Apocalypse Atlanta (73 page)

“What’s wrong with your arm then?”

She snarled wordlessly as she suddenly held her arm out and spread the edges of the hole in the sleeve with her left hand.  Peter saw a line of reddened skin, already blistering, that he recognized immediately as a burn caused by the barrel of a hot weapon.  “There, happy?”

“No.” Swanson said.  “You need to change shirts or bandage that burn, or both.  If those blisters break, you could get zombie smeared across the wound.  There’s no way that’ll be good for anyone.”

“Pervert.” Crawford said, shooting him a dirty glance.

“Yeah, yeah.” Swanson grinned.  “Any excuse to get you out of your clothes.”

Whitley came up the steps.  “Is there some reason we’re just sitting here?”

Peter shook his head, embarrassed.  He’d been completely distracted by Crawford’s condition.  “Jenkins, move us out.”

“Uh, no.” Jenkins said, heaving himself up out of the seat.  “It makes me nervous when people yell while I’m driving.”

“Christ.” Whitley said angrily, reaching past him and hitting the lever for the doors.  They closed behind her, then she gave Jenkins a shove toward Peter.  The injured Guardsman stumbled on his bad leg, his face twisted with pain, as Peter reached and managed to catch him.

“Sit down.” Peter muttered, directing Jenkins down into the handicap seats as Whitley took over the driver’s seat and got the bus moving.  Swanson was following Crawford further into bus, past the seats close to the front that were occupied by the soldiers.

“Oh my God, who yakked back here?” Crawford asked loudly as they got halfway down the aisle.

“Roper.” Whitley called back.

“Jeez dude.” Crawford said, her face wrinkled in disgust.  “Your cooking smells a hell of a lot better the first time around, did you know that?”

“Hey, you haul out a four year old zombie leaking brains on your boots and see if your stomach cooperates.” Roper shot back.

“Sarge.”

Peter turned away from the developing back and forth, leaning in next to Whitley.  “What’s up?”

“Where we headed?” the woman asked.  She was building speed, steering casually around the scattering of zombies that were on the road ahead.

Peter hesitated for a few moments.  “I hadn’t thought that far ahead.” he finally admitted.  “Sorry.”

“S’okay.” She shrugged.  “You got us this far.”

“It was a team effort.” Peter pointed out.

“The hell it was.”

* * * * *

“Mommmmmmm . . .” Candice said, drawing the syllable out warningly as she sat twisted around in her seat looking out the rear window.

Jessica looked up from the phone’s screen in frustration and fixed on the rear view mirror again.  That same zombie, the one wearing a dirty State Police uniform, was approaching again.  It had noticed them shortly after Jessica stopped for the first time.  She’d pulled up past the next exit, but it apparently had followed them.

“Thanks Candy Bear.” Jessica said, moving the gear shifter into ‘D’ and focusing on the road again.  85, at least this section of it, seemed in reasonably good shape.  She’d been half afraid, from what the news had said and been showing, she’d find piles of burning cars and hordes of zombified drivers blocking the road.  There had been a rather large collection of wrecked and abandoned vehicles just south of Exit 108, but they were all off on the shoulder.  The lanes, so far, were clear.

She drove for a mile, then stopped in the emergency lane again and returned her attention to the phone.  Messages had been left for everyone who had voice mail, basically ‘Hi, this is Jessica Talbot, please call me as soon as you get this, I need some help.’  Now she was using the data feature on her phone, something she hardly ever did, to try to figure out some safe place to go.

The CDC’s page looked, at first glance, like it was being updated, and her heart had leapt.  Then she’d noticed the timestamps, which showed the most recent update was hours ago.  And, when reviewing what was posted, she realized it wasn’t of any real use to her anyway.

It was all things like ‘do not approach anyone you suspect of being sick’ and ‘take all appropriate measure to safeguard yourself and loved ones from contact with sick individuals’.  Nothing about ‘go here for safety’ or ‘contact such and such agency for further instructions’.  She needed something concrete.  They couldn’t stay out here like this forever.

Now she was using Google to locate and check local sites for entities that might, that should, be organizing the effort to deal with what was happening.  Frustratingly, she had found they were of even less use.  She’d checked sites for Gwinnett, DeKalb, Forsyth, Hall, and Cobb counties; both their ‘main’ county home pages as well as those for the respective police departments.

Nothing.  In fact, DeKalb’s even showed what was clearly a pre-programmed message listing some activities citizens might like to attend in Decatur and Stone Mountain during the Labor Day holiday.  Worse, none of the phone numbers to various county offices and departments were being answered, when they rang through at all.  A lot of those calls just gave fast busy signals, or clicked back to dial tones after she tried to call them.

