The Omega Protocol Chronicles (Book 1): Exodus
Exodus
Book 1 of The Omega Protocol Chronicles
Courtney McPhail
Copyright © 2015 by Courtney McPhail
All rights are reserved to the author. No part of this ebook may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, character, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Table of Contents
To Alex and Katie
Family above everything
In 2017, the course of human history was forever altered. A cataclysmic event, which would come to be known simply as The Infection, swept across the globe. The world population was decimated and civilization as it was known came to an end.
Few records exist to document the early days of The Infection. These chronicles you hold now are the most comprehensive collection of first hand accounts of that time. They tell the story of those who took it upon themselves to ensure humanity’s survival.
Subject File # 742
Administer: How did you feel the first time you heard about the infection?
Subject: Confused. I’d been working out at sea and I come back to the world falling apart.
Administer: What was your first thought after you realized what was happening?
Subject: That I had to find my family.
“What the hell?”
Plumes of black smoke rose into the sky, a dark backdrop to the buildings and homes that stood along the river banks. Malcolm Evans had spotted the dark haze when he had first guided the sailboat into the mouth of the river but gave it little mind. However as he sailed farther inland, more smoke plumes appeared until dozens of columns wound gnarled black fingers into the blue sky.
It had been three weeks since he had left Virginia for Saint Martin. He had intended to be back sooner but there had been a delay down south that kept him ashore for an extra week. His current client had failed to arrange the proper paperwork with customs and that had kept the sailboat in dry dock until it was sorted.
It was a common occurrence with wealthy clients who sometimes had more money than common sense. If Malcolm had known that turning his sailing hobby into a business after his early retirement would be like this, he never would have bothered. He had tried to make up time when he left port, catching several good days of wind but he was still behind schedule by three days. And though it was through no fault of his own, he hated the idea of not coming through on his promised arrival date.
But all of that was forgotten as he moved further upriver where it narrowed and the land came into sharper view. The waterway was empty of its normal traffic and the shore was devoid of any signs of life. The freighter docks were empty, the beaches and parks along the water empty swaths of sand and grass. Paired with the dozens of fires that were burning in the distance, it was eerie and unsettling and it had him grabbing up his radio, scanning the dial until the wail of a siren broke through. When the siren stopped, a monotone voice announced the Emergency Broadcasting System.
“
All residents of Hampton, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk and Virginia Beach are advised a state of emergency has been declared in the state of Virginia. Martial law is in effect. All residents are to remain indoors and await military escort to evacuation centres. Be advised that those found interfering with evacuation procedures will be met with lethal force.
”
The loop started again and his stomach bottomed out. There must have been a terrorist attack.
He immediately grabbed his cell phone and hit his sister’s number but all he got for his effort was dead air. He cursed, tossing the cell back on the captain’s chair. Circuits were probably overloaded. Same thing had happened after 9/11.
He went back to the radio and tuned it into the civilian call channel. “This is the Sweet Christine. Looking for any information about Virginia coast. Over.”
“I read you, Christine. This is Cowboy. What do you want to know? Over.”
The voice crackled with static but Malcolm’s ears welcomed the sound of another human voice.
“What the hell is going on in Virginia Beach? I’ve got no cell service and there’s smoke everywhere. I heard the Emergency Broadcast but it didn’t say what was happening.”
“Man, where the hell have you been for the last two weeks?”
“Was it a terrorist attack?”
“Naw, man, we weren’t attacked. It’s a fucking plague. It came outta nowhere. People started getting sick and it spread faster than herpes in a frat house. Last thing they said on the news before the broadcast went down, every major city in America was reporting infections and it had showed up in Europe.”
“How long since the broadcast went down?”
Static filled the air as he waited for the answer. “Three days. The only thing you can pick up is the EBS on the radio and it’s been looping the same message. Stay inside and if you can’t, go to the nearest evacuation centre.”
“What about DC? Has there been anything from the White House?”
“The President was on television a week and a half ago, declared a national emergency, martial law, await evacuation by military personnel. Everything after that came from five-star general types, telling people to stay calm and wait for help.”
“You hear anything about Portsmouth?” he asked, thinking of his sister Janet and her kids.
“The entire county was evacuated. FEMA rolled in a few days ago and started sending them to Fort Lee.”
Damn it
. Evacuation centres would be the worst place to be during a biological attack. Too many potential carriers that could spread the infection like wildfire.
“Where are you?” the man asked.
“I’m making my way up the James River.”
“You’re out on the water? You’re damn lucky, man. It’s not safe on land.”
“What the hell is going on exactly? You said it was a plague. Is it killing people?”
