One hour in, most of those who had hoped to avert the rapid disintegration of society knew it was over. The government of the people, by the people, and for the people wouldn’t survive long enough to save them. Even so, some were determined to try.
A connection severed, and the Commandant of the Marine Corps disappeared. A few minutes later the Secretary of the Interior vanished. No one noticed, until NASA and JPL terminated, at which point it became clear something was afoot.
As the remaining agencies and military representatives continued their mindless debate on the best way to retain control, the Marine commandant and the Secretary of the Interior created a separate, secured connection. They discussed their options for a few minutes, until the directors of JPL and NASA joined them.
Unlike the participants in the earlier meeting, this group was united. They understood what was at stake, and they knew what to save. Their own lives were less of a concern than the survival of the species. They’d all read the reports from the CDC before it went off the grid. The CDC had designated the entire city of Atlanta a quarantine zone, one of the few things they’d gotten right.
The Secretary of the Interior mobilized her contacts and gained access to vaults in Missouri, decommissioned salt mines converted to public and private warehouses kept at 52 degrees Fahrenheit. Hundreds of Oshkosh five-ton trucks rolled into those facilities.
Crews reported in the dead of the night and spent hours moving thousands of pallets into the staging areas. They watched in bleary-eyed amazement as the transports, many still painted desert tan, rolled in, and they rapidly loaded them. With the current widespread disruptions, many of the crews hadn’t wanted to come. They received crates of MREs and other survival supplies as payment for their work. Then, the trucks roared out into the dawn, leaving the formerly full FEMA warehouses empty.
Convoys rolled out of Albany, 29 Palms, Parris Island, and a dozen other Marine bases. Flight after flight of attack helicopters, transport copters, and C-130s lifted off from Yuma, Miramar, Cherry Point, and Beaufort in the largest Marine mobilization since Vietnam. The government mobilized anything that could drive, fly, or sail. Soldiers drove tanks down highways as locals stared in amazement, their transports following behind. When fuel ran low, they were loaded onto the transports. Empty fuel trucks were abandoned or civilian jet fuel was commandeered from airports. It’s hard to say no to a Marine Gunnery Sergeant who’s standing on an M1 Abrams as a thousand devil dogs swarm over your airport.
DoD agents arrived on the bases not long after, and found them empty of combat personnel and equipment, but full of confused civilian workers who hadn’t been in the loop. Some of the bases suffered from full-blown virus outbreaks as support personnel celebrated the departure of the hard-ass combat troops with impromptu barbeques, unknowingly using contaminated meat.
The truck convoys, full of appropriated supplies and selected civilian dependents, met up with combat units and headed to their predetermined destinations. CH-53 Super Stallion helicopters, MV-22 Ospreys, and C-130s descended on Cape Canaveral in Florida and the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Thousands of personnel, many awakened in the middle of the night by hectic phone calls, rushed on board as crews loaded crates of computers and storage media.
TV stations in Houston burned, or the press might have followed the strange occurrences at the NASA Space Centers. Cocoa Beach had sporadic pockets of looting as the National Guard began to mobilize there.
Officials at the South Texas nuclear power project between Corpus Christi and Galveston isolated it from the outside. The federal government department in charge of nuclear power safety put terrorist protocols into effect, closing off all outside access, and putting armed guards along the perimeter to keep the infection from spreading to the staff. The controllers met to discuss what they knew about the crisis, sharing a meal of fresh barbeque brought in by the wife of the chief engineer. Government agents kept the infected people out, but didn’t notice the infected food coming in.
Half the operators went insane an hour into the late shift, attacking their uninfected coworkers. Hours later as dawn approached, government agents stormed the control center, trying to rescue the plant manager and senior staff, and ran into more than 100 infected. Controlled fire changed to fully automatic, and then to spray-and-pray. As the infected overran the agents, someone threw a grenade.
