Influenza: Viral Virulence (20 page)

Chapter 20

Thus far, the
traffic on the roads had been light. But that was because they were traveling through farm country. South of Dayton and all the way to Cincinnati, the area became more densely populated. Minor cities and towns appeared every couple of miles.

They saw their first running car as they got close to Cincinnati. It was driving in the opposite direction. The car didn’t slow down as they passed each other. Michael kept driving and watched the car’s taillights disappear from view in his mirror. They had to be trying to escape the city.

Michael asked the question he had been avoiding this entire trip. He didn’t want to ask it because he didn’t want to know the answer. “What are you going to do when I finally get you home?”

She turned her head to look at him. He forced himself to look straight ahead as she answered. “I really don’t know. I guess I’ll do whatever my parents want me to do. I never really thought about it. I mean, I need to stay with my parents, right?”

“Yes, family is very important. I was just thinking that maybe you and your parents might decide to come with me to my parents’ retreat. You’ll be safer in a remote area than trapped in the city.”

She looked out her side window. “I really don’t know, Michael. We’ll just have to wait and see. I haven’t given much thought to the future yet.”

“Just think about it.”

Michael didn’t want to say goodbye to Lorie yet. He had recently said goodbye to Brian and Scott knowing that he would probably never see them again. Then, he had just today said farewell to Jeffrey and Liz. He didn’t want to part paths with Lorie. He wanted her to stay with him. The thought of never seeing her again made his insides twist up.

But when it came down to it, if he were the one who had to choose between staying with Lorie or meeting up with his parents, he would have to choose his parents. He really didn’t want to think about it. Maybe Lorie was in the same predicament…if what Liz told him had any truth to it.

As they drove closer to I-275, the interstate bypass that circumvented metropolitan Cincinnati, the freeway became very congested. Even though I-75 opened up to four lanes of traffic, it was still jammed full of useless metal. Michael brought the truck to a stop as they approached a barricade of cars that completely blocked their path.

Wary that this would be an ideal place to set up an ambush, he had Lorie move over to his seat and get behind the wheel of the truck as he got out to scout ahead. He ran up to the nearest car and jumped up on the hood for a better view. He could see the I-275 interchange ahead as I-75 went over the bypass. But between here and there was a carnage of vehicles.

From his elevated position, he looked at the mess ahead, trying to mentally trace a path. It was like one of those maze games for kids where you had to draw a path for Johnny to follow to get through the hedgerows to the treasure. He jumped down to the pavement and got back in the truck.

He pulled the truck as far to the left as he could until he reached the breakdown lane. There was a car ahead that was wedged between the concrete wall and another vehicle. Michael got out of the truck once again and wiggled his way around the stuck car. He had to climb over the hood to get completely around the car. Facing it, Michael realized that this car was not completely empty. Looking back at him was the decaying corpse of the male driver. Michael prayed that the car was in neutral as he bent down and tried to push the car backward. It didn’t budge.

Unfortunately, the car was in gear, which meant that he had to manually put the car into neutral in order to roll it. That meant he had to get close to the grisly remains. Bracing himself, Michael went over to the passenger’s door and opened it. A putrid smell buffeted his senses, making him reel backward and gag. Eyes watering, he put his left arm over his nose and approached the car door again. He reached in slowly with his right arm, trying not to touch the body. Leaning in farther than he wanted to, he finally reached the gear lever and popped it into neutral.

He closed the car door quickly and sucked in the cool, fresh air. He stood there recovering for a moment and looked back at his truck. Sitting in the driver’s seat with the rifle, Lorie waved at him encouragingly and smiled. She had to have seen what Michael had done. Sandy had climbed into the passenger’s seat and was also watching him.

Michael waved back and smiled to show them everything was all right. He climbed over to the front of the car again and pushed. This time it started to roll backward—a little at first, but as Michael continued to push, the wheels started moving faster. When he managed to get enough clearance for the truck, he stopped pushing and let the car roll to a stop.