A handful of vehicles had passed her since she’d reached 85 and started working her phone in earnest.  One was a convoy of five trucks, all big passenger trucks like Lonnie’s.  No one stopped.  In fact, none of the passing vehicles even seemed to slow.  She was prepared to chase after any emergency vehicles she spotted, but they were all regular people.

Those people had plans.  Why in the hell couldn’t she come up with one?  Jessica looked at the phone’s rectangular screen in frustration, feeling tears threatening her vision.  She could not cry.  She couldn’t afford it.  She had to make a decision.  She realized her breath was starting to shade towards sobbing, and made a concerted effort to even her breathing out, trying to stay calm.

“Think.  Think damnit.”
she whispered inaudibly, trying to do just that.  She stared at the Google page as she tried to think of something to look for that might help.  Something Joey had exasperatedly explained to her last year bubbled up to the top of her mind.

“Mom, this is not that hard.” he’d explained, when she was having trouble finding something.  “Use Google.”

“I am.” she’d told him.  “But I need to know what to search for.”

“You’re making this harder than it needs to be.” he’d said, leaning over her shoulder to type on the laptop’s keyboard.  She’d looked at what he typed with a large dose of skepticism, but when he hit enter, and the list of search results came up, her jaw had dropped.

“There, look at that.” Joey had said smugly, stepping back and leaving her gaping at the screen.  “Don’t try to guess what you’re looking for, just ask Google.  Type it like you’d ask a human and see what comes up.  That’ll almost always get you somewhere useful.”

Now, as Jessica clutched her phone and sat huddled in the driver’s seat of her car, she remembered what he’d told her and managed, for the first time since Friday, to think of him without a huge swell of sorrow threatening to hammer through her emotional dams.  Slowly, she typed her query out on the keyboard displayed on the screen, then tapped search and waited.  Seconds passed, while the phone waited for the data connection to reply, then the screen changed and loaded as information filtered through.

‘Evacuation sites near Atlanta, Georgia’ showed in the search box at the top of the screen, and below that links were cascading down the screen.  The brief blurbs accompanying each link seemed promising.  She tapped the third link in the list and bit her lip as she waited for it to load.

Finally it did, and she found herself on a site that was clearly not designed for use on anything less than a computer with a full screen, but she didn’t care.  As she zoomed back as much as she could and still legibly read, and used her finger to scroll back and forth as she did, her heart leapt.

“Yes, finally.”
she breathed, studying the information.  According to this, there were over a dozen locations in the region that were setup and able to receive refugees.  They were all outside Atlanta, but she had her pick of four that were within an hour of where she was right now.  The closest looked like it was near Buford, and she reached to tap the link next to that one that purported to be the address and a map showing where it was.

The phone’s ringer went off before her finger could touch the screen.  She started violently and almost dropped the phone.  Jessica blinked as a bar across the top of the screen appeared, showing ‘Dr. Morris (home) calling’.  Below that were accept and decline icons.  Jessica’s finger was trembling as she tapped on the green icon and put the phone to her ear.

“Hello?”

“Jessica!  Dear God, are you okay?” Dennis Morris said, sounding equally relieved and concerned.

“Yes.” Jessica replied, closing her eyes and forcing her hand to relax before she crushed the phone and broke it.  Her palm was hurting, so tight had her grip been.  “I’m so glad to hear from you.  You have no idea how glad.  Is everyone okay there?”

“Trudy and I are fine.” Dennis said.  “But we can play twenty questions about ‘how are you’ later.  Your message said you needed help.  What’s wrong?”

“We . . . had to leave the house.” Jessica said.  “I’m in the car with Candice and trying to find somewhere safe.  I just found some information about refugee camps outside the city–”

Dennis cut her off.  “Forget that.  You should come here, as quick as you can.”

Jessica hesitated.  “Are you sure?”  Then she blinked, amazed she’d actually asked that question.  She glanced at Candice in the seat next to her, still diligently scanning around the car to make sure nothing bad got near them.  Jessica winced involuntarily.  “What I mean is, is it safe there?”

“Yes.” Dennis said.  “Jessica, listen, there’s way too much to explain over the phone right now.  My hand to God, come here and you’ll be safe.”

Jessica put the car in gear and looked behind her quickly to ensure the road was clear, then pulled out into the travel lanes.  There was an exit just ahead where she could get off.  Doctor Morris lived in Johns Creek, which was west of here.  “How are the roads there?  Anything I should know about blocks or wrecks or anything?”

She heard him breathing for a moment, then he spoke.  “There are some sick people wandering around in the area, at least that’s what I’m told.  But you shouldn’t have any trouble getting here.  You remember where the house is, right?”

Jessica frowned as the Accord climbed the exit ramp.  “Yes, I know just where it is.”  She came to a rolling stop, the kind that could get you a ticket, at the top of the ramp as she looked in both directions, then turned left through the red light and headed west.  “What do you mean?  Who’s telling you about the roads?”

