Apocalypse Atlanta (91 page)

“But my wife here is due in about five weeks.  I need to get her somewhere safe, and not just board the windows up safe either.  I need to know where people are still holding it together, and get there.  She’s gonna need a doctor, maybe sooner than we think.  If asking about all that makes me an asshole, then fine.  I’m an asshole.  I’d rather be an asshole than not do everything I can to keep her and my child safe.”

“What’s your name?” Peter asked, his voice firm but not unkind.

“Steve.” the man said.  “Harris.  This is my wife, Carol.”

“Mr. Harris.  I’m not unsympathetic to your plight, to any of your plights.  And I want to help.  I just don’t know . . . I don’t know where to go.  The phones are hit or miss everywhere we’ve gone.  We got online briefly when we were still trapped in Atlanta and found out enough that we know things are really, really bad.  But . . . beyond that, we’re just like you.  Trying to figure this out as best we can.”

“Well, are the phones working here?” another man asked.

“Yeah, the power’s on.  Maybe the phones are working too.”

Peter glanced around, then pulled Amy’s cellphone out.  Flipping it open, he thumbed the power button.

“I don’t have any signal.”

“Me either.”

“What about the land lines?”

Amy’s phone finished powering up as a young woman got up and went behind the counter.  Peter eyed the screen, but it was showing no bars.  When he tried nine-one-one, it flashed the ‘no signal’ message.  As he shut it off and closed it back up, the woman came back shaking her head.  “It’s just dead.  No busy signal, no nothing.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Eat and rest.” Peter said.  “Then, I don’t know.  We’ll figure it out a step at a time.”

“Got two zombies over here.” Mendez announced suddenly.  Peter glanced over and saw two zombies emerging from the weed strewn grass on the far edge of the parking lot.  They were making right for the restaurant.  “Cover me, I’ll take care of them.”

Peter started to suggest it might not be a good idea to make a lot of noise by shooting, then stopped himself.  Now wasn’t the time to go silent.  And with any luck they’d be out of here in fifteen or twenty minutes anyway.  So he held his tongue and Mendez went outside and around the corner.  Smith shifted, covering him through the windows.

Mendez took his time, pulling his rifle in tight and clearly aiming carefully before he fired his first round.  One of the zombies’ heads snapped back, and the walking corpse folded abruptly to the ground.  Mendez glanced to either side of himself, then drew a bead on the second zombie and dropped him too.

As he lowered his rifle, a resounding boom echoed across the area, like a titanic thunderclap.  It wasn’t loud, exactly, but it was impossible to mistake, and it reverberated over and through the building over the course of several seconds.  Before Peter could really register having done it, he was off the table top and crouching next to it.  Most of the other soldiers had similarly gone to ground, and some of the civilians uttered cries of surprise.

The echoing report seemed to move on after several seconds, and Peter cautiously straightened.  He glanced around, but the noise seemed to have been just that; only a noise.  There was no damage that he could see, no broken windows, nothing was on fire, and the scene outside the windows looked as normal as could be expected.  As far as he could tell there was no threat.

“What was that?”

“Atlanta.” Smith said.

Peter nodded, remembering.  “That was probably the bombs we heard were going to be dropped on Atlanta.”

“Oh shit, really?”

“Why would they bomb Atlanta?”

“If they’re dropping bombs, that means there’s still something left.  I mean, doesn’t it?  They can’t drop bombs if there’s no one left to fly the planes and stuff, right?”

Peter realized most of the people in the room were looking at him.  He shrugged once more.  “Like I said, we’ll just have to take things as they happen.  For now, let’s just eat, then we’ll see about resting and getting cleaned up.  After that, maybe someone will have a good idea and we can go from there.”

* * * * *

“Oh here you all are.”  Jessica caught just a flash of Dennis’ exasperated eye roll before he fixed a slightly positive expression on his face and turned.

