Interviews, Profiles, and Reviews
July 15th 2010
2.
Wednesday, April 25th, 2007
“I want to thank you.” The bus driver sat down next to Tim on the side of the road and stuck out a sweaty hand. Tim shook it without looking at the man.
“Supposed to call it in,” Tim said automatically. “Every case is supposed to get called in.”
The driver stared at him open-faced. He knew it as well as Tim did. If one passenger on the bus had been infected it was likely others were, too. The bus could carry the disease someplace that was still clean.
“You a cop?” the driver asked, when Tim didn’t say anything.
“A librarian,” Tim told him. He shook his head. “Used to be.”
“You did us a big favor there. None of us are armed. When I saw you on the side of the road there I figured you had to be a cop or a soldier or something.”
Tim squinted. He hadn’t seen himself in a mirror in quite a while but he doubted he looked very official. He hadn’t washed or laundered his clothes in a week and his straw hat didn’t exactly make him look tough.
“I figured anybody headed north had to be some kind of a badass. I’m Bill Peaslee,” the driver said.
“Tim. Tim Kempfer.” Tim nodded but he kept looking down at his knees. The fear was gone, washed out of him by a kind of dread mixed with nausea. It had never been like that before. Of the six people he’d killed since the Flu hit (all of them infected), he’d never felt like an executioner before. Always it had been self-defense.
“You look like you’ve been on the road awhile,” Peaslee said. “Mind if I ask where you’re headed?”
“Sure. Seattle.”
The driver laughed, then cut himself short. “I guess you’re the last guy on Earth who actually wants to go there.”
Tim shrugged. He shouldered his pack and made to get up. He understood Peaslee’s surprise, of course. Seattle was ground zero, the first place in America to get infected. The Russian Flu had come across from Vladivostok (hence the name—the authorities were saying lately it probably started in India) and hit Vancouver like a terrible wave. For a while it had looked like it was going to be contained there. All of America had gathered close around tv sets, waiting to hear what came next. People had gone out and bought jugs of distilled water and all the canned food they could scrounge. The President had made a speech that scared a lot of people, and FEMA and the CDC had braced for the worst while hoping for the best.
Their idea of the worst had fallen far short of the mark. Their epidemiological models had accounted for transmission by bodily fluids but they’d thought that meant sneezing and coughing. Until it was too late nobody had thought about what it meant to have an infected population that passed on its viral load aggressively, actively seeking out the healthy and attacking them. Biting them. Half of Washington state was infected in the first week, with the worst outbreaks localized in cities. The bigger the city, the more people crowded together in one place, the faster it spread. Seattle had been the first city to officially fall.
More than half a million people had tried to get out, before the military finally shut them in. The entire city was abandoned territory now, fenced off and left to rot. Nobody went in and nothing would ever be allowed to come out.
“I’ve got my reasons,” Tim said, and realized he had no desire to share them.
Peaslee didn’t prod. “We’re the First National Congregation of Jesus, plus a couple folks we picked up on the way. We’re from Chehalis, you know where that is?”
Tim did.
“Bad up there. We held on as long as we could, after they announced the travel ban. Tried to stay in our houses and when that didn’t work, when they started coming after us and nobody was stopping them, we took refuge in the church itself. That didn’t hold either. We figured we’d head south, try some place maybe in California. You been down that way?”
“Yeah.” Tim thought about his last day in San Francisco. He’d hoped to hitch a ride north, at least part of the way to Washington. Instead he’d found every highway out of town had turned strictly one way, with refugees crowding down out of the Pacific Northwest, packed into minivans and the beds of pickups. Mexican kids had run around the cars as they inched forward, selling bottles of water and wrapped sandwiches. Then the infected had come. It had seemed impossibly slow as it unfolded, a horde of them stumbling up an off ramp, slamming into the cars, dragging people out onto the street. Tim had turned at right angles to the road and high-tailed it before the screaming had properly started. He hadn’t stopped at all that night, just kept moving, asleep on his feet but still he could put one foot in front of another. A day later and fifty miles north he had tried making some phone calls. Whatever number he’d tried he’d just gotten a recorded message from FEMA, asking him to keep the lines clear, that regular service would be restored shortly.
“You might want to skip California,” Tim said.
Peaslee’s upper lip was thick with sweat. “They’d probably turn us back at the border anyway. Especially if you tell them what happened to us.”
“If I were you I’d head east. The last time I was in Chicago things were pretty good there. People were scared, yeah. Nobody went out in the street if they could help it. But it was clean.”
“A lot of checkpoints between here and Illinois,” Peaselee breathed.
Tim sat up and looked at the bus. A group of the passengers were struggling to change the blown-out tire, a crew of them working a big jack. Another bunch were burying the body of the man he’d killed while the woman in the wrinkled suit—had to be his wife, Tim thought, with only the thinnest stab of sympathy—stood with her hands steepled in front of her face, praying, even as tears slicked her cheeks.
“Come with us,” Peaslee said, suddenly. “I don’t know what you’re looking for but you won’t find it back there. Come with us.”
Tim shook his head. He got up and adjusted the straps of his pack. He’d wasted enough time. Wherever the bus was headed it was away from what he needed.
“Just—hey, if you won’t come with us, don’t rat us out either, okay?” Peaslee shouted at Tim’s back. “We’re just trying to make it, you know?”
