by Caleb Cleek
As we neared town, Matt killed the radio and we both began making a transformation. It was an internal transformation that anyone who might have been watching would not have detected. Up until Matt shut the radio off, we had been carefree and relaxed. The carefree attitude was being replaced by extreme vigilance. We had been enjoying life, now we were preparing to deal with anything that was thrown at us. We were hardening ourselves, preparing to use deadly force if necessary.
It is a transition every cop makes multiple times a day. Every time a cop enters a traffic stop, or domestic violence incident, or any other circumstance where he deals with people, he has to be ready and willing to kill. He never knows when he may be walking into an ambush or if a person is going to go sideways without warning.
By the time we passed the city limit sign at the edge of town, the transformation was complete. We were ready for whatever we encountered. We would meet it head on and we would come out on top.
I kept the speed slower than normal. We wanted to get an idea of what was going on in town and that wasn’t possible at thirty-five miles per hour, especially at night. The streetlights were casting sickly yellow-orange sodium spheres of light around their bases. Islands of darkness existed between the light poles. These were the areas that forced us to slow. Normally, the patrol car’s spot lights, which were mounted in the frame between the windshield and front doors, would be canted to the side to illuminate these voids of darkness. Spotlights weren’t even an optional accessory when I bought my truck. I drove in a serpentine motion to illuminate these dark areas with the headlights.
Houses that normally would have been lit up like Christmas had a lone light glowing behind closed curtains, as if keeping the lights to a minimum would prevent the evil outside from knowing anyone was home; the infected would simply walk past the house, oblivious to the fact that there was food inside.
“Stop!” Matt said abruptly. “Look between those houses at the edge of the hedge. “ He pointed out my window about forty-five degrees ahead of us. Two bodies were huddled over something on the ground. The headlights weren’t angled toward them, but the side splash of light spilled onto the area, providing enough illumination for him to pick them up. I angled the front of the truck toward the spot he was indicating. As the headlights centered on the side lawn, the details emerged from obscurity and I stopped the truck. Two infected were squatted down over a dead deer, gorging themselves on its flesh. The banquet was no more than fifty yards away.
Neither of them appeared to be bothered by our presence, possibly because they were blinded to anything behind my high beams. Even at fifty yards, I could hear grunts and groans. I could hear them clacking their teeth between bites. They alternated between ripping meat and entrails from the carcass with their hands and putting their faces down and tearing flesh free with their teeth. I was again reminded of watching lions eating a zebra on the plains of Africa. All vestiges of civility were gone. They had reverted to wild beasts. They were still wearing clothes, but blood and bits of meat had fallen from their mouths and hands and had saturated their clothing with the filth that comes with eating raw meat without utensils. It made them look all the more barbaric.
“I’ll take the one of the right, you take the one of the left,” I whispered as I opened my door. I rested my rifle in the V between the open door and the frame of the car. Matt did the same on his side. “On three. One, two, three.” Two gunshots blended together to form a single boom, shattering the stillness of the night. The two infected collapsed in unison like synchronized swimmers. One came to rest on its back in the grass, the other on its stomach. Both sprawled across the carcass of the deer. How many more are out there? I wondered to myself.
We got back in the truck, closed the door and continued on our way. A minute later, we were pulling up to Matt’s house. I backed into the driveway and stopped in front of the closed doors of the attached three car garage.
“I’m going to check on Eve and Luke and then I’ll open the garage for you,” Matt said as he hurried to the front door. Thirty seconds later, light was spilling out of a growing crack at the base of the garage door. In ten seconds, the door was open and I backed into the empty space. Before I had shut the truck down, an electric motor above my head was winding the garage door closed again.
Chapter 15
The garage door clanked shut on the concrete floor as I stepped into the house. I walked through the door and saw Luke standing beside Eve with tears flowing from his eyes.
"What's wrong, Buddy?" I asked, bending down to his level.
"The bad man in the back yard ate Rexy," he blubbered.
I walked to the kitchen window which looked out into the back yard. I saw two bodies hunched over a bloody mass that I took to be what was left of Luke's German Shepherd, Rexy. "Matt, get in here!" I yelled.
"What is it?" Matt asked worriedly as he entered the room.
"There are two infected out there. They’re still eating on Rexy." We gazed at the carnage. “Let's do this the same as the last one. I'll take the one on the left again," I said as I moved to the sliding glass door.
Matt quietly opened the window over the sink.
I opened the sliding door just enough to fire into the back yard. The infected closest to me turned his head in my direction. The kitchen light was off, but there was enough light coming from the back porch bulb to illuminate me in the doorway. His facial expression changed from ambivalent to enraged. He howled as he rose upright and charged from twenty feet away. My pistol was out, but I wasn't prepared to fire. By the time I had the gun up, he was on top of me. I squeezed the trigger, aiming by instinct. There wasn't time to acquire the front sight, but the bullet found its mark anyway. The force of the bullet kicked the creature’s head back. Momentum carried the collapsing body forward toward the sliding door and the lifeless hulk crashed into it. The outer pane of glass shattered. The inner pane remained intact, but only because the frame took the brunt of the encounter.
