by Chesla, Gary
“I would like to tell you how happy I am,” Mike smiled, “but I haven’t talked to George to find out if it is OK.”
Linda turned her head and gave Mike a kiss.
“I’m sure George will approve,” Linda grinned, “he just needs a little time to get used to the idea.”
“What concerns me is what name George is going to give the kid,” Mike laughed. “Could you imagine calling the kid Stink Bug?”
Linda chuckled.
“God, that night seems like it was so long ago,” Mike smiled. “I’m thrilled, but do you think if we would have known then what we know now…..?”
“No way,” Linda laughed. “But you should have thought about that before.”
“Me?” Mike laughed. “If I remember, this was all your idea!”
Mike turned as Tony and Abbey walked into the mess hall and took a table off to the back of the room by themselves.
“Have you noticed how much time those two have been spending together lately?” Mike whispered.
“Yeah, I have,” Linda whispered back. “I talk a lot with Abbey. She really likes Tony, but she is having a hard time thinking about getting involved with anyone after what happened to her husband and little girl. It has only been a few months since it all happened, and she feels guilty for even thinking about another man. I hope she can work through that and let herself go a little, now more than ever life is too short. I think she and Tony would make a good couple.”
“Yeah, that has to be hard,” Mike said. “It just makes me think as I see the people here at Granite Mountain, how much everyone has lost. Just about everyone here has lost all their friends and families. I am so thankful that you and I made it through this together.”
“I agree. It is amazing that the four of us are all here together,” Linda replied.
“Of course, I wouldn’t feel all that bad if just the three of us had made it,” Mike sighed.
“Mike, Tony is our friend and we might not be here if it wasn’t for him,” Linda exclaimed. “How could you say something like that?”
“I was talking about George, not Tony,” Mike smiled. Sorry, it was just a thought……..that I have from time to time.”
Fran walked into the situation room where Chervy was sitting in front of the computer, staring at the monitor.
Chervy laughed and turned to scratch Snoop’s head when the pup ran into the room, stood on his hind legs and put his front paws up on Chervy’s leg and stared at him.
“I told you that you shouldn’t give him all those treats,” Fran laughed. “He’ll pester you to death.”
“I beginning to see that,” Chervy smiled. “In fact, this is his second trip down here to visit me this morning. But he is so darn cute, I couldn’t help myself. At least I’ve taught him to just beg quietly and not bark at me.”
“Do you think you could teach him how not to go to the bathroom on the door in my room,” Fran laughed. “I’ve been trying to house train him ever since the day I found him.”
“I’m sure a smart girl like you will find a way,” Chervy smiled. “But when it comes to training, I’m afraid he is the one that has all of us trained. He makes his rounds to visit everyone each morning to get treats from everyone.”
“That’s Snoop,” Fran grinned. “I think he has gained weight over the last few weeks from coercing food from everyone.”
“Are you ready for your computer lesson today?” Chervy asked.
“I guess so,” Fran replied. “I think this is fun, but why did you pick me to work on the computer? I don’t know anything about satellites or things like that.”
“Doc said we all have to have a job and he thought you would be good at this,” Chervy replied. “I think he was right, too.”
“I don’t know why he would think that,” Fran said. “I’m really not very good at anything.”
“You were good at surviving,” Chervy grinned. “You lived on your own all that time and then traveled a hundred miles by yourself. I know some grown men that wouldn’t have been able to do what you did. Not bad for a fourteen year old woman.”
Fran smiled, she liked being referred to as a woman
instead of being called a brat or young lady, like her sister and dad called her when they were mad at her for something.
“I’ll be fifteen soon,” Fran said.
“Reynolds makes great cakes,” Chervy smiled. “You’ll have to let him know when your birthday is. Rogers has claimed to have had three birthdays since we got here just so Reynolds would make him a cake.”
Fran smiled.
“Doc knows about people,” Chervy replied. “Reynolds worked in the mail room back at the base. Doc made him the cook when we got here, and I haven’t heard anyone complain about the food. Then there is Rogers,” Chervy laughed.
“Rogers is afraid of heights, but Doc made him our helicopter pilot. He managed to fly you here from Stone,” Chervy continued. “So if Doc thinks you can learn to work the computer, I’m sure you can do it.”
“So what do you use the computer for? Fran asked.
“The computer holds all the records about what we have here at Granite Mountain, Chervy replied. “We also use it to link up with the satellite’s camera to look for survivors, which is what I’m going to have you do.”
“That sounds hard,” Fran said.
“Programing the computer can be hard, but you won’t have to worry about doing anything like that,” Chervy smiled. “I just need you to help me look. I’ll show you how to guide the camera, give you the names of the places where I need you to search and you just look around and tell me what you see. Doc says he thinks I need glasses, but since we don’t have any way to make glasses, he said maybe an extra pair of eyes would help me find survivors.”
