Surviving Beyond the Zombie Apocalypse (18 page)

     “Just stay still,” I said quietly.

     Christina responded with another whimper, and Taylor slowly rubbed her back.

     The black soldier glanced around to check the position of the others before tapping lightly at the window near my head. “Open your window slowly. Do not exit the vehicle. I repeat, do not exit the vehicle.”

     The coldness of the command sent shivers through me. I did as instructed and opened the window.

     “Hello, I am—” I started to introduce myself.

     “Do you have any infected?” The soldier’s booming voice cut me off.

     I guess I did not answer quickly enough as the soldier repeated the question. “Do you have any infected?”

     “No, none of us is infected,” I answered, embarrassed by the weakness in my voice.

     “We will evacuate the passenger side first,” the soldier commanded his companions.

     In response to the order, one of the soldiers tapped on the door next to Taylor and Christina. “Open the window slowly.”

     Taylor had a little difficulty doing as ordered as Christina clung tightly to him. We all turned to watch as the glass slid down.

     “Now, we need you to exit the vehicle very slowly. I repeat, exit the vehicle very slowly.”

     Taylor glanced toward me as if looking for reassurance. The fear in his eyes was apparent. I smiled and nodded slowly.

     “I’ll go first,” he said shakily to Christina and maybe the rest of us. He moved the little girl to the seat next to him and reached to open the door.

      “Just take it slow,” Kat said.

     Taylor looked over at her and forced a grin before nudging the door open.

     “Step out and get down on your knees,” the command startled me, and I jumped a little.

     Taylor glanced back at us before he moved slowly out the door as if resigned to whatever was about to happen.

     As soon as his feet touched the pavement of the parking lot, the two soldiers rushed close with weapons raised.

     Christina yelled, “Don’t hurt him!”

     One of the soldiers turned his rifle toward her, and I thought that we were all dead.

     Instead of firing, the soldier chuckled and said, “Shhhhh.”

     He turned back to the other soldier who used his rifle to nudge Taylor away from the truck. When they got about fifty feet away, the soldier said, “Okay, get on your knees and put your hands behind your head.”

     Once Taylor did as instructed, the leader commanded, “Okay, next.”

     Christina looked over at Kat and grabbed onto her. “I don’t wanna go,” she cried.

     “I will be right after you,” Kat answered. “Now be a big girl. Follow what the soldiers say and then we’ll all be together soon.” Kat pried the little girl off and tilted her face up to make eye contact. “C’mon, Taylor’s waiting for you.”

     Christina sniffled. “Promise you’ll be right there, you guys?”

     “Promise!” Kat and I answered in unison.

    Christina slowly got out of the truck. It felt like my heart was going to explode from the tension of watching her walk out to the soldiers. They surrounded her with guns raised, but amazingly she just kept walking toward Taylor.

     I held my breath, fearing that the little girl might break into a run toward him which might cause the soldiers to open fire.    

     Remarkably, she stayed calm and continued to walk slowly. When she had gotten about ten feet from Taylor, one of the soldiers told her to get down on her knees and put her hands behind her head.

     I could not hear the words, but I saw the soldier motioning how to put her hands behind her head. Christina did as she was told, and I started to breathe again.

    The lead soldier observed the process and once he seemed satisfied that everything was in order said, “Now open your door slowly and exit the vehicle one at a time.”

     I smiled at an extremely worried-looking Kat before doing as ordered. As soon as I stepped down, the barrel of a gun prodded me to move forward.

     “As you can see, none of us is sick or anything. Is there really—” I never got to finish as I was pushed roughly to the ground.

     “Shut up and lock your hands behind your head,” a voice roughly called out.

     I moved my hands behind my head as I wondered if we had just walked into a situation worse than any shells presented.

     I had been placed facing away from Taylor and Christina but managed to twist around enough to see them. They both appeared to be okay, but I assumed that they must have been scared to death. I considered shouting out to them with something encouraging but could easily imagine the action making matters worse, so I stayed quiet.

     We were kept there on the ground like that for what seemed like hours. I wondered what caused the delay. Finally, the lead soldier got Kat out of the truck, and she was placed about twenty feet away from me on the pavement.

     “Torrence, examine them for obvious signs of trauma and report.”

     I assumed that he was addressing one of the soldiers near Taylor and Christina and twisted to see a soldier walking in a circle around the teenager. He repeated the process with Christina.

     “No obvious signs of trauma upon cursory examination, sir!”

     The leader took a computer tablet from the soldier who had been carrying the metering device. He wrote something on the tablet before saying, “Flynn, examine these two for obvious signs of trauma and report.”

     In what was clearly a routine process, a soldier stepped forward and walked slowly around me all the while moving his head close as he examined my arms and legs.

     He repeated the procedure with Kat.

     “Sir, no obvious signs of trauma upon cursory examination, Sir!”

     The leader wrote something more on the tablet and said, “Okay, Germino, I want an accurate reading on every damn one of them. Is that understood?” The clear anger in the question made me curious as to what had caused it. Had there been a previous mistake in this soldier’s duty?

     I didn’t have much time to consider the question as the soldier had a slender microphone-looking thing stuck out near my head. In her other hand, she held the small case I had noticed earlier. She waved the thing slowly around my entire body before looking at the top of the case. She pushed a button on the case before moving over to Kat, repeating the process of waving the things around and consulting the top of the case for each of us.