The second infected ran for the fence at the east edge of the yard. Two hands grasped the top of the six foot wooden slats as the beast jumped, leapfrogging over the fence in a single, effortless motion. It was like watching a chimpanzee play in the monkey house at the zoo. I heard a crash in the next yard as something metallic was knocked over on the concrete patio, probably a barbeque. The clanging died away and there was silence. I cautiously moved onto the patio to examine the body. I was startled to realize that the corpse was a female in her late teens. Her short cropped hair and hefty build had hidden her sex in the dim lighting. She wasn’t Asian. The infection was in its second generation of victims.
Matt hurriedly moved back to the living room where Eve and Luke were wrapped in each other's arms, both obviously distressed by the commotion in the kitchen. Luke was still crying and Eve looked like she wasn't far from it herself. "We need to get out of here as quickly as possible. Pack up whatever clothes you need. We probably won't be back here for a while so be thorough, but be quick," Matt encouraged.
Eve and Luke scurried off to the back of house where the bedrooms were located and Eve started making a verbal checklist of what was important and what could be done without. Fifteen minutes later she emerged with three suitcases.
While Eve was packing, Matt was gathering his things together. I was left alone and decided to call Shannon again and try to glean some more information from him.
Shannon picked up the phone. This time he was all business. "I'm glad to hear your voice, Connor. What's your status?"
"It's a mess up here, Shannon. Your team destroyed my house and tried to kill me. From what I’m seeing, the infection is spreading like fire. We need some help. I mean real help, not a death squad.”
"They’re on the way,” he said. “The Army Reserves and National Guard have been activated. They had five hundred men from the National Guard ready to deploy to your area until Claire Mantell made it to the airport. Once that happened, they canceled everybody other than a group of Army Reservists th
at had deployed early to get the lay of the area and prepare for the Guard’s arrival.”
“Did you say Claire made it to the airport?” I asked in dismay.
“Apparently her dad owns a small airplane he hangers at his private strip just out of Lost Hills. He flew her and her kids to the airport and she was able to circumvent the roadblocks. By the time they got there, she and the kids were really sick. When TSA flagged her name in the system, they spelled it wrong and she got through security. Nobody noticed her up until the plane was about to board. She was bleeding all over the place and somebody took her to the airport infirmary where she died. Nobody was able to connect the dots at that point. Before they could remove the body, she revived and killed ten people. After that, they figured it out real quick.
“We reviewed video from the terminal. She and the kids came in about three hours before the flight was supposed to leave. She was coughing the whole time. She wandered the terminal for two solid hours before they finally sat down. By the time we realized she was there, people she exposed had gotten onto planes and landed at other airports.
“We reviewed video from other airports where the contaminated passengers landed. The videos showed people with symptoms of the infection getting off planes. Many of them were able to collect their bags and leave before the airports were locked down. This thing is out.
“Other than the one Army Reserve unit that deployed early, you aren’t getting any help. The National Guard units that were being sent your way have been redeployed in the cities where they will benefit more people. You guys are isolated up there. We have bigger things to worry about right now. It looks like we are going to have major outbreaks in cities all over the country. The airports have been shut down and quarantined. We’re trying to round up people who left the airport prior to quarantines being set up, but I honestly don't think it is going to make any difference at this point. Infected people are out all over the country.”
“How many people are in the Reserve Unit that’s coming? I asked.
“They said the unit headed your way was somewhere between fifteen and twenty soldiers strong. Their orders are to set up perimeters on the roads out of town to keep people from leaving. Other than that, I wouldn't count on much help from them."
“You said the infection has already spread across the country. What’s the point of a perimeter around our town?”
“Those are their orders,” was all he could say.
"What are your people doing?" I asked.
"We lost contact with one of the teams. The last contact we had with them was on their way to your house. We haven't heard from them since then. Do you know anything about their whereabouts?"
"Nothing I feel inclined to share right now.” I said as the battle with the Homeland Security contractors flashed through my mind. “What about the second team?" I asked.
"The second team is finishing up with an assignment and then they’re going to your place to search for the missing team."
"They’re going to my house?” I asked. “Where are they now?”
“I don’t know. They check in once an hour. Their last check in was forty-five minutes ago,” he answered.
“Can’t you see where they are from the GPS coordinates in their vehicle?” I asked, the churning in my stomach picking up again.
"We could if they were driving agency vehicles,” Shannon replied, "But they’re not driving agency vehicles. Because of the urgency of the situation, they flew into Lost Hills and picked up rental vehicles that had been delivered to the airport."
"So you're telling me you don't know where either team is?"
