by Ward III, C.
“Wonderful, an apocalyptic hit man,” Stanly mumbled.
This comment made Raymond pause briefly, thinking back to his neighborhood job title quandary. Hit man: paid for killing indiscriminately—a perfect match.
Sheriff Bohner stood up and extended his hand toward Raymond for a strong-gripped handshake. “Follow me. Apartment 408 right up that road is now vacant. It’s a small, clean place with good airflow, and you have a cute neighbor in 406 too. If you want, we’ll get you a house to live in when one becomes available. After you get settled in, stop by the Town Defense Force building over there. We’d like to hear what kind of goodies you brought for us.”
“Will do, Sheriff. Before I forget, you need to talk to your ambassadors about operational security. I made them slightly uncomfortable last night, and they quickly spilled the beans with very specific details about your town, inside and out. In the wrong ears, that information could easily compromise or even destroy this place. They’re good-hearted fellows but have loose lips.”
INTEL
Gather. Analyze. Distribute.
After wasting many days getting bogged down and then backtracking to avoid impassable infested areas, Kevin and Stephan had decided that Houghton Lake needed to be completely bypassed, which would add several frustrating days—maybe weeks—to their never-ending journey. They were so close to the crossroads of Route 55 and US 127, yet there seemed to be some sort of mystical, apocalyptic barrier keeping them from crossing that final landmark.
The city of Houghton Lake was settled on Michigan’s largest inland lake (excluding the mighty Great Lakes). Kevin suggested finding a small rowboat and then paddling across the lake at night, which seemed like a reasonable idea—that is, until they studied the map and were unable to find a single unpopulated area on the far side of the lake. Likewise, there was their physical strength to consider. They had consumed the last of their food days ago, and they were both weak from hunger. They would not have the stamina to oar that far without some nutritional intake.
As much as they were fed up with walking through the woods, the urban areas seemed to be slowing them down a great bit. They agreed to do a very large ninety-degree offset that would put them on a southern heading for about ten miles, turn west for ten miles, then come back north ten miles up US 127, putting them right back on course and completely bypassing the urban area.
Stephan was kneeling down at the corner of a two-story brick building, observing a long desolate street. She had been captivated by the dreary scene before her for several minutes: Loose paper and trash blew down a once well-kept road. Tall grass had sprung up in the cracks of the sidewalk and pavement. Cars that had cruised down this road only months ago now stood abandoned on soft, deflating tires. The few shops that still had windows were now dark and murky. The decaying landscape seemed metaphoric, and it filled her with dread and desperation.
Kevin crept up behind her and knelt down silently, nudging her out of her dreary daydream. “Clear to cross?” he asked.
“Huh? Yeah. Nothing’s moving. It’s getting late; we should start looking for our nightly shelter,” Stephan said with a hint of sadness.
“How about that?” Kevin asked, pointing toward a large, slightly rusted blue LOX Armored Inc. truck parked next to a Gas & Gulp petrol station on the opposite street corner. “Looks like the door’s open. We might be able to secure it.”
“Sure. Go ahead, I’ll cover you.”
Kevin bounded across the two-lane street, crouching down next to the giant truck tire. He paused for a long minute, listening and looking around the area to see if anyone or anything had spotted him before waving her over.
“Let’s secure this truck, then check out the gas station. Maybe we’ll get lucky.” He moved to the partially opened back door and put a hand on the handle. Stepping off to the side, he looked at Stephan as she pointed her rifle at the door. When she nodded, he pulled as hard as he could, getting out of her line of fire.
Kevin let go of the door handle as soon as it swung open with a loud squeaking, rusty moan.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhh,” echoed a terribly loud, high-pitched scream from inside the truck.
Stephan took several involuntary steps backward, taking the rifle’s selector switch from safe, past semi, to full auto. Her analytical mind raced to define the close-range target: Gray, human, Gray, human, friendly, hostile… Her eye focused from the shadowy dark movement in the back of the truck to her red-dot sight and back to the target again, her indecisive finger hovering over the curved trigger.
“Please don’t hurt me. I’m unarmed!” a frightened female voice pleaded.
