by Brian Parker
After some discussion with the platoon sergeant, he’d agreed to have everyone turn off their BFTs until they could sort out what was happening down at Fort Bliss and with the foreign troops on American soil. That had been over an hour ago and they were navigating off a paper map that the lead truck had picked up during one of their fuel stops the previous day.
Jake looked at the strange survivors seated across from him. The American had his head resting on the wall and his mouth open. The man had materialized out of the snow only a few minutes after a pistol fired twenty or thirty shots inside the terminal. He was shirtless and shoeless, heavily muscled, and wore thin hospital pants. He had a reddish beard that looked odd on his Asian features.
Guy was some sort of government contractor or something. He didn’t really go into details, but he was confused about where he was and even what month it was. He’d said something about being in Brazil on a mission and then suddenly ended up here. Pretty wild story. He seemed legitimately shocked to learn that the infected ruled the United States now. Everything that Jake had heard before he went AWOL made it sound like it was that way worldwide.
The one shining light out of the entire ordeal was that Grady had one of the Iranians in tow when he showed up and told him that Colonel Albrecht had taken his own life after emptying two 15-round magazines into the infected. Everything else about this mission was a complete clusterfuck.
So much for Sua Sponte, he groaned—which reminded him about the other major problem he had. There were about thirty soldiers riding around in a column of Strykers. And apparently, those soldiers had come north to arrest him. What did that mean when they got to the farm?
The whine of the diesel engine changed pitch once more, indicating that they were slowing down. The vehicle turned sharply and went up a slight rise, and then he heard the sound of the big wheels going over a cattle guard set in the driveway. They’d arrived.
He reached out and tapped Grady. “Time to wake up, man. We’re here.”
The contractor came alert instantly, wiping at the corners of his mouth. He reached over and nudged the Iranian. “Taavi, we’re here, bro.” The Iranian blinked away the sleep in his eyes.
“You know this guy?” Jake asked as the engine shut down and the ramp began to lower.
“Not really. When I woke up, I was strapped to a table. The crazies were all over the place. He helped me out, took off the restraints.”
Jake shrugged, still not sure what to make of the other man. “Keep an eye on him. The Iranians are behind all of this. We need to figure out what they’re doing here.”
“No worries, little buddy. I’ve got this.”
Jake gritted his teeth at the comment and walked down the ramp. He had a lot of shit to deal with and getting into an argument with the stranger wasn’t high on his to-do list. It was close to four a.m. so everyone in the farmhouse was probably asleep when they pulled up. He needed to get inside and let them know to be cool and not get into a firefight with Turner’s men.
“Hey, sir. We need to talk,” Sergeant Turner said as he emerged from the vehicle.
Jake held up a hand. “Hold on, I need to make sure my people don’t start shooting at you guys first.”
He didn’t wait for the NCO’s answer. Instead, he went quickly toward the farmhouse porch. “Hold on right there,” a female voice called out firmly, but quietly, stopping him several feet from the house.
“Katie?”
“Jake? You’re back!”
He craned his neck upward. The young woman was in the lookout stand that Vern had built beside the chimney in the early days of the outbreak. “Yeah. Did Sidney and Sally make it back?”
“They got in right before dusk. There was a whole bunch of infected on the highway, riled up by… Well, by all those trucks you just showed up with probably. Grandpa isn’t going to be happy about you bringing them here.”
“We tried—”
“What in the Good Lord’s name is going on?” Vern grumbled, opening the front door.
“Good morning, Mr. Campbell.”
“Jake,” the old man acknowledged. “What’s all this?”
“These are soldiers from Fort Bliss. They’re here to see what all those planes are doing flying around.”
“Fort Bliss? I thought you said your base down there was overrun.”
“It almost was,” Turner said from behind him. “But we were able to put down the riot and secure the gates.” The NCO walked up and extended a hand. “Sergeant First Class Turner, I’m in charge of this unit.”
Vern eyed the man suspiciously before shaking his hand. “Sergeant First Class, huh? Where are your officers or a sergeant major or something?”
“Mostly dead. There’s a few in the hospital who were too injured to go on this mission. I’m the highest ranking person left in my unit.”
Vern looked beyond the two men to the vehicles. “How many men you got?”
“Forty-one, plus the two men who were with Lieutenant Murphy when we found them.”
He nodded and turned his focus back on Turner. “Now, what are y’all doing here again? Jake said something about investigating planes, but those only showed up yesterday. I reckon it’ll take a lot longer to drive from El Paso than it did before the Lord’s curse came.”
“We’ve been on the road for several days, sir.”
“Look, it’s four in the morning. I ain’t got time for made up Army boloney. What are you really doing here in Kansas, Sergeant?”
“They came looking for me,” Jake said.
Vern looked at him. “Is that right?”
“Yes, sir,” Sergeant Turner agreed. “Our mission was to apprehend Lieutenant Murphy and bring him back to Fort Bliss for trial. But that changed—”
“Trial for what?” Vern asked, his eyes narrowing.
“We learned that the charges against him were completely fabricated,” Turner said. Behind them, soldiers had begun to drift up, forming a semi-circle around the conversation.
