The garage was quiet when they entered, with shards of light creeping in from around the bay doors and from the small block windows near the ceiling. As soon as they came in, a small voice shouted inside the bus and Devon came barreling out toward them. His mother was close behind, shouting for him to wait. Devon paid her no mind, however, and shot like an arrow toward Sophie.
“Wanna play Sophie, wanna play?” he asked excitedly. Sophie jumped in place and proceeded to race around the car with him. Dylan shook his head at her, but Kala squeezed his hand gently.
“It is good that she can have a little fun, right?” she asked him quietly. Kala had woken in an exceptionally good mood this morning, cuddled up with her newfound family.
“You’re right,” he said, and helped Kala push the bucket toward the bus.
Devon’s mom eyed them curiously.
“Good morning,” Dylan said.
“Good morning,” she responded, but the bags under her eyes told a different story.
Kala presented her with the mop bucket and paper towels. “I thought it might be a good morning for a bath,” Kala said with a smile. The woman’s eyes widened, and she unconsciously ran a hand through her matted hair.
“Oh, that would be great,” she said, still sounding hoarse. “We haven’t been able to wash since we’ve been here.”
The woman held out a hand to Kala. “I’m Andrea,” she said. “I’m sorry about yesterday. With everything that’s happened, we’ve just been on the defensive this whole time.”
“I understand,” Kala said, remembering their encounter only yesterday with Mitch and Terry, the two militia men who had tried to kidnap them. “I’m Kala, this is Dylan, and you’ve already met Sophie, Dylan’s sister. Are you from around here, Andrea?”
“Panama City Beach, about forty minutes away on the Gulf,” she answered. “We left to try to find some place safer.” The woman looked down. “But there is no place safer.”
Kala’s heart sank a little, she had hoped that here in the north of Florida, the infection wouldn’t be as bad.
“Well, let’s wash up, okay? Then I want to chat with you about what’s going on.”
Dylan produced a bar of scratchy green soap he’d found and began to lather it up using the water.
The woman nodded. “How old are you Kala?”
“I’m sixteen.”
“Jesus,” Andrea said, “your parents?”
“Gone.”
“I’m so sorry,” Andrea said, and Kala could see there was real sympathy in her eyes.
“Well, there’s a lot of that going on now. All I can do is move on, try to find somewhere better, and safer. You agree?”
Andrea agreed, “We just want to find a place our son can be safe,” she said as Sophie and Dylan made another pass around the bus. Andrea’s husband came walking out of the side of the bus. He walked with a slight limp, she noticed, and looked like he had a mean kink in his back.
“Morning Tom,” Andrea called over. Tom narrowly avoided being run over by the two children at play. “Back acting up again?”
“Isn’t it always?” he grumbled. Then he saw Dylan using the paper towels and water in the mop bucket to clean off his face and arms. “Oh, that’s perfect,” Tom said. “I was starting to smell like the ass end of a northbound cow!”
Kala laughed and Andrea shook her head. “That’s my man. Quite the romantic, isn’t he?”
“My mom always used to say that about my dad, too,” Kala added with a grin. She sighed and knelt down next to Dylan, trying hard to scrub her body, and her thoughts, clean.
*****
Tom gagged on the floor of the garage. His eyes were watering and his stomach heaved with the effort. It wasn’t wasted though, the hose drained rich, pungent diesel from the large drum next to the wall into one of the four gasoline cans they had procured. Kala said a silent thanks that her mother had insisted on a diesel station wagon. At the time, diesel had been cheaper and cleaner running than gas. At least that's what the commercials told them.
As soon as one can was full, Dylan hauled it to the station wagon and dumped it into the tank. It took three full cans to fill the tank, and the barrel kept on giving. It's a freaking gold mine, Kala thought, thank god no one got here before us. They filled all four cans to the brim even after the car was full. It would be cramped, what with the six of them in there, but for now at least, there was safety in numbers.
Andrea had no experience with guns, and Tom’s was very limited. The gun they had, before Kala shot it to bits, they had looted from a neighbor's home after a wave of infected had come through and killed them. Kala was fascinated by their story of escape from their hometown of Panama City Beach, an oceanfront city packed with people. According to Andrea and Tom, the infection caught hold in the college students that traveled up from down south, then exploded through the population. What was interesting though, was that after a day or so of mindless rampaging, the infected started grouping together, swarming through the streets in great packs of twenty to thirty.
The life expectancy of these zombies wasn’t long, so as the groups moved on, they would leave trails of dead zombies when their hearts finally gave out, but the more infected that were out in the streets, the more insects bit them and picked up the parasite, then spread it on to those who were not yet infected. As best as Kala could figure, the infected might live for one to three days once the parasite infiltrated their brains, which was a far cry from the scientists’ initial findings of twenty-four hours. The infected were able to cause mass amounts of mayhem in the days they had left to live. The only positive to such a hot, fierce infection was that the likelihood of it burning out was high. But that wasn’t happening yet, at least not here. Florida was the world's largest breeding ground for mosquitoes, so Kala could imagine families that had been hiding in their homes from the infected, finally emerging a week later only to be bitten by another infected mosquito. And then there goes the neighborhood...again. It was a damned tough situation to be in.
