Dead Outside (Book 1)

by Oliver, Nick

  “Is there a vaccine?”

  “We’ve started a few trials,” the doctor pulled a clip board from the table next to him. “Unfortunately I’m unable to discuss the results of those trials, but I can say it will be months, maybe even years before a successful vaccine is developed.”

  The reporter’s eyes sank, he looked like he was about to throw up. “Y…years?”

  The doctor had a perplexed look on his face. “Yes, vaccines take time. We have to make sure they work, and have no…” he hesitated yet again, “unfortunate side effects.”

  The reporter gulped and adjusted his collar. He opened his mouth to say something, but before he could he went extremely pale and vomited all over the doctor.

  The doctor took a step back and ripped off his white coat, and tossed it on the ground. He then grabbed the reporters sleeve and pulled it up to reveal it was crudely wrapped in gauze, and stained red with blood.

  “How long ago were you bitten?” he asked the reporter sternly.

  The reporter fell to his knees and vomited all over the floor.

  “How long ago were you bitten?” the doctor yelled.

  “Yesterday.” The reporter’s voice was hoarse. “Put me in the trials please! I don’t want to die!” he vomited one more time, then his eyes rolled back and he fainted.

  The doctor looked up at the camera. “Shut that thing off, I think you’ve got your report.”

  The image went from head level to being on the floor. “Alright it’s off, what do we do to help him?” The camera man came into view, either he lied about shutting off the camera, or was simply too startled to notice he had left it on.

  “There’s nothing we can do,” the doctor said gravely, as he checked the Reporter’s pulse.

  “What?” the camera man shouted angrily. “What was all that crap you just said about trials? Are they working or not?”

  “There are no trials dumb ass,” the doctor shot back at the camera man. “The government forced me to say that, they don’t want people to panic. There is no cure. There is no vaccine. If you are infected, you will die.”

  The camera man was dumbfounded, “So, what do we do?”

  “Put him out of his misery,” the doctor said coldly, as though it wasn’t the first time he’d had to answer the question. “He has about a half hour before his heart stops, then anywhere from twenty minutes to an hour before all he does is try to kill more people.” The doctor grabbed a needle from his pocket, bit off the cap and injected the reporter in the neck. “Help me get him onto a gurney. We’ve got about thirty minutes before that wears off.”

  “W...,” the camera man stuttered, “where are we taking him?”

  The doctor looked up at the camera man, and said flatly, “The incinerator.”

  The feed was cut suddenly, and went back to the news anchors. They were completely speechless, just staring blankly at the cameras.

  After a few moments of silence, the male anchor tried to compose himself, but you could still see and hear the fear in his face and voice. “We, we’ll be right back after these messages.” He turned to the female anchor, apparently not aware that he was still on the air, “What the fuck was that?”

  My mother was speechless, my father had an odd look on his face. It wasn’t fear, it wasn’t anger, I think it was determination, I think he was one of the few out of the millions of people who would see that footage that saw the seriousness to come.

  If I hadn’t seen one of them myself an hour ago, I would probably have had the same look on my face as my mother.

  “What do we do?” I asked nobody in particular.

  My dad rubbed the stubble on his chin for a second. He still had the determined look on his face. “They won’t be able to contain this.”

  “Why not?” my mother asked, breaking her silence. “The government has people for this. They will send the police, the army, somebody will stop it.”

  “While we were on the road here, Andy called me,” my dad said to me, referred to a guy he works with at the airport. “The airport was overrun with people infected with this, most coming from Asian flights. He said the same thing is happening at several airports. The FAA is shutting them down, but it’s too late.”

  “Roxie texted me a bunch of times over the last few days, I only just got them on the way here. She said there have been outbreaks all over town,” I added. “Didn’t she text or call you?”

  “I didn’t get any until this morning on the way home.” My mother’s face sank, “She’s still all the way in Florida, and how are we going to get her if the airports are shut down?”

