SHTF (NOLA Zombie Book 0) (9 page)

"
W
E'RE sitting ducks here
," Hank said nervously, peering out the window at all the traffic. We were at a standstill. "I was going to take it through City Park, but Carrolton is all backed up. I'm going to get on the interstate," Hank said making a hard right and cutting off the car next to him to pull onto the ramp that read ‘
To Slidell’
.

Interstates weren't always the best place to be in a time of crisis. I didn't know if this was a good idea. I had an intrinsic fear of being locked down on an exit ramp, nowhere to go but over.

"It might be worse," I warned, but it was too late. He was committed. He got onto the Slidell onramp and executed a very aggressive merge to get us heading east. The interstate widened and traffic began to flow above a crawl as the interstate morphed into a four-lane highway. When we passed downtown New Orleans and all the exit ramps that led west, traffic was flowing at a good clip. Not many people were going east, this was always the case. For some reason, people's natural inclination was to go west toward Texas.

Barbara, sitting in the passenger seat, played with the radio until she found an emergency broadcast. She turned up the volume and a man's voice announced calmly:

"Governor Juneux has declared a state of emergency for the State of Louisiana and is sending New Orleans’ Mayor, Falcon Mitchum the national guard he requested. The Mayor has instituted a mandatory curfew for the city of New Orleans and similar curfews have been enacted for the outlying parishes, including Jefferson Parish, Saint Charles and Saint Tammany parishes. Citizens are urged to shelter in place. Please stay in your homes and only travel if it is an emergency. Vehicles and pedestrians seen out after curfew will be arrested and brought to a holding facility. It is not recommended that you travel outside of the city. If infection is suspected, you will be remanded to an emergency medical facility."

"They've instituted a quarantine. I wonder if it's just Orleans parish, or if they have it set up outside of Jefferson," I said.

"How do you know that?" Barbara asked.

"The part about 'It is not recommended that you travel outside of the city.' Recommendations aren't used during martial law. If you try to leave the city, you'll be turned around. They'll have the Guard watching exit points from the city. I'm guessing they'll set up on the Twin Span, the Causeway, most likely they'll have something set up on the spillway–unless Jefferson Parish is still clean. Then they'll just put checkpoints at the 17th Street canal, Airline Highway, Jefferson and River Road and Crescent City Connection. They're probably trying to contain infection at this point. This doesn't bode well for New Orleans."

"I think you're just being paranoid again," Hank said, glancing back at Alicia with a worried look. The teen hadn't said anything since Costco.

"I'm tired of you two throwing around that word. When your asses are safe, without infection, you'll be thanking me. It's my job to be paranoid. Paranoia saves lives. Shut up and deal with it. If they do have a quarantine up, it won't affect us. We're not leaving the city. And the curfew will keep people off the streets."

"Okay, fine, I'm sorry," Hank spoke up. "I just, well, this is your kind of thing. I'm not used to this. Hurricanes, yeah. But, this. It's insane. I can't believe our government would barricade us in and let an infection burn itself out. That's something out of the movies."

"I've been in other parts of the world where things like this happen all the time. There was a case of the plague devastating a village in Africa, once it was out of hand, we didn't send in doctors anymore. We just made sure no one got out to spread the infection. It's triage protocol. Sacrifice the dying so everyone else can live."

"That's heartless." Barbara shivered.

"It's crisis logic, and how people survive. If you have five people left on Earth, but only enough food to feed four. Do you give the food to the man dying of cancer? He's already dying. What would be the point of feeding him, even if he can live a few more months with cancer, his death is inevitable?"

"So, the only option is to let him starve to death?" Barbara said. I caught a glimpse of her disgusted look in the rearview mirror.

"Or give him a gun and have him take a walk into the woods," I said coldly.

"Sick, Tim," Hank spoke up.

"I'm just giving an example. I'm not saying this is the only option, guys. It's just how things get decided in the government. If they think they can save Louisiana by putting a quarantine around New Orleans, our state government will do it. If the Feds think sacrificing Louisiana will save the rest of the country–they'll do that too."

