World of Ashes II (6 page)

At first he didn’t notice the pills taking effect. Kaylee was already asleep and Daniel was still hungry. He went upstairs to make himself a sandwich only to discover Kaylee had eaten all the peanut butter. They were beginning to run low on food, even though neither ate much anymore. How long would it be before this fortress became their tomb?

“Are you going to go on a supply run?” Daniel turned around and saw Lea sitting at the table. “I wouldn’t. It’s dangerous out there right now. All the survivors come out at night. It’s like they don’t seem to understand their enemy. But you do. You just have to put the pieces together.”

Daniel knew he was hallucinating and blinked his eyes. Lea was gone, the chair still pushed in where he’d left it. He made his sandwich of cheese and bologna and sat in front of the TV. He felt drunk, and even a little high. Before joining the Guard he’d been a major league stoner, a habit he had always assumed he could trade for booze for a few years. It felt good to be able to relax on that level again. The TV seemed far away like a drive-in movie screen, as if he were really small or it was larger than life. What was left of his sandwich was floating apart in zero gravity, and of course Lea was sitting nearby again.

“Why are you watching this?” Lea asked, motioning to the TV. “We’ve already seen this same crap a thousand times.”

“And what if it changes?” He played along with the story unfolding in his head. He took it with a grain of salt, he hadn’t slept longer than an hour in days. “What if they manage to restore order?”

Lea laughed, a full, hearty sound that was out of place coming from a small girl. “Daniel, c’mon. We both know this is just the beginning of the end. These are the End of Days, you know, the ones they talk about in the Bible?”

“I think we’d know about it if Jesus had returned.” Daniel rolled his eyes. The visual distortions at the edge of his vision made everything look like it was dancing.

“Who said anything about Jesus? This is simply God’s wrath. Believe me, there’s no happy place waiting for those of us the virus took. Besides, you work for the Government. Do you really think they can defend us from this? This plague took our nation’s capital in less than a day. You’re trapped deep in the red with…” Lea pointed toward the stairs leading to the basement. “What? Someone else’s traumatized crib-midget?”

“Not like it was Plan A, ya know.”

“So what is the plan?”

“You’re in my head. You should know.”

“So you don’t have one.”

“Nope.”

Lea laid her imaginary head down on Daniel’s lap. “Wanna fuck?”

“I’m not Gaius Baltar. I’m not having sex with a figment of my imagination.” Daniel moved away and turned the TV off. “I’m going to go to bed. I can’t do this anymore.” He managed his way down the stairs and fell asleep in Mr. Fisher’s recliner.

How long Daniel had been asleep he couldn’t say, but when he woke Kaylee was holding a glass of watered down Tang in front of him. She had tried, at least. “Thirsty?” She asked with a smiled that was missing some baby teeth.

Daniel took the glass and drank it even though it was warm and kinda gross. He just thought it was cute that Kaylee was trying to be so helpful. “We have to get ready to leave, Kaylee. Are you okay with that?”

“Where are we going?” She asked.

“I don’t know, but we don’t have enough food to stay here. Maybe we can try to get to a bigger house. We should try to leave the city too.” Daniel stood and started packing. He actually felt energized and surprisingly well rested for the first time since England. He made sure Kaylee had everything she would need for the road, which went in his pack, and even a few toys in the
Ren & Stempy
backpack Kaylee insisted she get to carry herself. The garage was empty, the Fisher’s had taken their car when they left, so no driving just yet. Once they’d sneaked from the now unkempt lawn the two walked to the next house in broad daylight. From what Daniel had seen the zombies weren’t affected by the changes in day and night, so the cover of darkness would only work against him. Maybe another logical phobia to working in daylight was being shot at by the living, but they’d have to see someone first. There was no way to trust anyone these days, but like most decisions it just came down to the lesser of two evils.

