Man Eaters (4 page)

She could feel the fear in the air, and by the time she hit the 680 freeway there were no moving cars on the road. Everything was blocked off, but not by police vehicles—by military units cruising past each vehicle and inspecting them.

Einstein had been right. They were in trouble. Whatever this was, it was something well beyond the government’s control. She knew when a government leaned too heavily on its military it was grasping at straws, and as much as she wanted to go home, she knew it wouldn’t be long before the infected entered Berkeley. She wanted to call Lisa, but the phone towers were always busy. She could only hope her family in Houston would be safe from whatever this was.

As she drove through the winding roads, passing cattle and sheep along the way, Dallas suddenly felt very cold. One minute, she was going to the city, the next, she was running for her life with two people she’d just met. It was as if she had lived her entire life in a snowglobe that someone decided to violently turn upside down and shake.

What else could happen?

She was about to find out as a line of four men stood in the middle of the road with four high powered rifles pointed at them. Roper was off the bike before it came to a complete stop, shotgun in hand.

“Whoa. Hang on there, little lady,” one of the men said as he shouldered his rifle.

Roper raised the shotgun as well, only she pointed it at what appeared to be the youngest of the four. “Unless you can kill me before I can pull this trigger, Bubba, I won’t go out of this life alone.”

Dallas put the kickstand down and hopped off the bike, hands in the air. “Easy, fellas. We just want to go home.”

The other man sporting a ZZ Top beard, stepped out, his rifle lowered to the ground. He wore a red flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and Western cut jeans. “Haven’t you heard? No one is s’posed to be on the roads. It’s called Martian law.”

“You mean martial law? When did that happen?”

“Twenty-thirty minutes ago? You haven’t seen the news?”

Roper shook her head. “We haven’t. We just want to go home.”

The four men exchanged glances. “We’ll let you pass, but you gotta leave the bike.”

“Not gonna happen, Jethro,” Roper said, eyeing the sightings on the shotgun. “Now get the fuck out of our way.”

All four pointed their rifles at Roper, who didn’t flinch.

“Wait,” Dallas said, holding the keys up. “Fine. You can have the bike.”

“No they can’t.” This came from an older woman who stuck her head out the front door of a nearby house. “Clarence, you should be ashamed of yourself. It’s two girls and a boy. You four lunkheads get out the way and let them pass.”

“You heard the news, ma. They said to stop anyone who—”

“Don’t make me tell you twice, boy.” To Dallas she said, “My apologies, young lady, but the announcement has made my lunkheaded sons very nervous.”

Dallas put the keys in her pocket and moved next to Roper. “Lower the gun, Roper.”

“Not until they do.”

Reluctantly, they did, and Roper followed suit.

“Thank you.” To the older woman Dallas said, “Ma’am, if you don’t mind, can you tell us what the news said?”

“Certainly. Boys, get in the house. Now.”

The four men walked into the house and the woman came out to the deck. She leaned on the railing, her white hair framing her oval face. She had light grey eyes that said she had seen too much sadness in this life. “Those Iranians have bombed us with some sort of bioweapon. The military initially thought they could control the situation, but as is the way of our government, they lost any control they thought they possessed. Now, they’ve announced martial law. No one should be out of their houses at all.”

“We understand that. We’re just trying to get home.”

She nodded. “Three on a motorcycle should have told the boneheads that, but everyone’s afraid of this virus and what it does to folks. Before the news went off the air, the images we saw...well...it didn’t look possible.”

Dallas tilted her head to one side. “What do you mean the news went off the air?”

“The government’s shut everything down. We’ve only gotten news from the State Department now.”

Dallas glanced behind her at Einstein, who nodded.

“They know people would panic if they saw the truth of those things. This just means it’s worse than we realized. We gotta go.”

Dallas thanked the woman for not letting the men shoot them. She wished them luck and they were quickly on their way.

When they came to an intersection where large oak trees created a canopy above, Dallas turned the bike off and dismounted.

“You okay? Roper asked, also getting off, followed by Einstein.

