Amazing
Grace –
The
El NiƱo Legend
Part
III
(photo
by Tim Richardson)
Carl had a lot
of chores to do. He had to check the caverns for structural strength and leaks
of the pouring rain. The mountain had been saturated and the fear of leaks was
based on the relentless of the rain and the copious amounts of precipitation
that had fallen in the past twenty four hours. Sometimes, the structure might
be weakened of its rain catchers are bent or broken off giving the water no
recourse to drain off as designed.
He was
certainly interested in Heather’s story and wanted to hear more about her
horrifying ride down the hill and into the valley on a sheet of high rising
water that ended up marooning her somewhere close to his cavern and making it
possible there were other survivors around there.
Satisfied the
cave was undamaged today, he went back to the kitchen to fix himself something
eat and drink some ice cold water. Suddenly he heard a loud crashing sound. It
was Heather screaming and as soon as he heard her shriek, he came running. It
was strange to hear another sound inside the cave as he had been alone for so
long, he had forgotten what it was like to have others around him as his
Rottweilers paced his run and followed him into the guest bedroom.
As he pushed
the bedroom door open, he looked at the distorted reflection of himself
standing in front of a cracked mirror. It must have come loose and came
crashing down when the door was accidently slammed shut and since the room was
hardly ever used, the mirror had never been tested before.
A frightened
look on Heather’s face told Carl the broken mirror had frightened her badly.
Her hand was shaking. In almost an instant moment, he bent over and picked up
the jagged silver pieces of the broken glass and tossed them into the waste
basket. He calmed Heather down and said to her, “don’t worry, it wasn’t your
fault, I must not have fastened it too good.”
He asked her if
she was up to going to the city to find some places that had survived the
storms and selling essential supplies that were needed now that there were more
than one mouth to feed and the kid had a weird taste of her own.
At the same
time, he offered Heather a chance to leave the cave and find her family or
friends who may have survived the rising El Nino waters and hordes of zombies
roaming around out there without any cops in sight to fight the good fight.
Reassuring
Heather she was welcome to stay until the storms were over and the zombies were
contained or killed, he passed by her slowly sensing a deep sensual sexual
vibration as he got close to her and slowly walked through the blurred silence
of the bedroom and turned left into the narrow hallway and left her out of
sight stepping into his bedroom.
His bedroom had
been cordially decorated for a single man’s taste in furniture as everything in
the room was functional and practical when chosen. In his own taste, an Oakland
Raider logo covering the wall and the pillows holding up the pirate’s skull and
bones, he had converted the room into a bachelor’s pad that was sports oriented
and simple.
For a while he
stood there facing the wall and remember the words a frightened Heather had
spoken. Her tale of zombies floating underwater and grabbing at her from the
rushing waters while trapped inside her SUV were intriguing to say the least
but it gave him concerns that he might need to take extra precautions.
Maybe this time
around, he would take some weapons with him when he goes into town. Perhaps a
few guns, a baseball bat and other blunt objects that could help fight off the
zombies if attacked. Carl was a medium size man. Not standing as tall as his
brother, he was stocky in stature and his features were distinguishing salt and
pepper hair with the long Fu Manchu mustache covering his small but thick
lipped mouth and brown eyes which moved with deliberate caution.
Licensed to
carry concealed and proficient with a firearm, long or short, he had enough
ammunition in his cave to hold off an army for months at a time. He had
predicted isolation and defending his dwelling with force if the time ever came
where his government would fail to protect him thus he equipped himself with
weapons that could inflict mass destruction.
After standing
there thinking for a few minutes, he took a long slow breath and went back into
his bed room where he entered the closet and opened up a secret compartment.
Once open he gathered up some boxes of .40 caliber S&W ammo to fit his
Glock semi auto pistol he favored over the others.
As a
precaution, he picked up a smaller .38 revolver that he put in his back pocket
in case he needed something small to take care of any threats that encroached
him in close quarters. Packed and ready to head into the city, he went to a
hollowed out space on the exterior of his well-structured cavern and check his
vehicle for fuel and started it up as a door opened to allow him to exit the
hollow.
He had not
shared this place with Heather and didn’t want to worry her since he had been
gone for over ten minutes now so he drove his truck out of the hollow and
parked it near his entrance to the cavern.
