Outbreak (Book 1): Emerald City

by Jay K. Anthony

  Feeling depressed, Tasha huddled in the back of the locker, her sleeping bag around her, and reflected on her situation. She knew she should be thankful to have found the locker at all. On the run from a group of creepers, she had fled into the building over some rubble where a tank had crashed through a wall and knocked down the ground floor set of stairs. Searching desperately for a place to hide, Tasha had come across an aluminum ladder and used it to get off of the ground floor. Climbing as high as she could, she had found the locker and ducked inside. That had been months ago. She looked at the shelves of canned goods and remembered her elation at finding so much food. Now she wished she still felt as lucky as she had then.

  At the start of the outbreak, when masses of people were fleeing the city to escape the virus and the creepers, Tasha had abandoned her apartment. With nowhere to go, she had spent part of the fall hiding in the woods, trying to survive on berries and roots. She learned quickly she would have to choose between starving to death or returning to the city. She chose to return, but life there was also hard. Most of the food had been scavenged. To make matters worse, every other building in the area seemed to be filled with corpses or creepers or both. She was out looking for a place to hole up when she ran into a group of creepers and found her way to the cannery with the sign out front that read Gourmet Entree. It was not until she was tearing eagerly into one of the cases that she realized the only thing to eat were cans of wet cat food. She had contemplated looking for somewhere else to go but by then it was late in the year and already very wet and very cold. It did not take long for her to find out that once you are hungry enough, everything tastes good, even Chicken and Liver in a Soft Loaf.

  The outbreak had begun when Tasha was just starting her senior year in high school. Back then, she had always wished she were thin. She was active in sports year round and had always considered herself fit, but she was never one of those girls who was always able to wear whatever she wanted. A steady diet of cat food and rainwater had taken care of that. Tasha’s clothes hung from her frame now. She had to carve notch holes in her belt to keep it tight enough so her pants did not fall down. She had taken off her layers of clothing once during the winter and was amazed at how her ribs and the bones of her hips showed under her skin. Looking down at her hands, she hardly recognized them. I have got to eat, she thought even though the idea did not seem appetizing. She shook her head. It was eat or lay down and die. Get up! she demanded herself. Slowly, she pushed back her sleeping bag and got up to have dinner. As she lit a candle, she heard a helicopter fly over the building. She was not terribly surprised to hear one, military aircraft came and went over the city, but it still was not good. The noise would rile up the creepers and now she would have to be extra careful if she got around to going outside of her locker. Probably more propaganda, she thought. The military base on the other side of the city liked to send out a chopper every week or so to drop leaflets all over town. The leaflets were little, the size of the paper in a fortune cookie, and asked for survivors to go to the base. The papers always said something about how the government was working on a cure and promised that the zombies would soon starve themselves out. Tasha had no interest in going to the base. She had stopped trusting the establishment a long time ago. They had started this outbreak and done nothing to contain the creepers. Plus, there had been no evidence of progress on a cure and after all this time, the creepers sure as hell had not starved themselves out.

  Tasha was curious about the messages though. She craved human contact, no matter how small. She decided to go outside and see if there was any new information before the creepers got too worked up. She blew out her candle and picked up her pistol from off the floor beside her sleeping bag. The weapon was an old fashioned nickel plated six shot revolver she had found in a holster on a corpse in the forest to the east of the city. She had never shot the pistol because she did not have any extra bullets to practice with but she carried the weapon in a holster on her leg like a cowboy whenever she left the safety of her locker. Stepping outside and into the cannery warehouse, she scanned the rows of stainless steel manufacturing equipment for any signs of movement. Tasha had guessed the machinery was all part of the canning process but she had no real idea. She had been through all of the equipment a dozen times and never found anything really useful, so for the most part, she ignored it all.

  As quietly as she could, Tasha went to a wall of filthy warehouse windows and looked outside. There were leaflets drifting down from the sky like confetti. It was cloudy overhead and already getting dark, making it hard to guess the time. Tasha went to one corner of the floor where there was a simple steel ladder to a hatch in the roof and climbed up and out onto the gravel strewn rooftop. She was lucky, a few of the leaflets had landed on her building. She had no desire to go down to the streets to find a leaflet, especially with creepers running around chasing the helicopter. While she was up there, she took a look around at the remains of the city. Seattle, Washington. The jewel of the Pacific Northwest and at one time was known as the Emerald City. A year ago it had over six hundred thousand people, a thriving economy thanks to one of the busiest ports on the west coast, and a pretty good football team. All of that was gone now and it broke Tasha’s heart to think of the loss of life.

  A stiff wind blew from over Puget Sound and Tasha’s hair fell loose again and whipped in her face. Frustrated, she thought she should have worn her cap. She was beginning to hate her hair. Holding it in one of her fists, she chased after one of the leaflets. The paper tumbled along in the wind until she stomped down and caught it under her boot. Carefully, so as not to lose it again in the wind, she picked it up and read:

  26APR - ATTENTION CITIZENS:

  CURE IS IMMINENT. ALL PERSONNEL RETURN TO NEAREST MILITARY FACILITY. BLOOD TYPE B-NEG IS DESPERATELY NEEDED FOR RESEARCH. FOOD REWARD FOR BLOOD DONATION.

