Dead Air (Book One of The Dead Series) (47 page)

Trying to control his urge to shoot what he perceived as a threat, Steve calmed himself and asked, "How did this happen
, Cindy?"

She mumbled something in reply that Steve couldn't understand so Heather helped her out
. "Cindy told me that her little brother got bit and got real sick. He bit her, but it wasn't his fault because he was sick." Looking down at the little girl, Heather said, "Right, Cindy?"

She nodded but refused to meet anyone's eyes.

A thousand questions raced through Steve's brain but he had to make sure of one thing before he asked them. "When did this happen, Cindy?"

Holding up her arm to reveal the three
, mostly healed, human bite marks that she had shown them, Cindy replied, "It happened a day or two before Halloween. I remember because we had just come back from Tyrone Square Mall. We were out buying costumes and my mommy got into a scuffle with this man in the parking lot, and my brother tried to help. Mommy pushed the man down and we locked ourselves in the car and drove off but Jimmy got hurt."

"Bitten?" Steve asked.

Cindy looked back down at the floor and nodded her head.

Pointing at Cindy's arm
, Steve asked, "And Jimmy did this to you?"

Tears sprang to her eyes as Cindy cried out, "He didn't mean to do it. Later that day I went into his room to see if he was
all right and he was real sick. He was staggering all around and ..."

Cindy
choked up and couldn't finish.

Marcia came forward and knelt by the child, putting her arms around her while telling her it was all right. She shot Steve a dirty look but he didn't notice. His mind was full of thoughts at what they had discovered about Cindy.

Looking at Heather, Steve said in an awestruck voice, "She was bitten over two months ago and she never turned. Everyone turns within a day, most within an hour or less. Since she didn't then that means that she’s –.”

"Immune," Heather finished with a smile.

Steve sat at the head of the table in the conference room, trying to remember the name of the city where the government had set up its research lab to find a cure for the HWNW virus. Six of the other survivors sat patiently as he racked his brain. Mary was absent, claiming that the whole situation was no big deal and none of her concern, and Marcia had taken Cindy clothes shopping, hoping to find something in one of the Galleria shops that would fit the small girl. Cindy had only brought along one extra change of clothes when her father brought her to the bank building and had been alternately washing her outfits in the bathroom sink.

"
Russianville?" Steve mumbled to himself.

Jonny G
rose and went over to a map of the United States that showed circles drawn around each of the cities where Tom Oliver owned a radio station. Tracing his finger slowly back and forth over the state of Arkansas, he suddenly stopped and asked, "Russellville?"

Snapping his fingers
, Steve said, "That's it."

He rose and stood next to Jonny as the others crowded around behind them.

"It’s about halfway between Little Rock and the Oklahoma border," Jonny said, as he pointed to where the city was shown on the map. "That's a hell of a long haul from here."

"We're not going there," Steve said as his eyes dropped to the outline of Florida
. "At least not right away. We just need to find a military facility that's up and running where we can make contact with someone in the government."

"How do you know there's even a military or a government left?" Tick-
Tock asked.

Sitting back down at the table
, Steve replied, "We don't know if they're still around for sure, but the last time I talked to that guy at McDill, before we lost contact with him, he said that the military was starting to deploy so they could begin operations to take back the country."

"Too bad McDill's gone," Heather commented. "We could just hop across the bay."

"Are you sure it's gone?" Brain asked.

Tick-Tock spoke up, "We should be able to reach them with the radio I took out of the hog
, but I've tried every frequency and never heard a peep."

To add to the argument that McDill was history, Heather told her story of how she had seen the dead swarming around the fence and onto the air base.

"So where does that leave us?" Meat asked in frustration. "We've found someone who's immune to the HWNW virus and could possibly hold the cure, and we've got nowhere we can take her. I'm not too hot on the idea of making some kind of suicide run to Arkansas though. I doubt we'd even make it out of the city, but... “

Steve held up his hand for Meat to cease talking, "Like I said earlier, we're not going to Arkansas. All we have to do is figure out where the nearest active military base is and bring Cindy there. Some of you have lived in this area for years
, so I need you to think of any of the Army, Navy or Marine Corps bases in the area that we can get to."

"The Corps
has a base right off the Gandy Bridge. I think they deal with amphibious vehicles." Tick-Tock volunteered.

"Closed in the last round of budget cuts," Heather said. "They moved them over to McDill."

"The Navy's got a couple places in Key West," Tick-Tock then offered. "I was down there once, and the military's got all kind of bases around there. Coast Guard, Navy, even the Air Force is creeping around down there."

Pulling a legal pad toward him
, Steve wrote this down and said, "Good, anyone else think of anything?"

"NASA's got that big compound on the East coast by Cocoa Beach," Heather said. "I went over there once to see the shuttle take off."

"Good," Steve said as he wrote it down. More ideas were thrown out, and after fifteen minutes they had a list of seven possible places where they could bring Cindy.

Comparing the list against the map on the wall, Steve noted that two of the bases were too far inland for them to reach. These were crossed off because he knew
, from talking to the survivors they were in contact with, that the interstates and secondary roads between cities were impassable. Car wrecks and stalled vehicles blocked most on and off ramps with the resulting traffic jam of abandoned cars backing up for miles. Steve had read on the Internet about the same situation befalling other cities as they went through their death throes. People fleeing from the dead in one city would invariably find the sanctuary they were seeking already overrun or in the final stages of evacuation when they arrived. Even using the hog, it would be too dangerous for them to get as far as Tampa. Although they could use the winch on the front of the vehicle to move most anything in the road that blocked their way, it would mean leaving the safety of the armored car and exposing themselves to attack. They would have to go by water.

