by Ray Wallace
Somehow, some way, Eric had managed to reach his sister’s house without becoming zombie food. Now here he was, wishing he’d done as the soldiers had told him—that he’d never come here in the first place.
His first night inside the house, he'd gone up to the attic and closed himself in, had managed to sleep despite the heat. He’d dreamed of Justine and Bill once again. But unlike all the times before, there had been no questions, no accusations. They’d thanked him for his efforts, for trying to find them. And after that, he dreamed of them no more.
"At least something good has come of all this."
Eric went to the living room window and peaked between the blinds. Not surprisingly, the dead were out there, wandering along the road in front of the house in the morning sunlight. Across the street, a half dozen of them were huddled together on their knees, feeding.
Backing away from the window, Eric retreated into the house, telling himself he had to leave, no matter what, that he couldn't stick around here any longer.
"Tonight," he told himself. "I leave tonight."
Decision made, he wandered through the house, looking for ways to kill time until nightfall.
Sunday, July 19th
Oh, Jesus. It's happening.
The realization came to her during a rare lucid moment when the pain, fatigue, and the mounting hunger subsided long enough for her to form a coherent thought. It felt as though ages had passed since the last of these moments. Although, she figured that, in reality, it had been no more than a few hours. She opened her eyes against the dull glow of the room's lighting, grunted at the spike of agony that inserted itself into her skull, moaned in relief when the worst of it subsided.
"Michael? Dylan? Jessica?" she cried out. Or tried to. Her throat felt as though it was coated in liquid fire and her breath came in short, searing gasps. All she could manage was a low rasping sound, barely audible to anyone who might be nearby. Her eyes rolled in their sockets until she took in the sight of the two figures standing close to the bed, one dressed in the dark suit of her protector, the other wearing the white jacket of a healer.
They have failed me.
It was unfair of her, she knew, but she couldn't help herself. Not surprisingly, her ordeal had left her feeling less than charitable.
"Madame President?"
She experienced another spike of pain through the skull as the man in the dark suit leaned over her.
"Michael?" she tried again. "Dylan... Jessica..."
The man nodded. "They're fine. Don't worry about them. You need to rest."
Her husband. Her children. Knowing they were okay brought her comfort.
But where were they?
She wanted to see them. Needed to see them.
And then she remembered...
Daniel had gotten sick. Then the children.
"No."
She tried to sit up.
"Madam President..."
She couldn't move. Padded restraints at her wrists and ankles, hips and shoulders held her in place. They'd tied her down! Lied to her. She'd see them imprisoned for this. No, worse. She'd see them executed.
"We couldn't take any chances,” said the man in the suit apologetically.
They were afraid of her, of what she might do, of what she would become.
And just like that, the anger faded as the fear rushed in, her near constant companion these past several days. Although, in actuality, the fear had been with her longer than that—ever since those first reports of the plague, the stories of what the disease was doing to the country. Her country. The one she'd sworn to protect.
She had done as Doctor Anders had suggested. And then some. With the aid of Congress, she'd grounded all non-essential flights. Blockaded key shipping ports. Set up military "firewalls" around several cities that—at the time—had yet to experience significant zombie activity. She had ordered most of an entire state sealed off from the rest of the country. Imposed martial law where necessary. Called up all reservists and brought most of the troops home from overseas. Gave the Army carte blanche to do whatever it took to suppress the outbreak.
She could only hope it was enough.
Her thoughts became cloudy once again, tinged with the red haze of corruption that had usurped her mind, body, and soul.
“Madame President.”
The Secret Service agent said something else that she couldn't understand over the roaring, rushing sound filling her head. This man who would have taken a bullet for her. The same man who'd promised to put her down if or when the disease eventually killed her, after it brought her back as something no longer human.
She felt a pinch along the inside of her arm, knew the doctor had injected her with the latest experimental treatment the CDC scientists had cooked up. As with all the times before, she felt certain it would have little to no effect on the disease currently raging within her.
No more, she thought as her mind unraveled, as the fear and the red haze washed over her. Let this be the end.
Then she stopped thinking altogether.
Monday, July 20th
Susanna ended up staying in the "quarantine house”—as she'd come to think of it—for two extra days. During her third day there, she'd come down with a cough that morphed into a full-blown chest cold over the following twenty-four hours. Lawrence had insisted she remain outside the wall for a little longer than the week they had initially agreed upon, "to be on the safe side." She'd protested, telling him he was being overly cautious, that this perfectly terrestrial illness had neither the means nor the desire to turn her into one of the living dead. Her arguments had fallen on deaf ears. And, truth be told, if she were in his position she would have handled the situation in much the same way.
During her time in the quarantine house, she spent a good part of each day working—that is, when she wasn't too sick to work. Even then, when she was at her worst, she still found the energy to log into Lawrence's ultra-secure internet feed and check in on her various business interests. This was an activity for which her enthusiasm had waned with each passing day. Not because she felt under the weather. No, it had more to do with the impact of the superflu on the global economy and, by extension, her considerable fortune.
