Black Tide Rising - eARC (18 page)

Hashim looked over at her wryly. “Mia. I am only one man. You gave weapons to nine of your twelve cheerleaders. Do you think they would have let me leave you?”

Mia looked up, startled, then back in the back. Jessa met her eyes, a hardness in them that Mia had never seen before.

“We’re a team, coach,” Jessa said.

Mia felt a lump rise in her throat. She nodded. “So we are,” she said. “So we are.”

* * *

By eleven, Sonia had turned. Dawn, Yolanda and Gina, were also showing signs of infection. They’d all been restrained in the back couple of rows, making liberal use of both bungee cords and duct tape.

Mia and Hashim had traded off driving duties. Both of them subtly bearing down on the gas, and the van, surprisingly, would do ninety on a straight stretch with very little issues. Max had called once more, to tell them that he’d stopped for gas in Aneth, UT. Aneth was a tiny little town in the middle of an oil field on the Ute Mountain reservation in southern Utah. Mia knew the gas station Max mentioned. They stopped there sometimes when they travelled during the day. Mia wouldn’t have stopped at night if she could help it. It had always looked sketchy. According to Max, though, the old guy who ran it was uninfected, and he appeared more than happy to help. Mia was keeping it in mind, just in case. Since Hashim had been able to fill up both tanks back at Shiprock, she didn’t think it would be an issue, but it was nice to have a backup plan.

Or any kind of plan, for that matter.

Mia scrubbed her hands over her face and lifted her Red Bull to take the last swallow in the can. She made a face as it went down. Sugar Free Red Bull was meant to be drunk over ice, in her opinion. It was never the same out of the can, and its flavor deteriorated rapidly if it wasn’t icy cold.

She had the sensation of diving through the darkness, as the van carved its way down the apparently deserted highway. While, given the circumstances, Mia was more than happy to be in such a sparsely populated part of the country, it was, to say the least, a little eerie as they drove.

Particularly with more than half of her team dying in the van behind her.

“Hashim,” she said softly, not wanting to wake him if he were asleep. The microbiologist stirred and opened his eyes, looking at her. “If they haven’t turned yet, can you use the vaccine on them?”

He shook his head sadly. “I could try, but Mia, if they are already sick, then the virus has begun to attack their tissues. The vaccine will only be more viruses. It would only make the problem worse.”

Mia nodded. That was about what she’d expected. She drove on, accelerating just a little faster, as Sam and Bella, both seniors, started to join in the coughing behind her.

* * *

The eastern sky was starting to lighten when they had to slow down. They’d made it in to Utah, but the road to Torrey took them through Capitol Reef National Park. The Park, as it was known locally, was a geographic wonder, and one of the best kept secrets of the American southwest. Towering red stone formations thrust up into the sky, creating near-vertical canyons and labyrinthine twists and turns. Butch Cassidy and the Hole in the Wall Gang were known to have had hideouts up in the Park back in their day. Legend had it that there was still stolen railroad gold cached up there somewhere.

Mia slowed the van as they wound down the senic highway. In part because it was necessary, thanks to the lingering darkness and the windiness of the road. Also, there was also the threat of hitting one of the huge herds of deer that lived in the area. But the real reason she slowed was because she knew that Max was somewhere up here. Somewhere in the Park, there was a cache of weapons and supplies that her mother and stepfather had prepared for an “End of the World” type scenario. She had the coordinates for it on her phone, even. That was where Max would be.

But she couldn’t go there, not yet. Not with Sonia, Dawn and Yolanda already turned, and from the looks of things, Gina, Sam and Bella not far behind. They had to get to the clinic. They had to get Hashim to the vaccine. She had to keep her promise. Her kids would not die in vain.

Torrey was only about six miles past the park, and the grey light of false dawn lined the eastern horizon by the time they came to the town limits. The sign claimed a population of 180 people, which Mia thought was a good sign. Especially since many of those would, theoretically, be living out on their land away from the town center. Torrey was as rural as it got.

