After The Virus (Book 2): Homesteading

by Archer, Simon

We all watched in silence as the older man put the UH-60 through a quick series of tests. He hovered, swept side to side, spun in place, then did a circle of the base before returning to land about a hundred feet away from us. The prop slowed, and the motors cycled down. Once everything had come to a stop, we approached. The pilot’s door opened, and Gene slid out with a big grin.

  “Like a dream,” he exclaimed to us and patted the Blackhawk’s side. “I think I might be in love.”

  “Keep it in your pants, soldier,” Bruce said, standing there with his hands on his hips and a big grin of his own. “Now, we’ve got our own brand of air superiority.”

  “That’s for damn sure,” I said.

  Bill just watched with wide eyes.

  “Okay,” I said after a minute or so more of random chatter. “Let’s get it fueled up, then towed back into the hangar. We’ll load up a couple more M-60s for the side doors and then pack all the ammo we can carry. Bruce and Bill, can you guys top off the one truck at the depot, then bring both of them over?”

  “Right,” Bruce said. “The refueling trucks don’t need a CDL. I’ll drive the deuce and take the lead going back, while you and Bill drive the fuel trucks. Gene will fly overwatch.”

  “I won’t be much use without a gunner,” Gene said. “Still, I can tell you if anything funny is going on.”

  “That’ll be useful in and of itself,” I told him. “Alright, guys. We’ve played around enough. Let’s load up and get back. I’ve got an idea for an excursion tomorrow before I take folks back to the homestead.”

  “I think I’ll start teaching anyone who wants to learn how to fly,” Gene said. “Is there an airport near your farm, Henry?”

  I thought for a moment.

  “Pretty sure there’s a heliport at the hospital in Opelika,” I said slowly. “Then there’s a public use airport in Auburn. I think there are some smaller fields nearby, too, for crop dusters and such.”

  Then I grinned at him and tapped the side of my nose.

  “What I can do, though, is see about building a hangar in one of the fields, so long as you don’t mind a hard-packed floor instead of concrete,” I told him. “Slabs and foundations aren’t really my thing.”

  “You aren’t bad with almost everything else, it sounds like,” Gene said as he made a face and then stretched his back, arching with his fists stuck into the small of it.

  “You okay?” Bill asked.

  “Just the aches and pains of age,” the older man said.

  “I might be able to help,” the other man said. “I was a trainer studying physical therapy.”

  “Let’s get a move on,” I interrupted. “We can go over our resumés later.”

  “Someone’s grumpy,” Bruce joked. “He’s right, though. I think most of us might benefit from a bit of correct exercise.”

  With that, we set about our business. It wasn’t too long to fill the Blackhawk’s main and auxiliary tanks, then while I buttoned that up and Gene and I set to loading two more M-60s and multiple boxes of ammunition into the helicopter, Bruce and Bill went to refill the one tanker and acquire the second one.

  All told, we spend a couple of hours more at the Guard Center, after which we set off back towards the CDC. Bruce set the pace while Gene flew over us, keeping pace in the UH-60. Bill and I followed in the tankers.

  It took an hour or so to get back to the CDC complex, Gene flew on over the gate and set down in the courtyard. Whatever reluctance or trepidations he’d had evaporated pretty quickly.

  Everyone came out to watch the landing, and Bruce had to honk his horn a couple of times to get Phil’s attention so we could get past the gate. By the time we made it to the landing zone, the helicopter had powered down, and Gene was chatting away with the small, gathered crowd.

  “Like riding a bike?” I asked as the rest of us walked up.

  He laughed and nodded.

  “Apparently,” he admitted with a broad grin. “I will say the Blackhawk is a much nicer ride than the old Hueys I used to fly.” Then he looked a bit embarrassed. “It’s got a lot more features, too. I definitely need to read the manual.”

  “We got one of those for you, along with repair and maintenance guides,” I told him. “Anyway, I’m hungry.”

  “I’ve got a late lunch or early dinner almost ready,” Jeremy threw in.

