Dead Air (Book One of The Dead Series) (34 page)

“Right away, sir," s
he replied and hung up.

When Tick-Tock came to his office, Steve explained about the phone call and the idea it had given him. When he was done explaining what he wanted his second in command to do,
Tick-Tock laid some papers on his desk saying, "These came in from the Governor, new orders to be broadcast to the public and an assurance that everything would soon be back under control.”

Steve read aloud
, "All civilians are to remain indoors until further notice. Anyone suspected of being infected with HWNW is to be turned over to the National Guard. Looters are to be shot on sight. Anyone violating the curfew is subject to lethal force. Yada, yada, yada. If they had done this days ago, they might have stopped this thing. Now it's too late."

"Look at where it's from." Tick-Tock said.

"Key West?" Steve questioned after reading the letterhead on the fax.

"Tallahassee was abandoned last night
. Jacksonville too. They've both joined the growing list of dead cities."

Steve then read through the Governor's announcement that everything was go
ing to be hunky-dory before wadding it up and throwing it in the trash. Handing the orders back to Tick-Tock, he said, "Put that on the air when you do your show. There are no more commercials or play lists, so play whatever music you want. I'll be in at four to take over for you and then Jonny G will be on."

When Tick-Tock was gone, Steve got back on the computer and did a search for Doctor Hawkins. He only received a few hits on the diminished Internet
but eventually found a blog the doctor was putting out. He read with interest that the government had set up a research facility in Arkansas, with Hawkins as its head. The doctor had put out a call for anyone who had been bitten, but had not succumbed to the resulting infection, to contact him. They needed someone with resistance to the HWNW virus to study and help them come up with a cure.

In all his net surfing and conversations with people, Steve hadn't yet read or heard of anyone with
immunity to the disease. If you got bitten or you had an open sore that came into contact with infected body fluid, then that was it. You were through. Game over.

Curious as to whether anyone could even come up with a cure, Steve checked the Web for anything along these lines. After twenty minutes
with no luck, he finally gave up when Tick-Tock came back in.

"I only have a few minutes
until I go on, so I'll make this quick. Mary is being a real bitch, so I'm giving you a heads up that she wants to talk to you when she's done with her show.”

Steve made a face.

"My thoughts exactly," Tick-Tock said. "Now, on to what you asked me to check out. On the FM dial there are twenty-six major stations in our area. Right now ten of them are dead air." He let that sink in before continuing, "Two more are off the air completely, eight are on a loop broadcasting a recording of emergency instructions and the other six are still going full tilt boogie."

"Only six?" Steve asked in disbelief.

"That's it, boss. I've got Meat's old lady going through the cable TV stations. Of the five local stations, only two are on the air."

Steve nodded
, and after considering the rest of the people holed up in the station, asked, "Where's Mary's girlfriend, Susan?"

"I put her down in the foyer. She's watching to see if anyone else shows up
, our people or anyone else who works here in the building. I gave her the key to the mechanical room so she can use the bathroom in there, and she's got her cell phone. I also gave her a pistol."

Steve looked up in surprise at that. The two had agreed earlier that it would be safer if everyone didn't go around armed.

"I know," Tick-Tock said, seeing his look. "She refused to go unless she had one. She said she would only use it if she were trapped. I gave her that little ladies gun that the Brain had. She's a nice girl and she's down there by herself so..."

Steve didn't want to question Tick-Tock's
judgment and let it pass. Curious about something though, he asked, "Why didn't you bring anyone?"

Tick-To
ck shrugged, "Between SSO's."

"S.S.O.'s?" Steve asked.

"Steady Significant Others," Tick-Tock answered.

Wanting to learn more about the man that he couldn't learn from his file, Steve asked, "Family?"

"I've got a sister I haven't talked to in five years. If I ever think of something to say to her, I'll give her a call."

"Like the dead are walking the earth?" Steve said as an example.

''Not important enough," Tick-Tock replied in a deadpan voice. Looking at his watch he said, "I've got to go, I'm on in five.''

"Do me a favor," Steve said.
"I’m going to try and get some sleep. Tell Mary I'll talk to her when I get up. Tell Marcia to take over calling the aide stations from Jonny and then tell Jonny to get some sleep."

"Will do," Tick-Tock replied as he closed the door behind him.

Steve had the office speaker turned up so he could listen to the people calling in while he searched the net for information. Now, he turned it down before stretching out on the couch.

He thought of Heather and Ginny, wondering where they were and if they were even alive. He half-heard Tick-Tock take over
and listened to the updated announcements as he reviewed everything he had done and what he still needed to do.

To start off
his music set, Tick-Tock played Asia's ‘Heat of the Moment’. For a few minutes, Steve's mind wandered and he was transported back to the end of his junior year in high school.

It was
May and winter was just a bad memory. For his birthday he had bought himself a 1972 Dodge Charger, so after class and a few times instead of going to class, he and a girl named Margret would cruise the lake or go back to her parents’ house and hang out.

And make out, he reminded himself.

It seemed like ‘Heat of the Moment’ was always playing on the radio. Every time it came on, he and Margret would sing along as loud as they could.

Good memories.

Steve had gone back to his hometown years later and ran into Margret in a sports bar. She was still as beautiful as she was back in the day, but the magic between them had passed. They kicked around old times for a while and parted ways.

