by Tim Moon
A soldier ran up and grabbed Ben’s shoulder, leaning close he could hear above the din.
“Move out toward the runway and then follow the tarmac north. Soldiers are waiting there,” he shouted. “Go!”
Ben nodded that he understood, but the soldier had already ran off to join his buddies in keeping the horde contained.
“Out onto the runway,” he said to Charlotte and Anuhea. Ben looked around, and then pointed. “There they are.”
“Who?” Anuhea asked.
“Soldiers. Hurry,” he said. Ben paused. “Wait, where’s Ty?”
“Haven’t seen him,” Charlotte said, shaking her head.
Anuhea shrugged. Oliver sucked his thumb and held onto Charlotte’s leg.
“Fucker just took off?” Ben asked with a growl. He couldn’t believe his friend would abandon them like that.
“He’s probably with the soldiers,” Charlotte said, tugging his shirtsleeve. “Let’s go.”
She was probably right. There was nowhere else to go.
“Oliver, come here.” Ben reached out for him.
The boy looked up at Charlotte with question marks in his eyes.
“It’s okay,” she said.
“Piggy back ride,” said Ben. “Hurry up.”
Oliver reached out to his hand. Ben pulled him close and threw him onto his back. The kid was lighter than his backpack on a day hike.
“Go! Run!” Ben shouted, leading them out onto the runway. He jogged with Oliver on his back.
“I’m scared.”
“I know, Olli. We’ll keep you safe. Don’t worry,” Ben said as they jogged across the runway.
Airplane wreckage burned brightly behind them, casting their shadows across the tarmac as they moved in the direction that the soldier had indicated. New flares popped overhead, as the old ones drifted down lazily, and occasional bursts of light from guns flashed like malfunctioning strobe lights in the darkness.
Chaos reigned. The infected had breached the airport itself, threatening the defenseless passenger’s awaiting evacuation. Ben glanced over his shoulder a few times and saw that the airport’s perimeter fence had collapsed under the weight of hundreds, if not thousands, of infected. Despite the soldiers’ best efforts, the infected horde continued to stream onto the runway.
Thankful they all made it out of the plane safely. He was still fuming about Ty running off like that. Glimpses of his cowardice had cropped up before, but Ben thought that maybe it was just the initial shock. Not so, apparently Ty only cared about himself.
When they reached the shockingly small group of people, the four soldiers guarding them shouted to the group to get up. The soldiers escorted them further north toward the darkened end of the runway.
“Where are we going?” Ben asked.
“Somewhere safe, sir,” a soldier said.
Ben saw her nametape, which said Franco. “Fair enough, Franco. I’m right behind you.”
A few people had children, but everyone jogged. One bigger gentleman stopped and started walking. He was wheezing so loud, Ben worried the infected might hear him. Franco slowed down to help him along, but there wasn’t actually much she could do. The two of them standing side-by-side was like a Chihuahua urging on an English bulldog. Under other circumstances, he would have smirked and possibly laughed. As it was, she couldn’t carry him. So all she could do was yell at him. The other soldiers already had their hands full, one with a kid, and the other carried a large machine gun. It was too dark and Ben was too preoccupied to notice which model. Occasionally, the soldier with the machine gun would turn, take a knee and watch behind them until the group passed by. Then he’d jog past them with the big gun and repeat the process.
“How….much….farther?” the wheezing man asked.
The entire group slowed to let him catch up. An older woman made a tsk, tsk sound in disapproval.
“We should keep moving,” she said. Others nodded.
Ben ran back to help Franco with the man.
“Let’s go, man,” Ben said. He looped one of his massive sweaty arms over his shoulders and started helping the man along.
“I’m so tired,” he wheezed.
“Better tired than dead.” Ben didn’t slow down.
“Thank you, sir,” Franco said. She nodded at him with a grim look on her face before she jogged ahead to her soldiers. “Keep everyone together. We’re almost to the other group.”
