Slow Burn: Zero Day, Book 1

by Bobby Adair

  I flung the window open wide and leaned out. I yelled, waved my arms, and pointed, but the tunnel vision that focuses your attention on the mortal threat right in front of you, prevented them from noticing me.

  I vainly yelled some more as the infected behind the soldiers closed the gap.

  I raised my rifle and pointed it toward the now solid mass of infected flowing between the buildings behind the soldiers. There were thousands.

  I pulled the trigger and a burst of several bullets ripped toward the horde. Whether I hit anything or whether the mass flowed over my downed targets, I couldn’t tell. The mob surged ahead in blind hungry rage.

  I fired again.

  Jerome’s lips were in my ear, yelling. “Don’t! They can’t know we’re here!”

  Whether he was talking about the soldiers or the infected, I didn’t know or care in that moment.

  The soldiers, like the ones the night before, were going to get slaughtered. I had to help.

  I fired again but the soldiers were already doomed.

  The first of the flanking infected jumped on one of the soldiers from behind. The soldiers beside the downed soldier turned and saw the horde coming. I tried not to imagine the terror he must have been feeling.

  I thought to run downstairs, swing the dormitory door open, and find a way to get the soldiers to come in, but they were surrounded before I completed the thought.

  The soldiers’ formation collapsed as they tried to retreat under the onslaught, but there was nowhere to go.

  The frequency of gunshots rapidly diminished as one by one the soldiers fell.

  I pulled my gun back in the window, squatted, and watched the horror of another eight humans getting shredded and eaten by a mob of rabid monsters.

  “Jesus Christ,” I muttered.

  “I told you,” Jerome said. “It gets ugly.”

  I turned my back to the wall, set my rifle down, put my face in my hands, and leaned back. There were tears in my eyes. The shock of what I’d just seen had gotten to me; all that I’d seen was getting at me. I had to get my emotions under control. I had to toughen up if I was going to survive.

  The ogre and the harpy.

  The ogre and the harpy.

  They were shitty parents, but if anybody was emotionally prepared to deal with the world the way it was at that moment, it should have been me.

  Chapter 19

  Not far away, four or maybe five blocks, the sound of another battle echoed through the gaps in the buildings. Whether the gunfire represented a failed rescue attempt for the soldiers in the quad or another doomed hunting party, I would never know. All of the infected who couldn’t squeeze themselves close enough to a dead soldier for a meal turned their attention to the sound of the new gunfire and ran off in that direction.

  “How can there be so many, so fast?” I said.

  “I told you what Kenya was like.”

  I nodded like I understood. Sure, I’d heard his description, but I hadn’t assimilated it. I didn’t believe it could be that bad.

  “Do you know how many people are in Austin?”

  “In the city limits, or in the area?” I asked.

  “Diseases don’t see political boundaries,” Jerome responded.

  “A million, maybe more.”

  “You can round off the numbers any way you want, but if there aren’t around a million infected out there right now, there will be by the end of the week.”

  “That’s a pretty bleak outlook,” I observed.

  “I’m just telling you what I know.”

  “You don’t think––”

  Jerome interrupted me, “No. I don’t think. There is no hope. There is no cure. There is no way to stop it or slow it down.”

  “Is that the CDC’s position, or your opinion?”

  “It doesn’t matter right now, does it?”

  “Yes, it does. It tells us what we need to plan for.” Regardless of how much I agreed, I didn’t want to let go of the hope that this wasn’t the end. I liked drinking beer on Saturday night. I liked watching football. I liked casual sex. I loved air conditioning. I liked living without fear.

  “Plan for the worst.”

  I turned my attention back out the window.

  We sat there and silently watched the infected feed.

  After a while, I said, “We’ll need more weapons and more ammo.”

  Jerome nodded. “Are you going down again?”

  “Of course.” I made little effort to mask my irritation.

  “I don’t think you’ll get shot at again,” Jerome told me. “I doubt there are any soldiers around that would mistake you for a zombie or a looter or whatever. It should be safe.”

  “Provided the infected don’t eat me.” More sarcasm.

  “They didn’t last time. It should be safe,” Jerome countered.

  “But I’m still going.”

  “I could go, Zed. But you and I both know the unfortunate truth. I’m an epidemiologist. Expertise like mine isn’t going to be easy to come by in the future. If we as a society ever want to have a chance at returning to normal, we’re going to need people like me. You decide, Zed. I’ll go if you want me to.”

  I turned away and picked up my MOLLE vest. I wished I’d taken the time the night before to rinse it off in one of the shower stalls. At least the blood on it was dry. It was serviceable.

  As I checked my ammunition clips, I told Jerome, “I agree that we need to prepare for the worst-case scenario. I thought about it a lot this morning.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I don’t know if this is where we’re going to end up for the long haul, but in the absence of an alternative, we need to hoard as much water, food, and ammunition as we possibly can. Do you know anything about this end of the world stuff? You don’t happen to be a closet survivalist, do you?”

  Jerome shook his head. “I’ve killed zombies in video games, but that’s about it.”