Just before sleep took him, Steve wondered if
Margret was alive.

He hoped so.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Across the United States:

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs called the meeting to order over the
speakerphone. The day before, for a variety of reasons, the Joint Chiefs had split up and positioned themselves at various military bases across the country. Their main motive was to better direct their efforts at retaking the United States, but their ulterior motive was that it would be more difficult to arrest them all at the same time on the charge of treason.

This second scenario did not seem likely to come about anytime soon as the situation was still too confusing. Amidst the chaos that the United States had fallen into, no one had yet caught on
to the fact that the Army, Navy, Air force and Marines were starting to leave their bases and engage the living dead on U.S. soil. Given time, the President and the remaining politicians would find that they had been usurped and be forced to take action. In the meantime, the Joint Chiefs’ plan continued to move forward.

Civilian communication had been disrupted throughout the states
, so word that the military had finally started to retake the dead areas was slow to get out. But this also meant that word that its leaders were traitors was also slow to get out. Regardless of who saved them, the first people rescued looked on the military as liberators, not occupiers, so there had been no problems. The question asked of the soldiers and Marines most often after they showed up to eradicate the walking dead was, ''What took you so long?" not, "Why are you here without Presidential authorization?"

The speakerphone crackled as the various branches of the military gave their progress reports. When they were finished, the Chairman asked, "What is our best estimate
at how long this campaign will take?"

After much discussion, a time was thrown out as being the soonest possible in which complete control could be regained in America.

Two years.

The lengthy delay arose in that the military had to make sure they eradicated all infected persons from a specific area before moving on. All structures, sewers and drainage systems had to be thoroughly searched and cleared or the chance of the HWNW Virus popping back up would make the effort moot. Those areas furthest from the starting points of the operations would have to fend for themselves the longest until help could arrive.

It was proposed not to release this information to the general public until a tentative date when U.S. forces would enter a specific area could be set for all parts of the United States. Once this was confirmed, only then would any evacuation plans be made to try to rescue people from those areas.

Since the operation was still in its infancy, it was agreed that no firm schedule could be put out. Manpower was allocated to look into a timetable
, and any action was tabled until the report came back.

The Joint Chiefs then moved on to other business.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Clearwater, Florida:

Steve woke with a start. He'd been dreaming that his cell phone had been ringing and when he looked at the caller
ID had seen it was Heather. Awake now, he felt disappointed that it was only a dream.

The office was dark, with only a small slice of light coming in from where he had left the door slightly open. Checking his watch
, he saw it was three AM. Music played softly from the speaker, but he couldn’t discern which song. Jonny G was on, so it was probably something alternative, he decided. They had all taken turns throughout the day working in the studio as information continued to roll in from listeners calling from as far away as Orlando, Sarasota and Hernando County.

Many told horror stories of people being killed and eaten and how the
dead were overwhelming the police and National Guard. Some spoke of how they had barricaded themselves inside homes and businesses and were going to wait until the worst of the disaster passed. When Steve heard this, his first thought was that they had a long wait.

Earlier in the evening
, on Steve's shift, an airman stationed at McDill Airbase in Tampa had called in to say that most of the personnel there had been redeployed to other parts of the country. A handful of units were still waiting to leave, and those who would remain were only security people who would keep the base open. When Steve asked, the airman told him that no plans were in the works to relieve the beleaguered cities of Tampa and St. Petersburg.

Steve then asked him about conditions in Ybor City, where he believed Ginny had gone.

The airman had replied, "It’s history. They did an over flight of Ybor, and when they came back I talked to the chopper's crew chief. He said it's still burning. He said they could see thousands of those things all over Tampa."

Steve had questioned the man for
a few more minutes, but he had no further information. Switching to the next caller, he listened to a man tell his story of how he had to shoot his wife when she came home showing a bite on her hand.

The landlines went down again shortly after that
, and in a way, it was a relief for him to play music and not have to listen to any more tales of death and destruction.

Getting up from the couch, Steve walked to the window and gazed out. A few smoldering fires were still burning near the marina, giving the scene a hazy look. They had worried earlier that with all the fires going unchecked the whole area might go up but th
is hadn't been the case. Once the flames had consumed what was combustible in their immediate area, they seemed to go out. A late season rain helped, dowsing the city with almost two inches before heading out into the Gulf.

A few blocks over
, in another office building, Steve saw a figure pass in front of a lighted window.  It moved in an easy manner indicating that it was more than likely human. Or at least he hoped so.

Turning, he went out into the reception area
and found Marcia still sitting at her desk.

She gave him a smile and said, "The regular phone lines are back up and I've been trying those numbers you gave me from my cell and the land line
, but I didn't get hold of anyone. The first one keeps coming back that the caller is unavailable, and the other goes straight to voicemail."

"That's okay, thanks for trying." Steve replied
and then said, "Why don't you get some sleep. There are a couple couches in the conference room you can stretch out on. I'll keep an eye on the desk."

"No
, that's all right," She replied, "Jonny's off in a few hours so I'll wait for him. He's so excited that he's finally got his own show, I don't think he'll be able to sleep when he finally gets a chance." She shook her head and frowned, "Weird how that worked out. The world had to end for him to get his wish of having his own radio show."