The Undead World (Book 1): The Apocalypse (37 page)

“
Short bursts,” she said as the first zombies came up. There were so many that the stairs creaked under their weight. Neil fired—pop, pop, pop. Making sure to conserve his ammo, but it was futile. Sadie saw there were enough zombies to tear down the entire...

One thought led to another and she suddenly yelled,
“Shoot the stairs! The top one, shoot it right in the middle!” Neil's eyes went wide at the idea and as Sadie pushed the beasts back with her pitchfork, he used the SAW like a saw and tore the tread in two. Immediately the zombies on it fell backward creating havoc among them and while they tore at each other to get up, he destroyed the next stair and the next. He ran out of bullets trying the fourth stair, but it didn't matter. It came apart under the weight of the zombies and they plunged downward.

Now there was a gap of almost four feet and the zombies were stymied by it and fell through one after another. This went on for quite a while. The zombies would come up, see their dinner, race faster and then plunge through the opening to the cement below.

Sadie and Neil watched for a bit and then when it got disgusting, they retreated to the straw and made a burrow of it to keep warm.
Curled up in the straw with Eve between them sucking on her finger, Sadie asked, “Is Julia really dead?”

“
Yeah,” Neil breathed. “It was terrible...but what was worse was you running off like that. You had me scared to death.”

Sadie kissed Eve
's round cheek and said, “It was worth it. But what was your excuse?”

He fumbled for words before trying,
“I wanted to be a hero?”

“
Some hero! You should have seen yourself jitterbugging all over the place working that machine gun. I swear you looked like you were just trying to hold on. So...how did you find me? You have no idea how scared I was.”

“
Ram saw where you went into the woods, and then I could hear you firing. You shot a few times and I oriented on that and then by the house I saw the flashes and heard you and Sadie going at it like a couple of gun old west gunfighters. And you weren't the only one scared. Sometimes I was running right next to the zombies, it was horrible.”

“
But you saved me,” Sadie said and then grinned. “You're my hero, Neil.” She kissed him on the nose, because it was the only part of his face that wasn't cherry-red.

Eric walked around the oval perimeter of the CDC with sweat on his upper lip and a digital camera in his hand. He was told to use it brazenly, that if he tried to sneak pictures of the defenses he would be caught for certain.

“
I can't believe I'm doing this,” he whispered to himself, running a hand over his face after every picture, feeling the weight of his actions like stones piling in his gut. “This is fucking treason.”

Or it would be if there was still a working government. He hadn
't wanted to go along with the coup attempt. Stubbornly, he had tried to resist, however Admiral Stevenson had laid out rather clearly his reasoning and it had made sense at the time:

“
The Secretary is criminal in her dereliction of duty,” Admiral Stevenson had said as if the idea saddened him. “You have no idea how dangerous she is in her ineptness. All across the country we've lost thousands of soldiers in the last week alone, and God only knows how many millions of civilians. And if she continues on doing nothing, hiding out in the CDC, there won't be anything left of this country.”

“
But attacking the CDC won't help you. This is where we can find a cure, or a vaccine,” Eric had stammered out a defense. “If what you're saying is true about the rest of the world being overrun then we definitely can't put the CDC at risk. It's now more important than ever.”

A grave smile crossed the a
dmiral's lips. “Not if you’re just spinning your wheels and wasting precious supplies uselessly. That’s exactly what’s been happening with the Secretary in charge. The truth is this is about uniting our country once again under a single leader; it’s not about the CDC or finding a cure. You said yourself that it might not ever happen.”

“
No we can do it. It'll just take...”

“
Seven years?” Stevenson asked, using Eric's words against him. “I wasn't joking about only having seven months. We need leadership now or the coming winter will ravage us and maybe takes us to the brink of extinction. You need to weigh these facts Dr Reidy and look to the greater good. Yes people will die in the short run and I wish that weren't so, but in the long run it'll be for the best.”

“
And what will you do with the CDC?” Eric asked. “You won't just give up on a vaccine will you?”

“
Yes,” the admiral admitted. The answer was like a slap and Eric actually reeled back. “Yes. For now. I’ll keep some essentials on staff, but I’ve got to look at the bigger picture. The CDC has fifteen hundred men guarding triple their own number, while at the same time there are refugee camps of five-thousand citizens being guarded by a single company of soldiers. We have literally become a country of vagabonds and yet the great majority of our recourses go to a group of scientists who may or may not produce something in seven years! Paring back the manpower at the CDC should have been done weeks ago and it's just another example of failed leadership.”

The
admiral wasn't wrong about the Secretary, or her leadership skills, nor was he wrong in any of his arguments, however Eric didn't agree to help the coup for those reasons. He had other motives, the first was the fact that there was a sense of futility at the CDC—a sense that they were just going through the motions. It was as if everyone knew they were doomed as a species. It came out in their work and in their reports: there wasn't a single bright spot, nor a ray of hope in all the experiments. Had there been one, Eric would've risked his life to keep the CDC sacrosanct.

