Class of 2013 - 7

Chapter Seven

Never before in all my life had I thought that my own house looked so foreign to me. In the looming hours of twilight, such as it was after having been at Chien’s house so long, my own home looked as if it were ground zero for the zombie infestation… or at least the set of a horror film. There was no blood, no gore, no death or destruction. In fact, everything beyond the locked front gate seemed to be perfectly fine. It was all just the way as it had been this morning when I left, aside from the fact that the grey Cadillac that normally sat in the driveway – alongside our family company’s patrol cars – was absent.

My parents weren’t home. Lord knew where it was that they had gone today while I was in school, but I would hazard a guess that it had been the store or some form of business somewhere else. The colors in the sky behind the house, and the dark shadow that it cast down the hill of our driveway, just made this scene seem surreal to me. My parents were gone and the gate was locked. It was just like at Chien’s house. The same M.O., as if there was some serial killer about. Yet, this was even more strange to me. It was usually quiet around Chien’s place, so I hadn’t noticed it there, and in school we were usually in class or there was some other form of noise to distract me, but at home…

At home I was used to the sound of vehicles on the street next to the lower portion of our property. I could always hear them, every now and then. There was always some form of activity around here. If not the sound of a few cars every so often, then the sound of some sort of Mexican music – and while that might not have been P.C. to say, I don’t really care. I’d never met a Columbian or an Argentinian or a Chilean or a Cuban or a Brazilian, or any other such nationality in my area. Mexicans were about it, so I say Mexicans. The point to all of this, however, was the fact that there was no sound around here. The wind itself barely rustled the leaves in trees and the grasses and weeds.

A short gust of wind kicked up a little dust and carried it off, and I stepped out of the El Camino to unlock our gate. Considering that this area was less urban and more rural, I suppose it shouldn’t have been too surprising that it seemed so silent. Everyone’s kids were in school, people were at work, and compared to most urban settings, the population around this area was sparse. Even knowing these things, it didn’t make it less creepy. If anything else, it just added to that creeping, crawling, sickening feeling that I was getting from being here. There was something dreadfully wrong about this place without any of the normal activity going on, and it nearly made me want to run off.

Taking a breath, I unlocked the gate and rolled it open; then rolled it shut once more as soon as Chien was inside with the El Camino. I locked it too, since I had no doubt that we’d be spending the night here – as much as that gave me the willies. It was almost funny to think that the thought of staying in my own home could actually creep me out; save it really wasn’t.

A quick bit of surveying, and we’d taken in the area around us to ensure that there were no cannibalistic abominations before heading into the house. Even so, we kept our weapons ready as the doors were unlocked and we headed inside. The house was quiet. It was silent, nearly, aside from the electrical buzz and humming of the devices within the house. The refrigerator was still on, and I could hear the computers inside our home office as well as in my room and their whirring fan motors. It was a soft noise, almost unnoticeable normally, but with how quiet everything was it was easy to pick up on.

What was most apparently absent, of course, were any and all signs of life within the abode. Be that life living or dead and walking, it wasn’t there. No sounds of physical movement whatsoever aside from Chien and I. A sigh of relief came from me, though it was short lived – for Chien and I both jumped as the air conditioner suddenly kicked on. It was a loud unit outside the house, and you could hear it kick on harshly every time it started, but it was quiet once it was going. At least, it seemed to be, but then again the sound of the air rushing out of the vents in the house tended to cover up the noise from outside. Lowering our weapons, we did a quick double check of the house, and seeing no threats, we headed for the living room and plopped ourselves down on the large, L-shaped couch.

“Well, the power grid is still up, apparently.” Chien voiced the observation, though I knew it was mostly just to start a conversation.

“Yeah, but then, we get a lot of power from Hoover Dam, so it might actually stay on for a few days so long as the grid isn’t overloaded in the meantime.” I shrugged a bit and leaned back, looking at the big screen TV’s remote for a moment. If anything, it probably only had the emergency warning crap on, which really never did much good. What the hell were they gonna do, have a bulletin about zombie hordes in my area?

“How long do you think it could last overall? Before the grid finally gives out?”

“Oh… a week. Two, tops. I mean, that’s just a guess. It kinda depends on how many SoCal Edison employees get eaten versus how many stay at their posts. Plus, they shut down the nuclear plant down near San Diego last year because of wear on some of the components, so we don’t have that power to draw on anymore.”

There was silence for a moment, and I glanced at Chien as he seemed to stare at me.

“What?” I asked, raising a brow.

“How do you know this shit, dude?”

I laughed. “What do you mean?”

