Charon's Blight: Day Two (the Rotting Souls series Book 2) Read online

  “A bit paranoid today?” Sean asked, taking another sip from his drink.

  “How could you not be?” the boy returned seriously. “Yesterday proves everything that I’m saying. Someone in the government told someone else to pull the plug and just like that—it got pulled. You don’t see broadcasters because the computers controlling their systems no longer work. And the internet? It was made by a man; therefore, it can be controlled by one. There was no protection capable of resisting it—it’s too late.

  “I think we’ve already covered most of this,” he offered, feeling the exhaustion of his mind slowly processing what he heard and barely able to keep up with the animated voice of his younger friend. “What I don’t understand is why? When the radio station went off the air, it had the opposite effect on me; I panicked.”

  “They overdid it,” Ben responded. “That’s the only thing I can come up with. The kill code was given, everything was shut off, but then they realized what kind of reaction that would get and they had to spend the night trying to figure out how to restore limited service but still remain in control of the information being relayed. Every plan has a bug and most of the time you don’t realize it until its already in use.”

  “Like having the cable networks running those reruns last night instead of this morning. Having the internet up even though the use is limited?” Casey asked.

  Ben nodded. “Keeps us talking to one another and keeps the panic to a minimum. I’m not saying that the world has calmed; it’s gone too far for that. There are riots, there are battles being fought, millions are dying, but the millions that woke up yesterday and had no clue that the world was ending? They are sitting in their living rooms watching Lord of the Rings and munching Doritos on a supposed paid vacation.”

  Monica had her eyes glued to the laptop screen. “But you said that some of the sites are coming back up.”

  The boy nodded, “but they are returning with limited functions. It was like someone wrote the free speech out of the internet. Sure, you can post online. But if you post anything related to what’s going on, you get a connection error. There’s no way to upload videos. YouTube won’t even function and audio won’t load either. It’s like something is out there monitoring whatever you are going to say, screening it, and deciding whether or not it’s too dangerous to post. You type the word zombie, your internet service lags and you have to spend the next half an hour trying to restore your connection. You can talk all you want about anything as long as it’s not related to what’s going on. You do that; you lose your privileges and the site stops functioning correctly.”

  “Give us our toys, but take away our ability to use them how we want,” he said, swearing under his breath.

  “Right,” Ben confirmed. “They gave it back but not all the way. It’s just enough to make people think that things are going back to normal; another way of controlling us. Who’s going to believe the world is ending when they can still post about Honey-Boo-Boo on Facebook?”

  “It won’t last,” Sean commented, his blood shot eyes glaring at them. “No way people will keep on believing that everything is going to be all right. They won’t be fooled for long.”

  “They don’t have to,” he responded, seeing the young man nod in agreement. “They just need to keep us placated long enough for whatever they plan next. Then it won’t matter anymore, one way or another.”

  “Is it really that bad?” Lucy asked, speaking for the first time. “I mean for people not to know what’s going on? Maybe the government has the right idea about this. Isn’t it better that people stay oblivious to it? That they remain in their homes instead of dying out there on the streets? Is mass panic the better option? More people would die. Can we really say that whoever is doing this is the real bad guy here?”

  For a person that had remained apart from the conversation so far, she had surely driven right to the heart of the issue. It was something that he had been thinking around, unable to face it head on himself. Didn’t people have the right to choose how they met their deaths? “If it were you, wouldn’t you want the choice? To die either on your knees or on your feet?”

  “Noble,” she shot back, her eyes flaring. “We sit behind our walls talking about this over a table drinking soft drinks while our entire species is on the brink of extinction. No, don’t get angry at me, I’m just trying to make a point. Who are we to judge what people should or shouldn’t know? As much as I hate the ignorance of where my family is and whether they still live, I have to appreciate the fact that if everyone knew what was going on then it would quickly fall into an uncontrollable chaos that may never be reined back in.”

  “It’s like that already,” Monica responded softly. “Instead of cutting people off from the world, they should be showing them everything, making them aware of hot zones, where to go that is safe, what to avoid. They should be shown how to survive, what to do, and how to beat it. Not everyone deserves to be sitting on their couch watching a Peter Jackson movie when a horde of zombies come crashing through their picture window to kill them. They should be told how to defend themselves, how to survive!”

  “At this point, what does anyone actually know that’s real and not out of some movie?” Casey said, slouching back and easing the pain he was feeling. “I know all of you don’t take me serious half the time, but just because I crack jokes doesn’t mean that I’m some ignorant junkie.”

  There was anger behind his friend’s voice and he felt pain in his soul for part of it. Part of him actually did feel that way, that he was the jester of the group meant to entertain them; to lighten the mood when things got too dark. Yet, the other part knew that there was something else in there and now he was watching it emerge with a vengeance.