Trudy Morris was a little more than ten years older than Jessica, and was aging as well as either good genes or – more likely in Jessica’s opinion – money paid out to cosmetic surgeons could allow for.  Jessica had always found Trudy to be pleasant enough, but perhaps a little too artificial for her to truly like.  Now, however, even with Trudy’s current behavior, Jessica had a hard time summoning anything but sympathy for the woman.

The Morris children, Wendy and Robert, were both missing.  Wendy was a student at Georgia Tech and lived downtown, in the middle of the worst of the outbreaks in the area.  Robert had apparently been on a school fieldtrip to Fernbank, which was less than two miles from the CDC and Emory University, both also the sites of heavy zombie activity.  Neither Wendy nor Robert had called, attempts to call them went unanswered, as did any calls Dennis and Trudy had made to their schools, teachers, or friends.

Jessica didn’t say it, and Dennis very carefully didn’t either, but it was all but certain both of the kids were either dead or zombies.  Certain enough there were no plans to go looking for them, even before Tyler’s people had almost all deserted.  Almost entirely as a result of the likely fate of her children, Trudy was heavily dosed on Xanax, and it left her placid but with a pronounced tendency to fixate on activities.

Now she held up a honest to God picnic basket, a large one, like you’d see in a romance film.  “I packed a lunch for the trip.  I was going to put it in the car, but the young man on the front porch wouldn’t let me past.  Said I needed to talk to you Tyler.  Can you get him to let me out?”

“Honey, I’ll hang onto that.  We’re not ready to go outside just yet.” Dennis said in a tone of forced calmness.  Everyone except Trudy apparently heard the patience he was putting into his voice.

His wife just nodded, smiling.  “Okay, there’s a few more things I want to pack in the suitcases anyway.  You just hang on to this then, and don’t go forgetting it.  I made your favorite, ham and turkey with the horseradish.”

“Thank you dear.” Dennis said, taking the picnic basket from her.

Trudy nodded, and started to turn to leave, then stopped and fixed her glassy eyed gaze on Jessica.  “Oh, Jessica, I found some of Wendy’s old clothes in one of the storage closets.  I think some of them will fit Candice pretty well.”

“That’s wonderful, thanks Trudy.” Jessica said, and she actually meant it as she put her hand against Candice’s back, unconsciously reassuring herself the girl was still here and safe.

Jessica hadn’t protested much when Vanessa suggested Candice and Jessica not bother putting their damp and dirty clothes back on after the ‘exam’.  However, there wasn’t another child in the house, young or otherwise, which left Jessica having to jury rig some clothing for Candice.  Currently the girl was wearing a shirt big enough to qualify as a dress since it hung down to her knees, with a pair of old swim trunks underneath in lieu of proper underwear.

She also refused to be separated from her mother, for any reason.  Jessica hadn’t yet decided what she’d do when either of them had to go to the bathroom.  It wasn’t like a house’s bathroom had separate stalls like a ‘commercial’ restroom did.  She kept putting it out of her mind as something to worry about later.

Jessica was in slightly better shape clothing wise, since she could fit into most of Trudy’s without a problem.  In her case, the only real issue was Trudy was rather more busty than Jessica was, which left her completely unable to make use of any of Trudy’s bras.  She felt a lot more undressed than she supposed she should without one, but she had compensated by wearing the tightest shirt she could find under a much looser one.

“So, you were saying?” Dennis said, turning back to his brother as Trudy went back inside.

Tyler Morris was a little bit taller than his older brother, but even though their hair and eyes were different colors, both were almost unmistakable as anything except family.  They shared the same general features and builds, though Tyler’s was more athletic.  And both had the same aura of competence, a uniform expectation of being able to handle anything that came along.

“We’re still having trouble getting hold of anyone who knows anything about the federal evacuation plan.  At least, who has updated information rather than rumor and speculation.” Tyler said as if he hadn’t just been interrupted by the delivery of a picnic lunch at nine thirty in the morning.  “I think it’s best if we just head straight for Knoxville.  I don’t think we have the manpower to roam around picking people up, however much I’d like to get some of them on board.”

