The Spread

by Damon Hunter

  He was surprised his ousting had happened so quickly. It was just as well. He had done what he could. While there were mistakes made, some by him and others by people he had little or nothing to do with but would take the blame, there was nothing else he could do.

  The speed in which they had to set up the new Quarantine Zone meant more mistakes had to have been made. It was just as well someone else was coming along to bear responsibility for the coming screwups. Barrington already had plenty on his ledger.

  He was glad to be handing over the Talbot situation as well. He did not know what the General Dr.’s position on Dr. Talbot’s methods was, but Barrington knew he did not like it.

  He did not buy into the theory that the immune were latent infected, due to break out any time and therefore too dangerous to bring out of quarantine either. Though, given the mistakes made in containing the rot by him and others, he could see why it would be best to proceed with caution. Throwing people into a high-tech wood chipper to be pureed seemed a bit extreme even in these dire circumstances, though. The situation with Vance, a man Barrington not only knew but owed his life to, made things even more complicated. In fact, his only regret about being replaced was he would not be able to pay the soldier back by saving him and his family.

  “I suppose you are going to want my office cleared right away,” Barrington told the General Doctor as he and his small entourage entered the room.

  “No,” General Dr. Thompson told him, “this is much too small. Besides, you are going to need it. I may be in charge now, but you are not going home yet. You know what is going on here from the inside, and I do not. I’m going to want you around at least until I know as much as you. If not longer.”

  Barrington nodded. Again he was caught off guard by the General Doctor. He agreed with Thompson on this and would be glad to stay around and do what he could if it helped. From what he had heard about the man, he did not expect this kind of humble request.

  “First order of business may be Dr. Talbot. I hear he is having some issues,” Thompson said.

  “Yes, he is still in the QZ, though I have ordered him out. His mission there is finished.”

  “There were two immune we know of who he has not collected, were there not?”

  “Yes, but according to every one of the researchers I talked to—which, by the way, was everyone—he has samples for the next decade.”

  “Well, the only person whose opinion counts is Dr. Talbot’s and, of course, mine. One of my first duties will be talking to him. How long until he arrives at the checkpoint?”

  “He should have been there an hour ago.”

  Thompson nodded. “I’ll talk to him.”

  “May I make a suggestion?”

  “Of course.”

  “He does not want to leave without Eric Vance, one of our own who went to Oceanside to rescue his family.”

  “I am familiar with this.”

  “Perhaps a rescue, an airlift of Vance and his people, would be the best solution,” Barrington suggested.

  “No. Policy once quarantine is set is no one leaves. The only exception is Dr. Talbot and his crew. Given the mess we already have, I’m not about to start going against official policy. Especially one I agree with.”

  “Sir, may I point out…”

  “No, you may not. This is not a matter I am open to discussing.”

  Chapter 6

  Corrigan’s Compound - Fallbrook, CA

  Vance had enough experience with the aggressive and cunning vampire rotters to know they would not wait to attack without reason. The infected version of his old friend had made himself easy to spot. Too easy to spot.

  Vance looked back to see the other one moving quickly on all fours, loping out of the trees, looking to pounce while Vance was distracted. He recognized this one too. She was named Naomi, and she was Corrigan’s on-again-off-again live-in girlfriend.

  They had waited to spring this trap until Vance was among Corrigan’s trip wires. He could not run if he wanted to. A misplaced step in either direction and he could be blown to bits by a grenade or a land mine.

  He unleashed the blade and swung it toward the charging Naomi as she leaped. Her oversized jaw was open, exposing two rows of razor-like teeth. She impaled herself on the blade, but Vance knew this would not be enough to keep her from trying to sink those teeth into his flesh.

  She was still on the blade when he spun, making sure to stay in one place as he twirled himself around. The momentum from his spin let him toss Naomi away. Getting run through and thrown would not deter her from charging again, but the grenade that exploded under her as she landed on it, and the trip wire attached to the pin, guaranteed she would not be looking to attack again.

  As pieces of vampire rotter Naomi rained down on the field, Vance swung the ball end of his sick-slaying stick at the head of the charging vampire rotter Corrigan. Corrigan ducked under the swing, going low on Vance and hitting him in the midsection.

  They hit the ground without setting off any traps. Vance found himself on his back with Corrigan on top of him. The SSS, along with both his arms, were pinned under the vampire rotter. There was nothing to stop his infected friend from tearing him apart with his newly formed fangs.

  There was a sharp cracking sound, and Corrigan’s head disappeared in a puff of red mist. Vance pushed aside the headless vampire rotter and looked back. Ashley was standing with her upper body out of the hole the young members of SWARC had cut in the roof of the Suburban just for this purpose.

  Vance stood, saying, “I thought I said to wait in the car.”

  “I am in the car,” Ashley said. “At least most of me is.”

  “Thanks,” Vance told her.

  “Maybe you should hurry up and see if your friend is home. Gunfire attracts them. There may not be very many up here, but they will all be coming our way soon,” Ashley told him.

  “He’s home. Or he was. You just vaporized his head. I’m not complaining about that, by the way—just saying.”