“The community clinic is up here on the left,” Mia said as she drove, slowing to turn in to the parking lot of the small, nondescript building with the sign that proclaimed it to be their goal. She pulled up next to the door, killed the engine and set the parking brake.

“Now, how do we get these guys inside?” she asked.

“Let me go in first,” Hashim said, hefting a bag he’d stashed under the passenger seat. “I must find the lab and the x-ray machine, and we may need to clear it out. We can leave the kids here with the weapons.”

Mia looked over her shoulder at Jessa. The team captain nodded and hefted the rifle she hadn’t given back to Danny. He’d taken Sam’s instead. “We’ll be fine,” she said. “We’ll get them ready to take in for you,” she said.

“Don’t take any chances,” Mia said, wishing she had some better advice to give. “Don’t get bit.”

Jessa smiled grimly. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I have a plan.”

Mia raised her eyebrows, “I’m glad someone does,” she said under her breath. When Jessa’s only answer was a widening grin, she shook her head and refused to comment further. Instead, Mia took one of the shotguns and her .45 and slid out of her seat, after tossing the keys to Jessa. Just in case.

“Do you know where the lab is?” Hashim asked her as they approached the front door of the clinic.

“Not a clue,” Mia said.

Hashim laughed. “Fair enough,” he said. “Let’s go.”

He pushed open the door which, surprisingly or not, was not locked. The metal squealed against the linoleum floor, letting out a sound which raised the hackles on the back of Mia’s neck, and made her curse softly in response. So much for stealth.

From somewhere down the darkened hall in front of them, an answering keen rose. Then another. Hashim grabbed her arm and hauled her quickly behind a counter that had once served as the receptionist’s station. He reached in his bag and pulled out a road flare. “Cover your eyes,” he warned, then popped the flare.

Red light hissed to life as Mia belatedly turned her head and covered her eyes. She looked back just in time to see Hashim toss the light into a room opposite, that looked like a bathroom or something of that kind. Sure enough, three infected came running, stumbling down the hallway toward the light and the noise. As they came, Mia stood and began firing the 12-gauge. Three rounds, three dead infected. Five more followed after, drawn by the light and the noise. Mia dropped behind the corner as Hashim took her place, firing his pistol economically, dropping them with the headshots he’d perfected a lifetime ago in another desert a world away.

The 12-gauge could hold six rounds, and Mia took the time to reload three more while she had a moment. As she was doing so, another infected, this one a child of about five came around the corner of the counter from a back room.

“Aw, shit,” Mia said as the little zombie rushed toward her. “You’re gone already,” she told the little boy as she kicked a rolling chair over to intercept his path. He stumbled, which gave her time to get her weapon up and fire into his face that had been framed with soft golden curls. Still cursing, Mia got to her feet and went over to check the room that had produced the infected little boy. The smell about knocked her over. There was another child in there, a girl, about three or so. This one was still clothed, and her middle was one bloody mass where it had been eaten away. From the resemblance, Mia guessed that they’d been brother and sister. She closed her eyes briefly, then turned and emptied the contents of her stomach into a corner.

“Mia,” Hashim called softly. She straightened up, wiped her mouth with her sleeve and went back out to the reception area. An impressive pile of bodies lay in front of the desk, but no more movement toward the back. “I think we must move on,” he said, his eyes sympathetic. Mia nodded, and forced one foot in front of the other.

Despite all the odds, the building appeared to be clear. Mia and Hashim checked every closet, every compartment they could see, but there was no one else. Either no one else had made it to the clinic, or all the survivors had already evacuated. They did find the remains of several others that had been partially eaten, and Mia threw up one more time.

