Omega Days (Volume 1)

THIRTY-SEVEN



Alameda



It had been a piece of luck, at least for Angie, not for the people who had been here. Cruising alone in the Excursion on the south side of town, she came across a street filled with emergency vehicles. There was a pair of fire trucks (from her firehouse, she wondered?), an ambulance and two police cars. The burned-out shell of a city bus was buried in a store front, and the building itself had caught fire. The flames were out, but there was no saving the people on the bus.

And they soon spilled out to overwhelm the first responders.

Now a few charred corpses lay in the street, victims of lucky head shots by the police, but everyone else was gone. The passing weeks and the current rain had washed away all other traces of gore. The scene was untouched by scavengers, so Angie left the Excursion in the middle of the street and set immediately to work.

The ambulance and fire trucks provided a supply of oxygen bottles, which the elderly couple would need. All carried mobile medical kits and other emergency supplies, and she took the fire axes from the trucks as well. Although the police officers were gone along with their side-arms, their squad cars still carried a pair of shotguns and ammunition, along with flares and full-sized spare tires and jacks. She even took the car batteries. It all went into the Excursion.

As she worked, Angie remained aware of her surroundings. Getting too involved and focused on a project out here was a good way to get jumped and bitten, so she stopped regularly to look and listen. A Giants cap kept the rain out of her eyes, and the Galil hung in a sling across her chest so she could keep her hands free to work, but still able to reach it quickly if needed. The dead didn’t seem to be around at the moment, though.

On a corner across from the burned bus stood a Walgreens, and it took her a moment of staring before she realized the windows weren’t broken. The Galil came up, her finger curling around the trigger. She checked the street right and left, saw it was still empty, and advanced towards the front of the store.

The dead electric doors pushed aside with a little effort. Gray light from the front windows penetrated a short distance in, leaving the aisles and back half of the store in shadows. She stopped and held her breath, listening.

Nothing.

Angie pulled a small, powerful flashlight from a cargo pocket and held in her left hand along with the front grip of the Galil, keeping the muzzle in line with the beam. Everything was still on the shelves; there was no sign of looting. She checked behind the register counters to be certain nothing was lurking back there, and then moved sideways across the front end, pointing the light and the rifle down each aisle as she passed. Every one of them had full shelves, and no walking dead. At the far end of her beam, at the back of the store, she could see the pharmacy counter. The security gate was down, but it was intact.

Her mind raced. National chain drug stores like this were at least one-third grocery store these days; non-perishable food and beverages, along with batteries, first aid supplies, vitamins and remedies, even cigarettes to satisfy Maxie’s foul habit. The stockroom would hold more of everything, and there was a full pharmacy at the back, all of it untouched. This one store could keep the firehouse group going for years.

The flashlight fell upon an end cap loaded with packaged diapers. The image of a mother looking tenderly at a swaddled infant stared back at her, and Angie felt her chest tighten. And suddenly her decision was made. Her uncle’s argument made complete sense, and she carried most if not all of the responsibility for the people she had rescued and gathered together. But Angie had a daughter, a husband, and that was that. She would mark the site on the map for the others, deliver the treasures she had already found today, and that would be her final service to them. She would make one last appeal for Bud to come with her, but whether he agreed or whether she went alone, Angie West was leaving in the morning. Leah was waiting.

An unusual noise came from behind her, out on the street. Angie held her breath again, straining to identify the familiar sound, but then a rumble of thunder blotted it out. Frustrated, she waited until it came through again. Something distant, not right outside. She started slowly towards the doors, and then she had it. A helicopter. Angie bolted for the entrance, just as blocks away, the firehouse siren went off.



Bud Franks was on the roof when the helicopter passed by, flying low and following the channel, a white light blinking at its tail. He watched the Blackhawk with his mouth slightly open, feeling like a caveman seeing a spaceship. It headed north, then banked and slowed, dropping from view. Landing.

At the old naval air station.

Thoughts tumbled through his head as he raced for the stairs; rescue, a working government, safety for the people hiding in the fire station, maybe even a way to get home. “Helicopter!” he shouted into the top floor hallway as he went down the stairs two and three at a time. “Helicopter!”

Sophia Turner and Margaret Chu emerged from a doorway, startled by the yelling, fearing the worst. Bud slid to a stop. “A helicopter just landed out at the old navy base. I think it’s the Army.”

“We’re getting out of here!” Sophia hugged him, and Bud grinned.

“We can be on the road in five minutes,” Margaret said. “The vehicles are ready.”

“Angie’s still out,” Bud said, his smile evaporating. The mate to the two-way radio she carried was downstairs. “I’ll track her down.”

“And I’ll get them packed and moving,” Margaret said.

Bud was almost to the main room when the siren on the roof of the building went off, a long, piercing howl which would carry across the entire island. And draw the attention of every corpse within miles.

“Son of a bitch!” The radio was in the little front office, but Bud ran past it. The button for the siren was in the garage. Who the hell would set that thing off, knowing what it would attract? He already knew the answer.

“Bud, what’s happening?” Jerry and Mark Phillips were in the main room as Bud went by. He didn’t stop to answer, and moved quickly down a short hallway, hitting the door to the garage on the run.

