The Living Dead Series (Book 2): World Without End (8 page)

“Exactly. Remember though, shooting should be one of your last resorts. Avoiding any confrontation with the dead is your best bet. Running away should be second. The sound of the gun shot is going to attract more of them and we only have a limited amount of ammo,” David said.

Night descended like a veil. The snow stopped for now but the wind picked up adding its own howling sounds to the moans of the dead. They didn’t turn lights on just in case they were wrong and the dead could see them. They put their coats back on and kept weapons and backpacks within easy reach. Brian fell asleep first, head cradled on his forearms. Bea lay down between him and the front door.

“What’s in California that requires your presence?” Bea asked David.

“If I told you I’d have to kill you.”

She sat up and turned around to look at him. “Are you serious?”

“No, not really. At one time I suppose this might have been classified information but again, it’s a strange new world out there.”

“So what’s happening?”

David thought for a moment.

“Early this morning U.S. intelligence intercepted transmissions that indicated the Chinese diverted at least two troop transport ships to the California coast to join the three that regularly cruise that part of the Pacific. We’re trying to mobilize our Coast Guard and ground forces out there but communications are hit or miss. Guess where all of the factories are that manufacture our communication and navigation equipment?”

“China?”

“You bet. We’ve suspected for a while they were inserting sleeping bugs into the programs and we were right. Some of the bugs seem to have failed but others have us in complete blackout.  We do know there is infection along the entire West coast. There are those who will desert during a time like this to get home and protect their families so we lost a lot of our staff and it’s unclear who is still out there and available to whip our response into shape.”

“But why did the Chinese send them?” Bea asked. “They must know how dangerous the infection is.”

“They do, even though they deny they have any infected in the PRC- we know better. They firmly believe in letting no crisis go unexploited and my best guess is they want to take advantage of the chaos the U.S. is experiencing right now. In my opinion, Chinese scientists and engineers are very bright but not particularly creative. It may have something to do with their society valuing conformity so much but whatever the reason, they love to steal our high-tech secrets. For all we know, they plan to colonize the western half of the country or all of it eventually. I fully intend to have a surprise for them. America won’t go down that easy. It takes a while to awaken our people but once it happens- look out. Our citizens have guns and won’t have a problem using them once they realize what is going on.”

“You may be going into a situation even more dangerous than the one here,” Bea said.

“Really doesn’t matter. It’s
my
country,
our
country and no one is going to infiltrate and take over if I can help stop it.”

She couldn’t see his face in the dim room but he sounded angry. They sat in silence for a few moments; the only sound that of the dead and the wind before Bea spoke.

“I don’t know that much about the virus. I guess I ignored the news for a few days and I’m still trying to catch up but I get the impression this wasn’t created in a lab somewhere.” She was thinking of Sylvie’s little cache of papers.

“I think it’s old, maybe something that has been with us for hundreds or who knows how many years. Incidents of outbreaks are on record but are usually attributed to something more well-known. As for the origins, who knows? I’ve read a little about it and it seems to spring up randomly throughout history, wreak havoc and then die away. People have blamed it on demons, rats, and now of course we think it’s a virus. It is certainly capable of jumping the species barrier. This time, with modern transportation, we inadvertently sent it around the world. May God help us.”

Brian stirred in his sleep and cried out faintly. Bea took his hand and finding it cold, held it between her own to warm it.

“So Beatrice, what is your goal? Whom are you trying to reach at Dupont Circle? I’m assuming your parents live somewhere fairly close. Did your brother just happen to be at your house when this broke out?”

“I have no idea where our parents are. Brian and I have been on our own for a long time. As to our goal, I’m trying to get to my boss’s apartment. She lost her office key and needs mine to get into the building.”

“She’s going in to work? That’s true dedication. Where do you work?”

“The National Gallery.”

“I’ve never heard of an art emergency before. What is so important at an art gallery that anyone would get out in this?”

Bea hesitated. She was still curious about the documents and wanted to read them when she got a chance. The print version was still in her house but her flash drive should have everything on it.

“My boss, Sylvie, thinks she might have found something there that could tell us more about the virus. Like you, she thinks it has been around for a long time.”

“Really? Where did she find the information?”