Stephan squeezed the pressure switch of the weapon-mounted flashlight, illuminating a frail woman dressed in comparatively clean, newer clothes, cowering against the far back of the armored truck wall, clutching a large backpack.
Kevin took his attention off the women and quickly scanned the street behind them. “Get in. Something was bound to hear that scream!”
As soon as Stephan started to climb in, an eruption of angry howls bellowed through the empty alleyways, vibrating up her spine and causing her to slip on the step, scraping her shin. Right on her tail, Kevin pulled the door shut behind him, finding a locking mechanism near the floor. Once again, they were trapped inside a vehicle with a swarm of pissed-off Grays outside who were hunting them. At least this time it wasn’t a thin-skinned plane, and they had a third person for company.
At the usual meeting place under the lakeside pavilion, Victor, Raymond, Sheriff Bohner, and a handful of the engineers were discussing ways to expand and improve the town’s perimeter wall. Raymond suggested a secondary layer of security—razor wire, a trench, anything to provide the Town Defense Force some standoff distance from outside threats.
“It’s only a matter of time before the raiders or worse climb over the wall,” Victor said. He was convinced that the metal shipping containers were too easy to scale, that they needed to be double-stacked, with hardened bunkers in strategic spots and overlapping fields of fire.
Stanly walked up nonchalantly with his hands in his pockets to join the scheduled noon meeting. “A wall isn’t very inviting, is it? I thought we were bringing people in, not keeping them out. Or are you turning this place into some sort of concentration camp?”
They all turned in unison, giving Stanly “the look”…the look that says you are stupid as hell.
“If you haven’t noticed, we have been bringing people in—and keeping them safe, I might add—and relocating those who ask and agree to our community work ethics,” Victor rebutted.
“Right. Selective entries. Borders cause wars...” Stanly mumbled, turning his back to them and taking his usual seat at the end of the picnic table. The mayor and the rest of the town council, along with the medical staff, rounded the corner, crossing the tall grass to meet them at the pavilion.
A taller bald man with excessive sailor tattoos and sporting a Hawaiian shirt and camo shorts followed them as quickly as he could in his flip-flops, carrying a heavy bag. “Hey, y’all. I’ve got some good news and some bad news.”
“Crazy Chadwick, what did you do this time? I’m really not sure that we want to know,” asked the mayor with an uncertain tone and a raised eyebrow.
“Well, the good news is I was able to get my corn whiskey still working again,” Crazy Chadwick responded.
To Victor’s right, Jessica asked, “Chad, do you think alcohol is a priority in our current state of affairs?”
“Sure it is! Do you know that whiskey means ‘water of life’ in the old language? My moonshine’s pure. Burns blue, even. There’s none better. Look, there’s a lot of uses for it.” He pulled out a gallon-size glass jug of clear liquid. “We can burn it in alcohol engines to make electricity or transportation or manufacturing or whatever. Sterilization of medical and cooking tools. Pain management for your patients, Doc. And, of course, recreational use for special occasions,” he said with a smile and a wink while nudging Raymond’s shoulder
.
“Don’t touch me again. Unless you make a triple-distilled malted-barley whiskey, aged in a barrel for about three years, I’ll pass,” snarled Raymond.
“He does have some good arguments,” said Mrs. Cloud.
“What’s the bad news?” asked the mayor, leaning forward.
“Oh, nothing really. I kind of burnt down the warehouse behind the hardware store. I saved the still, though!”
“All right, if I forbid you from making more, you’ll do it anyway and keep it for yourself. Go ahead and keep at it, but please find a new brick-and-concrete building to do it in, and gather up plenty of fire extinguishers for the next accident that’s certain to happen,” the mayor instructed.
Raymond eyed Stanly’s particularly clean outfit. “Crazy Chad, make some berry flavored. I bet Stanly likes fruity drinks.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Stanly asked defensively.
“Wasn’t supposed to mean anything. Just trying to hook you up with the good stuff. I imagine you sitting around with a fruity drink in those well-manicured hands. Intended no harm by it, man. Maybe your boyfriend will like some too?” Raymond smiled.
“You think I’m gay! You have some nerve, pal. I’ll see to it that you’re back in that shack the ambassadors found you in!” Stanly yelled, getting to his feet.
