A Time to Die (37 page)

The press might have been all over the strange occurrences at the NASA headquarters except that the local TV station in Cocoa Beach was overrun with infected and the city was aflame. Houston had sporadic pockets of looting as the National Guard was just beginning to mobilize.

Between Corpus Christi and Galveston, the South Texas nuclear power project was isolated from the outside. The federal government in charge of nuclear power safety put terrorist protocols in effect, closing off all outside access and putting armed guards along the perimeter to keep the infection from spreading to the staff. The controllers all met to discuss what they knew about the crisis, all sharing a meal of fresh barbeque brought in by the wife of the chief engineer. Government agents could keep infected people out, but not infected food.

Half the on-shift operators went insane an hour into the late shift, attacking their uninfected coworkers. Hours later, as dawn approached, government agents stormed the control center, trying to rescue the plant manager and senior staff and were met with more than a hundred infected. Controlled fire changed to fully automatic and then to panicked spray-and-pray. As the agents were being overrun, a grenade was thrown in a panic.

The detonation took out one of the main control boards and dozens of computers, including safety monitors and feedback system. The reactor was far too safely designed to melt down. However, with most of the staff dead or infected, and the main control systems hopelessly wrecked, the plant went into emergency scram mode and shut down. The state’s grid, already dangerously stressed from other failures, reached the tipping point and failed in a ripple from east to west. Many plants remained functional, but were now isolated.

Tiny pockets of power remained, but as Texas grid failed the country began to quickly follow. Radio and TV went with it. The internet backbone was close behind. People who were sitting tight to see what would happen panicked as power went off all over the country in the early morning hours of April 24th.

Chapter 24

Tuesday, April 24

Morning

Vance checked the locks for the twentieth time, going through each exit to the huge house and verifying with his own eyes systematically. In the lower level bunker, one floor below the house’s original basement, the other five members of his now extended family all waited. Redundant monitors allowed them to track his progress, and the horror that was outside.

He stood behind the main front door for several minutes. Four solid inches thick, made of oak and reinforced with metal bands on the inside. The hinges were set with four-inch heavy steel screws and the triple deadbolts sunk three inches into the frame. The best battering rams made by the police couldn’t penetrate the door. Yet he could hear the grumbling, grunting, shambling sound of zombies just on the other side.

Vance descended the stairs to the basement, then the ladder into the bunker, pressed the button so the hydraulics would lower the bunker lid in place. His dog Lexus whined from her bed, the area now shared with the Prices’ dogs Rocky & Dewey. The dogs all had their ears back and were wearily watching the humans.

“How many now?” he asked.

“At least five hundred,” Belinda said from the monitor bank. She was currently panning one of the rooftop cameras over the crowd in the yard. “Looks like a lot more than that working across the property, south to north.”

Nicole was watching them with fascination, her medical background was pushing her to try and understand what was happening. Having not been privy to the details of Strain Delta, she had no idea what was happening. But thanks to the shortwave, they did know about the warning concerning fresh food harvested less than thirty days ago. Luckily they had tons of freeze dried, canned, and MREs. Not to mention a dozen freezers full of meat. The last freezer now had a big X on the door in red duct tape. Some of the contents had been bought over the last thirty days.

Vance thought back to after the shootout. The three men had raced back from the dry streambed towards the house. They took turns following a few feet behind the other two checking back every few yards. Strange, almost inhuman sounds could be heard back in the direction of the fight. That and tearing flesh, cracking bones, wet chewing.

“Jesus Christ,” Tim said over and over and they hurried back.

Inside the house the men rushed through the doors and past the wide eyed women, busily shuttering the big glass windows using the steel dropdown covers installed long ago. Each one had a two-inch-wide firing slit that could be opened or closed. The men raced to the third floor landing that circled the entire house. They split up immediately and headed different directions, each trying to cover as much space as possible.

“It’s like the video,” Vance whispered as he press-checked his FN FAL, doing a quick pat of his tactical vest to verify how many magazines he had. Seven extra full mags. On his right thigh was a Springfield XD .45 ACP and he had six extra mags for that weapon as well. Additional weapons were stashed throughout the house in various fallback locations. “They’re going to eat us alive.”

“Contact!” Harry yelled from the south side of the house. He’d rushed in that direction, knowing the enemy would be coming from that way and taking it. Tim and Vance hadn’t tried to stop him.

