Haven: The Federation

Jeffery A Ping

  Copyright Jeffery A. Ping 2012

  38,182 words

  Chapter 1

  My name is Bill Mason. I had been working as a mechanic at the truck stop for a couple of years before the virus outbreak. I didn’t watch the news very much what with my hectic schedule of working, getting drunk, and sleeping it off.

  If I did happen to squeeze in some TV time, it was usually sports or a movie I would watch, not the news.

  I had moved out here to the Central Valley, in the middle of nowhere, to get away from my ex-wife and people in general. The fact that the truck stop was at least fifty miles from the nearest city of any size, and about a hundred miles from the nearest major airport had kept us unexposed to the effects of the virus, until now.

  This isolation, plus my lack of interest to the news of the day, had also kept me in the dark. The truckers had told me stories, but I just figured they were exaggerations.

  The truckers arriving from the east coast had said that it was getting really bad there. They said that the virus was spreading like wildfire. They even told outrageous stories about dead people coming back to life and attacking people. I had a hard time believing that. But, a lot of guys were telling versions of that same story. I became a believer after my first experience with the infected.

  I was working on a truck transmission rebuild when this guy staggers into my work bay. You could tell by the way he looked and moved that something wasn’t right with him.

  At first, I assumed he was just drunk or high on drugs. Then he started shuffling toward me. I yelled at him to get out of the garage, but he gave no indication of hearing me and continued coming toward me.

  As the guy came closer, I could see that something was obviously wrong. He had a pallid complexion and his eyes were clouded like he had cataracts. He had open sores or wounds on his face, neck, hands, and arms. Still holding a large one and a quarter inch wrench, I started walking toward him. Suddenly, his head snapped up and he ran toward me with his arms outstretched and fingers flexing. I grabbed his left arm and spun him around toward the door.

  I yelled, "Get the "Hell out, and stay out."

  He spun around and stumbled a few steps. But then he turned back around to face me and started trying to grab me again. I smacked him up the side of his head with the big half pound wrench and assumed it was over, except for me having to drag him to the door and call the cops.

  He went down but started to get up again. This time I really clubbed him. I thought from the sickening crunching sound at impact that I had cracked his skull. This time he stayed down.

  Hearing tires screech and people yelling, I ran to the front door. One look and I could see that all hell had broken loose in the diner. There were a couple guys actually biting and ripping chunks of flesh from a guy on the floor. I dropped my wrench, turned, and ran back inside the garage.

  I ran back to my tool box and grabbed my pistol out of the drawer. I heard footsteps and looked toward the door. Another guy was staggering into the garage bay toward me. It became easy to believe the stories the truckers from the east coast had told me after I saw this thing. The side of his face was a bloody mess, the skin had been torn away and I swear I could see his skull in several areas. Judging from the blood on his shirt, his right arm appeared to have been torn off at the shoulder. He should have been laying somewhere bleeding out, not up walking around.

  I chambered a round and raised the pistol. I put two rounds into his chest. He staggered back from the impact, and then continued to stumble forward toward me. I put a third round into his forehead. This time he went down and stayed down.

  I heard some scuffling from behind me. I turned, and the guy I had originally hit with the wrench, was getting up again. If he was normal, he should have been unconscious or dead, not getting up. I walked over toward him, took aim, and put a round into his forehead. This time he should stay down for good.

  I glanced up and saw there were two more people coming through the garage door, a large man with his ear and nose missing, and a thin half dressed woman. Both of them looked like they had been mauled by a bear or a pack of wolves. They were bleeding from the bite marks on their faces and arms.

  The woman had dripping blood from her right hand. It was missing all four fingers, but the thumb was waving around like she was trying to grip something. I carefully took aim at a triangle area from their eyes to the tips of their noses and put both of them down with head shots.

  I guess there is some benefit to living out here in the desert with nothing to do but drink beer and target shoot at empties.

  I ejected the clip and noted there was only one more round remaining. I ran to my pickup and fumbled around the glove box and found my box of 9mm bullets. I reloaded the clip, then shoved the remaining ammo into the pocket of my coveralls and started over to the diner.

  Once in the diner, I spotted a man trying to climb through the order window into the kitchen where the waitress Maggie and the cook Chuck were cowering. I picked up a sugar container, threw it, and hit the guy in the back. Then he turned, forgot about Chuck and Maggie, snarled, and started staggering toward me. I fired a round into his face. Brains and blood sprayed the wall behind him.

