CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Gabriel,
Refugee District
I stood in the street and watched the circus unfold.
A swarm of soldiers, first responders, police, and federal agents had descended upon the Refugee District like locusts. For the moment, I was still playing my role as commander of the Blackthorns. My men were out cleaning up the last of the infected, and my helicopters were transporting the injured and wounded to the city’s only hospital. Several triage areas had been set up to examine survivors for infection.
Some of those in need lived long enough to be deemed safe for evac. Some did not. Every few minutes a gunshot rang out, informing everyone the Army had just put someone down before they could turn. I was careful not to gaze too long toward the tents. Nothing good was happening there.
Footsteps crunched the ground behind me as I stared at a group of soldiers standing guard over a dead Gray, one of the big ones. Thompson and Riordan appeared to my left and right respectively. They had spent the last half hour in a triage tent being checked for bites. Those of us who had stayed in the choppers had not been required to do so.
“Clean bill of health?” I asked.
“Yep,” Thompson said.
“I have a fucking concussion,” Eric grumbled.
Thompson gave him a condescending glare. “A mild concussion. You’ll be fine, you big baby.”
“Tell that to the migraine.”
I let out a sigh. “Did either of you notice anything unusual about those big Grays?”
They both looked at me.
“You mean aside from the obvious?” Eric said.
“Yes.”
I waited while they thought about it. Eric spoke first.
“The hands.”
“What about them?” I said.
Eric nodded his head toward the Gray and started walking. Thompson and I followed. When we drew close, a soldier stopped us with an outstretched palm.
“Hold it right there.”
I held up my hands. “I’m Gabriel Garrett, on-scene commander for the Blackthorns. I need to speak with the person in charge.”
The soldier kept his eyes on us, palm outstretched, rifle at the ready. Behind him, a man with captain’s bars on his fatigues moved toward me.
“Mr. Garrett, I’m Captain Haney. What can I do for you?”
“I’d like to take a look at that thing.”
The young captain’s brow furrowed. “I’m afraid not, Mr. Garrett. We have orders from Colonel Bryant to keep these things under quarantine until the CDC response teams arrive.”
“I don’t want to wrestle with it,” I said. “I just need a better look for my after-action report. The congressional budget office won’t pay unless I can prove what we did here. And considering I lost two of my men today, I don’t think that’s asking a lot. Their families will need the money.”
The captain wavered. By the look on his face, I could tell he sympathized. Had probably lost men in the field himself. He glanced around, and when he did not see anyone with more brass on their uniform than his, he leaned close and whispered, “Observation only, no photos.”
I nodded.
“If anyone asks, I’m debriefing you.”
“Got it.”
He stepped aside and motioned to his men. “Let ‘em through.”
The soldiers stepped back, hands still on their weapons. I ignored them and stood over the dead ghoul.
“What were you saying?” I asked Eric.
He pointed. “Look at the hands. See those claws?”
I looked and saw them. The ghoul’s fingers ended in hardened points of dark gray bone. Not nails. Not the stuff that protects the sensitive flesh on the back of a person’s finger. Bone.
“Looks like the skeleton itself grew through the skin,” I said.
Eric reached out with a boot and turned over one of the ghoul’s arms. “See there, on the underside?”
I squatted down. “Sharp. Like a bear’s claws. About two inches long.”
The soldiers around us edged closer, staring in curiosity.
“Same thing with the toes,” Thomson said a few feet to my right.
I sensed motion and looked over to see Captain Haney kneel beside me. “Look at those fucking teeth,” he said.
I did. They looked like alligator teeth, staggered in three rows. The canines were as long as a boar’s tusks. The jaw was elongated and had a slightly S-shaped curve to it. I drew my Bowie knife and pushed down on the creature’s chin. The jaw stretched impossibly wide. A long, mottled tongue fell out and dripped reddish goo onto the sidewalk.
“You know what it looks like?” Captain Haney said.
“What?”
“You ever read any Spider-Man comic books when you were a kid?”
“Not really.”
“Venom,” Haney said. “It looks like that supervillain with the big teeth and the black suit.”
“Shit,” one of the soldiers said. “You’re right. Looks just fucking like him. Except Gray instead of black.”
“And uglier,” Eric added.
I switched my attention to the creature’s eyes. Using the Bowie knife, I pushed up on one of its eyelids. Beneath the folded skin was a dark orb with a crimson retina and a slit-shaped yellow iris. In the center of the iris was a thin sliver of black pupil. For a few seconds, I could not speak.
“The eyes,” I said finally, standing up. “They’ve regenerated. Evolved.”
“What?” Haney said, still kneeling. From one of his pockets, he produced a rubber glove, put it on, and tugged upward on the ghoul’s eyebrow. One of the other soldiers shined a light on it and leaned over to look.
“Fuck me,” Haney muttered. “It’s like a cat’s eye.”
“Look at the nose and sinus protrusion,” I said. “It’s overdeveloped. I’ll bet this thing has a sense of smell like a bloodhound.”
“Someone want to tell me what the hell is going on here?” a voice boomed from behind me. The soldiers jumped. Haney stood up quickly, came to attention, and saluted.
