The Most Uncommon Cold (Book 5): Surviving Beyond the Zombie Apocalypse

by Jeffrey Littorno

  Suddenly, Taylor and Christina were at my side.

  “Let’s go see what it is,” Taylor said.

  “Yeah, let’s go see what it is,” Christina echoed.

  We trotted over to one of the windows which was already crowded with other onlookers and tried to get into position to catch a glimpse of what was outside but could only see the backs of heads.

  “I can’t see anything,” Christina whined.

  A heavyset man in dark blue mechanic’s coveralls in front of us turned from the window. “Not much to see. More tanks.” He walked slowly away.

  I pushed closer to the window and held Christina up so she could look out.

  As a line of six large tanks got closer, the terminal building vibrated from the rumbling of the huge military vehicles as well as from the people inside the terminal. There were questions about whether the military would evacuate them, whether the soldiers would fight the zombies, and whether the arrival of the soldiers would help or hurt the situation.

  We stared at the tank parade for a couple of minutes, before I thought to ask about Kat.

  I got shrugs from Taylor and Christina. I looked around the terminal but did not see her anywhere. Finally, I sent Christina into the women’s bathroom to look.

  She was gone for what seemed like a long time. When she eventually returned to the door of the restroom, she was grinning. “Kat says to tell you she’s busy right now.”

  I wondered exactly what that meant but felt better knowing she was alright.

  “She said some other stuff too,” Christina continued with a giggle. “But I can’t say those words.”

  The little girl ran off to find her playmates. With no other ideas, I simply waited by the entrance to the women’s restroom, hoping that Kat would eventually emerge.

  My wait lasted for about ten minutes.

  It appeared as though Kat had no intention of stopping to talk to me as she started to move past me, but then she turned to face me. “You made me feel like shit!” Despite the commotion outside, Kat’s raised voice managed to capture the room’s attention. “I’m sorry if my response isn’t exactly what you wanted to hear! Wait, I’m not sorry about that. The only thing I’m really sorry about is that I ever thought you were different than all the other selfish assholes!”

  I didn’t quite understand her answer, and I sensed eyes on me as I reached out to grab her arm. “Wait, Kat, I wanted to apologize. I—” She pulled her arm away from me and walked away.

  I had started to hurry after her when there was pounding on the big front door of the terminal building. The doors suddenly swung open and a flood of soldiers poured inside. The troops quickly moved to form a line against the walls of the room. The effect being we were surrounded and forced to the middle of the terminal.

  Somehow Christina had managed to grab ahold of Kat’s hand and mine, effectively linking us together. The little girl looked up at me and smiled. I looked over at Kat and offered a similar smile. It was returned with a glare.

  I looked around at the soldiers to see they were all fully armed and had their guns readied.

  We stood in that position for a couple of minutes, apparently waiting for something or someone. When the doors opened, it became clear that we had been waiting for this person.

  The soldiers nearest the door pulled them open as if allowing a king to enter the castle. The entire place fell silent in anticipation of the mysterious entrance.

  To say it was a disappointment would be something of an understatement. In fact, I’m pretty sure a few giggles trickled through the crowd.

  The doorway was not filled, but was rather underwhelmed, by the figure of a very small, almost tiny figure in military fatigues.

  Looking at the small man entering the terminal, I couldn’t help thinking that they must buy his uniform at Gap Kids. I chuckled a little and received a disapproving look from Kat.

  The little guy said something to one of the soldiers near the door before striding closer to us in the middle of the room.

  “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.”

  In my head, I continued, “Boys and girls, children of all ages. Welcome to the greatest circus in the world!” I snorted and received another glare from Kat.

  “My name is General David Thompson. I am sure you have a lot of questions and are a bit anxious right now. However, let me assure you that you are going to survive this situation as long as you follow orders. You have nothing to fear. We will be conducting examinations and further debriefing soon. However, my immediate priority is to speak with Kevin Turner.”

  My body tensed and Kat’s grip on my hand tightened at the mention of my name.

  “Mister Turner?”

  As I took a step toward General Thompson, Kat pulled me back to face her. She pressed her mouth to mine for a long, deep kiss. When we finally pulled apart, she whispered, “I love you.”

  Chapter 14

  General Thompson regarded me with an expression of distrust. “I understand you’re a newspaper reporter.”

  “Under the circumstances, I’d have to say was a newspaper reporter.”

  He looked at me silently for a moment before nodding and saying, “Well, according to Colonel Granger, you have something which may be of use to us in this battle.” At the mention of the colonel’s name, some movement at the back of the room caught my eye. I looked over to see Colonel Granger striding quickly toward us.

  “As I said, Sir, I first encountered Turner at SFO some months ago, immediately after the initial disturbances.”

  I caught General Thompson rolling his eyes at the words of his colleague. He looked at me and flashed a brief grin. “Yes, you told me, and you also told me that he had something that, in your words, ‘would be an incredibly valuable weapon.’” Thompson used finger quotes to show his recall of what had been said. “Is this true, Turner?”

  The shock that this man knew of the poison I had found stopped me for a moment, before I realized that Winestone must not have wasted any time in letting the General know what we had discussed.

