Last Pandemic (Book 3): Escape The Chaos Read online

  “And they died from the virus? Not from violence?”

  “Some from violence, sure. But most had the classic signs. Enlarged veins. Massive hemorrhages.”

  “Good. So. You think this’ll be the one that works? The one that helps us develop a cure?”

  “Whatever happens, there’s no way it can end up worse than the last one.”

  He glanced over at the hospital bed where the body of a man lay. He was dead, his eyes open, staring blankly at the high ceiling. The experiments they’d done on him hadn’t been a success, to put it lightly.

  “We’ve got to do something about that body,” said Lily, looking over too. “It gives me the creeps.”

  “All in the name of science, right?” said Rory.

  “Shut up, Rory.”

  “Hey, we’re trying to find a cure, right? Trying to save the US. Trying to save humanity. A couple extra dead...I mean, who are we kidding? They would have died anyway.”

  “Shut up and look at the new patient,” said Lily.

  “Shit. She’s moving.”

  “I thought you hit her with the normal dose?”

  “She must have a strong system.”

  “Strong system? I thought you were a biologist? Can’t you be any more specific than that?”

  The woman’s eyes weren’t yet open, but her hands and feet were twitching.

  “Why’s she twitching like that?”

  “She’s coming out of it. And probably reacting to the medicine too.”‘

  “Shit. Do we have anything else?”

  “Not on hand. Just give her another jab. She’ll live.”

  “And if she doesn’t?”

  “She’ll still be of some use. And trust me; there are more fish in the sea.”

  5

  Matt

  Matt and Judy had gotten back in the truck’s cab, but the siren had been closer than they’d initially thought and there hadn’t been time to drive away.

  It was clear now that it was a police siren.

  In other times, a police siren might have been a welcome sound.

  But now?

  Not at all.

  “Get down,” hissed Matt, as he ducked his own head down as far as he could.

  Next to him in the passenger seat, Judy did the same.

  Matt’s hands wrapped around his gun, which was at an odd angle in the small truck cab.

  The siren was getting louder and louder.

  “You think it’s really the police?” said Judy.

  “I doubt it,” said Matt.

  They fell into silence, with only the sound of the siren washing over them.

  Matt listened as carefully as he could.

  If the police car drove on by, the noise would rise to a crescendo and then start to die back down.

  It was tough to tell if there was an increase in volume. After all, the Doppler effect made it sound strange enough, and small changes in loudness were hard to detect.

  Matt thought he could hear the tires on the road as the car drove by. But he wasn’t completely sure. His grip on his new gun tightened considerably until his knuckles were white. His heart pumped in his chest. His hands shook a little.

  But, after quite a while, it became clear the siren was diminishing in volume.

  “I think we’re in the clear,” whispered Judy.

  “Yeah,” said Matt. “I think you’re right.” He got up a little, repositioning himself so that he could look through the truck’s windshield.

  There was no one in sight. No vehicles.

  “Wonder what that was all about.”

  “No idea,” said Matt. “Except that there’s trouble somewhere. Chaos. More chaos.”

  “It’s always chaos.”

  “It’s going to be like that for a while. Come on. We’ve got to somehow hide this entrance. And quickly.”

  “Don’t you think we should head back to Jamie?”

  “Why? Just because of the cop car?”

  “Yeah, whatever we decide, someone’s bound to come along while we’re doing it. Maybe we should just wait until it’s dark or something.”

  Matt considered it. It wasn’t a bad idea. “Well,” he said. “The thing I’m worried about is someone coming across it in the meantime.”

  “Yeah,” said Judy, speaking slowly, clearly deep in thought. Matt could almost see the machinery of her mind moving as she spoke. “It really depends on how long it’s going to take to disguise this gate...”

  It was in moments like that, before Judy had even spoken, that Matt was glad she was on their team. Maybe she wasn’t as strong as he or Jamie, or as physically capable, but she had more life experience than they did. And life experience often resulted in coming up with ideas and strategies that Matt would have never thought of.

  “I’ve been racking my brain,” said Matt. “And I can’t think of anything.”

  “Let’s get out and take a look,” said Judy.

  “Someone might come by.”

  “Yeah. They might.”

  After acknowledging the risk, they both got out of the truck again and began inspecting the fencing and the gate.

  It was one of those gates that rose several meters from the ground, but it wasn’t particularly substantial. It was more a symbolic gate than one used for actual security. More of a marker of the driveway than much else.

  “You know,” said Judy, looking up to where her cousin had been hanging, grabbing the metal with her hand and giving it a good tug. “I think if we just took this gate down, that’d do for now... after that, we can come back and maybe find some metal to sort of attach to the rest of the fencing... if you’re driving by quickly, it might look as if the fence just continues.”

  Matt nodded as he listened. “Yeah,” he said. “Of course, on closer inspection, it’ll be obvious...but most people will hopefully be cruising right on by...you know, I think that could really work.”

  “Now the tough part is getting this down,” said Judy.

  Matt grabbed a piece of the gate and tried to shake it with his hand. “Pretty sturdy,” he muttered. “But we can try with the truck. Is there any rope in the back?”

