Day three at the facility, and ten days into the plague, Watson was inside the south portal tunnel making a drop off when all hell broke loose. The plague had come. Whether it had been transmitted from an undetected carrier or it had drifted in on the air currents, all the precautions the military had taken to prevent infection hadn’t mattered.
Fortune was on Watson’s side. Not only was he near the open 23-ton blast door between the main tunnel and the office buildings complex, he got into the facility before the door was shut. It wasn’t just mere luck that allowed him past the guarded entry; it was the Colorado National Guardsman that he had befriended who let him in when the other assigned sentry assigned was distracted. There was ordered chaos inside the complex. Watson made sure he was out of everyone’s way as he began to cautiously explore the 4.5-acre excavated chamber.
There were 15 buildings inside the mountain—one mile inside from the opening and 2,000 feet down from the top of the mountain. The office complex was made up of thirteen three-story buildings and two two-story buildings. The buildings were freestanding, connected by hallways and ramps inside, as was the lower level where crew quarters, maintenance, the mess hall, and the cooking facilities were located. All of the buildings were on large springs, and built away from the rock walls in the mountain, so they could move independently if there was an earthquake or a blast. There was also a high-tech air filtration system in case of a bio attack. But it was too late; the virus was inside the facility. At first they believed the spread of the virus could be contained. Those infected were taken to an isolation area. Upon confirmation they had contracted the zombie virus, they were terminated. However, the viral agent spread quickly and the infected began to outnumber the healthy. Then there was a coup d’état once those who were ill heard that they were being killed to stave off the viral spread.
Eight hundred personnel could survive in the Cheyenne Mountain Complex for 30 days completely cut off from the outside world. The bunker was self-sufficient with its own power generators and five inside lakes, one that held the fuel needed to power the underground generators, one for drinking, and three industrial lakes used as part of a backup heating and cooling system. Thirty days later there were only 19 persons remaining.
***
Thirty days wasn’t a long period of time, unless you were hiding in a shelter that had no view to the outside world with the exception of some surveillance cameras. By day eighty-seven the Cheyenne Mountain survivors were becoming claustrophobic from being confined so long. They wanted out of the underground bunker. They knew what was waiting on the outside world for them. They had plenty of cameras on the outside property that showed the grounds, but it didn’t matter. They also knew that once the blast door was open there was the possibility the living dead could get in, but they were confident that they could eliminate the threat in the immediate area to get the door closed once they were out. On day 100 they had had enough.
From what they could tell on the security monitors the perimeter fencing had not been breached. The only living dead had come from those contained inside the grounds. A dozen warfighters were assigned as a part of the elimination team; Cpl. Watson was one of them. Seven stayed behind in the facility to monitor the kill team’s progress. There weren’t that many zombies in the tunnel, and with the firepower the team was carrying, it only took a few minutes to terminate those that were lurking about. However, the billet area was a different story.
When they exited the main tunnel there were two Strykers still standing guard at the entry. Even though none of the team knew how to operate their remote weapons stations, the vehicles could still be used in their assault, providing they could get them started. They were only able to get one armored fighting vehicle running, so not everyone would be able to utilize the vehicle for protection.
There had been over three hundred people living in the camp, and it appeared that half of them had reanimated and the other half had become their food, leaving their skeletal remains spread over the compound. Watson walked beside the vehicle as three warfighters stood in the roof hatches, keeping watch and being the front line of defense. As they swept through the camp, it appeared that none of the living dead were runners, just shamblers. The odd thing about them was it appeared they were dehydrating instead of decaying. From what Watson knew of zombies, they always rotted as they got older, not mummified. However, his knowledge of zombies was limited to what he knew from watching George Romero films.
It took them nearly an hour to eliminate all the zombies in the billet area, as well as the Stryker base camp and those along the road right down to the main entry. The group suffered no causalities. However, there were others roaming about the gated facilities, those not in the immediate area of the complex proper. These were zombies wandering the fringes near the perimeter fencing. The survivors needed to not only eliminate them for their own safety, but also they needed to check every foot of the fencing in case there was an unseen breach.
Watson discovered during his first encounter with one that those along the borders were not the feeble living dead. The corporal and his Air Force partner had come upon three of them feeding on what appeared to be a family of rabbits. Once the zombies had gotten a smell of the two of them, they turned their attention away from the furry critters they were devouring and set their sights on them both. The three zombies came full speed charging toward them. Watson’s partner was not a seasoned warfighter; he was one of Cheyenne’s food service specialists, meaning he did the cooking as well as operating and maintaining the base’s kitchen equipment, and had only been in the service for six months.
The Airman Basic would have pissed his pants if he had had the chance. All he had to do was kill one of them; the other two had gone after Watson. However, the airman could not get a shot to the rushing zombie’s head before the zombie took him down and bit into his throat, ripping off a nice-sized portion of flesh. Watson had no choice but to put the gurgling, blood spurting airman down after he killed all three zombies.
