“Might be,” he said. “We don’t really know why they do what they do.”
“Kind of like women, I guess,” Ed replied with a smile.
McDaniels grinned back. “Nothing is as complex as that, Mister Wallace.”
“Please, call me Ed.”
“All right, Ed. You should call me Cord.”
“Will do, Cord. So are you here for something to eat?
McDaniels shook his head and looked toward the cafeteria entrance as some employees stepped inside. They considered him long and hard as they stepped into the line leading to the grill station. He suddenly became aware of the scents of bacon, eggs, and pancakes, and his stomach rumbled in response. He turned back to Ed Wallace. “I’m actually looking for Regina Safire. You know who she is?”
“Oh, absolutely—the former boss’s daughter, how could I not know her?”
“Fantastic. Any idea where she might be?”
The older man pointed past McDaniels’s shoulder. “You’re in luck. She just walked in.”
McDaniels turned and saw Regina moving toward the urns of coffee that stood opposite the grill. She noticed McDaniels and came to a dead stop. McDaniels waved her on, then turned back to Ed and nodded. “Thanks a lot, Ed. Good to see you again.”
“Hell, I didn’t do anything. But always happy to be of service, Cord.” Ed extended his hand again. “By the way, I was in the military as well. US Navy, in the Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club.”
“Vietnam veteran, eh?” McDaniels shook his hand a little more warmly.
“You know it. I realize this makes me a dinosaur, but if there’s anything I can do for you guys, you just let me know.”
“You’ll regret that offer, Ed. I’m definitely going to remember it. I’ll catch up to you later.” McDaniels headed toward the coffee station where Regina was filling a large paper cup. She looked up at him and smiled faintly. Her hair was damp, and he noticed she smelled fresh and clean.
“You look fresh as a daisy. You hit the showers?” he asked.
She looked at him oddly. “They have them here, in the gym. Why? Did you come over here to look for a shower?”
“Huh? No, no, nothing like that. Listen, is there a chance we could have a quick discussion?” He looked over his shoulder as a portly man in coveralls bellied up to the coffee urn next to him. “Privately, if possible.”
“Sure. Mind if I get some breakfast first? Then we can head downstairs and have a chat.”
“Fine by me.” McDaniels declined invitations to have some food and waited until Regina made her way through the grill line. He answered as many questions as he could about the situation outside the walls, but he found that most of the InTerGen personnel weren’t that interested in an up-to-the-minute update. They only wanted assurances that the dead weren’t going to overrun the camp, which he was happy to give. It seemed to take forever for Regina to get her food, and when she finally approached him with her tray, he was more than happy to leave the cafeteria and its glares and stares.
“So what’s up?” she asked him a few minutes later when they sat down in one of the vacant conference rooms on the first floor. She had wanted to sit in her cube, but he had asked if they could use one of the conference rooms instead. “I would guess the zeds aren’t making a lot of headway, otherwise you wouldn’t have stood around making idle chit-chat with a bunch of folks who are going to start hating you pretty soon.”
McDaniels frowned. “Hate me? Why?”
“The noise.” Regina pointed at the ceiling. Even though muted somewhat by the building’s structure, the bombing and shooting was still quite audible. “No one’s going to be able to sleep through the noise for a while, and until they get accustomed to it, there’s going to be a lot of pissed-off folks, and they’ll be looking for someone to vent at. You’ll probably be their number one candidate, now that Colonel Jaworski is gone.”
“You know about that, eh?”
“Bad news travels fast, and that’s pretty much all we get these days. I’m sorry he’s dead. He seemed like a genuinely nice man. Did he really kill himself?”
“Yeah. I guess when he saw the stenches take down those civilians at the gate, it was a bit more than he could handle.” McDaniels paused for a moment, recalling the woman and child who had been killed virtually right in front of him in New York City, and how he had done nothing but order the soldier behind the wheel of the Humvee to pull away. He shook off the memory. “Which I totally understand. But if he’d listened to me, they’d all still be alive.”
