by Howard, Bob
“Yeah, do you think they may go to another shelter?” asked Jean.
Bus looked a little helpless, but then he regained his composure and said, “That’s what I would do.”
Tom said, “I think what she was really asking was whether or not there’s another shelter in the Charlotte area.”
Bus had filled the Chief in on the other locations, but neither of them had found the time to share all of the locations with the rest of us. We all knew about the oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, and we knew the President was likely to be somewhere under Columbus, Ohio, but there were twenty-seven more shelters out there that Bus knew about. For all he knew, there could be more that the government didn’t tell them about.
Bus let out a heavy sigh and said, “There was one guy named Pruitt in our survivalist group who had the idea that surrounding the shelter with water was a great idea, but it was risky to put your back up against a wall the way Titus did.”
“What’s that mean, Bus?” I asked.
“The Atlantic,” he said. “Pruitt felt like there was always going to be the need for escape routes if things went wrong at the shelters, so he wanted to be able to escape in any direction. He didn’t see the point in trying to escape to the sea. He preferred to escape to dry land, but he preferred an island in a lake.”
“Wait a minute. Are you saying there’s a lake near Charlotte that has an island with a shelter in it?” asked Tom.
“Lake Norman,” I said. “There’s a lake just north of Charlotte that has about five hundred miles of shoreline, but the islands all have houses on them. How could one of them have a shelter in it?”
I knew the answer as soon as I asked. Just as Fort Sumter had tour boats docking at it every day, filled with tourists who never suspected what was really below their feet, the island somewhere on Lake Norman was developed for individual homes after the shelter was built.
“Does the Chief know which island?” I asked Bus.
“I showed him on a map,” he answered. “It wouldn’t be hard for that old salt to find.”
I had an idea of where Tom was going when he got up and went over to a big cardboard box the Chief had stashed behind a recliner in the corner of the living room. He fumbled around in the contents that looked like rolls of Christmas wrapping paper until he found one that had something written near the end. He glanced at the writing, seemed satisfied and brought it over to us. As he walked he slid a large map from the tube and handed it to Bus.
“This is crazy,” I said. “I not only wind up owning one of the shelters, there was another one practically in my backyard when I was living in Charlotte.”
Bus said, “Remember, we all had our own ideas about what was safe and what wasn’t. Pruitt said he knew his island would be overrun with survivors, but the survivors would wipe each other out because they couldn’t fortify the island. He said more survivors would keep coming along until there weren’t anymore survivors. The last group to move onto the island would have to go to the mainland to resupply, and eventually they wouldn’t come back.”
“Your friend sounds like he was a real caring type,” said Jean.
“Remember what it was like back then, Jean. We were in the Cold War, and the government wanted ideas about how to survive. It wasn’t like most of us could build the shelters on our own. When our group was approached by the military, we were busy sinking our own savings into some pretty flimsy shelters that wouldn’t have survived more than a few days once the infection got started. We were told to come up with ideas that were meant to protect important people.”
“I guess they should have worked on their plans to reach the shelters just a little better,” I said. “We don’t even know for sure that the President made it to Columbus, and I didn’t hear anyone say the important people reached Maybank’s oil rig.”
“There was one thing Pruitt didn’t count on when he picked his location,” said Bus.
By now we were all ears. Looking back over the years to the early days of the shelters, we could imagine the group telling the military where they each wanted to be, and we could almost picture the reactions from the people who had to go along with their crazy ideas.
Bus went on, “After Pruitt picked his island, he didn’t expect a developer to come along and build a bridge from the mainland to the island. He was so mad. I remember him asking the General from the Army Corps of Engineers why he didn’t just build the bridge in the first place. The General told him to get used to the idea, because he couldn’t have the bridge bombed in the middle of the night like Pruitt wanted him to do.”
We all had to laugh despite the fact that the situation was serious.
“So, do you think Pruitt made it to his shelter?” asked Tom.
“No, I doubt it. Pruitt was pretty good with his tech. If he made it, we would have heard from him. He was always monitoring everything even when the Cold War ended. He didn’t think we were wrong about some impending doom, and he would have been way ahead of the spread of the infection. I think he must have been away from the island when it started and wasn’t able to make it back.”
“Where was his island? Is it far from where the Chief is likely to hook up with Hampton?” asked Jean.
“I know where the island is, Jean, but your guess is as good as mine about where the Chief will find Hampton or even if he will find him.”
******
“How close can we get without picking up any contamination?” asked Kathy.
“We don’t need to get close. I just want to see how bad it is. If it’s on fire, the worst is yet to come.”
Kathy could see the Oconee Nuclear Station through her binoculars, but she couldn't see details well enough to know if there was a fire.
The Chief went on, “A fire that goes unchecked can lead to an explosion. An explosion can cause the reactor core to lose containment, and if that happens, we’ll get worse fallout than we already have.”
“I don’t understand it, Chief. If Hampton was relaying information that the reactor had already suffered significant damage, then why did it stop? Why did we get some radioactive fallout but not a lot?”