And his other rationale was that the admiral made it clear
that Eric would be killed if he didn’t help.

Therefore
he took the camera, and the satellite phone, and the encrypted laptop and went back to the Secretary with false promises on his lips.

The pictures of the facility, both inside and out were easy to come by,
“For my scrapbook,” he had said when asked. It was the technical information, the troop numbers, the location of air defenses and their counts, the fuel situation of the Strykers, things of that nature that took him days to ascertain.

It was difficult,
but it gave him hope that the admiral was being true to his word that he was looking for a surgical operation with the fewest casualties. “I could just level the place with Tomahawk cruise missiles,” he had said. “However the facility has proved its worth as a forward operating base and in these days that can't be overlooked.” Eric didn't know what the man meant by that exactly, but it was a relief nonetheless.

Finally when he had all the information he needed, Eric sent his encrypted message containing every possible bit of knowledge he had come by and then he waited feeling sick to his stomach, regretting his decision and yet not regretting it at the same time. He went back and forth literally as well as figuratively, pacing his room, wondering if it wasn
't too late to take it back.

That night he didn
't sleep. He sat by the phone hoping to hear something, anything. At midnight the phone rang once and Eric leapt at it. “Hello? Hello? This is Eric...I mean Dr Reidy.”

A voice said:
“Eleven hundred hours. Maintain Emcon blackout.”

Eric had a sudden panic attack over this.
“I don't understand what you mean. Are you saying it'll be eleven hundred hours before you attack...”

“
Don't say another word!” the voice ordered. “Eleven o'clock tomorrow morning. Do not use the phone or the computer. Do not attempt to transmit anything. Now do you understand?”

“
Yes,” Eric whispered. In the next second the phone went dead and he could only stare at it for long minutes. “This is for the best. In the long run I'm saving lives and besides, the Secretary is useless. Everyone thinks so.” Everyone did.

Despite his words, Eric began to pack. He had no clue where he was going, he just knew he couldn
't be at the CDC when the attack happened. Nor could he be there afterwards. Of all the nonessentials he was likely the most nonessential of all. He wasn't a warrior or a scientist, he didn't own a PhD, and his only real skill was as a butt kisser, and an opportunist, and a traitor.

Packing took surprisingly little time and the rest of the night as the clock ticked slowly on, he sat on his bags and stared vacantly at his bed, wondering if he should tuck the corners in better. By sunrise he still hadn
't come to a decision about it.

And then it was
nearly eleven and time to go. Eric left his room with his eyes down and didn't dare look another person in the face until he was at the main gate. There he lied with every part of himself: his false smile, his phony demeanor, his dishonest words: “I have to collect some samples. Yes, I'll be careful. I'll be back tomorrow. No, I should be safe enough.”

And then he was through the gate where only death awaited to free him from his guilt.

Just as Eric Reidy spent his night awake, so too did Victor Ramirez, and just like Eric, Ram felt about as nonessential as a man could. He had failed Julia and the baby, he had allowed a slip of a girl to run off into a forest teeming with zombies, and then he watched helplessly as Neil took up the SAW and went out after her. He had tried to go himself, but his knee would not allow it and Sarah had held him back, sobbing as she did.

For Ram, the twenty-three pounds of metal was a nuisance, but for Neil the tip of the weapon dipped after only a few seconds. He wasn
't going to make it. Ram knew it and yet he didn't open his mouth to stop him from going. Neil was doing what a real man would—he was going to save his daughter.

“
I was asleep,” he whispered to the night. “I fell asleep as if carting around a few bags and sitting in a car all day was actual work! Fuck!” He raged at the dark and next to him Sarah put a hand to her mouth as she wept.

“
Get inside,” he bellowed at her. “Go, or do you want to wind up like...” Just then a gunshot came to them from the forest and then another. They both knew what those shots meant—the zombies had found Sadie. Sarah stifled a cry with her hand, grabbing her own face in her misery and Ram pleaded to her, “I'm sorry. Please I didn't mean to yell. But...but you should get up into the loft.”

“
And what about you?” Sarah asked. “You can't go after them. You're hurt. You'll die for nothing.”

Just then it didn
't seem to matter to Ram if he lived or died. He had fallen so hard for Julia and so quick that it didn't make sense to him. It was as though nature, knowing that it didn't have many humans left to work with, had made the love happen—had forced it on them, and because of where they both were in their lives they had accepted it greedily.

