Kendra turned to her mostly empty newsroom. “Alright, whoever is healthy enough to type we’re on the air in. . .”
Martin smiled. “I’m hoping 20.”
“On the air in twenty minutes. Let’s get our stories ready to go.”
***
Riccardi was already on the bike. He had his helmet and gas mask ready. He was the most vocal of the Hot Shots, wanting to get back on the front lines. Annie felt relief seeing how much of the team was ready to go. She had put together the scout party quickly knowing that she needed her own intel on the fire. The military had stopped providing her any data. She had every intention of fighting this fire even if it was not the intention of the overall mission. Her crew was ready. All the other Hot Shots were ready. No one liked the idea of sitting back and letting the fire win unchallenged.
So they collected tools, oxygen tanks and motorbikes. The idea was to get a visual on the fire and in the meantime she would get trucks and a second team read. She had crews gearing up and if they had to sneak out off-road to get to the fire they would do that.
“Stay on channel eight!” Annie held up eight fingers in case he didn’t hear her.
He gave a thumbs up and the bikes pulled away one by one. Annie relaxed a little, understanding she had gotten away with one. The general was giving her the stink eye every time he passed through the office. She turned around and her heart leapt into her throat.
General Redcrow stood there looking at her, no gas mask heaving in and out the polluted air, with a dozen armed and gas masked soldiers. A Humvee sped past in the direction that her bikes had taken off. Her gas mask steamed up as her breath increased.
“Miss Halford, who fuck put you in charge of my disaster?”
Redcrow led the soldiers closer.
“I’m just doing my job, saving lives.”
Redcrow laughed, it came with a slight cough. He was not totally immune to the smoke. “I can’t have you slowing down that fire.”
“People will die. Lots of people.”
Redcrow squinted, he looked up at his soldiers and back at her. “Don’t think for one second that I enjoy this. I am not a bastard. Tough calls have to be made.”
Behind her gunfire erupted, the sound of the motorbikes no longer getting distant. They were coming back. Screams of agony filled the night. Annie turned to look at the general, if looks could kill she would have struck him dead.
“How dare you!”
The look on Redcrow’s face stopped her. She assumed the gunfire beyond the haze was his order. The stunned look he was giving told her different. In that moment he was just as frightened as she was. The general stepped back and waved his soldiers forward toward the sound of bikes.
Riccardi came through the haze on his speeding bike. Beyond him the gunfire and engine of the bike masked the sound of the screams of the ferals.
“Hold this line!” The general ordered.
Annie took off away from the general. He reached out and tried to grab her. She felt his thick finger nails scrap her skin, but she was out of his reach. The screams were closer. She turned to see the ferals, some wearing uniforms. One was a child, another a sheriff’s deputy. They also reached for her. She never ran so hard in her life.
The thunderous gunfire erupted behind the general, he and his men held still. Annie jumped over the hood of a car that remained from its former life as Wal-Mart parking lot. The ferals ran at the line, mindless of the fact that they were dying one after another.
Annie had no hearing left, stuck with the broken ear drum wind tunnel sound. Her own breathing seemed suddenly louder, trapped in her pounding skull. She didn’t care how dangerous taking off and flying in the smoke-filled night was. She had to find her pilot Britney and get out of here.
Riccardi pulled up on the motorbike cutting her off. She saw his wild eyes through his blood stained mask.
“We’re getting the fuck out of here.”
He yelled, she barely heard it, sounding like the parents in the Peanuts. They both looked up as a sudden wind almost knocked them over. A helicopter gunship was low over the parking lot, it blew the smoke and haze everywhere. The smoke cleared over spike camp for the first time in hours. Annie could see the Wal-Mart and Best Buy storefronts. With the cleared air and the lights of the parking lot the spike camp looked like it was being overrun by ants.