“Jessica, just get here.  Before the sun comes up.”

“Doctor . . .” Jessica said sternly.

“Christ . . .okay, short version.  You remember my brother?”

Jessica blinked.  There was a wreck ahead, just past the west side of the interstate, but there was easily enough room to drive past.  Why would Dennis ask her that?  “Tyler?” she asked slowly, thinking back to the Christmas party last year.  She knew she’d met him, but for the life of her couldn’t seem to summon a clear memory of having done so.

“That’s right.” Dennis said.  “He’s here now with some of his people, and more are on the way.”

Jessica was silent, still confused.  She kept her high beams on and pushed her speed up to well past the four lane road’s limit.  If she remembered correctly, she could follow this around for a few miles, then cut south and west and she’d be at Peachtree Industrial.  From there it was basically three more turns and she’d be at Dennis’ neighborhood.  “His people?” she finally asked, trying to find something she could use to figure out what Dennis was trying to explain.

“Damnit Jessica, I told you this was too involved to get into over the phone.” Dennis said, sounding frustrated rather than angry.  “Look, how long until you get here?”

“Um . . .” Jessica considered. “I don’t know, fifteen minutes, maybe.”

“Good.  Don’t stop for anything, there’s nothing you need to bring except you and Candice.  When you get here I’ll explain what’s going on.”

“Okay.” Jessica said, still confused but unwilling to push him on it.  He was probably right, explanations could wait.  She’d be there shortly.

“Be careful Jessica.”

“I will.”  Jessica hesitated, then smiled very slightly.  “Thank you Doctor.”

The line went dead, and Jessica dropped the phone back into its cradle.

“We’re going to Doctor Morris’ house?” Candice asked.

“That’s right.” Jessica said distractedly, trying to pay attention to the road.  The road was clear, but there were a fair number of cars parked on one shoulder or the other, or, more uncommonly, sitting tangled in pairs or trios in a wreck of some sort.  The speed limit was forty-five, and though she was ignoring that, she didn’t feel comfortable pushing past sixty in the dark and with the likely possibility of one or more of the lanes being blocked as she zipped along.

“He’s your boss.”

“Yes, I work for him.” Jessica said, though she left unsaid that she hoped that were still true.  She would love to be able to go back to the office and return to the regular routine of managing it for Dennis.  That would mean things were back to normal, which could only be a good thing.  Somehow, she didn’t think that was going to happen anytime soon.

“So that means he’s a good guy, right?”

“Yes, Doctor Morris is a good guy.”

“Good.” Candice said, sounding content.

Jessica gave her a quick smile, but didn’t pull her attention from the road ahead.  “We’ll be there soon.” she said, silently thinking the sooner the better.  The road finally curved around to the south for a mile, then ended in a T-intersection, where she turned right to reach Peachtree Industrial.  It was less than a minute before she did, and she swung out with another rolling stop against the light after looking in both directions.

It was creeping her out how strange the roads looked.  It wasn’t the abandoned or damaged cars that was bothering her.  It was the lack of other traffic.  Even though it was the middle of the night, it was Saturday night.  Atlanta’s traffic was legendary for a reason.  The emptiness on the roads was alien and disconcerting.  She never thought she’d wish for a bit of traffic, but as she zipped along Peachtree Industrial, she found herself wishing, a little, for that bit of normality.

When she saw a particularly nasty looking wreck ahead, where a four door sedan that looked like it was probably in bad shape even before the impacts had been mangled between a van and a jeep, she slowed while she sized things up.  The vehicles were twisted together across both of her lanes, leaving only the oncoming ones clear.  Jessica let her speed ease down from sixty to a more sedate forty while she studied the road, but it was just one more wreck.

Satisfied, she swung across the center line to the wrong side of the road and put her foot back on the accelerator again.  She was just about to make it past the accident site when a humanoid shape suddenly silhouetted itself in her headlights.  Jessica didn’t have time to form any thoughts or to say anything, not even to gasp or scream in surprise.  Her hands twisted sharply on the steering wheel, trying to veer left and avoid the impact.

Distantly, she heard Candice inhale swiftly as the car started to change course, and then there was a heavy and violent thud that rocked Jessica forward against her seat belt.  She’d almost missed the figure, but only almost.  Rather than hitting just to the right side of center, she’d changed the point of impact instead to the front right corner of the bumper.

An instant after she heard and felt the collision, something heavy and . . . squishy . . . hit the windshield on Candice’s side of the car.  The safety glass fractured immediately, converting into a web like pattern rather than shattering explosively.  The difference was almost academic, as Jessica couldn’t see through it clearly anymore.