It wouldn’t be long before Dallas, like Atlanta, would see the National Guard rolling in and an exodus planned.
General Lance was a smart enough man to know that the virus was scattered through the country and, like well placed terror cells, remained silent until its deadly onslaught.
Secretary of Health, Don Kraus was scared and he wasn’t afraid to admit it.
Not only had he witnessed what Colonel Manning had become, he saw the split second transformation of the President.
Having worked with Saul Klein at the CDC for several years gave him the expertise in the field of virology and the knowledge to carry the keen foresight that this thing was far from under control.
He agreed with Lance that they could very well be facing a new type of civil war, a battlefront could erupt on American soil, and for that, they needed every man and woman in the military, back home and on the front lines. ... Just in case.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Five miles North of Huntersville, North Carolina
Evening descended and the school bus was dark as it sat on the side of the road, only the right turn signal blinked.
Officer Crawford spotted it on his rounds. He had left the small town of Huntersville in search of that bus. A bus that should have arrived back at the school long before.
Anxious and worried parents ignored the assurance from school authorities that everything was fine. They wanted answers.
It didn’t take long for Officer Crawford to find the bus. In fact, not long after getting on the highway he saw it on the southbound side.
“HP, this is Crawford. I have a visual on the school bus.”
“What’s the location?”
“Maybe two miles from the exit, southbound 77, turning back now.”
That was all he conveyed. He didn’t want to tell anymore until he actually could take a closer look. After doing a U turn on the highway across the median area, with a ‘Blip-Blip’ burst of his siren, lights on, Crawford pulled behind the school bus.
“HP, the bus looks abandoned, stepping out to investigate.” Leaving his car running, Crawford stepped out. He was perhaps ten feet from the bus. The closer he approached, the more he knew something horrible had happened.
Seeing the blood smeared across the back windows, he withdrew both his flashlight and his weapon and raced to the bus. Using his collar radio, he called out, “HP, we have a situation here. Boarding the bus. Get emergency services out here. STAT.”
His heart thumped as he approached the open door. An immediate knot formed in his stomach at the sight of the blood.
What happened? Who could have done something to the children? Or rather what?
His foot slipped in the thickening blood on the metal school bus stairs and the beam of his flashlight hit the driver seat. It was saturated. It looked like someone had taken a bucket of flesh and blood and tossed it across his seat.
Crawford gagged, stepped into the bus fully and shone his light.
He whimpered out an ‘Oh God,’ just before vomit shot up his esophagus into his mouth. He spit and fought for control.
“HP,” he called out in revulsion. “Oh, God. I need back up. Oh, God.”
“Crawford, what is the situation?”
Crawford didn’t reply. Against what he wanted he took in what was around him.
Blood everywhere, not a spot of the bus was without it. He saw an arm, a tiny arm with painted nails holding a book bag. Another step revealed what appeared to be part of a torso. Guts and intestines decorated the bus like Christmas tinsel.
“Crawford, come in,”
When that call for him arrived, Crawford lowered the volume on the radio because he swore he heard something at the same time.
A growl.
Then it repeated. A snarling growl accompanied a chilling wet sound. It came from the back of the bus.
It was an animal. It had to be an animal.
With the beam of his flashlight leading the way and gun extended, Crawford inched to the back.
As he drew closer, he saw sneakers and then he saw the little legs. Just a portion of a moving child who appeared to be on his knees, maybe hiding from the animal.
His little feet wearing blue high top canvas tennis shoes, extended into the aisle from the last row on the bus.
He wanted to yell out for the kid, tell l him he didn’t have to hide, that he was there to help him, but Crawford didn’t want to alert the animal to the child’s presence.
Quietly, he crept closer.
Just as he hit that last row, he moved the beam of the light and softly called out, ‘Son. It’s okay.”
The little boy was half under the seat. His head moved back and forth.
The sound.
The snarling.
It was close.
Too close.
Then just as another ‘Son,” slipped from his mouth, Crawford saw. There was another child under the back seat, that child was probably hiding. And then high top tennis shoe boy, pulled from under the seat, lifted his head and snapped a glare at Crawford with a snarl.
Flesh dangled from his baby teeth and Crawford saw the gaping, open stomach wound of the little boy that was hiding.
High top tennis shoe boy snarled once more then returned to his task of the child under the seat.
Covering his mouth with the back of his hand, Crawford spun to get the hell out of there.
Bud the bus driver stood at the front of the bus, arms outward. His mouth was bloody, face half missing as if eaten, and what remained of his face was pasty white. Crawford froze in fear.
Bud growled.
Thinking the only way around Bud was to shoot him, Crawford raised his weapon.
He never got to fire.
At least not at Bud.
They came for him from all angles. Agile and fast, two lunged from his left side another from the right. A small girl latched on to his legs and another boy, no older than six, raced down the aisle at an incredible speed and leapt at Crawford, latching onto him as if he was Velcro. Rapidly he climbed up Crawford body and went for the face.
All of the children moved fast, gnawed fast and were going through Crawford’s body like piranha.
Crawford screamed in pain, just once and not for long,
They took him down fast and Bud joined in.
CHAPTER NINE
North Carolina
“Unfortunately, he is decomposing and the order has come in to do final testing and relieve . . . to put it kindly . . . all those infected, reanimated or not.”
CDC head epidemiologist, Doctor Powers spoke these words to Captain Steven Long, not a day earlier.
Yet, even though Steve was a virologist himself, he asked for clarification.
“What about the boy? Are you going to kill the boy?”
Powers and Saul both looked at Steve as if he were insane. Kill the boy? The boy was already, technically dead.
But to Steve he was different. Even they knew he was different.
