Black Tide Rising - eARC (7 page)

“Yes and no. You’re welcome to set yourselves up on one of the other storage tanks here, Mr. Vasquez. But—I’m sorry, it’s just medical necessity—we can’t let you come up onto ours. Nothing personal. It’s just we got no way of knowing if any of you has been infected by the zombie virus. The symptoms don’t show up right away.”

Jerome Bennett joined the conversation from his own roof top. Apparently, he was still well enough to do so.

“She’s right,” he said, half-shouting. “I’m Jerome Bennett, with the East Chicago police department. We got a notification from the CDC—”

“What’s that?” asked Rosie Vasquez. She’d come out of the pickup and joined her husband.

“Centers for Disease Control,” explained Jerome. “They’re based in Atlanta and they’re more-or-less the national public health service. Anyway, one of the things they told us was that it takes three to seven days after you’ve been infected before the first symptoms show up. So one of you could already be sick and no one knows it yet including them.”

He pointed to the people on Alpha Tower. “For that matter, one of
them
could be infected too. This is for your protection as well as theirs.”

Bennett now pointed at himself with his thumb. “I’m almost sure I’ve gotten infected, which is the reason I’m up on this tank roof by myself even though my daughter’s over there.” He lowered his hand and shrugged. “It’s cruddy, but there it is.”

The Vasquez couple looked at each. Rosie said something too quietly for Andy to hear, and her husband nodded.

“Okay!” he said, looking back up at them. “Any suggestions as to which tank we should pick?”

Tom lifted his rifle and used it to point at a tank that was next to theirs but some distance away from Jerome’s. It was also, Andy noted, a tank that had a spiral staircase that was within view of the people on Alpha Tower. She was quite sure that was one of the reasons Tom had selected it—just as she was quite sure he wasn’t using the rifle as a pointer by accident. It wasn’t subtle, no, but it was a way of making sure the Vasquezes knew they were armed without directly making any threats.

Partly to allay any antagonism that the sight of the rifle might have created but mostly just because she thought it was a good idea, Andy got one of the walking talkies and tossed it down to Bob Vasquez.

“You know how to use it?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m familiar with them.” He pulled a cell phone out of his pocket. “These are still working, though.”

“Yeah—but for how long? But since they are for the moment, what’s your phone number?”

After Vasquez gave it to her, she called him from her own cell phone just to get her number registered.

Which was a waste of time, because less than ten minutes later all the cell phones stopped working.

* * *

By mid-afternoon, the Vasquezes had gotten set up on the tank that Jack solemnly informed them was “Gamma Tower.” (He’d already bestowed “Beta Tower” on Jerome Bennett’s new domicile.)

“Why ‘Gamma’?” asked one of Teresa’s two boys. His name was Tony Ramirez and he looked to be about eleven years.

“We’re naming ’em after the Greek alphabet,” Jack explained, just as solemnly.

“Why?”

Jack spent the next several minutes in a long-winded and convoluted explanation that basically came down to “Because.” Young Tony still seemed dubious of the logic but he didn’t pursue it any further.

4

The big oil refinery in Whiting blew up just before daybreak the next morning. The initial blast was enough to wake everyone up, and even if it hadn’t been the series of rolling explosions that followed over the next hour or so would probably have awakened the dead.

It certainly woke up all the zombies in the area—probably all the zombies within a fifteen mile radius. Using the binoculars and the scope on Tom’s rifle, they could see dozens of naked figures moving rapidly in the direction of the refinery.

By then, there was a huge column of smoke rising above the refinery as well. Between that and the ongoing explosions and the flames leaping high into the air, the zombies were drawn like moths to a lantern.

“How far away is that?” asked Rochelle Lewis nervously. “That smoke looks pretty toxic.”

“About four miles,” Tom answered. “And, yeah, it’s nothing you want to be breathing.” He pointed to the smoke plume. “But the way the winds usually blow around here, it’ll go out over the lake. Might be pretty rough for anyone still alive in Miller, but I don’t think we’ll get hit with it.”

“Unless the wind changes direction,” Andy said.

