The Common Cold (Book 2): A Zombie Chronicle-Cabin Fever (19 page)

“And there’s more coffee in the kitchenette,” Rob announced.
“And some powdered milk.”

Danny grimaced at the thought. “Yuck. Better than nothing, I
suppose.”

Loading up the helicopter without the external fuel tanks, BB
flew the contents back to the cabin while the others prepared the fencing for
airlift. It was heavy work in spite of the fork lift truck. Positioning the airlift
straps under the rolls of fencing, Mike estimated each chopper would be able to
lift ten rolls each as well as the associated posts and fixtures. A couple of
lifts for each helicopter would see the job completed. Joshua had managed to
find enough suitable components from which he would be able to construct an
early warning system. It was all
coming
together
nicely and it was only mid-morning.

BB arrived back at the warehouse about forty minutes later, looking
pensive.

“There’s no problems at the camp, all’s well it seems. I
dropped the stuff off and we’ve put it all in Tom’s cabin - he wasn’t happy
with that, I can tell you, it’s getting pretty crowded in there. At least it
can easily be guarded against anything untoward.”

“What’s bugging you, BB?” Mike asked, detecting some reticence
in this normally outgoing man. “What’s the problem?”

“I took a swing over towards Denver on the way back here and
I couldn’t see anyone on the streets, not even around the shopping mall. Where
have they all gone?”

Everyone stopped what they were doing at hearing this news.
What next, Danny wondered, are we ever going to catch a break? To where could nearly
a million people disappear? Did they return home? That didn’t seem very likely
to be the answer. If they didn’t go home then they were out somewhere. By
logical deduction, if they weren’t in the city, they were in the countryside.
That conclusion wasn’t much use really, raising more questions than answers. Did
they prefer the flat plains, following the rivers, or did they prefer the
hills?

Their movement en masse would depend upon their imperative
really, what drove them? Food and procreation were the usual drivers for any
animal migration, but did these things actually need food? They certainly
weren’t likely to procreate, at least Danny hoped not. What an appalling
thought. Their bodies being near to freezing temperature at most times during
the cold weather, it seemed logical that food was not top of their list; residing
in basal metabolism, if that’s what you could even call it in the dead, would
enable them to go for long periods without sustenance. They were certainly
hardy, and the cold had little effect upon them, so they could definitely
survive in the mountains. Their snow diving trick gave Danny the creeps and
made him wonder if the mountains were the best place to make a stand after all,
even if it was just for the winter. Right now it didn’t seem as if they could
ever complete the fencing in time.

“Come on guys,” Danny was the first to speak. “Whatever they
are doing doesn’t change our own needs. If anything it means we need to move
faster.”

“You’re right, old buddy,” Rob replied. “Let’s get this
stuff up the hill.”

While capturing the enclave and collecting equipment for
their base camp in the mountains, their activity had attracted large numbers of
the slow
Infected
on the other side of the fencing.
They now completely surrounded this treasure store enclave. While they were
unable to resolve how to get past the fencing they would be effective
watch-dogs against anyone on foot, probably keeping the warehouse secure. Many of
the zombies wore lab coats or had pocket protectors indicative of their
technical role at the National
Center
for Atmospheric
Research. Many more looked like ancillary workers; clearly the Institute had employed
many hundreds of staff. If it was a twenty-four-seven facility then there were
likely to be many of its people trapped here as the infection struck and they had
either turned having succumbed to the infection or had attacked those who
didn’t, either way the outcome was the same.

A surprisingly large number of the white coats that could be
seen were severely blood-stained and torn, the wearer most likely infected
through an attack; they had not succumbed to the primary outbreak. It appeared
to lend credence to Danny’s idea that Rob had avoided the initial exposure on
the first night by working in a clean-air room. Did that make him more vulnerable
to infection than someone like Danny and Janet who had either not been infected
because they had a cold which had raised their immunity at the right moment, or
turning the argument on its head, was it possible that the symptoms of the
infection mimicked those of a common cold and somehow, like in any statistical
group, they had a natural defence against it. Would they turn if bitten?
Neither would be willing to test that hypothesis.