  April 26th. Two days past her eighteenth birthday. A year ago, all she had wanted to do was focus on graduating high school and going off to college. All I ever wanted, she reminisced. Now she just wanted something to eat that did not come out of a can with a picture of a cat on the label. Times have certainly changed. Tasha considered letting the leaflet go and watch it drift off in the wind. Most of the message was information she had seen before, but the note on the blood type was interesting to her. Tasha knew she had B-negative blood. She remembered this because it was rare. She had been in a serious car accident when she was younger and since only two percent of the general population had her blood type, the hospital had to bring in additional supplies of blood to keep her alive. She absently reached up under her coat and touched the six inch scar on her abdomen while she thought about the leaflet. The military had never mentioned anything about blood before and it led her to believe that just maybe someone was actually working on a cure. A chance to return everything to normal? she wondered. That doesn’t sound so bad. She tucked the paper into her pocket and looked out across the city. From on top of the cannery she could see clear to downtown. The skyscrapers, the sports stadiums, the Space Needle, and far off in the distance was Mount Rainier. She thought about how beautiful the city had once been. But now it was falling to ruin with broken down cars, dead bodies, trash, and burned out buildings. Turning to face the wind, she looked to the south, along the coast of the Sound, and saw Broken Top in Alki Park. Broken Top was the only significant land mass that rose above what remained of the city. With nothing much to do, she had gotten in the habit of using her binoculars to watch the activity over there. There was only one road up to the peak and she could usually just make out a team of soldiers stationed in the old World War II bunkers. Sometimes she wondered why they were there. It was not like the place had anything left to protect.

  Thinking of the leaflet and the request for her blood type, Tasha reconsidered the bunker at Broken Top. As far as she knew, it was the closest military presence to her. It was where she would go if she was going to go anywhere. It was not terribly far from her cannery, maybe just o
ver a mile to the base of the mountain, but traveling any distance in the city had its share of dangers. The creepers were just one problem and if she was careful and quiet, they were easy enough to avoid. The other survivors in the city were another problem altogether. Most were evil and she had seen all kinds of brutality and cannibalism in just the few months since the outbreak. The whole idea is risky, but if my blood could help save people ...

  Unsure of what to do, Tasha went to the edge of the roof and looked down to the street. There were a lot of creepers milling around because of the helicopter. The same thing which had drawn her to the roof had also drawn the creepers out in the open. Plus, it was the time of day that for reasons Tasha could not figure out, the creepers tended to come outside. They always came out in the evening. It’s like they’re looking for dinner or something, Tasha thought. But she also knew it was nothing compared to when it rained. Rain stirred up the creepers more than anything else. Tasha did not know why and wondered if anyone really did.

  Still considering if the trip to Broken Top would be worth the risk, she went back down the ladder and into the cannery. She walked past the rows of machinery and stood in the doorway of her locker. If it really was late April then she had been hiding in the locker for over five months. How long am I willing to live like this? she wondered. I can’t do this forever, but those creepers can’t go on like they do forever either. Tasha looked at her gear, her belongings. I’m doing okay, she thought. She had her pistol, a sleeping bag, a mirror, candles and a lot of food left. It’s a lot better existence than most people. Especially the creepers, standing around, starving, chasing helicopters and anything else that made any noise. I don’t have to decide today, she thought. She knew Broken Top was not going anywhere anytime soon, so she decided the best thing to do would be to sleep on it. She climbed into her sleeping bag and for her dinner, she opened a can of cat food, Beef Feast in Gravy.

  LUKE

  Luke watched out his apartment window as the sun set over the city and he finished his cigarette. He was standing on the top floor of the Alaska building which, at fifteen stories, had been the tallest building in Seattle when it was built in 1904. Pulling a half empty pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, Luke looked at his dwindling supply. Eleven, he counted. And only three more packs in my room. I should wait… aw, who am I kidding? Life’s too short to wait. He lit the next cigarette with the butt of the first and flicked the spent butt out the window. He watched it fall. One hell of a drop, he thought when he heard voices in the hallway behind him. He knew it would be his roommates. Matt, Matt’s cousin Pete, and their friend Ted. It sounded like all three of them were sucking wind. Luke couldn’t blame them, it was a long way up, and it had been a long time since the elevator had worked. Taking another pull on his cigarette, he held his breath to get as much nicotine as possible and very carefully stubbed the cigarette out. Exhaling through his nose, he gently placed what remained of the cigarette back in the pack with the others. Ten and a half, he thought and walked over to the apartment door to unlock the deadbolt.

  Luke and his roommates had been living inside the building for just over three months now. Luke had thought the accommodations were bad at first, and then the power went out. Then it was really bad. No one liked climbing fifteen stories every time they wanted to come home, but it was the safest option. In Luke’s opinion, no matter how many times he had to stop and catch his breath while getting to the top floor, a good night’s sleep was worth the climb every single time. The downstairs was boarded up like a brick shithouse and they had made sure that to get off of the ground floor, that there was only one set of useable stairs. In addition, on every floor of the stairwell they had built security doors and anyone that did not know where the traps were would be blown to shit before they made it off of the ground floor.

