The Outbreak Series Boxed Set

by Thomas Baker

  People filed into the casino doors and past the dormant games. This was Hannah's first realization of just how many people were in the town. The line stretched outside the doorway to the restaurant that used to be the casinos actual buffet.

  As Hannah got closer to the food, the smells made her mouth water. Smells of cooking vegetables and meats she didn't think she would ever have again filled the air.

  "How is it possible what I'm smelling?" she asked Josh.

  "From what I have heard when Henry started here, food preservation was his first goal. They took all the frozen meat, vegetable, fruit, you name it and stored it in the mountain where it would be cold enough to keep it from going bad right away."

  "Crazy," Hannah said. Maybe Roy was a little right to be mad about what happened to Henry. Sounds like most of what the people here had a better life because of him.

  "So you haven't been here since the beginning?" Hannah asked as they inched closer to the food.

  "No," said Josh. He took a plate from the stack. They were almost to the front. "I'm from Boulder. I got out of there alive, barely, and arrived here, I don't know, sometimein the summer. Henry, Roy and a few others were already here. Right after me Dr. Childs arrived with his own little group."

  Hannah felt like her eyes grew as big as her plate when she saw there were strawberries, spinach, grilled chicken breasts, mashed potatoes and red jello. She greedily filled up her plate until food threatened spilling off the side.

  "Guess you're a little hungry?" Josh teased.

  Hannah was too happy to be embarrassed. They exited the buffet, and she looked around the room. She was shocked and happy to see Gus and Linda at a table. JT was there, which dampened her spirits a little. Gus saw her and waved, giving her a big warm smile.

  "Can't keep this old man down for long darlin'!" Gus called to her.

  "There are my friends! You want to come over and join us?"

  Josh shrugged. "Sure."

  "Josh, this is JT, Gus, and Linda. Everyone this is Josh. We worked together today, repairing a school." Greetings were exchanged all around.

  "That sounds better than what I had to do," JT complained. "I spent the day clearing the sidewalks. My back's never been so sore. I think the blisters on my hands have blisters."

  "How about your knee?" Linda asked. "That's a lot of strenuous activity for it. Why didn't you ask to do something else?"

  "It was fine." JT dug back into his plate, shooting glances over at Josh. Hannah wondered if JT would act all jealous already or if he was still mad about their last conversation.

  "If you say so JT," Linda sounded exasperated. "You can probably guess where I've been all day."

  "At least all I needed was some fluids," Gus said between shoveling in mouthfuls of food. "Now it's chow time."

  Hannah put her hands together and whispered a prayer, thankful for the food.

  "Praying?" Josh asked when she finished.

  "Yeah, why?"

  Josh sounded defensive and put his hands up. "No big deal. Just, most people I've run into have lost faith, you know, after what happened." He was practically whispering by the end.

  "Buddy you're lucky you didn't run into anyone who was the exact opposite!" Gus said.

  Josh looked puzzled but Hannah wouldn't get into that now. Especially with a stranger.

  "Let's just say he was someone you wouldn't want to...cross," Gus stressed the last word and waggled his eyebrows up and down.

  "Oh Gus," Linda moaned.

  JT nearly spit his bite of potatoes out. Hannah rolled her eyes.

  "Ba dum ching, I'm back!" Gus snorted.

  #

  After dinner the four went back to the house JT had picked out for himself. Hannah reluctantly came along. It was a nice two level, painted red, with a small porch on the front. The houses on either side looked empty.

  "What a first day," JT said, putting his hands on the small of his back and stretching. "Hate to admit this but it felt....good."

  "I got a nap, can't beat that," Gus said.

  JT plopped down on the couch next to the easy chair Gus was in."Speaking of which, it will feel weird, sleeping by myself tonight, separated from you guys. We've been in close quarters so long. How am I gonna sleep without the soothing sounds of your snoring Gus?"

