The Plague Years (Book 1): Hell is Empty and All the Devils Are Here (25 page)

“You!” shouted Erickson pointing a finger at Macklin.

Whatever else he was going to say was lost when one of the structural beams supporting the ceiling came crashing down along with much of the third floor, burying the Director.

Macklin threw himself back through the door and crawled and crab walked down the hall, away from the blast until he got to the fire escape. The stair well was filled with dust and smoke, but still intact. Macklin stumbled down the stairs onto the first floor landing.

He stopped for a second to collect his wits and check himself for damage. He was bleeding slightly from a cut on his cheek and had abrasions on his hands from crawling through the rubble. His clothes were in disarray but he was otherwise unhurt. His reflection was interrupted by several people from the floors above rushing out into the lobby. He let the panicky officer workers carry him out into street, and then to the first alley he saw and disappeared from view.

May 28
th
, Thursday, 5:57am PDT.

Dave was dozing fitfully when he saw the street lights go out and heard his generator kick in. The reduction of one freezer and other conservation methods had reduced the load on the poor thing but he cringed every time it started up. One day it wasn’t going to restart and they would be without power for good. He got dressed and headed out to the living room. His hip caught a bit but was not painful today. His antics yesterday up and down the ladder with the big Remington rifle had sent him to bed early with three Aleve.

In the living room, Heather sat with her rifle across her lap looking out the window. After the incident with the biker gang yesterday, it was agreed to have an armed adult up at all times. In Dave’s house that meant that Heather, Dave, and Amber each took a two hour shift. Chris was off the rotation because he spent twelve plus hours on patrol. In practice, he often sat with Amber while she was on duty. Heather had taken graveyard because she wasn’t sleeping well anyway.

Over at Chad’s it left Mary, Chad and Connor for watch duty. Amy was still too traumatized from her mother’s death to take an active role. Mary was taking extra effort to make her feel included, but only time would help her get over what she had seen. Having Connor around was probably the best medicine.

“Hey,” said Dave. Heather had already brewed a pot of coffee and he took advantage of it.

“Hey yourself,” said Heather.

“Anything happen last night?” asked Dave as he sat down next to her. He had his Ruger Redhawk in .44 Magnum with a 6 inch barrel in a shoulder rig. Dave had never really cared for the big .44 as it was heavy and awkward to fire quickly but he was running out of firearms. Fiona now carried his beloved Browning Hi-Power and for a backup rifle he had his Ruger Mini-14 was in the corner of the room with the big .338 Lapua in a case, saved for special occasions as he had less than a hundred rounds of the expensive 300 grain match grade ammunition. Everyone was jittery and staying armed.

“Yeah, it was really wild,” said Heather with a yawn. About 4:40, a cat crossed the lawn. He was a shifty eyed ginger tabby at that.”

“Yeah, they are the worst,” said Dave with a smile.

“I heard the generator kick on a bit ago,” said Heather conversationally.

“It happens every few hours,” said Dave. “The gaps without power are longer and longer though. I need to …”

His thought was interrupted by sound of the fence alarm going off. Dave had installed some motion sensors along the backyard barbed wire and plywood fence they had built for the party. They were battery powered and so even with the power off, they would work for a bit.

“Heather, you watch the front,” said Dave as he got up.  “I will check and see if that shifty tabby cat is messing with the sensors.”

“You do that,” said Heather with a smile.

Dave walked back through the kitchen and peer out into the yard just in time to see a large man in biker leathers tumble over the fence. He was followed by two others. Dave drew his Ruger and went out the back door and fired a round into the ground. The report had the desired effect of waking the Stricklands and most of his neighbors as a bonus.

The first biker looked up and visible lesions and bite marks were apparent on his face and exposed skin. The second biker was similarly infected.

“Stop!” shouted Dave, “Or I’ll fire!”

“Go ahead,” said the second biker grimly. “You think you’re a badass, but we’ll get you!”

Dave needed no more coaxing. He fired slowly three times having to reacquire the target each time as the recoil from the heavy revolver disrupted the sight picture.  The first biker stumbled and fell allowing Dave to shift his fire to the second. Meanwhile, Amber began firing Dave’s Benelli from rear window of the den which she had been sharing with Chris. The shotgun fire took the first biker as he began to stand and slapped him back on the ground.

