by Jones, K. J.
Several ambulances with the machine guns on top. He imagined a hole would have to be cut in the top for a man to climb up and out. Some kind of ladder below, and a harness or seat of some kind to operate the machine gun mounted on the roof. It sounded like something his own tribe group would do. The Army was doing this. Marines did things like that in Iraq, improvising and adapting their vehicles to the situation. Humvees without armor, so they hillbillied their vehicles to create armor plating. It did not look as pretty as things coming from the manufacturer, but it worked. The Army in the Zone did the same.
He picked a weed that grew in a crack in the asphalt and did so as if this was part of his duties. Fortunately, their uniforms were all the same, and someone would have to come close to him to see he was a Marine – a guest on the Army base, and not somebody who should be wandering around or weeding the roads.
Passing the not-so-great smelling mess hall building, the din of many people talking at once came through windows. They were assigned shifts when they could go there, so military wouldn’t intermingle, or perhaps, more importantly, Zoners couldn’t talk to non-Zoners. He located another main road and followed it in the hopes it would lead to the other side of the base.
Fort Jackson looked like a regular military base, originally. It had grown crowded with tents, trailers, and aluminum buildings. Whole parking lots and interior roads had turned into housing. He spotted not a single civilian car anywhere during his journey.
Command was in a nice, albeit very military-looking building. Somewhere in there would be the man in charge. Ben had shared his idea the general was a control freak and expertise in controlling others was why he was posted to a suicide base.
Brandon came to another chain-link fence. Razor wire on top. MP guards with German shepherds. He had found the civilian area, guarded like they were alien refugees from another country. Or possibly from another planet, from the look of the intense security.
“Do you have business here, Marine?” a guard asked.
“Where’s the mess hall? I seem to have gotten myself turned around.”
2.
The inevitable. It happened during their platoon jog. A small jog around the base, since there was concern over altitude sickness. Mullen had learned the base was 5,814 feet above sea level. Some had a little headache, while everyone had to drink extra water. Those who felt too bad stayed back at the barracks. The base was not normally a training facility for basic, probably because of the altitude. However, all the traditional training bases turned out to be inside the ever-expanding Zone.
The Army was very into exercise and doing it as a synchronized group. Someone had dropped the ball in informing drill sergeants who exactly they had under them. Two enemy tribes grouped in the platoon jog. Both sexes had joined together, for that was how the Army did things. Non-Zoners excluded to the periphery and forward and behind. The two tribes had no buffer people between their groups. The sergeants did not know to keep them divided like warring street gangs. While the non-Zoners struggled, sweating, huffing and puffing, it was just another day for the fit Zoners. Indeed, easier, since there was no humidity to increase their body heat sensations, and they had eaten a square meal containing meat. Their platoon passed another platoon, jogging the other way. They were more advanced, effectively jogging in sync.
Mullen and Eric, jogging beside each other, didn’t hear the comment a white supremacist made, but they could imagine. Whatever it was, cool-headed Dre lost it and punched the guy hard in the back of the head. The brawl broke out in the blink of an eye. Non-Zoners stood paralyzed from shock. Some with anger management issues jumped in for the hell of it. Most of the programmers ran. The sergeants yelled and tried their best to pull people off of each other. Whistles blew. Voices on radios. MPs ran towards the mob scene. Other platoons stopped and cheered on.
Though neither Mullen nor Eric had been much for fist fighting before the outbreak, they found jumping in felt good. They surprised themselves. They even used martial arts moves they had been taught. Unfortunately, Kanesha did not have any, and she had two white girls on her at once. One had her by the puffy hair as the other punched her. The duo jumped in to defend her, not caring they hit females. All’s fair in tribal warfare to defend an ally. Males threw punches at Vi, who was taller than most of them, and her six-foot-four brother made it his business to hurt them as much as possible. Fists and kicks everywhere in the explosion of mass violence.
Until the MPs and other soldiers pulled them off of each other. Even someone shooting a gun into the air didn’t work. Everyone just ducked down as they fought, which they were used to doing in the Zone.