Colonel Bryant stood a few feet away, feet planted on the snowy ground, hands on his hips. He was a tall man, broad through the shoulders, late thirties, hair graying at the temples. He returned the salute impatiently and glared hot knives at Captain Haney. The young officer dropped his hand but remained at attention.
“Well?” Bryant demanded.
“Mr. Garrett was briefing us on what he saw fighting these ghouls,” Haney said immediately. I was impressed at the confidence in his voice.
The Colonel stared a moment longer, then said, “We just got word from the CDC. No one is to touch these things until the recovery teams arrive. Form a perimeter around this thing and don’t let anyone near it without my say so. Get on the radio and make sure everyone else does the same.”
“Yes sir.”
Bryant waved a dismissive hand. Haney let out a breath and started barking orders. Thompson and Riordan walked a short distance away. I would have followed them, but Colonel Bryant placed a hand on my shoulder.
“Got a minute?”
I looked down at him. “Sure.”
Bryant made sure his men were a good distance away before speaking. “We don’t have much time.”
I nodded.
“Someone from up on high is trying to put a lid on this thing.”
“Are you kidding me? There’s no way. Got to be a thousand witnesses.”
“I don’t think they’re trying to bury it. Just buy some time.”
“Time for what?”
A shrug. “Probably to get their story straight. I got a feeling someone up top knows something about these big Grays, and they don’t want anyone to know they know.”
I let that sink in a few seconds. If Bryant was right, the implications were chilling. “You think the government had something to do with this?”
“Not sure. But considering the response I’m seeing, they’re sure as hell not surprised.”
“About wh
ich part? These big ghouls, or the fact they’re here in the city?”
“Can’t say for sure. But I can say this. The CDC’s response to this has been very well-coordinated. And fast. Like they were expecting it.”
I glanced at the triage tents. The teams tasked with setting them up had been at the gate well before my men finished clearing the Refugee District. Which was impressive, but not exactly telling, considering the CDC’s new headquarters was less than two miles away.
“A fast response doesn’t necessarily mean anything,” I said. “The CDC has gotten their shit together since the Outbreak.”
Bryant shook his head. “No, I’m telling you, this is different. The people handling ghoul recovery aren’t regular science weenies, or even soldiers. They’re federal agents. And the speed of the whole thing isn’t just crisis response. Somebody’s cracking a whip, and people are jumping. Whoever’s in charge is worried. They don’t want anyone else seeing these things.”
“Yeah, well, they’re a little late for that.”
Bryant stepped closer to the big ghoul. “Maybe, maybe not. There’s something else you should know. The way I saw those response teams react to the big Grays was…suspicious.”
“What do you mean?”
“You see these soldiers here? You see their expressions, their body language, how nervous they are?”
I looked at the mixture of awe and horror on the faces of the men around me. The way they kept sneaking glances at the big Gray and muttering to themselves.
“Yeah.”
“I saw a recovery team pick up a Gray over by the east gate. Everybody there was freaked the fuck out, including me, but the teams were just…I don’t know. Unperturbed. Like it was just another day at the office. No shock, no fear, no reaction at all. How could anyone see something like this and not take pause, you know?”
I looked away from the tents and back at the ghoul. The wind was slowly covering it with a light dusting of powdery know. “They wouldn’t. Not unless they’ve seen it enough to lose the shock value.”
“Exactly. And if that’s not enough, I got a call from the Secretary of Defense on the way over here.”
I turned my head at that. “SECDEF? Did he call personally, or was it one of his aides?”
“It was him.”
A pause. “What did he want?”
“He said to quarantine these things and keep people the hell away from them.”
“How did he find out so fast? You hadn’t even arrived on scene yet.”
“I think we both know the answer to that.”
I closed my eyes, rested one hand on a hip, and rubbed the other against my forehead. The cold was beginning to penetrate the layers of clothes I wore. My knees hurt. An old scar on my left shoulder had started to ache. The adrenaline of the morning’s excitement was long gone, leaving me feeling tired and weighed down.
I’m getting too old for this shit.
“They knew. The bastards knew, and they didn’t tell anyone.”
Bryant stepped closer. “You need to keep this to yourself for now, Gabe. I imagine you’ll be brought in the loop soon enough.”
I frowned at him, feeling a low dread take hold. “What the hell are you talking about, Colonel?
No response. I stepped closer.
“For fuck’s sake, you’ve gone this far haven’t you? Talk to me. What have you heard?”
Bryant heaved a sigh and shoved his hands in his pockets. A few seconds stretched out. The Colonel stared at nothing while the wind blew and huddles of cold people in dirty clothes flowed around us like a river around a big stone. I stayed silent but did not look away.
Finally, he said, “You’re a good man, Gabe. I got a lot of respect for you. You’ve always dealt straight with me, and that thing over in Pueblo last year…well, I wouldn’t be above ground right now if not for you. I owe you, and I’m trying to square up while I still can.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’ve heard people talking about you, Gabe. Powerful people.”
I did not like the sound of that. “Yeah? What about?”
