by J. W. Vohs
The harried man hesitated for a moment before stammering, “Well, all right, we’ll talk to y’all when we have a chance. Right now we’re trying to fight off a pretty big attack by the eaters.”
“Sir,” David politely explained, “these are Ranger-trained experts in killing the infected. If you’ll give us a lift to the front we’ll help you out.”
The driver quietly advised his passenger, “Sir, I don’t think we should . . .”
The obviously important man on the local scene raised his left hand for silence. “So, what’s your name, and where you from?”
“We’re from all over, but most recently we’ve been based out of the Great Lakes,” David lied. “A lot of us have family and friends out here somewhere, at least we hope we do.” He nodded towards Carter, “My friend here is from Kentucky, but we’re on our way to the Mississippi. Actually, right now we’re pretty busy trying to find shelter for the survivors we’ve come across; this weather is turning pretty deadly.”
“Yeah it is,” the man sighed. “Y’all are welcome to help us fight, but I’m not sure what we can do about your refugees.”
“We’ve got food to get them south for the winter, sir; what we really need is information, and I can see that we won’t get much while your community’s being threatened. Mind if we pile into the back seat?”
“Go on ahead, but keep those spears of yours sticking out the windows . . . I don’t need any more head wounds.”
The drive to the scene of the fighting took only a few minutes, but during that time David learned that the man in the passenger seat was the acting mayor of Cairo. His predecessor had gone missing early in the outbreak, and as a former county representative and Vietnam Marine veteran, the town had asked him to take charge during the crisis. He wasn’t sure what was happening up ahead, but he did explain that the guards posted at the bridges outside of town had radioed a level-five alert before going silent. As the SUV pulled to within a hundred meters of the fighting, they could see why.
A land bridge spanning some sort of canal or creek had been breached by hundreds of hunters, the monsters barely being held at bay along a sandbag wall just south of the waterway. The scene was one of chaos and screaming, as fighters were quickly running out of ammo and being pulled down by the flesh-eaters trying to scale the barricade. Carter and the rest of his team witnessed something they’d never before seen used as a weapon against the infected: war dogs. Several dozen large-breed dogs, mostly shepherds by the look of them, were wreaking havoc in the midst of the hunter assault. The well-trained canines were darting amongst the infected, biting and pulling at hands and arms as they apparently tried to herd the creatures back toward the water and away from their human handlers.
Impressed, David quipped, “If there were a few hundred more dogs here the battle would be over.”
“Well,” Bobby drawled, “Looks like this is all the dogs they have; we’ll have to kill the rest of the hunters ourselves.”
Finally taking his gaze away from the impressive work being done by the dogs, Carter realized that the infected weren’t part of a massive horde, but most likely a group of packs drawn to the area by some sort of noise. The creatures were frantically seeking flesh, as they always did when they spotted humans, but their attack was uncoordinated. The members of each pack focused on their own targets with no apparent recognition of what the others were doing. This was the type of fight his men could dominate.
As the Fort Wayne soldiers climbed out of the SUV, Carter shouted, “Form a wedge and head through that gap in the sandbags! Once past that, we’ll fight with our backs to the wall.”
Several of the local men leading the defense quickly approached the mayor’s vehicle and frantically asked him what they should do.
“These men here with me are former military, with experience fightin’ the eaters; they’re gonna help us take care of this situation.”
“Y’all just don’t shoot us!” Carter yelled over the noise of the battle. “We’re goin’ through yer wall, and we’ll fight ‘em out there.”
The men looked dubious, but nodded to indicate that they’d heard the instructions. They then ran back to their troops and began shouting orders to let the men in leather and motorcycle helmets move through the line.
The Fort Wayne fighters didn’t hesitate as they bulled their way past defenders and attackers alike on their way through the opening in the sandbag-wall. Once on the other side of the barrier they immediately formed into a small, half-circle, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with their backs against the wall of sandbags and deadly halberds pointed at the enemy. The sight of humans so close drew the attention of most of the hunters that had been trying to snatch defenders from the wall. Carter and his men welcomed the enemy attention as they methodically stabbed, chopped, and crushed the skulls of the flesh-eaters that crowded around them. The monsters were as vicious and frenzied in their attacks as any other hunters the Indiana soldiers had faced over the past five months, but the creatures hadn’t encountered any people as deadly as these four.
David and Carter had basically figured out what the Roman legionnaires had learned over two thousand years earlier: three inches of sharpened steel, inserted in the right place in the human body, was ultimately deadly. Lung, stomach, and liver wounds usually meant a painful, lingering death for a human, but three-inch thrusts into the brain always stopped the infected in their tracks. The hunters may have been genetically altered, mutant killers who could survive numerous injuries deemed fatal by the Romans, but they still couldn’t withstand steel through their skulls. The two fighters quickly amassed a mound of corpses in front of them at roughly the distance of their weapons’ eight-foot shafts, practiced thrusts with the spear-points at the tips of their halberds punching through eyes and nasal cavities with a machine-like efficiency.