Freddy Rodriguez spoke up. “You’re all being way too gloomy, folks. The way I see it, we got one hell of an opportunity here.” He pointed at the disaster in the distance. “That’s going to last for a while, isn’t it, Tom?”

“Oh, hell yes,” said the former refinery worker. “Without a functioning fire department, it could burn for days—not even counting for the fact that it’s almost sure to set other things on fire. Property values in Whiting are about to take a nose dive. Well, they
would
—if the zombies hadn’t already trashed them.”

That revived Rochelle’s anxiety. “If houses start burning…That fire could work its way down here, couldn’t it? And we’re sitting on top of huge tanks of
gasoline.
”

“Relax, Rochelle,” said Tom. “There are a hell of a lot of fire breaks between here and there. The Indiana Harbor Canal, two huge steel mills, the high school and its grounds and the small golf course north of that, US Route 12—not to mention that big vacant stretch of Cline Avenue that got condemned a few years ago which the damn politicians never bothered to rebuild.”

As she pictured the area in her mind, Rochelle started nodding. “Well, yeah. But there are still likely to be…I don’t know, cinders maybe?”

“Which brings me back to my point,” said Freddy. “This is our chance to make a supplies run, folks. Every zombie in Lake County is going to be heading toward Whiting.”

He turned and pointed to nearby Cline Avenue. “We can hop right onto Cline and head down to the shopping mall where it meets Ridge Road. That’s not more than five miles away. Ten minutes there, ten minutes back.”

It was tempting. Despite the “avenue” appellation, this stretch of Cline was a limited access elevated highway. Counting the wide shoulders, it was three or four lanes wide on either side. A vehicle could easily drive at seventy or eighty miles per hour. They could reach the shopping mall quickly and easily.

But…

Andy shook her head. “Even if you don’t run into zombies—and they can’t all be heading to the refinery—you’re still running the risk of getting infected with the virus.”

Freddy made a
so it goes
gesture. “Andy, there’s no way to eliminate that risk, no matter what measures we take. All we can do is lower the odds against us. But zombies and the virus aren’t the only risks we face, y’know. Just to name one other one that’s getting really prominent, we don’t have an outhouse and we’re getting low on toilet paper. The longer we just keep shitting off the side of the tank—”

“Tower!” insisted Jack.

“For crapping, it’s a tank. And as I was saying, there are other diseases we need to think about. I was talking to Rochelle—”

He turned to her. “Tell ’em what you said to me.”

She grimaced. “Well, with open sewers—and we don’t even have that—you’re always at risk for cholera and typhoid fever. And we’ve got other problems that’ll get worse as we head into the fall. We didn’t bring enough bedding, for one thing. It’ll get chilly up here at night and if—more like when—we started getting rained on…”

Andy raised her hands. “All right, all right! But wait until the afternoon. You want to give the zombies time to move out of the area on their way up to Whiting.”

“Okay,” said. Freddy. “I can use the morning for other things, anyway.” He pointed to the staircase. “The ladder in my truck will extend to fifteen feet, so I’m going to remove the bottom twelve feet of the stairs with my cutting torch. Whenever we’re all up here, we just raise the ladder. Unless there’s a zombie out there who can break the world high jump record, we’ll be untouchable.”

“Can you do the same for the other two towers?” asked Jack.

Freddy hesitated. Andy shook her head.

“Too much risk of infection,” she said. “Sorry, but there it is. I’m none too happy about making a supplies run. I’m putting my foot down on violating the tower quarantine rules.”

She made a note to herself to write down Official Quarantine Rules and pass them around. The one thing they had plenty of was paper, after all.

“There’s only the one tall ladder anyway,” pointed out Luis. “The other one we got is a six foot step-ladder. What’s the point of cutting away just five feet of a staircase?”

“I guess you’re right,” Jack said reluctantly. “I don’t like it, though, us being so much better protected than the Vasquezes or Officer Bennett.”

Andy didn’t see any point in responding. The boy’s sentiments spoke well for him as a person. He was a genuinely nice kid. But reality was what it was.

