Slow Burn: Bleed, Book 6 (5 page)

While Murphy was getting his ear bent by Rachel, I made my way up to the sun deck on the houseboat’s roof. Steph, Gretchen, and Paul all came along.

As I was taking a seat on one of the long vinyl couch cushions, I asked, “Any news from the outside world?”

“Some,” Paul answered.

Gretchen and Paul sat on a couch along the starboard side. Gretchen said, “We had a man with a shortwave radio.”

I nodded knowingly.

Paul said, “Walter had a place up the lake a bit.”

“We talked about disassembling everything and moving it to the island,” Gretchen said.

“I wish we had,” said Paul. “He had everything set up at his house and had a generator, as well.”

Gretchen said, “He’d go there once every three or four days, with a few of our people along for protection. They’d fire up the generator and try to contact anyone they could.”

“It’s much more complicated than you’d guess,” said Paul. “Talking with someone five or ten miles away is easy, depending on your antenna. But talking to someone in—say—Dallas, or Florida, or South America, that’s a completely different thing.” Paul paused and started to slowly shake his head. “Unfortunately, they got overrun.”

“The Whites,” I said.

Paul nodded.

“Is the equipment still functional?” I asked.

Gretchen leaned forward. “Do you know how to operate a short wave radio?”

I shook my head. “I was just curious in case we come across another person who does.”

“No one has been back there,” said Paul. “We don’t know what state it’s in.”

Steph joined the conversation. “Tell him what you told me.”

Gretchen made herself comfortable in her seat. They’d managed to contact seven other groups of survivors in Texas alone. That sounded like a lot to me, though when one group turned out to have renovated an old titan missile silo out in West Texas, I wasn’t surprised that they’d survived. There could be any number of groups whose doomsday plans actually worked out.

What did surprise me was the mention that some group was in Fort Hood, an hour north—at least back when we had a highway system—reconstituting a military and claiming to be the new seat of Texas government.

One group, thirty-six people, were on what they described as a tall ship, an old three-masted sailing vessel used for training some group that nobody seemed to know. At any rate, they’d set themselves up as some kind of census and data group, trying to assess the state of affairs, trying to figure out how many people had survived, who had what, who needed what, and who might need help. No mention was made of how help might be provided.

The upshot was that although we felt alone in a sea of the infected, we weren’t. Others were finding ways to survive.

I asked, “So what’s the deal here? Oh, and while I’m thinking about it, Gretchen, why are you in charge? I know why we picked Steph to be our boss, but what’s your deal?”

Gretchen giggled a little before answering. “First come, first served.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

Paul said, “We were the first here on the island.”

With genuine admiration, I said, “That was quick thinking, coming up with a safe place to ride this out and getting here first.”

Paul and Gretchen both laughed, but Gretchen answered, “We were camping on the island when it started.”

“Really? Camping in the middle of the summer? With the heat that had to be miserable. I thought sane people only camped in the spring and autumn.”

Paul said, “I’m a geologist. I’ve been working on a speleological study of the Lake Travis area for the Texas Water Development Board all summer.”

“A speleological survey?” I asked. “You explore caves for the state? I saw something about a UT advertising professor exploring Texas caves in a Southwest Airlines magazine once.”

Paul shook his head. “Well, not exactly. I study the limestone formations and try to survey the underground structures for stability.”

That had me curious. “Why here?”

“Do you remember hearing about what happened at Lake Amistad?”

“I’m not even sure where that is.”

Steph piped in, “It’s a man-made lake down on the Rio Grande, by Del Rio.”

“That’s right,” Paul confirmed. “The limestone structures beneath the lake turned out to be less stable than anyone guessed. A sinkhole formed and pretty much opened a drain valve for the lake.”

“You’re kidding.” I looked at Steph and then at Gretchen. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Serious as a virus attack,” Paul answered.

“No shit. What happened?” I asked.

“The lake level dropped by ninety feet in a single day.”

“Holy crap.”

Even unexcitable Steph muttered something to that effect, but put the pieces together faster than I did. “So wait, are you telling me that you’re doing that speleological survey because you think that could happen here?”

Paul smiled and shook his head. “Nobody at the state—and I share this opinion—thinks there’s any immediate danger of that happening at Lake Travis.”

I asked, “Did anybody expect it to happen on Lake Amistad?”

“No.” Paul shook his head. “It came as a complete surprise.”

“So it could happen here.” Steph asked, looking back over at Monk’s Island, “And this place suddenly becomes open to attack.”

That was a depressing thought. I’d only just arrived. In fact, I hadn’t even officially arrived yet.

Paul stood up and paced around a bit. He waved a hand out at the water. “Lake Travis has been here for seventy years. There are one hundred and eighty-eight major reservoirs in Texas, and who knows how many smaller ones. I read one report that there are seventy-five thousand dams in the continental United States.”

“That many?” Steph asked.

Paul asked, “And how many have you ever heard of that drained because of a sinkhole?”

Steph answered, “None.”

“Exactly. The odds of it happening here are miniscule.”

Just because I’m a contrary pain in the ass, I asked, “But how many of those dams were built during the Depression, or in the decades after?”

“I know where you’re going with this.”

Steph shook her head. “I don’t.”

“Me neither,” said Gretchen.

Paul gestured toward me. “He’s wondering if the lakes have aged sufficiently that the problem will start to show up with more frequency.”

“Yes,” I nodded.

“That is one of the reasons for the survey. More importantly, we want to examine the rock that the dam is built on. Having a sinkhole open up and drain the lake would be bad, considering how many people depend on Lake Travis for their drinking water. To have the dam fail would be catastrophic.”

