The Plague Years (Book 1): Hell is Empty and All the Devils Are Here

by Rounds, Mark

  “So you know this piece of shit?” said the gang leader as he kicked the older man who had been unceremoniously dumped on his front lawn as one of his minions kept a shotgun pointed at the unfortunate man’s torso. Chad saw with a start that it was a much bedraggled and beaten Clinton Taylor. He suddenly felt guilty about the fact that since his last day at Bechtel, he hadn’t given Clinton a moment’s thought, yet Clinton had saved his bacon several times.

  It was true Clinton didn’t encourage friendships and he had a courtroom lawyer’s prickly way of interacting with just about everyone but he was at heart a good man.

  “We know him,” said Chad. “I suppose you have a reason for beating him up and bringing him here?”

  “It’s simple,” said the final individual who exited the van. Chad recognized Special Agent Macklin in a tactical vest with a sidearm looking a bit thinner perhaps but otherwise healthy.

  “So why don’t you folks put down your guns and come out nice and easy so we can talk reasonably?” asked Macklin amiably.

  “So we should just make it easy for you to shoot us then?” shouted Dave from behind his door.

  “It was worth a try,” continued Macklin. “Anyway, you have someone we want. I propose a straight up trade; the young lady, Amber Hoskins, for Counsellor Taylor here. I can promise we will treat her very well, much better than the life she will lead if she stays here, as we will eventually bring enough force to roll over you.”

  “You have tried what, three or four times,” said Chad stalling for time. He had Macklin in the sites of his AR-15, but unfortunately he wasn’t a good enough shot to make sure he could kill him outright even at this short distance. “What makes you think you will do any better next time? You looked quite comical tumbling into that Black Impala, I am sure Director Erickson was impressed with that antic.”

  “I am no longer part of his organization,” said Macklin through clenched teeth. It was apparent that Chad had gotten under his armor a bit.

  “But I will shoot this man right on your lawn,” said Macklin after he collected his wits, “and I don’t think you have the stomach for that. So let’s do this nice and easy. Send her out and I will go away and you will never see me again.”

  “You shoot him and you will be dead right next to him,” said Chad levelly. “Besides, what’s to keep you from attacking us anyway, once Amber walks out? It’s not like you are the most trustworthy sort.”

  “Nothing. Ah, well, I expected it would get to this,” said Macklin as he pulled out his taser and shot the contacts into Clinton’s rib cage. Clinton arched his back. His face was locked in a rictus. It was apparent that he had been hit by this several times before and was just barely conscious. He gasped but made almost no other sound.

  “I will keep tasing him again and again until she comes out or he dies,” said Macklin as he sent the current through the wires again. This time, Clinton curled up into a fetal ball and tried to swat away the wires. There was blood now at the corners of his mouth and he had clearly bitten his own tongue.

  “No more!” said Amber who had been watching through the curtain. “I’ll come out.”

  “She is being reasonable,” said Macklin as he released the power button on the taser and Clinton sagged to the ground apparently unconscious. “Don’t bother to collect any belongings, we will provide everything you need.”

  Amber put her shotgun down and started for the door but Chris rushed in from the other room and grabbed her.

  “Don’t,” said Chris. “God only knows what they want.”

  “Unfortunately, I do,” said Amber somberly. “Those dreams remember? But they will fry that poor man if I don’t do something.”

  “Yeah, then when they have you, they will just shoot him,” said Chris. “Stay in please!”

  “Come on, I haven’t got all day,” said Macklin, “or should I juice him again?”

  “Like hell you will,” said Clinton as he pulled the Berretta Pico from his concealed waistband holster. He fired three times at Macklin, but he was still shaky and not seeing too well from being tased so many times, so the first one went wide. The second round actually hit the taser and rendered it useless. In the taser’s last instant of life, the capacitor shorted out and fired a shock into Clinton’s rib cage and also into Macklin’s hand. Macklin howled like a stuck pig, dropped the remains of the taser, and ran for the back of the van. Clinton managed to get off another shot that hit Macklin in the rear end, accelerating his departure.

