“Still,” I mused. “There’s been no invasion, no announcements, nothing.”
“Right,” Finley nodded. “It’s really outside the scope of anything any of us prepared for or expected.”
“Great,” I muttered. “Well, I reckon the best thing we can do is keep moving on and stay alert. How long have you got power?”
“So long as the reactor doesn’t have any problems, something like five years,” he replied with a shrug. “We have a shutdown and containment protocol built-in so that anything we’ve got stored here burns if the facility is ever breached, or if a person doesn’t perform a daily check-in.”
“Good,” I said and rubbed the bridge of my nose. “How are you for supplies?”
“Not great,” the doctor admitted. “Mostly snacks from the vending machines and food from the cafeteria. Overall, not enough to last more than a month, maybe.”
“There’s how many of you here?”
“Six with Doctor White, including Specialist Powers,” he replied. “You and the child take that to eight.”
I nodded slowly, thinking. Canned and dry goods were likely to be plentiful nearby, which would be the best way to supply these people. I did have a question, though. “What’s kept you from going out and scavenging the stores nearby?”
“At first, it was fear of contamination,” he answered frankly. “Then the armed fellow started his tirades, and Angela recommended we lie low. She keeps an eye out for him during her watches.”
“Who covers her when she sleeps?” I asked.
“One of the orderlies,” he replied. “Phillip Blake. He was a Marine, previously.”
“So as of now, you’ve got three military or former military in the facility. The big concern is whether or not the disease is still active out there. If it is, no offense, but y’all are screwed.” I looked the man in the eyes. “That means you have to depend on those of us that have survived, somehow.”
“We need samples,” Bob said flatly. “We know what to look for and what we need as examples.”
Damn it. I resisted the urge to volunteer for all of about thirty seconds before I opened my mouth. “Make me a list of what you need, and I can go get your samples. Maybe I can make peaceful contact with the dude out there, too.” Or not so peaceful contact. I wouldn’t hesitate to defend myself if necessary. There was way too much for me to live for right now.
Doctor Finley blinked at me in disbelief for a moment, then nodded slowly. “That would be much appreciated, Mister Forrest,” he said at last. “Once we have the all-clear on you and Doctor White, I’ll introduce you to the rest of the team, and we can go over your objectives.”
I nodded. Jackie would have to be told, of course, but I think she expected me to stay at least long enough to make sure Tommy would be okay. While it was a long drive, so long as I could bypass the airport, I could shuttle back and forth as time permitted over, well, however long it took. Hell, maybe Jackie and I could relocate to Atlanta, not that I wanted to give up the farm. Having access to the CDC with its facilities and reactor would give us quite a head start, even more of one than the farm did.
It was something to think about.
24
Jackie
Once I figured out baby Irene’s feeding and sleeping schedule, it wasn’t too hard to adapt my chores and sleeping around it. I was in the enviable position of being, effectively, a stay-at-home mom, at least for now, with no real restriction on when I took care of my responsibilities around the farm.
Well, I would get accusing looks from the animals if I fed them late, or off-schedule, but they were far less insistent than the little poop machine. Fortunately, I knew what to do. I’d babysat for spending money when I was a teenager, and that really hadn’t been so long ago. The thing was, we needed stuff for little Irene, and I had just the plan to get it.
Perhaps contrary to Henry’s wishes, I’d made a run into Opelika by myself to pick up baby stuff. I wasn’t stupid enough to leave the infant by herself, so she was in the back seat of my jeep while I raced through the dark, stinking aisles of the Walmart to the baby section, grabbed a bunch of diapers and other goods, and raced back out. There were a lot more rats and bugs than there were during our previous run on the store, but I guess that was to be expected.
I just avoided the food section.
All told, I was gone from the farm for maybe an hour, and I kind of doubted that Henry would have tried to make contact during that time. He and Doctor White had made contact with some survivors at the CDC, and they were trying to help Tommy recover from the disease. Hopefully, the doctors there wouldn’t catch it, but you never could tell with fast-spreading illnesses like this one.