The detonation took out one of the main control boards and dozens of computers, including safety monitors and the feedback system. The reactor didn’t melt down, but with most of the staff dead or infected, and the main control systems hopelessly wrecked, the plant went into emergency scram mode and shut down. The state’s grid, already dangerously stressed from other failures, failed in a ripple from east to west.
After the Texas grid failed, the rest of the country’s grids quickly followed, taking radio and TV off the air. Only a few tiny pockets of power remained. People who decided to wait and see what would happen panicked as power went out all over the country in the early morning hours of April 24th.
* * * * *
Chapter 24
Tuesday, April 24, Morning
Vance checked the locks for the twentieth time, going to each exit and verifying the lock’s status with his own eyes. In the bunker, one floor below the house’s original basement, the other five members of his now extended family waited. Redundant monitors allowed them to track his progress and keep an eye on the horror outside.
He stood behind the main front door for several minutes. It was four inches thick, made of solid oak and reinforced with metal bands on the inside. Four-inch heavy steel screws secured the hinges, and the triple deadbolts sank three inches into the frame. The best police battering rams couldn’t penetrate the door, yet he could hear the grumbling, grunting, and shambling of the zombies on the other side.
Vance descended the stairs to the basement and the ladder into the bunker, then pressed the button so the hydraulics would lower the bunker lid into place. Lexus whined from her bed in the area shared with the Prices’ dogs, Rocky & Dewey. The dogs, ears laid back, were warily watching the humans.
“How many?” Vance asked.
“At least 500,” Belinda said from the monitor bank. She panned one of the rooftop cameras over the crowd in the yard. “Looks like a lot more than that walking across the property, south to north.”
Nicole watched them with fascination, her medical background pushing her to try to understand what was happening. They were not privy to the details of Strain Delta, but thanks to the shortwave, they knew not to consume food harvested within the last 30 days. Luckily, they had tons of freeze-dried and canned food, not to mention MREs and a dozen freezers full of meat. The last freezer had a big X on the door in red duct tape. They’d bought some of the contents of that freezer in the last 30 days. They hadn’t had time to dispose of the tainted food and had made sure the dogs didn’t get into it.
Vance thought back to after the shootout. They had raced back from the dry streambed toward the house. They rotated positions, with one following a few feet behind the other two, checking back every few yards. They heard strange, almost inhuman noises coming from the direction of the fight, accompanied by the sounds of tearing flesh, cracking bones, and wet chewing.
“Jesus Christ,” Tim said, over and over as they hurried back.
Inside the house, they rushed through the doors, passed the wide-eyed women, and began busily shuttering the big glass windows, using the steel dropdown covers installed long before. Each one had a two-inch-wide firing slit they could open or close. The men raced to the third-floor landing that circled the entire house. They split up and headed in different directions, each trying to cover as much of their surroundings as possible.
“It’s like the video,” Vance whispered as he checked his FN FAL, quickly patting his tactical vest to verify he had seven full magazines. On his right thigh was a Springfield XD .45 ACP, and he had six extra mags for that weapon as well. They’d stashed additional weapon
s throughout the house in various fallback locations. “They want to eat us alive.”
“Contact!” Harry yelled from the south side of the house. He’d rushed in that direction, knowing the enemy would be approaching from the south. Tim and Vance hadn’t tried to stop him.
Vance heard running feet, and the women emerged on the balcony, followed by the dogs. Ann and Nicole were in their combat gear, and they carried M4 carbines. Belinda Rose was behind them, a bit slower as she carried a pair of M4 rifles from the house armory and an extra tac vest. She looked at Vance who gestured with his head toward where the Marine stood guard. She rounded the corner and ran.
“Space out evenly,” Vance ordered. “How many you got, Harry?”
“Dozens,” he yelled back. The man had his weapon up and was scoping the advancing line of figures. “They’re the things.”
“What are they?” Ann asked, out of breath.
“Monsters,” Vance answered in a whisper, “like the ones in the video.”
“God,” she whispered back.
