by Chesla, Gary
The sound he heard startled him.
Mason struggled to his feet and walked over to the door of the plane just as blood sprayed out of the plane, landing on the ground in front of him.
“What the hell?” Mason said, but as he looked back up at the plane, Ed, or what had been Ed, staggered out from the back of the plane, looked down at Mason and let out an inhuman sounding moan.
Mason just stared in disbelief at what he was seeing, of all the things he had seen today, this hurt the worst.
Ed’s cloudy eyes focused on Mason as he began to walk towards Mason.
Ed stepped out of the open door and fell out of the plane, landing solid on the ground in front of Mason.
Then Ed’s body began moving and struggling to get up, all the while with his eerie eyes looking at Mason.
“Damn it,” Mason growled as he moved over to where he had been sitting, grabbed his rifle and turned to face Ed.
“This was supposed to be the other way around,” Mason said as he pulled the trigger, the bullet hitting Ed between the eyes, putting Ed out of his misery.
Mason pulled himself up into the plane and walked back to where Pete’s bloody body laid.
He raised his rifle one more time, aimed and fired.
“Rest in peace,” Mason said as he shifted his gaze between Pete and Ed’s bodies. “Talk about a mission gone bad.”
Mason walked through the plane feeling alone and frustrated.
“The worst part of all of this was none of it needed to happen,” Mason thought. “All of this could have been avoided. A lot of good men died here today that didn’t have to die. I screwed up, but it should have never come down to that.’
Mason spotted the satellite radio on the pilot’s seat where Pete had dropped it before he went running out to help Mason.
He picked up the radio and pressed the transmit button.
“Granite Mountain, anybody there?” Mason asked.
“Mason, we’re all happy to see you’re back,” Tony replied. “What took you guys so long? What did you find inside the facility?” the Captain asked. “Please report.”
Mason hesitated and pulled himself together.
“Pete, John and Ed are dead,” Mason replied. “and I will be joining them shortly.”
There was dead air on the other end of the radio as everyone tried to process what Mason had just said.
“Mason,” Tony said softly. “Please explain.”
“Well, LT, I wish you would have been with us today,” Mason replied. “We could have used a man with your intelligence to cover our asses, like you always did mine.”
“Mason, we just talked to Pete,” Captain Byron said. “What happened?”
“Let me first say that I have been infected,” Mason said. “I’m on borrowed time. I will try to tell you what happened today, but if my end goes dead, that means that there is no longer anyone left alive on this end.
I will give you the short version so that you get the picture, if I am still here after that, I will try to elaborate further.”
“Mason, how did you become infected?” Doc asked.
“Please don’t interrupt until I am done,” Mason replied. “I will give you as much as I can as I go.
We went into the tunnel. The first thing we came to was the control room, which was abandoned.
We kept moving into the facility, probably for another mile or two, where we found what I would describe as a city built underground.
There was a complex consisting of about twenty, three story buildings.
The command post, mess hall, hospital, barracks, streets and everything built in the center of a football stadium sized cavern deep in the mountain.
The entire trip inside we didn’t see anyone, smell or hear a damn thing.
When we began to explore the complex, we were ambushed by hundreds of walkers.
I figured the reason there was still active walkers there, was because of the cool temperature inside the mountain.
The walkers didn’t decompose because of the temperature, sort of like the walkers that attacked us at the Salt Lake City airport.
I believe we never smelled the infected until we were attacked because of the ventilation system.
The system kept filtering the air inside the facility, removing the smell and replacing it with fresh air.”
Mason began coughing and his breathing became irregular.
It took him a few minutes to compose himself before he could continue.
“Sorry,” Mason said. “I better hurry. When we tried to get inside one of the buildings when we were being attacked, John opened the door for us to run inside, but was met by a flood of walkers inside the building and was killed.
Ed and I ran to the next building to escape, we managed to get inside, but my arms were chewed up pretty bad during the struggle to get inside.
How I’ve managed to survive this long, I don’t know.
But, I was determined to get Ed out of the complex before I would turn.
We managed to slip out the back of the building, while the walkers attacked the front of the building, and made it back into the tunnel and got back outside.
I thought Ed was fine, but when we got back to the plane, he turned and killed Pete before I knew he had changed and had a chance to stop him.
That’s the short version.”
“My God Mason,” Chervy said. “That was horrible. How come we never saw any of the walkers roaming around the outside of the facility?”
“Two reasons,” Mason replied. “They were all locked in the building complex and weren’t able to get out into the tunnels. Even if they had been able to get out in the tunnels, the front door was closed. It was closed but not locked, but since walkers can’t use door handles, they still wouldn’t have got out of the facility.”
“Any indication how the facility became infected?” Doc asked. “As we know, just letting one infected person slip into the facility would be all it would take, but did you see anything that might tell us what happened?”