With the elimination of the living dead, and seeing that the perimeter fencing was in proper order, life at Cheyenne Mountain became routine and mundane. Cpl. Watson had stayed on the Globemaster III instead of parachuting in with the Rangers for a reason, and it was to get back to his hometown of Great Falls, Montana, to see if any of his family had survived the zombie apocalypse. Now that the base was relatively safe from incursion, he wanted to leave.
As he drove out the main entry checkpoint, he surveyed his surroundings. There were still many of the living dead, some more mummified than others, but most of them still very much ambulatory.
For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. That is what Watson had learned as a child, and that is what came to his mind as he drove down Norad Road. Except that was no longer how death worked. From dust thou art, and unto the living dead shalt you become, and unto dust shalt thou return, Watson hoped.
As he sped up he cried, “Faugh an Beallach!” to the 900 miles ahead of him, and then wondered if any of his former 69th Infantry Regiment team members had made it home themselves.
9 Needs Must by John L. French
“He must needs go that the devil drives.”
William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well
She had brought her sons to the beach for a vacation. With what was going on in Europe, Asia, and North Africa, not to mention parts of this country, it might be the last one ever, for anyone. Still, she had to work. So she sent the boys outside to get some sun and play on the beach.
“Stay out the water,” she told them. “Remember, I’ll be watching you two from the balcony.”
Not that she would be able to see them that well, or that they would listen to her. They were boys, their father’s sons, and they had inherited his defiance and daring. But maybe her warning and their belief in their all-seeing mom would keep them from going too far in.
So after they put on their suits and she smeared more than enough sunscreen on them, she let them l
oose on the Ocean City beach. Then poured a glass of wine, set up her laptop on the balcony table, and went back to tracking what might the world’s last, great plague.
***
The first thing anyone on Maryland’s Eastern Shore knew about what was happening to the rest of the world was when the dead washed up on the beach at Ocean City. First it was one body, then two, then a dozen. By noon there were hundreds, maybe thousands of bodies on the sand—all dead; the living had retreated to the boardwalk or their hotels and condos. The smart ones had gotten in their cars and headed home. Some of them may have made it.
By five o’clock there were thousands of corpses littering the sand. When the sun went down they rose up, some moving slowly, others more rapidly. Some were dazed, some were confused, and all were hungry. And the town was full of tourists.
I was with the Fifth Regiment of the Maryland National Guard. We were called up, together with the Army Reserve, and stationed in Stevensville, on the west end of Kent Island, just hours after the undead appeared in Ocean City.
I had heard rumors, whispers, hints of a plague ravaging faraway places, but I hadn’t given them any thought. I worked in Baltimore and was always too busy to keep track of anything but the Ravens, the Orioles, and the ever-growing crime rate. Looking back, I should have been paying more attention.
Some people in government, both in DC and Annapolis, had been paying attention. So they had a response plan in place for exactly what had happened on the beaches of the East Coast. Maryland, at least, was ready.
Colonel Angela Weng was the CO. She was a small Asian woman who would have scared the hell out of Patton and convinced MacArthur never to return. She took the news of the zombie invasion calmly, as if she had accepted the inevitable and was ready to deal with it. We waited for her orders, all of us sure that they would be pack up, load up, move out, and prepare to repel the invaders.
Instead she quietly said into her headset, “Take out the bridges.”
“What bridges?” I said, stopping just short of yelling at a superior officer. I was her sergeant, her aide, in fact, and so had a certain leeway. But that didn’t include questioning her orders.
“You know which bridges, Baldwin.”
I did, the old Ocean City Bridge, the newer one over the Assawoman River, the Route 54 Bridge across the Delaware line.
“We are also taking out a large part of Fenwick Island. Delaware’s governor isn’t too happy about that but neither am I, so that makes us even.” She looked at her watch. “Three, two, one … The missiles are launched. Ocean City is about to become an island.”
“Begging the Colonel’s pardon, Ma’am, but the people, the tourists, there must be …”
“Two hundred fifty thousand of them, Sergeant, at least. And right now you’re wondering why we’re not going in, wiping out the enemy, and rescuing them.” Weng paused, lifted her head toward the ceiling, and closed her eyes as if asking whatever gods she worshipped to forgive what she was about to say and do.
“It’s likely that some, who knows how many, of the tourists were attacked. We don’t know much about the undead but every indication is that any bite is 100% infectious. The incubation could be anywhere from two hours to two days. Now if you get bit, to whom do you run?”
Before I could reply, Weng answered her own question. “To your family, to your friends, to your parents. How many of these were in turn bitten? One becomes two, two becomes four, four becomes, well, the math is not pretty. And since we can’t tell who’s infected and who’s not, universal precautions are called for. Anyone in Ocean City at the time of the invasion is now considered one of the enemy. There will be no attempts at relief or rescue. In addition, those quarter of a million people will keep the undead busy until we can come up with a way of stopping them. That is, a way that hasn’t been tried before and one that has a chance in hell of working. But just in case…
“The bombers are next,” she said. “In a day or two, as the enemy begins massing at the western edge of the city, the Air Force gets its turn. Nukes are out. They might do for the undead but it could also create radioactive zombies, in addition to contaminating the Eastern Shore and the mainland. But I’m assured that by week’s end Ocean City will be a wasteland. But just in case…”
Weng thumbed her mike again, gave more orders. “Plant charges at the Nanticoke and Kent Island bridges. If any of the enemy survives and gets near, then take them down as well.” Colonel Weng looked at me. “In case you’re wondering, Baldwin, both spans of the Bay Bridge will also be mined. If the enemy crosses the Nanticoke we yield the Eastern Shore and set up in Sandy Point Park.”
