The Broken and the Dead (Book 1) (2 page)

Later that night as we finished dinner I asked Dad about it and he seemed confused as if he hadn’t even heard the broadcasts.

“I don’t know son, I’ve been working in the garage all day, let’s see-”

He got up and went back into the living room and turned on the TV. I followed him, but Lucy stayed at the table pretending to feed Ronald her Brussels sprouts. My older sister Elaine was already on her cell phone texting someone about what someone else said about someone else. The TV was crazy, every channel was in “special coverage” and medical alerts were scrolling along the top of the screen and locations of temporary hospitals along the bottom. Now the TV guy was saying that many of the people who were infected had turned violent and that if medical or police services were not there you should lock them in a secure room all by themselves. My dad called Mom into the room and together they listened in shock. Mom unsuccessfully tried to call grandma, and dad tried to call his friend Rob who was in the police but couldn’t reach him.

By ten o’clock that night most of the big cities were in “martial law” and just about everywhere there was a curfew. I watched the television until the bar at the bottom of the screen became a blur, like a blue train whipping past me. Eventually my eyes burned and the lids were too heavy to keep open, I closed them with my head on Mom’s lap who was holding Lucy, already fast asleep. As I lay there, I tried to burn that moment into my memory. My Mom smelled like roses, her left hand played with my hair, sometimes running her fingers through it, sometimes feeling it between her finger and thumb. I felt the gentle rise and fall of her breathing. At that moment I realized just how much I loved her, so much it felt like an empty spot in my stomach. If I had known the future I would have told her that right then and not waited another second.

Day 1, Continued, the Oval Office

              The two secret service agents stared down at the body of the President of the United States. The had just shot him nine times after finding him with the remains of his daughter Candace and Jamison, her secret service escort. The President had been eating his daughter but most of the gore had come from Agent Donaldson, apparently the President had eviscerated her with his bare hands. 

“What now?” One asked.

“No freaking idea.” The older man answered.

Day 2, My House

When I awoke the next morning, Lucy was sleeping at the other end of the couch from me and even Elaine had come downstairs sometime during the night and was sleeping in dad’s recliner. I looked around. The TV was off and the lights didn’t work. I heard Mom in the kitchen and she was crying. I went in to her.

“Mom? What’s going on? Why are you crying?” She turned to me and pulled me to her, wrapping me tightly in her arms.

“Oh, Johnny,” she whispered. She kept brushing my hair and then it dawned on me. “Mom, where’s dad?” I tried to look around but Mom just held on.

“Where is Dad? DAD? DAD?”

I called out for him, but mom kept going “Shh, shh…” and repeating.

“It’s okay, it’s okay” she murmured to me.

“Johnny, listen. Dad got sick last night, he decided to drive himself to the hospital.”

She started to choke up.

“He left about three.”

“Why didn’t he wake me?” I asked.

“Johnny...”

Mom started but could not finish. I saw her cell phone on the table so I asked if I could call him, but from the expression on her face I knew she had already been trying. That’s when Lucy led Elaine into the kitchen and we all had to go through the most awful thing that had ever happened to me all over again. Elaine was inconsolable; it was Lucy who kept trying to talk positively.

“Maybe Daddy’s phone won’t work in the hospital,” she said and then “maybe we can go see him.”

But I knew, I knew from the TV that if you got sick, you didn’t get better, and I knew we were alone. From her face I knew Mom knew it too. Later Elaine came in, upset, fiercely texting and hitting send over and over.

“Mom, I can’t reach Marcus. I can’t get Tammy or Krista- I can’t get anyone.” and she started to cry.

Mom went to her and held her, frankly I didn’t care too much, Marcus was a dope and Tammy was stuck up, but then again Krista was pretty nice and she always said hi to me even though Elaine thought I was just a kid. After we ate lunch Lucy was looking like she was really thinking about something. Finally she spoke up:

“Mommy? Ronald wants to know something.” Mom tried to smile and she looked kindly at her.

