Plague: Death was only the beginning! (5 page)

“The wiles of Man can lead to sudden loss if you ignore reality.”

-Thoughts from the Author

Chapter 12

Worldwide Death: 12,982

Jim and Kim Rains were rolling down the road by 4:00
AM
MST and already they were facing heavy traffic across all four lanes. The California Highway Patrol had stopped all traffic headed west onto secondary roads and opened the interstate to all traffic headed eastbound and away from Los Angeles. While this did relieve some of the congestion, the exit ramps to gas stations and truck stop lanes were jammed solid as people tried to gas up here rather than take the time to do so before they left. This caused traffic to route around them, and no one wanted to let them change lanes. So, fights were breaking out as cars were sideswiped and people stopped.

Even after crossing over to the normal westbound lane, Jim still had to stop from time to time to let someone change lanes before he could move forward again. Kim was doing fine behind him as he could see her in his backup camera. And she waved from time to time to let him she was okay, and he could keep going. But he was starting to worry as he was seeing that more and more people were walking on the side of the road. Some just had their heads down and were making miles, but others were trying to thumb rides and even jumping in front of cars to try to get them to stop. Seeing this, he called her on the radio.

“AA0B to AA0C, come in.”

AA0B, I hear you, Jim. What’s up?

“I’m seeing people trying to stop or even highjack rides up ahead. I’d have all your doors locked and your windows closed in case they try to jump you!” Jim said. “You might want to have your gun in your lap just in case someone does succeed in stopping you.”

“I hear you. Wilco!”

“The trailer is covered and sealed up, but they could still grab some of the tie-downs. So, just keep moving until we can deal with them if they do hang on. I love ya, baby! Just be safe! We can’t afford to stop here for any reason!” Jim replied.

“I love you too, Jim. Don’t worry, I can handle it! One way or another! AA0B out.”

A few minutes later, Jim was again forced to slow down as another car changed lanes for the exit. Even with Kim right behind him, there was nothing he could do as four guys ran into traffic and jumped onto Kim’s truck and trailer. He watched in horror as they swarmed over the top of her truck bed. Two of them pounded on her back and side windows while two others watched from the top of her trailer to see who was winning. Seeing no choice, Kim rolled her truck right up to the back of Jim’s rig and set the cruise control to keep her there. Now, she could free up both hands to deal with her problem, as she no longer had to steer.

Opening the small back widow, she screamed for them to stop! But both of the men just laughed and continued to try to gain entrance into the cab. Pulling out her stub-barreled Model 629, she pointed the gun directly into the first man’s chest and pulled the trigger. The blast was deafening in the enclosed cab of the truck. And the effects of the man were just as bad! The massive .44 caliber jacketed hollow point round mushroomed immediately after striking the man’s chest. The special G2R “R.I.P.” round exploded and sent particles straight out into the man’s body to maximize the energy being transmitted from the bullet to the man’s body. His chest opened up like a watermelon struck by a sledgehammer. Blood and bone sprayed outward and covered the cab and window glass with red. The man’s cohort screamed and started kicking the glass window again. So, she fired a second round into the man’s face. This time, the effect was monstrous as the man’s head exploded in a wave of gray, red, and white. His body rolled to the passenger’s side of the truck and fell onto the front hood of the car next to her, which slammed onto its brakes as the driver reacted with horror from the sight of the body. For an instant, they lost control and banged into Kim’s truck and trailer for a few seconds. Her truck swayed to the left before she regained control. The dead man’s body fell to the left and onto the pavement on the side of the road. The two men on the trailer had seen what could happen to them at any time and jumped for the side of the road. Broken bones were better than no head!

“Kim, are you okay?” the radio screamed.

“I’m fine. Just cleaning off my back window right now! Talk to you later, okay?”

“We sometimes have to stand outside ourselves to meet the demands we face.”

-Thoughts from the Author

Chapter 13

Worldwide Deaths: 57,900

Alex looked at his wife Susan’s face as they listened to the latest report of deaths from the plague. No one was trying to calm the public now. It was too depressing, and people needed to hear the truth for a change. Susan just looked down and softly petted Maggie’s head that was lying in her lap. They had to fight heavy traffic as everyone seemed to think they needed to be someplace else rather than where they were at. Alex had serious doubts that the roads would be clear by the time the President’s travel ban took place. This was normally a fourteen- to sixteen-hour trip from southern Minnesota to southeast Missouri. Most of it was on secondary roads that tried your patience as it was, so you would think that they would be clear.

Alex had talked to Tommy by radio a few hours ago, and they had decided to press on without stopping until they crossed the Missouri border. With their extended fuel tanks, they normally could drive almost all the way there. But this stop and go traffic was really eating into their fuel reserves. They also had to worry about finding a place to stop where they could refuel from the gas cans secured to the top of their vehicles. Normally, they could pull over into a cornfield or empty lot, and they had marked several such places on their trip maps. Unfortunately, the corn had already been harvested and the normally empty lots already had cars parked in them.

Alex flicked through different maps trying to find a place where they would have some cover. Deciding their best bet was the nearest Wal-Mart or shopping mall parking lot, they started looking for road signs of the next town.

