“I promise everyone here both of us will be back. I have no intention of staying in Shreveport for any great length of time,” Bruce assured the family.
“I want the fort finished today. Debbie, get somebody on the backhoe and dig up lots of dirt today. I want sandbags to surround the house along the first floor. Cinder blocks will not stop a bullet. I want every window on the ground floor boarded up. If someone does get past the outer defense, I want everyone in here to have plenty of warning. After today, I want noise outside to be kept to a minimum. Only use the electric buggies. If you have to use the tractor to move hay, do it in the morning; the sound will not travel as far. Kids, you must listen to your mothers. Tonya, this goes for you too. If your mother says something, do it, no questions asked. If one of them tells you to shit, I want you to squat.” This got smiles from all of the kids. Bruce looked at each one with a serious face. “If either one tells you to kill, you do it. No repercussions will fall on you. You were doing what you were told for fear of your parents. Everyone here needs to harden your hearts because sympathy can get you killed along with the rest of the family,” Bruce said, looking at everyone.
“Any questions so far?” Bruce asked.
“Don’t worry Daddy, we will do what we are told. You and Daddy Mike just get back here as quick as you can,” Danny said to him, trying to smile, with tears in her eyes.
Bruce asked Mike to go call the hospital. Mike went out to the den and called. Bruce told everyone to start on what needed to be done and reminded them not to forget the tools that were left at the fort. He and Mike would leave around four, so that gave them a few hours to get everything ready. The wives stood and started issuing orders as Mike walked back in and said the wives were off the call schedule. The director of the ER told him that it was good they were coming in because any medical staff not reporting was to be detained until this crisis was over. Then the state was going to press charges of endangerment against them. All medical staff was now under the department of Homeland Security.
Bruce thought about this and thought it was very unfair. Just because they went to college to learn how to help someone, the government could draft them against their will. The cook or housekeeper had no license to lose, so they did not have to listen and could stay home protecting their family. Without the money that they made as professionals, Bruce knew this farm would not exist. Oh well, we always get screwed, he thought as he walked up to the bedroom to get his stuff.
Going to the closet, he pulled out his go bag, a large military backpack. He laid it on the bed and started to go through it. He pulled out the woodland camo and put two sets of tiger-stripe BDUs in the backpack. There were a dozen FSR meals in the pack along with five hundred rounds for the SCAR and a hundred rounds of .45 for his pistols, first aid box, a satellite topographic map of the area they were in, including Shreveport, a compass, matches, a candle, lighter, water filter pump, water purification tabs, and a pair of night vision goggles, which he took out. He would take one of the new monocular NVGs with him and tell Mike to do the same. Several packages of batteries and a lot of other odds and ends were in the pack. Then he closed the top of the pack, tying it off. Going back into the closet, Bruce pulled out another tactical vest he used for patrol. It had a predator machete on the left hip under the drop pouch that held six magazines on his left leg for his SCAR, plus a tomahawk on the back in holster; it came handy to have something that could chop. The drop pouch held six thirty-round magazines plus four on the right side of his chest plus one in the weapon. That gave him three hundred and thirty rounds to fire from the SCAR before he had to reload magazines. The left side of the vest held his cross draw holster for the XMP. On the left hip of the vest was a draw holster that he would put a 1911 .45 in with a silencer on it. This he planned on putting on his person going into the hospital.
Like all hospitals, the university did not allow weapons on its employees; it did not matter if you had a permit or not. Bruce hoped that if he was caught with it that because he was a deputy he would not get into much trouble. He then pulled out his Benchmade switchblade, laying it on the bed. This would be in his front right pocket at all times. He usually carried an assist open, but he wanted speed. Bruce then went to the closet, pulling out his Matterhorn combat boots and setting them on the floor. They were a lot better than the ones he had on. He then went and pulled out his scrubs, laying them on the bed. Looking at the bed, you would think he was going to a hospital in hell. Stopping, Bruce realized that he just might be.
Bruce went in to take a shower. When he got out, Debbie was standing at the end of the bed looking at everything.
“Baby, are you sure this is the thing to do? You and Mike could get trapped by riots in Shreveport. There are a thousand things that could go wrong, and you two might not make it back,” she said, looking at him with tears in her eyes.
