“I quit! I give up! I surrender!” Gabe shouted holding his hands high. He looked up into Tad’s face, immediately recognizing him as an infected. He started to yell for help, then noticed the rifle in Tad’s hands and felt a frigid wave of terror wash over him. Tad’s lips curled and he bared his ragged teeth in a gruesome smile. The last thing Gabe ever heard was Tad’s voice saying, “Oh, fuck,” followed by the sound of his own screaming.
Chapter 23: Windup
Dr. Vargas, aided by Carolyn, his aide and a few volunteers spent hours tending to the wounded. The bones in Ted’s arm needed to be reset, the three other Hollington wounded had their, more minor injuries cleaned and bandaged and Kate needed three stitches on her forehead but most of the time was taken up seeing to Hannah and Bernie’s bullet wounds. Vargas wanted to keep Bernie overnight for observation and, surprisingly enough to all, Kim insisted on staying by his side through the night, accompanied by a rather confused Kate. An equally puzzled Joaquin remained nearby, Brooke keeping him company through the night.
About mid-morning, Pete and Jake discovered what remained of Gabe only a few yards from the Tahoe. They found his Uzi smashed into useless scrap-metal, nearby. Pete buried the remains in a shallow grave while Jake stood guard and they drove the Tahoe back to the farmhouse.
Tad discovered that Gabe’s shoes fit his own feet quite nicely, though he was still trying to remember how to tie a knot. On impulse, he stopped at a small pond some miles away from the scene of last night’s conflict, removed the new shoes and entered the water, months of dirt and grime and dried gore slowly loosening. He pulled off the ragged clothes he’d worn since the beginning and let them drift away. After rubbing himself as clean as he could with his hands, he left the water and put on the clothes he’d taken from Gabe’s truck. They were a bit too large but they were clean and fresh and he felt good having them on. Only afterward did he wonder how he knew to button the shirt, thread and fasten the belt and actually manage to tie his shoes. Distant memories were slowly crystallizing, mostly in a jumble of thoughts and images that made no sense to him at the time, but he was learning again. Pistol stuffed in his belt and rifle cradled in his arms, he made his way along the road, thinking about how he needed to find a place to stay, a place to call home.
Phil argued with the Citizen’s Committee, maintaining that blame for the deaths of four Hollington men and the wounding of three others could not be laid solely at the feet of the ‘Harper group’, as the chairman had taken to calling them. Ted testified that the deaths actually were his own fault for being in so much of a rush that he didn’t notice the roadside bomb until too late. Unmoved, the chairman declared that it had been a mistake to grant autonomy to the ‘Harper group’ and that measures would have to be taken to bring them under Hollington authority. Phil pointed out that Jake’s band arose of its own accord, with no help from Hollington and that it wasn’t up to the committee to grant or withhold autonomy. Grudgingly, the chairman acquiesced as the committee voted to conduct further deliberations to consider what future action, if any, to take.
. . .
It took a week to repair the damage done to the house by the attack. Boards painted roughly to match covered the bullet-ridden outside walls. Paneling, new windows and doors were surprisingly easy to find, as were wood trim and paint since none were in high demand by the few survivors left in the area. Everyone was back at the farmhouse by then, Bernie being included in the group upon Kim’s recommendation.
Vickie was smiling as she watched Jake and Tom carry the leftover pieces of lumber to the barn.
“Not that I don’t enjoy seeing you smile at me,” Jake stopped to say, “but what are you thinking about?”
“Just that for once, you came out of everything without a scratch.”
Jake patted down his arms, legs and torso and, with a look of mock surprise, said “Hey, how about that?”
Vickie kissed him and Jake put his arms around her and kissed her back.
“Hey, you two!” Eve called from across the yard. “Get a room!”
“That sounds like a good idea to me,” Jake grinned, and Vickie took him by the hand and led him back to the house.
