The Plague Years (Book 1): Hell is Empty and All the Devils Are Here (37 page)

They were two thirds of the way across the bridge and almost a mile from the disabled Subaru when, from one of the stranded motorhomes, the door burst open and seven people, obviously infected, came running towards the Camaro and from under other vehicles and the other stranded motorhomes, more infected people started pouring out. The infected were armed, some carrying pistols, but more carrying a variety of clubs and blades.

Chris got on the accelerator hard and powered through the rest of the stranded vehicles and got to the other side before the infected could react. One made a rash attempt to block the way and was rewarded for his troubles by bouncing off the hood and landing in the Columbia.

“Chad, we have made it across but the bridge is going to be tough to cross,” said Amber into the radio. “We will turn around and try to re-cross as soon as we clear the exit.”

“Negative,” crackled the speaker. “The infected are pushing a VW Beetle into the gap you just left. I doubt you could bump it out of the way.”

Even as they were speaking gunfire erupted from various vehicles up and down the bridge. While the first infected who burst out of the motorhomes and from under cars were fairly well along the curve of infection and not well armed, it appears others were healthier and still capable of using shotguns and some rifles. It was clear that they had sprung this ambush many times, judging from the number of vehicles on the road and were keeping themselves fed and supplied from those vehicles, obviously stocked by people running from bad situations to places of perceived safety. Many had obviously had some significant survival supplies so it wasn’t surprising that there was a high volume of fire.

“Chris, get out of there!” shouted Chad over the radio. “Hold up in the place we discussed and we will catch up with you. If you don’t hear from us in two days, head towards our destination.”

“Will comply,” said Amber calmly, “but we will talk before we split up the party.”

Dave and Connor began slowly and methodically firing at people on the bridge that were firing at Chris and Amber. With his Leupold optics, Dave was being successful more than fifty percent of the time while Connor, firing over open sights was having a much harder time of it. Even so, their combined fire drew attention away from Chris and Amber at that critical junction.

There was a roar and a squeal of tires as the big block V-8 in the Camaro grabbed the road and seconds later, the canary yellow Camaro was around the corner and out of sight.

With their primary target out of range, the infected on the bridge turned their attention to the two riflemen firing from behind Dave’s white pickup and began returning fire. Soon there was return fire hitting the pickup and causing everyone behind them to duck.

“Chad, how long before we can get off this road?” asked Dave as he reloaded the .338. “I have fired like twenty rounds and the fire from the wreckage isn’t slacking. I am afraid they will hit something vital in the truck or one of us.”

Chad and Mary had stopped to watch Chris work his way through the maze of wrecked vehicles but at Dave’s remark, jumped back towards their tasks. The Subaru was unloaded but the tire was still flat and attached.  Chad started pumping the jack for all he was worth, while Heather cranked on the lug nuts. Mary, showing more strength than anybody thought she had, undid the quick release fitting and hoisted the tire over her head and set it down by Heather.

Together, they changed the tire like a NASCAR pit crew and with everyone helping to reload; they had the gear packed in ten minutes. The packing job sucked and several awkwardly shaped items were tossed in the back seat of the pickup.

“Mary,” said Chad as he grabbed his AR-15, “Take the kids and go to Blustery’s, that round building over there. As soon as we see you safe, we will pile into the truck and get over there. We will be safer in the structure.”

“Amy, get Ginger!” yelled Heather and she grabbed Jason and Katy and pushed them into the back seat of the Subaru. Amy picked Ginger up from where she was hiding near the front wheel of the truck and ran over to the Subaru which thankfully was mostly shielded by the bulk of the much larger truck.

Amy started to go back to where Connor was but Mary grabbed her arm.

“Please come with us Amy,” said Mary. “We’ll need you to help clear the restaurant.”

So Mary had Ginger get out, Amy get in and then she put Ginger on Amy’s lap. With everybody reloaded, they crossed the freeway median and headed for Blustery’s. The fire at the truck began to slack off as their ammunition supply was limited. Dave stopped shooting altogether and started to collect the shells for the .338. Connor and his father kept watch on the wreckage on the bridge, but stopped shooting altogether. A eerie quiet descended on the landscape.

