Plague War: Pandemic

by Alister Hodge

  Jai walked back out of an adjacent building, spotted Steph and came to park his arse next to her. He looked tired, but ok.

  ‘How did it go?’ asked Steph, looking at him expectantly. ‘Was it the rifle – did they have it set up to misfire?’

  ‘Nah, mine was ok. It was pretty straightforward, just had to get closer to one of those freaks than I normally like.’

  ‘So, what was the thing that’s supposed to make it difficult?’

  ‘Maybe it’s just the proximity. But I would have thought most of us recruits have killed them before anyway – otherwise we wouldn’t have made it this far,’ Jai said, shrugging his shoulders.

  Next to the training area, the Sergeant stood up once more and looked at Steph.

  ‘Recruit Williams, you’re up next!’ he shouted.

  Steph jumped at hearing her surname. She stood, drying the sweat from her hands against the material of her pants.

  ‘Don’t worry, Steph,’ said Jai. ‘They’re pinned down; we’ve handled worse – you’ll be fine. I’ll catch up with you after, ok?’

  Steph nodded, giving Jai a half smile, however, her attention was already switched to the task at hand. She walked across the tarmac to the Sergeant. He stood next to a rack of prepared weapons. The Sergeant laid one rifle and pistol on the bench in front of her.

  ‘Leave yours here; you can collect them again after the training session. Keep your captive-bolt gun though.’ The addition of the bolt guns as standard kit was something new. Usually employed by abattoirs to render livestock unconscious by punching a retractable bolt through the front of the animal’s skull, the hand gun shaped tool could be used as a final resort to puncture a Carrier’s skull and brain at close quarters. He eyed Steph as she ensured her weapons were unloaded and made safe prior to handing them over.

  ‘So, how did you end up in this army?’ he asked.

  Steph flicked her gaze to his face briefly while she holstered her new pistol. Her trainer’s face was empty of ridicule, seeming genuinely intrigued.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’re English, yeah? I would have thought you’d see this as our own problem to deal with?’

  ‘I got stuck here on holiday when the airports closed. The UK’s no different to every other bloody country, they’ve ruled out any attempts to extract their citizens in fear of spreading this plague to the home country. My country’s abandoned me, so I guess it’s just as much my fight now as any of you. I’ve seen these things kill my mates and others, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to stand aside and do nothing.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said the Sergeant, apparently satisfied by her explanation. ‘Foreign governments won’t be able to bury their heads in the sand for much longer though. We’re not the only country with an outbreak. Indonesia and Papua New Guinea have admitted to cases. Maybe somebody smuggled themselves across the Torres Strait, or it island hopped through bat populations. Either way, it’s out and on its way to Asia and the world.’

  Steph looked up sharply at his words. The Sergeant snorted a laugh at her expression. ‘That’s right. They might have been happy to shaft us, but now every country will be eagerly looking to us as a test case for how to manage the pandemic.’ He cleared his throat, changing focus back to the task at hand.

  ‘Right, once you’re in there, you’re on your own. You will come up against live Carriers, and it’s up to you how you dispose of them. Remember, this has been set up to unnerve you and simulate real battle where things go wrong and weapons malfunction.’ The Sergeant paused as he studied her face. ‘Stick to the drills we taught you, keep calm and you’ll come out the other end fine.’

  Steph barely heard the last of his advice as her focus turned inwards, counting her breaths in and out to steady her nerves for the coming fight. She gripped the stock of her rifle, right index finger resting lightly over the trigger guard while standing at the entrance. She felt a hand grip her shoulder briefly and turned her head back to the Sergeant.

  ‘I said, Recruit, are you fit to go?’ asked the Sergeant.

  Steph nodded her head curtly. The Sergeant stood back from her and indicated to one of the other soldiers to open the gate.

  The door was sheet metal. Above it, a light flashed from red to green as the electric lock released. Steph reached out her left hand, pushed the heavy doorway open and stepped inside.