Regina sipped her coffee and then ran a hand through her drying hair. She looked at McDaniels, but said nothing.
McDaniels reached into one of the cargo pockets and pulled out several sheets of folded paper. “Anyway. How well versed are you in what exactly goes on here? As far as making the vaccine, or whatever it is?”
“From which perspective? Research, development, manufacture…?”
“All of them.”
Regina took a bite of her scrambled eggs and shrugged. “I’ve got a good idea of what goes on, but I don’t know every little detail. I know the big picture, and a lot of specifics in certain areas, but when it comes to things like manufacturing? Not me. Why do you ask?”
McDaniels unfolded the papers and pushed them across the table. Regina put down her fork and looked at them critically, eyes narrowed.
McDaniels leaned back in his chair, suddenly feeling tired. And craving a cigarette. “That list was given to Jaworski a few weeks ago. All the names there belong to critical players who can apparently reconstitute this facility’s functionality elsewhere in the event we get compromised. I can’t find any evidence Stas did any verification that those folks are really the linchpins to success. Can you tell me who’s who?”
Regina read the first page, then flipped to the second. “Well, I recognize a lot of names; that’s for sure. Most are from the research and development side. I don’t really know manufacturing. And fulfillment? Not a chance there. Doesn’t that include the truck drivers and people like that?”
“Would Kerr know?”
Regina shook her head. “He’s not from here. By that, I mean he didn’t work for Dad. They were kind of rivals to a degree.” She put down the list and returned to her breakfast. More bombs fell, and the building trembled slightly. “So you want me to verify this list for you?”
“If you can.”
“Sure, but that didn’t really require a clandestine meeting, did it?”
“No. But this next part does.” McDaniels put his elbows on the table and leaned toward her. “There are probably about a hundred thousand stenches right outside the walls, maybe down from about four hundred thousand twelve hours ago. The Air Force bombs are doing the job. They’re incinerating the stenches, and any who get through, we can take care of by ourselves.”
“So things are working out, then? That’s great!”
“In a few hours, there will be about two million dead outside the walls,” McDaniels went on. “I expect the bombardments to continue. We’ll get a little busier. There will be so many dead that we’ll likely have to use our outer defenses to keep them at bay. But we will. The trenches are deep, and they’re full of enough Napalm B to melt hundreds of thousands of zeds in an hour. We have more, so we can fill the trenches again once they burn out. And of course, our brave boys in blue will keep dropping incendiaries on the zeds. It’s going to be a losing proposition for them.”
Regina looked at him for a long moment. “All of this sounds really good to me, Cord. I guess there’s more to it?”
“In a few days, millions more will arrive. We don’t know why, but there are about fifteen million stenches marching toward Odessa. We can only presume they’re headed here. And that means we’ll have to start seriously thinking about who leaves, and who stays.”
“Can’t we just keep killing them?”
McDaniels looked away for a moment. He rubbed his eyes, then met her gaze once more. “We don’t have enough weapons to kill fif
teen million necromorphs, Regina. The entire military doesn’t really have the ability to do that in one setting. Tens of thousands, we can service pretty easily. The zeds are mostly on the extra-stupid side, so let’s say we can kill a few hundred thousand a day, since they don’t try to hide and apparently move in gigantic herds, which make them nice, big targets. But eventually, the Air Force is going to deplete its stock of incendiary weapons. They’ll make more, of course, but I have no idea if they can start production in time. And according to Sergeant Major Gartrell, we just don’t have enough bullets here in the camp to hold off millions of stenches, which is how many will survive the bombing runs. Once the incendiaries are gone, that will leave things like high-explosive bombs and the like. While those can still inflict a lot of injury on the necromorphs, they’re not as certain to eliminate them as the incendiaries are.”
Regina seemed to have forgotten all about her breakfast. “So what happens then?”
