Ironically, the Army decided to make him a culinary specialist based on his aptitude and background in agriculture, so Jones was still stuck to food preparation. He was sent to Lone Star Outpost in Texas and immediately clashed with Louis, also from Louisiana. The captain represented the city culture that Jones hated, and Louis hated him back. Kahn was caught in the middle on more than one occasion when Jones needed something from supply and Louis refused to provide it. He knew the captain delaying the propane delivery by forcing Kahn to do it was just another way to direct his anger toward the facility’s food preparation team.
“I don’t know anything about that, Jones. I just do what I’m told,” Kahn replied. He listened to the click of the ignitor and the whoosh of the fuel relighting the flame. “I’ll need to grab the two empties also, please.” Jones pursed his lips and shoved the clipboard into Kahn’s midsection.
“You just watch your boy, Garcia,” he said as he stomped away. Kahn turned and scanned the personnel nearby, spotting Private Quentin Lars struggling with a bucket of ice. Lars must have weighed about 300 pounds and Kahn had no idea how he ever passed the military’s health and fitness requirements. But he apparently did, and his bulk didn’t matter to the chain of command because he was a damn good mechanic. It must have been his week to rotate into kitchen duty, and he didn’t look happy. Kahn dodged some of the other workers and stepped to Lars.
“What’s up Q, your hands aren’t covered in grease today.” Kahn set the clipboard down and offered to take the bucket of ice. Lars grunted and accepted his help and the conversation. The big mechanic pushed the swinging door and held it for Kahn as they both entered the dining facility itself. There were already disgruntled third-shift workers waiting for their meal.
“Yeah, they made me scrub them for KP. I’d rather be fixing that 5-ton with the bad drive shaft. But I’m stuck here all week. I know nobody will touch it until I’m back either, so it’s just sitting there broken until I can get my greasy hands back on it.” They approached the drink fountain and Lars took the bucket back from Kahn, filling the dispenser with ice.
“Well, hey Lars, I hate to bug you. I would ask Jones but he’s already pissed. Louis told me to bring him back some grits and eggs. If I don’t, I know he’s going to treat the DFAC even worse than he already does. I know you don’t want to do a hundred percent inventory while you’re here this week. Can you hook me up?” Lars seemed to consider the possibility of a full inventory count of their food supplies while he was assigned here for the week. Kahn knew last time Louis ordered one it took the kitchen patrol a full 24 hours with no sleep to count every damn grain of rice, or so it seemed. Lars and the rest of the personnel on post knew it too. Although he was a brilliant mechanic, Lars wasn’t terribly bright in general. That’s one of the reasons why he was a 30-year-old private. He was a pro at dodging work he didn’t want to do. He nodded at Kahn and led him back into the prep area. Kahn retrieved the paperwork for the propane tanks while Lars worked up a styrofoam tray with the captain’s breakfast, covering it with a long strip of cling wrap before delivering it to the orderly. Kahn thanked the big man and exited the kitchen same way he had entered.
The sun had started to peek over the horizon as Kahn made his way back to the supply building. The August heat seemed impossible. Kahn was sweating and the air was already beginning to get thick with humidity. He decided to take the quickest route back to prevent the inevitable scolding that cold grits would bring. A quick jump due west brought his cart to the center road of the outpost. He waited as two humvees drove past before crossing the road and turning south. He breezed past the medical building, officer’s quarters, and military barracks before crossing the parking lot to his office. He carefully carried the meal into the front door and placed it quietly on the corner of Captain Louis’ desk. His boss didn’t even look up.
“Gonna be a long day for you, Garcia,” he repeated his statement from earlier in the morning, finishing up a stack of papers with a quick signature. He ignored the covered tray and held out his hand for the clipboard instead. Kahn handed it over and watched silently as the captain inspected the form. “Where are the empties?”
“Shit, sir, I forgot to grab them.” Kahn kicked himself for missing this detail. “I’ll run back over and get them now, sir.”
