The Emerald Virus (26 page)

    
Everyone leaving was outfitted with food, water and weapons. The members going
west wanted to share vehicles so Ron provided them with six Humvees, telling
them that if they wanted they could abandon some of them on the way and travel three
or four to each Humvee. There were plenty of vehicles left for anyone who
wanted to leave later.

    
The good-byes were said quietly and quickly. Everyone knew that those leaving
were going to die in the next three weeks and sooner if the virus had already
invaded the bunker. There wasn’t much to be said.

    
Ron started the drive since he at least had limited experience with the
chemical warfare vehicle. The trip down the mountains to I-25 was narrow and
twisting in places and took a couple of hours. After that it was Interstate all
the way to Baltimore. To be safe they decided they would refuel in Kansas City,
and then again in Columbus, Ohio. Other than that they were planning on no
stops at all.

    
They both worried about driving at night at high speed since a blockage on the
road was always possible. They had heard enough reports of accidents left
unattended that they knew they would see some of that. The metro areas would be
the most hazardous. Fortunately the truck was built for off road use so they
should be able to drive around most problems. All they had to do was see them
in time to stop.

    
The truck looked like a small RV painted in military camouflage. Because of the
weight it had double axles on the rear and was outfitted more comfortably than
Jack would have guessed. The cab was open to the back so they could move around
at will. It had a built in coffee pot so they could keep fresh coffee brewed
for the entire trip.

    
While Ron drove, Jack stayed on the computer with the aid of the attached phone
card. The cell system was still working fine. He followed the progress of
survivors as each logged onto the survivor web page and recorded their
progress. Most movement had started within the last day or so. Many of the
notes were heartbreaking. A survivor from Maine named Mary simply said,
“They’re all dead now and I’ve started my journey south. I’ll write more later.”
From Nebraska a note was posted that read, “May God take and keep my family
safe, I wasn’t able to.” It was signed by “Tony headed south.” From Atlanta
there was a note from Charlotte that read “I’m driving north, but I don’t know
why.”

    
Jack tried to call each survivor who had started their trip. He found that Mary
in Maine was an eighteen year old who was driving south with two other
survivors she had met in the last couple of days. Each had their own RV. She
could hardly bring herself to talk at all, but she knew she couldn’t stay where
she was without going insane.

    
Tony was a middle aged wheat farmer who answered the phone on the third try but
didn’t want to talk. He was surprised that he was talking to Jack Sweeney and
seemed to like the fact that Jack had called him, but all he said was, “Call me
tomorrow, maybe I’ll be able to think then.”

    
Charlotte was a young grandmother from Atlanta who had been a business woman
and knew a lot about truck farming. She was also surprised that Jack had called
her, and she thanked him. But she was in shock and told Jack she was driving
only because she had promised her sons and husband that after they died she
would make the effort. She was going to a state park they had selected for her
in the Tennessee River Valley. She had talked to a couple of survivors, or
rather her sons had done so for her, but she hadn’t yet hooked up with anyone.
She was supposed to meet a small group in Chattanooga when she arrived there.
Jack told her he would call her in the next day or two to see how she was
faring.

  
  Jack and Ron arrived in Kansas City at 7:30 that evening, ten hours after
they left the bunker. They had yet to see another moving vehicle. Jack knew it
was a couple of days too early for everyone to have died, so he was surprised
that they saw no vehicles. They did see a lot of abandoned vehicles and quite a
lot of junk along the Interstate. Some of the vehicles looked like they had
either broken down or simply run out of gas; others had been involved in
accidents and were left where they had stopped.

    
As they approached Kansas City they started to see dead bodies lying on or
along the road. Jack said he assumed that those were victims whose cars no
longer worked, and that had died of the virus while they were walking to their
destination. He was also sure that some of the wrecks were from people who had
died or lost consciousness while they were driving. He thought that if it
looked like this in Kansas City, things would be much worse once they reached
the congestion of the eastern corridor.  

    
They stopped at the first truck stop west of Kansas City and felt they had
gotten lucky. The pumps were still working and there was fuel available for
them to fill the truck. They did not see a living soul.

    
Jack was surprised at the number of big trucks that were parked at the truck
stop. These must be truckers that were trying to get home but for some reason
couldn’t. None of the engines were running and Jack looked in a number of the
cabs. There were no bodies in any of them.

    
While Jack was looking in the trucks, Ron looked in a number of cars that were
parked at the truck stop. Ron said he thought that the truckers had left their
rigs here and continued the journey home in automobiles. Almost all of the cars
were unlocked with the keys in the ignition. Most of them were totally empty,
although there were a few packed with belongings, and one of these had two dead
bodies in the front seat. They agreed that someone must have arranged for extra
vehicles to be left here for the truckers. Word of that would have spread quickly.

    
Two of the parked big rigs were fuel tankers. They toyed briefly with the idea
of driving one of the tankers just to be sure they would have fuel for the trip
home, but they immediately discarded that idea as impractical and overly
cautious.

    
Twenty minutes after stopping they were back on the road heading east.  The
next large city would be St. Louis, and they should arrive there in a little
over three hours.

    
Jack and Ron were now changing drivers every two hours to make sure they stayed
alert. The truck was equipped with cruise control and they found if they put
the driver’s seat all the way back they could easily change drivers without
slowing down.

    
As they approached St. Louis Jack was driving and Ron was sleeping in the back.
Due to the number of abandoned vehicles Jack had slowed down going through the
city but now as they approached the Mississippi River Bridge which sat at the
base of the Arch, he had to brake sharply. It looked like a war zone. There
were multiple pile ups of cars, some burned out and a couple still smoking.
Across the river it looked like the entire city of East St. Louis, Illinois was
burning. There were so many wrecked cars Jack wasn’t sure he could get across
the bridge.

