The Doomsday Infection (15 page)

CHAPTER 21

DAY THREE

SUNDAY JULY 3
rd

06:45 AM

“Gentlemen,” President Hamilton Parker appeared on the screens in the war room via video-link. The gathered Chiefs of Staff looked surprised by the President’s disheveled appearance, he’d taken his jacket off and his tie hung loose. “We’re fighting a losing battle in Florida . . . I’m sure you’ve all got your own sources and know this to be true. As fast as we catch one darkie ten more take their place. We cannot let any get out, I cannot stress this enough, we’ve all seen the diagrams and have read the forecasted predictions, well, I can tell you that they were wildly underestimated,” The Chiefs of Staff absorbed this news with horror-stricken faces, before the President continued. “We have less than twenty four-hours to save ourselves.”

“What about Florida?” Quinn Martell asked.

“Florida’s gone,” the President replied as easily as if writing off a lost sock.      

The Joint Chiefs of Staff gasped their disbelief.

“I know it sounds callous, but we now have to concentrate on the rest of the country, and I can assure you at this moment in time OUR future is not certain.” He paused for the notion to sink in.

“My god . . .” exclaimed Vice Admiral Reed.

“It is time for bold action and I have a plan as a last resort. But if any of you can think of anything to stop the fugitives heading north let’s hear it now.” No one spoke. “This is the problem we face, we’re trying to police fifteen hundred miles of freeway, another ten thousand miles of highway, probably double that including the other streets, and tracks and what have you. The navy is trying to cope with seventeen hundred miles of coastline and on top of that in the middle there are two million acres of the Everglades, and don’t get me started on the interconnecting lakes, rivers and waterways.”

“So,” he said, taking a breath. “As you can see
, the problem is enormous and frankly, nigh on impossible to solve.”

“B
ut aren’t the victims dying off, won’t that be the end of the problem?” said the vice admiral.

“Sure, they’re dying in their hundreds of thousands, which causes another problem, all those bodies are infected and need disposing of. We’re burning the corpses as fast as we can, but it’ll take months to clear the back-log, and then we
’ve got those goddamn rats, spreading the disease around further. The survivors will be minimal, but we still don’t know if they’re incubating the disease and will succumb later, or that they are carriers, and will infect the rest of us.”

Quinn said; “But they could be fine
, healthy human beings?”

“Well, I for one, am not willing to find out.”

“What are you suggesting?”

The President smiled weakly. “You’re not going to like it . . .”

07:10 AM

Jenkins Forest awoke for the second day without food or water and groaned aloud when he remembered his predicament. He lifted himself gently from the lower bunk in his weakened state and staggered to the metal bars hoping that things had changed, but none of the comforting sounds of other survivors greeted him only a deathly silence. He leaned his head against the metal bars, even the metal had warmed up in the incessant heat.

He had to face it; he was trapped in his cramped cell with Kincaid who was suffering with
what he could only assume was advanced Aids. The sonofabitch puked on him, and Jenkins was convinced that some got in his own mouth. Ain’t that one of the ways the gay plague transmitted? Sonofabitch would pay for that. Although he doubted Kincaid made it through the night.

Jenkins wondered how much longer he could survive without water. His stomach had rumbled through lack of food all damned night. However, it
was the lack of water that was driving him insane. He’d never known anything like it. It was agony and if that wasn’t bad enough he was stuck in this shit-hole with the puke-monster.

He quickly glanced at Kincaid, slumped over the john. He was breathing, just. He absolutely reeked. He puked up most of the night and if it wasn’t one end it was the other, although by the look of him he’d
just soiled himself again, and not bothered to use the can. Vomit, urine, excrement and blood splattered the tiny cell floor.

He’d concluded that everyone else must have died too. There were no sounds on the wing from his fellow inmates, no guards, no orderlies, nada. The lights had burst on at seven a
.m., regular as clockwork and that gave him a glimmer of hope, but then he remembered that they switched on automatically and would do until the prison’s electricity generator finally gave up the ghost, then he’d be in total darkness to add to the misery.

The stifling hot cell and the odor made him gag. Maybe it was god’s punishment after all. He was paying for his sins, well and truly.

Kincaid stirred and grinned, making the pus filled rings on his face weep. He did not have the energy to wipe it away; he was beyond caring.

“What you g
rinning at, fool?”

“You; trapped in here with me.”

“So what?”

“Getting what you deserve,” he said though cracked lips.

“You think? You maybe. Not me.”

“I’ve studied you, you could say.” His dark black tongue flicked around his lips trying to give them moisture. “You act like the big, tough guy, but you’re just a bully. I know about you, beating woman and kids.”

“What you saying?”

“Jeanette Dumas, remember her?”

“No.”

“You had one date with her, she didn’t want a second, said you gave out a bad vibe,” he hissed.

“So?”

“So?! So, you poured acid in her face. You disfigured her for life.” His voice rasped as he drew in labored breath. “I’m guessing she wasn’t the only one?”

“The bitches deserved it. If I ain’t gonna have ‘em, no one else will.”

“You really are a twisted fuck.” He sniggered.

“Shut your mouth or I‘ll -”

“What? What can you do to me? You seriously want to touch me and be infected with this?” He pointed at himself and scratched at one of the numerous black lumps that bulged from his neck
. It popped and liquid oozed down his neck.

Jenkins recoiled at the sight. “What you got, man – Aids?”

Kincaid snorted. “No. I was as healthy as you, yesterday morning when I arrived. I caught this here, along with everyone else by the sounds of it.”

