That’s how it had begun. One morning mankind had gone about its business, oblivious to the fate that awaited it. That night, the vampires had released the virus-infected humans on mankind. Twenty-four hours later, society had begun to sound its death knell.
The first zombies had been a fucking nightmare. Recently reanimated, the bodies had only just started to decay, which meant they were still relatively limber. As a result, the initial attacks by these zombies, or swarmers, had been fast and vicious. They had descended on humans like packs of rabid dogs. As weeks and months passed and decay set in, the zombies had slowed down, their attacks becoming more rambling and less deadly. By that time, though, the damage had already been done and the zombies had overwhelmed humanity.
Air travel had been banned on the third day when an outbreak occurred on a trans-Atlantic flight from London to New York. A passenger had snuck past security, concealing that he had been bitten on the thigh, and turned half-way across the Atlantic. Every terrifying moment had been captured on video cell phones and transmitted to the BBC until the amateur cameramen became food. The following day, most countries had closed their borders to all types of international travel. Mass evacuations had jammed the roadways out of most cities, making travel around urban centers virtually impossible. The situation had grown so bad that FOX Business News had dedicated its entire coverage to reporting on traffic and road conditions around the country.
The virus had spread most rapidly in dense urban populations. Within a week, the world’s largest cities had succumbed to the rotter holocaust, carried live by around-the-clock cable news. The images would remain scarred into Robson’s memory forever. Tokyo in flames. Military units in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square gunning down living and living dead alike. Moscow’s Red Square filled with tens of thousands of swarmers. Zombies crowding the base of the Eiffel Tower trying to get to the handful of survivors left on the structure. New Yorkers trapped and slaughtered along the Hudson River by hordes of swarmers, the river turning crimson with blood and body parts. Marine One lifting off the White House lawn, carrying the First Family to safety as Washington crumbled around them.
Then cable news had begun going off the air. Most of the correspondents had fallen victim to the swarmers, or to the gangs and thugs that took advantage of the downfall. A few had died on camera while filming, which would have been fantastic for ratings if anyone cared about such shit anymore. Slowly, one by one, as the world’s cities fell to the living dead, the cable news shows had gone silent, followed shortly thereafter by the local channels. An involuntary news blackout had descended across the world. By the third week, the main source of information came from short wave radio, which the survivors used to keep in touch.
The ones who had survived had been those smart enough to choose the right location to hold out in and who had the courage to cull the infected from their ranks. For the most part these had consisted of secure military facilities, although some civilian enclaves made it through the initial holocaust. The walled, medieval island city of Mont St. Michel off the coast of France. The underground bunker complex built beneath Moscow to withstand nuclear war. The Crimea, until the rotters had learned how to walk under water and had waded ashore near Sebastopol.
Less populated areas had come through relatively unscathed, at least in the beginning. Thousands who had made it to mountain regions found themselves safe from the living dead, but died en masse from exposure during that first winter. Other areas had fared much better. Most of the smaller Pacific islands. Siberia. The Australian outback. Africa, although by last accounts the continent faced an imminent invasion from millions of rotters wandering south from the Arabian Peninsula.
And the American Midwest. After abandoning Washington, the President had set up a government-in-exile at Northern Command Headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska. Needing to face the reality that zombies had overrun most of the nation, the President had made the necessary but unpopular decision to write off the two coasts and the urban centers along the borders, and had established a defensive perimeter in the relatively untouched center of the country. The Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi River formed natural barriers, although the latter had to be fortified with hundreds of miles of fence and barbed wire to deter any rotters that crossed the river. With the east and west flanks relatively secure, the President had sent every physically-able man and woman north and south to stop the zombies. Most had never even held a firearm before, let alone possessed military training. This makeshift army had set up defensive positions on whatever terrain they could find – interstates, rivers, high ground – and fought until forced to fall back or overwhelmed. As of a month ago, the northern boundary of the uninfected United States ran through northern Wyoming and South Dakota to just south of Cedar Rapids. The southern boundary followed a meandering line north of Flagstaff, Albuquerque, Oklahoma City, and Little Rock.
Robson found all this out much later. In those first few weeks, he had been preoccupied with trying to maintain order in Kennebunkport. That had been tough enough with television’s round-the-clock coverage of the fall of civilization. Most town folk had preferred to stay put, reasoning that the Zombie Virus would burn itself out before it reached this far north. This had suited Robson just fine since that meant he only had to contend with the steady stream of traffic on I-95 racing north to the supposed safety of Canada and Nova Scotia. Everything seemed under control until a military helicopter had flown in one night to transport the former President and his family to safety. The tenuous order collapsed in hours.
