Outbreak (Book 1): Emerald City

by Jay K. Anthony

  “And then what?”

  “I don't know,” Luke said. “I haven’t gotten that far.”

  Matt stared thoughtfully at the zombies on the other side of the glass. “I got it,” he said.

  “What?” Luke asked.

  Matt stood up and stepped up to the glass. His face was only inches from what had once been Officer Park. “We pour gasoline on the floor, let it leak under the door and we use it to light them up.”

  Nasty, Luke thought. But feasible. Assuming we don’t burn down the whole damn building. “I like it,” he said.

  “Ha!” Matt laughed. “Our own private ZBQ. It’s perfect. Then all we have to do is wait for the fire to die down and go in and pick up the keys,” he said. “Let’s go get some gasoline.”

  They left the zombies pawing at the glass and went upstairs into the garage and looked around for something to start a fire with. Matt pointed toward one corner of the building. “Over there,” he said. “I saw a couple fifty gallon drums. Let’s see if there is anything in them.”

  Luke went over and knocked on one of the barrels. It was full of fuel. “Score,” he said and tilted the barrel onto its edge to begin to roll it over to the stairs. It was heavy as hell but together they aligned it at the top. “I don’t know if we are going to be able to carry this down,” Luke said.

  “How much you figure this son of a bitch weighs?” Matt asked.

  “Hell if I know,” Luke replied. “A few hundred pounds, easy.”

  “Shit,” Matt said. “How about we just roll it down?”

  Luke thought on that for a moment. “If we lose it, I bet it will go straight through that door.”

  “Yeah,” Matt agreed. “Probably not the best plan.”

  Luke looked down the stairs and into the gloom. He could just make out the zombies watching them through the glass. Going to cook you, you nasty bastards, he thought.

  “Let’s get this done,” Matt said and stood on one side of the barrel.

  “Yep,” Luke agreed and took the other side. Together they dropped the drum down one step.

  “Good Lord,” Matt said. “How many steps are there?”

  “You don’t want to know,” Luke joked and then realized they had a problem. “Hold up,” he said. “If we get this down there, and then pour gas under the door, how are we going to get the barrel back up?”

  Matt looked at Luke, clearly not understanding. “This barrel has something like fifty gallons of gas in it,” Luke continued. “If that all explodes, this whole building will go up.”

  “To hell with that,” Matt said. “So, what do we do?”

  Luke paused for a second. Damn, we are stupid, he thought. “Help me get this back up,” he said, and together they lifted and pushed the drum back up the one step.

  “So?” Matt asked and put his hands on his lower back.

  “One second,” Luke said and went to look around the garage. It was growing dark and it was hard to see. He needed a container, something small to pour gas from the barrel into. That way they could dump a couple gallons of gas under the door, and not deal with the whole barrel. While he searched, he nearly tripped over a handcart that was obviously meant for moving the barrels. He wanted to slap himself. Could have used that ten minutes ago, he thought and made a mental note of where it was in case they needed it later. He kept looking around and found a two gallon plastic jug of weed killer. He dumped the contents out onto the floor and as the last drop spilled out, he wondered if the weed killer was more flammable than the gasoline. He decided he was better off not even knowing. He had made enough stupid mistakes in the last hour as it was.

  With the empty jug in hand, he went back to Matt who was waiting impatiently by the barrel. “Took you long enough,” he said.

  Kiss my ass, Luke thought, but kept his mouth shut. “Sorry, hard to find shit in the dark,” he said. “Help me out.” They twisted off the seal on the pour spout of the barrel and then tipped the thing to try and get gas into the jug. Fuel went everywhere but eventually the container was full enough. Together they took the jug down the stairs and Matt supervised as Luke poured the fuel onto the floor and under the door. The zombies either didn’t notice or didn’t care. When the jug was empty, Luke looked at Matt. “What do you think?” he asked. “One more?”

  “Shit no,” Matt said. “We have so much gasoline everywhere we’ll be lucky to get out of this without being BBQ ourselves.” Luke had to agree. Their great plan was proving to be a pain in the ass and now he realized they had a new problem.

