by Joe McKinney
Cade realized he was still holding the ice axe as he trudged up his front walk. What a sight that would be to responding officers, if he had been able to get hold of any. He sat down heavily on the stoop and fished his cell phone from his pocket. When he tried to make a call, all he heard was static. Inside the house the result was the same with the land line. He began to worry, and that sixth sense was now jangling discordantly.
Cade turned on the television for the first time since his family left. He selected one of the local news stations. The previously recorded footage was from Pioneer Courthouse Square, also known as Portland’s Living Room. They were covering an impromptu rally that happened earlier this morning. The pierced, tatted, black-clad anarchists were stirred up. They were rallying against the government and everything else they weren’t happy about. Judging by the signs and placards the protesters carried, they believed the mutated H1-N1 virus being reported was man-made. Beyond a shadow of a doubt they were convinced the government had released it on the unsuspecting “sheeple.” Their theory was that the government would be “forced” to intervene, thus giving “The Man” more power and total control when martial law was eventually declared. They feared that Homeland Security and FEMA wanted it implemented to restrict the rights of the American population. Paranoia was rooted deep in anarchist circles.
Cade noticed uneasily that the police and National Guard had a heavier presence than usual for one of these gatherings.
While the reporter was telling his audience about the damage these same thugs had caused last year at the WHO conference, a huge opening suddenly appeared in the middle of the hundred plus anarchists occupying the center of the brick square. It looked like a fight had started within the crowd. As the human sea parted, two figures on the ground arose and started grabbing and biting anyone within reach. The footage lasted four or five minutes. During that time, many more joined the first two attackers and panic swept the rest of the crowd. Police and guardsmen stood dumbstruck as the bloody melee escalated. Guardsmen fired the first warning shots over the heads of the frantic, out-of-control throng. Their gunfire merely attracted the attention of the newly infected.
Cade stood transfixed by the scene on the screen as the troops started shooting their M4 rifles into the surging group of rioters, infected and innocents. Newly turned undead were now attacking soldiers and the gawking bystanders standing near the outskirts.
Pioneer Courthouse Square became the flash-point for the outbreak in Portland.
Within minutes there were so many wounded and dead they had to be transported not only to the closest hospitals downtown but to the suburbs as well. As Cade learned later, this created satellite centers of infection and helped it spread faster and further from Ground Zero.
The recorded footage ended and the station ran a snippet reporting violence and cannibalism at the Alamo in San Antonio. There were scores of deaths and hundreds of casualties there as well. The pace of news coming in was frenetic. Abruptly the station went to a live feed from a nearby hospital.
The petite brunette news lady from Channel 8 had just arrived on scene at Providence Hospital, and was reporting live. Behind her the emergency room was overcrowded and hectic. Nurses, doctors and other personnel were performing triage or actively attending to the injured. In the background four hospital workers hovered around an ambulance gurney, working on a man with horrible lacerations crisscrossing his face. One person continually did chest compressions. On three different occasions one of the four workers hollered “clear,” and everyone stood back as the paddles were placed on the man’s chest and he was administered an electric shock. His heart failed to restart. A short time passed and then they pulled a thin white sheet over the man.
The news lady continued talking about the large number of patients suffering from bite wounds and head trauma from the “Riot in the Square” as it had been dubbed by the media.
Cade watched intently as the camera panned left and zoomed in on the twitching, sheet covered man on the gurney. He sat up, the sheet cascaded from his upper torso, revealing his body, pale and bruised from death’s onset. Sluggishly he turned only his head, his lifeless staring eyes fixating on the woman reporter.
Cade wanted to yell and warn the woman on the television but he knew that would be futile. Before the cameraman could react, or anyone else in the busy trauma center noticed, the risen corpse had planted two bare feet on the avocado green linoleum floor and covered the short distance to the unsuspecting anchor lady.
Wondering why she no longer held the shocked cameraman’s undivided attention, she paused mid-sentence, glaring at him. The ghoul opened its mouth wide and attached itself to her neck on live television. A crimson fan of blood pulsed, spraying in front of the still recording camera. It had all taken place in a matter of seconds.
Hospital security guards rushed the attacker and wrestled him to the ground. He thrashed about wildly, hissing and moaning, mouth snapping. The guards and orderlies had their hands full. The newly turned corpse summoned enough strength to inflict bite wounds on two of the men struggling to subdue it.
While the tussle ensued in the background, the veteran reporter lay face down, spread-eagled, and bled to death. The grisly scene was broadcast live in full HD, on thousands of televisions.
The image on the screen switched from the live remote feed to the ashen, stunned and speechless anchors in the studio. A male reporter stammered and said a few words about his fallen co-worker before he scrubbed his hands across his face and visibly composed himself. The network promptly went to commercial.
It was astonishing that the cameraman had failed to warn the news reporter before her graphic demise had been captured on the live feed. Cade scanned the other news channels and saw that violence was breaking out in other cities. He was astounded as he watched people stand rooted, overwhelmed by fear as the infected overran them. Their fight or flight impulses were switched off by the improbable scenario their eyes and brain were still trying to register.