He got back into the truck and took a deep drink from his water bottle. Wiping the sweat from his forehead, Michael drove the truck down the left breakdown lane. After a few hundred feet, they came across one more car that was blocking their path. Instead of getting out this time, Michael slowly moved the truck forward until the front bumper guard connected with the rear of the car ahead. He put the truck in the lowest gear and then used the truck’s eight-cylinder engine to forcibly push the car out of the way. The parked car protested at first, but the tiny compact model was no match for Michael’s big truck.

In the clear, Michael drove on. Just ahead, the freeway started to rise as it passed over I-275. To get to his home, he would have to go west on the bypass. However, he had to go east to get to Lorie’s house. He could see from here that all the ramps off of and onto I-275 were choked full of cars. It was an impossible mess to get through. It would take them forever to try to move all those cars.

He drove off the freeway onto the grass. The ground sloped down steeply as it approached I-275, but Michael thought the truck could handle it. Making sure they were going straight down, he kept his foot on the brake as they slowly descended. The truck rolled over some uneven patches, and they bounced up and down. At one point, the tires hit something, and the truck wanted to veer to the right. Michael thought he was going to lose control, but he wrestled with the steering wheel and forced the truck back to where he wanted it to go. He both heard and felt the cargo in the back of the truck shift as they rolled down the slope.

When they reached the bottom, Michael sighed with relief and started going east on I-275. He noticed that Lorie was still gripping her seat belt tightly. In the backseat, Sandy had her ears down and appeared to be nauseous.

After driving for another thirty minutes (which under normal circumstances should only have taken ten), Michael turned off the interstate into a more affluent section of town. After another twenty minutes, having encountered no major obstacles, they finally turned the corner leading to Lorie’s community. Driving up the pristinely groomed entryway, Michael’s heart was heavy, and he felt a twinge of depression. He knew that he would only be with Lorie for a little while longer. Then she would be gone, out of his life, forever.

“We made it!” Lorie exclaimed with glee. Her joyful countenance was infectious, and Michael felt happy for her.

Going up the cobbled brick entrance to Candlestick Estates, Michael marveled once again at the grandeur of the subdivision. Black, wrought-iron gates towering sixteen feet tall guarded both the entrance and exit lanes. Stone pillars on the far side of the massive gates reached up toward the sky and then arched over toward each other, meeting in the middle. There, the guardhouse stood with a window for watching approaching traffic and a door where the security officer should be checking them in.

On previous trips, the guard would come out of the house with a clipboard and pen. Security cameras strategically placed on the arch would be recording the vehicle and license plate. After checking Lorie’s and Michael’s names against the list of current homeowners and approved visitors, the guard would smile and wish them a good day. He would then reach inside the door and push some unseen button, and the massive, motorized gates would slowly swing open.

But today, Michael could see that the guardhouse was empty. As he pulled to a stop in front of the gates, he could see they were chained shut.

“It’s locked,” Lorie commented, about the same time Michael saw the chains.

“And there doesn’t appear to be anyone in the security office. I wonder how we’re going to get in…”

Michael looked to both his right and his left. The community was well secured with a stone wall that surrounded the property. Not only decorative, the large, eight-foot wall also kept the traffic noise from the nearby street from penetrating the community and annoying the residents. On the top of the wall was another six feet of black, wrought-iron fence that matched the gates. With Gothic spikes on top, the fence was meant to deter potential intruders.

As Michael was looking at the fence, wondering how they would get in, Lorie touched his arm. Breaking his gaze, he looked to where Lorie was pointing. There, on the other side of the black, metal gate, a policeman appeared wielding a shotgun in both hands.

The policeman waved the shotgun at them, and Michael didn’t understand whether he meant for them to turn around and leave or to get out of the truck. Hoping that he meant the latter, Michael got out of the truck.

Pointing the shotgun at Michael, the policeman shouted, “Stop!”

Michael froze and lifted his hands.

“Turn around slowly,” the policeman commanded.

