Alaskan Undead Apocalypse (Book 3): Mitigation Book 3) (8 page)

There was just the one video, but they showed it over and over. The pretty anchor said that the President was consulting his cabinet. He would likely declare a state of emergency and deploy additional troops to help contain the violence and restore order. The anchor noted that the opposition party’s response to the President’s action would follow after the break.

After reliving those first minutes, DB continued, “I musta’ dozed off because the next thing I remember was waking up to a test pattern on that channel too. In fact, it was on every channel. Me and Duke loaded the extra clothes, the few blankets and all the food we’d found into the truck. We was all set to leave when we heard a commotion up the road.”

Emma asked, “How soon was this after you’d left your house?”

Ignoring her, DB continued, “It was people, wide-eyed and full of fear. They were coming to the church for...well for whatever they thought the church might be able to give them. When they got there and saw only me and ole Duke, I guess you could say that they was a bit disappointed. Poor folks. I guess seein’ the two of us when you’re expectin’ salvation was probably quite a letdown. I tried not to take it too personal. I think it mighta’ hurt Duke’s feelings though.

“They talked for a bit. A few prayed. I don’t know for sure how long they stuck around. They may still be there for all I know. I’ve never favored crowds, so I just left when I figured out they really didn’t know any more than me.

“Some of the folks had talked to others back in Anchorage before their phones stopped working. Anchorage was burning and people was killing other folks. And then someone said that the dead...the dead weren’t stayin’ dead. It was the dead that was causin’ all the troubles. The dead was coming back and killing folks...maybe even eating them. What kind of crazy talk was that? Who’d ever heard such a story before. I mean, we all thought it was nuts.

“Well, that spooked everyone pretty good. Me too I guess. I didn’t seen any point in stickin’ around there. I had everything the place had to offer and I wasn’t tellin’ no one what I had neither. Me and Duke left. The people at the church were still debatin’ and I don’t think they even knew we left.

“Not sure what else to do, so me and ole Duke just went home. My truck was sputtering on fumes by the time we got down my driveway, but we made it. My house is just a trailer on a wooded lot, but it was out of the way and felt sort safe in a ‘outta sight outta mind’ kinda way.

“I stayed there a coupla’ days and then I guess curiosity got the better of me because I decided to go on out and take a look around. I lived alone mosta’ my life, but I ain’t never felt so...isolated. There was no one around. And when I say no one, I mean no one. If we woulda had tumbleweed in Soldotna, it woulda been too lonely to blow.

“I took my Honda out. My four-wheeler, ya know. It had gas still, so I fired it up and took a ride around town. Ain’t nothin’ was open. None of the shops or restaurants or hotels. They all was dark and closed up for business. The roads was empty and the radio was dead. If I was the sentimental type, I guess I mighta said that I was lonely but I ain’t so I didn’t.

“I was down in California with my wife and my son years ago, before they both left me, and we visited a movie company. We got a tour an’ everything. We went to a authentic movie set. It looked like a town...a town waitin’ for people to come and give it life. That’s how it felt there in Soldotna. It didn’t feel much like a town no more. I guess I know the answer to that question about what makes a community–its buildings or its people. Well, there was plenty of buildings but it sure didn’t feel like no...community.

“I didn’t have much gas, so I knew that was the first thing I needed to find. Turns out, it wasn’t so hard to get. The gas pumps mighta’ been workin’ but I didn’t have no way of gettin’ gas from those, that didn’t seem to matter much. When people left, they only took one car. D’you know how many homes had more than one car in the driveway? Hell, I coulda’ found enough gas to last the rest of my life given the chance. It only took a coupla’ days before Duke and me was first class gas bandits. We’d just roll on up, empty the tank of the van or wagon or little rice burner that was sittin’ in the driveway and then we just roll on. That was a good few days there. We had us some food and some gas and some quiet. No phone ringin’. No mailman with no bills come a callin’. It was just me and ole Duke. It coulda’ been like that forever...for the rest of my days anyway, and I woulda’ been one happy soul.”

