“Kind of hard to forget,” Sam answered.
“I know, but what I’m saying is that when you ran the spotlight along the edge of the lake so we could see what was down there, there was a ball . . . a cluster . . . of infected. Something was driving them to congregate together for warmth, and I’ll bet the reason that Scott was seeing the ones by the road move in and out was because they were switching places every so often to stay warm. That tells me that there is an instinct for self preservation . . . an awareness of self on some level, almost like a hive mind. As a side note, some species of ants and termites have been known to form massive clumps made up of thousands of individual workers and soldiers. The whole swarm continues to move and shift, creating friction that keeps them alive in cold weather. Honeybees do something similar as well. I know I said this was the last thing I wanted to mention, but something else just came to my mind.”
“More good news?” Walter voiced as he fired up his pipe.
“Not hardly.” I looked around the circle, stopping to meet as many eyes as I could. “In the campground office, I would have sworn that the pile of infected was just that—a pile of dead bodies. But the more I think about it, the more it leads me to believe that these things are somehow able to become dormant.”
“Like hibernation?” Michelle asked.
“Yeah, exactly like that. Now, even though a lot of mammals do it, humans can’t. It’s not just as simple as a choice to sleep for six months. It’s an actual biochemical process that enables it . . . and they shouldn’t be able to do it.”
I sat back down and let them ponder my thoughts in the silence of the tractor shed. After a few minutes I absentmindedly brought out the sketch that Fred had created that morning. The tiny white spots in the eyes seemed to draw my focus, and my mind flew back to the night in the barn when she had turned those obsidian orbs toward me.
“What’s that? Amy asked.
“It’s a drawing that Fred did of the lady I saw in the barn.”
“Can I see it?” she asked.
I shrugged and passed it towards her.
“Spooky,” she commented as she studied the pencil drawing. When she was finished she passed it back to me, and then Dave held out his hand for a look. I sat there quietly as Fred’s artwork made the complete circuit, finally stopping at Sam who held it at arm’s length. A tiny tickle of warning began to scratch at my gut as he looked from the drawing to me, and then back again.
“Fred drew this?” he asked.
“Yeah . . . why?”
“And this is the lady you saw in the barn?”
“Yeah.” My hackles began to rise with the look on Sam’s face, and I nodded towards him. “Why, does it remind you of the lady you saw on the highway south of Fort Hammer?”
“No.”
“Well what then?”
His eyes lifted and locked onto my face. “No . . . you don’t understand . . . it doesn’t remind me of her . . . it is her.”
Behind me, a leg bone shattered in the silence.
Chapter 97
“What?” I asked as Sam tapped on the drawing in his hands.
“This girl . . . the picture that Fred drew of the black-eyed lady you saw in the barn . . . is exactly who I saw on the road that night. The same chick that I blew the brains out of.”
“How can you be sure?” Uncle Andy asked.
“Because I was fifteen feet away when I pulled the trigger and turned her forehead into the Holland tunnel.”
“Wasn’t it at night?” Amy questioned hesitantly.
“Yeah, but I had my flashlight blasting right at her. I know what this sounds like, but I’m telling you . . . this girl right here,” he poked at the paper again, “is the same girl that I deep-sixed on the highway that night.”
“Well that about figures,” Doc sighed heavily. “The more we try and figure things out, the deeper into the mud pile we get.”
I looked across the hay table toward Estes. His face was still and neutral, but his dark eyes were flickering with deep thoughts. “Captain, is there anything you can add to this?”
Estes looked over towards me and shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen that black-eyed lady, but after the chopper smashed into the school I was a little busy trying to avoid barbecuing my ass.”
Estes’ fingers were drumming out a silent rhythm against the digital camouflage of his newly washed and dried uniform, and I was just starting to consider another refill of tea when he continued.
“Very few of my guys made it out of the school. Perkins, Keene and I were already out in the depot yard when the Black Hawk came down. Part of the wreckage hit the fuel bladders, and all three of us would have been toast if we hadn’t dove into the M113. After the initial blast, I got on the horn and tried again to get everybody to head to the trucks. If anybody heard, they didn’t answer. It probably wouldn’t have made a difference anyhow, because those things massed against the fence and just pushed it over. It was . . . gruesome. We made it out with one truck and one hummer, and over the next day we lost about half of the people with us, most of them from injuries they’d gotten in the escape. I lost several more just trying to get onto that damn highway out there.”
“Captain,” I asked, “how many infected were in the group that pushed through the fence?”
Estes shook his head. “I don’t know exact numbers, but before the helo went down, its spotlight was showing a whole line of them. Rough guess—maybe 300 plus.”
“That’s a lot. Michelle and I saw a group just a little bit smaller near the bridge we crossed underneath heading towards Pelican Lake, and Shawn had a group of about 2000 in sight at the Devil’s Lake airport.”
“If that many show up here, we’re going to have a very bad day,” Dave said.