The ferals had come by the hundreds. Annie literally had her breath taken away. Riccardi tried to grab her, but it caused him to fall off his bike. They both crashed to the ground beside a parked car. The last thing she saw before falling was a group of ferals running at the car. It was an older Volvo. It rocked as the ferals climbed over it. Riccardi pulled out his hatchet, the blade dulled and sharpened after hundreds of wildfires.
He stood and swung it, the hatchet buried in the head of a feral that fell dead at his feet. A dozen flowed over the car behind him. Annie struggled to get to her feet. A feral jumped off the car and landed on her legs. She fell face-first into the pavement. She heard the mask crack. She felt a tiny breeze of warm air leak past the cracked gas mask to her eyeball.
The hands of more than one feral dug and clawed at her legs and back. She felt her clothes ripping. Through the muffled sound of her broken eardrum she heard Riccardi scream. Annie turned to see ferals, hands peeling his skull like an orange.
“No! God, please!”
Annie closed her eyes and prayed that it would end quickly.
Chapter Twenty
Austin started up the hill just outside of downtown’s east village. She looked at the address written on the sheet of paper and knew she was close. If she had walked directly to the house she probably would have been there by now, but she listened carefully to the screams of the ferals and gunfire, avoiding any chance she would run into danger. It was easy to get lost even in this area that she knew well. You could not see the street signs that hung on the stoplights. You could barely see the flashing glow of red. Downtown was filled with overturned cars and buses.
The gas mask had saved her life, but she was feeling claustrophobic in it now. She had worn it for too long. She just wanted to rip it off. She didn’t know what she would do if Robbins was not at the house. Just the thought of it caused her panic.
She turned the corner, following a sidewalk but guessed she was on Robinson when she saw the stoplight’s faint glow hanging in the haze. She was on the right street, just not sure how much further she had to go. She pulled the note from Robbins out. Still there in her pocket after all she had been through. 3822 Robinson. She looked up at the houses, the addresses were impossible to make out in the haze.
She had to get closer to see a number. She stopped at a house, it was up off the road. The whole block was built that way. She put one foot on the first concrete step and heard a wild banging. One of the ferals was inside, smelling her. A fresh wave of gunfire popped off a mile up the hill in South Park. Intense like a battle, but still distant. She needed an address. Austin walked past three more houses and heard the same banging. The fourth house was the first to be quiet. Austin took a deep breath and stepped carefully up the stone steps toward the house. It faded into being out of the mist. The house was dark but the address was there in diagonal numbers above a mailbox.
3646
Two blocks she could handle. Austin felt a moment of relief. She looked in the house out of curiosity. A light flickered in the kitchen. An old tube TV was on a stand playing static. A woman who looked like a typical gray haired grandmother appeared in the kitchen. She turned to look out. She jumped and screamed.
She was not feral. Her eyes normal. She ran to the window. “Are you OK?”
She was scared, and put her hands on the window. “Please, help me,” The woman sobbed “Please help.”
Austin’s heart broke. This woman was alone, surrounded by the infected without any source of information. She put her hand on the window. She could feel the warmth of the old woman’s hand through the window. Austin shook her head.
&nb
sp; “I can’t help. I’m sorry.” Austin stepped back from the window. Couldn’t this woman hear the screams, the gunfire? Even as she stood there the gunfire up the hill increased.
“Take me, please!” The woman begged.
“Stay inside!”
Austin turned and ran to the sidewalk. She walked a block, one more and she would look for the address. The screams continued but the gunfire ended almost as quickly as it began. A helicopter came up the hill. She turned toward the sound. It was low over the hill as it passed it cleared the air for a moment.
She turned to look back at downtown. It was visible in the wake of the chopper for just a moment. It was breathtaking. She understood on an intellectual level what was happening to the city, but with the never ending haze she had not seen it. Several of the large buildings on the skyline had fires in the top floors making them look like lit matches. It was hard not to stare at the skyline even as the smoke returned, fading in to block her view.
She lowered her eyes to the road and panic shot through her. One silent running feral. He had been a teenage boy in a San Diego High basketball team shirt, sweats and barefoot. He didn’t announce himself with a scream like the others. He was almost on her.