The vast majority of houses had been broken into either by refugees or FEMA and the ATF. The subdivision they’d been hiding in seemed to stretch forever, one street just as unidentifiable as any other with synthetic stone sound deadening walls surrounding almost every block of houses. They sprinted from one empty group of dwellings to another, once spotting the shadow of a helicopter that was flying low nearby, but never actually seeing it either. At least for those brief seconds they had sound cover and used that to sneak into a backyard with a wrecked Prius at the bottom of its steep slope. Daniel tucked Kaylee under a back deck after crawling over a fence and what was probably more poison ivy than wood planks. The house, one of those newer manufactured monstrosities tucked into a maze of duplicate houses had glass sliding doors in the basement. It was unlocked, the owner had left in a hurry, skid marks in the lawn where they’d driven away after loading supplies were still there. Daniel slid the doors open and went inside as silently as possible. He waited for his eyes to adjust before moving. This basement was a man-cave, but of a different sort than Mr. Fisher’s. Whoever owned this house was a weapons fanatic. So much so he’d taken them all with him. Nothing was left but an empty ammo can and a workbench with a flag over it. The flag looked strange, and when Daniel pointed his light on it he saw the names of the almost three thousand people who’d died on September, 11
th
, 2001. Daniel had been three years old then, but he was fully aware of how that event had shaped the world today in every bit the way Pearl Harbor had almost seventy years before. There were also Airsoft BB’s everywhere, and the toy guns that shot them. However old this guy was, he was still a kid at heart, but 6mm BB’s won’t do much but sting someone.  Certainly they were useless against a plague victim.

He brought Kaylee inside and took her upstairs. There was little more in the house than condiments and bland rice dishes to eat. Knowing they couldn’t stay there Daniel found the keys to the white SUV outside in the front driveway and loaded the car with what they did find. He turned the key and saw the Honda had about half a tank. They’d just drive West until they found somewhere safe, or ran out of gas. Either way it got them far away from this particular war zone and most of their current problems.

Daniel drove for what seemed like hours, the landscape of ashen colored burned down buildings a horrifying reminder that the disaster was everywhere. Kaylee hid in the back, playing with dolls while he drove, Mark’s stupid chrome platted M9 in his lap just waiting for a reason to put someone down. Dodging zombies wasn’t hard, they couldn’t get to the car fast enough to be a problem, even if they were fresh runners. Hitting them was often the only option though, knowing full well a crappy foreign SUV is not an ATV and would only take so much it occasionally got dicey. The remains of so many of the same models of cars littered the countryside, bogged down by mud, some by collisions with other cars or piles of corpses. People’s vehicles were stuck on the sides of every road, all trying to escape traffic snarls that piled upon themselves for miles and ended in yet more traffic clusters. Daniel lost the front bumper to a wheelchair bound zombie in the middle of the road. He ran over the man and his chair with a sickening crunch that made Kaylee cry. Some redneck’s Rebel Flag painted truck was stuck on top of a mountain of still squirming undead, their entrails and limbs jamming the wheels and getting caught in the gears and lift kit. There were zombies inside of cars, the people inside eaten alive when the windows were compromised.

A few bodies in the distance were still raging, one chased the van for almost a mile before suddenly going stiff and face-planting on the pavement. Her body slid, skinning most of her face off. Someone shot at the van too, pellets from a buckshot clanking off the fenders but thankfully the assholes missed the tires. Kaylee screamed at that one, Daniel did too, but he didn’t stop. The farther they got from downtown Washington DC the less destruction they saw. After an hour of not seeing anyone, undead or alive, Daniel let Kaylee sit in the front seat. She told him she had to pee again. He felt bad when he realized he’d completely forgotten to bring clean clothes for Kaylee. They were both wearing gross old stuff, how had he overlooked that?

Pulling over on a wooded stretch of highway Daniel got out and secured the area. He didn’t hear anything but a few helicopters in the background, some birds chirping, the canopy of the trees silhouetted against the storm of smoke to the East. This singular place felt safe in the smoggy summer. The wind blew so hot he wished it wouldn’t blow at all, the smells of rot and ash filled his throat. Kaylee got out and Daniel turned the other way, giving her some semblance privacy. When she finished he took his turn, having forgotten how badly he needed to go in all the rush of running for his life. A few minutes down the road again Daniel slammed the brakes hard and skidded to a halt, a sight he wasn’t excited to see just ahead of him. An Army/FEMA checkpoint manned with people still holding guns was unavoidable now. The infected didn’t hold onto anything but you, so at least there was that. He didn’t know how he felt about running into the Army already though.

