Fade to Grey (Book 1): Fade to Grey (14 page)

“And if they are?” asked Bernice.

“Then we do what we have to do,” said Michelle.

The silence in the air was thick enough to impede movement as
the three of us got up and walked out.

*click*

I feel sick. Not like “red eyes and wanting to bite somebody”
sick, but more “sick to my stomach, tired of all this crap and really wishing I
could actually be on a vacation right now.” It’s about 11:55 PM, and Max and I
are back at Uncle Andy’s cabin. Walter, Bernice, Michelle and my uncle are all
staying at Walter’s house tonight. Yeah I know, I’m supposed to be with
somebody else . . . you know, that policy about going somewhere alone. But Max
is with me and I don’t think I could be better protected even if I had a squad?
. . . herd? . . . pod? . . . a whatever they call a bunch of Navy SEALS as
bodyguards. It was a long day, I hardly even know where to begin. I’m inside
the cabin right now. I’ve got a big pot of water boiling on the wood stove, and
I predict a massive influx of hot chocolate in my near future. Two to one ratio
is what you want. If the little packet says, “Add one packet to eight ounces of
hot water . . .” then you need to add two packets for every eight ounces. It
gives you a frothy, thick, chocolaty drink that coats the inside of your throat.
Max is laying down about five feet away from the wood stove, absorbing the heat
and digesting a huge meal of dog food, deer meat, rice, leftover biscuits, and
a few handfuls of stale Cheerios mixed in for good measure. That was my supper
as well, um . . . minus the dog food. So where was I?  Well I guess I haven’t
even started yet and there’s so much to tell. All right, here we go. We got to
the campground about 9:45 AM, and immediately knew that something was wrong. There
was a large crowd of people gathered outside the entrance. Most of them were
just standing on the road and milling around, but there was also quite a bit of
pushing and shoving going on toward the center mass of the assembly, and right
in the middle of that was Doc Collins. We parked our vehicles, shut them off,
and locked them. As soon as we got out, shouts of “Who’s in charge here anyway”
and “I don’t have to put up with this or listen to you” assaulted our ears. They
weren’t directed at us, but at Doc. Uncle Andy, Michelle, and I waded into the
crowd and made our way over to Doc, who looked very relieved at our early
arrival.

I resisted the urge to say “What’s up Doc.” Instead, I opened
with, “Hey Doc, having a rough morning?” His look of relief changed. The new
face looked at me like I owed him money. Doc let his expression linger for a
moment, then let out a deep sigh and said, “Don’t you guys listen to your radio
at night?”

My look of confusion seemed to pacify him, slightly. Uncle
Andy jumped in and said, “Hey Doc, I’m sorry, but we were kind of dealing with
a . . . ‘situation’ last night.”

“Well . . . join the crowd Andy,” Doc replied with a scowl.

“Hold that thought,” I said. “First off though, why are we
not at the amphitheater?”

“Oh, don’t know, maybe because of the zombies,” shouted one
of the nearby eavesdroppers. I looked around at the crowd a little closer;
several were armed.

“Is everyone OK?” asked Michelle.

“Yes . . . and no . . .” said Doc.

“Doc, we need to get to a place that we can talk privately,
is there a place we can send this crowd that’s safe?” I leaned over and
whispered to him.

Doc thought for a moment, and then shouted down the crowd
until he had their attention. “We need to move to a different meeting place
besides the amphitheater.” He pointed southwest and said, “There’s a soccer
field about 150 yards that way, just past the old basketball hoop that you can
see sticking up; let’s head over there for the meeting. It’s got a few sets of
old bleachers we can sit on.” The crowd grumbled but started shuffling that
direction. Doc looked at me and said, “You got five minutes.”

I spent the next two minutes giving him a quick rundown of
what had happened, everything from Sam Ironfeather to the dead blond. I could
see the dawning of comprehension in his eyes, and he stopped me before I could
finish, motioned to Sally who was standing about fifteen feet away talking to a
another lady I didn’t recognize. Sally walked over and Doc said, “Hey honey,
the people walking to the clearing are not going to stay there long if we don’t
get them focused on some type of task. Is there anything that you can think of
. . .”

Sally interjected, “I was your nurse for seventeen years . .
. I think I know how to handle any few unruly patients.” She turned away, lit a
cigarette that she removed from the side pocket of a backpack she was carrying,
and walked towards the crowd. The other lady followed.

Doc said, “That ought to buy us another fifteen minutes or
so.”

