The Fall of Society (Book 2): The Fight of Society

by Rand, Thonas

  “I’m glad you could make it, Mister Keller,” his mother told him with a smile.

  She was a vision, in her early twenties, a tall and thin beauty with ample curves where they were needed. She was dressed like a movie star, that is, her clothes, make-up, and hair were immaculate. A living portrait of the American dream.

  Her son giggled from being called ‘Mister’.

  “Why do you call me that, Mommy?”

  “Because…you’re my little man, aren’t you?”

  “I guess so.”

  “No guessing. When your father is away, you’re the man of the house.”

  “Okay.”

  “Good,” she said as she placed a serving of vegetables on his plate. “I hope you’re hungry, because I think I made too much.”

  “Again?” he asked.

  “Yes, again, funny man.”

  “You keep forgetting that daddy isn’t here right now to eat all the food you make.”

  “Not forgetting, sweetie…wishing.”

  “Wishing for what?”

  “Wishing he was here so he can go Trick or Treating with us this weekend.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Okay, eat your dinner before it gets cold.”

  “But I wanted to show you my costume.”

  His mother was confused, “Costume? What costume, sweetie?”

  “The one I made for Halloween.”

  “But I thought you wanted to be a cowboy for Halloween?”

  “I did, but you said that we didn’t have money to buy me a cowboy costume, so I made one myself.”

  “You made a cowboy costume?” His mother was perplexed.

  “No, it was too hard.”

  “So what did you make?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s a surprise.”

  “Good. Go get your costume and I’ll wait here, so you can surprise me.”

  “Okay, Mommy,” Ardent said and went to his room.

  She heard him rustling about in his room, getting his costume together and a moment later he came back, but stopped in the hallway. Just out of her sight.

  “Are you ready?” he said to her.

  “Yes,” his mother answered with a smile.

  “Are your eyes closed?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Then you’re not ready! Close your eyes!”

  “Alright, they’re closed,” she said.

  He peeked around the corner to make sure her eyes were closed and, once he saw they were, he stepped into the dinning room for her to see.

  “Okay, you can open them now!” Ardent said happily.

  His mother looked and when she saw what he was wearing, she did her best to hide the chagrin on her face.

  He had a white pillowcase over his body with holes cut out for eyes.

  “That’s where my pillowcase went to,” his mother thought.

  Little Ardent had also cut holes on the sides of it for his arms to fit through.

  “Um…” she stuttered a bit, “…what are you supposed to be, sweetie, a ghost?”

  “Yeah, but I’m Casper the friendly ghost,” he said enthusiastically.

  “That’s nice.”

  “What’s wrong? You don’t like it?” his joy fled.

  “I like it, Baby, but I thought you wanted to be a cowboy, that’s all.”

  “Mommy, you said that I couldn’t be a cowboy.”

  “I know, I know, but it turns out I have a little money and I was going to use it to surprise you and buy the cowboy costume you wanted.”

  “Really?”

  “Really,” his mother assured him. “Now, why don’t you take that off so we can have our dinner and, after that we’ll go get the cowboy costume.”

  His mother didn’t have the heart to tell him why she really didn’t want him to wear his ‘ghost’ costume, being that she was from the South. That was some of her past little Ardent never needed to know.

  He took off the pillowcase, ran to her, and embraced her tightly.

  “Thank you, Mommy, thank you very much!”

  “You’re welcome, Baby.”

  And that embrace meant more to her than he would ever know…

  DAY 45:

  ARDENT and BEAR

  ARDENT STOOD THERE IN THE HOSPITAL CORRIDOR PETRIFIED FROM SHOCK. The memory of that particular Halloween with his mother had drilled him. His eyes were pulled in like a black hole to the figure before him with the white sheet over its body, and it was inescapable. Ardent heard the echoed memory of Billie Holiday’s voice—

  “I’ll be seeing you…”

  The ghost swayed in place several feet from him, but this apparition had no holes for the eyes or slits for the arms, it was just a sliver of white sheet. Ardent couldn’t move, let alone breathe. His eyes screamed and his mouth wanted to join in, but he still couldn’t draw breath into his lungs. The phantasm took a step forward and the sheet got caught under its foot and was pulled off. It fell to the floor gracefully as a ballerina and revealed what was hid, even though Ardent knew who it was—

  His mother.