“We’re set,” Dylan said, walking up to Kala, who was staring blankly at a wall, searching her thoughts.
“Are you all right Kala?” he asked.
She turned to him and took in his nervous eyes and the way his hands seemed to fidget. He looked worried. Kala knew he didn’t trust these people they were picking up. She understood his thinking - people were dangerous, and the living, breathing, thinking kind were far more dangerous than the infected. Anarchy had been declared by the remaining Florida residents it seemed, and that was a scary thing to think about. Kala didn’t know what would happen if they ran into a group of organized militants that wanted to do them harm. She shook her head. That was too much to think about right now.
“I guess I’m as okay as you are, Dylan.”
He stared at her for a few more seconds. “I’m worried about the littles.”
“The little kids? Well, obviously, we’ve got to keep their safety as a top priority.”
“No,” he said, “that’s not what I mean.” Dylan glanced over to where Sofia and Devon were climbing into the car. “I’m worried these little kids are a liability.”
“Well, of course they are Dylan, but there’s nothing we can do about that.” Kala gave him a cold, stern look, “And we certainly can’t leave them behind, can we?”
“No, I know that, it’s just - what are we going to do if we get in an actual firefight? I know you can shoot, but well, I just don’t know.”
Kala put a hand on his shoulder. His young muscles were hard and twitchy. She had to remember that he was only fifteen, still a boy, and one who had seen terrible things.
“Listen Dylan. We’re going to take care of these people, we’re all going to take care of each other. Is shit going to get sticky? Well yes, probably.”
Dylan looked away.
“But listen, I have a plan, okay? We’re going to get within range of radio or television broadcast. We’re going to find out how far this thing has spread, and we’re g
oing to go where it isn’t, okay?”
“Yeah, that sounds great, but-”
“But it’s going to be hard, yes. Listen, mosquitoes, even the farthest foraging ones only have a range of ten miles or so. It’s fall now, and winter is coming. We get ourselves north, where it isn't so damned humid, and the mosquito population will start to fall off. We get far enough north and it’ll actually be cold, there won't be any more vectors to transmit this thing. You understand?”
“I get it Kala,” Dylan said, sounding a little defensive. “I just think it’s going to be more complicated than that.”
“One step at a time, Dylan. We can’t solve problems we haven’t gotten to yet. Trust me here, please, I’m going to get us out of here.”
Dylan let out a loud breath through his nose. “Fine, but I still don’t trust these people.”
Kala nodded, “That’s because you’re smart, Dylan.”
He raised his eyebrows at her. That wasn’t what he was expecting to hear.
“Maybe trust will come later Dylan, but for now let’s get along. The more they think they need us and our help, the more likely they are to become real allies. Now let’s go.”
Chapter 13
“This can’t actually be your plan, can’t!” Bruce stared at Jason with his mouth slightly agape as Jason hung up with the Vice President of Columbia.
“Look, it’s a first step. It won’t solve the problem, but their resistance to disease and certain pesticides has been widely documented.”
“That,” Bruce growled, jabbing a finger at the monitor, which showed a bright photograph of Apis mellifera scutellata perched on a South American flower blossom, “is not a step in the right direction. Bringing a notoriously vicious invasive species into a dying ecosystem will do nothing but make things worse.”
Jason sighed and leaned back. “I don’t agree. Ten thousand colonies will be flown in by the day after tomorrow.”
Bruce shook his head in frustration. “I really thought you would be smarter than this.”
Jason leaped from his chair and pounced on Bruce, grabbing him by the neck with one hand. His hands were strong from years of work in the field, studying and researching exotic arthropods all over the world. He was no lab rat. He squeezed Bruce’s fat neck. “Unless you are going to contribute something to the solution, keep your fat mouth shut.”
Bruce batted at his hand but Jason held firm. “They’re killer bees, for Christ’s sake, what are you thinking?” he garbled out.
“This world is going to end if I don’t do something, so that’s what I’m doing, trying. You should take a swing at it yourself once in awhile.” Jason’s face was hot and red. He released Bruce, who started sputtering immediately, then stumbled back to his chair.
“You’re wrong, Jason,” Bruce coughed. “The world won’t end, just humanity. It’s not one and the same, you know.”
Jason waved him off and ignored him. Our world will end. He would have the Africanized bee colonies strategically placed in temperate climates where the spraying was not as heavy; hopefully there were some of those left. In theory, they could begin pollinating, although it would be on a much smaller scale. Commercial agriculture would still go down the toilet, but he wasn’t concerned with the economics of it at this point. They just needed to grow food.
Jason wandered over to the liaison for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). “What kind of government infrastructure do we still have in place?” he asked the woman.