Meanwhile, Mary pulled the Subaru around behind the restaurant, out of the line of sight from the highway. She drew her .357 magnum and Heather got out her 30-30. Amy still had Dave’s old .45 which she drew and watched the approaches to the car while Mary and Heather entered the back door of the restaurant. The door was open and there was a note posted on it.

To whoever opens this door, this restaurant was our home and dream for the last ten years. You are welcome to any food you find here, we tried to leave anything that would keep for those in need. If you need shelter, stay here, if you need to use the bathroom go ahead, just be respectful of those who come after and try to leave the place neat and clean.

The Montaño Family

The kitchen had been searched but it was clear whoever had done it had tried to follow the spirit of the note. The cookware was still neatly stacked and the plastic sacks that had likely held buns for the sandwiches were in the now overflowing trash basket.

Heather and Mary walked through the restaurant and found no one so they waved the kids in. Ginger reached out to touch the counter.

“Ginger, don’t touch anything please,” said Heather. “It looks like people were trying to be nice, but we don’t know if they were infected when they cleaned up the last time.”

They shepherded the kids into the dining room and while the younger set stood around wondering what to do, Mary found some cleaning supplies. She and Heather channeled their previous lives in the hospitality industry and quickly washed down two of the booths and wiped them down with disinfectant. Then Mary took the garbage out and neatly bagged it next to the overly full dumpster.

The kids were starting to relax and clown around a little when Chad, Dave, and Connor came in.

“Well?” said Heather, “what now? Can we go further north to the next bridge?”

“It isn’t that easy,” said Chad as he pulled out a map and spread it across one of the tables. “The next bridge across the Columbia is up in Wenatchee where US Highway 2 crosses the river. There is no convenient road along the river like there was for this last bit as the terrain gets much more rugged. We would have to backtrack through Ellensburg and them turn north on US 97 and then grab US 2. Besides, it looks like owning bridges has become a cottage industry. If that didn’t pan out, we would be stranded because the fuel would run out. ”

“Could we head for Fort Lewis?” asked Heather.

“Not unless there isn’t another alternative,” said Chad. “We would be stuck using I-90. I suspect lots of other folks are stranded up and down that route trying to get to the Seattle area or get away from it. It will be pretty dicey. I suspect there are road blocks like this all up and down I-90.”

“Well, how are we going to get to the other side then?” asked Mary. “We can’t abandon Chris and Amber.”

Amy, who had been only half listening to the discussion let her eye wander out along the road and saw something that scared her badly.

“There are bikers coming,” said Amy with a shaky voice as she pulled the .45 at her hip and started looking around for a place to hide.

“Shit,” said Chad. “Beginner’s mistake, we didn’t leave anyone on watch!”

Everyone grabbed weapons and looked for cover; Mary had the kids lay down in the booth. It was telling that they had been in enough gun fights that they didn’t make a sound. Four bikers riding gorgeous looking Harleys pulled up right in front of the restaurant.

“Hey you, in the restaurant!” said a large man dressed in biker leathers with a gang vest over the top. His colors were not visible from the window. “We want to talk to you!”

“I’m listening,” said Dave. “Go ahead and talk.”

“We’re sorry we didn’t see you try to cross. We would have warned you.” said the biker. “We thought everybody knew about the zombies on the bridge.”

“Why would you have warned us?” said Dave warily. “What’s in it for you?”

“I’d rather not be shouting out here,” said the biker indicating the bridge. “My voice will carry that far. I would like to come in. I have no weapons, watch!”

The Biker got off his bike and stood in full view and opened his vest and then the leather jacket underneath. He removed a Ruger Blackhawk and a couple of knives and set them down on the concrete and then stood up.

