“Get the hell out of here. You cannot be here. This area is off limits to everyone but bank personnel,” she said to the intruder.
His chest heaved and he fought to catch his breath, collapsing down the inside of the door onto the tile below as he shook his head.
While he did so, she grabbed her keychain and found her small leather-wrapped can of pepper spray hanging from the ring. She pointed it in his general direction while trying to figure out how to use it.
“Look, kid, get out of here or I’m going to use this on you. The police are already on their way. You are in big trouble.”
“Lady,” he heaved, “everyone is in big trouble today.”
Mackenzie sat with her pint-sized intruder for thirty minutes before the three kids outside stopped banging the door. The police response time had come and gone almost a half hour previously with no blue lights or sirens arriving.
“So, now what?” the boy asked.
“Are your friends still out there?”
“They aren’t my friends.”
“What was the deal with them anyway?” she asked.
“I have no idea. All I know is that they canceled school today in second period and made us all line up in the halls outside our classes. Then these two kids busted out of the office attacking and biting everyone. The kids that were bit then flipped out and started attacking other kids. The school nurse and some teachers tried to stop the fights but…” he trailed off and then closed his mouth and looked away from her.
She sat there for a minute and processed how to change the subject. There had been no more traffic in the drive-through. Operations had not called her back. No cops came to the silent alarm. She still could not get any worthwhile signal on her smartphone or complete a call on the landline.
“So what’s your name?” she asked.
“Wyatt.”
“Mine is Mackenzie. Mack for short. How old are you?”
“Twelve, almost thirteen.”
Then more awkward silence. They sat there for nearly an hour with no conversation. What do you talk to a 12-almost-13 year old about, she asked herself.
“Did you have any kids that went to the elementary school?”
She shook her head, “No I don’t have any kids.”
“That’s good. Then at least you didn’t have anyone there you are going to ask me about,” he said with the lack of political correctness that only a 12-year old can have.
“Do you want me to try and call your parents?”
He shook his head. “I already tried from my cellphone at school. I sent them text messages but didn’t get anything back.”
He pulled a phone out of his pocket and held it up, “Still nothing,” he said, showing her.
She knew the feeling. “Are you hungry?” she asked.
He nodded.
They went over her lunch and shared a navel orange and a turkey sandwich. He declined her offer of a fat-free yogurt and she quietly ate it herself.
“You don’t know what you are missing…” she joked, finishing the yogurt off, “…tastes just like red velvet cake.”
“I don’t like red velvet cake.”
More silence.
“Where do your parents work?” she asked.
“My dad is a charter boat captain and my mom is a nurse. We live here with him and my mom lives in Biloxi.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Where does your husband work?”
She wrinkled her face, “I’m not married. Don’t even have a boyfriend.”
“I’ve got a girlfriend.”
“Ah ok, well that’s good to know but you aren’t really my type,” she joked.
“The last time I saw her she was being choked by the boys that chased me here,” he said in a quiet voice. “I should have saved her.”
“Don’t say things like that,” she said to the boy.
He started to cry softly. Big tears rolled down his young smooth face.
She instinctively reached out to hug the boy because that is what you are supposed to do, right? She was horrible at this sort of thing and just appeared to be wooden. An hour previous, she had called the cops on this kid and now she was holding him while he cried.
She should have called in sick.
— | — | —
CHAPTER 11
Gulf Shores, City Hall
George Meaux did not know whether he was going to have a heart attack or a stroke first, but was sure one would finish him off before the next sunrise. He was the city manager for Gulf Shores. There was a mayor but they were for kissing babies and cutting ribbons. Under the City’s form of government, it was George, appointed by and serving at the will of the city council, who carried out the day-to-day operations of the town. George fixed all the problems, smoothed out all of the sore spots and hurt feelings, and made everyone work together by hook or crook. He had spent twenty years doing it for one city or another, the past half dozen of which at Gulf Shores. However, nowhere in his years at Howard University working on a masters in City Planning, did he have a class on how to keep a city together in a pandemic.
“Can we all just quiet down and take this one step at a time?” George said from his seat at the head of the city council’s table.
The town’s police chief, deputy fire chief, and a National Guard Captain sat among the City Council members. Only three of the five Council members had made it to the meeting. The other two council members, along with the fire chief and head of the city’s emergency management department, were missing.
“James, what is the situation with the police department?” George asked the police chief.
The man took a deep breath and looked at George before he spoke. He looked as if he had had his ass kicked personally by Mike Tyson. Not today’s Mike either, but old-school, eat-your-children Mike.
“I’ve got 22 certified officers on the payroll plus 6 investigators. We had five officers on shift this morning and only one of those, the Sergeant, has been located. I have my investigators out in body armor conducting crowd control. There have been reports of looters already. We have called everyone in but few have shown up. I have lost at least two killed already in this…riot. I have never seen anything like this in my 26 years in law enforcement. We need the National Guard in here.”
