by Chesla, Gary
“What about all the weapons we have,” Johnson asked. “Couldn’t the infected be stopped like we stopped the people back at the plant?”
“There were only a few of them inside that building,” Daniels replied. “One on one, we can stop them, but out there the odds are thousands, hell, tens of thousands to one. They come at you in droves. We don’t have enough weapons or ammunition to stop them all and the living keep getting infected and joining the infected against you.”
“Surely there is some way to stop them?” Johnson said.
The Sergeant shook his head, “It’s too late, it’s over.”
“What do you mean it’s over?” Johnson asked.
“There aren’t enough of us left to do anything,” Daniels replied. “Communications from our troops across the country dwindled over the first two days until finally it stopped completely. Washington fell this morning. The President and whoever else managed to survive are on their way to Cheyenne Mountain now. They aren’t coming here to relocate command and the government, they are coming here to make their last stand. They are coming here to try and save their own asses.”
“Couldn’t we go to some other country?” Johnson asked. “There has to be somewhere safe.”
“There isn’t anywhere left to go,” Daniels replied. “As I understand it, the infection hit us first, but the day after it hit us, it began to show up all across the globe. You know if we couldn’t stop it, the rest of the world didn’t stand a chance. Countries like China and India with their huge populations fell faster than we did.”
“I can’t believe this,” Johnson sighed.
“Oh, I’m sure there are a few pockets of the living every here and there,” Daniels added, “but they won’t last long. I’m afraid if the human race is going to survive, it will all depend on what we can do at Cheyenne Mountain to save it. But first, we have to find a way to save ourselves.”
“That smell that seems to be everywhere?” Johnson asked.
“That is the smell of death,” Daniels answered. “It’s a smell that exists everywhere around the globe except for inside of the facility, thanks to the air purification system that is there. I’m afraid it will be in there too if we can’t find a way to restart the power plant. Cheyenne Mountain was only built to survive for six months on its own without outside power. That was a little short sighted on the part of the geniuses that came up with the idea and decided to build a doomsday vault so we could survive if something like this virus or a nuclear war was to ever destroy mankind.”
“Hey Johnson,” Bennet said. “Grab Davis’s gun before it falls on the floor and goes off and shoots someone. He fell asleep again. I swear that guy can fall asleep anywhere.”
Johnson reached over and took the gun and laid it across his lap next to his own gun.
He leaned back against the inside of the helicopter and closed his eyes as everything he had seen and heard today flashed through his mind, overwhelming him.
Chapter 4
August 12th, Granite Mountain
Davis slid the picture across the table.
“Doc, you have to see this!” Davis said excitedly as Rogers, Pete and he crowded around the table where Doc, Captain Byron and Tony were sitting.
Doc and the two Marines were in Doc’s quarters, having their daily briefing over a cup of coffee.
The men had their informal meeting around this time each day to just talk and toss around ideas on what they thought their next move should be.
The result of yesterday’s meeting was to have the men begin to look over fuel and equipment with the idea of preparing to possibly make a trip over to Cheyenne Mountain as the next step to find other survivors.
It was a trip they had discussed often, but with fall quickly approaching, they knew their window for this venture would soon be closing, possibly for good.
“Look at what?” Doc asked and laughed. “I haven’t seen you two so excited since the last time Reynolds made Lasagna.”
“Look at the picture,” Rogers said.
“It looks like Cheyenne Mountain,” Captain Byron said.
“It is Cheyenne Mountain, Cap,” Pete added, “but look at what is at Cheyenne Mountain.”
“This picture will help you see it better,” Davis said as he put another picture on the table. This picture was a close-up photo of the three airplanes outside the entrance of the facility. “Look at the first plane.”
Tony pulled the picture over closer, so he could get a better look.
“It looks like Air Force One,” Tony said.
“It is Air Force One,” Pete added. “It’s at Cheyenne Mountain.”
“When was this picture taken?” Captain Byron asked.
“It was taken five minutes ago” Rogers replied.
“But we don’t know how long Air Force One has been there,” Pete said. “All we know is that it is there now.”
Doc grabbed the picture and held it up for a better look.
“Shit, this is amazing,” he said. “You realize what this could mean?”
“Could our government still be operating?” Tony asked.
“I wonder why the President, I’m assuming the President was on that plane, went there instead of coming to Granite Mountain?” Doc asked.
“There could be a number of reasons,” Captain Byron replied as he studied the photos. “The road at Cheyenne Mountain looks a lot longer than the road outside of Granite Mountain. They would have never been able to land a jet of that size here. Another possibility is the size of Cheyenne Mountain. If those three planes were fully loaded, they might have decided with that many people, Cheyenne Mountain would have been the better option due to its size. But if I had to guess, I would say it was because there was enough room there to land the planes.”
