Decimation Series (Book 1): Contagion Read online

  After we finished eating, we closed Taylor’s blinds so the light wouldn’t be seen from outside and lit a candle. Taylor went to the closet and pulled out a “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” board game, which kept us entertained and distracted for the evening. It was either that, or Monopoly, and if this was the end of world, I didn’t want us to go out all hating each other.

  After the game was finished, Taylor showed me how to access her fire escape. I told everyone else to stay in the apartment while I climbed to the roof. As I climbed to the floor above, I had a moment of fear, thinking if there were any infected in that dark apartment that they might come smashing through the glass at me any second, but I made it up to the roof without incident.

  Being careful to keep it shrouded with my hand, I used the flashlight on my phone so I could see where I was walking and so I didn’t trip and go head-first off the roof of the building. Up on the roof I had a slightly better view than from the apartment. I turned off my flashlight and gave my eyes a few minutes to adjust to the full dark.

  I turned a full three-sixty and scanned the horizon of the city around us.

  I could see a few areas in the distance that had an orange glow, likely from a car or building fire I guessed, including one only a few blocks away. I didn’t have a line of sight to see what was on fire, but it was in the same direction I had seen smoke earlier.

  Everything else was in darkness. I was hoping to see that familiar white light given off by electric lamps, something that would mean order and authority somewhere, but there was nothing.

  I stood listening for several minutes. Off in the distance I could hear the shrieks of groups of the infected, and once I heard a few gunshots ring out, but other than that, everything was quiet.

  I was starting to get the feeling that we were well and truly on our own.

  ♦♦♦

  The next morning, we were all up and going early except for Taylor. She said she didn’t sleep well and asked that we leave her in bed while we made the supply run.

  Jamie and Alex looked at each other and shrugged (I was coming to understand that was one of their ways of communicating many different things, from humour to agreement to frustration). I agreed, since it was her place and her building, I could see her not wanting to invade her neighbours and steal their stuff.

  I, however, felt no such compunction.

  We started on her floor; we went door by door, knocking, then waiting, then burglaring. The entry doors were disturbingly easy to open with only a screwdriver and a shoulder push. Most of them had been fairly well stripped by the previous occupants, but we did manage to find several bags worth of canned soups and beans, a small bag of white rice, an opened box of stale oatmeal cookies and best of all, a half-full forty-ounce bottle of vodka (what can I say, I’ve always been a half-full, not half-empty guy).

  The fridges were a write-off, since the power had been out for several days and everything had spoiled but collecting the water from the toilets had been a stroke of genius (as Jamie kept reminding us) and we filled all of the pots and bottles Taylor had gathered, plus two empty twenty-litre water-cooler bottles we found in one of the apartments.

  Several of the apartments on Taylor’s floor were abandoned, but not all of them. One of the apartments had an infected person inside, so that door we left unopened; after a while, the shrieking and pounding on the inside of the apartment door stopped.

  Two of the apartments had bodies in them, people who appeared to have been sick, but died, choking on the mucus their bodies were expelling.

  The last occupied apartment was somehow worse.

  She had been in her seventies, by my guess, and it didn’t take much detective work to figure out what had happened. The pile of crumpled, snot-caked tissues on the floor by the bed and the half-empty bottle of pills on the night table told us everything we needed to know. The discovery knocked everyone back a bit. We had been fairly feisty, all things considered, having fun “shopping” for supplies, but the sad reality of this poor woman dying sick and alone was a harsh slap in the face.

  I covered her with her bedsheet, and we left and closed her bedroom door behind us.

  From Taylor’s floor alone, we had enough supplies to fill all of the bags we had with us, and honestly, I don’t think any of us wanted to risk finding another scene like the dead woman down the hall, so were standing in her apartment debating the need to continue when Taylor came out of her room.

  We all stopped and looked at her in silence.

  She was sick.

  Her nose was running, and her eyes were red and watery.

  “I don’t think you’re going to have to worry about how to split up the supplies,” she said. She blew her nose into the wad of tissues she had bunched in her fist, and burst into tears.

  Stephanie didn’t even hesitate, she ran across the room to Taylor and hugged her. I started to say something about not getting close to her, but then realized that we were either going to get sick, or we weren’t. Taylor had stayed healthy by staying isolated, but as soon as she had gone outside for supplies and come into close range of the infected, she was doomed.

  Steph helped Taylor to the couch and sat beside her, trying to comfort her. Jamie handed her a glass of water, and Alex grabbed a box of tissues for her from the kitchen.

  I stood across the room, helplessly, not knowing what to do.

  ♦♦♦

  Stephanie and the boys were downstairs in the lobby waiting for me. They had all said their goodbyes. We had already loaded all of the supplies into the van, except for a couple bottles of water we had insisted Taylor let us leave her. She refused to let us leave her any food.

  “Are you sure this is what you want?” I asked Taylor quietly, sitting beside her on the couch, looking at the bottle of pills on the coffee table in front of us. She nodded firmly, wiping her nose with a fresh tissue.

  “We can take you with us, we might find somewhere with some doctors,” I tried again lamely.