Vance heard running feet coming up and the women emerged on the balcony, dogs in hot pursuit. Ann and Nicole were both in their combat gear now, though they carrier M-4 carbines. Belinda Rose was behind them, a bit slower because she carried a pair of M-4 rifles from the house armory and an extra tac vest. She looked at Vance who’d gestured with his head toward where the ex-Marine was guarding. She took the corner and ran.

“Space out evenly,” Vance ordered. “How many you got, Harry?”

“Dozens,” he yelled back. The man had his weapon up and was scoping the advancing line of figures. “They’re the… things.”

“What are they?” Ann asked, somewhat out of breath.

“Monsters,” Vance answered in a whisper, “like the ones in the video.”

“God,” she whispered back.

“They’re closing on the house,” Harry said as his wife left him a tac vest and carbine. For the moment he’d stuck with the SSG3000. Its abilities easily exceeded those of the M-4. “They must see us.”

“Maybe they’ll just leave us alone?” Tim asked.

At fifty yards, the closest stopped to consider the house. The first of the dogs spotted them and growled.

“Jesus, get them inside!” Vance hissed. All three dogs were low, their hackles standing up on their backs like ripe wheat. Ann reached for the nearest dog and they all began barking like crazy.

The effect on the infected was immediate. Dozens of heads jerked up at the sound, eyes locking on the people standing on the balcony. There was a ripple of wild snarl and growls and the group began a headlong charge towards the house.

“Open fire!” Vance barked and trotted towards that end of the balcony as Harry fired his first round.

This time they’d been able to set their hearing protection in place so the booming of the .308 round was not as profound. Harry had the bipod open and braced on the balcony. He fired out the rifle in a matter of seconds, dropping someone with each shot. And just like before, it didn’t slow the others by a step.

Vance and Tim arrived at the same time on either side of the ex-Marine as he carefully sat the Sig Sauer rifle down on its bipod and scooped up the M-4. With reflexes honed from long service he did a lightning fast press check, shouldered the weapon, and began firing.

The balcony roared as all three men began firing, two with their .308 FN FAL rifles and Harry with the .223 M-4. In the predawn light sprinting people began to fall. A lot were men, some were women and others were quite a bit younger.

Magazines began dropping almost in unison as the men finished firing out the first ones. Full mags found their mag-wells and were slammed home as the women all came around to join them. “Are they really people?” Belinda asked.

“Not anymore,” her husband assured her.

More than twenty were down on the ground below. Some were still moving, a few crawling toward the house as six guns came on target. Dozens more raced towards the house.

“Fire!” Vance said and the morning erupted in a fusillade of fire. Four battle rifles in .308 and two in .223 unleashed a total of a hundred rounds in just a few seconds. All the shooters were experienced, with proficiency ranging from marksman to expert, and Harry at the top of the order. As bolts again locked back again, no more figures were walking below.

“We did it!” Mike yelled, but not really in celebration. At least fifty people lay dead or dying below. What had been human beings a short time ago. Vance had a moment to examine them for the first time. Most were in various stages of undress, many complete naked. Most had various bites on their bodies, face smeared in dried blood. Their hands were caked in dirt and grime.

“Reload,” Harry hissed.

“Why?” Vance started to ask, then saw. Out of the distance, hundreds more were coming. Thousands.

“We’re going to get overrun,” Harry said simply. The first of them reached the first of the ones Harry had shot. A couple dropped down and started to feed on the dead. Vance felt the bile rise in his throat. The women all gasped, Mike just puked over the side of the balcony. The dogs had never stopped barking the whole time. They were going absolutely insane. Vance began to worry they were going to jump over the side. He decided:

“Everyone inside, we’re going into the bunker.”

* * *

That had been four hours ago.

Now they’d been watching as more and more of the zombie-like people appeared. Hundreds became thousands, became tens of thousands. They swarmed around and slowly past the house. Some stopped long enough to beat on the house’s doors, walls, and even windows. Others fed on the dead until there was nothing left but bloody bones and scattered entrails. Always they milled around.

“Watch how they act,” Belinda said, pointing at a group. They were fighting for a short time, biting and clawing at each other. After just a few seconds it broke up. None of them were dead this time. In other brawls sometimes there was a loser. When that happened the winners fed. “What has happened to these people?”