“The only answer has to be that someone is still alive down there, and they got it stopped in time. Whoever it is saved a lot of people, but there’s still a problem.”
The problem was visible to the Chief even without binoculars, but Kathy was seeing it too. There was clearly steam or some sort of cloud still rising above the huge, cylindrical buildings at the nuclear station.
“Is that a leak?” asked Kathy.
The Chief had been thinking about what it could be if it wasn’t a fire, but he was reasonably sure that it was radioactive. Just to be sure, he increased their altitude and began circling the plant toward the north.
“I think someone is still down there, and they’re doing a slow, controlled release of the pressure in the reactor. If they don’t, the thing will blow and send everything it has all at one time,” said the Chief.
Kathy started to ask the Chief another question, and he held up his hand.
“Save it. I know a lot of things, but I only know the basics about this stuff. I only wanted to get a look because we needed to find out which way the radioactive cloud is moving, and how bad it looks. If the top had blown off of one of those towers, we would be heading back to Mud Island and closing the doors for a few years. It may still happen, but not today.”
“Do you at least know if the cloud is going to keep moving south?” she asked.
“No, it won’t. That’s why we have to get to Hampton in a hurry. The storm that hit Maybank’s oil rig is going to push ashore and shove that radioactive cloud to the northeast.”
“Right into Charlotte,” she finished for him. Kathy automatically looked to the southwest as if she could see the storm.
“Yeah, so let’s say a prayer of thanks to whoever it is turning the big wheels down there and keeping that reactor from blowing all at once, and then we need to find Hampton.”
The Chi
ef began a long turn toward Charlotte. It was only about one hundred and twenty miles from them, and so far the sky was clear in that direction.
Kathy looked over at the Chief and wanted to ask him what it would mean to them if the reactor lost containment and the storm came inland far enough to push the radioactive cloud to Charlotte. That was one question she didn’t need to ask, though. They may get missed by the radiation, but they would never be able to go north again.
The Chief was quick to pick up on the worried look he saw on Kathy’s face.
“If the storm pushes the radioactive cloud to the northeast, I expect to see more infected dead moving south, not because the dead will know which way to go, but because survivors are going to become mobile again. It’s not like they’ll know what’s coming or what’s making them sick, but they’ll know something is happening. As they get sick and die, the infected will start pushing them out of hiding.”
“So, all we have to do is find Hampton and get clear of the area before the radiation begins moving in our direction,” said Kathy.
“That pretty much sums it up. My plan is to get generally situated somewhere then try to get Hampton to come to us.”
Kathy looked at the Chief like he had lost his mind. She could see that his expression was neutral, like he was in a high stakes poker game, and he had a royal flush. She knew that look, and she knew it meant he wasn’t telling her something. It also felt like it was something big.
“Well, Chief? Are you going to tell me the plan, or do I have to beat it out of you?”
He couldn’t help himself, partially because the only person he knew who had a chance of putting a scratch on him was Kathy. She was pretty and had long blond hair, but her looks had probably gotten men to underestimate her for a long time. He didn’t want to find out if she could beat it out of him, even though he knew she was just kidding.
“There’s another big shelter near Charlotte,” said the Chief.
He looked over at Kathy because she didn’t say anything. He saw her mouth was hanging open, and she looked totally stunned.
She finally closed her mouth then immediately asked, “That close to us? We practically flew right by it when we went to the shelter in Guntersville. Where is it? Do you know?”
“It’s on an island somewhere on Lake Norman. I’ve seen a map of the area, and it looks like it would be easy to spot from the air. Its name is Ambassadors Island, and it has a bridge that comes right off the tip of the mainland straight to the island. From the air it will look a little like a boot. You know, like Italy.”
“And this is going to help us find Hampton somehow?” asked Kathy.
The Chief looked like he was mulling over how to answer for a few moments. He had a good idea of what he wanted to do, but there were all kinds of things that could go wrong. He also wouldn’t know if he was going to have everything at his disposal that he hoped for. So much depended on what they found when they located the shelter.
“Okay, Kathy, this plan has some holes in it, but we have to start somewhere.”
“How many holes?”
“You know the houseboat theory, right?”
“Of course I do,” she said. “Put the houseboat at the island so people won’t even think there might be a better shelter nearby. Build the shelter under a fort so people will feel safe in the fort and not consider the possibility there’s a massive shelter fit for royalty right beneath their feet. What does this shelter have, an airport?”
“No, don’t be ridiculous, Kathy. That’s in Atlanta,” said the Chief.
She looked at him to see if the poker face was there again, but this time he was grinning. That usually meant he was kidding around, but after his disclosure of Ambassadors Island, she wasn’t completely sure.
Before she could chip away at him to see if he was kidding, he added, “This shelter has a full blown neighborhood built on top of it. According to Bus, the shelter is really big. Not as deep as the one at Fort Sumter, but it covers the entire length of Ambassadors Island.”