  “Did you grow up on a farm? Do you know anything about agriculture?”

  “No, nothing,” Jerome answered.

  I opened the door and said, “A couple of things. I think that if this really is going to get as bad as it looks right now, and if we manage to live through first six months or a year, you know what is going to make the difference between long-term survival or starvation?”

  “Lots of guns?” Jerome answered.

  “No.” How could this guy have a PhD in anything? “Information.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Jerome, we don’t know jack about how to take care of ourselves once the grocery stores empty out. We don’t know how to farm. We don’t know how to hunt. We don’t know how to preserve food. We don’t know to how purify water. We don’t know anything about providing for ourselves that doesn’t involve a grocery store, an electric bill, or the internet.

  “We need to gather up as much information on those subjects as we possibly can, before the internet goes down and we’re stuck with nothing.”

  “But what good will it do in digital form? There won’t be any electricity.”

  It was time to talk to him like he was a child. “Jerome, there are solar chargers for laptops out there. We just need to find them. Hell, maybe we can even set up some solar panels on the roof and have electricity. But we don’t have any idea how to install that stuff. Jerome, my point is that we can download a ton of information onto a flash drive. We’ll be able to work out a way to read it later when we need it, but we need to find a way to get busy on that as soon as possible.”

  Jerome nodded. “Yeah. I agree.”

  “Oh, and one more thing. I’m not going to prop the door open downstairs with all of the infected running around. They could wander in here.”

  “And?”

  “Jerome, you need to come downstairs and mind the door while I go outside. If I come running back in a big hurry again, you need to be ready to open it up for me.”

  Jerome just looked at me for several long moments as though I’d spoken an
other language.

  “Jerome?”

  “Who’s going to keep an eye on Murphy?”

  “We have bigger problems than Murphy right now. I need your help here Jerome.”

  “Yeah, fine. I’ll take care of the door for you.”

  “Then grab your gun and c’mon. Do you know how to work it yet?”

  “I pull the trigger.”

  “Did you figure out how to change the clips last night, and turn the safety on and off?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “I hope so. Our lives are going to depend on these guns.”

  “Yeah,” Jerome conceded. “I know.”

  By the time we got downstairs, most of the infected had wandered off to chase other noises and presumably other prey. There were less than a few dozen in the quad, squabbling over the scraps of the dead.

  “Are you ready for this?” I asked.

  Jerome looked through the glass at the carnage in the quad and nodded nervously.

  “Okay,” I said, “When I go out, don’t let the door slam behind me. I don’t want too much attention.”

  “Okay.”

  Fear elevated my heart rate, moistened my palms, and hastened my breathing.

  I chanted my new mantra in my head. The ogre and the harpy. The ogre and the harpy.

  There was no telling what might happen when I went out. Rational thought told me that the infected weren’t interested in eating me, but the world had just changed. I needed to change my assumptions along with it. My assumption last night that people wouldn’t randomly shoot at me had nearly gotten me killed.

  I drew a deep breath and pushed on the door handle. “Here goes.”

  I walked slowly out of the building, across the sidewalk, and into the grass. I wanted zero attention.

  The ogre and the harpy.

  Only a few infected were left at the carcass of the first soldier I came to. I gathered up all that looked useful: another AR-15, more ammunition, and a radio. The infected showed some interest in me at first, but realized quickly enough that I was one of them. My skin was pale. My eyes were dilated, like theirs. I wondered if I’d end up like them. I shuddered at the thought.

  I went back to the door where Jerome waited. As planned, he opened the door and I dumped the goods on the floor inside.

  Jerome smiled and nodded at me. “Good job.”

  I smiled back, turned, and mouthed, “Fuck you, Jerome.” I headed out to scavenge the next dead soldier.

  By the time I arrived at what was left of the fourth soldier, I had a total of six full clips for my assault rifle, plus a pistol in a holster and three clips for it. An infected was trying to pull some bloody, meaty bones out of the soldier’s tactical vest. I grabbed the vest and wrestled with it, hoping to dislodge the infected and his prize. The vests, I had learned, held all the extra ammunition that the soldiers carried, plus other goodies.

  I heard a woman’s scream echo from a few blocks to the west. I immediately looked up, as did every infected head in the quad.

  While I squatted, frozen in the grass, evaluating the situation, the infected around me showed no evidence of such a paralyzing thought process. They were on their feet in an instant, heads swiveling to pinpoint the source of the sound.

  Several of the infected started moving toward the Chemistry building across and just down the street. Half of the rest followed at a walk or run. Many started to sprint.

  I shot a glance toward Jerome, looking for advice I guess, but I only saw a reflection on the tinted glass of the closed door.

  My survival instincts told me to run back to the door and get inside. With a live screaming human back in the picture, I had no idea what kind of feeding frenzy the infected might get into. I didn’t know if I’d get attacked.

  The scream echoed again, closer this time.

  “Shit.”

  No infected were near me; they were all moving in pursuit.

  I double-checked that the safety on my assault rifle was off and brought it up to my shoulder. I pointed it out in front of me, the same way I used to carry my paintball gun. I checked over each of my shoulders to ensure that there were no infected flanking me.

