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Outbreak

By: beatriceguy



First let me say thanks to my volunteer editor KJ plotts for putting up with me...I know I can be a handful. :) This is a long story about some fairly dark subject matter so if that's not your thing I can completely understand that but you should think about another story then. Otherwise I hope you enjoy it and make sure to vote. 

                 The Second Coming     Turning and turning in a widening gyre     The falcon cannot hear the falconer:            Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;     Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,     The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere     The ceremony of innocence is drowned;     The best lack all conviction, while the worst     Are full of passionate intensity.     Surely some revelation is at hand;     Surely the second Coming is at hand.     The second coming! Hardly are those words out     When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi     Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert     A shape with lion body and the head of a man,     A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,     Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it     Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.     The darkness drops again; but now I know     That twenty centuries of stony sleep     Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,     And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,     Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?                 William Butler Yeats

Where to begin? That is a question that has perplexed me for sometime, even before the council asked me as the town's librarian to finally create a real history of those early years. It's been something that I've wanted to do for some time. To try to get it all down and in the right order while those of us who actually witnessed these events are s'til around to give their testimony. 

I believe the council is right in wanting to do this, since if for no other reason than future generations will be born and live their lives and have no direct knowledge of or connection to the old world even if that connection was only through the memories of those of us who are s'til around who remember it. These future children will also have no knowledge of those dangerous and perilous first few years after the fall of the old world and they will need to know what happened and why. 

These future generations will need to know not only about the successes we had that led to our thriving community today, but also about the sacrifices that were made necessary to ensure the survival of our group. 

I must also find a way to tell them about our failures; we had so many for they too played a role in shaping who we are as a people today. 

The effort that is underway already to more or less idolize the groups early leaders especially Kevin is only natural I suppose given what the human race has been through its only natural to want to have hero's, someone to look up too. 

But s'til the unvarnished truth needs to be put down since the Kevin Thompson I knew certainly didn't intend for this growing settlement to be his legacy. I honestly don't think he wanted anything to do with any of this at first. In fact I'm sure he didn't. I was only a young girl at the time of course but like the rest of us I remember that I had to grow up fast and take on more responsibility than I would have ever thought I was capable of but I did it and Kevin told be once that he was proud of me and all my hard work. 

I have often wondered if Kevin experienced the same sorts or doubts and uncertainties that I did. I guess we'll never know. 

But Kevin did step up and do what had to be done to ensure the groups survival but did that make him a hero that so many would like to paint him as today? I don't know, perhaps its for history itself to decided these things, but I do know that he would have been the first to laugh at the very idea of him being some sort of larger than life figure. Perhaps to call a Kevin a reluctant hero would be closer to the truth. In any case it is now my responsibility to try to get our early history from the time of the fall of the old world to now as accurately as I can. I owe it not only to the future but also to the past to get it right. So I'm back to my original question of where to begin but I guess like any great story it needs to start like they did. 

In the beginning...... 

It's not everyday that you get to see the beginning of the end of the world and everything you know right in front of you. So it could be understandable that Kevin Thompson didn't fully appreciate what the initial reports of the viral outbreak meant when he watched the news that first night.

Having just gotten home after another long day of sweating his ass off from driving a truck for a construction company in Lincoln, Nebraska, he'd made the nearly hour long drive home just in time on this warm May evening to flip on CNN and catch some actual news or at least as close as they ever got to it before the network went to hours of nothing more than talking heads. 

But after a day at work he, like any good news junkie, just wanted to get his fix and not listen to hours of inane chatter from a group of people he considered having the combined IQ of a piece of cauliflower and a small piece at that. 

However the attractive brunette on the screen with what could only be described as a truly impressive set of tits was rambling on about authorities in China quarantining a local village in response to what looked like another flare-up of the bird flu.

He'd heard this before just like everyone else that bothered to follow the news and most of these flare ups were either stamped out quickly or were just another false alarm to begin with so Kevin didn't pay much attention, after all he had his own problems to deal with.

The little blurb of a story was out of the news cycle for a few days ''til cases of apparently the same thing suddenly popped up in Southeast Asia and in Europe on the same day; that's when he at least first started to get worried. Apparently though he was about the only person that was worried since no one at work or even in the news seemed to be taking it all that seriously at least publicly. 

That is 'til the first wave of infected people started to die on live TV, and die they did. That was when The World Health organization as well as the CDC started sounding the alarm in earnest. More and more of the so called experts started talking about the idea that this was in fact the big one that they had all been warning about. 

Apparently this was the nightmare scenario that virologists the world over had been having so many sleepless nights about. A virus that spread person to person through the air like the flu, but unlike the regular flu which just makes most people that catch it feel like crap for a couple of days and then they get better, this bug ferociously attacks the body leading to almost certain death. 

To make matters worse the disease seemed to be resistant to just about anything they could throw at it. So now all those enormous stockpiles of pills, which had been amassed at great expense by governments and individuals like, at the urging of the big drug conglomerates to protect the people, were now found to be all but useless against the very thing they were intended to work against. 

So just at the moment then the human race needed modern medical science the most, medical science came to realize that the viruses and bacteria out in the world still had a lot to teach us about our place in the great scheme of things. 

The New Plague, as it was quickly dubbed in the media, had already spread by this time of course and continued to spread with almost breath taking speed. With modern air travel people who either didn't realize how infectious they were or maybe they just didn't care continued to travel normally, the damn fools got on airplanes, busses, trains and other forms of mass transit where they spread a deadly pathogen to as many new victims as could be done. Of course the places they went had lots of people in them and simply by breathing and interacting with all these unsuspecting intervals the virus continued to spread. 

The bug started appearing all over the world in the next week and of course global panic wasn't far behind. 

From the scale of national governments to individual people everyone started to try to quarantine themselves, just like in the 13th and 14th centuries during the time of the black death when cities like London tried to wall themselves in to keep the disease out. 

In the 21st century it worked about as well as it did then, the bug still found its way in, assuming it wasn't already there before they tried to stop it.

The number of cases globally exploded exponentially in the big mega cities around the world; hospitals that were already operating at near capacity on a normal day were completely overwhelmed with the sick and dying as well as all the people who just thought they were. 

Just like people all over the world, Kevin got to watch the end of the world live on 24 hour television. In a space of a few days the story went from just hardly being mentioned at all to being all they talked about and humans, being the herd animals they were, panicked even more. 

Kevin found it was amazing to watch it all play out even mesmerizing in an abstract sort of way. Seeing just how fast modern civilization could unravel like a cheap rug. 

He kept going to work since he needed the money, but many of his co-workers didn't show up, not that he could really blame them. Then the first of them started to die, just one at first then another and another. With no one to replace them Kevin's company like most everything else soon ground to a halt and the owners told the workers that were left to just go home 'til it was all over.

Kevin figured they couldn't have kept going much longer anyway since it was getting harder to get fuel, spare parts, you name it as the transportation system infrastructure began to break down. 

The various government agencies for the most part did their best to keep people calm, as well as keeping basic services like electrical power and the water on. They also organized the shipping of food and medicine to towns and cities all over the country. Other counties were doing the same, in the case of Beatrice, Nebraska, the local Wal-mart was chosen as the distribution point. It was one of the few sites in town that had enough refrigerated storage space for that much food, as well as its designed purpose being that it was intended to move large numbers of people in and out as quickly as possible which suited the authorities needs. 

On top of that with its location being out away from town the military and police who were running the show thought they could more easily secure the area. This idea took on new importance when the supply convoys in different parts of the country started being attacked. 

That was when martial law was finally declared. A curfew was announced and military units started appearing more frequently in town and just about everywhere else as well it seemed from what they were saying on TV, even with the new level of censorship that had been imposed.

Just who these people attacking the convoys were wasn't really clear but it looked like that with the implementation of rationing a black market had not surprisingly quickly sprung up and these same groups wanted whatever was in those trucks for themselves. 

Now Kevin was no virologist but he didn't think it was a good idea for so many people to be crowded together at a single distribution point with an airborne virus on the loose. The problem was no one seemed to be able to come up with another way to get food to all the people that needed it any other way. It was finally decided that people were just going to have to risk it. 

The government did have medics there all the time looking for anyone that might be sick and they found them too. More and more often, 'til a temporary clinic was set up in the parking lot to handle the growing number of sick people that were being pulled out of line; a temporary morgue was set up as well for the same reason. 

Big military two and a half ton trucks could be heard rumbling through town everyday. Kevin had seen them himself, people in protective suits going door to door,kicking the doors in where necessary and pulling out the bodies of the dead and taking the sick but still living to the field hospitals they had set up. 

Field hospitals now that was a good one, Kevin thought. There were so few doctors to go around by now that most were being operated by anyone that had any medical training at all. He'd heard that the bodies of the dead were being taken to mass graves that had been dug outside of town but he hadn't seen them and the news broad casts were forbidden under the rules of the state of emergency that had been declared from showing them or even talking about it all that much. It made sense he supposed but still the way it was going they were all going to end up there eventually. So what was the point?

Of course with all the camera phones out there someone finally managed to get close enough to get some pictures of what was going on and then posting them on the internet. It showed both troops and civilian contractors he supposed in full biohazard gear running bull dozers and backhoes digging long trenches then the trucks of all kinds would start showing up. They back up to the edge and would dump their load of bodies. It was clear from the video that it was human bodies; many were in black plastic body bags others were wrapped in sheets and still others were just wearing whatever they had on when they had died or had been found. 