“Yeah probably, but something else relating to that has got me worried.”
“Explain,” my uncle said as he adjusted his wounded leg.
I looked toward Amy. “Amy, if you were going to do some type of semi-complicated team building exercise for a thousand people crowded in an outdoor amphitheater, what are the odds that you’d only have to give them the instructions once?”
She answered immediately. “Probably about zero. If you take a crowd of a thousand people, even if you give them a base level command like ‘stand on your left foot,’ only a small percentage will do it as you envision.”
“As you envision? What do you mean?” Walter asked.
“You’ve got a thousand people. Your command is ‘stand on your left foot.’ In most crowds, less than half are actually listening to you, so now our rough potential is five hundred people. For easy math, let’s break down those five hundred people into equal groups of one hundred each. Call them groups A through E. Here’s what will happen. Groups A and B will just stand there and look at each other for a second, and then ask each other for some type of confirmation. ‘What did she just say?’ . . . ‘Which foot are we supposed to stand on?’ Group C heard you clearly, but most of them will ignore you. Group D will make halfhearted attempts to follow your command, but most will quickly lose interest while they go back to thinking about whatever else was a priority in their mind when you issued the command. And that brings us to group E. They heard you, they’re interested, and they stand on their left foot. But,” Amy shook a finger towards the ceiling for emphasis, “because your command can be interpreted differently, roughly twenty-five of the people in group E are not standing with their right foot off of the ground. What they’re doing instead is standing with their right foot resting on top of their left foot, because your command was ‘stand on your left foot.’”
“Yeah,” I nodded and stood. “Now think again about the infected. Whether it’s been just a pair of them walking up Walter’s driveway, or a few dozen that erupted from the campground office, or the hundreds that busted through the fence at Fort Hammer . . . how often have you heard them make any noise besides hissing or groaning?”
Nobody answered.
“And yet,” I continued, “in every instance that I can recall, the ghouls have operated with a level of organization that goes far beyond just a primal instinct.” I stopped and looked around the room. “So how are they communicating?”
“That’s a good question,” Uncle Andy said.
“Yeah, but I don’t have any answers.”
“How do termites communicate?” Mike asked.
“I think it’s through a complex pheromone system, but that brings us back to something else that would biologically violate everything we know about human physiology.”
“Maybe that’s part of our problem,” Michelle responded. “I mean seriously . . . we’ve got ghouls that can withstand insane amounts of physical damage without slowing down. We’ve got ferals that can vault six feet in the air. What else is it going to take before we get our thumb out of our ass and realize that our preconceived notion about how these things should act is going to get us killed.”
Across the room, Estes frowned and shook his head. Apparently I wasn’t the only one to notice.
“What is it, Kevin?” my uncle asked him.
“Honestly, I feel like I’m 0-2.”
“About what?”
“I’ve had two opportunities to find out some information about this infection, and both of them ended up with me walking away carrying nothing but jack squat.”
“What do you mean?” Doc Collins said.
“Back at the school . . . just a few minutes before everything turned to crap, I was sitting down talking with Major Sullivan. He was one of the doctors in the med unit.”
“I remember him,” Uncle Andy said.
“Yeah, I figured you would. Anyhow, he was just starting to tell us about the infection when we got the call that the Black Hawk was inbound.”
“What did he tell you?”
“Not much. He got cooked in the explosion and died in the back of the truck a few miles outside of town. All I can remember was that he asked me if I knew what was really going on, and that his specialty was neuroimmunology. Anyway, that was one chance that didn’t work out.”
“What’s the other?” Dave and Mike asked at the same time.
“Oakley.” Estes tilted his hand in the general direction of the marina.
“What about Oakley?” I asked.
Estes took a few minutes and filled us in about the conversation he’d had with Oakley in the back of the cargo truck. “So now besides a dead doctor,” he continued, “I’ve got a glorified nerd that could have helped us and would have been able to explain the shit, except he doesn’t actually know anything. 0-2, like I said.”
“Hold up there, chief,” Uncle Andy cut in. “Exactly what did Oakley say about why he didn’t know anything?”
“He said that he didn’t have the information yet. He was supposed to review it before the conference they were flying to in Canada.
“Were those his exact words?” my uncle asked.
“Uh . . . maybe . . . maybe not. It might have been something similar. Why?”
“I’m just thinking that your little pet geek might still be holding out on you.” The gray rubber crutch tip poked at Estes. “Kevin, this might be really important. Take a minute and try to think of his exact words. Did he really say that he didn’t have the information yet?”
I watched as the captain closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. After a moment his eyelids creaked open slowly, and then his eyebrows furrowed in aggravation. “No, that’s not what he said. His actual words were that he ‘hadn’t yet been able to access the information,’ and that he ‘didn’t currently have access to the information.’”
“We need to get him up here pronto,” Uncle Andy said coldly.