“Okay Honey, what does Ronald want to know?” 

Lucy took a deep breath then holding Ronald out in front of her she moved the little stuffed bear from side to side and she spoke in what a little girl would consider a ‘deep’ voice:

“I’m Ronald Bear and I wants to know what
should
we do?”

Ronald’s question hit all of us like a brick, there were things we could do, of course there was.

“Water.” Mom said, “Lucy you and Ronald go and fill every bottle with water that you can find and fill the tubs too.”

Lucy ran off, happy to have something to do.

“Johnny, go out to the garage and find all the camping equipment and set it out where Daddy parks. Make sure it’s all in good shape and then find all the hand tools that you think we might need. Find a saw, hammer, screw drivers all that kind of stuff but only hand tools, can you do that?”

I smiled at Mom. “Sure I can!” and I ran down the stairs into the garage.

Mom and Elaine went through everything in the house all the canned food and things that would keep were arranged out in the garage by the camping things. Then I could hear them talking and I knew they talked about cooking anything that might spoil first. Anything that would keep, we would keep. Anything else was open season. I found the big plastic water cooler inside of the matching Coleman ice chest. I took it into the kitchen and set it on the counter next to a couple of dozen other bottles and jars. Lucy had been busy, everything from 2 liter bottles to jelly jars. Most of them had come from the recycling bin out back. There was also a full case of Lakeland spring water that Elaine always insisted on and for the first time I was happy for it. Lucy came into the kitchen and clapped when she saw the water cooler and she quickly filled it too. She really liked the little spigot thingy and I saw her getting herself and Ronald several drinks but she always refilled the cooler after. 

The power came back on for a while that evening; the news channels had degenerated. Gone were the slick suited, always calm anchor-people with their practiced Midwest accents. Now, fear and exhaustion marred them, easily read by all who cared to look.

There were scenes of tanks advancing through suburban neighborhoods, entire city blocks were on fire, but the worst was the panic: people who packed themselves into a car in an attempt to escape suddenly found one of them, perhaps a child or husband or grandmother, had changed into a killer. No one was immune: police stations, army units, fire departments, hospitals, schools and even churches hid serpents in their midst. Airplanes fell from the sky when someone, the pilot or some passengers, changed. Soldiers couldn’t count on the person next to them. I could only imagine what it was like for a soldier in a tank to find out he was trapped in a metal coffin with 3 or 4 monsters who wanted only to kill and eat him. In our town, not far from us, rifle and machinegun fire echoed through the night. Sirens and screams punctuated by explosions. The four of us huddled on the couch together, Lucy trying to get her teddy to go to sleep, Elaine sobbing quietly, while my mother just stared at the TV as the scenes of the end of the world displayed in high definition for us. Around 3 AM, the power went out for the last time and I wondered if the monsters would come for us in the dark. But they didn’t- not that night.

Day 3

The morning came and we all moved around the house like mice. We were afraid to make any sounds even though we could still hear sporadic gunfire in the distance. We ate breakfast, I guess it was breakfast, Mom cooked us steaks from the freezer and eggs and toaster waffles. We all forced it down; we knew it was going to go bad if we didn’t. Mom and Elaine were talking in the kitchen while I was playing with Lucy, supposedly trying to keep her mind off of things, but the truth was I needed just as much of that as she did. We just about jumped out of our socks when there was a loud knock at the door. Elaine ran to look out the peep and saw Mr. Caulfield and Mr. and Mrs. Franks on our front porch.

She called out to Mom and she quickly let them in. They were checking for people who might want to go with them, it seemed that Mr. Frank’s family owned a large mountain lodge in West Virginia. They said it was not visible from the highway but was only minutes from it. There were lots of bedrooms and they thought that there was safety in numbers. Mom thought about it only for a moment or two but when she said that we would join them Elaine jumped in the conversation:

“
MOM
, what about Daddy? How will he know where we are?”

