“Now we’re going to replay it, and Amy will translate what she can,” Uncle Andy said to the crowd.
Amy stood, “My French is kind of rusty, and I was never fluent to begin with, but I’ve managed to piece together enough of it to make sense. She walked over to the laptop and plugged in a set of headphones, and then used the touch pad to slide the timeline indicator of the video back to the start. At the first scene from the rooftop, Amy started speaking haltingly, interjecting for clarification frequently.
“. . . don’t have long to show you this. We are informed. . . or maybe she means told . . . the same state of affairs is happening in . . . all the lands.”
The camera panned down to the street level view of people running from their attackers.
“You can observe the . . . um, something like disorder or panic, but I’m not sure of the exact translation . . . in the streets below.”
The image shifted to the burning skyscrapers as the shadow puppet hand of the reporter pointed.
“Many buildings have already . . . been in flames for . . . long time. You can observe the . . . I don’t know what she said . . . maybe the word was destruction or ruin.”
The scene now showed the firefight in the street.
“Military people can’t help and are being . . . . . . . um . . .” She paused the screen for a moment, “I’m not really sure exactly what she’s saying here. She’s talking really fast and I can’t quite catch it, but it’s something like the military can’t help them, or isn’t available to help them. And then she goes on to say the . . . police or law enforcement—something like that, anyhow—are just as useless wherever she’s at. So I’m pretty sure from the way she’s talking that the video she’s watching is not in the same city that she is, if that makes sense.”
She hit play and the view swept down the wide street with the dim headlights of gridlock cars, orange fire, and smoke.
“There is no break out . . . from city . . . I think maybe she means no escape . . . There is no location that . . . she knows of . . . that is protected, including the office building she’s in.”
On cue, the banging sounded and the camera shifted to the barricaded double doors.
“OK, she’s telling the cameraman to keep the camera on the video . . . that the doors will hold.”
The scene shifted to the nighttime horizon illuminated by flaming structures before blacking out momentarily, returning with a top down view into the swarm below.
“This is the . . . setback underneath our headquarters.” Amy paused the video again. “No, that’s not right. It’s more like she’s saying something like ‘we’re also in danger at our office from creatures like these’ . . . something like that anyhow.” She hit play again, and video moved to the carnage in the street next to the building.
“I have personally . . . observed . . . friends being killed badly . . . like this. I can’t really make out the next few words, because the double doors get banged on again right here,” Amy pointed to the screen and we watched as the camera dropped and recorded the man’s useless attempt to stem the tide of ghouls that burst into the room.
Amy paused the playback once more. “You know what happens next. The only other intelligible words I can make out are at the very end when she’s shouting. It’s a mixture of her crying for help and screaming for someone named Sebastian.”
“Who’s that? Nancy asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe her cameraman, maybe someone else.”
“Anybody want to see it again?” Uncle Andy asked the assembly.
“Actually,” Bucky nodded, “do you have the ability to show that in slow motion?”
“Sure do. Any particular place you want to see?”
“There’s a part where you get to see the skyline with all the fires right before the camera moves and looks down the side of the building.”
“Give me a second,” Andy said as he fiddled with the laptop. A moment later the scene was queued and ready. “OK, here goes.”
He played the brief segment of the skyline with burning buildings in a jerky, frame by frame view that reflected the low quality of video.
“Can you do it one more time?” Bucky asked.
My uncle nodded and played again.
“THERE! . . . Stop the video right there,” Bucky said enthusiastically as his finger pointed toward the screen.
It took several coordinated tries to finally get to a three frame glimpse where Bucky had indicated. He stood, cowboy hat tilted back to expose the majority of his forehead, and walked toward the screen. His gnarled finger traced the skyline as he spoke. “I thought I was just seein’ smoke from all the fires above the buildings, but look right here . . . what do you see?”
I leaned forward in my chair and squinted; the gesture was mimicked by almost everybody else as well. Whatever he saw was lost to me.
“If you blink, you’ll miss it, and it’s almost impossible to pick out in a still image,” Bucky said as he pointed again, “but watch right here and you’ll see what I mean.”
The scene was reversed and played again at slow speed several times. Nancy, seated in the front row, bobbed her head and raised her hand. “I see something, like a flash or a reflection as the camera slides past. At first I thought it was just smoke, but it looks almost . . . curved.”
