Barren Fields (2 page)

I am sending this letter to the non-classified accounts at the CDC due to my inability to contact Washington and Homeland Security through my secure-line. I fear that all major branches of government may be in the same state of infection that my base is and need to get this information out in the hopes that someone may be able to stop this infection from spreading. The following letter I received from my colleague, General Taggart. Something must have changed with this drug to be causing the violence we are experiencing.”

“General Francis,

In response to your query regarding the safety and efficacy of the Zeus drug.

Due to the deteriorating condition of law and order within the Continental United States and abroad, nationwide martial law has been planned for and it is expected that the President will give the declaration for enacting it next week. The continuing societal unrest is expected to be compounded on Wednesday when the World Bank is set to announce an end to the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. This will cause massive inflation and dollar devaluation to our already crumbling economy.

The troops under your command will be required to ensure the safety of the citizenry as well as the prevention of violence and property destruction. As such, you and all of your troops are ordered to take inoculations of the Zeus drug. This injection has been shown to minimize blood loss, reduce fear and anxiety and remove pain detection. The combination of which will ensure a minimal amount of casualties with our soldiers in violent interactions with a rioting populace.

This drug has been tested safely on the Tiger Squadron of German soldiers working in Moldova for the last six months. There is a side effect of a high fever which takes place on the sixth hour after inoculation and lasts one to five hours after initial administration. As such, only one third of all troops are to be inoculated at any given time to ensure all soldiers are not inoperative due to the fever at the same time. The time frame for the drugs’ effectiveness is two to three weeks depending on the individual. All troops will be re-inoculated with the drug at such time as it becomes ineffective and as long as the order for martial law due to societal unrest is necessary.

I appreciate your concern for the welfare of your men and I have the same concern for mine. This is why I have written more than the required “follow your orders or be relieved” reply. I have observed the Zeus drug being administered to the German soldiers and have had it administered to myself while in Moldova with the Tiger Battalion and can personally certify its effectiveness. I will also mention that the reduction in fatalities to your troops resulting from armed conflict will help to prevent your troops from building grudges and animosity against the populace they must keep under control. Anything we can do to reduce casualties in the expected upheaval must be done.

Inoculations are expected to begin with the arrival of Zeus on Monday. In coordination with the military the CDC will be distributing inoculations nationwide to select first responders in high value areas.

Sincerely,

General Arthur C. Taggart”

George looks at the paper a moment longer attempting to make sense of the information his brain doesn’t want to accept.

“This is happening at every base in the U.S.?”

“
Every base
was yesterday. Today they were injecting that Zeus drug into first responders. That means police and hospital personnel as well.”

“My father is at the hospital!” George yells as he stands up and turns for the door.

“George, you can’t go into the city,” Keith tells him and grabs his arm.

“I have to try, Keith. Maggie, I’m sorry, but I need to at least check if I can make it to the hospital.”

“You can take our truck,” Keith says with a small amount of relief.

With George leaving, he can stay here with Maggie and won’t have to put her through the stress of travelling.

“Keith, please go with him.”

“I’m not leaving you alone when the shooting is so close.”

“Then make sure George has a gun before he leaves.”

*

Driving up the Yscloskey Highway, not even a mile from Keith’s and Maggie’s house, George sees the origin of the shooting. A crowd of some young hoodlums are shooting across the canal at people on the other side. George slams on the brakes to keep from hitting people that are standing in the road. He squints his eyes and tenses up expecting the murdering gang of armed people to turn their guns on him at any moment, but they ignore him and the screeching of his tires as he comes to a stop.

What he witnesses over the next few seconds is something he can’t comprehend. The shooters on this side of the bank aren’t a bunch of young punks or criminal looking people at all, but an assortment of men and women who are shooting at the people on the other side. The crowd of people over the waterway is no less strange. They are also men, women, and even some children. It appears to be hundreds of them crowding along the edge—just like they do along the streets during the Mardi Gras parades.