The National Guard Captain had removed his helmet and it sat on the table next to him but he retained a pair of wraparound sunglasses on his face. Through the short-cut blonde hair on his forehead, an angry pink scar peeked out just above the beginning of his hairline.
“We are assembling at this time,” Captain Stone interjected, “and have already begun operations.”
“What does that entail, Captain?” George asked.
“This was an emergency mobilization with no warning. The 1183rd has an authorized strength of 185 MPs, but since coming back this summer from Iraq our numbers are down in the 160s. About half of those have made it to the armory so far. We have set up our TOC, or Tactical Operations Center, to coordinate all of our communications,” Stone replied.
“When do you think the rest of your soldiers will arrive? Can you get any more units here?” a council member asked.
“It’s hard to say. Many of my people are students in criminal justice programs away at college. The state pays for college if you are in the Guard and most of them live on-campus. Another 30 of my people are police officers from local departments around Mobile and most of them did not make it to the muster. Only about half of the unit actually lives here. It is possible that what we have…may be it,” Stone said.
“What have you been able to accomplish so far?” George asked.
“I have four understrength platoons. One is at the armory to get newly arriving members up to speed, one here on the town green as crowd control, and the last two out augmenting the local police in small teams. There have been a few incidents…”
“His guys went into the elementary school guns blazing,” the police chief interrupted. “They shot one of my cars to s
hit and almost killed the prisoner inside it.”
“We liberated that school from a mob that was ripping people to pieces with their bare hands. One of my men, Specialist Clinton, was killed there before we opened fire,” Stone said.
“They were children, Captain,” the police chief replied.
“They were Disease-K infected psychopaths and they attacked us. Ever since then, my men have been wearing their pro-masks and we have been calling for support from outside units,” Stone said.
“What about the other units?” George asked.
“As far as that goes, we have only been able to make contact with our battalion headquarters at Fort Whiting. They advise that we are supposed to be getting our ammo draw sometime today, but I haven’t heard anything else since early this morning,” Captain Stone said.
“Your ammo draw?” the police chief asked.
“Yes, the armory here holds all of our weapons, equipment and vehicles, but we don’t store a single round of ammunition there. It’s all at the ammo dump at Fort McClellan,” Stone said
“But that’s on the other side of the state,” George observed.
“Exactly. I have little confidence that the ammo will get here any time soon. On my own, I went to Phil’s Sporting goods before he shut down and bought every round of 12-gauge, 5.56, and 9-millimeter he had with the unit’s credit card. It was only a few cases worth and it’s not going to stretch very far,” Stone said.
The police chief nodded, “I can sympathize. We are scraping the bottom of the barrel, too. We were never able to store more than an extra case or two of ammo for contingencies and training,” he said with his arms in the air. “The board has cut every budget I’ve submitted in the past three years!”
“So now we are going to lay this mess in the Council’s lap for trying to be a good steward of the City’s money?” the remaining Council member who had been quiet thus far spoke up.
This sent the room again into confusion with everyone talking over one another until George brought it back under control.
“Now, James,” George addressed the police chief, “What are we doing about apprehending the people responsible for the rioting and property destruction?”
“We have 30 beds at the station in the lockup and all of them are full. I have several non-violent suspects handcuffed to chairs until we can get space. Some of the more violent ones are in pretty bad shape but they won’t let anyone near them,” the police chief said.
“Can the county Sheriff help?” George asked.
“We’ve been in contact with Baldwin County on the mainland but they seem to be up to their necks in alligators. I don’t see any help coming from them very soon. They sent two deputies over at the beginning of the riots this morning to assist us but both have gone missing,” the police chief said.
“We found one of the deputies at the school this morning, KIA,” Stone pointed out.
“We’ll let the Sheriff know about his deputy as soon as we can get in contact with him. However, we still need to address what we are going to do with all these prisoners,” the police chief said.
“Ok, James, do what you can. When I can get ahold of the city attorney, I will ask if we can let some of the non-violent characters go on a summons to clear up some space. Tim, how is the fire department doing?” George asked.
“We’ve been strung out on emergency calls all morning and called in the off shifts and the volunteers. Before the 911 network crashed, we had gotten nearly a hundred calls in a two-hour period. Everything from car wrecks, to house fires, to medical emergencies. I am down to one paramedic and I have her at the Community Center. Nobody I’ve sent with victims to the medical center on the mainland has reported back. The clinic on the island is not accepting any more cases and most of their staff is gone. All of my units are out on calls except the big ladder truck and that’s just because I haven’t had any high rise fires yet,” the deputy fire chief said.
“Any word from the fire chief?” George asked.