  I was safe for the moment.

  Chastising myself for the mistake I was sure I was making, I started walking toward the source of the sound. It was a fifty-foot breezeway cut through the building at its midpoint.

  A scream for help echoed out of the breezeway.

  The infected from the quad swarmed toward the opening. More came from up the street. Those that could, sprinted. The injured among them hobbled or crawled.

  The situation was clear. If the screamer came through that breezeway toward me, toward the hundreds of infected already running toward her, she was dead. They’d shred her before she made it to the street.

  I flipped the switch on my gun to full auto and without an intelligent, restraining thought, I squeezed the trigger.

  The ogre and the harpy.

  The infected I saw down my barrel fell. As the mass of them heard my gunfire, they skittered to a halt and turned toward me. I knew from watching the soldiers earlier that the balance of my life would be measured in seconds if I didn’t move my feet. The sound of my weapon would draw every infected from blocks around. Even if I did have enough ammunition to kill them all, they’d surround me—they’d come too fast.

  My thirty-round clip emptied. I ejected it, grabbed another from my vest and slapped it into the receiver. I mercilessly sent another thirty rounds into the horde moving in my direction.

  I put in another clip. I checked my flanks and pulled the trigger.

  No one came out. If someone had been running through, unless caught by the infected, they should have been out onto my side of the building.

  I lost hope and regretted my attempt to assist the screaming woman.

  I backpedaled, and shot at the infected closest to me. I prepared to make a dash for the dormitory door and safety.

  Movement to my left caught my eye. From around the end of the Chemistry building, just across the street from where I stood, a terrified girl came running.

  “Uh oh!” I immediately emptied another clip to buy some seconds.

  I ejected my clip and pushed in another as the girl started to cross the street. A half-dozen bloody infected pursued. She must have seen me as a chance to escape, because she ran right at me. I leveled my weapon at the infected behind her.

  The three closest fell to my fire. I missed the fourth and got the sixth. Just as she got to me and with number four crossing the street I fired another burst and his head exploded in a red mist. Number five tripped over the body. We had some time.

  The girl’s eyes were wide. She was gasping for air.

  “We need to move!” I told her, fear and excitement turned it into a yell. I spun and raced for the door. She didn’t need further direction, and stuck with me step for step.

  As we closed the distance to the door, I saw a few, then more infected coming up the gap between the buildings up ahead…the same gap they’d come through to get behind the dead soldiers in the quad.

  Panic was setting in as we reached the door. It didn’t swing open.

  “Damn it, Jerome!” I grabbed the handle and pulled.

  “Hurry!” the girl screamed.

  I pounded my fist on the glass. “Jerome!”

  “Hurry!”

  Chapter 20

  I put my back to the door and scanned the quad. Perhaps twenty infected had just come off the street in front of the Chemistry building and had rounded the corner off to our right.

  A half-dozen infected were coming up in front of us, angling across the quad from the gap between the buildings to our left.

  I could only think of one way out. “C’mon!”

  I ran directly at the six infected who were angling across the quad and hoped the girl had the courage to follow or the good sense to run the other way while the infected were focused on me.

  The gap closed between me and the
infected rushing at me. I put the rifle to my hip, came to a sudden stop not ten feet from the closest in the group, and fired. They all fell as the clip ran dry.

  I switched my clip and took out the closest of the pursuers behind. I shot another burst and realized that shooting more of the chasing infected was a futile effort. For each one shot, more filled in from those running up behind.

  “C’mon!” I shouted at the girl. It was going to be a foot race for our lives.

  I accelerated to a full sprint with the girl lagging behind. I slowed a tad, so that I didn’t leave her panicking and too far back.

  I headed for the far side of the gym and prayed that when I rounded the corner, I’d be welcomed with an empty plaza.

  I made it to the corner and overshot it at full speed. I didn’t want to make the turn blindly and step into the waiting arms of a lucky infected who might be there.

  Fortunately, there was not one. Aside from those that I’d shot coming across the quad, any others from that side of the gym must have run around the gym in the other direction when they heard the noise of the gun and the screams.

  The girl rounded the corner and she followed me toward the building’s entrance. The infected were getting close.

  We made it to the doors and I thanked God that they weren’t locked. I swung one open, motioned the girl toward the door on the other side of the wide hall that led onto the basketball court. I stopped, fretted over my choice for half a second, and gambled. I shoved the barrel of the rifle through the looped metal handles of the double doors, effectively barring them. That wouldn’t keep the infected out, but it would buy us some time.

  Just as I let go of the rifle, I heard the girl’s scream from inside on the court.

  “Shit!” I drew my pistol and ran through the doors and onto the waxed wooden floor.

  The girl had come to a stop just past the bleachers. I came in to see a bloody mess of bodies. Most were shot but not all were dead. None appeared to be completely mobile. Those that could move at all squirmed and crawled toward us.

  “Let’s go.” I led the girl across the gym, hoping to get behind the far bleachers before the infected mob broke through the doors and saw our escape path.