Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Louis got no more sleep that night. He lay there wondering if either creature would burst through a window and carry him off to some hell-spawned nightmare. Louis is aware that under normal circumstances, these thoughts would be ludicrous. With the events of the past few months however, every living person is more than likely a little unhinged. Gathering his wits as much as possible, he decides that if he is not going to sleep, he must leave this house at first light. Packing his gear was mostly done from the previous evening, so after changing his clothes, washing up, packing what food he could carry, and filling canteens, he was ready to set off.

The sun came over the horizon about an hour later. Louis set off immediately, he took one circuit of the house and saw the hairs he could not see the color of in the night, were a mixture of yellow, brown, gray, and black. He picked some up and carried them with him, he felt them and the yellow hairs were very fine and soft, while the other hairs were all very rough and smelled strongly of sweat and dirt. Putting this new information in the back of his mind, Louis proceeded to walk in generally his old path.

The morning proves uneventful, the addition of the useless rifle is a burden, but this is America, ammo is there for the finding, and sooner rather than later Louis will have a gun to use. Travel today is slow going, Louis did not sleep well the past two days, he has a mystery to think about, and he is on a quest for bullets. Louis only sees 2 more houses and none of them have ammo for his gun. He thinks it is very odd that out here in the country he is having so much trouble finding a box of bullets for his found gun.

Around mid-afternoon, Louis hears a sound in the brush behind him; turning quickly, he sees the weeds sway as if something had just ran through them. “Probably just a rabbit or something.” he thinks. Nevertheless, he becomes more cautious and tries to move more quietly, hoping to find out if something is following him. He hears a few more noises form either side of the road, but he decides it could be anything, not necessarily a stalker.

An hour passes like this, Louis on edge, and the woods alive with noises that drive him more over the edge. He decides to find a place to sleep tonight, traveling more quickly, he soon finds a broken down trailer. The floor smells of rot and urine, but the walls are sturdy and the door is strong. Louis clears out a room and barricades himself in, putting a chair against the door, and moldy mattresses against the windows. In the bathtub, he builds a small cooking fire and warms a can of stew and another of corn. He finds enough water left in the toilet to put the fire out.

Huddled in his small bunker, Louis’ mind begins to wander; he is overwhelmed with images of his journey and all the death he has witnessed. He sees all of the faces of the people who he has seen come and go since this worldwide ordeal began those few short months ago.

In a secret cave, hundreds of miles away, a secretary brings a military officer a unassuming manila folder. “Here are the casualty reports, General.” She tells him.

“Thank you, Corporal Lopez” General Sebac says. As the corporal leaves the office, Sebac turns his chair, and looking out the “window”, which is only a large television screen with pastoral scenes playing on it.

General Sebac was one of the most decorated officers in the government’s biological warfare division. Personally, he discovered and eliminated three mutations of Ebola, strains that if had spread, would have caused the very plague that is spreading now. Sebac graduated in the top tenth of his class at West Point, then went to Harvard for his epidemiology degree, and completed his doctorate at Oxford. He also trained diligently at the shooting range, competing and taking an alternate space on three different Olympic teams, only an alternate because of his classified status. Sebac has been deployed to many fronts after the fighting. Panama, Grenada, Iraq twice, smuggled into North Korea to investigate classified reports of Kim Jong-Il’s desire to develop plagues for terrorists. When he developed high blood pressure and arthritis, he received a promotion to a three star, and given a desk here.

He thinks over how his command has gone in the worst directions possible. Opening the folder, he looks over numbers, which are much to high for his conscience. When placed in command of this posting, which is a secret biological lab in the Ozark Mountains, he was sure it was a path to his retirement. This lab was built deep in a cave network that was discovered during World War 2, it was a possible site for the Manhattan Project, but was kept as an alternate or possibly a nuclear dump. When that war ended, the CIA brought captured Nazi research and information here to be studied in utmost secret.

The facility was divided into four different sectors, bio warfare, alien research, mind studies, and chemical weapons. Sebac was dubious of the alien research, but his job is to support his entire staff, so he made sure they had the funding and equipment they ask for. His department head of alien studies was a Colonel Llewellyn, a import from the Welsh Guards, a very disciplined and efficient officer, that made his reports easy to understand as he knew that his superior was not familiar with his department. Together, they kept that department running smoothly, not that much happened, as the best artifacts they have to study came from the sixties.

The mind studies department was run by a civilian, a woman known to the world as Madam Cleo, she had a 1-900 number in the nineties that had remarkable accuracy, of course, accuracy scares people, so sued to bankruptcy, she was offered a chance to disappear by the CIA. She took the position here as the most powerful psychic in the world; and her business experience helps her run and manage the few people under her care. She had been combing the nation for proof of psychics to study, but she only found seven that would join her here. Of the seven, four were under the age of fifteen. The other three are all in their twenties and all unbalanced. Keeping them all cared for and calm enough to be safe for the rest of the base was a constant struggle.

The other departments are very traditional, and Sebac is very comfortable with his people there. He spends most of his time in bio warfare as he is probably the most experienced person in that area, but his other supervisors there also have impressive credentials.

After his brief reverie, he again looks at the papers in the folder. He sees that his operatives have brought back very sobering intelligence. As Sebac collapses into his overstuffed leather desk chair, he sees that ninety five percent of the nation is dead. They detail out the epidemiology of the disease, infection vectors, incubation, duration, and cause of death. Sebac finds himself almost brought to tears as he notes the fact that there is a survival rate of zero, which means that once you are sick, you are dead.

Thinking that his lab has essentially wiped out civilization, Sebac reviews his options. He could write a full report about what happened, explaining everything as he knows it. He would then end it all by either leaving the sterile environment of the base, or the noble, or at least macho, way all superior officers have done for centuries. Unfortunately, Sebac is a coward when it comes to himself; he is even terrified of his monthly inoculations against the various diseases that the lab works on.

Failing the military options, he could leave, go awol and never look back. In this new world, he could disappear and would either die like the rest, or stay healthy and become a hermit. Many of the survivors have done the same, and according to the reports, are living well, if not happily. Sebac, with his military training, would be able to eke out an existence with minimum effort. He would also be able to defend himself from anything but the most determined enemy. Being a career soldier, trained for the blackest of operations, makes you a quite formidable fighter. With the supplies in the facility, and the limited staff that remained, he could always do the noblest thing and begin broadcasting his location to anyone who could listen. He could attempt to rebuild civilization right here in the heart of the Ozarks. The good citizen in him feels that this is the right thing to do. He has a full medical facility, rations to last for several years. Even with untold numbers of people coming, there is enough until they have a sustainable source of food. According to his scouting reports, livestock wander like in the frontier days. Cows, horses, goats, and pigs, all looking for a new home just like the humans who survive. As Sebac thinks, he sees that this is the best plan he could do.

He pushes his intercom to the corporal outside his office. “Please bring me a detailed inventory of all assets on site. Also, send a memo to all remaining staff. We must have a meeting mid day tomorrow.”

“Yes sir.” the Corporal Lopez replies. “May I ask what this is about? I would be willing to help you more if you need it.” Sebac thinks for a moment, weighing what he thinks he could use help with against giving the young girl false hope that he has a plan. “No thank you. I do not want to show my cards yet. While you gather the information, I will take a jog around the spaceship hanger and have a shower. I assume an hour would be enough time to get everything together. I will be back then.” Sebac leans back and thinks for a moment that this may actually work; he just needs to see the numbers. Getting up from his desk, he heads to his private room to get his exercise suit on.