Infection Z [Books 1-3]

by Chesla, Gary

  In fact, relying on the facilities broadcasting equipment may have been a mistake from the start.”

  “Or maybe what we aren’t seeing is an indication that there just isn’t anyone else out there,” Chervy said.

  “That is also true,” Doc replied. “But I’m not ready to accept that as a factual conclusion yet. Before we move on to another area and give up on Stone, Idaho, I think we should try another approach.”

  “A less high-tech approach,” Chervy added, “But what is less high tech than radio?”

  “Hey Chervy,” Rogers said as he walked into the control room, “have you seen Doc?”

  Doc and Chervy turned to look at Rogers as he came into the room.

  “Oh, Hi Doc,” Rogers said when he saw Doc. “Davis and I have finished the test you wanted us to complete on the simulator. We thought you might want to come down and go over the results. I think we were actually able to manually fly out to Stone and back on the simulator. Personally, I like auto pilot. It sure is a lot easier.”

  “Thanks, I’ll be down in a few minutes,” Doc answered.

  “Rogers,” Chervy smiled, “Maybe you could answer a question for us?”

  “Sure thing, what is it?” Rogers asked.

  “If you wanted to get a message to someone and their cell phone wasn’t working,” Chervy asked, “how would you get a message to them?”

  “In the old days,” Rogers laughed, “I’d get in my car and drive over to their house and knock on the door. Now days it is a lot easier, since there aren’t any cell phones anymore and everyone I know is here in the tunnel. But why are you asking me about what to do if someone doesn’t answer their cell phones? Are you trying to call someone on a cell phone? I didn’t think cell phones were working any longer.”

  Doc laughed, “No, Mr. Chervanak and I have been tossing some ideas around about what other ways, other than the nightly broadcasts, we could try to make contact with any survivors.”

  “I was just thinking that maybe you would have an idea we haven’t thought about yet,” Chervy added. “Doc feels we should be looking for something simple and low-tech.”

  “There is a high probability that anyone still alive may not have access to a working radio any longer,” Doc added. “So our problem is how would we make contact or get information to people that don’t have a radio.”

  Rogers thought for a second.

  “The Indians used to use smoke signals,” Rogers said. “To get the message, all anyone had to do was look up in the sky.”

  “That is low tech enough, but I don’t think any of us know how to send a message with smoke signals,” Chervy laughed.

  “No, but I like the idea,” Doc added. “Something simple like that is what we need.”

  “We could build a fire near the food drop and see if that draws anyone to the food,” Chervy said.

  “It might, but if it did draw anyone to the food drop, it would only be someone that was curious,” Doc added. “After everything that has happened, it might just make any survivors want to run in the opposite direction or they would just ignore it completely.

  The idea has merit, but wouldn’t give anyone enough reason for them to go to the food drop or it could attract the wrong kind of attention. Besides we want to get the word out about the food drop to as many people as possible at one time.”

  “If we could find one survivor, maybe they could tell us where everyone is,” Chervy said. “Maybe if we can just talk to one survivor, they might know about other survivors. If nothing else, we might learn something that could help us choose a better approach. We have to start somewhere.”

  “Good point,” Doc replied, “But I think we need to do something simple, like using smoke signals, but something that is more easily understood and has a potential to attract more people right away.”

  “What would get your attention and it has to be something simple so that you would understand it’s meaning?” Chervy asked looking at Rogers.

  Davis walked into the room and after hearing Chervy’s question he started to laugh, “To get Roger’s attention just yell ‘Dinner’s Ready!’ We were working on the simulator and I swear he asked me ten times if I heard Reynolds calling us for lunch yet.”

  “We’re not talking about me,” Rogers growled, “Doc and Chervy was just asking my opinion about something.”

  “Asking you for your opinion, they’d be better off flipping a coin,” Davis grinned.

  “OK smartass,” Rogers said, “How would you let the survivors know where we dropped off the supplies and you can’t use the radio because the radio doesn’t work?”

  “We can’t broadcast anymore?” Davis asked.

  “We can still broadcast,” Doc replied, “but I don’t believe the survivors have working radios any longer. We were just discussing what other ways we could inform the survivors that we dropped supplies for them in Stone. Something simple that would be easily understood.”

  “So far the best suggestion we have is to send smoke signals,” Chervy chuckled, “but none of us can speak smoke signal.”

  “Well if we assume they are all as hungry as Rogers is all the time, hook a loud speaker up to the helicopter and send us out to announce dinner is ready,” Davis smiled. “That would get the message out and the meaning would be easily understood.”

  “Yeah, maybe we could fly around and pass out dinner menus like they used to do on the streets outside of restaurants in Vegas,” Rogers smiled. “That always got my attention.”

  “I should have never asked you two for ideas,” Chervy said. “Between the two of you, you guys don’t have a serious bone in your body.”

  “But I like it,” Doc laughed. “It could work.”

