Greg just grinned from ear to ear and took a seat in front of the TV, throwing his backpack down beside Paul. Emily shook her head still trying not to laugh as they turned on the TV.
The bottom of the screen had a red banner scrolling across the bottom saying, “continued coverage...” Lately there had been protests over literally everything.
He read the info scrolling along the bottom of the screen detailing several incidents involving police that had escalated all over the US. Bullet points and info on different events were all popping up in boxes on the screen along with facts and figures as a live feed was being shown of downtown Portland.
Jake wasn’t a TV person, but he had picked up most of what was happening with the protests from news clips he had seen at work. The protests and the super flu going around were the main topics of discussion in the break room and among the residents.
From what he was able to gather, there had been a number of people in various states getting shot or brutally killed by police officers and the families of the people had said that they were sick and had begun being delusional and aggressive.
“What a joke!” Emily commented as they all watched the people on TV waving signs and walking on the road blocking traffic.
“It’s like they use any excuse to protest these days,” she said, shaking her head.
Jake nodded “Yeah, I would just run them over,” he said out loud and both boys laughed.
“LOOK!” Greg squealed.
The screen switched to a shaky video taken from a cell phone and a warning stating “WARNING: footage is graphic and may be disturbing to some viewers.” Jake was about to change the channel when Emily put her hand on top of his. The clip showed a man well dressed with blood around his mouth fighting with a police officer up against a wall.
“That looks like Portland!” Emily said, “Oh my God, it is in Portland….” she gasped.
This made him a little uneasy, he knew they were protesting downtown Portland because of the shootings but he didn’t realize there had been one so close to home.
The man on the screen was struggling with the police officer when more cops came into view and the officer being attacked fell. The man covered in blood was standing over him but before he could get any further two shots rang out.
“YEAH!” both boys cheered together.
The man on the screen was staggered back by each shot then looked at the officers firing and began moving towards them. The man wasn’t running but moving fast like he wasn’t bothered by the bullets then another shot rang out causing his forehead to erupt in a spurt of crimson red and he dropped to the ground. The officers closed in on him and the video ended then it switched to the two reporters in the news studio and the protest still live in view behind them in the top corner.
“Did you see that headshot?” Paul said to Greg,
Laughing, Greg replied “Yeah! That was awesome! Epic fail with the first few, though!”
Emily cleared her throat, “Okay, how about you guys just play video games now?”
Both boys were still laughing as they headed off towards their room to play Xbox.
“Fuckin’ idiot protesters! The guy was attacking a cop, of course he got shot.” Jake said to his wife as he finished off his coffee and got up “I’m going to finish getting ready,” he told her then headed towards the bathroom. He was still pretty tired but knew it would probably be another long day with a lot of sick people, so he liked to get some time to himself before leaving.
Jake stepped into his bedroom and opened up the drawer of the bedside table and looked at the lockbox that was inside. He opened it to make sure his gun was still in there; it had become a habit lately and he wasn’t sure why. The 9mm was still there with a fully loaded clip beside it and their passports. Emily had made him lock the gun away as she was always worrying and safety conscious of everything. He thought that was a good thing though, as that was also why she’d let him get the gun.
When he came out of the room, the boys were getting ready by the door to head out to school.
“You driving them today?” he asked a bit confused as he saw Emily grabbing the minivan keys. The boys usually rode the school bus every morning since it stopped right at the entrance of their trailer park.
“Yeah the school sent out an automated voicemail last night saying buses could be up to thirty minutes late and if you could get your kids to school another way.” Emily said, grabbing her coffee mug from the kitchen. He nodded to himself as neither of them could afford to be late and they didn’t trust both boys on their own at the bus stop for more than ten minutes.
“Your ride’s here,” Emily said looking out the kitchen window and then he heard the sound of Benny’s truck horn as it honked to signal he was here.
Nick
Nick stretched his legs as the train pulled to a stop at the Seattle Amtrak station and he got out the seat he’d been stuck in since Portland. He grabbed his luggage from the compartment above his seat. There was a duffle bag with his clothes and his EDC one strap messenger backpack that went with him everywhere. He slowly made his way off the busy train along with everyone else. As he walked into the terminal building it seemed chaotic. People were rushing past each other and some were even pushing through the crowd that had just gotten off the train so they could get to the platform faster to board the train.
Nick had only been to Seattle one other time; it had been with his wife, but he definitely didn’t remember them being this rude as they bumped into him going in the opposite direction. As he walked into the terminal there was a police dog and its handler sniffing around the benches that people were sitting at. The dog approached Nick as he walked in and took a big sniff before moving onto more benches. Judging by how packed the station was. Nick knew he had to get to the taxi line pretty fast.
As he left the station. there was another sniffer dog at the entrance and then another by the taxi cabs. Nick got into the first cab he saw, the man looked at him in the rear-view mirror.
“Where to, boss?” the man asked in a thick African accent,
“The Motif hotel, please,” he told the driver with a smile.
