Life Among the Dead (Book 4): The End (14 page)

40

Humanity has gotten weak,
Kenny ponders mankind’s downfall.
Adjustable beds, soft water, hand sanitizer, no surprise something like this could overtake us so easily.

He’s alone with his thoughts since he has no one to talk to, he doesn’t so much plan his future but pictures it. The steps he must take to achieve his goal are secondary at the moment to mental images of himself standing triumphantly, leading his people with rousing speeches. The people he sees are inconsequential, puppets in his fantasy. As PapaBear he figures he and Mother will take in survivors, loyal and grateful survivors that will obey without question. He sees himself delegating tasks to these faceless soldiers as he and Mother grow old together, surrounded by their children.

Lost in his imagination he almost misses his turn, one of his group members has a supply cache he must acquire before arriving at home base. The job he assigned himself and four other members was weapons, he’d hate to arrive empty handed.

The semi is parked in a field, its rumbling engine is turned off. PapaBear hops down from behind the wheel after making sure it is clear. There isn’t a shambling figure to be seen in the barren, scraggly plain. The lot was once a farm according to Bullseye who inherited the land and sold off pieces of it save for this one slice. Only one structure sits at the end of the rutty dirt road, a small corrugated steel shack. Up the dented beige sides weeds grow in defiance of attempts to mow the area short. The caretaker had halfheartedly cut down the vegetation that struggles to thrive on the neglected property for some semblance of a yard, leaving behind what the blades were unable to touch.

Bolt cutters in hand, PapaBear cautiously approaches the shed. No vehicles are parked outside, a good sign to him since the sting of abandoning Richie has yet to abate. He knows he’ll get over it in time, just as he has already forgotten the other guy. He’ll also get over the moral ramifications of misleading his followers. He has to wonder if they’ve tried to contact him yet, who among them has survived. Which caches are out there for the taking. They were all instructed, in the event of an apocalypse, to sit tight and wait for him to arrive.

He awoke this morning to building chaos, arrived at work to begin his route filling vending machines all over Breckinridge. The moment the radio suggested people should stay indoors he took off in his truck before it could even be loaded. Now he has what passes for food when one is desperate, and he’s about to get the guns he promised.

Baby steps are taken toward the shack, he clings to his bolt cutters like a security blanket. He can’t be certain the owner isn’t here, though no car is parked outside Bullseye always seemed like a bit of a recluse from his postings.

There’s no lock to clip off as he was expecting, but it is secured.
From the inside
, he thinks. PapaBear knocks. Bullseye has to be inside, there’s no keyhole in the weathered wooden door. He knocks again and listens for movement, a sign that his guy is inside.

“Hey, Bullseye!” he calls loudly. “It’s PapaBear!”

Nothing. He slowly rounds the simple dwelling finding no other doors. There isn’t even a window. Back at the door the man knocks one last time to no avail before deciding to kick it in. He hitches his pants up to his potbelly in preparation, takes a few puffs of air and then goes for it.

PapaBear’s foot lands against the wood, it gives easier than he had expected catching him off guard when the lack of resistance makes him lose his balance and fall forward. His leg is numb and his groin hurts, he lays on the ground waiting for the pain to subside. He hasn’t much time to recover, he hears a moan besides his own.

From the shack creeps a man PapaBear recognizes from his group. Bullseye had made it to his cache, but had suffered a bite at some point. He has a blood-soaked bandage on his hand that he reaches for Kenny with. The survivalist screams, crab crawling backwards to get away from the zombie.

Scrambling to his feet, he has nothing to fight with other than the large tool he brought with him. He swings too soon at Bullseye not once but twice in his panic, all the while still letting his fear out in a yell. The dead man that had put his trust in him lunges forward as Kenny takes another hasty swing, this one connects.

Bullseye is on the ground, his temple has been struck hard enough to leave the skin avulsed by the metal end of the tool. The flap of flesh hangs in ravaged piece that quivers as he rises to his feet in his unyielding quest to get to the leader of their group. Kenny continues to back away, his weapon is held over his head, poised to strike. He hesitates, scared to risk getting too close. He knows he has to do it but is having trouble committing to the act. Gritting his teeth he goes for it, plunging the pointed end down into the top of Bullseye’s head.

The zombie falls to the ground, bolt cutters lodged deeply in its skull. PapaBear is breathless and has to place his hands on his knees to collect himself. His eyes don’t waver from the still corpse, expecting it to rise again. After a few minutes he walks around the body and heads to the shack to see how honest Bullseye was on what he had been able to horde. He will grab everything and head for home.

“Mother’s waiting.”

41

“My daddy calls him Chachi,” a young girl says on the reserve depot’s parade ground, much to the amusement of those assembled for the early morning muster. Civilians and enlisted alike are able to share a chuckle at the expense of one young man, none more so than the Master Sargent that has been briefing everyone on the current situation. He gleefully uses the information to further deride the poor boy.

Susan doesn’t laugh. Though she asked her boys to stay with her they have wandered off to the side, the mother keeps her eyes on them. Though they were asked to pay attention and keep quiet they are too busy examining rocks at the moment to be bothered by the boring announcements.

