The Dying of the Light (Book 1): End

by Jason Kristopher

  “That was the last time I saw her or Eric alive. Or Jasper or Jenny, for that matter.”

  I sat still, lost in memories for who knows how long. Kim took my hand and broke the spell and I smiled at her in thanks. “I never did find out what happened to Jenny, but I killed Jasper early the next morning. By the time I got to our house, there was no one there. Everything was closed up, but I don’t think Rebecca had been home.”

  “I grabbed my rifle and pistol, just in case, and headed out to look for them, but I didn’t find them at the grocery store, and things went to hell before I could get back home. You know the rest.”

  Kim cleared her throat and started to say something, and stopped. She tried again. “What about Eric?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. They never found him. Or at least, they never found a body. He might’ve run off, or been…” I broke off and stared at the table, still holding her hand.

  She leaned forward and turned me to face her, and I felt like she was looking into my soul with those eyes of hers as she fought back tears. “I’m sorry, David. Sorry that you lost her; that you lost Eric, that you lost all those friends. But you’re going to be okay.”

  I swallowed the lump in my throat and blinked several times, finally getting myself under control. “I… I know, babe. It’s just hard sometimes, you know?”

  She smiled and stroked my face with her hand, then stood and came around the table and pulled me to my feet. “Let’s see if we can’t make it a bit better, shall we?” She drew me in for a deep kiss, and suddenly all thoughts of Rebecca, Eric, even yesterday’s mess fled.

  We were only a few minutes late for the briefing, but Maxwell glared at us both as we walked in and took our spots. Commander Anderson, on the other hand, hid a grin, as did Reynolds.

  I returned the colonel’s glare with a cheery smile, and even that old bastard finally faltered a bit and I saw the hint of a smirk slip through, just before he sighed and stood up.

  “Now that we’re all here,” he said, looking at Kimberly and I. “Let’s get started. Mr. Gardner, you have the floor.”

  The grey man, as I thought of him, stood and moved to the small lectern that had been placed on the desk, clearing his throat and arranging his papers just so before getting started. Just as some of us began to fidget, he cleared his throat again and finally started.

  “Gentlemen, I must congratulate you on the most successful mission that you had yesterday,” he said. “You were able to secure and cleanse the ‘Uintah Basin Medical Center’ and its environs of zombies with acceptable casualties and minimal structural damage to important buildings.”

  As he spoke, some of the soldiers and I glanced at each other furtively. Is this guy for real? ‘Acceptable’ casualties?

  “The important thing to take away from this mission is the knowledge that you can survive; that indeed, you can succeed beyond our wildest hopes,” Gardner continued. “The REAPRs were also an unqualified success, though it was to be hoped that they could be used to track additional targets. Still, they proved their worth and the remainder of the force will be outfitted with additional units.”

  He turned to Janet Turner, a young woman with shock-white hair and a severe sort of mien, and gestured at the light switches. “Young lady, if you please.” Janet scowled at the man, but reached over and flicked the appropriate switches to turn the lights off and the projector on. I’m guessing Gardner missed the subtle hand gesture she sent his way behind her back, though the rest of the team saw it.

  “Thank you, miss.” I could see her visibly grind her teeth in a smile, and stifled a chuckle as Gardner turned to the projected map of the United States. He pointed to a small red dot in northern Utah: Roosevelt. There were several other red dots scattered across the map, even in Alaska. “Unfortunately, even with the success we’ve had with this mission, we’ve had recent reports of incursions elsewhere, too, as you can see.”

  “Except for Roosevelt, all of these incursions were graded Class One, some barely even making that level. Until Roosevelt, your combined military strength hasn’t been needed, and conventional troops could be used to deal with the minor number of walkers encountered. As usual, we staged an epidemiological accident as the cause.”

  I tried not to fall asleep as he droned on and on with statistics, charts, graphs and more esoteric data than I’d ever seen. I could tell from Gardner’s attitude that he was in his element now. I could also tell from the looks on the faces of my peers that they were as enthused as I was, and I’d have sworn that Powell was dead asleep, though he was staring straight ahead, eyes open. That was a trick I’d yet to master, as hard as I’d tried.

  I snapped back to full alert when Gardner pointed to a new map that I hadn’t seen him bring up, overlaying the old one. This showed two blue circles, significantly bigger than the original red dots. One appeared to be near south-central Wyoming, the other in western Maine.

  “This, gentlemen, is our most serious problem. This is why the other teams have been activated and are being armed and outfitted as we speak. They have already received this briefing as of yesterday afternoon.” He put down his laser pointer and turned to us, and became more animated than we’d ever seen him. If anything, he appeared… excited.

  Surely not.

  “The two areas you see outlined here are confirmed to have experienced a Class Two Outbreak. As expected, AEGIS has been tasked with cleaning up the mess. Teams Three and Four will deal with the outbreak in Farmington, Maine, while Teams One and Two will be tasked with the Rawlins, Wyoming outbreak. Both towns have a population under 10,000, but local press can be expected and, in the case of Rawlins, is already on site.