  The Sergeant sighed as he turned back to prepare a set of weapons for the next recruit in waiting. The English girl intrigued him. She’d been quiet through most of the course so far, only really talking to the underage kid, Jai.

  He pulled the next rifle out of the rack and double checked the magazine. The rifles and pistols had been prepared earlier. Every second rifle and handgun held empty magazines, meaning that each recruit would have only one of their weapons loaded. This meant the recruit might be forced to resort to their secondary weapon, depending on which one they chose to use first. The magazine on the rifle was full, so was the one on the pistol. Shit. He looked up at Jai, still sitting across the road waiting for Steph to finish her trial.

  ‘Recruit, get over here!’ he yelled at Jai. The boy lurched into motion, darting across the tarmac to stand before the Sergeant.

  ‘Sarg?’

  ‘Were both your rifle and handgun loaded?’ asked the Sergeant, a strained expression on his face.

  ‘Yes. What’s the problem, Sarg?’ asked Jai.

  The Sergeant swore viciously. ‘Looks like your mate’s going to show us what she’s made of.’

  ‘I don’t understand what you’re getting at.’ Jai’s forehead creased with worry. ‘Is something wrong with Steph’s gear?’

  ‘There was a muck up with the weapons I gave her. Neither of them has rounds in their magazines. She’s still got her captive-bolt gun though, just means she might end up a little closer to them than any of us would prefer.’

  ‘That’s bullshit!’ Jai said. ‘Pull her out and give her the loaded weapon she was supposed to have.’

  The Sergeant grimaced, staring at the red light above the gate Steph had just disappeared through. ‘I can’t. A ten-minute pre-programmed lock-out is on the gate once it closes for this training exercise. Until that light goes green again, she’s on her own.’

  Steph stepped into an enclosed hallway, the far end of which was lost in shadow. The door slammed home behind, banishing the light and leaving her in pitch black. She stood still for a moment, listening. Up ahead, something was moving, but it was impossible to tell her proximity to the Carrier. Steph reached her hand up to the wall beside her, running her fingers over the raw wooden boards used to construct the mocked-up house, looking for a light switch. Her index finger snagged on one, but it failed to spark the bulb above as she flicked it on and off again.

  Steph grimaced to herself, she had to move on. She unclipped a pocket on her webbing and pulled free a small torch. In the narrow confines of the house, she let her rifle fall to its sling, choosing her pistol instead. Steph took the hand gun in double grip, torch pointing forward from the bottom hand. The light cut ahead, illuminating another door at the far end of the hallway. She walked up to it with soft footfalls, trying to minimise her noise. Before opening the door, she listened with her ear up to the wood. Nothing. Steph knew the complex was small, she had to be at least one third of the way through.

  Steph tried the handle, slowly turning the knob. She swung the door open and stood back. Flashes of light sparked intermittently from a naked bulb in the middle of the ceiling, giving glimpses of stained timber walls. She lifted her torch and panned to the right through the doorway to inspect the recesses of the room. A hand snapped out of the darkness to grip the barrel of her pistol, accompanied by a vicious snarl. Steph let out a startled yelp as she tried to jerk her weapon out of the Carrier’s grip without success. She lost the torch in the wrestle, knocked flying to smash against the far wall. The faulty light continued to flash in a disjointed staccato, allowing Steph to view glimpses of her attacker in darkness
. The Carrier was handcuffed to the wall by the opposite limb, stopping it from coming any closer to her. It was a young man, a soldier in torn camouflage uniform, probably another recruit that had failed one of the training tests and ended up bitten. A crew cut skull showed unnaturally pale skin above facial features distorted by hunger driven anger. It screamed in rage, lips snarled up to expose teeth as it wrenched at its pinned limb. Skin and underlying tissue was torn backwards under the metal of the handcuff, until bone wedged against the steel, jamming the hand in place.