A Blackhawk chopper thundered overhead, circled, and took station behind them. Another car that had been a good distance behind stopped just behind their van when it caught up. The driver, a teenage boy with duct-tape wrapped around his clothes like a bite proof suit climbed out and waved to the men in the chopper with joy. Daniel was prepared to run the checkpoint, but none of the Soldiers turned their guns on him except the stationary gunner whose entire job it was to follow you with a gun. The psychotic shit he’d seen go down wasn’t happening here, these
men
were calm and in control and nobody was eating anybody else. A Humvee approached the two cars, a bullhorn instructing them to proceed at 25mph, no faster. The Soldiers escorted them into a sallyport surrounded by concrete construction barriers and a few Hesco Bastions. Daniel still had his Military ID on him, there was no hiding who he was now if they did a pat-down search.

A FEMA worker in a tan mechanic’s jumpsuit came up to the van, “Are any of you sick?”

“No.” Daniel answered, Kaylee cuddling up to a stuffed Eeyore doll to hide.

“Is anyone else in the vehicle?”

“No, just myself and my niece.”

“Proceed to Search Area Two, please.”

“Look, I’m not giving up my guns. I have to be able to protect us.” Daniel was prepared to floor the accelerator again. His knuckles tensed around the wheel while he judged when the guards might not be looking. The guys manning the machine guns were smoking and joking, not paying any attention to them now that they were inside the first gate. Their complacency was his best chance if this went south.

“You don’t have to. This is just a first line checkpoint. We can’t let sick through without a checkup, but I think you’d know it by now if someone was infected with EV-1.”

“No shit.” Daniel agreed, feeling the adrenaline subsiding and slowly pulled the van into the search area. He and Kaylee climbed out and stood next to a table, an Army medic in MOPP4 chemical gear stepped up to them. She checked Daniel for bites or wounds, but scared Kaylee so badly she threw the doll at the suited soldier and tried to run before Daniel caught her.

He scooped her up and tried to calm her down. “It’s okay, it’s just a mask, Kaylee. I’ve worn them before, you wear them on Halloween, remember? It’s okay. There’s a good-guy inside.” Kaylee stopped squirming, but wouldn’t look at the masked Soldier.

“
It’s okay.
” The woman’s muffled voice came through the mask. She took it off, seeming relieved to have the rubber seal off her face in the humid Virginia air. “I’d know if you guys were bitten by now, it’s just SOP that I wear this out of the gate. I’m Sergeant Wendy Graystone.” She knelt down to Kaylee when Daniel set her back on her feet. “What’s your name?”

Kaylee dared a peek, but hid in Daniel’s chest as quickly as she’d looked. “Her name’s Kaylee.” He said, deciding then he needed to craft a careful lie. He knew Kaylee’s last name from things he’d seen written in Mr. Fisher’s basement, trophies and fantasy baseball papers with her parent’s names next to pictures. They looked like a really nice bunch of people. “Kaylee Gallagher, I’m her cousin, Daniel Sawyer. I was in DC visiting when…”

“Is there anyone else in your group?”

“Not anymore.”

“What’s it like out there?” Sergeant Graystone asked, distracting them from the MP’s searching the vehicle when Daniel started watching nervously. His ID was tucked in his arm pit, mostly because putting it in his butt was unthinkable to a 19 year old boy.

“It’s bad… why hasn’t it happened here?” Daniel asked while Graystone drew blood from him. It was harder to convince Kaylee this was okay, but she relented.

“It has, but there’s fewer people, most of the cases are in Phase 2 when they get this far from the cities. They’ve been attacking livestock and people who can’t run away. The Army’s set up lines around every major outbreak though. Reports at briefings say things are going bad, but emphasize it could be much worse. Most civilians are evacuating the areas in danger willingly, all for the push west to Cheyenne Mountain.”