Jason Campagna - White Ash on Bone - A Zombie Novel

Sulla waited all night for help to arrive from Pittsburgh, and then he heard the reports out of Oakland. Butler was small potatoes compared to the river city, and the big boys had other worries now.

Sulla watched Kimberly serve coffee to the five other people sitting at the conference table. The people assembled had emerged as the ad-hoc leaders of the militia supporting Sulla. Dr. Carson sat at the opposite end of the table eyeing Kimberly.

When Sulla picked them up in the helicopter, he noticed that Carson was wearing the girl on his arm like a watch. He didn’t pay much attention then, but now it stood out to Sulla as a direct contradiction to the wedding band on the good Doctor’s finger.

“As we all know, things are bad,” Sulla said. “Other than Captain Anderson’s unit, I don’t think we can expect to see any help. To make matters worse we had a number of people slip out on their own to collect family. I think our first order of business today is to organize parties to round up local family members that are still outside the fence.”

To Sulla’s right sat Eric Mullins, a Middlesex Township Police officer. He nodded in agreement with Sulla.

“Eric, I’d like you to work with guys from our road department and any other police left to form up these parties. Let’s start with trying to find the families of mission critical people like the Doc here.”

Kimberly’s head snapped around to look at Carson from the side of the conference table. She had been mid-pour of filling a cup of coffee, and she spilled some of it.

“I appreciate the offer,” Carson said, “But my spouse was at the Mall when it got attacked. After seeing what happened at the Hospital, I’m under no illusions about her odds.”

Kimberly put down a cup and walked out of the conference room. Her face felt flushed at the conversation behind her and her heart wanted to explode out of her chest. Down the hall, she pushed open the door to the women’s room and turned on the faucet. She bent over and filled her hands with water and splashed it on her face.

What kind of person am I, she thought. I’ve wronged this woman, and now she is probably dead, and my first reaction is that I’m happy that he is all mine now. Kimberly remembered an Easter Sunday when she was a little girl. Her mother had dropped her off at Sunday school for the first time. She sat around a table eating vanilla wafers in her new white dress with blue trim. The teacher taught them about how it was wrong to take what was not yours. To illustrate the point, the teacher took Kimberly’s cookies away. It hurt Kimberly's feelings to single her out like that, but the teacher gave them back later.

“I’m so sorry Alison,” she said to the mirror in front of her. “I’ve wronged you, and there is nothing I can do to make it up.”

In her pocket, her cell phone vibrated for the first time since the outbreak started. She pulled the phone out and saw her mother’s number on the display.

Kimberly’s parents had been having marital problems for as long as she could remember. Her father drove trucks for a living and one day he took a job out west driving a rig between military bases in the desert. The separation proved to be a good thing for the marriage and it stayed that way for several years. One day her mom announced to Kimberly that her father wanted them to move out west with him. At this point, she was grown up and had her own apartment in Butler, which Dr. Carson had been moonlighting at for a few months. She urged her mother to take the opportunity to patch things up with her father and make the move, but she would not be going along.

“Kimberly, thank God,” her mother said on the phone. “Doug, I got through, pick up the other phone. We’ve been trying to reach you all night, are you alright?”

“Mommy I need you.” Kimberly said.

“Are you hurt baby?”

“No, but it’s awful here,” Kimberly said.

“Where are you at; are you safe?”

“I’m at the County airport with other people,” Kimberly said.

“Kim, honey,” her father said, “If there’s any pilots there I want you on the next plane out. I don’t care what it takes or where it’s going; you just get out and get as far away from there as possible. Do you hear me?”

“Yes daddy,” Kimberly said.

“I’m serious about this Kim, anything it takes.”

“I’m so sorry, I love you both,” Kimberly said.

“Baby you don’t need to be sorry; you just worry about taking care of-,” her mother said as the phone went dead.

Kimberly realized the phone cut out, but finished her statement anyway. “I’m so sorry that I’m not the girl you tried to raise me to be.”

She knew the guilt over Alison would eat at her, but she also knew she wouldn’t stop or leave him.

In the meeting room, Sulla was on a conference call on the radio with Anderson and several state and military officials.

“And where are you now Captain,” General Raul asked over the radio.

“We are currently in route to Sulla’s position at the airport,” Anderson said. The transmission carried the unmistakable sound of gunfire in the background.

“What we really need is an assessment of how to deal with these things,” the General asked.

“Sir,” Anderson said, “Literally the only way to put them down is a bullet to the head. Shooting them anywhere else only slows them down a bit. They can’t exactly run, but they can manage better than a walk if they are intact. If you want any other pointers, Sulla is the guy to talk to from a response point of view.”

Sulla and the people with him had joined the conversation late. Anderson had insisted that Sulla be included in the meeting, and it had taken several minutes to patch him through.

“How about it Sulla,” the General asked.

“Sir,” Anderson broke in. “Sulla needs to know about Intel’s projections that were discussed earlier.”

“I agree,” said someone from the Governor’s office.

“Fill him in, Captain,” the General said.

“Basically,” Anderson said, “We have tracked a number of cases to other cities that have originated in Butler. The injured became sick, died and joined the undead. We managed to contain the situation in a couple of the cities but not all of them. We locked it down in Buffalo and D.C., but New York, and Chicago are in a state of flux. Some bean counters have run a number of rough computer models, and the results look bad. Best-case scenario, we are looking at hundreds of thousands to millions dead with in the week. I don’t think I need to spell out the worst case. Hold on a sec.”

Three gunshots blasted over the radio.

“Sulla, what can you tell us from your experience?” the general said.

“We lost our first waves of emergency responders because we didn’t know what we were dealing with; some damn good people bought it. First, you need to make sure everyone knows how to kill them. Then you need to put a gun in every person’s hand that you can trust not to shoot you in the back. Make sure they have plenty of ammo; so far that has been a huge pain in the ass. Right now, I could be pushing into Butler, but I don’t have the ammo to hold my position and deal with the numbers of them in the city. You also need to start organizing people now. Get your responder’s families together, and make sure they are safe.”

“Mr. Sulla, this is Chris Ricks from the Governor’s office. You don’t honestly think we should be passing out guns to civilians do you?”