  Casey shook his head as he continued, “shots in the head? Well that’s fucking obvious. If it’s some Return of the Living Dead type shit, then even burning the bodies just makes it worse. How is it transmitted? How does it spread? Is the President and her doctors correct that its airborne and that we are all already infected like in the Walking Dead? Are we now the walking dead? If we don’t turn when we get bit, then tell me, how many fucking retards are out there right now shooting anyone bit because they’ve been told by Hollywood that it means death? That it is more humane then letting them die and turn? It’s been a day, two for those doctors in Atlanta; no one has studied this long term. For all we know, everyone in the world that is infected with this shit will turn eventually. Maybe not in days or minutes for those that suffer brain death, but in months? What if our entire species is already doomed and all of this is a futile attempt to survive? What exactly do we tell people? Do we want blood on our hands for giving them misinformation? We—don’t—know—shit. We’re just as ignorant as those people lying on their damn couches!”

  “Somebody has to know,” Sam replied softly, her eyes tearing. She hated violence and Casey’s voice had risen a few octaves there at the end. “The President said it was an unnatural disease. That means it was designed, not created in the wild. Someone released this shit on us! That means that somebody out there knows exactly what it does and might know how to fight it.”

  He looked across at Sean. The man was now fingering his glass, lost in his own thoughts. He seemed oblivious to the conversation raging around him and he wondered if he’d be able to corner the man before he went back to getting drunk.

  Casey was hot now and raged on. “Yes, but unless it was the government that released it, either on purpose or by accident, then how would they know how to fight it? It’s only been one fucking day. We have to give them time,” he said vehemently. “I’m not a big supporter of Uncle Sam, but I do respect them. If and when they know something concrete, they’ll tell us. Hell, the President of the United States just told the people of America that if anyone dies in front of them, even a loved one, to drive something into the skull of the deceased to prevent the person from returning from the dead. She laid it all out on the table and I tell you, it gave me the chills. I thin
k they’re telling us what they can as they become sure of it, but it’s too soon to expect too much without causing more damage than what’s already being done. There’s a curfew in effect to help weed out the living from the dead; you know those corpses aren’t running inside when the sun goes down. The military is waging war in the cities with no thoughts of containment, just extermination. They aren’t holding anything back! We have to have some faith that they aren’t going to just let us all go into the light, that every resource that is available is deployed and working on a solution to this shit. There has to be some hope! I’m not saying everything they are doing is right, I hate being shut out and told to shut up. But can I seriously sit here and say that everything they’re doing is wrong?”

  He let it hang there for a moment, lost in thought. He looked to the others and saw that they were thinking it through as well. No, he couldn’t argue against it, no matter how hard his gut was telling him too. But then, he was only in charge of keeping his own family safe, not the millions out there in the world. Would he make a different decision had it been him in their place? He just didn’t know.

  “There is nothing we can do about it,” he finally told them and no one seemed fit to argue further on it at the moment. “We keep monitoring what’s going on and only time will tell us who was right. Maybe we’ll win. Who knows? Maybe if we do the right things the right way, we’ll actually come through this to the other side. We’ll just have to wait it out, look after each other, and pray. We have friends and family still out there. With the communications coming back up, maybe it’s time we opened up and started trying to help them get here. Lord knows we have enough on our plates with just that task without taking on saving the world ourselves,” he said, trying to be light about it and smiling; though it felt fake planted on his face like that. It wasn’t working on his own mood and he doubted it would work on theirs.

  Still, he had to try.

  “I hate your optimism,” Casey said, smiling himself. He looked around at the others and noticed that Sean had slipped out during his little speech.

  Sighing, he told Casey to bite him.

  “Uh dude? I think we need to come up with a better line than that, all things considered,” his friend returned quickly, smiling broader. They were all stunned by their confusion—then it sank in. The laughter erupted and some of the gloom that had settled upon them drifted away.

  “Fucking smartass,” he said, and they all broke up again.

  “I guess “eat me” is out too, huh?” Monica asked between laughs.

  That kept it going and though it seemed inappropriate and wrong, it somehow still felt right. They were all laughing like it was the last time they ever would. With a tear running from the corner of his eye, the darker corner of his mind worried that in the end, none of them would be left to ever laugh again.

  Chapter 3

  Prescriptions

  Rosilynn

  Lake Havasu, AZ

  She wasn’t entirely sure of where they were. She had a general idea, but as to an exact location? They had tried to use their cellphones and unsurprisingly they didn’t work. Even though the plastic bag had kept them from getting soaked, she suspected the EMP from the bomb had fried them, as they were unresponsive and useless pieces of plastic now. They were cut off from the compound, lost in the desert, and neither knew if they’d survive to see the sun set.

  Dawn found them sliding down the river in a boat they had liberated at the much larger Lake Mohave. A few more of those creatures had stumbled across them, but they had dispatched them with as much energy as they could muster, then drove the boat out into the river and headed downstream. Both had napped during that time, waking each other in shifts so that one of them was constantly on guard. Her body was still sore, but she was alive. Nothing seemed broken and no signs of radiation sickness had yet to show; though she knew it might be years before they found out the true ramifications of what had happened the night before.