In the last room they checked, Hashim found what he was looking for. He immediately went over to the X-ray machine and began pushing buttons and dials. It must have had an integrated generator of some kind, because it fired right up, though the lights in the room stayed off. Mia watched him for a second, feeling lost, before backing up a step. “I’ll, ah, go get the kids,” she said. Hashim was already absorbed in his work and didn’t appear to hear her. So she shrugged and went back the way they’d come.

Outside, seven or eight more headless bodies bore mute testimony of the amount of noise she and Hashim had made, but her kids were all okay. Elia opened the van doors as she approached, and Danny and the two sisters, Mackayla and Mackenzie started moving their turned teammates out. Mia nearly laughed when she saw them. The kids had emptied their cheer bags out and were using them as hoods to cover the faces of the infected. With the cheer bags duct taped over their heads, and their hands and feet tied, the infected cheerleaders were effectively helpless. All of a sudden, Mia was extremely glad she’d grabbed the hand truck back in Shiprock, as it came in very handy for transporting their lost teammates as gently as possible.

One by one, they transported them inside. Sam, the senior, and Jessa’s co-captain. Sonia and Dawn, their two freshman flyers who’d been good enough to make the varsity team. Yolanda, another senior, who had earned a cheerleading scholarship to the University of Texas, Gina, a Junior who had been earmarked for captain next year, and Bella, another senior, who had had plans to get married next spring. They rolled them in and strapped them down to the rolling gurneys that Hashim had assembled in the lab area.

“I don’t want to hurt them, if you can help it,” Mia said, her voice rough as they finished securing Bella in place.

“They do not feel pain at this stage,” Hashim said, “But I understand. I will give them morphine to kill them, and then we will harvest the spines. We must hurry, though, I can do nothing with the tissue if it’s too long dead.”

“We’ll help,” Mackayla said, and her sister nodded. Elia too. “We’ll all help,” the little sophomore said. “Just tell us what to do.”

Hashim nodded. He walked over to Sonia with a syringe, which he inserted into her arm. The infected girl thrashed against her bonds, letting out that high, keening wail before falling silent. Without a word, Hashim grabbed a very large bone saw from a drawer and began cutting around her neck. While her teammates looked on, Sonia was decapitated and her spine removed and placed into what looked like an emesis basin.

“Can you do this?” Hashim asked. Mia nodded, and though their faces were white as sheets, the surviving cheerleaders followed suit. Hashim handed out the syringes and bone saws, and they went to work.

* * *

It was the buzzing of her iPhone that woke her. Despite everything, Mia had drifted off to sleep, leaning against the wall of Hashim’s lab beside the sheet covered gurneys that held the remains of half her team. Her surviving cheerleaders lay curled together on the floor next to her, Danny and Jessa holding Elia between them, Mackayla and Mackenzie holding each other. Mia stretched the crick in her neck and pulled the iPhone from her pocket. It was a text, from Max.

Found cache. All good. You? Max.

Mia looked up at Hashim, only to see the microbiologist standing over her with tired eyes, a triumphant smile on his face, a syringe in his hand. “Mia,” he said. “If I could have your arm, please? Your vaccine is ready.” Mia smiled back at him as tears of relief and reaction filled her eyes.

“Do the kids first,” she said, blinking furiously as she fumbled with her phone.

Vaccine done. Hold tight, baby. See you in a bit.

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Grandpa?

Michael Z. Williamson

Andy Thompson was tense. Going to see his grandpa shouldn’t be a meeting. It should be a visit.

This was a meeting.

The house was a nice brick split, well-maintained. The grass and trees were trimmed and pruned, but there was no other landscaping. It was plain, and clean.

Grandpa Thompson had always liked guns, hunting, the outdoors. His collection of knives and guns had been amazing. Now it was full-on hoarder. The man had crates of MREs, racks of cans, drums of water, god knows how many military rifles. He’d blown through most of his income and savings, keeping just enough to pay the bills.

The man did pay his bills, and his food, and his taxes, but there wasn’t much left over, and the next progression in behavior would be past that point.