“Yes you will, young man. You’ll need to head back for the empty shells and because Specialist Jones can’t be bothered to write his name on his hand receipt.” Kahn furrowed his brow and glanced at today’s paperwork. An equally condescending black X was scribbled on the recipient line. Another missed detail. Kahn cursed at himself under his breath.
The captain typed a line on his computer before the printer kicked to life and spit out a single sheet of paper. He clipped it to the holder and handed it back to Kahn. The orderly scanned the sheet.
“First of the month, sir,” he said.
“Yes, Mr. Garcia, first of the month. That is the list of individuals that are invited to our mandatory training on the proper way to complete your paperwork tonight at twenty-hundred hours. Attention to detail is important, Garcia. These people couldn’t be bothered to do so, including your dining facility friend Mr. Jones. Once you inform each of these people that they are to attend, retrieve the empty tanks you neglected to bring back, and conduct a sensitive item inventory, you will teach the class. By the time you return I’ll have the list of third-shifters who will attend the same training, also to be conducted by you, at zero-six-hundred tomorrow. Do you understand, orderly?” Oh-dah-lee again spit out of the man’s mouth, barely containing the vitriol toward the supply assistant. Kahn nodded. “Well then, get to work.”
Kahn nodded again, biting his tongue, and spun to exit the building once again.
“Oh, and Garcia?” Kahn spun back, halfway out the door. “Next time, make sure my grits aren’t cold. Close the door! You’re letting the air conditioning out.”
“Fuck you, captain asshole,” Kahn said under his breath once he reached the safety of the concrete pad that housed his golf cart. “Fucking Jones is gonna kill me. Or you.” He sighed and slid onto the seat, already absorbing heat from the day. He sat for a few moments listening to the steady buzz of insects. They sounded like sizzling fat on a griddle, and he wiped his sweaty brow with the sleeve of his coveralls.
Directly in front of the concrete pad was a small, crooked picnic table in the cracked dirt. Crabgrass lazily crisscrossed the ugly patch of earth behind the supply shop, and Kahn could see waves of heat already rising from the warped wood of the old table. He couldn’t believe how nasty and hot it was back here. He allowed the heat to torture his body as he scanned the barrier fence located here. A couple of scrubby trees limited his vision from this side of the crossed metal, and thick brush started a few feet from the exterior. There was just enough room for a small cart like his to drive between the fence and the foliage. This area was almost directly across from the spot he sat prior to sunup earlier today, and the view outside the fence was almost identical. He exhaled into the hot morning air and let his eyes rest a moment as he let his body sink into the cushion of the driver’s seat.
A corpse stood out of the bushes, jaw snapping silently, and carefully stepped through the thorny mesquite. Tattered and weather-worn clothing caught on the thorns and thin slices crossed the gray skin. The figure barely resembled a human being anymore. The hair on its head was matted in thin patches on the damaged scalp, and its eyes were sunken and dry. Broken teeth snapped quietly in the thick summer air, showing through in a gruesome imitation of a smile. The lips were gone, torn or eaten away long ago. The unnatural gait of the living corpse manifested for only steps until it reached bony fingers out and gripped the fence tightly. The creature held still for a moment before twisting and pushing its gaunt hip and shoulder into the criss-crossed metal. A thin line broke vertically, and the corpse pushed through, reaching and snapping toward the man in the golf cart a few feet away.
Kahn jumped awake with a start, not sure h
ow long he dozed. He snapped his attention to the place where the dead creature had walked through, and nothing was there. His dream faded quickly, but the startled fear he felt made his attention linger cautiously on the fenceline. The buzz of insects and morning heat were the same, so he was sure he didn’t sleep for long. He shifted uncomfortably and stood to get the key out of his pocket, but caught a brief movement from the corner of his eye. He froze, fearing the captain noticed he hadn’t left and was coming to find him. He scanned the scrubby trees and the table, not seeing anything inside the security of the chain-link barrier. Then the shaky movement came again, a little shimmer from the cluster of trees outside the fence. He frowned and stared at the area where he saw the creature emerge in his dream.
