The Plague Years (Book 1): Hell is Empty and All the Devils Are Here (27 page)

“Then aren’t you afraid of me, of getting infected,” asked a now thoroughly shaken Macklin.

“Oh no,” said one of the faceless men who faced him. “We, all of us here, are the Chosen and we were infected long ago and survived.”

May 29
th
, Friday, 10:08 am PDT.

Chad woke up to an empty bed. One of the many little hardships he had to endure was sleeping alone these days. It wasn’t that his wife didn’t want his company, but they had both agreed that there should be one adult up at all times in the house. Mary was a natural night owl so she had volunteered to take the graveyard shift and let Chad and Heather sleep. With Chad’s early morning habits, he appreciated the reprieve but he did miss her. With a groan, he got up and got dressed. City water service had stopped last night and they had started rationing their water so no shower this morning. Then he wandered, yawning into the kitchen to find his wife had already prepared coffee, eggs, sausage, potatoes, and toast.

“Thanks for letting me sleep late but who is watching the fort?” asked Chad as he sat down. 

“Connor couldn’t sleep,” said Mary. “Amy is sitting up with him.”

“Aren’t we on tight rations?” asked Chad looking at the farmer sized breakfast in front of him.

“Dave, Heather, and I talked last night while you were sleeping,” said Mary. “Our gasoline consumption is still too high and we stopped getting natural gas from the utilities again last night.  We will be spending the next day or two either preserving everything we have that requires refrigeration or eating it up.”

“I suspect I will look at this meal fondly in a week or two,” said Chad sadly.  “That was a good call though. Where is Dave anyway?”

“On the roof with his cannon,” said Mary.

“I thought he didn’t have the duty this morning,” said Chad.  They had worked out a watch roster that had at least one of the combat trained adults, Chris, Chad, Amber, or Dave on watch and it was Chad’s turn.

“Another squirrelly idea we had from that impromptu meeting last night,” said Mary. “We are burning through a lot of ammo, especially shotgun ammo. Chris has an RCB reloading press and a number of dies at his apartment along with some components. He figured that if you guys made a run to his place today, they could bring that equipment here and reload a bunch of the shells we have burned through. He figured that since the bad guys seem to know we are here, he probably doesn’t have to stay away from his place anymore.”

“Now that is a good idea,” said Chad. “But how does that get Dave up on the roof in his bunker?”

“Well, the kids are getting cabin fever, especially with no power so Dave has them going up and down the street, around our yards and such policing up empties.”

“Wait,” said Chad with some alarm. “Some of the pistol and shotgun shells were handled by the infected bikers.”

“Heather already thought of that, the kids all have gloves and the brass is dumped into hot water with Lysol and stirred vigorously. Then they dump them out on a tarp to let them dry in the sun before they sort them.”

“Sounds good to me then, but why is Dave on the roof?”

“Oh that. Well, Dave is Dave and is being paranoid. He is watching the kids and guarding them. Providing top cover he calls it. It’s also something he can do. His hip is acting up again.”

“I know,” said Chad. Dave could sometimes go weeks without a serious symptom but when he taxed the joint, like now, in combat and before, manhandling a lot of boxes and crates of supplies around, it would hurt quite a bit, and once he had even gone back to the hospital for an inflammation of the joint caused by the bits and pieces of his artificial hip wearing off and getting embedded in the surrounding tissue. His bone structure had been pretty badly torn up by the IED that had caused him to leave active service and there were still bits of metal that hadn’t been removed. What he needed and couldn’t get, was a couple of days off his feet.

Chad continued his ruminations silently while he ate. As he finished the last of his coffee, Chris and Amber entered from the back door.

“I don’t suppose you have another cup of that coffee,” asked Chris asked as he sat down across from Chad.

“I do,” said Mary. “Fiona made some mixed berry scones to use up all the little bags of frozen berries we had in the freezer. Would you like one?”

