by David Spell
In the ensuing gunfight, Chuck had killed al-Razi, but not before the Iranian had managed to fire two shots, one of which struck and killed Rebecca Johnson. McCain had played it over and over in his head. If he hadn’t tried to get the terrorist to surrender, if he’d just shot the armed man in the back, Rebecca would still be alive.
Chuck knew that in reality, it wasn’t that simple, nor could he change the past. He took another couple of sips of the whiskey, closed the bottle, then lay back down. He had been planning to tell Rebecca that he loved her on the ride home after the game.
Instead, being pursued by Zs, he had carried her dead body in his arms away from the scene and watched it get zipped up inside a black body bag. Chuck and his team had managed to rescue around sixty people from the UGA campus and had killed hundreds of zombies. Thousands of other people were killed and infected with the virus, in and around the stadium and the student center. McCain wondered if the university would ever reopen.
In their last conversation, Brian’s dad, Tommy, told Chuck that they would take care of his daughter. Melanie had assured her dad that Brian and his family were really looking after her. Since that phone call, however, he hadn’t talked to Mel in three months. After the power and communication grids stopped working, he’d been unable to get in touch with her.
Brian’s mom and dad were lay pastors in their local church and Brian seemed like an honorable young man. So, at least Melanie was with good people in a safe place. The problem now was that Chuck wasn’t even sure where she was. Brian’s family, the Mitchells, lived in Hartwell, near the South Carolina border with Georgia.
That last time Chuck had spoken with them, Tommy had informed him that his parents had a small farm in the mountains near Hendersonville, North Carolina. He told Chuck they were leaving immediately since thousands of zombies had surged out of Atlanta and were moving up the interstate. Melanie was going to send her dad the address for the Mitchells farm but then everything had stopped working. Power, internet, and all other communications had just shut down.
McCain did have the address for their home in Hartwell and that was where he was heading. He was hoping and praying that Melanie or Tommy had left him their new whereabouts or some clue as to where they might be. But, before he could do that, he had to figure out what to do with Elizabeth Benton. She had said something about a school. Maybe tomorrow she would be feeling better and could tell him her story.
Abandoned house, South of Carnesville, Northeast of Atlanta, Wednesday, 0730 hours
They sat in Elizabeth’s room sharing a packet of beef jerky and some trail mix that Chuck had taken from Greg and Tonya, sharing a mug of hot coffee. Benton’s back was against the wooden headboard in the bed. McCain had pulled a rolling chair over from a small desk and sat next to the bed.
Daylight illuminated the room and Elizabeth could see that while it had finally stopped snowing, the sky was gray and threatening. Other than a lingering headache and the pain from her badly bruised face, Benton was feeling much better this morning and was now able to get her first clear-headed view of the man who had saved her life.
She had awakened with the stranger’s scent in her nostrils. At first, she was disoriented and couldn’t remember where she was and why she was alone. Then, the events of the previous day came rushing into her mind, as well as a blurred image of the stranger who had brought her here. The shirt that he had loaned her was warm but it was saturated with his scent. It was a nice smell, she thought. Musky and masculine.
The next aroma that her nose had picked up was of coffee. My brain really must have gotten rattled, she thought. I know there’s no Starbucks around here. The sound of footsteps coming up the stairs startled her and McCain had come in carrying the food and a steaming cup.
“How about breakfast in bed?” Chuck said, smiling and holding up the beef jerky and trail mix bags. “I’d planned on whipping us up some pancakes, eggs, bacon, and grits but, you know, the zombie apocalypse and all.”
In spite of everything, she laughed, the pain shooting through her head causing her to immediately regret it. How long has it been since I’ve laughed out loud? she wondered, putting her hand to her forehead.
“Oh, don’t make me laugh,” she said, smiling back at him. “My head’s still pounding. Is that coffee?”
“It sure is. I hope you don’t mind sharing,” he said, handing her the warm mug. “That was the only coffee cup that I could find downstairs.”
Elizabeth held it in both hands and let the hot steam rise onto her face. She closed her eyes and sipped the liquid. Another sip and she handed the cup back to Chuck.
“That’s the best coffee I’ve ever tasted. How did you do that? I mean that’s hot,” she said, surprised.
McCain chuckled. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen that reaction to MRE instant coffee before but I’m glad you like it. The MREs, that’s Meal Ready to Eat, comes with a chemical pouch to heat the food. They call it a flameless ration heater and it works great without giving your position away.”
Benton examined the man in front of her and couldn’t help but notice his size. Chuck McCain was a big man. His shoulders were broad and his arms bulged underneath the black hoodie. His dark brown hair was hidden under the black stocking cap and his face was covered with the beginnings of a beard. His blue eyes were clear and she could see in them sadness, intelligence, compassion, and danger.
She wasn’t good with ages but she guessed Chuck was around forty years old. He was a nice looking man, she thought, for a guy that old.
There were old scars around both of his eyes but the area around the left one was bruised with some redness and swelling. “What happened to your face?” she asked, pointing to the damage. “How’d you get hurt?”
