Barren Fields (16 page)

Dianne opens her door on the passenger side and steps out. Her attention seems focused on the shrieking laughter still bellowing from my own vehicle.

“Is Simone all right, Eddie?”

“She’s fine. Just a well-deserved tension release at my expense.” Her curious expression as she looks at me in her flashlight’s beam coaxes me to explain. “I didn’t exactly react stoically when I first saw the cows. I mean, I didn’t realize they were cows and didn’t know what they were.”

She graciously turns away to smile out of the light as she realizes that I was just terrified by this group of walking steaks and burgers. I hear a horse give a sputtering breath in the darkness and begin to wonder the same thing that Timothy asks next:

“Where do you think they came from?”

“They could be from anywhere, I guess, but that gives me an idea.”

I stand in the headlights of Timothy’s vehicle so the animals can see me and let out a whistle and a couple of clicking sounds, calling the names of horses we had at the ranch before our large attack. About thirty seconds later, our horse, Buster, walks up to me. He is a good sized tan colored horse that wasn’t one of my favorites. He is sixteen hands tall and had a
no nonsense
attitude, all work and no fun. He liked working and getting a job done, but when it came to brushing or pampering, it seemed he just wanted to be left alone. With his attitude, I know how he survived after we set him free and even how these other animals are alive if they follow him or are anything like him.

“Some of these are animals we set free before the ranch was overrun during the winter,” I mention to Tim and Dianne.

I pat Buster lightly on his muzzle, give him one of the sugar and dough survival bars from my pocket, and head back to my truck.

“I wish we could take them back to the ranch,” Timothy calls out.

“They’ve survived this long on their own in this area, so I’m sure we’ll eventually figure out a way to get them back home,” I call back to him. “Let’s get moving. We only have two or three miles left before we hit the edge of the city.”

The horses and cattle continued their journey south of the interstate, heading toward the river. They probably learned to hide out in the wooded hills. We’ll have to keep that in mind when we do a search to pick them up in the future.

Leaving the animals to go their own way gives me a little hope. If they can survive in this world as large and dumb as they are, maybe we have a chance as well. Hannah’s chances aren’t so good, however. We only have a small bit of road to go, and I haven’t seen any sign that they attempted to come back to the ranch. I haven’t seen their vehicle broken down anywhere.

Chapter 3

Into the Ocean

Coast of Mexico.

Thomas steps down the loading plank into the sailboat, followed by the others. This section of dock was designed for larger military ships, so the forty foot sailboat looks tiny moored to the concrete wall.

Jack is a bit unsteady so the others have to help him walk aboard.

“Hello, I’m Keith. This is George, Frank, Jack, and Thomas,” he says while lowering Jack to the deck where he can sit and relax.

The man and woman nervously look at each other.

“You do speak English, right? We were told you were Americans.”

“What do you plan on doing with us?” the man asks, and the woman grabs his arm and shakes her head at him like he said the wrong thing.

“We don’t plan on
doing
anything to you, unless there is a reason the military was holding you. You aren’t criminals, are you?” Keith asks

“We haven’t done anything,” the man says in his defense. “You are the people that drove onto a military base loaded with weapons and confiscated our boat. Are you drug runners? Arms dealers? How do we know you won’t kill us once we’re past the blockade?”

Jack laughs first, and the other men laugh and chuckle.

“It looks like there is plenty of distrust to go around,” Keith says. “Please get us underway before the military changes its mind about letting us leave. We aren’t criminals, and you don’t have to worry about us unless you try dumping us overboard.”

The sailboat motors its way through the blockade line and into the Pacific. Once in the open ocean, the man and woman, who still haven’t given their names, cut the engine, raise the sails, and cruise their boat into open water. After the flurry of activity the couple performs to get them underway is completed, Keith figures it’s the right time to attempt introductions again.

“We aren’t criminals, although the man we arrived with might have been a gun runner, we aren’t sure. He helped guide us across Mexico from the Gulf in exchange for some of our supplies. Other than Thomas, who we met in Coatzacoalcos, we all made it here from New Orleans.”

Keith spends ten minutes briefly explaining to the couple how they made their way from an oil rig to Mexico, across the land bridge to the docks of Salina Cruz, and that they plan on reaching Oregon. He finishes by apologizing for the quantities of supplies they have brought, which nearly fill the interior of the boat.

The two start to relax after hearing the men’s stories but are still on edge, probably over their captivity in Salina Cruz.

