A Post Apocalyptic Virus Story (Book 2): Surviving The Virus [L.A. Rescue Mission] Read online

  “Gavin, are you up to something?” Katie asked.

  “No. Why would you ask?”

  Katie walked around the kitchen, keeping a close eye on Gavin.

  “You are acting funny.”

  “No, I’m not. I think you are the one acting funny. I’m going out of my way to do your job, and you are treating me like a criminal.”

  She knew he was up to something but didn’t want to fight. Katie wanted him to let his guard down.

  “You’re right. Thank you for cooking breakfast. I can go back to my room and rest.”

  The muscles in Gavin’s shoulders relaxed.

  “Sounds good. I’ll come get you when it’s ready.”

  Katie began to walk off, and her back was to Gavin. After a few steps, she spun around and saw Gavin attempting to hide the bottle of pills.

  “Got you. What are those?”

  “Nothing.”

  As she walked closer, she could tell they were sleeping pills. Her mom had been eating them like candy since the zombie apocalypse began.

  Katie grabbed the bottle and said, “What do we have here? Temazepam. Since you are cooking, let me guess, you are going to try and get my dad to pass out so you can get him on the plane.”

  Gavin thought about lying, but he knew Katie was too smart for that.

  “Okay, yes, that is my dad’s plan. He needs your dad to go with him.”

  Katie played with her ear lobes. She always did that when she was nervous. It was system overload, and she paced back and forth in the room, not knowing what to do.

  Gavin felt nervous, which was a rare occurrence. Even before track meets with thousands in attendance, he was cool as a cucumber. He worried she would run off to her dad. Not only creating drama but ruining his dad’s plans.

  Katie sighed.

  “If you are going to do it, then you will need to make sure to use enough to make him sleep. He’s a big guy.”

  Gavin didn’t know what to say.

  “Is something wrong, Gavin?” Katie asked.

  Gavin stirred the scrambled eggs and said, “I’m surprised. Why aren’t you running down the hall right now to tell daddy?”

  “I thought about it, but if my dad doesn’t go, your dad is as good as dead. Plus, my dad needs to get over his fear of flying.”

  “Remind me to never get on your bad side.”

  The eggs simmered on low.

  Twenty minutes later, Gavin, Katie, Bill, and Theodore were all at the table sitting down. Bill had a mountain of eggs and bacon piled in front of him.

  “These eggs are amazing,” Bill said as he shoveled them into his mouth. “Gavin, you’d make someone a good housewife.”

  Everyone laughed. Not at Bill’s joke, but the fact that he loved the eggs and was being so vocal made containing laughter impossible.

  “Eat up, Bill,” Gavin said while he did his best not to howl in laughter.

  Fifteen minutes later, breakfast was over and Bill got up to put his dishes in the kitchen, and sleepiness washed over him.

  “Wow, I’m getting pretty tired. Must not have slept well last night. I’m going to get a power nap before you take off Theodore.”

  “I will see you at the plane, Bill. Don’t be late,” Theodore said.

  Bill managed to get back to his room, and the second he was through the door, he landed on the bed like a large sack of potatoes.

  A few minutes later, Katie and Gavin came into the room. Bill’s snores sounded like a chainsaw.

  Theodore walked in.

  “Is he out cold?”

  Katie said, “Dad, dad. Are you up?”

  Nothing. She slapped her dad’s face; he snored away.

  “He’s out,” Katie said.

  “Now we are left with the difficult assignment of getting him to the plane. Gavin, you grab him by his shoulders, and I’ll grab his feet. Once we get him off the bed, Katie, you help by carrying his middle section.”

  Gavin and Theodore got into position, and they lifted, and it was like carrying a heavy carpet that was odd-shaped and wet. They managed to get him in the air, but then Theodore’s hand slipped. Bill rolled off the bed and smacked the floor.

  A collective gasp. Then, a few seconds passed, and Bill snored away.

  “Gavin, grab his arms, and Katie help me with is legs,” Theodore said.

  They followed orders, but Bill was north of 250 pounds so it wasn’t easy.

