Beyond the Brink_Toward the Brink IV Read online

  “Let's get a move-on!” He barked his orders just like the old days. He didn’t want to get caught out here in the dark. Not, in the dark.

  Elliot 1

  At approximately the same time as Chuck was rushed back to the fish market in Sandspit, the Bell helicopter containing Elliot and his team touched down in Port Hardy on Vancouver Island. Richard gave the town itself a wide berth and came in on the eastern side of the airport, almost five miles away. He put the bird down at the end of the runway and all five sat for fifteen long, quiet minutes. A welcoming committee would have appeared by now if they were seen.

  “Well, doesn’t look like we were spotted,” Richard said aloud.

  “At the risk of sounding callous, let's hope there isn’t anyone left to have spotted us—alive or undead,” Elliot answered.

  “I understand, and it's not callous.”

  Ted interrupted with more important matters. “Okay, what I see here is a few small planes, some executive jets by the hangars over there, and a couple of choppers near the terminal. We should be able to get fuel for this at the hangars. If not, we can siphon from those choppers.”

  “Yeah, and I suggest we get that done while we still got some light, then find a reliable place to hunker down for the night. We need the sleep,” Richard added as he took off the headphone set. Both pilots wore the headphones, just in case they heard any radio traffic.

  “Should we fly down to the hangar or…”

  “Not advisable, Elliot. If we come to a hostile reception, our only means of escape will be right in the firing line, if you know what I'm saying?”

  “Oh, yeah. Uh—huh.” Elliot knew all right—there’d be no way out.

  “Let's try that truck over there.” Richard pointed to an old Dodge pickup left in the field to one side of the runway. “Drive down pick up some fuel come back fill it up. Easy peasy.”

  Thirty minutes later, with sufficient fuel found—a full drum with a hand pump, no less—the chopper was filled and ready to go at a moment’s notice; should that be necessary. The five men drove to an emergency vehicle garage further from their current position and, after a thorough search, decided this would do for the night. They could keep the chopper in sight and were well away from the main buildings.

  “Take these and make a bedroll out it,” Tristan said and passed emergency clothing from the two fire trucks inside the garage. The concrete floor would be cold, but there was a kitchenette and dining area, plus a restroom with showers. They would be warm, if not comfortable. As light snow fell and darkness enveloped the sky, Elliot wondered about his friends at Sandspit and if they managed to remove the foamers from the area. He worried about Riley, Aunt Kath, Bob, Chuck, and, of course, Cindy.

  “Don’t worry, Elliot. I’m sure everything’s just fine. I mean, if we didn’t get all the foamers last night, then I’m sure Chess and Riley will. Chuck will be up and about by the time we get back, and until then he’s in good hands.”

  “Thanks, Tom.” Elliot rolled over on his makeshift bedroll. “How did you know I was awake, anyway?”

  “You give off some pretty intense vibes, you really do.”

  Hmm. Cindy used to say that back in high school, Elliot remembered. “Yeah, so I’ve heard. Good night, Tom.”

  “’Night, Elliot.”

  Everyone was exhausted. There wouldn’t be much in the way of rest for this journey. There were no indications of any hostile forces in the vicinity, and everyone took the opportunity to get an uninterrupted sleep in—it could be their last. Tristan, Richard, and Ted all set the alarm on their mil-spec watches.

  They would leave before first light, just in case some locals were about. The next planned stop would be in Oregon. They would follow the coastline and hope for Astoria, about an hour west of Portland.

  Sandspit 9

  Samantha pulled down the hood of her parka so the others could hear clearly. “Hey, Chuck’s on his way back!”

  Bob and Kath jumped up from the outside chairs, where the two had waited anxiously.

  “Something’s not right,” Bob noticed.

  The Wrangler came from the road that led to the small strip of stores. It was narrow and not well-kept—not enough to race at almost 60mph on at any rate. The speed of the vehicle and two people in the front seat, plus the flashing headlights, were all indications that not all was well.

  “Tell Sergeant Morris to get out here. And fast!” Bob said to Kath, then rushed to the end of the road where the Jeep skidded to a halt. The parking lot of the market was asphalt, and the light cover of snow caused the vehicle to slide before it bounced over the concrete curbing.