“I’m Carl, and this is Ellen. I’m sorry for how we reacted. We haven’t had much information since we got stuck in Salina Cruz. All we know is we stopped in there to do some shopping and get more fresh water. We stayed the night, and the next morning, the city was locked down. The military told us about a blockade and we couldn’t leave. Then  they told us someone was coming to take our boat, and they would let us go if the people taking our boat allowed us to come along.

“They haven’t really told us any more than that. We don’t know why the city was closed, why they were willing to give our boat to you, or what all the construction and military activity is about. Was there a terror attack or something? And why didn’t you people take a plane if you wanted to go to Oregon? Is this some strange race around the world you’re involved in?”

Carl shoots off his questions in rapid succession as he vents his frustration at being kept in the dark over what is going on. With each question the expressions on the men’s faces diminish from excitement to be underway to depression at remembering why they are out here.

Carl and Ellen seem nice. About the same age as Keith and George, in their mid-sixties, probably enjoying retirement and sailing wherever they want. No one wants to explain to them the world is coming to an end, but of the group, Keith has the kindest touch when dealing with people. So they look at him to explain the world events.

“Where do you and Ellen live?” Keith asks, wanting to know what their situation is before he gives the bad news.

“We live in Monterey,” Ellen says with excitement. You can see the way she lights up that she loves her home. “It’s a beautiful community along the coast in California. We’ve been there for ten years. After Carl retired we moved there and go sailing all the time...” her voice fades and she stops speaking when the looks of the five men don’t reflect joy at her words but increased sadness.

“Salina Cruz is locked down because a plague is spreading. The plague already reached Tehuantepec, which is only six miles away. They are trying to build a wall around the city to keep the infected out, but I’ve seen how the infection spreads. They have little chance of keeping it out.”

“The infected? Do you mean infected people?”

“Yes.”

“Aren’t they trying to treat them?”

Keith chooses to be blunt at this point. “They are trying to kill them.”

Ellen puts her hand to her mouth in shock. Carl scoots back, repelled at the words he is hearing.

“The plague makes people attack each other. When an infected person bites someone else, the plague gets spread. It transmits rapidly and every place it arrives shortly gets overrun. Coatzalcoalcos fell in four days from one person bringing the disease. Three hundred thousand people gone from a few bites.”

“We have to get back to the U.S.” Carl says with optimistic pride. “The U.S. military will be able to keep this thing out. Now I know why you want to get back so badly.”

Keith shakes his head. “The U.S. military is gone.”

He gives a second for Carl and Ellen to absorb what he said.

“The military, the police, the entire country has collapsed or is collapsing. This thing is all over the world right now. It doesn’t start with a bite. It begins with an injection of a drug called
Zeus
.”

*

Carl is at the bow of the ship holding on to Ellen, who is sobbing into her hands. Keith laid bare every detail of the disease that he knows.

George is at the wheel and the others are sitting around him.

“Ellen is devastated. You better be right about this,” Carl demands, walking back to them but he can see in their eyes this isn’t some cruel joke. “What are we going to do?”

“The five of us are heading to Oregon to meet up with Keith’s son. We didn’t have a way of making it to the rest of our families. No survivable way, that is.”

“Our children are in Washington. I’m sure Ellen would want to see if they are all right. I just don’t know if we can make that trip.”

“It’s right next to Oregon,” George offers. “We have plenty of supplies, and it shouldn’t take more than a few days to make it there after you drop us off.”

“The supplies aren’t the problem, the weather is. We were heading south because of winter storms. The waters outside of Washington and Oregon, heck even northern California, can be deadly going into the winter. We could try, but you should know we might have to stop somewhere over the winter. And if things are as bad as you say, we can’t go to the mainland.”

“I didn’t think about the weather,” George says. “As for stopping somewhere, I don’t know where we could spend the whole winter. Even islands might not be safe. Lots of people in boats took off from New Orleans when it fell, and infected people can land anywhere a boat crashes.”

“What about Hawaii?” Ellen asks, walking up while wiping tears from her face to join the conversation.

“Could we make it there in this?” Jack asks.

“In this?” she asks in an admonishing tone. “Don’t say it like this is a little rowboat. This is a forty foot sailboat, young man, and we have been to Hawaii in it before.”

“We could make it there a lot easier than we could get to Oregon or Washington,” Carl says. “It would take a month, maybe two. It would depend on how long it takes to get to L.A. with the winds. It took us nineteen days the last time we left from L.A.”