“When the British Museum put their Egyptian rooms on tour they messed up and sent over a bunch of papers detailing old incidents similar to this. Isolated incidents not pandemics. She sent me some information right before the infected broke into my house and I haven’t been through much of it. I’m an art historian and I was brought in to help with setting up the exhibit and for background information on the artifacts.”

David swore under his breath. “I would really like to have a look at it. I wish I had more time. My rendezvous with the chopper is in about thirty-eight hours.”

“Hang on a second.” Bea retrieved her backpack and dug out her flash drive, holding it up triumphantly before plugging it into the laptop.

He read through the Roman legionnaire’s account of the episode at Hadrian’s Wall once quickly then went back and read it again with an incredulous look on his face.

“This is just incredible. It’s fairly common knowledge that the Romans had problems in northern Britain with the locals and built the famous wall but this explains why they fortified it so heavily and built it in such a short span of time. The information I found only traces the virus back to the 1400’s in Africa.”

He started scrolling through more of the images and exclaimed, “Look at this!”

From the diary and journal of Howard Carter covering the period from 27 August to 25 November 1922.  All entries are in Howard’s own hand and this transcription is only slightly edited for spelling. Originals have been scanned and are available for perusal. Gaps in the timeline merely indicate sections of the journal that did not deal with the ongoing excavation.

Friday, 27 August 1922

Left Cairo for Luxor

Saturday, 28 August 1922

Stayed the night with Callender. The night became quite late as we discussed plans for autumn dig. Excellent brandy.

Two mules.

Sunday, 29 August 1922

Sailing ship returned

1 mule

Monday, 12 September

Workmen enlisted

Tuesday, 4 October

Workmen well-disposed but proceeding with rather exaggerated caution I consider unnecessary in this stage of the excavation. There is no hurrying them without bribery though and I am paying them quite enough already.

Saturday, 21 October

Breached passageway.

Sunday, 5 November

Water has filled this area at some point in the (possibly remote) past. No damage seen other than fallen plaster from wooden lintel. Delay caused by lame donkey. Debris cleared before noon. I stayed at the site. Markings indicate burial of important personage. Evening found my workmen once again unwilling to work with torchlight and nothing I said could dissuade them from leaving.

Break in rubble revealed deeper passageway.

Monday, 6 November

Waiting for Lord C to arrive. Workers insist on rolling the great stones that formed the side of the workmen’s ancient huts in front of the tomb.

Thursday, 23 November

Lord C arrived. Commenced opening tomb. Workers again extremely slow and cautious. None will venture down the steps without pick axes, even those panning for artifacts keep axes close by. Stones and debris removed.

Friday, 24 November

Lady M arrived. Tomb revealed to have twelve steps in total. First door breached. Deciphered seals bearing cartouche of Tut.ankh.Amen. Our photographs taken proved to be of poor quality. Opened first door. Clearing passage revealed broken potsherds, jar seals, and other debris.

Sunday, 25 November

Opened second door. Candles flickered as ancient gas escaped from the room and gave impression of movement within the chamber. Electric torch revealed standing figure in decayed linen wrappings. Leathery, dried fingers reached out through the opening. Lady M screamed and this excited the creature who began tearing away at rubble in an apparent attempt to get out. The skeletal hand grabbed the torch and flung it to the floor where it lay, its yellow beam revealing more creatures moving and gibbering in the noisome tomb.

Aghast at this impossible development we carried poor Lady M (who had fainted) out into the desert evening leaving her in the care of our guides. Returning to the tomb we found the door enlarged by removal of stones and our workmen, armed with their picks, destroying the creatures as they emerged one by one from the dark. Nine in all were destroyed in such fashion. We found more lain on stone slabs struggling against their bindings and these were destroyed as well.

Lord C enraged at the destruction. What information could these preserved creatures, alive for thousands of years, reveal to us? Workmen oddly uncommunicative on subject, only repeating that the
ghuls
must be destroyed. More than just killed, they insisted on completely obliterating the skulls.

We are left with many questions but few answers. Government officials feign deafness or inability to understand English when the subject is broached. The treasure inside the tomb was beyond expectation and with pleasure I inventoried the golden throne, the obsidian leopards, the finely carved chairs but nothing we found was of any help in explaining the aeons-long existence of those creatures. I hesitate to publicize their existence for fear that ridicule and disbelief would cast doubt on the authenticity of our magnificent find.

