The Infected Dead (Book 7): Scream For Now

by Howard, Bob

  “Spiders don’t live in colonies.”

  “Yeah, well whatever. Just go ahead and find where they do live.”

  Sayer was out the door, and both men were glad the conversation was over for now. Mikhailov was at least satisfied that he could begin testing another group of arthropods to see if they could carry the pathogen, but as he thought about it, he realized it would be better to hope that spiders couldn’t. As for where spiders live, Mikhailov didn’t think he would even need to leave the ship to find them. There were plenty of neglected areas of the old aircraft carrier that were perfect hiding places for spiders.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Swarms

  Kathy remembered sitting in a boat with the Chief at night. They were passing the time waiting for sunrise at the Coast Guard Station by just chatting about things that had happened to them. Her mind didn’t seem to want to stay in one spot as it flashed back to an earlier time when they were all sitting in a raft at night at the mouth of the Stono River. That was back when ‘all of them’ meant her, the Chief, Ed, and Jean. Then their group had grown again, and they were moving through the snow in Columbus, Ohio toward the President’s shelter. They had seen some terrifying and amazing things, but when she tried to remember what had been the worst time, she thought of the heat in New Orleans, and how they had dug frantically in the cemetery to rescue Iris Mason.

  She held one hand out in front of her in the dark. There was so little moonlight that she could barely see her fingers, but sometimes the clouds moved out of the way, and the water reflected the light back at her. She counted off on her fingers as she named the places they had been.

  “Ohio, Minnesota, Alabama, Louisiana….”

  “Don’t forget North Carolina.”

  Kathy might have been more startled because she didn’t expect anyone else to be outside on the beach with her, but the voice belonged to Iris Mason, and it had a way of cutting through the darkness without being intrusive. Besides, they were in friendly territory, if there was such a place. There was no way an infected would have been able to get close enough to attack her, and there was very little chance of there being an infected on this stretch of beach in the first place. The Morris Island lighthouse loomed out of the water about thirty yards to her left, and the island behind her was occupied by hidden sentries guarding the new helicopter landing area.

  “I was just thinking about you. How could I forget North Carolina?”

  Kathy patted the blanket next to her indicating that she wanted Iris to sit with her.

  “Beautiful night,” said Iris as she sat down. She gestured toward the ocean in general. “What’s that over there?”

  “Folly Beach. You haven’t been out here before?”

  “After New Orleans, I didn’t want to leave the shelter for the rest of my life. Remember, I was used to living underground because I had to for five years. It’s taken me a long time to venture away from the Chief’s side.”

  “That’s where you belong,” said Kathy.

  Iris peered into the darkness, and she could just barely make out the shape of a man walking toward them on Folly Beach. He had the familiar stumbling lurch of the infected. He was too far away for him to see them, but sound carried at night, and he could probably hear them.

  Iris lowered her voice out of instinct and asked, “That doesn’t bother you?”

  She gestured toward the infected, but Kathy had seen it too.

  “It used to. It bothered me the way they don’t care what happens to them when they set their sights on their prey. They walk into fire, into the water, and over the edge of cliffs with no worries while we cling to our lives.”

  “That’s because we have lives to cling to, but you already know that.”

  A small chuckle was her way of letting Kathy know she was trying to lift her spirits a bit.

  Kathy couldn’t help but smile because she did know why the living cared about what was happening, and she also knew Iris was just trying to help her keep her head together. It wasn’t just a fear of dying anymore. Now it was a fear of becoming one of them.

  “When I was with the Chief and Jean on the Atlantic Spirit we were physically close to the people as they died. They had both been on the ship before me, and I didn’t think we would leave Charleston alive. It was a close call at the cruise ship docks, but then the three of us were elbows deep in people who had been bitten. Things are so different now. Now we keep our distance.”

  Iris studied Kathy’s profile with the dim light behind her. She was impressed by Kathy’s classic beauty even through the years since the infection began. She didn’t need makeup to look good, but she also had a way of making everyone feel comfortable around her.

  “You have something really eating at you tonight, don’t you?”

  Kathy seemed to go into herself as if Iris had never been there. She snapped out of it and found Iris waiting patiently for her to come back.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Iris. What did you say?”

  Iris didn’t ask again because she knew Kathy was going to realize what she had asked the first time.

  Kathy put her hands over her face and said, “I’m so embarrassed. You must think I’m being rude.”

  “Not at all. You have something on your mind. Care to share it with someone?”

  “You’re right, something’s really bugging me.”

  Kathy turned to give Iris her undivided attention, but just as quickly she was on her feet walking toward the water. Iris was surprised by how quickly the emotion flooded out of Kathy. So quickly that it was making Kathy practically explode with energy.

  “You see that infected walking into the water like it thinks it can just walk right over here to us? That’s the tenth one in the last thirty minutes, and my guess is that it’s been going on longer than that. And you know what? I don’t think it’s because I’ve been sitting over here. I think it’s because something is calling them from over there.”