While helping hitch the lift straps to the helicopter under
Mike’s guidance, Danny had been nervously watching the zombies in the field
around them.

“Looks like the staff are revolting, Rob,” Danny said
watching them lumber over to the tall fencing, clutching the wire as if to hold
them upright. They would then just stand there, staring and moaning quietly. It
appeared they were making a beeline directly from the Institute’s buildings. Was
it telepathy or could their odour be detected from that distance, Danny
wondered. If they could it implied they should wear more perfume and aftershave
and more frequently. Maybe the zombies they had killed up at the cabins had
detected their odour all the way from one of the other holiday camps nearby and
made their way in search of fresh, warm meat. They were really going to have to
get a handle on what attracted and made the creatures tick.

“They do look bloody revolting,” he replied, smiling wryly.

“You know,” Danny said. “This looks to be a really well
contained area, not just around the warehouse, but around the whole
Center
. Perhaps we could conduct some controlled
experiments on them, see what makes them do what they
do,
study what kills them, how long they live without sustenance. Anything we can
think of really.”

“Maybe we could. I think we’re a hell of a long way from
understanding how to protect ourselves from them; they keep on showing us new
tricks. I thought winter would see an end to them but they seem to have some
form of antifreeze in their bodies.”

“There’s a fish in the Ant-Arctic that has developed
a glycol
-based antifreeze in its blood so it won’t freeze in
the super-cooled water. Maybe that’s what the virus or whatever it is does for
them, keeping them functioning in all weather.”

Rob thought about it. “Sure raises questions we ought to
answer.”

“Let’s talk more about it later with the others,” Danny
suggested.

“Yeah, let’s.”

Finishing up their work they closed the doors to the
warehouse in case any marauder came across it in their absence. Boarding their
respective helicopters they lifted gently off the ground, carefully allowing
the swing of the slung cargo to steady before gently easing their way back up
into the mountains. BB’s helicopter swayed worryingly at first but he seemed to
get the motion under control quickly. Rob confessed to Danny later that it felt
like they were going to topple over at one point, and even Chuck appeared to
have looked a little more than perturbed. BB said nothing as if all was well,
so perhaps it was.

Completing the usual circuitous route back to the cabins,
the dropped their loads carefully in the agreed upon storage clearing before
heading back down for a second load.

*

The transfer of materiel had been completed by early-afternoon.
Now it was time to find something they could use to bore fence post holes. If
Tom was right, all this sort of equipment was to be found on the west side of
Beaver Lake in a storage building hidden by trees. Only one way to find out,
but after some food and drink; to a man they were exhausted. It wasn’t the
activity, it was the fact that everything they did, everywhere they went, was
high risk; at any time their deadly opposition might just have developed a
trick they hadn’t encountered previously or been able to anticipate and they
would end up dead… or worse.

Considering the size of the group, the fresh meat stock had
run out quickly and for now they were limited to MREs - they would have to go
hunting, and soon. The stock they had purloined from the warehouse did not
include anything fresh apart from instant coffee and he wasn’t sure that
counted as fresh anyway; at least they had a form of milk available to them.
MR-bloody-
Es
, Danny thought. It didn’t matter how
many times BB told him they had improved since his days in the military; in his
opinion it was still disgusting slop that was to be endured only.

They sat around in the main living area of the cabin, eating,
drinking, and resting before their afternoon activities - this was likely to be
much more physically demanding than sitting on a helicopter. Once again, the
fact that everyone that had ventured out in the morning had returned in one
piece was a panacea of the soul to those that stayed behind. The quality of
food didn’t really matter; the conversation was good and often animated as the
group grew comfortable with their fellow survivors.