Entering his
front door, he surprised Heather as she didn’t expect him to come in from the
outside thinking he was still inside his bedroom. Smiling Carl said softly,
let’s get ready to go to the city and get some supplies and find something for
you to wear. He had noticed the clothes Heather and the kid were wearing were
old and wrinkled and compromised their fashion style somewhat.
They headed for
the mall where Heather had said she had seen zombies headed that way as she
floated down the flooded streets in the opposite direction. The first thing Carl
wanted to do was to find a hardware store and gather up some equipment he
needed to outlast the storm.
His eyes keen
and sensed for zombies, he strangely found the streets scattered with debris
and at some locations littered with dead bodies but there were no signs of any
zombies, dead or unalive.
His four wheel
drive F250 supermax truck was strong enough to get them through the debris and
mud that had gathered when the rains subsided somewhat and lowered the water
levels down far enough to travel the roads.
Looking at the
sky, he knew that had a couple of hours before the next rain storm arrived and
drench the area all over again. It was the way the valley funneled the water
from the high country. It was destined to be flooded if the rains didn’t stop
and the sun disappeared for more than three days at a time.
The El Nino was
a three month long prediction with endless rain falling on the once drought
countryside and now filled with mudslides, pools of standing water and mass
destruction of water damaged buildings and structures without electrical power.
The first store
they saw was a Big 5 store that was also a sporting goods store. The place was
empty but their merchandize was out there on the shelves and floor ready for anyone
who came in to grab. Carl told Heather to take her child and grab a cart and
pack a big backpack, a couple of rain proof coats, some baseball bats, and a
tent, a big tent. Looting was not a becoming trait of Carl but under the
circumstances, he felt compelled to survive and if that meant to steal what he
needed, so be it.
He didn’t
explain why he wanted a big tent but she didn’t argue. Along the way she
grabbed some shoes and boots as well as some exercise clothing that would fit
her and the kid. In the meantime, Carl had grabbed some extra ammunition, a
high powered scoped 30 - 06 Remington rifle and some extra flashlights and
batteries.
He figured that although he had plenty of
handgun ammo, he needed the rifle for survival if he had to dash into the woods
if the zombies found a way to enter his mountain bunker. After taking what he
needed from the Big 5 stores he found a ravished partially damaged empty
grocery store and pulled more foodstuff off the shelves loading up the carts
with perishables and instant foods that would feed an army.
Making sure he
hand extra space for candy, he loaded the groceries in the back of his cab and
took off down the road to the service stations that still had lights on and
power to their pumps. Although parts of the city had lost power, the outage was
sporadic and varied block to block.
Searching for a
gas station with power, he found a Chevron station and fueled his supermax
truck up to make the needle touch the full mark. So far, he had not found any
survivors or zombies walking around the stores or areas where he traveled.
One last to the grocery store so we have as
much food as possible. Then we would make our way back to the cave unless
Heather wanted to be dropped off somewhere else. Carl gave her a choice, not an
ultimatum and she decided to stay with him until the storms subsided and the
cell phone system was back on the air so she could contact someone for help and
find a place to stay until she got her life back together.
When Carl drove
to the mall he passed the townhouse complex where Heather was living. It was
destroyed by the raging waters and dark with no electricity and signs of life. She
lived about an hour’s drive from the cavern.
He offered to
take her to her apartment to recollect or recover some personal stuff but she
declined to go there as she was in tears that she had lost everything she had
and didn’t want to see it leaving a bad taste in her mouth and even foulest memories
in her head.
So as the water
was only knee deep in some areas and the power was off, the streets were
manageable and open. There were no cop cars in sight and the smoke from the
fires was heavy in some places.
Surprisingly,
the need to fight off an attack by the zombies had not arrived making Carl a
little bit more relaxed and giving Heather a chance to recollect her emotions
and sense. She had been a mental wreck on the way down the hill as they
approached the mall as she expected hundreds of bodies spread out in the huge
parking lot but to her surprise, there was a small body count.
Many of those
found out there in the street and parking lot were slowly decomposing and
falling apart under the high humidity and the heat of the day, the water that hastened the
decomposition and the flesh torn open by the bites of sub-human species
attacking at will when the opportunity was created by the rushing waters.
