What unknown force had drawn nearly twenty infected to congregate in the small room was a mystery.
We went back downstairs and surveyed the carnage. There were eighteen bodies in the living room.
“There’s nothing here that’s going to help us now,” I said, heading for the door.
Chapter
25
We exited the house and walked back to the truck, dejected by finding Marty dead. Faces peering through neighboring windows vanished as we looked in their direction. People who were normally outgoing and friendly had turned into reclusive hermits.
Finding Marty dead brought home the reality that we were in the midst of an apocalyptic event. There was no telling if any of the people we had hoped to recruit would be alive by the end of the day. “We need to get these vaccinations distributed before everyone’s dead. Any thoughts on who should get them?” I asked.
“I think Cindy would do a great at organizing the food co-op. If we can find her, she should get one,” Matt said, referring to the secretary at the sheriff’s station. She grew up in Lost Hills and was very active in the community. She organized several large community events every year. Since she had lived in the community for so long, everyone knew her. She wasn’t a formal community leader, but she would do a good job overseeing food supplies and convincing people to work together to stockpile food.
Matt thumbed Cindy’s phone number onto the screen of his phone. It immediately went to voicemail. I turned the truck around and headed to Cindy’s house on the outskirts of town. When we arrived, her car was not in the driveway. We knocked to no avail; no one was home.
“She was still at the station when we left yesterday afternoon. Maybe she never left,” Matt suggested as he dialed the phone number to the station. From the conversation, it was clear that she was still there. I turned in the direction that would take us there.
When I pulled into the parking lot, I saw a lone light shining in the reception area. We exited the truck and bounded up the brick steps. By the time we reached the top, Matt had the key to the front door in his hand. He briskly worked the lock which disengaged with a snap. Once inside, he reengaged the lock. Cindy and Kimiko were in the same places they had been when I had last seen them.
Kimiko’s mascara had smeared and run down her face from tears being repeatedly shed and wiped away. Puffy skin under both she and Cindy’s eyes hinted that they hadn’t slept enough, if at all.
“I’m glad to see the two of you,” Cindy exclaimed with relief flooding over her face. “The phone has been ringing off the hook. No one is answering 911 so people are calling here. I didn’t see any point in trying to call either of you. I knew you were already doing what you could.”
Matt and I quickly explained to Cindy the things we knew about what was happening in town and around the world. We told her of the community food co-op we had envisioned and asked if she would be willing to organize it.
“I don’t know how that would even work,” she answered doubtfully.
“We don’t really know ourselves. But if anyone can convince people to work together on this, it’s you,” Matt said in response. “Everybody in town knows you. You’ve organized lots of other events. Besides, you won’t be doing it by yourself. There will be others to help. You are the one that can convince people to participate. There are only a few people who will be able to subsist by hunting and gardening. We need these people who have the know-how to help those who don’t. Someone needs to teach the others how to provide for themselves. In the short term, I don’t see the majority being able to survive. They are going to have to rely on the help of those who can. Your job would be to get everyone to work together in acquiring and sharing food and survival knowledge.”
Cindy was quiet for a moment as she considered what Matt and I had said. Her hands fidgeted on the desktop and she twisted back and forth in her chair. Finally, she looked up and said, “I’m still not sure you have the right person. For what it is worth though, I will do whatever I can.”
“In that case I have something for you,” I said, withdrawing a packet containing an alcohol wipe and a syringe of vaccine from the breast pocket of my shirt. I tore the packet open. Removing the wipe, I advanced toward Cindy. She rolled her chair back and stood up, eyeing the syringe.
“What is that?” she asked cautiously.
“It’s a vaccine against the infection, courtesy of the United States Army. Have you been in contact with anyone other than Matt and me since yesterday?”
“No.”
“Good. If you were already infected, we would be wasting a valuable vaccine. Do you want it in the left or right arm?”
She silently glanced at her left arm and then back at me, which I took as her answer to the question. As I cleaned the area with the wipe, she questioned, “Does it hurt?”
“From the way Matt cried and moaned when he got his, I assume it does. I suspect you will be okay though,” I said with what I hoped was a reassuring smile.
The joke seemed to help her relax a bit. “Well, Matt always was a big baby. If he can do it, it must not be that bad,” she said, smiling for the first time since yesterday.
I jabbed the needle into her left arm and pushed the plunger, delivering the life-saving serum into the sinewy muscle of her bicep. She winced slightly from the burn of the vaccine as it entered her tissue.
