Night Zero- Second Day

by Rob Horner

  “So, while I want to offer our—myself and my crew’s—appreciation for your worry and concern, rest assured we have the same goal: to learn the truth.”

  Radioman Koals punched buttons on another phone, trying to establish a connection with their home office in Augusta, Georgia.

  “In the spirit of mutual cooperation, please enjoy two drinks on us tonight when you sit down to eat dinner. That’s right. Two beverages of any kind at any of the bars or restaurants on-board this fine vessel will be credited to your shipboard accounts. Now, please go about your plans. Have dinner, take a swim, see a show. The crew and I will handle the business of getting The Belle where she needs to go, and we’ll work to find out more about this strange message. As soon as I know more, so will you.”

  The captain replaced the phone in its cradle without a farewell salutation, then looked around the bridge. “How was that?” he asked of no one in particular.

  “I’m not sure it did any good,” Dick commented. Then, “Officer Woods?”

  “We heard the captain,” Woods said, his voice louder now. “Some of them are going back into their rooms. Others are pecking at their phones, trying to get a signal.”

  “We’ve secured all communications,” Davis replied.

  “Well, with any luck they’ll blame the government instead of us. Didn’t the message say something about internet being turned off?”

  “It did,” the captain said. “Listen, Woods, is it?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Keep the P-ways as clear and safe as you can manage.”

  “Will do, sir.”

  The radio went quiet.

  “Mr. Davis, keep us on course for our first port of call.”

  Dick was startled. He’d expected a very different response. “Sir?”

  “For now, we can’t go back. So, we might as well go forward. Do you disagree with that assessment?”

  Navigator Davis sighed. “No sir. I don’t.”

  “I can’t get anyone on the phone at corporate,” Radioman Koals said.

  “Just keep trying, son.”

  * * * * *

  “Brian?”

  “Yeah, doc?”

  “We’ve got to get her out of here.”

  The old doctor, a man well into his eighties and only along as a signatory for the physician’s assistants, stood near the bed where Chelsie Young remained unconscious. Two nurses waited nearby, ready to clean either her head or her rectum, whichever decided to spew forth a stream of nastiness. In the four hours the woman had been in sick bay, they’d had to clean her eight times.

  “It’s gotta be something viral, don’t you think?” Brian asked. “One of the other UCs reported a couple of sailors coming in for some Lomotil and—”

  Dr. Watkins placed a hand on Brian’s shoulder. “I know you think you can handle anything; it’s why we let you try. But trust me on this. There’s something seriously wrong with this lady. Maybe this thing is viral, and maybe not. Whatever it is, it’s playing hell with her body, maybe playing upon some other pathology we don’t know about.”

  Brian knew the doctor was right; he just hated giving up.

  As if reading his mind, the doctor said, “It’s not the same as giving up, you know. The sick bays on these cruise ships have come a long way in my career, but they’re still not hospitals. And that’s what this woman needs.”

  “Make the call, Brian,” Andy said.

  “How’s your arm, by the way?” Dr. Watkins asked, turning away from Brian.

  “Just a scratch,” Andy replied, surreptitiously rubbing at his left forearm under an oversized bandage.

  “Looks pretty big.”

  “Blame Connie,” Andy said.

  “I just wrapped it with what we had,” one of the nurses replied.

  The doctor’s fingers twitched, like he ached to peel back the bandage and look at the wound. “It’s not that big?”

  “God no!” Andy answered. “Pretty sure one of her bra hooks got me. Scrubbed the crap out of it because of all the…um…crap on the stretcher, but it didn’t look bad.”

  “It wasn’t,” Connie confirmed. “It bled a little but was already stopped by the time we got done cleaning it.”

  “We still up for Club 21 tonight?” Brian asked.

  “Hell yeah. When can we leave?”

  “As soon as I get off the phone with the captain and the night provider checks in.”

