Plague: Death was only the beginning! (13 page)

“Why, oh why, has this horror fallen upon us? Lord, have pity!”

-Thoughts from the Author

Chapter 38

Tommy was shocked to hear the reports of mass bat attacks that were taking place in the Southwest. It boggled the mind that something like this could happen after what they had all gone through. But, what was scarier was that stations broadcasting this news seemed to drop off the map as the bats got closer to them. The bats appeared to be unstoppable as they killed and drank from everything across a vast area, overwhelming people by their sheer numbers. He couldn’t understand how, or why, there were so many, nor why they had appeared in such huge numbers. In any case, he passed on the news and observations to the other stations that he still had contact with. It was only later that he heard the massive swarm was also seen far to the south in Mexico and Central America. The extinction of their normal prey and the lack of human intervention had allowed the bats to breed at levels never seen before. Somehow, they seemed to know that only by massing their numbers could they overcome the few human populations and settlements that were left. Totally illogical in human terms, but it was working for the bats. They even turned on their cousins, the fruit bats, and drank their blood as they tumbled from the skies. The birds, monkeys, and small animals fell to their thirst as well, leaving only bugs and the dead behind them as they explored new lands from which to hunt.

It was after his last contact that he heard a new signal coming in. It was weak and off the band, and he carefully tuned them in until they were coming in clearly.

“Hello, hello? Is anyone out there?”

Hello, yes, I’m still here! I read you weak and broken,” Tom replied. “Can you boost your power any?”

“I don’t know. This is my husband’s radio, and he always handled that kind of stuff,” the person responded. “Can you help us?”

“Maybe, your power level is just turned down. Check for a dial or button that says “Mic/Power,” and turn it all the way up. That should help,” Tom said.

As he listened to their signal, it seemed to grow in volume. When they called again, they were much stronger and clearer.

“Hello, does that help?”

“Yes, I hear you clearly, and I am swinging my beam around to help as well. Who are you, and where are you located? You must be some distance away from me here in Missouri,” Tom replied.

“My name is Marsha, and we are in Bangor, Maine. Wow. Missouri. That is a long ways from here,” she said. “I heard your voice on a shortwave radio and remembered my husband’s radio. I hooked it up and called you back. I hope I’m doing this right.”

“Marsha, you are doing just fine. Besides, I don’t think the FCC is still with us. So, just call me Tom. We are located in southeastern Missouri near a town called West Plains. We all survived the plague by sheltering in place before it got here. How did you survive?” Tom asked.

“Well, we didn’t really. Almost everyone here is dead. But, Sharon and Simon found me awhile back and we are doing okay. Had solar power and batteries for lights and propane for heating and cooking,” Marsha replied. “Do you think it is all over? I heard you talking about bats? What is that all about? Do you think that will happen here too?”

“No, you are fine. We believe the plague has burned itself out. Ran out of victims, I guess. Now, we just have to survive the aftermath. Almost all of the major cities are uninhabitable and even dangerous to go into. So I don’t recommend doing so,” he stated. “And if you don’t have a deep well, make sure you filter and boil all of your water. Cholera and other waterborne diseases are already taking more lives. As the dead continue to infect the living, we lose even more lives that cannot be replaced. Pretty damn sad when you think about it.”

“Yes, I see what you mean. We do have a well, as we are right on the edge of town. The city was constantly bugging us to get added to their system. Glad we outwaited them now,” she said. “We are set up pretty good here. How are you guys doing?”

“Well, we used to be called “preppers,” so we are just fine. Even was able to save a few head of cattle and some horses from the neighbor’s farm after they died. Had to haul a shitload of hay for them, but they are worth every drop of sweat. By this time next year, I can be trading you beef steaks for lobsters!”

Marsha and Sharon had to laugh about that. They didn’t think anyone would be catching lobsters anytime in the future. They talked to Tom for several hours until he had to sign off. They had found a friend, even if they were over a thousand miles away and halfway across the country. It gave them hope that one day other people would show up, and they wouldn’t have to live alone, cut off from the rest of the world. They were also thankful to be alive and not trapped in the plague-swept cities.

“Beat the drum slowly and play the fife lowly, for the Devil is passing near.”