Lady M, recovered from her faint, did come back to the tomb the next day and made an astute observation. Traditionally the brain is removed during the embalming process but the
ghuls’
skulls contained leathery lumps that must have once been brain tissue.

Perhaps future excavations will offer some clue that will allow us to solve this mystery.

-Journal of Howard Carter

Researcher’s note: For additional information on this phenomenon see records from the liberation of Bergen-Belsen in Folio V, cached entitled “Practical Application and Research”

David kept scrolling but could not pull up any other documents. Bea went back to the beginning but also found nothing. She pulled up the original email but the folder held only the two incidents. Attempted calls didn’t go through and Sylvie didn’t respond to her texts.

“Maybe she didn’t have time to scan the rest of them, or maybe that’s all there is.” She was disappointed. “I’m sure she’ll tell me tomorrow if I can just get to her place.”

The words, “Infection and Research” at the end of the document were tantalizing and Bea fell asleep pondering the possibilities. David, watching the two of them sleeping and keeping watch on the infected outside, pondered it as well. He fell asleep shortly after the broken church clock ran down and went silent.

B
ea woke just as the sky brightened into dawn. Brian and David slept on. Outside, as the sun continued to rise, ice crystals sparkled on trees and bushes as well as the dead still roaming the street. She had hoped they would wander off during the night once the clock stopped chiming. Finding her toothbrush she made for the bathroom and as she showered, wondered how much longer utilities would work with no one to maintain the systems. Her upper lip was still swollen and the hot water stung.

Brian was next in the shower while she fixed a makeshift breakfast of toast and canned fruit gleaned from the cupboards. There wasn’t much food in the house but she didn’t want to break into what they carried in their backpacks yet. David wandered in and ate breakfast but spoke little. A layer of dark stubble covered the lower part of his face.

Calls to Evan now went straight to voicemail. Bea kept calling, hoping to arrange a rendezvous point before they actually got to Dupont Circle but now she wondered if she would ever see him again. She left a final voicemail before turning the phone off. They didn’t need it to start ringing while they were out in the streets.

They left through the back, squeezing through the prickly hollies and emerging onto Dumbarton. The breathtakingly cold wind carried a smell of smoke. It picked up Bea’s hair, blowing it across her face. She wished she had thought to retrieve her hat from the attic where they had been attacked.

Dumbarton appeared deserted except for a few dead trapped in cars. The continuous call of the broken clock tower must have drawn most of the dead in the area over to Olivet. The streets and sidewalks here were treacherous and they stepped carefully on the shiny, icy sections. A sprained ankle or broken leg or arm could be fatal now.

They were almost to 27
th
Street before they ran into trouble.  A good-sized crowd of dead surrounded a house on fire. Flames licked around the windows and loud
pops
and shattering glass sounded as items in the house exploded from the heat. The noise excited the pack and they gibbered shrilly. Many walked into the conflagration, completely heedless of the flames.

There was no way to get past them so they backtracked and
took N Street. Here undisturbed snow lay in deep drifts. Brian and Bea were light enough to walk across the thick, icy crust on some of them but David had to fight his way down the whole street. Bea stopped and waited while David ploughed through an exceptionally deep mound. Brian bounded on ahead.

David emerged from a drift and stopped, hands on his knees, breathless from the struggle. Bea walked ahead a few steps; she couldn’t see Brian anymore. Just as she turned around she felt the brittle crust give way and she sank into the drift landing face-to-face with one of the dead.

Eyeless and with his nose chewed off he struggled to bring his hands forward while the torn mouth emitted bubbling moans and the broken teeth clicked together. Bea screamed and dug frantically to get away but only succeeded in loosening the snow around them, helping the thing free itself. It grabbed her painfully by the arm and bit down on the thick padding of her coat, hissing in frustration when it failed to bite into living flesh.

Bea kicked out and gained some traction when her boots hit its chest and got her head above the ice. Kicking again her boots sank into the black mush of the creature’s open abdomen. Just as she went under she felt someone grab her hair and pull hard. She screamed again, this time in pain, but David managed to grab her coat collar and pull her out. The dead man still thrashed about in the drift but couldn’t climb out.