With that collapse had come the unraveling of the bonds of humanity that used to hold society together. The sheriff and two of his deputies had abandoned the town before dawn, taking most of the firearms and ammo with them and leaving the people to fend for themselves. One of the deputies had stopped by the local gas station to gas up his SUV and stockpile supplies, demanded not to pay for any of it since he was law enforcement, and shot the store owner in the head three times when he refused. That act of cowardice had set off a firestorm of violence. Town folk Robson had known for his entire life turned on each other. Dozens of vehicle accidents and fist fights had erupted on the roads out of Kennebunkport as everyone tried to escape at once. Anyone who had a means of transportation out of the area, or food and water, had become targets for those who failed to adequately prepare for the evacuation. The number of assaults in town had quadrupled overnight and, as the rotters drew closer, the murder rates had spiked. The once quiet coastal community had devolved out of control, overwhelming what little law enforcement stayed behind. Robson and the last few deputies had lingered just long enough to warn the remaining citizens that they should seek the safety of a less populated area. Then they had gathered up whatever supplies they could muster, wished each other luck, and got the hell out of town.
He and Susan had headed west for either Vermont or upstate New York. In retrospect, he should have paid more attention to the news. If he had, he might have chosen a better escape route. They made it as far as Newington, just outside of Portsmouth, where bogged-down traffic blocked their path. Before he could figure a way around the jam, the cars had been set upon by swarmers. Their only choice had been to set out on foot.
Sweat poured down Robson’s face and soaked his shirt. The rapid, shallow breathing and racing heartbeat constricted his diaphragm, making him feel as if his chest would cave in. He jerked upright on his cot, planting his feet on the steel floor and breathing deep, trying to calm the anxiety attack. Slowly his breathing and heart rate returned to normal. It happened every time he recalled that afternoon, which was why he tried to block out that memory. He had replayed the events a thousand times in his mind. Other drivers and passengers being overrun by swarmers, dragged to the ground, ripped open, and eaten alive. The screams of the living and the moans of the living dead. Susan, frozen in terror, refusing to open the car door, wasting valuable seconds as the swarmers approached. Himself yanking her out with one hand while shooting swarmers with the othe
r. Susan plodding along, whining that he was running too fast. Running too fast? Jesus Christ, they had been running for their fucking lives.
Robson chastised himself for constantly revisiting that day. Each time he did, he told himself that what had happened had not been his fault, and each time his conscience would not allow him to accept that. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on the sound of the surf through his tiny window as it crashed on the rocks below the fort wall. Robson lifted the cigarette to his lips for a much-needed nicotine fit, pissed to discover that the tobacco had burned itself out during his attack. He tossed it aside and massaged his sweaty forehead.
The days following the swarmer attack in Newington still remained a blur to him. Somehow he had survived and headed back to Kennebunkport, staying to the back roads where zombie activity was minimal. Eventually he had stumbled upon Fort McClary, where Paul had already established the camp and gathered survivors. Robson had joined them and, because he was a sheriff’s deputy, Paul had placed him in charge of the raiding party sent out to gather supplies. It had taken a couple of months, and more trips into rotter territory than he cared to remember, before they had transformed the fort from a tourist attraction into a semi-modern and viable camp to sit out the apocalypse.
Despite their relatively safe situation, an underlying uneasiness had filtered through the camp. Distrust would be a better word. Having faith in other people proved difficult enough after watching civilization come crashing down around them and witnessing mankind default to its basest instincts. That distrust had been most pronounced among the women who arrived at camp, especially those who had experienced their own sexual hells while on the road. Everyone who had stepped foot into camp had no idea what to expect, and had been relieved when Paul had demanded nothing more than that those who stay provide their fair share of the work. But after those few first months of the Zombie Virus, trust had been the toughest emotion to rebuild.
What little trust Paul had been able to restore had been severely put to the test when he had allowed the vampires to join their ranks, especially since they had been the ones to release the Zombie Virus on mankind. Paul had argued that the humans needed to put the past behind them and unite forces against the greater threat. He had explained that the vampires significantly increased their fighting capability and would be a minimal strain on resources given that they had agreed to feed off of the livestock. No one had believed the bullshit. In those rare candid moments shared between one another, most people at camp had thought that at best Paul was being naïve and probably would get them all killed. But Paul ran the camp, so everyone had reluctantly agreed to admit the vampires, although Robson felt certain that most of the others carried a wooden stake and kept it under their pillows at night.
In time, the vampires had proven they were not a threat to the camp. At least not an immediate threat. They had accompanied Robson’s raiding party on every nighttime run and, as Paul predicted, had greatly increased the party’s strength. He personally knew of half a dozen people who owed their lives to a vampire. In time, much of the camp accepted their presence, and he increasingly found wooden stakes discarded with the rest of the camp’s garbage. As the months passed, the mutual distrust between the vampires and humans had slowly eroded and both sides had settled into a routine that gave them some semblance of a normal life.
Until today. Something did not settle right with Robson when Paul ordered them to rescue Compton’s party from Portsmouth. He could not quite put his finger on it, but that did not matter. One thing you learn as a sheriff’s deputy is to trust your instincts. In this case, they were spot on. By rescuing Compton, they had brought into camp the man responsible for creating the virus that had caused the apocalypse in the first place.
Robson’s instincts told him nothing good could come of this.
