Fade to Grey (Book 1): Fade to Grey (15 page)

I interrupted, “Just out of curiosity, if you were out of
power up here, wouldn’t it be likely that Walter would be out of power at the
marina and wouldn’t have been able to answer his radio anyhow?”

“I considered that,” Doc said, “but most of the power
failures that we have at the campground are caused by tree limbs falling on the
lines that run up Ravenwood Campground Road. Besides, I’m pretty sure that
Walter has his radio on a dedicated UPS system as well,” I nodded my
understanding as he continued.

“I couldn’t get anybody on the radio, so I turned it off and
headed back to my RV after locking the office. My flashlight was starting to
get dim as I trotted across the field between the office and my RV. I was about
ten yards away from my campsite when somebody said my name.” He looked at each
of us before continuing, “I’m sure that I ruined the pair of boots I was
wearing when I jumped out of them. A few minutes later when my heart slowed to
under 200 beats per minute, I saw that my mysterious name-caller was Jason. That’s
Jason Lambert, I mean. Jason and his wife had been staying at the campground for
about a week, tent camping at sight number twenty-three on Blue Heron loop. They
brought a small boat, fourteen foot semi-V with an old Evinrude, and Jason
would fish while Angela stayed at the camp and read. Jason’s a good guy,
retired navy Seabee, owned a heavy equipment rental business for years also if
I remember right. He invited me to go fishing several times and I took him up
on it. Nice guy, like I said. Anyhow, he asked me if I was OK, but that’s when
the screaming started. I said, ‘C’mon,’ and trotted down Golden Eagle loop
toward the noise. As we got closer, we could see there was a small crowd of
people at sight number fifty-nine, which, the way the roads twist around on the
loop, is actually very close to site number nineteen. Thank goodness for the
fires at the campsites along the way or we’d have been stumbling over our own
two feet headed down there. By the time we made it, Jason was huffing and
puffing a bit. You don’t get much cardio from fishing. Anyhow, we got there
just in time to see three or four guys putting the boot to another guy who was
on the ground between them. Several ladies were screaming and yelling, some of
them encouraging the beating, others shouting out ‘stop it, stop it.’ When I
finally got things sorted out, the basic story was that the guy getting beat
had been caught stealing food out of another guy’s cooler. I think there was a
lot of frustration being vented that had nothing to do with missing food. We
helped the guy up; he didn’t want any medical treatment, didn’t even want me to
look at him. By now, the noise from the scuffle had drawn about twenty-five
people from different campsites, like moths to the flame I guess, and I was
having a hard enough time just getting a word in, much less any kind of
cooperation, so I just stood there and didn’t say a word, waiting for them to
calm down. A few minutes later, things are starting to settle, and I hear—from
somewhere behind the crowd—‘Hey, get your hands off me you pervert . . . HEY, LET
GO OF ME YOU ASSHOLE . . .’ It was followed by what I would describe as primal,
animalistic sounds. The crowd started screaming and backing away, revealing the
figure of a lady, a girl really, maybe nineteen or twenty, on the ground and having
her throat chewed on by Mr. Hardison. Blood was squirting four feet into the
air from her severed carotid as he tore into her. People were running for their
lives when that ‘thing’ stood up. From beside me I heard an explosion. Jason
had a gun in his hand, a 38 snub nose revolver, one of those compact five-shot
deals. I don’t know where the first shot hit, but the other four hit Mr.
Hardison dead center in the chest. He just stood there, red eyes glinting in
the firelight. Then he started for us. We backed away, stunned, not believing
what we were seeing. Jason tripped over a folding chair and fell down and the
“thing” advanced on him, a little stiff legged but picking up speed. I took
another step backward and ran into the RV. It was about five feet away from
Jason, reaching down toward him when I heard a
TH-WHACK
sound. Mr.
Hardison, or whatever it was dropped like an anchor. Standing behind him was a
strange sight, some big guy wearing an expensive suit and tie, holding a long
handled axe one handed. OK, long story short, because I know we’re pressed for
time. The guy with the axe turns out to be one Victor Wayne Chapman, VW for
short. Real estate agent from Fargo, so he says. After checking our shorts, we
thanked him for his timely intervention. I checked both bodies. Dead. I hoped
for real this time. By now the gunshots have woken up almost everybody, and you
know the way rumors fly. Half the camp is convinced that we were attacked by a
thousand zombies last night, the other half probably thinks it was vampires. By
5:00 AM over thirty families left, just packed up and took off, didn’t even
bother to take the rope down across the road out by the highway, just ran right
through it. Sally went and restrung it less than an hour ago. I’ve got at least
another fifty families that have told me they probably won’t stay through the
day, which as far as I’m concerned would be perfectly all right. I imagine a
lot of them are just waiting to hear what goes on at the meeting. Anyhow, I
tried to reach you on the radio again, no luck there, so I’ve been directing my
energy toward keeping the peace, not that I’m having much luck with that
either.”

