by J. L. Bourne
Their radios crackled every few minutes with a voice garbled by an oxygen mask worn by a pilot flying seventeen miles overhead. They had been briefed that Aurora would be moving at hypersonic speeds, her cameras slewing all around the team as well as along their intended path over ground.
“Hourglass, Deep Sea, yellow brick road is clear. Wish you could see downtown Beijing right now. A real party going on down there.”
“We’ll take your word, Deep Sea,” Kil said.
Kil drove the truck with Rex riding shotgun. Saien and Rico provided security for the truck from the back. With the headlights too bright for their goggles, Kil pulled over to smash them, as they could not be switched off. Damn Chinese. He decided to destroy the brake lights as well, striking them with the butt of his rifle.
“Thanks. Every time you hit the brakes, I had to look away,” Rico said.
Deep Sea keyed in from overhead, “Hourglass, I don’t recommend that. Your noise just redirected a few to your posit. They are moving slow but advancing, at your truck’s nine o’clock. More up ahead on the road.”
“Copy that, Deep Sea, thanks for the tipper,” Kil acknowledged, moving quickly back to the cab.
Both Saien and Rico were monitoring the radio and began scanning about, looking for the threat in the darkness. Kil rolled forward over broken glass and downed power lines, passing wreckage dating to back before the outbreak hit the United States.
With only two miles left to the facility, they had their first close encounter with the undead. Dark patches of hair still clung to its scalp, advanced stages of decomposition disguising its nationality. Zombies were . . . zombies, just like people, Kil thought. The creature heard the low crank of the diesel engine and charged at the sound, impacting the hood.
“Saien, a little help!” Kil shouted as the creature climbed across the hood to the window, grabbing and biting the wiper blades, punching the glass.
Saien checked for a tight seat on his suppressor and angled the rifle over the top of the cab. Careful to avoid damaging the engine block with the powerful 7.62 round, he shot at an awkward outward angle. The round hit the creature’s face, splattering its brain of jelly-like consistency onto the hood and road. The corpse relinquished its grip of the wiper blades, and slid off the front of the truck, thudding onto the pavement. Kil hit the wiper fluid, smearing decayed brains all over the windshield, and accelerated over the corpse with a bump.
Saien’s suppressed 7.62 carbine thumped a little more bass than its M-4 counterpart, prompting another call from Deep Sea.
“More reaction to your noise, Hourglass. Haul ass to the facility, it’s not far from you now.”
Kil reached breakneck speeds; the undead vectored into his rearview mirror, chasing the noise signature of the truck. They slung around a dogleg corner at sixty kilometers per hour, back wheels in a power slide.
They were at the facility.
Kil backed the truck into the fence and shut it down. The men tossed their packs and a heavy Halligan bar over before traversing the razor wire. They hit the ground before the dead started to trickle onto the access road in front of the truck.
The courtyard inside surrounding the eight-sided building was clear according to Deep Sea. Kil checked his watch to verify they had four and a half more hours of coverage before making the call.
“Deep Sea, we’re headed in, enjoy the view.”
“Roger that. I’m not going anywhere, good luck.”
Using the Halligan, Rex managed to pull the door from its frame, accessing the lobby area of the facility. The air that rushed from the sealed frame was clean—not a bad sign. The men activated their IR weapon lasers and entered the dusty lobby. Scattered debris, strewn chairs, and fire damage signaled a hurried evacuation. Clearing the lobby, the team encountered a door that would not be strong-armed by any Halligan tool.
C4 breach was the only option.
“We should put on our masks before we blow the door. Don’t know what kind of shit is crawling around in there,” Kil suggested.
“Look at that. See that there?” Rex gestured.
“Yeah, looks bulged or dented, from the inside,” Kil said, running his hands over the distressed convex steel shape of the door. “Wonder what that is about.”
With the explosives rigged, the men fell back to the lobby and donned their filtration masks.
“Fire in the hole!” Rex yelled before actuating the electronic clacker.
A huge explosion reverberated through the lobby, sending debris pinballing around the room. The massive door flew straight out from its frame, slamming into a wall with juggernaut force. White light radiated into the lobby through the dust from the area where the door once stood strong.
“Rico, get that thing ready!” Rex ordered, gesturing at the foam gun hanging at Rico’s side.
Rico readied the awkward gun, opening the valves and checking the fuel-pressure gauges. “Ready, man.”
Rico took point and the others trailed back, removing their NODs as they rounded the corner and walked into the light. Power remained online inside the facility, probably geothermal or solar. Looking down the corridor they could see nothing but strewn skeletal remains that wore white lab coats with a few Chinese military uniforms mixed in. Kil moved forward, down the bright passage.
The world had been in undead control for a year, and it had all begun here, in a nondescript Chinese building hidden in plain view. The hallway was coated in moldy condensation as if the walls were sweating fear and desperation. Kil paged through the handwritten language book Commie had constructed for them. Flipping to the word hangar he saw all the possible words in Chinese that might indicate the location of the hardware they were looking for. The team stopped at the facility map on the wall and Kil traced his finger from the red dot and the text underneath that probably meant You are here in Chinese.
