by Howard, Bob
Below the soldier the infected began moaning louder and crowding against the wall. He could feel the vibrations in the wall, but he was sure it would hold. Around the perimeter of the cemetery more soldiers followed his example, and it wasn’t long before an excited shout carried across the open ground.
We all looked in the direction of the shout with hope, but just as we had been confused when the first grave had been opened, we found ourselves questioning the sanity of the soldier who had shouted. He was pointing, just as we had expected he would be, but he wasn’t pointing at a spot inside the cemetery. He was pointing outside.
The NCO with us radioed the squad leader by the man and asked him to verify that his man had spotted a grave. We waited, and saw the squad leader climb the wall to where his man was standing. He looked down at the open mouths and the arms waving in the air and carefully got his balance before turning his attention to the spot where the soldier pointed.
He raised binoculars to his eyes and focused them on a mound of freshly turned soil. If he had to guess, he would guess it was a grave, but this time there were infected dead walking over the soft dirt. One tripped and fell over what appeared to be a piece of white PVC protruding from the ground.
He raised his radio to his mouth and told the NCO it was affirmative.
This time we moved as an assault force. Three helicopters and almost fifty shooters escorting a backhoe. We had no illusions about attacking thousands of the infected and winning the war, but we didn’t doubt we could hold them off long enough to rescue Molly if she was in that grave.
The grave was at least a hundred yards from the brick wall in the middle of a wide open field. Why there were so many infected was anyone’s guess. The only thing that mattered was that they were here. Someone had managed to dig a grave and bury Molly out in the middle of the horde, and they could settle up with those people later.
The three helicopters lifted off together and drifted slowly toward the back gate of the cemetery. The backhoe drove toward the gate and waited as instructed for the gates to be opened.
When the helicopters cleared the wall, they hovered together and then slowly sat down in a triangular formation. The Sikorsky was in the center of the road, and the Navy helicopters were to the left and right but slightly behind. The rotor wash was tremendous, and the infected dead were blown around like tissue paper.
The soldiers on the wall opened the gates inward, and the backhoe raced forward. The cab was high enough to give some protection to the soldier driving it, but if he became swamped by the horde, it was possible he could be overturned. Since their arrival at the cemetery the horde had grown so fast that the wall around the cemetery was beginning to buckle.
The backhoe moved into position in the middle of the helicopter triangle, and the entire procession moved forward. Gunners on the Navy helicopters had a clear view of the backhoe and could shoot any infected that managed to stay on their feet. Their instructions were to shoot only the infected that were on the road and had a possibility of grabbing the backhoe, and then any infected that were able to follow behind the backhoe. They wanted it to reach the grave and go right to work.
When the road turned away from the gravesite, the Chief steered the Sikorsky off of the road. Its original path was parallel to the suspected grave, and they moved slowly only to draw as many of the infected dead away from the spot as they could. It was agonizingly slow to Tom, but he knew that getting Molly out of the grave safely wasn’t going to be easy.
Twenty yards from the grave, the helicopters deployed their shooters, and they began targeting everything in their path. The Sikorsky continued past the grave and stopped a few yards beyond it. The backhoe came up from behind and started digging as Tom and the rest of his friends arrived to help. Two large scoops of dirt came out, and the metal bucket hit the casket.
Tom held the PVC pipe in place while everyone else dug away the dirt around it. We were all relieved when we saw that the pipe entered the casket through a hole. It hadn’t helped Gervais to survive, but we had to hang onto our hopes.
Tom was pulling at the lid even before all of the dirt was removed. We all wanted him to be careful, but if his baby was inside, he was going to be anything but careful.
Molly was limp, and she was either unconscious or dead. Bus pushed his way into the hole with his stethoscope. As much as Tom wanted to just pull her out of the casket, Bus needed to know how bad it was going to be. We gave them both the room they needed, and Bus listened intently for a heartbeat.
He finally looked up and gave a half smile and a nod to all of us. He pulled Tom over to get close to his ear and said something we couldn’t hear, but we could guess what he said because Tom gave him a big smile and then a hug.
One of the Army medics climbed into the hole with an oxygen bottle and a mask. Molly was most likely unconscious because she had come close to suffocating, so the mask was strapped in place. A stretcher was placed next to the coffin, and after a brace was put on her neck she was finally lifted free of her prison.
A quick inspection of her head and body revealed a nasty bruise on the back of her head that had bled for a while. There were other small bruises and rope burns, and judging by the slow response of her pupils, she had a severe concussion. Someone had hit her harder than they probably needed to in order to knock her out. The important discovery was that there were no bites.
Shooting around the grave kept us all aware of where we were, and we began our evacuation. Molly was carried to one of the Navy helicopters because they were designed to carry wounded service men and women. Tom and Kathy rode along with her. The unknown girl had been kept under guard even though she didn’t appear to be a threat. She had been examined and was also free of bites. We decided to have her ride back to Fort Sumter with us in the Sikorsky because the bodies of Sam and Gervais were being transported in the second navy helicopter. It was a sad day for all of us, but we would stay civilized and bring back our dead for proper funerals.