Looking in her eyes Bruce, walked up to Debbie, picked her up, and hugged her. He almost blew it off and made a joke but decided to answer her with the truth. “Baby, that might be, but even if that happens, you and the family will have a chance. If we don’t go, you heard what they told Mike––they will come out here. I would sacrifice myself for this family, and so would Mike. You and Nancy have to hold on until we get back, and if we don’t, you have to keep going. If I know all of you are safe, then I can take anything, baby,” Bruce said, holding her.
“I don’t want to survive without you. It just would not seem right to be going on without you,” she said.
“You have to be strong for the kids, baby. They are counting on you and Nancy to pull them through this until we get back. If they see you scared, they will lose faith and start to question everything we have done here. You can do it baby, because if you are strong, then Nancy will be too,” Bruce told her, putting her down.
“Okay, baby, I will be tough, but you promise me you will make it back here with Mike, and I will do my best,” she said with determination.
“I promise on everything I hold dear, I will do my best to come back to you,” he said.
They shared a long passionate kiss then Bruce turned and started to get ready for work. Debbie told him she was going to check on the kids. Bruce finished getting dressed and picked up everything he had laid out and carried it downstairs and placed it on the kitchen table. He then walked down into the basement to the armory. The armory was just a section of the basement that was closed off that held a lot of guns. There were three gun safes along one wall, and the other three walls had guns mounted on them. Bruce opened a safe, pulling out a Colt 1911 with an extended barrel. He then reached in and pulled out a suppressor that could be put on the pistol. Unlike most guns, the .45 was a slow bullet, not breaking the sound barrier; it was just a slow-moving truck. A suppressor worked very well on a .45, making it sound like a muffled firecracker. He grabbed six extra magazines, closing the safe back. He then grabbed the monocular NVG that would replace the goggles that he had taken out of his pack and an extra set for Mike.
When he got back to the kitchen, he grabbed his stuff and walked out front to the Mini, putting his stuff in the back. While he was putting his stuff in, Mike walked out carrying his gear and started to put his stuff in the other side of the car. Bruce gave him the other monocular NVG, and Mike took his out of his pack, setting it on the roof while putting the new one in his pack. Both of their SCARs were set up alike. Both had the fourteen-inch barrel with suppressor, an ACOG scope, and an EoTech holographic scope mounted on top of the scope. The holographic scope was good out to fifty yards, and the ACOG Bruce was good with it out to one hundred fifty yards; anything past that Bruce would leave alone.
“How many magazines do you have for your XDM .45?” Mike asked.
“One in the gun and four in the vest. I’m also bringing a 1911 with us into work just in case,” he told Mike.
“Well, I have a sub nose .357 on my ankle, so if we get caught, at least we go together my brother,” Mike said, grabbing the old pair of NVGs to take back in
the house. “I also grabbed the thermal scope in case we needed it,” he reported.
“Well, let’s get this over with and tell everyone bye before we change our minds and decide to fight what they would send after us,” Bruce said, walking with Mike back into the house.
Everyone was in the den to tell them good-bye. After a lot of hugging and crying from all parties, Mike and Bruce turned to the door and walked out. Everyone followed them to the loaded-down Mini. Bruce turned and reminded them to get finished and stay at level three until they got back. They hugged everyone again and climbed into the Mini. Pulling out, Mike hit the remote to open the gate while looking back and waving bye. When they hit the road, Mike closed the gate with the remote, and the two took off to the trailer in Haughton.
They rode in silence the entire way to the trailer. Once in town, there were cars everywhere. They could see long lines at every gas station they passed. There were military vehicles everywhere they looked. With Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier, they knew it would be a heavy military presence, but this was ridiculous. They drove to the trailer, and Bruce backed up under the awning. They got out of the Mini looking around; there was a sense of haste everywhere they looked. Some people were packing cars; others were unpacking cars. There was no rhyme or reason, just everyone doing something in a panic. Mike unlocked the front door and opened it up. When they did not see anyone looking, they threw everything from the car onto the floor of the trailer. Making sure no one saw them, they went inside.