“It is,” Bucky smiled as he pointed again. “You’re looking at the Arch. This city is St. Louis.”
They played it several more times, and now that we knew what we were looking for, it was easier to pick out.
“There’s something else,” Emily chimed in. Heads swiveled her way as she continued. “Look at the skyline again. The only light you’re seeing is from the fires. In other words, they have no electricity in St. Louis. Now look at the background where the reporter is broadcasting from. The fluorescent tubes in the ceiling lights are glowing, so wherever she was had power at the time she made this recording.”
“Interesting observations,” Walter mumbled. “Anybody got anything else?”
“Do we know when the actual video was shot? I mean, is there a timeline or a file date?” Callie asked.
My uncle shook his head. “No, we’re not sure exactly when it was shot, and the file date is the day she saved it on her computer.”
“Are there any other videos after this one?”
“No, this is all we got.”
The room was silent as everybody processed their own thoughts about the video. I watched as Sam slow stepped to the front of the room, coaxing several additional sips of coffee from his mug on the way. He reached his hand to the laptop and moved the video, pausing it at the street view. “I was in St. Louis a few years ago. It was just for a day or two on my way back from a conference in Atlanta. As I recall from a little pamphlet that picked up, the city population was around 300,000. I’m not saying that this is the case, but if we’re going by Callie’s numbers, that means there’s a potential for about, oh, maybe 130,000 type O people.”
“St. Louis is a small city, population wise anyhow, at least when you compare it to some others,” Bucky said.
Sam nodded, “I know, but what I’m getting at is that right now, there’s no place I’d rather be than at a remote marina in rural North Dakota.”
Several heads bobbed around the room in agreement with Sam’s observation, and I was about to stand up and share my thoughts when several radios, mine included, cracked to life.
“This is Bernice . . . we can see somebody walking up the driveway.”
“Can you tell if they’re infected?” Walter keyed back immediately.
“Not from a black and white image.”
“Keep talking to us,” Walter said as the room flew into movement.
“Where’s the 7.62 with the night scope?” I asked.
“I put it in the closet of the sewing room,” Walter grimaced at his own reply. “Feel free to kick my stupid ass later.”
I started barking. “Thompson, you’re our shooter. Get the rifle and get out on the d
eck when we have the all clear from Bernice. Sam and Mike, keep Thompson alive. Michelle, you’re with me.” I went through the heavy door into the garage with Michelle at my heels as the radio crackled again.
“It’s walking into the woods at the edge of my view . . . OK, it’s gone now—I can’t see it anymore . . . but it went into the woods on the side toward the house.”
I drew my CZ and pressed against the door to the outside. Michelle mirrored my pose on the opposite side of the door. Her eyebrows rose in an unspoken question.
“Now we wait for Thompson and Sam.”
It didn’t take them long before they called out for a status report on the video feeds from the deck and house. Bernice reported all clear.
“We’re getting ready to go outside,” Mike’s voice came across.
“I’m watching and will let you know if I see anything on the cameras.” Bernice replied with a monotone.
“We’re on the deck. Thompson is scanning . . . hold on a second.”
A minute passed before their voice came back. “OK, Thompson has one figure about sixty yards away in the woods. He says that he can’t tell if it’s infected or not, but it’s just standing there next to a large tree.”
I keyed the radio. “Hey Sam, ask Thompson how close he’d need to be—using the night scope—to give us a positive call on whether it was sick or not.”
“He said he’s not sure,” Sam answered, “but he’s guessing maybe half the distance—twenty-five or thirty yards—wait . . . Sam’s voice cut off briefly in mid sentence. “Sorry, army boy said ‘meters’ not yards. He’s saying that the scope vision is really clear, but the magnification isn’t very strong.”
My uncle cut in. “Those scopes are designed for fairly close encounters, not long range sniping.”
I turned to Michelle. “I don’t think we’re going to know for sure unless we put a light on the target.”
“Isn’t a giant spotlight going to make us screw the pooch with our light discipline?”
“We don’t have many options,” I replied, “besides, the angle that they’d be shining the light from is going to be away from the lake—it should line up almost directly with the boat launch by the marina, so unless somebody’s standing there, we should be OK.”