In Baltimore I wear a different uniform. I’m a cop, a detective. Despite things being as bad as they ever were and getting worse, no one ever thought to “yield’ the city to the bad guys. So I had to ask Weng,
“Why?”
She looked at me. Her eyes softened and for a second I may have seen a touch of sadness in them. The second passed and she said, “This is war, Sergeant, war against an enemy we don’t know how to stop. For the most part they can’t be killed. But we can. If we fight, everyone one of us who falls adds to their ranks. So the cold equation is that some die so that others can live, plan, and fight. And we pray that sooner or later we find a way to win.”
To my mind, action was still called for. It was simple—go in, do a search, destroy any of the walking dead, and save as many as you can. Quarantine the ones you bring out until you’re sure they’ve not been infected.
Soon I learned that no one could be saved, that all of us were damned.
***
She needed someone, anyone. The boys had not returned. The mother in her wanted to rush down to the beach to look for them, to try to save them. The practical part of her told her such action would be useless at best, and more than suicidal at worst. She dug deep into her childhood and dredged up prayers to Saints Anthony and Jude that someone had found them and taken them in. Or that they were safe and hiding and would soon come back to her. But then the dark part of her worried that even if they did, would they still be her boys, or something else?
But even as she considered the what-ifs and what-thens she remembered her duty. Not to her sons, but to the world. She made a call, said some more prayers, then looked for her second wine bottle. Finding it empty, she turned to the mini-bar, knowing it was unlikely she’d ever have to pay for the high-priced, too-small bottles.
***
Colonel Weng took the phone call. “Yes, sir. I understand, sir. Yes, sir, twenty-four hours.” She listened for a few more minutes, said, “Yes, sir,” again and thumbed off her phone. Then she began swearing, starting in Chinese then shifting to English, Spanish, and what I was later told was Creole.
“The dead are rising,” she announced to everyone in the room, “and not just those animated corpses east of us. This … plague, or whatever it is, has infected the whole world. You die, of anything, you come back, hungry for more victims.”
She paused, letting that sink in. Finally someone, I think it was Javier, asked, “What’s the plan, Colonel?”
“”What else?” she said coldly. “We fight. We follow orders.” Then she issued new orders. “From now on, everyone goes armed and no one is alone. Bed, meals, the showers, even the latrine; at least two people together at all times. If someone dies, whatever the reason, empty a clip into their head. Destroying the brain is the only sure kill for these things. Now pair up and go about your work. Sergeant Baldwin, I need a word.”
We went outside. “Ma’am?” I asked. I was hoping she didn’t need me to accompany her to the latrine.
“I’ve been told there’s this professor, a Doctor Tarquin from Johns Hopkins, who’s been studying how to combat this enemy since their existence was first reported. We’ve been given orders to extract her.”
Even knowing the answer, I still asked, “From where?”
Weng just pointed east toward what had been Maryland’s favorite vacation site.
&
nbsp; “I thought you said no relief or rescue.”
“Needs must when the Devil drives.”
She asked for volunteers and wasn’t very happy when I was the first to step forward.
“Sergeant, I need you here.”
“Begging the colonel’s pardon, but it doesn’t seem like you have much choice.”
Or many volunteers. This was not an ordinary combat mission, on which the worse that could happen is you could get wounded, killed, maimed, or disfigured for life. On this mission, if things went south you were looking at being killed by your own troops, being torn apart and devoured by mindless zombies, or becoming one yourself. If they were mindless. Who was to say that you didn’t remain fully aware of but unable to control what your body was doing?
Of the men and women under her command, only five other than myself opted for a day at the beach. She still would have had me stay behind if I hadn’t been the highest ranking volunteer.
Doctor Tarquin and her two children were staying on the sixth floor of the Barbary Coast Hotel. Command was in cellphone contact with the professor. The plan for getting them out was simple. Just before going in, the Air Force would send in its gunships to clear the beach. A chopper would drop us off in front of the hotel. We would go in, get the professor and her boys, and catch a ride back out.
Like I said, simple. Except that the beach might not be fully cleared. Even if it was, there might be undead in front or inside the hotel. And getting out would be worse. Command and the colonel expected that any number of civilians, uninfected or not, would want to hitch a ride off the island.
“The chopper has a limited capacity. Anyone, and I do mean anyone, comes close, you are to treat them as hostile and take the appropriate actions. And, Sergeant, the only one we need to get on that chopper is Doctor Tarquin. Is that clear?”
Apoc Series (Vol. 1): Whispers of the Apoc [Tales From The Zombie Apocalypse] Page 20