and Charlie did the same with his weapon. As the fire was burning out, I took Charlie up to the lodge, where we scouted around for a bit. Not finding any enemies, living or otherwise, we stood on the expansive patio that ran the length of the building. The Illinois River Valley stretched before us and the water of the river lazily wandered by. In the middle of the river was an island, about a mile long, with trees and long grass.
“What’s on the back side of this place?” Charlie asked.
“Farms and another state park,” I said. “A little more rustic than this one, but very nice.”
“What are you thinking?” Charlie asked.
“I’m thinking this is where I want to be. It has everything. Land for crops, land for animals, perfectly defensible positions if needed, water all year long, lookout points for the river. I would move here in a second. There’s a horse farm nearby. Might have some horses left.”
Charlie thought for a second. “What about your brother?”
“He’s alive and will stay that way. Unless I miss my guess, he and his family will want to get to some semblance of civilization soon. They would be a welcome addition to the community.”
“What about Sarah.?”
I thought about that. “She’ll resist at first, but I think she’ll come around.”
Charlie gazed out over the water and the forest. “Want some company?” he asked.
I laughed. “You been feeling the same thing?”
Charlie looked at me. “The ‘I’m not meant to run a community’ feeling? Yeah, I’ve been feeling that. I was looking to head out earlier, but didn’t know where to go. Now I do.”
“Yeah, me too. This place feels right, better than any other.”
“Exactly.”
“Still have a lot to do back at Leport.”
“Yeah, but we’ll get here.”
We headed down the stairs to where Mike and his family were waiting. We had a lot to do, but we had another success under our belts. I was eager to get back to Starved Rock and settle in, but we had to go to our old home first before we made the trip to our new one.
For the first time in a long while, I felt an odd sense of peace. I hoped it would last.
31
We moved my brother and his family quickly back to Leport, stopping briefly at Ottowa and Seneca to speak with the survivors there. We established communication protocols and traded information about towns we had visited to the south. I figured once we cracked the nut of the huge distribution center to the north, we would be in a great position to share what we had with towns that needed it.
Joslin proved to be no trouble on the way back, although we did hear gunfire and saw many zombies still in the area. I was again curious as to the viability of restarting the power plant, but that would only occur after the danger had been taken care of.
At Leport, there were plenty of hugs to go around and I moved my brother and his family to a house just down the road from where Sarah and I lived. Logan was delighted to see Jake again and Jake thought Annie was just the greatest thing. We spent several nights just catching up on things, sharing stories and shrugging our shoulders at the way things turned out. The one sour note was we had no idea about our parents, but even I wasn’t crazy enough to try and head in that direction.
After a few weeks of readjusting and settling back in, I finally got around to talking to Trevor about his trip to State Center Alpha. Trevor had insisted that he wouldn’t talk to anyone until he had talked to me first and I put it off for a while. I knew he had found several towns that were on the brink of extinction and had managed to bring back over a hundred people. For that alone, he was a hero in anyone’s eyes, as well as the rest of the crew that accompanied him.
I sat down in Trevor’s living room and waited for him to organize his thoughts. I was in no hurry, although I was very curious as to what he found. Outside, summer was past its high point, and every once in a while, you felt a breeze that let you know fall was on its way. Plants weren’t as green as they used to be and overall there was a dustiness to the air.
Trevor leaned back in his chair and launched into his report. “We didn’t run into anything we couldn’t handle on our way to the center. We worked our way around some roadblocks, but didn’t hit anything serious until we came to the outskirts of Alpha. We approached pretty much the same way you did, keeping an eye on the cars and building, looking for movement. The gates were closed, however, and we could see the buildings were occupied. Thanks for the map, by the way, Alpha was built just like Bravo.”
I nodded.
Trevor continued. “We moved in and checked things out. The dorms were full of zombies, but they couldn’t get out. The main office building had labs like you said and some offices. It was in the offices that we found the information you suspected was there.”
I leaned forward. I had my suspicions about those centers, but kept them to myself, telling only Trevor about them when I sent him to the center. My biggest question was how the state had managed to build the centers without anyone knowing about it and how had they managed to build them so quickly after the outbreak of the virus? To me, that smacked of prior knowledge, which meant the virus could have been contained had we just been warned earlier.
“The center wasn’t for keeping people safe from the zombies. The centers was for the study of zombies. Everyone who came through those gates was not supposed to leave alive. They were supposed to become zombies and be experimented on.”
I kept my face passive, but inside I felt like I had been sucker punched. How the hell could the government do this to their own people? This knowledge created more questions than answers.
“Here’s the thing,” Trevor said. “The federal government never figured the virus to go as out of control as it did. The creation of the centers was to weed out a segment of the population deemed expendable, those people without any usable skills or any inclination to self-preservation. They would be the ones to run for a shelter because they lacked the wherewithal to manage on their own.
“The purpose was to understand the virus, then try to understand the zombie. What motivated it, why did it eat humans, what were its weaknesses?” Trevor sounded older, like the knowledge aged him.
“When the centers lost contact with their federal masters after the central government fell to the virus, the centers just shut down, and most of the staff left. The commander you found had a sense of guilt and shot himself for what he had participated in.” Trevor finished with a sigh. “But that’s not the worst of it.”
I doubted anything could have made me more disgusted than what I already heard, but I had a feeling Trevor was about to prove me wrong. “What was the worst?”
Trevor held up binder that he had been holding by the side of the chair. It was plain grey with red lettering that read “Operation Zero Friday”. “If the government had been able to contain the virus, the plan was to use the zombies to control the rest of the population into compliance. Remember the line the President’s Chief of Staff liked to use? ‘Never let a good crisis go to waste?’ They wanted to use this crisis to solidify absolute control over not only the United States, but the rest of the world as well.”
I shook my head. “A power play. Billions dead for a power play. Somehow, I’m not surprised.”
Trevor stood up to drink some water. “The last of the reports talked about a regrouping of military forces, so it’s a safe bet they’re still out there. A side note talked about possibly a safe haven for those in Washington, but nothing specific.”
I stood up and offered my hand to Trevor. “Good work. You’re a hell of a fighter and a good friend. This community is grateful and so am I.”
Trevor smiled as he shook my hand. “Thanks. Coming from you that means a lot.”
“We’ll let the rest of the community know as soon as possible. Some of them have family that went to those centers and they deserve to know the truth.” I headed for the door. Part of me was disgusted by what our so-called elected leaders had tried to do and another part was glad they had failed.
I left Trevor’s house and walked right into a zombie. We collided together and I managed to catch myself on