  JT kind of trailed off then. Hannah hadn't thought about that but JT was right. She would have a big place all to herself tonight, even if it was only a few blocks away from the others. She didn't know if she felt happy or scared.

  "So that's it? We're already deciding to stay here?" Hannah paced around, looking at the artifacts left behind by the previous owner. Knick knacks, pictures on the wall. One was of a man and a woman on their wedding day. Those people were eitherdead or zombies now. Here they were living in their place. It was sort ofcreepy to think about.

  "Hannah, talk about goin' from zero to one hundred. Darlin' nobody's saying that yet." Gus assured her.

  "I sure as hell ain't saying that," JT exclaimed. "Man, can't I make a statement without you jumping down my throat?"

  He exploded up off the couch. He went into the other room and came back with a beer. Gus gave her a sad look. Now that JT had broke the booze out, she was ready to go.

  Hannah excused herself and left. Even with all the work she'd done that day, she felt more exhausted than ever. Emotionallyas well. She had no desire to get into another argument with JT right now. Or anyone else. Maybe it would be good to have some privacy tonight. I could have some privacy and put down the burden of worrying about everyone else so much.

  She walked passed the stores in the middle of town to her place on the other side. Daydreams of bed filled her mind when she heard some commotion to the right. She turned and squinted; the day was losing its light, but she had the setting sun on her shoulder.

  She saw two figures go down a narrow alley between two brick buildings. The way they were dressed and the way one looked around nervously caused an alarm to go off in her head. She patted the gun in the shoulder holster she carried whenever she didn't want to lug her rifle around. Having a weapon made her feel safer, she had learned that lesson. With light footfalls, she crept towards the sound.

  She could make out the figures arguing as she got closer. She thought she heard the words payment, time, and doctor. Then the talking stopped. She stopped moving. After a minute she took another step forward. Roy burst out of the walkway, turned, and nearly ran her down.

  "What in the fuck do you think you're doing!" Roy barked.

  Hannah staggered back, one hand reaching for her gun. Roy looked almost sweaty, he ran his hands over the front of his coat. Now thatshe thought about it, she hadn't seen Roy at dinner tonight.

  "I'm just going home. I thought I heard a commotion. Was that you?"

  "None of your damn business. Get out of my way." Roy stalked off, looking over his shoulder several times.

  "Who were you talking to?" Hannah whisper to herself, watching Roy until he was out of sight.

  With her sense that something funny was going on dinging louder than ever, Hannah turned from going back home to having a stop at Dr. Childs first. Then she hesitated. She just got here. She didn't want to stay. It would be getting involved in a big way. Did she want to do that?

  What swayed her was a feeling from outside of her. If something were to happen she could have prevented, she would feel the guilt. It would be as much her fault as Roy's if he was up to something, this presence was telling her.

  "Roy? He's a loser. A miserable little shit, too," Dr. Childs said. He'd been in the middle of reading a book when she walked in. It was sitting beside him now, face down on the table. She could see the title was The Shining by Stephen King. Ironic, considering where they were now. "He's a good builder, but that's it. He is nothing like his old man. I bet if I didn't keep most of the medicine locked up, he'd be hitting it like a meth head."

  "Could be, you know him better," Hannah said. "But doesn't resentment make it even more possible? I kno
w what I heard. He's up to something."

  "If you want to spend your free time following around that schlub, go right ahead. If he tried something, he would have to go through the rest of the people in town. I would have heard something by now from some of the others here. He's too much of a loser to pull off anything significant."

  Dr. Childs got up and made himself a drink at the rooms wet bar while they talked. I bet JT would like to have a bar like that; she thought to herself. Hannah knew it was childish and petty and mean. JT, and what he meant to her, was another problem for another time. Possibly. Right now her concentration needed to be with Childs.

  He made a deal of looking surprised to see her still standing there when he finished making his cocktail. "I have heard you. I will mention it to Henry."

  Dr. Childs took his drink, sat in his chair by the window and crossed his legs. He gave her a look that was pretty mucha dismissal.

