Cam, Phil, Pete, Julian, Martha, Max, Margo, and the two Rangers certainly didn’t sleep well either. No one at West Point rested well knowing what was coming.
Tremors of fear were reverberating throughout the entire Hudson Valley, and not since the early days of infection and post-quarantine did the entire population—or, what was now left of it—have such nightmares and terror about what the morning’s light would bring. Even the Voice of the Hudson was back broadcasting again, urging all “you complacent sons of bitches to get off your asses and do something to save humanity.”
“Begging your pardon, Sir, but this is a joke, right?” the nervous corporal asked the captain, who had just handed him two full pages of orders.
“Corporal, do I remind you of a comedian?” the captain shot back, his patience wearing thin from lack of sleep.
“No, Sir, you do not,” the corporal responded crisply, automatically snapping to attention and aiming his eyes front and center to avoid the caustic countenance of his superior.
“Do I even look to you as if I am in the slightest bit of a good mood?” the captain continued, deciding to get some twisted satisfaction out of the moment.
“No, Sir, you most decidedly do not, Sir,” the corporal replied, as if a drill sergeant was hammering him with questions.
“Then I trust you will now carry out those orders promptly, without any more questions about my emotional status, or the need for a punchline?” the captain added for good measure.
“This instant, Sir!” the corporal shouted, as he gladly ran off to round up everyone on the lists in his hand.
The captain really couldn’t blame the corporal for his reaction to the unorthodox list of orders—they read like something from a bachelor or frat party. They were to scour through the roster of all the staff and civilians to find anyone who had been a masseuse, physical therapist, chiropractor, personal trainer, or physical education teacher. Anyone matching those qualifications was to be on constant call at the Project Decimation labs.
They also needed to find every doctor, nurse, and pharmacist, not already working on the project, and have at least two on duty at the lab at all times to dispense pain medications, amphetamines, or anti-anxiety medications as needed.
Food Services were to have a hot and cold buffet available at the lab 24-7, with both nutritional and comfort foods—and plenty, and more than plenty, of coffee and power drinks. And that was just the first page!
The second page of orders called for anyone at West Point who had any lab or technical experience of any sort. Even children with computer skills would be asked to pitch in.
And last, but certainly not least, were volunteers needed for the “Cowboys Squads”—the men and women who would be tasked with capturing—unharmed—the biggest and strongest zombies—with the best teeth—that they could find, and then corralling them in the sturdy pens the engineering corps was currently constructing on the parade grounds.
This was dangerous business, as the intense eradication campaign had effectively reduced the zombie population in the Hudson Valley to the occasional stragglers. The Cowboy Squads would have to go to the belly of the beast, into the jaws of the monster itself, to get the thousands of captives they would need for Project Decimation.
They would have to go down to the “Big Rotting Apple,” as someone had dubbed the New York City herd heading their way.
Even with special body armor and protective gear, and armored vehicles with serious firepower, they might as well have called the groups Suicide Squads. Yet, of all the categories of people the corporal was tasked with rounding up, it was the Cowboy Squads that filled the fastest, to the point of being able to create four shifts of groups instead of only two, as originally specified.
The point of all this was simple: support the scientists working on Project Decimation in every way possible. If they were tired, pump them full of coffee and amphetamines to keep them on their feet. If they had a headache, give them a quick massage and painkillers. If they were losing their focus, take them outside for a round of yoga, calisthenics, or a jog. When they were hungry, offer them everything from a veggie burger with sprouts, to mac and cheese with extra cheese and bacon.
For those who were not working on the project, or supporting it in some way, there were plenty of other things to do, like arming and providing some very basic training to anyone from 10 to 90 who could stand and fight. And word was spreading even up into Canada, that if ever there was a turning point in the battle between the living and the dead, it was this one. If the Hudson Valley fell and was overrun, it might not come back again. The recovery of New England and New Jersey would also be in serious jeopardy.
A history teacher, who was now washing lab glassware, reminded everybody that in 1780, Benedict Arnold had tried to get the plans to West Point delivered to the British. The loss of such a strategic place in the Hudson Valley would have spelled doom for the patriots during the Revolutionary War. Zombies had now replaced the Redcoats, but the basic idea was still the same—losing control of this vital region would start the dominoes falling for humanity again, and this time, humanity may not recover.
In a similar vein, the elusive Voice of the Hudson spread the call for help paraphrasing Paine’s “summer soldier and sunshine patriot” speech, with the addition of some very colorful vocabulary, of course. And he used just about every other appeal to their shared interests and honor-bound duty to the human race.
Apparently, his constant mix of cajoling and threatening began to work, to at least some degree, as a slow, but steady, flow of volunteers began arriving at the gates to West Point—and they came armed to the teeth. While almost everyone had to do something violent and awful to survive this long, few had the opportunity for some real payback to the ZIPs population on a grand scale, and they were ready to draw some zombie blood.
When the phone rang in Becks’ quarters, her foggy brain thought for a moment that she was back in her parents’ house in Nyack and all was right with the world. By the third ring, reality had set in, and the pain of The Monk’s loss immediately resumed stabbing at her heart and conscience.