  Steph pulled the trigger, hoping to blow away part of the ghoul’s hand and break its grip. The sound of the pin clicking on an empty chamber was drowned out by the raging Carrier. Steph let go of the pistol, it was useless to her if it wouldn’t fire. She backed to the far side of the doorway, just out of reach of the scrabbling hand. Her heart hammered at the ribs of her chest, racing as adrenaline surged through her body. Pistol now forgotten, she lifted her rifle and fired.

  Nothing again.

  Steph felt fear begin to clutch at her throat, choking off her ability to gain air as she realised she’d been given two faulty weapons for the test. She needed to get out. Steph inched past the Carrier, just out of reach of the lunging hand. In lightning flashes from the faulty bulb, she found the other door. As she was about to clutch the handle, the panels of the door jumped as fists beat into them from the other side. Suddenly the door burst inwards, knocking her from her feet. A second Carrier tumbled through the new opening, tripping over her legs. Its right hand was missing, torn free of its restraint.

  Steph screamed her own terror back at the ghoul as she scrambled to her knees, rifle in hand. She reversed her grip and drove the stock down on the back of the Carriers skull before it could right itself. Hair and skin were stripped from the skull with each blow, before the bone finally gave way, punching inwards to mash the underlying brain tissue.

  To her side, the pinned soldier gave a final vicious jerk at its handcuff. The metacarpal bone and thumb ripped free, allowing the hand to slip through the steel ringlet. The creature lunged at Steph, knocking her onto her back and landing on top. Only her rifle lay between their two bodies. Steph pushed upwards with a hand on either end of her weapon, driving the Carrier back as it snapped teeth at her face. She managed to raise her knee between them and kicked out with all the force she could muster. The Carrier was flung backwards momentarily. She reached for her captive-bolt gun, drawing the pistol shaped tool free of her webbing as the creature launched itself back at her. Again, she was driven to her back under the weight of the larger body. Fetid breath made her gag as the Carrier’s snarling mouth came within centimetres of her face. She jammed her left forearm up against its neck to prevent it reaching her and brought the bolt gun up to the side of its head. Ramming the barrel against the skull above the Carrier’s ear, she pulled the trigger. The tool thumped a rod of steel out of the barrel, puncturing the skull and penetrating the brain beneath.

  The ghoul fell limp, a dead weight on her body. A brown sludge seeped from the Carrier’s mouth, dripping like sewage. Steph shoved the creature off her and rolled to the side. She got to her knees and vomited, her stomach heaving until nothing was left. In the new silence, she heard an electronic buzz from down the hallway as the external door burst open, and suddenly the room was drenched in light as the bulb above turned on properly for the first time. Clumping footsteps ran towards her. She raised a hand, shielding her eyes from the light as they adjusted.

  The training Sergeant stood over her with gun drawn as he scanned the room. He was lost for words as he took in the situation that she’d survived.

  ‘Are you bitten?’ he asked finally, reaching out to help her stand.

  Steph pointedly ignored his offered hand. Standing on her own, she wiped away the taste of vomit with the back of her hand as she looked at the Sergeant, anger plain on her face.

  ‘No. Not for want of the bastards trying. Why the fuck were both weapons empty?’ asked Steph, coldly furious at being put in such a position. ‘That wasn’t a training session, that was being set up to fail.’

  ‘It was an accident. You were supposed to have a loaded handgun. I’m sorry, it was my stuff up,’ he apologized. ‘If it’s any consolation, you passed with flying colours.’

  Steph said nothing, staring levelly at the Sergeant through narrowed eyes. Finally, she broke eye contact and walked for the exit, not waiting to be dismissed.

  The Sergeant slowly exhaled as she left. He’d been steeling himself towards finding her corpse on gaining access to the training rooms, and the relief at her survival was like a dose of Valium to his anxiety. He leant down to examine the hands of each corpse, emitting a low whistle of surprise at the damage they’d inflicted upon themselves to escape their bonds and attack. He still couldn’t believe that she had not only survived hand to hand combat with two Carriers without being bitten, but left her attackers dead in her wake. They would have to change the way they secured the Infected in future if he didn’t want to lose half his recruits before they made it to the real battlefield, because God knows, it would take a rare soldier to survive such a situation on their own again.