George’s stomach lurches, but he is able to keep himself from vomiting at the horrendous sight of bodies falling to the ground or into the canal as they are killed. More than the nausea, there is a cold and fearful feeling George gets while watching the scene. The people shooting look terrified and the people being shot look, how can he describe it, they look vacant. They are just standing there with their mouths hanging open watching everyone on this side of the canal. They aren’t running away, flinching, or noticing when the person standing next to them falls dead from being shot. They are doing nothing but standing there as one after another is killed by the bullets these shooters are sending their way.

As repulsive as what he is witnessing is, he has to get some answers. If any of the shooters wanted to harm him, they would have by now. Other than some glances his way, they seem to have more important things to do than speak to him.

The true horror of the situation hits him when he opens the door of the cab. The groaning sound of waves hitting a metal hull he heard earlier is actually a wet, guttural moan coming from the people being shot at. It is the sound of the infected when they cannot reach their prey. George climbs into the truck bed to get a better look at the crowd on the other side. That awful sound is not coming from hundreds, but rather what appear to be thousands of bodies pressed up against each other along the other bank of the waterway, and more are approaching from behind them.

He climbs back down from the truck and walks over to the shooters—almost in a trance-like state of disbelief at the whole situation.

“What the hell is going on?” George finally gains the presence of mind enough to ask the closest shooter.

“We have to shoot them. We have to keep shooting them, or they will make it over here and kill us.”

“But they are stuck on the other side of the water.”

“For now they are. These things are attracted to sound, and a police officer is down the street trying to get the drawbridge raised so we can try keeping this area free from the sickness. We don’t want to keep shooting them, but we have to keep them from moving south to the bridge.”

“Can’t the police do anything about them?” he asks before he can stop the words from escaping his lips.

The man stops shooting and looks at George.

Normalcy bias took over George’s thinking for a moment before he remembered the numbers he saw while standing in his truck bed. What could police do to stop a situation when so many people are infected at once? How many police officers are left to help if that letter from Eddie is right?

“Do you live out here?” the man asks.

“No, I was out fishing and came in to help a friend. I’m heading into the city to find my father.”

“You have no idea what’s going on, do you?” he asks but doesn’t wait for George to respond. “Those people we are shooting at are the good residents of the city. We got pushed back to this spot early this morning from St. Bernard Parish. New Orleans is a wasteland of disease. Everyone left there is either infected like the ones we are shooting or hiding from them.”

“They can’t all be infected,” George says in a desperate tone. “The hospitals must still be taking care of people.”

Shaking his head in a slow depressed manner, the man replies, “No, I’m sorry, the hospitals fell last night. I tried making it to one of them with my wife but...” He trails off in his description after mentioning his wife. “As far as I know, anyone that could make it out did. If you want to make it into New Orleans you’ll have to go through all of those sick people to do it, and trust me when I say this group in front of us stretches all the way back to the city.”

“My father...” is the only thing George can say.

The man he was speaking to puts his hand on George’s shoulder in a show of support and returns to shooting at the moaning host before them.

George walks back to the truck, gets in, and shuts the door muting the calling sound of the sick people and gunfire. Even though he can’t accept that New Orleans is already lost, his brain is working through the logic of it all and it does make sense. The city is flanked by two military bases, and if they were exposed to this drug yesterday, then infected soldiers would be able to converge on the city from two sides overnight spreading the infection as they went. The inoculations of Zeus would have been rushed to the hospitals and police yesterday as well to deal with the infected people coming out of the bases and surrounding areas.

It’s a perfect storm of medical horror. A drug designed to protect people from violence is actually the cause of it. If people react as quickly as the letter had said, then hardly anyone would be alive to give a warning. They would all be infected from the injection or bites.

George makes one final attempt at seeing if he can reach his father or remaining family. Even with the numbers he would be facing, he has to try. He drives down the road to the bridge but it is up. The control shack for the bridge is on the other side of the bank, where a police car is sitting and the body of the police officer is laying on the ground. There are a few infected people near the body looking over at George. He must have been bitten in the process of raising the bridge and took his own life.

