by J. W. Vohs
Deb, Carter’s wife, found work as a nurse at a local health clinic. She was short and petite, blonde and pretty, and she had an easygoing way of keeping Carter grounded, developed through years of practice that started when they sat next to each other on the bus to third grade. Carter worked on The Castle full time, and Jack had insisted on a legal contract that declared the two Army buddies were joint owners of the property being developed. Carter had resisted full partnership at first, believing that since Jack was bearing all of the financial costs he should retain full ownership. Jack finally convinced him that the retreat could only happen if Carter lived on the land and worked on the project full time, and therefore he was earning his half of the property. All arguments ceased when Deb pointed out that Carter had worked for his father’s excavation company since he was twelve-years-old. The bottom line was that her husband could build most of what they needed, and knew people who could do everything he wasn’t licensed for. In the end, the joining of Jack’s money and Carter’s skills was the best decision either of them had ever made.
The basement of The Castle was dug into the reverse slope of a large hill facing the road, complete with several safe rooms and long alternative exit tunnels. Their wartime experiences had left both men a bit paranoid about the numerous possible disasters facing the world in the coming years, and they intended to do everything they could to give themselves and the people they loved a safe refuge in any time of trouble. The two men spent a week introducing themselves to all neighbors within a three-mile radius of the property, explaining that Jack was a professor of medieval history and wanted to recreate a Norman castle on the land. They knew the people would think he was a bit crazy, but at least their neighbors would understand why the strange creation was quickly being built on the hill.
Once the basement was constructed, the house was framed with steel beams that supported the thick, twenty-foot-high stone walls. All of the windows in the house were tall and thin, with steel plate shutters on the outside, and heavy metal sliders set into the deep sills within. All of the window plates had firing slits in them. The two entrance doors into the structure were massive, solid oak, framed in iron on the outside, with one-ton blast doors set on rollers on the inside of the frames. The house itself was over four thousand square feet of practical, quality craftsmanship, with geothermal heating and cooling powered by solar panels. The system was backed up with a windmill-electrical system. The windmill was backed up by a propane-fueled generator system supplied by huge underground tanks. In case of an emergency, Carter added a large wood-burning system.
Water was supplied by a three-hundred foot well, which was also powered by three different electrical systems. In case they all failed, no less than six hand-pumped outlets were placed at various locations around the property. A huge barn, built to almost the same standards as the residence, was connected to the house by a long passageway constructed from the same materials as The Castle, backed up by a tunnel from the basement. An underground gasoline tank and fuel pump were set-up in a gravel lot behind the barn to run the tractors and other vehicles as well as to provide an emergency reserve.
Once all of that work was completed, Carter rented a bulldozer and backhoe. He built an earthen berm around the house and barn that was twelve feet high, fronted by an eight-foot deep ditch. The thickness of the berm was nearly doubled at the entrance, which was barred with two gates constructed of several tons of steel plating and iron bars. The barn held hundreds of rolls of razor-wire that could be used to reinforce the entire system. Carter thought Jack was ultra-paranoid to insist on building guard towers set out from the wall in order to provide flanking fire in the event of some type of attack, but he built them as solidly as the house. When they were finished with the construction, the place looked nothing like a Norman castle, but they figured none of the neighbors knew or cared. By now the locals realized that a crazy, rich, eccentric was living in their midst, but since he didn’t bother anyone they didn’t mind the strange structure in their neighborhood.
The Castle was stocked with enough food to feed fifty people for several years. Medical supplies, clothing, weapons, and ammunition were stored in prodigious amounts. Finally, Jack, Carter, and Deb spent one weekend just sitting on the roof drinking wine and admiring their unusual creation. Much of Jack’s fortune had been spent, but the place gave him a sense of security that had been lacking in his mind since his experience with the infected village in Afghanistan. Jack didn’t intend to live forever, but he definitely wanted some control over how he left this life.
Carter enjoyed maintaining The Castle, as well as the great hunting and fishing found in the area. Deb had helped to design and decorate the interior, and while she focused on quality and efficiency, she also managed to incorporate an understated regal beauty throughout the entire structure. Though conceived as a defensive fortress, somehow The Castle felt more like a home. They kept three horses, four dogs, and an ever-changing number of cats about the property.
A few months after Jack had judged The Castle to be functional he hosted a family reunion and explained the reasons why he had built the place to his three brothers and one sister. All were amazed by what he and Carter had created, but he could tell that each of his siblings, to one degree or another, thought that their quirky brother might have lost his mind. Jack worked to assuage their concerns by explaining that the modern world was in many ways very fragile, vulnerable to everything from a financial crash to nuclear war. He assured all of them that ever since Afghanistan he had dreamed of building a place where he and his family could safely live off-grid if the need ever arose. Only little brother David, now a young lawyer from Cleveland, continued to shake his head and smirk from time to time as Jack shared his concerns over the state of the world.
