by Mark Tufo
Brook wanted to have conversation time before being dropped off at the American Airlines departure area so they drove with the stereo off.
“Hey honey, while Raven and I are away, are you going to tackle the tile in the downstairs bathroom? Or are you and Ted going to tackle the Mariners’ game at the pub?” Brook asked jokingly. She was fully aware of the plans her husband had made with their neighbor Ted. Cade was no slacker, Brook was just being playful.
“Mom, give Dad a break. He’s driving. Didn’t you know that the number two cause of automobile accidents is because of distracted drivers?” Raven said, her brunette pigtails bouncing as she turned her head and gave her mom a semi-serious stare.
“Yeah, listen to your factoid spewing daughter,” Cade said as he glanced over his shoulder to check his blind spot before taking the next exit.
“Just so you two can squirm while you’re away, I’ll let you know exactly what I’ll be doing. I am going to watch sports in my underwear, leave the toilet seat up the entire time and drink straight out of the milk carton.” In the Grayson household these things were usually punishable by at least ten minutes of nagging. Cade had gotten his one dig in and he left it at that.
He maneuvered the silver Toyota Sequoia to the curb and engaged the caution flashers. A tall gangly man sporting a ball cap and a dark blue American Airlines uniform complete with faux gold shoulder epaulets opened the rear hatch of the truck. While Brook filled out the baggage forms, Cade helped wrestle the six bags onto the porter’s low slung cart. He peeled off a ten dollar bill and handed it to the man and thanked him.
Cade grabbed his petite wife and equally small daughter in a two armed bear hug. “I am really going to miss you guys,” he said while he locked eyes with his wife for a moment. He had fallen in love with her big brown doe eyes at first sight many years ago. Brook was petite but her personality was enormous. She was the type that never backed down from anything or anybody. She had been an avid mountain climber years ago; now that she was in her mid-thirties she put all of her energy into raising her only daughter.
Their daughter Raven tended to be cautious, neither a leader nor a follower. A big researcher, she thought most things over many times before taking action, whether it was choosing which cereal she would eat that particular morning or which boy in sixth grade received her attention. She was a very cerebral girl and yet she still believed in the Easter Bunny.
After hugs and kisses, Cade got in the truck and pulled from the curb. He stole one long last look at his family as they entered the large revolving door and disappeared into the maw of the airport.
Halfway home he turned on the stereo and picked a classic rock station. The deejay was going on about a new mutant strain of H1-N1 that was making people sick in Washington D.C. It was the last thing he wanted to listen to on a worry free weekend. Monday would be bad enough. It was time to start the job hunt he had been putting off. It had been more than a year since he left the military with an honorable discharge. The economy was in tatters, unemployment was high and he knew the job offerings would be slim, so for now he chose to live in the moment.
As he merged into the light traffic moving on I-205 he pushed the AUX button on the stereo and picked up his IPod Nano. He rapidly shook the electronic device and let shuffle decide which song he would get to listen to. He grinned when the first sitar riffs of the Doors’ song The End emanated from the speakers and then sang along with Jim Morrison for a few prophetic verses.
He was blissfully unaware of the situation now unfolding in the heart of Portland.
Chapter 127
Day 1 - Portland, Oregon
Cade pushed the remote button on the rearview mirror and the garage door responded by starting to slowly open. He overshot the driveway by a few feet and reversed his truck up the driveway and into the two car garage. He walked into the house through the mudroom and deposited his keys on the top of the dryer. Before he entered the kitchen he removed his shoes, then pressed the glowing button on the wall. The garage door started on its downward journey. The house still smelled of bacon from the morning meal. The home felt very tomblike without his wife and daughter flitting about. The early morning sunlight streamed in between the horizontal slats of the blinds bringing a small semblance of warmth inside.
The flashing red light on the answering machine steadily pulsed. He strode across the room, and against his better judgment pushed the play button. Ted’s voice sprang forth from the tiny speaker.
