The Infected Dead (Book 5): Shelter for Now

by Howard, Bob

  Sim scanned the article to see if it said how big the tunnel was, and when he saw it was over six hundred feet long, he thought that was a pretty big tunnel and an even bigger coincidence.

  He sat the magazine down and thought about the night he had spent inside the wheel well of Air Force One. All night he had wondered if there was a zombie president wandering around in the plane above him, and if there wasn’t, where would he be. By morning, the quiet above the wheel well made him more sure that he had spent the night under an empty airplane.

  When Sim thought about that day when Executive One sat in line at the tail of Air Force One, all of the cockpit crew had felt that there was something going on inside the hangar in front of them that included getting the President to safety. It was logical to assume that there had been a plan in place before they had arrived, and a tunnel wasn’t such a far fetched idea. The entrance was probably not far from where Sim had been hiding, but it had been dark inside the hangar, and it didn’t really occur to him that he should be searching for a hidden tunnel entrance.

  Sim had learned a trick years ago that had paid off as a navigator. He found that closing his eyes had enabled him to visualize maps and charts, and it also gave him better recall. He closed his eyes as he leaned backward on the bed into a comfortable pillow. He let his mind go back to that night.

  Although he had climbed the wheel in a hurry and had his eyes focused on where he was going, he had surveyed his surroundings. The big blue and white plane, the symbols of America, the absence of a passenger bridge, and there was something else. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but something had been different about the floor.

  It was like having someone’s name on the tip of his tongue. He knew if he tried to hard, it would escape him like a waking dream. Sim moved his memories forward to the next day and visualized his climb down from the wheel well. He had climbed down facing the tail because he wanted to watch the last of the infected stumble out of the hangar door into the light. Then he had crossed under the plane to his right to go to the wall that was straight across from the passenger door on the left side of the plane.

  There it was again. That memory that was just beyond recall. He had approached the nose gear from the same general direction, so he was just seeing something vague in his mind from the other side.

  Then he remembered. Just like the tip of the tongue phenomenon, he was remembering the first letter of the word he was trying to recall, and the word popped out.

  “It was the floor,” he said to the quiet hotel room.

  There were bodies everywhere in the hangar. The floor was littered with the remains of the infected that had been killed by the military that had obviously been waiting for the plane to taxi inside, but there was something odd, something different about the bodies in the area directly below the passenger door on that side of Air Force One.

  Sim had only paused for a second and surveyed the scene before he weaved a path between the infected that were no longer a danger to anyone, and he remembered that he wasn’t afraid that he would be bitten by any of them. He wasn’t afraid because he didn’t see any heads. Every body around an area of about one to two hundred square feet had been decapitated, and there were two more things. They were all facing inward toward the center of that area, and they were all around the perimeter.

  His eyes opened as a thud hit the outside of his room a little louder than usual, and Sim jumped from the bed and ran to the door. He saw through the peephole that two of the infected had collided with each other, and now both were trying to get up from the floor. One was leaning hard against his door, and he mentally saw his opportunity to eliminate one by opening the door. It would fall inside head first, and he would only need to slam the heavy door again. The force would most likely sever the head at the neck.

  Sim was smart enough to understand that his mind was still trying to fill in the blanks about the hangar, and it had given him the final piece of the puzzle.

  “Was there a big door in the floor of the hangar that had been slammed shut on the heads of the infected dead that surrounded it?” he thought.

  His own words told him something still didn’t fit. The puzzle piece might be the right one, but he still needed to put it in the puzzle in the right direction.

  Sim stepped back from his hotel room door and pictured it closing on the neck of the infected leaning against it. It would only happen along the left side of the door. It wouldn’t happen at the top, the bottom, or on the right side of the door for obvious reasons. He pictured a door being closed on the floor of the hangar, and he saw that it would crush or remove the heads of he infected along three sides, and they would all be facing inward, but along the fourth edge, there would be no decapitated bodies.

  In his mind’s eye he saw it again. There were bodies on four sides, and there was only one way that could happen. The floor had been lowered into place.

  Sim backed away from his hotel room door and tried to digest what he was thinking.

  “What kind of door could lower itself into the floor, and how heavy would it have to be to remove the heads of the infected along every edge of its perimeter?”

  By the time he sat down on the end of a bed, he could see it happening. There was one clue he had ignored, and it showed him how to fit the last piece into the puzzle. Some of the bodies were missing more than a head. Some, as a matter of fact, many of the bodies were missing their upper torsos and were even missing everything from the waist up.

  The only thing that heavy had to have been something big enough to carry passengers from Air Force One all the way from the door of the plane and through the floor of the hangar…an elevator.

