“It’s okay,” Tasha said. She already felt weighed down and could not imagine wearing anything else. Cleveland had put together an L.B.E., which he told her stood for ‘Load Bearing Equipment’ and rigged it with a fancy military flashlight, two water canteens, a gas mask, and pouches for extra ammunition. He had also set her up with a radio the same way the rest of them had theirs. The radio itself was on her belt and the hand mic was up on her shoulder where all she had to do was reach up and press the actuator. Cleveland had clearly enjoyed showing off all the toys. Tasha thought it was overkill but she did not think she was in much of a position to complain.
Williams nodded. “Okay, we do what we can with what we have. Cleveland, move your ass. I said to get back on the radio. If anything comes in over the comm, I want to know.”
“Can’t Tanner cover it?” Cleveland asked with a frown.
Williams glared at Cleveland. “Tanner doesn’t know jack shit on how to run the radio,” Williams said. “Now get your ass in the tent!”
“Got it,” Cleveland said and sprinted off.
“Tanner!” Williams shouted.
Tanner came running from around a bunker. He slipped in the mud again and went down on one knee. “Yes, Sergeant,” he said as he sprang back up and wiped the mud off his pants.
“What’s wrong with you?” Williams asked.
“Two left feet, Sergeant!” Tanner yelled. “Won’t happen again.”
“Take it down a notch, Private,” Williams said. “I want you to take care of our new friend here. Give her the tour. I want everyone on the same page at all times.”
“Yes, Sergeant,” Tanner said. Apparently satisfied Tasha was in good hands, Williams left the two of them and walked away towards one of the bunkers. Tasha’s stomach growled loudly. She was hungry and thought of the remaining cans of cat food in her backpack still halfway down the hill. What would I do if I even had one? she thought. Crack it open and start eating? Everyone would think I’m insane. Still, Tasha was unsure if she should ask for something to eat. Better to be rude than to stand here and starve to death. “I don’t suppose you have something to eat?” she finally asked.
“What? Yeah,” Tanner said. “You hungry?”
“Starving,” she said.
“You should have said something,” Tanner replied and smiled. “We got a crap ton of MREs. Come with me.” Tanner lead Tasha into yet another bunker and down a short hall to what looked to be some kind of dining hall where there were more military crates and boxes. Two crates were already open and contained large brown plastic packets with ‘MRE: Meal Ready to Eat’ stamped on the side.
“What kind you want?” Tanner asked.
“I, uh … I don’t know,” Tasha replied. Not liver or seafood, for sure. “What would you recommend?”
Tanner held up one of the MREs for Tasha to see. “Well, one of my favorites is pork with rice in barbecue sauce.”
“Um,” Tasha said.
“It’s good,” Tanner replied and read from the label. “It’s got ground pork, tomato paste, water, rice, brown sugar … “
“Anything with peanut butter?” Tasha asked.
“Peanut butter, we have,” Tanner said and dug into a large black garbage bag they had on a shelf. Tasha saw it was stock full of peanut butter packets.
Tanner pulled out a handful of the small gray packets. They were all identical to the one that Williams had been eating from earlier. “We collect these,” he said. “Most of us are pretty sick of peanut butter.” Tasha knew she was grinning like a kid at Christmas, but she didn’t care. She dug into the bag and stuffed two handfuls of peanut butter packets into her cargo pockets.
“I’ve been living on … well, let's just say … I’ve missed real food,” she said.
“No problem,” Tanner said. “Take as much as you want.”
Tasha looked at him to see if he was joking. She was pretty sure he wasn’t, so she grabbed two more handfuls and put them in her pockets with the rest.
Tanner smiled at her. “Come on,” he said. “I need to show you the mountain top before Williams comes back and chews our asses for standing around.”