“You got it, boss” the driver replied with a huge pearly white grin of his own. The cabby peeled out and the taxi roared up the hill. Nick clutched his bag close as the taxi flew up the hill almost taking off. He wasn’t sure if the driver was practicing for the Grand Prix or was maybe a street racer in his off time. You can't judge a book by its cover or a person by their first impression or appearance and Nick knew this all too well, but he always liked a good laugh to himself.
He maybe looked like a geeky pencil pusher to the average Joe, but Nick was a “prepper” and a Survivalist, he liked to think of himself as being prepared for anything and everything. Which is why he always kept his EDC bag with him at all times because “you just never know” he always told his family and friends. He’d given his wife an EDC bag for her car too, she always laughed at him, but he didn’t care, he was her dorky husband but better safe than sorry.
She would always get the acronym wrong for EDC, too. “Every Day Carry” he always told her laughing when she got it wrong. He was thinking of her with her short dark hair and big brown eyes, and their daughter, Amber. He was shaken out of it when the cabby slammed on his breaks.
“Fook sake mudda fuck ass bitch” the cabby blurted out.
They were stopped at the top of a hill with a line of cars in front of them going all the way down the hill for about four blocks, Nick just looked at the cabby in the mirror and thought of something quick to say, “Traffic, huh?” he said trying to ease the man’s tension.
The cabby smiled and nodded “So what brings you here, sir?” the driver asked.
Nick looked him and cleared his throat, it was hot. “I’m here to meet with a company that leases out food carts.” he began telling the driver “I’m going to sell gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches.” he said, trying to sound as serious as he could about his idea. Nearly every
time he had told someone his idea, they had laughed but he had made his girls over twenty-two different types of grilled cheese and they loved every one of them.
The cabby let out a big deep laugh.
“I like that idea, friend!” the cabby said giving his approval with a thumbs up then went on.
“I came here from Africa three years ago,” the cabby said, “Always a cab driver and hear a lot of crazy things but this idea I like,” the driver said with his eyes widening.
Nick didn’t know whether to take this as a good sign of approval or to be worried. He had known the driver for barely five minutes and he clearly drove like a maniac so hopefully his taste in ideas was better than his driving.
The cabby started to go on about all the crazy ideas he had heard from people, like inflatable full size unicorns for floating on, to a monthly subscription box full of rocks. It was hot so Nick started to roll down his window. As he did, he could hear shouting coming from outside, he looked at where it was coming from. There was a homeless man growling and screaming at the cars that were stalled in the line behind them which now stretched back quite a bit.
The man started to walk towards a car behind them waving his arms. when two police officers appeared on bicycles. They hopped off as they got close to the man, the sending the bikes clattering to the ground. As the taxi started to move again, Nick twisted his neck so he could keep watching to see what was happening, but the line moved at a decent pace and he lost sight of them.
“Look! Look!” the cabby exclaimed, “This is the fuckin’ hold up, man!” the cabby was waving his hand at the passenger window in frustration. Nick looked out to see four officers in the middle of the road in the other lane with caution tape up connected to cones. It was hard to see what was going on, but he could see a black body bag lying beside them on the ground. Nick looked at the cabby with a puzzled look.
“Is it always like this up here?” he asked but the cabby shook his head
“No, it’s hot and lately people are going crazy, it will only get worse, I’ve seen this happen before. Back home when the government was destroying our land,” the cabby stopped smiling as he stared off into the rear-view mirror at Nick. Nick was starting to get a little creeped out then saw the Motif logo lit up on the corner.
The cabby started banging on his horn as they got to the corner, pedestrians scurried across the road as the cabby continued laying on his horn and waving his arms. about, not caring that he was in a motor vehicle and they were on the road.
As they pulled up outside the hotel, Nick glanced at the meter, the fare was at eight sixty,
Nick gave him a ten and told him to keep the change, he smiled and nodded a thank you. As Nick got out the cabby rolled down the passenger window and shouted “Stay safe, Mr. Grilled Cheese! Here my card if you need a ride back!” he said in his broken English, handing Nick a business card. Taking it, Nick nodded back with a smile and a wave.
As the Cabby drove off, Nick walked into the hotel lobby, he tried to call his wife, but the line was busy, so he walked up to the checkout desk. The lobby was pretty full, and he could only see two of the check in desks staffed. When it was his turn in line the receptionist apologized for them being short staffed today. Nick thought she maybe should have called in too, as she was sweating quite a bit and wiping it with her sleeve and looked very pale.
Once he was all checked in, he headed to his room, He got into the elevator and as it hummed, he was starting to get nervous so he figured he would go over his presentation notes on his laptop before the big day tomorrow soon after he had called home.
Once he got to his room, he swiped the key card and opened the door, the luxury of the room amazed him; a white bathrobe hanging outside the frosted glass bathroom door, a huge flat screen TV, big white turned down bed. He put his EDC bag down beside the door and threw his duffle bag on the bed, he had been sitting on that sweaty train for three hours and needed a shower. He turned on the shower so it would be nice and steamy then started unpacking, throwing his clothes on the bed and put his laptop and cellphone on the desk. He could hear sirens outside and looked out the huge glass windows, he was on the twenty ninth floor and the ground looked so far down, the people moving like ants, he could see them all scurrying around, he could see flashes from red and blue lights bouncing off of windows. He was surprised by the amount of police he had seen on the streets and sirens he was hearing in the short time he had been here, made him glad he hadn’t brought Amber, as she would have been terrified.