  “How are we going to light this?” Luke asked.

  “Jesus!” Matt said running a hand down his face. “Hell if I know? Why can’t we just use your lighter?”

  “It’s not the kind that will stay lit and I sure as hell am not going to kneel down in the puddle of gas and light it. We need something we can light and throw down there,” he said.

  “Okay … what about one of your cigarettes?” Matt asked.

  Luke sighed. “That only works in the movies,” he replied.

  “You’re shitting me,” Matt said.

  “Nope,” Luke said. “Had a pyro friend back home, played with gasoline and flammables all the time. He proved it to me. Even made a video of it.”

  “Probably not the best idea,” Matt said.

  “That’s true. I’m sure he’s dead now anyway. Let’s look around.”

  “This is a stupid problem to have,” Matt said as he started fumbling through the shelves of car parts. “Jesus it’s dark in here.”

  Luke looked for something to light on fire that would stay lit when he threw it down the stairs. Then he saw the tow truck. “Hey!” he called out to Matt. “Where would they put road flares in the truck?” Matt snapped his fingers and went to the vehicle. He opened the driver’s side door and pushed the seat forward. He took out a box and opened it to reveal a caution sign and three flares. “Perfect,” Luke said and took one of the flares. The two of them walked back over to the top of the stairs and looked down at the door.

  “Do it,” Matt encouraged. He was grinning like a teenage kid about to do something bad. Luke knew how he felt. He popped the end of the flare and it hissed to life. Not knowing how a flare worked, if it would go out soon or if it would ignite the gasoline at all, he tossed it down the stairs.

  With a WHOOSH the gasoline ignited and a ball of smoke roared up the stairway. Luke and Matt both dove to the floor of the shop and rolled for cover. Laughing, they crawled over to look down the stairway. Through the smoke they could just see through the glass. Inside the apartment was a raging inferno. The zombies were twisting and contorting themselves in death spasms. What was once Officer Park threw himself against the door. Luke did not know if zombies felt pain, but from the way Officer Park was freaking the hell out, Luke guessed they did. It looked like it hurt and it hurt a lot.

  Matt slapped Luke on the back. “Nice work man,” he said. “Now all we have to do is --“

  Sprinklers throughout the garage came bursting on followed by a ringing fire alarm that began to shrill. Matt and Luke stared at each other. Oh, shit, Luke thought. He picked up Matt’s sledge hammer and ran around in the sprinkling rain looking for the source of the alarm. He found it hanging and ringing from one of the cinderblock walls. Goddamn thing must be battery powered, he thought. Not wanting to waste time looking for a switch, Luke hammered it straight off of the wall. It would not stop ringing, so he stood over it and pounded the living shit out of it with Matt’s hammer until it finally shut off.

  Matt came over and stood next to Luke. “Son of a bitch,” Matt said and looked up as the sprinklers stopped running and the two of them stood dripping wet in the middle of the garage. Luke grinned. He could not believe the shit he was doing. Back before the outbreak, he worked in an office and made spreadsheets on a computer all day.

  CLARK

  Clark sat in the cafeteria and contemplated making what would probably be the biggest mistake of his life. It was late and the cafeteria was
mostly empty. He was passing the time by talking with a very young soldier named Private Conley. Conley had just gotten off guard duty and was in a chatty mood. The soldier was upset he had missed all of the “action” earlier. Clark thought about explaining to the kid the “action” felt to him like hell on Earth, but in the end, he didn’t see the point. Instead, he just let the guy talk. Besides, Clark was exhausted. He had endured some long days in medical school, but nothing compared to the day he had just survived.