“What did you do with the bodies?” I asked.

“We put on some latex exam gloves that I had, and then moved
the bodies to the amphitheater one at a time in the back of the golf cart.”

“Why did you move them there?  Especially since that’s where
the meeting was going to be this morning,” said Uncle Andy.

“Two reasons. The first is that there was no way I was going
to try and stuff him back into the RV at site nineteen. The second reason is
that none of the remaining crowd knew who the girl was or what campsite she
came from, so I don’t know, I guess I was thinking that at the meeting maybe I
could show the people what signs and symptoms are possibly involved in this
sickness . . . I don’t know. I was tired. It was the wrong decision.”

I shook my head and said, “No, it was the right decision at
the right time, given the circumstances. Maybe if you were well rested, and
didn’t just run back and forth across the campground several times after being
grabbed by a dead guy, well, then maybe you would have picked different. But
you did the best you could and that’s what counts.”

He was still shaking his head slightly saying, “. . . No . .
. I should’ve put them somewhere else. Besides, I never said that Mr. Hardison
was dead. His family, definitely. But as for him, like I’ve already said, he
wasn’t moving, but he did have a pulse. It was weak, but it was there and
getting stronger.”

“Doc,” my uncle said loudly as he put his hands on Doc
Collin’s shoulders, “what’s done is done, OK. We’ve got to get up to that ball
field and get this little shindig moving or them people ain’t going to stay
there, and we need your help to do it, OK?”

That seemed to bring Doc around a bit, and he took a few deep
breaths, picked up his backpack, and said, “Let’s go.”

We got there to find that Sally had done an amazing job of
simplifying things. She had divided up the campers into three groups, two of
which represented the different loops of the campground; the third was for
people in tents at the group camp field. Each group had further separated
themselves in ascending order based on which campsite they occupied. Each
“site” was given a sheet of paper—pens, pencils and markers were shared—and the
paper was folded in half, then in half again to make four squares. The other
lady that Sally had been talking to earlier was barking out commands, friendly
and encouragingly, almost making it a challenge instead of an order. Each site
was to nominate one person to be the secretary. If you were the only one at the
site, you were automatically it. In the top left square, you were to write
either “Eagle, Heron or Field,” and then underneath that in the same square you
were to put your site number. The top right square was to have a diagonal line
drawn from corner to corner. The top of the triangle was to have a number in it—the
total number of people who were staying at that site. The bottom triangle
represented how many of those people were currently standing next to you at
this meeting. Some may have decided to not attend after all. The bottom left
square was to have everybody’s name, followed by a short abbreviation of
whether they were male or female, and the approximate age. The final square on
the bottom right was to contain the total number of vehicles at that site, and
the total number of “residences”—be it tents or RV’S.

