by JE Gurley
Jeb spent evening hours sitting on the veranda looking at the Santa Catalina Mountains with a cold beer in his hand. Somewhere up there on Mt. Lemmon was Summerhaven, a small Alpine community beneath the slopes of Ski Valley. He wondered how the residents were doing or even if any had survived. With only one paved road up the mountain and a secondary dirt road accessible only by 4x4s or motorcycles, it would be veritable fortress against zombies. He had considered seeking shelter there himself, but the winter temperatures at 9,000 feet fell into the 20s at night, too cold for his liking. He, Karen and Josh had picnicked up there several times during spring and summer, enjoying the panoramic view of the desert surrounding Tucson. He watched for a spark of light to indicate life remained in the mountains but had not seen one.
On their fourth day, Mace rushed to him as he piddled with his tools in the garage,
“There’s a car at the gate.”
Eager to see whom their visitor was, Jeb followed Mace to the monitor. He recognized the silver Lexus of Robert Benjamin and Robert himself as he leaned out the window and looked up at the camera.
“Jeb, it’s me. Let me in.” The doctor looked more gaunt and distressed than the last time Jeb had seen him. Jeb reached for the gate control but Mace stopped him.
“What?” Jeb asked, annoyed.
“Ask him if there’s anyone with him?”
Jeb stared at Mace but asked, “Are you alone?”
A sad look crossed Robert’s face as he hesitated, and then replied, “No, no one.”
Again, Jeb reached for the gate release and Mace blocked him.
“He’s lying,” Mace warned.
“He’s my friend,” Jeb growled, brushing away Mace’s hand and opening the gate.
Mace glared at him, picked up his rifle and left. Jeb went out to greet his friend. Benjamin was pulling up in the drive. Jeb waved just as the passenger door opened and a Latino man wearing a red bandana stepped out. Jeb realized his error and began to back up.
“Run, Jeb!” Robert called out from the car as he opened the driver side door.
The man leaned over and fired a shot from a pistol at Robert. Robert fell headfirst to the asphalt beside the car and did not move, his open eyes staring at Jeb. The man with the pistol, a machine pistol, Jeb realized as the man waved it in the air, signaled toward the gate. The gate stopped closing as one of the three men rushing through the gate placed at large stone in front of it. All three wore similar red bandanas around their heads, white t-shirts and green pants and were armed as heavily as the first one.
Latino gang colors, Jeb thought, La Raza. He had left his rifle in the foyer, a mistake that could cost him his life. All four men carried either MAC-10s or pump shotguns. As he stood there trying to decide what to do, Mace grabbed him from behind and jerked him backwards toward the door, firing his AK47 at the same time, forcing the men to scatter. Once inside, he slammed the door and pushed Jeb to the floor, just as a spray of bullets splintered the wood of the heavy door and splashed into the opposite wall.
“Damn 9 mm Parabellums,” he snarled. “They’ll slice through wood like butter.”
“Where’s Renda?” Jeb asked, worried that she might have been outside and caught off guard. Just as he spoke, he heard the sound of a shotgun coming from the roof.
Mace smiled. “She was covering your ass. I saw movement in the car and went to get her.”
“I . . .” Jeb shook his head. “I was a fool.” He thought of Robert lying in a pool of blood on the driveway. “A damned double fool. I got Bob killed.”
“They came to kill all of us. They want this place for the same reason we do. There’s probably more waiting down the street to see what happens.”
“So what do we do?” He heard pounding on the window in the living room. To Mace’s questioning look, he replied, “Safety glass in all the windows. They can’t break it, but they might shoot it out.”
“We can’t give them time,” Mace replied. “We have to kill them quickly before the others come.” With that, he crawled across the floor toward the kitchen. Staying low as well, Jeb grabbed his rifle from where he had propped it against the foyer wall and followed.
