Omega Pathogen: Mayhem (3 page)

“I’m going downstairs to double-check that we’re as secure as we can be, and make sure the blinds are all closed. We don’t want those things to see any movement from inside and decide to investigate. Then I’m going to the garage and shut off the main breaker to the house to make sure we lessen the risk of any noise from appliances, or the kids deciding to turn on the TV.”

Currently, the infected seem to be just milling about, until something catches their interest and they rush to investigate. For now, they seem to pay little attention to the Matthews home, and Jim and the rest of the family would like to keep it that way.

“Remember, guys, sudden or even regular human movements are picked up much more easily by people and animals. I’m not sure about these things out there, but I think it would be smart to move slowly if there’s any chance we’ll be seen. We have to assume they behave like animals hunting other animals,” Jim advises.

“Or animals hunting people,” Arzu interjects.

“I agree. So, when you get near windows to take a peek outside, make sure you move slowly. Understand what I mean?”

Jeremy responds with “Yeah, Dad” and Chris with, “Gotcha, Pop”. Arzu gives a nod, and heads off to try to occupy the younger kids.

With no further questions, they go about their assigned tasks as quietly as possible. Jim makes a check of the downstairs area, the most vulnerable part of their home. It’s now turned into a makeshift fortress they hope will hold. Not finding anything they can reinforce now--quietly, anyway--Jim proceeds to the attached garage. He clumsily makes his way to the electrical panel, cursing himself as he goes.

He makes his way through the mess of the boxes and items that he's scattered everywhere, looking for anything and everything to assist in their survival.
Damn, I really need to get more organized
, he thinks.

After turning off the main circuit breaker to the house, Jim makes his way back inside the house and turns to ascend the stairs. He’s met by the sight of Chris a few steps down from the upstairs landing. Chris is signaling him forward with his left hand and looking in the direction of the game room and at the rear of the house and his father.

“What is it, Chris?”

“Jeremy said those crazy people look like they’re leaving. The ones in the front look like they’re looking toward the east and walking away, too. A couple came up near the house but then moved off.”

“OK, let’s have a look,” Jim responds.

Jim and Chris meet with Jeremy in the upstairs game room, and carefully spread a couple of the blinds and look out. As described, the mass of infected seems to be dispersing, and heading toward neighboring homes that had been broken into the previous night.

Many of the infected periodically hold the front area of their head with their palms, and growls from many of them are heard from time to time. Looking at his watch, Jim notices the time, 6:52 AM. Taking note of the sun’s position, he guesses they don’t like the sunlight. Some of the infected don’t disappear inside neighborhood homes, but simply find shade where available.

“It looks like they don’t like to be in the sunlight very much. They’re either heading indoors, or going to some area of shade where they can find it,” Jim points out. “This is something we may be able to use soon, somehow.”

“What are you planning?” Arzu asks, coming into the room.

“I don’t know yet, baby. But at least we know a little more about them, maybe a weakness. We’ll keep watching them as much as we can. We may be able to shore up our defenses during the day, as long as we’re quiet. This may also mean that we’ll need to adjust our security watches, too, focusing on evening hours more than daylight.”

Deciding to take the risk of fortifying the home some more, Jim turns the main breaker to the house back on, so they’ll have power for drills and recharging batteries. As quietly as they can, they take more plywood from the garage and screw it to the walls over the windows. Several times during their work, they stop when one of the family members acting as a lookout informs them that infected are close by or seem to be paying attention to their home.

While at the living room window in the back of the home, they hear glass being shattered nearby. Looking out the window, but unable to see the source of the noise, Jim and Jeremy go to the second floor to investigate, leaving Chris to maintain watch over the first floor. They hear the sound of dogs barking and growling, with a mixture of yelping as if in pain. Ascending to the game room, the approximate direction of the noise, Jim and Jeremy carefully peer out.

Parting the closed blinds, carefully so they attract no attention, they’re able to get enough of a view in the area of the noise. Looking around at the houses behind them, Jeremy is the first to see. “Oh, man, those poor dogs,” he says in a quiet voice, and removes his hand from the blind, allowing them to close and shut off his view. Jim starts to ask Jeremy what he saw when he notices six human figures two houses behind theirs.

All are obviously infected. Two of them are kneeling over a medium-sized dog, rending its flesh with their hands and teeth. The other four have another larger dog cornered between the privacy fence and the outer wall of the back of the house. The dog attacks, but so do the infected.

After a few moments, the second dog is brought down by the other four as they continue to strike it with fists, pouncing on the animal and ripping away pieces of its flesh in their teeth. They chew the dog’s hairy flesh like starving hyenas.

Seeing enough, Jim lets go of the blinds and turns to Jeremy. “Come on, son, let’s finish boarding this place up.”

Depleting the remaining plywood and 2x4s, they decide to eat and see if they can learn anything new about the condition of the city and the rest of the world on TV. Colored bars and a continuous tone greet them. Some channels from lightly populated areas are still broadcasting live and running recordings of video and views from helicopters, with reports giving narrative to what’s below. There’s no reporting from anyone on the ground at any of the scenes playing out.

Most of the video Jim and his family haven’t seen yet, and they wish they weren’t seeing it now. “Damn, this is getting out of control,” Chris says, staring at the TV as they watch reports and video from different cities across the U.S. and from numerous other countries. It’s all the same; just the locations are different, and the extent of chaos varies only slightly. All of the reports are of cities becoming more and more out of control and descending deeper into anarchy.

“I need to call Mom and the rest of the family in Florida,” Jim says while digging around in his pants pockets. Immediately after the words leave his lips, he feels heartbroken for Arzu. Her family is in Turkey, and they have no feasible way to get them. She’s tried calling numerous times to no avail. All her attempts were met with only the sound of a rapid busy signal.