Kil matched the symbols on the map to his language chart. “Here is where we need to go. This is Chinese for hangar or at least something close to it,” Kil said to the others.
“What about CHANG?” Rex said, thinking of their stated primary objective.
“What about him? Commie didn’t think to write the Chinese word for CHANG on the cheat sheet here,” Kil said sarcastically.
“You’ve gotta be shitting me,” Rico said, straining under the weight of the foam gun.
“Let’s just move to the hangar. It’s only two turns from here,” said Kil.
Nothing in the facility seemed to be secured or locked. Kil theorized that the Chinese probably thought that if you were allowed to be behind the big doors, you were allowed to go anywhere in the facility. Most of the doors were of the simple swing design and opened as you reached proximity. Old bloodstains lined the passage, coating the automatic doors that opened into the hangar.
The lights inside were off until they entered and triggered a sensor that illuminated the vast cavernous space. In the center of the room sat a large craft the size of a greyhound bus and unlike anything that any of them had ever seen. They were drawn to it, mystified by the design and exotic nature of the shape. It would have had the appearance of a perfect tear drop, if not for the huge hole that passed through both sides of the hull, behind what was probably the cockpit. As they rounded the front of the vehicle, Rico stopped in his tracks and held up his fist.
“Get down,” he whispered, pointing to something standing near the craft opposite the side they had come in.
The thing was clothed in a suit that matched the craft alloy, or perhaps it just appeared that way because the creature was standing so close to the skin of the vehicle; it was difficult to discern.
“That has to be CHANG. The suit design matches the photos. It’s not wearing the helmet,” Kil whispered to the others. “Blast it with the foam and get this over with.”
The mysterious figure soon took notice of the four and turned to face its intruders.
Every man expected to see what years of pop culture and television brainwashing told them CHANG wou
ld be. The creature was no large-headed gray thing with huge, black, almond-shaped eyes. It looked . . . human.
It bellowed from its ancient lungs and sprinted toward them, alloy boots clanging on the floor like a tin man. Rico stepped forward and sprayed it from its waist to the floor with the foam compound. Two chemical streams coated CHANG’s torso and legs. They solidified almost instantly, turning the creature into a half statue.
The men encircled the angry creature, examining it at a safe distance as it thrashed about, fused to the deck. Its arms moved like a cyclone, reaching for them; its legs strained against the foam weapon’s curing fibercrete.
So this is what ended the world, killed everything dear to me, and everything dear to everyone dear to me, Kil thought.
It became clear to the four onlookers that CHANG looked just like any other undead human Chinese man.
Kil edged closer to the creature, examining the metallic name-plate affixed to its chest. Chinese letters were inscribed finely into the alloy on CHANG’s nameplate directly above the words MAJOR CHANG.
“What now, Kil?” Rex asked.
Kil stood silent, his anger visibly building. He fixed his stare at CHANG. This creature had killed the world.
“We do this,” Kil said.
He raised his suppressed 7.62 carbine and pulled the trigger. CHANG’s head exploded away from the team, ancient brain matter splattering against the strange, sleek craft.
“What the fuck?!” Rex exclaimed, visibly confused. “You wasted the objective!”
Kil shook his head. “No, I didn’t. CHANG was as human as you are right now. CHANG was never the objective. But all this shit is.” He gestured to the craft and the research tables full of mysterious hardware that surrounded it. “Besides, look down. CHANG is permanently fused to the deck, courtesy of Rico there.”
Rex pulled his knife and stabbed at the resin fused to the floor below CHANG’s headless body.
“Don’t bother, Rex,” said Kil. “That stuff is fiber resin. You’ll snap your blade before you make a scratch. It would take a week with power tools to free the major. Let’s get everything we can and get back to the boat . . . but I’m telling you all right now, that thing was human and you all know it.” Kil grabbed a clear plastic tube vault from his pack, scooping bits of CHANG’s remains inside for transport.
“Just like a direct-action mission in Afghanistan,” said Rex.
“How do you mean?”
“We take weeks, sometimes months to plan a direct-action mission to kill or capture a high-value target, and the mission is over before you know it.”
The team filled their packs with what intel had briefed were the data cubes, as well as anything else that appeared useful. Kil stuffed his cargo pockets with two very exotic-looking pistols.
These might come in handy.
His pack was nearly at capacity when he found two large, football-shaped, color-coded containers sitting side-by-side on one of the research tables near the damaged craft. The markings on the containers were not Chinese, and not like anything he’d ever seen, anywhere. The red container had been severely damaged by whatever tore through CHANG’s ship. The blue sister container appeared undamaged. Kil decided to bring both of them back to the submarine for future analysis.
The team worked their way back to the lobby and exited the front into the courtyard. As soon as they were visible to the sky, their radio crackled to life.
“Hourglass, welcome back. I have some news you may want to hear.”
“Go ahead, Deep Sea,” Kil replied.
“I’m seeing another submarine surfaced near the Virginia. The other sub is a good bit larger than your boat. Looks like a boomer.”
“What’s it doing?”