  “I believe it is, yes. If used properly, this poison could wipe out those things.” I spoke slowly, considering every word carefully. When I finished speaking, I was not sure how believable the words seemed. The crowd in the terminal was murmuring as if debating the truth.

  “Well, I suppose the only thing to do is have you get the material and give us some sort of demonstration,” General Thompson said. “Colonel Granger and a squad of soldiers will accompany you.”

  I nodded and led the way toward the door of the terminal. When I got there, I confused the officers and everyone else by suddenly spinning and trotting back to the crowd.

  “See you soon,” I said to Christina and kissed Kat again. I nodded to Taylor who had rejoined the group of teenage girls.

  General Thompson was shaking his head in disbelief when I walked back to the door.

  “Anything else, Turner?” Granger asked with a smirk.

  “No, I’m ready to go now.”

  We pushed through the doors and were joined by several of the soldiers who had been positioned nearby.

  “You have to excuse my confusion,” I said. “I parked behind the terminal when I got here, and now I’m all turned around.”

  “Not a problem,” Granger answered and raised his voice to issue a command. “Green and Wilmer, you are to take point. Madison, Timmons, and Vandenberg, take the rear. Everyone keep alert and report any activity.”

  Although I had never been a big fan of the military, I became enthralled by the precision with which they moved into position, ready to fulfill the general’s orders.

  We moved quickly but cautiously down the steps at the front of the ferry terminal.

  Colonel Granger had gotten a rifle from one of the soldiers and had a pistol tucked into my belt hidden under my shirt. I reflexively looked down at my empty hands and wondered if I should be armed.

  As if reading my thoughts, Thompson forced a small but heavy revolv
er into my hand. “Hang on to this just in case,” he said with another grin.

  I offered a weak grin in return.

  Thompson nodded before heading back inside the terminal.

  At the side of the building was a narrow alley, which I assumed led to the back of the building, the parking lot, the truck, and the rat poison. Unfortunately, the alley was also full of shells.

  The things almost seemed to be waiting for us as they simply milled around pointlessly until they became aware of us. As soon as they spotted us, the shells directed all of their efforts to getting to us. Fortunately, the majority of the group was of the slow-moving variety and shuffled slowly in our direction. Well, at least it would have been fortunate if the soldiers on point had chosen to simply move around the slow-moving zombies rather than opening fire on them.

  As soon as Green and Wilmer started shooting, shells began flooding out of the surrounding buildings, and we got caught in the middle. Guns were blasting in every direction. Gone was any semblance of order that the platoon had previously displayed.

  “Cease fire!” the soldier next to me screamed. “Cease—” His last words got cut off by a bullet entering his throat.

  I was standing close enough to see the expression of utter shock on his face. He extended an arm as if seeking support from me but collapsed to the pavement without touching me. I tucked my pistol into the back of my pants and stared down at the motionless body of the young soldier for a moment before moving away.

  I looked around frantically at the scene and saw the soldiers had scattered. I saw numerous shells and a few military uniforms on the street. For the most part, the shells appeared to have been shot down. However, the constant explosion of an automatic weapon continued from the other end of the alley.

  Although I wanted nothing more to be out of this place and away from this massacre, I had to get to the truck and the poison, and the completion of my goal took me down the alley. That was where I went.

  I crept slowly down the side of the alley, out of sight of the shells and the soldiers. As I got further along, I caught the chilling sound of laughter between the blasts of the gun. I pictured Colonel Granger’s face drawn into an animal-like snarl before letting out a howl of maniacal laughter.

  That picture became real as I reached the end of the ally and looked at the dark, narrow street beyond. The colonel was standing atop a garbage dumpster on the sidewalk, waving his gun in the air and then lowering it to fire into the bodies now sprawled out below him.

  Amid all of the noise, somehow the colonel still managed to hear my arrival.

  As soon as he turned to look at me, I lunged behind a car at the curb about a half block from where he stood.

  “Turner!” He called as if greeting the guest of honor at a surprise party. “I’ve been waiting for you! You’re a bit late to the festivities, but I’m sure we can still manage a little fun.”

  He looked at me in a cold, calculating manner which made me recall the photos of serial killers I had seen while researching a feature on Ted Bundy. Granger had the same calm demeanor and expression of genuine compassion as the killer even while he was engaged in the most horrific acts.

  He held the gun above his head and regarded me in a way which made it seem the weapon posed no threat. It could have been a fishing pole, and the expression would not have been any different.

  “You don’t have to hide behind that car you know. The shells are gone. The danger has been eradicated,” he paused for a moment. “Although with the way these things keep coming back, you just never know, do you?” He released another howl of laughter that echoed down the street and made my head ache.

  “You killed your own men,” I called to him, still crouching behind the car.

  From where I crouched at the back of the car, I could only catch a glimpse of the colonel. He appeared to be extremely agitated by my words.