  She faced the other side of the corridor and she had this set-in-stone look of confusion, a drunken bewilderment as to who or where she was. Ardent’s lips trembled and his eyes burned with swelling tears as he tried to remain in control, but it was impossible.

  “Mom?” Ardent said as tears traced over his lips.

  She heard his voice and turned her five foot four body around, dragged her feet, shuffled to the sound of him and when she faced him, Ardent’s face tightened with despair.

  His mother had become one of them.

  Her milky eyes set their soulless gaze upon him and she moved for him.

  Her feet scratched along the linoleum with each step bringing her closer to Ardent.

  “Mom? It’s me…Ardent.”

  She responded by gaping her fetid mouth open for what she wanted to feast on.

  Ardent struggled badly with his next decision—

  He slowly raised his .45 toward her…

  She was seven steps from him…

  His eyes were drowning as he aimed at her face…

  Five…

  She raised her hands toward him…

  Three…

  He placed his finger on the trigger…

  Her putrid fingers were within inches of him…

  Ardent remembered that Halloween when she bought him the cowboy costume that he had wanted so badly. She would never know how much that meant to him.

  One of her hands moved along the slide of his gun, she would claw at him in a second…

  He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t shoot his mother…

  He was going to die with her, right here, right now…

  She began to whisper to him, but Ardent quickly realized it was a low, inhuman howl…

  He still couldn’t pull the trigger…

  “Mommy?” he whispered in misery.

  A shot cracked the utter silence and a bullet hit his mother’s forehead.

  She dropped to the floor in a lifeless heap.

  Ardent’s gun hadn’t fired; he turned behind him where the shot came from—

  Bear stood there with a smoking gun in his hand.

  Ardent rushed him and slammed him against a wall with his hands around Bear’s throat—

  “NOOO!” he shouted in a long growl of anger and sadness.

  Bear didn’t react; he raised his hands in surrender.

  “Sir,” he said in choked words, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I had to!”

  Ardent had hate in his eyes and the intent to kill in his hands.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but we need to leave!” Bear struggled to speak through Ardent’s grip, squeezed tightly around his neck.

  Ardent was forced to regain his senses as another walking corpse staggered around a corner, attracted by the gunfire. It came straight for them. Ardent let go of Bear and shot the beast down, and then walked over to his mother’s body.


  “Sir, our vehicle is this way,” Bear pointed in the opposite direction.

  Ardent ignored him as he gently picked up his mother and carried her back into her room.

  “Sir?” Bear followed him and kept an eye out.

  He watched Ardent place his mother back in her bed and then he tenderly kissed her on the cheek, after which he looked for a sheet to place over her. There wasn’t one on the bed.

  “Here, sir,” Bear said.

  Ardent turned to see Bear holding the sheet from the corridor.

  He said nothing as he took it and covered his mother.

  Ardent stood for a moment as he gazed at her.

  Nearby screams and growls echoed throughout the hospital corridors and Bear became increasingly nervous.

  “Sir, we need to go. Now!”

  Ardent heeded Bear’s call and they left. They proceeded cautiously down the corridor toward the exit and into the sun.

  Outside was the back of the hospital, the Bob Wilson Naval Hospital in San Diego. They rushed to the parking lot, which was almost empty, and headed to a parked Humvee. It had a canopy over the door-less cab, and an occupant—

  Who was trying to jack the vehicle by hotwiring it.

  “Hey!” Bear shouted.

