White Flag of the Dead (3 page)

I switched off the television and looked out my front window. I could see three houses with white towels on their mailboxes, and I wondered how many more will there be? Will there come a time when all the houses have white flags on them? If your house doesn’t have a white flag, will the officials think you’re immune and want to take you away for testing? Who knew?

The last week was a blur. I went to work and tried to keep things as normal as I could, but the kids were scared. Some were talking about how their mom or dad or sister was sick, and they didn’t know what to do. Many of my students were absent, their parents taking them to relatives in Mexico or other states, trying to get away from the large population center of Chicago. I worried about my brother, who lived downtown with his family, but I spoke with him the other day and he seemed fine. I called my parents in Virginia, but was only able to leave a message. Their house was fairly isolated, and my father was an ex-marine, so I figured they would be all right.

Two days ago, the governor of the state called for a suspension of attendance of public schools, the thought being that if a student were infected, he could easily spread it to many families due to the close nature of classrooms. For once the governor actually had a decent idea. So for the last two days I have been busy reloading ammunition, cleaning my guns, and stocking up on foodstuffs. Pickings were getting a little slim at the grocery store, as people began to see the wisdom of hunkering down and waiting out the storm.

I was very grateful Ellie had managed to get to the store before the real storm of public awareness hit, and I managed to make a few runs myself. I had gone to the bank and withdrew as much as I could, figuring to replace it should the worst pass. I didn’t want to be caught up short without cash, and yesterday they announced on the news that credit cards are going to be suspended to try to prevent people from going overboard and end up losing everything when the crisis passed. I bought everything I could think of, and my basement was pretty well stocked. I was going to feel like a class A fool if this thing blew over quickly, but the little voice in the back of my head said we were in for a rough ride.

Ellie was working today, and since I was home, I was doing the house thing with Jacob. He was such a little joy to have around. All smiles and not a worry in the world. His eyes, the little “chocolate browns”, as Ellie liked to call them just sparkled and when he looked at you it was if he was saying “I trust you with my world.” More than once I found myself just looking at him for a long time, wondering how in the hell I got so lucky.

Jake was playing in the living room when I got a call from Ellie.

“John?”

“Yeah, babe. What’s up?” I moved over to the kitchen table so I could keep an eye on our little one. He couldn’t crawl yet, but he was pretty good at a military crawl and rolling got him into trouble more times than not.

“Not a whole lot. We’ve been seeing a lot of patients today, and I might be later than usual.” Ellie sounded nervous.

“All right, I’ll feed Jake and get him bathed.” I tried to sound nonchalant, but inwardly my concern just skyrocketed.

“Thanks. And John?”

“Yeah, babe?”

“Are your toys loaded?” Ellie asked.

That sent my concern into the stratosphere. Ellie never asked about my guns, letting me have my little hobby as long as
didn’t advertise it and kept my guns in a safe away from Jake. “Not yet, why?” I asked.

“You might want to think about having them handy.” Ellie said cryptically.

“Ellie, what is going on?” I said, more forcefully than I intended.

“John, just do it. Please. There’s more to this virus than people have been told.” Ellie said. “I gotta go, they’re paging me to the OR. Love you!”

“Love you, too.” I said, but the line had already cut out.

I wondered what the hell was going on, but I didn’t question Ellie. She had sources of information that did not have anything to do with the media. The cops that brought the victims in to the EMT’s that treated them at the scene to the victims themselves. Ellie often knew days before anyone else about things that were happening. She knew about a tuberculosis outbreak three days before the news reported it. But in all our years together, she had never told me to load my guns and have them handy. I decided maybe this was the event that was prickling my senses

I went down to the basement, after putting Jake in the Pack ‘n Play and putting on a baby video for him. Gotta love the electronic baby-sitter. I went down to my secret room, an area which was an expanded crawl space under the garage. It was large enough to stand in, and it was there that I had my gun safe and reloading equipment, and various other supplies and things. A casual glance would never reveal that there was anything there at all. Since no one ever expected there to be any usable space under a garage, if at all, it was the perfect hiding place. So I went down there and surveyed what I had and what I might need.

