by C. G. Cooper
“You must be Ryker,” he said, his voice light and airy, like he hadn’t just been yanked out of an apparent warzone. He strode over and stuck out his hand confidently. “I’m Fleck.”
Fleck. An appropriate name.
“What were you doing down there?” I asked, shaking his wiry strong hand.
“Ah, you know, just making trouble.” He said it like he’d just lit firecrackers at the freshman prom.
“What kind of trouble?”
He shrugged with a sly grin. “I like to blow stuff up. That, and make a general nuisance of myself.”
Fleck didn’t have the southern drawl of the others, but instead had a cultured twang, like he’d been yanked out of prep school.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go talk to the others.”
Fleck knew Pozy and Wallace by reputation, and they looked at him with something akin to awe. That was good. O’Mack couldn’t help but blurt out how young Fleck looked, but the kid took it with what I would come to regard as a survivalist’s dose of self-deprecation.
“I’ll bet I still get along better with the young ladies,” Fleck said. “And besides, what’s with your name? Mommy sing you one too many rounds of Old MacDonald?”
O’Mack flushed. I was ready to step in between the two, but O’Mack’s face calmed and he said, “I’ll bet that mouth gets you in some trouble, Flick.”
“It’s Fleck, and yeah, it does.”
The two men (I use that term lightly with Fleck) grinned at each other, like two troublemakers who’d each just met their equal.
“Okay, now that we’re all here, tell me how you think you fit into the team,” I said.
Wallace spoke up first. “I’m the comm guy. Let me get my hands on anything from a homemade radio to a nuclear satellite, and I’ll make it talk.”
That was good to know. I had no idea what kind of tech we’d need, and there’d been no time to acquaint myself with it. Besides, ground pounders from scouts to cannon fodder needed a way to talk with HQ.
“I’m your armor and ballistics specialist,” Pozy said. She had a way of talking that made it seem like everything bored her, or that it was somehow beneath her. “Oh, and I’m probably the best shot you’ve got.”
I doubted that, but I didn’t say anything.
“Man, you’ve got some balls, girl. I like that,” O’Mack said, giving Pozy a wink.
“And what’s your talent, being an annoying prick?” she bantered back.
“Maybe. Wouldn’t you like to find out?”
I wasn’t their commanding officer; I was their team leader. And while that may seem like the same thing, it’s not. Officers were obligated to step in sometimes. There was a lot more ambiguity of roles within a team of equals. Things would play out, and I would be there to make sure things didn’t escalate. These four had been given to me. I hadn’t picked them. It would take me time to get to know them, and them me. That last part would be tricky. Could I do that without letting them know about my past? If they did find out, everything would change.
+++
The Viper flew much faster after picking up Fleck. Looking straight down was no good since we were flying nap-of-the-earth. I wasn’t quite sure if that was the pilot showing off, or if it was to avoid being seen. It was yet another addition to the string of questions that kept getting longer and longer in my head. What were the enemy’s capabilities? What kind of tech was still left in the world? What would our orders be once we got to Boulder?
I didn’t have to wait until we arrived to get the answer to the last question. A light flashed inside my helmet, and then a message displayed in front of my eyes. It was from The General, and it listed the last known coordinates of the lost squad, known contacts and planned extraction points. What it didn’t list was what their mission had been. Why had their insertion been so contested between The General and Commander Logan?
The last line was to the point:
Timing critical. Twenty-four hours allowed for your team’s mission.
Twenty-four hours? The General had told me we had a lot more time than that. What had changed?
I must’ve been on a real win streak with my questions because, once again, the answer came as soon as the pilot announced we were entering Boulder airspace. When I toggled the view of the Rocky Mountain bordered city I saw at least one reason for the compressed time. Thick black plumes of smoke covered the area. We were going into a warzone.
Chapter 22
I decided to drop in ten miles from Boulder. We did a couple of passes just to make sure the area was clear. All good.
The Viper was on the ground long enough for us to jump out with our gear, and then the pilot was off to whatever location was next up to drop off the goods in his cargo hold. First, I made sure Wallace had our team’s comms up. Once that was completed, we strapped on our packs, checked for anything loose, and stepped off.
We went first to an old gas station. The General’s notes indicated the lost team had made this their first stop and check-in. He didn’t say why, and I hadn’t yet had the opportunity to make the inquiry. I was going on blind faith. Luckily, The General hadn’t let me down yet.
“I’ll go in first,” Fleck said, pointing to the Shell sign up ahead.
I was about to tell him I would, but I could see that this was his thing.
“Let me know what you see,” I said.
He grinned and stripped off his pack. Then he did something that shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. With one quick rip, the outer layer of his one-piece black tactical suit came off revealing tattered civilian clothes. Just like that, Fleck looked like just another kid scrounging for food. He even bent down, grabbed some dirt and rubbed it on his face.
“You like?” he asked me.
I nodded admiringly. The only thing that contradicted Fleck’s camouflage was the weapon bulge under his waistband. That could easily be solved by hunching over or pulling his shirt over his waistband.
