Infected: They Will Eat You!: A Story of Family Survival in a Zombie Apocalypse (3 page)

Caleb was the one who looked at the money to be made. He liked carrying around a wad of cash.

Conversation turned to what the boys learned in school as we finished eating. An everyone-pitch-in kitchen cleaning made the after dinner work go quickly then a short discussion (kinda-argument really) about what to do next ended with “We’re going to take a walk.” from Christine.

It was a nice late summer day and perfect for a neighborhood walk. We ended up in some friend’s back yard a couple blocks away. The boys jumped in their pool, lucky they had on swim trunks. Christine sat on the deck with Emma and Marie. I sat on the patio with Carl, Bruce and Jesus.

Our short walk turned into three hours of talking and swimming and a couple of beers. It was dark when we walked home and we were worn out. It has been a long day and we were all ready for bed.

-——————————————

Wednesday morning came early again. By now I knew that if I was wide awake at this time of morning I should just get up. There was a reason for it and I was not going to get back to sleep. I headed downstairs, grabbed some coffee, pee and down to my office to wake my computer. On the way I pop on the TV.

The TV in my office is an oldie, a 20 incher probably 30 years old. Before any images appear sounds of explosions and screaming jump out at me. The BBC reporter is saying something about a bombing in London. Images of twisted metal that was once a subway train slowly fade in and filled the screen. I sat down in front of my computer and started opening work files.

As I’m getting my work ready I realize that there is a different reporter on the TV and different images, this time of a collapsed building. It turns out that there was not
a
bombing in London there were
four
and one failed bombing at the head of the Channel Tunnel.

The reporters were talking about the timing of the explosions and that the bombings were orchestrated, two in subway tunnels, one near Liverpool Street and one at Holland Park then two timed seconds apart on Finsbury Circus in the London Financial district. All occurred as people were leaving work so the streets and subways were busy. There was apparently no clear culprit in the bombings just speculation about one group or another. All fingers were pointing to “…
Islamic Extremists
but other groups could not be ruled out.”

In the midst of the reporting on the bombings they broke for commercials so I went for more coffee.

When I returned to my office the news had switched to the Middle East. There was a map of the Golan Heights on the screen with graphics showing where Syrian troops had amassed and Israeli troops had countered. This didn’t feel like another muscle flexing moment. Flashes of what I had just seen in London crossed my mind and expectations of something bigger, worse, entered.

Reports were coming in that this buildup occurred within a day, very quickly for the size of the force present. Syria had released one statement stating that the move was in response to an Israeli military buildup in the area. Israel’s response was predictable saying that their increased military presence was due to the Syrian’s.

There wasn’t much
news
reported about this event other than the fact that it had happened. Mostly the reporters talked about the history of the area, the Six-Day War, the Yam Kippur War and the various international arguments about the area. We get all of that. What about now.

The BBC news ended so I switched around to see what I could find about London and Israel but there was very little, just cursory mentions about London, nothing about the Mid-East.

I went to work.

By the time Mike & Mike came on I was well into my work really not thinking about the events on the news. I could hear Christine coming downstairs so I headed up to meet her and get more coffee.

Christine’s not a morning person. Oh, she likes to get up early but don’t talk to her or touch her or look at her or be in the same room as she is. A hot cup of coffee, morning kiss and hug make things better but they have to be quick.

It’s back to work for me.

By eight-thirty the kids are awake and it’s busy upstairs. Everyone is getting last minute jobs and breakfasts done before school starts. This is often a very hectic time in the house, time to take a break and help things along.

When I get to the top of the stairs I stand and watch as Caleb and Jesse dance and sing along with
Hillbilly Bone
as they serve up breakfast to each other. Why one served the other I don’t know, it’s hard to decipher why they do things sometimes, they are often having a blast or fighting, but these moments bring a big smile.

“Here’s your breakfast daddy.” shouted Caleb over the music.

We sit down at the table, right after I turn down the music.

By the time I get back to work it was after nine but the kitchen was clean, the kids were doing their school work and I was dressed with brushed teeth.

I sat down at the computer and the first thing I noticed was the red News Alert banner on my msn home page. These usually concern nothing that I find interesting or things that are so misreported that I simply ignore them. This one did however catch my interest.

“Israeli troops bomb Gaza.”
was the headline.

I clicked on the headline and read it was about Israel bombing Gaza killing and injuring thousands of Palestinians. Hamas was outraged and had the “world community” screaming that Israel should be held accountable.

Israel’s response….at 3 p.m. Tele Vive time a Hamas suicide bomber had killed eight in Ashkelon another bomber killed five in Sderot and Palestinian forces had attacked Israel with rocket and mortar fire for three days near Netivot and Sderot.

In looking around the internet at U.S. news services all I found was how Israel was once again attacking Palestinians. Even the White House released a statement “imploring” Israel to stop the attacks. Nowhere did I find reports on the bombings
of
Israel by the Palestinians until I looked at overseas news outlets.

It amazes me the extreme varying views across different countries reporting’s of the same events. European news outlets were full of the London bombings, the Mid-Eastern events and even other recent events that are not found in the U.S. press. Even South American reporting is more in-depth on these events than ours.

It was easy to go back and see how today’s events were an escalation of what had been taking place over the past four months. There was a lot going on and I wasn’t finding much information about it. In two articles were references to the “destruction of chemical weapons recently found in an “underground compound” 50 miles North West of Rutba.”

I’m no news geek, I rarely know what is going on in the headlines, but I would have heard of this had it been reported. The more I searched the more confused I became. There were other less detailed mentions of like events in media here and there but no huge headlines like it was breaking news. I hadn’t heard of any chemical weapons found in Iraq. Quite the contrary.