Forty-five minutes later, they pulled into a large shopping mall lot beside a TGI Friday’s restaurant. They figured that being far away from Wal-Mart and the gas stations was the best way to avoid most of the crowds and possible carjackers. Reports had been coming in from eastern California of carjackers having been shot trying to steal a car while it was moving. Two men had been killed and two others had been seriously injured according to reports. So, by pulling up behind the building, it should give them the few minutes they needed to refuel and get back on the road again.

Alex was handed his Remington 870 12-gauge shotgun as he stepped out of his car. Chambering a round, he watched carefully as Susan moved into the driver’s seat, and Tommy jumped out of his own van and began untying bungee cords securing the gas cans. Even hiding as best they could, Alex could already see people making their way in their direction. Alex motioned for Tommy to hurry as he continued watching the crowd form. Tommy tumbled the first gas can as he struggled to hurry. This seemed to embolden the crowd, and they moved faster to try to reach Alex’s party before they could get away again. As they approached, Alex clicked off the safety button and fired one round of buckshot into the ground ten yards in front of them. The crowd screamed and many ran away, but some did not. Now, they knew the odds and they figured one man with a shotgun wouldn’t be able to stop all of them if they spread out. But, just as they did so, Susan’s side window rolled down and she opened fire with her 9mm Glock. She fired round after round after round in a long line in front of them. She had a thirty-two-round magazine in her gun, and the constant firing broke the crowd.

Alex and Tommy could only look at Susan in shock! Mom had lost it! She had broken those guys like they were made of clay, and even Alex was surprised by her actions. As for Susan, as she changed magazines, she smiled and rolled her window back up. Mess with her family?! No damn way in hell would she let that happen!

Tommy finished as quickly as he could and re-secured the empty cans to the side of their vehicles. Hopping back into his van, they pulled back out of the lot and into traffic after only a short wait.

“She tied a yellow ribbon around the tree in the hope of someone’s safe return. She waited for a long time.”

-Thoughts from the Author

Chapter 14

Worldwide Deaths: 121,000

The plague spread more quickly as the people attempted to escape it. Overseas, the local and civil governments seemed powerless to stop the spread as people rioted and even burned the local hospitals still filled with the dead. Others looted stores and businesses in an orgy of destruction that seemed to know no bounds. It was as if the plague had caused them to go mad and bodies dropped in the streets as they were overcome. This seemed to give the rioters even further fury as they set these bodies on fire and danced around them as they burned.

In Germany, the crowds marched in the thousands as they demanded the Jews be arrested for spreading the plague through the water system. Just like in the 1340s, their minds tried to find some reason to hate, and they picked up the rumor from the history books that stated that Jews were burned in their houses because of the plague. So, they said that it was happening again and people died.

In India, thousands were already dead and choking the Ganges river with their bodies. Whole sections of Delhi were quiet and lifeless as the plague wiped away all life in as many days. Even the dogs, cats, and cattle all lay in the street, their bodies swollen and black with plague bacilli. In other areas, people flooded the streets as they tried to escape the effects that they were seeing all about them. By nightfall, they realized that there was nowhere to run to and they lay down and died.

In Paris, France, the crowds were silent as they prayed in a massive overflowing crowd around Notre Dame Cathedral. They too remembered the plague as it had rolled through their town three hundred years ago. Having no place to bury the dead, they placed them in the catacombs beneath the city as a last resort. Let the dead care for the dead. And here too, they tried to escape into the countryside as they camped in open fields and between the grapevines. They huddled under plastic tarps and in the backs of cars. And died. The crowded conditions only made the spread of the disease faster and easier. They had forgotten that isolation was the best thing they could do.

In Rome, the Pope cried out for peace and understanding as the bodies collected in the alleyways and back streets. City officials had abandoned their posts and refused to handle the mountains of dead. So, the prisons were opened, and the guards stood over the dead as the murderers and thieves toiled to load the dead into trucks to carry them to the plague pits outside the city.

China was strangely quiet as no word was heard from the most populous country in the world. They had stopped broadcasting soon after the first reports had started to come in, and they had closed their borders to all travelers. Little was known until a handful of people escaped in a boat and traveled to Vietnam where the true extent of the disaster was shared. Just as in New York, the Yersinia Pestis plague bacilli had changed into a more virulent form. It quickly spread across the overcrowded cities in a wave that could have blocked out the sun. Entire housing tenements filled to overflowing with the screams of the dying as they tried in vain to escape their dead loved ones laid out about them.

It seemed the Chinese government had realized the depth of the crisis and had tried to isolate the country from the worst disaster to ever befall the country. But, in doing so, they had actually locked the rat in with the baby, as it were. Two days before, business travelers from New York had stayed at the Hilton-Regency in Hong Kong before moving on to Beijing. And while they had stayed cooling their heels in the airport lounge, a sick traveler from India who sat next to them had infected them. From there, they had spread it into the heart of the business district in Beijing. Before they became too ill to make their next appointments, they had passed it on to dozens more that crowded the markets and shopping centers. The only saving grace was that travel was somewhat restricted inside China, and this helped to slow down the spread into the surrounding countryside. But once it did, the weakened immunity of the people caused by the poor sanitation and drinking water laid waste to thousands. And only the distant hill people, who lived on the open steppes, were able to resist it. For thousands of years, they had lived with the marmot-like creatures who were one of the primary hosts of the plague from ages past. And where the steppes touched Tibet, the plague stopped for now, as if resting before moving on to newer and fresher grounds.