If they could resolve it now, he wouldn’t have to try to put Grandpa in a home. Although, with Grandma gone, that still might be something to discuss later.

James C. Merritt, his attorney, was graciously coming along on a very modest fee, and Doctor Gleeson was along to gently advise. Grandpa was as areligious as Andy, so there was no point to a clergyman.

Grandpa met them at the door.

“What’s wrong, Andy? A lawyer?” Grandpa said after a glance. He was still sharp. “And who’s this other gentleman? Come in, sit, please.”

“Grandpa, Doctor Gleeson’s been mine and Lisa’s marriage counselor. Good man. He’s along for support.”

“I hope no one’s died. Is Andy Junior in hospital?”

“No, everyone’s fine, Grandpa. This…” he looked at Gleeson, who nodded. “This is about your spending, and the guns.”

The cabinet here in the living room contained high-end hunting rifles, behind armored glass to protect them while showing them. That case had cost a couple of thousand dollars. It was also the wrong background for this discussion, because those were valuable and personal.

“What’s the issue? Everything that needs to be papered is. I have a lot of them in trust for you and the great grandkids. I don’t spend more than I have. I’m pretty sure my debt’s less than yours.”

The old man wasn’t angry, but he was certainly alert.

“Grandpa, it was fine when you had a dozen, or even a couple of dozen, but you’ve got what now, a hundred?”

Grandpa leaned back in mock relaxation. He was tense.

“Since you ask that way, none of your goddam business. Andy, I don’t want trouble with you or anyone, but how I spend my pension and my wealth is really not your concern. You’ve seen the trust and the will, and even if I was cutting into those, which I’m not, that would be my choice while alive. But I’m not. You don’t have some notion of trying to declare me incompetent, do you? I have lawyers, too, and probably better ones, with no disrespect intended to you, sir,” he added to Merritt.

This was not going well. He nodded to Merritt.

Merritt said, “Sir, my client is concerned about your assets, and has asked that I act in advisory capacity. While I assume you are completely within the law, your collection has been mentioned at the city council and elsewhere. They’ve got concerns.”

“Mentioned by whom? I don’t generally advertise.” Grandpa’s gaze wasn’t getting any more relaxed.

It had been Andy’s younger brother Sam, who meant well, but wasn’t very good at these things. He’d gotten a bug up his ass, decided the government would know what to do, and gone to see the mayor. It was a small town. Word got around. They all knew the old man needed to stop “collecting,” but that hadn’t helped. Although, that had gotten the action they had here, if it worked.

Merritt was good. He answered the old man’s inquiry with, “You’ve been seen at various gun shows, stores, swap meets. Someone took an interest and started following you.”

“Stalking me, you mean.”

“Legally it has not reached that level. They are free to observe, as you are free to buy.”

“And everything I have is legal. If the cops show up with a warrant, they’ll find exactly that.”

Merritt said, “I’m quite sure, sir. But if the police do show up, they’ll confiscate everything on at least a temporary basis, and then there will be articles in the news. You know how they paint gun owners.

He followed with, “Sir, I’m on your side. I’ve got a safe full of ARs, an early Russian SKS, an FAL—”

“Metric or Inch?”

“Metric. Imbel. Imported back before you had to chop barrels and sub parts.”

“Nice. Do you know the Empire ones can take metric mags as well as their own?”

Merritt nodded. “I’d heard that.”

Grandpa twisted his mouth and shook his head. “So you’re saying some asshole is pitching a fit about me being a collector, and if I don’t want my collection ruined, I need to divest.”

“There’s more nuance than that, but that is the rough summary, yes, sir.”

“Goddamit.”

Grandpa sat staring from man to man for about three minutes. Andy said nothing.

“And what will convince the concerned idiots I’m not some sort of deranged Nazi or whatever?”