  Vance moved carefully to Corrigan’s body. He found the man’s keys attached to his belt like he was a high school janitor. He removed them and turned to the Urban Assault Wagon.

  “Everybody grab some gear, and then get in a single file line behind me. If I know Corrigan, there are more traps waiting.”

  The eight people in the Urban Assault Wagon exited from the modified old Chevy and grabbed all the weapons they could carry. Lumpy used an axe as a crutch and nearly got himself tangled in the barbed wire, but with Ana and Bar’s help, he was able to make it.

  They tentatively made their way across the clearing to Vance and lined up behind him.

  “If you see something I missed, please say something,” Vance told them as he slowly made his way to the edge of the hillside. It took a while—Corrigan had planted several more traps—but they made it to the hill and worked their way down.

  It was not until they reached the bottom that they could see the heavy door and windows, currently covered with metal shutters, built into the hillside. Corrigan had built a porch in front of his hillside bunker, including a pair of rocking chairs and a charcoal grill.

  “Home sweet home,” Bar said as they gathered on the porch.

  Vance found the right key and opened the door. “It’s better than you think. Back in the trees is another clearing with solar panels for power, and he has rain collectors for water. If you like eating rabbits and avocados, there is no reason to leave.”

  “So, he just stayed here all the time?” Ana asked.

  “No. He could only eat rabbits and avocados for so long, plus he liked to drink and smoke weed.”

  Above them they heard a trap explode.

  “Could be a horde or maybe just a loner,” Ana said.

  “Or a rabbit,” Major Cook replied. “Either way, let’s get inside.”

  They went in as another explosion shook the ground above them.

  Vance went over and turned on a television mounted on the wall as Donna found a
light switch. Everyone but Vance expected a messy bunker, but instead in front of them was a tastefully decorated living room.

  “It’s way nicer than my place,” Lumpy said as he limped over to the plush couch and sat down.

  “Corrigan was crazy and paranoid, but that doesn’t mean he was a slob,” Vance said as images began to appear on the screen.

  “He mounted surveillance cameras,” Major Cook said as he joined Vance in front of the television.

  The screen was divided into four quadrants. Two showed the front of the house at different angles, and two more showed the area they had walked through to get here.

  Two amblers were caught in the barbed wire, which had saved them the fate of the two who climbed over and found the traps. The front was clear. Vance found the remote and manipulated it to show another screen divided into four parts.

  This one had views of the road going both directions, the solar panel field hidden in the trees, and the plastic barrels, also hidden in the grove, used to collect rainwater. The area around the solar panels and the rain barrels was also free of the infected. The road, however, had groups of the infected approaching from both sides, drawn by the gunfire and explosions. They were too spread out to be considered a horde, but with them all converging on this location, they would qualify soon enough.

  “Does he have enough traps to get them all?” Donna asked.

  “No,” Vance said. “We should be safe in here. Maybe by the time we make some contacts and come up with an exit strategy, they will have moved on.”

  “I don’t suppose this place has a kitchen,” Katelin said, “or a place to charge my phone.”

  “It has both,” Vance told her as he pointed to a door on the other side of the living room. “Something to eat sounds great.”

  Donna looked at him. “You going to assign the womenfolk to make dinner?”

  “I’m not assigning shit. I’m just asking nicely that whoever makes something, no matter what gender, to a make a little for me too while I try to contact someone to get us out of here.”

  “Sorry,” Donna told him. “I should be thanking you instead of being sarcastic.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Vance told her as he found Corrigan’s laptop on a neatly organized desk in the corner of the room and opened it up.

  Major Cook walked over and looked over his shoulder as Vance began working the keyboard.

  “You know his password?”

  “He didn’t use one.”

  “A guy who lives in a booby-trapped bunker in the hills did not go to the trouble of having a password? I figured it would be encrypted and set to explode if someone tried to break in.”

  “He figured if anyone he didn’t want here got this far, he didn’t have to worry about it, since to get this far that person would have had to kill him.”

  “I suppose he had a point there. Still surprised.”

  “Corrigan could be a surprising guy. You said you had someone to try. You want to go first?”

  “No, you go. After disobeying a direct order and drawing down on my commanding officer, even the people who like me might be reassessing their opinion. If you have someone in mind, which I assume you must, go for it.”

  Vance nodded and went to work getting a message to Major Dr. Barrington, a man he had served with before joining the TMRT who he believed might be in charge of the Oceanside quarantine operation.

  Chapter 7

  Chen’s Liquor and Bait - Oceanside, CA

  Sergeant Dinkins found Officer Simms sipping a beer and watching the sunset out on the balcony in front of the Chens’ apartment. He saw a cigarette slowly smoldering atop an empty beer can Simms had converted into an ashtray.

  “I thought you quit,” Dinkins said to him.

  “I did. If we get out of here, I’ll quit again.”

  Dinkins nodded. “Compared to the rot, a little cancer doesn’t sound so bad.”

  “It’s quiet out there now,” Simms said. “Looks like the rotters have moved on.”

  “For now,” Dinkins replied. “I’m guessing they’ll be back.”