“I wonder how long they have been there?” Tony asked.
“I would imagine they have been there about as long as we have been here,” Doc replied. “From what we could tell, Washington was a dead city before we left Fallon, just like everywhere else.”
“That makes it about three months,” Tony said. “If they tried to broadcast to the survivors like you did Doc, we never heard them.”
“We didn’t have the equipment set up here to hear anyone,” Doc said. “It was lucky for us your radio man was smart enough to find a way to send a signal back through our equipment.”
“Chances are that if they were trying to contact anyone, they would have used the military channels,” Captain Byron added. “You wouldn’t have heard them, and we were too far away. Pete, tell Smitty to see if he can try to contact anyone over there.”
“Yes Sir,” Pete replied, turned and ran out of the room.
“That would be great if Smitty could make contact,” Doc said. “This could change everything.”
“I’m surprised, with the satellite, that you hadn’t discovered Air Force One at Granite Mountain before now,” Tony said.
“Even with the satellite, it’s not that easy,” Doc replied. “Unless there is a lot of movement, you have to know where to look to find something as small as an airplane. We didn’t have any reason to look in that area until now.”
“If Smitty can’t reach anyone on the radio, our next step is to go there to make contact,” Captain Byron said. “What did you determine about using the fuel you have here for the turboprop?”
“Our fuel won’t work,” Davis replied. “Our helicopters run on hydrogen. Pete said he wouldn’t be able to convert the turboprop to use our fuel, but Chervy found a fuel truck parked on the runway over at the airport in Salt Lake City. We thought we could take the helicopters, strap two fifty-gallon barrels on the skids and bring back the fuel for the plane.”
“How far away is the airport?” Captain Byron asked.
“It’s only about thirty miles from here,” Doc replied.
“That should work then,” Captain Byron said. “Doc, do you see any reason why we wouldn’t want to go over to the airport for fuel?”
“No, n
ot as long as the air around the airport isn’t contaminated too badly,” Doc replied then looked at Davis and Rogers. “Why don’t you two fly over and bring back an air sample and take it down to Abbey to have it analyzed. If the air is safe, then I say we should go see if we can get the fuel we need to go to Cheyenne Mountain.”
Roger and Davis turned towards the door.
“We’ll go get the air sample. We should be back in about an hour.”
“Don’t take any chances or do any exploring,” Doc said. “Just get the sample and get back here.”
“Will do,” Rogers replied, and the two men left.
Doc looked at Tony and the Captain.
“Since Rogers learned to manually fly the helicopter, he has had a tendency to stray off course lately,” Doc smiled. “I thought he was going to have a heart attack the first time he got in the helicopter, now I can’t keep him on the ground.”
The Captain laughed.
“If we can make contact, what happens from that point will depend on what we find out,” Doc said as he picked up and began to study the long-range picture of Cheyenne Mountain. “But if we can’t contact anyone, we obviously need to go there to find out who and what is there. Captain, how do you think we should proceed?”
“We need to proceed cautiously in my opinion,” the Captain replied. “Until we know more, we can’t assume that the president is actually there and that our presence will be welcomed. I was thinking of sending my four-man away team. The men I had going out and exploring with the helicopter back east. I’ve had them doing this kind of operation ever since we arrived in West Virginia. I feel confident they can handle this.”
“Sir,” Tony said. “I would really like to be part of that team.”
“Not until I know more,” the Captain replied. “I agree you are a valuable asset, but I feel sending four men is the biggest gamble I am willing to take at this point.”
Tony nodded.
“I think we should be able to land the turboprop easily on the road in front of the facility,” the Captain continued and pointed to photo to a spot where the straight part of the road began to turn sharply. “But we should land at the far end of the road here. One man can stay behind with Pete to guard the plane and have the plane ready to leave quickly if needed. The other two men can move across the hillside and make their way to the facility entrance.
From here they can observe the entrance and decide on the best approach and how to make contact.”
“Hopefully Smitty will be able to make contact and we can just go straight in,” Tony said. “The facility should be well armed, I’d hate for them to think we are hostile. How would we react if we saw a plane land outside our entrance and then see two men sneaking up to our doors?”
“If they are as well armed as you suggest, our two men shouldn’t scare them too badly,” Doc smiled. “Hopefully they are like us and are anxious to talk to someone on the outside.”
“Hopefully,” Tony replied. “It could depend on what experiences they have had up until now. It just crossed my mind, since we haven’t heard any radio broadcast from Cheyenne Mountain, and if Smitty can’t make contact, it could be that the people at Cheyenne Mountain have had some bad experiences, possibly with some rogue elements of the military. They may have decided to just go silent and wait to see how things shake out, say in another six months to a year.”