“I did,” Mason replied. “This is the part that really pisses me off. None of this had to happen. What happen in the facility and what happened to our men was all unnecessary. If only I would have searched the control room on the way in, all of us might still be alive.”
“What did you find?” the Captain asked.
“I have it here in my pocket,” Mason replied. “Give me a minute to dig it out. I will leave it on the pilot’s seat of the plane, in case you guys ever get back out this way again, you can look at it for yourself.
OK, here it is, let me read it to you, it’s not very long.
It was written by Airman Johnson, it sounds like he was suspicious about something going on at the facility and started writing things down. I found this on one of the desks in the control room on our way back out.
Here goes.
I became suspicious that something was going on at the facility that we were not being told about.
When they abducted me and tried to use me as a lab rat to find a cure for the infection that has been spreading around the country, I knew I was right.
It is my opinion that everyone at this facility is now dead because of what they were doing.
If by any chance someone is actually reading this, I strongly recommend that you leave this place and run as far away from here as you can get.
Goodbye and may your luck be better than mine.
Airman Kevin Johnson.
If only I would have searched that control room on the way in.”
“It’s not your fault, Mason,” Tony said. “You were sent in to look for people, not rummage through paperwork.”
“I know, but it was lying right there in the open,” Mason replied. “If I would have found this on the way in, we would have never gone in as far as we did.”
“If it means anything,” Tony added. “I wouldn’t have wasted my time going through paperwork either.”
“I found the President,” Mason added.
“I thought Doc would like to know. He is now a good politician.”
“Thanks, Mason,” Doc replied. “I’m happy to hear that.”
“I figured you would,” Mason said with a hint of humor in his voice. “I wasn’t able to identify any other politicians there, but they would also be good politicians now, the bastards.”
“Mason, I’m glad to hear you’re still yourself,” Tony said.
“I’m not dead just yet,” Mason replied. “It’s just too bad I didn’t get a chance to tell any of those politicians what they could go do with themselves.”
“So am I,” Tony said.
The radio was silent for a moment before Mason spoke again.
“If you gentlemen don’t have any more questions for me,” Mason said. “I think I’m going to go now.”
“Are you in any pain?” Doc asked. “If you are, there are a few things in the plane’s medical supplies that I could help you mix to ease the pain.”
“Well Doc, I’m freezing and I’m burning up,” Mason replied. “My entire body aches. But I think I’ll skip the pain medication. I think I’m going to go for a walk.”
“You’re going to go for a walk?” Doc replied. “I think it might be easier for you if you just laid down and tried to make yourself comfortable.”
“No thanks, Doc,” Mason said. “I’ve always said that if it was the last thing I did, and it appears that it will be, I’m going to go find a cold beer. Tony said that Coors has a brewery in Colorado Springs. I know I won’t make it, but I decided I wanted to die trying.”
“Good luck son,” Captain Byron said.
“Why don’t you take the radio with you,” Tony said. “If you need directions or just feel like talking along the way, I’ll be here for you.”
“Thanks LT,” Mason replied. “It’s always meant a lot to me to know that you’ve always had my back.”
“Have a cold one for me too,” Tony replied.
“It will be more than one,” Mason said then added. “Mason out.”
Doc, sitting at the table, laid his head down on his arms.
Captain Byron, got up, walked across the room and just stared at the wall.
Tony, stood, kicked his chair over, then left the room.
Chervy looked at the satellite image on the screen, then hit the power button on the monitor and turned off the computer.
He didn’t feel like watching the monitor any longer, he had seen enough and had no desire to see what would come next.
Chapter 14
September 5th, Granite Mountain
Tony walked into the control room where Chervy was sitting with Fran, guiding the satellite’s cameras over the area around Stone, Idaho.
It had been two months, but Fran still spent an hour each day, hoping to find her friend John wandering around Stone, looking to find her and Flash to join forces as they had all planned on their evening CB conversations months ago.
They all set out on the long journeys to meet up, but they lost contact with John a day before the planned meeting.
Fran had taken the loss hard.
As the virus destroyed everything Fran had known, John’s voice over the CB had been the only thing that had given her the desire to survive.
It was hard to give up on someone that had meant so much to her, even after all this time.
It had been almost three weeks since the disaster at Cheyenne Mountain.
Chervy had pulled up the image of Cheyenne Mountain only one time since that day, hoping to see that somehow everything that had happened had only been a dream.
However, the turbo prop still sat on the runway, a silent monument to the men they had lost that day.
The day after the mission had ended, Tony had tried to contact Mason on the satellite radio, just to talk and hopefully make him feel that he wasn’t alone.