  My Father stood up, “It’s not safe to drive, and we barely made it here from the cabin. There are too many accidents and reckless drivers out there.”

  It felt like my heart sank to my feet. The only thing I could think about was Sarah in trouble, and over a thousand miles away. “We can’t stay here.”

  My Father shot me a look, “I don’t like it any better then you, but if we try to go anywhere now, let alone cross the country now, we’ll never make it, we’d just get ourselves killed.”

  I opened my mouth to argue when the TV shouted out, “Breaking news!” We all turned to see what could possibly be worse then what we’d just seen. The news anchors weren’t on the screen, it was the President.

  “My fellow Americans,” he began with a stern, but troubled voice, “We have come under attack by an epidemic, worse than the 1917 outbreak of Spanish Flu, the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the black plague. Over the last three weeks, we have struggled to protect our nation from this threat without inciting panic. I will not pretend that the measures we took were morally correct, but they were necessary. I was hoping that the ends would justify the means. Unfortunately the end we planned, and hoped for was not achieved. I’ve decided to declare Martial Law. I’ve deployed the armed forces to secure major population centers. Anyone located in rural areas should be relatively safe, but it is encouraged that you lock any doors and windows, and wait it out.” He paused for a moment, maybe for dramatic effect, but I think he was considering whether or not he should actually say the next part of his obviously prepared speech. “Private Citizens are encouraged to defend themselves from those infected by this plague by any means necessary to preserve their own lives, and the lives of loved ones. Good luck and God bless.”

  My father shut off the TV. “We have enough food here for a few months. Your mom keeps a lot of canned and frozen food.” He referenced the fact that my grandmother still kept a large supply of food, usually for family gatherings such as birthday parties.

  My mother grabbed her phone, “I’m calling Roxie to make sure she’s okay.”

  “Dad, I’m not going to sit around here while Sarah, Nick, and Roxie are out there,” I argued. “I’m going back to Florida even if I have to walk the whole way there.”

  “You’re going to stay here with your Mother and me, and wait it out.” He raised his voice to his anger tone, one I was quite familiar with. “Roxie, Nick and Sarah are smart. They don’t need you to take care of them. They can take care of themselves.”

  “I’m not trying to say they can’t take care of themselves,” I argued.

  “You’re not leaving, and that’s final,” my Dad insisted. He was a stubborn man, not one for compromise, especially once he’d made a decision on something.

  I matched his piercing stare, trying to decide upon what to say next to convince him. I realized based upon years of trying to argue with him that anything I said would be futile. “Fine, I’ll stay.”

  His stern face didn’t change. His eyes were searching into mine, as if to ascertain whether or not I was telling the truth. He’d always held the opinion that I couldn’t lie to save my life, and I’d let him hold that opinion by making obvious bad lies every once in a while. But if I ever needed to keep something in the dark, or lie about my whereabouts, I could cover my tracks without him realizing it. I did that now, not giving him any indication that I wasn’t tru
thful about staying here, but deep down, I knew I wasn’t going to stay. I would leave whether he liked it or not.

  “Good,” he broke the silence. “Go in the garage. See how many 2x4’s we have left over from building the fence last summer.”

  I looked at him quizzically, “Why?”

  “We’re going to board up all the windows.” He opened his phone to check the time, “Those things could be a block away. I’m going to go in the basement and get our shotguns and ammo. We should have at least a case or two of shells left from hunting last year.”

  I felt my throat tighten. It wasn’t like I’d never fired a gun before. I’d been hunting since I was twelve. I’d grown up with a gun in the house for defense for as long as I can remember. But the tone in my Dad’s voice, the intent, it wasn’t hypothetical. It was legitimate fear for the safety of his family. “Don’t forget Grandpa’s old hunting rifle. It should be down there too,” I added.

  His serious face broke for a second, and a barely noticeable smirk curled from the side of his lips, “Right, I almost forgot, I'll grab it too.”