It wasn't long after that sight made it into the public consciences when the TV news broadcasts started going off the air. Kevin, sitting in his living room, couldn't help but wonder, was this how we were really going out?

Chapter 2

Sitting in a very uncomfortable plastic chair and trying to doze in the staff break room which was one of the few areas of the hospital that hadn't been turned into wards for all the sick and dying people that had come in, Kelly Peterson couldn't help but think about how she had come to this point. 

Being the child of mix race parents made her something of a novelty in her home town of Beatrice which was about as much of a corn fed white bread town as you would find just about anywhere but here in Lincoln she blended in much better, with it's larger population leading to a lot more ethnic diversity. 

Her long black hair was currently pulled back into a pony tail for convenience sake and the dark bags under her honey colored eyes, a gift from her father, were showing the stress of the last few weeks.

Her mother Helen Peterson had wanted to be a doctor all of her life and both she and her family were ecstatic when she got a scholarship to the University of Nebraska to study medicine. She'd planned for everything that is everything except meeting Kelly's father. Walter Ucumba was an exchange student from West Africa. He had never been so far away from home and he had found the United States both fascinating as well as frightening. Experiencing the usual home sickness that many college students felt, Walter threw himself into his studies. That is 'til he met Kelly with her brown hair and blue eyes; she caught his attention right away. Walter hadn't come to the states to get into a relationship; he was here to work, to better himself. But Helen was just such a sweet person he couldn't help himself but to fall in love with her. 

The day she met Walter was one of the greatest days of Helen's life, no matter how it ultimately turned out. She and Walter had an instant connection, soon they were inseparable and being college age kids, one thing led to another and Kelly found herself pregnant. 

Walter was terrified at the prospect of fatherhood; he did love Kelly there wasn't any doubt about that but he also knew that he wasn't ready to get married to her or anyone else at this point in his life. Neither of them believed in abortion so that only left one option. 

Helen dropped out of school and moved home. Her family had pretty much disowned her over her affair with not just a college boy but a black one at that. Only her grandmother and a couple close friends stood by her during these years and though times were hard she and her daughter got by.

Walter to his credit didn't abandon his unwanted family; he knew it was his responsibility to look after them and he did his best. He sent what money he could while he was still in school and once he had his degree, he sent more. He made sure that Helen and Kelly had everything that he could give them.

Helen knew though that she still wanted to work in medicine so after Kelly started school she went back to school herself and worked toward and earned a degree in nursing. Growing up and seeing how hard her mom worked and how much good she did, Kelly knew what she wanted to do with her life and followed her mom into nursing. Getting her Bachelors of Science she went to work as an RN in a hospital in Lincoln just weeks before the outbreak had started.

Being a young inexperienced nurse Kelly was just getting her feet on the ground when the news reports started about what was happening in China and the hospital received its first alert on what to keep an eye out for. 

Unfortunately it didn't take long for the first cases to appear; just a couple that first day then more the next and more and more 'til there was an almost steady stream of people coming in, not only to her hospital but the only other major hospital in town as well as every clinic and doctor's office as well. 

In all too short a time, every bed was full and they were lining people up in the halls, on the floor, in the waiting areas and any other space that was big enough to hold at least a couple of beds or even just a mattress on the floor or table and whatever equipment could be scrounged to help them. Ventilators in particular were desperately needed since as the disease progressed, it attacked the lungs causing them to fill with fluid, without a ventilator to help them breathe a person could literally drown in their own fluids. 

But even with a ventilator the hospitals staff found with hard won but quickly acquired experience that it only prolonged the inevitable, none of the different drugs or high tech equipment they had seemed to help much. Very few people that got the virus recovered from it. Most lasted a few days to maybe a week if they were lucky or not depending on how you looked at it. 

Quickly being over whelmed, they called for help and the military did send a couple of doctors to take over and as many medics as they could spare. It really didn't matter though, since it was like trying to hold back the ocean tide with a broom. 

Unfortunately not only were the patients dying but the hospital staff started to die as well, some from the disease, some others from the increasingly lawless nature of the city she had until recently called home. There were just not enough soldiers and police to go around now. Many were sick or already dead themselves; others were trying to protect their own families. As their numbers dwindled however the gangs of people that had started to come together to survive started fighting among themselves staking their claims to what was left. Not unlike vultures, she thought grimly, picking away the meat of a mostly dead but still squirming animal. 


Outbreak



Even being an all too green RN, Kelly soon found herself running a whole floor of sick and dying people since there just wasn't anyone else to do it. She only had one assistant near the end, Linda the teenage daughter of a patient that didn't make it. Kelly in all honesty had to admit that no matter what brought the younger woman there she for one was glad to have her. The girl did what she was told and learned fast. 

Captain Sam Nichols, the army doctor supposedly in charge of the hospital, had to make his rounds to all the floors since he was the only actual doctor left. The others like the rest of the staff either trained personnel like Kelly or volunteers like Linda were themselves either dead or sick. 

But some of them though did seem to just disappear; it was assumed by those that were left behind that these people had just run off to GGod knows where since with the situation being so bad outside no one in their right mind dared leave the hospital grounds anymore without a damn good reason; just going home was boarding on the suicidal. The volunteers, nurses, medics and anyone else that were left just stayed put, grabbing what food and sleep they could when they could then went back to work. 

In one concession to the reality of the situation the military had allowed those working in the hospital to bring their surviving family members into the fortified grounds of the hospital. This deal had been worked out in an effort to keep the trained personnel at their posts but most of the family members at least the ones able too did what they could to help out. At least at first there had been plenty for them to do. 

Kelly had no idea where the people would go when they would take off, since both from the news before it went off the air and from what she heard from the military, the virus was everywhere. It had reached every continent every city, and they were all pretty much in the same shape as they were here. 

She knew the doctors of the CDC had sealed themselves into there labs and were working night and day on any idea they thought even had a slight chance of helping. The Army had turned the grounds of the facility into an armed camp to protect them. But even if they could find a treatment Kelly knew in her bones it was already way too late. 

The remaining hospital staff did somehow manage to keep going like this for a couple of weeks 'til one day Captain Nichols finally told them that the supply convoys that had been running the medicine, food and fuel that kept the hospital functioning were being stopped simply because of the amount of man power to took to keep the system going just wasn't able to be maintained any longer. 

When asked how they were going to keep the hospital functioning he simply told them they weren't. 

The number of new cases had indeed dropped off to almost nothing in the last week, Kelly knew this to be true but whether it was because there weren't any new cases or if it was because they were just dying at home rather than risk coming here to die she didn't know.

Kelly and the rest of the assembled staff were told that there would be one last resupply and that would be it, hopefully. He added this would be enough to get them through the last of it but he didn't know. 

Another sign the end was coming closer was when the power in the city went out and stayed out this time, there had been numerous blackouts ever since the outbreak had started but the powers that be had managed to keep at least basic services like electrical power functioning at least most of the time. 

From talking to some of the troops guarding the grounds they seemed to think this was a good thing since it would reduce the risk of fire that could easily spread through the city without anyone to put it out. Kelly had asked then if they or someone would put it out but was told that as long as it stayed away from anything that was considered vital like the hospital they had no choice but to let it burn. She had seen a few columns of smoke from the hospital's upper floors already but so far the city had managed to avoid any large conflagration; other cities hadn't been so lucky or so she had been told. 

So now with the electricity out the only thing they had left were the emergency generators. Captain Nichols also told her that the generators only had enough fuel to run for about 72 hours and that would be it. 

So it was decision time at last. Kelly for her part though was honestly finding it harder and harder to be able to look at or even deal with any of the poor retched souls that were trapped this horrible place with her, but whether she was describing the patients or what was left of the hospital staff she honestly couldn't be sure anymore. 

Knowing she needed to rest Kelly wandered into a staff break room for a short but much needed nap hoping it would clear her head. 

When Linda came in to wake her after an hour just like she had been told, Kelly could see the haunted look in the exhausted women's face. Whether it was from seeing her own family dying right before her eyes and being powerless to do anything about it or maybe it was just from seeing so much death in general, Kelly didn't know, but if she'd taken a good look in the mirror Kelly would have certainly recognized the same expression on her own face. 

Kelly had lost touch with her mom over a week earlier. At that time the older women had told her daughter she hadn't gotten sick but she had been working at the local hospital in Beatrice as a volunteer, even though she had been retired for a couple of years due to a bad heart. But with the worsening situation the hospital had finally closed down when it became clear that the few troops left couldn't protect it and most of the people inside were already dead; it seemed pointless to keep it open any longer. During their last conversation which had to be brief due to the fact that most of the land lines and cell towers weren't working and the few that were still operating were maintained for strictly official use, Kelly though had sweet talked a sergeant into letting her have a few minutes to make her call. 

Helen had told her daughter that she wasn't feeling well but was sure it was just her heart giving her a hard time and not the plague. Her mom then asked her to come home, but Kelly had told her about what had been happening in Lincoln and didn't think it was safe to travel unless she absolutely had too. Helen had replied that she understood and would pray for her daughter and would be waiting for her when she had done all she could there. 