  “Announcing dinner is ready or passing out menus?” Chervy grinned.

  “Both,” Doc replied. “It’s simple and anyone that hears the message or finds a menu will know exactly what it means. I think it’s worth a try. Stone should be the perfect place to test it. Chervy, pull up the area around Stone.”

  Chervy moved back to the computer and typed a few commands on the keyboard.

  Everyone gathered around the screen.

  “If we make a loop around Stone and fly over, Juniper, Blue Creek, Logan, Cedar Creek, Malta and Pleasantville and drop flyers and blast a message from the helicopter, it could just get someone’s attention.”

  “I guess it’s worth a try,” Chervy sighed. “We haven’t had any luck doing anything else.”

  “Davis, Rogers, how about going down to electronics and getting a speaker and a recorder. Mount the speaker to one of the helicopters skids,” Doc said. “Chervy, you come with me. We’ll go down to the administrative office and make a flyer and run it through the copier.”

  “Are we going out in the helicopter again?” Davis asked excitedly.

  “Yes,” Doc smiled. “After you mount the speaker, make sure the helicopter is fueled up, you’ll be leaving in an hour.”

  Davis and Rogers quickly left the room.

  “I really don’t like depending on those two,” Chervy said as he watched them leave the room.

  “I’m sure if mankind had a say in this matter,” Doc smiled, “they would have selected six other men to be here at Granite Mountain. But since the people in charge never got around to manning this facility properly, they are stuck with us and if you ask me, they are damn lucky to have us.”

  Chervy chuckled, “I guess so, considering the alternative.”

  Doc and Chervy walked down the tunnel.

  “What do you think we should put on the flyer?” Chervy asked.

  “I say we keep it simple. We state the U.S. Navy is here to assist them and we have placed a stash of food and supplies at the intersection of Stone Road and Route 84.

  We plan on providing other assistance and will make contact soon.

  I think this should also be the message we record and play as the helicopter makes its loop over the area.

  On the flyer, we can also list some of the
food and supplies they can expect to find at the food drop,” Doc replied.

  “And if nothing happens?” Chervy asked.

  “Then we try another area,” Doc replied. “We keep trying until we make contact or until we conclude that there isn’t anyone else out there.”

  “Then we go to Hawaii,” Chervy smiled.

  “I don’t think we could make it to Hawaii,” Doc smiled.

  “I know Doc,” Chervy laughed. “But it just sounds good to say it. Besides, I hate pineapples.”

  Chapter 11

  June 30th, Twin Falls, Idaho

  Fran dug through her dad’s tools that he had kept under a tarp out in the back yard.

  She found a hammer, a jar of rusty nails, a rip saw, a few tarps still in their unopened packages and a lot of other rusty equipment that she had no idea what they were for.

  Fran took the hammer, jar of rusty nails and the tarps and carried them into the house.

  It would have been nice to have found some boards to nail over the broken windows, but she settled for the items she recognized or felt she could use in some way.

  If she wanted boards she could go back up to the sawmill, but she didn’t want boards that badly.

  She hoped she would never have to go back to the sawmill again.

  She brought the things she had found into the house.

  After clearing a spot on the floor in the middle of the living room, she sat the tarps, hammer and nails on the floor, then sat down on her one good chair and looked at the open windows and doorway.

  “Well Snoop, where should we start?” Fran asked.

  Snoop sat on the floor in front of Fran, looked up at her and wagged his tail.

  “I see you aren’t going to be any help,” Fran smiled as she looked around the room, hoping to see something that would give her an idea.

  “Well, I guess I could start by nailing a tarp over the front door,” Fran said. “It will keep the weather and the bugs out but probably not much else.”

  Fran sighed, “I guess it will be better than nothing.”

  Fran leaned down and picked up a blue tarp and began to tear off the clear plastic wrapper.

  She then opened the tarp and spread it over the living room floor.

  “It looks big enough,” Fran said as she looked at the tarp and then at the open front doorway.

  She unscrewed the lid on the jar of rusty nails, took a hand full of nails, grabbed the hammer and then dragged the tarp over to the door way.

  She stood at the doorway for a moment, then went back and brought her chair over to the doorway.

  Fran grabbed the corner of the tarp and got up on the chair.

  After dropping the first two nails on the floor, she finally managed to pound in the third nail.

  Fran then stretched the tarp across the top of the doorway and nailed it to the frame.

  After hopping down off the chair, she nailed the two bottom corners in place.

  Fran walked to the center of the living room and stood to admire her work.

  “How’s that look, Snoop?” Fran asked.

  Of course, Snoop was too busy smelling the jar of rusty nails to give his opinion.

  As Fran looked back over at the doorway, a gust of wind blew through the house.

  The tarp slid over the nails and crumbled onto the floor.

  Snoop, attracted by the movement of the tarp, ran over and pounced on the fallen blue tarp.