“About the power grid, and the nuclear plant, and other stuff like that. You’ve been able to spout off random facts like that for almost as long as I’ve known you. How do you know this stuff?”

“Ah; that.” I grinned. “I’m a writer and I do online RP. To develop good characters, and plots, and things of the like, I do a lot of research.” I shrugged. “I can guarantee you that despite having rarely left Perris in my life, I know more about not only this town, but the county, state, southwestern United States, and the whole damn country… than most everyone in our group.”

“Oh really?” He said flatly with an un-amused look. “So then what’s the safest place to be right now, if you know so much, oh Wizard of the Internet?”

“Perris, I’d say.”

Chien gave me a blank look.

“What?”

“Perris? Why Perris?”

“We have eight elementary schools, two high schools, and the movie theater. All these places can be easily fortified and used as bases of operation. Hell, P.M.A. is a fortress as is, and it’ll be the safest place in the entire city once it’s cleared out. Palms Elementary might not be the best as far as the old gates go, I mean the automatic gate could be pushed open by a horde if nothing else, but the upstairs portion is completely safe; only six doors go upstairs, they all are made of metal, have metal hinges, metal doorframes, concrete surrounding them, and no door handles. It takes a key to unlatch and open the doors. The other schools are all kinda iffy, but you could find ways to shore up the defenses with enough time. The theater is good because the only way in, assuming all the doors are shut and locked, is straight through the front doors because they’re glass, but you could reinforce them in various ways and basically have a mansion.” I paused, and then added. “And of course there’s Rock Castle. Though I’ve never been up there myself, I’d be willing to wager it’s a good place to fortify, and it’s right next to P.M.A. Of course, those are just potential places to fortify. I have a list of other reasons.”

“Like what?”

“Well, plenty of places to scavenge food. Let’s face it, there’s not exactly a lot of looting going on outside, now is there? It’s also easy to get water. Every gas station and vending machine has water around here. Then of course there’s the ultimate reason: lots of weapons and ammunition. We have a Big 5 and a Wal-Mart, a lot of people around here are military vets, and if that wasn’t enough, right down the road a little ways is the airbase.”

“It’s just a reserve base, dude.”

“What, you think that place doesn’t have an armory somewhere? I say bullshit to that. The place has all those cargo planes, as well as a batch of F-16’s. You gonna try and tell me that you don’t think they have the capacity to defend it if they needed to?”

“Okay, ya have a point.”

“Damn right I have a point. Just because I’m not in shape and act like a slacker doesn’t mean I don’t know things, my friend.” I grinned and then looked again at the remote control on the coffee table in front of us. Scowling a bit and weighing the options, I found that I couldn’t stop myself. “Damn it.” I muttered and grabbed up the remote control.

“You know that the cable is probably out, right?” Chien asked with a raised brow, and I glanced to him with a scowl.

“Of course I know that, but I can’t help myself. If there is media communications still, then there might be something useful on the news. I don’t know what, but there’s always a chance, right?” Chien halfway shrugged, and I took that as my cue to flip on the big screen. Of course, it was already on Channel 7, which was ABC, and lo and behold the news was actually on. I guess my parents were probably planning on being back right about now.

What caught my eye first was the fact that the studio itself didn’t seem to be as bright as it normally was… and next of course was the fact that the newswoman had blood splatter across her jacket. Looked like she might have been crying earlier too, which, in my mind, certainly did not bode well for the news studio itself. She wasn’t speaking, wasn’t even looking into the camera. Instead, she held her head in her hands, looking down at the papers strewn across the table in front of her, not saying a word. A low voice off screen seemed to catch her attention, and she looked up toward whoever it was. A couple seconds later she looked into the camera, took a deep breath, and then began to gather up the papers on her desk.

“I… I don’t know if there’s anyone out there right now, watching this. For all I know, we might not even be getting through. The Emergency Broadcasting System might have all the various television channels taken over, and I… well, what can I really say to anyone that’s out there? If you’re watching this, you probably already know what’s going on. I can’t imagine that there’s someone who doesn’t by now.” She took another breath, and then looked at the papers that were in her hands.

A moment passed as her eyes scanned them, and a wry grin came to her lips. “This crap isn’t news. Just a bunch of gossip about people who aren’t really that important, and a bunch of little stories that don’t affect anyone that doesn’t already know about it. Celebrity this, and scandal that. None of this matters anymore. It never did!” She laughed a little, and then scowled as she threw the papers out in front of the desk and closed her eyes, leaning back. She was silent for a moment before she slowly opened her eyes to look into the camera again.