“Well, it should be pretty obvious. The dead overwhelm our defenses, and the camp falls. We might be able to take shelter in some of the buildings, but I’m not thinking that’s a good choice for the long term.”
“Okay, so what will we do, instead?”
“We’ll have to evacuate the camp. That’s why I need you to look at that list and vet it properly, just in case there’s some dead weight there we can get rid of. Because you see, not everyone is going to get out of here alive.”
“But we have the helicopters—”
“Which still have to fly out manufactured product so the rest of the population can be inoculated. We can’t just stop flying out product, or even reduce the amount that gets transported out of here every day. That’s our entire mission. What we can do is start flying essential personnel out a few at a time. By the time the hammer comes down, if we’re lucky, we’ll have all the critical personnel out of here, and a good chunk of the civilians, too.”
Regina slowly leaned back in her chair. She looked at her breakfast for a moment, then turned back to the list. She spread out the pages, four in all.
“So once all the ‘important’ people are gone,” she said after a time, “how will you decide who gets saved, and who gets left behind?”
“I’d need to discuss that with my staff, but I think the usual method would suffice. Women and children first. Families, if we can manage it. If we play it right, and if the aviators are willing to bend some rules, we might be able to get all of them out.”
“What about you?”
McDaniels raised his brows. “What about me?”
“The military. The soldiers. What about them?”
“We’ll be fine. Don’t worry about us. We’ll do whatever we have to do, and then we’ll get out. Over land, if necessary.”
“Through millions of zombies? Cord, do you remember New York? We drove through thousands of them, and only you, me, and—” She stopped for a moment, then looked down at the tabletop. “You know, I really miss Earl and Zoe. Do you?”
The question surprised McDaniels. “I… I haven’t really been thinking of them. But yes, now that you bring them up, yeah, I miss them.”
Regina nodded. “I miss my father, too, but mostly, I think about Earl and Zoe. My father, he had so much. He contributed a lot to this country, especially when he worked for the Department of Defense. I realize he was a bitter man when you met him, but he wasn’t always like that. He was just… very dedicated.” She looked up at him and smiled. “Funny I can say things like that, but then admit that I don’t miss him as much as a janitor and his daughter.”
McDaniels reached across the table and gently took a hold of her wrist. “I know you miss them, and I know you miss your father. You’re still grieving. It’s all coming along as it should. But I really hope that you won’t let that send you off the rails, because I need you to stay with me on this. Help me find out who’s who on this list, and then hold it together long enough to see yourself out of this place and into the next place you wind up, where you’ll probably still be involved in this really, truly vital endeavor you’re participating in.”
She smiled at him after a moment. “That was a pretty stirring speech, Colonel. I can see why they promoted you.”
“I’m glad you liked it.” He started to pull away, but she grabbed his hand and held it in both of hers.
“You need to hold it together too, McDaniels,” she said, squeezing his hand. “You’re the one who’s important here, not me. You’re the one who’s holding all of this together. I realized that I kind of belittled you in New York, but that was a lifetime ago. I see you for what you are, and you’re the main man here. You’ve got it all going on.”
“Gee, thanks. You can write my review next time around.”
Regina held his hand for longer than necessary, which started to make McDaniels uncomfortable, even though he found he enjoyed the contact, or maybe because he enjoyed it.
Regina seemed to sense this as well, and she slowly released him. “I’ll do what you ask. I’ll try and get it done today. Now that we’ve successfully started full distribution of the drug, I have some more free time. This shouldn’t be that big of a deal, unless someone tries to block me.”
“Who would do that?”
“Blye, maybe. He’s a corporate type, so if he’s got some favored children among the staff, he might try to put them in a nice spot. But I should be able to spot those pretty easily.”
McDaniels nodded. “Good. Thanks, Regina. This will mean a lot in the long run.”
“It damn well better. I let my breakfast get cold over this!”