And now Julia was dead and seeing her body like that hurt him worse than any pain he had ever withstood.
“I should bury her. I can't wait until morning. It'll haunt me if I don't.” Sarah didn't argue, instead she guarded over him as he buried her, and cried as the far away gunfire grew in intensity. They listened, wearing matching masks of fear and of course the feeling multiplied a hundred times when the gunfire ceased altogether.

Then the night stretched out forever and morning left the two of them staring at each other wondering what they were going to do and how they were going to go on with whatever was left of their lives. They were both red-eyed and each second was a misery and each breath seemed like a wasted effort
—but then Sadie popped up the ladder, looking fresh as though she had slept like a baby.

“
I need bullets and a bottle, Eve is starving like you wouldn't believe.”

“
She's alive?” Sarah asked in amazement, staring in open-mouthed wonder at the girl. “What about Neil?”

As if to confirm what her eyes were telling her, Sarah reached out for
her, however Sadie was already past them and rooting around in the bags. Over her shoulder, she said, “That reminds me. I also need a diaper and some wipes.”

“
What about Neil?” Sarah demanded again.

“
They're not for him,” Sadie replied with a grin. “Though he almost crapped himself last night. Hell, I almost crapped myself last night.”

“
He's ok,” Sarah whispered. “Neil is ok.” She said it as though to force herself to believe something she knew couldn't be true. “He's ok. And the baby's ok...did you kill
her
? Did you kill Cassie?”

Now Sadie
's mood darkened. “Not yet I haven't. If I ever see her again I will, I promise you that.” This last she said to Ram, and she said it so fiercely that it swelled something inside of him. It was the knowledge that he wasn't alone. All during the night the feeling had crept in. Yes he had Sarah right there, however she had drifted into another world—a world where suicide was fast becoming a pleasing option to her pain. He saw it in her eyes, the giving up. And Ram had felt alone like he had never before. It was a scary feeling as though the world was growing into a vast empty desert and he was left to stand isolated and solitary.

After Sadie dropped a couple of fresh magazines into the diaper bag along with one of the
Berettas, she stood and Ram hugged her unexpectedly. It was a surprise for both of them and Sadie was set to offer her customary smart-assed comment, but stopped short when she saw the tears in his eyes.

“
I didn't do anything special,” she said.

“
You did,” Ram told her. “But I'm not hugging you for saving Eve. I'm just happy you're alive. I don't know if I could've taken it if you had died too.”

Sadie gave a little awkward laugh and turned pink
, but then her eyes clouded. “I’m sorry about Julia,” she said. “I didn’t know her very well except I knew she’d be a great mom.”

Ram couldn’t say anything to this as his throat seized up at the sound of her name.

They gathered supplies and rather than making the harrowing journey through the forest which many of the creatures seemed to consider their home in the daytime, Sarah suggested loading up the farm's tractor which sat far out in a lonely field, and driving it instead. They had encountered tractors before in their travels and discovered that most were full of diesel, however since they used gasoline they tended to just ignore them.

Now, with Ram still limping badly, it seemed the only
workable plan they had to get to Neil and Eve. Sadie worried that a tractor would be way too slow, while Ram worried that he wouldn't know how to operate one. Sarah, as a farmer's daughter did the driving, and showed them what a tractor could do. It wasn't the fastest thing in the world, still it chugged along at twenty-five miles per hour, twice as fast as the fastest zombie.

Neil heard them coming
from a long way off and met them with Eve in one hand and the SAW in the other. “Impressive,” he said of the big green machine, when Sarah turned it off.

“
Not as impressive as you,” she replied and then jumped down and kissed him full on the mouth. Sadie took the baby and was about to feed her when she saw Ram staring at Neil and Sarah in anguish.

“
Here, you better get used to feeding her,” she said to get his mind on something else.

Ram took Eve and nearly dropped her right off the bat
—beneath her pink blanket it was though she was made of spaghetti and he had trouble arranging her in his arms as she seemed constantly ready to slip out.

“
Like this,” Sadie said, settling the baby in the crook of one his strong arms. “And the bottle goes in there.”

“
I got that part,” he said, slipping the bottle into Eve's hungry mouth. “Wow, she really is going to town. I wish...I wish...” He couldn't finish his sentence as his emotions threatened to sink him as all he could picture was how Julia had held Eve and fed her.

“
Yeah, I wish the same thing,” Sadie said. She then patted him on the head, absently feeling the springiness of his hair as she looked down at the baby. “You can do this still, if you want to. Be the Dad, I mean. We'll all help. You can count on us. I'll be the crazy cousin who gets her in trouble, and Neil and Sarah can be the aunt and uncle. What do you think?”

Ram hoisted Eve to his broad shoulder, amazed at the way she drew her legs up to her chest.
“She needs a new mom. In this world a baby needs both parents and a big sister, but I'll be an uncle, a very doting uncle...but right now it kills me to even look at her.”

Despite saying this he smiled when Eve said,
“Urp.”