“It’s signaling. I don’t think it’s hostile; it’s too close to your boat and clearly surfaced, not exactly a textbook tactic for sinking an enemy sub. Besides that, you’ve got some paparazzi at the gates around your transport.”
“Copy that, Deep Sea.”
The men closed on the fence where the undead stood waiting.
“Rico, do it,” Rex ordered.
Rico approached the fence and sprayed the undead creatures with the fibercrete foam gun. The substance looked like soap suds to Kil. It was frightening how fast it set, freezing the creatures in a tomb of advanced resin. Rico was careful to avoid the truck, as it would be disabled by the substance if even a part of a wheel were to come in contact. With most of the creatures permanently a part of the metal fence, the four safely negotiated over.
They piled into the truck and enjoyed an uneventful trip back to the boat.
When the team was finally onboard, Aurora wished them luck and burned the sky home on her final voyage.
January 1
Happy New Year to me. After a sobering night of fun on the Chinese mainland, I very much look forward to heading east—going home. Our new Chinese friends intend to escort us back east. Although his English is horrible, the Chinese submarine captain was elated to find us. He had been shadowing the Virginia since we entered Chinese waters. Thank goodness he determined that we had no hostile intent, as they definitely had the drop on us. Our new friends have stronger shortwave radios than we do, and once we passed them the frequencies and timetables, they were able to send and receive messages to the USS George Washington, now permanently in port at Key West.
I’ve taken a little time to reflect on the past year, to get my mind right and to think of everything I have to be thankful for.
Tara and our baby are fine.
I’m alive.
We’ve mostly accomplished our mission.
Just one small detour and we’ll be steaming for the Keys.
Only a few more blank pages left.
RIP, William. You will be forever missed.
Epilogue
Contrary to the crew’s expectations, hordes of undead did not greet USS George Washington when she ran aground in the Keys that sunny Florida day. Long before the carrier’s dramatic arrival, a contingent of armed civilian militias had secured Key West. It took some ingenuity, but it wasn’t long before the remaining nuclear engineers restored power to the island, utilizing the carrier’s two formidable Westinghouse nuclear reactors. A network of barter trade and the beginnings of a humble economy began to emerge on the islands.
With the carrier’s complex burst communications equipment damaged beyond repair, the comm link with Task Force Phoenix at Hotel 23 was forever severed. On a recent reconnaissance mission over Hotel 23, a flight of Warthogs reported sighting a signal arrow pointing east, away from the facility. They searched the area until bingo fuel, but found no further trace of Phoenix. Although still a priority-one rescue operation, recovering the Phoenix operators would be an onerous task at best.
• • •
USS Virginia’s detour brought her north, up the Russian coast, and through the Bering Strait. After serious discussion, both Larsen and Kil agreed that human life was too precious to let fade out—humans were outnumbered as it was. USS Virginia had enough nuclear fuel in her reactor to circle the globe many times over, and was still well provisioned when she broke through the Arctic ice a couple hundred meters from Crusow, Kung, and their sled dogs. Their Sno-Cat had broken down ten miles before, the engine having seized up from dirty biofuel. Luckily their dogs were strong enough to pull them south far enough to the rendezvous. They’d been waiting for nearly twenty-four hours in a pile of sled dogs inside a make-shift igloo when USS Virginia’s sail cracked the ice nearby, homing in on Crusow’s distress beacon.
It was February when USS Virginia, along with a Chinese boomer submarine, made port call in Key West. The once lone survivor embraced his love on the pier; the captain sent the submarine’s only expectant father ashore first. Tara’s pregnancy was definitely showing, and Kil beamed with happiness as he rubbed her belly softly. While he held Tara tightly, he caught a glimpse of John standing close to Jan, a bit too close. Kil smiled at them, inviting a wave. Jan gripped the back o
f Laura’s belt as the little girl pulled forward, yelling for Uncle Kil.
Dean continued her teaching career in the Keys, keeping the likes of Danny, Laura, and a hundred other young people busy learning. Reading, writing, arithmetic, and Constitutional core values replaced the diluted curriculum that had existed before the dead returned. Dean’s wooden paddle did just fine in keeping the juvenile monkeyshines in check.
A new task force was established on the island with the mission of transporting Hourglass’s recovered hardware to various surviving COG facilities for exploitation. Talk circulated around the island that a nuclear warhead from the Chinese submarine was being modified and reconfigured with a new payload, but no one really knew for certain. Rumors spread like wildfire in a small island community like this—they were rarely true.
• • •
Kil, John, Saien, and the other Hotel 23 regulars spent much time together; they sometimes played cards and even drank a little moonshine at the only watering hole on the island. John kept the radio communications running between the Keys, and Saien helped out in the guard towers, plinking the undead that randomly washed up on the shores.
A month before Tara had their baby, Kil negotiated for a large sailboat. His barter offer was a Chinese AK-47, four magazines, and five hundred rounds of ammunition. The boat’s owners, an aging couple with no plans of ever leaving the Keys, traded straight across. The boat was designed to endure months at sea, utilizing automated systems, solar power, and other unique features. Kil didn’t know where they’d go, but knew that nowhere was safe—not even this island paradise.