A Dark Evolution (Book 2): Deranged (14 page)

Dylan looked away.

“But listen, I have a plan, okay? We’re going to get within range of radio or television broadcast. We’re going to find out how far this thing has spread, and we’re going to go where it isn’t, okay?”

“Yeah, that sounds great, but-”

“But it’s going to be hard, yes. Listen, mosquitoes, even the farthest foraging ones only have a range of ten miles or so. It’s fall now, and winter is coming. We get ourselves north, where it isn't so damned humid, and the mosquito population will start to fall off. We get far enough north and it’ll actually be cold, there won't be any more vectors to transmit this thing. You understand?”

“I get it Kala,” Dylan said, sounding a little defensive. “I just think it’s going to be more complicated than that.”

“One step at a time, Dylan. We can’t solve problems we haven’t gotten to yet. Trust me here, please, I’m going to get us out of here.”

Dylan let out a loud breath through his nose. “Fine, but I still don’t trust these people.”

Kala nodded, “That’s because you’re smart, Dylan.”

He raised his eyebrows at her. That wasn’t what he was expecting to hear.

“Maybe trust will come later Dylan, but for now let’s get along. The more they think they need us and our help, the more likely they are to become real allies. Now let’s go.”

“This
can’t
actually be your plan, can’t!” Bruce stared at Jason with his mouth slightly agape as Jason hung up with the Vice President of Columbia.

“Look, it’s a first step. It won’t solve the problem, but their resistance to disease and certain pesticides has been widely documented.”

“That,” Bruce growled, jabbing a finger at the monitor, which showed a bright photograph of Apis mellifera scutellata perched on a South American flower blossom, “is not a step in the right direction. Bringing a notoriously vicious invasive species into a dying ecosystem will do nothing but make things worse.”

Jason sighed and leaned back. “I don’t agree. Ten thousand colonies will be flown in by the day after tomorrow.”

Bruce shook his head in frustration. “I really thought you would be smarter than this.”

Jason leaped from his chair and pounced on Bruce, grabbing him by the neck with one hand. His hands were strong from years of work in the field, studying and researching exotic arthropods all over the world. He was no lab rat. He squeezed Bruce’s fat neck. “Unless you are going to contribute something to the solution, keep your fat mouth shut.”

Bruce batted at his hand but Jason held firm. “They’re killer bees, for Christ’s sake, what are you thinking?” he garbled out.

“This world is going to end if I don’t do
something
, so that’s what I’m doing, trying. You should take a swing at it yourself once in awhile.” Jason’s face was hot and red. He released Bruce, who started sputtering immediately, then stumbled back to his chair.

“You’re wrong, Jason,” Bruce coughed. “The world won’t end, just humanity. It’s not one and the same, you know.”

Jason waved him off and ignored him.
Our world will end.
He would have the Africanized bee colonies strategically placed in temperate climates where the spraying was not as heavy; hopefully there were some of those left. In theory, they could begin pollinating, although it would be on a much smaller scale. Commercial agriculture would still go down the toilet, but he wasn’t concerned with the economics of it at this point. They just needed to grow food.

Jason wandered over to the liaison for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). “What kind of government infrastructure do we still have in place?” he asked the woman.

She turned, her horn-rimmed glasses searching his face. She whisked a hand through her graying hair. “Surprisingly, quite a lot. A large scale exodus has been taking place in the southern states, something we have actually been trying to stymie.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re taking the infection with them.” She clicked a few buttons on her computer. “All right, infrastructure has failed pretty much everywhere south of Missouri.” She pulled up the map for him. “See, if you draw a line from east to west across the country, starting at the Virginia-North Carolina border and all the way out to California, everything below that line has been compromised. There is no order, just complete anarchy. We don’t even have contact with the police forces in the south because they’ve been overrun.”

“Jesus,” Jason murmured, “that’s more than a third of the country. How many people are down there?”

She shrugged. “Best guess, eighty to ninety million.”

Jason let out a low whistle. “My god. Are they setting up roadblocks, quarantines, anything to keep them from coming north?”

“No, our National Guard is stretched to the limit. As soon as we put troops out there, they’re attacked by the zombies or small militia groups that are taking over in the infected areas.”

