Alone No More (24 page)

He didn’t even know what to think as he looked over his shoulder at his little daughter sitting in the backseat next to her grandmother, his mother. He forced a smile through his worry in the rear view mirror at his little girl. He could see the anxiety on her little face. Tiny Sarah forced her own little smile out to match his. God his little girl looked just like her mother. It was uncanny.

His mom was barely keeping it together sitting next to her. Just fifteen minutes ago when he scooped them up from their day out at the Butterfly Museum he’d pulled her aside and told her there had been an incident at his father’s gun store. Her husband, his dad, had been bitten by a child infected with some strange disease, and he’d died. He didn’t tell her the child had been dead when he bit her husband, and he didn’t tell her that his dad had been shot in the head by Phil, his father’s best friend. It was the only way to stop them. To stop the dead from returning to life.

Once again the line came back to him, deep inside his head, “The world had come undone.” 

The dead weren’t staying dead, the living was going insane with panic and no matter how Chief Moore tried to rationalize it, he came back to the same thing. The world had come undone. It was as simple as that. No other words made any sense when he thought about it.

His mother had a tissue in her hand and steadily raised it over and over to dab away the tears welling in her eyes. Her husband had always been at risk of getting killed. Before her son was Chief his father was the Chief, and getting hurt as a cop was part and parcel with the job. When he retired from the force and opened the gun store she’d thought all that danger had finally walked out of their life. Apparently not. It was somewhat fortunate that she she’d built such a thick skin over the years, all the late nights waiting for that phone call had given her some resiliency. She knew it’d set back in someday soon, maybe tomorrow she thought.

The Chief had called his wife about an hour prior and told her what was going on. Just like with his mother he didn’t tell her the whole story. Chief Brian Moore went into work early every day. It was his personal oath that if you weren’t early, you couldn’t be on time. His morning started off shitty and had only gotten worse. He said good morning to his two dispatchers and gave his day shift guys a standard issue pep talk before they headed out. His email inbox was four inches deep with an assortment of federal and state notifications plus the fax machine had emptied its paper tray printing out incoming alerts. He refilled the fax, got his morning coffee, and sat down to go through everything that had come in.

They all cycled through a steady escalation of events. The first and oldest messages warned of strange behavior overseas. As he sat at his desk, flipping from one warning to the next, the warnings got steadily worse, and closer to home. Violence in Africa overnight turned into sickness by morning. Violence in Europe and Middle East in the morning turned into sickness by midday. Violence in midday in Asia and South America turned into sickness by afternoon. The same pattern had started here in the states at early morning.

The briefings that started to roll in at about 7am sounded like jokes. Brian actually looked at his calendar to make sure it wasn’t April Fool’s Day. There had been dozens of fatal car accidents, work accidents, and fairly mundane crimes all over the country resulting in mob violence shortly thereafter. Keeping with the pattern, there were outbreaks of fatal fevers in the same cities shortly afterwards. At noon the CDC issued a broadcast saying the violence seemed to be linked to the sickness, but without any samples to test, they were unsure. They were strictly speculating to government and state agencies at that point.

It escalated dramatically at 10am or so. The FBI and ATF started sending out much more serious messages and the State Police started to issue local alerts as well. They were setting up road blocks at the borders to screen for illness, and almost immediately they started to have trouble at them. The State Health Department started to send out warnings about people who had been bitten, or appearing ill. Any sickness at all should be treated as deadly serious, and the ill should be brought for medical attention immediately. The CDC and Department of Homeland Security were apparently in full panic mode. The news had absolutely lit up with footage of violence and video of hospitals overflowing with the sick, and the people who thought they were sick. The violent people looked wrong on the television. Brian couldn’t think of it any other way. They walked funny, moved stilted and stiff, and attacked anything that moved with a primeval, animal instinct. It was almost like rabies. Well, if rabies killed you and brought you back to life as a lunatic cannibal he thought.