“It’s complicated.”
“Un-complicate it then,” Vern demanded. “What did Jake do that warrants sending forty men halfway across the Southwest, through dangerous territory? He’s been living under my roof with my granddaughters and I want answers. Now.”
“We were led to believe that he caused the food riots in Camp Three,” Sergeant Turner replied. “We know now that the commander actually forced the situation, doing it to cut the refugee population in half so we could feed the survivors.”
“So he didn’t do it?”
“No, sir,” Turner said. “We raided a house and Colonel Albrecht got infected. Then—”
“What in tarnation are you talking about?” Vern asked. “Let’s go inside. It’s cold out here and I need coffee to follow your convoluted story.” He turned and walked back into the house.
The small group of men followed him inside to the kitchen. Carmen stood at the top of the stairs, her arms wrapped around her children. She waved, but did not come down. All the soldiers in the yard must have scared her. Jake waved back, smiling to put her at ease, before going into the kitchen.
“How many refugees were, what’d you say? Cut in half? And who’s this colonel fella? I thought you were in charge,” he heard Vern ask as he walked into the middle of the conversation.
“It’s still undetermined how many died, but there were at least two hundred thousand who were killed in the crossfire between Army units and the armed rebels.”
Jake blanched. He knew that once the powder keg in Camp Three exploded that a lot of people would be hurt or injured, but he had no idea that it was so many. “Bhagat got what he wanted then,” he said bitterly.
“Yeah, apparently, sir.”
“And Jake here caused that rebellion?” Vern asked, attacking the question from a different angle as he was prone to do when he wanted to verify facts.
“No, sir,” Turner said. “We believe that the general is working with the Iranians and the North Koreans. They’re operating un
der the guise of the United Nations to invade the US.”
“Son of a bitch!” someone behind him said. Jake turned to see Grady Harper, the contractor, standing at the front of the crowd wrapped in a poncho liner. “Fucking Norks, man.”
“Excuse you, Mister Whoever You Are.” Vern shot Grady a withering look. “I may let a few curse words slip by every now and again, but not that one. Not in my home.” The old man looked back at Jake. “Who’s that?”
“His name is Grady. He was at the airport in town,” Jake answered. “I just met him so I don’t have his full story yet, but apparently he was there, at the beginning of all this, before the outbreak.”
“My team was operating in—” Grady paused. “Ah, fuck it— Whoops, sorry. I meant to say forget it, there’s no more need for secrecy. We were in North Korea, investigating video footage of the crazies, stuff from a lab before it got out. Then we were diverted to Brazil to confirm or deny if what was going on there was the same thing we saw in Korea.”
“And was it?” Vern asked, all eyes on the contractor.
“Yeah. It was the exact same stuff. Then my team was attacked. I got knocked out and taken prisoner or something. I still don’t know about that part. Everything’s fuzzy up here.” He tapped the side of his head.
“Okay. I think you’ve got a lot of information about how all of this started,” Vern offered. “But first, the sergeant here was telling us about some turncoat general and how Jake is involved in all of that. You may have some fuzzy memories, Mr. Grady, but I’m trying to figure out if the man who’s been living under my roof and spending time with my granddaughters is somehow responsible for the death of—what did you say? Was it two hundred thousand people?”
“Yes, sir,” Sergeant Turner replied. “That what I said. You can rest assured that the lieutenant didn’t cause those riots. The situation in the refugee camps was terrible—is terrible. We try to provide some sort of law and order, but there are rapes and murders daily, sometimes several a day. Food is always scarce and there are gangs that steal food and belongings from others with little or no repercussions. We made the decision early on to allow the refugees to keep their guns because the way the infection spreads. If there was an outbreak, armed citizens could help to respond. Well, that came back to bite us in the ass when all those people banded together and tried to demand more food and supplies, all stuff that we didn’t even have.”
Jake nodded. “So I got in trouble and they sent me to the refugee camp for thirty days as punishment,” he said. “They wanted me to make a stink and let people know that I was a soldier. Sidney had come from the camps. She told me to lay low, pretend to be just another survivor who’d just arrived. While I was in the camp, I learned that there was a group already planning a revolt. I convinced Caitlyn Wyatt to leave Fort Bliss with me before things got worse.”
Vern’s lips thinned. “So you went AWOL.”
“I went AWOL,” Jake admitted. It was like a weight was removed from his shoulders by finally revealing the truth of why he left. “I’m sorry, Mr. Campbell. I didn’t mean to lie to you, I just—”
“Can it, Jake. I figured out that you went AWOL in just a couple of days. There was no reason for you to travel all the way up here. I knew you was trying to get away from something.”
“You’re not mad?” Jake asked.
“Disappointed, sure, but like I said, I already knew the truth so it isn’t a big shock to me.” He looked up from where Jake sat. “Okay, so we have a foreign army on US soil, a general who might be working with the foreigners, and a whole bunch of US Army soldiers on my land. What are we going to do?”
“Sir, if I may,” Grady said, raising his hand.
“Go ahead, son.”