Nothing.
Nervous, he remembered bolting from the exact thing at the other location before dawn and wondered if there was more to just seeing movement outside the fence or a bad dream. A corpse would not be subtle and wouldn’t hide. It would barge through the trees, biting the air and crashing against the fence, setting off the alarm. It could be an animal, but an animal wouldn’t freeze when someone spotted them.
It could be a person.
Kahn decided he would speak to somebody in authority about it as he was requesting mandatory attendance at the training. He’d catch somebody on security or in ops and tell them what he saw. It was probably nothing, but they would check. They would be sure. The colonel always said to speak up if you see something strange. They were in this together. He referenced the clipboard and studied the names on the list.
“Dammit,” he muttered. In addition to Jones, the people on this month’s list would not be easy for Kahn to handle. He decided to start with the most recent issue, and work his way to the oldest and most difficult.
He jumped in the cart and sped away toward the dining hall.
Chapter 4
- Hunger
Hunger
The throbbing engines of the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter drowned out the growling voices of the dead surrounding the San Antonio International Airport fence. The undead stumbled and reached into the sky as the loud utility aircraft cut the air just above their heads. Men on the runway watched as hundreds of arms and hands followed the craft through the sky, like a crowd doing a lazy wave at a baseball game. The chopper slowed and the rotors beat the air violently and noisily as it approached the tarmac.
The crew chief slid open the door of the craft the moment the wheels touched the ground. He wore an oversized helmet that was attached to the interior wall of the craft with a coiled cable. He recoiled a bit as the brunt of the morning sun’s heat hit him. Waves of hot air radiated off the black ground and made the undead in the distance seem like images of a mirage. The creatures that weren’t already pushing and grabbing at the fence stumbled through the August shimmer like lost desert travelers desperate for an oasis.
The Black Hawk was a glossy black color with a tan stripe running from the nose and cutting the craft’s dark paint job from front to back, elevating upward with the slope of the tail. The words Homeland Security were emblazoned on the door facing the group of pickup trucks. The chief waved the nearby men over from their trucks as soon as the door was open. Six of them ducked and carefully approached the spinning blades. Each carried a heavy bundle in a cardboard box that they placed on the edge of the platform before turning away to make room for the next. The chief slid the boxes into the bay and tucked them under the occupied stretchers in the chopper. The litters were secured with the modular system that allowed for installation of seats or other equipment in the chopper. The other occupants of the helicopter struggled against the gurney’s restraints. The crew chief ignored them and continued to load boxes.
As the last worker dropped off his box, a tall man approached the helo confidently without crouching like his subordinates had. As he neared, the wind from the spinning rotors plastered his brown hair onto his head. A streak of white showed as his hair shifted and morphed with the blast. He wore a billowy white cotton shirt that also blew in the wind. He looked into the Black Hawk and tried to speak to the crew chief. The man shook his head and pointed at the helmet covering his ears. The crew chief waited as the visitor unbuttoned a cargo pocket in his trousers and extracted a folded map. He held it flat on the floor and pointed directly at a red circle drawn on the exposed section. The crew chief nodded and took the map, handing it directly to one of the pilots. He got a thumbs up from the white-streaked boss, and gave one in return. He grabbed and scooted the boxes back and forth to show they were secure and they were prepared to take off.
At that moment, the rattle of gunfire sounded from the posterior truck in the formation. The sharp reports could be heard over the chopper, and the leader turned to inspect the commotion. Two men in the bed of the rearmost vehicle had opened fire on a formation of the dead suddenly approaching their group. The mass of bodies had damaged the fence protecting the armed assembly, and the horde began to push through the now twisted chain-link. The fence began to break down in either direction of the breach, and hungry corpses were able to step on and over each other to enter the airport grounds. Masses flowed up into the air as the bodies below were trampled by the ones mindlessly advancing. The haze of the heat gave the impression of life in the mass itself, heaving upwards and back down again as the individual broken bodies blended into one formation of rotten flesh.