“I still don’t get it, Chief. How’s a big shelter going to help Hampton when he doesn’t even know it’s there?”
“I don’t know yet, but Bus told me the guy who built this shelter was really into his technology. He loved his toys, and some of those toys may just help us locate Hampton. When he relayed the word about the Oconee Nuclear Station, Hampton was on a radio. All we have to do is broadcast and monitor at the right frequency, and we should be able to talk with him. If that doesn’t work, Bus said the guy who built the shelter wanted a good early warning system, so he had infrared cameras installed miles away. He could literally give you a traffic report on I-77 in real time. If there’s someone alive out there, we should be able to find them.”
“I hate to rain on your parade, Chief, but what if the houseboat is occupied?”
The Chief got a slightly pained expression and said, “That’s one of the holes in the plan, Kathy, but that’s where the bridge comes in. If we’re lucky the bridge will have been a problem for the inhabitants of the island. I know it sounds bad to hope the people who lived on the island weren’t able to survive because of the bridge, but the reality is the water is only a good moat if the infected can’t walk right up to your doorstep.”
“There’s one other problem with the houseboat theory, Chief.”
The Chief knew what she was going to say before she could even get started.
He said, “The original inhabitants all became victims a long time ago, most of them on the first day. The new inhabitants would have seen the bridge as a liability by now and either put a big hole in it or found a way to block it. I don’t know which would be better for us, but I’m counting on the same thing we’ve seen before. If the infection got behind their lines onto the island side of the bridge, we may only have to deal with a contained population of the dead.”
Kathy could see tall buildings in the distance and asked, “Are we here already?”
The Chief nodded as he corrected his course straight north toward Lake Norman. It was impossible to sneak up on anyone with the de Havilland Beaver. It was about as noisy as a single engine plane could get, so they could only land and hope the one pair of eyes watching them were Hampton’s. There was no doubt that every infected dead within miles would hear the plane, but the Chief planned to shut down the engine as quickly as possible once the plane was on the water, and they could anchor long enough for the infected they attracted nearby to walk into the lake.
The biggest difference between fresh water and salt water was the rate of decay. The infected dead that went into a lake became bloated after they were in the water long enough, but they seemed to be able to get around a lot better than the ones that went into salt water. They even seemed to be able to come to the surface and grab at the living better in fresh water. The Chief couldn’t do depth soundings, but he could tell brown, shallow water from green, deep water. It would be a serious problem to stop in shallow water and to have the infected dead walk right out of the water onto the floats of the Beaver.
He circled toward the western side of the lake where he estimated Ambassadors Island to be located, and it didn’t take him long to pick it out from the other islands. He recalled from the clear satellite photos in the Mud Island shelter that there was a narrow channel at the southern tip of the island, a small grove of trees on a tiny, undeveloped island, and then a long, narrow sandbar that sat just below the surface. It would be easy to approach the island unseen in a small boat by moving along that sandbar straight at the grove of trees, but the plane would be heard by people for miles around. The sandbar was also just the sort of threat from the infected dead that he wanted to avoid. From the pictures and from the air, it looked like the infected could walk along it and be no more than knee deep in water.
The Beaver was bright yellow against a blue sky, and the Chief was well aware that he was flying a slow moving target. Anyone with any skill at all could hit the plane with a rifle. He wanted to get one look at th
e bridge before he landed to see if the inhabitants of the island had managed to fortify the bridge before the island became overrun. One good look was all he could afford to try, because he could imagine someone was frantically trying to guess where the engine noise was coming from and trying to get into position for a shot before the opportunity was gone.
He approached the bridge from the lake side on the right and dropped his altitude quickly. He told Kathy to hold on, try for a good look, and be ready for some unexpected turns. Kathy quickly slid from her seat up front into the back of the plane and positioned herself behind the Chief at a window. He figured she was just trying for a better view, but Kathy was way ahead of him. She had pulled a cell phone from her backpack and was already getting a good video of the scene below. If they had a chance to study it before going to the island, they would be able to spot details they might have missed.
The yellow Beaver passed over the bridge at almost seventy miles per hour, but the Chief got a good look at the front of the gated community. The bridge was blocked where it touched the mainland by a tangle of cars and boat trailers. Other assorted junk filled in the gaps between the vehicles.
At the entrance to the island, there were two pairs of gates, two for pedestrians and two for vehicles. Three of the gates were blocked in the same way as the other end of the bridge. Whoever had done the work must have realized there would be very little need for a lot of gates.
The Chief banked the plane on its left side and followed the shoreline of the island until he reached the small grove of trees that looked like it was dotting a large letter “i” in the middle of the lake. The channel that separated it from the island was about fifty feet wide, but it must have been deep because there was no brown shading to the water.
The curved end of the island was too sharp for the Chief to make the turn, so he just kept going straight past the trees and along the shallow sandbar. Kathy reached up and tapped him on the shoulder.