Chuck touched his left eye and shook his head. “I must be losing my touch. That last guy managed to shoot me, punch me, and tackle me.”
“He shot you?” she asked, surprised at this revelation.
“Oh, yeah, and it hurt really bad,” he admitted, handing her the coffee mug and pulling up his shirts to show the now dark purple mark that the AK round had left behind on his chest. “Thankfully, he hit me in the body armor.”
“But you killed all four of them. I don’t think you’re losing anything,” Elizabeth commented. “What are you? Some kind of special forces solider?”
McCain smiled. “No, I was just a police officer near Atlanta for twenty years. Later, I went to work for the CDC Enforcement Unit, trying to control the outbreak of the zombie virus. Obviously, we didn’t do a very good job.”
He left out the part of his career where he took two one-year contracts with the United States Military. After his early retirement from the police department, Chuck had been hired as a police liaison officer with an army Special Forces A team. Working with the SF soldiers had sharpened and developed the skills he had gained as a SWAT officer. It was after these two contracts in Afghanistan that he came back to the US and was recruited by Rebecca Johnson to come work for the CDC.
Chuck and Elizabeth sat in silence for a couple of minutes lost in their own thoughts, sharing the last of the coffee. “How’d you find me yesterday?” the young woman asked, quietly.
He shrugged. “There’s not much to it. I’d been walking all day, heading north. I got off at that exit, the one with the truck stops and convenience stores, but I didn’t want to take a chance on camping out there.”
McCain saw recognition and pain cross Elizabeth’s face when he mentioned the truck stops.
“I saw the sign advertising this neighborhood,” he continued, “and hurried over here. I was wet and freezing by the time I found this house. My clothes were soaked and I was shivering. I’d just gotten a couple of dry shirts on when I heard a vehicle on the street.
“Those guys weren’t even trying to be quiet. I was just gonna watch them through the window and hope they didn’t attract any zombies. I wasn’t looking for any trouble and just wanted them to stay down there and quit making so much nois
e. But then I heard you scream and saw you kick that one prick in the nose. You were fighting and screaming and I saw the bald guy punch you. You looked like you needed a little help.”
Benton reached up and touched her swollen face again and fingered the cut on her lip. Chuck could see that she was processing all that he said. He needed to know more about her, though, to decide what kind of help that he would give her.
“I’d love to hear what happened and how you ended up with those losers?” he asked. “You said something last night about your friends and a school.”
After several more moments of silence, McCain said, “If you don’t want to get into it now, I understand.” He started to stand.
“No, wait,” she said. “I need to talk about it. Just give me a minute.”
“Take your time,” he said, settling back down and looking out the window at the snowy landscape. “We’re going to be here a while.”
The Northeast Georgia Technical College was fifteen miles up the road, near the small town of Lavonia. Elizabeth was on staff there as a Career Counselor, and also worked closely with the president of the school on special projects. It was a small college and she filled several roles, but guiding students down their best career path was her main passion.
After hundreds of zombies were spotted heading their way up I-85 three months earlier, most of the students had fled for their homes or any other safe location. However, some faculty and students had decided to stay on campus, thinking they’d be safer together. The school was several miles off the interstate and located outside of the city limits, surrounded by trees in a secluded area.
Elizabeth had also chosen to stay because she, too, felt a sense of responsibility to look after the students who had remained. And, the campus had become her home. She lived in one of the dorm rooms, serving as a Resident Assistant. The rest of the faculty knew her background and went along with allowing her to live at the school.
Seventy-five students, faculty, and family members were hunkered down on the small vocational college campus. The college police department had been composed of seven officers. Five of them had fled the approaching zombie horde to get their own families to safety. The other two, Officers Tina Miles and Jason Storey, stayed to protect those who remained behind.
As the zombies swept up the interstate, the estimated numbers grew to over a thousand. These had been infected when a suicide bomber abandoned his car bomb just off of I-85 in downtown Atlanta. The bomb in the car and the suicide vest both contained high explosives, shrapnel, the zombie virus, and radioactive materials.
This was the dirtiest of dirty bombs and the same scenario had been repeated in Washington, D.C., and New York City. Those who were infected when the bombs detonated created a domino effect, passing the virus to thousands in their zest for flesh. These, in turn, migrated through Atlanta, using the interstate system to go in every direction.
It took the infected a few days to reach the Lavonia area and by that time the number of Zs had continued to swell. Most of the residents had fled, heeding the Governor’s order to evacuate, but others tried to stand and fight. Local police, aided by a number of well-armed civilians, shot and killed over three hundred of the zombies, but vastly outnumbered, all of those police officers and civilians were overrun. They were all either killed or devoured, or returned as zombies in a bizarre twist of fate. There were just too many infected and too few defenders.
The Zs swept through the small town, forcing their way into homes containing survivors, which spread the virus even further. After they ran out of victims, most of the zombies continued up the interstate towards South Carolina, while hundreds wandered around the countryside. Thankfully, the technical college was in a rural area, nestled behind several hills, and only accessible by a long driveway.
