“That so?” Lee asked. “You two a couple of REMFs?” This was an unofficial, pejorative military acronym standing for Rear Echelon Mother Fucker.
“Sergeant, I’ve already told you that’s classified information. I won’t tell you again. Now who’s your C.O. . . . or are you all that’s left after that battle out there?”
Lee stood chewing the cigar. “Colonel Short still commands.”
“Then I’ll need to speak with him,” Forrest said. “In the meantime, Sergeant, I’ll be holding you personally responsible for our vehicle and equipment.”
Lee glanced at his men and smirked. “Responsible to who, Captain?”
Forrest knew all too well there wasn’t much left to intimidate with in terms of a military hierarchy, but if he lost the initiative, they were screwed. He was only now getting a good look at the two men covering them, and they were but mere shadows of the soldiers they had once been, filthy and unshaven, dark circles beneath their eyes. Lee was shaven and better kempt, but he was obviously equally exhausted. “To your C.O. Who the hell else?”
“Got any ID?” Lee asked.
“Just our tags,” Forrest said. “Left our AGO cards back at Bragg.”
“Lemme see.”
Both men took their dog tags from beneath their jackets for the sergeant to read.
“Okay,” Lee said, believing they were at least who they said they were. “Turn your pistols over to my men until after you’ve met with the colonel.”
Kane and Forrest took their .45s from their holsters and surrendered them.
“Don’t lose them,” Forrest said.
“I’ll take these cats to the colonel myself,” Lee said. “Tell Sergeant Behan he’s in charge till I get back.”
Sergeant Stacker Lee then grabbed a flashlight from the counter and led them out the back door to a waiting black Cadillac Escalade. He gave the keys to Forrest and told him to drive. “I’ll sit in the back. Just follow my directions.”
Colonel Eugene Short’s quarters were a mile off the highway in a very nice home at the edge of what had once been a wealthy neighborhood. There were four men on guard outside the house wearing night vision devices on their helmets and four more on guard inside. There were more lanterns lighting the inside of the home where Short was sitting down to a meal of heated green beans and canned potatoes. A generator hummed somewhere beneath the floor but there was no electric light to be seen.
“These men were taken into custody at the northern barricade, sir. They’re Special Forces with the Eighty-second and claim to be on a classified mission.”
Short was a graying man of fifty-two with drifting, watery blue eyes. He was clean shaven and wore a semiclean digitally camouflaged uniform bearing the eagle insignia of a full colonel with the Forty-fifth Division. “A classified mission?” he said dubiously. “I find that rather difficult to believe.”
“That’s what they claim, sir. They’re also very clean and smell of soap and aftershave.”
Short stood from the dining table and came over to Forrest and Kane, both of whom stood rigidly at attention.
“At ease, gentlemen,” the colonel said, looking them over. “You boys are well fed sons of bitches, aren’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” Forrest said.
“How is that?”
“I’m afraid I’m not exactly at liberty to say, Colonel. But we’re obviously traveling with a well equipped and sizable force.”
Short took a humorous glance at Sergeant Lee. “Did that sound like a veiled threat to you, Sergeant?”
“It did, sir.”
“It was no kind of threat at all, sir. I was merely attempting to answer the colonel’s question without exceeding my mission parameters.”
“Take a seat at the table, gentlemen.” Short then ordered his personal guards out of the room, leaving the four of them alone as he reclaimed his chair. “You’re both Green Berets,” he said, forking a potato into his mouth.
“Yes, sir.”
“See how the green beanies are, Sergeant? They take themselves too seriously . . . even now.”
“Yes, sir,” Lee said.
“Captain Forrest,” the colonel went on, “would it be safe for me to assume that a detachment of the Eighty-second Airborne has made its way here all the way from North Carolina for purposes unknown?”
“That much would be safe to assume, sir, yes.”