3.
The chief doctor of the base, Lt. Colonel Creechbaum, resided in an office hardly bigger than a large supply closet. He responded to Matt’s knock with a “Come.”
Matt saluted. “Sergeant Gleason, as requested, sir.”
Creechbaum stood and returned the salute. “Please, sit, Sergeant.”
Towers of files covered every horizontal surface. The doctor’s crowded desk had just enough room for a desktop monitor, keyboard, and mouse, as well as a place for his coffee.
As Matt sat on the chair on the opposite side of the desk, a tower began to fall. He caught it and righted it.
“Sorry. This place is a compulsive mess. They repurposed the original medical offices and I got this hole in the wall when I got here.”
The doctor searched around. Seeming to have found the file he looked for, he opened it and read.
“Yes, Sergeant Gleason. Impressive record.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“And now you’re a Zoner medic.”
“I suppose so, sir.”
The doctor’s gaze met his. “Never talk about your experience in the Zone. Standing orders on base.”
“Sir, may I ask why?”
“You may ask. Doesn’t mean I have any coherent answer for ya. You were studying nursing when the shit hit the fan in Wilmington, N-C.”
“Yes, sir.”
“How far along?”
“Junior year of a four-year registered nurse program.”
“Good, good. That’ll be helpful. On the Sea Island, you worked with a doctor?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What was most of the patient diagnoses?”
“Depression. Suicidal tendencies. PTSD.”
“Good. You’ll be well prepared for what we get here. I prescribe a lot of anti-anxieties, anti-depressives, sleep aid meds. Pretty much the bulk. I’m suddenly a psychiatrist. Not a terribly good one.” Creechbaum flipped pages. “Huh. We would have crossed paths if you had stayed in Afghanistan longer. I was transferred to the same medical field unit.”
Matt nodded.
“You specialized in pediatrics. That’s unusual for a man with your background.”
“I grew tired of treating gunshot wounds, sir.”
“Understandable. But you were going into pediatric trauma?”
“I was talked into it by a professor. I wasn’t sure if that’s what I really wanted to do.”
“Yeah. Unfortunately, that can be gunshot wounds too. Know obstetrics?”
“A little.”
“Brush up. We tend to the pregnant women as well as infants.” Creechbaum closed the file. “Sergeant, we are understaffed and under-supplied. Medical is not a high priority. When I saw you come in, I jumped for the request. You will get a break from GSW, though. Very rare here. Accident injuries are as exciting as it gets. Being a Zoner, you probably would ask about those who have contact with the sick. That’s what they’re called. The sick. We do not treat them. They’re shot. But we do monitor for signs of the virus among the population here. Routine to take everyone’s temperature immediately before saying hello. If they have one, they go into quarantine, which takes up the bulk of our facilities and budget. It’s level four quarantine. You familiar?”
“Yes, sir. Full protective gear. Positive air pressure.”
“Yup. The works. Hence, ou
r budget barely allows for Band-aids. It’s USAMRIID in there, not us. So you don’t have to train for level four. I’d caution not to go there for a look. It’s a terrible place. Very depressing. Medical has access to the entire base. Here’s your pass. Oh, and your manual.”
Creechbaum passed over a stapled stack of print-out paper as the manual.
“I transferred your handprint in the system, what little my computer allows me to do. They didn’t give us tablets. So we are stuck writing everything down in files, then transferring them into the system. Archaic. Eats a lot of our time. The hours are horrible. Understand, Sergeant, this is a temporary assignment until you receive re-ass orders. You’re a Zoner. Your orders probably won’t be to a pleasant place.”
The doctor stood. “Come on. I’ll give you the one-cent tour.”
4.
“Bunch of pitiful bastards,” a drill sergeant chastised the banged up and bruised male section of the platoon in the barracks. “Pitiful. Never in all my years in the United States Army have I seen such behavior. You should be ashamed of yourselves.”
