The Nothing Men, page 13
part #1 of The Nothing Men Series
The Panic had hit during a glorious springtime in central North Carolina. High pressure was locked in over the area, delivering beautiful day after beautiful day as the world descended into chaos. The air was clear and bright and the buildings shimmered against the clear blue sky. The night skies were black and moonless, and as the power grids started failing, the starshine grew brighter and stronger. Every night, after Gavin was in bed, he and Sarah would take a break from their preparations and look skyward. The stars shone down like a million specks of diamond scattered across a velvet blanket. They kept Gavin as isolated as they could, not lying to him exactly, but downplaying the extent of the ever-deepening horror as the Orchid virus spread unchecked.
It had happened quickly, so quickly that no one was quite sure where exactly the outbreak had originated, and the initial response had been flat-footed. The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta was a popular suspect, with many believing that the virus had escaped the CDC’s Level 4 labs, where the feds kept their nastiest bugs. Others believed the outbreak had started at Fort Detrick in Maryland, where the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Disease was supposed to be working on ways to protect the nation from biological attack. The conspiracy theorists (and who was to say they hadn’t been right) went insane on the Internet, before it had gone down in mid-April, claiming that the military had developed a serum to create supersoldiers and then left a vial of it on the subway or some crazy shit like that.
In the end, it hadn’t really mattered a whole lot, because once the virus was loose, it spread like a wildfire in drought-stricken grasslands. States began closing their borders and exercising dominion over their military bases.
Even now, more than two years after the last documented case of Orchid, scientists still didn’t understand much about the virus. The incubation period was short, the virus’ victims remaining asymptomatic for only one to three hours. Then the body temperature would skyrocket to one hundred and five degrees, give or take a tenth or two, where it remained for the balance of the symptomatic period. Orchid triggered violent behavior in its hosts after the asymptomatic period ended, but no one knew what the basic foundation of it was. Infected persons spread the virus through bites and scratches, but unlike the undead zombies of pop culture, Reds did not eat their victims. Blood tests of Reds captured alive early on revealed huge spikes in adrenalin and noradrenalin, and interviews with them revealed that they believed that every living creature they encountered presented an immediate threat to their lives and that they had no choice but to attack first. That they remembered their actions was the worst part of it. Suicide had become a significant public health crisis. Thousands of Redeyes had taken their own lives since, as many as several hundred a day.
No one had been able to explain conclusively why the Reds didn’t attack each other, although some posited that the impossibly high levels of adrenalin made them virtually invisible to one another and that they only attacked living things whose adrenalin levels were wildly disproportionate to their own. Again, these were merely theories; nothing had been proven. No one knew why Redeyes flocked together and attacked in swarms.
Ben’s house sat in a cul-de-sac, the second one in from the right. It was a three-thousand-square-foot colonial that they’d owned for four years, purchased when he’d made partner, when Gavin was eight. He’d loved the house from the moment they’d set eyes on it, just as they’d been about to give up the house search and fire their agent after seeing fifty houses and hating every one. The yard was a bit of a pain in the ass to maintain, a good two hours to mow, and their plans for an organic vegetable garden had never quite gotten off the ground; after all, who enjoyed spending three months working to get a dozen cherry tomatoes? Other than that, the house was everything they’d hoped it would be. It was home.
By early April, the Sullivan house was well fortified, the fruits of Ben’s and Sarah’s labors, hours upon hours of boarding up windows and doors, digging a long ditch around the perimeter of the house, sleeping in shifts so someone could be awake at all times. But it had become a citadel, a place they may well die in. In the early days, neighbors had joined forces and built blockades at the subdivision’s two vehicular access points, but squabbling erupted as people argued about this pulling their weight or that person dicking around and in the end, of course, it all fell apart anyway when Greg Brown, the medical supply salesman down the street became symptomatic inside the safe zone. He ended up infecting every member of his family.
