This Plague of Days, Season Two (The Zombie Apocalypse Serial) (7 page)

“We’re going to need a lorry,” Aadi said.

“Already grabbed one. My boat’s down the way at Davitts Quay.”

Aadi got out of the car. “My name is Aadi Vermer. Can we break into that sweets shop, please? I have two little girls and if we’re going to bounce across the Atlantic, we better have chocolate to keep them happy.”

“Desmond Walsh.” They shook hands. “Call me Desi. And yes, Aadi. Grab your sweets, but hurry.”

“Where is everyone? Are they all dead?” Sinjin-Smythe asked.

“I’ve served in the Garda thirteen years, most of it here, so I can name most of Dungarvan’s dead. I don’t know what happened to those who fled north. It’s a lovely Sunday morning, so what few are left are either cowering in houses in Gallows Hill — they’ve fortified the area with cars to keep everyone out — or they’re in church. A few people are still in St. Vincent’s Hospital but everyone in St. Joseph’s died.”

“I’m sorry,” Sinjin-Smythe said. “That level of loss in a town this size? Devastating.”

“The old people went first. We became a town of wakes. Lots of empty words spoken over the dead. Turns out, when you string too many wakes together, it sucks the fun out of them. ”

“You still have a working hospital?”

“There’s a nurse run off her feet,” the police officer replied. “She refuses to give it up, but I don’t think she’s got so much as a tongue depressor and a bandage left up there.”

“How many left the town?”

The officer shrugged. “Early on, the local doctors referred all cases of flu down to the hospitals in Youghal, Cork and Limerick. They shipped a lot of patients out of town, at least until the ambulance drivers died.”

Sinjin-Smythe found he didn’t know what to say so he listened.

“If not for the first wave, we’d be dealing with these new beasties differently. I’m told there may be a counterattack to try to take London back, but if it’s in Dublin already, that sounds like a pipe dream.”

Sinjin-Smythe marvelled at the policeman. “You seem remarkably composed.”

Walsh put a big paw on the doctor’s shoulder and squeezed hard. “Not at all. I’ve had a lot of time to think, what with everyone dying around me. The flu took the first fifty in less than a month and I’m still wandering these streets, checking doors and pulling out corpses. I’ve been living on warm beer and I haven’t even had a cough or a sniffle.”

“Remarkable.”

“Remarkable, but not good. My few mates who are still alive have made preparations to fortify or escape. I’m late to the party. They all tell me the same. Hunker down and bar the doors or get out and away. I’m not abandoning my post, doctor. My post abandoned me.” There were tears in Desi’s eyes.
 

Sinjin-Smythe didn’t hesitate to ask, “Care to come with us to New York?”

Desi shook his head and smiled. “Instead of me going with you to New York, I think you better come with me to New York. From what I’ve observed, you and Mr. Vermer couldn’t find your arse with both hands, a map and a strong hint.”

The doctor managed a smile.

“You mentioned that if we don’t get you to New York, your child will die. That sounds like a noble cause. I like those.”

“Good. I’ve seen the infected up close, Desi. We need someone who can help with security.”

“I was hoping you’d need me to do the drinking and idle chatter. There are no zombies in New York. That’s why I’m up for the quest.”

“Ah.”

“However, you should know, Atlanta is burning. I should say Atlanta is burning
again
, if I recall
Gone with the Wind
correctly.”

“Even the CDC’s gone?”

“That’s where it started. A big explosion apparently. Terrorists, maybe. Anarchists taking advantage of civilization when it’s already down for the count.”

Sinjin-Smythe was speechless.

“Do you have an alternative destination after New York, Doctor? For the saving the human race part of your plan?”

“Uh…”

“Oh, dear Jesus.”

“There’s a lab in Canada.”

“That’s one option. There might be a better one. My mates say the Yank scientists have a new research laboratory guarded by the last chunk of US military. Last on land, I mean. I assume the navies are splashing around, relatively safe but wondering what to do.”

“How do you know all this?”

“My uncle’s Deputy Commissioner for the Garda Síochána. He’s helping to coordinate Ireland’s emergency response. The trouble is, our forces are so depleted, there isn’t much left to respond with.”

“Do you get your news from anywhere else?”

