“How far do you think you can walk in one day?”
“I’ve done fifteen miles in a day, but it’s been a few years. In the dark, we wouldn’t be moving as fast.”
“Even if we could make it five miles while it’s dark, that might put us out of their range. The choppers have mostly been concentrating on the areas to the east, so I don’t think they have a clue as to how far we’ve already gotten.”
“Five miles would get us well away from Malibu,” Rayburn pointed out.
“Maybe you’re right, George,” Hixson said. “I think we should get some sleep tonight, since we both need it, but maybe we can leave tomorrow night.”
~*~
St. Mary’s Hospital, Lansing
Snake found Jack in the ER, where a small crowd was gathered around a large flat screen TV. Looking around, Snake saw what looked like speakers from a surround-sound system on the wall. There was some furniture, too, including sofas, chairs, and bookshelves that were filled with DVDs.
“You guys picked up all this stuff after we parted ways yesterday?” he asked.
“Sure did, Boss,” Fish grinned. “There’s some in the game room, too. The kids are having a blast.”
“Oh,” Snake said. He’d been ready to lecture his men on taking more than they needed, but he began to have second thoughts. The mood had been somber the previous night after the outbreak, and the kids had been scared. He reminded himself that the supplies they’d taken would have probably sat in the stores forever, eventually becoming worthless.
“We picked up some dressers for the bedrooms, too,” the younger biker told Snake. “We’ll need more, but we didn’t have enough room.”
“Okay, we’ll make a trip for more furniture one of these days,” Snake said. “Not today. We’ve got church at 10:00, and I always feel funny about killing zombies after church.”
Snake had started a non-denominational service on Sundays, as well as a Bible study one evening a week. Most of the bikers usually attended, as did some of the other residents, though Snake never pushed anybody to go.
He made his way to the cafeteria, where he found Jack and told him about Autumn and the arrangement that he had made with Doune.
“I told him you’d have to approve it first,” Snake said.
“It’s going to have to do,” Jack said. “If the exercise room isn’t ready yet and Doune can’t do his testing in the other quarantine room, I don’t really see another choice. Hopefully, they’ll get that room emptied today or tomorrow.”
“That’s what Keith’s hoping,” Snake replied. “They’re pretty close to being done with the move, then Hawk’s going to do a few things to the room and we can get the equipment Doune wants moved in there.”
~*~
Malibu, California
Dan sat on the kitchen floor across from George while they ate their dinner from cans. Hixson had done some scavenging earlier and had brought food and water back with him.
“I want to go to a different house once it gets dark,” he said, setting his can on the tile floor. “I found a place that’s empty but furnished. It has a TV and DVD player, so maybe we can finish watching the DVD while we’re there.”
“Why can’t we go there now?”
“Because here we have a perfect view of everything below, and I want to take advantage of that as long as possible. It won’t matter once it’s dark.”
“We can’t just start going through people’s houses like we own them.”
“Sure we can, George. You do realize that most of these people aren’t coming back, right? If they’re gone, they’re probably dead, or they’re safely behind those walls down the hill. If they’re in a safe place, it’s not likely they’ll be coming back.”
“What if the zombies die off soon?” George asked. “I mean, they’re dead so they’re decomposing, right?”
“I guess,” Dan said. “But even if that’s the case and the zombies all die off soon, I doubt that everybody will be returning to their homes. It’s going to be chaos for a long time. My guess is that those who are safely living in the walled communities are going to stay there for a while.”
Rayburn looked into his can and scraped the bottom with a plastic spoon. “Maybe they left town to go somewhere else,” he said.
“And if that’s the case, they’re not coming back for a while. Look at the roads. Nothing’s moving.”
Dan watched George continue to scrape the can for another full minute. “Take another can if you want one.”
“No, thanks. I’m not hungry.”
“Then why are you scraping that can like you’re starving?”
“I just don’t want to waste any of it. Does this other house have beds? I’d rather not sleep on the floor if we don’t have to. My back’s still sore from last night.”
“Yes,” Hixson said. “It’s got everything we need.”
The sound of a distant helicopter drew Dan to the window. He watched as the chopper passed over the highway and then out over the water.
“They must be worried about us trying to get out of here on a boat,” he said.
“Hey, that’s a thought.”
“That’s their thought. We need our own ideas.”
They waited until it was almost dark before leaving the house. Dan began to move down the road quickly with Rayburn close behind. They were a couple hundred yards from their destination when Hixson thought he saw some movement through the twilight.
“Don’t make a sound,” he whispered to Rayburn, pulling his knife. “Stay behind me.”
He quietly made his way down the road another hundred yards before coming to a stop and turning his head to listen for the slightest noise. The sound of a shoe scraping across the pavement brought his head around in a different direction, and he focused on a dark shape in the shadows. Whether it was living or dead, he was pretty sure it was human, based on the size of its silhouette. The sound came again, along with the smell of death, and Dan envisioned a rotting corpse slowly shuffling forward. One more step brought the dead creature almost close enough for Dan to touch. He couldn’t make out its features, and that was probably a blessing, though he hesitated to put a knife through the head of something he couldn’t see.
