“If we can get that into play, it would just be the shit. As hot as those gray bastards are, they should positively glow in the thermal scope,” Keene replied.
“That’s what I’m thinking. What other good news to you have for me sergeant?”
“Ammo’s running low. We’re not out, but we need to watch our usage.”
Estes nodded as he replied, “Noted. All right then, rest time is over . . . let’s get everybody moved to the northwest wing.” With a final puff, he ground out the glowing ember of his cigar tip on the corner of the conference table.
It was almost midnight when Estes finely had a moment to sit down. The consolidation of civilians and military personnel had gone fairly smoothly. There were a few speed bumps, of course, like when they moved Colonel Jordan and his goon squad from the athletic cage into an empty science lab close to medical. Weaver had tried to incite a rebellion with anybody who would listen, at least until the guys on the transport team had threatened to all piss on a dirty sock and stuff it into his mouth if he didn’t shut up. For a few moments Estes closed his eyes, rubbing his temples as he did. His brief respite was disturbed when the requested attendees to the midnight meeting arrived. The room they had chosen was set up for high school geology, and various samples of rocks and minerals were scattered on almost every horizontal surface. Sergeant Keene was first through the door, followed immediately by Corporal Henry. Major Jeffery Sullivan, the soft-spoken doctor in charge of the medical unit brought up the rear. Estes stood and saluted as the major entered the room.
“Captain, I wish you wouldn’t do that. Twenty-seven days ago I was comfortably lounging in my civilian practice making six figures, high six figures every year. My biggest worries were my golf handicap and my wife’s infidelities with whatever boy-toy she hired that week to mow the lawn. Then Uncle Sam decides to enact a classified recall for previously serving military physicians, and my rosy world came tumbling down. I never much cared for the military attitude when I was in, and that hasn’t changed in the seventeen years since I’ve been out. With all due respect, stop saluting me and acting like I’m in charge, because I’m not. Until this Major Larrabee gets here, as far as I’m concerned, you’re the man with the plan.”
“Yes, sir,” Estes stifled a yawn before continuing, “I think we all need to get some sleep, but before that happens, there’s a couple things we need to go over. Just so we’re all on the same page, OK?”
Nods of agreement accompanied the weary expressions of the other three men. Estes turned towards Corporal Henry first. “Where are we at with numbers, Bones?”
Bones stood and stretched before answering. “Good news and bad news there. Like you ordered, we gave all of the civilians an option to exit the school if they wanted. Most of them took us up on the offer, and we were able to transport them in the APC’s to their houses. It took us most of the afternoon to make enough trips, and we had several encounters with hostiles, but it’s done and they’re now in charge of their own fate. I think most of them were just happy to be out of here. Anyhow, we’re down to thirty-one civilians. Check that, that’s thirty-one locals. We’ve got other civilian contractors who have been assigned to various units, mostly medical, but I’ll get to them in a minute. Anyhow, that’s the good news; that our civilian numbers are down from almost two hundred to thirty-one. Now, the bad news part one. The civilians that chose to stay are mostly elderly or infirm, or both. And now, the bad news part two. As best as I can figure, including us, we’ve got forty-nine fieldable swinging dicks, although eleven of those don’t have . . . um, dicks.”
Estes suppressed a grin at the remark, but Sergeant Keene and Major Sullivan both rolled their eyes skyward.
“Bones, those eleven women, I know at least some of them have served in a combat role, and all of them have gone through the same basic training you have, so don’t differentiate them.”
“Yes sir,” Bones replied. “So we’ve got those forty-nine who are basically combat ready. We’ve got fifteen non-combatant civilian contractors, again, most of those in some way connected to the medical team. In addition to that, we’ve got another baker’s dozen of support and logistic personnel. I can’t give you an accurate number without pulling everybody from everywhere into a central location and physically checking them off of a list. Most of those support people are going to be like the good doctor here; people that have been called up out of the blue or pressed into service somehow—medical, mechanical, maintenance—that sort of thing. On top of that, we’ve got four people that I’ve lumped into the ‘specialist’ category. Two of them are the pilots for that Black Hawk outside, and one of them is an aviation maintenance crew chief, also with the Black Hawk.”
Keene said, “That’s three, who’s the last one?”
“I can’t say for sure. I found him handcuffed to a pipe down in the boiler room about an hour ago. Specialist Oakley from the 10th Mountain Division out of Fort Drum. He looks like a staff weenie to me, but all he’ll say is that he’s waiting for Major Larrabee.”
Keene frowned as he replied, “Great, another mystery we don’t have time for.”
Estes raised his eyebrows in question toward Keene. “What do you mean ‘another’ mystery?”
Sergeant Keene looked up at the still standing Corporal Henry, who shrugged his shoulders as he sat down. “That’s all I’ve got.”
Estes nodded and then looked toward the sergeant, who removed his thick, black framed glasses, rubbed his leathery face with calloused hands and sighed before speaking.
“The Bradley APC’s that we used to move the civilians out of the school and back to their houses, well, after the last trip they didn’t come back.”