  Private Conley spoke nonstop between shoveling down mouthfuls of ice cream. He had transitioned from complaining about missing the early fighting to explaining about the base itself. The soldier said it was built on Mercer Island because it was near the center of Seattle and once the apocalypse began, the military looked for locations with natural defenses. Mercer Island was identified as the most defensible place in the city because lurkers could only reach it by bridge. “Mostly residential originally,” Conley said with a full mouth. “But pretty much everybody here died so the military leveled the houses, cleared out all of the leftover lurkers and turned one of the parks into an air strip. There was a junior college here and we converted it into a military base.” Clark agreed with the military's choice. Having a place with a cafeteria, lots of rooms for sleeping, and easy road access was convenient. “Me, I like the site because the place has a kick ass weight room. I hit that place every day, even with lurkers right outside the fences,” Conley continued. To each their own, Clark thought and stood up. It was time to go find General Dodge and make his big mistake.

  “Nice chatting with you, Conley,” Clark said. “I need to go see the general.”

  “You know the way?” Conley asked.

  “Yes, I do. Thanks,” Clark replied and found his way to the general’s office. Luckily, the man was there. Clark hadn’t been sure if he would be after the mess in the parking lot earlier. He imagined there was a lot to get straightened out. Clark knocked and was let in.

  “General Dodge,” he said. “I would like you to write up orders for Rocha to take me to the hospital.”

  “You sure about that?” Dodge asked.

  Clark had no idea how Rocha would feel about the orders, but Rocha did tell him that word had to come from his superiors. Going straight up the chain of command to General Dodge had seemed the fastest route. “Of course,” Clark replied.

  “Okay,” the general said. “But Rocha is short a partner and after today’s cluster in the parking lot, I don’t have anyone to send with him. You’ll need to go with Rocha to watch his back.” Clark frowned at the announcement. He was not truly surprised, but he did not like the idea of going into the field. Still, he needed the paperwork on the patient and if the only way he was going to get it was to go himself, then that is what he would do.

  “I will admit," Clark said. "I’m very much okay with waiting for you to find Rocha another partner and have them go get what I need.”

  Dodge laughed and leaned back in his chair. “Fat chance,” he said. “We’re losing this war, you know. Pretty soon I’m going to be sending out the cooks on missions. It’s up to you. Sit down and write up what you need and I’ll sign it. But, listen up. I’m also leaving the final decision to Rocha. If he isn’t comfortable putting his life in your hands, then the orders will be null and void. Got it?”

  “Got it,” Clark said.

  “Good,” the General continued. “Feel free to use my desk.”

  Clark typed up a memo on the general’s vintage manual typewriter. He wrote that he needed Rocha to arrange for transportation, escort him to the hospital, and to show him where he had found the patient the first time. Rocha was then to protect him so that he could collect evidence and then bring him back to the base. Just as he finished, the lights went out. “General?” he asked.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Dodge said. “Happens more than it should. Probably just something wrong with the generators.” Clark heard Dodge rooting around and then a flashlight came on. “Let me see what you have here.”

  Clark unspooled the paper out of the typewriter and set it on the desk. Dodge read it and made a notation at the end that the mission was Priority Charlie. “What does that mean?” Clark asked after he read the addition. “Is that a big deal?”

  Dodge signed the paper and handed it back to Clark. “It just identifies the priority of your mission. If you are in the field and a Priority Alpha or Bravo comes over the wire, you will be reassigned.” Reassigned? Clark thought. Why don’t I like the sound of that? He was pretty sure he did not want to go into the hospital in the first place, much less be reassigned in the middle of the mission.

  “Does that happen a lot?” he asked.

  “Almost never,” Dodge said.

  “Well that's good,” Clark said and pointed at Dodge’s flashlight. “Mind if I use this to go find Rocha?”

  “Not at all,” Dodge said, handing it to him. “I have a spare. You know where you are going?”

  “No idea.”

  “Special Ops guys moved into the dorm beside the cafeteria. You can’t miss it.”

  Finding the building was easy enough, but there were no room numbers and nothing was labeled, so Clark knocked on the first door and was directed to the end of the hall. Clark went to the door where Rocha lived and knocked. “It’s open!” he heard Rocha call out and Clark opened the door. Rocha had a kerosene camping lantern burning on a nightstand and was sitting next to a massive amount of military equipment laid out on his bunk in all stages of assembly. Rocha was cleaning something with a rag that looked to have been soaked in grease. There were rope, knives, two curved machetes, food, canteens, bullets, and … grenades? Clark thought. All he could do was stand in the doorway and stare.