While Tasha tore into a peanut butter packet, Tanner walked her around the base. He pointed out the trenches, the sandbags, the barbed wire, which he called “concertina wire,” and the various defenses set up on the road. “A couple times things have gotten pretty out of hand up here,” he said. “Early on, when we didn't know any better, we had these two vegetables find their way up here and we blasted them to shit. Everybody unloaded on them. But the noise we made? Shit, about twenty minutes later a whole bunch more vegetables came running up the road ... which we then had to kill. It took us awhile to figure out our shooting was what was drawing them. Williams had us all go to silenced weapons after that.”
“So gunfire draws them then?” Tasha asked.
“Seems to,” Tanner said. “That’s not the worst though. Have you seen how they react to helicopters?”
Tasha nodded. “They go crazy.”
“Right. Well we didn’t know that early on either. Command sent a chopper up here to check on us this one time and it brought a hundred vegetables with it. We were able to hold them off for a couple hours, but the more noise we made blowing shit up, the worse the vegetables got. We finally had to barricade ourselves in the garage and wait for backup. It really sucked.“
“You have a garage?” Tasha asked through a mouthful of peanut butter
“Yeah, for real,” Tanner said. “I’ll show you later. It’s on the backside of the base. It’s where we keep our Humvee.”
“Humvee?”
“High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle,” Tanner said. “We don’t use it much. There is nowhere to drive up here and we only have the one road. But if we ever need to drive out of here … although the road down isn’t so great.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” Tasha said.
“Yeah, yeah I bet you did,” Tanner continued, smiling. “Anyhow, we just locked ourselves in the garage for a couple hours until more helicopters came along and got smart enough to draw the vegetables off. Those stupid zombies went and chased those choppers right over the side of the mountain.” Tanner stopped and pushed up the front of his helmet with his finger. “Thinking about it now, that wasn’t really a bad outcome. I should ask Williams why we don’t draw them up here more often. We took out a whole bunch of them that day.”
“How about you wait until I’m out of here,” Tasha said. They stood at the edge of one of the trenches. “So, what’s up with all the trenches?”
Tanner laughed. “Depends on who you ask. Cleveland and I are pretty sure we dug them just so Williams had something for us to do these last couple months, but he says they are for defense. They do work pretty well though,” he said. “The vegetables are not the smartest creatures to roam the earth.”
“Is that why you call them vegetables?” Tasha asked.
“Yeah,” Tanner said. “We figure they are all brain dead. Anyhow, we use these trenches as our main defense on the mountain. We have a whole series of them because, like I was saying, sometimes the vegetables wander their way up here and when they do, we don’t want them surprising anyone. So, we dug these trenches and sometimes they fall in and can’t figure out how to get out.” He looked across the mountain top. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s walk the lower perimeter and see if we caught anything.”
They walked around the base again, this time lower and looked through a different series of trenches. Tasha ate peanut butter and Tanner talked. “Sergeant Williams is the guy in charge up here,” Tanner said. “And he is a big believer in these trenches. He also believes in keeping what he likes to call ‘strict military discipline’. He’s ex-regular Army and now running our Guard unit, so he keeps the rest of us on a pretty tight schedule. Just like the regular military, we wake up early, get into formation for roll call, do our physical training, and follow military procedure … every military procedure.”
“Wh
y?” Tasha asked. “Aren’t you guys all alone up here?”
Tanner paused and looked over his shoulder to make sure no one was nearby. “Williams says he does this to keep the squad focused and on task, but I think it’s because he’s a tight ass.” Tasha smiled. “Still,” Tanner continued. “I can’t argue with the value of the trenches, they have caught more than their share of vegetables. Williams has been talking of expanding and widening the main trench to where we could use it as a running track around the top of the mountain. I don’t particularly care for the extra work, but then again, it would be something to do.” They finished the loop around the lower perimeter and began walking back toward the top. Tasha got the impression that Tanner was disappointed they had not found any zombies.
“Better luck next time?” she asked.
“Ha!” Tanner laughed. “Maybe. I have to admit, I didn’t really expect to find anything. When there is one in the trench, they usually make a pretty good racket. I tell you what though, when we do find one, we have to put them down quick before they alert any other vegetables in the area. I’m not interested in trying to take on another swarm of them. Not with just the four of us. Well, five now that you’re here.”