  Kathy was turning so fast that Iris could hardly keep up with her, but she ended by pointing back in the direction of Fort Sumter.

  Iris was confused.

  “Why would someone from Fort Sumter be calling them?”

  Kathy shook her head. “Not Fort Sumter. Patriots Point.”

  Iris had forgotten that Patriots Point was in a straight line from where she was sitting but on the other side of Fort Sumter.

  “How are they calling them?”

  “I need to talk with the Chief about that, but I’m not the only one who has developed a whopping case of tinnitus. I’ve heard a lot of people complaining that they have ringing in their ears.”

  Iris seemed to be thinking about it but agreed.

  “I thought it was just because I was getting old.”

  “No, it started a long time ago. I can’t say exactly when, but it was there for a long time before I started feeling like it was coming from somewhere over by the bridge. I think they have something over there that’s making the infected all come toward Charleston.”

  “You think it’s got something to do with that big horde coming this way?”

  “I do, and the proof is right over here. Every infected on Folly Beach has been walking into the water trying to get to Patriots Point. At first I thought they were trying to reach me, but I’ll bet if one of them made it across the water from Folly Beach to Morris Island, it would walk right by us and keep going until it walked into the Charleston harbor.”

  As if to accent her point, there was a splash over on the beach behind her as another infected dead walked too far out into the current. Its head bobbed on the surface for a few feet before it disappeared for good.

  Iris had always been a surprise to anyone who had gotten to know her. Before the infection she had become the chief of security on a cruise liner with the same job as Chief Barnes. That job had showcased her talents as a ship’s ambassador as well as a supervisor. Her striking silver hair and her tall, slender stature carried with it an aura of confidence. She could single handedly de
-escalate any situation that had already gotten out of control, but if she got there first, it would never reach a boiling point. Before the cruise ship she had worked as a professor at the University of North Carolina where she was able to share her critical thinking skills with young people. All in all, she was one of the main intellectual assets of the Mud Island family.

  “If you’re right, we need to find out why someone would want to summon the infected into one area, but as sinister as it sounds at first, isn’t it just as likely that they’re doing it to eliminate the infected?”

  Kathy didn’t answer immediately, and Iris waited patiently. That was one of her ways of making sure people thought through their own beliefs. She gave them time to think about their answers when she put forth an opposing view.

  Kathy hadn’t leaned in that direction. One thing made it seem evil to her, and that was the fate of anyone alive who might be in the path of that massive horde. People were surviving when confronted by small hordes, but this one was like a plague of locusts, and it didn’t just consume everyone in its path, it absorbed them.

  “I can’t bring myself to believe there’s anything good about summoning the largest horde in the world to one small corner of humanity,” she said. “If the purpose is to destroy them, someone must have thought it through, and they would have decided that the living people in the path of the horde were expendable for the greater good.”

  “I see your point,” said Iris. “History is full of examples that support your theory. Sacrifice a few to save many. If it’s the decision of the few to sacrifice themselves, then it would be noble, but too often it’s the decision of someone in a position of power who’s deciding the fate of the people who are being sacrificed. Is that what you suspect is happening?”

  “It has to be. They didn’t conduct a survey before they started doing it. They just decided that as long as the victims are faceless, it’s okay to just give them a memorial service and a statue or something. Most likely not even that much.”

  “Okay, if they are summoning them, whoever they are they must be well funded and not entirely stupid. They would have had an existing infrastructure to begin operating right after the outbreak of the infection. That would narrow down the list of candidates to the military and the federal government.”

  “Or the combination of the two,” said Kathy.

  Iris did as Kathy had done earlier. She held up her hand and started counting off agencies with her fingers.

  “The CIA, Homeland Security, FBI, FEMA, Department of Defense, ICE, ATF, DEA, CDC, or even more likely two or more of them together.”

  A pair of dark silhouettes was approaching at a leisurely pace from the direction of the tunnel entrance that led to the steel vault door of the shelter. Ever since they had decided to seal the doors at Fort Sumter and use the backdoor as the main point of access, the inhabitants of the shelter had taken advantage of the opportunity to enjoy the night time air of the beach. The air around Fort Sumter usually smelled like the marshes and the thick pluff mud. The air on the beach was fresh and clean on the best nights, and it was mosquito heaven on the worst nights.

  Kathy and Iris stopped talking and waited for them to draw closer before resuming. They expected it to be friends, and the dark pair didn’t walk like the infected, but they were always going to err on the side of caution.

  “This must be ladies night out,” said Iris when she recognized Janice and Colleen.

  “Mind if we join you?” Colleen always had a smile on her face since teaming up with Hampton, and she flashed it in the direction of Kathy and Iris.

  “Not at all,” said Kathy. “I would have brought wine and cheese if I had known we were going to be doing this.”

  “I feel like this must be the calm before the storm,” said Iris.

  Janice asked, “What’s that mean? I had enough drama on that oil rig. Are you expecting something?”

  The newcomers dropped to the blanket with Kathy and Iris, and Colleen handed Kathy a bottle.