*

“We have to go now!” George says surprising Keith and Maggie when he walks back in.

“Did you hear from your family?”

“The city is gone. There are people just up the road shooting at hundreds, if not thousands, of infected people across the waterway. Those people got pushed back here from St. Bernard Parish and are making their last stand. We have to leave now.”

Keith grabs George’s arm, and asks him, “Are you sure?”

“If I had any doubt, I wouldn’t be back. The hospitals got overrun last night, and my father was in one of them. If I knew where my sister or brothers are I wouldn’t be able to make it to them if I tried. St. Bernard is overrun and that’s the only way back into the city. Please, let’s just go.”

They begin the delicate process of getting Maggie transferred into his boat.

Chapter 2

The Threat at Wal-Mart?

Grants Pass, Oregon.

Present day.

No good deed goes unpunished. I wish I knew who came up with that phrase because it seems so fitting to our situation right now. My group and I managed to outwit Stockton and his criminal gang at this store and free all of their prisoners without having to fire a shot. It looks doubtful that our departure from this place will go as smoothly.

With only an hour of preparation left to transport most of the store’s remaining vital supplies and the freed prisoners back to my ranch, we now have to deal with the armed group of men that have pulled into the parking lot and most likely have surrounded the place.

Standing next to me, Timothy Weyland asks, “Who are they?”

“They are a survival group that did some training at the ranch,” I reply with a concerned look on my face. “When they trained, those two men in the front there were in charge. They are brothers,” I say while pointing them out. “The younger brother seemed like a decent guy. The other one was all right, but at times, kind of an ass. They stopped training at the ranch after they found out I was an atheist.”

“Are you sure that’s why they stopped?”

“Yes, unfortunately. The older brother was pretty upset with me when he found out. That’s also the reason they gave you, isn’t it, Arthur?”

“Yep,” he says and nods while looking over the shelving and out the glass doors at the group.

“That doesn’t mean they’re bad guys,” I add. “They just didn’t like giving money to someone that doesn’t share their beliefs.”

“And are they a threat or potential allies?” Timothy’s girlfriend, Dianne, asks.

“Both at this point,” I reply and pause for a second to think. “Get some shooters on the roof and have everyone ready to fight. There are a lot of unknowns in this situation, like what they’ve done since the collapse and why they are here. It’s also doubtful that they know who we are and why we are here, so we need to work that out first.”

The well-armed men in the parking lot interrupt our impromptu discussion session with an announcement, “Criminals in Wal-Mart, you are surrounded! Lay down your arms and release the people you are holding hostage or we will flush you from the building you are cowering in and bring vengeance upon you for your sins.”

I chuckle a bit and turn to Arthur with a questioning look on my face at the sins statement. “At least we know they aren’t here to reinforce Stockton’s group. Now we just have to convince them we aren’t the bad guys they came here to fight.”

Arthur grabs my arm as I reach out to move one of the shelves to gain access to the door.

“Eddie, we don’t know they aren’t here to free Stockton from us.”

“We know those men, Arthur. Not all of them, and not well, but I think they are decent people and doubt they are the type to hook up with the scum that was in this place. At least they were decent before the collapse. Besides, if they were here to free Stockton then they would have said as much and said Stockton’s name. You dealt with them more than I did. What did you think of them when they were at the ranch?”

Arthur squints a little while bringing up a memory. “Well, you remember the older brother, Jeremiah? He was a bit of a hothead.”

I nod in remembrance.

“Well, I had an issue with him when they said they wouldn’t be training at the ranch.”

“Go on.”

“Nothing major happened. At least, not at the time. He accused me of turning my back on Christ by working for you. I told him you were decent people and trying to do your part to help people get prepared, but you could tell by the way he spit out his words talking about you that he hated the idea that people like you even exist. Atheists, I mean. The younger brother, Isaac, was embarrassed by the scene Jeremiah was making. The reason they left wasn’t a big deal for us then, but it might be an issue now with the world changed.”