Tasha took a drink from her canteen to wash down the peanut butter. The idea of facing a swarm of creepers did not interest her either. “So, why is there only the four of you anyway? ”
“Well,” Tanner said, lowering his voice. Tasha thought he was trying to sound like Williams. “Originally we were deployed up here to act as lookouts. ‘Observe and Report’ is the official order. I guess since we weren’t regular Army, they thought we should stay off the front lines. Guess they screwed that up, we’ve seen plenty of action.”
“Why do you keep saying ‘not regular Army’? What are you?” Tasha asked.
“We’re National Guard! Seattle’s front line!”
“Okay,” Tasha said, starting to understand why everyone looked so young. “So, you’re pretty new to this.”
“I went to boot camp last summer,” he said. “But you’re right, only Williams has seen real combat. Other than fighting vegetables I mean.”
Still a lot more than I’ve done, Tasha thought. “So what do you do up here then?”
“Honestly?” he asked, his voice back to normal. “Not a whole hell of a lot. Mostly just keeping an eye on the city below and report anything weird back to Command over on Mercer Island. That and dig trenches, saw down trees, and fill sandbags.”
“How long will you be stationed up here?” Tasha asked.
“As long as it takes,” Tanner said. ”Command says the vegetables are slowly starving themselves out and up here we have enough supplies to last us years. Plus, we have our Humvee to use if there is an emergency or something. Not to mention, we have the best view of the apocalypse anyone could ask for.”
Tasha looked around. The top of the mountain had once been lush with evergreen trees. Now they were all cut down to stumps. “Did you guys saw down all of these trees?” she asked.
“Yeah. To give us better lines of sight. We found out real quick that we couldn’t chop down the trees because the thumping of the axes against the wood would bring the vegetables like worms to the surface during a rainstorm. And you can forget using chain saws.”
“Too loud?”
“Oh yeah. It was okay though. Sawing them down by hand was good work. Plus it helped pass the time and sometimes the falling tree would make just the right amount of noise to bring a vegetable or two and then we would experiment with our silent killing techniques on them.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. Hey, we got to sharpen our skills. I tell you what though, sometimes when a tree fell just right, it would really crack the ground and then a bunch of vegetables would come up at once.”
“That’s odd.”
“Yeah. It’s weird how some things bring more of them than others.”
Suddenly, Cleveland poked his head out of the tent flap. “Hey!” he said. “Command just radioed. Chopper is on its way!”
CLARK
After talking with Rocha, Clark went back to the medical facility in the gymnasium and collected as much research material as he could find and stuffed it all into a large, military duffle bag. In went binders, reports, and loose paper. He decided someone needed to get all of the different documents together, so he designated himself as the Global Records Coordinator and planned to pull together every document he could locate on the subject of the virus and take it all back to the aircraft carrier. He’d had enough of the mainland and once he was done gathering the material, he went to see General Dodge and requested transportation back to the ship. “We aren’t operating on a schedule,” Dodge told him. “Flights go back and forth throughout the day. My best recommendation is to just hang out on the landing field and catch a ride when you can.” Clark did not like the informality of it, but it didn’t look like he had any other options. He was about to head to the landing field when he checked the time and decided since he had no idea how long he would have to be standing around, he should grab something to eat before waiting for a chopper to come in. By the time Clark reached the cafeteria, he realized he was famished. He got in line at the grill and was pleasantly surprised to see they served breakfast all day and night.
“Ham and cheese omelet, grits, and a double side of hash browns,” Clark had said when the cook asked him what he wanted. He had just sat down with his food when Rocha came in with his rifle slung over his shoulder. I bet he sleeps with that thing, Clark thought. Rocha ordered his food and sat down at a table in a far corner, confirming for Clark that the Special Operations guys did like to be alone. Clark finished his omelet and started on the grits when he heard the sound of someone running in the hallway, just outside the mess hall.