“Look, anyone, everyone that might be watching this right now… there’s nothing that we can tell you that you don’t already know by now, as far as I know. The only way to kill these things is to destroy the brain. Do that and it’s over. Doesn’t matter what you use so long as you can do critical damage to the brain. They’re zombies… real zombies… not some prank, not some overdone radio show… Orson Welles hasn’t been around for a while, so don’t think this is his zombie version of War of the Worlds. This is real. It’s happening. I don’t care if you’re a pacifist or a war hawk. If you want to survive, make sure you get your hands on a weapon and know how to use it. Gather supplies. Fight. Survive.” She looked away just then. “We can’t just let it all end like this. Humanity has come too far to go out like this, right?”

For a moment she was quiet, and then spoke once more, though not to the viewers. “Hey guys, bring up the map of southern California… the one we use for the weather.” She nodded, “Yeah, switch to that, and then just focus on what I’m talking about, or as close to it as possible, if you can.” A moment passed before the scene changed to the weather map, though it was devoid of the weatherman, or any sort of replacement. “We’ll continue broadcasting from here until the power grid goes down. Once that happens, we’re all going to try and move as a group to Santa Catalina Island, off the coast of Los Angeles. I don’t know if we’ll make it, we can all hope and pray that we will, but either way that’s where we’re going. It’s safer there.”

It was then that I shut the TV off, and Chien glared at me. However, I didn’t react to the expression. I simply spoke.

“I hope there aren’t a lot of people watching that right now.”

“What? Why not?” Chien blinked a bit, “That sounds like a good plan. Catalina Island shouldn’t have the sorts of problems that the mainland is having, and you could probably grow food out there without too much trouble. Why shouldn’t people go out there?”

“It’s not that nobody should go there; it’s the amount of people that might head there now. Avalon, the city that’s out there on Catalina, can’t take a large influx of permanent residents. Tourists are fine because they only get so many for so long, and many of them buy things on the island that are shipped in, so they don’t take up the island’s own resources… but Avalon only has fresh water to support its citizens because of the desalination plants on the island. A surge in population might mean the island could run out of water, unless they ration it, and they’ll certainly run out of food unless they raid from the mainland somehow. Catalina is a tomb.”

“What if they ration the water and make solar stills? Couldn’t that work?” Chien asked, “And if they do raid the mainland, they might be able to get food. Not only that, but they could always fish… and… I dunno, maybe put dirt in some boats and grow crops in them? Something like that?”

“It’s possible they could do all of that, but it still might not be enough. There’s another problem besides that though, Chien.”

“…What?”

“What if all those people get there, and someone that’s infected shows up on the island? It goes from a haven… to hell.”

“Shit, you’re right.” Chien scowled a bit. “So I guess this means that we’re not going to an island paradise anytime soon, huh?”

“No, probably not. Though… Hawaii, in theory, will probably be alright so long as there’s nobody infected there. They have a large military presence, multiple islands, and for generations they’ve had fertile soil… so they should be able to be just fine. Alaska should be alright too, so long as nobody up there is infected. Climate is freezing and they’re cut off from the rest of us down here, so… they should be okay. If anything, if any portion of the federal government is still around, it’ll probably head to Hawaii, and what’s left of the military will use Hawaii and Alaska for their bases. Cheyenne Mountain is probably still operational, and without a doubt Groom Lake will be going strong for a long time… and of course all the Air Force’s missile silos, so long as they lock them down.”

“Our standing in the world just got fucked in the ass.”

“You can say that again.” I paused for a moment. “Well, then again, maybe not. I mean, the main deterrent to war that we have is still, in theory, entirely operational. We still have our nuclear silos, and the Navy’s boomer subs, so… we’re not entirely out of the game yet. Whatever’s left of our military is still a large threat when it comes to nuclear weapons; it’s just our ground forces that aren’t present.”

Chien nodded a little, and we were quiet for a moment before he spoke again.

“You don’t think… they’d nuke us, do you?”

“They who, Chien?”

“Our own government. Do you think they’d nuke the big cities were high concentrations of zombies are? Try and kill tons of them all at once?” There was silence after Chien’s question as I thought about it. It was a very good question, and one that I found difficult to answer.

“I… don’t know, actually. I suppose it’s possible, I mean… that would be an effective way to kill off large numbers of them without using up ammunition and possibly losing what forces we have left, but at the same time, there are obviously survivors in some areas. Hard to say what they would do, especially since we don’t know if the President is alive or not still. Or if there is a president, we have no idea if it’s the one we elected, or some person down the list that just was lucky enough not to get eaten. Without knowing whose finger is on the button, it’s hard to say if they’ll push it or not.” I blew out a breath. “That said… overall, I don’t think they will, be it for moral reasons, or technical reasons, I don’t think they’ll do it. If they nuke us they might kill a lot of survivors, so that’s the moral aspect, but they’d also likely destroy the fertile land we have in the lower forty-eight.”

