Nicole's Odyssey (Human Extinction Level Loss Book 1)

by Philip McClimon

  Nicole rose and put her hands on her hips. Her lips pursed in thought.

  “Yeah, well if they are all locked inside, then how do we get in? Surely, they would still have surveillance out here even if they didn’t have a guard. They should know we’re out here and have sent somebody, you know?” she said.

  Nicole looked around a final time then headed back to the motor-home. Sam watched as Walt wound down his window and leaned out. Nicole shielded her eyes from the setting sun as she spoke to Walt. A moment later she came back to the car. Sam watched as Nicole went into the guard shack and hit a button, raising the gate arm to the up position. She exited the shack and climbed back inside the GTO.

  “What are we going to do?” Sam asked. Nicole kept her eyes locked on the tunnel.

  “We’re gonna sit here and wait for them to come arrest us for raising their gate,” she said.

  Sam slumped in his seat as they both stared into the recess of the massive tunnel.

  Minutes passed without any movement from the tunnel. Finally, Nicole picked up the radio.

  “Okay, Walt. We’re gonna head in. Just take it slow and stop if approached. Just play it cool,” she said.

  “Roger that,” Walt said.

  Nicole put the car in Drive as the two vehicles headed into the mountain.

  The silence was heavy as no one spoke. Something just didn’t seem right to Nicole. Someone should have been at the guard station. They should have been challenged when Nicole raised the gate, and certainly there should have been an armed response when they drove their vehicles into the tunnel. The only reaction was no reaction. Perhaps after what had happened in the world, the powers that be saw no need to waste precious manpower guarding a gate whose only visitors promised to be reanimated Dead. Nicole just hoped that when they got to the end of this road there would be some indication that things were under control and that they would let them in. As they made their way through the tunnel, the growing sense of claustrophobia gave way when they emerged into a massive cavern that had been carved out from the rock. A wide expanse of cavern floor was marked off in parking spaces. The whole place was lit by a myriad of halogen lights. Nicole brought her car to a slow stop as the motor-home eased to a stop beside her. Sam peered through the windshield at the largest door he had ever seen.

  “That thing looks twenty feet high!” Sam said.

  Nicole did not take her eyes off the door. “Twenty-five. And four feet thick solid steel, though technically that’s supposed to be top secret,” she said.

  Nicole cut the engine and eased her door open. Sam opened his door and they both got out. The others piled out of the motor home and together they gathered in a group in front of the vehicles. They all stared at the monstrous door, no one seeming to either know or be willing to make the first move. Finally, Nicole felt the pressure of taking action.

  “Well, come on. Maybe they have a doorbell,” she said.

  “Should we bring our guns?” Paul asked.

  Nicole kept her eyes straight ahead. “I think it would not be a good idea to attempt to gain entrance to the government’s most secret military base armed with rifles,” Nicole said.

  “Good point,” Paul said as the group made no effort beyond baby steps to approach the door.

  When they got half way across the staging area in front of the entrance, Walt cocked his head.

  “Hey, man. Does that door look slightly open to you?” he asked.

  Nicole almost laughed at him until she took a closer look at the door herself. The door did not seem to make a tight seal with the frame set into the rock wall around it. As they approached, it became increasingly obvious that the door was not secured. A thin frame of light surrounded the door that was sitting ever so slightly ajar. The group stopped about six feet in front of it. Nicole walked forward right up to the door.

  “This doesn’t make any sense,” she said.

  She looked to her right and saw the guard station set against the rock wall. She went over and stepped up into it. She saw a telephone on the small desk inside. Below the number pad was a series of buttons. One was labeled “Acc. Cntrl.” She picked up the receiver and pushed the button. Through the receiver, she could hear the ringing on the other end.

  “Hey, man! I hear a phone ringing in there!” Walt called out.

  Nicole leaned out of the guard shack. “Yeah, Walt, it’s probably me. I was trying to call someone on the inside,” she said.

