“We’re cranking up as we speak,” Morrow said.
“Thanks Lieutenant. We’ll let you know if anything else pops up. Bravo-Six out.”
Turning back to Darkowitz, Karnes said, “I got to get over to the command center and let them know what’s up. You hold it down here for right now, okay?”
“Sure thing Karnes, we’ll manage,” said Darkowitz as he tried to muster up his courage. “It’s just that God-awful stench. It’s about to make me puke.”
“Puke out of fear or out of nausea from the smell?”
“Uh, a little of both.”
“This is weird,” Karnes mumbled to himself. “Almost ancient.”
“What do you mean by that?” Darkowitz asked.
“I was just thinking, you know, how battles went down in the past. Big ass armies marching in formation, and out in front were the drum corps. Usually playing something that was unique to the units involved, letting the other guys know who they were facing. That’s kind of what’s going on right now.”
“I don’t hear no music,” Darkowitz said with a perplexed look on his face.
“Their smell…that’s their music. It’s letting us know who they are.”
Darkowitz’s eyes widened with fear at Karnes’s words. “Man, you’re putting way too much thought into this. It’s already bad enough that those things are out there, but now you’re creeping me out even more.”
Karnes loaded up into the Humvee and called back to Darkowitz, “I’ll be back as quick as I can.” The driver then sped off in the direction of the main hospital building and parked out by the south entrance. Two troopers nervously eyed Karnes as he rushed past them. The sergeant noticed that the entryway was darkened and he asked one of the soldiers, “They’re not letting you keep the lights on tonight?”
“Naw, some captain said that only essential lights could be turned on. They don’t want to tax the generators and they want to save as much fuel as possible for them. Or at least that’s what they told us.”
After walking through the darkened vestibule, Karnes stepped into a mall area that normally would have been filled with people and kiosks. In one corner was an empty coffee stand. In the center of the mall was an information and greeting station and off to the right were rows upon rows of empty seats that served as a lobby for several clinics and a pharmacy. The mall itself was cast in ghostly shadows as the moonlight filtered down through the skylights overhead, and Karnes could see his own shadow on the tiled floor. Across the way was a soldier who was busy lighting emergency candles. Karnes walked across the open area and he could hear his own footsteps echoing through the empty first floor.
“Hey Sarge, I know that the power went out earlier tonight, but do you know why they aren’t letting us use the genny to run the lights in here?” asked the trooper who was busy lighting the candles. “It would have been nice to know in advance that they were going to keep us in the dark. I could have had these things ready sooner. Now I gotta run back and forth to the supply room to get them.” His young face was cast in an eerie glow from one of the candles he was carrying.
“No, I sure don’t. I’m sure it’s only temporary…just until we get a resupply on fuel for the generators. I’m sure they’ll figure it out though.” Karnes was having a hard time concentrating on what the trooper was saying because the sergeant was consuming himself with worried thoughts on the plight of his family.
“I hope they do, because I hate being in the dark, especially with those things out there. Plus, it sucks having to go around and light candles. Oh, and if you’re going up, you’ll have to use the stairs. They shut down the elevators to conserve power.”
“Great,” Karnes mumbled to himself. He didn’t envy having to walk up to the fifth floor.
“I lit a couple of candles in the first stairway just past the eye clinic, so use that one if you want some sort of light.”
“Oh…yeah…cool,” Karnes acknowledged.
***
“Are you sure on the numbers?” Brigadier General Hartman asked Karnes as he peered over a map of the medical complex that was now serving as the fort. The map, lying over a conference table, had markings on it indicating the perimeter and its defensive positions. A young captain and a younger lieutenant stood around him, studying the map intensely.
“Yes sir, I’m sure,” Karnes said. He traced his finger on the map around the main gate. “From here back to Interstate Thirty-Five…all the way down Binz-Engleman. Full of them. Plus, those civilian apartment complexes across from the compound might be hiding more of them.”
“General,” interjected the captain, “we’ve put all three shifts on the walls. That gives us roughly two-hundred men and women out there. We’ve got maybe another twenty-five or so providing security for the main hospital, the clinic buildings and the personnel quarters. We’ve got four tracks and about six Humvees. And we’ve got just enough five-tons to transport the troops and the research staff.”
“I thought the fort’s training battalions had enough five tons and deuce-and-a-halfs to outfit a division? What happened to all of those trucks?”
“Well sir, we didn’t have enough personnel to bring them into the perimeter, so they’re still out there in their lots.”
Sighing in disappointment that the majority of his transportation had been abandoned, the general shook his head. “Alright, Captain Youngblood, then make sure everything is locked down. If for some reason they do breach the walls, we’ll pull everyone back into the main hospital and hold them at the 2nd floor. I think we can secure all the stairways and stairwells and we’ll lockdown the elevators on the upper floors just to make sure nothing gets up here.”
“Uh, General, if I may say so, but don’t you think it would be better if we had an escape route planned out?” Karnes asked. Pissed that he was having to interact with the man, he considered himself lucky in not having to deal with the general on a regular basis. In his mind, Hartman was self-absorbed. At fifty-three years of age, the general was still in tip-top shape and his youthful look and fit body led Karnes to believe that the general was one of those commanders who cared more about his appearance; a narcissist—not giving a shit about his troopers or their welfare. He didn’t care for the man and now he didn’t care for his way of thinking. He didn’t like the idea of being trapped in the hospital and he was bewildered at why Hartman had no plan for escaping if the walls were breached.