Maxie was waiting. He shot Bud in the chest the moment the man filled the doorway. The former deputy staggered to the left, clawing for his shoulder holster. Maxie shot him again, and Bud fell into the side of a metal storage locker with a crash. Holding the .32 revolver, Maxie walked to him and pulled the big automatic out of his holster, shoving it into his waistband. Then he crouched and patted Bud’s pants pockets until he found the keys to Angie’s van.

Jerry and Mark came through the door to the firehouse. “What the-”

Maxie turned and fired three times. Two bullets splintered off the doorframe, making the heavyset comic leap back inside. The third caught the insurance adjustor under the chin, and he went down with a gurgle.

It was heard to breath, and it felt like someone was standing on his chest. Bud wanted to sit up, wanted to grab Maxie by the throat and choke him until his eyes rolled up, but instead he slid further down the side of the locker. He was cold, too tired to do anything but lie there.

“…why..?” he managed, looking at Maxie and trying to lift his arms.

The man stood and tossed the van keys into the air, catching them, laughing. “I got to take care of myself.” He shook his head. “It don’t have to make sense to you, and besides, I never liked you much, anyway.” He smiled with that one gold tooth. “Some folks is just bad people, Mr. Bud.” He chirped the door locks and walked to the front of the bay, hitting the switch not only for the garage door in front of the Angie’s Armory van, but also the door in front of the empty space where the Excursion was usually parked.

“I expect they’ll be in here directly,” he said, gesturing at the dead which were shuffling in from all directions, drawn by the wailing siren. He laughed again, and then he was climbing in, starting the van.

Margaret Chu came out of the firehouse with Jerry close behind her, racking the pump of a shotgun. “Bastard!” She blew a hole in the side of the van as it started forward, racked it, blew another hole. Maxie gunned the engine, squealing the rear tires on the polished cement before roaring out onto the street. Margaret sent another blast after him and tore a ragged hole in a rear door as he turned left, knocking down half a dozen of the walking dead as he accelerated away.

“Mark is dead,” Jerry said behind her. He went to the fallen deputy. “Bud’s still alive.” Elson and a crowd of frightened faces filled the door to the firehouse.

Margaret racked the shotgun and moved to the roll-up doors. “Elson, drag Mark out onto the driveway. I’ll deal with him when he turns. Jerry, get everyone loaded.”

The men hurried to their jobs, Elson grabbing the dead insurance man by the ankles and pulling him across the floor, leaving him just outside the bay doors. Margaret went to the controls, shut off the siren and lowered both roll-ups at the same time, standing ready with the shotgun. By the time they connected with the ground, the dead arrived and began piling up, pounding on the metal and glass. Their friend Mark Phillips soon rose to join them.

Jerry got the senior van loaded with as many people as it would hold, and then herded the rest to Maxie’s Cadillac. He let out a relieved breath when he found that the man kept his keys in the ignition.

Margaret faced Elson and Jerry. “They’re not going to go away, and they’re going to force their way in. We have to leave. We’re heading to the navy base, and we’ll hope that helicopter is still there.” She pointed to the men and the vehicles. “Elson you drive the van, Jerry take the Cadillac. The base is on the maps.”

As they moved, Margaret went to where Bud was slumped. His chest was rising and falling with irregular hitches, and his face was colorless. Too much blood covered the floor, and Margaret bit her lip, knowing there was nothing she could do. Bud seemed to know it as well.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, kneeling in front of him, tears filling her eyes.

“…yours…now…” He took a shallow breath and closed his eyes. “Do it.”

Margaret nodded, kissed the man on the cheek, and then stood and pressed the muzzle to his forehead. In the vehicles, the adults made the children look away. When it went off, the shotgun sounded like the world exploding.

Sobbing, Margaret went back into the firehouse and retrieved the walkie-talkie which would connect her with Angie. Before she climbed into the senior van, she opened both rear bay doors, and the two vehicles rolled out the back a moment later.



Angie reached for the radio on her hip as she ran for the doors, then remembered it was on the dashboard of the Excursion. Outside the siren was much louder, even though it was many blocks away. In normal times she probably wouldn’t have heard it at all over the street noise and the airport traffic flying overhead, but Alameda was quieter now. The world was quieter.

The dead were responding to the siren. They emerged from doorways, appeared at second and third floor windows. One even crawled out from under a fire truck, right where she had been standing a short while ago. It couldn’t have been there earlier, she thought. It would have tried to bite her ankle.

Angie raised the Galil and fired. A man in a sport coat went down. A woman in a meter maid’s uniform and another in a bathrobe collapsed with head shots. Turning left, she dropped a high school student, an elderly man, a fireman and the rotting corpse of a teenager limping towards her in a thigh-length cast covered in signatures and lipstick hearts. More appeared.

She trotted to the big SUV and tossed her rifle onto the passenger seat, climbing in and locking the driver’s door behind her. Bodies thumped against the vehicle as she fired up the engine and reached for the walkie-talkie.

“Bud, what’s happening?”

No reply.

“Bud, come in. Do you copy?”

The siren cut off abruptly, and at that moment she caught a horrible, sour stench coming from the back seat. She glanced at the rearview, already reaching for her shoulder holster, and saw a scarecrow seated behind her wearing a hooded sweatshirt. His eyes jittered, the pupils so big and black that they looked like twin bullet holes. The muzzle of a pistol pressed against her right temple, and her hand froze on the butt of her own automatic.

“Hello, beautiful,” Brother Peter said.