  They looked, and there wasn’t anything in the bed of the truck but the bodies they’d put there.

  There wasn’t anything useful in the cab either.

  “I’m sure Joe has some chains lying around somewhere. If there was anyone who was a packrat, it was him.”

  “I doubt rope would have worked anyway...a good length of chain is what we need. The truck has a hitch. We should be good. I’m really sorry about your cousin, but, you know, this might work out to be a great spot for us. We can take the gate down...we’ll have a well, food, plenty of weapons from the dead guys...plenty of vehicles left over from the dead guys...this may just work out.”

  “Yeah,” said Judy, flashing him a very brief and very rare smile. “It just might.”

  They got back in the truck and were soon bouncing off down the driveway with the two corpses in the bed.

  “You know,” said Matt. “It feels like it’s been so long since I’ve seen a smile.... It was strange to see it.”

  “Where’d you see it?” said Judy, her voice once again completely serious, not a hint of a smile even in her eyes.

  “You,” said Matt. “Just now. When I said we might actually make it.”

  “Oh,” said Judy, apparently trying to smile, because the corners of her mouth turned up somewhat. But it didn’t look natural and her mouth was once again a grim straight line.

  “We need to figure out what to do with the bodies,” said Matt. “Not just your cousin and the other one...but all these people.”

  “Let’s do it after we eat,” said Judy. “I’m starving.”

  “It has been a while,” said Matt, realizing that his own appetite was coming back and in full force. Maybe it was the fact that he felt better about their future. He felt as if they might actually survive and his body responded by relaxing a little, the stress hormones lowering, a
nd his hunger returning. “Yeah, you’re right. Let’s hope Jamie’s found where the food is.”

  “If there’s one thing I’m sure of about Joe,” said Judy. “It’s that he’s going to have a ton of food stored.”

  “Good,” said Matt, his mouth watering at the thought, his stomach rumbling.

  He drove the truck a little past where they’d found it, finding a cluster of buildings.

  “Jamie must have come here, right? This seems to be his homesteading area.”

  “Yeah, I imagine so. Look over there. I bet that’s a little dugout cellar he has. See the door?”

  “Yeah. It’s open though.”

  “Jamie’s probably down in there, chowing down.”

  Matt could barely contain the hunger he felt in his stomach. He pulled the truck in first, killed the engine and was out the door in almost no time at all.

  “Jamie!” he called out. “It’s me and Judy!”

  He wanted to alert her to their presence. These days, it didn’t seem like it was a good idea to sneak up on people. Especially not people who were heavily armed, likely to shoot first and ask questions later.

  No answer.

  That was weird.

  “Jamie!”

  “Jamie!” Judy called out. “It’s us! Come on, get that pie out of your face and answer us.”

  Still no answer.

  Matt reached the root cellar.

  “Jamie?” he called down.

  The door was open. Someone had to be down there.

  He glanced over at Judy, who now had a concerned expression on her face, and her gun ready.

  Matt, who hadn’t taken his hands off his gun, put his finger on the trigger. As he walked down the steps, he led with the muzzle.

  It was a root cellar, all right.

  But no one was there.

  “She’s not here,” he called up.

  “Shit,” said Judy, coming down the steps behind him.

  The cellar was fairly cramped with two people in it. They could just barely fit and Matt suddenly began to feel claustrophobic. It was a new sensation for him.

  A new and uncomfortable sensation.

  Maybe he could fight it off. Just ignore it.

  He wasn’t scared of small spaces, he told himself. Never felt like that before. It was ridiculous. A ridiculous idea.

  Just ignore it. Just ignore it.

  “She has to have been here,” said Judy, not yet aware of what was going on with Matt. “Although, I guess someone could have just left the door open...let me see here...” She got down on her knees, part of her body squeezing against Matt, so that she could examine the dirt floor. “There are footprints here that aren’t hers.... I can make one out clearly.”

  Matt couldn’t take it. He just couldn’t. The feeling that they might actually be able to make it after all had completely vanished. And the hunger had vanished too. He had broken out in a cold sweat and his legs felt like they were shaking violently, although they may have just been trembling.

  “Matt, you still with me?” said Judy, still crouched down.

  Matt tried to speak, but no words came out. Just a weird sort of guttural noise.

  He couldn’t ignore it any more.

  It was happening.

  Shit.

  This wasn’t a good feeling.

  “Matt?”

  The word seemed to echo around him.

  “Matt!”

  She had yelled at him, rising up now, concern all over her face, which was inches from his.

  Whatever was going on with Matt seemed to amplify the closeness of the walls and Judy’s face. And everything else.

  Judy’s hands were on him, grasping him firmly. Pulling him.

  She was pulling him forcibly up the earthen stairs of the cellar.

  She wasn’t actually strong enough to physically move him. But she was stronger than she appeared.

  And she really tugged on him.

  His feet felt like they were filled with concrete, as if they were almost rooted into the floor.

  But she pulled.

  And eventually he moved.

  One foot in front of the other.

  The world seemed to have shrunk around him.

  He was gasping for breath, but it didn’t feel like he could breathe.