  “Yeah, well it doesn’t look like anyone’s home, man,” Walt said.

  Nicole pursed her lips in consternation and hung up the phone. As she approached the group, Walt stared at the door.

  “Ringing stopped,” he said.

  Nicole crossed her arms over her chest and started biting the nail on her forefinger.

  “What do you think, Nicole?” Sam asked. Nicole looked at him then back to the door, her only response to bite more of her nail.

  “Well, even with the door open just a little, it’s not enough for us to get in, I mean that thing must way a hundred tons. There’s no way we could move it,” Billy said.

  Paul stared at the door.

  “Actually…” he said, his words trailing off.

  Paul approached the door. All eyes followed him. Nicole was about to protest when Paul put one hand on the door and gave a firm pull. He stepped back as the massive door slowly swung open enough to gain them entrance. He turned around and stared at the group who gawked at him. Paul shrugged his shoulders.

  “Engineering,” was his only response.

  The group stared at the now open door. As one, they moved forward.

  “Hello? My name is Nicole Bennett. I am Col. Bennett’s daughter,” Nicole offered by way of identification.

  As the group crossed the threshold of the massive door, they all came to a sudden stop. Just inside and all over the floor were fifteen bodies, their arms outstretched as if reaching for the door. Their bodies were riddled with bullet holes, but there was at least one in each of their heads. Nicole and the others all stared at the bodies in shock.

  “On second thought, Paul, Maybe getting our guns is a good idea,” Nicole said.

  Forty-Six

  The presence of the fallen bodies just inside the entrance to the mountain base had spurred Nicole to action. She viewed their presence as the warning they were. They had been fleeing from something, something that they were willing to forsake the most secure facility in North America to get away from. They were a mix of military and civilian Department of Defense employees. Military uniforms on some bodies lay mixed with those in civilian business attire. The primary mission of this particular military machine was ultra secret. The only thing Nicole knew was that her father was in command of it. He had not called her as the commander those many months ago, but as her father, a father who knew that hell was coming and that the safest place to be was by his side. Now, with Sam and the others gathered around her, it started to sink in that the reunion with her estranged father, and the refuge she sought, had taken a dark turn. Nicole, Sam, Walt, Paul, and Billy stepped around the dead bodies. Behind them, Jordan pushed Ruby in her wheel chair. The bodies on the ground did not appear to be the monsters that she and the others had battled to get here. Nicole peered down at them as she past. They had all fallen in a similar pattern, heads toward the door, arms outstretched. She did not fail to notice also that all the bullet wounds that had struck them down had come from behind. These people weren’t the Dead attacking when they were killed, they were trying to escape and were shot in the back, with matching wounds to the back of their heads to make sure they stayed down. It spoke of a preventative measure that had come too late.

  As the group moved clear of the fallen bodies, Nicole stopped.

  “Jordan, you push Ruby in her chair. The rest of us form a circle around them. Keep your rifles tight against your chest, fingers on the guards, but ready to go. Think of the circle like a pie and everybody gets a slice. Don’t take someone else’s slice. Your own slice is
in front of your face and beyond. Ruby, Jordan, it’s gonna be like on the bus, okay? We need ammo, we sing out and you feed it to us. Control your firing to three round bursts and talk to each other when you get low. Nothing gets inside the circle, okay?”

  Nicole looked around at the others and got nodding heads in response. In the leather pouch on the back of Ruby’s chair were stuffed boxes of the high velocity rounds, with more in the pouches hanging off either side of the chair. In Ruby’s lap were two more opened boxes.

  “Do you think…” Billy said. His question hung unfinished in the air.

  Nicole looked at him then the others. “I don’t know what we are going to find… so everybody just stay alert, okay?” she said.

  A final nodding of heads, then they formed up a circle around Ruby and Jordan. Nicole took point, with Sam on her right shoulder and Walt on her left. Billy was to Walt’s left and Paul was on Sam’s right covering the rear and closing the circle. In formation they began to move out into the subterranean base.