Together Bea and David scrambled, half crawling, half digging and reached the end of the street where they found Brian sunk into a drift, happily zombie-free. They pulled him out and trudged on, avoiding the drifts when possible. Reaching the corner they turned left.

Elaborate wrought iron fences and gates surrounded the townhouses along this street, making them seemingly secure from attack. Manicured boxwood nestled in carefully raked beds of white gravel. Bea wondered how many of the homeowners were hiding inside, afraid and waiting for rescue. How long could they hold out? Most people didn’t stock huge amounts of food or supplies. Who had room in the standard, compact D.C. dwelling?

Glancing up at a window she saw a face, stripped of flesh, resembling the dead man she had just escaped, pressed against the glass. Even here the virus had gotten inside. She shuddered and took Brian’s hand, wishing they were back home, secure inside their little walled compound. For the duration, however long that might be, they had no home.

Her face felt numb with cold. She lost her gloves during the fracas in the drift and she hadn’t thought to bring a spare pair. They passed a section of ground floor shops, some with shattered fronts and Bea called for a halt.

“I’m freezing, guys. I want to duck in here and see if I can find gloves and a hat. Five minutes, that’s all I need.”

David reluctantly helped her remove some glass shards from the window so she could climb through and then he waited outside with Brian, keeping an eye out for the dead.

Inside the store she found most of the aisles still well-stocked. She stuffed nuts and cheese crackers into her backpack and added some Tylenol, toothpaste and gum. Cases of bottled water lay near the door but she could only carry so much weight. The pharmacy in the back had been hit hard and those shelves were practically empty. Someone either needed a lot of meds or else was taking a chemical vacation. On a rack near the make-up she found a black, knit beret and black gloves. Delighted she donned them and left. The whole detour had taken less than five minutes.

“Anyone inside?” David asked, looking at her in a new light. The contrast of the black hat against the dark blonde hair tumbling around her shoulders was striking.

“Not that I saw. I think I have frostbite on my ears.” She pressed her gloved hands against the sides of her head and rubbed vigorously then reached into her backpack, pulling out the iron fleur-de-lis bar.

“It’s not cold enough for frostbite. I see you saved the rail.”

“Yes, I know we have the guns but this is quieter and conserves bullets.” She hefted it as if to check the weight and then grasped it firmly in her right hand before moving on.

Once they reached 27
th
Street the snow was more manageable. Even so they proceeded carefully, constantly looking around them for movement. There were a few cars parked helter- skelter in the street but nothing writhed inside them. In the distance dark figures stumbled about, occasionally falling in the icy streets.

“Did you see the pictures of New Orleans?” Brian asked David.

“I heard something about the tsunami but no, I didn’t see any film. How did it look?”

“Gone. Just water washing over houses and bodies floating. The roads were still full of people trying to get out when it hit.”

“That place has been a disaster waiting to happen for decades. Nature will have its way eventually,” David said grimly.

“If global warming is real the city was probably doomed anyway,” Bea remarked. “The tsunami just sped the process along.”

Darkening clouds banked in the western sky and the wind picked up again. The relief from the glare was welcome but the threat of more snow was not. David’s phone buzzed and he stopped for just a moment to read the message, nodded, and then moved on.

“Anything important? Are the military coming? Are we going to be rescued?” Brian asked.

David laughed grimly. “No rescue. Not much military left. This thing spread through the troops like you wouldn’t believe. No one was willing to leave their wounded brothers-in-arms behind initially and they had entire wards of soldiers dying then reanimating and attacking en masse. The text was just a notice of a rendezvous point change. We just lost the rest of the Pentagon.”

Bea thought of that massive structure, full of the hungry dead. She interviewed for a job there once, as an assistant to one of their historian/archivists. She had gotten lost and finally found her way to the proper office ten minutes late. They didn’t offer her the job.

David saw her brow wrinkle then relax and she forged on ahead, making sure the boy stayed close. The two of them seemed to have no real plans for getting out of the city and their odds of survival were not good. Neither were his for that matter and he had no idea if he would make the rendezvous in time or if he would get out of the city successfully.

Ian, who had texted him the location change, was not going out to California with him. The first leg of the journey would take them to Atlanta where, for now, a small, private airfield remained operational and he would take off for the west coast from there. Some of the DHS scientists were on their way to the Centers for Disease Control to fill the thinned ranks of researchers trying to get a handle on the epidemic. They were dropping Ian off before that, near his hometown where he hoped to find his family.

