Viral Misery | Book 3 | Revelations

by Watson, Thomas A.

  Lifting a hand up to get Arthur’s attention, “Hang on to what you got. We can give them that,” Chad offered.

  Shaking his head, “No, you keep yours because those you brought in need training,” Arthur replied.

  Laughing, “We make our own ammo,” Chad stated proudly.

  Nodding, “So do I,” Arthur answered.

  “No, we make it. Yes, we reload, but we make our ammo from brass up, including caps,” Chad said with pride.

  Again nodding, “So do I,” Arthur repeated, and he was impressed but not shocked at Chad’s statement. “How much .22 can you make in a week?”

  Arthur may not have been in shock, but Chad was. “You’ve told me a dozen times you weren’t a prepper,” Chad mumbled.

  Shrugging, “Never have been,” Arthur admitted. “We lived this way so I could fuck the government back some as much as they’ve fucked me. So, we grew our own food, made clothes, made guns, made alcohol, made tobacco, so I didn’t have to pay them for my choice to do what I want on my land, to my fucking body. So, how much .22?”

  With blatant awe stamped on his face, “You’re so fucking awesome,” Chad mumbled then shook his head. “Never ran the machines that long, but the .22 line can put out 500 an hour.”

  “Mine can almost do that,” Arthur said.

  “Can you make centerfire?” Chad asked.

  “7.62, 5.56, .45 ACP, and 9mm,” Arthur answered. “I could make others, but I would have to make the die presses. Now by hand, I can make others, but I don’t count that because it takes fucking forever.”

  “That’s why LL is in hog heaven, you liked to fuck with the feds,” Jason laughed.

  “Hey,” Arthur snapped. “Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a club, a cool-ass club, not a government agency. And yes, when they proudly started to add the E for the ATFE, that’s when another container was buried, and I learned how to make explosives. You don’t tell me I have to ask your fucking permission to do shit on my land.”

  “Oh fuck, you’re growing tobacco?” Chad panted in ecstasy.

  Holding up both hands, “Whoa,” Arthur called out. “Yes, but that’s LL’s. You want some talk to him. I dip every once in a while, but I learned to grow it just to show I could. Pissed those fuckers off when I sold bags of tobacco labeled ‘display only’ because I grew it in the greenhouse. Didn’t even have to go to court. Judge ruled it was clearly labeled and I wasn’t selling in enough quantity to be labeled as anything other than a curio,” Arthur stated proudly.

  “You didn’t have to take an ad out in the paper,” Joseph chuckled. “And the only time you dip is when you really want to piss off Mom.”

  Feeling the glare from Wendy, “And it works,” Arthur said not looking at her. “I can give you some seeds.”

  Grinning, “I’ll swallow,” Chad offered, and Arthur busted out laughing as LL went ballistic. It took a minute, but LL finally sat back down.

  “Okay, now back to the numbers. Just from what I’ve found and shown you, a quarter of those who survived were killed. And quite a few did commit suicide. Jason is putting that number between thirteen and seventeen percent. I didn’t feel comfortable enough to even try putting that on paper. As everyone has noticed, others aren’t growing food but they’re killing animals so starvation isn’t going to be that high, but a meat-only diet is hard on the body.

  “Now as many here see, this winter is starting hard but it’s not going to get difficult till January. Now these are only projections, but I feel good about them because of how I see people living now. We feel by spring, another twenty percent will have died off. So that original ten percent of survivors who didn’t die off from Rudolph, we’re going to be under half. In Arkansas, using a three million population, using round numbers,” Arthur stated quickly, “three hundred thousand survived Rudolph. Now just using what we’ve found, that means by spring we’ll be at or under a hundred fifty thousand, but the killing won’t stop and neither will the dying.”

  “So, the dogs are going to be more of a problem?” Albert asked. “They’ll attack now but, I’m a city boy and I know they aren’t really hunting us now.”

  Nodding, “Very good, Albert, because they aren’t really, but that’ll change and I can’t give a timeline,” Arthur said, tapping the computer and the other screen came to life. “The day before Halloween, Jason and I were out on patrol with the wives,” Arthur said and heard snickering. “It wasn’t Date Night,” he said looking up. “I’ve gone out on how many patrols with Wendy? Date Nights are special, and we don’t even have to worry about cops.”