“It sounds nice,” George begins. “But it won’t work. Pearl Harbor is on Oahu, and there are military installations on some of the other islands as well. It would be a two month trip to an infected wasteland.”

Ellen walks back to the bow in tears.

“Great job, George,” Frank says. “Maybe you should filter things through Keith before you share them.

“Since I’m already being a downer, there is another problem we have to worry about out here: Pirates. Senior Maldonado gave us the guns and ammo for a reason, and we should have them ready for any other boats we encounter.”

“I don’t think people would come after a sailboat,” Carl rebuts. “Criminals would want speed boats or to raid luxury yachts.”

“And anyone with brains that wants to survive on the ocean will want a sailboat. That’s why I didn’t want a cruiser like the one we escaped from New Orleans in. We won’t be able to refuel often with the land covered by infected people. The wind is free, as long as it’s blowing.”

“You could have made it all the way to Oregon without refueling in the right motorized ship.”

“And the General wouldn’t have let us take it. He is only letting sailing vessels leave because his navy can’t use them. They have a refinery in Salina Cruz so I understand his thinking, but he may want the sailboats in another couple days when the city falls.”

“You seem certain it will happen. How can you be so sure?”

“Acapulco, it isn’t too far, is it?” George asks in a seemingly unrelated way.

“Just a few days up the coast. We were there for a week before we went to Salina Cruz.”

“Good. Let’s head there, and you can see for yourself what’s happening in the world.”

George is taking a chance with Acapulco. They haven’t heard anything about the infection arriving in that city, but there is a very good chance that it is there. Two or three days of sailing should present Acapulco and give all the evidence Carl needs with what this sickness can do.

*

Carl and Ellen began teaching everyone how to sail and operate their boat, everyone but Jack, who has gotten too sick to be active. They chose to sail away from land to avoid any encounters with other vessels on their way to Acapulco, and aside from Jack’s worsening condition, it has been a peaceful two days.

They are headed back toward land now and can already see a dark smudge of cloud on the horizon, which seems like smog, but shouldn’t be visible this far out. George knows it is smoke, and Acapulco is probably in flames the way New Orleans and Coatzacoalcos looked after the infected destroyed those places. He doesn’t want to be the one that makes Ellen cry again, so he keeps his opinion to himself.

“That isn’t smog, is it?” Ellen quietly asks her husband, knowing the answer for herself with the view of smoke becoming clearer on the horizon.

*

“I don’t think we should get any closer,” George tells Carl as they approach the Mexican coast.

Through their binoculars they can see Acapulco is in flames. There are ships of various sizes scattered over the water, drifting without owners to steer them, some are in flames like the city behind them. Even in a fishing or speed boat it would be difficult to maneuver through the mess of broken, abandoned, and burning boats that are floating along the approach to the coast. It would be a slow motoring task without their sails if they wanted to get a better view.

“It looks like people are standing all along the shore,” Carl says before handing the glasses to George.

“They’re infected.”

“That’s thousands of people. They might be trying to get away from the fires!”

“Carl, I saw the same thing in Louisiana, and then in Coatzacoalcos. The infected spread out and head to sources of sound. They crowd along coastlines because of the noise crashing waves make.”

“There’s a boat heading toward us,” Frank says looking south of the city.

It’s a speedboat and is approaching them from the side.

“It’s coming up fast. Get your guns ready.”

“You people are paranoid,” Carl says trying to diffuse the tension and keep Ellen calm.

Ignoring him, the four of them lay along the deck from bow to stern. Rounds are chambered into their guns and the safeties are switched off.

Jack is lying down below deck.

Ellen ducks into the cabin as the boat approaches just in case Keith and the others are right about the situation and her husband is wrong.

“There’s another boat coming up behind the first one,” Carl calls out. “They can probably tell us what is happening on shore.”

“I can’t get a good look at the people in that boat with the front end of it bouncing up and down. Can either of you see anything?” Frank asks knowing they can see as little as he does.

They know it isn’t an infected crew, because the boat starts to slow as it gets closer, which is fortunate for them. That boat would have crashed right into the middle of the sailboat if it continued, since Carl is making no effort to get them out of the way.

Carl just stands there with his hand in the air, waving as the speedboat turns to ride adjacent to them. No words are exchanged, only gunfire.

The tunnel vision of criminal activity has the three speedboat thieves focusing all their attention on the compliant target Carl is turning out to be. When they open fire on him with their handguns, a return volley of bullets fly back at them. One falls facedown into the water, and the other two slump into the boat, obviously dead from their wounds.