“I don’t think there’s any specific number on it. But some of the racks of MREs and such, and ammo, and the scarier guns. One AR is not an issue. Five different ones, I can make the case that they’re for different target shooting, or collectible. Once you get to a dozen, people start to freak out.”

It was another three minutes before Grandpa said, “I’ll think about it.”

* * *

Andy felt like crap. Grandpa had taught him to shoot, and he’d enjoyed it. He just never got into it the way the old man did, almost an obsession. If Grandpa had fifty cars, it would have been the same, or if he’d been binge buying collectibles on eBay. Even if he wanted to be safe against disaster, four or five guns was enough. He had taken that one trip to Africa, and a couple of the hunting rifles were really gorgeous.

But adding in all that food…it was hoarding, and it had to stop.

Doctor Gleeson was soothing, and feigned interest in the details, or maybe he was interested, but he kept the discussion moving about liquid assets that could be accessed in case of illness. That tack seemed to help.

While everyone was busy in the living room, he took a surreptitious look in the garage, at the rafters above it. MREs, canned goods, toilet paper, plywood, pallets of something. Down in what had been bedrooms were a couple of racks of rifles, three gun vaults, another pallet with boxes stacked on it, and some footlockers. The closets had various camouflage clothing and a lot of things like parkas. They were mostly different, but there were dozens of them.

Maybe they should try to coax the old man into a retirement home. Otherwise, he could open his own surplus store.

The other bedroom contained more varieties of knives, machetes, axes and clubs than he’d ever known existed. Some were on racks and stands for display, which was either awesome or creepy, depending on the presentation.

At least the front room was a perfectly normal office, with computer, filing cabinet and bookshelves, until he realized the books were all about gunsmithing, emergency medicine, and survival, with military manuals and a bunch of woodworking and craft books. At least the latter was normal.

He knew that a lot of people raised in the Depression hoarded stuff out of habit. Grandpa had been born after WWII, though, and had a middle class upbringing, then had worked as an engineer after Vietnam.

It could be something war related, or maybe he was just old and obsessive.

Andy wanted to help the man live a healthy, normal old age.

* * *

Reggie Thompson looked around his living room and sighed.

He’d reached a deal with these pansies that involved selling his collection slowly. As long as his numbers were going down, the limpwristed little shits felt better.

He really didn’t care how they felt, but the world being the world, they’d make life hell on him. If he had a choice, he’d just move fifty miles out and tell them to go piss up a rope. He needed to be near the hospital, though, in case of another problem with his lungs. No good to live in the boonies and die from something treatable. He also suspected as soon as he was in hospital, stuff would start disappearing. Even if he had a spreadsheet for reference, he’d be told he was crazy and steered toward a home.

This was how his grandkids repaid him for all those hikes, fishing weekends and range trips.

He thought about calling John and his wife but his son was out in Oregon, and they’d had some words over that idiotic election. That was partly Reggie’s fault. He was a blunt, unrelenting son of a bitch, and he knew it.

He looked around. It really was a collection, not just prep. He’d had one of every pattern of AR, from the original Armalite AR15, to the first USAF issue, first Army issue Model 602, that he’d carried in ’Nam in ’65. Then he had the A1 he didn’t care much for, the A2 that was better, A3 and A4, several M4gery variants including the Air Force’s. He’d paid to have the proper markings on them, even if they were semi-only civilian guns.

One of the buyers had about gone apeshit at the “BURST” markings. The next had taken a quick look at the internals, saw they were all legal, and grinned. He’d paid a decent price.

So now he had five. The old school, the functional civilian modern one, and three carbines.

Those didn’t hurt so much. They could be bought anywhere. He’d been willing to take a few hundred dollar loss overall. He’d probably have to. Which one did he really need? One of the carbines would have to do.

But they wanted to thin out his Mausers and Lee Enfields. Those things were appreciating in value, fast, and were both pension and his grandkids’ inheritance, though he got the idea that little bastard Sam was the whiner about it, or at least one of the whiners.