  The would-be car thief, a young sailor in uniform, sat up and drew a handgun, but Bear was faster on the pull.

  “Not a good idea!” Bear said.

  The sailor lowered his weapon.

  “What do you think you’re doing, sailor?” Ardent asked him.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but I need to get out of here and I thought this vehicle was abandoned.”

  “Hop in the back,” Bear told him.

  He did as he was told and Bear and Ardent sat in the front. Bear drove.

  “I hope you didn’t mess up the ignition, buddy, or this is gonna be a short trip,” Bear said as he put the key in.

  “No, sir, I just got to the vehicle when you came out.”

  Bear started the Humvee, “Here we go.”

  They took off from the hospital parking lot. The base they were at was large, a few miles that stretched along the coast. Had there been some tumbleweeds, it would be a ghost town. No one was around, but there was plenty of chaos everywhere. A few fires licked their flames out of the windows of several buildings, leaving trails of black smoke rising into the sky. There were people sporadically running out of buildings or into them, and gunfire ticked off every few seconds from every direction. Scores of the undead could be seen running people down in the distance. Multiple aircraft were in the air; some leaving, while others circled the base firing their weapons at the streets. The base was lost.

  Bear grabbed a radio.

  “Where we headed, sir?” the sailor asked.

  “The Ronald Reagan,” Bear told him as he clicked on the radio. “Viper Three Two One, this is Mother, over.”

  A little over a mile away, at the base’s airstrip, was a Sea Stallion waiting on a helipad with its engines idling, ready to fly in a heartbeat. This helicopter was large and could carry about fifty people. Its two side door .50 BMG machine guns were manned and the gunners were busy firing at targets, the undead, that tried to approach them. Besides the two pilots, the two gunners, and a crew chief, there were about twenty people onboard the chopper. From regular sailors, to officers, and navy staff, also included among them was a U.S. Senator. A very nervous man in his fifties and overweight, he was the perfect example of an ideal politician.

  The crew chief answered Bear’s call through his helmet radio, “Mother, this is Viper Three Two One, I copy you, what is your ETA? Over.”

  “Viper, we are en route and about five mikes out, over,” Bear answered.

  “Mother, be advised, we are in a dire situation. You need to get here ASAP,” the crew chief said. “We are surrounded by hostiles, over.”

  “Copy that, we are close. Mother out,” Bear said and the radio went silent.

  “We need to take off, sailor!” the senator tried to shout at the crew chief over the noise of the helicopter’s blades.

  “We will take off when the captain gets here, sir,” he answered.

  “And when will that be?”

  “When he gets here, sir.”

  “Sailor, do you see those things out there, the ones the gunners are shooting at?” he asked rudely.

  “Yes, sir, I do.”

  “If they get in here, we’re all dead!” the senator shouted.

  “I’m aware of that, sir, but we will not leave without the captain.”

  “They’re probably dead by now, I demand that you take off, immediately!”

  The crew chief stepped closer to the senator, “I suggest that you calm yourself.”

  “Damn it! Do you know who I am?’

  “Yes, I do. You’ve reminded me of that fact several times in the last twenty minutes. Now, calm yourself or I will have you removed from my aircraft, Senator,” the last part was said with spite.

  The senator kept quiet.

  And the machine gunners kept firing…

  Bear put the radio down. “We need to get there fast,” he said as he increased speed.

  “These things are everywhere!” the sailor said.

  The Humvee barreled down the road as fast as it could in between the base’s buildings and then—just as they approached a street intersection—

  A group of people ran through the street from Ardent’s side, terrified and running from something. Bear tapped the brakes to avoid hitting them.

  “Don’t stop!” Ardent said.