“Taking over? What do you mean?”

“There are a lot of gun-toting, gung-ho idiots out there that have been waiting their whole lives for this kind of thing to happen. Now they can finally get all their weapons out and establish their own militant order.”

Jason shook his head. “We cannot allow that, we have to move forward as a whole.”

The woman laughed at him, “Yeah, well, we’ll see.”

“All right, we have the north, now we need to protect it.”

She raised her eyebrows at him, “We’re trying.”

“Where are we with the antiparasitic meds?”

“One week out from a huge shipment. Most of the first and second run went down south to try to stem the flow of the infection. When the southern states fell, we lost all those meds. Presumably, there are a lot of uninfected people in the south, and a lot that have been taking their meds and are immune, so to speak, but we have no way to get to them.”

“Here’s what we need to do. We need to pull in the regular army and create a physical border between the northern and southern states. We need all police forces to track down every small aircraft and ground it. That is top priority. These assholes keep spraying and people will keep dying.”

“Can you explain to me about the pesticides?”

“Maybe later, we need to move on this now. Ground every plane. If they can’t stop them...well, shoot them down.”

She chuckled, “Shoot them down? Are you serious?”

Jason fixed her with a hard stare. “Dead serious. The gravity of the oncoming ecological collapse will make this zombie outbreak look like a case of the chicken pox.”

She didn’t look like she believed him but Jason did not care.

“Regular army, call them in. They need to be in protective suits. Tyvek will be sufficient to protect them from the disease vectors.”

“And those that try to break through the ‘border’?”

“They’ll have to shoot them,” Jason said with a disappointed look. “They can’t even be allowed close to the border, or any parasite-carrying insects on them could potentially continue further north.”

“And what do we do about the mosquitoes?”

“What about the mosquitos?”

“How do we get rid of them?” the woman asked irritably.

Jason stared at her incredulously. “Are you kidding? We don’t. We can’t get rid of mosquitoes. They’ve been trying in Africa for a hundred years; it’s not possible.” He let out a breath. “But winter is coming.”

When winter came the mosquito population would be seriously suppressed. They may actually be able to get into the south and evacuate the uninfected, if there was anyone left. Jason didn’t know if he had enough authority or pull to get the army to deploy troops, but an hour later, the woman from DHS walked over and told him the president was on board.

“Wow,” Jason responded, impressed with the woman’s resourcefulness and direct access to those in real power.

“In the meantime, any available resources will be put in place to start creating some type of border.”

“Good, that’s good,” he said. “The border needs to be at least five miles from any uninfected settlements.

“And Bruce told me you’re flying in killer bees from Central America?”

“South America, and yes. Africanized bees are the main commercial pollinators in South America. They can be managed, and they can be used very effectively.”

“All right Jason,” she said, but stayed there with him. “You really seem to have a plan. Bruce said there’s no hope at all.”

Jason sighed. “There’s always hope, there’s always hope. I’m just trying to do anything I can.”

*****

It took a week to finish the fence, and Robert was immensely thankful that Manuel and his family were here. They worked hard, long hours. Even after Robert, his daughters, and son-in-law could do no more, Manuel and his sons kept at it, stringing long spools of wire between the hundreds of stakes they had erected surrounding his farm.
I guess it really is more of a compound now
, he thought.

There was enough room for them to live and spread out comfortably within their electrified fortress. Robert’s house was large, and then there was the bunkhouse where Manuel and his family slept. That had a kitchen and shower too, but mostly everyone ate meals together in Robert’s house. The barn was also within the fence, along with all of the equipment inside. That morning, Robert and Manuel hauled out the big generator from the back of the barn and located several jugs of gasoline. They wouldn’t last too long, but until he figured out a mechanical replacement for the electric pump motor in his well, he would have to use the generator.

“The corn is coming up,” Manuel said to him matter-of-factly.

“I saw it. I’m happy to see any of it, really, those seeds are old,” Robert said. He looked out to the field just outside of their newly constructed electric fence. A light green haze covered the ground, tiny sweet corn seedlings. “It will be a long winter if we only have corn to eat though.”

“Corn is better than nothing,” Manuel said with a shrug. Manuel was nearly sixty himself, but his body was hard and muscular; he was a man who had known nothing but hard labor his entire life. He didn’t seem to mind though, even on the weekends, Manuel was always busy with something.