They put all of their packs in a closet and lifted the bed up in the back room. The base was a storage area; Mike had gotten the idea from the camper at the house. They put both SCARs in the storage area and lowered the mattress back down. Losing the gear would hurt, but losing the weapons could be deadly. Neither was worried much about someone breaking into the trailer unless they had a cutting torch. Plus, there were easier pickings around. All the windows were shuttered from the inside, and with the quarter-inch steel around the bottom half of the trailer, a gun store would be easier to break into. Besides, from the outside it looked like a total piece of crap. No need to advertise in a trailer park; both had lived in them and knew that there was always a trash element in a trailer park.
As they stepped back outside, Mike locked the door as old man Cooper came over from next door. He and his wife had lived next door to the trailer since they had bought it six years ago. “How you boys doing?” he asked. He and his wife were both in their eighties and liked living in the trailer park to be around others.
“Doing well, Mr. Cooper. How are you and the wife?” Bruce asked.
“As good as can be. You believe this crap?” he asked.
“It is wild, but I expect it to get lot wilder, Mr. Cooper,” Bruce answered.
“Yeah, me and the missus moved the food we had in the storage shed into the trailer. We went to Wal-Mart, and it was cleaned out. I figure we have a little over a month’s supply, and I don’t want to think about this lasting that long. There has been gunfire all day around here,” he informed them. “I figured all of you would be at the hospital with all this going on.”
“We are on the way there,” Mike said. “I forgot my prescription pad and stethoscope––had to pick them up before we headed in.” Mike reached back, lifting his stethoscope out of his back pocket to prove his point.
“Yeah, you won’t be much good without that,” Mr. Cooper told him. “You boys be careful. I think this is going to be bad. I wish you would tell your wives at least to go back to that farm of yours. They don’t need to be around this.”
“Well, we are doctors and nurses,” Mike replied. He wanted to tell him the girls were okay, but not knowing who else was listening, Mike decided not to.
“Piss on that. You take care of family first. The missus and I will watch the house for ya as always,” he assured them.
“Thank you, Mr. Cooper, but don’t try to stop anyone. There is nothing in there, anyway. I don’t want you or Ms. Cooper in any danger, sir,” Bruce told him.
“It don’t matter son, it ain’t theirs to be taken. The missus is at the front window with the old double barrel, and I have my Luger from the war to protect us. Now, you two be careful out there and at the hospital,” he said, walking back to his trailer.
Bruce climbed back behind the steering wheel as Mike sat down and started to buckle up. Mike turned to Bruce as he started the Mini and pulled out. “If we can, I would like to take them to the farm. They have watched that trailer for six years for us, and I think they would have a wealth of information to share,” Mike said.
“If we can, we will take them with us. Now get your game face on,” Bruce said, taking the side streets to the hospital. On the way to the trailer, they saw the interstate was gridlocked. Going through downtown Shreveport, they could see several smoke trails in the air from fires. They could see a lot of police at the casinos as they went over the Texas Street Bridge into downtown. Nothing downtown was open, yet there were people everywhere. As they turned off Texas heading to the hospital, they saw four thugs beating someone up. Before Mike even said anything, Bruce said, “Call the police. We are not armed for a confrontation here. We have to pick and choose our battles. We have a promise to keep with the family, remember.”
“Don’t you want to help?” Mike asked.
“Yes, I do, but our family deserves us watching each other and not taking stupid risks,” Bruce said.
Mike took out his cell phone, tried to call 911, and was put on hold. By the time they made it to the hospital, they parked in the doctor’s spot; yes, it did pay to have Mike in the family. Mike finally got someone at 911. He gave them the information of where they saw the assault going on as they walked into the hospital. There were people everywhere they looked, along with National Guard troops all over the outside of the hospital.
When they walked into the ER, it was pure chaos everywhere. Shreveport police, along with the university police, were all over the ER. They had saw several National Guard soldiers walking around the ER with M-4s across their chests. The two walked back to the main doctor and nurses’ station. Dr. Caldwell was the medical director and was over the ER. He was standing at the board, attempting to direct the throngs of staff around him. When Mike and Bruce walked up, he turned and looked at them.
“Welcome to hell, gentlemen. We have over four hundred people signed into the ER, and every one of them thinks they are infected. The dumbasses don’t realize that if they aren’t infected now, when someone comes in with it, they will be,” he told the two.
