“What does that mean?” Rick demanded.
“It means that the situation in Boston is completely out of control. The infected outnumber the uninfected by numbers that scare the shit out of me. The city is burning, and the Army, who’ve been there for a few days are pulling out it’s so bad. Now it’s here. There have been dozens of calls all night from scared folks claiming that their neighbors are attacking them. I sent eight units to check out a small riot, and of the sixteen cops I sent, one came back alive.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? Boston gone? Fifteen cops in San Francisco dead?” Rick was flabbergasted, and he looked at where Mrs. McCreedy had bitten him again, looking for broken skin.
“Rick, there’s twenty six cops we know of that are dead. Nine others are MIA, with six vehicles abandoned or destroyed. Garcia was the cop that came back from the riot. He told me that there was no way the rioters could have sustained the damage they did and lived. There was a crowd of 30 or so people banging on a mom n’ pop shop window, all units fired tear gas canisters into the crowd, and walked in with riot shields and gas masks. The rioters attacked and fucking ate them! Tear gas was useless. Garcia told me he shot one guy point blank with a 12 gauge, and blew the guy in half. The guy crawled toward him with half his chest cavity missing. Garcia tried to bolt when his buddies were getting slaughtered, but he was bitten a few times. He was taken to St. Mary’s. I called ten minutes ago to check on him, and St Mary’s is totally overrun. There are some doctors and patients on the upper floors, but we can’t get to them, there are too many infected. You’re in the safest part of town, but you still need to leave. This shit is next-level FUBAR, and you need to bug out. We’re way past helping anyone here, and it’s time to look to our own. There are sixty eight of us left, and I’ve called back all units to command. We’ll try to get everybody’s families, and make a run for the city limits picking up whoever we’re able to. If we can’t get out, we’ll fall back and make a stand here if we need to.”
“Where’s the meeting point? What’s the plan if you make it outside the city?
“Alcatraz,” answered Meara. “Gonna have to go right by you to get there, but don’t wait for us. Get any supplies and people you can and get to the island by any means necessary. Good luck buddy, and stay safe.”
“You too man, I’ll see you soon,” Rick said, and with that they both hung up. He went to his bedroom and grabbed two large duffle bags, filling them with items that he considered useful. He pulled out his shoulder holster from the closet and strapped it on, then reloaded the Taurus to capacity, made sure the safety was on, and jammed it in the holster. He was bringing out more shells for the shotgun when he heard a knock at the front door.
I can’t get two God damn minutes?
he thought to himself. Rick picked up the shotgun and went to the front door. He waited for a few seconds, and was turning around to go continue packing when the knock sounded again. Rick raised the shotgun to the door and said quietly: “Who is it?”
“Mr. Barnes? Mr. Barnes, it’s Chris Rawding from 3A, can I talk to you please?”
Rick knew there was a young guy living upstairs, but he didn’t know his name. Quiet and shy, he was a computer kid or something. Rick looked through the peephole in the apartment door to make sure it was the neighbor he knew. The cop saw a tall, thin kid about 22 or 23. He removed the safety bar, and unlocked the door to let him in. Chris came through the door and stopped quickly when he saw the shotgun. He looked warily at Rick. “Come in, please,” Rick said, pointing the shotgun at the floor, “I’m a cop.” Those three words always either calmed, incensed, or scared people, and a good cop could always tell what emotion would be elicited prior to uttering them. Rick was hoping for calm and he was right on the money.
“I know you’re a cop, that’s why I’m here.” The kid drew his forearm across his forehead, and Rick noticed it came away sweaty.
“What’s the problem, is everything ok?”
“Yeah, um, the problem is that I’ve seen some weird stuff lately, and I’m a little freaked. I’ve been online for the past few hours, and some of my online buddies have told me that this infection is all over. I need somebody to tell me what’s happening, and you’re the first person I thought of. I heard gunshots earlier, and saw you and some EMTs out the window. You shot that guy, was he infected?
“I hope so.” Rick sighed. “He wouldn’t respond to any verbal commands, and he attacked one of the paramedics. Bit him.”
“Bit him?” Chris looked really scared. “Two of my friends said it’s the bites that infect you, and if you get infected, in a very short time, you lose your mind and attack anybody near you.”
“Shit.” Rick said, and looked at his hand. Thank God for false teeth. “Alright, it’s Chris, right?” Chris looked almost sad when Rick wasn’t sure of his name. Chris nodded. “What is it I can do for you exactly?”