  Matt however, was in an extreme amount of pain. The bite wound may not have been infected before they dove into the river but it was now. Whether it was from the bite itself or from all that dirty water washing through it on their unplanned journey downstream, it didn’t matter. The infection was beginning to spread and unless he had medical attention soon they’d have to chance it and take the foot off or he’d die. Of course, he’d probably die from an amputation as well and she saw that defeatist look returning as the morning drew on.

  They hadn’t planned to come this far south and by the time they were able to get the boat ashore, they realized that Bullhead City had been passed during the night. If they had any hope of getting east, they’d have to make some tough choices on how they’d get there. North back to the 40 then east towards Flagstaff? South along the 95 and close to Phoenix? Or who knew how many small roads and cross country trips to the 17, which would still take them north or south in the same directions? The problem with the location of their compounds was that no matter what, there was no direct route through the mountains to where they were located; at some point they were going to have to go near a larger city. The question was, which one gave them the best chance of survival?

  He was leaning on her for support, which she barely had the strength to give and they were making their way towards the city revealing itself in the morning light. The water level had risen here as well and there had been a lot of damage to the former shoreline business and residences that had once occupied what had been prime real estate. A line of people were standing on higher ground, each milling about, pointing and discussing what had happened with animated voices like they were oblivious to any other fact than more water had just plowed its way through their city. How could people be so ignorant standing out here like that? Did they really not know what was going on in the world?

  Someone saw them making their way along the street towards the crowd and other onlookers turned as attention was drawn their way. “Oh my God are you guys all right?” a sun-tanned white female asked as she ran up to them still dressed in her morning wear. She had to live around here, she wasn’t armed in any way and again Rosilynn had to grimace at how normal these people were acting.

  Others began to press around her and she could hear someone on a cellphone calling for help. She wanted to interject herself, to stop that call from happening, but her strength was failing her.

  A burly man with a black cowboy hat stepped forward and helped straighten Matt up, relieving some of weight she had been burdened with. She heard Matt moan in protest but his voice was weak. He was trying to speak, but she couldn’t hear what he was saying over the excited chatter of those around her.

  As normal as these people were, she suddenly realized just how out of place they must have looked. Both of them were still wearing their survival gear and each had weapons either in hand or holstered on their hips. She caught a few wary glances and knew that it wasn’t just an ambulance those people were calling. Panicking, she tried to break free of the crowd, to keep them moving, but they were boxed in.

  As the approaching lights of an ambulance came into view, she tried to quicken her step, stumbled, then collapsed to the ground in exhaustion.

  Chapter 4

  Road Block

  Paul

  Springerville, AZ

  They had a hard time packing and getting on the road. As urgent as Ben had made things sound, he hadn’t been able to get moving as fast as the text pushed him to. Part of it was that he didn’t believe there was anything going on, the other that he was a business owner and couldn’t just close up shop and take off.

  He owned and managed an architectural firm and employed hundreds of people, all of which depended on him to keep their salaries flowing; more than his own life was at stake. He needed to keep things moving smoothly and without disruption. While they were used to him occasionally taking off, doing so at one of the busiest times of the year was nearly impossible.

  He was nearing the twilight of his life and couldn’t afford to ma
ke any mistakes now. The economy was in the toilet and all it would take is one or two lost contracts to put him under. He had worked too long and hard to just throw in the towel and walk away now. He was beyond the point of making a life for himself doing anything else. When this economy slump had begun, he had told himself he just needed to weather it and he’d come out the other side. That had been almost eight years ago.

  Now they were just barely keeping themselves afloat, living from one contract to another.

  He reached over and squeezed Christine’s hand. She had been the one to insist on them leaving. If it had been up to him, he’d still be at home right now. It was a good thing she had been so pushy considering the chaos he saw on their way out of town. If he had won the argument, they’d probably be dead or getting there.

  The highways had been jammed with people fleeing the city and the other side was jammed with the military trying to get in. Planes had flown overhead, probably from a base in Nevada or from Hill AFB. Watching their close formations and the frequency of their passes, he had been amazed that they had not flown into each other in their frantic sweeps and double backs.

  The explosions and gunfire had been the most rattling. He had tried to mentally push the vehicles ahead of him aside so he could get through, as the snail pace was riding his nerves beyond his control. To his astonishment, some had pulled off to the side and stood watching the airshow over the city. He didn’t dare do the same, terrified of what he might find coming their way. Instead, he had pulled off onto the shoulder and drove around the cars parked along the side. Others had the same idea and while he made a bit more progress, it was nail biting slow for hours.

  The whole time his wife had sat there in the seat next to him, hands on her purse, refusing to look anywhere but ahead, her measured breaths slow and controlled. The only time she did anything other than look like a statue was when she was trying to text their kids.