Transmission: Voodoo Plague Book 5 (10 page)

We made good time, quickly reaching the turnoff for the
smaller state highway and getting off the Interstate.  It was almost completely
dark by the time we turned back to the west and I lowered our speed so anything
or anyone on the pavement wouldn’t surprise me.  The world around us was dark,
no lights to be seen in any direction.  Behind us the lightning continually lit
the clouds and the night sky, but the storm didn’t seem to be drawing any
closer.  Ahead, there was a faint glow that I suspected was the lights of
Little Rock reflecting off the bottom of the cloud cover.

As we continued to approach the city it became apparent the
light we were seeing was from fires.  We were too far away to tell what was
burning, but this definitely wasn’t the steady glow of electric bulbs.  Wrecked
and abandoned vehicles were also becoming more frequent, and I had to slow
further to navigate around them.  I was starting to get a really bad feeling.

Just a few hours ago, flying into Little Rock Air Force Base
before continuing on east in the Black Hawk, I had been comforted to note how
normal everything on the ground looked.  Well, other than the mass funeral
pyres, but the citizens had done a good job of keeping the roads clear and
mopping up any infected that were stalking around.  Maybe all these wrecks had
been here and I just hadn’t noticed them, but I didn’t think so.

A couple of months ago I would have never believed an
American city could fall apart in a matter of hours, but I now knew better.  If
a significant percentage of the population had turned, that was all it would
take to start an incredibly rapid descent into chaos.  And once that descent
was started, there wasn’t anything that could stop it.

We kept pushing forward, reaching the edge of the city and beginning
to see infected.  They were roaming around either individually or in small
groups.  And they all looked clean, which meant freshly turned.  A few were on
the road and I avoided them when possible, but had to run down a few to
continue our progress forward.

“You should tie me up in the back seat.”  Rachel suddenly
said. 

“What?”  I wasn’t sure I had heard her right.

“Tie me up,” she said.  “Vaccinations aren’t instant.  It
takes time for the body to respond to the vaccine and produce enough antibodies
to create immunity.  You just gave me that shot a few hours ago.  If I turn,
here, inside the vehicle while you’re driving… well, I’m just saying it’s
probably better if you restrain me somehow.”

“Are you serious?”  I asked, taking my eyes off the road to
look at Rachel.  All I could see was her dark outline in the passenger seat,
long hair obscuring much of her face.

“I’m very serious.”  She said in a subdued voice.  “The only
thing that would be worse than turning would be killing you or Dog after I
did.”

Hearing his name, Dog sat up and stuck his head between us,
chin on the center console.  Rachel placed her hand on top of his head and
starting gently rubbing his ears.  He let out a contented sigh and closed his
eyes. 

“No.”  I said.  “I’m not tying you up just because you
might
turn.  Hell, I might turn too.  I got the vaccine less than 24 hours ago.”

“Yeah, but you’ll be slow and stupid.”  Rachel shot back. 

It’s not often that I don’t have some sort of comeback, even
if it’s a simple “kiss my ass”, but she came out of left field with that one. 
It was quiet in the Lexus for a couple of heartbeats, then Rachel started
laughing.  She laughed long and loud, probably picturing me stumbling around like
a moron.  Her mirth was contagious and I began chuckling, but couldn’t work
myself up to the level of amusement she was at.

Our laughter died out instantly when an infected male
stumbled into our path.  He had suddenly appeared from the shelter of an overturned
sedan, probably drawn by the sound of our approaching vehicle.  I had enough
time to hit the brakes, but was still moving at speed when the right front
fender of the Lexus struck him.  With a loud bang his body was twisted around
and slammed into the passenger door before tumbling to the pavement. 

Chastising myself for getting distracted, I dropped our
speed further and kept my eyes glued to the road to the front.  We were moving
into a more built up area, the state highway becoming a four lane street with
businesses along either side.  More and more infected were stumbling around the
parking lots and the frequency of crashed vehicles was increasing.  Ahead I
could see a large fire, and as we approached I could make out a box truck
entangled with a city bus.  Both were burning furiously and completely blocked
the road.