They weren’t. Mullen and Eric indeed felt quite proud of themselves. They wore their black eyes and busted lips as badges of honor. Their actions had cemented their bond with the central North Charleston tribe, a by-far more important thing than anything else.
None of the Zoners opted to go to medical, despite some had taken blows to the stomach. Mullen knew how this felt, and the pissing blood which would come after, from the belt Phebe did to him at the marina long ago. Kanesha had taken more than one hit to the upper belly breadbasket, though, and he imagined she was hurting badly. Zoners weren’t used to babying over booboos. Bullets removed without anesthetic. Wounds sewed up with clothing thread and needle. It took more than punches to knock them off their feet.
The non-Zoners caught up in the brawl, either intentionally because they had issues or unintentionally because they couldn’t get out of the way, were the ones who went to medical. Even the mere headaches went.
What to do with the Zoners? The drill sergeants looked beside themselves.
“Who the fuck are y’all?” one asked. “Y’all are gangs of some kind, ain’t ya?” His dark brown eyes scanned their faces. Both sergeants walked in front of the two lines standing in front of their footlockers. “Talk. You.” He pointed to Eric. “Wong. Talk. Who are you people?”
Eric had gotten over most of his ghost problems. Or else kept it well hidden. The change of location and shift in population seemed to help his mental state, separating him from his severe guilt regarding his family.
He stepped forward. “Sarnt, Private Mullen and I are Historic Charleston tribe. We are allies with central North Charleston tribe. White supremacist tribe, them, are our enemy, Sarnt.”
The sergeant couldn’t help but turn to the white supremacists and eye them hard, for personal reasons. He shook his head, and looked at the other sergeant, sharing a disapproving thought.
The other sergeant said to the group, “All of this … what did you call it, Wong? North Charleston tribe?”
“Sarnt, the central North Charleston tribe.”
“Everyone in this tribe, take one step forward.”
In a clomp of boots hitting the floor, they all did. The sergeants wrote things on papers attached to clipboards and compared.
“Back in line. White supremacist tribe, one step forward.”
They did. The same scribbling on papers and comparing.
“Back in line. Any of the rest of you in this?”
Shakes of heads.
“I cannot hear you!”
“No, Sarnt!” the non-Zoners barked.
5.
He was Army and a sergeant. No one should tell him where not to go. Or so Chris believed as he set out to figure out this place. The armory was on the location target list.
Instead, he found himself looking through a chain-link fence at a bunch of helicopters. Mechanics worked on some. Grunts washed others.
“I cannot believe my eyes,” a voice said. “Chris Higgins? The Chris Higgins and no woman’s killed you yet?”
This had to be someone Chris knew fairly well since there was such familiarity with his love life. He turned and spotted a guy in pilot coveralls, pulled down and arms tied around his waist.
“Lieutenant Cogan?”
“Captain, if you don’t mind.” Cogan pointed to his silver double bars.
“Moving up in the world, ain’t ya?”
They laughed as they man-hugged, slapping each other’s backs. Cogan was a Black Hawk pilot of the 160th SOAR Night Stalkers. He had flown Chris’s platoon many times.
“What are you doing over here?” Cogan dropped his volume. “You know they want everybody to stay to their assigned areas.”
“Control freaks, ain’t they?”
“God, yes. Never been so controlled since I left my stepfather’s house. We’re not even allowed to leave our area or talk to nobody. They’re afraid we may tell the natives what we’ve seen out there and what deep shit they really are in.”
“That’s what we figured, too.”
“Sully with ya? Heard you two were still hanging out.”
“Um, he’s here somewhere. They didn’t put him back in uniform.”
“Ah.”
“He’s married with a pregnant wife. She’s here.”
“Oh! Didn’t see that coming. But I guess it happens to us all eventually.”
“Nuh. She’s a good ole girl.”
“What is she, a fat redneck girl with big tits, that you like her?”
Chris laughed. “Nuh. She’s his girl, not mine.”