"Who knows how to pilot a boat?" He asked.

"How big?" Heather asked.

"One big enough to get us to the NASA facility
. We'll shoot for the Navy base in the Keys as our primary landing spot, but if that's gone we might need to go as far as Cocoa Beach. We can't depend on being able to refuel, so the boat has to be able to make it round trip on the gas in its tanks and what we can carry aboard. Just to play it safe though, we might as well say we need to make it all the way to Jacksonville."

Jonny
studied the map and whistled, "That's a long haul. You're gonna need a lot of boat to go that far."

"How about a sailboat?" Tick-Tock asked.

This struck everybody as the perfect solution. They wouldn't have to worry about putting into different docks while searching for fuel, like they would if they took a small power boat, or crashing into those same docks while trying to pilot a bigger ship.

"So you'll drive the boat
," Steve said to Tick-Tock, assuming that since he had brought up the idea, he knew how to sail.

"Should be able to," He replied. "I've been reading up on it and it's not too difficult."

"Reading up on it?" Steve asked. "You've never sailed?"

"A small, eighteen foot, single mast, open cockpit when I was a kid
," Tick-Tock said.

"How many years ago was that?" Susan asked.

"Twenty or so," Tick-Tock replied. "But it's like riding a bike. We're not sailing the America’s Cup, we're cruising through well-chartered waters from a known point to a known point. It'll be a piece of cake. We won't even have to get far from shore."

After some discussion, the group decided this was the
ir best option. It was agreed that they'd sail with Tick-Tock as the Captain. All that was left were the details.

"How big of a boat do you think we'll need?" Steve asked Tick-Tock.

"How many people are going?" He replied with his own question.

"Cindy of course, you, me and probably Marcia," Steve replied.

"Why Marcia?" Jonny asked defensively.

"To take care of Cindy
. I haven't had to deal with a ten year old girl since I was a ten year old boy," Steve replied.

"And then it was just to play doctor," Heather chimed in.

When the laughter died down, Jonny said, "You need to know that Marcia gets seasick. We went out on a fishing charter once and she spent the whole day barfing. Even once she got back on land she was sick for two more days."

The group was quiet for a moment as they took this in.

"I'll go," Susan spoke up. When everyone looked at her she blushed and added, "I have experience with children. I teach part-time at Brentwood Elementary." In a slightly quieter voice she added, "Or I used to teach."

Susan had seemed unhappy to Steve lately, causing him to wonder if she was trying to be helpful by volunteering or if she was trying to get away from Mary. Regardless of her motives, she fit the need.

"You're in," he said.

Steve exchanged a long look with Heather. He knew she wanted to go
but they both knew they needed someone capable to stay behind and make sure things went smooth until he and Tick-Tock returned. She gave him a smile and a patient look, telling him that she understood the reasoning behind this unspoken decision. And while she didn't like it, she would do it. She would explain to Steve later that it wasn't the responsibility she would have to take on that disagreed with her, it was the thought that they would be apart.

Turning to Tick-Tock, Steve asked again, "Now how big of a boat do we need?"

After thinking on it he replied, "Thirty-footer ought to do it."

"When I was at the Marine Laboratory I saw a whole slew of sailboats tied up at the Marina next to it,"
Heather said. "I was there for a whole day and it was completely deserted. No Z's anywhere."

"Al
l right then," Steve said as he stood up. "We use the MRAP to shuttle us, our gear and the supplies we'll need down to the Marina."

"Since I can't go with you
, then I'll drive you down," Heather said and then asked, "When are you leaving?"

"No sense in wasting any time. We'll leave tomorrow morning
."

***

Marcia knocked on Brian Harrison's door and called out, "Good news, Mister Harrison."

Not waiting for an answer she probably wouldn't receive
, Marcia continued, "We found another survivor here in the building. It's a little girl who's cute as a bug's ear. She's got this long brown hair that I would kill for, but best of all we found out she’s immune to the virus that's making everyone crazy. We think the government will be able to run some tests on her and come up with a cure, so some of us are taking her to the navy base in Key West. Isn't that great news? If they can come up with a cure, then this insanity might be over soon."

Marcia set down the tray of food she had been carrying and said, "I brought you something to eat
Mister Harrison, and I just wanted to let you know the wonderful news." She paused a moment to see if Harrison would reply and after hearing nothing, turned to go back to the radio station. Marcia had only taken a few steps when she heard a muffled "Thank you." Come from behind the door. Turning, she smiled and said, "No problem, Mister Harrison, I'll keep letting you know what's going on until you feel well enough to come out."

Marcia was so happy about finally getting a reply from the elusive Mister Harrison that she practically skipped on her way back to the radio station.

Brian Harrison devoured the food Marcia left, happy that since she was feeding him, he didn’t have to forage for food at night and waste his limited working time. He could labor straight through without interruption.

Yesterday, when he had quit in the early hours of the morning, Harrison had been pleased to find that he had cut all the way through three sides of the safety glass and was almost all the way
through the fourth. The compulsion to keep going was overwhelming but he forced it down. He was so close to success now that he didn't want to take the chance of being discovered. After pocketing his sharpened screwdriver and cleaning up the shards of cut plastic from the floor, he started repeating in his head the changing countdown mantra that had kept him going. Now it was, tomorrow night, tomorrow night.