Finally, now with the power about to die, the few surviving staff had a choice to make. Captain Nichols had informed them that the remaining troops were pulling out for Offutt air force base in Omaha. They had orders to take any survivors there, but the captain wouldn't force them to go. He knew most of them had family in area or least they did anyway. So he put the question to them. He and the remaining military personnel were going in the morning taking the patients that were left even if they really shouldn't be moved as well as much of the equipment and remaining supplies as they could and whoever wanted to go was welcome to join them. 

Whoever didn't come with them he would wish well but he told them that for their own safety they really should get out of the hospital complex; the looting throughout the city had gotten worse as most if not all civil order had long since broken down. 

Now he also recommended that for those that chose to stay they get out of the city if possible and try to hide out in the country side 'til the situation stabilized even though he really had no idea when that would be. He gave them 'til morning to decided what they wanted to do, if they did want to come with them then they should be ready to go when the survivor's convoy departed.

So as agreed first thing the next morning he assembled his few remaining troops some of whom were obviously sick. He got them and the surviving patients loaded onto his remaining trucks as well as a few civilian vehicles. They were able to commandeer and after asking one last time if anyone else wanted to come with them, they set out. 

Kelly had asked Linda if she had wanted to go with them but the younger woman had said no. She had seen enough hospitals and all the death that lived there over the last few weeks and wanted no more to do with it. When Kelly had asked her what she was going to do Linda really didn't have an answer; the young woman had been living in an exhausted horror filled daze for so long she really didn't know what she was doing anymore. 

Finally speaking up Linda told her that she still had some distant family here in town and they might have made it so she would seek them out. Kelly had wanted to tell her about the obvious dangers of a young woman going alone into what was left of the city, but she held her tongue. Linda knew as well as anyone what was likely to happen, she'd seen the gunshot wounds being suffered by the military guards and police being brought in not to mention what had been done to the women that had been caught out alone when searching for whatever they had been searching for. 

Resigned to the way the world seemed to work now, Kelly finally wished her young friend well and having already had what would most likely be her last hot shower for who knows how long got into her beat up Mercury Tracer and headed for Beatrice. Her last sight of Linda was of the girl wearing hospital scrubs standing alone in the virtually empty parking lot seeming to be staring off in the distance at something only she could see. 

Chapter 3

Hiding out in his house just like anyone else that wasn't already dead, Kevin wasn't sure what he was going to do. He couldn't stay here forever; sooner or later he'd have to go out for food. By this time the distribution system using the local Wal-Mart had broken down for good it seemed. He'd made that trip a couple of times and had somehow managed to not get sick though he couldn't have explained how he had managed that feat. 

Kevin was still considering his options for what to do when he got a call he hadn't expected. He was in fact a little surprised that the phones even still worked. 

The call had been from John Olson, a sort of friend of his. He'd worked with John a few years earlier and they had stayed in touch. John though was a strange one; he was sort of a survivalist type Kevin knew. 

He had kept to himself as much as he could but he had warned Kevin repeatedly about being prepared for the end, either through war or some sort of natural disaster. Most people just figured he was a little crazy and didn't pay him much attention but Kevin had been at least somewhat interested and they'd talked about it. 

While Kevin found that John might at least be a little paranoid he also seemed to know what he was talking about. He always refused to go into details but Kevin was sure that he had a plan. 

Once, after they'd both had a little too much to drink, John had told him that if the end came he should be ready to protect himself since civil society would quickly fall apart and each of them would be on their own to come through any way they could. When he tried to question him about it he just refused to talk about it anymore but told Kevin not to come knocking at his door since even if he didn't want to he would defend what was his. Kevin believed him, so it was all the more surprising when John called him and asked him to come over as soon as he could telling him it was urgent.

While a simple drive across town hadn't been a life threatening proposition in the safe comfortable old world in this new one they were living in just about any action no matter how simple or basic had to be weighed for the potential risks. 

Deciding it was worth it Kevin tried to drive along as inconspicuously as he could since he certainly didn't want to draw any unwanted attention to himself. He still heard gun shots and other signs of life from town so any kind of movement had to be considered dangerous but fortunately John's house, being one of a cluster of houses set just outside of town, wasn't too far away from his apartment. 

At last arriving safely he pulled up and could see that everything at least looked calm. John not surprisingly had always been one to believe in home defense and had bars on all the windows of his Ranch style house. Kevin had been there a couple of times though he'd never been inside so he had known the way. Before he could knock on the steel reinforced fire door, he heard John inside asking him to step back from the door. 

Backing off the steps the door opened and his friend stepped out, with one look from Kevin it was clear that John was sick, in fact he looked terrible. Asking about this John told him unnecessarily that he had the bug and that he didn't have much time left. Kevin told him that he'd take him to a doctor but John just shook his head telling him not to worry about it since they both knew by this point that there was little anyone could do about it. 

John tossed a large briefcase to the ground and told Kevin to take it with him and that what was inside would explain everything. Then wishing him luck John turned and went back into the house. 

Not knowing what else to do Kevin picked up the offered case and went home. Opening it he found a two way radio and was astonished to fine John's whole survival plan. It was all laid out there for him to read and implement. Everything from his secret weapons stash buried in the back yard, to plans for having enough food to last the first winter. It seemed his somewhat off base friend had thought of everything. Maybe he hadn't been as crazy as everyone had thought. 

Following the instructions he called John everyday at the same time, each day his friend sounded worse and always refused all aid. Then the day came he couldn't reach him either by phone or radio. Just as he'd been told he tried for 4 more days before he went back to John's house using the spare key that John had told him would be there and found his friend in bed having succumbed just like everyone else it seemed. 

Continuing to follow John's instructions he buried his friend in the back yard just like he'd asked after digging up the stash of automatic weapons he'd hidden there. He then put his friend's body into the hole and covered him over. 

Once that grim duty was done Kevin spent some time looking things over around Johns house and found everything just the way it should be. Food supplies, weapons, ammo, extra clothing in various sizes, you name it. 

John even had an independent power source; the house was powered by a hydrogen fuel cell system which got its fuel from water. He had solar cells providing electrical power for the electrolysis equipment that split up the water molecules releasing oxygen and hydrogen. The oxygen was a waste gas and was just released into the atmosphere while the hydrogen was stored in what looked like a series of four 500 gallon propane tanks. 

John also had the foresight to convert his pickup truck to run on either hydrogen or gasoline with a flip of a switch. Kevin's benefactor who had been very thorough in his planning also left detailed information on how to convert other vehicles to run on hydrogen as well as needed maintenance of the system. Everything he would seem to need had been provided.

During this time he also started paying more attention to the outside world since not only was he curious about what has happening, but according to John he needed to wait for a while before going to the next step, but not too long. So Kevin spent the following days watching society complete its disintegration. 

The sketchy news reports from all over the world were pretty much the same. Riots, war, as old enemies tried to inflict as much damage to each other as they could before their militaries were completely gone. 

Various fundamentalist religious groups of every stripe under the sun had started out claiming it was the work of GGod, striking down his enemies. Well that story really didn't hold up when everyone, saint and sinner alike, had started to die; then they said it was God's judgment on humanity and they were all being punished, but no matter how loudly they preached they never forgot to ask for your money. Hearing all this Kevin could only laugh and shake his head at the stupidity of people. Here the world was coming to an end and they were either still at each other's throats or trying to cheat each other out of whatever they had left. Was that a fitting epitaph for humanity or what, he wondered to himself?

The electrical power had been going off and on for the last week or so as the few surviving workers struggled to keep the lights on. Phone service was equally spotty, but it was the power that really worried Kevin since he needed to make a withdrawal from the local supermarkets. Finally the day came and he decided that he'd waited long enough and knew he would have to take his chances with his resupply run. 

Kevin still heard the sound of engines as well as occasional gun fire, not to mention smoke from what had to be house fires rising from town from time to time so he knew that there were other survivors out there and that they weren't exactly friendly. Still he needed to get this done and the sooner the better other wise the power might fail completely and most, if not all of the food left, could spoil or someone else might beat him to it. 

If John had been clear about anything in his instructions, it was that the rules have now changed and the only law that counted now was survival. He had to be ready to do what he had to do to survive and if someone else got in his way he'd have to be ready to move them out of the way. Otherwise they would do the same to him. 

Then over night the power quit apparently for good this time. With the main power out the clock was running he knew that grocery stores like Wal-Mart had their own generators to run the refrigeration systems so there food wouldn't spoil in the event of a power failure. 

But the problem was Kevin didn't know how much fuel they might have or even if they were still even working. So time was now very much of the essence. He'd already moved what few personal processions he wanted to keep from his apartment to John's house since he doubted he'd ever go back there and was as ready as he could be. 

Unfortunately with the power grid down for good any light showing after dark whether artificially generated or not would stand out like a signal flare calling all sorts of attention to anyone that happened to be around for miles. Fortunately for Kevin his benefactor had thought of this and had heavy curtains over all the windows, but even with that extra protection Kevin was smart enough not to have on any light after dark he didn't absolutely have too. 

One thing that did surprise him about that first night was after dark he stepped outside to have a look around before he went to bed; not that he expected to get a lot of sleep but still he wanted to be vigilant. 