Those would have to wait a while, as would the H&Ks. He didn’t care for them much, but their fan club sure did. Okay, so those before the classics.

He really hadn’t made a big deal about them, but he did sometimes load a dozen gun cases into the van to go to the range. This area was increasingly young liberals moving into older homes for the atmosphere. What were they called? Hipsters, that was it. He thought about the irony that these days there was no one
under
thirty you could trust.

He had a month’s worth of food now, the rest donated to charity, sold cheap to the Scouts for camping, and most of the MREs sold on Craigslist.

He’d sold the suppressors, but still had the M60. That was worth a damned fortune, and more all the time unless they reopened the Registry. With .308 running what it did, the Pig cost two hundred dollars a minute to shoot, but that really wasn’t a bad price for an orgasm.

Fuckers.

That would be near the end. He could milk out this sale for a year or more. Hell, he might be dead by then.

When the last of the AR rack sold on Gunbroker, he had some AKs to start listing. And then all the mags.

He’d still have the tents and winter gear.

He was almost certain Sammy had been the problem. The boy had never really got into guns. He’d been a video gamer from the 80s on. Not shooting games, either. Then there was his wife, who’d constantly talked about, “Endangering the children.”

“I’d hoped to leave some of the antiques to you and the great grandkids,” he hinted.

Sammy seemed to be choosing words very carefully when he said, “That’s a kind gesture, but we wouldn’t really know what to do with them.”

Andy didn’t have kids, and his interest in guns stopped with a Remington 870 he’d last used, as far as Reggie knew, a decade before.

Dammit, there was culture here, and craftsmanship, and collectible value, and they just didn’t care. They were the same kind of people as Maxwell’s kids, who had no interest in his classic ’64 1/2 Mustang and ’69 Cuda. He’d watched the man sell them at auction. He got good money, but they were gone and he’d never see them again. The man had slumped as he handed over the keys.

This was his estate, his life, his heritage, and they just didn’t care.

That was the unkindest thing he could imagine.

What always pissed him off in these arguments, first online, now here, was that the hunting rifles in that case packed two to three times the power of the so-called “assault rifles.” Hell, if they knew what the Merkel .375 double rifle put out, they’d need Depends. You could use that on charging rhino. 5.56mm wouldn’t even puncture the skin on one.

But the lawyer and the counselor had been correct. If he tried to fight this, the little bastards would just dial up the press, the soccer mommies, and the panty-wetters until someone came along and took everything for “examination” and tossed him into a don’t-care facility.

His plans didn’t allow for that. They did, very reluctantly, allow for this.

But he still hated the ungrateful, nosy little bastards.

* * *

Andy sat with Sam in Chili’s, drinking margaritas and waiting for fajitas.

“That spreadsheet was impressive,” he said.

“It was creepy,” Sam replied.

“Yeah, but it listed everything.”

“That’s what’s creepy about it,” Sam said as he licked salt and took a drink. “Guns, magazines, cases, slings, cleaning tools, every goddam screw that might go on a rifle. And hell, he had more stuff than the local police.”

Sam probably didn’t know what the police actually had, but there had been a lot.

“Well, I got him into a good mutual fund. It’s near a hundred thousand now.”

“It’s obscene. A hundred thousand dollars on guns. How rich would he be if he’d put it into something useful?”

“It wasn’t all guns.”

“Right. I forgot. Enough food for a year, like he’s a Mormon or something. Even they don’t do that anymore.”

“Well, he’s smart enough. I think it’s partly our fault.”

“Huh? How?”

“Dad lives in Oregon now. We should have been visiting a lot more often, especially after Grams died. He needs company. I doubt there’s much of a dating scene for seventy-five year old widowers.”

Sam frowned. “Oh, there probably is, but I doubt he cares. He did love her a lot, and he does miss her I’m sure. But you’re probably right. We should visit at least once a month, maybe even swap off.”