    
Just as Ron walked into the cab and asked, “What’s going on?” a number of shots
rang out.

    
Ron took in the situation in a flash and yelled, “stay right and take the ramp
that says I-64 West. I should’ve thought of this sooner. Not because of the
trouble but because I used to live in St. Louis and taking I-270 North around
the city and then back to I-70 on the east side saves time.”

    
As Jack careened onto the I-64 West ramp Ron continued, “I don’t know who’s
shooting at us and I don’t much care. We’ll take 64 back to I-270 and take that
across the river north of the city. We’ll lose maybe thirty minutes if we can
maintain speed. There are at least a couple of other bridges if this one
doesn’t work so there isn’t anything to worry about.”

    
By now they were headed west and there were no more shots. That answered one
question that Jack had wondered about. There were still some people alive out
here, but not many it seemed.

    
Jack asked, “Should we stop and check for damage? I felt at least one of those
shots hit our truck.”

    
“No, let’s not, this thing is covered in light armor and it takes a large
caliber bullet to pierce it. Unless they hit a tire we should be fine. If they
did hit a tire you’ll get a low tire pressure warning lamp on the dashboard. If
that happens we’ll drive until the tire rips off, but we won’t stop. We have
eight tires on the rear of this thing and we can get along fine on seven.”

    
It was now midnight and they had rejoined I-70 near Glen Carbon, Illinois, just
east and north of St. Louis. The drive remained uneventful through Indianapolis
and then hours later into Columbus, Ohio. They pulled into a truck stop at
seven o’clock.

    
They had lost a little time slowing down through the cities, always due to the
number of abandoned cars. They felt lucky though that they didn’t need to leave
the pavement at all, instead they were able to weave around the abandoned cars.

    
The first truck stop they tried was closed up. The windows had been broken out,
and the mini-mart had been burned. Neither Jack nor Ron wanted to sift through
the remaining shell to see if they could get the pumps turned on.

    
The second place they stopped was working, but it was overflowing with cars and
trucks lined up to get at the pumps. Many of the occupants had died sitting in
line. Someone had used an eighteen wheeler to clear a path to one of the pumps
and Ron found he could pull up to that pump and use it. They filled up and got
out of there as quickly as they could. They didn’t even bother looking around
this time.

    
As they drove into eastern Pennsylvania the roads became more and more
congested. Abandoned cars and trucks were everywhere and the sides of the
Interstate were covered in junk. They were lucky to maintain forty miles an
hour now, but they were still moving steadily forward.

    
Jack had talked to Jane yesterday morning and told her he was going to come and
help her. She told him not to bother, that she would be fine by herself. Jack
didn’t like her tone but he couldn’t say anything that seemed to help. Jane
hadn’t answered the phone since then.

    
As he approached Baltimore he called her every fifteen minutes but could not
get through to her. He didn’t know if it was her cell phone, or if something
had happened to Jane.

    
Jane was living on the west side of Baltimore and once they left the Interstate
it was only a fifteen minute drive to her parent’s house. Jack was amazed that
everything looked normal. Especially after the last twenty-seven hours of
devastation they had witnessed on the highway. There were few abandoned cars,
no junk was left lying around and there were no visible bodies.

    
When they stopped in front of the house Ron asked if he should wait. Jack said
no. He was sure she was here, and if for some reason she wasn’t he would simply
take a car and go to the nearest survivor RV place.

    
Ron handed him a card on which he had hand written an address and said, “If
worse comes to worse, this is where you’ll find me. You’re always welcome.”

    
Jack thanked him, they shook hands and Jack grabbed his backpack and hopped out
of the truck. Ron was smiling at him as they waved for a final time.

    
Jack was grateful for Ron’s approach to saying good-bye. He had said so many
good-byes lately he didn’t think he could do it anymore. Obviously Ron felt the
same way.

    
Jack walked up to the front door and rang the doorbell. When no one answered he
tried the front door and it opened for him. The first thing he thought was that
Jane could not be staying here. The stench of death had already permeated the
house.

    
Jack called for Jane and got no response. He quickly walked thought the living
room and up the stairs to the bedrooms. If she was in the house she had to be
with the kids, and this was probably where they died. He looked in all three
bedrooms. One was empty, the master held the bodies of an older couple, and the
third bedroom looked lived in, but was also empty.  

    
Jack walked downstairs and into the kitchen. Through the window he could see an
RV with a trailer sitting in the back yard.

    
He didn’t bother to knock; he jerked the door open and stepped quickly into the
RV expecting to find the worst. He heard the scream before he saw her. She was
sitting on a sofa with a photo album in her lap and a scared look on her face
as she screamed louder than Jack would have thought possible.

    
Finally she recognized him jumped up and threw her arms around him saying,
“Jack, where did you come from, you scared me to death? Why didn’t you call me?
I’ve been waiting for you to call but no one did. What happened? How did you
get here? Why did you come in here like that, you almost scared me to death?”
She was crying and smiling at the same time and she looked so relieved Jack was
surprised.

    
“Jane, I’ve been trying to call you since I left New Mexico, the calls must not
have gone through, and I’ve called a hundred times. I’m glad you’re okay; I
didn’t know what to think after the last time we talked.”

    
“I don’t know what happened. After you told me you were coming to help me I
knew everything would be alright. I called you back to tell you that, that I
really wanted you to come, but you didn’t answer your phone. I didn’t know what
to do so I looked at a map and figured you would take at least two and maybe
three days to make the drive so I thought all I could do was wait here, even
though I’m ready to go anywhere now.” She turned to the table by the sofa and
said here’s the phone I’ve been using, is something wrong with it?”