Chapter 33 Kenny’s Journal – March 18th, 2012
I can’t believe it’s been six months. I would never have thought it was that long if Danny at the hardware store had not mentioned it. The bombs dropped as planned. From the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean is now a barren wasteland out of a Stephen King novel. Every major city was leveled and then the secondary ones. The small towns still remain. There are still zombies everywhere, but about two hundred and fifty million less than there used to be. People say fifteen million made it to the safe zone and there are probably another two million or so who survived the big burn and now reside in what is called “the old US.”
No one ever thought what happened after the zombie apocalypse would be the real shocker, but it was. Three weeks into the big burn, terrorist bombs exploded in Seattle and San Diego, two of the most populated cities in the newly made country. Three days later a pirate television signal revealed the group that took credit for the estimated nineteen thousand dead. They call themselves Anthem Men. Not a lot is known about the group besides the fact that they originate from the US military in one form or another. There are so many stories and versions of stories that it’s impossible to know where the truth lies. The soldier who spoke on the TV was obviously reading lines he was given, and not the leader. No one has come forward as the leader, just the group as a collective has revealed itself. Here on No Man’s Land and on the Vineyard we know firsthand what they are capable of. The small group of Anthem men that were here were absolutely military, that was obvious from the second they landed. When they were here, everyone thought they were a splinter faction, not a small piece of a larger puzzle. I’m sure the president and his men would have loved to get one alive now that we know what they were. But as they say, hind sight is 20/20 and everyone acted on the information they had at the time.
Since the initial bombings, the Anthem soldiers have managed to control the airspace over “the old US” with enough manpower and aircraft to rival what the legitimate military has on the other side of the Rockies. Internet rumors say three planes have been shot down trying to cross the mountain range and another was shot down trying to come up into Florida from somewhere in South or Central America. As a result the only planes flying are under Anthem’s control.
A month ago, what is left of the internet lit up with the news that the President of the United States had been confirmed dead, his body found in a five star resort on Honolulu. According to the reports, he died of heart attack and was unturned. I don’t know if the President himself planted the story or if it was the other side to crush morale. Whoever did it, the President hasn’t tried to squash the rumor, so I suspect he started it, but what the hell do I know about politics and post-apocalyptic military strategy.
I do know what happened here, so I guess I will stick to that. A week or so after the gun fight at the church, one of the agents found the stash of the Sawkill strain. It was in the drop ceiling in the church basement. Now I assume it’s been destroyed, or locked in the President’s bunker. No one has left the island since the bombs started dropping, the secret service won’t allow it. Any leak of the president’s location would have to come from inside his camp, as the island’s internet is filtered before a byte of data leaves the main server. We have had a few straggler refugees from the main land. They are detained and screened and quarantined for a week. If they make the cut they are admitted and given a room or empty home. If they are rejected they are branded and sent away with a warning not to come back. Only one man tried to return. As soon as the shore guard saw his brand he was executed. It’s far from a perfect world we are now living in, but it’s all we have. Me, Abby and the rest of our clan have remained on No Man’s Land. It feels right. We have everything we need for now and have plans to start scavenger expeditions next month. Mauri and the boys seem to be doing well. Shawn has become very quiet, but they get all the attention they can handle from Christopher and Rebecca. Patrick is teaching Michael to fish and Mauri seems to go into town a bit more. All things considered, I don’t know what else we could be doing. Scientists are dumbfounded as to a cure. For now we sit tight and wait for whatever comes next…
Kenny put the piece of paper down as he looked out the second floor window. A small boat was approaching from the south. It’s wasn’t flying a Black Dog flag as the island regulars had agreed to. Kenny headed for downstairs.
“Everyone, we have company. Get downstairs.”
Mauri ushered the children down the stairs as Patrick and Charlie followed. Patrick pulled the door shut and the security panel beeped. Abby got two M16s and she and Kenny took up position in the windows on each side of the main entrance. The little boat came in fast and beached itself twenty yards up the beach. A man in a motorcycle helmet and leather jacket stood up and jumped off the boat into the shallow ocean. Kenny and Abby looked at each other. The man took off his helmet and dropped it on the sand. He stood still, waiting for movement from the house. Inside Abby and Kenny look at each other again.
“Kenny.” Abby said.
“Stay here.” Kenny said and went out the front door.
Kenny took ten steps towards the man and stopped. He looked back at the house and didn’t see Abby in the window. He looked back at the man and took a few more steps.
The man raised his hands from his side fingers splayed to show they were empty. He unzipped his jacket and let it drop to the sand.
“Hey, Bro.” Jessie Brewster said.
“This is impossible.” Kenny said.
“Ninety nine point nine nine percent of the time you would be right.” Jessie said and hiked up his sleeve.
“Are you sick?” Kenny asked.
“Not even a little.” Jessie replied.
“Explain.” Kenny said.
“I can’t explain it. I knew I wasn’t sick, and I knew I could never convince you of it. I needed some time to see if I was right. I shot the gun in the air, dove in and swam to the Vineyard.”
