Before the reporter was finished listing Federal and State offices off-limits to city residents and updating the number of people who were either jailed or taken to various area hospitals as a result of the unprecedented violence in the Square, most of which Duncan had already heard on the radio, he was done with her and focusing his attention on the crawl moving slowly across the bottom of the screen, where he caught the tail end of a story detailing the staggering number of flights countrywide that had been either grounded, diverted to another airport, or turned away from their original destinations when the no-fly decree had been issued.
“Pay attention,” Charlie said matter-of-factly. “All that stuff on the crawl happened yesterday because this was originally broadcast live.”
“Huh?” Duncan said, dragging his eyes from the crawl and back to the female reporter who, despite the hustle and bustle of medical personnel trying to work around her, was not giving an inch. She stood rooted in place and relaying information no doubt being fed to her through the small flesh-colored earpiece stuck in one ear. Even the introduction of a gurney containing a body under a bloody sheet barely stopped her from talking when the orderly in white parked the massive wheeled chrome contraption inches from her backside. Immediately after the orderly was out of frame, Charlie said, “She has no idea what’s about to happen.”
Eyes glued to the screen, Duncan asked, “What’s about to happen?”
“Just watch.”
The reporter cast an accusatory glance at the orderly then dropped her gaze to the object now crowding her from behind. She shuffled forward a half-step, made a face, presumably due to the inconvenience, then, in true reporter form, the look of disgust was replaced by feigned empathy as she panned back toward the camera and adjusted her earpiece with her free hand. As her arm dropped back to her side, a ripple went through the body on the gurney behind her. Though the initial tremor and recurring spasms was easily picked up by the cameraman, who began to warn the reporter both verbally and with a waving motion of the camera lens, she was too slow on the uptake, allowing the final act to come to fruition via a series of hard to fathom events.
First the blood-spattered white sheet slipped off the prostrate form and settled on the floor in a neat little pile at the oblivious reporter’s feet. Then the fingers on the twenty-something man’s hand nearest the camera twitched and curled into a fist. Lastly, in a stop-motion-like series of rapid, yet stilted movements, the previously unmoving corpse hinged up, swung its legs over the gurney’s side, and planted both bare feet on the floor. Which was when the reporter’s face went blurry, the pixels there purposefully skewed out of shape.
Duncan opened his mouth to warn her, but stopped short when he remembered this was all old news. In the next beat the reporter cocked her head like a confused pooch and the person holding the camera began imparting what was to be a nonstop Blair Witch Project kind of tremor to the footage he or she was shooting.
The last thing that registered in Duncan’s brain the split-second before the camera zoomed in on the reporter’s chest, neck, and blurred-out face, was the half-nude cadaver draping itself over the smaller woman’s back and rending a fist-sized chunk of flesh from the lily-white field of exposed skin between her clavicle and lower jawline.
Didn’t quite blur that enough, he thought as a surprise- and pain-filled scream lanced from the speakers. Nor did the powers that be at the network censor the explosive spritz of blood and strong follow-on pulses spraying a crimson spiderweb-like pattern on the wall behind her.
“I watched this twice last night,” Charlie said. “Thought at first glance it might be a late night slasher film.”
“On Channel 2? They stopped airing those a long time ago. Just about the time the political correctness movement was getting its legs. This is a game changer, Charlie. Why in the hell didn’t you wake me up?!”
“You were snoring … didn’t seem right after all the effort you put into digging that grave for Tilly.”
The image on the screen was now vibrating wildly as the person with the camera panicked and backpedaled, inadvertently recording the next three victims—a pair of orderlies and a lone security guard who entered the frame and instantly fought to take down the maelstrom of nails and snapping teeth.
Charlie paused the recorded footage with the camera listing right at a forty-five-degree angle and the reanimated corpse already piled on by the newly arrived muscle. On the bottom of the screen the forgotten reporter was curled into a fetal ball on the blood-slicked floor. And Gloria’s pallid attacker was caught in the act of rending a mouthful of flesh from the surprised security guard’s outstretched arm.
