by Ricky Sides
When he finished briefing her, Erma asked, “Do you think they’ve attacked the other outbreak areas with missiles too?”
Her question troubled Herb. “That would explain the curious lack of news today.” As he followed Randy through their turns, he explained the odd shortage of pertinent news related to the advance of the Akins parasites and the fallout from the nuclear strikes.
The traffic leaving the city was a bit less congested than the outbound lanes had been earlier. Still, the entire trip to the university had taken them just a little over an hour that morning, but it took two for them to get past the outskirts of Little Rock during the trip home.
They witnessed several instances of violence as they made their way out of the city, and Herb had to put the barrel of his pistol in a man’s face when he foolishly tried to carjack them. Nevertheless, in the end, they made it out of the city safely.
They stopped at a carwash in a small town along the highway, twenty miles from Little Rock. The men went inside the convenience store beside the carwash and purchased two gallons of bleach, which they poured all over the bloody spots on Herb’s truck. Doctor Langley assured the men that they had used enough of the chemical to kill the parasites. Then she recommended that they wash the truck before the bleach ruined Herb’s paint.
They gassed up both vehicles, and Herb bought several plastic gallon jugs, which he filled with Kerosene for his lamps. He also filled the two empty five gallon cans in the back of his truck with gasoline.
Chapter 1 6
The road back home
“What are your plans, Doctor Langley?” Herb asked as they continued the drive back toward his place.
“I’ve got to get in touch with the government. I have a working cure in the trailer.”
“Is it practical?” Herb asked.
“What do you mean?” she inquired.
“I mean, can it be manufactured in sufficient quantity to be of any real use?”
“It would be expensive, but yes, I think so.”
“I’m not trying to rain on your parade, Erma, but are you sure it’s safe? What are the long term effects we could expect from the stuff being in our bodies?”
“Better than the Akins parasites,” she responded dryly.
“That’s probably true, but you know how the government thinks.”
“I didn’t think you shared that point of view too closely. After all, you did desert your post,” Erma said angrily.
“Yep, right before they nuked it,” Herb countered, just as angrily.
After that, he drove in silence for several miles. Finally, he said, “Look, if you want to, you’re welcome to come out to my place and stay where it’s safe until you figure out what to do.”
“I think I need to get to a major city where someone can put me in touch with the government, but thank you for the invitation.”
“Erma, you need to wake up and look around you.”
“What do you mean by that,” she inquired with an arched eyebrow.
“We’ve been listening to the radio off and on all morning long. Have you heard anything at all about the massive zombie outbreak in Little Rock?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”
Erma eyes narrowed in thought. “Well, of course it does, but I don’t know what it means, and neither do you.”
“You’re right. I don’t know what it means. Not with any degree of certainty, but I have my suspicions, and I think you do too.”
“Oh, come on, Herb. Don’t try to convince me that they are about to attack Little Rock with nuclear weapons.”
“Actually, I was hoping you could convince me that they aren’t,” Herb responded.
A brilliant flash of light illuminated the road ahead of them. “What the hell?” Herb said.
“Stop the truck!” Doctor Langley yelled.
Herb blew the horn to get Randy’s attention and slowed to a stop in the breakdown lane. Randy saw that Herb was putting on the brakes, and he too slowed to a stop. Herb noted that the sky seemed to be darkening.
“Get down in the seat. Call your friend and tell him to do the same,” Erma urged Herb. When he hesitated, she yelled, “Do it now!”
Cursing under his breath, Herb ducked down in the seat, grabbed his phone and called Randy. “Get down, now!” he said.
Three seconds later, the truck was rocked by the shockwave and they heard the sound of the detonation. The trailer they were hauling was pushed against the truck by the force of the wind, forcing their vehicle to slide along the surface of the road a few feet. Wait for the rest,” Erma warned when Herb moved to sit up.
Herb passed her warning to Randy.
“That was the blast wave. There will be a slower negative pressure wave as the wind draws material back toward the center of the explosion,” she added.
“Did you hear that?” Herb asked Randy. He couldn’t hear his friend’s reply because the wave of air hit at that precise moment.
When the vehicle stopped moving, Erma opened the truck door and stepped out. She stared in the distance for a moment, and then she jumped back inside. “Let’s get to your place as fast as you can,” she said.
“Holy crap! Was that what I think it was?” Herb asked as he got back out onto the highway and motioned for Randy to precede them.
“If you’re thinking it was a nuclear bomb, yes it was,” Erma answered. Then she began to curse. Finally, she said, “Those damned fools may have destroyed the research for the nanotechnology. I had the prototypes in their special containers, where they should be shielded against EMPs, but the research on the computers and external hard drives is vulnerable.”
“The truck is running and the phones are working” Herb pointed out.
“True and it looked like a ground blast. I hope that means the EMP was weak enough not to reach us with sufficient power to fry the computers and external hard drives, but we’ll still need to protect them from the fallout, so let’s go.”
“We’re already moving, Erma,” Herb said with a hint of a smile.