Hippo throws one of the rocks as far as he can to the dismay of his brother.

“That might have been a geode!” Killian looks to where the stone has been hurled with longing.

“It was a rock,” the sibling states simply.

“It’s what’s in the rock that makes it a geode,” the older of the two boys explains.

His mother remembers when his rock obsession began, his father had him for the weekend and the two of them hunted for the special stones. Oz had researched geodes and found out that Iowa is actually a great place to find them. The boy came home with dozens of dirty, ugly rocks that were quite beautiful on the inside, small caverns of sparkling crystals.

Hippo isn’t convinced, stubbornly tossing another one. The two are so different, it was easy for Susan to lie to herself about the fact they share the same father. She told Josh that she was pregnant with his child to escape a life she felt was going nowhere, with creditors hounding them and overwhelming debt resulting from Killian’s medical problems when he was born, she felt like she was drowning. They pinched pennies to the point she didn’t know why they should even bother, what was the point of living if they couldn’t enjoy the simplest of luxuries. It was a survival instinct that made her succumb to the doctor’s advances, he could offer them so much more.

Now Josh is dead, Oz is not around. Murphy, the cop sworn to protect her and the boys has been drafted to help the soldiers with a task this morning, he’s been selected to move the autos that block the gates. If anything happens to the veritable stranger she fears she’ll be all alone though surrounded by others. She’ll have no on to trust and rely on. She wonders if she should just tell the boys the truth, have it out once and for all, tell them that they are truly brothers and that Oswald Johnson is father to them both.

She watches her boys inspecting rocks together, without a care though the world is in shambles. The population of the depot is heading north to an Army base. She decides that she will tell them the truth when they get there. After they are settled. When she’s sure they are safe.

Section XIII: Signs of life

1

Six years ago, deep in the bowels of Memorial Hospital, alarms had gone off within the secret lab of Wilkes Pharmaceuticals. Unbeknownst to the citizens of Waterloo, or anyone else in the hospital, a potentially hazardous substance was inadvertently released.

The alerts were heard only by those within the vault like walls of the research center, all staff rushed to the scene. Within a room partitioned by shatterproof glass a man was beating against the pane wanting to get out. A green haze surrounded him, the substance he was using was in gaseous form and had inexplicably been released.

“Calm down, Donny,” Freeman Wilkes tried to soothe the man in the room that battered soundlessly upon the glass. A crowd had formed behind the mastermind of the project, all holding their breath in anticipation of their colleague’s rescue. “We’re suiting up to get you out of there.”

Techs began to done suits of yellow impermeable material to retrieve the man in the sealed room, but it was just a show, a means to calm the trapped man’s panicked nerves.

“Sir, the lab is in total lockdown. The fail safes won’t allow us to leave if we don’t…”

“Donny,” Freeman ignored his assistant, he already knew what was going to be said and it was out of the question, “tell me what happened.”

“The sample leaked…” the man wheezed, a large man in his early sixties, the excitement had him winded. “I think the seal is cracked.”

The sample, a substance not of this earth, once exposed to the air begins to reproduce exponentially. Just the minute amount that was allowed into the air was enough to create the thickening haze around the tech and throw the facility into complete lockdown.

“Can it be fixed?”

“I…I think so,” Donny said, not entirely convinced. He turned back to his work and just stared at the containers, his fear preventing him from figuring out what to do first.

“We can’t send anyone in until the sample is secured, Donny,” Freeman explained in his smooth manner of speaking.

The tech went to work right away, the sooner he could get it sealed, the sooner he’d be out of the claustrophobic room.

“Sir,” his assistant tried to appeal to him.

“Maintain containment,” the man softly commanded.

“If we don’t flash the room,” his assistant said with urgency, “the system will not let us leave.”

“I designed the system, I know full well. I’ll be damned if I’m going to destroy every trace of Sample 6 I have.” Freeman Wilke’s company uses the substance as an ingredient for many of their products and have amassed a great fortune in the process. Its unique properties make it a medical miracle.

“I did it!” Donny announced. “All I had to do was…”

“Purge the room,” Freeman Wilkes said at once, not concerned with how the job was done.

Instantly all the air was sucked out of the small space, the haze cleared in an instant, released to the world. The man in the room collapsed, passing out from lack of oxygen before he could even react. The alarms continued to sound, the laboratory remained on lock down as the system tested the air for the presence of hazardous material. Finding none, the protocols returned control to the humans that built it. The alarms went silent, lights stopped flashing, and the small room that held Donny was unlocked.

Techs rushed in to retrieve the man upon hearing the metallic sound of the bolts disengaging, he was rolled over and given the breath of life. Freeman Wilkes cared not for his life, all he was concerned with was the safety of his precious samples.

“Sample 6 is now in the atmosphere,” the assistant spoke slowly to his boss as he watched Donny being helped out of the room.

Freeman turned his back on his assistant, those aiding the infirmed technician, and everybody beginning the cleanup. He callously walked away from it all saying, “Donny was immersed in it. He’s on his feet, isn’t he?”

