Shelter for Now

by Bob Howard

  Captain Miller just grinned, but it was true. One of the qualities that he liked in Chief Barnes was his ability to take the crisis out of a problem with a little humor, and he found himself using the same practice with his own men.

  The Chief reached inside a deep pocket and pulled out a map. He unfolded it quickly and found their location.

  “We have two choices, folks. We can go back the way we came and try to get to the Air Force Base with a new plan, or we can all do a little running today.”

  He laid the map out flat where they could all see it, and he put his finger on the boat landing. Then he traced a line from the place where they had tied up the plane to where they were hiding in the bushes.

  They could all see that Great Oak Drive was a long, three-sided rectangle that intersected with the four-lane highway in two places. The horde was advancing on their position down the right side of the rectangle where the soldiers were hiding.

  “That horde is acting like someone put up a detour sign out there on the highway,” said the Chief. “All we have to do is gather in the street in a group where they can see us and let them get a little closer. Then we’re going to run like hell across the bottom of the rectangle and up the left side. When we reach the four-lane highway we’re just going to keep running straight for the runway of the airport. It’s only about a mile.”

  “What happens if some of them don’t take the detour?” asked one of the soldiers.

  “That’s why we’re going to gather out in the open,” said Captain Miller. “We need to get their undivided attention so they’ll start groaning louder. Those things do love a parade. I have to give them that much.”

  “Well, let’s make sure this one gets lots of attention,” said the Chief.

  They all got up and walked straight at the oncoming wall of infected dead. As they stepped from the cover of the trees onto the paved surface the rest of the hidden soldiers watched them like they had lost their minds, but they hesitantly did the same. The Captain waved them all to come in close so he could explain what they were about to do and then asked the Chief and Kathy if they had anything to add. The groaning horde was getting closer and louder.

  Kathy said quickly, “The groaning should draw some of the infected into the open on the other side of Great Oak Drive. They’ve probably been hanging around all over the place between buildings, under cars, on porches, and anywhere else they could fit. We’re also going to meet up with some that will be trying to join the parade from the other direction, and we have to run straight through them. When we start running we’re going in columns of two using machetes only. Don’t get bogged down. If you can’t kill one, swing at the knees.”

  Everyone listened and nodded the affirmative. The Captain and the Chief took the lead and ran. The rest formed up on them into columns, and they settled into an easy trot before reaching the first corner.

  Behind them, the groaning seemed to increase in pitch when they ran. It was almost as if the frustration of the horde became apparent when they saw their prey out distancing them. They had been closer to more living people than they had seen in a long time only to see them run away at the last moment.

  In front of them it was as they had expected. It was clear at first, and when they rounded the corner on the bottom left side of the rectangle formed by Great Oak Drive, they could see a quarter of a mile straight ahead to the second intersection with the four-lane highway. There were only three infected dead walking out into the street, but any hope of it being an easy plan went out the window as they all saw another dozen emerging onto Great Oak Drive from an area of dense trees.

  Everyone who didn’t already have their machete in their hand pulled them from their belts. At their shelter under Fort Sumter they had converted one large storage room into a training area. They were all well trained by the Army, but the old world training was different. The new training was all about not getting bitten, speed, and numbers. They had practiced how to move when the numbers weren’t good, and it was obvious they were going to be using that skill.

  They were all wearing tactical combat gloves, but they had been warned not to keep an arm extended too long after a strike because a bite would hurt even if it didn’t break the skin.

  The columns only had to go a quarter of a mile before reaching the highway, so they ran right past the first of the infected that came out onto Great Oak Drive. Behind them the horde was making a lot of noise, but the distance was growing.

  The Chief and the Captain were the first to make contact, and it only slowed their forward movement by a few steps. The infected were spaced out with no pattern, often knocking each other over as they lunged forward with outstretched hands. The first ones were down and out of the way, but eventually there were too many on one side for the squad to be methodical. They managed to stay in columns, but they got spread out, and that made them vulnerable.

  “Form up,” yelled Captain Miller.

  The Chief was punching the infected in the face rather than just using his machete. His punches were faster, and he was knocking them over into each other. There was a pile up off to the right when he shoved one hard enough for it to leave its feet.

  They kept moving forward so well that they were surprised to find themselves fighting their way into an intersection. The green and white street sign said it was the intersection of Great Oak Drive and Dorchester Road.

  To their left were scattered groups of the infected, but one block to their right was a horde that had to be in the thousands. They were in one column, but that column was four lanes and a median wide. The column was forcing itself onto the other intersection of Great Oak Drive, so there was a tremendous logjam of infected, but gradually they took notice of the small group of living flesh only a block away.

  “Keep moving forward,” yelled the Chief.

  One by one the soldiers crossed the intersection trying not to trip on the bodies of the infected that were dropped by soldiers in front of them, and one by one they disappeared into the dense growth of trees.