  There was a split second of silence followed by the blast from Mary’s shotgun. She caught the biker holding the gun on Clinton across the hands and midsection, which tore the shotgun out of his hands and knocked him to the ground. Both Chad and Connor opened up, followed by everyone else a split second later.

  Chad made several hits on the motorcyclists but other than a flinch got no results. Seeing this, he changed target and began firing at the front wind screen of the van but there was no serious damage here either. The windshield instantly transformed into a spider web of cracks but remained intact. The driver did not appear at all surprised and was shouting at everyone to get into the van.

  Dave fired first at the bikers with his Mini-14 and managed a shoulder hit on one of them but otherwise cause no damage. In a fit of rage he fired three quick rounds into the body of the van and was only able to mar the paint. Clearly this van was proofed against small arms fire.

  The bikers returned some desultory fire but the modification to the front of both houses absorbed the pistol and shotgun fire easily. Rather than engage in a pitched battle, the bikers and the van took off. As they headed out the M-1 in Connor’s hands managed to bring down two of the motorcyclists as they sped around the corner. All four tires on the van were flat, as Chris had tried to disable the vehicle with his AR-15, but that didn’t seem to slow it down much as they were run-flat tires.

  “Clinton!” shouted Chad, “are you OK?”

  “Stay back!” replied Clinton as Mary opened the door preparatory to coming out to help. “That bastard Macklin infected me with the Plague, I’ve got it and worse, he injected it in quantity directly into my bloodstream so I will be active in hours instead of days. I am already probably contagious so stay away!”

  “Sometimes there is a remission,” said Chad from the roof. “We can take care of you.”

  “Thank you for that,” said Clinton as he sat upright in the front lawn, “but I read the same feeds you did. There is one in a thousand chance that sometimes someone survives and even if I was lucky enough to be that person, I am an old wreck. The contortions the infected go through fighting off the infection would probably break most of the bones in my body.

  “I would like to say though,” said Clinton while looking Chad directly in the eye, “that is has been my pleasure and privilege to work with you and to count you as my friend, Lord knows I don’t have many. It made me feel almost useful again to able to be a thorn in Macklin’s side. You have a lovely family Chad, take care of them please.”

  Then before anyone could reach him, Clinton took the Pico, put it in his mouth and fired a round into his brain which killed him instantly.

  Heather, who had been watching from the window turned and fell into Dave’s arms. When she looked up, she saw that there were tears in Dave’s eyes as well.

  “He died with his boots on,” said Dave quietly. “I wished I had gotten to know him better.”

  May 30th, Saturday, 7:34 pm PDT.

  There hadn’t been as much clean-up as the last time the bikers came, reflected Chad as they stood over Clinton’s body. There had only been two bikers killed and they went onto the heap at the end of the street, which was already quite foul. The original plan had been for them to wait until the Health Department could haul them away but with the Health Department going away along with the police and the garbage service, they had to rethink that. There was some talk of soaking the bodies in gasoline and burning them but by the time they had resolved to do that, gasoline and most
other flammables were already off the market and no one was willing to admit they had stashed any. So the pile just sat there and got worse and worse. Now they added to it.

  The weapons the bikers had left, a KelTec 9mm handgun and a rusty Winchester Model 12, along with Clinton’s two pistols, were left on the side walk with the little ammunition the bikers had with them. Chad and Dave knew that some of their neighbors were poorly armed and hoped this might help them. But they were unsure what to about Clinton’s body. Tossing him on the heap with the bikers seemed wrong and somehow disrespectful, so in the end, they dug him a grave by hand in the lawn of one of the abandoned houses at the end of the block.

  It had taken longer than they thought to dig a grave and they made the discovery that most people do, after the first few shovels full, a grave for one must be dug by one, so Connor, Chad, and Chris began to spell each other digging the grave.

