“We?” he asked, remembering Jack.
“The hound is alright. He’ll be fit for duty in a few days.”
“He’s the only one that will be.” Jonathan’s voice came from his right.
“How bad am I? I can’t feel anything.”
“Ryan, when they dug you out, you were barely alive. You’re on a lot of drugs,” she explained. “It’ll take a while, but you’ll be okay.”
Was that a wobble in her voice?
“But we got them?” Although he kept his eyes shut, he turned his head toward Jonathan.
“We’ve found no survivors. We believe we have containment, and for the first time in this job, I didn’t need a cover. A terrorist bomb destroyed the mall. The media didn’t ask any awkward questions.”
“Didn’t ask?” he repeated. Past tense. “How long have I been out?”
“Six days. You were kept in an induced coma for treatment.”
Ryan heard the rhythmic drumming of composite fingers.
“They tell me you really were very close to dying—permanently. Of course, if you hadn’t used your own suspension drugs on the dog, you might have fared better.”
He waited for a rebuke, but none came.
“In any case, you’ve probably set a record. Crozier calculated the blast at point-seven-five kilotons. I doubt anyone’s ever survived one that close. Congratulations,” he added after several seconds. “I’d better get back to duty.”
When he left, Ryan risked opening his eyes again.
“You’ll need a new partner.” He still couldn’t feel anything, but the amount of dressings suggested he’d be here a long time.
“No, I won’t. You’ll be back on operations before me.”
“Why? You said you were alright.”
“I am.” She hesitated. “Ryan, remember in the mall, I couldn’t sense anything properly? Turns out the problem wasn’t the Tachs, the indistinct life that I kept feeling close by wasn’t them. It was something else.” Why detour around the subject like this? Was she that scared of the destination?
“You’re pregnant,” he said, following her line of thought.
She nodded, relieved he’d said the word for her. “But—how? We can’t…”
“All lies. The Minister and I have discussed it.” Something in her tone suggested violence. “It’s hard for us to conceive, but not impossible. They deliberately paired us up based on our genomes, and we did exactly what they wanted!” She stopped her tirade long enough to look at him. “Why aren’t you angry?”
“Because they’re right.”
“Ryan, they’re breeding us like animals, using bloodlines to get stronger offspring!” Her mind wandered back to the poor women in the mall, but she shook the image off.
“They’re right, and you know it. There are more gateways every year. We can’t keep up. And stop pretending that you’re not at least a bit happy. Even I can feel that.”
“Alright,” she relented. “But—Ryan. Children shouldn’t be conceived as soldiers.”
“And ours wasn’t.” The words felt strange, but the concept didn’t seem so bad. In fact, it felt rather good. “Look at it this way. We’ve got twenty years to make sure they don’t have to be.”
It was a good answer, she thought.
“Okay,” she agreed, finally relaxing enough to smile. “By the way, I’ve got something for you. You were holding it when they dug you out.”
She held out his revolver, looking comically oversized in her smaller hand.
His wounded arm struggled with the weight.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.” He closed his fingers on the grips. “Better already.”
Fallen States
Jason Papke
Warren Scriber cursed under his breath as he scanned the area around the tree line he was hiding in, and continued to count more and more heat signatures stalking the area around the small farmstead. General Strickland had informed him he would be linking up with an Army Special Forces A-Team that had been inserted into northern Kansas to eliminate an alpha Crimson that had been located in the area, not a whole pack.
From the look of things, however, the team had found and engaged the alpha before Warren could complete his two day trek to the linkup site. The combined thermal and infrared goggles that had been added to the usual supply drop had proved to be a godsend. He had opted to wear them instead of his standard issue infrared night vision monocular, which had tipped him off to the Crimsons in the area. Without the goggles he likely never would have noticed them in the darkness of the night and would have walked straight into an incidental ambush.
The four heat signatures circled the farmstead like a pack of wolves. Each had body temperatures slightly higher than what a normal man would put off, but from their movements, Warren knew that these were no longer men. These were something more, something that made a slight tingle of fear creep into the back of Warren’s mind.
He no longer feared the millions of zombies that ran rampant in the fallen states east of the Rocky Mountains—he had discovered in the first weeks of the outbreak that he was one of the lucky few that were immune to the virus. At times though, he considered his immunity to be more of a curse than a blessing.
When the outbreak began in the central United States it had quickly been discovered that less than one percent of the population was immune to the virus and would not turn into a shambling zombie if bitten. Scientists had not been able to discover why these people were immune to the virus, but it had been noted that they still carried it within their bodies and could infect others. It took the fall of the safe haven around New York and the death of millions of refugees for the government to realize that those immune were not simply just carriers. The virus itself mutated upon finding a host that did not die then turn into one of the undead after infection. If a carrier infected another human they didn’t simply turn into a zombie, but turned into a creature much more fearsome which had been dubbed the Crimson because of the bright red skin tone caused by its high body temperature and the effects of the virus.