Charlie gestured at the television screen. “You a believer now?”
Duncan nodded. “I’ve seen more than I needed to of the local stuff. Blows me away they didn’t cut to commercial sooner.”
“You know what they say … if it bleeds, it leads. There’s more—”
Like a cop directing traffic, Duncan put his hand up towards the television. Adding a side-to-side wag of the head for emphasis, he said, “I’ve seen enough of that. Can you fast forward it some?”
“Give me a sec.” Charlie pointed the controller at the television and held it like that as the Benny Hill action resumed—sans the humorous ditty.
“That’s good,” Duncan said.
Charlie hit another button on the remote, causing the image to resume playing back at normal speed. “So you know ... all of this is old news, too.”
“I’m not real savvy in the tech department. But seeing as how the satellite is down, isn’t this stuff you recorded all we’ve got?”
Charlie nodded and handed the remote over. “Knock yourself out.”
Duncan manipulated the speed a little with the remote and eventually learned from the scroll that the quarantine perimeter had been stretched from downtown all the way west to the Washington Park Zoo, north from Burnside to the Sauvie Island Bridge, and as far south as Lake Oswego. Finally the words on the crawl said that the east boundary, which mattered most to them, had been moved across the river all the way to 82nd Avenue, a stone’s throw west of where they were now.
Duncan whistled. “That’s a wide net we’re liable to find ourselves caught up in if we don’t get rolling real soon.”
Charlie completed a slo-mo turn towards his friend. “You’re serious about leaving? ‘Cause that’s not going to look good, especially after what happened at Providence. The way they let us go leads me to think they recorded your plate number. There’s also the issue of that freshly dug grave outside.”
“Relax,” Duncan shot, eyes still fixed on the crawl, now going through aviation news. “I want to gather a little more intel before I scoot.”
In his mind’s eye he saw aerial views of all the local airports. Servicing more than five hundred flights a day, PDX would no doubt be a parking lot jam-packed with aircraft of all sizes.
Then there was Hillsboro Airport southwest of downtown Portland. Although it would not be jammed up with high-capacity commercial jets, it would still be a hairball of unimaginable proportions considering all of the private aviation assets based out of there. All of which started him thinking. However, before he could properly ruminate on his epiphany, the crawl finished listing all of the major airport closures and on came back-to-back reports about a pair of commercial airline accidents that occurred prior to the no-fly declaration coming down.
The first had occurred on approach to Salt Lake City and, though Duncan had a hard time believing any pilot would open a cockpit door after what happened on 9/11, was being attributed to just that, with several out-of-control passengers reportedly having gained access to the flight deck and attacked the pilots. Actions that brought the fuel-laden 767 down short of the runway where it started a fire that consumed a long-term parking garage and nearby subdivision containing dozens of single-family homes. The preliminary death toll stood just north of three hundred and was expected to climb as fire crews in the city were stretched t
hin because of outbreaks of violence similar to that in the Square.
Duncan grunted as details of the second downed airliner entered the screen right-to-left. Preliminary reports attributed this one to a double medical emergency on the flight deck with the FAA admitting openly that both pilots had been incapacitated with the door closed and locked—the flight attendants helpless and unable to enter the cockpit. Eyewitness accounts described the aircraft as flying low and erratically for a short distance before crashing in a ball of fire in a posh area of Georgetown, killing all two hundred and twenty-two souls on board and leaving many on the ground unaccounted for.
Finished with the local news, Duncan rose on sore knees and relinquished the remote to Charlie. “Can you cue up something national now?” Without waiting for an answer, he shuffled to the kitchen.
Wearing an expectant look, Charlie watched his friend cross the room and return a few seconds later, retaking his spot on the sofa, the flip phone held up to his ear.
Holding the remote loosely in hand and staring sidelong, Charlie waited with bated breath for the impending conversation to commence.