Author’s Notes
The popularity of zombie movies, television shows and books at the time was a driving factor in my decision to write Lethal Infection. The concept of a zombie apocalypse fascinates me for some reason, but I’ve never been entirely satisfied with any book I’ve read or film I’ve seen.
Jake said to Vickie in my first book, when she voiced her impression that the brain had to be destroyed in order to kill an infected, “You’ve watched too many cheap zombie movies.” Many of the movies and books and the vastly popular TV series explain that some portion of the populace succumbed to disease, biological weaponry or even radiation to turn into zombies. Yet they gleefully depict these beings attacking and killing with huge portions of their anatomy torn asunder, with limbs hacked off, even decapitated heads still trying to bite and chew and, presumably swallow (without a throat???). This has always been unacceptable to me and I wanted to write a book that was a bit more realistic, if any of this can actually be considered realistic. I admit that, beyond health classes in high school and some basic first aid training in the military, I have no actual medical credentials, but you don’t have to be a board-certified doctor to see the fallacies here.
The fact remains, as, again, Jake told Vickie, even if it is only a tiny part of the brain that survives, it still requires oxygen and nutrients to be able to direct the movement of arms, legs and jaws, as well as every other part of the human anatomy that must continue to function. A stopped heart means no blood flow to the brain and the brain dies, period. If the lungs have been destroyed or have no access to oxygen, they cannot supply it to the bloodstream and without oxygen, the brain dies, period. Massive trauma to the body that, in turn, entails massive blood loss means there’s no blood for the heart to pump and the brain dies, period. And when the brain dies, the body dies. Period.
Then there’s the supernatural zombie, the person who has been transformed or the corpse brought back to life by some magic potion or the repeating of some ancient incantation. There are people who believe in this. There are people who, while not necessarily believing in it themselves, will accept it as a valid plot device. I fall into neither of those categories.
A special thank you to my good friend, Doug Henson, for your kind encouragement and for all the great times we had working together. You are sorely missed.
Tony Battista
Revised edition: April 2020
This is a book of fiction. None of the character names were taken from or intended to represent actual people. Any similarities between any of the characters or events herein and any actual person or events are entirely coincidental and unintentional.
Lethal Infection- Book III: The Rebound
Foreword:
A brief recap of the first two books in the trilogy.
In Book I, the story revolves around Jake Harper, a steelworker in his mid-thirties who becomes the de facto leader of a growing group of survivors after an accidental release of a particularly virulent biological agent that nearly destroys the human race. The interactions of the group are the focus of the storyline rather than endless descriptions of battles with the infected. Mutations of the virus bring about different effects as time goes on and as the group is forced to move from one supposed safe haven to another, trying to find a place to start their lives over.
Book II: The Infected Return takes up the story after a long winter, which devastated the infected, who lack the intelligence to seek shelter against the weather. The following spring surviving infected move up from the warmer, southern areas to re-invade. They are fewer in number and have suffered terribly from a year of exposure to the elements but now have a leader, an alpha; one who’s more intelligent and adaptable than the average infected. An organized gang of bandits also appears to threaten the survivors even as they themselves have to de
al with the infected. An established community appears to give hope to the survivors though it involves yet another uprooting and the building of another safe house.
Book III now picks up with a different set of survivors who, eventually, meet up with the original group and, together, try to reestablish some form of civilization.
Chapter 1: Karen
Karen Monroe groped for the alarm with her right hand, fumbling for a moment or two until she found the switch to turn it off. Groaning, she sat up at the edge of the bed and rubbed her eyes, wishing, not for the first time, that she had a normal job with normal hours. She always made it a point to be sitting in front of the TV in her living room with a cup of coffee in time for the noon news no matter how late her shift ended, but this morning she was sorely tempted to pull the covers over her head and abandon her ritual. Last night had been brutal; the place was packed, both the bar and the restaurant, the other bartender called off, two minor fistfights broke out and a waitress tripped and dropped a heavily loaded tray of food right in front of the bar. She didn’t get home until sometime after five o’clock this morning.
