Emperor of a Dead World (19 page)

Brad was reluctant to follow this course but it was obvious some tech-savvy individual had programmed the signs and he felt compelled to trust him. Besides, he wanted to meet more survivors. Especially ones that could do something like this. He stayed on the 101 until they arrived at exit 400A, Amphitheater Parkway. Here the sign directed them to exit. He followed the street around until another sign instructed him to stop in front of a gate. As he sat waiting, he looked around and saw several dead creatures. After a moment, he noticed a security camera move and he knew people were watching. When the gate opened, he drove in, followed a couple of arrows and parked in a designated area. To his left a six-foot devise vaguely resembling a man rolled over. Its feet were like the tracks of an army tank and its eyes were cameras.

“Please follow me,” it said with a voice that sounded like a male Siri.

Brad glanced at Lisa then they got out of the car and followed the thing to a closed door. Here they waited for several minutes. While they waited, Brad had his hand on his Glock and nervously looked all around.

Finally, the door opened and an older gentleman with glasses and a white goatee greeted them. “Hello, I’m sorry it took me so long to get to the door. We do not have many visitors anymore.”

Brad looked past the man and did not see anyone behind him so he released his grip on the gun and covered it with his T-shirt.

“Please come in,” the man smiled. “It is quite safe here.” He had seen the gun but he did not mention it.

Brad gazed at the man and he seemed sincere. He once again looked down the hall then glanced at the robot thing. Finally, he nodded to Lisa and they stepped inside.

“Survivors used to show up all the time,” the man said as he led the way. “Now, however, things have slowed considerably. It seems the virus has either taken people over or made them afraid to travel. I’m sorry, where are my manners.” He stopped and extended his hand. “I am Dr. Moreau. Not the one from the island of course,” he chuckled.

“What is he talking about,” Lisa whispered to Brad.

Brad shrugged then shook the doctor’s hand.

The doctor smiled. “I am referring to a book by H. G. Wells.”

Brad glanced at Lisa. “I am Brad and this is Lisa. We were heading to Sacramento when we saw your signs. I assume they were your signs.”

“Yes, well no not my exactly. We do not own them. We have only borrowed them. You see Dennis reprogrammed them - a very bright boy. After we secured the property with strong fences, we wanted to let people know we had a safe place. Dennis simply came up with a way to advertise so to speak. We knew people would head for the capital and we wanted to stop them because it is not safe to go there.”

“How do you know that?” Brad pressed.

The doctor sighed. “Some of the people here came from there.”

Brad pulled a picture of his parents out of his wallet. He always carried it with him. “Have you seen these people?” he asked.

The doctor looked closely at the picture. “No, but I will ask the others.”

“Thank you, I would appreciate that.” He put the picture away. “Please tell me what the people that came from the capital told you.”

“They said it has been over-run,” the doctor explained. “It seems those horrible demons are everywhere. The few people that made it here were fortunate enough to escape with their lives.”

“Did they say anything about a fortress?”

“I am afraid it does not exist,” the doctor sighed. “The diseased have destroyed everything and made the city quite uninhabitable.”

Brad was still not satisfied but he did not want to press the issue. To change the subject he asked, “Do you know what caused the disease?”

“It is a long story and I am sure you are very hungry. Let me get you something to eat and then I will tell you everything I know.”

Brad was shocked. “Do you mean to tell me you actually know what happened?” He could not believe someone knew what was going on.

“I only have a few details. I do not know it all. This way please.”

Though Brad was anxious to hear the story, he was a guest so he consented to Doctor Moreau’s request.

The doctor led them down the hall to a café. After they sat down he handed them a menu and said, “Have anything you want and do not worry about the price. We do not follow that system anymore.”

Brad looked at the menu, “Where did you get all this food?”

We have solar panels on every building. When things got bad, we filled our freezers with food from the local markets. We also have cattle, pigs, chickens and a large garden on the campus.”

“A Carnitas burrito, nachos, fries and a diet Coke,” Lisa said without hesitation.

“That’s the spirit,” the doctor laughed.

Brad glanced at Lisa and shrugged, “I’ll take a Carne asada burrito, nachos and a large Pepsi.”

The doctor motioned to a young girl. “Please fill their orders.”

“Yes sir,” she replied.

“How many people live here?” Brad asked as he glanced at the girl.

“Close to four hundred,” the doctor said after some contemplation.

“Four hundred,” Brad gasped.

“I assure you, that number is very small in relation to the amount of people we had employed here. When the trouble started, several employees came here with their families. Unfortunately, any that delayed did not make it because the disease spread very quickly.”

“I did not see many creatures around,” Brad mentioned. “How do you keep them away?”

“Creature,” the doctor chuckled. “What an interesting choice of terms. We call them either demons or diseased or simply infected ones. Infected is what the news people called them. Some of the kids like to call them zombies but of course, that is not what they really are. Zombies are fictional beings that have died and now walk around dead. These creatures, as you call them, have never actually died. Though they resemble zombies they are simply very sick people.”

“That means they can be cured.”

“I can only pray that Dr. Manette is still alive and seeking that cure.”

Brad exchanged looks with Lisa. “Who is Dr. Manette?”

“Let me begin with your first question,” the doctor insisted, “we use drones to keep the infected away.”

“Drones,” Lisa asked.

“Yes, they fly around and look for trouble with cameras that are mounted on the nose and transmit video back to us. Danny controls them remotely. Dennis has signs and computers, Danny has the drones.”