“Uhh…well, you have a gun…”
Rick raised his eyebrows.
“It’s just that… I don’t have a gun, and I’m getting a little nervous, so I was wondering if I could hang with you for a little while.”
The kid looked like a scared school girl, complete with wide eyes and nervous lip biting.
“Well then there’s good news and bad news, kid,” Rick said. “Good news is that I’m somewhat of a gun enthusiast, bad news is that I’m leaving in two hours.” He handed Chris a small hand gun. It was a .32 caliber pistol that he had purchased for his wife when he had lived in Boston. His wife had outright refused to carry it, even after she had gotten certified to carry a firearm. Rick had brought the weapon with him when he had moved back to San Francisco, and the gun had sat in his weapons locker, unused, since his return.
“Normally, I wouldn’t give you a firearm,” he said to Chris, “but these circumstances are anything but normal.” He looked at the young man as Chris accepted the weapon. “Have you used a firearm before?”
Chris looked at the nickle-plated weapon and nodded in the affirmative.
“Good. I hope you won’t need to use it.”
4
Living on the outskirts of San Francisco, Paul was used to nightly sirens. But last night they were going apeshit. Paul had gone to bed at about 9:30, he was getting along in years, and he liked getting up early, so he went to bed early. Sometime during the night he woke up needing to pee. He got out of bed, and realized that his digital clock wasn’t on. He pressed a button on his watch, was momentarily blinded by the bright blue backlight. Paul blinked a few times and then focused on the numbers. 3:26 AM. He stumbled sleepily to the bathroom and took care of business. On his way back to bed, he looked out his window, noticing that the power seemed to be out in his section of town. The sodium arc streetlight at the end of his driveway was functional though. He looked down the road, and they all seemed to be. The light near his neighbor’s house illuminated an odd scene. Three people were kneeling over a fourth, taking something from the unfortunate victim.
Paul was incensed. As a former police officer, he knew he had to report this. He had recently been involved in a shooting, where he fired his pistol at a drugged-out thief who was robbing a gas station. The perp was killed, and Paul was toted as a hero by some, and as a vigilante by others. The police had confiscated his firearm until the investigation was over, so he was unable to assist the guy getting mugged in the street now.
Whatever the thieves were stealing, it was dripping. The three seemed to be lifting whatever they were taking to their faces, almost like they were eating something. It was too far away to make out, so Paul got his cheap little binoculars from his nightstand. He used the binoculars to watch the kids play baseball at the park near the end of his street. He loved watching the kids play ball, he always had, especially since his son had moved out when he had grown. Paul focused the binoculars on the event unfolding a house away.
The scene was one out of a nightmare. The three kneeling were eating a man. There was blood all over them, dripping down their faces. Pieces of the victim were being unceremoniously stuffed into the greedy mouths of the attackers. One stumbled off with what looked like the lower portion of a leg, but more were coming, stumbling toward the attack scene. Paul initially thought that maybe some of these new folks would help, but they knelt down and started helping themselves to portions of the hapless victim! Paul knew that this must be the same thing that was happening in Boston. Suddenly, the man on the ground, the one being eaten, convulsed. The attackers seemed to pause for a second, looking at their dinner. With the one stump of an arm the victim had left, he pushed one of his attackers away! He tried to get up, but there wasn’t enough of him to do so. Both legs were torn away, and his one arm, which was handless, wasn’t strong enough to push himself off the pavement. The people stood up and shuffled off, bumping into things and tripping as they went.
Paul knew he could be next on the menu. There were screams coming from a few houses away now, and the street seemed to fill with the shuffling people, stumbling toward the source of the sound.
Where did they all come from!? There were at least thirty of them out there now, all heading for the house three away from Paul’s on the other side of the street. He picked up the phone to call his son, but it was dead. He didn’t own a cell phone, thinking they were a nuisance. There was no way he would make it past all of the people outside if he attempted to run for it. Where would he go anyway? Rick’s house was too far away… Rick! Rick would come for him. Paul figured he would hide in his basement, and be quiet until his son arrived. He wasn’t one to hide while others were in danger, but he had no weapons, and there were too many of the infected outside. That’s what they must be, infected. As the implications of that caught up with him, he felt the icy grip of terror. A thump on his farmer’s porch furthered the emotion. If he hadn’t had taken a whizz five minutes before he would have pissed himself. Some shuffling steps on the porch, and a thud on his door sealed the deal. He hurried to the basement door, stopping on the top step. He shut the door behind him, and put two shovel handles crosswise across the door, pinning them against the surface with the junk on the basement side of the door. The barricade would hold for a few minutes at most. Paul quietly walked down the stairs and peeked out his basement window. He couldn’t see much because the window was small, not even two feet wide and half that in height. There was also a hedge dividing his side yard from his neighbor’s. He could see the shuffling feet of the infected in the glow of the streetlight through the boughs of the hedge. There were many.