“Hey, buddy, over here,” he said, needing to be certain before he made his move.
The eerie moan that began to seep from the dead thing’s lips gave Dan his answer. He moved quickly, aiming for the creature’s face in the dark. The knife was yanked from his hand as the body dropped suddenly to the ground. Using his booted foot to search for the weapon, Dan leaned over to pull it from the corpse’s head. They listened in silence for almost five minutes before Hixson told Rayburn they needed to hide the body behind a brick wall.
“Why?” Rayburn asked.
“In case they come up here looking for us. Dead zombies are going to let them know that there are survivors nearby. I haven’t seen any other corpses laying around up here, so this one would stick out like a sore thumb.”
After they dragged the body behind a wall, Dan led the way to the house he’d chosen. He noticed that the front porch light was on, though he was fairly certain it had been off earlier. After ringing the doorbell, he waited for a couple of minutes before walking in. Dan’s penlight cut through the inky darkness of the house as he looked around. The place was still empty, and he guessed that the outside light was on a timer. In the bathroom, he washed a few spots of blood off his hands, checking carefully for open wounds. He didn’t see anything, but he decided that finding gloves would be a priority.
“Can we turn on the lights?” Rayburn asked, standing outside the bathroom door. “I doubt that anybody will be looking for us in the dark.”
“Make sure the shutters are closed first,” Dan said.
“What are you doing?” George asked.
Dan pushed the door open with his foot. “Cleaning my knife and the flashlight. I handled them both after killing that thing. I’d hate to contaminate one of us accidentally.”
“Thanks.”
“It looks like some of the other places had their lights on,” Rayburn noted, as he went toward the kitchen.
“I saw that,” Dan said. “I wonder if they’re on timers.”
“Maybe,” Rayburn said, opening the refrigerator, then the freezer.
“Hey, rocky road ice cream,” he said, pulling out a container. “Want some?”
Dan was about to decline, but he knew that ice cream was going to become a rare commodity before long.
“Sure,” he said, going to find some bowls in the cupboard.
~*^*~
~28~
St. Mary’s Hospital, Lansing
“Do you think you can make a vaccine to fight the parasite?” Lindsey asked Doune.
“I don’t know,” he said, honestly. “I’m going to have to do a lot of research before I even decide how to approach this. It’s not my field, but I’ve downloaded quite a bit of information that might be helpful. I just hope it’ll be enough.”
“How long does something like this take?”
“Months, assuming I can even find the supplies and equipment I need, which is doubtful.”
He seemed to be debating on whether or not to say something, but he finally continued. “Lindsey, I know you’re not going to like this, but I really think we need to try to get Autumn to Montana.”
“Are you serious?” Lindsey asked, her eyes shifting back and forth between Autumn and Doune.
“He’s serious,” Autumn said. “I’m okay with it. They might be able to figure out why I’m immune so they can do something about it, or you know, use my blood or something.”
Lindsey shot Doune a look and said, “It sounds like you’ve already talked her into it.”
“We discussed it,” he admitted. “Look, Lindsey, I realize that making a cross-country trip would put her at risk, but I’m trying to look at the big picture. It sounds like the settlement in Montana is much safer than what we have here. If we could get her there, not only could we possibly do something to end this plague, but she would be safer long-term.”
“If she makes it there alive,” Lindsey said. “That’s a huge risk.”
“We won’t do it unless we can find a safe way to get her there, or if it becomes too dangerous to keep her here.”
“We’ve been doing fine here, except for the outbreak we just had, but that could happen anywhere. This building is secure, and nothing’s broken through the walls.”
Neither Doune nor Autumn replied, and after a few moments Lindsey relented.
“Okay, maybe you’re right,” she finally said. “If taking her to Montana could bring an end to the plague, I guess we have to try, as long as we can do it safely. I’ll be going, too. There’s no way I’m going to let her travel that far without me.”
“I assumed you would say that,” Doune said. “We’ll both be going, in that case.”
Lindsey was a little surprised that the doctor was willing to make the trip, but then again, he did seem to have a warm spot for the girl in his ice-cold heart. He also probably wanted to be involved in creating the vaccine in Montana.
“Do you have any idea why she’s immune?” Lindsey asked.
“No,” Doune admitted. “It’s possible that it’s genetic. I’ve also considered that it could have something to do with her cancer treatments, but I don’t think it’s likely.”
He paced for a while then said, “We had several cancer patients who were infected that first day, so that’s probably not it. I just don’t have the resources here that I need to continue the research properly.”
“But . . .” Autumn stuttered as she tried to get a word in edgewise.
“If it’s genetic, we’ll probably never know,” Doune continued, “since Autumn has no known living relatives.”
“But,” she tried again, “I think all those experimental things they did to try to kill the cancer had something to do with it. They changed me, or my blood, somehow. Or maybe whatever they gave me to fight the cancer is still in me fighting the zombie thing.”