  We spent the next ten hours fortifying the house, we only had enough boards left for four windows, and so we went outside and pulled apart the small white picket fence in the front garden to board up the rest. My mother took a count of all the food we had in the freezers and canned in the basement. There was enough food for us to comfortably live on for at least a month or two, maybe more if we stretched it.

  My grandmother had been asleep when the news was on, so my mother broke the news to her. She had her suspicions, just as my parents had on the way home. The chaos on the streets couldn’t have had any other explanation. She started calling my aunts and uncles to make sure they were okay. Most answered, some didn’t. My dad tried to make some excuses as to why they might not have answered, maybe they were at a friend’s house, maybe they were at one of the many shelters that the news said were being established in schools, office buildings, and other locations with a decent chance of survival with sufficient supplies.

  I’d spent half of the time I was working trying to reach Sarah or Roxie on the phone, but the networks were so overcharged with people calling each other I couldn’t get a call through. I tried Nick a few times too, to no avail. I was getting worried. The last text I got said they were gathering supplies in our apartment, but I knew they wouldn’t be able to get much. We lived on fast food and leftovers most of the time. There wasn’t enough food there to last three days, let alone three months.

  I was searching the basement’s many totes and storage bins for anything my parents could use, or I could use on my inevitable trip home. I was already putting together a bag of things I’d need, baseball bat, changes of clothes, medical supplies, maps my grandmother had collected over the years, flash light, rope, a little mirror my grandfather had used for working on trucks that looked like an oversized dental instrument, even an old machete. All I needed was my gun, ammo, and some food and I was ready to go.

  I waited to get those things last so that my parents wouldn’t notice. We had the guns and ammo on the counter, loaded and ready just in case. The food was also all accounted for, and I didn’t want them to think I was trying to hoard it.

  A few people, well I guess they weren’t really people anymore, were outside, banging on the front door. A few others were in the back reaching up for the now boarded windows. They let out a wheezy moaning sound. It really made a chill run down your spine no matter how long you listened to it.

  My Dad rationalized that we shouldn’t waste ammo killing them, because they weren’t really doing any harm just being there, and that we should save it for if they managed to get in somehow. Maybe if other people thought of this, more people might have lasted those first few chaotic weeks.

  4:00 AM June 28

  It’d been eight days since we got back to my grandmother’s house. Eight days since I had any contact with Sarah, Nick, or Roxie. I was rooting through a box filled with winter coats when my phone started to vibrate. I about had a heart attack when I saw it was Nick calling me.

  “Hello?” I answered frantically, hoping the call wouldn’t be lost.

  “Sam!” I heard his familiar, though shaken voice. “We’ve been trying to get a hold of you for weeks. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I sighed in relief. “I’m with my parents and my grandmother at her house. Where are you guys?”

  “We’re driving to the high school,” he said slightly out of breath. “Hold on!” he yelled. I heard some rattling, like he dropped the phone.

  “Nick! What the hell is going on?” I yelled into the phone, hoping he could hear me. I heard loud cracks, what I assume were gunshots coming from the phone. I heard some more rattling as he picked the phone back up.

  “Sam, we’re driving to the school, we don’t have the supplies to last at our house, they said on the radio and TV to go to the school that they have fortified it, and all residents in the area should go there.”

  “Were those gunshots?” I asked almost too scared to know.

  “Yes, Roxie has your twenty-two rifle,” I heard tires screeching and a few more gunshots. “They’re all over the road!”

  “What are all over the road?” I asked, my heart now racing.

  “Zombies!” I heard Roxie’s voice pierce through the phone.

  “Nick, listen to me,” I interrupted Roxie, who was still shouting. “Where is Sarah?”

  “She’s in the back seat,” he answered. “Here she is.”

  “Sam?” her voice calmed me down in a way I cannot describe, just knowing she was still alive made everything a hundred times better.