  “Was there any sign of the-” Doctor Finley waved his hand off vaguely in the direction of the apartments.

  “Oh, have we got a story for you,” Bruce exclaimed before I could say anything.

  I sighed.

  “Can we do it over food?”

  “Certainly,” Bob said. “Let’s go inside.”

  Jeremy had prepared a hearty vegetable beef soup and set to making grilled cheese sandwiches while we all settled down at tables that we pulled together.

  “Well, Bruce,” Gene observed. “You opened your damn mouth.”

  “That I did,” Bruce said. “And it was glorious.”

  He proceeded to spin the yarn of our fight with the three men in their humvee. Now, I had to admit, in retrospect, that it was a pretty amazing bit of storytelling. There wasn’t a single bit of embellishing or falsehood either, yet the whole thing felt like a fishing story about the one that got away.

  Everyone listened in rapt silence. Somehow I ended up with Estelle on one side of me and Gwen on the other, both pressed close. Neither seemed to mind when I put my arms around them.

  Once Bruce finished, everything was silent. Most of us had finished our food sometime during the epic recitation.

  “Well,” Bob said, breaking the silence after a minute or so. “That was certainly something. One got away?”

  “We’re pretty sure,” I said. “But, you know what, I think we need to finish something up.”

  “What?” Bruce and Bob asked at the same time.

  “Check out where they were,” Penny said impatiently. “Duh.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “Are you game for it, old man?”

  Bruce looked over at Gene, who said, “He means you.”

  I nodded.

  “Fine,” Bruce said, squaring his shoulders. “When?”

  “Now,” I replied firmly. “I want to sleep soundly.”

  “There’s still the one out there,” Susan said.

  “I don’t think he’s coming back this way,” I told her. “Especially not if we rummage around in his stuff.”

  “Provided they left anything,” Bill opined. “It might have all been in their vehicle.”

  “That’s true,” I said. “We can at least check the camera, though.”

  Rather than take any chances, Bruce and I geared up all the way. We had bullet-resistant vests, helmets, and our choice of hardware. He carried his HK91 as well as the Desert Eagle, while I had my Les Baer and AR-15 with Magpul grip and carbine stock. Like the .45 I had, it was something I’d picked up shortly after leaving the service, mostly because I had the money and liked to shoot.

  We crossed the street under the rosy light of the setting sun and carefully checked the decorative metal gate that blocked the stairs leading to the apartments above the storefronts. It was unbolted as well as unpowered, the electromagnets that assisted the locking mechanism completely useless without electricity.

  Our ‘friends’ hadn’t left any surprises, either. Lucky us.

  The whole approach played out like a standard two-man leapfrog infiltration. Bruce moved while I covered him, then I moved, and he covered me. Despite being a bit exaggerated with his movements, the old man worked it like he knew what he was doing.

  From our earlier observations, we had an idea of which apartment held the camera and flanked that door in short order. Despite what we said back at the CDC, neither of us were truly sure that the driver of the humvee hadn’t returned to this particular hidey-hole.

  It was a risk, but while Bruce covered me from the side, I reached over and turned the door handle. Locked. I swore silently to myself, then drew out the lockpick gun from one of
the cargo pockets of my pants. I’d grabbed it from my toolkit before we set out on this little expedition, figuring we’d hit at least one locked door on the way.

  With a whirr and a click, I took care of the deadbolt, then the standard bolt. I took cover position after dropping the tool back in my pocket, and Bruce stepped up silently to try the door. It opened with barely a squeak of hinges into a fairly nice studio apartment that stank of piss and cigarette smoke.

  I wrinkled my nose, raised my rifle, and slipped in, sweeping the open room and bathroom as I went. Bruce followed a few steps behind. It was empty, aside from garbage and cigarette butts coating the bottom of an empty metal trashcan.

  A small camera sat at the window, aimed out at the street, and connected to a sophisticated-looking battery pack. Bruce shouldered his rifle and scowled around the studio.

  “Not very careful with their refuge, were they?” he said aloud.