There was nothing much of interest on the news today, just the usual accidents, fires, break-ins and general human-interest stories. One of the stories was a report of a disease outbreak in some area of eastern Africa with an odd six-syllable name that the newsreader stumbled over twice. It had been in the news for the last three or four days but there really wasn’t much information about the particulars, just that the World Health Organization was investigating it. The weatherman predicted mostly sunny skies for the next seven days with a slight chance of rain on Tuesday. She sat through the sports reluctantly, trying to keep up enough to seem on top of things when one of the bar patrons would, inevitably, bring up the subject while he waited for her to pour his drink.
The coffee did its magic and she headed for the bathroom, emerging 45 minutes later freshly showered, dressed and made up and ready to face another day. She hadn’t heard from Dan since their argument four days earlier and decided to write him off as yet another jerk who thought the third date automatically included sex and became offended when he didn’t get it. There was never a shortage of men asking her for a date or something more explicit while she tended bar and she occasionally went out with some of the more sober and less obnoxious ones. That she was an attractive, thirty year old redhead with an athletic build and a voice like smooth velvet certainly didn’t hurt her popularity. Dan seemed like a keeper until the end of the third date when she refused to go home with him or to at least satisfy him in the front seat in the parking lot. She took a cab home and chalked it up to experience.
Nothing in her refrigerator appealed to her so she went out to grab a bite at Santino’s where she knew the owner and could get breakfast any time of the day. The jovial older man met her as she walked through the door and wrapped her in a bear hug, kissing her cheeks and, once again, scolding her for being so skinny. Santino himself was just under five and a half feet tall and tipped the scale at a little over three hundred pounds. He was always encouraging her to eat more, offering her extra helpings and free desserts and trying to fix her up with his nephew, Gino.
While he went to personally prepare her meal, Karen leafed through the newspaper that always seemed to appear on her table and came across an article in the front section about WHO investigators being dispatched to somewhere in the Nugaal Valley area of Somalia to examine an apparent widespread outbreak of disease. She finished most of her omelet, one piece of toast, part of a big Italian sausage and two more cups of coffee before paying her bill, getting another hug from Santino and telling him it would be okay if he gave her number to Gino.
. . .
She parked in the lot behind the bar at 6:45 and chatted with the afternoon bartender before starting her shift. It had been a quiet day so far but business had been picking up over the last hour or so and Karen readied herself for another long night. As usual, all the televisions were tuned to sports channels and everyone was talking about this team or that player and how he should have gotten a few million more on his new contract. The usual number of guys hit on her, some of them with visible wedding rings, a few with the telltale white band around their finger after slipping said rings into their pockets. At 11:00 she switched one of the televisions to a news broadcast and heard that all civilian traffic into or out of Somalia had been suspended temporarily. Beyond vague references to some exotic new disease, there wasn’t a lot more to the story than that. Last call eventually came and she finally left work at 3:15.
The noon news the next day carried reports that a multi-national naval force led by a US carrier group under UN auspices was enforcing a blockade of all ports on the eastern horn of Africa and air traffic was limited to military and emergency medical flights. No official word was forthcoming on the reasons, but it was thought that the containment of a virulently contagious disease prompted such drastic measures. Karen hit the internet, searching for more information but, conspiracy sites aside, found out little more than what she’d heard on the news. Again, nothing in her refrigerator held any appeal so she decided she couldn’t put off a trip to the grocery any longer and headed out. While waiting in the checkout line, she glanced at the tabloids and one particularly lurid headline jumped out at her. She chuckled and shook her head at the absurd notion of hordes of zombies swarming the countryside devouring every living thing they encountered and wondered, not for the first time, how anyone could actually fall for that kind of thing.