Jack’s other two brothers, Carey and Tom, were slightly shorter and heavier than their little brother, but otherwise looked like Jack. They ran their deceased father’s auto dealership in Fort Wayne and did well with the business. They were both cautious but confident, and Jack believed they would be solid contributors to The Castle if an emergency ever arose. Carey was married to Laura, a pretty accountant with the auto dealership. Their marriage had yet to produce children, but they always talked about the day when they would begin a family. Tom had married and divorced a decade earlier, and since then had been content to keep a series of girlfriends at a safe distance.
Jack had one sister, Sarah, who worked with Tom and Carey in Fort Wayne, where her dentist-husband Mark, and two young children, Alec and Olivia, shared a nice house in the suburbs. Sarah had been a cheerleader and pre-med student at Indiana University when she met Mark, a former linebacker at Ball State who was in his second year of dental school when they began dating. When she got pregnant with their first child, Sarah married Mark, dropped out of college, and joined her brothers in the family business. Jack knew that self-sacrificing yet practical Sarah would be a solid presence in The Castle during any crisis, and having a live-in dentist was obviously a huge bonus.
In the end everyone had a great time at the retreat, riding ATVs and horses, and hiking along the rugged state park trails behind his property. All agreed that the home and land were beautiful, and they eventually confessed that they did sometimes worry about the state of affairs in the world. His brother Carey even admitted, “Me and Laura will be out here if the market drops fifty points, or if we hear an asteroid the size of a soccer ball is on the way!”
Everyone chuckled at the remark, though Jack did wonder for a moment if Carey had ever considered the possibility of zombies.
By the time the family members were heading home, Jack was ready to return to Louisville and get back to work, though he was also anxious to return to play as well. After the war Jack had become more involved with the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA), focusing his attention on the weapons and armor many members of the group used in mock combats and reenactments of ancient battles. Never forgetting his war-time experience with the mace he and his
father had made when he was a teen, Jack had learned how to make other medieval weapons while in college.
He sold some of the weapons he made to other SCA members over the years, but he always kept the best for himself. One of the rooms in the basement of The Castle was filled with dozens of swords, battle-axes, maces, and his specialty, halberds. In Jack’s opinion the halberd, along with the longbow, had helped bring democracy to the world. They were eight to ten foot long shafts hewn from ash, capped with an axe that had a spear point on top, and a hook to the side. Medieval infantry had used the weapon to pull knights from their horses, as well as slash through the plate armor and mail worn by the nobility. The halberd had allowed common men to maim and kill their feudal oppressors, and Jack thought they looked cool as hell to boot. Needless to say, he often wished he could have had one with him when he faced those monsters in Afghanistan a decade earlier.
While he definitely enjoyed participating in mock combats at SCA events, Jack also worked to keep himself in Ranger condition, staying in great physical shape and regularly practicing with various firearms. Though he didn’t like to admit it to himself, he still worried that the virus that had turned the villagers into monsters would someday get loose in the world. In his heart he continued to feel as if there would be other wars to fight in this life, and he worked day and night to prepare for the battles to come.
Carter was probably even more paranoid than Jack about the possible disasters facing the world, and he also remembered the effectiveness of Jack’s mace that night in the village. Carter didn’t enjoy SCA like Jack did, but he practiced with medieval weapons every time his buddy came home from Louisville. Carter also kept himself in excellent physical condition, and guns were an everyday part of his life. He also surprised Jack by encouraging Deb to recruit a young doctor she worked with to help her construct a small infirmary in The Castle, explaining to the physician that he and his family would be welcome there if an emergency ever flared up in the world.
Inspired by Carter and Deb’s recruitment of the doctor, Jack decided to host a reunion of some of their best friends from the Ranger battalion, happy to see more than a dozen of their buddies show up over the New Year’s weekend. Jack and Carter pulled no punches with their brothers in arms, telling them point blank that The Castle was a survival retreat and they were all welcome to bring their families there in the event of a national emergency. Most of the former Rangers lived in the south and Midwest, and all pledged to take advantage of the invitation if the need ever arose.
Coming home for the Easter weekend the following year, Jack confessed to Carter, “You know what, I’m not scared anymore.”
Carter looked strangely at his best friend, “What are ya talkin’ ‘bout?”
“I don’t think I ever recovered from our fight in that infected valley. I had nightmares for years, and deep inside I’ve always been afraid that whatever we saw out there would come back for me.”
Carter nodded, “I know man, same here.”
Jack smiled and said, “When we close those gates and lock the doors I feel at ease. I guess I’ve always wanted a fort!”
Carter agreed, “Yep, I’ve never slept as good as I do here. Deb asked me a few months ago if I was on drugs! When I looked at her like she was stupid, which she was, she told me that she’d never seen me as peaceful as I’ve been since we moved in here. God love her, she must have been worried ‘bout me for a long damn time!”
Jack grabbed his buddy’s shoulder and declared, “Well, brother, we are finally home! Now let’s just hope we only built this thing because we’re wacked-out vets, and not because anything bad is going to happen in the world.”
Two weeks later, the horror they had feared for ten years was unleashed upon the planet.
