Gunny didn’t ask what any of that meant. He was just happy to hear there were more groups of people being found.
It was an unusual symbiotic relationship between the remaining powers. The Russians had little more than nukes and secure video feeds into most locations within their borders and satellite countries. The Chinese had the best medical and scientific laboratories still operational, the Germans had a pretty good overview of Europe and still had control of their drones.
The Americans had full satellite imaging capabilities and access to the massive NSA databases. With mutual cooperation, they had a pretty good picture of the world and had been in communication with each other on secure channels continuously these past 24 hours. They had all tried every broadcast option available that was still operable to reach the civilian populations about the cause of the disease and how to take precautions but it was too little, too late.
They each, in turn, gave a quick synopsis of what they had learned and in the end, it was far worse than anybody had even imagined.
The German captain was the highest ranking officer on land although the ships at sea had officers well above his grade. He reiterated what everyone already knew. They had sent drones over most of the major cities and most of them were on fire. There were survivors on rooftops and enclaves of people that had barricaded themselves in at various locations surrounded by thousands of undead trying to get to them.
All they could do was watch and report. They had no way of rescuing them although every ship they had at sea was heading back towards land. There was a chance of using helicopters to aid some. But that was just a drop in the bucket.
General Feng broke down what his scientists had been able to determine and what it boiled down to was the infected were indeed dead, no cure possible. The super soldier serum, which removed all inhibitions and fear and had clotting agents powerful enough to stop arterial bleeding, had been radically altered with experimental nanotech and crossed with animal DNA for a more predatory and aggressive disease.
They believed the nanotech with its molecular self- assembly is what kept the dead from lying down and being dead. Chemical components of PCP had been added for inhuman strength and apparently so had a virus-like molecular level command to reproduce. To make more of them. To replicate, duplicate, populate. To bite and infect as many humans as they could.
They didn’t seem to need food and they didn’t particularly try to kill, just bite and move on to the next victim. But given enough of them attacking someone, all of them wired to reproduce the only way possible, through saliva, people caught up in mobs of them usually were damaged too badly to reanimate.
The blood was dead, contact with it didn’t spread contagion, it passed from the host only from bites or saliva contamination. The head and brain were essentially the only things still alive, the rest the body dead and decaying although at a much slower rate than normal. This was due to the introduction of the nanotech assemblies. They would continually repair the flesh and bones but at an ever increasing degraded rate as there was less and less “clean” material to work with.
From all of this, the conclusion was that the zombies were not indestructible or immortal. They wouldn’t last forever. In their best estimates, an undamaged infected would deteriorate to the point of being nonviable in about five years, maybe longer if it wasn’t exposed to extreme temperatures and harsh conditions. But these were just guesses, the tests they had thus far been able to run had widely varying results.
The Russians reiterated what the Germans had said about Europe. They didn’t have drones available but through the extensive fiber optic networks and redundant solar powered battery backups, they had eyes through most of the governmental cameras throughout the Eastern European countries. Their traffic and surveillance cameras told the same story in every city. Some that had minimal infestation yesterday had been overrun 24 hours later.
They finished up with pronouncing that they, in target coordination with the Chinese, were ready to destroy every major and minor city in every territory that the satellite imagery had shown to be prepared before the outbreak started. Scorched earth. Nuclear and conventional weapons would be deployed pounding any survivors back into the stone-age in a radiated wasteland.
The world was a bleeding, broken, zombie infested mess with an estimated four billion dead in just 48 hours.
Then came General Carson’s turn to share all the bad news they had managed to uncover over the past 24 hours. They determined Hawaii was overrun like the rest of the States, hard to know about the smaller islands although logic would suggest they shouldn’t have been infected.
The few Navy ships that had managed to contain the outbreak had orders to check out some of the smaller sustainable islands and were in route. But all it took was one person to annihilate a city in a matter of hours with the rate the disease spread. The Designated Survivor from the President’s cabinet hadn’t been found. There was always supposed to be one person who was eligible to take over in a worst case scenario but whoever it had been on the day of the outbreak hadn’t made contact.
Gunny rolled his eyes. Who cares who’s in charge? There’s nobody left to rule.
They only had sporadic contact with a few Ham radio operators in South America, most of them were in remote areas at weather stations or logging operations in the jungles. From the satellite photos though, they could see clouds of smoke billowing from the cities during the days and blackness where there used to be lights at night.
They hadn’t had a lot of time to dig through the NSA’s files pertaining to meat packaging business acquisitions but once they knew what to look for, the evidence piled up fast. The Salaam Company had either purchased outright or made hostile takeovers of nearly every meat packing plant in the world. The expense was staggering but most of it hadn’t even been paid, the funds promised but never delivered. The lawyers had already been fighting it in the courts as an unjust monopoly but the Muslims didn’t care about that. They knew it would never get past the posturing and filing of papers before all of the infidels were dead.