As the U.S. goes, so goes the world.
It was a familiar saying among the various members of her admittedly limited social circle. And, for the most part, it was true, even throughout the recent decades when much of the money had shifted with increasing regularity from the United States to Asian markets. Any sudden and significant hit to the U.S. economy would have a negative, sometimes disastrous impact on global markets. And to say that the U.S. economy had taken a hit in recent weeks would have been the understatement of the century.
When she'd first entered the quarantine house, her fortunes had been diminishing along the order of millions of dollars per day. By mid-week, the rate of loss had increased to millions per hour.
"You're not alone, my dear," Lawrence had told her, his smiling face staring at her from the screen of her laptop. "Far from it. I think it's time you've fully embraced the reality of the situation."
During that particular moment, she'd felt the urge to throw the laptop against the wall, to shut Lawrence up, to break his smiling visage. But she'd refrained, just barely.
"And what, exactly, is this reality I've failed to embrace?"
If it was possible, his smile grew even wider.
"Haven't you noticed? It's the end of the world as we know it. All bets are off. Nothing will ever be the same again."
Later in the week, a zombie had paid her a visit during the worst of her illness.
She'd been lying on the couch, a bit loopy from the cold medicine she'd found in a cabinet in the bathroom—it seemed that Lawrence had thought of everything. As she stared out the window offering a view of the grounds in front of the house, the zombie—a young woman with long, badly tangled hair—had approached and stared in at her. They had locked gazes, the dead woman's eyes red and glass
y, filled with the hunger that drove her. The zombie raised its hands and inserted them between the bars over the window, pressing her palms against the glass.
“Plexiglas,” Susanna had been assured. "As an extra level of security."
The dead woman brought her face close to the bars, saliva running out of her mouth and dripping off of her chin.
With a groan, Susanna had gotten up from the couch and pulled the curtains over the window. Then she had lain back down and eventually dozed off. When she awoke a few hours later, the zombie had been nowhere to be seen.
By the time Lawrence relented and let her inside the wall surrounding the main part of the estate, Susanna felt genuine gratitude. Not that she'd had a rough time of it—aside from dealing with her illness—in the quarantine house. No, far from it. She'd been comfortable and well fed during her stay there. But even though she knew she'd been safe, she'd felt vulnerable on her own like that, couldn't help but imagine herself exposed to the myriad dangers that had made their way into the world in recent weeks.
And so, despite her financial woes and the generally disastrous state of the world, she whistled a jaunty little tune as she left the quarantine house, as she made her way toward the bridge that would take her over the moat and to the gate at the far side. And she told herself that if this was, in fact, the end of the world as she knew it, by being here she had about as good a chance to live through it as anyone.
Tuesday, July 21st
Forty-three people—good brothers and sisters along with their children—had gotten on the bus at the beginning of their journey. Twenty-seven remained. The bus had managed to take them several miles from the interstate where they'd been surrounded by significant numbers of the unholy dead. Somewhere along the way, however, it suffered damage to one of its axles—not all that surprisingly as Brother Randall had been driving with what could be described as "wild abandon," not that anyone could blame him given the circumstances. So they were forced to leave the vehicle behind and set off on foot. A dire situation, unquestionably, although Pastor Lewis had tried to assure everyone it was not as bad as it seemed. He knew he had to maintain order, that things were bound to get even worse if people gave in to their terror. They had to keep their wits about them, remain calm, and continue to push onward while they tried to figure out a solution to their dilemma. And, of course, put their faith in the Lord.
They had been following a two lane road, walking along the shoulder with a number of refugees—how else to classify them?—when they were beset by another sizable force of the Devil spawn. And this time they did not have the metal walls of the bus to protect them. Only a few among them carried firearms. They were a good, God-fearing group of people, after all, ill-versed in the ways of violence or self-defense for the most part. However, many of the strangers they walked with had chosen to arm themselves. When the shouting and the shooting started, Pastor Lewis gave the order to run.
With a backward glance, he witnessed the utter disregard the zombies had for their own well-being, intent as they were on attacking the living and satiating their hunger. In a panic, the shooters fired with wild abandon, the kill shots few and far between. Still, the dead were slow, allowing much of Pastor Lewis's group to escape. All told, though, they lost nearly a dozen people during those frenzied moments, mostly those near the rear of the pack, the sick and the old among them. The pastor felt each of those deaths as a mark upon his soul, a personal failure for which he might never be redeemed.
And the horror didn't end there.
Nearly every day they lost more people, not all of them due to zombie attacks, either. Several of them succumbed to the illness, had to be left behind or "put down”—a term that Brother Randall used—when it was obvious the unholy transformation was upon them.
"Please," a young man named Darren had begged while he could still express himself coherently. "Don't let me become one of those demons. I can't bear the thought of it."