Dallas shook her head. “One minute, our lives are just cruising along, and the next, we’re dealing with martial law and a lying government dictating our lives while zombies eat us.”

“You don’t know they’re lying.”

“Roper, they were shooting the living on that bridge! You saw it. I saw it. He saw it. Stay indoors? How many zombie movies have you seen?”

“I don’t watch T.V.”

“Exactly. Einstein’s right. This is already out of control or they wouldn’t be taking such extreme measures.”

“Containment,” Einstein said softly, “Requires the deaths of more than just the man eaters. There can be no second chances…no mistakes.”

Roper looked hard at him. “No mistakes? We’ve already seen dozens of mistakes.”

He nodded sadly. “Trust me. This is already gone rogue. Bad things are happening in Oakland and Berkeley, and it will spread. They will spread. I hate to say it, but those guys back there have the right idea. Kill or be killed is the state we live in now.”

Dallas looked at Roper. “We’ll get to your place and then figure out where to go and what to do from there.”

She nodded. “We’ll be safe there for a while at least.” She looked to Einstein, who confirmed.

“The undead don’t drive.”

There was a slight pause before they all started laughing. Their laughter was interrupted by the sound of an approaching helicopter.

Like an Indy 500 team, the three jumped into action, pushing the Harley over next to a tree before running across the street behind the other oak tree.

“How many cities did they say were hit?”

“Ten.”

Einstein peered around the tree. “That will seriously thin out our already skimpy military. We’ve got so many troops overseas, if they can’t contain it by tomorrow evening, we’re in trouble.”

Before the other two could respond, a voice bellowed from a megaphone. “Come out with your hands in the air! If you do not show yourselves, we will open fire. I repeat—”

Einstein flattened himself against the trunk. “Uh uh. Don’t go.”

Dallas and Roper followed suit. “We don’t stand a chance, kid. Even if we could take the damn thing out—”

The megaphone once again boomed, delivering the same orders.

“Make them come after us.” Dallas said. “If they zip line to the ground, we can take them out then.”

Einstein started at her. “Zip line?”

She nodded. “I really am a fire fighter.”

He nodded, “Cool.”

“I’m with you on that one Dal—” But before Roper finished her sentence, the rat-tat-tat of automatic weapons went off. Then silence. Then one more shot. Then the chopper took off.

When they could no longer hear the sound of the blades cutting through the air, they slowly peeked around the enormous trunk. Laying in the middle of the four-way stop was a woman, still clutching the hands of her children.

“Aw shit,” Roper said, moving out from behind the tree. “They weren’t talking to us.”

All three of them cautiously approached the dead trio: their blood and brains oozing out the back of their heads. They stood for a silent moment, just staring at the bodies, until Einstein finally whispered, “They’re killing kids, too. Not a good sign.”

Dallas shook her head, tears forming in her eyes.

“Martial law is martial law,” Roper said, almost too gruffly. “Let’s get the hell out of here before we end up just like them.”

They rode in silence for the next half hour, stopping once to look at the empty freeway—once a bumper-to-bumper car yard—now just a long slab of cement. The second time they stopped, it was to avoid a military vehicle about four hundred yards away, cruising slowly along a frontage road on the other side of the freeway from them.

If people were out and about, Dallas didn’t see them. Apparently, people got the memo about martial law and staying in their houses, heeding the scare tactics of what might happen if you disobeyed the military.

It was enough to frighten Dallas to death and there was already plenty of death to go around.

So far, they had ridden past over twenty dead bodies, none of which displayed signs of contagion. They were probably people just like them then, just trying to find a safe haven away from both enemy and ally.

When they reached Livermore, they pulled over and Einstein switched places with Roper so she could give directions. As Dallas drove, Roper scooted closer so she could be nearer Dallas’s ear.

“It’s a gravel road, so be careful.”

Dallas merely nodded.

“I know you’ve got to be tired, Dallas, but we’re almost there.”

Dallas nodded again, her body relaxing slightly between Roper’s legs.

“Left here and then follow the gravel road for a mile until you come to Lancaster Lane. Turn right for another half mile. Our house is at the end. Yellow and white rancher.”