“I guess we’ll find out if it’s an issue shortly then. Help me move the shelf so I can talk to them before an unneeded gun battle starts.”

We slide the shelves away a bit, and I pull the sliding door open enough to yell out. I am completely exposed to being shot through the glass if they choose to shoot before we come to an understanding. Hopefully the older brother has learned a bit of self-restraint since the world fell apart, because he certainly didn’t have enough of it before.

“Isaac and Jeremiah, this is Eddie Keeper of the survival training ranch. You and your group have arrived a day late I’m afraid. Yesterday my group arrived here and we freed the people that were held captive. The criminals that were controlling this place are dead, and we are preparing to take the people we freed to my ranch for recovery.”

The two brothers look at each other, and Isaac responds, “Mr. Keeper, if that is you and your story is true, then come out where we can see you better.”

I look back to Arthur, and ask, “Is everyone ready?”

He nods back at me.

I wave through the glass door and call back to him and his men, “Isaac, I know you were a good man before this disease hit, but we all have to be cautious of others these days. You can already see me from where you are, and I am exposed enough to your gunfire as well. Allow me a few moments to prepare my people into defensive positions. Once they are in place, I will exit the building with a group of the prisoners we freed so they can verify my story for you.”

“I’ll give you a few minutes,” Isaac replies. “But don’t try anything, we have the building surrounded.”

His older brother starts to argue with him. No doubt over his giving us time to prepare a defense rather than just moving against us.

I don’t bother waiting for time to go by. I slide the door all the way open and walk out toward the group with my rifle slung over my shoulder. I hear footsteps behind me and look back to see Simone stepping up to be beside me while Arthur is catching up as well.

“What happened to a few minutes?” Arthur asks.

“If they wanted to attack us, they would have when they thought we weren’t ready. He gave us time which was a show of goodwill and decency.”

Reaching Isaac and Jeremiah I smile and shake Isaac’s hand. His brother shifts back just slightly letting me know he doesn’t want me to try shaking his, so I don’t try.

“It’s good to see decent people again,” I say while gripping Isaac’s hand tightly.

“It’s good to see you too, Mr. Keeper, I’m surprised to see you alive,” Isaac replies and looks at his brother.

Jeremiah just gives a blank poker face stare.

“Just call me Eddie, Isaac. Did you say you have the place surrounded?” I ask with concerned urgency.

“Yes, we have men all around the place. But don’t worry. We have radios so they know not to attack unless we give word.”

“Do you know about the running infected? Have you seen them yet?”

Just when the questioning looks appear on the brothers’ faces, gunfire erupts from the back side of the building followed by a faint yell when the shooting stops. Lucky for us, Arthur has been coordinating the preparations to leave, so he has one of our radios on him and calls back to our people, “Protect the armed men from any infected. Shoot any runners you see.”

Four shots ring out from the roof of the store, and Isaac’s men all chamber rounds in their guns and aim them at Simone, Arthur, and me thinking this is some type of trap or setup. Fortunately Isaac’s men follow a strict hierarchy and will only fire when given the order. It is actually Jeremiah that steps in and shields the three of us from the gun barrels and tells his men to stand down. There are many questions that they want to ask, but another call on the radio interrupts the brothers before they can get a word out.

“Arthur, there are two men down. Two men are bitten, what are our orders?”

I grab the radio from Arthur, and I start to run to the side of the building leaving the two brothers at their vehicles and allowing them to decide if they will follow. Keying the radio, I call, “What are the locations of the bitten men?”

“Back side due west. Head out from each corner of the building about forty yards from southwest corner and fifty yards from the northwest corner.”

“We’re approaching on foot. Don’t shoot them unless they have turned and start to run,” I say heavily while running alongside the building. “Keep two shooters on the northeast bite victim. He’s the farthest from us.”