I looked up when I felt Hank start to brake.

"I thought you said the quarantine would keep the streets clear." Barbara gestured to the sea of taillights that came into view as we crested the high rise.

"It's just the Columbus effect, we got this," I said.

"Columbus effect?" Barbara asked.

"Yeah, you know, they don't know what's on the other side, so they slow down, afraid they might fall over the edge." She laughed at my response, but I could hear the strain in her voice. Sure enough, when we crested the high-rise over the Industrial canal, the traffic spread out and all the cars began to cruise along. I glanced down at the industrial buildings below us, a large fire raged in one of the warehouses not too far from a bustling neighborhood. The fire was so out of control that I could see flames coming out of the metal roof. There were no fire trucks on the scene.

"Get off at the Chalmette exit," I said, pointing over the seat at the upcoming exit.

Hank changed lanes until he was in the far right lane, ready to exit the interstate. We had made good time. We would be at the compound before sundown.

"You're going to head toward Venetian Isles, just keep going east," I said.

We were in a very under-developed area of New Orleans. It was mostly marshland and abandoned houses. There had once been an amusement park out here, Jazzland, but it had been struggling before the storm and Katrina had finished it off. Now the relic of an amusement park stood rotting to welcome everyone from the East into the city.

The streets were dead ahead of us, but a car had exited with us and was following a little close. We turned off the main drag to head deeper into New Orleans East.

Hank made a right and we went deeper into the area of New Orleans called New Orleans East. The area had been devastated by Hurricane Katrina but was now mostly back up and running. Mostly. I hadn't come out here much before Zach and Blake bought land out here. It was a different world. Once you got this far out, signs changed from English to Vietnamese to Spanish and back and forth, depending on what block you were one. Houses and businesses took on a very Asian look and there was a delipidated look to everything. Most of the buildings had seen better days.

Obviously the people of this area had not heard the warning to stay in their homes. People milled about in doorways or on the sidewalks, talking to each other. Business still had glowing open signs in their windows and there was a man on the corner holding a cardboard sign that read "Wash Car $10." There was something else written underneath it, but it was either in a different language or gibberish, I couldn't tell which.

"Keep on going straight." I patted Hank on the shoulder and turned to Alicia. She was looking out the window, entranced by her surroundings.

"We'll get there soon and once we're there, we'll be safe. No more infected people, no more chaos," I said to her and finally got a response when she nodded slightly.

"Hank, watch out!" Barbara screamed and I turned in my seat, just in time to see another car blowing the red light and coming directly toward us. Hank swerved and the inertia threw me into Alicia, who cried out. Hank wasn't nimble enough to avoid a wreck and the other car slammed into the rear bumper with a loud crash and spun us out of control. The SUV teetered precariously as it swung around and headed directly for a light pole. The scream of metal and the peel of tires was the only thing I heard as my world was tilted back and forth, out of control for a few tragic seconds.

I hit my head hard on the side of the vehicle and then was slammed in the face as the rear airbags deployed. The instant ringing clued me in that I had hit my head pretty hard, but I seemed to be coherent.

One hundred times one hundred is...
I was never good at math.

I could hear Alicia whimpering and Hank was cursing. When I got my bearings, I was relieved to see that we didn't flip and we hadn't hit the pole. I pushed the door open and went to Barbara's door, pulling it open, I checked her and she waved me off when I started to inspect her head, which was bleeding.

Hank was getting out on his side, so I pulled the back door open and checked on Alicia. She seemed unhurt also, just like the rest of us. We were all just a little shaken. The SUV had a flat tire and the back bumper was a mess, but the engine started back up when Hank tried it. We would have to drive with deflated airbags but that was minor in comparison to what could have happened.

We had drawn a crowd. They gathered around us and gaped. A few asked if we were okay and we just nodded and thanked them. I looked around for the other car. A man was trying to open the door, but it seemed jammed and the woman was having a fit behind the wheel. She looked like she was flailing around trying to get out.

