Rotten (13 page)

Highland nodded.  “Okay, then. Let me take a shower and I’ll get started.  We’ll stay here tonight and figure out what to do in the morning.”

Later we gathered in the office around the TV, which was showing the same footage as it had earlier.  The experts had gathered in the studio to share their opinions of the event, most agreeing that South Carolina was well overdue for a strong earthquake and cited the 1886 earthquake in Charleston as an example. 

Highland sat at the desk with all our wallets, credit cards, and passwords and funneled our money, and Grady’s money, into the account of David D. Gibson, and no one bothered him or even peeked over his shoulder at the computer screen. That was the thing about Highland, even though we never felt like we really knew him, we trusted him without question. 

“There should be different footage in the morning.”  Rotten yawned.  “We should get some sleep and I guess we should take turns on guard.  Who wants first shift?”

Moonshine and Princess volunteered and we divvied up the beds and couches, and I went to sleep under the beat of helicopter wings.  Or at least in my dreams the noise of the rotors transformed into wings of small and noisy dragonflies. 

Day Three

Saturday

December 13, 2014

No one woke me for my shift and I stirred well after sunrise to the scent of coffee.  On the main floor everyone else was up and quietly staring at the huge TV, I turned to look and even knowing what I knew, and having seen what I had seen in the last thirty-six hours of my life, I gasped when I saw the footage.  If it hadn’t been for the out-of-place Litchfield building I wouldn’t have recognized my hometown at all.  Looking harder I could make out what was left of the Chapman building that housed the National Bank and the alcove where Sully had seen the night shine, and then I saw the steeple had broken off The First Baptist Church and had wedged in the alley between the church and the school.  The Litchfield leaned precariously over the surrounding smaller buildings and the glass of the penthouse was mostly gone.  And the outlying areas, the suburbs with their strip malls, movie houses, and fast foods, had been completely flattened. 

“Wow.” Moonshine broke the silence.  “I knew it was bad, lifted us up and dropped us about two feet, and we weren’t even in the center of it, but damn, that’s unbelievable.”  He shook his head.  “Everything’s gone.”

It’s hard describe the complete devastation we saw, but you saw it on TV, everyone did - it was treated like 9-11 and hurricane Katrina rolled into one.  But this time it was our family and friends, our homes, our jobs, our schools, our memories, and our town and when the dam above Blacksport and Freemont gave way the cameras were rolling.  The river washed over the banks and took down the few remaining buildings that the earthquake had left leaning this way and that way, and we watched them crumble in slow motion into the flow of water.  If you didn’t see it live, it was played over and over again for those who missed it the first time or the hundredth. 

“There’s no way my family survived that,” Moonshine said, watching the water wash our town away.  “Their trailer was only about fifty feet from the river.”  He rubbed the tears from his eyes, and Princess wrapped her arms around his waist and held him.

There were no local news stations anymore and the anchors at the affiliates in Greenville and Charlotte could barely control their excitement with being at the center of such a major event.  The handsome newscaster, who I’m sure was imagining himself as the next Anderson Cooper or Shepard Smith, held his somber expression and announced the road closures for Blacksport, Freemont and surrounding areas.  Highland pulled up a map on his laptop, made notes on a scrap of paper, and called Will over to look at the satellite imagery.

“I think we’re here, is that about right?”  Highland pointed.

Will studied.  “No, that was the first dock we passed. We’re here.”  His finger moved over the dirt road that led to the highway. 

Highland set a digital pin over our location and zoomed out.  He glanced down at the scrap of paper, back to the screen, and said,  “We’re hemmed in.  The road out of here is closed at the intersection, so we can’t go that way, and the other way is the Arlington Bridge which fell in the earthquake according to Cooper Shepard there.” He nodded at the giant TV.  “All we can do is head up river.”  A helicopter flew over following the river and we watched it pass through the bare trees between the house and the water.  “After dark.  Grady’s has boats, right?”

Will nodded.  “A couple Jon boats.”

I didn’t want to go and said so.  “If they find people trying to get away today or tonight, they’re going to know we know.  I don’t think they’re going to be worried about people in their house watching the news - they want us to watch the news.  But if y’all want to hit the river again tonight, I’ll go with …” 

“I think we should see how the day unfolds before we decide.”  Mrs. Williams said, stepping over to the coffee pot.  “Come get your coffee, Dove.”  She poured a fresh cup.  “I think we should definitely be ready to go and have our bug out bags, as Reginald calls them, packed and ready, though.  We really need to rest, we’ll all in shock and mourning.”  She rubbed my shoulder, handed me the mug, and looked at Moonshine.  

“All I know is that we need to stay in the house because anyone looking down from those choppers could see us clear as day if we’re outside.”  Moonshine sniffed and Princess handed him some tissues. 

