by Schafer, Jon
Of the thirty-nine people who boarded the bus, none left it alive.
However, eighteen left through the space where the front windshield had been knocked out. But at this point they were far from alive.
This group of the dead, having exhausted their supply of available food inside the bus, went in search of more. Darkness had fallen by the time they staggered up onto the field that bordered the ditch, the slope leading up to the road being too steep for them to mount, and spread out to walk across the freshly plowed earth.
A few times, they heard or smelled what they thought was something edible but by the time they reached the source found nothing. A distant glow in the horizon, the city lights of the outskirts of Columbia, beckoned, so they headed in that direction.
The group stumbled across a back road that ran in the direction they were drawn to, so they followed it. They moved at a steady gait, as they had no need of sleep or even a short break. The only need that drove them was an insatiable craving for human flesh. Hearing gunshots in the distance, their pace quickened.
"Well that just about does it, Terry. I'm out of ammo," Billy stated before letting out a resounding belch.
"I been out for awhile. I been waiting for you to finish up."
"Think we should go on back to the truck and head home?"
Checking his watch, Terrance said, "Yeah, we got to work tomorrow, so we best be heading in. Besides, I need a beer and we drank up everything we brought with us. We can stop and pick up a six pack on the way home."
Earlier, the two men had walked up the road to the barn they had passed looking for something interesting to shoot. All the glass had long been busted or shot out of its windows, but they still found it satisfying to unload on the building. Turning to look back the way they had come, they could see the dim outline of the truck, dark black against the graded road.
Terrance was slightly in the lead as they trudged along, but it was Billy who spotted the group of indistinct shapes staggering toward them from beyond the truck. Pointing and laughing, he said, "Look at them, they're drunker than we are."
The dead did seem to step and stagger like drunks, but their disability stemmed from having a primitive nervous system and torn flesh and ligaments rather than from ingesting alcohol. Although running was beyond them, they could move quickly in a loping shuffle, kind of a stutter step, when properly motivated. Seeing Billy and Terrance coming toward them, they were now motivated.
Terrance studied the shapes in the distance, and was about to join in the laughter, when it suddenly dawned on him what they were. Stopping in his tracks, he said, "Holy shit Billy, I think it's them things."
Startled, Billy looked at his long time drinking buddy as the same thought flashed through both their minds. They had shot up all the ammunition for the rifles they carried and were now defenseless.
"The truck, run for it," Billy screamed.
The group of zombies was closer to the truck but the two men could run while the dead couldn't. Three of the flesh eaters even tripped over their own feet and fell to the road in their haste to reach the food. Billy and Terrance could have easily made it to the truck first if they had spent a few less nights eating fried food while chugging beer in front of the television, but their sedentary lives slowed them. Both groups converged on the vehicle at the same time.
Seeing that they wouldn't have time to reach the sanctuary of the truck cab, Billy shrieked, "Back, back the way we come!"
Spinning around, they dug in for traction on the dirt road and were off and running, this time at a much slower pace as the initial jolt of adrenaline wore off. Pointing ahead, Billy gasped, "The barn. We can hole up there and wait for help. We'll barricade the doors. Someone will see the truck and come looking. Glancing back over his shoulder, Terrance saw it was their only option. Already the group of killers was closing in on them, eating up the distance.
Billy slapped his buddy on the back, causing Terrance to jerk his head around in fear at the physical contact, and said, "C’mon, we got to beat feet or they'll get to us before we can get to the barn.”
With an effort, they forced their legs to carry them along at a fast jog.
Lungs bursting, the two finally made it to the weed-choked lane that led to their refuge. Having added slightly to their lead, Billy and Terrance walked the remaining distance to the barn. Billy kicked open a door set into its side wall, and the two men squeezed through shoulder to shoulder and looked around in wonder at what they saw.
From the road the barn had looked whole with the exception of the busted out windows, but upon entering they saw that the back wall of the structure had collapsed in several places leaving gaping holes. Without saying a word to each other, Billy and Terrance turned to leave the building to try and find somewhere more secure. Stopping again, they watched in horror as the zombie at the head of the pack, dressed in his gray bus driver’s uniform, turned and started down the drive toward them.
Looking back into the barn for a place to hide, Billy spotted a hayloft suspended eight feet off the ground, still attached to an undestroyed section of the back wall. Shoving Terrance toward it, he scrambled up the fixed wooden ladder after him.
Safe for the moment, the two men collapsed onto the platform and tried to catch their breath. Terrance leaned over to vomit the beer still in his stomach while making noises like a cat trying to dislodge a large hairball. Billy rolled over into a position where he could look over the edge of the loft at the door.
The moon had risen, its light glowing through the numerous holes in the roof and back wall. Once Billy's eyes adjusted, this provided enough light to make out the inside of the barn. When he had spied the hayloft, Billy's mind had latched onto the idea that he might find a pitchfork or some other tool that he could use as a weapon. Seeing nothing except dirt and moldering piles of hay, he felt a slight sinking feeling in his stomach. All he had was the empty rifle he’d held onto through his wild flight to the barn. He could use it as a club. He had seen Terrance throw his weapon away.