He looked back at the board and started talking to them again. “We just got confirmation that we have a confirmed infection in Minden,” Dr. Caldwell told them. Minden was only thirty miles from Shreveport, so this got their attention. “It has been reported that New Orleans has got several cases.”
“What exactly are we dealing with?” Mike asked.
“The CDC is not giving us shit; all they have said is anyone that has been exposed to bodily fluids of someone infected are to be isolated from other people. The communicability is over 90 percent. So if you are exposed, then you will get it,” Dr. Caldwell said.
“What’s the mortality?” Mike asked.
“They won’t tell us, and since we have not seen it yet, who knows. This is a bunch of shit, if you ask me. This virus sounds something like rabies, but its incubation is anywhere from a few hours to three days. It takes ten days for rabies to infect at a level like that. The only reason we have that is from other hospitals that we have called, but they are not reporting any mortality to us. I need you two to take a pod and dig in.”
“You got it, boss,” replied Bruce, walking over to a desk and setting his messenger bag down.
The two had started to see patients when a report came over the radio that three gunshots were coming in, and one was a police officer. Mike and Bruce ran to the trauma bay to prepare for the ambulances; when they got there it was 6 p.m., and they would not sit down for ten hours. That would be the f
irst time they would see someone with the Congo virus.
Chapter 21
The family had done as instructed and continued with the task. They had a huge mound of dirt beside the house and had started to fill sandbags. Steve had finished the fort, putting everything they had used back in the shop, and then went to help fill sandbags. Tonya was in mission control, and David was in the fort. Debbie and Danny went to feed all the animals. It got dark around 8:30, and Nancy called it a day and said for everyone to go in so supper could be started. At 8:40, Debbie got a text from Stephanie that only said: “10pm your time.”
She called over the radio, telling everyone. Jake said he would get the computer in mission control ready for the video conference; it would only take a few minutes. As everyone got cleaned up and ate something, Debbie called Tonya in from the fort and sent Steve out for the first shift. Since Bruce and Mike were not here, they had to adjust the watch schedule in six-hour shifts, with the change time adjusting in case someone was watching. Everyone except Steve was in mission control by 9:45, waiting on Stephanie. Nancy told everyone to let her and Debbie do the talking; they did not know how long Stephanie would be on, and they needed information. At 10 p.m. on the dot, the screen flicked and there was Stephanie looking at them.
“Hey, guys,” she said with a weary smile.
Everyone said hi back then Debbie asked, “Stephanie, what is going on?”
“First, I want to tell you they have put people in jail for what I’m about to tell you,” she said, taking a deep breath. “This virus has infected over thirty million so far by our calculation in the US alone, and that is a conservative estimate. It is a single-strand DNA virus like nothing we have ever seen. Once someone is infected, they succumb to the virus, in some cases, in as little as an hour or as long as three days. Now this is what’s hard to believe. They have minimal heartbeats and respirations. Average heartbeat is ten beats a minute, and respirations one breath every three minutes. For all intents and purposes, they should be dead, but they are walking around attacking anything that is warm-blooded. We don’t know how they know if something is warm-blooded, they just do and they attack it. The intelligence level is poor, to say the least, and the majority do not move very fast. But the longer it takes the virus to turn someone, the faster they are. We have reports of some of the infected running at thirty miles per hour. Remember, the fastest human recorded was a little over twenty-seven miles per hour. Plus, they are not affected by lack of oxygen or fatigue and can run incredible distances. Unlike any virus we have ever seen, this virus attacks the entire body from skin to blood and everything in between. It invades every cell of the body and rewrites the DNA of each cell. For reasons we cannot explain, the cells still continue to function and produce ATP to power the body. Fortunately, few make it seventy-two hours, with the average being twelve hours, before succumbing to the virus. As far as intelligence, hardly any problem solving, and they don’t appear to work together, but they do congregate in groups. The theory is like ants they just go after something as individuals but accomplish a task in groups. Let me describe an example, like beating on a door of a house until enough infected join in until they collapse the door to get someone behind it. We have not been able to detect any form of communication, but if one moans or makes any type of vocalization while hunting something, others come and see. We don’t know if they are calling to others, because they do make vocalizations at times not associated with hunting something, and other infected do not come.”
Blue Plague The Fall Page 16