Paul could hear a consistent pounding on the front door of his house. He looked up the fifteen feet of stairs at the poorly-barricaded door. It was weak at best, but it was all he had. The pounding stopped, and he breathed a sigh of relief. He sat on the bottom step and surveyed his surroundings. There were a few tools he could use as bludgeoning weapons, but that meant he would need to get close, possibly infecting himself if he got infected fluids on him. He really didn’t want that, as he wasn’t sure how this disease was transmitted, and it seemed incredibly contagious. Paul put his head in his hands to think. He looked up at the basement window, and almost screamed. A pair of feet had appeared right outside the window. The feet trudged off to his back yard, and he was once again alone in the dark.
Some hours later, he heard screaming from out front. He went to the window and saw that another unfortunate victim had been taken down under a street light.
Why the hell was everyone standing under the damn street lights, when the shadows were so much safer? Idiots
. Paul saw some movement in his hedge, but couldn’t make out what it was. He backed away from the window, but not before something interesting came into view…
5
“Chris, on your six!”
“What?”
“BEHIND YOU!”
Chris turned in time to see a girl who looked to be in her late teens, with horrible lacerations on her throat lurch at him with bloody arms reaching. He brought up his .32 pistol and fired, but she was on him before he could get it above her waist. Chris ineffectively shot her in the stomach. She ploughed into him and they both went down, with her on top. He dropped the gun and reached for her throat with both hands. She had a vise-like grip on his shirt, and was growling and hissing, trying to bite him the whole time. He pushed her head up with a mighty shove, and the left side of her head exploded outward like a squeezed grape. A microsecond later he heard a loud report.
“GET UP! There’s more coming!” Rick shouted. Rick and Sam were beside Rick’s unmarked police Crown Victoria, Sam covering her ears with both hands. Rick was still sighting targets through the ACOG of his semi-automatic AR15A3. He plugged an elderly man, naked except for black socks. The man toppled backwards with a hole in his forehead.
The plan had been simple: Load up what they could in duffle bags, and get to the car. They weren’t ten steps out the door when Chris’s duffle strap snagged on a wrought iron tree-fence, and he fell backwards. He succeeded in freeing the strap, but not before a few infected had seen him. Rick didn’t notice this until he was fifty feet away at the car and found Chris missing. By this time, the infected were almost on Chris, and Rick had to fire.
Chris struggled loose of the dead weight on top of him, picked up his gun and duffle, and ran to the Crown Vic.
Rick put Sam in the front, and the gear in the back, while Chris jumped in the passenger side and quickly slammed the door shut.
“Mr. Barnes,” he said, “We’re drawing a crowd, hurry!”
Rick shut the back door, and hopped in the driver’s seat. He fumbled with the keys for a precious two seconds, and that was enough for the dead crowd. Rick started the car and put it in reverse. As he was turning his head to look behind him, a bloody palm smacked the driver’s side window, leaving a red smear.
“Buckle up, honey,” Rick told Sam. Rick threw the car into reverse and accelerated quickly, catching an unfortunate undead behind the car and grinding it under the wheels. They left the apartment building behind, and travelled south toward the freeway.
“No plan survives contact with the enemy…” Rick said while shaking his head.
“Moltke the Elder,” Chris volunteered.
“What?” asked Rick.
“Moltke the Elder, he was the one who coined that phrase, he was a German Field Marshal.”
“Wow, bet you kicked butt on Jeopardy, huh?”
“I was a poli-sci major.”
Rick was confused. “Thought you were a computer guy?”
“I am. Do you know how hard it is to find a job with a political science degree? Computers were a hobby for me, and I turned my hobby into a career.”
Chris changed the subject, “There’s goo on you,” pointing to a nasty stain on Rick’s shirt. Chris rummaged through a duffle while they drove and came up with a multi-colored Hawaiian shirt. He gave the shirt to Rick, and when they had a second with no dead near, Rick stopped the car, carefully took off the ruined T-shirt, so as not to get any of the blood near his face, rolled the window down, and pitched it out. He grabbed some McDonalds’ napkins from the door pocket and wiped the offending material off of him. He pitched the soiled napkins out the window after the T-shirt, closed the window and donned the Hawaiian shirt. The whole event took less than a minute, and that was enough to see five infected coming at them from different directions. Rick shook his head and drove away.