This was getting unnerving, one reason I dislike the
news,
rarely did you leave any news report feeling good or with a clear view of an issue. It took me a few minutes to remember to focus on what I can effect and let the rest go. With that in mind I finished work early and headed out to cut some lumber.

-——————————————

One thing I got from the “prepper” shows on TV is to at least have a plan. Building a bunker or castle or what not is not something I could do, if I had some land and more money sure, maybe, but doing what you can with what you have where you are and planning makes since. At dinner we talked about what I had read that day and what it could mean. Christine saw food prices going up, the boys…zombies. We all believed that changes were coming and we needed to be more ready than we were.

CHAPTER THREE

Early mornings were getting easier, my growing interest in news from outside the country had me nearly jumping out of bed once my eyes opened. This morning the BBC news was again talking about bombings. I didn’t recognize city names from before so I know they were new events. I sat down in a chair to watch.

There had been more bombings in Israel. They were naming cities that had been bombed so I pulled up a map on the computer. Be’er Sheva, Kayrat Gat, Kiryat Malakhi, Ramla, Tel-Aviv, Tul Karm, Nazareth….seven cities had been hit by multiple suicide bombers. It was a line up the middle of the country. It looked like an attack to split the country in half. There were no reports of any military troops moving into Israel though. I watched as more reports of bombs going off started to come in. Two more in Tul Karm, another in Be’er Sheva and one in Shefar’am.

I sat for an hour watching and looking at maps on the computer to get a better idea of what was where. When the BBC news ended I switched around to find anyone talking about the bombings. There were a few mentions but most of the U.S. news stations were focused on the Obama Care sign-up deadline or some Governor having an affair or such tripe. FOX News was showing footage of Israel. They also had footage from the past three days of greater military buildup along the border of Israel in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. They were describing it as not looking like an invasion force and more like a massive picket line.

After a couple hours I started seeing rehash after rehash of the same information so I moved to the computer to look around. It had been ten hours since the bombings started, about two since the last. Most of what I found was video footage from bloggers and non-mainstream media. One thing that was more evident in these videos was the response teams and the hazardous chemical suits they were wearing. None of the news channels had mentioned chemicals or showed the response teams in hazmat suits but you could see a progression from the first police and fire responders to these alien looking guys quarantining the areas.

By six there were alerts online about the bombings. The U. S. and other countries officially “condemned the actions” and that was about it.

Christine was stirring around so I went up and let her know what was going on, and to get coffee. I had forgotten all about coffee refills this morning. I didn’t have time to finish telling her what was on the news before she was on the computer. Her only response was “Do you think this is the end?”

I went back downstairs and started looking for more information. It took over an hour of searching, finding only vague information or that which I had seen already, before anything interesting came up. I clicked on the google search suggestion “chemical weapons in Iraq” and on the tenth or so page found obscure reports of their discovery and destruction. On two sites there were what appeared to be copies of U.N. memos authorizing WMD destruction.

The more I looked the more I found reports about cashes of chemical weapons and labs in Iraq. They were mainly from Kuwaiti, Israeli and Iranian, news sources, though I wasn’t sure if they were really news sources or just gossip sites. There was no reporting on these from the U. S. or any western media that I could find. Most of the reports were undetailed but stated the same information; Small laboratories disguised as clinics were discovered in late 2008. Larger facilities that had been dismantled were found in January 2009. In August a fully functional chemical weaponry lab hidden two stories under a pharmaceutical plant was discovered. Chemical weapons had been discovered in early 2009. Initially the weapons turned up in small quantities dismantled and dispersed throughout a city. Then larger stashes were found in 2010-11 in underground desert warehouses.

Only one Australian site included any details, “The Iraqi military along with assistance from U. N. chemical weapons experts destroyed fifteen warheads capable of carrying chemical agents along with a supply of Cyclosarin.”

I looked up Cyclosarin and found that it is extremely toxic nerve agent used as a chemical weapon, classified as a weapon of mass destruction by the United Nations and its production and stockpiling had been outlawed.

My first thought was “
Why hadn’t we heard about this
?”

I spent two more hours looking for more information to no avail. Either this was all fiction or we were not getting a full report. What finally occurred to me was that not only was I finding little information from “news sources” but there was a glaring lack of conspiracy talk. No forum or blog was siting or following the “WMDs Found” thread. I decided to post a question with information found on three news sites.

Are these reports of chemical weapons found in Iraq true? If so why do we not see them in the news more often?
I then listed the sites and headlines I found.

By now hunger had caught up with me and I left my
news
hunt for more important issues, putting a stop to the Caleb & Jesse bickering in the kitchen.

-——————————————

After lunch I was headed to Lowes with window and door measurements and a list of materials needed to fortify the house. I didn’t know if we would really need this stuff but I knew that waiting ‘till a hurricane is making landfall is too late to start thinking about boarding up your windows so I just
did
.

Twenty-four sheets of 3/8” plywood, an assortment of 2x4’s, screws, nails, glue and rolls of plastic later I was struggling home. That’s a lot of weight and I still had to unload it, after clearing space in the garage. By dinner I was done, tired and hungry. Conversation at the table centered on what I was doing and if the world was ending.

“Ending, I don’t believe the world will end, change perhaps, or change as we know it, but not end.” was my assertion.

“Change how?” Jesse asked.

“Well, we live in a physical world. The spirit world is a different world but in the same
world
as ours. Maybe the physical world would end but not the spirit world. Or we would just not be part of the physical world.” was my best explanation.

“Before the End of Days there will be much suffering and persecution of people like us.” Christine added, “It won’t be a happy world.”