The first quarter mile walk went smoothly for Dora, she walked up the sidewalk until she was back at the cross street, which was fourteenth, in less than five minutes. She crossed the empty intersection with its flashing red lights and was about to continue down Uclid when she heard the noise. Fireworks? No it sounded like an action movie, those were gunshots!
'Close by too!' Dora looked for a place to hide. While Uclid was primarily a residential street, fourteenth ran through the main business district of this section of suburbia, so there was a gas station across from a fast food place diagonally and the opposite corners boasted a dry cleaning place across from a closed Chinese restaurant. The fast food place was right ahead of her so Dora crouched down and ran towards that, feeling a twinge in her neck with every step. She half expected the door to be locked when she pushed on it, but it slid open easily beneath her hands. The cool air that blew into her face was a welcome relief from the humid air of the street.
Standing in the entry way between two glass doors Dora peered into the place. Outside the gunfire intensified, seeing nothing unusual inside she pushed into the main lobby and approached the lone teenage boy behind the counter. He ducked visibly as the next round of muffled gunfire went off unseen outside, then nervously asked, "What is going on outside? That sounds like gunfire."
"Ya think" Dora responded sarcastically, "Maybe we oughta get in the back and hide somewhere?"
The boy nodded and Dora came around the counter quickly, almost running into a portly, younger woman with short, curly black hair wearing a fast food uniform and an assistant manager's badge with the name "Paige Hindale" on it. The woman's face held a worried expression on it and she quickly motioned to Dora and yelled, "C'mon Mike, we gotta get out of here!"
As she said this one of the front windows was shattered and all three of them dropped to the floor. Mike was wearing a head set to take orders from the drive through and it got caught up on a the cash register when he turned to run. He started swearing as the cord between the battery pack on his belt and the headphones he was wearing pulled tight around his neck, almost strangling him. Paige's expression was one mixed with fear and concern, Dora's was more of one that said 'what a clumsy dumbass'.
Mike pulled the corded headphones off, unplugged them from his belt and crawled towards the end of the counter where the two women were. Paige led the way as they crawled deeper into the building, eventually they ended up in front of a locked door. The industrial metal portal had a narrow rectangle of frosted safety glass from above the door knob that extended about two feet high. Opening it Paige revealed a messy office area that smelled strongly of old grease and stale bread.
The radio and small flat panel tv on the desk were barely visible beneath coffee stained papers and mantilla folders. Behind the desk, braced against the wall was a rickety looking bookshelf made of white medium density fiber board held up with braces and overloaded with training manuals, employee binders, old computer software and other paraphernalia. The users of this wonder of engineering must have realized the potential death trap they had sitting behind them when they used the desk, because the free floating corner of the shelves was braced up with a large post, screwed into the shelves with amateurish skill. The smells made Dora want to puke, reminding her briefly of her original reason for leaving the house this morning. Paige had immediately shut and locked the door behind them when they entered. Still on the ground, she eyed Dora speculatively before saying, "Welcome to our restaurant, can I take your order please?"
Mike started laughing at that and Dora gave them both a look of scorn, assuming, correctly, they were playing a bit of a joke on her. The moment quickly passed and she said, "I want a number 3 with a large black cup of Joe please, two creams and two splendas."
Paige scowled, "A large cup of 'Joe', that's our competitor you know."
Dora nodded, "Yeah, I know."
"A wise ass, eh? I outta toss you out on your ass."
Dora nodded, "Yeah, I know."
"I won't."
"Yeah. I didn't think you would."
Holding her hand out, Paige said, "I am Paige, that's Mike."
Shaking her hand Dora said, "Dora, I am very pleased to meet you."
"Is it bad out there? It has been dead in here all morning, no morning rush, no old people coming in to nurse their coffees for two hours. What is going on?"
Dora, who thought she was the last one who knew what was going on, said, "I was talking to the police they said to go home, lock my doors and not to talk to anyone."
"So what are you doing here?" Mike asked.
"I was trying to get home, I crashed into…well I hit a tree and they told me to walk home." Dora left the part out about the bag lady.
"Anyway, I don't really know much more than that, the cops told me to turn on the news, get an update that way." Dora shrugged her shoulders, then winced in pain at the effort.
Paige lifted one hand and brushed back a lock of her curly hair, "Yeah, watch TV, huh. You would know our cable went out in this place two days ago, we've missed most of the crazy stuff going on in the world the last couple of days. Then the manager is off in Vegas, so all the assistants are in charge, rotating the schedules, a major pain in the ass, I've been working 12 hour days the last three days, poor Mike has too. Only there was no business today, nothing."
"No cable, but does that thing work?" Dora asked while pointing at the half visible tv on the top of the desk.
It was Paige's turn to shrug, "Sure, I think so. But it doesn't have cable. The radio works too, let's try both and see what we can get." Paige grabbed the small television, while Mike unwound the plugs from both appliances from the jumble of cords under the desk. Dora made herself useful by tilting the radio off the desktop into her hand and then piling the loads of folders back into a stabilized pile that wouldn't fall on them. After a few confusing minutes of running the cords around and getting the television into a position where they could all see it on the floor they turned it on. It warmed up slowly, but the volume came on right away.
"…story by telling anyone who can hear this to look out for anyone acting strange. This could be your neighbor or spouse or even your children. Many of these people affected by the virus appear to have sustained fatal or near fatal wounds, the rule of thumb is if they look hurt and still come at you, you need to flee to a safer area."