The infected in the area had noticed us and were all zeroing
in on our noise and movement.  Several females sprinted towards us from the
parking lot of a large shopping center.  The power was still on, the area lit
by street lights and parking lot lighting, the flames from the burning vehicles
adding a surreal quality to the scene. 

Glancing at the navigation screen I took the first right,
turning onto a smaller street.  As I made the turn, the power blinked out,
plunging everything into inky darkness.  Behind, I could see the glow of the
fire, and more fires ahead were lighting up the sky, but without the SUV’s
headlights it would have been too dark to see on the street.  Infected suddenly
began appearing at the edge of the lights, males slamming into the vehicle,
females screaming and pacing us. 

Ahead the road swept to the left, and as I started into the
curve I stepped on the brakes and brought us to a stop.  A block to our front the
road was straddled by two large apartment complexes that pushed right up to the
pavement, and both were burning.  It was too dangerous to try and drive between
them.  The heat would be tremendous.  This was confirmed for me as a truck
parked on the street in front of the building on the right suddenly exploded in
a massive ball of flame.

The females that had been chasing us caught up and began
pounding on the outside of the vehicle, males soon shambling into the gaps
between them.  I shifted into reverse and got us moving, running over a couple
of males, dragging more to the ground as I turned the wheel.  Retracing our
path, I checked the navigation and made a turn before we reached the main road
we had followed into town.

This one was even narrower, lined with small houses and the
occasional block of apartments.  Cars were parked along both sides of the
street and there would have barely been room to meet oncoming traffic.  Males
repeatedly stepped out from between parked cars as we approached, and I held
our speed to under 20 so the Lexus didn’t take too much damage from the impacts
with their bodies.

The terrain had been climbing for several miles, then we
suddenly crested and started down into what had to be a river valley.  I
couldn’t see a river below us in the dark, but I knew there was a fairly large one
that ran through Little Rock.  The houses had grown in size dramatically when
we topped out, and nearly all of them had large decks that probably afforded
fabulous views of the valley as well as the entire city spread out in front of
us.  As I drove, the image of Bill Clinton relaxing on one of these decks with
a cigar and an intern popped into my head.

The city was dark with the exception of numerous fires. 
There had to be at least three dozen separate locations that were burning, and
some of them looked to be quite large and growing.  The downslope was gentle in
places, severe in others as the road dropped, like it had been terraced.  It
wasn’t long before the SUV’s headlights reflected off a vehicle that completely
blocked the road.  I immediately slammed on the brakes and brought us to a
stop.

“Ambush?”  Rachel asked quietly.

“Maybe,” I said.  “Or maybe it’s a real accident.  Either
way, I haven’t seen a side road for over two miles.”

In the mirror I could see females approaching, still over a
hundred yards away, but coming fast.  Males were moving amongst the parked
cars, struggling to bump their way through and reach us.  If it had been an
ambush, I didn’t think it was still manned.  There were too many infected in
the area for someone to be sitting and waiting for unsuspecting travelers.

“We’re going to try it.”  I said, stepping on the
accelerator. 

Approaching the wreck, I got a better look and it was
obvious it hadn’t been staged.  A Chevy sedan appeared to have been traveling
in the same direction we were when it crashed into a parked car.  The front of
the Chevy was crumpled and tangled into the side of the vehicle it had hit. 
Maybe the driver had tried to avoid an infected, or maybe the driver had
turned.  The other thing that was obvious as we approached was that I wouldn’t
be able to push the abandoned car out of the way with the Lexus.  The Chevy
would just twist around and get wedged even tighter.  Shit!

Looking around I hoped there was a way to drive across the
front lawn of one of the houses and bypass the wreck, but the houses were built
on terraced lots.  Each lot was flat, the upslope side of it cut down into the
hill and a block retaining wall holding back the neighboring land.  This
explained the road alternating between steep and flat, and there was no way to
drive from one lot onto another.  Each retaining wall was close to eight feet
high, way too much of a drop for the Lexus to survive.

