by Lee Jones
Rochelle is coughing and has a horizontal cut across her forehead. Will is knocked out cold. James has a few bruises on his body. Zac is trying to move his body but something hurts.
“Is everyone okay?” says Rochelle. James slaps Will on the cheeks. “Wake up! Will,” says James. Will opens his eyes and starts coughing. James climbs out and helps Will out. Rochelle crawls out she is in a tight space. Zac exits the cockpit. “We got everybody? We need to get moving. The crash likely has attracted infected,” says Zac. James helps Will by his shoulder and Will is limping on one leg.
AQUARIUM
Zac looks around his surroundings. Olympia Park? “Guys, I think we’re in Olympia Park. Let’s head over this way,” says Zac. On the other side of the park they can see infected moving in there direction. They pickup the pace and get inside a building. The Georgia Aquarium. The lights are off. “Here seal off the door!” Zac grabs a vending machine and pushes it up against the door.
They get inside the main floor with the food court. Will sits down on a chair. Rochelle goes to the gift shop to search for any supplies.
The can now hear banging. The infected have reached the outside of the door. James grabs a flashlight. He shines the light and can see through the glass dead fish floating in the tank. But there is movement, a hammerhead shark. It swims aggressively fast towards James and butts it’s head into the glass. “We need to get to the CDC,” says Rochelle. “I found some food,” says Zac. He holds bags of snacks, chips, candy bars and bottles of soda.
“Do you think the virus could have affected animals as well?” says James. The shark is still butting it’s head against the glass. They pack a couple of bags of food and supplies. The problem was that the CDC was about 6 miles away.
They exit upon a back door to the aquarium and head out at night. It’s very dark. Only their flashlights lighting the outdoors and the stars and the moon. Downtown they can see flashes of lights in the skyscrapers downtown. It’s survivors making SOS signals.
SHOOTER
The gang has made it out. James has a paper map. He puts the flash light on it where it shows a line from the aquarium to the CDC marked with a red X. He points off in the right direction. Everyone tries to move as quiet as possible. They make it down a street. Cars are abandoned and on fire. Trash litters the street, windows smashed in. It’s a scene of chaos.
PING! Everyone looks around in confusion. PING! Someone is shooting at them. A red dot is on Will’s forehead. Zac tackles Will to the ground. “Get down and turn off your lights!” Everyone drops to the ground, switches off their lights and crawls. They crawl behind a car for cover. Zac pulls out a rifle and looks down the sights. The shooter is in one of the skyscraper buildings up high. PING! A bullet hits the car door. From the sound of the bang Zac is trying to determine how far away the shot was from.
He scans the building above looking at the windows. Its hard to see. “Where are you?” Zac whispers to himself as he looks down the sights. Another shot and Zac quickly locates the shooter up on the 8th floor of a skyscraper building. Zac aims, holds his breath and fires a shot.
BANG! It looks like he took out the sniper. But the loud gun shot sound is likely to attract infected to their location.
They can hear growling and hissing in the distance.
INJURY
“Shit we need to move,” says Zac. He looks over and can see that Rochelle was hit by a stray fragment. She is holding her hand over her right shoulder. Blood is slowly spewing. “Let me take a look at that,” says Zac. She lifts her hand and blood is everywhere. “Ok lay down, we need to pull this out.” He pulls out his pocket knife and flips the blade out.
He feels with his fingers the shrapnel location. Will and James hold her down. “Okay this is going to hurt,” says Zac. He inserts the blade and digs a bit deeper. Rochelle wants to scream. Will places his hand over her mouth. Her body jolts in shock. Zac pulls the knife out and has a fragment of metal on the tip of his blade. Zac then rips off his shirt and makes a tourniquet. He wraps it around her arm and shoulder. The blood seeps in and turns the shirt red.
James looks up and can see infected the next street over moving slowly in there direction. “Hey guys let’s get going,” says James. They help Rochelle up and begin fast walking away from the area. Down the street they can see a military Humvee pass by. They start walking towards it and around the corner there is a military outpost.
OUTPOST
The gang has made it to an army outpost in the middle of downtown Atlanta. Rochelle is being treated by a combat medic. Will is resting, Zac and James are talking to the Sergeant. “She has the research and we need to get to the CDC safely,” says Zac. “Everyone is either dead or infected. The Air force is bombing the whole city in 24 hours, air evacuation at twenty one hundred hours” says the Sergeant. “What we can’t do that? We have a chance to make a vaccine on a mass quantity!” says James.
“Look it takes time to do that and we don’t even know if what you got will work. These orders are coming from the higher ups,” says the Sergeant.
Zac and James go back to the tent where Rochelle and Will are recovering. “How do we even know someone is there at the CDC?” says James. “I don’t know but we need to get there soon.