  Maggie was screaming as Chuck took her by the arm and said, "Let’s get out of here."

  They left by the back door without as much as a "thank you" and ran for his car. Well, so much for me, wasting my ammunition trying to help other people. I guess it was going to be every man for himself.

  During the time that I had been trying to save Maggie and Chuck, cars and trucks had been franticly leaving the parking lot. One car had hit a trucker running to his truck. That same car had then veered into the side of another car and now both cars were on fire.

  People were pounding on the burning cars. It looked like they were trying to rescue the occupants, but with the "would be" rescuers snarling and beating on the windows, I suspected they were thinking Bar-B-Q.

  I looked around and decided it was time to follow Chuck and Maggie’s example and leave.

  After the chaos in the parking lot, I figured my best choice of escape vehicles was the big tow truck. The tow truck was for towing eighteen wheelers and I could run down anyone or anything short of a semi tractor and trailer without losing control of it.

  I pulled the big roll up doors to my garage closed and locked up. The world may be falling apart, but I still didn't want to chance having my tools stolen. I got in the tow truck and started it up.

  I headed southeast on the interstate. I just wanted to get home to my old mobile and 25 acres of high desert land and out of this craziness. I turned on the CB radio. Instead of the normal chatter of other tow trucks and shops looking for parts or advice, the chatter was people screaming for help and advising listeners to stay away from anyone who appeared to be sick or crazy. It was so unnerving I turned it off. I would wait to see if the TV news had anything to say about the west coast infection outbreaks.

  Thirty five minutes later I pulled to a stop in front of my old trailer home. I shut down the truck, ran inside, grabbed a couple beers, and turned on the TV.

  There was a special news alert ticker running at the bottom of the screen. The news alert said that all California airports were shut down. The California National Guard was deploying to the airports and borders to stop all traffic entering the state. The California Air National Guard was patrolling California airspace enforcing the grounding of all aircraft. The Governor had issued a statement of martial law. Anyone trying to enter the state would be turned back or shot.

  There was a story about a protest march in Berkeley. The protesters were demanding sanctuary for any infected. They said the infected were sick, not criminals. The march had turne
d violent when an unknown number of infected had started to attack the protesters as well as the counter protesters. There were an unknown number of dead or "undead" as a result of the attacks. After the riot and attacks at the protest march most of the support for sanctuary was abandoned.

  Residents of Berkeley and Oakland were advised to stay indoors with their doors and windows locked. Residents were also advised to avoid anyone that had been attacked, whether they appeared infected or not.

  The SFPD had closed the bridges entering the city and vowed to shoot anyone from the Oakland or Marin sides of the bay trying to run the blockade. The Oakland and Marin sides had quickly followed suit with a blockade of their own. The poor suckers caught on the bridges were trapped in no man's land.

  California was falling to Zombies none the less. First Los Angeles and then the San Francisco Bay Area and then it quickly radiated out to the rest of the state. The large metropolitan areas were lost to the Zombies in the first twelve hours.

  I sat watching the TV news until I finally fell asleep around 2 am. About 9 am I woke up to nothing but the same news reports looping over and over every fifteen minutes or so.

  Even though the local population here was pretty small, the nearby interstate would be crowded with people leaving L.A. I believed that if I got to a more isolated and less populated area there would naturally be fewer Zombies.

  I could either go east to Death Valley or Southern Nevada (too hot), or north into Northern California. The problem with the northern California plan was that so many large population centers lay between Bakersfield and the northern part of the state. Eastern Oregon or Idaho would have been even less populated. I felt both might be too cold in the winter. What the hell, I'd just have to wear my heavy coat.

  Then it occurred to me maybe I should just stay here. I walked to the kitchen for another beer. Crap, there were only three beers left. I usually just ate at the diner at work so I didn't stock much real food. About all I stocked were beer, soup, and snacks to eat on my day off. I wasn't really prepared for a siege. I guess staying here was no good. I decided it was time to bug out after all.

  Then I remembered that my older brother Ralph had a place just north of Chico. I thought I would stop there and make my final decision of where to go. Maybe Ralph and his wife Karen had decided to go there as well.

  Edwards AFB would be my first stop. I should be able to find safety at a rescue center or worse case I might be able to acquire some food, supplies, and weapons there. Then I would continue to head toward Ralph and Karen's.

  I packed a few changes of clothes and a heavy coat into my old hiking pack. I went into my small kitchen and loaded a box with all my canned and dried goods (soup and chips) and anything in the refrigerator (beer) I could eat or drink on the road.