“Hey buddy, Ted here. I’ve got bad news and good news. Lisa is dragging me downtown to eat breakfast. She wants to go to the Saturday Market and then do some people watching in the Square. The good news is when we get back, I have the green light to go to the pub to catch the second game of the Mariners’ double header. Call me later.” Cade smiled to himself, then erased the message and got a bottle of water from the fridge.
Cade’s plush leather recliner beckoned. He planned to sit down for just a few minutes, but found himself dozing on and off. Hours later he was awakened by his ringing cell phone. After fumbling to retrieve the annoyance from his pants pocket he looked at the display. It was Brook calling from her mom’s in Myrtle Beach. Trying to shake the cobwebs from his head, he groggily answered, “Hello?”
“Hi honey, we made it OK. Carl just dropped us off at Mom and Pops.”
“How was the flight?”
“Smooth flight, awful food. You know, how it usually is.”
“How did Raven do?” Cade asked.
“She slept the entire flight… I was amazed.”
“Put her on, please.”
After a moment Raven cheerfully answered. “Hi Dad, what’s up?”
“I just wanted to make sure you take good care of Mom for me, OK?” He liked to instill as much self confidence in her as he could. A little esteem building went a long way.
She answered enthusiastically, “No problem Dad. Nothing shall befall my Mom when I’m on the job.” She put the phone in Brook’s outstretched hand after saying bye to her dad.
“I almost forgot to tell you. Pops is coming home from the hospital early. Something happened at work and he’s not feeling well. I think Mom said he was bitten by a delusional patient.”
“Keep me informed. I have got to get ahold of Ted and borrow some of his tools. I want to work on the bathroom before you guys return. Have a great trip. I love you. Give your parents my love too. See you soon.”
Like always, Brook had the last words. “I love you too. Don’t worry, I’m sure Dad is going to be just fine. He’s a doctor for Christ’s sake. Bye honey.”
With that they both hung up.
Cade read a few pages of the latest Brad Thor novel before he got up off of his butt to change into his work clothes. Decked out in his Levis, tee shirt and tennis shoes, he decided to walk around the corner and pop in on Ted and Lisa unannounced.
Cade considered Ted and his wife Lisa good neighbors and even better friends. Brook and Lisa had been known on occasion to visit the local Starbucks together for a latte. Ted and his wife also hosted a yearly neighborhood block party every summer, which the Graysons made a point not to miss. With Brook and Raven out of town Cade hoped to finish the tile job in the bathroom. No better time to shorten the honey-do list than when the girls were out from underfoot. Ted had an industrial tile saw Cade needed to borrow.
One block from Ted’s house Cade saw a man staggering down the street away from him. Pretty early in the afternoon to tie one on, crossed Cade’s mind as he rounded the corner.
There was no answer when he rapped on his friend’s front door. Since Ted’s truck was in the drive, Cade tried the garage around back. Ted had an old Hunter Green MG sports car he liked to work on in his spare time; Cade assumed that’s what he was doing.
Nearing the garage, he heard some noises coming from within and decided to sneak a peek and see what Ted was doing. Cade silently stole a look into the open side door. To his horror, he saw Ted with his face buried fully inside Lisa�
�s exposed rib cage. Cade didn’t want to believe what he was seeing. There was blood pooling all around her prone body and Ted’s hair was slick with her bodily fluids.
“Ted, what the hell are you doing?” Cade growled furiously. In the next moment, something he would never forget greeted him. Ted’s bloody face, with a mouth full of dripping innards, looked directly at him with a blank, “no one is home” stare. Exhibiting very little dexterity, what used to be Ted arose and jerkily started shuffling around the car in Cade’s direction. Snapping back to reality he thought, whoever this thing is, it sure isn’t Ted.
While searching for anything to use as a weapon, Cade spied a helmet and crampons on a shelf to his right. Finally he found what he was looking for. Hanging by a leather strap, next to the other gear, was a mountaineering ice axe.