Brother Randall had offered to take care of it, to be the one to set each of these people free, to grant them access to God's eternal light.
"Are you sure?" Pastor Lewis had asked, wondering what the right decision was here, knowing he hadn't the luxury of time to think about it, to pray on it.
"I'm sure."
Randall used a knife he'd brought with him. A single, efficient thrust up through the back of the neck and it was over.
A week went by, one grueling hour at a time. They moved northward, relying on the charity of strangers for shelter, food, and water whenever they could get it. With each passing day, the size of their group diminished. Pastor Lewis wondered how many of them would be left by the time they got where they were going, wherever that might be.
Somewhere safe. Somewhere we can rest and seek guidance from the Lord.
They spent seven days like that, fleeing the worst of the plague on foot. Until...
A weathered old church with a sagging roof appeared at the end of a tree-lined stretch of road. When Pastor Lewis saw the wooden cross on the front of the building, he took it as a sign from God and announced to his people, those who were still with him, that they would be stopping there.
"We'll need to secure it," Brother Randall said. "Board over the windows. Brace the doors. And we'll need supplies."
"I'll leave you in charge of it," the pastor told him. "You've proven yourself plenty resourceful so far. And I must pray."
He entered the building, disturbing several pigeons with his presence, watched as they disappeared through a wide hole in the ceiling. After making his way to the altar—remarkably intact—he fell to his knees and opened his mind, heart, and soul to the Lord, begged Him for guidance, strength, and forgiveness.
“Oh, Lord, send me a sign,” he whispered. “Show me the way forward, the path to salvation.”
Wednesday, July 22nd
Dear Diary,
I've made a friend! His name is Luke. Luke DeMatteis. He's fifteen years old and from a town near Miami. And cute! Oh, my God, he has the bluest eyes I've ever seen. We met just a few hours ago in the courtyard. He's a new arrival. Like, the newest of the new arrivals along with Gina—who I've already told you about—and Aaron and Roger and Mandy. They all seem nice enough, but they're all... you know... old. Gina's twenty-three and, until Luke came along, was the youngest besides myself. It feels good to have someone else my own age around. Especially someone like Luke. He's funny, actually made me laugh for the first time since...
No, I'm not going there. Not right now. I don't even want to think about it because I've spent too much time crying already.
So...
Like me, the others can't get sick. Or, at least they haven't so far. And, like me, they've been given a bunch of tests. They've also been told they're part of the plan to stop this thing, this plague, before too many more people have to die. When Aaron first got here, he said it was all a bunch of "horse shit." That “our captors,” as he likes to call them, have no idea what they're doing, no idea what they're up against.
"You think this was all a coincidence? Some sort of cosmic accident?" I've heard him say this sort of stuff several times now. "It's an invasion. Mark my words. This is just round one. When we're all but wiped out, when we have no chance of defending ourselves, that's when they'll arrive. The aliens. And people like us, the ones who didn't get sick, the ones who just happened to be naturally resistant... We're going to be their slaves."
Roger told Aaron to shut up, that he didn't know what he was talking about, that he was just some crazy conspiracy theorist. At some point he gave up, though, told Gina and me when Aaron wasn't around that it was pointless to argue with a guy like that.
Even with all the drama, it's good to be around people again, to have someone to talk to. Especially people who don't want to prod you and stick you with needles in an attempt to save the world. And if there's one thing everyone can agree on, it's that the world's in some serious need of saving.
"As far as I know, they're all dead,” Luke told me
the first time we were alone together. “My mom. My two brothers. Dead or..."
He couldn't say the last part.
"They were sick. Everyone was sick. I went for help. Found some soldiers. Next thing I knew, I was in a helicopter flying out of there. And now I'm here. Safe for now, I guess. But who knows how much longer?"
The others had similar stories. Everyone had lost people close to them. The fact that we could relate to one another made things... not easy, no. But easier, at least.
It's been a few days since I've seen Doctor Anders.
"I think she's in on it," Aaron told us. "One of their agents. Trying to figure out why we're resistant so they can design a new bug to take us out."
Roger had laughed and shook his head. "I thought we were going to be their slaves."
"Yeah, well..."
Roger's right. The guy does sound crazy. But I think this has made us all a little crazy. Just look at me, crushing on a boy after everything that's happened. There must be something wrong with me. Right?
All that matters now, though, is that I'm not alone anymore, that I've got people I can talk to. Friends. Mandy and Gina have been great. Mandy in particular. I don't know how she stays so positive all the time.
“You watch, they'll figure this thing out. I just know it.”
And who knows? Maybe they will.
Thursday, July 23rd
It looked as though she'd gotten out just in time.
The news coming out of California wasn't good. Rachel had been obsessed with staying current in regards to the unfolding chaos laying claim to her home state, particularly the major metropolitan areas along the Pacific coastline. Each morning, she'd wake up and use her laptop to go online and read several different news publications, the stories referencing the San Francisco area in particular.