In a flash, Fleck left.
It didn’t take him long. Once out of sight, it only took him two minutes to radio in his findings.
“Area clear,” he announced. “Two bodies, not ours.”
We followed the same path he had taken. We were soon standing in the station’s main building. Only three walls remained, and the ceiling looked like it was about to cave in. The stench from the bodies was prohibiting most visitors, but not the scavengers. The faces of the men were now unrecognizable.
“Looks like the coyotes had a good time with these fellas,” O’Mack noted, poking one of the corpses with a stick.
Pozy pushed past O’Mack, slapping the stick out of his hand in the process. She bent down for a closer examination of the bodies.
“Large caliber rounds, I’d say. 7.62, most likely. Three in this one’s chest, two in this one.”
“What are you, some kind of detective?” O’Mack asked.
“Just seen a lot of bodies with a lot of bullet holes,” Pozy answered, unconcerned by O’Mack’s leering. “Have you ever seen a man decapitated by a volley of machine gunfire?”
O’Mack’s eyebrows rose. “No.”
Pozy gave him a little smile as if to say, “Then you ain’t seen nothin’.” She continued her inspection of the area.
I did a quick search myself, shuffling through their tattered pockets. If they’d had anything, it was long gone now.
“We’d better take some DNA back with us,” Wallace suggested, producing a pair of tiny plastic bags from his pack.
“What do we need that for?” I asked.
“I don’t know, but they always want it,” Wallace said, plucking a hair from each corpse and inserting them into the bags.
Looked like I had a lot to learn, but why the hell would HQ want DNA? I didn’t ask because Pozy probably didn’t know either and I was pretty sure O’Mack didn’t have any more info on this than I did.
“Let’s head to our next stop in five,” I said, sipping from my water hose.
When we w
ere just out of sight of the next set of coordinates, Fleck took point again and headed for the abandoned residence. The house was situated on the outer ring of what must have been a large community. Now it was all just abandoned husks.
Once again, Fleck signaled the all clear, and we entered the neighborhood with our weapons in plain view. There was nothing there to greet us except for a few skittering squirrels and a lone wild dog that barked at us once before running off.
“We’ve got three more,” Fleck announced as we approached. He was standing outside the dilapidated home. He waved a gloved hand back and forth in front of his face. “Super ripe.”
The wind shifted, giving us a punch of the potpourri of death from within the house.
“I’ll take a look,” I said. Wallace was more than happy to give me three DNA bags and stay behind. O’Mack and Pozy followed me in the house.
Like Fleck said, there were three bodies this time, all lying on their backs. I let Pozy do her inspection, and her report was nearly identical to the last, except one of the bodies had four bullets wounds in its torso. When I searched for personal items, I found none. This time O’Mack didn’t say anything about the ravaged faces, but instead helped me gather the requisite samples that would be taken back to HQ for analysis.
“This doesn’t smell right,” O’Mack said, handing me the last of the three plastic bags.
“How do you think a corpse should smell?” Pozy asked.
O’Mack was about to correct her, but then he saw her thin smile.
“Fuck you, Pozy,” he said, but there was something like admiration in his tone now. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on here, but I’m getting that creepy feeling, like we’re walking into some hoodoo voodoo shit.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked. One of the things I’d learned about O’Mack during basic training was that he believed in his fair share of superstitions. I don’t know if it was a byproduct of the conditions after The Collapse, or just something bred though his family.
“I don’t know, man, but something’s not right.”
I looked at the bodies, even looking to see if they’d been moved, that maybe there was some sort of symbolism involved. Nothing, at least as far as I could see.
Two more stops—five more bodies. In each case, the scene was the same. Large caliber wounds, always in either the chest or abdomen. It was like playing the same sick video over and over. I was starting to get a weird feeling too, as if someone was playing Hansel and Gretel with us except that instead of dropping bread crumbs, they were leaving bodies.
Our final location was the last one called in by the lost team. It was a school. Three stories of broken glass. We went in together this time. While I trusted Fleck’s abilities, I trusted our firepower a bit more.
I took the lead, and once again the smell of death greeted us at the door. Two more bodies, both disfigured like the rest, were just inside the door. There were streaks of blood leading farther in. They’d been moved.
Room to room we moved. I let the rhythm take over my body, weapon and body swiveling as we cleared. Then we got to what must have been the gymnasium. The wood floor was gone, probably used for firewood. The only clue it was a gym was its size.
“You think they still have a bathroom in this place?” O’Mack asked me.
I shrugged. Sometimes it was better to let his questions go unanswered.
“I’m gonna take a look,” he said, pointing to a door on the far side of the gym.
“Take Fleck with you. The rest of us will check out this one,” I said, pointing to the closest door.
The trail of blood from the bodies with mutilated faces ended halfway in, and there was nothing to indicate we’d find anything more. But what else was there to do?
The room that Pozy, Wallace and I entered was empty except for piles of disintegrating ceiling tile.