“They’re closing on the house,” Harry said as his wife left him a tac vest and carbine. He stuck with the SSG3000. Its abilities easily exceeded those of the M4. “They must see us.”
“Maybe they’ll leave us alone?” Tim asked.
At fifty yards, the closest stopped to consider the house. The first of the dogs spotted them and growled.
“Jesus, get them inside!” Vance hissed. The three dogs were low, their hackles standing up on their backs like ripe wheat. Ann reached for the nearest dog, and they all began barking.
The effect on the infected was immediate. Dozens of heads jerked up, eyes locking on the people standing on the balcony. There was a ripple of wild snarls and growls as the group began a headlong charge toward the house.
“Open fire!” Vance yelled. He ran toward the end of the balcony as Harry fired his first round.
This time they wore hearing protection, so the booming of the weapon was not as profound. Harry opened the bipod and braced it on the balcony. He emptied his magazine in a matter of seconds, dropping an infected with each shot. And just as before, it didn’t slow the others at all.
Vance and Tim positioned themselves on either side of the Marine as he carefully set the SIG Sauer rifle down on its bipod and scooped up the M4. With reflexes honed from long service, he shouldered the weapon.
The balcony roared as all three men fired, Chris and Vance with .308 FN FAL rifles and Harry with the .223 M4. In the predawn light, sprinting zombies began to fall. Most were men, but some were women and children.
Magazines dropped in unison as the men emptied the first ones. They slammed full mags into the wells as the women came around to join them. “Are they still human?” Belinda asked.
“Not anymore,” her husband assured her.
More than 20 were down. Some were still moving, a few were crawling. Three more guns came on target. Dozens of the infected raced toward the house.
“Fire!” Vance screamed, and the morning erupted in a fusillade. The shooters all had experience, their proficiency ranging from marksman to expert, and Harry was at the top of the order. They unleashed a hundred rounds in just a few seconds.
“We did it!” Tim yelled. At least 50 zombies lay dead or dying below. Vance took a moment to examine them for the first time. Most were in various stages of undress, many completely naked. They had various bites on their bodies, dried blood smeared their faces, and dirt and grime caked their hands.
“Reload,” Harry hissed.
“Why?” Vance started to ask, then saw. Thousands were coming from the distance.
“We’re going to get overrun,” Harry said simply. The next wave reached the first dead zombies, and a couple dropped down and started to feed. Vance felt the bile rise in his throat. The women gasped, and Tim puked over the balcony’s railing. The dogs wouldn’t stop barking, and Vance began to worry they were going to jump over the side.
He nodded once as he came to a decision. “Everyone inside; we’re going to the bunker.”
* * *
That was four hours ago.
Now, they watched as more and more of the zombie-like people appeared. Hundreds became thousands, and thousands became tens of thousands. They slowly swarmed around and passed the house. Some stopped long enough to beat on the doors, walls, and windows. Others fed on the dead until there was nothing left but bloody bones and scattered entrails. They continued to mill around.
“Watch how they act,” Belinda said, pointing at a group. The zombies fought for a short time, biting and clawing at each other, but after a few seconds, it broke up. While none of them died this time, in some brawls there were losers. When that happened, the winners fed. “What happened to these people?”
“It’s Strain Delta,” Vance said. “Someone said it’s rewritten their brains.”
“What kind of a virus could do that?” Ann asked.
Belinda started to say something, then closed her mouth. She made a face and shrugged. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Nothing I’ve ever heard of.”
“What’s our power and water situation look like?” Vance asked his wife.
“Power is holding,” Ann said, “down a few percent from those things wandering around the solar farm. Water is good. With zero rain, we have enough for two months for all of us. The food situation is about the same. As long as the house holds above, and we can access the long-term stores, we’re good for as long as the water lasts.” She glanced at her smart phone’s calendar. “We’re due for an inch or two of rain this month. That should be enough to refill the reservoir, even with our current usage. Really, we should be good for a year or two.”