  “Make the call and get out of here,” Dr. Watkins said. “I’ll keep an eye on Mrs. Young until Gus shows up.”

  “Anything else we can do, besides more fluid and anti-diarrheals?” Connie asked.

  “Not really,” the doctor replied. “Just keep the vitals running and be ready to pack her for transport. Even martial law can’t stop us off-boarding a critically ill patient.”

  Chapter 34

  Riding at dusk gave a sense of freedom beyond the simple joy of the open road or the thrill of a throaty Harley engine between her legs. With the highways and byways of rural western Alabama open before her, Ciera thought there might be no greater joy than this. To be out here, riding her Freewheeler, with the wind in her hair and a smile on her face…nothing could be better.

  If only the situation weren’t so bad.

  “Slow down, C!” Pain said, riding up beside her.

  His name was Alexander, but everyone called him by his last name. He liked it better that way, and it cut down on confusion, since they already had an Alex in The Wilds. Granted, that one was a chick, but she lived with another chick, so maybe it was better she be the Alex and he be the Pain.

  Ciera eased off the throttle. “What’s up, Pain?”

  “Stan’s been calling on the radio. Wants to know our twenty.”

  She shifted the bike into neutral and brought it to a stop. Pain pulled up beside her. They were somewhere north and west of Tuscaloosa. Not so far that the roads should be as empty as they were, but isn’t that what the apocalypse was all about?

  She smiled grimly, then let fly a mouthful of dark spittle.

  “Ugh,” Pain groaned. “What the hell do you do when you’re riding?”

  “Swallow it,” she said, “but I can hold it for a long time before I need to do either.”

  Alexander groaned again. Ciera flashed him a smile, teeth white despite the tobacco puffing out the left edge of her lower lip. Everything about her was a dichotomy. She wore her hair butch short and dyed purple and blue but was as straight as an arrow when it came to men. She dressed in leather, talked tough, and dipped tobacco, but expected her coat to be held, her doors to be opened, and her men to be men—no metros for her. She had a few extra pounds on her, no thanks to her love of steak and all things fried, but she moved through the world like a wisp of air over snow.

  And she drove a Harley…but that was because of the power and freedom. No need to justify that.

  The two were on a scouting run, scouring the roads surrounding Tuscaloosa for any hint of organized resistance to the zombie apocalypse. Some of the other Wilders might not be keen on the term, but it’s how Ciera thought of it. Why pussyfoot around a definitive title? The people died, they got back up, they tried to bite people. They were zombies. Very few people were immune, and thus the zombie ranks kept growing. It might not be nationwide or even statewide yet, but the ranks of the undead were growing. So, it was an apocalypse.

  The sooner everyone else came to the same conclusion, the sooner they could start dealing with the problem and really develop a way forward.

  Ciera sighed.

  The problem with any group of people is that once enough of them got together, they inevitably spent more time talking than doing.

  That’s why she volunteered for scout work.

  Right now, Highway 82 stretched to the horizon, one of the great highways which crossed most of the southern United States, from the Atlantic coast of Georgia all the way to New Mexico. The two had been out since early in the morning, running a patrol route from the south to the west. Traffic
was sparse, but this was still America and there were still people who “had car, will travel.” Most looked lost, like they couldn’t believe what they were seeing, men and women with the glassy-eyed look of shock which comes after a prolonged period of fear, when the brain refuses to process anything beyond a simple need to run. They’d undoubtedly seen friends and family members turn violent, were perhaps nursing their own growing tendrils of zombie-ness, and just trying to find a way out.

  She wished them luck but didn’t try to stop them.

  What could they say?

  Flipping a switch on her open face helmet, Ciera lowered a thin boom mic over her mouth. “Hey Stanley. It’s me. What’s up?”

  “You’re supposed to say, ‘Over.’ Over,” he replied.

  Ciera smiled. “And yet, you knew I was done. Over,” she added.