Out of options, I shifted into reverse and focused on the
large screen in the middle of the dash.  It had been displaying a moving map
with our location highlighted, but when I went into reverse it changed to
display the image from the rear view camera.  The quality was surprisingly
good.  Good enough to see the pack of females bearing down on us. 

Hitting the accelerator I shot backwards and spun the wheel,
reversing into a driveway.  A couple of males were bulled aside, suddenly
growing large on the screen before being knocked flying by the rear bumper. 
Shifting back to drive I roared out of the driveway just as the females
arrived.  Blasting through the pack I was fairly certain I killed or disabled
at least half of them, but the remaining ones immediately turned around and
continued their pursuit.

We quickly outdistanced them and soon found ourselves back
in the area where we had first turned off the main road.  The bus and truck
were still burning away and the flames had spread to an adjacent two story
office building.  It was only feet from the building next to it, and it
wouldn’t take long for the fire to jump and spread more destruction. 

We were out of options.  Little Rock, or at least this part
of it, was becoming impassable.  Not only did we have to worry about being
trapped by infected, fire was a very real concern.  The more the fire spread,
the hotter it burned, heating the air around it.  Eventually the air would
become superheated and when that happened, anything combustible would burst
into flames.  This place had less than half an hour at the most before it was nothing
more than a large, flaming cauldron.  Resigning myself to finding another
route, I turned back to the east on the main road and accelerated away from the
dying city.

Lee Roach and Synthia drove through the dark streets of
Oklahoma City.  They were in the pickup Roach had found abandoned in Arkansas. 
He had borrowed a heat gun from the motor pool and used it to melt the adhesive
lettering off the vehicle’s doors, then had unbolted the orange light bar from
the roof.  There wasn’t anything to be done with the spotlights that wouldn’t
leave large holes in the truck’s sheet metal, so he’d left them where they
were.  The truck was now just another anonymous Ford F-150, and Oklahoma was
full of Ford trucks. 

The truck was the extended cab version, giving him an extra couple
of feet of space behind the front bench seat.  In this space a woman lay
unconscious from the drugs Synthia had slipped into her drink while pretending
to be another refugee just looking for a friendly ear.  The woman’s hands were
cuffed behind her back. 

Their destination was a small, abandoned motel on the far
side of the city that Roach had identified from reports shared by the Oklahoma
City Police.  The handcuffs on the woman were convenient, but would also lend a
degree of credibility to the story Roach had created in the event they were
discovered driving around.  He would say the woman was in the Air Force and had
deserted and he was just transporting her back to the base.  He had gone so far
as to dummy up a file on the woman with a photo he had taken as part of the
processing of arriving refugees for which he was responsible.

It was a pretty thin cover, and he was certain it would have
never held up in a pre-attack world.  Now, the chances of even being questioned
by a roving police officer were so slim as to be nearly negligible.  If by some
strange chance he was pulled over, his Air Force law enforcement ID should
quickly send the cop on his way.  But he was prepared for the worst, a pistol
in his lap that he had taken from the Tinker evidence locker.  He had no qualms
about shooting a cop, and he had a weapon that couldn’t be traced back to him.

Synthia sat next to him in the middle of the seat, her
shoulder touching his.  On the passenger seat rested a large purse, full of the
restraints and other toys they anticipated needing for their evening’s
adventure.  Playing the part of an Air Force officer’s wife, Synthia had removed
all the piercings that her clothing didn’t cover.  She had also dyed her hair
to a single shade of black and had started using heavy makeup to cover the
majority of her tattoos. 

Roach glanced at her, not exactly sure what he was feeling. 
He didn’t know what fondness for another human felt like.  Certainly had never
felt love.  All he knew was lust and the need to act on his desires.  Synthia
looked back at him, her eyes glowing in anticipation of what lay ahead.  She
smiled and placed her hand in his lap, working his zipper down and reaching
inside his trousers.  A moment later she firmly grasped his stiffening cock and
squeezed hard.  He groaned with pleasure, slowing to maintain control of the
truck as she alternated between roughly stroking him and gripping him as
tightly as she could.