At home, she made herself a quick lunch and spent the next couple of hours on the jogging track at the city park. The six o’clock news that evening reported on the beginnings of some sort of epidemic in northern India as well as the increasingly drastic measures to isolate eastern Africa from the outside world and Karen began to wonder if this was turning into something she needed to worry about. Again, the networks fell short of a complete explanation, as did the more reputable internet sites.
It being Friday night, the place was jumping and Karen had little enough time to think about anything but filling bar orders. Most of the conversation was still about sports, but more than a few people were talking about the epidemic and two of the screens were tuned to 24-hour news stations. Another outbreak was reported in Beijing and North Korea had sealed its borders, allowing no one in or out by land, sea or air. An announcement came near midnight that The Somali Infection, as it was now being called, had spread north to Egypt and Libya, south as far as Mozambique, to the Atlantic coast from Nigeria to Angola and across the Red Sea to Saudi Arabia and Yemen. By that time nobody was interested in scores and trades anymore and all were paying rapt attention to a visual showing a red stain spreading across the map from eastern Africa to the other side of the continent and into the Middle East as well as two smaller ones leeching out from India and northeastern China. No more than an hour later, a blotch of red appeared on the west coast of the US and people began to leave, unfinished drinks and uneaten food left on the tables behind them.
Over the weekend, the disease jumped the Mediterranean into Italy and Greece, moving into France, Germany and Eastern Europe. Tensions between Pakistan and India mounted rapidly over the flood of refugees trying to escape the infection across India’s western border and scattered reports of military activity along that border began to filter in. Fresh fighting was reported in the Middle East, large scale rioting across Africa and Asia and a state of emergency declared in California as well as the first outbreaks along the eastern seaboard. At 4:35 Monday morning came the first confirmation of a nuclear exchange between Pakistan and India.
The Dow nose-dived immediately after the markets opened and trading was suspended less than an hour later. The prices of gold and other precious metals skyrocketed as people bought up as much as they could by any means available, converting paper money and credit balances into hard physical assets. Gasoline quadrupled in price as did food and most other basic necessities and cities across the US began reporting increa
sed crime rates, rioting and looting along both coasts, the southern border states and even some areas in the Midwest.
Karen stayed in her apartment all day watching the news, watching the world fall apart. She debated not going into work that night, but decided that being alone in her apartment was an even less attractive alternative. Usually she carried her 9mm Beretta in her handbag, but decided, tonight, to wear it in the belt rig under a light jacket. Getting her concealed carry permit two years earlier now seemed to her to be one of the better decisions she’d ever made.
Vic, the afternoon bartender, was nervously puffing a cigarette when she arrived and she was about to scold him about the anti-smoking ordinance when she noticed at least a dozen customers were also smoking and no one seemed to be taking exception. He took off almost immediately, ten minutes before the end of his shift and Karen was left to contend with a bar full of anxious people, most of whom were more than half-drunk.
The news reported apparent human wave attacks across the demilitarized zone into South Korea. South Korean fighter-bombers had resorted to napalm attacks to stem the invasion, but the border had been penetrated in too many places already. By this time, every continent had been subjected to outbreaks of varying seriousness, although, in retrospect, all of the outbreaks were mortally serious.
The place was empty by nine o’clock and the owner sent everyone home, telling them not to come back until getting a phone call from him. Karen had no idea what to do with herself and she ended up at Santino’s. The old man was haggard looking but obviously glad to see her. He told her she needed to stay off the streets until daylight because “bad people, they come and they make trouble. And they way you dress, I know you a nice girl, you need to quit this bartending job and find some decent work and wear some decent clothes”. She realized he’d never seen her in the revealing outfit she wore at the bar. It made for good tips, but she was suddenly very conscious of how it must look to an old-fashioned gentleman like Santino. He had an apartment above the restaurant and told her he had a spare room she could sleep in. She tried to tell him she could take care of herself but the sound of gunfire in the immediate neighborhood, followed by screams and sirens interrupted her arguments and she took him up on his offer.
The Complete Lethal Infection Trilogy Page 45