Juan came from Peru, the village where the meteor landed. Steve was on hand as a soldier and also to assist the World Health Organization. He had seen many infected, but none like Juan.
A six year old boy who flew to the hills when his own father took ill. It was unfortunate for Juan that he flew in the direction of the meteor which spewed the deadly virus into the atmosphere.
Juan was found in his dark home playing with a toy truck.
He, of course, had died of the virus, reanimated and simply went home. He wasn’t violent he didn’t attack. In fact, the only thing he hungrily devoured were animals. He never attacked a human.
Steve grew attached to the boy. Juan even showed emotions, lots of them too when he sobbed all the way to America after being locked in a cage.
When the order came to exterminate Juan, Steve tried. He really did. But the second Juan cried, knowing something was up and laid his head against Steve. Steve knew he couldn’t do it.
Juan would eventually succumb. His body would have to.
But it wouldn’t come at the end of a gun. Not when Steve could still see some remnants of life within his young eyes.
Doing the only thing he could do in the midst of the confusion of the CDC outbreak, Steve left with Juan.
His plan was to go north, his parents had property in the hills, and there Steve would hide out with the child until his body gave away and he truly did pass on.
The family property had a cabin and Steve’s eccentric brother had a place up there as well. All within those hills. He tried to call his brother, but got no answer.
He and Juan arrived on the family property just after dark. If he remembered correctly the back winding roads would eventually lead them to the cabin. From there, he’d just wait it out. It was isolated, secluded and far away from civilization.
No one would know and they would be safe.
CHAPTER TEN
USS Hartford
Mediterranean Sea
Captain Marlene Carmichael was miffed.
A career Navy woman, she flew into Italy and awaited her mission. She enjoyed the celebration dinner the night before, where the admiral congratulated her on being one of the very few women to command a US nuclear missile submarine on a three month sea control mission.
Marlene was proud of her accomplishments. She worked damned hard to get there.
So when the call came in that the mission was aborted and she was to head directly home and position the sub a hundred miles off the coast of Roanoke, she wasn’t a happy camper.
“Ma’am,” Executive Officer Harold said as he handed her a small slip of paper. “Confirmed by the pentagon.”
“Damn it,” she said under her breath. “Are we given any reason why?”
“No, Ma’am. Not yet. Our communications officer said that information will be forth coming and restricted.”
“I see. Then chart our course.”
“Aye-aye, Captain.”
Marlene turned in the slightly cramped control room when she heard her name called again.
Doctor Roger Chase stood, clipboard in hand, “Captain.”
“Everything alright?” she asked.
“Not sure.” He handed her the clipboard. “Seaman Lawrence doesn’t seem to be making any progress, in fact, incredible as it may be, he’s worsening.”
“Worsening?”
“Fever is raging. Despite everything I have tried, it seems the infection is out of my control.”
“Should we surface and airlift him, Doctor?”
“Let me see if this next course of antibiotics works,” he said. “If not, that may be an option.”
“Odd. Not that I know what I’m looking at, but does it seem sudden to you?
“Yes, considering he was injured in the bar fight just last night. Never seen anything move this quickly.”
“Is he contagious?”
As if she were asking a ridiculous question, Chase shook his head. “No, no, this is from the wound. There’s a lot of bacteria in saliva.”
She extended the clipboard. “Keep me posted.”
“Yes, Ma’am.” He retrieved the board.
“Doctor Chase?” she called him, causing him to stop. “It says bite wound. What type of animal?”
“Not animal. Human. It was a human bite.”
“Human?”
“You’ll have that when you mix alcohol and testosterone.” He gave a fast flash of a smile, turned and walked out.
“I’ll have that?” she repeated as she turned to her executive officer.
He chuckled. “You’ll have that.”
They continued on, without a second thought. It was just a bite. Really, what was there to be concerned about?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
North Carolina
“Crawford, come in, Crawford do you read, over,” the dispatcher at the Huntersville station kept repeating the call. He had heard nothing since Crawford called for emergency services and back up.
A second squad car, coming from a neighboring community was sent, because Sheriff Wilkes had all available officers down at the school trying to keep the parents calm and all in one place.
He also wanted to keep the away from the highway and the school bus. What happened out there was a mystery and it didn’t sound good.
“HP, this is 122, I see your squad car.” the backup officer responded.
“Let us know the situation,” the dispatcher said.
Sheriff Wilkes was on hand to hear the report.
The backup squad car reported it was a blood bath and not a single body was there. Limbs along with other body parts, yes, but no distinguishable bodies.
Two EMT vehicles were on scene searching through the carnage.
Carnage.
They were children. All younger than eight.
Wilkes immediately placed a call to the county corner and to State officials. It was obviously bigger than his small town could handle.
But he had to deal with another end of the spectrum…. the parents.
How was he to tell the parents of 24 grade-schoolers not only that their children were missing, but that perhaps violently murdered? He didn’t have any easy answers.
He left the school bus situation to the others and he headed down to the elementary school.
No sooner had he arrived he was encircled and bombarded with questions by parents in the parking lot.
“What’s going on, Sherriff?”
“I heard they spotted the bus.”
“It’s almost nine. Where are my kids?”
Sherriff Wilkes held up his hand to stop the tangled crowd of worried parents and to bring silence.
“I wish. I wish I had more answers.” He said to the parents. He looked to the other officers on scene at in the parking lot. The look on their faces said they too were as surprised as the parents to the lack of news.
“I’m sorry,” the Sherriff continued. “We’re waiting on word. The bus was spotted on the side of the highway …”
“Did they crash?” one questioned.
“Are they hurt?” another asked,
“Look!” a parent called out. “There!”
Look? There? Curious as to not only the call out of those two words but the unison, loud sounds of relief from the parents as they suddenly moved from him. Wilkes turned his head to the right.