Chera: introduction

Allan wanted my version of how it all began, but I don't know where to start. I guess I'll have to just tell you how things changed for me. My name is Chera and, like Allan I worked in tech support in this building where we've all ended up, I would get up in the morning, come to work (reluctantly sometimes, I'll admit) do my job, go home and go to sleep.

During this time, however, things were a bit different. My parents had been gone for a few days up to Halifax to visit my aunt Linda after much persuasion on her part. I was blissfully alone in the house for what was to be a full week then back to normal on Sunday. I was on my way out to work when I'd received a call from my brother, he was hysterical, telling me to check out the news. On the national news they were reporting on the plane that had crashed into Halifax, creating a swath of destruction from Bedford almost to Dartmouth. Searchers were limited because of some sort of quarantine and so farthere were no survivors. I'm not sure how long I was standing there, time had just seemed irrelevant. All that kept going through my head was the reporters voice saying they weren't expecting to findsurvivors in the affected areas. I was glued to the news for the rest of the day, but no answers had been given.

The next day I was still waiting for news when I'd heard the phone beside me ringing. I think I only answered it just from habit because I don't remember making a conscious decision about talking to anyone. At that point I was probably in shock and my day was about to get a lot worse. When I answered the phone it was a friend calling, his dad was a retired cop and had been called by buddies on the force about the people infecting others and breaking out of quarantine. They didn't know what it was, what was causing all these people to get sick and what was causing the dead to come back to life, but they told him to get out of the area and to avoid the hospitals and highways - quarantines in the hospitals, the militia bases and at the airport had been breached and the infected were spreading out from those areas. He wanted to let me know because there was a militia base down the road that had a quarantine area.

Snapping out of my daze at his words I realized it was becoming evening and I had to get out of there. I assured him I would be fine but I had to find my brother and his family, they were all that I hadleft. I finally noticed the chaos of my neighbors surrounding me. People running around like lunatics, helter skelter with no plan, just seemingly going in circles. I knew if I wanted to make it to PortMorien I'd have to be smart and move quickly.

Dad used to say half of being smart was by not being stupid. At this point I knew I wasn't dealing with rational human beings anymore, hell... I wasn't a rational human being at that point and I don't think I've been one since before this began. I needed the important things: my dad's crank radio (doesn't need batteries or a power outlet), his shortwave radio (takes batteries, but gets the global radio stations), all the batteries we had in the house, a couple of flashlights, sleeping bag, enough food for myself for a few days and food for the cat, my army knife, a short Chinese sword that looked ridiculous but has a very sharp edge, rifle, shotgun, cleaning kit and ammo. I bundled the cat into a backpack and headed toward Port Morien. It was then only place I could think of to go. Cell phones weren't working and when I tried to reach my brother over the home phone all I got was a fast busy.

Heading from the Sterling area on foot, I had thought of trying to get a ride or a vehicle from the surrounding area, but everything was in an uproar. People were running away from the area as fast as theycould. In the distance toward the armories I could see fires breaking out and people leaving. I actually saw my first... victim?...zombie? I don't know what to call it, then. You would think a lifetime of sci-fiand horror movies would prepare you... you'd know what to do or how to react. I'd like to think that seeing it for the first time, I faced it bravely, head on with some kind of witty or sarcastic comment, thenproceed to be a heroine like in the movies, saving the people around me. In actuality I remember looking at what used to be a person. Someone I had vaguely known, they had lived next door to the armories and I had seen them from time to time in the neighborhood, mostly from going door-to-door on Halloween as a child. The most irreverent thing had crossed my mind that they wouldn't be giving out the cool treats to kids this year. As it shuffled in my direction, I remember being frozen in horror, unable to move and unaware of the chaos around me. Then she wasn't there anymore, just a splatter where she had been and a man was shaking my arm asking me if I was alright. I don't know who he was, I remember thanking him in a vague sort of way and heading off in my chosen direction away from the chaos around me.

