The Last Blade Of Grass (5 page)

“I, well, yes. I’m... no, I’m not coming, Eddie. I think I better explain what's going on to everyone. You get Simone and the kids back in here.”

I turn to him and follow his gaze to the house where Jessica is standing by the entry wall with her rifle and a sad and concerned look on her face, and Lilly is looking out from behind her with a look of fear. I briefly forgot just how complicated this episode made things.

I turn back away from the house to get the driveway gate swung open. Now my mind is reeling again. How do I put the pieces of this screw-up together? What needs to be done before I get tied down in the shed? There is a son with his sick mom inside, and I just killed their husband/father.

Jessica and Lilly are totally unaware of what happened and will have things explained to them by Greg, who only got the last few seconds of the exchange and my yelling. I am bitten and only have about 30 minutes before I black out into a fever. What can I figure out first? I’m not sure what Greg, Jessica, and Lilly must think of me right now, but I guess it doesn’t really matter at the moment. You don’t stop and cry over the body of a fallen soldier during combat, you move on, and keep yourself or your team alive.

I need to get my family inside and safe, and then the chips will fall where they must. It is important to have Simone explain or try to explain what happened to Mike, Carl’s son. I don’t need him flipping out and trying to exact revenge on my family for the loss of his dad. Hopefully, the son doesn’t have the same medical issues that the father seemed to have.

I yell to everyone while nearing the woods, “Everything is secure at the house, let’s get everyone and everything up there—and quick. Those shots could still attract an infected or someone else.” I grab my loaded bike with its trailer and give Simone a look and shake my head over the situation.

“Hannah?”

“Yes, Dad?”

“I’m sorry you had to shoot him, but thank you for doing it. You helped get your mom, brothers, and sisters back home. You helped save their lives, okay? That man would not have let you into our yard if he had his way.” She is silent, but I know she understands. I hope she understands.

Simone walks up next to me while we head toward the yard, and I fill her in on everything I think she needs to do.

There is a young man, who must be Mike, kneeling and leaning over his father’s body, crying. He doesn’t sit up or turn to look at us as we walk in behind him. He seems more absorbed in his own grief at the moment than in seeking answers for his loss, and I am grateful for that. I don’t have time for questions or answers. I just walk right up to the house and around the left side, to the back where our medical shed is.

This was a nice sized garden shed once upon a time, but we retrofitted it into an emergency operating room so we wouldn’t have to carry the injured or wounded into one of the houses. Fortunately, it is something we haven’t had to use very often.

There’s a sturdy metal topped table in the center that has wide tie-down straps to hold arms and legs in place if a particularly painful surgery was to be performed. Or for the current task at hand, securing someone that has been bitten for the change. There is also a head box that gets clamped to the table. The box secures around the head to keep it from being able to move side to side and a strap over the forehead prevents upward movement. A wood gag is set into the mouth to prevent biting. There are also a good set of metal cabinets holding some medical supplies. I tiled the walls and floor in order to make it easier to clean. A regular woodshed would have been unusable after the first major surgery soaked it in blood. I have fond memories of building this shed.

I wish time would slow down, but no wishes will be fulfilled for me right now. At least I got my family home. I am mostly undressed and laying on the table as Simone is strapping me in. Her tears are falling onto me, a little drip here, and a little drip there. Each one of my kids comes in and grabs my hand and tells me they love me. I can’t turn my head to look at them though or let them know what I feel, I can only see the lights hovering over my eyes, blurring through my own tears.

Greg, Jessica, and Lilly don’t come in, and I don’t blame them, I don’t think I would either. Simone kisses my forehead through the strap and lingers there so I can feel her breath in my hair. She grabs my hand, gives it a squeeze, and I hear her sit down next to me.

“I love you Eddie. I’ll stay here with you until the end.”

I can’t reply. My mind starts swimming as the fever takes hold.

Chapter Three

The Beginning

October/ 8 months earlier

U.S. Outbreak Day 1

Military Base U.S.

“All right, listen up. You know the routine. We have a new set of shots for you guys that just came in. It’s supposed to turn you into some un-beatable soldier before you get re-deployed,” the sergeant shouts addressing a fifty-eight man platoon that just returned from overseas. “This stuff isn’t going to turn you ladies into a badass soldier like myself, but it will help prevent you from bleeding out when you get your dick ripped off, and handed to you by some ninety pound senior citizen.”

The platoon’s company captain walks up and starts addressing the men. “As you know, the situation here at home is bad. Many of our families are struggling, and I know a lot of your wives and children have had to house together to make things work since the cutbacks.”

A grumbling emerges from the lines of assembled soldiers. The military received another set of cuts to enlisted pay to try to make up for shortfalls with the interest payments on the national debt.

The Captain continues, “You all knew when you enlisted that this wasn’t going to be a cakewalk or that you’d get rich joining up, but I am with you, and the General is with you too when you say you aren’t being treated fairly. We know your families are hurting, but we all have a job to do.