“We’ve sent emails and left voicemails for most of them.” Vanessa said.  “I’m sure any who are willing and able will to try to join us there.”

“What makes you so sure we won’t have a repeat of what happened here when we get down to Knoxville?” Dennis asked, frowning slightly.

Tyler smiled, but there was just a hint of tightness in his eyes that Jessica spotted.  “Well, for one thing, there are only four caretaker staff on-site at the moment.  They’re going to need the extra manpower to fully secure the Training Center.  And there are other Eagle facilities in Knoxville we can divert to if we can’t utilize the TC for some reason.”

“I still think we should head for the Lake Lanier property.” Dennis said, frowning harder.

“No, that’s likely to be a draw for a lot of refugees.” Vanessa shook her head.  “It could easily turn into a second or third wave outbreak area.”

“I agree.” Tyler said, fixing his brother with a level stare.  “Trust me, Knoxville is pretty small, too small to be able to fuel any massive hordes like Atlanta is suffering.  It’s half an hour away from Macon, so there will be plenty of opportunities for scrounging without having to travel too far.  And, as I said, there are a number of Eagle properties we can make use of.”

“Dennis.” Jessica said, and held her expression without flickering as the others turned to look at her.  “I think Tyler’s right.  And Vanessa too.  If we go to an Eagle property we’ll probably have reinforcements who’ll come to us, people who’ll fit in without raising a fuss.”

“Not necessarily.” Dennis pointed out.  “We could just be inviting a repeat of what happened here.”

“Dennis.” Tyler frowned.

“No Ty, you’re too close to it.” Dennis said a little sharply.  “What if some of the stragglers show up armed and ready to fight to take control of the facility?  Some of them could even be people who left here earlier.”

“It’s a risk.” Tyler said.  “I won’t lie and say it isn’t.  But I think it’s our best option.  And no matter what, I won’t be going anywhere near Lanier.  Some of the things Vanessa was able to pull out of our servers downtown before she lost the connection included some old government reports on epidemics and disaster scenarios.

“A lot of people are going to be flocking to Lanier.  There are even some FEMA plans for utilizing it as a basing area for long term refugee housing, though I’m not sure how effective FEMA is going to be with the government collapsing.  Trust me, if Lanier doesn’t end up with a zombie problem, then it’ll be dealing with more ‘normal’ disease issues after a week or two of rough conditions.”

“And we could start to see vigilante and gang activity.” Vanessa put in.  “The veneer of civilization is a lot thinner than people think it is.  It won’t take much, or long, for a lot of people to get desperate and aggressive.”

“Dennis, stop.” Jessica said as Dennis opened his mouth again.  His gaze flicked back to her, and she gave him the same sort of look she did at the office.  The one she used when he wanted something from her, and she needed him to understand why she was going to do something else, or do it differently.  It almost always worked, because he trusted her to know what she was doing.

“Worst case, we’ll be far from Atlanta.  If we can’t use any of the Eagle properties down there, I’m sure we’ll be able to find something usable.  Even a small town will have buildings we can move into.  And fewer people means fewer risks, at least until we have a chance to get setup and ready to handle problems.”

Dennis grinned abruptly.  “I never would have expected you to have a flair for the mercenary.”

Jessica smiled, but her eyes had a core of hardness.  She almost said something about Candice and how there was nothing she wouldn’t do to protect her, but changed her mind just in time out of deference to Dennis’ own missing kids.  Instead she shrugged.  “There’s a lot I’m prepared to do if it means safety.  I’ve been through a lot since Friday.”

“We both have.” Candice spoke up.

“That’s right, we have.” Jessica said as brightly as she could manage, hugging Candice against her good side.  “And we’re still here.”

“I like her.” Tyler said, grinning.  “She’s everything you’ve always said she was.  Listen to your office manager Dennis.”

Jessica jumped as the big garage door started rumbling and rising.  She found her hand automatically on the grip of her pistol, which Austin had returned to her following Vanessa’s examination.  The garage door had only retracted partially when she saw Austin duck underneath it and give Tyler a respectful nod.