Outside of this otherwise clear moonless night he did find something he hadn't expected. It was so dark. Oh sure he'd been outside in the country before of course in fact he'd lived around here all of his life but still this was an entirely new experience. 

Like just about everyone in the western world that had grown up since the invention of electric lighting he was just use to seeing the glow in the sky at night from all the lights that were on from towns and even houses that might be many miles away but still managed to light up the horizon. 

But now with the sudden absence of that light pollution, Kevin couldn't help himself but to simply stop right there in the doorway and just throw his head back and stare at the sky in wonder at all the stars he could see now. He had thought that since he'd lived in a rural environment for most of his life would have prepared him for this but boy was he wrong. 




Outbreak



The surviving members of the human race that night were seeing the sky in a way that hadn't been seen by many other human beings in at least a century. 

Everything was completely black at least that was his first impression. The only light that could be seen in any direction was the glow from the stars. The moon wasn't up yet, and Kevin had to admit it was a little spooky out here in the dark and he could really appreciate how people in ancient times had been afraid of the dark. How they could see things like witches, demons and what not in the night; it was an easy trap to fall into after all under these circumstances, to let your imagination get the better of you like that. 

But now humanity was standing at the beginning of a new and quite literal Dark Age and he had to wonder just how would we fair this time? 

Early the next morning Kevin got ready, wanting to get this outing done before it got to uncomfortable outside. Weather forecasts were a thing of the past of course but he didn't have to be weather man to know it was going to get hot today.

Climbing into a set of surplus army fatigues for the first time in a long while Kevin felt a little strange; these weren't his old uniform's they didn't fit him anymore, though some how he didn't think that was going to be problem for much longer, but John had plenty of surplus army fatigues stashed away and Kevin found a pair that fit well enough. 

Deciding on whether to wear some of the dragon scale body armor John had acquired some where was also an easy choice. The choice of weapons for this outing was a little harder, John had a large arsenal of both automatic and semi automatic weapons of many different types, Kevin didn't know where he'd gotten them since he was pretty sure that most of them would have been illegal to have before the plague broke out but he sure wasn't complaining. 

After deliberating the situation over for a moment Kevin finally decided that since he'd be inside during most of this outing he chose one of the Remington 870's John had. This was the military style shotgun with a collapsible stock to make the weapon smaller and easier to handle in close quarters. Loaded with double- OO buckshot he knew it would be a lethal weapon indeed, but just in case he also brought along a 10 mm Glock pistol since after all you couldn't be too careful. 

Getting together the extra ammo for both the shotgun and pistol along with the addition of an army surplus plastic canteen full of water, Kevin figured he was ready. He'd already plugged in the two extra large chest freezers John had waiting for the food that Kevin would hopefully bring back. Deciding that he'd find whatever else he'd need at the store, Kevin knew it was time. 

The drive to the Wal-Mart was as short and as swift as Kevin could make it. He avoided going through much of the town by using a gravel road he knew about in the hope of avoiding meeting anyone. He even went so far as keeping his speed down to the bare minimum to limit the amount of dust that was kicked up behind his pickup. 

Safely arriving at the store Kevin found to his relief that it looked deserted and it also looked like he was the first one here since the large sliding glass doors at the entrance still seemed to be intact. Expelling a sigh at that realization, Kevin took the truck around the back since he sure didn't want anyone getting ideas about what he might be doing here and then deciding to come pay him a visit while he was otherwise engaged.

Backing up to a rear door loading dock he hopped out armed, not only with his weapons but also with a pry bar he'd brought along as his own personal passkey. After looking the situation over for a moment, he quickly set to work on the locked door. It took awhile but he managed to get the fire door pried open. With flashlight in hand and pistol at the ready and his shotgun slung over his shoulder, Kevin headed into the darkened store. 

It was the smell that first got his attention; the air inside the store really stunk with the smell of rotten food. He suddenly hoped he hadn't waited too long in making this trip. Quickly checking to make sure he could get the large loading dock door open when he needed to, Kevin started to survey the freight areas of the store. 

He found lots of stuff just lying around, most of it not of any use to him since he wasn't interested in children's clothing or toys for that matter. After a little more looking he started finding things that could be a lot more useful.

Such as a pallet of canned vegetables that had been left out, it was still all nicely shrink wrapped, apparently it had just been shipped in before the place had been abandoned and for whatever reason it hadn't been taken with them when either the military or FEMA people had pulled out.

Making a mental note to remember to grab as much of it as he could later since the canned food would last almost indefinitely compared to even the frozen stuff he was hoping would still be here somewhere. Anything fresh that had been left out would have certainly spoiled by now which was where the smell he was currently trying not to think about had to come from. 

Heading deeper into the cavernous rear warehouse area of the store he found several pallets of portable coolers, the kind you'd take on vacation to keep your picnic stuff cool. It was just what he wanted but the problem was it was way up on the top shelf, a good 50 feet off the floor. 

Kevin pondered for a moment just how to get them down 'til he spotted an electric forklift that fortunately still had some juice in the batteries. It had been a while since he'd run anything like this but after a little trial and error he figured it out. Getting the coolers down and cut loose from the pallet, Kevin started looking for some sort of cart to move his acquisitions around the store since he really had no intention of lugging these big things around by hand when they were loaded down with whatever he could fit into them. 

It took some additional snooping in the darkened warehouse but Kevin finally located what he wanted. A nice four wheel steel cart, plenty large enough to haul the coolers he wanted around. So after loading up the first four empties he made his way through the grocery department to see what was left. 

The stench of spoiled food was even thicker in the air here. The buildings air conditioners had been left on 'til the power went out but still the remaining fruit and vegetables left out wouldn't last more than a few days before they started going bad and it had been a lot longer than that. 

What he found in his search was a lot like he figured it would be. In the darkened store most of the shelves in the grocery side were either completely bare or pretty picked over. He had anticipated that but heading past the public areas of the store he went through a set of swinging double doors and found the large walk in freezers and coolers that would have held both the fresh and frozen goods 'til it could be moved out to the display cases, which was never going to happen. Adding to his good luck Kevin could clearly hear the hum of the electric motors on the big reefer units still operating. 

After seeing the pallet of canned goods left by the loading dock Kevin had been increasingly hopeful about finding at least something still in these big units. He had at first been more than a little worried about getting here to discover nothing left but empty shelves, since what hadn't been distributed could have been packed up by either FEMA or whoever and taken with them.

But fortunately for him the Federal government even in the midst of crisis had been operating at its usual level of efficiency. They had gone to a lot of trouble to bring the food in but they hadn't bothered to distribute it before they pulled out or had all died, so whichever way it had happened the result was the same. 

Popping the big insulated door open Kevin found the stores industrial sized refrigerators and freezers full of not only fresh meat but also vegetables. Most of the veggies were the prepackaged type but Kevin didn't care, it just made them that much easier to handle.

At last finding what he was looking for, Kevin relaxed a little and set about doing what he'd come out here to do. He was thankful that it didn't look like he would have to risk trying one of the other grocery stores in town and then have to worry about running in to anyone else that might be doing the same thing he was. Especially since both of the other stores were in much more heavily populated areas or at least they had been. 

With a little more luck he could load up as much as he could carry today and maybe even come back tomorrow if he wanted to finish. One way or another he wanted the extra freezers and refrigerators John had provided to be stuffed to the gills with whatever he could fit into them. With no more supplies coming in this would be all he could get of any of this for who knows how long. So he would have to make it last as well as getting all he could while he could. 

Setting about his work Kevin quickly developed a rhythm of loading up empty coolers hauling them out to the loading dock, but not putting them on the truck since he didn't want anyone that came by getting any ideas as well as he didn't want them sitting in the sun for any longer than they absolutely had to. So instead he kept them out of sight in the dock area with the doors closed and went back for more.

Chapter 4 

Leaving the hospital after it had been shut down Kelly almost made it back to Beatrice, almost. Unfortunately for her she ran out of gas when she tried to push on from Courtland back to Beatrice. She had wanted to scavenge what fuel she could at the only gas station in Cortland and had even started to slow down to do just that while she looked the situation over but hearing the roaring of an engine followed by a flurry of gun shots was more than enough motivation for her to get out of town as quickly as possible. 

From the moment she'd pulled out of Saint E's previously fortified grounds which was the nickname given to Saint Elizabeth's hospital, Kelly knew she would be cutting it close on gas. Unfortunately the hospital generators ran of diesel and the little bit of gasoline the military still had for official use, well let's just say they weren't going to give any to her. She also didn't know how to siphon gas out of another car. So all things considered it left her with few options good, bad or indifferent. 

Deciding it was just too dangerous to stop anywhere in Lincoln, Kelly knew that she had enough to make it at least as far as Courtland which is a good twenty-five miles south of the city. Kelly had hoped that the small town would be disserted at least enough, so she could hopefully get some fuel then get out without anyone noticing. 

Well as usual her plans didn't quite work out that way. Now having to skip her planned stop, Kelly watched her gas gauge with rising anxiety knowing full well it was going to be really close. She did everything she could think of to stretch the gas she had and prayed it would be enough since she really didn't want to be stranded out in the country after dark, not these days. 

