Omega Pathogen: Despair (9 page)

The Matthews group had just got inside when the first large drops began to fall. At the same time, the rumbling of thunder had come. The thunder started in the distance and grew closer as the winds pushed the front to the south. Jim got up from the table and ran back out to close the MRAP rear doors. “It’s a nasty looking storm. I’m no weather man, but I bet there’s a cold front behind it,” Jim said as he re-entered.

Dr. Shultz had visited the new arrivals twice daily since they had arrived to check up on those with the flu. The doctor conducted the visits mainly for comforting those that had recently arrived. He had issued an ample supply of what used to be over-the-counter medicines to treat their symptoms.

Since they were being quarantined to prevent another outbreak of the flu on the farm, he wanted to try and make them feel welcome. Dr. Shultz took any requests they had and made sure that if they wanted something that was available they received it.

Dr. Shultz had been a little surprised by the high fevers many in the new group had presented with the flu. The residents of the farm had fevers while the flu virus was running its course, but not to the extent he was seeing with this group.

He thought perhaps it might have been due to their lack of proper nutrition since the outbreak of the SCAR virus. It seemed everyone, including him, had shed extra pounds, but these people had been on the verge of significant malnutrition. Nevertheless, most seemed to be stabilized and improving in the short time since they had been there.

Dr. Shultz had been shocked to hear their stories of survival. He’d been hearing both fact and rumor for a while, but to hear firsthand the accounts of individuals that had lived close to a largely populated area like Jacksonville was disconcerting. He’d heard the same type of recounts from Jim Matthews and his wife about their experience in Texas near Houston and their travels all the way to Florida.

He just didn’t want to believe things had actually gotten so bad. He didn’t want to believe that a large and modern country like the United States could fall so fast into chaos. It unsettled him. He wondered at the chances for survival for people in less developed countries around the world.

He smiled to himself as he had thought of all the guns and ammunition in the U.S., and how he had always thought it ridiculous that anyone other than military or police should need firearms. He had wished that the U.S. would become free of firearms like other countries. Although he would had never imagined something like the SCAR virus in his worst nightmares, he now felt at least some small measure of reassurance knowing the amount of weapons that were available for people that survived to try and defend themselves.

Dr. Shultz felt the breeze from the north and glanced in that direction. He noticed the dark band of clouds that headed their way. He picked up the pace of his walk a little more. He was struck by an idea and was surprised he hadn’t thought of it before. He really should have a golf cart to move more easily about the farm. He knew he could use any number of vehicles if he needed, but the idea of getting a golf cart could possibly lead to acquiring some golf clubs as well. He made a mental note to make a request of one of the persons in charge of a scavenging mission to keep an eye out for him.

His thoughts brought him to think of his wife Charlotte and how much he missed her. She had suffered a massive stroke two years before the outbreak and clung to life for seven days afterward. He missed her and the times they had gone golfing on the weekends. He missed her, but he also felt relief knowing she didn’t have to witness what had become. 

Another gust of cool wind on his face made him pick up the pace even more to try and beat the storm’s arrival. It had the look and feel of one that would last for hours or the rest of the evening. He didn’t want to be out in it when the deluge came.

As he grew near, the doctor thought it odd someone wasn’t outside or standing in the door of the bus to greet him. Normally when he approached for his noon visits a couple of the children and an adult or two would see him and wait at the door.

He reasoned the threat of the storm probably had kept them inside. Dr. Shultz glanced up at them, but couldn’t see the inside the windows of the Greyhound bus. The windows were darkly tinted and all but blocked the view inside. Only if the sun shown through from the other side could shapes inside be made out. If he had looked harder he may have seen a hint at the activity inside and it would have alerted him to what he had been about to stumble into.

He thought his mind played tricks on him as he got within twenty feet or so from the Greyhound bus. He stopped in his tracks and listened when he thought he heard muffled screams, but heard nothing more. The sound had been as brief as it was weak and made the location indeterminable. He shrugged it off and continued his walk to the bus when a gust of wind blew in from the approaching storm. That had probably been it, he reasoned. The sound of the wind gusts weren’t dissimilar to what he had heard or thought he heard.

The noon sky grew darker as the storm front approached. The sun was cloaked in grey now and the afternoon shadows gone. Throughout the Yates’ farm, people had almost all taken shelter in preparation for the coming rain. Work and play had been stopped anyway as most had prepared for lunchtime. Because of the storm the semi-routine outdoor gathering of most of the residents for the meal wouldn’t happen today.

On occasions with rain, everyone except for those on guard duty mostly stayed indoors. The children that were in school would have their lunch prepared and brought to the schoolhouse whenever the weather threatened the communal meal.

Judith, who had been spending much of her time at the small schoolhouse helping teach the farm’s children, volunteered to go retrieve the meals for the students and other teachers as they returned inside the schoolhouse from recess. The school used a four-wheeled handcart for such occasions and Judith grabbed hold of the push / pull bar and dragged it in the direction of the Yates’ home to get the meals for the schoolchildren.

Jen and others helping out were nearly finished preparing the sandwiches when Judith arrived. They greeted Judith and offered her some tea or coffee while they finished. Judith declined and helped with prepping the sandwiches. Then, with sandwiches and juice stacked in the cart, she headed back to the schoolhouse ahead of the rain.

Chapter 9

Dr. Shultz had just arrived at the Greyhound bus on the north side of the farm when the rain began to fall. The doctor found the door to the bus slightly ajar, about an inch. He gave a knock on the door’s dark glass as he announced himself and waited. He thought he heard someone inside approaching the door. The raindrops became more frequent and his desire to stay dry caused him to knock again, louder this time, and he pushed open the bus door.

