chris said.

“
They’ll figure it out,” Adams laughed.

NUCLEAR POWER PLANT,
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA

The sky was an angry slate color. Grey ash floated down like snow. It was three o’clock in the afternoon and it would be getting dark soon. The press of humanity in front of the power plant had grown by the power of ten since their trip to the grow house earlier this morning. There was only one road in and out of the nuclear power plant. It was essentially a giant funnel leading to the gate of the facility. Sven could see that under normal circumstances this was a highly effective security procedure. The two trucks loaded with supplies from the grow house had made it perhaps two thirds of the way. Cars, trucks, vans, campers and every different kind of vehicle were parked every which way across the roadway and the two shoulders. People were out of the vehicles everywhere, knocking on Sven’s windows. It was a scene of chaos and desperation.

“Keep moving! Don’t stop!”
Adams screamed into the hand held radio on the dash. Adams leaned on his horn in frustration. Sven turned down the ear piercing squawk of the radio on his dash.

“Everything’s blocked. There’s no where to go
,” Sven said. The two trucks had made it to perhaps a quarter mile from the power plant. Sven pounded the steering wheel in frustration. Everything was blocked. His entire world had stopped and he was constipated. He had been so stressed out, he hadn’t been able to take a dump in three days. Where were Jackie and Candy? He had expected to find them at the grow house. Getting a place in this power plant was a life saver, especially now, but not without his crew. Sven lit up a blunt and took a long drag to calm himself. Fuck! He should have gone with the flagellates. But they were gone now and wandering alone out there was certain death. At least he had Dixon and Bugs…