“If you tell me what to look for,” Fran smiled, “I’ll try to help.”
“Would you like to take a look at your house in Twin Falls?” Chervy asked.
“No, not unless that is where you want me to look,” Fran replied. “Too many bad memories there, if you know what I mean. But, could you show me how to look for John?”
“That’s a good idea,” Chervy smiled.
In fact, having Fran look for John was the idea from the start.
Doc had been trying to find someway to make Fran feel like she was a part of the group.
Fran had been trying to contact John on the CB every day since she arrived at Granite Mountain.
Doc felt her desire to find John would motivate her to learn to use the computer and help Chervy continue his search for survivors.
Doc also made sure that Chervy could have her help in a way that she wouldn’t damage the computer.
He felt it would be good therapy for Fran and also make her feel a part of the group.
Unfortunately, despite all their efforts, they never heard from John again.
Rogers and Davis continued their jobs as the facility’s drone pilots.
Every few days Doc would have them go out to collect air and soil samples from around the area so he could monitor the virus concentration.
It was important to keep track of the virus activity so he would know when the virus itself began to die so the group could begin to freely move around.
During their down time, Davis and Rogers had bonded with Smitty, Pete and Mason from Captain Byron’s group and they all spent each evening, and half the night, playing poker.
Rogers finally found someone that he could beat at poker.
Smitty was a brilliant communications man, but for some reason he just couldn’t get the hang of playing poker, so Rogers finally was able to win a game every now and then to everyone’s surprise.
Connors and Reynolds enjoyed celebrity status at Granite Mountain due to their world famous lasagna.
The highly anticipated meeting that everyone at Granite Mountain dreaded, came and went without incident.
Snoop and George greeted each other like they had been long lost friends or brothers separated at birth.
The only p
oint of friction between the two was when George had to use the litter box and found Snoop occupying it.
Tony and Abbey continued to spend most of their free time together talking and enjoying each other’s company.
Abbey liked Tony, he was smart, strong and more trustworthy than anyone she had ever known.
Tony, after his years in the military dealing with the loss of life, could identify with what Abbey had been through.
He felt she was as smart and as tough as many Marines he had served with.
Their mutual respect and trust for each other made them comfortable with each other’s company.
Where it would lead, it was too early to tell. But for now, their time together was the best therapy that each of them could receive.
Abbey became Doc’s assistant.
Doc felt that if all went as planned, one day the group would need a doctor when his time was up.
Abbey’s nurse’s training and her determined personality made her the prefect choice.
Abbey handled the many small cuts and bruises that occurred around the facility and the men were more than happy to bring their problems to Abbey.
Abbey and Fran’s blood tests didn’t give Doc any clues as to why they had never become infected, living out in the wasteland on their own.
The best Doc could determine was, just like he and the men at Granite Mountain, Abbey and Fran had been lucky.
Tony became a regular, the voice of reason Doc called him, at Doc and Captain Byron’s daily meeting and planning sessions.
The men had decided to get as much use out of the turbo prop as they could before the weather changed in the mountains around Colorado, Montana and the Dakotas.
Doc and Captain Byron both felt that the search for survivors should continue for as long as the turbo prop continued to operate.
What would the plane give them that the satellite cameras wouldn’t?
It would give them the ability to personally enter and inspect a few places of interest.
Rumors had spurred Doc’s push to evacuate the Fallon Naval Air Station for a chance to find the survival facility at Granite Mountain.
Captain Byron’s interest in conspiracy theories, and the fact that he was able to find the survival vault in West Virginia, had encouraged him to search his memory with the hope of finding another facility that possibly housed other survivors.
The secret government survival facility built in the 1950’s, Code Name Greek Island, provided the needed environment for Byron’s group to survive and go on, finally ending up here at Granite Mountain.
So he and Doc felt that their efforts to find others like themselves should continue.
Captain Byron and Doc Kennedy knew that Granite Mountain and Greek Island probably weren’t the only two survival vaults that existed.
In fact, rumors had it that there was another one within six hundred miles of Granite Mountain.
Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado was rumored to have a mass facility that was twenty-five hundred feet below the surface under solid granite.
The facility was created to be the backup headquarters for NORAD, but rumors said that the U.S. Government had included a totally self-contained facility there to house all the branches of the government, much like had been done in West Virginia’s Greek Island, only much larger.
So Doc and the Captain decided that while they still had the means to explore, that they shouldn’t pass up the opportunity to find out if there were others, like themselves, that had found a way to survive.
In reality, time was quickly running out on any hopes of finding other survivors.