The man was tugging and pulling on the door to no avail.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. When I pulled it out to check the screen it was an unknown number.

"This is Romeo," I said.

"Romeo, it's Lena." She sounded breathless and upset.

"What's wrong?" I asked, instantly on alert.

"They've got it all shutdown. The military, they've blocked the streets and aren't letting anyone pass. I'm stuck on the bridge along Lake Pontchartrain or something. There's nowhere to go, nowhere to turn around. They have guns pointed on us. I don't know what to do. I don't know what they're doing. I think they're going to take us. I can't move my car, I'm completely blocked in, Romeo...what do I do?"

"Stay calm, Lena. Have they said anything, given you any sort of direction?" While I was talking to Lena I kept watch as the people of the crowd

milled around. I didn’t like being exposed like this.

"No, it looks like they're checking people one by one." I heard the clatter of gunshots through her phone and she screamed.

"Oh my God, they just shot someone! They just opened fire on a man, Romeo!"

I didn't know what to tell her. I was a little slow on the uptake, my head still hurt from the impact. What was there to do? Get out of her car and start to run? I couldn't tell her to do that. I knew she wasn't infected. That had to be what the Army was checking for. If she wasn't infected they would let her through, right?
Logically
.

I looked up and noticed the man had finally managed to get the door open to the other car. The woman behind the wheel was still floundering around and when he reached in to help her, I knew he had made a mistake.

"Lena, listen to me, calm down. They're checking for infected." I began to back up, signally to Hank that shit had gotten out of hand.

The woman surged to her feet and grabbed the man, ripping and tearing at him, pulling him to her until he was right by her face–and then she bit down. His scream of pain shattered the silence and everyone started to panic at once.

"What is that? Are people screaming? Are you okay, oh God, tell me you're okay."

"I'm fine, sweetheart, you'll be fine too. You're not infected. Do what they tell you, you'll be fine."

"O-o-kay, one of them is coming, what should I–" A man ran in my direction and knocked the phone out of my hand when he floundered and hit my shoulder. I scrambled and grabbed for it, but when I got it back in my hand, the call had been dropped.

People started to run. Some fell to the ground while others just high-tailed it in the other direction. The infected woman was pulling herself out of the car. She fell on top of the man that had tried to help her and began to feed. She was ripping at him, the flesh of his skin tearing off with each yank of her teeth. His screams faded to choking sounds until the only noise was the woman's chewing and the sound of flesh being torn away from the bone.

We couldn’t flee the scene with a flat tire, but with an infected person this close none of us were safe. I made a split second decision. I had no proof that these people couldn’t be cured, but it was highly unlikely. You couldn’t come back from something like this. The man was now ripped to shreds. His guts were ripped open and this woman who was infected and completely out of it, had just ingested most of his innards.

I drew my .38 and walked up to the two victims of this monstrous disease. I placed one bullet in the middle of their foreheads with two quick shots. Both slumped to the ground with two neat wounds between their eyes, dead, at peace. The whole world seemed to gasp around me. Quiet followed the booming sound of my gun. No one spoke, no one screamed, birds didn’t even chirp. Everyone around us had fled.

I turned back and faced Hank and Barbara. They just stared at me. Hank looked disturbed, but there was no condemnation. Barbara just looked worried. My eyes found Alicia.

“You killed them!” she whisper-shouted at me. She stared at the woman and the man now strewn across the street. I ignored Alicia. I
had
killed them. Them or us. Us won.

I remembered Lena and dialed the number she had called from. It went straight to voicemail. I tried again and only got a busy signal. I was worried for Lena, but right now I had to focus on my family. She would be safe, the Army would protect the non-infected, they had to, it was their job.

Now it was time to clean up my mess. I grabbed the woman underneath her arms and began dragging her across the street to the side of the road. I ignored Alicia, who seemed to be stuck on repeat with the "you killed them" chant. I didn’t need her condemnation now. I felt guilty enough. I went back and grabbed the man, pulling him across the street and depositing him on the sidewalk.