That time up until a few hours ago I don't think I was functioning properly. I only remember bits, and most of them are in a sort of Technicolor sort of haze. Allan thinks I was in shock and he's probably right. I remember getting to the gully past Tim Horton's and running into my first ... thing... alone. Thankfully I'd remembered to load the rifle. Dad had taught me to shoot a long time ago; he felt that if he was going to have guns in the house he'd teach us to shoot what we were pointing at rather than ourselves in the foot. I think I put 4 rounds into that thing before it went down. It wasn't until I put a round into its head did it go down and stay down. Fragments of old horror movies seemed to prove the logic of making head shots if I could.

I didn't encounter any more after that. It was getting dark and I was looking for a place to bed down for the night. I was passing work when I noticed movement in one of the windows- fluid human movement, notthe disjointed shambling of the things currently stalking the human populous. Taking a chance I made my way past the barricades and tried to gain entry, thankfully I was let in and finally had a chance torelax for the first time since this fiasco began. Just the feeling of finding friends and not being alone any longer was completely overwhelming, I think I cried for an hour straight. Now here we are, we're safe for the time being, the generators will give us power for a time if necessary and the cafeteria has some cooking facilities and a decent amount of food.

I turned loose Salem, my cat, from the backpack I was carrying him in, who promptly found a dark corner and refuses to come out for the time being. I can't blame him; if I thought I could get away with it I would do the same thing. So here we are, trapped, with those things around the outside. There aren't many people out there anymore and I'm more than a little frightened of what's going to happen to us. My parents are gone and I don't know what's happened to my brother and his family. I think they'll be OK. His father-in-law is a fisherman and has a boat, with a little luck he got them clear before anything could happen to them. I refuse to consider any other outcome; otherwise I'll start to question why I'm still alive and what I'm doing here. I don't think I can cry anymore, I don't have any tears left. Now we're trying to figure out where we go from here...

AJ: begining

Well, I guess I should introduce myself, and tell my story.

My name is Allan Mac Donald, you can call me AJ. I'm from a small island in the north of
Nova Scotia called Cape Breton. Don't worry, I know that none of you
has ever heard of it. it has, or well I guess had about 190,000
people living on it. Nice place to live, good people, nice area.


Anyway, when things started to get scary i was working technical
support for MSN. Living my life as I usually do. going about my daily
affairs. It started here a little differently than it did in other areas.

Remember back on 911 when the US closed all the airports? Well all the
planes were diverted to Canadian airports. You might have heard the story about Gander, where the amount of people from grounded planes actually outnumbered the towns population. Lots of touching stores of families making friends with people around the world.

Well, when the shtf the same sort of thing happened. For awhile there all incoming planes
were diverted from American airports. Not something that was widely
circulated, but considering what was going on in the news, that was
probably completly overlooked. New York was in flames by this time, and I think that the first 747 crashed into Halifax on the same day that pretty reporter from CNN
got eaten on the air. So it pretty much makes sense why no one realized how bad it was here.

Here on CB, we had a few planes, smaller airport, but hey being
nice people we tried to take in as much as we could. Of course
following CDC requests, we did try and quarantine them. It was hard, there
were a few hundred of them. At first it was like before, like 911. People trying to help sick and scared people. Putting them up in their homes, in public spaces, the military base, everywhere that could be reasonably quarantined. Remember, at this time they werent prisoners, they were guests, guests who needed help.

Of course in quarantine a few turned, and they infected others, and so on and so forth.


When they swarmed out of the quarantine thigns got pretty bad. We hadn't had any reports before that, and didnt really take what was happening very seriously. the dead coming back? please, it was like a bad movie. Sure there were scattered reports at this time, and that horrid video coming in from Atlanta and New York. But that was Atlanta and New York. Those places were nuts to begin with, and things like that didn't happen here.