Crimsons, at first, had seemed nearly impossible to kill. They ran at speeds that matched or surpassed that of living humans and seemed never to tire. Any crimson killed by weapon fire would soon after regenerate and rise again to continue hunting humans, even after receiving blunt trauma to the brain. The only way found to permanently kill them was to completely burn the body in order to prevent regeneration.
Before the outbreak Warren had been a soldier based out of Fort Benning. His unit had been one of the first sent in to respond to the initial outbreak. Upon being bitten and discovering he was a carrier, he had been pulled from the front lines and sent to a medical facility for study. After the discovery of the Crimson strain, all carriers had been quarantined and forced to live in a detention facility in Nevada.
Warren however had gained the attention of Major General Strickland because of his experience as a combat soldier who was now immune to the effects of the virus. Strickland had offered Warren his freedom from the detention center on the condition that he agree to use his skills and immunity to hunt down any alpha Crimsons that were located in the fallen states. Granting Warren his freedom had been strictly against the new regulations put in place on how to handle carriers and Strickland had informed him that nobody else would know of their arrangement. He was to send all reports straight to the general via iridium satellite phone.
In the initial months the undead had swept through over half of the United States resulting in over 100 million deaths. But with time the military was able to adjust their tactics and stop the spread. Currently the millions of zombies roaming the fallen states posed little threat to the safe haven east of the Rockies. Military leadership however feared that a single alpha Crimson breaching the perimeter could result in the proliferation of the Crimson strain and the fall of the western states.
The four creatures circling the farmstead only showed moderately elevated body heat and were likely operators
from the A-team who had been recently turned into Crimsons. However, his target, the alpha crimson, was nowhere to be seen. Alpha Crimsons were the source of the strain, the individuals who were turned by being directly infected by a living carrier. Only alphas could sustain the virus indefinitely. Any humans they infected would become a Crimson, but the virus would decay in a matter of weeks would merely turn into a zombie. If the alpha were killed, the spread of the crimson strain would soon stop.
The GPS on his wrist told him the grid position he had been given for the team was directly in the center of the farm he was observing. From the way the Crimsons were circling the place, Warren knew that there was somebody alive down there. The two grain silos obviously weren’t sheltering any survivors and the machine sheds and dilapidated barn all had open doorways and didn’t look as if they had been barricaded at all. The only building that looked fortified enough to keep the Crimsons out was a small two story house located at the edge of the farm near a narrow gravel road.
Warren quickly flipped up his goggles and saw that the full moon was casting a silvery light over the farm. He would have to be careful to ensure he wasn’t spotted by any of the creatures or anything else that was in the area.
He took his time slowing creeping through the darkness towards the house making sure to stick to the shadows whenever he could to avoid drawing the attention of the crimsons. He kept his UMP 45 submachine gun at the ready as he snuck through the barn and covered the last stretch of open ground before reaching the house.
The front door appeared to be heavily fortified but a window nearby looked as if it had been previously boarded over but later blown out of place by explosives. Warren crept onto the front porch of the house and noted the back of a dresser against the window. If there were any survivors inside who were military, Warren was certain that they would have a guard posted near the window, since it appeared to be the weakest point on the otherwise fortified house.
Warren put his back to the wall of the house and scanned for any undead that had spotted him moving to the porch but saw none. He reached up and carefully knocked on the backside of the dresser and quietly announced “Friendly outside, request to come in.”
He heard some hushed talking coming from inside the house and soon after Warren heard the dresser being dragged across the floor. “Come in slowly,” came a quiet response from inside the house. Not wanting to appear aggressive and spook whoever was inside, Warren allowed his UMP to hang by its sling as he pulled himself through the window.
The muzzle of an M1014 shotgun welcomed hi into the room. A man motioned the gun for Warren to move off to the side and a second individual pushed the dresser back into position. From the look of the two and the gear they were carrying, Warren surmised that he had located the Special Forces team he had been sent to locate. “Who the hell are you and what are you doing here?” asked the man with the shotgun.
“I received a message from higher telling me to head here and help you boys out with your hunt,” Warren replied. “And from the look of things outside, you started without me.”
“Captain did say we’d be linking up with another element. We thought it would be another of our teams,” said the second man who had finished putting their hasty barricade back up against the window. “Are you even from a team?”
“I’m not from a team but I was with regiment before the outbreak hit, so I can handle myself,” Warren replied. “And, I’m all the help you’re going to get.”
“Well it’s better than nothing,” said the man with the shotgun. “We better take you to see the Captain.”
The pair led him upstairs to a small bedroom tucked away in the corner of the house. Inside he discovered two men tending to an injured man who lay on the blood stained sheets of a child’s twin bed. Shotgun man stepped towards the bed and addressed the injured man. “Captain Oswald, our attachment is here.”
“So you must be the mystery man command told me would be joining us,” said the Captain, wincing with every word. “I found it hard to believe that a man would be out here hunting by himself. I thought our teams were the only ones foolish enough to come after these creatures. Unfortunately you’re a little late for the party”
“You guys do look a little worse for wear,” Warren said. “I take the four Crimson’s circling the house as an indication as to why I’m finding five of you in here instead of a full twelve man team.”