He hadn’t recalled such a close relationship with Cogan that the pilot would know so much about him. He’d normally ask Peter at this point how well he knew someone and if they had hung out at a bar together. There were just too many damn people in the Army to remember everybody.
“You know where those civvies are kept?” Chris asked.
“I got an idea. A bunch of aluminum hangars placed in a wheel spoke with tunnels attached to a building.”
Chris reckoned it made sense to receive an aerial description from a pilot.
Cogan continued, “But you’re not gonna get there. Security is tight, I hear.”
“Hmm. What about the armory?”
“You planning something?”
“You know what’s out there, right?”
“Sure do. I don’t sleep with my pistol under my pillow because it gives me good dreams.”
“A pistol gonna do something? To them?”
“Nuh. But I sure can do myself in time.”
“Nice plan, brother.”
“Only one I got so far. Apart from flying off. But if I do that, it best be fucking fast, brother.”
“Why? Zoms fly now?”
“Cruise missiles do.”
“Huh?” Chris’s blond brows rose as the rest of his face dropped.
“If this base is compromised, they’re coming to nuke our asses.”
“All of us?” Chris cringed at the stupid question he blurted out. Of course all of them. It wasn’t as if half the base could be nuked and the other half remained sitting pretty.
“Every last soul here. Including the base C-O.”
* * *
It was nice to see somebody from back in the day. After parting with Cogan before they could be spotted illegally conversing, Chris followed the captain’s directions and located the armory, followed by the motor pool lot where Humvees were kept. He discovered the weird-looking hillbillied Humvee ambulances with mounted machine guns on top. He drew on a piece of paper to make a map, marking every water hose cannon truck he spotted and any gates in the wall he found. No one stopped him. He had on his intimidating, “Don’t fuck with me or I’ll smoke your ass” sergeant face. It worked. Even the black patches didn’t look at him twice.
Every one of them, he’d like to pitch over the wall for the zoms to have fun on. Killing their own was bad enough. It should at least b
e more ceremonial than a quick pop in the back of the head. Hunters killed deer with more respect.
Chris grew tired. Every day since he strengthened from his near-death sickness, Matt nagged him to jog and spar with him. It had continued here.
Since Chris did not like to be accompanied by fear, he used it to manifest anger, which motivated him in the jog and trying to injure opponents in the ring. He had thrown a guy clear across the room today, and he felt good about this. Some guys whined on how it wasn’t fair fighting, which showed they had never been in hand-to-hand with somebody trying to kill them. There was no fairness in a combat fight. Throw sand in their eyes. Kick them in the balls. You could bite off their nose if need be. Whatever it took. Since none of this worked on zoms, throwing these guys across rooms whenever possible was one of the wiser maneuvers.
“Hey, Chico,” he called to a young soldier.
“My name is not Chico, Sergeant.”
Chris scoffed. “Like I give a fuck.”
The young soldier looked unhappy. He was probably of the new sensitive armed forces.
“Sergeant, if that is a slur on Hispanics, I am not Hispanic. I’m of Middle Eastern descent.”
“Aw, fuck. Okay, Muhammad. When you’re finished planning on killing ‘Mericans, go fetch me some printer paper from somewhere. That’s an order. And do it before you go off praying. Nobody got time to wait for that shit.”
The young guy looked horrified. “Sergeant Higgins, that is offensive and I could report you.”
“Go fuck yourself and fetch me the paper. Or I’ll give you something to report, you whiny liberal pussy ass PFC.”
Chris walked into the barracks, dragging the heels of his boots as he walked. He grumbled, “Fucking oversensitive politically correct motherfuckers.” He thought of Emily and Brandon then, since they were like that. He turned and went back outside, wondering where the Marine barracks were.
Instead, he spotted the PFC talking with an officer, hands moving wildly. “That’s the sergeant, sir.”
“Sergeant Higgins,” the major called. “Front and center.”
“Aw, crap.” Heels scraped as he walked to him.
The major dismissed the upset underling. “We do not use racial and ethnic slurs on our soldiers.”