“No, man, you only wish it did. It turns them into…
freaks
. The shit I saw on TV, it was insane. The infected were tearing into people with their teeth and nails, they were like packs of wild dogs. It was insane. The people from the CDC said something about it being like super rabies or some shit. People get infected and they turn into crazy animals running on pure adrenaline. I saw one of them on television take six bullets and still keep coming. Only thing that stopped him was the seventh bullet,
bam
, blew half his head off. Whatever those freaks are now, it isn’t human and unless you want to become one of ‘em, you better stay on the water.”
“Have you raised anyone else on the radio?”
“There were a lot at first but less and less people on each day. I raised a guy near DC three days ago. He said he had been picking up military frequencies but they went dark days before. Last transmission he heard, they were ordered to pull out of the cities to avoid the incoming air strikes.”
“They bombed DC?”
“And New York, Boston, Philly…at least according to the chatter I picked up. Gotta assume that there could be more places they napalmed.”
“I’ve got to get to Portsmouth. My sister and her kids are there.”
“If they were in Portsmouth then they’ll be at Fort Lee. Trust me, when those evac teams showed up to get you out, you didn’t argue with them.”
“Then how is it you haven’t been evacuated?”
The man’s chuckle was clear over the radio. “Well I watched someone argue with them and when they shot him dead, I got the fuck out of there before they could do the same to me.”
“The military shot a civilian?”
Shit. Things were really fucking bad
. “Guess I’m heading to Fort Lee.”
“What’s your name, man?”
“Malcolm Evans. You?”
“Craig O’Neill, nice to meet you. How old are your sister’s kids, Malcolm?”
“The boys are ten, twins, and little Ruthie is five.” He couldn’t help but smile at the thought of his niece and nephews.
There was a pause over the radio, soft static the only sound before Craig clicked back on. “Look Malcolm, if you find them and you need a place to hunker down, you guys can come here. I’m in a secure apartment building with a couple others and no one here would argue with taking in kids.”
“I appreciate that, Craig.”
“I’ve got the radio tuned to this frequency twenty four seven. Someone will always be listening so let us know how you’re doing. Good luck, Malcolm, I hope you find them.”
“Thanks Craig. You guys stay safe there.”
Malcolm put his focus into getting the boat moving down the river, intermittently checking his cell for any signal while keeping his eyes on the shore. He could not spot movement on the shore, no signs of cars on the roads or people on the sidewalks. It was like nothing but ghost towns lined the shore instead of the tourist towns that should be bustling with the start of the summer season.
It seemed to take an eternity before the familiar Portsmouth marina appeared around a bend in the shore. The marina was empty of any activity and more than half of the slips were empty. What boats remained bobbed on the water, filling the air with the sound of the rigging creaking, punctuated by the distant howl of car alarms.
He slung his backpack over his shoulder and pulled out the Glock he kept tucked under the captain’s chair, checking that that the chamber was loaded before he disembarked. His sedan was parked where he had left it three weeks ago and he hopped inside and headed onto the streets.
The city wasn’t a metropolis by any stretch of the imagination but it was still large enough to always have traffic and people going about their business. Now it was dead. The streets were empty, here and there a car parked on the side of the street but the shop doors were locked and their windows dark.
When he drove into the residential area, he started to see the spray painted markings on the doors of the homes. Signs that FEMA had been through and evacuated the area just as Craig had said. He began to get more anxious the closer he got to Janet’s home and when he pulled into her driveway, he didn’t even take the time to kill the engine, just putting it into park and sprinting to her door.
There were the markings again, telling anyone who came that no residents had been found here. Good news was they also found no bodies. He stepped into the familiar foyer, looking up at the pictures that lined the wall beside the staircase. Pictures of Janet and her husband Eric on their wedding day, the twins on their first day of kindergarten, Ruthie’s first birthday. But there was one frame conspicuously missing from the wall: the photo of Janet, Eric and the kids, taken just before Eric had been deployed to Iraq on the tour he never returned from.
If it was missing that meant Janet hadn’t left this place in panic or by force. She had left by choice and had been in a clear enough frame of mind to take one of her most precious possessions with her.
He made his way into the kitchen, looking for any signs of where she could have gone. Next to the phone was the message pad and he found a note scribbled there in his sister’s familiar handwriting.
Malcolm,
One of the men from Eric’s old unit called and told us to come to Fort Lee. I’ve gone with the neighbours. Look for us there.
Love, Janet
Shit. That was the last place she should be.
He needed to find her and the kids and get them as far away from the base as possible. If the infection was as bad as Craig had said, the second people inside the base got sick, the military would take them out to prevent the spread. It would become a slaughterhouse. He had to find her and the kids and get them the hell out of there.
As much as he was itching to get on the road to the base, his training was clicking back into place and it overrode his rising panic. He needed to get this bug out bag from his apartment and he needed to check the satellite phone in it. If this was as bad as Craig had told him, there would be instructions waiting for him.