Jeb knew, if their assailants surrounded the house, they could keep them trapped while they waited on the rest of their posse. It would be better to fight in the open. He knew the grounds better than they did. He darted out the side door into the small garden facing the steepest cliff. Then he crawled over the low stone perimeter wall, to a narrow ledge the masons had used as a platform when building the wall and followed it toward the front of the house. He heard automatic gunfire as the gang sprayed the house, a higher-pitched chatter than the answering bark of the AK47.
He caught a glimpse of Renda on the roof when she rose to fire at one of the gang members racing across the driveway toward the garage door. He willed himself to keep down as bullets ripped into the stucco parapet behind which she was laying. So far, no one had spotted him. He prayed his luck held. A burst of gunfire erupted from a side window and one of the attackers fell, riddled with AK47 bullets. Mace was giving them a big surprise. Jeb was less than ten yards from the gate. Judging his odds at even for making it across the open ground, he ran to the gate, kicked away the impeding stone and dove for cover behind a mound of large boulders. Now he was glad Karen had insisted on leaving those boulders when they built the house. Stone chips sprayed him, as one of the gang discovered him and let loose with a MAC-10. He spotted the shooter, a young boy no older than sixteen years old, and he took aim through a gap between boulders. He took a deep breath and then released it slowly as he squeezed the trigger. Looking at the boy’s face and imagining Josh at that age made him hesitate. He wanted to close his eyes, but he knew the boy was not Josh and the kid would kill him if given the opportunity. He pulled the trigger. The Marlin bucked in his hands, but the .308 bullet hit the boy squarely in his chest, slamming him backwards into the side of the house, his white t-shirt blossoming in a psychedelic crimson pattern, as he slid down the stucco into a lifeless heap in the flowerbed.
Jeb closed his eyes and took another deep breath to calm his rattled nerves. He had never killed anyone in his life and now he had ended the life of a young boy. It was not a good start for someone who detested killing deer. The kid’s indoctrination into gang culture had included the use of weapons and the callousness to use them against others. Now, he had paid the price for that decision. Others would undoubtedly do so as well. The world had turned on end and the survivors included people from both ends of the spectrum. There would be no meeting in the middle. The same distrust, prejudices and resentment that permeated society would become more pronounced as the survivors fought for the last scraps of civilization. Jeb had no time to dwell on the right or wrong of what he had just done. Killers had invaded his home and Mace and Renda were in danger.
More shots came from the roof. At least, he knew that Renda was still alive. Jeb hurried to the side of the house, carefully avoiding a look at the results of his act of violence lying on the ground beside him. He was glad he still had his keys in his pocket. He unlocked the garage side door and quickly shut it behind him. The garage was dark and filled with vehicles and stacks of food supplies that he had not yet put away. He willed the darkness to wash over him, providing the anonymity he needed to separate Jeb Stone, the killer, from Dr. Jebediah Stone, psychologist. Allowing events, no matter how bizarre and nightmarish, to erase his identity as a healer of men’s minds could cripple him. Physician heal thyself, popped into his mind. Later, when things were not quite so pressing, he would have to work on that.
The sound of breaking glass in the hallway beyond the garage alerted him that someone had managed to gain entry through one of the shot up windows. Fearing that switching on the lights would alert whoever was in the hall; Jeb relied on the faint light entering through the hallway door to pick a pathway across the garage floor. Peeking through the window, he saw a shadow disappear around the corner into the kitchen. As silently as possible
, he entered the house.
* * * *
Renda could see no more intruders in the yard. After killing one, she had watched Jeb cross the lawn and shut the gate. She did not have a clear view of the one shooting at Jeb, but after the crack of his rifle, the machine gun quit firing. Jeb must have silenced him. That left two more. Knowing she could do no more from the roof, she returned to the trap door leading to the laundry room at the rear of the house. Crossing the short hallway between the laundry room and a spare bedroom, she saw a figure slide around a corner and so she followed. Crouching to present a smaller target, she peered into the kitchen and saw Jeb.
“Psst!” she whispered. He spun around, and seeing that it was her and not one of the gang, closed his eyes and shook his head slowly. She waddled over beside him. “Where’s Mace?”