“I used to listen to ham radio, but that’s bad for morale. BBC’s gone. I’ve heard a few grisly, eyewitness reports about the zombies from a Dublin radio station. Internationally, Al-Jazeera is still somewhat operational and getting some news out. They had plenty of Hazmat suits on hand, apparently. That’s where I heard about Atlanta.”
 

Sinjin-Smythe once attended a contingency plan meeting for CDC containment breaches. He’d never taken those virus war games seriously, but he remembered a detail now. “The backup lab. Is it Camp Pendleton?”

The Garda officer pulled out a notebook and flipped through several pages. “No,” he said. “They’re working out of a huge refugee camp. When the cross chatter is loose on the ham, they call it The Last Stand.” He flipped another page. “I don’t know where it is precisely. Somewhere in the middle. On the radio, they mostly use the codename ‘Brickyard.’”

* * *

The police launch in Davitts Quay was cramped, but it had twin engines and it was fast. Desi pointed the boat toward the Goldcoast Golf Club and opened the throttle. The
Shepherd of Myddvai
wasn’t where Aadi and Sinjin-Smythe had left it.

Aadi scowled. “What’s McInerney playing at?” he scanned the shore frantically. “Aasa! Aastha! Dayo! Where are you? Aasa! Aastha!”

The policeman scanned the water and blasted his air horn three times. A fog bank had rolled in, obscuring visibility beyond a hundred yards. “He’s not anchored offshore. Where would he go?”

Sinjin-Smythe’s brow furrowed. “Surely, you don’t think he took off without us?”

“It’s kidnapping!” Aadi pounded the gunnel in frustration. “He has no supplies! The idiot is headed back! This is his stupid vengeance! He’s headed east! Back to London! Gun it, Desi!”

The cop slammed the throttle forward again. The bow rose out of the water as the engines roared and the propellers dug in. The policeman shouted above the din, “There’s nothing for anyone in London now! He’s a fool to go back without an army!”

“He’s an idiot, either way! He blames me for his wife’s death!” Aadi cried. “He’s snapped!”

They cleared the bay and Desi turned the launch’s nose east. “I can see you’re upset about your daughters, but I expect you’ll explain the killing his wife part along the way, yeah?”

“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” Sinjin-Smythe said.

“It was terrible,” Aadi said, “but it
was
self-defense.”

A
S
THE
R
ED
Q
UEEN
RISES

M
rs. Bendham opted to stay with the van. “I’ll be fine. I’d rather stay with my things. Besides, with me in here, you won’t have to worry that these soldiers will take our food and run around with your daughter’s panties on their heads.”

Anna rolled her eyes but said nothing.

“We need to rest and find out what’s going on,” Jack said. “I’ll warn them about Carron. We’ll be back tomorrow night.”

“You should give me the key to the van in case I have to move it for some reason.”
 

Jack removed a key from her key ring and handed it to the old woman.
 

Key rings are so quaint,
she thought.
I still have my house keys and, somewhere in the ashes that was once my house, there’s a lock for my key. If not for Oliver and Carron and men like them…

She stopped there, knowing that if she allowed herself to think on her losses, she’d begin to cry and she would not stop for a long time.

At the west gate, the Spencers were stopped so two soldiers in Hazmat suits could go through their backpacks. They were wanded for weapons before shuffling forward in line. The line was quiet since everyone had given themselves over to the kind of bone-deep exhaustion that doesn’t bear expending the energy to complain. People shuffled and limped.

Jaimie contented himself watching auras. The people who had arrived by car or truck were obvious. Their feet didn’t hurt. Many were bent from back pain.
 

He surmised that at one time the refugees had tried to carry too much weight. The apocalypse did not tolerate nostalgia. What had once been considered necessities had been abandoned by the side of the road.
 

Jaimie watched the corona around each refugee’s head. No matter what dangers lurked in their bodies, their crown chakras were always busy trying to sort out each individual’s place in the world before their exit
.
He felt sorry for them. Such struggle cried out for pity.

Theo Spencer stood nearby, studying his son. “To quote Mark Twain, ‘The two most important days of your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.’”

The boy gave one of his tiny nods. His gesture of acknowledgment was so small, only family would recognize it as agreement.

If he could speak, he'd tell the strangers the truth of their existence. He wanted to relieve them of their heavy burdens, but there were too many and their needs were too great.