Austin turned and ran. She could hear its footsteps. She couldn’t slow and look for addresses. It would catch her. She tipped her mask up, accepting the smoke to give a full-throated plea.
“Robbins! Help! Robbins!”
The nasty air hit her nose and mouth, it burned enough for her to seize and cough. Austin tripped, hitting the sidewalk with her hands out. She tumbled. Her backpack rolled on the ground away from her. The gas mask fell awkwardly half across her face without a seal. Seconds passed, she was trying to stand and correct her mask when the feral jumped on her. Back to the concrete, she felt the weight of the feral on top of her. Now it let out the wild war cry inches from her eardrum. Drool hit the skin on her neck.
Then thunder. The boom shook her. The pressure from the feral was gone. His head now missing a massive chunk. The feral shook violently as it died. Austin rolled over to see Robbins in his paper mask standing over her holding a smoking pistol.
“What took you so long?” He asked.
***
Damian leaned over and puked. Victoria held the grocery bag under her son’s mouth. It felt worse watching him be sick than actually being sick. Adam looked up at her from the next seat over. The poor little boy was so scared he could barely keep from crying. He hardly said a word since they were first attacked outside the house. Tiffany was not trying to act tough or together. She leaned her head up against the window and cried, letting it all out.
“Mom, can we go back home. Please,” she whispered.
Victoria looked up at her husband. Jake still shaking from the fear, now he had grit from the road on his face like war paint. She knew just having Scott so close was hard for him, but something was off with him even before this all started. Even this morning, when they talked she knew something was wrong. Just hours later it was easy to forget about the suicide across the street. She hoped whatever stressed him out was something they could worry about soon. That would mean normalcy.
The van shook a bit as they had to go up on a curb to get around a crashed car and then they were back in the alley. Scott pointed up into the haze.
“Stop! Stop! Helicopter.”
Andrew rolled his eyes. He knew the sound as a pilot.
“He means we don’t want to be spotted by it,” Jake added.
They pulled the van over. As the helicopter sped over the neighborhood, for a brief second the spotlight cut through the smoke. The air cleared under the low hanging chopper even as it sped by.
“That was a gunship,” Andrew shook his head and turned off the van. “We only flew that low when we were tracking militants on the ground.”
“Probably heading to the aftermath of where we were.” Jake added. “Let’s just get water.”
Andrew shook his head. “We will get some water, just wait till that bird flies on.”
The van was quiet the helicopter was loud but a few blocks away. The quiet was as unnerving as anything else. They all knew where it was, and what it was seeing. Scott turned and looked back at them.
“Is his fever getting worse?”
It was a fair question, but it made Victoria uncomfortable. She could never shake it even after all these years the time he tried to hold her hand. He looked at her with that goofy pre-kiss face. She couldn’t get away fast enough, but it was still what she saw when she even thought about Scott.
“He is still hot. I don’t think any worse.”
Scott nodded. She saw Andrew’s eyes staring from the driver’s seat in the rear view mirror.
“So, we’re not even going to talk about the possibility.” Andrew sounded mad.
“What’s that?” asked Jake.
Andrew turned in the seat. He whispered. “Don’t make me say it.”
Victoria shook her head. She knew what he was trying to say. “Don’t you think it. He is not infected. Just a fever.”
Andrew looked At Jake. The helicopter seemed to be going away. Andrew turned back and started the van.
“I think I know where a 7-11 is. You better hope it hasn’t been looted already.
***
“We have the web address ready, as soon as city hall starts transmitting we can upload to the satellite.” Paul Bingham was a young reporter with his sleeves rolled up. He was showing signs of being sick but kept working. All Kendra had left was Bingham, Carly from traffic and Derrick in sports. Despite Bingham getting the sweats and shakes earlier in the afternoon, he seemed to get his second wind. Gonola straightened his tie. He had already been practicing what he would say. He was the only anchor left standing.