  Working together over the last few months, the four men had turned the top floor, originally a bunch of separate apartments, into a sort of penthouse. Ted, Matt’s redneck asshole of a friend, had been a surprisingly big help. He was good with his hands and had worked hard busting out most of the inner walls. The result was four enormous bedrooms and a common room. When they were done there was enough space and furniture for each of them to spread out and make themselves as comfortable as they wanted. Matt was the undeclared leader, so he had the best of the rooms, but Luke, Ted, and Pete were able to make due pretty well, especially given the circumstances of the apocalypse. During most days, the four of them would do nothing more than hang out in the common room, drink beer, and play cards. Today however, the other three had been on a supply run. Matt, Pete, and Ted had gone out scavenging nearby buildings while Luke stayed back to keep watch and stand guard.

  Luke held the door as the three men came into the central space with a few half empty bags in their arms. They added the stuff to what was left of their dwindling supplies of canned foods, water, and a small armory of guns and weapons that were arranged in haphazard piles around the room. Not much left, Luke thought as he looked disappointedly over the meager amounts the other men had found. And no cigarettes? Shit.

  Once Matt caught his breath and cracked open a beer he had carried in with him, he sank onto a couch. “Gather around everyone,” he huffed. “We’ve got a problem. I’ve been doing an inventory and what we have here is about all we have left. There isn’t shit left downstairs and there isn’t anything in the buildings around us.”

  Luke walked over to the card table they had set in the center of the room and sat down. He wasn’t surprised by Matt’s news. They had been going through each of the rooms on the lower floors, salvaging everything they could find to eat and drink, and they had cleared the last room almost a week ago. Waiting for Matt to go on, Luke pulled out his pack of smokes and took out his half cigarette. He lit up and sucked in a long slow drag. Two puffs, he thought. Then back in the pack it goes. He flipped back his long blond hair. It was greasy and from what he could see of it, his hair was not the golden brown that he remembered. It had been a long few months and bath and shower amenities were not the highest priority. Pulling in another drag, he looked down and saw he had finished the cigarette while lost in thought. Damn it! he thought. Where is my brain! Now I only have ten left.

  Matt sat down at the table across from Luke, chugged the rest of the beer in his hand and crushed the can with his fist. He looked around for another beer before throwing the spent container into a corner of the room where they had a large collection of trash growing. “Pete,” he said. “Beer me!”

  “You got it, Boss,” Pete said and went to one of the windows, opened it, and brought in a six-pack that had been cooling outside. He handed the beers to Matt, who pulled one from the pack and popped the tab.

  “I think it’s time to move,” Matt announced and pulled a weathered map out of his back pocket. He spread it out onto the table before letting out a loud belch. Pete could get the giggles over just about anything and let out a snort of laughter at his older cousin’s burp as he sat down and looked at the map. Ted hung back and watched from across the room. Luke turned his chair a little to be able to see the man out of the corner of his eye. In Luke’s opinion, Ted was sick in the head and he made Luke uneasy, so Luke made sure to position himself where Ted was always in his line of sight.

  Matt smoothed down the map with his hands and used two more of the beer cans to hold down the top corners. “This is what we are going to do,” he said and pointed to their location on the map. “We are going to be out of food soon and everything within a mile of this place has been picked through.” Luke knew this was true. They went out in teams every week to scavenge, and every once in a while they would get lucky, but there were still a lot of people trying to survive in the city and there was not much food left to find.

  “We also need a better place to work,” Matt continued.

  This was news to Luke. “Work on what?” he asked.

  “Let me explain,” Matt said. “You all know the Bowman boatyard?”

  Pete raised h
is hand. “Sorry, I don’t,” he said just barely above a whisper.

  Luke was not sure if there was anything medically wrong with Pete or if he was just a little slow, but the boy struggled with reading and Luke knew from their card playing the young man had zero ability in mathematics. Luke was also pretty sure Pete had been slapped around a lot in his life before the apocalypse. If anyone so much as raised their voice at him, Pete would retreat into himself and sometimes would sit alone and quiet for hours.

  “It’s okay,” Matt said to Pete. “Bowman was this guy that, like a hundred years ago, started up a boat company here in Seattle. Made a big deal out of all of it and made a shit ton of money. He was into something about quality over quantity. Anyhow, he has this big-ass boatyard over in the Duwamish.”

  “I don’t know what that is either,” Pete said.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Matt replied. “It’s a waterway. Like this really big river to the south of here. Anyhow, this Bowman guy, he used to make boats --”

  “You want to steal a boat?” Pete interrupted.

  “No, Pete, pay attention,” Matt said. Luke could see the frustration building in the man. Over their last few months holed up together, Luke had learned there were two sides to Matt. One was calm and stable, a man who would do anything for his friends and especially his cousin. And then there was the other side. That Matt would fall into a blind rage on a moment's notice and one that Luke was pretty sure could kill a man with his bare hands. Worst part, Luke thought. You never know which Matt is going to show up.