All and all,
the drive down the valley and up the hill was uneventful. Although no cops were
seen and no firemen or EMT personnel were spotted, there didn’t appear to be a
mass casualty out there but then, they had been gone for hours and anything
that happened during their absence from the city.
One could tell
by the damage and strewn debris and broken buildings, there was a mass
evacuation and most had left the city and headed for safer places under the
protection of martial law as streets elsewhere are reported to be guarded by
soldiers.
Long before the
El Nino prediction, an apocalyptic event was predicted and Carl had done his
homework on the possible effects of such a disaster. One thing he certain of
was the triggering of zombies by calamities or disasters that were bred by air
or water.
It was not
through some weird satanic process that zombies were created. He knew it had to
be a virus carried by contaminated water or air that spawned the formation of
such mutations. Whether or not they were supernatural by design or origin was
never in question. They have no super powers.
They are mere
undead people who are formed from a virus yet to be determined. Carl had read
this virus was very powerful and so far, even the most intelligent and
brightest scientists in the world have not found a cure for such mutations.
There have been
numerous military experiments conducted on zombies as Carl detected when he was
overseas and there were times where zombies appeared out of nowhere but the
volume of bombs and munitions used to destroy the enemy from the air or
artillery weapons were massive and disturbed much of the air and dirt around
such places and nothing they have seen or tried has stopped the mutations from
occurring.
Carl knew how
the virus worked and infected a human being. The virus, still unidentified and
proliferated by wars and disasters, enters the victim through any kind of open
wound. Wounds that may have been created by accidents, bullet wounds, knife
attacks or even shrapnel from explosives and of course there is the infection
by a bite. This infection is said to take place about sixteen hours after the
exposure to such an infectious moment.
At sixteen
hours, the victim will go into a deep coma. At twenty hours duration, the heart
rate will slow down to about a standstill rate giving the infected person a
very slight and detectable pulse.
At that time,
the brain waves stop to function at their normal manner and the mind is
reawakened by the fact that although the person would be legally declared brain
dead, this virus resurrects the dead and reanimate to the altered state of
being the undead in a living body.
Thus it is safe
to say that as twenty four hours passes, the subject, a once human being, no
longer functions as a human but instead turned into a zombie where the body
organs have ceased to live, perform or function as before and the blood system
is completely broken and dilapidated rather than circulating the blood flow
through the body.
Any person
familiar with the functions of the brain and circulatory system will tell you
that once your brain is dead and your blood stops moving, your body does not
create a means to deliver oxygen to all its parts but that in this state, the
body doesn’t need the oxygen or air to function in slow motion. For this reason
Carl knew that in order to kill a zombie, he had to aim for the head.
The virus lives
in the brain tissue of the infected host and reproduces rapidly. Though eventually
it will spread throughout the entire body, the whole thing will be stopped if
the brain is damaged. Other means to kill or stop a zombie is blunt
trauma to the head and cutting the head off the main torso.
The virus is in
fact, seemingly specifically evolved to live in human nerve tissue. This
is apparent because it can only kill, but not reanimate in other animals such
as dogs, or snakes, or other species that roamed the earth.
This fact has
been known for centuries as the long-lived virus is resilient and able to
withstand extreme temperatures either hot or cold and survive once the chain of
infecting the others around them is not broken.
Arriving at the
cavern, he dropped Heather and the kid off at the front entrance and carefully
looked around to see if anyone had followed them from the city. Although the
road is a two lane highway, if someone was slick enough to avoid detection,
they could follow and find out where the hidden bunker was. At this time, he
was convinced nobody followed and opened the door to let Heather and the kid in
the cavern.
Unloading the
food to the side of the hollow and putting the perishables inside the reefer
and freezer, he tried to catch his breath as he reached in his cab to retrieve
his sporting goods and stashing the weapons and ammunition in his secret
closet.
He was worn out
by the vigilance the drive had drained from him. Exhausted he wanted to lay
down and take a nap but he knew there were things to do before he could take
that long earned break for the night. Heather and the kid went into the bedroom
and unpacked their newly selected and picked up clothing.
Fitting them
fine and making them feel a little bit better how they were dressed and the
feeling of their new shoes made them smile and hug each other with a little
relieve in their sighs.
Unknown to
Carl, they needed a break from the old wrinkled smelly moth scented clothes
they found inside the bag as the fashion of the ones who wore them was old
fashioned and not even close to the latest style.