I replaced the cap over the needle and tossed the syringe into the garbage can. Yesterday it would have been unthinkable. Today there were much larger biohazards to worry about. A capped syringe, in the garbage can that would never be emptied, was suddenly a non-issue.
“The two of you can’t stay here,” I said to Cindy and Kimiko as I looked around at the sparse office. There was nowhere to sleep, and no food to eat. “It’s going to be cramped, but the two of you are going to stay at my place.”
Cindy was very conscious about being a burden to people. Normally she would have flatly rejected my offer. Today was different. She simply said, “Thank you. I don’t think I could bear another night alone.” She sat slightly more erect, as if a weight had been removed from her shoulders. The fear of trying to protect herself had been terrorizing. She was a very self reliant woman; however, she knew the horrors she would face outside were beyond her abilities to overcome alone.
“Before we move out, is there anything else you think we might need?” I asked Matt.
“Let’s get all the ammo we can carry,” he suggested. “Even though we already have a good supply, this place will probably be ransacked and pillaged before we return. With all the uproar about the Sheriff stockpiling guns and ammo with county funds, everybody knows what’s here. I wouldn’t count on there being any left when we return later.”
“Good thinking,” I said. “Let’s load up the truck and get out of here. We have a lot to do.”
After scurrying back and forth between the armory and my pickup, the four of us loaded my truck up with about thirty thousand rounds. There was still plenty left inside. We agreed that if we had time we would try to get the rest of it before it was stolen. It should be made available to the citizens of the county, but I wanted to be in charge of distributing it.
We also took a pistol for Cindy. The rest of the guns were secured in one of the two large safes in the armory. We loaded the other safe full of ammunition. If someone was really motivated, he could probably get into the safes, but it would be a lot more work than simply taking guns off the wall rack. Both safes were bolted into the concrete slab. Short of someone coming into the station with a cutting torch, they could walk off with a lot of ammunition, but both safes should be intact when we returned.
Chapter
26
Everyone except for Matt piled into the truck. Matt went into the back lot and got one of the two patrol pickups. He drove through the back gate and took the lead. We had already agreed that we would take the back route to my house so as to avoid Sergeant Martinez and his road block. It was better not to put him in a situation where he felt compelled to disobey his orders. On top of that, he may view our leaving town differently than going into town. His orders were to prevent the spread of the disease. Leaving town, especially with two more people, may, in his opinion, be too much to allow.
Matt drove through the residential part of town, feeling it was important for people to see that we were still patrolling. He claimed it would give people hope. We were driving down Birch Street when Matt brought the patrol vehicle to an abrupt stop ahead of my truck. I looked to the right and saw what had captured his attention.
The front door to the house adjacent to his truck had been kicked in. The door frame was splintered. There were a couple cans of food in front of the door and tire tracks rutted the lawn up to the door.
As I unbuckled my seatbelt, I turned to Cindy, who was sandwiched between Kimiko and myself on the front bench seat, “If you see any infected, honk the horn. Otherwise, stay in the truck with the doors locked.”
I opened the door, stepped onto the street, and joined Matt on the sidewalk. He paused to pull his gas mask over his face. He placed his hand over the end of the canister and inhaled, making sure the seal was tight and there were no leaks. When he was satisfied, he turned to look at me through the curved glass lens and said, “Let’s check this out and get back on our way.” He drew his pistol and I pulled my rifle off the back seat.
Before crossing the threshold into the house, Matt announced, “Sheriff Department. We’re coming in.” The front door opened into a ten foot long entrance with an arched doorway immediately to the left leading to the living room. Straight ahead, the entry dumped into the kitchen. A hallway ran to the right just before the kitchen.
Matt stepped into the brown tiled entry and turned left, clearing the living room. I continued past Matt to secure the end of the entryway. The fork in the entryway created a tactical challenge. When clearing a building, we liked to stay together to provide cover for each other. If we both turned down the hallway, we could be attacked from the unchecked kitchen behind us and whatever may be beyond. If we both went into the kitchen, we left the unsecured hallway to our backs.
When we reached the end of the entryway, I turned right into the hallway and Matt continued past the corner of the wall that led into the kitchen. He made a sharp left as he reached the corner which brought the rest of the room into view. I held my position, securing the hallway while waiting for Matt.