“The good news is your deployment is right here in the good old U.S. of A.” Heads start turning to look at each other with questioning looks. “The bad news is your deployment is right here in the good old U.S. of A. The word coming from the top is that there will be massive unrest here unlike anything this nation has seen before. The bottom is about to fall out here at home, that is why most of our troops have been brought back. We will be dealing with our fellow citizens and most likely enforcing martial law.” That part gets everyone’s heads turning. “Yes you heard me right, I said martial law. The President is expecting he will have to declare martial law after the economic numbers come out in two days. Whether he does or doesn’t, our job is to be ready.”

“Captain, I don’t want to go up against our own,” a soldier from the middle of the formation calls.

The sergeant yells back as he steps toward the men, “Keep your hole shut, soldier!”

The captain stops the sergeant and looks around at his men for a while before continuing. “I want you all to listen to me very carefully. I swore an oath to protect and defend the nation and the constitution of the United States. We all did, and I am here today as your captain, and have not received a promotion in five years because I hold true to that oath. Many of my commanding officers have been forced out or retired over their expressed rejection to engage the American public should it be deemed necessary. I will not ask you to betray our people or your oath. What I will ask you to do is to help save their lives.

“Like I said before, the bottom is about to drop out. Our economy, as bad as it has been, is about to get worse—ten-fold—maybe more. We have an armed populace that will have few resources, and many will hit the streets to take what they need by force. Our job, should martial law be declared, will be to distribute food supplies and maintain law and order. We will not be searching for hostiles or dealing with enemy combatants. We will be the force behind local police to ensure the men and women of our country don’t all kill each other, and these injections will make sure we don’t get killed while we are doing that job.

“What I have been told about this drug is this. You are supposed to develop a fever in six hours when your body is saturated with the drug, so be prepared for a difficult afternoon. Also, we are supposed to get the whole base inoculated today. You are the first group getting it, so go through quickly, and then you’ll get situated in your barracks.”

*

This particular military base houses a battalion of six hundred forty-three men and women split into three companies and twelve platoons. The efficient med techs at the base clinic are able to inject ninety-three people with Zeus in the minutes before any symptoms occur. The first of the symptoms are extreme twitching tremors which start hitting five minutes after injection. They are similar to epileptic fits, but the body goes more rigid than flailing.

Private Hernandez was the first man through the line for injections this morning. He was happy to be stateside again. His wife gave birth to their new baby girl three weeks ago and this re-deployment means he gets to be with them and his two year old son. He sits down on his cot in the barracks to go through his duffle bag when the dizziness hits. He can feel his muscles start to tense and lies down quickly to try to stop the room from spinning. It starts out feeling like a night of too much drinking and the onset of a leg cramp, but the cramps move all over his body. It quickly turns into seething pain, and he starts to convulse, with his eyes open, and a painful grimace etched on his face.

Several of the other men with Hernandez notice something is wrong with him when his tremors make him fall off his cot onto the floor. They see what is happening with him, but with each person realizing that something is wrong, that person too soon drops due to their own dizziness and start of tremors. Several of the soldiers make it outside of the barracks to try for help, but they also drop from dizziness and convulsions before they can get a warning out.

In the ten minutes after the first injection was given, and after the first groups came and went, the med techs inject another one hundred twenty-four soldiers with Zeus.

Nine minutes and forty-two seconds after his injection of Zeus, Hernandez gets up from the floor, and looks around the room, in a jerky and dazed manner. There are shaking bodies on the ground everywhere. What is left of him sniffs the air, listens, and walks toward the open door. He pauses every few feet to sniff the air near one of the shaking bodies but moves on to the exit without completely stopping.

As Private Hernandez reaches the door, just outside the barracks are two civilian contractors that are on break. They have just run over to several soldiers that are collapsed on the ground.

Lucinda Thompson and Charlie Brand are two hardworking people with families of their own. Lucinda is trying to dial the base clinic on her cell phone and Charlie is bent over one of the men with the most severe convulsions trying to keep him from thrashing against the concrete.

Neither one of them notice Hernandez until he grabs Lucinda, bites into her shoulder, and she screams. Lucinda struggles to get away from Hernandez, and while she easily breaks free from his weak grasping arms, his teeth and jaw are set firmly in her flesh, so he gets pulled off balance as his head is attached to her shoulder. Hernandez falls to the ground ripping the chunk of meat from her shoulder, and she passes out from shock.

Charlie is frozen on the ground for a few seconds, watching Lucinda fall. His mind jumps right to his wife and kids and that he will never see them again. The thoughts,
Nerve gas, Bio-Weapon
, flash in his mind as he sees more soldiers start stumbling out of the barracks. When Charlie grabs Lucinda under the arms to pull her away, Hernandez bites her on the knee and grabs her legs causing her to wake up and scream.