“No sir, he went out to a vehicle fire by himself a few hours ago in his personal truck, and no one had heard from him since.”
“He was the city’s Emergency Manager; can you assume the duties of that post for this while he is unaccounted for?” George asked.
“Yes, sir, we already set up an incident command at the station but it’s swamped. All we can really do is to tell people to shelter in place until this thing blows over.”
“Thank you,” George nodded then turned to address the whole group. “Thank you all. I recommend that we get back to our tasks and try to coordinate the response to this. Let’s meet back here in three hours for updates, if you gentlemen will please leave me and the Council for a closed door session.”
After the chiefs and Stone had left, the council members and George exchanged grim looks.
“Well, I suppose we should issue a statement. Perhaps work out a curfew, post it at the Community Center, and make copies of it for the officers to post around town.” George said.
“Yes, go ahead and do that, I’m going home to my family,” one of the council members, a popular local pharmacist, said as he pushed himself away from the table and vanished.
The remaining two members seconded the first and left George alone with his thoughts. He stared at his steno pad where he had been taking notes, flipped to a new page and stared at it. He put his glasses on and picked up his pen.
— | — | —
CHAPTER 12
Gulf Shores Town Green
“May I have your attention, please,” a balding older man with glasses and a suit called out over a police megaphone from the tailgate of the truck. The crowd he was addressing amounted to a few hundred men and women that had gathered in the open air of the Town Green. Most had come there to report crimes, look for loved ones, or just seek refuge. A few were curiosity seekers wondering what the crowds and excitement were. Before being interrupted by the Emergency Alert System, the local radio station had announced it as the location of a shelter. The crowd’s individual conversations, which formed a loud commotion at first, died down to a dull hum as people stopped talking and gave the man with the megaphone their attention.
“For those of you that do not know me, I am George Meaux, City Administrator. After meeting with the City Council and local police and fire chiefs, I am being told to release the following announcements,” the man said into the megaphone. The echoes of the device’s speaker bounced back at him from the concrete and brick buildings at every corner of the town green.
“Starting tonight at sundown, there is a 24-hour curfew in effect for the entire city. The Community Center behind me is staying open as a shelter of last resort for anyone who feels his or her home may not be safe enough to remain during this emergency. However, once the curfew is in effect, anyone staying here will have to remain here. In short, you need to stay here or go home, but no matter what you choose, you need to choose soon and stick with your decision. You will see National Guard MPs augmenting our own local people in their duties with agreement of your City Council. There have been some looters reported and I need to remind everyone that this will not be tolerated. Now we are all aware of how to pull together. We have all lived through more hurricanes and tornadoes than I can count, red algae blooms, an oil spill, and a recession. This latest crisis is just one more thing to endure,” he went on.
“What about the missing kids?” someone yelled from the crowd, which brought rumbles of agreement.
“We have people out looking for the missing children right now. When found, they will be brought here to the Community Center. We have a team from the school system here that is staying on-site to assist in family reunification,” George answered.
“How many people have died?” a woman yelled out. The crowd’s roar of questions soon drowned out everything and threatened to wash over the impromptu meeting.
George put his free hand in the air to control the crowd. “There have, unfortunately, been some deaths during the riot
s. We are turning an offsite location into a disaster mortuary until we can get the County or the State in here to help us transport them to the medical center. We are posting these announcements on the bulletin board at City Hall and the National Guard will be bringing flyers around town. Now please, if you excuse me, I have a meeting with emergency officials. We will pass on further information when we get it,” George said, handing the megaphone to a gasmask-wearing female MP with a shotgun slung over her shoulder and climbed down from the tailgate.
Before he even made it two feet away from the truck, the crowd began loud discussion about the announcement. This discussion was interrupted by the bark of multiple gunshots coming from the direction of the police station.
Billy, who had been in the crowd halfway between the police station and the Community Center with Cat, grabbed her hand and pulled her back towards the center. The crowd seemed to part in every direction like many cockroaches scattering in a bright kitchen light, as the unmistakable sounds of the gunshots increased and spilled out into the Town Green.
Two police officers ran from the building firing handguns back into the entryway at an unseen threat. Billy pushed Cat ahead of him and into the Community Center door, almost bowled over by two MPs heading out into the Town Green from inside the refuge.
Billy peered back out the door at the scene evolving on the Town Green he had just left. He saw Spud running through the Green carrying the metal chair he was handcuffed to, upside down on his head like a hat, screaming, and yelling, “Don’t shoot!”
Three figures in city jail coveralls staggered out behind the madly running crook with fire in their eyes. Billy recognized the peculiar half-run of the inmates, the growls, the bared teeth, the mad twisted faces as being of the same type he had seen at the school earlier that day.
Last Stand on Zombie Island Page 7