They arrived at the motel in a few minutes, Synthia
withdrawing her hand when Roach turned down a side street.  He circled the
property twice, slowly, looking for any sign of habitation.  The area appeared
to be completely deserted.  It was the far northern edge of town, and the
residents that were still alive had relocated closer to the center of the
metropolitan area.  They felt there was safety in numbers, and they had reacted
to persistent rumors that infected were wandering around the edges of the city.

When all appeared safe, Roach pulled into the dark parking
lot, hiding the truck behind a tall block fence that screened the office from
the road.  Zipping his pants, he stepped out with the pistol in hand and surveyed
the area.  After a couple of minutes of seeing nothing other than dark and
quiet buildings, he moved to the glass door that opened into the lobby.

The door was locked, but Roach was prepared with a small
tool that was specifically designed for law enforcement to quickly and easily
break glass.  With a sharp blow he shattered the safety glass within the door,
knocking a small hole in it that he could reach through.  Turning the deadbolt
lock, he pushed open the door with both flashlight and pistol up and pointed
ahead of him.

The motel lobby was small and dirty, smelling of stale
coffee and cigarettes.  A forgotten houseplant struggled in a cheap, plastic
pot and a large rack of glossy tourist brochures occupied the wall opposite the
reception desk.  Roach ignored everything, moving behind the desk and after a
quick consultation of a room map, grabbed a key from a large, shallow drawer. 
The key was on a ring attached to a large piece of battered red plastic.  113
was painted on the plastic in faded and chipping gold paint.  Dropping the key
in his pocket he went back outside.

Turning right, he stopped at the first door he came to and
knocked softly.  Waiting a few moments he knocked again, equally gentle.  He
wanted to knock loud enough to get the attention of any occupants of the room,
but not loud enough for the sound to carry and attract any infected within
hearing distance.  After another 15 seconds he inserted the key, turned the
lock and with his body to the side, pushed the door open.

When there was no immediate shout or charge of an infected,
he poked the pistol and flashlight around the door frame and peeked inside. 
The room was small, semi-neatly made up and empty.  The door to the bathroom
was open and he could see it was empty as well.  That left only the shower as a
hiding place for anyone or anything that might be inside.

Stepping through the door, he quickly moved to the bathroom
and checked.  All clear.  Glancing around with the light, he wrinkled his nose
in disgust.  The room was supposedly ready for the next guest to check in, but
it wasn’t a place Roach would have picked if he’d had any other option.  The
shower walls were covered with ancient, pale green tile.  Black mildew grew in
almost every grout joint.  The tub was chipped and permanently stained with the
dirt of a thousand guests. 

Moving back to the main part of the room he saw a particle
board dresser with numerous cigarette burns and chunks of laminate missing, a
fogged mirror hanging over it on the stained wall.  The bed was a king, covered
with a thin and threadbare comforter that looked like the same material that
had been used to make the muumuus his grandmother had worn.  The bed visibly
sagged in the middle.  To either side sat a small nightstand, both bedside
lamps and a cheap alarm clock bolted down to them.  There was no TV in the
room, but he had brought his own entertainment.

Three hours later, Roach and Synthia walked out of the room
to the waiting truck.  They were both exhausted, yet euphoric at the same
time.  The young woman had been strong, but then to have survived in the world
since the attacks she would have to be.  Each of them had engaged in sex with
the woman, gradually ratcheting up the abuse as they grew more and more
excited.  Due to her inexperience, Synthia had accidentally cut her too deeply
and nicked an artery.  She had bled out and died quickly at that point, Roach
and Synthia coupling on the bed next to the woman as she shuddered her final
breaths.

When they left, they didn’t bother to try and dispose of the
body.  The odds against it being found were astronomical.  Even if it was
found, who had the time and resources any longer to conduct a homicide
investigation?  Roach felt very secure, not the least worried about the DNA
that both he and Synthia had left on and in the woman’s body.