“What?”
“They never came back after dropping off the last load of civilians. Remember though, at least one of the crews were those guys that fired on the guardsmen, and I’m guessing both of the crews were in the colonel’s circle. So yeah, we’ve lost a lot of firepower and protection, but maybe in the process we got rid of a few snakes. We still have the old M113 APC out there, but my guys say something is wrong with the engine. It’ll start and idle, but won’t go over five miles per hour.”
“Anything else?”
Keene nodded as he answered, “We’ve got exactly five of the M35A3’s fueled up, lined up and ready to go if needed. Each one has a small load-out of ammo and supplies. In a perfect world we could have everybody at the school on those trucks and heading out of the fence in about eight to ten minutes. It would be crowded, but we could do it. With that said, we had to park them pretty close to one another to fit them all inside the fence with all of our other crap, so our actual ‘get and go’ time is going to be more. On the bright side, we’ve found enough ammo to provide full combat loads to everybody, plus another three reloads for most of them. Still, that’s not very much.”
Estes looked toward the slightly balding physician. “Major?”
Electing to stay seated, Major Sullivan yawned, and then cracked his knuckles before speaking. “I imagine this conversation is way overdue. How much do you know, do you really know, about what’s been going on?”
Estes and Keene briefly exchanged glances before shaking their heads.
“Not a lot . . . and what we do know primarily comes from looking through the ACOG on the M4,” Estes replied.
Major Sullivan’s tired eyes blinked slowly as he answered. “My area of expertise is Neuroimmunology, which basically means that I specialize in infectious disorders of the central nervous system. Multiple sclerosis, transverse myelitis, Guillian-Barre syndrome, chronic demyelinating polyneuropathy, myasthenia gravis and other immune mediated disorders of the peripheral nervous system. That’s what I did. That’s why I was called in.”
“Are you saying that these people are getting multiple sclerosis?”
With a scoff and shake of his head, Major Sullivan replied, “Not hardly. There are other highly advanced pathogens at work here. The main culprit being . . .”
&nbs
p; “Southwest tower to base command, do you copy?”
Estes pulled the radio off his belt and keyed it. “Base command, go.”
“We’ve got movement, possibly substantial movement about half a click away where the highway off-ramp dumps into downtown. NVG’s are acting up and giving us a grainy image, can you confirm with thermal?”
“Southwest tower, clarify. Movement, motorized or not?”
“Negative on motorized. We think it’s foot traffic, but it’s tough to tell. It might just be something in our goggles screwing up.”
“Base command to southeast and northeast towers. Can either of you get a line of sight on what the southwest tower is reporting?”
Estes listened as both other fire teams replied in the negative. No line of sight.
“Perkins, it’s Estes, do you have a radio?”
A brief pause of silence was interrupted by the sound of an aggravated voice held too far away from the microphone.
“Yeah boss, I heard. I’m working on it. Give me five minutes more to cool it down, and then I should be able to flip it on for a least a few minutes before it overheats and crashes again.”
Estes acknowledged Perkins, and then caught the wave of Sergeant Keene’s hand.
“You might want to consider sending the night vision goggles from the northeast fire team down to the southwest until the thermal comes back on.”
Estes nodded and gave a quick thumbs up to Keene as he relayed that directive. No sooner had his orders been acknowledged when an unfamiliar voice came across the radio.
“Delta Green Halo, Delta Green Halo, this is Scorpion Flight Two inbound, ETA four minutes, can you confirm accessibility to LZ?”
Scorpion Flight Two was the call sign of Major Larrabee’s helicopter. It was about time, Estes thought. He nodded toward Keene, who keyed his own radio in response.
“Scorpion Flight Two, this is Delta Green Halo, affirmative on the LZ. It will be a tight squeeze and you’ll need your own landing lights, but you can make it once we give you clearance. Recommend you hold above station upon arrival until we confirm or contain a potentially hostile situation.”
“Roger that, Scorpion Flight Two inbound, ETA two minutes, we’ll hold above LZ and wait for final clearance.”
“I think this conversation is going to have to take a backseat for now,” Estes said. Major Sullivan, Sergeant Keene and Corporal Henry all nodded in agreement as they stood. “Let’s see what’s happening outside, and then go welcome Major Larra . . .”
Estes’s words were cut off in midsentence by a frantic call over the radio.
“Southwest tower to base command, we have movement, repeat, inbound people. Oh snap . . . there’s a lot of them!”
Estes, Keene, and Henry sprinted out the door as Estes keyed his radio. “Perkins, give me that thermal now!”
“If I flip it back on before it’s totally cooled off, you’ll only have about a minute until it shuts down again.”
“Do it now—we need to know if they’re infected or not.”
The approaching thump thump thump of the helicopter registered in their ears as the trio ran down the hallway toward the exit.
“Do we have permission to fire? Base command, this is southwest tower, we have multiple targets, do we have permission to fire?”
“Hold one, southwest tower.”
