The Trek to Elysium Chronicles: Volume 1: An Zombie Apocalypse Story

By Hugh Williams

This book is the first of three than I plan to write for this series. It tracks the travels of myself and 3 friends as we attempt to escape the Zombie apocalypse. The story is initially set in Southern Illinois, Carbondale to be specific, as that is where I currently live. The apocalypse was caused by a combination of factors. One was our government allowed people with the Nova virus to come to our country to get help. We are still the only country that allows that. Second, a corrupt (are there any others) mega corporation that was given a huge government contract to perfect a vaccine to cure Nova allowed the vaccines to become contaminated. Millions of people took the vaccine and I think the reader will figure out what happened as a result of the contamination.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jul 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781483554556

Book preview

IL.

Prologue

"Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you." Satchel Page.

The something in this case was a disease and a supposed cure. Also gaining on us in our race to the bottom was a catastrophic loss of life and the destruction of our economic system. We were heading to a place Americans never imagined they were heading. We were about to become part of The Third World. We did not need to look back, we needed to be aware of what was going to happen.

There was a massive Nova Virus outbreak that would end up changing the course of the history of the world. It began in December 2013 in the African Republic of Guinea, and then spread to Liberia and Sierra. This is the first Nova Virus outbreak to reach epidemic proportions. What helped spread the outbreak so rapidly? The simple answer was travel. Even in The Third World, many people have access to pretty rapid forms of travel. Airplanes, automobiles, buses, and trains have long since replaced the traditional means of travel for many in the world. In the past when such contagions occurred, they were relatively slow spreading as people traveled by foot, cart, horseback, or bicycle. Those contaminated often died before they could travel any distance to spread their disease. This was the modern world though, and things were about to change and as a reasonable person would figure out, the change was not good.

The Nova Virus spread rapidly through Western Africa. The President ordered 3000 troops to West Africa to fight the disease. What good they would do is open for debate. Groups such as Doctors Without Borders plunged into the fray, treating the ill and doing their best to save lives.

Though roundly criticized, the American healthcare system is the best in the world. People know they can come here and perhaps be cured of disease and other medical problems. It was that faith in our medical system that turned out to be the undoing of everything.

While any country with any common sense began stopping flights out of the zone where the Nova Virus was running wild, our leader not only refused to stop the flights, but was encouraging countries to send their sick people to the United States for treatment. The people traveling to the United States for what they hoped was the cure, became known as Nova Virus Travelers. Our President encouraged the Nova Virus Travelers to come to our country. He said America had the best chance to cure them. I was surprised when I heard that coming from our President. He was normally very critical of all things American. I must admit, this made me suspicious.

The first Nova Virus Traveler arrived in the United States on September 26, 2014. CDC confirmed the first laboratory confirmed case of the Nova Virus to be diagnosed in the United States in a man who had traveled to Dallas, Texas from Liberia.

The man upon arriving in Dallas lied about where he had been in an attempt to avoid a potential preventative isolation period. The people who had been put in charge of inspecting and testing people from the danger zone were the same DOTS agents who were very proficient at harassing passengers but had little if any medical training. Also helping were ill trained Customs and Border Patrol Agents.

The man sought medical care at Texas Presbyterian Hospital located in Dallas after he developed symptoms consistent with the Nova Virus. Based on his travel history and symptoms, the CDC recommended testing for the Nova Virus. He was immediately quarantined and samples were taken and sent to CDC. To no one's surprise, the tests came back positive for the Nova Virus. The man died a week later. Questions were raised and never answered to anyone's satisfaction about how a supposed poor man could afford to fly from Africa to the United States. A round trip ticket would have cost well over $1200, not counting the extras like tax or fuel charges. His fiancée who some claimed bought the ticket could have hardly afforded to lay out that much money for a ticket. It was clear that from the beginning the whole scene was arranged. Some person or some group clearly paid for the trip.

The head of the CDC's one claim to fame was that he served as big city's medical advisor, he helped outlaw large sodas in that city. I mean, we all knew that big cities had no other problems other than the potential Big Gulp Crisis.

After our President created the Nova Virus Crisis, The President's handlers told him to appoint a Nova Virus Czar. The handlers had someone in mind of course. The Czar had zero medical experience, but was roundly praised by the state run media for knowing how to get things done.