"Stop with the games, Connor. We both know where the first team is. The fact that you are alive clearly says that you know where they are and no one will hear from them again. I'm not going to rat you out. Their mission to eliminate anyone who came in contact with the infected was immoral and never should have been initiated. I’m sure you acted in self defense.
"The problem you’re facing is another team is looking for them. When they find out that you are still alive, they’ll put it together. Even if they don't, they have the same list of exposures the first team had. They’re coming for you either way. I don't know how you overcame the first team. You won't get that lucky again. The team that went to your place was the backup team. The second team is the "A" team. My recommendation is that you hide out."
"Based on what you are telling me, I can't do that. If I don't look out for the people of Lost Hills, no one else will. I appreciate your concern, but I have a job to do here," I said brusquely.
"Connor, you still don't get it, do you? This disease is the apocalypse. No one is going to walk away from it. It’s going to destroy life as we know it. You haven't seen the projections. They are predicting at least a ninety-nine percent fatality rate.”
“I was told five percent of the population would be immune,” I interjected. “My observations have confirmed those numbers to be pretty accurate.”
“Being immune doesn’t have anything to do with survival,” he said flatly. “The immune will be killed by the infected, they will starve to death, or they will be killed in the anarchy that is coming. The projections show that only a fraction of your five percent will survive the infected and the ensuing pandemonium.
"They are expecting a nationwide epidemic within two days. By that time, it will have spread internationally. Everybody is going to face the same outcome: extinction. The only ones who may fare better are the Chinese, but they’ve only vaccinated about ten percent of their population. They probably won't survive either. They probably killed the world when they launched this attack."
"Is there any way you can keep the other team away from my family?" I asked hopefully.
"I'm not in their chain of command. I am being briefed, but I have no authority to redirect them. I wish I could, but you're on your own. Be careful and take care of your family." And then he hung up the phone.
"Matt, I have to go. A second team is on their way see why they haven't heard from the team at my house. It isn't going to be pretty when they get there. I have to get home and get Katie and Toby out of there."
"We're ready. Help me get this stuff in your truck," Matt yelled back.
"I'm not taking your family into the middle of my problem. I’ll handle this now. Get your family somewhere safe and take care of them."
"Not a chance," he chided. "Our families are safest together. We have to stop these guys and now is the time to do it. The longer we wait, the more damage they are going to do. Not just to you and your family, but to the whole town. Help me get the truck loaded. I have a plan, but we need some time to get it set up."
Chapter 16
"Matt, I think this might work," I said as I looked at what we had accomplished in the past ten minutes since we returned to my place. It turned out that the patrol car would not start. However, the light bar was fully functional, which was the important part of Matt's plan. We had pushed the car around so that the front was facing the road. Using my truck, Matt gave it the nudge it needed to get the wheels rolling enough that gravity could take over. The road had a slight downhill grade for nearly half a mile. After that, it leveled out. I let the car roll until it had lost nearly all of its momentum, which didn't take long on two flat tires once the road leveled out. At that point, I steered to the far right side of the road and then cranked the wheel hard to the left. Before the car went off the left side of the road, I applied the brakes. Without the engine running there was no power assist to the brakes. My foot strained against the pedal and the car came to a stop. Matt pulled up in my truck. We pushed the patrol car back and then forward again until we had it positioned across the road, completely blocking the two narrow lanes to any passing traffic. Matt activated the LED light bar.
The passenger doors faced the direction from which traffic would approach. The bullet holes were out of view on the driver side. The car tilted to the left on the flat tires, but upon a cursory inspection it would pass as a via
ble patrol car. I took the truck back to the house and jogged back down the road to the roadblock.
The plan was simple. Matt took up a position on the passenger side of the car facing the house as if he were trying to maintain a perimeter. Katie and I hid in the roadside weeds which were a little over waist high. She was on one side of the road and I was on the other. Once we crouched down, they offered good concealment. Since we were slightly ahead of the patrol car, we would be close to where the Homeland Security contractor’s van would stop, but still had an angle that would prevent us from shooting each other in a cross fire if things went badly.
The plan was based on deception. If it worked, no shots would be fired. If it didn't work, the van was going to be in the middle of a deadly ambush and it was unlikely they would survive it. Katie and I each had two MP5 submachine guns we had taken from the dead contractors, one slung and the other in our hands. If things went south, we could each fire sixty rounds between the two guns without reloading. Matt also had two hidden behind the car so he could retreat to them.
“Are you sure you don’t want to wait this out at the house with Eve and the boys?” I asked Katie.
“The plan won’t work without me,” she said from the other side of the road. “You said it yourself: it takes at least three people to ensure victory. Fewer than three and there will be an entire side of their vehicle that won’t be under direct fire. It gives them room to maneuver. I’m staying.”
Five minutes after everyone was in place, we saw headlights bouncing up the road like a pair of kids running down the street, flashlights in hand, on Halloween night.