  Nicole tried to keep her focus. She needed to do that for herself and the others. She had seen her father teach the circle formation to recruits but she did not kid herself. She was no field commander. She was trying to keep herself and the others alive by employing tactics she half remembered, from when she was a kid and her father’s idea of a day out was dragging her to Basic training classes. Once she got herself and the others here, her plan was to submit to whatever government paranoia was the standard protocol, and then endure a lecture from her father that she had hoped wouldn’t be too much of an “I told you so.” She was ready for that and some part of her even welcomed it, if only so that she could then tell her father that for her part, she was sorry for not being as understanding about his role in the world and letting that create distance between them. Now as she moved deeper into the cavernous facility, she could almost feel the rocks closing in on her, and wanted nothing more than for an armed patrol to call for them to halt and drop their weapons. No patrol came and she didn’t want to even think about why.

  The group moved as one through the expansive entrance, which was essentially a large loading area. Forklifts stood abandoned. Supplies sat, still sealed on huge lift plates set in the floor that would lower the provisions to any of the several levels below. To their right, huge transport trucks sat parked. Some were empty, others looked like they were in the process of being unloaded when something interrupted. Nicole took all this in as she scanned the area in front of her. As they approached the end of the loading area, they came to the other end of the cavern. Mounted in the rock was a set of sliding doors much larger than any normal elevator. Set in the wall next to the doors was a card scanner. A large light above the elevator doors glowed bright red. A camera stared down at them. Nicole stepped forward and stared up into the camera.

  “Please. My name is Nicole Bennett. I am the daughter of Col. Steven Bennett. I am here with my friends. I am here at my father’s request,” she said.

  She waited several seconds for some kind of response but none came. Nicole turned to the others and looked worried. Ruby smiled at her.

  “Maybe they’re just busy. Give them a few minutes,” Ruby said.

  Nicole looked at Ruby then back to the entrance where the bodies lay. A voice reverberated in her head.

  “Too busy to take care of the dead lying on their doorstep, too busy to even secure the door?”

  Nicole turned back to the staging area. The others turned and looked at her, waiting to see what she would do. Nicole stood and thought for a minute. The worst had happened here and her father had been forced to order a withdraw into the bowels of the facility, that much was clear to her. But the reason for nobody answering her call or even seeming to notice that they were here unnerved her. She pushed the rising panic out of her head and made a decision.

  She marched back over to the bodies and scanned them. Clipped to their lapels were their identification cards. She gathered up several cards from off of some of the more high ranking military.

  When she had several, she went back to the large elevator and looked up into the camera again. She hesitated several seconds, then ran one of the I.D. cards through the slot. A harsh beep was the only response. Above her, the red light did not change colors. She tried the next one and got the same response. Nicole dropped the two cards at her feet and tried another one.

  Two minutes later she had a pile of cards at her feet. The light above still glowed red and the doors remained sealed. Nicole looked up into the camera. The camera eye stared back at her, silent and unmoving.

  “So, What do we do now, man?” Walt asked.

  Nobody had a ready answer. Eventually, all eyes came to rest on Nicole. She studied their faces then sighed.

  “Seems there’s only two choices. Stay or go…” she said.

  They all took turns looking at each other, waiting for someone to make a decision about what they should do next.

  “Well, it’s obvious this place is not the refuge we thought it was…” Paul said, not wanting to finish his thought.

  Nobody else spoke for several seconds.

  “Guys, I know things don’t look good right now, but I have to find my father. I don’t know, maybe things went off the rails topside here, but things could be better down below. I mean the doors are sealed, so, maybe, you know?” Nicole said.

  Ruby cleared her throat and all eyes turned to her. From her wheelchair she looked at them all.

  “Well, what else have we got? If we leave here now because things look bad, how is it different out there?” Ruby’s words sunk in.

  “Well, I’m in. Nothing out there looks like a better shot than what we got in here,” Sam said.

  Paul looked at the group then at Jordan.