  Gavin bent over and grabbed Bill by the shoulders as best as he could. Katie and Theodore each grabbed a leg.

  “On the count of three. One, Two, Three,” Theodore said.

  With all of their might they heaved, but it was no use, they couldn’t lift him off the ground. Theodore paced around the room, brainstorming for ways to get Bill to the plane. The first place his brain went to solve a problem was technology. He thought of all of the devices in his workshop.

  Katie played with her earlobes.

  “I got an idea, what about a wheelbarrow. It will be hard, but if we can manage to get him into a wheelbarrow, that might work.”

  Theodore smiled as the tension in his face left.

  “Yes, that could work. We need to make some sort of sling so that we can lift him back onto the bed. Yes, then we can roll him into the wheelbarrow. Gavin, go get the wheelbarrow.”

  By the time Gavin returned with the green wheelbarrow, Katie and Theodore used a few sheets as make-shift straps and rolled Bill over.

  With Gavin, Katie and Theodore all working together, they managed to lift Bill back onto the bed. Gavin moved the wheelbarrow closer to the bed, and all three rolled Bill into the wheelbarrow.

  Bill snored away on his back with his arms and legs hanging out of the wheelbarrow. It wasn’t easy, but Gavin managed to push Bill out into the hall and down to the service elevator in the bunker.

  It was a low tech elevator that used a counterweight of collected gray water. Not often used, the elevator was perfect for getting Bill out of the bunker; it worked like a charm. Gavin stared at the unconscious Bill hoping he would not wake.

  The Solar Plane sat on the grass runway, waiting for its grand adventure. Gavin was exhausted from pushing the wheelbarrow across the field of grass. Katie and Theodore waited by the plane.

  “One last step and we will be able to take off. Once Gavin catches his breath, we will finish the job,” Theodore said.

  They managed the impossible; they got Bill into the plane. Bill, buckled into the co-pilot seat of the plane, was still asleep. Theodore walked around the outside of the Solar Plane, doing pre-trip inspections. Everything checked out.

  Gavin and Katie stood next to each other. Katie had a nervous pit in her stomach. She had a feeling that she might not see her dad again and hated to think that the last thing she did was help drug him and put him on a plane.

  They waved to Theodore as he got into the plane.

  Inside the plane, Theodore fired up all systems. He took a second test flight the previous day by himself after he fixed the inverter. Everything went smooth, and the battery held its charge.

  It was a four-seat plane, and the back seat had several thirty-aught-six rifles, a couple 12-gauge shotguns, a chainsaw, and plenty of ammo.

  The propeller sprang to life, and in a fraction of time it took to lug Bill to the plane, the plane barreled down the runway, lifted off, and cleared the forest. Next stop, L.A.

  5

  Flight time

  The Solar Plane cruised at 6,500 feet. Theodore looked out the window and admired the rocky, jagged coastline of Southern Oregon. They were minutes away from crossing into California and traveling over the vast redwood forest. Without the GPS working in the nav system on the plane, following the coastline was a safe bet.

  Bill’s eyes flickered open. He looked groggy and confused. Theodore noticed Bill coming to life and expected the volcano to erupt at any time.

  Bill looked around the plane. His mind wasn’t processing where he was out.

  About ten minutes later, Bill s
houted in the headset, “Teddy, what the hell is going on?”

  “Bill, relax.”

  “Relax? I’m in a damn plane,” Bill said as he began to squirm. Panic started to set in. He looked at the ground, and it seemed so far away.

  Theodore thought Bill looked like a 15-year-old girl that was afraid of spiders. To see the manly lumberjack that scared was priceless. The moment would live on forever since Theodore had a GoPro camera mounted recording every move Bill made.

  Bill tried not to look out the window. He looked over his left shoulder and saw the weapons stockpile and his trusty chainsaw.

  The site of his saw calmed him down a little, but anxiety still hung in the air. It was his baby, and they have cut many trees down together.

  Theodore said, “Bill, how about you meditate?”

  Bill closed his eyes. His thoughts were chaotic, and his stomach twisted and tightened. He had never been this far out of his comfort zone. He took a deep breath.