Michael did as he asked, and when he was facing the gate again, he stopped turning. He was wondering if they had made a mistake coming here.

“What are you doing here?” the man in the uniform demanded.

“I’m bringing my friend home,” Michael answered, indicating Lorie, who was still sitting in the truck.

“What is her name?” he asked.

“Lorie Silverstein,” Michael answered back.

The policeman glanced at Michael’s passenger, referred to a list, and said, “Have her exit the vehicle too. Slowly.”

Lorie did as he asked and made the slow circle like Michael had done.

Still pointing the gun at Michael, he said, “Approach the gate. Keep your hands in the air, and don’t make any sudden movements.”

Michael and Lorie walked to the gate as the policeman instructed.

Now face-to-face with the man, Lorie said, “I live here with my parents. We’re just coming back from college.”

Ignoring her, the policeman said, “I need to see your driver’s license or some sort of ID. If it’s in your pocket or purse, I need you to get it out very slowly.”

Lorie did as he asked and handed him her ID through the gate bars.

“What is your parents’ street address?”

Lorie told him.

The policeman referred to his list. “And phone number?”

She gave him her parents’ home-phone number.

He looked at her card and then looked at Michael. “And who are you?”

“Michael Donovan.”

“He brought me home from school,” Lorie said.

“I need your ID too.”

Michael cautiously retrieved his wallet from his back pocket. The policeman watched his every move closely, and the shotgun never wavered. Handing his driver’s license through the bars as Lorie had done, Michael wondered if they were going to be gunned down in front of these gates so close to their homes.

After studying both IDs, the policeman visibly relaxed and, to Michael’s relief, lowered the gun. “Okay, you check out. Give me a second here.” The policeman fumbled with the lock and took the chains off the gate.

As he was unchaining the gate, Lorie asked, “Now that you know who we are, who are you? I haven’t seen you here before.”

“Sergeant, I mean,
previously
Sergeant John Dickerson, ma’am,” he replied. Looking behind Michael and Lorie to make sure that there was no one else approaching the gate, John swung the gate open wide enough for them to step through.

Once on the other side, Lorie asked, “What is going on here?”

“Just extra security,” John said. “We don’t want any trouble in the neighborhood.”

“What do you mean
previously
sergeant? Are you still with the force?” Michael asked.

“Long story,” the sergeant replied. “But the short story is that I was with the sheriff’s department last month. Today, like the rest of the world, things are very different.”

“How did you end up here?” Lorie asked as John pushed one of the gates the rest of the way open.

“After the virus hit, it was bad out there and getting worse all the time. People were going crazy. They were breaking into stores, looting, and killing each other. We couldn’t respond to all of the calls that came in. We had to decide which calls took priority. Most of the department had called in sick, or didn’t even bother to show up. The state police couldn’t send any help, if they even had anybody left. Finally, the governor called up the National Guard, but by then, it was too late. There was no National Guard left. No army. No government. Nothing. We found ourselves fighting a losing war on the streets.

“It was getting so bad that my wife’s boss called her and offered to have her and the kids stay at her house for a while. ‘Until things get back to normal,’ my wife’s boss said. She’s a good person and always got along with my wife. So, one evening I packed up our minivan with some clothes and drove them over here,” he said, indicating the homes behind him.

“Anyway,” he continued, “I went to work that night, and the only person still left at the station was the dispatcher. I checked in and started my rounds. Soon after dark I got a call of shots fired and two officers down. I raced to the scene, got out of my cruiser, and saw two of my brothers in blue lying in the middle of the street in a pool of their own blood.

“I radioed back that I needed assistance and an ambulance. Then, I came under heavy fire myself. No one responded to my radio requests for help. With no backup, I barely made it to my cruiser unharmed, and then I got the heck out of there. The saddest part is that those two officers, who gave their lives to protect the public, are probably still lying in the street dead. They were gunned down by vicious perps, who will go unpunished and, most probably, kill again.