Once the sheets were filled out, Sally and the other lady,
her name was Amy I found out later, went around and collected the sheets,
giving a cursory glance at each one before accepting it. As they were doing
that, Doc explained to me that Sally had come up with this idea, a way to find
out who’s who, and where they are. Doc handed me several sheets of paper
stapled together. At the top in bold faced, underlined, Times New Roman font
was a headline that said, “IDEAS, FACTS, AND PROBLEMS.” I took a couple minutes
and read through. True to his physician heritage, it was arranged in a concise,
“to the point” format. He and Sally had obviously given it a lot of thought and
effort. Under the subsection “problems” several immediate issues stood out. He
saw where my gaze was lingering and said, “You know we’re going to have to do
that, right?”

I nodded my head. A lot of people probably weren’t going to
like it though, I thought. “Time to put on your game face, Eric,” I said to
myself.

Between Michelle, Uncle Andy, Doc, Sally, Amy, and me, we
managed to regroup everybody in a smaller area that included several sets of
bleachers that were moved closer together. It was a lot easier this way than
trying to shout across the whole soccer field. Once everybody was settled, I
stepped out in front of the crowd, reintroduced myself and Michelle, took a
deep breath, and began.

“I don’t know everybody’s story; some of you probably have a
lot of information from the past few days that would be very helpful right now
. . .“ People started shouting out dozens of things all at once, and it took a
few minutes to get them squared away and quiet again. “As I was saying,” I
continued, “I’m sure that a lot of you can answer a lot of questions, or at
least provide insight, but right now is not the time. I have a lot of things to
share with you, and there will be decisions that have to be made, by you, by
me, and others as well. Some of those decisions are going to be a tough call. Some
of those decisions are going to involve whether you stay here or not.” I let
that sink in for a moment. “Nobody is going to be forced to stay at the
campground. At the other end of that spectrum however, there are going to be
certain requirements for you to stay. I’ll get into those as we go. I think the
best way to start this is to take a few minutes and kind of ‘go around the room.’
If you have any important information that may be of use to the rest of us,
just raise your hand and we’ll give you some time to share it. Time is of a
concern however, so I’m asking you to please give serious thought before you
raise your hand to speak. What we don’t need are rumors, or things that you
heard from your second cousin’s half sister, twice removed. We only want facts
. . . things that you’ve personally witnessed, OK?”

In the next half hour or so, some of the generalized
statements that seemed to pan out across multiple volunteers were that traffic
exiting the major cities was a gridlocked nightmare; many people were walking
or just sitting in their vehicles, out of gas along the side of the road. Another
frequently mentioned observation was that while they were still within the range
of the transmitters, the only radio they could pick up was a repeated broadcast
of “This is a recorded announcement from the emergency broadcasting network,
please stay tuned to this station for an important announcement.”
However
the announcement never came, just a repeated alert to stay tuned for it. A
third tidbit that came up was from an older lady on crutches. She said that her
son-in-law was a member of the North Dakota National Guard, and had come over
to her house to pack her a suitcase and get her away from her home in Slate
Hill, a suburb of Bismarck. She said that he told her that the governor had
authorized the National Guard to use deadly force on any person who appeared
sick or would not comply with other orders. When questioned further, she said
he didn’t really specify what “other orders” there were. The fourth and final
piece of information came from at least a dozen different people. They swore
that they personally witnessed people suffer massive injuries—car wrecks,
shootings, even the severing of a limb in one case—and walk away.

Sally was taking notes of everything that was said, and I asked
Doc to come over and tell the story of what had happened last night. He did. During
his narrative of the events, I stopped him for a moment to remind the crowd
that some of what they were going to hear from Doc, myself, and possibly others
may not be suitable for younger ears, but to bear with it anyhow. After he got
through, I gave an abbreviated version of what I knew, leaving out everything that
had to do with Uncle Andy’s cabin, the fuel supply, or other “core group”
related items. I told them about Trooper Ironfeather and what had happened at the
barracks, and I told them about Mr. Westwick and the blond. After I finished, I
answered a few questions, at least as far as I was able. Most of the questions
asked I didn’t have the answer to. Sally’s friend Amy had taken the golf cart
up to the camp office and filled several large coolers with water from the
small kitchen sink up there. She brought it back down with several sleeves of
paper cups and everybody took a quick water break before I continued.