There were more animals visible here and there throughout Opelika: dogs, cats, raccoons, possums, and rats. Here and there, a fence showed signs of being dug under, trash cans had been overturned, and I even saw where a window had been broken out.
It was really sad that we just couldn’t take care of so many former pets. People never really expected to die suddenly, and there was no one, outside of a tiny, tiny population of survivors, that could step in. Predator and prey instincts would kick in, dogs would form packs, cats would hunt small animals. Life would go on, but it still bothered me at some level that I couldn’t do more than I had.
Henry seemed to be the kind of guy bothered by it, too, which was one reason I was just so attracted to him. Hell, just thinking about him while I drove started to get me all hot and bothered.
Irene burbled from the back seat. She was what, maybe a few weeks old at the most? Mostly she slept, ate, and shat, which was normal. Estelle never said if the kid had gotten sick, but there had to have been a reason she only showed up with just the one baby.
I let out a sigh. My brain wanted to wander in all the morbid directions today, and while I wasn’t depressive by nature, I still couldn’t let it drag me down.
Once we were back to the farm, I unloaded Irene first and put her in the austere crib that Doctor White had. She burbled at me, wriggled while I checked her diaper, and then promptly fell asleep.
Aside from a regular night-time contact, Henry and I didn’t want to overuse the radio. In all honesty, we weren’t ready to deal with other survivors quite yet, and after the fire and a couple of other incidences that he’d seen, we both had picked up a hefty level of paranoia. Enough that I walked around armed, which was something I had never expected.
I yawned behind my hand and wandered out of the bedroom, heading for the porch. One of the cats, Pepper, I thought, yowled at me from a perch on the back of the sofa, and I gave her ears a scratch as I passed. There was no sign of Ghost, though, as I passed through the kitchen and out onto the porch. The dogs were staying close to the house, and out in the field, the livestock had huddled up warily.
What had them all bothered? I scanned what parts of the property I could see from the safety of the porch. Butterflies danced in my stomach, and I put my hand on the butt of the revolver I’d picked from Henry’s collection. The guns we’d gotten during our foraging run were all long arms.
One of the dogs, Suzy, came to the foot of the stairs and looked silently up at me for a moment, then turned and gazed out past the cottage towards the back of the property. Her legs were stiff, and her tail was down, but her ears were up and alert.
I sighed and shook my head. Why couldn’t this have happened with Henry here?
“What’s the matter, Suzy?” I asked, pitching my voice down a bit. The dog gave a quick wag of her tail, then went back to watching.
Whatever it was out there, the pack didn’t want to go after it unless it came closer. Their body language was wary and almost fearful, including that of the newer and the bigger dogs. I thought that it was good Sasha was inside. With typical little dog fearlessness, she would have charged off out of sight, likely to her death.
I paused for a moment and weighed my options, then went back inside long enough to get the over-under shotgun and a handful of shells. Screw
waiting. If I was going to be in charge of the homestead in Henry’s absence, then I was damn well going to confront any threat to it.
The dogs fell in, flanking me as I marched down the stairs and off in the direction they’d all been pointing. Maybe my presence alone would be enough to turn the tide or drive off our unknown invader. At this point, I was pissed and tired of dealing with the constant edge of tension that kept the dogs and the livestock acting weird.
Besides, I did kind of feel like I had something to prove.
Suzy, Maggie, two of the other dogs, and I headed out from the house towards the back of the property where the trees grew thicker. It was daylight still, only around three in the afternoon, but everything was quiet. My feet rustled in the leaves as I made my way along, moving carefully and quietly like when my dad and his brother took me hunting along with Uncle Sid’s daughter Charlie and Aunt Meg.
It all came back to me in a rush. My footsteps grew quieter, and I drifted through the trees like a ghost, the shotgun held in a relaxed, ready position. Charlie and I had taken to hunting like fish to water, though we preferred just stalking game or each other. Sid didn’t like it when we slipped off in the evenings to try to hunt one another, our game being who could get close enough to tag the other person without being seen or heard.