“You hear that? We’re almost there,” Ben said. “Keep moving those legs.”
He could see the man look over at him out of the corner of his eye. Gasping for air like a fish, he managed a weak smile.
“Th-th….thanks.”
“Sure thing,” Ben said between big breaths.
Chapter Five
Approaching the other group of soldiers and survivors, Ben immediately spotted Ty kneeling on the ground among the other civilians.
“Oh good, you guys made it,” Ty said, panting. He gave a lazy wave.
A rage Ben didn’t know was possible boiled inside of him like molten rock from Kilauea. He set Oliver down on the ground.
“What are you doing?” Ben demanded as he strode up to Ty.
Ty snapped his head up, staring at Ben with shock plain on his face.
“You just run away and leave us? You left us to die; to be eaten by these…infected…these zombies!” Ben shouted. He grabbed Ty, lifted him up and shook him hard. “What the fuck were you thinking?”
“Sir, calm down,” said the soldier standing near them, moving in to separate them.
“I- I’m sorry….” Ty sputtered.
“Bullshit!” Ben stepped back and raised his hands to show he was done. Everyone’s survival was at stake. He could argue with Ty later.
Turning away from his friend, Ben walked to the group they had joined where Anuhea, Charlotte, and Oliver quietly stood. Disappointment shone in Anuhea’s eyes as she stared at Ty.
Ben glanced back; he didn’t want Ty near him right now, but he hadn’t followed. Instead, he shrank back from Anuhea’s powerful glower.
Behind them, the sounds of battle raged. Ben turned and watched while the two groups waited. Several airplanes, including theirs, had burst into flame. Soldiers shot rapidly at the seething mass of infected, but it was clear they were forced to move back. Several more loud blasts echoed in the night.
A Humvee sped out from between the wreckage, moving onto the runway for some space. Once it was clear of the mob, it turned and the man in the turret opened up with a .50 caliber machine gun. The heavy thuds of the rounds were reassuring. A trail of infected followed in the wake of the Humvee, but they were quickly cut down. At least one remained partially mobile and crawled toward the Humvee.
“They’re leading them away,” Anuhea said beside him.
“Kind of looks that way,” Ben said turning to the soldiers guarding the two groups. “What are we waiting for?”
“Sit tight. Transport is coming to extract us,” the soldier named Franco said. She said it with confidence that wasn’t reflected in her eyes. Franco turned and waved over one of her soldiers. After a brief conversation, the other soldier spoke into his radio.
Ben watched carefully to discern their situation.
“My ears hurt,” Oliver said.
“Let me see,” Charlotte said. She gently touched each ear with a finger. “You’re not bleeding. That’s a good sign. I know it hurts, but the ringing will go away.”
“What did you do?” Ben asked.
Charlotte stood up. “Checking for blood in case his ear drums were perforated,” she said softly.
Ben nodded.
“Fuck this, I’m out,” a man said suddenly. He stood up and started to walk away.
“Sir, you need to wait,” a soldier said, the same one that told Ben to calm down earlier.
A woman stood up and grabbed his hand. “Don’t go,” she pleaded.
“I’m not gonna just sit around here and wait to die,” the man said.
&nbs
p; “Let them go,” Franco said to the other soldier. She looked at the man. “The only way out, if you leave us, is the way we came.” She gestured back toward the burning wreckage. The flames spread to the buildings and a massive inferno lit up the night. “Be my guest.”
“Well then do something,” the man said impatiently.
“Okay,” Franco said. “Get away from the fence.”
The man looked confused.
“Travis, come back here.” The woman holding his hand urged him back to the safety of the group.
A large, dark form moved in the parking lot. Then they heard the rumble of the engine. A crash of metal on metal and broken glass announced its approach. It was one of the deuce and a half trucks cruising toward them with its lights off.
“Look,” Ben said, pointing.