Just as he grabbed it from the hook on the wall, Ted, mouth agape and moaning, lunged for his turned back. Quick reflexes helped him avoid the attack. All in one motion he spun around and buried the axe under Ted’s sternum directly into his heart. It had no effect. The thing he used to call his friend kept clawing for his face.
From personal experience, he knew the blow should have killed any man. He put his tennis shoe clad foot on Ted’s chest and pulled the blood slickened axe free, sending his neighbor sprawling into his low slung project car.
He aimed his next blow for the top of the creature’s head. Its skull collapsed with a pop, and the dead weight rolled off of the car and impacted the concrete face down with a sickening crack.
On the other side of the MG, he saw the full scope of Ted’s attack. He had feasted on his wife’s abdomen, neck and all of the soft fleshy bits on her face. Lisa used to be a pretty woman, but now she was appalling to look at.
There was no holding back; the vomit came up in waves. Nothing he had seen in combat operations all over the world could trump this spectacle. Cade had killed plenty and witnessed even more death. Barging in on Ted cannibalizing his wife was a surreal experience. Having to kill him was inconceivable.
As Cade sat on the hard concrete floor pondering his deed and wondering what to do next, Lisa began to twitch. Turning her head ever so slightly, her lidless eyes honed in on him. As she arose, with few muscles left to support it her neck listed to the side nearly resting on her shoulder. She moved faster than he anticipated, teeth clicking, trying to take a bite of him.
He scrambled to his feet still brandishing the ice axe. Keeping his center of gravity low he worked his way around the little MG. The ghoul that was once Lisa followed steadily after. He rounded the hood of the car, planted his feet and waited for the abomination to get within reach. She lurched nearer, her claw-like hands reaching for his neck. With blinding speed, Cade plunged the ice axe into her temple. All of her compromised motor functions ceased and she crumpled to the garage floor.
Cade put some distance between him and the two dead bodies. His mind raced as he asked himself what had just happened.
There was a cordless phone hanging on the wall next to the side door. Cade put the phone to his ear but there was no dial tone. Calling the police was what he had aimed to do, but at this point his only option was to leave and sort it out later.
With the running water as hot as he could stand, he washed the bodily fluids from his hands into the utility sink. Mesmerized by the rivulets of bloody water slowly spiraling down the drain he thought his options through. Ted and Lisa’s bodies will have to stay where they fell. It would do me no good to mess with the… I almost said ‘crime scene.’ I need to remember what I did was purely self-defense. Something wasn’t right. Lisa had to have been dead before she stood back up. It brought back memories of the young insurgent in the Shah-I-Kot valley in Afghanistan that had absorbed a full magazine worth of bullets. He had somehow gotten right back up and then made it ten steps before falling dead. This was a very different situation. That terrorist had been jacked up on drugs and adrenaline. He was no expert, but judging by the amount of blood on the floor, Lisa had definitely bled to death while Ted was eating her.
Still stunned by the recent turn of events he decided to head for home. He would make another attempt to call the authorities and then his wife Brook when he got back to his house.
With troubling thoughts still weaving through his brain he exited the garage. His shoes left bloody splotches on the drive as he set out for his street.
The adrenaline still coursing through his body, his senses were now attuned to every sight, sound and smell. Distant sirens blared from multiple directions; the smell of smoke was in the air. It also just occurred to him that he hadn’t heard any airplanes all afternoon. Cade’s home was just a few miles from the airport and frequent over flights were normal. He also had a sixth sense tingle telling him there was more to this than his neighbor suddenly turning homicidal and cannibalistic.
Cade realized he was still holding the ice axe as he trudged up his front walk. What a sight that would be to responding officers, if he had been able to get hold of any. He sat down heavily on the stoop and fished his cell phone from his pocket. When he tried to make a call, all he heard was static. Inside the house the result was the same with the land line. He began to worry, and that sixth sense was now jangling discordantly.
