Plague: Death was only the beginning! (12 page)

“Washington’s men marched barefoot in the snow at Valley Forge. Why haven’t we?”

-Thoughts from the Author

Chapter 35

Demons Released

Mike watched the raiders throwing out bags of clothes and other junk that they didn’t want. They had been pretty busy at the road block over the last few days. He had lost count of the number of times they had appeared to be real smiling U.S. Army soldiers, only to turn their guns around and begin killing the frightened travelers for their goods. The biggest problem was that they had parked themselves on the only open road for miles headed east. The major highways were shut down as they were jammed solid with thousands of wrecks and dead bodies. This made the secondary roads absolutely vital for travelers. And now this happened. Why, oh why, hadn’t he gotten on the road right away? He had made it home three days after Kim and Jim had packed up Joanne and left. He was only able to do so by paying thousands of dollars for a private plane flight. Then he had to finish re-stocking his trailer, water his garden, and find the parts for his propane conversion kit for his new generator, which Joanne had. He had wasted several days on nothing. Even so, after a number of delays and setbacks that cost him even more time, he was able to get well into Oklahoma before he started to have any serious trouble. There he was forced to find a safe place to park his truck and trailer, and he waited for the raiders to leave. That was almost three weeks ago.

Deep in the Mexican foothills, a new danger was awakening. Unseen in massed hordes for hundreds of years, the freedom from observation and restrictive human thoughts had finally released them, and they began to move. Pouring from the deep caves and unreachable valley cracks, they came in a black wave. Hungry, they searched for their normal prey. Only there wasn’t any to be found. The cattle, buffalo, and people that were the stable food source were nowhere to be seen in the barns and fields of old. Hungry, they were hungry! Driven to search in an ever-increasing pattern, they fly through the night air in search of prey. Their black wings spread wide with supple strength, they moved on the winds like a cloud that blotted out the stars. As they grew, their numbers expanded as more and more of them reached the open skies, they searched in vain.

Everything about them was dead, and even the small animals they normally avoided were frightened and in hiding. Nothing was left upon which to feed. Their increasing hunger drove them to reach across many miles, and their home caves were forgotten as their starving masses found small pockets of life scattered in the wilderness. Falling on them, they quickly drank their fill before moving on in search of more. Eventually, they settled in the thousands under abandoned buildings, open warehouses, and deep highway tunnels now plunged into darkness. Northward, ever northward, they rode the winds in search of prey. Crossing over the Rio Grande River into southwestern Texas, they swept the land for anything to fill them. Here and there, they found small herds of cattle upon which to feed. Their cries drew others to follow them into the flat open plains of Texas.

Now, months later, they had increased their numbers as the swiftly growing animals gorged themselves on blood. Their young, in the millions, forced the adults to find new sources of food upon which to sustain them. Only after reaching the canyon lands of southern New Mexico did they finally rest. Now, they only waited for their numbers to grow in strength before reaching out to new lands. While behind them, nothing remained. The small surviving groups of humans and animals had been overrun in the darkness while they huddled around campfires and in thin tents. They had escaped the plague by running into the wilderness, but now, that wilderness was fighting back. Bats, millions and millions of bats, had been driven from their caves as the cattle sickened and died from that same plague. Now, they had to work harder for their next meal. And only by moving into new areas, searching for more pockets of humans and cattle, were they able to feed at all. The world had changed around them, and now they had to change with it. Vampire bats were seen for the first time in lands far north of the border, and they advanced to new feeding grounds on small ranches and isolated homes. Vampire bats, that no one would have thought would survive from the plague, searched the ground below. One had to remember that many of them already were carriers of terrible and deadly diseases, like rabies. What was one more bug?

“The Demons have been released! What else could happen?!

-Thoughts from the Author

Chapter 36

Sharon pulled the mask up higher on her nose and wished for the third time that they had found better ones to keep out the smell of rotting meat, melted frozen foods, and vegetables that had been left to decay over the last few months. She moved over to the children’s clothing section and searched the racks and piles of clothes lying on the floor. Most were still perfectly clean and had only been dumped as the terrified crowds had surged through them. Finding what she needed, she brushed them off and piled them high in her cart before moving on. Meanwhile, Marsha shone her flashlight into the darkened storerooms at the back of the loading docks. She had already found several pallets of water, different soup mixes, and tons of canned vegetables. Picking up flats of these, she had dumped them onto a large flatbed cart and rolled it from stack to stack. Here and there were boxed loads of sea shell pastas, spaghetti, dried milk, and bags of beans and rice. None of this had made it to the shelves before the stockers had died. She could pick and choose what she wanted, and the dry goods soon filled her cart to overflowing as well.

Afterward, they loaded the goods into the back of George’s old truck, in place of Marsha’s car, and headed home. They now had food and clothing to last all of them for months. Sharon was so thankful that they had met up with Marsha and were able to stay in her warm and cozy home. It was far better than the streets!

They unloaded some of it into the kitchen and the rest into the storeroom that opened just off the back stairs. This was already stocked with homemade canned goods and cases of tinned meats and sauces. They were the normal supplies kept on hand to feed the numerous travelers who used to stay at the B&B when it was open. Now, they provided a feast for the three of them, and they almost hugged themselves once they were done. No worries of going hungry and starving for them; they had enough to fill almost anybody! Later, they sat at the foot of the large fireplace, ate fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies, and sipped hot cocoa while the flames warmed them.