“You’re right, Manuel, but I think we need to have meat, too. There’s half a cow in the big freezer, but that will go fast.”

“Yes, especially when the power goes down for good.”

Robert nodded. He didn’t want to think about the coming blackout, but they had to. The power had been intermittent for days, hence digging the old generator out to power the well when the time came. “That will be difficult. Well, we will eat like kings for a few weeks then,” Robert said, and looked over to Manuel.

The man was looking down at his creased brown hands.

“Are you worried, Manuel?”

“I am,” he answered. “I think we can trade corn for meat, when the time comes. That should help, don’t you think?”

“I think that could work. Once the infection dies out, if it does, we should be able to leave the farm. We’ll check on the Pattersons, they’re just two miles north, and they had some cattle.”

“You think the cattle will get the disease too?” Manuel asked.

Robert pondered this for a moment. “I really don’t know. I haven’t heard of it happening, but that doesn’t mean much. Everybody has been reporting on the human attacks. But - I would think we would have heard if the cattle were getting sick.”

“Maybe. How long before the people in the city start coming out here, to look for food, or a place to stay?”

Robert looked at him. Manuel held his gaze, his tired eyes searching Robert’s cloudy ones. “You mean the zombies, or bad people.”

Manuel shrugged. “I think our fence will keep out the dead ones as long as there are only a handful. The power is as high as I could make it - 5,000 volts, but Jonas knows about electrical, and he rigged up the energizer so that it sends a pulse through the fence every two to three seconds.”

“Why not just make it constant?” Robert asked him.

“If it’s always on, it will shock somebody and burn them, but then they can get away and try to find a different way in. Jonas says that when it pulses, it will grab a person,” Manuel made a fist with his hand, “and after it grabs a person, it will keep shocking them until they die.”

“That’s good. And the solar panels on the barn are enough to power it?”

“As long as it’s sunny,” Manuel said and gave Robert a grin.

Robert laughed, “Well, thank God we’re in California then.”

“But it’s men I’m worried about, Robert. Men with guns. I don’t think those dead things are smart, but men are. Men will be able to disable the fence.” Manuel’s face had turned serious, and Robert knew he was hoping for some answers. Robert just didn’t have any to give. Instead he just sighed.

“Yeah, me too old friend, me too.”

Robert and Manuel stared out into the sunlit compound for a few more minutes before Jane came wandering out. She still looked haggard, exhausted from a long night of crying. Her husband, Jackson, had never returned, and she had been spending her time balancing taking care of her two kids and retreating into her bedroom to cry. Robert watched her approach.

“Lunch is ready, Grandpa.”

“Thanks Jane,” he responded, but she was already turning away toward the house. Robert stood up just as Manuel’s son Jonas came sprinting out from around the side of the barn. Manuel leapt to his feet as the lithe twenty-year-old sprinted toward them.

“Someone’s coming! They’re turning into the driveway now!” The young man was out of breath and held Manuel’s rifle in one hand, which Manuel took and immediately slid back the bolt to be sure it was loaded. Robert grabbed his shotgun and they ran toward the driveway where the electric fence crossed over. He could see a plume of dust coming from further down the driveway, which was almost a half mile long.

“You take that side!” he shouted to Manuel, who ran to the opposite side of the driveway. They had to stop the car before it reached the fence or it could potentially break right through their barrier. Ten seconds later, the vehicle came into view. It was a dark blue pickup truck. He couldn’t see inside the cab because it was bouncing around too much, but he had never seen the truck before.

“Tires!” he called out, and he and Manuel began firing at the approaching vehicle. Sparks erupted from the front of the truck as they tried to hit the tires. Still it kept coming, though it was weaving drunkenly. Now Robert could see there was only one person in the cab, but still couldn’t make him out clearly. The truck was less than a hundred yards from smashing into the fence now. Robert braced his shotgun on the post next to him and let out a breath. He closed one eye and focused on the driver through the cheap scope. His finger was starting to depress the trigger when Jane came up screaming from behind him. He startled and his finger jerked. The slug went wide, slamming into the windshield in front of the passenger seat.