  I shook my head and moved over to the camera. Nothing looked like a transmitter of any kind, so I pressed the off-button and picked it and the battery pack up.

  “This is interesting,” I said, holding the latter bit of hardware up for inspection. “This isn’t manufactured. Someone put this together from over the counterparts and a lot of know-how.”

  Bruce leaned over and inspected it.

  “Rechargeable batteries in some kind of stack?” he asked. “What’s the point.”

  “The point is that they can provide power for a long period of time. Maybe even a month or so without a recharge,” I answered. “Normal grunts wouldn’t know how to make something like this.”

  “Unless they had a background like yours, college boy,” Bruce teased.

  I just nodded slowly, ignoring the jibe. Had one of the three men built this thing? If so, which one?

  “More questions,” I said as I turned to Bruce. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “You need to tell me the idea you mentioned while we were out and about earlier, too.”

  28

  “Well,” I said as we left the apartment and started checking each one in turn while it grew darker outside. “I started thinking about what happened today and how they had modern military hardware. That started me down a rabbit hole, and I was wondering since we managed to wrangle a combat helicopter, could we possibly acquire a tank; M1A1 or something like.”

  Bruce’s teeth showed as he grinned.

  “I like the way you think, son,” he said.

  “But then I couldn’t think of any bases immediately around Atlanta that might have one,” I continued. “Besides, they wreak havoc on asphalt roads, and if I wanted to, I could probably build my own killdozer given time.”

  He almost seemed disappointed at that, but I kept on going.

  “The cops, though, have these armored vehicles for their SWAT teams, and one of those might be a good consolation prize.”

  “Lenco BearCat,” Bruce filled in. “Nice for urban and paramilitary applications. It can stand up to most small arms fire, but probably not anything too heavy. Why don’t we just collect air to ground ordnance for the Blackhawk?”

  “I considered that, too,” I said. “But when you get down to it, even a tank is a lot less discriminating than I’d really like, and let’s not get into missiles and other high explosives.”

  “It is damned intimidating, though,” he said with a shrug. “Whatever you want, but if I can find a base nearby that might have a tank, you will help me retrieve it, right?”

  “Yes,” I sighed. I had a chance to ride in an M1A1 a few times over in the desert, and really, I couldn’t think of anything more uncomfortable, yet amazing, as being stuffed into that cramped interior while the driver tried to get the engine or drivetrain to duplicate a problem he’d noticed during an earlier patrol or assault. It’d be a hell of an ego trip to have one, but we’d really have to spend time figuring out exactly what to do in it.

  I’d been a mechanic, not an operator.

  Bruce just grinned like an idiot, and I knew that sometime soon, I’d be off on an expedition to retrieve a tank from a military base.

  “Anyway,” I said. “What do you think of the SWAT vehicle idea?”

  “Solid,” Bruce said. “Not my first choice, but I understand your reasons.”

  Most of the other apartments had actually been broken into, probably by our visitors. Doors had been jimmied or kicked open, food and other things had been rifled through. The few bodies we found, though, had been left undisturbed.

  It was full dark by the time we left, and the whole surreality of a dark city with the CDC as the only spot of light visible struck me silent during the walk. Bruce, too, was uncharacteristically subdued.

  Back in the cantina, Estelle was the only person still waiting. Everyone else had gone off to either their rooms or one of the rec areas, I supposed. Bruce gave me a salute and half-hearted smile before he trudged off towards his own residence. I unslung my rifle and dropped it on the table before collapsing in a chair beside Estelle.

  “I’m really glad you’re okay,” she said. “Turn around.”

  I scooted my chair, so my back was to her and immediately felt her strong fingers working on my neck. It was a lot tenser than it felt, and I winced almost immediately.

  “Once I work on you,” she said. “Take some ibuprofen and the hottest shower you can stand. Then try to go straight to sleep.”

  “Yes, doctor,” I teased.

  “Don’t mess with me,” she warned as her strong, gentle fingers did their work. “If I didn’t know you boys wouldn’t go picking a fight, I’d kick all your asses.”