  “Sarah, listen, I don’t have much time, the call could be dropped any second.” I thought of what would be the best way to word it, “Stay safe until I get there.”

  “Until you get here?” she asked, slightly confused. “You’re all the way up in Ohio.”

  “I’m coming for you,” I blurted from the heart, “it doesn’t matter how far, or how many of those damned things there are in my way. I’ll be there.”

  “Sam,” she was practically speechless, not sure what to say, “That’s so…” Her voice changed drastically all of the sudden, “Oh my God! Look out!”

  A loud crash echoed through my ear as the line died. My heart sank to the bottom of my stomach. I tried to call back probably a hundred times, getting nothing but an out of service tone. I threw my phone at a wall. It broke into six or seven pieces as it collided with the wall. I went upstairs and grabbed my bag out of my room.

  It was already dark, so everyone was asleep. It was my watch tonight, so I didn’t have to be too stealthy as they would expect me to make a little noise. I opened up my hiking backpack and started placing some of the food in into it. I focused on the granola bars and snack type foods which would expire, leaving the canned food for my parents and grandmother. I must have been a little too hasty, making a little too much noise then I should have. I heard footsteps from down the hall.

  “Damn!” I whispered out loud.

  “Samuel Benjamin O’Neal, what do you think you’re doing?” I heard in an all too familiar voice.

  “Mom, I can’t just stay here. I have to make sure she’s okay,” I defended myself.

  She shook her head angrily, “No, you are staying with your family, I won’t let you go.”

  I kept packing, “Mom, I won’t be able to live with myself if I stay.”

  My dad walked into the kitchen and crossed his arms. He silently watched and listened as my mom yelled at me.

  “You’re not leaving. You won’t last a day outside with those things everywhere,” her face shifted from anger to fear. “I can’t lose you like I lost your sister!”

  “Mom, you didn’t lose Roxie. The cell phone network may be overloaded, but that didn’t mean she’s dead. She’s alive, and so are Sarah and Nick. I just got off the phone with them. They are fine,” I lied slightly, not entirely sure about their fate form the end of the phone call
. “I have to go for Sarah, because I love her, and can’t live without her, the same way Dad can’t live without you.”

  My dad walked over to the counter and grabbed my shotgun and several boxes of shells. He walked over to me, set the shells on the counter next to my bag and held my shotgun in front of me. “The moment you can get in touch with us, do it so your mother doesn’t worry.”

  I grabbed the shotgun. My mom’s jaw dropped and she turned to my dad, “How can you just let him leave?”

  “Because there is no way I can stop him.” He scooped the keys off the counter and grabbed his own shotgun. “Come on, I’ll see you out.”

  I walked over to my mom, “I’m not going to die. I swear the moment I can get word out, I will. Tell Grandma I said goodbye”

  Tears ran down her face as she struggled to accept the fact that I wasn’t going to stay. “I love you, and please be careful.”

  “Don’t worry." I smiled, "I’ll be fine.”

  I put on my backpack, strapped my shotgun over my shoulder, and grab my baseball bat that was leaning against the couch. I stepped into the garage and saw my dad had lit one of his few remaining cigars.

  "You know I knew you were lying a week ago." He said as he pulled the cigar from his lips, smoke flowing out.

  "About what?" I asked, closing the door behind me.

  "When you said you were staying." He said as he put the cigar back in his mouth for another draw. "You couldn't have thought I was that stupid." He said as he let out more smoke.

  For half a second I was actually surprised that he'd seen through my lie, then realized he was right. All those times I'd thought I succeeded was probably because he didn't care about those feeble attempts at lies. "No, thought I was smart enough to pull it off."

  "I also knew about the beer you had stashed in your closet when you were in high school." He smirked.

  "Well it wasn't the best hiding place," I chuckled, feeling tears forming in the corners of my eyes. "You probably noticed when your eighteen packs turned into seventeen packs too."