Well she almost made it, only about a mile from town her little Tracer sputtered and started to die, it fought valiantly to stay running but the little fuel still in the tank had sloshed away from the pump that sent it to the engine so the pump had nothing to send but air. Unfortunately internal combustion engines don't run on air very well. So here she was out of gas with her destination nearly in sight. 

After getting over her initial anger at her predicament Kelly considered her options. From where she was standing on the side of the highway she could see Wal-Mart in the distance. She knew they had recently added fuel pumps in a little gas station kiosk in the corner of the parking lot. It wasn't much just four pumps and a little shack for an attendant to keep an eye on things. Wondering though what the odds were that it would still be operating and had gas. If she could get a can from the store she could fill it up then use it in turn to fill up her car so she could get home with fuel to spare. 

At least that had been her plan, which had seemed like such a good one to her on the face of it anyway. But her first nearly insurmountable obstacle upon arriving in front of the apparently disserted store had been just finding a way in since the place looked sealed up tight.

After striking out on the front doors she peeked in the windows only to find the stores darkened interior. On the plus side the store didn't look like it had been looted, which was definitely a good sign. But even with this small piece of good news Kelly was already starting to rethink her plan when she heard a sound she really didn't want to hear.

Stranded outside the apparently impenetrable facade of the local Wal-mart Kelly heard the sound of an approaching engine, that meant people and these days that meant bad news. Now finding herself out in the open with nowhere to hide Kelly knew she was stuck. Seeing the source of the sounds being a beat up pickup come into view, what might have even been a nice truck at one time now looked like it had definitely seen better days not unlike the three men in it. As it pulled up Kelly got a better look at the three of them. Watching as they got out of their 'loser cruiser', as her mom would have undoubtedly described it, Kelly got an even worse feeling about this.

The owner of the truck who also was driving it since no one ever drove his truck but him was Earl Collins. Now no one would ever call Earl an overly handsome man, but at just over six feet in his boots he was fairly heavily muscled from a lifetime of work in the local factories. 

But when the world as he liked to call it went down the shitter, he had been just another guy going about his life, but one of things that everyone who knew him could agree on about him was his religious convictions. He went to church every Sunday without fail and quite often during the week as well, if he felt he should, which was most of the time. 

When the outbreak had started, Earl like most everyone else really hadn't paid it much attention. Not being one to watch the news all that often in any case, he just felt that he could find out everything he needed to know from watching the 700 Club or from listening to the Sunday sermon. 

The first time Earl really took note of what was happening was listening to the televangelist on the TV rail on about how the world was being judged and only the righteous would be aloud to live, that if you prayed enough and believed hard enough God would protect you. Always one to take that as sound advice, Earl did just that. 

Well it seemed to work as far as Earl could tell since he prayed as hard as he'd ever prayed in his life and he had lived even though everyone else had pretty much died off. He took this as a sign to mean that it was up to him to do the rebuilding, and he also took it to mean that since he was so devout the new world he was going to build would be built alone traditional Christian lines. 

Earl had felt for a long time that his country had drifted to far from its puritan roots and something like this plague happening had been the inevitable result. 

Now if he was going to rebuild a new society he had a few problems to deal with, the first was he was going to need to gather together the survivors. This proved harder than he had thought it would in the beginning, but finally the good lord had seen fit to bring him his first followers, who would help start the rebirth of this great country. 

The first of Earl's new flock was a young man named Mike Rodgers, another local like Earl he'd worked in and around this small town most of his life. After the plague had hit the young man had been reduced to breaking into abandoned houses near his apartment looking for something to eat, when Earl and driven by in his pickup and had decided to stop. It hadn't taken much to convince the hungry young man to come with him, just saying he'd make sure they had enough to eat was pretty much enough since Mike had been going on two days by that point with little to nothing in his stomach. 

Sharing their first meal of cold canned soup, Earl had found himself going on with the passion of an evangelist telling his young recruit about how the world was being punished and that they were now doing God's work. Earl also made it clear that he was the one in charge. Now Mike didn't know much about God but being a pragmatist he decided that as long there were regular meals in it for him he'd go along.

Earl next disciple was Ted Hansen, he simply had the misfortune of blowing a tire while trying to make it through town a few days before. 

Now Ted really didn't have anywhere to go necessarily, but just like a lot of other survivors he had wanted to get as far from the horror story Lincoln had been turning into as he could. Unfortunately for him while he was trying to change his traitorous tire, a few of the local surviving kids had decided he might have something they wanted. Ted really didn't know what that might have been since he had just got into town and only had the clothes on his back, but a group of them came up on him; all of them were armed in some way and he unfortunately wasn't. Until recent events had started to change his mind he'd never been a big believer in guns, a stance he had cause to regret a great deal at that moment.

The group of kids deciding amongst themselves to have some fun with their current target and one of the young men in the group armed with a .22 rifle started using Ted's car for some target practice. 

Seeing all the fun their friend was having and wanting to join in, the others in the group that had guns started shooting too, which caused Ted to stay hidden behind what used to be his car but now was quickly turning into worthless scrap metal. 

Listening to the bullets smack into the metal, Ted wondered if he should just try to make a break for the nearby houses; not that he would make it of course, not unless the gang of teenagers who were shooting up his car would let him. 

After having decided he was just going to have to take his chances with that dash to relative safety was when this big pick-up truck came roaring around the corner, scattering the teens like a flock of birds. 

Ted could see one man in the cab driving and another in the back, who seemed to be spending most of his time hanging on to the bucking truck and the rest shooting a double barrel shotgun at anything that moved. 

The driver also had a pistol out the window and he was blazing away as well. They didn't seem to be hitting anything but they were certainly making enough noise to scare the teenagers away, at least for the moment. 

Screeching to a stop, the driver, a big guy in bib overalls leaned out of his window and shouted for him to get moving. Ted didn't have much choice in the matter since he certainly didn't want to stay here and his car was obviously not going anywhere now so he ran and hoped into the truck which quickly took off down the dusty street.

Much like he had done with Mike, Earl had gone on at length to his new friend about how the world was being punished by God for its wickedness and that it was up to God fearing people like them to rebuild a proper christen society. Now Ted was a lot like Mike in that he never claimed to be on a first name basis with God or anything but he did know that he wanted to live. Earl, despite the fact he could use a bath in the worse way, seemed to have some idea how to stay alive and if listening to him preach was the price of that new life, Ted figured it was worth it. 

After a few days of rummaging through abandoned houses, all of them were armed now with some kind of a gun. Earl had kept the pistol he'd started with but had also found an AK-47 stashed in someone's closet. Mike had likewise kept his double barrel shotgun but did find some more shells for it and they found a pistol for Ted. Perhaps more importantly they'd also found enough food and water to keep themselves going for the moment anyway. 




Outbreak



The one thing they didn't have was women, which became a more urgent issue after Ted had pointed out to Earl that it would be kind of hard to build a new society without any women around to produce the next generation. 

Earl hadn't thought of it quite that way before but he quickly realized that Ted was right. Up to now he'd been mostly worried about what was going to happen in the next five minutes or even the next five days, but with Ted's comment it had become very clear that he would have to start planning for the future and soon. 

Other than simple survival the first major problem with Earl's new take on the world was that he hadn't seen many women since the worst of the plague had passed over them. 

Since there were obviously men left, Earl knew logically that there had to be women out there somewhere, but where were they? How could they find them? Another question was would they be willing to help produce the next generation of Christian soldiers to continue God's work? 

Earl really didn't want to force them but if they were reluctant to do their duty he supposed he'd just have to remind them of their responsibilities in the new world order. 

Another of Ted's ideas had been to check out the Wal-Mart since Earl like the rest of the town knew that it had been used to distribute relief supplies to the locals, Ted figured that there might still be some stuff there they could use.

However after pulling into the parking lot that morning Earl could already see movement in front of the store. At first he was worried that someone had beat them to it and they would have to bring down the lord's justice if whoever they were didn't want to join them. But getting closer it was clear that it was just a women standing there nervously watching them approach. 

Looking her over as they pulled up Earl could see she was young, which was good. She was also wearing the kind of clothes he saw on TV doctors; Earl did wonder for a moment if maybe she was a doctor? 

If she was, the lord had truly been generous, but even if she wasn't that was ok too; having a young women in the group would go a long way toward of keeping not only himself but the other men happy and that was good enough for now. Besides maybe she might know where some other women were hiding. Didn't women always travel in groups anyway?

Kelly knew she was in real trouble as soon as the truck pulled into the parking lot; she couldn't believe she had been so careless as to be caught out in the open. Knowing she didn't have time right now for second guessing her past decisions Kelly quickly went over her short list of options; she already knew they had seen her, so hiding was out; there were three of them so she didn't want to run and have them shoot her down or worse. So she simply decided to wait and hope they might not be as bad as they looked. 

After seeing the driver get out of the truck though Kelly quickly started to have second thoughts about that plan, since for one thing she could already smell him as he walked up to her, in his dirty bib overalls. Getting closer Kelly's opinion of what she was looking at just kept going down, not only was he smelly but the thinning hair on his head seemed to be migrating down to his ears and nose, since both of those other organs had an abundance of hair sprouting out of them. 

Personally she found the sight and smell of this guy revolting; however she didn't think pointing out her observations about his personal grooming habits was the thing to do right now.