“And you came across on Interstate 40?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I see,” Short said, forking another potato into his mouth and chewing it completely before swallowing, savoring it to the last. “Well, Captain, would you care to hear how I know that story to be complete bullshit?”
Neither Forrest nor Kane made a reply to the colonel’s query.
“Of course you would,” the colonel went on. “Well, on the night the meteor hit, there were some pretty massive earthquakes around these parts . . . which caused the engineers working over at the Parkersburg nuclear power plant to panic and abandon ship without bothering to power down the reactor. So the core melted down and burned right through the bottom of the plant—China syndrome. Only it never quite made it to China. It hit groundwater and sent a huge cloud of radioactive steam into the air, killing everybody within a fifty-mile-wide corridor east of the plant for a hundred miles. It’s a dead zone now, and Interstate 40 runs right through it.” He paused long enough to eat a forkful of beans, then said, “What do you have to say to that, Captain?”
Forrest thought it over a moment and smiled. “Actually, Colonel, it wasn’t a meteor that hit us. It was an asteroid.”
The colonel smiled back. “Indeed it was. Captain, why don’t you tell me what the hell you’re really up to so I can decide whether or not to let you continue on your way? Otherwise, I’m going to lock you both up and throw away the key for insulting my intelligence.”
Forrest knew there was little choice now but to offer at least a version of the truth. “We’re living a couple hundred miles north of here, Colonel, in an abandoned missile silo with twenty civilians, mostly women and children. At half rations, we’ve got maybe enough food left for two months—we’re down to mostly flour and rice now. The reason Kane and I are here is that my niece has contracted meningitis, and we’re on our way to the hospital to find the antibiotics our doctor needs to save her life.”
“Why even bother? So she can eat hardtack and rice for another two months?”
“We’re not giving up until the end, Colonel.”
“And you’re worried I’ll lead my division north to rape your women and steal your flour and rice. Is that it, Captain?”
“It’s a realistic concern, Colonel, yes.”
“Well, you’re in luck, Captain. I don’t condone rape and neither does Sergeant Lee. As for your rations . . . even if you’ve lied by half, which I suspect you have, it’s not enough food for me to bother with.” He finished off his potatoes and directed his attention to Lee. “Sergeant, do you see any reason why we shouldn’t allow these men to continue on their way? They’re obviously not capable of causing us much trouble.”
“No, sir.”
“Then pick three men and escort them over to the hospital so they can gather whatever it is they’re looking for,” the colonel ordered. “After that, return them to the barricade and see them safely on their way with their possessions returned to them.”
“Yes, sir.”
The colonel rose to his feet and everyone else followed suit.
“You’re dismissed,” the colonel said.
Both Kane and Forrest snapped him a smart salute and turned an about face, following Sergeant Lee out of the room.
“The hospital’s outside our containment zone,” Lee explained as he drove them himself deeper into town in the Cadillac. There were soldiers with lanterns and flashlights here and there along the way, all of
them armed to the teeth, most of them smoking cigarettes.
“We’ve got enough food left for maybe a couple months ourselves,” he went on. “After that we plan to commit mass suicide. That’s why you’ll see a grenade around most everybody’s neck. It’s a sign of solidarity against cannibalism.”
“So you’ve seen them too?” Kane said.
“We’ve seen plenty of ’em, and we kill ’em whenever we find ’em. Fuckin’ wild animals. It ain’t no way to survive. You gotta know when it’s time to hang it up. Our original plan was we’d all get drunk together before pulling the pins, but then we drank up all the booze.” He laughed. “So I guess we’re goin’ out sober. It’s too bad.”
“How’s the morale otherwise?”
“We’ve only had a few suicides,” Lee said. “But we’ve had some desertions lately, about twenty. We ain’t sure what that’s about. The colonel’s not keeping anybody who doesn’t want to stay. It just leaves more food for the rest of us. Last week ten dudes asked him for a truck and some fuel for a run to the coast. Couple of ’em said they knew how to sail and wanted to try for Australia. Colonel told ’em, ‘Good luck.’ ”
“What the hell’s in Australia?” Kane said.