DB paused again, taken suddenly by a memory with much rougher edges. Neil and Emma looked at one another during the respite, not sure if the story had come to a close. Hoping to rekindle the narrative, Emma asked, “When did you find Ricky?”

DB nodded his head, remembering the day. “I guess it was about a week later. Me an’ Duke had a full tank and a full reserve, so we was livin’ high on the hog. We had the run of the town for the most part too. The big stores were pretty well emptied by then, but there were lots of places to look for food and other things too. We didn’t take much more than what we needed...typically. I ain’t never been one too fond of fancy things. Seems like all you do is fret over this or that gettin’ broke is all. Never seemed worth the headache to me.

“We’d been foraging a little further into town. I guess we was just feelin’ a little cocky. We was driving through a neighborhood and I thought I saw someone standin’ in the road down to my right...at a cross street. I hit the brakes and backed up and sure enough. This guy was just standin’ there. I guess it was a guy anyway. I yelled out to, ya know, see if he was all right. I shoulda’ known he wasn’t right just by the way he was standin’. It didn’t look...natural, I guess. When he looked up, I could see, even from that distance, he was one of those things that killed that pretty lady in the CNN video. He was one of them. He started to run, but he was all over the place...’bout as coordinated as a baby moose. He built steam though and was runnin’ right at us.

“I didn’t need no more encouragement. We just drove on until we saw another one. This one was a little girl with pigtails and all. Her skin was the same color as the thin trees in the yards around her. She was the scariest thing I ever did see. There’s just somethin’ chillin’ about seein’ a little kid that’s been turned into a demon.

“We shot outta the neighborhood but ended up in another. I didn’t think about it at the time but I guess I shoulda’. But how could I...how could anyone’ve known? We drove close enough to be able to see the hospital, but that was too close. If I thought that little girl and the man was bad, man was I in for it. Like they was waitin’ for me, there were...I don’t know...a hundred, maybe more of those damned things standing around in the street. They saw us and like we was the rabbit at the track and they was greyhounds, they took off after us. Some of ‘em ran pretty damned fast. I was afraid that maybe we was gonna get caught. And then they just kept running. They never get tired, do they? They can just go and go and will unless something else gets their attention.”

Emma interjected, “Yeah, or they catch you.”

Neil said, “That’s a theory that we’ve developed anyway.”

DB raised one of his thick, gray eyebrows. “Looks like you two have worked on more than theories.”

“We can get to that,” Neil said. “But tell us about finding Ricky.”

Neil really just wanted to get more information about the Peninsula. It was an option in front of them. He had hoped that perhaps the undead hadn’t become a presence on the Peninsula yet. It made sense that there would be zombies near the hospital, if anywhere. People, bitten and infected, could have been transported south before everyone knew how it spread. Those people would have died at the hospital just like Jules’ brother Martin had. The terror in Anchorage would have been repeated here and probably in Seward too. Neil wondered though, if DB’s account of events was true, then maybe the majority of residents managed to escape. Maybe there was some hope that the number of zombies away from Anchorage was significantly smaller. That was at least some good news.

DB continued, “We put a little distance between those things and us and were heading back out onto the highway when we saw this skinny kid walking along the road. He had his head down and was carrying a rifle. When we came to a stop, he looked up and I could see that he was just a kid. Hungry and dirty to the bone, but a normal kid. He looked lost. I asked him where he was headed and he pointed to the sign that said hospital. I told him what was waiting for him at the hospital and offered him a warm spot at my trailer. I guess the trailer was more his speed ‘cause he hopped in the truck and we took off. He and Duke hit it off right away.

“He ain’t never said a word. I started calling him Ricky and he hasn’t complained once about that. He don’t eat much more than he says but I guess I like his company. He does what I tell him to do and don’t make no fuss. He’s a good kid. I guess he musta’ lost his family or somethin’. “We been scavenging but keepin’ a low profile ever since. We wanted to get our hands on every scrap of food we could get. We knew that whatever was out there was it for what looked like would be a long time. Soon we knew that we weren’t alone on the Peninsula, so gettin’ the cans and boxes and bags of food and batteries and whatever else was still lyin’ around was our top priority. There were others around, and not more of those monsters either. Just others who was lookin’ out for their own and not lookin’ to share with no one.”