Sometimes I won, and sometimes Charlie did. For a moment, I wondered if she was okay, if she’d survived this plague. Before I started sniffling, though, I forced that thought down and focused on the hunt I was on, now.
All three dogs stuck close, which was definitely an odd behavior, at least in my experience. I expected them to range out and flush whatever it was that was out here, but instead, they stuck to me like glue, either protecting me or expecting me to protect them.
I paused and gazed out through the trees into a sun-dappled clearing. Lowering the shotgun a bit, I shifted my grip on it, reached up and wiped nervous sweat from my eyes. When I looked again, it was there.
The canine paused in the sunlight, bent its head down, and sniffed the ground before sweeping its gaze around the clearing. I froze when it first appeared. Dogs generally hunted by smell and movement. By remaining immobile, I hoped to keep it from noticing me for at least a moment. The three dogs crouched at my side.
My earlier conversation with Henry sprang to mind as I watched the creature. Its coat was a sort of ticked, reddish-brown, but with black paws and ear tips. A bit of gray dappled its shoulders. Overall, it looked like a large coyote, bigger than any of the dogs, and with heavier jaws and a larger head than any ‘yote I’d ever seen. I’d been right. This was a coy-wolf, a wolf-coyote hybrid. It was beautiful, too.
Then several other canines, two coyotes, I thought, and four dogs slipped out of the undergrowth and joined it. There was a bit of growling and canine posturing, but no fighting. The coy-wolf was obviously the alpha of this pack, and they were testing our territory.
Resolve rose in my heart. Maybe I could drive them off, or at least scare them a bit. I raised the shotgun slowly. The coy-wolf’s ears pricked up, and it started to turn its head in my direction.
I squeezed the trigger as all the canines started to move.
The gun boomed and kicked back against my shoulder as the coy-wolf, who I intended to miss, leaped straight up. One of the other coyotes caught the buckshot in the side, just as it was turning to charge me. Instead of making the run along with the other canines, it was thrown around in a splash of blood and went down with a strangled cry.
“Fuck,” I exclaimed, swiveled, and fired the second barrel. This time, though, the dogs had scattered, and the coy-wolf and the actual coyote were gone. Maggie and the other dogs took off in pursuit, harrying the pack as I dropped the over-under and drew my revolver.
Nothing. Mad barking echoed through the sparse forest as I swept my aim back and forth, then put my back to a tree and waited. Off in the distance, a coyote yipped, but from the opposite direction of the barking and growling of the dogs. The wild dogs of the pack were a distraction, and it had worked. I was left alone with the one coyote as it gasped its last.
Where was the coy-wolf? I knew they were smart, with a ‘yote’s brains and a wolf’s muscle and pack orientation, but I didn’t know they were this smart.
As my eyes swept around, they met a pair of golden orbs that gazed impassively at me from the shadows beneath a nearby tree. I froze. It was far enough away that I wasn’t sure of my shot and close enough that I might not have a chance to make a second one if I missed the first.
One of the coy-wolf’s ears swiveled as something galloped closer through the leaves and underbrush. Hopefully, it was Maggie and the others and not the wild pack. As the big mutt came into view, the alpha caught my eye again, and I swear it winked at me before it disappeared, silent and swift, back into the sparse woods.
Maggie and the other two came trotting up to me, panting and grinning their doggie grins while I sank slowly down to sit on the ground beneath the pine.
“Well,” I said to them. “That was exciting. Think they’ll be back?”
Our pack exuded a sense of satisfaction as I hugged and petted them. “We nipped their tails but good,” their posture and dark eyes seemed to say. I hoped they were right.
After a few minutes of fawning over each other in the aftermath, I got to my feet, holstered the revolver, and picked up the shotgun. Once I reloaded it, I went to check on the coyote I’d shot.
It was definitely dead. The buckshot had opened up a gaping hole in its abdomen, and if it hadn’t died of shock, blood loss probably took it quickly. I needed to get back to the house and get a tarp after I checked on baby Irene the poop machine. Then I planned on dragging the corpse back to the house as proof of my ability to defend the homestead.