  "Fine," she bit out, turned and left.

  She went home and spent her time worrying about the problem. If something fishy was going on what else could she do about it? She went to bed, thinking maybe she could go to Henry. Except, she realized, she doesn't even know what Henry looked like. She hadn't even met him yet. She could just imagine how good that conversation would go. A complete stranger talking trash about his son. She tossed and turned until she realized she had done something. Now it was out of her responsibility and in Childs' lap. With that she fell asleep.

  Still the nagging feeling, which seemed to come from somewhere outside of her, wouldn't go away completely. It would ebb in the morning when she saw Roy, who would spit out some commands and then disappear all day. Then the more the day went on the more it flowed to the back of her mind. A couple days later though, she awoke determined to do something about her feeling.

  Since JT was spending a lot of time with his new drinking buddy, Lindsay, it was Gus she knew she would need to go to. Anyway, talking to JT right now would just lead to arguments and headaches.

  "I don't know, sweetie," Gus said, after she filled him in.

  She sat in the little house Gus and Linda took over near the center of town, close to the clinic. All the shades were open and the little house was bright and cheerful. It made the worries Hannah had seem like wistful dreams. Maybe Roy was all talk and bluster. She didn't know him.

  "Do we want to get involved with the people and what's going on around here? We've already left once. We came back out of necessity, but so far the place seems legit. Are you wanting to stay long term? Does JT? Or am I wrong, like I was about Harold?"

  "No, you're not," Hannah conceded. She'd been cautious and kept her eyes open this time. Most people in the town just wanted to build up the community here to stay alive.

  Even with her investigation so far telling her the town was okay, she wasn't sure if she wanted to stay here. She didn't understand anymore what JT wanted. Right now she saw no reason whythe two of them would stay together. JT might leave tomorrow for all she knew. Gus was right though, pursuing this would mean she was putting down some roots here. Did she want to? If this got back to Roy, would she want to live with what would surely become an even more antagonistic attitude?

  "If you wanted me to tail him, I could help. I'm not up to much most days, which bugs the hell out of me. I'm not ninety, I'm fifty five. Linda is gone at the clinic just about every day. I thought the guy said we had to work around here for our supper."

  Gus put on a bad detective voice. "You want me to tail him sweetheart?"

  Hannah rolled her eyes. "Nah, but if you happened to run across him doing something suspicious, just let me know."

  "Maybe we should leave, before anything starts up. I believe you've been through enough, dollface." Gus continued with the accent.

  "I might verywell decide todo that."

  Hannah left after somemore pleasant conversation with Gus. For the next few days, she read her Bible; she went to the outskirts of town to practice her shooting, and she put up with Roy's verbal diarrhea, when he was around. In those days she didn't see JT anywhere outside of dinner. There he usually sat off by himself or with Lindsay.

  The day came when the repairs on the schoolhouse were finished. She got to see the twenty or sochildren of different ages file inside on opening day. It gave her a melancholy feeling, seeingso many kids had survived but how this was now their world.

  Hannah went home, wondering what she would do next. A filling of accomplishment filled her. That's when she realized most of her guilt and worry had vanished. Was this place God's sign?

  It couldn't be. Now that her task was finished, she'd been well fed, and felt more of sound mind, she could make a decision. Thoughts of packing up and moving on by herself were on her mind when a knock came at the door. Opening it, she was surprised to see it was JT.

  "Hi Hannah. What are you up to?" he said, his hands stuffed into his coat pockets.

  "Not much as of right now. You?"

  "About the same." He stood there, looking at her and looking away. "So, mind if I come in? I was wanting to talk and ..." JT hesitated a moment. "I was missing you."

  "Before you even start, just no, JT. No."

  "What?" he said, a little slurred.

  "I can smell it from here. You can't just come over here because you are drunk and feeling lonely and expect to work things out between us. Just stop."

  JT looked mad then. She didn't fear his anger anymore. She knew a little of what carrying rage was like. She realized then there had changed within JT since the church. She had to work to remember the last time he flew into a true rage.