The call was to inform her that all Project Decimation personnel were being summoned to report for a briefing in one hour. That would give her time to dress, eat, and visit Cam. She wanted so much to see him, and know that he would be okay, but at the same time she dreaded it. She didn’t know what she was going to say to him. After readying herself and going over in her mind what she would say for the tenth time, she took a deep breath, stepped into Cam’s hospital room, and as soon as their eyes met, they both started crying. Becks climbed into bed with Cam and they wrapped their arms around one another and remained silent.
After several emotionally-charged minutes, Cam gently kissed Becks on the forehead and whispered, “Go now. Finish up what The Monk helped you start.”
As Becks left the hospital and caught a ride to the lab, she thought about The Monk, her parents, and all of her friends and coworkers she lost at Nyack Hospital and ParGenTech. She also thought about all the people she had shot, stabbed, and burned—people who were just ordinary store clerks, accountants, customer service reps, pharmacists, and high school teachers BZA.
The ZIPs had not only killed and changed the victims they infected, they changed everyone. Some were changed for the better, rising to the challenge of survival against overwhelming odds. Unfortunately, however, too many sank to the level of their baser instincts and preyed upon strangers, as well as their former friends and neighbors. Those were the people Becks had killed, the ones who had been infected with hate, greed, and selfishness because of the ZIPs.
She was tired of all the fear and death, tired of always fighting. It was time to turn the tide of the ZIPs for good and eradicate every undead victim and every slimy zombie parasite on the face of the earth. Project Decimation started today, and when it was finished, maybe the human race could come out of their dark shelters and walk in the sunshine again.
The lab
was like an enormous beehive of activity. Becks wasn’t exactly the queen bee, but she was part of the central brain trust that directed all operations for Project Decimation. In the lab itself, one group was tasked with creating the gold nanoparticles, while another group would synthesize Devereaux’s pheromone-blocking compound that would be bound to the nanoparticles.
Then there was the treatment area, which was located in a gigantic tent, where captured zombies would be injected with the nanoparticles solution. This was tricky business, and required very special handling. It wouldn’t be simple, like inoculating a herd of cattle. Ideally, the zombies should be flat on their stomachs, and the solution should be slowly injected into the spinal column. The treated zombies should then remain lying down for at least five to ten minutes for the best dispersal of nanoparticles throughout the body. Finally, after about six hours, a portion of the treated zombies needed to be “field tested,” which basically involved putting them in a pen along with untreated zombies to see if they attacked them.
During the briefing, one of the colonels from West Point brought up a simple question that none of the Project Decimation scientists had considered.
“How will my soldiers know the difference between regular, untreated zombies, and a Project Decimation subject?” he asked, as Phil, Becks, and the others looked at one another and came up with a big, fat nothing.
Obviously PDZs (Project Decimation Zombies) were valuable assets, and once they were let loose on the “battlefield” so to speak, you didn’t want them getting shot, unless absolutely necessary.
“May I then make a suggestion?” the colonel, a former military history professor at the academy, continued when he saw that no one had any idea what to do to make the PDZs stand out.
“During the Civil War, the local regiment of New York’s Orange County men called themselves the Orange Blossoms. Granted, that name would not exactly strike fear in the enemy, but it does give me an idea. We have cases of fluorescent orange marking paint. Why not spray paint the hair and faces of the PDZs and create a new regiment of Orange Blossoms?”
Becks loved the idea and it was quickly and unanimously accepted. Work then commenced on the project at full speed ahead. The 72-hour goal was to have enough of Devereaux’s solution prepared in the first 24 hours to begin injecting PDZs the next day. Row after row of treatment tables were being created in the tent, which included gurneys, conference tables, and even a couple of ping pong tables—anything horizontal to which a zombie could be strapped down to be injected.
If they could manage to treat about 30 zombies an hour for 48 hours that would give them close to 1,500 PDZs. That was just a fraction of Devereaux’s calculated 1 to 10 ratio of treated zombie soldiers to the general population of zombies, but the first crop of Orange Blossoms might be sufficient to buy precious time to make more, and pray for human reinforcements across the Hudson Valley and from New England.
It had finally been decided to abandon the New Jersey suburbs campaign as large groups of zombies were found wandering away from the herd and heading west and south toward those suburbs. All of the troops involved, including Captain Lennox’s special weapons division from the Picatinny Arsenal, would be forming a defensive line along the left flank of the massive herd. Their job would be to eliminate stragglers, try to keep the herd together, and thin it as much as possible without expending too much conventional ammunition. No branch of what was left of the military, or any militia group, had anticipated stockpiling millions of rounds of ammo for such a situation.
As stressful and exhausting as the various tasks of the Project Decimation teams were, no group worked harder or risked more than the Cowboys Squads. Legends were being made every hour by the exploits of the brave men and women clad in special body armor who drove straight down the Palisades Interstate Parkway, directly toward the herd.
