Day One (Book 1): Alive

by Michael McDonald

  I felt her arm slide across the expanse of the bed and come to rest on my chest, followed by her voice almost in a whisper. “Are you asleep?”

  “No,” I replied. “Are you?”

  Without a word she slide over toward me and we were now lying next to each other. In the flash of lightning I could see her looking at me and I turned my body to face her, she did the same. “The storm keeping you awake?” I asked.

  She shook her head, yet in the lame darkness I was unable to see her. She replied. “No, actually it’s not.”

  “Then why are you awake?” I asked coyly.

  “With both of us working crazy hours, and then caring for Kember when we are both home, I guess it’s just my need for quality time with my husband that’s keeping me awake,” she said softly and although I could not see her clearly, I knew that there was a smirk or some form of a grin upon her lips as she spoke.

  “I totally agree with you,” I said wearing my own smirk and slipped my hand across to feel her warm bare skin. Her hands slid toward me and I rolled closer to her, kissing her a few times before taking a moment to look at her in the dark. The lightning flashed once more and to my surprise, the woman I had come to know, fall in love with, and eventually married was no longer beside me, or rather, the woman that was alive at one time no longer was.

  “Why did you let her get me?” she demanded as I shot off the bed and she rose to chase me. “Why did you let me die? I could have been alive in that kitchen, yet all you could do was run! Run away like the no good coward that you are!”

  I backed away from her, tripped over one of Kember’s unseen toys and landed on my butt. I tried to get to my feet but it was useless to even try, as she was upon me and jumped on me. Her dead weight knocked the wind from my lungs and I looked up into another flash of lightning to see her teeth coming at me.

  I lurched forward abruptly to find that I had fallen asleep at some point and had been dreaming. I checked to make sure that I hadn’t woke Kember up, which I hadn’t and took a few deep breaths when I noticed Johnny looking at me with a peculiar look riding his face. “You alright?”

  I nodded even though I wasn’t. I looked down to see the SBR in my lap and that’s when I realized we were stopped. Neither of the soldiers was in the HUMMV anymore. “Why are we stopped? What’s going on?”

  “I don’t rightly know,” Johnny said looking toward the windshield. “They said something about the road being blocked. I couldn’t really tell, I was half asleep myself when it happened.”

  I grabbed the SBR and prepared to fight, but Johnny held out a hand to me to try and calm me.

  “You don’t need that, we’re with the military. You saw the firepower these boys packed back at your house, and that wasn’t even all their guns blazing. You’d have to be asking to get killed to mess with these guys.”

  “In case you forgot, those things are already dead. I’m pretty sure they aren’t fearful of anything anymore,” I said to remind him, as I didn’t find his words very convincing and I think he was simply saying all of that to make himself feel better.

  I turned to glance out the rear window, expecting the lights of the second HUMMV to blind me. There were no lights behind us; in fact there were no other vehicles behind us, military or civilian. “Where’s the other Hummer’s?”

  “What?” Johnny asked.

  I pointed out the back window. “There’s no other HUMVEE’s out there. When we left my house there were two others with us. Where did they go?”

  The Gunner in our HUMMV was still above us scanning the darkness ahead and I could see the turret moving this way a few inches, and then that way so I knew he was at least still alive and on high alert. Why hadn’t he noticed the two missing vehicles and said something? That’s when my mind began to roam even further from the realms of reality into what could be.

  They could easily be bringing us into the middle of nowhere, where they could fake some kind of problem, and then when we both got out to help they would simply execute us and rejoin the others. I tightened the grip on my weapon. “Something’s not right,” I whispered to Johnny.

  He slapped the gunner’s leg. “Is everything alright out there?”

  “Yeah, we just got something blocking the road,” he replied. “Keep your heads on swivel though; you never know where those things will pop up until it’s too late.”

  “I don’t like this either, man. We are sitting ducks out here, because I can’t see a single foot out that damn window,” Johnny said holding one of the M4’s he’d gotten from within the HUMMV. “Something’s not right and I can feel it in my gut.”

  “So can I,” I mustered and slowly placed Kember in the floorboard and armed myself for what might come our way.

  “I say we haul ass!” Johnny announced. “Just bounce up out of this damn thing and scurry off into the darkness.”

  From above us the Gunner’s voice spoke. “You keep your ass in your seats! We aren’t going anywhere without my guys.”

  “Something’s wrong, man. Can’t you feel it?” Johnny asked the Gunner.

  “You’re getting worked up over nothing, now just relax,” the Gunner said.

  Johnny looked at me once more and shook his head. He didn’t have to say a single word, as I knew what he was thinking and what he had to say. He and I needed to do something and fast before our premonitions of danger came true. Yet if we tried to steal the HUMMV the Gunner, who was trained and probably battle tested would kick our asses and then throw us out into the sickening darkness. That’s the one place I didn’t really want to end up, as I knew from experience what was out there lurking about. However, if we continued to sit here and ignore the obvious, we were as good as dead.

  I spoke directly to the Gunner. “Was that obstacle, that’s now in the way, here when you first passed through?”

  He remained silent.