Surveying their position on top of the hayloft, Billy was slightly gladdened to see there was only one way to get to them and that was the ladder. That meant they could only come at them one at a time.
As if in reply to his thoughts, a single shape darkened the doorway. To Billy, this was the signal that the battle had begun. In seconds, a wave of flesh eating zombies came through the door and converged at the base of the platform. Here they milled around, looking up at where the two men sat out of reach, hissing and squealing at their inability to reach the food above them. Terrance, who had recovered from his retching, noticed this and shouted out with glee, "They can't climb. They can't get at us."
This statement was quickly proved false when an elderly, dead woman wearing a torn and blood soaked sun dress wrapped her hands around a rung in the ladder and started up. Seeing this new development, Terrance screamed and backed away.
Turning his rifle around and grasping it by the barrel, Billy cocked it back over his shoulder and moved into position at the top of the ladder. When the dead thing's head came level with the platform, he screamed out, "Fore," and swung with all his might.
The rifle butt impacted the side of her cranium, knocking the dead woman off the ladder and through the air to drop on the ground ten feet away. The blow had broken her neck, but had not severed her spinal column. With her head lolling to one side, she regained her feet and rejoined her dead companions.
A second zombie tried the ladder, only to be struck down like the first. Before a third could attempt to scale their defenses, Billy used the rifle butt to break away the top four rungs. Now the dead could still start up, but they couldn't get high enough to make it over the edge and onto the hayloft.
Keeping a wary eye on the dead things, now moaning at their inability to reach the food above them, Billy felt a sense of relief. He and Terrance couldn't get down but those things couldn't get up either. Realizing he was breathing heavy, he also felt a slight pain in his chest.
Safe for the moment, he would rest and regroup his thoughts before trying to figure out what to do next.
Seeing that Billy had beaten back the attack, Terrance moved cautiously forward and stopped near the edge of the loft. Looking down at the zombies milling around below, his courage came back as he said with contempt, "Now what, huh? Now what?" Stomping his foot, he called out, "You can't get us up here, can you? You ain't so bad now." Spitting in the face of the dead bus driver, he turned and stomped a few feet away before his knees gave out from exhaustion and fear, and he sat down abruptly.
The four by four posts, which supported the loft, had been infested by termites and dry rot for many years, and Billy felt the platform shudder with Terrance's movements. He opened his mouth to tell his friend to take it easy when he heard and felt a muffled thud from underneath him. At first he thought the floor was giving way and he looked around wildly for somewhere to run.
He paused when the thud was repeated, followed by the floor shaking again. Realizing it wasn't a support breaking, Billy found himself more curious than frightened as to what was going on. As he moved toward the edge of the platform, Terrance, who had jumped to his feet at the first thumping noise, brushed past him and leaned over the side. Billy saw his friend’s eyes go wide as he joined him and looked down. At first he couldn't make anything out in the dim light, but then the thudding noise and shudder was repeated. Now he could focus on its source.
Four of the dead had each taken up an arm or leg of the woman with the broken neck and were swinging her between them, using her body as a battering ram against one of the support columns.
As Billy and Terrance watched in horror, the zombies swung the dead meat between them again, causing the woman’s now pulverized head to impact the four by four with a thud. This was followed by a loud crack as the support column gave way and the hayloft collapsed.
Billy and Terrance had just enough time to scream as they dropped to the waiting dead below.
From its origins in Little Rock, Arkansas, the HWNW virus had radiated out to the north, south, east and west and now covered the country.
CHAPTER SIX
Steve Wendell woke lying flat on his back in bed. Stretching as he rubbed his feet together, he luxuriated in the thought that today was Friday, his late day to go into work. Five days a week he was at the station by five AM but on Fridays he never went in until ten.
Looking to his right, he saw Ginny's sleeping form next to him. As she was the station owner’s personal assistant, Ginny was supposed to be at the station by eight AM. But since the owner, Tom Oliver, brother of Mary Oliver AKA Morning Wood, was often away on business, Ginny typically rolled in around nine or ten. She got her work done and got along well with everyone, so no one commented on her daily tardiness.
It also helped that she was sleeping with the station manager, Steve mused.
Carefully getting out of bed so as not to disturb Ginny, Steve went into the kitchen and started the coffee maker. He stood there undecided for a moment as he wondered what new developments there were on the HWNW virus but wasn't sure which way to turn for the information.
The news stations were obviously downplaying what was happening, this being proven by the things that he himself had witnessed and heard. Like the grocery stores being locked down early and stocked up and what Heather had shared with him, so he didn't believe they were giving out the full story.
The Internet, on the other hand, would be a playground for every crank and nutcase in the known world. All the people who specialized in U.F.O. and Bigfoot sightings would be burning up the Web.
That's not even counting the conspiracy mongers, Steve thought. Jax at the bowling alley came immediately to mind. These were the type of people who would take a small bit of real information and speculate on its deeper meaning to the point of psycho-sickness.