Bobby and Gabe’s skills with the ancient weapons weren’t quite as developed as those of their friends, but at no point in the fight did any of the flesh-eaters manage to get close enough to put hands or teeth on either soldier. To their credit, the people of Cairo continued to shoot at and sic their dogs on the monsters trying to reach the strangers making their valiant stand, and within a few minutes everyone could see that the battle had turned in the defenders’ favor.
The killing continued for the next half-hour or so, then most of the surviving infected began to slink back to the north. As the number of hunters still threatening the defenders dwindled to a handful that they were certain could be easily handled by the locals, Carter and his crew removed their helmets and walked back to the mayor who’d been watching the battle from the top of his SUV.
“Damn!” he exclaimed. “You boys know your business all right; think you can give us some advice so this doesn’t happen again?”
“Does this stream cut between the two rivers?” David asked.
The mayor nodded, “Most of the way, at least when we aren’t havin’ a drought.”
“Well,” Carter interjected, “Y’all need to build yer defense on the other side of the bridge.”
“And build higher walls,” Gabe added.
Even Bobby spoke up, “We’ll show your fighters how we dress and what kinds of weapons we use. Guns are usually a bad choice—too much noise, ammunition won’t last forever, and head shots are tough to make on moving targets.”
The mayor’s jowls bounced as he enthusiastically nodded his agreement, “Sounds good. By the way, my name is Jimmy Watts, acting mayor of Cairo. You men come on back to town with us and we’ll have that talk you wanted; we’ll get you some dinner too.”
After living off of MREs for almost a week Carter looked at his crew and winked before agreeing, “Well, since food’s involved . . .”
The mayor of Cairo was true to his word concerning dinner, arranging a spread that included beefsteaks, pork chops, corn casserole, corn on the cob, and an appetizer of lightly roasted and salted soybeans. He even offered each man a single bottle of cold beer and made arrangements to take care of
the refugees who’d been waiting in the boats.
“As you can see, we have plenty of corn,” The old man jovially exclaimed. “We even have more than enough to keep livestock fed.”
Speaking around the large slice of pork chop he was chewing, David asked, “How many people live here?”
“Well, we have about five thousand in and around Cairo proper, but I’d say there’s at least that many more living within twenty miles of the town. This area has plenty of streams and sloughs and islands where people were able to escape the eaters when the outbreak reached us.”
Carter spoke up, “We’ve been seein’ the same thing along the Ohio: people livin’ on islands, peninsulas, and even barges.”
They mayor nodded, “Yep, the rivers have saved plenty of folks; of course, ninety percent of the people living around here died before they figured out the eaters don’t like water.” He looked tired and sad. “So what the hell happened, anyway? We have a few ham radio operators around here but they haven’t picked up many transmissions. Did the whole world die?”
David set down his fork and wiped his mouth. “Mayor, when we encountered you heading toward the fight today we said what we had to in order for you to trust us enough to let us help you out. Carter and Bobby were U.S. Army Rangers for eight years, and Gabe was a naval officer for five. I’m just a lawyer from Cleveland, but my brother’s in command of a force trying to hold a bridge just north of Fort Knox. As far as we know, the legitimate military was entirely destroyed fighting the infected in the days after the virus broke free.”
The mayor put his head in his hands and muttered, “So we’re really on our own? What about other survivors?”
“We’ve had some decent radio contact around the country, and we’ve travelled extensively in the upper Midwest. Small groups of survivors are scattered about, and somewhere around a million people have organized out in Utah. Other than that, the news is pretty bad.”
“What could be worse than what I already know after living through the past five months?”
David took a long pull from his beer. “I need to tell you about General Matthew Barnes . . .”
Two hours later the mayor and his staff were basically speechless after learning about the origin of the virus and Barnes’ depredations across the east and south. The man who’d been driving the SUV that picked up Carter and the others earlier in the day still seemed a bit on the suspicious side.
“So even if everything you’ve told us is true, we’re protected from this General Barnes because your people have ruined every bridge across the Ohio River. We don’t need to do anything different from what we’ve been doing.”
The mayor looked at the young know-it-all and held up a hand for silence. “Son, how many infected did we face today, two, three hundred? We might’ve been overrun if these gentlemen hadn’t shown up and helped out. Can you imagine what would happen to the people counting on us to keep them safe if one of those helicopters leads a few thousand flesh-eaters down on us?”
When he received no response to his questions, the mayor spoke loudly so that all of the locals who’d been listening to the newcomers’ information could hear what he had to say. “Y’all pulled me out of retirement because you thought I could lead you through the outbreak. Sounds like we’ve done better than most. So hear me now: I believe these men are telling the truth. That means nobody’s safe as long as this Barnes character’s on the loose. So we’re gonna help these folks out as much as we can. Anybody doesn’t agree with my decision can run against me in the next election.”
When nobody raised a voice in protest, the mayor looked at Carter and winked. “Okay son, y’all let us know how we can help win this damn war.”
During their trip downriver the four men had enjoyed plenty of time to develop a wish list of what they hoped to discover on their trip west and south. More than anything, they needed allies in the war against Barnes and the infected. As the only surviving town of any size that the various groups of river people were aware of, the mayor’s endorsement of the fighters from Indiana and their mission went a long way toward achieving the first goal.
