Max hauled the dirty board into his house after stuffing his flashlight into his front pocket. The board and saw made a clumsy burden, somehow he managed to get them up the stairs to Stewart and Tom. Amelia was outside of Jessica's door in Sarah's robe, the door was closed behind her.
“That looks a little long Max.” said Stewart.
Max held up the saw, which he noticed was bent at the end from using it as a shovel. Stewart nodded. Max lifted the board and saw that he needed to take off a couple of feet to make it fit as a wedge against the attic access door. He opted to take off about a foot and a half, he could trim more off if he needed to. After sawing frantically he lifted the shorter board into place. It would not fit directly, however with it propped diagonally, one end where the hallway wall was, it fit snuggly against the door. Up above the shuffling continued, never quite getting over the access.
“Probably she won't climb onto the access, the ladder is folded up on it, she'll probably wander around the rest of the attic, so this is just a precaution. In the morning I will get screws and my drill and drill the access shut.”
Stewart looked at him and said, “I can do it Max, still if you want me to.”
With Amelia and Tom looking on Max leaned against the wall and said, “No, lets just leave it like this for now. I am so tired of all this…really.”
“Will she come through the ceiling?” Tom asked, pointing up at the hole they had repaired before.
“Maybe, it is lathe and plaster over the rooms, only the hallway and master bedroom are sheet rock. I don't know which is stronger, thank God she didn't balloon up into a fat woman after we got married, she is still pretty light. I think she will be okay. The gun is up there.”
“I don't think she will figure out how to use it Max.” said Amelia, “They don't get smart right away.”
“I think they get smarter by eating people.” said Tom, they all looked at him. “Like vampires, I mean most of them are very dumb, only a few are pretty smart, some of them can talk. It is as good a theory as any.”
The other nodded.
“That goes along with what Juan said this morning. So now what?” Max asked Stewart.
“We are rotating sleeping, Tom is on now.” Stewart looked at her watch, “He has another hour to go, then Amelia, I take last watch so I can get the coffee going. You are not 'on' tonight. We figured with” Stewart looked upwards, “that going on you would be busy. Why don't you crash on the couch so if something happens you can be woke up real quick by who ever is keeping watch?”
“Okay. I am sorry Stewart, about this, if I could have, I mean I was even, going to do it, I mean.” said Max
“Don't worry about it. I am crashing in Nick's room. We'll deal with Sarah in the morning, okay?”
“Okay.”
Max and Tom went downstairs and Max settled on the couch. Tom turned on the television and flipped through all the channels, seeing only static.
“Turn on the satellite TV, see if they have anything.”suggested Max, “Here let me do it.”
Max flipped through four hundred channels of television, a few channels were showing old movies, one Spanish channel was still broadcasting music videos, but all the news channels were off the air. Max put the remote down and chatted with Tom for a short time before he drifted off to doze fitfully the rest of the night.
Chapter 53
“This is Blake, still holding up here at WWEB. I am sorry to say that the last group of guys who tried to get though here earlier this morning were not successful and they looked like a bunch of national guardsmen to me. I have to tell you folks that there are too many zombies down there, hell it looks like all of them showed up at my doorstep, the streets are just full of them. So. Well I hate to say it. I have to though, don’t try again folks. If a bunch of guys with machine guns, hummers and tanks cannot break me out I am afraid no one can. If you know someone with a helicopter, you might send him my way. Until then I am going to try and sit tight here…” Blake had the doors propped open from the studio all the way into the hallway, he heard a crashing sound, followed by the sounds of breaking glass.
“Well forget it folks, it looks like my show just got canceled.” Keeping his mic and headphones on Blake moved over and shut the studio door, locking it shut. He had no illusions that whatever had gotten through the fire door would be held at bay by the glass of the studio walls. Irrationally he could not give up. Diane said he was the last one left on the air and every word he spoke would help someone else. Returning to sit at his stool he started speaking once again. “Yeah, they are definitely in. Remember by the last report I had heard that the roads east, south and north were pretty clear, interstate seventy into the mountains is a wrecking yard, impassible from what everyone I spoke to said. I am sorry I can’t stay on the air any longer.” A group of zombies filed into the two rooms that abutted the radio sound booth. “They are mean looking bastards, these zombies. What the fuck are you?” This last was said when a massively huge man stepped into Blake’s view, his eyes, Blake swore to God, were glowing, “Fuck me, his eyes, his eyes, what the hell is wrong with him?” Blake found himself on his feet moving towards the man, who then gestured at him to go to the door to the sound booth, Blake tried to resist, but something compelled him to move forward and unlock the door. He pulled it open then moved around to stand in front of the doorway, hands twitching by his sides. Listeners did not hear Blake speak again, a new voice came on and they heard it start off with, “I am Og.”
At Max's house they were all up again, drinking strong coffee and listening to the radio with keen horror, hearing what they thought were the dj’s last words. Erin sat in Stewart's lap, Amelia held Jessica and the boys were busy in the living room, playing video games. Max held the remote in his hands, ready to kill the power if things got too bad. The radio was on low, hardly giving any sound off. The adults listened with rapt attention as the new voice spoke, “I am your future, as my master made me so shall you join me…” Then static, at the same time there was a bright flash outside of Max’s house far to the east, the ground rumbled and the windows rattled in their frames. When Stewart pulled the curtain back they saw a billowing flame climbing high into the air that formed a large, mushroom shaped, cloud.
Author's Note
As a first book this one has taken me a couple years to finish, the writing was done in about seven months, but the editing, ugh! Don't get me started about the editing. I am a firm believer in good editing…now. Unfortunately I have the editing skills of a slow zombie; this is the second edition of the book, and by 'second' I mean 'tenth'. I've read through Outbreak many times and in each instance I am 'sure' I caught all the errors and each time I am wrong. Hopefully the story overcame the many misspelled words, poor sentence structure and grammatical errors that I have missed. I never set out to write an American Classic and have always felt that a decent book should be read easily and make me look back on it with fond memories as an escape from the minor problems life was throwing at me at the time. If I have done this for a few people then I have done my job.