  “Hey, babe?” Wendy called out and Arthur turned to her. “Another Date Night needs to get in the works, I’m just saying.”

  Giving Wendy a wink, “Jason and I will work on it, babe, but it may be a bit. I don’t like going that far out with snow on the ground.”

  Nodding, “That’s good, I just wanted to put it on your schedule now,” Wendy said as Samantha blew Jason a kiss. “Double dating rocks.”

  Laughing as a paused video image came on the screen, “We’ll see what we can come up with,” Arthur said. Many kids breathed a sigh of relief as the other members got worried expressions, they knew what happened on Date Nights. Well, they knew shit died and it never died pretty. They didn’t know how Date Night ended, and how much better Wendy acted afterwards.

  When Arthur hit play, everyone saw the large pack of Bassett Hounds in the distance. “Hey, we saw those!” Chad cried out. “Yvonne is a vet at the compound and I asked because only Bassett Hounds are in that pack. She said they were probably raised on a hunting camp together.”

  “They were, Wendy and I hunted there,” Arthur said as the video cut off and came back on. The camera was looking down a hill at a nice-sized, lone house some six hundred yards away. The Bassett Hounds were a hundred yards away from the house just outside the overgrown yard. The grass looked around four inches tall, but the cow patties dotting the area explained why it wasn’t taller. The dogs suddenly stopped barking and spread out, and a lone dog bounded over to the house. The front door looked like it had been torn down by man or animal, but nobody could tell from the video.

  “Smell it?” they heard Arthur say on the video.

  “Yes, I do, and I want to know why we’re so fucking close,” they heard Wendy respond on the video.

  “I’m telling you, I’m right and this is more than enough distance to get away,” Arthur answered on the video, and everyone started wondering what the hell was in the house as the lone dog eased up on the porch while the other dogs had formed a rather large half circle at the front of the house.

  The lone Bassett trotted up on the porch and started barking at the door. Even with the camera so far away, the barks were loud, but everyone could hear the squeaking from inside the house. Bouncing off the porch and still barking, the lone dog stopped. At the door, brown and black bodies of rats started pouring out.

  “Run dog!” one of the kids in the hall shouted, making Arthur chuckle.

  Before the rats reached the ground, all the other dogs started barking and the lone dog kept bouncing away, barking. Some rats continued after him, but the others spread out like an oil spill, fanning out across the yard and still a stream was coming out from the house. Fifty yards away from the house, the rats didn’t look like a solid carpet anymore and you could see individuals as the dogs kept barking, but the camera never left the door.

  It took a few minutes, but finally the stream of rats stopped pouring out of the house and Arthur panned the camera. The Bassett Hounds were staying right at the edge of the rats. Then they would lunge, grabbing one in their mouth and dart a few paces away. From every side, the dogs were doing the same thing. The camera zoomed in on the closest and when the dog grabbed a rat, the video left no doubt the dog was biting hard enough to kill the rat. Running just yards away the dog dropped the rat, bit at the butt and pulled. The furl came up like the dog was skinning the rat, then the dog got a few bites and went back, g
rabbing another.

  When Arthur tapped the computer, the video paused. “Did you notice how the dog ate?” Arthur asked.

  “I swear, it skinned the rat,” Chad mumbled. “Please tell me I’m not imagining it, but rats weren’t that big before the virus.”

  Shaking his head, “No, on average before the outbreak, they weighed about a pound, but Jason and I’ve been doing our own research and now the average is two pounds three ounces, there was lots of food but that’s stopping. We’ve found more than a few rats that weighed three pounds, and one monster that weighed five. I feel by the summer rats will be back down to a pound or so because they’ll have to work for their food,” Arthur said. “Yes, it was skinning in a way but like bears, the dogs were eating the most nutrient packed parts. Skin for fat and skull for the eyes and brains, in bears it’s called ‘high-grade’ feeding. I skinned a rat for Wendy to show her how much fat was on the skin. I would show you the picture, but I was warned to never show it if she was around.”

