They Walk Among Us Read online

  THEY

  WALK

  AMONG

  US

  A novel of the struggle to survive

  By Patrick Harris

  Copyright 2019 Patrick Harris

  Smashwords Edition

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away. If you would like to share this book, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  THEY WALK AMONG US

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Table of contents

  Chapter 1 – The Bridge

  Chapter 2 – Something Odd Is Going On

  Chapter 3 – Preparations

  Chapter 4 – The Plague Arrives

  Chapter 5 – The Tide Turns

  Chapter 6 – The Siege

  Chapter 7 – The Plan

  Chapter 8 – Hanging by A Thread

  Chapter 9 – The Rescue

  Chapter 10 - The Breakout

  Chapter 11 – A Brief Respite

  Chapter 12 – The Tempest

  Chapter 13 – Out of Bounds

  Chapter 14 – A New Low

  Chapter 15 – A Journey Home

  Chapter 1

  The Bridge

  I stood alone in the overcast and misty morning. The fog swirling across the sound from the tidal marsh, engulfing me in its delicate, ethereal tendrils. The only disturbance of this solitude was the faint call of a Great Blue Heron in the distance seeking a morning fish to bring back to its hungry young. The fog would burn off soon, turning the day into another North Carolina summer scorcher, but for the moment the scene provided an eerie, otherworldly appearance.

  This thinly veiled and picturesque scene masked the horror the outside world had evolved into. Those of us who had not become infected were now hunted by those who had! Homo-sapiens had dropped a rung on the evolutionary ladder, to them, we were sheep or cattle, something used to sustain them.

  After retiring as a Police Captain from a large city in Virginia, I became the Chief here in Beaufort, North Carolina, this was my dream job. My family and I fell in love with the Southern charm of this waterfront community along the Crystal Coast. The genuine hospitality and friendliness of the people who live and work here endeared us to this small coastal town.When I heard Beaufort was looking for a new Police Chief, I wasted no time pursuing the opportunity. From there, I never looked back to the hectic crime scene of a big city.

  That dream died a long time ago. I never imagined in my worst nightmare, the things I would be required to do and how much loss I would be asked to endure. Everyone's life was drastically altered by the onset of the plague.

  Today, like every day now, life has returned to the suns natural cycle, up at daybreak, in bed by sunset. Lacking electricity certainly has a way of making you a servant to the whims of the sun and nature. This break from the routine today was that my community was going to banish a young man. With the world being what it is, there are no longer resources for the luxury of rehabilitation or imprisonment when people violate the rules of society. As a result, almost every criminal sentence now results in the banishment of those convicted.

  The town would never agree to hand out a death sentence, even though everyone knew in the back of their mind that to banish someone probably had the same result. We massaged our sense of morality by claiming that the convicted individual at least had a sporting chance of making it on the outside if they were careful and extraordinarily lucky.

  Slowly, residents of the town formed a macabre little gathering around me to include some members of the Town Council. Most people were either bored or curious and looking for anything that would break the monotony of struggling to survive. Like previous banishments, this one was taking place at the Arendell Bridge on the south end of town. Everyone was waiting for the anticipated drama to play itself out.

  Looking at the people I have known for years, I took in many sad details. Everyone appeared to be dirtier than they were a year ago. Their faces seemed a little more pinched from eating a low-calorie diet, coupled with a new life filled with manual labor. Clothing that used to be clean and pressed was now threadbare and stained. Style, fashion, and hygiene that were once important were now relegated to secondary importance. The need to scrape by and survive from day to day took precedence over almost everything else.

  Townspeople continued to wander in by ones and twos, some walking or riding bicycles which had become the preferred mode of transportation. There were even a couple of horses, and one enterprising man had an old moped he got running by using 160 proof, distilled corn alcohol as a biofuel. That fact alone was a little surprising because he usually consumed the alcohol as fast as he could push the juice through the copper coils of his jury-rigged homemade still.

  The residents of my town were brought here by a relatively minor crime of theft and destruction that occurred three short days ago. Carrying out a sentence this quickly in the pre-plague world would have been unheard of, but justice was swift now, out of necessity. In a fit of hunger, a young man named Ethan Tyler took it upon himself to scavenge through a neighbor’s garden. In the process, he pulled up several promising bean plants and ate his way through the strawberry patch. He then began making a move on the chicken coop to relieve the hens daily offering of delicious brown eggs when he was discovered.

  Ethan’s neighbor, heard the fussing from his best egg producers and fearing it was a fox, rushed out the door with his shotgun to greet the four-legged thief. To his great distress, he instead surprised the two-legged rat named Ethan, rooting around inside the chicken coop.

  Mr. Weisman was a veteran who walked with a limp from shrapnel he caught in the leg during the first Gulf War. Despite the pain the old wound gave him, he marched Ethan to the police station. He later confided to me it was one of the longest and saddest walks he had ever taken as he had known Ethan since he was five years old. Mr. Weisman reminisced about Ethan growing up, learning to ride a bicycle and asking to mow his lawn for ten bucks as they walked and limped the two miles into town. Despite his reservations, Mr. Weisman kept the old Remington 870 shotgun prodding Ethan along whenever he pleaded for mercy or began to drag his feet.