“I don’t know. There’s one inside the house,” he added.
“How many are left?”
Renda noticed an expression of sorrow cross Jeb’s face as he answered, “One, I saw a body outside the window on the patio. You got one.” He turned his face. “I killed another one.”
The house was strangely silent after all the gunfire, like the aftermath of a battle, but Renda knew the fight was not yet over. One of the gang was somewhere inside the house and they didn’t know where he or Mace were. Suddenly, a loud crashing sound of a falling table came from the den. Jeb looked at her and started that direction. She followed, but stopped short when a shadow fell over her.
“Where you going, bitch?” a voice growled.
Before she could look or react, a vicious kick in her ribs sent her sprawling across the tiled kitchen floor. Oddly, through the haze of pain, she noticed the tile’s pattern and approved, immediately assuming Jeb’s wife had picked it out. Then her head slammed into the refrigerator, sending splinters of agony shooting through the back of her skull into her eyes. Somewhere along her brief slide across the floor, she lost the shotgun. She was now half-blinded with pain, unarmed and helpless. She waited on the shot that would end her life.
“Drop it!” Jeb yelled from nearby.
Almost simultaneously with Jeb’s utterance, shots rang out from just above her prone body. She heard Jeb’s cry of pain and his body hitting the floor. Without thinking about the consequences, she kicked out her leg in hopes of disabling the remaining gang member. She missed, but he did not. A heavy booted foot caught her upper thigh and spun her around. She expected to feel the impact of a hail of bullets as an automatic weapon almost deafened her. Death did not come. Instead, she felt hands trying to help her up. Peering through one eye to reduce the pain, she saw Mace standing over her, and the final gang member on the floor beside her.
“I thought I was dead,” she said as she grabbed Mace’s arm and forced her body to move.
“You almost were. Jeb distracted him.”
She remembered Jeb’s cry of pain. “Is he . . .?”
Mace smiled. “No, he took one in the arm, though. We need to see to him.”
As relieved as she was to hear Jeb was alive, she was confused about what had happened. “The noise?”
“I didn’t know you were inside the house. I was trying to get this bastard to come into the den where I had a clear shot,” he kicked the dead man in the ass. “You two almost blew it.”
Jeb moaned. She hobbled over to his side, ignoring the throb in her head and the ache in her thigh. He looked up at her grimacing with his own pain.
“How bad is it?” she asked.
“It just grazed me, but it hurts like hell. Stupid macho fool! I don’t know why I did that. I should have simply shot him.”
She looked at his shirt. “Your side is bleeding too, you know.”
Jeb glanced down at his side, saw the blood spreading across his shirt and he passed out. Mace pulled up Jeb’s shirt and grinned.
“In and out,” he said. “He’ll live. Help me get the hero to his bed.”
Together, they carried him to the master bedroom and laid him on the bed. Renda began to remove his shirt. “Go bring the first aid kit. I’ll take care of him.”
Mace lingered just a moment, reached out and squeezed her shoulder. “Good girl.”
She smiled as he walked away.
14
Samuels stood stiffly, his hands clasped in front of him. “What were you doing out there?”
Erin sat in an uncomfortable chair in the security office. An armed MP stood guard outside the room, visible through the small window in the door. The soldier who had caught her had not been gentle with her, marching her across the compound as if she were a spy. She shrugged her bruised shoulder at Samuels’ question.
“Sleep walking,” she snapped.
“More like sleep climbing. Did you think all the guards were asleep?”
She turned to face Samuels. He was grim and angry, but she felt no sympathy for him, not after what she had seen.
“They’re being bled like some kind of animals,” she shot at him. “You knew.”
“Of course, I knew,” he shouted. “Do you think I like it? I think it’s cruel and inhuman, but it’s not my call. Homeland Security is in charge. They classify this as a catastrophic emergency. Blood from immunes is the only weapon we’ve got and it’s your job to make it worth the cost.”
“I won’t,” she said. “They’re human.”