Chris came charging out of the den with a tactical vest and not much else and began to fire with his AR-15 through the kitchen window. Over at the Strickland’s fire erupted from the back deck. Dave glanced over and saw Chad taking cover behind his fancy stone barbecue and firing rapidly at the bikers who were now come over the fence in small groups, one and two at a time. Most were armed with knives and chains, but a few were carrying pistols. So far the responding fire was sparse and ill aimed.

Then Dave heard Heather’s 30-30 opened up from the front of the house. He grabbed the Mini-14 that was his backup gun and ran to the front room. Out front at least twenty chopped Harleys were visible, having come up as the firing started at the rear of the house distracting everyone. Mary and Connor were firing from windows in the front of their house. The siding from both of their homes was taking a beating as some of the bikers started firing pistols and a couple of shotguns as they ran up toward the house. Because the running affected their aim, they were taking out siding, gutters, and windows but the actual number of rounds that were close to target was small.

Dave was watching them and trying to figure out where he could be of the most use when his own front door burst open and he was confronted by a tall, wiry man wearing tattered leathers and carrying a baseball bat. Dave reversed the rifle and butt stroked the man in the face, the iron butt plate of the rifle focusing the blow to his cheek and nose. As he stumbled back, Dave fired four times from the hip at the man’s midsection. As the biker stumbled back down the steps, Dave took up a kneeling position in the door and began firing as fast as he could at the bikers.

Then something happened that chilled Dave to the bone. The wood in the door jamb above his head exploded forcing him back in the house. This was the first time Dave could recall that the infected had used a rifle for aimed fire. Enough of them carried personal weapons like pistols or knives and a few had shotguns, but Chad said that the disease affected people’s cognitive ability. It was hard for them to figure out that they needed even the most basic necessities in life and as the infection progressed, they retained fewer and fewer possessions. Weapons often were in that category. Those really far gone were nearly naked. 

Dave looked out the dining room window and saw an apparently healthy looking black man wearing a tactical vest crouching behind Christi Howeland’s Ford Fusion firing on the house with a M-4 carbine.

Shotgun blasts from the Stricklands broke most of the glass in the Fusion and he recoiled back from the car. Subsequent shotgun rounds staggered him though they did not penetrate his body armor. It gave Dave the time he needed to line up a shot. He fired three times quickly, taking the man in the head and neck.

Out of the Stricklands’ front door someone, Dave suspected Connor, threw a one quart mayonnaise jar with a burning rag sticking out. It was filled with a mixture of two parts gasoline and one part liquid laundry detergent. The result was a poor man’s napalm that Dave had used during the Second Battle of Fallujah to clear out houses during the Iraq war. When it hit the nearest motorcycle, the fluid inside the bottle splattered and stuck to the cycle and the two bikers nearest to it rather than splashing before it ignited.  

Both the bikers and the motorcycle burst into flames. The bikers screamed but still charged Connor who was now standing in the door. He was able to grab his shotgun and firing twice from the hip, knocked the first biker to the ground. Connor pumped the action of the shotgun a third time and pulled the trigger aiming at the second biker but only heard the clack of a firing pin striking an empty chamber. He struggled to reload the shotgun but retreated in terror as the burning, screaming biker slowly climbed the stairs and entered the house.

May 28
th
, Thursday, 6:02am PDT.

Connor stumbled backwards in horror from the burning apparition in front from of him, dropping shotgun shells as he tried to reload the weapon in his shaking hands. The biker was moving very slowly now, blinded by the flames and in extreme pain but still he moved forward. Connor stepped on one of the shotgun shells he had dropped and lost his footing, falling back against the wall of the living room. That stumble gave Amy the opening she needed.

She had been kneeling next to Connor and he had given Dave’s old .45 to her for protection but wasn’t at all sure how to use it. When Connor stumbled she aimed the weapon with two hands like Connor had shown her and began jerking the trigger. Her inexperience with firearms showed because two of the rounds hit the wood work of the door jam. One carried past the biker into the street and hit another of the motorcycles parked in the street but owing to the short range the other four rounds hit various parts of the biker slowing him down. But just when she thought she might put the biker down the .45’s slide slammed open, out of ammunition.