  Chad had spent only thirty minutes digging and was surprised how tired he was. Even though he was in pretty good shape with his karate and running, his muscles were not accustomed to this heavy, physical work. Chris and Connor fared little better and so it came to pass that when Chad’s stint in the hole was done, Mary grabbed the shovel.

  “Are you sure, sweetheart?” asked Chad as he flopped down in the grass next to the grave panting.

  “Clinton was my friend too,” said Mary as she attacked the ground with vigor. “He helped you and Connor with the law and became our friend. Those … bastards … tried to use that against us.”

  Her digging took on an almost frantic air as she attacked the ground. Dirt and sod were flying in all directions.

  “Only his guts and his sense of honor kept them from hurting Amber and probably doing something worse,” continued Mary vehemently. “I am angry we couldn’t save him. I am angry that we had to have yet another gunfight in our front yard in what used to be a good neighborhood. I am angry that our lovely house looks like a set out of a post-apocalyptic movie. I am angry that my children have to walk around armed and live in fear. But I am mostly angry at those people who started all this. It wasn’t an accident and if ever I have a chance to find them, I will get even!”

  Chad knew this side of Mary, but thankfully didn’t see it often. She often told stories of a time before her parents passed away when they told her about Ireland. Her grandfather had been a bootlegger in prohibition and his father had been in the IRA. Both had killed men to protect their families and their way of life without remorse.

  There was a black anger that the Irish mostly kept secret, covering it with poetry, whiskey, and song, but when you finally tormented them long enough, the blood of Brian Boru came to the surface and woe be unto the cause of that change.

  Mary had been a happy housewife, mother, and had a fine job serving people good food and good wine, but that life was now behind her. What remained was a warrior queen.

  In due course, the hole was judged deep enough and Mary climbed out. She was physically spent but still as determined. They had wrapped Clinton’s body in an old sheet and had gently lowered him into the ground. Then they stood there, not really knowing what to do. None of them had much religion but still it seemed not right somehow that they should just shovel the dirt back in without saying something.

  In the end, it was Fiona that broke the silence. In a high, clear soprano, she began singing “Amazing Grace”. The song grew in strength as the others joined in. Fiona knew five verses and though the rest didn’t, they hummed the tune until it was done. In the setting sun, there didn’t seem to be anything they could say that could enhance or explain what they were feeling so in the end, most of the family filed away. Chad and Chris stayed only long enough to shovel the dirt back into the hole. It was amazing that something that had taken four hours to dig could be filled in so quickly and when they were done, all that remained to remember Clinton by was a small mound of earth and a rugged wooden cross.

  May 30th, Saturday, 8:02 pm PDT.

  Macklin was in back of the biker bar called Roban’s in Kennewick. He had a table but was sitting uncomfortably, as the .380 slug from Clinton’s Pico hand passed through both cheeks of his rear end and was painful although not life threatening. Not as painful as he would have thought, given what he had heard from others with bullet wounds.

  The bar itself was in surprisingly good shape. It had always been ‘biker friendly’ and as the infection progressed and more of the habitués of the bar were thrown out of their various living arrangements, they congregated here. There was a supplier of ‘Slash,’ of course. Carlos, Macklin’s business associate, had kept them all well supplied so while they got sick, they were able to remain lucid and continued to pretty much the same as they always had. At some point, the owner of the bar realized that things were completely out of control and slipped out one evening, leaving the keys on the bar. The bikers stayed.

  When Macklin rolled up with his armored van filled with weapons and body armor, not to mention a goodly supply of ‘Slash,’ he was welcomed as a returning hero. He was able to educate them about ‘Slash’ and the Plague and set up a controlled regime of ‘Slash’ use so that they weren’t always blasted on the drug and could be useful.