-Thoughts from the Author

Chapter 39

Mike salvaged what he could from the raiders’ camp and threw the items into the back of an armored Humvee. After seeing what the bats had done to his truck, he felt that his truck wouldn’t be able to withstand another attack. He had finally gotten up enough courage to go back to his truck, and after swiping off the blood from his truck’s windshield, had driven it to the roadblock. Over the next two hours, he had found the keys to the Humvee and fixed up a temporary hitch to use for his trailer. He stepped carefully around the black, red, and white piles of remains as he gathered up their rifles and backpacks. He also loaded up as much water and food as he could into the back of the massive vehicle. Extra fuel was already loaded into five-gallon metal “jerry” cans for easy refueling. These he strapped onto the bumper, top, and sides of the truck’s armor. He figured that he had almost enough to make it back to Missouri and his family. Now, he just needed to get his ass in gear and hit the road.

Sunset saw him three hundred miles down the road, and he was fairly certain the bloody bats were far behind as well. He had tried calling Tom in Missouri on his jury-rigged HF radio system, but for some reason, he wasn’t getting a good signal out. He had to replace his own antenna for the one on the hummer, but the fittings were different, and he had to duct tape something together before it would work. The truck had a radio in it, but it operated on a different frequency from his HF one. So, he just pushed on making it down the road as far as he could before it got dark. The problem was that he couldn’t drive after dark because the road had tons of dead and abandoned vehicles. He had to constantly either push them out of the way or go around them. As the last rays of the sun set behind him, he pulled into an open patch of road and shut everything down. He wished he could open a window or something, but the armored glass made that impossible. Still, after last night, he wasn’t complaining. Opening a spaghetti with meat sauce MRE, he placed the water-activated heater and the entrée pack back into the box in order to warm it up. In the meantime, he opened the chocolate chip brownie and took a big bite. This was the best part of the MREs. The brownie and pound cakes were tasty and good even years after they were made. Later after he poured some hot sauce on his spaghetti, he wished he had waited on the brownie. This stuff was vile!

About 2:00
AM
, by his watch, he heard the beating of wings against the heavy glass. Again, there had to be thousands of bats if he was actually hearing them through the armor. Turning on the headlights, he couldn’t see anything. The screen was covered. He turned the lights back off. How they knew he was even there just boggled his mind again. He was three hundred miles from their attack last night. Nothing could travel that far.

Maybe these weren’t the same bats he had seen. How many swarms were out there? Who knew? But, it was a virtual shit storm of trouble if they were still moving east. The only thing he could think of was that the weather up to this point in the Southwest had been warm and clear. The cold weather that everyone else was getting up north was forcing them to stay south of that line. This would funnel them straight across the south, through Missouri, and right down to the Gulf and East Coast. Everyone and everything that stood in their way would die.

He spent the rest of the night working and testing his radio to try to get a signal through to Tom and the rest. He had to warn them, no matter whatever else he did. He was already weeks behind getting there, and now he might get there too late.

As dawn broke the next morning, he put everything into speed. If he could get there soon enough, maybe they would be able to bunker down and outwait the bats. After all of their food sources were gone, they would starve to death soon after. They only had to wait the bats out.

“And soon the darkness would reach them, sweeping away all in an orgy of blood.”

-Thoughts from the Author

Chapter 40

Unknown to Mike, there had been a single survivor to the night attack he had witnessed. Susan had been traveling east with her family toward the Gulf Coast until they had run into the Army roadblock three days earlier. After killing her family in cold blood, they had tied Susan up and had thrown her into one of the tents like a side of beef. Later, after sorting through the few canned goods the family had stored up and salvaging the gasoline, she heard them pushing the car down the side road and out of sight of their camp. This was to ensure no one would see the dead bodies and burned vehicles. Finished, they drew lots on who would get their turn with Susan first. Needless to say, Susan had found the next three days a blur of men and limbs and pain. This routine changed one night after dark when a flutter of wings began brushing against the side of her tent. Knowing something was wrong as the sound grew, she crawled under her bed and wrapped her Mylar cover and blankets around her. Moments later, she heard the first screams.

The sound of wings seemed to increase to a roar as more and more creatures flew out of the darkness. Finding courage, she lifted the side of her tent wall and looked outside for only an instant. It was enough as the sight before her was ingrained into her mind. Each of the soldiers had what looked like thousands of bats on him that were clawing and biting through their clothing in a search for something. Susan realized they must have been vampire bats, as they were the only known species of bats to live entirely on blood. The sharp teeth and clawed wings opened deep fissures as they made their way deeper. The men were screaming and rolling on the ground to try to escape the biting monsters. They only gave room for new bats searching for a place to feed. Soon, a mass of black wings and biting teeth completely covered the bodies, and shortly after that, only the bats could be seen moving. Two men had taken shelter in a tent, but they soon ran toward one of the Humvees in search of better cover. Both fired their rifles into the air. One actually got the truck door open before he too was pulled down. His final screaming face showed no eyes and a mouth covered by black shapes. Soon he too was silent and unmoving. Everything was except for the bats. Her last look showed one man’s head rolling toward her on the ground. She dropped the tent material and bit her lips to silence her screams. She didn’t want the bats to eat her too.