After he got out of the truck Earl made one more observation about the newest member of their group. At first he thought that she just had a really dark tan, but it soon was clear she had at least a little black in her. Now it really didn't bother Earl if she was part smoke or not, she could still serve in God's army just like anyone else. Of course it never occurred to him that maybe she didn't want to join up with them that maybe she had her own plans for the rest of her life. 

Earl of course wouldn't have been worried about any of that even if he had thought of it. One way or another she was coming with them, the good lord had seen fit to deliver her to them and Earl was going to keep her. 

"Morning," Earl called out to the attractive young women they had unexpectantly found. 

"Hello," Kelly replied wanting to at least appear friendly. At that moment she once again found herself really regretting not taking Captain Nichols up on his offer of a gun of some sort of her own before she left the hospital, even if she really didn't know how to use one. But now seeing the three dirty men standing in front of her Kelly wondered if she could have just faked it. 

"What are you doing out here by yourself?" the apparently leader of the trio asked her. 

Rather than try to lie Kelly decided to be honest with them. "My car ran out of gas and I was hoping I could get some here, but I'm going to need something to carry it in so I'm seeing if I can get into the store." 

"Hmm, well my friends and I are looking to do a little shopping of our own, if you want we can help you out," he fat one in the dirty overalls said to her in what was suppose she thought an understanding way; however the way all three of them were openly appraising her, made her feel a bit like a roast on display in front of a pack of hungry dogs and Kelly knew she really should be somewhere else right now. 

"You from around here?" Mike asked her. He'd had been wondering that since he had seen her. Even though she was at least partly black he couldn't remember seeing her before and this town wasn't that big. As good looking as she was he knew that if he'd seen her before he'd have remembered her. 

"Use to be, but I've been working in Lincoln since I got out of school." 

"What did you do?" Earl asked, with the doctor clothes she had on he wondered again if she was one.

"I'm a nurse," she answered the question, and then wondered if she should have tried to lie since with training in medicine she might start to look even better to the men in front of her. 

"Nurse eh?" Earl replied rubbing the stubble on his chin, well he figured that was close enough to a doctor to suit them. Stepping forward Earl tried to give the young women his most trustworthy smile. "Maybe you should come along with us, after all it's not safe out here alone anymore." 

The look Earl was giving Kelly made her skin crawl, and she was more certain than ever that these guys had more than a few plans for her. Backing away as the three of them moved closer. "Thanks but I think I should just be going." 

"I thought that you needed to get a gas can?" the biggest of the three asked her. "I've changed my mind; I think that I'll just walk the rest of the way home." "That's ok we'll help you out Earl said, won't we boys?" 

"Oh yea I'm sure we can help each other a lot," Ted replied with a nasty little grin.

Still backing up Kelly definitely didn't like the direction this conversation was going and belatedly decided it was time to run. She turned and managed to take a few steps before she was grabbed by the biggest of the three who seemed to effortlessly lift her small frame off the ground. 

Walking up to Ted as he held the struggling women Earl pulled a set of handcuffs he'd come across out of his pocket. "Sorry it has to be this way little lady." he said in a matter of fact tone, "but you see you're exactly what my friends and I need, not only do you know more about medicine than we do but you're a woman too. Sort of a bonus for us I guess," he said with a laugh. 

Setting her down, Ted turned her around and put her back to Earl so he could get the cuffs on her. "I was really hoping this wouldn't be necessary but I can see you're going to be difficult," he said with a shrug. "That's ok though after a while you'll come around after you learn your role in the new order. After all the good book says that women are suppose to be the servants of men." 

Kelly really didn't like the sound of all that, and she didn't recall where the bible said anything like that either. But now finding her hands firmly locked behind her, and the big gorilla that had grabbed her keeping hold of her, she didn't really have anywhere to go. 

"Now," Earl said to the enlarged group, "let's see about getting inside and see what we can find." 

Chapter 5

Having not heard anything from the drama that was happening out front, Kevin had gone back and got more empty coolers to repeat the circuit over again. After making a few round trips he'd continued to relax and started to think that he just might get away with this after all. That is 'til he heard the sound of breaking glass from the front of the store and then voices of someone coming in. Kevin had just started filling up another load of coolers when this happened and found himself near the source of the racket at the front of the store. 

With all the sudden noise Kevin knew that his run of good luck this morning was definitely over. Peeking out through the double swinging metal doors that separated the storage area of the store from the part customers get to see, Kevin got a look at just how much trouble he was in. He could see four of them, three men all of whom were armed and one hand cuffed women in what looked like hospital scrubs that wasn't. He wondered what her story was for a second since it looked clear that she wasn't a willing member of the little group.

Unfortunately Kevin could also clearly see that he wasn't getting out of the spot he was in without being seen and since there were four of them, he thought that staying put seemed the best option for avoiding a fight which was the one thing he didn't want. 

Earl had told Mike to hang onto the girl as the group had looked over the doors leading into the grocery side of Wal-Mart. Finding them securely locked Earl was actually encouraged since that meant they might be the first ones to stake their claim to all the goodies left inside. 

But how to get in? That was the question. Earl had to admit that with the doors locked up like this the building looked awfully imposing, but he quickly found the answer to that problem in his usual straight forward manner. Though the glass the doors were made out of was tough it couldn't stand up to the force of the pickup truck running into it at speed. Under that sort of brute force assault, the doors naturally gave way to the sound of breaking glass and screeching metal. Backing out of the hole he had made Earl took a moment to admire his handy work. 

He had always liked taking the direct approach to the problems he encountered. The idea of going around the back of the store to see if any of those doors might me open had naturally just never occurred to him.

Retrieving his AK-47 from the truck he led the four of them inside. The four of them moved into the darkened store and stopped for a moment to look around. From what he could see of it the grocery side of the store was pretty picked over, which made sense; he supposed but since even if it was a little dark in here the smell of rotten food was something you couldn't miss. That meant of course there could be something left so Earl figured that he and the guys wouldn't be going hungry tonight, and the girl wouldn't be either as long as she played along and didn't give him to much trouble but first things first, they had another stop to make.

So after he sized up the situation Earl led the four of them away from the grocery department and toward the sporting goods section. Earl wanted to see if any guns or ammo were left on the selves. Because like his version of the good book says, give a man a fish he could eat for a day, have enough guns you can take someone else's fish and then you can eat for a lifetime. 

"What about the food?" Mike though wanted to know. He'd been listening to his stomach grumble a lot lately and the idea of being able to eat his fill was very appealing. "Don't worry about it; there will be time enough for all that later." Earl told him in a tone of voice that made it clear that he wasn't interested in discussing it anymore since after all he was hungry too. 

Kelly being pulled along with her hands locked behind her back wasn't sure just how this day could get any worse. But as the group moved deeper into the store, she started to think of ways to get away since while she wasn't completely sure what these idiots had in mind for her she definitely wanted no part of it. 

The younger one the others had called Mike still had a hold of her, but at least it wasn't the bigger guy, Ted was his name she thought. With her hands behind her back her options for escaping were limited to say the least, not to mention there were three of them and only one of her. But that part of the equation changed when Earl who had been walking through the store like he was just out browsing, stopped suddenly and told Ted to go and get them a cart. 

"Why should I?" Ted asked 

"Because genius whatever we find that we want to take with us, we are going to have to haul out to the truck, unless you want to make a dozen trips with your hands that is." Earl replied, more than a little annoyed. 

"Fine," Ted grumbled and turned and walked off quickly disappearing into the gloom. Since other than a few emergency lights that were still on the only illumination for the interior of the store was coming from the skylights, which only just managed to cast the interior of the store in a murky glow. 

Seeing that the odds had changed in her favor with only two of them guarding her now, Kelly started looking a lot harder for her chance to escape before the other one got back. That chance came unexpectedly when Mike who still had a hold of her arm stumbled over something sticking out from one of the darkened isles. Seizing the opportunity Kelly used all the strength in her small frame and shoved the bigger man in the back knocking him off balance and he started to fall, so he naturally released her arm he had a hold of to break his fall since he had a shotgun in his other hand. 

Not wasting an instant of the chance she'd been given, Kelly took off, having decided she could very well be running for her life now. The whole event just took a second, Earl had turned at the sound of Mike stumbling just in time to catch a glimpse of there new female recruit disappearing into the men's clothing department where due to her height she was immediately lost from view. 

He shouted after her of course but it was already too late. Yanking Mike back to his feet with more than a little annoyance, Earl told him to get after her and shoved him in the general direction she had fled in. "Ted!" he shouted, "get over here," 

"What happened," a voice called back, 

"The girl got loose. She's in the clothes department get after her." 

Ted, in the process of getting a shopping cart, thought it over for a second and in a moment of insight figured that the little honey might try to slip out the doors they had just opened and decided to head that way. If they could keep her trapped inside the store there were only so many places she could hide. 

Mike his face red with embarrassment at letting the girl get the drop on him had run into the men's clothing department. It quickly became clear that it was to dark with too many shadows in here to see very far so he paused to listen instead, over the sound of his own breathing he heard her in the distance and moved in the direction of the sound. 