The shortage of meat of all kinds last week had been intentional so there would be a run on the supermarkets when they started deliveries again with the tainted products. There had been a lot of FDA inspectors killed this past week but everything happened so quickly, the FBI hadn’t picked up on the significance of it from all of the scattered reports from the different police departments.
No one had connected the dots. The General didn’t have direct knowledge of the same thing happening in other countries but surmised it was much the same way everywhere. He told everyone listening that most of the following information he had was only a known factor in the United States but it stood to reason the same plan had been followed worldwide.
It had been a huge operation involving thousands of people and nothing could have enticed so many to keep such a terrible secret. Nothing except religion. A belief that they were doing the right thing, they were heroes, ushering in a World Islamic Caliphate.
There was a pause, a rattling of papers, a brief exchange between the General and someone else there with him and then he started again.
“There’s no sugar coating this,” he said. “Most of our techs here have been working a theory from a pattern we noticed and we think we have conclusive evidence now with the latest thermal pass from our birds. We’ve convinced our counterparts not to lay waste to the Middle East just yet, waiting on the confirmation I just received.”
He paused for another moment, probably speed reading whatever had been given to him. “We have known about the nuclear power plants being in danger of melting down as soon as the electricity goes off completely,” he continued. “A scenario like this was never envisioned or planned for and there is nothing we can do except tell the survivors where the safest places are to go.
“We’ve taken into consideration the expected runtime left with the reserve fuel supplies and automatic generators kicking in as soon as grid power goes down. The
re are some hydro-electric powered stations but most run on coal. We’ve been working on computer models of prevailing winds, shifting jet streams, amount of rainfall … In short, we’ve been working diligently to determine the safest place for everyone to go and how long you have to get there in a worst case scenario.”
Gunny could hear groans and angry words from the dining room.
Cobb just grimaced. “Hadn’t even thought about that,” he said.
“Wonder how long the dams will last?” Gunny asked. “I’d hate to be below the Hoover when it goes.”
General Carson started speaking again, probably mindful of the uproar he had just caused but plowing on anyway. “Right now, our greatest concern is the reactors melting down when the generators run out of fuel. When this happens, there will no longer be any water flowing over the nuclear rods to cool them. They will boil off the water in their tanks and start melting through the concrete floors. There are 100 active reactors in the United States and 185 in Europe, so there will be nearly 300 Fukushima type meltdowns spreading radioactivity everywhere the wind blows.”
At every radio listening in around the world, there was quiet. Translators quickly explained what the American General had said. Everyone was speechless as it sunk in. It didn’t matter if they survived the zombies. They would all die of radiation poisoning. An unseen enemy that you couldn’t fight. Hair would start to fall out. Your teeth. Bleeding gums. Open sores. Death.
Gunny waited for him to continue, his mind racing. He said there were safe areas where the winds wouldn’t carry the radiation. He had to find out where and then get on the road to get his family. They were smart. He knew his wife was alive, and if she had survived the initial onslaught of the dead, she would stay alive.
That’s what killed everyone so quickly, the speed of it happening, the surprise of trying to render aid and then being attacked. Not knowing your enemy. But she had lived long enough to figure it out. She was a tough one. She’d shrugged off the difficulty of all those years of military separations raising their son by herself.
She camped and hiked and shot a gun as well as anybody. She was fit and she was savvy. Once a person lived through the first hour of the outbreak, they knew what they were up against, knew not to run in to try to help a coworker who was having their face ripped off if you were unarmed. Knew not to get bit and knew if someone you were with did have a bite mark that they would become one of the undead.
She had survived. He knew it. If he went in with enough firepower, he could blast his way all the way up to the roof and get them out. He was rolling at first light. Grab a bag of coffee to dip like tobacco and hammer down until he got there. Maybe see if any of the drivers had a few California Turnarounds they could spare. That would keep him awake for however long it took. Remember to grab a pack of smokes, too.
Not that he liked smoking store-bought cigarettes, he hadn’t had any in years. But they made a great alarm clock if your body absolutely had to take a nap. A lit cigarette stuck between your ring and pinky fingers would burn for about 10 minutes and then wake you up when the cherry started burning your skin.
You simply did not sleep through that alarm, no matter how tired you were. Too late now but he should have stopped at an auto parts store while they were out and grabbed a bunch of off road lights to add to his rig. Maybe tomorrow. Then it would be easier to drive at night. Light up the road for a mile with some super bright halogens.
He stopped his rambling thoughts as the General came back on. “That is the worst case scenario,” he repeated. “It isn’t necessarily that dire. With this newest set of prints from the last flyover that happened just minutes ago, we have confirmed a silver lining in this disaster. I’ll lay this out briefly so you understand how important it is for any of you out there not to take matters into your own hands and attack any mosques.
“We know this plan of theirs has been in the making for years. The purchase of the meat packing plants, the defenses in place to throw up overnight in the Middle East, the placing of many Muslims in high ranking positions in the Governments all around the world, the call for ALL Muslims to go to Mecca this year and the list goes on.