David put one finger to his lips and they all walked slowly to the corner and peered around to the entrance to the Ritz-Carlton. The sidewalk and street here crawled with the dead.

Back-tracking, they found an alley with a gate to the next street. Before they could climb over, a dead postman staggered out from behind the trashcans and grabbed David’s arm, blood-clotted mouth opened wide in that desperate hunger they all seemed to possess. Before David could react, Bea turned, and with an oddly graceful overhand thrust, drove the tip of the iron rail into that gaping mouth. They had to pry the dead fingers from their clutch on David’s arm and Bea had to stomp the dead man’s head before her weapon came out. She tried to clean it in the snow. Neither Bea nor Brian was particularly shaken by the encounter and David mentally raised their survival odds. But only slightly.

“Thanks. You might have saved my life.”

She shrugged. “No problem.”

The next street over was clear except for an abandoned ambulance. They were now only two blocks from Dupont Circle. The area was heavily residential and very trendy so David expected a lot of infected would still be there. Popping sounds in the distance brought them to a momentary halt. Someone was shooting in fairly rapid succession although it didn’t sound like machine-gun fire. When they reached the corner of P Street, they pressed against the wall and looked around the edge of the building.

The center fountain was frozen, fluted basin supported by stone caryatids encased in sparkling, icy chitons. The entire street teamed with infected.  A small girl, wearing the dark-blue pleated skirt and white blouse of the Catholic Prep school for girls, still clutched her mother’s hand while both of them staggered along the icy street. It must have been a reflexive grip as both of them were obviously dead and constantly trying to pull in different directions. The mother was only partially dressed and her abdomen gaped wide. David heard a
pop
and a neat hole appeared in the mother’s forehead and she fell, dragging her daughter down with her. Another
pop
and the child stopped struggling.

A sniper. Whoever it was, they were good and several more dead fell, lying prone in the snow, dark stains on the landscape. They looked up at the building rooftops but couldn’t see anyone.

“We can’t go out there,” David whispered. “The sniper won’t know we’re uninfected and might shoot. We’ll have to go around.”

Bea shook her head. “Sylvie lives right over there.” She pointed. “On the corner of Massachusetts Avenue. I’m calling her now.”

Sylvie picked up on the first ring. “Bea! Where are you?”

“I’m close to your building but there’s a sniper. We can’t get across the street.”

“I’ll take care of it for you. Give me five minutes.” The call ended. The sporadic gunfire continued.

Bea was bemused and stood wondering what to do next. How was Sylvie going to “take care of it?” David looked at her and she shrugged. Minutes passed. The gunfire stopped. Across the plaza someone draped a red shirt across an apartment balcony railing and waved.

“How are we supposed to get up there?” Brian wanted to know.

David looked through the scope on his rifle. “Looks like there’s a set of concrete steps probably leading down to a basement door, right beneath the shirt.” He lowered the gun. “We can make it. Let’s stay together and do it fast. Ready?”

They sprinted across the street, dodging and weaving through the dead who reached for them with withered, blackened fingers. They were halfway across and the fountain was behind them when Brian stumbled across a bicycle abandoned under the snow, catching his shoe in the wheel spokes and going down hard.

David realized Bea and Brian were no longer with him and looked back. Bea knelt beside Brian, struggling to free his foot. The dead closed in. David smashed the brains out of two with the hammer but they kept coming. The hunger or whatever it was that drove them was relentless and they knew no fear. Stupid but fearless.

He dropped to his knees and fired in short bursts. They were not difficult targets but the bodies piled up and they would soon be hemmed in. Bea finally pulled Brian’s foot out of the shoe and together they limped toward the building. They reached the door and Bea pushed Brian inside just as a dead man grabbed her ankle and pulled her down. She grabbed the edge of the doorframe with both hands and kicked his hands until the skin peeled off, showing bone underneath. He still wouldn’t let go. David hammered the thing’s wrists until the bones broke off and the fingers released, pulled Bea inside and firmly shut the door. A relentless assault on the door punctuated by moans faded as they moved deeper into the dark basement, David holding the hammer ready.