  His thoughts crashed around like a violent ocean. He imagined himself falling out of the plane, or the battery on the plane malfunctioning. Even worse, thoughts came like zombies overruning the compound and killing his daughter.

  His mind ran for ten minutes, but then the ocean calmed, and his mind began to relax. He centered himself on his mantra, yellow. He wondered where a guy might go to the bathroom on a plane like this. How fast were they flying?

  Bill would gently guide his thoughts back to his mantra. Fifteen minutes of meditation did the trick, and Bill opened his eyes.

  Theodore glanced over.

  “How do you feel?”

  “Teddy, if you ever pull a stunt like this, I’ll—”

  “I know. You don’t have to tell me. Enjoy the view and grab the controls if you want.”

  Bill grabbed the controls in the co-pilot seat. He felt the adrenaline pumping through his veins.

  He steered right, and the plane veered right.

  “Look at that, Teddy; I’m flying.”

  “See, it is not as bad as you thought.”

  “As long as we don’t crash, then we are in good shape. How far is it to L.A.?”

  “I decided to fly down the coastline, so we have a reference point. As the crow flies from Coos Bay to L.A., we were looking at 700 plus miles. Going down the coast, it is over 900 miles.”

  “What’s this baby do per hour? Two hundred miles per hour?”

  “Less, right now, we have a cruising speed of 167 miles per hour.”

  “So, what is that, 6 or 7 hours of flying?”

  “Before departure, I had our flight time estimated at five and a half hours. Assuming the flight is nominal.”

  Bill steered left, and the plane veered left.

  BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

  The tablet flashed a warning sign, and Bill thought, holy crap, what did I do?

  6

  Emergency Landing

  Theodore came to life like an ER doctor that had a gunshot patient rushed into the hospital. He glanced at the tablet and saw that the battery was at ten percent. He looked out the window, and he could see a city coming into sight.

  He saw the crescent shape of the coastline by the city and knew it was Crescent City, California. Bill was so scared he was frozen.

  “I’m going to take her down for an emergency landing,” Theodore said.

  He began to dip the nose of the plane, beginning their descent. Theodore knew they had an airport and tried to spot it, but a road would work. He could use Highway 101, and that could be a bonus if they needed to scavenger any repair parts. He guessed it was the damn inverter, again.

  Buildings, street lights, power lines, and the highway kept getting closer and closer. Bill, frozen like a popsicle, didn’t even blink. By a stroke of luck, the road was free of cars or trucks.

  The pavement of the freeway was 500 feet away. 250 feet. 100 feet. Slam, the wheels hit the road, and the plane shook like a martini. Theodore hit the button on the screen that slowed the propeller, and he used the toe brake to help bring the plane to a complete stop.

  The tablet BEEPED and powered down. A petrified Bill looked at Theodore.

  “Teddy, are we dead?”

  “No, Bill, we are not. You need to snap out of it soon. We might have preppers or zombies on us at any moment.”

  Theodore scanned the area; everything seemed all too quiet. They had many hours of waiting for the power to charge, even once the inverter was fixed. Crescent City is a town that was supported by commercial fishing and a prison, Pelican Bay State Prison. Nestled right on the coast with an amazing redwood forest only minutes away, it used to be a popular tourist spot before the virus-zombie-apocalypse.

  Bill hadn’t moved an inch. Theodore grabbed Bill’s shoulder.

  “Snap out of it. Bill, come on.”

  Theodore reached in the back seat and grabbed a small toolbox that was underneath some ammo. He opened the pilot side door and got out. With his toolbox by his side, Theodore went to work.

  The cowling on the nose of the plane is a Cessna’s version of a hood. It is held in place by cam locks. Theodore, with his screwdriver, removed all of the cam locks, and he pulled off the cowling piece exposing the top part of the motor. While he put the cowling piece on the ground, he noticed a heard of ten zombies running toward him.

  The zombies were running almost as fast as an average human. They weren’t the slow running zombies often portrayed in movies. Their skin was dark gray, and their eyes were bloodshot, and they drooled out of their mouths.