9
Gartrell turned toward what should have been a bright, rising sun. Instead, thick, voluminous columns of black smoke covered the sky and blotted out most of the sunlight. The breeze was moving to the north, carrying the majority of the smoke away from the camp, toward the smoldering ruins of Odessa. The smoke had been mostly invisible during the night unless one wore night vision devices, but the brightening day revealed it in all its glory. Gartrell cursed it. Even though he had no desire to see the thousands upon thousands of stenches coming toward the camp, not being able to see them was somehow more unnerving.
Lack of visibility was almost as unnerving as the expressions on the faces of most the Rangers who had manned the eastern wall throughout the night. All of them had seen what had happened to the civilians outside the gate, and it left them haunted, frightened, and probably inconsolable. Gartrell knew many of them had probably seen equally gruesome things in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other garden spots across the globe, but watching living, breathing people be devoured by shambling ghouls that had somehow survived firebombing was undoubtedly something of a tipping point for most of them.
He spent a good two hours engaging in heart to hearts with the soldiers, even the officers, trying to reach them and guide them to a place where they could get past the horror and pain. It was no easy task, and there just wasn’t enough time to do it effectively. While he was hardly a mental health professional, Gartrell well understood just how taxing contact with the enemy could be, and he’d had more than his share of firsthand experience with the dead and their prey. Even though he was no Doctor Feelgood, he did what he could, and in many instances, he was able to reorient a soldier and point him in the right direction. That was good enough.
He ran into Rick Forringer where the eastern wall met the southern one. Barney Rubble looked pretty much the same as he always did, just with a bit more razor stubble than usual. Gartrell also noticed the stubble on his old friend’s cartoon character face was no longer blond, but white. Time was unstoppable.
“How’re you holding up, Barney?”
“Damn, Dave, you get bit? You look like one of the walking dead yourself,” Forringer said. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at a tall, lean soldier who leaned against a pile of sandbags, the buttstock of an M24 sniper rifle pressed against his right shoulder. The soldier had his face down against the rifle as he peered through its scope. “I’m playing spotter
for Rabin here. I don’t know if the two of you have ever met.”
“Negative, I don’t believe we have,” Gartrell said.
The sniper fired suddenly, and he worked the M24’s lever so quickly that the ejected shell bounced off Forringer’s chest.
Forringer jumped a little. “Shit, aren’t you like supposed to let me know you’re shooting at something?”
The sniper didn’t take his eye away from the scope. “Like you could hear me over your constant jawing. I swear, Forringer. Every time you open your mouth, half your head disappears.”
Gartrell chuckled. “Sounds like he has your number, Barney.”
“Yeah well, he probably didn’t even hit what he was shooting at, and if he did, it’s only because it was an innocent person. Right, Rabin?”
“I don’t think we have to worry about collateral damage around here after what happened last night,” Rabin said.
“Yeah, that was some shit. Dave, you see that?”
Gartrell nodded. “I watched it go down.”
Forringer shook his head, and for a moment, his eyes took on a curious cast. It was fear. Gartrell had known Forringer for almost thirty years, and he could not recall seeing the demolitions NCO ever truly frightened.
“I ain’t never seen nothing like that before,” Forringer said. “Man, I had to put down the binoculars for a while and wait for it to be over. I just haven’t seen anything that gross in my entire life.”
“That include every morning you get up and look into the mirror to shave?” Gartrell asked.
“Hell, yes. My ugly mug will scare a black man white, but watching zombies pull the legs off babies and eat them? Damn, that would scare the Ku Klux Klan out of William Simmons.” Forringer turned back to the sniper. “Isn’t that right, Rabin? You’re from Georgia, you should know all about the Klan.”
“Dude, I’m from Georgia,” Gartrell said.
“Well, no wonder you and McDaniels didn’t hit it off right away.”
“You’re talking stupid, Rick. Knock that shit off,” Gartrell said, turning serious.
The Rising Horde, Volume Two (Sequel to The Gathering Dead ) Page 10