  “I knew I should have taken shop class when I had the chance,” Fran said to herself as she watched Snoop tugging at the crumbled tarp. “If I can’t even keep the wind out, zombies and snakes wouldn’t have any problem getting in.”

  That thought made chills run down Fran’s spine.

  As Fran watched Snoop pulling at the tarp and getting it caught on the table leg, it gave Fran an idea.

  “Maybe I should put the tarp on the outside of the doorframe,” she thought. “That way the tarp won’t slide off over the nails and the doorframe will help hold it in place.”

  Fran took the tarp away from Snoop and went out through the front door, dragging her chair behind her.

  She once again nailed the tarp over the open doorway.

  This time she put a nail through the tarp and into the doorframe every six inches.

  When she accidently bent a nail as she tried to pound it into the frame, she decided that if she bent all the nails, it would help keep the tarp from sliding off over the nails.

  “It should work,” Fran smiled, “and bending the nails is a lot easier than pounding them all the way in.”

  When Fran finished, she stood back and admired her work once again.

  She watched as the wind tugged and pushed at the tarp, stretching it tightly against the frame.

  Fran pushed against the tarp a few times and felt it hold against the pressure of her hand.

  “I think that should do it,” Fran said then looked down at Snoop and smiled. “Now for the final test.”

  Fran scooped up Snoop and walked around the house and went in through the open back door.

  She went over to the tarp covered doorway, then looked at Snoop.

  “Now I’m going to see if the tarp is Snoop proof,” Fran grinned. “If it can keep you out, then I think we can call it a success.”

  Snoop just wagged his tail as he looked at Fran with his big brown eyes.

  He had no idea what Fran was saying, he just liked the attention.

  Fran walked over to the open window frame, leaned out the window and gently dropped Snoop to the ground in front of the house by the tarp covered door.

  Snoop turned and looked up at Fran with a puzzled look on his face.

  Fran quickly moved over to the inside of the tarp covered doorway, tapped her fingers against the tarp and started calling, “Come Snoop, come on boy.”

  Fran kept tapping against the tarp and calling for Snoop, waiting to see if he could find a way into the house. She stopped suddenly and turned nervously when she caught movement from the corner of her eyes.

  Fran’s heart started beating rapidly as she turned to face the kitchen door, berating herself for letting something sneak up on her.

  After everything she had been through, she should have known better. She should have been paying attention.

  The tense sense of panic that had begun to run through her body, quickly relaxed when she saw what the movement was.

  Snoop came running through the back door.

  He ran over to Fran and jumped on her.

  Fran picked up Snoop and hugged him.

  “I guess you aren’t as dumb as I thought,” Fran smiled.

  As Fran thought about what Snoop had done, she decided that her test had been a success.

  “If you didn’t recognize the tarp covered doorway as a way to get inside the house, maybe zombies and snakes won’t either,” Fran said. “At least I hope not.”

  Satisfied that she had come up with a solution, or at least sort of a solution, to her open house problem, Fran spent the next two hours nailing tarps over the other broken windows.

  Snoop followed her around the entire time, making Fran think that maybe she should have named him Shadow instead of Snoop.

  But when he knocked over her jar of nails trying to smell them, then got tangled up under a tarp, Fran knew the name Snoop had been the right choice.

  By the time the day light began to fade, Fran had covered all the ways into the house, except for the back door.

  Fran looked up at the darkening sky.

  “I need something on the back door that will offer some protection, but something that will still let me go in and out,” Fran though as she studied the door.

  But after fighting zombies and snakes, dragging a heavy truck battery in a bookbag for over a mile and keeping Snoop out of trouble, Fran was beat.

  “I’ll just nail a tarp over the inside of the kitchen doorway for tonight and find a better solution tomorrow,” Fran thought.

  Fran walked into the house and set her cha
ir in the middle of the living room floor.

  She went into the bathroom, brought out her candle then lit it and put it on the chair.

  The candle light made the now dark inside of the house glow softly.

  After making sure Snoop was inside, Fran nailed her last tarp over the inside of the kitchen doorway.

  It was now evening, the time Fran always got on the CB to talk with John.

  It had made her feel lonely last night not being able to talk with John.

  It was the first night since she had figured out how to work the CB that she hadn’t talked to anyone.

  Fran knew it was only one night, but it had felt like months.

  When talking to another living person was the only thing you had to look forward to, missing just one night had felt like an eternity.

  Fran had never used drugs, but she imagined that was how an addict felt when they had to go a day without drugs.

  She knew a lot of people felt addition was an illness, others that said it was a choice, a problem that they had brought upon themselves.

  Fran had never really thought much about it, if her CB time was an addiction, she knew in her case, the reason for it had been forced upon her.

  She was forced to live in a dead world, alone and terrified.

  This wasn’t her choice, if it was a choice, no sane person would have ever chosen to live like this.

  She didn’t know why this had happened, all she knew was that it had.

  All she was trying to do was find a way to survive.

  All she wanted was to find whatever human companionship she could, however she could.