  His mouth dropped, making him look stupid. Did he think this was easy for her? It hurt her. He promised back when they met that nothing would ever hurt her. How naïve they both had been.

  "Fine," he spit out. He took two steps down, stumbled then caught himself on the railing. "I'll go see what Lindsay's doing."

  She didn't know if that was supposed to make her jealous or to cut her. She felt she didn't care. It already hurt, what had happened between them. They couldn't pull it together, no matter what they had tried. They weren't a couple. She sure wasn't his mother.

  "Well have fun then," she said with mocking cheerfulness, closing the door.

  JT was laughing so hard his stomach hurt. Lindsay held her belly too. At least a dozen beer bottles lay strewn about the floor between them.

  "Whew," JT said when he could finally get ahold of himself. "That's crazy."

  A fire roared in the fireplace. JT couldn't even remember starting it. It was nice though, being so warm. He felt like taking his shirt off, so he did.

  He popped the top of another bottle and knocked it back. He was sitting half slouched over on the couch in his house. It was funny to think of it this way, his house. Before he could barely afford the shit apartment he had. He giggled again and checked out Lindsay, who sat across from him curled up in a chair.

  He had already stripped down to his baggy grey basketball shorts. Appropriate winter attire. He snickered again. Lindsay was wearing a long sleeve dress, red, that went down to her knees with black leggings. JT thought she wore it well as he enjoyed the view during their chat. It had been a pleasant surprise when she knocked on his door earlier carrying a six-pack.

  "That's like when all this shit went down. I jumped into the first car I could, turned on the radio and the song that came on was Zombie by the Cranberries."

  "Get the fuck out of here," she said, reaching for another beer herself." That did not happen."

  JT thought it was only her second, or was it her third? Either way, the rest of the bottles on the floor belonged to him. Fuck it, what did it matter.

  "True story. Swear it on whatever you want me to."

  Lindsay laughed. "Okay, I believe you." She took a deep breath. "Those first days, they were well...they were something."

  Lindsay's voice took on a faraway quality.

  "I used to live up in Portland, before. Don't laugh but I was taking a shower when t
he zombie apocalypse happened. I had a roommate. Her name was Heather. We weren't close friends, but we got along okay. I was in the shower, cranking up Imagine Dragons on my shower speaker, lathering up my hair, singing along.

  I heard some banging around outside but figured it was just Heather being loud or looking for something. Then something shook the whole damn apartment. I heard more noises I thought were strange. I poked my head out of the shower curtain and called out for Heather. There was nothing and then she started pounding on the bathroom door so hard it made me jump. Then she screamed. It was muffled so I couldn't make out everything she was saying. I turned the water off and reached for my towel.

  I stood there frozen for what felt like hours. I reached for the door to unlock it but then I thought better of it. What if someone had broken in? I was only thinking of myself then. Don't know what that says about me.

  The pounding stopped, but I heard her out there. Sounded like she was running around crazy. Our apartment was all hardwood floors, and the sound carried.

  Right about then my phone went off. I jumped about five feet off the floor. Let out a little scream. I snatched it up off the counter. It was blowing up with text messages. I scrolled through them all, not believing what I read. You can guess what they were saying.

  Heather came back to my door. This time she wasn't screaming. She was knocking and sobbing then. Someone was out there. I need to let her in. Let her in. That's what I kept thinking but my body wouldn't move.

  Something hit the wall, hard. The door moved on its hinges but didn't open. Fingers poked under the small opening between the bathroom door and the floor. She screamed then. Her fingers were suddenly jerked away. I sat there, huddled in the corner by the toilet, listening to my roommate be eaten alive by zombies.

  I don't know how long I was there. Days I guess. In nothing but a towel. I had my phone. I kept checking it, checking messages and Twitter and YouTube. I tried calling my parents but couldn't get through. I watched helpless as the battery ran down, flashed red and the phone died.