  “What did you find out?” Simms asked him. “Are we getting out of here or not?”

  “Doesn’t look good. No one I talked to gave me any hope, and as bad as it sounded, I felt like they were putting a positive spin on things. I got people working for us, trying to get someone in the TMRT to organize a rescue, but they weren’t making any guarantees.”

  “They give you any kind of timeline on when they would know?”

  “No, but the general consensus was we should find somewhere safe for the night. This may be it. You think we can make it here for the night?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s not a fortress, but we can lock up Chen’s. She has the security door, which has kept the junkies of Oceanside out of the store during off hours for the last decade. It should keep the rotters out. We can take out the outside staircase leading up here and use the indoor one. We may be better here than anywhere else nearby, and even if you have a better idea, I’m not too keen on moving around at night.”

  “It’s not that. I was hoping we could just leave it alone, but if we are staying, it will have to be dealt with,” Simms said as he pointed to the apartment next door.

  “What?” Dinkins said as he looked that way himself.

  “Something has been banging on the door and the walls since I have been out here. I’m guessing it’s not a bunch of kids playing.”

  “Yeah, but whatever it is is stuck inside. Maybe we leave it alone.”

  “You want to sleep with a family of hungry rotters next to you?”

  “No. How are you for bullets?”

  “I’m down to five.”

  “Shotgun?”

  “It makes a good club. You?”

  “You’ve got five more rounds than me. I put my last slug into a surfer who had just grown a set of tusks. I was thinking I might have wanted to save one for myself if it came to it, but in the heat of battle I lost count.”

  “In that case, I’m down to three.”

  Dinkins pulled the nightstick from his belt. “These never run out of ammunition. Might be better anyway. When I was looking for a way out of here, I was told they think noise attracts them.”

  “Yeah, but if one of those inside the apartment is a vampire rotter, I’d rather have a gun.”

  “I’m with you there. That’s why you’re going in first.”

  “Really?”

  “Or give me your sidearm.”

  Simms gave it a few seconds’ thought. He decided he would rather keep his gun.

  Mr. Wilson poked his head out the door, saying, “Shouldn’t you guys be coming inside?”

  “Actually, we have a couple things to do while the coast is kind of clear. You and the others should come out and help us,” Dinkins told him.

  Mr. Wilson did not seem too enthusiastic about leaving the relative safety of the apartment, but he did.

  “What do you think, Simms? Should we take care of the neighbors first? Or the stairs?” Dinkins asked.

  “Let’s get the place locked down first. I’d hate for something to flank us while we are clearing the apartment.”

  Dinkins nodded and looked at Wilson. “Get Chen to lock up the store, and see if she has a hammer or something.”

  Chapter 8

  Corrigan’s Bunker - Fallbrook, CA

  “How is it going over there?” Ashley asked Vance as she watched the monitors covering the surrounding area around Corrigan’s bunker.

  He had been working the computer for an hour or so, and it was clear he was wearing out. It had been a long day for everyone. They had eaten all the lunch meat and bread Corrigan had and washed it down with bottled water. Corrigan only had processed ham, salami, white bread, avocados, and mustard for sandwich fixings, but after the day all of them had experienced, everyone agreed these were some of the best sandwiches they had ever eaten. It looked to Vance like the timing for the outbreak was bad. Corriga
n was due to make a run to town to get more supplies when it hit. However, if they needed to stay longer, Corrigan had a pantry full of canned goods and meat in his freezer, mostly rabbits he had killed himself on the property.

  He kept his place stocked in case he had to hole up there for long stretches. The problem they had was he stocked up for at most two people, and there were eight of them. While being able to eat something had perked everyone up, the reality of how much energy they had used fighting for their lives all day made itself apparent. People were starting to drop off as the sun went down.

  Corrigan had two bedrooms. They gave the girls the master, and the men got the rest of the house. Corrigan had a few extra sleeping bags and plenty of bedding. Not everyone would get a bed or even a sofa, but there were enough pillows and bedding, so no one did without.

  Only the three soldiers and Donna were still awake and in the main room, though Donna had slept awhile on one of Corrigan’s easy chairs.

  Donna had sent Ana and Katelin into the lone bedroom when they both lay down on the floor and began to fade. Lumpy had passed out on the sofa, and Bar had let him stretch out and sacked out on the carpet in front of the television. They gave Holiday, who was still not fully recovered from the injuries he received during a vampire rotter attack in San Francisco, the twin bed in the guest room. The soldiers figured they would sleep on the floor. All of them could remember sleeping on worse.

  “I’ve reached out to everyone I can think of, but I have yet to get a response,” Vance told Donna.

  “Could be they are kind of busy,” Major Cook said. “All hell has broken loose out there.”

  Ashley pointed at the monitor. “Looks like all hell is about to break loose here too. I’d say all of Fallbrook has the rot, and they are all headed this way.”

  Vance nodded in agreement. The sun was down, but Corrigan had motion sensors rigged to the floodlights all around the property, showing the gathering horde and probably telling the stragglers where to go. He pointed at the monitor that showed the hill above them. “It looks like every booby trap got tripped. They are walking through unmolested.”