It was almost dusk when the three riders got off the Harley, each stretching their legs. It had taken them over five hours to travel only twenty-five miles from the bridge to the rural hills of Livermore. Five hours of curves, back roads, danger, and death. They were physically and emotionally exhausted, not to mention starving.

Stretching her lower back, Dallas looked around at the old style house with its wagon wheel decor and deep wooden deck that wrapped around the front of the house. There were no other homes visible save a few whose landscape lights dotted the horizon.

“Nice place.”

“Thank you. I inherited it when my grandmother passed away.”

“Where’s your family again?”

“Houston. My parents are in Houston. I have a sister in Baton Rouge and a Brother in Nashville.”

Einstein cut a look to Dallas, but said nothing.

“We can get cleaned up, grab a bite to eat, and then figure out what we need to do next.” Unlocking the front door, Roper stood aside and let the others enter.

“Very homey,” Dallas said, her weary gaze taking in a great room with a cathedral ceiling and a massive stone fireplace. A brown leather sectional faced the fireplace, over which hung a large plasma screen television.

A television.

Reaching for the remote, Roper gently took it from her. “Uh uh. You need a moment of down time. Why don’t you go shower? I’ll get some sweats out for you.”

“But—”

“Come on, Dallas. Don’t fight me on this. I know I don’t know you from Adam, but you look exhausted. This can wait.”

“Roper’s right,” Einstein added. “You saved our lives today with a lot of great riding, but you look really tired. A shower will do you good.”

Roper smiled over at Einstein before looping her arm through Dallas’s. “Take your time. We’re safe for the time being.”

“Don’t watch the news without me, okay?”

“We won’t. Towels are in the linen closet. Everything you need is hanging on the shower caddy.”

“Thanks.”

Roper held Dallas by the shoulders. “No, Dallas. Thank you. Without you, the kid and I would be floating in the bay.”

Dallas shrugged off the compliment, trudged into the bathroom and closed the door. Looking in the mirror, Dallas wanted to cry. The person staring back at her was almost unrecognizable from the woman who had left Berkeley on the Harley. Her face was filthy with road grim and her green eyes were bloodshot and perched above the two dark circles she inherited from her father’s side. Her brown hair hung in a ponytail beneath a black and orange Harley Davidson cap that had seen better days.

In short, she looked like crap.

“Jesus, Dallas,” she said, leaning over to turn on the water in the shower. Her hands were weak and sore from grasping the throttle and clutch so hard, so it took her several tries to get the water going.

Once in the shower, she covered her face with her hands and wept. She wept for the living as well as the dead. She wept for the fear bunched up in her shoulders, for the life she knew she was leaving behind with every passing mile. Though she was only twenty-five miles from home, it might as well have been a million.

They were in trouble. That much was obvious. Just how bad this thing was, remained to be seen. If half of what Einstein believed came to fruition, it was only a matter of time before those creatures made their way to Livermore...and beyond.

A matter of time.

Quickly finishing her shower, Dallas threw on the black and red California State University East Bay sweats Roper had given her. They were snug against Dallas’s thicker frame, but that made them oddly more comforting. Bringing the sleeve to her face, she inhaled. It smelled like Roper.

Looking for her jacket and clothes, Dallas didn’t see them, so she headed out to the great room, where she found Einstein lounging on the couch in clean clothes and with wet hair.

“Roper’s in the spare bedroom shower.” Einstein chugged a Coke. He didn’t look like a kid who had just escaped the jaws of death.

Dallas went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. She pulled out all kinds of dinner fixings and laid them on the counter in neat little rows. It angered her that a mundane chore of cooking dinner could mean so much and take her focus off the dangers threatening them now, but they had to eat and they needed to eat well. If there was one thing she had learned at the fire station was the importance of fueling one’s body.

Einstein cocked his head before jumping up and looking out the big picture window. He stayed there for a couple of minutes before Dallas said softly, “Relax, Einstein. It would take them at least ten hours to get here. We have a little time.”

“Still, I think we ought to sleep upstairs with someone guarding, switching every four hours.”