Chapter 2
Southeast Portland
Cade didn’t sleep at all that night. He was worried sick for his wife and daughter. For the first few hours after the sun had gone down he kept watch out of Raven’s upstairs bedroom window. The trickle of undead ambling up and down his street had increased. After closing all of the curtains and extinguishing the lights he tried to sleep. Every time he closed his eyes he saw his dead neighbors. Finally Cade got out of bed, dressed and went downstairs. He didn’t want to but he was drawn to the television. He turned it on and watched all night. So far, the satellite hadn’t failed. He didn’t want to rely on the Portland news anchors for all of his information, given the incessant, high-strung babble and hyperbole coming from them since their colleague’s death.
At first the cable news channels were no better. CNN, FOX and MSNBC were reporting that the outbreak was similar to SARS or H1N1. Their idea of useful information included the use of face masks, plastic sheeting and duct tape to secure against an airborne pathogen. All of the other alphabet news stations were the same. Speculation, guessing and second guessing passed for news. Tensions were at their highest as nations pointed fingers and missiles at each other. Threat levels were raised and armies mobilized. The only consensus was that the origin of the pathogen was still unknown, and every nation’s survival depended on quick thinking and immediate action.
Cade noticed so far Portland as well as the central Rockies and Colorado weren’t being mentioned very much in the news. The massacre in the Square was only big news locally.
Looking at the big picture, the world was in a mess of trouble.
Chapter 3
Day 2 - Portland, Oregon
As dawn broke revealing a bluebird-colored sky, a flight of F-15E Strike Eagles from Portland International Airport roared overhead. They were on full afterburner and flying very low. Windows rattled and car alarms were triggered by the over flight. Two of the fighters peeled off and climbed higher and then resumed CAP (combat ai
r patrol) in a circling series of laps over the city.
Cade remembered that in the days following the 9/11 attacks, there was a constant rumbling of National Guard fighter jets on CAP over Portland. It was apparent things had deteriorated very rapidly overnight.
Not being able to contact his loved ones or any of his other neighbors forced him to make the decision to leave the house and reconnoiter the neighborhood. Cade went out into his backyard, stepped up into an old rusty wheelbarrow, poked his head over the top of the fence and slowly scanned the alley left to right checking for any of the walking dead.
After concluding he was alone, as quietly as possible he eased his aluminum mountain bike over the six foot wooden fence that enclosed his back yard. Getting around on the bike would be faster than on foot and quieter than a car.
He vaulted over the fence to join his bike and crouched down, then inhaled and exhaled through his nose several times. The air smelled of smoke mingled with the distinctive stench of decaying flesh. The odor was most likely from one of his many dead neighbors he had observed ambling about the streets over the last day and a half.
Still crouched down, he swiveled his head slowly, intent on picking up any sounds coming from the grass and dirt alley that ran between the block of houses in the rear. With the back of his hand he wiped the sweat forming on his brow. He didn’t detect any sounds nearby. In the distance a siren wailed.
Since the start of the outbreak the traffic on his street had dwindled to nothing, and the undead began appearing in larger numbers. The neighborhood had become eerily quiet except for the raspy moans of the walking dead. When one of them spotted anything living they would begin their low pitched moaning and alert the other walkers within earshot. It was akin to how dogs started barking at night, one starts howling and soon a string of baying dogs would all join in on the chorus.
In the big sandbox in the Middle East, situational awareness and constant training was what kept him alive. It was especially important now given the fact the dead were walking the streets. Cade knew they greatly outnumbered him; therefore he was very careful to avoid any contact.
Cade was an average sized man. With the exception of his intense hard eyes, he didn’t look like a Tier-One Operator. Most of the soldiers he had trained with and gone to war with looked unassuming as well. There were a few of the moose sized, action star lookers in the teams. During operations they usually paid the price and humped the big guns.
Until fifteen months ago Cade was in country in the “Stan” (short for Afghanistan), hunting HVTs, foreign fighters and al-Qaeda terrorists. After about thirty or so, he had stopped counting the men he had sent to paradise.
Cade travelled light during his neighborhood excursion. His aim was to check out his surroundings and determine if he should shelter in place or bug out.
He wore khaki heavy duty workpants, a black long sleeve tee shirt and a well-worn black Trailblazers ball cap covering his dark, short cropped hair. A pair of black wraparound Oakley sunglasses shielded his eyes. Sturdy, steel toed black leather Danner boots protected his feet. Strapped to his left upper thigh was a semi-automatic 9mm Glock 17 and under his right armpit was a compact semi-automatic 9mm Glock 19 in a quick draw Bianchi holster. Both pistols were polymer, very light and dependable. Within easy reach in a nylon pouch on his belt were four extra, seventeen round magazines. A Gerber Mark-II combat dagger, ten inches of double bladed, hardened black steel, hung upside down from his combat harness. In his free hand he held the lightweight titanium ice axe. It had been worth its weight in gold during his first encounter with the undead. An hour spent with a rasp and file honed the points and blade of the axe razor sharp. Cade knew this was going to be a very effective and quiet weapon.
Even though he was more than a year removed from the Special Forces, he still possessed the tools of the trade; and had not forgotten how to use them.