  “Once was enough,” Wendy nodded. “It’s just the fact that rat was so fucking big you didn’t have any trouble skinning it. That’s what I don’t like seeing.”

  “How did millions of rats fit in that house?” Jill asked in awe. “Yes, we’ve smelled them, but I’ve never seen a million come out of a house that size.”

  Shaking his head, “Jill, that wasn’t even five thousand rats,” Arthur replied very confidently. “That’s why I stayed focused so long on the door. There were between twenty-three to twenty-eight hundred rats in that house. Later in the program, I’ll prove it.” The others looked at each other in disbelief but noticed nobody from the ranch had any problem accepting that number.

  Seeing the others were finding that hard to believe, “Guys, I’ll show you images of tens of thousands, then hundreds of thousands, and finally millions of rats,” Arthur told them. “But I wanted to show you Albert was right. I knew animals would be eating rats, but never that thoroughly or with such a plan. We watched the dogs for the better part of two hours,” Arthur said and tapped the computer and the video left and a picture filled the screen. “This is the same dog, as you can tell. The image on the right is a still shot before the house, the one on the left is when the pack finally left.” On the right the Bassett was trim and looked lean, but on the left his belly was so swollen it looked painful.

  “In case anyone’s wondering, Math Junky counted the bodies of rats left behind and the dogs took out five hundred and seventeen,” Arthur told them then cocked his head. “But, the parts of the rats the dogs didn’t eat, the other rats did, cleaning up the battlefield.”

  Giving a shiver, “I don’t need to see the picture,” Jill informed him.

  “Now, I bring this up because I’ve found bears eating rats, and I sat and watched one eat twenty in an hour. He didn’t go in a house, he caught a group moving. Sorry I don’t have video but it was just neat to watch. He would run over, bite one, bounce back, eat it, and repeat.”

  “Um, since you seem to have put thought into this,” Chad said looking in the binder. “This figure you have for rat population, you think it’s correct?”

  “Shit no, that’s low,” Arthur scoffed. “I told Sutton and Skannish to use numbers of one rat per person, because that’s the accepted standard before the virus, but told them stay on the low end.”

  “You mean to tell me there are ten billion rats in America?” Chad asked, trying not to shiver.

  “No,” Arthur replied shaking his head. “There are more. I told them to stay low, remember.”

  It was clear Chad was having trouble getting to that in his mind. “Chad, three hundred million people died, round numbers, remember? I know there were lots more, but I like round numbers. Just staying low again, let’s say everyone who died weighed a hundred and fifty pounds. The national average was higher, but again, round numbers. That’s over forty-five billion tons of food that was just lying there. Rats and mice can respond with numbers, and only insects can produce faster. That’s why ants formed carpets that covered acres this summer. Unlike ants, rats and mice can move out further and find food, therefore survive in massive numbers longer. Mice will eat seeds and such. Like I’ve told everyone, America is mostly grassland now. Mice will be here a while before they get back to equilibrium with nature and rats will have a supply of food.”

  “How long?” Chad panted out.

  “It’s just a guess, we’re thinking five years, but I’m sure rats will be under a billion in two years,” Arthur answered.

  Letting out a gasp, “That’s why you have that moat!” Albert cried out in wonder. “Does it work?”

  “Fuck yeah, it works,” Arthur sang out. “But I put it in for ants and rats. Luckily, we only had one colony of ants find us and we spotted them when they came over the south fence,” Arthur said tapping the computer. “Now, we did cheat and lead them there because I didn’t want them getting the beehives or chickens.”

  An image sprang up of an aerial view of a field. “That dark spot across the field running back to the trees isn’t a shadow of a cloud, that’s ants. This image was taken from one of our drones,” Arthur told them, and Shawn got up and left.

  “I’ll be back, Pops,” he said walking out, trying not to shiver.