Deciding to use his usual method of mentally filtering the mainstream media and the Internet, he went into the second bedroom and turned on the computer. While it was booting up, he went into the living room and turned on the TV. His eyes were immediately glued to what was being aired.
A shot showing a deserted stretch of freeway cutting through a city Steve didn't recognize was on the screen. A reporter for CNN stood in the fast lane, waving expansively to his right as the camera panned to take in columns of dark, oily smoke lifting into the air from a score of burning buildings. One stood out in particular, a twenty-story structure that was completely shrouded in smoke and flames. Military, police and news helicopters buzzed in and out of view.
Turning up the volume, he only caught the tail end of what the reporter said.
"-reporting live from Birmingham, this is Carey Thorson. We now switch to Biff Grant, live on the roof of the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota."
The screen changed to a view of a distant skyline as Biff did his voiceover. "Thanks, Carey. We're here on the roof of the Mall of America looking toward the city of Minneapolis which, as of early this morning, has been quarantined from the surrounding area. Although it's not quarantined in the usual sense of keeping people in but rather, in keeping them out."
The shot changed to a view of a perfectly coifed reporter standing in front of a huge, roof mounted air conditioner.
"After conferring with the Governor, the Mayor of Minneapolis, Tonya Harding, ordered the local police and the Hennepin County Sheriffs to institute a blockade of the city to insure the safety of its citizens from outside carriers of the HWNW virus. Utilizing natural barriers such as the Mississippi River and the freeway system that surrounds Minneapolis, the police stopped traffic on the streets and bridges, which crossed these barriers, and then set up barricades and command posts along the entire perimeter of the city. These are now manned by various law enforcement officers with orders to use deadly force to prevent anyone from crossing into the city.”
Holy shit, this is unreal, Steve's mind kept repeating as he watched the unfolding drama.
A map showing the quarantine zone flashed on the screen while Biff outlined the blockade. "On the southern end of the zone we have Interstate 494. This not only encompasses Minneapolis but also the southern lying suburb of Richfield. On the north is Interstate 694, while to the east and west lay the Mississippi River and Highway 100 respectively. Although this doesn't delineate the exact border of Minneapolis, it closes off a majority of it.”
The anchor in Atlanta broke in to ask a question. “Biff, did I hear you correctly when you said that Tonya Harding is the Mayor of Minneapolis? Is that the same Tonya Harding who was convicted of a plot to have her rival, Nancy Kerrigan, hurt so that she couldn't compete in a figure skating competition?”
Who gives a shit? Get back to the story and tell me what in the hell’s going on.
The shot switched from a view of the map back to Biff, showing him looking intently at the camera as he cupped a hand to the side of his head, so he could hear the question on his ear bud. After a second, he nodded thoughtfully before showing off his pearly whites and replied, "The one and the same. As you know, Minnesotans have a history of electing former pro-wrestlers and failed comedians to public office as opposed to politicians."
"But how did she get elected?" Atlanta asked."Isn't she a convicted felon?"
"Yes indeed, she is," Biff confirmed. "And normally a person convicted of a felony is barred from running for public office. However, when Jessie Ventura, the former wrestler and movie star, was serving as Governor, he pushed through legislation repealing that law in Minnesota."
“What do the surrounding areas think about this quarantine?" Atlanta asked.
“The Mayor of St. Paul, the capitol of Minnesota, is also formulating plans to blockade that city. Bloomington, where I am now, has asked to be included in the Minneapolis quarantine zone, using the argument that they have the Minnesota River to their south, thus forming a more effective barrier than Interstate 494.”
Steve suddenly realized that the news report had only mentioned the HWNW virus once as the caus
e for the quarantine. They seemed to be focusing on the other aspects of the story instead of looking at the root of the problem.
Any second now they'll have a live interview with Brittany Spears on how she's dealing with the upcoming crisis, Steve thought with disgust. Another huge televised 'who gives a shit’. Maybe Jax was right, it is a conspiracy.
Refocusing on the newscast, he saw it had switched back to the anchor in Atlanta who was pointing to a huge map of the United States that looked like it should have been shown during election time. Blue and red colored states stood out in stark relief against a white background as he commented, “Highlighted in red are the states that have already reported outbreaks of the HWNW virus and where the Governors of those states have declared martial law in an effort to arrest the spread of the disease.”
Steve noted that Florida was still blue. It was the only state in the entire southeast that was.
"Health department officials are urging people in the infected -." The anchor paused and then said, "Pardon me, the affected states to take the following precautions."
A list came on screen, which Steve scanned before laughing out loud at how ridiculous it was.
1. Wash your hands often with soap and water, and use anti-bacterial hand sanitizer.
2. Avoid large crowds of people.
3. If you spot anyone showing any sign of infection, report them immediately to 911.
The anchor came back on air saying, ''Signs of infection include the following: lethargic behavior, erratic behavior, people acting in a withdrawn, defensive manner and seizures.''