He was a hack from the Democrat Party who had worked for the party for years. He had zero medical experience, but as an attorney was considered someone who could get things done. His crowning achievement was overseeing The Rebuild America Program that had been given money away to The President's loyal supporters.

We were clearly not prepared at any level to deal with a potential medical disaster. The leaders who had been entrusted to help with the problem had no experience of any sorts dealing with a greater problem than limiting the size of soda pops.

The table had been set, the American people would find out what there was to eat. I was pretty sure they would not be very happy when they saw the entree.

Chapter 1

"I am prepared for the worst and hope for the best." Benjamin Disraeli.

Before we begin, let me introduce myself. My name is Richard Hughes. My friends call me Rich or Richie. I am in my early sixties and I work for myself as an attorney. My politics are libertarian to some extent and conservative in other extents. This book contains the thoughts and revelations that my group and I experienced in our flight from the Zombie Apocalypse.

It was not an accident that I had begun purchasing handguns, a shot gun, and an AR-15 back in 2009. I had also put a fair amount of my money into precious metals, namely gold and silver. I had little faith in the government being able to protect me, and even less faith in our currency should the shit hit the fan. I had been called out of the country on business a few months earlier and as a result, my coin collection rested in a secure safety deposit box in Geneva, Switzerland. I had more faith in Switzerland as being safer than the United States. This was a sorry state of affairs. I really had hoped I was just being paranoid and when things returned to normal, my friends and I would have a good laugh about this.

The morning that the shit really hit the fan, I rose early. I might have slept later, but I heard what I knew was a winter storm wind pounding on my window panes. I looked outside and saw it was really snowing hard. The wind only made things worse. I was not happy. I had a busy day planned. I had to file papers in Williamson, Jackson, and Union Counties. I also had three client meetings set for today. The clients had not called, so I assumed the meetings were still on. I operated my law business out of my apartment which was located in Carbondale, Illinois. For those not familiar with Southern Illinois, Carbondale is the home for what used to be Southern Illinois University. It is the home of nothing now as it has been overrun by Zombies. I checked some emails about my work, I am an attorney and then checked the internet for news. I had been reading and hearing stories about the new Nova Virus pandemic. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had ordered 250,000 plastic coffins and 160,000 Hazmat suits. When they would be questioned as to the purchases, some vague comments about the importance of being prepared for natural disasters by purchasing items that would be needed for a future natural disaster. I wondered what type of natural disaster would require all those coffins and all those protective suits.

I had been hearing reports for sometime about people who were clearly infected by some type of disease and would simply vanish. This report was dismissed out of hand as a conspiracy theory. I mean after all, this is America and people don't simply vanish in America. Quit being so silly and paranoid they would tell us. The vast majority of Americans could not be bothered. After all, as long as their bellies were full and sports and reality TV was going on, it was not of their concern. They did not realize how wrong they were.

I turned on the TV and switched to FOX. There was a crawler on the bottom of the screen The President to address the nation about the Nova Virus crisis.

I had made it a policy to not listen to the President for more than about ten seconds and saw no reason to change my mind. I lit a cigarette, grabbed a diet soda from my fridge, and sat back at my computer. There was some mention of a pandemic of the Nova Virus in the United States in a couple of the websites I frequent. I usually read breitbart.com and drudgereport.com. They were in my opinion the more reliable websites for news. The fact that those websites were constantly under attack by the Main Stream Media, in my mind, added credibility to them. There was nothing solid, only some conjecture that the Nova Virus crisis had gotten out of hand. No one could be sure exactly how many had been claimed. Both websites reported that people who had contracted the Nova Virus had a habit of disappearing from the hospitals or clinics they had been kept at. I shook my head thinking that the vanishing sick would make it hard to get a good count on the total number of infected. I got up from the computer, hopped in a shower, shaved, brushed my teeth, and quickly dressed. I got into my SUV and drove off to breakfast. I slipped and fell once I got outside. The snow was hiding some nasty ice. I knew at my age I had to be careful of the ice. I made it to my SUV and it started on the first try and I was off.

It was slow driving with the snow and blowing drifts. Carbondale never liked to spend money on plowing when they could give it away for friend's projects. Welcome to small town corruption. The roads sucked. What was normally a ten minute drive turned into about a thirty minute drive. I could only see about 50 feet ahead of me.

I went to a local Burger King and ordered. I sat down at a booth and looked up at the TV that they always had running and saw The President