Single zombies who were way ahead of the pack were scooped up first, literally, by front loaders that had been fitted to dump trucks. The biggest and strongest of the undead were shoveled up in the huge, industrial buckets, then raised over the cab of the trucks and dumped into the back, where mattresses had been spread out to minimize broken bones, as you didn’t want to damage any potential Orange Blossom soldiers.
Unfortunately, in the first few hours these easy pickings were picked clean, and the Cowboys had to get closer and closer to the main herd. The sight of hundreds of thousands of zombies packed together—not to mention the sound and the odor—caused a few of the Cowboys to lose their nerve, but the vast majority stayed the course and went right up to the front of the enormous sea of zombies.
For the most part, they all stuck to the plan and tried to scoop up only those in the front lines that looked to be the strongest, but there were a few subjects that were worth the extra risk. For those zombies that were literally head and shoulders above the others, a Cowboy would hang out of the window of the truck and using a long pole, slip a snare around the zombie’s neck or shoulders. Once the snare was secure, the truck shifted into reverse and plucked the subject right out of the crowd. After dragging him away a safe distance, they would release the snare and scoop him up with the bucket loader.
This was actually far more difficult and dangerous than it sounded. Instead of yanking the huge zombies out of the crowd, two Cowboys were pulled out of their trucks to horrific deaths at the hands—and filthy teeth—of the herd. Harnesses, such as those used in deep sea fishing, were soon installed to keep the Cowboys in the trucks.
On the flip side, sometimes as they were plucking out zombies they pulled a little too hard, resulting in several broken necks and the wasting of a good recruit. It took a few attempts before the driver and catcher refined their techniques, but by midday a steady stream of zombie-filled dump trucks were rumbling through the gates of West Point and emptying their cargoes into the special pens on the parade field.
The sight of these pens probably would have sent Phil into a flashback and panic attack, after his unimaginable ordeal at the Napanoch prison, so he made it a point of sticking to the lab to spare himself the possibility of the recurrence of those awful memories.
In truth, no one at West Point was particularly happy with hundreds of zombies pouring into their safe haven, especially as many had never been beyond the walls since the start of infection and had been completely shielded from the horror. But no one had much time to dwell on it, as everybody was so busy that there wasn’t a moment in the day that wasn’t filled with some sort of task.
Becks, Julian, Martha, Pete, Max, and Margo were the “go to” doctors and scientists who were personally going through all of the steps of the various processes to make Devereaux’s solution. Each one had a group of four or five other doctors and scientists with them to teach them everything they needed to know. Each group rotated through all of the steps so that knowledge of how to produce the solution could then be spread to other locations—assuming anyone would be left alive.
Becks imagined that this is what wartime production had been like during the 1940s, with everyone pitching in and doing things they had never dreamed of doing. There was the former sanitation worker, who was now carefully weighing chemicals he couldn’t pronounce for a process that he didn’t understand, but he was so precise and efficient he quickly earned the nickname “The Measuring Man.” A former kindergarten teacher was cutting leather jackets into strips, attaching buckles, and then screwing them securely to tables in the tent that would be used to strap down zombies and inject them. Half a dozen 10 to 15-year-olds were setting up highly detailed databases to track and collect information on all of the PDZs.
Becks’ favorite story was of the 96-year-old World War II veteran who was instructing new recruits on the rifle range. Apparently, it was still quite obvious that he had been a drill instructor in the Marines and wasn’t afraid to use highly colorful language to “motivate” recruits. It was also obvious that this was the best he had felt in decades.
While the esprit de corps at West Point was impr
essive, Becks didn’t let it fool her into thinking that humanity was finally rising above all their petty differences. People were simply desperate, and they knew that if they didn’t do everything they could to help make Project Decimation work, they would have to flee their homes and run for their lives—if there was anywhere safe left to run.
Despite the comradery, tensions were still running very high and arguments were widespread. A few fistfights had even broken out. Becks almost lost her cool a couple of times when one of the doctors she was teaching kept questioning and arguing about everything she did, even though he had absolutely no experience with nanoparticles and only a basic knowledge of parasites. Becks was about two minutes away from throat-punching him, when he suddenly burst into tears and apologized for his behavior. He explained that his wife and oldest son were on one of the Cowboy Squads and he was so distraught and riddled with anxiety he couldn’t think straight. At the end of his outburst, Becks actually gave him a hug!
Another unexpected problem arose within hours of the first group of treated PDZs being placed in their separate holding pen. Even though they were all gagged and had their hands tied behind their backs, they were still highly aggressive. Everyone was trying to attack everyone else, and they all ended up in a tangled pile of squirming and thrashing PDZs. This was an immediate problem as injuries and suffocations certainly would result, and every PDZ was a precious commodity. While this was a big problem at the present, it would be an even bigger problem when trying to transport them.
There was no way they could build 1,500 individual cages in a couple of days. Tying the PDZ’s legs together would immobilize them, but then each subject would have to be carried. It was a little boy with a yo-yo who had “come to see the monsters” that gave one of the engineers an idea. Among the many things they had stockpiled were metal and plastic rolls of fencing, for farm animals, gardens, and for defensive purposes out in the field.
HVZA (Book 3): Hudson Valley Zombie Apocalypse [Project Decimation] Page 12