####

Brightly colored balloons happily floated inches from a paneled ceiling, all announcing best wishes and a speedy recovery. Following their ribbon tethers with his eyes, the man on the receiving end of the cheer saw bouquets of flowers, and cards of equally wishful sentiment. Donny DePonte is in the hospital, but it looks nothing like the rooms he’s used to. Having had a few overnights for treatments, and being held for observation after cardiac episodes, he had grown accustomed to a certain degree of luxury at Memorial Hospital’s VIP suites. This is far from luxurious.

“Hello, Donny,” Freeman Wilkes said from the doorway. In his hand was a large coffee mug sprouting yet another bundle of flowers. This wasn’t just a ‘get well’ present, attached to the handle of the cup was another balloon that wafted lazily behind Wilkes and read ‘Happy Retirement’. “You look rested. Gave us quite a scare.”

“Where am I?” The man shifted uncomfortably on the hard adjustable bed.

“Olive Grove Hospital,” Wilkes told him. “We can’t have you rubbing your potentially infectious elbows with our investors, can we? You’ll still receive the best of care, here. Doctor Grey will treat you, here. Nathanial will keep me apprised of your recovery.”

Donny read the balloon once more and realized he was now out of a job, before he could comment Wilkes simultaneously verified and alleviated his fear. “I’ve decided it’s time for you to retire. You deserve it. After your little mishap, I had expected the skies to be green, but as you can see…” he gestured Donny’s attention to the window, just blue sky dappled with perfect fluffy white clouds. “We purged the room. It’s out there in trace amounts. It’s in the air we breathe. It’s in the air they’re breathing in China. Being allowed room to move has changed it somehow. Instead of reproducing, it’s gone dormant.

“You’ll still receive your benefits as well as your full pension for all the years you’ve served Wilkes Pharmaceuticals, but you are never to go near Memorial Hospital, or contact any of your former colleagues. You are to never mention your work for me, especially the incident. Is that clear?”

Donny’s mind raced with questions he knew better than to ask, all he could do was nod his understanding of the conditions of his retirement. He had received a mega dose of Sample 6, the last thing he could remember is the air in that room instantly feeling very thick, in actuality it had become nonexistent. They had purged the room, released the substance to the environment. His retirement is hush money, the continued health coverage a way of observing him. It sinks in that he is now just a guinea pig on a pension.

While Donny came to terms with his new lot in life, a janitor stopped his cart outside the door. The large man entered to quickly and silently come in and switch out the trash.

“Pardon me, Mister…” Wilkes addressed the man before he could slip away.

“Oz,” the guy answered.

“I’m looking to invest some money into this hospital, bring it up to date if you will. Do you have any suggestions as to where that money should go?”

The janitor wasn’t used to this, it wasn’t often anyone asked for his opinion while on the job. “The west wing could use a complete overhaul,” he offered the first thing that came to mind. “This place is supposed to make sick folks feel better, not depress the hell out of ‘em. Also, I’d like it if we had service halls like Memorial has. It’d make my job a lot easier if I didn’t have to interact with people so much.”

“Good suggestions,” the man pondered the proposed improvements while the patient he came to see silently laid there, forgotten and looking troubled.

“Excuse me,” a pretty nurse appeared in the doorway. “Mr. DePonte, we’re getting your paperwork ready for your release. Is there anything you need?”

As if awoken from a deep sleep, Donny took a second to process the question. “Uh—No. I’m fine. Thank you.”

“Oz,” the nurse addressed the janitor, “sorry, but there’s a code brown down the hall.”

“I’m on it,” he responded with a sigh. He finished what he had come into the room to do, grabbing the old trash can and dropping a fresh one.

Freeman Wilkes continued to ignore Donny in favor of watching the nurse depart and the janitor go about his business. “Is a code brown what I think it is?”

“Yeah,” the janitor mirthlessly replied on his way out the door.

“It must be hard to work with such pretty nurses running around,” the wealthy man stated before losing his conversation partner. A man as adept in business as Wilkes is able to read people, he noticed a hint of familiarity between the janitor and the health worker that intrigued him. “The scrubs they wear these days don’t allow much admiration of their figures. Not like when I was younger and they actually wore the white uniforms.”

The janitor stopped in his tracks, almost free and clear of the uncomfortable situation and back to what he was used to, the preferred task of cleaning the feces of another person rather than dealing with their ‘personal shit’. He stopped just long enough to cease the man he recognized as Freeman Wilkes, the richest man in Waterloo, possibly one day the world, from fantasizing further about the nurse. In a voice that spoke volumes, a growl that warned he should tread cautiously, he simply said, “She’s my wife.”

With that the janitor was gone. Freeman Wilkes was left alone with his one-time employee. “I wish them all the best. As I do you, Donny.”

On his feet now, his business was done, all his shrouded threats delivered, Wilkes bid farewell over his shoulder on his way out. “Take it easy, Donny. Nathanial says you haven’t been taking care of yourself as he prescribed. You should listen to him, we want you to live a long and happy life.”