  “Over here, Bob!” Chess called urgently.

  “Oh my God, Chuck! Not again, please not again!” Kath came up right behind Bob.

  “Was he shot?”

  “No. He saved us, he saved us, but it must have all been too much. He just went weak and fell,” Allan told Bob anxiously.

  Allan, Bob, and Morris eased Chuck from the back seat, while David Grigsby brought up a steel-framed office chair from one of the administration rooms. The unconscious protector was carefully placed in the chair and carried inside.

  Samantha held the door open for them and Kath followed behind, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  They took Chuck back to the room where he was supposed to rest in. It was here where Bob, against Kath’s better judgement, had told him that Chess was in trouble. He acted like he believed Chess and the others could take care of themselves, but then asked Kath to get him a cup of noodles. While she was gone, Chuck dressed, grabbed his pistol, and snuck out the back door. He was halfway to the golf course by the time the deception was discovered. Though it was only half a mile or so, for a man in his condition that was quite a feat.

  “Allan, David, James.” Chess said firmly. “Come with me, we got business to attend to.”

  Allan knew what was on Chess’ mind. The others, however, didn’t.

  “What is it, Chess, we got foamers?”

  “No, Riley and the others are sweeping back through town looking for a doctor’s office or pharmacy. It's getting dark and we got snow, so grab a rifle or a shotgun and let's meet them halfway.

  As each picked up their weapon, Chess took a moment to reassure Bob. “You’ve got a few of your agents with you, plus the pilots from the planes and a couple more of my guys. I think you’ll be okay until we get back—which shouldn’t be long, okay?”

  “You did a great job in getting him back, Chess. You have my—and I’m sure everyone's—gratitude.”

  “I didn’t see it, but we heard the shots from Chuck’s gun, then it all went quiet. He’s really something, isn’t he?”

  Bob nodded and pulled the collar up on his thick black wool jacket as the wind picked up a notch.

  “And you’ll be pleased to know, Bob,” Chess specifically wanted the former president to know, “he got the bastard behind last night's attacks.”

  “I don’t follow…?” Bob raised an eyebrow.

  “Holmes. Richard Holmes. Chuck shot him, up there on the hill.”

  Bob looked at Chess, then to the ridge. The rust color of the golf clubhouse couldn’t be seen from this distance. Relieved. If anyone was asked to describe Bob’s expression, that would be it. There were no other words—well, perhaps satisfied. He tried for years to remove Holmes from his many positions within his administration to no avail. Holmes had friends in places where even the president of the United States had no influence.

  “Thank you, Chess.” Bob extended a hand to the soldier.

  Chess didn’t know how far Bob and his antagonist Holmes went back or their history. He knew the relationship was significant and it had a great bearing on the events leading up to and including the foamer outbreak. Chess figured if Bob wanted to expand on it he would—later.

  “Okay, let's hurry this up. I’m sure Riley wants to get back before it's dark. People his age don’t see that well, which you’re probably all aware of.” Chess’ remark
brought some laughter and lightened the attitude of his team as they hurried to meet Riley. And that was the intention—focus on the job at hand and not Chuck’s condition, the encroaching dark, or the snow.

  Chess realized they might have to remain at the market for a few more days. It might be the only way to keep that stubborn son of a bitch in bed until he got well.

  “Let’s just hope there are no more foamers,” Chess muttered to himself as he picked up his step and joined the others.

  Sandspit 10

  The captured Terrace soldiers took turns carrying Terry’s body back to the market. Two men at a time. One had just completed his stint when he turned and asked, “Do you people still have a way to get back to the mainland?”

  “Why do you want to know, want a ride back?” Mitch, who stood close-watch with the 12-gauge, asked.

  “No, no… its not that. We have some family members—wives and children back in Port Edward—and I just wondered if it would be possible to pick them up. They’ll run out of supplies soon.”

  Women and children. Damn, they don’t deserve this shit, Mitch thought. “Hey, Riley, d’you hear that?”