“Beats me, bro. Don’t matter no way. I know them dudes, and they ain’t sailin’ to no motherfuckin’ Australia. Them dudes are gonna drown.”
“How many men do you have left?” Forrest asked.
“Around a thousand.”
“No women?”
“We had some females in the brigade originally, but the colonel ordered them all out with the last airlift to Texas. I think he knew how bad things were going to get here. They’d have gotten raped for sure, man. We got too many young hooligans in this outfit.”
“So what’s going on down in Texas?”
“Got no idea. We haven’t heard from them in months.”
“And you chose not to share your food with the civilians here? That’s what the battle was over? Food?”
“We distributed plenty of food,” Lee said, steering through town on the way to his billet. “That was our primary mission, but the civvies here got carried away. Redneck bastards started showing up at the distribution centers with guns and shooting our men. After that the colonel pulled us into this defensive perimeter and we tried to dispense the food that way. But then local warlords took over outside and started stealing food from those without guns, forming private armies . . . like fucking Somalia, man. At first they traded food for women, and when they finally had all the women, they let everybody else starve.
“After that, the warlords started killing each other off, and that’s when the colonel decided to quit distributing food altogether . . . which only forced the warlords into an alliance. Then they attacked us at different places around the perimeter, and they killed a few of us, but we wiped ’em out in the end. What you saw on the road in was nothing. On the city’s east side the bodies are piled up knee high for a quarter mile. Things have been pretty quiet out there ever since. The human race has had it, man.”
“No word from D.C.?” Forrest asked.
“The last word we got from anybody was months ago,” Lee said. “By shortwave—the satellite signals can’t penetrate that shit in the sky. We were told the President was dead and that we were all effectively on our own.”
“What happened to him?”
“Nobody said, but the colonel thinks there was a coup.”
“Doesn’t matter anyway,” Forrest muttered.
“This is my billet,” Lee said, shifting into park in front of a house lit up like Mardi Gras.
“What the hell’s going on here?” Kane asked.
“My place is party central. We’ve got more gas than food now, so we run the generator all night long. We don’t have any booze left, like I was telling you, so the guys watch a lot of dirty movies, have circle jerks, play video games. All pretty juvenile shit, but what else is left?”
“We got some gamers too, but we ain’t had no circle jerk yet.”
Lee chuckled sardonically. “We got a lotta kids in this outfit. You two wait out here while I get my men. I don’t need ever’body inside knowing about you guys. It could cause trouble.”
Ten minutes later an armored Humvee pulled up behind the Escalade and Lee got out, calling for Forrest and Kane to get in. Their weapons had been retrieved from the barricade and were returned to them, and they were each given a Kevlar helmet with a NVD attached.
“It gets dark as fuck outside the containment zone,” Lee said. “There’s a moon tonight, though, so the NVDs will light it up good. Inside the hospital we’ll have to switch to infrared. These are my homies: Grip, Clean, and Shodo.”
Everyone shook hands in the cramped space of the Humvee. All of Lee’s “homies” were black men in their thirties, and Forrest was glad he hadn’t brought along any of the young hooligans he had mentioned.
At the southern checkpoint, they passed out of the containment zone after giving almost no explanation at all. It seemed that Lee was something of an institution within the brigade and that whatever he said was taken as gospel. Forrest began to wonder how much control Colonel Short actually had over his men, now suspecting that he was little more than a figurehead, which did make sense under the circumstances. In fact, he was surprised to see as much military order as he did. They drove past a parking lot strewn with bodies, fallen one upon the other as if on an ancient battlefield.