The last comment rang in both Emma’s and Neil’s ears. They wondered what he meant by “others”. Neil’s encounters with “others” so far hadn’t been too encouraging. His first thought was of Maggie and her treachery. Neil could hear the alarm bells ringing in his head. Subtly, he started to look around for anything that might catch his eye as a waiting threat, an ambush ready to pounce. Emma too could feel the foreboding. The hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stood on end to get their own look around, wanting to contribute their vigilance to the greater good. Both of them, almost casually, slipped their shotguns from their shoulders and couched them in their arms instead.

Neil stopped dead in his tracks. “DB, where are you taking us?”

DB too stopped. He had been doing his own sizing up, trying to maintain caution without venturing into paranoia. He said finally, “We’re not monsters. Not Cannibals, rapists or plunderers. We’ve seen a lot of that sort and I am hoping that the two of you aren’t that sort either. We’re...I’m puttin’ a lot of faith in that hope and I guess it’s too late if you two aren’t what you appear to be. Just up the road a spell is a van. That’s where we’ve all been holed up the past few days.”

“So there are others then?” Neil asked expectantly.

DB looked at him again, wondering if perhaps he had both trusted and said too much.

Reading the look, Neil said, trying to reassure, “It’s just exciting to learn that we aren’t the last of us. Sometimes it started to feel that way. I guess we went looking for hope and found you.”

DB smiled and nodded his head. He looked over at Ricky and smiled some reassurance, though Ricky’s deadpan expression did little more than acknowledge his own understanding.

Hope can be a funny thing. She’s the pretty sister of reckless Luck and the mother of Possibility. The progeny of idealistic parents, Hope can appear under the most random of circumstances or never show her welcome face. Fickle and unpredictable, Hope was always welcome by those who sought her.

Now walking along the highway at DB’s direction, Neil was discovering a newfound respect for Hope and her euphoric elixir as the four of them approached a seemingly abandoned touring van, a blue and gray Ford Econoline. The van looked like any other vehicle stalled along any stretch of rural highway awaiting its owner’s eventual return. To look at it, one would never guess that it was now a home to an endangered species. Which was, Neil surmised, the desired intent. If it looked abandoned, maybe it would be passed by without a second look back. A gamble borne of Hope but kept alive by Luck.

Neil’s first thought was that it was unrealistic and perhaps a bit naive to believe that the ruse would work long-term. He wondered if DB had any plans because Neil would like to hear them. Most pressing upon his thoughts, though, was to learn why DB was this far north. If he had come from Kenai, he would have passed by the Portage and Whittier access road. Why? As seasoned as DB appeared, the prospect of Whittier being a safe haven from the infection had to have occurred to him. With its lone access through a tunnel cut through a mountain and the city’s ability to close that tunnel, it seemed to him that Whittier was as likely a place as any to find safety.

Neil was almost too afraid to ask when his mouth involuntarily spilled, “What about Whittier? Why didn’t you...?”

DB turned around, screwed his face into a doubtful question, and then continued on. “Della!” he shouted. “It’s just us. C’mon out.”

To Neil’s surprise, a matronly woman with skin so dark it shined, emerged from the opposite side of the road. She forced her large frame up the side of the ditch, stopping as she got her feet onto the pavement. In tow, she had two children, neither of which appeared to be hers, and an old Golden Retriever who wagged his entire body at the sight of DB. The dog yelped with excitement and ran across the road toward its human. Their reunion was enough to make both Emma and Neil smile. DB’s rough exterior softened somewhat as he showered the dog with affection, rubbing his ears and patting his head.

Though malnourished and wearing threadbare rags for clothes, the woman and two children didn’t look wide-eyed with fear. With the calm, searching eyes of the Sphynx, the woman DB called Della scanned her surroundings and the new faces with DB. The whites of her eyes flashed like neon bulbs against the contrast of her flesh. Neil knew immediately that, though she possessed the appearance of a kindly motherly figure, this was not a woman with whom to trifle. She exuded strength and wisdom and caution.