  “Bill, I need you our here,” Theodore shouted.

  Theodore was unsure if Bill would snap out of it. He needed to make a quick decision. Begin repair on the inverter, or get a gun and start blasting.

  The co-pilot door flung open, and out came Bill. He had a thirty-aught-six in his right hand with a large capacity magazine and wore an ammo vest.

  To Theodore, it was a sight for sore eyes.

  POP. POP. POP. With Bill’s finger on the trigger, bullets were flying. A zombie, an obese woman in her 50’s, approached Bill. Her mouth chomped, and she had an open gash on her arm where a zombie had bitten her.

  Bill pointed the gun toward her. POP. POP. POP. Her head exploded like a stick of dynamite in a rock pit. Her headless body fell to the ground. Like all zombies, once killed, their bodies dissolved and sizzled like an Alka seltzer in water.

  “Wohoo,” Bill shouted.

  POP. POP. POP. In his element, Bill was popping zombies like they were balloons at the county fair.

  Theodore saw the fury Bill had unleashed and was satisfied that he could work on the inverter. He looked past the motor and followed the electrical line toward the cabin. Bolted against the wall was the inverter. With a screwdriver, Theodore undid the ten bolts that held the casing on the inverter.

  The reverse polarity connection was damaged, so Theodore undid wires coming in and out of the inverter. The inverter would need to be replaced. Because of the previous problems with the inverter during the test flight, Theodore made sure to bring a backup inverter. He went inside the cabin of the plane to get the spare inverter.

  Once Theodore had removed all the bolts, he took out the inverter housing and attached the new one. He then, one by one, tightened the bolts.

  POP. POP. POP.

  Bill wasn’t budging an inch, and zombies were dropping left and right.

  The inverter was in, but they would have to wait for the solar panels to charge the batteries. That would take 8-10 hours if the sky stayed bright blue like it was.

  “How is it going over there, Teddy?”

  “I got the inverter switched. Now we have to wait for the batteries to charge.”

  More and more zombies appeared in the distance from every direction.

  “Teddy, we don’t have much time. There must be a thousand zombies coming. We don’t have enough ammo for that.”

  Crap. Theodore realized they couldn’t wait in the plane, because even if the zombies couldn’t get in, they could bloc
k the road, leaving them no runway. It didn’t take long for his vast intellect to come to the only decision possible. Run for it.

  “Bill, I’ll grab a rifle and some ammo, and we will have to make a run for it. See that auto parts store over there. If we can get on the roof, then maybe we can wait it out.”

  Bill nodded. Theodore grabbed the rifle and ammo out of the airplane and closed the doors. They ran as fast as they could.

  It was a Napa Autoparts store that was an old, two-story, flat-roofed building. It was a half-mile away, and they had a clear path. With thousands of zombies closing in, it was the only option.

  7

  The Waiting Game

  The flat roof of the auto parts store had a two-foot wall around the perimeter it. Bill perched on one knee, pointed his rifle out at the thousands of zombies at the base of the building.

  Theodore was lying flat on his back, meditating. He had trouble focusing on his breathing. The moans, groans, and chomps of the zombies were too much. Breathe in and breathe out. With a herculean effort, he was able to calm his mind, which freed it to problem-solve. He wanted to give his subconscious some homework, figure out an escape plan. The sat phone was in the plane, not that it would help get out of the problem, but he could call home.

  Breathe in. Breathe out.

  While Theodore was calming his mind, Bill was getting zombies heads into his scope and making them explode like a volcano. He estimated that there were maybe 1,500 waiting for them. It was going to be a fight for their lives, and he knew it.

  “You come up with any ideas yet, Teddy?”

  Theodore’s eyes opened as he sat up.

  “Perhaps one. We barricaded the entrances good enough so no zombies will come in, right?”

  “Oh yeah, no zombies are getting into the store.”

  “Perfect. We need to find flammable materials in the store—lighters, oil, anything that will burn. Then, we let the zombies in and run to the second floor, where we will start the fire. Lastly, we go to the roof.”