“Yeah, so I can kill him,” Estes hissed.
“Where’s he at right now?” Walter asked
“My sergeant has him down in that big warehouse where we parked our vehicles. Sergeant Keene is pretty good with an engine, and he’s going through the hummer and the A3 to make sure they’re not going to let us down. He’s got Oakley with him for an extra pair of hands.”
“Eric, take Captain Estes down to the marina and fetch the mysterious Mr. Oakley, would you?”
I stood and nodded. Estes followed my lead as I headed toward the door.
“Low key . . . keep him friendly and unaware,” my uncle’s voice chased us.
In less than ten minutes we were back in the tractor shed, accompanied by Sergeant Keene and the mousy-haired Oakley.
I returned to my seat, but after whispering something to his sergeant, Estes stood and glared at the scrawny man who sat nervously in the center of the circle.
“Do you know why you’re here?” Uncle Andy asked.
“I can only assume that you want me to tell you what I already told the captain.”
“No,” my uncle exhaled heavily, “not the whole thing, just the ending.”
“The ending?”
“Yeah,” Estes barked, “tell me again why you’re useless.”
Oakley gulped uneasily. “I’m sorry sir, I’d like to help but I’ve already told you that I don’t currently have access to the information you’re looking for.”
My uncle smiled and shook his head. “You see, Captain Estes . . . it’s all about asking the right questions.”
I watched Uncle Andy grimace as he dropped his leg and twisted towards Oakley. “Lieutenant, I know that your behavior has been drilled into your head over and over again. I get that, and I understand the national security implications that would have applied under different circumstances—under normal circumstances. From all accounts you’re a pretty sharp fellow, and I know you’re not blind to what’s going on. These are not ‘normal circumstances.’ You’ve got nothing left to lose, and no panels of military brass to report to. It’s just us, of which you’re a part of, and them—the infected. Do you understand that?”
He nodded slowly. “Yes sir, I understand.”
“Fair enough. With that understanding, let me rephrase Captain Estes’ question. What I want to know is, ‘how can we get you access to the information?’”
Oakley looked around the room. Eleven sets of eyes bored into him. The twelfth set, golden with flecks of silver, also looked up from the final shard of bone to join with the others. After another moment consideration, Oakley dropped his head into his hands and mumbled. “We’re going to need a pair of pliers and some rubbing alcohol.”
Chapter 98
“Arrrrr . . . uhhhh . . .”
The stainless steel dental pliers filled Oakley’s mouth as Doc Collins gripped the lower left molar and began to rock it back and forth. The lieutenant’s head was tilted back over the arm of the couch in Walter’s basement, and several flashlights were substituting for the typical swing-arm, tilting head procedure light found in most orthodontists’ offices.
“Remember Doc,” Uncle Andy said from a chair on the opposite side of the room, “once the tooth comes out, you’ve got less than fifteen seconds to drop it in the alcohol.”
“I’m aware of the time constraints Andy, especially since this is about the eighth time you’ve told me in the last two minutes.” Doc’s mumbled voice bounced over top of Oakley’s discomfort.
I stood in the corner and watched the extraction taking place in front of me. The heavy duty curved forceps held in Doc’s gloved hands were barely visible from my angle, but the white plastic cup filled with rubbing alcohol and sitting on the end table was fully in view. It was the second half of the equation—the important half, according to Oakley.
“I have an implant . . . a modified molar on the lower left side. It contains a micro USB drive. I honestly don’t know what’s on it right now. I never do until I look at it. It gets loaded with information before each presentation that I make, and I normally have access to the data for only about twelve hours before I’m expected to break it down into a format that’s more easily understood by my audience.”
“What about levels of security . . . how many are there
?”
“Three of them,” Oakley responded, “although I’m not sure if we’ll be able to overcome the third level. It will depend on whether Major Larrabee changed his code.”
“Clarify that for me,” Uncle Andy said.
Oakley exhaled deeply and rubbed his eyes with weary fingers. “Aside from the concealed nature of my implant, there are three additional security precautions. The first one is a caustic coating that’s triggered by exposure to oxygen. When you pull my implant out of the socket, you’ll have less than fifteen seconds to submerge it in rubbing alcohol. If you don’t, the coating will rapidly acidify and destroy the data on the drive. The alcohol will safely dissolve the chemical and prevent that from happening. The second problem that we’ll have is that any data contained on the drive cannot be copied. There’s a very ‘black-ops, secret squirrel’ program embedded in the drive that will instantly and securely delete every kilobyte of data if you attempt, even accidentally, to copy, move, or modify any of the files. That same program apparently contains an internal ‘data bomb’ that will render the drive useless after a certain amount of time has passed once the tooth has been removed. I don’t know what that time frame is, but like I said, they normally gave me twelve hours to assemble a presentation, so I can assume it’s at least that long.”
Fade to Grey (Book 2): Darkness Ascending Page 72