Kelly really hadn't given much thought to what she was going to do after she got away so she just ran and hoped like hell something came to her. That is 'til she tripped over something and fell hard on the tile covered concrete floor, with out her hands to catch her. She knew the fall was going to leave some bruises tomorrow, that is if she managed to get to tomorrow; if these guys caught her now she didn't know what they would do to her but she really didn't want to find out. 

Getting awkwardly back to her feet she paused trying to get a hold of herself not to mention catch her breath, she had to think for a second. Kelly knew she had to get out of the store to really get away so she naturally headed for the door she knew was open. She had by this time moved to the far edge of the misses department near the front of the store where she paused for a second to take a look, the delay saved her since from where she was hiding she could see Ted moving down the row of cash registers with his pistol in his hand. Instinctively ducking back further into the shadows Kelly knew she'd never get out that way now. With her only clear exit blocked she needed some time to consider her options, unfortunately she could hear the other two calling to each other and could tell that they were getting closer. Running out of time she had to take action. 

So moving back into the clothes racks she headed deeper into the store to find a place where she could get a crossed one of the main aisles without being seen. Stopping beside a rack of jeans, with some tacky rhinestones in the pockets, she took a deep breath to steel herself and darted across the seemingly infinite open space to the pet food aisle. Not hearing anything out of the ordinary Kelly figured she'd made it but also knew she had to keep moving since being in the open now she'd be easy to spot if her pursuers got too close. 

After hearing that Ted had moved to the front of the store to cover the open front door, Earl liking that idea promptly told him to stay there and keep an eye out,while he and Mike flushed her out. 

Still embarrassed at his mistake Mike wanted to get her himself and started moving quickly now to get out in front of Earl. After walking out of the clothing department Mike found himself on a wide main aisle that divided the clothing department from the grocery side of the store. 

Getting this far and still not catching sight of her Mike was starting to get increasingly worried that maybe he'd missed her already but knew he really had no choice but to keep moving forward if he was going to get to her before Earl did.

Kelly though was starting to think that leaving all the clutter of the clothing department may have been a mistake, since while in amongst the various clothing racks and displays she had been all but invisible but now her pursuers could spot her a lot more easily and if they did she really didn't have anywhere to hide. 

Trying to stifle the growing sense of panic at her potential misstep Kelly kept moving heading now to the far side of the grocery department. 

At first she wasn't really sure what it was she was looking for, especially when she came to the end of the aisle and found herself looking at nothing but empty meat display cases, but off to her left found potential salvation in the form of a partially open door to her that had to lead somewhere. 

Knowing she could neither stay where she was or go back the way she came and clearly running out of room in front of her, Kelly did the only thing she could think of and headed for the open door. She didn't know where it led but wherever it did go had to be better than where she was right now. 

Kevin had moved back to the open door to peek out after the group of arrivals had seemed to move off to the other side of the store which was just fine with him. Hopefully with a little luck he could just stay right here and wait for them to leave. Unfortunately his luck as usual didn't hold since it wasn't long 'til he heard shouting and the three guys started calling out to each other, ease dropping on their conversation it seemed that the girl had broken loose and was on the run. Well good for her, he thought with a shrug, just as long as she didn't come this way. After all he had enough problems to deal with right now.

Kevin decided to stay near the door in an attempt to see and hear whatever he could until he saw movement off to his left. 




Outbreak



This caused his heart jumped into his throat for a second 'til he realized who it was. It was the girl; he could see her peeking around the corner of the mostly empty can goods aisle and she seemed to be just looking around which was bad enough. Oh great he thought, bring trouble right to me why don't you. 

To make matters worse she looked right at him then as if reading his thoughts, but if she could she certainly didn't leave like he would have wanted her too. 

Staying as deep in the shadows of his hiding place as he could, Kevin decided she couldn't really see him from over there, but she definitely could see the open door he was hiding inside of. 

In fact he could almost imagine the gears turning in her head wondering if she could make it without being spotted. They both heard someone shout from behind her and that seemed to give her the motivation she needed to try for it. 

Kevin just had time to duck back further out of sight behind a large stainless steel cart of some kind before the girl darted through the door and pressed herself up against the wall. 

From his new hiding place Kevin watched her take a moment to pull herself together then even with her hands locked behind her back. She started trying the doors looking for a way out; he already knew that this area of the store didn't have any exits but was worried that she was making enough of a racked to get some ones attention. 

Considering this Kevin decided he really didn't have much choice but to grab her and shut her up. So putting down his shotgun he waited for her to turn her back and started moving toward her as quietly as he could. 

Kelly found herself starting to panic now; she had gambled that she'd find an exit in here but the only doors out of this room other than the one she came in seemed to lead to some kind of walk-in refrigerators. Not exactly what she had in mind since she was almost certainly trapped in here now. 

Desperately trying to decide what she should do now Kelly didn't hear anyone coming up behind her over the pounding of her heart. In fact the first warning she had was when a sweaty hand clamped over her mouth and an arm snaked around her middle, lifting her petite body off the ground. 

Kevin was at first glad that the girl looked pretty short, since he thought it would make her easier to control once he had a hold of her, but as soon as he grabbed her she went berserk and it took all the strength he had just to hold onto her. 

To top it off if it wasn't for the hand over her mouth he was sure that she would have been howling like a banshee. Kevin knew neither of them could afford all this noise, deciding to quickly do something about it he tightened his grip and hissed into her ear to shut the hell up! 

Kelly who had been fighting with all the strength she could muster to get lose that is 'til a voice she didn't recognize told her to shut and stop fighting. 

"This is strictly business!" the voice went on hissing to her. "I'm not going to hurt you but you have to be still!" 

The young woman really didn't have any reason to trust whoever it was that had a hold of her, not after everything she had been through that morning already but with what could be called a leap of faith she chose to believe this so far unseen person that was holding her. 

Kevin felt her relax in his arms and breathed his own sigh of relief. "Now I'm going to let you go so don't make a sound unless you want to get both of us killed. Nod if you understand." he whispered to her. Feeling her nod in response, he loosened his grip and she wiggled free of his embrace. This was a tense moment for if she started screaming or took off he would have to do the same and just hope he could get out of here in one piece. But thankfully she didn't do either; she just slowly turned to looked at him. 

Getting her first look as her rescuer Kelly really couldn't see him too well in the darkened room. Though she already knew he smelled better than the other three she had been with. He was taller than she was but that wasn't unusual since she only stood 5 feet herself. He was also wearing some kind of body armor she recognized from her time at the hospital in Lincoln, all the soldiers there had worn things like it too, but his looked different; she just hoped it worked as well as theirs did.

Kevin took a moment to take a look at her as well. She wasn't bad looking he figured with her dark hair and complexion but he put those thoughts aside for the moment since he clearly had other things to worry about right now. 

By this time Mike had made his way through the grocery aisles and was starting to wonder where this damn woman had hidden herself. Once again he wondered if he could have walked right passed her in the stores gloomy interior and not known it? He sure hoped not. Earl wouldn't let him live that down; it was bad enough that she had gotten away from him in the first place but to add insult to injury like that would be just too much, he grumbled to himself.

Having moved to the very end of the row and unable to go forward any further Mike looked around and could see an open door ahead. He wasn't sure where it led but figured that if he had been her, he might have run in there to hide. Well one way to find out, he decided with a shrug and started forward.

Kevin was about to ask the lady he now found himself with who she was, when he caught some motion out of the corner of his eye; instinctively glancing at it he saw someone coming right at them. With the one glance he got, Kevin could see they were in trouble. The guy was armed for one thing with a double barrel shotgun, and if one of them were here then the others couldn't be far away. Fortunately he didn't seem particularly alert for trouble. That was good as far as Kevin was concerned, but unfortunately the two of them were still trapped in here.

Grabbing the girl he whispered to her to be quiet and pulled her around behind the stainless steel cart he had hidden behind before, hoping that the new arrival would just take a quick peek and then leave. Getting her down on her knees beside him he picked up his shotgun again and tried to get ready for the showdown he didn't want.

Not expecting any real danger since he was only looking for an unarmed and handcuffed women, Mike just came walking in. It was dark in here, even gloomier than it was in the rest of the store since as least out there they had sky lights to give some light to most of the open space in the store. But in here only a single dim night light was on. 

More out of curiosity than anything, Mike opened the large door to the first cooler to see both what was in there as well as to see where the girl was hiding. After closing the door he saw the light switch on the wall and on a whim, based on a lifetime of doing it without a second thought, decided to try it out and see if they still worked. Flipping the switches, he was rewarded with the hum of the florescent lights snapping on flooding the room with light. 

As soon as the uninvited guest went for the unexpectedly working light switch Kevin knew he would have to take action, since with the lights on the few shadows that were giving the two of them some protection would be gone and both of them would be seen as soon as this guy turned around. In addition to that, Kevin cursed his own stupidity; he hadn't even thought to try the lights when he was here alone. He'd just automatically thought that they were out along with the rest of the lights in the building. Now that lack of forethought on his part could very well get them both killed.

Steeling himself he signaled for the girl to stay put and with his shotgun at his shoulder he moved forward. Unfortunately the boots he was wearing gave off a squeak as he moved across the tile floor. Reacting at once Kevin took another quick step to get to nearly point blank range, so if this guy wanted to be a hero there was no way he could possibly miss now.