  “Listen. We’ve got a plan to get the people out of the school, but we need some eyes around town. Are you guys nearby? Over.”

  “That’s a negative,” she replied. “We’re about twenty out on the west side. Wanted to scoot around north, and maybe swing back this way after dark. Picked up some National Guard chatter. Was hoping to find them. Over,” she added belatedly.

  Stan was silent for a minute, probably conferring with someone in his little CB room. When he came back on, his voice was firmer, a man with a plan.

  “Okay. We got a call from one of the other teams who’ll do the RECON. Ed says to keep on with your present track, try to establish with the Guard, maybe get us a SITREP. Joe’s reporting a lot of air traffic and radio noise in Atlanta. Apparently, the CDC is bringing in some bigwigs.”

  “That’s great!” Pain said, jumping onto the channel. “Maybe they can figure a way out of this.”

  “Ha!” Ciera scoffed. “You want to trust the government to unfuck a situation they fucked up in the first place? Next thing you’ll tell me the best people to stop terrorists are the Muslims!”

  “Are you done?” Stan said. “Let’s keep the line to one at a time. Over”

  “Sorry,” Pain replied. “Over.”

  “Ciera, good hunting. Find us some backup. Over.”

  “Will do, Stan. Over and out.”

  * * * * *

  They cruised along 43 up to Willow Point before a harsh buzzing forced them to the side of the road.

  “What the hell is that?” Pain asked, yanking his helmet off as though he could better locate the source of the noise without the brain bucket.

  Wonderingly, Ciera pulled her smartphone out of her jacket pocket.

  “Holy shit!” Pain breathed, leaning over to read her screen. “Think we should call it in?”

  Ciera stifled a chuckle. She loved Alexander to death, but he wasn’t the fastest bike on the street. He stayed cool under pressure, though, and he was an absolute beast in a fight and in the sack—which were about the same, sometimes—so she didn’t mind doing the heavy mental lifting.

  “I’m pretty sure they already know,” she said. “Come on, let’s finish this run and get back onto 82. I wanna see a little farther west before we make camp.”

  * * * * *

  “Captain Carver, we’ve got an urgent request to Medivac a patient,” Boatswain’s Mate Peters reported, placing the ship’s phone back in its cradle.

  The captain lifted his head from the PSA print out, which he’d been reading over and over since it came off the printer.

  “What’s the situation?” he asked.

  “The doctor didn’t give a diagnosis, sir,” Peters said. “Just that he’s got a patient in extremis requiring advanced imaging.”

  “Where can we send her?” Navigator Davis asked. “Will the Coast Guard even acknowledge a Medivac request under Martial Law?”

  “I don’t know,” Radioman Koals said.

  “Find out,” the captain ordered. “And if they won’t, then get on the horn to the first non-territorial location in our path.”

  “That would be the Bahamas,” Davis said. “Considering our current position, it’s six of one, half-dozen of another which is closer—them or Miami. Whichever will take her, I can shift our course enough to make it easier without knocking us off schedule.”

  “I’m on it,” Koals said, adjusting his headset and punching buttons.

  * * * * *

  They camped under the stars atop a small hill outside Columbus, Mississippi, just west of the state line. Alexander thought it was silly to go outside Alabama, but he didn’t know how cool it was to really get above the city lights and road reflectors, away from the passing cars and flashing billboards, somewhere high enough that nothing but a passing cloud could impede the view of nighttime sky.

  They made love outside the tent, which was another first for him. She wasn’t sure it would be possible. Oh, he was always hot for her body, but for such a tough guy, he had a little bit of the pussy-wussy in him.

  What if a bug bites me there?

  What if I get poison ivy in my crack?

  What if someone sees us?

  She pushed him down on the grass, did a strip tease while standing over him, then yanked his pants off and mounted him before he could offer any more complaints.

  It was a good night.