  Mitch told the story again to Riley, who was too far back to hear. “Let's get back in one piece before we cross that bridge.”

  That, of course, made sense. But Mitch saw the look in Riley’s eyes. He knew the tough old cop had a soft spot for women and the younger ones in the group.

  “When we get you back to our base, we’ll sort out a boat ride back for your families,” Mitch told the captured soldier. “It won’t take that long. I’m sure they’ll be all right until we get there.”

  Port Edward 3

  “Mommy, did those men go to bring Daddy back?”

  “Yes, they did, dear.” The young mother didn’t explain the full details to her daughter—she was only four, after all. “They’ll bring him back real soon. You’ll see.”

  Like the other women whose men had taken part in Holmes’ expedition to the Haida Gwaii Islands—of which Graham and Moresby were the largest—she wondered if her man was all right, if he was injured, or…

  “Mommy, listen. It’s them. Daddy’s back!”

  The young girl had heard the clanging of feet—many feet—on the outside metal stairs to the Port Edward Marina Office approaching the second floor.

  “I’m not so sure, honey. Go with the other kids while Mommy checks it out, okay?” The young mother thought it sounded like dozens of people running up the stairs—not grown men in heavy combat boots.

  She opened the door to the stairway, and was confronted by several dozen five-foot-tall half-naked, deformed children—that was her impression. Bloated stomachs, with full heads of matted hair and swine-like features—particularly the nose and ears—they nonetheless weren’t unlike infant children. A green hue and dirt covered their nearly naked bodies; most were clothed only in boxer shorts. Dried reddish-brown smudges ran from their mouths and down their chest. Blood—human blood. Their similarity with children ended with the extra limbs, the triangular razor-sharp teeth, and the blackest of eyes. Like that of a shark, their entire eyeball was black. An overpowering smell of rotten meat was also present. “Oh my God! My fucking—”

  Like a swarm of angry hornets, the mutants attacked the young mother from all sides. Terrible sounds of tearing and biting as fangs and claws ripped through fabric, flesh, and bone. Other mutants rushed through the door to the upstairs hideout. Screams of uncontrolled fear and of infants crying sounded up and down the length of the street where there was no one to hear. Mercifully, the mutant children were ruthlessly efficient in murder—sparing no one.

  Portland 1

  Portland to the west of Idaho suffered early on with the “fast food disease,” as the locals called it. When Phillip Baer was given the all-clear by the FDA, Oregon’s proximity—and a big potato-grower itself—meant it was one of the first to receive the hormone-infused vegetables. Some Oregon farmers, however, received the super-potato sooner.

  Baer, a less-than-scrupulous individual, was not below dealing with like-minded farmers in Oregon. Particularly as he accumulated more and more shares in the French fry industry. The fries were in fast food outlets six months after the trials began in Idaho—and the sickness followed soon after that.

  The terrible man-made malady in Idaho was several months in advance of anywhere else, including Oregon. With all focus on Idaho, no one considered any of the states which bordered it—until it was too late. Once the communications started to go down one by one across the country, places like Portland weren’t heard from any longer.

  It wasn’t long after Elliot and his Twin Falls survivors had picked up school buddy Roger Grigsby and his aunt and uncle that Portland experienced the same catastrophic events as the major population centers in Idaho.

  Like Twin Falls, the foamer outbreak began in a hospital, but this time at night with less staff present. Hundreds of sick had descended on Portland’s hospitals and clinics, all complaining of severe stomach cramps, vomiting regularly, and blurred vision. The sufferers received their initial treatment as outpatients, as little was understood about their illness. When many started throwing up a steamy green substance that foamed like dishwashing suds, the doctors thought it might be a good idea to admit them as patients.

  They never got the chance.

  In the early hours of the morning—the quietest time for many hospitals— the first group of patients started to die. One after the other, they passed an event worthy of panic in any hospital. The affected would holler obscenities to the world before throwing themselves off their hospital bed and flail about on the floor like fish out of water.

  Doctors collided with each other in the hall in their frantic attempts to find a witness to “Come, see this. It’s the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  By the time they returned, the patient would be up on their feet, hair dripping wet with sweat, dark gray blotches around the eye sockets, and a pasty-white complexion. And, most disturbing, eyes like burning red embers.