Anyway, im getting away from my point. It started small. A few of the passengers were really sick, and they were taken to the hospital, and a few were fine at first, and were put in with the regular quaranine.Of course this didnt last. I'm sure you all know the story. The ones at the airport did get sick, but by the time they did the ones in the hospitals had already turned and were creating havoc. I was at work, as usual when things went totally nuts. Luckily it wasnt busy at work, too ,many people glued to their TV to give a damn about their MSN, and the areas that were infected, well they had other things to worry about. My grandmother called from
home, and sounded kind of weird. She said that over the police scanner there were reports of a riot at the airport, and that the hospital was being totally locked down. Now, at work things were kind of creepy. I hadn't personally had it happen, but a few friends of mine had gotten calls that had started out normally, but the customers had been attacked. I havn't heard them myself, even since i dont want to listen to that. Now, being the guy I am, a riot breaking out, and things generally getting kind of old testament, i got the hell out of there. I didn't even bother telling anyone, not that they would have cared anyway. I figured a lousy job isnt worth the aggrevation.

The drive home was quick, and normal. Aside from there not being many people on the roads, of course. I dont live far from work so I arrived in the kitchen about ten minutes after the call. My grandmother and father were sitting at the kitchen table and had a really worried look on their faces. My nephew, was playing in the dining room, as usual. The way the world was going lately, plus it was being billed as some form of insanity by the press at this point. We sat and listened to the scanner for what seemed like hours. Things got more frantic as time went by. The police start with standard code, but it quickly degenerated as things got desperate. It was easier and easier to understand what they were saying. The ones at the hospital were contained, but the people in the hospital were dropping like flies, and springin up like daisies. Unfortunatly the ones on the higway werent contained, at all. they had swarmed out of the airport, out of the hangers, and out of the terminal. The passengers, the crews, the airport staff, aid workers, volunteers. Everyone who had been in the airport had turned overnight. There were hundreds of them milling around the airport parking lot, and when the police arrived, well, it really got bad. We sat in the kitchen and listened as our police were butcherd. Calls came out for everyone, and everything they could. Mounties, fire, ambulances, everything that could be called was called. The swarm overwhelmed the initial police, and followed the noise of the highway. when the second wave of police arrived. This time they didnt meet a group of docile dead, they were partially fed and brutal. the sounds of the gunshots over the police radio, the screams, all of it. It was almost too much to bear. These weren't some nameless cops, we knew these guys. Sure, some of them were jerks, but most of the were ok, and they certainly didnt deserve what was happening to them.

The commotion went on for awhile, sometimes it was as slow as a single officer in a patrol car, swamped with them and praying into his mic, cookie the dispatcher trying to get any help she could to him. Other times it was like the old west, cursing swearing, and gunshots, with the dead chorus of moans in the background. Finally, at around 11pm everything went quiet. Even cookie, who hadn't cried, or screamed, but still held her post was quiet. then around 11:45 I heard it, the thing that made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. A lone voice, almost whispering.

"Anyone, can anyone hear me? Im in a car, they don't know im here. They can't see me. The cars overturned. those things killed everyone. They're on the higway.... if anyone can hear me, get the hell of the streets it looks like the bulk of them is following the traffic..."

At that last bit my blood ran cold. The mass of those things were walking over the higway towards town, and after what had happened to the police, the thought of what they would do in town made me want to throw up. I had been watching videos out of the states, and france. Stuff they werent showing on the regular news yet. Webcam shots of people being devoured by half rotted monsters. It had worried me, but I had been dismissing it as hoaxes until the screams echoed through my kitchen from the scanner.My father and grandmother sat there, staring as I stood up. The thought of what was going on was too big for them, but I had an idea of what was going to happen once those things got into town. Quietly, so as not to alert my nephew I told them what I thought was going to happen. I tried not to sugar coat it, but my grandmother wouldnt exactly deal well with any graphic descriptions. Despite the things that were said over the scanner, I didnt want to scare her more than i needed. I had a plan, I didnt know how good it was, but it was better than living through night of the living dead. I told my grandmother to bag up whatever was neccesary, food and medicines included. get my nephew ready to travel, call my mother and tell her what was going on. I told her to tell her to try and get the hell into Glace Bay, but to go through New waterford, and avoid the highway all togeather. My father and I, we had other things to do. We called Bobby, my fathers friend, and told him what had happened.