Several more individuals ran to the rear truck and opened fire on the mangled creatures stumbling their way. The corpses absorbed the suppressing rounds without the horde slowing. Few fell as rounds hit them in the head and permanently stopped their individual advance. The leader at the chopper tried to yell for them to go, but his voice was carried away by the wind. The nervous pilots heard the gunfire and increased the RPMs of the airfoils, making the aircraft jump off its wheels briefly before bouncing back to earth. The crew chief’s eyes went wide and he gripped the door to prevent himself from falling out. The man in the white shirt lost his balance and fell, only staying on the door’s edge by grabbing onto the leg of the crew chief’s flight suit. The chief reached down and attempted to help the man up, grabbing the back of his loose shirt right as the helo lifted shakily into the turbid, hot air.
In the meantime, the fighters in the trucks continued to mass their firepower to the rear. The dead were continuing to advance from that direction with only a small portion of the incoming bullets disabling individual biters. The commotion of the Black Hawk approaching had been enough to rouse thousands of dead within earshot. They all clustered together and pushed into the barriers around the runways of the airport. As the Black Hawk slowly became airborne again, the fences on each side of the runway fell and a swarm of undead stomped across the tarmac toward the cluster of vehicles. The people clustered around the rear truck failed to notice that they were suddenly surrounded by thousands of unencumbered infected.
The helicopter ascended slowly while the man with the white stripe in his hair dangled out the open side door of the craft. He held tightly onto the crew chief’s pant leg and used his other hand to grasp at the floor and frame of the stretchers. In a second, he was able to catch a space in the floor as a handhold and used his upper body to drag himself farther into the rising aircraft. The crew chief held tightly onto the shirt, dragging the loose cloth up onto the dangling man’s shoulders. He let go of the handle on the wall and tried to reach the belt on the man’s pants with his other hand. At the same time the suspended man kicked his leg up and caught the edge of the floor with the heel of his boot. The chief’s leg fell out from under him and he slipped forward onto his knees. His loss of balance jerked his body toward the door and he slipped into the open air, as the coiled cord of his helmet ripped from the fuselage. His body tumbled in midair and somersaulted toward the ground.
The Black Hawk was only two dozen or so feet in the air, but at that elevation it was impossible to avoid critical injury. The crew chief hit the asphalt with a sickening thud. He lay motionless on his
back, both legs turned at unnatural angles. After a moment he turned his head, still wearing the helmet that prevented his instant death upon impact, and opened his mouth to call out weakly to the group at the trucks nearby. The man with the white streak in his hair pulled himself into the helo and peered down to the field of carnage below.
The sheer volume of undead creatures overwhelmed the heavily armed men in the trucks. Too late, the group attempted to escape. As they jumped into the vehicles, the first of the dead reached and grabbed at any stuck outside. Gray-skinned walking corpses filled in from all sides, and the pickups started squelching over the broken forms of the fallen. The rearmost truck was flipped by the pushing marauders, and the men inside were ripped into by gnashing jaws. A few tried to flee toward the airport terminal, but the beating rotors had called to all of the nearby dead including those in and around the installation. From the air, the circle closed quickly and the group of survivors was reduced to bright blood on black ground as the horde caught and killed each in turn.
The crew chief was the last of the group to die. He tried to crawl away on broken legs but was quickly encircled by flesh-eating attackers who tore open his soft skin and spread his entrails around as a gory feast for the hungry dead.
Chapter 5
- Remedial
Remedial
Kahn’s heart was racing a bit as he sped toward the DFAC to deliver the bad news to Teddy Jones. The breeze from the movement of the cart sent a chill up his spine despite the hot August air. He was not looking forward to informing the already irritated Specialist Jones about his new mandatory training.
Nation Undead (Book 2): Collusion Page 3