  “I’m betting that it wasn’t, which means it’s probably an ambush or something close to that. We need to get moving, there’s safety in movement.”

  Only the howl of the ever increasing wind responded.

  “If you don’t get us moving…” My words were cut off with his own.

  “Here they come… now shut up, both of you!”

  From the silent darkness the outline of the vehicle could barely be seen, but the lights from within stuck out like a neon sign. There was no way to tell if it was a military vehicle until you were right up on it. Several bodies hunkered near the road watching the vehicle, sizing it and its occupants up debating if this one would be a good catch.

  A few of them had taken the time in the early hours to chop at the tree until it fell across the road. They could now use it as their own personal toll road, giving only those they offered permission to the ability to pass, after they had taken whatever they pleased.

  They were all dressed in black clothing with ski masks covering their faces and hunting rifles and shotguns in their hands. It wasn’t the greatest tools for securing supplies from passersby, but it was far better than throwing rocks. They were about to move when distant headlights stopped them and they hunkered down even further into the ditch. As the second vehicle pulled up to the first, they were able to see the first vehicle, the one they were about to rush, which was a military HUMMV complete with a machinegun mounted on top and several armed soldiers inside. It would have been suicide on their part, even if they killed a few of the soldiers, the gunner on top would have chewed them up before they could even realize what was happening.

  As the soldiers crawled in I asked them the same question I’d asked the gunner. “Was that tree here when you guys came through earlier?”

  The both looked at me as though I was suddenly speaking Russian and was going on and on about something. “No,” the driver stated. “It must have fallen sometime later.”

  “Don’t you think that’s a little odd that it’s blocking the road now?” I added.

  The Driver and Passenger both looked at each other, and then once again at me. Th
e radio crackled to life and someone in the second HUMMV had spotted movement off to the left. The spinning sound of bearings overhead called my attention and I saw the gunner spin the turret toward the left.

  “Contact left!” he shouted.

  The driver threw his M4 barrel out the window as the Passenger exited and took up a fire position on the hood. Their weapons were equipped with small rail mounted lights and they sprang to life, instantly illuminating the five survivors that were trying to move out of the ditch and back into the tree line.

  “Stop!” the Gunner shouted. “Stop or we will shoot!”

  From my window I could see the five survivors stop and slowly spin around. They were armed and I knew that at any moment they would be gunned down as Ashley had earlier.

  The second vehicle moved up next to us, blocking my view and the soldiers on the right side exited and took up firing positions, as well. They were ready for another fight, it’s what they lived for and with the firefight at my house still pumping piss and vinegar through their veins, they wouldn’t hesitate a second to wipe them all out in one swift, brutal, barrage. Later they would call it self-defense… I on the other hand had a better name for it. A massacre.

  “Drop your weapons and put your hands in the air!” More orders roared out to them, but I couldn’t tell if it was coming from our gunner or from someone else. The inevitable would soon follow and I had the sudden feeling to grab Kember and flee into the safety of the darkness, as Johnny had suggested just minutes ago, although after that thought crossed my mind I knew it would be the dumbest thing I had ever done.

  “Drop your weapons, now!” the voice demanded once more.

  One of the survivors defiantly replied. “You drop yours and we’ll think about dropping ours!”

  The radio came to life again and it was hard to hear what was being said, due to the shouting from outside, and I wanted to know more than anything what the driver was being instructed to do. Moments later my wish was granted as we pulled away from the other HUMMV and drove off into the night.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “Where are we going?”

  The Driver answered. “We’ve been ordered to return to base.”

  “What about those people back there?”

  “That depends on if they comply or not,” he said and continued to drive without uttering another word.

  “You mean they are going to shoot them down like dogs, right?” I added. The Passenger looked back at me. I said nothing more and looked out my window, although the grip on my SBR tightened and the Passenger could see this.

  “Is that thing cleared and safe?” He asked me.

  I tapped my finger on the magazine release a few times, and then slid my finger to rest above it.

  “Maybe you should just put it on the rack behind you?” he stated.

  “Why?” I asked. “Because it’s safer for you to push someone around who isn’t armed, as opposed to someone like me who is and won’t stand for it?”

  He looked away. I caught Johnny’s eyes and once again he shook his head about our current situation. As much as I didn’t want to admit that maybe I had made a mistake coming with these guys, it was extremely hard to look at it from any other angle and not come up with the same thought. All I could do was think positive. When we reached our destination we would partake of their hospitality for a few hours, maybe get a vehicle of our own and head back out on the road. It wasn’t fair, after all, to judge an entire group of people based solely upon the careless actions of just a few. There could be others, like Johnny and I, where we were going not to mention to fact of relative safety.

  My decision had been based upon my daughter, not my own needs. For once I had put her before myself and I was willing to let this thing run its course.

  Faint gunfire erupted behind us and went on for several long seconds. I could tell by the louder thumping sound that the machinegun was being used and I knew why. My eyes caught Johnny’s and he shook his head.

  “And another group of assholes bites the dust,” the gunner said gleefully.

  “Those were people just trying to survive, like all of us. So why don’t you have a little respect,” Johnny said to the gunner.