  She looked up to my eyes, her gaze steady, silently asking me if I really believed that. I didn’t, and I had to look away.

  “I don’t want to wind up like one of them,” she said quietly. “Final answer.”

  I looked at the board game from last night where it still sat on her coffee table and smiled sadly.

  After we had come back to the apartment to find Taylor sick, we had discussed all the options we could think of. She had spurned them all, stubbornly sticking to her decision. “I’m not giving up,” she had said firmly, “I’m going on my own terms. There’s a big difference.” In the end, we couldn’t argue any more.

  “Thanks for everything,” I said lamely, and stood to leave. “Do me one favour will you? Don’t be in a hurry, okay? Wait as long as you can. If we find some help, we’ll come back for you, I promise.”

  She nodded without looking at me. I didn’t believe her.

  And with that, I left her; closing her apartment door behind me, I left her alone in the darkness to die.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Day 4

  We drove in silence, the only sound that of the tires humming across the pavement. For the last hour and change, since we had left the apartment, no one had felt much like talking.

  We had passed several more accident scenes, including one where a vehicle was little more than a blackened husk; flames were still rising from its charred frame and smoke was blowing in the wind. I didn’t look too closely afraid of what I might see inside.

  Twice we came upon crowds of dozens of infected swarming the highway, but we had been able to slow down and push our way through, their crazed, slime-splattered faces smashing against the windows with rage, their fists and clawed fingers pounding against the doors and roof. Our pristine green rental minivan now was dented and covered in grime and, in some places, blood.

  For the third time this morning, I turned on the radio and scanned the AM and FM bands searching for a signal. Finding nothing, I turned it off in frustration.


  One of the boys had suggested we should keep our eyes open for any stores we might go by that would have any kind of gear that would help us, like a place that sold hunting or outdoor gear. I thought that was a great plan, so while I drove the other three kept their eyes scanning turn offs and exits looking for anything that might look promising. It kept them busy, plus it seemed to break the gloomy mood in the van.

  We continued northward, past Innisfil, into Barrie. I was afraid we would be unable to see much from the road, and that we would have to pull off the highway and look for a service station with a phone book that would give us and address. I knew how rare public payphones had become, so was worried we would spend too much time wandering around, when Steph piped up from the passenger’s seat, pointing excitedly off to the right.

  Bless big box stores and their business models of setting up right next to major highways, I thought. Big as life we saw a business area full of large retail outlets, including a Cabela’s.

  We had just passed an off-ramp less than a kilometre back, and I was going to continue driving north until I could find a turn-off when I realized I could just stop, turn around and go back south along the way we came. Another case of old habits dying hard, I thought to myself, and hey, if I got a ticket for reckless driving, I’d pay it happily.

  Heading south in the northbound lane, I had just turned off the on-ramp when I saw the glint of the sun reflecting off a windshield to the south of us. It looked like it was moving. It was far enough away that I wouldn’t have seen it without the sun glint, so I was hoping whoever was in that vehicle couldn’t see us at the moment. I figured they were no more than two or three minutes behind us. Something about a car following us that close didn’t feel right to me.

  “Hold on everyone!” I said. I pulled off to the right into the ditch behind a clump of trees and shut off the engine. The ramp descended below the built-up level of the highway, and I thought the chances were good whoever was in the vehicle would drive by without seeing us. I quickly told the others what I had seen.

  “Well maybe it’s someone who can help us,” said Stephanie, “or someone like us looking for help.”

  I agreed that maybe it was, but I was more afraid that it might be someone willing to take what we had, or worse. For the time being I thought it best to let them drive past us. I rolled down my window so we could hear.

  A couple of minutes later, we could hear a vehicle approaching. It sounded like it was going fairly fast. A moment later, it blew past us on the highway without slowing. I let out a sigh of relief.

  We waited until the sound of the engine faded into the distance, then I started the van and drove around to the Cabela’s entrance.

  As we pulled up, parked, and climbed out of the van, I could see that this was a waste of time.

  “Well, shit,” I said, looking through the windows of the sporting goods store. Big heavy metal bars were locked down in place over the doors and windows. One of the large windows was smashed and you could see where someone had beaten and pried on them trying to get in, unsuccessfully.

  I had been hoping, naively it seems, that getting in here would be like getting into the apartments in Taylor’s building. I hadn’t realized it would all be shuttered and secured like this.

  I leaned in closely, hooding my eyes with my hands, trying to see into the darkened store.

  Dammit, I thought, look at all that stuff we could use. There were rows of warm clothing, sleeping bags, tents, and cooking gear, not to mention shelves full of beef jerky and walls of guns and ammunition. I didn’t really like guns and didn’t know the first thing about them, but I had been kicking myself for not grabbing more than just the pistol from the dead soldiers back at the airport. I had been hoping here we could grab at least a couple rifles to be able to defend ourselves if need be, or maybe even to hunt for food if it came down to that.

  I turned away. It was no use teasing myself, we weren’t getting in there without a cutting torch or a tank. Dejectedly, I started walking back to the van when I heard Alex pipe up from behind me.

  “I think I know how we can get in there.”