“Is that gunfire?” one of the soldiers at another table asked. Clark listened with a spoon full of grits in his mouth when an alarm suddenly began to sound.
Across the room, Clark saw Rocha stand up so fast he knocked his chair over. Ignoring his food, the soldier grabbed his rifle and ran for the door. Clark was at a loss for what to do. Nothing good set off alarms and brought soldiers running. Has to have something to do with the virus, he thought. The last thing Clark wanted was to be around any of the infected but everyone else in the cafeteria was already up and running for the door. Against his better judgement, Clark let his conscience get the better of him. He decided he would not be the only one to stay and finish his meal. He dropped his spoon, picked up his duffel bags, and walked over to the door where he watched soldiers sprinting down the hallway toward the sound of more gunfire. Clark looked for Rocha but did not see him and decided he must already be ahead of the pack.
Jogging along behind the wave of soldiers, Clark reached a pair of double doors and barreled through and out into the parking lot. Trucks of all shapes and sizes were rushing through the front gate so Clark sidestepped and got out of the way. Soldiers were everywhere. He was suddenly conscious that most of the other soldiers were decked out in combat gear. He had read that the military had released combat protocols ensuring all soldiers had body armor, helmets, and masks. Everything to make them more efficient killers and to protect them from being bitten or becoming infected through contact with contaminated bodily fluids. Clark looked down at himself and noted he had none of this protective gear. He was in a t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. He did not even have his lab coat. Not good. I need to get out of here, he thought just as a caravan of trucks came storming in through the front gate. It was a disorganized mess as the trucks parked wherever they could find a spot. “One more!” a guard yelled from a tower and Clark watched as a semi-truck came driving through the gate. Maybe this is a good time to go back inside, Clark thought, when suddenly a military vehicle came to a sliding stop in the mud not far from him.
“Medic!” the driver cried.
Shit, Clark thought. What am I doing here? I should have left when I had the chance. Clark looked around to make sure he would
not get run over by any more trucks. It looked as safe as it was going to get, so he left his duffle bags against the side of the cafeteria building and ran to the vehicle. “Who needs the medic?” he asked the driver.
“In the back,” the driver said as he climbed out from behind the steering wheel. “He’s pretty bad.”
Clark stepped out of the way as the driver opened the back door. The smell told Clark it was already a lost cause. Anything that reeked that bad was already dead. Clark looked over towards the medical facility and thought about going for a respirator and some latex gloves.
“Help me out,” the driver said as he pulled a gurney out of the back of the vehicle. Clark grit his teeth and helped with the gurney by taking the handles nearest the dead soldier’s feet. Clark looked at the corpse. The soldier was ghostly white, his tongue swollen, and his eyes were open and lifeless. No doubt he was dead and Clark worried if he was potentially exposing himself to the disease for no reason.
“Head’s up!” someone started yelling. “We have incoming!”
God damn it! Clark thought. He had to get out of this parking lot. The hell with that, he thought. I need to get off the whole damn mainland and get back to the aircraft carrier. He thought about just dropping the gurney. It was not like the dead guy would care. He watched as soldiers rushed past him, running toward the front gate where Clark saw infected were forcing their way through and into the compound. “Where did they all come from?” Clark heard one of the soldiers yell.
“They came in behind the caravan!” another yelled back.
Clark had heard and seen enough. “Hey,” he said to the driver. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to get out of here.”
“What?”
“I’m really sorry,” Clark repeated. “I can’t be here.”
Suddenly, there was shouting to Clark’s left. He looked, standing there with the dead soldier on the gurney, his hands shaking with fear and his arms already getting tired from the weight. He watched as the driver of the last truck got out and bent over, holding onto the enormous truck wheel. He was fifty feet away from Clark, but Clark could plainly see the man was grossly infected with the disease. Clark put down his end of the gurney, stepped back and pointed at the driver. “Get away from him!” he shouted.
Outbreak (Book 1): Emerald City Page 9