  “Whatever you say, bro.”

  Johnny went after the gunner but I stopped him before he could touch the guy’s legs, whispering to him. “Not now… later, but not right now.”

  He sat down visually shaken by the comments and pounded his right fist over and over again into his open left palm.

  Minutes later we pulled on to the deserted interstate and the constant hum of the off road tires grinding against the asphalt somehow lulled me into a peaceful state of mind. I drifted off to sleep as Johnny kept close watch of our friends in the front of the Hummer. I was confident enough with him that if anything was to happen, he’d wake me and fight alongside me.

  I dreamt again, but this time it wasn’t about revenge or anything horrible. It was about my daughter having a wonderful life – endless summers of running and playing in large fields of bright green grass. Lazy evenings watching the sun slip beneath the dark waves –the life she deserved, not the life she currently had.

  Time slipped by as I slept peacefully with my daughter at my feet. It felt as though I hadn’t slept in over a year, maybe longer, but all of the emotions that plagued me when awake no longer held any meaning in my realm of peace. I was safe from the evil of the world and all of its dastardly ways. Nothing could touch me. There were no dead things to run from, or any snot nosed military guys making fun of people that had just been gunned down because they were hungry and had resorted to ambushes to get the things they needed.

  Something jarred me from my sleep and I was still far entrenched in my safe other world, that when I opened my eyes I didn’t jerk my weapon up to fire or even dart my eyes from left to right, looking for the possible danger. I simply yawned and stretched my arms above my head, shaking the sleep off of my shoulders as if waking on a Sunday morning. “What’s going on?”

  Johnny pointed out my window. “We’re here… wherever here is,” he stated.

  I looked to see a massive plot of land with a fifteen foot high chain link fence with razor wire at the top encircling big army tents set up in rows, neatly uniformed with the one before and after it. There were ten rows of them, seven in each row; although with the HUMMV still moving and several large mobile buildings cutting in front of me it was hard to make out if my estimation of seventy tents was correct. After an entrance checkpoint, we slowed and pulled up to one of the mobile buildings, where two soldiers in full chemical gear were standing guard. My eyes shifted to a few other soldiers, which were wearing the same chem gear.

  “Why are they in chemical gear and we aren’t?” I asked.

  The driver and Passenger both looked at me, but only the Passenger spoke. “It’s S-O-P for this type of situation,” he replied.

  “This type of situation?” I asked. “And what type is that?” I knew what SOP stood for, standard operating procedure, I wasn’t that dumb. But the more soldiers I saw wearing the gear the more I began to worry that whatever had taken place in my small town might be airborne, in which case every one of us would be infected. That explained how my step-daughter would have turned, but why had my wife, Daughter or myself turned then? Johnny had been right. They were not bringing us here to help us, they were bringing us here to isolate and eliminate the threat.

  “If you can get any of them to answer that question, let me know,” the Passenger said and he and the Driver got out. The gunner simply sprang out through the top and gave Johnny and I a few seconds to talk amongst ourselves.

  “I think you were right,” I said.

  “A lot of good that does us now,” he replied.

  “We have to get out of here as quickly as possible!” He could tell by the tone of my voice that I was in no mood to hear any ‘I told you so’s.”

  “And how the hell are we going to do that now?” he asked. “This is a damn military base or
something like that… any way it goes, they’ll have guards posted everywhere with orders to shoot anyone trying to enter or flee. And then there are the machineguns, which they aren’t afraid to use, and the night vision goggles to see us in the dark.” He stated. “We are fucked beyond words here, my friend. The moment we got into this damn vehicle, we willingly killed ourselves.”

  I shoved my eyes at him, a glare poured onto my face. “Back the fuck off, pal! I was doing what was right for my daughter; you didn’t have to tag along! No one forced you to do anything or go anywhere, remember!”

  He raised both hands to surrender. He wasn’t trying to start anything and didn’t mean what he had just said, well most of it he did, but a few bits were just for dramatic affect.

  “Can you see where they went?” Johnny asked.

  I strained through my window at the sea of men in camo uniforms with gas masks and funny little covers over their boots, but at first was unable to see where the Drive and Passenger had went. A few feet from where I had started my search I spotted the Driver talking to one of the guards at the mobile building in front of us and he pointed our way. I sunk back into the depths of the HUMMV looking at Johnny. “We really need to go, now.”

  “There’re gonna take our guns first thing, and when they try I’m gonna start shooting,” Johnny stated, which is exactly what I didn’t want to hear.

  “No. Just play along for now. My daughter has been through enough already.”

  The right door opened up suddenly and two armed soldiers looked in at us. “Gentlemen, if you would follow us, please.”

  What little chance we had of escaping was now gone, although with hundreds of soldiers in every direction, the odds of escaping at any time since arriving was futile. It started the moment we jumped into the HUMMV at my house, as Johnny had said only moments ago. I knew better and cursed myself under my breath as I grabbed Kember and we exited. Johnny walked alongside me and we scanned the area all around us, seeing the happenings of the military and silently wondered what they were doing out here in the middle of nowhere.