  “I was willing to stay in that stadium till… whenever. That didn’t seem to hold as much promise as what we got here, so… Jordan, what do you want to do?” Paul asked.

  Without hesitation, Jordan responded. “I think we keep going,” she said.

  Paul nodded. Jordan looked at Billy, uncertainty on her face.

  “What do you want to do, Billy?” she whispered. Billy looked at her and held her hand.

  “I go where you go,” he said, putting a big smile on her face.

  “Well, heck, man. We’ve made it this far, right? Let's finish it,” Walt said.

  Nicole took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay,” she said.

  “Maybe we should check the rest of those bodies for their I.D’s. One of them is bound to have clearance for this door,” Billy said.

  Nicole thought for a second then shrugged her shoulders. She headed back towards the entrance. The others fell in.

  Several minutes later, Nicole tried the last of the I.D. cards. None of them gained them access.

  “If they retreated deeper into the facility, it’s likely they secured the doors from inside and changed the codes or wiped the system of these cards,” Nicole said.

  Before anybody could respond, Sam came trotting up.

  “I was checking out those panels in the floor. They’re freight elevators,” he said. All eyes turned to Sam. “They are all secured and won’t respond, all but one that is. Maybe they forgot to secure it when… whatever happened here, happened. We could try taking that down. I mean if they are going to ignore us up here, let's make it so they can’t ignore us down there,” Sam said.

  All eyes went from Sam to Nicole. Nicole looked beyond Sam towards the entrance, then back up to the camera.

  Turning to Sam and the others, she said, “Why not? If they arrest us, at least that will be something.”

  Sam led Nicole and the others over to the only large panel in the floor that wasn’t secured. Mounted on a pole on the floor panel was the control pad consisting of a large yellow button marked “lower” and a large black button marked “raise.” Underneath these was a key slot. The slot was facing towards the right and a green light glowed. They all stared at the freight elevator. Nicole sighed then stepped onto th
e panel. Sam and the others followed. Jordan pushed Ruby in her chair onto the panel. When everyone was on board, Nicole pushed the yellow button and the large panel jerked into motion and sank below the floor.

  Forty-Seven

  The steel of the elevator shaft gave way to rock. The only light they had was from the control pad on the lift. After what seemed an eternity, the lift emerged from the shaft and came to a stop in a massive cavern. It mirrored the level above in that it too was a staging area, this to receive the supplies being delivered from above. The noise of the lift stopping echoed in the tomb-like silence of the cavern. Filling the space were rows upon rows of steel racking. Each bay had an alphanumeric identifier. Along the cavern wall to their right, a set of train tracks disappeared into a darkened tunnel. A series of flatbed train cars sat on the tracks, each of the cars in various stages of loading. As above, forklifts sat haphazardly throughout the cavern. On the floor were painted colored lines, Blue, red, green, white, and yellow. They stretched across the floor in the direction of a wall of glass with two large glass swinging doors. A blue hue from overhead lights shone through the glass.

  “What are the lines, man?” Walt asked.

  “They tell people where they can go. Gold for command, blue for R&D and medical, Red for engineering, Green for supply, and white for Administrative,” Nicole said.

  Walt nodded. “Like Star Trek, huh?” he said.

  Nicole stepped off the lift. “Yeah, Walt. Like Star Trek.”

  “What lines do we follow,” Paul asked.

  Nicole gripped her rifle. “We follow the gold. They should lead us to the HQ and my father,” she said.

  They moved slowly across the floor. This area too appeared abandoned. Supplies were spilled haphazardly across the floor. Nicole had expected a gruff reception at the gate. Finding the area as they had, her hopes were hanging on there being some sort of battle, with the bulk of the military including her father holding up securely deeper within the compound. Now with each step, she felt the noose tightening around her dream of a secure refuge. She continued to shove these thoughts aside as she moved toward the glass enclosure ahead of her. When they reached the wall of glass, they could see cubicles that formed a maze of clerical spaces.