We agreed on the wait and see, but be-ready plan, and turned back to the TV.  We spent the day doing normal things, or as normal as can be had in our particular situation.  Sully read, Mrs. Williams cooked and washed clothes.  I found this journal in Grady’s desk and started writing down our experience, Princess lingered in front of the mirror as though she hadn’t seen herself in a very long time and played with her hair, and Rotten spent the day searching the dark holes of the Internet, while everyone else napped and watched the TV. 

We did have our bags packed and ready, and Moonshine, Will, and Highland did go outside to make sure that the Jon boats were gassed and ready to go, but the decision to stay came in the late afternoon when Rotten called us into the office to show us what he had found in the rabbit holes on the web.  “It’s happening,” he said as we gathered around the large desktop screen.  “The zombie apocalypse is happening, it got out.  Remember that wildfire I told you about out west somewhere?  It was in Montana and this is a video taken last night in Billings.”  He clicked a video titled, “Weird rolling dude” and we watched a man roll down the street, just as he and I had seen outside the warehouse windows in Blacksport. 

“Here’s another from Cheyenne.”  He clicked a video entitled “What the fuck!!!” and we watched a woman back flipping through traffic, growling, and trying to break into car windows. 

“That gas explosion in Texas?  These were shot in Dallas and Houston.”   A naked man hopped across the tops of cars parked along a residential street as though he had springs in his feet.  He bounced from one to the other with seemingly little effort and then landed, crouched down like an animal, before he bounced out of the range of the camera.  The next video was short, shaky, and deafening with screams and showed a man attacking a woman and tearing into her violently, her white shirt quickly turning dark.

“The videos are disappearing from the web, being yanked by the censors I guess, right after they are uploaded and I lost a few of them before I started downloading and saving them.  And this is Atlanta, Columbia, and Charlotte.”  We watched the videos of people loping like cats, hopping over cars, rolling and back flipping through streets, shopping malls, and beaches, and tearing the flesh from other human beings that heralded the beginning of the nation-wide zombie apocalypse.  “I don’t think they planned this, they lost control of their monsters and these zombies aren’t burning up in the sun.” 

For the rest of the day and into the evening more states were added to the list of where it had spread - New Mexico, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nebraska, Florida, Alabama - and our plans changed again and now our fear was focused back on the zombies instead of the soldiers in unmarked black uniforms.  We unpacked our bags, distributing the guns, and then sat around the table having dinner and planning for the zombie apocalypse with both seriousness and laughter. 

Day Four

Sunday

December 14, 2014

Sunday morning the television news still focused on the devastation of Freemont and Blacksport until an anchor was attacked on live TV during one of the morning talk shows.  The cameraman must have also been attacked because the camera fell and filmed a little longer, showing the chaos of running feet.  We heard the screams, the panic, and then a head rolled to a stop in front of the lens.  No one laughed, as this head was definitely not funny, and then the feed switched to a pre-recorded broadcast of the Super Bowl.

We spent the rest of the morning and afternoon fortifying the cabin as best as we could and luckily we had to only concern ourselves with the front of the house as it was built into the hill.  We found some fishing wire and strung up noise makers of pots and pans and fishing bells and other odds and ends through the woods as an early warning system for an incoming zombie horde and divvied up the hours to make sure we had an armed guard stationed twenty-four hours a day.  We couldn’t do much about the wall of windows, but we closed in the deck and the small patio outside the downstairs door with wood and barbed wire that we found in the shed.  And then Moonshine climbed on the roof and covered the skylight with a piece of plywood.  After that there wasn’t much to do except wait, watch, and keep up with the updates on the TV and Internet.

By Sunday evening, the channels that were still broadcasting were showing reruns or the loop of the footage of the river cresting its banks and washing away the remains of Blacksport and Freemont.  “The revolution will not be televised,” Rotten muttered as he tossed the remote on the couch, leaving
It’s a Wonderful Life
on the screen.  Meanwhile the videos on the Internet were coming in worldwide and no longer being censored.  At dinner we realized we hadn’t heard a single helicopter all day and we discussed how it could have spread so far and so quickly and worried that we may suddenly and unexpectedly turn into something less than human. 

“It must have mutated from the original strain, it could be airborne now,” Rotten said.

“That guy on the talk show was just as normal as could be and seconds later he attacked,” I said.  “That’s what happened in Blacksport everyone was normal and then seconds later they weren’t.”

“But he was the only one that turned,” Moonshine said.

“So what’s the method of delivery?”  Highland said.

“What if it spreads like the flu?  You get a little sniffle and boom!” Princess punched her hand. “You’re a zombie.”

“What if with millions of dead zombies all over the world it gets into the water?”  Moonshine eyes widened.  “At least Grady left us lots of beer.” He laughed.

“This is what we know, one, you guys still think too much.” Sully smiled.  “And two, it started in the states, now Reginald you told us of where the earlier experiments were done out in Texas and Montana and from the videos you showed us the first signs of it were out there and then here.  From the articles of the other disasters it looks like there was a month between each test and we have to assume that each test was similar to what happened in Blacksport.