“Bastard is smart,” said the Captain as sorrow crept into his eyes. “He found us before we’d even moved three klicks from our insertion site. The thing would come out of nowhere, bite one of my men and drag him off before we could do much of anything about it. We managed to burn three of the bodies, but I’m afraid the four you saw outside are the rest of my men.”
“How long has it been since they were turned?” Warren asked.
“About four hours for the most recent one, six for the first,” said the man tending to the Captain’s wounds. “And before you ask, it’s been a little over four since the Captain was attacked, and no, he hasn’t shown any of the initial symptoms yet—he’s clean.”
“Good enough for me,” Warren replied. If he was right in assuming that this man was the team’s Medical Sergeant then he would be up to speed and well educated on the effects of the virus. Fluid transfer was required to spread the virus so as long as the crimson didn’t have any of its own fluids on its claws and it didn’t get any bites in there was a good chance the Sergeant was right.
“If it’s already been six hours since the first we’re going to have to move fast,” he continued. “The bodies of your men that were turned will still be broken and torn from being mauled by the alpha, that’ll make them slower and weaker. It’ll be best to take them out before they have more time to heal from their wounds.
“Take them out?” said the man standing to the left of the bed next to a HF radio, a scoped M-14 rifle leaning against the wall next to him. “We’ve lost over half of our team and there are five of those things out there now instead of just one. We need to cut our losses and abort mission.”
“You know as well as I do that your command will never authorize sending in a bird for extraction with a pack of Crimsons in the area,” Warren shot back. “You’re only hope of getting out of here is to clear the area by completing the mission. The alpha will stay at a distance and watch so long as the four other Crimsons are still alive to hunt for it. We need to take them out, draw the alpha in, and kill it.”
“He’s right Tom, command won’t put a helo at that much risk just for us.” Captain Oswald said before turning his head to look at Warren. “Since you seem to be the man with all the answers I suppose you have some kind of plan.”
“Not off the top of my head,” Warren admitted. “But if we take a minute to compare resources, I’ll bet we can all come up with one together. Your team have any form of outside support?”
“We’ll have a predator drone with two hellfires on station in just under thirty minutes,” Oswald replied. “We’re deep enough into the badlands though that it will only be able to remain in position for about one hour.”
“Well that gives us about thirty minutes to come up with a plan,” Warren said as he dropped his pack to the ground. “I brought a few toys along that should help us out. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
Warren shifted his UMP in his grasp as he readied himself to head outside. It had only been two weeks since he had fought his last Crimson but his palms were already sweaty with anticipation. Next to him was the team’s marksman Staff Sergeant Thomas Burchette, tightly gripping his M-14 rifle. Together the two of them would be leaving the house and heading for the nearby grain silos in order to get into better overwatch positions.
“You ready for this?” Warren asked, unsure if he was ready himself.
“Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess,” Burchette replied. “You a very good sprinter with all that gear on?”
“I guess we’ll be finding out soon enough,” Warren said. “Why, you
worried about me?”
“Not really. I just remembered that if worse comes to worse I only need to outrun you, not the Crimsons,” Burchette said with an uneasy chuckle.
It was good to see the man trying to make a joke out of the situation. Warren could hear the nervousness in his voice, but his hands were steady on his M-14.
When they were both set, they nodded to Staff Sergeant McKean who was ready to push the dresser away from the barricaded front porch window then guard the entry point with his semi-automatic shotgun until it was his turn to leave.
As soon as the dresser was out of the way, the two quietly crawled through the window and began carefully making their way towards the grain silos on the other end of the compound. They hadn’t even made it halfway when Warren heard an all too familiar scream in the distance that made the hair stand up on the back of his neck.
Within moments, the headset Warren had dialed in to the team’s frequency crackled to life and the voice of the predator operator, who was likely sitting in a room safe and sound in Arizona, filled his ears. “Dragon 6 this is Raven 1, we have movement on all sides of the compound. Your ground team has been spotted, four tangos inbound.”
“Move!” Warren shouted to Burchette as he took off sprinting towards the silo at full speed. The sudden surge of adrenaline and fear propelled Warren to speeds faster than he ever remembered running before. The four crimsons were more than the two men could possibly hope to handle, and if they caught them before they reached the silos they were as good as dead.
Weapons fire erupted from the house behind them as heavy 7.62mm rounds belched from the Mk 48 machine gun belonging to Sergeant First Class Mueller, the team’s Weapons Sergeant. Mueller had taken up position at one of the houses second story windows. Controlled bursts shot out from the adjacent windows of the same floor where Sergeant First Class Weise, the team’s Medical Sergeant and even Captain Oswald had taken up firing positions in order to cover their approach to the silos.
Both Barrels of Monster Hunter Legends (Legends of the Monster Hunter Book 1) Page 59