“I can’t say much, but I’ll tell you this. Not everyone in the government is stupid. There’s a lot of people who know talent when they see it, and when they do, the first thing they ask themselves is how they can use that talent to serve their agenda. These are desperate times we’re living in, Gabe. And I don’t have to tell you the kinds of things desperate people are willing to do.”
I ground my teeth in frustration and resisted the urge to grab Bryant by the arms and shake him.
“I don’t understand. What are you trying to tell me?”
Bryant looked me in the eye. “I’m telling you to be careful.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Eric
BSC Headquarters
It was a full thirty-six hours after the attack before I stepped off the Blackhawk and stood in front of the main office. I had hoped to see Allison and Little Gabe waiting for me on the tarmac, but they were nowhere in sight. Not surprising, really. It was after four o’clock in the morning. They were probably asleep.
I stopped by the armory on the second floor and turned in my gear. There was a pang of regret when I handed over the sniper carbine, and my hand moved slowly as I placed it on the counter. It was a fine weapon, but it did not belong to me. And besides, I had plenty of fine weapons of my own.
Bereft of battle accoutrements, I trudged up the stairs to Gabe’s apartment. On the way, images of the previous day’s fighting kept trying to force their way into my thoughts. The fast movers running people down, the screams of the dying, gunshots, the acrid odor of smoke, explosions, the roar of the Blackhawk overhead, and worst of all, the sight of that big Gray’s twisted face as it rocketed through the air toward me. I wondered how many other people had seen the same thing without the comfort of a gun in their hand to stop the inevitable.
The door of the apartment came into view and I shoved those thoughts aside. They would come for me again later, most likely when I was trying to sleep, but I would cross that bridge when I reached it. For now, I needed to be my best self.
I put the key in the lock and turned it. The latch clicked softly. I turned the handle and crept in. The interior was dark, the only illumination coming from a window. There was no cloud cover outside, which gave me enough moonlight to navigate the living room without bashing a shin. The door clicked behind me as I shut and locked it.
To my left, the bedroom door was slightly ajar. I slipped off my boots and padded over in my socks. The well-oiled hinges did not creak when I pushed the door open and peered inside. Allison lay on her back, face turned toward me, hair spilling around her head on the pillow. Little Gabe lay beside her, eyes closed, the small, precious face slack and peaceful. I stepped closer to see him better. He slept with the preternatural stillness only seen in small children. I wanted to reach out and touch his soft cheek but resisted. It would not do to wake him up, so I settled for staring at him and feeling my chest tighten until I wondered how it was possible to love anything quite so much.
I shifted my gaze to Allison. She was as beautiful as ever. More beautiful, in fact. So beautiful it hurt my heart to look at her. I thought about what she had said to me the day before, about how much she worried when I ran off to fight battles I did not have to. At the time, I had been firmly convinced that if I refused to fight those battles, I just wouldn’t be me anymore. But here in the dark, in the peaceful silence, in the absence of pretense and expectation, when no one was looking and it was just me and the stubborn truth, I knew something had to change. I had a family now, and when a man has a family, his life is not about him anymore. It was long past time I accepted that.
I shut the door behind me, stripped out of my filthy clothes, gathered some clean ones from a suitcase, and showered as quietly as I could. When I was done, I grabbed a blanket and pillow from the linen closet, curled up on the couch, and was asleep before I could count to five.
*****
The sun was bright through the narrow windows when Allison and Little Gabe emerged from the bedroom. I was in the kitchen tending to a skillet of bacon and eggs and a pot of coffee. Had it been any other morning, Allison would have gazed hungrily at the skillet and asked me if I was making toast. But today, she rushed across the apartment, put her arms around me, and buried her face in my chest.
“Thank God,” she whispered.
I hugged her back. Little Gabe watched us a few seconds, then toddled to the counter and stretched a hand up toward a plate of bacon. He was not quite tall enough to reach it, but at the rate he was growing, such would not be the case much longer.
“I’m fine, honey. Everything’s alright.”
We stayed that way for a while, holding each other. I watched my son over Allison’s shoulder as he bounced on his feet and grasped toward the countertop. When he realized his quest for crunchy pork was doomed to failure, he looked up at me with pleading eyes. I winked at him and handed him a thick slice of greasy meat. He promptly stuffed it in his mouth and scurried off like a wolf with a deer leg.
When Allison had squeezed my waist long enough to convince herself I was actually there, she eased away, kissed me on the mouth, and said, “I love you, but I have to pee.”
I nodded and promptly let her go. Allison had long ago impressed upon me the dangers of impeding a pregnant woman with a full bladder.
“I’ll set the table.”
She kissed me again and headed toward the bathroom. I walked into the living room, picked my son up off the couch, and gave him a good squeeze. His little arms went around my neck and I could feel him clutching at me with greasy fingers.
“How are you doing this morning, buddy?”
“I’m hungry. Can I have some more bacon?”
“You sure can. Want to help me in the kitchen?”
“No, I just want breakfast.”
I laughed. “Well, thanks for being honest.”
“You’re welcome.”
The little guy rode my hip to the table. I set him down in a chair and looked around for something to use as a booster. Nothing revealed itself.
Surviving The Dead | Book 9 | War Without End Page 16