While the others had been busy collecting fencing from down
in the valley, Tom had looked at the LRAD kit and decided it wouldn’t take long
to assemble. With the usual simple instructions for the military in the field,
it outlined in easy detail just how it was to be assembled and used. It came
with its own mini generator and even had a stencilled instruction on the front of
the sound unit informing the user that it was ‘THIS SIDE TOWARD ENEMY’. The
only thing he was missing was an MP3 player. After all these years of seeing
young people around him hooked up to their personal devices on what seemed to
be a permanent basis, he was surprised to find that not one of them had a
working MP3 player to hand. Every mobile phone carried by those he spoke to in
the cabin suffered from dead batteries. Young survivors everywhere must be enduring
their own personal hell from withdrawal, he thought, vaguely amused by the
idea.

“I’ve got my iPhone, Tom” Danny said between mouthfuls. “And
it has a solar charger so I’ve kept it fully charged.”

“Why?
You expecting
a call?” Tom
chided.

“No. It tells the time and has a couple of useful apps on it
that don’t need a network connection.”

“Sounds more like it’s something that comes from what’s now
in the past, something you don’t want to let go of. Am I right?” Tom’s face
showed that he understood and appreciated Danny’s conundrum.

Danny’s shoulders slumped a little.
“Yeah.
I can’t just put it down and walk out of the cabin without it. I’ve carried a
mobile phone with me for more than fifteen years; I never really gave it any
thought before. Losing the connection is quite painful, so holding onto a
charged phone has helped a little. I know it’s about as useful as an unloaded
gun but I just can’t give it up right now.”

“I get it. I’ve been flying for thirty years and never
pranged an aeroplane before we landed in Denver. Walking away from the plane as
it lay broken along the length of the runway made me sadder than I’d have ever
thought, but in a way I was lucky, I had Laurie and the boys to worry about and
it helped me break that bond.”

“Without my phone I wouldn’t have been able to rescue Janet
from the library back home. I wouldn’t have known where she was.”

“Well, you’re together now, so try not to dwell on what-ifs.
That way madness lies.”

“I am trying; carrying the phone helps a bit. I’ll ditch it
in time no doubt. I really don’t know what I would have done if I’d not been
able to find her.”

Danny sat up straight, shaking off the slough of despond
that had suddenly descended upon him; he was better than that. “Apart from its
useless features, it also has a kick-ass selection of music we can use for the
LRAD, everything from deep bass to high treble, I’m sure we can figure out what
works best to stop those bastards in their tracks. If we can make this thing
work well, it could also be used for defence if we are found by marauders.”

“You’re right. That has been at the back of my mind all
along. In time, I believe groups of people will begin to organise themselves,
and I imagine there will be less desirable ones amongst them. I want to be
prepared for that.”

“You and me both.”
Danny looked at
the empty MRE sachet he had been spoon feeding from and grimaced. “I’m finished
with this stuff. How about we test that bad boy LRAD on some music?”

Together they walked outside to what looked like a concert
speaker standing on a heavy-duty tripod. It was flat on the business side of
it. On the back of it were an on/off switch and a simple jack point with a
cable that plugged directly into the earpiece socket on Danny’s phone.

“What shall we test it on?” he asked.

“How about a water filled plastic milk container?” Rob said,
having followed them outside.

“That might work,” Tom agreed.

“I’ll get one.” Rob ran back inside and came out again a
moment later carrying a two litre bottle filled to the top with water. He
placed it about fifty feet away from the speaker and ran back to the safe side.
Danny had been looking through his selection and came up with couple of tunes
that had a mix of bass and treble.

“Barra
Barra
- this one’s a good
un,” he smiled as he set it up to play.

“Don’t think I know it,” Rob said, curiosity aroused. “Who’s
that by?”

“
Rachid
Taha
.
You know the song from the movie, Blackhawk Down, you’ll recognise it alright,”
Danny said, grinning.