Talking to him my father outlined my plan. I didnt want to leave my grandmother and nephew alone, so i got my father to drive up to bobbys place and get things in order. I went to my neighbors, told them what was going on. A few of them already knew, and had plans of their own. Some were fleeing, some were going to try and hide. A few of them once hearing my plan decided to come with me, and my family. I asked them to try and gather up as much food, and medical stuff as possible., and told them to meet me in an hour.

After awhile, it seemed that everything had gotten sorted out. We had
headed out.

Things were aleady a little hectic, obviously they knew what was coming, there were the odd car accidents, and the sounds of car alarms. Things would get a lot worse, if they ever got better. We pulled into the parkink lot, making sure not to park anywhere near the doors. or the main thoroughfare. Taking as much as we could carry we took the supplies into the building, my card swiping to open the doors. The seurity team, and all the employees were gone, the place was creepy, and empty, but it was going to be home for awhile When everyone, and all the supplies were inside, i made sure to do a permiter check. Me, and a couple of other able bodies went through the building, aisle by aisle. Making sure there were no unpleasant surprises waiting for anyone. The rest were all in one of the back offices, with a couple of people in the security room watching the cameras. The sweep didnt turn up anything, thank god. After that, I called my fathers cell phone, it took a few attempts, got a fast busy signal the first three times. I told him that I had gotten everyone there that could be there, and that we were ready. He asked how everyone was, and told me that he was already ready, and they had all the stuff.

We had setup on the fifth floor, luckily there were lots of well charged walkie talkies to keep the lines of communication flowing. The kids and older folks took their places up on the fifth floor. Keeping the kids amused and far from panicking was the first priority. The second being keeping the adults from panicking. so far we had about twenty adults, and seven children. The numbers would grow as time went on of course, calls had been made, and people were coming. Hopefully the living would arrive well before the dead.
My cell phone rang, which scared the hell out of me. The quiet on the first floor was deafening. Everyone turned and glared at me, the quiet hadn't been forced, but a natural extension of what was happening, like prey hiding from the hunter. Taking my phone i slipped out of the security room and away from the others.
"Allan, those things are already in reserve, they came in through the woods from the airport. We're on our way."
After my father hung up, I0 told everyone what was happening, and what to expect. Not long after that I heard the engines of the buses. The headlights flashing against the Xing sign out front. The buses came in fast and swooped into the front of the building. There were three big buses total, each bearing the name of the busing company Bobby worked for. they took position in front of the building covering the windows. that was the first part of the plan. Securing the front. The sides were basically covered, no windows at ground level. But in front the place was totally open. The buses would cover those windows. My father, bobby, Caroline, bobbys wife came to the main doors.
"We're going to need some help getting this stuff into the building."
At that we started out to get the stuff. There were tools from the garage, and fuel, acetaline, food, clothes, everything the three of them could grab from two houses, and a fully stocked garage. It was thrown in the bus quickly, but there was minimal breakage.
We didnt bother taking the stuff all the way and storing it, there would hopefully be time for that later. Our first priority was getting this place secured.
The front was ok, the buses were low to the ground, and coveried the entire front of the building. The sides were naturally secure. While there were windows and doors in back. Only a small door and few windows were open to the public. Around most of the windows there was a cinder block shell. the butt hutt as it was known created an almost perfect barrier. Securing the remaining windows wouldnt be a problem. On one side there was a roll down metal door for deliveries. A large truck was parked in front of this as a backup measure.