“I am going to come in back first,” said the Biker. He turned around and started backing up to the door. Mary opened the door with one hand holding her pistol and then backed away quickly. The biker was even bigger up close but then Mary’s face softened. She recognized the colors on the vest.

“I think it’s going to be OK,” said Mary.

June 2
nd
, Monday, 9:57 pm PDT.

Kevin dumped Macklin in a heap on the ground in front of Roban’s right next to the van where Macklin kept the Slash. A crowd of Macklin’s gang and hangers on gathered around, curious and a little scared.

“I am running this show,” said Kevin. “Me and my friends had to take over from this fool when his plan fell apart, like I knew it would.”

Macklin, who had managed to pull the two nails from his forearm and one from his cheekbone looked rough and was still woozy from shock. He was also close to needing a fix of Slash and the plague was starting to affect his mind.

“You are the one who sent the Rugrat … oofff.”

Macklin’s sentence was cut short by Kevin’s boot in his midsection.

“You are damned right I sent the Rugrat to look things over,” said Kevin with an evil gleam in his eye, “and if you had listened, we wouldn’t have lost eight more members of our gang to those folks and had four more pretty badly cut up.

“So we aren’t going after them Stricklands anymore,” said Kevin. “It’s better we just hangout for a while. Things will turn up. So give me the keys for your van, Macklin, or I’ll kill you and then take the keys.”

Macklin stood up and fished a set of keys out of his pocket. He started to fish out the right key when Kevin grabbed the keys from him and tossed them to his compatriot Jamie.

“Open it up Jamie,” said Kevin grinning, “It’s time to party!”

Jamie went up to the van and began fumbling with the lock on the door. The panel to the left of the door handle blew out with a sharp crack and a dozen sharp pieces of metal embedded themselves in Jamie’s hand and blew off two of his fingers. There was an instant while Jamie stared unbelievingly at the wreck that a second before had been his left hand and then he began to scream.

Macklin used the diversion to draw his hide out pistol from the small of his back. Ever since he had been wounded by Clinton Taylor’s backup pistol, he had taken to carrying one of his own. When Kevin took his eyes off Macklin to stare at Jamie, Macklin put his newly acquired Walther PPK under Kevin’s chin and pulled the trigger four times, sending three bullets into his brain and one out the back of his head as he slumped down. Then Macklin swung around and pointed the pistol at the gathering crowd.

“Anybody else want to try and take over?” His face was swollen from the beating he had received from Kevin and from having a nail driven into it and his right arm was still dripping a little blood, but he was truly in command at that moment.

“Haul this garbage out of here,” said Macklin gesturing at the bodies in front of him. “But since the rest of you didn’t follow these two pieces of scum, it is party time!”

Macklin took the keys from an unresisting Jamie and then, after he had pressed the safety switch on the other side of the door handle, he went into the van and grabbed his emergency box with a dozen balloons of Slash which he tossed out to the gathering crowd of bikers and drug addicts. Predictably, a fight ensued, during which, Macklin started the van and drove away. It was more than an hour before anyone noticed.

June 2
nd
, Monday, 10:13 pm PDT.

“So what is BACA anyway?” asked Chad. He and the biker, whose name he had learned was Billy Thornton although he went by the road name of Smokey from the time when he was a firefighter on a hot shot crew, was sitting in one of the booths at Blustery’s with Dave, Mary and Heather. Connor and Amy were keeping a belated watch.

“Well BACA stands for Bikers Against Child Abuse,” said Smokey. “We are the Apple Valley Chapter. When there are kids in the system that no one will stand up for, we step in and provide support and protection. Not all bikers are assholes man.”

“We have had some bad representation in the Tri-Cities apparently,” said Chad.

“There was a Columbia Basin Chapter too,” said Smokey. “But they have been pretty badly beat up by a gang up there run by some ex-fed with a big supply of Slash. Some of the tougher ones, those who survived, ride with us.

“We were watching you from the gas station and when you started changing the tire, we thought things were good, that you could see the zombies out there. Otherwise we would have come out sooner and told you what we know, but that Camaro took off so fast. We didn’t see it until the shooting started. Sorry, man.”