“I didn’t consider that possibility,” Doc said. “I guess we need to prepare for a number of different scenarios before sending our people over if Smitty can’t contact anyone.”
“Of course, I’m looking at things as a military operation,” Tony said.
“Doc, did you have any other thoughts?” the Captain asked. “I think we need to examine all sides of this. We may have one hell of an opportunity here, I don’t want to blow it because we overlooked something simple.”
“I’m trying to rein in my excitement,” Doc smiled. “On one hand I’m excited to have possibly found a sizable settlement of the living, our president and what remains of the military. In fact, I believe it is our duty to seek out and help anyone that is still alive.
But after all we’ve been through, I’ve become very suspicious of things like this because we have everything to lose. Abbey and Fran had some wild stories too about some of their encounters while trying to survive on their own.
Times like this has a way of bringing out the best in people, but on the flip side, it also brings out the worst.
We won’t know which we will find until we get there.
I agree we need to be cautious. We have a couple of days before we can be ready to send anyone out to Cheyenne Mountain. We need to get fuel, equip the away team with what they would need to handle any problems and we should also supply them with what they would need to survive in the event the plane develops a problem and they would be unable to return.
Unfortunately, this is also a possibility we need to consider before sending any of our people on a trip of this distance in a plane we are unable to repair should something happen to it.
So I feel we should use this time to have Chervy watch the facility for any signs of activity that might tell us who is there and what they are doing.
I would feel better knowing as much as we can before we risk sending any of our people there.
I realize that we may find the president and at least some part of our government at Cheyenne Mountain, but I’ve always had a problem with politicians. I just don’t trust them, they always find a way to screw things up.”
“Good idea,” the Captain laughed. “I keep forgetting we have that satellite link and have the ability to do real time recon from here. I too find dealing with politicians to be frustrating, they have a tendency to think about themselves instead of doing what is right.”
“I have two people that can keep an eye on the facility for the next two days,” Doc replied. “If there is anything happening there, hopefully they should spot it.”
“I have a question,” Tony interrupted as he studied the photo on the table in front of him and pointed to a spot on the picture. “What is this, is there any way we can get a closer look at this?”
“What do you see?” Captain Byron asked as he looked at the picture. “It looks like a shadow of something.”
“I think it’s a helicopter, but there is something about it that just doesn’t look right,” Tony replied. “I was wondering if something happened here. If I’m correct, this looks like there was some kind of accident.”
Doc looked at where Tony was pointing.
“An accident, I wonder what could have happened and what it means? Let’s go down and have Chervy give us a better look and see what we make of it,” Doc said. “I can also instruct Chervy and Fran to start monitoring the facility around the clock until we’re ready to make the trip.”
Chapter 5
May 10th, Cheyenne Mountain
Johnson was shaken from his thoughts when he felt himself being thrown to the floor of the helicopter.
He was so consumed thinking about what he had seen and learned today, Johnson had completely blocked out everything else that was happening around him.
He was just hoping to get back to Cheyenne Mountain and digest what had happened today.
That was until the sound of stressed metal groaning, followed by the brief feeling of his body free falling through the air which ended abruptly when his face slammed into the floor.
It didn’t end there as he felt himself being rolled over before then being slammed into the side of the helicopter.
When the helicopter finally settled, Johnson slowly sat up and looked around in a dazed stupor.
It took a few seconds before his head stopped spinning and he put his hand up to his face to check to be sure he still had all his teeth.
When he pulled his hand away from his face and looked at it, he noticed that his hand was covered with blood.
The good thing was he seemed to still have all his teeth, but his nose hurt like hell.
Johnson was about to examine his nose, when he noticed that the interior of the helicopter, which was now lying on its side, was splattered with blood.
As his head continued to clear, his first thought was he couldn’t believe that he had lost all that blood.
Then he began to notice the others inside the helicopter with him.
A quick count told Johnson that there were four men piled together in the front of the helicopter near the control panel and one man in the back with him.
The guns, vests and other equipment were scattered around the interior randomly.
Johnson noticed the men in the front of the helicopter begin to move around and groan.
He was just about to ask what the hell had just happened, when something strange caught his eye.
At first it didn’t register, but then it hit him about the same time as that unusual smell again filled his nose.
Davis’s head rose above the slumped bodies of the pilot and the Sergeant in the front of the helicopter.
Davis’s face was bloody, which didn’t seem so unusual at the moment since the helicopter had obviously just crashed and there was blood everywhere, but the large bloody hunk of flesh handing from his mouth did.
Johnson glanced down at the Sergeant’s body and saw that the right side of his face was missing, replaced by a raw bloody oozing wound.
The Sergeant’s body was pale and motionless, it appeared to Johnson that the Sergeant hadn’t survived the crash.