Ben and his neighbor Carlos had shot the five members of the Brown family when they had swarmed Ben’s house. Ben had never killed anyone before that day, and he would kill many more people before all was said and done. He had shot fifteen-year-old Katie Brown first and then her brother and mother; Carlos had shot the patriarch, Greg Brown, and the youngest Brown, Lydia, who was all of seven years old. There was little time to dwell on the horror of what he had done because just like that, they were onto the next thing they had to do to stay alive.
By mid-April, it was simply too dangerous to do anything but try and survive. Schools had closed. The sound of machine gun fire crackled all day; helicopter gunships swept the skies, bombarding Redeyes swarms, making a whole lot of noise and busting up a lot of buildings but accomplishing precisely squat. The calendar had become meaningless because every day was the same. Eat. Drink. Kill Survive. Sleep. And they were alone. By the end of April, the old ways of life were over. Tens of millions of Americans were infected and in many places around the country, it was all-out war, a battle against an enemy unlike anything encountered in the history of human conflict. The Redeyes had no organization to speak of, no command and control. They had no strategic objective other than to kill every living thing in their path. Their morale was never broken. They showed no fear because they felt none. There were no supply lines to cut, no intelligence to be obtained via espionage. And the worst thing, the thing that made the Reds most dangerous of all was that they did not care if they won or lost because to them it was not a war to win or lose; it was simply what they were.
And their ranks swelled exponentially, by the day, by the hour, by the minute. A single bite, scratch, or exposure to infected blood, saliva, or any other bodily fluid was more than enough to transmit the virus. And how the streets flowed with blood, the final act in the great play that was humanity, from the time Homo sapiens took its first steps through the time of the Romans and Charlemagne and the Dark Ages and the Black Death and the Inquisition and the bloody birth of nationalism to a pair of World Wars and the Holocaust to the cold war and the war on terror, all blinking neon arrows pointing toward this moment.
“Let’s just go,” Sarah had said one night after Gavin was asleep for the night. They had just finished taking inventory. The water would run out in two days, the food in four.
“Don’t think that’s a good idea,” Ben said. “We’ll be safer here.”
“We’re not safe here!” she snapped, loud enough that Gavin began to stir.
She had looked so beautiful right then, he recalled, her face gaunt and tired and dirty, a mama bear who would do anything to protect her cub. He could not believe that it had come to this. That their ‘til-death-do-us-part had come up on them so quickly and so horrifyingly.
“This?” she said, gesturing at their fortified encampment. “This is for show. They will get in here, and they will kill us! We need to get to the goddamn camps.”
She was talking about the refugee camps that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was planning to set up around the country. But they weren’t scheduled to open until mid-May at the earliest, if they opened at all.
But Ben had been stubborn.
“We’re safe here,” he’d said forcefully, so much so that he’d seen her recoil, maybe even feel a little afraid of him. He didn’t want to leave because once they left he felt that there would be nowhere else to go, no other step they could take. They’d be abandoning ship for a shaky future on the road, where only God knew what horrors were awaiting them. But as the calendar flipped to May, and the water ran dry and the cupboard emptied out, Sarah was ready to hightail it out of there and take their chances on the road. The prospect of Redeyes surrounding them was bad enough, and now they were facing the twin specters of starvation and dehydration. But there was still no reliable news about safe zones. In Ben’s mind, out there, they were as good as dead.
Finally, they had struck a deal. Ben would venture out on one more supply run, and if he came up empty, they would hit the road. Every day since he had recovered, he wondered how things might have been different if he hadn’t gone on that supply run.
It was bigger than a closet, but not by much. Just above Ben’s head was the cool metal of ductwork and wiring running across the length of the low ceiling. A long table in the corner of the room was covered in assorted gear that might prove useful. As he hustled over to inspect it, his right foot caught on something, and he toppled forward toward the cold concrete, he braced his fall with his hands; they buzzed with pain as they smacked the floor. Wincing, he turned back to see what he’d tripped on, and he quickly forgot about the pain..