“Well, move faster!” she said in exasperation.
“That’s really not a good idea under the circumstances. We’re hauling fully automatic rifles, not to mention a few grenades. Besides, you probably won’t need to worry about the fallout, at least not for a few days. I heard the weather this morning during the trip to pick you up. The winds are going to be out of the north, traveling southeast for the next few days.”
“That’s a blessing. In a couple of days, the worst of the fallout will have fallen, and the radiation will then drop to a fraction of what it would be at the moment.”
“A blessing for us, yes, but not so much for those to the southeast,” Herb pointed out.
“I didn’t mean... Oh, never mind. Why do you always have to twist what I’m saying?”
“I’m not. I don’t. I didn’t mean it that way at all. I was just wondering how bad it will be for them.”
“A lot depends on the yield and the weather. The more the particles disperse, the better,” Erma replied. Then she said, “You said you heard the weather. What is the wind speed and rain outlook for the next few days?”
“I believe they said the winds would be ten to twenty. Rain is expected by the weekend, but they didn’t get into specifics.”
“Good. Rain is bad right after a nuclear blast. It soaks the particles and makes them fall to earth. Of course, it’s possible that the bomb might generate its own showers.”
It will probably be worse in New York,” Herb speculated.
“New York? You don’t mean they had outbreaks there too.”
“I’m afraid so, and they probably nuked them at the same time they took out Little Rock, if they follow the same pattern they used during the first set of strikes.”
“Oh, my God,” Erma said in shock at the prospect of such a heavily populated city being hit by a nuclear missile.
A breaking news bulletin caught Herb’s attention, so h
e reached over and turned up the volume on the radio.
“This is a first in the history of our country,” the news commentator stated. “Never in the history of the United States has the military refused to follow the orders of a sitting President. However, several different news agencies have released a statement on behalf of the Joint Chiefs of Staff stating that the President’s executive order authorizing the military to disarm the American population is illegal and will not be carried out by their forces.”
“They have informed the media that Little Rock, Arkansas was just hit with a missile, and say that New York was also targeted, but the men with the keys in the missile silos responsible for that strike refused to obey the order, due to the magnitude of the loss of life that would have resulted. Furthermore, they have decided that it is too late to attempt to eradicate the Akins parasites with nuclear weapons. They cite the horrific death toll to date in the attempt as the main reason that they will not carry out further missile launches on American soil at the President’s orders.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, this effectively makes the President a lame duck. Stay tuned to this station. We’ll update you the moment we have further information.”
Herb turned the volume back down and sighed. “This is a sad day for America. So many lives wasted in a futile effort to eradicate the parasites.”
“It was too late when they launched the first missile.”
“Obviously, or it wouldn’t have continued to spread,” Herb countered.
“There you go again. You’re always so argumentative.”
“I was agreeing with you!” Herb said defensively.
“Yes, but in a way that made me feel stupid for even making the comment.”
“You? Stupid?” Herb laughed in genuine amusement.
“I’m glad you find me so amusing,” Erma said archly.
“I’m sorry, but you have got to be one of the brightest people I’ve ever met. No, I don’t consider you even the slightest bit stupid. I also think you may be one of the touchiest people I’ve ever met, but it’s clear to me that you’re a brilliant scientist.”
“How could you possibly know that?” she responded, thinking that he was trying to ingratiate himself to her.
“Now who’s treating who like they’re stupid?” Herb asked. “You don’t get to head a research team for the CDC during the most critical moment in the history of the world if you’re a dumbass. I’m betting that something you tried with the nanotechnology things was your own idea, and not a part of the basic research plan, and that’s probably why they worked on your pet bird.”
“That nasty thing is not my pet,” Erma said.
“There you go again. What is it with you? Did you get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?”
“That would imply I was in a bed last night. I wasn’t. I was sitting in the trailer waiting for the zombies to break in all night, listening to people being...” Erma stopped talking and lowered her face.
Herb glanced over at her and saw tears dropping into her lap. He didn’t need to ask her to finish her sentence. He could well imagine what she had heard as she sat alone in her trailer and waited for the zombies to break in to get to her as they were getting to the people in the parking lot of the campus.
He reached out tentatively and laid his hand on hers. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That must have been hell for you.”
“It was bad,” she admitted. “If not for you and your friend, I’d still be sitting there waiting to die, and here I am being a shrew to you. I’m not normally like this,” she explained as she drew her hand out from under his to wipe the tears from her eyes.
Herb was bringing his hand back up to the steering wheel when he noted that Randy was braking off and on. He did the same as he looked ahead of them to see a car on the side of the road with the hood up. He could see that someone was in the car. He could also see that there were two zombies outside it beating on the passenger side front window.
“Where the hell did the zombies come from?” he asked the rhetorical question as he braked harder. He brought the truck to a halt behind Randy and grabbed his rifle. “Stay inside where it’s safe,” he told Erma, and then he got out of the truck.