“Bullshit.” Kenny said.
“I stole a boat and I’ve been on Block Island until this morning.” Jessie said.
“Mauri is going to fucking freak.” Kenny said.
On cue the front door burst open and Mauri poured out of the door and pelted down the beach. She didn’t slow as she came up on Jessie and tackled him to the ground. She was crying and looked angry. She began slapping him. She caught him hard in the face and Jessie decided he had to get his hands up and protect himself. With his hands up she was landing every third blow and they hurt.
“You son of a bitch.” Mauri cried.
“I’m home.” Jessie said between blocks.
“We had a funeral.” Mauri sobbed.
“Was it nice?” Jessie said.
Mauri stopped slapping and stared at him.
“Did you play Danny Boy?”
Mauri collapsed onto him and wrapped her arms round his neck.
“I knew you weren’t dead. I knew something wasn’t right with their story.” Mauri said.
“It wasn’t for a lack of trying.” Jessie said and lifted his sleeve to show Mauri the bite mark. “I can’t explain it.”
They stayed in the sand crying and kissing for a long time.
“The boys.” Mauri finally said.
Jessie walked down the stairs to the big common area that used to be the research facility. It has since been converted to a game room, parlor, and conference room combo. Michael was playing a racing game on an iPod touch. He looked up when Jessie put a hand on the now five year olds’ shoulder.
“Hey Dad.” Michael said holding up the phone. “See my game?”
“You like it?” Jessie asked.
“It’s fun. You were gone a long time. Are you done working?” Michael asked.
“I sure am.” Jessie said.
Shawn and Rebecca came out of the bathroom.
“He peed and pooped.” Rebecca said.
Jessie crouched down as Shawn registered who he was seeing.
“Hey pal.”
Jessie said.
Shawn ran across the room and burst into uncontrollable sobs half way. He buried his face in his father’s shoulder and whaled.
“It’s alright, pal. I’m home.” Jessie said.
Epilogue 1
Within two weeks Jessie was sick of telling his story. He stuck to the Block Island part with everyone on No Man’s Land, and it was mostly true. He told the islanders he went to Stovington, Vermont because he had to see if his parents were alive or dead. When he told the Block Island version to his people he left out the part about his trips to the mainland to find people for his experiments.
He would pick a town in Southern Maine or Rhode Island and observe it for a week. He would decide who contributed the least to the community in question and single them out for his cause. Sometimes it was the town drunk, other times the eighteen year old jock douche bag that thought he was the king of the world. He never felt bad and he had only killed the one man, but he did experiment. The first guy in Biddeford Maine he simply bit. He bit him twice and locked him in a hotel for a week to see what would happen. When the man didn’t turn he set him free and crossed Biddeford off the list of places he needed to visit ever again. He stuck the second guy with a needle full of blood he had drawn the night before. He observed him for two weeks then let him go. He tried this, or a variation, on a variety of different races, ages, and both sexes. None of them turned. He had to be sure he wasn’t infected, not just a dormant carrier. He would never be able to live with himself if he infected someone he loved by accident. He had vowed if even one of his experiments turned he would never go back to his family. For six months he tested. He returned to several of the original experiments over the last month to collect blood samples and see if they had any late blooming effects. Beside the mortal fear they showed at the site of him, they were all in good health.
Jessie was given another meeting with the president, and decided after a lunch spent talking about everything but where he had been for half a year, Jessie decided he was right about this man, and he could be trusted to do the right thing. He told the president the unabridged version of his story. He told him about the bite, being on the boat, the tests and his decision to return to his family. The president believed every word he said and they came up with a plan. When Jessie got up to leave the president shook his hand and put a great deal of thought into what he was about to say.
“Jessie, what you have told me here today could have gotten you killed had I been a more cautious man. What you have proposed will most likely get you killed. It’s courage like that that this country has been lacking for many years. It’s that kind of courage and sacrifice that will make our country great once more.”
A few hours later, Jessie stood in the sand watching his children skip rocks into the ocean. He smiled because he knew they were as safe as they could be in this new world. The supplies were holding up nicely and there had been no stray bombs dropped closer than Boston Harbor. He had managed to bring most of them through this alive, and they had stuck together as a family. That would be important for what was on the horizon. Mauri came up beside Jessie and laced her arms through his. He leaned over and kissed her forehead and gave her his best attempt at a smile.
“I know.” She said.
And there was nothing else to say. There would be plenty of words later. For now she rested her head on his shoulder as they watched their children play on the beach as the sun set over the Atlantic.
Sawkill Stories:
Cora
By Matt Fitzgerald
For Stephen
Twenty eight days ago I shot my wife and buried her in a shallow grave in the back yard of our small home in Johnson City, Tennessee. Twenty six days ago I killed and man and stole his Bronco in Shoyo, Arkansas. It took two shots for him to go down and I did it in front of my daughter. I had no choice, he surprised us. I didn’t bury that body or any of them after that. I left them to rot. Don’t think ill of me. If I had taken the time to bury them all it would have taken me a hell of a lot longer than twenty eight days to make it from Johnson City to where we are now.