With the lights on Mike felt better but his comfort was cut short by the sound of rubber squeaking behind him. With a start he turned and found himself staring down the barrel of what looked from his up close and personal perspective to be the world's biggest gun. Frozen in shock at the unexpected turn of events he gave the other man all the time he needed. 

Kevin quickly took control of the situation as well as he could, since the surprise of finding him here was about all he had going for him. "Hello there, now you do exactly what I say and no one needs to get hurt here ok?" 

The kid, which it was clear that was all he was, managed a shaky nod. Kevin liked that response; it meant the kid was listening. 

"Now I want you to drop the gun, just put it down." Mike didn't understand for a second 'til he realized he still had his own shotgun resting uselessly in his hand. For a moment he thought about trying to get a hold of it to use it but what he was thinking must have appeared on his face for the man confronting him quickly reacted to it. 

Kevin could see exactly what was going through the younger man's mind when he remembered he still had his own gun. He really didn't want him to do something stupid so he calmly nipped that idea in the bud. 

"Don't even think about it!" he told the younger man calmly but with a level of certainty that let him know that he would kill him if he had too.

Mike might not have been the smartest guy in the world but he knew that if he tried for his shotgun this man would kill him. So he did the only thing he could and set it down on the white tile floor and raised his hands. 

"Good, that's good," Kevin told him. He wanted to keep things as friendly as possible, and certainly didn't want to provoke anyone into doing anything rash. 

Then a thought occurred to him and he asked his new acquaintance. "You don't have the key to the lady's handcuffs do you?" Mike hadn't even thought about that, but no, he didn't have them, Earl still did. 

"Just nod if you have them," the man with the big gun asked again. Mike hoping he wasn't about to get shot could only shake his head. 

Kevin was a little disappointed about that, but it had been a long shot anyway, oh well down to business, in as calm and even of a voice as he could manage he told the other man, "Ok here's the thing, I don't want to kill you and I don't think you want to be dead so what do you say we all try to work together to make sure that on one dies today, ok?" Not waiting for a response he continued, "So with that in mind the lady and I are walking out of here." 

"Lady, come on." Not hearing any movement from his prompt after a moment Kevin stepped back and to the side enough to get a look at her without taking his eyes completely off the man to his front. 

She was still where he'd left her seemingly frozen in place. Kevin knew that he'd told her not to move and while under other conditions he might be grateful for her ability to follow directions this wasn't the right time for that and knowing he didn't have the patience for this right now Kevin simply chose to laid down the rules. "Look," he said trying to look her in the eye, "I'm going if you want to stay here with him," he said motioning toward Mike with the end of his shotgun, "that's fine with me but I'm going." 

Kelly who had been more than happy to stay where he had told her too and had watched the confrontation unfold in front of her now had to make a choice. That was whether to trust this man that until a few minutes ago she had never seen before or take her chances with the other three. 

Finally hearing that he would leave her if she didn't get moving spurred her to action and she stood up from behind the cart she'd been using to hide and moved over to her apparent savior. Seeing her at last make her choice, Kevin simply told her to stay behind him then turned back fully to his other uninvited guest. "Now me and the lady are walking out of here, so just be calm and we can all get on with our day." 

Then with the girl behind him Kevin started backing out the door, he knew they would have to make a run for his truck at some point, but the longer he could put that off the better. 

After the two of them had crossed about halfway to the relative safety of the empty grocery aisles, Kevin decided they'd backed up far enough and told his traveling companion, "Let's go," and started to turn. 

It was at this moment he heard a shout of warning from the girl. Fortunately he'd turned to his left toward the front of the store, so he saw the reason for the shout at once; one of the other guys this young kid had been with was standing next to a vegetable display case with only a few now spoiled examples left in it but more importantly he was raising his pistol for a shot. His adrenaline already pumping, Kevin reacted first and got his shot off a fraction of a second before the other guy did.

It was also fortunate that even though the shot was hurried and a little off target the #1 buckshot his Remington 870 was loaded with meant that it didn't matter. With the range of only about 60 feet the pattern for the shot only expanded to about 20 inches. Well over half the pattern found its mark. 

The arriving buckshot caught Ted from the neck down to the middle of his chest. He never knew what hit him. Ted did fire his own shot but it went wide of its mark, hitting somewhere at the far end of the store. 

The sound of the gun shots going off inside the otherwise quiet store was astonishing to all of them; in fact the muzzle flash from his own shot nearly blinded him for a moment. 

Kevin had never actually shot any one before, even during his time in the Air Force; he'd never fired a weapon in anger. Now he'd taken a life, not in some far away land but right here in his own home town, he found himself frozen for a second in shock at what he'd done. 

Fortunately though he snapped out of it quickly, remembering he still had another bad guy right near him, he worked the action with a satisfying chunk- chnunk sound that is unforgettable to anyone that ever heard it and even though all this had only taken a few seconds the young kid they had confronted first had already snatched up his own shotgun and looked like he wanted to take a shot of his own. 

Turning back to his first target Kevin fired at once, more in the interest of getting the other guy to have to take cover than in any belief he would actually hit anything, Mike had seen the guy in the body armor who had apparently shot Ted now turning back to him and decided that discretion was the better part of valor and did duck around the corner just before the shot aimed at him shredded the thin swinging metal door he would have used for cover. 

Firing again for good measure Kevin now knew it was definitely time to get the hell out of here. He didn't really think that he'd hit the second guy but he also knew he wasn't going to hang around to check. Turning back to the girl he grabbed her and jerked her along with him as he headed back through the mostly empty canned goods aisle. 

Kelly didn't know what to think. One second they were just trying to get out of a dangerous situation alive and now the man who had apparently saved her had shot one man for sure and maybe shot another one and now they were running for their lives though a deserted Wal-Mart. It was insane! 

Kevin found himself very busy what with trying to reload, keeping an eye on the women he had helped, and trying to navigate through the darkened store all at the same time, it could be forgiven that he forgot for a moment there was another potential bad guy out there that might not be in the best of moods now that the shooting had started. 

Earl much to his own irritation had found himself the furthest away when the action had started, but after hearing all the shouting then shots he wasn't sure exactly what had happened but whatever it was he knew he wouldn't like it. 

But then he found his luck apparently changing when as he moved to the sound of all the excitement he saw two people running across the aisle from the grocery section of the store to the dry goods, he only had a second to size up the situation but he recognized the women at once but the man with her he hadn't seen before. 

Figuring he had found the source of their current problems. Earl pulled up the muzzle of his AK-47 and starting firing from the hip. It was unfortunate for the would be evangelist that he had seen too many movies. Shooting from the hip like he was all he managed to do was alert the people he was shooting at that he was there and punch a few holes in some consumer products.

Hearing the unexpected shots ringing out Kevin instinctively dove for cover behind a display of paper towels. Hearing the distinctive sound of the AK-47 Kevin only then remembered with a grimace there had been three of them who had come into the store together. But with his own gun now at the ready he rolled over to look around the corner. But after taking a peek he could see that the other guy was already gone. Kevin allowed himself to relax for a second but only then realized that the girl was gone too. 

Quickly looking around he couldn't see her anywhere. Cursing his luck today he considered just leaving her for a second and slipping out of the store while these rednecks chased after her. But he rejected that idea almost immediately. 

While he might be very interested in saving his own skin right now but he just couldn't leave her here to these assholes tender mercies. So rolling back to his feet Kevin started after her likely course hoping he could find his wayward partner before they did.

After taking his shot at whoever it was that was helping the girl, Earl figured that he needed to check on his two compatriots rather than taking on whoever it was out there alone. So heading around the other way he used a row of display cases for cover and moved toward where he had heard all the initial shooting. 

Only now with the sudden quiet settling over the scene did Mike finally work up the nerve to come out of the back room he'd been hiding in after the shooting had started. With his double barrel shotgun at the ready he eased out of his hiding place to take a look around. 

All he found were Ted's legs poking out into the aisle. Anticipating that he really wasn't going to like what he was gong to find, Mike figured though he still really should take a look so he eased over to check on his temporary compatriot. 

Mike would be the first to tell anyone that asked that he didn't know much about medicine. But even to his untrained eye one look at what was left of Ted told him there wasn't anything he could do for him. 

Sensing someone coming up behind him then, Mike whirled with his finger on the trigger only to stop at the last second from shooting at Earl who had finally made his way over to them. 

Earl almost asked where Ted was that is 'til he saw the same pair of twitching legs that had drawn Mikes attention taking a closer look for himself he came to the saw conclusion as Mike had, the guy whoever he was had got him good. 

While his follower was still alive, it was clear from the gurgling sound his friend was making as well as the ever expanding pool of blood forming on the floor around his body that he wouldn't be for much longer. 

Grabbing Mike, Earl turned him away from his gruesome fascination with what he was seeing with Ted and toward him. 

Looking the younger man in the eyes he said, "There's nothing we can do for Ted but we can get some payback on the fucker that shot him, you with me!"

With one last look at Ted, Mike reached the same conclusion as Earl had. Amazed at his own clarity of thought, he took the time to pick up Ted's dropped pistol and even remembered to get the extra clip of ammunition the dying man had for it in his pocket. With that now in hand Mike did one last service for Ted when he after looking the unfamiliar weapon over for a second, he pointed it at Ted and pulled the trigger.