     When the whole thing  was done, the soldier announced, “Clear ninety-eight point six on all subjects, Sir.”

     The leader stared at the soldier for a long time seeming to weigh whether or not to accept her findings. Finally, he said, “Okay, bring the arrivals into the holding area to await clearance.” With that, the leader handed the tablet back to the soldier and walked briskly back into the terminal.

     At the sound of the words, I wondered again if things had gotten better or worse for us.

     With the leader gone, the soldiers seemed to lighten up a bit. They told Christina she could stand up and asked how old she was. One of them even complimented her on how brave she was.

     The little girl seemed a bit suspicious of the compliment and moved closer to Taylor as soon as she could.

     The soldiers had us all stand and move toward the terminal building. Their guns were no longer aimed at us, but they were held at the ready. I wondered a little at the extreme cautiousness. But I supposed that in a world like this a bit of carelessness can be deadly.

     Once we got to the entrance of the building, we were told to wait. One of the soldiers opened a heavy metal door and stepped inside. After a few seconds, he returned to the doorway and announced, “All clear.” We were then told to go inside.

     It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the change in light. As soon as they did, I saw a room filled with a number of soldiers. Some were sitting at desks typing on computers. Others were on telephones engaged in lively conversations. I saw one soldier consulting a large projection of the globe on a wall screen. I assumed this meant that the problem had affected the entire planet and wondered how things were progressing around the world.

     I had so many questions, but before I could ask a single one, we were moved to a door on the other side of the room and into a hallway.

     “You have not asked us anything,” I commented to the soldier directly behind me.

     He responded shortly. “There’ll be lots of time for questions.”

     I considered pushing the matter but could not deny that we had fallen completely under the control of these soldiers and whatever they planned.

     “Can I get at least some idea of what?”

     The soldier cut me off by commanding, “Move inside the room and wait there to be contacted.”

     A forceful nudge in the back left me no choice but to follow the directions. I turned quickly around expecting the others to follow. Instead, I saw the door slammed shut and heard the lock click.

     The idea of being separated from Kat, Christina, and Taylor sent me into a frenzy. I began pounding on the thick wooden door and screaming.

     “Let me the fuck outta here! I haven’t done anything wrong!”

     After a few moments, my fury turned to pleading.

     “Please, the children should not be away from me. I need to take care of them. They need to be protected.”

     Finally, my unanswered pleas led me to acceptance, and, with acceptance, I felt all of my energy drain away. I simply slid to the floor and muttered, “I said that I would protect them. I promised Christina I would protect her, not let her become one of those things.”

     Like a slap in the face, the idea hit me that I had not simply failed to keep my promise, but I had done the opposite by actually delivering them to a place where I could not protect anyone. This realization instantly brought the rage back.

Chapter 12

     I spun away from the door and quickly scanned the room. It had obviously been an office at one time. Judging by the relative smallness of the room and lack of windows, I assumed that it had not been the office of someone high on the ladder of the transportation commission. An old wooden desk and chair, a coat rack, a couple of file cabinets, and another small desk with a computer on top filled the room.

     I’m not quite sure what I hoped to accomplish with the computer, but I turned it on and watched the monitor come to life. A picture of the Golden Gate Bridge almost glowing orange over the bright blue water of the San Francisco Bay filled the screen. I gazed at the screen saver for a long time, struck by the beauty and the notion that this was another image I had always taken for granted, one which had been lost.

     This depressing idea held me for a few moments before I noticed the white rectangle under the bridge where the password should be typed. I considered it for a second and typed Ferry Terminal. Red lettering let me know that the password was incorrect and I should try again. I tried Tiburon Ferry Terminal and TFT; both were followed by the same red lettering. That exhausted my ideas on possible passwords, and I turned off the computer. Even if this was something like the end of the world, there was no reason to waste electricity. I chuckled at this thought.

     I looked around the office for anything else that might be of use. I went over and tried the file cabinet to find it locked. Even if it hadn’t been, I’m not sure that spending time going through files would have been something I wanted to do. I looked through the desk and found lots of pencils, a few pens, some yellow and green adhesive notes, as well as a red disposable plastic lighter with the San Francisco 49ers logo on it.

     I wondered how a lighter found its way into the desk. Was the office’s former inhabitant a casual smoker? The reason I decided on casual smoker was because as a former smoker I knew that anyone seriously into the habit would have the lighter with them rather than in a desk. Had the lighter been a souvenir from a football game? Or could the lighter have been placed in the desk simply to heat pens that sometimes refused to work properly? I quickly recognized such ruminations on the origins of a disposable cigarette lighter as a waste of time and merely a way to distract from my predicament. I was being locked away while any manner of terrible things could be happening to Christina and the rest.

     I continued scanning the contents of the room for anything that might prove valuable. I saw nothing of much use to me. The waste basket was filled with paper towels and some sort of yellow invoice forms.

     Suddenly, the air conditioning hummed to life, and I glanced up at the vent in the ceiling. That’s when I saw the fire sprinklers arranged across the ceiling.

     I don’t know why, but the sprinklers immediately gave me the perfect idea of how to use the things found in the office. I fished some of the forms out of the waste basket and grabbed the lighter. I climbed atop the desk. My great idea was to light the paper on fire and use it set off the sprinklers and fire alarm. I figured that ought to get someone to open the door. I have to admit this was as far as I got in the plan. I had not even considered what would come after the door opened.