Thick black smoke was billowing up from the street to the right, and as Rick crested the one of San Francisco’s many hilled streets, he could see the city was in shambles. At least four enormous fires raged in the heart of the city, with smaller ones dotting the outskirts. There were dozens of car crashes, and people seemed to be fleeing in all directions, some with luggage and small children in tow. Hundreds of shambling figures were lurching after any living human seen.
How could it fall apart so fast?
Rick thought. “My God…” Chris said, surveying the scene. At the bottom of the hill, there was a man with a shotgun shooting everything in sight. It was a pump-shotgun, and he had a box of shells at his feet. There were 8 bodies around him, and more were approaching. He was screaming something unintelligible as he fired. A bleeding woman ran up to him screaming for help, and he jacked a shell into the chamber and shot her in the left shoulder. She fell on her back, and then sat up, without her left arm. She looked at where her shoulder used to be and started screaming. The man shot her in the chest, and she flew back, now unmoving. The man stood over her firing into a group of about half a dozen infected. He got two before the weapon clicked empty. He tried to reload, but the rest of the creatures got to him and took him down. Rick didn’t want to get delay any longer, so he took a left and gunned it down the street. Chris looked back and was horrified to see the shot-gunned woman taking bites out of her own severed arm.
They were on a wide street, with three story buildings on either side. A car had smacked into a utility pole ahead, shearing it in half, and had travelled a little farther into a fire hydrant. A geyser of water was shooting into the air, the water running down the hill. A live wire from the utility pole was spitting and sparking, just above the cascading water. “We can’t go this way,” Rick said, but when he looked in the mirror, he could see a crowd of twenty or so infected coming from behind.
“Hang on,” he yelled. “I’ve got to bust through!” Rick slammed the car into reverse, and moved cautiously backwards at about ten miles per hour.
“Why don’t you floor it and run them over?” begged Chris.
“Because if we hit them going too fast, we could lose control!”
The Crown Vic smacked into the first of the infected and rolled easily over the body. As if to illustrate Rick’s point, the next two went up on the trunk, and the car slowed. The tires started to slip on something, and their progress slowed even further. Palms and fists pounded the windows and sheet metal of the car. Rick was looking backward as he tried to push the car through the crowd. He had his arm over the back of his seat and was pressing hard on the accelerator, but he wasn’t moving backwards. The rear tires were spinning faster now, losing traction. A palm smacked against the passenger side window, and Sam screamed. Another smack, and a spider web crack appeared. Chris pointed his gun at the window. “DON’T SHOOT!” Rick screamed. Chris turned and looked at Rick, his eyes wide. Three undead had clambered on to the hood of the car and were pounding on the windshield. Rick threw the car into drive and jammed his foot on the accelerator. They moved forward a little at first, then shot forward quickly. One undead fell off the hood, but the other two didn’t let go. Rick went about thirty feet and jammed the brakes on. The two hangers-on shot forward and into the street, the water from the hydrant dousing them both. As one of them stood up, he hit the live wire, and began to dance. The other was halfway to his feet when his companion connected the wire and the puddle, electrifying the entire street. The one who hit the wire caught fire, and after about a second and a half, they both fell down smoking.
Rick threw the car into reverse again and floored it. He plowed through the group of undead and they went flying in all directions. The car spun hard to the right, and Rick felt the wheel pull out of his hands. The Crown Vic completed its spin and ended up sideways against a storefront. Many stumbling forms approached from both directions. Rick was dazed from the impact. When he collected his wits, a group of eleven dead had surrounded the car, smacking the driver’s side windows and the hood. One balled its fist and punched the rear window. On the second punch, the window cracked. Rick reached in the back to get the SPAS-12, and a filthy, bloody hand smashed a hole through the back window and grabbed his arm. Sam started crying, and Chris was hollering. Rick tried to shake off the attacker pulling away as best he could, the undead woman’s flesh coming away in long strips against the shards of broken safety glass. The rest of the window gave way, and the creature started climbing through.
The front window cracked, and Chris leaned over and shot through the window into the face of an undead policeman, leaving a bullet hole in the glass. The shot was loud in the car, but Chris shifted and fired a round into the head of the woman pulling on Rick’s arm. The front window caved in and a former hospital worker in scrubs reached in and grabbed Rick. A young boy, missing the left side of his face was climbing in the back window.