  “That’s fire ants. They’re moving in a group that’s one hundred and ten yards across and extends back two hundred and thirty yards. Not even math junky tried to come up with numbers because he doesn’t want to know any more than anyone else,” Arthur explained. “We led them to the moat, and it took sixteen hours once they reached it till they were all in. Like fire ants do, they formed huge clusters making rafts and were pulled to the pumps. That one army filled, filled with ant bodies, three fifty-five-gallon drums. No, I didn’t weigh them because I didn’t want to know. I poured fuel in and burned their bodies and let me tell you, that many burning ant bodies makes a smell you’ll never forget and I don’t want to smell again.”

  “I’m good if you skip anything else about ants,” Jill mumbled. “You said we didn’t have to worry and I have enough stuff in my mind for nightmares, I don’t need extra.”

  “Thank you,” Arthur said tapping the computer and the ant pictures left the screen, and Shawn came back in.

  “Sorry, Pops. I just don’t like seeing them anymore,” Shawn admitted heading back to his chair.

  “How many rats has your moat caught?” Chad asked.

  Shrugging, “Have no idea, but it caught them and grinded their asses up,” Arthur replied, then gave a brief description on how the moat functioned.

  Leaning closer to his group when Arthur was done, “We’re making a moat around the living quarters,” Chad told them. “I don’t care what we push back, but we’re building a fucking moat.” They all nodded in agreement as Arthur continued.

  “As of right now, masses of rats haven’t made it this far out. If you look for the page with a rat on it, we outline how we’ve trapped them, and rats are still staying near civilization. Not all, mind you, but most are. My traps are drums where rats crawl up a little ramp and into holes at the top because they smell food. Once inside, they drop into shredders and optical sensors keep track of the numbers. Traps set up within five miles of the interstate can catch eight hundred in a night. I’m certain it would be more, but that’s all the ground-up rat my drum will hold. Now if you move just two more miles out, the traps only catch four hundred, and each mile after that continues to drop. Outside our fence, we catch twenty or thirty. Inside, three. No, it’s not the wall, we have a fucking army of cats.

  “Before this started we had about thirty cats, but by May it was a hundred and before the wall was finished, holy shit. We have three cat colonies and last count was nearly three hundred cats. They’re having babies out the ass so if you need some, we can hook you up,” Arthur told them, and all three groups raised their hands.

  “You’re not giving away Medusa and Kong’s kittens,” Wendy informed him. Arthur wanted to object, but all three groups
clearly didn’t want mutant cats.

  “Fine,” Arthur droned. “Now, before I continue, did any of you notice there were more snakes this year?”

  Slapping the table hard, “I told you there were more snakes at the compound than ever!” Chad cried out looking at Isaac. “Granted, most were little but there’s been a shit load of ‘em.”

  Tapping the computer, “There’s a rattlesnake I named Dolly I spotted ten years ago. When she has babies, she always goes to a draw to the east in a small cave just outside the fence. I’ve never seen her have babies in back to back years. Well, this year, I fucking did,” Arthur said, and a picture came up of a rather large rattlesnake in a rocky hole and lots of little snakes around her.

  “Wendy doesn’t go there because any snake she sees, she’ll unload whatever gun she’s carrying. Doesn’t matter if she hits them with the first shot, she’s emptying her gun,” Arthur said.

  “You get bit by a copperhead and then talk to me, bitch,” Wendy told him.

  “I killed it,” Arthur replied and looked at the others. “It was in our yard at the old house lying beside the front steps. Wendy went out after me and it struck her. Now in her defense, any snake near the house, barn or structure we have, I kill it. This is my shit. I only kill snakes out in the woods if they strike at me or try to chase me so if you know snakes, yes, I’ve killed some in the woods. But this year…” he paused tapping the computer, and everyone jumped seeing Arthur holding a thick-bodied snake with a beautiful pattern.

  “This is a copperhead and I’ve never seen a snake this full. If you look closely, there are six bulges from mice he or she has eaten. Don’t know how to tell sex and the only reason I know Dolly’s a girl is because she has young’uns. This damn snake didn’t even care that I was there and never struck at me. I’ve never seen a copperhead that wasn’t pissed at the world. They aren’t as bad as water moccasins, but they’re close. I can continue to show pictures, but I don’t pick up water moccasins until the head is removed from the body. The snakes are eating mice like crazy. I’ve seen them let mice go because they just ate, but not now.”