  Now, with the sun creeping up in the east, she broke down the tent and packed the small caboose on her Freewheeler. Pain didn’t complain, but he was scratching his ass more than usual. Maybe his concern about poison ivy wasn’t that far-fetched. Ciera stifled a chuckle.

  “Hey, C. What do you think that is?”

  His question pulled her out of her thoughts. They weren’t helping her get anything done, so it wasn’t a bad thing. A lot of staring at him without really seeing anything, imagining a place where they could ride all day, screw all night, and maybe that was all they had to worry about. It was a nice thought.

  Shaking her purple hair, Ciera moved toward Alexander, who stood near the western edge of the small hilltop.

  Highway 82 spread out below them, a ribbon of concrete gray running more-or-less straight across the landscape. Though not very high, they were still a couple hundred feet above the road, and the clear morning air provided a good view all the way to Columbus, some five miles distant. The road was mostly empty, save for some derelict vehicles abandoned on the sides. Whatever craziness might have been started by the declaration of Martial Law hadn’t extended into the heartland. Where could people run, anyway? It wasn’t like the message said any particular place was worse or better than any other.

  Ciera squinted, wondering what Pain wanted her to see.

  Clear day. Little traffic. City gleaming in the distance, glass and metal catching and reflecting the early morning rays of sun.

  And…what was that? A creeping darkness like a shadow spreading against the sun, crawling along the highway.

  “Grab my binoculars,” she said absently.

  Pain moved back to the bikes, then returned and placed a hard, plastic case at her elbow. Opening it, Ciera placed the lenses to her eyes. They didn’t make things five miles away appear as though they were right in front of her. And the distance she looked over might be even farther.

  But they helped enough.

  “Holy shit!” she breathed. “Get Stan on the horn.”

  “What is it?” he asked. But he was moving even as he questioned. A kick and push and a rush of noise signaled his engine starting. Pain wasn’t that bright, but he wasn’t stupid, either. He didn’t want the CB to run down his battery.

  The distance obscured more than it clarified, but the binoculars revealed enough. The darkness was a mass of humanity extending far enough back that it disappeared over a curve in the road, hundreds if not thousands strong. Clothes that didn’t look right, limbs which didn’t move properly, ranks and ranks of…people meandering up the highway.

  The zombies were coming to Tuscaloosa.

  * * * * *

  When the sun crested the horizon in the east, Bitsy and Carolyn were almost fifty miles from Eupora, having walked tirelessly through th
e night.

  As the hours came and went, so did the become, groups peeling off whenever the state road passed through a small town or lonesome subdivision. The bizarre warning came and went, lighting up cell phones and watches, until Bitsy ordered them discarded.

  She knew the message.

  She knew her destination now, too.

  It came to her, as the slap and clop of uncounted feet pounded an inconstant rhythm on the hardtop.

  She’d awoken with the drive to gather the become, to bring them together in something resembling the outdated notion of a colony. As though they were anything like the hardy and adventurous souls who once set out from another continent to find their futures and fortunes in a strange land. Hardy, perhaps, but they weren’t like the pious persecutees of the seventeenth century. They wouldn’t fall to archaic notions of equality and acceptance, wouldn’t seek to cohabitate with the established natives.

  They would form a perfect nation, guided by those given the gift of wisdom, protected by those given the gift of strength, and provided for by those with the ability to work and without the curse of self-awareness which often pushed humans to rebel.

  There were others across the country and around the world like her, driven to form cohesive societies. She knew them, could feel their belief and resolve coming online through the growing network touching her mind. More and more joined in as the hours passed, like lightbulbs activating in a spreading web of connected circuitry.

  Slowly, as the miles passed, the drive to reunite with her father faded, buried under the press of responsibility that was the price of her enhanced awareness. It didn’t leave her entirely, which a small part of her thought might mean a return to her search after she satisfied the expectations bred within.

  It wasn’t a hope; even a greater become had no use for a word like that.

  But it was something.

  First, though, the destination.