Tim nodded and waved without turning.
April 25th, 2007 at 9:05 am
Ah, well that answered my question in Monday’s comments about why the bus driver thought Tim would be able to help…
I should’ve had faith in ya, dave.
April 25th, 2007 at 9:17 am
solid. for just two chapters a great beginning
April 25th, 2007 at 10:07 am
I think this is my favorite Dave Wellington story yet!
April 25th, 2007 at 10:09 am
So are protagonist is a librarian? Does he kick as much ass as someone with a degree in Library Science? I can’t wait to learn more.
April 25th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Oh, how sweet, sweet zombie fiction eases the paaaiinn.
April 25th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
DAVE is BACK..DAVE is BACK !!!! ( spinning in happy circles)
April 25th, 2007 at 12:44 pm
Ahhh, sweet, sweet zombie fiction eases the paaaaiiiiinnnn.
April 25th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
Great beginning.. cant wait for Friday already
April 25th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
Cool…………………….
April 25th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
eeeee, so cool. So, am i reading this right – this zombie infection can be spread like the common cold? Good God that would be scary. *eep*
i wanna know what Tim’s looking for in Seattle! Gah, two chapters in and i’m already demanding answers.
(gahhhhh, there’s some dumbass guy standing next to me asking about postal rates, why won’t people leave me alone when i’m reading???)
April 25th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
happy wednesday dave
April 25th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
Something tells me that we’re no longer in the “Monster Universe,” and that these zombies are of a very different nature (especially since we already know that the plague is originating in Russia or India). Well, I can’t wait to read on and find out if I’m right or wrong.
April 25th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
Whoops.. forgot to sign my post. It’s good that these chapters come out in the mornings, it gives me a great way to pass the time during my 2-hour commute.
April 25th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
Thanks everybody.
Just one quick response: this is a completely different “universe” from the Monster Island trilogy, and is unrelated to the previous books.
April 25th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
Not only is this guy a librarian, but he also wears a straw hat! can’t help but picture it as a 1920’s era vaudeville flat hat, but somehow I doubt that was what Dave was intending… Rather amusing though…
April 25th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
Hey all – looks like they are bundling 13 Bullets and Monster Planet (out in print in August) at amazon…. so if you are planning on getting both, you can get a nice discount if you buy them together.
April 25th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Mr. Wellington is just so easy to read. Awesome.
April 25th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
I already think this is a stronger chaper than any in Frostbite. Not that that book didn’t work, but with all it’s effort to keep secrets in, it was frustrating to read. Here, Dave is letting a lot of info out early. That’s a nice change of pace.
@Rakie – I’m not sure, but I don’t think the virus spreads like the common cold. If it did it would be far worse. I think the spread models used by the government were based on airborn transmition, and so different quarinteen measures were used that what should have been. Hense the fatal lack of early military intervention.
This novel seems to start out in a very shaky point in a zombie infection timeline – afrer the disease has spread out of a localized area, but while most humans are still living. I don’t think it can stay that way for long.
April 25th, 2007 at 6:15 pm
Great to see a new story from you Dave!! This already seems like another great one.
April 25th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
Great second chapter, very interesting and makes me wonder what is coming up next for the zombie killing librarian.
April 25th, 2007 at 9:52 pm
thanks for another great read! and happy belated birthday, by the way.
April 25th, 2007 at 11:11 pm
The Battle Librarian eh? I must admit Dave; it has a certain flair to it. Let’s see how our old-west-probably-mustachioed-battle-librarian does!
April 26th, 2007 at 1:03 am
Wow! What a great second chapter! Looking forward to more!
April 26th, 2007 at 1:46 am
Hi all, nice chapter… i came early to work just to enjoy reading it before all the other employees come to the office
April 26th, 2007 at 3:52 am
Dave, what was your previous occupation?
April 26th, 2007 at 8:41 am
Nice work Dave. Very clean. I love the title too. Awesome tag for a zombie book.
April 26th, 2007 at 11:11 am
Dave you bastard! Do you have any idea of the number of work hours I’ve spent catching up on your novels? I purchased Monster Island at the bookstore, read it in a weekend and then went on-line, spent 2 days each on Monster Nation and Monster Planet and now here I am. Keep up the good work!
Question: Wouldn’t a .22 simply bounce off bone? Especially one as thick as a forehead?
April 26th, 2007 at 4:51 pm
Lovin’ it, Dave. I’m particularly impressed with the subtlety of the exposition. I feel like I already have a really good idea what’s going on without anyone having to give a lecture that everyone in the story already knows. (I hate it when that happens.)
April 26th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
John – people underestimate the effectiveness of a .22 – At very close range it will penentrate just fine.
April 27th, 2007 at 8:51 am
Ahhh. Sweet, sweet zombie fiction eases the paaaaiiiinnn.
April 27th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
A librarian eh. Well Indiana Jones was a College Prof. so it can’t be all bad. It always gets more interesting as we go along. Keep them coming Dave.
April 27th, 2007 at 5:43 pm
i got to say so far detail is wonderful..and good starting story…i’m digging the main charater too…very much looking forward to reading more..
also i love your Zombie books..and your writing style..
keep up the goodness that is Zombies
also question for you what made you think of useing a 22. instead of a differt caliber rifle or a hand gun…