“We should have been watching more carefully I guess,” said Dave. “But damn it, I thought we were home free when we found the open bridge. I must be getting old. Now we need to get across that bridge. Those folks in the Camaro are our friends and we need to head towards … parts east.”

“Yeah, like I said, we saw that really cherry Camaro,” said Smokey. “It’s probably the reason you could pull it off, it being so fast and all. We tried crossing earlier today. One of the kids we work with, a little girl in Royal City, called us. You know how the phones fade in and out all the time.

“She said her mom was sick and her step-dad was coming around again. So we tried to come across the bridge and take care of her. We lost two brothers attempting to cross, but Shaggy and his wife Bella, managed to get across and they are with her now. We need to get across to help him. We were trying to figure out what to do. Maybe we could work together? One of the guys recognized you. You’re the Dead Head, aren’t you?”

“I have been called that, but mainly I am just a scientist,” said Chad. “I still don’t get how most of your chapter is disease free though. Call it a professional interest, but this plague was aimed at the sub-cultures in America, and no offense intended, it was focused on bikers and the drug culture. They developed two designer drugs specifically to get the plague going.”

“No offense taken,” said Smokey. “We get this all the time. The fact is, most bikers are pretty law abiding. They hold down regular jobs and have spouses and families. There is a small percentage of knucklehead riders, but think about it. We ride high performance motorcycles. My Harley CVO Road Glide can do zero to sixty in less than four seconds. If you are drunk all the time or high on something, these things can kill you and it will happen in a split second.

“Then there are the rules we abide by for BACA; sure, we drink a few beers and live the life you know, but no drugs. We get background checks and we want people to know we are safe with their kids. In the beginning, we had a couple of the guys who got infected, but we work with kids, kids that have real problems. The last thing any of us would want to do would be to hurt them so these guys just rode off before they got too bad.”

“Damn,” said Dave. “I wish them well.”

“So do we,” said Smokey somberly. “Anyway, we mainly got together with some of the members of the American Legion post in Wenatchee. A goodly percentage of our membership is veterans. Anyway, I’ve got a place out of town a ways. When things got real bad, a group of us headed up there. The place has a bit of an orchard. We did OK, and then we got the call. We tried to go back into town and cross the bridge there, but this guy came out of nowhere, he was calling himself the Warlord and he said controlled the bridge. He had a bunch of guys with guns so we figured to go south to get around them and ran into this.”

“So it looks like we have similar goals,” said Chad choosing his words carefully. “What have you tried?”

“Well, pretty much what you did,” said Smokey sheepishly. “Shaggy and his wife went first; kind of checking it out. They came out and tried to grab them but like I said, Harleys accelerate pretty damned fast when you need them to. He and Bella got up the hill and went straight for Royal City. We got a call that he had made it and then the phones went down again.

“We tried going down to talk with them and pay a toll or something, but they started shooting as soon as we got close. That’s when we lost our friends.”

“What have you seen watching these bozos all day?” asked Dave.

“Well, some of them are pretty far gone;” said Smokey, “but most of them are doing OK. They are infected so we didn’t get too close, but I think a lot of them are Slash users. The word is out that Slash will cure the Plague.”

“Not a cure, “said Chad, “It just controls the symptoms. We don’t know for how long.”

“Makes sense,” said Smokey nodding. “If that was the case, the Plague would be over by now. Anyway, we have seen them lowering buckets and such to the river to get water. They have preyed upon the folks coming across so they seem to have food and booze and guns.”

“How about you guys?” asked Dave. “You seemed well armed too.”

He tried to make the question sound casual, but there was an edge and Smokey picked up on it.

“To tell the truth, we watched you guys with the sniper rifle,” said Smokey quietly. “We came armed alright, but with stuff you can use from a bike. We have a lot of pistols, shotguns and such. No rifles. We have had a couple of turf fights back in Wenatchee and we are a bit short on ammo. Some of our guys reload, but no one keeps that many components.”