I always wanted to see Phoenix, and I wish it was under better circumstances, but beggars can’t be choosers. The news says it’s safe there. All we had to do was get to a processing checkpoint. The morning I killed my wife I had planned on going for my morning jog and spending the day playing with Cora, she’s my daughter. My wife was a lawyer and I used to be a delivery driver for Shipper’s Pride. Needless to say, when Michelle got pregnant it was a no brainer who would stay home with the baby. Two days earlier, we heard about the outbreak in New York on the news and couldn’t believe what was happening. It was some scary shit, but it was six hundred miles away. People were panicking, and we were getting ready to go west to her parent’s house in Colorado, but figured we had some time. It was the President on the television saying he was going to start bombing the major cities where the outbreak was the worst that got us moving.
Michelle went into town to get cases of water and pharmacy supplies while I boarded up the house and packed her Land Rover. When she got home she was hysterical and bleeding. She said some guy busted into the Rite Aid ranting about his dead wife and son. She said there was all kinds of commotion outside and people came running in yelling about zombies and that they were everywhere. Michelle said she had the uncontrollable urge to get home, so she ran out the back of the store and right into the woman that bit her. When she got home and told me what had happened, I dragged her into the storm cellar and locked the door. I told her how sorry I was and how much I loved her over and over but she just screamed and cried and called me horrible things. Cora was crying too. She’s still learning to talk, but she kept calling for her mama over and over. She acted like she was scared of me, and why wouldn’t she? She just watched me drag her mother into the cellar where she was now sobbing and begging for me to let her out.
The begging lasted three hours and then there was silence. An hour later there was moaning and scratching. I brought Cora up to the second floor and fed her. Once she couldn’t hear her mother anymore she calmed down and eventually fell asleep. I put her in her crib and went out to the barn to get my Winchester. When I opened the door she was at the bottom of the stairs looking up at me with dead eyes, like a doll’s eyes. Then all at once she was sprinting up the stairs towards me snarling and hissing with her hands out in front of her. I raised the shotgun and pulled the trigger. There was no hesitation. I saw what those things were doing to people on the news. Deep down I knew my wife was dead as soon as that woman bit her. The impact blew her backwards down the stairs like something out of a Hong Kong action movie. She hit the basement wall with a wet crunch and never moved again.
The shot somehow didn’t wake Cora, so I left her sleeping, took the baby monitor and went into the back yard to start digging. I put her in the ground next to our dead German Sheppard, Ash. Four hours later we left our house for the last time. I didn’t bother to finish boarding it up. I knew I could never come back. How could I? Could you sleep there knowing your dead zombie wife was buried in the back yard? I don’t fucking think so. I packed what water we had and a bunch of dry goods into the Land Rover, then filled my camping pack with all the diapers, wipes, and jars of baby food I could find along with my Glock 19. I took off west with the intention of still heading for Colorado, but I wanted to pick up my brother in Oklahoma City first. He was my only living relative besides baby Cora.
The first two days were uneventful. We made it as far as Shoyo without incident. We stayed in a hotel the first night and ate meals at restaurants. Had it not been for the constant news stories pouring in you would have thought we were on a cross country family vacation, like the goddamn Griswolds. We arrived in Shoyo and got a room at a bed and breakfast on Main Street. It was only six in the evening, but we were both tired, so we both slept. Cora in the pack and play I had somehow remembered to bring, and me on the California king bed.
I woke up sometime in the night to sirens and
shouts and gunshots out on the street. I looked out the window and down to the street below. There was a fire burning in the parking lot across the street and a police officer in the middle of the road shooting at the zombie that was shambling towards him down Main Street. I never found out how they got to Arkansas so fast, but I did find out how the fire started. I asked the man with the Bronco before I shot him.
He said the outbreak started at the bus station and spread down Main Street quickly. By nine, the south half the down town was lost. One of them got into the parking lot and one of the less than intelligent locals thought it would be a good idea to douse the thing with lighter fluid and burn it. As you can imagine the things flailed and stumbled at it burned and landed on a Corvette that had one of those car bras. That went up, then the tires caught and as they say, the rest is elementary.
The guy that told me all this came from the Circle K down by the bus station. He had stopped in front of the bed and breakfast to help the sheriff put out the fire. He gave me a nervous laugh when he saw me notice the blood trickling down his fingers.
“No worries man, I caught it on a guard rail.” He had said.
I had left Cora in the room sleeping, so I went back up to get her and figure out what we were going to do next. My truck was in that lot, and was cooking nicely three spots to the left of the Corvette. I would have to resupply as we had only brought our clothing bag to the room. When we came back downstairs, I headed for the front door with Cora on my left hip and the bag over my right arm. I never thought to look behind me before walking towards the door. The creature that used to be the man with the Bronco had walked into the end table as he came towards us. Had he not, I don’t like to think about how all this might have turned out.
Sawkill : Omnibus Page 26