A few seconds passed and grunting in obvious displeasure, Duncan snapped the phone shut, ending the call without uttering a word. Shaking his head, he dropped the ancient device back into his shirt pocket.
“No luck raising your brother, I take it.”
Shaking his head, no, Duncan answered in a low voice, “Got the stock recording telling me the circuits are overwhelmed. Looks like my lucky streak has come to a screeching halt.”
Saying nothing, Charlie navigated through the DVR’s graphical user interface to the playlist and selected the recording labeled Sean Hannity. Holding out hope that the opinion man’s show had been preempted by live footage from around the country, and maybe even the world as day broke elsewhere, he thumbed Play on the remote.
Chapter 27
Fingers crossed, Charlie watched the image on the screen come to life. “This was all going down yesterday when we were returning here from Providence.” His hunch correct, they found that the encore episode of Hannity recorded by the DVR was not as advertised. Hell, if the man was smart he was probably miles away from New York City before the footage occupying his time slot was shot, because according to the perfectly coiffed male anchor in Hannity’s stead, the city had suffered some kind of an outbreak much worse than the others reportedly taking place around the country. The reporting was augmented by moving images being broadcast on a phalanx of flat-panel televisions covering the wall floor-to-ceiling behind the anchor. On the largest of the lot and rendered in white over a red background was an outline of the contiguous United States. Red dots denoting cities where a viral outbreak the anchor was calling “Omega” had been detected pulsed steadily.
Walking his eyes right-to-left across Charlie’s widescreen, Duncan suddenly felt sick to his stomach. Not only were New York, Boston, Washington D.C., and Chicago already besieged by the so-called Omega Virus, he saw that Houston, San Antonio, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Portland were as well.
Coming full circle, he felt the cold finger of dread tickle his spine when his eyes fell on Salt Lake City and the pixelated dot there that was also bright red and throbbing to its own urgent beat.
Charlie whistled. “Most of those cities have lit up in the last eight hours.”
“And I’m here while my baby bro is in Salt Lake pretty much all by himself. Fuck it all.”
The television screen flickered once and then went dark.
Abruptly, Duncan turned to face Charlie. “Are you coming with me or staying here?”
With no hesitation, Charlie said, “There’s strength in numbers. I’m coming.”
Duncan rose from the couch just as the power came back on. The lights on the front of the DVR flashed and then a series of chirps and mechanical sounds emanated from it as it entered into some kind of reboot cycle.
Charlie set the remote on the table. “It’ll be finished restarting in a moment.”
“I’m done watching that stuff,” Duncan said.
“You don’t want to see what President Odero has to say to the nation before we hit the road?”
Shaking his head, Duncan said, “I’ve already made up my mind to do exactly the opposite of whatever he’s selling.”
The windows shook in their frames as a low-flying jet rumbled overhead, heading where, Duncan hadn’t a clue. He rubbed his knees to get the blood flowing to them, noticing his hands shaking subtly. Suddenly, like a crashing wave, a craving hit him and he wanted a belt of something hard to drink worse than ever. Instead of turning toward the kitchen, however, he made his way to the door, along the way extracting a folding knife from deep down inside a front pocket.
“We loading up now?”
“I’ve got unfinished business.”
Without asking what said business was, Charlie followed Duncan out into the still morning air. The sun was coming in at a low angle and already the nearby pick-up and east-facing wall of the house was giving off heat.
“Going to be a scorcher,” Charlie said.
Sniffing the soot-laden air, Duncan replied, “In more ways than one. Good thing you didn’t have to go in to work.” Chuckling softly at his Master of the Obvious statement, he made a solo trip back to the small shed and returned with a piece of white chalk, a ball of frayed twine, and a pair of barely used garden stakes in one hand. In the other he carried a few folded-up lengths of decorative wire perimeter fence.