  The world seemed to have gotten darker.

  But Judy kept pulling on him and somehow he stumbled up the steps, out into the open air.

  And the world was bright again.

  He collapsed on the ground, the world seeming to spin, the sky above him moving rapidly, his breathing going out of control.

  “It’s okay,” said Judy, letting go of him and taking several steps back to give him space. “You’re having some kind of anxiety attack. Just keep breathing. You’re going to be fine. You’re not in any danger.”

  The thought: “This is ridiculous. I just need to snap out of this. I’m being such a wimp,” ran through his head continuously as he lay there on the ground in the fetal position.

  It was about the least manly thing he’d ever done.

  But it was what it was.

  He found that the more he was able to focus on just breathing, the less the spiraling, recurring thoughts kept coming back and back, and the less the repetitive negative thoughts about himself came up.

  Gradually, he found that he was okay. Gradually, he found that his breathing had returned to normal.

  He sat up, blinking heavily.

  “You okay?” said Judy, still keeping her distance.

  “Yeah,” said Matt, noticing that one of his hands was clenched like a claw around his rifle. “What the...”

  “You ever have anything like that before? A panic attack?”

  She was speaking slowly, as if she was worried that she might send him back to that state. It sort of annoyed him, but at the same time he knew that he’d been the one to freak out, and she’d been helping him.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head, suddenly feeling full of embarrassment and shame.

  “Just keep breathing,” said Judy. “Long, slow, deep breaths.”

  He did that for about another minute, just breathing in silence.

  “I think it was some kind of claustrophobia,” he said. “Maybe made worse by the stress of Jamie not being here.”

  Judy nodded.

  “I can’t believe I let that happen,” he said. “If that happened when we were in a fight...if we were being shot at...I’d be dead, and worse, I’d have gotten you and Jamie killed as well.”

  “That’s true,” said Judy, nodding.

  She wasn’t the type to smooth things over with lies. She told it like it was.

  And Matt liked that.

  “I’ve seen it before,” said Judy. “My ex-husband had it. Panic attacks, I guess. I forget what they called it. You’ve just got to learn to roll with it. The body and mind are under all kinds of stressors.”

  “Roll with it?”

  “Don’t try to fight it. Were you fighting it?”

  “Yeah, I just kept thinking about how pathetic it was that I was feeling this way.... I felt like a complete fool...someone who doesn’t have control of what’s going on with them.”

  Judy shrugged. “It happens,” she said. “It’s like a vicious loop. You’ve got to just learn to let go. Let go and breathe.”

  “Easier said than done,” said Matt.

  Judy nodded.

  “So?” said Matt, starting to feel a little more like his old self. “No sign of Jamie though?”

  “Nope,” said Judy, casting her gaze around.

  The terrain around them was bumpy and varied, but it was fairly open. Down by the arroyo, sure, there were places to hide in the sloping hills and hidden crevices. But out here? It was all open.

  They would have seen her.

  “I don’t get it,” said Matt. “Why would she run off somewhere?”

  “Maybe she’s found one of Joe’s little buildings or something.... Maybe she’s...”

  Mat
t shook his head. “She wouldn’t have left this cellar door open. I know her. We both do now. She’s meticulous. She wouldn’t just expose our food to the elements.”

  “Maybe someone else left it open. Maybe she never got here.”

  “What about the footprint?”

  “Hard to tell. It’s not like I’m a tracker.”

  Matt nodded. “Well,” he said. “I just don’t see her overlooking something so simple and basic as us being able to find her again. It just doesn’t sound like her. If she knew that there was even the slightest possibility of not finding her, she’d have left some sort of sign. If not an outright note, then something. Something to indicate that she’d been here and might return.”

  “Maybe she didn’t expect us to return so soon?”

  “Or maybe,” said Matt. “Something happened to her.”

  Suddenly, Judy’s eye seemed to catch something on the horizon and she snapped her neck around, trying to catch it.

  “What is it?”

  “Did you see that?”

  “No. What was it?”

  “A figure.”

  “Jamie?”

  “No. A man.”

  “A man? What did he look like?”

  He didn’t really know why he was asking, or why he was so surprised. After all, it seemed reasonable that there might be other visitors to the property, considering the amount of dead men and women he’d found.

  “Tall. Thin.”

  “No sign of Jamie? Anything else? A gun?”

  “No. She wasn’t there. I couldn’t tell. Might have had a long gun.”

  “Maybe he did something to Jamie.”

  Matt was already headed off in the direction that the man had disappeared in.

  “You stay here,” he called out to Judy over his shoulder. “I’ll be back.”

  But as he said the words, he wasn’t sure whether or not he was telling the truth.

  He had a bad feeling in his gut.

  He’d really never been the type to believe in ‘bad feelings’, thinking that they were usually just nerves.

  And this case probably wasn’t any different.

  But it felt bad. It felt worse than it had before, as if his stomach was tying itself in knots, as if the panic attack was coming back in full force.

  But he couldn’t just stop and wait it out. He couldn’t just sit there and close his eyes and focus on his breathing, thinking nice thoughts.