“We could escape through the abandoned part of the base and make our way out into the city,” Karnes explained. “From there we could work our way over to one of the freeways.”
Hartman turned and walked to the center of the command room. He glanced around, noticing how unorganized it looked. He despised how everything was disorderly. It wasn’t professional and it definitely wasn’t militarily acceptable. Until recently, the room had served as a conference center for visiting physicians, but now it was cluttered with computer monitors and bulky radio equipment. The smell of coffee, cigarette smoke and sweat gave the place a stale aroma; it definitely was not his idea of how a command center should look.
“When we realized that we wouldn’t be able to secure the entire fort,” Hartman said, still antagonized at the state of his command center, “we decided to create this perimeter around the hospital and its medical clinics. That only leaves a few acres to defend. We’re not going to give up any more ground, so we’re not planning on evacuating. Anyway, we can’t afford to lose this facility. As far as we know, we’re the only ones left who are working on trying to figure out what’s causing this whole calamity. If we leave this place, we’ll lose all the research that has been done, and I’m not going to do that.”
“But if we lose the actual researchers, then they’ll be nothing left to salvage,” Karnes countered. “We have to be able to save them at least.”
Youngblood and the lieutenant walked over to Hartman. “Sir, I think the sergeant is right when it comes to the researchers,” Youngblood said. “There are nine of them. We could
at least fly them out on Novak’s bird if it comes down to it.”
“And what about Morelli’s craft?” Hartman asked with surprise. “I thought we had two helicopters still functioning?”
“I’m sorry, I thought that you had been notified about this,” Youngblood said apologetically. “Morelli’s craft has a transmission issue…and we don’t have the necessary parts to address the problem.”
“Son of a bitch!” Hartman exclaimed. “Why wasn’t I told about this?” Throwing his hands up in despair, he grunted, “So we only have one functioning aircraft right now?”
“Yes sir, just one,” Youngblood answered.
Disgusted with the captain, Hartman turned and looked at the map again. After thinking for a moment, he spun around and walked over to the communications console. A red headed female with freckles on her nose was manning the radio console. Chubby cheeks and a slight overbite gave her a cute woodchuck look. She apprehensively looked over her shoulder at the approaching general. She could feel his anger and frustration and it unnerved her.
“Raise Dyess,” Hartman instructed. “Tell them that we are besieged and see if they have any available ordinance left because we’ll probably need support from them. Also, see if they have anything left to give us. I’m talking about food, water, ammunition. Whatever they can airdrop. And we need it A.S.A.P.”
“Yes sir,” the radio operator answered.
“Ordinance?” Youngblood questioned.
“Yes, ordinance. I don’t intend on losing this command. If they have it, I’ll call in a strike on those things.”
“Private Collier, have we lost contact with Fort Hood?” Karnes asked the radio operator. He turned to Hartman and said, “My wife and my two young daughters are over there and I’m worried about them.”
Not knowing if she was authorized to answer the sergeant, she looked at the general for approval. He stared at her with a stone face. She looked back over at Karnes and answered in a hesitant tone, “We haven’t been able to raise them since early this morning.”
Seizing on the moment, Hartman said, “I am sorry for your family. Hopefully it’s just technical issues, but this is why we need to make sure that this place doesn’t fall. For your family’s sake…for everyone’s sake, we have to make sure that this place keeps operating.”
Offended and upset that Hartman would try to play on his emotions by using his family, Karnes fought the urge to punch the man in his mouth. “General, I don’t mean to sound insubordinate, but if I remember hearing right, didn’t the Air Force try to provide close air support in Detroit?” If Hartman was going to be shitty and try to use his family’s situation as some sort of hollow rally call, Karnes was going to try to make him look stupid in front of the others. “They ended up doing more bad than good, right?”
“Well, that was in Detroit,” Hartman growled. He was offended and Karnes’s insolence and he felt that the sergeant was intentionally trying to prove a point at his expense. “We’re here in San Antonio—not in Detroit. We’ll provide them precise coordinates and make sure that we don’t have any accidents.”
Wanting to be part of the ongoing discussion and feeling that he needed to state his opinion, the lieutenant standing next to Youngblood cleared his throat as he tried to steady himself for the possibility of pissing off the general. “Sir,” he said timidly, “we’re not sure that we have any working satellites that can be used to guide the ordinance. We don’t have laser designators here, so we can’t paint a target. We don’t even know if Dyess has any smart munitions left. They may have expended them all when they were trying to save the safety zone in Chicago…and the one in Detroit.”
“Well then, if all they’ve got are dumb bombs, we’ll just have to call them in the old fashioned way. My young Lieutenant Riggins, airstrikes were conducted successfully for years before G.P.S. and satellites.”