  “Thus far, the cover story has held; we’re telling them that the ‘illness’ causing the attacks is a result of two things: an as-yet-unknown chemical agent introduced to the water supply by illegal dumping, most likely some sort of pesticide, and a food additive that is illegal in this country but wasn’t screened out during customs checks, similar to the pet food scare a few years back. Before, you went in as National Guard troops, but this time you’ll be regular Army — of a sort. How many of you are familiar with USAMRIID?”

  There were a few raised hands, but most of us had only heard of the agency at best, much less actually knew details of their operations or what they were charged with doing.

  “Very well. For those who aren’t aware, the United States Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases is essentially the Army version of the CDC. They’re the top of the heap when it comes to Army responses to biological threats, and more important, they’re known. Hell, they’ve even been in a movie or two. We work with USAMRIID for obvious reasons, and their commander is one of the few people outside this room that are aware of the prion disease.

  “Oh, one other thing: we need you to be aware of any opportunity you might have to capture specimens, rather than destroy them. ‘Live’ — for lack of a better word — specimens are necessary for further study.”

  The looks that passed between us at this ridiculous news must’ve been obvious to Gardner, but he didn’t bat an eye at the animosity coming his way.

  “You’ll be going in as USAMRIID forces, even down to the paint on your Strykers, which we’ll be able to use due to the presence of the Army, rather than the National Guard. This is standard procedure for big outbreaks, since usually the CDC handles smaller ones. We’ve got USAMRIID-tagged press releases ready to issue, as well. The important thing here is that no one talks to the media except Colonel Maxwell. OpSec is very tight on this one.”

  He paused and looked up at us. “This cover won’t hold forever, so you’ll need to take care of the situation with as few public encounters as possible. I’m sure you’ll be able to handle it adequately. Obviously, we’d prefer not to have this as front-page news, but I really don’t see how we can avoid that now. I’ll leave it to Colonel Maxwell to fill you in on the details of the mission. Good-bye.”

  He started to walk aw
ay from the table, but I stood, ignoring the glares from Maxwell and Anderson. “You just wait one goddamned minute, Gardner,” I said, putting every ounce of loathing and annoyance I felt for the man into my voice. Easy, since something about him bothered every particle of my being, not that I knew what it was.

  I had thought he was robotic before, but I was sorely mistaken. He stopped, turning to face me without seeming to move his feet, as if he was rotating in a window display. For a brief second, I thought I saw a flash of anger, but it might’ve been a quirk of the lighting.

  And pigs might fly. I’d broken that shell, and he and I both knew it. This isn’t going to be pretty.

  “Yes, Mister…”

  “Blake, Mister Gardner. David Blake.” His eyes widened for a moment, just a fraction, but I could tell he recognized the name. So, point number two for me. “You want us to go out there in the middle of a Class Two outbreak and not only take care of it, but take live specimens, too? You do realize that the first recorded Class Two outbreak in the US caused the full and complete destruction of my whole fucking home-town, right? As in fifteen. Hundred. People. Gone.”

  I grew angrier as I moved toward the man in his expertly tailored suit that probably cost more than the combined salaries of this entire room. “But not just gone, Gardner. At least half of them were turned, and at least forty of those were US Army. The very same people you want to send to their deaths trying to get ‘specimens’ for you.”

  I didn’t notice the colonel and his XO moving toward me at speed until Gardner waved them back, setting his files and notes down. He folded his arms, looking down his nose at me from the depths of his cavernous brow.

  “I know exactly how many people died at Fall Creek. After all, I was there, too.”

  Score one for the grey man.

  I tried not to let the shock show on my face. Fortunately, I wasn’t exactly slow when it came to thinking on my feet. “Good. I can only assume you were one of the people they brought with them, so you must know at least partially what we’re dealing with. Before I’ll order my team anywhere,” I said, pausing at a feminine cough behind me. “Before I follow orders to take this team anywhere, I have some questions for you that the colonel may or may not be able to answer.”

  I glanced over at the colonel, but he and Commander Anderson were simply standing there, arms folded as well, looking intently at the man in the impeccable suit. Gardner swallowed somewhat nervously as he realized he was faced with a roomful of angry, well-trained, dangerous men and women who could quite easily remove from him the burden that was his life.

  I’ll say one thing for the grey man; he certainly knew how to pick his battles.

  “Very well, Mr. Blake. What would you like to know?”

  I glanced over to Rachel, who nodded and held up a pen and notebook, as though she had read my mind. “I want to know why now.”

  He appeared slightly confused, which for Gardner meant a raised eyebrow. “Why now?”

  “Yeah. Why now? Things have been quiet for more than two years since Fall Creek. No reported sightings, no attacks, no outbreaks. Then suddenly we’re activated, and there’s at least two ‘incursions’ already in progress. So I repeat: why now?”