Four bodies, all decayed enough to make any sort of identification impossible. The size of the bodies and their orientation, however, left little doubt about what Ben had found. Two adult skeletons, their backs up against the wall, each holding a smaller skeleton on their laps. A handgun lay a few feet away from the larger body’s hand. The three smaller bodies were entwined in an embrace. The mother had held them while their father had shot them.
Ben looked dumbly at the scene before him, his mind already going through its paces, trying to imagine how bad it must have gotten before this man had murdered his family and turned the gun on himself. His subconscious began filling in the gaps, caulking in the space constituting the things he did not know, and he could see them here, hoping to ride out the storm, realizing they never would. Perhaps there’d been a herd of Reds outside, scratching and clawing to get in.
Tears welled up in the beds of his eyes, overflowing like rain-swollen ponds. He wiped them away with the backs of his hands and set back to exploring the room. He and Sarah had had this discussion. If there was nowhere to go, nowhere to run, he wouldn’t let the Redeyes get to them. She made him swear to it, and he did. It was why this particular scene had affected him so badly. He’d seen countless thousands of bodies in the past year, of men, women, and children, more than anyone would ever imagine seeing in a million lifetimes, way past the point that it had any impact, long rendering him immune to the shock of mass death. His mind on auto-pilot, he retrieved the gun and tucked it into the waistband of his pants. He did it almost reflexively. When you found something of value, you took it first and decided later whether it was worth keeping.
There was a large backpack stashed in the corner, new and heavy with supplies. He looked back at the deceased family, closed his eyes in thanks, and lugged the backpack out into the storage room to get a better look at it. The pack was everything he could’ve hoped for and more. A brand-new internal frame hiking pack, constructed of nylon and polyester, waterproof and spacious. He even liked the color, red with grey trim, and he smiled a little at that, that he was still thinking about something as inane as the color.
He unzipped the main compartment, where the news was even better. Two large bottles of water, water purification tablets, a few MREs, a crank radio, a first-aid kit, heavy-duty flashlight, clean clothes, and other sundry items. He carefully re-packed the items and searched the smaller compartments, where he found more useful goodies. Waterproof matches. An envelope of cash. He eyed his old blue pack, thinking how it had been such a faithful friend to him all this time, and he decided he couldn’t bear to leave it behind. He cleaned out its contents, rolled it up tight, and stuck it deep in the bowels of his new pack.
He cried again, breaking down this time right there in the back room, not holding anything back, his whole body racked with sobs; he was painfully aware of the pathetic sounds of his desperate wails and yet he couldn’t stop himself as he thought about his lot in life, about the family in the storeroom, about the lot of the world in general, all these things barreling down on him like a F-5 tornado tearing up the Kansas heartland.
Tranquility.
Ellie Coleman.
This was his new mission.
After clearing his mind with a few deep breaths, he strapped the backpack on, picked his way to the front of the store and stepped outside toward his destiny.
16
There was only one lead to follow, and so Ben had followed it.
Ben had hiked north along Route 288, which connected Chesterfield County to Henrico, the same county he had worked during his stint on the HARD Team. It took him half a day to cover the fourteen miles, but the weather was ideal. Temperature in the high forties. The sun felt good on his neck. It was a good walk because for once he felt like he had purpose, wind in his sails. He took the exit ramp onto Interstate 64 westbound, toward the mountains, and poked out a thumb. A mile up the road, a pickup truck pulled over and waited as Ben jogged up alongside it.
A bit of luck for Ben. The driver was a Redeye. The man was tall, a tangle of long limbs enveloping the steering wheel.
“Where you headed?” he asked.
“Nelson County.”
“Hop in,” he said. “Name’s Paul.”
“Ben. I can give you some money for gas.”
“Don’t sweat it,” he said. “We gotta look out for each other. I can get you as far as Staunton.”