To be continued…
THE UNDEAD: DOOMSDAY
By Lee Jones
PROLUGUE
Our Four heroes must get out before a bomb is dropped on the whole city.
STOLEN
“We’re going to get there. You see that truck over there?” says James. James runs bent over careful not to be seen. He opens the driver’s side door of the army truck slow and climbs in. He looks behind at the gang, “come on get in” he whispers. Rochelle and Will are still under the tent. Zac sneaks in the rear door.
Zac signals over to Rochelle and Will. They look around then stoop over to sneak into the truck. They climb into the rear door careful not to make a sound. SCREECH! The truck suddenly pulls away as fast as possible. The sergeant looks over. “They took the truck!” says corporal. “Let them go, they wont get far,” says Sergeant.
James is driving at the wheel. They get to a highway. Interstate 85. They road is flooded with abandoned vehicles blocking the lanes. James has to slow down and drive slow to maneuver around the debris.
Zac has a map and is checking directions sitting in shotgun. Military helicopters fly overhead.
THE LAB
The truck pulls into the parking lot of the CDC. The parking lot is empty of cars but debris is everywhere. Everyone gets out. James grabs a baseball bat. Everyone has their guns in hand.
They get to the main entrance and the door is open. Windows are smashed in. The power is off and it’s dark. Zac and James turn on their flashlights. “careful,” whispers James. “HELLO! Is anyone here?” yells Zac. They sweep their flashlights around. They continue walking down the hallway.
Rochelle has the research papers in her bag from Dr. Meyer. “There’s an emergency operations center,” says Zac. “I doubt that anyone is still here,” replies James. Zac shines his light and can see an infected standing in the middle of the hallway. The infected spots them and starts growling.
Zac pulls out his handgun to shoot, but James lower’s Zac’s hand and proceeds to move forward. He walks up to the infected and swings his bat. SPLAT! He hit the infected in the head and blood splatters on the walls. The body of the infected falls to the ground.
“Alright, let’s see if anyone is still left,” says James.
The BSL 4lab is in a separate building. It deals with the most deadly viruses. The lab has it’s own air supply and workers wear space suits. The building is separated inside with airlocks.
They make it to this building and get inside. This building has power. The lights are on. The backup generators are still running. But no one is there.
There is a light glowing at the end of the hallway. They turn a corner and discover a someone is inside in a lab coat. The lights are turned on in this particula
r room.
RESEARCH
James taps against the window. The person turns around and backs ups in the table behind in fright knocking some things over. His eyes are big and he stares back at them for a moment. Rochelle waves at him and holds up the papers to the glass. He walks up to examine the papers.
A sigh of relief and the scientist walks to open the door to the lab and opens it. “Come on in, I needed to make sure,” he says. Everyone steps inside the lab. “ I’m Dr. Roberts, I’ve been here trying to create a vaccine,” he says.
“We’ve come quite a ways to make it here, we brought some research from a doctor who was working on infected, ” says James. The doctor steps closer to Rochelle and looks at her shoulder. “You were bit?”
“No I got hit by a sniper, here are the papers” says Rochelle. She hands him the work and he opens the file taking a look. He puts on his glasses reads for a few minutes. He sits down on a stool and continues reading and turning the pages and nodding his head.
Rochelle and Zac look at each other then look back at the doctor. “Interesting, this virus has come out of no where. We are calling it the LQP-79 virus . The great plague, the greatest probably in of all history by our reports. It spreads rapidly and once transmission occurs the effects are almost immediate. We believe it originated in Paris and spread quickly around the world through the airport. Could be engineered, we have no clue how it came about,” says the doctor.
Zac looks confused. “Wheres everyone else?
“Evacuated, we stayed as long as we could and the condition here got worst. I stayed behind because my lab is here and I need to find out as much about this as I can” says the Doctor.
“The military is bombing the city in a few hours and we don’t have time. They are evacuating everyone from the airport we need to get there,” says Zac.
“Well it does take time to research this and develop a vaccine, ” says the Doctor. “Let’s grab as much equipment as we can and make it out of here,” says Will. Everyone looks around tries to grab what they can, the doctor is pointing out what to get. Zac heads outside and pulls around the truck. The load the back with as much as it can hold.
They can see a horde of infected approaching there position. Everyone gets in the truck accept for the Doctor. “Ohh my I need to get so more!” The doctor climbs out of the truck and runs towards the building. “Dr. ! We don’t have time we gotta go! ” Yells Rochelle. She gets out of the truck and runs to grab the Dr. She grabs him by the arm and drags him back to the truck.