  They burst out onto the other side of the trees onto a dirt road, but more importantly they were less than a mile from the end of the runway. Behind them they could hear the infected trying to get through the trees, but with so many of them trying at the same time, it would slow them down even more.

  They broke into a run.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE UNDERGROUND TRAIN that carried the President and his family was much more comfortable than a typical subway car. It had been anticipated years earlier that the First Family would be safely carried out of the nation’s capitol during a time of extreme crisis, and then transported to a shelter where they would live in the manner to which they were accustomed. To get there, they needed to be transported in something special, so it had all of the amenities they would have expected if they had stayed home.

  Secret Service agents were assigned to various locations in the train. Some were monitoring electronic communications while others were in strategic positions to ensure there would be no last minute or unexpected problems. All of them knew that there was a shelter somewhere at the end of the railway that was impervious to attack, so they were content to believe they had done their jobs by getting the President and his family to safety, even though they would feel much better once they had them secure in the shelter.

  Preliminary information received through secure channels about what they had left behind was not good. They were told the Vice President may not have made it to his shelter, but the information was not yet confirmed. Other officials in a direct line of succession to the Oval Office had not been heard from, and the only cabinet member who may have survived so far was the Secretary of Education. They didn’t know where she was, but one report said she was with a military unit that had made it to sea.

  A steward assigned to keep the President comfortable prepared a Bloody Mary at a small bar. One of the agents had suggested to her that the President had been a bit volatile, and it might help to settle his nerves.
When she handed it to him, he flashed a smile for a split second. She recognized it as the closest thing he ever came to showing gratitude to the service personnel.

  Outside the train, the tunnel walls seemed impossibly close to the windows, and he complained that they should have made the tunnel wider. Lights set back in the walls of the tunnel flashed by at intervals giving them the impression that they were traveling at a high rate of speed.

  A chime sounded and a neutral but pleasant female voice announced that all passengers should be seated for a brief stop. The voice went on to explain that they were approaching a way station where they would disembark and enter a tunnel that was a ninety degree turn from their present direction.

  The President asked one of the senior agents why they didn’t just build a straight tunnel. The agent explained that he had been told there were two reasons. One was the logistical location of the tunnels. They were using tunnels that were under the main campus of Ohio State University, and they hadn’t been able to do it any other way. They had tried to use existing tunnels in some places, but the university still needed them. They tried to go deeper, but they quickly discovered the underlying strata was dotted with an unexpected cave system and sinkholes. Their only option had been a ninety-degree turn. The second reason was strategic. If they were attacked through the tunnel, it could be defended easier with turns that would create bottlenecks for the attackers.

  The train slowed until it came to a complete stop. They had boarded through doors on the left side, but this time doors on the opposite side opened to allow them to exit onto another platform similar to the one at the beginning of their trip. It was brightly lit and had several rows of comfortable seats. On the wall behind the seats there was another Presidential seal. Just the sight of it made everyone feel that much safer. They exited and saw a second train waiting with a new crew of service personnel standing expectantly at the open doors.

  As soon as the passengers were transferred and comfortably strapped into their seats, both trains left the way station. One continued to carry the Presidential party to safety, while the other train was automated and programmed to return to the first station for a second load of passengers.

  Secret Service agents and service personnel for the President take their oaths and positions seriously. A sense of honor and pride will make them loyal no matter how insensitive their wards may be. Staff who served under more than one President often told new staff about prior administrations and compared them to each other, and this one had not been the worst according to senior staff. Out of loyalty, any member of the Secret Service or the service personnel would have stepped forward immediately if they had been bitten by an infected dead. They would not have placed the President or his family at risk in order to protect themselves. The same couldn’t be said for reporters.

  In the case of Sally Parsons, White House Correspondent for a major news network, she wanted to be the first to break the news through any outlet she could find that the President and his family had been spirited away from the crisis and flown to safety in Columbus, Ohio. She wanted to be the one so she could get the exclusive for her network. While the rest of the world was wondering where the President was, she and a few other reporters crammed into an underground subway all had the same idea that they could be the first to break the story.

  Getting out of the melee and into the Presidential helicopter had been difficult, but she was just cute enough and managed to catch the eye of a young man ready to be her hero. When she had extended her hand to him, he grabbed it out of reflex and pulled her into the crowded aircraft. After that, she had just stayed as inconspicuous as possible. She wasn’t entirely sure when the gash had appeared on her forearm, but it was really becoming ugly, and it was also making her feel strange.