  ♦♦♦

  “Alex, this is crazy,” I said. I can’t believe I was going to let them try this.

  He sat in the driver’s seat of a Honda Civic, the driver’s window smashed open. He had chosen this car from the few left abandoned in the parking lot because it was a manual transmission. Using the tools Taylor had given us he smashed the window with the hammer and used the screwdriver to break loose the ignition allowing the steering wheel to turn.

  “Where did you learn to do that?” I had asked, doubting he had a dark history as a car thief.

  “From the ‘Fast & the Furious’ movies,” he answered nonchalantly as he swept the broken shards of window glass off the seat.

  Of course, I thought to myself, why not?

  “Can you hotwire it to get it started?”

  “No,” he said, looking at me somewhat wistfully. “That would be cool as shit though, right?”

  He and his brother pushed the car the hundred yards or so to the far end of the parking lot, and turned it lining it up so it faced back towards the glass walls right next to Cabela’s entrance doors. Jamie ran back and hopped in our minivan and drove it across the lot, maneuvering it tight behind the Civic.

  “Kevin, you can’t let them do this!” insisted Steph, standing off to the side.

  The boys looked at me, their eyes sparkling with excitement. I looked back at Steph and shrugged helplessly.

  “I don’t know,” I said somewhat sheepishly, then looked back at the boys. “I think it might just work.” Alex had his seatbelt secured, and besides, I thought hopefully, the Civic has front and side airbags.

  Alex let out an excited whoop and waved his brother forward. Jamie nudged the front bumper of the van up against the Civic’s rear bumper and started pushing forward. The two vehicles gained speed slowly at first, but soon both were rolling forward at an uncomfortably high rate of speed.

  Steph stood beside me, her hands clenched in front of her mouth, her face anxious. I began to think this might have been a mistake.

  They had to be doing close to thirty miles an hour when only fifteen yards or so shy of the building, I heard Alex let out a thrilled howl as Jamie slammed on the brakes in the van letting the Civic with his brother inside coast freely ahead to smash head-long into the tall front glass windows.

  The wall of windows exploded in a huge shattering crash and the car stopped dead, its windows blowing out as the airbags blew. Glass was flying everywhere.

  Jesus, I thought, that kid’s going to be cut to pieces!

  Stephanie and I ran ahead to check on Alex, as Jamie hopped out of the van. Before we got there, we could hear shrieking coming from inside the car and my heart almost stopped, but then I realized it was shrieks of laughter.

  As we got alongside the car, shattered glass crunching under our feet, we looked in to see Alex laughing explosively as he struggled to get the collapsed airbag out of the way.

  “Dude that was so awesome!” he cried to his brother, who reached in and gave him a high five. I whispered a little prayer, thankful the kid was okay.

  Turning to the building, I could see that the concrete foundation had stopped the car, but the force had been enough to dislodge the metal bars inside.

  It had worked; we were in.

  ♦♦♦

  The back of the van was now packed to the brim with gear from the store. We were now officially ‘looters’ I supposed, and I honestly did feel pretty guilty about it. Not guilty enough to have left my name and visa number behind, but guilty, nonetheless. But then again, I thought, looking at the minivan, I was already guilty of grand theft auto.

  It hadn’t taken long to gather everything we thought we would need on the road. Stephanie grabbed some sleeping bags and two small tents, although I honestly couldn’t see myself being able to sleep in a tent knowing there was the slightest chance there were any infecte
d in the area.

  The boys ran to the wall of guns like two children to their stockings on Christmas morning. They had told us they had done lots of shooting with their dad, had taken the firearms training program when in high school, and had even gone deer hunting several times as a family. That officially made them our resident firearms experts. I just warned them to remember space was a factor; I didn’t want to see ten shopping carts filled with guns.

  I was the unofficial chef in the family, so I grabbed a cart and made my way over to the camp stoves and cookware section and started loading up. I also threw in a few water bottles and a couple lanterns, as well as some flashlights, a solar panel and battery bank for charging electronics like a phone or the flashlights, and for good measure threw in a small axe, a saw and a folding camp shovel in case we needed to have a campfire along the way. I packed it all up in a slick new backpack off one of the shelves. On my way out to the entrance, I grabbed several packages of the dehydrated backpackers’ meals that were hanging from a hook, since on the packaging they looked delicious (but I expected in reality they would taste like gym socks).

  Once we had everything loaded into the back of the van, we all went back inside and grabbed some cold weather gear and a couple rain jackets, just in case. All we had in our luggage was sweaters and light jackets from our Paris trip.

  Jamie and Alex had each grabbed a pistol. They suggested that Steph and I each take one as well, but I honestly wasn’t comfortable with the idea, and neither was Steph. Neither one of us had any experience at all with handguns, and I could too easily imagine a very bad accident happening. The boys put the extra guns off to the side and kept theirs tucked into their belts.

  The boys had packed a couple hunting rifles with scopes, as well as a few boxes of ammunition, in the back with the rest of the gear. At their feet they placed a pump-action twelve-gauge shotgun. At my suggestion, they loaded it and kept a box of shells nearby, and double-checked to make sure the safety was on.