The horde of infected is approaching quickly. Zac is honking the horn which makes the infected even more aggressive. Rochelle pushes the Dr. in the truck and she shuts the door. “GO!,” yells Rochelle. Zac slams on the gas pedal heading towards the horde then quickly slams on the brakes sliding into a turn. The truck is a bit slow but he slams on the gas pedal again and pulls away. He hits some infected against the glass window of the truck. The sound of banging against the truck window frightens the Doctor. Lots of black smoke funnel from the exhaust of the truck.
Everyone has a sigh of relief. “Geez, was you trying to get us killed back there?” says Rochelle. “I really need the lab equipment this won’t be sufficient enough,” says the Doctor.
REFUELING
The sound of fighter jets is heard overhead passing by. They are heading towards the airport. “We’re running low on fuel,” says Zac driving the truck. “If it could get any worst then this,” says Will.
They are driving through a neighborhood. Cars abandoned, windows broken in houses, debris in the street. “Over there!” Rochelle points to a gas station.
They pull into the gas station and pull up to a pump and shuts off the engine. “The pumps are shut off but there is probably a backup generator to turn on the pumps,” says Zac. Everyone gets out and starts scoping out the gas station. “I’ll check inside,” says James. The glass door is broken to the gas station connivence door. James heads inside stepping over broken glass and can see some food items still left behind.
“Hey! We got food in here,” he yells. Behind the cashier counter there are some controls. Rochelle walks in with a bag and starts stuffing food in the bag, mostly bags of chips and candy bars.
The lights flicker on. James and Zac both got the backup generator on and running.
Will pumps the diesel into the Humvee.
AIRPORT
They make to the airport. Commercial aircraft are wrecked or abandoned. Fire and smoke still burning at the site. Military helicopters are taking off flying into the city.
Large military cargo aircraft are lined up on the adjacent runway for takeoff. Military personnel and vehicles are driving all over the place.
There are citizens lined up waiting with some possessions. Some appear to be injured. The scene is chaotic.
Zac drives up to someone who appears to be an officer in charge. “I have a doctor here who has medical research on the virus, we need priority to get out as soon as possible.”
The officer looks in the window at the doctor. “I’ll get you on the first cargo plane out of here,” he says. “Where is it going to?” says James. “The Navy has ships off shore. We have orders to land on the USS Ford, aircraft carrier,” says the officer.
They pull up to runway. The first plane is almost done loading with citizens and gear. The line is short and military personnel are standing around directing the crowd. They pull up to the rear cargo door of the first plane. “We are supposed to board this plane!” yells Zac. Suddenly they hear screams.
The citizens on the plane are running out. Infected are onboard and have bitten several passengers. A soldier runs in with a hand pistol. He stands firmly trying to aim from a distance. Pop! Pop!
He fires several shots.
One shot hits the head of the infected while citizens escape from behind. The infected falls to the ground. There are 2 other infected. The soldier radios in backup.
Two more solider runs to help with assault rifles. They open fire on the other infected. One infected is hit in the leg and falls but keeps moving towards them. He shoots and hits the infected in the head exploding it’s skull and splattering flesh and blood.
The other soldier puts his gun in auto and holds down the trigger spraying the area. “Fuck you!” yells the soldier. The bodies of the infected fall to the floor.
“Lets get these people quarantined,” says another officer. Military trucks pull up with people in full head to to toe hazmat suits. They proceed to direct the citizens back to the holding area.
“We don’t have that much time how are going to get these people out?” says James. “We can’t save everyone, we need to get out of here,” says Rochelle.
The pilots of the first aircraft attempt to pull the plane of the runway so that the other planes can take off. Confusion erupts as people are worried they may never leave and the runway is cleared for the other planes.
Plane number two turns on their engines and taxes around to the take off. It speeds up and takes off.
RUN TO SAFETY
James, Rochelle, Will, Zac and Doctor Roberts are directed to quarantine with the other citizens.
“We need to leave asap, we have a doctor here who has research to make a vaccine!” Yells Rochelle to the officer in charge.
“He can come the rest of you need to go to quarantine,” says the officer. He points to the line of citizens being walked back to a large tent. “Lets move!” The doctor is whisked away and his equipment is taken from the truck. The doctor boards the third plane.
The third plane taxi’s around and takes off. One plane is left on the runway for takeoff. People begin boarding the final cargo plane.
“We need to get out of here we don’t have much time before the bombing,” says Zac. “We need to make a run for it,” says Rochelle. They turn around and make a run for it.
A Solider aims at them from a distance ready to take a shot. An officer walks over and puts his hand on the muzzle of the rifle and lowers it.
> “Stand down soldier,” says the officer. It’s the officer they spoke to the first time they came to the airport.
James, Zac, Rochelle and Will coming in last make it to the last plane. They board and get in. Everyone is huffing and puffing and they strap in.
The plane pulls around and is ready for takeoff.
Another plane lands on the adjacent runway.
“They don’t have enough time,” says James. The aircraft pulls speeds up and lifts off.