  “What happened to “do no harm”?” I asked, then received a rather vigorous dig at a knot in my neck. “Ow.”

  “What did I say?” she asked. I almost imagined Samuel L. Jackson channeling through the mouth of the usually well-spoken doctor. She didn’t complete the question as I imagined it, but still, I had to stifle a chuckle.

  “I’ll shut up now,” I said.

  “Good,” she continued the massage. “I’m glad you all made it through okay. It’s terrible that this happened, but at least the three of you were prepared and kept poor Bill safe.”

  “I think Bill has potential,” I said quietly. “We want to train him, and anyone else who’s interested, in response and reaction.”

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “How to keep your head in a crisis, basically,” I replied. “React quickly and decisively to help people, save lives, or, if necessary, fight.”

  “By we, who do you mean?”

  “Myself, Angie, Bruce, Gene, and anyone else willing to help out,” I said, hiding a yawn behind my hand. “I don’t know if you or any of the other doctors have emergency response training or not.”

  “I rode with EMTs occasionally before I got the CDC appointment,” she said, the massage slowing as she focused on particular trouble spots.

  I closed my eyes while she continued. “I was never as fast as they were on a scene, but I didn’t have to be. They’d stabilize the victim, and then I’d take care of the rest.”

  “I didn’t know doctors rode with EMTs very much,” I mused. “The things you learn.”

  “Well, it was an option during my residency,” she answered. “I was considering trauma and emergency care. Doing that changed my mind and sent me down a more research-oriented path. Still, I’ve got some of the reflexes.”

  “Nice,” I said as my mind started to slow while my body relaxed. “Okay. I should go do the rest of this.”

  “I’ll make sure you get there,” Estelle rose with me and picked up the rifle before I could. She slung it awkwardly, took my arm, and led me off to the mostly abandoned wing where she’d cloistered us.

  A couple of Motrin and a hot shower later, I hit the bed and instantly passed out. The adrenaline crash that I’d been fighting had finally caught up with me.

  Minutes, hours, or maybe days later, I awoke to an empty bed. The room was an interior one, so there
was no light from the outside to tell me what time it was, and I lay there for a few minutes before looking at my watch. It read “0917”.

  With a low groan, I forced myself to sit up, expecting far more muscle twinges than I actually got. In fact, once I was vertical, I didn’t feel half-bad. I stretched, went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, and dressed before heading out to the cantina.

  It was strangely empty this morning, with Bruce being the only one sitting at a table. Even Jeremy wasn’t around.

  I paused and looked at him curiously.

  “Where is everyone?” I asked.

  Bruce regarded me through his sunglasses and smiled.

  “Out and about, mostly,” he replied. “Penny and Gene are playing with drones, Estelle, Bob, Jeremey, and Gwen are down in the labs, Bill, Michelle, and Susan are in the rec room, and Phil is at his post.”

  “Huh,” I said. “I didn’t mean to sleep so late.”

  “It happens,” he picked up his coffee and had a sip. “There’s a covered plate on the warmer for you. Estelle picked it out.”

  “Thanks,” I told him, walked over to get my plate, then sat down with the old survivalist. “You still up for a trip downtown?”

  The plate was bacon and a couple of waffles with a pack of syrup. There was coffee in a carafe on the table, too, and I poured myself a cup.

  “What the hell,” Bruce replied. “Want to see if anyone else will come?”

  I shrugged.

  “Why bother them?” I said. “We shouldn’t be all that long.”

  He nodded and went back to nursing his coffee while I ate my breakfast in silence.

  “I want to have a better look at your truck,” I said after I was done with my food and halfway through my cup of coffee. “But I have to get back to the homestead this evening.”

  “Radio and tell them you’ll be late,” he suggested. “I didn’t bother you about it yesterday, but I did lose a fair bit of fuel from that tank during the drive back.”

  “You should have bothered me,” I grumbled. “That bullet probably went clean through. Was your fuel pump working okay on that tank?”

  “As far as I could tell, it was,” he replied with a nod. “No strange noises or anything, either.”