Doune said, “That’s doubtful. Normally something that works well for lowering high blood pressure, for example, may have no effect or a detrimental effect on someone with a different disease. Every now and then, the medical community gets a surprise, and that could be the case here. It just seems very unlikely if the other oncology patients were not immune.”
“My treatments were different,” Autumn said. “The chemo and radiation were just part of it.”
“That’s true,” Lindsey said. “Her case was unique.”
“Unique in what way?” Doune asked.
Lindsey and Autumn looked at each other then back at Doune.
“I assumed you knew. It was groundbreaking. She was even on the news a while back because of it,” Lindsey said.
“Yeah,” Autumn said, “the doctors and everybody used to get all excited about my results, and they even had other people come in to see a, what do they call it, a PowerPoint presentation.”
Doune stared off into space for a moment as he searched his memory, finally bringing his attention back to them.
“I had to go to London to give a paper a while back. At the time, I remember someone asking about one of the cancer patients at St. Mary’s. I didn’t know who they were talking about, and I assumed they had gotten the wrong hospital. When I returned, I had a backlog of surgeries to do, and I just never thought about it again.”
“Well, that little girl was Autumn,” Lindsey said. “Her doctor from LA took her to Mexico to participate in a clinical trial there. She had nothing to lose by that time, and her doctor was convinced that he was on to something. She not only survived, but there was some serious excitement in the oncology world over the case. They thought this was a major breakthrough.
“I’d like to know exactly what the treatment was,” Doune said. “This could be important. Who was your doctor here, Autumn? Did he or she have an office outside of the hospital or was it here?”
“Sometimes I went to his office across town,” Autumn said, giving Doune the man’s name. “But he used to come to the hospital here, too. He and my foster mother tried to time it so I could see him when I was here for my physical therapy.”
“Then his records are probably at his office,” Doune replied.
“Don’t count on getting any information from him,” Autumn said. “Last time I saw him he was being torn apart by the guy that chased us into the exercise room the day this all started. If he says anything, it’ll probably sound like uuhhhhggg!” She held her arms out while staring blankly ahead.
Doune glanced toward the window that looked out at the hallway. “You might want to be careful about doing that around here if anybody finds out about your bite. Some of those bikers may shoot first and ask questions later.”
Autumn quickly dropped her arms to her side, looking around for security.
“They’re not trigger-happy,” Lindsey said, bristling at the comment. “And they’re all really great guys.”
“I just wish they would bathe more often,” Doune replied.
“They all shower after being outside,” Lindsey said. “Snake insists on it. Eric was the only person here who didn’t like to bathe often.”
“That guy reeked,” Autumn agreed.
“What about the doctor in LA?” Doune asked. “I heard that LA was hit with an outbreak a few days ago, so I’m not getting my hopes up, but I’d like to try to reach this doctor.”
“It can’t hurt,” Lindsey said.
“His name is Dr. Rayburn,” Autumn said. “I think his first name is George, and he works at Yucca University Medical Center.”
“That’s outside of LA,” Doune said. “I was considering a position there at one time, and I remember it being in the foothills outside of the city.”
“Right,” Autumn said.
“It was kind of deserted around there.”
“Maybe there’s a chance that it’s still operating, in that case. If I could talk to Rayburn, we might at least be able to determine whether or not we’re on the right track. There are just so many unanswered questions. I’ll talk to Claire or Jackson and see if they can reach anybody at Yucca.”
~*~
Malibu, California
When dawn came, Dan went back to the house where they’d been the previous day. He spent a half-hour at the upstairs window but saw nothing that made him nervous. When he was convinced that they weren’t in any immediate danger, he returned to the other house where George was just waking up.
“Where’d you go?” George asked, rubbing his eyes.
Dan explained then said, “I think we ought to watch the DVD now.”
“Okay, good idea,” George said, yawning. “But I’m making some coffee first.”
Dan got the DVD ready, and George brought out two cups of coffee for them. They sat close to the TV so they could keep the volume down, replaying parts that were difficult to understand.
As they had already learned, the doctor had brought the parasite into the world against his will. He said that he had no time to explain the science behind what he had done but that he would try to send his notes later, detailing everything.
“They took my family,” Petrov said, looking at the camera. The quality of the picture was mediocre, but there was enough detail to see the anguish on the doctor’s face. “I was allowed to speak to them once a week, but it was made clear to me that my wife and children would be killed if I did not cooperate. I am taking an enormous risk by sending this out, but someone must know the truth now that the plague has been unleashed. The man responsible for this is part of a group called the Vigilarre, George. He didn’t hide that from me, and he seemed to have some disdain for them. His name is Clarence R. Gayne, and I only found that out because I obtained access to his laptop when he was here once. I copied all of his documents onto an external hard drive, which I put in a safe place.”
Dead, But Not For Long (Book 2): Pestilence and Promise Page 23