Sadie laughed and stroked Eve
's back before calling out to Neil and Sarah, “Hey, you two smooch machines, you have a baby now so you can cut it out. Ram is going to be Uncle Ram from here on.”

Sarah closed her eyes, letting her forehead lean on Neil
's chest. She was joyfully sad, and Ram was happy for her, but crushed for himself. And yet he didn't come unglued mentally, which was something that he'd been dreading: the vacant mind, the uncaring eyes that saw reality as though it were a movie—as though the people around him were fake, and of course the saturating guilt that breathed from his every pore.

Instead he knew sadness and hatred on equal levels, and beneath it a small joy that Eve and Sadie had lived. He was the first to push the group on to the CDC. The events of the last day had given him new purpose. Before his main concerns in life had been little more than basic survival and the finding
of happiness in a cruel world with Julia; now he was set on finding Cassie and making her pay. The very idea sent a shiver through him and had his teeth on edge, while his eyes grew sharp.

Yet he was an uncle now and he owed it to Eve to deliver the blood of the terrorist. He had no clue if it would do a damned bit of good, but he was determined to try.
“Mount up people,” he said. Gone was the Suburban, Cassie must have taken it the night before, and so they rode the tractor and it proved a loud, but adequate vehicle. It could go practically anywhere and since they all felt that this was the last leg of their journey they pushed it to its limits.

It wasn
't long before they left the fields behind and came upon the sprawling and ill-defined metropolis of Atlanta. A map was of little help in finding the CDC, however they chanced upon another APC and Sadie was quick to volunteer to ask for directions.

She slid down the edge of the tractor and jogged over to the armored box. This one had its manhole cover thrown back and the little group watched as Sadie took down directions with a disappointed air.

“What's wrong?” Ram asked. “Did they give you attitude?”

“
No, they were all just old,” she said, making a face. “Here are the directions.” She held out her hand and upon it was writing in blue ink. “Is that a one do you think?”

It turned out to be a seven, but it hardly mattered and they drove across the top end of Atlanta unimpeded save for a few thousand curious zombies who came out of their day places at the passing of the diesel engine
—Sarah kept it floored to elude them, so the group bounced and chugged along and Eve slept contentedly, while Neil got “tractor” sick.

It was a
two-hour drive at those low speeds. Still they came upon the CDC at mid-morning and they gaped all around at the piled cars and the torn fencing...and the people. None of them had seen so many people in days.

Sarah was nervous because soldiers made up the greatest numbers of them, while Sadie was the most excited because she saw teens of her age and younger; she proudly showed off Eve to anyone who wished to see, though she was equally quick to pull back if anyone put a hand out.

“Not till you wash your hands, proper,” she insisted. Since there was nowhere to wash their hands it was all looky, no touchy when it came to the baby. All the civilians in sight were waiting for an armored bus that would take them to one of the refugee camps, the sound of which had Ram looking askance, and Neil grimacing nervously.

“
We're not here for that,” Ram said to the gate guard. There were two gates: coming and going, and at the moment there was only a single man going and just Ram and his party coming. “We're here to talk to someone concerning a possible vaccine. We have blood that was taken from...”

“
We don't take any more zombie blood, sorry,” the guard said. “If you want to go on to the refugee center then we need you to get in that line over there.”

“
We want to go inside,” Sarah said, pointing at the shiny buildings. “We came all this way...”

The guard just shook his head.
“And I'm very sorry about that, but we're full. I recommend the refugee camp. It's a better alternative then trying to make it alone.”

In a wrath, Ram stepped close to the guard and held up the vial of red blood.
“Does this look like zombie blood to you?”

“
What is it?” the soldier asked, seeing the color and raising his eyebrows.

“
It's blood from a vaccinated man,” Ram told him, locking eyes, hoping to convey the truth of his statement with the force of his will.

“
I don't know,” the guard said, slowly. “I'm not supposed to take any more blood. We get like ten vials a day...but hold on. Hey you! Dr Reidy, you're one of the scientists, right?”

Eric Reidy turned, afraid and jumpy.
“Who me? I'm not a scientist, I'm...why? What's going on? Is something happening?”

“
Just these people have some blood. You should take a look at it.”

Eric shook his head, relaxing a bit.
“Naw. No more blood. Make sure you don't break it when you throw it away.” He turned to go, but Ram hobbled to him and grabbed him by the shoulder, turning the man around.

“
Look at it,” he said in a tone that demanded attention. “This isn't zombie blood. I got it from one of the initial terrorists. His name was Shehzad something, I think he was from Qatar. I tracked him down in L.A.”

“
Shehzad,” Eric whispered. He glanced once at the vial and then looked up into the sky, scanning all around and Ram noted the sweat on his lip despite the cool of the morning. “And how did you get this blood?”