The truck’s engine roared as it crashed into a pair of short concrete poles, forced its way between them, and hopped the curb. It had slowed, but the driver gunned the engine and charged across the grassy area between a pair of small buildings. Chunks of grass and dirt flew up behind it, joining a growing cloud of smoke coming from the engine.
“Get back!” Franco shouted.
Everyone ran away from the fence onto the empty runway.
Ben spotted infected lurching through the parking lot behind the deuce. He ran to Franco and pointed them out. “Infected,” he said.
Her face hardened and she nodded.
“Koch, Gibson, we’ve got incoming behind the deuce. Light ’em up,” Franco ordered.
Glancing down at her collar, Ben noticed she wore the subdued insignia of a First Lieutenant.
Koch and Gibbs ran at an angle away from the approaching truck and knelt on the ground. The man with the machine gun started firing, blasting short bursts of rounds at the infected coming toward them. The other soldier was more precise and fired at a slow, steady rate. Several of the infected collapsed to the ground.
With a loud crash, the truck plowed through the tall, chain link fence. Sparks flew up from the ground where metal ground against the concrete. One of the poles spun up and smashed through the windshield of the truck, there was a brief scream as the truck began to slow.
“Shit. Secure the truck,” 1LT Franco said. She raised her rifle and fired a few rounds at the infected as she walked forward. Dozens were now slowly making their way around the building, drawn by the noisy truck.
“Let’s go,” Ben said, looking back at his group. They began to run toward the truck.
Koch and Gibbs kept firing, stopping only to reload. Two other soldiers ran to cover their flank. Even with all the other noise, the gunshots had somehow drawn the attention of the mob near the wreckage.
Ben looked around, panic burning the back of his throat. He realized they were fenced in, other than the opening made by the truck, and a hundred or more infected were now converging on their position from two directions.
Anuhea grabbed his arm. “Get in the truck.”
“You go, I’ll catch up.” Ben ran over to the soldiers firing at the seemingly endless stream of infected coming around the building. Some had made it halfway to them. “Hey, more are coming,” he shouted above the din. Ben pointed south toward the inferno. A dark mass of bodies shuffled toward them.
The machine gun wielding soldier shouted, “Watch our flank.”
“Goddamn it,” one of the others yelled. He turned to fire at the mass of infected that Ben pointed out.
Having done his part, Ben turned his attention to the truck where Franco and Anuhea were removing the pole that had killed the driver. He couldn’t see Charlotte and Oliver, but figured they’d already climbed into the back.
Ben raced over to help get the truck ready. As he did, he saw that one of the front tires had gone flat.
Nothing ever goes right, he thought.
Climbing into the cab, 1LT Franco tried to start the trucks engine. It clicked a few times, but didn’t turn over. “Sonofabitch, fuck!” she shouted, slamming her hand on the steering wheel several times.
Anuhea and Ben looked up at her. She looked at them with a scowl and slid down out of the cab. 1LT Franco motioned for them to follow her.
“No chance at all?” Ben asked.
“It’s fucked,” she said, bluntly. “Get the people out of the back. We go on foot.”
Anuhea didn’t respond, she just ran towards the back and began yelling for everyone to get out quickly.
“What can I do to help?” Ben asked the short officer.
“You can help to round up the civilians,” 1LT Franco said. Then looking to her soldiers, she shouted, “Let’s move. The truck’s a no go.”
“Well ain’t that just perfect,” a soldier said sarcastically in a slow drawl.
Ben watched in horror as the two groups of infected continued to converge on their position. He had no clue how Franco intended to get them out on foot. It looked impossible.
“Stop gawking and start running, sir,” the machine gunner said, putting a hand on Ben’s shoulder and giving him a light push.
“Okay,” Ben said.
Then he ran.
Chapter Six
Washington, D.C.
Vanessa Koehler refreshed her group’s website, basking in the glow of her laptop’s screen. She couldn’t help the big grin plastered on her face.