Derrick leaned back in his chair. “What to actually report is a totally different thing. I took notes from listening to the police band pretty much confirms everything Willy and Alex have said over at 690. The canyons are like fire pits. The entire county is in fire danger due to the winds. The air is still bad, the drinking ban is still in effect. I think the lead should be the military response. What do you think?”
Kendra tapped a pen on the desk in front of her. A part of her felt awful for ignoring the sick members of her staff. She turned at looked at the door to Sally’s office. She was dying in there. Sally told her several times to focus on the story, getting the word out.
“Kendra?”
Like waking up, she realized the three men were waiting for her response.
“That is the story. That is the one they will be telling when Scott Pelly and Lester Holt sign on tomorrow. War zone in paradise.”
Paul laughed. “America’s finest battlefield.”
Kendra shook her head. “That is enough headlines. Is Carly OK to go on camera?”
They all looked across the newsroom. Carly Clark had been at her desk wrapped in a blanket almost the whole time since she got back from the Sky 7.
Paul shrugged. “I don’t know. She is pretty disturbed.”
“She is a reporter.” Kendra shook her head.
“A traffic reporter,” said Derrick.
“And you’re a sports reporter. I don’t see you hiding under your desk.”
“A good number of our team just disappeared,” said Paul.
She would get mad if she started to focus on the reporters who were MIA. She thought back to her friends at in D.C. They were jealous of how soft they pictured the newscasts to be out here. She had met reporters who covered Katrina. As awful as it sounded, part of her wondered what it would be like to follow that kind of story. She felt guilty now, wished she could take it back. She would give anything to have a normal day with a struggle to pick a lead.
“Just get her ready. She will be on the desk with you, Gonola.”
He was bothered. “This is my anchor spot. Can’t she do a live shot from the roof or something?”
“Get Gonola a script. The last thing we want is this asshole to impro
vise.”
Gonola checked his hair. “Who knows how to load the teleprompter?”
Derrick laughed. Kendra looked to the studio. She only had one healthy cameraman left.
“Don’t laugh, Derrick, I might have you running a camera soon.”
Kendra backed away from the desk. She walked towards Sally’s office. She was her only friend in the office, a story editor who worked at the station longer than anyone besides Gene the almost-retired business reporter. Sally was the sole staff member who wasn’t afraid of her, and the only person in the office she had seen out of work. Her only friend.
She pushed open the door expecting to find Sally on the couch where she left her. The blanket she was wrapped in was still there. The water bottle she was drinking from was on the floor. Kendra looked behind the desk. Sally wasn’t there. She turned back to the nearly empty newsroom. Where did she go? Must have gone to the bathroom.
Kendra pulled out her phone and searched for a Wi-Fi signal. Martin said it would pop up as soon as he had it working. Nothing, no signal.
She turned and looked out the window to the street. The clouds still hung low. She felt more trapped than ever and prayed for that signal.
***
She finally pulled the gas mask off. She dropped it with a clunk on the living room floor. Robbins shut the door behind her.
“Bottled water and cans in the kitchen.”
She just wanted to breathe the stale air of the house without the mask for a moment. It had been a few hours since she was tied up in the back of the Humvee, since she breathed without it, and most of the day before that.
She took deep breaths. He walked to the kitchen. He came back with a water bottle. He broke the seal and offered it to her.
“It’s safe.”
Austin looked around. Robbins had made himself at home. His stuff was spread out around the living room.
“Whose house?”
“Name is Roger Murphy, but they’re not coming back.”
Austin’s eyes scanned the room, she saw Roger Murphy in a posed picture with his two children and a wife. She didn’t care what happened to the Murphy family at the moment. She was just glad to have somewhere to rest. She took the water bottle. She chugged it not expecting it to taste so refreshing. It went down quickly. Her legs suddenly felt heavy. It wasn’t until now that she realized that she had not sat down all day–except when tied up.
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