From 10am to 2pm earlier that day Chief Moore had his five patrolmen on heavy duty traffic enforcement. Brian instructed them to pull over every single vehicle exceeding the speed limit, or doing anything even remotely sketchy on the roads. He felt that if he could prevent some of the car accidents or arguments he might just be able to prevent any of the bizarre violence gripping the rest of the world. Plus, the more people his officers saw that day, the more likely they’d be to see someone acting funny, or showing signs of being sick. 

At 2pm his personal cell phone rang. His father was calling, and he needed help at his gun shop. Apparently the crowd was getting a little too large for his liking, and he wanted to know if Brian could spare an officer to park in the lot and help maintain order. Without a second thought he radioed for his largest officer, Danny McGreevy to head over. Danny was a solid six foot three or so, and easily put up 2 and half bills. His bald head and dark sunglasses was usually enough to enforce the law without a gun or a badge. He sent Danny over to the shop immediately.

It wasn’t 20 minutes after that when he got the call from up on high. The shit was officially in the fan and flying. The FBI and ATF considered the situation volatile enough that they felt weapons needed to be made more available to the public. They had suspended the need for background checks. All gun sales were subject to local preference. It was his call to decide who got a gun and when. Unbelievable.

At about the same time, the federal government issued several notices suggesting that many major metropolitan governments should consider martial law, and that all medical grounds should be quarantined to help prevent the spread of any dangerous pathogens. It was official; the wheels had come off the world. 

He called for Danny at the gun shop so he could talk to his father about the suspension of background checks. He told his dad the story, and they decided that his father and his employees would make the call. That seemed really sensible for Brian. There was no one he trusted more in the world than his father. After he and his dad made their plan, he told Danny to put down anyone bitten, or anyone who was visibly sick or hurt. His other officers chimed in after that to make sure his orders were correct. Shoot anyone hurt and unresponsive. They couldn’t risk contamination.

After he had gotten done sorting out all the worst case scenario plans in his head, he got the call over the radio about the shooting at the gun shop. Brian had been in some pretty shitty spots during his career as an officer of the law, but nothing hit him quite like hearing Danny McGreevy call out an officer involved shooting at his father’s place of business. The Chief’s guts twisted up in a knot and his hands got all clammy as he sat there at his desk. It took him a few minutes to shake the cobwebs out of his brain. As soon as he did he jumped into action.

Brian got in his cruiser and pulled out of the town’s municipal complex right behind the ambulance that was responding to the same call. The two vehicles flew through town getting to the shop. When they were halfway to his father’s store another 911 dispatch call came out saying there was a dead body laying in the parking lot of one of the condo complexes in town. Apparently a gunshot wound to the head. Brian distinctly knew when that second call came out that he no longer had the time to plan to prevent anything. Whatever it was that was covering the world in panic and violence had reached his town. They were past prevention already, and were dealing with fallout.

The events at the shop were still fuzzy for him. He actually hoped the memories never became clear. He remembered the dead man in the parking lot, and Danny explaining why he shot him. After that it got messy in his head. He remembers the little kid. Donny? Danny? Mikey? Who knows now? If the world survived until next week he’d worry about the kid’s name then. He remembered the kid taking off his jacket after sharing the story of the bloodbath at the hospital he and his father had just left. The kid was bloodied under the jacket, and told the paramedics he’d been bitten. Ten seconds later the little boy began convulsing, and dropped dead.

The paramedics worked on him, and somewhere along the line he came back to life, and they got bitten. Guns were drawn, the young boy was shot, and somehow his dad was bitten during the fracas too. Brian couldn’t remember much after that; just that his man McGreevy called out for additional assistance, and nothing came back over the radio. Something else bad must’ve been happening. 

His dad knew it was over for him though. They knew the bites infected. They’d just seen the bites infect first hand, and his father knew. Brian couldn’t bear to watch though, and after saying his tearful goodbyes, he left. As he closed the cruiser door and started to drive away from the gun store, he heard a single gunshot, and the Chief knew his father was dead.