The three helicopters lifted off together and banked away toward the east. The trip to Fort Sumter would only be a matter of a few minutes, but we all knew that the sooner we could get Molly into our hospital ward, the sooner she could get some x-rays and proper medical treatment.
******
Stokes and his remaining gang of misfits were too far away to see what was happening at the cemetery, but for over an hour he sat with a pair of binoculars and watched the helicopters dipping in and out of the area. Two were clearly military choppers, but he wasn’t familiar with the design. The insignia said they were US Navy.
He was leaning on the window sill of a room on the top floor of a house on the corner of Harbor View Road and Shamrock Lane. It was a logical choice for them to hide in the house. Besides facing in the right direction, it was taller than the neighboring homes and gave him a good view of the surrounding area. When they searched the house, there was the added bonus of the discovery of an extensive wine collection. The last owner of the house must have been an expert when it came to choosing only the best wines.
They were also far enough from their old house to keep them from being caught. That, of course, depended upon how well Randal and those other idiots could stay hidden. If they could stay hidden long enough, and if the people from Fort Sumter stopped searching, he planned to keep his people in the area for a few days before making the long trip south.
He felt like he had enough of the Atlantic coast. It was hot just like the Gulf of Mexico, but it was a different kind of heat. It was so humid here that sometimes he found it hard to breathe. He longed for the dryer heat on the Gulf and thought about eating some real Cajun food. He never thought blue crab tasted nearly as good as crawfish.
The fastest route from Charleston to New Orleans was less than eight hundred miles and took about eleven hours back in the days before the infection. As a matter of fact, that was by driving to Atlanta first and using interstate highways for the entire trip. It wasn’t even a straight line, so he figured it
was between six and seven hundred miles as the crow flies. If they could find transportation to use for at least a week, he thought they could make the trip in a week or two. Of course it also depended upon how bad the ripe meat problem was on the roads they would choose.
Something was happening at the cemetery because all three helicopters had lifted off and then just as quickly landed facing in the same direction. A few minutes later the helicopters took off and immediately went to high speed in the direction of Fort Sumter. He wondered who they had found alive. He knew it wasn’t that smart-mouthed boy who tried to threaten everyone every chance he got. He had carried on about someone called the Chief like the guy was some kind of super hero. Stokes laughed to himself and thought he would like to meet the Chief and show him a thing or two about being a super hero.
******
Fort Sumter was on high alert even before we landed. As we waited for the first helicopter to touch down, and for the crew to rush Molly inside, we received a radio call warning us to stay to the south over Morris Island. A follow up call gave us the reason why.
Only moments before we departed from the cemetery, a sentry on duty on the walls of the Fort spotted light reflecting from the marshes between Patriots Point and Sullivans Island. When he trained his binoculars on the spot, he could see a small, flat bottom boat. If not for the light reflecting off of something in the boat, the sentry would never have seen them because they blended in so well with the terrain.
There were two people in the boat wearing hunters camouflage, and all of their equipment was painted olive green. Whatever had given them away was obviously something they had corrected because they once again blended in with the surrounding marshes. The real surprise was the weapon that was laying across the shoulder of the man in the bow. It was an RPG of some kind. From the Fort it was impossible to identify the model, but it was well within range of a small aircraft that was approaching from the west.
It was identified as a Cessna, and it was too far away to hear the engine, but if they had a working radio, they needed to be warned of the danger they were about to encounter. The radio operator in the control room was frantically calling on all frequencies to tell the pilot about the RPG, but there was no answer. As the helicopters arrived at Fort Sumter, they joined in with emergency calls.
Everyone watched and held their breath as the small blue and white plane drew closer to the Ravenel Bridge and the container city that stretched to the middle of the Cooper River. Its ugly rust red colors were a stark contrast against the blue sky behind it.
We couldn’t have been more surprised when the Cessna suddenly did a controlled descent into the area behind the Yorktown. The golf course at Patriots Point had some flat fairways that could easily accommodate the small plane. Not only were the occupants of the Yorktown antisocial, they had planes.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Thinking Virus
Year Six of the Decline
The radiation from the failed Oconee Nuclear Power Plant didn’t kill the infected, but it caused their bodies to become even weaker than they already were. The normal course of decay made the soft, fleshy parts of their bodies rot and fall away. The bones, cartilage, tendons, and ligaments were often seen walking around with only a few muscles or organs between patches of skin, but the radiation eventually caused even those parts to fall away.
In the early days when the radiation was high and its killing particles drifted with every breeze, the infected that were contaminated rapidly decayed practically where they stood. The normal bacteria that caused flesh to break down into putrid smelling liquids and gases were killed by the radiation, but the virus that had caused the worldwide pandemic was resilient and did the job for the weaker bacteria.