Chapter Four
Natalie crouched on the top of the fort wall for several minutes after the rescue party and those they saved climbed out of their vehicles and entered the compound. She ignored the commotion created by their arrival, though she did take a few quick glances at Robson. Slowly the others filtered through the gated tunnel into camp, heading back to their containers or to the blockhouse for breakfast. This was the only safe environment they now knew. Natalie, however, did not have the luxury of feeling secure. She scanned the tree line and the main entrance off of Route 103 for signs of rotter activity. Or for humans watching them from a distance. She knew all too well that not all of the dangers they faced came from the living dead.
Several minutes passed, and Natalie saw nothing that posed a threat to the camp. She glanced over her shoulder, hoping to catch another glimpse of Robson, but he had left the area. Below her, Hodges and his motor pool staff checked out the returned vehicles, making sure they were filled with gasoline and ready to roll in case the camp needed to be evacuated quickly.
Natalie stood up, groaning as her muscles strained against the stiffness caused by crouching for so long. She massaged her legs through the leather pants and worked out the kinks. Breakfast would be served for another forty-five minutes, so she decided to walk the perimeter wall and check for anything that required attention.
As Natalie made her way along the wall, she secretly hoped to find something out of the ordinary. A breach in the outer perimeter fence or a structural defect in the fort wall. A stray rotter that had made its way through the barbed wire. Anything that would keep her distracted. Distraction was good because it occupied her mind and repressed the memories, memories that were as clear and disturbing as if they had happened yesterday.
Natalie owed her life to an impulsive act. She used to be a reader for a large literary agency in New York City. The day before the outbreak began, she had decided to drive up to Maine to surprise her lover, Dave, who owned a real estate agency in Portland. They had spent the first night together making love and sleeping in each other’s arms, blissfully unaware of the unfolding apocalypse. Next morning, after some more love making, they had switched on television during breakfast and sat transfixed as the news carried live coverage of the end of the world. For close to forty-eight hours she and Dave had sat glued to the set, hoping the infection would burn itself out or be contained, and life would return to some semblance of normalcy. That hope had died with video images of zombies filing across the bridges out of Manhattan, and of the military blowing up the pedestrian-choked spans in a futile attempt to stem the virus’ spread.
When Boston fell on the fourth day, Dave had decided they were no longer safe in Maine and had opted to head north to Nova Scotia where the combination of cold weather and isolation should keep zombie activity at a minimum. Gathering supplies for the trip, though, had proven nearly as dangerous as being exposed to the infection. By then, most of the grocery and convenience stores had been stripped of bottled water, canned goods, and medical supplies. When a tractor trailer had showed up at one nearby Stop-and-Shop with stocks of water and food, the employees had confiscated it all for themselves and abandoned the store to looters. Even more mercenary, most of the gas stations had taken advantage of the crisis to price gouge, one station charging fifty dollars a gallon, with cars lined up for a mile to get fuel. Only at the gun store had a dozen heavily-armed clerks maintained order despite hundreds of people waiting to arm themselves against the zombies, including the head of the local chapter of the Brady Center.
Getting out of Portland had been next to impossible. Route 95 north had been gridlocked with traffic, so David had headed for the coast road. They had joined a slow-moving line of traffic heading north, traveling less than ten miles in three hours, when everything suddenly ground to a halt. Swarmers had overrun the road ahead, stopping traffic and trapping the cars behind it. They had made their way down the line of vehicles, feeding on those not quick enough to escape, David among them. She had watched him hold off three of the living dead just long enough for her to stumble down the embankment of an underpass and escape along a county road. She was still haunted by his screams as the
swarmers ripped him apart.
Not familiar with the area, Natalie had headed south toward the only place she thought might offer safety – Portsmouth Navy Yard. She had walked for a full day before finding an abandoned SUV with a quarter of a tank of gas, and then had wound her way along the back roads until eventually running dry just north of York Beach. Natalie had abandoned the SUV and continued on foot until she reached the center of town, fortunately long since deserted. She had raided the local convenience store and stocked up, mostly on soda and junk food, which were the only things left, and then had broken into one of the summer rental condos. She had held up there for five days planning her next move when Robson’s raiding party came through town looking for supplies. Her fear of being left alone had overrode her uncertainty of what would happen if she joined up with this group. Thankfully, she had ventured out and flagged them down.
Natalie stopped where the wall veered south and paralleled the ocean. Crouching down, she dropped her legs over the side and sat on the edge, looking out over the water. She always thought it ironic that in a world gone completely to shit anyone could call themselves lucky, but she definitely fell into that category. She still could not think of David without tearing up and experiencing that emptiness that tore a void in her heart. What made Natalie one of the lucky ones was making it here without having been brutalized.
The collapse of society had been accompanied by a breakdown in humanity. Much of it could be attributed to people doing whatever they had to in order to survive, which was understandable given the situation. More than half of the camp members had been robbed of food, weapons, or a vehicle. Several had been turned away from another sanctuary because they would have been a drain on already-strained resources. Daytona had narrowly avoided being executed by a New Hampshire sheriff who mistook a cut on his forearm for a bite mark. Survivalist instincts had replaced compassion.
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