“I would, thank you,” said Amber who was right behind Chris and in fact seldom left his side. “Chris will eat most anything at a moment’s notice but Fiona has a deft hand when it comes to baking.” Then her tone got serious. “Chad we need to talk about Dave.”

“His hip?” asked Chad.

“Yes, while Chris was shaving, I watched him go up to his sniper’s nest on the roof. He almost couldn’t climb the ladder this morning.”

“Did Mary tell you we are considering a run out to my place to pick up a couple of firearms, ammo and my reloading stuff?” asked Chris.

“She did, I think it’s a good idea,” said Chad.

“Well, Dave thinks he should go,” said Chris. “I think he might screw himself up worse.”

“How much stuff are we talking about?” asked Chad.

“A couple of crates of Mountain House food, maybe the same number of crates of number 10 cans of food. I also want to get some personal gear, you know, clothes, sleeping bag and such, and the press and the components of course. I figure it would take me fifteen minutes to gather things up and about the same to load up. If we are lucky, we can pick up my truck in the process.  The tank is or was nearly full.”

“You and I could do that, maybe take Connor along to help,” said Chad.

“That’s what I thought, but Dave figures he needs to ride shotgun. He claims he’ll cover us from his truck bed.”

The discussion was cut short by slow motion crash down the ladder on Dave’s house followed by some language that proved Dave had been an enlisted Marine.  Chad, Mary, and Chris leapt up from the table and were on the back deck in a flash.  They could see Dave on the ground with Heather fussing over him. He was complaining but not moving much.

Chad, Amber, and Chris got out there fast. Mary ducked back into the house and grabbed a first aid kit, blankets, and a couple of two by fours left over from the barbecue project. 

“What the hell happened,” asked Chad and he got over to where Dave was laying.

“Dammit, stupid mistake,” said Dave. He was panting and his face was pale. It was clear he was in significant pain. “I missed a rung on the ladder and couldn’t catch myself. I missed the grab on the lower rungs a couple times as I fell.”

“Anything broken?” asked Amber as she gently but professionally manipulated Dave’s hip. There was no grinding and the joint seemed solid.

“Ow! I don’t think so,” said Dave grimacing from the pain. “But I tried to roll and landed on my ass and that does hurt. Where did you learn to be a medic?”

“I was a paramedic with the fire department before I was a sheriff’s deputy,” said Amber with a shrug. “I guess chasing fires wasn’t exciting enough for me.”

About that time, Mary got there with supplies that she dropped in a heap and then began checking Dave out all over again.  Raising two physical, energetic, kids that between them had eight visits to the Emergency Room had given her some insight into traumatic injuries. She also knew Dave.

“David Tippet,” said Mary in her stern Mom voice, “if you keep running up and down that ladder like a kid every day, you will reinjure that hip. I have no idea where to find an orthopedic surgeon to fix you up this time.”

“I have to agree, Mr. Tippet,” said Amber, “the joint feels ok, and nothing is broken but there is a click in there that they didn’t cover in my first responder course. I agree with Mary, if I could find an orthopedic surgeon right now, I’d suggest you make an appointment. Absent that, I am going to suggest a couple days bed rest.”

“But what if we get hit again?” asked Dave with alarm in his eyes, “and the trip to Chris’s apartment and some screwy ideas I have about some more aggressive defenses and …

“If we get hit, then you get your sorry ass out of bed,” interrupted Chad harshly, “and wade into them like you always would. You have been pushing yourself to the edge from the beginning, and don’t think we all aren’t grateful because we are. Without your foresight and the ton of work you’ve done, we all would be hungry and some of us would be dead. But you can’t keep it up and if your hip breaks or some other serious orthopedic complication comes up, we won’t have you when we need you and I figure it’s going to get worse before it gets better. So Chris, Amber, and I will make the run to Chris’s apartment. Everyone else will be on alert, armed, and watchful. When we get back, you can sketch out your ideas for better defenses and the rest of us can build them.”

Dave started to get up but Mary put her finger in the center of his chest and pushed him back.