Herb rushed over to join Randy who was getting his rifle out from behind the seat of the pickup. The two zombies had seen them and turned in their direction. One was a female who may have been in her early twenties when she died. The other appeared to be a girl in her mid teens. Both were dressed in blue denim pants and t-shirts, and zombies had attacked both in the past. The left side of the older woman’s neck had been gnawed to the bone. The teenager’s right cheek and nose had borne the brunt of her assault, as had her midriff, if the evidence on the bloody shirt could be trusted.
“I’ve got the one on the right,” Randy said as his friend joined him.
“Okay,” Herb responded. He targeted the younger female, but said, “One shot, buddy. Let’s not botch this.”
By the time the two men fired, the zombies had closed the gap between the car and Herb’s truck considerably. Both of the females were hit in the forehead and fell to the asphalt.
Herb walked up to the car and knocked on the driver’s side window. “Are you okay in there?” he asked when the blonde at the wheel turned to look at him fearfully. Beside her on the seat sat a small Yorkshire terrier that was barking fiercely.
“I’m okay. Were they zombies?” the woman gasped.
“Yes, they were,” Herb responded.
“I thought so. I’ve seen the news on the television, but this was the first time I’ve seen one.”
“Let’s hope it’s the last,” Herb responded. Then he said, “Do you need a ride to town?”
“I guess I do. I left Little Rock when things got crazy there,” she said, and she opened her door to get out. She paused with her door half open. “You’re safe, aren’t you?”
“Yes, Ma’am. We stopped to help you. If we’d wanted to hurt you, we’d have started doing that by now,” Herb responded with a trace of amusement.
“I guess that’s true, but my Lily would have something to say about that,” she replied with a smile.
“I’m sure she would at that,” Herb said in mock seriousness.
“By the way, Ma’am, where did the two zombies come from?” Randy asked.
“That building over there, I think,” she responded as she pointed to a metal building situated about 150 yards away from the highway. “At least they were coming at me from that direction when I first saw them,” she added. “My name is Shaunna Baugher by the way.”
“I’m Randy, and my friend here is Herb.”
“Should we check the building out?” Randy asked Herb.
“No, just keep an eye on it,” Herb replied.
“Shaunna, what’s wrong with your car? Maybe we can fix it,” Herb said. “We should at least try, because it might be too dangerous to try to come back here to get it.”
“I ran out of gas. I just raised the hood to let people know I was having car trouble. I wanted to stop for fuel in the city, but people were acting crazy at the pumps. When they started fighting, I just left.”
“We can help with that,” Randy said, but then he looked to Herb for approval.
“Do it. I’ll stand guard.”
Randy used a funnel to pour the gas from one of the five gallon cans they had purchased earlier, and replaced the gas cap. “Try it now,” he said.
Shaunna’s late model Chevrolet Impala started up and ran smoothly.
“You’d better shut it down and let Randy put another five gallons in it. That will give you a safety margin to reach Forrest City,” Herb said as he continued watching the building.
Shaunna shut down her vehicle, and Randy added the other can of gas.
“Lily! Where are you, girl!” Shaunna yelled. She was looking around inside her vehicle for the dog, but it was nowhere to be seen.
A shrill bark sounded on the passenger side of the Impala. Herb stepped around th
e back of the car and saw the Yorkie standing with its front paws resting against the side of the door. “Here she is,” he said. “Unlock your door and I’ll let her in for you,” he added.
Shaunna scolded the animal when it jumped up into the floorboard of her car and then resumed its place in the passenger side front seat. “I’m sorry. I guess she slipped out when I wasn’t looking,” she said.
“No harm done,” Herb said. He couldn’t have been more wrong. The animal had located a small fleck of blood on the side of the car and licked it.
“Start it up again,” Randy said.
Again, the Impala engine started and ran smoothly. “You’ll probably need to run some injector cleaner through the system,” Randy informed her. “Running a vehicle dry that way tends to suck up trash.”
“I will. My mechanic always says that too. You men have been nice. I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you both for saving me from the zombies, and for the gas. I’ll be happy to pay for it.”
“There’s no need,” Herb said. “You do know that the government hit Little Rock with a nuclear missile don’t you?”
“Yes, I heard that on the radio. They said it was a low yield weapon, but I’m not so sure about that. It seemed pretty intense to me. I’m worried about the fallout.”
“The wind should carry that southeast, so just keep heading east and you should be fine. If you stop in Arkansas, don’t take a room on the top floor, just in case the wind shifts unexpectedly. Your best bet is to turn north and take Interstate 55 into Missouri. There have been outbreaks of zombies all over Arkansas,” Herb explained.
“You be careful when you get to a town. If things are calm, fill up your car with gas. It would be a good idea to buy a few supplies too, just in case you have to find a hotel and stay locked inside for an extended period of time.
Shaunna looked alarmed. “Do you think I’ll encounter more of those things?”
“It’s possible,” Herb said. He felt it best to be honest with the woman so that she would know to be on her guard. Drive safely. If you stop for any reason, keep your doors locked, no matter where you are. Do not exit your vehicle, unless you see normal people in the vicinity.”