He decided he would take his shower then give his girls a call, he had only been gone a few hours but missed them a lot and with all the craziness in Portland right now and apparently everywhere he knew talking to his girls would calm his nerves a bit.
Jake
Emily walked out of the house waving to Benny, who was Jake’s daily ride to work and was parked at the end of the driveway. Jake locked the door behind them all as he was the last one out. The kids rushed up to Benny’s truck “Hey, Uncle Benny!” they both cheered,
“Hey guys! What’s up?” Benny said, leaning out the window giving high fives, flashing his trademark gleaming white smile, standing out against his deep dark Native American skin. The boys began asking him if he had seen the news and the guy getting shot, Benny shook his head “Nah. I was playing video games all morning,” Benny said, laughing.
Emily walked up behind them “Okay boys, let’s go, mommy has to get to work, too” and both boys got into the minivan. Jake walked up behind her.
“Love you,” he said as she turned and give him a kiss and a hug.
“Love you more, have a nice day and don’t work too hard” she said, and he squeezed her butt. The boys were already buckled in and playing around in the back. Emily got in smiling and him and waved as she reversed out the driveway.
A door slammed, it was their neighbor Pete, he was coming out of his trailer fast carrying some suitcases with his wife Susie right behind him with bags of groceries and both began loading them into Pete’s Subaru. Pete's two girls came out behind Susie carrying backpacks and more bags of food. Pete ran back into the house without even acknowledging him or Benny, Susie was always quiet and really only spoke to Emily and the boys, but she looked up and gave a sad look. Jake could tell she was upset and trying to fight back tears.
“Hey, Susie! Everything okay?” he asked. Pete seemed to be in a frenzy shouting from inside the house with banging and the sound of things being thrown around. Then Pete appeared out the doorway carrying more bags.
“You guys going camping?” Benny asked Peter.
Pete looked at them. “You guys better get your shit together and get the fuck out of here. This place is going to go to shit! And Jake you have kids! Trust me! You need to leave!” Pete said as he got in slamming his car door. Susie and the kids were still buckling themselves in when Pete peeled out and sped towards the entrance of their trailer park.
Benny looked at Jake confused then shrugged his shoulders as they both got into the truck.
“Weird,” Jake muttered.
“This fuckin’ trailer park,” Benny chuckled trying to change the subject. Benny and he had worked together for about four years, He had no family so Benny was like a brother and they carpooled every day.
“Your kids really see that on the news?” Benny asked. Jake nodded as they headed the same direction Peter had just driven, it was a small park shaped in a circle with only one entrance/exit.
“You know I think I might move in over here, it’s so cute and friendly” Benny said waving to an old lady on her bike, but she didn’t wave back.
“That’s Marge, she’s a bitch…always stoned” he told Benny
Benny rolled his shoulders honking his horn as they passed Emily, who had stopped at the mailboxes, she waved from inside the mail room that had no door and looked more like a bus shelter.
Benny glanced at the huge white wooden map beside the mail room, it was a map of the trailer park. A circle of units all numbered
with sixty around the outside and fourteen in the middle and beside it was a huge piece of what looked like driftwood with the trailer park’s name on it
“The Great Western Trailer Park,” Benny said, smiling. Benny had always told him it had reminded him of some shanty old cowboy town.
“See how cute this is? The map, the weird old sign and…” Benny began then hesitated “but all these old people, don’t you get enough of them at work?” Benny asked. Jake just smiled and nodded; he knew Benny was just trying to lighten the mood before they got to work. They joked and laughed all the time but today he wasn’t in the mood to joke, something about the news and what was going on bothered him, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. Pete’s behavior didn’t feel right, and he knew today was going to be longer than usual with more people probably out with this flu, but he also knew that if he didn’t start laughing at Benny’s jokes Benny wouldn’t give up.
“That’s why we moved here in the first place,” he started to explain “All we could afford was an apartment but Emily hated apartments and this was just as cheap but a lot safer.” he started to tell Benny the reasoning behind the decision, “There’s only one way in or out, small community mostly of older people or people who’ve lived here since it was built and it’s far enough out of the way from town that it’s quiet.”
They turned out onto the main road from the park and an apartment complex came into view further down the road.
“Then there’s that” he groaned, and Benny chuckled,
The ’low income housing’ as it had been labeled went up less than a year ago and was full of large families over crowded into the three five-floor high buildings, the people who lived there probably couldn’t afford or find housing elsewhere which was fine but the worst part was all the criminal activity that had increased since they went up. As they drove past, they could see several groups of people outside smoking out on the sidewalk, glaring at them as they drove past, Benny nodded over to the other side of the road from the apartments to another trailer park which was closed off with large iron gates.
When The Dead Rise (Book 1): The Outbreak Page 2