A woman's voice came on, "Now, Jim is this the same thing that hit so hard on the east coast, with an outbreak in Denver?"
"Absolutely, Diane. The authorities are saying that we are going to have to form militias to deal with the problem, Kansas will not sit idle and let the contamination overwhelm us like what has happened elsewhere. As you heard the governor state just a few minutes ago, the National Guard has been called up and every available man and woman needs to help fight off the threat. Until all further notice you are not to go to your normal place of employment, unless it is in the following professions: Police, Fire department, Electrical Utility and Medical profession in any care giving or emergency medical capacity. Furthermore if you work for the phone company all technicians and operators are to report in. Only technicians and operators. Any and all civilians are to arm themselves with whatever weapons they have available, your local police for will not be able to protect you, if you do not have any weapons, go to a neighbor who does, or at the very least barricade your house up and stay indoors."
"So does anyone have any idea what started this…disease?" asked the newswoman from the studio.
"No one knows for sure. What we do know is that the 'normal' groups, the ones that usually would have claimed credit for something of this size, have been silent. Indicating it may not be a terrorist threat at all."
"So, no news from the authorities yet as to where this outbreak came from. Let's go now to our man on the street, Ned Stevens, to see how things are progressing. Ned? Are you there?"
The three of them in the manager's office waited while the news casters connected with the man about town, Ned Stevens, the screen on the television was still fuzzy until Mike fiddled around with the antenna. The picture then went from fuzzy washed out green images to a more tolerable resolution, just in time to show them a picture of Ned.
Normally Ned was dressed for clubbing and covered the local hot spots of social activity, so it came as a surprise to Dora to see him decked out in an Army helmet with a long sleeve camouflage jacket on.
'Somehow,' Dora thought, 'the look suits him.' In one hand he held a microphone, in the other he had a gun!
"…er me? Test one, test two." Ned said.
"Ned we are clear now, you are coming in loud and clear. What's going on? Where are you at?" asked Diane.
"Diane? Jim? Okay, okay.." Ned spoke to someone off camera, then turned back to face it head on face first, "Sorry, I am having some difficulty hearing you, Ray says you are coming through to him okay." In the background there was a group of soldiers standing looking down a business street with car lots on both sides of it. At the just visible intersection off in the distance there was a small crowd of people moving steadily towards the camera.
"Okay, I think we are okay now. I am down on west QM Avenue looking west towards Flora Drive, here is the situation."
The next twelve minutes were spent listening to Ned describe the nature of the contamination that they were dealing with, how once people were infected they became desensitized to pain and would attack and, yes, even cannibalize other humans. The only way to stop the spread of the disease was to destroy the carrier. The best, quickest way was with a sure shot to the head of the victim. If that could not be achieved then taking out the target's legs or doing massive damage to their torso was also effective at slowing them down.
As Ned reported the mob of diseased slowly approached his position, drawing concerned comments from Jim and Diane. Ned flashed them his trademarked grin and had the camera pan to the running, open vehicles that were waiting behind the camera crew, "We are not taking any chances Jim, if things get too bad we bug out fast and shift our position. A warning to viewers, we are going to fire on this group of infected; this is going to be graphic. We will not fall like Denver."
Turning his back on the camera Ned raised his pistol at the shuffling mob and began firing into it. He gave commentary while reloading and warned common citizens not to approach any of the diseased and that the disease was, as far as they knew spread through biting and blood, so avoid getting bit at all costs. Just when it appeared that the mob was going to get him Ned said into his mic, "Jim, I am going to send it back to you now as we have to get out of here, stay safe!"
Newswoman Diane, noticeably paler, said, "Thanks Ned, don't take any chances!" Dora smiled a bit, there had been rumors for years that Diane and Ned had been having a torrid love affair. "Jim, you have a new statement by the governor?"
"Indeed I do, the situation is very fluid right now. The governor has declared martial law and is ordering all able bodied citizens to arm themselves and patrol their neighborhoods, but warns that violence against uninfected will be treated as assault, manslaughter or murder as determined after this emergency is over." Jim looked into the camera pleadingly, "Please people do not take advantage of these horrible circumstances to break the law in any way. We need to pull together if we all want to live. The governor has called upon all citizens with military training to report to Kauffman Stadium to parking lots M, H and J for redeployment."
Jim looked down at the monitor built into his news desk, "This just in, Denver has fallen and I…this can't be…" Jim stared at the page in his hand for a moment, before looking back into the camera, "This…there…have been. This is confirmed…portions of Denver, Colorado have been bombed with nuclear weapons in an effort to stem the tide of diseased. This, of course, is a follow up to this morning's news about a nuclear bomb being used in Denver. It has now been officially confirmed. No word yet on how effective that strike was or on our forces losses."
The studio went silent, after a moment Jim continued, "The Federal Government has issued a statement saying they will cooperate with local authorities to help eradicate any and all threats brought on by the current outbreak. This aid will include the use of any and all force necessary as deemed by the people on the ground. Yesterday a strike force tried to make it into the heart of the city of Denver and was eradicated, almost to the last soldier, these brave men were able to pinpoint the greatest concentration of diseased and relay the coordinates to other members of their team waiting with the weapons. The president authorized the use of a weapon strike at the coordinates upon a request by the governor of Colorado. The soldiers may have been caught in the blast or killed by the infected. They did not make it out of Denver. The Federal government is now evaluating the success of the strike and will use this infor-"
The small television cut out, a blaze of static washed across the screen and Dora was left staring at the other two. Her new best friends named Paige and Mike.