Uncle Andy and I spent ten of them filling in some details,
including our offer. When we were finished Doc said, “Yeah, count me in.” Then
he looked at us and said, “Just do me a favor next time and keep that damn
radio turned on.”

“What happened here?” asked Michelle.

Doc shook his head slightly and said, “In the strictest
medical terminology, I would have to say that the human race is one big corn
encrusted turd floating in the punch bowl of life right now.” Michelle started out
with a smile, but it broke into a low fit of laughter at Doc’s humor.

“Always the wordsmith, ain’t you?” said Uncle Andy.

Doc continued, “We got started on the flyers . . . made
enough to post on every campsite marker and a few extra for the restrooms,
picnic shelters, those kind of places. Sally and I drove around on the golf
cart to put them up as well as doing a bit more traffic control with the people
still getting settled in, especially where we were doubling up on campers in
the pull through slots. Most folks were still outside their RV’s and tents
talking, trying to get things figured out, exchanging stories, providing
comfort—those sorts of things. Almost everybody had a large fire going, most of
them so large that had this been a normal weekend of camping, I would have asked
them to keep it to a reasonable height or risk being removed from the
campground. As it turns out, those campfires probably saved lives. About two
hours after you left we finally made it back to our camper. Sally got ready for
bed while I made a pot of coffee. I was just starting to jot down some ideas
for the meeting—I still haven’t slept yet—when somebody knocked on our door. There
was a man, Mr. Hardiman, or Hardison, I didn’t really catch what he was said. Mid-fifties,
white male . . . he didn’t look too good to me. Flushed skin, high temperature,
bloodshot eyes, rapid heartbeat . . . seemed a bit disoriented also. Of course
my first thought was ‘this is the sickness, the infection from Korea that we
all heard about on the news . . . the ‘Korean plague’ that all the campers were
talking about around their fires.’ Or it could be any one of a hundred different
diagnoses that I could think of off the top of my head, from food poisoning to
influenza to heart attack or diabetic hypoglycemia. After giving him a quick ‘once
over’—he was strangely silent during it; not really expanding on any answers to
the questions I was asking him, just the basic yes or no’s—I went to get some
aspirin for his fever and some Gatorade, just because it couldn’t hurt if he
rehydrated himself. He had been drinking; I could smell it on his breath. Hold
on a minute, speaking of Gatorade  . . .”

Doc reached into a backpack at his feet, the twin to the one
Sally had, and brought out a thirty-two ounce original flavor Gatorade, you
know, the green one. He took a few swigs, screwed the cap back on, and kept it
in his hands as he continued.

“So I was just about to give him the old ‘take two aspirins
and call me in the morning’ speech when he bolts up and says, ‘Doc, I ain’t
worried about me, it’s my wife and kids that are sick.’ Obviously any patient
that goes from a semi-confused state of mind directly into total lucidity
within the space of five seconds—without passing go or collecting two hundred
dollars—has something wrong with them. I tried to get him to lay down and rest
for a minute, but he kept saying, ‘You gotta come quick, we’re in space nineteen
. . .’ and then he took off out the door. Sally was still awake and said she’d
keep working on the agenda for the meeting, and for me to go take care of the
family. It took me about eight or ten minutes to find my bag and pack some
things that might be useful, it had been a while since I’d made a house call. When
I had that done and ready, Sally told me to ‘be careful’ and I went to slot
number nineteen.”

Doc took another drink from his Gatorade before continuing. “This
campground has two loops, Golden Eagle and Blue Heron. Only the Golden Eagle
loop has electricity and RV sized parking areas.

Blue Heron is set aside for more primitive camping, the three
T’s—tents, tarps, teepees—no RV’s allowed. Golden Eagle loop is numbered 1-80, Blue
Heron is numbered 1-40. Being the campground host, my RV is in slot number one
of Golden Eagle loop. Mr. Hardiman, or Hardison, didn’t say which loop he was
on. I went outside—thought about taking the golf cart but figured that anybody
who saw me driving by would flag me down with all kinds of questions that I
didn’t have the answers to—so I walked. For whatever reason I went to Blue
Heron loop number nineteen first. It was a large tent, one of those multi-room
setups with the vestibule on both sides for additional storage. Three guys, one
older lady, and a few kids were seated around the picnic table, assembling
s’mores by the light of a Coleman lantern. I asked them if anybody was there by
the name of Hardiman or Hardison; they said no, so I chatted with them for a
few minutes and reminded them about the meeting in the morning and then walked
to Golden Eagle loop, site nineteen. It was a late nineties, Four Winds Chateau
Sport model, twenty-eight footer. There were no lights on, inside or out. I
turned on my flashlight and went up to the door and knocked. No answer. I
knocked again a little louder . . . announcing myself . . . nothing. So I
opened the door and looked inside.”