“OK, time for honesty,” said Dave with a grimace. “That rifle you saw was a .338 Lapua. I’ve only had the rifle for maybe two years and I had been buying some ammo in bits and dribbles. When things got rough, I couldn’t find any .338 to save my soul. We are pretty strong on .556 and such, pistols are OK too, but we are running short of shotgun ammo. I don’t have enough .338 to shoot them all; it looked like there were over a hundred of them.”

“At least,” agreed Smokey, “But we were looking at your truck. Once they block the road, it’s almost impossible to get through. Even our bikes would get caught …”

“You mean you want me to bump that bug out of the way,” said Dave Incredulously. “And what am I supposed to about the infected out there that would be shooting at me? Flash my blinkers at them?”

“You wouldn’t be going in alone,” said Smokey, “and we will have the element surprise on them.”

“How do you figure?” said Chad. “They can see your bike and our vehicles from the bridge if they look.”

“They are a party hard crowd out there,” said Smokey. “They will drink and shoot up and do whatever else it is they do and roll on until dawn. As the sun comes up, they go down. We need to hit it right before the sun is truly up though, otherwise the sun will be in our eyes.”

“You said you just go here today,” said Dave. “How do you know all this stuff?”

“Well,” said Smokey, “we are bikers and we have friends all over who have been watching people like this. Unfortunately, there are little ambush operations popping up like this all over. They tend to play the same. These guys are no different.”

“Yeah, we saw some of the same,” said Chad. “It’s Dave’s truck, so it’s his call but that thing is designed to tow a boat or a fifth wheel, not play bumper cars. Hitting something at any speed will likely flatten the front tires at a minimum.”

“We can fix that,” said Smokey with a smile. “Every bike club has a few welders. There is an oxyacetylene welding set up in the gas station we are waiting in. With all the abandoned cars around for raw material, we can fix your truck up so that you can push and shove with the best of them. We can put on a shock absorbing and sprung rack to push without messing up your truck too much with spikes and everything.”

“No spikes,” said Dave warming up to the idea. “We need the things we push to slide off, not get impaled.”

Smokey and Dave began animatedly chatting about the details of the modifications to the truck and the plan for breaking through the barrier on the bridge.

Chad watched for a bit and then got on the radio.

“Chris, are you out there?” said Chad as he keyed the microphone on the ski radios.

“Roger, I have you,” said Chris. The signal was not strong, as they were operating at the limits of the range of the little radios, but he could be understood.

“Chris, we have a plan,” said Chad. “But you will have to sit tight until dawn, can you do that?”

“Yeah, no problem,” said Chris. “We are at the rendezvous and have the car camouflaged. We can sit tight for a while.”

June 3
rd
, Wednesday, 1:19 am PDT.

Macklin had driven across the bridge and into the vineyards and orchards north of the Tri-Cities. He would have driven further, but he was becoming more and more symptomatic. To keep cogent, he had no alternative but to take a rather large dose of Slash. As he was also exhausted and hurting from his various wounds, he passed out rather quickly and was only now beginning to wake up. The reason he was awakened was the fact that his special cell phone was going off. He groggily grabbed the phone and accepted the call.

“Macklin.”

“Well, well,” said the voice on the phone. “I didn’t think we would be having this conversation. Kevin clearly underestimated you and apparently so have we.”

“This is low, even for you,” said Macklin. “You set that bastard on me didn’t you?”

“No, actually, your efforts needed the vehicles he could provide. He was never very reliable. We suspected he would try and usurp your leadership. If he had, that would have been the end of it. Consider this a graduation exercise.

“I suspect his attempted takeover was messy?”

“Very,” said Macklin wearily. He was still under the effect of the drug and he really didn’t give a damn anymore. He had thought morosely about just ending it rather than slowly sliding into the disease. “Kevin is most likely dead. I say most likely because I shot him in the brain, something he didn’t use much, and the operation the Tri-Cities is in chaos.”