  And Bear saw why—

  A gang of twenty fast moving corpses chased after the people, Bear increased speed but it was too late—

  The undead runners slammed right into the side of the Humvee in a series of hard splats that pushed the heavy vehicle on two wheels for a moment. Five plowed right into the grill of the vehicle and rolled over the windshield and the rest broadsided the passenger side, Ardent’s side. One almost jumped in on top of Ardent, but hit the doorframe instead. The sailor in the back wasn’t so lucky—two of the undead flew into the back with him. The sailor immediately blocked one with his arm, but the force broke his elbow instantly and he screamed in pain as he shot the corpse in the head. The other was too fast and bit into his neck, also ramming its decayed hand into his face, jamming its fingers into one of his eyes and its thumb into his mouth. The sailor bit the thumb off in rage and then shot the thing under the chin, pointblank.

  “Motherfucking pieces of shit!” the sailor shouted after he spat the thumb out.

  Most of the dead that hit the Humvee chased after them.

  The sailor pushed the dead things off him. One rolled out the door, but the other was too heavy and stayed on his lap. He was gasping in pain as blood gushed down his chest from his face. He was a goner and he knew it.

  Ardent and Bear knew it as well.

  Ardent leaned around with his gun ready to do what needed to be done, but the wounded sailor snapped his gun up and put it right in Ardent’s face.

  “Don’t you fucking dare, sir!” he yelled with deadly intent.

  “All right, sailor, let’s keep calm,” Ardent said as he lowered his gun.

  After a moment, the sailor lowered his as well.

  “Can you believe this shit?” he said as he examined his wounds. “I just reenlisted, too. What an idiot I am. Everyone told me not to, but I didn’t listen.”

  “It’s not your fault, son,” Ardent said.

  “Then whose fault is it?” the sailor shouted.

  Ardent didn’t have an answer.

  “You wanna hear the funny part? The irony of it, some smart people would say.”

  “What’s that?” Ardent replied.

  “My father told me to join the air force,” he said with a bloody grin, “but he’s dead now.”

  The sailor wiped some of his blood off his remaining eyelid with his gun hand and then he looked at the weapon in his grasp.

  “I don’t even l
ike guns,” he said calmly.

  He put the gun barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

  His head jerked from the impact and he continued to sit there, permanently.

  Ardent looked beyond the dead sailor and through the blood-spattered back window at the undead that were chasing them.

  “Go faster, Bear.”

  He saw them in the rearview, “I am.”

  And the horde grew larger as others joined the chase.

  As the helicopter waited for Ardent and Bear—two or so miles away out in the naval base’s harbor—something large exploded, creating a thunderous fireball that expanded in the sky.

  “What the hell was that?” a door gunner asked.

  “It looks like they blew the Coronado Bridge, they’re trying to cut those things off from getting to the wet-side island,” the chief said.

  “It’s not gonna help, those dead things don’t breathe, they could just walk on the bottom of the ocean!” a gunner said.

  The door gunners kept firing on the undead, non-stop, and they were getting closer. Too many of them were appearing for just one gunner on each side of the helicopter to handle, the crew chief joined in with a rifle. So did anyone else with a weapon at hand.

  “I’m running low on ammo, Chief, we’re gonna need to leave soon!” one gunner said in stuttered words from the recoil of his weapon.

  “When the door guns run out; we leave!” the crew chief told him. “Hurry up, captain, goddamnit!” he said to himself.

  One of the door guns ran out of ammunition, “Shit! Shit!” the gunner said and he abandoned the weapon and picked up a rifle to continue fighting.

  The last door gunner continued to fire, but he glanced down at his ammunition supply and saw that he was going to run out in just a few seconds, and then he spied something out in the distance, “There!” he shouted and pointed.

  They saw a Humvee come around a corner and speed toward them, and a moment later, they saw what trailed behind it—

  A horde of several hundred of the undead.

  “Je…sus,” the chief said at the sight. “Get ready to lift off!” he shouted at the pilot.

  The helicopter’s engines increased power to optimal as the rotor blades spun faster and faster. The door gunner did his best not to hit the Humvee as he fired at the horde chasing after them, but some rounds came extremely close.