She turned, her horn-rimmed glasses searching his face. She whisked a hand through her graying hair. “Surprisingly, quite a lot. A large scale exodus has been taking place in the southern states, something we have actually been trying to stymie.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re taking the infection with them.” She clicked a few buttons on her computer. “All right, infrastructure has failed pretty much everywhere south of Missouri.” She pulled up the map for him. “See, if you draw a line from east to west across the country, starting at the Virginia-North Carolina border and all the way out to California, everything below that line has been compromised. There is no order, just complete anarchy. We don’t even have contact with the police forces in the south because they’ve been overrun.”
“Jesus,” Jason murmured, “that’s more than a third of the country. How many people are down there?”
She shrugged. “Best guess, eighty to ninety million.”
Jason let out a low whistle. “My god. Are they setting up roadblocks, quarantines, anything to keep them from coming north?”
“No, our National Guard is stretched to the limit. As soon as we put troops out there, they’re attacked by the zombies or small militia groups that are taking over in the infected areas.”
“Taking over? What do you mean?”
“There are a lot of gun-toting, gung-ho idiots out there that have been waiting their whole lives for this kind of thing to happen. Now they can finally get all their weapons out and establish their own militant order.”
Jason shook his head. “We cannot allow that, we have to move forward as a whole.”
The woman laughed at him, “Yeah, well, we’ll see.”
“All right, we have the north, now we need to protect it.”
She raised her eyebrows at him, “We’re trying.”
“Where are we with the antiparasitic meds?”
“One week out from a huge shipment. Most of the first and second run went down south to try to stem the flow of the infection. When the southern states fell, we lost all those meds. Presumably, there are a lot of uninfected people in the south, and a lot that have been taking their meds and are immune, so to speak, but we have no way to get to them.”
“Here’s what we need to do. We need to pull in the regular army and create a physical border between the northern and southern states. We need all police forces to track down every small aircraft and ground it. That is top priority. These assholes keep spraying and people will keep dying.”
“Can you explain to me about the pesticides?”
“Maybe later, we need to move on this now. Ground every plane. If they can’t stop them...well, shoot them down.”
She chuckled, “Shoot them down? Are you serious?”
Jason fixed her with a hard stare. “Dead serious. The gravity of the oncoming ecological collapse will make this zombie outbreak look like a case of the chicken pox.”
She didn’t look like she believed him but Jason did not care.
“Regular army, call them in. They need to be in protective suits. Tyvek will be sufficient to protect them from the disease vectors.”
“And those that try to break through the ‘border’?”
“They’ll have to shoot them,” Jason said with a disappointed look. “They can’t even be allowed close to the border, or any parasite-carrying insects on them could potentially continue further north.”
“And what do we do about the mosquitoes?”
“What about the mosquitos?”
“How do we get rid of them?” the woman asked irritably.
Jason stared at her incredulously. “Are you kidding? We don’t. We can’t get rid of mosquitoes. They’ve been trying in Africa for a hundred years; it’s not possible.” He let out a breath. “But winter is coming.”
When winter came the mosquito population would be seriously suppressed. They may actually be able to get into the south and evacuate the uninfected, if there was anyone left. Jason didn’t know if he had enough authority or pull to get the army to deploy troops, but an hour later, the woman from DHS walked over and told him the president was on board.
“Wow,” Jason responded, impressed with the woman’s resourcefulness and direct access to those in real power.
“In the meantime, any available resources will be put in place to start creating some type of border.”
“Good, that’s good,” he said. “The border needs to be at least five miles from any uninfected settlements.
“And
Bruce told me you’re flying in killer bees from Central America?”
“South America, and yes. Africanized bees are the main commercial pollinators in South America. They can be managed, and they can be used very effectively.”
“All right Jason,” she said, but stayed there with him. “You really seem to have a plan. Bruce said there’s no hope at all.”
Jason sighed. “There’s always hope, there’s always hope. I’m just trying to do anything I can.”
*****
It took a week to finish the fence, and Robert was immensely thankful that Manuel and his family were here. They worked hard, long hours. Even after Robert, his daughters, and son-in-law could do no more, Manuel and his sons kept at it, stringing long spools of wire between the hundreds of stakes they had erected surrounding his farm. I guess it really is more of a compound now, he thought.
There was enough room for them to live and spread out comfortably within their electrified fortress. Robert’s house was large, and then there was the bunkhouse where Manuel and his family slept. That had a kitchen and shower too, but mostly everyone ate meals together in Robert’s house. The barn was also within the fence, along with all of the equipment inside. That morning, Robert and Manuel hauled out the big generator from the back of the barn and located several jugs of gasoline. They wouldn’t last too long, but until he figured out a mechanical replacement for the electric pump motor in his well, he would have to use the generator.
“The corn is coming up,” Manuel said to him matter-of-factly.
“I saw it. I’m happy to see any of it, really, those seeds are old,” Robert said. He looked out to the field just outside of their newly constructed electric fence. A light green haze covered the ground, tiny sweet corn seedlings. “It will be a long winter if we only have corn to eat though.”
Ecocide (Dying World Chronicles Book 2) Page 13