  “Are those real?” Clark asked as he pointed at the explosives.

  “Damn straight,” Rocha replied in a tone that was far too casual in Clark’s opinion. “Come in, have a seat. Don’t worry about the grenades. It’s the C-4 that would really blow this place to shit.”

  Clark felt his mouth drop open. He did not want to sit down. He wanted to run screaming down the hallway. The idea of being blown up scared the shit out of him. Closing his mouth, he watched Rocha set down the part he had been cleaning. He had everything laid out in neat little rows on a towel. He wiped his hands on a different towel and looked expectantly at Clark. “So,” he said. “What's the scoop?”

  “I wanted to talk to you more about the guy you brought in,” Clark said. “The one who was resistant to the infection.”

  “Ok,” Rocha said and picked up another piece of metal and began to wipe it down.

  Clark decided he would sit down after all and stepped into the room and took a chair. The whole room was small, but Clark still pushed the chair as far away from the explosives as possible. He caught Rocha half smiling, but ignored it. Military guys might be comfortable around explosives which could level buildings, but it did not mean he had to be.

  “So, uh,” Clark said. “It’s been confirmed. The guy was definitely bitten and was for sure carrying the virus.”

  Rocha leaned back on his bunk. “Wow,” he said. “That’s good, right? That means guys like you can study him and then develop a cure.”

  Clark rubbed his face with both hands. It had been a long day. “That’s the plan,” he said. “But we don’t really know why he was resistant. The only thing unusual about the guy is that he had a certain blood type.”

  “Ok,” Rocha said. “So, what’s special about his blood?”

  “It’s called B-negative. It’s rare. So rare that there isn’t any in stock to work with. I talked to the general and he’s been having Command radio everyone on the grid to see if they have any they can spare. They also sent out one of those choppers with leaflets asking civilians to come in to donate blood.”

  “I’ve seen those leaflets. Those really supposed to work?”

  “I have no idea. I can’t really imagine there are any survivors out there who would be willing to come out of hiding rig
ht now.”

  “Kind of grim,” Rocha said. “So, why not just ask the guy what’s different about his situation?”

  “Unfortunately, we can’t,” Clark said. “He passed away.”

  “Shit. Was it something we did wrong?”

  “No. No, there was serious head trauma. From what I read, it was a miracle he lived as long as he did and he was lucky just to make the trip in from this hospital.”

  “That sucks,” Rocha said. He slid off his bunk, stood up, and stretched. He was in a t-shirt and sweats and while Clark did not consider himself much of an athlete, he always thought of himself as “in shape”. But, compared to Rocha, he was a proverbial ninety-eight pound weakling. The soldier was a huge mass of muscle with a neck that looked to be the same size around as Clark’s thigh.

  “So, if it’s not too personal, what happened at the hospital?” Clark asked.

  “We ran into a cell,” he said.

  “Like a terrorist cell?”

  “Same idea. That’s just what someone started calling the clusters of lurkers.”

  “I read about clusters,” Clark said. “Oddly enough, it was one of the main factors which lead to the global outbreak. At the beginning of the apocalypse, before the infection was widespread, masses of people would come together and hide. They would hoard food and barricade themselves in. Then one person would come down with the infection. Either they had it before they went into hiding or they would eat contaminated food. The disease has an unusually long germination period and once it finds a host, it spreads quickly. There are reports of entire cities being wiped out in forty eight hours.”

  “I’ve seen it,” Rocha said. “I’ve been assigned to clear out office buildings, churches, schools, prisons, a football stadium … everywhere people were used to coming together. Once they were all infected, those who did not die became lurkers but were no longer smart enough to tear down their own barricade and would do nothing but stand around. Think about it. A mob of lurkers clustered together in the dark. First eating the dead but then growing hungrier and hungrier. Whenever possible, we would be assigned to come in before the lurkers figured out how to get out. I’ve slaughtered entire cell clusters with explosives, fire, flooding, or the good old standby, one shot one kill.”