“So, what does all this mean, and more importantly, how does
it affect everybody here? I think I should start by mentioning a few
indisputable facts so we’re all on the same page. Fact number one is that this
campground can provide only a limited amount of resources. Those resources
primarily being power, water, firewood, and to some small degree food and
shelter. Power is only available on Golden Eagle loop as you may know; however,
as you may also know, none of the power is currently working. We don’t know if
it’s a local problem, or something larger in scope. We also don’t know when, or
even if it will be restored. Some of you have generators, and that’s great. But
generators require fuel to run, and the nearest gas station is about eight
miles away and already empty.” I lied. I scanned the crowd for reactions,
didn’t find any that I wouldn’t expect, so I looked at Doc’s notes before
continuing. “The second issue is water. This is both a simple and potentially
complex issue, so I’m going to let Doc explain it, since he knows more about
the system.”

Doc stepped to the front and said, “The water for this
campground comes out of Ghost Echo Lake. That water is pumped up to a series of
holding tanks that are located in that cement block building over there.” Doc
indicated a black painted squat structure on top of a small rise just past the
sand volleyball court. “Inside that building are two 1,500 gallon water tanks,
as well as a 300 gallon pre-filter and sediment tank. The way the system works starts
with a suction pump located inside the building, and it’s wired to a float
valve assembly. Think of the pre-filter/sediment tank as tank number one, the
first 1,500 gallon tank would be tank number two, and the final 1,500 gallon
tank, of course, would be number three. When you turn on a shower in the
restroom, or flush a toilet, or refill the water tank in your RV at the filling
station, the water you are using comes out of tank three. When it gets to a
certain level, the float valve in tank three causes a valve to open between
tanks two and three. This refills tank three from the supply in tank two. When
tank two gets low, the float valve in it triggers the pump to come on, which
sucks more water out of the lake and pushes it through the pre-filter tank, and
from there into tank two. The magic happens in tank two. If you were to pull
the lid off of tank two, you would see what basically looks like a set of
underwater fluorescent lights. It’s actually a UV sterilization system that
kills bacteria and other nasty things that might be in the water. There’s also
a small circulation pump to keep the water moving in tank two,” he paused for a
second to ask if everybody understood. A few questions came up, but mostly just
for clarification until some guy asked, “So it sounds like we’re pretty much
set for water, right?”

Doc answered. “Yes and no. You see, there is a dependency in
this system to have continual power. There is a backup generator in the pump
house for temporary situations, but like all generators it requires fuel. We
have a little bit of fuel for it, but not enough to keep it running for any
length of time. So the end result is that we have several billion gallons of
water right next to us, how much of it we can safely drink is another matter. I’m
sure that by rationing water, and the fuel for the generator, we should be able
to provide at least a few weeks of potable water, based on our current campground
population. In the meantime, we could supplement those resources by boiling
water, as well as exploring other potential options that may come up. Another
issue related to water is our ability to give you hot water, which right now is
zero. It will remain zero until the main power comes back on.” There were a lot
of grumbles in the crowd as that sunk in. Doc looked around for questions and
then sat down.

I addressed the gathering again, “Other issues are going to
be food, shelter, and firewood. As of right now, due to the extraordinary and
unforeseen circumstances that we find ourselves in, I am authorizing you to
remove any fallen trees in the campground for use as firewood. Please don’t
waste the wood with bonfires twelve feet tall. On the west side of Blue Heron
loop there is a firebreak, where a few years ago they pushed back the tree line
about seventy feet. That area contains enough firewood to provide everybody with
several weeks—if not months worth—of firewood. However that firewood is
currently in tree form, and will have to be cut up by hand or drug over and
burned one section at a time. The campground maintenance is done by a
contracted service, so we don’t have access to a fully stocked tool shed here, but
there is a small chainsaw, as well as a few axes, hammers, and splitting wedges.
Remember though, the chainsaw also uses gas.”