Mr. Franks looked at Elaine and said “Don’t worry; we will leave him a map and directions and the phone number too! He can join us there.”

I wasn’t sure but I thought that maybe Mr. Franks was just trying to be nice, he knew just like I did that Daddy wasn’t coming home.

Mr. Franks and Mr. Caulfield left to check for anyone else but Mrs. Franks stayed to give Mom suggestions,( no help mind you, but lots of suggestions). She
did
write out the address and directions to the Frank’s lodge, which was something I suppose. Mom’s van was in the garage and since we had all our supplies in the other bay it didn’t take long to load it. We did have some problems putting the hard shell car top carrier on but we eventually got it. In that, we loaded everything that we thought we wouldn’t need right away. I have no idea how Dad used to do that all by himself. Lucy arranged all the water containers in the far back of the van along with some “on the road” type snacks. At the last moment I thought to load Dad’s fishing gear, I used Velcro straps to attach it to the roof rack next to the carrier.

Mom called to Lucy who appeared with her
little Indian bow and arrow set
. A bright red artificial feather stuck jauntily in her wavy brown hair.

“Robert Bear and I are ready Mommy” she said, looking as serious as she could.

I turned and looked at Mom. “Weapons,” I whispered.

She nodded and said, “Johnny go get the big knife set from the counter.”

I ran inside and took the whole knife set under my arm then my baseball bag from the pantry where we kept it during little league season. I had two bats in there as well as my glove and a couple of balls. Whose knows? Maybe someday we’d want to play baseball. We all piled into the van and Mom tried the remote but then remembered the power was out, she had Elaine go and release the door and she slid it easily up.

There were three cars waiting for us, the Franks in the lead, the Caulfield’s’ big Jeep next and I couldn’t believe it, the Driscol’s blue land cruiser was just in front of us. And there was Billy, waving madly to me from the back window. I leaned over the seat and honked Mom’s horn for her.

“
Johnny
!” she corrected, “Don’t do that!”

But I could tell she was happy to see Billy too. We pulled out of the garage, paused while Elaine pulled the door down and got into the passenger seat next to Mom. We started down the street to follow the others.

We had gone a whole 50 yards before Elaine started in on her cell phone again with no more luck than she had during the previous 24 hours. Twenty five more yards and she was asking if we could go by some friend’s house, Krista’s I think. Ten more yards before the Driscol’s brake lights came on and there was the sound of tires screeching, a huge crash, and the sound of glass raining down like someone had just dropped a tray of fine crystal. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my GOD!” Elaine said in a fit of sudden religion, she was rocking in the seat, her eyes unable to focus on anything or anyone, she just kept up her mantra of “oh my God”.

Ahead of us, I could see that the Franks’ SUV had been totally creamed from the side, a police cruiser, lights on but sirens off, had just nailed them going at least 50 miles per hour before it bounced off and crashed into the front of the Caulfield’s jeep. I could see Mrs. Driscol getting out of her car and waving to Billy to stay where he was.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Johnny stay here with your sisters.” Mom answered and she got out to help as well.

I looked at Elaine: her eyes were wide and she wasn’t even blinking, she just kept typing 9-1-1 and hitting ‘call’ over and over.  I have to admit this really freaked me out as much or more as the wreck. Mrs. Driscol was helping Mr. Caulfield and Mom ran by them to help the Franks, but when she got by the police cruiser she looked in the window and then down the street, it was then she began to scream. Both Mr. and Mrs. Franks were just coming around the front of the police car when Mom started to run back towards us. They looked up and fear was instantly etched on their faces. I looked back up the road where the police car had come from and a crowd of about a dozen or so people were running down the street towards us, I was sure they were the crazies they talked about on TV. They sure looked it. Some of them were covered in blood, others not so much, but they all were screaming non-words at us and looked more like animals than people. They were not armed that I could see but they looked so fierce I didn’t think that was going to matter a whole lot.