Forrest noticed in the red light of the interior that Grip had a pair of very large hands, and it occurred to him that this must have been the origin of his nickname. There was nothing about Clean or Shodo, however, to explain theirs. Clean certainly wasn’t at all clean. Two miles from the checkpoint, they pulled up to the emergency entrance of the hospital and piled out, taking time to have a good look around with their night division devices. Nothing moved in the blackish green, and only the sound of the icy wind pervaded.
“So what’s it like livin’ underground?” Shodo asked as they stepped through the shattered glass door into the emergency ward.
“It’s quiet,” Kane said, not wanting to make it sound too inviting.
“I bet,” Shodo said. “How many other GIs you got?”
“Ten,” Forrest lied.
“All green beanies?”
“That’s right.”
“You all got any women down there?”
“Bro,” Lee said, “what I tell you back at the crib?”
“Stacker, man, I’m just curious. Can’t a brother at least fantasize a little bit? Shit.”
“Get on point,” Lee ordered. “Find the fuckin’ pharmacy.”
They moved in a tight cover formation through the hospital, following the signs on the walls. They were forced to switch over to infrared once they were away from the windows because of the almost total lack of ambient light, which made it impossible to read the signs without having to use the flashlights on their weapons.
“Anybody else smell that?” Kane asked as they made their way up an open staircase to the second floor.
“Yeah,” Forrest answered.
“Smell what?” Lee said.
It occurred to Forrest that breathing the filthy air over an extended period of time must have desensitized the others’ olfactory systems.
“Smells like burnt meat,” Kane said.
The others froze in place.
“I don’t smell nothin’,” Grip said.
“Me either,” said Clean.
“I think I do,” said Shodo.
“Keep movin’,” Lee ordered. “How fresh does it smell, Kane?”
“I don’t know. It’s not real strong, but I didn’t smell it down on the first floor.”
They found the pharmacy and Lee’s men covered the halls while he and the two Green Berets used their flashlights to search inside. Forrest found a freezer wit
h a padlock on it and bashed it off with the butt of the carbine, pulling the door open to shine his light inside. There were all sorts of frozen drug solutions, but he didn’t find any of the names that West had written down for him.
“Jack, got another freezer back here.” Kane bashed the lock and Forrest shone his light to find that the freezer contained nothing but antibiotics, including those he was looking for.
“Thank Christ,” he muttered, grabbing one of the bags and giving it a shake. The solution wasn’t frozen, but it was slushy and icy cold. “How many should we take, Marcus?”
“How many can you fit in the fuckin’ ruck, man?”
Forrest packed his rucksack tight. “We’re good to go, Sergeant!”
During their egress, the odor of burnt meat became strong enough that Lee and his men were able to smell it very well now.
“Fuck, that’s human!” Shodo said, all of them having smelled it before.
“Human?” Kane said.
“Grip, get on point!” Lee ordered in a hushed tone. “Find the source!”
“Guys, I’m not so sure that’s a good idea,” Forrest cautioned. “We don’t know the layout of the building.”
“Captain, you and your man cover the rear,” Lee ordered, ignoring the warning.
Forrest and Kane had little choice but to comply, both of them relieved that they had grabbed grenades at Lee’s behest.
“Cafeteria’s just ahead,” Grip whispered. “Keep it tight.”
All of them could see the heat plume at the end of the hall in their infrared view finders, and they switched over to night vision, realizing there would be ambient light now. They made their way into the cafeteria, which was a proper mess with tables dumped over and chairs scattered about. The vending machines had long been smashed open and raided. The acrid odor of frying meat was mixed with the stench of rotting human flesh, and both Forrest and Kane felt the hair rise on the back of their necks as they shuffled backward along the wall, covering the rear.
Grip could hear the sizzling of meat now as he peered around the corner into the kitchen, seeing a dark hooded figure cooking by candlelight over a Coleman camp stove. He also saw the severed arm and leg of a human being on the counter, most of the flesh gone from both, leaving bare bone, the hand and foot still in tact. Another figure entered the kitchen from the opposite side and spotted Grip peeking around the corner.
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