The second objective was the discovery of a place on the southern Mississippi to take a stand against Barnes when he finally made it this far west. The mayor had a place in mind.
“A few months ago, a huge group of refugees passed through here on a fleet of every type of watercraft you can imagine. Said they’d been attacked in Tennessee by flesh-eaters guided by helicopters. I guess that was General Barnes, but we thought they were exaggerating a bit. Anyway, they found the bridges at Vicksburg, Mississippi, still in good condition with not too many infected in the area, so they set up camp there and started fortifying the place. They’ve been trading guns and dogs with us for corn, wheat, and beans. Sounds like they’ve been attracting other groups of survivors and have a pretty decent sized community set up down there.”
David interrupted the mayor, “What’s the deal with those dogs your people were using in the fight today?”
The old man actually smiled. “Those Vicksburg folks got a military dog-handler down there with them. He’s been rounding up strays wherever he can find ‘em, especially labs and shepherds of all sorts. The dogs can smell the infected a mile away, and they’ll try to herd ‘em away from people whenever they see the creatures. Pretty nifty critters to have around, let me tell ya . . . those dogs have saved lives around here, and not just a few.”
“So I assume they’re immune to the virus?” David asked.
“Never heard of a dog turning like people do when they’re bitten. We’ve lost some dogs to infected bite-wounds and blood loss, but they can bite into the arms and hands of the flesh-eaters with no problems. Your people haven’t been using dogs?”
David shook his head. “We had a little beagle in our group that saved a couple of girls early on; he’s part of the family now. But no, for some reason I guess we all just assumed our dogs were as vulnerable as we were. We definitely have a lot of ‘em in our community; people brought their pets when they ran from the infected. Plenty of other dogs have been hanging around our settlements, and kids keep feeding them even though we’ve told them not to. A lot of cats too.”
The mayor nodded enthusiastically, “The cats disappeared for a while, but now we have cats everywhere! Millions of chewed up corpses all over the country . . . let me tell ya, the rats are always bad in a river town, but now there’s thousands of ‘em. They’d get all our grain if it wasn’t for the cats.”
Bobby just shook his head and muttered, “Never liked cats.”
“Hey,” the mayor declared, “we don’t have to like ‘em, just let ‘em do what they were born to do. One of our refugees was a history teacher at Southern Illinois; he said that the ancient Egyptians protected their cats by law. That grain is life, man, especially the way the weather’s been acting up lately.”
“Some of the Utah scientists believe global temperatures will change due to all the fires following the outbreak of the virus. They say global dimming will cool the planet,” David shared.
“Yeah,” the mayor agreed, “plenty of folks around here have been saying that we’re gonna have something like a nuclear winter due to all those fires. But hey, concerning your Utah connection, that Pacific Union rail line runs south to Shreveport and from there the Kansas City Southern goes straight to Vicksburg. You ever considered using the rail system?”
“Well, as a matter a fact, we have,” Carter replied, barely able to contain his excitement. “Are ya sayin’ that we can set up a route from Vicksburg to Utah?”
“Oh, I’m sure all right; worked on the railroad for over thirty years after ‘Nam’.”
David let out a slow whistle, “We need to get our butts down there ASAP; sounds like Vicksburg could be one of the most important crossings on the Mississippi.”
“Well,” the mayor offered, “Memphis is really where the rail lines and highways converge, but this Barnes character would have to be crazy to try to go thro
ugh there. The city burned, gas lines blew, whole place flooded three months ago . . . nobody’s using Memphis again for a long, long time. Hell, it’ll probably end up as one those ruins future civilizations wonder about.”
“Yer makin’ a mighty big assumption there, sir,” Carter pointed out. “We gotta win this war or there won’t be any future civilizations.”
“Rabies, sort of an obvious choice,” Vickie observed. “It even explains the creatures’ hydrophobia, but this isn’t really rabies anymore. It’s been altered in some undecipherable ways.”
“Let’s hope they’re not undecipherable,” Doc Redders said as he stretched his neck from side to side. “Take a look at this magnosensitive protein.”
“Isn’t that what some animals, like bats and bees, use to navigate using the electromagnetic spectrum?”
Redders nodded. “Not just bats and bees either: sea turtles, stingrays, some fish, and even some types of bacteria—“
Vickie interrupted, “What are you doing with this?” She held up a small container labeled Sample A.
“It’s a human DNA sample,” Redders began to explain.
“I know what it is,” Vickie said quickly, “I asked what you were doing with it.”
Redders turned the tables on Vickie, “I know it’s a sample you were running tests on—whose is it?”
“That’s rather personal,” she demurred. “I should have destroyed it when I was done with it.”
“You left a couple samples in the cooler,” Redders said as he unexpectedly snatched the sample from Vickie’s hand. “And we’re not destroying anything.”
Vickie was incredulous, “You just grabbed that right out of my hand!”
“I . . . I’m sorry if I was rude,” he stammered, “but you don’t understand.”
Vickie sat back on the lab stool and folded her arms across her chest. “You are acting really weird, Doc. Weird even for you. You need to tell me what’s going on.”