“If it
ain’t Aids what is it?”

“This is payback.”

“I don’t deserve this.”

“I’m accepting my fate,” he said his voice hardly registering. “I DO deserve it, but I was born with my urges. I couldn’t keep them under control and now I’m being punished by this pestilence from God. But you? You had a choice. You chose to maim, blind and kill without compunction.”

“Fuck you man. I don’t deserve this shit.”

Kincaid t
ried to laugh but only a gurgle emitted from between his cracked lips. “You’re going to die, no doubt about that, and it’ll be in torment.”

“Oh yeah? Well, at least I
ain’t got your weird disease.”

“You’re the only one that hasn’t.”

“That right I’ve been singled out by your God to be immune.”

“You’ll be begging for death before the day is out.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Dying of thirst is the worst
excruciating agony known to man, you’ll go insane. You’ll climb the walls, as your internal organs shut down one by one, you’ll be begging to catch my disease; to die far more quickly and mercifully.”

Jenkins felt the hairs raise on the back of his neck at the prospect of what the runt told him, when Kincaid sniggered.

“What’s so funny?”

“Before nightfall you’ll be so parched and insane from thirst that you’ll be drinking the shit-filled water from the toilet.”

Jenkins shuddered as Kincaid’s high-pitched cackle filled the cell.

07:20 AM

It was another blistering hot day as Luke and Sophie stood by the chain-link fence next to the metal gates guarding the small private airstrip; the tarmac shimmered with a heat-haze, making the main office in the distance appear like a mirage. A small crowd had gathered. Luke touched his firearm for reassurance. “They’re probably friendly.”

“How do you figure that?”

“They’re civilians trying to escape.”

How are we going to get in? She asked, pointing at the padlocked gates. Luke eyed a nearby truck. She followed his line of sight. “How are you going to start it?”

He jumped in the cab. “Friends in low places,” he said and yanked wires from under the dash. “Misspent youth. The noisy diesel engine clattered into life, he smirked. “Jump in.”  

She hopped up into the cab, and he shifted the stick into gear. “I still don’t see how this is going to get us into the airstrip?”

He concentrated on the gates, and once again, she followed his line of vision, “Oh no. . .” she held on tight as Luke revved the engine, slipped the clutch and c
atapulted across the street, smashing through the gates easily. They dragged underneath with a terrible screeching of metal, alerting the crowd by the main office.

A short fat guy raised a rifle, as did the other armed members of the crowd. Luke alighted from the truck cab, with his hands raised. “Get back in your truck.” said the fat man. “And drive away.”

“We wanna escape – same as you,” Luke said evenly.

“Let me see. . .” said a lanky pencil thin man standing on the wing of a private jet. “How much they’re willing to pay?” he said.

“Hey, you already agreed my price,” a blonde woman said indignantly.

“There’s only one seat and it’s going to the highest bidder.”

“That’s disgraceful,” said Sophie in disgust. “Take a larger plane, then you can take more people.”

“Listen, lady, I
ain’t no charity, I’m getting me out of here. Now, if I can make a few bucks auctioning the other seat, well, that’s just the American way. So do we have any higher bids?”

“I’ll give you my house!”

“In plague city, uhuh, I don’t think so.”

“I’ll give you my car.”

“Why would I want a car when I’ve got a plane? I’ve told you; it’s cold hard cash. No more bids? OK Blondie, I’m all yours.”

She glared at him angrily, and then trotted over to the small-two
seater Cessna TT. The crowd surged towards him, and he waved his pistol threateningly at them. “Don’t tempt me, I’ll shoot.”

Luke said; “Fly it low, man, and away from the major airports, otherwise -”

“Are you a pilot?” he asked. The others in the crowd turned hopefully towards him.

“No, but -”

“Then shut the fuck up. I’ve been doing this for years. It’s going to be pedal to the metal up, up and away.” He opened the aircraft door, clambered into the driver’s seat to leave the blonde woman standing on the wing.

“I don’t think I want to go . . .,” the blonde woman said nervously.

“Don’t go. Stay. I don’t care. But, I’ll tell you this, I’m keeping your money and I’ll sell the seat to someone else.”

“Me!” shot up a hand.

“No, me!” said a man, yanking the previous bidder back so hard he fell over onto the cement. A lady stepped on him to raise herself and catch the pilot's eye.

“Me, sir, I’ll do anything to get out of Florida!” she begged.

The pilot looked her up and down and sneered. “Not my type.”

A young man pushed the lady out of his way and she tripped over the prone man still on the ground. “I’ll do it, anything you desire, just get me out of here!”

The blonde-haired woman noted their desperation and reluctantly climbed in.

The crowd groaned, but the youth jumped on the wing. “You
ain’t going anywhere without me.” He walked towards the door and the pilot raised his pistol and shot him in the stomach, the boy staggered back, looked down in disbelief at the blood pumping from between his fingers and fell off the wing.

Sophie gasped at the dead teenager and shuddered at the pilot’s cold-heartedness, but the message got through to the crowd and they backed away as the single engine propeller chugged into life.

“Come on,” Luke said galvanizing the crowd. “Let’s see if one of the private jets has been left unlocked.”

The gang spread out
, rattling handles, when Luke eyed a nine passenger Citation XLS-seater high wing luxury jet, he muttered a silent prayer as he looked heavenward, he tried the handle and it opened. “Cool!” he turned to the others. “Over here, this one’s unlocked. We can all get on it.”

“You
’re gonna fly us out of here?” Sophie asked in surprise.

“I’m going to do my damndest,” he said and smiled confidently.