CHAPTER 5
Jack was eating a microwave meal on the sofa in his sparse apartment in Louisville, leaning forward with interest as CNN’s Mary Nestor stated, “The Pentagon released information today revealing the status of the Marine platoon that was reported missing in the mountains of Afghanistan earlier this week. Six survivors of an overwhelming Taliban ambush were discovered by an Army patrol sent out to search for the missing Marines, with no word on the fate of the rest of their unit. Our own Bob Livingston is on the scene now. Bob, what can you tell us about this developing story?”
The cameras cut to a dust-covered man, standing near several Bradley fighting vehicles in Afghanistan, who explained, “Well, Mary, no new information has been discovered concerning the whereabouts or condition of the remaining members of the platoon who are still missing, but judging from the body language and attitude of the Marines I’ve seen here today the news isn’t good. What we’re showing you here is footage taken a few hours ago of the survivors being loaded into helicopters taking them to a field hospital.”
The camera cut to a close up of a wounded Marine on a stretcher being carried to a medevac chopper. His weary, battered face was visible though the rest of his body was covered with a space blanket; Jack watched as the wash from the chopper blades blew part of the blanket aside. The Marine’s arm was covered in bandages, but one of those had been pushed up by the jostling the poor man was enduring while being loaded to reveal a wound that brought all of Jack’s fears screaming out of his subconscious mind. Just above the injured man’s elbow was what Jack recognized as a human bite mark. The skin had been broken by teeth, revealing a number of bloody punctures, though the intact flesh within the radius of the bite indicated that the Marine had prevented the biter from completing his work.
The view was suddenly blocked by a medic moving in to recover the injured man as they lifted him aboard the medevac, and Jack hoped that he was wrong about what he had just seen as the reporters continued to jabber in what were now unintelligible words to his shaken mind. He sat there for several minutes without moving a muscle, then slowly pulled out his cell and called Carter.
“Hey, Jack, what’s up?”
“Any chance you’re watching CNN right now? Have you seen any news’ shows today?”
“Haven’t watched one bit of TV today, buddy. Why, zombies show up in the Middle East or somethin’?”
He was silent for a moment, then Jack explained what he’d just seen on the news. Carter told him to calm down and wait for him to find the news’ feed and view it himself. He promised to call back after he found the footage, and after Carter hung up Jack immediately went to the net and Googled the missing Marines. What he found there removed all doubt about his fears. Members of the Army patrol who had found the injured men had begun posting photos and comments almost immediately upon their grisly discovery. The common theme among the postings was that the Taliban had actually turned to using cannibalism as a new terror tactic. The wounded Marines had described a horrific attack by insurgents who seemed immune to gunfire, and used their hands and teeth to destroy an entire platoon. The survivors also claimed that the Taliban began eating the Marines after they took them down. Pictures accompanying the comments revealed numerous bite marks and other gruesome wounds on the injured men.
Jack again called Carter, who immediately declared in a shaken voice, “Yeah, man, ya’ll were right. Ya should see what’s on the net.”
“Already have,” Jack replied. “You suppose they’re flying them stateside right away?”
“Probably on their way if Barnes wasn’t able to stop the flight. And who knows how long ago they was attacked? If we’re right about bites bein’ able to transfer the virus, then this thing could already be outta the box.”
Jack enlightened his best friend, “It’s already out, dude. If those Marines don’t spread it, then the Afghanis who attacked them are still spreading it through the region. Now it’s just a matter of time.”
Carter agreed, “Yeah, one way or another it’s already on the move. We gotta start callin’ our people in, Jack!”
“Hold off on calling folks in, but put the word out that we are concerned about news reports and want our people watching. I need you to ge
t out to the stores too. I’ve been thinking about this possibility for a while, and I think I know how to protect ourselves from bites. I hope to God it’s spread that way, and not airborne or something.”
Carter asked, “What’s the plan?”
“I’ll e-mail you a list, then I’ll pack and get on the road. I’ll be back by midnight. For now I want you to head up to that Cabelas in Hammond and buy every pair of snake-proof boots they have. If they have Kevlar fish-cleaning gloves buy all those up too. Grab more ammo, MREs, flashlights, batteries, and anything else you can think of. For right now just use the cash I always leave in the gun safe and take a trailer with you. Buy anything else you can think of that might help us, but I’ll probably talk to you again before you even get there.”
To his credit, Carter didn’t question the unusual items on Jack’s list. “I’ll get it done; ya’ll take it easy on the highway tonight.”
Jack hung up the phone and began frantically packing things around the apartment until he started in on his bedroom and saw the picture of his squad in Afghanistan sitting on top of the dresser. At first he picked it up in order to scan the faces and make sure he knew how to contact all of the men, but then he noticed the expressions and conditions of the young soldiers and thought about what type of men they had been. The squad had just come in from a three day patrol and they were dirty, hungry, and exhausted. Yet even through their weariness he could detect confidence and strength in their expressions as they gazed into the camera. He knew that look well; he would never want to go to war next to someone who didn’t have that look. They were true soldiers, Rangers who were the best fighters in the world and never doubted that they could win any battle. That’s when he remembered who he was: a warrior.