But Doc and Captain Byron decided to continue the search for as long as they could.
At Granite Mountain, they had what they needed to survive for the rest of their lives.
Their small group might even be able to help the human race avoid extinction, but it would be a long shot at best.
Between the virus that was still active, the small size of their group and only three women, the future didn’t look promising.
But while they could, they felt they owed it to mankind and to their small group to try.
After all, it was man’s nature to strive for more than they had, to be more than what they were.
If the Wright Brothers had given up when their first glider failed to get off the ground, the country might not have progressed past the horse and buggy era.
Of course if that had been the case, the Z virus would have never ended up in space and mankind wouldn’t now be at the point of near extinction.
But, Doc was sure, if it wasn’t the Z virus, mankind would have found another way to annihilate their race.
But that was now all ancient history.
All the people at Granite Mountain could do was try.
With a little luck, maybe they could get it right this time.
Chances were that it was all going to end here at Granite Mountain, but if it did, it wouldn’t be for lack of trying.
INFECTION Z
Last Stand
By Gary Chesla
March 2018
Doc Kennedy, Petty Officer Chervanak, Seamen Davis and Rogers had been searching for signs of life ever since they arrived at Granite Mountain.
After a long operation, they had only managed to find two girls and a dog (Abbey, Fran and Snoop) near Stone Idaho.
With a little communication’s wizardry, Marine Captain Byron and a few of his men, along with the small group they had discovered living near Johnstown, Pennsylvania, (Tony, Mike, Linda, four year old Jamie and her cat, George) had found Doc and his group and joined up with them at Granite Mountain.
Despite these two small successes, it had been a long and frustrating effort.
Despite everything they had done to try and find other survivors, they had finally resigned themselves to the idea that they were the only people to have survived the Z Virus.
One day, using the satellite camera that fortunately so far had continued to function, they made a discovery at Cheyenne Mountain that gave them hope that they were not alone.
Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, had been an active Air Force base that served as the back-up NORAD Command Center before the Z Virus devastated the country.
What had their interest was that Cheyenne Mountain also was rumored to have been built as a “Doomsday” survival facility in the sixties.
While the satellite’s camera was still operable and before the weather in the mountains changed, they decided that they might have been given one final opportunity to try and find other survivors.
When the cold winter weather would settle into the mountains, those that the Z Virus had failed to kill would die of exposure and starvation.
Excitement grew at the possibilities of finding life when a satellite image showed that Air Force One was parked outside the facility at Cheyenne Mountain.
Could the government have relocated and was still operating the country from Cheyenne Mountain?
Who else could be at the facility?
How many other survivors could be there?
They began to make plans for one last venture to discover a new life and hopefully a future.
But the journey would be long and difficult and they would only have one chance at reaching the facility at Cheyenne Mountain.
What would they find when they arrived?
When they arrived what they found was the key to mankind’s survival, but it wasn’t what they were expecting.
The price they would have to pay to make this discovery would also be much greater than they wanted to pay.
Chapter 1
May 10th, Cheyenne Mountain
Airman Kevin Johnson stared at the radar screen in front of him, watching the progress of the three planes making their way towards Cheyenne Mountain.
Airman First Class Larsen had asked him to come to the control room and keep an eye on the radar screen for him until he came back from the head.
Johnson didn’t know much about radar equipment, b
ut Larsen told him all he had to do was keep an eye on the three blips on the screen and to come get him if any of the blips suddenly disappeared.
Johnson had done a lot of strange jobs since coming to Cheyenne Mountain, but at least this short assignment didn’t seem to be too complicated.
Watching three blips on the screen was the easiest job he had done since he arrived here.
It had been one hell of a few days, the three planes making their way to this location told Johnson that there must be something to what he had heard was happening around the country over the last few days.
The fact that there were also no other planes anywhere on the radar screen also suggested that something was wrong.
On a normal day there were ten thousand flights a day around the country, the screen should have been cluttered with air traffic.
The three lonely blips on the screen seemed strange, but at least they were easily identified and easy to monitor.
Larsen had told him the plane identified by the letter “A” on his screen, the plane that was coming from the greatest distance, was none other than Air Force One.
He was to pay close attention to that blip.
The only reason Johnson could think of to explain why Air Force One would be coming to Cheyenne Mountain was because Washington felt there was a serious problem.
It was either trouble or someone was going to receive a presidential award, but Johnson hadn’t heard anything about getting prepared for any kind of important awards ceremony.
Besides, from what Johnson had been told, there hadn’t been a visit to Cheyenne Mountain by any U.S. president since the sixties.
Cheyenne Mountain was the backup NORAD control center, but it was also the backup government survival facility.