The onslaught is just too great. Charlie thinks for a moment about dropping Lucinda and running, but it is too late. Charlie is grabbed from behind by one of the collapsed soldiers from the ground that has gotten back up. While he is pulled to the ground, the other men from the barracks reach him as well.

Due to the governments coordinated efforts in inoculating all military personnel before the release of the economic numbers, the same scene plays out at every major military installation and base in the U.S.

U.S. Outbreak Day 2

The Krenshaw’s House 5:30 a.m
.

“Susan, I’m telling you there’s something different about this violence. Why would there be riots at the military bases? I mean, soldiers don’t exactly have the same rights as we do. So, if they were starting a protest or act up, they would get rounded up, and immediately put in lockdown. They wouldn’t let it get out of hand like this.”

“So you think this is something different? Fine, I trust your judgment. I just don’t like where this might take us. You’ve worked so hard. We all sacrificed so much to get your company off the ground, and now finally when things are going great for us, you think things are about to fall apart. I just don’t like how it feels.”

“I don’t like it anymore than you do, and I hope I’m wrong. Just promise me you will call Eddie at his store after he opens to see what he thinks about it. That should settle things one way or the other.”

“How does he get his information anyway?” Samantha asks her husband Conner. “I mean, I like spending time with him and Simone, and it was fun doing some of those classes at their ranch, but they do seem a bit overly paranoid to me.”

“I’m not really sure, maybe the police or maybe the hospital where his wife works. But the last two times I thought things were going bad, he’s the one who calmed me down and let me know the whispers he was hearing, and nothing ended up happening here in Medford. Besides, it is his business to know what problems are out there, with his store, you know.

“One other thing you should know about him, Sam, he’s the one that kept my head in the game when we lost all of those contracts a year ago and I thought I would have to shut down. I stopped by his shop one morning to browse, talk, and just complain about the week I was having. We were talking about the poor economy when I brought up that I thought I might have to close the business.

“He’s the one that told me Jim Franklin was going to close
his
trucking business. He told me Jim was selling off his gun collection and that people like Jim only sell their guns when things are rock bottom. A month later Franklin Trucking was closed, and we picked up all of his contracts and the work with the state.”

“Not exactly what I would call insider information,” she shoots back slightly sarcastically.

“No, but Eddie made the introduction between Jim and I. Once Jim got to know me, he spoke with his former clients, and suggested his contracts should sign up with me once he closes up shop. That is why things moved so quickly for us after the bottom seemed to drop out. Eddie isn’t just a paranoid prepper. He seems to see the details through the bullshit. Just listen to what he says, hopefully, he’ll say don’t worry like the last two times.”

“Okay. I think his shop opens at eight, so I’ll call him after I get Jake to school.”

*

At the store

“Hannah, can you get the phone? I’m up on the ladder.”

The best part about having my own store is being able to have my kids with me all the time. I don’t have unlimited time with them like if I was at home, but it is far more time together than if I was off at an eight hour job five days a week. It’s nice having them around.

“Dad, you better take the phone, it’s mom,” Hannah says. She holds it out to me.

“Hi Simone, is everything all right?”

“Eddie, there’s something going on at the military bases and in some of the larger cities. We were just told by the hospital administrators that the CDC put out a warning regarding some type of infection that we should watch out for,” she says frantically but in a whisper.

“Simone, calm down. Is anything happening at the hospital?”

“No, not yet, but they gave us a warning of what to look for. Eddie, it sounds like your books, the zombie books!” she says forcefully to emphasize the point

Simone is a nurse practitioner at a hospital in Medford. As a result of being married to me, she hears about many of the zombie books that I read as I describe what I consider key events to her. She doesn’t like horror movies or stories, but doesn’t mind my limited descriptions of some of the things that I read. She is also a very practical minded person. Meaning as much as she may want to, she would never be able to pull off this conversation as a gotcha type of joke, so I know she is being serious.

“Simone, what do you mean? What exactly did they say?”

“They said there is a nationwide outbreak of some plague originating at U.S. military bases. They said it began yesterday and is causing the soldiers to attack each other. We are supposed to look out for people acting aggressively, people with extreme fevers, and anyone with bite marks or trying to bite. They want us to watch out for
people
that are trying to bite! Turn on your computer, there must be something in the news about it.”

I briefly turn away from the phone, and call out, “Hannah, turn on the computer and check out the news sites. See if there is anything about violence on military bases. Simone, leave work and come here now.”

“I can’t, Eddie. I’m only two hours into my shift.”

“Damn it, Simone, you called me for a reason. Don’t get all professional on me now. You tell them whatever you have to. Tell them I died if you need to, but you get out of that hospital and get home now. I mean right now! I’m going to call Conner and see about getting a truck. We’re going to go to the ranch. Simone, I love you. Just drive safe, okay?”

“Okay Eddie, I’ll leave now. I love you. I’ll call you when I’m actually in the car and leaving. Bye”