Chapter 4
Day 2 - Southeast Portland
Straddling the bike, he secured the axe to the frame and rode quietly westward down the alley past his former neighbor’s back fence. Two blocks into the ride he noticed the sickly sweet smell of death. Cade dismounted his bike to seek out the source. Cautiously glancing around the corner, he saw them. One was a balding black man, ashy and gray with sunken jaundiced eyes. Above his collar was a bruised and bloody gaping neck wound with dangling streamers of flesh that left muscle, veins, sinew and white vertebrae exposed. The only thing appearing to hold his head on was a blood soaked necktie. Blackish dried blood fully coated the front of the ghoul’s three-piece suit.
Next to him was a small black woman with no visible wounds. She was undead also. Her formerly pastel yellow bathrobe was now thoroughly congealed with drying blood. Dirt, twigs, hair and all manner of refuse clung to the fabric.
Both of the undead were circling around the base of a large oak tree, hands in the air, reaching, mouths working like two macabre marionettes.
Cade assessed the situation from a distance. Upon further scrutiny he noticed a milled lumber platform about twelve feet off the ground, with a coiled up rope ladder attached. It was a tree house partially hidden by the lower boughs and leaves of the old oak.
There was some movement in the middle branches of the tree.
The two undead noticed it as well and started to moan. Barely audible over the chilling sound, a voice yelled, “Help, up here!”
The undead were oblivious to Cade’s presence. Their attention was fully focused on the tree and the meat in it.
Taking advantage of the diversion, he crept up on the male cadaver from behind and to the right, being careful to stay shielded from Bathrobe’s view. Three feet away from the undead businessman, he raised the sharpened ice axe in his right hand shoulder high and swung it in a wide horizontal arc at the creature’s head. Brackish black liquid and putrid gray matter exploded from the baseball-sized hole in its temple. The dead executive collapsed instantly and the ice axe slipped from his head.
The heavy thud of the body colliding with the ground alerted the other ghoul to Cade’s presence. Hissing and biting, she turned and lurched towards him.
In one fluid movement Cade sidestepped her lunge, drew his Gerber left handed and buried the dagger handle deep into the thing’s eye socket. Her flailing arms were unable to get a purchase on him as she slumped towards the base of the tree.
After a quick wipe off on the grass, he put the dagger back in its sheath.
Cade felt something soft and wet squish under his boots. Looking down, he was sickened to see a mound of human-looking remains. Ribs, a spinal column, and scraps of skin, tendon, and flesh and blood lay in a greasy pile on the grass.
Cade was examining the remnants when a high-pitched voice from above shouted a warning, “Watch out behind you!”
Faster than an Old West gunslinger, the Glock was out of the Bianchi shoulder holster and in Cade’s left hand. The pistol barked twice in rapid succession. The lethal double tap removed the frontal lobe and most of the elderly man’s forehead and skullcap. As he fell towards the other two undead bodies, the remaining contents of his cranium painted the ground. The walker was wearing bloody night clothes and clutched a newspaper in its hand. Numerous bite wounds were evident on its arms, face and neck.
“Shooooot. It’s old man Bandon. He was one of them too?” said the faceless voice in the tree house.
Gunfire was guaranteed to attract the dead. As if on cue their eerie moaning started to reverberate from blocks around.
“Get down here,” Cade said, pausing to scan the surroundings. After a lack of response from above, he barked, “If you want to live let’s go... now.”
Two frightened faces peered down from the tree house. The ladder rapidly unfurled and they nearly clambered over each other trying to reach the ground.
At the first sight of the gory pile of remains, the younger of the two blurted out, “Missy’s dead.” He started crying, snot running down his upper lip.
Thinking the worst, Cade ask
ed the boys if Missy was their sister.
The older boy tearfully choked out, “No... Missy was our cocker spaniel.”
Glancing down, Cade was at the same time relieved and momentarily at a loss for words. Then he barked instructions at the two. “Follow me, be quick, but be quiet.”
The older boy grabbed the younger one around the neck and hustled him by the three corpses at the base of the tree, all the while struggling to shield him from the scene using his hands. He wasn’t successful in keeping his younger brother from seeing the bodies of the undead. Tearing away from the older boy, the younger one dropped to his knees and gave forth a guttural wail. “Mom... Dad…”
Cade knelt down and placed his arm around the young boy’s shoulder.
The boy fought off the embrace, landing a fist on the stranger’s temple. “You killed them!” the younger boy screamed, spittle flying from his mouth.
Cade grabbed the boy in a bear hug. He was hoping to calm him down enough to talk the kid’s mind around what he had just witnessed. But also he was seeing stars from the sneak attack and needed a brief respite. The shot he took to the temple was perfectly aimed and had rung his bell.
The boy finally stopped struggling after some quiet, calming words from his brother.
Cade kept his grip firm and whispered into the young boy’s ear. “I don’t blame you for reacting the way you did. You need to understand something though. I am truly sorry for what I did, but as hard as it is to believe, they were already dead.” He paused for a moment to think before finishing out loud. “Why don’t you guys help me understand what happened this morning.” Cade released the boy.