Ceyonne slapped Jack’s shoulder playfully. “Hey! Aren’t you the one keeps going around saying
zombie apocalypse, remember?
”

* * *

One other benefit of having the refinery exploding was that the noise was more than enough to cover the sound of the two generators running. Until then, they’d been careful only to run the generators very briefly and only one at a time. With both of them going they were able to recharge all their batteries—at least, the ones capable of being recharged—cook on all the electric appliances they had—there were four of those—and, best of all from Andy’s viewpoint, she could use her laptop without having to worry about running down the battery.

Most of the internet was down, as she’d expected—more precisely, the sites were still there but obviously hadn’t been updated lately—and most of the active sites she could find were apparently military since they were encrypted. Oddly enough, a couple of weather sites were still current. She was relieved to discover that the ten day predictions indicated rain on a couple of days but no severe thunderstorms. She really wasn’t looking forward to experiencing a thunderstorm while perched on top of a huge steel storage tank.

Best of all, though, she was able to write up the Official Rules and Regulations she figured they needed by now, and run them off on her printer. Of course, the Official Rules and Regulations had no official authority backing them up whatsoever, but she figured her chances of getting people to accept them anyway would be improved if they weren’t hand-scrawled.

There were two of the notices:

QUARANTINE REGULATIONS

Anyone entering the White Towers compound must set themselves up on an uninhabited tower. NO EXCEPTIONS. Do not visit a neighboring tower and do not exchange items of any kind until a minimum of three weeks has gone by—for both parties—with no sign of illness. This is to ensure that the zombie virus is not spread around.

When you first arrive, please register with Alpha Tower. A tower will be assigned to you and you will be provided with a walkie-talkie so you can stay in touch with the other towers.

She wondered if she should qualify that last part. They only had enough walkie-talkies to equip a total of eight towers with the devices, including their own. But she decided to leave the statement the way it was, since she had no idea how many more groups would show up at the tank farm. There might be none at all, or only one or two.

She consulted with Tom on the second notice.

ZOMBIE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT

NO SHOTGUNS

NO PISTOLS OR REVOLVERS

NO RIFLES WITHOUT A SCOPE

Do not shoot at zombies beyond the fence except on two conditions: They are trying to climb the fence (or dig under it) or they are within 50 yards of the entrance.

Do not fire more than three shots at any one zombie. If you can’t it hit after three shots, you shouldn’t have been shooting at it in the first place.

Notify Alpha Tower via walkie-talkie whenever you spot a zombie and ESPECIALLY whenever you plan to take a shot at one.

Remember: DON’T BE STUPID. Our best defense against zombies isn’t our weapons, it’s that they don’t notice us in the first place.

“How much good do you think these’ll so?” she asked Rochelle Lewis.

“Hard to say,” replied the former restaurant manager. “But if nothing else it’ll get everyone who reads it to at least think about what we’re saying. All of those so-called ‘rules and regulations’ are just common sense. Of course, we live in a world where people think ‘common sense’ justifies the stupidest things you can imagine.”

Andy chewed her lip. “What we’re going to need, if a lot more people show up, is some sort of government. That way any rules we pass can actually be official instead of just me saying so.”

Rochelle shrugged. “I guess. But right now, that’d be a little silly. It’s just us and the Vasquezes and poor Jerome. If he survives.”

* * *

Less than half an hour after that conversation, another caravan pulled into the tank farm. There were five vehicles in this one, including a small bus, and they were just about as well-equipped as the original party.

This new group consisted of four families and several other individuals, all of whom were African-American and all of whom belonged to one of the local African Methodist Episcopal churches. They’d made an attempt to get out of the Chicago area and find sanctuary somewhere in the countryside, but had turned back after a couple of days. The roads were just as hopeless as they’d looked on the TV.

The one place they’d found that initially looked promising turned out not to be. That area of rural Indiana was inhabited entirely by white people whose none-too-racially-tolerant attitudes has been put on steroids by the crisis. The AME group did have a number of guns with them and several of the men were experienced in their use, but they saw no point in getting into an armed confrontation with the local residents. So, they’d turned around and headed back to Lake County.

Their pastor, James Collins, explained that he was in charge of the group. Andy knew what that meant in the real world. While everyone in his congregation listened to him respectfully, the key for him to be able to get anything done was to convince the three very formidable-looking matriarchs that he was right.