“You will,” he replied, his face grim. “You will, because like me, you have no choice. If you don’t continue to look for a vaccine, then you’re expendable, both you and your team. We don’t have the resources to carry dead weight.”
She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You would kill us?”
“I wouldn’t do anything. I sympathize with you. You feel like I did when I first learned what was happening. I had never heard of the Judgment Day Protocol until this shit happened. They won’t kill you but they will turn you out to fend for yourself. That’s tantamount to a death sentence.”
“I trusted you.”
He turned away and folded his hands behind his back, wringing them. “I’ve never lied to you. I knew you saw the trucks being unloaded, but I didn’t report it. I hoped you would come and confide in me. Maybe we could have found a way . . .” He turned back to face her. “It’s too late for that now. I’m too low on the totem pole here. The guard at the… er… donor facility informed Colonel Alexander. He communicated directly with Major Hinkley, head of security here. I’m just a go between, the civilian liaison. Security is out of my hands. If you give me your word, I’ll do what I can.”
“I’ll make no promises,” she replied. “To you or anybody. We’re supposed to be saving lives.”
He stared at her a moment; then nodded to the guard who was peeking in through the door. “Go back to your lab. You can inform the others what you saw, but please advise them that failure to cooperate will not sit well with the Major. He’s a career man.” He chuckled, “Hell, he may be one of the few left alive.”
The guard opened the door. “Escort Dr. Kostner back to the lab. She’s free for now.”
The ‘for now’ fell on Erin’s ears as a veiled threat. She knew she had been lucky. The guard at the warehouse could have shot her. Samuels could have removed her from the project. She was certain Samuels would keep a closer eye on her from now on, but she had to do something for those poor people. In good conscious, she could not continue to work on the project knowing that every vial of serum she touched was forcibly taken from someone.
Just what was the Judgment Day Protocol? From what she had seen of it, it did not bode well for people who survived the plague due to a natural immunity. Under normal circumstances, with most diseases, blood serum from someone immune to that disease could produce antibodies capable of conversion into a vaccine. The new H5N1-Z virus, as she now thought of it, was not a normal virus. Its rapid rate of mutation might preclude the development of a working vaccine. All those people would die for nothing. She would inform the others and let their consciences decide their actions. For her, she h
ad no choice.
Susan rushed up to her as she stepped off the elevator. “My God, Erin. What happened? Samuels said you had been taken to security.”
She explained what she had seen and what Samuels had revealed to her. Susan’s face paled as Erin spoke and tears rolled down her cheeks. When Erin finished, Susan cried, “Not Elliot. He wouldn’t.”
“Snap out of it!” Erin shouted. “He’s no better than the rest. He knew what was happening and he knew what would happen. He used us, and now they’re using us!”
Now she was angry. The fear of what might happen when the guard had discovered her; the threats from Samuels had subdued her for a while, but now her revulsion at what they were doing overrode her fear. She allowed her righteous anger to consume her. She needed to feel the pain and suffering of those people in the warehouse if she was to find a way to free them.
Susan sniffed and rubbed her damp cheeks. “What do we do?”
“I don’t know, but I can’t go on, not this way.”
“Do we tell the others?”
Erin sighed. “Yes, we have to. They need to decide for themselves.” She looked at Susan. “I’ve got to do something, but you don’t have to help, because it could be dangerous. They could send us out on our own.”
She did not miss Susan’s quick, furtive glance out the window, and she knew Susan was not thinking about the snow or the mountains. Susan knew zombies surrounded the mountains and what would happen if the military banished them to their midst.
Erin was proud of her when Susan answered, “I’ll help.”
“Good. We keep working for now, at least until I think of something.”
Erin had never been part of a conspiracy before. All her life she had worked single-mindedly toward her ultimate goal – to be the best in her field. Now, by the simple expediency of so many deaths, she could well be the only expert in her field. Her task was daunting. She had to conceive a plan and execute it under the very nose of the military, but do it in such a way that recriminations and the consequences did not fall on her team. If possible, she would like to come through it alive as well.