  They were able to scavenge beer from a local distributor and they weren’t terribly picky about their food so life rolled on much as it always had for the bikers, save that they worked, when they felt like it, for Macklin. He was feeling a bit sorry for himself when his ‘special phone’ rang.

  “Macklin,” he said into his phone.

  “We saw the feed,” said a familiar disembodied voice. “How did he get that gun?

  “Well, offhand,” said Macklin sarcastically, “I would say that he had it on him. The cretin you hired to run things around here supposedly patted him down but missed it, which is a shame since it was working according to my plan.”

  “Taking the Chosen is becoming harder and harder,” said the voice. “We have made an arrangement to get you some better quality employees.”

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?” said Macklin. “They shot me, remember?”

  “You may be moving higher in the ranks,” said the voice, “but do not forget who your betters are. One of the side benefits of your infection is that you will heal quickly. It didn’t kill you and you obviously aren’t in much pain so you will be fine by tomorrow. I have been shot many times. If you stay focused, that long life could be yours too.”

  “What you don’t seem to realize,” said Macklin, “is that I have a truckload of ‘Slash’ which is your kindly provided magic bullet for this disease. It’s not a cure, mind you, but it will keep me going for quite a while. Why should I listen to you?”

  “My, my,” said the voice on the phone. “I had no idea you enjoyed the biker life so much. Is it the all night drinking? How about the sloppy sex with drunk, infected women? Come tell me, what is it?

  “There are two reasons that even you should listen to before you decide to go set yourself up as a post apocalypse king. The first is elementary; your supply is not endless and you will live much longer than you think.

  “Eventually you will need more and your current associates will hardly let you leave quietly, so that date is coming rather sooner than you think. Secondly, not everyone who works for you is a cretin. You have a watcher. One who will kill you when you when you aren’t looking if I say so. Consider him your apprentice. So if you behave and if you keep doing as we desire, the ‘Slash’ will keep coming; cross us and the word will get out before you can blink and your ‘employees’ will kill you just as soon as look at you.”

  “So what do you want?” said Macklin with a more subdued voice.

  “That’s better,” said the voice. “As I said, you have reinforcements coming. We don’t have nearly as many targets as we once did so we can consolidate our assets. Expect them before midnight.”

  May 30th, Saturday, 9:17 pm PDT.

  Everyone was sitting in Dave’s living room as no one really wanted to go to bed or be a
lone with their thoughts. The lights were out, both for security and to save the generator and fuel for when they needed it most. The knock on the door startled everyone.

  Chad grabbed his pistol and looked around. Connor still carried Chris’s M-1 and everyone else was armed and ready. With a nod from Dave who was still in his easy chair but with his .44 in his hand, Chad went to the door.

  “Who is it?” he asked.

  “It’s me, Matt Williams from down the street.”

  “You alone?” asked Chad worried that Macklin might try the same thing with some of their neighbors.

  “Just me and Mitch Davis,” said the voice. “We wanted to talk to you.”

  Chad opened the door and invited his two neighbors in.

  “What can we do for you guys?” asked Dave easily.

  “We heard the gun fight,” said Mitch. “We couldn’t get together in time to help but we did chase them for a ways. I am also grateful for the weapons. I didn’t believe in this sort of thing much before … well before.”

  “You cleaned them right?” asked Dave.

  “Just the way we saw you clean those others,” said Matt. “But, it was those bikers again, wasn’t it?’

  “Seems like it,” said Chris.

  “Are they coming back?” asked Matt uneasily.

  “I suppose as long as they think we have food and such, maybe,” said Dave.

  “It’s gotta stop,” said Mitch. “They are going to kill someone before too long.”

  “Very likely,” said Chad.

  “Well, someone has to say it,” said Matt after an embarrassingly long silence. “Maybe you folks should move on. Nobody else is getting attacked like this. There have been a few infected drifting up from downtown but nothing this organized. Maybe if you folks, you know, moved on, things would get quiet again.”