One thing bothered me, though, and that was how the coy-wolf had been aware of me. I’d been upwind, fairly distant, and still, it had not only reacted before I fired (I’d intended to shoot in front of it at its feet to scare it off), but it had disappeared, snuck up on me, and let me know that it knew where I was.
How smart could the damn thing be? I really hoped that Henry wouldn’t need too long in Atlanta, or at least that the wildlife around here didn’t get too uppity before he got back.
I really hoped he’d be proud of me.
25
It was day two at the CDC, morning after a bad night’s sleep on a narrow hospital bed. I woke up to Doctor Bob Finley by knocking on the door and greeted him with a tired grunt.
“Good morning, Henry,” he said brightly. “Good news.”
“I could use some good news,” I said and yawned. “It ain’t biscuits and gravy with a side of country ham or bacon, is it? Or maybe a king-sized bed?”
“None of the above, I’m afraid,” he replied. “You and Estelle are both free of the virus, and, rather interestingly, so is the boy.”
“What’s wrong with him, then?” I asked, suddenly fully awake and focused on the doctor.
“Weak immune system and a list of secondary infections as long as my arm,” Bob replied. “It’s a wonder he survived, to be honest, but I’m seriously not complaining. Maybe there’s some environmental or even genetic factor that’s given all of you the ability to fight the pathogen. We don’t know nearly as much as we’d like to about it.”
“This means you’ll be able to help the kid, right?” I said, my eyes boring into the smaller, balding man.
“Oh, yes,” he replied with a broad smile. “We’ve adjusted his antibiotics already, and he should start getting stronger in a week or so. However, we will need to augment our food stores if your offer still stands.”
“Of course it does,” I said. “When do I start?” Sooner started, sooner done, as my Grandma used to say. I really wanted to finish up here and get back to the farm, and that meant making sure that everyone was safe.
“Whenever you want to, I suppose,” Doctor Finley said. “Are you feeling well?”
For a moment, I wondered if it’d be worth bringing Jackie
in as well. I suspected it would, but with the potential for wildlife trouble, I didn’t want to leave the place alone.
“Well enough,” I told him and smiled, perhaps a bit grimly. “Maybe I can have a word with that dude that keeps bothering you, too.”
“Angela thinks he’s dangerous, and that’s one reason we haven’t made any real forays outside of the CDC campus,” Bob said. “You haven’t seen him yet, have you?”
“Nope,” I shook my head. “Angie told me he cruises around in a surplus truck and sports military hardware, but he doesn’t actually do more than stand at the gate and yell.”
“I guess it’s not surprising that nut jobs would survive as well as…” I started, then trailed off.
“Other nut jobs?” Doctor Finley said with a laugh.
“Yeah, I guess,” I replied with a smirk. “I wasn’t going to say it.”
“Sure,” he smirked back. “Get dressed and come to the cafeteria. Doctor White’s waiting for you and will show you the way.”
“So I finally get to meet the rest of the team, huh?” I teased.
“Precisely,” Bob answered, gave me a wave, and slipped out.
I dressed, met up with Estelle, and she led me out of the ICU ward and through some halls until we emerged into a large mezzanine. This must have been part of the museum. There was an open space with seats, a cafeteria, and a little souvenir shop, like you’d find in a hospital. The museum was past all of this, and it was dark.
Sitting around a larger table that looked out of place were three people I didn’t recognize, and Doctor Bob Finley. Of the three, I could guess the identity of one, Angela Powers, especially since she wore standard-issue digital camo with a patch that stated her last name. She was a compact woman with short brown hair and brown eyes, tanned skin, and a rather expressive, pretty face, at least by my standards. Angie was also the only other person armed at the table.
Estelle walked right on up and started pointing people out to me. Aside from Angie, there was another woman and a man, both in lab coats. The man was a younger fellow, thirties I guessed, with pale, ginger hair pulled back into a ponytail, blue eyes, and freckles.
After The Virus (Book 1): After The Virus Page 17