Chris shot the kid in the eye, and it fell where it was, partially blocking the rear window. Rick was fighting with the hospital worker when a deep bass horn sounded behind them. Some of the dead looked up to see a green and white city garbage truck barrelling toward them. The truck sideswiped the Crown Vic, breaking the dead orderly’s grip on Rick, and pushing it thirty feet down the road. A backup alarm sounded, and the garbage truck backed up, crushing all dead in its path. The truck moved forward again, obliterating anything left. A huge man hopped out of the vehicle with a two foot piece of rebar in his fist. He calmly walked across the street and brought the rebar around in a sideways arc, smacking the last undead in the immediate area in the head. There was a sickening crunch, and the former butcher dropped like a sack of potatoes.
The man walked over to the Crown Vic and looked in.
“Name’s Dallas, you comin’?” The man had an unmistakable southern drawl.
Rick and Chris looked at each other, and grabbed their stuff. “C’mon honey, we’re getting out of here,” Rick said, pushing the door open.
Rick, Chris, and Sam got out of the car and ran to the truck. Rick climbed up and tossed his bag in, then grabbed Sam and helped her up. Dallas got in the driver’s side. “You next, kid,” Rick said to Chris, “I’ll take the outside.” Dallas put the truck in gear and started forward. Chris had Sam on his lap, and Rick had the AR-15 across his lap.
It was cramped but functional.
“Didja hit an armory or somethin’?” Dallas asked no one in particular.
“No, I’m a cop.”
“Mmm,” murmured Dallas. “Can’t say as I like cops much.”
“No?” asked Rick while reloading a magazine.
“Nope, my daddy was a Texas Ranger. Meanest SOB I ever did come across, and I’ve been aroun’.”
Sam put her hand on Dallas’ arm, “My daddy is nice sir, I promise.”
Dallas looked at her thoughtfully, “Well then we’ll get along fine, me an’ him.”
He put the truck in gear and started forward.
“There’s a power line down in some water ahead, you might want to avoid it.” Chris told him.
“I might just,” Dallas returned. “You know, it’s customary where I’m from to introduce yourself to a man who just pulled your fish out of the fire.”
“I’m Chris, and this is Rick and Sam.”
“Pleasure,” Dallas said as he backed the truck up. He got the truck turned around and started back the way he came.
“I need to get my father,” Rick said.
“Don’t see him fittin’ in here,” said Dallas matter-of-factly. “We’re all full up.”
“Doesn’t matter, I’ve got to go get him,” Rick said in an angry tone.
“Keep your hair on
officer
,” returned Dallas with a sneer. “We’ll find a way. Where is he?
“He lives on 3
rd
Street , near UCSF.”
Dallas applied the brakes and looked Rick in the eyes. “Near the college?”
“Yeah.” Rick’s brow creased. “Why?”
Dallas raised his eyebrows and let out a big sigh. “Because that’s where I came from. It’s absolute Hell. There’s thousands of these violent folks down there, and the roads are pretty much impassable because o’ wrecks an’ abandoned vehicles. That’s where all the damn hospitals are, and where do folks go when they’re sick, or hurt, or… bit?”
“Don’t care,” Rick said, “I’m getting him.”
Dallas shook his head, “You gonna bring your little girl down there? Is that the plan? I’m tellin’ you, we need somethin’ more concrete than “
I’m gettin’ him
”, or we’re all dead. Her too,” Dallas said, jerking his thumb at Sam. “You might wanna save your pops, but are you willin’ to kill your daughter t’ do it?”
“No,” said Rick looking distant, “I’m not. Plus my dad would get pissed if I put Sam’s life in danger to save his wrinkly ass.”
“Good, then we’re on the same page.” There was a thump on the side of the truck, and Dallas looked out the window. “One sec.” He pushed the door open hard and knocked over a lone zombie. Ironically, the zombie wore a trash collector’s uniform. Dallas grabbed his rebar and jumped out of the truck. As the creature was getting to its feet, Dallas swung the rebar and connected with its head. It fell, and lay there unmoving. Dallas spat on it and said: “Twice killed asshole.” He looked behind the truck and could see a small crowd of dead lumbering toward him about 50 feet away. Climbing back in the truck, he took one more backward glance at the oncoming mob. “Damn, they’re like cockroaches.”
Dallas put the truck in gear and drove forward. “We’ll need to get us another vehicle,” he said, “This is too cramped as it is, and we can’t fit your pa in here with us too.”