  Sim didn’t notice his own mouth was hanging open as he pictured the elevator being raised and lowered repeatedly while he and his fellow crew members had sat waiting patiently behind Air Force One. He pictured the infected dead walking into the elevator shaft while it was open, and he pictured the elevator seamlessly fitting back into the floor onto the extended arms and bodies of the infected that tried to squeeze into the shaft at the last moment.

  The infected that only lost an outstretched arm would have shrugged it off and continued their search for living victims.

  “Rub a little dirt on it and walk it off.”

  Sim laughed as he said it, remembering his Little League coaches trying to keep kids from crying when they got a little scrape.

  “So, an elevator had come out of the floor, risen to the door of Air Force One, then lowered itself back into the floor, but where did it take the President and everyone else to?”

  Sim frowned at the banner and the contents of the suitcase spread out across the bed, and he knew where they had gone.

  “Tunnels,” he said, “but tunnels to where? President Grant’s secret shelter?”

  He knew he shouldn’t be laughing out loud, but he couldn’t help himself, and there were more thuds against his hotel room door. A series of groans told him there were at least two visitors, and he finally forced himself to be quiet again.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  WHEELS UP FROM Guntersville, Alabama to begin the second leg of our mission had to be an impressive sight to the survivors we had briefly encountered. They still didn’t trust us enough to approach us even though they could tell there were United States Army troops in our company, but they were at least bold enough to come out and watch us leave.

  All four helicopters lifted off one after the other from the highway where they warmed their engines, and as they lifted they also began banking away to the right. Maybe the local survivors would investigate Green Cavern again. If they did, they wouldn’t have any better luck than they had on previous attempts.

  The secrets of Green Cavern had always been a topic of discussion in local bars, restaurants schools, and among neighbors. People who knew Dr. Bus had tried for years to get him to admit that he had done something to the mountain, but all he would say was that he loved to go there for privacy. It was his own special getaway just like t
he cabins built by other rich people around the lakes.

  After today, anyone who was still around from the pre-infection days would know there was more to it than a cabin in the woods. They would know it was much bigger, and they would search for it. The soldiers left behind were ordered to remain quiet unless the shelter was breached, and the likelihood of such an event was slim.

  On the off chance they had been observed accessing the hidden controls to the ceiling elevator, the power supply to the controls had been removed. If the controls were found, they wouldn’t respond even if a substitute power supply was installed.

  The weak points of the shelter were the elevator itself and the blast screens that could open and close giving the occupants of the shelter a panoramic view of the lakes. The ceiling of Green Cavern was too high for anyone to reach the elevator door that blended seamlessly into the ceiling of the cavern, but the blast screens could be seen from the mountain across the valley if someone just happened to be watching when they opened or closed. For that reason, the soldiers were ordered to keep them closed at all times.

  As the helicopters faded in the distance, the boats of the local survivors closed in on Green Cavern to begin the search. Unfortunately for them, there had been others drawn to the activity where the water of the lake lapped against the entrance to the cavern. Heads began appearing above the surface of the water as the infected dragged their water-logged bodies out of the lake.

  The survivors had seen the infected make such an appearance wherever the banks sloped enough to allow them to leave their domain below the surface. Just as the infected on land weren’t aware of their surroundings unless prey was moving nearby, the infected under water simply stayed where they were until something gave them a reason to go somewhere else. The activity at the entrance to Green Cavern was just such a reason.

  The search for the elevator controls was short lived because of the number of heads rising above the surface. The survivors didn’t waste their ammunition because there were so many infected. They quickly agreed among themselves that they would be able to return on another day after the infected had moved on.

  Hands reached for the railings of the four boats as they pushed away from the cavern, and dull thumps sounded from each hull as they bumped their way through the heads.

  One of the boats started its outboard engine too soon, and the propellor was immediately wrapped in body parts and shredded clothing. Someone yelled at them to stop trying to increase power and to put the engine in reverse for a few seconds.

  The boat lurched backward as the propellor spun freely in the opposite direction and it was the quick thinking of the survivors in a second boat that saved their lives.

  Using the poles they had all begun carrying as a means of pushing away the infected, they shoved themselves over to their friends until the two boats were against each other. With greater stability they were able to keep the boats from rocking with the weight of the infected that had gained handholds along the rails. A few hard pushes from the men and women on both boats was enough to start them forward against the growing number of infected emerging from the water.

  The occupants of the four boats felt the spray of water being carried on the increasing wind before they heard the thumping sound of rotors behind them. Then they heard the rapid fire from the soldiers hanging from the doors with their weapons on automatic.

  The natural instincts of the people in the boats made them duck as low as they could until it became apparent that the infected were being efficiently eliminated. The firing reached a peak and then gradually decreased until there was no more movement in the water.

  The helicopter slowly backed away from the cavern, but the voice of Captain Miller boomed through a loudspeaker.

  “Occupy the fenced village above this mountain. Fortify it against the dead and welcome all survivors. We will return and discuss further government assistance if you have established a community that abides by laws. Is this acceptable to you?”