“Whoa, now, buddy. Look who’s talking about selective resident privileges. So you’re not gay? Sorry, I misread all the signs: the soft, noncallused hands; the only clean shirt in town—pink shirt, that is. And, of course, the cigarettes in your pocket,” Raymond said casually, just egging him on.
“Cigarettes? You’re homophobic because someone smokes tobacco?” Stanly asked.
“Ease yourself, Stanly, you’re way too sensitive. Maybe it’s your low testosterone levels or something, or maybe it’s the daily stress of being inside the protected zone. I’m not prejudiced or homophobic. It’s a brave new world: you can be whomever you want to be. I only assumed because you smoke feminine cigars. They were originally marketed toward females. It’s in the name: cigar…ettes. ‘Ette’ meaning feminine,” Raymond stated with an air of satisfaction.
“All right, all right, that’s enough, you two. Mrs. Cloud, do you have a report for us today?” the mayor, asked interrupting Raymond, who was obviously taunting the councilman for entertainment.
“We do have some new information to share. Our studies and experiments conducted at the lab and holding cells—”
“You mean torture?” Stanly grumbled, obviously still angry.
Without acknowledging him, she continued, “We have determined that late-stage infected Grays never slip into an unconscious sleep, yet they will go into a ‘power saving’ alert-hibernation mode by squatting in place, lowering their resting heart rate to nearly twenty beats per minute. For comparison, the average human has a resting heart rate of sixty to one hundred beats per minute—top athletes average at thirty-five to forty. Bradycardia could be a symptom, or an intended natural mutation caused by the virus. We believe that the lower heart rate, along with their slightly cooler body temperatures, has dramatically decreased their metabolism. They are omnivores, but they do not eat very much or very often.”
She continued, “What does that mean for us? Don’t plan on them starving or dying of old age anytime soon. In fact, just the opposite, with the recorded ectothermic changes, they’ll likely have a lifespan of 125 to 150 years.”
There were several grunts and whistles around the table.
“The medical staff had the same reaction. Evidence is inconclusive as of now, but the infection could have a DNA-transforming side effect, turning them into cold-blooded creatures. If so, that could be beneficial to us in the winter season. That’s just a hypothesis at this point, with no real data to back it up.
“We’ve also done several blind tests on their basic senses. To start with, they are positively phototactic—attracted to light. I believe you already knew that, though. We’re not sure why. Possibly because the Grays’ permanently restricted pupils cause poor light-gathering capabilities or because a nocturnal light source is a curiosity that allows them to hunt. Your guess is as good as ours. Sense of smelling abilities hasn’t changed much, although they respond aggressively to perfumes and other unnatural aromas.
“As the hunters and rescue teams have reported, their hearing abilities have unquestionably increased, giving them a wider range of audible wavelength spectrum than the average human. We know this from doing frequency tests in the jail that put them on the same hearing level as bats, and autopsies show decreased thickness of the eardrums, causing more sensitivity. Bats use their supersensitive hearing for echolocation, like sonar, to locate prey. We haven’t witnessed this type of ability yet in the Grays.”
Stanly got up and started walking toward the beach.
“Where are you going, Stan?” asked Jessica.
“I refuse to be part of this. You’re experimenting and cutting sick people open. Not to help or cure them but to give these sadists information on how to kill them more efficiently. You all should be ashamed; I sure am,” he said dejectedly.
“Stan, my job is to observe and report. If you feel that you could treat them, I will assist you. But the brain samples we have analyzed show massive amounts of irreversible tissue damage, even in the early stage. In our expert opinion, this infection cannot be cured. Even if you could slow or stop the infection, the patient would never recover or be human again.”
Victor took a step away from the group toward Stanly. “Stanly, we’re going on a rescue mission tomorrow morning to invite Raymond’s neighbors to relocate here. We could use your diplomacy. They’ve been out there on their own, roughing it since the lights went out, and they might be a little skeptical of what Lake City has to offer.”
Stanly eyed him for a moment, then simply turned around and walked away.
“Really?” Raymond scoffed. “He’s a liability. I’m not babysitting his ass out there.”