Ann reached down and touched her stomach. She wasn’t showing yet, and wouldn’t for months to come, but Vance knew she was thinking about giving birth in the bunker. They had birthing kits in storage; he’d purchased 20 of them over a year ago from a supplier in the Ukraine.
“We’re going to lose the country,” Harry said as an endless stream of zombies shambled past the cameras.
* * *
Dr. Breda stared at the datasets through sleep-deprived eyes and an unescapable feeling of despair. She’d read emails from her counterparts all over the world. The virus, dubbed Strain Delta by the CDC, was worldwide. The list of countries not reporting outbreaks was smaller than the ones that were. Worse, a handful of advanced countries were no longer responding at all.
Four hours earlier, she’d been talking with a counterpart at a genome project in Osaka, Japan, when he’d broken off the conversation. She could hear distant screams and gunshots over the link.
“I’m afraid I cannot assist any further,” he’d told her as he snatched the camera from the table and the view became one of frenzied movement.
“What is happening, Dr. Okudo?” she yelled.
“The end is here,” he said, though she could no longer see him. He carried the camera out into daylight, and Lisha realized she was looking at the roof of the Japanese building that housed Dr. Okudo’s project. The sound coming through the small wireless camera’s microphone was like something straight from hell. Millions screamed, moaned, or roared in rage.
The camera focused on a typical broad Japanese avenue, at least six lanes wide. Hundreds of thousands choked the roadway, moving in a surging sea of humanity. In the foreground, she could see a line of armored personnel carriers. Here and there, solitary, brave figures stood on the carriers, guns in hand as an unstoppable tide of unimaginable horror engulfed them, one at a time.
The wave of infected was so immense and powerful, they were moving the multi-ton military vehicles, skidding them sideways along the concrete. Scores of passing infected crushed some of the small cars into the concrete, while others pushed them like shopping carts.
“Is that happening in all of Japan?”
“In most cities, yes,” Okudo admitted. “Our leadership tried to contain it, but it seems people did not heed the warnings about fresh food contaminan
ts, and now we are without hope. I saw images from Tokyo; it is a scene of unspeakable loss. It would seem we are an island nation of infected. Whoever sees this in the future, try to remember what we were.”
There were more shooting sounds and shouts in Japanese. Over those were snarls and cries of fear and panic. He turned the camera to his face, and she could see his look of stark raving terror. Behind him, she saw a security detail trying to hold the doorway to the roof. They were panic-firing into the stairwell, burning through ammo at a furious pace.
“I cannot face a fate of being one of them,” Okudo said simply.
“I’m sure they can get you off the roof in a helicopter,” Lisha pleaded.
“There is nowhere to go,” he said. “Remember us! Please?”
“What do you mean?” she asked. Then he jumped.
“Okudo!” she screamed. The researcher did a half turn as he fell, the camera still showing his face, his eyes closed and expression neutral. As he spun she saw the windows rushing by, then the crowd, far below. The roof was 22 stories above the street, or about 300 feet. The faces of the infected approached faster and faster until she could make out the details. Their hands reached up to receive Okudo.
She wanted to close her eyes, but didn’t. The camera was a good model, it only dissolved into static for a fraction of a second upon the bone-jarring impact. The sound was like a pumpkin hitting a wall, mixed with cracking boards. It continued to send her images as the infected began to tear bloody, dripping bits from his body.
Lisha hadn’t slept since watching the tragedy, and she received no further messages from anyone in Japan. A few websites were still up, broadcasting previously programmed items. Her assistant, Edith, found a webcam feed from Shibuya, Tokyo. The featured street crossing was famous as an example of the non-stop, vibrant life in one of the biggest, busiest cities in the world. Normally, the webcam showed tens of thousands of people crossing the street 24 hours a day. The webcam was still up, and it showed a sea of infected moving about aimlessly, sometimes preying on each other.
Turning Point (Book 1): A Time To Die Page 34