From the flat stakes he fashioned a makeshift cross, looping the twine multiple times around the union before securing the two pieces together tightly with a triple knot. He cut the twine with the folding knife and chucked the ball into the truck’s bed.
“Can I lend a hand?” Charlie called from where he was sitting on the short stack of stairs.
Already unfolding the foot-high fencing and laying it flat next to Tilly’s grave, Duncan said, “Nope. I got this.”
He took the time to reshape the rounded tops of the fence that were bent or bowed. Then, starting near where he knew Tilly’s head to be, he stuck the first yard-long run into the newly disturbed ground.
Using all three lengths of fence, Duncan encircled the dark patch of dirt as much as possible.
Satisfied the grave was as good as it was going to get considering the circumstances, he stood and wiped the dirt from his hands with a handkerchief taken from another pocket. Lastly, using the length of chalk, he wrote R.I.P. TILLY on the horizontal part of the cross.
“Looks good,” Charlie proffered.
“Thank you,” Duncan replied sincerely. He cast his gaze beyond the fence, expecting to see the old man or his dog looking on. The porch and yard were both devoid of life—canine or human. However, running vertically up the whitewashed porch posts were blackish streaks and a few splotches that could have been blood left there by an old man’s gnarled hand. Pretending not to see the clues that might lead to another encounter with death, he turned and, instead of finding himself alone again, he was on the receiving end of a much-needed bear hug.
Eyes misting, Duncan looked away and gave them a covert wipe with the kerchief before letting go of his only friend.
Charlie hinged over and fixed him with a googly-eyed stare. “Better, friend?”
Duncan forced a smile. “We better git,” he choked, before turning on a heel and setting off toward the yawning front door.
Chapter 28
Save for the two weapons, the folding knife and cherished Stetson he brought down from its place of prominence high up in the hall closet, Duncan saw no reason to take more than a change of clothes, a toothbrush, and a few personal effects he’d been meaning to give to his brother who he hoped, in turn, would pass on to his kids—if he ever got around to finding a good woman with whom to procreate. Flashing a rare smile at the thought, he shook his head and tossed the small gym bag into the truck’s backseat.
Who am I to judge my bro? Being a lifelong bac
helor with the smoking ruins of dozens of burned bridges in his rearview, he figured his advice was about as useless as tits on a boar.
“That’s all you’re taking?”
“What should I bring, Charlie? Should I go down and break into my self-storage unit and haul my one good frying pan and three whole pieces of silverware with me? Hell, while we’re at it we can throw your flat screen in back and fire it up when we get to Utah.”
“I meant clothes.”
“All I need is my favorite thong and pasties to cover up … what’d you call ‘em?”
Charlie heaved a bulging canvas bag big enough to fit a week’s worth of clothes into the bed. He smiled and let Duncan come up with the word himself.
“My man boobs. But you called ‘em something else.” He smiled as it dawned on him. You called ‘em moobs, you fucker. That’s an open and shut case of the pot calling the kettle black, you mud-flap-big-titty-girl-shirt-wearing plebe.” For the first time since he could remember he had a reason to laugh. And he did, belting out a cackle a stereotypical drunken saloon goer in a spaghetti Western would be proud of. His eyes teared from the laughter. This went on for a moment until the weight of all that had happened over the last twenty-four hours settled over him like a burial shroud. Heavy of heart and shoulders rounded, he opened the truck’s door and ducked behind the wheel. “Get in,” he called. “Time waits for no one.”
Charlie hauled himself in and shoved the shotgun back under the seat where it had been the day before. “What have you got in mind?” he asked. “Going to chance I-84, or maybe go through Boring, meet up on 35 and then squirt over the south flank of Mount Hood?”
Starting the motor, Duncan said, “You’ll see.”
Craning over, Charlie said, “You’ve only got a quarter of a tank.”
“For a bus-riding guy you sure are a pretty conscientious … back-seat driver.”
ocalypse (Book 10): Drawl (Duncan's Story) Page 15