  Chapter Six

  Erin stared through the wire fence out to Bass Strait with her hands shoved deep in her jeans pockets. Of all the craziness, this was what bugged her the most – why the hell did they have to be enclosed behind a barrier? They were on an island surrounded by unforgiving ocean, so she failed to see who they could threaten. She wasn’t the only one annoyed at the containment, having heard angry conversations between some of the adults at being locked up when their only crime was surviving the plague.

  A short fifty metre stretch of low dunes and grass separated the quarantine facility from the beach. Her teeth chattered in her mouth as the wind stripped away her body heat. She’d been forced to leave behind her thick winter jacket in Jindabyne, being given only a rain slicker in its stead. Although it didn’t snow on the island, she thought the driving winds laced with rain made it colder here than she had been above the snow line. Her father would have called it a ‘lazy wind’, the type that drove straight through and past your bones instead of going around your body. The sea beyond the fence was sullen and grey beneath an overcast sky. Foam from the surf rolled along a shallow crescent of damp sand, before being whipped into the air and away. Her eyes followed the shoreline to the right where a narrow spike of rock extended as a headland into the water. This sheltered the beach from the worst of the ocean’s fury, sending spray metres into the air as waves broke upon the cracked sandstone. Erin pulled a hand from her pocket and wiped away droplets of water that the wind had spattered on her face. She needed to get moving, her shift would be starting soon.

  Erin turned around to face back into the camp. Pre-fabricated demountable buildings lay in rows, facing onto narrow gravel roads. They held bunk beds, ten to a building with a small metal chest for each person to keep their belongings. Nobody had much aside from a change of clothes, anything larger being left behind at their different evacuation points. The buildings lacked proper insulation, a problem compounded by temperatures that dropped below freezing overnight. The only times Erin had felt warm since arriving a fortnight prior was when she worked in the kitchens, having been recruited as a dishwasher. Outside these shift times, she found herself stalking about the camp, trying to keep warm through constant movement.

  ‘Hey Erin! This one’s yours!’ shouted a younger boy.

  A soccer ball scooted over the ground towards her. Erin trotted over and dug her right foot into it, sending it flying back to the three boys playing with it. Most of the camp were children of various ages with a surviving parent. There were also numerous women in the camp, but hardly any men. At Jindabyne, Erin had thought the induction process for the army had lacked coercion, but she was beginning to think that was only because every adult in their group had willingly sought recruitment at the first opportunity. There was constant pressure on adults to join the army and return
to the mainland. Enlistment posters lined the cafeteria walls and common areas, with a sign-up booth manned during daylight hours for those that decided to join. Pressure was on women to fight, though not to the same extent as the men. Even fathers were constantly hassled and ridiculed by the guards, called cowards and worse for declining to fight.

  She ducked under a line of washing strung between two demountables and started to jog. Her mouth watered at the thought of getting something warm to eat. Erin could usually obtain extra scraps to eat out the back in the preparation area. She’d been one of the lucky ones, to get a job in the kitchens. All camp inmates, twelve years and older were employed in some type of work around the place on a daily basis, more to keep people occupied than anything else, she thought. Other kids hadn’t been so lucky. One of her mates, a fourteen-year-old called Ben, had been stuck on clean up duty of the toilet and laundry blocks. His hands had been stripped raw by bleach within a week, but he’d been told to find his own replacement if he wanted to change out. Funnily enough, no-one had been keen to take on the job.

  Erin tucked a strand of her long fringe over an ear as she walked. Her short bob of mouse-brown hair had grown out over the past two months. She could now pull most of it back into a short pony-tail, however her fringe still fell free in the absence of any clips to pin it up. She was nearing the entrance to the main building, a double storey structure that had been the island’s largest hotel, an eco-friendly business that led tours of the surrounding coastline and wildlife. The navy had forcibly acquired the property, taking advantage of the commercial kitchen needed to feed an ever-growing refugee community.