I had a modest firearm collection, around ten handguns and rifles. I didn’t have any theme to my collection, just bought what I wanted at the time, selling it when I wanted something else. I also had a few guns inherited from my Grandfather, so that added a bit. I had played at Cowboy Action Shooting for a while, owning a couple of six-guns, a lever-gun, and a pump shotgun. After that I got into IDPA, which was a lot less equipment oriented, and owned a Springfield XD in .40 and a SIG P226 in .40 caliber as well. I reloaded for a number of calibers, and lately had been reloading for .40 S&W. On the rifle front I had an old Enfield No4 MkI, and a couple of .22’s. I had an Auto-Ordnance M1 Carbine replica that I had recently purchased, this was the one I had stocked up on ammo for. I had three additional 15-round magazines and two 30-round magazines for the little carbine, so that gave me 105 rounds without needing to reload a single mag. Thanks to the case and extra boxes I bought, I had 2000 rounds of ammo for the M1.

I took the two semi-auto pistols and grabbed all the extra magazines I owned for each. I grabbed four boxes of ammo and put all of this in a little backpack I had. I put all the magazines for the carbine in the bag, and put in three boxes of ammo for it. I put a box of .22 ammo in the bag and grabbed the carbine and one of the .22 rifles. At the last minute, I threw in a box of .380 ammo, and the extra clip for the Walther PPK.

Slinging the now very heavy backpack on my shoulder, I ran upstairs. I checked on Jake and went into the office. I needed to think about what I was doing and where would be the best placement for armament. My IDPA days were serving me well at this point. I was looking at my home with new eyes. Where were the weaknesses, where were the bottlenecks? Where was the best place to store a gun for easy access? Do I shore up the windows, or do I block the stairwells? If I was determined to get in, what would stop me?

I sat at the desk and decided that the best way to ensure a forceful response to a crisis was to be armed at all times. I loaded my SIG and put on my competition holster. I placed spare magazines in the kitchen and in the front room for the gun. I went back and forth as to what rifle I wanted on the ground floor, and decided on the .22, figuring if things got bad on the ground floor, I wanted superior firepower on my back up locations, which was my basement and my bedroom. The basement had the shotguns and the Enfield, so anything coming after me down there was going to earn it. I loaded the magazines for the M1Carbine and inserted a 30-round clip into the gun. Best to start off with a hail of withering fire, as my dad used to say. I loaded the .22 next, having only two magazines for it, but each magazine held 25 rounds, so I did not feel under gunned. The .22 rifle I had was a GSG-5, an MP5-looking .22. Mostly for plinking, but as I loaded the hollow points, I found myself hoping it would be enough. I placed the rifle on the top shelf of the pantry, figuring it was the most central location and gave me access to the hallway and basement stairs if needed.

I took the XD and carbine and brought those upstairs, placing the pistol on a shelf in the hallway linen closet. The door of the linen closet swung outward, effectively blocking the hallway if needed, but only as a temporary measure while the pistol was retrieved. I placed the two extra magazines on the dresser near the door of my bedroom and two more in the master bathroom; the final stand, if it came to it. I prayed it never did, but I did the best I could think of.

I went back downstairs and looked at my doors and windows. If I had to hole up here, how would I block them? What would I use? I figured the first floorbeing brick was very comforting, and I needed to think of some way to board up my windows and doors. I needed to go to the home improvement store.

I packed up Jacob and started out to the store. Immediately leaving my driveway, I felt something was wrong. It was in the air, something out of kilter with the world. It didn’t feel bad or scary, but your senses were on alert. Maybe I was just reacting to what Ellie had told me, but as I drove through my neighborhood, I began to see signs that things were not right. Doors to some homes were open, and there was a large stain on the porch of another home, as if something had been killed there. I saw several families packing as if to leave on vacation, putting as much in their cars as they dared. In each case, the mailbox had a white flag on it. Were they taking their sick with them? I couldn’t tell, and I really didn’t want to stop and ask. One house had the garage door wide open, belongings scattered around, and the door to the house open, as if they just ran in the middle of packing up the car. I wondered if the city was the same way. If this virus was that bad, was anywhere safe? Were these people just running to bigger problems?