Before the contractor could speak, gunfire erupted outside. “What in tarnation?” Vern grumbled, rising from the wooden kitchen chair that he’d seated himself at while water for his coffee boiled in the teapot.
Jake glanced through the window and saw tracer fire arcing out across the night from positions around the vehicles toward the road. “No, no, no…” he grumbled. “Tell your men to stop shooting, Sergeant! All it’s gonna do is bring more of them here.”
Turner rushed out of the house and Jake heard him bellowing orders to the soldiers outside. “You brought them here, Jake,” Vern accused. “You make this right.”
He nodded and ran out. There were probably twenty or so infected running awkwardly toward the farm from the south. Jake thought the convoy had come from the north, so the infected must have heard the sounds of the Strykers and come running from wherever they’d been.
“Sergeant Turner, I need your men to fix bayonets if they haven’t already. Those things bleed and die the same way they did down in El Paso—except the cold up here makes them slower.”
“Yes…sir,” Sergeant Turner said before yelling for the squad leaders to have their soldiers attach their ancient M9 bayonets. “And stop firing your goddamned weapons!”
The infected were closing on the farm quickly. The cattle guard slowed their advance as several of the creatures with smaller feet fell when they slipped between the steel rails, snapping ankles and legs in their frenzy to reach the non-infected. They were quickly trampled to death as the others stumbled, kicked, and crawled across them to reach the other side of the driveway.
Jake watched as the dismounted soldiers, most of whom he assumed were infantrymen, pulled the 7-inch long blade from their issued sheath and affixed them to the lugs on the end of their rifles. The squad leaders lined up their men across the width of the driveway between the fences, while the motors of the Strykers’ CROWS platforms whirred, the barrels of their .50 caliber machine guns slewing side to side in overwatch.
And then it was shear carnage as the infected reached the line. Men stabbed and slashed, jabbed and parried. The blades split the skin of the creatures like a hot knife through butter and the tide quickly began to turn as the infected died. Seeing the soldiers working in concert together and utilizing bayonet techniques that most of them probably hadn’t attempted since basic training was glorious. It made Jake’s heart swell with pride in the fact that they were completely destroying the infected without using firepower.
It was over in minutes. The infected, too dumb to defend themselves, lay in piles along the front of the line of soldiers. “There will be time for celebration later, ladies,” Sergeant Turner said. “Make sure you finish the job so one of these bastards doesn’t get back up when your back is turned,” he continued, reminding them to ensure the infected were all dead by either slitting their throats, or destroying their brains. “And clean up the ones down by the road that didn’t make it past that cattle guard.”
Sergeant Turner began sending scout teams down the road in either direction to provide advanced warning and he had the remaining soldiers carry the bodies across the road to dump over the fence. Jake didn’t bother to tell him about the back forty, the place where Vern had the bodies of the infected placed in piles inside his property’s fence line.
Jake felt the heat from inside the house on his backside and he turned to see Sidney walking out. She stopped beside him and jutted her chin toward the Strykers and the flurry of activity from the soldiers in the driveway. “They came to take you back to El Paso.”
Jake knew it was more of a statement than a question, but he chose to treat it that way. “Yeah. I’m not going though.”
“What do you mean?”
“I have responsibilities here,” he replied. “You guys are my family now and I’m not going to let the Army take that away from me.”
He felt the intensity of her stare on the side of his face, so he turned. “What?”
“You mean Carmen and the kids?” she asked.
“Yes, Carmen. Katie and Sally, Old Vern, and you and Lincoln. Heck, even the new kid, Mark, is part of our group now. Every one of you is important to me and we need to stick together if we’re going to survive this.”
She ducked her chin. “You
know, I was really pissed off at you for sending us back to the farm yesterday.”
“Yeah, I figured.”
“Turns out, we made a huge difference. We saw those Army trucks pass by on the highway. Not even three or four minutes later a bunch of infected followed along down the road. If we hadn’t been there to put them out of their misery the group that wandered up here this morning might have been more than double the size.”
Jake smiled, impressed with how far Sidney—and the two Campbell women—had come in their training and now, in their combat experience. “Good job, Sidney!” he beamed proudly. “See, I knew you were gonna do awesome.”
His smile was infectious and she grinned back at him, locking eyes. “Thanks, kid. We had a good teacher.” Jake stared back at her, once again feeling the electricity between them and the incredible attraction that he had toward her. She was not his type. If anything, she was the exact opposite of his type. She was rail-thin, covered in tattoos, had short hair, cursed like a sailor, and was fiercely independent, almost to a fault. Carmen, on the other hand, had the curves he liked, one small, discreet tattoo, a motherly nature, and she relied on him to protect her. True, her Puerto Rican temper was the stuff of legends, but when she calmed down she was very forgiving.
Goddammit. Say something! he berated himself, beginning to feel stupid for just staring at the woman. “Sidney, I—”
The crunching of several pairs of boots on the gravel made her smile falter and the moment passed. She looked toward the sounds and he followed suit reluctantly. It was Sergeant Turner and three others, all staff sergeants. “Sir, we need to talk.”
15
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