“And that could happen?” Steph asked.

“If the limestone under the dam was structurally unsound, yes. It could happen.”

“What did you find?”

Gretchen said, “We’re not anywhere near finishing our survey. So, no answers yet.”

“Nope.” Paul confirmed and sat back down.

“You know,” I said, “That sounds like super interesting stuff.”

Paul nodded. “But pretty much pointless now, don’t you think?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I think there will be little room in the days ahead for geological work. We’ll all be farmers, or hunters, or soldiers, I guess.”

“Or doctors,” Steph added. “And nurses.”

“Just the essentials,” I agreed. “Getting back to the beginning, so you guys were camping on the island and when people started showing up after the virus hit, they voted you in charge?”

Gretchen shrugged, “It just kind of happened. The first arrivals just deferred to me on decisions.”

Paul chuckled, “She’s a take-charge type.”

I looked at Steph, “Sounds like somebody I know.”

Steph punched me in the arm.

“Hey, that’s a compliment,” I protested.

“Eventually, we voted,” said Gretchen. “It seemed like the smart thing to do, having somebody in charge. And I won.”

“By a landslide.” Paul smiled at Gretchen.

“Congratulations,” I said.

With a formal nod, Gretchen said, “Thank you. I owe it all to the little people.”

We all laughed.

I asked, “So people just kind of trickled in as things got bad in town?”

Becoming more serious, Gretchen said, “Yes. We got six that first night after the riot at the jail downtown.”

I was thinking about my escape from that riot with Murphy when I noticed Paul looked down at his feet and shaking his head. I asked, “What happened?”

Gretchen had a little difficulty with it. “There were six of them, a family with four children. The oldest of the kids was fifteen, the youngest was eight.” Gretchen seemed to run out of words at that point.

I looked over at Steph. She was looking at Gretchen. I guessed she hadn’t heard the story yet.

Gretchen took a big gulp of air as though that might make the story more palatable. “It was the fifteen-year-old that turned first. It happened late that night.” Steph pointed at the silhouette of the old chapel at the top of the hill. “We were all sleeping in the church then. I was keeping guard. The family was exhausted. It seemed like the right thing to do to let them rest. I was outside, keeping an eye out for danger. Paul was inside.”

Another long pause. It was Gretchen’s and Paul’s first one-on-one experience with the infected, and it had scarred them more deeply than subsequent experiences.

Paul stuck his arm out. He had a nasty, bite-shaped scar. “The fifteen-year-old attacked me.”

Steph took hold of Paul’s arm and examined the nearly healed wound. “You’re lucky.”

“That I wasn’t infected?” Paul nodded. “Yes. I guess I’m immune.”

I looked at Gretchen. “And you think you’re immune, too.”

She nodded. “I have to be, or I’d have caught it by now.”

“How so?” I asked.

“Paul had to kill the boy to save his own life,” she said.

“The parents got angry,” Gretchen said. “They didn’t behave rationally.”

“I guess that’s to be expected,” I said. “That early on in the infection, I mean.”

Gretchen looked at Paul. “The father had a gun, and he threatened Paul with it. Even though his son was there, with pale skin and blood all over his face from biting Paul. His father—”

“—Jim,” said Paul. “His name was Jim.”

“I’d forgotten.” Gretchen admitted. “Jim was livid. He couldn’t accept that his son had turned. Even though he was frightened enough about everything going on to bring his family out to the island, he couldn’t accept the reality.” Gretchen shrugged. “Maybe none of us could, at first.” She pulled her hands together in front of her mouth, almost as though she were going to pray, as she thought about what to say next. “I thought Jim was going to shoot Paul. But I had a gun, too. We always have one when we’re out camping—not that we ever needed it before—but just in case, you know.”

Steph and I both nodded. Of course.

“I think that’s the only reason Jim didn’t shoot Paul.” Gretchen pointed to another old structure up on the hill. “Jim took his wife and kids and went to the old stable and told us to leave him and his family alone.”

“
Yelled
at us to leave them alone,” Paul said.

Gretchen nodded emphatically at that. “He was so angry with us.” Then she shook her head. “He made his wife hold their gun and picked up his son and carried the body with them to the stable. I begged them not to go.”

“Why?” I asked. “It sounds like the best thing, given what happened.”

Shaking his head, Paul said, “The other kids were infected.”

“Oh, no,” Steph said.

Gretchen said, “One of them appeared to be feverish. The other was lethargic. I tried to tell them, but they wouldn’t listen. Jim was crazy over the death of his son by then. He was talking about revenge, and calling the police, and what not. He thought we just wanted to kill his kids.” Gretchen stopped talking after that.

After a few moments, I ventured a guess. “And they turned. They turned that night?”

Gretchen nodded. “Paul and I didn’t sleep after that. It was nearly sunup when we heard the ruckus from the stable. There was crying and screaming. There were gunshots.”

“What happened?” Steph asked.

“The children killed the mother. The father shot the children. I think he was feverish by then. He shot himself.”

In a lost voice, Steph said, “Oh, my God.”

Shaking his head, Paul said, “Probably not an uncommon story.”

We all agreed.

“We burned the bodies.” Gretchen said, after we’d had a moment to assimilate the story’s conclusion. She looked at Paul, and it was pretty clear that the two were close. “We both thought Paul was going to turn. He made me keep the gun after that. But I didn’t want to be here, not in this world, without him. We don’t have any kids. We never wanted any. We don’t have any family that we’re close to. We only have each other.”