  Ethan's trial was brief with little fanfare, ending in a quick decision. The high-priced, fancy lawyers and legal wrangling were dispensed with. Just the facts and a few honest men and women to pass judgment on what they heard. Everything was out in the open, anyone who had something to say was encouraged to speak their mind. Opinions, personal experience, and gut instinct were valued as much as the facts to help the jury make an informed decision.

  A sudden silence fell over the small gathering on the bridge. Through some unspoken word, the spectators knew it was time for the final chapter in Ethan’s story to begin, all eyes became fixated on me.

  How this task fell under my wheelhouse, I am not particularly sure. Somehow the noose of responsibility had slipped around my neck months ago when the whole world fell apart. What else was I to do? The survival of my friends and family descended upon me to lead them through the disaster that was surrounding us? Covering an ironic laugh at the thought of the blind leading the blind with a cough, I mustered the courage to address the gathering.

  “Well,” I began, searching for some words that were regal or inspiring to the congregation. I would have settled for some words that just made sense in t
his crazy new world we were living in, but they didn’t come either. “Ethan,” I began again and turned to him, “Your family has been part of this community for a long time, most of us have watched you grow into a young man.”

  Ethan stood a few feet from me, recently brought forward. An officer held his hand firmly on Ethan’s shoulder, making sure there were no interruptions of this morning's proceeding by uncalled for lapses of manhood. I looked at him closely. "Sometimes, we make poor choices in life. None of us feel any different about you as a person because of what you did." Though my voice took on a more serious tone, there was still a little respect in it for Ethan, acting like a man and taking his punishment with some dignity. Ethan really had no choice in the matter, but the fact that he did not make a scene was never the less appreciated.

  "You know the rules of how we treat each other within the community, and you know what the punishment is for theft and destruction of another person's food supply." Ethan looked up from his scuffed, and dirty sneakers briefly caught my eye and nodded once. He then quickly looked down again in shame so no one would see his glistening eyes. "A jury of your peers has found you guilty and sentenced you to be banished from town, do you understand this, Ethan?" He nodded again, this time, tears were clearly running down his cheeks. Ethan's mother Susan was standing next to him holding his hand with all the unconditional love only a mother could have for her son.

  “Chief,” she barely croaked out.

  “Yes, Susan?” I replied with a slight catch in my throat from the emotion of the moment.

  "I’m leaving with Ethan!" she stated firmly. "I know he has done wrong, but he is all I have left in this world, I won't let him face this punishment alone."

  I took her hands in mine and was barely able to whisper, "I would expect nothing less. I am sorry to see you leave.”

  “Thank you, Chief," she replied. "You have always been a fair man, a tough man, but a fair one, we have always known where we stand with you."

  Susan and my conversation lapsed into an awkward silence until she turned toward Ethan, wiping away tears. I stood by watching as they shouldered their pitifully small packs and walked toward the bridge. While passing individuals in the crowd of onlookers, some made humble acknowledgments, and others provided them parcels of food. In a fit of generosity, one man pressed four rounds of .38 caliber pistol ammunition into Susan's hand. She stopped, gave him a hug then pulled out her old, rusty revolver and inserted the bullets, bringing her total to just five.

  The Arendell Bridge was supposed to have been replaced by the new Highway 70 bypass meant to keep traffic out of town. However, that plan had come to a screeching halt with the onset of the plague. Off to our west, the new half-built structure stuck out of the dark, murky mudflats in a mocking remembrance of yesterday's prosperity, never to be realized. Through some bit of good fortune, the new bridge was behind schedule, and the existing Arendale Bridge was a drawbridge which was currently in the upright position.

  I shuddered in remembrance of what had been a knockdown drag-out fight with the mayor to get the bridge in that position. I disregarded his directive and sent officers there to order the watchman to raise the draw. My dreams are still haunted by the wails of the people stuck on the wrong side of the bridge when we opened it. Their hope of escape from the infected blocked by an open drawbridge and swift-flowing tidal waters. Only later, when the full weight of the impending crisis was apparent, did the mayor stop me after a meeting and thank me for having the foresight to defy his orders.

  The Arendale drawbridge was now forever stuck open; power had long ago ceased to flow through it, damning it to an eternity in the upright position. To compensate we built a smaller wooden drawbridge hanging off the bridges west side. When let down by ropes and pulleys, it reached across the watery gap. In this way, we could go to the south side for scavenging, or conducting banishments when necessary.

  In the beginning, prisoners were transported by rowboat, but that process turned ugly one day when Sam Guilder was not willing to get out of the boat on the other side of the inlet. A struggle ensued resulting in an officer getting stabbed with a knife Sam had been concealing for the occasion. Sam received a .308 rifle round to the temple for his troubles, delivered by the officer on watch in the bridges controller's shack. Sam had been a problem since the day he was born, so no one shed a tear that he had met such a fate. However, it was unfortunate that an officer got hurt in the process. Ever since the incident with Sam, everyone took the long walk into infected territory alone.