“Dave, lie still please,” said Mary, her voice much softer now. “I have a blanket and a couple of two by fours. We can make a stretcher and get you back in the house. Then I am going to wake up Heather and have her sit on your chest if necessary to keep you in bed.”

“I don’t need a stretcher,” said Dave as he started to rise again.

“Dave, for me please, just humor her,” said Chad with a wink. 

With only a little more complaining, they managed to get Dave on a stretcher and into his house before Heather, who had also been on the night shift got up.

“What happened?” Heather asked still groggy from bed.

“Dave here took a little fall,” said Chad trying for a light tone. “We need to keep him off his feet for a couple of days if we can. Perhaps we could enlist you help in that matter while we run some errands?”

“Right, I have duct tape and I am not afraid to use it,” said Heather with a smile.

“Why am I in equal parts excited and scared by that remark,” said Dave slyly.

“TMI! TMI! TMI!” said Amber as she grabbed Chris and headed for the door. She paused for a second and gave Dave a thumbs up and then was outside the door.

“Exit stage right,” said Chad as he and Mary left through the back door.

May 29
th
, Friday, 1:37 pm PDT.

The ride to Chris’s apartment had been calm but sobering. Chad had not been downtown since his last meeting at work, a just few days ago. He was thunderstruck at the change in just that short amount of time. Garbage hadn’t been picked up in a while now and it was mounding up. There were infected individuals openly pawing through the heaps looking for food. Many of the storefronts were either boarded up or had windows broken. There were only one or two businesses open and the people who were running them were armed and looked sullen.

When they got to Chris’s apartment complex, they could see that his truck and been broken into and burned.

“I guess somebody doesn’t like cops much,” said Chris in an effort to get a laugh.

“Seems that way,” said Amber as she scanned the area on the passenger side of the truck from the backseat. 

They had taken Dave’s King Cab pickup so they could move anything of size as the next largest vehicle was Chad’s Subaru station wagon. Everyone was in the cab with the windows up because the air reeked of garbage, decaying meat, petroleum products, and other less recognizable but still disagreeable odors.

When they pulled up to the complex, they saw that there were infected in doorways and on the common areas. It was clear that the owners had abandoned the place at some point when the number of infected got too high.

“This is a classic at risk population,” said Chad trying to fill the silence. “It’s a nice complex, but there are folks who were out of work and couldn’t afford medical care, or dealing with the beginnings of a drug addiction. It just takes a few.”

“Where is your apartment?” said Amber trying to change the subject.

“Third floor at the end of the building across the common area,” said Chris pointing to a balcony window.

“Let me guess,” said Chad. “All the hallways are inside and that one door is the only access.”

“I can only say,” said Chris by way of apology, “that the price was right after my divorce. I never thought I’d have to fight my way into and out of it.”

“Nobody was thinking that way then,” said Amber. “We’ll get your stuff. There aren’t too many infected roaming around.”

“We will need some lights,” said Chris. “The halls are windowless.”

“I’ve got two bike helmets with lights,” said Chad offering Chris one. The plan was for Amber to wait in the truck and keep it from being damaged or jacked while they were loading Chris’s stuff.

“Aren’t we just stylin’,” said Chris as he put on Fiona’s bright pink bike helmet that he could only barely buckle the chin strap on.  He had decided to carry his 870 pump shotgun. Amber would hold on to his AR-15. It was her decision to get out of the cab and move around some so as not to make a target. Chad had his Mossberg Defender and everyone had a side arm. 

They parked near the entry door that was closest to Chris’s apartment but across the drive that backed up to Chris’s carport with his burned out truck. Amber took cover in the corner between the two trucks scanned the area and nodded. Chad grabbed two of Dave’s old duffle bags to carry out whatever Chris decided they could use. The plan was that Chris would lead the way and Chad would watch their back. Since they figured everything was probably infected, both Chris and Chad wore latex gloves and a coverall over their clothes that they tucked into their boots. Mary had found surgical masks somewhere so they wore those as well.