“I am sure that our young lieutenant is aware of that,” Youngblood countered, “even if he is from the digital age and doesn’t know about protractors and grease pencils, but what we’re saying is that we can’t afford one ill-placed bomb—not one. If by some chance we have damage to the wall, there is nothing to keep those things from coming in. We wouldn’t have enough ammunition in the mini-guns to keep them from overrunning us, and we don’t have enough replacement barrels for when the guns start to overheat.”
“Captain Youngblood,” Hartman said agitated, “don’t you think that I am aware of our tactical limitations? I know what we are capable of doing, and I know what we can’t do. And the one thing that we can’t do is to allow this place to be lost. Humanity is counting on us making it. We have a duty to defend this post, even if that means that we have to sacrifice our lives in doing so.”
Karnes couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Hartman was seeing this as some sort of military conflict. This was by no means a battle, and trying to approach the situation from that angle was simply insane. In Karnes’s mind, the general was having a delusion of grandeur and had somehow anointed himself with being the savior of all mankind. For Karnes, this wasn’t about some set-piece military engagement or some noble crusade. This was about trying to keep his men and himself from being killed. “General, this isn’t a battle,” Karnes said gruffly.
Insulted at the sergeant’s statement, Hartman turned to him and said, “Now you look here Sergeant Karnes, this is a battle! This is the biggest and most important battle that you’ll ever be a part of. This is a battle for humankind, and it just so happens that it has fallen in my lap. I’m going to do my best to win this battle, and we are not going to lose this fucking hospital, even if we have to live on the top floors with those things right below us. Process this and file it away—we will not abandon this position. Even if they breach, we will not run. I’m sorry that there are no more officers left to lead the defense and it sucks that this is on your shoulders, but I’m sure that you’re capable of getting the job done. Don’t prove me wrong, son. Do I make myself clear?”
Knowing that it was pointless to debate the general, Karnes simply stood at attention and said, “Yes sir.”
Feeling that he had proven his point to everyone in the room, Hartman turned to Youngblood. “Captain Youngblood, I want you to organize a security detachment to go with the doctors if the need arises for them to be flown out of here.”
Ah, so you aren’t so sure of yourself, you fucking narcissist, Karnes thought to himself.
“Yes sir, but where will we send them if they do have to leave?” the captain asked.
“Corpus. The naval facilities down there. I am sure that they still have vessels utilizing the station. The Navy is the only branch that seems to still be half-way operating.”
“But we haven’t had communication with them for the past two days now,” Youngblood countered.
“Damn it, just do what I say!” Hartman yelled. “You’re not here to question me, you’re all here to carry out my orders! Now make sure the damn pilots are on stand-by!”
Youngblood was startled at Hartman’s outburst and he instinctively stepped back. Normally, Hartman was reserved and mild-mannered, always trying to protect his image in the presence of others, but Youngblood guessed that the pressure of the moment was getting the best of the stressed general.
“I’m sorry, sir—didn’t mean to sound like I was questioning you. I’ll make sure the doctors are ready just in case.” Youngblood walked back over to the map and placed his hands on his hips as he looked down at it. “Okay Karnes, get back down on the perimeter. Keep us updated on numbers and locations. No shooting unless it is completely necessary.”
“Yes sir,” Karnes said with disdain. He spun on the balls of his feet and made his way out, heading to the stairwell that would carry him back down to the ground floor. Fucking asshole, Karnes thought to himself. You’re gonna get us all killed here.
***
Irene was dreaming of her parents—crying in her sleep—when a loud knocking on her door woke her up. Startled, she quickly sat up in
her bed and drew the bed sheet up around her neck. After taking a shower, she had fallen asleep without putting on any clothes and she didn’t want some stranger seeing her naked.
“Doctor Hopkins,” a gruff voice called from the door.
“Yes?”
“Doctor Hopkins, we need you to get up and gather your things. We have a situation developing and everyone is being moved over to the main hospital.”
Irene looked over at the clock on the small nightstand and saw that she had been asleep for almost two hours. She fought to clear the grogginess and it dawned on her that something must have happened because she and Jim should have been briefing Hartman already. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“Just please gather your things. We need to go as soon as possible.”
“Can you just tell me what’s going on?’ she pleaded. “Is everything alright?”
She slid off of the bed and grabbed her panties from a small dresser. “Are we in some sort of danger?” Instead of getting an answer, she heard the loud thud of boots walking away from the door and down the hallway. “Hello?”
As she finished dressing herself, she heard a second set of footsteps, this time lighter and faster, approaching her room. A rapping on the door was followed by Jim’s voice. “Irene, are you in there?”
She rushed to the door and unlocked it, allowing Jim to step inside. “What’s going on?” she asked. The worried look on her partner’s face frightened her. She also noticed that he wasn’t wearing his scrubs—he was in his battle fatigues and he was wearing a sidearm.
“It looks like they have some sort of buildup by the main entrance off of Binz-Engleman,” he explained.
“Buildup?”
“Yeah, buildup. They think it’s not safe here in the quarters anymore.”
“What do you mean by ‘buildup?’ ” she asked in a quivering voice. She could feel her legs weakening and for a split second, she could hear the screams of her lost friend Michael echoing inside of her head.
A Glimpse of Decay (Book 3): Lost in Twilight Page 14