We reach the first man just as he starts to shake from the fever. A twisted body of a dead infected is lying beside the man’s shivering body and another one of Isaac’s men is just standing there looking at his fallen compatriot. Isaac and Jeremiah step up closer to the man along with three others from their group. They don’t wait for the change to finish. Isaac puts a bullet through the man’s head and says a quick prayer before we head to the next location.

“You could have let him change first,” I say. “What if he didn’t turn?”

“We don’t wait for people to turn,” Jeremiah says in a flat angry tone next to Isaac.

I know it was unlikely that the man was immune. No one has been immune yet that started having symptoms so quickly, but we haven’t had enough experiences with immunity to be certain what does and doesn’t happen in each circumstance. That being said, I wouldn’t shoot someone I know before they turned, especially in our current situation of having multiple armed people available for protection. It wasn’t necessary. Isaac’s group must have had things pretty rough so far to be reacting like that.

I want to mention immunity to them but am interrupted by another call from the radio that lets us know that the second man is luckier than the first.

“It looks like we have another lottery winner, Eddie.”

While quickly walking toward the next group of people off of the north corner of the store, I tell Isaac and Jeremiah to get on their radios and make sure none of their people are on their own.

“Everyone has to be doubled up now with one person always watching the rear approach. I take it none of your group has encountered the running infected yet?”

“This is only our second trip away from camp since the winter began,” replies Jeremiah in a frustrated tone and looks at Isaac.

“I didn’t want to risk losing anybody,” Isaac shrugs as he replies. “Not that we could have made it far if we wanted to go anywhere. Our camp is away from main roads, so when we were ready to make an excursion, the abnormal snows that we had this winter locked us in. We also started out reasonably well for supplies and didn’t have to travel, so our first trip out wasn’t until four days ago.”

“We made it to the outskirts of Grants Pass and found a wounded boy. At first we thought he was bitten and dead because of the blood on his shirt. When we tried moving him out of a doorway we wanted to go through, we realized he was just unconscious, and that he had been shot.”

Jeremiah cuts in to add, “We only saw three of the possessed people on that trip, and since the boy survived without being attacked by any of them, we figured it was a sign that most of them were dead.”

“These people aren’t possessed. It’s just a disease,” I say to them while rolling my eyes.

“It isn’t a disease,” Jeremiah says and stops in front of me. “If you were a believer, you would see what this actually is. This is the End Times that is spoken of in Zechariah 14:12:
And this shall be the plague wherewith the Lord will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongues shall consume away in their mouth.
I don’t expect someone like you to understand,” he says in a brusque tone.

I chuckle and give a smile before telling him, “But I do understand, Jeremiah. I understand very well.” And I continue the with the next bible verse where he left off. “Zechariah 14:13:
And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the Lord shall be among them; and they shall lay hold everyone on the hand of his neighbor, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbor
.” His surprised look is all the satisfaction I need. No one runs a survival supply store without being well versed in apocalypse theories or prophesies.

“Don’t assume because I don’t believe in a God that I don’t know the Bible or your religion.”

“So you think this is a disease? People are eating each other!” Jeremiah yells attempting to get his point across. “Have you ever heard of a regular disease like this ever happening?”

“Yes, have you heard of rabies?” I say with a calm shrug.

You can tell a light just went on with Jeremiah, but there is an awkward silence of seconds with his face turning from embarrassed to angry.

I move around him and continue on to the next attack victim.

Isaac goes on with their story: “We thought for this wounded boy to survive out in the open without being attacked, that most of the people we thought were possessed must have died during the winter.”

“Isaac you do understand this is a disease and not possessions or a curse, right?” I ask out of concern that his entire group has become some religious end time’s cult. Of course the world as we know it did come to an end from all the information we’ve been able to gather, but even so, falling to a superstitious answer when dealing with a disease will only create more trouble than we already have.