A second after he entered the kitchen, Matt shouted, “I have an elderly man and woman tied up! The kitchen is clear.” Five seconds later he appeared by my side. For all we knew, whoever tied up the man and woman may still be in the house. It would be of no benefit to them if we got shot in the back while tending to them. They would still be there when we were done clearing the rest of the house.
We proceeded through the house, clearing three bedrooms and a bathroom that were off the hallway. Nothing seemed to be disturbed.
Matt led the way back to the kitchen. I intentionally did not let my eyes go straight to the people laying on the floor. Instead, I did a quick sweep of the room. The cupboards were all open and mostly empty. A few packages and cans of food lay on the floor where it appeared they had been dropped or discarded. I moved to the man. I had seen around town and knew his name was Harold, but I had never spoken with him. I estimated him to be in his early eighties. He had tape across his mouth as well as around his ankles. His wrists were taped together behind his back with a leg of the kitchen table between his arms. He was effectively immobilized. A trickle of dried blood clung to his forehead from a wound concealed beneath his slightly receding white hairline. His eyebrows were furrowed close together in anger and frustration as he fought against his restraints.
I peeled up the lower left corner of the tape covering his mouth. I hesitated before pulling it off; most of his neatly trimmed mustache was beneath the tape. No matter how quickly I pulled, it was going to take a lot of hair with it.
Harold nodded his head up and down to signify he was prepared and to commence with removing the tape. I heard a nearly indiscernible grunt as I ripped it from his face in a quick motion. I looked at the tape which dangled between my index finger and thumb. There was a patch of white hair in a mirror image of his mustache, assuring me his lip was smarting sharply.
Harold expressed his gratitude as I was cutting the tape around his ankles with my knife. Next, I freed his hands. Once the tape was removed, he promptly moved them in front of him and rubbed his wrists and hands, attempting to restore the blood flow which the tape had impeded.
“You try to help a person out,” he said angrily, “and this is how you get repaid. If one of those crazed beasts had come through the door he left open, it would have killed us. He left us tied up to starve to death or be eaten.” Harold made no attempt to hide his anger.
I looked over at Matt who was cutting the tape from the elderly woman’s wrists and returned my attention to the man. “Do you know who did this?” I inquired.
“Of course I do,” he stammered with his rage reaching a crescendo. “It was Curtis White!” he said with such force that drops of saliva flew from his mouth.
“Why would Curtis do this?” I asked, realizing Curtis had become an even bigger problem than I had thought. Until last night, he had never attacked an innocent person. His spats of violence had always been directed against other “dirt bags” who more or less had it coming. It didn’t make it right, but it was different from armed robbery resulting in murder last night and then leaving an old man and woman to die, tied up in their own house.
“Curtis and my grandson Nick were friends. Nick lived with us after his parents died. Three months ago, Nick started bringing Curtis around. I knew Curtis was trouble and I told Nick to stay away from him, but do you think he listened? Even though we didn’t approve of Nick associating with Curtis, we allowed him to bring Curtis home to eat with us a couple times a week. It seemed like the right thing to do. He had nothing. We even loaned Curtis money which he never repaid. Nick had never been in trouble until Curtis started coming around. I think Curtis got Nick on drugs. Nick started acting strange. He became fidgety and couldn’t sit still. He wouldn’t sleep, sometimes for days, and then he would sleep a day and a half straight.
“Just before Curtis started coming around, Maye and I got worried about the state of the economy. We started stockpiling canned food and other nonperishables. When Curtis would come by to see Nick, he would make fun of us for being paranoid. After a while, we noticed that every time Curtis was here, things would go missing. At first they were just small things, but they got bigger.
“We finally forbid him to come into our home. Three weeks ago, we came home from shopping out of town and Nick and Curtis were leaving the house. Curtis had Maye’s jewelry box in his hands.” Harold stopped for a moment and took a couple deep breaths, trying to bring his anger under control. “I told Nick he had ten minutes to get his things and get out of the house. As they left, Curtis said, ‘You haven’t seen the last of us, Old Man.’ Until last night, I hadn’t seen Curtis or Nick since that day.”
“Was Nick here, too?” I asked as I parted his hair, trying to examine the wound on his scalp.
“No, it was Curtis and some other guy. Curtis hit me in the head with his pistol, tied us up, stole our food stockpile, and left us to die,” he bellowed angrily as I helped him stand up.
“Do you have any idea where Curtis is staying?” I questioned.
Harold began to answer, but was interrupted by an enfilade of gunfire from outside. Then my truck horn began blaring.