“The data was there, no one saw it. By going through the NSA data of visas issued, there has been an inordinate amount of nuclear scientists and students flooding into the States over the past month. By checking shipping and purchase records, every Mosque in America has been quietly fortifying itself with massive amounts of food.
“People, we confirmed tonight that those same Mosques are all up and running. None have been overrun by the dead, and in their parking lots, they have similar heavy duty equipment that some of you near Reno have built. Except the trailers they are pulling appear to be modified tankers with external refrigeration units attached to them. We have no records indicating they are heavily armed, but our guess would be yes.
“They have been gearing up for this for a while and from what we can determine, they are planning on removing the radioactive rods from the power plants. We don’t know what they are going to do with them, but if they planned this far in advance, I’m pretty sure they have a safe disposal site picked out. So that’s the good news. Our conquerors plan on saving the land for themselves, not leaving it uninhabitable for a thousand years.”
Cobb spat on the floor. Gunny felt the same. That word ‘Conquerors’ didn’t sit well.
“This is why there has been no retaliation.” The General continued. “We must let them think they have won, that we are powerless. We must let them finish their plan of shutting down all of the nuclear power plants before we engage because frankly gentlemen if they don’t do it, it won’t get done. We can’t determine if any of the European Mosques have laid up supplies, but our guess is yes. We can see large tanker trucks near all of them so we would assume the same plan is being carried out there.”
“Don’t know if I can do it,” Griz said, his fists clenched. “I’d be hard pressed to drive by a hajji and not put a few rounds in him.”
The General went on for a few more minutes, detailing more of what they knew but it basically boiled down to leave any Muslims you may see alone, do not interfere. Let them decommission the power plants first then we would do our best to annihilate them. After the big news, the General told the rest of the world they should go to the European, the Russian or the Chinese channel, whichever one was the closest to them. They had all been working on computer simulations for their areas and would share any more information they had about safe locations.
He was going to spend some time with the North American groups he was in contact with, relay what little bit of information he had that affected them directly. When he finally got around to answering questions from the Three Flags group, making them wait until last, Gunny found out that the satellites hadn’t picked up anything from the roof of the Hartwell Tower or any sign of live people at the high school.
The General said the GPS units would work for another five to ten years as those satellites were in high orbit but the spy satellites would all be down in 18 to 24 months. That’s how long they had an eye in the sky. By then, if the Chinese guys were right, most of the zombies wouldn’t be so agile and fast and they could start rebuilding instead of hiding out and surviving.
He’d rather fight some shambling thing any day over a raging monster twice as strong and fast as him. He’d also learned that just going by rough estimates, there were a lot more people in the world than just the handful on the ham radios. For the few hundred or so they had been in communication with, they figured there were at least another ten thousand the computers had spotted from the flyovers once they started them searching for certain parameters.
As the last of them at the Three Flags that had given Cheyenne Mountain an address to check on finished their questions and headed back to the dining room, Wire Bender said: “That’s the last, Sir.”
When Gunny got ready to leave, Cobb told him to wait. There was more. Gunny looked at him quizzically, but the old man’s
gnarled face gave nothing away.
“Take it down to the secondary channel, Sergeant Kowalski.” Came the General's curt reply.
As he adjusted the dials with his left hand, he slid the microphone over the counter towards Gunny.
“Sergeant Meadows, do you copy?” his voice came back
Gunny sighed. Now what? Still wanting to know why I got kicked out? Still think I know more about the Muslims’ plan?
“Private Meadows here, Sir.” He replied.
“Is the room secure?” came the Generals query.
What? Gunny glanced around. Just Cobb and Wire Bender were left.
“First Sergeant Cobb and Sergeant Kowalski are present.” He replied, unintentionally dropping his smart-ass attitude and falling back into his military bearing at the unusual question.
He heard the tail end of a heavy sigh as the General came back on. When he started talking again, he didn’t sound like his professional unflappable self, didn’t sound like a General in the Army who was always in control, who always knew the answers. He sounded like an exhausted man who had watched his country, and the world, fall apart in the last two days.
He sounded like a man who had been run ragged trying to gather all of the information he had just spent the last few hours disseminating. A man utterly worn out from trying to help the only survivors in the world they were in contact with. Gunny wondered if he had slept at all in the last 48 hours then felt like an ass for giving him a hard time. He needed to lighten up. This guy wasn’t the enemy and was going above and beyond to help everyone.
“Sergeant Meadows,” he began “I don’t even know where to start so I’m going to just ask you a few questions so we can ascertain a few things. It may not make much sense at first but it is important, so I ask you to bear with me. I would appreciate sincerity in your answers.”
Well, that was a polite way of telling him to stop being a smartass. Gunny looked up at the clock. It was going on midnight. He wanted to leave in a few hours and needed to get some sleep.
Zombie Road (Book 1): Convoy of Carnage Page 21