“Both of our AR’s are already loaded in your truck, right?”
“Yeah, so is the silenced .22.”
She closed her eyes for a minute in thought before glancing up at me. “Our night time security plan sucks.”
I said nothing, but I’m sure my expression echoed her statement.
Michelle gave a small shake of her head and pinched the bridge of her nose as she continued. “We’re at a crossroads of sort, I think. We can’t afford to leave someone who might be infected that close to the house, especially at night. On the other hand, if they’re not infected, we also don’t want to just leave them out there. I know what Walter said about this being a no man’s land, but are you really going to feel comfortable pulling the trigger if you’re not sure?”
“Not really,” I said, “but it may come down to that if we can’t figure out a better way to stay safe.”
“I almost feel like I’m waffling,” Michelle mumbled.
“Why?”
“Because I’m the one who always seems to be screaming at you to ‘shoot-shoot-shoot,’ only now it feels like I’m telling you to wait.”
“That’s totally different. You were telling me to shoot in situations where we knew the person was infected and I was hesitating. Right here we have no clue whether they’re sick or not.”
“Crap . . . I was hoping to get through tonight with no drama,” Michelle sighed.
I nodded silently in agreement and picked up the radio. “OK Sam, as much as I hate to do this, I think we’re going to have to put a light on the target. Does Thompson still have it in the scope?”
“He said it’s shifted a bit, and he can see maybe a little less than half of it.”
“OK, I need a judgment call from you guys then . . . if we were able to hit it with a spotlight from up on the deck next to you, and somebody was looking through binoculars, do you think they’d have a clear enough view of the target to tell if it’s infected?”
“Maybe.”
I look at Michelle and shrugged. “What do you think?”
“I’m all for not going outside if we don’t have to.”
“Agreed.” I keyed the radio, “Walter, can we make that happen?”
“I’m on it.”
About five minutes later, Mike’s voice came over the radio. “OK everybody, the target is still in the same area, and we’re ready to go—Sam’s got the spotlight and I’ve got the binoculars.”
Uncle Andy’s voice crackled, “Thompson, give us another look around with the starlight scope just to make sure the rest of the area is clear.”
A minute passed before Mike confirmed no other sightings.
“Alright, here we go,” Sam said.
I locked eyes with Michelle and waited, visualizing in my head the swath of light glaring off the deck and anticipating the heavy thunder of the .30 caliber rifle. After a solid forty-five seconds, it didn’t come. Another partial minute slipped by quietly before the radio came alive.
“OK,” Sam said, “here’s the story. We can see the figure—partially, at least—down in the woods. We think it’s female, probably an adult. She is either crouching or leaning against the base of a good sized tree, but there’s a fair amount of other trees, branches, and whatnot that are blocking our view somewhat. She has blood on her . . . that much we can tell for sure, but from our angle and distance, we can’t give you a hundred percent certainty of her infected status.”
“Did she react to the spotlight?” Walter asked.
“Not that we could tell.”
I look toward Michelle again. “Are you feeling lucky?”
She gave a halfhearted smile, “I feel tired.”
“Me too, and I’d be happy to offer to switch you out with Sam or Thompson, but I don’t think you’d accept, and tired or not, you and I could probably use the teamwork practice before we head to Devils Lake.”
“Agreed. How do you want to do this?”
“Out this door and to my truck. You grab one of the AR’s, and I’ll take the .22. We stay in radio contact with Sam for any changes in the target, and we work our way down until we’re close enough to make the call. If it’s a bad guy . . . or girl . . . I want to try the .22 first. Does that sound about right?”
“Lead the way.”
Michelle and I geared up with the headsets, and then radioed in our plan. A few seconds later, after another “all clear” from Bernice, we slipped out the door. In less than a minute we were armed and padding down the driveway.
Chapter 41
“I see it,” I whispered as I slid around the trunk of a medium sized ash a dozen or so paces off the driveway. Michelle had ghosted to the edge of the gravel and crouched—ready to provide additional firepower if needed as I crept forward.
“Be careful.”
The bright spotlight from the porch deck was throwing long, confusing shadows in the corner of my eye as I took another pace. I clicked on the weapon light attached to the silenced .22, and began quietly sidestepping to the left.
Fade to Grey (Book 2): Darkness Ascending Page 44