Mr. Nicholson, a member of the faculty and a military veteran, had taken charge of the group’s security. He and Officers Storey and Miles organized the defense of the campus and created a schedule so that several sentries were always on duty, keeping watch. Nicholson taught a commercial vehicle driver’s course and automotive repair. He used one of the long, fifty-three foot semi-trailers, which he trained his tractor trailer students on, to set up a barricade, blocking the entrance leading into the school. Wrecked vehicles from the collision repair course shop were added to the barricade, creating a formidable roadblock that was manned around the clock by armed student sentries.
This barrier was designed mainly to keep human invaders out but would slow down zombies, as well. The roadblock was set up so that two vehicles could be quickly moved to let cars in or out if the need arose. The trailer was an excellent position to keep watch from, and its height would keep the sentries safe from the ever-reaching hands of attacking Zs.
Mr. Nicholson also set up roving patrols around the campus. There was no fence around the college and infected or human invaders could gain access to the school if they were willing to fight their way through a dense forest. Because she was on staff of the college, Elizabeth had sat in on the security planning meetings. She had heard Nicholson say more than once that their biggest challenge was a lack of firearms.
The first Zs showed up at the school, walking down the main driveway, a week after their attack on Lavonia. Everyone not on defense hid in the dorm or other reinforced buildings. The sentries lay quietly on the ground or on top of the barricade hoping the infected would not see them and move on.
The zombies’ sense of smell, however, alerted them that fresh flesh was nearby. The twenty-five infected began growling, rushing the roadblock, and shoving up against the vehicles. Mr. Nicholson had two of the students boost him up onto the roof of a wrecked van, wedged in next to the big trailer.
Armed with a small rifle, the faculty member climbed from the van onto the top of the eighteen-wheeler and began shooting the Zs in the head as fast as he could pull the trigger. Officer Storey clambered up with Nicholson, using a pistol to help eliminate the Zs.
Elizabeth had sat in her Jeep Cherokee as the middle-aged man and the campus police officer had killed every single zombie. She and one of the campus maintenance trucks were parked nearby, engines running, facing back towards the campus as escape vehicles in case the zombies broke through or somehow got around the barricade.
After waiting for an hour to see if any more infected would show up, Nicholson directed some of the male students to load the bodies into the back of the maintenance pickup and haul them to the backside of the college grounds. They were dumped out of sight of the campus, in a thick wooded area.
The group at the college had had little contact with the outside world after communications broke down. Two weeks after they had killed the group of Zs, Mr. Nicholson called a meeting with everyone and said that the food supply was dwindling and they were going to need to send out foraging teams to find supplies. They began sending out four-person teams once every week or two.
The teams were usually composed of one of the campus police officers and three of the other campus residents. Everyone was supposed to take a turn going out but priority was given to those with prior military service or those who were comfortable handling firearms. Their goal was not to have to use their weapons, but unfortunately they’d had to shoot infected people almost every time they left the safety of the college grounds.
So far, they had been able to gather supplies from businesses in and around Lavonia. They had even picked up a few more survivors and brought them back to the campus. The forage teams usually drove one of the campus pickups or a student’s or faculty member’s SUV. On each trip, they loaded up as many supplies as their vehicle could carry from the local supermarket, convenience stores, and even some homes that had been abandoned.
The need for a constant supply of food forced the looting teams to travel farther and farther from their sanctuary. The previous day, Elizabeth had volunteered to take the foragers in her Jeep Cherokee. As one of the key faculty members she didn’t have to go, but felt that she needed to carry her weight.
The team was composed of her, Officer Storey, Margo and Lamar. Margo was in the Air Force National Guard as a military police officer and Lamar was in the Criminal Justice Program at the college.
Mr. Nicholson had recommended that they go further south to see if there was anything left at the truck stops and stores at the Old Federal Road exit. It was the furthest away from the campus that any of the teams had ventured out but they were starting to have trouble finding food around Lavonia. Elizabeth drove, Jason the police officer rode shotgun, with Lamar and Margo seated in the back.
Elizabeth had a 9mm pistol that Mr. Nicholson had handed her. She had never shot a handgun but he had patiently walked her through how to use it, giving her an hour of familiarization. Jason Storey had strapped his police-issue gun belt over his blue jeans and was also carrying a shotgun. Margo cradled a military-style rifle across her lap and Lamar had both a black assault rifle and a pistol.
Up to this point, all of the people that the foraging teams had encountered had been friendly. Fifteen additional people had accepted the invitation to join the group at the technical school campus. Looking back, Benton knew that they had grown complacent.
There were two truck stops at the exit on opposite sides of the street. On the other side of the interstate was a convenience store. Their plan was to search all three businesses, taking as much as they could pack into the Cherokee, and then get back to the campus before dark. Driving on the interstate was possible but dangerous. Zombies still lingered on both the north and southbound sides so the mission to the truck stop had consisted of a roundabout route using back roads.
The trip had been uneventful until sleet and snow had begun raining down on them just as they had approached the first truck stop. There were a couple of cars and a few tractor trailers scattered around the parking lot but they didn’t see any people, living or dead. Elizabeth backed her SUV up to the front of the business, a high overhang protecting them from the worst of the freezing rain.