By dawn, the camp was quiet, and she made her way out from under her heavy blankets and onto her cot. The tent was sliced to ribbons, as the bats had searched the camp for more prey. She had no idea why they hadn’t found her under the cot and blankets, but, she was thankful just the same. On reaching the front of the tent, she lifted the flaps and stepped outside. On the ground before her, she could see a number of red, black, and white patches. Spreading out from the center mass were the heads and arms of her former guards—nameless now, forevermore.

Returning to her tent, she found her clothes and dressed before finding a pack with water and MREs in it. Sorting through other goods, she finally added her blanket and Mylar survival cover for added warmth against the chill of the night air. She also took a rifle and handgun before she moved further up the side road toward her family’s car. She refused to leave them as food for the bats and coyotes. She had promises to keep, and miles to go, before her sleep. Yes, Robert Frost said it best. “And miles to go before I sleep.”

“Where is the help we were promised? When is the suffering to end?”

-Thoughts from the Author.

Chapter 41

The road into Missouri was clogged with abandoned cars and semis that had tried to escape the plague. Mike viewed the dead mass from a hilltop that overlooked Interstate Highway 44. He had spent the last three days fighting his way by side road and garden pass to reach this point. He had no idea how much longer it would take him to get home. He had found so many different routes on which to travel, and all of them were packed solid. Even the nearby gravel roads had their own level of dead. And even driving in the ditches, he had only made a few extra miles before running into another jammed crossroad. Driven to abandon his hummer, he started walking until he could find another vehicle and get back on the road. Hours later, he had only made a few miles and was starting to worry about the darkness overcoming him and the bats returning. He gave up for now and headed off to a local store to find shelter. As luck would have it, it was a Casey’s store, a hallmark of the Midwest. The front doors were completely torn away as if someone had forgotten their keys and instead, had used their truck and chains to pull the doors free. The doors now lay on the concrete next to the gas pumps.

It was too late to be picky, so he made his way inside, stepping over the smashed shelves and damaged goods. Reaching the cooler section, he opened one of the service doors and looked inside. Past the interior shelving were cases of soft drinks and cases of bottled water and Gatorade-type energy drinks. Going around to the side, he opened the cooler door and looked around again. Yes, this might work!

As night fell outside, Mike worked at stacking cases of water, soda, and energy drinks up against the front glass. He hoped that if he could cover up his signature sounds and body heat, he might be able to escape the detection of the bats. The wall he was building should save his life.

Looking through a small crack in the wall that he had left open, he could see the bats fluttering in and out of the open doors of the store. This time, they moved on after finding nothing inside on which to feed. Mike was completely exhausted and covered himself up with his sleeping bag and closed his eyes. But after finally falling asleep, he missed the sight of more and more bats racing in and out of the shattered doors.

The next morning, he made his way past some more miles of dead cars before finding a bicycle that seemed to fit his needs for now. Pedaling, in and out of the lines stretching for miles, he started to make better time. Only a few spots required him to lift his pack and bicycle over the hood of a car or truck. One spot was so tight, he had to tie a rope around his bike and climb over the cab of a semi-truck that was T-boned into another one. The jammed-up vehicles blocked any movement for over a quarter mile in all directions. He first counted off twenty of slack before tying a rope to his pack, leaving another twenty extra feet or so, and climbed up the side of the truck. Pulling up his pack, he moved it to the side and then pulled up the bike using the extra footage he had tied it with. Throwing the bike around to the other side, he lowered the bike and then the pack. This way, his pack was always next to him. The bicycle could be left behind, but he needed the supplies in the pack. After this was done, he carefully lowered himself back down to the ground. The last thing he needed to do was to cut himself or fall and break a bone. On the ground, he counted his blessings and untied the rope before putting it back into his pack. The trip so far had been way too long and way too slow. He had to find a way to go faster, or else find some way to let his friends know that the bats were coming. As he pedaled along the roads, he searched the tops of trees and houses for a sign that he knew well.