The Spencers were questioned by nurses wearing n95 respirator masks. They stood behind clear plastic screens. Before being allowed into the camp, refugees were required to have their temperature tested.

A soldier stood stiffly holding a wicker basket of masks. “We don’t have an infinite supply of masks, people! We have to identify anyone who’s sick and quarantine you in a separate area!”

“What’s your name, handsome?” a nurse asked Jaimie.

The boy glanced up at the fluorescent lights and squinted. The headache pain struck him hard in the temples immediately. The sound of the nurse’s voice made him recoil. It wasn’t just that her voice was the equivalent of fingernails on chalkboard. Her jagged energy came at him in red daggers. The nurse wasn’t infected, but her heart was weak and she suffered some sort of metabolic disorder. Her heavy breathing in her mask made Jaimie feel heavy. His skin felt tight.

“I have to have a name so I can make out your ID bracelet, son. Are you deaf?”
 

Jack stepped forward to speak for her son but the soldier barred her way, his rifle at the ready, pushing her back roughly. “Get back behind the green line on the floor and wait your turn!”

Anna caught Jack as she stumbled backwards. “My brother is autistic!” she yelled.

“We don’t care if he’s artistic!” the soldier with the basket of masks screamed. “Answer the nurse, boy!”

“Awe-tistic! He’s got
Aspergers
, for God’s sake!”

Jaimie watched the nurse’s energy shift sharply from red to snowflake white as the epiphany hit. The woman’s energy drained to embarrassed streaks the color of bile as her aura shrank to within an inch of her body. “I’m sorry! I’m
so
sorry!”

The boy caught the soldier’s mean look.

 
No one understands.
I’m not here for ‘God’s’ sake,
Jaimie thought.
I’m here for all of you.

As soon as Jaimie’s mind was aligned with his purpose, he began to move. The fluorescent lights didn’t bother him anymore and he dismissed the receding headache. He heard no extraneous sounds. Jaimie did what he’d done all his life: he focussed.

The soldier with the basket of masks frowned as Jaimie stepped forward. He pulled an arm back as if to strike the boy with the back of his hand. However, he froze as the boy reached into the basket and plucked out five hospital masks.

“B-boy? Whachoo doin’?”

Jaimie turned and walked down the line. He tugged on the sleeve of a man standing beside Theo.

“
Que pasa
?” The young man looked confused.

Jaimie’s father nodded and smiled. “Show them, son,” Theo said. “Calm them and help them avoid indignity. They’re all so afraid.”

The boy offered the Hispanic man a mask. The stranger took the gift without a word and allowed Jaimie to pull him out of line gently by the elbow. Jaimie walked farther down the line, ignoring seven more refugees until he arrived at the chosen ones. He did the same trick three more times: an old woman with a cane, a pretty blonde chewing and popping her gum furiously and the child beside her with streaks of tears tracking through dirty cheeks. He pulled each person from the line gently and none resisted or protested.

Jaimie turned back to the head of the line. He walked to the soldier who had pushed his mother with a rifle. He looked up at the big man and offered the last mask.
 

“Already
got
a mask, boy!” the soldier barked. But when he met Jaimie’s gaze, time slowed.

Jaimie watched a rivulet of hot sweat slip down the man’s temple, the moisture spreading through the mask’s fabric. By the shape of the soldier’s eyes and his aura’s fire engine red draining to rust, Jaimie knew the man’s arrogance had faded. The man had the same white shimmer the nurse had suffered as the sharp epiphany cut into his brain. A fresh cascade of adrenaline and fear pulsed through the soldier’s body. He looked smaller as his shoulders sagged.
 

Jaimie watched, fascinated, as Sutr’s wasps wound through the aura over the man’s lungs and infected his heart valves. They were merely black agents of the virus, of course, not insects. However, as they drained energy from human cells, but they looked like wasps to Jaimie. With each pass, they darkened from ebony to a shining obsidian.

Wasps,
Jaimie mused.
A nest of wasps, a pail of wasps, a pladge of wasps.
There were so many collective names for the insects, the wizards who designed language must have been feared them terribly. If people could see their deadly flights spreading the Sutr virus, they’d come up with many more names for them now.