Without new victims for the virus to attack, without people searching desperately for more provisions and exposing themselves, the virus turned inward to survive. Instead of dying off along with its hosts, the virus fed on the infected as it waited for the day when the radiation decreased to safer levels.
The “thinking virus” had the genetic instinct to know it was time to move again. It was time for the infected that were capable to rise up and once again search for the living. Of course there weren’t as many of the living in the previously sprawling city of Charlotte. Those who had survived and remained in the city when the radiation came were exposed, became sick, and died a very ugly death. After the radiation ate away at their living bodies until it killed them, their weaker corpses pushed themselves upright and began to walk. The virus knew it had to leave this place to begin once more to spread, but for that to happen, it had to walk far enough away from what was destroying its hosts.
All over the three hundred square miles covered by Charlotte, all along the sixty one mile circumference of the city, the infected faced outward from the radiation contaminated area and walked.
Thousands upon thousands of the infected walked first into the suburbs, surprising and overwhelming the small enclaves of people who had sealed themselves inside the borders of private, walled communities. For over five years they had prepared, and as time went by they built bigger and better defenses.
They thought they had survived the pandemic. They thought their walls would hold, but their new barriers of steel and spikes were pushed aside by the incredible numbers of the infected. Not since the first days of the pandemic had they seen such vast numbers of the dead, and with every community that fell the numbers increased even more. The infected that had died from radiation poisoning were joined by the newly bitten victims. It was day one again for the area surrounding Charlotte.
Thousands of the infected didn’t make it far because they were too decayed. They encountered barriers that they couldn’t go around or over, but they were the ones pushed from behind into the spikes until the pointed defenses broke from their weight. They were the ones that were pushed from behind into the brick, wooden, and metal walls until the structures groaned under the pressure and fell inward. They were unknowing and uncaring sacrifices for the virus that willed them to spread.
They also fell prey to the natural predators that feasted on carrion rather than to hunt. Emboldened by the lack of interest shown by the infected dead, animals that normally waited for prey to stop moving began to attack them even as they walked. Survivors that saw the sky darken as the vast hordes approached thought they were only seeing the dust clouds stirred into the air by the thousands upon thousands of dragging feet. They were shocked when they saw the air was full of vultures, crows, and ravens that would land on the infected, tear off great strips of flesh, then fly away.
All along the expanding front line of the infected, the horde would dwindle as it ran into resistance, only to break through once again and move onward with its newer, stronger replacements. What was left behind were bewildered pockets of people without enough food or water to survive another day, or enough ammunition to fight back. It was as if the infected dead were cleaning up and finishing what they had started.
Once the horde reached the outskirts of the cities and suburbs, they were free to spread out through the fields, woods, and highways. The interstates were natural funnels that offered no resistance to their advance, but to the people who were scratching out an existence along the interstates, the sound of thousands upon thousands of the infected was inconceivable.
By the end of the third year after the infection began, people in the farmlands had begun to feel safer because they were isolated. Survivors had learned to stay away from the cities, and the biggest fear had become the roving gangs that survived by taking what they wanted from anyone they encountered. That problem was answered by the farmers themselves.
As they came out of hiding from their personal shelters and found surviving friends and neighbors, they prepared for the future in a way they never had before. Strangers were turned away unless they arrived as families and were able to demonstrate their worth. Most of all, they had to prove their health.
Bitten travelers were executed, and some enc
laves went so far as to execute the families of the bitten rather than to allow enemies to leave. Armed camps communicated with each other about movements of rogue gangs and the infected, and temporary truces were formed when one or both had to be dealt with.
Life adjusted to deal with the new reality, but those who had survived between Charlotte and Charleston didn’t know they represented less than one thousand souls in the southeast compared to millions of the infected dead. If they had known, they probably wouldn’t have done anything differently because there wasn’t anything else they could have done. It was also man’s nature to survive, or at least try to survive.
After five years of uneasy existence, the sound of the infected walking on four lanes of interstate highway could be heard for miles in all directions, and when the infected heard a loud sound, they went toward it. So it was on I-26 that the largest of hordes began to form. Even the massive horde that flowed down I-95 was drawn east by the combined roar from the feet and moan from the mouths of the I-26 horde.
The only benefit that came from so many infected being in one place was that they slowed each other down. The procession that gathered on the interstate was slow and clumsy. It moved only as fast as the infected in front could move, and sometimes that wasn’t fast enough for the infected that were the least decayed or damaged. Pile ups in front caused logjams of bodies as the slow infected were pushed to the ground.
The survivors who were in the path of the infected exodus didn’t think they needed to run because the entire mass moved so slowly. Scouts would move to interstate overpasses and watch in horror as they tried in vain to guess the number of infected moving their way. Their mistakes were repeated over and over again as they underestimated the magnitude of the new tragedy that confronted the remainder of mankind. They saw the infected as marching down the interstate and failed to anticipate that the fastest of the infected would be walking along the fringes.