  The new wooden drawbridge was unceremoniously lowered with a squeak of its pulley and clatter of wood on concrete. This unceremonious procedure allowed Ethan to take his first tentative step onto the structure. Standing at the precipice, he looked almost fearful that it would dump him into the water. Ethan took one last mournful look back in hopes of receiving forgiveness from the onlookers. Finding none, he turned to meet his fate and started across the bridge. Susan was on the verge of a breakdown now. With shoulders heaving, she followed behind her son, not looking back and not expecting a change of heart from the town where she had grown up.

  Reaching the far side of the wooden bridge, Ethan and Susan set foot on the concrete decking of the permanent bridge. They did this with the tentativeness of Neil Armstrong setting foot on the moon because they were now leaving behind the last vestiges of security that we knew existed. From my vantage point, they were fearful that a single foot touching down on the south side would draw an immediate response from those that lurk on the infected side of the bridge.

  I watched with detached interest now, as they took furtive glances to the left and right at their new alien surroundings. They hitched their packs up a little higher and started shuffling across the remaining portion of the Arendell Bridge, down into Morehead City. In an odd twist of irony, both Ethan and Susan probably thought nothing of this crossing a few months ago during their daily drives to the grocery store, soccer practice or any one of a dozen other mundane tasks. Ethan was probably playing on his iPhone and Susan with her thoughts on the busy life of a single mother. These 21st-century concerns, distracting them from the remote possibility that their future was about to be altered dramatically as the world was turned upside down.

  There was a feeling of electricity in the air as the crowd of onlookers shifted on their feet for the show most of them were secretly waiting to see but would never admit to. Everyone wanted to know how long the banished pair would last in the infected territory!

  An old rigging plant and seafood processing facility sat at the southern end of the ramp leading up to the bridge. They were a maze of machines, boats, and equipment that I knew still had an infestation of plague victims hiding within. It was the first challenge any banished individual had to face on their journey into the infected territory and where all eyes were transfixed.

  A boy suddenly cried out with a shrill voice, “Oh, there!” Pointing his finger toward the diminishing shadows near a pile of old crab pots. I could see it as well, along with another deeper in the rigging plant. The two infected were continuing to keep in the shadows, but they were clearly angling to intercept the wary, but inexperienced Susan and Ethan.

  “Crack!”

  A gunshot rang out, breaking the silence of the morning, sending several birds flying up from the mudflat at the base of the bridge. An audible gasp went through the crowd like lightning, and one man hopped on his feet to get a better view of what was happening. The shot, however, did not come from Susan's antique .38 caliber revolver. It was the loud throaty bark of a scoped .308 rifle being fired from the top of the drawbridge controller's shack.

  Officer Jim Hardin, who had requested bridge guard duty today stood upright with a rifle to his shoulder and scope to his right eye. “There was an infected coming up the bridge boss,” he called down to me. I knew full well the infected had been lurking in the shadows moving in for a feast without Ethan or Susan knowing. Jim was trying to give them a fighting chance.

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; Accepting his lie, I only nodded, unable to bring myself to speak. Two more shots sang out in quick succession, as I turned and walked back toward the police station. According to Officer Hardin's shift report, he stated he watched Susan and Ethan disappear and the crowd of onlookers dispersed. Approximately two hours later, he heard four or five gunshots followed by distant screaming, then all was quiet for the rest of his shift.

  Chapter 2

  Something Odd is Going On

  The apocalypse, the Rapture, Armageddon, or maybe Judgment Day like the popular movie? The challenge in describing the situation mankind currently finds itself in is that it has not been a one-day affair, but rather a slow slide into chaos brought on by "the infected.” It is they who have become the new apex predator upon the land. This watershed event in human history is unofficially known as the “French Plague." It is a conveniently vague description that adds an air of mysticism to the whole experience. I guess giving the disaster a name makes it easier to wrap your head around something this unimaginable. There is a fancy scientific name which the eggheads at the Center for Disease Control gave the plague, but no one could really pronounce it. So, the name French Plague stuck. In hindsight, it sucks for the French to have the disease which brought the human species to the brink of extinction named after your country, but sometimes that is how life, or in this case death, works out.

  The best way to explain the origin of the French Plague is to describe how it all began. In the early days, rumors were rampant, and everyone had an opinion of where the plague originated from. Everything was postulated as a cause for the calamity, some said it was God's will, others said terrorism or a Russian bio-weapon was to blame. The reality of the situation was academically interesting but far less conspiratorial.

  The most accurate explanation for the origin of the French Plague came from the United States, Center for Disease Control's "Special Investigative Panel on the Origin of the French Plague." I imagine there is still a government bureaucrat hidden in a bunker somewhere right now finishing the final chapter of the report. The following is based on the CDC report and what I pieced together from social media, the news, and other governmental media releases before they all went dark.