He had no idea
what the night would bring but having the company of Anna, Reyna and Axel by
his side, he took a deep slow breath for a few minutes and then took a slow
walk back into the kitchen where he found some fresh fruit and bananas left out
there on the table.
Chomping on the
large green apple, he realized that he still had some tools in his truck and
that he needed to check on his equipment before the night was over. Tools that
he needed to make sure his equipment was ready for a long trip if needed or a
repair on his hollow as this rain was relentless in punishing his humble domain
with all the power it had from the El Nino that had delivered a powerful
hurricane force wind just a day before and creating tsunami like flooding all
over the valley.
Suddenly the
lights began to flicker. Picking up his toolbox he headed for the power room
where the generator was located. Tossing the hammer on the concrete floor, he
saw what was wrong with the generator almost immediately. The red warning light
was telling him the oil level was low and he needed to add some right away
before the generator would seize up and stop.
He kept a case
or two of the motor oil he needed for this occasion. His mind had prepared him
for situations like this as he always played the ‘what if” scenario in his mind
to prepare himself for the unexpected.
An ex-soldier
by trade, a mechanic at night and a lonely man most of the time, Carl sought
different ways to deal with the loneliness and found ways to grind up the time
on the clock by keeping himself busy.
Resetting the
generator from the power source to switch the caverns to the stored up solar
battery power packs, the lights dimmed momentarily and as the generator was
off, he took the time to make sure all the settings and associated equipment
was in good order.
He had the time
to make a quick inspection so he pulled the plugs, changed the oil and checked
the filters before switching it back to run on the fossil fuel that was costing
him more than he bargained for when the gas prices went sky high without any
justified reasons.
Working inside
the poorly air conditioned hollow caused Carl to sweat a little. The generator
was vented to the outside of the mountain through a well ventilated shaft that
reduced the exhaust of the generator to a trace and almost undetectable from
the air as a heat source or a pollution device.
A conscientious
environmental person, he made sure there was no carbon monoxide and not
excessive pollution into the air so he did what he could to make his power
sources environmentally sound and efficient.
Carl was
exhausted and needed a drink. Something cold and something that would tingle
his senses. He forced himself to walk all the way to the relaxation room where
he had his stash inside the glass covered liquor cabinet behind the bar.
Sipping on his drink, he heard footsteps in the hallway.
It was Heather
by herself as she said the kid was laying down and tired from the long day and
shopping spree. He forced himself to put away the drink and asked her if she
was okay. Heather nodded her head and told him she was thankful for all he had
done for her and the kid.
She seemed a
bit emotional and made Carl uneasy. For Carl was a man used to solitary moments
and not such emotional encounters that caused him to feel uneasy. He was alone
most of the time, except for his dogs and the big yellow snake, he kept to
himself pretty much most of the time. He was a poor housekeeper and those
things were of no importance to him.
It was getting
late and he wanted to lay down and rest but Heather kept talking and found
herself in a comfortable position as she smiled and even laughed a little as
the burdens she had experienced were wearing her down and leaving her
vulnerable to her emotionally driven senses.
It looked like
she wanted to hold his hand. It sounded like she wanted to talk a little and
tell Carl a little bit more about herself. Then as she approached Carl and sat
down on the couch beside him, she touched his hand and smiled offering Carl a
deep sigh and a blushful smile. It wasn’t clear why she felt embarrassed, it
wasn’t anything she had done or said but as soon as she began to tell him how
she felt, the lights began to flicker again and it was time to check the
generator again.
Carl jumped up
and grabbed his laptop that was loaded with the service manual for his
generator. The generator was at it again. He’d knew that this time is wasn’t
going to be as easy as the last time by merely fixing the red warning light. He
had to find the damned service manual and start checking the wiring and other
components as he went to the trouble shooting page and started from scratch.
Carl knew if it
was too much trouble to get going or to repair, he’d have to install a new
high output generator. Somewhat angrily he jerked the tool box off the
shelf as Axel and Reyna laid down on the concrete floor away from him, keeping
a vigil on the room with Carl’s back towards the door.
As he had
entered the hollow he could smell something burning. It smelled electrical and
as he checked the wiring harness closely, he found a burnt section of wires
that were touching and shorting the generator out causing it to stall and
flicker.
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