“True. Guess there isn’t much point in getting land back that you can’t use anymore.” I nodded, and then tilted my head as he spoke again. “Might be an upside to this I guess. I mean, even in the state the country is in, nobody will attack us. Who the hell would want to invade us right now? China wouldn’t want to deal with this… assuming other nations around the world are even intact.”

“Yeah, and that’s a big assumption. We’ve got no idea where this came from, though I suspect that this might have been the first outbreak, right here in California. After all, there were no reports of this going on anywhere else this morning. Unless both sides of the country were seeded somehow, this might actually be limited to just…” I fell silent then as a thought struck me. I hadn’t thought of it until now, but there was something that I wanted to try.

“What…? What’s on your mind, Roy?” Chien asked with a raised brow.

“Cable still works, right?”

“Right…”

“That means cable internet should still work… right?”

We both sat there for a moment, looking at one another, and then immediately jumped to our feet and ran toward my room. Chien being the faster of us, he got there first and grabbed the high-backed office chair that was in front of my computer. He quickly conceded to let me use my own computer, however, when he discovered that he didn’t know what my password was. Taking my chair as he sat on the bed, I punched in the password and waited for a moment as the main screen came up. A grin spread across my lips as I saw that both my instant messengers flicked on, and the little icon was up showing that I was connected to the web.

A laugh came from me and I gave a clap. “Holy shit, it still works! Ha! God bless the internet!” A grin plastered on my face, I brought up Google and started looking through to see what news there might be about the spread of the plague. Apparently the C.D.C. and the N.S.A. ruled it an act or terrorism utilizing some sort of bio-weapon, though they had not yet had the opportunity to analyze it fully. Whatever it was though, they were pretty sure it was man made, and not at all natural considering the effects. The first occurrence of the infection came from New York City, and it spread like wildfire. The next report came from Los Angeles and the same was happening there. Then Miami, Seattle, Dallas, and Washington D.C. itself followed close behind. Reports after that started to flood in from major cities, first along the coasts, and then further and further inland.

Reports also started to come from Mexico and Canada, though that was almost to be expected considering their proximity to the United States and the fact that people were likely fleeing across the borders. North America was falling apart, and it had gotten to the point where apparently the United Nations was putting everything from the northern most reaches of Canada all the way down to the Panama Canal under quarantine. China had apparently lead the charge on that, and the situation in the Pacific was deteriorating. North Korea was threatening South Korea, and was apparently ready to back up its threats with force now that the United States was essentially incapacitated. Japan was backing up South Korea, thankfully, but that had gotten China involved on that front too. Taiwan had gotten involved, as had Singapore, but that only got the Chinese more riled.

There were even some nations starting to point the finger at China for starting this whole thing, being that it had been the nation to spur on the U.N. to quarantine North America. Some blamed North Korea because it had been so quick to jump at the chance to cause trouble once Uncle Sam had been kicked in the balls. I doubted it was North Korea that had done this. Despite the technology they had gained in the last few years, they weren’t to that sort of level yet. They still struggled with nuclear weapons – I really doubted they could make something like this. China didn’t make that much sense either, unless they were just planning to wait a long time before doing any sort of invasion. All they’d done was get the U.N. to quarantine us. Personally, I suspected either terrorists, a corporation, or our own military – though I didn’t think the military did it on purpose. If they had this, it was probably released on accident.

I tried to find any news about whether or not the elected President was still alive, but I couldn’t find anything past the fact that Air Force One had managed to get off the ground. Nothing about where it was headed, who had managed to board the plane, or who, if anyone, was still in charge of the country. I suspected that if there was someone in charge, they were likely on Air Force One, talking to what was left of the military command structure and our ambassadors overseas to see if they could quell the problems that were popping up in the Pacific. So far nobody had taken credit for the attack, but I had no doubt that what was left of the government was trying desperately to find out.

The one thing that I found incredibly interesting was that the one country who condemned the U.N.’s decision to quarantine North America was one of our old rivals: Russia. The entire time that China was pushing the United Nations to quarantine us, the Russians were fighting to get at least the Europeans to help us. The Russian President even said that he would be willing to send aid to the United States in whatever way the U.S. government deemed appropriate. Unfortunately, there was no official word yet as to whether the feds had gotten in contact with the Russians to negotiate aid being sent. Was almost funny… the only country that had our back was the one that we’d butted heads with for so many decades. Hell, they were even staring down China and North Korea in our absence. It was almost like a dream.