They drove carefully on the way back to Tinker.  Roach was
surprised when they began encountering infected males, but assumed they had
wandered in off the plains surrounding the city.  He didn’t see the females
that were chasing the truck, continuing to follow the sound and glowing taillights
when they couldn’t match the Ford’s speed.

Passage through the main gate was simple now that he had a
current Tinker Security Forces ID.  The guard flashed a light across Roach’s
badge wallet that contained the card, saluted and waved them through.  Driving
slowly once on the base, he followed a perimeter road that passed the giant
hangar where he processed refugees. 

When the road turned it came near the barrack where many of the
refugees were being housed and he slowed when he saw a figure strolling in the
grass along the edge of the pavement.  Pulling to a stop he told Synthia to
roll her window down and leaned across her to speak.

“Good evening.  Mrs. Chase, right?  Captain Roach.  We met
when you first arrived.”  His voice was warm and friendly, a broad and
welcoming smile on his face.

“Good evening, Captain.  How are you?”  Katie replied,
turning to face the truck but not walking up to the passenger door.

“I’m fine.  May I introduce my wife, Tammy?  Tammy, this is
Mrs. Chase.  She made it here all the way from Arizona with a bus load of
kids.”  Roach was careful to use the name Synthia was going by, masquerading as
her dead sister.

Katie stepped up to the truck and extended her arm through
the window to shake Synthia’s hand.  Roach kept the smile plastered on his face
as he slipped his left hand into his pocket and withdrew a pair of hand cuffs. 
There was no one else around, and finding her out walking this time of night
was a stroke of luck he might never have again. 

All he had to do was lunge and slap one end of the cuffs
onto her wrist and quickly lock the other to the steering wheel.  This would
give him time to jump out, run around the truck and subdue the trapped woman. 
He expected her to fight, but stuck halfway in a vehicle window with her wrist
cuffed to the wheel, how much of a fight could she put up?

Synthia was reaching to shake her hand and Roach was tensed
to make his lunge when sirens began blaring and bright lights on top of poles
scattered across the base snapped on.  Suddenly it was like daylight and Roach
paused.  It was just as well for him.  When the sirens started Katie yanked her
arm out of the cab, drew her pistol and moved away from the truck, looking all
around the area for what was causing the alarm. 

Roach knew this was the perimeter alarm, not air raid.  Lights
wouldn’t be coming on for an air raid, and there was a different tone to the
sirens.  There was a problem at the fence.  Either it had been breached, or was
about to be.

“What’s going on?”  Katie shouted, pistol held in a two
handed, low ready grip.

“Perimeter alarm.”  Roach shouted back.  “You need to return
to your assigned barrack.” 

He stepped on the gas and roared away, cursing whatever had
triggered the alarm.  A golden opportunity to get his hands on the Major’s wife
and it was just snatched away from him.  Once those sirens started and lights
snapped on there was no way he was going to touch her and risk someone seeing
him.  Pounding the wheel in frustration he slid to a tire-protesting stop in
front of his house, dashing inside.  He had the woman’s blood on him, not much,
but enough that it might be noticed.

Taking a 30 second shower he jumped out and dressed in a
clean uniform without bothering to dry off.  Telling Synthia to stay in the
house and lock all the doors, he ran to the Humvee parked in the driveway and
roared off.  He had been briefed on where to report in the event of different
alarms, but couldn’t remember where he was supposed to be.  He was closest to
the main gate, so that’s where he went.

Before he arrived he heard first one, then a second machine
gun start firing.  The Russians?  Were they attacking?  But that didn’t make
any sense.  They wouldn’t commit ground troops without first softening up their
target with an aerial bombardment.  That meant infected!

Screeching to a halt behind a phalanx of Hummers, all with
machine guns pointed towards the gate, Roach hopped out and moved forward for a
better look.  There were dozens of bodies lying on the asphalt just outside the
perimeter fence, but what drew his attention were the hundreds of infected that
were pushing forward toward the chain link gate.