Cade turned on the television for the first time since his family left. He selected one of the local news stations. The previously recorded footage was from Pioneer Courthouse Square, also known as Portland’s Living Room. They were covering an impromptu rally that happened earlier this morning. The pierced, tatted, black-clad anarchists were stirred up. They were rallying against the government and everything else they weren’t happy about. Judging by the signs and placards the protesters carried, they believed the mutated H1-N1 virus being reported was man-made. Beyond a shadow of a doubt they were convinced the government had released it on the unsuspecting “sheeple.” Their theory was that the government would be “forced” to intervene, thus giving “The Man” more power and total control when martial law was eventually declared. They feared that Homeland Security and FEMA wanted it implemented to restrict the rights of the American population. Paranoia was rooted deep in anarchist circles.
Cade noticed uneasily that the police and National Guard had a heavier presence than usual for one of these gatherings.
While the reporter was telling his audience about the damage these same thugs had caused last year at the WHO conference, a huge opening suddenly appeared in the middle of the hundred plus anarchists occupying the center of the brick square. It looked like a fight had started within the crowd. As the human sea parted, two figures on the ground arose and started grabbing and biting anyone within reach. The footage lasted four or five minutes. During that time, many more joined the first two attackers and panic swept the rest of the crowd. Police and guardsmen stood dumbstruck as the bloody melee escalated. Guardsmen fired the first warning shots over the heads of the frantic, out-of-control throng. Their gunfire merely attracted the attention of the newly infected.
Cade stood transfixed by the scene on the screen as the troops started shooting their M4 rifles into the surging group of rioters, infected and innocents. Newly turned undead were now attacking soldiers and the gawking bystanders standing near the outskirts.
Pioneer Courthouse Square became the flash-point for the outbreak in Portland.
Within minutes there were so many wounded and dead they had to be transported not only to the closest hospitals downtown but to the suburbs as well. As Cade learned later, this created satellite centers of infection and helped it spread faster and further from Ground Zero.
The recorded footage ended and the station ran a snippet reporting violence and cannibalism at the Alamo in San Antonio. There were scores of deaths and hundreds of casualties there as well. The pace of news coming in was frenetic. Abruptly the station went to a live feed from a nearby hospital.
The petite brunette news lady from Channel 8 had just arrived on scene at Providence Hospital, and was reporting live. Behind her the
emergency room was overcrowded and hectic. Nurses, doctors and other personnel were performing triage or actively attending to the injured. In the background four hospital workers hovered around an ambulance gurney, working on a man with horrible lacerations crisscrossing his face. One person continually did chest compressions. On three different occasions one of the four workers hollered “clear,” and everyone stood back as the paddles were placed on the man’s chest and he was administered an electric shock. His heart failed to restart. A short time passed and then they pulled a thin white sheet over the man.
The news lady continued talking about the large number of patients suffering from bite wounds and head trauma from the “Riot in the Square” as it had been dubbed by the media.
Cade watched intently as the camera panned left and zoomed in on the twitching, sheet covered man on the gurney. He sat up, the sheet cascaded from his upper torso, revealing his body, pale and bruised from death’s onset. Sluggishly he turned only his head, his lifeless staring eyes fixating on the woman reporter.
Cade wanted to yell and warn the woman on the television but he knew that would be futile. Before the cameraman could react, or anyone else in the busy trauma center noticed, the risen corpse had planted two bare feet on the avocado green linoleum floor and covered the short distance to the unsuspecting anchor lady.
Wondering why she no longer held the shocked cameraman’s undivided attention, she paused mid-sentence, glaring at him. The ghoul opened its mouth wide and attached itself to her neck on live television. A crimson fan of blood pulsed, spraying in front of the still recording camera. It had all taken place in a matter of seconds.
Hospital security guards rushed the attacker and wrestled him to the ground. He thrashed about wildly, hissing and moaning, mouth snapping. The guards and orderlies had their hands full. The newly turned corpse summoned enough strength to inflict bite wounds on two of the men struggling to subdue it.