She was a member of the watchdog group called Eyes of Truth, which she’d founded with a small group of friends during her university years. They were dedicated to uncovering government waste, fraud and lies. Black Tide was one of several contractors that the group had gone after and while it wasn’t the first major information leak they’d coordinated, it was the most significant to date.
With a deep breath of caffeine infused air, she looked around the small shop to see if anyone was overly interested in what she was doing. One older man sat on the far side of the shop with his legs crossed, reading a newspaper. At the counter, the barista was busy playing with her phone. No one here gave a damn about what she was doing.
Her chest roiled with excitement and a sense of justice. She had to bite her lip to keep from squealing.
Vanessa had just published an extensive article on the Eyes of Truth’s website along with supporting documents. In five years, since they founded Eyes of Truth, this was their largest data release. There were pages of documents, hundreds of images and PDFs, thousands of emails, and photos from live tests in North Africa; all evidence that Black Tide was the source of the deadly infection sweeping the globe.
Steve Edwardson, a former Black Tide employee from the bio-tech division, had provided the data, a fact for which she’d be eternally grateful. Her team, co-conspirators some might say, would normally sort through the gigabytes of data that Steve provided. Given the circumstances, they had collectively decided to say, “Fuck it” and had simply posted it all.
After the car chase she’d been in, it was their most prudent move. Steve had risked a lot to help them expose the crimes for which Black Tide was responsible. Releasing the information was for the good of the country; she truly believed that. Vanessa just wished that she could have obtained the documents sooner, so law enforcement could have stopped the company before the infection spread.
The virus they’d created, called Necrose-7A, was vile and deadly. Steve had been part of the team that “weaponized” the virus, turning it into a stable and effective aerosol spray. They had many conversations about it. The look of guilt and horror in Steve’s eyes had haunted her dreams. Just an hour ago, she’d looked through the documents and some of the digital files he’d provided.
One stood out in particular. Vanessa had read the clinical report a couple of times, which came with digital photos and video files. It detailed the effects of the virus. Video footage showed it in action on a subject locked in a prison-like cell. Unsettled, sickened and horrified were the best words to describe how she felt after examining the evidence.
Vanessa glanced around the room again, and then looked outside. There was nothing su
spicious, no black SUVs, no police officers or strange men in suits or tactical gear.
The virus. A chill ran up her spine.
After contact with the aerosol form of Necrose-7A, subjects entered an incubation period lasting from 12-24 hours. During that period, patients would exhibit several major symptoms: coughing, vomiting, and extreme fever. Other symptoms included loss of bowel control, nose bleeds and sensitivity to light, migraine headaches and extreme lethargy. During the final stage of incubation, subjects would succumb to the illness and clinically die.
Once the virus had overtaken the host, fully infected subjects reanimated. Reanimated hosts exhibited abnormal behavior, such as extreme violence, loss of higher brain function, a desire to feed on uninfected subjects, an attraction to noise and light and to a lesser degree, smell. Physical signs included a pitch-black iris and sclera, abnormally dark blood and an awkward, drunken gait. Infected hosts were unable to communicate via speech although they would often “moan” or “groan” and they only retained basic motor function, including mobility in the limbs, walking and turning. The psychological evaluation noted that subjects did not appear to recognize people or items associated with their pre-infection life.
On the front page of her site, Vanessa shared an image of a classified email ordering an attack on China, called Operation Rainfall. Steve stated there were more operations targeting other “enemies of America,” but said that he felt confident that the Department of Defense or the CIA didn’t sanction this attack. Yet, the virus had been unleashed in China and quickly spread to other, unplanned locations. Hawaii was the first US state to issue reports of infected that matched the descriptions she’d read. Even in D.C., people were showing signs of being infected. They’d witnessed that first hand outside the cafe.
Vanessa shuddered at the still fresh memories, forever seared into her mind.
For years, she’d been angling for a way to bring down Black Tide. Now she had it and the hook was set. After nearly dying, Vanessa was determined to release as much information as possible as quickly as she could.