  His mouth moved a few times as if forming words, but no sound came out. Finally, he said, “No, I didn’t kill my men! Those were not my men!” He fired a few more rounds into the corpses which convulsed as they were struck. “I know that they looked like my men. I was fooled for a little while. But then I became able to hear the voices; the sounds that came from them when they didn’t think I was listening. The fools didn’t know I was listening to all the things said behind my back, things about how I was losing it and didn’t know what was going on.” He shook his head and then looked at me with a big grin. “That’s why I need you Turner.”

  The look of amazement must have been clear on my face as I stood to face him.

  “Well, you’re a writer, a reporter, right?”

  “Yes, but what has—“

  “Once the world gets put back in order, like I’m sure it will, I need someone like you to set the record straight. You know what I mean?” One glance at me showed him I had no idea what he meant. He continued with a hint of exasperation. “When the world is back in shape, there’s going to be an awful lot of horseshit spread around about how everything went down. Quite simply, I don’t want anything that happened…” He nodded his head toward the bodies in the street. “I don’t want any of my actions to be misconstrued. Do you follow me, Turner?”

  I stared at him, considering my words for a moment before answering. “So you want me to cover up the whole thing? Make up some bullshit story about what happened?” I grinned back at the colonel.

  To my surprise, Granger let out another of his bellowing laughs and practically fell over with the tremors moving through his body. Once he managed to get control of himself, he answered, “Well, when you put it that way, it sounds bad.” He snorted. “No, I’m not asking you to lie about what happened. It’s more like airbrushing, you know? I mean, you don’t believe all those naked girls in the magazines really look like that, do you? Everyone’s got pimples and warts and scars that mark us. But with a little airbrushing, all those little things that keep us from being perfect can simply be kept out of sight. No one needs to know about the little imperfections. It’s more important to preserve the image…” His words trailed off as if he had lost interest or forgotten that he had been speaking.

  “So you want me to preserve your image by airbrushing this under the rug?”

  Whether it was from my play on words or something else, the colonel suddenly seemed reenergized. He smiled broadly. “Hell, you’re probably right. It’s a dumb idea. So I’ll have to go with Plan B, which is to just kill everybody.”

  As soon as the words left his mouth, Granger lowered his rifle and spun in my direction, spraying a trail of rounds into the car in front of me. I dove to the ground and somehow managed to escape the gunfire. As I lie there on the ground listening for any sound that would give me a clue as to what the colonel was doing, I felt the gun tucked in the back of my pants. As ridiculous as it sounds, I had actually forgotten all about it. Now, as I sat up and held the pistol in my hands, it gave me a little more confidence, but not much. I knew that Granger had much more experience handling weapons than I could ever imagine. More than likely, he would mow me down before I got off a single shot. Still, the mere fact that I had a weapon brought me a little hope.

  “Turner, you okay?” Granger asked with a sort of giggle. “I bet writing a nice story about how Colonel Jerome Granger acted valiantly in the face of complete chaos is sounding better about now, isn’t it?” He paused, and I imagined he was waiting for me to respond so that he would know where to unload another stream of bullets. “It doesn’t really matter when you think about it. I mean, without any witnesses, I can pretty much say whatever I want to say. Who’s going to contradict me?” He stopped again.

  I moved slowly to another car and got a little closer to where he stood on the dumpster. I held the pistol in my hand and knew in order to hit anything I would have to get as close as possible. I crept up to a gap between the cars and got a pretty good view of the colonel.

  He was standing straight and still and obviously listening to catch the slightest sound that would give
him a clue as to my location.

  After a moment, he smiled and said, “I can almost picture the look of sadness on that little girl of yours when I tell her how her daddy got torn apart by those monsters. It’s sure going to be tough on her, but I’ll make sure to take good care of her. Oh, and that sweet young thing that you’re sticking it to. She’s going to need a whole lot of attention, just to help her through this rough patch.” I heard his snickers as he taunted me. “Let’s see, you came in with that black kid too, right? Can’t say I got much use for him. But no matter, the world’s a dangerous place and accidents happen all the time.”

  Although my brain recognized that the colonel’s strategy was to goad me into showing myself, the rest of me refused to be still while he joked about stealing my family. I moved as slowly and quietly as possible to the space between the cars. I raised the gun and held it pointed at Granger’s chest. I knew that I would only get one shot, and the colonel would kill me if I didn’t manage to kill him first.

  I looked over the top of the pistol and lined up the barrel until the general stood in the middle of the little metal V. I held my breath and leaned against one of the cars to steady myself. The car let out a small squeak from my weight. Unfortunately, it proved enough to draw Granger’s attention.

  He spun, pointed the gun at me and smiled with surprise. “Have you got a weapon, Turner?” He laughed. “Well, do you know how to use it? Because I’m guessing that you don’t. Anybody with the capability to use a firearm would have certainly used it by now.” He shook his head in amusement. “No, most definitely, you don’t know how to use that weapon. And I can’t find fault really. I mean you worked as a newspaper reporter. Not much need for shooting a weapon when you’re covering the latest city council meeting or doing a hard-hitting story on the new bicycle trail at the park. But me on the other hand, I have a whole shitload of experience with a wide range of weapons. It’s my job!” The colonel screamed. “Now, lower your weapon before you hurt yourself.”