Brian drove for a few miles until he was almost back at the station. He kept thinking over and over about how he would break this to his mother, and his two kids. Then Brian realized that he needed to find out where his family was. He radioed out to his officers to let them know things had finally reached town. All of them were in the middle of dealing with developing problems. Fender benders, a couple 911 calls for injuries and sickness, and one of his officers was headed to the scene of the dead body at the condo complex. The state hadn’t responded to any of his dispatcher’s calls for assistance regarding the body either, which meant they were up to their own eyeballs with major crimes as well.

Brian made a decision and cut his men loose. This was no longer about maintaining law and order. In less than 30 minutes he’d had five fatal shootings in a 3 mile radius. They had families to take care of, and in order for them to do that, they needed to get home, and get their kids and wives safe. He told them to wrap up what they were doing, and get the hell home. 

He called his wife Stacey right after that. They didn’t talk for long. He told her about what happened at the gun shop, and he told her about whatever was happening across the world. He told her this could legitimately be the end of the world, and they had to get home, and get it safe. He cried when he hung up with her. He knew this would get much worse before it got better, he just didn’t realize how much worse, and how fast it would get that way.

*****

In the hour Chief Moore was out of town picking up his mother and daughter from the Butterfly Museum, things had changed for the worse. It was like a faucet that had been slowly dripping pure panic had been opened until raw unadulterated lunacy was pouring out. Cars were running red lights right in front of him, and he could see houses either already fully boarded up, or being boarded up everywhere he looked. Reminded him of the hours right before an impending hurricane along the Gulf Coast. Businesses were putting up closed signs, and every gas station had a line of cars out into the street. One hour had passed, and everyone had lost their minds.

Chief Moore stopped at the municipal center where the police station and fire department was headquartered. He hit the automatic garage opener and drove his cruiser directly inside the station’s booking area. It was a godsend during shitty weather, or when the media was sitting there to be able to stay in the vehicle until it was behind closed doors. Today he was happy because it meant he could get his daughter and mother into a secured area and feel safe about leaving them in his squad car.

Brian told his mother and daughter he’d be right back, and left them in the back of his cruiser. He went to the heavy duty station door and swiped his access card on the reader. With a curt beep the locks opened, and he pulled the door open with a tug. Once he was out of the line of sight of his family, he drew his sidearm. No sense risking his life, even here in the supposed safety of the police station.

Brian went room to room and checked for signs of life. No one was there. He had no desk officers on duty today; everyone was out and about already. His two dispatchers were long since history, having left when he issued his “go home” message earlier. Half drank cups of coffee sat on their coasters on their desks right next to half eaten granola bars. There was a donut too. Brian touched the coffee cups and they were still warm to the touch. Lights all across the 911 board were lit up. On the dispatch monitors there were dozens of emergency calls coming in from the state level, and there was no one left to send out to help these people.

Sitting in the center of Danny McGreevy’s desk was his already filled out Incident Report form. He must’ve come straight here and filled it out before he took off for the day. Brian thumbed through the few sheets of paper and nodded in agreement with how it was written. Damn fine cop.

Two hours ago his town was normal and now it had all but fallen in on itself. He holstered his handgun and rubbed his eyes. They were dry and stinging from a lack of blinking. Brian hadn’t closed them out of fear he’d miss some danger in this new, weird world. Once he got the shit rubbed out of his eyes he reasserted his plan in his head and went about his business.

In the arms locker adjacent to his office he grabbed two of the station’s four M4 assault rifles. He also grabbed one of the police riot shotguns and a spare Kevlar vest. One of the heavy duty gear bags got stuffed with the weapons and he tossed in six spare magazines and about a dozen boxes of ammunition. He also grabbed three of the Motorola radios his officers used to communicate with each other.