The unfortunate part was that it wasn’t a dream, it wasn’t just something that we could wake up from. I was about to check and see what the Europeans were thinking about doing, if anything, but the moment that I tried to run a search I just got that ‘could not display the webpage’ message. Glancing down to the bottom corner of my screen, I saw that the net connection was out. Glancing at the TV in my room, I grabbed the remote and turned it on, only to find that all I was getting was static. Blowing out a breath, I gently tossed the remote down onto the desk next to me.

“Well, that’s it. Cable is out, so the internet connection here is dead. Local network is up and running, but there’s no internet to speak of, unless we jury-rig a dial-up connection, but with how long we’re going to be here, it’s hardly worth it.” Leaning back in the office chair, I looked up at the ceiling for a moment, and then around my room until my eyes fell on a storage container beneath the wrap-around book case in my room – the thing that the TV itself was set up on. “Hey Chien, I know we came to get guns and swords and knives and all that… but baseball bats count as weapons too, right?”

In response, he just looked at me and held up the baseball bat that he’d been using since the start of this. I smirked a bit and then got up from my chair, pulling the storage bin out and opening it. As I did, I began to empty it out – and Chien was actually surprised to see what all was in it.

“Since when do you play sports, Roy?” He asked as he got off the bed and stood to look down in the storage bin. It was full of bats, baseballs, baseball gloves, soccer balls, footballs, a couple wooden training swords – both a bokken and a longsword version – a couple of helmets, and various other things.

“I don’t play any sports.” I shrugged a bit as I looked up him, and he blinked at me. “I mean hell, I have a scooter too, but I never really ride it anymore. Last time I rode it I was just a kid. I’m just not interested, really.”

“So why the hell do you have all this stuff if you’re not even interested in sports?”

“Simple, really. I used to play some sports back at our old school, before you transferred over from St. James. I played flag football; dad was the coach for the team. I mean, not the official coach, but our actual coach never showed up most of the time, so dad took it upon himself to coach us. We were okay… dad’s coaching was great… but most of the other teams had been playing for a while and were experienced. Our team was new again.”

“…Again?”

“Yeah. The school had an actual football team years before I ever started going there, but because of some school politics, the team was ended. Christian school in California. Not hard to see what happened there. Too many people didn’t like the idea of sports that included hitting others.” I rolled my eyes then. “They kept the basketball and soccer teams for a while, but eventually soccer died out too, so basketball was all they had after a while – and then in the end, they were about to lose that too before the new coach came in to try and bring back the sports.”

“Alright, but that still doesn’t explain why you have all this stuff. I mean, the footballs are explained. What about the baseballs, bats, and gloves?” Chien asked, thumbing toward the bin with a raised brow.

“Don’t you remember Pastor Ford?”

“Yeah, I kinda remember him. He’s the one that did P.E. with us when we got into seventh grade at Temple, right?”

“Yeah, that’s him. Don’t you remember that he got us playing baseball at P.E.?”

“Oh, right! I forgot about that. I had wondered whatever happened to your stuff after we stopped playing.” He leaned down and grabbed a couple of the baseballs, starting to juggle them slowly. “Why didn’t you ever bring any of this stuff to P.M.A.? We could’ve had some actual stuff to do besides sit and talk at lunch.”

“Think about it, dude. Even if we had the stuff, what’s the likelihood that we would’ve actually used it? Lunch wasn’t very long; remember?” I said as I began grabbing up the three bats, and the two training swords that were in the bin. “We also would’ve had to get permission and make sure the area was cleared. Let’s face it, if someone had gotten pranged on the head by a baseball, we never would have heard the end of it.”

“Okay, that’s true. Not only that, but we probably would’ve ended up with extra community service or some shit like that.” Chien chuckled, “Hey, at least that’s one up side to the zombie apocalypse; we never have to do that community service shit again. Ever. No more wearing uniforms to places we really don’t care about, to do things that really don’t help anyone, just to get credit for something we shouldn’t really have to do.”

“I just love your outlook on this. I mean really, it’s great.” I smirked a little and laughed to myself. “What’s say we load up the truck tonight so we don’t have to do it tomorrow morning? I’d like to get out of here as soon as we can tomorrow morning. The sooner that we get back, the better.”

Chien nodded and tossed the baseballs back into the storage bin. “Do you know the combination to the safe so we can get the guns?”

“Yeah, though I think we’ll wait on those until tomorrow morning, just in case.”