Tony didn’t expect Mason to answer, he knew that Mason had to be dead by then, it had been almost twenty-four hours, but he wanted to try.
He hadn’t seen Mason for almost eight years before Mason showed up in Johnstown with Pete and the helicopter.
That day had dramatically changed Tony, Mike and Linda’s lives, resulting in all of them being at Granite Mountain.
Mason had always been a loose cannon when they were stationed together in Afghanistan, but when their lives had been on the line, Tony always said you couldn’t find a better man to rely on.
The loss at Cheyenne Mountain that day had affected everyone at Granite Mountain.
Captain Byron had lost four good men that had served with him faithfully for the last two years.
Abbey and Fran had been reminded of all they had lost when the Z virus fell over the country, leaving them alone and running for their lives.
The men from Fallon relived the final days at the Fallon Naval Air Station.
Doc knew that the President being at Cheyenne Mountain, meant that was where the country had decided to make its last stand against the infection.
With the loss at Cheyenne Mountain, he realized that mankind’s last stand had failed and cast a dark shadow over man’s future.
Doc felt now that Granite Mountain was man’s last stand.
If that was what you could call their small band of fifteen survivors.
If there was anyone left anywhere, Doc knew that they would probably never know about them now.
Their ability, and now their desire to continue the search had been dealt a huge setback that day at Cheyenne Mountain.
All their thoughts and planning now had been turned inward, to their own small group and what they needed to do to survive and improve their lives.
The idea of risking the lives of any more of their remaining members, unless it was absolutely necessary, was not something that would be considered again for a very long time.
“Good Morning Cherv,” Tony said as he entered the room. “What’s on the agenda for today?”
“I’m not sure,” Chervy replied as he turned away from the monitor and looked back at Tony. “The Captain and Doc will be here shortly. I think Doc said something about finding some areas up on the mountain where we could plant corn and wheat in the Spring.”
“Sounds exciting,” Tony laughed.
“Maybe this would be more to your liking,” Chervy smiled. “I think Doc and the Captain are finally going to let Rogers go out on the mountain and hunt mountain goats.”
Tony laughed, “Rogers has been wanting to get revenge on those goats for that time one butted him in the ass. I think we should just leave the goats alone to multiply and live in peace for now.”
“I think the only reason Doc has agreed to it, was because he wants to check and see if the goats are clean or if they are carriers of the virus,” Chervy replied. “You know Doc, he is always planning ahead.”
Just as Doc and the Captain walked into the control room, the radio began to crackle.
They all looked curiously at the radio as the unexpected sound continued.
“It sounds like someone is trying to use the radio.” Tony said then asked. “Are Rogers and Davis out in the helicopter?”
“No, they’re still down at the mess hall eating,” Chervy replied.
“I should have known better,” Tony laughed as he walked over to the radio. “It’s just force of habit, I guess. Every time I’ve heard the radio crackle, a voice sounded next because we were expecting someone to be reporting in.”
“Maybe there is someone else out there somewhere trying to make contact,” Chervy added. “Like we tried to do when we first arrived here.”
“I think I’ve just about given up hope of something like that happening,” the Captain replied. “In fact, if something like that ever happened, I don’t know if I would feel excited or worried at this point.”
The radio crackled again.
“Since we aren’t expecting to communicate with anyone,” Chervy said. “Maybe we should just turn it off so we can hear ourselves think if it is going to be making all that noise?”
&n
bsp; “No, leave it on,” Doc replied. “I know recent events have us all feeling reluctant to continue our efforts to find other survivors, but if we are to grow and survive, we can’t bury our heads in the sand and hide. We still have to be open to the possibility that there may still be others like ourselves out there somewhere.”
“What I’m worried about is that there are still others out there that are not like us,” Tony said. “But I know you’re right Doc.”
The radio crackled again, but this time a voice followed.
“I think this is the damn button I’m supposed to push to talk.”
Tony jumped to his feet and stared at the Radio.
“It can’t be,” Tony said as he ran over, picked up the Radio and pressed the transmit button. “Mason, is that you? Push the top button to talk!”
“It’s about time someone answered me,” Mason replied.
“You’re alive?” Tony asked.
“That’s a dumb question, LT,” Mason replied. “It’s either I’m alive or you are talking to yourself and I certainly hope you haven’t started talking to yourself.”
“How?” Tony asked.
“The hell if I know,” Mason replied. “My friend here says he thinks we are immune. Myself, I think its’s the beer. I’ve never had a problem that couldn’t be solved with a few beers.”
“Where are you,” Captain Byron asked.
“I’m in paradise,” Mason laughed. “The promised land.”
“Mason be serious,” the Captain replied.
“Tony should know where I am,” Mason replied. “He’s the one that gave me the idea to come here.”
“You’re in Colorado Springs?” Tony asked.