“Ryker,” O’Mack’s voice came through my earpiece.
“Yeah?”
“You need to come see this.”
I nodded to the others, and we went looking for O’Mack and Fleck. To my surprise, the locker rooms were in decent condition. For some reason, no one had taken the time to tear out the tiles in the bathrooms. But when I entered the showers, I saw why.
There were five black-clad bodies lying on the ground with their lifeless eyes staring up at where the shower heads used to be. While it was alarming that we had most likely found the lost team, it was by far not the most startling thing in the room. O’Mack pointed to the shower wall where big bold letters were smeared in blood. The message was simple:
COME AND GET US.
Chapter 23
Great. My first day on the job and this happens. Lucky for me (or unlucky, depending on how you looked at it), whoever had killed the team had also left us a handy-dandy map to follow.
“I don’t like this,” O’Mack said.
Pozy just kept shaking her head.
Fleck seemed to be the only one amped up to go.
“I’ll take us in, Ryker,” he said anxiously, like a dog hot on the trail.
“No,” I said after reviewing the map. “I’ll take point.”
The others looked at me, Fleck with a hint of annoyance, but no one said a thing.
After we took pictures of the dead team, we submitted them to HQ. (I felt breaking radio silence was warranted.) We headed off; I took lead. I didn’t have a clue who we were after, and I knew even less about what they wanted. Other than that, it seemed like just another hunky-dory day in the service.
+++
Since we were on foot, we didn’t get to the little hillock just north of still burning Boulder until the next morning. Fleck had suggested we cut through Boulder, but one look at the city continuing to burn, with the silence punctuated periodically by the staccato of machine gunfire, I figured it was would be safest to skirt the city. My job was not to save Boulder; it was to find the team. I’d done that, and now I had to find the murderers who’d killed them.
We should’ve been tired after the miles we’d traversed, but we were wired with adrenaline and a healthy dose of dread. We could be walking into a trap. I say could because I had to hope that there was an alternative. I’d been in enough near-death situations to know that even the unluckiest bastard sometimes walks away clean.
That’s how I thought of myself now, an unlucky bastard. I trudged along thinking of my life: where I’d been, what I’d become, and finally how I’d somehow ended up at the head of a patrol marching into certain doom. It wasn’t that I felt sorry for myself. No time for that. Self-pity had never been my thing. It never got you anywhere.
There were always people who complained about being sick, or that their lot in life wasn’t what they’d expected. And what did that complaining get them? Did anyone who stopped to listen actually care? No.
I’d learned that early on. I had to take care of myself and take care of my family.
Now I had a new family, the four people following me on a road to ruin. They were my responsibility. Bitching about it wouldn’t make a difference. Coming out alive would make the only difference. Well, that and finding the assholes who’d left us a trail of bodies.
The church appeared like a ghost in the morning mist. Tall and stately, its white exterior gleaming and well-kept. Not a single window was broken, and even the lawn looked well-tended.
“Wow,” I couldn’t help but whisper.
The front doors of the church were open, and from somewhere inside came singing, like the chorus had risen early for a rehearsal. I hadn’t heard church hymns in such a long time that I stopped for a minute, just listening.
I felt the others watching me and listening too.
I looked down at the map where a big fat X marked the spot, like a child’s treasure map. The church was the spot, that much was obvious, but that didn’t explain the singing.
Anticipation gurgled in my stomach as I checked my weapon and signaled the team to spread out. If all went according to plan, I would be the
only one going in. Better to keep the others out of harm’s way, if for no better reason than to leave someone alive to provide a sitrep to The General.
With a final nod to my team, they fanned out, my protectors taking up positions surrounding the church. I headed for the door, the singing calling to me and soothing me forward. It was like God Himself wished for me to enter. I felt every breath and every step as I moved forward, my weapon ready, my mind tight.
The inner chapel was smaller than I’d imagined, and it was narrow like an old country place of worship. I passed through the tiny vestibule and then entered the main worship space. The pews were filled, and all I saw were the backs of heads. All men. Not one turned to face me as I moved forward, farther in, closer to a danger that radiated like a hot iron.
The podium at the front of the chapel was turned to face the women and children standing on three rows of stadium seating. The choir. They looked at me, their mouths moved, but their eyes pleaded. I heard a whimper. The whimper was countered by the snap of the conductor’s head.
The guilty party, a young girl, closed her eyes and kept singing. Now that I was close, they didn’t sound in tune. But that didn’t seem to matter to the man at the podium. His graying hair was a wild mess cascading halfway down his back. He swung his arms wildly in the air as if he were conducting an orchestra.
The crescendo of the song came, the conductor raising his arms in exultation, but to my ears the whole thing sounded lackluster. I saw their eyes, frightened and wide.
“Thank you all for that wonderful performance,” said the man at the podium, bowing deeply to the choir. Then he spun and faced the rest of the congregation, and me. “I see we have a visitor. Why don’t you give us your name, kind sir?”