“It’s the Strain Delta,” Vance said, “someone said it’s rewritten their brains.”

“What kind of a virus could do that?” Ann asked.

Belinda started to say something, then her mouth closed. She made a face but finally just shrugged. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Nothing I’ve ever heard of.”

“What’s our power/water situation look like?” Vance asked his wife.

“Power is holding,” Ann said, “down a few percent from those things wandering around the solar farm. Water is good. With zero rain, we have two months for all of us down here. Food, about the same, but as long as the house holds above we can access the long term stores we’re good for as long as the water lasts.” She glanced at her smart phone’s calendar. “We’re due for an inch or two of rain this month. We’ll refill the reservoir, even with current usages. Really, we should be good for a year or two.”

Ann reached down and touched her stomach. She wasn’t showing yet, and wouldn’t for months to come, but Vance knew she was thinking about their unborn baby being born in the bunker. Sure, they had birthing kits in storage. He thought there were twenty of them, bought in bulk over a year ago from a supplier in the Ukraine.

“We’re going to lose the country,” Harry said as an endless stream of people shambled past the camera.

* * *

Dr. Breda stared at the datasets through sleep-deprived eyes and feelings of despair. She’d read emails from counterparts all over the world. The virus in its various parts, dubbed Strain Delta by the USA CDC, was worldwide in all its forms. The list of countries not reporting outbreaks was smaller than the ones that did report them. Worse, a handful of advanced countries were no longer responding at all.

Four hours ago she’d been talking with a counterpart at another genome project in Osaka, Japan when he’d broken off the conversation. She could hear screams and gunshots over the link.

“I’m afraid I cannot assist any further,” he’d told her as the camera was snatched from a table and the view became one of frenzied movement.

“What is happening, Dr. Okudo!” she’d yelled.

“The end here,” he said, though she could no longer see him. A minute later the camera was carried out into daylight and Lisha realized it was the roof of the Japanese building where Dr. Okudo’s project was. The sound over the small wireless camera’s microphone was like something straight from hell. Millions screamed, moaned, or roared in rage.

The camera came into focus looking out over a typical broad Japanese avenue, at least six lanes wide. Hundreds of thousands choked the roadway, moving in a surging sea of humanity. In the foreground down on the road a line of armored personnel carriers were visible. Here and there a solitary figure stood on top, gun in hand, bravely standing to the last as an unstoppable tide of unspeakable horror engulfed them one at a time.

The wave of infected was so immense and powerful they were moving the multi-ton military vehicles, skidding them sideways along the concrete. Small cars could occasionally be seen. Some being crushed into the concrete by scores of passing infected, other were pushed like shopping carts. Dante couldn’t have imagined worse.

“Is that all of Japan?”

“Most cities, yes,” Okudo admitted. “Our leadership was struggling to contain it, but it seems the warnings of fresh food contaminants were not heeded, and now we are lost. I had images from Tokyo. It is a scene of unspeakable loss. It would seem we are to be an island nation of the infected. Wherever this is seen in the future, try to remember what we were.”

There was more sounds of shooting, nearby, and yells in Japanese. Over that were snarls and cries of fear and panic. The camera was held up and she could see the look on the researcher’s face. It was one of stark raving terror. Behind him she could see a security detail trying to hold the doorway to the roof. They were panic firing downward into the stairwell. Burning through ammo at a furious pace.

“I cannot face a fate of being one of them,” Okudo said simply.

“I’m sure they can get you off in a helicopter,” Alisha pleaded.

“There is nowhere to go,” he said simply. “Remember us?! Please?”

“What do you mean?” she asked. Then he jumped.

“Okudo!” she screamed. The researcher did a half turn as he fell, still showing his face, eyes closed and expression neutral. As he turned she saw the windows rushing by, then the crowd far below. The roof was twenty-two stories above the street, about three hundred feet. The unthinkable mass of the infected approached faster and faster until she could make out their faces looking up, hands reaching to receive him.

She wanted to closer her eyes, but didn’t. The camera was a good model, it only dissolved into static for a fraction of a second upon the bone jarring impact. The sound was like a pumpkin hitting a wall, with cracking boards mixed in. It continued to send her images as the infected began to tear bloody dripping bits from his body.