  Unknown to our convoy at the time, the men and women in the boats had been a group of survivors that had clung to their humanity. They had met their share of people who only took from others, killing anyone who got in their way. They already knew about the village on the mountain, and they knew it would be hard to supply, but with the help of the US Army, they were grateful for the chance.

  Captain Miller and the crew of his helicopter understood the answer as one by one the people in the boats stood and delivered salutes in their direction. Unknown to the people, their measure of respect had earned them points toward living somewhere even better than the top of the mountain.

  The helicopter backed away and then rose out of sight while the survivors in the boats began moving away toward safety.

  Captain Miller caught up with us near the border of Alabama and Tennessee and radioed information about the way it had gone down at the entrance to the cavern.

  Before he had decided to turn back as we flew north, he had radioed the Chief and broached the subject of how to treat survivors. He told us it wasn’t enough to assume everyone was bad, and the way the boat had abandoned its pursuit without gunfire had made him think we should give people a chance.

  We had quickly agreed that if he made contact and they weren’t aggressive, we could give them a little test. See if they were a supportive community for a week or so in the village, and if they were, we would consider putting them inside the shelter.

  Captain Miller was encouraged by their reaction to his intervention at Green Cavern, and he expressed his belief that we would find a civilized community when we returned. We could only wait and see. If they turned out to be good people, then they deserved the chance to rebuild in a safe place.

  “Smoke to the west,” said Kathy through the headsets.

  We all faced toward west and saw a huge pillar of black smoke rising to an elevation well above our own.

  “Anyone know what that could be over there?” I asked.

  Jean answered, “Memphis is my guess.”

  “I agree,” said the Chief. “More specifically, I would guess that it’s the oil refinery.”

  “I thought all of our refineries were on the Gulf coast,” I said.

  “That one’s on the Mississippi River,” added the Chief. “Think about it. We have pipelines that carry raw and refined products, but a refinery on the Mississippi can supply cheaper fuel to the states upriver.”

  There wasn’t one of us who didn’t think the Chief knew everything, so I couldn’t help asking him.

  “How do you think the fire started?”

  “Take your pick of a hundred different ways,” he answered. “The most likely reason for a fire would be the same reason why the Oconee Nuclear Plant had an explosion. So many things in industrial plants involve regulating pressure. I don’t know how oil is refined, but wherever you find heat and liquids that move through pipes, you’ll also find pressure. Without people to monitor those pressures, there will be explosions and fires.”

  Hampton leaned forward and added, “Lightning strikes, survivors with good intentions.”

  “Survivors with bad intentions,” Colleen chimed in.

  “I saw a runaway barge hit a refinery in Houston once,” said Cassandra. “Things got ugly in a hurry.”

  “The possibility of a runaway barge on the Mississippi wouldn’t be so far fetched anymore,” said the Chief. “One day people just quit showing up for work, and the loaded barge that was supposed to be moved that day just wasn’t moored well enough for a long stay. Storms and wind break it free of its moorings, and the next thing you know, it’s picking up speed downriver. It doesn’t stop until it slams into the refinery.”

  We all sat quietly as the plume of black smoke disappeared behind us. First, Atlanta was almost unrecognizable because of the uncontrolled growth of vegetation, and then Memphis was burning because there wasn’t anyone to put out a fire at a refinery. It was sinking in that surviving the infection wasn’t just about not getting bitten anymore. It
was also about the damage to our country’s infrastructure.

  “What next, Chief?”

  I said the question into the microphone, and I was more or less just thinking out loud, but it couldn’t just be about refineries, barges, and plants.

  “Water would be my guess,” said the Chief. “Everywhere that either supplies water to a dry place, or gets water from somewhere else is going to be effected sooner or later. Chicago for instance. It gets water from the Great Lakes, but it has to control how much water comes in. Without people to open and close dams, pressure is going to build up somewhere. Dams will eventually fail, and cities are going to flood. There are other cities that will see the same thing. Imagine New Orleans, Venice, and even Washington DC. We’ve built a lot of cities on top of marshes and swamps. Even Charleston filled in swamps to build more houses.”

  Jean leaned forward and tapped the Chief on the shoulder.

  “Is it just me, or does it seem like there are more alligators in the marshes and swamps surrounding Mud Island than there were before?”

  “I almost shot one a few days ago,” said Hampton. “Then I remembered they eat the infected more efficiently than the blue crabs.”

  The Chief chuckled a bit and then said, “I can imagine there are environments too hostile for the infected to survive. If we want to just get away from them, all we have to do is go where it’s either too hot or too cold for them, or we could go where there are more natural predators.”

  “There’s an attractive thought,” said Kathy. “Hot or cold doesn’t sound so bad when you consider the predators that eat the infected would also sink their teeth into the uninfected.”