Dr. Shultz stepped up into the bus. “How’s every . . .” He stopped frozen in place at the sight in front of him. He wasn’t certain of the number but most of the occupants of the bus, the families and friends that had arrived two days ago were in the process of attacking each other. He wanted to move or cry out but his mind still tried to process what his eyes showed him. Children had been mauled and mutilated by the adults and older teens.

The interior of the bus reeked of blood and human excrement. All the attention of the ten or twelve infected, almost as one, turned and focused on him. Dr. Shultz could finally move again. He took a step backwards to descend the steps he’d just taken into the bus. The infected growled and charged. He attempted to continue backing down the steps, terrified to take his eyes off those that now saw him as prey. Dr. Shultz stumbled back into the bus door that he had carefully closed on the way in.

He fumbled for the pull lever on the door behind his back and then risked turning his head to look at the door. He immediately saw the lever, pulled the door open and took a step toward the ground. Dr. Shultz’s right foot was inches from the wet dirt and grass when he was snatched backwards into the bus. As an involuntary reflex he started to inhale deeply in order to scream but was interrupted mid-inhalation by two of the rabid mouths that competed for access to his throat.

They dragged Dr. Shultz back further into the bus, his medical bag still clutched in his left hand. They took several more bites from his face and neck and then the infected tore his shirt and fed on his innards. The doctor was no longer a potential carrier of the SCAR virus and they had their fill of him. The infected left the bus through the open door and left Dr. Shultz dying on the floor near the driver’s seat.

The rain had become a downpour. With the sun blocked out by the clouds it was more like it was dusk than midafternoon. The combination of the dark clouds and the thick sheets of falling rain reduced visibility to around fifteen feet. As they had in the past, more of the infected ventured out during the dim light of rainstorms. More came near the barricades around the farm. It was nearly completed, but the area around the northern section still had a twenty-foot gap with only chain-link fencing.

The perimeter had guard shacks built every one hundred feet or so to help protect the guards from the elements and keep them high enough to see over the fences and barricades. The guards easily picked off infected that had ventured too close to the exterior during good weather, but it was more difficult with the current storm. The intermittent gunshots along the northern perimeter attracted more infected from the nearby area. It also drew the attention of some that were now inside the perimeter.

Jim, the rest of the Matthews, and their group heard the gunfire. They’d grown accustomed to it, but they’d noticed the gunshots seemed more than normal. Jim walked to the door, cracked open a couple inches and briefly looked around.

Due to the rain he could see nothing beyond ten or fifteen feet past the MRAP parked near the doorway. Jim began to close the door, but paused for a second and listened when he thought he heard distant footfalls rapidly smacking wet earth. Then it was gone. The wind shifted and blew the rain into his face through the open door. He listened for a few more seconds and heard nothing more, so Jim closed and latched the door.

Inside the schoolhouse Judith worked with eight of the five-year-olds while they practiced saying and writing the alphabet. She had looked up and out the north-facing window where she and the other two teachers had noticed the darkening sky. She looked out the window again when the first raindrops began pelting the tin roof.

Judith had been whispering her instructions to her group of children so she didn’t disturb the other students with their work, but it became impossible for her to even hear herself talk as the rainfall increased in intensity. Shelly, a woman in her thirties, and a man named Jeff, who was in his late sixties, were the other two teachers.

All three of the adults had steadily increased the volume of their voices for their respective groups. Judith checked her watch; it would be lunchtime soon, so she suggested that they take their break a little earlier. The children were delighted and Shelly and Jeff agreed. They started to clear the tables of their work. 

Throughout the Yates’ property the infected spread out and infected more, many were killed outright. In the beginning of the outbreak it had taken hours, and in some cases days to cause those that had been bitten to succumb to the SCAR virus. Now those that weren’t killed turned rabid in minutes.

Those not killed continued the cycle and sought others to kill or infect through attack and mutilation. Newly infected turned on strangers, friends, and family alike. The location of the Greyhound bus, where the infected had emerged, was in close proximity to the northern section of the perimeter that had only the chain-link fence. The shooting had drawn some of the infected from the interior of the farm up the stairways of the guard shacks and directly to the sentries on watch.

None had expected a threat from the inside of their compound. The guards that manned the two platforms near the fenced area were easy prey for the infected that attacked from inside. As the infected from the exterior grew near, they scaled the fencing. Many fell and began their quest again, trampling those that were smaller or weaker and using their bodies to climb higher.

Eventually the neglected section of fence began to fail from the large number of infected that flowed into the area and surrounded the Yates’ farm. More than three hundred carriers of the SCAR virus poured through the gap left unguarded after the areas protectors were attacked.

Jim heard it again. He froze with his coffee cup tilted towards him an inch from his mouth. The sound of multiple feet slapping on wet ground, moving quickly nearby and then fading into the distance. He looked around the small room. His family and friends had heard it as well. They had all halted in place and those that had been speaking stopped.

Jim set down the coffee cup and touched the Glock in his thigh rig for reassurance it was there. He grabbed his AR-15 that leaned against the wall beside him near the chair. No one spoke. Everyone had the same look of fear that was written on Jim’s face.

Even Berk and Kayra felt something was wrong. The rest of the adults had done the same as Jim, quietly but quickly they set about arming themselves. Arzu gently ushered Berk and Kayra to the back of the room and away from the door. All the others placed themselves in front of the children and waited.

“Chris, Jeremy, you two good to go?” Jim asked rapidly in a low voice. He heard his older two sons voices quietly reply, “Good to go.” Jim kept his head and weapon aimed at the door as he explained the areas of responsibility after he when the exited.  Jim turned to look at Royce, “You do what you want, but do not start that loud truck until my family is safe inside the MRAP. Do you understand me?” Jim said. His voice was still quiet but an unmistakable warning was implied in its tone. “Yeah, Jim. I understand,” Royce replied.