“He needs a dose of the real world.” Victor explained. “He’s yet to embrace what our world has become, because he hasn’t witnessed it for himself. His constant skepticism is a threat. He’s beginning to get a following of believers that will develop into a much bigger problem than the raider attacks or even the Grays.”
The sign language was more like a drunken game of charades, but either way, Stephan and Kevin made it clear to the mystery woman in the armored truck that they were not there to harm her. Stephan occasionally peeked out the fractured side window. Knowing they were safe behind thick bulletproof, tinted glass gave her comfort.
The Grays came rushing in like a shark frenzy. The woman’s scream had attracted them like blood in water. The Grays searched everywhere, in and out of buildings. They were so thick that they would push each other out of overcrowded windows. They searched on top of any object they could climb onto or crawl under, including the armored truck.
Stephan could hear them growl and hiss directly above them. The Grays were so thick outside that they pushed into each other, rocking the heavy truck back and forth. Even with the doors locked up tight, the nauseating stench of that many filthy, sickly people made her fight her gag reflex as her eyes watered.
Engrossed by the hive-type activity, Stephan blinked and squinted, bringing her attention back to the immediate area outside the truck. She noticed a nasty-looking Gray that stood out from the swarm. The skin was transparent like the others, with black infected blood giving it a gray pigmentation, and it had thick scabs with oozing sores over every part of its grotesque hairless body. What she noticed that was different was a large softball-size tumorous growth on its neck that seemed to pulsate like a beating heart.
She had seen this before, back in the Detroit lab during the morning brief right before the lights went out. That tumorous bulge was a symptom of the hybrid Nasty, the Ophiocordyceps spore, to be exact. Stephan wondered if this was the next stage of the disease. She watched them until the swarm moved on in their infectious
pursuit to find a healthy human.
Kevin, on the other hand, kept a watchful eye on the shivering silent lady, ensuring she didn’t make any sudden movements or noise. It was getting dark in the back of the vehicle; outside, the autumn sun had gone down over a glowing orange horizon when Stephan gave him a reassuring “all clear” nod to indicate she hadn’t seen any Grays in a while.
“I’m Kevin. This is Stephan. Sorry we scared you earlier. We didn’t know this vehicle was occupied,” he said in a whisper, reaching over to shake her hand. “Where you coming from?”
Still clutching her backpack like a safety blanket, she said in a barely audible voice, “Nice to meet you. I’m Gaylen Ross. I’m from here in Houghton Lake, but it’s become so dangerous, I’m getting out of town and heading south.”
“South?” Stephan said in shock. “How far south? Toward metro areas? Most people are heading north to escape them; the cities are war zones now. We were lucky—Kevin had the foresight to get us out of Detroit the day it went dark.”
“All the way south. To get as far away from here as I can. I’ll go all the way to South America if I can make it. Did you hear the broadcast? They are blocking the infected at the Panama Canal. Besides, life is barely survivable now. Imagine when we have snow on the ground in a couple months,” Gaylen said excitedly.
Kevin gave Stephan a sideways glance. “She makes a good point. It’s tough living now; going to be tougher when we are freezing to death.”
“We’ll make it to Lake City way before then,” Stephan said.
“You’re going to Lake City? Cute town. Haven’t heard anything from them lately, although I haven’t heard much from anyone…” Gaylen trailed off.
“You’re welcome to come with us. Team up, strength in numbers?” Stephan said reassuringly.
“No thank you. I’m heading south. If I were you, I’d bypass the Crossroads Mall area. A small group of friends and I were there when the lights went out. We had everything we really needed, so we stayed put and were quite comfortable until a few days ago. A biker gang led by a madman thought it was a good spot to call home also. They came rolling in, taking the entire mall by force. They looked preposterous, and we actually laughed at first when they crashed through the door. Some were riding classic motorcycles, some rode dirt bikes, four wheelers, and some were even riding some sort of modified monster lawnmowers! We tried to defend the mall, but they had military-grade weaponry. It was horrible. We were no longer laughing. They killed half my friends, captured and tortured the others just for fun. Passed the women around until they got bored, then killed them too,” Gaylen said with glazed-over eyes.