Amy dropped the pistol and was scrabbling backwards and to the side, trying to get out of the way when she noticed the biker jerking and stumbling back. She looked over to the stairway leading to the basement and saw Fiona and Ginger crouched in the top and second steps respectively, Fiona with Dave’s Browning Hi-Power and Katy had Chad’s Ruger Mark II .22 target pistol. These two had been to the range often with Chad and Dave and it showed. They were firing quick aimed shots, all of which hit the biker center of mass. Katy’s .22 ran out of ammo first and then a few seconds later, so did Fiona, but incredibly, even after at least twenty-six pistol rounds had hit the biker, he began moving forward again.

But the girls had bought Connor the time he needed. Dropping the shotgun, Connor grabbed Jason’s aluminum baseball bat he had retrieved from Heather’s, and utilizing ten years muscle memory starting from park and rec league baseball to high school varsity drove a line drive with the biker’s head as the ball.

The smoldering wreck that had been a biker crashed through the door opening and out onto the lawn. Incredibly, the remains of the biker started to rise one more time but a blast from Mary Strickland’s twelve gauge ended the attempt.

Everyone’s attention was drawn to the end of the block. Mathew Williams and several of his friends had heard the firing and had taken positions among some cars in a driveway a few doors down and had opened fire. The response from the bikers was mixed. Those more fully involved with the infection began charging the new threat from the half dozen residents down the street. Caught in a cross fire, they didn’t last long. Several of the healthier gang members tried to get on their motorcycles and get away, but fire from the Strickland’s, including Connor with his now reloaded shotgun and Amy with her .45, was able to take down a few of them and hurry the rest on their way.

Dave hobbled over to the black man in the tactical vest. On his way, he waved at Chad who was just coming out his front door beckoning him to follow. Chad stepped over the still smoldering bodies in his front yard, visibly shaken.

They arrived at the side of the apparent agent provocateur and found to their amazement that he was still alive. Of Dave’s three rounds, one had bounced off of his helmet, one had passed through his jaw and out through his cheek, and one had passed through his neck without hitting anything immediately vital. His vest was peppered with buckshot and he had several small wounds from pellets in his arms and legs.

Dave grabbed the man’s vest and shook him.

“Who the hell are you!” shouted Dave into the man’s blood covered face.

“Doesn’t matter now,” said the man coughing. “I was once called Derek, but no longer.”

“What were you doing helping those infected bikers?” asked a calmer Chad.

“One of the ‘Chosen’ resides here,” said Derek coughing again. “They were to help me capture her.”

“You can trust them?” asked an incredulous Dave.

“We will all be infected before long,” said Derek, quieter now. “The ‘Chosen’, they will be our only hope. I am infected also but I am a carrier. They listen to me. I will not die, At least not from the disease anyway.”

David dropped Derek as if he was hot and Derek began coughing again. Apparently one of the rounds had damaged his windpipe and then deflected down into his chest and lungs. He was breathing in a lot of blood and slowly drowning in it.

“How did you know where to find her?” asked Chad urgently but the only answer he got was more coughing. Derek was curled up into the fetal position and was struggling to breath. Chad kicked Derek hard in the ribs, more from frustration than anything else.

“How did you know where to find her?” asked Chad more intently.

“They sent a text …” said Derek. The effort brought another fit of violent coughing. Then after the coughing had again subsided, “that’s all I know … I am but a soldier in this war.”

The next sound everyone heard was the report of Dave’s .44. The big slug ended Derek’s coughing forever. This close, the report deafened Chad’s ears that were already ringing from the firefight.

“Why the hell did you do that?” asked Chad heatedly.

“You want him to blab to your neighbors about your new house guest?” said Dave indicating the approach of Matt Williams and the rest of the neighbors. “Besides, there was no way to save his life this side of a trauma center and they are full to bursting. But think about it, after our neighbors found out who these guys were after, how long do you think it would be before they ganged up and ran us out of town, like that poor drunk?”