  At first, I would’ve sworn there was a flash of fear in the man’s eyes. But it was there and gone so quickly, I must’ve imagined it. He started laughing at me. Granted, it was a dry, rasping cough more than a laugh, but I got the point. “You poor, benighted fool.” He turned to Maxwell with a questioning look, and the colonel shifted uncomfortably, and then shrugged.

  Okay, whoa, I thought. I’d seen Maxwell set his own broken bones before without so much as a twitch — field exercises could get rough — but this made him uncomfortable?

  What the hell is going on?

  Chapter Eleven

  Fort Carson, Colorado

  Gardner smiled, and I hoped for all the world that I would never see it again. It was like being smiled at by a six-foot python that had just decided what to have for its next light snack.

  He gestured to the tables. “Please, have a seat. You’re going to want to sit down for this.” We all sat back down as he moved back to the lectern and took his laser pointer out once more. He accessed a secure file from the network, and suddenly a new map, overlaying the old one, showed up on the screen. A map with, at first glance, over a hundred small green dots, across the entire United States, Canada and even into Mexico.

  This can’t be good.

  “What you are looking at is our most recent historical map. What you see here is a map of every recorded incursion or outbreak in the last 150 years, since we began tracking the walkers.” More than one of the soldiers blanched at this. Commander Anderson turned and began a fierce whispered conversation with Maxwell that ended abruptly as Maxwell cut him off. Anderson shot out of his chair, and saluted the colonel damn near perfectly. I could forgive him if his hands shook, but I was stunned when he left the room, slamming the door on the way out.

  That is going to be an interesting conversation.

  “According to our records, in the last 150 years there have been more than five hundred incidents in the United States alone, including all Class 1 outbreaks.” Gardner said, and then pointed to Janet, who had raised a hand in the back. “Yes, miss?”

  “What do you mean in the United States alone, Mr. Gardner?”

  “You didn’t think this was confined to our shores, did you, Ms. Turner?” She flushed as she not only realized that this man knew her last name, but that she had just asked a truly stupid question. “Let me show you something else.”

  The view zoomed out to a global map, and to a man we gasped in shock. Green dots covered the surface of the earth, with the most massive collections in rural Africa, parts of Asia and South America as well as the Middle East. There were even a few in Australia, and near the Arctic Circle in far northern Greenland.

  We were stunned into silence at the ramifications of what Gardner had showed us. The entire world had experienced these outbreaks, and yet no one knew. Or at the very least, the majority of the public went on in blissful ignorance.

  Gardner’s smile turned even creepier, somehow. “AEGIS isn’t the only agency out there, people. We’ve been working with other governments for the last, oh, fifty years or so to coordinate our efforts.” He made sure he had our attention before he continued.

  “We are losing this war. And make no mistake, this is a war. According to our best estimates, more than five million people world-wide have lost their lives to the walkers, and that’s only since we started looking at the history very closely. We put enemy numbers at somewhere over fifty thousand, give or take a few. It’s hard to estimate, given the conditions they can survive in.”

  Suddenly, quite a few pieces of a puzzle I’d not yet realized I was looking at fell into place for me, and I can only imagine the horror on my face as I turned to look at Gardner who was already staring at me.

  “Ah, I see at least one of you senses the true nature of this battle,” he said, nodding like some bobblehead on a car dashboard. “Tell me, Mr. Blake, what you think you know.”

  I held up fingers one by one as I ticked off my conclusions. “One: this problem is far more widespread than anyone will ever admit publicly. Two: Hardly anyone knows what’s really going on. Three: The government, AEGIS, whoever, has been investing billions of dollars in Hollywood, getting Americans and others ready for the idea that zombies are real.” I looked around at the confused faces.

  “Think about it! Why have there been so many zombie movies and books and TV shows recently? End-of-days style stories? Post-apocalyptic is all the rage in movies and TV right now. And why is all of it pretty much all the same? Because it’s these guys,” I said, pointing to Gardner, “getting us ready for the real deal. This way, at least some of us may not freak out as badly when the shit hits the fan. Hell, some of the survivalists or others like them might even make it through, at least for a little while, especially since what we’ve s
een in the movies — like head shots — actually works.”

  Now for the really scary stuff.

  “Four: The shit has hit the fan, or is about to, because — and here’s where we get seriously fucked — Five: The so-called ‘war on terror’ is a cover; we’re really fighting a war on walkers.” A soft clapping brought everyone’s attention to the front of the room again. Gardner folded his arms and leaned forward.

  “Oh, well done, Mr. Blake! Well done. We’ve managed to keep that realization from nearly everyone, and you put it together in five minutes flat. I can see how you survived Fall Creek, though I’m not sure that was entirely your doing.” I flushed as he continued, unaware or immune to the anger on my face. “In any case, you’re right. The war on terror is really a war on walkers. It was simply easier to blame the terrorists for all of it, and give ourselves a blank check to move men and material wherever and however we wanted.”

  Powell put up his hand, a worried expression on his face. “So Al-Qaeda doesn’t exist, then?”