  Through the night of sitting in the dark aboard Air Force One, Sally managed to borrow a light jacket from another man. When she had her chance to squeeze into one of the lavatories, she inspected the injury and saw the curved rows of puncture wounds. She couldn’t remember being bitten, and she kept telling herself that it had to have happened some other way. She convinced herself that anyone would know if they were bitten, and since she didn’t know for sure, it couldn’t be a bite. She also decided no one else needed to know. She would find a doctor when they got wherever it was they were going, and she would tell him she caught her arm on the metal door of the helicopter.

  When the President’s blue and white train whisked away into the tunnel, the crowd left behind in the first station was still too big for the platform. People along the front were trying not to fall over the edge onto the tracks, and they were having to hold onto the people behind them. There was a constant pull from that direction, and all it would take was a big push from the people farthest from the tracks for the people up front to start falling. Despite the risk of falling, they didn’t want to lose their place on the next train, so they struggled to stay where they were.

  One heavyset man leaned a little too far from the edge, and the crowd seemed to sway in his direction whenever he lost his balance. It pulled back away from the brink for a moment, but the man grabbed a woman a little too hard, and a man who might have been her husband punched him. The surge of people in that direction caused Sally Parsons to be half pushed and half pulled toward the front just as the train arrived. She was already more dead than alive and her body was just being carried by the tidal wave of people desperate to be in a safer place.

  People on the tracks were too busy trying not to get run over by the approaching train to worry about losing their place in line, and when the doors opened again the car was quickly filled to capacity. The doors closed, and the train pulled away. Even before it disappeared into the tunnel ahead, something was happening inside. There was pushing and shoving on the landing, but there was terror inside the train.

  Sally Parsons was dead, but the infected dead that used to be Sally Parsons was in a crowded train car with more people than it was intended to hold, so she didn’t have to chase anyone. The only man who could have ended the biting before it got started made the mistake of putting the infected dead version of Sally Parsons in a headlock. She bit deeply into the exposed area on the inside of his upper arm, and her teeth found the brachial artery. He reflexively pushed her away, and her teeth pulled out a sizable portion of it. Even if the bite had not been infectious, he was going to bleed out in about fifteen to twenty-seconds.

  His quick death allowed her to attack the next person more easily, and in the confined space of a train about the same size as a subway car, the man who had tried to stop her was now trying to push himself into a standing position from the floor. Moments later they were both going from one victim to the next, and there was nowhere for any of them to go.

  The train raced through the tunnel at high speed. When a soft chime sounded and a voice told all passengers to be seated and prepared to stop, the result was a chorus of groans, but there were no living passengers to heed the warning.

  The train slowed, and several of the infected fell forward into a pile. When the door opened to reveal the brightly lit way station landing, the infected either fell through the open door or tripped over the bodies that were half in and half out of the door. The end result was a pile up on the landing and very quickly over the edge onto the tracks.

  The train was programmed to leave for the return trip to the first station automatically when the door sensors detected no more passengers disembarking or standing in an open doorway, so the doors remained open, and the train stayed where it was as the infected tried to untangle themselves. The infected dead that had managed to climb to their feet and keep from falling onto the tracks had found their way over to the open doors of a second train that sat only a short distance away, and they promptly tripped and fell through that opening.

  Six of them, including the former Sally Parsons, managed to leave the first train and board the second, and after the sensors on the doors of the train detected no more movement for several minutes, it
too began following its programming. The doors slid quietly shut, and the train went forward to its next destination.

  Before the train completely disappeared into the second tunnel following the path the President had used only minutes before, several more of the infected stumbled onto the landing. With the door no longer obstructed, the timer on the sensors began counting. The doors closed again, and for a second time the train began its return trip to the first station. This time it made the trip back with four passengers that did not have the chance to disembark. Infected dead that were still trying to get to their feet fell between the seats where they remained for the entire trip.

  The way station landing remained brightly lit for a few minutes and then dimmed. To save energy, they were only programmed to stay on as long as there were trains at the landing. The infected dead that were left behind either on the tracks or on the landing had nothing to attract them but their own groans. When the lights went out again, they just stopped and stood still because that was what the infected dead tended to do. The distant sounds of the train moving toward the shelter began vibrating through the tracks, and one at a time the infected moved toward the tunnel following each other’s groans.

  Two trains were traveling away from the station. One was carrying infected dead back to the landing by the elevator. It was overcrowded with people who were still hoping for a chance to live. The second train was carrying infected dead to a shelter that was supposed to be the safest place in the world for the President of the United States.

  ******

  Above ground Air Force One still sat partially inside and partially outside of the hangar. The Stryker that had appeared to be coming to the rescue of hundreds of passengers in the planes on the runway was nowhere to be seen. It was now obvious to the pilots of those planes that they were on their own.

  One plane was already in flames at the end of the runway, having tried to take off through the throngs of infected dead. A second plane had attempted to reach the runway by cutting across the grass. Its nose landing gear had become stuck in the mud and then collapsed under the weight of the plane that was pushing too hard to get itself free.