Michelle, Uncle Andy, and I didn’t say a word, we were all
thinking about the story of what happened in the state trooper barracks.

“They were dead. One adult female, his wife I’d imagine, and
three children—two girls and a boy—all between the ages of eight and eleven. I
checked their vitals, starting with the wife and kids, no pulse, no
respiration, no pupillary response. Just dead. Their skin color, however, was
ashen gray. Mr. . . . let’s just call him Mr. Hardison, he was lying on the
floor by the fold out kitchen table. Now remember, I had seen this man walk out
of my RV not twenty minutes ago. And here he was, as far as I could tell, stone
dead—notice I didn’t say stone cold dead—because he wasn’t, as a matter of fact
he was hot, hotter than when I examined him the first time. I leaned down to
check further; starting with his eyes . . . they were a solid deep red. Even the
iris, which was blue twenty minutes ago, was stained dark ruby. I sat upright,
not believing what I was seeing. Aside from specializing in orthopedic surgery,
I had my own family practice for over thirty years, and I’ve seen many cases of
subconjunctival hemorrhaging, but never like this, and never in the iris. I was
still kneeling over him, thinking, when his finger twitched. I checked for
pulse on his carotid artery and found one, weak and rapid but getting stronger.
Then he reached up and grabbed me. The shock of that, the surprise maybe—something—triggered
some primal reflex in me and I twisted up and away, out of his grasp. Mr.
Hardison sat up, knocked over the kitchen table getting to his feet and moved
over to check on his family. At least at the time, that’s what my own thought
process was telling me . . . a father . . . the husband . . . was walking over
to pay his respects to his tragically deceased family.”

He took a tiny sip from the sports drink, hands unsteady as
his eyes met ours. We knew what was coming next.

“Last summer, Sally and I wanted to repaint several rooms in
our house. We decided to do it ourselves, not for any financial reason, but
rather to try and spend some quality time with each other now that I was
retired. After we moved the furniture out, we started taping the window and
door trim, and the angle where the walls met the ceiling. She would stand on a
ladder in one corner holding on to a short starting run of the blue masking
tape, my ladder would be in the other corner. I’d walk over and take the
dangling roll of tape in my hand and walk backwards while she held on. Once we had
a nice long piece, we’d work together to stretch it along the wall/ceiling
seam.”

He paused again, moved the bottle halfway up to his lips,
held it there for a second, and then moved it away without taking a drink.

“The sound that the blue masking tape made pulling off of the
spool, that ‘unsticking-unrolling’ resonance that slowly drops in pitch as the
run of tape gets longer . . . it’s the same sound that’s made when a father
slowly rips the pectoral muscles off the rib cage of his son.”

Doc Collins spun away from us and vomited. Stomach acid,
drool, and Gatorade, not pretty.

A few minutes later, he was on his feet apologizing to us. We
told him it wasn’t necessary and that we understood. In any event, he kept
apologizing for a few more minutes, rinsed out his mouth with the remaining
Gatorade, spit, and then continued. “I turned and ran. No sneaking, no quiet
retreats involved, I busted ass and got out of there. I ran all the way up to
the campground office over there.” He pointed toward a little modular home with
faded wood siding and a small yard that was enclosed with an often repaired split
rail fence. “Got up to the door and twisted the knob. It was locked. My keys
were back at my RV. I ran back down in my RV, not really too far being that
it’s in slot one, opened the door practically at a run and about gave Sally the
fright of her life. I grabbed my keys off the breakfast counter and told Sally
to ‘lock the doors and don’t let anybody in except me.’ She recognized the tone
in my voice and did just that. I ran back to the office, opened the door and
flicked on the lights. Two seconds later they went out. Every light in the campground
went out. I knew it was a power failure of some kind, because the battery
backup system for the office computer, the UPS—uninterruptible power supply—was
beeping. Every few weeks we’d lose power up here and I had heard that sound
before. The marine radio is in the office, plugged into a wall outlet, so I
used my flashlight and plugged it into the UPS. I tried to raise you over at the
marina—nothing.”