Finding his phone, Jim dials his mom’s cell number. It rings once and then begins the rapid beeping tone. The sound is normally just irritating, but now strikes him with fear. He tries his sister’s, his brother’s, and friends’… nothing but the same beeping noise.

Chapter 3

Present

The next evening, the family is gathered around on the second floor landing so they can keep an eye on the first floor and talk, while eating some reconstituted freeze-dried food. They talk of
normal
things, joking and making small talk.

Jim and Arzu have talked about it and feel they need to try to explain to Berk and Kayra about what is going on with the world. They decide the best way is simple but not overly graphic. The six of them are gathered together when Arzu brings up the subject to Berk and Kayra. “I want to explain to you two about what’s happened to a lot of the people in our neighborhood, and the world.” Kayra looks up from eating and says, “You mean all the people that turned to zombies, Mom?” No one speaks, not knowing exactly how to respond, until Berk says, “Yeah, we learned about zombies from school. All the other kids told us about zombies a long time ago, from movies they saw.” Arzu clarifies, “These sick people aren’t really zombies; they’re infected with a disease and it makes their minds not work right.”

Surprising everyone with their seemingly nonchalant view of the new world, Berk and Kayra continue to eat. “They are scary,” Berk adds, and Kayra agrees, “Yeah, they’re creepy.” The adults turn back to conversations about supplies, with Jim bringing up the subject. “I’ve been thinking of making a run to one of the sporting goods stores nearby. The Academy store is the closest, so I think that’s the best choice,” he says. Arzu, having been looking away to wipe some food from Kayra’s chin, whips her head around to face Jim.

“You can’t go out there. Even if they are less active when the sun is up, you know they come running when they see or hear something. Look what they did to the poor dogs from the house behind ours.”

Realizing what she said in front of the kids as soon as it left her lips, she looks back at Kayra and finishes wiping her chin. “What happened to the dogs, Mom?” Kayra asks, not missing the mention of the animals and the tone in which her mother mentioned them.

“The sick people hurt the dogs, honey. They don’t know any better.” Arzu hates to do it, but she tells almost an entire truth, sparing her daughter and son the mental imagery of the animals being attacked and eaten alive.

“Baby, I have to check it out. We need more ammunition; we could use more weapons, too, along with camping equipment, not to mention more food and some way for water purification, like chemicals and filters. All those things that outdoor sporting goods stores have,” Jim says as Arzu’s attention comes back to the conversation.

Jim continues, “If we’re going to have any chance to get to Florida, we’ve got to stock up on supplies. We’ll have to distract them away from the house somehow. I don’t know how yet, but that seems to be the only option.”

Several more attempts throughout the day and evening by Jim, Arzu, Chris, and Jeremy to call family members and friends are unsuccessful.

Prior to sundown, they decide it best to turn off the TV to reduce the possibility of the animal-like infected becoming interested in their home. They divide their security shifts again between Jim, Chris, and Jeremy for watching over the home. Like the preceding nights, they can hear the occasional distant shattering of glass and what sounds like beating on doors or sides of houses. The occasional report of gunshots is heard as well.

Morning comes with Jim being on watch; he picked being the last on their rotation, knowing that the predawn hours are usually the most difficult to stay alert in. He trusts his sons, but he’s more accustomed to working with little sleep.

Shortly after dawn comes, Jim informs them that they’ll need to use the stored water to complete their morning rituals, explaining that in the pre-dawn hours the electricity went out. The family gathers for a breakfast of reconstituted freeze-dried breakfast packs of food, with the water having been heated by a Coleman stove near the fireplace.

The house is cold; a front has obviously moved over their area of Texas. Luckily, the natural gas to the home is still flowing, and provides them heat from the gas fireplace. Berk asks Arzu, “Why is a blanket on the TV?”

“Oh, it’s not working right now, Berk,” Jim replies. “You and Kayra need to eat right now, OK?”

“Why is the blanket on the TV?” Arzu asks when Berk is out of hearing range.

“I was taking a look at the news sometimes and didn’t want the light to show outside.”

“And?” Arzu asks.

“It’s the same stuff as before, just a lot worse. Then the power went out at about 4:30 this morning.”

The family continues to eat with little being said; all are lost in their own thoughts until Jim quietly breaks the silence with a barely audible curse. “Shit.” The others, hearing him, look in his direction questioningly. “What’s wrong?” Arzu asks.

“I’m stupid!”

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far, Dad. Maybe a little slow, but not stupid,” Jeremy says with a grin shared with Chris. Looking over at Berk and Kayra sitting away but in listening distance, Jim chooses his words carefully.

“We need to make some obstacles to the second floor. If we have issues with the security we already have in place, we need to have time to get up to the attic and out to Chris and Jeremy’s work truck.

“We need to take care of this today. The Nissan is in the garage; we need to get it stocked with some food, water and other gear in case we need to leave directly out of the garage, which I’d prefer because we’ll all fit in it better and we couldn’t take the time to properly stock the work truck with supplies.

“We’ll barricade the stairway with furniture and anything else to slow those things down if they were to get in. We can give ourselves more time to make it to the attic and get out from there if it gets worse. If we have to hide out in the attic, that’ll mean we’ll be taking Chris and Jeremy’s work truck.” With all in agreement, they decide to work on the new plan after eating.

Throughout the day, the family puts into action their plan as quietly as possible, constantly breaking away from their work to see what the infected in visible range of their home are doing.

Jim notices one of the infected in their backyard. It’s a male, wearing only a pair of dirty boxers. The infected man is lying with his head under the shade from their picnic table and its body in the sunlight. He’s in the fetal position, with his eyes shielded by his arm. Arzu notices Jim spending more time at the widow and comes to his side.