“What do you do when you find the creatures?”

“That depends on how close they are to us. Sometimes we lead them away and sometimes we take them out,” the doctor shrugged.

“Take them out?” Brad asked.

“Sorry, Danny’s term, we kill them.”

“How,” Lisa asked.

The drones have the capability to fire missiles.”

“Wow. That is very impressive,” Brad exclaimed as he exchanged glances with Lisa again. “Where do you get the missiles?”

“Danny makes them.  He is quite proud of this accomplishment.”

“He must be very smart,” Lisa said.

“He is.”

“What a minute,” Brad pressed. “This guy actually makes missiles?”

“To be honest they are nothing but glorified bullets. He is still working on a way to make them explode on impact.”

“Interesting,” Brad said more to himself than anyone else. He then added, “You said sometimes you lead them away. How do you do this?”

“Danny flies low and they follow the noise.”

“Have you found any survivors with these drones?” Lisa asked.

“A couple,” the doctor replied.

“What is their range?” Brad pursued.

“They are not as good as the military but they can travel a few hundred miles and the batteries are good for about five hours.”

“Can you fly to the capital?” Brad asked.

“We have sent them there.”

“What did you see?”

“Thousands of those terrible things,” the doctor shuddered.

“You are positive there is no safe place in Sacramento? The people do not have a fort?”

“I assure you they do not. There are far too many demons and they are not the same as you have seen. These have been around longer and are more advanced.”

“How are they advanced?”

“They are smarter and faster.”

“I think we saw one,” Lisa exclaimed.

“That’s true,” Brad agreed. “It sprinted after us and tried to tear our car apart. It did not want to stop until it got us.”

“It would not have stopped and you are lucky you escaped. How did you, by the way, escape it that is?”

“I crashed into a car and scraped it off my door.”

“Ingenious, but very dangerous,” the doctor replied. “When and where did you see it?”

“Yesterday, a little south of Silicon Valley,” Brad said.

“South of Silicon Valley,” the doctor repeated. He then quietly considered this new information.

“What can you tell me about these things,” Brad pressed. “I am curious of how this started and why they are getting faster?”

The food came and the girl handed the doctor a cup of black coffee without him asking for it.

He took it and said, “Please, let’s go outside and talk.”

“Outside,” Lisa exclaimed.

“We will still be inside the compound,” the doctor assured her.

They took their food and followed him out to a courtyard. On the way, they passed two young men.

“Was that Page and Brin?” Brad asked in shock.

Dr. Moreau smiled without responding then led them to a table with an umbrella. “It started in Hawaii,” he began as he sat and sipped his coffee.

“This terrible thing began Hawaii,” Lisa gasped as she and Brad sat down.

“There is a colony there. A long time ago it was a leper colony.”

“Lepers,” Lisa exclaimed. “Are you serious? Why would anyone want to live in such a terrible place?”

“On the contrary, it is very beautiful, paradise in fact. You can or at least you could visit the colony. Of course, you had to either hike down the mountain or ride a mule to get there.”

“Please go on,” Brad coaxed as he took a bite of his burrito.

“Yes, I’m sorry. There was an incident,” the doctor continued. “A doctor friend of mine was involved.”

“What do you mean incident?” Brad asked.

“My friend got a call one day. Apparently, the disease had returned and one of the patients contracted it.”

“Wait a minute,” Brad interrupted. “There are still lepers there?”

“Oh heavens no,” the doctor exclaimed. “At least there hadn’t been. The disease had been gone for a long time. The people living there choose to stay when the state did away with the segregation policy in the sixties.”

Brad fixed his eyes on Doctor Moreau.

“When my friend, Dr. Manette arrived, he ran some tests on the patient. He had studied Hansen’s disease but this was a different strain.”

“What is Hansen’s disease?” Lisa asked.

“Essentially, leprosy,” the doctor informed her. He turned back to Brad’s piercing stare. “While tending to his patient something very extraordinary happened. I say extraordinary but that is not really the right word. Anyway, a local boy became very sick. Dr. Manette examined him and found he had rabies. This troubled the doctor immensely because he had no treatment for rabies on the island. He was even more bewildered because Hawaii has never had a case of rabies.

“Then how did the boy contract it?” Brad inquired.

“Perhaps a rodent got onto a cargo ship from Asia or South America but in any event, it does not matter. The child contracted the disease.”

“They should try to find out how it happened so that it does not happen again,” Lisa interjected as she grabbed a French fry.

The doctor smiled. “Dear child, we have far greater problems now.”

She sat back feeling a little foolish.

Doctor Moreau continued. “Doctor Manette sent for the medicine he needed to treat the child and kept him in the same house as the other man. Somehow, the boy got loose and attacked a nurse and the other sick man. Now there were three sick patients. The doctor did everything he could to cure them but the situation spiraled out of control. The man with leprosy contracted rabies and the rabid boy contracted leprosy. The nurse unfortunately died shortly after the attack but even more crucial to the story, the correct medicine never arrived. The medicine the doctor got was something he had never seen. Before he realized it was not the correct medication, he gave it to the patients. He had no reason to believe it was not the correct medication. The packaging was the same for both. Someone somewhere had made a horrible mistake. Anyway, now without the proper medication both patients became even sicker. By the time Dr. Manette realized the mistake, the disease had mutated and it was now neither Hansen’s nor rabies. Faced with this new mutated disease Dr. Manette contacted the Centers for Disease Control and another doctor, Dr. Robert, arrived.”