“Perfect,” replied Ben. “I really appreciate it. You sure I can’t pitch in?”
“Just having someone willing to sit here without giving me side-eye is payment enough.”
Ben chuckled sadly.
Paul eased back onto the interstate as Ben buckled his seatbelt. The man was quiet, tapping the steering wheel to some tune in his head. The color of their eyes was all the conversation they needed to have. Just two guys trying to make it in this brave new world. An unspoken bond between them all.
Two hours later, Paul dropped Ben off at a gas station inside the Staunton city limits. Ben leaned into the open window and tossed a twenty-dollar bill on the seat.
“Thanks, brother.”
“Good luck to you,” said the man.
Ben nodded, and they shook hands.
With that, Paul drove off toward his own story. The car receded into the distance, the sun flashing off the roof. When it was out of view, Ben continued south on foot, stopping at a general store and burning the last of his cash on supplies. He bought two large bottles of water, a bag of cashews, and energy bars. The proprietor eyed him suspiciously as he rang up Ben’s items but said nothing.
He made it halfway to the mountain before it got too dark to continue; he spent the night in an abandoned farmhouse. He was exhausted and slept deeply and dreamlessly in the cupola of the barn. The temperature dropped into the thirties overnight; the parka helped keep things survivable if not bearable. There were no animals or people around.
He was up and walking with the dawn, connecting with Route 56 at Steeles Tavern. By the time he made it to the parking lot for Maintop Mountain, the sun was at its peak. According to the dilapidated sign, Priest Mountain lay about three miles to the east. Located in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Nelson County, the Priest was a four-thousand-foot peak; hikers reached it from the Appalachian Trail near Route 56.
After a short break for a snack and some water, he hiked eastward to the foot of the mountain and began climbing. It wasn’t terribly steep, but he was all alone; hiking wasn’t the hip activity it had once been. There was plenty of walking back down in the real world. The trail had not been maintained during these past couple years and he got lost several times. But he finally made it to the peak around three in the afternoon.
The shelter was abandoned, the wood rotting. The ceiling had crumbled away in spots, but the confessional book was still there, just as Ellie said it would be. It was thick, much longer than he expected it would be. He spent the afternoon reading through it. The confessions ran the gamut from the silly to the horrific. Near the back, he began to see confessions dated after the Panic.
I’m sorry for what I did. I couldn’t help it.
We told him she could not come back. We’re too afraid she might relapse.
The last one was dated three weeks ago.
His eyes welling with tears, he staggered back outside to the edge of the cliff. He sat there for the rest of the afternoon. From this vista in the Shenandoah Valley, fall was redecorating the place like an enthusiastic new homeowner, adding splashes of color here and there, cooling things off after a long hot summer. Because who didn’t like the crisp afternoons of autumn, the air tangy with the smell of burning leaves, the feel of a comfortable sweater that felt just right? These were good things, and in another life, he’d have welcomed the afternoon chill.
No one came.
He read the confessional book again the next day, and still no one came. Five days and nights came and went and now he was staring down the dark barrel of another night on the mountain, his supplies exhausted, his body weak, and hope unable to replenish either. Hope could be a stupid, naïve thing. There were probably millions of people out there right now, clinging to hope like a life raft, waiting for a rescue that for many would never come. Why did he think he’d be any different? He wasn’t the hero of anyone’s story. He was just another sad sack who’d caught shitty cards in history’s saddest poker game. Hope was simultaneously humanity’s curse and blessing because it kept people going until the bitter, bitter end.
If this didn’t pan out, that would be it. He’d be a ship without a port, carrying cargo that would never reach its destination. It would mean that his story had ended, like a creek petering out during a drought, until the bed was cracked and dry. The prospect frightened him more than he cared to admit, and so he tried not to think about it. Until the trail actually did go cold, it wasn’t cold. It meant there was hope, a goal, a potential paradigm shift. Another road to travel.