One thing that Marsha had picked up was a small radio from the nearby RadioShack, and she turned it on to see if there was anyone still out there. Moving the dial from one side to the other, she found a few faint bursts of static but nothing else. Sharon motioned for her to try another band, so she switched it to the Shortwave, or SW, portion of the airwaves. Here she found her first signals, as stations far away talked in a language she did not understand. Sharon ran and got a piece of paper and a pencil so that Marsha could write down the band settings and the time. Slowly moving the dial to around 14.242 MHz, she heard something. But again, the voices were not clear. Remembering something George had once told her, she turned the radio on its side and found a switch. After switching it on, the voices became clear! Someone was talking to someone else; something about bats? Bats? Okay, that was strange. As they all listened, she could hear the report of attacks all across the southwestern United States. Vampire bats, who would have thought of such a thing in this day and age? Well, who would have thought of a plague wiping out the world either? Finally, the people who were talking signed off, and the bands fell silent.

“Can you believe that? Bats? What the hell is going on? We survive the Black Death and become snack food for bloody bats!” Sharon explained. “That just is so unbelievable! Yet we heard them tell of vast areas being wiped out by these things.”

“I know! We’ll leave the radio dial where it is and see if they have any more reports later on. I wonder …” Marsha stopped

“What?”

“Well, when we first moved here, George had gotten interested in amateur radio, even gotten his license, before he got tired of it,” Marsha explained, and she moved to a hallway closet. “We stored everything in here so that it wasn’t in the way when someone wanted the writing desk for their laptops. I wonder … yes, I found it!”

Dragging out a large box, she started pulling out wires, connecters, and bits of this and that. Finally, at the bottom was a small compact radio, along with a standalone power pack. Setting these on the desk, she pushed the desk away from the wall and pulled up a long cable that had been hidden there. Connecting this to a similar fitting on the back of the radio, she pulled up a red and black wired cable with a white plastic plug and plugged that in as well. Finally, she lifted a heavy metal box and plugged that into the wall. A quick press of the button on the front, and it came alive with a bright red light on the front. Turning it back off, she got a screwdriver and connected the red wire to the plus symbol for the positive setting on the back. The black went to the minus symbol.

Sitting down, she crossed her fingers, turned on the power supply, and then the radio. Static blasted their ears before she could find the right dial and turned it down. They were on the air!

“Darkness, only darkness, filled the sights before them. And they were lost in a sea of pain and sorrow.”

-Thoughts from the Author

Chapter 37

After wasting another day, Mike sat in the darkness and continued his wait for the bandits to leave. In the meantime, he was unaware that he could have become prey for the other hunters who visited his night skies. Above in the darkened skies, the bats began to move. Deciding that he had watched enough, he settled into the back of his truck cab and covered himself with a woolen blanket to keep off the chill. Only a few minutes later, he was awakened by the sound of something moving in the skies and beating on the side of his truck. Turning on his flashlight, he was shocked to his core by the sight of bats, hundreds of them, beating their wings against the glass. Their eyes seems to glow as the light struck them just right. Only in this case, it was like thousands had been created by hell itself to feed upon him. The wings were beating against the glass in a tempo that set his heart to beating faster and faster, and he wished they would stop. Then as if a silent scream was racing through them, they stopped and headed off over the hill in the direction of the roadblock. Maybe some payback had come due, and nature was going to give it. As the last of the bats departed, he could see lights flashing over the hilltop as the raiders turned their guns against a force of demons that could not be counted. The gunfire lasted only moments before all was quiet again and darkness returned.

Carefully getting out of his truck, he kept low to the ground and crawled the last few feet to the top of the hill. Below him, he could see that the lights were reflecting a vision from hell with pushing and shoving as the huddled masses fought each other for a place to feed. Pulling out his binoculars, he was able to see that each of the raiders was covered in literally thousands of bats. The bats that were pushed off seemed to be sucking up the blood that was falling onto the sand below. The entire mass looked like a black shapeless mat of undulating fabric against a red border. In all, he was able to count more than a dozen individual mounds separated by fallen rifles and boxes of ammo.

As time went on, the mounds seemed to shrink as one bat would reach its fill and fly away, and another would take its place. The bats had to reach deeper and deeper into the body to find the vital blood on which to feed, so they began to crawl inside the bodies. They were causing the bodies to shift and move as if still alive. Mike was filled with horror at the thought of the final moments that each person must have had. Sliced to ribbons, the head and limbs became detached from the bodies and moved around of their own accord. At last, the horde of bats moved off to the north in search of a better meal, leaving behind human bones and raw flesh that steamed in the cool evening air to mark their passing. Finding a moment to check the skies around him, he could see different streams of black blot out the stars for several minutes at a time. Millions, there had to be millions of them flying in the skies above him. Only his single coat and hat, which were covering his body, had masked his warmth from the searching eyes.

Moving slowly, so as not to make a target of himself, he made his way back to the truck. Opening the door, the door lights suddenly came on, and he rushed to get inside as he heard the change of sound that seemed to rush toward him. Just as he slammed the door, the bats crashed into his truck, and it rocked back and forth. The forces against the glass caused Mike to scream in terror, as he feared the bats would be on him in seconds. Only afterward was he aware of the high-pitched screaming they had made as they crushed themselves against unyielding metal. The windshield cracked in a dozen places but held as they finally moved off in search of easier prey. Later, as the sun rose over the flatlands and foothills, Mike stepped out of the battered, red-covered truck. The metal, formerly blue, was now crusted in bits of black and red from the torn bodies of what must have been thousands of bats that now mounded around the sides and top. Mike’s eyes could not take in what he had seen and experienced, and he ran away from the smelly mess into the empty fields behind him. No way was he going back there again!