I paused before continuing, letting the information sink in
and wetting my throat with a few cups of water. “Food is going to be a real
problem. I’m working on a potential source . . . hear that word people . . . ‘potential’
. . . It’s not guaranteed, but I may be able to come up with a limited amount
of staples like rice and beans. A very limited amount. The food you brought
with you may be all the food you have for while. I cannot force anybody to
share their food, I can only encourage it. In the meantime I am authorizing you
to take any game—fish, fowl, or mammal—whether in season or not and no matter
what size it is, for use as food.” The grumbling got louder, and I could see
several heads shaking and shoulders shrugging.

“Shelter is next on the agenda. Everybody here got here
somehow, whether RV or car, minivan or hitchhiking. As far as I know, everybody
has a place to sleep. According to Doc, if we had to we could sleep several
people on the floor of the campground office, and I’m sure there’s a lot of
room in some of these RV’S, all it takes is somebody willing to make the
offer.”

“The final topic I want to talk to you about is security, and
it’s a pretty broad topic, encompassing several different concerns. We don’t
know how this sickness, or disease, or whatever you want to call it, is
spreading. We can make some guesses based on what’s happened, but we’re still
not one hundred percent sure. Symptoms seem to be elevated temperature, skin
tone changes, delirium or confusion, redness in the eyes . . . these are things
we’ve already seen.” I stopped talking and gazed out at the crowd, trying to
meet some eyes before I continued, “As a condition of staying in the
campground, everybody will submit to a medical evaluation by a team that will
be appointed by, as well as led by, Dr. Collins. Anybody who does not submit to
this evaluation will be asked to leave the campground immediately. Anybody who
is found to be potentially infected will be isolated for a length of time to be
determined by the medical team. I wish there were an easier way to say this,
but the facts are that if this campground is to provide a sense of safety for
the residents, then everybody will have to play by the same rules, and those
rules will include submitting to a medical evaluation.” The crowd was silent
for almost two seconds. Then they exploded. Shouts of, “You can’t make us do
this,” and “There’s no need for this,” were mixed in with “Why, what are you
afraid of,” and “I’d be happy to do it, but if you’re not going to I’m not
going to,” as well as dozens of others—both for and against the idea. I turned
to Doc and Michelle and whispered something. They nodded, hopped in the golf
cart and left. Five minutes later the crowd’s aggravation and intensity level
had multiplied almost exponentially. People were being pushed and shoved, names
and derogatory comments were flying left and right. Doc and Michelle drove the
golf cart right up to me. I tried several times to shout over the crowd but my
voice was washed away in the din. That’s when Uncle Andy fired his 380 into the
air. People screamed and ducked, looking around for the assailant, hugging
their children or spouse. Uncle Andy holstered his gun and removed a pair of
latex gloves from his jacket pocket, putting them on as he moved around to the
cargo area of the golf cart. He grabbed the tarp enshrouded object and muscled
it onto the ground. Grasping the frayed edge of the blue vinyl tarp, he stood
up and spun the object out like he was unrolling a heavy lumpy rug. The gray-skinned,
split-skulled corpse of Mr. Hardison landed face up in a grotesque parody of a
marionette puppet. Arms out to his side, elbows slightly bent in opposite
directions from each other, left wrist ninety degrees up, right wrist ninety
degrees down. His mouth was still encrusted with the dried arterial blood that
comprised his last meal. Bits of flesh and skin could clearly be seen wedged
between his teeth as well—I didn’t want to think where it came from. Uncle Andy
knelt by the head of the cadaver, grabbing a patch of graying brown hair with
his left hand, he tilted the neck so the face was visible by the majority of
the crowd. Using his right hand he propped open the eyelids. Even in death they
were hellishly red.