I thought about these things as I made my way to the home improvement store. There were a lot of cars on the road, and many of the ones I saw had a lot of belongings in them.

Turning onto the major road, I was stunned at the amount of traffic. At this time of day, there should not have been the hundreds of cars I saw. I joined the southbound lane and noticed that the northbound lane was heading south as well. Everyone was heading south. I began to wonder what the hell had happened to the city, and whether or not my brother was safe. Every business along the road was closed, and I seriously doubted I was going to find any store open. As I slowly passed a parking lot, I saw two men arguing over a water jug, and just as they passed out of my line of sight, I saw one man take a swing at the other man’s head. People were going nuts.

I pulled off the main road into the drive of the home improvement store, and I immediately saw it was the wrong thing to do. The store was a madhouse, with people rushing in and rushing out, grabbing supplies from each other and racing off without tying down their loads. There was no way I was bringing Jacob into that mess, even being armed as I was. I had forgotten to take off my gun when I went out, so my SIG was still with me, under my coat. I pulled out of the parking lot, narrowly missing an elderly woman rushing out with what looked like fifty feet of heavy chain. Weird.

I headed west to a street that would take me to a road back north, and it was packed as well. It took me twenty-five minutes to go two miles, and everyone was on edge. I decided to get off the main road and head through the subdivisions and get home that way. I wound my way through the first subdivision, noting once again the signs of hurried leaving. Jake was starting to act up, not liking being in his car seat for any length of time. I reached around, trying to find his binky, and managed to poke him in the eye while I searched. Naturally, he hated that, and let me know it. Good set of lungs on that little guy. I looked back and found his binky between his legs, so I grabbed it and placed it in his mouth.

WHAM! The car jerked and slewed sideways, and I fought to control the vehicle as I brought it to a stop. I checked my rear view mirror and saw a body lying in the road
. Oh God, Oh God, No, no, no, no, no….not good at all
. I got out of the car and ran back to the body, a middle-aged man who was lying on his face in the street. “Help!” I yelled, hoping someone in the houses would hear me. “Somebody call 911!” I yelled to the unresponsive houses. I kneeled down and turned the man over, hoping he was still alive. I immediately stepped back, as the man had a gaping hole where his throat used to be. His shirt was covered in dried blood, and his face had dried blood all around the mouth. His eyes were closed, as if he was sleeping, and his left leg looked broken at the ankle. What the hell was this? Did I run over a dead body in the road? If I had, how the hell could he be there without any police or ambulance? I started to walk back to the car, and I saw another man approaching the vehicle from the passenger side. I shouted at him.

“Hey! Hey, buddy!” He looked at me and starting walking towards me, his eyes fixed on me. Something wasn’t right. He opened his mouth, and instead of saying hi, he let out this hideous groan, like he was in serious pain. I stepped back and he raised his hands towards me, as if he wanted to grab me. I backed up and placed my hand on my gun. “Hey, pal, you better back off. What’s the matter with you?”

The man didn’t answer, he just let out another groan, and lunged for me. I backed up and drew my gun, hoping the sight of the weapon would stop the guy. I circled to the left away from the car and the guy never even acknowledged the gun. He followed my movements and I could see his nose flaring, as if he was smelling me. For a brief second my mind flashed to the old man I watched tear apart his caretaker.

I raised the gun and tried one more time. “Mister, if you do not stop I
will
shoot you.” I was nearly shouting at this time.

No response. He just kept coming. I thought for a second to just wound him, but nobody can shoot like that. I lined up his chest in my sights and pulled the trigger.

The shot seemed unnaturally loud in the subdivision, and struck the man squarely in the chest. The .40 caliber slug knocked him backwards and onto his back. Exhaling heavily, my breath caught as I watched in horror while the man slowly scrambled to his feet and come at me again.