  “I brought my own.”

  Janice produced a sleeve of plastic cups, and they eagerly passed them out.

  “Now we can discuss this situation in a more civilized manner.”

  “Whatever that means,” said Colleen. “Are you two talking about something specific or just rehashing the old stand-by question about where the zombies came from.”

  Kathy and Iris did a mock double-take in the direction of Fort Sumter.

  “I don’t think the Chief heard her,” said Kathy. “This is something I think all of us have wondered about, but it has a new twist.”

  Iris added, “Kathy thinks there’s something over at Patriots Point that’s summoning the infected to Charleston. That’s why the horde is coming this way.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Janice. She had both hands in the air in front of her as if she was telling something to stop coming toward her.

  “Are you saying those things can still hear? I mean, I knew they could hear something because if you make a noise near one it will zero in on you, but you’re telling us they can be called to you from a long distance? But I don’t hear anything, so that would make me more stupid than a zombie. Someone is using a ‘zombie-whistle’, and I don’t even hear it.”

  “But you do hear it,” said Kathy. “You just haven’t realized it yet. How long have you had ringing in your ears?”

  “I always thought it was something in the power systems of the shelter, sort of like a hum or vibration or something,” said Iris. “I lived inside the shelter below Ambassadors Island for five years, and there was always a persistent hum from the generators. I guess I just got used to it and pushed it from my mind.”

  “Well, I’ve slept better at times. It was always so deathly quiet on the oil rig, but now that you mention it, there’s something here that keeps me from falling asleep sometimes.”

  A series of splashes on the other side of the inlet made them all look that way. At least six infected had walked into the water and were being swept away by the current.

  “That’s been going on for hours,” said Kathy, “and if we could still go topside at the fort, I would go out with binoculars and watch the Battery over at White Point Gardens. I’ll bet they’re trying to walk to Patriots Point from there and dropping into the Cooper River. Until the horde arrives Charleston could win the safest city in America award because the infected are all drowning themselves.”

  “Do we still have a camera aimed at the Ravenel Bridge?” asked Colleen.

  “Why didn’t I think of that?” asked Kathy. “I’ll bet the ones that aren’t swimming in the river are walking right to the source. Thanks for the wine.”

  She was up and running toward the tunnel without even noticing that Colleen, Iris, and Janice were all right behind her.

  ******

  Captain Miller was in the tunnel when he saw the four women coming toward him on the golf cart. It was moving at top speed, but the way they were gripping the handrails made him think they were willing the machine to go faster. He didn’t have to hold up his hand to stop, and they actually fishtailed toward him.

  “Are we under attack?” he yelled.

  They all talked at once, and this time he had to hold up his hand to restore order.

  “One at a time. Kathy, you first.”

  “We think Patriots Point is calling the infected.”

  Kathy was panting as if she had been running instead of riding.

  “Calling them how?”

  Despite wanting to stay as serious as he could for Kathy’s sake, Captain Miller couldn’t stop himself.

  “Did they figure out how to use cell phones?”

  The expressions on the faces of the four women made him hold up both hands this time.

  “Hey, don’t shoot me. Do you know what you just said?”

  “Okay, let me rephrase it. We think Patriots Point has been sending out some kind of signal that only the infected can hear, and it’s making them all come this way. It’s the only way
to explain the behavior of the infected. We want to get a look at the camera views of Charleston to see if the infected are trying to reach Mount Pleasant.”

  “There isn’t room for me to join you on that cart. Go ahead and I’ll catch up with you. When you get there, tell any of the pilots you see that I want a crew in the air over the Ravenel Bridge as soon as possible, and see if someone is available to make a run over Folly Beach.”

  Kathy didn’t waste a moment, and the way she and the others burst into the control room was enough to create the sense of urgency they needed. Two pilots and a flight crew got to the vault door just as Captain Miller arrived, and he explained in as few words as possible that he needed to find out what the infected were doing near the bridge and along the coastline of Charleston. Then he remembered to add Folly Beach.

  He joined the ladies at a computer terminal that was connected to the cameras and saw that Kathy was already zooming in as far as possible along the Battery at White Point Gardens. She had a remarkably clear image that showed several of the infected searching for an opening in the railing that ran along the edge of the park. Where the railing ended, there were dozens of infected dead walking into the water. At night they were silhouettes against what little light came through the clouds from the moon, and they could imagine that it would be a shocking view in daylight.

  “I wish our radio signals were as reliable as our cameras,” said Captain Miller.

  “I wonder how many have already gone into the water,” said Colleen.

  “I can’t get a view of the bridge from high enough to see over the railing, but I’d bet anything there’s a parade going up the bridge from the city,” said Kathy.

  “I ran into the pilots, and I told them to get some good intel on movements of the infected, but I also told them to get some good pictures of the bridge. If you are right about what you said, they would need to be broadcasting their signal from somewhere high. There couldn’t be anywhere better than the bridge itself. One question, though. Have you sorted out why they would be calling the infected to come to them?”