Estes burst through the door that led into the fenced parking lot they were using as a combination vehicle and supply storage area, and helipad. Rotating left, he dashed toward the Hummer that contained PFC Perkins, and hopefully, a working thermal sight. Five seconds later he entered the vehicle in question, just in time to hear the high pitched, whining hum of the thermal view screen coming on. Estes had used thermal equipment enough to realize that the bright white figures glowing in the phosphorescent video image were abnormally hot. Infected! Estes could see a long, bulbous line stretching from the highway all the way into town. And the line was moving in surges his way.
The rotor wash of the helicopter overhead made Estes look up as he keyed the radio. “Scorpion Flight Two, this is Delta Green Halo. Negative on landing, repeat, negative on landing. Hostiles inbound. Base command to all fire teams, I want a fighting retreat to northwest wing. Conserve your ammo and prepare to evacuate.”
The electronic crackle of the thermal sight clicking off coincided with the chatter of gunfire erupting from the roof of the school. Estes slid out of the Hummer’s front seat, immediately followed by Perkins. A brilliant searchlight emanating from the hovering helicopter lit up the roadway, revealing an undulating chain of gray-skinned walkers almost upon them. Flitting on the fringes of the line, fast moving shapes disappeared into the shadows.
Estes keyed his radio again. “All support teams, gather up the civilians and get to the transports immediately, repeat, all support teams, gather up all personnel, civilians and military, and report to the trucks immediately.”
From above, luminous tracers accompanied the roar of the twin miniguns as the Black Hawk tore into the line of infected. Estes, Keene, Perkins and Henry shifted to the left and crouched near the open door of the parked M113 as a wave of ashen figures poured against the chain link fence surrounding the supply area. Raising the radio to his lips, Estes was about reissue the order to evacuate when his eyes caught the glimmer of headlights cresting the low hill behind the school. Confusion quickly turned to alarm as the heavy, rapid-fire THRACK THRACK THRACK THRACK of the 25 millimeter cannons from the missing Bradleys poured their fire into the hovering Black Hawk. At that range they couldn’t miss, and the helicopter blazed like a meteor for a brief second before dropping like a rock toward the school.
Chapter 4
Michelle followed Andy down the hall and into the kitchen where Bernice was hefting a large stainless steel pot off of the burner. The steam escaping from two more equally large pots puffed and spurted, filling the kitchen with the aromas of cooking meat and simmering vegetables. Michelle’s stomach gave an involuntary rumble.
“Hey Bern, I’m taking the young lady down to the marina for a minute. I want to show her that . . . thing. Are you good to go here?”
“I imagine the world will keep turning without your direct involvement Wally, and that includes me. Supper will be in about an hour. Don’t be early, don’t be late, and don’t complain about it either.”
“Why Bernice, you know I always speak kindly ‘bout your cookin’. That is, with the possible exception of the time you tried to poison me with your grandmother’s meatloaf recipe.” Walter shot a sideways grin at Michelle.
“I should have listened to my mammy when she warned me about you. Maybe then I wouldn’t be stuck cooking three meals a day for almost fifty people. Keep them numbers in mind before you figure on loading up your plate.”
“Awww now honey, you know we all appreciate it, and ain’t no one a better cook then you,” Walter said as he snuck over and lifted the lid on one of the steaming pots, earning him a lightning fast smack on the wrist with a wooden spoon.
“Get your hairy mitts off of my kettle,” Bernice bellowed. Walter scooted away with a double tap of raised eyebrows and a smile that would make the Cheshire cat proud.
With a motion toward the sliding door, Walter tilted his head and bowed like a jester. “Your ladyship, the chariot awaits.”
Michelle and Walter walked onto the wraparound porch, stopping briefly to slide the door shut behind them. The lightly stained, pressure treated deck boards in front of the entrance still showed a residual tinge of darker color where the blond stripper had bled out.
Weaving their way through a scattering of patio furniture brought them to the top of the wooden stairs. Twenty-one steps and they were on the ground at the edge of Walter’s driveway. They angled further right toward the split level garage entrance, passing by two men and a lady who were standing in a tight circle next to an idling Mitsubishi sedan. Just on the other side of the small group was their target, Walter’s Mule ATV. As they took a seat in the small veh
icle, the three chatters came over. The lady was the first one to speak.
“Mr. Sheldon . . .”
“Ma’am, that was my dad, please call me Walter.”
She replied with a nervous smile, “Walter, then.”
Michelle watched her exchange an uneasy glance with one of the men before she turned again towards Walter, leaning down slightly to be more at his seated eye level. “Walter, my husband and I are very grateful for all that you have done for us, and for everybody. Now I know that you suggested that we stay down by the shop. . .”
Walter’s curt reply was unvarnished, “It wasn’t a suggestion.”
The lady froze momentarily, but then quickly regained her composure. “Well, I felt that what I—what we—had to say was important. And I’m sorry to have to put you on the spot like this, but we know that you have a whole room full of food. We’ve seen it. And we know you have gasoline,” she tilted her head in the vague direction of the two men, “my brother watched you fill your generator.”
Fade to Grey (Book 2): Darkness Ascending Page 4