  “My God, is this some sort of a joke?” one doctor asked his hideous-looking patient.

  It was evident it wasn’t when the patient responded by spewing a bucket-load of green foam, then pounced on the good doctor and began devouring him alive. Everyone in the hospital complaining of stomach problems all had one thing in common—they regularly dined at fast food restaurants or bought bags of frozen fries to serve at home. Within twenty-four hours of their admission to the hospital, they all died—only to rise again as the living dead.

  Hospital staff that hadn’t been completely devoured but had suffered a green foam shower mutated into a foamer—one of the walking dead. Emergency crews arriving on the scene followed suit. And so, the pattern went. Just like the cities and towns of Idaho.

  One undead creature infected two, two infected four, etc. It didn’t take any great imagination to see how the population of the country succumbed so fast. By the time anyone thought to broadcast a warning to all citizens, it was already too late.

  Portland 2

  Survivalist Owen Rogers kept a small arsenal of weapons and ammo at his home. He drilled his family daily, just like the boot camp he’d never attended, and patrolled the streets at night looking for bearded men with swarthy complexions. And when his daughter became ill—with stomach pains no less—he told her to “toughen up.”

  When the stores and factories closed and the radio played the same program over and over, and most TV stations just showed the colored bars of the emergency test pattern, Owen loaded all his weapons and camped by the front window.

  ISIS or the Russians were responsible, he knew it, and he was ready.

  “Dad, Dad. You need to see this!” His daughter rose from her sick bed to tell her father about the story she read on the Internet. The value of satellite service had been discovered at last. “This website said there’s been an outbreak of a deadly plague in Boise and Twin Falls and that people have turned into zombies, attacking oth
ers and—”

  “What? Did you say ‘attacking’?”

  It was a struggle, but she lifted her laptop up. “Yes, Dad, there—”

  “I told you that internet was nothing but commie trash and now it's been subverted by ISIS. There is no plague. It’s a terrorist attack.” Owen didn’t trust the Internet—except for the sites he visited, of course. The survival and prepper sites which praised freedom of choice and that to guarantee those freedoms, they would have to prevent others from having that choice.

  “Where’s your mother?”

  “She went to pick Steven up from the babysitter.”

  “Then she better hurry, there’s no telling—oh, shit!” Owen jumped back hurriedly.

  His daughter buckled over at the waist and heaved up a mess of green spew all over the carpet in front of her dad. A cloud of steam rose from the foul-smelling, foamy mess—enough to send Owen recoiling. He turned away from his daughter. She pounced on him with the strength of four, knocking him to the ground.

  “Get off, get off me, you-you—oh my God!” Owen screamed like a child woken from a horrible nightmare when he saw the appearance of his daughter. The green skin, the sweaty hair, droplets of green vomit on her chin, and those eyes—those horrible red eyes.

  The hellish fires unleashed by General Stodge’s plan would threaten Portland, but offshore winds from the North Pacific pushed it back. The city was saved, as were the foamers. Oregon now resembled Idaho in every manner except for the horrific fires.

  Elliot 2

  The massive forest fire wasn’t on the minds of the chopper crew from Sandspit. Since they had left Kath’s farmhouse in Prince George, it occupied their thoughts less and less. It was now more than twenty-four hours since the assault on the Sandspit fish market, and none were aware of a second attack as they concerned themselves with their own security. After an uneventful but extremely cold night in Port Hardy, the chopper took off for their new destination: Astoria. The Bell helicopter, with the aid of a strong tail-wind, made it to the regional airport in five hours. The snow clouds had all but disappeared. The sun was out, which allowed them to see the city of Portland in the distance. The Astoria airport was closer to Warrenton, across Youngs Bay. It was more remote, and that made it a good choice. Richard and Ted believed they could get the chopper airborne quickly in an emergency, if they had enough warning. They had more than a two thousand-yard view in all directions from where the helicopter landed. Should any foamers or rogue forces attack, there would be more than enough time to start the chopper and escape.